The Quantum Mirror Archives — Part IV of V
Recovered review — July 1986
By the closing moments of The Dark Times, the audience has witnessed the destruction of the Galactic Republic, the disappearance of the Jedi Order, the separation of two newborn children and the birth of Darth Vader.
Yet perhaps the most disturbing achievement of this remarkable film is that virtually none of these events seems inevitable while it is happening.
There are opportunities to turn back.
People recognize the danger.
Warnings are issued.
Decisions are made.
And civilization continues toward catastrophe.
The Republic that no longer exists
The film opens several years after the great military victories depicted in The Clone Wars.
The Senate still meets. Elections are still conducted. The Republic's official institutions remain largely intact.
But the military increasingly determines what those institutions are permitted to do.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has become the central figure holding together a government exhausted by years of warfare.
Anakin Skywalker is its most celebrated commander.
He is admired by his soldiers, respected by the population and convinced that maintaining order is the greatest service he can render to civilization.
He is also profoundly unhappy.
His marriage to Padmé has deteriorated. His friendship with Obi-Wan has become strained. The ideals that once inspired him seem increasingly incompatible with his responsibilities.
The discovery
Obi-Wan Kenobi, having resigned his military command, joins an investigation into the disappearance of Republic officials, journalists and political dissidents.
Evidence emerges that Palpatine has secretly supported factions on opposing sides of the war.
He has prolonged hostilities, manipulated intelligence and engineered political emergencies to expand his authority.
The Jedi Council concludes that he must be removed.
But the matter is not simple.
Palpatine commands enormous public loyalty. The Senate is divided, and the armed forces may resist his arrest.
Several Jedi propose using their extraordinary abilities to take control of the government temporarily while constitutional order is restored.
Obi-Wan objects.
The Jedi cannot preserve the Republic by assuming that they alone possess the authority to govern it.
The Council nevertheless decides to act.
Palpatine learns of the plan.
The last conversation
The film's finest scene takes place between Anakin and Obi-Wan in a nearly deserted government building.
Obi-Wan tells his old friend what the investigation has uncovered.
He admits that the Jedi have committed grave errors, including their willingness to participate in military government.
He asks Anakin to help bring Palpatine before a lawful tribunal.
Anakin wants to know who will guarantee the stability of the Republic afterward.
Who will command the armies?
What will prevent the resumption of civil war?
Obi-Wan cannot promise that removing Palpatine will be painless.
Anakin believes that the Jedi are prepared to gamble countless lives upon a principle.
Obi-Wan believes that a government which cannot survive the truth has already lost its legitimacy.
They part without reaching an agreement.
Anakin embraces his old friend.
It is the last time they meet in peace.
The disappearance of the Jedi
The destruction of the Jedi Order is depicted as a coordinated government operation.
Archives are confiscated. Communications are interrupted. Officials announce investigations into alleged acts of treason.
Jedi are arrested throughout the Republic.
Some resist.
Others surrender, believing that the legal institutions they served will eventually vindicate them.
They are mistaken.
The clone armies are ordered to detain their former Jedi commanders.
Some soldiers comply. Others refuse. Several are executed.
The Senate announces that the Jedi have voluntarily dissolved their organization pending investigation.
Within days, an institution centuries old has almost entirely disappeared.
Ordinary life continues.
Commercial transports operate. Government offices reopen. Citizens return to work.
It is the banality of this disappearance that makes the sequence so frightening.
The last days of a marriage
Padmé has been helping political refugees escape Republic custody.
Anakin discovers her involvement and begs her to stop.
He offers to arrange safe passage to a neutral system.
He promises that once peace is restored, they can begin again.
Padmé asks whether he can protect the people he has been ordered to imprison.
He says he cannot.
She understands that there is no longer a place for her within his vision of the future.
Anakin still loves his wife.
But he has become incapable of recognizing that loving someone does not entitle him to determine the conditions under which they may live.
The volcanic world
The final confrontation occurs at a vast industrial installation supplying equipment to the Republic's military forces.
A group of senior officers has discovered evidence of Palpatine's manipulation and refuses to recognize his authority.
Anakin is ordered to suppress their rebellion.
Several of the officers once served beside him.
He knows their accusations are substantially true.
He nevertheless follows his orders.
Obi-Wan arrives, hoping to persuade Anakin to expose the Chancellor.
Their final argument is agonizing precisely because both understand what is at stake.
Anakin believes that destroying the existing government will condemn the galaxy to another generation of war.
Obi-Wan believes that preserving it will condemn the galaxy to permanent subjugation.
Anakin admits that he knows Palpatine has deceived the Republic.
This is the film's decisive revelation.
He is not an innocent victim of manipulation.
He has recognized the corruption of the government and chosen to preserve it anyway.
Their lightsaber duel is brief and savage.
Both men know the other's abilities.
Neither wishes to kill.
When the industrial complex begins collapsing, Anakin attempts a final attack and falls into a chamber of superheated gases and damaged machinery.
Obi-Wan tries to reach him.
He cannot.
Anakin disappears beneath the wreckage.
The Emperor's servant
Palpatine arrives after the fighting has ended.
A survivor has been recovered, terribly burned and barely alive.
The medical staff explain that survival will require permanent mechanical support.
Palpatine orders them to proceed.
The patient must never again be publicly identified by his former name.
When the black-armored figure finally emerges, its first question concerns Padmé.
The Chancellor tells him that she has died, a victim of the Jedi rebellion.
He then supplies the names of those he claims are responsible.
The mechanical breathing continues.
Darth Vader has been born.
A new hope
Padmé, meanwhile, has survived long enough to give birth to twins.
She is dying from injuries and complications suffered during her escape.
Before her death, she asks Obi-Wan to promise that her children will not become weapons in another struggle for power.
He agrees.
The children are separated for their protection.
Leia is entrusted to Bail Organa and his wife.
Luke is taken to Tatooine, where Anakin's surviving family connections agree to raise him.
The film concludes with the formal establishment of the Galactic Empire.
The warships once celebrated as protectors of the Republic now pass in review before the Emperor.
Military uniforms change. Government symbols disappear.
Then the picture returns to Tatooine.
Obi-Wan watches the Lars homestead from a distant ridge.
A small child is playing outside.
Kenobi turns and walks into the desert.
There is no triumphant conclusion.
Only the sound of the wind.
Our verdict
The Dark Times is a deeply affecting conclusion to the prequel trilogy.
Its greatest achievement is the refusal to excuse Anakin Skywalker.
He begins as a brave and compassionate man. He loves his friends and family. He wishes to protect civilization.
But he gradually accepts that his intentions justify actions he would once have condemned.
He becomes Darth Vader not because he ceases to understand the distinction between good and evil.
He becomes Darth Vader because he decides that distinction must sometimes be subordinate to what he considers necessary.
This makes the ending of Return of the Jedi, released five years ago, more powerful than ever.
Luke Skywalker saves his father not by proving himself the stronger warrior, but by refusing to become the kind of man his father became.
For the first time in decades, Anakin encounters someone willing to accept defeat rather than preserve himself through an act he knows to be wrong.
And finally, he remembers how to choose.
Next: The Films We Never Saw — An alternate 1986 retrospective of the completed Star Wars saga.
From the fictional Quantum Mirror Archives. This is an imagined contemporary review of an alternate-history Star Wars film, not a historical film release.
