The only problem I had with this bit, is the fact that Padmé was elected at all. What kind of Queen is "elected"? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a monarchy?
Star Wars "boring political talk" Makes it More Real
- Thread starter VulcanJedi
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The only problem I had with this bit, is the fact that Padmé was elected at all. What kind of Queen is "elected"? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of a monarchy?
How exactly does a child run for such an office anyways? Seems like the only reasonable assumption is for exceptionally precocious children to be selected from the aristocracy and put forward as candidates to serve as a figurehead for a society that doesn't actually require much in the way of executive governance. If such a tradition went on long enough, that society might forget how symbolic the role was meant to be and those candidates might start to find themselves surrounded by lobbying forces trying to manipulate them for selfish reasons.
It is true that all legal adults (other than the Lords) have an equal right to be elected to Parliament. But that's the key -- they're all legal adults. Four years might not seem like a big difference, but there's a world of difference in the maturity levels of the majority of 18-year-olds vs. the majority of 14-year-olds. Four years, after all, is around 28% of a 14-year-old's life and around 22% of an 18-year-old's life.
And besides, realistically speaking, barring extraordinary circumstances, no 18-year-old is going to be elected leader of a nation, let alone leader of an entire planet.
I mean, I'm sure there were some in the Separatist movement who were honorable. But I think it's pretty clear that the CIS as a political institution was dominated by corporate and big money interests. When we see the Separatist Council in Episode II, it consists of:
- Nute Gunray, Viceroy of the Trade Federation
- San Hill, Chairman of the InterGalactic Banking Clan
- Passel Argente, the Magistrate of the Corporate Alliance
- Tikkes of the Quarren Isolation League
- Wat Tambor, the Foreman of the Techno Union
- Po Nudo of the Hyper-Communications Cartel
- Poggle the Lesser of Geonosian Industries
- Shu Mai of the Commerce Guild
So almost everyone we see leading the Separatists politically are the heads of large corporate interests and other big money people.
"British" monarchs? You mean, the monarchs of the Kingdom of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland/United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Those monarchs have all been adults.
Otherwise, I assume you are referring to Mary, Queen of Scots. Of course, what you are leaving out is that in pre-democratic England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, monarchs who had not reached the age of majority were prevented from reigning by themselves; rather, regents governed in their stead until they became adults.
And, of course, the most important thing you're leaving out is that these are hereditary dictators from feudalist societies. This is the height of political primitivism -- hardly what we would expect from a democratic society on a planetary and interstellar stage.
Age is not sufficient for wisdom, but it is almost always necessary. No rational society would elect a leader who hasn't even finished going through puberty yet.
There is a such thing as an elective monarchy rather than hereditary one; probably the most famous example of a modern elective monarchy would be the Sovereign of the Vatican City State -- AKA, the Pope. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong of the Malaysian Federation is also elective, as is the King of Cambodia.
This does, however, present the question of just what it means to be Queen of Naboo. Is the Naboo monarchy absolute or constitutional, or somewhere in between? Does the Naboo monarch hold meaningful executive authority, or does real power and leadership fall to a prime minister with the monarch as a constitutional figurehead a la modern Great Britain? Is there a Cabinet? A Naboo legislature? Can the Naboo monarch veto Acts of the Naboo legislature? Can the Naboo monarch make law by decree? Can the Naboo monarch overturn decisions from the judicial branch?
No matter how you put it, that's a lot of power to give to somebody who was playing with the Naboo equivalent of action figures and dolls just five years earlier.
ETA:
There's some reference to the "Legislative Youth Program" in Episode II, IIRC. Apparently Naboo has some system in place to identify talented young people and make them their legislators and monarchs. The old Expanded Universe had some bit about Palpatine being seen as weird for staying in politics after becoming an adult. (???)
No such thing.
Sounds like a good summary of Palpatine's relationship with the Queen of Naboo in Episode I.
I'm going to go back to the original topic of the threat for a moment.
I never really had a problem with the politics in the PT. If you are dealing the collapse of a republic into a dictatorship due to war and manipulation, then it makes sense that politics would play a big role in that. I think any issues with the politics in the movies are due to the presentation not the politics themselves.
I never really had a problem with the politics in the PT. If you are dealing the collapse of a republic into a dictatorship due to war and manipulation, then it makes sense that politics would play a big role in that. I think any issues with the politics in the movies are due to the presentation not the politics themselves.
The whole thing with Padme being an electing Queen just made no sense whatsoever. It's a contradiction in terms.
I get that he wanted "Princess" Leia to be the daughter of a Queen (also, to serve the fairytale mythic trope of the Princess who fell in love with a poor commoner), but seemed to find that hard to reconcile with the idea that she'd eventually have to function as the pro-democracy opposition to Anakin's more dictatorial opinions. That combined with the whole decoy business made the whole thing a bit of a mess.
If he really wanted Padme be a 14 year old Queen then possibly the better way to go about it is to have her start out as a Princess and her mother and/or father either escape with her and the Jedi or (preferably?) stay behind and die on Naboo, either as an act of self sacrifice to ensure her escape or as a result of the finale. If nothing else it'd give Maul something to do other than stand around and look menacingly at probe droids. Either way, she's Queen by the time the credits roll. (Ironically, this was pretty much how it went down in one of his original 'Starkiller' drafts.) Bonus points as it allows you to cast her younger, making the age gap in TPM a bit less creepy (did anyone seriously buy Portman as a 14-16 year old in TPM?)
How you then get her to be the voice of democracy in the next movies is a bit trickier. A ruler of a planet (elected or otherwise) can't govern from the Republic senate building. That's what you appoint senators for. So you either ditch the whole monarchy idea, or mention that in the wake of the occupation, she took steps to transition to a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected Premier, or ruling council or some-such. Which then turned around and appointed her Senator, with the title of Queen now being largely a ceremonial one.
Of course none of this fixes the much more serious problem: poor execution.
I get that he wanted "Princess" Leia to be the daughter of a Queen (also, to serve the fairytale mythic trope of the Princess who fell in love with a poor commoner), but seemed to find that hard to reconcile with the idea that she'd eventually have to function as the pro-democracy opposition to Anakin's more dictatorial opinions. That combined with the whole decoy business made the whole thing a bit of a mess.
If he really wanted Padme be a 14 year old Queen then possibly the better way to go about it is to have her start out as a Princess and her mother and/or father either escape with her and the Jedi or (preferably?) stay behind and die on Naboo, either as an act of self sacrifice to ensure her escape or as a result of the finale. If nothing else it'd give Maul something to do other than stand around and look menacingly at probe droids. Either way, she's Queen by the time the credits roll. (Ironically, this was pretty much how it went down in one of his original 'Starkiller' drafts.) Bonus points as it allows you to cast her younger, making the age gap in TPM a bit less creepy (did anyone seriously buy Portman as a 14-16 year old in TPM?)
How you then get her to be the voice of democracy in the next movies is a bit trickier. A ruler of a planet (elected or otherwise) can't govern from the Republic senate building. That's what you appoint senators for. So you either ditch the whole monarchy idea, or mention that in the wake of the occupation, she took steps to transition to a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected Premier, or ruling council or some-such. Which then turned around and appointed her Senator, with the title of Queen now being largely a ceremonial one.
Of course none of this fixes the much more serious problem: poor execution.
It was a very risky move on Padme's part and the only one she had, or she gave herself. I mean weren't there other sympathetic ears in the Senate that she might have attempted to bring to her side? What about Bail Organa? And you are right that the Jedi were handcuffed by Lucas's storytelling dictates, but still within the story he presented it was a rash, impetuous, though noble impulse on the part of Queen Amidala to return in one ship back to Naboo on the shaky hope that she could rally the Gunguns to her side. Who knows what bad blood existed between the humans and Gunguns. And even after she did that the whole thing almost fell apart anyway, saved at the last minute by Anakin's bumbling.
It makes we wonder why wasn't there more human resistance to the Trade Federation once the Queen returned and the battle was on? Outside of the few starfighters the Naboo threw at the Trade Federation the brunt of the battle and losses were on the Gunguns in the past which made that proposition doubtful until Padme humbled herself. Perhaps offscreen it could be implied there was more resistance, but I can only go off what Lucas presented us.
I don't think the politics were ever explained but there was a new Queen after Padme became a Senator. I'm not sure if there were term-limits, if Padme was defeated in an election (unlikely), or maybe she was asked to join the Senate or wanted to do so, and that's how she wound up there.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Monarch_of_Naboo/Canon
There were. She said as much in AOTC.
Sci said:
Maybe we don't see them clustered in groups accosting our protagonists whenever they leave a building, but they're there. The media is represented by the camera droids floating around. It's just that they don't play a significant role in the story.
Sci said:
Undoubtedly somebody did check. It's just that they didn't find anything super-incriminating, like a receipt helpfully emblazoned "Paid for by Damask Holdings, because Hego Damask was totally a Sith and trained the Chancellor who is also a Sith. You know what to do."
Sci said:
I'm sure somebody thought that was convenient. But by the same token it must have looked awfully inconvenient for Dooku's war effort. And once the war was underway, those concerns took a back seat to matters of expediency.
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There is no way a real, informed adult electorate would put a 14 year old into any position with real governmental power. But that's not the kind of story told in Star Wars. They are like fairy tales or myths, where certain people are born unquestionably special, and whole societies revolve around them. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny as if it were the real world, but it wasn't really meant to.
And yet, we actually have had those in real life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy
Interestingly enough from the article is that the President of the United States was almost on that list.
I loved the political angle. I'd take more scenes with Palpatine's manipulations over another action scene.
Yeah and I don't think *any* of those systems would seriously elect a teenager. There's no way in which Padme is an elected monarch her young age makes any kind of sense. They really should have just gone with a straight-up hereditary monarchy.
This one point I agree with. I have no problem with child monarchs, as real world history is filled with such examples. But, yeah, the idea of a electing a 14 year old, no matter how precocious the child or trusting the populous is hard to believe.
Also, while I understand that the point of the Republic political system is to show its ineffectiveness and the lead up to Palpatine's take over makes sense, but I only started to enjoy the politics after reading the novels.
Honestly, I liked how the old EU, before the PT, painted Palpatine as someone who appeared naive, and apparently oblivious or too idealistic to be taken seriously. He was expected to be manipulated by more experienced politicians, only the turn the tables.
I'm sure some will make the argument that that's what happened in the films, but I don't think it was done very well. The political relationships never felt clearly defined. Why do the Jedi report to the Supreme Chancellor? Why does the Trade Federation have a representative in the Senate? What does it mean if the Separatists succeed?
Granted, these questions are the least of my concerns, but still impact my suspension of disbelief is I'm trying to understand the politics of the world.
You're not wrong in that despite all the political waffle, the roles and relationships were poorly defined. Ironically, Lucas does have a habit of leaving out *huge* chunks of exposition when it comes to world building.
Some of this is touched on in TCW, with it being made clearer that the Trade Federation and other commerce guilds didn't (officially) actually lead the separatists, they just signed a treaty recognising their succession and agreed to deal with them (i.e. sell them battle droids and starships.
We only get a glimpse of the "real" Seperatists who are mostly just made up of worlds sick of the corruption of the Senate and done with bowing to Corusant's authority and paying taxes to a government that does nothing for them.
Overtly, Dooku is a political figure who was able to rally them and whom they chose to represent them and lead their armies in defence against an aggressive Republic army trying to oppress them.
It's all made a bit murky because we got to see what's going on behind the curtains with all the Sith machinations without even seeing what was going on *in front* first. Also a bit jarring until you get your head around the idea that our protagonists are technically on the "wrong" side of this war.
Another seemingly vital he left out until literally the last minute (it may have been the last thing he did for Star Wars before selling it) was the whole cosmic force/living force, vanishing Jedi bodies and ghosts thing. The EU authors stumbled around in the dark for decades trying to account for these things without knowing how any of it was supposed to fit together. You think the lest he could have done was knock out a brief summery of some of the basic rules. Just more evidence that he never really cared about the EU beyond the revenue it generated and was saving it all for the movies and later the TV show, so he could keep things flexible if need be.
Which is fair enough, I suppose.
Some of this is touched on in TCW, with it being made clearer that the Trade Federation and other commerce guilds didn't (officially) actually lead the separatists, they just signed a treaty recognising their succession and agreed to deal with them (i.e. sell them battle droids and starships.
We only get a glimpse of the "real" Seperatists who are mostly just made up of worlds sick of the corruption of the Senate and done with bowing to Corusant's authority and paying taxes to a government that does nothing for them.
Overtly, Dooku is a political figure who was able to rally them and whom they chose to represent them and lead their armies in defence against an aggressive Republic army trying to oppress them.
It's all made a bit murky because we got to see what's going on behind the curtains with all the Sith machinations without even seeing what was going on *in front* first. Also a bit jarring until you get your head around the idea that our protagonists are technically on the "wrong" side of this war.
Another seemingly vital he left out until literally the last minute (it may have been the last thing he did for Star Wars before selling it) was the whole cosmic force/living force, vanishing Jedi bodies and ghosts thing. The EU authors stumbled around in the dark for decades trying to account for these things without knowing how any of it was supposed to fit together. You think the lest he could have done was knock out a brief summery of some of the basic rules. Just more evidence that he never really cared about the EU beyond the revenue it generated and was saving it all for the movies and later the TV show, so he could keep things flexible if need be.
Which is fair enough, I suppose.
I think that is my basic issues with the overall political scheme, and Jedi Order, Sith and the rules of the Force. It feels like GL adjusted it as the story required it, rather than having specific rules or guidelines that he adhered to (except for red for bad and blue and green for good).
Honestly, I appreciate the fact that TCW and novels expand upon the concepts of the Separatists' motivation, but it does little to help me enjoy the films as I'm sitting there wondering how this all is supposed to work
I don't mind the political details-as I said, there were EU hints of how Palpatine came to power and utilized his public image to gain power. That part I'm fine with. It's the mechanics of the Republic that make me go "What?" that I really struggle with.
^As best as I can understand it, the way the Republic works it has more in common with an intergovernmental organization like say the, UN rather than a federalised nation of states like the USA. It's probably actually closer to a classical Greek Republic since it seems only the Senate can elect the Chancellor, rather than a party system by popular vote.
This is how in ANH we hear of more and more star systems are supporting the Rebel cause and how Senators were able to operate in both worlds. It's a big galaxy and the Imperial Starfleet can't be everywhere at once and there aren't enough Stormtroopers to effectively occupy every world, hence the need to rule through fear of a big honking planet vaporising battle station.
This is how in ANH we hear of more and more star systems are supporting the Rebel cause and how Senators were able to operate in both worlds. It's a big galaxy and the Imperial Starfleet can't be everywhere at once and there aren't enough Stormtroopers to effectively occupy every world, hence the need to rule through fear of a big honking planet vaporising battle station.
I think it could have worked at least a bit better if he had just made her a little bit older. Both because of the whole 14 year old elected Queen thing, and it would have fit Natalie Portman better, because I never bought her as being that young. I looked her up, and she was only a couple years older than that, but at that age those two years make a big difference. Granted it would have made the age difference between her and Anakin creepier, but they could have just aged him up a bit too, without it having to big an impact on the overall story.
^You make her older than you have to also make Anakin older because otherwise: eww. I mean not that there's currently a shortage of "eww" as things stand, but that would sort of put it over the top.
I'm not sure exactly why Anakin had to be found so young, after all Luke didn't start training until he was in his late teens/early 20's so the "too old" bit seems a little disingenuous. Maybe it was to make the attachment to the mother stronger and by extension the loss that much greater?
I'm not sure exactly why Anakin had to be found so young, after all Luke didn't start training until he was in his late teens/early 20's so the "too old" bit seems a little disingenuous. Maybe it was to make the attachment to the mother stronger and by extension the loss that much greater?
The primary driver, from what I understand, was the idea that there would not be the anxiety of separation between Anakin and his mom, and thinking he wouldn't be all that upset if he were older. While I get that point, I personally think that Anakin should have been older, and that their relationship could have been built up in a different way.
Regardless, I do think the ages were a minor problem, but the overall political scheme is one that I think needed a little more polish. Palpatine and his machinations are great, and I enjoy some of the Senate scenes. But, in the larger view, they don't make as much sense.
Part of this is owed to Padme's subplot being largely excised from ROTS and leaving much of the skeleton work of the Empire's formation unseen, which would go a long way for expounding upon Tarkin's remarks in Episode IV, which is what a prequel should do.
I wonder what the film would have been like had the "chasing down Grievous" plot hadn't been used. With the majority of the film instead focused on Coruscant, with on the one side Palpatine moving the last pieces of his new Empire into place while courting Anakin as his apprentice and on the other, Kenobi being courted by Bail and Padme to bring the Jedi on-side in their nascent rebel movement.
It'd certainly add credence to the "you're with him!/you turned her against me!" claims AND the idea that the Jedi are "rebelling" if Anakin actually caught them both in the act of conspiring against Palpatine. Also: bonus points for lending some credence to Leia's "years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars" line in ANH.
As for Grievous, they could either have not bothered introducing him at all and given all his lines to Dooku instead before killing him off, or kept him around only to be quite horrifically disposed of at the end of the second act when Anakin/Vader shuts down all the Separatist droid units, which (let's just say) turns out to also include Grievous's cybernetics. Leaving him a pathetic hunk of belligerent flesh trapped in a collapsed metal shell, gasping it's last as Vader coldly strides past.
It'd certainly add credence to the "you're with him!/you turned her against me!" claims AND the idea that the Jedi are "rebelling" if Anakin actually caught them both in the act of conspiring against Palpatine. Also: bonus points for lending some credence to Leia's "years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars" line in ANH.
As for Grievous, they could either have not bothered introducing him at all and given all his lines to Dooku instead before killing him off, or kept him around only to be quite horrifically disposed of at the end of the second act when Anakin/Vader shuts down all the Separatist droid units, which (let's just say) turns out to also include Grievous's cybernetics. Leaving him a pathetic hunk of belligerent flesh trapped in a collapsed metal shell, gasping it's last as Vader coldly strides past.
