by Chris Snelgrove
| Published
The Star Wars prequels were full of stupid moments, from the awful “I hate sand” speech to almost every second that Jar-Jar Binks was on screen. Overall, though, most fans agree that this is absolute Stupid The moment was the death of Padmé Amidala due to a broken heart. Even in a galaxy far, far away, it's hard to accept that the former queen and mother of the galaxy's greatest hero would simply die of grief. However, some fans tried to make up for this stupid plot twist in Padmé's death with a simple theory: that Anakin Skywalker unconsciously drained the life force from her to stay alive.
Padme's death theory
Credit where credit is due: Revenge of the Sith It had some clever editing moments, including interspersed scenes of Padmé giving birth to Luke and Leia and scenes of Anakin Skywalker's robotic rebirth. Darth Vader. Part of what made Rebirth so scary is that we actually saw Anakin dismembered and then left to catch fire He dies By his former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. It didn't seem like something even a powerful Force user could survive, and according to this theory of Padme's death, the only way Anakin could live was by sucking all the life out of his wife (husbands, right?).
An interesting side effect of Padme's death theory is that it also redeems another stupid moment. Darth Vader is cartoonishly stupid “NOOOOOOO” She screams When he was told that his wife had died. Palpatine had just told his new apprentice that “because of your anger, I killed her,” and Vader's scream was alarming because he looked like he had been easily fooled by the most obvious liar in the galaxy. According to this theory, Palpatine was actually telling the truth, and Vader, blinded by rage, unconsciously drained Padmé's life force in a way that could not be detected by medical scanners.
More than Padmé's death theory
While the theory of Padmé's death is compelling, there are other variations and theories that are equally interesting. For example, the initial theory posits that Anakin did all of this unconsciously, which is why he is surprised and sad when he learns that his wife is dead. Others believe he intentionally sucked her life force out (perhaps starting with Mustafar Force's suffocation or even earlier), and only felt bad when he found out he'd gone too far and killed her (talk about post-robot clarity!).
Of course, the most popular alternative to the theory of Padmé's death is that it was Palpatine who absorbed her life force instead of Anakin. This would fit into a standing theory that it was Palpatine who sent Anakin visions of his dying wife, essentially planting the idea of her death so he could then offer the false carrot of granting her eternal life. By intentionally sucking the life out of her body after all that manipulation, the newly crowned Emperor could ensure that his powerful right hand had nothing to live for but the empire.
Obviously your mileage may vary as to whether this Padme death theory truly redeems the Prequel Trilogy. Even if George Lucas comes out tomorrow and gives us his best Han Solo (“That's right…all of that”), we'll still have bad dialogue and poor planning. Plus, it's a bit embarrassing that fans have spent nearly two decades trying to fix all the wrongs in a movie whose plot has more holes than the hull of the Millennium Falcon. Then again, considering how much Disney Currently running this franchise off the ground, fans and their theories may be what we have only The hope of telling good Star Wars stories in the foreseeable future.
