I will forever ramble on about how IMO the big problem with the entire PT is that George Lucas is not Aaron Sorkin and yet gave himself a plot for the PT that is much better suited to Aaron Sorkin. (Aaaaaand now I'm daydreaming about a PT a la the movie version of "Charlie Wilson's War" and kinda salivating, because it's not like Sorkin can't do snarky cute politically-fraught romances and action sequences, not to mention classic, classic cantina scenes, he can just also do the policy-wonking behind them.) So consider this my ramble on the topic.
And, re: Padme's response to Anakin and the Tuskens... honestly, I always have interpreted it, somewhat subversively, as "Lucas couldn't admit, possibly even to himself, how badly fucked up the Jedi Order was in terms of dealing with human emotions and galactic injustices, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this moment." Because having Padme have any more of a nuanced discussion with Anakin starting with things like how his own guilt for not having paid attention to his dreams about his mother had left him with an explosive fucktonne of guilt that he then took out on the Tuskens probably leads into "Why did you ignore those dreams that the force was sending you?" "Because my Jedi Master told me to", which gets into how baby!Anakin as of TPM had dreamed of being a Jedi who came back and freed all the slaves and, well, that's not a thing the Jedi would even do for his mother (and also possibly any issues Padme might have had with herself at that point about the fact that a planetary-Queen-turned-Senator might have been able to do something about slavery going on on planet that was comparatively near enough to her own that she ended up quasi-crashing there some years back), and... well, yeah.
Also, I think I said this last time, but for a long time I've headcanoned Anakin and Padme's secret marriage as being the result of shared righteous indignation on top of the hormones/infatuation/etc. and the fact that they just got out of another pitched battle together. Because Padme's canonically a pacifist-by-policy and had opposed the creation of a Republic Army, and Anakin's just watched his mother die and also the clone armies are uncomfortably close to slaves, and I have this headcanon where he's lying in a hospital bed after he's gotten his new arm attached, and she's pacing around, and after something like the fifth time she's rambled something about war and he's rambled something about slavery, they look at each other and they're like, "Kriff it, these people don't have any moral authority over us any more, let's just get married." When in fact it probably would have been better if they'd both broken with the Order and the Republic and gone public with their objections, but, you know, they're embedded in a sick system and rebelling privately rather than overtly--- it is that sort of thing that happens where people don't actually do what the system tells them to but don't outright oppose it either.
Something else I love to play with here is the culture of Naboo--- for Padme being a Senator is part of her objection to being involved with Anakin, as well as the fact that he's a Jedi, and then I veer off into wacky headcanon about Naboo. Specifically, that they've decided to harness the youthful idealism and "fix everything!!!!"-ness of adolescents into letting them do just that, and "run for something" as a teenager--- i.e., don't rebel against the system, have the job of making it better!--- is baked into their culture. Then you're supposed to step out of public life when you're a bit older and focus on the "private sphere" and having a family, and only return to the public sphere when your own kids are grown, by which time you're more likely to take on an advisory role (as we see with Padme's council in TPM). And also that that was what happened to Palpatine--- he resented being expected to leave public life in his thirties and from there that led him to other outlets for his ambitions, namely the Sith. (I'm aware that the latter especially has been thoroughly Jossed by the canonical Palpatine backstory novels, but that's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it. Also ask me about Palpatine as a failed baby!Jedi.)
A question I would ask other Star Wars fans is... maybe along the lines of "Assuming we're taking the basic premise/plot of the movie as-is, what would be your favorite things to fix about it?"
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-06-20 02:12 am (UTC)And, re: Padme's response to Anakin and the Tuskens... honestly, I always have interpreted it, somewhat subversively, as "Lucas couldn't admit, possibly even to himself, how badly fucked up the Jedi Order was in terms of dealing with human emotions and galactic injustices, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this moment." Because having Padme have any more of a nuanced discussion with Anakin starting with things like how his own guilt for not having paid attention to his dreams about his mother had left him with an explosive fucktonne of guilt that he then took out on the Tuskens probably leads into "Why did you ignore those dreams that the force was sending you?" "Because my Jedi Master told me to", which gets into how baby!Anakin as of TPM had dreamed of being a Jedi who came back and freed all the slaves and, well, that's not a thing the Jedi would even do for his mother (and also possibly any issues Padme might have had with herself at that point about the fact that a planetary-Queen-turned-Senator might have been able to do something about slavery going on on planet that was comparatively near enough to her own that she ended up quasi-crashing there some years back), and... well, yeah.
Also, I think I said this last time, but for a long time I've headcanoned Anakin and Padme's secret marriage as being the result of shared righteous indignation on top of the hormones/infatuation/etc. and the fact that they just got out of another pitched battle together. Because Padme's canonically a pacifist-by-policy and had opposed the creation of a Republic Army, and Anakin's just watched his mother die and also the clone armies are uncomfortably close to slaves, and I have this headcanon where he's lying in a hospital bed after he's gotten his new arm attached, and she's pacing around, and after something like the fifth time she's rambled something about war and he's rambled something about slavery, they look at each other and they're like, "Kriff it, these people don't have any moral authority over us any more, let's just get married." When in fact it probably would have been better if they'd both broken with the Order and the Republic and gone public with their objections, but, you know, they're embedded in a sick system and rebelling privately rather than overtly--- it is that sort of thing that happens where people don't actually do what the system tells them to but don't outright oppose it either.
Something else I love to play with here is the culture of Naboo--- for Padme being a Senator is part of her objection to being involved with Anakin, as well as the fact that he's a Jedi, and then I veer off into wacky headcanon about Naboo. Specifically, that they've decided to harness the youthful idealism and "fix everything!!!!"-ness of adolescents into letting them do just that, and "run for something" as a teenager--- i.e., don't rebel against the system, have the job of making it better!--- is baked into their culture. Then you're supposed to step out of public life when you're a bit older and focus on the "private sphere" and having a family, and only return to the public sphere when your own kids are grown, by which time you're more likely to take on an advisory role (as we see with Padme's council in TPM). And also that that was what happened to Palpatine--- he resented being expected to leave public life in his thirties and from there that led him to other outlets for his ambitions, namely the Sith. (I'm aware that the latter especially has been thoroughly Jossed by the canonical Palpatine backstory novels, but that's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it. Also ask me about Palpatine as a failed baby!Jedi.)
A question I would ask other Star Wars fans is... maybe along the lines of "Assuming we're taking the basic premise/plot of the movie as-is, what would be your favorite things to fix about it?"