I always had the impression that Palpatine was not defeated by Mace Windu, but rather allowed himself to be “beaten”, thereby putting himself in a vulnerable position for Anakin to sympathize with. It certainly is not beyond the realm of possibility considering how much orchestrating of events Palpatine conducted (successfully). I agree the writing is highly convenient, but I always got the impression that Palpatine’s defeat was purposeful on his part. Even after he is squirming on the floor and professing to be too weak, it is all deception because he very quickly unleashes a great deal of energy to finally blow Mace out the window.
And for the record Mace did try to kill Palpatine, but only at the very end and was stopped by Anakin cutting his arm off or something. Yes, too little, too late. But I doubt Palpatine was in any serious danger.
@CWO:
What fundamentally disappointed me about the Windu / Palpatine confrontation wasn’t the picky stuff I was criticizing in my above posts. It was the fact that the scene handled such a pivotal moment of the whole Star Wars saga – the moment when Anakin falls – in a way that was (in my opinion) so clumsy and so transparently contrived. It was a scene that deserved the highest level of writing of any scene in any Star Wars film, a scene that deserved to be both emotionally wrenching and utterly convincing…but instead of coming across as a first-rate moment of epic tragedy, in my opinion (and this is just my opinion) it came across as basically a connect-the-dots contrivance that checks off a plot point in Anakin Skywalker’s character arc.
Great statement. I agree entirely.
