PT Iconic Images: Favorite visuals of the PT

One of my all time favorite images as well. Heres the thing with that image, there is a million different symbolic, important things going on in that one shot and its epic!

Look at the pillar to the very left of anakin. See how its hiding the famous "Yin-yang" clouds we just saw in the previous shot? Now match that up with the shot in Episode 5 that this shot is mirroring. Its an Exact match with a Star Destroyer taking the place of the yin-yang symbol being hidden in the same exact spot. Hidden behind the star destroyer window. This helps show what kind of galaxy he is looking out at. In this trilogy when hes meditating he does it looking out toward beauty and balance, in the next trilogy he is looking out towards infinite black with sharp arrow like war machines patrolling.

And in this image the yin-yang is hidden on the right because in the image it mirrors the star destroyer is hidden on the left so that it mirrors perfectly, as in if it were pages in a book you could literally close the book and have the images exactly match up.

These two mirroring images say SO MUCH about the character and the setting and story and it does it in a completely visual way. Fantastically done by Lucas.

Look at how Hayden is standing when he meditates, exactly like Vader (just like everything else he does) if you just watch the movie you see that every single thing he does is exactly like a young Darth Vader. He shows it in his body language and in the way he speaks and even in the way he stands and meditates.

In this one he is around a beautiful woman and in the next he will be surrounded by military commanders.

This is also the image that within the PT shows the balance (the yin-yang) between the two other Episodes, Episodes 1 and 3, the jedi and sith movies. Just like TESB this film (AOTC) is the "grey" film. The passage way for our young hero to go through and come out scarred and changed by the end ready for the final movie. Maybe that could also be another reason the yin-yang is shown to be on the left, because hes moving "forward" away from the yin-yang towards the land of lava volcano's and darkness.

Keep in mind that if you actually put in the AOTC blu-ray this exact point is the "middle" of the film. Middle, balance, yin-yang, light/dark, epic beauty, space opera, mirroring, deeper meaning exc. Its all right here.

The light side (in the Jedi movie) was symbolized by the plasma energy being harvested in the power generator room from the paradise planet that by the end of the movie we all learned how important it is to share with life. Then we go through the ambiguous (the grey/middle movie) with this shot in order to finally get to where The Dark Side (in the Sith movie) is symbolized by the lava energy being harvested from the volcano rivers in the Hell planet.

Simple yet brilliant.

 

I mine as well post this now....

http://imgur.com/TWC64Cr

 

Am I allowed to say 'everything'? Because pretty much everything in these films is beautiful.

 

It's like poetry, they rhyme, Chorus.

 

It's more than that, though. I love the layering of those moments. The trailer is truly operatic: it unfolds in several movements.

The snapshots that we get, and the way they're ordered, makes it a work of high art, in my opinion -- and I'm not even sure I would (quite) say that about the film!

There's a heady rush of deliverance about the imagery in the trailer that you don't get in the film itself. It's so dizzying and enrapturing as to take on a litheness of form that astonishes and feels complete on its own terms.

That trailer, to me, was and remains... awesome.

This shot is talked about in more detail at the following links:

http://www.starwars-edifice.co.uk/starwars-edifice_edifices_of_intent.htm

http://www.starwars-edifice.co.uk/starwars-edifice_myth_for_our_age.htm

Yes. I like it: it's full of dark, primordial power.

The lava spilling seductively over crenulated edifices: a thick, enchanting gloop.

Incidentally, there is something of a "creation myth" at work in the PT, just in its end sequences (action climaxes) alone.

TPM = sand/limestone
AOTC = copper/clay
ROTS = lava/silicate

And from these progressions emerges an obsidian Sith-borg.

Their futile combat -- and their poses -- is/are somewhat reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus (or upper-case, "The Myth Of Sisyphus", if we're acknowledging the Albert Camus essay).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Punishment_sisyph.jpg

Love, too, the epic burst of colours: like oil paints.

The image even provides evidence of a vaseline-smudge or heat-haze (look at their legs).

It's funny how, in Rinzler's "Making Of" (the final chapter -- available as a free PDF), Lucas says the film-making process has become "geological" and "sedimentary" (referring to the multiple layers of digital effects and editing), given where the film ends up.

Great breakdown, Rob.

And how appropriate you use a rose, there.

That composition is a feast of subtle asymmetries.

It also reminds me of a poem by Russell Edson, "The Floor":

The Floor

The floor is something we must fight against.
Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human
stance, it is that place that men fall to.
I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse;
the pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face.

But should I go dizzy I crash down into the floor;
my face into the floor, my attention bleeding into
the cracks of the floor.

Dear horizontal place, I do not wish to be a rug.
Do not pull at the difficult head, this teetering
bulb of dread and dream . . .

 

Here you go....

 

Very interesting. Although this is my avatar for quite a time I never realized that the left pillar just hides the Yin and Yang symbole. But it makes sense.
Yin and Yang is a symbole of balance, in relation to Star Wars a balance of light and dark, (now-)Jedi and (later-)Sith. Anakin is supposed to bringt balance and looks into the vast sky yet we all know that he won't bring balance (until very late) because he is out of balance within himself. Just here.
Nice!

 

Off the dome right now:

The Obi-Wan vs Jango space fight in the Geonosis rings. Those seismic charges and the ferocity of slave 1's main gun... wow. Plus it was nice just to see this confident, competent warrior calmly employ a crafty trick and turn the tables on that overconfident Force-imbued superman. It was probably the first onscreen example we'd had of a Jedi Knight on the receiving end of a Mando Smackdown. Delicious.

Some of the little things appeal to me, especially when they break with some old but not that logical SW traditions... at the opening of AoTC, note how Padme's transport and fighter escorts come out of hyperspace not vertically aligned with the approach they want to make, and actually have to roll 180 to approach the part of the planet they want to go to. In SW where Space is an ocean and 2D space have mostly been played pretty straight, this was a nice dose of realicism thrown in.

 

So what is that library is that?

 

This is a great visual, never seen it before. I love it.

 

Pretty sure it's the Jedi Archive library?

 

lol I meant in real life.

 

Oh! Haha, well, that I'm not too sure of

 

lol thats cool.

 

Yes, it is. Very cool.

 

Not a bad camera angle

I wonder what Liam is thinking.

 

Probably something to do with him training Anakin in the near future.

 

It's a beauty of a scene, enriching both characters in such a simple way. The promise, dreams, and possibilities of childhood. A phantom menace looms, but is punctuated by mystical moments of peace.

 

"Man, I sure hope this kid doesn't ask any questions about midichlorians when we get to Coruscant."

 

Wow. That's incredible.