Saga Your Favorite Aesthetic (note: Image heavy)

What's your favorite Star Wars aesthetic?

Mine is tiny white lights against gray/dark grey, especially in big, cavernous settings.







Edit: Could a Moderator edit the title to "aesthetic". Google lied to me.

 

Nice thread!

One to think about in more detail, surely...

But for now, I'm going to say, somewhat generically, "the use of optic white" -- in costumes, locations, ships, etc., even the cinematography.

I might also say, the use of tan shades, browns, beiges, etc., on Tatooine and elsewhere.

The hairstyles of Anakin and Padme, particularly the "buns".

Sliding doors and wipes.

Bottomless pits and other "to infinity" perspective tricks.

The manic use of arcs, circles, cylinders, and spheres.

The highly symbolic use of water (particularly in AOTC).

Night-and-day transition schemes (much more extensive in the PT).

Newsreel, "found footage" capture-style and editing (e.g., the Battle of Yavin).

How the camera always pans down (or up in AOTC) at the start of each movie.

Gauzy filter effects and other hazy lighting patterns (Tatooine portion of ANH, pretty much all of AOTC).

Ship landing shots/vignettes (mainly a PT thing, and very beautiful, in my opinion).

Visionary speed-blur shots (the "trench run"/racing effect in chase scenes within every movie).

Characters looking out of windows (again, this is a PT-thing, primarily).

When characters sometimes suddenly appear much bigger or much smaller than their surroundings. Judge them by their size, do you?

The use of fire in critical scenes involving Anakin and his journey to the Dark Side (and back to the light).

When a high-up, overhead shot suddenly cuts in and shows the characters from a unique vantage point.

Day-in-the-life scenes at hovels, diners, meadows, etc.

Sudden close-ups on faces, hands, weapons, etc.

Strobe effects involving fast-moving lightsaber blades and blaster bolts.

When ships go into hyperspace (OT inside-cockpit POV).

Binocular POV shots.

Ultra-wide window and viewscreen shots.

Clouds and suns.


I think some of those are covered in your starting example. And a beautiful aesthetic you picked!

Maybe it's the melange of all of them that says "Star Wars" to me.

 

Correction to this. Just re-read and.....

I meant, Leia and Padme, obviously.

Or maybe it's not so obvious. The boy has good hair, too, of course.

 

Gonna think on this a bit. Can already say I love this thread, though.

 

I forgot to mention that you're only supposed to pick one aesthetic. Your all time favorite, above all else. And maybe give us an example?

 

Thankless, if not invisible to most. Even under the hand of Kershner and Marquand, the visual language of the saga has always been markedly restrained with inserts, yet equally specific and often elegant. Hell, it took six damn movies for Lucas to really go full-Leone with the eyes. Mostly, what we see is a steady mix of that old Hollywood 'lobby-card' framing and Kurosawa-style lensing dimensions.

Which I'm half-expecting to go right out the window come Abrams. But I digress...

 

Picking one is a tough ask, but if push comes to shove I have to go with this.

I love the 'heaven and hell' imagery here. The lines converging at a point of white light, surrounded by blue 'sky' amongst the clouds, surrounds the combatants, their black silhouettes grounded on glowing ember red, surrounded by rising steam. Do the weapons form a significant cross above the white light, or am I stretching too far? Probably.

 

I so love the battle here.Amazing analysis.

 

Theed, Ottoh Gunga, Mos Espa/Eisley, Kamino, Coruscant... there' s too much of them.

 

I'm going to go with water (and by extension, and contrast, lava).

Particularly on Naboo, there is just seemingly a lot of symbolism at work there, the distinct auras you get when you compare Naboo (a water-cored planet) to desert planets like Tatooine and Geonosis, or the hellish lava-cored planet Mustafar. For Anakin, as the central focus of the current saga, imagery of Naboo definitely connects the character to a more innnocent time, or his softer past, even if not consciously on Anakin's part.

I couldn't resist taking some screencaps, a fair few infact, so this will take two posts


Theed's waterfalls featured over the course PT definitely re-enforce the early PT era's portrayed Utopian state, it just seems so intentionally pure.

But even within TPM there is also a contrast at play here, as we have day for Nubian (Amidala) control, and night for Trade Federation / Sith control.




Heading underwater early in TPM


Love the Gungan "bubble" technology

Arriving at the palace




Something some people would have already seen me post previously, waterfalls and "lavafalls"



Probably the main reason I enjoy this aesthetic so much; the majestic waterfalls and the darkly inverted but still somehow beautiful lavafalls.





Say what you will about AOTC love dialogue, but these locations were stunning

 

I'll try not to go too off-topic.

Can't leave out the completely water-based planet Kamino. It seems symbolically to be in a state of perpetual storm


Anakin meditating overlooking a lake and a ying/yang symbol in the clouds





Naboo's natives advance from underwater/swamp on their home planet to face droids

Kashyyyk's natives on their home planet are advanced on from water by droids



TPM

ROTS










Water in the OT perhaps relates more to uncertainty, with Luke being pulled under then let go in ANH;


R2 being pulled under and spit out in ESB;

and when Luke crashes into the Dagobah swamp ("All my scopes are dead, I can't see a thing!"),only Yoda is strong enough to lift out his X-wing;




A lot of cool water symbolism IMO

 

Big fan of the Felucian jungle and the sorts.

 

The final light of day upon the Coruscant cityscape. Pretty straight forward in terms of the symbolism, but what's not so simple is the melancholic awe these scenes hit me with. Weird how in a series that's built upon big action and often over-the-top drama that sometimes it's the more subtle background elements that keep me coming back for more.

 

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Lightsabers against gray walls. For me, it's the most succinct visual interpretation of what the saga is. You have classic scifi aesthetics, the coldness of space and technology, interrupted by something corful, mystical, and undeniably spiritual. The ancient mythical battle between good and evil wrapped inside the iconography associated with our scientific future.

For a truly trippy and experience of this aesthetic, check out the end of this amazing video:

 

Everything about this is super-sex awesome.

 

Grey and white hair.

 

Always was a fan of the Death Star Conference Room, I catch myself while watching those scenes thinking "You know, that would make an awesome Dining room set"

 

You just gave me this image of Admiral Motti plopping a brown paper bag down onto the conference table and noisily unwrapping a tuna fish sandwich covered in cellophane while Tarkin, Vader, and company all turn their heads to stare at him.

"What? I skipped lunch today. Come on, the wife made this for me, I've gotta eat it."

 

Ingram_I
So many colors !!!

Some of my suggestions:

This is just so....pure. White, red, gold and brown is a very asthetic and majestic combination of colors. Yet, we can still detect some insecurtiy behind the "mask".


Round table conference on the roof.


Glowing sabers.


Robotic ruler.


Magical connection.

 

I'm going with mystical forests with hearth lit huts.

 

^^ Mr. B, I like that one!!!

But to be honest (and while I should have given a more concise answer originally...)...............

I think Ingram_I wins this thread.

The saga: it's all about vision and seeing (or not seeing).

 

great thread guys and girls.