Two hundred years ago I wrote about how Luke’s rescue plan in Return of the Jedi made no sense. It took me a bit, but now here I am to apply the same logic to the cinematic masterpieces that is: The Phantom Menace.
To Recap
A plan in a story needs to be worked backward. You start by saying “the villain wants to steal the bonds in the vault at a big skyscraper.” You then play that plan out perfectly.
- Villains arrive at the occupied building to take hostages; saying they are political terrorists and have demands about some political prisoners being released.
- Villains tell the authorities they’re terrorists, so the police cut the power, which releases the final lock to the safe with millions in bonds.
- Rest of the team goes to work cutting into the safe and getting the bonds out into trucks.
- Once the bonds are out, set off an explosion in the building, making it look like your terrorist group took their own lives as some kind of misguided statement. All the witnesses are lost in the explosion, and it looks like your group was also lost.
That’s a good plan. Now introduce an everyman cop, who wasn’t captured in the initial rounding up of hostages, and have him discover the plan and work to dismantle it.
Say, that would make for a good movie!
If the plan doesn’t make sense, and only fails or succeeds because a movie needs to happen, that’s poor writing.
In my post about the Original Trilogy; I point out that in Star Wars Leia (and the Rebels) have a sound plan, which might have been destined to fail, but not because of bad plot logic, but because of circumstances beyond the Rebels’ control, specifically not having a space magic pilot to hit the exhaust port. However, Luke’s plan to rescue Han in Return of the Jedi is absolute bonkers. Complete nonsense. If it succeeded at any point, except where it ultimately did, six misguided steps later, it would have still been a partial failure.
The Ultimate Goal
It’s my understanding that Lucas had an outline for the entire prequel trilogy before he began writing the first script. Now; that doesn’t mean things didn’t change, or didn’t get modified as he got inspiration, but, unlike the Original Trilogy, he had, at least, a vague plan for three movies. That means whatever Palpatine’s plan was in The Phantom Menace played into some longer-term narrative goal.
Let’s start with the final statement “Palpatine overthrows the Republic to become the supreme ruler of the Galaxy, and in the process destroys the Jedi, restoring The Sith Order”. That’s his ultimate plan. Darth Vader and Death Stars might have been tertiary inspiration along the way.
How It Unfolds
He starts by using his evil alter ego, Darth Sidious, to manipulate the Trade Federation to invade the planet Naboo, where his non-evil identity, Sheev Palpatine, is a senator. Darth Sidious, wants the ruler of Naboo, Queen Amidala, to sign a treaty to make the invasion legal.
To what end? Wouldn’t legitimizing the invasion negate the debate in the Senate and bypass the vote of no-confidence in Velorum that allows Palpatine to get elected? Once the Trade Federation are in control; doesn’t Palpatine lose all his political clout? Wouldn’t one of the evil Space Japanese–sorry, I mean Neimoidians, be assigned to his seat?
You can’t say “He planned to have the Queen escape and refuse to sign the treaty, thus sparking a furious debate in the Senate”, because that’s a hell of a gamble. No matter how well he thought he knew her, learning that her citizens were being rounded up and murdered might have caused her to capitulate. Not to mention, she was 14 years old! How could he rely on her to make consistent decisions?
Saying that he saw all these events through The Force is a cop-out. His plan was to have her sign the treaty and then do some manipulation, as Palpatine, in the Senate… but it’s so unclear as to how this would help him succeed. And it’s never explained to the audience, not even in Episode III when the whole plan comes to fruition.
Killing the Jedi
And what about having them kill the Jedi ambassadors? Did Palpatine know the ambassadors were going to be Jedi? Did he panic once he realized Jedi would read the minds of the Trade Federation scoundrels and uncover a secret plot including a guy in evil Sith robes that looks like Palpatine? Honestly; that’s the only way that part of the plan makes sense, but only just barely. Someone is going to go looking for those two Jedi, and when they find out the Trade Federation murdered them… what then? It would make more sense to say “We’re not negotiating. Leave!” If the Jedi then bust in and attack; that helps your cause down the line by proving they’re psychopaths and not the guardians of peace and justice they claim to be.
What’s In it for Them?
And here’s the most damning question about Palpatine’s plan: What in the fuck was in it for the Trade Federation? In Revenge of the Sith Nute Gunray proclaims they just wanted peace. Uhm, what? You invaded a peaceful planet with battle droids and were rounding up people into concentration camps. How is that providing peace? Did the people of Naboo threaten the Neimoidians? Maybe screw them out of some lucrative deal that would cripple their economy if they didn’t react? We need to understand their motiviation to understand how they fit into the plot. We don’t need a detailed back story, just a few lines of dialogue from Nute Gunray would suffice.
Right Hand Man: “The Queen has issued a surrender. We’ve taken the planet with barely a fight.”
Nute: “Excellent. Now we’re one step closer to controlling all the space fuel trade between Coruscant and the Outer Rim!” (malicious laugh) “With all these systems cut off, and reliant on us for space fuel, nobody will be able to stop us!”
Is this still ridiculous? Sure, but it at least gives them some reason to go along with this risky plan that could bring down their entire federation if it fails. Most importantly; it would also give them a reason not to drop-dime on Sidious the moment they are captured at the end of the movie. Seriously, nobody squealed? There had to be dozens of witnesses to the conversations with the evil robed guy, or the arrival of the evil horned guy, who was at the beck and call of Nute Gunray. NONE of this came up? None of this caused the Republic or the Jedi to look into this shit over the next ten years?
How About Letting Us In On It?
It’s ok to have a mystery plot, but at some point you have to reveal the mystery. You have to help the audience see how the pieces fit together.
“Oh, but the story isn’t really about that. It’s about Anakin and his fall to the Dark Side.”
Prequel Apologists
No, it’s not. Even Lucas has said as much. He wanted to tell a story about how good governments go bad. Anakin is just a piece in Palpatine’s puzzle. Nothing more. It’s vital that we know why Palpatine is doing what he’s doing and how he succeeds, given how much screentime is devoted to him.
If the story began with The Clone Wars already underway, and a young Obi-Wan and his apprentice, Anakin, getting into adventures, until in the end Anakin confronts the Emperor and is turned; then how the Emperor came to power isn’t relevant. If he’s just some whispered villain that only makes a few appearances, it’s fine us not knowing what he’s up to… other than knowing why he desires to make Anakin into an evil Jedi.
You don’t even need to come up with a brand new brilliant plan of how the Emperor overthrew the Republic. There are numerous examples in human history of how governments fall from representative forms to dictatorships. Just read upon those, boil them down to fit your space fantasy for children, and put it to paper.
“I like the part where they used the lightsabers to hit the other lightsabers.”
Insightful Star Wars Fan
Oh, well, shit. Let me re-think my whole analysis then. This changes everything.
Armchair Screenwriter 