Padmé also goes through a massive wardrobe over her three films; Carrie Fisher notably joked about this, saying that Padmé had a new outfit and hairstyle every time she walked through a door (this video 2:58-3:10), and this trend continues throughout other pieces of media which she features in. The elaborate clothing has a cultural role for her, as it represents her position on Naboo and their culture, and she does trend towards simpler outfits outside her official duties. And, of course, it was a different time; she, unlike Leia, is not constantly at war, and she occupies a more structured leadership position with locational security while Leia is much more on-the-go and in the field. Further juxtaposing her from Leia, the elaborate costumes convey her importance and status while also making her seem taller and more imposing. The colors and cut of the outfits also reflect whether Padmé Naberrie, Padmé the handmaiden, or Senator/Queen Amidala is on screen. Padmé the handmaiden is just another face in the crowd, indistinguishable from the other women, and disguise and camouflage is her main goal; she must blend into the crowd, whether it is the Naboo court and her fellow handmaidens or the inhabitants of Mos Espa. In Phantom Menace, she wears two outfits which feature pants, her Tatooine disguise and her battle jumpsuit, both of which are designed for practicality (though her jumpsuit features some subtle royal Naboo flair). Padmé Naberrie favors lighter colors and pastels in looser silhouettes with less jewelry, with the occasional practical neutral tone shirt and leggings set as seen on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones and on Mustafar in Revenge of  the Sith; her hairstyles are more practical as well (buns and braids), or her hair is down in the privacy of her own home. The notable difference in her Padmé Naberrie clothing is the black leather dress from Attack of the Clones which is in direct contrast to the rest of her outfits as well as her reticence to begin a relationship with Anakin. In formal situations, she wears heavy, bulky dresses with elaborate hairstyles, both of which make her look taller and older than her age; as Queen of Naboo, she also wears red and white face paint in Naboo royal tradition, which also makes her seem older and protects her and her handmaidens’ identities if she uses a decoy. Trisha Biggar’s costumes for this trilogy are particularly impressive, and there are plenty of people on the Internet and in academia who have studied her wardrobe extensively.

The issues with Padmé’s character arc primarily occur in Revenge of the Sith. There was great potential for her in this film -- actively opposing Palpatine in public, planning to kill Anakin on Mustafar, helping start the Rebel Alliance, trying to end the Clone War, recognizing the darkness in Anakin and having to lie to him or speak privately with the Jedi, dealing with the fall of the Republic and the Jedi -- and it got reduced to revealing her pregnancy, a very quotable line about how liberty dies, a sad and violent interaction on Mustafar, and death in childbirth for no legitimate medical reason. The following paragraphs will explore the various flaws in her portrayal in Revenge of the Sith, with references to the other movies for context.

Padmé’s relationship with Anakin is platonic and maternal in Phantom Menace; fourteen years old to his nine, Anakin calls her an “angel” and latches onto her following his separation from his mother Shmi. He needs Padmé more than she needs him in this film, and she acts as a surrogate mother, using his mother’s nickname for him and looking out for him on Coruscant. In Attack of the Clones, she continues to act as a maternal figure towards him (though he is now nineteen to her twenty-four), referring to him by his nickname and explicitly saying that he will always be a little boy to her. Having not seen him for a decade, Padmé falls into her previous habits, treating him as a younger brother or child, not as an adult (as Anakin wants her to treat him). Anakin, on the other hand, has a full-blown crush on Padmé to the point where it’s mildly concerning; he has no respect for her boundaries and her authority over her safety, and he is also pushy with his opinions and emotions (bordering on whiny, though much of the issue with their relationship is due to George Lucas’s writing). On Tatooine, Padmé comforts Anakin after his mother dies and he slaughters a Tusken village (which should have been a red flag), and then on Geonosis she reciprocates Anakin’s love in the same dramatic fashion, comparing their love to death (concerning, but also foreshadowing). They jump rather quickly from expressing their feelings to marriage at the end of the film in a secret wedding on Naboo. 

In Revenge of the Sith, they primarily interact in her apartment on Coruscant, though they initially reunite outside the Senate building and Padmé reveals her pregnancy. Their scenes together primarily center on Anakin and their love; Padmé reassures him she will not die in childbirth and that she loves him while Anakin expresses his fear and comments on her beauty (but not her personality or anything else). Their last scene is their confrontation on Mustafar; Anakin accuses her of betraying him to Obi-Wan and not trusting him, and despite her pleas he force-chokes her into unconsciousness. Here Anakin’s violent tendencies turn towards Padmé; while he had previously been violent with Rush Clovis in The Clone Wars and expressed irrational jealousy and possessiveness over Padmé; while there are no indications that Anakin had been physically abusive towards Padmé prior to Revenge of the Sith, this scene is particularly complex in his treatment of her. Perhaps foreshadowed elsewhere in Attack of the Clones and in The Clone Wars, Anakin’s treatment of and emotions towards Padmé are the center of the narrative while Padmé’s feelings rarely appear at the center of their storyline. Instead, she still believes that there is good in him despite his track record of physical violence towards her and others (as well as the many mass murders and war crimes he has committed in the film trilogy and in The Clone Wars). Their relationship is supposed to be a romantic tragedy in the vein of Romeo and Juliet as star-crossed lovers, but it is instead vaguely physically abusive and emotionally manipulative, especially since Padmé’s identity in Revenge of the Sith is so subsumed by Anakin and his storyline. 

During Revenge of the Sith, Padmé is heavily pregnant and in her third trimester, but her pregnancy is nothing more than a plot point since Luke and Leia must be born by the end of the film. It’s also a glamorized pregnancy that is especially odd because she seems to never visit the Star Wars equivalent of an OB/GYN, as she has no idea that she is having twins. Luckily enough, she does not seem to suffer from any symptoms or complications with her pregnancy, but the film barely shows her feelings about her pregnancy. She admits that she wants to have the baby on Naboo since the Queen will force her to stop serving in the Senate (whether this is because of her pregnancy and impending motherhood or the scandal of her relationship with Anakin is not articulated). With the inherent tragedy in their romance, Padmé is doomed to die (mostly because she does not appear in the original trilogy), but her death makes little sense. She loses the will to live -- does not die from complications of childbirth, asphyxiation, or any other medically sound reason -- and the advanced droids on Polis Massa cannot explain why she is dying. Fans have theorized and retconned her true cause of death, but losing the will to live is the current canon explanation. She also never has the chance to be a mother as she dies after naming Luke and Leia; she never even holds them. This also does not explain how Leia remembered Padmé in Return of the Jedi since Padmé died about a minute after Leia was born. Since her pregnancy and general inaction in the final released cut of Revenge of the Sith dominate her character arc, viewers lose the chance to see Padmé act as a mother or take action over her pregnancy and agency; her quick death and unsatisfactory cause of death suggest that she is merely a vessel for her more important children (and the future demise of the Emperor) and thus does not need to form a connection with them since she will never see them grow up. Motherhood can be empowering and special, but Padmé does not seem empowered by her pregnancy; if anything she is weakened by it because it forces her to be inactive in the Senate throughout the film though her unborn children, viewers know, are special. In one and a half movies from the prequel trilogy, Padmé is her own person with agency, an independent storyline, and some character development, but in the last one and a half movie, she has no relevance to the story beyond her relationship to her husband and children -- hardly an empowering message for female viewers. 

Women in Galactic Politics

With the strong focus on politics and the deterioration of the Republic in the prequel trilogy, women with political positions or influence appear in Padmé’s orbit. Some, more than others, receive character development and speaking parts, and Padmé’s interaction with Queen Jamillia in Attack of the Clones helps the film pass the Bechdel test despite its many other issues with women’s representation in this movie and the rest of the trilogy. Nearly all of the female politicians in the trilogy are minor characters who do not have speaking parts and operate in supportive or advisory capacities (though such positions do hold their own kind of power, they suggest that women are more “fit” for supportive positions at the highest levels of the Republic). Terr Taneel (Amanda Lucas), Sly Moore (Sandi Finlay), Senator Lexi Dio (Nicole Fantl), the two female members of the Naboo Royal Advisory Council (featured more in “Women’s Lives on Kamino, Tatooine, Naboo, and Coruscant” further down), Sei Taria (Kamay Lau), and Sheltay Retrac (Caroline de Souza Correa) all appear on screen during the film and occupy regional positions of power and influence, with Moore, Retrac, and Taria acting as aides to Chancellor Palpatine, Senator Bail Organa, and Chancellor Valorum respectively; Taneel and Dio were both part of the Loyalist Committee, a group of senators which supported Palpatine early in his tenure as Chancellor which including Amidala and Organa, and later the Delegation of 2,000, a group of senators (again including Amidala, Organa, and familiar face Mon Mothma) which opposed Palpatine’s consolidation of power during the Clone Wars which would later go on to be the political basis of the Rebel Alliance. While these female characters may appear on screen as individuals with political power and influence, they do little to exercise this power on screen, leaving that to the more familiar big names of Bail Organa (Jimmy Smits), Mon Mothma (now played by Genevieve O’Reilly), Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) and Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman).

The women who exercise real power in the trilogy are Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), the future rebel leader from Chandrila, and Queen Jamillia of Naboo (Ayesha Darker); both Queen Apailana of Naboo (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and Queen Breha Organa of Naboo (Rebecca Jackson Mendoza) appear in Revenge of the Sith, but neither have much of a role or speak at all during their brief on screen appearances. Apailana leads Padmé’s funeral process (and receives more personality and action in now non-canon material where she hides Jedi who survived Order 66), while Breha reunites with Bail, who has brought an infant Leia to Alderaan where viewers know she will be raised. Luckily, Breha takes a much more prominent role in Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) and in other media like Leia, Princess of Alderaan (2017) where she is a strong, experienced, and capable monarch; her brief appearance in Revenge of the Sith does not demonstrate, as these other texts do, the strength in character of the mother (though she is much more than that) of Leia Organa. Three other women, Nee Alavar (Rena Owen), Senator Bana Breemu (Bai Ling), and Chi Eekway Papanoida (Katie Lucas, who appears in a three-episode Clone Wars arc voiced by Nika Futterman), also appear in Revenge of the Sith in the same Delegation of 2,000 deleted scene with Amidala, Taneel, and Mothma; had the scene been included in the final cut of the film, six women would have had speaking roles in the movie instead of one (Amidala). 

As for Jamillia, she and Padmé discuss the current intergalactic political situation, and the growing threat of war and secession in the Republic; as members, representatives, and rulers of a peaceful planet that lacks weapons (but just went through a hostile invasion that required a military attack to retake the planet just one movie and ten in-universe years ago), they are understandably worried, but it seems that neither Amidala nor Jamillia have learned from the Invasion of Naboo and created a more proactive strategy in case of war or invasion. It does not seem that they have a defense treaty with a neighboring system or planet, nor does it seem that they have a local defense force in place in case of invasion. However, their political theory is not the point of debate here, but their position as women in the Star Wars universe. Jamillia clearly does exercise political power recognized Padmé’s own political skill and public service, with canon through 2020 noting that Jamillia appointed Padmé as senator (Queen’s Peril has a different queen, Réillata, preceding Jamillia to office as the one who appoints Padmé as senator). 

Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), now the younger and newer senator rather than the experienced politician and leader of Return of the Jedi, appears in Padmé Amidala and Bail Organa’s political orbit by opposing the expansion of the chancellor’s emergency powers during wartime. She ultimately has a minor role in the film, and both her power and character arc are heavily reliant on Caroline Blakiston’s portrayal of her in Return of the Jedi. Deleted scenes featuring the Delegation of 2,000 and Padmé’s more active role besides tragic maternal figure in Revenge of the Sith show Mothma helping form the basis of the Rebel Alliance with Amidala and Organa, contextualizing her position of power in Return of the Jedi (as the other major players, Organa and Amidala, are both deceased by that point). O’Reilly has continued to play Mothma in other films and movies set in the period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, all of which further establishes her character and narrative arc that culminates in Blakiston’s portrayal in Return of the Jedi. Unfortunately, Mothma has a very limited role in the prequels that does not foreshadow her long-term importance to the Rebel Alliance in opposition to Palpatine as that ideological bridge between Padmé Amidala, Bail Organa, and Leia Organa. 

Women in the Jedi Order

The prequel trilogy brings female Jedi to the big screen, setting the precedent for later female Jedi in the franchise, notably Rey, Ahsoka Tano, and Sabine Wren. The many other female Jedi in The Clone Wars TV series first appeared in Attack of the Clones, while others like Depa Billaba (Dipika O’Neill Joti) receive more development and mentions in print media like the Kanan Jarrus comics and Star Wars Rebels. Nearly all of the female Jedi in the prequels are near-human aliens or human, with the CGIed Yaddle being the least humanoid character (and even then is recognizable through her similarities to the male Yoda, at the time the only other member of their species). These Jedi -- Depa Billaba (Dipika O'Neill Joti), Adi Gallia (Gin Clarke), Stass Allie (Lily Nyamwasa in Attack of the Clones and Nina Fallon in Revenge of the Sith), Yaddle, Shaak Ti (Orli Shoshan), Aayla Secura (Amy Allen), Mari Amithest (Phoebe Yiamkiati), Jocasta Nu (Alethea McGrath), Luminara Unduli (Mary Oyaya), Barriss Offee (Nalini Krishan), and Bultar Swan (Mimi Daraphet) -- receive far more development outside their first canon appearances in the prequel trilogy. Bultar Swan (Mimi Daraphet), Mari Amithest (Phoebe Yiamkiati), Ashla (unknown actress), Sar Labooda (Emma Howard), and Sarissa Jeng (Karen Wilson), of the fourteen named female Jedi characters on screen during the trilogy, are the only ones who do not receive further screen time and development in other places within the franchise. 

Many of these female Jedi notably do not wear the standard Jedi robes in various shades of brown that the other male members of the Order do; they all wield lightsabers (though Jocasta Nu, played by Alethea McGrath, does not) as their marker of belonging to the Order, which is an interesting juxtaposition. Here they identify with the warrior aspect of Jedi culture, previously linked with men (as they were the only established Jedi on screen), in marked contrast to the other forms of combat which other women in Star Wars interact with, while their clothing marks them as female. For the CGIed Yaddle, she has hair pulled into a topknot or ponytail, a female-coded hairstyle, to set her apart from her much more famous male counterpart Yoda. The in-universe standardized androgynous Jedi uniform has clearly not made its way into the canon by this point, and Lucas and the other creative minds behind these scenes clearly wanted these characters to be recognized and read as female. As for Aayla Secura (Amy Allen), being a Jedi does not protect her from the sexy female Twi’lek, a stereotype in both the Star Wars universe and outside it; Secura goes to war in a crop top and yoga pants, no armor whatsoever, and her death scene during Order 66 has her falling forward (after being literally shot in the back) in a dramatic, helpless fashion. 

As for these women’s positions within the Jedi Order, nearly all of them occupy a place on the Jedi High Council, but they notably do not have speaking lines; instead, the more recognizable and central Jedi councilors like Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), Yoda, and Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) dominate these scenes, further emphasizing the male-centric Jedi narrative which Lucas reinforces in both the prequel and original trilogies. The women Jedi councilors are inactive on the council and are tokenized; their positions on this body have no relevance to the narrative, and their paths to the Jedi High Council are not explored in other pieces of media or in The Clone Wars. These women are virtually interchangeable in their presences in the prequel trilogy (ignoring the expansions of their characters in The Clone Wars and other pieces of media); Stass Allie (Lily Nyamwasa) only exists because Lucas was trying to recast Adi Gallia (Gin Clarke) and was only explained in The Clone Wars over a decade later. Luminara Unduli (Mary Oyaya) trains Barriss Offee (Nalini Krishan), the first appearance of a female Jedi master-padawan duo until Ahsoka (2023), and even this is explained as being a cultural tradition (Mirialan Jedi train Mirialan padawans) that is reduced to women Jedi training women Jedi (only in the movies; Depa Billaba will have a male padawan, Caleb Dume/Kanan Jarrus, but this is established in comics and in Star Wars Rebels) while male Jedi can train male, female, or nonbinary Jedi (a trend seen in the real world with sports coaches over various sports). 

The deaths of these characters (on screen in the movies, implied by the movies, or confirmed in other canon material), like the deaths of many other female characters in this particular trilogy, are preordained; no matter how skilled or powerful these characters are, they must die as part of Order 66 and to ensure continuity with the original trilogy. Some survive and exist in the media set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, but again their deaths or disappearance are required to further the stories of Anakin, Luke, Obi-Wan, and the Emperor. The narrative limitations hamper their development both here and elsewhere in the franchise such as The Clone Wars, Tales of the Empire (particularly for Barriss Offee), the first episode in the first season of The Bad Batch (for Depa Billaba), and in comics and books. 

Women on Kamino, Tatooine, Naboo, and Coruscant

Content warning for discussion of slavery and sexual violence in the last paragraph, "Despite the depiction of slavery..."

Several minor female characters appear in the backgrounds of various critical scenes throughout the trilogy, and many of them have names and credited actresses. Padmé has several handmaidens throughout the prequels, and she describes them as protectors, decoys, and loyal bodyguards who function as ladies in waiting for her rule as queen and her senatorial tenure. Receiving much more development in EK Johnston’s trilogy about Padmé and her handmaidens, Rabé (Christina da Silva), Eirtaé (Liz Wilson), Yané (Candice Orwell), Saché (Sofia Coppola), Sabé (Keira Knightley), and Fé (Fay David) all appear in The Phantom Menace; Sabé, Rabé, and Eirtaé travel with Padmé to Tatooine and Coruscant while the other three (Saché, Yané, and Fé) remain behind. Keira Knightley’s Sabé has the most active role and most lines of the six handmaidens as Padmé’s primary decoy in their escape from Naboo, their time on Tatooine, and in the battle to retake Naboo. Dormé (Rose Byrne) and Cordé (Verónica Segura) have speaking roles in Attack of the Clones since Dormé acts as Padmé’s decoy while she is in hiding on Naboo with Anakin and Cordé dies in Padmé’s place in the first minutes of the movie. Teckla Minnau (Natalie Danks-Smith) appears in scenes at Varykino in Attack of the Clones and reappears in The Clone Wars in 2010 (voiced by Ashley Moynihan) and 2014 (voiced by Anna Graves).  Her Revenge of the Sith handmaiden Moteé (Kristy Wright) appears as a shadow in the background. Other handmaidens Versé (who also dies during the assassination attempt), Umé, and Hollé appear in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith without lines. Like many of the other background female characters in this trilogy, the handmaidens receive names but no real personalities until Johnston’s book trilogy (2019-2022). 

In The Phantom Menace, three other semi-significant female characters appear; on Amidala’s Royal Advisory Council, two unnamed women hold positions, while a pilot named Dineé Ellberger (Celia Imrie), codename Bravo Five, flies out to destroy the Trade Federation control ship. Where the Naboo women characters fall short is in their general silence and background position; the point of being a handmaiden is to be interchangeable and anonymous in the queen’s shadow, and the members of the Advisory Council have no lines and are in the background (though, to be fair, only Governor Sio Bibble, played by Oliver Ford Davies, is the only member, male or female, of the council who has lines). Bravo Five, however, is the first female pilot in Star Wars with a speaking part (see the original trilogy page for more about that), a pivotal moment for the franchise. TC-14 (John Fensom, Lindsay Duncan), the Trade Federation protocol droid in The Phantom Menace, is also voiced and gendered female; the droid is shy and timid, afraid of violence, but this might just be a protocol droid trait, not a gendered one, as C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) behaves similarly. 

In deleted scenes from Attack of the Clones, Padmé and Anakin visit her family on Naboo while she is away from the Senate, and she spends time with her mother Jobal (Trisha Noble), father Ruwee (Graeme Blundell), older sister Sola (Claudia Karvan), and her nieces Ryoo (Keira Wingate) and Pooja (Hayley Mooy). Unfortunately, these deleted scenes end up focusing on Anakin and Padmé’s relationship, with her sister noting that she can tell that Padmé is in love with Anakin (another Bechdel test scene failure for the franchise). These characters all reappear as silent mourners at Padmé’s funeral in Revenge of the Sith. Ultimately, Padmé’s family members add nothing to the story and only reinforce Padmé’s own limited and flawed narrative in the trilogy (see above).

Attack of the Clones features the obligatory cantina, nightclub, or bar scene that appears in every Star Wars trilogy with the appearance of the Outlander Club on Coruscant. In the background, several named female characters -- Adnama (Amanda Lucas), Diva Funquita (Amanda Lucas), Hayde Gofai (Fiona Johnson), Lillea Bringbit (Gillian Libbert), Sela Maa (unknown actress), Nyrat Agira (unknown actress, Immi Danoo (unknown actress), Kalyn Farmir (unknown actress), Sne Wo (unknown actress), Lunae Minx (Katie Lucas), Ayy Vida (Karina Wakefield), Whimper Save (unknown actress), Reina March (unknown actress), Rosha Vess (unknown actress), and Zey Nep (Zeynep Selcuk) -- appear, but they do not speak or interact with the main characters, only existing as extras who happened to receive names and/or backstories after the fact. Several other female characters appear in these scenes but do not have names or speaking roles, and all of the characters from this paragraph do not speak on screen. The fact that so many of the actresses who played these characters are unknown speaks to how insignificant they are in the script and to the larger narrative at this point in time. Also on Coruscant, Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) visits Dex’s Diner where waitress Hermione Bagwa (Susie Porter) and an unidentified female bounty hunter (Sara Elizabeth Joyce) briefly appear on screen. Like the cantina scene from A New Hope, female characters do appear here in the background but ultimately serve no narrative purpose while lacking the later character development of From a Certain Point of View and other transmedial works from the franchise. These characters might receive character development and a voice later on, but in the film itself, they barely get screen time and take up no space in the script or the plot.

Also in Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan (McGregor) visits Kamino to hunt down Jango Fett where he meets the Kaminoans, a tall alien species which specializes in cloning technology. All of the Kaminoans look the same, with some variations in cloning, and two of them are confirmed female characters: Taun We (Rena Owen), assistant to prime minister Lama Su (Anthony Phelan), and Ko Sai, a scientist played by an uncredited actor. Neither character receives much screen time, while Taun We does have a few lines. Taun We notably wears a skirt-like piece of clothing, but the clothing of the Kaminoans does not seem to adhere to definitive gendered standards; politicians like Taun We and Lama Su do not have to adhere to their standard of lab safety, or they might wear kilts to denote their political status or preference. This is a particularly interesting example of androgynous clothing in Star Wars as it involves kilts/skirts rather than the pants of a Jedi, pilot, or officer uniform. Ko Sai appears much more briefly in the film as an instructor for some of the clone cadets, but she does not have a speaking role or play any significant role in this part of the movie. Interestingly, she occupies two different occupations, scientist and teacher, both of which were becoming less gendered occupations in the early twentieth century when the film came out. This is particularly interesting especially since Ko Sai does not appear in a laboratory conducting research or experimentation, she appears as a teacher of children, which is a female-coded job. Unfortunately, not enough is known about her character to determine whether her teaching position is how she conducts research as a standard part of her job or if it is a demotion. 

Tatooine appears in all three films in the trilogy (though barely in Revenge of the Sith), and once again it features several female characters with minor roles. Having already discussed Shmi Skywalker’s role in Anakin’s hero’s journey and fall to the dark side, she will not be covered in this section. Instead, this section will focus on the familiar Beru Lars (Bonnie Piesse, see the Original Trilogy for more), Jira (Margaret Towner), Amee (Katie Lucas), Melee (Megan Udall), and Twi’lek twins Ann Gella and Tann Gella (Nifa and Nishan Hindes). Beru appears in both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, while the other characters appear in The Phantom Menace and are enslaved (unlike Beru), a few of them receiving more personality and development in the official novelization. Jira has a speaking line in Phantom Menace and seems to act as a grandmother figure for Anakin, though their relationship is not developed in the film beyond establishing that they know each other. Amee and Melee are friends of Anakin’s, and the novel establishes that Amee wants to marry him when they grow up; instead of giving her her own identity and dreams, her dream is marriage (and maybe something else), which would fit with the third wave feminism idea of “having it all” and being feminine and empowered (where marriage is a choice not a social pressure) -- except that Amee has no other desire for her adult life than to be married (whether that’s because she is a kid or enslaved is undetermined). Melee unfortunately lacks the brief character development that Amee has, and the Twi’lek twins Ann and Tann Gella fall in the sexualized Twi’lek category. They too lack speaking lines and character development.  As for Tusken women in Attack of the Clones, their first acknowledgement as existing on Tatooine comes in the same breath as a comparison to animals who deserved to be murdered despite not being complicit in Shmi’s kidnapping. They are visually indistinguishable from Tusken men (unless one looks in a Star Wars Visual Dictionary or online), not clearly female, and occupy domestic roles in the camp rather than taking part in raids or attacks on moisture farmers and other settlements. Again reflecting George Lucas’s interest in the American West and the dynamics between frontiersmen and settlers and Indigenous Americans, the Tuskens are dehumanized in all of their appearances until The Book of Boba Fett (2021-2022) as less than human and uncivilized, violently attacking innocent farmers and women like Shmi, and they are persecuted and hunted in a frontier war conflict with the moisture farmers like the Lars. 

Beru, however, is a free woman and she appears as Owen’s fiancée, not technically Beru Lars just yet, and she also lacks character development that will make her the Aunt Beru played by Shelagh Fraser in A New Hope (though she does receive that development in Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) and in her chapter in From a Certain Point of View (2017)). In the novelization of Attack of the Clones, she and Padmé talk about travel and leaving their home worlds; in the movie, she only introduces herself to Padmé as her major speaking moment. In Revenge of the Sith, she appears at the very end of the movie to receive baby Luke from Obi-Wan and directly set up the maternal role she fills for Luke between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Here, she has no lines and continues to take on that maternal role; the prequel trilogy in particular reinforces the Western elements (both historically and cinematically) of the American West, so Beru not only takes on the domestic duties to support and replace Shmi in Attack of the Clones and A New Hope, but she is also involved with the running of the moisture farm and the other duties around the home (rather than working outside the home with a formal education the way Padmé does). It is a different kind of femininity and female empowerment than those of the other women with the agency to choose their lifestyle and ability, and unfortunately Beru does not have the chance to articulate her choices, decisions, and agency in the films.

Despite the depiction of slavery in The Phantom Menace and its centrality to both Anakin and Shmi’s narratives, it is a heavily sanitized depiction (to no one’s surprise) given the ratings and genre of the film. Most of the graphic or brutal elements of Star Wars’s brand of slavery appear in other pieces of fan-created content and official media; otherwise, any mention of their experiences under Hutt or Tatooine slavery are very PG, a fact of life rather than a brutal lived existence. The species differences between the human Anakin and Shmi and their clearly nonhuman owners, Trandoshan Watto and Gardulla the Hutt, do not fully eliminate the realities of sexual violence and assault inherent in societies which involve serious social hierarchies and the enslavement of sentient or human beings. Shmi notes that Anakin had no father, interpreted by Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) as meaning that he was fathered by the Force, when other, more realistic, explanations would suggest rape or otherwise nonconsensual procreation and pregnancy. Instead leaning into the ideas of immaculate conception and the virgin birth, Lucas creates a much more palatable society where slavery is a bedrock within it. Their enslavement further serves no real purpose beyond providing a brief obstacle to training Anakin as a Jedi and separating him from Shmi. And yet this is not the only problematic issue with the prequels (including the depictions of the Tusken Raiders through 2022 with The Book of Boba Fett). Owned by podracer Sebulba (Lewis Macleod), the Star Wars Visual Dictionary notes that he purchased Ann and Tann Gella because they were beautiful, masseuses, and would make the other racers jealous. They exemplify the sexual component of slavery which has most clearly made it into the franchise because of the sexualization of the Twi’lek women (starting with Oola in Return of the Jedi).