The Hermit's Journey. To arms, prequel defenders, to arms!

[GandALF]

Nevermind the fact that the entire setup was cringy and fakey as hell.
We clearly see a blockade of dozens of those ships at the beginning, but by the end somehow miraculously all the other ships have buggered off for no good reason conventiently leaving only a single ship, because when facing an enemy with no single point of failure we have to blatantly manufacture one! And not even give a good justification for it!

A blockade should be encircle the entire planet anyways.

Once the droids have all the spaceports locked down then the orbital blockade becomes unnecessary and the other ships can be moved away leaving just the control ship in orbit. That's why they need the Gungans as a distraction so they aren't overwhelmed by reinforcements, and the one battleship is shown to be pretty adept at fighting them off anyway.

Sorry, if you are defending prequels, then you are part of the problem - you are one of the reasons why bad movies are being made!

You see there is one, very telling line in sf debris's analysis - to paraphrase: "Lucas had hoped that no one will notice, that his story make no sense". Sorry, George, people are not stupid! That is so infuriating - Lucas knowingly and willfully, written bad script, because he thought that people are to stupid to notice! That's why George deserve every bit of criticism, that's why no one should defend his work, because if you do, you encourage creators to write bad stories! Why should they care, if you are willing to accept bad writing? And sorry, but I won't accept this excuse; " Lucas, had no choice!" - he had all time in the world, he had all money in the world, he could tell whatever story he wanted to tell, there was no restrictions put on him by big bad studio! He's movies, his responsibility

I'm not going to deny that they're clunky, awkward or unclear a lot of the time, or claim that they are equal to the originals, but Lucas does not "deserve every bit of criticism". The criticisms are frequently hyperbolic or nonsensical ( like Jar Jar being racist) and things like Mr. Plinkett, which nitpick and exaggerate flaws for comedic effect are treated as the height of careful analysis.

[1701EarlGrey]

I'm not going to deny that they're clunky, awkward or unclear a lot of the time, or claim that they are equal to the originals, but Lucas does not "deserve every bit of criticism". The criticisms are frequently hyperbolic or nonsensical ( like Jar Jar being racist) and things like Mr. Plinkett, which nitpick and exaggerate flaws for comedic effect are treated as the height of careful analysis.

No, my dear Sir, Lucas deserve every bit of criticism, because he knowingly and willfully wrote bad story! And you deserve every bit of criticism, because you are defending bad writing If those movies were well written, then you didn't need to engage in apologetics; all you would need to do, is to point at scenes in the movie - film would be self-explanatory. And I don't care if you don't like Plinkett, because he is right - all though I prefer Confused's Matthew reviews - they are short and to the point. And no Jar Jar isn't racist - this is just some SJW whining -, he is just stupid and annoying

[Fixer]

Once the droids have all the spaceports locked down then the orbital blockade becomes unnecessary and the other ships can be moved away leaving just the control ship in orbit. That's why they need the Gungans as a distraction so they aren't overwhelmed by reinforcements, and the one battleship is shown to be pretty adept at fighting them off anyway.

Agreed with this one here. Once the invasion force is landed and the planet is under Federation control, there's no need to blockade or leave a whole bunch of Starships up in orbit when there's no-longer any real threat of Naboo mounting an effective resistance. Especially since those ships are converted bulk freighters that could be moving around cargo for profit. Every day they keep those ships in orbit when they're not required is potential revenue lost.

Even with the liberated fighters taking on the ship, they were in no real threat of losing the planet.

The ship being defeated by a random series of events and luck from a 10 year old that not even "the force" can handwave is another thing.

[Morgaine]

You do realise a blockade is meant to go both ways, right? Okay, you have the spaceports.
What's to stop some other faction from landing batallions of troops elsewhere to scupper your plans then? Especially since the planet has a nominally survivable water core (uhuh) that can be traversed rather rapidly.

Assuming that the ships are needed elsewhere is giving a benefit of the doubt that the movie simply doesn't deserve, I am always much more unforgiving of plot holes and contrivances in bad movies than I am of good ones.

[Fixer]

From whom? The Republic wasn't sending anyone. The Queen had a Transport and a bare handful of supporters with her. The native army was unknown. Local resistance forces were minimal.

There's no need to blockade a planet you own and no visible need to field a massive defensive fleet if you don't believe there's going to be a naval force that warrants it. From the Federation PoV they were just holding a pacified world with an occupying force and no real threat of invasion.

[Morgaine]

From whom? The Republic wasn't sending anyone. The Queen had a Transport and a bare handful of supporters with her. The native army was unknown. Local resistance forces were minimal.

There's no need to blockade a planet you own and no visible need to field a massive defensive fleet if you don't believe there's going to be a naval force that warrants it. From the Federation PoV they were just holding a pacified world with an occupying force and no real threat of invasion.

Opportunistic rivals? The Hutts? Friends of Naboo they may not know about? A rogue Jedi army sick of the Republic's indolence?
Why take the chance when they've come this far?

[Dînadan]

Wasn’t it established that there was still resistance forces operating on the planet during the interim between the Queen leaving and her returning (or was that just something created for the Rogue Squadron ‘spinoff’ game set during that period)? If so that’d mean the planet is ripe for Hutt sponsored gun runners and smugglers to pop over from next door Tatooine to sell weapons and supplies to them. In which case you’d expect there to still be patrols by smaller ships/fighter squadrons to try and keep them out while a single control ship was left in orbit to coordinate the ground troops.


Actually, put like that, it might have made more sense to have the Tatooine portion of the film later in the film. Instead of the hyperdrive being damaged forcing them to make a pit stop to get it repaired, have them get to Corauscant cleanly, where they get blown off by the Senate and Jedi Council, then, deciding to return on their own, have them go to Tatooine to hire mercenaries and/or the services of an experienced gun runner to try and get back on world (as one of many smuggler ships would draw less attention running the blockade than the Queen’s private yacht, in which case it might also have made sense if the Queen’s decoy remained behind to continue lobbying for support/help Palpatine with his election campaign), which is where they meet Anakin, either because they arrive with Republic credits and need to do the whole pod race thing to get enough local currency to hire someone, or even have him as the slave of the captain of the ship they hire; which could tie into Obi-Wan’s comment in the OT about how Anakin was already an amazing pilot when they first met by having him be the pilot of the ship and demonstrates his piloting skill by running the blockade, so that when he hops into a fighter and flies it into battle it’s more credible that he can do so.

[Fixer]

To Wookieepedia!
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Invasion_of_Naboo

No. According to this the planet was effectively placed entirely under Federation control. The entire remainder of loyal forces was involved in the attempt to capture the Viceroy in Theed and the battle with the control ship.

Though this is another flaw with the Prequels. We're told about how horrible the invasion is but we don't see any of it. Supposedly the population was "suffering and dying" while the senate discussed the matter but that could have just been the faked message sent to try and track the queen.

Droids land. Move into a place, escort a few people around. No shots were fired. If you went just by the visual representation of everything it was probably just a really bad day to commute to work.

Having some sort of active resistance, some obvious stakes and urgency in the matter and some convincing effort like Dinadan describes would have really improved audience investment in the outcome of the final battle.

[Dînadan]

Reading through the article:

With the aid of Jar Jar Binks, an alliance was formed with the proud Boss Nass and the Gungans, and Captain Panaka organized together all Resistance cells.[3]

Emphasis mine. To me at least, that implies there was a resistance operating during the occupation otherwise there would be no cells to organise. Checking the footnote, footnote ‘3’ is listed as TPM itself, so it would seem that that was indeed in the film, not just the computer game/EU sources.

[Fixer]

Reading through the article:

With the aid of Jar Jar Binks, an alliance was formed with the proud Boss Nass and the Gungans, and Captain Panaka organized together all Resistance cells.[3]

Emphasis mine. To me at least, that implies there was a resistance operating during the occupation otherwise there would be no cells to organise. Checking the footnote, footnote ‘3’ is listed as TPM itself, so it would seem that that was indeed in the film, not just the computer game/EU sources.

Yes, they were mentioned at the point they all met up at the giant buried head to discuss the battle plan with the Gungans.

The resistance cells were the remainder of the Royal Naboo Security forces who hadn't surrendered. So, a few guys with an armed speeder or two in the attack on Theed. No mention of them doing anything outside of Legends. Wookieepedia lists at the battle Red Group, Blue Group, at least 2 speeders. Generously the entire combined ground resistance force of the proud people of Naboo probably numbered about 30 guys.