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

PT Your favorite little moment or detail in the PT? (image heavy)

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Chancellor Yoda, Apr 30, 2015.

  1. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    Not much has changed for Anakin! :cool:

    9 years old. Racing!!!

    [​IMG]

    19 years old! Chasing!!!

    [​IMG]


    Cheers!

    MJ
     
  2. DementedMeerkat

    DementedMeerkat Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2015
    Some more battle things I've noticed lately!

    Trade Federation Landing Craft in the far background...
    [​IMG]

    The Republic Swamp Speeder (bottom left)! Never knew this was in the scene on Kashyyyk, I only noticed it on Felucia! Also, that Turbo Tank decimates some friendlies in the next shot, and at least runs over lots of bodies! Grim!
    [​IMG]

    Random Security Battle Droids on this one tank?! Maybe it contains the Commander?
    [​IMG]

    The Battle Droid Carrier from Episode I makes a return (middle right)!
    [​IMG]

    Love that Tarful has to lean over to hear what Yoda is saying! Perhaps Yoda's giving him a heads up about the Clones impending betrayal?
    [​IMG]

    I also noticed that they have all moved onto another platform (see the hologram table in the background on which Yoda used to contact the Council, and ordered Gree to prepare the troops for battle). Perhaps this was because Yoda almost gets shot, so they retreat back to a safer area more out of harm's way?
    [​IMG]
     
  3. ewoksimon

    ewoksimon Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 26, 2009
    The guttural sounds Vader makes after tearing himself off of the medical bed. Very Frankenstein.
     
  4. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    There's a lot here but I'll just stick with these two pics. :-B


    If this body is not capable of action, I suggest new leadership is needed.

    [​IMG]

    And as my first act with this new authority , I will create a grand army of the Republic.

    [​IMG]

    Cheers!

    GL, the Master at work... :D

    MJ
     
  5. Frank T.

    Frank T. Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    [​IMG]
    Queen Amidala looking out this window. I can't explain it. It's not the dialogue, it's the visual.
     
  6. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    Cockpit open....in a yellow fighter

    [​IMG]

    Open cockpit! In a yellow speeder.

    [​IMG]

    Anakin seems to have a thing with someone else's belongings. :p

    Cheers!

    MJ
     
  7. Mostly Handless

    Mostly Handless Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 11, 2017
    I love the digital mattes they made for Coruscant.
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]
     
  8. Subtext Mining

    Subtext Mining Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 27, 2016
    Amidst the myriad of symbolism, foreshadowings and metaphors in the garage scene, AotC in general, and the PT in general, I recently noticed while confessing his atrocity, Anakin looks down on his soon to be removed right hand.
    Almost as if his amputation is the penance for the crime he committed.
    [​IMG]
    "You're going to pay for all those Jedi you killed today, Dooku!"
    But what about the innocent women & children you killed, Anakin?
     
  9. Tonyg

    Tonyg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 16, 2016
    I remember how he looked at his hands: as they are not part of his body, as they were something separated that did unspeakable things.
    His Macbethian monologue is actually one of the best moments in the saga.
     
  10. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005

    Exactly! An epic case of projection/transference if ever there was one.

    There's also something like a growth of sadness/disillusionment/distress in Anakin's character across the PT this way (paralleled by the loss of Jar Jar, the increase of Palpatine's malign influence, and a host of other factors):

    - TPM: "No one can kill a Jedi"/Qui-Gon dies
    - AOTC: "Jedi don't have nightmares"/waning powers/Clone Army/death of many Jedi in the arena
    - ROTS: "Sometimes I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order"/attempted coup/Order 66/Palpatine's "hunted down and defeated" speech in the Senate/Anakin's own disgrace on Mustafar

    The estrangement really begins in AOTC; in that very moment. Anakin can no longer "trust" himself. If the hand is the refinement of the mind's eye, then Anakin is in "midi"-agony, as he has lost the ability to co-ordinate and keep control of the different parts of his psyche or Jedi-molded "system". I think he'd almost rather cut his hand off.



    Yes. And Anakin does many things with that hand before the slaughter: He taps the side of the patio while talking about his sleep disturbances with Obi-Wan, he spares Padme from the bugs with his lightsaber (erotic/rape imagery is obvious), he tries to break into Zam's cockpit with his lightsaber (erotic/rape imagery is obvious), he calms down some patrons in the sports bar, he elevates the globe in Padme's bedroom, he takes Padme's hand and chivalrously helps her out of the gondola at the lake retreat, he strokes Padme's back at the lake retreat before moving in for their first kiss, he elevates the fruit and sends it back toward Padme at the dinner table, he takes Padme's hand and chivalrously helps her out of the rickshaw at Mos Espa, he tenderly grasps Shmi's hand in the Tusken tent, he sadly draws her vacant eyes closed, and finally, now that the "die" is cast... he powers up his sword and goes on a vengeful killing spree. The hand that is capable of such softness and discretion is also the hand that indiscriminately slashes and kills. The frightening duality of this has to haunt Anakin deeply. As I alluded to above, I think Dooku does him a favour in removing it; though, by doing so, he cleaves off the very piece of humanity that allowed Anakin to "free" his mother and hold her in his arms one last time.

    It will take Anakin the rest of the saga to figure out what he has become; or what he really wants to be. Perhaps he never truly does. He seems to long for someone to tell him "who" or "what" he is. Note that Luke declares: "I am a Jedi like my father before me." This is the magical incantation that lights the fuse in Anakin's soul. This is what brings him back from a life of nihilistic purgatory; the living death of a cybernetic Frankenstein that seems like some drawn-out punctuation mark for Anakin's frantic Macbeth/Hamlet-esque indecision and soul-searching. Even Padme never quite affirms Anakin's "Jedi" status like Luke does. In fact, after his confession, Padme responds: "To be angry is to be human". No doubt this is intended to contrast Luke warmly and cathartically declaring that he and his father are both Jedi. Which means this is yet another thing people miss when they critique Padme's line for being flat, or obtuse, or insubstantial, or pathetic, or whatever. It is one giant master weave.

    Further thoughts on this should probably wait, but I was planning to post something in the "wedding" thread, several months back, about how Anakin's metallic hand links Padme with Luke. Padme is the first to clasp it and "accept" Anakin's new constitution; while Luke is the character that removes it. So when Vader cries out as Luke's green blade cuts into the wiring and slices the hand off clean, some of that cry is laced with a trapped pain freeing itself at the distant memory of the life he once had -- or tried having -- when Padme seemed willing to accept him warts and all. A life of someone who briefly walked the Jedi path, but found he couldn't countenance it with a life he longed for and really wanted. A life that was lived in the shadows; on the edge of reality. So Luke, as with Dooku before him (Luke-oo? -- and note the similar garment), kind of "helps" Anakin along, in an odd sort of way. And he goes one better by allowing Anakin to feel something again. The only other time Luke inflicts an equivalent pain (perhaps) is when he accidentally nicks Anakin (Vader) in the shoulder at the end of their duel on Cloud City. Like a prelude of what is to come in their entwined dance. A heck of a lot traces back to that AOTC hand: the flesh forerunner and the "cloned" mechanical replacement. The saga is something like a ballet of the movement of the hand. And it continues the other side of the silver screen with every post we make. The world is a strange place; "an odd play" in Qui-Gon's wording. The one that starts so much of the sly hand madness. Cool Hand Luke.
     
  11. ezekiel22x

    ezekiel22x Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2002

    Yeah, I love this scene. I think the dialogue is just as good as the visual, though. Portman gets so much emotion out of a simple "I don't know," plus Jar Jar gets a chance to shine in a subtle, serious moment. These types of scenes are what really elevate the entire PT as my favorite Star Wars.
     
  12. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005

    I enjoy any and all scenes with Jar Jar in them. Put in the gorgeous Natalie and Amidala's stunning outfits -- not to mention a night-time Coruscant backdrop -- and it's a done deal. I could meditate (meditate, I said!) on this imagery forever.

    Amidala's line you cite there echoes Qui-Gon's "I don't know's" and "I'm not sure's" on Tatooine interestingly enough. And yes, it's a powerful delivery with a certain melancholic charge to it. This scene also definitively establishes that there will be a certain degree of "window gazing" in the PT (it is the second time Amidala, arguably the "main" character of TPM, is shown looking mournfully/pensively out of a tall window).

    What, indeed, is she trying to "glean" from looking out at a city in nightfall? Anything? I can't help notice an echo with the "ruminations" sequence in ROTS. Only, in the latter film, Amidala is passive and seems to unconsciously acquiesce to Anakin's fateful decision. But here, in TPM, she is the take-charge actor, pondering on her people's fate (Anakin was pondering solely on Padme's), and turning away from her absent gazing, making the final psychological adjustments (on Jar Jar's conscious/unconscious prompting) to defy Palpatine and return to Naboo (as Anakin returns to Palpatine's office after "heeding" the voice in his head).

    Jar Jar cautiously counselling Amidala is a stroke of brilliance in the storytelling weave of TPM. I've previously said that TPM is about tentative bonds; and Amidala and Jar Jar are that theme in micro. One can't ever be entirely sure how much Jar Jar deliberately manipulated Amidala; or whether he broached the subject of the Gungans having a "Grand Army" in a kind of absent-minded way with the invisible hand of the Force stealthily working through him and the bond he forged with his planet's surface ruler. But whatever the case, Jar Jar does indeed "shine" here, and it's a measure of the film's maturity and stately eloquence on the Republic's capital that the mood here is kept locked-down and serious throughout. Jar Jar's shrill outburst of "Wesa goin home!" on the landing platform, in the last real shot of Coruscant, nicely punctuates the entire sojourn on this modern Babylon and is almost like a shock to the senses after the focused seriousness of the last twenty minutes. Tactical sign-posting as the film evokes a drawn-out stay in an airport lounge and everyone boards their connecting flight to leave the "safe" walls of Coruscant behind -- for now.
     
  13. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    A Tusken Raider, back to screen shooting at.....ANAKIN the blaze from the Tusken rifle seen clearly here! Young Anakin could have been killed. His mother watching from afar infact! It's daylight.


    [​IMG]

    Eerily, 10 years later, it is ANAKIN back to screen , spying the Tusken Raider camp. His mother kept in one of the tents, in fact! But ends with killing of the Tuskens! It's night time.


    [​IMG]

    GL, can you have a look? :cool:

    Cheers!

    MJ
     
  14. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    ^^

    Also, in the latter shot, Anakin is doing his best impression of Batman.
     
  15. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
  16. Nanaki

    Nanaki Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 5, 2016
    Those pesky Tusken Raiders almost cost Anakin the race. Don't you think THAT might've been a factor in slaughtering them?

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk
     
  17. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005


    Anakin seemed to have little love of the Tuskens as depicted on film. That said, if there was one factor that tipped him over the edge, just before finding his mother, it was Cliegg calling them "vicious, mindless monsters". It is hard to tell whether Anakin really agreed with that sentiment or not; but it can't have especially "soothed" him since Cliegg deployed it while summarizing to an increasingly visibly-affected Anakin what happened to Shmi. It is no surprise he rises from his chair just after that. Moreover: Anakin isn't one for a lot of talk in the PT (look at his obvious irritation/impatience when sat down in key scenes: convening with Padme in her apartment and defying Obi-Wan about finding out who is trying to kill her, getting upset with Padme when she asks him to beseech Palpatine to "stop the fighting and the let the diplomacy resume", and sitting rather uncomfortably through Palpatine's entire seduction at the opera, to name three examples). But the few words that Cliegg spoke no doubt impacted him deeply.

    The whole topic of how unguarded speech can lead people astray is fascinating. Perhaps I just reveal a bias. There is a famous American-English axiom from the Second World War that I think weighs in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_lips_sink_ships

    If Anakin's body or constitution is analogus to his psychological state, and if his body can also be thought of as a "ship" ("My ship will be the entry fee"), then the loose lips of Cliegg Lars truly sunk his ship; even if it seemed like Anakin was still floating and might yet reach the shore.
     
    Pyrogenic and Sith Lord 2015 like this.
  18. I love this view of Coruscant
    [​IMG]
     
  19. Mostly Handless

    Mostly Handless Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 11, 2017
  20. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    I'm not sure if it was editing of the music but the composition started fading before Padme came to her senses.

    MJ
     
  21. The_Phantom_Calamari

    The_Phantom_Calamari Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2011
    I agree, and I think people overlook the importance of that line. It's not as if Cliegg convinced Anakin then and there in that moment to believe something about the Sand People that he was hitherto fundamentally opposed to believing, but it certainly primed him to be in the perfect mindset to be capable of slaughtering them like animals. Just as he tells Padme, the Larses are "good people", and hearing such an otherwise decent man spew such hateful bile about the Tuskens probably served as at least somewhat of a reinforcement in his mind that his own feelings toward the Tuskens were justified.
     
  22. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005

    Thanks for the response, The_Phantom_Calamari. I consider the whole topic of language use, and susceptibility to its effects, an underrated and relatively unexplored area of interest in the PT and wider society. You're also right to cite Anakin's "good people" remark. I was thinking of including that. While the utterance is, by its very nature, ambiguous, it also theoretically affords us a penetrating insight into Anakin's mindset. It is funny that he "anoints" the Lars in this fashion, in a chronological sense, just after Cliegg, the Lars patriarch, makes that remark about the Tuskens. In these films, one scene, to paraphrase Lucas, when brushed up against another scene, ends up bringing new things to the surface and generates a strong poetic charge. The key to Star Wars may well lie in progression and juxtaposition. Moreover, AOTC strongly makes the case, in my opinion, that Anakin is in need of a guiding father figure; and several, with different backgrounds, outlooks, and intentions manifest in Anakin's tangled journey within this very installment. Cliegg is obviously one in a pantheon of putative/potential/fragmented/unrealized father figures for the young and struggling Anakin (and Cliegg, as the husband of Shmi, is technically Anakin's "step-father" -- whom he greets just after walking down steps to his abode).

    The father element is fascinating (and very, very "Star Wars") because Anakin twice refers to Obi-Wan in AOTC with the "f"-word: "he's like my father" (indirectly to Padme) and "you're the closest thing I have to a father" (directly to Obi-Wan). You can see the primordial respect Anakin accords Cliegg when he greets him. He doesn't want to easily cross or contradict him; that's not in his personal rule book (contra Anakin's contentious relationship with the younger and harsher Obi-Wan as his imperfect mentor). Anakin rather treats Cliegg, an older father figure, in a similar fashion to Palpatine. Indeed, Palpatine telling Anakin that he will eventually learn to trust his feelings (again contrasting with Obi-Wan admonishing Anakin to "Use the force -- think!" outside the sports bar) pairs up nicely (or horrifyingly) with his fateful rescue of his mother and what Cliegg says before he sets off. As the expositor of what happened to Shmi and the last old/mature person (outside of his beloved, delirious mother) Anakin would encounter before his primal act of vengeance against the Tuskens, Cliegg is the one that inadvertently primes the fuse. Cliegg's words acutely afflict Anakin and are like the rubbing of salt in an open wound. He therefore, in my mind, shares a small measure of responsibility, ironically, in the creation of Vader, the decimation of the Jedi, and the birth of the Empire. "Every journey has a first step" (or step-father).
     
  23. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Double post here, but just to make a few separate shout-outs......



    I recall that being one of the first images that hooked me on the beauty and mystique of the prequels vis-a-vis the original trilogy.




    Padme's sharp inhalation of breath at the end of that moment is, like, well... ;)

    There goes the ice queen ruler at any rate. :p

    Also, watch the movement of Padme's right hand as she breaks away from the kiss with Anakin. She lightly gives the balustrade a quick tap. Kinda like she's having to reassure herself that she's still on Earth (or Naboo). AOTC has many of these moments where a character taps or leans on a firm surface for anchorage of one sort or another. Anakin, too, is obviously leaning on the same piece of balustrade with his left arm; such that, in fact, when Padme reaches for it with her right hand, the two create a somewhat distorted unit or pair (cf. Lama Su's reflection distorting and splitting in the glass in the next scene).

    As for the music... Yeah, it cuts out rather comically in that moment; or fades off as MarcJordan more accurately notes. One can read that moment any number of ways. Padme is trying to "calm" (or quiet) the stirrings in her soul; but it won't last. AOTC also takes a more abstract approach to audio and music than its brethren. Entities within the film seem to be able to interfere with it. And at some points, the music seems to be an expression of panic/anxiety (when Obi-Wan is floating around on Zam's droid) or cunning and pacing (when Anakin enters the Tusken camp).
     
  24. MarcJordan

    MarcJordan Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 2014
    Not to mention the just appearing moon and the setting sun (thus neither at their full strength) a sort of visual metaphor if you like, as if "competing" for the future, whether it being a bright one, or dark! The Republic you can say will have a lot to learn what's in store for it. :-B

    MJ
     
    Cryogenic likes this.
  25. Tonyg

    Tonyg Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 16, 2016
    Just one more little detail. I emphasized on hands indeed because I think here Anakin is still ‘whole‘. And of course, I‘m not talking about phisically but that he still has the chance to stay on the brigde. Yes, he fell but he came back. When Dooku cut his hand he took some part of him that could never be replaced, i.e. he marked him with the sign of the Sith (now you belong to us). Of course, there is still so much hope in the end of the movie not only for the wedding itself but because Padme accepted Ani mechanical hand (which is golden... Interesting, isn‘t it?!) because the love can replace even the missing live hand. But as you can see in ROTS this slowly became Darth Vader‘ hand. And he indeed does different things with the different hands there. But in AOTC Anakin is still whole and acts with both hands, even in moments of dispair.