Star Wars Rebels Season Three (spoilers)

[Christopher]

Strictly speaking it's not so much an issue on continuity as it is what makes sense for the character. Remember that being a Senator isn't a cover, she really is the representative for an entire sector of space with potentially hundreds of worlds counting on her being competent in the role. Spying for and aiding the rebellion is something she has to fit around that lest ISB mark her as a traitor. So like I said, it just doesn't make sense as an adventure show. It'd have to be some variation of political espionage thriller.

Well, I've just been rewatching The Clone Wars, and Senator Amidala sure got plenty of action-based episodes alongside the more political plotlines.

Also, how long has Leia been a senator at the time of ANH? She's 19, after all, so it can't have been very long. (US senators have to be at least 30.) But lots of people in times of war and crisis become effective fighters while still in their teens, and Jedi padawans certainly did in the pre-Empire days. So a series set before she took over as the senator for Alderaan could give her more leeway for action stuff as well as political intrigue.

 

[Ithekro]

Amidala had been a Senator for about two years when we see her again in the Attack of the Clones (having finished her two four year terms as queen....) So she was 22 when she became a senator.

In Rebels, we see that Leia was serving as a Senatorial aide at early at the age of 16, and probably had been doing it for a while. Possibly since 14. If one gathers than Bail would need to retire to focus more on the Rebellion, than Leia would become Senator at about age 17.

 

[ALF]

Yes, my guess is that we'll be seeing Leia again as soon as the season finale. Hopefully there will be at least one more episode featuring her if the series continues for a fourth. Maybe there will be a story line involving her becoming/being a senator.

Heck, there's every reason to believe we are going to see Luke in the upcoming and very highly anticipated episode Twin Suns. Or at least a mention or reference or something. Three more weeks.

 

[Reverend]

I can see where that could be an issue. I guess my thought was just that they could be put together for whatever the main arc of the show is and then when that's resolved they would all go off their own ways.

Just like say the three act structure of a movie perhaps?

Well, I've just been rewatching The Clone Wars, and Senator Amidala sure got plenty of action-based episodes alongside the more political plotlines.

Sure, in a time of war and turmoil when most of those adventures still involved political intrigue, peace negotiations, coups d'état and/or humanitarian aid missions. You may get a little of the latter (indeed Vader says as much) but I don't think Leia is likely to go chasing many assassins through the streets of Coruscant, finding herself in the middle of an invasion or getting kidnapped by war criminals.

Seriously, go back and check all the episodes in which Padme played an active role and you'll find she was still doing mostly diplomatic/senatorial things about 90% of the time.

Also, how long has Leia been a senator at the time of ANH? She's 19, after all, so it can't have been very long. (US senators have to be at least 30.) But lots of people in times of war and crisis become effective fighters while still in their teens, and Jedi padawans certainly did in the pre-Empire days. So a series set before she took over as the senator for Alderaan could give her more leeway for action stuff as well as political intrigue.

Her mother was a Queen at 14 and a Senator before she was by her early 20's. This galaxy has a wholly different notion of when people should be elected to decided the fate of billions of citizens.

 

[The Wormhole]

Her mother was a Queen at 14 and a Senator before she was by her early 20's. This galaxy has a wholly different notion of when people should be elected to decided the fate of billions of citizens.

What gets me is that in AOTC, Padme says she wasn't the youngest Queen elected. So that means that Naboo has elected Queens younger than fourteen. That's just mind boggling to me.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings…

 

[Reverend]

What gets me is that in AOTC, Padme says she wasn't the youngest Queen elected. So that means that Naboo has elected Queens younger than fourteen. That's just mind boggling to me.

I was about to say "maybe that was back when the monarchy was still hereditary" but she specifically says "elected". Maybe the next youngest Queen was 13 and a half or something?

I don't know if they ever actually filmed all of this, but to give some context, here's the full version of that scene as scripted: -

PADMÉ
(laughing)
No! That was the last thing I
thought of. My dream was to help
in the "Refugee Relief Movement."
I never thought of running for
elected office. But the more
history I studied, the more I
realised how much good politicians
could do. So when I was eight, I
joined the "Apprentice
Legislators", then later on became
a Senatorial advisor, with such a
passion that, before I knew it, I
was elected Queen. Partly because
I scored so high on my education
certificate, but for the most part
it was my conviction that reform
was possible. I wasn't the
youngest Queen ever elected, but
now that I think back on it, I'm
not sure I was old enough. I'm not
sure I was ready.
​

How many seven year olds do you know that dream of a life helping refugees, but on a thorough study of history, conclude that good politicians can make much more of a difference to improve the lives of others? I'm pretty sure at that age my main preoccupation was getting an Ecto-1 for Christmas.
Just the fact that this civilisation accepts eight year olds as apprentice legislators and Senatorial advisers says that this is not entirely out of the ordinary.
That last one had me wondering if Palpatine and later Padme herself had to take advice from a bunch of prepubescents while serving as senator? The mental image alone boggles the mind.

The only conclusion I can come to is that Naboo has the same freaky "education in a bottle" technology from THX 1138.

 

[The Wormhole]

That last one had me wondering if Palpatine and later Padme herself had to take advice from a bunch of prepubescents while serving as senator? The mental image alone boggles the mind.

That is weird when you think about it. Grown adults taking advice on their jobs from eight year olds.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Grown adults taking advice on their jobs from eight year olds.

Well, I can certainly think of one senator from Naboo who hated that…

 

[Christopher]

Heck, there's every reason to believe we are going to see Luke in the upcoming and very highly anticipated episode Twin Suns. Or at least a mention or reference or something. Three more weeks.

Yeah, when I wrote the bit about how I'd thought my hypothetical prequel series might show how Luke knew Old Ben, it occurred to me that the upcoming Tatooine episode might do just that.

Sure, in a time of war and turmoil when most of those adventures still involved political intrigue, peace negotiations, coups d'état and/or humanitarian aid missions. You may get a little of the latter (indeed Vader says as much) but I don't think Leia is likely to go chasing many assassins through the streets of Coruscant, finding herself in the middle of an invasion or getting kidnapped by war criminals.

How does "likely" enter into this? It's fiction, and in a larger-than-life fantasy-adventure universe to boot. If they wanted to tell stories about Leia Organa, Action Senator, nothing would prevent them from contriving situations to make that happen. I mean, how is that different from what any action series does? Realistically, the vast majority of what people would experience on their jobs would be routine, and exciting adventures or challenging dramatic conundrums would be infrequent exceptions to the routine. But fictional characters have a couple of dozen life-threatening and/or heart-wrenching experiences every year. How many murder-mystery writers solve even one actual murder in their lifetimes, let alone stumble across a murder everywhere they go like Jessica Fletcher? Series fiction almost always features crises happening with far more frequency than would be remotely plausible in real life.

 

[Reverend]

^Because it's the capital of a totalitarian police state and that means freakishly clean streets and big signs proclaiming how happy everyone is with their benevolent dictator OR ELSE! Not much opportunity runny, jumpy, shooty, speederbike-chaseyness.

That is weird when you think about it. Grown adults taking advice on their jobs from eight year olds.

<Insert Contemporary Social-Political Commentary Here>

 

[Christopher]

Because it's the capital of a totalitarian police state and that means freakishly clean streets and big signs proclaiming how happy everyone is with their benevolent dictator OR ELSE! Not much opportunity runny, jumpy, shooty, speederbike-chaseyness.

You're using your imagination to come up with reasons for it not to work. They'd be using their imaginations to come up with ways that it could work. And the fact that they'd be getting paid to use their imaginations, rather than just idly chatting on a message board, would mean they'd work at it a lot harder. So my credits would be on them.

After all, senators aren't always in the capital. Look at all the Congresscritters on recess right now, getting yelled at by their constituents at town halls. And there are plenty of other reasons for elected officials to travel, such as fundraising visits, campaign events, and the ever-popular fact-finding tours. Writers who want to concoct ways for a senator to travel to adventurous places would certainly be able to do so. Especially given how quick and convenient interstellar travel is in the SW universe.

And I should again point out that I never proposed a show that was primarily or exclusively about Leia -- rather, I imagined her as part of a larger ensemble. So she wouldn't need to be in action every week.

 

[Reverend]

^No, I'm just replying to whatever I can skim from the first two sentences of what you're posting and inventing the rest in my brain, just to see how many multi-paragraph posts of pedanticness you can come out with in response before you realise I don't actually care what you think.
I'm saying this now because I've been doing this for a while now, and so far you haven't twigged and it's starting to feel cruel. But if typing another two of three paragraphs about how everyone but you is wrong about the least pertinent details is what you need to do to keep yourself happy, then by all means have at it!

 

[Christopher]

^There's no need to make it personal. Let's just drop it.

 

[JD]

Just like say the three act structure of a movie perhaps?

Sure, but if it's complex and big enough it could be a series too.

Sure, in a time of war and turmoil when most of those adventures still involved political intrigue, peace negotiations, coups d'état and/or humanitarian aid missions. You may get a little of the latter (indeed Vader says as much) but I don't think Leia is likely to go chasing many assassins through the streets of Coruscant, finding herself in the middle of an invasion or getting kidnapped by war criminals.

Seriously, go back and check all the episodes in which Padme played an active role and you'll find she was still doing mostly diplomatic/senatorial things about 90% of the time.

Just because a few Padme episodes of TCW did it that way, doesn't mean a Leia series would have to do things the same way.

 

[Reverend]

Sure, but if it's complex and big enough it could be a series too.
Just because a few Padme episodes of TCW did it that way, doesn't mean a Leia series would have to do things the same way.

At no point have I said that it would be impossible, just not best suited for the kind of show Disney would want for the prescribed demographic and time-slot. Aside from that, with brand recognition a young Leia movie would simply be more profitable than any TV show, even factoring in merchandise sales. Indeed, that it wasn't making enough of a return was the main reason Clone Wars was cancelled in the first place.
Rebels was tailor made for a purpose. It's no accident that the show started off skewed very young and has gradually gotten more mature. It's not like the production crew suddenly forgot all the lessons of the last few seasons of Clone Wars.

 

[Ithekro]

Disney Princess/Senator/Rebel Hero. Age 17. Coruscant. Taking the Empire in stride cause she's going to make it fall.

 

[Reverend]

Disney Princess/Senator/Rebel Hero. Age 17. Coruscant. Taking the Empire in stride cause she's going to make it fall.

Yeah that could totally work for a lighthearted, fun action show aimed at tween girls (and I don't mean that at all in a derogatory sense), or a flat out adventure comedy like the 'Freemaker Adventures' but I think one would struggle to do so and keep it canon, which is sort of the whole basis for my argument.

 

[Booji]

'Rebels' has a Jedi, Padawan, and an uber-Jedi who kicked Vader's ass in season 2 in it... yet the writers have easily kept the show canon and fun. If they do that, they can do just about anything.

 

[Reverend]

'Rebels' has a Jedi, Padawan, and an uber-Jedi who kicked Vader's ass in season 2 in it... yet the writers have easily kept the show canon and fun. If they do that, they can do just about anything.

They can do all that because the setting and format they chose is broad enough to support it. Indeed, that's the whole point. Such would not necessarily be the case for a Leia show if one were to presuppose it fits within the structure of canon. You simply don't have enough wiggle room to tell the same kinds of stories, just as you wouldn't in a show based around Luke's childhood. That's not to say you couldn't tell *any* fun stories, just that the premise in inherently limiting in the kinds you *can* tell.

For those who still think Padme's role on TCW is proof enough, consider this: of the 100+ episodes of that show, she only has an active role in less than 30 of them, and a fair number of those appearances are brief or in a supporting role. She was very rarely the sole focus or protagonist of the story at hand. Not because she wasn't an interesting or dynamic enough character, but because her prescribed role demands certain limitations.

Now on the the other hand a show that centres on Winter with Leia in a supporting role you can go nuts with and tell a much broader range of stories.