I’ve actually seen this suggested in the tags a couple of times and I’ll say that yeah, it does look like it’s Poe/Oscar next to Finn/John in the first blurry photo. So your theory that this is them either leaving or arriving is definitely plausible.
Another interesting thing in this context is that someone spotted a mock up of the Falcon – its cockpit anyway – in Black Park. Black Park is a forest not far from London where Star Wars has shot before. It was used for some of the Endor scenes in RotJ and it was outdoors Takodana in TFA as well.
So there’s the possibility that we’ll be revisiting either of those places. Either way, it does lend some credence to the claim that there’s a jungle/forest planet in IX.
I would love it if it’s Yavin 4 and we get to see the Dameron farm and Kes. Realistically I think it’s likelier to be Batuu, which Disney is promoting hard as a location in their SW park and as the backdrop of Padmé’s adventures in the new Thrawn novel. I’ve also pointed out the similarities between Finn’s outfit here and Padmé’s in the novel’s poster, suggesting at the very least the climates of their respective locations are in a similar range.
If he needs to find peace from people patting his ass and telling him it wasn’t his fault, then fuck his peace. That sounds, again, suspiciously like a threat that the people he hurt need to swallow down their pain and anger and endlessly accommodate him to avoid a greater threat, whether from the First Order or Kylo Ren’s own darkness. It’s his own damned responsibility to find peace, not the people he tortured and tried to murder.
The same goes for Padmé: There is no peace without justice, and if she was seeking “peace” by literally getting in bed with a mass murderer at the expense of justice for murdered children, then her idea of peace is not peace but appeasement.
I also never said the stabbing attempt would be a positive thing, I specifically said it was suicide and too little, too late. It would be an expression of despair born out of Anakin’s crimes and guilt for her own silence, not a positive development. At least it would show an awareness that she had made a terrible mistake, not a doubling down on the same make-nice avoidance of accountability that had worked so spectacularly (as in, not at all) before.
I’m an Anidala shipper and… I don’t think it would have been OOC for her to try to kill Anakin after confirming what he had done. Going to Mustafar specifically to kill him, with the twins along for the ride wouldn’t make sense imo. But having her wake up after he choked her and shoot him, causing him to fall and burn, during his duel with Obi-Wan would have. It would also have been preferable to the high ground explanation.
Exactly! Let her play an active role Lucas you coward.
I wouldn’t change Padmé’s story but I would add her deleted scenes back in. Padmé has a political arc that is mostly invisible to the mainstream audience, and the scenes with her family build both her character and her relationship to Anakin.
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
The opening Senate scene:
emphasizes the threat against her and directly ties it to both the Trade Federation/Separatists and her position in the Senate
emphasizes her refusal to be cowed or back down, and her preference not to hide from danger
positions her as a strong voice in the Senate
makes it clear she is opposed to an Army of the Republic, which makes Jar Jar’s later intervention on her behalf that much more misguided
The extended conversation on the way to the palace:
reveals Padmé’s desire for children (let’s all cry forever)
look at those smiles
look at them!
Visiting the Naberrie home:
introduces her family (!)
emphasizes their concern for her life and her happiness
parallels the dinner scene in The Phantom Menace
builds up Padmé’s attraction to Anakin
reveals details about Padmé’s political training and history of compassion
ANAKIN INTERACTS WITH AN INTACT HAPPY HEALTHY FAMILY
The interrogation:
shows Padmé attempting a diplomatic solution
emphasizes that the Separatists are working within the law, at least for show
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The confrontation of Palpatine:
proves at least a faction of the Senate was not only working to remove Palpatine, they put their plan into action
again shows Padmé attempting a diplomatic solution
makes it clear Padmé is not on Palpatine’s side
pits Padmé against Anakin, making it visually clear that Palpatine has deliberately and specifically placed himself between them
and Padmé uses the interaction to try and make Anakin see that Palpatine is part of the problem
and Anakin is visibly conflicted
The scenes amongst the senators:
where do I even begin
include a crowd of interesting characters from different planets
who are as diverse in gender, race, species, culture, even body shape as the Empire is not
and they are the founders and leaders of the Rebellion
and their group meetings are shown to be just as messy as the Jedi Council meetings
they are equally secretive, paranoid, and all around Terrible At Communication(™)
and Padmé is just as frustrated as Anakin
because no one listens to her
and all that emphasizes how everything that matters to Padmé is crumbling under the stress of it all
and how isolated she is due to no one knowing the whole story
this arc is HUGELY important to Padmé’s story, to the Republic’s and the Rebellion’s story, and to the overarching story of Star Wars
So yes, that’s what I would change. I would make it so everyone knows ALL of Padmé’s story.
A: Finn knows the space version of sign language and uses it to communicate with both resistance members and refugees they come across to offer some level of comfort.
B: Finn can’t dance for shit. He tries to dance and he’ll be on the dance floor thinking he’s killing it but in reality everyone around them just averts their gaze because it’s a crime against humanity for a man with that ass to lack the rhythm of shaking it properly.
C: Finn’s force sensitivity means that he could feel it when Slip, Han, and Luke each passed away. With each death, he lost his lover, the closest thing he had to a father, and his hope for a better galaxy.
D: Finn becomes the new face of the resistance and becomes a living legend and commander, deeply respected and admired and without his loyalties ever questioned because he is given the chance to actually choose his own path rather than denied under the guidance of someone else’s dumbass assumptions.
Padme
A: She tried to sew the twins onesies but despite her fashion sense she has never sewed a damn thing in her life and they turn out like trash.
B: She has placed a whoopie cushion under Obi-Wan’s seat on several different occasions and has never been caught.
C: Padme’s tie to Anakin is so strong that sometimes, while flitting in between the force after death, she emerges and catches glimpses of who he had become and she mourns all over again.
D: She’s actually alive and living her best life sipping space martinis on a beach and Luke and Leia visit her all the time.
e difference is on Tatooine he killed an indigenous
people Padme doesn’t sympathize with. This matches up with how Naboo
treats Gungans. Notice how they are happy to have them fight in their
war, but in Attack of the Clones, none live in the city. I almost find
it hard to believe it went over some people’s heads that Padme alienated
those individuals from groups different from her own. I mean, they’re
literally aliens. That’s why, even super-empowered feminist warrior
women, white humans in Star Wars are still coded as “white”, when
there seems to be no concept of race along the lines of Earth’s. The
Empire, with its roots in the Republic, is still overwhelmingly white.
The Star Wars universe doesn’t have the history of our world to explain
racism, but it mirrors it through non-human xenophobia by using some of
the same tools in-universe: colonialism and othering.(Moth)
This ask was in reference to this other ask (link) about Padmé, and wow I didn’t even think of this! There was definitely a double standard going on here and this adds another fascinating–and horrifying–dimension to her character. Anakin kills Tuskan children and Padmé not only tells no one but marries his ass. Anakin kills predominantly human and “acceptable” alien children and THAT’S when she tells him she can’t follow? Lady you already knew he was a child murderer, what did you expect? @diversity-instarwars has been blogging about issues with her character and this fits right in with the pattern that her vision of democracy and freedom were only for certain people.
Thank you for tagging me! And I agree with anon a lot, the only difference is that i don’t really care for her as a character or person because she is the epitome and symbol of white liberal privilege.
Yes to everything you mention, especially about the sand raiders and gungans, all of which I have talked extensively about. Padme comforts Anakin when he mentions that he kills the Sand Raiders yet does nothing to chastise him. In that moment, she had the power to turn him in, to get justice for an indigenous group that was killed off and she does nothing.
Notice however, that in the clone wars series when Clovis is threatened–a Senator like Padme, Padme actually breaks up with Anakin. That is when she makes a move, because now she is registering he is dangerous. Now that he has killed a colleague and a fellow wealthy politician like herself, it matters.
The sand raiders are not like Padme, or Anakin. They aren’t senators or politicians like her. They are as anon said, indigenous to a land that has painted them out as the aggressors. Many people fail to realize that the reason the tuskens are so angry is because they were a colonized people, and the colonizers (mainly humans) took their water source and continue to do so.
Padme comes from a place where she is directly responsible for upholding an establishment that has taken land away from the indigenous species as well as their resources. Naboo Queens are known for going to war with the native gungans and obviously they prevailed. And the most vocal and loudest queen of Naboo we’ve seen is Padme–who is a white woman. The gungans are basically second class citizens. They were recently allowed rep in the senate by the time of the phantom menace but still, there were no gungan senators. Certainly there were no gungan queens. Padme gave the Gungans enough power for them to stay quiet but that wasn’t liberation. It was just staying silent in the face oppression to have a seemingly comfortable life, because the Republic would come to her aid if it was needed to handle the gungans.
So like, her lack of care for the Tusken Raiders isn’t surprising in the least. She comes from a place where she upholds colonization and imperialism, and to an extension apartheid. She comes from a line of rulers who were elected into office for wiping out native species. So of course she sees indigenous species who harm human colonizers as below her and not worth decent respect.
This is actually a level of the tusken raiders discourse that I never thought of. I almost always looked at it from the perspective of “these people aren’t like Padme–not in her caliber so she either ignores them or uses them for her political agenda” i.e teckla, the clones and shmi and the sand-raiders
Looking at the fact that she is coming from a place of power and a government that upholds the oppression of indigenous aliens–that doesn’t surprise me.
Again thanks for tagging me, and if anon has any questions about my recent or past padme metas on this stuff i wouldn’t mind sharing.
I love this perspective on the character and the politics of SW. Seen from this light, this is yet another way the Empire was just a more extreme continuation of the Republic. Padmé was the genteel and liberal face of human imperialism and Palpatine simply took the gloves off.
The author of the upcoming Padme book: Kylo Ren and Darth Vader are both evil and are fascists. Woobifying Kylo is bad because you’re trivializing his fascist ideologies and acting like they’re not as bad as they are.
Reylos: Wow what the fuck there is no way this person can be trusted with writing a book about Padme. We need to get her fired!
Plot twist: this is based off your reincarnation theory @lj-writes
After crashing on Naboo after escaping the First Order after another successful Stormtrooper liberation, Finn is nursed back to health by Padme’s still living family. They can’t help but think that something, just something, reminds them of the aunt they use to know. They shake the feeling though.
Finn tells them about the freedom he’s fighting for the Stormtroopers, his friends in the Resistance, and the Jedi he fell in love with that came from a desert planet. The family swears his story sounds familiar, yet also different…
Finally after a few weeks of healing, a New Republic ship shows up for Finn. A short haired brunette girl with a long Jedi Padawan braid jumps out of the ship before it lands and runs up to Finn, crushing him in a bone crushing embrace. Crying, laughing, and light jests are heard from the shorter force user, but Finn just smiles like a damn fool in love.
As the two leave Naboo, the family that cared for Finn watched them go with a warm smile on their faces. Memories of a Jedi that walked on the sky and their warrior Queen who fought for freedom flooded back to them.
Padme and Anakin had found each other once more.
They also recognized that snappy sense of fashion!
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