There really is no good answer other than Lucas didn't care. He combined The Hidden Fortress with Star Blazers, and ended up with a mess of a film that Paul Hirsch rescued in the editing room, and turned into a masterpiece. He then handed the reins over to other directors for the next two films, both of which are very good Hollywood blockbusters, but lack the less-is-more pacing and western-in-space magic of the original.
Keep in mind that when he completed Star Wars, Lucas did not intend Darth Vader to be Luke's father. He was the villain who had killed his father. Anakin even shows up in early drafts of Empire as a force ghost to tell Luke he has a twin sister (who isn't Leia at this point). The moral to the story is that Lucas is something of a hack, as evidenced by what happened when he took the reins-- the prequels.
It's clear that his only plan for the prequels was to start with Anakin as a happy little boy, and conclude with him transformed into Darth Vader. Nothing that happens along the way matters, no character has consistent or understandable behavior or emotions, Jedi are masters capable of single-handedly defeating armies one moment, then weaklings that can be easily dispatched the next, and literally nothing matters except getting from point A to point B, Anakin to Darth Vader.
So, when Sidious tells Anakin that the only way to save Padme is to join the Sith, the audience isn't meant to take it seriously or to think it through. The scene exists only to lead to the next scene, and any attempt at analysis is wasted.
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