Originally posted by Escape81
Lucas:"Dooku was under the impression that he was just supposed to fight Anakin."
Notice how it doesn't say "pretend to fight". He was simply under the impression that he was supposed to fight Anakin, to see if he can beat him. If he did, Palpatine would wait on attempting to bring Anakin to the Dark Side. However, if Dooku lost, Palpatine would see that Anakin was powerful enough to replace him.
It makes absolutely zero sense for Palpatine to engineer the duel so that Dooku would lose, especially when he is only after power. It would make more sense to simply pit them against each other, and make the decision based off of who would win.
Anakin won.
Anakin's potential to become more powerful than Dooku is simply unquestioned. His potential far exceeded Dooku, but - still - at the time of RotS, he was capable of defeating the Count in a lightsaber duel. To top it off, not only was Anakin a more powerful weapon, but was just as naive and just as suseptible to manipulation as Dooku was.
Palpatine is the only person, other than - perhaps - Yoda, who could be able to judge Count Dooku's abilities as well as Anakin's, and decide who is stronger. Palpatine only wants the stronger apprentice. Lucas said in the commentary that if Anakin lost, Palpatine would continue to use Dooku until Anakin was ready. So, Palpatine has absolutely NO reason to lie or to be biased.
Palpatine stated that Anakin was more powerful. Not that he had the potential to be more powerful, but that he is more powerful. And it would also make zero sense to base the argument off of potential, because as shown against Obi-Wan - potential is useless in a fight. Unfulfilled potential is useless.
The script states that Obi-Wan and Dooku got tired as Anakin got stronger as the duel progressed. So, as the duel progressed (even when Dooku taunted him), Anakin's power began to eclipse Dooku's, allowing him to overpower the Count.
Anakin is more powerful than Count Dooku as of RotS.
Re read that part where I explained that Dooku thought he was providing Anakin with a Trial. I re-watched the scene again just now, and Dooku actually gives a "what?!" gasp when Palpatine says "Kill him!" a more confused gasp at Palpatine's repetition of the order, and then gives Anakin a look that is pretty much silently begging not to be killed, and that he doesn't understand what is going on. Sidious lied to Dooku, because if he had actually told Dooku that if Anakin won he would be killed, Dooku would most likely not have gone along with the plan. Yes, Anakin is more powerfull than the Count, both in physical strength (due to their respective ages) and ability to use the Force, due to his midi-chlorian count being the highest seen, as Obi-Wan told Qui-Gon. However, Dooku was a more skilled swordsman. As I said above, even when Anakin totally lost his temper, Dooku was still able to block every blow (although they physically drove him back), and Anakin did not cut his hands off while they were still duelling, but after he had physically grabbed and immobilized Dooku's arms, like the chickenshit wifebeater he is.