Why Didn't GL Make Padme Die the Other Way

only the medical droid sais she lost the will to live. What do they know? They don't even think technically. All they understand is biology.

Padme never expresses any suicidal tendiencies at all. She struggles to give a successful birth to her twins and even takes the time to name them. In fact she uses her dying breath to shed light to Obi Wan that there was still good in Anakin. Her body was shutting down, but the fact is we don't know why. The interpretation of those reasons are mere speculation.

These are George Lucas' characters, not George Lucas. We shouldn't define the story based on what the characters say but what the story sais to us. Try to look past the obvious angle and look beneath the surface.

Think about it, if there is no physical symptom, then the reasons must be bound to the force in some way. Even then, that is more speculation, but certainly reason enough for Yoda and Obi Wan to center their jedi training on learning the intimate nature of the will of the force.

 

Not to mention her last words were "There's still good in him..." In other words, she knew Anakin could be brought back. So, she just had kids, and she has hope her husband can be redeemed... doesn't make much sense...

 

Padme's death would have had an entirely different feel about it had the medical droid's line about her losing the will to live not been there. It would have been tragic had she died directly from Anakin's force choke. It would have been sad had complications from child birth killed her. I've heard it explained multiple times that she didn't choose to die but I can't help but feel that her death was a bit cowardly. No amount of spin can make losing the will to live 30 seconds after giving birth to twins sound sad.

 

The reason why Padme didn't die exactly from Anakin's force choke (this point may have been already brought up in the this thread, I haven't looked through it, so I apologize if this is redundant) is that it would have more implausable or more skeptical that people would buy into Anakin turning back to the good side in ROTJ. At this point in ROTS, he has already killed Dooku, helped in Mace's demise, killed the separatists & Jedi at the temple, as well as the Younglings. Having Anakin also be directly responsible for Padme's death I think would have been too much for anybody to take in, in order to fell sorry for Anakin & buy his turnound at the end of the saga. I don't have a problem with how Padme die, because at that point for her, everything that was a comfort zone for her (the Republic & Anakin's love) was gone, so I can buy that she would lose the will to live. However, I believe the scene would have worked much better if a human worked on Padme's delivery, so that the it would be more believable (since a human would have a better understanding of a person's psyche than a droid, but then again this is Star Wars we're talking about ).

 

There was no other way, because she couldn't live without Anakin. Anakin couldn't live without her. I thought the whole sequence , was riviting.

1 The births.
2 The construction of Vader as we know him.
3 Her death/burial
4 His mask sealing him, and rising from the table.
5 His NOOOOOOOOOOOO realizing he is trapped.
6 Her funeral march with the snippit thingy on her heart.

Lea's memories of her mother, likely to be her adopted one. (It would be nice if GL would clarify that). She didn't know she was adopted, knowing her mother (adopted) was sad, that it easily enough explained. Bail , seeing the collapse of the Republic and doing things behind the scenes I am sure saddened his wife. Not anything too ard to figure out , IMHO. We have no idea how she died, so from a certain point of view, all this is true.

 

I think that Leia's memories are force induced, because all she remembered were images and nothing specific.

 

Padme's death would have had an entirely different feel about it had the medical droid's line about her losing the will to live not been there. It would have been tragic had she died directly from Anakin's force choke. It would have been sad had complications from child birth killed her. I've heard it explained multiple times that she didn't choose to die but I can't help but feel that her death was a bit cowardly. No amount of spin can make losing the will to live 30 seconds after giving birth to twins sound sad

Yes, it was odd especially if you consider life support devices. Even despite losing the will to live, the superior life support machines in the GFFA should have been able to keep even a vegetable alive. Look at Grievious and Anakin. Maybe the only logical (logical in the GFFA) explanation is that it was her midiclorians that gave up on their will to live. I go back and forth whether I like the ending or not. I can imagine a lot sillier endings too.

 

"She was... very beautiful. Kind, but sad...." I would say that is specific & Padme certainly had a hell of lot to be sad about.

 

Lucas didn't want Vader to be the one who killed her. That's why she loses the will to live. Vader's still involved, but not as directly. Her last words are an epiphany, but one that comes too little too late.

 

it's been known for people to "give up on life" like a love bird does and actually die from unxplained medical reasons. i.e Sudden heart failure, medical reason, but what triggered it? The body has a way of manifesting emotional wounds physically. So it's not far fetched at all.

 

it's been known for people to "give up on life" like a love bird does and actually die from unxplained medical reasons.

Im not a doctor, but when Ive heard death from "unexplained medical reasons" its been from them not willing to spend time and money to do an extended autopsy/biopsy. Its a catch all phrase like "natural causes", which if investigated, the exact answer would be found.

ROTS would be a great movie to do say 6 different alternative endings to.

 

she was in perfect health .... end of discussion.

The Droid didn't understand what was happening .... end of discussion.

she displayed nothing resembling suicidal tendiences, she wasn't even depressed and she goes out of her way to name her children and convince Obi Wan that there is still good in Anakin. Someone who doesn't want to live anymore isn't concerned with anyone else, atleast not so much to worry about them after they're gone. If they did they wouldn't take their own life to begin with. .... end of discussion.

..............................

I don't know if anyone here has ever heard of RH Factor. It's when midway through pregnancy, the mother's defence system turns on the child seeing it as a forign body. Perhaps something like this was happening in the reverse but only in terms of midichlorians. Perhaps the children's midichlorians were draining the Midichlorians of Padme to maintain their high count. Perhaps Padme came to depend on the children to stay alive once the fetus' began to develop and grow in their midichlorian count?

Now I'm not advocating what I just said as the reason, but just because some droid is baffled and thinks she has lost the will to live doesn't mean i'm going ot buy into that 'reason' as well. The force is at work here for unknown reasons.

Try to think ouside the box for a minute.

 

I'm kinda sitting on the fence in terms of my opinion on this topic:

But an important fact that SOME seem to ignore, is that Padme didn't give birth to her kids and leave them in a dumpster somewhere. She was surrounded by people she knew very well and TRUSTED (Obi Wan, Yoda, and Bail Organa). She must have felt that the children would be taken care of.

Plus she was probably stoned on pain relieving drugs. Hypothetical and irrelevant, but possible.

 

In real life, people can indeed die of a broken heart.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11446-2005Feb9.html

As Valentine's Day approaches, scientists have confirmed the lament of countless love sonnets and romance novels: People really can die of a broken heart, and the researchers now think they know why.

A traumatic breakup, the death of a loved one or even the shock of a surprise party can unleash a flood of stress hormones that can stun the heart, causing sudden, life-threatening heart spasms in otherwise healthy people, researchers reported yesterday.

This coupled with Padme being in labor, it doesn't surprise me in the way she died.

 

it worked for me. i think dying of a broken heart fits in nicely with the dark fairy tale motif...

in addition, it's not just that she lost her husband; its that her entire world has just come
crashing down on her head. i don't think it takes away from the strength of her character
at all. she was strong enough to confront him after all.

i suppose the argument could be made that a simple death in childbirth would have been
more realistic, but when was Star Wars ever about realism?

i've been very critical of the PT, but ROTS, to me, is pure brilliance. i love every second of it.
a heartbreakingly beautiful film...

 

THANK YOU!

Remember this fact folks!

 

It's interesting as a side note, that in the comic adaptation, Anakin not only force chokes her, he then slams her against a wall. It's much more brutal, as well as harmful to Padme.
I wonder when this idea was tossed in favor of "just" choking her.

 

Either August of 2004 or January of 2005.

 

That's an interesting observation. As we know though, Padme was in perfect health and the droids didn't know why her body was shutting down. This reinforces the idea that her 'broken heart' had nothing to do with her death. I personallt deel it had something to do with the force and the birth of the twins. Perhaps Anakin's dream was spot on and the childbirth was the source of the fatality, just not by any physical injuries but something else.

 

it's been known for people to "give up on life" like a love bird does and actually die from unxplained medical reasons.

That is a very true statement. My sister had two parakeets, a male and female, and the male parakeet died of respiratory failure. In less than 24 hrs the female started acting limp and lethargic, she wouldn?t eat, drink, she wouldn?t hold herself up, if you put her on the ground she would fall over like she was waiting for her body to shut down, until she finally died. She made herself die and it was a very emotional experience, like, the birds were so connected that the other couldn?t live without the other. I believe Padme couldn?t handle the thought of Anakin dying and the symbiotic relationship is very believable to me. The way George put the whole dying/birth/darth vader sequence like that was INTENTIONAL. It was to show them both dying together as if Anakin ?dying?, Padme died also. I believe George said that in the commentary.
Also, the rumination scene makes me believe that Padme was indeed force sensitive when she was pregnant w/ the twins. It was as if she new something was going on. Also it makes the whole ?Padme and Anakin symbiotic relationship? thing even more real to me, like they were so connected that they could communicate w/ each other in a kind of telepathic way.

 

I wish Padme would have died from what most stragulation victims die from. Aneurisms.

The droid SHOULD have said: All organic material has been repaired, but for some reason we are still losing her. The damage to her brain was too great.

It would make it a real reason, and Anakin did NOT mean for it to go that far. He was out of control, but in her excitemnet, high blood pressure, and racingheart, for her to be strangled wuld pop vessels inher head. That is why strangulation vitims die. They are already so scared, that their heart's beating like crazy and it's a chain reaction. Crushed veins in the neck, decreased oxygen in brain.

There's no reason he shouldn't have killed at that point, since he thought he did anyway. So it should have been true. Padme looked like she was having a migraine when she asked where Anakin was.

 

That is a very true statement. My sister had two parakeets, a male and female, and the male parakeet died of respiratory failure. In less than 24 hrs the female started acting limp and lethargic, she wouldn?t eat, drink, she wouldn?t hold herself up, if you put her on the ground she would fall over like she was waiting for her body to shut down, until she finally died. She made herself die and it was a very emotional experience, like, the birds were so connected that the other couldn?t live without the other.

Umm, I would suspect that both birds had caught the same disease. Lots of birds do mate for life, but it is the human caretaker who gives them personality/emotional aspects.

In real life, people can indeed die of a broken heart.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11446-2005Feb9.html

As Valentine's Day approaches, scientists have confirmed the lament of countless love sonnets and romance novels: People really can die of a broken heart, and the researchers now think they know why.

A traumatic breakup, the death of a loved one or even the shock of a surprise party can unleash a flood of stress hormones that can stun the heart, causing sudden, life-threatening heart spasms in otherwise healthy people, researchers reported yesterday.

Yes, but in a clinical environment ? With lots of drugs and other life support systems ? It sounds like lawsuit time. With a good lawyer, Luke and Leia would have owned Polis Massa and all the droids. Then Luke wouldnt have needed to buy R2 and 3CPO.

 

Lucas wanted a sad ending, but not one featuring a murder. Rather a death that's filled with agony and despair. He wanted a spirital and emotional death. Not a physical aliment.

 

I was about to comment on this on a new thread! OW!

Anyways, I think that getting Force-choked was good enough. Lucas didn't have to add in the weaker aspect of her dying from a broken heart. She's a leader in the first prequel film and he somehow molds her into an emotional wreck for ROTS. I understand perfectly the profound emotions she was feeling and why the supporters say that it added an extra dimension to her death. I'm just saying that they could have made her go out decently. It's bad enough that we see her going through all this pain, now she goes out with no real grasp of the intelligent woman she once was? Love does a lot of things to a person, but I think this entire plot twist worked better on paper and in Lucas' head than on the big screen. Tests audiences should have pointed out this part, and George should have acted upon it.

 

Firstly, someone on another thread mentioned stress cardiomyopathy as the cause of death. Medical term for a broken heart. Perfectly plausible.

Secondly, it makes sense that the thing that Anakin feared would come to pass out of his actions. If he had outright killed her, his Force vision would not have been true. This way, he brought about the thing he feared the most.

Perfectly logical choice.