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Who elects a 14 year old to control a planet?

#1 User is offline   Kelethor Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 09:21 PM

Simple question, I'm 17 and still dont find myself qualified to rule over a planet.

Not only that, but this dumb teenager was so easily manipulated into letting Palpatine getting elected into office and thus destroying the republic.
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#2 User is offline   SithAvenger Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 09:45 PM

The people of Naboo are just stupid. I mean, they let Gungans live in their planet. tongue.gif
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#3 User is offline   Revan-47 Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 09:46 PM

That wasnt a question, it was all a statement.
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#4 User is offline   Revan-47 Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 09:48 PM

QUOTE (SithAvenger @ Jun 12 2005, 09:45 PM)
The people of Naboo are just stupid. I mean, they let Gungans live in their planet.  tongue.gif
with out boss or jar jar the gungans would be pretty cool. i liked the battle of naboo before it turned into a 3 stooges routine.
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#5 User is offline   Kelethor Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 10:02 PM

The Battle of Naboo was good for one reason. Unlike ROTJ we saw are lovable alien buddies die horrible deaths at the hand of our enemys. That made me smile.
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#6 User is offline   LiocModnar Icon

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Posted 12 June 2005 - 10:39 PM

How did a man who can't pronounce nuclear become elected commander-in-chief of the US military? These things happen whether you're here or Far Far Away.
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#7 User is offline   CowboyCurtis Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 01:54 PM

Real politics elsewhere, please....

Fake ones here: smile.gif

There are a lot of problems having her elected, not just the idea that she has zero experience, but the fact that, if there is an election, there has to be campaigning, and how long was Amidala's rule? Four years? So, she would need to be campaigning at least a year before that, so then that would make her 12-13. Gawd, what kind of "mud-slinging" would be involved in their ads? "Amidala is not a worthy candidate as she's got cooties from kissing boys."

I can not fathom what Lucas' reasoning for doing this. There is NO story purpose behind it! Leia is a senator in ANH because she has a lot of connections, she knows people and this is what got her in trouble because the tapes fall into her hands.

I'm really trying to figure out how and why being an elected "Queen" serves the story. Also trying to see how it serves Episode II and III... it does not.

The only way I can figure it is that it is a convenient way for Lucas to stick Amidala in a high position of power, but then to get her to a lower one later, he has to "demote" her.... but what is the point of that, too?

There are two ways I would've liked to have seen this worked out (and one of them I'm using for my rewrites) 1) Amidala is a princess. She IS the ruler of her planet because her parents died when she was young. She has an advisory council, so she really doesn't have any power, just speaking the words she puts into their mouths. She is not elected, she is a figurehead. However, Amidala secretly sees this as counterproductive to society, so she decides by the Episode II that her people should be free to govern themselves. She therefore institutes a democratic society and then abdicates her throne. (And this would work very well with Lucas' themes of dictatorships versus representative governments).

2) Almost the same as the above, except Amidala is a young clone of a beloved Queen. Still not elected, but neither does she have parents and it would be a good kick-start to the clone wars since her planet as the cloning technology.

Okay... take what you will.
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All I know is I haven't seen the real prequels yet.
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#8 User is offline   SithAvenger Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 02:01 PM

I liked the first one. smile.gif
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#9 User is offline   ernesttomlinson Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 06:13 PM

I think the answer lies in Lucas's approach to storytelling. He has certain ideas that he wants to put into his script and he'll cram them in by hook or crook. In this case, I suspect his thinking might have gone like this:

"Princesses are cool. Everybody loves royalty, Leia was a princess and look how great that worked out for me. And since Leia's a princess her mum needs to be a queen or something. So Queen Amidala it is.

"But wait, I've got to say that democracy is good, tyranny is bad. Imagine, the bad guys take over the planet and one of the good guys says dramatically, 'This is a democracy! The people have spoken!' So we gotta get a democracy in there.

"Hm. I want a monarchy and I want a democracy. I know, I'll make an elective monarchy! What an elegant solution! I get to have my cake and eat it!"

I doubt whether Lucas thinks much further beyond this. He's like a second-rate political speechwriter who figures that if you pack a speech with certain keywords said often enough then it doesn't matter whether the speech actually makes any sense.
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#10 User is offline   CowboyCurtis Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 06:29 PM

Yes, that appears to be the case. You're absolutely right.

"Gee, if people like a princes... they'll love a QUEEN!"

"And if they bought that a senator could be 19-20 years old, then they'll buy it that the leader will be FOURTEEN!! Yes, I'm a genius!"

"If people loved cute, bumbling Ewoks! God, they're gonna LOOOVE the bumbling, idiotic Gungans!"

"Boy, if people love a single-blade lightsaber, they'll love a double-blade lightsaber! Heck! Let's give them four blades at once!"

"Boy, if people love a cyborg villain with a cape and breathing problem, then they'll love one who is REALLY a cyborg and hacking up his non-existent lungs! He'll be a badder-ass than that putz Vader! MUWHAHAHAHA!!! FANS EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT!!"
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All I know is I haven't seen the real prequels yet.
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#11 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 06:54 PM

QUOTE (Kelethor @ Jun 12 2005, 09:21 PM)
Simple question, I'm 17 and still dont find myself qualified to rule over a planet.

Not only that, but this dumb teenager was so easily manipulated into letting Palpatine getting elected into office and thus destroying the republic.


Who elects a 14 year old to control a planet?

short answer...

NO ONE!!!

:angry:

This post has been edited by barend: 13 June 2005 - 06:58 PM

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#12 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 07:42 PM

QUOTE (Revan-47 @ Jun 12 2005, 09:46 PM)
That wasnt a question, it was all a statement.

The question was in the topic title, smartass.
--------------------

The problem with this whole "elected queen" business is somewhere along the line George got the idea that STAR WARS had always been about how fascism can arise out of Democracy, like there had always been this political message there, right from the start. Oh, and it was also about ancient myth and the collective unconscious, by way of Jung and Josepoh Campbell. It was NOT just a lot of sci-fi cliches palgiarized toigether and held fasty by some groundbreaking special effects and a few good actors. That would have put all the credit on the FX guys and the actors. No, STAR WARS was Lucas's APOCALYPSE NOW, and you better believe it.

So by the time the prequels came around he wanted a democracy so he could make that stupidly literal story about the rise of fascism, but then he remembered that his former world had been a Republic, but not the sort we have now where our representatives are elected, but some one involving Monarchs as senators. So he just fused the two together, and made up this weirdness about 14-year-old elected queens. Why it makes no sense, apart from the obvious does-not-ring-trueness, is that it was tacked on after the fact. Three movies with nearly zero politics, and then suddenly three movies mired in political hogwash.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#13 User is offline   SithAvenger Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 07:49 PM

QUOTE (CowboyCurtis @ Jun 13 2005, 07:29 PM)
"Boy, if people love a cyborg villain with a cape and breathing problem, then they'll love one who is REALLY a cyborg and hacking up his non-existent lungs!  He'll be a badder-ass than that putz Vader!  MUWHAHAHAHA!!!  FANS EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT!!"



If you are talking about General Grievous, I will inform you that Grievous actually has lungs. You can see them when Obi-Wan opens his chest.
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#14 User is offline   DarthTherion Icon

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Posted 13 June 2005 - 11:14 PM

Doesn't Amidala say in AOTC something like, "I wasn't the youngest queen ever elected to office..."?

Pretty wild stuff.

Does anyone know if this has been dealt with in any books outside of the films? I'd be interested in hearing a semi-official "explanation."
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#15 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 14 June 2005 - 12:44 AM

i think in TPM she was meant to be royalty...

i think the election thing came in for AOTC.

a 14 year old left to look after the throne because of liniage made some sense... but otherwise... blech!!!
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