You have to hand it to Palpatine. Organizing his own capture and rescue to reinforce his cover as a phantom menace to the galaxy was a stroke of pure evil genius. Poor Dooku probably thought so too until he had two lightsabers criss-crossing his neckline. I’m not sure that even Palpatine foresaw what a troublesome rescue it would be, however. What we saw in the finished film was a trimmed down version. Let’s take a look at some of the deleted/altered bits from the opening space battle to the big crash landing.
Tag: count dooku
Anakin and Padmé to the Rescue
After a distressing message from Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin and Padmé decide to depart Tatooine and aid their friend. Unfortunately, this results in the two of them getting captured, put on trial, found guilty, and tied to execution posts right along with Obi-Wan. Ultimately, it’s Jedi Master Yoda that does the real rescuing here. The scenes on this page deal with Anakin and Padmé’s failed rescue attempt along with some of the surrounding events involving C-3PO and R2-D2.
Aggressive Negotiations
In Episode II, Anakin mentions “aggressive negotiations” while telling a story to Padmé. When she inquires what that means, he replies, “Negotiations…with a lightsaber.”Many such negotiations took place in the film and many shots ended up trimmed or deleted from the final cut. Let’s take a look at some of them.
The Battle of Geonosis
The Battle of Geonosis was quite a historic event when you think about it. It was technically the first big battle of what would be known as The Clone Wars. This was the first big test of the clone army, created specifically to fight wars and serve as the Grand Army of the Republic. If the clones failed their first big military test, the war might have ended right there. There were many changes from script to screen, so let’s just take a look at some of the major things that were deleted or altered during the Battle of Geonosis.
Jedi Detective Work – Geonosis
All of Obi-Wan’s detective work points him to one last planet: the rocky, bug-infested Geonosis. After this day is done, Obi-Wan will have wished he stayed home. He was having a bad enough day as it was, but add in all these deleted and altered shots and his day just gets worse and worse.
Jedi Detective Work – Coruscant
One of the finer aspects of Episode II was that it (in part) resembled a good, old fashioned mystery story. Obi-Wan is like an old 1940’s gumshoe detective in a black and white film noir piece. Obi-Wan is like the Bogart cop, hitting the streets hard and piecing the clues together. Mace Windu and Yoda are holding down the fort and trying to process the information passed on to them. Obi-Wan’s detective work began on Coruscant, so let’s begin there as well.
Review: Revenge of the Sith Novelization
It’s become clear that Star Wars has almost become a genre unto itself. There’s drama, romance, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, non-fiction—and then there’s Star Wars. It’s hard to just drop it under Sci-Fi because it’s more of a dramatic space opera than a futuristic fantasy book. That said, the Star Wars brand demands its own classification and one has to embrace a certain stylistic approach to write within that universe. This approach was created by George Lucas but ultimately expanded to include outside influences. All these styles combined make up this Star Wars genre and Matthew Stover’s adaptation of Revenge of the Sith quite handsomely takes them all and puts forth a cohesive and compelling novel which bridges many gaps in the saga’s timelines.
The Secret of the Sith
This editorial was written before the release of Episode III.
Hiding, keeping secrets, duping people, duality—these are all themes that are at the forefront of the Star Wars saga. Padmé poses as a handmaiden and vice versa multiple times, Anakin and Padmé’s marriage is kept secret from pretty much everyone, the Sith hide in the shadows refining their evil machinations, Obi-Wan and Yoda hide themselves away on separate planets for years after Episode III, the Skywalker twins are separated and hidden at birth, Count Dooku is actually Darth Tyranus, the seemingly innocent Palpatine is actually an alter ego for an evil Sith Lord who will reveal himself for who he is and take over the galaxy as an Emperor—but is that last statement entirely true? Does he actually reveal himself or is it all about keeping things secret?