Sidious and Dooku versus Mace and Yoda

Dark Rendezvous, p. 25 -

"Physically, the Count's age was rarely a handicap. Deft as he had become with the Force - unimaginably more subtle than the boy who watched water-skeeters in the Jedi garden all those years ago - he wore his eighty-three standard years better than most humans half his age. He was still in superb physical shape, senses keen, health undiminished by even the memory of a cold.

Only in this situation, stopped before the image of his master, did he feel his years. Even via hologram, the flickering figure of Darth Sidious, hideous in blue and shadows, seemed to strip his false youth away, leaving his bones brittle, his joints worn thin, and knotted with tension."

Dark Rendezvous, p. 31 -

"Darth Sidious had given him a curious look, then, one that passed through him like a flush of fever, a weakness inside. "Do you still love him?" his Master said.

Dooku had laughed and braved it out. The idea was ridiculous.

"Ridiculous?" his Master had said, in that soft, terrible voice of his. "I hardly think so." And then, his voice like honeyed poison, "A good studen always loves his teacher."

There was always a risk, talking with Sidious. Sometimes the conversation would go badly, and Dooku would fail to please somehow. It was a terrible thing, failing to please his Master."

Originally posted by Escape81
Dark Rendezvous, p. 25 -

"Physically, the Count's age was rarely a handicap. Deft as he had become with the Force - unimaginably more subtle than the boy who watched water-skeeters in the Jedi garden all those years ago - he wore his eighty-three standard years better than most humans half his age. He was still in superb physical shape, senses keen, health undiminished by even the memory of a cold.

Only in this situation, stopped before the image of his master, did he feel his years. Even via hologram, the flickering figure of Darth Sidious, hideous in blue and shadows, seemed to strip his false youth away, leaving his bones brittle, his joints worn thin, and knotted with tension."

Although that book and the one I am about to mention have collided with the movies and with direct Canon, I think I will post this anyways.

ROTS Novelization, p. 67 -

"Quite simple, in the end, he thought. Isolate Skywalker, slaughter Kenobi. Beyond that, it would be merely a matter of spinning Skywalker up into enough of a frenzy to break through his Jedi restraint and reveal the infinite vista of Sith power. Dooku would take it from there, and do what was needed for his plans."

I'm skipping around the book a bit, just for you to get the point.

Dark Rendezvous, p. 234 -

'The remorseless hooded figure flickered like a ghost on the holoconsole.

"I was not aware. Thank you for showing this to me. Needless to say, Ventress was acting on her own initiative." This arrogance - one might even say, the faint condescension - with which he had been thinking of his Master a few moments before had drained out of him like blood spilling from an open vein.'

Tell me. How did Dark Rendezvous collide with the movie? And I am not talking about the ROTS novelization, where it firmly collided with the movie in the Sidious vs Mace fight scene.

Tell me. How does Dark Rendezvous prove to be not canon? Simply because the idea of Dooku fearing his master is uncanny, or because of a truly logical reason?

-Revelations-

So this is the plan: goad a Jedi into lashing out with anger and using the Dark Side of the Force. Once he has used the Dark Side, he can be easily corrupted by a Sith Lord into joining his cause. This was Tyranus' plan for Skywalker (although Sidious had his own plans), and it was clearly Palpatine's plan for Luke Skywalker at the end of ROTJ. One can only imagine that this is how he himself was corrupted.

-Revelations-

For thirteen years you've been carefully plotting, carefully conspiring with Darth Sidious, waiting for the day when you would take Sidious' place and assume your rightful place as the ruler of the galaxy

Originally posted by Escape81
Tell me. How did Dark Rendezvous collide with the movie? And I am not talking about the ROTS novelization, where it firmly collided with the movie in the Sidious vs Mace fight scene.

Tell me. How does Dark Rendezvous prove to be not canon? Simply because the idea of Dooku fearing his master is uncanny, or because of a truly logical reason?

Because books have countered with Movie facts before, including ROTS, DR, and DE.

Books are obviously not Canon. This is once again not solid proof, which I find extremely hilarious. Even the point of Dooku overthrowing Sidious may not be Canon, because it is from a damned book.

Ah, you say 'books'. You say BOOKS. So, as I've surmised, you do not have anything that warrants Dark Rendezvous as illegitimate. It doesn't conflict with the movies. Nor does Labyrinth of Evil. And in both, Dooku speaks of Sidious in both fear and awe.

By your own words, the ROTS novelization isn't canon. It conflicts with the movies. Thusly, the basis for it's validity is all but destroyed. This is not, however, the case for Dark Rendezvous or LOE.

Odd. I was under the impression that books are canon unless they conflict with the movies. Interesting. Perhaps I am mistaken. I'll look into it.

Originally posted by Escape81
Ah, you say 'books'. You say BOOKS. So, as I've surmised, you do not have anything that warrants Dark Rendezvous as illegitimate. It doesn't conflict with the movies. Nor does Labyrinth of Evil. And in both, Dooku speaks of Sidious in both fear and awe.

By your own words, the ROTS novelization isn't canon. It conflicts with the movies. Thusly, the basis for it's validity is all but destroyed. This is not, however, the case for Dark Rendezvous or LOE.

Lucas has nothing to do with the Books/Novels, nor has he ever even considered them Canon.

Steve Barnes even told HGH that he put a few of his favorite characters in a "High regard" in his novelisation "The Cestus Deception".

Books/Novels just aren't Canon!

Originally posted by Darth_Glentract
When did he ever say force potential? He said 80% as powerful, not that he has 80% of Sidious' potential. GL said that before the injuries, Anakin had the potential to ten times more powerful than Sidious. Anakin obviously didn't lose 90% of his body mass. Looks like you are wrong. Who would have though.

Oh Glentract. Your ripping quotes out of context. Lucas was referring to force powers when giving the 80 % statement and nothing else. He was talking about force powers and tried to explain why Vader didn't take over the Empire. He said that Anakin had the potential to become ten times as powerful as Sidious (which does not mean that he had 1000 % of Sidious potential - he wanted to state that Anakin at full potential would have been the greates force user ever) but did lose a lot of his potential to use the force when Obi-Wan cut his legs and his arm off.

It simply says that Vader only has 80 % of Sidious force powers which is logical because the artificial parts of his body are limiting him to a certain degree. He can't use force lightning because having two artificial arms and so on. Still he was able to withstand Sidious force lightning to a certain degree since it hit him while he threw Sidious into the reactor shaft.

In comentary about the movie he said so.

I watched it again and there is no statement about the fight between Luke and Vader in it except the one that Luke didn't want the fight because he know that it's wrong and Vader just wants to taunt him to get angry so that he will join the Dark Side.
Then Vader manages to do it and gets beaten. Yes. But on the same level that Dooku was beaten by Anakin. You can't take that situation and say Luke = 80+ % ROTJ Sidious as well as you can't take the fight Dooku vs Anakin and say Anakin > Dooku. Because if you use that kind of categorisation it will result in: Obi-Wan > Anakin > Dooku / Sidious which is obviously wrong.

It isn't talking about force potential. You are wrong Janus.

Lucas was comparing force powers. So you are wrong here, Glentract.

Pretty much. He said he is 80% as powerful. That mean 80% overall, not in each catagorey individually. If Luke is more powerful than Vader, and Vader is 80%, Luke is greater than 80%. It's simple really.

He was still talking about force powers and nothing else. And yes. It's really simple so why don't you get it ?

And the flaw is what?

The flaw is that you throw in false information and stupid conclusions. We saw Luke immediatly going down when Sidious hit him with lightning were Vader - while being hit by the same lightning - carried Sidious over a few metres and threw him into the reactor shaft. So it seems that Vader can take the lightning better than Luke (did we see Luke's sceleton glowing by the way ?).
Then you came up with the "Luke carried Vader over kilometres" thing despite the fact that he just could have carried him 10 metres into the elevator and across a hangar and we don't even know if he had to carry him or just helped him to walk around.

Lucas said he was 80%. You also have been a propenent of the view that Sidious and Dooku are near equal.

See above.

There is a flaw on your part Janus. You assume that Dooku defeat Anakin's most powerful form.

Now I give you some part of the ROTJ commentary: It's clearly said that Sidious wanted Luke as apprentice because Vader was extremely hindred by the fact that he was in this suit and basically half machine and half human. So yes...Dooku could have defeated Anakin in ROTS and ROTS Anakin is the most powerful form of Anakin.

Or perhaps you are out to discredit me because you are angry that Mace is more capable than Dooku.

You are discrediting yourself, Glentract.

Nai, what are the policies an books and novels being canon?

Originally posted by Escape81
Nai, what are the policies an books and novels being canon?

I believe that if it doesn't contradict the movies or something that Lucas has already gone over, it can be used as a source. I'm not 100% sure though.

Yeah, pretty much. If it doesn't directly conflict. A good example of this would be making Han Solo a wookie, or having Kit Fisto's head on the desk. While we do like to entertain the scripts as reliable sources, I've been thinking we should take them with a grain of salt. In particular, the ROTS script is closer to the novelisation then what was depicted on screen. And since movies are supposed to be the high level canon on which all else measures itself up to, scripts should be no different, since they are suibject to last minute changes, etc.

Alright then. Thanks, Deus. Then I suppose my sources to Dark Rendezvous and Labyrinth of Evil are both legitimate and can be used as sources in this argument?

Originally posted by Escape81
Nai, what are the policies an books and novels being canon?

Lucasfilm policy only sees the things directly related to the films as "canon" (the films, the scripts, the novelisations, radio plays) and Lucas own quotes on certain topics. The rest is part of the continuum which happens in a "parallel dimension".

In terms of the EU board here the normal ranks of "canon" would be:

1) Lucas himself
2) the movies (Lucas work)
3) the novelisations / scripts from the movies (Lucas work)
4) EU Literature (since this includes personal interpretation of the authors)
5) Comics / Cartoons (personal interpretation and exeggaration)
6) Games (completely "new" characters which are often exegarrated).

As long as something doesn't contradict a "higher level" of "canon" it can be seen as "real". The problem is that even the movie novelisations as well as the EU literature contain personal oppinions or views of the responsible author and those can be argued because this aren't Lucas views.

For example Lucas idea of the Stormtroopers was that they are Clones like the PT troopers and he contradicted that idea himself in ANH (having Leia asking Luke if he isn't a little bit too young for a stormtrooper) and therefore pretty much of the EU is contradicting Lucas idea here.
But as long as Lucas intentions on characters and situations aren't pointed out by Lucas himself they can be argued. Let's stay with Dooku as an example.

- the EU states he feared Sidious and wanted to please his master. Did he ever look like fearing Sidious ? At least he wasn't afraid to fight with Yoda while knowing Yoda's level of power.

- the EU states that the CIS was directly controlled by Sidious (meaning Sidious giving order to the CIS leaders directly). Again it can be argued from the things we have seen in the films. In the ROTS commentary there is a line which states that Dooku created the CIS according to his own plans (he could have planned to overthrow Sidious using Anakin and then take the Republic by force - this is a possibility).

- the EU states that Sidious is simply more powerful compared to Dooku and again it can be argued from what we have seen in the films.

From this perspective everything but things directly and clearly shown in the films or pointed out by Lucas on the commentaries or on other ocassions can be argued. That is the worst thing and the best thing for SW at once. Most of the EU can only exist because Lucas does not give comments on everything and most of the debates here would not exist if Lucas wouldn't encourage the fans to "think outside the box". On the other handside it makes discussions like this quite unsolvable because if you take Lucas literal the opinion (or interpretaion) of a fan has the same value as the opinion of any EU author which makes it nearly impossible to establish "facts" if Lucas has not given a comment on the issue himself. And even then Lucas opinion can be questioned (see the stormtrooper example above) because he's contradicting himself.

That means EU novels can be used as legitimate source in an argument but they still can be questioned (see how many people here question the things shown in the NJO novels).

We've only seen Dooku with Sidious twice, Nai. In the first time, he was delivering the Death Star plans to him and announcing the beginning of the Clone Wars. Sidious was pleased, and so Dooku had no reason to fear his master. So I can counter your argument there.

The second time is when Sidious ordered Anakin to kill Dooku. And Dooku did indeed look very frightened there. But, that was probably due both to the fact that his master just abandoned him, and that there was a guy holding two blades at his throat, prepared to kill him.

I believe the quote was:

"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?"

She couldn't tell his age, because he had the helmet on at the time. She questioned his height, observing it was below the stormtrooper norm.

Originally posted by Escape81
I believe the quote was:

"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?"

She couldn't tell his age, because he had the helmet on at the time. She questioned his height, observing it was below the stormtrooper norm.

Yes. Sorry. In the German translation she's questioning his age (which never made any sense for me - now I know why again). Still: If Lucas thinks about the stormtroopers to be clones there's a lot of points where it contradicts the movies (hell...in the PT they can kill Jedi, in the OT they can't even shoot straight - despite the fact that they are clones of the same person ?) and most of the EU literature.