What Are the Ways the Star Wars Prequels Could Be Improved???
- Thread starter VulcanMindBlown
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I've never been entirely convinced "dying of a broken heart" is actually what's happening in that scene.
With these movies, it's always important to remember that Lucas is a visual storyteller first and foremost. His own assessment of his writing ability is mediocre to poor, so if you ever want to really understand his intent then you must forget the dialogue & the exposition and just watch what's actually happening. Look at the way the scenes are designed, framed and edited. That's his canvas.
So when I look at Padme's death I'm not seeing a random, poorly explained medical condition, I'm seeing the birth of something evil and unnatural and parasitic. What I see is her heartbeat syncing up his. With her last breath comes his first. I think what this means is the part of him that was so desperate to keep her became a twisted, hungry, grasping, clawing thing that literally (though certainly unconsciously) reaches out and drains the life out of her. On some deep level, he quite literally never let her go after he grabbed her in his fury.
This whole scene is so steeped in both the literal and the symbolic one doesn't have to dig too deep to get what's going on here.
Symbolically, Padme is dying because she represents the good in Anakin (in a sense, they're both dying.) Literally, Padme is dying because Vader is draining her life force to stay alive.
Symbolically, the twins and Vader are being born simultaneously because they represent the hope for his future and an indication that there is still a tiny piece of Anakin still alive in there. Literally: because Vader is killing Padme and her body is sacrificing what little it has left to save the twins.
So not so much a broken heart as a stolen life force.
With these movies, it's always important to remember that Lucas is a visual storyteller first and foremost. His own assessment of his writing ability is mediocre to poor, so if you ever want to really understand his intent then you must forget the dialogue & the exposition and just watch what's actually happening. Look at the way the scenes are designed, framed and edited. That's his canvas.
So when I look at Padme's death I'm not seeing a random, poorly explained medical condition, I'm seeing the birth of something evil and unnatural and parasitic. What I see is her heartbeat syncing up his. With her last breath comes his first. I think what this means is the part of him that was so desperate to keep her became a twisted, hungry, grasping, clawing thing that literally (though certainly unconsciously) reaches out and drains the life out of her. On some deep level, he quite literally never let her go after he grabbed her in his fury.
This whole scene is so steeped in both the literal and the symbolic one doesn't have to dig too deep to get what's going on here.
Symbolically, Padme is dying because she represents the good in Anakin (in a sense, they're both dying.) Literally, Padme is dying because Vader is draining her life force to stay alive.
Symbolically, the twins and Vader are being born simultaneously because they represent the hope for his future and an indication that there is still a tiny piece of Anakin still alive in there. Literally: because Vader is killing Padme and her body is sacrificing what little it has left to save the twins.
So not so much a broken heart as a stolen life force.
Or they just have a different point of view regarding the narrative.
I've always assumed Palps was lying to Vader (it wouldn't be the first time), and I took the droid's assessment at face value. It would have been easy enough, and better, to come up with pretty much any explanation other than the whole idea that a woman who's just given birth to two kids has no reason to live if she's lost her boyfriend. Way to set feminism back 2,000 years there, George.
Yeah, I struggle with it as well.
If she were truly loosing the will to live, then her last words would not be a desperate plea to Obi-Wan that Anakin can still be redeemed. So like I said, that's not what's happening. Ignore the text; examine the subtext.
As for Palpatine's assertion: I've always wondered why he said that with such certainty. Did he know for a fact she was dead? Did he just say that to piss Vader off? If so then what if she happened to be still alive? Would he have had to have her hunted down and killed just to cover his arse? I think the most logical explanation is that he knew because Vader did drain the life from her and Sidious stood by and watch the whole thing, sensing exactly what was going on.
So what he told him was true, from a certain point of view.
As for Palpatine's assertion: I've always wondered why he said that with such certainty. Did he know for a fact she was dead? Did he just say that to piss Vader off? If so then what if she happened to be still alive? Would he have had to have her hunted down and killed just to cover his arse? I think the most logical explanation is that he knew because Vader did drain the life from her and Sidious stood by and watch the whole thing, sensing exactly what was going on.
So what he told him was true, from a certain point of view.
The subtext would be easier to read if there was a precedence to what was happening.If she were truly loosing the will to live, then her last words would not be a desperate plea to Obi-Wan that Anakin can still be redeemed. So like I said, that's not what's happening. Ignore the text; examine the subtext.
As for Palpatine's assertion: I've always wondered why he said that with such certainty. Did he know for a fact she was dead? Did he just say that to piss Vader off? If so then what if she happened to be still alive? Would he have had to have her hunted down and killed just to cover his arse? I think the most logical explanation is that he knew because Vader did drain the life from her and Sidious stood by and watch the whole thing, sensing exactly what was going on.
So what he told him was true, from a certain point of view.
I don't know, I think explicitly setting something like that up would just end up being clunky.
On the other hand maybe it was; for all we know Plagueis's method of creating life could have been by using the midichlorians to drain life energy from one being to another. Ultimately it doesn't really matter all that much.
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That's a little dramatic, and not what happened.
As I said before, we don't know how she died, because they(the characters) don't know how she died. Here is the conversation:
MEDICAL DROID: "Medically, she is completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
OBI-WAN: "She's dying"
MEDICAL DROID: "We don't know why. She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies."
It's at best, a mystery. She appears to be in agony.
Now you're inferring something that demonstrably incorrect.
Healthy people don't just die from giving up. Obviously something else is going on. That's when one should pay attention to the imagery and the way the two scenes are inter-cutting and they way the sound of the two heartbeats are contrasting.
But OK, fine, if you're unable or unwilling to even glance below the surface details; did it ever occur to you that a droid may not a reliable source or information when it comes to such things? Characters in stories are not omniscient and thus their statements should never be taken as objective fact. Hell, as already illustrated, the droid flat out admits it has no clue what's going on. And yet again--as previously stated--in the highly unlikely scenario that someone as dying of a broken heart, their last words wouldn't be ones of hope. It's demonstrably contradictory.
So again, something else is clearly going on.
I'm amused by the fact that we are not discussing something that "doesn't really matter all that much." You have a character dying for no apparent reason that the characters can figure and the audience is just left to infer the cause.
I'm all for imagining different situations but this is a little odd to me.
But, it isn't really worth discussing. Hardly worth mentioning.
Amiright?
With this President we have right now I'm beginning to more closely understand and sympathize with her.
So, at best, the droid immediately contradicts itself. First it doesn't know why Padme's dying, then it says she's "lost the will to live".
Either way - she's just had two kids, and she's lost the will to live? I mean, great mothering right there, Padme.
You want to improve the film? Take out that one sentence. Or have Obi-Wan speculate that Padme dying is somehow Force-related to Anakin, or anything that makes it sound less like Padme doesn't give a damn about living since she's lost her frankly horrible boyfriend, the birth of her twins notwithstanding.
Or at the very least reverse the dialogue - "She has lost the will to live - we don't know why." We, of course, would know why at that point.
TBH, I'm convinced Lucas had just gotten written into a corner by real-life events and had to improvise. As the script was shaping up prior to filming (shooting started September 2003), Anakin wouldn't have just Force-choked Padme - he'd have slammed her, at top speed, head-first into a wall and cracked her skull (paralleling Vader executing Captain Antilles in ANH). That's the way the scene plays in the novelization and in the comic (though it's her back that takes the brunt in the latter). Threepio carrying her into the ship (in a deleted scene) would have inadvertently worsened the injury. The rest of the movie, minus the clunky line of dialogue above, would have played as is.
So what caused the awkward 'lost the will to live' rewrite? No one's ever said aloud, but I don't doubt my guess: Scott and Laci Peterson, that's what. Having Anakin chopping up children already put him at the very edge of irredeemable in the audience's minds, if not over it; having him actually fatally injure his very pregnant wife, with that real-life horror still fresh in viewer's minds, would have erased all doubt - and rendered Padme's last words, and ROTJ's ending, utterly meaningless.
TBH, I'm convinced Lucas had just gotten written into a corner by real-life events and had to improvise. As the script was shaping up prior to filming (shooting started September 2003), Anakin wouldn't have just Force-choked Padme - he'd have slammed her, at top speed, head-first into a wall and cracked her skull (paralleling Vader executing Captain Antilles in ANH). That's the way the scene plays in the novelization and in the comic (though it's her back that takes the brunt in the latter). Threepio carrying her into the ship (in a deleted scene) would have inadvertently worsened the injury. The rest of the movie, minus the clunky line of dialogue above, would have played as is.
So what caused the awkward 'lost the will to live' rewrite? No one's ever said aloud, but I don't doubt my guess: Scott and Laci Peterson, that's what. Having Anakin chopping up children already put him at the very edge of irredeemable in the audience's minds, if not over it; having him actually fatally injure his very pregnant wife, with that real-life horror still fresh in viewer's minds, would have erased all doubt - and rendered Padme's last words, and ROTJ's ending, utterly meaningless.
It's a fairy tale..
But let's entertain that Padma died from psychological trauma. If that were the case, it would be justified. Like Obi-Wan and Yoda, she would feel responsible for the death of mllions, perhaps billions, the fall of her beloved republic, the transformation of her husband into an evil murderer, and tyrant(all for her sake), the death of every jedi, her trusted mentor and advisor turned out to be the ultimate evil in the universe, and she was instrumental in helping all this come to pass. On top of that she's gone into labor, and she's in a mysterious state of agony.
She can't bare to look at the dark ugly truth. People have dropped dead over far less, like the loss of a loved one, or finding out a spouse was having an affair. Deep anguish and mental breakdown can kill you. It's a fact.
However, it's a fairy tale, and no one actually knows how she died. Not even the medical droid with his strange line.
But let's entertain that Padma died from psychological trauma. If that were the case, it would be justified. Like Obi-Wan and Yoda, she would feel responsible for the death of mllions, perhaps billions, the fall of her beloved republic, the transformation of her husband into an evil murderer, and tyrant(all for her sake), the death of every jedi, her trusted mentor and advisor turned out to be the ultimate evil in the universe, and she was instrumental in helping all this come to pass. On top of that she's gone into labor, and she's in a mysterious state of agony.
She can't bare to look at the dark ugly truth. People have dropped dead over far less, like the loss of a loved one, or finding out a spouse was having an affair. Deep anguish and mental breakdown can kill you. It's a fact.
However, it's a fairy tale, and no one actually knows how she died. Not even the medical droid with his strange line.
It was Snoke!
It doesn't matter in so much because it's not a science fiction story, it's a science fantasy fairy tale. Do fairy tales ever get into the textual details of exactly *how* one turns rodents and a vegetable into a swanky means of conveyance beyond "it's magic"? For that matter has Star Wars? The closest it's ever come is Qui Gon's explanation of midichlorians and fans were outraged at even that detail.
So while yes I think it's clear what's going on if one examine's the subtext, the reason it is subtext is because 1) it doesn't matter to the mythmaking side of things 2) the character's present wouldn't know what's happening anyway and 3) Lucas likes avant-garde and esoteric imagery. It's how he got started and it's always what he gravitates towards.
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