No Fiction For You!
Yep, that's right - no fanfics are allowed in the blogs. It's really a pity, because I had two really nice alternate reality peeks at ROTS that I had to delete.

In one, Anakin doesn't stop Mace from killing Palpatine. Horrified at what he let Mace do, he unleashes the Dark Side to bring the Jedi murderer to justice. Feeling newfound conviction and strength, he snaps Mace's spine and tosses him out of the window like a doll, then leaves to seize control of the Jedi and the Senate so that they can stop squabbling and save Padme.

In another, Mace's death tears a rift in the Dark Side clouds that sully the Force, and he's able to see through Palpatine's lies. The Force flowing through him like never before, he is just barely able to resist the urge to bow down before Palpatine. The Emperor recoils in horror at Anakin's return to the Light side and knocks him out of the window with a Force blast. Anakin lands on an airspeeder and charges to the Jedi temple to defend the remaining knights and younglings from waves of clone troops.

Why is no unofficial fiction allowed in the blogs?

Because the legal eagles want UNLIMITED POOOOWEEEEER!
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Fun For the Whole Family...Almost

I went to see ROTS again this last weekend for the sixth time. I took Dad and Grandma to see it in DLP. Grandma hadn't seen it before, and Dad hadn't seen it yet in digital. The real shocker is that Grandma loved it.

I dunno, somehow I had assumed that Grandma was like Mom (who doesn't want to see it - and if she did, I'm pretty sure she'd hate it). Perhaps if it starred Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and some bunnies and flowers, I would encourage her to see it.

No problem, though. I'm currently responsible for ten purchased tickets, and I'm going to add two more to that number on Thursday. Hey, if we don't support the good movies, who will?
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The Clones Attack!

One of the mysteries in ROTS were, to me, the turning of the clones. As it stood, I had three theories.

1.) Betrayal - the Clones had been plotting against the Jedi all along, which essentially ruins the whole Clone Wars and makes one hate the clones like no others.

2.) Following Orders - Order 66 was more of an emergency contingency plan, a worse-case scenario. Still, the fact that the clones followed it without hesitation makes them seem terribly inhuman.

3.) Brainwashing - Order 66 is a sort of hypnosis trigger word that forces the clones to dump all loyalty to the Jedi and hate them. I found this one the easiest to swallow (it makes the clones victims as much as the Jedi) but could find no evidence to support it.

After thinking about this for a long time but finding little thought about it on the boards, I finally realized that Karen Traviss (author of Republic Command: Hard Contact) would know better than practically anyone else. Karen is perhaps the coolest Star Wars author because she makes herself available to her fans on the boards. So I rushed over to the RC boards and read everything that was posted after the release of ROTS. Finally, on the last page, someone asked her for her opinion on this issue.

Ms. Traviss basically thinks it's #2. However, she doesn't see the clones as particularly inhuman or unsympathetic. She explained very rationally that the clones reacted as any well-trained soldier would - efficiently and without hesitation. The Jedi had become traitors to the Republic, as far as they were concerned, and the Commander-in-Chief himself passed down orders to strike first to protect the State. She pointed out that every single person in the boards would react the same way if had they recieved the same training.

That pretty much cleared it up for me.

I never, ever want to be in the military.
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Next blog: Starfighters, and My Complete Palpatine Theory!