Force lightning

Why: This is one of those changes that I consider critical! The scene where Palpatine is blasting away at Mace Windu with his Force-lightning needs a bit of work. First of all, the dialogue is really weird, the characters don’t look like they’re interacting at all, but rather saying the first thing that pops into their heads, whether it’s relevant to the conversation or not.

The second problem is that there is no music during the whole shocking segment. I think this is a critical place to put music because it’s such an important event.

The last thing is showing a little better how Palpatine got his deformities. What made the lightning have that effect on his face, etc.

How: First, the easy problem, the music. The most place which feels like it’s totally begging for music to be put in is after Palpatine says, “You will die!” and starts shocking Mace. Something should be put there, but it doesn’t need to last throughout the scene, just the beginning.

Secondly, I didn’t like the part with Palpatine telling Anakin, “I was right, the Jedi are taking over!” because Anakin couldn’t be stupid enough to believe that when he KNOWS why they’re there. This is further explained later on. This line should be replaced with something like, “I was right, the Jedi only want to kill me!”

Now as for the rest of the dialogue, there are several examples of lines of different characters not matching. One is Mace Windu saying, “You have lost,” followed by Palpatine saying, “No, no, no, you will die!” He stresses on the “you” as if he’s replying to Mace telling him that he’s going to die. It doesn’t really match. It would be a lot more effective if there is a short pause after Mace says, “You have lost,” and the camera zooms in on Mace, or maybe just his face, when he says one quick line before Palpatine that could go, “Take your last breath.” This line would totally kick some serious butt.

The exchange about who’s a traitor and who’s not is a major cringe-inducer. It looks really shallow and…well, dumb. As is most of the following dialogue…it’s all directed to Anakin and it just doesn’t look right. The conversation needs to shift to Anakin somehow, not to be directed at him out of the blue. An idea I have for this is like this: after a few seconds of shocking pass (and the newly put music stops), have Mace cry out, “Kill him, Anakin!” This could be followed by Palpatine yelling out, “I have the power to save the one you love.” After that Mace could yell out, “Don’t listen to him!” after which Palpatine yells out, “You must choose!”

After Mace hears this, he presses his lightsaber further until it’s just a couple of inches away from Palpatine’s face. This causes the Force-lightning to attack his face ferociously, causing the deformities that he has. Palpatine puts a bit more effort into the lightning until he pushes Mace away a bit, and then starts calling out to Anakin for help.

The rest of the scene can go as it is now.