PT Padmé Amidala MEGAthread - Don't look at her that way. It makes her uncomfortable

You've outlined something that is terribly problematic and crippling to R1 for me -- truncated/re-arranged/changed/under-developed plot and character threads. I find the film aesthetically objectionable for a number of reasons; and the relatively poor character dynamics (such as I see them) are just one more (and hardly, in my estimation, an insignificant one). But I won't get into a discussion about that here. Overall, R1 just leaves me with a tremendous feeling of apathy; toward the movie and the Disney takeover of Star Wars as a whole.


Now, to circle back onto something else here...

This is an intriguing objection -- but it seems to lack a certain awareness, in my opinion.

I would say that Padme is not entombed so much with her husband (though, in a manner of speaking, that is true), but with the Republic itself.

If ROTS is watched in isolation, I can see how someone might arrive at your view; but across the prequels, Lucas develops a core theme: the death of femininity. Broadly speaking, this theme finds its greatest and gestaltic expression in AOTC, but there is significant carry-through into ROTS. At no less than three key points in AOTC, a female character dies just moments after a lead character (Padme, Obi-Wan, or Anakin) grabs hold of them, only able to watch them helplessly slip away. In another powerful nod to this theme, Taun We (female) is clearly shown in a subservient position to Prime Minister Lamu Su (male), as she accompanies him with Obi-Wan on a grand tour of a grand army (an all-male clone army). This, of course, is the same army that then completes Palpatine's rise to power and brutally mass-murders any number of Jedi, on any number of war-torn worlds, turning on them all of a sudden, at Palpatine's command, in ROTS. The female Jedi Aayla Secura, half-clothed, is the second to fall to the blast fire of the clones in the dramatic death sequence, and she receives a notably brutal death (a death so graphic it is covered up by a strange crystal structure as the camera pans up from the carnage).

Other sneak details undergird this reading. For one, Obi-Wan ominously uses Padme "as bait" in order to discover Anakin's whereabouts (Padme inadvertently takes him right there), resulting in catastrophe. This bait theme is interesting in itself. In TPM, Obi-Wan orders the decoy queen to "send no reply of any kind" while they're grounded on Tatooine and then discusses the matter with Qui-Gon, who suggests the transmission they've received "sounds like bait to establish a connection trace". Yet in AOTC, Anakin is actively using Padme and her corporeality as bait to draw out the assassin; though he protests to Obi-Wan, no less, that "it was her idea". Clearly, in ROTS, it isn't Padme's idea to have Obi-Wan accompany her on the ship; he simply guilt-trips her and helps himself to that luxury when she invariably chooses to leave Coruscant, against the urging of her security advisor, based on Obi-Wan's grave revelations. The feminine principle is being gamed and manipulated, in other words; even if these players are thinking of the common good. Even the broad-shouldered benevolence of Qui-Gon, adherent of "the Living Force", puts little serious effort into freeing Shmi along with Anakin; instead using her as a bargaining tactic in order to snag who Qui-Gon really wants to "win" from Watto: Anakin.

Padme's death itself is glimpsed by Anakin in no less than two harrowing dreams or visions that are shown to the audience; in a sort of "break" with Star Wars tradition where such visions were formerly left unrevealed. So you could say that Padme's own passing is presaged by these other female deaths, and these other manipulations, and alluded to far in advance. It's almost as if Anakin were getting some great intimation about the essential pain and wrongness of the world he and the other characters have built for themselves; and in a curious twist of fate, worthy of any Greek tragedy, his glimpsing of his wife's passing is what torments him and helps bring it about. The dream is the reality; the unreal is the real. Padme's will is really stolen from her through a mixture of galactic fate and her own private tragedy (which is also the galaxy's). Her passing is really the last great sigh of that fractured world, wrecked by greed and violence, as a whole era and way of life is powerfully snuffed out by the reign of terror instituted by the Sith.

The true "revenge" of the Sith, the tragic apogee of the prequel trilogy, is the galaxy effectively immolating itself and destroying the feminine principle. We see it lavishly expressed in the elegant organic shapes of the costumes, the ships, and the landscapes in Episode I; and in the flowing, pastoral beauty of Naboo as a whole. Not to mention the more rounded vulnerability of Anakin and his sensual pursuit of his "angel"; as awkward and as floundering as it sometimes is. But these things also begin to meet their end in AOTC (especially as the picture passes its half-way point and Anakin and Padme leave Naboo for Tatooine); and by the start of ROTS, which places an emphasis on sharp lines and shadowy corners, the galaxy is a much more parcelled-up and dingy, threatening sort of a place. The invisible hand of the Dark Side -- ego, greed, masculine hubris and power-seeking -- takes hold and squeezes the sacred feminine to death.

Make no mistake, Lucas was being avowedly operatic in the PT. He clearly approached the PT as a mixture of historical drama and Passion Play. The ultimate destruction of Anakin and Padme as the cast-out Adam and Eve of a corrupted galaxy could hardly, to my eyes, be any more obvious. Their sad (even somewhat pathetic) fates complete, in a sense, the cloned casting-out of Jar Jar; who is cast out first, before the trilogy starts, from his own Gungan society, and again, more obliquely, from the movies as a progressing whole. This unlikely triad of banished creatures, banished energies, based on any number of overt and arcane plot developments and implicative world details (the prequels are nothing if not a world-detail engine), is one of the symbolic masterstrokes of the prequel trilogy, in my opinion. But opinions do differ -- naturally.

 

I do agree that the droid's line is, well, a little on the nose. I sort of like the interpretation that the droid is merely ignorant of such spiritual matters. I certainly don't believe she "chose" to die in that moment (and I don't think that's how it's portrayed on screen), but rather that it simply wasn't possible for her to live anymore just as it wasn't possible for Anakin to live without her -- the symbiotic circle was shattered.

As for Padme's actions, I see them as being very much in line with Luke's in ROTJ. I've seen many comparisons of Luke's choice of nonviolence and open compassion for his father as Christ-like, but when Padme does the same thing, refusing to give up on someone that she really should have for her own safety, then it's interpreted very differently. And I get that there are cultural and historical reasons why that would be interpreted differently, but it still strikes me as something of a double standard: Luke as a character is afforded respect from the audience for his choices, a respect that Padme is denied. Although part of it of course is that the outcomes are different -- I'm sure there would have been an outcry if Luke had been killed in the throne room -- but then we all knew that ROTS was always going to be the most disturbing and distressing of the saga.

 

Yet Lucas very specifically did.

The real question is why do some place so much importance on the dialogue to the exclusion of what is actually being seen in the visuals and heard in the music?

Even the dialogue on the face is not being listened to what is actually being said so much as what some want to hear:


MEDICAL DROID: Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her.

OBI-WAN: She's dying?

MEDICAL DROID: We don't know why. She has lost the will to live.

So the droids can't explain and don't know why.

Oh and by the way we will now explain it to you by saying she has lost the will to live.

It's a theme of Star Wars and the PT in particular. Droids are not living beings and don't sense the Force. They have knowledge but not wisdom. "If droids could think none of us would be here."

Vader became more man that machine but that made him far weaker in the Force. The machine drains the spirit, soul and personality."Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."

I can understand why. For me I look at it for what it actually is and what they sort of want to half sell it as being what it isn't.

It's about stealing the Death Star plans and being an action/war movie. The characters in that context work perfectly well as they should because it's not about them but the events they are swept up in. This is both different and the same as Lucas films.

It is the same from the stance of the in-universe characters but not from the stance of why the movie was made in the first place. Lucas was thinking of the key characters first. The story of Luke then Anakin and all their variations in the development.

Jyn of course is entirely irrelevant to the Death Star plans movie being made. The OT was made around Luke. The PT around Anakin.

You could make a dozen different movies about the Death Star plans being stolen that are far more interesting character-wise than the finished movie.

Jyn and co are the result of the movie being made not the reason.

 

"She just gave up on life." Here's where our interpretations fundamentally don't align. I never got the impression that she "gave up". At the end of the movie her life is fading away, yes, but she's not mentally checked out or psychologically defeated in the way that someone who has "given up" would be. So I don't subscribe to that interpretation.

 

If Padme's death is a self-sacrifice...what is she sacrificing herself for, exactly? The object of Luke's sacrifice is obvious.

There hasn't been a lot of criticism of Padme's compassion and non-violence*, imo. The most criticism I've seen of her compassion for Anakin was how she handled the Tusken massacre. Similarly, though, a lot of people thought Luke was crazy. The reaction to Luke's gamble to save Vader is similar, just less vehement, probably because it's harder to argue with success. I don't think she got much criticism for offering to run away with Anakin on Mustafar, a lot of people have understood it and even thought it the most sensible course of action, at that point. I don't think I've ever seen anyone criticize her lack of violence, I don't think I've ever seen anyone suggest she attack Anakin. The criticism is of her death, mostly.

Yes, I do respect Luke's choice; it's much more respectable and virtuous. There's also a point to it. Padme's, not so much. I'm not even sure how much of a choice it is. Luke's is very obviously a choice; Padme's is more a collapse than anything willful; it's specifically a lack of will.

If Luke had been killed, I still think it would have went over okay, from a certain pov. Christ did die, after all.



*let's put aside the most viciously critical, shall we? My judgment on how much criticism Padme has received is just that, my judgment, from what I've seen.

 

When I referred to self-sacrifice I didn't mean her death at the end after she has been attacked, but rather her choice in the first place to seek out Anakin and confront him over what she had heard, and to try to rescue Anakin from himself, really. Luke offers Vader the same choice Padme does: run away with me, put all this behind. I'm not sure how Luke's choice is respectable and Padme's is not.

 

I don't know that I've ever seen anyone even question the idea of her going to see Anakin on Mustafar. Of course she has to, that's a given. I just...haven't seen much or any contention on that. If anything, Padme's choice went over much more smoothly because it had already been seen before and was expected. Plus, I think Luke's decision took a bit more bravery, as Vader would naturally receive less benefit of the doubt than Anakin.

Of course Padme is going to see what's up...she's not sure what's going on. She's heard rumors, she suspects, but of course she has to see for herself. Of course she's going to confront him while this is all going down, perhaps before it's too late. Luke's confrontation happens long after the fact, long after Vader's evil is well known, even after Vader had already violently attacked Luke himself.

Obviously, there's been some major miscommunication going on here.

 

This is the thing though. Padme wants to help Anakin and Padme gets all kinds of criticism for not 'running away screaming' yet Luke does not only the same thing but 1000 times "worse" as Vader has literally been part of killing millions upon millions. Yet that is OK for Luke for some reason.

Success and survival therefore a "win" seems to ovecome what is perceived as "failure"

If Padme lives then Vader and Sidious will know it and therefore about the child of Anakin's.

Lucas was very specific in ROTS about not connecting Sidious to the child. Does he know about Padme being pregnant? You would think that he must. It's quite evident but Lucas makes a point of not highlighting it.

Lucas very clearly from the child to the Chosen One prophecy and Anakin's creation was very deliberately leaving things open to interpretation. Lucas' learned way was to keep things as open as possible so as not to lock himself into anything. Even in ROTS and his "last" movie he would not out and out lock himself down but leave things open.

Now, there's a hint in the movie that there was a Sith lord who had the power to create life. But it's left unsaid: Is Anakin a product of a super-Sith who influenced the midichlorians to create him, or is he simply created by the midichlorians to bring forth a prophecy, or was he created by the Force through the midichlorians? It's left up to the audience to decide. How he was born ultimately has no relationship to how he dies, because in the end, the prophecy is true: Balance comes back to the Force.

All Lucas is telling you is the Force is brought back into balance. What does that really mean though? What are the fine details of it's meaning? We don't know but we can figure it out for ourselves based on what he has given us.

I disagree with that sentiment. He "talked" in every frame of the movie he spent years making.

Which is the basic point he makes in the interview (which is really just pointing out and affirming what is already going on in the movie anyway). That it's up to you to decide.

He even gives full license to decide whether Anakin is the Chosen One. Lucas thinks he is but as talked about for years (and now introduced in canon) maybe he isn't and Luke is.

Just because Lucas says Anakin is doesn't mean that the audience has to.

Two things:

1) For Lucas dialogue is support for the story not where the story is at. Otherwise there would be no need for Star Wars to be movies. They could be audio plays or you could just read the script or he could have made them as books.

2) Lucas takes full advantage of dialogue for support and uses it to the full especially in the PT where he uses it to raise questions about the characters and story.

I don't see how that works at all the way the movies work. Luke is told his destiny lies here by Vader, there by Sidious that he should destroy Vader (who is lost forever) and the Emperor by Obi-Wan and Yoda.

Why are those lines in there when Luke doesn't do any of that? He does something that none of them can conceive of and that is saving Anakin who then destroys Sidious.

Like Lucas says "Not having music in a scene is a musical decision."

Comparing the actual official shooting scripts of the prequels with the movies themselves and you see all the dialogue that Lucas viciously cuts out left and right to pare it down to the essentials.

If a line is in there then he has almost certainly a reason for it to be in there as he spends literally years pouring over every line in the movie. Then afterwards he does it all over again for the novelization.

For all the criticism of Lucas' scripting I have found that telling people to look at the actual script they often find that some of their problems they think were with the script are actually... in the script but then got cut out because they were in deleted scenes or in existing scenes but pared down.

The ROTS novel is a case in point where Lucas has this very totally unSEmovie scene where Palpatine goes on for pages explaining things and tempting Anakin. Shooting that would take several times longer than the opera scene which is around 4 minutes. It'd be like the opera scene down for 12-15 minutes.

I don't think that would go over too well in Star Wars. The Han Kylo Ren scene is also about 4 minutes. Would you really want it to be 3 to 4 times longer?

 

The people who criticize Padme for not running away from Anakin tend to criticize the entire romance, from beginning to end. I think, if they accepted the romance just for the sake of argument, they wouldn't object to Padme going to Mustafar. Of course she's going to Mustafar, she doesn't even know for sure what he has done.

Luke does more than run away from Vader, he tries to kill him. When Luke sees Vader in the cave, he immediately moves to decapitate him (No, Luke does not know that Vader is his father at this point, but my point is about Luke seeing Vader as a monster). Many have seen that as the proper response, and his attempt at saving Vader as dangerously naive. Many, many people still think Luke was crazy. I'm sorta one of those people. It's not something I would have done, and I would have called him crazy for trying (Leia thinks he's crazy, too. Run away! Far away!). It worked out, and that's great, but the end doesn't necessarily validate the wisdom of the choice, imo (which is why I respectfully argue with Luke's choice despite his success).

 

Very diplomatic and considered response, Qui-Riv-Brid. I think you're right in what you say. They created the cup, then they filled it. Whereas, with Lucas, his focus seems to have been on theme and character, and their intertwining, first and foremost. He more or less knew the characters he wanted and what sort of themes he was going to explore; so it then became a case of building an appropriate world. With R1, as you posit, it was probably much the reverse. Okay, we have our plot (or plot excuse); now, what characters should we populate it with? Plus, of course, in the case of the latter, being forced, or forcing themselves, to meet certain market criteria. Contra Lucas: (paraphrasing) "Making Anakin a little kid isn't the popular choice, but the right one for the story I'm telling."

I don't know about that. Padme embodies so much more of the Republic era, in my estimation, than Luke does, well... the Rebellion/Empire era? Luke is a key player in that world, as it turns out, but all those characters you mention are rather important. Conversely, Padme is in a unique position of leadership in the PT; and is an obvious thorn in Palpatine's side, and therefore a wrench in his elaborate plan to subvert the Republic; not to mention the wife of Anakin (the Chosen One). She is tied into much more of the visual and thematic architecture of the PT. Luke doesn't become anything like a Padme-esque character, in power or individuality, really, until ROTJ (appropriate that he asks after her in that installment).

So, what I'm saying is... I think you're drawing a false equivalence there.

Also, it's all well and good you asserting a non-falsifiable idea like the same commentary being thrown Luke's way; because Luke is a male character; and much of your own objection, and the objection to Padme dying the way she does in general, seems to be based on the fact that she is female; and her death might therefore have an unfortunate or deplorable "sexist" element to it.

I hear what you're saying, but I think it's fair to point out that Lucas constructed Star Wars to be a visual experience, above all else. One of his inspirations for the look and scope of the prequels was quite obviously the epic tone poem "Koyaanisqatsi", and that film's director, Godfrey Reggio, said he made that film completely without dialogue because he felt language to be "in a state of vast humiliation". So there's something to the idea, I think, that the dialogue in Star Wars (especially the PT) holds a secondary or tertiary level of importance, ultimately. Indeed, it may be perfectly valid to distrust the dialogue, in many a way; especially on a notion as grandiose or as abstract as "losing the will to live".

 

Palpatine comes from somewhere in Lucas' mental make-up like all the other characters.

I really think at times he throws things in to screw with those who he knows are dialogue first people and will take the dialogue reading over his visuals and music.

 

Right. Exactly.

"I love democracy. I love the Republic."

Also, in the Charlie Rose interview from 2015 -- the now-somewhat notorious "white slavers" interview -- Lucas says that all filmmakers are somewhat narcissistic, declaring them to be "mini-Emperors" (because, in his view, they all have an autocratic wish to have the world "be" a certain way).

 

It certainly has as much relevancy as it's ever had -- with a Trump presidency, Brexit, and various swings to the right presently threatening the stability and future of the very planet.

Well, I think it's simultaneously an expression of just how well Lucas can write or incorporate dialogue (of a starchy, speech-bubble kind), and equally a warning about how cripplingly basic and deceitful and/or misleading human speech (including, perhaps, droid speech: machine speech) can actually be.

 

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"She is in pain."​

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The undercurrents at work in Attack of the Clones are astounding, to say the least. There are potentially infinite things to be appreciated in just the single image above. As someone who has chosen to think of The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Episodes in reverse order to zero, I can say without a doubt in my mind that Padmé would not approve of the outright mistrust, disloyalty, arrogance, and dismissiveness by that one particularly petty swath of the fan community with regard to George Lucas & Lucasfilm's multitudinous artistic choices, especially when they may have completely misjudged the basic viewing order of the movies. Don't look at her that (I, II, III) way. It makes her feel uncomfortable. A huge problem that everyone faces in life is solved by a reconciliation of their life with their inherited situation. Star Wars fans have been having star wars over these movies for years when there is literally nothing to complain about. The ultimate boon is right there, but it's perpetually Boonta Eve.​

 

Yes. The political commentary is very broad; and yet very acute at the same time. And the "P" in "PT" might as well stand for "political".

Of course, all of Star Wars has a political dimension to it (and the more pronounced political-commentary aspect of the PT is Lucas' way, I think, of pointing that out). And I wish more people could remember, at times, that Lucas is a very left-leaning guy, who called Barack Obama a "real hero" (vis-à-vis Luke Skywalker: a fictional hero) in 2008, and attended his inauguration, and was later given an award by him; and has made various philanthropic donations, including a $1 million donation to a Martin Luther King memorial in 2005, and two donations ($50,000 each: one in his name, one on behalf of Lucasfilm) opposing the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban in 2008. He has said, on more than one occasion, he is a child of the 1960s and obviously grew up in exactly the right place to absorb socially progressive views. Glad to see he hasn't really changed. Some Star Wars fans need to remind themselves of the guy's political persuasions and his view of where society should be headed. It might help them (I'm not necessarily thinking of anyone in this thread) to be less ignorant; and to help everyone construct the better world Lucas clearly thinks we are capable of if we're reasonably aware and committed enough.

 

The face that launched a Thousand Starships of the Republic. Her future husband changed from man to machine, like the Republic (center of the universe of a planet that is one big (machine) city, to an Empire.

MJ

 

Well done -- the two of you.

MarcJordan

Padme Amidala is, indeed, very "Helen of Troy"-ish: Padme of Theed. A young woman of great beauty who does, indeed, help initiate the Clone Wars and "handmaiden" Anakin into becoming Vader, thus altering the constitution of the Republic.

Pyrogenic

The PT does gain a lot by being watched in reverse. "She" reveals herself anew; a hidden grain is disclosed like an erotic thunderbolt illuminating the bow of a mighty ship in a dark night. We go backwards to go forwards; awakening our third eye. Hail the jewel in the lotus; three cheers for the red-ruby Queen.

 

I was looking at this link

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Padmé_Amidala's_wardrobe

Natalie Portman sure had to change clothes a lot. Which wardrobe set was the best of the PT films? When you think of Padme which look immediately comes to mind for you. At Celebration I saw a lot of Pregnant Padme Mustafar outfits. Some of Padme's clothing is not as memorable as others, but many easily come to mind.

 

Her white one from AOTC. That's what I usually think of when someone says Padme.