My friends and I are watching
Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Every Tuesday, we will be featuring an episode from the series which
began in 2008 (as opposed to the one that started in 2003). All are welcome to join us for all or parts of the fun.
Episode: "Blue Shadow Virus"
Series:
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Season 1, Episode 17
Original Air Date: February 13, 2009
Biological warfare rears it's ugly head in "Blue Shadow Virus." Dr. Nuvo Vindi, in the employ of the Separatists, has weaponized a disease once eradicated throughout the galaxy. Padmé and Jar Jar stumble upon his lab and become his prisoner. Obviously, Anakin, Obi Wan, Ahsoka and company must rescue them and neutralize the weapon.
It's time we discussed Padmé in greater depth. I've never been quite sure what to make of her myself. Leia's description of her to Luke in
Return of the Jedi - "Kind, but... sad" - is one of the more beautifully human moments in the entire saga. Padmé is not the adventurous type, preferring the quieter, more subtle arts of diplomacy. She has badass capacity, as we saw in "Bombad Jedi." But in stories like "Blue Shadow Virus," she is a mere damsel in distress. The genius of Leia, particularly in the original movie, is that she is both at the same time. I don't feel
Star Wars has ever quite managed that with Padmé. She's different from her daughter and that's as it should be. Still, I'd like Padmé more if she had more of an edge to her. Perhaps she needs to be as close to pure good as possible to contrast with what Anakin will become?
Padmé is an occasional side character in
The Clone Wars - not much time for development. Even so, I'll be interested to see what new insights these stories might bring regarding her.
Padmé is voiced by Catherine Taber. Taber was born December 30, 1979 in Georgia. In addition to all of the cartoons and video games one normally sees on a voice actor's resume, she has had a couple roles in live action films:
The Girls' Room,
Just Like Heaven and
The Morningside Monster.
If you would care to join us for all or part of our travels, sign on to
the list below. Please visit the other participants today.
Next week: "Mystery of a Thousand Moons."
Where can I catch this show? I know Cartoon Network used to air cartoon versions.
ReplyDeleteI'm watching via Netflix streaming.
DeleteI think what they work with most with Padme is her idealism. She can't help but act on it.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's certainly a quality she shares with Leia. Star Wars is such a patrilineal saga. It would be interesting for some enterprising storyteller to follow the female line more closely.
DeleteNeed to find this show.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered about Padme ?
It seems she is the person who is there to help move the story along.
And I always expected more from her character from the one line of Leia's.
It was so expressive and made me want to know more, But I feel they just
use her as a plot point.
cheers, parsnip
Yes, you have articulated the problem well, I think. There's a lot more story to explore with Padme and, so far at least, no one has.
DeletePadme is very undeveloped in the movies. We know very little about her past and family and the character suffers for it. There's lots of potential so I hope the Clone Wars got into it.
ReplyDeleteWe shall see...
DeleteI agree. How can such a beautiful woman be down-played as one who would wear pearls and iron shirts?
ReplyDeleteRight?
DeleteI never did understand how Leia knew anything about her mother as she died on child-birth. Unless there were some holos available for Leia to watch.
ReplyDeleteExcellent question! Maybe the Force enhances your prelingual memory. But then, why wouldn't Luke remember, too?
DeleteThere's actually an easy answer to this question: Originally, Lucas intended that Leia went to Alderaan with her mother and lived with her for several years before her mother's death.
DeleteThis is one of the only issues I have with the prequels, because you can't talk your way around the disconnect between what happened in Sith and what Leia tells Luke in Jedi.
That's the answer. I'm not sure it qualifies as an "easy" answer - quite the awkward answer, in fact. Sort of like explaining away the early sexual tension between Luke and Leia. Okay, maybe not quite that awkward...
DeleteFrom my understanding, that was, um, intentional. Luke and Leia being siblings was always the plan, but he didn't want anyone to know, hence the "she's beautiful."
DeleteI don't know why they had to kill off Padme. All the Emperor had to do was tell Vader he killed her. Or better yet, the Jedi could have just put Padme into hiding and declared she was dead. I think would have made just as much sense.
DeleteI agree with you, Jeffrey. In fact, squirreling Padme away somewhere would have created another interesting story tangent to explore someday, too.
DeleteBut instead, she lost the will to live. As Robot Chicken said, "Are we living in the dark ages?"
DeleteWhich also annoyed me. She just gave birth to two children, and she lost the will to live? So, she had no motherly instincts then? Of anything in the new trilogy, that bothered me the most.
I think Andrew would agree with you.
DeleteFor me? The greatest sin of the prequels? It's a sin of omission: no everyman character a la Han Solo.
@Jeffrey: Yeah, that was the one thing that bothered me. To a certain extent, all the other changes from the original ideas made sense, but having Padme die right there (and completely invalidating that whole scene in Jedi) was like, "D'oh!"
DeleteThanks for the Padme discussion, gentlemen. This has been fun. Looking forward to tomorrow.
DeleteOH, one last point. I also hated how they duplicated the scene from Frankenstein for the Darth Vader scene at the end. Really, really annoyed me. The only saving grace the ending had was seeing R2-D2 and C-3PO arrive on the Tantive IV.
DeleteI have yet to dissect any of the movies beyond the original on the blog. Perhaps I should do that before long.
Delete