ROTS attempts to be a much more complicated film than most fans and analysis give it credit for - the degree to which it successfully communicates the ideas it’s slamming on the table is questionable, but there is a lot going on in this movie ideologically speaking. the bulk of what’s really interesting about the environment of the prequels happens in ROTS, because at the last second, lucas poured out every genuinely intriguing idea for the GFFA he’d ever had and then left everyone watching the film holding the bag, so to speak. and i won’t get into everything i think is pretty willfully ignored about ROTS in favor of flattening the story into something that’s more individually palatable, but one of the most interesting choices i think george lucas makes in that movie is how much he sidelines his main character.
this is a really intriguing choice, because it’s not common throughout the films. in TPM, anakin’s a force that’s moving the plot; he finds the wayward lost party from naboo, he offers them shelter, he gets them off tatooine, he ends the battle on naboo at the end of the film. he’s not just a character reacting to what he’s handed, he’s one of, if not the second most integral character to the plot of the film - he’s only behind palpatine in the racket of, “who pushed the plot forward more?” and palpatine happens to be the only reason anything in the prequels happens at all, so that’s saying something. in AOTC, anakin isn’t the plot-moving character he is in TPM, but he does push the plot; he leaves to rescue his mother, which sets up padme and anakin’s failed attempt to rescue obi-wan at geonosis, and he’s the one who tracks padme’s would-be-almost-assassin to that bar, therefore setting up the rest of the film’s plot. he’s not nearly as forceful as he is in TPM, but he’s present, pushing the film forward.
ROTS, in comparison, is really unique because of how little anakin actually does for most of it. anakin in ROTS is on the receiving end of the other characters in the film; palpatine orders him to kill dooku, so he does. palpatine asks for his presence in the opera, so anakin shows up. padme wants to continue to keep their relationship a secret, so anakin does. obi-wan tells anakin that the council wants him to spy on the chancellor, so anakin does. palpatine tells anakin he wants anakin to spy on the council, so anakin does. repeatedly, over and over, anakin is tugged through the contradictory, confusing decisions of the people in power around him, until that intense encounter between mace and palpatine where anakin still tries to split the difference; best of both worlds, the same way he’s been surviving the entire movie. palpatine lives, but he goes on trial for his crimes - he’s satisfied his devotion to palpatine, his devotion to the order, and his devotion to padme. anakin, entangled in a web of complicated loyalties he fails to navigate, disarms mace (heh) and then palpatine steps in and kills him, essentially caging anakin into his next choice; the sith.
it’s important that when anakin disarms mace, he doesn’t intend to kill mace. because the idea, like it has been for the entire film, is that anakin can’t choose. he doesn’t know what he wants to be, and he’s being pulled in three separate, distinct directions; he can run away with padme, he can be a jedi, he can be a sith. but what’s integral to anakin as a character is that he fails to choose. he disarms mace with the intent of stopping palpatine’s death, and instead what he ends up doing is help palpatine kill mace - cornered by that failure, and the looming, enormous weight of what palpatine wants from him, anakin sinks to his knees and offers palpatine anything, so long as padme doesn’t die. but that choice is a reaction to that perceived failure of mace windu. anakin didn’t run into the chancellor’s office intending to walk out a sith lord. it’s something that happened. anakin is in palpatine’s passenger seat. this is palpatine’s revenge, not anakin’s - anakin is an instrument palpatine uses to design his world, not an active participant… at least, not until anakin starts killing people.
that’s what makes the death of the younglings so chilling; it is the final, crushing payoff of watching anakin refuse to make a damn decision again, and again, and again. he’s killing children because someone told him to. the extent to which he is following and reacting to the characters around him has sent him to the absolute depths of humanity. “what are we going to do?” and anakin ignites his lightsaber, because anakin is only prepared to do what he’s told. throughout the prequels, in every film, you watch anakin back down further, and further, and further, until you finally see him at his darkest, doing what he’s been ordered, ceaseless and unstoppable. and that’s wonderful. 10/10 no notes. great job on the atrocities.
vader is no different in ANH; he spends the entire film at tarkin’s beck-and-call. but what’s really invigorating, and really interesting, is that he is the plot of ESB, he is the driving force of everything happening in that film. he’s the terrifying villain chasing the heroes across the galaxy, his shadow looming impossibly large over everyone; it’s the peak of anakin’s power-within-the-plot, because the vader of ESB is unshakeable and unsatisfied with anything and anyone that isn’t luke. lucas intentionally shows the viewer this terrifying version of vader who is doggedly chasing our heroes, who is ambitious, power-hungry and ready to destroy the emperor and seize power, lucas sets you on this precipice of oh god, how horrible will he be in the next movie, and then - he leaves you… holding the bag. because the vader of ROTJ is shoved, again, into the backseat.
vader in ROTJ is playing second fiddle. there is no film where it’s more clear that vader answers to a power higher than him; when the emperor lands on the second death star, vader walks nearly sideways, to keep palpatine in his sight. he stands in front of a throne that’s built into the set in such a way that it manages to make him look small. he’s questioned by the emperor and has to stand back - when luke surrenders to him and asks him to all but run away, vader’s response is that luke belongs to his master now, and then in the throne room, palpatine delivers one of the most chilling lines of the series, “you, like your father, are now mine.” vader’s narrative in the film becomes second to palpatine’s, his desire to fulfill palpatine’s vision the only thing that matters, up to and including handing the son he was so desperate to take for his own in ESB. whenever palpatine takes the reins of the plot, anakin fades - for all that it is anakin’s choices that could stop palpatine once and for all, every time palpatine is onscreen, anakin is too busy answering to palpatine to use any of that power. this is never more clear than the scene where palpatine actually dies; all vader does is walk up behind him, and throw him down a reactor shaft. it’s not a battle, and it’s barely an assassination. it is, physically, an easy achievement. it is also the only time in that entire film that vader does something, and it mirrors, in hideous relief, the moment in ROTS where anakin failed to do anything, and instead fell to his knees.
anakin at the end of each trilogy becomes a vector of other people’s actions until the final act, where he’s shoved forward into an action; and i think that’s kind of a great way to communicate his inner turmoil, where this normally incredibly impulsive character is reduced to hand-wringing, anxious pauses where the audience lingers on him, watching as he tries to muddle his way through the directions he’s pulled in. i like that. that was a good way to do it.
