Question to those most disappointed with the SW prequels

Lucas does death better than birth. Yes that was a good scene in itself.

I guess really a lot falls on the character of Anakin being so uncharismatic and the romance dialog being so atrocious. It's not that I can't see Padme with a bad boy, it's just this bad boy is lacking any appeal at all to the viewer. So even setting aside that it is totally out of character for a woman of Padme's strength and life of selfless devotion to duty to die of a broken heart it is just plain hard to choke down that it was for Anakin in the first place!

Just imagine she was in love with Obi Wan and Obi Wan died.. she would be all "Obi Wan would want me to raise our children and I will honor his memory and raise them to know how wonderful and strong their father was.." You can't even imagine her giving up if the father was Obi Wan and he was dead.

 

Whatever we might think of Hayden's Anakin, it's pretty clear where Leia got her smartass temper. To me, Luke seems more like his mother and Leia comes off in the OT as being more like Anakin in terms of how she snaps at people, her headstrong stubbornness and general "will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way" attitude about things going on around her.

 

I love that line.

However, I never thought of it that way, the twins personalities...like each of their parents.

 

From a looks perspective it was good casting, both Anakin and Padme are very easily seen as Luke and Leia's parents. Luke in ESB and ROTJ particularly looks like Anakin.

I've been fantasizing about a SW reboot someday, with Anakin rewritten to be more like Spike from Buffy or something.. SOMETHING.

 

Although we don't have to ask from which parent Luke got his whiny side, do we?

 

Noooo... we don't. Sigh.

 

and impatience, inability to let go .....

 

This was the reason why I had trouble reconciling that scene. There isn't quite enough in the film to justify the "force-connection" theory - but now that I've thought about it, the line, "For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her," certainly points to an irrational, super-natural reason. The fact that Padme hangs on long enough to actually name her children and tell Obi-Wan that there is still good left in Anakin, indicates that, despite the medical droids saying, "she has lost the will to live," she is, in fact, fighting - and that it's something else that is causing her unexplained death. The force-connection idea certainly makes the best sense (dramatically speaking).

Problem is, as has been stated, it's just a bit too convoluted to really work without any further "evidence" in the film.

 

Does anybody remember what the official film novelization of ROTS had to say on the matter of Padmé's death? I sure don't and I haven't touched a copy of the Episode III novelization in years.

 

I think the only one I read was TPM, but good question.

 

Wookiepedia might have an explanation.

 

Here are the relevant passages:

So the element of heartbreak is there, but so are elements of Padme's connection to Anakin, possibly through the Force.

 

I think it is such a wank the idea that a strong woman can give up her own children because, LURVE. There are times when I feel like Lucas is just kind of stunted and this is one of them.

 

It's very obvious to me that George Lucas, quite simply, does not understand women (he may even be gay). This is completely laid bare in the prequels. In A NEW HOPE, it was masked by the fact that the boys were fighting eachother over her ... anything more is a waste of time, in this movie. When we get to RETURN of the JEDI, Han and Leia have this relationship that aspires to reach the maturity of couples in highschool. By the time we get to ATTACK of the CLONES, there's noplace to hide ... the romance is the the centerpiece of this movie. George doesn't understand how to express Star Crossed Lovers. I mean ... the damning proof is there. It's onscreen.

Now, in REVENGE of the SITH, a woman is giving birth and this just couldn't be more alien to George, trying to express this. He knows he wants to kill her off, but he doesn't want to give her a subplot of her own. She has to die in this storyline he's committed to, where there's no mechanism for it, anymore. She gave up politics, so she's off the radar. She's out of the loop, so no hitmen are going to kill her. George needs her to really, just ... drop dead ... so he does so. And he really believes it's crucial for the drama. It's very hard to excuse and justify, the scene that's inserted into this ... uh ... this movie.

 

Dude. There are more things wrong with that sentence than with the entire pod race sequence from TPM. And that's saying something.

 

Damn.

 

One big difference is I liked the pod race.

 

I did too.

 

I did too - for the most part. It was a CGI tour de force that was actually thrilling and delivered more or less what it was designed to: display Anakin's incredible piloting skills and show off the then-new and recent CGI imaging technology by creating a slew of cool and interesting aliens who were also in the race.

TPM has some major flaws but the Boonta Eve Podrace isn't one of them.

And 2takes, you realize George is a married, heterosexual guy, right? As per his writing problems, well you don't have to be any specific orientation to suck at penning love and female-focused scenes in films. Plenty of screenwriters couldn't create a textured, believable male-female relationship if their Hollywood careers depended on it.