Now This is Speeder Chasing!
In The Phantom Menace, Anakin Skywalker competes in the Boonta Eve Classic podrace, driving a yellow podracer. In Attack of the Clones, Anakin uses a yellow speeder to pursue the bounty hunter Zam Wessell. Even beyond the shared color of the two yellow vehicles, a number of details indicate that the scenes are meant to parallel each other.
When Obi-Wan Kenobi joins him in the yellow speeder, Anakin quips, "I couldn't find a speeder that I really liked, with the open cockpit and the right speed capabilities." The podracer also has an open cockpit, and as a racing machine, its speed capabilities are of paramount importance. It is as if Anakin chose the yellow speeder because of its similarity to his old podracer.
Anakin's main opponent in the podrace is the Dug, Sebulba. During the Coruscant speeder chase, Obi-Wan nearly runs into an alien of the same species, and like Sebulba, this Dug turns out to have a foul mouth: "Jedi poodoo!"
During the Coruscant speeder chase, Anakin drives his yellow speeder through a "power coupling" – a field of purple lightning-like energy. The power coupling visually resembles the energy field that connects the two pods of a podracer:
While they are jostling for first place in the final lap of the podrace, Anakin and Sebulba's podracers become entangled, causing a mechanical malfunction that sends Sebulba crashing into the Tatooine desert. Similarly, on Coruscant, Anakin leaps out of his own speeder and grabs onto Zam Wessell's; during their scuffle, the controls to her speeder are destroyed, sending her crashing into the streets of Coruscant.
One more detail at the conclusion of the speeder chase underlines its connection to the podrace. After her speeder crashes, Zam Wessell hides in a bar where podracing is playing on the screens for the patrons' entertainment.
In both scenes, Anakin is driving a fast vehicle to accomplish something for Padmé. In The Phantom Menace, he is winning the hyperdrive that will allow her to leave Tatooine and plead her people's case to the Senate on Coruscant. In Attack of the Clones, he is trying to protect her from further assassination attempts – attempts meant to prevent her from speaking out against the creation of the Clone army in the Senate.
Placing the two scenes side by side highlights a significant point of contrast between Anakin's Jedi mentors. Before the podrace, Qui-Gon Jinn exhorts Anakin, "Concentrate on the moment. Feel, don't think. Use your instincts." However, at the conclusion of the speeder chase, Obi-Wan chides Anakin, "Patience. Use the Force. Think." Qui-Gon privileges feeling and intuition, while Obi-Wan privileges thinking and reason. It is no surprise that Anakin – who is comfortable behind the wheel of a speedy moving vehicle, on a mission to help the woman he loves – gravitates more naturally to Qui-Gon's teaching style than Obi-Wan's.
EXPLORE FURTHER…
Characters: Anakin Skywalker / Obi-Wan Kenobi / Padmé Amidala / Qui-Gon Jinn / Zam Wessell
Films: Episode I: The Phantom Menace / Episode II: Attack of the Clones
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