Susan Senator

We went with some friends to see the Star Wars exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science. I have to say I was a tad disappointed, because it was so hard-core robotics and magnetics. Lots of gray, black, and light blue colors. Very male, very Y chromosome. Nothing girly at all. Just think: they could have shown Amidala’s state costumes. Spectacular!

I love the Star Wars tale, but always wished that George Lucas had used a better writer to do justice to his wonderful ideas. Imagine if the dialog had been real, as opposed to stilted and stiff, and if the characters had real depth and complexity. For instance, what the heck happened to the warrior-stateswoman Padme- Amidala? By Episode 3 (or the last one, as people in my generation think of it, because in my mind Episode 3 will always be the tragic Ewoks one) Padme was reduced to a trophy wife who stays at home and incubates, wearing Barbarella-esque costumes and 1960’s makeup and hairdos. Almost an abused wife, living with a stalker (Anakin-Vader).

Also, wouldn’t it have been great to understand more about what made Anakin cross over to the Dark Side? For instance, my friend’s theory is that Anakin’s father is really Emperor Palpatine(!) Brilliant! She pointed out to me that they both have the same cleft in their chin, as does Luke Skywalker! Therefore a case could be made that Anakin always had a little bit of a sullied gene pool. But I always thought that there should have been more to make Anakin turn bad than just fearing for Padme’s death; it started before that, when he killed all those Sand people because some of them killed his mother. I think that in addition to that, maybe Padme could have cheated on Anakin with Obi-Wan! Why not, he’s cute, too! And so very authoritative. Kind of reminds me of my Ned…

What does it mean that Anakin’s looks have always reminded me of Max?