Was watching some fights scenes on Youtube and came across Palpatine's defeat and well..It was so unsatisfying...I wish Lucus would release an alternate scene where he's instead maybe Luke and Vader impale him together or something more dramatic. It was so anti-climatic. It was actually quite Humorous.. after like a 2min quadruple-take, vader just pick him up and toss him off the catwalk. He made it look like such an easy task, it's seems a little embarrassing it took so long to defeat him. Particularly because i'm aware of how powerful Sidious was. But the scene was like blowing out a candle in a sense.

Seems fine to me, both him and Vader had to die so...yeah. Edited March 10, 2014 by Wolfninjajedi

Seems fine to me, both him and Vader had to die so...yeah.

 

true.. but it was pretty lame. Most other sith lords are beheaded or impaled or something after an intense duel usually involving a couple jedi masters. But THE Sith lord gets plucked off a balcony?

 

weak..

true.. but it was pretty lame. Most other sith lords are beheaded or impaled or something after an intense duel usually involving a couple jedi masters. But THE Sith lord gets plucked off a balcony?

 

weak..

 

Not everyone can have a spectacular death.

I agree that someone as powerful as Sidious should have an epic battle that decides his fate, but I think it's fitting?

 

Like, it was completely unexpected and trivial. He'd spent a lifetime amassing his power only to be killed by the simplest of things/ways.

 

Just the other day I was imagining how a mighty Sith Lord might fall to the whims of nature, perhaps through a heart attack or something. Imagine he died that way.

true.. but it was pretty lame. Most other sith lords are beheaded or impaled or something after an intense duel usually involving a couple jedi masters. But THE Sith lord gets plucked off a balcony?

 

weak..

 

So intense violence = epic? Thrown off a balcony by his apprentice is about as epic as you can get, because Palpatine's death wasn't the point of that scene. It was Darth Vader's redemption. Palpatine's death was just a pleasant side effect.

I agree that someone as powerful as Sidious should have an epic battle that decides his fate, but I think it's fitting?

 

Like, it was completely unexpected and trivial. He'd spent a lifetime amassing his power only to be killed by the simplest of things/ways.

 

Just the other day I was imagining how a mighty Sith Lord might fall to the whims of nature, perhaps through a heart attack or something. Imagine he died that way.

 

 

rofl star wars as we know it would implode if the great Darth Sidous died a heart attack. I'd LOL. but suffice to say, yea that would be way more lame.

So intense violence = epic? Thrown off a balcony by his apprentice is about as epic as you can get, because Palpatine's death wasn't the point of that scene. It was Darth Vader's redemption. Palpatine's death was just a pleasant side effect.

 

not necessarily Intense violence. For example Nomi Sunrider Stripped Kun from the Force and severed his connection. Which not only would have made a very epic scene but for most sith that would be a fate even worse than death and absolutely fitting for Sidious. I don't think it was a particularly violent process but i don't believe it was described as such.

 

granted i'll give you that.. yes the scene was more about Vader and Luke but they shouldn't just "oh by they way supreme dark overlord got tossed to the side..."

Edited March 10, 2014 by jaytdasme

not necessarily Intense violence. For example Nomi Sunrider Stripped Kun from the Force and severed his connection. Which not only would have made a very epic scene but for most sith that would be a fate even worse than death and absolutely fitting for Sidious. I don't think it was a particularly violent process but i don't believe it was described as such.

 

granted i'll give you that.. yes the scene was more about Vader and Luke but they shouldn't just "oh by they way supreme dark overlord got tossed to the side..."

 

Ulic Qel-Droma. Exar Kun was imprisoned on Yavin 4 by a massive Wall of Light.

Malgus got the shaft as well

 

I admit it was an homage to palps but still...

Ulic Qel-Droma. Exar Kun was imprisoned on Yavin 4 by a massive Wall of Light.

 

Yeah, kinda sad right?

 

Remember Naga Sadow? He just ran away and died of old age... Or what about Plagueis, stabbed in his sleep...

Edited March 10, 2014 by StarSquirrel

Thats the greatest part of Sidious' whole story line. he spent his life betraying the people closest to him, he engineered the slaughter of the Jedi's, he lived his entire life manipulating and plotting things behind the scenes. And when he believed he was about to finally eradicate the last threat, a return of a Skywalker, he was betrayed by the chosen the one, the boy he manipulated and turned him against his love and his friends. To see Anakins redemption like this is awesome, and i think it is particularly fitting than Sidious is helpless as the man closest to him, betrays him and throws him off the catwalk. quite ironic how he was powerless to stop Anakin too. it would have being much worse to see him beaten by somebody given the fact he has spent decades building his powerbase and removing all possible threats to him.

It's a fitting death for Sidious. After all, it's not like he wrested control of the Sith Order from his master after a long and spectacular battle. He simply killed him while he slept. it fits that he would be killed by something dumb like being thrown off a balcony.

Thats the greatest part of Sidious' whole story line. he spent his life betraying the people closest to him, he engineered the slaughter of the Jedi's, he lived his entire life manipulating and plotting things behind the scenes. And when he believed he was about to finally eradicate the last threat, a return of a Skywalker, he was betrayed by the chosen the one, the boy he manipulated and turned him against his love and his friends. To see Anakins redemption like this is awesome, and i think it is particularly fitting than Sidious is helpless as the man closest to him, betrays him and throws him off the catwalk. quite ironic how he was powerless to stop Anakin too. it would have being much worse to see him beaten by somebody given the fact he has spent decades building his powerbase and removing all possible threats to him.

 

^This

true.. but it was pretty lame. Most other sith lords are beheaded or impaled or something after an intense duel usually involving a couple jedi masters. But THE Sith lord gets plucked off a balcony?

 

weak..

 

If palpatine had lost a fight he would have been beaten like any other Sith Lord

 

The best thing here is that Luke was able to resist turning but was not able to defeat the emperor

 

No one bested palpatine in any fight ever, he was the ultimate bad guy

 

It took betrayal to beat the betrayer

Edited March 11, 2014 by kirorx

If palpatine had lost a fight he would have been beaten like any other Sith Lord

 

The best thing here is that Luke was able to resist turning but was not able to defeat the emperor

 

No one bested palpatine in any fight ever, he was the ultimate bad guy

 

It took betrayal to beat the betrayer

 

Idk i guess it makes sense. Script wise it seems like an okay end for him, just the execution seemed blah.. maybe if like at the last second as Vader approached, Palatine noticed him and turned 1 lightening hand towards him and vader using the last ounce of his force ability to repel the lightening and then proceed to "chuck" the sith lord.

Edited March 11, 2014 by jaytdasme

If palpatine had lost a fight he would have been beaten like any other Sith Lord

 

The best thing here is that Luke was able to resist turning but was not able to defeat the emperor

 

No one bested palpatine in any fight ever, he was the ultimate bad guy

 

It took betrayal to beat the betrayer

 

Mace beat him. And the ROTJ novel confirmed that Luke couldve killed Palpatine but he didnt as it wouldve completely turned him to the dark side.

Mace beat him. And the ROTJ novel confirmed that Luke couldve killed Palpatine but he didnt as it wouldve completely turned him to the dark side.

 

Mace gained the upper hand for a moment but he hardly "beat him" as he ended dead.

 

The only scenario where Luke kills Palpatine is either if Palpatine let's him so he would fully turn and he could take over Luke's body or if years later when he's a grand master he's strong enough to beat Palpatine (but just barely).

 

...Or if Luke would have just walked up behind him while Sidious was electrocuting someone and tossed him off a balcony...

Mace beat him. And the ROTJ novel confirmed that Luke couldve killed Palpatine but he didnt as it wouldve completely turned him to the dark side.

Yah no. On both accounts.

true.. but it was pretty lame. Most other sith lords are beheaded or impaled or something after an intense duel usually involving a couple jedi masters. But THE Sith lord gets plucked off a balcony?

 

weak..

 

I guess that you are of a younger generation ?

 

People of my generation (40+) are viewing movies differently than the post-MTV-generation, which has grownj up with a completely different style of movies.

 

You expect everything to be far more dramatic, because the MTV-style of movies have trained you to expect this.

Slow movies don'tg get any watchers nowadays, because EVERYTHING must be fast, furious and dramatic.

You'll be utterly bored by movies that got the Oscar 30 years ago ...

I guess that you are of a younger generation ?

 

People of my generation (40+) are viewing movies differently than the post-MTV-generation, which has grownj up with a completely different style of movies.

 

You expect everything to be far more dramatic, because the MTV-style of movies have trained you to expect this.

Slow movies don'tg get any watchers nowadays, because EVERYTHING must be fast, furious and dramatic.

You'll be utterly bored by movies that got the Oscar 30 years ago ...

 

Not true. I'm part of the younger generation as well, and the Palpatine-Vader-Luke scenes on the Death Star are my favorite moments in the entire Star Wars universe.

 

Oh, and look up this review from 1983:

The film's battle scenes might have been impressive but become tiresome because it's never certain who is zapping whom with those laser beams and neutron missiles. The narrative line is virtually nonexistent, and the running time, though only slightly more than two hours, seems longer than that of "Parsifal." [...] "Return of the Jedi," which has been rated PG ("Parental Guidance Suggested"), contains some battles that are more busy than violent and one death scene that evokes no emotional response whatsoever.

 

Which sounds surprisingly similar to your criticism of today's movies, but is about the very movie we are talking about.

 

Here is another negative review from that time, complaining that RotJ "renders the long-delayed character climaxes with a chilly indifference."

I don't want to say that back then everyone thought it was bad. Instead I purposefully took the two reviews with the lowest score to show that preferences differ. If one likes or dislikes this scene doesn't depend on when he or she grew up, but on personal preference.

So please don't overgeneralize.

 

 

(And now I can't resist to offer my two cents about this topic.)

 

I'd say from a dramatic perspective, Sidious isn't the Sith Lord in that scene. Vader is. He was the antagonist for all three movies and he gets the intense duel with Luke. A duel that extends from the physical level and becomes about falling to the dark side or returning to the light.

In all this, Sidious is more of a representation of the dark side than an individual character. The point of this scene was Vader rejecting the dark side. And I think throwing the Emperor down a bottomless pit fits that better than another long duel.

 

To some degree I can see your point. If you immerse yourself in Sidious (through Prequels and Expanded Universe material) it is a bit anti-climactic.

I guess that you are of a younger generation ?

 

People of my generation (40+) are viewing movies differently than the post-MTV-generation, which has grownj up with a completely different style of movies.

 

You expect everything to be far more dramatic, because the MTV-style of movies have trained you to expect this.

Slow movies don'tg get any watchers nowadays, because EVERYTHING must be fast, furious and dramatic. You'll be utterly bored by movies that got the Oscar 30 years ago ...

 

Right, people under 40 adore The Godfather series and list Rocky as among their favorites. Let's also not forget that A New Hope not getting Best Picture is considered one of the biggest snubs of all time and what started this huge franchise we all love. I guess people under 40 are too busy checking what they type for spelling mistakes to watch movies from 30+ years ago

 

MTV-style of movies? Do you mean like Bring It On? Or are you criticizing movie companies for taking advantage of advances in special effects technology? A New Hope was a huge example of raising the bar on special effects so let's not act like older movies didn't try to wow audiences and were just completely dependent on delivering a great story.

 

Anyway I was completely fine with Palpatine's Death in ROTJ as like someone previously said, the story is focused on Vader and once the prequels are thrown in the mix it is ironic that Palpatine's death comes at the hands of his trusted ally. Palpatine comes back later so his death here shouldn't be that big of a deal

Yeah, kinda sad right?

 

Remember Naga Sadow? He just ran away and died of old age... Or what about Plagueis, stabbed in his sleep...

 

True, true. The list of 'non-epic' deaths in Star Wars is pretty long.

I guess that you are of a younger generation ?

 

People of my generation (40+) are viewing movies differently than the post-MTV-generation, which has grownj up with a completely different style of movies.

 

You expect everything to be far more dramatic, because the MTV-style of movies have trained you to expect this.

Slow movies don'tg get any watchers nowadays, because EVERYTHING must be fast, furious and dramatic.

You'll be utterly bored by movies that got the Oscar 30 years ago ...

 

Actually i was quite content with the movie as a whole. (tho looking back now the effects are a tad cheezy but still entertaining). Just that one part annoyed me. In fact of the entire collection i actually fell asleep on episode 1. twice....

 

But you're right too some extent. The flow of the movies were quite a bit more story oriented than it was aesthetically pleasing and fast paced. (Luke blowing up the death star was fairly boring i must say even though it was a really big deal). I'd speculate that if technology (and Lucas's budget) were up to par with today's standards it, may not have been the case. which can probably be said about a lot of older movies. So it's not necessarily the case that the older generation like Story oriented, slow pacing more, it's just you didn't have much of an option and have movies cramming explosions in your face as an infant. I bet if i went back in time to the 70s and showed a group of people transformers it would blow thier mind. Ironically, my generation is a lot less impressed with the effects but really hope they have a decent story base or we trash it like we did with( transformers 2-3 which i kinda liked but got bad reviews.)

 

(And now I can't resist to offer my two cents about this topic.)

 

I'd say from a dramatic perspective, Sidious isn't the Sith Lord in that scene. Vader is. He was the antagonist for all three movies and he gets the intense duel with Luke. A duel that extends from the physical level and becomes about falling to the dark side or returning to the light.

In all this, Sidious is more of a representation of the dark side than an individual character. The point of this scene was Vader rejecting the dark side. And I think throwing the Emperor down a bottomless pit fits that better than another long duel.

 

To some degree I can see your point. If you immerse yourself in Sidious (through Prequels and Expanded Universe material) it is a bit anti-climactic.

 

Hmm good point.. this actually makes a ton of sense. I suppose the movie predates Palpatine's lore and build up and watching it before learning about how much of a big deal he was, wouldn't have as much of an impact. It was Luke and Vader's trilogy. I'm sure knowing what we no now, Lucas might not have brought down Sidious in his movie in the same exact fashion, even if you take present day effects and budget out of equation.

 

But it then creates a bit of a paradox... Showing Vader nearly effortlessly toss his Sith master like that really begs the question; why didn't he do that long ago? That couldn't possibly have been his only viable opening... Which pretty much forces the Sidious build up to be created and making him out to be such a bid badazz so he could in a sense, keep Vader on a leash. If Vader feared to challenge him, it would undoubtedly leave us to assume that Sidious is more powerful and thusly ending him they way he did still makes little since even if the newer data on Sidious is moot. Again, Your right.. not his movie, not about him.. but still... they could have done it better. lol

Edited March 12, 2014 by jaytdasme

But it then creates a bit of a paradox... Showing Vader nearly effortlessly toss his Sith master like that really begs the question; why didn't he do that long ago? That couldn't possibly have been his only viable opening... Which pretty much forces the Sidious build up to be created and making him out to be such a bid badazz so he could in a sense, keep Vader on a leash. If Vader feared to challenge him, it would undoubtedly leave us to assume that Sidious is more powerful and thusly ending him they way he did still makes little since even if the newer data on Sidious is moot. Again, Your right.. not his movie, not about him.. but still... they could have done it better. lol

 

There are some factors to consider as to why it was rather easy for Vader.

 

1. Palps was completely focused on torturing/killing Luke.

 

2. He thought Vader couldn't be turned from the darkside, so he had no reason to think that Vader was gonna turn against him.

Edited March 12, 2014 by Wolfninjajedi