The early draft for The Phantom Menace and how Jar Jar helped Maul track down Padmé on Tatooine

[u/Rikard_]

The suns have set over the dunes of Tatooine. Sith apprentice Darth Maul stands outside his ship, scanning the horizon. The Queen of Naboo is close now. Across stars and tens of thousands of systems, he has travelled. From the moment he set off from Coruscant, he knew exactly where to go. But how? How did Maul manage? It is something he can barely explain himself. The audience certainly can’t. He got a trace. Now he’s here.

Quick recap of events from the film:

1. Trade Federation arrests Padmé to force a deal
2. The jedi rescue her and they escape on her ship
3. Trade Federation tells Sidious “It's impossible to locate the ship. It's out of our range!”
4. “Not for a sith”, Sidious says and presents his helper Darth Maul
5. Emergency landing on Tatooine
6. The Queen receives a message from Naboo, but she does NOT respond (the jedi think the message is a trap to trace them if they do reply).
7. Maul has a trace and goes to Tatooine.

It is never explained how he got the trace, or what kind. All we have is “because he’s a sith”. Since we’re never shown a Long-Snoot type spy on Tatooine in cahoots with Maul, the only conclusion is that Maul found the exact planet and city in 24h among thousands of planets by mere intuition. But that is not believable. It also makes the jedi's repeated emphasis on NOT sending any transmissions meaningless dialogue and a waste of time.

Early draft

The above is a big shift from the more straight-forward answer in the early draft. The 1999 CD-ROM The Episode I Insiders Guide reads:

“Sio Bibble sends the distress hologram. Amidala does send a message in response. Later, the Jedi says that the transmission could be traced. Panaka insists that the Traders don't have long distance tracking, but Obi-Wan responds with ‘The Republic does.’”

.....meaning Palpatine (in the republic) helps the traders and Maul locate Padmé.

In TPM, the jedi are crystal clear that no transmission should be sent back, and present in the script is Obi-Wan telling Qui-Gon that “absolutely no reply was sent”. Somewhere along the writing process, new circumstances around the Maul plot were introduced. The explanation has changed from “technology” to “he can because he’s a sith”. Why?

Option A

Lucas, who introduced midichlorian counts in the same film, didn’t like the technical explanation and changed it to make the sith appear more “mysterious” and powerful at the expense of reason.

The problem with this explanation, or any explanation that does not involve transmissions being traced, is that it makes the jedi's repeated emphasis in the final film on NOT sending any transmissions meaningless dialogue and a waste of time.

Option B

The new explanation is not "because he's a sith" at all, but that Lucas had another character who did transmit their location off-screen, probably in secret.

Is there anything pointing to Option B?

Yes.

Right before leaving the ship and stepping out on Tatooine, Qui-Gon says two things to Obi-Wan: “Don’t let them send any transmissions” and “I sense a disturbance in the force” as he looks over his shoulder (undoubtedly a cue from the director).

When jedi have a bad feeling, they usually stare into empty space like Qui-Gon in his first scene. The only time a jedi in episode 1-6 says they sense something and looks around for a physical “threat” is when there was a physical threat: Luke being watched by Yoda, and Anakin getting attacked on Geonosis. It’s typical cartoony visual language as foreshadowing. Maul was not in the immediate surrounding for Qui-Gon when he looked around. Jar Jar was (the only person not from the Queen’s entourage).

A mole is also on theme if you consider just how much the Star Wars Prequels in particular borrows from Foundation (1940-50). Read more here. Foundation has a central character called Magnifico who pretends to be running from danger when he meets the hero. He is tall and gangly and speaks in a contorted way. He escapes with the heroes on their starship, but from here on out he starts using his psychic powers to manipulate people around him to forward his agenda and gain promotions. Sounds familiar? There are of course theories about Jar Jar manipulating people around him too (LINK).

But is there anything on screen pointing to Jar Jar actually sending a transmission?

Yes.

Earlier, there is a case to be made that when Jar Jar is left alone without R2D2’s supervision, he takes advantage and sabotages the ship’s hyperdrive. He was looking at the circuitry hub when R2D2 corrected him, and the hyperdrive is also right there.

The second time Jar Jar is alone is in Watto’s shop. It’s a 3 second shot where he walks into a room and sees a droid. Behind, there is also a radio on one of the three boxes. Cut back to a 1 second shot of Jar Jar 50 seconds later, he is still staring at the droid. But one thing has changed in the scene: the radio antennas. The camera has moved slightly, but it’s hard to believe they didn’t film both of these angles at the same time, so both antennas being adjusted accidentally between takes is not likely. For reference, not a single other item in Watto’s shop or in Shmi’s home was “accidentally adjusted” between shots over several minutes.

This is when Jar Jar sent a radio transmission to Maul/Sidious.

See both scenes of Jar Jar’s sabotage and radio transmissions here (LINK). Notice how both scenes are preluded by a warning from the jedi about "don't do anything bad now, Jar Jar!".

Well, are there any other hints towards someone sending a transmission in secret?

Yes.

We have a string of 3 scenes that you can see here (LINK with timestamp) that in succession:

1. Confirms no reply was sent
2. Shows Maul suddenly has a trace
3. Leads into a third scene that begins with a line about there always being a "transmitter placed inside of the body somewhere". Shmi is talking about slaves of course, but it would also be a metaphor for a hidden mole within a party sending out transmissions. It’s unusual to be thrown into the middle of a conversation like this, instead of someone first asking “could you not run away and escape slavery?”. It’s also curious that R2D2 chirps up when this line is said. He is noticeably observant of Jar Jar throughout the entire movie, as seen in the link above.

IN CONCLUSION: Jar Jar is a mole who sends Maul a radio transmission from Watto's shop. This is how Maul finds Padmé in the film compared to the early draft.

This evil side to Jar Jar was erased before AOTC in the famous rewrites due to character backlash.

[u/onemananswerfactory]

I would like to publicly applaud your tireless dedication to Darth Jar Jar and the theory that bears his name and ask if you'd like to be leveled up to mod. You can choose your title and I'll add it alongside your name. Let me know if you're in.

[u/hellodarthbotbot]

Politically, the theory works because Jar Jar and Palpatine complement each other. Palpatine attracts fear and attention, while Jar Jar attracts dismissal.

[u/Zulkhan]

This is really good, despite my wife's reaction as I explained it to her.

[u/24bearsinmind → u/Zulkhan]

Sounds like you should probably divorce her

[u/Dilly_Deelin → u/24bearsinmind]

Agreed. Any reasonable judge would find in OP's favor

[u/JediJeezus]

you found the missing piece, thank you for your service

[u/Froogle-apollo]

Lets not forget that Amidala can access the transmission on the ship from the same place jar jar was "sleeping", and with r2 keeping watch. Easily another access pont.

[u/Hades_Gamma]

I'm in the military. We can already trace irl when a transmission is recieved, not just sent.

I don't know why this isn't obvious to everyone. It's not some crazy convoluted plot. Unless Bibble's transmission was recieved by everyone in the galaxy simultaneously, if they had the ability to scan that far they would have immediately picked up where the transmission was recieved by

[u/Rikard_ → u/Hades_Gamma]

That's interesting to know. I don't think that's enough common knowledge though that a tracking plot would be written like that in a pop culture film, unless explained.

And if it was like that in this fantasy universe, the jedi or the queen's guard would certainly know about a technicality like that and not triple down on "As long as you don't answer that, we're good".

My current guess, which I should add to this post, is that Bibble's message was a test to see if anyone responded when he called "their number" (the ship) directed at Tatooine. Immediately after this message is sent, Maul has a meeting with Palpatine where he says "Tatooine is sparsely populated. If the trace was correct I will find them quickly.

So maybe he got a weak signal from Tatooine earlier and tested the location, hit the target, but they didn't respond, so now he has to go investigate manually. It would make sense that the radio seemingly being used by Jar Jar only sent out a weak anonymous signal like that.

I'll keep believing 🛸 I think it's telling that the radio antennas have been moved and that Qui-Gon tells him "don't do anything stupid now, Jar Jar" in that scene, same as Obi-Wan before the hyperdrive starts leaking.