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PT In original ROTS draft, Padme tried to stab Anakin in neck with knife on Mustafar!?

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Ghost, May 12, 2017.

  1. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

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    Aug 5, 2001
    Damage removes the issue of will. That implies the death was against her will & was due to...damage.
     
  2. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    You really don't understand. I'm not sure how else to explain it. In this context, "losing the will to live" was NOT her choice.

    Tell that to a depressed person and see how it goes. This is a more extreme version of depression, the kind that shocks the body.
     
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  3. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

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    Aug 5, 2001
    I guess it's left so vague that people can insert their own theories into the situation. I don't really buy that take bcs the main cause of her "extreme depression" that people put fwd is Anakin's situation. Yet she's the one who still believes there's good in him.
     
  4. Blackhole E Snoke

    Blackhole E Snoke Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Apr 26, 2016

    This kind of shock is a physical condition with the heart and caused by adrenaline and stress hormones. Droids would see this. It is impossible to die without a physical reason.
     
  5. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    Her dying words are the proclamation of faith in the person who is supposed to have broken her heart and precipitated her fatal loss of willpower. And she eagerly named the two children she just have birth to.

    Her overall demeanour during the final third of the film did not convey any frailty, emotionally or otherwise. And the droid's say she's physically fine.

    Lacking willpower usually describes not doing what one must or should do because the alternative is easier or more attractive.
     
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  6. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    I agree she has not given up. That's what I'm saying. She hasn't "willed" herself to die. But the stress just took a physical toll. It's like a battery, where she's trying to do as much as she can to her last breath, she wants to go on, but the charge is still running out.

    The droids did see she was dying. And the novel explains they don't understand human biology that well.
     
  7. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    But willpower is not required to keep a physically well person alive. There is no physical toll. The droid said so.

    There is nothing wrong with Padme except sufficient will to live. That is what the film, or the droid, is telling us, explicitly.

    The things which one might imagine would weaken someone to the point that she could not endure her physical trauma (which she doesn't have) she proclaims,beyond reason, to have retained her faith in.

    Doesn't add up or make any reasonable or intuitive sense unless you pervert Padme's dying expressions into something false or involuntary and meaningless.
     
  8. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 10, 2011
    She's been damaged spiritually. She still has faith in Anakin's goodness, but all the unimaginably terrible and heartbreaking things that have happened have still taken an irrevocable toll on her spirit. The droids can't sense this because it's spiritual damage, not physical damage.

    The deeper meaning of the scene is to be understood by the way it's intercut with the scenes depicting the birth of Darth Vader. Padme is spiritually linked with Anakin. When he "dies" and becomes Vader, she dies with him. It's a very Arthurian, fairy tale-type conceit.

    Of course Anakin is still there within Vader and Padme can feel this, but then Padme doesn't really die either. She lives on through Luke and Leia. But both Anakin and Padme themselves are no longer able to survive in the material plane on their own. Anakin can only survive materially through the mechanical abomination that is Vader (which he immediately shuns after his return to the light in ROTJ, voluntarily giving himself to death), while Padme can only survive materially through her offspring. Two sides of the same coin, one malignant, one benign. Yin and yang.
     
  9. Qui-Riv-Brid

    Qui-Riv-Brid Force Ghost star 5

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    Apr 18, 2013
    Many people including myself have said the same basic thing but congratulations on the way you express it so well and organized the ideas together.

    A point that I like to make is that for some reason a part of the fans are so fixated on the dialogue of the scenes and not paying anywhere near as much attention to what is actually being said in the scenes by the very specific visual and musical storytelling that Lucas is doing. He tells people over and again this is where his movies live. The dialogue is support. Strong support that gives us a lot to delve into no doubt but still support for the images and sound that flicker across the screen.

    If that is your interpretation then you have to ask why did Lucas go out of his way to tell us that? What does the scene show us? Does Padme look like someone who's lost the will to live? I don't think so. She looks like she is being pulled away against her will. Does she seem uninterested or uninvolved with her children? I don't think so.
     
  10. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    It shows that it's meant to be enigmatic but is undermined by being delivered by a droid.

    If the droid had told us that she's fighting to stay alive, as you claim the film shows us, but they are inexplicably losing her, that might have made sense but still remain enigmatic. Although the completion of a six film saga, in the middle of the story, should not be introducing a mystery it has no intention of developing, never mind resolving.

    But to declare simply that she's losing the will to live, before she has given birth and with no detectable danger to her life, her will to continue living is diminishing.

    You have to accept illogical facts on faith before you can speculate with further illogical notions or complete fan fiction in order to support it.

    It isn't authentically stimulating. It just seems like obfuscation, belatedly and clumsily introducing the idea that there are further, untold and unknown forces at play in this particular mystery, to prompt you to move on and settle for the conclusive tying up of material loose plot ends. In other words, getting rid of Luke and Leia's mother without having Anakin actually kill her.

    I love George Lucas. He is what he is and he's no David Lynch.
     
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  11. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

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    Nov 10, 2011

    Thank you for the compliment!

    I really do enjoy the contrast in the ways Anakin and Padme individually deal with the inevitability of their own deaths. Anakin cheats death using means that are decidedly twisted and unnatural, whereas Padme lives on by ultimately giving herself over to the natural cycle of death and rebirth. Anakin desperately clings to the black shore of Hell with his one mechanical hand, while Padme dies peacefully bathed in a heavenly glow.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Anakin will do anything to maintain his grasp on the physical--even if it means holding onto a handful of coarse black sand, even if it means choking his wife into oblivion, even if it means becoming the monstrous Darth Vader. But Padme is able to let go; as she says in Episode II, "I'm not afraid to die." She knows the children are the future, and that she now belongs to the past. She would obviously prefer to live on, but she won't go to unnatural lengths to resist the mark death has place upon her. That's her final repudiation of Vader and everything he stands for.


    Just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean it's bad. I hear people saying the same things about David Lynch's work as you are now about Lucas's: "It's too hard to understand! It's obfuscatory just for the sake of it! Your explanations are just fan fiction, Lynch obviously didn't actually intend the deeper meaning you're imparting to his work! He's an overrated hack!" It all just comes across like sour grapes to me because you had to have it explained to you after the fact.

    And that last bit about "getting rid of Luke and Leia's mother without having Anakin actually kill her" doesn't make sense, because Anakin did kill her. He destroyed everything she cared about and believed in and did it all in her name, utterly breaking her spirit. That's about as horrific as it gets. It's way more disturbing than if he had simply physically killed her. There are no punches being pulled here except in your imagination.

    The whole point of the movie is that death itself is not something to be feared. What Anakin did to Padme is far, far worse than death would be.
     
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  12. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    It's nothing to do with not understanding it. It's that you're not supposed to try except if you elect to fabricate an entire backstory of unseen, untold forces, over and above the one described throughout the saga. Or worse, assume a rather disturbing perspective on Anakin's professed belief in Anakin's goodness.

    Padme begs to disagree with your assertion that Anakin killed her with her proclamation of her undying faith in his goodness. She's demonstrating or expressing the opposite of the lack of wil to live, especially if Anakin is supposed to be the cause of her diminished willpower and therefore the sole cause of her death, according to the droid. Since he did not physically endanger her.

    Makes no sense unless you assume that Padme' doesn't actually believe what she says about Anakin. Then I'd get it. The description of her demise would make perfect sense.

    But I don't buy.that for a second. I can't. In spite of my reservations about her overall depiction, the continuity of Padme's faith in her loved one, almost beyond reason, is, for me, the thing that ties the saga together.

    And I brought up Lynch because that's his thing and he does it well and somewhat consistently. Not everybody likes that of course.
     
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  13. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    Then how did the droid know she was dying? They didn't know the medical cause, but they know she's dying.
     
  14. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    As far as an "Arthurian" or "fairy tale" story...if it's Arthurian, it needs more Mists of Avalon, and if it's a fairy tale, it needs more Moana.
     
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  15. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    Good question. It makes no sense.
     
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  16. Iron_lord

    Iron_lord Chosen One star 10

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    Sep 2, 2012
    Star Trek style "life sign readings" - declining continuously.
     
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  17. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

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    Aug 5, 2001
    Anakin didn't kill her directly. I believe that's what Lucas wanted. It was his compromise given he'd never planned for Anakin to be involved in her death at all. So, Anakin (or Palpatine) created a situation where Padme's despair was such that she lost the will to live. It's as simple as that. What Lucas is saying is that in a GFFA the will to live is a thing & if it's sufficiently low people die. Okay that's fine, who are we to argue? These people are alien to us. What some others are inventing however is some other thing called a "spirit", which has never been mentioned in SW in this context. If this spirit is damaged it's fatal. Which they claim is what happened to Padme. Which would mean Anakin did kill her directly by inflicting "spiritual injuries", which killed her against her will. That's not the story. It's not what Lucas is telling us via dialogue in the movie. It's just a fan theory.
     
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  18. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016

    Exactly. And the other problem with this is that Padme's behaviour and her words are the opposite of someone who has spiritual injuries inflicted by Anakin. In fact, the way the whole Skywalker thing concludes in ROTJ hinges on Luke delivering on that expressed and undying faith in Anakin. and the goodness that runs in that family.
     
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  19. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

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    Jun 12, 2011
    Why are we taking the words of a droid as if they were the absolute truth? The "loosing the will to live" line to me sound like the droid rationalizing what he doesn't understand due to his own programming. There are many instances of characters stating something about a character (Anakin in particular) only to be proven wrong, this is the same concept here. Just because she died of a broken heart doesn't mean she voluntarily lost the will to live.
     
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  20. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    Because droids are not supposed to distort data unless programmed to. Particularly a medical droid. This medical droid appears to have been programmed to be abstract about someone's chances of survival.

    The fact is that this situation gives no coherent leads as to what could be diminishing Padme's will to live to such an extent that she is dying solely because of this factor. "dying of a brokenheat" is another way of saying that someone's physical condition (either congenitally or through injury, infirmity, age) is unable to cope with the effects an emotional trauma. There is nothing wrong with Padme physically. So her cause of death is something completely unprecedented.

    The familiar expression is "spirit is willing but the body weak" . But ROTS seems to gratuitously invert this idea into the body strong but spirit is unwilling, for some reason. But certainly not because of Anakin because Padme tells us so. In fact Padme appears to be asserting her will by going to the trouble of declaring this unshaken faith
     
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  21. Lulu Mars

    Lulu Mars Chosen One star 5

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    Mar 10, 2005
    Padmé doesn't say that Anakin is still the man that she loved. She's saying that there's still a chance for him to become that man again.
    Her steadfast belief in that doesn't change the fact that he is now not that man. He destroyed their love when she depended on it the most and that broke her heart/soul/spirit.
     
  22. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    She says there's still good in him.

    Padme neglecting to say specifically what it would take to convince you that her heart and spirit and whatever aren't irreparably broken e.g. "I still love Anakin as the man I know." does not mean that she must be dying of a broken heart. Where does that end? Assuming that every piece of motivation that a character does not express, assume that the motivation is the opposite?

    There's nothing to stop you supposing for yourself that Padme dies because she's lost everything that Anakin has taken away fro her. And suppose that he's crushed her spirit.

    What Padme says does not support this though. If you need to imagine what she might have said if her spirit was destroyed by Anakin but just isn't saying it,in spite of the fact that what she does say alludes to the opposite of a broken spirit/faith/heart etc, in order to explain her demise then that's up to you.

    What you're saying is that Padme's prime concern in that moment is to express faith in the future but doesn't have the will to see that future and that faith fulfilled and repaid by Anakin.

    I can suppose whatever I want to. Suppose Padme had her fingers crossed off screen while she expressed her faith in Anakin. Suppose that she didn't say the magic word "uvula" before proclaiming her faith in Anakin, making it null and void. Suppose that on Naboo it is customary to proclaim faith in the person who has just fatally broken your heart as a piece of ritual sarcasm. Suppose that it's from Obi Wan's perspective, and he misheard her saying "There's still food in him".
     
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  23. Lulu Mars

    Lulu Mars Chosen One star 5

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    Mar 10, 2005
    I suppose that you love to spew out a lot of crap just to make people throw their hands up in the air.

    If I'm mortally wounded and believe that someone on the other side of the world has the power to save me, that won't make one iota of difference if I have three seconds left to live.
    That's the case with Padmé. Emotionally, she is mortally wounded. The only thing that could possibly save her at that point is Anakin walking in, fully restored to his former glory, undoing what he did to her.
     
  24. Qui-Riv-Brid

    Qui-Riv-Brid Force Ghost star 5

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    Apr 18, 2013
    I'm giving you another right now.

    Excellent!

    This point is very clear. Anakin/Darth Vader destroyed Padme. He destroyed the Republic, democracy and everything she stood for in her life and she was a part of it. Compared to that a mere physical attack is mundane and nothing. That's fine for Nute Gunray and the like but not for Padme.

    Let's go back to the dialogue again:

    DARTH VADER: (continuing) Where is Padme? Is she safe, is she all right?

    DARTH SIDIOUS moves closer to the half droid/half man.

    DARTH SIDIOUS: It seems in your anger, you killed her.

    A LOW GROAN emanates from Vader's mask. Suddenly everything in the room begins to implode, including some of the DROIDS.

    DARTH VADER: I? I couldn't have! She was alive! I felt it!

    Here is classic Lucas PT dialogue. He has the droid say she's lost the will to live and juxtaposes that with Sidious saying "It seems in your anger you killed her."

    Droids don't lie but also don't understand. Sidious lies but using truth and he does understand.

    Star Wars is operatic, it's mythology, it's poetry. That is a massive part about what people love about it but for whatever reason some would rather Padme be destroyed physically with an assault rather than spritually assaulted.

    Yet over and again many of these same people bemoan the lack of Force mysticism and spirituality in the prequels as they perceive it. Where this lack of Force mysticism and spirituality is baffles me.

    Here is a perfect opportunity for them to have it and what do they want instead? A Force choke physical assault. Instead of a Force spiritual/mystical assault.
     
  25. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 6, 2016
    Padme is not mortally wounded. The droid said so. (There is no such thing as "emotionally mortally wounded" Not in real life and never alluded to in Star Wars.)

    Padme's faith in Anakin is unshaken in spite of what he's done. She repeated this faith, unambiguously, right before she died. She had earlier tried to talk him into leaving everything behind and raising their child, after she learned the truth.

    I'm not making anything up. I am not "spewing" anything out. And I am certainly not defending my convictions and the unequivocated dialogue provided by the film to narrate Padme's demise out of love of making people's hands go up.

    What you are describing, Lulu, isa reasonable, logical and satisfactory explanation of Padme's demise, IF it had been depicted in that way instead of what we get. I'd love to know that the movie was alluding to that very thing. But the film, deliberately or otherwise, makes an absolute cod of it, as we say here in Scotland. And it puts illogical obstacles in the way of that kind of intuitive resolution. None of which enhance the experience.

    I'm just not prepared to let this particular aspect of the film pee on my leg and tell myself that it's raining.
     
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