MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) Discussion > Did Shmi Skywalker "for reasons we can't...

Did Shmi Skywalker "for reasons we can't explain" also simply "lose the will to live"?

posted 3 years ago by FootOfDavros (6707)
25 replies | jump to latest

Story goes that Shmi had been taken by the sandfolks about a month before Anakin finally decided it's time to give his mum a visit (although to be fair he does turn up without bringing his dirty laundry with him).

Anyway, he unties her, and within about 60 seconds she's dead! What gives? Could it possibly really be such an incredible coincidence that she'd naturally just keel over at precise moment? Or did she - like Padme - simply lose the will to live?

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Don't think so, it looks like she had been beaten and stabbed quite a bit.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

[deleted]

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Anyone who wants to kill themselves over a Star Wars character needs to be institutionalized.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

[deleted]

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

They didn’t have a childhood if a movie coming out “raped” it. It’s just a movie get over it.

[–] ManToTrust (1648) 3 years ago

You must be fun at parties. It was a joke, get over it.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Rape isn't funny, ever.

[–] ManToTrust (1648) 3 years ago

That wasn’t the joke, dense fuck.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

You suck at telling jokes

[–] ManToTrust (1648) 3 years ago

It wasn't me who even told the joke LMAO. Every reply is mentally challenging for you. Wow you are dense.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

You defended it therefore you agree with it.

[–] ManToTrust (1648) 3 years ago

You said I was "telling" jokes. Learn English dumbass.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

You condoned a rape joke you sick freak.

Edit: I also never said you told the joke, I said you suck at telling jokes , my evidence is that you think rape jokes are funny. It seems you are the one who needs to learn to read, dumbass

[–] FootOfDavros (6707) 3 years ago

... (including the audience).

😂

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

If she was going to just give up the will to live, she'd have done it BEFORE they started to torture her!

[–] FootOfDavros (6707) 3 years ago

So you would call it just a coincidence then? She gets taken a month before but the injuries sustained overwhelm her continued existence just after Anakin unties her?

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Couldn’t tell you, what I do know is you haven’t proven your premise. I can also say that it’s not logical that someone who looks at her son and is proud of who he became and says “now I am complete” all of a sudden “lost the will to live”

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

Oh, please, you want me to make sense of George Lucas's plot twists? He didn't intend that to be realistic, he intended the scene to be something that drives Anakin into a morass of guilt and anger.
Still, part of me has the feeling that she'd been living on hope for a while, even as her body started to shut down from the abuse, she had the feeling that someone was coming to rescue her so she didn't let herself die, and when she finally was saved then she relaxed and let nature take its course.

And if that made any sense, it would be the opposite of her dying of Old Movie Disease* or giving up or whatever.

- - - - - - -

* "Old Movie Disease" is when beautiful heroines die young and tragically, with no symptoms and no change in their good looks, and they have just enough time left to deliver their last monologue. You know, like Padme.

[–] Volley (3368) 3 years ago

Yeah this is pretty sad the way it was written, once again someone has lost their will to live, even after seeing their loved one in person. What's really sad, and still annoys me today, is that neither Anakin, nor Padme, nor Obi-Wan, nor ANYONE bothered to help/check up on Shmi Skywalker on Tatooine, who helped them out of a bad sandstorm 10 years earlier.

[–] AckbarsRevenge (3554) 3 years ago

She saw his haircut. And died.

[–] Threadkiller (2952) 3 years ago

Unrealistically timed movie deaths so a character can say a few final words is such an extremely commonly used movie trope that it seems pretty pointless to complain about it in this particular case.

[–] FootOfDavros (6707) 3 years ago

Sure, being gunned down or whatever and holding on long enough to say a few words is well known movie cliché, brilliantly lampooned in Team America:-
https://youtu.be/Sw-DZrRkuII

But I'm not sure we'd find any examples in the same context as this one. They even have a discussion before Anakin sets off saying how long it's been and she's surely dead. Hence why we can question, was she really overwhelmed by injuries within a minute of being untied (having been held for over a month) or did seeing Anakin cause her to simply lose the will to live. For reasons we can't explain.

[–] Threadkiller (2952) 3 years ago

While I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many cases of characters having been established as injured and dying for an extended period, only for them to finally die after cinematically spouting off a few final words to an important character. In the specific case with Anakin's mother we know when she had been captured but we don't know exactly how long she was in that dire state. Either way I guess it could be interpreted that she had been barely clinging to life & that seeing her son again finally gave her the peace she needed to move on.

[–] AP (5258) 3 years ago

This will help.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlmostDeadGuy

[–] FootOfDavros (6707) 3 years ago

Ha, their Star Wars comments are spot on:-

Given Padme, it is clear prequel women have a strange sense of deciding when to die.

But the other examples seem to show Shmi's protracted efforts are very much the exception to the rule...