Geonosis: too much like Tatooine?

I read a quote from Lucas right about the time of ROTS that he regretted going with the final design for Geonosis. It's a rockier Tatooine. I suppose so. But when you see all the cool planets and environments that didn't make the final cut, I really wish Lucas chose one of those other designs. Perhaps if they changed the color of Geonosis to the color blueish grey or something. Or made it crystal. Even some of the planets in ROTS montage would've made a better Geonosis. Geonosis is too drab and nondescript.

 

the battle on geonosis would be more dramatic if it were set at night time
in fact, the whole planet should be dark all the time

 

I've always thought this, it seems that every fight Lucas has done outside seems to be in the daylight.

So either the Maul VS Qui-Gon should have been done during the night, or the arena part on Geonosis, It isn't visually effective (especially on sandy terrain) to have such battles in the daylight.

Edit: there was Obi-wan vs Anakin duel I guess but doing that in the sunshine would have been a complete mess

 

Could you find that quote?

 

the battle on geonosis would be more dramatic if it were set at night time
in fact, the whole planet should be dark all the time


Why? I don't see the point. And I don't care for night time battles. I hate the Battle of Helm's Deep from THE TWO TOWERS with every fiber of my being. And that was mainly fought at night.

 

Or made it crystal.
Oh no, not crystal. That wouldnt fit in with the nature of the termite-like Geonosians and how they construct their mounds. Some more different colors on their built mounds may be OK.

 

I think the battle looks fine in daylight. If it was in darkness you may not be able to see as much detail.

 

I have no problems with Geonosis, especially as compared to Tatooine.

While there were some rocky regions of Tatooine, they really focused on the desert. Since the Geonisians are rather insect-like with a hive system, having a terrain that looks like something ants and insects would build makes sense. It fits. Especially with how they are doing it in Season 2 of TCW with the caves and catacombs. That works perfectly, IMO.

 

I don't have a problem with Geonosis.

What I do have a problem with is when Lucas cut from Tatooine and Geonosis and almost the exact same terrain was used. Visual cues were just a mess in that part of the film.

In fact, there was the shot of the Kenobi entering a geonosian mound and you could not tell in the theatre if it was Anakin or Kenobi. It had just cut from Anakin's pursuit on speeder bike and then to this similar terrain mound and it was a mess.

I like my planetary environments in SW to be distinct.

 

That edit is what I immediately thought of when I read the thread title.

 

Why would I make it up??? After all, the quote is at least 6 years old and I don't even remember where I read it. I think I might of read it at SW.com. Sheesh..

 

Because no one seems to remember it, and Lucas saying something from the PT is wrong/is not what he wanted to be is not very usual.

And also, because you made two threads almost at the same time, recalling some old quote from GL, then proceding to critize some aspect of the PT.

 

I enjoyed Geonosis and the way Lucas had the Geonosians presented with the catacombs and the arena was wonderful. One of my favorite scenes is when one of the Trade Federation battleship stations is shot down and it plummets to the ground kicking up a biblical amount of dust and everyone is still fighting and all you can see is red and blue flashes of blasterfire. Beautiful. And who didn't mind Natalie Portman rolling in the sand?

 

I think you mean: who minded it?

 

I never thought of Geonosis to be like Tantooine. They do look strikingly similar but Tantooine is lighter sand and Geonosis does have a darker color scheme. I mean look at Yavin IV, Endor and Kashyyyk, they all basically have forest landscapes but they have little altercations to make them look unique and it dosn't bother me much that some planets look identical. I mean not every planet in the galaxy has to have its very own, exclusive climate.

 

A good point. While they did invent new landscapes for planets like Felucia, there are only really so many types of environments that can be used. You could almost have something like this, where you pick an environment: Snow, Water, Desert, Rocky/Mountainous, Jungle, Forest, temperate, etc.

And then add in the level or type of habitation: city/urban, villages/rural, uninhabitated, etc.

Combine those two variables together and you get most of the planets in the films.

 

I agree with ShaneP,

the terrain was confusing when scenes were intercut between Anakin and Obi-Wan. My sister who has limited interest in it was really confused as to who was where. A friend also thought they were on the same planet!

I'm not for totally changing Geonosis, but a better distinction should have been made here, even the skies were similar colour.

And I like the planets to have a variety too. Especially as we had Utapau on ROTS.

 

the terrain was confusing when scenes were intercut between Anakin and Obi-Wan.
Ive always thought that confusion was deliberate. Not sure if it serves any real purpose though.

 

I did. At least in the original version where she went from writhing in pain to being perfectly fine in about half a second.

 

GL was probably just going for a "red planet" and the insect idea got mixed in with it. Personally, I don't think Tattooine and Geonosis are so similar that anyone would mix them up, except those kinds of people who get Bespin and the Death Star mixed up.
While on the subject of Natalie and sand, is it just me or was she more... visible in her white outfit in the theatrical cut? I remember being VERY disappointed with the DVD.

 

But that's the point. Why did George make them so much alike? It was blah.

I don't remember Portman peeking out of her outfit. I just remember dry line readings.

 

IMO the problem with Geonosis is that it doesn't follow Tatooine closely enough, in terms of the 'seperate topigraphical feature' theme at least. In the OT Tatooine was the planet that set up the charming idea that every planet in the Star Wars universe was made up of one geographical feature. Since then we have been given ice (Hoth), sky (Bespin), forest (Endor), swamp (Naboo), city (Coruscant) and ocean (Kamino). These enviroments were also magical because they are still familiar yet are expanded upon to make them exotic and new.

Geonosis seemed to abandon this pattern and focus a planet on a giant termite mound, it was arguably a copy of Coruscant with a nature twist. To me Geonosis marked the point where GL had run out of ideas for planets based on instantly recognisable landscapes. In ROTS we were given sinkholes, giant transparent mushrooms and a weird tree/lake/ mountain mash up (Although Kashyyk does look like a location in China). Yes we got volcanoes through Mustafar but that planet had been pre-concieved as a back story for Vader ever since ANH.

This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, I still enjoy the films despite this fact, but Episodes II & III most certainly lack the visual simplicity that made the series so endearing in the first place.

 

i just noticed something. SW planets are either FULL of vegetation, or completely devoid. maybe the tattooine-utapau-geonosis landscape is there to make endor and kashykk look more alike.

 

Ok, here's my roughly 12 cents.

I think of Naboo as the planet that broke the pattern of one planet, one environment. It's got both Theed and Otoh Gunga, plus an Endor-esque forest, that is to say, we see all that.

I remember that confusion on first viewings of AOTC (which planet are we on?). IMO it's a very minor take you out of the movie experience the first time, but not really on repeated viewings. I suppose if you were making a SE of AOTC it might be a minor little thing to take care of.

At this point I'm so familiar with AOTC it's hard to picture it any other way visually, but I do like some of the ideas suggested here, the crystal planet, or an all "night" battle, or if some of the barely-seen ROTS planets had been used for this battle. (Of course, I originally assumed and hoped AOTC wouldn't even end with a major battle but would be more ESB-ish, a lot of drama without all-out war in the finale. Sometimes I found myself hoping for so many different things you couldn't possibly have them all.)

And even though I'm a bit of a pro-AOTC booster, this is reminding me of one thing I was originally mildly disappointed by: visually, AOTC is sort of the opposite of ANH: You start with a high-tech place heavy on the sci-fi imagery, and you end up in a very barren place. So, yeah, if I was Lucas in 1999 or 2000, I might have made Geonosis different, but again, I was awfully happy with the movie overall and so it's hard to imagine the movie drastically differently at this point. Geonosis wasn't visually perfect (I liked Kamino a lot better) but it for the most part worked.

 

Wow. Never really thought about it, but yeah, sometimes its hard to tell the difference.