PT The Cloud of the Dark Side

The colours aren't important. The change is.

It's auspicious because Yoda is otherwise shown with brown robes in the other episodes.

But if you like, the grey cloak puts me in mind of shrouds and rainclouds. Brown is more like copper or sulphur: of the Earth.

You can -- and should -- draw from that the inferences you want.

Like a restless wind inside a letterbox: pretty much the visuals of Star Wars (morphing shapes and colours in a 2.35:1 frame).

 

Ok, now you have really lost me.
Don't get me wrong - I really liked your original post, riffing on the symbolism of the Shroud / Cloud, but still, how are his grey robes auspicious? Because they're not brown?

 

I just told you -- the *change* is auspicious.

You've seen this movie series called "Star Wars", right?

You've seen a green guy called "Yoda", right?

You've noticed he wears robes, right?

Have you noticed how they're always the same basic colour scheme... except in AOTC, where brown is suddenly grey?

Yoda has a "look". While not quite as extreme, it would be like watching "The Simpsons", and suddenly, Homer's pants are purple for a whole season.

Now do you get it? Now do you see how sneaky George Lucas is? He's always moving elements about, breaking rules. AOTC's scroll even includes the term "solar systems", while "star systems" was the phrase-of-choice in TPM's crawl.

I'm not really having a pop at you, just using some emphasis to make a point. If you want a specific meaning to his robes being grey for one movie, consider the movie as a whole and look for matching (and contrasting) facets/ideas/developments within it.

In Star Wars, things are always beating against other things, and turning other aspects on their head.

 

You know what auspicious means, right?

 

It's like conspicuous, but more conspicuous.

The change, to me, is favourable/harmonious with respect to the whole. Hence "auspicious".

Study the imagery and emergent themes of Star Wars very carefully. And have fun!

 

Hence "Lol".

 

The first rule of Star Wars is that the colours are at war, usually greens and blues against reds with yellows and blues communicating it all and black-white dichotomies struggling against themselves (observe nuances like the use of optic white, remember that there are two colour wheels that describe reflected and projected light respectively). In a B&W (or value-based) scheme of morality the middle colours will always be shades of grey, while in a colourful universe like Star Wars neutrality comes in shades of brown. See how the droids (blue and yellow) navigate the monotone grey conflict aboard the Tantive IV before escaping to a similarly yellow-blue desert inhabited by brown-cloaked scavengers (the Jawas and their scale-mirror vehicles clearly resemble hooded Jedi, consider how their introductory shots resemble Ben's). And the prequels modulate/sequence these conflicts thousandfold (the final duel in ROTS seems like black vs. white when it's really dark brown vs. light brown, the paired blue lightsabers are really in conflict with their red environment, and so on).

Astute observations here Cryo, Yoda's costume change never registered for me consciously. I suppose it aligns him with the stormtroopers he commands by the end of the film - characters that are only referred to as clones in the prequel trilogy, does this naming protocol conceal the weather-based allusion? Physical storms seem to occur exclusively in the PT-side of the saga, from the Tatooine sandstorm through to Kamino and Anakin's funeral march on Coruscant. Perhaps the term 'stormtrooper' is a reverse-engineered reference to their origins as much as a nod to 20th century infantry warfare. All very neat.

 

What is this? Emulate The Cretins At IMDb Week?

It would actually need to be "LOL", not "Lol". "LOL" is an acronym, so all the letters should be upper-case.

Oh, and it's shroud, not "cloud".

"LOL".

That's fantastic!

Even though I'm sure MSTRMND at least touched on it (quite extensively, in fact), I'd never consciously noticed that particular narrative involving the droids till now. Great observations on the ROTS duel (dual/ity), too.

Two colour wheels, you say? "Always two, there are. No more, no less." It's almost like Lucas made two trilogies to explore this duality -- this and a thousand other ones.

It may actually be more of a very light brown: a sort of pallid or bleached brown.

The storm stuff holds weight, especially when you factor in Yoda presiding over a storm of war with those aforementioned troops on Geonosis, and his absorption of Dooku's blue lightning in a cave-like environment.

The energy binders on the podracers (also referred to as a power coupling) and the power coupling(s) that Anakin bombs through in pursuit of Zam may contribute further storm/flux imagery. Also: the great pillars in the Theed generator room with their tendrils of energy and the storm-in-a-bottle (globe) that Padme hands the bullfrog-ian Nass at the close of the first movie (plus variants like the boomas used by the Gungans on the plains of Naboo and the missiles Anakin fires at the droid control ship's reactor core -- a violent conclusion to the film's blockade dilemma which enables the peaceful plasma exchange at movie's end).

Good work with "stormtrooper". Yoda is also the one that seems to name the Clone Wars conflict. With use of the singular, which has become a plural by Episode IV.

Cool stuff, indeed.

 

You cannot be serious. You're calling me a cretin? For not capitalising LOL?

 

Let's not mock each other or get too out of hand here.

 

if there was no 'cloud of the darkside' then Palpatine couldn't have been around the Jedi. Plot device.

 

This. Only their "vision" was infected corrupted, the Jedi could all use the force just the same. I like to think Mace was only talking about their *ability to sense the future when he mentioned informing the Senate of their diminished skills. This fits nicely with Yoda being unable to sense Anakin's future and the statement that the dark side of the force surrounds the Chancellor.

*See the Duel in the Rotunda and/or Mustafar for verification on Jedi using the force.

 

This. Times infinity.

 

The subject of light versus dark made me think of Matt Stover's description of Obi-Wan and Palpatine through the figurative "eyes" of the Force.

As you can tell from these descriptions, Obi-Wan is in essence a pure embodiment of the Light Side, in perfect harmony with himself and the Force, while Sidious is like the very manifestation of the Dark Side itself, a black void that essentially shielded his very nature from the senses of others, including the Jedi themselves. Through the eyes of the Dark Side, Dooku sees Sidious as the avatar of this "shroud", clouding the vision of the Jedi and dulling their precognition of the future.

 

Yes, it's just a plot device used to hand wave away Jedi making being too dumb to live mistakes.

Plus it makes no sense. Why is there a dark side clouding in the PT and not 20 years later when the dark side is shrouded in darkness?

 

How do you know it's not in effect 20 years later?

 

Luke seemed pretty comfortable sensing all sorts of things.

 

So did Anakin.

 

Was it a cumulus cloud or a nimbus cloud?

 

Good point.

What about Yoda. Through out the prequels it's mentioned that the Jedi's ability to use the force has diminished.
Yet in ESB Yoda never indicates none of this and he seems to have the best connection to the force ever shown on film.

Also Sidious. In the prequels it seems he knew how everything was going to happen. He knew things before they were told to him (such as Padme) being pregnant and Anakin dreaming she was going to die.

In ESB, he can't read Vader's thoughts and he can't sense Luke. He also is blind to what's going on in RotJ.

 

Actually it's only mentioned once. In context, it comes up because the Jedi did not "see" the creation of the clone army, something they otherwise knew nothing about, through the Force. IMO it could be argued that this is consistent with the OT because we don't see the OT Jedi getting helpful visions of a comparable situation.

He can indeed sense Luke, that's the whole basis of his conversation with Vader in the film.

 

The "shroud of the Dark Side" is George's feeble attempt to explain why the Jedi are complete imbeciles. Not only is their use of the force diminished, their ability to think is eradicated.

Seriously, when you ask them to add up 2 + 2, they can't figure out what "2" is...

 

- Or - is it George giving the middle finger to the audience? - Or - George taking far too much credit for other people's work?

1000 years, 1000 generations, who cares.

George has called light sabers "laser swords". He also called Gungans "Goongas". This is clearly either contempt for his fans or dismissal of the material he claims as his own.

Seriously, if a fan called them "laser swords" we'd all run that person out of town. Now stop and think about it, the "creator" called it that.

 

You leave me speechless. And not because you have a sexy behind.

Every example you cite is a complete non-sequitur.

As discussed elsewhere quite recently on TFN, the Galactic Republic can quite easily have stood for roughly 20,000 years (the EU places the figure at somewhere around 25,000), and would, in all probability, have undergone several reformations in that broad span of political time. If the last reformation was roughly 1,000 years prior to when Palpatine says he will not let *this* Republic be split in two, then that means he's referring to the Republic of living memory: a specific instance or iteration therein; the most modern and agreeable incarnation (founded, ironically, it would seem, at the very moment the Sith purportedly drew their last breath and went extinct -- piece together other "1,000"-year remarks made by characters in the prequels and this inference can be made). Yoda is the oldest person in the room and even he wouldn't quite be able to recall the founding of this modern Republic, though he must surely have a great appreciation of its history. A politician must know their audience.

"Laser sword" is clearly a colloquial alternative to "lightsaber" and is consistent with GL's original conception of the lightsaber and naming convention (i.e., "laser sword") in his original draft of the original movie. It's an archaic form of the word "lightsaber" and somewhat less pretentious in nature. I figure Lucas has sometimes used the older term for these reasons (i.e., nostalgia, because it sounds simpler/more innocent, and because it rolls off the tongue a little easier).

"Goongas". George uses this word in "The Beginning" when the revised term "Gungan" -- as far as I know -- hadn't yet been thought up or settled on (when it *was* settled on, it was possibly done so as a rhyme/tribute to the 1939 RKO Radio Pictures film "Gunga Din" -- a period of cinematic history Star Wars draws heavily from). There are many "oo" sounds in TPM and George was likely thinking of incorporating others (Jake Lloyd complaining that he's used to pronouncing "Coruscant" as "Cor-oo-scant" in the same documentary is likely a clue to this end). It was his son, Jett, who allegedly came up with "goonga", so it's not strange that Lucas may have felt like clinging to it for a while.

Furthermore, GL has proven somewhat loose with his pronunciation -- even, possibly, his recall -- of Star Wars names, terms, and minutiae over the years. He's not as chained to certain rules, procedures, and conventions as some fans might wish to believe. Just because they invest their emotional energy in a thing, it doesn't mean that Lucas does, or is required to do. I think you are the one who needs to step back and think on what you're saying. If you're going to denigrate the man because his vocabulary doesn't meet your prejudicial shibboleth, then you're really saying more about yourself and your own attitude to these movies than George Lucas.

 

Actually Yoda does refer to it - doesn't he say something like "always shrouded, the future is" to Luke when he claims to have seen Han and Leia being tortured?