So we’ve got this Palpatine guy, right? Upstanding Senator and now Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, but you and I both know he’s also secretly Darth Sidious, dark lord of the Sith and the true enemy of the prequel Star Wars movies. And the original trilogy. And apparently the sequel trilogy, too. But like… what is his plan? I get that he’s consolidating political power and will soon take over the galaxy, but all his Sith shenanigans have me scratching my head. Let’s examine that after I summarize Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.
Taking place ten years after Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Senator Amidala barely survives an assassination attempt. Good thing she has an army of stand-ins to die for her! But the threat posed by the Separatist movement vexing the Galactic Republic is real, so the Jedi duo of Obi-Wan and a now adult(ish) Anakin Skywalker (Mr. Hayden Christensen) are picked to help her. Anakin is hopelessly in love with Padmé, something that seems to annoy her–at least, until they both share their hidden feelings later on. Obi-Wan looks into one of the assassination attempts and is pointed towards the planet Kamino, of which all traces have been deleted in the Jedi records. Leaving Anakin with Padmé and trusting him to do the right thing (big mistake), Kenobi travels to Kamino and finds a clone army that apparently had been commissioned by the Galactic Republic and Jedi Sifo-Dyas, who Obi-Wan realizes was dead at the time after doing the math. The clones are all based on the bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison), who only asked in return for an unmodified and younger clone of himself, Boba Fett (Daniel Logan). Hey, I recognize that name! Following these threads leads Obi-Wan to get captured on the planet Geonosis by the apparent Separatist leader, Count Dooku (Sir Christopher Lee), a former Jedi turned Sith.
Meanwhile, Anakin continues to hit on Padmé while revealing he’s been having nightmares of his mother in extreme pain. The pair travel to Tatooine and find out that Shmi had been sold to a moisture farmer named Clieeg Lars (Jack Thompson), father of Owen Lars (Joel Edgerton). We’re told that she was freed and fell in love with the man who bought her. Sure. Anyway, Shmi was captured by Tusken Raiders a month ago and is presumed dead, but they for some reason kept her alive for… reasons, I’m sure. Don’t think about that too hard! Not that it matters, as she dies immediately after Anakin finds her. He kills all the Sand People in a rage; even the women and children! But that outburst–and him saying he thinks a dictatorship would be beneficial to the galaxy–doesn’t stop Padmé from falling for him. They learn Obi-Wan is in trouble and go to rescue him, but also get captured. Thankfully the rest of the Jedi order comes to rescue them, but even they are horribly outnumbered against the Separatist army. That is until Yoda appears with his clone army! But wait, wasn’t Padmé’s whole thing at the beginning–besides surviving assassination attempts–that she didn’t want to authorize an army to support the Jedi against the Separatists? Well just like leaving Anakin with no supervision was a bad idea, leaving Jar Jar in a position of power led to him giving Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers, which allowed the army to be put to use. Our heroes try to fight Dooku, but he cuts off Anakin’s hand. Lot of that going on in these movies, huh? CG Yoda steps in but the Sith escapes along with plans of a super weapon that we know to be the Death Star. While the Jedi ponder Dooku’s declaration that a Sith controls the Senate–way to rat your boss out, idiot–Anakin and Padmé are secretly married. I’m sure it’ll work out for those crazy kids.
Man, Palpatine is sure going about his evil plans in the most roundabout ways. I was planning on covering this in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, but his plans really start with Anakin. The current Marvel Star Wars comics are considered canon–certainly helps with Disney owns both franchises–and in Darth Vader #25 (2019), the titular Vader goes on a sort of dream quest where he sees Palpatine sinisterly lurking behind a vision of a pregnant Shmi, with evil swirls of energy in her belly. Sure, it’s not 100% confirmed, but that’s pretty concrete evidence–along with Palpatine’s speech about Darth Plagueis the Wise and his ability to create life in Revenge of the Sith–that Palpatine used the Force to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin. And then he… left the kid on Tatooine? Was Palpatine ever even on the planet? Qui-Gon Jin was convinced meeting Anakin was meant to happen, but was that orchestrated by Palpatine, too? Qui-Gon only stopped on Tatooine because his ship was damaged, which Palpatine had no direct hand in. So was his plan to pick up Anakin at his own leisure, or to have the Jedi discover and train him? Was Dooku telling Obi-Wan about Darth Sidious controlling the Republic–while not revealing exactly who Sidious is–part of that plan, or was that a power play by Dooku who was upset about his former padawan, Qui-Gon Jin, getting killed by Darth Maul under orders from Palpatine? You’re not a real Sith unless you’re planning on killing your master, after all. The clone army thing worked out in Palp’s favor, but so many factors had to come together that honestly required a number of people to make questionable decisions. Good thing you can apparently rely on Anakin and Jar Jar to make the worst choices every time! He’s borderline unstoppable now that he now has control of both the Separatist droid army as well as the Republic’s clone army, but we’re not ready to talk about Order 66 in this post. After all, begun, the Clone War has!
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