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

[GandALF]

Firstly, a lot of presidents essentially perform the same ceremonial duties as constitutional monarchs separate from the governmental powers of the prime minister, the main difference being that they are elected and don't wear special hats.

Secondly, If you look at the context, its mentioned in the crawl that Naboo is "small", and the essential atlas lists Naboo as having a population of 4.5 billion (which is tiny in galactic terms) and only 27% of that are the humans who elect the monarch. It is also comfortably located relatively far away from the major hyperspace lanes in the mid rim. So its not unlikely for it to develop its own cultural and political eccentricities in its comparative isolation.

[Morgaine]

Firstly, a lot of presidents essentially perform the same ceremonial duties as constitutional monarchs separate from the governmental powers of the prime minister, the main difference being that they are elected and don't wear special hats.

Secondly, If you look at the context, its mentioned in the crawl that Naboo is "small", and the essential atlas lists Naboo as having a population of 4.5 billion (which is tiny in galactic terms) and only 27% of that are the humans who elect the monarch. It is also comfortably located relatively far away from the major hyperspace lanes in the mid rim. So its not unlikely for it to develop its own cultural and political eccentricities in its comparative isolation.

Except, you know, for the part about it being part of a trade route major enough for a blockade to be galactic news, and that this incident is significant enough and the Senator from Naboo is so influential that they can lead to a successful vote of no-confidence on the Chancellor.

[GandALF]

Except, you know, for the part about it being part of a trade route major enough for a blockade to be galactic news, and that this incident is significant enough and the Senator from Naboo is so influential that they can lead to a successful vote of no-confidence on the Chancellor.

Its the opposite. Its small enough to demonstrate that the sluggish corrupt bureaucratic senate will drag its feet when "helping" a small planet and allows the senator from the planet to become the rallying point for cleaning up the senate.

[Dînadan]

Except, you know, for the part about it being part of a trade route major enough for a blockade to be galactic news, and that this incident is significant enough and the Senator from Naboo is so influential that they can lead to a successful vote of no-confidence on the Chancellor.

Its the opposite. Its small enough to demonstrate that the sluggish corrupt bureaucratic senate will drag its feet when "helping" a small planet and allows the senator from the planet to become the rallying point for cleaning up the senate.

That might have been Palpatine’s plan, but it makes no sense for the Trade Federation motivationwise; they don’t do it to show the Senate is bloated and/or corrupt or to help Palpatine clean up the Senate, they’re doing it to protest taxes and trade disputes. This implies one or more of the following:

1) Naboo is a such major exporter of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
2) Naboo is a such major importer of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
3) Naboo generates so much tax revenue that blockading it will put the squeeze on the Senate
4) Naboo sits on a major trade route and blockading it will impede the flow of goods and tax revenue along it


The only other way it can be so important that it justifies the Trade Federation invading and so unimportant that the Senate drags their heels over the matter rather than being decisive as they would with an important world is if the Trade Federation are equally unimportant and Naboo is their main competitor commercially.

[GandALF]

That might have been Palpatine’s plan, but it makes no sense for the Trade Federation motivationwise; they don’t do it to show the Senate is bloated and/or corrupt or to help Palpatine clean up the Senate, they’re doing it to protest taxes and trade disputes. This implies one or more of the following:

1) Naboo is a such major exporter of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
2) Naboo is a such major importer of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
3) Naboo generates so much tax revenue that blockading it will put the squeeze on the Senate
4) Naboo sits on a major trade route and blockading it will impede the flow of goods and tax revenue along it


The only other way it can be so important that it justifies the Trade Federation invading and so unimportant that the Senate drags their heels over the matter rather than being decisive as they would with an important world is if the Trade Federation are equally unimportant and Naboo is their main competitor commercially.

They're invading and occupying a planet with military force, so the senate would have to do something. Naboo is small enough for it to just be more convenient to change the law. If they went after a more prominent world it would likely be more able to defend itself and provoke a more swift response from the senate, and the senate also doesn't have its own army, it would have go through the hassle to levy forces from member worlds which its not going to do for the planet of weirdos who elect 14 year olds to be their Queen

[Morgaine]

That might have been Palpatine’s plan, but it makes no sense for the Trade Federation motivationwise; they don’t do it to show the Senate is bloated and/or corrupt or to help Palpatine clean up the Senate, they’re doing it to protest taxes and trade disputes. This implies one or more of the following:

1) Naboo is a such major exporter of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
2) Naboo is a such major importer of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
3) Naboo generates so much tax revenue that blockading it will put the squeeze on the Senate
4) Naboo sits on a major trade route and blockading it will impede the flow of goods and tax revenue along it


The only other way it can be so important that it justifies the Trade Federation invading and so unimportant that the Senate drags their heels over the matter rather than being decisive as they would with an important world is if the Trade Federation are equally unimportant and Naboo is their main competitor commercially.

They're invading and occupying a planet with military force, so the senate would have to do something. Naboo is small enough for it to just be more convenient to change the law. If they went after a more prominent world it would likely be more able to defend itself and provoke a more swift response from the senate, and the senate also doesn't have its own army, it would have go through the hassle to levy forces from member worlds which its not going to do for the planet of weirdos who elect 14 year olds to be their Queen

You're forgetting that Palpatine using the plight of Naboo and the inefficiency of the Republic to benefit himself was plan B. His original plan was to force Amidala to sign a treaty with the Trade Federation to make their occupation legal.
This makes some sense if Naboo were a prominent planet and would cause an uproar in the Senate, but who would care about a minor backwoods planet? Maybe it'd make Valorum look a bit dim, but then the treaty would've been signed before he could've done anything so what? Palpatine planned to play the long long long game until the Jedi bumbled into things?

[GandALF]

You're forgetting that Palpatine using the plight of Naboo and the inefficiency of the Republic to benefit himself was plan B. His original plan was to force Amidala to sign a treaty with the Trade Federation to make their occupation legal.
This makes some sense if Naboo were a prominent planet and would cause an uproar in the Senate, but who would care about a minor backwoods planet? Maybe it'd make Valorum look a bit dim, but then the treaty would've been signed before he could've done anything so what? Palpatine planned to play the long long long game until the Jedi bumbled into things?

His plan is to create a crisis that gives him an opportunity seize power. The treaty being signed would still be a usurpation of Republic sovereignty and precipitate the separatist crisis. It's a direct challenge to the senate's authority, it has to react either way, Naboo's prominence only determines the severity of the reaction.

[Dînadan]

That might have been Palpatine’s plan, but it makes no sense for the Trade Federation motivationwise; they don’t do it to show the Senate is bloated and/or corrupt or to help Palpatine clean up the Senate, they’re doing it to protest taxes and trade disputes. This implies one or more of the following:

1) Naboo is a such major exporter of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
2) Naboo is a such major importer of goods that blockading it will throw things into turmoil
3) Naboo generates so much tax revenue that blockading it will put the squeeze on the Senate
4) Naboo sits on a major trade route and blockading it will impede the flow of goods and tax revenue along it


The only other way it can be so important that it justifies the Trade Federation invading and so unimportant that the Senate drags their heels over the matter rather than being decisive as they would with an important world is if the Trade Federation are equally unimportant and Naboo is their main competitor commercially.

They're invading and occupying a planet with military force, so the senate would have to do something. Naboo is small enough for it to just be more convenient to change the law. If they went after a more prominent world it would likely be more able to defend itself and provoke a more swift response from the senate, and the senate also doesn't have its own army, it would have go through the hassle to levy forces from member worlds which its not going to do for the planet of weirdos who elect 14 year olds to be their Queen

You’ve completely missed my point. I agree that having it be a minor world allows for Palpatine to use it to his advantage, but the Trade Federation get nothing from that; even assuming they knew Sidious was Palpatine and would use that to blackmail him if he didn’t do what they wanted after he got elected, they’d still be facing massive public backlash and if Palpatine went lenient on them and started doling out trade concessions and tax breaks to them then everyone would know something was up and they’d be betting everything on the Senate remaining so bloated and inefficient that Palpatine wouldn’t be kicked out for corruption or under a vote of no confidence himself.


For the plot to work, the invasion needs to be worth it for the Trade Federation, not have them doing evil for evil’s sake just because they’re the villains. This means Naboo has to be important enough to be worth it for them, such as under the points I outlined. Or another point I’ve just thought of is Naboo having untapped natural resources they can exploit.

Part of the problem is that we’re never really told what the tax/trade stuff they’re disputing is and why invading Naboo will overturn that or even is them exploiting the opportunity they offer. For example, maybe Republic tax/trade laws are that transactions within a Federation/Kingdom/Empire/Alliance of worlds are untaxed/at a low tax, whereas trade with planets outside it are at a high tax. In which case Naboo still needs to be a major importer and/or exporter of goods from/to the Trade Federation to make invading and bringing it within the Federation worth it (ie the Federation is losing so much revenue to taxes that invading will turn a profit).

And even if this was the case, what would have made more sense is if Naboo had come under attack from pirates or the like and the Trade Federation drove them off, justifying it as them protecting their trade interests and helping out a valuable trade partner and further justifying landing troops as establishing a garrison for the protection of the Naboo. The treaty then becomes the first steps into inducting Naboo into the Federation fully which consequently means they get to bypass those tax laws.


As it stands in the actual film, that treaty is laughable and wouldn’t stand up in a court as it’d be thrown out as having been signed under duress, what with the droid army goosestepping through the capital. And before anyone brings up the minor world thing to say it wouldn’t get to a court, do you really think that Palpatine, once in power would just leave the occupation of his home world be? Again if he does nothing it’d send up red flags, and if he’s shown to be limp wristed he risks a no confidence vote himself.

On top of that, Gunray should have been rotting in prison come Episode II. We’re explicitly told the Trade Federation was rounding people up into labour camps, so after the planet was liberated, he should have been facing charges of war crimes, and there’d be an entire planet of first hand witnesses to testify regardless of how much he lawyered up, or are we expected to believe his trial was still pending ten years later, he was still in a position of authority and his bail allowed him to be out and about the galaxy?

Now being generous, maybe we could say the Trade Federation intended to use Gunray as a fall guy. Assuming that Lucas didn’t just use the title because he liked how the word looked, Gunray being a Viceroy means that rather than being in charge of the Federation he’s more along the lines of a governor of one of its colonies, in which case the Federation could play things off as him having gone rogue to distance themselves from public backlash caused by the invasion. But even then, that means Gunray should be rotting in jail, not playing a part in events of later films. And again this still brings up the question of whether it would be worth it for them; would the deals, backhands and whatever from Palpatine be worth the risk? And what would Gunray’s motivation be, what did he think he’d get out of it, or was he just that stupid that he was easily lead into being a fall guy?

[bronnt]

It makes sense given how Lucas said multiple times that Jar Jar was the key to the prequel's success.
Unfortunately the execution was extremely poor. And I'm not sure focusing development on Jar Jar was a good idea to begin with given that audience were there to see Anakin and Obi-Wan, not a random alien lizard from nowhere.

It's just all the decisions stacked on top of each other, really. If Jar-Jar was like an actual character who made sense in the universe, he could have been great, even as comic relief. But there's just no restraint, nobody to tone down the cartoonish levels of his performance, nobody to tell Lucas that the droids shouldn't be in the movie if Jar-jar is the cutesy mascot character because it's putting too much on the screen.

I was seriously the biggest Star Wars fan back then. I intentionally avoided watching any trailers, I was changing the channel any time teasers or news about the movie came on, but I read all the old EU stuff and splurged on stuff like lego sets. I had spent a whole year looking forward to the movie, got tickets to see it opening night...and then the podrace scene happened. I watched about 15 seconds of that and realized that I was completely uninvested. There were zero stakes, there was no logical progression that led to that point, and the conclusion was obvious. I went to the restroom during that, and my friends were looking at me like, "Dude, how can you possibly walk away from the screen?" When I came back, I quickly said, "Let me guess-it looked like he was going to lose the race, but then somehow, the kid won anyway, right?" All my excitement had been drained out completely.

[bronnt]

Lots of detailed problems with why the plot makes no sense.

The big issue is that the audience needs to know what the villain's plan is in order to know the stakes. We're told people are suffering, maybe dying, without being shown it and without a significant explanation of why. The stakes need to be clear for the audience: "We need to stop (plot point) in order to prevent (consequences)." Unfortunately, there is no villainous plot that needs to be stopped other than Amidala signing a peace treaty....which they stopped the instant she was smuggled off the planet.

It doesn't even need to be intricate or subtle: in "Guardians of the Galaxy", which I loved, Ronan just wants to get a magic stone so he can destroy a planet. It's clear, it's straightforward, and it gives context for the heroes to take action. He's not a well-developed villain with complex motivations but he makes sense in the story. The villains of "The Phantom Menace" are the Trade Federation (more than anyone else) and we don't know what their plans or goals are at all. It removes any investment in the plot itself.