Question to those most disappointed with the SW prequels

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The Naboo state funeral was so much more effective and emotional than her passing on the delivery table. And I did really like the little, subtle touch of having a fake pregnancy "bump" on her body so that her family and others believed she died before giving birth, helping cover up the existence of the twins.

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.

 

[cooleddie74]

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.

 

[Pondwater]

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.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

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.

 

[cooleddie74]

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

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Noooo... we don't. Sigh.

 

[Pondwater]

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

 

[Greylock Crescent]

It makes no sense that this woman who had devoted her short life to civic duty, her people, the good of the republic would just up and die from a broken heart when she had babies to care for. You have to make it make sense, but really these explanations we've been discussing could have been included in the film with one line about her psychic connection to Anakin. Broken heart, pfft.

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.

 

[cooleddie74]

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.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

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

 

[Pondwater]

Wookiepedia might have an explanation.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Here are the relevant passages:

"All organic damage has been repaired." The droid checked another readout. "This systemic failure cannot be explained."
...
Not physically, Obi-Wan thought. He squeezed her hand as though he could keep life within her body by simple pressure. "Padme, you have to hold on."
...
Padme reached across with her free hand, with the hand she had laid upon the brow of her firstborn son, and pressed something into Obi-Wan's palm.
...
He stood in the hall outside, looking down at what she had pressed into his hand. It was a pendant of some kind, an amulet, unfamiliar sigils carved into some sort of organic material, strung on a loop of leather. In the Force, he could feel traces of the touch of her skin.
...
Obi-Wan looked down at the simple, child-like symbols carved into it, and felt from it in the Force soaring echoes of transcendent love, and the bleak, black despair of unendurable heartbreak.

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

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

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.

 

[2takesfrakes]

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.

 

[BigJake]

It's very obvious to me that George Lucas, quite simply, does not understand women (he may even be gay).

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

 

[cooleddie74]

Damn.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

One big difference is I liked the pod race.

 

[Pondwater]

I did too.

 

[cooleddie74]

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.

 

[The Old Mixer]

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.

Hamill and Fisher didn't think so. I remember reading an article from around when AOTC was coming out, where one of them was quoted as having discussed the matter with the other, saying something along the lines of, "Can you imagine the two of us coming from a couple of models like that?"