The Star Wars franchise has expanded in a big way since the days of the Original Trilogy, but that larger continuity has come at the price of some serious narrative plotholes. Now the powers that be behind the Star Wars franchise are trying to fill at least one of those holes, involving the relationship between Princess Leia, and her mother, Padmé Amidala.
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Here’s the issue: in the Star Wars Original Trilogy’s final chapter, Return of the Jedi, there’s a famous scene of Luke and Leia taking a moment together, in which Luke asks Leia if she remembers their mother. Leia responds that she does, and that their mother was “very beautiful, kind… but sad.” That was a touching sibling moment, but unfortunately, Star Wars prequels totally invalidate it.
In the finale of the Prequel Trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, Padmé dies giving birth to Luke and Leia, as a result of her “broken heart” over Anakin’s fall to the dark side. The big continuity snag there is obviously how Leia could possibly remember anything about her mother, seeing as she was just a newborn like Luke the only time they ever met mother.
That’s where the Star Wars Adventures Annual 2019 comes in. In the book’s backup story “So Much More”, Breha Organa is talking to her young adopted daughter Leia, in a Garden where there’s a statue of Padmé. Breha basically fill Leia in on the major details of Padmé’s life through the Prequel Trilogy and Clone Wars series, letting the young girl know just how badass of a woman her mother really is, while the panels of the comic deliver an extensive highlight reel of Padmé’s biggest moment in the Star Wars franchise. The culminating piece of this remembrance is Breha’s instruction to Leia:
(Photo: IDW Publishing)
“Leia, love, I know you’re too young to understand all this… to remember, even. But I want you to hold on to this image, this feeling. That spark – the spark. You have it, too.”
On the one hand, “So Much More” is clearly a story of empowerment between major female characters of the Star Wars franchise, and helps frame Leia’s later role as example and mentor to characters in the Sequel Trilogy like Rey or Admiral Holdo. However, this story is also a nice little “Get out of jail reasonably free,” card for the franchise. Writers Pierrick Colinet and Elsa Charretier basically give Star Wars means to say that Leia’s “memory” of Padmé in Return of the Jedi is actually just an impression built off of Breha’s stories in her childhood. It’s not the cleanest fill for a plot hole – but also not the worst one Star Wars has attempted.
The Skywalker Saga concludes with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on December 20th. The Star Wars Adventures Annual is now on sale HERE.
