Who elects a 14 year old to control a planet?
#17
Posted 14 June 2005 - 11:54 AM
There was no requirement for the prequels to have anyone called "princess". The only OT reference was to "Princess Leia" who is also a Senator. However, in modern day Europe you have people called "Prince" this and "Princess" that and "Count" this and "Count" that and the only thing it means is that they belong to a family that once had political power. They are courtesy titles only. France has been a republic for over a century but it still has Princes, Marquises, Counts, etc. the point is that this helps them get a reservation at the best restaurants on a busy night but that's about it.
So there is no reason for Leia, or Padme for that matter, to hold the title of "Princess" in the sense that they are monarchs or hold political power due to that title. They could just have been descended from what had been the ruling family of some planet before it joined the Republic.
Ironically, there is no need for "Senators" to be elected either and in the original Star Wars I assuemed Leia wasn't. Roman Senators held their office by virtue of descent from previous Senators, or in rare cases because they had held some other high level office. Even today Senators are not necessarily elected, ie Canada. US Senators, for that matter, are not chosen in what are objectively free and fair elections, they represent differently sized electorates for example.
My guess that that this is due to a mixture of a genuine political naivite/ bafflement by Lucas, and partly due because the story he wants to tell requires a fourteen year old girl to have political power. Well, then she has to inherit from her parents. But he reaches this solution and spoils it by claiming that she has been "elected". This is the problem throughout the prequels, Lucas gets close at times to a coherent plot and then throws something in that doesn't fit with anything else that he has presented.
If Lucas has thought through how the Republic was run, here is a possible solution that is consistent with his story. The Republic is a loosely run federation, not of planets but of nations (so the Neimoidians are a nation spread through several planets). Each nation has complete internal self-government, the Senate is a sort of UN whose main purpose is to resolve disputes between nations, with the aid of the jedi. The difference with the real life UN is that the delegates to the Senate are elected and not appointed by their governments, imagine the difference if the Americans elected their UN ambassador. The humans on Naboo have a monarchy with a hereditary Queen. They have elected a Senator, Palpatine. The Queen is not elected, the Senator is. When Palpatine moves up, that creates a vacancy, and Padme runs for Senator and is elected. She still remains Queen, by virtue of heredity, and takes on the additional job as Senator, by election. Maybe she even abdicates to concentrate on her Senatorial job.
This is nowhere explained and its clear that Lucas never bothered to work that out. And you've still got me on where "term limits" come into this.
#19
Posted 14 June 2005 - 04:14 PM
Battle for the Galaxy--read the "other Star Wars"
All I know is I haven't seen the real prequels yet.
#20
Posted 14 June 2005 - 07:32 PM
you can still have a democracy under monachy...
that's what elected prime-ministers and premiers are for...
perhaps that what lucas was going for... but he got lazy on the research side of things... and now that is actually what he believes happens with royalty...
This post has been edited by barend: 14 June 2005 - 07:33 PM
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#21
Posted 15 June 2005 - 12:56 PM
But the Queen of Naboo apparently is supposed to make decisions on her own (none of her ministers are shown). However, Naboo is a democracy because the Queen is not only elected, but her term in office is limited! But evidently the voters are limited to chosing among 14-year olds.
#23
Posted 15 June 2005 - 06:07 PM
Runner up, he was...
Isaac Asimov
#24
Posted 15 June 2005 - 06:34 PM
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The problem with this whole "elected queen" business is somewhere along the line George got the idea that STAR WARS had always been about how fascism can arise out of Democracy, like there had always been this political message there, right from the start. Oh, and it was also about ancient myth and the collective unconscious, by way of Jung and Josepoh Campbell. It was NOT just a lot of sci-fi cliches palgiarized toigether and held fasty by some groundbreaking special effects and a few good actors. That would have put all the credit on the FX guys and the actors. No, STAR WARS was Lucas's APOCALYPSE NOW, and you better believe it.
So by the time the prequels came around he wanted a democracy so he could make that stupidly literal story about the rise of fascism, but then he remembered that his former world had been a Republic, but not the sort we have now where our representatives are elected, but some one involving Monarchs as senators. So he just fused the two together, and made up this weirdness about 14-year-old elected queens. Why it makes no sense, apart from the obvious does-not-ring-trueness, is that it was tacked on after the fact. Three movies with nearly zero politics, and then suddenly three movies mired in political hogwash.
That's just it. The OT in no way resembles the PT. Lucas was more enamoured with politics rather than chracter relations. All this bullshit about palpatine pulling a Napoleon Bonaparte and the Senate curmbling like that of Rome may all be loosely true, but it does not explain the story which needs to be told.
Politics was not needed in the OT. Politics was needed in the PT, as a background story.
Have you ever read the Matrice Circle? It's a great spy novel written by Robert Ludlum. It's about this crime syndicate that slowly tries to take over the world's econmics by buying out and merging companies together. Eventually the Matrice wanted a world wide monopoly. Any how, this entire plot was all set in the background of the book. It was hinted at the start of every chapter with newspaper clipings with headings that read "Pan Am mergers with Air Canada etc.." You know something is brewing, but you have no clue of how it's happening, you just know the matrice are pulling strings, and frankly that's all you need to know. The rest of the book is about agents, guns, and espionage. The stuff you'd expect from a spy novel.
This is how the politics of the PT needed to be handled. Have ob1 step on set and say something like "did you hear Anakin, Palpatine was voted in as head chancellor after our incident on Naboo". The end.
This post has been edited by Jordan: 15 June 2005 - 06:35 PM
#25
Posted 15 June 2005 - 07:10 PM
NOooooooooooooooooooo!!!!
but, yes, that's it exactly....
lucas spends too much time over exploring things he doesn't understand the basic mechanics of...
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#27
Posted 25 June 2005 - 01:29 PM
The ancient Egyptians elected a 14 year old as queen? Are you sure you don't want to go check your facts again?
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#28
Posted 25 June 2005 - 03:47 PM
The Ancient Egyptians held elections? That's interesting. Name me one child king/queen that was elected and I'll gladly tapdance for you.
Child kings and queens become such because their parents died or their siblings died and they were the last heir to the throne. This was the assumption most right thinking people made about Amidala going into TPM. When they brough up the election in AOTC that just made an acceptable plot element completely stupid.
#29
Posted 25 June 2005 - 07:11 PM
And maybe they elect people from certain families? People can belief in Force, but not in society where they can elect a young queen. Weird.
Actually, if they elect monarchs for life, it might make sense that they elect young people. But did she abdicate or else?