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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 5, 2023 19:17:17 GMT
Intoxicants are a very interesting aspect of Star Wars. The intoxicants of love and power, for example.
"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other."
Carl Jung
One gives life, the other takes it away. Zam is killed by a poison dart. Palpatine's power extends like tentacles so that anyone in the club might be an agent of evil (a shapeshifter), which poisons one's ability to see clearly. There are all these associations and implications. Whereas Anakin's love of Pamde saves her and wakes her up. Life giving power right there. And ofcourse, this love of Pamde will blind him too in ROTS. Love becoming its shadow. Which is funny because love has life giving power.
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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 5, 2023 19:22:15 GMT
Which means there may be a big difference between the power to force vs the power to attract.
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 5, 2023 20:29:52 GMT
If the lightsaber is thought of as a phallic symbol, it's interesting that Anakin uses it on the first two women he comes into contact with. Symbolic of his frustration?   Well, in the case of Padme he gets to break through her barriers (I don't think she liked me watching her). Furthermore, he saves her life from poisonous phallic-looking worms. So his lightsaber has a life-giving or life-protecting quality there. The Chosen One is a source of fecundity, after all. The inner-heart eye is a fountain of light after all, and fountains are fecundity symbols. Consciousness=life, so he wakes Padme up with his phallus. She can't deny she's into it any longer ("My goodness you've grown!" winning out over "you'll always be that little boy...") He's grown alright...Grown more virile that is! Cryo will love this shit. And of course, he loses his light saber against Zam because he is being impatient, interfering with his ability to think, or "perform" effectively. So yeah, frustration! Ahahaha. He says that being around Padme is "intoxicating." Is he at all intoxicated by other women, like Zam, maybe the girls at the club? Or is he just fixated on Padme? I think the latter is probably true. There's a lot of subtext in the Padme assassination/speeder chase/club scene trinity about Anakin and women. His dreams about his mother. Padme. The women at the club leering at him, and his just brushing them off with a hand wave. The two faced assassin woman. It's interesting to think about. He says that being around Padme is "intoxicating." Is he at all intoxicated by other women, like Zam, maybe the girls at the club? Or is he just fixated on Padme? I think the latter is probably true. There's a lot of subtext in the Padme assassination/speeder chase/club scene trinity about Anakin and women. His dreams about his mother. Padme. The women at the club leering at him, and his just brushing them off with a hand wave. The two faced assassin woman. It's interesting to think about. The speeder chase sequence is indeed a masterpiece of subtext. Haha, yes Cryo would. In fact we talked about this quite a bit in the chat threads many moons ago. And I agree, this scene has many layers of subtext, it kills many mynocks with one stone. I think the first layer is quite simple though. The Force is a delicate instrument, it can be used to protect but also damage, and Jedi must remain in balance. When Anakin daringly uses his lightsaber, an extension of his Force powers, to save Padmé, he shows how much of a risk he's willing to take with his gifts to save his loved ones. And at this age we see how much he likes to show off, and try to impress Padmé. Later, when he's not able to keep his mother alive, and promises to become the most powerful Jedi ever and learn the ability to stop people from dying, it's not really a surprise out of nowhere. It's the next step beyond his already precarious balance. Not to mention the great lenghts he went to during the chase sequence to find Padmé's would-be assassin. And how angry he got at Zam, which got her to confess, which caused Jango to fire the dart... And of course, his fall revolves around wanting to use his power to save his loved ones. But in a way, so does his redemption. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 9, 2023 21:35:44 GMT
I believe Anakin fixing his two pod engines mid-race and how it symbolizes balancing the Force was mentioned before.  But I was just thinking about Anakin's pod and Sebubla's pod getting hooked together. And as Sebulba is Anakin's antagonist, this could symbolize or foreshadow Anakin getting hooked up with the Sith.  And then Anakin breaking free and winning the race could foreshadow eventually breaking free and balancing the Force.  |
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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 9, 2023 23:04:02 GMT
Yes. It is also relevant to your point that Anakin's podracer trouble originates with Sebulba's sabotage before the race begins. This is a very greedy and parasitic thing for Sebulba to do, so by balancing the Force, you eliminate the parasitic damage to the system.
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 10, 2023 8:08:39 GMT
Exactly! This all popped into my head late last night and I was trying to knead out the sabotage part, but now that I've slept on it, yes, I could also see Sebulba's sabotage as a parallel to Palpatine manipulating Anakin. It seems Sebubla broke off a component that helps vent the heat in the engine and regulate a proper temperature.  In AotC, we see Anakin venting to Padmé about his frustrations, and I get the impression it's the first time he's done so. Frustrations which had been pent up for years and finally erupted out in the Tusken camp. Afterwards, he never talked to anyone about the details of his mother's death, or the slaughter or any of the pain it was causing him. Except Palpatine of course. Yes, if Anakin had told the Jedi he would've been expelled, but that's a consequence Anakin needed to face. He also did not let anyone know he was married, again for fear of consequences, but this secret, combined with his buried pain, contributed greatly to his fall. I tend to think Palpatine played a big part in advising and convincing young Anakin it's best to keep his frustrations to himself than to express them to the Jedi.  And maybe even for the events on Tatooine that fateful day. |
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Post by Seeker of the Whills on Sept 10, 2023 9:01:42 GMT
That's very cool. It just made me think how Sebulba's cry as he crashes his pod is pretty similar to Palpatine's cry as he's thrown down the reactor.
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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 10, 2023 17:57:28 GMT
That's very cool. It just made me think how Sebulba's cry as he crashes his pod is pretty similar to Palpatine's cry as he's thrown down the reactor. You have a good ear for spotting aural details. |
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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 10, 2023 19:14:31 GMT
Subtext Mining Yup. The Sith are the ultimate saboteurs. Palpatine's miseducation of Anakin is indeed a prime example. On top of that, if the galaxy is a giant cell, the Sith are parasites who are sabotaging the whole shebang. Seeker of the Whills The way Sebulba puts his hands up to shield himself from the impact also recalls Palpatine's hands raised in Force Lightning formation when Anakin tosses him down the reactor. An old screenwriting convention is this: the end is in the beginning.
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 11, 2023 8:09:33 GMT
The Anakin/Sebubla dynamic has always fascinated me, and I go back to it here and there. For example, I like how Obi-Wan splits his antagonist in half, and Anakin also splits his antagonist in half (Sebulba's pods). But I have Seeker of the Whills to thank for this. In your thread The Qui-Gon Touch you asked about who's idea it was for him to put his hand on people's shoulders, and I can swear I heard or read somewhere Lucas saying it was Liam Neeson's idea. I thought it was in the blu-ray commentary, but couldn't find it. But, I was listening during the podrace scene and he talks about how tricky it was to find a way to get Anakin's and Sebubla's pods stuck together and boom.  And also in that commentary he talks about how THX 1138 isn't just three acts, it's three different movies, each telling the same story, but told in a different way. And he talks about how that's how he likes to make movies. |
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Post by Seeker of the Whills on Sept 11, 2023 9:21:31 GMT
That's very cool. It just made me think how Sebulba's cry as he crashes his pod is pretty similar to Palpatine's cry as he's thrown down the reactor. You have a good ear for spotting aural details. Thanks. I guess I must have made the connection subconsciously, because I never really thought about it before until I read your and Subtext Mining's posts. The Anakin/Sebubla dynamic has always fascinated me, and I go back to it here and there. For example, I like how Obi-Wan splits his antagonist in half, and Anakin also splits his antagonist in half (Sebulba's pods). But I have Seeker of the Whills to thank for this. In your thread The Qui-Gon Touch you asked about who's idea it was for him to put his hand on people's shoulders, and I can swear I heard or read somewhere Lucas saying it was Liam Neeson's idea. I thought it was in the blu-ray commentary, but couldn't find it. But, I was listening during the podrace scene and he talks about how tricky it was to find a way to get Anakin's and Sebubla's pods stuck together and boom. And also in that commentary he talks about how THX 1138 isn't just three acts, it's three different movies, each telling the same story, but told in a different way. And he talks about how that's how he likes to make movies. Yeah, I don't think Lucas mentions who came up with the Qui-Gon touch in the Blu-ray commentary. I would be very interested to find a source where he talks about that. It's indeed interesting that the pod race is three laps long, and it's in the third one that Anakin and Sebulba get entangled, like Anakin and Palpatine in the third prequel film, as well as that Anakin defeats Sebulba, like Anakin does Palpatine in the third original film. There's a lot of connections in the pod race, such as the Tusken Raiders. It would be interesting to go through the scene with a fine-tooth comb and analyze what happens in each lap. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 29, 2023 9:30:21 GMT
A little foreshadowing here, on Anakin's behalf?  And on a cheeky level, we even have foreshadowing with "Do it!" as seen before Anakin kills Dooku. |
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Post by smittysgelato on Sept 29, 2023 19:05:00 GMT
He wants her "TO DO IT" (i.e. Anakin) so that Anakin will have one more Achilles heel that he can exploit. LOL.
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Post by Moonshield on Sept 30, 2023 13:47:53 GMT
When Padme touches Luke, that symbolism was always clear to me - Luke inherits her personality and traits.
And he is the one who actually can convince Vader to destroy the Emperor.
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Post by jppiper on Oct 6, 2023 18:43:58 GMT
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Post by Subtext Mining on Oct 9, 2023 22:27:37 GMT
Just moments after Luke sees his dark side self in the cave, 3P0 sees his evil twin emerge from this side room, which he then enters.  We then see his head fly off from the blast, much like Vader's severed head. |
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Oct 9, 2023 23:05:34 GMT
Just moments after Luke sees his dark side self in the cave, 3P0 sees his evil twin emerge from this side room, which he then enters. We then see his head fly off from the blast, much like Vader's severed head. excellent |
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Post by smittysgelato on Oct 20, 2023 4:09:49 GMT
You might say that Anakin blew the Sith and The Empire up from the inside just like how he blew up the Trade Federation Control ship from the inside.
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Post by Subtext Mining on Oct 20, 2023 9:19:22 GMT
Ooo, I like it! And I'm reminded of this.  |
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Nov 17, 2023 20:51:48 GMT
From Red Tails. Recognise the Yin/Yang clouds?   |
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