This is Stuff You Like, you can call me Ursa, and we’re technically talking about The
Empire Strikes back, we’re mostly at the moment talking about Attack of the Clones,
but we will get there, I promise.
So: Anakin.
Attack of the Clones.
Darth Creeper.
Why is this a problem?
It’s a problem because to sell a love story you have to give us a compelling reason that
these two characters might fall in love.
Anakin had a childhood crush on Padme, and he has been nurturing that for ten years.
It is quite natural for someone with so little experience of the outside world to idolise
a woman he barely knew.
But Padme?
I don’t see in their interactions any compelling reason for Padme to love Anakin.
Look, I’ve been reading a CRAPTON of Star Wars meta in preparation for this episode
and while it did make me feel more sorry for Anakin, it didn’t give me any clue why Padme
would fall in love with a 19 year old who’s...yeah.
“Eh, she covered the cameras.
I don’t think she liked me watching her.”
Especially because their initial interaction goes something like this:
I haven’t seen Padme in ten years, and so I will start by awkwardly trying to compliment
her and then arguing with my Master in front of her.
I will make her so uncomfortable, again, that a woman in fear for her life COVERS THE CAMERAS
IN HER ROOM.
“I don’t think she liked me watching”
NO I WILL NOT LEAVE THAT CLIP ALONE.
And then he’s her bodyguard, again alone, and makes her uncomfortable by staring.
Then they have a not exactly fun or interesting conversation, but it’s not actively creepy,
I guess, and the fact that it’s not interesting is more down to the writing than their interaction.
Then he interrupts her in front of the QUEEN.
Manners, Anakin.
Awkward, Anakin.
Padme as someone who desperately wants to FIX Anakin I could maybe buy, but these interactions
make me twitchy.
I really liked Attack of the Clones when it first came out, but it wasn’t because of
the love story, it was mostly because of The Adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Mullet.
And also because Padme gets just the most amazing outfits.
I understand that the idea is that their romance is doomed from the get-go, but she’s 24
years old and she’s been a politician for TEN YEARS NOW.
Putting up with that level of creepitude in her romantic life feels...off, especially
when the film tries to imply that it’s NOT creepy.
Look, Anakin, you’re going to guarding her, alone with her, spending time with her.
She is going to have to totally rely on you in situations when her life is threatened.
You very much do not want her thinking: "Actually, I'm feeling threatened right now!"
and whole actually I'm feeling threatened right now is exactly the vibe I get from Anakin
in the some of these situations, which means that it colours all of their other conversations.
I mean the writing for the 'we're totally falling in love' scenes isn't exactly...inspired,
but I could have got behind it a bit more if it weren't for those weird, red flag interactions
that JUST KEEP HAPPENING.
Maybe his flirting is meant to warn us of his growing sense of rebellion against the
Jedi order and his selfish need to have what he wants and damn the consequences, but that’s
not really very romantic.
And it’s sort of FRAMED as romantic with the sweeping John Williams soundtrack...although,
by the end of some scenes even the score isn’t so sure.
And that lack of clarity is another writing issue.
What sort of love story is this?
It feels too awkward and too tentative to be the grand sweeping passion the writing
leads us to believe it’s supposed to be.
The SAND scene, for example, is really hella awkward, and not in a ‘barely restrained
passion, is it hot in here or is it just them?’ kind of way.
No, in a sort of jerky pawing motions kind of way.
If you want to see how to do chemistry RIGHT with barely any touching at all, then really
what you need are some of the better period dramas.
I mean Colin Firth and his stares of Repressed British Longing are always a thing, but the
2005 Pride and Prejudice with former Star Wars Queen Keira Knightley is an amazing example
of how you do chemistry with barely any touching at all.
Because they hardly touch the entire movie, but when they do you get the impression that
they’re desperately restraining themselves from doing something highly inappropriate.
EVEN WHEN they are fighting their feelings of loathing for each other.
Fighting down a grand passion which your respective positions make impossible: that’s how you
do it.
By contrast, the dominatrix dress scene - because clearly Anakin isn’t the only one with a
thing for faux-leather - is just uncomfortable.
And this is what I mean about the chemistry.
Because Anakin again looks...intense to the point of creepy.
Frustrated, and a little bit angry, and creepy.
This would be ok, this would be much less creepy if it was matched by equal intensity
from Padme but it’s NOT.
And watching it makes me so uncomfortably because look at their body language!
Padme keeps MOVING AWAY from Anakin, shifting back, standing up.
In this dimly lit room while completely alone this kind of...mismatched intensity is...intensely...out
of place.
The WORDS and the COSTUME and the SCORE are trying to imply that she is desperately tempted,
but because she is clearer-headed than Anakin she will not let him throw away his future.
But the body language says BACK OFF, I AM UNCOMFORTABLE.
It does somewhat improve in Revenge of the Sith, but scenes where they are physically
close and touching are generally really DARK, and CLOSE UP, so you can’t really see it,
and scenes where they are being verbally sweet and shiz they are PHYSICALLY DISTANT.
And again, being verbally sweet isn't really that good because...writing.
And scenes where they could be touching they AREN’T.
Which given that it’s supposed to be this great passionate doomed affair feels off.
Even if you think your affair is doomed, you’d try touching, wouldn't you?
You'd try to reconnect, and there's some of that, but just not enough.
Perhaps this is a sign that you have fallen out of love?
But the script does not imply that that is what it is and so it feels really confused
and a terrible mismatch between what the script is implying and what the body language of
the actors and their positioning is implying.
The messages are just too mixed for me to get behind, basically.
Is this a great doomed romance, where they are terrible for each other but can’t keep
their hands to themselves?
And if it’s a grand romance that BECOMES a horrible tragedy, then I couldn’t get
behind that because I don’t believe the grand romance in the grand romance in the
first place.
Even when they are declaring their love for each other, it’s just such an INAPPROPRIATE
KISS for the situation.
Because when your true love and possibly you are about to die, or at the very least you
might never see them again, I'd expect a little more intensity.
And we're back to Han and Leia!
Han Solo is played as a world-weary scoundrel with thousands of parsecs under his belt.
Wait.
I mean he's been around the block a few times.
His way with women is...well, since the Expanded Universe has been purged, his main interactions
with a woman in official canon mostly revolve around yelling.
At least until this scene.
And, as I said on Tumblr, my favourite parts of this scene are how they’ve done this
so often that they can let people walk through the middle without breaking stride, and how
unconcerned that extra is about walking right between General Solo and Princess Leia, Leader
of the Rebellion, who are having an argument about whether or not she fancies him.
So yeah, we have Han, who is an ordinary dude scraping by and trying not to get killed,
but he’s secretly kind of heroic.
Though he gets mad when people find this out.
And then we have Leia, who couldn’t BE more different.
Background-wise: she's a princess, Senator, leader of a covert organisation, someone whose
service to her people and her planet have consumed her LIFE.
Even though neither exists any more.
Someone who’s been through torture, someone who was hours from death when she got broken
out of prison...but while she’s a natural leader, she’s really terrible at dealing
with her own feelings.
And when you get right down to it, she’s a teenager.
Albeit one who had to grow up too fast.
She’s the same age as Anakin in Attack of the Clones, but I think she’s probably doing
a little bit better emotionally.
Maybe.
Han and Leia are two people pulled in different directions.
Han is trying to figure out whether or not he’s a hero, and Leia is...trying to deal
with being in charge.
She is reluctant teenager dealing with FEELINGS at a time when FEELINGS are inconvenient because
you know, the FATE OF THE GALAXY HANGS IN THE BALANCE, MA.
It’s not that Leia doesn’t like Han, it’s just that she has her own issues to deal with,
and she quite understandably NOPES right on out of there when she hears his stated intention
to leave.
Anakin and Padme are being held apart by politics and the Jedi Way of Doing Things, but their
movie interactions are generally so stiff and stilted and wordy that I have trouble
believing it.
Leia gets worked up at Han because she cares, and because all that passion has to go somewhere.
Padme...doesn’t.
While I’m not saying that she HAS to, but when she mostly sounds calm and rational,
again, the headlong dive into a really boring kiss doesn’t ring terribly true.
Before they actually manage to get it together, Han and Leia’s body language, all the touching
they do, and all the touching they DON’T DO, everything about their performance plays
into this dynamic:
he’s impressed but wow, not even going there, OK, well, maybe, she’s tempted and yet completely
not going there on account of unreliability being a good way to get yourself killed in
a universe that most sincerely wants you dead.
A universe where we have no time for our sorrows over the achingly recent genocide of most
of the people we’ve loved, Commander, because we’ve got to blow up a Death Star.
But then Han goes and does something really great and heroic and ohhhh...I think I like
him.
Maybe a lot.
Crap.
Which seems like a good point to stop.
We’ll get back to Han and Leia, and their body language, in part 3.