Padme's characterization is one of the most confusing aspects of the whole Star Wars universe for me. First you have the originals, where she is little more than an afterthought. As Luke struggles with his thoughts/emotions regarding his father, he only at the very end wonders who the heck his mom was. At the very least you would think he'd be asking himself, "what kind of person procreates with such evil?"
But okay, I get it, that wasn't the point in those movies and since she was dead and gone it's not like they needed to develop her character in great detail. The focus was much more a father-son relationship.
In the prequels, there was so much potential for her character. We would finally see this other half of the couple that created our heroes. She was young and alive, and surely she must have been an interesting and complicated person to hook up with Anakin Skywalker, great jedi in training and future evildoer. In fact, I would argue the prequels should have focused on her story just as much as on Anakin's fall to the dark side. She is more representative of the light side that exists in Luke and Leia and therefore is an important factor in their origin story. That juxtaposition of light and dark, Padme and Anakin turning against each other, would have been fascinating. Instead the light-dark dichotomy seemed to be represented by Obi-Wan and Anakin. I love me some Obi-Wan, but I think putting Padme in that position would have been more interesting.
But no, apparently she's just some low-level politician who thinks genocidal Ani is cute. It's really a kind of baffling and pathetic backstory for what should have been one of major players in Luke and Leia's existence.
So does George Lucas just suck at writing female characters? I enjoyed Leia, and honestly I would have expected Padme to be a bit more like her. Does Lucas have some sort of issue with mothers? He has mentioned before that he sees the Star Wars movies as being very much about familial ties and generations, yet it seems he only focuses on fathers and sons, brushing aside one whole side of the family.
I get it, lots of people have daddy issues and can relate, but where is the presence of the mother? It seems like in Star Wars they just pop out some kids and then kindly step aside so we can focus on the REAL characters, the fathers and sons. Padme is such a missed opportunity!
But okay, I get it, that wasn't the point in those movies and since she was dead and gone it's not like they needed to develop her character in great detail. The focus was much more a father-son relationship.
In the prequels, there was so much potential for her character. We would finally see this other half of the couple that created our heroes. She was young and alive, and surely she must have been an interesting and complicated person to hook up with Anakin Skywalker, great jedi in training and future evildoer. In fact, I would argue the prequels should have focused on her story just as much as on Anakin's fall to the dark side. She is more representative of the light side that exists in Luke and Leia and therefore is an important factor in their origin story. That juxtaposition of light and dark, Padme and Anakin turning against each other, would have been fascinating. Instead the light-dark dichotomy seemed to be represented by Obi-Wan and Anakin. I love me some Obi-Wan, but I think putting Padme in that position would have been more interesting.
But no, apparently she's just some low-level politician who thinks genocidal Ani is cute. It's really a kind of baffling and pathetic backstory for what should have been one of major players in Luke and Leia's existence.
So does George Lucas just suck at writing female characters? I enjoyed Leia, and honestly I would have expected Padme to be a bit more like her. Does Lucas have some sort of issue with mothers? He has mentioned before that he sees the Star Wars movies as being very much about familial ties and generations, yet it seems he only focuses on fathers and sons, brushing aside one whole side of the family.
Unfortunately TFA, although it has better female characters, does the same thing. A strained father and son relationship gone bad. However I am much more interested in seeing the relationship between Leia and Ben play out than I was in how Ben hated his daddy. Maybe the next movie will focus on this, or maybe we'll even get an interesting father-daughter or, god forbid, a mother-daughter relationship dynamic going.
I get it, lots of people have daddy issues and can relate, but where is the presence of the mother? It seems like in Star Wars they just pop out some kids and then kindly step aside so we can focus on the REAL characters, the fathers and sons. Padme is such a missed opportunity!
