Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) - 100 questions

Question: Shouldn't Anakin be angry when, after he finally converts to the Dark Side and kills Mace, Palpatine/Sidious reveals that he really doesn't know how to save someone from death, but if they work really really really hard, maybe they can figure it out? Shouldn't Anakin fly into a rage at this? He has no reaction, just kneels and says he will pledge himself to the Emperor's teaching.

Answer: He probably is, but he's out of options at that point. Having acted directly against the Jedi by participating in Windu's death, he can no longer turn to them for help. If he wants to save Padme, he has no choice but to sign up with Sidious and hope that they can figure it out, no matter what his feelings on the matter might be.

Question: Why didn't Yoda or others find out or sense about Anakin's relationship with Padme although in the movie Attack of the Clones, they are publicly seen kissing after fights with Dooku?

Answer: They're not publicly seen kissing. After the fight with Dooku, Padme runs to Anakin and holds him as anyone might embrace a badly injured friend - there's no obvious kiss at that point. As for subsequently, there may well have been some suspicion - in Revenge of the Sith, for example, Obi-wan obviously suspects that Padme's children are Anakin's and shows no surprise at having it confirmed when he visits her after the Temple massacre - but not enough that anybody chose to act on it.

Question: Does the giant lizard Steed gives to Obi-Wan have a name, and if so what is it? (What type of creature is it?) Also where could I find a .wav or .mp3 of the sound it makes? Anyone, I will check back here in questions, or write me at emcinc@hotmail.com. Thanks.

Answer: The beast is named Boga and is a varactyl, an easily trainable herbivorous species native to Utapau. Should be enough information to track down a WAV file if one exists.

Question: The Millennium Falcon can be seen landing on Coruscant, as it says in the trivia section here. Does anyone know who is supposed to be flying it, seeing how Han is about five to ten years old at this time (and Lando is probably around the same age)?

Answer: According to the book Millennium Falcon, which details the history of the ship, at the time it was known as the Stellar Envoy and was flown by Tobb Jadak and Reeze Duurman, two operatives of a covert group of Senators and Jedi who were concerned about Palpatine's actions in control of the Senate and were seeking to restore Senatorial authority.

Question: Not sure if it's a mistake: When Anakin is turning to the dark side, after killing Windu, Sidious' voice changes constantly during the whole scene. What happened there?

Answer: It's an effect of the Sith lightning damaging his vocal chords.

Question: I haven't been able to figure out why Anakin's eyes are shown turning yellow in this movie, when he is on Mustafar. Dooku's eyes were always brown and Asajj Ventress often has blue eyes in Clone Wars media, although she uses the Dark Side. I don't think it could be a question of Dooku not giving himself over to the Sith as much as Anakin, because he did kill/order others to kill several Jedi and other people in Episode II and the Clone Wars books/shows. Are the color-changing eyes just something that happens temporarily when someone first accepts the Dark Side?

Answer: This seems to be a side-effect of heavy immersion in the Dark Side of the Force, although apparently not one that affects all users. As you point out, neither Dooku nor Ventress are shown to display this change, although Anakin's eyes do change after his massacre of the Seperatist leadership, then again prior to his immolation on Mustafar, after Obi-wan defeats him, and Darth Maul's eyes appeared to be permanently changed, possibly as a result of his total immersion in the Sith ways from a very early age. A number of other users of the Dark Side are depicted or described in Expanded Universe materials as having their eyes change temporarily during heavy use of the Force, including at least two of Anakin's descendants, but it seems not to be a universal trait of all Dark Side users.

Question: Palpatine killed Plageous in his sleep. Is there any book/information that tells if Palpatine took precautions to avoid possibly being killed this way (by an apprentice of his own)?

Answer: In one of the books I've read, it mentions that Palpatine doesn't sleep. He meditates so he is always aware of his surroundings.

Question: I read about an unused scene where Vader walks into a room in the Jedi temple, where Shaak Ti is meditating, and stabs her with his lightsaber. Was this actually filmed (I know the deleted scene included on the DVD is the one of Shaak being killed by General Grievous)?

Answer: Yes it was filmed as there are pictures of that scene on the internet but there aren't any video segments of it anywere.

Question: Did Mace Windu actually beat Palpatine in their lightsabre duel or did Palpatine let him win? Also, is Palpatine's scarred face his "true" face or was it caused by the force lightning?

Answer: Palpatine needed to push Anakin over the edge and "fulfill his destiny", so he feigns defeat to allow Anakin the opportunity kill Mace and start him on the road to evil. The scarring was caused by the lightning.

Question: Is there any text or info on what happens to all the droid armies and the Separatist organizations that have been rendered leaderless, after the end of Episode III?

Answer: The droid armies were shut down by the Separatists, rendering them inert; they would presumably have been subsequently collected up and dismantled by the victorious Empire forces. While some other Separatist organisations would have remained active, without the droids that formed the vast majority of the Separatist strength, they would be effectively nullified as any sort of threat, so they would likely go dormant or underground.

Question: After discovering the slaughter of the apprentice Jedi at the Jedi Council, why do Yoda and Obi-Wan decide to fight Palpatine and Anakin separately? Palpatine was ready at hand, at the Senate, while Anakin was in distant Mustafar. Stategically, it seems to me this would be their best option - Yoda loses the fight to Palpatine but not for much, managing to survive and flee; he most likely would have been able to win had Obi-Wan fought along. Then, Anakin would have certainly been defeated - the loss of his master impacting on him. If I understood it all correctly, this would have saved the Republic and allowed them to rebuild the Jedi Order from scratch (but not made any sense with IV, V, VI, which is why they didn't do it). But is there any in-plot explanation?

Answer: It boils down to the element of surprise. The clone troopers have shown that they're entirely capable of dealing with Jedi by that point - if either Palpatine or Anakin is able to surround themselves with a large and alerted clone trooper force, then Yoda and Kenobi will have no chance to get near them and that's game over. With Anakin seperated from his master, they're vulnerable, but if both Jedi attacked one target, the other would be alerted to the fact that Yoda and Kenobi had survived Order 66 and could take steps to protect themselves and unleash the military to hunt down their adversaries. By dividing their strength and attacking their targets simultaneously, Yoda gives them their best shot of taking out the Sith for good.

Question: I've read that Anakin joined Palpatine because he felt remorse over the death of Windu and that he would have been expelled from the Jedi order for sure. Couldn't he have just lied and said that it was Palpatine that killed him and that he played no part in it?

Answer: No, because it's wrong. Anakin joined Palpatine not out of remorse or fear of being expelled from the Jedi Order, but because he thinks that, with the Sith Lord's help, he can save Padme from dying. If he turns Palpatine in, he believes that she'll die and that's not an option for him.

Question: If Obi-Wan could defeat Anakin then why couldn't he defeat Dooku?

Answer: Dooku didn't fight Anakin at his full strength in his final duel. The plan, as Dooku understood it, was to turn Anakin to the Dark Side, not to kill him. After defeating Kenobi, which he did relatively easily, he held back, prolonging the fight and taunting Anakin, trying to get him to tap into his anger and hatred. He believed that, once Anakin succumbed to temptation, that Palpatine would step in to stop the fight, reveal himself as a Sith Lord and complete Anakin's induction into the Sith. As such, he wasn't fighting to win, merely to prolong the fight as long as it needed to be to serve their purposes. Effectively, he took a fall against Anakin, believing, incorrectly, that his Master would save him. As such, you can't use Anakin and Obi-wan's fights against Dooku as a reliable indicator of their respective power levels.

Question: Why did Yoda leave for exile after his duel in the senate with Palpatine? Why didn't he continue fighting?

Answer: Because he came to the conclusion that he couldn't win, so the best solution, long-term, was for him to hide away somewhere to be ready to help prepare the next generation for the fight. If he continues the fight, he risks his own death and the loss of his ability to pass his knowledge on later, which could leave the galaxy under Sith rule forever. If he runs, then the Sith will rule for a time, but there's a far greater possibility that the Jedi will eventually be able to rise again and defeat them.

Question: I don't know if there is an answer to this, but what did Dooku think was going to happen on the ship above Coruscant? It seems like he was supposed to kill Anakin and Obi-wan, but if he had managed to do that, there wouldn't have been a way for Palpatine to be "rescued" from him and Grievous. Was Dooku planning to let them escape eventually?

Answer: Dooku believed that the intent was that he would slay Kenobi, with the aim of provoking Anakin into enough of a rage that he would tap into the dark side of the Force - we see him goading his opponent during the duel with this in mind. Palpatine would then reveal himself as Sidious, stop the fight and turn Anakin to the Sith. Dooku would be "arrested" by Anakin and would then, after an appropriate time had passed, claim to have come to see the Republic's point of view, allowing him to later emerge from captivity to assist Sidious and Anakin in setting up the new Empire.

Question: Was the possibility of putting Asajj Ventress into the movie ever considered?

Answer: No, but before the character of Count Dooku was developed, the Art Department for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones developed a female Sith as the film's villain, as seen in concept art by Dermot Power in The Art of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. Since Dooku replaced her as Sidious' apprentice, she was put in to the animated series.

Question: After Palpatine orders the clone troopers to execute order 66, they are shown killing the Jedi. When Palpatine gave the order to the clones, several of them were in the midst of a raging battle. After they killed the Jedi, what happened to the clones? Did the battles continue uninterrupted? Were they killed also?

Answer: The battles continued. Some clones would undoubtedly have been killed, many survived to fight on until the cease-fire order came in after Vader slew the Separatist leadership on Mustafar.

Question: If Sidious was trained by Plagueis, how/when was he able to get involved in a political career? Was he already an adult when Plagueis met him?

Answer: Very few details have been released regarding Palpatine's early life, how he apparently escaped the notice of the Jedi Order and came to the attention of Plagueis instead. His apprenticeship apparently took "many decades", suggesting that he was recruited as a child. However, under Naboo law, public service is mandatory between the ages of 12 and 20, so it is possible that Palpatine was already in service when recruited, and chose to continue his political career in order to further the goals of the Sith. Even if recruited at a younger age, Palpatine was reportedly of noble birth, making it relatively difficult for him to simply drop out of sight to train as a Sith full time, so he may simply have decided (or been instructed by his master) to continue with his life in an outwardly normal fashion, while being trained covertly in the Sith arts.

Question: I don't see how killing Grievous could've ended the entire war. He was commander of the droid armies, yes, but what about the leaders of the Trade Federation, the Banking Clan, and the Commerce Guild? They could create more droids and simply promote someone else to Grievous' position. Don't you think the Jedi would've made destroying the Sepratists their highest priority?

Answer: Grievous is a highly dangerous individual. Through his leadership, the droid armies are scoring a lot of victories they wouldn't have otherwise had. Added to that the fact that Grievous is hunting down and killing Jedi, and he becomes a high priority target for the republic. Get rid of him and the seperatists have lost their greatest general and a highly dangerous combatant.

Question: This might be just me, but at the beginning of the movie, Grievous seemed to especially not like Obi-wan. If so, what was his grudge against him?

Answer: Grievous hates all jedi because he belives them to be responsable for the destruction of his home-planet. They are also responsable for his binding to a mechanical suit and for his wheezing breath. He may have directed this hatred more the Obi-wan because he is further up the Jedi chain than Anakin.