Yoda was inscrutiable through the whole prequel trilogy. He didn’t seem at all surprised at anything that happened, and even calmly announced at the end that he was going into exile, like that was the plan all along. He never seemed stunned that all the evil of ROTS took place, but at the same time didn’t do anything about it. Gollum showed that realistic looking CGI characters can show emotion, and I think they really screwed up by not letting Yoda show any.
I liked the idea of prolonged dark side use withering the body of the Emperor, and it seemed in ep 2 that this was the direction Lucas was going in. But then in ep 3 he gets his ROTJ form in a matter of minutes, and doesn’t seem at all surprised! I would have thought that he’d be at least a little upset that he’d gone from looking like a regular guy to looking monstrous so quickly, evil guy or not!
I was also disappointed that they both used lightsabers. I sort of got the idea from the original trilogy that once you got to be a Jedi Master you didn’t need one any more. Yoda can move spaceships with his mind, the Emperor can shoot lightning, why do they need swords? I saw it as (forgive the Matrix quote) not needing to dodge bullets. I was envisiaging the fight between Yoda and the Emperor being something like the final telekinetic fight in Dark City, not the powerball vs old man/cgi backflipper that we got.
Jedi aren’t supposed to have emotions, remember? Although I thought he looked pretty upset when “Plan 66” was going into effect and he could feel all the jedi being killed.
I thought the “Into exile, I must go” line was pretty contrived and awkward. Exile is a word narrators use, not the people actually doing it!
I may be wrong on this - it’s happened once or twice before - but didn’t Emperor Butthead look all wrinkled on the holograms from the first two prequels. I thought that he just cloaked his appearance and let it slip in the Windu fight to show how badly he was “losing.”
Also, it took Yoda some time and concentration to move the X-Wing. Doing that sort of thing in a fight is somewhat impractical.
“Hit me you must not, for preparing to kick your buttcracks I am.”
I always pictured Yoda as being like the martial arts guys who never fight, because they’re just so damned good that they only need one blow to drop an opponent. (And I don’t understand why Yoda went to go fight the Emperor. It seemed like his plan at that point was to cut and run, so why waste time putting your life at risk when you haven’t had time to fully asses the situation?) So, I didn’t get in AotC or RotS Yoda dueling with the lightsabres. Of course, I can’t see too many people in the audience being thrilled with Yoda making quick work of Dooku or the Emperor with just a single quick lightsabre move, while the Emperor and Dooku flail around, trying to make Yoda sushi.
As for the Emperor’s appearance, I had figured when we saw his hideousness in RotJ, that he looked that way because he was really frickin’ old and that he’d been using the Force to keep himself alive, long after his body should have died from old age. That being the opposite of what the Jedi do, when it becomes time for them to go: They become one with the Force since they’re not interested in the material aspects of existence, while the Sith are totally focused on the material aspects of existence and they do everything they can to remain alive, since they haven’t yet figured out how to take their Death Stars with them in the afterlife.
I hijacked my own thread a bit regarding this and while no definitive answer came up a few options seem reasonable.
Remember Darth Sidious (Palpatine) is a Sith Lord. He did not get there by not ever using the Dark Side and as mentioned he is pretty old. I think it is safe to assume he used it plenty of times. We only see him use it in RotS but he did not uglify himself just on that one use. Also remember Mace Windu reflects the dark lightning back onto Sidious in their fight so more was going on than here than the Emeror’s mere use of the Dark Side. So, Sidious was either already fugly and had a disguise on and the reflected dark lightning melted it off or Sidious lets it drop as he needs more force energy to protect himself (and then just never bothers to put the disguise back on as the gig is up anyway). Or, the reflected Dark Lightning itself had that effect on him. We never see Dark Lightning do that to anyone else though but perhaps it was the Emperor’s own lightning going back at him that had some weird effect coupled with a very extended jolt no else we ever see gets.
As for Yoda and Sidious going mano-y-mano with lightsabers rather than using the Force remember that good Jedi cannot use the force offensively…only defensively. Yoda even says something to that effect in one of the movies. As such you would never see Yoda flinging force powers at anyone…even a Sith Lord. Further, Sidious does try to fry Yoda but it doesn’t work against Yoda and as far as I know dark lightning is the only real overt force attack power. When that does not work they are left to duke it, man vs. muppet, with lightsabers. Of course, lightsaber fighting requires use of the force but it is subtle and they can do things like force push each other down and Sidious force throws big things at Yoda but the lightsaber is where it is really at for two Jedi fighting. In AotC Dooku tries to fry Yoda as well and same thing happens…Yoda sucks it up. Dooku then tells Yoda that clearly they cannot fight using force powers so they will have to opt for a lightsaber duel.
I forgot Vader’s choking trick although I’d think that is just a clever application of telekinesis than a specific force power. I wonder why we never see him use dark lightning?
I dunno… when I was watching the movie, and it might have just been me, or the fact that I was watching it on an IMAX or something, but it seemed like when Yoda got hit with force lightning he turned older-looking also? Maybe it was just me, but it really truly seemed that way. He became more crinkled, etc. Did anyone else notice this?
Because Lucas hasn’t gotten around to adding it to the OT, but don’t worry, in a few years, when Lucas releases the Uberdeluxe, Special Edition, the Way he Really, Really, Intended the Films to Look, Honest! Editions, it’ll be added in. Not only will Vader use Force lightning instead of choking the doubting thomas on the DS, but he’ll walk by leviatating on writhing masses of force lightning. Oh, and all lightsabres and blasters will have turned into walkie talkies and Nerf guns. On the plus side, Han shoots first, but it doesn’t really matter since all Greedo get’s is a Nerf bullet stuck in his quills.
I was sort of expecting Yoda to be a bit like Vader in ESB where he didn’t bother using his lightsaber to block Han’s blaster but used his hand instead, then pulled the gun away. I would have like Yoda to be like that but even moreso.
As for not using his powers offensively, he didn’t seem to have a problem pushing the two guards back in to the wall hard enough to knock them out – that’s similiar to how I thought he should have handled ALL the fights he got in, especially with the clone troopers.
I sort of get the feeling in retrospect that Lucas thought he was too goofy in ESB and went overboard to make him solem and wise in the prequels, but this just robbed him of all emotion and stopped him being an interesting character. Either that or ILM need to take serious lessons from the Gollum facial animators!
The best comment on the film I’ve seen is that Lucas is just tired of making movies and wanted to get this over with. That pretty much explains everything, IMHO.
I thought that I read in another thread here(I know, that doesn’t narrow it down much) that Vader couldn’t use the force lightning because he didn’t have real hands anymore, just robotic ones.
IIRC, he did use it in RotJ (and Luke aka Lefty, might have as well), however, since I’ve only got the Crayola editions of the films (and RotJ ain’t that great of a flick, anyway), I’m sooooo not rewatching the film to find out.
No, not at all. I haven’t seen RotJ in a while, but I’m confident neither one did. It was very obviously an Emperor-only thing to demonstrate just how powerful he is. Vader tended to make use of telekinesis a lot: the force-choking, throwing debris at Luke, and throwing his saber at the catwalk to drop it on Luke in the final RotJ fight, which must have required some Force control. Luke, on the other hand, was all about enhancing physical prowess and only attacked with the lightsaber.
I’ll take your word for it. I might simply be remembering the effect of the Emperor’s lightning flashing around the various combatants. Something similar to force lighting was used by Luke in Splinter of the Mind’s Eye but it’s not strictly canon, so it probably doesn’t count.
My guess is your confusion comes from when Vader picks up the Emperor to toss him into the chute-thingy. Sidious was blasting Luke with lightning and when Vader picks him up the lightning starts zapping Vader. Since Vader was holding on to Sidious the lightning seemed to wreathe the both of them but I think Sidious was the source of it all. Vader just wanted to throw him down the pipe.