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The sounds of heartbreak
Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith
Writer: George Lucas
Director: George Lucas
Composer: John Williams
In the fall of 2005, months after Revenge of the Sith had come out and closed the Star Wars franchise for the time being, many fans were still working through their emotions about the prequels. I was no different. George Lucas had given us three movies that were unmistakably Star Wars, but still challenged our personal expectations of what we wanted them to be. The original Star Wars: Battlefront II video game had just come out and prequel doubts or not, we were all playing it. And that’s when I heard the sounds of “Padmé’s Ruminations” as I was playing on the game’s Mustafar map. Even as I ran around a video game playing as a Clone Trooper with the score blaring through the rattling speakers of my television, John Williams’ music and the story George had told during that scene found me again. I wanted to relive the scene and understand the layers found there. See what I had missed. And for the first time in my journey as a fan, the Star Wars movie I wanted to watch that night was an episode of those maligned prequels.
This moment is a testament to George Lucas’ ability to be an artistic storyteller, which, we have to be honest, was not always on display in the prequels. The “I truly, deeply, love you” exchange between Anakin and Padmé in Attack of the Clones is one of the highest hurdles to leap over when appreciating the prequels. Despite my current, unabashed love of these first three Star Wars stories, I cannot disagree. There is great subtext to that scene, but, without a doubt, I can’t help but imagine that it would have been better received had there not been any dialogue there. A look and a much-anticipated kiss as they were wheeled out to be publicly executed would have been enough for me. Yet, as much as that moment gnaws at the heart of even the most ardent prequel fans, here, in Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas leans into that subtle approach with great success. He uses almost no words to make his point while John Williams made the scene belong to the music.
That’s an impressive feat even for a movie series eternally associated with its scores. Williams give us music we had never heard before in Star Wars. Slow and ominous, it is as if the song is the very sound of evil closing in. Anakin had been slowly crumbling and breaking apart for a while now. He had been fighting a war for three years, watched his Padawan Ahsoka walk away from the Jedi Order, and seemed to be losing more and more trust from and in his fellow Jedi. (Mace Windu basically tells him, “Wait here while the adults handle this,” before going off to arrest Palpatine.) And, by now, his fear of losing Padmé has taken root deep within his soul and Palpatine was playing every note perfectly. For Anakin, it was no longer just about losing his wife and mother of his child, it was also about losing access to the Sith Lord that had just promised a way to keep them all alive. It’s all boiling inside of Anakin like a pot of dark side tea.3
Beneath that, there is an urgency and heat to the music. Anakin and Padmé are connected at this moment. Not by the Force, but by love. They are staring at each other from across Coruscant, two destinies at a crossroads, but there is an intimacy to it that underscores the weight of it all. For Anakin Skywalker, that love is making him question everything that will come after this if he doesn’t act right here and now. With Padmé, that love is making her look at everything that has led to this. Though big decisions and moments will soon follow, though death will find one of them, this is the moment in which Anakin gives in to his fear of losing Padmé and everything changes.
As the scene begins to close, the incessant hum of synthesizers is met with the mournful wailing of a female vocalist. This is the dialogue of the scene and we are no longer watching Star Wars in a movie theater, we are attending an opera. Padmé’s journey to this point had been built upon a great sense of service to the democracy and the survival of the Republic. Though she was reluctant to admit her love of Anakin, once she did that, it only seemed to motivate her more. Her sense of service was more personal now. She never wanted to stop protecting the galaxy, but now she wanted to protect her family and the man she was building that family with was rupturing in two. Padmé is in pain. We know Anakin has been lost, but she’s just learning it. Understanding what is happening while trying desperately to fight it. This is sound of her heart breaking and it might have started all the way back at the beginning.
There is a small moment between Padmé and Anakin toward the end of The Phantom Menace that I love. With a celebration roaring around them, Boss Nass holding up a peace orb, and the future looking oh so bright, the young queen in her traditional Naboo Jubilation Dress and Anakin with his fresh new Padawan haircut, make eye contact and smile. It’s an innocent look full of celebration and relief. The Battle of Naboo had been won and their entire lives were ahead of them, but we know how this story ends. A foreboding darkness was lurking around the corner even then. Take that moment in Episode I and hold it up to this one in Episode III. This is where the darkness found them.
In a saga full of big action, bold words, and even louder sounds, George Lucas and John Williams gave us silence and ruminations. Instead of hope, they gave us dread. It was a dark moment of reflection of what had come before and what was about to change the galaxy forever. Padmé and Anakin were being ripped apart and we could actually hear it. And it all uniquely belonged to the prequels.