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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

PT Significant mirroring between Episode One and Episode Three (Warning: Image Heavy-Slow Loading)

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by HevyDevy, Sep 9, 2014.

  1. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    I have the feeling that people who have read this thread stopped reading after I said "last observation" on the first page.
    Would love to get some feedback on the stuff after that, it is the amount of stuff like this that makes me believe Revenge of the Sith was heavily based of The Phantom Menace. They work really great together.
     
  2. ric_m

    ric_m Jedi Padawan

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2015
    I like the mirror images. I think the PT works better as a complete trilogy than the OT did. Mainly because of the rehash with the death star. I think the original script that was chopped in half had one death star and once it was destroyed that was it.

    I also noticed the fatherly connections between Qui Gonn and Anakin. Howver it was so underdeveloped that trying to analyse it properly is very hard. I always felt that Hayden Christensen should have been in EP 1. It would have made the PT trilogy much stronger having a main lead much like Luke. It shows complete idiocy on Lucas's part that he would put a kid actor into the role and alienate so many fans in the process. When Qui Gonn dies we are given no reaction from Anakin and he never mentions him in ep2 or 3. So it's almost as if to him it never happened.

    That's why the PT trilogy sucks. Maul and Obi wan's fight while spectacular had no quips or dialogue making no more entertaining.

    That said by Ep 3 all the pieces taht have neen put in place pay off. And little things like Anakin killing younglings is hardcore and definetley brings to mind things that happened in Episode 1. i love all these little nods some quite subtle it will be intresting to see if the ST has the same rhyming images. I'm waiting for Luke to die in ep 7.
     
  3. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2011

    The outcomes of both battles hinge on one side's army being tethered to a central locus of power. In TPM, the battle droids are tied to the Droid Control Ship, which is destroyed by Anakin, cutting off the droids from their control signal and thus causing them to become harmless. In RotS, the clones are tied to the Emperor, who Anakin fails to destroy, thereby allowing the Emperor to activate Order 66 and cause the clones to execute their Jedi commanders.
     
  4. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Thought it may open some discussion to ask if anyone else can see TPM/ROTS as a kind of yin and yang, or push and pull. The symbiosis talked of in Ep1 is quite relevant to all six current films I think.
     
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  5. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    More Ep1/Ep3 "intro setting" opposites and contrasts. As I said previously, TPM involves fraudulent peace and "short negotiations", this pretense has been dropped in ROTS
    and it is all-out chaos.
    TPM
    INT. FEDERATION BATTLESHIP - CONFERENCE ROOM
    OBI-WAN : I have a bad feeling about this.
    QUI-GON : I don't sense anything.
    OBI-WAN : It's not about the mission, Master, it's something...elsewhere...elusive.
    QUI-GON : Don't center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan. Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs.
    OBI-WAN : But Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future...
    QUI-GON : .....but not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, my young Padawan.
    OBI-WAN : Yes, Master...how do you think the trade viceroy will deal with the Chancellor's demands?
    QUI-GON : These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short.

    ROTS
    OBI-WAN: Oh, I have a bad feeling about this.
    9 INT. MAIN HANGAR-TRADE FEDERATION CRUISER The shield door drops away, and OBI-WAN crashes on the deck of the hangar bay, engulfed in a FANTAIL OF SPARKS. A set of blast
    doors starts SLAMMING shut across the hangar opening, as material is sucked into space.
    ANAKIN maneuvers around the oncoming junk and flies into the hangar just as the blast doors SLAM shut.
    OBI-WAN ignites his light saber and cuts his way out of the cockpit.
    He jumps dear just as his ship EXPLODES. BATTLE DROIDS rush at him from all directions.
    ANAKIN jumps out of his ship and cuts his way through the BATTLE DROIDS to where OBI-WAN is fighting. ARTOO pops out of the ship and follows ANAKIN.
    OBI-WAN: Artoo, locate the Chancellor.
    They cut down the last of the droids and follow ARTOO over to a computer wall socket. The two JEDI fight off FOUR MORE DROIDS as ARTOO
    tries to find the Chancellor. Finally, a HOLOGRAM of the Trade Federation ship appears.
    OBI-WAN: The Chancellor's signal is coming from right there. The observation platform at the top of that spire.

    ANAKIN: I sense Count Dooku...
    OBI-WAN: I sense a trap.
    ANAKIN: Next move?
    OBI-WAN: Spring the trap.

    ...

    PALPATINE: Get help you're no match for him, he's a Sith Lord.
    OBI-WAN: Chancellor Palpatine, Sith Lords are our specialty.
    DOOKU: Your swords please, gentlemen. We don't want to make a mess of things in front of the Chancellor.
    OBI-WAN: You won't get away this time Dooku.


    ------------------------------------------------------------

    Some points to correlate the colours...

    - Obi-Wan speaks the trademark Star Wars line on each arrival.

    - The younger Jedi senses a Sith. (TPM) Master Qui-Gon doesn't sense Sidious. / (ROTS) Master Obi-Wan agrees, but doesn't realise Sidious is Dooku's Master.

    - Ironically, where Obi-Wan senses Sidious in TPM and Qui-Gon disagrees, in ROTS he is brashly focusing on the moment, with no clue Anakin will soon kill Dooku in front
    of Sidious and replace him.

    - The current Chancellor sends two Jedi with demands for Gunray. (TPM) / Two Jedi come for the current Chancellor who has is "held at ransom" by the Separatists. (ROTS)

    - Short negotiations :D.

    Hope that was coherent.
     
  6. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Rereading that above post confused even me a little bit, but it seems pretty intentional with how reoccurring this stuff can be.
     
  7. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

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    Apr 13, 2011
    Bumping for any new users :)
     
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  8. Evening Star

    Evening Star Force Ghost star 4

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    Dec 18, 2015
    It's posts like yours that make me look for hidden similarities with each new viewing. Thank you! This is why the PT is so special and so dear to me: I discover new things about it all the time. I wish everyone could see this side of the movies.
     
  9. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Thanks for the praise.
    I've seen these films so many times, and I find it hard to believe it is entirely coincidental. Perhaps Lucas was consciously trying to sort of balance things out with Anakin at his best and worse at each end of the PT.
    He is known to be a superstitious guy, maybe he thought dooming the characters in ROTS would need to be an inversion of TPM so he wasn't cursing the films? Just a theory.
     
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  10. xezene

    xezene Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 6, 2016
    Damn. This one's incredible, and I hadn't noticed that. I just wrote a post about the symbolic importance of Naboo (tied to Padme; the symbol of life, balance, nature) and how it is essentially symbolically eradicated and replaced by the cold, metallic machinery of the Empire.

    Essentially, earlier we saw the beauty of balance and the Naboo. Anakin saw the beauty of Padme. Now, all we (and Vader) sees is red. Dark and red and coldness and machines and blood. And Vader is the one who brings this change about (or at least, helps to). If you could sum up the grand thematic arc of the prequels in two shots, this might just be it. A+ to you HevyDevy.
     
  11. Evening Star

    Evening Star Force Ghost star 4

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    Dec 18, 2015
    How did George achieve all this? I mean, it can't be that we're all reading too much into it.
     
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  12. xezene

    xezene Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jan 6, 2016
    I think he's an extremely smart guy with an incredible eye. Really, he's a rare talent that comes across once a generation. Part of his talent is that he can make it work on the fly -- some people have to pre-plan everything and if they don't get that right they either fumble it or don't do it at all [think Stanley Kubrick]. Whereas Lucas' great talent is that he has so much natural talent and just working intelligence that he, I think, has all these things sketched out in the back of his head and he capitalizes on them when the time is right in a more full fashion. And if he has to make some changes on the fly, he does it in a way that adds resonance & meaning, instead of subtracting it, which is pretty rare. All in all, answers to your question are: a) he's naturally gifted and has an incredible eye for the audiovisual and concept in general, b) he's very intelligent and has extensive filmmaking training & knowledge, c) he surrounds himself with other talented people, and d) he had nearly total control over the final product. And the result is really something.
     
  13. Evening Star

    Evening Star Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2015
    What I like the most about him is how much he knows about the cinema in general and how he incorporated the genres he liked into this space saga we love so much.
    There's one thing I particularly like. I've been a fan of classic Hollywood since I was a kid so I was pleasantly surprised to learn the dialogues in the PT intentionally resemble those of the silver screen dramas. The "awkwardness" and terrible lines, as some think of them, have never really bothered me and now I know why. Also, George said the prequels could be watched as silent movies. I actually tried it and it works. I can totally imagine them with just the music and title cards between the scenes.
     
  14. xezene

    xezene Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 6, 2016
    Agreed with your full post but I highlighted this because I so wish they would release the movies someday with just a musical score accompanying them! Like on DVD/Blu-Ray or something, with an optional music-only audio track. Since I kind of know what they are saying anyway it would just be really moving to hear the score have the front-and-center treatment with those images.... I feel like so many things would reveal themselves. And it would work for all 6 films too!
     
  15. 11-4D

    11-4D Force Ghost star 5

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    Apr 6, 2015
    Coincidences, coincidences...
     
  16. Evening Star

    Evening Star Force Ghost star 4

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    Dec 18, 2015
    Yes! Even not hearing Vader's voice would work, I think. They could accentuate his presence with sound effects or more menacing music.
     
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  17. xezene

    xezene Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 6, 2016
    Right...
    Attack of the Clones and The Searchers
    [​IMG]
    Dersu Uzala and Star Wars
    [​IMG]

    Those are just the two easy ones of the top of my head from two films that Lucas loves. Lucas visually quotes everything from Flash Gordon to Ben-Hur to Battleship Potemkin. The list goes on and on and on. He has total control over every aspect of the production. Certainly if he can rhyme other films, he can rhyme his own? And wouldn't it be more important to? Some are so obvious and in your face (Anakin's snippet, reflection of lightning on Anakin/Vader's face both times when he has to choose between dark & light, etc) that to deny that there's anything operating underneath is essentially blindness. The staggering evidence suggests that these visual 'paintings' (as GL calls it) and 'reflections on each other' is not only what he does occasionally, but constantly. Lucas considers himself a visual storyteller. That's where the whole movie is. To say it is a coincidence is like saying that Michelangelo's David was a 'coincidence,' or the fact that Mona Lisa resembles a woman was a 'coincidence.' He's an artist, this is what he does. To dismiss it is to dismiss the heart of what he's doing.
     
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  18. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    But why would the coincidences be so recurring between specific episodes following somewhat of a pattern?

    And you have several Lucas quotes; on the saga "rhyming", "You're going to find everyone is saying the same things", and off the ROTS commentary - "There is a lot in SW that most people haven't come to terms with yet. But when they do they are going to find it is a much more complex tapestry than most people would like to imagine."

    Consider the two times Sidious mentions "wiping" someone out. Once in TPM and once in ROTS. But look at how opposite the contexts turn out to be -
    To Gunray: "Wipe them out. All of them."
    To Vader: "Wipe out Viceroy Gunray and the other Separatist leaders."

    He is essentially telling Gunray to wipe someone out, then ordering Gunray wiped out himself. Do you think this is just a fluke?

    By itself it isn't really impressive, but if you look for it, ROTS has many inversions of specific films in specific ways.

    Some examples in the TPM/ROTS opening scenes -
    (Last word of TPM - "Peace!" / First word of ROTS crawl "War!")
    Obi-Wan states the classic SW catch phrase "I have a bad feeling about this" on arrival at the Separatist ships (Gunray's and Grievous's).
    He is one of two Jedi (Apprentice / then Master) sent there by the current Chancellor / because of the current Chancellor.
    In TPM he senses the Sith - "Something elsewhere, elusive.", in ROTS Anakin senses Dooku, but Obi-Wan in contrast cockily quips (to "Next move?") "Spring the trap!".
    "They've gone up the ventilation shaft!" / "Two Jedi have landed in the main hangar bay. We're tracking them!"
    Sidious orders Gunray to kill Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan "The Chancellor should never have brought them into this. Kill them immediately!" / Sidious orders Anakin to kill Dooku "Kill him now!"
    The Jedi sneak aboard a TF invasion army ship and head down to the planet / The Jedi fly the remains of the Separatist ship down to the planet.
     
  19. Pyrogenic

    Pyrogenic Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2006
    [​IMG][​IMG]
     
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  20. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Thanks for the likes Antpocalypse!

    I just wanted to note for anyone who read the first page, I actually kept posting further observations throughout the four pages of the thread.

    Appreciate the response :)
     
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  21. Antpocalypse

    Antpocalypse Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 26, 2016

    Bro. BRO. BROOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

    This is me right now.

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    I'm in shock and I have no words.....wait I have a lot of words! XD

    THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS THREAD, HOLY CRAP! This is the best Star Wars related stuff I have seen in my life. Period. I recently saw the "Star Wars Poetry" video and that blew my mind and made me wonder why I didn't see those parallels before but THIS? THIS REALLY BLOWS MY MIND to a whole new level! I already loved the Prequels for how well they showed Anakin's rise and fall and the first part of the story of Darth Vader, but this just takes my appreciation for them to a whole new level, as pieces of pure art.

    This is just amazing, I already loved Lucas and he is one of my 3 most favorite directors of all time including Zack Snyder and Peter Jackson (as you can see, I love visual directors who make movies with deep themes). But now, I'm beginning to wonder whether he isn't some kind of god in disguise himself. I'm a freaking atheist and the stuff in this thread is making me think he has supremely divine powers! [face_laugh]

    But in all seriousness, Lucas is THE NUMBER ONE director and artist of our age. And he's not just a director, he's the very definition of an auteur. Star Wars is truly the world's best modern day epic and Lucas the writer of the century, if not the millennium. And people say he can't write a good movie, PFFT. [face_rofl]

    And you've just pointed out the parallels between Ep 1 and 3, I imagine my brain would literally melt if you were to show us parallels between all 6 movies. :D

    I stand up and applaud you HevyDevy!! You truly deserve to be recognised as Star Wars' NUMBER ONE FAN. ^:)^ Lucas should see this and invite you over to his Skywalker ranch for an official position as his number one consultant on his saga. I don't think anyone on the planet can hold a candle to the amount of in depth understanding you've shown here. Keep up the great work! =D=

    [​IMG]

    PS: Sorry I couldn't add anything to the discussion, I'm still reeling from the last 4 pages right now. XD
     
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  22. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    [face_blush]

    :D

    Thanks! I'm stoked you got so much out of it, it's my favourite of any of the threads I've made over the years.

    Lol @ "number one fan", I'm no where near that, just my personal take on Lucas's masterful storytelling.

    Actually, when I registered under a different name on the old forums in '05, it was to post similar observations. I had kind of an epiphany when watching ROTS in the months after it came out, TPM suddenly just clicked, most people didn't really see what I was talking about though lol.

    If you're interested you might want to check out these threads too, they're a bit broader but there is some interesting stuff on them...

    http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...irrors-1-4-2-5-3-6-note-image-heavy.50023924/

    http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...cutive-episodes-1-2-2-3-3-4-4-5-5-6.50025430/


    Plus a less visual one if you feel like it, going through hidden meanings in Palpatine's dialogue in ROTS...

    http://boards.theforce.net/threads/an-essay-on-palpatine-sidious-in-rots.50032812/
     
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  23. Antpocalypse

    Antpocalypse Jedi Knight star 2

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    Jan 26, 2016

    There you go. You had to go ahead and melt my mind didn't you. [face_laugh]

    Thanks a lot for posting those links, I'll definitely check them out when I have the time tomorrow! And I'm glad you're here to share your epiphanies with us. As they say, the more you know... :)
     
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  24. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    Bumping my fave thread from a while back.
     
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  25. Pyrogenic

    Pyrogenic Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Nov 17, 2006
    Does anyone remember the Galactic Symphony site from about a decade ago? We had hundreds of motifs/mirrors/echoes posted!
     
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