This week’s absurd birth scene is another sci-fi classic with Padme’s twin birth in Star Wars III – Revenge Of The Sith. All my family love Star Wars, perhaps that’s why the birth scene is so absurd – to keep it family friendly. Many parents get very uncomfortable when kids start asking probing questions about birth.
Is it worse than last week’s Star Trek? Oh yes indeed! We’re only a few steps up from having a stork do the delivery.
I suppose whoever wrote this is a typical sci-fi geek stereotype. Male, single, no children, uncomfortable around women and spending far too much time with his nose in a comic or in front of a computer? Obviously he acquired all his birth knowledge from other clueless, sci-fi geeks.
So what’s absurd about it?
Firstly, we’re told that Padme is expecting twins (and not small ones either) but when you see her lying down there isn’t a bump to be seen. Was the special effect’s budget blown on CGI leaving them unable to afford even an old fashioned pillow?
This is Padme’s final scene and where better to kill off a female character than in childbirth, just to reafirm that if you don’t have your birth under strict medical supervision either you or you baby will die (not that it did Padme much good). Of course if she had chosen to birth in some cave on Tatooine, Dr droid would have been claiming her death as being entirely preventable had she elected to birth in his sick bay.
Peculiarly, the droid says they need to perform an operation to save the babies and then in quick succession whips out two babies from between Padme’s legs! Huh? Ironically this scene is quite a statement. We all associate birth with viginal deliveries, yet medicalized caesarians are fast becoming de rigueur. Why not merge the two and have birth utopia.
Umbilical cords, placentas? Ah, bollocks to that. The blood was being saved for Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader. Padme’s environment was to way too serene and sterile to have blood in it.
Just what is that thing covering Padme’s midriff. Was it to save our embarrassment or hers?
Is there anything good about it?
Of course. It’s Star Wars and Ewan Mcgregor is in it.
Judge for yourself and let us know what you think.
If you want to see an authentic twin homebirth video be my guest. I know the production qualities are more Matt Lucus than George Lucus, but it’s nice to have a bit of reality with the excitement.
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The twins home-birth video link is 404.
I just snorted coffee out my nose! Hysterical and oh so weird. I have to admit that I don’t ‘get’ Star Wars but I get Ewan Mcgregor!
Thanks Kathy. I’ve fixed the typo in the link to the twins homebirth video.
Yes they seem a bit confused. You can imagine the thought process. Apparently women make a lot of noise when giving birth so we had better put a few screams in there, even though (we assume) the babies were being surgically removed.
And didn’t those babies come out quick. Is that possible? Is that what we can expect when Mcdonalds (or in this case Mcgregors) start spreading into hospitals?
I’m amazed Ewan didn’t roll his sleeves up and use the force…eps (sorry couldn’t resist). He’s a dad, he probably thought the scene was pretty silly too.
You know what’s confusing? “we need to operate to save the babies” but then we see Padme do what seems to be pushing screams.
Oh this is a classic movie killing scene. Yes perhaps not for the sci-fi geeks of the world, but for me an old Star Wars fan it was a real let down. How could George, the old mythologist himself create such a shockingly absurd birth scene. If these people are so in touch with the universal force(s)…why? But then maybe it was yet another blatant metaphor for the coming of the Dark forces into the Universe, and that the disempowerment of the Mother?
Absurd…yes very much so!
haha! That is fantastic…just a little yell and the baby pops out! She didn’t even look like she was pushing. Maybe they used “the force”.
I always joked about this scene with my husband & his friends (die hard SW fans). ONLY a man would say a woman died of a broken heart after she broke up with her baby daddy…shortly after giving birth!! Lol…NO woman that has two babies to raise is dying of a broken heart after breaking up with the dark Lord of the universe, haha…
Having this discussion before with other nerds I the Jedis were making another mistake when stating this. The emperor told Vader that he killed Padme and I think that is exactly what happened. I think the real reason why the Jedis couldn’t get married was because once they become one with another their midichlorians bond in such a way that anything that severs the bond on a violent way (like a violent death or one of the Jedis attacking their partners with enough negative emotions) would drain their own midichlorians and/or lifeforce and this is what happened to Padme. After all she was a saviour and her last words was that there was still goodness on Anakin Padme still have reasons to think she could help her husband so I really doubt she would lose the will to live given that and her twins needing her. It made no sense so I think this is one occasion were the emperor was proven right after all he was right about other stuff like the force being used to transcend life and at the end of that Qi Gon make contact from the great beyond with Yoda.
Too bad,they messed up the whole scene.If she already gave birth ( because we don’t see the belly),then why she needs operation to save babies?! also,they should give her a pillow,balloon,or something like that to create an impression that she really births the twins. I also noticed that during the funeral,she seems to be pregnant again… A total mistake.
They could do this better… “sigh”
Actually Arya I think this was on purpose to conceal to Vader that the babies were alive. On the original trilogy he didn’t knew his wife managed to get birth to the twins so we assumed Obi and Yoda make her look pregnant so Vader though he killed his whole family and the kids could be raised away from him. Aside from that yeah the scene blows!
ooops,sorry
too many grammatical mistakes xD I was really upset by this badly made scene…
Thanks,Ana
Padme’s not a human being from earth… she’s an “alien” from a galaxy far, far away. All the things you guys are complaining about not seeing (umbilical, placenta, big belly) may not apply to “her people.”
Ketchup
I agree with you.Maybe alien ladies have different childbirth,different physiology,organism etc?! Who knows : )