Inciting Event: Anakin saves Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine goads him into killing Count Dooku in anger (sending him farther down the path of the Dark Side) instead of turning him in for justice (this also eliminates Darth Sidious’s frenemy Dooku as a rival and opens the way for Anakin to become the new Sith apprentice). After this victory, Anakin finds out his wife is pregnant and becomes obsessed with nightmares of her dying in childbirth.
First Plot Point: Anakin is assigned by the Jedi Order to spy on Palpatine. The Jedi suspect him of conspiracy. Anakin is angry at this, since Palpatine has become an encouraging mentor to him, while Anakin’s actual master, Obi-Wan, has become a thorn in his side.
First Pinch Point: Anakin discovers Palpatine is actually Darth Sidious, the mysterious Sith lord who has been manipulating the Republic. Anakin reports him to the Jedi Council, but is conflicted over losing his chance to save his wife, who he is now certain will die in childbirth unless Sidious teaches him Darth Plagueis’s secrets of life and death.
Midpoint: Jedi Master Mace Windu confronts Palpatine, attempting to take him alive, but Palpatine escalates the situation to a life-or-death struggle. Anakin wants to know the secret of Darth Plagueis too much to let Palpatine die, so he aids him. Palpatine kills Windu.
Anakin then pledges full allegiance to Palpatine/Sidious, who gives him the Sith apprentice name Darth Vader and orders him to wipe out all the Jedi in the temple, including the younglings. Anakin/Vader does so, then proceeds to the Mustafar planetary system to eliminate the Separatist enemies of the Republic, on Sidious’ orders.
Second Pinch Point: Darth Sidious gives the command to execute Order 66, which triggers implanted bio-chips in the Republic’s clone army. They turn on their Jedi commanders and kill them all. Within minutes, the Jedi Order is completely wiped out, leaving only a few survivors scattering for refuge.
Anakin’s wife Padmé goes to Mustafar. Obi-Wan stows away secretly in order to stop Anakin and kill him if necessary. Padmé does not believe he could have turned to evil.
Yoda stays behind to fight Sidious, who converts the Republic into a totalitarian regime, a Galactic Empire, in one maneuver, and manages to fight off Yoda, forcing him into exile.
Third Plot Point: Anakin uses his powers in anger, believing Padmé betrayed him when Obi-Wan shows up behind her. She is choked unconscious by the attack, and Obi-Wan gives Anakin one last chance. Anakin refuses.
Climax: Obi-Wan fights Anakin across an industrial facility on Mustafar.
Climactic Moment: The battle culminates in a devastating defensive maneuver by Obi-Wan, which almost completely destroys Anakin’s body. Obi-Wan leaves him for dead, grieving the loss of his friend and apprentice.
Resolution: Padmé dies after giving birth to twins, Luke and Leia. It is unclear what causes her death, as all her vital signs appear normal.
Anakin is recovered by Sidious, who saves his life by entombing his body in the mechanical apparatus and mask we know as the face of Darth Vader. Sidious reveals Padmé’s death to Anakin/Vader, wording it as if Vader had killed her, and Vader cries out in anguish.
Vader stands at Sidious’s side, overseeing the construction of the first Death Star, which will terrorize the galaxy.
Luke and Leia are sent to separate, nearly opposite worlds. Leia is to be raised as royalty on the verdant planet Alderaan, under the care of Senator Bail Organa, who helped save Obi-Wan and Yoda during Order 66. Luke is sent to Anakin’s relatives, to be raised on a moisture farm on the desert planet Tatooine.
Comments: I skipped over Obi-Wan’s fight with General Grievous on Utapau, because it didn’t really turn the plot. It did show the importance of the trust and bond between Clone Troopers and their Jedi commanders, however, which makes the clones’ forced betrayal of the Jedi during Order 66 more poignant.
If we treat the main conflict of the story as the struggle between the Sith and the Jedi in general, then that would have been a First Pinch, but since the story is more about a specific Jedi named Anakin, and his struggle to choose between the Light and Dark sides of the Force, then the battle on Utapau becomes the First Pinch of a subplot, and doesn’t play as much of a plot turning role in the main plot’s focus.
(Submitted by Aaron McCausland.)
