Finest Star Wars episode, and Greek tragedy

Rating: 10/10 (1 July 2005)

Everybody knows, this is the downfall of Anakin Skywalker. But George Lucas has really reached his goal of making Anakin a very human character. Only Padmé and Luke (on Episode VI) feel that there's still good in him. Obi-Wan fails to see it, and one wonders what would have happened if Qui-Gon Jinn had trained him instead. Those who have read the excellent Episode I novelization, are aware that a Jedi can be atuned to two different ways of sensing the Force. One, the Living Force, that makes you a compassionate, empathic person, always attuned to the needs of those around you. The other, the Unifying Force, makes you aware of something greater than individual forms of life, and makes you serve this greater-than-the-universe Force even sacrificing individual beings in the process. As you know from Episode I, Obi-Wan was more atuned to this way of seeing the Force, in opposition to his Master, who was specially "mindful of the Living Force", as undoubtedly, Anakin is. A sensitive person is more easy to succumb to the evils that constantly ail us, by the same thing that Anakin calls "compassion". That is the key to Anakin's character, and Darth Sidious knows it. Everyone would recall Yoda telling Luke in Episode V that, to honor what they friends fight for, maybe he has to sacrifice their lives. That is something that, like his father, he cannot do. But what is the little thing that catapults Anakin into the dark? A vision. Like Oedipus, by trying to avoid what is in his vision, he ends up provoking it himself, losing his identity in the process. Being "blind". "Revenge of the Sith" is also an interesting study on how politics really work and how a democracy can turn into something horrible when leaders only care for "unlimited power"... A heart-shattering tragedy not only for one man, but for an entire galaxy.