I've been thinking more about Episode 0 and Darth Plageuis. This pre-prequel movie(s) is(are) needed more than ever to wrap up the most fundamental and overarching plot line of the movies. Essentially it comes down to did Palpatine, using his wisdom from Darth Plageuis, use the Force to create Anakin. Or, was this just a great coincedence and Palpatine learns after Episode 1 about Anakin, hears that he's rumored to be the chosen one and forms a plan to turn him.

The revertebrate essays cover how this theory came up with several citations from a Lucas interview. I've also read that the Making of ROTS book also mentions an early version of the script were Palpatine tells Anakin that he created him, and to search his feelings - he knows this to be the truth. In many ways, I'm glad that ROTS didn't reveal this plot to us and left us hanging. Because, as per Lucas' other statement about an episode 0 (or maybe new set of 3 100+ years before Phantom Menace), we have an idea about what those movies will be.

Let's hope that this movie will be at least 100 years in the past. The actors are getting old to play younger versions of themselves 5 or 10 years prior to TPM. Having it 100 or so years back gives us a few possibilities:

- We get to see a younger Yoda, perhaps even more so in his prime and dabbling with the Dark Side a little. Ie how does Yoda know how to absorb force lightning. We know that he kills a Dark Jedi on Dagobah, so there would be Jedi vs Sith activity during this time.

- We get to see Darth Plagueis, a young Palpatine, and then Palpatine killing his master. Some EU stories have Palpatine having several apprentices during this time that he has to kill because they break the rule of 2. Eventually he gets himself a baby Darth Maul and raises him from age 2.

- There are a couple other very old Jedi that we see in episode 1-3, like Yaddle. Hopefully we can see these characters more to give us some familiar feelings about the movie.

The overall theme of this movie (or possibly trilogy) would center around the prophecy of the Chosen One and what it means to both the Sith and Jedi. Then, Lucas should answer the question if the Sith manipulated the force in Shmi Skywalker to create Anakin, and Anakin is in fact part of the Sith's own unmaking.

There would be several philosophical points answered:
- If Anakin is a result of the Sith, is he always destined to join them, or did he have free will and could have chose differently.

- What is the relationship between prophecy, destiny, and free will? During Episode 1, Yoda may be suspicious that Anakin was created by the Sith. Does he ultimately concede because there's a chance that free will would prevail over destiny?

- As revertebrate asks, what is the meaning of this philosophical metaphor? Anakin can only bring balance to the force if he is himself a product of the Force itself. If he is the product of a manipulation by the Sith, then he is merely the tool, unwittingly so or not, of the Sith unmaking their own existence by introducing that which brings balance to the force. Evil comes into existence, messes with the order of the force that maintains the universe, and as a result, is undone by its own existence.

And damn, that's a heady moral when you get right down to it. More than this, who's to say exactly for whom that metaphor stands? Is it for humanity slowly unmaking its existence through unregulated and unbalanced procreation within its environment? Or rather, is it humanity's exploitation and destruction of the environment? Or is it merely the implication that evil is always defeated by its own corrupt nature? There's plenty of room to wrap deeper meaning and philosophies around this, and I'm certain I will spend a vast amount of my own brain's idle-time sizing it all up.

This could also mean things that are unnatural are essentially flawed (Anakin's anger, fear, etc) and will lead to their own destruction (ie Sith unmaking themselves).

Or perhaps, that tampering with the miracle of birth leads to disaster. For ultimate control over the force (in this case as a metaphor to God), they wanted to create the child using the force - shaping it in their image. This is fundamentally the worst kind of hubris according to the greeks, and almost always brings destruction upon the hubris-filled person.

If you can interpret the metaphor to that degree, then a more general case would be control over the environment and hubris on we know what is best over what god has intended. This applies to present day environmentalism pretty well, where we see when we try to control an area, we end up destroying it eventually. For example, in many national parks, we try to force animal populations, and usually end up killing them off as we throw the balance of nature out of whack.

Could the Jedi then also be a metaphor for a futuristic Native American? After all, the native americans had a concept of a great spirit, and everything have a spirit - the Force. And they tried to keep it in balance, as servants of the great spirit and living at one with it and nature. Along comes industrial civilization, imposes control and leads to pollution, diseases, etc. Will industrial civilization eventually un-make itself (e.g. war)?

Getting back to Star Wars, let's just say that plot and philosophy asside, we need more Star Wars! It's the most fun genre in my opinion, offering limitless fun in books, video games, collectibles, movies, etc. This legacy should continue at a nice moderate pace -- not overloaded and burned out like Star Trek. For now, I'm content with ROTS, the video games, reading the EU books of the prequel era and so on. However, eventually we'll all start getting that itch for more movies, and all of the surrounding fun stuff that accompanies it.

Come on new movies by 2010!