Episode III is the Bane of the Jedi. It is a seriously written tragedy and romance set in the waning years of the Republic immediately following the Jedi victory in the Clone Wars dealing with the rise of a young, newly married and ambitious Jedi hotshot named Anakin Skywalker. The name refers both to the Dark Side of the Force and to the corruption rotting the insides of the Republic manifested particularily in a Senator named Palpatine. It starts out with a "flashforward" of the now famous scene of the rebel starship fleeing as the huge imperial star destroyer lunges forth across the screen -- the Scene that Started it all. Then the fade out and flashback to the more peaceful setting of the late years of the Republic and the rest of the story is a tragic account of "how we got to here". The young pilot is a celebrated hero from the War, he returns to home to his longtime lover and they marry and it seems that from there on it would be yet another "they lived happily ever after". But it doesn't take long for him to feel the restlessness of the homelife. He has everything: he's a young extraordinarily handsome widely celebrated hero married to a beautiful and loving wife, and yet he still feels empty inside. A General from the War, also an arrogant Jedi who thinks he's hot stuff takes notice of this pilot, particularily the stirrings in the Force emanating from him, and takes him under his wing. At first, things seem okay. They'll go to Dagobah, where Anakin can receive thebest possible training under the Reknowned Master Yoda. But Yoda patently refuses to take on this new student in words to be reflected at a later time "Too ambitious. Too reckless is he. No good. A Jedi he will never become." General Kenobi refuses to accept the Master's assessment. They get into a serious conflict that almost ends in their friendship. Kenobi decides to take on the student himself in a rage of hubris. "I don't need you. I can teach this boy just as well. I am, after all, a Jedi too." Yoda's main worry stems from the worrisome sensation of a dark stirring in the Force. Set across this panoramic backdrop is the "palace intrugue" that is concurrently taking place in the upper echelons of the Republic. The source of the dark forebodings lies in a young Senator, also a Jedi war veteran, with unbounded ambition and lust for power. The feelings bring him early on face to face with the Dark Side, and this is where both meaning of the Bane converge. Like Ben, he also sees potential in the young pilot and succeeds in luring him away from the tutelage of Master Kenobi. Ben's constant admonishions against the aggressive and ambitious use of the Jedi training drive his student into the arms of the Senator. It doesn't take long before the Senator succeeds in corrupting Anakin into sharing the same lust for power. Kenobi grows desperate over his folly and tries to take back his student by force before it's too late. He confronts Anakin in an epic Light Saber duel near a lava pit, partly out of anger at himself and desire to punish Anakin and teach him a lesson. But what happens instead is that in the ensuing fight Anakin slips and falls into the lava pit as Kenobi holds out a hand trying to save him from almost certain destruction. In a highly symbolic gesture the student refuses to take the hand and slips in and Kenobi leaves him for dead. It's only with the greatest strength and resolve that the young pilot manages to climb out of the pit barely clinging to life, barely able to breathe. His nearly dead form is discovered and he's rescued just in time. His ability to see and smell with his natural senses is permanently gone, and in order to survive he's forced to take on prosthetics to help him see, hear and breathe. Never again to see or feel the warm sensations of the world about him, he pretty much becomes engrossed in the one all-consuming desire to exact revenge on his teacher Ben, on all Jedis, and in fact on all things good including his wife. From that point on he becomes a disciple of the Senator Palpatine and his chief assistant in aiding the Senator's rise to the top and the new Emperor, and changes his name to Darth Vader disowning everything he stood for before the accident. Kenobi takes the tragic news to Anakin's wife, who by now (unbeknownst to Anakin) several months pregnant with fraternal twins. She never really recovers from the shock of hearing of Anakin's 'death' and dies while giving childbirth. Kenobi, knowing about the forthcoming danger, takes the children (Luke and Leia) and stows them away in hiding, one being taken to Aunt Breu and Uncle Owen in a way out of the way place, and the other adopted by a royal family as their own. Neither Vader nor the Emperor to be ever find out. Kenobi, feeling the weight of the guilt over spawning what turns out to be the wholesale massacre of the Jedi guardians at the hands of Vader and Palpatine, withdraws in despondency to Tatooine where he pretty much decides to live out the rest of his days as a hermit. So he lives basically the rest of his life with the burden of his hubris from the time he and Yoda were in conflict. The years pass by and Palpatine succeeds in exerting a tighter authoritarian grip on the Republic. Little by little, with the aid of Vader he chips away at the Republic's liberties and freedoms until finally he's got enough power to virtually declare himself Emperor. It's at that point that the collective outrage of the worlds lying in the domain of the Republic erupts into a rebellion, and basically this is where the Famous First Scene of the rebel ship being pursued by the huge imperial star ship is reenacted, and the story ends with the quote "A New Hope."