Star Wars Episode III

I watched part of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith the other day, as I was illegally... err, I mean, as I was legally backing up my friend's DVD of it. Not only is the final battle scene between Anakin and Obi-Wan which Dr. Ogden showed us in class a great allusion to Paradise Lost, and the notion of corruptio optimi est pessima, but there are so many others it's just not even fair! You don't even realize man...! Ahem, it's late, I'm not gonna be very academic here.

Ok, so about 15 min into the film Anakin is about to fight Count Dooku (ok, what kind of dumbass name is 'Dooku' anyway, geez George Lucas, get it together. don't get me started on 'Jar-Jar-Binks'...) and he says something to the effect, "I'm twice as powerful as last time we met/duelled with our cool lightsabres!" To this, the Count replies, "Ah, twice the pride, twice the fall.... young grasshopper!" And they fight, and it's cool, and yeah. I don't think I even need to explain that allusion, wow. So, further on, when the Jedi council dudes decide to make little Anakin an honorary member of their council, w/o elevating him to the prestigious (and wicked-cool) title of Jedi-Master, he's like totally pissed right off man. He looks like he's gonna go all angry-Sith-Lordish on their asses, but good ol' Obi-Wan calmes him down. Point is, his ambition and pride totally start to take over at this point, and it's all too easy for that scary emperor guy to corrupt him fully to the dark side. He doesn't use any force, it's all guile/deception. Oh yeah, and I really like how Emperor Palpatine used the idea of saving Padme's life by using the dark side to tempt and lure Anakin. He preyed on Anakin's love for Padme, the one thing that might have kept him on the light side of the force. I have to hand it to lil' Georgy on this one, he came up with some good stuff there, what with Anakin desperately trying to save his one love's life (he'd do anything, evil kill little jedi kids), but tragically he causes her death, because he goes down a path that she can't follow: the path to the dark side. So tragic... so beautiful.

ANYWAY... I hope that I have managed to shed some light on this subject. The chosen one, who would restore balance to the force (ultimately he does, through his son Luke, but that's another movie, err, episode I suppose), who had the greatest potential for good in him, conversely had the greatest potential for evil as well. And it was brilliant, simply brilliant to have the Emperor use Anakin's love for Padme to turn him. Yeah I don't know if I'm advocating the awesome power of love here, or just enjoying reading my own words as I type them. You decide. It's 5am.