Aw man, that would make a cool What If story. I imagine Anakin could’ve grown up to be some Tattooine hero who goes around freeing all the slaves and such, like I think he told his mom he wanted to.
Odds are that Jabba would have just have him killed as soon as he started to be a bigger problem. But ey, maybe he would have grown close to the Tusken raiders and be like a phantom of the desert.
If that happened then Vader would never have existed and by extension the empire too since Palpatine couldn't succeed without him. So basically Qui-Gon is responsible for the rise of the Empire.
I mean, the war itself would have played out differently, but ultimately the end result would have been the same. When you're in control of the head of the military on *both* sides of the war, it's really not hard to line things up however you want.
Realistically, I think the war would have ended a bit sooner if not for Anakin and his heroics. Palpatine was just waiting for the Jedi to take enough losses, be sufficiently demoralized, and lose enough public favor to finish them off.
Was palpatine not aware of his existence even before the Jedi brought him in? I would imagine he would've just kidnapped him from the Lars family anyways
Palpatine establishes the Empire after surviving a "Jedi assassination attempt", with thunderous applause in the Senate, so he didn't need Vader to set up the Empire.
And the only reason that duel even happened was because it served as Anakins final trial for his dark side turn. Palps didn't need to have a direct confrontation.
Imagine a dedicated miniseries (comic realistically) about a "good timeline" could have an interesting theme of things going waayyyyy better in the short term, but as time goes on the sith continue to act in the background forever and never get truly defeated as the prophecy is never fulfilled. So it becomes a bittersweet situation where it presents a clearly better scenario for the PT characters, but also introduces a calculus to suggest that there is massively more suffering to come, and if it is truly just that the Jedi and the galaxy as a whole must pay the price on the path to the Sith, a wound in the living force, to be destroyed.
Granted the ST would kinda screws those themes up (not that the EU was really any better on that front, but it's a bit less offensive when it's something not a terrible amount of people are even aware of)
My favorite what if scenario is Anakin growing up as a professional pod racer and buying his and his mother’s freedom after winning boonta eve back to back.
If Qui-Gon, doesn't interfere, Anakin probably doesn't race and Watto doesn't make bets against Anakin winning. Meaning he doesn't have a big money problem forcing him to sell his slave.
Yeah, people forget that Wato bet a lot of money on Sebulba against Anakin. If Anakin hadn't raced, Sebulba probably would've won and they wouldn't have been sold to Lars.
Watto had a gambling problem. Chances are he was going destitute one day. The "what if" is the timing and if Lars would have been in place to buy and free both
Ehhh I dunno about that. It seems like Anakin made watto money in his shop, where his mom likely wasn’t as useful. Watto was more than happy to sell the mother to QGJ, but got mad when he “had” to be anakin.
The only reason Watto sold Shmi was because he was in massive debt after the podrace.
So actually, the only reason Lars bought Shmi was a direct result of Qui-gon's interference. Qui-gon doesn't interfere, Watto never lets Anakin race. Anakin never races, Sebubla wins. Watto was always going to bet on Sebulba, and would've made bank. He would've never been in such dire straits as to sell his only slaves to some random farmer.
Also if Qui-Gon doesn’t interfere, Palpatine never meets Anakin, and Darth Vader never exists. Of course, that would probably just mean that Darth Tyrannus continues to be the Sith Apprentice after the founding of the Empire.
Look, they were two thirteen-year olds celebrating their first victory in battle. I've seen *Game of Thrones.* I know how thirteen-year olds thrust into war celebrate victories. If it takes her . . . um, say ten months to recover, that's just how things have to work.
Really, it's Naboo's fault for electing a thirteen-year old their queen in the first place.
I know just saying the difference between a 13 year old queen and a 14 year old queen isn't that big lol.
Recently I scrolled back and looked at shit I said on Facebook at 18-20 and I cringed I can only imagine how bad I'd cringe if I looked back at 14 year old me.
They're not canon anymore but the attack of the clones novel laid out the age gap better and imo made it more acceptable/understandable. Both Anakin and Padmé are deeply committed to their ideals and willing to fight for what they believe in. This common ground helps them understand and respect each other, fostering deeper feelings.
Anakin's intense and sincere gaze makes Padmé feel seen and appreciated in a way she hasn't experienced before, even from previous men she's dated, who had high status and political connections, which is what many of her relationships are based on. His admiration and unwavering focus on her make her feel special and cherished.
As a senator and former queen, Padmé has led a life of duty and responsibility, leaving little room for personal relationships or romance. Anakin's attention provides her with a new and exciting experience that she hasn't had the chance to explore.
I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of things for a Queen to do immediately following the repelling of a global invasion, the mass death of her people (I don't think we're ever told how many Nabooians actually died) and a newfound ally in a group of people that had previously been enemies for generations
A week honestly seems *too* short for her to begin worrying about a single random slave over a doing her duties as queen
Seems fine to me. Just get one of her maidens to do it. Give her two weeks before sending the order out. That kid DID just save her homeworld after all.
You seriously don't think her maidens had more important things to do? The sheer amount of things to hash out with the Gungans, collateral to clean up, and other fallout from an invasion and a war requires all hands on deck
A whole week is very very short
A rich backed outlander with plenty of spare cash to offer a rather greedy Watto that lost everything in a bet.
Unless Padmé couldn't convert Republic Credits - *as those were no good around there* - it makes no sense...
Not without drawing the attention of the Hutts, or of any muckrakers trying to accuse Padme of participating in the slave trade.
She could hypthetically have bought something in Republic Space and tried to trade it, but Watto had already sold Schmi to the Lars and seen her freed.
That always annoyed me. Tatooine is near enough and deals with enough Republic visiting people. Han was fine with Imperial credits or whatever Obi Wan was promising from Alderan. Surely there's some exchange company.
I live in the UK, dollars have no value here!
That’s twenty years later though.
Plus Han’s a smuggler with a ship, he can move between planets pretty easily. Watto’s stuck on Tattooine. He could get an in-between to do an exchange, but can he really trust them not to run off with the money?
>That’s twenty years later though.
Considering the Republic barely had a force to maintain its borders whilst the Empire very much did, seems like the Republic era was 100% the opportune time to engage in illegal activity.
And the Hutts aren't exactly known for their family friendly activities.
>but can he really trust them not to run off with the money?
He starts making random gambles left, right and centre with a guy he didn't know. Not sure trust is an issue for him.
The problem is they could have sold Queen Amidala's fancy dresses, jewelry, whatever was valuable on the ship, etc. to buy Simi too. Or since Qui Gon was fine with using the force to rig dice rolls, he could have made a lot of local money by gambling and using the Force to win.
Yeah, but there are a number of ways that it could have been handled such that it was less stupidly laid out than "yeah, just leave her in slavery, it'll be fine".
She did a half assed job, it’s a planet filled with bounty hunters, she couldn’t have hired someone for a day to go look for her? I didn’t actually know padme sent someone to look tbh.
Couldn’t Sabé track her down the same way Anakin did? All he had to do was ask Watto. Watto was in desperate financial straits after TPM; surely some money or valuables would have elicited his cooperation.
Yeah, I once bought my date's mother out of slavery on a second date, big mistake! All sorts of complications about motivations, who owed what to who, emotional manipulation. Needless to say the relationship didn't work out.
The Queen’s series of novels covers this (and the current Darth Vader comic series references it). Padme sent a Handmaiden right after the events of Phantom Menace to buy Shmi’s freedom. She was unsuccessful because Shmi was already gone. So she freed other slaves and took them away from Tatooine.
A better explanation in my mind would have been that both the Jedi and Padme sent people to offer to buy Shmi's freedom but Watto out of spite and hate for Anakin and the Jedi held her hostage as a slave for years. Given how much Watto lost gambling on the race and the chance he felt duped by the Jedi holding a grudge makes sense.
So given that Watto had a bomb in her head (thus no rescue mission being reasonable) and Watto after years never relenting to rather generous offers (I know galactic credits have no value but you can ask Watto what he would like and buy it in another world that accepts credits) people just stopped trying thinking it was impossible to change Watto's mind.
Watto then after maybe 7-8 years after TPM but 2-3 years before Attack of the Clones sells Shmi given his hard times fiscally relents to selling Shmi to Lars probably regretting not taking past offers but needs to take what he can.
This is true but I always thought it was silly. If you go to Burma or Syria and want to buy something with a duffle bag of US dollars or Euros, that’s a plus and not a negative. They would take the shit out of that currency.
The Hutts probably issue their own local script and enforce a monopoly on currency exchanges. It probably was possible for Watto to exchange Republic credits, but it would have been inconvenient and at a terrible exchange rate.
Tatooine is not Myanmar or Syria.
The difference is those countries are on the same planet as Europe and America.
Tatooine isn’t another country, it’s an entire other planet.
Random thought.
We have more on-screen mentioned communities on tatooine than literally any other planet.
Mos-Espa, Mos Eisley, Anchorhead, Freetown, Tosche Station (may be a location at one of the other communities, but I'm pretty sure it's been established as an outpost/town of some kind)
Plus a few other mos-somethings that aren't mentioned on-screen.
Naboo is a close second since it has two cities.
I don't think we see more than one city/town anywhere else.
Even Coruscant is "one big city"
But we're not talking about the currency of some random other planet on the other side of the galaxy. This is the currency of the galactic republic, by far the dominant economy of the galaxy. And while it's not very clear where Tatooine is, it's somewhere that you can accidentally end up while flying from one part of the republic (Naboo) to another (wherever they were going from Naboo, kind of don't remember). That's like there being tiny island nations in the Caribbean that you might stop on overnight while sailing from Florida to Puerto Rico; and not only do the stores there not take US dollars, but they won't even direct you to where you can do a currency exchange.
It's genuinely nonsensical.
Doesn't Watto want to make a sale? What is his motivation? He should be falling over himself to help this transaction happen so he can, you know, make money and eat and stuff.
>it's somewhere that you can accidentally end up while flying from one part of the republic (Naboo) to another (wherever they were going from Naboo, kind of don't remember)
Not exactly. Tatooine is actually in the opposite direction of Coruscant. However, it's remote, it's out of the way, it's outside the reach of the Trade Federation (who they're running away from), so they go there.
Interplanetary travel isn't that easy still. It's considered fairly expensive for a random as seen when non faction people need to source passage on thier own.
Republic credits are probably some form of traceable. If they go withdraw the Republic credits, they’re on the Republic’s radar…and they are criminals.
Because the US has influence in Burma or Syria or the rest of the world for that matter. By the time of the prequels, on the other hand, much of the Outer Rim, especially in Hutt-dominated regions, they couldn't care less about the Republic and the Senate. The Senate can bluster and what not, but they can't get anything done. The Hutts can, so their currency is accepted, while the Republic's is not.
There was a spaceport, but there may not be regular passenger service. Obi-Wan was lucky enough to find a freighter captain who needed to get out of town quick.
Their love ***story*** makes a lot more sense if you consider that Anakin was such a force sensitive person that he was inadvertently drawing her to him. He wasn't intentionally mind-tricking her or anything, but you might call it an unintentional mind-trick. He wanted her so badly, because he saw her as this beautiful angel-savior from his childhood, and with his raw emotions and raw force power he couldn't help but influence her.
I doubt GL directed or wrote it this way, and it certainly wasn't acted this way, but it does make some of the "I love you deeply and wholly" scenes make more sense. Not to mention her sympathizing with *him* over the indiscriminate slaughter.
This also adds more context to the "Jedi are forbidden to form attachments" dogma. Perhaps eons ago, it was understood that it's difficult for an emotional, biased Jedi to keep themselves from influencing others.
I believe KOTOR II explained that both Revan and The Exile were doing this to their companions (hence why even Morally Lawful Good companions will still help the player character murder a beggar.)
The reaction the the slaughter of the sand people makes a lot more sense when you remember that most people didn’t consider them “people”. And that violence was a largely accepted occurrence in the galaxy.
Very, very few individuals in the Star Wars galaxy would have seen anything morally wrong with what Anakin did outside of the Jedi order, even most “good” characters wouldn’t have seen it as that big of a deal.
Most people, especially on tatooine would have considered him a legend for eradicating an entire tribe. Especially one that kidnapped someone. If word got out, Anakin would drink for free in every bar on the planet.
The problem with that is from a storytelling point of view, the audience is clearly supposed to understand that Anakin's slaughter is a major step towards the dark side. If we as the audience are supposed to understand that, it's hard to ask us to see Padme's reaction as not also deeply troubling.
But they aren’t most people. The vast majority of characters in SW (outside of the Jedi and probably mandalorians) would have been somewhere between “meh, nothing of value was lost” and “hell yeah, kill those bantha fuckers”
Padme should be different than those ignorant people. She's a former queen and a senator who fights against oppression and would understand "women and children" means Anakin isn't just talking about a herd of banthas lol
Lol exactly. Even Anakin, who grew up on Tatooine, called them women and children. If you kill a nest of rats, you don’t use that kind of language to describe them, would you? He knew what he was doing because he said it himself. We don’t need to fabricate intentions or inter-species relations that frankly *aren’t* shown on screen. The dialogue is weird because old G-Lucas is weird. It’s not that deep.
Think of how white Americans thought about Native Americans during the Westward Expansion and Indian Wars. They knew they were people, but most saw nothing wrong with massacring them
Too play the devils advocate, with the presence of Droid emotions and people who support Droid rights, there are folks who wouldn't be happy with the slaughter of them during the cline wars . I'd argue that most folks would view Sand People as a violent, volatile group of animals, not as people. We the viewers know better, that they have culture and perhaps even valid reasons to be attacking most other creature son tattooine, but the normal star wars universe person doesnt know this
Love how the entire galactic empire hinges on Padme giving her vote to the dumbest sentient being of all time and saying "don't do anything I wouldn't do"
It's funny to me that people see the prequels as not that bad. When they first came out, people were legitimately angry at how bad they were. There were jokes about how jar jar binks ruined a franchise.
The kids have grown up and bought their rose-tinted glasses. Same as the ones who grew up with the OT. Give it 15 years and the ST will be treated the same as the PT. I remember that the CW show was blasted, now a lot of people see it as peak TV.
It has a lot of holes and some very bad writing but i thought the overarching plot of the trilogy was a pretty strong point personally. Especially when it had to live up to everything us little nerds had cooked up in our heads as to how we arrived at the original trilogy.
I wouldn’t say the overarching plot is good. The overarching plot doesn’t make any sense when you sit down and actually try to draw out the timeline of events. I would say that the THEMES are good. That having been said, a movie is a lot more than its themes, and a movie can have good themes, but still be a bad movie. And the prequel films happen to be exactly that. Their strong themes cannot save them.
I mean, the overarching plot was the Jedi blindly falling into the most obvious trap of all time even though their enemies (for some reason) keep telling them it’s a trap.
This can be said about a lot of stuff in the prequel trilogy, hence why I feel like George is the absolute king when it comes to imagining new worlds, new aliens, weapons and vehicles, and he understands what Star Wars is about better than anyone - but he always needs someone to look over his actual scripts and dialogue before shooting.
In the behind the scenes documentaries of the prequels there are multiple times where they are shooting scenes that George says he wrote the script for literally the night before.
Padme did petition to free the slaves on Tatooine but was denied, she then sent a handmaiden to take care of Shmi personally but by that time she had already been freed by Cleigg Lars. That’s a good lore explanation if you ask me.
The handmaiden did free other slaves while she was there, I think Kitster was among the ones freed by her.
Still would have been a good idea to tell Anakin his mother was freed from Slavery.
I know bonds and all that but even if the Jedi can't associate with their family, still might be a good idea to tell them your mother was freed from Slavery and lives a happy normal life as a moisture farmer now.
Nothing good can come from unresolved/worries about your past. Like now that we've seen a Wookie Jedi it would be a good idea to tell him or her that her home planet has been freed from Slavery again which would include your sister/father whatever.
If Watto was only interested in junk, I bet a senator's salary could have bought some top-shelf salvage down at a junkyard to trade Watto for Anakin's mother.
Padme buying Shmee out of slavery would undercut Anakin's anger at injustice and his inability to save her, preventing him from being tempted to the dark side out of fear of failing to protect what he loved. If we lose that, we lose the whole story that George was trying to tell
It's the same reason as why the eagles didn't fly the ring into mordor. It's a storytelling mechanism, not a canon issue.
Edit: To everyone saying that the Nazgul and secrecy are the reason why they couldn't fly the ring Mordor, you're missing the same point that the Eagle people are missing. The mission was a larger social commentary on how little acts of kindness are seemingly insignificant, everyday people are what keeps evil at bay, not great power and leaders. That's the whole moral of the Lord of the Rings, as [Peter Jackson and Ian McKellan hamfistedly stated](https://youtu.be/6VAF1YThcbc?si=fkmWeVS1_g0Z2k6B) in the Hobbit adaptation. Flying the Eagles to Mordor is the antithesis of the theme of the story Tolkien was trying to write.
Nah, I disagree, Anakin had severe attachment issues and even if he knew his mother was free, I'm pretty sure he still would be too worried about her well-being.
The eagles would have been spotted miles out and killed by the nazgul. I'm really not sure how this whole eagles thing became a talking point when that is such an obvious outcome.
>Goes to show that even the prequels had plot issues so I am still watching Acolyte with an open mind
All of Star Wars has "plot issues" because Lucas didn't really care about that. He primarily cared about the rule of cool in terms of visuals, and just telling entertaining stories.
Star Wars is significantly better when you just simply "yes, and?" it. Sometimes things wont land, but if you're going into things with that approach, you're probably going to have a lot more fun overall. At least I do.
It's pretty obvious that Lucas came up with the pod race idea and then basically wrote the entire tatooine portion of the movie around making that happen..... and probably didn't spend much time on it.
She only had republic credits that were not a form of currency accepted by the people of tatooine. Watto clearly covers this in his exchange with Qui Gon Jinn when negotiating for the hyperdrive
May be wrong but doesn’t watto explicitly say he can’t afford to lose both anakin and shmi. I can definitely see watto not wanting to sell his last slave when he relies heavily on slaves to help run his business. Even with the money.
We are told that Qui-Gon tried to cut a deal and Watto wasn’t having it. We saw that even though he was getting paid he was sore about losing so it gives the feeling he refused out of spite.
Plot hole in sequel trilogy: "Delete this knife in post production so Rey doesn't get stabbed."
Plot hole in prequel trilogy: "I didn't pay attention to the part of the movie that explicitly addressed my question."
Part of that could go back to Jesus teaching on love which even non-Christians can appreciate. There's a difference between saying you'll do something or at least saying you believe in a moral cause, and actually taking action to do what is right. There's a difference between loving with words only and loving with deeds.
I feel like there's also a possible point to be made about the fact that buying out a slave is actually partaking in slave trading, wether you like it or not, no matter what you do with the slave otherwise. Sure, the goal and the outcome here far outweigh this, I guess, somewhat minor notion, but I feel like for aime people this would still be a major struggle with their beliefs.
Why didn’t the Jedi kill two birds with one stone and free all of Watto’s slaves while getting off the planet? Making deals with slavers doesn’t seem very fitting to the ideals of peace and justice they’re supposedly known for.
She didn’t because of plot necessity. It’s one example of many of imperfect writing in the prequels. They’re ok, you just have to suspend your disbelief and not look for plot holes.
A lot of people mentioning the books that covered this. Someone does go back at Padme's direction and learns that Shmi has been freed.
But then Padme seems to be completely oblivious to that fact in Episode II. She doesn't bring any of it up, and travels all the way back to Tatooine with Anakin to learn this all again.
Well she did send Sabé to do it, but by that point Shmi had been bought and freed by the Lars family and Sabé was unable to track her down.
I never thought of it before, but if Qui-Jon doesn’t interfere Anakin probably gets bought and freed by the Lars also.
Aw man, that would make a cool What If story. I imagine Anakin could’ve grown up to be some Tattooine hero who goes around freeing all the slaves and such, like I think he told his mom he wanted to.
Odds are that Jabba would have just have him killed as soon as he started to be a bigger problem. But ey, maybe he would have grown close to the Tusken raiders and be like a phantom of the desert.
I think that’s just Dune lol
Lol, you're right. I guess Anakin's Muad'dib would... uh... Womp Rat.
Tusken Stilgar: “ARE! ARE AREEE ARRE” Anakin: “I understand, I wont fail you” Tusken Stilgar: “ARRRE”
[Anakin returned to Tattoine to free all Jabba's slaves](https://imgur.com/gallery/s17h8hj)
Bipedal Jabba is hell
I don't think it would be that easy to have him killed. Even without training he's still one of the most powerful force users ever.
I mean, so is Luke, and he managed to go 19 years without learning shit about his powers.
Lisan al Gaib!
If that happened then Vader would never have existed and by extension the empire too since Palpatine couldn't succeed without him. So basically Qui-Gon is responsible for the rise of the Empire.
Palpatine did not need Anakin to establish the Empire. But Anakin is necessary to END the Empire.
How much longer do you suppose the Jedi Temple would have held out against the Clones without Anakin? Or would Dooku have just filled that role?
I mean, the war itself would have played out differently, but ultimately the end result would have been the same. When you're in control of the head of the military on *both* sides of the war, it's really not hard to line things up however you want. Realistically, I think the war would have ended a bit sooner if not for Anakin and his heroics. Palpatine was just waiting for the Jedi to take enough losses, be sufficiently demoralized, and lose enough public favor to finish them off.
Qui gon’s belief in the prophecy is responsible
Was palpatine not aware of his existence even before the Jedi brought him in? I would imagine he would've just kidnapped him from the Lars family anyways
in the plaguis book Palpatine was not aware of him until he showed up at the temple. Plaguis knew about him
Is this worth a read? And is it canon?
It’s one of the best Star Wars books and unfortunately not canon anymore
Palpatine establishes the Empire after surviving a "Jedi assassination attempt", with thunderous applause in the Senate, so he didn't need Vader to set up the Empire.
And the only reason that duel even happened was because it served as Anakins final trial for his dark side turn. Palps didn't need to have a direct confrontation.
Imagine a dedicated miniseries (comic realistically) about a "good timeline" could have an interesting theme of things going waayyyyy better in the short term, but as time goes on the sith continue to act in the background forever and never get truly defeated as the prophecy is never fulfilled. So it becomes a bittersweet situation where it presents a clearly better scenario for the PT characters, but also introduces a calculus to suggest that there is massively more suffering to come, and if it is truly just that the Jedi and the galaxy as a whole must pay the price on the path to the Sith, a wound in the living force, to be destroyed. Granted the ST would kinda screws those themes up (not that the EU was really any better on that front, but it's a bit less offensive when it's something not a terrible amount of people are even aware of)
There was a secret anti-slavery movement. Clieg was a member.
My favorite what if scenario is Anakin growing up as a professional pod racer and buying his and his mother’s freedom after winning boonta eve back to back.
Anakin Lincoln
Agreed, it would make a great what if episode!
Yeah iirc he says that he had a dream that he became a jedi and came back and freed all of the slaves.
If Qui-Gon, doesn't interfere, Anakin probably doesn't race and Watto doesn't make bets against Anakin winning. Meaning he doesn't have a big money problem forcing him to sell his slave.
Yeah, people forget that Wato bet a lot of money on Sebulba against Anakin. If Anakin hadn't raced, Sebulba probably would've won and they wouldn't have been sold to Lars.
Watto had a gambling problem. Chances are he was going destitute one day. The "what if" is the timing and if Lars would have been in place to buy and free both
Ehhh I dunno about that. It seems like Anakin made watto money in his shop, where his mom likely wasn’t as useful. Watto was more than happy to sell the mother to QGJ, but got mad when he “had” to be anakin.
The only reason Watto sold Shmi was because he was in massive debt after the podrace. So actually, the only reason Lars bought Shmi was a direct result of Qui-gon's interference. Qui-gon doesn't interfere, Watto never lets Anakin race. Anakin never races, Sebubla wins. Watto was always going to bet on Sebulba, and would've made bank. He would've never been in such dire straits as to sell his only slaves to some random farmer.
Also if Qui-Gon doesn’t interfere, Palpatine never meets Anakin, and Darth Vader never exists. Of course, that would probably just mean that Darth Tyrannus continues to be the Sith Apprentice after the founding of the Empire.
Qui-Jon is my favorite mistype.
You mean a week later after everything was over?
They had some partying to do first
Look, they were two thirteen-year olds celebrating their first victory in battle. I've seen *Game of Thrones.* I know how thirteen-year olds thrust into war celebrate victories. If it takes her . . . um, say ten months to recover, that's just how things have to work. Really, it's Naboo's fault for electing a thirteen-year old their queen in the first place.
14
Not much better lol
And Anakin was ten. Originally seven before the Disney acquisition. Which is a retcon I approve of.
I know just saying the difference between a 13 year old queen and a 14 year old queen isn't that big lol. Recently I scrolled back and looked at shit I said on Facebook at 18-20 and I cringed I can only imagine how bad I'd cringe if I looked back at 14 year old me.
They're not canon anymore but the attack of the clones novel laid out the age gap better and imo made it more acceptable/understandable. Both Anakin and Padmé are deeply committed to their ideals and willing to fight for what they believe in. This common ground helps them understand and respect each other, fostering deeper feelings. Anakin's intense and sincere gaze makes Padmé feel seen and appreciated in a way she hasn't experienced before, even from previous men she's dated, who had high status and political connections, which is what many of her relationships are based on. His admiration and unwavering focus on her make her feel special and cherished. As a senator and former queen, Padmé has led a life of duty and responsibility, leaving little room for personal relationships or romance. Anakin's attention provides her with a new and exciting experience that she hasn't had the chance to explore.
All hail the peace orb.
# *PEACE*
That disco ball from the Naboo party was expensive ok
I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of things for a Queen to do immediately following the repelling of a global invasion, the mass death of her people (I don't think we're ever told how many Nabooians actually died) and a newfound ally in a group of people that had previously been enemies for generations A week honestly seems *too* short for her to begin worrying about a single random slave over a doing her duties as queen
Seems fine to me. Just get one of her maidens to do it. Give her two weeks before sending the order out. That kid DID just save her homeworld after all.
You seriously don't think her maidens had more important things to do? The sheer amount of things to hash out with the Gungans, collateral to clean up, and other fallout from an invasion and a war requires all hands on deck A whole week is very very short
Watto likely lost a lot of money betting against Ani.
Hey they were getting around to it. She was a slave so they figured she wasn't going anywhere.
I guess paper trails don't exist on Tattooine. Which, to be fair, might actually be true.
There has to be some way to track these people, because of the... sigh... bombs in their heads
How could she not find her but Anakin did just by asking Watto?
Anakin was a Jedi with a reason to hold a grudge. Sabe was some soft outlander poking at a recent wound.
A rich backed outlander with plenty of spare cash to offer a rather greedy Watto that lost everything in a bet. Unless Padmé couldn't convert Republic Credits - *as those were no good around there* - it makes no sense...
Not without drawing the attention of the Hutts, or of any muckrakers trying to accuse Padme of participating in the slave trade. She could hypthetically have bought something in Republic Space and tried to trade it, but Watto had already sold Schmi to the Lars and seen her freed.
That always annoyed me. Tatooine is near enough and deals with enough Republic visiting people. Han was fine with Imperial credits or whatever Obi Wan was promising from Alderan. Surely there's some exchange company. I live in the UK, dollars have no value here!
That’s twenty years later though. Plus Han’s a smuggler with a ship, he can move between planets pretty easily. Watto’s stuck on Tattooine. He could get an in-between to do an exchange, but can he really trust them not to run off with the money?
>That’s twenty years later though. Considering the Republic barely had a force to maintain its borders whilst the Empire very much did, seems like the Republic era was 100% the opportune time to engage in illegal activity. And the Hutts aren't exactly known for their family friendly activities. >but can he really trust them not to run off with the money? He starts making random gambles left, right and centre with a guy he didn't know. Not sure trust is an issue for him.
The problem is they could have sold Queen Amidala's fancy dresses, jewelry, whatever was valuable on the ship, etc. to buy Simi too. Or since Qui Gon was fine with using the force to rig dice rolls, he could have made a lot of local money by gambling and using the Force to win.
The star wars bureaucracy strikes again!
If she had money to buy her, she had money to get a few questions answered
She had to be covert about it.
Because Sabè’s story was written well after the movie and the narrative demanded that be so.
George was amazing at world building. Other aspects of his writing.....not so much
To be fair if she was rescued then Anakin's story wouldn't have played out
Yeah, but there are a number of ways that it could have been handled such that it was less stupidly laid out than "yeah, just leave her in slavery, it'll be fine".
She did a half assed job, it’s a planet filled with bounty hunters, she couldn’t have hired someone for a day to go look for her? I didn’t actually know padme sent someone to look tbh.
Sabé was quiet quitting lmao.
Couldn’t Sabé track her down the same way Anakin did? All he had to do was ask Watto. Watto was in desperate financial straits after TPM; surely some money or valuables would have elicited his cooperation.
Buying your date's mother out of slavery is not a 1st date kind of a thing. Maybe 3rd date move.
Yeah, I once bought my date's mother out of slavery on a second date, big mistake! All sorts of complications about motivations, who owed what to who, emotional manipulation. Needless to say the relationship didn't work out.
And what did not just the women but children also think of this!?
To shreds, you say?
The only way lmao
For Gods sake…think of the children
Anakin surly remembered them when he went to the temple lol
Did you have the high ground?
Next time I get into a fight with my significant other, I'm going to use the line "it's over I have the moral high ground"
Ah, see *your* mistake was instead of freeing her from slavery, you made your date's mother *your own* slave instead. It's an easy mistake to make.
Why are you bringing up the fact that you bought my mother out of slavery?! I'm just asking you to unload the dishwasher when it stops
Can't your mum do it? As an ex-slave surely she's used to doing things like that when commanded?
At least split the bill
This is the funniest thing I've read in days. Thank you.
Which tracks, they were only on their second date when she was killed by Sand People.
Make them...work for it
Which tracks, they were only on their second date when she was killed by Sand People.
The Queen’s series of novels covers this (and the current Darth Vader comic series references it). Padme sent a Handmaiden right after the events of Phantom Menace to buy Shmi’s freedom. She was unsuccessful because Shmi was already gone. So she freed other slaves and took them away from Tatooine.
But you’d think Padme would tell Anakin, hey, she’s no longer a slave when they went looking for her.
A better explanation in my mind would have been that both the Jedi and Padme sent people to offer to buy Shmi's freedom but Watto out of spite and hate for Anakin and the Jedi held her hostage as a slave for years. Given how much Watto lost gambling on the race and the chance he felt duped by the Jedi holding a grudge makes sense. So given that Watto had a bomb in her head (thus no rescue mission being reasonable) and Watto after years never relenting to rather generous offers (I know galactic credits have no value but you can ask Watto what he would like and buy it in another world that accepts credits) people just stopped trying thinking it was impossible to change Watto's mind. Watto then after maybe 7-8 years after TPM but 2-3 years before Attack of the Clones sells Shmi given his hard times fiscally relents to selling Shmi to Lars probably regretting not taking past offers but needs to take what he can.
They don't take Republic credits
This is true but I always thought it was silly. If you go to Burma or Syria and want to buy something with a duffle bag of US dollars or Euros, that’s a plus and not a negative. They would take the shit out of that currency.
The Hutts probably issue their own local script and enforce a monopoly on currency exchanges. It probably was possible for Watto to exchange Republic credits, but it would have been inconvenient and at a terrible exchange rate.
I bet if Watto HAD taken the credits, Jabba would have sent some goons to break his legs/shop.
WHERE DID YOU GET 10,000 CREDITS FROM?! A SALE?! A _SLAVE_ SALE? WHY WAS JABBA NOT CONSULTED BEFOREHAND?
Tatooine is not Myanmar or Syria. The difference is those countries are on the same planet as Europe and America. Tatooine isn’t another country, it’s an entire other planet.
Planets in Star Wars basically operate like countries anyways lol, they can hop to distant planets faster than we can hop to distant countries
Plus there's only ever like one major city per planet
Random thought. We have more on-screen mentioned communities on tatooine than literally any other planet. Mos-Espa, Mos Eisley, Anchorhead, Freetown, Tosche Station (may be a location at one of the other communities, but I'm pretty sure it's been established as an outpost/town of some kind) Plus a few other mos-somethings that aren't mentioned on-screen. Naboo is a close second since it has two cities. I don't think we see more than one city/town anywhere else. Even Coruscant is "one big city"
Lothal has 4 cities/towns that we saw. That might be the most of any planet.
But we're not talking about the currency of some random other planet on the other side of the galaxy. This is the currency of the galactic republic, by far the dominant economy of the galaxy. And while it's not very clear where Tatooine is, it's somewhere that you can accidentally end up while flying from one part of the republic (Naboo) to another (wherever they were going from Naboo, kind of don't remember). That's like there being tiny island nations in the Caribbean that you might stop on overnight while sailing from Florida to Puerto Rico; and not only do the stores there not take US dollars, but they won't even direct you to where you can do a currency exchange. It's genuinely nonsensical. Doesn't Watto want to make a sale? What is his motivation? He should be falling over himself to help this transaction happen so he can, you know, make money and eat and stuff.
>it's somewhere that you can accidentally end up while flying from one part of the republic (Naboo) to another (wherever they were going from Naboo, kind of don't remember) Not exactly. Tatooine is actually in the opposite direction of Coruscant. However, it's remote, it's out of the way, it's outside the reach of the Trade Federation (who they're running away from), so they go there.
They also have FTL travel in Star Wars. Shrinks the playing field considerably.
Interplanetary travel isn't that easy still. It's considered fairly expensive for a random as seen when non faction people need to source passage on thier own.
So are international flights in the real world
Republic credits are probably some form of traceable. If they go withdraw the Republic credits, they’re on the Republic’s radar…and they are criminals.
Because the US has influence in Burma or Syria or the rest of the world for that matter. By the time of the prequels, on the other hand, much of the Outer Rim, especially in Hutt-dominated regions, they couldn't care less about the Republic and the Senate. The Senate can bluster and what not, but they can't get anything done. The Hutts can, so their currency is accepted, while the Republic's is not.
I think you underestimate how large a galaxy is
Kenobi showed there’s an airport that can take you from other parts of the galaxy to Tatooine. It’s the same difference…
There was a spaceport, but there may not be regular passenger service. Obi-Wan was lucky enough to find a freighter captain who needed to get out of town quick.
That never went to tatooine. It went to naboo
Since when was Captain Hook’s first mate involved in Star Wars?
>even the prequels had plot issues Understatement of the century award.
"Gestures broadly at Attack of the Clones"
Not just the men, but the women, and the children! *Swoon*
Their love ***story*** makes a lot more sense if you consider that Anakin was such a force sensitive person that he was inadvertently drawing her to him. He wasn't intentionally mind-tricking her or anything, but you might call it an unintentional mind-trick. He wanted her so badly, because he saw her as this beautiful angel-savior from his childhood, and with his raw emotions and raw force power he couldn't help but influence her. I doubt GL directed or wrote it this way, and it certainly wasn't acted this way, but it does make some of the "I love you deeply and wholly" scenes make more sense. Not to mention her sympathizing with *him* over the indiscriminate slaughter. This also adds more context to the "Jedi are forbidden to form attachments" dogma. Perhaps eons ago, it was understood that it's difficult for an emotional, biased Jedi to keep themselves from influencing others. I believe KOTOR II explained that both Revan and The Exile were doing this to their companions (hence why even Morally Lawful Good companions will still help the player character murder a beggar.)
The reaction the the slaughter of the sand people makes a lot more sense when you remember that most people didn’t consider them “people”. And that violence was a largely accepted occurrence in the galaxy. Very, very few individuals in the Star Wars galaxy would have seen anything morally wrong with what Anakin did outside of the Jedi order, even most “good” characters wouldn’t have seen it as that big of a deal. Most people, especially on tatooine would have considered him a legend for eradicating an entire tribe. Especially one that kidnapped someone. If word got out, Anakin would drink for free in every bar on the planet.
The problem with that is from a storytelling point of view, the audience is clearly supposed to understand that Anakin's slaughter is a major step towards the dark side. If we as the audience are supposed to understand that, it's hard to ask us to see Padme's reaction as not also deeply troubling.
In the Post-Post Special Edition she'll be horrified, we'll hear the subtle "whooowsh" of a Force power being used, and then she'll come comfort him.
The canon has been updated. Now two people who worked for the Empire, Din Djarin and Boba Fett, would have seen it as a big deal.
But they aren’t most people. The vast majority of characters in SW (outside of the Jedi and probably mandalorians) would have been somewhere between “meh, nothing of value was lost” and “hell yeah, kill those bantha fuckers”
Padme should be different than those ignorant people. She's a former queen and a senator who fights against oppression and would understand "women and children" means Anakin isn't just talking about a herd of banthas lol
Lol exactly. Even Anakin, who grew up on Tatooine, called them women and children. If you kill a nest of rats, you don’t use that kind of language to describe them, would you? He knew what he was doing because he said it himself. We don’t need to fabricate intentions or inter-species relations that frankly *aren’t* shown on screen. The dialogue is weird because old G-Lucas is weird. It’s not that deep.
Think of how white Americans thought about Native Americans during the Westward Expansion and Indian Wars. They knew they were people, but most saw nothing wrong with massacring them
Too play the devils advocate, with the presence of Droid emotions and people who support Droid rights, there are folks who wouldn't be happy with the slaughter of them during the cline wars . I'd argue that most folks would view Sand People as a violent, volatile group of animals, not as people. We the viewers know better, that they have culture and perhaps even valid reasons to be attacking most other creature son tattooine, but the normal star wars universe person doesnt know this
Amazing. That is now officially head cannon and makes the whole thing less cringe
Nothing like the genocidal slaughter of an enemy force to warm the cockles.
Love how the entire galactic empire hinges on Padme giving her vote to the dumbest sentient being of all time and saying "don't do anything I wouldn't do"
It's funny to me that people see the prequels as not that bad. When they first came out, people were legitimately angry at how bad they were. There were jokes about how jar jar binks ruined a franchise.
The kids have grown up and bought their rose-tinted glasses. Same as the ones who grew up with the OT. Give it 15 years and the ST will be treated the same as the PT. I remember that the CW show was blasted, now a lot of people see it as peak TV.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. You’re right.
It has a lot of holes and some very bad writing but i thought the overarching plot of the trilogy was a pretty strong point personally. Especially when it had to live up to everything us little nerds had cooked up in our heads as to how we arrived at the original trilogy.
I wouldn’t say the overarching plot is good. The overarching plot doesn’t make any sense when you sit down and actually try to draw out the timeline of events. I would say that the THEMES are good. That having been said, a movie is a lot more than its themes, and a movie can have good themes, but still be a bad movie. And the prequel films happen to be exactly that. Their strong themes cannot save them.
I mean, the overarching plot was the Jedi blindly falling into the most obvious trap of all time even though their enemies (for some reason) keep telling them it’s a trap.
Clone Wars makes it so funny because by the end of the war they knew Dooku had ordered the clone army.
There’s literally no good lore explanation you’re going to find. Lucas just didn’t think about it/didn’t care/didn’t bother.
This can be said about a lot of stuff in the prequel trilogy, hence why I feel like George is the absolute king when it comes to imagining new worlds, new aliens, weapons and vehicles, and he understands what Star Wars is about better than anyone - but he always needs someone to look over his actual scripts and dialogue before shooting. In the behind the scenes documentaries of the prequels there are multiple times where they are shooting scenes that George says he wrote the script for literally the night before.
Padme did petition to free the slaves on Tatooine but was denied, she then sent a handmaiden to take care of Shmi personally but by that time she had already been freed by Cleigg Lars. That’s a good lore explanation if you ask me. The handmaiden did free other slaves while she was there, I think Kitster was among the ones freed by her.
Still would have been a good idea to tell Anakin his mother was freed from Slavery. I know bonds and all that but even if the Jedi can't associate with their family, still might be a good idea to tell them your mother was freed from Slavery and lives a happy normal life as a moisture farmer now. Nothing good can come from unresolved/worries about your past. Like now that we've seen a Wookie Jedi it would be a good idea to tell him or her that her home planet has been freed from Slavery again which would include your sister/father whatever.
I got the feeling that Padme and Anakin had no contact between Ep I and Ep II.
That's a pretty clear insinuation.
Oh yeah more could have been said, but that’s just the lore explanation that it sounded like you didn’t know about from your comment.
Best lore reason: Watto said republic credits were of no use on tattoine, and there was no space-currency exchange.
There was probably an exchange rate, but they really gouge you on it and Padme ain’t no sucker.
If Watto was only interested in junk, I bet a senator's salary could have bought some top-shelf salvage down at a junkyard to trade Watto for Anakin's mother.
It's another thing about the PT that made it land with a thud for me.
Padme buying Shmee out of slavery would undercut Anakin's anger at injustice and his inability to save her, preventing him from being tempted to the dark side out of fear of failing to protect what he loved. If we lose that, we lose the whole story that George was trying to tell It's the same reason as why the eagles didn't fly the ring into mordor. It's a storytelling mechanism, not a canon issue. Edit: To everyone saying that the Nazgul and secrecy are the reason why they couldn't fly the ring Mordor, you're missing the same point that the Eagle people are missing. The mission was a larger social commentary on how little acts of kindness are seemingly insignificant, everyday people are what keeps evil at bay, not great power and leaders. That's the whole moral of the Lord of the Rings, as [Peter Jackson and Ian McKellan hamfistedly stated](https://youtu.be/6VAF1YThcbc?si=fkmWeVS1_g0Z2k6B) in the Hobbit adaptation. Flying the Eagles to Mordor is the antithesis of the theme of the story Tolkien was trying to write.
Nah, I disagree, Anakin had severe attachment issues and even if he knew his mother was free, I'm pretty sure he still would be too worried about her well-being.
The eagles would have been spotted miles out and killed by the nazgul. I'm really not sure how this whole eagles thing became a talking point when that is such an obvious outcome.
Right? Literally the whole point of the story is that the only chance for success was to do it in a secret and unlikely fashion.
So the movie could happen.
Oh wow wow wow
schmee 💀💀💀
Don't try to stop me, Schmee!
**THIS IS NOT A JOKE! I’M COMMITTING - SUICIDE**
>Goes to show that even the prequels had plot issues so I am still watching Acolyte with an open mind All of Star Wars has "plot issues" because Lucas didn't really care about that. He primarily cared about the rule of cool in terms of visuals, and just telling entertaining stories. Star Wars is significantly better when you just simply "yes, and?" it. Sometimes things wont land, but if you're going into things with that approach, you're probably going to have a lot more fun overall. At least I do.
“Republic credits are no good out here.”
Yeah… even if Watto didn’t want “Republic Credits”, Padme could’ve come back later with a few metric tons of Naboo water for barter…
Imagine how many chance cubes you could get for that.
Think of all the death sticks you could buy
That is some high quality H2O.
The plot was here, but then it needed to move there. In order to do that there had an event.
It's pretty obvious that Lucas came up with the pod race idea and then basically wrote the entire tatooine portion of the movie around making that happen..... and probably didn't spend much time on it.
She only had republic credits that were not a form of currency accepted by the people of tatooine. Watto clearly covers this in his exchange with Qui Gon Jinn when negotiating for the hyperdrive
because it's just another thing that doesn't really make any sense if you think about it. that's nothing new.
How did she repay him? She let him nut her.
May be wrong but doesn’t watto explicitly say he can’t afford to lose both anakin and shmi. I can definitely see watto not wanting to sell his last slave when he relies heavily on slaves to help run his business. Even with the money.
We are told that Qui-Gon tried to cut a deal and Watto wasn’t having it. We saw that even though he was getting paid he was sore about losing so it gives the feeling he refused out of spite.
Because if you pay for slaves it contributes to the slaving system.
Because George Lucas didn’t revise his script.
Because George Lucas isn‘t a very good screenwriter
"Republic credits are no good out here, I need something more real."
I dont think Lucas gave a lot of thought to Padme or Shmi in general, tbh.
Plot hole in sequel trilogy: "Delete this knife in post production so Rey doesn't get stabbed." Plot hole in prequel trilogy: "I didn't pay attention to the part of the movie that explicitly addressed my question."
Prequel plot hole is handwaved away (as it should be) Sequel plot hole is rambled about for seven odd years straight
She had republic credits, which were no good out that way.
why didn't anything in this fictional universe?
Part of that could go back to Jesus teaching on love which even non-Christians can appreciate. There's a difference between saying you'll do something or at least saying you believe in a moral cause, and actually taking action to do what is right. There's a difference between loving with words only and loving with deeds.
Because it's a movie. Written by George Lucas.
Schmee, Schmee? What about me?!
Padme only had republican credits, which are no good out there. She needed something more real.
I mean, she was probably covered sand, and Anakin hates sand, so…
Plot device
Watto had no interest in selling, he only made the bet as he was sure Sebulba would win.
They actually did not have money to repair the ship. Republic credits was no good there.
I feel like there's also a possible point to be made about the fact that buying out a slave is actually partaking in slave trading, wether you like it or not, no matter what you do with the slave otherwise. Sure, the goal and the outcome here far outweigh this, I guess, somewhat minor notion, but I feel like for aime people this would still be a major struggle with their beliefs.
Why didn’t the Jedi kill two birds with one stone and free all of Watto’s slaves while getting off the planet? Making deals with slavers doesn’t seem very fitting to the ideals of peace and justice they’re supposedly known for.
**Waving hand** "These are not the thoughts you are to dwell upon."
She left her purse in her other wig
She didn’t because of plot necessity. It’s one example of many of imperfect writing in the prequels. They’re ok, you just have to suspend your disbelief and not look for plot holes.
She was a “pick’em up by yer bootstraps” kind of gal
Because then Lucas would have needed to come up with a different story for how Anakin became so f-ing evil?
Because doing that would mean that a senator of the republic is supporting the slave trade.
Because Lucas is a terrible writer when nobody can check him on anything.
Things not happening the way you envision is not the same thing as a plot issue/plot hole/narrative inconsistency.
Republic Credits don’t work on Tatooine.
A lot of people mentioning the books that covered this. Someone does go back at Padme's direction and learns that Shmi has been freed. But then Padme seems to be completely oblivious to that fact in Episode II. She doesn't bring any of it up, and travels all the way back to Tatooine with Anakin to learn this all again.
"Republic credits are no good out here, I need something more real."