Now, the novelization describes a pretty badass scene where Palpatine moves with blinding speed, takes out the three masters, and then fights Windu, who eventually sinks into vaapad, and then the two fight with omgwtflol blinding speeds too fast for even Anakin to follow.
Unfortunately, Lucas is an incompetent dumbass, so we instead get a ridiculous set of telegraphed stabs and slashes that the Jedi somehow don't respond to, followed by a brief 2 vs 1 match where the Jedi conveniently time their attacks so Ian McDiarmid will be able to parry their blades at the same time. When Fisto falls, Mace Windu backs through the door with a dumbass open stance that Palpatine just ignores. (on about horrible choreography)
Since the films > novels in the canon hierarchy, we have to accept the movie's version of events, where Palpatine is certainly not using Force speed, or moving particularly fast.
So how does he kill all those Masters?
My theory is that he used the dark side to dull their senses and movement, and had possibly been slowly prepping this after revealing himself to Anakin. We know from...some movie-novel that dueling Force users use the Force to mess up the other's senses, so it's not entirely speculative.
Because he's that good. Palpatine is able to speedblitz 3 of the best Jedi of all time, Windu cant beat those 3, he could beat 2 of them at once, yeah but not all 3. And if he DID beat all 3 it would be barley.
But my point is that, if you watch the movie's version of events, you can see that Sidious isn't really that fast at all (the fight is one of the slowest in the PT), and he spends, like, a full second telegraphing and posing his first stab, during which the other Jedi could have just diced him into pieces.
I understand the point of it, but it didn't work. Having Sidious slaughter the Jedi like that didn't make him look impressive it made the Jedi look like jokes. Having a prolonged battle between them would have made Sidious look far more impressive.
I remember that in the commentary that the fights move so fast that in reality we can't see them.
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
And that doesn't really work when you consider that Jedi don't move in superspeed when placed in situations with ordinary foes wielding blasters, events around them don't slow down, etc.
To be fair, two of them stood there like chumps. One was even looking the other way for some reason.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Agreed man. I always imagine how I would rewrite that scene. Have a awesome badass 4 on 1 duel making Sidious look superpowerful. Instead they rushed the scene and made the 3 Jedi look like crap.
Yeah, but in the Sidious vs. mooks fight, Palpatine telegraphs his initial thrust with ridiculous exaggeration, and any regular fencer should have been able to move out of the way, let alone three master swordsmen.
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Another question, adding to the PT's mountain of plot holes: why the **** didn't "Master" Windu send out a warning to all the Jedi that the Supreme Chancellor is the dark lord of the sith? We know from later in the movie that Obi Wan and Yoda can send out a warning to all the Jedi to avoid the Temple, and this is while fighting through clone troopers. The novelization claims that Windu contacts Master Yoda, but why not all the Jedi? He surely should have realized that shit was about to hit the fan.
Windu was probably overconfident that his strike team could handle the Sith. He really doesnt have a good track record for making smart decisions involving Sith. For example, he didn't just kill Dooku in AoTC after sneaking up on him.
Aug 16th, 2013 08:25 PM
