PT Has George Lucas ever addressed the difference in "look" between the PT and CT

Exactly. If you look at the concepts and how the universe is introduced in the Old Republic video games, it also looked more advanced, elegant and cleaner than both the prequel era and the original trilogy era:

 

Very good analysis.

I also see the deterioration of the Jedi Order as being portrayed by the fact that certain members are present in the chambers only as fuzzy, ghost-like holograms. They are clearly a compromised order which has been spread thin across the galaxy, and are in the process of fading away completely and entering the realm of half-forgotten myth:

 

Indeed. I also find that to be an exceptionally compelling visual storytelling choice in ROTS.

The general similitude between ghosts and holograms in Star Wars is either very fortunate or very deliberate.

 

Out-of-universe, this is what he said last year about how he makes his movies.

and this is also important, I think.

http://web.archive.org/web/20040925...SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/20/film.qa.george.lucas.ap/

 

^^

Good work, darklighter99. Love both of those interviews. You really get a sense of what GL is all about: his unapologetic focus and critical attitude to his own work, the extremely cinematic nature of his storytelling, how he strives to express his creativity as fully and as vigorously as possible.

Star Wars was obviously intended by Lucas to be very vivid, very colourful, very detail-laden -- to be a spur to the imagination. Not necessarily as "hard" Science-Fiction is, but as an episodic family drama and tragicomic escape satire set in a mythical, retro-future past.

You're meant to go "wow" a bit. And the shifted (and shifting) topography of each movie is meant to serve as a sort of synaesthetic tapestry of the characters' internal states; an allegorical revelation, or crucible, about the world (more an internal one) in which they live and move within.

I also just want to take this moment to import some words of the redoubtable Ingram_I:


Strip away any lofty notions of pop-mythic resonance or, hell, even the most basic need to entertain with accessible characters and space-faring pulp energy; if nothing else, "Star Wars" remains synonymous with "design". Star Wars is design. It is a fantasy world designed entirely from scratch. If the cinematic medium is the language of Star Wars then conceptual design, I would argue, is the true content of that which is being communicated, beyond dialogue, beyond plot. In turn, whatever criticisms can be laid against the PT for its allegedly poor scripting and two-dimensional performances, or for Lucas' eccentric sensibilities with digital, I can't imagine anyone in their right mind faulting those movies in terms of their world-building conceptual design, or lack thereof, to be specific. The six-part Star Wars saga altogether remains unprecedented in its sheer volume and variety of 'imagination station'.

From Ingram's outstanding TFA review:

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...oilers-allowed.50035228/page-80#post-53056101

 

Makes me wonder how much different the OT would have been if Lucas decided to make it today rather than in 1977. Would the designs be more different than they are now? More diverse planets?

 

Everything would be utterly different.


ATTACK OF THE CLONES = 2002 = THE PHANTOM MENACE


THE PHANTOM MENACE = 22nd anniversary of A NEW HOPE


REVENGE OF THE SITH = 2005 = ATTACK OF THE CLONES


ATTACK OF THE CLONES = 25th anniversary of A NEW HOPE



AT-ATs.
AT-STs.



Everything is closely aligned and exquisitely intertwined.

 

That's pretty amusing.

Numerology is nonsense, though. Patterns exist everywhere, even in random data and factoids. They weren't the result of some deliberate pre-planning.

 

What if everything has a hidden meaning and the universe is trying to communicate with us?

But yeah, I mostly agree with you. Mostly.

 

It's called the "Will of the Force."

 

Who is Will?

 

*Consults wall plastered with sheets of paper with scribbles on them all connected together with criss-crossing lines of yarn*

"My God, Cryo, you're right! Everything checks out, to a tee!"

 

Wasn't it 2002 when it was claimed that the first human was cloned?

MJ

 

No human being has yet been cloned due, in large part, to the considerable ethical ramifications surrounding the issue.

But as far as ramifications go...

Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal (derived from an adult somatic cell), caused quite a stir in the 1990s. She was born and died between the production of TPM and the production of ROTS (the only prequel movie that underwent its full life-cycle while Dolly was alive was, yep, AOTC).

Dolly's legacy may be baked into the PT. The title of the second prequel may be inspired by all the reporting on Dolly at the time -- news of Dolly must surely have penetrated GL's consciousness. Anakin also rides a grazing animal to impress Padme on Naboo; which follows on from Obi-Wan discovering the clones.

There is something slightly tragic about the way we muck around with nature, and especially the way we exploit animals, in my opinion. So I'm going to at least see AOTC as paying slight homage to Dolly; consciously intended or otherwise. Cloning, in and of itself, however, is nothing new. A long time ago...

 

Brilliant post.

Certainly not accidental.

Cheers!

MJ

 

Wow, thanks!

I sort of added onto it as I went along.

Here is one other thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning


The term clone, invented by J. B. S. Haldane, is derived from the Ancient Greek word κλών klōn, "twig", referring to the process whereby a new plant can be created from a twig. In horticulture, the spelling clon was used until the twentieth century; the final e came into use to indicate the vowel is a "long o" instead of a "short o". Since the term entered the popular lexicon in a more general context, the spelling clone has been used exclusively.

As I have said before, "clone" essentially means "twig" or "stick". And "attack" links to "attach", "tacky", "stack", "stick".

> ATTACHMENT OF THE TWIGS
> STICKINESS OF THE STICKS

There is a tonnage of stick symbolism and meditations on attachment in AOTC.


J.B.S. Haldane was also the guy that pronounced:

"My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

 

I'll admit, I liked his post for the pun alone. The other stuff was okay too, but that pun hit the spot.

 

Puns. I do puns.

But so does George Lucas. Obviously.

 

The Spanish word Camino means "path or way"
The Tibetan word Lam also means "path or way".

The Tibetan words "Dalai" & "Lama" mean "ocean" and "guru or he who goeth", respectively.
Lama shares the same root with Lam.

Lama Su is the Prime Minister of Kamino, the ocean world.

Dalai Lama - Dolly Lamb

The saber-dart led Kenobi on the path to Kamino which was the path to the Clone Wars.
The attempt on Amidala's life, and her eventual death, lead to the foundations of the Empire. (Can't get more Kabbalistic than that).




Also interesting that Kamino was erased from the maps and star charts. Obi-Wan had to find it by mathematic calculations and it's gravity field.

Neptune, our ocean planet, is not visible to the unaided eye and is the only planet in our Solar System found by mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. Unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led Alexis Boulevard to deduce that its orbit was subject to gravitational perturbation by an unknown planet.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune

The element Neptunium is assigned the number 93.
It's most stable isotope is 237.
Also interesting that it's symbol is Np, bringing to mind Natalie Portman.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunium


93 is the number of Thelema, founded by Aleister Crowley, who claims to have spoken with a discarnate being who went by the name of Lam - who, because of the shape of his head, is referred to as the Egg man.
237 is the number of the infamous hotel room in The Shining.
(there's that pesky numerology again).

 

Always an etymological feast, from the accessible pun, in all its delicious brevity, to questing into language and layers of meaning behind words or their (ad)dictive (reductive but not in thesense of diminished quality) particulates. I mean, sometimes, one wants to relay simple, gratifying concepts with the common words best used to describe them to the most people. And other times, it's a playground, and a bit of a rabbit's hole, because you're not quite sure where the journey takes you.

What Cryogenic and Subtext Mining do above is sort of the mirror image of how I approach when I name characters and places in my own writing. Names have meaning, and if I can create a link, even if for my own edification, that touches on theme or narrative strings, I use it. Certainly, the journey starts there, even if the names go through several iterations. I feel even more bad about calling it out previously on the other thread, especially when I recall this:



This one's for you two.

Also, pretty damn awesome to imagine Papa George doing the same thing with his choices as he shapes the story.

 

Water (Ocean) also is metaphor for life as it were. Just wanted to add that in. That also then is related to Clones (millions of them) and that numerical statistic and much more so is the number of stars in the universe (Trillions). Clone Wars Vs Star Wars. The Clone Wars/The Star Wars.

MJ

 

I have my criticisms of the PT production design (do not like the Naboo ships AT ALL, for example), but overall, I think the OP is off base. In the OT, we spend a lot of time in fringe worlds, with folks not exactly in the upper crust of the galaxy, as rebels. But when we are someplace where we might expect a bit more, we see it. The IMperial ships are immaculate. Heck, the HANGAR DECKS even shine. Bespin is almost celestial,, when we are not in its industrial bowels.

But I admit those Naboo ships annoy the crap outta me. They seem entirely incongruous with the rest of what we see. Star Wars ships are usually COVERED in detail... panel lines and greeblies everywhere. The smooth, and even chromed look of Naboo ships feels way off to me. No sir, I don't like it!

 

You can say the same of Mon Cal ships. There almost as "smooth" as the Naboo.

 

No really.... lots of surface detail on the Mon Cal ships. It's not the overall shape I take issue with so much. And let me add, although I don;t like the Naboo ship designs, it's not like it's a huge deal breaker for me. Though I wanna know where poor R2's legs go when he's in the Naboo fighter. And are there special droids that fit in the Jedi fighters?