"OM" over at sci.space.history has a more plausible way for Anakin to turn (long thread--search the phrase "ROTS had its good points").

I haven't even read that far. I'm just thinking that they could have made an Airplane (the disaster movies that make up half the thread) movie (maybe taking place on an imperial star destroyer, of course) out of it with the novel twist that everyone dies. Just thinking, you know?

Finally got down to OM's message (it's #88 BTW). I won't spoil OM's take, but my take is that Lucas was trying for some sort of moral lesson. Namely, if a good guy like Anakin can turn to evil willingly, then anyone can. Seems to fit with some of the Holocaust-like symbolism that you often see in the Star Wars series.

I have to say that Lucas should have gotten some assistance because Anakin's turning wasn't credible. I think this could have been a relatively meaty film like "The Empire Strikes Back".

The one thing I found to be most unbelievable about ROTS was when Obi Wan has Anakin beaten, legless and severely burned over his body... he just walks away and leaves him. If Obi Wan really cared for Anakin he would have finished him off rather than leave him to die a slow and agonizing death. A more believable, for me, scenario would be for Obi Wan to have seen Anakin fall to what he presumed to be certain death before leaving. Only after Obi Wan departs would the audience see that Anakin has actually, via some miraculous circumstance, survived the fall Obi Wan witnessed.

Bah. Anakin wasn't turned - he was ALWAYS the good guy.

The republic was heading for collapse; The senate was worse than useless - it's only recent act of leadership and decision making was to vote in a dictator. The Jedi were inept and useless, unable to spot a Sith lord right in front of them, or add two and two together to connect the civil war to the dictator it resulted in.

At least the new dictator would rule decisively, and prevent the collapse, and the loss of billions of lives on thousands of worlds it would cause. With his position near the top, Anakin could work within the system.

It's why he belittled the Death Star as a "technological toy" right from day one. It's why he took a dive and allowed Luke to destroy the Death Star - reappearing as the only survivor in a fighter that obviously still worked fine.

It's why, when he was overseeing construction of the 2nd Death Star, the Ewoks weren't afraid of humans. They lived right next to a major Empire military installation, and did not learn to fear it.

If you want to see evil, look at the rebels. They show up on the forest moon, encounter the Ewoks, and the first thing they do is claim to be gods. As the Ewoks' new gods, they have the Ewoks attack the military installation - storm troopers with blasters, fortifications and walking tanks - using only spears and rocks. It was like Hamas sending Palestinian kids to throw rocks at an Israeli outpost, and whipping up outrage when one of the kids gets hurt.

Finally, Anakin killed the Palpatine at the crucial moment when it would make a difference.

Make no mistake, Anakin was the good guy.

In case y'all haven't read David Brin's takes on Star Wars:

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/index.html
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_side/index.html
http://www.davidbrin.com/starwarsarticle1.html
http://www.davidbrin.com/starwarsarticle2.html

Here's a link to the post:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.history/msg/fd6525abe43334d3?

Anakin possessed by Dooku would be a deus ex machina solution of the first magnitude. Even George can write better than that.

"Even George can write better than that."

Uh ... no, by all existing evidence, he can't.

OTOH, there actually is some basis for it. Obi-wan and Qui-gon did come back as ghosts. If a Jedi can live on as a ghost and influence the living, why not a Sith? And since the Sith tend to be more direct in their methods, why not a direct possession rather than simply talking? It would accentuate the Emperor's evil, cavalierly destroying (he thinks) his new apprentice. It would make Anakin's hero-status believable, instead of the shallow and stupid way in which the movie actually has him turning. It would even counter another minor flaw -- after Palpatine's little monologue about the powers of the Sith, does anyone really believe the Jedi could discover a use for the Force that the Sith didn't already know about?

There are so many good plot mechanisms to turn Anakin that it's pointless to work them out. It really highlights Lucas' failure that of the plethora of such mechanisms, he couldn't find a single good one.

I remember David Brin semi-ranting as far back as an SF convention in Toronto in 1985 as to how Anakin's finally turning on the Emperor when his son's life was in danger, hardly made up for all the evil (and it appears we didn't know the half of it, back then) he'd committed before that moment.

All he (Brin) needed to do was think back to the rebel soldier on the blockade runner early in what's now Star Wars episode IV, and how Vader rather casually strangled the guy, to deny him any forgiveness...

I still think Luke was the chosen one not Annikan. I think he restored balance to the force because at the end of Jedi he is the only remaining user of the force and the only one who wasn't brainwashed by jedi/sith training as a toddler.

I also think the Jedi deserved what they got. They knew how dangerous the chosen one could be then (a) gave him as an apprentice to a brand new Jedi (b) left his mother in slavery knowing her future was his biggest fear (c) Ended the Sith movie with two Jedi Masters (Obi Wan and Yoda) against one active Sith (Palpatine) and still fled into swamps and deserts to hide for 20 years.

They were unworthy and I hope Yoda the quiter enjoyed eating swamp worms. Talk about letting the people down.