Tag: Fixing the Prequels: TPM

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part six
part seven
part eight
part nine

(The entire series can be read by clicking the Post Label at the bottom of each individual post in the series.)

And now we come at last to the end of The Phantom Menace. The final battle is, of course, the best executed portion of the entire film, owing as it does to George Lucas’s skills at film editing. But there are some changes I’d make herein, mainly dealing with two particular fronts: Anakin’s conduct in the battle, and Jar Jar’s.

Remember, when last we’d left, I’d shifted things so that Anakin isn’t being brought knowingly into battle but has instead stowed away, unbeknownst to Qui Gon or Padme. I think this was important to show just how impulsive Anakin can be, and also to better illustrate how this kid ends up being in the middle of a major battle. In the film, Qui Gon just takes Anakin along, which always seems a little weird to me.

We’d first open on the green field outside the city, where the Gungans have mustered. This is where I’d have the whole sequence with them take place pretty much as is in the film, with the starting of their shield and then the arrival of the droid armies. This has always been one of my favorite sequences in the film, with the impressive sound design of the droid tanks and the giant droid carriers. I’d also keep Jar Jar’s admonition of a few Gungan warriors to stand “Steady, steady”. That always struck me as a good indicator of Jar Jar’s development arc, and it fits with my reworking him as a failed warrior become actual warrior.

Now we cut to the streets of Theed, where the Queen and her troops are moving into position, along with the Jedi. After she signals Captain Panaka, the good Captain begins his work by creating a diversion by detonating a bomb inside a speeder. I’d have more explosions go off, all over the place, enough to totally confuse the battle droids who would then be taken by surprise by the attack of Panaka’s men. While this is going on, the Queen leads her contingent into the main hangar, where they plan to launch some of their fighters.

As this fight begins to take shape (I like Nute Gunray’s reaction in horror that the battle is taking place right outside the palace), especially in the hangar bay, that’s when Anakin and R2 would arrive, probably by emerging through an air duct or some other kind of clandestine passage. They’d pop up in the middle of the battle, maybe from a hatch in the floor, and have to scramble for safety while blaster fire erupts all over. I’d have the battle in the hangar bay be a pitched struggle for a bit, with explosions all over the place, and with Anakin and R2 desperately trying to avoid getting fried. Then, as the Naboo pilots start getting in the fighters and lifting off, Anakin would notice a ship that’s hasn’t been taken:

ANAKIN: Artoo! There’s a ship no one’s taking! We’ll be safe in there!

Artoo whistles as Anakin takes off for the vacant fighter, and then follows. The boy ducks blaster fire and explosions as he races up the boarding ladder and hops into the cockpit; meanwhile, Artoo moves into position beneath the astrodroid port, which activates, magnetically lifting the droid into position.

ANAKIN: We’ll be a lot safer in here, Artoo!

A sudden explosion overhead sends a shower of sparks cascading over the ship and into the open cockpit. Anakin brushes them all off.

ANAKIN: We’re almost safer, anyway.

He presses the button to close the cockpit cover, which also activates the ship’s power systems.

ANAKIN: Uh-oh….

I basically like everything that Anakin does from this point on, for a while. The only big change I’d make is to keep everyone from knowing he’s there: no more Qui Gon telling him to “Stay in that cockpit”. I’d also make it so Anakin is a bit more of a decision maker; when the destroyer droids roll in and pin down Padme and her soldiers (I’d include a good establishing shot showing that the destroyers have the Queen and company pinned down), I like how Anakin uses his ship’s superior firepower to blast them. But I’d have him show a bit of anger here:

ANAKIN: They’ll get butchered! Artoo, power up this thing!

Artoo beeps in protest.

ANAKIN: Do it!

Now Artoo does as he’s told, and the ship’s engines and power systems come to life. Anakin grabs the control stick and rotates the ship to point at the destroyers, whereupon he blasts them with the ship’s cannons.

ANAKIN: Yeah!

Artoo suddenly whines. The ship’s thrusters fire, sending the craft up and out of the hangar bay and into the Naboo sky.

ANAKIN: What are you doing, Artoo?!

Artoo says something; the translation appears on a screen in the cockpit.

ANAKIN: Autopilot? I didn’t engage any autopilot! Where is it taking us? Just hold on!

Anakin slips a pilot’s helmet on over his head as the ship powers for space.

Amongst all this, Darth Maul makes his impressive entrance. Frankly, I wouldn’t change a single thing about this whatsoever. For the most part, the entire Jedi versus Sith Lord battle works wonderfully. No changes here.

(By the way, there’s a wonderful little blink-and-you-miss-it thing in the early going of the Jedi swordfight. When Darth Maul is backing up and uses the Force to throw some object at a control panel, thus opening the doors to the energy transfer facility beyond, Obi Wan comes into the frame on the left, following the Sith Lord – and he’s got this almost swaggering saunter as he does, and he twirls his lightsaber jauntily, as if he’s not quite taking this guy all that seriously yet. I like how this shows, in some tiny way, Obi Wan’s youthful brashness that he would later cite when addressing Yoda in TESB.)

So, Anakin’s flying into battle, the Queen is trying to fight her way to the Viceroy, two Jedi are engaging a Sith Lord, and the Gungans are fighting the droid army. George Lucas gets quite a pot boiling here, and for the most part, I like just about all of it. The only changes I’d make for a while here are pretty cosmetic in nature:

:: I’d play up Anakin’s wild and impulsive nature in the space battle. I like his wide-eyed approach to the battle when he finds himself in the middle of exploding ships and blaster fire, and I like his observation that “this autopilot’s gonna get us both killed.” I’d have Anakin do all sorts of wild maneuvers with his ship, really highlighting the fact that he’s supposed to be a great pilot. In the original script, at one point he does something with the ship that Artoo doesn’t like, and when the droid says something, Anakin responds, “I know this isn’t pod-racing!” I like that line and would keep it in there. However, I’d ditch “Let’s try spinning! That’s a neat trick.” I’d like to see him use his wild piloting skills to bollix the droid fighters, maybe even making one or two of them crash into their own ships as they try to compensate for his wild maneuvers.

:: Meanwhile, the battle between the Gungans and the droid army also works pretty well. Jar Jar, though, tends to bumble his way through the whole thing, and I’d rather see him doing some of the things he does by design. By this point, Jar Jar shouldn’t be completely bumbling his way through everything: he’s found a bit of his self-confidence and his ability and is starting to exercise them both. Toward the end of this sequence, he is forced to run back toward the droid army while his fellow Gungans flee; I’d change this to have him make a purposeful decision to charge on his own:

The Gungan army is now fleeing toward the swamps, with the droid army in hot pursuit, led by four TANKS.

JAR JAR: Wesa never get away in time!

TARPALS: What you wanna do?

JAR JAR: Anything!

Jar Jar leaps onto a passing wagon that is loaded with blue energy balls, where he opens the wagon’s back, letting the balls all roll out onto the ground, where they tumble toward the droids at great speed. Two of them crash into the tanks, causing them to go haywire and crash into one another. Jar Jar is thrown into the air by an explosion and lands on top of a battle tank which is swerving this way and that as it levels laser blasts at escaping Gungans. Captain Tarpals rides up alongside and holds out a hand.

TARPALS: Jump, Jar Jar! Jump!

JAR JAR: Mesa gotta stop this thing!

TARPALS: Use this!

He tosses a blue energy ball to Jar Jar, who catches it just as the top of the tank pops open and a battle droid sticks its head out.

DROID: We’ve got a passenger!

The droid lifts his blaster, but Jar Jar tosses the energy ball at him, where it drops into the open cockpit of the tank and explodes, disrupting the tank’s energy systems and causing it to swerve wildly off course. This allows more Gungans to escape, but Jar Jar falls off the turret to the ground as the tank rolls over on its side some distance away. Captain Tarpals rides up to Jar Jar and holds out his hand.

TARPALS: Jar Jar! Up!

But before Jar Jar can leap onto the back of the beast, they are surrounded by battle droids who cover them with their weapons.

JAR JAR: Oh no….

Tarpals hands Jar Jar the weapon he claimed from him earlier [in my rewrite, not in the existing movie].

TARPALS: Yousa gonna need this.

Something like that. Even though the Gungan cause is pretty much doomed, I’d play up Jar Jar’s heroics a bit, especially as contrasted with Anakin’s.

:: About the only change I’d make to the lightsaber battle between the Jedi and Darth Maul would be to provide a little bit of indication as to what’s going on and where they are. Those cascading energy doors are pretty cool, but they seem a bit arbitrary, don’t they? I’d have Maul use the Force to open them, maybe having a computer screen flash the words “Energy Doors Opening”, and then close them as he sees fit once he’s all the way inside. Basically, I’d have Maul use them as a means of ensuring that he only fights one Jedi at a time.

(By the way, the shot with the three combatants, separated by the energy doors, is one of those brilliant shots George Lucas never gets any credit for. Each combatants acts, silently, in a way completely in character: Obi Wan stays standing, waiting a bit impatiently; Qui Gon kneels to calmly meditate; Maul paces back and forth like a caged animal. I love that.)

:: Back to Anakin in space. When his fighter goes out of control and skids to a halt inside the Trade Federation cruiser, I’d alter the scene a bit. The problem is that to many viewers of the film – not so much to me, but I can see their complaint – Anakin’s successful resolution of this problem looks pretty much accidental. So:

INT: Federation cruiser – landing bay.

Anakin’s fighter skids to a halt in the middle of the bay. A dozen stunned battle droids stare at the newly arrived ship.

INT: Anakin’s ship – cockpit.

Artoo whistles nervously, and Anakin reads the translation on the screen: “I have a bad feeling about this.”

ANAKIN: Yeah, me too.

Anakin tries to activate the ship’s power, but the switches do nothing.

ANAKIN: We must have overloaded or something…oh no.

Outside, the battle droids are now approaching the ship, blasters drawn. Anakin sinks down into his seat as far as he can possibly go.

ANAKIN: Try and stall them, Artoo! I’m gonna try to hotwire this thing.

He opens a panel, behind which are about a hundred cables and wires.

ANAKIN: I can fix this…I can fix this….

INT: Federation cruiser – hold

The Battle Droids form a perimeter around the ship.

DROID 1: I don’t see a pilot.

DROID 2: Ship’s damaged. Maybe the pilot got blasted into space.

DROID 1: You! Astrodroid! Identify yourself!

Artoo beeps and whistles; the battle droids look back and forth at one another.

DROID 1: Does anyone understand that?

DROID 2: We need that protocol droid.

Meanwhile, inside the ship, Anakin is busily splicing wires together.

In the film as released, Anakin’s ship crashes on the Federation cruiser, and its systems are overheated – and all Anakin has to do to escape this dire situation is sit there and wait while the ship cools back down, whilst the battle droids do nothing at all. I’d much rather have him be an active agent here, doing something himself to enable his own heroics. I’ve always been surprised that Lucas didn’t go this route, since he established earlier on in the Pod Race that Anakin is such a cool customer that he can repair his own racer while actually flying it.

(And what Star Wars fan wouldn’t want to know what “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” sounds like in Astrodroid language?)

Next, as in the film, we’d cut to the Gungans being defeated…then Padme and others being captured and taken to the Viceroy…then Obi Wan’s battle with Maul, ending with him dangling above a reactor pit…and back to Anakin:

INT: Federation cruiser – hold.

DROID 1: I say we just blast him.

DROID 2: You always want to blast things.

DROID 1: We’re battle droids, and we’re here on the ship during a battle.

INT: Cockpit.

Anakin’s still working on the circuits….

ANAKIN: Conduit to main batteries…transfer circuits on line…Artoo, do we have power?

Artoo beeps. Anakin reaches up and presses the main activation button, and the ship’s control panels light up.

ANAKIN: Wizard! We’re up and running!

He pops back into the pilot’s seat.

DROID 1: Hey! There was a pilot in there after all!

DROID 2: Little short for a pilot.

DROID 1: Never mind! Blast him!

But it’s too late: Anakin has the ship’s shields back up, and the battle droids’ blasters are useless against them. Then Anakin returns fire, blowing the droids apart.

ANAKIN: Let’s get out of here, Artoo!

He grabs the control stick and brings the ship around, but something catches his eye….

ANAKIN: Wait! Those blast doors – why would they have blast doors like that in a cargo hold, unless…Artoo, lock in two proton torpedoes!

Artoo whistles compliance. Anakin depresses the firing switch. Two brilliant white torpedoes streak forth from the ship, one of them blasting a giant hole in the blast doors, the other shooting through the hole, into the REACTOR CHAMBER beyond, and blasting the ship’s main reactor. Almost immediately a giant explosion takes place, bathing the place in flame.

ANAKIN: Ha ha! I knew that was a reactor chamber! Full power, Artoo!

INT: Federation cruiser – series of holds.

Anakin is threading the tiny ship through the series of holds, toward the exit, as the explosions spread behind him.

ANAKIN: Now THIS is podracing!

[I love that line. -Me]

I’d play the rest of this out as it happens in the movie: the Naboo pilots rejoicing, even though they don’t know which of their number has pulled off the victory. Then cut back to the throne room in the Naboo Palace, where the Queen would seize the blasters concealed in her chair and hold the Viceroy at gunpoint. In the original script, the Viceroy says something defiant here as well; I’d restore that thusly:

INT: Theed palace – throne room.

PADME: Now, Viceroy, we shall discuss a new treaty.

NUTE: We shall do nothing of the kind. In minutes my battle droids will break that door down and you will still have lost.

TC-14: Viceroy, I am detecting no signal from the ship.

[Yeah, I’d spare TC-14 from being destroyed along with the Federation cruiser. I liked TC-14.]

NUTE: What did you say?!

Almost immediately they hear the sound of destroyer droids rolling in…but instead of stopping and unfolding, they keep rolling until the smack into the wall and then topple to the ground, useless. Panaka listens to something over his radio.

PANAKA: All jamming has stopped…the battle droids are all deactivated.

Nute glances at Rune, who shakes his head.

RUNE: I told you this would not work.

PADME: Viceroy! About that new treaty.

And back to the Gungan field, where they discover that the droids are now dead in the water (so to speak), and back to the reactor pit for the final moments of Obi Wan versus Darth Maul. I’ve always liked this last bit, and I’d keep it as is. Especially Qui Gon’s farewell to Obi Wan.

In the original script, at this point this little scene takes place, which I like a lot:

INT: Theed – Central Hangar – Day

Ric Olie and the other pilots gather as they exit their ships after landing.

BRAVO TWO: That pilot flew into the hold, behind their shields, and blew their reactor from inside!

BRAVO THREE: They don’t teach that in the academy.

One last ship flies into the hangar and makes a fairly awkward landing. RIC and the other pilots run over to assist the last pilot to arrive.

RIC OLIE: Wait a minute – we’re all accounted for! Who’s the last pilot?

The ship’s cockpit pops open, revealing ANAKIN.

ANAKIN: Am I in trouble?

His only response is a series of slack-jawed stares.

OK. We’re almost done. Palpatine arrives on Naboo in a very well-done scene (for such a hated movie, this flick sure does have a lot of pretty good scenes in it), including his wonderful line to Anakin, “We shall follow your career with great interest.” Then Obi Wan meets with Yoda. I’d include Mace Windu in this as well, for the final major bit of alteration I’d make in the film:

INT: Palace – anteroom.

OBI WAN sits in the sunlit anteroom with YODA and MACE WINDU.

YODA: Done well you have, Obi Wan Kenobi. Considered your actions, we have.

MACE WINDU: It is the will of the Council that what you have done here far exceeds anything you might have undergone in the Trials. Thus we confer upon you the title of Jedi Knight. You are the first battle-confirmed Jedi Knight in almost three centuries. Congratulations, Master Kenobi.

OBI WAN: Thank you, Master Windu.

YODA: But more to say, have you?

OBI WAN: I was not the only one who proved my worth in this battle.

Yoda and mace exchange glances.

OBI WAN: In truth, we would not have secured victory for the Naboo had young Anakin Skywalker not done what he did.

YODA: Considered that, we have. But still: grave danger do we fear if trained as a Jedi is he.

MACE: The Force is stronger in him than in anyone we have ever encountered. He may not be able to control it.

OBI WAN: But if he is the Chosen One?

MACE: That remains to be seen.

OBI WAN: It would surely be more dangerous to leave him untrained when he is already tapping into the power of the Force at his age. And I gave my word to Qui Gon. I will train him.

YODA: Claim him as your Padawan, do you?

Obi Wan nods.

OBI WAN: Qui Gon believed in him. I believe in Qui Gon.

MACE: Then train him. But be mindful.

OBI WAN: I will, Master. I will train him as well as you all trained me.

YODA: Qui Gon’s defiance I sense in you. Your Padawan the boy shall be.

Obi Wan exits, leaving Yoda and Mace alone.

MACE: There is no longer any doubt. The mysterious warrior was a Sith Lord.

YODA: Returned, the Sith have – and sense their return, we have not.

MACE: We must learn how it is that their chain has been reformed after it was broken.

YODA: Always two there are: a master, and an apprentice.

MACE: And if this one was the apprentice, then who is the master?

Now we cut to Qui Gon’s funeral pyre. Obviously, I relocate the exchange about the Sith returning to the earlier scene, leaving the funeral almost entirely dialog free – except for the exchange between Obi Wan and Anakin, which is fine to me.

All that remains is the very last scene, the triumphal parade through the streets of Naboo. I genuinely can’t think of anything to change about this, so I’d leave it alone completely. I like the ceremonial joining of the Naboo and the Gungans, I like the grin Anakin – now a Padawan – gives to Padme, and the grin she gives him in return. I like how TPM ends on a note of triumph, with no one realizing just how short-lived this victory will be. And it’s always impressed me how Lucas suggests that bad things, very bad things, can find their genesis in moments of triumph.

IRIS OUT to Credits.

So, what final thoughts? Over the course of revisiting The Phantom Menace, I’ve actually reaffirmed my original conviction that the movie simply isn’t as bad as everyone thinks it is. Yes, it’s got flaws, but as I’ve always thought, the main storyline is solid and despite those flaws, there’s a lot of very good stuff in this movie.

And with that we take our leave of The Phantom Menace. In a while I’ll start the task of fixing Attack of the Clones. Until then, may the Force be with you!

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part one
part two
part three
part four
part five
part six
part seven
part eight

(The entire series can be read by clicking the Post Label at the bottom of each individual post in the series.)

And now at last we return to our repairs on The Phantom Menace. When last we left our heroes, we had just finished discussing the Midichlorians while our heroes are en route back to Naboo for…whatever it is the Queen is planning.

At this point I’d have a quick little bit with Darth Sidious and Darth Maul:

INT: SITH SPACECRAFT – MEDITATION CHAMBER

Darth Maul is kneeling in meditation in his personal chambers on his ship when a hologram of DARTH SIDIOUS appears before him.

SIDIOUS: Lord Maul.

Maul opens his eyes and bows before his master.

SIDIOUS: You are aware of the situation, then. The political situation on Coruscant has surprisingly changed to our benefit, but the Queen cannot be allowed to claim a victory on Naboo that might yet alter the way things are proceeding here. I have signaled the Viceroy that you will soon be joining him. With your guidance, they cannot be defeated. The Naboo will fall under the armies of the Trade Federation, and you will be free to do what you must. Confront the Jedi, and destroy them.

Maul bows again. Sidious fades from view.

EXT: SPACE.

Maul’s ship is now approaching Naboo.

After that, I’d cut back to the Queen’s ship, pretty much as it happens in the movie (it’s yet another well-directed scene), only with a couple of extra little bits tossed in:

INT. NABOO SPACECRAFT – QUEEN’S CHAMBERS

SABE and EIRTAE stand behind QUEEN AMIDALA as she talks with QUI-GON and Capt. Panaka. OBI-WAN and JAR JAR watch.

PANAKA: The moment we land the Federation will arrest you and force you to sign the treaty.

QUI GON: I agree. I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish by this.

Amidala glances at Padme, who holds her gaze.

AMIDALA: I am going to take back what is ours.

PANAKA: Your Highness, we have no army! There are only twelve of us on this ship, and perhaps we can contact any resistance that has arisen, but we will still be too few.

QUI GON: Obi Wan and I can protect you, but we cannot fight a war for you.

AMIDALA: And your protection will be valued, Master Jedi. Jar Jar Binks!

A puzzled Jar Jar steps forward.

JAR JAR: Mesa, your highness?

AMIDALA: Yes. I have need of a race of warriors, and you will help me.

Next the Naboo ship lands on the planet surface, after they note the Droid Control Ship orbiting. There’s a line in the original script, not in the movie, about the blockade being gone because the Naboo have surrendered. It’s a simple and plausible explanation; I don’t know why Uncle George cut that line out. Maybe he figured everyone else would figure that out? Anyway, I’d leave it in.

The ship lands in the forests of Naboo, and then we have this between Qui Gon and Obi Wan:

EXT. NABOO SWAMP – DAY

The Naboo spacecraft has landed in the Gungan swamp. TROOPS unload the ships in the background as OBI-WAN approaches QUI-GON.

OBI WAN: Jar Jar is on his way to the Gungan city, master.

Qui Gon’s thoughts are elsewhere.

QUI GON: Good.

OBI WAN: What if the Queen cannot convince the Gungans to join her?

QUI GON: Then she is going to fail. But we cannot use our power to help her, when she meets with Boss Nass. We cannot coerce an entire people to war.

There is a brief silence.

OBI WAN: Master, I am sorry for my behavior on Coruscant. It is not my place to question your judgment about the boy. And I am grateful you think I am ready for the Trials.

Qui Gon smiles at his apprentice.

QUI GON: What I said was true, Obi Wan: you have little more to learn from me. I foresee you will become a great Jedi Knight.

When I first saw the movie I was confused when Qui Gon says “We cannot use our power to help her”; I didn’t realize he meant using the Jedi Mind Trick to force Boss Nass to take the Gungans to war. So I clear that up above.

At this point Jar Jar returns and reports that Otoh Gunga is deserted. The original script has Jar Jar arriving there and finding the place completely empty; I wouldn’t mind having that back, since the visuals of the abandoned Otoh Gunga would be markedly different from the vibrant city we saw early in the film. He offers to take the group to the ‘sacred place’ where the Gungans may have escaped to; and sure enough, there they all are. In the movie, this doesn’t look like a giant collection of Gungans, so I’d have the visuals somehow convey the idea of an entire civilization on the run with thousands of Gungans standing around as the talk proceeds. And in this scene, the shoe drops as far as all those meaningful glances between the Queen and Padme. I actually like the way this proceeds in the movie, with one exception: I’d have it seem as though Boss Nass is really on the verge of refusing to help the Naboo before having Padme step forward and announce her identity as the actual Queen. The feeling of hope when Boss Nass agrees to help the Naboo after all would be more real that way.

In the film, there’s yet another scene between Darth Sidious and the Trade Federation guys here. I’d cut it out; we don’t really need to know what it is they’re up to, since we already know what they’re up to, and I have a little problem with Sidious micromanaging things to this extent.

So, I’d cut to the final planning scene before the Battle of Naboo, which starts with Boss Nass expressing his approval of Jar Jar’s conduct while on his various exploits. I’d play this up a bit:

As the others plan for war, Boss Nass steps in beside Jar Jar and drapes an arm over his shoulder.

BOSS NASS: Yousa doin’ well, Binks.

JAR JAR: Oh no, Boss Nass. Mesa doin’ mostly nothing.

BOSS NASS: No! Mesa heard you fought de mechanics. Mesa heard you befriend de Naboo. Wesa here because of yousa. So, I maken yousa bombad General.

JAR JAR: What?

Boss Nass hands Jar Jar a long knife whose hilt is carved in the shape of a fish.

BOSS NASS: Takin’ de Gunga-knife. Yousa a warrior now, Binks.

With that Boss Nass walks off, leaving behind a very stunned Jar Jar. Captain Tarpals comes up from behind.

TARPALS: Yousa finally gettin’ yousa Gunga weapon?

JAR JAR: Uh huh!

TARPALS: Yousa still owin’ mesa fifty goldshells for breakin’ mine.

Jar Jar’s eyes fall, and he hands his new knife to Tarpals, who takes it and walks off, chuckling.

My re-envisioning of Jar Jar’s character arc, you remember, began with him being despondent that he would never be a warrior, and now he’s been made a warrior.

Next there’s all the planning stuff, which goes by pretty quickly and works pretty well for what it is: scene setting for what’s about to come. I like this scene as well, and I’ve always appreciated the way Natalie Portman imbued Padme with the confidence of a Queen in these latter scenes in the movie. Her mask is down, and she is finding her way as the leader of her people. Just after this, I’d make my first major alteration to the final act of the film. We need a scene between Anakin and Padme here, just after the planning scene is done:

As preparations continue in the background, Padme comes over to Anakin, who is sitting with his back to a tree. Artoo stands nearby.

PADME: Are you all right, Annie?

ANAKIN: I’m fine.

PADME: You’re angry with me.

ANAKIN: No I’m not.

PADME: Then why aren’t you looking at me?

Anakin lifts his eyes, and sure enough, he looks angry.

ANAKIN: You could have told me who you are.

PADME: I wanted to. I almost did, several times. But this has been very dangerous for us all, and I couldn’t risk your safety.

ANAKIN: I can take care of myself.

PADME: I’m sure you can, if you’re to be a Jedi.

Now Anakin looks even sadder.

ANAKIN: I’m not sure if I’m going to be a Jedi. They said I was too old. Master Windu kept looking at me like I’d done something wrong just by being there.

PADME: Well, I imagine you are something new to them.

ANAKIN: They said that, too. (beat) So which is your real name then? Padme, or Amidala?

PADME: Padme is my birth name, Padme Naberrie. But I had to take a ceremonial name when I was elected Queen, and I chose Amidala, after the main character in one of my favorite stories from when I was a child. Amidala is my formal name. For you, I hope I am always Padme. (beat) Annie, I should have told you, and I’m sorry I didn’t. But this has all been very hard for me. I am the first Queen to have to deal with something like this since before Naboo joined the Republic. If I haven’t handled parts of this very well, I hope you’ll forgive me.

ANAKIN: I forgive you. I just hope nothing bad happens to you.

PADME: I don’t think it will. I have your gift.

She shows him that she is wearing the pendant he carved for her, and he smiles.

PADME: For luck.

ANAKIN: For luck.

Captain Panaka approaches from behind.

PANAKA: My Lady, it is time.

Padme touches Anakin’s arm.

PADME: Until later?

ANAKIN: Until later.

With that she leaves, heading off for war.

ANAKIN: I guess we’re stuck here, Artoo.

Artoo beeps.

ANAKIN: We have nothing to do.

Artoo beeps again.

ANAKIN: Those speeders sure have large cargo compartments, don’t they?

Now we cut back to the Palace, where the Trade Federation guys are getting a bit antsy:

INT: NABOO PALACE.

NUTE and RUNE are pacing nervously when Darth Sidious’s hologram appears before them.

SIDIOUS: You keep summoning me, Viceroy. Can you not wipe out a tiny band of Naboo without my input on the matter?

NUTE: But Lord Sidious, she has more than a tiny band of Naboo. The underwater dwellers of this world have joined her and are massing an army in the swamps to the east of the city.

SIDIOUS: You summoned me because you are threatened by Gungans? They play at war, but they are no more warriors than you. This is an unexpected move for Queen Amidala, but it will prove foolish nonetheless.

NUTE: Then we have your approval for full reprisal?

SIDIOUS: Wipe them out. All of them.

I always loved the way Ian McDiarmid growled out that last line.

The next thing is the march of the Gungan army. I love the visuals of this brief scene, the first Gungan emerging from the mist and then the army moving onto the plains. The only change I’d make here is that the army would stop and wait, but the Trade Federation droid army wouldn’t arrive…just yet:

CAPTAIN TARPALS: Deysa comin’ soon, then.

JAR JAR: Wesa warriors.

TARPALS: Deysa warriors too.

Jar Jar swallows nervously as he looks at the lines of Gungans arrayed behind him.

And then I would cut to a place on the outskirts of Theed, below the waterfalls, where a series of tunnels cut into the rockface:

EXT: WATERFALLS BELOW THEED.

Six Naboo speeders approach one of the waterfalls, and then slip around the back of the waterfall and into a giant cavern hidden from view by the cascading water.

INT: WATERFALL CAVERN BELOW THEED.

The speeders stop here, and the people inside disembark: Queen Padme Amidala, her actual handmaiden who is still dressed as Queen, Qui Gon, Obi Wan, and thirty Naboo troopers. Directly across from them a passage disappears into the rock.

PADME: These passages are never used anymore, but they will take us up to the main level of the city.

OBI WAN: I only hope Captain Panaka is able to get into position without being seen.

PADME: Panaka is very good, Master Jedi. He will be there. But we must move!

The group vanishes into the passage, leaving the six speeders alone. Suddenly one of the cargo compartments pops open, and out drops Artoo with a metallic THUD, followed by Anakin.

ANAKIN: Sorry, Artoo. I didn’t think the hatch would open that fast.

Artoo whines.

ANAKIN: Well, this is your planet, Artoo. Where do we go now?

Artoo shines a light at the passage into which Padme led her people.

ANAKIN: All right, let’s go.

He grabs a blaster from the compartment. Artoo beeps in concern.

ANAKIN: Don’t worry, I’m a good shot. You have to be on Tatooine, with all those womp rats around. Let’s go!

The point of a lot of this is to address some of the emotional stuff that should have been there in the movie but somehow wasn’t, and to set up Anakin more as a character. Here he already feels a bit of disappointment in Padme in that she didn’t trust him implicitly with her secret, and then we have him acting impulsively by deciding on his own to go to war. And how about that reference to bulls-eyeing womp rats on Tatooine! Am I a geek or what?

Anyhow, that’s where I’ll stop for now. Next time, we’ll tweak the Battle of Naboo a bit, and then we’ll finish the entire movie and have some final thoughts. Tune in again, Star Warriors!

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Returning to repairing The Phantom Menace, we’re still on Coruscant, but not for much longer. Qui Gon and Obi Wan stand before the Jedi council to hear the decision on Anakin’s future. Initially, the Council decides to reject Anakin as a Jedi pupil. I like this scene, but I like how it reads in the original script a little bit more. Here’s how that works, with a few alterations of my own:

YODA: Correct you were, Qui-Gon.

MACE WINDU: His cells do contain a high concentration of midichlorians.

KI-ADI: And the Force is indeed very strong with him.

QUI GON: Then he is to be trained.

The Council members look at one another….

MACE WINDU: No. He will not be trained.

Anakin’s eyes fill with tears.

QUI GON: No?!

MACE WINDU: He is too old, and there is too much anger and fear in him.

ANAKIN: (angrily) I am not afraid!

KI-ADI: Silence, young Skywalker.

QUI GON: He is the Chosen One. You must see that.

YODA: Clouded his future is, masked by his youth.

QUI GON: I will train hem, then. I take Anakin Skywalker as my Padawan learner.

Obi Wan looks on with surprise.

YODA: An apprentice you have, Qui Gon. Impossible to take on a second.

MACE WINDU: The Jedi code forbids it.

QUI GON: Obi Wan is ready.

OBI WAN: (stepping forward) I am ready to face the Trials.

YODA: Ready, are you? What know you of ready?

QUI GON: Obi Wan is headstrong, and he has much to learn of the Living Force. But he is capable. There is little more he can learn from me.

YODA: Our own counsel we will keep on who is ready, Qui Gon. More to learn, Obi Wan has. He still reckless.

QUI GON: No less so that was I, when I faced the Trials.

MACE WINDU: Now is not the time for this. Young Skywalker’s destiny is clouded and will require much meditation to discover. But for now, the Senate is voting for a new Supreme Chancellor, and Queen Amidala is returning home, which will put pressure on the Trade Federation. This could widen the conflict.

KI-ADI: And draw out the Queen’s attacker.

MACE WINDU: Accompany the Queen back to Naboo, and discover the identity of the dark warrior. This is the clue we need to unravel the mystery of the Sith.

YODA: When settled the situation is on Naboo, decide young Skywalker’s future, we will.

QUI GON: I will keep him in my charge. He has nowhere else to go.

YODA: Correct, you are. Keep him safe, but train him not!

MACE WINDU: Protect the Queen, but do not intercede if it comes to war until we have the Senate’s approval. May the Force be with you.

One thing that’s always bugged me about TPM is the way Qui Gon takes Anakin, a ten-year-old kid, into a war zone. Of course, this all turns out well, but he has no way of knowing that. The original script turns out to partially address this problem, which seems to be a recurring theme as I do these posts; to reiterate a point I’ve made before, I really do think that George Lucas tends to shackle himself a bit too strongly to his pre-conceived notion of a proper running time for his movies. My version of TPM would be quite a bit longer, but I don’t think any fans would have complained about that, had certain things in the story been handled more deftly.

Anyhow, the next scene is on the landing platform, where the Queen’s party is getting ready to launch. I like the bit where Obi Wan tries to talk Qui Gon out of his insistence on training Anakin, and Qui Gon’s response that it’s merely Obi Wan’s point of view, presaging Obi Wan’s later bit about point-of-view to Luke in ROTJ. I’d revise the whole scene just a bit:

QUI-GON, OBI-WAN, and ANAKIN stand on the landing platform outside the ship. Anakin is mainly trying to stay out of the way. Technicians bustle about, preparing the ship for liftoff.

OBI-WAN: It is not disrespect, Master, it is the truth.

QUI-GON: From your point of view….

OBI-WAN: The boy is dangerous…they all sense it. Why can’t you?

QUI-GON: His future is uncertain, Obi Wan, as are all futures, including yours and mine. The Council will decide Anakin’s future…that should be enough for you. Now get on board!

OBI-WAN reluctantly boards the Naboo spacecraft followed by ARTOO. A shuttle arrives, bearing the Queen’s party. CAPTAIN PANAKA, SENATOR PALPATINE, TWENTY OR SO TROOPS, GUARDS, and OFFICERS walk briskly toward the ship, followed by QUEEN AMIDALA, PADME, EIRTAE, and finally, JAR JAR. AMIDALA and her HANDMAIDENS stop before the JEDI.

QUI-GON: Your Highness, it is our pleasure to continue to serve and protect you.

QUEEN AMIDALA: I welcome your help. Senator Palptaine fears the Federation means to destroy me.

QUI GON: I promise you, My Lady, we will not let that happen.

Anakin steps forward a bit as the Queen’s party moves by, hoping to catch a glance from Padme, but she and the Queen are busily holding a whispered conference, and she moves past Anakin and onto the ship without even noticing that he’s standing there. Anakin looks a bit crestfallen.

QUI GON: Anakin! Come on board, my boy.

Anakin follows Qui Gon onto the ship. Last to board are JAR JAR and Artoo.

JAR JAR: Wesa goen home!

EXT: Space – Coruscant.

The ship blasts away from the planet and disappears into hyperspace.

Yup, the conversation about the midichlorians is gone from this scene. I’m getting there, but I always thought that was a very odd place to have that conversation in the first place: “Sure, kid, we’re about to lift off and fly back to a war zone, but let me take a minute to explain the nature of the Universe to you.” So we’ll get there in a bit.

Next is a brief scene between Darth Sidious and the Federation guys on Naboo. I’d change this as follows:

INT: Sith spacecraft – meditation chamber.

DARTH MAUL kneels in his dark meditation chamber before a hologram of DARTH SIDIOUS.

SIDIOUS: So the Queen is returning to Naboo after all. This is not what I predicted, but it will work out in our favor. I can use her actions on Coruscant to my advantage. She has changed the political will in the Senate, but she is turning into a random element who cannot be trusted. I will instruct the Viceroy to destroy her when she arrives, but you shall have your way with her Jedi warriors. The Council has become arrogant. It is time for them to feel the wrath of the Sith.

Darth Maul bows as the hologram fades from view.

EXT: Space.

The Sith spacecraft arcs toward the surface of Naboo.

At this point, in the film, the Queen arrives back on Naboo. However, we need to do something first:

INT: Queen’s ship – main hold.

Qui Gon walks past a sleeping Obi Wan, and he stops to glance into a small room where ANAKIN sits, staring at a computer screen.

QUI GON: You are reading about Tatooine?

ANAKIN: There’s not much here. I suppose that’s because it’s not much of a planet.

QUI GON: There is never any predicting which worlds will shape history, Anakin. My own homeworld isn’t much more impressive than yours, at first glance.

Qui Gon sits down beside the boy.

QUI GON: You handled yourself well before the Council.

ANAKIN: They talked about me like I wasn’t even there. And they’re not going to let me become a Jedi. I can’t go back home because I’m free and my mother is still a slave. So what will I do?

QUI GON: You will do what we all do: you will trust the Force to guide you.

ANAKIN: Everyone was talking about destinies and blood and “midichlorians”. I don’t even know what those are.

QUI GON: Well, that is a question that even the Jedi have not settled. Midichlorians are a microscopic life form that exist within all living cells, for the most part. There are only a handful of species in the Galaxy we know of whose cells do not contain them. They live in me, they live in the Queen, in Jar Jar – everyone. They live in you.

ANAKIN: But why are they so important?

QUI GON: Finding people who could become Jedi Knights used to be a matter of instinct. We can sense the Force, and we can feel when we are in the presence of someone who is strong with it. That is what led me to you: I can feel the Force strong within you, as strongly as I have ever felt it with anyone. The problem with relying on intuition, as we did in the past, was that sometimes we were wrong. We would train people as Jedi who simply weren’t powerful enough, or who weren’t strong enough to control the Force. The danger of temptation by the Dark Side was always present. But two hundred years ago, a Jedi scientist discovered that people who are strong with the Force are also host to much greater concentrations of midichlorians in their blood. He could not explain why this was so: are the midichlorians attracted to the Force, or created by it? Why do some individuals with very high concentration of midichlorians in their blood – Naboo’s own Senator Palpatine is one – fail to show any aptitude at all for the Force? And it didn’t help matters that this particular scientist disappeared while on an expedition to a secret planet which he thought to be the birthplace of the midichlorians. Much of his research was lost, and our own scientists have followed his footsteps ever since. And ever since we have used blood samples more than our own intimations of the Living Force to seek out Jedi padawans.

ANAKIN: You say that like it’s a bad thing.

QUI GON: The reliance on midichlorians has its own problems, Anakin. Even those who put great importance on them cannot agree if were are communing with the Force ourselves, or if we are communing with the midichlorians who are in turn communing with the Force. Also, having a high midichlorian count does not necessarily mean that a person is strong with the Force, so much time has been wasted trying to train people who could not become Jedi at all. Naboo’s own Senator Palpatine has an unusually high midichlorian count for a human, and he has never shown the slightest aptitude for the Force. And there are some who believe that the reliance on a simple blood test to choose Jedi means that in a very real way the Jedi have turned away from the Force itself, and have stopped relying upon it to lead us in the way we are supposed to go. My own teacher believed this, and he eventually left the Jedi order because of this disagreement. It is an issue that divides the Jedi to this day.

ANAKIN: What do you believe?

QUI GON: I prefer to trust the living Force. It has never guided me wrong. I only took your blood sample to convince those on the Council who disagree with me on such matters.

Anakin shakes his head.

ANAKIN: I thought the Jedi knew everything.

Qui Gon smiles.

QUI GON: Again, I wish that were so.

OBI WAN sticks his head in the door.

OBI WAN: Master? We are entering the Naboo system.

QUI GON: Thank you, Obi Wan.

He turns back to Anakin.

QUI GON: Anakin, we are heading into a dangerous situation. This planet is at war. We will take you to someplace safe, and you must stay there. I will leave the droid, Artoo, with you. He is resourceful, as able a droid as I have seen.

ANAKIN: Does he have a high midichlorian count, too?

Qui Gon laughs.

So that’s what I’d do with regard to the midichlorians. I wouldn’t strike them entirely from the record, but I’d make them more ambiguous, and thus a part of the background story of why the Jedi have started to fall on hard times. A point that sometimes gets lost is that the Prequel Trilogy does not present the Jedi at their greatest, in their glory, but in a time when they are sliding toward failure, and that they don’t even know it until their fate is already sealed. Positing a division within the Jedi, over something fairly esoteric like midichlorians, would help that notion along.

(By the way, I really like that little aside I throw in there about Palpatine having a high midichlorian count but no apparent Force skill. And the disappearing scientist? There could be a tale there. Maybe the secret planet is Dagobah…and maybe he was killed by Darth Plagueis….)

The truth is, I was never bothered all that much by the idea of the midichlorians. I know that many Star Wars fans actively detest the whole idea, thinking that sticking some sort of half-baked scientific basis for The Force utterly negates all of the pleasant mysticism of the Original Trilogy, but I don’t think it has to be seen that way at all. The problem is that the midichlorian thing in the PT never really goes anywhere, other than to add a bit of nomenclature to something that didn’t really need it. That being the case, I assumed from the outset of their mention in TPM that Lucas had something in mind, someplace he was going with all this midichlorian stuff. It turned out that he didn’t. My supposition is that Lucas was somehow influenced by all those episodes of Star Trek‘s various series in the 1990s, when everything always ended up being explained by a careful appeal to the Subatomic Particle of the Week.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair to Lucas, who has long been interested in Eastern religion and mysticism. Now that I think it over, I suspect that the whole midichlorian thing reflects some of the attempts over the last few decades by various thinkers and writers to showcase parallels between Western science and Eastern mysticism (in books like The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters). So I don’t have a philosophical problem with Lucas’s attempt to blend science and mysticism in the PT per se, but I do have a story problem with it. It doesn’t really help move the story along, and it could have.

That’s probably a good place to leave off for now. The next installment will likely bring my examination of TPM to a close. Stay tuned, Star Warriors!

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Heading back into The Phantom Menace, we now head into what’s always been my favorite part of the movie, the Coruscant sequence. I get the feeling sometimes that I’m alone in my fondness for this part of the movie specifically (in addition to my more general sense of aloneness in liking the movie at all in the first place), but I genuinely think the stuff on Coruscant is well done, interesting, intriguing, and involving. So there.

Just after the good guys escape from Darth Maul on Tatooine, we cut to Naboo, where the droid army reports to Nute Gunray that they are ready to begin searching for the underwater villages of the Gungans. I’d leave this, possibly throwing in a bit more illustration of the hardships being faced by the Naboo. Maybe we could have a short bit where two Palace Guards note that they haven’t yet heard from the Qaueen or Captain Panaka, so their resistance movement can’t proceed quite yet.

Now we’re back to the Queen’s ship. One of the film’s most effective scenes, in my opinion, is the short exchange between Anakin and Padme in the cargo hold. It’s a very well executed scene, especially the way Padme plays the Governor’s faked distress signal, which she would really only do if she was actually the Queen. This is yet another example of a good scene that many TPM detractors seem to ignore.

Next we finally arrive on Coruscant. The opening shots of Coruscant are really beautiful, and I’d highlight it by eliminating the dialogue as the ship comes in for its landing. Ric Olie, the pilot, tells Anakin that the entire planet is one big city, and points out Senator Palpatine’s shuttle. None of this is necessary; I’d simply have Anakin gazing with slack-jawed wonder, and maybe some fear, at the spectacle of a planetwide city as the ship approaches the landing bay. After the ship lands, I’d have Qui Gon lean over to Anakin and say something like, “From Tatooine to Coruscant is quite a change, Anakin. But you need not be afraid.” To this point Anakin’s been brave and confident, but I’d start to show that weakening a bit in the face of the grandeur that is Coruscant.

After landing, we have the introduction of Queen Amidala to Chancellor Valorum and so on, with the knowing wink from Padme to Anakin. We don’t know it yet, but this obviously means that the “Queen” here is the double, which seems partly odd, but I’m fine with it. I honestly would change almost none of what comes after. Many fans feel that there is too much concern in the PT with politics, but frankly, the politics of the Republic are one of the things that make me love the PT as much as I do; Lucas really gave the story a different focus in these films, as opposed to the fairly simplistic Rebellion-versus-Empire dynamic of the OT.

So what would I change then, if anything? Well, when Qui Gon reveals his suspicion that the boy he’s brought from Tatooine may be “the Chosen One”, I’d alter the dialogue a bit:

QUI GON: With your permission, Master Yoda – I have encountered a vergence in the Force.

YODA: A vergence, you say?

QUI GON: The boy I brought here from Tatooine, the one whose actions saved us there. He is a very strong child, with enormous will, and his reflexes are such that he is able to control a pod racer. And his blood cells have the highest concentration of Midichlorians I have ever seen in any life form. He may even have been conceived by the Midichlorians.

MACE WINDU: You are citing the Midichlorians, Master Jinn?

QUI GON: The Council and I have disagreed in the past on these matters, but I cannot deny what I have seen. Anakin Skywalker is unique. The Force is extremely strong with him. [Pause] I believe he may be the Chosen One.

YODA: The Chosen One? Restore balance to the Force, you believe he will?

KI-ADI: [this is the Jedi Master with the cone-shaped head] Not all of us are convinced that the Force is out of balance, Master Jinn.

QUI GON: It was the Living Force that brought me to Anakin, Master Ki-Adi. I was meant to find him, of that there can be no doubt. And I was attacked by a Sith Lord on that world as well. If the Force were in balance, the Sith would not have returned.

MACE WINDU: We are not yet certain that the Sith have returned, Master Jinn. Remember that. These are dangerous matters.

QUI GON: Then, Master Windu, I request that you test the boy.

Silence for a moment as everyone digests this.

YODA: Trained as a Jedi you would have him, then?

QUI GON: He may become the most powerful of all Jedi, at a time when the Dark Side is rising again. Yes, I would train him, with the Council’s blessing.

The council members look back and forth from one another. Then:

MACE WINDU: Bring him before us, then.

Qui Gon bows and exits. Mace exchanges a concerned look with Yoda.

One constant refrain of the PT is that the Jedi, for all their outward confidence and bluster, are almost always wrong, almost always one step behind, and it leads them ultimately to ruin. It gets missed, sometimes, and here I’d draw a sharper line underneath the real divisions within the Jedi ranks, and highlight their disagreements. Plus, I’m setting up the later inevitable discussion of the Midichlorians.

OK, so Anakin goes to visit Padme to say goodbye, since he expects to become a Jedi Padawan now. Instead, Padme is “on an errand”; only the Queen is there, preparing for her appearance before the Galactic Senate. She tells Anakin “I am sure her heart goes with you”. Later on, of course, we’ll learn that this actually is Padme, but she can’t reveal herself yet. No, I do not think that Padme spends the entire film hiding in the background while her body double plays the part of the Queen. I think, through most of the Coruscant sequence, that Padme is actually doing the part of the Queen herself. She’d have to. She couldn’t allow her body double to do these tasks.

Now we turn our attention to the Galactic Senate itself. Again, a lot of fans find this scene terminally boring, but I was utterly fascinated by it, first by the sheer visual of it all, that immense rotunda that focuses attention on the Chancellor on his central rostrum. I would, though, add in some of the original material from the script that was probably left out for pacing reasons. Some of this stuff makes more clear the procedural type of thing that goes on in the Senate, and it also makes more clear the fact that Palpatine is manipulating events to a certain (great) extent.

PALPATINE: If the Federation moves to defer the motion…Your Majesty, I beg of you to ask for a resolution to end this congressional session.

AMIDALA: I wish I had your confidence in this, Senator.

PALPATINE: If we fail to convince the Senate to stop the invasion here, then we have no choice but to force a new election for Supreme Chancellor. I promise you there are many who will support us, many who hold no love for the Trade Federation and who may fear to be next in line if their invasion succeeds. This will be our only chance.

AMIDALA: Surely the Chancellor will carry our motion.

PALPATINE: Remember, Your Majesty, the Chancellor is greatly weakened now. He is too distracted from his true duties and will be of no help.

VALORUM: The Chair recognizes the Senator from the sovereign system of Naboo.

The Naboo congressional box floats into the center.

PALPATINE: Supreme Chancellor, delegates of the Senate. A tragedy has occured on our peaceful system of Naboo. We have become caugt in a dispute you’re all well aware of, which began right here with the unfair taxation of trade routes, and has now engulfed our entire planet in the oppresion of the Trade Federation.

A second box rushes into the center of the Senate. It is filled with Federation trade barons led by LOTT DOD, the Senator for the Trade Federation.

LOTT DOD: This is outrageous! I object to the Senator’s statements!

VALORUM: The Chair does not recognize the Senator from the Trade Federation at this time. Please return to your station.

LOTT DOD reluctantly moves back to his place.

PALPATINE: May I present our recently elected leader, Queen Amidala, who has come to Coruscant at great personal risk to speak on our behalf.

Queen Amidala rises to the microphone.

AMIDALA: Honorable representatives of the Republic, distinguished delegates, and Your Honor Supreme Chancellor Valorum, I come to you under the gravest of circumstances. After weeks of refusing to allow the Trade Federation to seize control of shipping in our system, and after resisting a forced blockade of our planet, the Naboo system has been invaded by force. Invaded…against all the laws of the Republic by the Droid Armies of the Trade…

LOTT DOD: I object! There is no proof. This is incredible. We recommend a commission be sent to Naboo to ascertain the truth.

VALORUM: Overruled. A commission can serve no purpose other than delay.

Amidala glances at Palpatine, who holds up a finger and mouths, “Wait.”

LOTT DOD: Your Honor, you cannot allow us to be condemned without reasonable observation. It’s against all the rules of procedure.

A third box representing Malastare moves into the center of the room. AKS MOE, the Ambassador, addresses the convention.

AKS MOE: The Congress of Malastare concurs with the honorable delegate from the Trade Federation. A commission must be appointed. It is the law.

VALORUM: The point is….

He is interrupted as VICE CHAIRMAN MAS AMEDDA hastily whispers into his ear. Palpatine, in turn, whispers to the Queen.

PALPATINE: Enter the bureaucrats, the true rulers of the Republic, and on the payroll of the Trade Federation, I might add. This is where Chancellor Valorum’s strength will dissapear.

That sort of thing. The scene should convey a bit more strongly the level of dysfunction in the Galactic Senate, but for the most part, it’s a scene that I like very much to begin with. I know that a lot of people find the political stuff boring, but I’ve never been one of them.

As an aside, it’s interesting to consider the implications here of how the Republic functions in the first place. It’s tempting to see it as something like the United States or Great Britain, as far as the functioning of a central parliamentary body, but if that were the case, TPM would thus be based on the equivalent of North Carolina blockading Wyoming. Clearly the Senate has much less power than we might otherwise suspect, and equally clearly, the people of the Republic are likely increasingly frustrated with this state of affairs, which makes Palpatine’s rise to power all the easier.

Anyway, back to the film. After Chancellor Valorum realizes that he is about to be swept from power, we cut back to the Jedi Temple, where Anakin’s testing is being done. Qui Gon and Obi Wan have a conversation that strongly implies that Qui Gon has in the past defied the will of the Council, and that he may be doing so again with regard to Anakin. This is a nice little scene; nothing needs changing here. Then we’re into the Jedi Council chamber, where Anakin is meeting with the Council.

I’ve never been able to decide if I like the little bit of testing that the film shows. Mace Windu is holding a screen which flashes by some images which Anakin has to try to identify simply by using the Force. This works well enough, I suppose, although it seems a bit too much like a standard ESP test than something more mystical, more “Jedi” in nature. But Anakin doesn’t use a lightsaber yet, so it’s not like they can have him fight some remotes. I don’t know. After this, there’s a bit of quizzing, in which the Jedi Masters indicate that Anakin misses his mother and fears losing her. I like quite a bit of this, although I’d stretch it just a bit. (Also, frankly, this is one scene were Jake Lloyd falls short a bit. He needed a stronger directorial hand in this scene, especially when he’s supposed to show a bit of frustration when Yoda points out that he is afraid to lose his mother.)

YODA: How feel you?

ANAKIN: Cold, sir.

YODA: Afraid, are you?

ANAKIN: No, sir.

MACE WINDU: Afraid to give up your entire life for the hard path of a Jedi? Afraid to possibly give your life itself?

ANAKIN: I – don’t think so, sir.

YODA: See through you, we can.

MACE WINDU: Be mindful of your feelings.

KI ADI: Your thoughts dwell on your mother.

ANAKIN: I miss her.

YODA: Afraid to lose her, you are.

ANAKIN: (a little angry) What’s that got to do with anything?

YODA: Everything! Fear is the path to the Dark side of the Force. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.

MACE WINDU: To be a Jedi is to set aside love and family. You will not be able to see your mother again, and you surely already know this. Your fear springs from it.

ANAKIN: I am not afraid!

YODA: The deepest commitment, a Jedi must have. The most serious mind. Much fear, I sense in you.

ANAKIN: I am not afraid.

YODA: Perhaps you should be.

Note the echoing of a line from The Empire Strikes Back, following a similar exchange when Luke Skywalker insists that he isn’t afraid of becoming a Jedi, either.

Next we cut back to the Queen’s apartments, after a brief series of effects shots depicting sunset on Coruscant. This brief effects sequence, lasting no longer than ten seconds, is one of the most beautiful sights in any Star Wars film. After this comes a very short exchange of dialogue between the Queen and Jar Jar Binks. This little bit here is exactly what I always though the film needed with respect to Jar Jar: less of him being Mr. Whacky Hijinks, and more of him just being a character. Nevertheless, I’d revise and extend this material a bit, in keeping with my original intent of focusing upon Jar Jar’s status as a “proto-warrior”.

INTERIOR: Palpaltine’s quarters – twilight.

QUEEN AMIDALA walks in and moves to the window, where she gazes sadly upon the glittering cityscape. JAR JAR, who had been dozing in a chair, snaps awake.

JAR JAR: Mesa not sleepin!

AMIDALA: It’s all right. I didn’t mean to disturb you.

JAR JAR: Oh. Disen okeydey.

Jar Jar comes to the window as well.

JAR JAR: Disen maken me think of Otoh Gunga, when de lights stretch out into the undersea.

AMIDALA: It is beautiful, in a way.

JAR JAR: Yousa thinken yousa people gonna die?

AMIDALA: I don’t know.

JAR JAR: De Naboo are too peaceful. Gungans no going without a fight. Wesa warriors. Is dat why you no liken us?

AMIDALA: It’s more that we just don’t know you.

JAR JAR: Maybe den when disen being over, wesa be friends.

AMIDALA: Perhaps.

At this point, Captain Panaka enters with Palpatine, reporting that Palpatine is one of three Senators up for election as Chancellor. I like this scene, especially Palpatine’s openly naked ambition, as he plays his part very well as a minor Senator who has not expected to be this close to seizing the leadership of the Republic itself. Also interesting is his reaction to the Queen’s decision to return to Naboo; clearly he has expected her to remain on Coruscant until the dispute on Naboo is resolved, now that she’s arrived in safety on the Galactic capital.

I’ll have more to say about this in the next couple of installments, since we’re reaching the final act of TPM, but it’s always interested me how Palpatine is willing to adapt his plan all along, at every point where he needs to. It’s hard for this film to make it clear, since he’s operating in the shadows as Darth Sidious, but Palpatine throughout the PT keeps his eye on the prize and never allows himself to get sidetracked, all the way to his naming himself Emperor.

And that’s where we’ll stop for now. Next time, we’ll wrap up Coruscant, head back to Naboo, and finally address those pesky Midichlorians. Tune in!

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Marching on in our re-examination of The Phantom Menace, we resume the Tatooine section of the film.

But first, a digression of sorts is called for. In comments to the last post, Jason opined that in TPM Anakin is too young, and should have been older: ten or eleven, perhaps. I’ve actually waffled on this quite a lot, and I’ve generally settled on these thoughts.

First: Well, the general thrust of this series isn’t to completely reinvent the Prequel trilogy, and recasting a major role would certainly be a significant step in that direction. My overall view is that the Prequels are unjustly maligned, and part of what I’m trying to do isn’t just to kvetch about the stuff I didn’t like, but also to call attention to the stuff that I think works very well in these movies. Aside from a couple of awkward line readings, I’ve not had a problem with Jake Lloyd as Anakin. (I have long held the view that given his long history of directing children with great results, if ever Steven Spielberg was going to direct a Star Wars movie, this would have been the one.)

Second: An underlying theme of the PT is that bad things can happen when people are forced into certain roles before they are ready to play them. Anakin’s not ready to be a Jedi, he’s not ready to be the greatest of all Jedi, he’s not ready to be a magnificent war leader, he’s not ready to be a personal confidant of the Chancellor of the Galactic Senate, and so on. He gets overwhelmed easily, and that’s a big part of why he falls to the Dark Side of the Force. And why does he get overwhelmed? Because he’s never really given a chance to mature. On that basis, I think it makes sense that we first meet him as a child. His love of Padme is never more than childish, and since that’s the main catalyst of his embrace of the Dark Side, that’s where it has to begin.

So yeah, I’d leave Anakin as he is in the movie. I can see the case for making him older, but I don’t think that enough is really gained in doing that to make it worthwhile.

OK. When we left off, we’d just finished “Dinner at the Skywalker House”, where it was decided that Anakin would race his new pod racer in an attempt to win the parts for the stranded ship. I actually like a lot of what follows, and I really wouldn’t change much of any of it at all. Qui Gon arranges the race with some cavalier betting with Watto in a very nicely done scene. There’s a good exchange between Padme and Qui Gon, where Padme attempts to use her royal rank to question Qui Gon without actually revealing her royal rank, and I’ve always assumed that Qui Gon had a good idea that Padme was really the Queen when he tells her “The Queen trusts me judgment, and you should too.” Then the bit between Qui Gon and Watto, which is another well-done scene. I particularly like this exchange:

QUI-GON: I have acquired a Pod in a game of chance. The fastest ever built.

WATTO: I hope you didn’t kill anyone I know for it.

Qui Gon’s knowing smile in reply to this is terrific.

Next we’re back at Casa Skywalker. Anakin’s building of the pod racer, Qui Gon’s discussion of Anakin’s nature with Shmi, Anakin’s growing fascination with Padme: I think that all of this stuff works pretty well, and about the only change I’d make would be to eliminate the bit with Jar Jar getting his hand stuck in the engine of the racer. (I’d keep the bit with his tongue getting zapped by the energy binders, because I actually think that’s kind of funny, as is C-3PO’s observation that “This Jar Jar creature is rather odd”.) I particularly like how open Qui Gon is with Shmi as to his suspicions about Anakin and the Force, as well as Anakin’s excitement when he gets his racer’s engines going. It’s scenes like this one, actually, that make me wonder just why so many people are so visceral in their loathing of TPM. There’s really lots of good stuff in the movie, if you’re willing to see it.

I would, however, make a small alteration to the dialog between Qui Gon and Shmi:

QUI GON: Where is his father?

Shmi hesitates.

SHMI: There…was no father.

Qui Gon cocks an eyebrow.

SHMI: I can’t explain it. I was not with a man when – I conceived him, carried him, and he was born.

QUI GON: No one said anything?

SHMI: I am a slave. No one ever says anything.

QUI GON: Does he know?

SHMI: No. He thinks that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter. He is smart…perhaps I would tell him, but I do not know what to say.

QUI GON: Nor do I.

I always liked the way Anakin’s birth was made mysterious like this. I remember some critics pooh-poohing the notion back when the movie came out, under the notion that it made Anakin’s story too Christ-like, but virgin births are not unheard of in folklore and myth beyond the tale of the birth of Jesus, and George Lucas surely knew that. All I wanted to add here, really, was to explain a bit of Anakin’s sense of who he really is. (And the lie as to his father’s identity mirrors the lie later told to Luke by Owen Lars. Yeah, that’s a little geek-moment.)

Then there’s the little night-time scene when Qui Gon takes a scan of Anakin’s blood and beams it to Obi Wan for a midichlorian count. What to do here? Well, we’ll get to the meat-and-potatoes of the whole midichlorian thing later on in another post, but for now, I’d have Obi Wan react with some surprise here:

QUI GON: Analyze this blood sample I’m sending you.

OBI WAN: Yes, master.

QUI GON: And I need a midichlorian count.

Obi Wan hesitates.

OBI WAN: Master – did you say that you need a midichlorian count?

QUI GON: Yes.

OBI WAN: But in the past you’ve said–

QUI GON: I know what I’ve said, but something is out of place here. Please analyze the sample.

OBI WAN: Yes, Master…scanning now…and the result is….

QUI GON: Obi Wan?

OBI WAN: This reading is off the chart. Over twenty thousand per million. That’s a higher concentration than in any other Jedi on record.

QUI GON: Even Master Yoda and Master Windu.

OBI WAN: What does this mean?

QUI GON: I’m not sure yet. Keep the ship safe. I will check in tomorrow.

OBI WAN: Yes, master.

What happens here is that I hint a bit that the midichlorians are a bit of an issue with Qui Gon, for one reason or another. I always liked how in this little scene Lucas left the midichlorians unexplained for later on, and I’d do the same thing. My issue is the way he ends up explaining them, later on, and we’ll get to that in good time. Note how I also give the reading result (“twenty thousand”) a bit more context by providing a secondary figure to establish the concentration.

(Meanwhile, Darth Maul lands on Tatooine and sends out his probe droids. I wouldn’t change this at all.)

OK, so now it’s the next day, and Anakin and friends bring the pod racer to the hangar bay before the race. Again, I like this scene as well, particularly the bit where Padme discovers that not only have they put their hopes on this boy in this dangerous race, it’s a race that he’s never even finished. Qui Gon’s cheating at the die roll is nice, too.

A bit of a digression here about the nature of the Jedi. I remember when the movie first came out, some people were disturbed that Qui Gon would lie to Anakin about the blood sample (“I’m just scanning for infections”) and that he would use the Force to rig the throw of a die. Basically, Qui Gon isn’t totally honest in situations that call for less than total honesty. There seems to be an idea among many that the Jedi aren’t just noble warriors, but that they’re basically, to borrow a bit of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons terminology, paladins. The Jedi are supposed to be pure as the driven snow, morally, and Qui Gon’s actions look bad in that light. Personally, I think the “Space Paladins” view of the Jedi is incredibly faulty: they’re not perfect individuals, by any means, and a recurring theme in the prequel trilogy is that the fall of the Jedi comes as much from their own failures at introspection as from the activities of the Sith. (This is actually a theme I wish Lucas would have pushed farther and harder, and it’s a theme I’ll be discussing in depth when this series finally reaches Revenge of the Sith.)

Well, anyway, we finally get to the central part of the whole Tatooine sequence: the pod race. Believe me when I say that there is exactly one major change I’d make to this entire chunk of the film. Yes, I’d remove the bit with Jar Jar and the flatulent eopie. I can’t imagine what made George Lucas think that was a good idea. But as for the rest, I’ve loved the pod race in its entirety ever since I first saw the movie on opening day in 1999. Those racers are impressive vehicles, and I love the entire idea, as an action sequence, and as a logical bit of Star Wars lore. Tatooine is depicted as a world fascinated with going at great speeds over its wide vistas, which makes perfect sense since there’s not much else to do there at all. Anakin’s love of pod racing is later passed onto his son; not pod racing specifically, but Luke’s own fascination with speed and accuracy. Pod racing is the clear antecedent for Luke’s bulls-eyeing of womprats in his T-16.

Anyhow, yeah: I love the pod race. I love how the sequence starts with the usual brassy music one expects from a John Williams score, but once the race itself begins, the music vanishes, only to return at the very end when Anakin and Sebulba are neck and neck and Anakin’s racer is succumbing to Sebulba’s sabotage. And the whole sequence is very nicely edited, as well; everything that happens is perfectly clear, and when Anakin has to make a repair while racing, it’s easy to see what he’s doing as he’s doing it. (First he snuffs out the fire, then he re-routes power so that he can fire up both engines again. It’s all handled with nothing but visual cues and no dialog; Anakin doesn’t start narrating his own actions for us.)

As the pod race ends, I’d make one small change: it’s not exactly clear why Sebulba’s racer fails spectacularly, especially on the DVD when the image is reduced to TV-size. His energy binders (those tendrils of electricity that keep the two engines aimed in the same direction) fail, but we don’t really see why. I’d add something here, maybe something like Anakin chucking a loose tool into Sebulba’s engine or something like that. In fact, I’d definitely make it something like that, or even have Anakin, in a moment of rage at Sebulba, inadvertently use the Force to snap off a key part of his opponent’s racer. Something to suggest a little bit of the Dark Side waiting in this boy’s heart.

So Anakin crosses the finish line, and the crowd goes wild. There’s a terrific little moment here that always makes me smile, even though I think the effect may not have been intentional on Lucas’s part. In Anakin’s pit area, his two buddies (Kitster, the human, and Wald, the Rodian) are celebrating, but if you watch, it’s terribly awkward. The two kids try to high-five, but they hilariously miss the coordination of it, and thus they end up slapping their hands into empty air while the other is standing there doing nothing. It’s pretty obvious that the actors here weren’t on the same page as to how they were doing their celebrating, and yet, there’s the shot, in the final cut of the movie. I can’t believe that this was Lucas being inept or bumbling; I suspect that he knew full well that he was putting a bad take into his movie when he made the final edit. Here’s the thing: if you go to actual sporting events and pay attention to the behavior of the fans in the stands, this sort of thing actually happens. I’ve seen lots of guys awkwardly try to figure out in the heat of the moment if they’re bumping fists or high-fiving or hugging or whatever when something really good befalls the side they’re rooting for. Maybe this is actually just a mistake in the movie that nobody caught, but to me, it’s totally true to life, and since Lucas made the pod race into an entire sporting event complete with announcer, I prefer to believe that this little shot is here intentionally.

As for the rest of the aftermath of the race, I think it, too, works pretty well. (I’d ditch the fact that Jabba fell asleep during the race, though.) Qui Gon’s brief talk with Watto, in which he collects his winnings, is very well done. (Very nice is that one of Darth Maul’s probe droids flies by in the background, and thus picks up the scent.) Also nicely done is the brief bit where Qui Gon meets with Obi Wan as the Queen’s ship begins preparations for liftoff and repairs. Obi Wan’s line, “Why do I suspect that we’ve picked up another “pathetic life form”?” would already be set up by the line I gave him earlier in the movie (during the submarine-through-Naboo sequence), and then Qui Gon goes to fetch Anakin.

This scene, however, is a bit problematic. Anakin’s decision to leave is handled way too quickly, and he should really be a lot more conflicted about it. We should see him agonizing for a few minutes about whether he should leave his mother or not:

ANAKIN: But Mom, I can’t just leave you here.

SHMI: Yes you can, my darling! My place is here. I will be fine. You know that aside from his gambling, Watto is a good master. And you know that this is the chance you have, right now, to leave this world and see the stars. There is a bright center to this Universe, Anakin, and this is the planet that it’s farthest from. Who knows if a chance like this will ever come again?

ANAKIN: But —

SHMI: No, Ani. You must go.

QUI GON: We must be underway now, Anakin. Our task is still urgent. Go and get what you need.

ANAKIN: I don’t have much.

He runs off.

QUI GON: I will look after him.

SHMI: I always knew that he would leave one day. I just didn’t think it would be when he was so young.

QUI GON: This is when it is best. When the world still has wonder for him.

SHMI: He will be a very powerful Jedi, won’t he?

QUI GON: He may be the most powerful of us all.

Something like that. (Shmi echoes a line that will later be uttered by Luke Skywalker.) Cut to Anakin’s farewell to C-3PO (another bit I like a lot), and his departure from his home. I’d limit the final goodbyes to just Shmi’s line, “Go now, and don’t look back. Don’t ever look back.”

(The original script has a small scene where, as Qui Gon returns to collect Anakin, he comes across Anakin fighting in the street with a Rodian who turns out to be a young Greedo. This scene seems to have some geek love behind it, but I don’t think it adds anything, so I’d leave it out. I’d also leave out some of the extended farewells Anakin has, such as the one with his buddy Kitster. I also recall vaguely – I might be completely wrong, actually – some fan speculation that Kitster would later grow up to become Boba Fett. Obviously that didn’t happen, and I wouldn’t make it happen here, either.)

OK. Qui Gon and Anakin are making for the ship when Darth Maul attacks them from behind. This scene thrilled my geek heart when I saw it, because a sequence very much like it was evident in a number of Lucas’s first drafts of Star Wars, way back in the early 1970s. This all works pretty well, although I’d draw out the fight between Qui Gon and Darth Maul a bit, and I’d retain something from the script, where after Qui Gon jumps onto his ship’s entry ramp, Maul would try to follow but only get knocked back to the ground as the ship lifts up and out into space.

In the final moment of the film’s Tatooine sequence, we have the introduction of Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. This is yet another of those small moments in TPM that I love, and I wouldn’t change it at all, not a single bit. I always appreciated how Lucas didn’t take this portentous meeting and underline it with a huge magic marker for the audience; isn’t it true in life that the people we meet who later become so important to us are people we meet casually, so much so that in some cases we don’t even recall those first meetings at all? That’s great stuff. “By the way, Obi Wan Kenobi, meet Anakin Skywalker.” That’s great (especially Ewan McGregor’s expression of “Sure, hey, how you doin'”).

And with that we’re done with Tatooine. Next time we’ll check back in with the doings on Naboo and look at the Coruscant section of the film.

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And here we are again, taking stock of The Phantom Menace. When last we left our heroes, they had escaped Naboo and were now en route to Tatooine seeking repairs to their ship without which they’ll never make it to Coruscant. They are unaware that the true menace behind the Trade Federation’s invasion of Naboo is actually a pair of Sith Lords, who are even now working to figure out where they’ve escaped to.

So, let’s jump right into it. In the movie, we cut from the awful scene between Jar Jar and Padme (which I replaced in the last installment with a scene between Obi Wan and Padme) directly to the landing on Tatooine. Instead, I’d move the later scene between Darth Sidious and Darth Maul, on Coruscant, to this point.

EXT: CORUSCANT – SKYSCRAPER – BALCONY

Darth Maul walks along the balcony beside his master, the shrouded Darth Sidious.

SIDIOUS: You have done well, my apprentice. The tracking information you discovered makes clear the direction the Jedi took the Queen, and the sensor data indicate that their hyperdrive had been damaged. Therefore they will be seeking repairs, and there are only three systems on that heading where they might have gone. Inspect each system until you find them. Kill the Jedi, and bring me the Queen.

Darth Maul bows his acquiescence.

SIDIOUS: The Jedi have never suspected that the Sith have returned, but the time has come to reveal ourselves. At last we shall have our revenge.

Here’s something I’ve always thought about TPM: Darth Maul should never speak. He only has two or three lines in the entire movie, and those are dubbed by some actor with a fine British accent, and it frankly clashes with his appearance. Maul should be as mysterious as possible, and it would help immensely if we never hear his voice at all. So all of Maul’s dialog? Gone. He’s all about the body language.

So now I’d cut back to the Queen’s ship landing on Tatooine. I like this entire sequence, really, and I’d only make a couple of cosmetic changes:

:: The shot of the ship approaching Tatooine from space should make a bigger deal out of the planet’s twin suns. That’s the iconic nature of Tatooine, and the suns vanish from the screen too quickly.

:: I like Jar Jar’s complaint that the sun is “doing murder on mesa skin”, but I’d move it to later in the Tatooine sequence, after he’s been in that sun for a while.

One thing I’ve always liked about the sequence in the film is the way Captain Panaka looks less than enthusiastic himself about the Queen’s “request” that “her handmaiden” accompany Qui Gon and Jar Jar into Mos Espa. I would only add a bit of reflection on Qui Gon’s part: after he initially refuses to take her, and Panaka says “The Queen wishes it, she’s curious about the planet”, I’d have Qui Gon look at Padme for a long moment and have her return his stare, unflinchingly. Again, suggesting that there’s more to this handmaiden than meets the eye. And then it’s off to Mos Espa.

First off, let’s get this out of the way: I’m a Jar Jar fan, but there should be no stepping in bantha droppings. I’m far less bothered by that than by the flatulent eopie later on, but still, while my version of Star Wars isn’t about to turn the franchise into a gritty space opera version of The Matrix or Blade Runner, I’m not going to keep potty humor around.

However, Qui Gon indicates before they leave for Mos Espa that “This spaceport is not going to be pleasant”, so I’d make it actually unpleasant. There doesn’t have to be a whole lot here, but little glimpses of stuff here and there to make clear what kind of place they’re entering. Maybe two pilots beating the stuffing out of a third who owes them money, or a drunken spacer leering at Padme, or beggars in the streets. Stuff like that. The script even says that they pass ‘dangerous looking citizens of all types’, but little if any of that reaches the screen. I’ve always been a bit surprised that Lucas didn’t do any of this kind of thing, because it’s always been clear in his movies that he knows his Westerns, and Western tropes tend to play a large role in various Star Wars films. (I wouldn’t go so far, as some would, to claim that the original ANH is a Western with spaceships instead of horses, but it definitely has some Western-style stuff going on in it.)

Anyway, Qui Gon, Padme, R2, and Jar Jar go into a junk dealer’s shop and meet Watto. Qui Gon tells Watto what he’s looking for, Watto says he’s got just what Qui Gon needs, and he and R2 follow Watto out back to do some haggling, leaving Padme and Jar Jar in the shop, where Watto’s slave boy keeps them company. This, of course, is Anakin Skywalker, and he’s meeting the only woman he’ll ever love.

So here’s where it starts. What would I change about this scene? Only one tiny thing: when Anakin asks Padme if she’s an angel and she says, “What?”, he tells her this:

ANAKIN: An angel. I’ve heard the deep space pilots talk about them. They live on the Moons of Iego I thimk. They are the most beautiful creatures in the universe.

In the script, Anakin goes on:

ANAKIN: (continued) They are good and kind, and so pretty they make even the most hardened spice pirate cry.

I actually like the entire exchange that comes after this. Anakin’s a boy with dreams and talents, and he also has an eye for beauty. It fits nicely that at the heart of his eventual fall into the ultimate ugliness lies one of the most beautiful women in the Galaxy.

As a brief aside, for all the vitriol tossed George Lucas’s way as a director, he handles this scene really well, I think. What really helps is that Anakin’s question, “Are you an angel”, comes out of left field; he just says it, matter-of-factly, meaning every word of it. There was no earlier moment in which he walks in, looks at the radiant girl, and gasps; there’s no “meet cute” here. Just a confident boy who doesn’t know that he’s not supposed to be this confident about anything, who starts talking.

Oh, and I’d leave in the bit with Jar Jar messing with the stuff in the shop and getting in trouble; I like how Anakin and Padme are talking away, completely ignoring Jar Jar’s attempts to juggle machine parts.

Qui Gon fails to strike a deal with Watto, and he heads on his way, dragging the others with him. While Watto says something to the effect of “I’m the only dealer in this town with the parts you need,” it would have been nice to see a quick montage of Qui Gon dragging his companions all over Mos Espa, from dealer to dealer, confirming this for himself. Toward the end of the day, they’d be heading back to the ship, dejected and wondering what to do (here’s where I’d have a noticeably sunburned Jar Jar complaining about the Tatooine suns, along with Qui Gon’s conference with Obi Wan via comlink, with Obi Wan’s quip about selling the Queen’s wardrobe), when they’d come across Anakin again.

(Oh, I almost forgot: yes, I’d ditch Anakin’s “yippee”. That just doesn’t work.)

Now, I’m not wild about the bit with Jar Jar sneaking a bite, and then having said bite flying across the cafe and landing in Sebulba’s soup. That was just a bit too slapstick for my tastes (at least, for my tastes in a Star Wars movie), so I’d have something else happen. Maybe Jar Jar could accidentally wander into the path of Sebulba’s speeder, causing the alien to swerve out of the way and hit a building or something. Anyway, the rest of this works fine too.

Anakin takes his new friends to his home, in order to shelter them from the coming sandstorm. Again, I like the ensuing sequence, although the initial part is a bit hard to follow, what with Anakin jabbering excitedly to Padme while Qui Gon’s trying to introduce himself to Shmi Skywalker. That needs to be ironed out and directed better, I think; I’d have Anakin wait patiently while Qui Gon introduces himself, and then I’d have him sent away by his mother in one of those “We grown-ups need to talk” moments.

Next we learn that Anakin Skywalker actually made C-3PO. I know that this vexes a lot of SW fans, but I’m not one of them. I kind of like the ominous tone this fact lends the line in ANH when Threepio, being lowered into the oil bath, says, “Thank the Maker!”

Meanwhile, back on the Queen’s ship, a transmission comes through from Naboo. It’s the governor, Sio Bibble, with news that things on Naboo are getting very bad. “The death toll is catastrophic! You must contact me!” Obi Wan sees this for a trick, an attempt to establish a trace by their enemies, and orders them not to respond at all. I would just change it thusly, a little bit:

BIBBLE: (static-garbled) …cut off all food supplies until you return… the death toll is catastrophic… we must bow to their wishes, Your Highness…Please tell us what to do! If you can hear us, Your Highness, you must contact me!

The Queen, terribly nervous, glances at Panaka.

PANAKA: Open a channel for response!

OBI WAN: No! Open no channel. The transmission is a trick. If we respond, they will be able to trace the transmission and learn where we are. Send no reply, no transmission of any kind. I know it will be hard, Your Highness, but you cannot respond.

Now we cut back to dinner at Anakin’s, where Qui Gon begins to hatch his crazy scheme to get engine parts out of Watto after all: he’ll appeal to the junk dealer’s love of gambling. This whole scene is very nicely done; I particularly like Liam Neeson’s delivery of the line “I wish that were so” when Anakin claims that nothing can kill a Jedi. The only change I’d make here? Well, yeah: Jar Jar’s frog tongue. This actually does serve a narrative purpose – it establishes what Qui Gon’s just said about Jedi reflexes allowing Anakin to fly a pod racer – but really, by this time we should have a pretty good idea as to what Jedi reflexes are capable of, right? Out that goes.

So it’s night at Casa Skywalker, and Qui Gon would speak with Obi Wan on the commlink. Obi Wan tells Qui Gon about the transmission, asks what if the Naboo are dying, and Qui Gon replies, “Either way, we’re running out of time.”

This is where we cut to Coruscant, and Darth Sidious talking with Darth Maul. As noted above, I’d replace this scene with another conference between Sidious and Nute Gunray on Naboo:

EXT: NABOO – PALACE GROUNDS.

NUTE stands on a veranda with RUNE and a captive SIO BIBBLE as a Droid Captain reports. Behind him, several more droids hold three Naboo guards captive.

DROID CAPTAIN: These men have been caught inciting resistance among the citizens of Naboo.

NUTE: Execute them, Captain.

DROID CAPTAIN: Yes Viceroy.

The droids take the men away.

BIBBLE: You cannot kill us all, Viceroy.

NUTE: I trust it will not come to that.

DOFINE comes rushing up, holding a holo-projector.

DOFINE: Lord Sidious, Viceroy.

NUTE: Ah.

He takes the projector and activates it, causing a hologram of SIDIOUS to appear before them. BIBBLE is highly perplexed.

NUTE: Lord Sidious. The occupation goes well.

SIDIOUS: As well it should, Viceroy. And soon victory shall be ours. My apprentice, Darth Maul, has traced the Queen’s ship to Tatooine, a system in the Outer Rim. He is on his way there now. When she returns, you will force her to sign the treaty.

NUTE: It shall be done, My Lord.

SIDIOUS fades; NUTE turns to BIBBLE.

BIBBLE: Who–

NUTE: So you see, Governor, the end to this affair is near.

Bibble now looks fearful.

And after that, we return to Tatooine, for the first hint of something that would vex Star Wars fans more than any other thing in TPM, with the sole exception of Jar Jar Binks. So, in our next installment, we shall discuss Midichlorians. Until then, may the Force be with you!

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Wow, it’s been a long time since I updated this series, so let’s get right into it, shall we?

When last we left our heroes, they had just blasted their way out of the hangar bay on Naboo and are now heading toward space, in an attempt to get to Coruscant where Queen Amidala hopes to be able to gain the support of the Chancellor in the matter of her world’s invasion by the Trade Federation.

Now, before getting back into matters of script, a brief digression about visual effects. I’ve never been one to lament the rise of computer-generated effects in place of photographing models and stop-motion animation and the like of effects-laden-movies past, but there’s one area of TPM that’s always bugged me slightly, effects-wise, and it’s the movements of the ships. Well, one ship in particular: the Queen’s ship, which for some reason never really seems to have any real weight about it.

I assume that the Queen’s ship is roughly the size of the Millennium Falcon or the original Blockade Runner. But in the OT, when those ships were onscreen, they seemed like real, physical objects. The Queen’s ship always looks to me like a construct instead of an object. Just the way it tears out of the hangar bay and streaks upward into the sky in a perfect curve, achieving velocity seemingly the second it clears the doors of the hangar. Contrast that with all those times we saw the Millennium Falcon lift off from various locales; it always had to gather up a head of steam, so to speak, as we might expect a large vehicle to have to do in a planetary environment.

Oddly, this problem of the ships having “weight” only seems to really afflict the chrome-hulled cruisers of Naboo in the OT (except for the ship that lands on Coruscant at the opening of Attack of the Clones, which also happens to be my single favorite ship from the entire PT; how sad that it was only in about a minute of screentime!). The problem doesn’t even extend, in my view, to the Naboo starfighters, so why this one ship really stands out as moving in a totally unworldly way has always vexed me a little bit.

You know what else bugs me about the ships in the PT? The fact that none of them have names. Most of the really important ships in the OT had names: Millennium Falcon. Executor. Avenger. Slave One. Tantive IV. Not so the PT, unfortunately. Giving this ship a name would have really enhanced the personality a bit.

So anyway, back to the script stuff. The escape from Naboo always seems to take a bit too little time for me, with too little sense of desperation. It seems, frankly, too easy. Mostly, this is a matter of pacing, since all the elements are there: the ship is under heavy fire, the shields are knocked out, the astrodroids deploy to fix the shields but start getting picked off, R2-D2’s first heroic moment in the Star Wars saga, the escape into deep space. There’s a lot of good stuff there, and I like the sequence as is, but it frankly could be better. It’s this sequence, actually, that to me represents the greatest evidence that when making TPM George Lucas was, frankly, out of practice as a film maker. The editing here lets him down, when it’s editing that is Lucas’s strong point. Comparing this escape sequence with that of the Millennium Falcon from the Death Star in ANH is illustrative.

So what does the sequence need? More heft, frankly. This is the first space-based action sequence in the movie, and as such, it should stand out more than it does. Here’s also a place where a toned-down Jar Jar could be used for small comic effect. This is how my version of the escape from Naboo would take place:

EXT: SPACE

The Naboo cruiser is powering through the upper atmosphere.

INT: COCKPIT

COMMANDER RIC OLIE sits in the pilot’s seat, with two co-pilots flanking him. Standing behind him are QUI GON and CAPTAIN PANAKA.

RIC OLIE: They’re still jamming our communications. Start calculating a course for Coruscant.

INT: MAIN HOLD.

OBI WAN leads JAR JAR into a cramped room where six astrodroids are in sleep-mode. Jar Jar’s color is way off, his ears are drooping more than normal, and he moans as he holds his stomach.

JAR JAR: Mesa sorry! Mesa never fly before.

OBI WAN: Well, we past some closets coming down here. The Queen has more gowns.

JAR JAR: Ohhhh….

OBI WAN: Stay in here, and keep quiet. And don’t touch anything.

Obi Wan turns and exits, leaving a moaning Jar Jar to sit down on the floor and put his head between his legs.

JAR JAR: Disen not my day.

INT: COCKPIT

CO-PILOT: Look!

RIC OLIE: I see them.

PANAKA: What is it?

RIC OLIE: Federation ships, two of them. Moving to cut us off. (to co-pilot) Activate our shields.

One of the Federation ships fires a couple of warning shots at the Naboo cruiser, which lightly rocks under the fire.

QUI GON: Perhaps you should accelerate to attack speed.

RIC OLIE: Attack speed? This isn’t a Jedi attack ship! You’re flying aboard the Queen Marisma the Golden, the Capital Cruiser of Naboo! [I plucked the name “Marisma” out of thin air. -Ed.]

Another burst of fire from the Federation battleship rocks the Marisma.

PANAKA: Commander, fire all thrusters. We’re never going to run that blockade like this.

RIC OLIE: Captain, this ship–

PANAKA: Commander, on my authority as the Queen’s personal Captain of Naboo Security, I order you to fly this ship in any way you need to! Get us through that blockade, Commander!

Ric Olie stiffens, and now his inner “gritty war pilot” starts to come out. He turns back to his console.

RIC OLIE: Transfer all auxiliary power to the secondary thrusters. We need more speed. And put all power in our front shields. They’re not shooting at us from behind!

The sounds of the engines, deep in the ship, become more powerful and insistent. The lights dim as the power is diverted, and everyone shifts stance as the ship accelerates.

INT: MAIN HOLD.

The Queen’s entourage is holding on for dear life. The Queen’s gaze is locked on that of her earlier Handmaiden.

INT: DROID ROOM.

Jar Jar lifts his head, and then ducks it again.

EXT: SPACE

The Marisma‘s thrusters fire anew, and the ship picks up speed.

INT: FEDERATION BATTLESHIP – BRIDGE

DOFINE stands at the shoulder of a scanning operator.

DOFINE: They can’t expect to run our blockade in that ship, can they?

SCANNING OPERATOR: They are accelerating to attack speed.

DOFINE: All guns fire!

EXT: SPACE

Now the Federation Battleship starts blasting away at the Marisma. The Naboo ship is stuck several times.

INT: COCKPIT

Panaka and Qui Gon have to hold on for dear life as the ship lurches under heavy fire.

INT: MAIN HOLD

The Queen and her entourage are in fear as the lights flicker.

HANDMAIDEN: We’re closing on the blockade.

The Queen nods.

INT: DROID ROOM

Jar Jar is literally trying to become one with the floor.

INT: COCKPIT

Obi Wan enters and has to grab a handhold as a fresh volley of laserfire jolts the ship again.

RIC OLIE: Our shield generator’s hit!

CO-PILOT: Activating astrodroids.

He presses a button.

INT: DROID ROOM

Jar Jar is whimpering on the floor when all six astrodroids suddenly snap to life and begin. Now he has to leap up and get out of the way as the astrodroids emerge from their cocoons and begin heading for an exterior airlock.

JAR JAR: Ohhh, what next!

He stumbles on the leg of one particularly familiar blue astrodroid and falls to the floor. The astrodroid whistles at him as it enters the airlock, from where it is ejected onto the hull of the ship.

EXT: SPACE

The six astrodroids are all clustered around an open portal into the ship’s systems, where they are trying to repair some obvious blast damage. The Federation Battleship’s bombardment continues, and one droid is blasted right off the hull almost immediately, quickly followed by another. The BLUE DROID is busily connecting wires while a third of his comrades is blasted away.

INT: COCKPIT

Obi Wan is watching the progress of the astrodroids via a video monitor.

OBI WAN: We’re losing droids fast.

RIC OLIE: If we lose them all before they get the shields back up, they’ll have us.

PANAKA: Keep flying, Commander.

The ship lurches again, particularly violently this time.

EXT: SPACE

One of the astrodroids is literally shaken loose from the hull of the ship by the latest impact, and tumbles shrieking into space. Now only two remain.

INT: DROID ROOM

Jar Jar is trying to pull himself up, via a handle on the wall. Unfortunately, the handle is to a parts locker, which pops open and dumps all manner of machine parts on top of him.

EXT: SPACE

The Marisma is now flying across the surface of the Federation Battleship. The two droids are still working feverishly on reconnecting the shield generators.

INT: FEDERATION BATTLESHIP – BRIDGE

SCANNING OPERATOR: I have them in range for precision cannons, sir.

DOFINE: Fire!

EXT: SPACE

A fresh volley of Federation cannonade blasts the fifth droid into atoms, leaving just the BLUE DROID working on the ship. Somehow the blue droid actually manages to evade several near laser blasts while he connects the last of the wires. Sparks fly as the power flow is restored, and the blue droid lets out a whistle of triumph.

INT: COCKPIT

RIC OLIE: Our shields are back up! The droid did it!

EXT: SPACE

The Marisma streaks away from the planet, leaving the Federation blockade in its wake.

INT: MAIN HOLD

The Handmaiden glances at a computer screen and sees the Federation ships receding in the distance.

HANDMAIDEN: We’re away!

INT: COCKPIT

RIC OLIE: Prepare for jump to hyperspace. Lay in your course for Coruscant.

CO-PILOT: We can’t, sir! The hyperdrive took a direct hit. We don’t have enough power to get all the way to the central systems.

PANAKA: We got through the blockade but now we can’t get anywhere?

QUI GON: Obi Wan.

OBI WAN: Yes, Master.

Obi Wan sits down at a vacant screen and starts looking through navigational charts. He quickly hones in on one system.

OBI WAN: We can go into the Outer Rim, Master. There’s a system called Tatooine. Small, poor, mostly out of the standard shipping lanes.

QUI GON: Which means no Trade Federation presence there. Excellent.

Captain Panaka glances at the screen and reacts strongly to something he reads there.

PANAKA: Tatooine is controlled by the Hutts! You can’t take Her Royal Highness there! If the Hutts capture her–

QUI GON: A calculated risk, Captain. But the Hutts aren’t looking for her, are they? In their eyes we will be as everyone else in their worlds: travelers who are looking to repair a broken ship and be on our way. They need never know the Queen is there.

INT: DROID ROOM

Jar Jar is rubbing his aching head when the Blue droid comes back inside from the airlock. The droid surveys the scene – a sick Gungan and parts strewn all over – and whistles as he shakes his dome-head.

JAR JAR: Sorry.

The Droid emits a whistle of disdain.

OK, that got pretty long-winded, but I make no apologies. So there. The basic notion is that there should be a palpable sense of desperation here, of danger.

Next up comes another scene where the Trade Federation baddies report to Darth Sidious. In the original script, Sidious orders Nute Gunray to “destroy all of the Naboo high-ranking officials, slowly and quietly”. I like that and would restore it to the film. Then he asks if the Queen has signed the treaty, and Gunray has to admit that she has not: the Queen has escaped and that they can’t track the Naboo ship, but Sidious says that the Sith can, and here we meet Darth Maul. I’ve always liked this scene, and really the only change I’d make would be to restore the afore-mentioned line about the high-ranking officials and an addition to the exchange at the very end, after the two Sith have faded from view:

NUTE: This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!

RUNE: We should not have made this bargain. What will the Jedi do when they become aware of these Sith Lords?

What I like about a lot of this stuff is that it starts to become clear that the Trade Federation is also in the dark as to what’s going on just why they’re doing what they’re being told to do. They’re losing the plot as it were.

Also, I’ve always loved the way Darth Maul’s hologram appears, looming over the shoulder of Darth Sidious; at that exact moment, John Williams’s score has this ominous figure intoned by the low brass. It’s a terrific entrance.

Meanwhile, back on the Naboo cruiser, we’re officially introduced to R2-D2 and the Queen is briefed on what’s going on now. I like this scene as is, and the only change I’d make would be to have the Queen in a different outfit, since my version of the escape makes clear that Jar Jar had thrown up on the old one.

And now, we arrive at what I hold to be the single worst scene in any Star Wars movie, and by a good margin. It’s a very brief scene, really, but it’s gobsmackingly bad. Padme (the handmaiden) is cleaning R2-D2 as ordered by “the Queen”, when Jar Jar pops in and gives a brief summation of the day he’s had. He’s all cheerful and bubbly and it’s basically just another bit of Jar Jar when, really, none is needed. Particularly bad, though, is Padme’s line, “You’re a Gungan, aren’t you?” I always feel as though Jar Jar’s response should be something like “Yousa know any other races of orange-skinned amphibians native to Naboo?”

The scene is nothing more than filler, to take up space between “We’ve got to get to Tatooine!” and “We’re on Tatooine!”. Nothing wrong with filler, per se; I’ve always felt, for instance, that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring could have used some kind of filler between the escape across the Brandywine River and the arrival at Bree. But this particular filler scene is just awful. I squirm every time I see it. This little scene is, to me, the best piece of evidence in favor of people who claim that George Lucas’s problem in the PT is that there’s nobody around to tell him when something in his movie is crap on a stick. And as much as I love Uncle George, there’s just no getting around it: this scene is crap on a stick.

So, how to fix it? Simple: no Jar Jar. This scene should have Obi Wan in it. Here’s my version:

INT: MAIN HOLD

PADME enters, now dressed in simple working garb. She walks toward R2.

OBI WAN: (offscreen) Watch your step!

PADME stops cold and realizes that she was about to stumble over a sleeping JAR JAR, who is sprawled across the floor. She smiles at Obi Wan as she steps over the Gungan. Obi Wan is sitting at a table, with his lightsaber in pieces in front of him. She sits at the table opposite him and takes up a cloth; R2 whistles and rolls over for his cleaning.

OBI WAN: I tried getting him to sleep in a bunk, but he says he prefers the floor.

PADME: Gungans like hard surfaces. Once when I was – with The Queen on a diplomatic meeting with them, we all had to sleep on their floors. Our backs ached for a week afterward.

Obi Wan cocks an eyebrow but lets her minor slip pass.

PADME: Did you make that weapon yourself?

OBI WAN: No. The making of one’s own lightsaber is part of the final trials before one becomes a full Jedi Knight.

PADME: You are not a Jedi Knight?

OBI WAN: I am Master Qui Gon’s Padawan learner. But don’t fear, Miss…

PADME: Padme.

OBI WAN: Don’t fear, Miss Padme. I am almost ready to undergo the trials myself, and Qui Gon is one of the greatest of all Jedi. You are in good hands.

PADME: Which is why we’re here, instead of in a Federation prison camp on our own planet.

She sighs.

PADME: We must find a solution to this problem quickly. The Naboo are peaceful people, but we have been used to our freedom for a thousand years. Being imprisoned will destroy the spirit of my world in a very short time.

OBI WAN: What is the nature of your dispute with the Federation? I’ve been trying to understand what could have motivated them to a blockade and an invasion, but it makes little sense to me.

PADME: That’s because it makes little sense. We are an old world, but we are not terribly rich. Naboo is known more for its artisans and its scholars than its traders. There is little the Federation stands to gain by taking control of our shipping lanes. It won’t make them that much richer than they are already, and it won’t put them in any better position than they are now to establish themselves in the Outer Rim. Perhaps there is something deeper at work here. Our Galactic Senator, Palpatine, has told us of intrigues in the Senate that have drawn even him, a relatively junior delegate from a small world far from the Galactic center, into various factions who are constantly competing for power and influence on Coruscant. I fear that Naboo has become a mere pawn upon a very complex game board.

Obi Wan has been listening to this in fascination, as he begins putting the last pieces of his lightsaber back together.

OBI WAN: I must say, you have a very keen mind, Miss Padme. The Queen chooses her handmaidens well.

She smiles at him, a bit mysteriously, and he rises from his chair and holds his saber at arm’s length.

OBI WAN: Ah, that should do it.

He presses the button, and the saber ignites, with its brilliant blue blade. But the blade’s hum is oddly high-pitched, and the blade itself is only about twelve inches long. He frowns as he deactivates it and sits back down.

OBI WAN: Well that’s not right.

Padme laughs, and R2 expresses his mirth with a series of whistles.

Something like this would give Obi Wan some needed screentime in the middle section of the film, as he disappears a bit. (That never really bugged me, but still, the character does get slightly shortchanged.) It also keeps his role as Padawan learner in perspective a bit, as well as flesh out a bit of the progression from Padawan to Jedi Knight. The bit about a Jedi finally making his own lightsaber reflects Luke Skywalker’s own lightsaber-making in Return of the Jedi: in the OT, Luke is never an “official” Padawan learner, and yet he still in some ways undergoes the same tests required of an actual Padawan making his transition to Jedi Knight.

(By the way, I’ve always wondered why all lightsabers are the same length. Why not a lightdagger? Or Jedis jousting from the backs of some big beastie while wielding a twelve-foot-long lightlance? Now there’s an idle thought for another time.)

Also, this version of the scene establishes that there might be a bit more to this particular handmaiden than meets the eye, as well as gives a bit of background to the entire political situation. One of the things that always intrigued me about TPM was the way that the entire plot on Naboo, in the end, doesn’t really matter that much at all; Palpatine is able to get what he wants whether his schemes for Naboo are successful or not. He is playing a game with Naboo as one of his pawns.

In fact, this is a larger theme throughout all of the PT, and it’s one I’d emphasize a bit more strongly than George Lucas did. It tends to get missed a bit, but virtually all of the intrigues and battles and conflicts throughout the PT are basically diversions constructed by Palpatine/Sidious to keep the Jedi from seeing what’s really going on until it’s far too late for them to do anything about it.

And that’s where I’ll end for now, since this got more long-winded than I’d originally planned. Next time we’ll meet the boy who over the course of his life will save the Galaxy, destroy it, and save it again. On to Tatooine!

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