PT Star Wars Prequels Appreciation Week

Not quite. In the movies, the Council sessions happen in one of the four lower spires.



The only scene that shows the interior of the central spire is this:

 

Yes, this scene is absolutely fantastic, a real 'tone-poem' moment of the kind that George loves, inspired by Stan Brakhage.

 

My favorite scene also happens to be my favorite scene of the entire Saga... the Obi-Wan/Padme balcony scene on Coruscant. Pitch perfect writing, acting, and directing. It's just one giant dance. Padme knows the truth... Anakin has turned, she simply cannot accept it. Obi-Wan knows Anakin & Padme are a couple... he's simply confirming the truth. The whole scene plays into the theme of duality that runs through the entire Prequel Trilogy. The masks are finally off.

 

I don't really have one favorite for any daily theme , but I'm glad to see the posts of others and their favorites .

I really have to rewatch all 6 Episodes along with TCW and Rebels in the near future in a chronological order for a marathon ...

 

The music is great in that as well. It always gives me the impression of desperation and of time running out. It slowly builds and builds until it reaches it's crescendo as the scene cut's away to Anakin on Mustafar.

"Padme. Anakin has turned to the dark side".

"Anakin is the father isn't he"?

[No words]

"I'm so sorry".

 

Want your mind blown??? Been talking with Mike Klimo of Ring Theory fame... and I even surprised him.

The scene is actually a parallel but twisted presentation of the same scene in Return of the Jedi.... Luke and Leia on Endor.

Both scenes take place on a balcony...

In ROTS Obi-Wan announces that he's leaving to kill Anakin

In ROTJ Luke announces he's leaving to try and save Anakin

Both scenes also involve the revelation of a mjor secret to a lead character.

In ROTS it is revealed to Obi-Wan that Padme is pregnant with Anakin's child

In ROTJ it is revealed to Leia that she is in fact Luke's sister

Finally both scenes unsher in the final Act of their respective film.

Not a coincidence....

Yancy

 

Favorite scene: Hmmmm.... Thats going to be too hard to pick. So all of them.

 

A great moment, indeed.


There are actually two such moments in the last reel: one external, one internal.

Clones and droids, Republic and Separatist, battling it out, in a fog, in a haze, in a daze, one getting whipped by the other, but no true "victor":

Would just like to add, that's a sharp observation!

 

Favorite Side Character: Bail Organa
Favorite Movie: The Phantom Menace
Favorite Scene: Battle of Geonosis

 

Now, now, now, now, now...!!!

Along with your Qui-Gon avatar, I think that's a pretty awesome spread of this 'ere prequel trilogy and its dense foliage of charms.

 

Favorite Scene: This is considerably difficult... I am just going to try to pick a favorite scene from each movie (even that will be hard)
-- TPM: "Who was destroyed, the master or the apprentice?" Seemingly victorious, the Jedi acknowledge that perhaps Maul was not the true threat. It is possible that Maul's presence caused a disturbance in the Force that was sufficient to disguise the real threat, the phantom menace. The brilliant cinematography is what made this revelation work so well. It dramatically zooms in on Palptine's face in a way that is not obvious for first-time viewers but in a way that is obvious for repeat-viewers. For first-time viewers, it may seem like the camera is just moving to the right, showing all of the main characters and ending with Palpatine. For repeat viewers, it connects things well.

--AOTC: "This party is over" This was the first time we had ever seen hundreds of Jedi take on an army. Before, we would mainly see Jedi fight Sith, and when that was not the issue, the Jedi would fight a decent amount of opponents. It was amazing, a dream come true for many SW fans, including myself.

-- ROTS: Order 66: Seeing the clone troopers suddenly and brutally betray the Jedi was tragic. Beyond that though, the March on the Jedi Temple is what made this sequence brilliant. Again, here we have brilliant cinematography. The music, lighting, marching, and Vader all come together perfectly. Anakin was not even in the suit yet, and yet this moment convinced me that I was seeing a pre-suit Darth Vader.

(Close contenders: Obi-Wan vs. Anakin (Vader), Mace vs. Sidious confrontation scene, Duel of the Fates, and many more)

Also, because I forgot last time around...

Favorite Side Character: Shimi Skywalker (close second: Watto) (not sure if Bail Organa was a side or main character. If he is a side character, then definitely him!)

 

Favorite scene: Asteroid field ballet ...chosen at random, admittedly.

Nothing revelatory or plot-serving, and certainly nothing dramatic, at least not in any traditional, theatrical sense. But this is Lucas setting aside the time to tell his little abstract stories of motion, sound and editing. Things pursuing things, then evading. The entire midsection of Attack of the Clones doubles narratively as a kind of extended waltz between Obi-Wan and Jango Fett, beginning with their terse introduction to one another before proceeding to some landing platform melee which then comes to a head with their orbital contest of cat and mouse. A free-floating ballroom of space rock meters the set piece in accordance. I love the reds, oranges and pinks; pulp magazine color schemes originally associated with the likes of Wells and Burroughs, and even something a little bit Wrath of Khan and Total Recall. I love the splashes of light and over-the-shoulder POV compositions. I love the trusty but underappreciated R4-P17 (RIP) along with Ob-Wan's disco king gold headband. In short, groovy audiovisuals. I say "Blasted!" a lot.

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

I'm unable to see those photos.

However, in this photo, each spire looks like it should only have enough room for the chamber, and not the corridor, which is always seen.

 

Fav scene: well, top 4

1. "You were my brother" and the following scene of Obi-Wan dropping his face into his hands as he leaves Mustafar - a scene minus dialogue yet one saying so very much; that they left "hell" beyond physically, they still carried it within them.
2. "Anakin is the father" - the entire scene with one tiny minor exception is absolutely brilliant. The chemistry between the two actors, the palpable tension and yet the quietness, all punctuated by the swell of music which so perfectly encapsulates everything said and not...
3. Obi-Wan taking baby Luke into his arms and the look on his face; almost like a hint of revelation that amongst all the horror and pain there can be a bright spot, there can be hope
4. Opera scene. Ian just shone in that scene as no other (fun as his turning Anakin scenes were, some of it was kind of over the top)

 

What a great thread. Normally you need a hazzard suite to click through Star Wars on the net - but here people have praised my favorite scenes, droids vs clones in the dust, the Dooku/Anakin fight - I really really thought it was just me - and I must be deluding myself !

Thank you. It's like the only outpost in a universe of scum and villainy. No, take that back. I don't want to call out people as villains, but you know what I mean - an occasion for celebration and fun has fanned the flames. Again. And this is the only shelter !

 

Revenge is a Sith best served cold.

 

Almost forgot to post, been busy with my freelance job all day.

Anyway, favorite scene, several of mine were already listed: "Anakin is the father", Order 66, "This party's over", etc but not all them, because there are many.

Favorite scenes:

When Anakin and Padme are reunited in ROTS and she tells him she's pregnant.
Darth Sidious and Darth Tyranus at the end of AOTC.
Anakin and Padme telling each goodbye the first time they meet in TPM.

 

Favourite Planet: Kamino

I'ts a gorgeous planet, great miniatures, fascinating interiors, unique lifeforms, the Aiwha. The music is otherworldly, and I love the design so much.

Runner-up: Utapau, for how unique unique a planet it is. Giant sinkholes is a concept not seen often in Sci-Fi, and it helps make Utapau much more exotic in the Star Wars galaxy.

 

Favourite Planet

It's hard to pick a favourite planet in the PT because there are so many unuique and even bizarre Planet's in the Prequels (I expect TFA and thee ST in general to be positively dull in comparison)

However, I have to pick cause it's the topic of the day. So I'm going to pick three:

KAMINO - Just because it has to be the most bizarre and "Sci-Fi" of all Planets in the Star Wars universe... I remember being completely blown away by this Planet when I first saw it in AOTC - I love how the planet itself is a huge contrast of raging thunder, lightning and rain, yet inside Topica City it's eerily calm and silent with the most brilliant light.



The Kaminoans is fantastically elegant and fluid with their movements as well... Really everything about Kamino was just wonderfully well done by ILM.




Second planet of course has to be Mustafar - Dante meet's Star Wars and THIS is possibly the greatest visual representation of hell ever put to screen?







Is THIS the darkest image in the whole of Star Wars - The Devil and the "Fallen Angel" in Hades?



And finally Alderaan - Just because it was amazing to finally see it after all these years

 

Favorite planet: Naboo. I really love its Italian Renaissance look.

 

I think my favourite planet is Kaminaboo. You know that thing that AOTC does? Of intertwining extremes and hybridizing them? Well, yeah. I challenge anyone to find a better environment than Kaminaboo!

Seriously, though, it's very hard to deny the gorgeosity of Naboo. Wasn't the whole prequel trilogy worth it for just that one planet? If Tatooine is the iconic planet of the OT and maybe Star Wars generally, Naboo is definitely the landmark world of the PT. What's that, you say? Coruscant? Yeah, okay. I still think, in various ways, it's Naboo. Naboo is seen before Coruscant (trade blockade) and after it (funeral).

And Kamino is beautiful on a whole 'nother level, too. What impresses me the most is not the rain, or the interiors, or the Kaminoans themselves (all good, though), but the water; and specifically, the foam effect. And okay, the way the rain lashes off of the external structure in different ways. That is some seriously detailed visual effects work for a film that came out in 2002. Absolutely prodigious!

The extreme copper look of Geonosis is also very dashing. I'm stuck in AOTC-mode again, but it's such a looker, and the way that the environment of Geonosis creates a very intense colour scheme to climax the movie with is eye- and mind-grabbing. Is there a more avant-garde place than Geonosis: a place that is like a loud, shout-y, distorted echo of Tatooine (or even Cloud City: where the thick clouds have morphed into lumpy, erratic sand dunes)? And then those termite structures! A very satisfying world. Geonosis is also rather special for debuting blue electrical effects. Sounds crazy, but note three examples: i) Obi-Wan in a beautiful beam of light while being interrogated by Dooku, ii) The cattle prod things used to zap the poor arena creatures, iii) Dooku's lightning. I don't know if that was deliberate by Lucas, but he has intimated that the film is something of a tussle between the colours blue and orange. Geonosis takes that clashing of colours to a kind of erotic climax.

But you know where I really want to go (as good a measure of "favourite planet" as anything)? Utapau. I love the sinkhole design (an early idea of Ralph McQuarrie's -- well, Crevasse City: the sinkhole look is adapted from that) and the ancient name (it goes back to George's earliest scribblings for Star Wars). And what a cool bunch of inhabitants! And the biscuit-brown colours with that beautiful sky. My, oh, my. Utapau is also one of the few worlds in the PT that doesn't really on a darkening or night-time effect to sex up its appeal. It does still go dark (Obi-Wan's chasing of Grievous through a long interior), but the setting remains defiantly day-time-oriented. Really neat.

I also want to give an honourable mention to Felucia. G-FETT said above that Kamino is "the most bizarre and 'Sci-Fi' of all planets in the Star Wars universe", which is true in a lot of ways (particularly given its far-flung location and its mysterious erasure from the Jedi Archives), but I think Felucia must rival or even surpass it for stark "natural" weirdness. You know? Luminescent fungi. It seems to anticipate James Cameron's Pandora world in "Avatar". Very dream-like. And it being the setting for a horrible massacre (there were other Jedi deaths intended to be depicted there) just makes it all the more haunting and peculiar. It pushes the world of Star Wars that bit harder into some Lynchian wonderland. In fact, many of the Order 66 planets are just supreme; what little we see of them.

Mustafar, too, is a very extreme world. I love the blue shields. And the way that Anakin and Obi-Wan duel: it's like they're dancing on the edge of the sun. It's a brilliant world, finally realized after years of waiting in vivid detail. And as visually spectacular as it is, half of its personality surely lies in the awesome sound design. As a complete audio-visual sensation, it's tremendously well-realized.

But yeah, Utapau it is. Gotta excuse me, now. Off to hunt some long-buried dinosaur bones; and possibly get into battle with a giant gloating robot...

 

Favourite planet: I'd say Tat, but that's in the OT as well, so my favourite PT exclusive planet would have to be Geonosis for no reason other than it gives me some VERY powerful nostalgia for some reason. Tbh I'm not even sure why

 

I think the setting of it with all that florid Jedi action is like watching some very lively Saturday morning cartoon: possibly some concluding double-bill installment of some mega-crazy series arc.

It just feels the most scintillating, somehow. And that surely takes us all back to our childhoods in some way.

There are many encoded feels in Star Wars.

 

Favorite planet: Gaah! This is impossible. Impossible, I tell you!
In a way, though, I guess I should say CORUSCANT; the "Millennium Falcon" of the trilogy. This is the place we return to time and time again, growing inevitably accustomed to it as we are continually exposed to new aspects of not just the city at large, but of the very buildings and even rooms that we thought we knew.
As the story progresses, the planet takes up more and more of our time and somehow, it never ceases to dazzle us with its diversity and depth. Between the vast, archaic yet modern Jedi Temple, the glorious Senate Dome, the luxurious office of the Supreme Chancellor, the awe-inspiring Galaxies Opera House and the bustling exterior of the megalopolis with its huge variety of districts, there's enough room for a whole film franchise on this planet alone, without us ever having to get bored.
Not to mention that everytime I see that cityscape at night, or in twilight, I am completely spellbound.
"You still have much to learn, my young apprentice" - a beautiful scene if ever there was one!

 

Cryogenic I actually forgot about Felucia

Your right, in the bizarre stakes, that has to take the prize. A place of such beauty and "weirdness" yet also the setting for a massacre... And your right that there is a "dream-like" quality to the planet, but a dream that quickly turns into a nightmare.