“Wait, Mace Windu, don’t kill Palpatine, it’s not the Jedi way!”
Literally 15 minutes later:
Anakin slaughters the Jedi, including defenseless toddlers
This is the biggest logic leap in the entire franchise, and it completely ruins the rest of the movie for me.
I unfortunately have to agree. The kid’s all over the place. It’s telling that the only way for the novelization to make this work was to spell out that Anakin was literally out of his mind and seemingly incapable of making rational decisions.
Isn’t that how the Dark Side works though? Prior to ROTS we saw Anakin loose it completely in AOTC when he slaughtered an entire village (incl. the children), and even Luke went kinda berserk in ROTJ after Vader threatened to turn Leia. That’s a pretty agressive and wild outburst for an otherwise fairly calm and rational character. ROTS even emphasises Anakin’s yellow eyes to illustrate that he has been completely consumed by the Dark Side.
Well sure, but the problem is he turns to the dark side forever on a dime.
In the two situations you referred to, big emotional moments spark them to lash out with the dark side, after which they both later repented/regretted. In ROTS, I guess we can say that Windu almost killing Palpatine is a big emotional moment, but is it really enough to push him past the point of no return and seemingly turn the dark side switch on and lock it there for the rest of his life? No… and the film tries to make it out that he’s doing this semi-rationally, as a means to save Padme (he even second guesses himself, saying “What have I done?”). But… no, he’s got no problem murdering his friends and colleagues minutes later.
He’s all over the place, and the motivation for the consummation you refer to just isn’t there.