With Episode III out on DVD now we all have had plenty of chances to watch it. One thing that always gets me is the way many Star Wars fans feel the need to analyze the prequel movies to death. They will tear apart every line of dialog, fuss over the music queues, etc. You know why the original trilogy was so good? Because when we were younger and watched it, we just watched it. We sat there and took the story in as it was presented to us, and we enjoyed it. So I encourage you, put all that aside, and take a journey with me. A journey to the dark side of the force.

There is a single moment in Revenge of the Sith that really grabbed me when I first saw it in the theater, and that I still love to this moment. For me, it is the perfect example of transmitting a feeling without dialog, just picture and music. The scene comes after Mace sets off to confront Palpatine. Anakin sits alone in the Jedi temple. It is this moment where I feel Darth Vader consumes Anakin Skywalker. Not when he pledges himself later to the dark side, for I think of that as a result of this moment.

Let me help set this up as I have perceived this moment. Have you ever been so very in love and felt like you were just simply lucky that the other person is with you at all, and have a moment of fear that they would leave you, or that moment after they leave you? Have you ever struggled through the death of someone close to you? Even the death of a pet? You get this feeling, in the pit of your stomach. It starts off as despair and grows into something much more. That pit in your stomach consumes you till you feel like everything that was inside you that made you whole, is gone. That you are an empty shell. At that moment you may also feel very desperate. You want to do anything you can to put things back the way they were, or do whatever you can to get rid of this terrible empty feeling. If you have ever experienced this at all in your life, this is the feeling that the film presented to me at that moment.

Lucas allows the moment to flow to you without dialog. John Williams comes through again with an awesome piece of music "Padme's Ruminations". That moment is not long at all, but as we experience it with Anakin (and Padme), we watch the sun set on Coruscant and on Anakin as well. As far as I am concerned, this is the moment where Anakin ignores the Jedi within him and gives into his greed, his lust, his desires, and runs off to the senate building. It is in this moment, when he is feeling so very empty, because he feels that he will loose Padme, that he allows the Dark Side to creep into him. Not by a conscious decision mind you, but by giving into his feelings and his attachment. The rest of his fall is a result of this moment.

Again, I think Lucas, Williams, and the whole team do an excellent job of getting the audience to feel this. So please, just once, as the movies works toward this moment, don't analyze. Don't nitpick. Just start to watch, and when this all happens, you just might feel that moment. I know on my way home from that midnight showing in May, I listened to "Padme's Ruminations" over and over. I fell with Anakin. I felt his pain. I felt is desire to do everything he could to save Padme. I felt him spiral out of control as one action led to another to another. All it took was one slip.