I’m not familiar with the prequels, so I guess it’s lost on me as to why that’s not subtle. Neither here nor there. I’ll never see them, so it doesn’t matter.
No need to watch them if you don’t want to as that’s your personal choice. I mention it though because it’s a subtle set up that has a final payoff later when this very thing is his undoing in a different context. It’s just like when Anakin tells Palpatine on the Invisible Hand that Obi-Wan’s fate will be the same as ours. Not only does it have meaning in the context of that sequence but all three ended up dying on a Death Star. It’s double meaning in retrospect as much as it is laying ground work for payoffs later in the story when viewed as a collective whole.