Star Wars prequel questions

[Willie the Duck]

The thing about Ben "hiding" in his Jedi robes is a real head-scratcher.

His clothing isn’t that dissimilar to that of the Lars family and even the sandpeople. I am 100% sure that the original intent not be that that was a Jedi uniform.

To the extent the "hide Luke on Tatooine" plot breaks down, it does so with Empire.

Yes, unambiguously. When ANH was made, Obi-wan was disguised as a normal wasteland hermit on the homeworld of the expert pilot his mentor once murdered (and he wasn't protecting Luke because Luke wasn't special). ESB comes along and suddenly being next to that murderous mentor's brother (and hidden son) makes no sense. TPM just adds the nonsense about the outfit.

Which I get -- they need as much familiar stuff as possible to tie back to the original 3 movies. However, there's Luke's RotJ outfit right there -- have that be the Jedi uniform instead. Sure, the all-black thing might wear thin on every jedi in the movies, but that of all things could be addressed (maybe even make them color coded by role, like Star Trek).

 

[Basic Expert]

Those aren't meant to be Jedi robes in the Prequels. It's a bit ambiguous, but all scenes happen to take place on Casual Fridays, with the Jedi's wearing the Galactic equivalent of chinos and a polo. Their real Jedi robes are much more elaborate--like you wouldn't believe.

 

[trappedslider]

Sadly, she's still probably the smartest person in most of the franchise.

Terrible taste in men, though.

and terrible at picking the right outfits for the right occasion

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The "Padme" ploy worked fine though, because she was seemingly known to everyone else as just "Queen Amidala".

Where the logic sort of breaks down for me has always been when they reveal in episode 2 that she was elected to a term as teenage queen of her planet. Which by the way, what sort of political system is that?

This tangent about elections is relevant here because, whereas I could accept that her first name might actually be some sort of mystery or at least a very obscure fact if she was a royal with fourteen first names, raised in some sort of forbidden city and only revealed to the world when she adopted the regnal name Amidala, having her just be an elected politician named Padme Amidala who ran for the office of Queen a year or two earlier makes it feel like Qui-Gon and Obiwan did not actually read their mission brief at all.

But, maybe Padme is just an insanely common name on Naboo. A quick google search finds that Queen Elizabeth I had at least two different ladies in waiting who's given names were Elizabeth. I chose that search because I happened to know that in Tudor England in particular like 80% of women had the same half dozen names, but similar phenomena have occurred elsewhere in history. Evidently at one point half the male population of parts of medieval Spain was named some variation of "John".

So, in conclusion, either we have some lazy Jedi who didn't do their homework, or we have a Naboo that's lousy with Padmes.

 

[Zaukrie]

Those laser doors are there for the same reason the chopper doors are in Galaxy Quest.....

I've given up trying to use logic for SW. it is filled with stupid. Truly astounding, from "smart" characters.

 

[pukunui]

So, in conclusion, either we have some lazy Jedi who didn't do their homework, or we have a Naboo that's lousy with Padmes.

Well, we already know it's lousy with girls with two-syllable names ending in ḗ.

Padmḗ
Dormḗ
Cordḗ
Moteḗ
Rabḗ
Sachḗ
Versḗ

 

[jian]

Yes, unambiguously. When ANH was made, Obi-wan was disguised as a normal wasteland hermit on the homeworld of the expert pilot his mentor once murdered (and he wasn't protecting Luke because Luke wasn't special). ESB comes along and suddenly being next to that murderous mentor's brother (and hidden son) makes no sense. TPM just adds the nonsense about the outfit.

Which I get -- they need as much familiar stuff as possible to tie back to the original 3 movies. However, there's Luke's RotJ outfit right there -- have that be the Jedi uniform instead. Sure, the all-black thing might wear thin on every jedi in the movies, but that of all things could be addressed (maybe even make them color coded by role, like Star Trek).

I think it’d have been better to develop some new robes that shout “space Shaolin” that don’t look like desert hermit clothes. Luke’s outfit is cool but it wouldn’t really do that, it’s more Logan’s Run than anything else. Just changing the colour of the robes would probably have been fine, honestly.

 

[pukunui]

I think it’d have been better to develop some new robes that shout “space Shaolin” that don’t look like desert hermit clothes. Luke’s outfit is cool but it wouldn’t really do that, it’s more Logan’s Run than anything else. Just changing the colour of the robes would probably have been fine, honestly.

Another option would be to not have a uniform and let individual Jedi dress as they please ... like how a number of alien Jedi already do: Aayla Secura, Ahsoka Tano, Barriss Offee, Luminara Unduli, etc. Those are all women, of course. Anakin switches to wearing black once he's no longer a padawan. (And in the Clone Wars cartoon, most of the Jedi wear armor since that was easier for the animators than flowing robes.)

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I can't read that sort of stuff without this going off in my brain (even though OG Red Sonya isn't too bad either):
"Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.
Words like ‘full’, ‘round’ and even ‘pert’ creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.
Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn’t about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.
Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling’s Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black."—Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic.

Sir Terry has a wise and funny quote for every occasion.

 

[jian]

Another option would be to not have a uniform and let individual Jedi dress as they please ... like how a number of alien Jedi already do: Aayla Secura, Ahsoka Tano, Barriss Offee, Luminara Unduli, etc. Those are all women, of course. Anakin switches to wearing black once he's no longer a padawan. (And in the Clone Wars cartoon, most of the Jedi wear armor since that was easier for the animators than flowing robes.)

Yes, that’s quite true. You’d probably want uniform robes for some occasions (like council meetings) but mostly Jedi might simply wear whatever they liked unless they clearly wanted to be recognised as such.