MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) Discussion > Kamino - not on the maps

Kamino - not on the maps

posted 2 years ago by Martoto (4432)
35 replies | jump to latest

Without doubt one of the stupidest, most arbitrary and illogical things in the prequels. And that's saying something.

Why isn't it on the maps? So people wouldn't know about the best cloners in the galaxy? So that people who know about it couldn't find out how to get there (if they hadn't been there before I guess). Because people would have no use for it or reason to go there unless they happened to find it on a map?

If it's not on the maps and kept a secret from everyone, how do they do business? Surely the Republic (they think) isn't their only customer. Because if they were then there would be plenty of correspondence between the cloners and their customers. "Dear Republic. Clones progressing fine. Not had any visitors in years though. I wonder if we're still on the maps."

But Dex, Dax, "American" diner fellow has heard of Kamino. Surely he's not the only one. So it's not even a secret.

Ok then. Maybe Kamino isn't in the Republic so people in the Republic don't care and wouldn't notice if it wasn't on the maps. But they're big enough to supply the GALACTIC REPUBLIC with a grand army. And they're outside the republic? Who else are they supplying so many clones to (since they have the capacity already)?

This "they're not on the maps" nonsense is just idle intrigue that Lucas added to make the mystery seem clever. But given all the stuff I've mentioned, the Jedi should have been thinking, there's something seriously unreliable about all this BEFORE they even laid eyes on the clone army that they just accept as a means to an end without any further scrutiny. It's like Lucas telling the Jedi that this is dodgy more than it's telling the audience. And it makes the Jedi appear considerably less intelligent than the below average audience member.

Utter garbage.

[–] Druff (1515) 2 years ago

The Jedi knew the clone army was shady right up to the point where Yoda went and picked them up from the factory on Kamino. Because Palpatine had spent decades manipulating a scenario whereby the clone army was the only option if they wanted to defeat the separatists. Palpatine was literally behind everything, playing both sides against the other whereby he himself would eventually end up with full command of the clone army without anybody knowing that he himself was the one who made it happen in the first place. It was all about luring everyone into doing what he needed done (e.g. the Trade Federation illicitly fucking with Naboo, goading the separatist movement, luring the Jedi to Kamino to find out about the army etc.) all while maintaining plausible deniability for his own part.

But no, it's just stupid, lol George Lucas is so dumb, RedLetterMedia proved that, blah blah blah.

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

in other words the Jedi are very very clever, meticulous and discerning or they are very very stupid, suggestible and credulous depending on what Lucas's plot needs them to be at any one time.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 2 years ago

It wasn’t a dumb plot thread at all, was it executed well? No, but the idea was well thought out

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

There are some islands on Earth that are not on the maps, and the ones I know about are some islands in the western Indian Ocean, which were converted to a huge secret military base during the 20th century. But as sailors and yachters had been stopping there for centuries, because these were the only islands between the Seychelles and the coast of Africa, they will be remembered as long as old yachtsmen continue to grumble about being barred from stopping there... even if they're not on the maps.

As for who took Kamino off the maps... I think that settles the fan question of who ordered the clone army! Some people think it was the Jedi or Syfo Dias, but IMHO only Palpatine could arrange for Kamino to be erased from the maps, and made the erasing arrangements far enough in the past that the Jedi would gave forgotten about it vanishing from the star maps, by the time war with the separatists was declared.

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

Do any of these islands not on the maps have the world's leading manufacturer in the most sophisticated and expensive technology where they have the resources and infrastructure to create entire armies of clones there?

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

I'll let you know when my top-level-lisence-to-kill-00 agent security clearance goes through!

Seriously, I have no idea what they do there, but since all the world's armies are still taking on normal humans, I assume it isn't making clone armies. Or maybe the clones are still in grade school...

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

Substitute clone armies for any other item. If any of these islands were home the leading manufacturers for a widely sought after commodity, they would be on the map.

The Kaminoans also manufactured and supplied all the prototype Star Destroyers and the gunships which transport the clone armies as well. It's a huge operation. The idea that they would operate like a secluded tropical island which has no business other than being a secluded tropical island is laughably absurd. It would be like Pittsburgh not being on any maps during the height of steel production in the US just so that nobody could discover that there was steel being made there.

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

I presume the Kaminoan ocean base was a hush-hush hidden operation, on a different planet than wherever it was that they manufactured spaceships, in an environment where nobody would think of looking for large-scale production of anything, if someone stumbled across a planet that wasn't on the star charts.

And I think the existence of a secret cloning base that's been in operation for years, and which isn't on the star charts, shows that Palpatine was behind it all. Sure, the Jedi might have been able to fund a clone army 10-20 years in advance of a war, but they couldn't order Kamino to be removed from all the maps in the galaxy, and they weren't planning a war!

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

That is demented. It makes no sense. To have the capacity to make all those war ships and hardware there would be a demand for such numbers. There is no possible way it would be hush hush. Kamino is a private enterprise. The Republic is their customers. There is no effing way they are the only customers and nobody in the galaxy, beside the chef in a 50s American diner on Coruscant, knows how they are and where they are.

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

Unlike you, I presume there's more than one group of Kaminoans! The majority of whom are presumably working at huge spaceship factories that can't possibly be hidden, factories that are definitely not on a water planet, because it would be ruinous expensive to put spaceship-building factories in an ocean... and a much smaller group making clones on a hidden water base, on a planet that's not on the maps.

Because you can't build spaceships on a planet that's not on the maps, right? How would your suppliers deliver enough metal to make dreadnoughts and all the other supplies needed to make massive things, to a planet that isn't mapped!

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

They are Kaminoans. If they were the galaxies go to for fully equipped armies, people would know of Kamino and where it was.

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

They build their spaceships on another planet, one known to the public. Obviously.

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

They are Kamino-ans

While nobody even knows of the existence of the planet that they are named after. IT's like saying that throughout the galaxy, the people of Earth were famous for their shipbuilding operation on Mars but nobody knew of, heard of, or even considered the existence of a planet called Earth where they came from.

When you have to come up with such a crackpot, far fetched excuse as that then you surely must know how ridiculous the premise of AOTC's hidden clone factory.

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

Virgin.

[–] JoWilli (16336) 2 years ago

people that are still complaining about a great star wars movie 20 years later just proves how good the Prequels were. no one posts on the disney movies or nitpicks the plots, they just know its bad therefore there is no reason to post about it.

TFA and TLJ did the same thing with Luke, there was no map to find him.

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

Dumbest post I've read here in years.

[–] JoWilli (16336) 2 years ago

I agree, it dumb that people only criticize the Prequels and not anything else. people talk more about the Lucas Prequels then they do the disney sequel's. just ran into a person that said the graphics in 1977 were better than 1999 graphics, really?

[–] mcqueen (1150) 2 years ago

It was deleted.

[–] Oskar (277) 2 years ago

It wasn't on the Jedi maps.

Palpy knew they were insular and arrogant weirdos who probably wouldn't bother looking beyond their own "infallible" resources, so to keep them away he only had to delete it from their databanks.

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

So the Jedi only consult that one map they own and then rely on informants working in a 50s American diner if it's not there?

[–] Oskar (277) 2 years ago

Pretty much! Obi could easily have gone to a different place (library?) to look at the maps, but why on Earth would th Jedi bother to use inferior resources?

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

I guess if you can check a few different sources just to verify your hunch about your map being incomplete. It's better than just travelling to where you think it should be on the map. We're talking about going to a planet here. Not finding the bathrooms at Disney World.

Why do the Jedi seem so nonchalant about the fact that their map had been altered?

[–] Oskar (277) 2 years ago

You're underestimating their arrogance - if it's not in the Jedi library, it's not in any library!! We like Obi so we don't think of him that way, but that's how Jedi conditioning works.

But I do agree that they were too nonchalant about their databanks being messed with.

[–] Martoto (4432) 2 years ago

That's not arrogance. It's sheer ignorance and incompetence.

[–] Oskar (277) 2 years ago

That too!

[–] Oskar (277) 2 years ago

[deleted]

[–] aavfreak (2952) 2 years ago

[–] Oskar (89) 19 hours ago
Pretty much! Obi could easily have gone to a different place (library?) to look at the maps, but why on Earth would th Jedi bother to use inferior resources?

Why on Earth? LOL

Just poking fun. I get the colloquialism. :)

[–] Oskar (277) 2 years ago

Oops, I didn't notice that xD

[–] thingmakersback (1261) 2 years ago

I think you are right. Just another thing that doesn't make sense. And I still like the prequels... just not that much.

Where is Millsey when we need him?

[–] millsey72 (9742) 2 years ago

Martoto brings up a good point. I will ask my college professor and get back on this. Its a possible potential plot hole

[–] [deleted] 2 years ago

I have to agree, which is why I'm totally ignoring Attack of the Clones altogether.

My new Star Wars Prequel Trilogy is Phantom Menace / Revenge of the Sith / Rogue One - works out much better this way.

There's so much I don't like about AOTC, I just thought it was boring beyond belief, with too much goofiness (the droids replacing Binks as comic relief) and a dumb investigation. And I never liked the Fetts anyway, neither of them.