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#1 User is offline   julie123 Icon

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Posted 14 June 2005 - 01:04 PM

I've been thinking about when Padme croaks it and wondered if Lucas had some kind of check list going on regarding ROTS that made sense only to him:

1) Anakin tells Padme that she and him will rule the galazy, ties in with Vader saying this to Luke in ROTJ, check.
2) A Skywalker dies in ROTS - Padme, a Skywalker dies in ROTS - Anakin, check.
3) Show the funeral of a Skywalker - Padme in ROTS, ties in with Vader/Anakin's funeral in ROTJ.
4) Padme tells Obi-Wan there is still good in Anakin in ROTS, Luke tells Obi-Wan/Ben that there is still good in Vader/Anakin in ROTJ, check.

Are we really expected to believe that Padme, who has just been force choked by her loving husband and decided to die of a broken heart rather than sticking around to raise her twin babies, would really turn round to Obi-Wan, on what is her death bed and mutter those immortal lines "there is still good in him"? Just how stupid does he think we are or put another way, just how stupid is he? This scene is akin to when Padme makes that there, there you've had a hard day gesture when Anakin tells her he slaughtered those Tusken's in Clones. Padme sounds more like she had battered wife syndrome than anything else.

If this scene doesn't make it in to reasons to hate, I don't know what should.
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#2 User is offline   Private Zod Icon

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Posted 14 June 2005 - 04:47 PM

QUOTE (julie123 @ Jun 14 2005, 01:04 PM)
I've been thinking about when Padme croaks it and wondered if Lucas had some kind of check list going on regarding ROTS that made sense only to him:

1) Anakin tells Padme that she and him will rule the galazy, ties in with Vader saying this to Luke in ROTJ, check.
2) A Skywalker dies in ROTS - Padme, a Skywalker dies in ROTS - Anakin, check.
3) Show the funeral of a Skywalker - Padme in ROTS, ties in with Vader/Anakin's funeral in ROTJ.
4) Padme tells Obi-Wan there is still good in Anakin in ROTS, Luke tells Obi-Wan/Ben that there is still good in Vader/Anakin in ROTJ, check.

Are we really expected to believe that Padme, who has just been force choked by her loving husband and decided to die of a broken heart rather than sticking around to raise her twin babies, would really turn round to Obi-Wan, on what is her death bed and mutter those immortal lines "there is still good in him"?  Just how stupid does he think we are or put another way, just how stupid is he?  This scene is akin to when Padme makes that there, there you've had a hard day gesture when Anakin tells her he slaughtered those Tusken's in Clones.  Padme sounds more like she had battered wife syndrome than anything else.

If this scene doesn't make it in to reasons to hate, I don't know what should.



I agree with you on this. When I first read that Anakin was pretty much responsible for Padme dying, I hated it then and still do now. It is hard to have him redeemable after he slaughters kids and force chokes his own pregnant wife. Had they done something else where ObiWan and Anakin begin to fight and somehow Padme gets in the middle of it and gets injured, with each blaming the other...that would have been more palatable.

But then, the whole relationship on screen between Padme and Anakin was done shitty from the beginning. There was absolutely no reason for her to even like him, much less fall in love with him in AOTC. It just continues here...
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#3 User is offline   Andrew Icon

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Posted 14 June 2005 - 05:24 PM

I don't really have a problem with Anakin killing Padme, or anyone else for that matter, and then still being redeemed in ROTJ. It does take a pretty monumental effort on Luke's part to bring him back, he's basically willing to sacrifice his own life for a father he has every reason to hate.
I DO however have a problem with Padme's ridiculous death.
Maybe it was all explained in a scene we didn't see.

PADME: 'I've lost the will to live.'
OBI-WAN: 'What about your children? Don't they make you want to live?'
PADME 'Oh yeah.'
OBI-WAN: 'And what about Anakin, you just said you thought their was still good in him.'
PADME: 'You're right Obi-wan! I feel a lot better!'
OBI-WAN: 'And then there's all of your friends. You could hang around with Jar Jar Binks for the rest of your life...
...
OBI-WAN: Padme? PADME?!' NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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#4 User is offline   floppydisk Icon

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Posted 14 June 2005 - 08:58 PM

QUOTE (Private Zod @ Jun 14 2005, 04:47 PM)
But then, the whole relationship on screen between Padme and Anakin was done shitty from the beginning.  There was absolutely no reason for her to even like him, much less fall in love with him in AOTC.  It just continues here...

From my (small, small) experience, and from what I've heard, love is pretty fucking random. You can grow to love someone for what they are, and then you can see someone, like them, and later fall in love with them. Meh, maybe I should just stop talking...
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#5 User is offline   maestro_of_mirth Icon

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Posted 14 June 2005 - 09:55 PM

The love/death of Padme was pretty lousy from the beginning, I agree. To think that they can repair someone that has lost their limbs and been charred well done, but a "broken heart" seems to befuddle the doctors. No dice.

I assume George just chickened out by not coming up with a decent reason for her death.

"Why is she dying?"
"Beats me."

Lame, lame. Maybe it was an extreme delayed reaction from when she fell out of that speeder in Ep. 2. You know, the one going 500 mph? Yeah, that's the ticket. She died from that "old wound that never healed" like Lancelot in Excalibur.
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#6 User is offline   DarthTherion Icon

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Posted 15 June 2005 - 03:16 AM

I loved the scene in which Anakin chokes Padme. It's very powerful, and it's important that we see how wrapped up Anakin has become in his own selfishness. Everything has become a threat to him now, and the thought that his wife -- for whom he has thrown away his allegiance to the Jedi -- has turned her back on him (and may be having an affair with Obi-wan!) is too much for him. He snaps, and we really need to see something like this to understand how far he has fallen.

What is unfortunate is how Lucas takes the coward's way out and has a medical droid inform us that there is nothing physically wrong with her as she lies dying. Yeah, right. In case it wasn't clear enough, the comic book (and I think the novel, too) depicts the scene with Anakin throwing Padme very roughly into the ship when he's finished choking her.

Now, maybe Lucas didn't want to go quite *that* dark. Maybe it would affect the rating of the movie to show that much violence against a pregnant woman? I really don't know, but I wish the scene had been as extreme as it appears to have been originally intended. Oh well.

Padme's dying comment that there is "still good in him" is not unbelievable. While it is a shame that the romance wasn't pulled off so well in AOTC, there are alot of well-acted scenes between Hayden and Natalie in ROTS (in which they seem desperate to redeem themselves after their acting in the last episode); Padme loves her husband. She went to Mustafar to find him, to bring him back from the brink, and even though she failed (largely because of Obi-wan's presence), she thinks it is still possible. She's right. Vader's son will help him make a selfless decision again in twenty years.
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#7 User is offline   ernesttomlinson Icon

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Posted 15 June 2005 - 04:24 AM

It's hard to get very interested in "how far [Anakin's] fallen" when, from the evidence of AOTC, he didn't have that far to fall in the first place.
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#8 User is offline   julie123 Icon

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Posted 15 June 2005 - 01:45 PM

QUOTE (DarthTherion @ Jun 15 2005, 08:16 AM)
I loved the scene in which Anakin chokes Padme. It's very powerful, and it's important that we see how wrapped up Anakin has become in his own selfishness. Everything has become a threat to him now, and the thought that his wife -- for whom he has thrown away his allegiance to the Jedi -- has turned her back on him (and may be having an affair with Obi-wan!) is too much for him. He snaps, and we really need to see something like this to understand how far he has fallen.

What is unfortunate is how Lucas takes the coward's way out and has a medical droid inform us that there is nothing physically wrong with her as she lies dying. Yeah, right. In case it wasn't clear enough, the comic book (and I think the novel, too) depicts the scene with Anakin throwing Padme very roughly into the ship when he's finished choking her.

Now, maybe Lucas didn't want to go quite *that* dark. Maybe it would affect the rating of the movie to show that much violence against a pregnant woman? I really don't know, but I wish the scene had been as extreme as it appears to have been originally intended. Oh well.

Padme's dying comment that there is "still good in him" is not unbelievable. While it is a shame that the romance wasn't pulled off so well in AOTC, there are alot of well-acted scenes between Hayden and Natalie in ROTS (in which they seem desperate to redeem themselves after their acting in the last episode); Padme loves her husband. She went to Mustafar to find him, to bring him back from the brink, and even though she failed (largely because of Obi-wan's presence), she thinks it is still possible. She's right. Vader's son will help him make a selfless decision again in twenty years.


"Padme loves her husband. She went to Mustafar to find him, to bring him back from the brink, and even though she failed (largely because of Obi-wan's presence), she thinks it is still possible. She's right. Vader's son will help him make a selfless decision again in twenty years."

Sorry, this to me confirms the point I was making about that crazy checklist Lucas had going on: Anakin turns to the dark side to "protect" Padme in ROTS, and turns to the light to save Luke in ROTJ.

Regarding the medical droid informing us that there is nothing physically wrong with Padme - I just thought that perhaps this was because a droid hadn't been programmed to know what the effects of force choking a heavily pregnant woman would be.

Now, I had problems believing that Luke could suddenly sense good in Vader in ROTJ, when the two previous films had shown him to be a ruthless killing machine/human, utterly without compassion for any living creature. This was nothing however, to my believing that Anakin and Padme truly loved each other. Portman and Christensen's scenes together were not only unbelievable, but vomit making in the extreme. The only reason Padme went to Mustafar in search of Anakin, was because it was in the script.

Again I say that Padme's defence of Anakin when she had just been force choked, sounded to me like the women who have been assaulted be their partners, but who still insist that they love their abuser. I really cannot see how any sane person's love would not turn to hatred or even mild even dislike, when their husband had just tried to kill them. Lucas really was incredibly stupid to have Padme say she still sensed good in Anakin after he had just tried to kill him.
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#9 User is offline   floppydisk Icon

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Posted 15 June 2005 - 02:08 PM

He simply did it to seem like there's more of a connection to ROTJ. That's what he did with the prequels multiple times, most obiously in AOTC, when Ani got his hand cut off.
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#10 User is offline   DarthTherion Icon

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Posted 15 June 2005 - 10:29 PM

I fail to see what's wrong with writing the prequel trilogy so that it reflects the original trilogy.

We want to see an unlikely hero leave home and set out for adventure in the first movie; we want to see that hero face adversity, have visions, and rush off rashly to confront something connected to his family in the second movie; and we want to see that hero face the temptation of the dark side in the third movie, something along the lines of "give yourself to the dark side. It is the only way to save your friends."

It's obvious what Lucas was going for, and it sounds (in theory) like a good layout for a new trilogy, one in which the anti-hero makes all the wrong choices where Luke made the correct ones.

Did Lucas live up to the potential that such a trilogy holds? I think the existence of this forum pretty much answers that question....

A big complaint about the PT is that things happen because they "have to happen." Anakin hates Obi-wan because they have to have a death duel. Padme falls in love with Anakin because she has to be the mother of Luke and Leia. Anakin's mother dies because he has to be pushed towards the dark side. Nothing happens for reasons that we are given in the movies...everything happens because it's part of a big "prequel checklist." This is pretty fair criticism, because it's basically true.

However, this is not the case with ROTS, which is probably the reason that it is actually a good movie. I honestly did think that the acting was very well-done in the film. The emotions drive the action of the film, and it comes off as a decent attempt to portray the downfall of Anakin Skywalker. It made sense for everything to happen as it did.

Padme has always been presented as idealistic (and a little bit screwy if she falls in love with Anakin from AOTC); it doesn't seem out of her character for her to still love her husband at the end. Besides, this is a fairly tale, remember? The princess is supposed to tell us that the prince-turned-ogre is still good deep down inside. Because she loves him.

I think it was conveyed satisfactorially in this movie. It would have been nice to have seen it more overtly in the other two prequels, but what are ya gonna do?
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#11 User is offline   Casual Fan Icon

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Posted 16 June 2005 - 03:53 AM

QUOTE
We want to see an unlikely hero leave home and set out for adventure in the first movie; we want to see that hero face adversity, have visions, and rush off rashly to confront something connected to his family in the second movie; and we want to see that hero face the temptation of the dark side in the third movie, something along the lines of "give yourself to the dark side. It is the only way to save your friends."

It's obvious what Lucas was going for, and it sounds (in theory) like a good layout for a new trilogy, one in which the anti-hero makes all the wrong choices where Luke made the correct ones.


This is an excellent point. For the rest of the post, you are more tolerant towards ROTS than I am.

If this was what Lucas was trying to do, imagine if he had stuck to it. For example, we first see Anakin when he is in his late teens or early twenties. He gets recruited by Obi Wan to fight in the Clone Wars in the first movie. He becomes a big hero, like Luke, but makes some sort of different decsision, like trying to save Obi Wan's life (Luke didn't do this). In the next movie, Anakin continues his training but for some reason does not run off to save his friends, or he does but he decides to join the imperial forces. In the third movie, Anakin confronts the Emperor but loses.

While I still think Anakin's development is too slender a thread to hold three movies, the idea has potential. Too bad Lucas couldn't pull it off a second time.
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#12 User is offline   floppydisk Icon

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Posted 16 June 2005 - 02:34 PM

QUOTE (DarthTherion @ Jun 15 2005, 10:29 PM)
I fail to see what's wrong with writing the prequel trilogy so that it reflects the original trilogy.

There's nothing wrong with it, unless blatantly shoved in there where it doesn't add anything to the story, and only there to connect to the OT. Sorta like Ani getting his hand cut off was silly and unnecessary.
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