“You missed the point when the clones killed the thousands of Jedi. The clones had no emotion and, therefore, an element of suprise which Jedi were unaccustomed to dealing with. In the end, the sole reason the clones could do what they did is through the extreme level of advantage gained through such a suprise attack. This point is illustrated well when Obi-Wan and Yoda are slicing effortlessly through hundreds of clones on their way back to the temple in Episode 3.”
A couple of questions arise from that.
First, is he right? I mean, Jedi powers have some precognition in them, so why didn’t they sense that they were about to be blasted?
Second, if that’s true, how can it be undetectable without emotion? Anakin was able to fly those pods by sensing where rocks were gonna fall into his path, and Jedi’s have battled plenty of emotionless droids
Third, if he’s not correct, then why did the Jedi fall so quickly and easily to a bunch of guys who couldn’t hit Luke and Han’s crew with blasters when they were in almost point-blank range? It doesn’t make sense
1.) Indeed, the clones are difficult to read due to their [del]brainwashing[/del] training.
2.) The precognitive power of all Jedi was being weakened as Pappy gathered strength. The Jedi reference this in dialog.
Anakin was able to pilot his pod because he, like everyone strong in the Force, had some measure of precognitive power. But as I already pointed out, this power was being gradually muted by Paps. Jedi still possessed a bit of this power- otherwise they wouldn’t be able to block blaster shots, dodge rocks while podracing, etc. But suffice it to say that their ability to see into the future was diminished (you can also fanwank it by saying that the cloud hanging over all the Jedi’s precog abilities was thickening, finally culminating right as Order 66 was given - makes sense to me).
The other way that they’d be able to tell they were about to be betrayed would be to sense the emotion (apprehension? guilt? doubt? - You’d expect something to be going on in the head of someone who’s just be ordered to kill his commanding officer) of their would-be murderers. The clones lacked this and as a result it was impossible to tell that they were about to betray the Jedi. Their mental state was exactly the same from one moment to the next, from sitting around chilling to suddenly attacking.
I believe that in the very good ‘order 66’ scene, a number of the about to be massacred Jedi did feel that something was up, albeit at the last minute. They were also horribly outnumbered in every case. The final battle in Episode 2 demonstrated how vulnerable Jedi can be to large numbers of massed troops.
The clones did not know they were about to be given the order, there was nothing to read. And once given, since they were so battle hardened, they probably felt little recognizable emotion.
And the Jedi were too trusting, attached to their clone troops and not mindful of their surroundings. Yoda was mindful and not at all surprised. Obi-Wan probably didn’t know where the shot came from, but it missed him and hit his mount and by the time he hit the water he was being mindful.
Also, Storm Troopers are not Clone Troopers. At some point during the clone wars, the cloning facilities at Kamino were destroyed, so the Empire had to start conscripting troops.
I read something explaining that this was why Storm Troopers were such bad shots. Apparently its quite common in combat for soldiers to be very reluctant to kill, and this is even worse if they are conscripts, so often the storm troopers were missing on purpose. The rebels didn’t have this problem, as storm troopers all wore helmets, so they were effectively de-humanized. Neither did the clone troopers, as they were bred for killing.
There are only a couple of scenes that I recall a Jedi being completely caught unaware and shot in the back - and that one had them (the entire squad) on hwat appeared to be a mission where the Jedi’s mind was focused on the enemy - not on those they considered ally.
In all the other scenes that I recall, the Jedi went down in a blaze of glory.