Pattern of EPIII - what can we derive?

One day while letting the MAN suck yet another day of my life away for pay (i.e. at work), after recently renting EPII, I began to observe a pattern in the OT and PT. I?m thinking in big terms and haven?t followed all parallels to conclusion, yet it was easy to piece this together and, if correct, serves as a roadmap for what we can expect in EPIII.

Consider this:

<> <> <> <> <> <> ANH vs. TPM <> <> <> <> <> <>
Starts with action in space that leads to the surface of a nearby planet. Those who go to the planet are ?on the run? and with a mission to do. After encounters with ?the locals? they are moved along with their mission and ultimately have to blast their way off the planet.

Middle: Now at another location, the main characters find help from another person to join the group. Again, there is a fight to leave this location. Also there is a budding love story.

End: ignoring the ground battle in TPM, there is a desperate and nigh impossible space battle with few ?good guys? and an impervious target. Only with thanks to the Force, used by a neophyte, does this target get destroyed.

Specifics: (please note: for convenience, ? = ? means, ?is similar to? ? it does not mean ?equal to?, so don?t go there, think of the general terms)

• Battle inside Corvette = Battle inside control ship


• C3PO/R2-D2 escape to Tatooine = Qui Gon/OB1 escape to Naboo


• Jawas = Gungans


• ?Stop that ship! Blast ?em!? = ?Does not compute . . . er, You?re under arrest!?
  
• Finding Leia = Finding Anakin


• Luke attracted to Leia = Anakin attracted to Padme (even in how the boy is attracted to the girl, but not the girl to the boy at first)


• Old OB1/Vader scuffle = Maul/Qui Gon scuffle


• Death Star = Droid Control Ship


• Anakin = Luke

Out of order elements:

• Sage master and teacher is killed (Old OB1 = Qui Gon)


• Mention/Appearance of Jabba (i.e. important yet indirect element)

<> <> <> <> <> TESB vs. AOTC <> <> <> <> <> <>
Now here, the order is different, but the elements are there.

• The neophyte Jedi in movie one of the trilogy is now ?experience hardened?.
  (Luke = Anakin ß I know, this is a bit of a stretch, but the idea being personal growth from naivety)


• A grandiose ground battle
  (Hoth = Geonosis ß also think that in both battles, the stormtoopers win ? spooky, huh?)


• The romance story
  (Han and Leia = Anakin and Padme)


• The main character goes off alone and ?fails?
  (Luke in the cave = Anakin and the Tuskin camp ß these are even spurned from anger)


• The secondary main character is captured and requires rescue
  (Han captured by Empire = OB1 captured by Geonosians)


• Appearance of a minor character that becomes an icon
  (Boba Fett = Jango Fett ß blah, blah, I know they are related, etc. but in terms of the movie, both have a minor role, there mostly for appearance and both a tool of the ?bad guys?)


• The main character is <snicker> DISARMED <Bwah ha ha ha . . .>
  (Luke = Anakin)


• Movie ends with separation and is inconclusive
  (Chewy/Lando leave Luke/Leia = Anakin/Padme away from OB1 and the gang)

---

So now, if I?m on to something here, what kinds of things can we expect in EPIII, considering ROTJ in retrospect?

Does this mean that we will visit Jabba? Does this mean that we can for sure expect a grandiose space battle in conjunction with a desperate ground battle involving primitives, all as background to a confrontational struggle of will power succumbing to the dark side of the Force?

[i]Do we know more about EPIII than we think?[/i]

 

While some of those are great similarities, I'm not exactly sure if it will play out in Ep3. I always considered the final battle in Ep1 to be reminiscent of ROTJ.

-Natives(ewoks/gungans) help fight battle against a massive army (empire/trade fed)
-Massive Space Battle against a battle station
-Jedi lightsaber dual.
All of which happen at the same time. Plus, with the obviously dark nature of Ep3, I don't think you can relate it to the relatively upbeat nature of ROTJ.

 

okay here is my parrell and got me think way out in left field...

the saber battle between anakin and dooku compared to the saber battle between luke and vader-in ROTJ more the ESB...

there is something very familiar about it and I wonder what it will mean in the end.

 

You left out the asteroid battles in AotC and ESB

The biggest similarity between ROTJ and epIII will probably be that both feature a "final (and very personal) battle". Difference is that Anakin turns to the dark side, Luke does not

 

i think Ep. III will start out as up-beat since it is the third act and their supposed to get out of this "hole" but when everything starts going bad, then that is when Ep. III's promised darkness emerges.

 

I could see that pretty easily, a very personal battle between Anakin and Dooku - similar to Luke and Vader. So do you suppose the parallel is that Dooku will threaten Padme as Vader threatened Leia?

Is that going to do it? hmmm . . .


And thanks for catching the asteroid parallel - I thought of it after I posted, but figured someone else would beat me to it.

 

special request to stinrab (or other mod.)

Can you please change the title to this thread and remove the &amp;#8211;

It's supposed to be a dash " - "

Thanks

 

I could see that pretty easily, a very personal battle between Anakin and Dooku - similar to Luke and Vader. So do you suppose the parallel is that Dooku will threaten Padme as Vader threatened Leia?

I was thinking more along the lines of Obi-Wan and Anakin. Similar to ROTJ in that one (Obi/Luke... "Obi-Wan once thought as you do") tries to bring back Ani/Vader from the darkside. Luke succeeds where Obi fails, though

Can you please change the title to this thread and remove the &amp;#8211

Done

 

I'm not sure that the parallels can continue to hold for E3 and RotJ. While ANH and TPM were both primarily "light" movies and ESB and AotC were both primarily "dark," the trend has to break when E3 turns out to be dark to RotJ's light. If RotJ had needed to be a dark movie, I think its entire structure would have been different. There wouldn't have been any kid-friendly ewoks. There would have been more Imperial scenes and fewer Rebel scenes. There would have been less time wasted on something as minor in the galactic scheme of things as Han's rescue and more time devoted to war room scenes and the like.

I'm sure there will be some similarities, but not as many as there have been in the previous prequels.

 

I think the parallells will be all over the place!


ROTJ vs. EpIII-theory:

* Leia pretends to be bounty hunter to fool Jabba
Bounty hunter(changling) pretends to be Padmé to fool Anakin

* Luke demonstrates his Jedi skills by saving his friends
Anakin demonstrates his Jedi skills by saving Obi-Wan(using a starfighter)

* The Death Star blows up, the Emperor´s statue goes down, everyone celebrates the Empire´s defeat
The Jedi temple blows up, the Emperor´s statue is raised, everyone celebrates the Empire

for example!

 

I dont think there will be a pattern in that we can derive one from RotJ yet their will be similarties with certain elements of RotJ. I think structurally EpIII will be somewhat different, instead of ending with a big space/land battle it will begin with one(like TESB) leaving the rest of the movie to deal with the meat of things and leaving the ending open for an epic duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin, the birth of Luke and Leia, and the Jedi purge with Vader (in full body suit) leading it(more like a small example of what will happen over the course of the purge). Really EpIII will probably be the most unique out of all the SW movies because it will be the most dramatic, the most epic, the most dark, and the most tragic SW movie.

 

Granted that the undertow of EPIII will be the darkest of the hexad, I suspect we will see some lower level parallels. Such as:

• In ROTJ we were introduced to a new planet and entire new alien species (Endor and the Ewoks). But where and who will we meet in EPIII?


• In ROTJ we went inside Jabba's lair and he was killed. Do you think in EPIII Anakin will go after Lott Dod?

This is, of course, conjecture and I can agree that EPIII may be the most unique of them all.

Yet the pattern idea is intriguing.

 

Did I say Lott Dod? Whoops.

I meant Nute Gunray.

 

I'm expecting to see a duel similar to the ROTJ one with Sidious and Dooku trying to lure Anakin like Vader and the Emperor tried to lure Luke, only Anakin succumbs where Luke doesn't.

 

I recently listened to the Commentary by Lucas and other people on the Star Wars II DVD. He said he was putting stuff in from all the other movies, not just it's counterpart as TPM is to ANH. There was a great deal from ANH in AOTC in different interpretations but the same. Perhaps if we take all the things from the classic movies and find where they are in the Prequels, we will have enough left over material to derive from.

Twi Ton

 

There was a great deal from ANH in AOTC in different interpretations but the same.

What do you mean? Like what?

 

hopefully another hairy creature-the wookie!

I have a feeling that you will be able to parallel a good amount in the OT to the PT from either the same in the sequence-ANH-TPM, ESB - AOTC etc... or from different movies.

I think Padme will be threatened or anakin be told that she is dead-or is made to think she is dead (mind trick).

the parallels could be endless if we look for them. I do think that there will be a battle between Dooku and Ani with the emporer standing by cheering them on.

 

The last scene will match ROTJ if the pattern holds. My prediction is Anakin looking very angry and then a cut to a sad Yoda and Obiwan about to go into hiding holding luke.

That way you have Luke looking at Obiwan Yoda and Anakin juxtaposed with Anakin looking at Yoda Obiwan and Luke.

--Joey

 

Interesting thought . . . Joey. I'm not sure how that could work - I mean, I bet Vader knew about Padme's pregnancy, but I was under the impression that Vader didn't know where Luke was by ANH (or that Luke existed).

OB1's line, "The Emperor knew, as I did, that if Skywalker were to have any offspring, they would be a threat to him." Implies that both Palpy and Vader believed the child(ren) were dead (or never born). Else one would think they would have put forth more effort to find Luke or Leia.

Alt. Theory: Vader did know about Luke and actually let him go and hide, never telling the Empiror of his existence.

. . . hummmmmm . . .

 

We first have to figure out what we know about EIII, and draw off of that.

We have the Jedi Purge. This can be seen as a dramatic swing in power toward the dark, which can be likened to the dramatic swing in RotJ to Good (remember, in EII, the swing was for good [or so we thought] as opposed to ESB where it was for the Dark).

As a result, all of the Jedi are killed, excepting OB1, Yoda, Palpatine and Vader/Anakin. In RotJ all the Dark Jedi were killed.

Anakin becomes Vader and turns to the Dark Side. Vader "turns back into Anakin" and for the Light side of the Force when he saves Luke.

The storm troopers become a tool of the Empire and generally wreak havoc throughout the galaxy, especially on Coruscant, making a tyrannical dictatorship. Rebellion destroys the Empire and (presumably) reinstates the Senate and makes the Galaxy safe for Democracy.

Luke/Leia are born, separated and wisked away to Tatooine/Alderaan Luke/Leia are reunited (they were before... but now they both know who the other is).

That's about all I can come up with now... maybe I'll rewatch RotJ and get together the major themes/occurences.

SH

 

Is it possible to assume then that when the great battle b/t Ani and OB1 comes, will Palpatine be there to instagate the situation and give assistance just like the final battle in ep6?

 

One more comment...

Vader knows of Padme's pregnancy and birth, but he is not there to witness that she has twins...that it why he is surprised when he reads Luke's mind at the end of ep6...

 

Great topic, here's a few ideas:

The opening line in the ROTJ blurb is "Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine." I don't think it would be too far-fetched for the blurb in Episode III to begin something like "Anakin Skywalker has <fill in the blank>." Also, the ROTJ blurb mentions the Death Star, something that the main hero did not know about. There could be something in Episode III that Anakin and/or Obi-Wan don't know about at first. I suspect that as the Death Star was revisted in ROTJ, that Naboo may be revisted in Episode III, but I think it will be a dark contrast to what we've seen on Naboo previously. Expect a lot of deaths too. (Boba Fett, Jabba the Hutt, Yoda, Darth Vader, the Emperor) compared to (possibly Nute Gunray, Jar Jar, Mace Windu, Padme.)

 

Interesting thread.

I'm not sure I want TOO many parallels; I understand the contrasts Lucas likes (and I suppose HAS) to show between Luke/Anakin, Yoda(PT)/Emperor(OT), etc.

I dunno about the whole Jabba thing - in a way, it was a plot device, right? Han had a connection to Jabba, Han gets captured, we need a way to show that Luke is now a Jedi Knight. Presto chango - we have Luke single-handedly taking out Jabba's palace.

This resolves what was so dark, in a way about ESB - Han is taken, Luke loses a hand. Luke is shown functioning just fine with his new hand, Han has no permanent damage from hibernation.

But what was dark from AOTC? Anakin loses a hand, fine - resolving that is easy.

Anakin and Padme getting married? Is that dark? In an ironic sense, I suppose it is. We should be happy for these 2 star-crossed (Across the Stars, get it?) lovers, but we sense it is a secret that could destroy them.

What else is dark? Obviously, the Clone Wars, Palpatine's increasing control of the Senate, Dooku and Sidious, Obi-Wan's increasingly volatile relationship with Anakin.

Well, the Clone Wars will finish, but this will be bittersweet - in ROTJ, the Rebellion is a success, and the Emperor dies. Here, the Rebellion is a failure (which evidently is a good thing, weird!), and the Emperor succeeds.

Dooku dies, at the hand of Anakin/Mace/Sidious/Obi-Wan/Yoda (in my personal decreasing order of likelihood).

Obi-Wan and Anakin shatter their relationship, and (we assume) duel to the death.

Anakin turns to Vader, etc.

Plus, Lucas has to show the whole Jedi Ghost, Disappearing Jedi, "I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" thingie. Enter Qui-Gon to explain everything.

Geez...this is going to be a depressing movie, isn't it?

I can see some definite parallels to ROTJ, even if some of the situations are reversed. But I think there's enough original situations for Lucas to resolve here that Episode III should feel like a different movie.

I have a feeling that the ubiquitous theme of Ep III will be desperation. It will be tough to watch.

-dust

 

Here's another one:

In ROTJ, we see Vader unmasked right at the end - after the "big" fight.

So, as a counterpart in EPIII, we see Anakin masked as Vader after the "big" fight.