See comments section for our thoughts.
Script copyright George Lucas
Script excerpted from this site:
http://www.supershadow.com/star_wars/episode_1/the_phantom_menace/script.html
EXT. MOS ESPA - ARENA ANNOUNCER'S BOX - DAY (FX)
FODE/BEED
B : Start your engines.
The earth-pounding ROAR of the engines revving is deafening.
EXT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - ROYAL BOX - DAY (FX)
Jabba bites off the head of a frog and spits it at a gong,
signaling the start of the race.
EXT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - STARTING GRID - DAY
On a bridge over the track, a great green light at the center
flashes. The Podracers shoot forward with a high-pitches
scream. ANAKIN'S engine floods and coughs - then dies. All
the other Podracers except one swerve around him and dissapear
down the track. The slave boy struggles to get his racer
started. The two-headed announcer reports.
FODE/BEED (O.S.)
A : An dare ovv!
(And they're off!)
B : Oh...wait. Little Skywalker has
stalled.
PADME and JAR JAR are very dissapointed with ANAKIN. QUI-GON
puts his arm around a very worried SHMI to comfort her.
Finally, Anakin's engines ignite. He zooms away after the
receeding pack of competitors, leaving one quadra-Pod racer
still trying to get started. The two-headed ANNOUNCER
describes the race as it progresses.
FODE/BEED (O.S.)
B : And there goes Skywalker... He'll
be hard pressed to catch up with the
leaders today.
EXT. MOS ESPA - RACETRACK - DAY (FX)
The Podracers fly across the desert. SEBULBA is running neck
and neck with MAWHONIC. They round the first turn in the
track, side by side. SEBULBA drives his Pod into his rival,
forcing him into the wall of a large rock formation. MAWHONIC
crashes in a spectacular display of fire and smoke. ANAKIN
is much faster than the back-end stragglers and passes them
easily.
One of the drivers, GASGANO, won't let ANAKIN by. ANAKIN
tries to pass him on one side and is cut off. He then tries
to pass him on the other side ansd is cut off. As they come
up on a cliff drop-off, ANAKIN backs off, then guns it as
GASGANO goes over the cliff. ANAJIN accelerates so fast that
he sails right over the top of GASGANO and speeds away.
Four TUSKEN RAIDERS perched above the race course fire their
rifles at the Pods racing in the canyon below them. One shot
ricochets off the back of Anakin's Pod.
FODE/BEED
B : Looks like a few Tusken Riaders
have campe out on the canyon dune
turn.
EXT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - VIEWING PLATFORM - DAY
JABBA THE HUTT and the crowd watch the progress of the race
on small, hand-held view screens. JAR JAR is looking over
the shoulder of a strange alien named FANTA.
JAR JAR
Where's Skywalker?
FANTA moves the view screen out of Jar Jar's view. PADME,
SHMI, and QUI-GON watch another screen and look worried.
ARTOO, down in the pits with KITSTER, lets out a worried
sigh. The driver of the quadra-Pod looks worried.
EXT. MOS ESPA - RACETRACK - DAY (FX)
ANAKIN is powering around corners and over hills and cliffs,
passing other racers right and left. SEBULBA is in the lead.
He is being challenged by another racer, XELBREE.
SEBULBA slows a little, and as XELBREE pulls alongside, he
opens a side vent on the racer's engine and the exhaust starts
to cut through the alien's engine.
The blast cuts along the engine until finally it EXPLODES.
SEBULBA deftly veers away.
ANAKIN works his way through a dense mass of racers as they
zoom over a dune sea, kicking up dust. His Pod shakes
violently as he goes over a jump.
One of the Podracers, ODY, catches one of his engines in the
sand, and the whole thing EXPLODES.
EXT. MOS ESPA - ARENA - VIEWING PLATFORM - DAY
QUI-GON sits quietly, meditating. PADME and SHMI search the
landscape for any sign of the racers. JAR JAR is still
annoying FANTA for information. The crowd SCREAMS. WATTO is
laughing with his friends, confident in Anakin's defeat.
The quadra-Pod engines start just as the racers come around
the corner. The DRIVER, BEN QUADINAROS, puts it in gear, and
the four engines go off in all directions, EXPLODING in a
spectacular display. The Pod drops to the ground as SEBULBA
enters the arena, closely followed by all the OTHER RACERS.
KITSTER strains to see as ARTOO beeps excitedly. The announcer
continues.
FODE/BEED (O.S.)
B ; There goes Quadinaros' power
couplings.
A : Sebulba! Ka pa me cheespa wata!
(Here comes Sebulba in record time.)
QUI-GON, PADME, SHMI, and JAR JAR yell for joy as ANAKIN
passes. JAR JAR is very nervous and pounds on the back of
his alien neighbor, FANTA.
JAR JAR
What gooie-on?
FANTA
Bug off.
At this point in the theater I was perfectly happy with the pod race.
ReplyDeleteSure, you cut the stupid announcers and the stupid Jar Jar stuff.
More importantly:
You minimize the amount of time Anakin is sitting around at the start doing nothing. It makes his comeback victory much more difficult to believe, unless either
1) Anakin's pod is REALLY fast, or
2) Pods go faster when not part of the main pack?
#2 goes against everything we know about fluid dynamics, from NASCAR to pelotons to the 100M freestyle. So let's throw that one out.
#1 is a different sort of problem. If Anakin is so fast, why doesn't he just blow by EVERYONE? Including Sebulba? On the other hand, if Anakin is NOT that fast, how in the world does Anakin ever catch Sebulba when Sebulba finishes the first lap in what the announcers call "record time?"
I do think it's pretty dumb that so many pods are exploding. If it were THAT dangerous, no one would be willing to run these races unless they were slaves of the pod owners. Which, if true, would make this a much more compelling storyline.
To run with that just a little bit, what if slave pilots could buy their freedom with the winner's purse? What if losers were killed by their owners? So that even if Anakin wins (as we wish), all these other guys are gonna be killed? Maybe death is to harsh....but some serious consequence. Let's maybe not have such a good feeling about Anakin winning this thing.
Let's give Anakin some extra guilt for winning the race. Let's have that contribute to his ultimate seduction by the dark side. Okay, I suppose "ultimate" is the wrong word in light of his actions at the end of Jedi.
Sadly, this bothered me even live. I get that he's a magic child. And he built a magic go kart. But there is NO WAY he can come back from there. No way. Not when Sebulba always wins. Maybe if Sebulba is one of the ones who gets all blowed up. But he didn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree death is too harsh, but I like that there's a REASON to be in there. They don't even need to be killed - just stuck racing again, in a very very dangerous race. Of course, then you need to ask why Sebulba races time and again.
You resurrected a post a few threads back. Do it again!
ReplyDeleteWhat browser are you using? Can you get the Lazarus plug-in? It's pretty nifty...
Anyway...
ReplyDeleteI think we need some understanding of Sebulba's character.
Let's say he's a slave, too. He has lots of little slave kids who are the property of his owner. Whenever he loses a race, the owner sells off a kid to another plantation. Whenever he wins a race, he gets to designate one of his kids to stay on the plantation with him until maturity or something.
OR, if that's too much pathos: For every race Sebulba wins, his owner gets him a new slave girl. Or maybe a night with a slave girl. Something like that.
Oh, and back to the slave children storyline: Guess who buys Sebulba's kids? Watto! Godfather Watto owns half of Sebulba's kids and never lets Sebulba see them, so Sebulba hates Watto. By extension, Sebulba hates Watto's pet slave, Anakin. This helps explain Sebulba's willingness to LET ANAKIN CATCH UP WITH HIM in the race so that Sebulba can try to wreck Anakin's pod and kill him off.
All of this, of course, contributes to Anakin's desire to return to Tatooine and end slavery in his slightly later years.
You know, the lack of backstory really hurts the prequels. There's no real mythos.
ReplyDeleteIt may not be a fair comment--certainly as kids we didn't really care, but I at least always was hearing stories about the fall of the Republic and Vader being knocked into a lava pit and all that. Cool stories told on the playground. A sense of history.
But clearly none of that was in the air when Star Wars hit theaters in 1977. Yet here it still seems empty: Why do we care about Naboo? What the crap is Naboo? It's nothing but a facade. We see no depth. Tatooine is a little more interesting because we know so much of what happens there a generation later.
But Naboo is a real problem. Not only do we not understand just what is going on there with the Trade Federation, we don't know anything about the place. Why are the Gungans and humans at odds? How do you get two intelligent races on the same planet? Are the humans not native? That would be cool to find out. Maybe thy suppressed the Gungans when they colonized the planet 500 years ago. Maybe they didn't even know the Gungans existed. Give us something, George.
George, you've stated that you had to write the backstory for Star Wars before you wrote Star Wars. And I'll believe that some version of it existed in your head if nowhere else. But if that's true, didn't you also have to write the backstory for the prequels before you wrote the prequels? If not, then your claim that Star Wars had to have a backstory sounds hard to back up.
It seems to me there is some considerable history for the Republic, Coruscant, and the Jedi/Sith conflict. That part feels firm and real--or it would if it were not CGI. But Naboo is a disaster.
Perhaps George's claim was that he had to write a backstory for Star Wars in order for Star Wars to be good. In which case, he certainly hammered his point home 22 years later.
Oh, snap!
ReplyDeleteI can't disagree with anything you say here. Well, ok, I think we can rule out the slave girls.
The stark contrast between Naboo and Tatooine is remarkable. But even on Tatooine, I feel like everything we think we know is from 4-6. Why are the Hutts here? Who the hell are the Hutts? Jabba hiding in his palace is one thing, but here they're on parade.
Why does the Republic leave Tatooine alone anyway - why are they "allowed" slaves?
Personally, I still think it's flat out stupid that we're here anyway. Why does Luke need to come from the same planet as DV? That serves no purpose except to be twee. Which is apparently a goal of Lucas in these prequels.
Anyway. Yes, we need backstory here. We need Sebulba and Watto to actually have a story.
I'm going to go to wookieepedia and see if there are semiofficial answers, but I promise not to share them with you.
Ok, I know I promised not to report back, but there's some actual answers there! I have not checked to see if they're from Lucas or from non-canon or what have you. But I learned somethings. Also: slave girls. I shit you not.
ReplyDeletehahahahahahaha
ReplyDeleteIf it's important, it should be in the movie.
Maybe this backstory log is how Lucas justifies things to himself. "Well, it's okay if I don't EXPLAIN Naboo onscreen, because there is an explanation, and I can just write everything so that it jibes with the explanation." Internally consistent? Yeah. But the freaking audience still has to take it on faith, so there's no point in it.
Ok. "Important" bits.
ReplyDelete1) Yes, the gungans are native, and the humans (or whatever) came later. There was tension. There was ONE war. Now they're totes besties.
2) Yes, the monarch is elected. It used to be inherited, then some shit went down, and now it's not. I haven't yet read the Amidala article to see what the hell she had done at age 12? to be elected.
3) Sebulba absolutely used his winnings to buy slave girls (Twileks) and to bang other Dugs.
That's all I can think of at the moment, as I'z been drankin.
Oh, right... and something about a note he sent to Jabba before the podrace? Was that in the movie? I have no recollection.
1) would have been very interesting for our reimagined Jar Jar character, or the reimagined Boss Whatever character, to relate to Our Heroes. Instead, we get faux Jamaican jibberish and poo jokes.
ReplyDelete2) ignoring the stupid age part, which is trivial to correct by just changing the age, there is absolutely no indication that Amidala was elected at this point in the story. AND, I'd say the "election" nonsense hurts, because then you're stuck in this "oh but she was an awesome 12-year-old" theme that haunts the whole movie. But I said I was ignoring that. Anyway, the story is better with her being heir to the throne at this point. The whole idea of "elected queen" is just dumb.
also 2) it this stuff that happened that caused the queen to being an elected position....I can't even muster up interest in it. It's that dumb. Sounds like a Don Henley song--check out the lyrics to End of the Innocence.
3) That just makes Sebulba even less likeable. I realize shades of grey aren't exactly a strength (or remotely the point) of this saga, but still I'd like to have Sebulba be a slave himself. At least make it a little more complicated.
3 also) Lucas has some issue, some deep psychological issue, that has led to the Twileks. Would be interesting to get a feminist's take on them, and their various roles in the movies.
4) note to Jabba? I don't remember that either. May have been cut. Too bad--having some collusion between Watto, Sebulba, and Jabba would have added a layer to the tension....and might also have been the start of Watto's decline once the race is over. It would be nice to foreshadow the change in Watto's fortunes observed between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.
from before) Never followed up on the Hutts thing. I also found it very odd that the Hutts are so visibly in control of Tatooine in the prequel, as opposed to being one random gangster hanging out in the desear with his cronies. It's unnecessary. I'm quite happy for him to be a shadowy figure in the background of the pod racing, to some extent similar to his role in the restored scene in Star Wars where he confronts Han Solo.
where by desear I meant desert.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for Haidle before I proceed. Although we may have this one about wrapped up once we're moving on to general complaints without new improvement suggestions.
ReplyDeleteProlly need to confirm that Haidle will actually contribute...he's pretty hard to get in contact with via email during the week, but I'll give it a shot.
ReplyDeleteOoh! Does he text? Maybe you could text him.
ReplyDeleteIs that too forward? Am I taking us too seriously? Can you text someone about your own blog? That might be a faux pas.
I bet it's gauche. Do you think it's gauche? I think it's gauche.
ReplyDeleteWould have been interesting if Sebulba were also a Watto employee--and if Anakin had been his mechanic. They had an adversarial relationship that drove Anakin to begin developing his own pod designs in secret.
ReplyDeleteAnakin could have been enraged by Sebulba's treatment of the slave girls, OR jealous of same. His worship of the Twileks might get transferred to Padme somehow.
"You're not like sand. You're like a Twilek."
I loller every time I read that. I'm so freaking funny.
ReplyDeletehahahahahahahahahahha
ReplyDeleteNow laughing at the fact that I'm still laughing at it. Sand! Twileks! Padme!
ReplyDeleteWhere the hell is Haidle? I should text him and find out.
ReplyDeleteTell him about my sand-Twilek post!
ReplyDeleteYou may need to tell him what a Twilek is first. He'll probably think it some twisted Dalek fetish thing.
Alright, we can no longer delay our important work.
ReplyDeleteThe floor is yours, Heelzebub.
Ok, but I think we finished this one. On to the next scene.
ReplyDelete