[barend]

okay so going back to the romance... WTF?!?

Lucas was maried for quite a while, and was romantiacly entangled with Linda Ronstad for a bit. did he actually woo these women with the "sand get's up your ass, your skin is smooth, wanna make out?" aproach?

seriously... the Nerds that worship him have enough trouble picking up girls without this seriously pathetic attempt at screen romance giving them more bad ideas...

poor dateless freaks...

[Rory]

Helena, that reminds me; you are similar to the sand in many ways:
1. You are corporial.
2. You are grainy.
3. You are HOT. (especially after soaking up the heat of the sun for 12 hours.)
4. You are in my very soul, tormenting me.
5. Your natural habitat is the beach.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

A better thing to note is the lack of consitency in Padme's character.

Here is a woman who tells Anakin in Ep. I that she hates violence. She seems to have a very high standard of justice and good. Yet she practically overlooks the fact that this guy she is going to marry murdered a bunch of innocent Sandpeople children and families. Padme practically tells the guy that it is alright and that everything is okay, as if all Anakin did was come home drunk late one evening{which has now become a punishable by death crime in my household these days }

I mean seriously to those women on this forum, f your boyfriend told you that he just murdered a bunch of hispanic women and children because his mother got killed by a hispanic, what would your response be? Would you go ahead and marry this guy? Or would you be running as far away from this psycho as you possible could? I mean is Padme that desperate to get laid? I mean she should have no trouble getting some, considering her position and looks. Besides if she did have a problem 'getting some" I am sure with all the technological advances in the Star Wars universe, there are PLENTY of alternatives available. I'll leave that up to everyone's imagination. ;.

The inconsistency in Amaidala's behavior is such a prime examle of the horrible writing and character development in the PTs.

Character development- Probably the biggest difference between the old trilogy and the new.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

Besides if she did have a problem 'getting some" I am sure with all the technological advances in the Star Wars universe, there are PLENTY of alternatives available. I'll leave that up to everyone's imagination.  ;.

Well...it does say in the Star Wars Technical Journal that astromech droids are ALL-PURPOSE droids..............hmmmmm..................

[Despondent]

Not familiar. But I remember Artoo plugging into the DS and at the Cloud City.
(followed by whistling, head spinning and smoking )

[Chefelf]

Anyone else remember that unfortunate droid on Dantooine in Knights of the Old Republic?

That part was awesome! The woman kinda creeped me out a bit though. I felt bad for the droid because he was basically a sex slave to her.

[J m HofMarN]

I really think the main problem with the padme and anakin romance is that it was sooo damned obvious. I mean yeah it is a prequel but they don't have to throw everything in your face. Lucas did a really great job of ignoring some of the plot of the OT but he made certain that the things that were obvious were going to be obvious. For instance, the silly midiclorian idea really had nothing to do with anything so it could be a total screw up and none of the duncefucks at the movies would be confused since they can't understand why "NOT THIS CRUDE MATTER" Conflicts with "the force is given to us by tiny organic MATTER in our bodies"

Rather than worry about tiny details Lucas decided to focus on making sure that the biggest idiot on earth knew immediately that Padme was Anakin's love interest. "Hi, are you an angel?" translates roughly to "I'm going to boink you six ways to sunday, youre going to have two kids and then die." So around the middle of ep1 we all knew EXACTLY what would happen to Padme's character. And in ep2 the idiocy about padme was replaced with "ATTENTION: ANAKIN WILL BECOME VADER" They really made sure that Anakin was not a likable character in a sea of unlikable characters. I'm surprised Lucas didn't slip in a bit of dialogue like this:

Obi: "Anakin have you powered up the couplings on the starfighter yet?"
Anakin: "I already told you master I'll do it vader... errr I mean later"

If they had spent less time having Anakin hit on Padme in ep1 and do really nifty stuff like fly star fighters they would have had time to explain what the hell the war was about and how it had anything to do with anything.

If they had stopped making Anakin look like a young Adolf Hitler in the second ep they would have had time to explain... well... the entire second ep. Especially the lunacy with the seperatists. "We are the idealist seperatists... our ideals are as follows: we like to be seperate." And just what point was there in attacking naboo anyhow? I mean it dosn't look like that great of a planet at all. In fact it was NEVER explained in ep1 what Palpatine and that big lipped idiot hoped to accomplish by attacking naboo.

[barend]

firstly...

Obi: "Anakin have you powered up the couplings on the starfighter yet?"
Anakin: "I already told you master I'll do it vader... errr I mean later"

AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHAH HAHAHA AHAHAH ha...

secondly, if the trade fed. had taken over Naboo by the end of ep.1 it would have been a much better ending to perpetuate the rest of a story.
Padme has to leave the planet for obvious reasons and is no longer a queen, because she no longer has a place to rule, not 'cause she served her two gad damned terms (again WTF?). Plus it would be the first step in building the empire. Palpatine hasn't done shit yet... he got a jedi killed... THAT'S IT!!! so, anyway... with NAboo under the rule of the trade federation (eventually to be anexed in the name of the EMPIRE) there's no reason for us to know about the planets existence by Ep4. thus everything is in a neat little package...

[Helena]

Sheesh, don't even get me started on the 'elected queen' crap. Ask any British person how ludicrous that idea is. If Naboo had to have a representative government, why couldn't they have made her a constitutional monarch?

And while we're bashing Padme, what is with her outfits? Honestly, she must spend half of Naboo's GDP on the damn things. Our (unelected) queen gets enough stick for wasting taxpayers' money as it is; if she started dressing up like Amidala I think we'd rapidly be seeing a reintroduction of the guillotine.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

"And while we're bashing Padme, what is with her outfits? Honestly, she must spend half of Naboo's GDP on the damn things. Our (unelected) queen gets enough stick for wasting taxpayers' money as it is; if she started dressing up like Amidala I think we'd rapidly be seeing a reintroduction of the guillotine."

She changed outfits more than an Oscar award host!!!

What is also annoying is the fact that out of all those costumes only two of them were good to look at. That piece with the "white-hair" number & that dark-purple with the long hair tresses. The rest are just too damn ridiculous looking and impractical. I know Lucas was going for the 'asian' culture feel, but damn!!

[Mike Mac from NYU]

"secondly, if the trade fed. had taken over Naboo by the end of ep.1 it would have been a much better ending to perpetuate the rest of a story."

Nice idea. I don't like it for some reason. Can't think of one. But it will come up.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

""secondly, if the trade fed. had taken over Naboo by the end of ep.1 it would have been a much better ending to perpetuate the rest of a story."

Nice idea. I don't like it for some reason. Can't think of one. But it will come up. "

I know!!

1. It makes the liberation of Naboo into too much of a storyline in the overall trilogy. I think Naboo's importance is already overblown in this damn trilogy.

2. It sort of creates an 'unhappy" ending for the first movie of the trilogy. You know the bad guys win concept that Empire Strikes Back developed. I don't think it is wise to do this, especially when the 2nd and third movies will have 'unhappy endings'. Hence you would have three movies that end with the bad guys winning in the end. Don;t know if this is good for the trilogy ona whole

3. It would kind of make the whole plot structure of Episode 1 pointless. I mean Episode 1 is about the liberation of Naboo. You would probably have to restructure the whole theme of Episode 1. [Which might not be a bad thing}

[Chefelf]

I am conflicted on the whole "federation taking over Naboo" subject. I think both sides could have a good argument.

However, it is stupid that Lucas made his shabby 12-year-old-attempting-to-emulate-Empire-Strikes-Back attempt in AOTC. Having the last two films in the trilogy have a "downer" ending is pretty poor. Lucas's planning is suspect. It seems like he's making the movies by the seat of his pants, one at a time, rather than planning the story arc of the trilogy in advance. He just figured he'd make a downer ending to match up with ESB without remembering all the horror that is supposed to unfold in the third movie.

No matter how much he talks of how dark the third movie will be, I don't believe it for a second.