Tailkinker

Answer: No, it was purely a publicity shot.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: He simply guessed. He's a master at manipulation and scheming. Anakin's come to see him, he's uncomfortable, Palpatine has to know that the Jedi Council have their concerns about him. The council asking Anakin to pass on information about his movements is a logical move on their part; they simply underestimated Anakin's personal loyalty to the chancellor and how well Palpatine can read Anakin's emotions. His uncomfortableness was a dead giveaway.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Because while they could use the midi-chlorians to create a powerful apprentice, they can't use them to grow that apprentice to adulthood in the blink of an eye. Sidious needs an apprentice to do his bidding and advance his agenda in the meantime; he's not going to sit there twiddling his thumbs while he waits for Anakin to grow up. As far as choosing Shmi Skywalker, they need to choose a host mother who's not going to come to the attention of the Jedi. If the Jedi pick up on Anakin shortly after his birth, then they will simply take him away and raise him from scratch, which would ruin him for Sidious' purposes. They need Anakin to grow up a bit, develop attachments that can be manipulated to turn him to the Dark Side, so picking a humble slave on an out-of-the-way world is a perfect choice.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: That role was played by David Acord, assistant sound editor on the film.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: It's simply an error. While efforts are made to keep the expanded universe materials such as the books and comics consistent with the films, there is inevitably the possibility of inconsistencies creeping in. By Lucasfilm rules, the only inviolate canon are the movies themselves - information gleaned from other sources that contradicts the movies is automatically considered to be incorrect, even if it appeared prior to the film in question. The movies say that Anakin is the youngest ever to sit on the Council, so that's what's considered to be the canon. Billaba may appear on the council in Episode 1, but whatever information suggests that she is, in fact, younger than Anakin is to be considered incorrect.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: The strong implication is that it doesn't. He's described as being able to "prevent those he loved from dying", which is a little different from actually bringing them back from the dead. There are also references to manipulating the midi-chlorians in order to create life, which appears to refer to the ability to create a new organism (as may possibly have been done with Anakin himself), rather than any form of resurrection.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: There's no definitive answer to this one, however, the key to the bodily disappearance appears to be the training that Yoda refers to at the end of the film, when he makes reference to Qui-Gon having found his way back via the Force. There's no indication that anyone other than Yoda and Obi-Wan have ever studied this, so, in all likelihood, no, Windu's body didn't disappear.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: It's a question of appearance. Sidious needs to discredit the Jedi, make it appear as if they've turned against the Republic so that he can use their clone troops to eliminate them without major public outcry. He can't let the Seperatists take them out; it would have the potential effect of making them martyrs, plus it would effectively mean letting the Seperatists win the war, which would jeopardise his political position. Tyranus's public persona is the leader of the Seperatist movement, so he could hardly be used to lead the clone troops; the public would never accept a supposed change of heart of that nature. Nor could Tyranus simply eliminate the Jedi himself - he's powerful, but not powerful enough to single-handedly take them all out. Sidious ultimately needs an apprentice who can be seen to be loyal and who can lead the clone troops to eliminate the Jedi without awkward questions about said loyalty. Either way, Tyranus is out of the question; with Sidious' plan coming to fruition, Tyranus is no longer useful to him, except in that his death can be used to bring his successor closer to the Dark Side. Anakin, who fits the required role perfectly, is the one that Sidious has really been waiting for to help him finish the job.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: The character that you're thinking of wasn't an assistant to Bail Organa, but was a Senator named Bana Breemu, who was working covertly with Organa, Padme and several other Senators to persuade Palpatine to attempt a diplomatic solution to the war. While Bai Ling, the actress who played Breemu, did pose naked for Playboy, Lucas has always denied that this was the reason for the cuts, stating that the subplot involving the group of concerned Senators was cut from the film several months prior to her Playboy appearance. The deleted scenes in question were included on the DVD release - if Lucas was really that concerned about her Playboy appearance, he could easily have left them out.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: No. The make-up required for the character is extremely comprehensive, covering the entire face in prosthetics. As such, any differences would be hidden by the make-up.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Not that I've seen or read. There's no indication that Obi-Wan began to use the name until he went into exile (but was seen using it to discreetly contact the council while posing as a convict in an episode of The Clone Wars).

Tailkinker ★

Answer: From his comment at the end of Episode One, where he mentions watching Anakin "with great interest" and his subsequent dealings with Anakin, it does seem likely that he has something like that in mind.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: No, he's not in there. He'd only be about 10 years old at the time and living as a thief and pickpocket on an old trading vessel plying the spacelanes near Corellia - as the storyline never goes anywhere near there, there's no way that they could have got him into the story, even if they'd wanted to.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: They're Mon Calamari, the same species as Admiral "It's a trap" Ackbar in Return of the Jedi.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: That's pretty much it, yes. Grievous originally refused to take up the leadership of the Seperatist armies, so Dooku secretly planted a bomb on a shuttle carrying Grievous leaving behind enough evidence to implicate the Republic in the assassination attempt. The critically injured Grievous was then reconstructed into his cyborg form by the Geonosians. Filled with rage directed towards the Republic that he thought had maimed him, Grievous finally agreed to lead the Seperatist forces in battle.

Tailkinker ★

Chosen answer: It's unlikely. Best's appearance in Episode II was fleeting, to say the least. Had he been intended to be a character with greater significance in Episode III, then he's undoubtedly have been given more than just a brief shot in the middle of a crowd. The character being referred to in the question is in fact Giddean Danu, Senator for Kuat and he was played by Christopher Kirby not Ahmed Best.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: It may not have been entirely faked, although it does seem somewhat unlikely that a Sith Lord would be affected in any serious way by his own Force lightning, but Palpatine was certainly not remotely as endangered as he made out. It does seem that it was a test, designed to finally ensnare Anakin in the Sith web, by forcing him to turn on another Jedi. His shout of 'unlimited power' seems to have been a final taunt to the suddenly helpless Mace Windu.

Tailkinker ★

Chosen answer: The film takes place over a considerable period of time, as Palpatine works on turning Anakin, Anakin grows increasingly dissatisfied with the Jedi Council, the search for Grevious goes on and so forth. There's enough time for Padme to have only had a relatively small pregnancy bump in the early scenes.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Not really - it's just a factual statement. The term 'absolute' tends to mean things like good and evil, life and death, that sort of thing, rather than simple facts like what Obi-wan says.

Tailkinker ★

Answer: Vader's military rank is unclear - it may be that he has no official rank and is therefore not technically part of the command structure. However, as the personal representative of the Emperor, he holds an enormous amount of personal power within the Empire and, as we see, can have military units assigned to do his bidding. Most officers will respect that power (plus his tendency to kill those who displease him) and will show him the proper subservience - just as we see the younger Tarkin show deference to the Emperor and Vader in Episode 3. By the time of Episode 4, however, Tarkin has advanced to become one of the most highly-ranked officers in the Empire, has acquired considerable personal power of his own and is held in high esteem by the Emperor himself. All of which serves to put him on the same sort of level as Vader himself, allowing him to skip the fawning and grovelling. In Episode 4, Vader is on the Death Star, Tarkin's command, so the Grand Moff has the ultimate say in what goes on there, although, as we see, he does follow Vader's suggestions, even when he has his own misgivings.

Tailkinker ★