The Prequel Feminism: Part 2
Attack of the Clones really does begin with a bang, and in so doing introduces a whole new realm of trials and ordeals that Padme Amidala must go through in this stage of her hero's journey.
Now a senator, Padme returns to Coruscant to vote down the Military Creation Act that has been designed to alleviate fears revolving around a Separatist movement. She rightly sees it as the beginning of a civil war, as well as laying the foundation of the monster military-industrial-complex the Empire will eventually become. Yet the moment her Nubian starship lands in the galactic capital, it is blown to pieces and one of her decoys is killed.
This immediately brings to light the fact that she can no longer be split in two, expecially when she is striving to prevent the Republic from doing the same thing. In the first scene, she also takes off her pilot's mask and goes over to her fallen comrades. Unmasking is pivotal to Star Wars, and Padme's daughter Leia will do it in Return of the Jedi. It is this act that allows both of them to love. Each initially define themselves solely in terms of careers and politics, and as such, have entire portions of their consciousnesses covered and left unexplored.
One of the first scenes she is in visually explores this, as Padme is depicted as the quintessential sleeping beauty, resting in a Coruscant apartment while being guarded by Jedi. It is during this scene that a second attempt is made on her life by a bounty hunter named Zam Wesell, who again brings up the theme of "maya," being a shape-shifting clawdite symbolic of the illusions being woven by Chancellor Palpatine. The two centipedal kouhuns Wesell sends to kill Padme almost succeed, and they also serve as mythic allusions to the two serpents sent to kill baby Hercules in his sleep. Padme is woken up and saved by Anakin Skywalker, who deftly slices the kouhuns in half as he - appropriately enough - jumps on her bed.
Anakin met Padme ten years earlier, and she has been in his dreams ever since. When he is assigned to be her Jedi protector, the young knight travels with her to Naboo. Once they decide to stay at a hidden retreat in the Lake Country, the two are forced to deal with their feelings for one another. As they take strolls by the lakes, go on picnics, and talk politics, they get to know each other all over again. After they share a bittersweet kiss, the two decide in an uncomfortable fireside chat that they can never be together, as she is a Senator, and he is a Padawan learner.
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