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

Because I’m an old romantic. Padme and Palo has a nice ring to it. Like Anthony and Cleopatra, Napoleon and Josephine, Scarlett and Rhett. A love for the ages.

 

For all we know Palo could have became a Sith Lord worse than Anakin.

 

Why would Padme have ended up with Palo, if she had not married Anakin? Padme and Palo's love was one for the ages? According to who?

 

Me...Just me. Although I reckon there are a few other closeted Padme n Palo fans out there.

Forget Reylo, I’m all about the Padlo.

 

The first image of Padme and Anakin… From 1993?

This popped up in my google search of Padme concept art, and thought to share it here on this thread since it's active again.

Legit. And Leia recounting vague memories of her birth mother is always gonna make me salty about how ROTS killed her because the idea that Leia had her just for a little while is more striking than "tragic death". Seeing early concept art of Padme with her twins on her back



And reading how one ending of Revenge of the Sith at least had her challenging Anakin to the point to attempting to kill him to stop him, only strengthens the wish that they let her live and die at a later time. Padme living undercover with her daughter while her sending her son off to live with Anakin's extended family would've actually given the character some weight beyond the relative little she got in ROTS.

Maybe it was just Portman's performance in that moment (which I don't think was great, but meh), but I never got the sense that Anakin actually choked her out that badly even though that was clearly the intent.

For me it's always going to be most of what she wore in The Phantom Menace. Particularly her red gown from the beginning, the red battle garb at the end of the film and that fluffy white gown at the finale (which was a fantasy princess as this series as gotten honestly). AOTC and ROTS really don't have anything in terms of wardrobe that really hit me like her wardrobe from the first film (and to some degree, I get the sense ROTS' costume design was trying to pull away from the appropriative nature of the first film's design ethos, her wardrobe growing closer to more European styled gowns than anything East Asian).

 

Padme committing attempted murder to stop Anakin? That's challenging? It sounds like attempted murder in my eyes. Or Obi-Wan's "by any means necessary" mentality. I am so glad that Lucas did not go that route. And again . . . if Padme had lived longer, she would have had both twins with her. Giving up one twin to the Lars and keeping the other? That does not sound like Padme.

 

I think that carries different structures in regards to Padme doing it. Logically if separating one from the other makes sense, why would Padme keep Leia and not give both up and separate herself from both? How would that make sense, character wise? And this whole thing opens up a whole can of worms about why Vader never found her, what happened to her, why he didn't seek out his children before and such.

 

Yes, it's morally wrong. It's murder. Or attempted murder. Just because Anakin had embraced evil, does not justify killing him in cold blood without trying to immediately defend someone or one's self. It's just murder, pure and simple. Padme would not have the legal right to commit such an act. There is a reason why Lucas made Luke refrain from killing Anakin in cold blood in "Return of the Jedi". I see nothing feminist empowering about Padme deliberately trying to kill Anakin in cold blood.

I find this disturbing. Giving up one child to in-laws you barely know, while keeping the other child? I cannot imagine Padme or many other parents doing such a thing. Why do people think there is nothing wrong with this?

 

It's murder. That's all Padme would be doing. Committing murder. Why do people think it's okay to murder someone in cold blood, because of the victim's moral compass? As if that gives someone a right to commit murder. All Padme would end up doing is lowering herself to Anakin's level. That's all. And I find it sad that very few people realize this. Is this because people believe it's alright to resort to violence to solve a problem?

 

Anakin and the Emperor have declared war on the Jedi and are wiping them out, along with anyone who disagrees with them. This is a time of war, so I'm not sure "in cold blood" applies here.

 

Like Luke 20+ years later, Padme felt there was still good in Anakin; there was still hope. Killing, or even trying to kill Anakin would go against everything Padme stands for and everything Star Wars stands for.

Concept designer Ian McCaig says this;
[Anakin] leaves. Moments later, in come the Separatists and right behind his back, [Padme] is starting the Rebellion to overthrow him. Because Padme can see the he is becoming a monster. At the end, on Mustafar, when she goes to see [Anakin], she has a knife in her hands. She gets off the ship with the knife, she runs up and throws her arms around him, and he lets her. She’s got the knife to the back of [Anakin’s] neck and she’s going to kill him. [Again], he lets her. But she can’t do it. She loves him too much to stop him, even when he becomes the monster.
https://comicbook.com/starwars/news...nakin-in-revenge-of-the-sith-original-ending/

And as we see, even Obi-Wan couldn't bring himslef to kill Anakin with his own hand. He was a brother and a friend that he loved. He tried to reason with him, then tried to get him to stand down, then ultimately de-limbed him. (There are other threads on the ethics of leaving him to die).

And yes, it doesn't make sense for Padme to live after childbirth and keep one or both kids with her. Because as we saw in AotC, Anakin can find people with the Force. As tragic as it is, the kids were actually better off with her dead and the Sith not knowing of their existence.
(There are other threads on Leia's speech about her mother).

 

i don't know about Padme killing Anakin. if that happened it would have been farther down the line, and it just never got to that point.

 

Opening night of Revenge of the Sith, I was 100% spoiler free. Here's what I thought was going to happen:

Padme is Sith choked out...unconscious. Obi-Wan and Anakin have their epic battle. I though Anakin would be on the verge of killing Kenobi. I thought a revived Padme would get involved and play a(mostly accidental) role in sending Anakin into the lava.

 

I kind of see the idea of Padme losing the will to live as a child friendly allegory for suicide. Kind of like in Romeo and Juliet. Star Wars is heavily inspired by Shakespeare. I also kind of see her death as being symbolic of the death of the Republic. As to Leia remembering her well yeah it is a retcon. My guess is George Lucas wanted to wrap up the story and leave no loose ends about what happened to her so he killed her off.

 

I think it would be a quite interesting idea to know what an 'older Padme' would have looked like if she had survived the birth of Luke and Leia.

I know it isn't really relevant to the movies at all. However, she probably would have looked even older than Sebastian Shaw at the time of RotJ. Keeping in mind that she was 5 years older than Anakin.

I honestly can't picture an older Padme.

 

Wait about 30 years and you'll see her when you look at Natalie Portman.

 

Maybe like that?

 

It's already been seventeen years since principal photography was done for ROTS. Nineteen years pass between it and ANH in universe, so you can get a pretty good idea of what Padmé would've looked like by just checking out some recent photos of Natalie.

 

But she doesn't look older lmao.
While Hayden Christensen turned into Sebastian Shaw in just 23 years.

(Well, it's fiction anyway.)

 

Vader is basically on life support so the suit really aged him. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru really aged as well.

 

Yep. That's how Legends explained it, anyway. According to the novel "Kenobi", Obi-Wan deliberately exposed his face to the aging rays of the two suns in order to be less recognizable.

Perhaps Padmé's life would've been more stressful than NP's has been and maybe that would've affected her appearance somewhat, but I don't think it would've made a huge difference.