Zam Wessel

Much has been made of the ill-fated bounty hunter, and most of all her shapeshifting ability and its place in the GFFA.

Personally its not Zam's shapeshifting that bugs so much as her not employing it in her attempts on Padmes life, or even to hide from Obi-wan and Anakin. Anakin warns Ob1 about her being a changeling when they enter the club, yet she herself does not use it to hide from them.

My question is, instead of Zam looking like an attractive women then changing into the clawdite to hide, would it have made more sense to look like a clawdite during her introduction and the chase and then upon entering the club changing into a beautiful women and losing some of her clothing (yow!) to hide, blending in with all the other ladies of the ngiht frequenting the club?

 

Maybe. Guess we'll never know, huh?

 

That's what I wanted to see as well.

 

Rebel Scum, that's a pretty good idea. While I love the prequel trilogy, and thus AOTC, Zam Wesell's misuse of her shapeshifting in AOTC is one of my gripes. It had the potential to be really cool and add a good deal of tension to the scene, but it failed pretty badly, in my opinion. Unlike, say, Vader instructing Boba Fett to not disintergrate the bounty he was hunting, Zam's shapeshifting, while it added something to the character, didn't exactly make her more intriguing. I truly wish it had been intergrated into the scene. Zam Wesell had the potential to be an ubercool character, but the lack of followthrough on the shapeshifting angle made her seem a bit of a flat tire.

 

The other way it could've been utilized is if Zam was atually posing as one of senator amidala's (the decoy that is) handmaidens or bodyguards, then as they were walking down the ramp, she threw a thermal detanator into the ship and ran off killing corde and destroying the ship. Since i've never really understood what cause the explosion.

 

In my opinion, she was a pointless character. Why even make her a shapeshifter at all? The boys at the Lucas ranch must have got all excited with the face morphing technology. Whoopee....


Should have just had her be a female bounty hunter. Her death would have had a stronger impact if she wasn't a shapeshifting freak. Actually, they should have just thrown Aurra Sing in her spot.

 

Zam is one of the few things I liked about AOTC. She is part of the ongoing theme in SW of ?illusion vs. reality.? Prior to AOTC the only bounty hunters we are ever shown are all big ugly aliens. When we see Zam Wessell, however, we?re meant to think that a beautiful woman can be a bounty hunter too. This is an illusion since under the façade of a beautiful woman exists the reality of just another big ugly alien. The theme of illusion vs. reality exists at many different levels in SW, and I think Zam?s character plays into this theme perfectly.

 

But doesn't that kind of destroy that theme because it turns out all along that there wasn't an illusion and that infact all bounty hunters are big aliens?

Anyways I beleive the morphing was added to keep a pg rating, or atleast thats what I heard.

 

>>>> But doesn't that kind of destroy that theme because it turns out all along that there wasn't an illusion and that infact all bounty hunters are big aliens?

You?re absolutely right. The reality is that all bounty hunters are in fact big ugly aliens. The illusion was that Zam appeared to be a beautiful woman. The concept of ?illusion versus reality? is basically what we perceive to be true being totally different from what is real. When we first see Zam, we made the assumption that she is a beautiful woman (illusion); however, she is actually a big ugly alien like all the other bounty hunters (reality).

 

I thought you meant the illusion was that all bounty hunters were big ugly aliens.

So confusing this discussion is

 

...and I'd just like to add that Leanna Walsman is pretty damn hot Great lungs, too (thanks, Rick).

 

Yeah it seems pretty pointless that they made her a shapeshifter.

 

exactly! why bother giving her the ability to change shape, which is surely a great advantage, yet she doesnt bother to use this?????

 

Agreed.

a lot of people argue, why give Boba Fett a rocket pack in ESB if he isn't going to use it. But I think its a bit different, plus he did use it in ROTJ, there was no real cause to use it in ESB.

As for Zam, what good is being a shapeshifter if your clothing doesn't change with you?

 

After zam gets shot, does anyone know her connection with sly-moore? She mutters "We're sorry, sly-moore" just before she dies. kind of weird the jedi disregard her last words without considering them as a possible lead.

 

Someone will have the exact words around here, but she actually says "Bounty hunter...slimeball..." in Huttese when she dies.

 

DamonD is correct. According to the DVD text commentary:
Zam's last words are in Huttese. "Murishani sleemo" means "bounty hunter slimeball.

 

she should of said "Tell your sister, you were right"

 

She should have just turned into someone else and left the club or turned into a wampa or something at least.

 

Yeah.

ZW was unfortuantely the victim of some fix-it-in-post filmmaking.

 

She needs better hair though.

 

It'd be a kicker if 'murishani sleemo' actually mean 'My word, I appear to have been shot with a toxic dart. I heartily recommend you track down my killer, a Mr. Jango Fett, to the water world of Kamino. You'll find it near the Rishi Maze.' *dies*

 

LOL

 

I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts Rebel Scumb

What good was her shapeshifting ability if she did use it, particularly under the circumstances she was in? And then the fact that her clothes did not change either.

What a much more tense scene this would have been if she had shape-shifted into different clothes, makeup and her hair down, and then went after Obi-Wan.

But the truth is, she basically winded up being tool whereas Obi-Wan would use the saber-dart to find Kamino. Even with ability to shape-shift, I think this is all Lucas and company needed her for. So that for confirms there was no real need for her powers.

Darth Sin!

 

First of all, Zam was not a shapeshifter, she was a changeling(let´s not confuse SW with ST).
Second, while there seems to be no point with changelings in AOTC, EpIII might very well contain a changeling who´s abilities are actually used in the plot. Like Boba´s jetpack in the OT.