Saga Anakin Skywalker - Character Discussion...among other things.

That's why I started grocery shopping at Market Basket. They never sell self-contradictory onions.



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This onions bad. The top layer said the TF already sent their ships elsewhere because Naboo is a done deal. Then the next layer still had Nute Gunray worried about a treaty getting signed?

Why did he send his ships away if the conquest of Naboo still wasn't on a solid foundation? This onion is terrible.

 

I had the impression that Darth Sidious was controlling both sides and that Newt wasn't really making the big decisions on his own steam. The guy calls Sidious "my Lord" and bows to his wishes. He's not exactly running the show. And it's fairly easy to see why Sidious would demand less expenditure once he already got what he wanted, which was to instigate public demand for Valorum's resignation as Chancellor. The Big Bad met his objective in the middle of the movie. The rest was just keeping the TF in the dark until their arrest.

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Sidious is controlling both sides. So... Has Sidious ordered Nute to stay on Naboo? Did Sidious also order the TF to send all ships (except the droid control ship) away from Naboo?

The TF's actions concerning sending the blockade ships away make it very apparent that they are no longer worried about anyone sneaking to or from the planet. Which means that the concept of more and more people escaping and reaching Coruscant isn't an issue to them.

The TF's actions concerning Padme is that they need her to sign a treaty which makes it very apparent that they are still worried about the legality of their planetary occupation in the senate. Which means they should definitely not want anyone else escaping, reaching Coruscant, and corroborating Padme's story of invasion.

Yet the TF does both. Sending away the blockade and still wanting the treaty signed are contradictions. Now... that's not to say they would still be contradictions if we had more information. Perhaps Sidious ordered the TF to do these things and hoped they wouldn't ask questions. But that never happens, so... as it stands... these two actions don't coalesce with each other.

They just both conveniently happen so that we can get to GL's predetermined ending.

 

Yes. Sidious didn't need to order Nute to remain on Naboo, he just refrained from letting him know he already achieved his goal. They still think he wants the treaty signed. It definitely appears as though he ordered the ships removed, though. Why spend the resources keeping the ships there when he already achieved his goal?

Also, the battle droids already combed the entire planet surface for civilization, so why would they need to keep all the droid units there? Just keep enough to control the confirmed civilian areas.



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Like I said. It's not impossible to make these details make some sort of sense. But without certain information, this is just convoluted details so that GL can make his script work.

Why would Sidious suddenly care about resources? He's never cared before this moment or after. So why is this specific instance any different? Again, if this is the reason, then it needs to be explained BECAUSE it's so uncharacteristic of Palpatine to care, at all, about TF resources.

Why? Palpatine knows that Padme is on her way. Does Palpatine want Nute killed? Does Palpatine want Nute to kill Padme? None of this is discussed in greater detail, therefore we don't know. What we do know is that Nute is still there and still talking about the treaty. Does the rest of the TF (like the TF senators on Coruscant) not know what's going on either? If so, who ordered the TF blockade ships away? Was it Nute at the behest of Sidious? Again, why? And I'm not talking about some hypothesis you might concoct; I'm talking about an actual reason in the film.

Apparently the TF didn't comb for anything because almost the entirety of the Gungan civilization was able to hide as was a sizeable human defense force.

We don't even know that. The humans are referred to as an underground defense force or resistance fighters or something to that effect. The words chosen to describe them makes it seem like they have been actively fighting since the Queen left.

And even if they haven't. All these people (and the Gungans) are unaccounted for and yet the TF leaves (at the very minimum) the Naboo starfighters fully fueled and ready for combat. I'm not going to assume any other ships were left flight and battle ready, but I know the starfighters were because, once Padme and the others got back, they were able to immediately jump in the starfighters and blast into space to do battle.

Why is any of this happening? And no, I don't mean anyone's personal hypothesis. I mean an answer that the film actually provides. These are movies aimed at children. Explanations should be readily available.

 

These movies are not solely aimed at children.

 

I'm definitely not a fan of TPM or it's plotting and lack of clarity. I just find some of the particular things you describe as contradictory to not actually be contradictory. Unclear, perhaps, but not contradictory.

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My point is that some of the actions taken by the TF only make sense if they consider the Naboo situation ended and finalized.

Other actions taken by the TF only make sense if they consider the Naboo situation still ongoing and not yet finalized.

And nothing in the movie even remotely attempts to rationalize this.

 

And I'm saying that what is clear in the movie is that the TF is beholden to Sidious's will. You seem to be jumping right to the fact that they are beholden to the writer's will, and so any unclear inconsistency on their part must be due to bad writing. But the characters are intentionally written as patsy pawns. Some of what they do reflects what they are ordered to do, even if they don't understand or agree with it. Other actions, like most of what they say, are of their own accord.

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So if I write a movie where the villains decisions make no sense... all I have to do is write that the villains are beholden to another character and then, even though the decisions still make no sense, it's okay?

That doesn't sound right.

Now, what would make sense, is that we know what the main villains plans are AND we also know that the secondary villains (the TF) are out of the loop. That way the audience understands even though the characters don't.

Just writing that the main villain gets his way regardless of anyone's choices/actions WITHOUT ALSO explaining the minutia of how the villain was able to actually do this in the first place does not sit well.

PALPATINE: I want Padme brought back to Naboo.

MAUL: *fails to do this*

PALPATINE: Good, now Padme can oust Valorum

THE AUDIENCE: Wait, what was his plan if Maul DID Capture Padme??

 

My answer to the last question was "get her to sign the treaty" Sidious's ultimate goal (in that movie) is to get Valorum ousted so he can step in. He does that by showing them how ineffectual Valorum's leadership is in a crisis. Whether that's by pointing to how Naboo was manipulated into legalizing an invasion against their will or by manipulating Padme into moving for a vote of no confidence makes little difference. When things disrupt one plan, you adjust and make it work. He was playing both sides against the middle. Was that clear? No, because the story was badly told. Does it make sense? Absolutely.

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I think it's the style of TPM. It called The Phantom Menace, the "bad feeling" that Obi Wan senses at the beginning of the show is described as "something elsewhere, elusive", and Sidious only shows up on hologram with only the bottom half of his face visible. The villain is portrayed as mysterious. You're supposed to be confused and wonder who the villain is and what he's trying to do.

 

The way it was done was still bad storytelling. Why things in TPM occurred the way they did is never made clear in either TPM or retrospectively in any of the sequels. Character psychology should be left suggested and interpretive (just as our own psychology is), but specific plot points should be clear and incontrovertible.

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What are you trying to say? Palpatine was not particularly happy that Padme made it to Coruscant. Dealing with Padme's presence, he changed tactics and tried to convince her to declare a vote of no confidence against Valorum. At first, it failed. But Padme eventually lost her temper with the Senate and did it anyway. But he still needed the Senate to be sympathetic with Naboo's plight. Again, he was unhappy when Padme had decided to return to Naboo and deal with the Trade Federation in her own way. Palpatine felt that she was slipping out of his control. Yet once again, he decided to adapt and instructed Maul and the Trade Federation to either capture or kill Padme (I forgot which) upon her arrival on Naboo and get rid of the Jedi presence. What Palpatine had failed to take into account was that Padme's declaration against Valorum and defeat of the Trade Federation helped his cause - namely becoming the new Chancellor - in the end. He didn't really need such Draconian measures to get his way. Not everything always went according to Palpatine's plans. But I have noticed - except in AOTC - that he had a talent for adapting to the situation when his plans seemed in danger of going off track. In AOTC, he had no such problems.

This is why I never understood this assumption that Palpatine was in full control of everything. Why do certain fans continue to believe this? Or want to believe this?

 

As I already stated.

Without explaining his plans vs him being lucky, it all comes across as contrived. No matter what happens in the PT, Palpatine seems to have a plan for it. Even though we never actually see HOW he is able to pivot from one to another.

If you establish and actually explain/show Palpatine do this in TPM... then you can do whatever you want in AOTC and ROTS because the audience already knows that Palpatine is capable of thinking on his feet. But never showing this and just expecting the audience to go along with it... anyone can write that, it's not hard.

"No matter what happened, the villain had a plan. No, I will not be getting into any greater detail. The End."

What difference does it make? The narrative never specifies whether Plapatine has plans within plans within plans OR if he's just lucky sometimes. If the film doesn't tell us which is which then how are we supposed to know?

Concerning TPM... which parts were his original plan? We don't know. It's never brought up what his plan would have been had Maul returned Padme to Naboo.

Did Palpatine's plan change? We would assume so, but for all we know maybe his plan was always for Maul to fail. Again, we have no idea because the film treats the entire thrust of this whole trilogy (Palpatine's machinations) as inconsequential and not worth delving into.

Is Palpatine in control of everything? Seems to be. Everytime anything happens... it's a part of his plan... or not. Don't know.

Really, to answer your question, people who watch these movies come away with differing interpretations because the movie keeps the audience in the dark about what Palpatine is doing behind the scenes. We never get the "explanation scene" like you'd normally get with something like this. WATCHMEN has a scene where the villain explains how he was able to execute his convoluted plan. THE USUAL SUSPECTS does this as well. The STAR WARS PT does not. Therefore, people have no idea what was happening behind the scenes for the combined 7 hour running time.

We simply do not know because GL didn't find it important. GL thought just saying that Palpatine was behind everything was enough even though no further explanation was ever given.

I can't imagine reading 12 issues of WATCHMEN and then just being told that Veidt was behind everything... but then never actually explaining HOW he was able to do what he did. And I still don't know how people can sit through 7 hours of the PT and be completely fine with not knowing HOW Palpatine was able to do what he did.

 

Palpatine's plan in TPM is hardly tricky to follow. At the opening, he wants to get the Trade Federation to make Padme to sign the treaty. This gives them 'legal' own of the planet, but creates a sympathy situation in the Senate for the occupied Naboo. The TF may have killed the queen or not, but either way having her fate be held hostage and Palpatine calling for a strong, new leader gives him a boost.

When the queen's group escapes, he sends Maul to bring her back so that he can continue with plan A. That fails, so he has to move to a plan B, this one being manipulating Padme to directly call for a vote of no confidence. That works in his favour, so when Padme leaves to return to Naboo she ends up as an unplanned element. His scenes with the TF after that are mostly about attempting to maintain control of the situation, since he doesn't want to jeopardise anything regarding the vote. Padme manages to beat the TF, but by this point Palpatine has managed to successfully win the vote, so the outcome of his prior allies no longer matters.

There's nothing particularly hard to follow, but it doesn't need explicit spelling out in the movie either. He has one plan, we see him change it on the fly, then he manages to use the situation to win out in a slightly different way than originally intended. He's not omniscient, just clever enough to work with what elements he has.

Once again, what does any of this have to with Anakin? The thread topic?

 

No, we don't. This scene never takes place.

Is this the plan? Where is this stated in the movie? What does Palpatine do if Padme signs the treaty and then the senate just goes on about its day? The senate doesn't seem to be overly concerned with the Naboo/TF debacle. Valorum had to side-step them in order to do anything about it. So why would the TF and the Naboo signing a treaty in any way, shape, or form lead to Palpatine becoming Chancellor?

Why would two organizations coming together somehow tell the senate they need a stronger supreme Chancellor? In order for Palpatin's "plan A" to work, the audience must again come up with its own story. That's not my job; that's GL's job.

Palpatine is Anakin's boss. We're discussing the man's boss.

 

Not quite, we see an ISD with no TIE's out, an overconfident captain and it gets shot and disabled by the Ion Cannon. Later we see ISD with TIEs out. So the film show us the Imperials learning, the first ISD was overconfident and paid the prize. Same with the DS in ANH, they did not launch TIEs right away, only after realizing that their guns were ineffective.

Other example, Han goes into the asteroid field, despite the danger. Because he figured that the Imperials would be crazy to follow. So a desperate move but one that can be understood. Later, Piett goes and talks to Vader and says that the MF has entered an asteroid field and they dare not risk. But Vader is unconcerned and orders a pursuit. So here the danger of the asteroids are made even clearer.
Later still, we see an ISD get hit and damaged and they talk about the damage they had sustained. Again serving the point that the field is dangerous. A thing is set up and then brought back and emphasized.

With the blockade in TPM, we have no idea why they did not have any fighters out. IF, they had gone back to Naboo and now the TF ships had lots of fighters out, then the film is showing the TF learning from their mistakes. But that didn't happen. Instead the TF have removed all but one of their ships. Despite them likely being aware that Padme would come back.
So Padme ran the blockade and the TF wanted to stop her. But instead of making it harder for her to run it a second time, they instead make it easier. Then the question becomes why?
What the TF do runs counter to what their stated goals are. Hence the problem with the writing. The character only do what the plot needs of them and not what would make sense.

Also the issue is also with Padme and the Jedi. They have run the blockade and what happened, their ship was shot at and damaged. So do they have any reason to think this would not happen again if they try to run the blockade a second time? No. But they go back with no worry at all about the blockade and said blockade is just gone. The writing is contrived.

If some people are held in a camp "close to London" that is still a lot of area to cover. Also, were all people in one camp? If they were split up, then how would Padme know which camp they were held in?
And Padme never says anything about freeing anyone from any camp. her only "plan" is just the Gungans.

Except once again, Han and co were unexpected, they were able to go under the radar for a while. And once the station was on alert, a big reason why they got away is that Vader and Tarkin let them.
The TF would know that Padme and co are there, they would expect the Jedi. So her ship could face 20-30 destroyer droids and neither the Jedi nor Padme's guards has weapons that could taken those out.
And what "plan" could they make? At best, they could take out all the droids on the entire ship and take over the bridge. Then what? They have freed no prisoners and the other ship would be aware what has happened and would be aware that Padme has no intention to sign any treaty and would then try to destroy the ship instead. So this would not help.
So Padme's "plan" only makes any sense if she knows that the blockade is gone, which she does not.
Again characters do what the plot requires of them and not what makes sense.

Well I think that Palpatine is able to think on his feet and can adapt and change his plans.
And I think that in all PT films, he had to adapt and change his plans. I do not think he planned for all the events in AotC for ex.

But while I can look at the PT and see Palpatine as one that adapts and changes his plans and not everything went according to plan. And yet other people look at the same PT and are totally convinced that Palpatine planned for everything, he planned for Padme to escape, for Maul to fail and so on.
EVERYTHING that happened is because Palpatine planned for it.

So then the question becomes how this can be?
People watching RotJ will not have any doubt that Palpatine planned for the rebels to attack, that it was a trap. Because the writing was clear.

Often in the PT, why people do what they do makes no IN-universe sense, they only do it because the plot needed it.. So the characters are bent to serve the plot. And the problem, to me, is in the writing. Instead of taking the time of setting up a situation where a character would do a thing because it fits their character, the characters just does it, no reason given.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

Regarding your first point, yes we do see him change his plan on the fly. He goes from the failed plan to capture the queen to whispering in her ear and offering her the idea of the vote of no confidence. There's no scene in which he mutters to himself or Maul that's what he's doing, but it's what he does nonetheless. He has a plan, it fails, he tries something else in the fallout. As far as I'm concerned, that is evidence of him changing his plan.

As for the other part, no we don't know exactly what his initial plan with the Senate would look like, because it fails before we get to that point, but I would presume based on his actions with plan B, it would go much the same only with him directly playing up the severity of the crisis himself, rather than using Padme as a more convincing proxy he can slightly distance himself from. It's not crucial either way, we know he's capable of manipulating things in the Senate, even with the pieces lying in slightly different places. He even does something similar in AOTC, using Jar-Jar as his patsy to enact the very outcome he desires, so it's evidently a sphere he has experience in. We need to know his initial plan's outline about as much as we need to see what he would have done if Luke hadn't turned himself in at Endor.

Also, Palps may be Anakin's boss, but his schemes in TPM aren't relevant to Anakin specifically. If we were discussing the turn in ROTS, sure.

 

Then what was the initial plan?? Nothing about Naboo and the TF signing a treaty leads to the senate wanting to elect Palpatine as Chancellor. Again, in order for this course of events to lead to the outcome we're told it will lead to, we need more information than what we're given.

If a movie told you that the villain stealing a cow will lead to him becoming president, and then doesn't give any additional information, are you just going to go along with it? Even better, by the end of the film the villain never gets the cow but ends up president anyway. Do you consider that coherent? Would you not be curious how all of this makes sense if it's the entire thrust of the movie?

Exactly. GL didn't bother to write a story so you have to do it for him. You shouldn't have to presume when it comes to the main thrust of the film. This movie came out in 1999. If an answer was in the film; we'd have found it by now.

Which also makes no sense. If there were enough votes to give dictatorship powers (over 50%) then that would also mean that there are now enough votes to enact an army (over 50%) without special powers for the Chancellor.

But for some reason no one in the entire senate thinks about this. Even though more than 50% of the senate wants an army by the time the vote rolls around... they (for an unknown reason) decide to give the Chancellor borderline dictatorship powers instead. And, much in the vein of TPM, we are never given an explanation and told to just accept it.

But we do know Palpatine's plan if Luke doesn't turn. We see that in the movie; he just tries to kill him instead.

 

Ah but no, we don't know what fiendish plan Palpatine would have to catch Luke in the Endor forest!... because Luke gives himself up and there's no need for that. Same thing in TPM, the plan never came to fruition, but there's plenty enough to figure out what it might have been. It's unessential either way though, the plan he eventually implements has the same outcome, so we know what the shape of how it would have looked. We don't need more than that, I found my answer perfectly satisfyingly in the movie.

As for the Emergency Powers, I think the emergency part explains it well enough for me. Funding and creating an army for defence is very different from rushing in powers to prevent an imminent attack. It allows Palpatine to circumvent the complex planning and Senate review of creating an army by using the current crisis to force a vote in his favour. As he says, it's a temporary measure (or so the Senate assumes). After the war they could vote on the army's standing to their heart's content, but by that point it's too late. Similar emergency powers acts exist in our own world history too.

 

In TPM, Palpatine's plan is to get Padme to sign a treaty with the TF after they've invaded the planet. The senate is being kept in the dark about all of this. So... how do we get from there to Palpatine being Chancellor? The film never tells us. We're just supposed to assume this plan makes sense even though we're not given anymore information about how to get from A to B. Again, I want to steal a cow to become president. How? Apparently it doesn't matter.

Palpatine's plan in ROTJ is that Luke will turn himself in. Then that happens. This isn't the same type of thing. If Palpatine's initial plan to capture Luke is to get Naboo to sign a treaty with the TF... and then Luke just shows up at his doorstep... Then yes, I'd still be curious/confused how the treaty idea was going to lead to Luke being captured.

So the senate can't vote to enact an army and send them straight to fight without a review unless they give Palpatine special powers? When is this said? Palpatine should have told the senate that voting to give him permission to enact the army would help them maintain their political careers.

Yes, but things happen in real life FOR A REASON. You can't just put whatever in a movie, give no reasoning, and expect people to be okay with it because it's happened in real life before.

Friends get into fights in real life too. But if Obi-Wan and Anakin had a lightsaber fight WITHOUT any of the build up and explanations... you wouldn't be okay with a no-context fight scene just because you saw two of your friends get into a fist fight once. You'd want to know WHY they're fighting.

 

Easy. His plan is to use the crisis to manipulate a sympathy vote in the senate to use that to get elected. Which he does. On screen. The details may be slightly different from how he initially plans to exploit the situation, but it's the same general goal, and we see the whole A to B of it. I don't know what exactly you're missing at this point, besides explicit dialogue spelling it all out rather than being shown Palpatine's moves. Having Padme captive or killed would arguably generate even more sympathy than her speech, but it's the same plan overall. What is the missing data point here, please do tell me.

I pointed out that it's a real world concept because it shows that it's a perfectly plausible course of events. Emergency policies happen all the time in the world, circumventing the full due processes of democracy. That's what we see in AOTC, a big crisis that the Senate is convinced into accepting rather than the full hashing out of the original vote. It absolves the individual senators of any responsibility and gives it all to Palpatine.

 

THIS is what I'm talking about. The film just says things will happen even though those things make no sense.

Padme gets to Coruscant, says her planet has been invaded, and then no one believes her.

THEN Valorum gets impeached because of completely unconnected circumstances. His corruption is why he gets impeached, and apparently the senate was already fed up with him for reasons unrelated to the current plot of the film.

Then Palpatine gets elected because of "sympathy". What sympathy? The senate doesn't think the invasion is real. It'd be like writing a movie where person A doesn't believe that person B got their bike stolen... but then buys them a new bike out of sympathy. Which means the audience is thinking to themselves, "Wait, if person A doesn't think his bike was stolen in the first place then why is he buying them a new one? Doesn't person A still think that person B has their old bike still?"

The movie doesn't make any sense! Neither Palpatine's Plan A or Plan B make any coherent sense, but GL thought they did do he put them in his movie.

Palpatine even says that the senate will surely act on the invasion after Valorum is gone, but that's not going to be until AFTER he becomes Chancellor and is able to persuade them that it is happening in the first place.

So they're going to vote on Palpatine because of the sympathy that they're not going to have until after Palpatine's voted in? Is that what is going to happen? Because that doesn't make a lick of sense.

Yes, and they happen for a reason.

That's a great reason. I wish it were actually in the film.