Anyway, the idea of making Padme’s hand move slightly (mentioned earlier in this thread, I think) to indicate that her death was faked, really got my mind going. I mean really, really got it churning. So, here’s my “light up a room and leave” mega-post:
ROTS:
Padme gives birth to Luke. Yoda instructs Obi-Wan to leave immediately, take Luke & hide him on Tatooine with Owen & Beru. Because of this, Obi-Wan does not know of Leia’s birth. Why does Yoda do this? Perhaps he sees a glimpse of the future through the Force. Perhaps after Obi-Wan’s failure to properly train and keep Anakin on a short leash, Yoda wants to hedge his bets. Padme does not die. The rest of Yoda’s plan? Her death is faked. As shown in the film, she appears to still be pregnant during her staged funeral.
Bail Organa makes the offer to take Leia and raise her in his home on Alderaan. However, he also offers to let Padme secretly live there, too. So, she again uses a tactic shown in Phantom Menace: she assumes the role of a servant, perhaps even as the baby’s nanny. I always thought the whole decoy thing was a great idea, but wasted on tricking the likes of the Nomedians and Boss Nass. This time though, she fades into the background, not only for her own safety, but for her daughter’s, too. This is an interesting parallel with Anakin continuing his life by assuming a new identity. Both are doomed to spending their remaining years not as themselves, but cloaked in another identity. It also brings Padme’s storyline in the PT full circle: her character would last be seen the same way we were introduced to her, disguised herself to protect her true identity. Bail would arrive on Alderaan to see his wife, baby in hand, and new house servant following behind. As Leia grows up, Bail, and Padme (as her station permits), groom her to become a leader of the Rebellion.
Putting aside how this could be conveyed with the existing footage and any available dialog, how does this benefit the saga, and more to the point, how does this help with the bits from the original trilogy that are contradicted by GL’s stupid plotting of the prequels?
ANH:
Ben’s non-reaction to seeing Bail Organa’s “daughter” in a hologram is puzzling to me, since according to events shown in ROTS, he should deduce that this is a grown-up Leia he is seeing for the first time. So, if he doesn’t know who she really is, her true parental background etc. (as my suggestions would fix), his non-reaction would make more sense as portrayed in ANH…
Next: for anyone thinking including a shot of Bail on Alderaan just before the Death Star destroys it…consider that with my above-outlined changes, the audience would know that Leia is viewing her mother’s murder on the DS viewscreen when Alderaan explodes. And Vader would unknowingly be watching his wife’s death as well. So, a shot of both Bail Organa and Padme (in servant clothing), then poof—no more Alderaan. Instead of some vague loss of a population the audience has never seen (except for Bail), there is a real sense of loss, sadder still that Leia with her father (!) standing right beside her, watch Alderaan’s destruction and along with it, their wife/mother’s true death…
Ben’s feeling of millions of voices crying out? Well, perhaps through the Force he heard one voice in particular more than the others: Padme’s. I thought the prequels hinted at Obi-Wan’s feelings toward her, though his code and duty would never let him act on them. This puts his wave of grief on a more personal level…
ESB:
As Luke leaves Dagobah, Ben comments, “That boy is our last hope.” Yet ROTS (as it is now) establishes that he knows of Leia’s existence! My above scenario fixes this, as Obi-Wan would truly believe that Luke was the last hope. So, when Yoda says, “No, there is another,” we can assume that (sometime between ESB & ROTJ) he finally lets Obi-Wan in on Leia’s existence and significance.
ROTJ:
And now for the things that this fixes the best, at least in my mind…
Frist: Ben’s chunk of exposition to Luke on Dagobah which includes, “that is why your sister has remained safely anonymous.” I always thought the inflection Alec G. put on “anonymous” was a curious choice, and if Yoda kept her existence a secret even from Obi-Wan (until revealed off-screen in ESB) the line reading would make more sense. It also ups the drama: if Leia is important enough that Yoda keeps her existence even from Obi-Wan, then when Vader later learns of her by reading Luke’s thoughts on DS2, it makes the stakes seem even greater…
Secondly, something I think we can all agree on: GL really screwed the pooch by the way he handled the scenes of Luke and Leia’s birth, then Padme dying soon afterward. This makes Leia’s lines “Just a little bit. Feelings really. She was very beautiful, but sad,” just not match up with what was shown in ROTS.
While Bail may have told Leia that her biological mother died when she was very young, perhaps Leia sensed something through the Force. Something that as a child she couldn’t completely make sense of… like a dream with details that almost fall into place, but not quite. Leia would never know that she actually felt her mother’s presence closer than she could ever imagine—a very beautiful but sad nanny, raising her, educating her, but never revealing the truth about her identity, though the Force would give hints that Leia couldn’t quite unravel. This would make true the statement that Luke has “no memory of my mother. I never knew her,” as Obi-Wan immediately left, taking baby Luke to Tatooine.
My suggestions may positively affect other plot points I haven’t considered, and may screw up others I also haven’t thought of. I think it makes Padme’s character arc more bittersweet, instead of the lazy writing of just killing her off. Having to finish her life in the shadows, helping to further the Rebellion in small ways through Bail and Leia, before dying anonymously on Alderaan by the actions of he estranged husband, while her daughter looks on…that just seems better to me than dying of a “broken heart.”
Lastly, and this is just rambling… but if Ben & Luke had been a little speedier getting to Mos Eisley, not gotten into a bar brawl, haggled a little less when selling Luke’s landspeeder, etc., they might have actually made it to Alderaan. Meaning that they could have met Bail and at least seen an older Padme. Luke potentially could have met his mother. Of course, the Death Star plans, R2, Ben, Luke and everything else on the planet would have been destroyed when the DS showed up, but still…
Okay, is any of this appealing? An improvement? Is any of it possible?