PT Distress Calls and Communications

When escaping the droid control ship at the beginning of TPM, Qui-Gon says they must "contact chancellor Valorum" once they are in the clear or on the surface. However, once on Naboo, the Jedi make no attempt to do this...I guess we just have to assume they had no tech to do this? I guess no communicator or anything? Are they barred from using them for some reason? (my best guess is that the droids nearby could detect their communicators...but that's never really said or touched on).

It is made clear that there is a communications blackout (I guess on the entire planet) because of the Trade Federation and their invasion army, so you could say this resolves the matter. But...

Once the Jedi rescue the queen and take her ship through the blockade, they are free of the planet, the Federation, and are out in open space. To top it off they are in literal distress with their hyperdrive being damaged. So what do they do?

Well they sure as hell don't contact the chancellor! This would be the perfect time for them to send a distress call, even just an out-going one, to Coruscant. Can't they do this? While on Tatooine, they receive a fake distress call from Naboo. So, is there just a range to this kind of thing? How would they be able to go to the surface of Naboo and contact the chancellor, but not be able to do it in their ship once they are past the blockade?

I know that the plot demands they go to Tatooine, but I'm surprised they didn't at least make an attempt at communicating at some point, even if there is a risk they would be tracked. So what do you guys think? Plot hole?

Even after leaving Naboo, they don't contact anyone on Coruscant until they are literally standing on the docking platform face to face with the chancellor. They had to fly ALL THE WAY THERE and stand with him to make contact. Despite the fact that Sidious is telling the Trade Federation what to do via a hologram the whole time from Coruscant itself.

So yeah, communications, long or short range, are a mighty strange thing in the Star Wars universe, particularly this movie!

Your thoughts?

 

Also for that last bit an Edit: I meant, even after they leave Tatooine they don't make an attempt. They just fly straight to Coruscant.

 

As for that last point, since Valorum and his entourage were waiting for the queen's ship to arrive, I think it's safe to say they did manage to contact Coruscant at some point.

 

The Trade Federation was shown to be capable of tracking communications. Like you said, they could take the risk, but it would probably be an absolute last resort. If the Federation intercepted their distress call, they'd be in big trouble. With no hyperspace capability, their ability to evade capture would be severely limited.

 

Plot hole? More like grabbing at straws.

In case you missed it when they landed to meet Valorum, Revenge of the Sith also had TPM's back. The falling wreckage of the IH was escorted down by fireships on both sides and when Bail entered the atmosphere he was holo-facebooking with the Chancellor's office. Qui Gon knew better than to turn the ship into an easier to find target and there was no reason to tell anyone in Government or the Temple, because getting to Coruscant didn't require any sort of advance notice. The fact that they needed shuttles to come and go from the platform makes it clear that contact had been made.

 

I just think the idea of planet-to-planet communications wasn't really concrete until the PT. In the OT, the only time anyone holo-skypes long distance is when Vader contacts the Emperor in ESB. There is no other point in the OT that this happens, so I always chalked it up to maybe the empire having some kind of special device aboard their ship that wasn't built into smaller ships like the Millenium Falcon (or in TPM's case, the queen's ship). But the queen's ship is shown to be capable of this. Also, Obi-Wan sends his little signal using only his droid (I think) in AOTC, so it must not require some sort of huge device...just a common droid and a star-fighter sized ship, right?

So it kind of opens a can of worms. For example, in A New Hope, they don't try to contact Alderaan before flying there (granted they were rushing away from Imperial patrols and such, and I guess you just have to assume they couldn't get access to such a thing on Tatooine discretely). But still, you would think that would be the first thing they try to do, right? Send an e-mail to Alderaan? I always assumed in the OT that such a thing just wasn't possible.

It's interesting too how when Palpatine is first skyping with the queen at the start of TPM (to show the communications black-out), he says "I have assurances from the chancellor that his ambassadors did arrive." So that means after they landed, the pilots of the ship the Jedi came on must have sent some sort of quick confirmation message back to Coruscant? So it's obvious that this must be a necessary thing in the PT.

But then, of course, the senate wants to send ships to Naboo to confirm there is a crisis. Like, they can't just try to contact Naboo and find their communications are blacked out, then take the word of the Queen and the Jedi?

See how messed up this all is?

It goes like this:
OT=sending messages long distance not a thing
PT=sending messages long distance only a thing when convenient for the plot, but otherwise not used

 

This is the only explanation that makes sense. However, once they run the blockade (since they are, say, 1000 yards away from it), why not go ahead and send a distress call then? It doesn't matter if the Federation tracks them because they already know where they are, see?

 

Also, they could not fly straight to Coruscant because the hyperdive was damaged.

 

I would say, under the circumstances (Naboo being invaded illegally, trying to kill the Jedi and such), there is definitely reason to tell the Government. I understand them not contacting the Jedi Council and stuff because they didn't find out about Maul until already escaping Tatooine. And like I said, the first plan Qui-Gon had after the Federation tried to kill them was to contact the chancellor, right?

 

Yes I meant to say Tatooine on that last part instead of Naboo (they don't go straight from naboo to coruscant of course)

 

It's all stated in the movie. Once they escape the blockade, the Trade Federation doesn't know where they are. That's the very reason for why Sidious sends Maul to find the ship. If they tried to contact the Republic, they would be easily found by both the Federation and Maul. And with no hyperdrive, they would have no chance of escape.

 

Yeah I guess it might have been 'stated', but wasn't shown very well. How did the Trade Federation lose track of them so easily anyway? Couldn't they have just followed them? (they couldn't hyper-escape). That's another point entirely, but still very valid. They just fly away....flew past an armada of ships and not one follows them. Kinda silly.

I'll also point out that the Jedi or the queen never even knew Maul was tracking them. Sadly, it is stated that they were out of the Federation's range, so there is actually a window of opportunity for them to contact Coruscant, they just don't out of fear, I guess.

This is a point for all films though, not just Star Wars. There are plenty of instances in movies where things could be resolved with a phone call that nobody ever makes. It's sad when you get older and start noticing how often this happens in movies..

 

The queen's ship did have a limited hyperspace ability, but they couldn't go far. Tatooine was the closest non-TF planet they could reach given that the hyperdrive would fail shortly.

 

For you.

Just because they couldn't jump to hyperspace doesn't mean they were just hanging close by. They escaped, but they didn't have enough power to make the jump to Coruscant.

Nobody said they knew, besides, it's irrelevant. They knew the TF was looking for them.

But they did not know that. And it also doesn't mean they couldn't be found when trying to communicate with Coruscant.

Fear of being found.

Fortunately that's not the case here.

 

NUTE : My Lord, it's impossible to locate the ship. It's out of our range.
DARTH SIDIOUS : ...not for a Sith...

So, I'd say as soon as they go to Tatooine, it's safe to say the Federation had lost them, right? Otherwise, in this scene, Nute would have said "My Lord, the ship has escaped to the planet Tatooine." After leaving Naboo but prior to Maul tracking them was their window of opportunity. Just sayin..

 

The ship was out of their range of pursuit, but it wasn't impossible for them to track it through a communication trace (which is what they fear). In the end, that's how Maul got their location.

 

He literally say's it's impossible to locate the ship though. I don't think that means "we can still track them down through communications." I always assumed Maul used the force or something to track the Jedi, though.

 

Again, it's irrelevant. They didn't know that and were being cautious because it's a fact that they could get their location that way.

No, he sent the Governor's message to track it.

"Tatooine is sparsely populated. If the trace is correct, I will find them quickly, Master."

 

The way I see it, it wouldn't do them much good. They couldn't give any details of where they were headed, because otherwise the Federation could intercept it and get to them first. They couldn't mention that their hyperdrive was leaking, because then the Federation could figure out where they'd be forced to make a pit stop. There was no information they could send to the Chancellor that would allow him to help them, without potentially leading the Federation right to them.

 

This is a pretty sensible view -- in my opinion.

I also like the poetry of the thing. Sometimes, you need that touch of privacy, that shroud, in order to accomplish something.

And hey, if Qui-Gon could have contacted Coruscant in the Tatooine portion of the movie, or not considered it unwise to do so, he might easily have been able to get another transport sent to pick the queen up and resume the mission, thus negating the whole betting-on-Anakin subplot (which, again, rather poetically, eventually becomes the "main" plot (of the PT and the saga) ..... from many small arises a great).

It's simply a lot, well, simpler, to presume that Coruscant couldn't be contacted once transmissions on Naboo were disrupted, either from an inherent technological limitation or because the characters felt it best to keep their whereabouts unknown. In TPM, the beginning of our bright, child-like adventure, Coruscant is the "Camelot" of the PT which our heroes are trying to reach, and once they get there, ironically, they find it to be wanting, even though they later set up "home" there (in AOTC), only to be driven from it (and changed by it) once the infiltration by the Sith becomes known (ROTS).

My guess is that they worked to establish contact with Coruscant shortly after Qui-Gon boarded the queen's ship with Anakin -- only once all were safely on-board and the hyperdrive generator had been installed. There's actually some opacity to that whole section, first in terms of Anakin just being left there, not even with the basic comfort and security of a blanket (until Padme notices him and places one upon him), and then, with Anakin suddenly being in the cockpit, no less, with Ric Olie providing a commentary. In neither of these scenes are the Jedi present. It's quite telling, I think, that Anakin's new minder, Qui-Gon, is nowhere to be seen in this brief passage of the movie.

*sigh*

There I go, day-dreaming about TPM again.

Well, now you know the quiet ache in the heart of all humanity.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate" -- Cool Hand Luke

 

My first thought? Qui Gon was resting.

My second? That it wasn't anything like what Tommy did in the field during Goodfellas.

 

You're gonna tell me somethin' today, tough guy. Pow, ping!

 

I told Watto to go free your mother.

 

Obi-Wan easily traced Anakin to Tatooine in AOTC.

 

If Qui-Gon did that, and contacted Coruscant immediately after leaving Naboo, wouldn't Palpatine have found out as well?

And then in turn in the guise of Sidious, told Nute Gunray " Send several battalions of droids to tatooine? The queen is not to escape?"