Friday, August 10, 2012

32 BBY: The Queen's Amulet

The Queen’s Amulet by Julianne Balman is a beautiful little story about Amidala losing and then finding her amulet.  The amulet is important because of its sentimental value; it was made for her by her father.
The art by Matilda Harrison was my favorite aspect of the book; it was innocently nostalgic and colourful.  The most enjoyable part of the story was page 2, and Harrison’s picturesque scene with the Queen and Sabe leaving Theed while the two make their way through a grassy field.  They are heading to the place where the Queen last had her amulet.  Flying above the maidens are two giant Peko Peko birds, and tucked into the corner of the page are some strange looking lizard-birds spying on the two girls.  The city of Theed is in the distance with the sun rising above them.  It’s a beautiful bit of art.
The Queen finds her amulet just before the Trade Federation lands their invasion force.  The story ends with Padme and Sabe switching roles, and the rest we’re very familiar with.
For my next post I’m going to look at another adaptation of The Phantom Menace, Patricia C. Wrede’s scholastic version.  Until then my friends, may the Force be with you.

7 comments:

  1. I liked the art in this little book, too. Between this and Queen in Disguise, I think Padme got two of the better children's tie-ins to TPM featuring original stories.

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  2. Yeah, so far that is definatly the case.

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  3. it took me forever to figure out that the amulet was made by her father. but yet it never made an onscreen appearence. oh poodoo.

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  4. That's unfortunate. One of the greatest aspects of Star Wars is that everything has a backstory. It's a shame the amulet never appears in TPM. Does is appear in any of the other two films though?

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  5. from what i know and doing soem research the amulet never seems to appear in the series at all. i don't think its in the tv series, either. oh darn.

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  6. I had never heard of Amidala's amulet until she mentioned it in her journal. If they hadn't said anything else about it, I would have thought they made a mistake and it was Anakin's amulet, the queen just had it too early...
    Does anyone know what it looks like?

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  7. “My father gave me the amulet before I was Queen. It’s only transparisteel and stone, but I’ve always worn it”

    The amulet appears on the first page. Imagine an oval shaped stone entwined with gold wire with a small loop at the top.

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