Secrets of the Force

by Edward Gross

  * * *

  For Ian McDiarmid, one of his favorite scenes in the making of Revenge of the Sith (and ours) was the one taking place at the Galaxies Opera House between himself and Christensen, which is more or less the seduction of Anakin Skywalker in which Lucas received an uncredited assist from playwright Tom Stoppard.

  HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN

  The toughest part was making the poignant transition scene believable, where Anakin and Palpatine make their pact to be allies—in a sense. That was the difficult one. For the most part, though, all the other evil doings that Anakin is involved in were more enjoyable than arduous. It was where I was looking to go in Episode II. Finally, George said, “All right, you’ve got free rein. Let it loose.” So it was not that challenging.

  IAN MCDIARMID

  (actor, “Emperor Sheev Palpatine”)

  Of all of my deliciously evil scenes, and there are many—I can’t think of one scene that isn’t deliciously evil—was when we go to the opera. The reason I liked doing that so much is that I’m a theater actor, too, but more than that, Hayden and I could really sit down and, from my point of view anyway, have an evil chat. And I think it’s one of the longest dialogue scenes in the whole saga. I was allowed to tell a story, so that was really exciting.

  KYLE NEWMAN

  (director, Fanboys)

  What’s interesting about the politics of Star Wars is the Emperor is fascinating as a character because he’s so patient—that’s how he rose to power. It just wasn’t pure, sinister, murdering people. He almost never uses the Force in the prequels. And the interesting thing about the Sith in the prequels—they always tell the truth when they’re in key positions, where the Jedi in the original trilogy are always lying. There are a lot of these really cool parallels. The scenes are almost hitting emotionally at the exact same timing as in their movie and the character’s mood, Anakin going through these parallels. So, there are these fascinating things the way Lucas applied it.

  GEORGE LUCAS

  Ian is the nicest, kindest, sweetest guy in the world. Nothing like the Emperor.

  HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN

  I think Ian McDiarmid is one of the greats. He does such a fantastic job of playing the puppeteer. Palpatine is very charmingly, but still very evilly pulling at all of Anakin’s strings, so to act opposite him was sometimes distracting. He would do a speech and suddenly I would break character, because I was in awe of him.

  IAN MCDIARMID

  Anakin has an appetite for power which he feels is being denied him as a Jedi. He believes his skills aren’t appreciated and that his talents aren’t being fostered in the way that, say, in earlier days his mentor Obi-Wan’s were fostered. And so he’s full of resentment and impatience, and these are qualities that Palpatine seizes on. He also detects in Anakin an appetite for power quite apart from his psychological flaws, and he feeds that. Palpatine completely exploits this young man. He’s always looking for a new apprentice and in this young man he finds the ideal. And then this thing happens—Anakin is badly wounded and scarred, and as a result of that, he becomes half-man and half-machine. That wasn’t, I don’t think, part of Palpatine’s plan. But as a great pragmatist, he’s able to take advantage of that and he gets something that’s even better than he hoped. Palpatine gets someone who’s half-human, but who’s now the perfect instrument of his will.

  HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN

  Anakin is much more battle-worn when we meet him in Episode III. He has really come into his own as well. Anakin has always been a conflicted character, but now even more so, as the stresses and anxieties of his life are really weighing on him. And he’s looking at his options. Hence the seduction to the dark side.

  IAN MCDIARMID

  The dark side is a big, potent power and it’s as strong as the power of light. The question is, Can it be resisted? And the conclusion at the end of the Star Wars films is, Yes, it can, but it isn’t easy. Resistance doesn’t happen without a great deal of pain, suffering, and soul-searching on all sides, and I think that’s fundamentally what George is saying in these movies. He’s saying it lies in wait for all of us. It’s so easy for people to persuade us—and it seems increasingly so these days—to surrender our freedom, our natural rights, our sense of morality and so on, and we need to be on our absolute guard to make sure we don’t capitulate.

  * * *

  Palpatine rechristens Anakin as Darth Vader. Once he does, the events the audience have been waiting for over the course of three movies begin to unfold. Now in full Darth Sidious mode, he contacts the clone troopers and instructs them to carry out Order 66, the trigger for the clones to assassinate the Jedi Knights. Palpatine then orders Darth Vader to go to the Jedi Temple and eliminate any knights remaining within. Vader complies and kills everyone—even the younglings.

  RAY MORTON

  Lucas crosses an unforgivable line when he shows Anakin murder a group of children. Yes, the action makes it clear that Anakin has truly become evil, but it is such a heinous act that it wipes away all vestiges of tragedy—Anakin is now just a monster and we hate him for it. Plus, it’s just a repellent thing to present to viewers in what is supposed to be a mainstream entertainment, as well as a horrible traumatic sequence to include in a movie series that Lucas frequently claims is made for little kids. Disney this sure ain’t. Finally, it makes it much more difficult for us to celebrate Anakin’s redemption at the end of Return of the Jedi, because it’s hard to feel happy that a guy has regained his soul after we’ve watched him commit poli-infanticide.

  PETER HOLMSTROM

  (cohost, The Rebel & the Rogue podcast)

  You have to remember, Star Wars was Vietnam in space. The heroes become the villains, the villains become the heroes—and Lucas is trying to say there’s a path down the middle which is the key to enlightenment. Balance. But this isn’t the film that shows you that—this is the film that shows you the opposite of that. The midpoint in the six-part film.

  So, Anakin kills children. Yeah. American soldiers killed children during the Vietnam War. Were they heroes or villains? Soldiers throughout history have done terrible things in every conflict. Do you think those people were monsters from birth? Killing puppies with barb wire and [censored] into their mother’s skull? Sorry, it’s not that simple. They loved and were loved, they laughed, they cried, they felt the spectrum of human emotions, and they were coerced to believing that killing children and doing terrible things was the right thing to do.

  In the beginning of the film, Anakin’s hero persona is hit when his mentor, Palpatine, tells him to kill Dooku in cold blood. “He’s too dangerous to be kept alive.” He knows it’s wrong, but he does it. (Unlike Luke.) Then, at the end of act 2, that line is mirrored by Mace Windu. Palpatine is now too dangerous to be left alive. The keepers of peace, who only use the Force for defense, never for attack, are about to murder. Lucas’s thesis was always that if you only ever strive to do good, you end up becoming an agent of evil. The Jedi had become agents of war, not keepers of the peace. They attacked, they didn’t defend. Luke is presented with the same conundrum in Return of the Jedi, where his mentors tell him the ends justify the means, and he must murder his father. He denies this, and embraces compassion and love over hate. Anakin doesn’t—and in the moment of attacking the Jedi Temple, he becomes like the soldiers in war, doing “what needs to be done” to establish peace. He sees the Jedi as murderers and traitors, and he does what he must to establish peace. It’s Hobbes-ian philosophy fulfilled, which is exactly what Vader always was.

  That’s not to say Lucas was saying Anakin was right to kill children. It’s unpleasant to watch—it should be. Vader is a monster and you see him, both physically and metaphorically, become a monster. But he’s also reflecting the world around him. Mace Windu was a murderer, the Jedi had abandoned their ways, and Anakin was lost. But like a symphony, this moment is meant to be reminiscent of the moment in Return of the Jedi: Luke, too, had to choose between mentors—to kill or to let his friends die. Luke f
inds a third option, which is why he is the first to live within Lucas’s main theme of the films, which is like the Buddhist form of Nirvana: “There is no pure right, there is no pure wrong, there is a middle, gray path that must be walked.”

  * * *

  After the Jedi have been eliminated, Palpatine sends Vader to the volcanic planet of Mustafar to kill the leaders of the Separatist movement, who are no longer of use to Palpatine. In the meantime, Palpatine appears before the Senate and declares himself galactic emperor. His declaration is greeted by cheers and clapping from the senators, half of whom are corrupt and half of whom have been easily duped. This leads Padmé to utter one of the best lines in the series: “So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause.” Given the current state of our world in 2020 under Donald Trump and a corrupt and clueless Republican Senate, this line has even more resonance now than it did in 2005.

  Yoda and Obi-Wan are the only two Jedi who survive the massacre. Quickly realizing that Anakin has turned to evil, Yoda orders a reluctant Obi-Wan to confront and destroy Vader. The thought of this devastates Obi-Wan, but he knows it must be done. He goes to Padmé and tells her the news. She can’t believe it and denies knowing where Anakin is. Soon after, Padmé travels to Mustafar to find her husband. Unbeknownst to her, Obi-Wan has stowed away on her ship. Arriving on Mustafar, Padmé reunites with a power-mad Anakin/Vader, now fully consumed by the dark side and already plotting to overthrow the Emperor so he can rule the galaxy himself. Padmé realizes that Obi-Wan was right and that Anakin has turned into someone she no longer knows and can no longer be with. At this point, Obi-Wan reveals himself. Convinced Padmé has betrayed him by bringing Obi-Wan to Mustafar, an enraged Vader uses the Force to choke his wife into unconsciousness. Obi-Wan then confronts Vader and the two begin an epic lightsaber duel. Each combatant brings their best to the duel, but Obi-Wan ultimately gains the advantage (he has the high ground) and severs Anakin’s legs. This leaves the nascent Sith helpless on the bank of the lava flow as the molten liquid gradually engulfs him. Anakin’s body catches fire as Obi-Wan sadly walks away.

  ROB COLMAN

  The volcano world where their battle takes place is amazing. That was mostly about combining the environment and the actors, Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor. There was some animation, some effects shots where we animated stunt doubles, but that was it. To sit there in the theater and watch those beautiful shots was fantastic.

  JONATHAN RINZLER

  There were sets, and there were tons of models on Revenge of the Sith. ILM was functioning full-throttle for that film—not just for the digital side, but for the model side. Then they had the whole lava planet, which was created using mostly a huge miniature, which took up the whole ILM soundstage, and that was something to behold. We would all meet outside two times a week to go in for dailies, and sometimes the door would open and we’d see them working. It started as just this huge blob of material, and every couple of days it would look more and more like a lava planet. And then it was actual flowing lava—it wasn’t real lava, it was some red milkshake substance—but still, it was incredible. Lorne Peterson was part of the team, hacking away at Styrofoam—the same guy who was doing it in 1975. All the stops were pulled out for that film.

  STEPHEN SCARLATA

  (cohost, Best Movies Never Made podcast)

  I think that’s why the effects largely hold up for those films. He was using miniatures and effects together.

  JONATHAN RINZLER

  John Knoll, who was the visual effects supervisor for those films, said many times, “When you’re doing visual effects, you have to use every trick in the book.” If it makes sense to build a set, you build a set. If it makes sense to build a miniature, you build a miniature. You don’t throw away all these tools people spent decades perfecting, just because you could do it digitally. Because often, it won’t look that good digitally. And if it doesn’t look that good, the audience subconsciously detaches from the movie, because they’re just watching an animated movie.

  KYLE ROWLING

  (fight director, Revenge of the Sith)

  In all honesty, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Choreography and rehearsal for Episode III was three months in total. Ten-hour days, six days a week, and Hayden and Ewan were both there from almost the very beginning. Both of them wanted to work on the fights as much as possible. The most important thing for everyone involved—[stunt coordinator] Nick Gillard, Hayden, Ewan, and myself included—was that this fight really told the story of what was going on inside their characters’ hearts and minds.

  Both of the guys are incredibly talented, not just as actors, but their sword skills are amazing. That made them really easy to work with. They both learn choreography really quickly, and quite huge chunks of it, too, not just a few moves and cuts.

  HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN

  The lightsaber battle was only different from the one with Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones in the respect that Ewan and I were fighting each other, which was just too much fun for us. The battle itself was much more involved, because of the duration. It’s a very long duel that covers diverse geography. Not that we actually got to witness it because it was shot against a green screen. It’s every kid’s dream to fight with a lightsaber, and I don’t want to say Ewan and I got giddy, but we suddenly became six-year-olds as soon as we took up our lightsabers. We would make the sound effects and had a good time with it. So it was incredibly fun to fight against each other.

  NICK GILLARD

  (stunt coordinator, Revenge of the Sith)

  When I started out their final battle, I didn’t want there to actually be any hits at all. I wanted it to glide the whole time, where there wasn’t any time for them to move their sabers away from each other because they each knew what was coming next. You know, they’re reading these hits like in a chess match, three or four moves ahead. That’s how I saw it: someone fighting themself. Not only that, but you’re talking about the light and the dark here. This is Anakin; this is where he is going to go. So he’s technically fighting his own personality. His bad side is about to kill his good side through this fight, which is represented by Obi. And for Obi, even though he’s been sent there to kill him, he doesn’t want to do that. This is his boy; he loves him. I saw Obi just trying to absorb it long enough for Anakin to calm down.

  HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN

  The burn makeup was probably the toughest part, because it was a long process, in which they used a latex-like material. First they had to cast my body and then it was a big ordeal to get the burn suit right. Getting into it took a couple of hours, and getting out was a couple of hours as well. So it was time-consuming.

  RAY MORTON

  Because of the change in backstories from Star Wars to Jedi, the addition of Qui-Gon in Menace, and the often prickly nature of the relationship between Obi-Wan and Anakin in Clones, the exact nature of the personal conflict between Obi-Wan and Vader here is a bit fuzzy. Is this a fight between once good friends who have taken different paths? Between principled teacher and wayward pupil? A grudge match between an angry younger man and a mentor he has grown to resent? There’s a bit of all of it in the mix and so it’s never quite clear.

  What is clear is the emotional and physical nature of the duel—this is a titanic battle between light and dark, good and evil, Jedi and Sith—a fight across a river of lava upon which the fate of the galaxy depends. Wonderfully visualized and choreographed (allegedly with help from Steven Spielberg), this duel is the action highlight of the prequel trilogy.

  * * *

  After the fight, Obi-Wan takes Padmé to a hospital, where she gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl she names Luke and Leia, before—having “lost the will to live”—she dies. As Luke and Leia are being born, Vader is being reborn. Having somehow survived his dismemberment and immolation, Vader is rescued by the Emperor and permanently encased in a cybernetic body that also functions as a walking life-support system—a system he can never remove, lest he d
ie.

  RAY MORTON

  This is the film’s most horrifying moment, as well as the dark heart of the prequel trilogy. No matter how much sympathy one does or does not feel for Anakin at this point, the terrified look in his eyes as the iconic mask is lowered down over his face is heart-breaking. He seems to have finally realized what a dreadful mistake he has made as the helmet clicks into place with a sound reminiscent of the sealing of a tomb. The sight of the atmospheric smoke being displaced as the ventilator first exhales chills us to the bone—this truly is the sound of doom. Lucas then seals the moment by raising Vader up into a room that looks like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab from a 1930s Universal horror movie, which is most apt, since we have just witnessed the birth of a monster.