Yoda is sitting with eyes closed in his meditation chamber. Suddenly, his eyes snap wide open. He opens the blinds and sees that the skies of Coruscant are filled with enemy ships. Yoda's ears droop in comical fashion.
Mace bursts into the chamber and says what Yoda already knows: "The city's under attack!"
"Defend the city, we must!"
The ships from Phantom Menace that look like biplanes land on the roofs of buildings and droids start pouring out. Tanks smash aircars and smaller droids start shooting anything that moves.
Cut to Mace striding purposefully toward the hangar where the Jedi keep their fighters. Master Saesee Tiin catches up with Mace and informs him that the enemy's ships are continuing to come out of hyperspace. Mace orders him to take command of that situation.
They get into their respective fighter crafts and take off.
[Note: Saesee has a black accent.]
Cut to Anakin and Obi-Wan on planet Nilban.
The blue-skinned natives take the Jedi back to their village. Everyone is riding large white animals that look like bantha-sized Old English Sheepdogs with horns. As they enter the village, Anakin and Obi-Wan pick up on the fact that there are only women and children here.
[Note: There is a subdued look on Anakin's face. Most likely he's thinking of the Tusken women and children he slaughtered.]
[Note: The blue-skinned people don't seem as bothered by the cold as the Jedi. The youth has no shirt on and the woman is lightly dressed as well.]
They are led into a cave where a tribal elder with rheumy eyes listens to the female leader and the youth (her son?) jabbering.
Obi-Wan interprets. "It seems you interrupted the boy's rite of passage, or test."
Obi-Wan explains his ability to translate as a by-product of having "traveled the universe" with Qui-Gon Jinn.
"Something plagues their land," Obi-Wan continues. "Champion after champion have been sent out, but none have returned. They were choosing another one when you intervened."
The elder says something directly to the Jedi.
"I'm not sure if I heard this right," says Obi-Wan. "It seems you have to 'journey into fire.'"
Anakin's eyes grow wide. "What?"
[Note: Very cartoony reaction there.]
Back on Coruscant, clone trooper tanks are rumbling through the streets. Missiles are fired and Padme's apartment is hit! Captain Typho tells Padme that he must get her to safety, but Padme says the building must be evacuated, not just her. Threepio stands by the gaping hole in the wall, screaming his head off.
"An army of droids! I'm going to have to have a serious talk with your programmer." He shakes his finger down at the street.
Padme has to drag him away.
Mace's Jedi fighter flies by Padme's window. His face is grim. He's being chased by droid fighters.
[Note: Mace's ship has purple accents, since that's his color.]
He looks up and there are even more droid ships up there.
Mace's craft gets clipped by a droid ship and he's forced to bail and free-fall. He lands on a droid craft, slices it open with his lightsaber, grabs a fistful of wires, and gains control of the ship. He uses this commandeered ship to get himself close enough to other ships to slice them open.
[Note: Mace almost looks like a guy waterskiing.]
Cut to Saesee Tiin leading the clone troopers out into space. The space above Coruscant is littered by enemy ships and they keep phasing in from hyperspace.
One of the enemy ships collides with a Republic ship.
"General Tiin, the ship is lost!" says a clone trooper.
"It is time to get a new one. Prepare to board!"
"Hooah!" The clones shout.
Tiin dons a space helmet specially crafted for him so that his horns stick out.
"Attack!"
Tiin launches himself out into space, using only the Force to propel himself. Hundreds of clones with jetpacks stream after him. He ignites his lightsaber, slices a hole in the ship, and jumps in. He's shot at by droids, but he deflects the blasts easily and charges forward. Meanwhile, the clone troopers are on the hull of the ship firing at the main guns. And the main guns are firing down at them, hitting their own ship!
Tiin wastes the droids controlling the turret, turns the guns on another Separatist ship, and blows it away. The clones pump their fists.
[Note: Saesee Tiin! Where have you been all my life? I love this guy. What a man! Or being!]
Cut back to planet Nilban where the decrepit elder is sitting in front of a fire, chanting while Obi-Wan and Anakin sit patiently. Some of the female blue people are there to witness the ceremony as well.
"What's he saying?" asks Anakin.
"They're summoning the spirit of the fire," says Obi-Wan.
He continues to interpret: "The Mother weeps, she is sick. Our warriors have failed; failed to heal the Mother. Into the never-ending winter, a stranger comes. Tell us why he has come. What is his purpose?"
The elder throws some stuff into the fire. Smoke rises and takes the shape of a clawed right hand.
The blue folk start to murmur.
"They're saying 'ghost hand'" Obi-Wan translates. Realization dawns and he grabs Anakin by his droid hand, drags him to his feet and displays it to the people.
"What are you doing?" says Anakin, perplexed.
"No, it's what you're doing," Obi-Wan replies.
Back to Coruscant. Yoda stands on some wreckage and points at a battalion of the "rolling" droids from Episode I. He levitates them up in the air where they are crash into droid ships and destroy each other.
Using more telekinesis, Yoda forces droids back into their "bi-plane" ship, then makes the ship collide with another one. He closes his eyes and takes out two more of these ships by causing more collisions.
Yoda's eyes snap open as he hears a clone trooper over a comlink:
"Alert! We're losing ground in sector four!"
Yoda does an incredible backflip through the air and lands on his ride -- a small animal that is part goat, part pony. He gallops off to save the clones.
[Note: Aww!]
On Nilban, Anakin has his shirt off. The elder mumbles and scoops up a handful of large blue leeches.
"He's saying this may hurt a bit," Obi-Wan translates.
The elder flings the leeches and they land on Anakin's skin -- most on his chest, but one on his face over his lightsaber scar.
They start tracing geometric patterns on Anakin's skin as he grimaces in pain.
[Note: The blue patterns are not unlike the blue patterns on Anakin's podracer in Episode I. Not a coincidence, I'm sure.]
"Is this really necessary?" he says through gritted teeth.
"It's part of their ritual. You must be respectful," says Obi-Wan.
He continues to interpret the elder's words. "You must follow the wind, for it is the Mother's cry. Travel her tears, they are frozen with fear. Enter the Mother's mouth to awake her inner flame."
The people gather at the cave's mouth to see Anakin off. He puts a saddle on the sheepdog.
"Though you've never had the official Trials," says Obi-Wan, "the war has tested you more than any trials could, and Master Yoda foresaw this. The Force has guided us here for your final trial, the one you've never truly faced."
"Master, I haven't always been a patient student," says Anakin, "but I have proved myself. I am a Jedi knight. I won't fail you."
"No, Anakin -- don't fail yourself."
Anakin rides off slowly and doesn't answer.
"May the Force be with you," Obi-Wan says to his back.
Back on Coruscant, the clones are trying to hold a bridge.
"Sector four is being overrun! We need reinforcements!" shouts a clone commander into his wrist comlink.
Super battle droids start coming over the barrier the clones have erected. The clones try to hold them back, but they are out numbered.
"Fall back! Fall back!" the clone commander shouts.
"Hold your positions!" shouts Yoda, leaping in on his goat-pony.
He ignites his lightsaber and Force-pushes the droids away.
Mace surfs up on his commandeered droid craft, leaps onto the bridge and starts bare-knuckle pummeling the droids with fists like a jackhammer.
[Note: I believe he's using the Teräs Käsi martial arts. ]
"Master Windu!" says Yoda and the pair combine to Force-push a ton of droids off the bridge.
"ATTACK!" says Yoda and they rally the clones to push the droids off the bridge.
[Note: It doesn't get better than this.]
Cut to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, chilling in his office, calmly drinking tea and looking out his window. The quiet of his office is in sharp contrast to the noise of the battle we've just cut from.
The conflict can't even really be seen from his vantage point.
Shaak-Ti bursts into his office with some other Jedi and clones and urges Palpatine to get to his shuttle.
"I will not cower in the face of this treacherous attack," he says, acting like Grand Moff Tarkin in Episode IV.
"Please, Supreme Chancellor, we must follow protocol," says Shaak-Ti.
Suddenly there is a thud-thud-thud sound coming from above. The clones look up and point their rifles at the ceiling.
It stops.
"See? It's gone away," says Palpatine.
Grievous' upside-down head appears in the window and he shatters the glass.
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