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star wars - How did Anakin think the power to cheat death would be helpful?


In Revenge of the Sith, we learn that Anakin's final seduction to the Dark Side occurs because of his obsession with power and especially his obsession with the power to cheat death to save Padme.




PALPATINE: Only through me can you achieve a power greater than any Jedi. Learn to know the dark side of the Force, Anakin, and you will be able to save your wife from certain death.



(Note, save your wife from certain death, not resurrect)


This obsession is motivated by Anakin's repeated visions of Padme's death during childbirth.


Also, we have



PALPATINE: To cheat death is a power only one has achieved, but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret.



Yet when Padme confronts Anakin on Mustafar, and then Luke and Leia are born, they are full term or close to it.





Answer




In universe, Anakin is not very bright, and he trusts Sidious implicitly. He describes Sidious to Obi-Wan as "a mentor and a friend". Sidious has had more than ten years to cultivate a relationship with Anakin.


Anakin is desperate for help because of his prophetic dreams. He does go to the Jedi first, but Yoda is incredibly unhelpful, telling him only to "let go of that which you fear to lose". He also knows he can't reveal his marriage to the Jedi. So Sidious is the only one he can turn to, and when Sidious offers him a way out, he doesn't ask any questions.


That said, it is very, very stupid of Anakin not to question whether Sidious is really able to help him.


Out of universe, Lucas is a lousy plotter, so he makes his protagonist implausibly gullible to cover it up.


(Self-promotion: I've written a blog post about bad character motivation in Episode 3 which is somewhat relevant.)



It's unclear from visual cues whether the Skywalker twins were full-term or not. So in fact Anakin may have had a few months to work with.


There is no way Padmé was carrying full-term twins on Mustafar; if she had, she would have been much bigger. Really, with twin babies, her slim build, and that modest little bump, it's implausible she was out of her second trimester.



Conversely, the babies do appear to be full term. In fact they are older than that, I would guess by several months. To be fair, it's not very practical to have a newborn baby on a film set, so this is not unusual in Hollywood.


Out-of-universe, Lucas is no better a director than he is a writer, and he has long-standing issues with the shape of womens' bodies (infamously refusing to let Carrie Fisher wear a bra on the set of Episode 4). This may explain why Padmé is smaller than one might expect.


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