| Author |
Topic:
Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
darth-sinister
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Jun '01
|
Date Posted:
11/16/05 11:11am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
GaryGygax posted:
I don't know, she was my least favorite Star Wars character from the get go. While Portman's totally incompetant acting didn't help any, not did the banal lines she was forced to read, her character seemed to be made up as the story goes along: one minute she is royalty, (which made sense, as her daughter was a princess), next she was "an elected queen" (whatever the hell that is); one minute she is a strong leader, the next she loses the will to live; one minute she doesn't trust Palpatine because she feels he is ambitious and power hungry, the next she forgives Anakin for being ambitious and power hungry. She is just a poorly thought out character who Lucas didn't spend much time thinking about. She is filler for story problems that need filling, not much more.
If you pay attention in TPM, she's always been elected queen. Rather than having just royal bloodlines, Lucas opted for elected monarchies as well. It shows us how different Padme is from Palpatine. And she forgives Anakin because she loves him. She doesn't love Palpatine.
-----signature-----
Stewie: "Oh, this is an even bigger jackpot than when the Emperor
came up with the formula for great Star Wars dialouge."
Palpatine: "Something, something, something. Dark side.
Something, something, something complete."
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Circle_Is_Complete
Registered:
May '05
|
Date Posted:
11/16/05 11:40am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
GaryGygax posted:
I don't know, she was my least favorite Star Wars character from the get go. While Portman's totally incompetant acting didn't help any, not did the banal lines she was forced to read, her character seemed to be made up as the story goes along: one minute she is royalty, (which made sense, as her daughter was a princess), next she was "an elected queen" (whatever the hell that is); one minute she is a strong leader, the next she loses the will to live; one minute she doesn't trust Palpatine because she feels he is ambitious and power hungry, the next she forgives Anakin for being ambitious and power hungry. She is just a poorly thought out character who Lucas didn't spend much time thinking about. She is filler for story problems that need filling, not much more.
To say one minute she is this and one minute that sounds schizophrenic but if you follow the movies closely things lead to her different actions. She has reasons. I wouldn't say she forgives Anakin from being power hungry. In AOTC she is disturbed by his political ideals when they begin to discuss the topic. It is visually displayed on her face until he laughs it off. As far as his personal greed I always took it as if she put up with it. She knew it was one of his faults and as Sinister said you put up with people more when you love them, You overlook shortcomings and even put up with habits you normally wouldn't.
This is just MY OWN personal feeling but I think Natalie Portman did well in ROTS as it was here first chance to show emotional range if not even emotion at all. She was working with what she was given.
-----signature-----
Mrs. Bluth to Annyong:
"Here is some money, go see a Star War"
Obi-Wan to Palpatine
"Sith are our speciality"
New member of the Obi-Wan Kenobi fan club!
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
colivo
Registered:
Dec '04
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 2:56am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
GaryGygax posted:
I don't know, she was my least favorite Star Wars character from the get go. While Portman's totally incompetant acting didn't help any, not did the banal lines she was forced to read, her character seemed to be made up as the story goes along: one minute she is royalty, (which made sense, as her daughter was a princess), next she was "an elected queen" (whatever the hell that is); one minute she is a strong leader, the next she loses the will to live; one minute she doesn't trust Palpatine because she feels he is ambitious and power hungry, the next she forgives Anakin for being ambitious and power hungry. She is just a poorly thought out character who Lucas didn't spend much time thinking about. She is filler for story problems that need filling, not much more.
I totally agree, I think the biggest miscalculation from Lucas's character development was making Padme die from losing the will to live. It just totally contradicts how her character is portrayed in the first two movies, and also contradicts her daughter being a leader in the OT.
If Lucas would have just let her die, and we can always speculate, was it from childbirth, was it from falling when she was unconscious, or was it from being force-choked by Anakin. All of them are plausible, and it would have kept her character strong.
Also, why would she say at the end, "There is still good in him." and then die on her own terms? If she knew he could be brought back, and she just had twins, don't you think she would stick around alittle while? Poor writing.
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 3:05am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
darth-sinister posted:
Lucas didn't have much for Padme. She was just there to have the kids and be dead by the time the story begins.
and it shows.
-----signature-----
A perfect world: a house in the Hamptons with two solaria and a horse named Prickely Pete,
Dr. van Nostrand as my primary care physician,
the O-OT legally available on DVD in a quality worthy of its greatness
and Luke the undisputed hero of Star Wars
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Nordom
Registered:
Jun '04
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 4:31am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
Hi all,
With Padme I feel that she was not a very strong character in her own right, that she was too tied up with other characters and not independent enough. A character can be very tied up with the plot or other characters but at the same time be strong enough or indpendent enough to stand on their own.
To be a little blunt she exists for two reason, to give birth to Luke and Leia and to give Anakin a reason to fall. But both are mostly about other people and not herself. What did Padme have that was truly hers?
She does belive in the senate and there is some stuff in the films but lots more were cut and some of that was quite good character stuff. In TPM she is the most independent while in clones she is both the plot device in that someone is trying to kill her and she is Anakins love interest. In Sith she is even weaker, she is very much a reason for Anakin to fall and not much more.
And once Anakin has fallen and Luke and Leia are born, poof she dies.
Regards
Nordom
-----signature-----
"I think, therefore I am.. I think"
"Morte, how do you stay afloat?"
"Flatulence, you stupid polygon"
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
SHAD0W-JEDI
Registered:
May '02
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 5:03am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
I want to say up-front that if any of this comes off as "Lucas-bashing", it is not INTENDED to, nor meant in that spirit. I am (obviously!) a big fan of SW, and have enjoyed the movies immensely.
I think that the Anakin/Padme relationship was a lot more... complicated... than many of us would have suspected when we just heard of Anakin's 'evolution' in broad terms. As presented in the three "prequel" movies, I think you can make a pretty good case that, with the best of intentions, Padme reinforced a lot of Anakin's negative traits... In no way am I taking the focus off of Anakin - ultimately, whatever his temptations, trials and difficulties, HE makes the choices that lead to his fall! - but Padme, in my view, is too willing to go along with the qualities in Anakin that contribute to his fall. Motivated by her love for Anakin, she excuses his vengneance-inspired violence, his temper, and becomes his accomplice in dishonesty. She KNOWS better on an intellectual level - she as much as says that living a lie would destroy them both, and she is right! - but she gives in anyway. I know some find this to be romantic. I think it is sad.
That being said, in ROTS, Padme begins to face some of the practical consequences of all these choices. I think that, in this movie, Padme has her FINEST hours... because it is in this movie that she shows moral strength. Not by running around with a blaster or fighting in an arena, but by taking a hard look at where the Republic is going, where Anakin is going, and realizing that as much as she might wish it otherwise, she cannot simply "go along".
Where I think Lucas ran into problems is in handling her final confrontation with Anakin, and its aftermath. Padme's heart truly IS breaking when she confronts Anakin and finally has her eyes fully opened to what he has become. It is a devastating moment. When Anakin Force-chokes her, it is the final, terrible moment of truth. Having her die of a broken heart after this makes, I would argue, perfect sense...
EXCEPT... for the bit about having her talk about there still being good in Anakin.
Because that is a sentiment of HOPE. It implies she believes Anakin can still be saved. That he is worth fighting for. That he can STILL be redeemed, brought back...to repeat, that he can be SAVED.
So why does she give up?
That doesn't ring true for me. If Padme DIDN'T express that idea, her passing away WOULD make sense, I think. She has had her heart broken. She has realized that she lived a lie for years, that her choices helped bring her and Anakin to this end.. and that the galaxy may have to deal with the consequences. That for all her love of Anakin... he could not be saved from his darker impulses. Under this crushing realization, this terrible betrayal, and Anakin's physical assault, she dies.
But if she believes Anakin is still worth fighting for?
It just doesn't ring true for me. Not a "spoiling" moment - I think her death is still very touching and the movie, overall, has a lot of emotional power - but one that I would have loved to have seen tweaked...
Shadow
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
yankee8255
Registered:
May '05
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 7:14am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
Nordom posted:
Hi all,
With Padme I feel that she was not a very strong character in her own right, that she was too tied up with other characters and not independent enough. A character can be very tied up with the plot or other characters but at the same time be strong enough or indpendent enough to stand on their own.
To be a little blunt she exists for two reason, to give birth to Luke and Leia and to give Anakin a reason to fall. But both are mostly about other people and not herself. What did Padme have that was truly hers?
She does belive in the senate and there is some stuff in the films but lots more were cut and some of that was quite good character stuff. In TPM she is the most independent while in clones she is both the plot device in that someone is trying to kill her and she is Anakins love interest. In Sith she is even weaker, she is very much a reason for Anakin to fall and not much more.
And once Anakin has fallen and Luke and Leia are born, poof she dies.
Regards
Nordom
Essentially, she's more a plot device than a character in her own right.
-----signature-----
A perfect world: a house in the Hamptons with two solaria and a horse named Prickely Pete,
Dr. van Nostrand as my primary care physician,
the O-OT legally available on DVD in a quality worthy of its greatness
and Luke the undisputed hero of Star Wars
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
RebelScum77
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Aug '03
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 7:36am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
Leia was a princess because her adopted mother was the Queen of Alderaan, not because of Padme... though it fits nicely.
Padme was a plot device, but to be fair, so was Obi-Wan at times. But Padme filled the archetypical role of catalyst to the hero's fall. Every tragic hero has one. But on top of her relationship with Anakin was the subplot of the Senate and the future rebellion. Perhaps her character was stretched a little thin, as Lucas cut most of Senate scenes in RotS and family stuff in AotC. But I still thought she was fairly well done. She went through quite a lot of personal changes through the 3 films and I believed that by RotS she was so caught up with Anakin that she didn't realize what was happening with him. The scene on Mustafar was brilliant, probably the best showcase of her character in the 3 films. And to me it was exactly where her character needed to be.
-----signature-----
CHEAP SLIT!!
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
sithrules70
Registered:
May '05
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 3:05pm
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
darth-sinister posted:
"The part that I had never really developed is the death of Luke and Leia's mother. I had a back story for her in earlier drafts, but it basically didn't survive. When I got to JEDI, I wanted one of the kids to have some kind of memory of her because she will be a key figure in the new episodes I'm writing."
--George Lucas, Star Wars-The Return Of The Jedi: Annotated Screenplay, 1997
Lucas didn't have much for Padme. She was just there to have the kids and be dead by the time the story begins.
so that quote means that leia is in fact remembering padme ??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!? 
yippie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
LLL
Title: TFN Fan Fiction Archive Editor
Registered:
Jul '00
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 5:46pm
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
Should he have made her more stronger by opposing Palpatine more?
Well, he did ...
... but then he CUT IT ALL OUT OF THE FILM!!!
Poor Natalie. Her best moments always end up on George's cutting room floor!!!
(Thank God for DVD extras!)
-----signature-----
''Overall, to get a real deep, nuanced understanding of human behaviour, art is the best way.'' --Natalie Portman. Have a question or suggestion for the Archive? PM me anytime. 
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
YYZ-2112
Registered:
Sep '04
|
Date Posted:
11/18/05 6:43pm
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
colivo posted:
GaryGygax posted:
I don't know, she was my least favorite Star Wars character from the get go. While Portman's totally incompetant acting didn't help any, not did the banal lines she was forced to read, her character seemed to be made up as the story goes along: one minute she is royalty, (which made sense, as her daughter was a princess), next she was "an elected queen" (whatever the hell that is); one minute she is a strong leader, the next she loses the will to live; one minute she doesn't trust Palpatine because she feels he is ambitious and power hungry, the next she forgives Anakin for being ambitious and power hungry. She is just a poorly thought out character who Lucas didn't spend much time thinking about. She is filler for story problems that need filling, not much more.
I totally agree, I think the biggest miscalculation from Lucas's character development was making Padme die from losing the will to live. It just totally contradicts how her character is portrayed in the first two movies, and also contradicts her daughter being a leader in the OT.
If Lucas would have just let her die, and we can always speculate, was it from childbirth, was it from falling when she was unconscious, or was it from being force-choked by Anakin. All of them are plausible, and it would have kept her character strong.
Also, why would she say at the end, "There is still good in him." and then die on her own terms? If she knew he could be brought back, and she just had twins, don't you think she would stick around alittle while? Poor writing.
And that's my point. She was portrayed as this strong independent character. She is shown to often put her own agenda aside in the cause of others. The recapturing of Naboo from the Trade Federation was the first major event (a nice comparison to Haile Selassie I recapturing of Ethiopia from the Italian Fascists led by Musolini in WWII .. spelling?) Then she supports Anakin's desire to rescue Obi Wan by helping him bend the rules of his mandate. She also served as a Senator at the request of the Queen who replaced her. When she learns of her own demise according to Anakin she concerns herself with the baby. She consoles Anakin in his darkest hour after his rampage from the loss of his mother and tries to understand his perspective and see the humanity of his error. On her deathbed, she doesn't reach out in fear or worry for her own sake; she concerns herself with birthing her children, naming them and then defending the father who just failed in the most horrible way. She does this because she recognises that the dark side twisted his mind in trying to save her. See, she knows why he did what he did, the others do not and never really did.
Now after all of this someone wants to convince me that she died because she lost the will to live? This is totally against the grain of her character, which is why I feel it is absurd. But there it is, spoken by a DROID.
So really ...... what's more likely:
That Padme's death was simply thrown together and that her death being counter to what we know of her is in fact the truth because George Lucas; a film pioneer with over 30 years experience in film crafting and storytelling under his belt; a well studied student of Joseph Campbell's works on myth and the hero's journey who himself called Lucas his greatest student; simply dropped the ball and gave Padme the worst possible ending, leaving a huge void in what could easily be a series that outlives even my grandkids.
OR
That the idea that Padme "dies of a broken heart" is just the opineonated incorrect interpretation of an audience who didn't look beneath the surface. This interpretation being an ending based soley on her dialogue "Anakin, you're breaking my heart" and a droids dialogue "She has lost the will to live" both of which being taken out of context and connected to each other. This coupled with the fact that she has NO PHYSICAL HEALTH PROBLEMS at the time of her passing. In addition she herself makes no claim that she can't live anymore or that it's all too unbearable etc. Factor in that the film is cut to suggest that she can feel what Anakin is going through, perhaps a force empowered perception she draws on from her children inside her womb. Also wasn't the classic 'mystery of the force' music playing when she's drawing her last breath and pleading with Obi Wan that there is still good in her husband?; the same music that shrouds Leia's revelation to Luke's location under cloud city; the same music that enlightens Qui Gon when he hears Anakin is fatherless; the same music that draws us in to Luke hearing Obi Wan from the netherworld telling him to let go; the same music that enhances the holo recording of Leia pleading for Obi Wan's help, a message that fell into Luke's lap. They all have a theme that draws us to feel the force is in play at those moments.
I'll gladly recant my claim that the death is actually related to birthing two force empowered children, just as Anakin sees in his vision; if anyone can show an inconclusive quote or reference that states otherwise or points to Padme dying of a broken heart etc.
-----signature-----
"You were right about one thing Master. The negotiations WERE short."
"Story is about principles, not rules. Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form." Robert McKee
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
darth-sinister
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Jun '01
|
Date Posted:
11/19/05 12:02am
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
|
Padme went from a strong, independent woman to what she is in ROTS. It's the side effect of marrying Anakin and giving so much love to him, that when he betrays her like he does, it's too much for her. He trades her independence for co-dependence. She can't imagine a world without her husband. That's why she's like she is. She loves too much and Anakin's turn sends her sprialing out of control.
-----signature-----
Stewie: "Oh, this is an even bigger jackpot than when the Emperor
came up with the formula for great Star Wars dialouge."
Palpatine: "Something, something, something. Dark side.
Something, something, something complete."
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
WolfEgo5
Registered:
Jun '05
|
Date Posted:
11/19/05 12:57pm
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
|
When I watch ROTS I watch scenes 1-14, change to disc 2 and watch the 3 rebellion scenes, then change back and watch scenes 15-50. Those three deleted scenes seem too important to the character of Padme for me personally to leave them out of the story when I watch them. Nothing I can really do about her losing the will to live. One of my only problems with the saga is the treatment of Padme, and how many of her important character scenes were cut out of episodes II and III.
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
Circle_Is_Complete
Registered:
May '05
|
Date Posted:
11/19/05 4:34pm
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
|
I decided to do the same when showing friends the film.
-----signature-----
Mrs. Bluth to Annyong:
"Here is some money, go see a Star War"
Obi-Wan to Palpatine
"Sith are our speciality"
New member of the Obi-Wan Kenobi fan club!
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
lorn_zahl
Registered:
Oct '02
|
Date Posted:
11/19/05 6:35pm
Subject:
RE: Did Lucas betray Padme?
|
I don't think Lucas betrayed Padme one bit, she was a bad mofo in both TPM and AOTC.
What's wrong with chilling out when your about to give birth? sheesh
|
Locked Topic |
Active Topic Notification |
Private Message |
Post History
|
