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

In the "Jedi Starfighter" seen in AOTC, the Droid is basically an R2 unit sliced in half. Full size R2'so can fit in the Fighter seen in ROTS.

 

And for the TPM starfighter, the droid's neck stretches so its dome can reach the top:

 

Everyone has their own likes and dislikes. One of the great things about the Star Wars saga is how dense and varied it is. You could argue that it is impossible to love all of it; or certainly all at once.

However, seeing it like a grand tapestry allows variation and "snagging" elements to stand out, and subsequently integrate.

Those smooth Naboo ships, for instance, are evocative of a sleeker, plusher world -- a world that almost seems like some Victorian architect's wet dream.

You have the idea that things are a bit more, well... cared for.

And what about those ships as Anakin's smooth sky-boat to heaven? A heaven raging with war? A star war.

A contrast with his grubby, tactile podracer. "Now THIS is podracing." But is it? This speed demon gets a thrill in a flying machine without the complication of flipping switches or using hand tools to re-engage engines or fix detached cables; and with a famous astromech droid for company.

There are always elevated exceptions played as the same or almost the same thing; even if they be quite different. Something about those N-1 starfighters just feels very right to me. The guns and gondolas are the same. Naboo is a semi-aquatic realm and things seem designed with a fluid aesthetic in mind.

 

The Naboo ships are gorgeous, bold, unusual. They fascinate me, look like made in the baroque époque in the Galaxy far away: refined, smooth, shining, beauiful. And according to some sources baroque means gem, so they are gems. We discussed it with QuangoFett in the thread about the historical references in the prequels: the Naboo starships are like aboo itself: rich, abundant , Mediterranean-like planet. So its vehicles look the same way: as the old .luxury Italian cars, as retro Ferrari or something like that. I'm not a big fan of cars but George Lucas is and he knows. Look at this:



or this:


Apart from the color (well, Ferrari=red) this is Naboo cruiser , actually.

 

In the spirit of completely ripping off Tonyg 's post above me

I submit this quick visual reference to the differences between PT and OT

 

You nailed it! Something between Bugatti Veyron and Ferrari the Naboo starships are (said in Yoda style).

 

Yeah, I know that.... I have that book. That's a silly explanation. But I was nitpicking. There are tons of small things like that in SW.

 

I like silly explanations like that, because real life is exactly if not more silly. It gives the universe texture and in an odd way actually makes it more believable.

Like a bunch of Naboo engineers were designing this thing to fit some kind of proprietary astromech model and all of a sudden an order came up from on high that the fighter had to be compatible with the popular R2 model because Naboo Department of Defense already had a whole bunch of those requisitioned and didn't want to spend money buying new models. The design team couldn't go back to the drawing board without exhausting their budget so they said, "Screw it, those things can technically extend their domes away from their bodies, right? So just redesign the droid slot so it fits the R2 unit's lower chassis and let's call it a day."

 

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SHE'S GONNA BLOW!!​

 

Indeed. Nature is also silly as a goose (or a giraffe):

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Laryngeal_nerve

 

I really don't think an explanation was needed, things changed. Obi-Wan even talks about it in ANH, bringing up "An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age." ... Easiest way to describe it I think is this :

PT - more like the Renaissance period. There was craftsmanship, indeed ART in the way things were designed and made. There was real pride in the ships, vehicles, weapons, cities, planets, etc. Befitting a time of freedom.

OT - more like the Industrial Revolution. It's all about mass production, creating things as quickly and as cheaply as possible. More of an assembly line feel, and the leftovers from the PT are now getting worn, dirty, and rusty, as they are things of the past and no longer made.

 

I think civilized referred more to how people treated each other. The relative peace of the democratic Republic (even if in decline) vs. the violence and paranoia of the Empire.

We might not have seen a whole lot of it, but in the PT, old ships were still in use. The refugee transport that Padme and Anakin took, for instance.

 

There is a progression in several visual aspects over the films.




Sabers on a gradually dirtying floor

TPM - shiny floor: Master's saber used by Obi-Wan to kill Maul:

AOTC - some dirt: Maser's saber used by Anakin to lose to Dooku:

ROTS - ash, sand: Apprentice's saber "taken away along with the spirit of" once noble Anakin:








Throne rooms

Queen Amidala. Notice the warm colour tones, and the presence of multiple people representing that it is a democracy:

Queen Jamilla. Similar to Episode One:

The Emperor. Cold blue, and one man representing the entire galaxy whether they like it or not:







A progression from order to chaos within climactic duel locations

TPM - relatively clean well-kept hangar:

AOTC - war-torn hangar, some dirt on the floor and rough rocky walls:

ROTS - lava symbolising rage and turmoil, with smoke, ash and sand. Dark skies (and eclipse):















Utapau shows the toll the war is taking on the galaxy













Always liked these trilogy-bridging designs

The arc-fighters become X-wings. The Jedi Interceptors are precursors to the tie-fighter, even with engine sound, laser colour, and the cockpit windows:








Empire draining colour from galaxy

 

As Anakin and Obi-Wan fight, their clothes gradually get burn marks...





Plus, looking at the PT DVD covers, the orange glow dampens (going top image to bottom).



"The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the universe."

 

^^

I KNEW those last two posts had to be from HevyDevy!

The colours, the compositions, the varying image sizes, the repeating visual motifs.

Good work as always.

 

By the by, I really love this shot in particular. It has about it a certain heightened reality charm of a miniaturized play-world, which makes sense given the good deal of scaled model work going on. But I especially like the slightly out of focus, foregrounded battle droid; the tactility of him.

I imagine he's thinking to himself at that very moment, "Is that a Jedi riding a giant lizard? Okay then."

 

It's a wonderful composition, indeed -- and exactly the sort of thing TFA is entirely lacking in.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, can frame an environment or pictorialize a world like George Lucas.

 

Yup, nothing wonderfully composed here...

 

I really did love those compositions in TFA, gorgeous to look at. Ngl. I also loved them when I first saw them in The Force Unleashed 2 game and Apocalypse Now.

 

A flat band of sand/water on the "floor" of the image.

Muted colours and a washed-out look.

Pointless haze, fog, and camera grime.

Distractingly big objects of overly familiar ships in the background and foreground.

Environments almost entirely devoid of interesting geometry and texture.

Flat, literal camera angles.

No creatures, no people, no laser blasts, no life.

Nothing especially alien or unreal happening or the suggestion of such.

The TFA images may be their own brand of "pretty", but that's about all they are, in my opinion. It's the kind of thing George Lucas was likely alluding to when he accused Disney of making a "retro" film. Those images were an early indication that a faux-retro, Instagram-y look was being passed off as captivating pop art; a clear indication of aesthetic intent.

Next to the shot pulled from ROTS -- a diorama awash with detail -- those images from the JJ flick (or its extremely boring teaser trailer) offer nothing of interest to tantalize the eye or dazzle the heart or mind. Fake, lacquered images, lacking all sense of proportion, purpose, and entirely without soul. JMO, anyway.

 

PaulWrightyThen

Those are nice shots, yes. Though, among a couple three others throughout the movie, I prefer these even a bit more:

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Again, well-crafted shots, with depth and a bit of gall to them. But they're also rather normalized, in step with countless other big budget sci-fi/fantasy blockbusters like the Star Trek reboots, Transformers, Edge of Tomorrow, Interstellar, some of the better looking Marvel movies etc., along with Rogue One, by the looks of it; all of which (while not identical) bent on a general trend of photogenic hyper-realism and intensity. Always striving to render fantastical content with National Geographic-like credibility. The discrepancy for me comes down to how the Utapau image guns eccentrically for the sake of artifice in all its separate elements: nothing is the shot feels beholden to our physical world as we know it, but instead embraces the otherworldliness that comes inherently with transporting audiences into a kind of retro-cinema diorama. I can't say one style is necessarily better than the other. It's just preferences. However, I will contend that the previous installments offered a healthier variety of both—of aforesaid quirky abstractions with live-action, on-location verisimilitude. ​

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You've reminded me here of a weird visual theme:

TIE Fighter/Millennium Falcon abuse. A TIE Fighter careens down to the surface of a sand planet in a crumpled mess, and subsequently "explodes" under the sand, while the MF wildly smashes through God-knows-how-many trees and awkwardly comes to rest, "Batman Begins"-training compound style, at the edge of a cliff in a frozen wasteland.

I agree with "normalized" -- flattened, compressed, standardized.

But I have to stop you on "National Geographic". I see your point, but what makes a lot of the prior saga imagery so appealing, in my opinion, is the unmistakeable detection of such an aesthetic approach: a sort of solid, richly-composed, crisp, real-world, rugged, elemental awe evoked by many master shots and various details within; and all with a particular grounding and sheen. TPM is practically that style on overload.

However, as you also intimate, prior saga compositions were never quite so straight-forward or bereft of baroque stylings, weird, off-kilter angles, avant-garde patterns, gauche colourings, and the assorted like. Star Wars used to be everything and the kitchen sink. Now, it's sort of, well, all trimmed, centered, clear, gravitic, serious. Thuddingly normal to Lucas' lithe, wondrous command of the frame -- and frames within frames.

 

Yeah, I couldn't come up with during the moment a better descriptor of the following:

 

I got ya back.

Thee has taught me well.

 

Ingram_I Those are indeed cool images.

Cryogenic Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is preference. But pointless haze and fog? Its called atmosphere. It's what you see in real life. It gives a real, in camera look. If you don't like it, fine. That's your preference. But don't say its pointless. Its, you know... what happens.

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

Actually, I'm bailing here. I can see folly ahead. I'm glad you like your 'dense' frames and what not. I'll take my more realist star wars and 'pointless' fog and enjoy it.

Also, put down the media studies text book and speak like a person. geez. (Joke)