Comment A female geek's outlook on AOTC - clothes spoilers (Score 3, Insightful) 909
Get your flamethrowers out boys.
George Lucas has set movie heroines back at least 50 years with the use of Natalie Portman in AOTC.
I know I know...you all think she's a hottie what with her exposed back in the infamous perilously draped bedsheet as dress number on the terrace scene, or the strapless black pleather dominatrix wannabe getup in the hokey fireplace festivities scene or even the white longjohns in the colliseum battle scene...once they've been conveniently slashed to reveal her tummy.
Take it from a real woman - Nat's a "nottie"
Meta-Quote "There are no jiggling breasts in space". --Carrie Fisher in 'Skywalking' quoting George Lucas's reason for mercilessly taping her breasts flat to her body for the filming of ANH.
Every second Little Miss 'I better use my only 2 talents 'cause I sure as hell can't act worth a crap' was on screen I secretly longed for Leia to swoop in and bitch slap the dumb blonde conveniently disguised as a brunette Amidala (I'm supposed to believe she's Leia's *mother*?!?! I don't think so...). Assassins kept trying to kill Amidala through out AOTC and what does she do? Change outfits, usually to something that would even have Joe Pesci's Vinnie saying a la My Cousin Vinnie 'Oh yeah Padme, you blend...not!' Here's a fashion tip: A shiny silver cape on a desert planet is about as subtle as Jennifer Lopez's Grammy Awards bathrobe in a mosque filled with Shiite Muslim clerics - nothing like the impractical outfit to remind the killers just where their target is at all times (see Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom).
Leia Organa was and in my mind still is the only regal female character, a real Star Wars fan's princess. That Padme's now only a Senator says something (apparently even a pair of perky ones doesn't translate to a lifetime guarantee to a crown). And while we're on the subject of breasts, Carrie Fisher had to go through two and a half full movies before she was ever allowed to show a little skin and she still hooked up with Harrison Ford, Even fully clothed that relationship was damned sexy! Watching Padme half-naked and forced to keep saying 'no we really shouldn't Ani' while making cow eyes at him was beyond stupid and painful and sends the not so subtle message that George has forgotten what makes for a real heroine - the ability of a woman to stand up for herself and kick a little ass whether she's taped and covered in a white shroud and has her hair done up in to ear-covering danishes or whether she's chained half-naked to a morbidly obese slime slobbering lounge lizard.
While Leia would shove a Wookie into a stinking trash compactor to get away from imminent danger, Padme can't figure out how to crawl out of a big bucket. Where Leia would give Han Solo shit about being a money grubbing mercenary jerk, Amidala can't even convincingly defend her own politics to an escaped boy band look alike who is a cross between Wesley Crusher and any dreaded Mary Sue from any fanfic cannon you'd care to name.
And let's get to Amidala's taste in uh sullen teenagers. Hayden is certainly no James Earl Jones, he's not a Harrison, heck he's not even up to Hamill on Mark's worst day. Hayden has exactly two facial expressions: drool and pout and most of the time he doesn't know which one he should don. This poor little boy's character is saddled with the great task of becoming the menacing Darth-freaking-Vader and anytime he does something vaguely unsettling (like say committing small scale genocide to avenge a plot device...I mean his mother's death) our heroine's first instinct is to give him a cuddle?!?! Besides Anakin being ten years younger, a thousand times less smooth than the geekiest geek you can imagine, and a future mass murderer Padme all of a sudden finds Ani peachy keen and hints that she'll put out for him if he'll fight by her side when it looks like they're both going to be executed. Gag me with a lightsaber already! Or better yet Harrison appearing as Indiana with a big black revolver and shooting the creepy lovers the way he did with the big sabre wielding dude in 'Raiders' would have made me respect George Lucas again.
And there lies the crux of the problem: by using Padme/Natalie as the female protagonist in this first trilogy old Papa Skywalker Ranch is really saying he doesn't give a rat's patootie about his female characters other than as fashion accessories and plot devices. I'd like for Georgie Porgie to remember that the women in his audience young and old are all smarter than those Kenner action figures he's gonna retire on. It's sad that he's dumbed down his plots so that kids won't see too much death and bad stuff (ie why the Dark Side of the Force has been stripped from this first trilogy) but it's unforgiveable that Padme doesn't stand up for herself until very late in AOTC. The message this first trilogy sends to women and young girls is that we're not a factor in a major political and spiritual revolution except as a fetus factories and eye candy and for someone as smart as Lucas it's unforgiveable. He had better give Padme some honorary cojones for Episode III or he's gonna lose his female audience (you know the future mothers and grandmothers and ticket buyers for the generation of little urchins to whom the third Star Wars trilogy will be marketed) and lord knows he can't conquer the box offices or the Dark Side without us.
Besides every geek knows that smart is infinitely sexier than skin ;-)
George Lucas has set movie heroines back at least 50 years with the use of Natalie Portman in AOTC.
I know I know...you all think she's a hottie what with her exposed back in the infamous perilously draped bedsheet as dress number on the terrace scene, or the strapless black pleather dominatrix wannabe getup in the hokey fireplace festivities scene or even the white longjohns in the colliseum battle scene...once they've been conveniently slashed to reveal her tummy.
Take it from a real woman - Nat's a "nottie"
Meta-Quote "There are no jiggling breasts in space". --Carrie Fisher in 'Skywalking' quoting George Lucas's reason for mercilessly taping her breasts flat to her body for the filming of ANH.
Every second Little Miss 'I better use my only 2 talents 'cause I sure as hell can't act worth a crap' was on screen I secretly longed for Leia to swoop in and bitch slap the dumb blonde conveniently disguised as a brunette Amidala (I'm supposed to believe she's Leia's *mother*?!?! I don't think so...). Assassins kept trying to kill Amidala through out AOTC and what does she do? Change outfits, usually to something that would even have Joe Pesci's Vinnie saying a la My Cousin Vinnie 'Oh yeah Padme, you blend...not!' Here's a fashion tip: A shiny silver cape on a desert planet is about as subtle as Jennifer Lopez's Grammy Awards bathrobe in a mosque filled with Shiite Muslim clerics - nothing like the impractical outfit to remind the killers just where their target is at all times (see Kate Capshaw in Temple of Doom).
Leia Organa was and in my mind still is the only regal female character, a real Star Wars fan's princess. That Padme's now only a Senator says something (apparently even a pair of perky ones doesn't translate to a lifetime guarantee to a crown). And while we're on the subject of breasts, Carrie Fisher had to go through two and a half full movies before she was ever allowed to show a little skin and she still hooked up with Harrison Ford, Even fully clothed that relationship was damned sexy! Watching Padme half-naked and forced to keep saying 'no we really shouldn't Ani' while making cow eyes at him was beyond stupid and painful and sends the not so subtle message that George has forgotten what makes for a real heroine - the ability of a woman to stand up for herself and kick a little ass whether she's taped and covered in a white shroud and has her hair done up in to ear-covering danishes or whether she's chained half-naked to a morbidly obese slime slobbering lounge lizard.
While Leia would shove a Wookie into a stinking trash compactor to get away from imminent danger, Padme can't figure out how to crawl out of a big bucket. Where Leia would give Han Solo shit about being a money grubbing mercenary jerk, Amidala can't even convincingly defend her own politics to an escaped boy band look alike who is a cross between Wesley Crusher and any dreaded Mary Sue from any fanfic cannon you'd care to name.
And let's get to Amidala's taste in uh sullen teenagers. Hayden is certainly no James Earl Jones, he's not a Harrison, heck he's not even up to Hamill on Mark's worst day. Hayden has exactly two facial expressions: drool and pout and most of the time he doesn't know which one he should don. This poor little boy's character is saddled with the great task of becoming the menacing Darth-freaking-Vader and anytime he does something vaguely unsettling (like say committing small scale genocide to avenge a plot device...I mean his mother's death) our heroine's first instinct is to give him a cuddle?!?! Besides Anakin being ten years younger, a thousand times less smooth than the geekiest geek you can imagine, and a future mass murderer Padme all of a sudden finds Ani peachy keen and hints that she'll put out for him if he'll fight by her side when it looks like they're both going to be executed. Gag me with a lightsaber already! Or better yet Harrison appearing as Indiana with a big black revolver and shooting the creepy lovers the way he did with the big sabre wielding dude in 'Raiders' would have made me respect George Lucas again.
And there lies the crux of the problem: by using Padme/Natalie as the female protagonist in this first trilogy old Papa Skywalker Ranch is really saying he doesn't give a rat's patootie about his female characters other than as fashion accessories and plot devices. I'd like for Georgie Porgie to remember that the women in his audience young and old are all smarter than those Kenner action figures he's gonna retire on. It's sad that he's dumbed down his plots so that kids won't see too much death and bad stuff (ie why the Dark Side of the Force has been stripped from this first trilogy) but it's unforgiveable that Padme doesn't stand up for herself until very late in AOTC. The message this first trilogy sends to women and young girls is that we're not a factor in a major political and spiritual revolution except as a fetus factories and eye candy and for someone as smart as Lucas it's unforgiveable. He had better give Padme some honorary cojones for Episode III or he's gonna lose his female audience (you know the future mothers and grandmothers and ticket buyers for the generation of little urchins to whom the third Star Wars trilogy will be marketed) and lord knows he can't conquer the box offices or the Dark Side without us.
Besides every geek knows that smart is infinitely sexier than skin
