The timing is bizarre, though. @Wreckage Hothead makes a plausible argument that it's literally just because that was when she suddenly realized she could use the Gungans, but as a personal arc it demands she suddenly have a realization that the Republic is useless at her moment of triumph in that area. The window between having Valorum ousted and leaving Coruscant is a weird time for her to suddenly have developed in that way. Especially given her later character as a believer in the merits of the Republic and Senate.
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The Englanderish
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I mean people can be complex. She set in motion a huge change, and yes hearing from Jar Jar that the Gungans have an army definitely informed her decision, butthere's something to be said for her in-the-moment decision to enact the senate vote and realising that it would still take time.
People have this bizarre idea that film characters need to make perfect raw calculus decisions like they're all the flanderised idea of grand admiral thrawn, but the simple fact is that's not how people are.
She believes that the vote can make a difference, but she pulls the card in immediate response to Valorum folding after Palpy put the idea in her head earlier. It's a spur of the moment decision, which is then followed by her contemplating more in her rooms with Jar Jar, where she makes a more resolved decision that yes, the vote may well better the Republic and senate and solve her problem quicker than the courts... but there is still inherent time involved, so she'd rather go where she can help.
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I wish we'd got more of an introduction to Naboo, personally. It would've been good to really meet Padme during the initial, uncertain phase where Naboo is blockaded and she's anxious for her people, but George really wants his very clever twist so we effectively get held at arm's length from her for much of the movie.
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Queen's Peril gets really deep into this, so if you're interested in Padmé finding her feet as Queen then I strongly recommend that you check it out.
Arthur Frayn
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Honestly not gonna lie given how hard it is to track when Padme's Natalie Portman and when she's Keira Knightley (unless they're on screen together), for years I genuinely thought that the Senate scene wasn't Palpatine manipulating Padme, but him working her inexperienced Handmaiden who's in over her head and then Padme's jets off to Naboo to try and salvage the situation/take charge.
It's not that that (probably, though it is a funny idea ala RLM's jokes about the Handmaiden's bossing Padme around for kicks), but it did kind've track for me vis a vis Padme's are being about becoming more decisive and stepping up to take direct action.
It's not that that (probably, though it is a funny idea ala RLM's jokes about the Handmaiden's bossing Padme around for kicks), but it did kind've track for me vis a vis Padme's are being about becoming more decisive and stepping up to take direct action.
The Englanderish
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Tbf it is a really clever twist and one of the highlights of a film with a lot of problems. It also gives us fun rewatch stuff where you can spot Padme the handmaiden giving her standin subtle cues.
I mean the handmaiden would never make huge diplomatic decisions without checking with Padme somehow. One of my favourite bits where you can see it happening is in the hangar when the standin is presented with the dilemma of leaving or staying, and Padme the handmaiden says something totally inoccuous on the first viewing but on the rewatch is absolutely Padme subtly indicating what to do. Having all the other handmaidens for Padme to blend into really helps with it.
Arthur Frayn
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Tbf it is a really clever twist and one of the highlights of a film with a lot of problems. It also gives us fun rewatch stuff where you can spot Padme the handmaiden giving her standin subtle cues.
I mean the handmaiden would never make huge diplomatic decisions without checking with Padme somehow. One of my favourite bits where you can see it happening is in the hangar when the standin is presented with the dilemma of leaving or staying, and Padme the handmaiden says something totally inoccuous on the first viewing but on the rewatch is absolutely Padme subtly indicating what to do. Having all the other handmaidens for Padme to blend into really helps with it.
Oh sure, it's just when I saw it as a kid I had a hard time wrapping my head around some of the headier political stuff (surprise surprise) and landed on "Well I guess the Handmaiden fucked up and got tricked by Palatine?"
LordDarthYoda
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Watching some reactions of first time watchers on YT I've come to wonder if Padme going into Mos Espa was the Naboo realizing it would be dangerous having the queen stay on ship or Padme being genuinely curious about Tatooine and throwing her weight around to convince Panaka to let her go. Maybe a bit of both.
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And it just kind of gets in the way of the connection with the queen as such, for me.l
Ah, that, who really knows lol - maybe wanted to maintain some control over the process, although would've made even more sense to stay around for any direct political updates?
Which btw another strange change that happens here, at first Bibble's distress message is emphatically treated as unreliable, and its veracity as ambiguous:
"The death toll is catastrophic... We must bow to their wishes! You must contact me!"
"It's a trick. Send no reply - send no transmissions of any kind."
"It sounds like bait to establish a connection trace."
"What if it is true - and the people are dying?"
"Either way, we're running out of time."
But then after the cut to him in the palace, Padme hears it again, and now it's being treated as real - even though only the audience learned something new since the last time:
"Your Queen is lost, your people are starving... and you, Governor, are going to die much sooner than your people, I'm afraid."
"This invasion will gain you nothing! We're a democracy - the people have decided!"
"Take him away..."
"My troops are in position to begin searching the swamps for these rumoured underwater villages. They will not stay hidden for long."
"The death toll is catastrophic! We must bow to their wishes! You must contact me!"
"You all right?"
"It's very cold."
"You come from a warm planet, Ani - a little too warm for my taste. Space is cold."
"You seem sad..."
"The Queen is worried - her people are suffering, dying. She must convince the Senate to intervene, or... I'm not sure what'll happen."
Technically Bibble is only shown in an empty dark palace, so he may also have been lied to about those starvations? But maybe that scene is supposed to be the confirmation that he was telling the truth, even though the message was also bait.
And after they return to Naboo and send scouts etc., no word about anything as dramatic like this, just "most are in camps".
So yeah that was just a tangent I guess - people keep arguing about "how serious the stakes are in this movie", with some mindlessly repeating the meme/myth that "it's just about trade taxes" or whatnot, however these are the contradictory, unclear and reality-shifting answers to this question when the particular lines and info are looked at it.
First emphasized as an ambiguous, creepy uncertainty; then suddenly treated as real; then forgotten about, no longer real, or something.
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Either way reg. the identities, the one in the black feather dress and then the purple one back on Naboo is Keira Knightley i.e. "Sabé" and the others are all the real one.
Wasn't familiar with either of them back in 1999 so might've also had trouble telling immediately, but it's quite easy to tell now.
Which btw another strange change that happens here, at first Bibble's distress message is emphatically treated as unreliable, and its veracity as ambiguous:
"The death toll is catastrophic... We must bow to their wishes! You must contact me!"
"It's a trick. Send no reply - send no transmissions of any kind."
"It sounds like bait to establish a connection trace."
"What if it is true - and the people are dying?"
"Either way, we're running out of time."
But then after the cut to him in the palace, Padme hears it again, and now it's being treated as real - even though only the audience learned something new since the last time:
"Your Queen is lost, your people are starving... and you, Governor, are going to die much sooner than your people, I'm afraid."
"This invasion will gain you nothing! We're a democracy - the people have decided!"
"Take him away..."
"My troops are in position to begin searching the swamps for these rumoured underwater villages. They will not stay hidden for long."
"The death toll is catastrophic! We must bow to their wishes! You must contact me!"
"You all right?"
"It's very cold."
"You come from a warm planet, Ani - a little too warm for my taste. Space is cold."
"You seem sad..."
"The Queen is worried - her people are suffering, dying. She must convince the Senate to intervene, or... I'm not sure what'll happen."
Technically Bibble is only shown in an empty dark palace, so he may also have been lied to about those starvations? But maybe that scene is supposed to be the confirmation that he was telling the truth, even though the message was also bait.
And after they return to Naboo and send scouts etc., no word about anything as dramatic like this, just "most are in camps".
So yeah that was just a tangent I guess - people keep arguing about "how serious the stakes are in this movie", with some mindlessly repeating the meme/myth that "it's just about trade taxes" or whatnot, however these are the contradictory, unclear and reality-shifting answers to this question when the particular lines and info are looked at it.
First emphasized as an ambiguous, creepy uncertainty; then suddenly treated as real; then forgotten about, no longer real, or something.
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Either way reg. the identities, the one in the black feather dress and then the purple one back on Naboo is Keira Knightley i.e. "Sabé" and the others are all the real one.
Wasn't familiar with either of them back in 1999 so might've also had trouble telling immediately, but it's quite easy to tell now.
Arthur Frayn
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Yeah, like on the one hand (wokka wokka) the "queen incognito" stuff is interesting and the most obvious pull from The Hidden Fortress beyond "what if our comic relief characters were a tall, skinny fussbudget and a short, crude grouch", but at the same time it's one of those classic Prequel Problems (like Palpatine being behind it all) where it's a twist for the characters but was blindingly obvious to the audience.
It's very obvious from the jump that Padme's incognito as a Handmaiden (given that, you know, she's Natalie Portman and the queen is a then-unknown Kiera Knightley, and that all the pre-release stuff was about Portman playing a Queen), but when the "reveal" comes half the characters are like "yeah no duh, you thought we bought that shit?"
The Englanderish
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That is really a wider marketing issue though. It's like how Doctor Who's press team literally cannot help themselves from advertising stuff that the writers and directors want hidden.
I never knew a time when Kiera Knightley wasn't famous and as a result I found the twist to hold up reasonably well in the absence of the surrounding media giving it away.
People have this bizarre idea that impulsive and unthinking actions of vast scope are something a character can do and also be likeable and sympathetic.
If Padme Amedala called for a vote of no confidence on Chancellor Valorum, her long-time political ally, because lol whatever she's an impulsive teenager thinking things through is for robots, she's a horrible leader (and a bad person, TBH). And the narrative doesn't think she's an impulsive dangerous idiot, either in general or in particular.
It doesn't think about this decision at all, really. Nobody ever revisits that incredibly important moment, even when she's making bitter soundbytes about his assumption of dictatorial powers.
The Englanderish
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I mean that's an extremely uncharitable reading of what I said. She only made the call when it became visibly apparent that Valorum was functionally useless to her, to send a rather calculated message. It's an extremely politically powerful position to be in to have been the one who lit the powder on deposing the Chancellor.
It's just with further thought, she had an even better (albeit extremely radical and risky) idea. And both paid off for her - both taking her homeworld back and landing the Naboo Chancellorship. Obviously Palpy was actually evil all along but that's unknown unknowns territory which is pretty implausible to fault her for.
When the political ship is sinking, it becomes a necessity to make very quick decisions.
Of course excluding a case of complete madness, there has to be something about the idea of going back to Naboo that isn't just pure delusional suicidality - or it'd be an entirely different plot / a real short trip, wouldn't it.
So the question is ultimately what that is - the Gungan army? At first it seems like it, however later they're just used to "draw out the huge army in the city" which is "a lot larger than we had thought".
But.... did it appear that huge during the initial invasion? Why would it be? And why keep such a huge army on the ground but completely remove the blockade?
What if instead they had returned and found 10x more blockade ships but 1/10th of the initial robot army? Or both forces had been reduced? Or both increased?
It looks completely arbitrary, and makes it really easy to imagine a version where there's no Gungan army, and no huge army in the city to draw away from the city, and they just sneak into the occupied city that'd been shown at the beginning, and that's it?
So how'd they manage to start a fight this way now, well maybe there's all this secret combat/revolt preparedness that they'd been hiding all this time - thought "let's exhaust all options before going full armed resistance", and then that's what happens?
Or maybe all these things just surreally manifest themselves once Amidala just gets into a fighting mood after all these frustrations, disillusionments and procrastinations in the Senate.
Or maybe those things don't manifest themselves, but just growing courage and an attitude is gonna enable them to fight back and win (by magically reducing the droids' blaster hit rate while increasing their own - it's happened before)?
Either way it's true that the "Gungan army" didn't have to be, and maybe even wasn't a crucial component of this - just an enhancing one.
A lot of this is ultimately driven by tone - in this case conveyed by, well face expressions of course, along with the "time of the day" on Coruscant and the soundtrack.
When the Senate scene ends with
"Now, they will elect a new Chancellor... a strong Chancellor - one who will not let our tragedy continue."
, the tone is uncertain, ambiguous, rather than bright and triumphant - followed by a transition into this next scene, taking place during a moody sunset and containing more worry and uncertainty revolving around that other plotline:
"The boy will not pass the Council's test, Master - he's too old."
"Anakin will become a Jedi - I promise you."
"Do not defy the Council, Master, not again..."
Then it cuts to the test, and that scene of course ends on this note:
", hate leads to... suffering. I sense much fear in you..."
The sun is seen finally setting, uhhh, a somber night begins, and Amidala is staring out the window in a clearly melancholic, uncertain mood that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb in this scene succession at all:
"Yousa tinking yousa people ganna die?"
"I don't know..."
So the emotional groundwork for a "nope, not good enough even with the elections set in motion; still le sad -> can't stay here like this, need to turn around and start fighting back" turn is successfully set here, and it doesn't fly in the face of the situation either - things are taking way too long, after all.
So in that sense, Jar Jar just standing there and then mentioning the army can just be seen as an extension of that mood shift that was gonna lead to the same outcome either way - even without him being there, or in the movie at all.
However anyone who just happens to be in mood for a slightly more rational plot progression, you know, "accomplished goal x on Coruscant, this leads to development y that leads to enabling an armed revolt, which is now possible due to z", probably won't find what they're looking for here lol - if seen as a mood-driven, scene transition to scene transition type of construction it seems to hold together a bit better.
Questions about "could've stayed on Naboo and started a successful revolt right there", or "could've run back to Naboo the moment Palpatine started revealing sobering information, why wait till sunset?" keep hovering in the air, unresolved - unless of course this is a slightly surreal universe where they need to go through a certain emotional journey before the universe grants them a stormtrooper victory, then things may look different.
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...Okay, but that totally abandons the positions in the post I was responding to, doesn't it?
If we take the position that she didn't realize the Gungan Gambit was an option before the vote of no confidence, we don't need any additional explanation! Of the options she was aware of, that was the best path for her goals (urgent relief for Naboo) and she took it. The whole "raw calculus decisions" and "better the republic and senate" are irrelevant riders.
The Englanderish
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No it doesn't? As I opened that post with, people can have a lot of complex aspects to their decisions.
Knowing that the gungans have an army is a piece of the puzzle, but she's going to have to consider that along with the associated risk factors of returning to Naboo, how effective that army is, where her best active role would be (in Coruscant during the major power transition with a little patience or in the much more dangerous Naboo frontier on the hope she might be able to strike an alliance), how secure the journey back to Naboo might be, if should be championing her people in the senate or amongst them, uncertainty on how the chancellorship was going to play out, how long that transition time was taking, and so on. There's a lot going into that decision, including the ones she's already taken.
^^So obviously yeah, while the movie itself seems a lot more stream of consciousness driven rather than showing characters examining and contemplating all these possible decisions, those all do make sense for that situation.
(Of course factors along the lines of "will a number of guns appear in the seat of my throne if I tell my future self to time-travel and plant them there" may or may not also be present here, the way the movie plays out. Who knows?)
It's kinda similar to, say, the whole ANH ending? One can easily map out a rational string of considerations informing Leia's choice to allow the Empire to track them to Yavin, in order to lure the Deathstar there, and then give the Rebels the chance to attack it rather than having to look for it in the void of space (of course still would've been safer to first make sure they've analyzed the plans and found a weakness, and *then* somehow come up with a way to leak their location? but maybe one could think of reasons against that course of action, who knows) - however the way the film plays out is a lot more like "Leia brings up the tracking suspicion" -> "promptly forgets it, they all forget about it" -> "arrival at Yavin", "we need to analyze the plans to prepare for the attack!" -> find weakness -> launch X-wings -> first acknowledgement that that Rebels are aware the Deathstar is here, worried looks are exchanged -> race against time now.
Who knows what any of them had really been thinking about this whole time?
It all seems not entirely lucid the way it's presented, even though some sensible thought processes can be easily conceived of to explain at least some of those actions.
May be a similar situation here as well.
(Of course factors along the lines of "will a number of guns appear in the seat of my throne if I tell my future self to time-travel and plant them there" may or may not also be present here, the way the movie plays out. Who knows?)
It's kinda similar to, say, the whole ANH ending? One can easily map out a rational string of considerations informing Leia's choice to allow the Empire to track them to Yavin, in order to lure the Deathstar there, and then give the Rebels the chance to attack it rather than having to look for it in the void of space (of course still would've been safer to first make sure they've analyzed the plans and found a weakness, and *then* somehow come up with a way to leak their location? but maybe one could think of reasons against that course of action, who knows) - however the way the film plays out is a lot more like "Leia brings up the tracking suspicion" -> "promptly forgets it, they all forget about it" -> "arrival at Yavin", "we need to analyze the plans to prepare for the attack!" -> find weakness -> launch X-wings -> first acknowledgement that that Rebels are aware the Deathstar is here, worried looks are exchanged -> race against time now.
Who knows what any of them had really been thinking about this whole time?
It all seems not entirely lucid the way it's presented, even though some sensible thought processes can be easily conceived of to explain at least some of those actions.
May be a similar situation here as well.
The Englanderish
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What are you talking about? Leia specifically doesn't forget because the scene of her telling Han they must be tracking us is directly followed by her scene telling the Rebels to prepare for the inevitable attack. It's Han who dismisses her concerns in the first scene and flies straight to Yavin, as part of his arc of being deflective of responsibility, and he then proceeds to leave them to die with his reward... only to let the guilt gnaw at him until he comes back later at the end. The only real hole in the sequence is why Leia told Han the location, but that can probably be chalked up to having to give him a location and the last time she had to do that her homeplanet got collateralled as a fuck you, so I can understand being unwilling to throw a random planet under the bus when Han isn't listening. It's very much in service of Han's arc of very slowly coming to take responsibility for what he thinks is right.
A film does not actually need to walk the audience inch by inch through every minute mechanic of the plot.
RogueIce
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I feel like people are going out of their way to create inconsistencies when there aren't any, or at least nowhere near as much as they're implying.
But hey, at least ragging on Episode I is a blast from the past, rather than the tiresome "Sequel Trilogy ruins everything" we'd otherwise be getting!
Anyway, for "Padme could have liberated Naboo without going to Coruscant" I'm going to say: no, no she can't. She wouldn't have had the Gungan Army on her side, she wouldn't have had a lightly guarded hanger to launch fighters from, she wouldn't have the Viceory on the ground in a lightly defended Palace to capture, she wouldn't have any coordination from the guard/police units that evaded capture, she'd have an entire blockade fleet overhead instead of a single Droid Control Ship, etc.
And had she stayed, there's no indication they would have withdrawn the majority of their forces or ships the way they did. They needed her, and so long as they suspected she was on the planet, they would keep the bulk of their forces there to search for her. They could only have withdrawn because she was believed to have escaped and then be on Coruscant (they didn't necessarily know she was going back until Palpatine/Sidious gave them the heads up and/or they see her ship coming back). But anyway, she didn't have the elements she would need to win before she left, and (arguably) needed her character development time on Tatooine in order to be sufficiently humble to convince Boss Nass to help, whether she knew about the Army beforehand or not, as she wouldn't have been able to get them on her side without leaving the planet and going on her journey.
As for why she left Coruscant, she decided she should do something, anything to help and needed to do so in person - waiting around on Coruscant for Palpatine to slog through the Senate and entrenched bureaucracy wasn't in the cards for her. Whether or not she had the planned fully formed by then or not, she just felt/knew she had to be back on Naboo fighting for her people rather than sitting in safety and comfort on Coruscant.
I'm not bothering on the Senate votes and her choices there for the moment. As I said before, we don't know enough of the background and context surrounding the Senate and why it acts the way it does. It would all be pure speculation on our parts and if you're so inclined to believe it "doesn't make sense" I can't change your mind because anyone can create a scenario that is just as valid as any other to support their view.
But hey, at least ragging on Episode I is a blast from the past, rather than the tiresome "Sequel Trilogy ruins everything" we'd otherwise be getting!
Anyway, for "Padme could have liberated Naboo without going to Coruscant" I'm going to say: no, no she can't. She wouldn't have had the Gungan Army on her side, she wouldn't have had a lightly guarded hanger to launch fighters from, she wouldn't have the Viceory on the ground in a lightly defended Palace to capture, she wouldn't have any coordination from the guard/police units that evaded capture, she'd have an entire blockade fleet overhead instead of a single Droid Control Ship, etc.
And had she stayed, there's no indication they would have withdrawn the majority of their forces or ships the way they did. They needed her, and so long as they suspected she was on the planet, they would keep the bulk of their forces there to search for her. They could only have withdrawn because she was believed to have escaped and then be on Coruscant (they didn't necessarily know she was going back until Palpatine/Sidious gave them the heads up and/or they see her ship coming back). But anyway, she didn't have the elements she would need to win before she left, and (arguably) needed her character development time on Tatooine in order to be sufficiently humble to convince Boss Nass to help, whether she knew about the Army beforehand or not, as she wouldn't have been able to get them on her side without leaving the planet and going on her journey.
As for why she left Coruscant, she decided she should do something, anything to help and needed to do so in person - waiting around on Coruscant for Palpatine to slog through the Senate and entrenched bureaucracy wasn't in the cards for her. Whether or not she had the planned fully formed by then or not, she just felt/knew she had to be back on Naboo fighting for her people rather than sitting in safety and comfort on Coruscant.
I'm not bothering on the Senate votes and her choices there for the moment. As I said before, we don't know enough of the background and context surrounding the Senate and why it acts the way it does. It would all be pure speculation on our parts and if you're so inclined to believe it "doesn't make sense" I can't change your mind because anyone can create a scenario that is just as valid as any other to support their view.
That latter exchange goes:
"You're safe. When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst."
"We have no time for sorrows, Commander. You must use the information in this R2 unit to help plan the attack. It's our only hope."
Changing a few words in that line could've easily transformed this whole plotline into "they now know where we are and will inevitably attack us, we must prepare", however that happens not to be the case here - Leia is talking about their own attack on the DS.
Could this still theoretically entail "they'll follow us here and then we'll know where it is and can attack it"? Maybe, but it sure isn't verbalized, and doesn't necessarily have to be what was meant here - there are other readings as well, like "we'll analyze the information, and then go find the DS in space and attack it".
Leia just eyerolls and then stops bringing up that subject anymore, then shows no further concerns about possibly being tracked - saying that Han stubbornly refused to change course and proceeded to bring doom upon Yavin while Leia and Luke were protesting in horror is certainly a very.... optional interpretation.
Would probably involve some unshown off-screen arguments taking place after that scene.
Also an interesting interpretation, that "Han was gonna fly to a planet anyway, so let's at least not mark some innocent planet this time, oh well Yavin it is then" - although of course choosing an almost empty planet to go to first, or one that the Empire might consider implausible, would've also been alt options there.
However others like Nerdonymous (in the "saved in editing not really" video) have confidently interpreted this as "had to lure the Deathstar to Yavin so they wouldn't have to look for it in the void of space or have it zip away from them at lightspeed the moment they approached - plot hole solved!",
and if there's more than 1 scenario that one can fill the off-screen with, then none of these headcanon scenarios can be treated as "definitely what happened, and the movie didn't have to spell it out" anymore.
I don't think any of this perfect raw calculus (weren't you saying that's not what characters are???) has any presence in The Phantom Menace whatsoever, but I also don't see how imagining it is does anything except let you use the word 'complex' a lot.
She does a lot of prep work, then throws it away and pivots to a solution that's all around better. If we agree that she didn't know about the latter solution being available when she was doing the prep, this raises no questions. If we don't, enumerating the complexities of the prep work that she abandoned does nothing to explain it.
RogueIce
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She didn't know she could free Naboo when she first left. She hadn't even planned on leaving or forming a resistance at first. She was initially going to be taken into custody and...I don't know, wait for the Senate to Do Something I guess.
But the Jedi warning her of impending doom changed things and was also very last minute, meaning the situation didn't offer her time for detailed thought or planning. It was either "go into hiding on an occupied planet" where it would be exponentially easier for the Trade Federation to find, capture and ultimately kill her, even with Jedi bodyguards; or escape the planet and occupying Droid Army that would surely be looking for her. And if you're going to escape, might as well a) go to the safest place there is, the heart of the Republic and Galactic Senate where you're protected and b) plead your case for galactic intervention while you're there.
But her experiences in the Senate - and Palpatine's whisperings in her ear - also had her somewhat pessimistic that the Senate would get its act together in a timely fashion, so she decided a more direct approach would be better than waiting around the Senatorial Apartments, effectively doing nothing.
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Well speculations are fun / can be fruitful, however they're best not confused with confirmed facts, and everything you said about the Naboo revolt in those first 2 paragraphs is, indeed, all very speculative, with various alternate possibilities that can be brought up at every turn.
"Wouldn't've had the Gungan army on her side"?
There's indeed no evidence for any such "humility development arc on Tatooine" or anywhere else - she's friendly and not racist to Jar Jar from the start (although then later acts irritated when he gets his handrr stuckrr lol), and there's no hint of any of the Naboo despising the Gungans either;
the only ones that are shown to have some (sarcastic) contempt for Jar Jar - and not even the rest of them - would be the 2 Jedi.
"Whether she knew about the army beforehand or not", well that's quite a huge whether that's totally open to interpretation, is it not?
And I don't see any other reasons why they had to "leave Naboo and then return in order to recruit the Gungans who'd been on Naboo the whole time"?
"No lightly guarded hangar to launch the fighters from, no lightly guarded palace to capture Gunray in"?
Certainly the former was "lightly guarded" from the start ("won't be a problem" "we'll have to free those pilots"); Palace never looked like it was teeming with droids either, not any more than there were during the battle. And Gunray's never shown leaving the Palace after entering it upon landing.
"she wouldn't have any coordination from the guard/police units that evaded capture,"
But what coordination did those provide? What new information did they offer?
And even if they did offer some, no one said they wouldn't've evaded that captured hadn't the Queen initially escaped - so had they like uhhhh, gone to hide in secret tunnels or the woods or whatnot to plan their revolt, they could've drawn upon those police coordinations just as well.
No no, they withdrew all the ships, but not the forces:
Panaka: "The Federation army's also much larger than we thought - and much stronger.
Your Highness, this is a battle I do not think that we can win."
The forces turn out to be much larger, just convenient enough to occupy the Gungans - Gungans and army cancel each other out, the rebels sneak into the city just like they would've had there been no "larger army" and no Gungans, apparently.
However the *ships* have withdrawn, yes.
Why'd they withdrawn? Never explained, so any statements about "they wouldn't have withdrawn them if xyz" can only be speculative as well.
Wouldn't they need the blockade more now, to hold off any curious emissaries from Coruscant, so they couldn't then fly closer and behold the invasion?
However if somehow this WAS a reaction to Amidala's escape, then yes, lucked out there - now the spacebattle's much easier.
Although had some Gungans been pilots, or some sympathizers had joined them from Coruscant and also provided more pilots, could've taken on the blockade that way as well.
The larger point here is that all these elements seem very arbitrary, not explained or justified, and might as well have some kinda possible rational explanations as just have popped into existence as the universe's reaction to the drama progression, all of that is completely on the table and nothing is clear.
There just had to be some means for Padme to be able to start an armed revolt (skills, circumstances, forces; tricks etc.), and then there are some means, and that's just it.
The Englanderish
Schrödinger's Kuudere Kitty Caliph(a)
- Location
- Califat de Chats
How do you not already read it as that? And I reiterate: A film does not actually need to walk the audience inch by inch through every minute mechanic of the plot.
What do you want them to blow ten minutes of the whole film on an irrelevant detail that you can infer a reasonable solution to?
There doesn't need to be one solution, one answer. All that matters for purposes is: can a reasonable person be expected to infer something plausible from this? And yes, yes they can!
Case in point, you ask in your last post why the TF withdrew its ships, and the simple answer would be now that they control the planet against an enemy with no navy and who's fighters straight up can't penetrate their shields of, those ships are returned back to the TF's various galactic interests where they're needed. Can you come up with an alternative explanation? Probabaly! Does the film need to engage with the answer to this question? No.
None of this is the problems the film actually has like stilted direction, which is a much more impactful problem the film has.
It's not perfect though. She's not being an automaton about it. She's a flexible person who's taking on board her experiences and information and making judgement calls that aren't actually perfect. What would Padme have done if she couldn't convince the gungans and been potentially stranded on a world with nobackup or military? That's a risk she took, that she chose to take based on her subjective appraisal of where the situation had become. It wasn't the instant solution of perfectly crafted genius, it was a measured and considered decision weighing up a whole host of factors that could well have turned out to not work, but that she felt at that point had become the best option, and it paid off.
There is more nuance to Padme and the whole situation than "obviously the gungans were the instant solution the very second she heard about them" or "obviously padme was a reckless idiot in the senate", and that is what I've been trying to get through to you. She's complex and intelligent, but she's not meme Batman with prep time. She's having to make snap decisions while being comparatively inexperienced and grappling with a moral conflict over what her role is, but she's not a reckless idiot ruled by impulsive decisions. She is, in a nutshell, a politician.