OK, over in this thread folks are bashing away at Episode I. This prompted me to think a bit about the film and a couple of nagging questions that I’ve always wanted answered. So, if any Star Wars gurus out there can answer these, I’d be most grateful:
Is the Trade Federation a governmental body representing a specific planet? They appear to be one race, and they apparently have a seat in the Senate. But the name implies an OPEC-like cartel. What gives?
The whole pretext for the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo is the taxation of trade routes. Who is taxing whom here? Is Naboo taxing trade from the Trade Federation? Is it vice versa? Where does one entity get the authority to tax interstellar routes? Wouldn’t that power lie exclusively with the Senate?
Presumably, Palpatine is using the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo to provide a pretext for his installation as Chancellor. For that to work, he needs Amidala to call for a no-confidence vote. So why is he (as Darth Sidious) sending Darth Maul to stop her? You’d think he’d want her to have a quick, easy flight to Coruscant.
What the heck did Sidious/Palpatine offer the Trade Federation? They apparently thought the invasion was to their advantage. Sidious, et al, didn’t provide any direct assistance to them that I can see. Why do they need Sidious? Why wouldn’t they just invade on their own?
A lot seems to be riding on Amidala refusing to sign the Trade Federation treaty. If she decides to capitulate, then Palpatine’s plans are screwed – he doesn’t get the no-confidence vote, and thus doesn’t get elected Chancellor. Is he just assuming she’ll be defiant, or is there something really, really bad in the treaty, or is he just a big gambler?
To echo one of HubZilla’s comments from the other thread, who elects a 14-year old queen? What could her platform possibly be?
Please, no answers along the lines of “because Lucas is an idiot.” Let’s shoot for genuine, geeky, we-can-all-make-it-work-somehow kinds of answers. Also, no TPM bashing; the other thread will serve that need nicely. And, of course, please add your own plot hole questions as you see fit.
Mind if I ask another question along the same lines, Dewey?
In TESB, Luke receives his Jedi training. Han & Leia are dodging through the asteroid field, hanging out in a monster’s tummy, etc.
Does training to be a Jedi only take a day or so? Or is it some weird time-continum thing? Or were Han & Leia just stuck on that asteroid for a lot longer it looked like?
I’m not sure that there are any real answers. Here is my take on this poorly executed movie.
The Trade Federation is apparently both a corporation and the legal government of one or more systems. Apparently the Republic allows a wide variety of member state governments. In addition they also seem to have monopolies or virtual monopolies on some trade routes outside their systems.
The taxation was decided by the Senate. Beyond that we seem to have no info. It is likely that the Senate included clauses allowing systems to override the law with local treaties. Thus the TF is apparently trying to get a better deal than the Naboo were required to give them.
Palpatine was not originally trying for the Chancellorship. Originally this seems to be nothing more than a relatively minor power play. Making the TF reliant on him. They get some minor economic benefit but sell their souls to him for it. As the TF seems to be a major player in galactic politics, Sidious gains power. However the plan blows up in his face and instead he is forced to make a greater power play than originally intended. Basically the queen and Jedi force him to up the stakes. He gains the Chancellorship, but reveals his presence to his real enemies, the Jedi. Given that the TF apparently knows something about him, he is likely to be unmasked.
Sidious/Palpatine offered political backing. While the TF was a major player in the Senate, Palpatine apparently has enough influence to “make the invasion legal.”
Palpatine seems to be ‘a player.’ When the rewards are there he is willing to take risks. And when the situation spins out of control, he reshapes it so that although his allies get burned he does not.
The election of a queen raises a lot of questions. It is possible that the election was along the lines of the election of Holy Roman Emperor, a limited field of candidates and a position for life. We are not given a great amount of detail as to what powers this ‘elected queen’ might have, but she seems fairly tightly in control. She has to sign the treaty; she won’t condone an action that leads to war; she makes an alliance with the Gungans. In all she seems to have a lot of power. We see no examples of Naboo being a democracy, but it is called that. So it must be assumed that there is some sort assembly to counter balance her.
As I said these are somewhat just guesses, but I think they are close to the mark. I wish Lucas had made a better movie. You can see hints of the earlier movies but generally, I found Ep 1 to be pretty flat and uninteresting.
Oreo, in TESB the action takes place in 3 separate systems: Hoth, the one the asteroid field is in but I don’t remember the name to, and Bespin. Even given that two of the systems might be a far binary pair (the asteroid field might have been an outer planet ripped apart by the two suns), at least one stellar leg was made using slower than light travel. Even if they were in a fairly tight star cluster and even if the Falcon has unbelievably powerful engines, this is likely to take a year or more (although Han and Leia would have experienced time dilation). Thus there is plenty of time for Luke to have a year or more of training and still have plenty of time to rescue his friends.
The Falcon’s hyperdrive was flaking out at the time, right? I always figured that, after escaping the asteroid monster and floating away with the Imperial garbage, the Falcon couldn’t travel at full light speed (or perhaps could only do so intermittently) thus lengthening the time it took to reach Bespin. Just my WAG. (I see on preview that Bartman agrees somewhat).
Bartman, your point (also made in the links posted by Genseric) is a good one, but doesn’t explain the pursuit by Darth Maul. Assassinating the Queen on Naboo is one thing – it could be blamed on the Trade Federation if need be, and Palpatine could use that atrocity as a play for Chancellor. Killing her on another planet entirely would raise a lot of suspicions, though, and wouldn’t provide any benefits. Why pursue her to Tatooine? Once she’s escaped, why not just let her reach Coruscant unscathed?
The explanation I got for this is that originally Naboo was a monarchy with Amidala as Queen. Then, Lucas decided that Republics/Democracies were “good” and Empires/Monarchies were “evil”. So, he changed Naboo to a democracy but left the royal titles. (Titles were established in the first movie, remember “Princess” Leia who was also a Senator?)
I don’t think he thought the concept of an elected monarch completely through. There is no evidence of a parliment, congress or other elected body on Naboo to balance the Queen’s power, nor does there seem to be a clear chain of command to determine who is in charge when the Queen isn’t around.
From this, it looks like Naboo is a monarchy pure and simple. It’s called a democracy just so we’ll know that they’re the good guys.
Ok, maybe this has been asked before but…
When ben and qui-jin (?) were fighting the destroyer droids in the beggining, they decided it was a standoff and then moved/ran extremely fast to get out of there. However at the end when ben is racing the force fields to get to qui-whatever, he runs at a normal pace. What is up with that?
Why doesn’t yoda or the other jedi sense palpatine if he is indeed sidious?
Is palpatine sidious? Thier noses and chins look different to me.
at the end when the queen enters the chamber with the viceroy she is captured by destroyer droids and she tells her group to drop their guns. then they are distracted by the false queen while she grabs the guns from the thone and captures the viceroy. my question is “what happened to the destroyer droids?” did they chase the false queen (i didnt see them) and if they did wouldn’t they kill the false queen. there didnt seem to be any defense for them. even the jedi knights turned to sissies when they came after them.
side question: when the 2 brave knights are running from the destroyer droids. dont they turn transparent as they run down the hall?
3rd question: where are the babes in this one? a little naboo T&A would have won me over.
WOW! A post of mine was referenced in a new thread! Hooray for me! Do I get one of those crystal ball things that Boss Nash got? Or the medals Luke and Han (but not Chewie?) got?
Most of my questions on that thread were meant to be a bit flippant. But I did have a serious question about Jedi codes and ethics:
“So it’s wrong to use Jedi powers to steal a hyperdrive that will get the Queen on her all-important trip to Coruscant. It’s also wrong to use Jedi powers to whisk away Anakin and his mom from outlawed slavery. It’s also wrong to use Jedi powers to unite Naboo’s forces against the enemy. HOWEVER, it is okay for two Jedis to gang up on a Sith apprentice?”
It seems like Ep2 will have a 2 goodies vs 1 bad guy saber battle, too. I figured a “code of honor” would make it one-on-one, at least with the good guys.
I thought that Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s running really fast when the destroyers stopped them from entering the Trade Federation ship’s control room was an editing decision. It looks more like they sped up the action for the actors so they wouldn’t have to cut back on their special effects effort with the destroyers. Just a WAG, but… Yoda and the others on the Jedi Council can’t easily sense the “Dark Side” of the Force because it is so foreign to them. They can sense the use of the Force by someone around them or they can sense another Jedi’s presence only if they had previously known the other person (or creature) as a Jedi. Thus Darth Vader in A New Hope could sense that Luke was strong with the Force but didn’t know who he was while still being able to identify Obi-Wan’s presence. He later was able to sense Luke’s presence (The Empire Strikes Back) because he knew Luke’s Force disturbance “pattern”.
Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow
I got the impression that Darth Maul was trying to stop Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon from further interfering in Darth Sidius’s plans, not trying to kill the Queen. If the Jedi were allowed to stay with the Queen they might have been able to stop the blockade and even uncover Senator Palpatine as the instigator of the whole affair. He had to make the presence of the Sith know sooner than he planned to keep the Jedi from accidentally foiling his rise to power.
vote for which royal family rules the planet at a particular time?