We get a glimpse Palpatine's underlying plan, and Qui-Gon drops a couple of bombshells on the Jedi Council.
Script copyright George Lucas
Script excerpted from this site:
http://www.supershadow.com/star_wars/episode_1/the_phantom_menace/script.html
INT. PALPATINE'S QUARTERS - ANTEROOM - DAY
QUEEN AMIDALA is sitting listening to PALPATINE. EIRTAE and
RABE stand behind the QUEEN; PADME is nowhere to be sen.
ANAKIN and JAR JAR are waiting in an adjoining room. They
can see the Queen but cannot hear what is being said.
JAR JAR
Dissen all pitty odd to my.
ANAKIN
Don't look at me. I don't know what's
going on.
Capt. Panaka enters, then goes into the room with QUEEN
AMIDALA.
INT. PALPATINE'S QUARTERS - LIVING AREA - DAY
PALPATINE is pacing as Capt. Panaka enters. EIRTAE and RABE
stand to one side.
PALPATINE
...the Republic is not what it once
was. The Senate is full of greedy,
squabbling delegates who are only
looking out for themselves and their
home sytems. There is no interest
in the common good...no civility,
only politics...its disgusting. I
must be frank, Your Majesty, there
is little chance the Senate will act
on the invasion.
AMIDALA
Chancellor Valorum seems to think
there is hope.
PALPATINE
If I may say so, Your Majesty, the
Chancellor has little real power...he
is mired down by baseless accusations
of corruption. A manufactured scandal
surrounds him. The bureaucrats are
in charge now.
AMIDALA
What options do we have?
PALPATINE
Our best choice would be to push for
the election of a stronger Supreme
Chancellor. One who will take control
of the bureaucrats, enforces the
laws, and give us justice. You could
call for a vote of no confidence in
Chancellor Valorum.
AMIDALA
He has been our strongest supporter.
Is there any other way?
PALPATINE
Our only other choice would to be to
submit a plea to the courts...
AMIDALA
There's no time for that. The courts
take even longer to decide things
than the Senate. Our people are dying,
Senator...more and more each day. We
must do something quickly to stop
the Federation.
PALPATINE
To be realistic, Your Highness, I'd
say we're going to have to accept
Federation control for the time being.
AMIDALA
There is something I cannot do.
EXT. TEMPLE OF THE JEDI - DAY (FX)
A unique building with it tall spires stands out against the
Coruscant skyline. A small transport passes by the vast
temple.
INT. TEMPLE OF THE JEDI - COUNCIL CHAMBERS - DAY
QUI-GON stands in a tall stately room. Twelve JEDI sit in a
semi-circle. OBI-WAN stands behind QUI-GON in the center of
the room.
The Senior Jedi is MACE WINDU. To his left is an alien Jedi
named KI-ADI-MUNDI, and to his right, the Jedi Master, YODA.
QUI-GON
...my only conclusion can be that it
was a Sith Lord.
MACE WINDU
A Sith Lord?!?
KI-ADI
Impossible! The Sith have been extinct
for a millenium.
YODA
The very Republic is threatened, if
involved the Sith are.
MACE WINDU
I do not believe they could have
returned without us knowing.
YODA
Hard to see, the dark side is.
Discover who this assassin is, we
must.
KI-ADI
I sense he will reveal himself again.
MACE WINDU
This attack was with purpose, that
is clear, and I agree the Queen is
the target.
YODA
With this Naboo queen you must stay,
Qui-Gon. Protect her.
MACE WINDU
We will use all our resources here
to unravel this mystery and discover
the identity of your attacker... May
the Force be with you.
YODA
May the Force be with you.
OBI-WAN turns to leave, but QUI-GON continues to face the
Council.
YODA
Master Qui-Gon more to say have you?
QUI-GON
With your permission, my Master. I
have encountered a vergence in the
Force.
YODA
A vergence, you say?
MACE WINDU
Located around a person?
QUI-GON
A boy... his cells have the highest
concentration of midi-chlorians I
have seen in a life form. It is
possible he was conceived by the
midi-chlorians.
MACE WINDU
You're referring to the prophesy of
the one who will bring balance to
the Force...you believe it's this
boy??
QUI-GON
I don't pressume...
YODA
But you do! Rrevealed your opinion
is.
QUI-GON
I request the boy be tested.
The JEDI all look to one another. They nod and turn back to
OBI-WAN and QUI-GON.
YODA
Trained as a Jedi, you request for
him?
QUI-GON
Finding him was the will of the
Force...I have no doubt of that.
There is too much happening here...
MACE WINDU
Bring him before us, then.
YODA
Tested he will be.
A lot going on here, as Yoda mentions.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the Palpatine scene. We've already figured out how to rewrite it so that Palpatine is a reveal, so that's done.
The bit about Valorum being weak and beset by a manufactured scandal is poorly fleshed out. We should cut the scandal or write a real backstory for it. The film is long enough that I say, just cut it.
Otherwise, this description of the "Phantom Menace" is the best in the film. Maybe even drop that term in here somehow, although I can't see how to do it without Palpatine admitting that the situation on Naboo is also "manufactured." So scratch that for now.
So really I'm very happy with the political bit here. It is incredibly crucial to the whole point of the episode, so it may need to be made even more clear--I think that can be done by making it more apparent to the casual fan that Palpatine = The Emperor.
The Jedi scene is very different so I'll comment on that in another post.
Okay, what's with this Jedi Council? Do they ever do anything, or do they just sit around all day and listen to reports from the Jedi who do the work?
ReplyDeleteBasically, you're taking your wisest and (presumably) most powerful Jedi and plopping them down in a room. "Just sit there!" you say to Yoda. Useless. You certainly get the impression that they're always in that room, throughout the rest of the prequel trilogy.
I think their reaction to the return of the Sith is overblown. I think it would add more tension/excitement if they immediately came out with "oh crap, this is what we've been afraid of for a thousand years! This could be the end of us all, if the dark side regains ascendancy!" and the like.
Anyway, they call it impossible, then Yoda's like "well maybe" and suddenly they're all serious about it being true? Whatever.
Next, the assassination of Amidala. Now how does that make sense? Palpatine needs Amidala to manipulate the Senate. Why would he want to kill her? Wasn't Darth Maul going after the Jedi because they were going to screw up the invasion? Why continue to chase them once they're on Tatooine/Coruscant?
Doesn't Palpatine NEED the Jedi to bring Amidala to Coruscant? Or did he have someone else he was going to manipulate into asking the Senate to vote Valorum out? If so, who? Couldn't we have seen that, and then seen him seizing the new situation and using it to his advantage?
So then why is Darth Maul still trying to kill Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan at the end of the movie? By then, having the Jedi winthat last battle actually works in Palpatine's favor, because it shows his effective leadership as Chancellor?
This is just a mess. We need another, clearer reason for Darth Maul to be wreaking havoc.
And finally, Lucas is choking all over the Divine Anakin again.
ReplyDeleteA vergence? What the crap is that?
PROPHECY?? There are two things I hate in my SF, prophecy and time travel. Okay, three things: prophecy, time travel, and dragons. Well, four things: prophecy, time travel, dragons, and raising the dead. And magic without rules. So five things. But I hate them. Prophecy is probably the worst. Other than time travel. What is the point of prophecy here? To bring in more faux-religious overtones?
And why the crap is the force out of balance? Anybody seeing an imbalance in the force? I mean, there are no Sith, so maybe there's no balance because of that? So we want Sith to balance the Jedi, and Anakin will be a Sith, so that balances the force? So that's good, then. Yay Anakin.
Another thing occurred to me last night, and fits in pretty well here.
ReplyDeleteIn Star Wars, Han Solo goes on about how he doesn't even believe in the Force. Now, I'm assuming he's a little older than Luke at least, and should have some memories of the end of the Clone Wars and all the Jedi getting wiped out. But let's just say he was pretty young and didn't process all that.
We'll give George Lucas and his timeline the benefit of the doubt, because we're going to nail him on the next point anyway.
Alright, in the prequels there are tons of Jedi running around, and presumably a lot of Padawans. They're all over the Clone Wars cartoon, which we're told is canon. Moreover, you've got all these Younglings back at Coruscant waiting to be beheaded by Darth Vader at some point. So, there's a pretty steady supply of talented Force-users scattered around the galaxy.
So what happened to them all after the Clone Wars ended? Not the ones that Anakin and the Clones killed, but all the little ones and ones not born yet? Essentially, Luke's generation and younger. They should be running around accidentally killing droids and turning their parents into iguanas as stuff as they struggle with the force, but we never hear anything about all that. Which is FINE with respect to our original trilogy storyline--it can be assumed that none of those young force-users affect that main story. Maybe the rebellion should have tried to tap their power but lacked any sort of leadership/experience on the issue, what with the Jedi wiped out. Good enough. BUT, shouldn't a well-traveled smuggler like Han Solo have encountered these force-users, or at least heard of them? I mean, he's been from one end of the galaxy to the other.
Huh. I obviously don't remember this scene. I agree that this scene with Palpatine is pretty much the only time in the whole trilogy that the plan gets laid out. I feel like it needs strengthening. I feel like this is the chance we've been waiting for to tell the audience what the fuck is going on. Since we jettisoned 53 hours of the podrace, I think we have time to both shore up the Vallorum plotline AND reveal Palpatine's plan.
ReplyDeleteI swear I don't remember "It is possible he was conceived by the midi-chlorians." I would argue that we need to actually explain this prophecy, except that we're clearly cutting it AND the midichlorians, so there's no need to waste time on it.
I had weirdly never worried about the whole "imbalance in the Force" thing. What the hell are they talking about?
And yeah, I bet if we look hard enough, we'll find Han interacting with force users in various books set between the trilogies.
Essentially, midichlorians are angels carrying the seed of God. And they're inside all of us! Think about it. At any time, the midichlorians could just impregnate one of us.
ReplyDeleteNow, what exactly is the deal with these midichlorians? Are they some superintelligent race that is actually ruling the cosmos? Or are they what's out of balance? Are they living on a plane that is so much higher than our own that our petty squabbles don't really concern them? How do they decide when to impregnate young slave girls? At what point do events from our plane ripple into theirs and affect their lives? What the HELL George Lucas?