He doesn’t specifically want revenge on the Jedi, but I think he does get angry with them. His frustrations with the council make it easier for Palpatine to sway him and get him to accept moral relativism. I did like that it wasn’t so simplistic as him just hating the Jedi.
Touching on the greed thing, I think one part people tend to miss is that Anakin could have left the Jedi if he really wanted to be with Padme. He loved her but he also had an ambitious side that wouldn’t let him pass up chances to advance and increase in power. “I want more, and I know I shouldn’t.” He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Notice that’s how Palpatine tempts him with both things at once - he can save Padme by becoming more powerful. It appeals to his love for her and his ambition at the same time, and he gets swept up in it until his ambition lets the dark side overwhelm him and he’s force choking the person he’s ostensibly trying to save.
I agree. There are people who think that Anakin sides with Palpatine partially because Ahsoka was banished and he got denied the rank of master. But Lucas says over and over, that the only reason he turned was to save Padme. No nightmares, no turn to the dark side. All the “The Jedi are evil” bullshit is exactly that. Bullshit. It’s his rationalization for his actions. He gets a little irritated that they don’t give him the rank of master, but like, first, he’s not ready for it (yet), and second, that wouldn’t have made him turn to the dark side.
“…it’s very easy to have the audience believe that Anakin is miffed because he doesn’t get to go on the mission [to Utapau], that, you know, he’s angry because he’s not a master, and this scene [Padme’s ruminations] is really designed to remind you that his real problem is that he just doesn’t wanna lose her” - GL Revenge of the Sith Director’s Commentary
I agree with the last paragraph. Him joining the dark side to save Padme was absolutely selfish. It was about him not wanting to feel the pain of losing her, not her own safety. He was thinking of her as a possession and not a person, which is what attachment is, according to the Jedi. I think him wanting power could’ve been emphasized more though. Hence why I think it would be cool if they added another layer to his turn: wanting to be immortal for himself.
Well, although I’m usually a fan of Lucas’ work, in this case I can only disagree with him. As I have already explained elsewhere, I don’t share his view about the Jedi and Anakin’s fall, because I think that the Jedi philosophy was inherently flawed and that Anakin doesn’t deserve to be blamed for what happened. That said, I think what you highlighted is simply a coincidence. I mean, the same reasoning could be applied to Anakin and Padmé’s respective last words. Padmé’s last words were: “I know there is good in him, I know there is, still”, while Anakin’s last words were: “You were right”. Well, put this way, it could almost feel like a connection, when in reality it’s simply a coincidence. The fact that there are sentences that casually rhyme within the movies doesn’t mean that there is a real connection between them. These are just coincidences, and to derive an entire explanation/theory from them is at least exaggerated in my opinion.
Here’s the deal about Jedi philosophy: attachment in Star Wars does not mean the dictionary definition of attachment. It’s the Buddhist definition: the inability to let go of things. Lucas has said the Jedi are allowed to feel emotions. They’re allowed to feel love. This is shown. Yoda admits he’s afraid for Anakin’s training (proving that Anakin being afraid wasn’t the problem, it’s that he wouldn’t admit it and repressing it that was the problem). Yoda tells Padme he has warm feelings in his heart after she survives the assassination attempt. Mace Windu vouches for both Dooku and Anakin in AOTC (Mace and Yoda cut Anakin more slack then Obi-Wan, in AOTC). Yoda cries when he feels Anakin’s in pain.
Should these things have been better clarified and emphasized in the scripts, and the Jedi made to seem more kind and empathetic? Absolutely. You shouldn’t have to read Lucas quotes to understand the movies. But George Lucas being a bad writer doesn’t change the fact that the Jedi aren’t intended to be emotionless assholes.
The “no attachments” doctrine is about not letting your feelings interfere with a mission and being willing to let things go when need be. Obi-Wan loves Satine, in The Clone Wars, he even says, “It’s not that we’re not allowed to have these feelings, it’s natural”, but he doesn’t let it interfere with a mission like Anakin does. And when Satine dies, Obi-Wan lets her go. He doesn’t succumb to the dark side. He doesn’t close out his emotions. He feels his emotions but then moves on. When Bo-Katan tries to emotionally blackmail him, he doesn’t fall for it, because he can’t let his emotions cloud his judgement. The same thing happens after Qui-Gon’s death. He openly cries, but then moves on and honors his memory by training Anakin.
He doesn’t enter a relationship with her because he has a commitment to the Jedi Order. If a Jedi wants to be in a relationship, they need to leave. “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” And there’s no shame in leaving the Order. Dooku left and the Jedi still spoke fondly of him, let him keep his lightsaber (Dooku: Jedi Lost novel), and even built him a statue (in a deleted scene). It’s not a cult. Anakin should’ve either left the Jedi Order after AOTC or waited to marry Padme after the clone war.
Anakin knows the difference between attachment and love. As he says in AOTC and an episode in The Clone Wars when he lectures Ahsoka on the importance of letting go of attachments (in the Geonosis zombie worms episode). It’s not that he doesn’t understand the teachings or objects to them, it’s that he doesn’t have the emotional strength to apply them to himself.
The problem is that Anakin was willing to do anything to keep Padme from dying. He was shown that Padme could die (“Always in motion is the future”) and that there’s nothing he could do about it (for the sake of the plot we’re gonna assume there’s no such things as C-sections in Star Wars; which I mean, this is coming from the same guy who said “There is no underwear in space”, so it really ain’t all that hard to believe), but he refused to accept it. According to George Lucas, Plagueis could not actually cheat death. That was a lie. There was nothing Anakin could do except trust in Padme’s strength to make it through childbirth. If he had listened to Yoda and accepted that, then things would’ve been alright. It’s possible she would’ve survived, and if not, Anakin would’ve needed rejoice for the good memories he shared, honor her memory, and let go. That’s what the Jedi way is about. It’s really just about living a healthy life. Not craving control over things you have no control over. Because that’s how you get greedy.
George Lucas obviously doesn’t think you should repress your emotions, never be emotionally attached to anybody or never get married. He’s a very emotionally open guy, he’s been married twice and has kids. He just used a different meaning of the word attachment, and people were (rightfully) confused.
Another quote from Lucas:
“A Jedi is never lonely. They live on compassion. They live on helping people, and people love them. They can love people back. But when that person dies, they let go. Those that cannot let go become miserable. That’s the lonely place.”
That parallel is definitely not a coincidence. Anakin’s whole arc is learning to stop wanting control over the natural cycle of life.
As Lucas puts it:
“The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth, they’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So, what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.”
Obviously when the line in Return of the Jedi was written it wasn’t about that. But the premise of his turn in the prequels adds meaning to that line where there wasn’t before. Thus making it a retroactive parallel.