Do Palpatine and Dooku actually want Padme killed? I said in one of the commentary tracks that it makes more sense that Dooku would be trying to kill Padme if she is in favor of the Military Creation Act. I said that Dooku was doing this without the approval of Palpatine because he wants the Republic to be weak and for the Separatists to actually win the war. However, I think this interpretation only really makes sense if you are being as charitable as possible to Dooku and the Separatist cause. I think a better way to interpret this would be that Palpatine and Dooku don’t actually want Padme assassinated, but they want it to look like she is under threat of assassination. That way she can try to use the assassination attempts as leverage to pass the Military Creation Act. This would also explain why the assassination attempts are so pathetic. Deciphering the politics of this movie is insanely complicated, but that’s kind of what I enjoyed about working on it.