Today is Natalie Portman’s 34th birthday and in honour of that I thought it would be interesting to take a look at Padmé Amidala’s role in one of the key moments in Attack of the Clones: the Battle of Geonosis. So here … Continue reading Scene It? – Padme in the Geonosis Arena
The Attack of the Clones was the first Star Wars movie I got to see in the cinema, after an extensive campaign for the chance to. Walking out of the cinema I was all about the Clones, the Battle of Geonosis … Continue reading Star Wars’ Forgotten Women #1: Zam Wesell
I am currently on a rewatch of the 200
8 The Clone Wars series and realized that S1E08, ‘Bombad Jedi’ is an absolutely fascinating episode! Not only funny, it gives room to some major development for two of Star Wars‘ most interesting characters: Padmé Amidala and Jar Jar Binks. ‘Bombad Jedi’ works on a lot of different levels, reintroducing the political element of the Clone Wars and showing how war leads to suffering and betrayal. The episode, directed by Jesse Yeh, starts with the fortune cookie-esque ‘Heroes are made by the times‘, but rather than focus on our accepted heroes, Anakin Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi, the episode goes out of its way to show that heroism exists on different levels and can be found in everyone.
From the very start of the episode it is clear that Padmé is in control of this mission. Her unwavering loyalty to her friends has brought her into dangerous territory and yet she goes there believing in the strength of diplomacy and peace, in itself the start of a very heroic quest. In choosing Jar Jar as her companion, she also reveals her recognition of similar principles in Jar Jar. Chancellor Palpatine functions as a good point of contrast to her behaviour when he mocks Jar Jar’s “qualifications”. He not only disregards JarJar but also looks at him with contempt, unable to see the potential Jar Jar holds. Palpatine respects martial strength and Jar Jar’s own brand of strength is not something he recognizes, initially. In some ways this is similar to how he considered Padmé naive in The Phantom Menace only to have to admit by the end of the film that she is a lot stronger than he thought.
Continue reading “‘Bombad Jedi’: Working Against Stereotype”
What’s been happening inStar Wars-related news this week? On the Web: Colin Hanks and his daughter brought attention to the lack of female merchandise (Mary Sue) Diego Luna joins the cast for Rogue One (Variety) Star Wars villains for adoption: the … Continue reading News Round-Up
Three days ago, director Colin Hanks posted the following note on his Instagram account:
So, the other night, on May the 4th to be exact, I sat down with my 4 year old daughter and showed her Star Wars: A New Hope. It was her first time watching it. She loved it. Her favorite character was Princess Leia. She kept asking “Where is Princess Leia? Where is Princes Leia?” A few nights later, I show her Empire Strikes Back (or as she called it “The Emperor stripes back) and within four minutes of watching the movie she says, “It’s so tiring watching these movies. It’s always boys, boys, boys and there’s only one girl.” I could not of been more proud of her. So today I take her to Toys “R” Us to buy her a light saber and a Princess Leia toy. After being told that light sabers were “in the boys section”, she picks out the light saber of her choosing and asks about the Princess Leia toy. One problem: they only had the “slave Leia”. As you can see, sad depressing, “slave Leia”. So wrong. The only good to come from this is that, once again, my daughter makes me look at the world in a new light. #HelpusJJyoureouronlyhope
Hanks’ post has garnered a lot of attention, rightfully so, and joins the increased media attention for the severe lack of female merchandise. After the release of The Guardians of the Galaxy the hashtag #WheresGamora was started and since Age of Ultron came out there has been justified outrage over the lack of Black Widow merchandise. With The Force Awakens film coming out this year, Star Wars will be bringing out new merchandise as well and this is an issue that Disney should be very aware of. Before going into it more, I want to share a personal experience.
I am a twenty-one year old, female Star Wars-fan. Star Wars, like the Force, is strong in my family and I have been watching the films from the tender age of two. However, when I was seven I had an experience in a toystore which left me feeling marginalized and excluded without even knowing what those words meant. I walked in, looking for either a knight or a storm trooper. As I was looking up and down the walls covered in amazing toys, I was incredibly excited. Shortly afterwards, a male cashier came up to me and asked me whether I was looking for something. When I responded with an enthusiastic ‘yes’ he continued to guide me away from all the toys I wanted to the “girls”-section which was full of barbies and everything pink. Not only did I not like pink, but the male cashier made it very clear that this was where I belonged and that the other section was for boys, no matter what I liked. I was crushed and when I told my father, he was furious. If it hadn’t been for him, I might have accepted what I had been told rather than continue to love Star Wars. Instead, I got the toys I wanted and continued to be a raging Star Wars fan.
Continue reading “Girls Need Their Toys Too: Women In Star Wars and My Experience”
In today’s Scene It? post I’ll be looking at one of the most heart-breaking scenes in The Revenge of the Sith (2005), the third prequel film which depicts Anakin’s switch to the Dark Side of the Force. I am, of course, talking about the scene between Padme and Anakin on Mustafar, shortly before the battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Naturally, this post contains spoilers for The Revenge of the Sith. If you want a quick refresher on the scene, help yourself to the video below, the first half of which I will be discussing:
Some of the criticism directed towards RotS focused on the development of Padme Amidala’s character. In The Phantom Menace she is a young queen, exclusively focused on saving her planet from being taken over by the Trade Federation. In The Attack of the Clones she returns as a senator of Naboo and a key senator in trying to stop the outbreak of a war. We also see her trying to cope with her feelings for Anakin Skywalker and fighting for her life. In The Revenge of the Sith, Padme and Anakin are married, with the twins on the way, while she continues in her role as senator. As the Republic falls apart, so, it could be argued, does everything she has worked for. The difficulty with which Padme switches between her roles as senator and wife is, I believe, on purpose. As Anakin slowly loses himself it becomes harder for her to unite her principles with her emotions. The reason this scene is heart-breaking is because everything Padme believed in has either been corrupted or fallen apart. Below I will discuss why her choice of response to this is one which is probably singular in modern cinema and makes her stand out as one of the strongest women in sci-fi.
When George Lucas made the choice to start the Prequel Trilogy with Anakin Skywalker as a kid and to include Jar Jar Binks as a character he must have had an inkling of what was coming. But he must have made this choice deliberately because of its story-telling value. In this post I want to have a look at how intimately the stories of these two great characters are entangled and how they mirror each other. Unwittingly, in their joint rejection of these two, the prequel-bashing community not only misses out on a vital element of the story Lucas tried to convey. But above all they confirm the message that is in Jar Jar and Anakin’s story for those who did make the effort to recognize it.
The brilliant Vanity Fair article this week has given us a lot of scoops. Not only do we have names for two more characters, we also got some great interviews and behind-the-scenes photos. VF also sat down with J.J. Abrams, director of upcoming The Force Awakens, for an interview and unfortunately he once again catered to the so-called ‘prequel haters’ by discussing Jar Jar Binks. Talking to VF editor Bruce Handy, Abrams said:
“I have a thought about putting Jar Jar Binks’s bones in the desert [of Jakku]. I’m serious! Only three people will notice, but they’ll love it.”
Now, I’m all for jokes. I love jokes. However, Jar Jar Binks is a very controversial figure within the Star Wars-fandom. Many fans of the Original Trilogy use him as their favourite stick to bash the Prequel Trilogy with, arguing he is a ridiculous figure, disgraceful and not worthy of being in a Star Wars-film. It has come to the point where saying that you like Jar Jar, like I do, means you have to face a barrage of disagreement, if not abuse. The fact that the same things were originally held against the Ewoks in the OT is conveniently forgotten. Everyone is allowed their own opinion and you don’t have to like everything about Star Wars. Whether you like both the OT and PT or just one of them, you have a right to liking or disliking things. However, as I have previously argued, the disproportionate hate against the PT has led to many of its good points and layers of depth to go completely unnoticed. There is more to the figure of Jar Jar than most people acknowledge and I will be going into it below.
Scene It? is a feature we’re hoping to do frequently, if maybe not each week. As the title may suggest, we’ll be looking at different scenes within the Star Wars-canon and analyse how they can be interpreted.
Today I want to look at a scene that I believe is crucial to the development of Anakin Skywalker and sets him on the path to the Dark Side. This is the scene between Anakin and his mother, followed by the slaughter of the Sandpeople and Anakin dealing with the consequences of his actions. In the second prequel film The Attack of the Clones (2002) Anakin Skywalker goes through an enormous amount of development. The last time we see him he was a child, who had left home behind and was about to start training as a Jedi-padawan. In TAoC, Anakin has grown into a young man who is struggling with being mature at all times. He is torn between following his emotions and his high expectations of himself.
The scenes on Tatooine are truly tragic and, for the first time, we see Anakin take a conscious step towards the Dark Side. Shortly after finding his mother, she dies in his arms before being able to say she loves him. George Lucas and Hayden Christensen show us an Anakin who is already conflicted between what he knows is right and what he feels. I want to spend some time analysing what happens in this moment to show how delicate the film is in showing us Anakin’s development. The two scenes in the video above are the ones I will be looking at.
Clone Corridor 