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Spoilers All Things STAR WARS - News, Speculation & Spoilers Thread

Both Mon Mothma and Leia Organa were in the senate as teenagers. Mothma was married as a teen and had her daughter just after the Clone Wars ended. While Padme had been in politics longer than Mothma, Mothma was a senator while Padme was Queen of Naboo (having become a senator the same year as The Phantom Menace)...Mothma being about three years older than Padme, but starting her career at an even younger age....Padme started at the age of eight.
Leia would follow her mother's footsteps and join the Senate...than start running missions for her adopted father. Something her mother would have done.
 
I don't particularly disagree, and I do tend to think Padme was almost as much of an emotional basket case as Anakin was. But I can't help shake the feeling that "died of a broken heart" while giving birth to twins and being mentally present enough to actually name them just doesn't quite sit right with me. While not beyond any bounds of possibility; from a storytelling perspective it feels a little too much on the cheap side for my personal tastes.

For for the age factor . . . eh, I think the Star Wars galaxy just has a much better education system than we're used to thinking of. Maybe not quite THX style educational IVs, but sophisticated enough that it's not that far our of the realms of possibility to have people in their early to mid-teens already finishing what we'd consider a university education. Regardless; Padme was supposed to be something of a prodigy. How that lines up with emotional maturity on the other hand though, is a whole other question.
 
I was guessing that Palpatine drained Padme's life via her connection with Anakin to keep Vader alive. Thus he would know she was dead and could convince Vader he did it in his anger.
 
Ithekro said:
I was guessing that Palpatine drained Padme's life via her connection with Anakin to keep Vader alive. Thus he would know she was dead and could convince Vader he did it in his anger.
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Yeah I've batted that idea around a bit too. Problem is it feels like it's just more unnecessary complication, and his knowledge of her death can easily be explained by just having him sense it. Between the dark side being at peak strength in this time, his being familiar enough with her presence, and that there could be some kind of resonance coming off Anakin that her passing caused a noticeable enough disturbance for him to put two and two together. Or he was totally bluffing and intended to have her hunted down and killed either way.
I think there's enough room there to hand-wave so one doesn't need to go down the "Palaptine did it" path with that one.
 
Ithekro said:
I was guessing that Palpatine drained Padme's life via her connection with Anakin to keep Vader alive. Thus he would know she was dead and could convince Vader he did it in his anger.
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It works even better if it was Anakin himself that did the deed, unknowingly. His thoughts of Padme, his deep connection to her, and his own selfish desperation to just not die all feeding together into a horrific, vampiric draining of her life away. The way the sequence is shot even lends itself to the interpretation, as we keep cutting away from Padme as she gives birth but her life fails, and Anakin as he is transformed into the cybernetic Vader and survives. It also gives a nice and twisted symmetry with his eventual selfless sacrifice for Luke. Once he accidentally killed someone he loved because he was too afraid to accept death, then later he deliberately chooses a path that will lead to death in order to protect a different someone he loves.
 
YellowSubmarine said:
I never bought her excuse of not having the will to live, so she was clearly faking it by lowering and concealing her heart rate, and lying very still in the coffin, she also probably bribed the midwife droid.
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It was a weak point of EP III, especially given that Leia in ROTJ claimed having early memories of her real mother. Not sure why they killed her off like that- she could have hidden on Alderaan with Leia while Obi-wan took Luke.

Her dying when Leia was 'very young' could have been story fodder for some final adventure for her, letting her go out like a hero.
 
Reverend said:
I don't particularly disagree, and I do tend to think Padme was almost as much of an emotional basket case as Anakin was. But I can't help shake the feeling that "died of a broken heart" while giving birth to twins and being mentally present enough to actually name them just doesn't quite sit right with me. While not beyond any bounds of possibility; from a storytelling perspective it feels a little too much on the cheap side for my personal tastes.
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Padme showed very questionable taste and judgement the way things were written. Anakin was a mess, and an admitted mass murderer on Tatooine. She gave him some sort of herculean benefit of the doubt on that one.

For for the age factor . . . eh, I think the Star Wars galaxy just has a much better education system than we're used to thinking of. Maybe not quite THX style educational IVs, but sophisticated enough that it's not that far our of the realms of possibility to have people in their early to mid-teens already finishing what we'd consider a university education. Regardless; Padme was supposed to be something of a prodigy. How that lines up with emotional maturity on the other hand though, is a whole other question.
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It was always inexplicable to me why GL wanted to start the PT with Anakin as a young child. I've always felt the story would have worked much better with Anakin as a young man, and Padme as someone older as well, making her rulership actually make sense. I mean it's fantasy and all, but who would elect a 14 year old Human girl the ruler of an entire planet?

Plus, Padme went from "You'll always be that little boy I knew" to "I deeply, deeply love you!" awfully fast, and as mentioned above, in the face of some extremely disturbing happenings. When people ask how I think GL should have been 'reined in' by those around him, it's these kind of elements I'm talking about- the stuff that just comes across as nonsensical from a story standpoint. (Yes, I know: hyperspace ships, space wizards, and laser swords aside... :rolleyes: )
 
Pretty much Leia was feeling her mother from the womb. I think one of the old EU novels had Leia's unborn children help her via the Force.
 
Plus, Padme went from "You'll always be that little boy I knew" to "I deeply, deeply love you!" awfully fast, and as mentioned above, in the face of some extremely disturbing happenings. When people ask how I think GL should have been 'reined in' by those around him, it's these kind of elements I'm talking about- the stuff that just comes across as nonsensical from a story standpoint. (Yes, I know: hyperspace ships, space wizards, and laser swords aside... :rolleyes: )
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Seriously?:rolleyes: You think thiere is some kind of official time limit on how someone falls in love with another person?
 
Jedi Marso said:
It was always inexplicable to me why GL wanted to start the PT with Anakin as a young child. I've always felt the story would have worked much better with Anakin as a young man, and Padme as someone older as well, making her rulership actually make sense. I mean it's fantasy and all, but who would elect a 14 year old Human girl the ruler of an entire planet?
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To Terry Brook's credit, he unpacks this idea a lot more in his novel. While still a ridiculous concept, it isn't the strangest idea, even in human history.

But, yeah, Anakin as 9 always felt odd. Having him a teenager, rebel without a cause style, gearhead, tinkering with machines, trying to save money to help his mom, and aspiring for a better life. It could tie in to the "American Graffiti" ideas, street racing and such while still having the challenges of a hard life.

In other news, a podcast I enjoy redid their Phantom Menace discussion. It's a comedy show called "We Hate Movies" but they have analysis around the choices they don't agree with.
 
The whole point of starting the story with Anakin at so young an age is to show how Vader started out an innocent, sweet, generous kid. If you start at the cool angry rebellious teenager stage then it's counter-productive, because of course Vader was an angry disaffected teenager. It is basically a morality play, after all. Lucas wanted to show that nobody is born evil, and even good people can become twisted over time through seemingly understandable, but ultimately selfish actions.

For example; Anakin's rampage on the Tuskens doesn't land as hard unless you already have that image of him together with his mother as a child, and their wrenching separation. For two seconds in that tent, you have to be able to see Anakin revert back to that boy before he becomes a raging tornado of vengeance.

Also the image of Vader standing lightsaber drawn in front of cowering younglings, one of whom looks not unlike him at that age . . . well let's just say it's not exactly a subtle metaphor for what's going on in his head at the time.

The story of Anakin Skywalker is meant to be a tragedy, so you have to be able to show him when he was at his most innocent before he became what he became.
 
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Every bit of this.

George made a hundred mistakes in crafting the Prequels but deciding to begin Anakin's onscreen journey as a prepubescent child was not one of them. We needed the visual contrasts of the kind-hearted, inquisitive and helpful nine-year-old boy and a rampaging, adult killer on the night of Order 66 so that we could truly understand the fall of Anakin Skywalker, and to that degree it worked brilliantly.
 
Ithekro said:
I was guessing that Palpatine drained Padme's life via her connection with Anakin to keep Vader alive. Thus he would know she was dead and could convince Vader he did it in his anger.
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Palpatine did not kill Padme. Lucas was borrowing from a very old storytelling device of a romantic character being so heartbroken that they do not care to live, thus their heart fails. Lucas was trying very hard to sell the Anakin / Padme relationship as some sweeping, tragic romance, only it never presented that way because the necessary character development was just not there, and there's not a single moment between the two that felt natural, as if they had grown closer in any realistic sense. That, and Hayden Christensen and Portman gave some rather lifeless, unconvincing performances.

Set Harth said:
Or someone told him.
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Stop with the common sense replies!
 
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