Spoilers The Controversial Star Wars Opinion Thread

[Michael Two Wolves]

Yes, I meant ROTS, and if nothing in ROTS is going anywhere, then retconning is inevitable. And it was implied through the books describing the Sith-infused hold that the Emperor held over the officers and how they all "woke up" once he bit it.

I'm not saying they picked Tatooine, I'm saying Palpatine knew it was gonna be Tatooine where the Force was going to converge into the balance that was Anakin the way that he knew the Rebels were going to attack the DS-2. He's described as being able to see into the future in the books and portrayed that way on screen when he refers to having foreseen things. "It is as I have foreseen!" He saw a vision of Tatooine, sent storm troopers there to garrison the planet and waited. That's how he was able to keep any potential suriving Jedi (like Kenobi, for instance) or other heretical riff-raff like the Jensaari away from the planet, though Kenobi muted himself to hide his presence. Knowing that Tatooine was going to host this convergence of the Force that became Anakin would have prompted the Sith in Palpatine to find out everything he could about the place to ensure there would be no surprises or variables he hadn't accounted for.

Yeah, cutting that bit out gutted the EU, and it was a bullshit call.

Edit: As for Anakin being a happy circumstance, two things can be true at the same time:

1. Palpatine knew Anakin would be born because he could feel the convergence in the Force and had foreseen it.
2. Palpatine laid side plans based on his vision because he knew the Force was going to respond to his manipulating it with Plagueis. That manipulation stirred up the Force, Palpatine had a vision of the potential outcomes, and made some side plans to account for the convergence that became Anakin, and Kenobi stumbling over it because a lucky break for him to speed up those side plans to assist his overarching plan.

 

[Set Harth]

Yes, I meant ROTS, and if nothing in ROTS is going anywhere, then retconning is inevitable.

ROTS isn't going anywhere since movies aren't typically dumped from canon. Why would any retconning be 'inevitable' due to the fact that ROTS exists?

And it was implied through the books describing the Sith-infused hold that the Emperor held over the officers and how they all "woke up" once he bit it.

For one thing, that has nothing to do with Anakin and in no way implies that Palpatine was aware of him. Also, that originates from one EU source, HTTE. Whatever happened to the claim that it was all over the EU?

Palpatine knew it was gonna be Tatooine where the Force was going to converge into the balance that was Anakin the way that he knew the Rebels were going to attack the DS-2.

Palpatine knew the Rebels were going to attack the DS2 because, as he says in the film, he deliberately leaked the relevant information to them. That does not equate to him somehow knowing the exact location of a Chosen One.

He saw a vision of Tatooine, sent storm troopers there to garrison the planet and waited.

Uh... what? Stormtroopers didn't even exist until Anakin was already Vader. What would he be waiting for during the Imperial era?

That's how he was able to keep any potential suriving Jedi (like Kenobi, for instance) or other heretical riff-raff like the Jensaari away from the planet, though Kenobi muted himself to hide his presence.

Yeah, he sure did a great job on that one! Why would a garrison necessarily keep Jedi away from a planet? And again, what would be the point of keeping anyone away from Tatooine at that point in the timeline? None of this makes any sense.

 

[Ithekro]

I am of the impression that Anakin came out of nowhere for Palpatine. He was unaware of his existence until he arrived on Coruscant and didn't take interest in him until the Battle of Naboo. The Chosen One was not in Palpatine's plans, but once he became known, Palpatine added him as a piece to the plan. Anakin was slowly manipulated by Sheev into his turn to the Dark Side, however Palpatine's plans to destroy the Jedi and rule the Galaxy do not require Anakin to happen. The Clone Wars and Order 66 happen regardless of Anakin being part of the plan.

What the Chosen One does is insert a tipping point into the Galaxy. Anakin is the one that can stop Palpatine's plan, so Sheev got him into his pocket so that when the time came, that tipping point would fall in the Dark Side's favor. The Jedi only learned that Palpatine was the Sith Lord they had been searching for from Anakin. Had that not happened, Sheev could have casually ordered Order 66 and the Jedi would still have suffered greatly. The only issue Palpatine's plan might have is the storming of the Temple and Mace Windu. He likely would still have Count Dooku around for the end as he would not have needed to cast aside his pawn/apprentice. Thus he likely would have arranged for Dooku to be captured, then release him to storm the Jedi Temple (which is what Dooku believed the plan to be before Sheev ordered Anakin to kill him).

 

[Michael Two Wolves]

Yeah, you're right on your second from final point. Apologies. My point still stands, though, that he didn't need to have a Force hold over the Empire to know through his visions of the Force what was coming. He knew about Luke before Vader told him, for instance. It was likely around that time (when Luke was still young) that Harburik and the ST would have been garrisoned on the planet, if memory serves. Sorry.

And anyway, none of that has anything to do with the first point--that Anakin missed out on the B'omarr's abilty to swap brains, even though it was hard to figure how xenobiologists and Imperial spies failed to pick up on such a technique getting out with the all the scum and villainy coming and going from Jabba's palace. That's the main point. Anakin could have had a new body.

 

[Ithekro]

I wonder if the B'omarr monks practice was safe enough for Palpatine's use. If the brain retained enough of itself or if it shifted into some other state of being. Also if the Force would work even if they swapped it into a cloned body. Would the Force reject it? The Force seemed to reject Palpatine's spirit into cloned bodies of himself. And while Legends clone of Luke Skywalker from his own hand did have the Force, he was definitely not Luke in mind and probably quite mad.

In current Canon, there seems to be a concerted effort in The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian to show that the Empire has been working on getting the Force to work in clones for a long time. (We don't even know if Moff Gideon's clones actually had the Force, or if they just had a higher M-count than the Moff himself. How was he going to be sure his clones could have used the Force? How was he expecting his army of Force sensative Gideons to learn how to use it?) The Kaminoans appear to know of this and state that what the Emperor wants is impossible. Given the state of old Palps in The Rise of Skywalker, I think the Kaminoans were probably right. Sheev got his body, but it decayed rapidly and had to be on life support, but he could use the Force, and did figure a way to bring himself back via draining Rey and Ben, but there is no telling how long that would have sustained him since he was only around for a few minutes because he did himself in (again).

 

[Michael Two Wolves]

I wonder if the B'omarr monks practice was safe enough for Palpatine's use. If the brain retained enough of itself or if it shifted into some other state of being. Also if the Force would work even if they swapped it into a cloned body. Would the Force reject it? The Force seemed to reject Palpatine's spirit into cloned bodies of himself. And while Legends clone of Luke Skywalker from his own hand did have the Force, he was definitely not Luke in mind and probably quite mad.

In current Canon, there seems to be a concerted effort in The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian to show that the Empire has been working on getting the Force to work in clones for a long time. (We don't even know if Moff Gideon's clones actually had the Force, or if they just had a higher M-count than the Moff himself. How was he going to be sure his clones could have use the Force. How was he expecting his army of Force sensative Gideons to learn how to use it?) The Kaminoans appear to know of this and state that what the Emperor wants is impossible. Given the state of old Palps in The Rise of Skywalker, I think the Kaminoans were probably right. Sheev got his body, but it decayed rapidly and had to be on life support, but he could use the Force, and did figure a way to bring himself back via draining Rey and Ben, but there is no telling how long that would have sustained him since he was only around for a few minutes because he did himself in (again).

I wonder, though, since it would be cloned from the same genetic material, if the midichlorians wouldn't just appear in the new body? Wasn't there something about the attempts at cloning Force sensitives making them mad in addition to them having Force powers? I mean, Starkiller was a clone.

I recall Bib Fortuna still being his usual scheming self when he got put into the Aqualish body. I think the encyclopedias say something about how they just wanted to isolate the minds from the distraction of senses or something. That would suck, though. Get the B'omarr technique to work, only to find the m-count is like zip. lmao "No Force for you!"

 

[fireproof78]

What the Chosen One does is insert a tipping point into the Galaxy. Anakin is the one that can stop Palpatine's plan, so Sheev got him into his pocket so that when the time came, that tipping point would fall in the Dark Side's favor. The Jedi only learned that Palpatine was the Sith Lord they had been searching for from Anakin. Had that not happened, Sheev could have casually ordered Order 66 and the Jedi would still have suffered greatly. The only issue Palpatine's plan might have is the storming of the Temple and Mace Windu. He likely would still have Count Dooku around for the end as he would not have needed to cast aside his pawn/apprentice. Thus he likely would have arranged for Dooku to be captured, then release him to storm the Jedi Temple (which is what Dooku believed the plan to be before Sheev ordered Anakin to kill him).

That is what the ROTS novel implies is that Dooku would be captive.

Honestly, it's why the whole "Chosen One" prophecy bit is something a don't put much stock in. The Sith and Jedi are both working from their own ends, manipulating their visions to serve their causes. Acting like the "Chosen One" was some unavoidable thing that Palpatine knew about puts him over the top in power ability and makes his coming back from the dead seem like a minor inconvenience over a full on problem.

 

[Michael Two Wolves]

That's why I'm a Jensaari fan. One of like three in the entire world. lmao

 

[Reverend]

Palpatine as this overpowered fore planning god is one of Star Wars biggest irritants.

Depends who's doing the writing. Under Lucas's watch on TCW they showed Palpatine have his plans thwarted many times. What made it interesting is that his long terms plans aren't elaborate Rube Goldberg set-ups that require everything to go off without a hitch; it's more about guiding and manipulating things to go in a general direction. So when the Jedi busted his attempt to get a jump on raising a cadre of indoctrinated force-sensitive spies, he cut his losses and moved on. When Amidala successfully rallied enough Senators to oppose an appropriations bill to purchase more clones, it only slowed him down as he patently waited for the wheels of (corrupt) democracy to turn back in his favour. Indeed, the entire 'Deception' arc was essentially Palpatine's dry run at what would eventually play out in RotS; it was a litmus test to see how far along Anakin was down the dark path.

Which is an interesting a logical contrast to how he is in RotJ; in the beginning he was careful, patient; he never depended too much on any one thing and instead attempted to contrive matters so that any outcome would benefit him somehow (aka; Xanatos Gambits.) Fast forward to the OT and his success has made him as arrogant and complacent as the Jedi Council once was, and it's ultimately his overconfidence that's his downfall. We even see the start of that failing in 'Rebels' and ANH where he overplayed his hand in his grasping for immortality, and he depended too much on Stardust and dissolved the Senate prematurely. It led directly to him loosing his most effective Grand Admiral, his most useful Grand Moff, an entire planet staging a successful revolt, and his superweapon, thus exposing the weakness of his regime in-front of the whole galaxy. That his back-up plan to that was "we'll just build another one" shows how much he'd changed.

So personally I don't mind that Palpatine had so many plot, plans, and contingencies (even ones to trigger in the event of his death) because we saw so many of them stymied, thwarted and circumvented. He was never omnipotent, not even when he was at his most successful.

 

[fireproof78]

So personally I don't mind that Palpatine had so many plot, plans, and contingencies (even ones to trigger in the event of his death) because we saw so many of them stymied, thwarted and circumvented. He was never omnipotent, not even when he was at his most successful.

I do mind it, but it makes TROS seem pale in comparison.

 

[Set Harth]

Anakin could have had a new body.

But it could have been a body with a crappy midichlorian count.

Thus we inevitably end up at the issue of cloning Force-users. The AOTC script has Lama Su saying that the Kaminoans thought a Jedi would be the perfect choice for the clone army template, though this did not appear in the film. Now in The Bad Batch we discover that Palpatine has asked the Kaminoan scientists to do something which they believe is impossible. Add to that, Moff Gideon claimed to have scientifically isolated the potential to wield the Force ( which is a bit weird if literally everyone can do it ). Then there are the Snokes. So perhaps a breakthrough of some kind in the cloning of Force-users took place at some point in the timeline?

 

[Michael Two Wolves]

I mean, in a galaxy as big as the one in Star Wars universe, it's not inconceivable that other species might have developed techniques similar to the B'omarr for different reasons. There's also no telling what goes on in the depths of the labs in the Corporate Sector or in Hutt Space.

 

[Reverend]

I do mind it, but it makes TROS seem pale in comparison.

That's not exactly a high bar to clear. It's why I prefer to think of that thing on Exogol as Palpatine's deranged clone posessed by a memory implant from the throne than the genuine article. It has the added benefit of accounting for most of the incoherent weirdness of the ST. Also, Palpatine trying to cheat death any which-way he can and it failing utterly feels like an appropriate legacy for the Sith. A gibbering corpse on a dead world.

 

[fireproof78]

dd to that, Moff Gideon claimed to have scientifically isolated the potential to wield the Force ( which is a bit weird if literally everyone can do it ).

Well, not if his understanding of the Force is so limited.

It's like wanting to increase your brain capacity. Genetically we all have the capacity to learn but some learn topics faster than others, or absorb information easier or whatnot. If you could isolate what makes an Einstein an Einstein then wouldn't you?

That would be the Imperial attitude, anyway. To isolate and manipulate according to their needs, rather than what occurs naturally. Which is usually how the Imperials and Emperor work anyway.

That's not exactly a high bar to clear. It's why I prefer to think of that thing on Exogol as Palpatine's deranged clone posessed by a memory implant from the throne than the genuine article. It has the added benefit of accounting for most of the incoherent weirdness of the ST. Also, Palpatine trying to cheat death any which-way he can and it failing utterly feels like an appropriate legacy for the Sith. A gibbering corpse on a dead world.

I always figured it was some sort of Force imprint rather than his full essence. He couldn't completely escape the netherworld but a part of him could.

I still think it's a sign of failure, save for Palpatine's lust for power supported by those who wanted the same thing and kept that legacy going.

 

[Ithekro]

Palpatine clinging to the real world, kicking and screaming "No, No No!" is basically him. I could see him maybe trying to use the World Between World to puppet his decaying clone until he managed to drain the Force out of Ben and Rey to the point where he could pull himself out and back into his rebuilt body. And then he screws it up and gets himself killed for good.

His other option was to try to posses Rey, which might have worked. Maybe he would puppet her instead.

 

[Michael Two Wolves]

Just so long as I get to see an Eclipse-class star destroyer. lmao What do you mean, that was cut?!

rips off shirt, turns green and muscular

 

[Ithekro]

Well you might get the Eclipse. But it would be an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer. Though the nascent First Order could have spruced it up in the last five or more years. Added a prototype superlaser the Sith Eternal would craft to the Xyston-class Star Destroyers. Thrawn doesn't seem to care for such things, but he'd use what he has available to him. And a superlaser would be not only a useful threat against planetary targets, but also extremely useful at popping Mon Cal Star Crusiers.

 

[Wingcommanderdarkwolf01]

I want the next animated star wars series to be 2D not 3D.

 

[Set Harth]

I got really into about 5/9 of Visions season 1.

 

[Reverend]

I always figured it was some sort of Force imprint rather than his full essence. He couldn't completely escape the netherworld but a part of him could.

I still think it's a sign of failure, save for Palpatine's lust for power supported by those who wanted the same thing and kept that legacy going.

I've been going with the notion that the Sith Throne is a similar device to the Nightsister Altar seen in 'Visions And Voices'. Something that captures a mental image that it can imprint on a body, but it's still bound to the devise itself, unable to exist away from it. I can see a scenario where all the previous Sith Lords have sat upon that throne believing that it will bestow all the secret knowledge of their forbears . . . which it does, but in the process also takes a copy of the new Sith Lord in the process, ensuring the continuity of Bane's order.

I dislike the notion of Palpatine's "spirit" fleeing his destroyed body on the face of it, since it goes against some pretty fundamental ideas about both how Lucas thought of how the force works, and what the Sith believe about the force. Essentially to them; there's no transcendent nature to the dark side. They're entranced by and tied to the physical plain. Once their physical body is dead; that's it. There's nothing waiting for them beyond death save oblivion, and they know it. Their energy is returned to the cosmic force and their individuality is annihilated, just like anyone else that hasn't learned the path (and said path is strictly on the light side.) It's specifically why Lucas pulled back on the idea of spirits of ancient Sith Lords showing up in the Mortis arc. There is no "hanging on" for a Sith Lord once the crude matter has failed them. Dead is dead and gone is gone.

I think this sort of thing is what annoys me the most about tRoS; there's potentially some good material in there, if only they bothered to develop it beyond the surface level. Also, all of this makes the Lucas's idea to have Darth Maul be the antagonist for the ST make much more sense. In a world where 'Rebels' didn't happen, and Maul survived hiding in the shadows though the OT, I can see it being just a matter of time before he decides to set himself up as the de-facto inheritor to the Sith Order, and finally taking an apprentice.