ST THE LAST JEDI mirroring (specifically AOTC/ESB/TLJ)

^ A baptism by water and a baptism by fire.

 

Good call.

I thought it was cool that Kylo was healed by a machine, then later by a loved one's touch.
Anakin starts the trilogy within his mother's embrace (literally and figuratively) and then has Padme's touch. When he loses these he ends up healed by machines and only bound to Palpatine.

Reverse direction.

 

Of course this - PT Anakin - was definitely already inverted in the OT.

You see Anakin's red electronic vision as the mask comes down for the first time in ROTS, adding further poignancy (and actually making the dialogue literal) when he says "Let me look on you with my own eyes".

Tying it back to the ST I can only imagine this is similar to what Ben is feeling about Rey when he finally smiles at the end of the trilogy.

 

I don't know if this was mentioned, (and it's not so much a "mirroring" as just a point I guess), but I think someone (maybe you Hevy?) already touched upon it. - Rey's hair style change. Someone (again, was it you Hevy? hehe) Said she changed it, as in - "becoming a woman" sort of, growing up/transitioning. Which is a good call.
I find it interesting because it happens right after seing Kylo half-nude in the force bond (lmao), but by accident when plunging into the water and having that trip session.

Now, she's not had the same hair-do since she was a kid by random, by chance, by never washing it - so she obviously chose to wear it that way. (I assumed because she wanted to be easier to find for her parents? Kinda like you'd hold onto a bracelet or something. Her hair style was quite unique - but easy to maintain/keep in the enviroment she lived in) - so I'm guessing the hair style change (however accident, obvously wasn't an accident in the narrative) is because her priorities changed / a sign of her coming of age in a way.

I know in some narratives, a woman letting her her loose (or halfway or just "down" from what it usually is) is seen as something intimate, something only for the close ones to see. So I'd wager it's not by chance that it happens between the intimate force bonding with Kylo, and as a result of her "bad trip" and self-exploration in that underwater cave.

Also, I guess there's a similar point to be made to fore example Leia's hair style change in the originals too. And probably a ton of other hair styles too, (not just female ones)

 

I can't take credit for that, no

Interesting though.

The change in her look in TLJ does seem intentional, though not intentional on Rey's part I suppose (which you hinted at).

You've said more on it I than I could contribute further to.

The hairstyle changes were sometimes significant yes.
Leia has the iconic buns in ANH (her first film) where Padme wears similar in ROTS (her last).
The most significant change that comes to mind for Leia is the Ewok village with her hair fully down. When the main characters are all getting more in touch with nature.

Obi-Wan has the short hair and padawan-braid in TPM, then Anakin sports similar it in AOTC, with Obi-Wan having a "Jedi mullet" as Ewan McGregor called it. Then in ROTS Anakin now has the longer hair, arguably a little bit of a mirror to Qui-Gon. As a side-note I thought Anakin's style was really fitting in ROTS.

 

LMAO.

Leia also has the long braid when enslaved. The hair being a mix of "intimate" (down), but also "tamed" (braided) and also serving as a similarity to the literal chain.

And yeah! Intentional in the narrative, but not on Rey's concious part.

 

Wait a minute, didn't Leia say "I know what you're going to say. I've changed my hair"? RJ reading fans' minds maybe.

MJ

 

The Jedi mullets rhyme. They’re like poetry.

 

This thread was fun to make.
Even if the movie was pretty disappointing to me.

 

If I'm allowed to break the mold a tad from the "middle installment" mirroring that this thread title implies, I have a few interesting visual parallels between The Last Jedi and Revenge of the Sith (which I find to be, overall, the most "mythic" installments in their respective trilogies).

Post hijacked from the "Visual Links" thread in the Saga board:

With an extra mirror I'd like to add here (one that Rian Johnson explicitly mentioned as being intentional, if I recall correctly):

 

Nice ones.

I think I may have posted the last one already, the overhead marching shots.

Oh and the “middle movie” tag I already ignored on some of my own posts, I stated it just to make the cross-triple-trilogy ones more distinct. Tbh I think there are extensive mirrors between all the 9 films, a regimented pattern in my experience makes you miss a lot that lay outside those specific films.

The lightspeed ram and Anakin piloting the Invisible Hand - you could say both Anakin and Holdo are piloting with the fate of the Republic/Resistance in their hands there.

 

After years of people recommending it to me over and over and over again, I finally caved and read Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelization. And yeah, it is as great and introspective an interpretation of Lucas' finale to the Star Wars saga as everyone says it is.


“The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars.”

 

Just my personal view of things, but “mirroring” for me requires some sort of underlying meaning or point. Absent that, it’s just copying or a meaningless reference/“easter egg.”

There’s much in TLJ I once thought was genuine mirroring that I now see as just copying/referencing of prior movies.

 

https://boards.theforce.net/threads...-and-symbolism.50054022/page-27#post-57281183

Rey's real mother/Dark Rey. That scene in TROS seems to be the ST's Dagobah cave, and not so much the mirror cave in TLJ.

However, and related to the mother thing...

 

That is fair. I think the ones I posted are a mix though, which ones have meaning or which are intended is ambiguous, we will likely never know.

 

Mirroring between ROTJ and TLJ

ROTJ

I’m a jedi like my father before me - Luke realizes he could have turned if he killed his father.

Luke understands that he would make the worst choice in killing his father (see here as he is enraged at Vader) and cements and pledges his future to the Jedi…something his father used to follow but later trusted in the Darkside. However, returns to believe in the good side of the Force.

Spoiler

TLJ it’s the opposite

Kylo is told he has too much of his father’s heart. In TFA his father said he believed in the Force; previously in the OT he didn't. Meanwhile, Ren was conflicted early on but chooses to kill his father. Here cementing is future to the Sith as he destroys his helmet (in enragement) to forget his conflict to prove to Snoke he won’t give in to the light.

Spoiler

Bonus :

Spoiler

Destroying Vader's hand



Destroying Kylo's mask

Cheers!

MJ

 

This, from another thread.

Of course, Luke's mother was there in Bespin by implication. Was she dead (like Shmi in AOTC) or alive? Maybe there was a 'dead' mom in TLJ.

They are dead, says Kylo. Pauper's grave in Jakku. Since 'parents' can be made to mean 'mother', like in the example above (Shmi was 'parents' in the TPM), and since Rey Skywalker was born ( or Rey Random died) in Tatooine by the end of TROS, beside those pauper's graves, 'she', the birth mother, could be around. Just like Sydney Bristow's mom in JJ's 'Alias'.

Kylo would have constructed a narrative -filthy junk traders>drinking money>dead>pauper's grave >Jakku desertg- out of a few snapshots, like the ones in the forceback - or like the ones when he touched Vader's helmet in TROS.

 

Luke's mother was in Bespin? You lost me on that one

 

Not middle chapter mirroring, but this beat specifically.... damn.

 

I just LOVE those. One of few cool threads in here!

 

So in both movies, Luke sits next to an already sitting down Leia? Damn!

 

I just remembered, Carrie Fisher has a similar thing in the movie The 'Burbs. In which she is gone for a little while, comes back and Tom Hanks (her husband in the movie) goes "You cut your hair" . Anyway.. haha

 

The "everybody splits up, gets the bejesus beaten out of them, needs a little help from their friends" is definitely a thing across all of the middle trilogy installments.

 

And their leitmotif plays (Luke and Leia's theme) plays in both movies