"...Only now, at the end, do you understand." - Emperor Palpatine, RotJ.


When Anakin arrives at the window of the private office, he can see only bodies and Fisto's head. He cuts through the glass and steps inside. Passing through the short corridor, he enters the Chancellors public office, where Palpatine duels with Master Windu.

Anakin stands by and watches the duel in the shadows.

The battling Mace cuts a hole in the window of the office, planning to push Sidious out, but that does not work initially. They fight again, slowly moving towards the window. They eventually end up outside the office, on the narrow ledge of the Republic Executive Office. The rain continues to fall.

After intense fighting, Mace cuts Palpatine's saber in half. The Sith suddenly turns and addresses Anakin who can now be seen in the office.

"You see? Didn't I warn you of the Jedi and their treason?" he says. Mace continues his stare at the Chancellor.

Suddenly, just when Mace is about to strike down and destroy the Sith, Palpatine unleashes his power and lightning strikes from his hand. His face ages dramaticially into an aged old man before the Jedi's eyes.

"FOOL!" he exclaims.

Mace blocks the lightning with his blade but this is a hard moment for both combatants as they both begin to call to Anakin. Anakin now stands at Mace's shoulder, unsure what to do: Sidious wants him to kill the traitor but the Jedi Master orders him to kill the Sith and fulfill his destiny as the Chosen One.

At last, Palpatine collapses and begs for mercy from Mace. Mace, however, does not accept it. He moves for a final blow and then...

"Wait!..." cries Anakin.

is this the small 1 handed saber we've seen all over net, then if it is.. what saber does he use against yoda?

He must have another saber then, maybe he has 2 identical ones ?

Seems Tern Doesnt know the answer to my question too

That explains Ternian saying "Hmmm, Sidious must have two sabers"



Perfect. Absolutely perfect. This couldn't have been handled better.

Still doesn't explain for me how Palpatine goes from badass force lightning guy to then being defeated. What am I missing?

Dogg.

it's his way of manipulating anakin. both he and mace both want the same thing from anakin, to fulfill what each of them thinks is his destiny. They are both wrong! great fuckin spoiler tern

Palpatine takes a dive and looks pathetic knowing Anakin will cover his arse. Anakin doesn't want his father figure to die. Once again, Anakin's attachment fetish fucks things up.

Its simple. Palpatine is not omnipotent. He is defeated by a highly skilled opponent. However, Palpatine has others 'cards up his sleeve', so to speak.

Yeah it sounds to me that he took a dive too but we've had reliable sources say his defeat was genuine. It doesn't sound like Mace actually beat him for real. Saying "he is defeated by a highly skilled opponent" doesn't actually explain it in the context of this spoiler as it seems to say he goes from launching force lightning to being defeated with little in between.

I reckon he takes a dive...

Dogg.

I would believe Palps is genuinely defeated if his surrender comes at a point where he is unaware Anakin is watching. However, it is clear from the report that Anakin is there and they are both talking to him.

Perhaps a *compromise* position is that Palps is so distracted by using the moment to turn Anakin that Mace takes advantage momentarily

Ghostbusters Librarian!

palps takes a dive its that simple! he is creating the pivotal turning point of anakin the decision he takes at that exact moment is what what will define anakins life and palps aint gonna let it go! the moment anakin turns against a jedi palps knows he has a new bitch for sure. its that simple, nothing else behind it! if it plays out as cool as it reads..... damn! :heavymetal2: just hope we actually see the bodies and head!(all signs point to yes)

That's the only part I don't get. It's probably just how it reads, but I keep picturing Mace saying, "Excuse me one moment while I cut a hole in this window. You don't mind, do you? Promise not to attack me while I'm doing it, okay? No, seriously... you have to promise. And no winkies, no crossies, right Palpy?"

Yeah, that part did read kind of funny, but I'm sure it'll work out on screen.

Good lord I can't wait to see this scene...Anakin's seduction to the Dark Side is almost complete.

Wait a second - in this report, Anakin cuts a hole in the window and comes in.

In a previous post, he runs down the hallway to the duel.

In another post, he is told about the REALness of Darth Plaguis (sp?) and then goes to tell Mace about Palpatine being Sidious.

In ANOTHER post the revelation about Darth Plaguis is given during the Sidious/Mace DUEL.

What gives???

Ternian already explained - your second and fourth statements refer to a report in which he combined two different sources' information. The events got out of sequence, which he copped to. He now has a single source who gave him the information your first and third statements refer to.

I like how this is coming together. If that Mace-Anakin dialogue on TFN is the real deal (sounds like we'll find out on another Tern report) the scene is a great pivot.

I don't think that Mace beat him in the duel. I think if he did, there would still be some part of Anakin that was doing a 'good thing' by defending Palpatine. By Palpatine 'faking it', he stays the master manipulator, and basically forces Anakin to betray the Jedi...it's his basic MO.




2 other things - thanks for the clairificaiton. I'm trying to collect the Hardcopy reports for myself, to compare 'em to the final product, and that stuck out. And secondly, I'm very happy to have found this site...far better discussion here than at TF.N

That should make a fantastic sequence........

Actually take a step back. Just imagine how dramatic this is really gonna be on film. Mace has somehow recovered from the lightning strike and is about to kill the bad guy: our hopes rise...then Anakin ruins it all.

For the unspoiled (none of whom are us!) this will be heartracing stuff. I bet some will be shouting at the screen "Anakin, don't do it!"

Mark my words

Sounds pretty cool, just remember something guys, something that should be obvious but isn't clearly by a lot of people's comments...
The reason why Yoda losses is because Palps has always been known to be the most powerfull being in the story.
Yoda could have stood a chance, but Yoda is hardly in his prime, you could see this in the AOTC fight, where he is clearly tired from just a short fight. So imagine the ROTS one lasting 3-4 minutes, maybe more, Mmmmm, misa no think so!
Also, everyone knows that Mace is the daddy of all Jedi, number 2 so to speak, and unlike Yoda, he is in the prime of his life, so against an old (yet powerfull) man like Sidious, he would have him begging for his life. Pun intended.

You know, nothing personal, but this attitude is really starting to chap my ass. Is Palpatine surrounded by an impenetrable force field that only Anakin is immune to? People talk as if Sidious could take a direct hit from the Death Star because only the Chosen One can destroy the Sith. That's bunk. Anakin's not the only person who can kill Sidious, he's the only one who does. That's what destiny is all about. Mace can kill Palpatine, but it's not his destiny to do so. Hell, Baby Boba with a seismic charge can kill Sidious. Who cares? Why is that so threatening to people?

Sorry, was that my out loud voice?

It's the whole Anakin thing too...a lot of people got upset when GL said that Vader was less powerful than Anakin.

But as far as Sidious goes, I think he does have to be more powerful than any of the JEDI (except Anakin), because he has demonstrated that - meaning, he's kept them blind to the whole Sith existing thing for years, and anything they know about the Sith existing have been crumbs he's given them.

Sure, maybe he couldn't survive a death star blast (or the reactor core for that matter), but his ability to pull the strings on the entire galaxy lends itself to a lot of power.


Just out of curiosity - why the hell would he have built a THRONE ROOM in the Death Star that had a shaft to the reactor in it, and uncovered? I mean, all my heat ducts at home have grates on 'em, and I"m not worried about my apprentice throwing ME down 'em. Where was the planning then?

Didn't you know? Palpatine and Vader used to spit off the rail for fun.

The only problem with this spoiler is that it lacks visuals and William's score.



This movie is going to be great.

And the funny thing was, Vader kept falling for it...

Sidious: "SPIT, Lord Vader! For I am sure my saliva will fly far beyond yours...

Vader (spits in his mask): Goddammit... Not again...

Well duh, but fate (The Force) decides what will happen to Sidious. It's not Sidious' fate to be blasted into oblivion by the Death Star, nor is it to fall to Windu. Therefor, Windu couldn't kill Sidious. I don't see the contradiction.

And besides, Palpatine is clearly abandoning his attack in order to continue his seduction of Anakin to the Dark Side. Had Anakin not been present, he would have fried Windu.

Yup I understand what you are saying the story is all about fate/destiny so no one else could have killed Papls 'cos Anakin was destined to.
An easy way of getting around it

Hey guys, have you seen the EP 4-6 Top Trumps? If it is a so called Official card set, then why is Vader a weak card, compared to the Emperor, Luke, Yoda and Kenobi?
Look below:

Emperor -
Brains: 14
Dark Side: 25
Jedi Powers: 95
Battle Skills: 25
Force Factor: 5


Luke -
Brains: 15
Dark Side: 4
Jedi Powers: 90
Battle Skills: 43
Force Factor: 4


Obi-Wan -
Brains: 18
Dark Side: 1
Jedi Powers: 80
Battle Skills: 26
Force Factor: 6


Dath Vader -
Brains: 16
Dark Side: 22
Jedi Powers: 82
Battle Skills: 55
Force Factor: 4


Yoda -
Brains: 20
Dark Side: 0
Jedi Powers: 100
Battle Skills: 10
Force Factor: 5

If you look at the above, it is naff, look at Force Facor, Obi beats Yoda?

The point is, there's no milieu reason why Mace can't kill Sidious. He's capable of beating him in combat, and having beaten him, he's willing to finish the job. The fact that he doesn't kill Sidious is mystical hand-wavy destiny stuff that has nothing to do with combat ability. But a whole lot of people are using Anakin's destiny as evidence that Mace isn't actually capable of killing Sidious, because/therefore Sidious is a bigger badass. Which isn't true, according to Ternian's reports.


Which would be great, except that according to Ternian, Mace whups him fair and square. No faking.

Dude, it's a deck of playing cards. They were made specifically for uh...playing cards.

As for Palpatine collapsing before Windu, I say it's nothing more than an act. Palpatine sees the oppurtunity and he's going to bring Anakin over to the dark side.

Just as an explanation as to why some people might be resistant to the idea of Mace genuinely beating Palpatine I though it might be an idea to clear up why I may have issue with it. It's not the idea that Palpatine should be omnipotent - but he should be immensely powerful. He has to be, story-wise, to make the struggle of Eps 4-6 mean something. It's the feeling of overcoming all odss. If he gets his ass kicked in Ep3, that very much minimises the achievements in Ep6 even though he was never faced in a duel then. For me anyway.

But that's only one part. The second part is that it is Mace. Nothing against that character or anything but he is barely even a secondary character. He had a bit part in Ep1 and maybe came close to secondary character in Ep2. So to have the main villain of the series beaten by a secondary character would be like Madine beating Vader in Ep6. It would mean little except for weakening our perception of Vader.

That's just a personal opinion and doesn't really matter in terms of the end product as it will play out how it plays out but I just thought it might help explain why there would be some resistance to the idea of Mace genuinely beating Palpatine. But the fact that there seems to be a gap going from the force lightning to being beaten makes me think it has to play out as a ploy rather than a genuine defeat.

Dogg.

Indeed. And yet we all know and love Yoda from Ep5 and Ep6 and he doesn't seem to have kicked anyone's ass. You've sort of proved my point there.

Dogg.

Sidious losing to Mace makes him a weak villain. Simple as that.

KCWM - you are missing the knock-on effect of Palpatine being beaten. It's not just that it makes him weak and people don't like it because they think he's cool. By making the villain weak, it also severely weakens the heroes.

Dogg.

Exactly. Weakening Palpatine weakens the threat, which in turn makes the heroes look pathetic.

While I'm not going to say that Palpatine planned all along for his saber to be cut in half, the spoiler DOES read as if Palpatine was faking. Read it:



Palps unleashes with lightning on Mace. Mace blocks. This tires both out. Then, AS WRITTEN HERE, it sounds as if things are at a stalemate. The two combatants are staring at each other, and both trying to get Anakin on their side. Anakin, at first, sides with Mace (since he's standing at Mace's shoulder). Palpatine knows that Anakin wants his eternal life secret, so he has to make it look like he's going to be defeated and killed in order to get Anakin on his side. If he keeps fighting, maybe he'll win. And then Anakin would just be pissed at him for killing a Jedi. Maybe he'll lose. Maybe Mace will strike him down without notice and Palps won't have a chance to manipulate Anakin before it's too late. So instead, he falls to his knees and begs for forgiveness. He knows Mace is going to try and kill him. This gives Anakin a chance to think about it. And, from the dialogue, a chance to talk about it with Mace. All the while, btw, Palps is just kneeling there waiting, getting his strength back. Had Anakin not interfered, Palps probably could've just lightninged his ass as Mace was going for the killing blow and that would've probably been enough to send him off balance, off the ledge, and to his death.

So yeah, it's tough to tell from this report EXACTLY what happens, but it seems to me that the report backs up the "he's faking" angle more than the "he got his ass kicked" angle. I'm not saying that he handed Mace his ass on a platter - Mace obviously held his own. It just doesn't seem like it was Mace's abilities that brought Palpatine to his knees, but rather pure manipulation.

I guess I never saw it that way, in the PT context. In the OT Palps seemed like a badass on par with Vader, but in the PT he's been all mastermind. Which is just fine for me, in terms of respect for the character. I never thought less of Lex Luthor because Superman can crush him to powder. Darth Sidious is like Luthor, plus he can go saber-to-saber with the top Jedi swordsmen in the galaxy. He's Lex Luthor with Superman's powers. That ain't nothin' to sneeze at, and certainly makes for overwhelming odds when Superboy (Luke) comes calling. As I see it, anyway.


Or like Lando Calrission blowing up the Death Star?

I can sort of understand this position, though after AOTC I didn't see Mace as purely a background character, like other people seem to. And while I could point out that Mace does not, in fact, defeat Sidious after the smoke clears, I'm more wondering why it matters to me that Mace makes a good showing. I realized it's because, like with so many fans, the Jedi have been something of a disappointment to me in the PT. Sidious has completely owned them. So here's the prospect of the Jedi being at least marginally vindicated - they may be blinded by arrogance but when they're onto you, you'd better have a backup plan - and it's met by howls of protest? For me it's important that the good guys show real capability. Since the Jedi haven't shown much in the PT (as it concerns Palpatine, anyway) this scene is a step toward respectability again. Otherwise OT lore like "the Force is a powerful ally" and "Not stronger - quicker, easier, more seductive" are rendered meaningless.

Plus I really, really don't like invincible bad guys. I have no respect for them. They don't have to earn their victories. Show me a character who overcomes a weakness - hero or villain - and you've got my interest. Show me someone who has no weakness whatsoever except some unspecified prophecy, and I'm going to hope the action scenes are interesting enough to make up for it.


I don't really follow this thinking, though it does seem common. There's this notion that Vader serves Palpatine simply because he doesn't want to get his ass kicked. Which I think is a greater disrespect to both Vader and the Emperor than anything Mace Windu might do. Vader's weakness isn't a lack of power but an overreliance on power. Palpatine's strength isn't overwhelming power but the ability to exploit people's lust for power. This is infinitely more interesting than "I'd kill the Emperor but he'd wipe the floor with me, so I'd better serve him." Palpatine is a manipulator. His actual power in combat is almost of no consequence.


Fair enough. Thanks for the explanation. Personally I'm going off of Ternian's comments. Had he said Palpatine was faking the whole thing, I'd've accepted it and moved on. In fact I was as surprised as anyone that Lucas chose to have Mace actually win the saber duel.

And for the record, taku, I wasn't unloading on you but on the countless posts I've read in the last few days with that viewpoint. Didn't mean to make it sound like an attack, sorry if it did.

I think you will find that it is you who are mistaken, about a great many things.

I've never put Palpatine up on anything resembling a godly pedestal. Sure, I like the character, but no more than any other character from the SW films. The fact of the matter is that Lucas has stated that save for Anakin (pre-Vader), Palpatine is the most powerful being in the universe. A lightsaber does not make a Jedi. If you honestly think Palpatine fell to his knees and surrendered to Windu because his saber was cut in two, then you're in serious denial. I think most people would agree that if Palpatine wanted to bring Mace down with the Force, then he surely could have.



Not a problem. I know where you're coming from.

Tern, clear things up here, please. Does Mace just flat out best Palpatine, or are things not as they seem?

Sounds like to me the movie might keep it pretty open-ended on to whether Sidious is faking or not.

One of Sidious's objectives in baiting Mace to his office was to complete Anakin's turn. Therefore, it would seem like to me when he sees Anakin in the office, his main objective is to play the puppet master role and have Anakin attack Mace.

So even if Sidious is faking his collapse or not is almost irrelevant, what is important is that he's trying to turn Anakin for good here, and ultimately it's Anakin's choice.

It's a mirror of the scene in Jedi where Palpatine leaves himself open for attack from Luke. He was drawing him to give into his anger and take the easy way out, knowing full well that he's in no real danger.

Hit the nail on the head.

If he misjudges Anakin's psyche at that point, there would be some danger.... namely, his head tumbling down to the Coruscant mean streets.

But the comparison is obviously there, yeah.

Well his overconfidence is his weakness.

But I'm sure if it got to the point where it seemed that Anakin wasn't going to intervene, he would have defended himself from Mace's strike.

Agreed. It really wouldn't make much sense for SIdious to fall on his knees, unable to get up, just because Mace fends off his lightning.

In both cases, here in ROTS and in ROTJ, he knew his Anakin/Vader would be a good puppet and intervene.

Mace owns Sidious up until "WAIT!" Problem is, Mace is caught within a bigger trap of Sidious'. With Mace about to kill Sidious, its nothing more that Palpatine using Anakin's fear to lure him to the Dark Side.

So is the implication here that using Force lightning at such high power disfigures Palpatine? Or that he had a facade that slipped because his resources were poured into the lightning? I'm not sure I understand.

I'm pretty sure it's just the facade slipping. If he was using force lightning at such an incredible manner that it ruined his visage, Mace wouldn't be able to deflect it with just a saber

All points indicate Sidious to being quite old thanks to whatever he learned from Plagueis, and he's been hiding that until this moment.

I hope that the film kinda clears up whether Palps was faking it (maybe the novelization) but I have the feeling fans will be arguing this one for a long while.. IMHO, It would work better dramatically if the audience could just see how close the galaxy was to not being ruled by a dictator. If only Mace could have just killed Palps. The lives that are lost, nothing could ever bring that back. Mace is kinda punked by Anakin i think. I would have liked to have seen a Anakin/Palps vs Mace duel rather then Fried Mace by Chef Sids. Is it fucking May yet??? Huge Spoilers last week or so. Thank You MF!