The Changing Nature Of Coruscant (Vintage Prequel Essay)
Jun 10, 2021 21:39:16 GMT
Subtext Mining, stampidhd280pro, and 2 more like this
Post by Cryogenic on Jun 10, 2021 21:39:16 GMT
I've retrieved the following prequel essay from my archives. All these years later, it remains an enjoyable read.
Credit to author Lord_Hydronium for putting this out all the way back in December 2005.
The essay can be accessed on TFN, but it has been truncated since March 2012 (due to migration of board content to new software). Unfortunately, it cannot be retrieved using The Wayback Machine (there are no available snapshots). Luckily, I have a complete version in my own files, so I reproduce it in full (completely unaltered) below:
-----------------------------------------------------
Wow, this turned out longer than I expected. Props to those who read the whole thing.
After watching the PT straight through, something came to me about Coruscant and the role it has in each movie, namely that it steadily progresses from a place of refuge to the most dangerous place in the galaxy. Coruscant is the center of the PT, both literally and figuratively. Not only is it the most important location to the people of the galaxy, and all the characters are based from there, but almost everything important that happens in the PT can be traced back to Coruscant. The very first opening crawl of the saga tells us the whole thing was started by taxation of trade routes, which as Palpatine points out "began right here" in the Senate Chamber.
TPM: The only movie of the PT that doesn't start on Coruscant, incidentally. This ties in well with its role here: Coruscant is the goal our heroes are trying to reach. The first acts of the movie are a flight from danger, with Coruscant serving as a place of refuge (the Rivendell of TPM, if you will). The heroes continually mention that they're trying to get there, the implication being that once they get there, everything will be all right. Yet even before they reach it, we're already shown the danger that lies within, with the appearance of two Sith Lords in its heart. But when they do arrive, for a moment it lives up to everything it's touted to be. But only for a moment; after our brief view of a beautiful metropolis, we are immediately taken to Palpatine's office where we learn that at the heart of the grandeur lies corruption. This is exemplified even further as we're taken to the Senate, where the myth that reaching Coruscant will fix all problems is shattered. The Jedi Council breaks it even further as we learn that Anakin's own journey here isn't as wondrous as he expected, as he is not to be trained.
Just like Padme sees that the Republic no longer functions, so have we. By the time we leave Coruscant, it's nighttime, an obvious bit of symbolism. And look at Jar Jar's reaction: while arriving on Coruscant was the big thing before and they left Naboo in the first place to escape from danger, he's now excited above all else to be going home; even if "home" is conquered by the Trade Federation, in a way so is Coruscant. It's notable that there are no action scenes on Coruscant - it's not a place of danger or violence yet, but rather a place to plan the next course of action. It's also a place isolated from the rest of the galaxy; the Jedi Council and Senate both sit in their chambers, dismissing reports of dangers in the galaxy and forcing others to take action if they want to see anything done.
AOTC: For the first time, we begin at Coruscant. This is a sign of its new role, as the home base from which everyone travels to their various destinations. Padme and Anakin have now made their own homes on Coruscant, and now the main characters are all centralized in one location. Coruscant becomes a very literal center of action. But first thing first: our first glimpse of Coruscant is through the bizarre pan-up, a change that immediately gives the whole thing a slightly unsettling feeling, which is only heightened by the really dark coloring scheme and rather creepy music. It goes back to Coruscant's two introductions in TPM: the first was creepy and unexpected, with sinister music, while the second was a glorious spectacle with a grandiose and cheerful cue. AOTC harkens back to the former. So we instantly know something is off; Coruscant isn't a nice, safe, utopian refuge. As the ship arrives, we get fog, again something to make the whole thing more off-putting. Then we get the payoff: right at the heart of the Republic, the ultimate safe spot free from the galaxy's myriad dangers, an extremely violent attack, in which at least one character is killed (the first person to die on Coruscant onscreen, notice). So now we get it; Coruscant is not safe anymore, and the galaxy is a more dangerous place for it. "I shouldn't have come back," Padme says, and when you compare this to the determination to reach here in TPM, it's apparent just how much has changed. And so after some introductions night falls, the first time we have beeen on Coruscant at night for any sustained time. There's a lot more scenes here at night in this movie, as well as twlight and dawn; again, the symbolism should be apparent. And how better to signify the fall of darkness than the presence of two assassins, one of whom manages to infiltrate a deadly weapon into the very room of a protected Senator? The first Coruscant action sequence is a good sign that the walls are dropping, and people are becoming involved in the danger whether they like it or not, no matter how safe they seem to be.
So going back to the idea of Coruscant as home base: Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme are all dispatched in their own ways to leave the planet. Mace and Yoda will follow later in the movie. Coruscant may have its share of dangers, but the larger dangers in the galaxy have not reached it yet; people have to go "out there" to find them. A couple points of note: notice where Anakin and Padme are going, considered to be more safe than Coruscant: Naboo; it's a complete reversal from the situation in TPM. Also, the Outlander Club and Dex's Diner are the first signs of a seedy underbelly to Coruscant, as well as the presence of commoners; we only saw rich people in TPM. These have less of an overall impact, and unfortunately don't appear again, but they are an interesting example of how the futuristic utopia really isn't. In a way, TPM told us that this what Coruscant looked like; AOTC tells us what it really is.
And of course we have politics, the ubiquitous feature of Coruscant. In a way, this is business as usual; Coruscant is the place where important decisions are made that affect everyone else. The isolation is beginning to drop, though; we hear of Jedi going out into the galaxy and solving problems. Not that they didn't do that before, but as the opening crawl informs us, it's to an even greater extent now. And later in the movie, for the second time, a pivotal moment occurs in the Senate Chamber that will affect everyone in the galaxy. This is the vote for emergency powers, of course (the first was the Vote of No Confidence), showing us that while the bulk of action may be happening elsewhere, the truly important events are right on Coruscant. And at the end of the movie, what better place for the future Stormtroopers to rally than the heart of the Republic?. The massing army indicates that war has indirectly come to Coruscant, a nice bit of foreshadowing. And Dooku's return and meeting with Sidious serves the same purpose as Maul and Sidious' in TPM: it tells us that despite what we may think, the Sith are still at the heart of Coruscant, and its apparent safety is, as always, a temporary illusion.
ROTS: We begin again at Coruscant, a sign of its continuing use as home base. And to start us off we get the opening of AOTC times a thousand: Coruscant is not safe, not isolated, and not a place where people leave to take part in great things elsewhere. It is the center of the war, the center of danger, and the Separatists have shattered any misconceptions of refuge or tranquility that were left. Anakin's crash landing is somewhat reminiscent of his crash in the speeder in AOTC, except the stakes have certainly been upped from a speeder in a street full of people to a ship landing on a city. A warship rains down in pieces on the capital of the Republic; it's hard to bring the dangers of the war much closer or more obvious than that without actual fighting on the planet.
So as mentioned, Coruscant is still the home base. Obi-Wan and Anakin are still both sent out on missions, although what they go to face has changed. When Obi-Wan left to find the clone army, it was of major significance. In the large scale, the death of Grievous and the Separatist leaders isn't. The true threat lies back on Coruscant itself. But that comes later. For now, it's of note that unlike the last two, the most important events of the galaxy occur on Coruscant (that hasn't changed), but this time it's obvious that they're the most important. It's pretty apparent just from screen time that Coruscant is the central location of ROTS, unlike the last two where it really only took center stage for one act. To go back to the idea of centralization, we began the saga with all the characters separated, each living in their own part of the galaxy; we continued with the characters all living on Coruscant, but still using it as a jumping-off point to journey off into the galaxy; we complete it with everyone brought together on Coruscant and just about every important event taking place there. Padme and Anakin don't leave except for that one time to meet their fates. Obi-Wan, Bail, and Yoda leave, and are forced to return. Destiny draws everyone back to Coruscant eventually, but not under happy circumstances any more. Anyone who comes back comes back out of duty (the Jedi and Bail) or in the case of Anakin, in extreme agony and on the verge of death. Every decision to leave Coruscant is a point of no return for these characters (Palpatine excepted, because he's the architect of the tragedy).
And so eventually the danger is made apparent, and once again, people die in the heart of the Republic, in the Chancellor's office itself, the symbol of the Republic's executive power. A good example of danger at the very core of the deceptively pleasant facade. The Senate fight serves the same purpose; a familiar area put through hell to show us just how much things have changed. And of course, we have the Jedi Temple itself become a slaughtering ground. A bit about visual symbolism again: darkness, clouds, and shadows are big for Coruscant exterior shots, with a couple of noticeable examples and one exception. The first, in the scene I just mentioned, is the cityscape outside Palpatine's office. It's night, obviously, and the entire city is bathed in a sickly yellow glow. It's windy, too, which is used to great effect; when the window breaks, the characters are now exposed to the elements. The artificial barrier that separates Palpatine's office from the imminent peril of a thousands-foot drop is suddenly shattered, and it changes the mood from a relatively safe (except for, you know, the lightsabers) interior duel, to a dangerous duel on the edge of a precipice. A bit like the Duel of the Fates moving from the flat hangar to the precarious walkways of the reactor area; it ups the tension immediately, and ties back nicely to the idea that the walls that the Jedi and Senate isolated themselves within couldn't last. The dangerous universe is out there, waiting. The second example is the storm during the resurrection of Vader. Comparisons to Frankenstein aside, this is the first storm we've seen on Coruscant, and I don't think I need to explain the metaphor. The gloomy, dismal setting is perfect for what follows. And the third example is the exception; when the Tantive IV returns to Coruscant after a series of very harrowing events to witness the birth of the Empire, what's the mood? Is it dark, dismal, depressing? No, it's a bright, sunny morning, with a musical cue that manages to sound almost optimistic. This is the homecoming. The characters have left the refuge, gotten themselves in trouble, and now return. The shot tells us, "OK, we've visited odd corners of the galaxy and gotten into trouble, but now we're back home. Things are starting anew, for good or evil." Literally, it's the dawn of a new age.
For the third time, we return to the Senate for the third momentous event to come out of these chambers; the declaration of the first Galactic Empire. Look at how the dynamic of this has changed since TPM: the call for no confidence was a vote, with multiple senators from different sides speaking. The emergency powers was also a vote, but it was presented in the form of one senator giving a speech and Palpatine accepting, without any real debate. And this is even more a show; no senator speaks (in official capacity, anyway) and the entire event is run by Palpatine; all the senators chip in is applause. If the first Senate scene was to show us that the myth of Coruscant did not function as we expected, this shows us that it is a complete lie; the beings applauding are applauding away their own existence, and they don't even care. Every Senate scene, ironically enough, is one step taken closer to the death of democracy, and the final one heralds its defeat.
I've strayed from the topic of Coruscant's role to get into other related subjects, but now to bring it all back. We began with Coruscant as the grand legend, the ultimate refuge that the heroes sought, where evil could not reach and the Republic would justly defend the good and innocent. Every step after that took one more step in destroying that myth, until by the end of ROTS, it has become the exact opposite. Coruscant is the most dangerous place in the galaxy; it is the place all our heroes flee from, the ultimate home of evil, and the place where the Republic slew itself. It is a perfect microcosm of the tragedy of the prequels; the decline of a glorious metropolis into the domain of evil. But you look back, and see that from the moment we first saw it with two Sith Lords it was dark, dangerous, and corrupt. And it never changed its look; the gleaming buildings and towering spires are all still there, only now we know what lives within. Coruscant is less like Anakin and more like Palpatine, then; its pleasant facade has masked a heart of darkness. It's only after watching the entire story that we can finally see it.
Lord_Hydronium, Dec 8, 2005
Credit to author Lord_Hydronium for putting this out all the way back in December 2005.
The essay can be accessed on TFN, but it has been truncated since March 2012 (due to migration of board content to new software). Unfortunately, it cannot be retrieved using The Wayback Machine (there are no available snapshots). Luckily, I have a complete version in my own files, so I reproduce it in full (completely unaltered) below:
-----------------------------------------------------
Wow, this turned out longer than I expected. Props to those who read the whole thing.
After watching the PT straight through, something came to me about Coruscant and the role it has in each movie, namely that it steadily progresses from a place of refuge to the most dangerous place in the galaxy. Coruscant is the center of the PT, both literally and figuratively. Not only is it the most important location to the people of the galaxy, and all the characters are based from there, but almost everything important that happens in the PT can be traced back to Coruscant. The very first opening crawl of the saga tells us the whole thing was started by taxation of trade routes, which as Palpatine points out "began right here" in the Senate Chamber.
TPM: The only movie of the PT that doesn't start on Coruscant, incidentally. This ties in well with its role here: Coruscant is the goal our heroes are trying to reach. The first acts of the movie are a flight from danger, with Coruscant serving as a place of refuge (the Rivendell of TPM, if you will). The heroes continually mention that they're trying to get there, the implication being that once they get there, everything will be all right. Yet even before they reach it, we're already shown the danger that lies within, with the appearance of two Sith Lords in its heart. But when they do arrive, for a moment it lives up to everything it's touted to be. But only for a moment; after our brief view of a beautiful metropolis, we are immediately taken to Palpatine's office where we learn that at the heart of the grandeur lies corruption. This is exemplified even further as we're taken to the Senate, where the myth that reaching Coruscant will fix all problems is shattered. The Jedi Council breaks it even further as we learn that Anakin's own journey here isn't as wondrous as he expected, as he is not to be trained.
Just like Padme sees that the Republic no longer functions, so have we. By the time we leave Coruscant, it's nighttime, an obvious bit of symbolism. And look at Jar Jar's reaction: while arriving on Coruscant was the big thing before and they left Naboo in the first place to escape from danger, he's now excited above all else to be going home; even if "home" is conquered by the Trade Federation, in a way so is Coruscant. It's notable that there are no action scenes on Coruscant - it's not a place of danger or violence yet, but rather a place to plan the next course of action. It's also a place isolated from the rest of the galaxy; the Jedi Council and Senate both sit in their chambers, dismissing reports of dangers in the galaxy and forcing others to take action if they want to see anything done.
AOTC: For the first time, we begin at Coruscant. This is a sign of its new role, as the home base from which everyone travels to their various destinations. Padme and Anakin have now made their own homes on Coruscant, and now the main characters are all centralized in one location. Coruscant becomes a very literal center of action. But first thing first: our first glimpse of Coruscant is through the bizarre pan-up, a change that immediately gives the whole thing a slightly unsettling feeling, which is only heightened by the really dark coloring scheme and rather creepy music. It goes back to Coruscant's two introductions in TPM: the first was creepy and unexpected, with sinister music, while the second was a glorious spectacle with a grandiose and cheerful cue. AOTC harkens back to the former. So we instantly know something is off; Coruscant isn't a nice, safe, utopian refuge. As the ship arrives, we get fog, again something to make the whole thing more off-putting. Then we get the payoff: right at the heart of the Republic, the ultimate safe spot free from the galaxy's myriad dangers, an extremely violent attack, in which at least one character is killed (the first person to die on Coruscant onscreen, notice). So now we get it; Coruscant is not safe anymore, and the galaxy is a more dangerous place for it. "I shouldn't have come back," Padme says, and when you compare this to the determination to reach here in TPM, it's apparent just how much has changed. And so after some introductions night falls, the first time we have beeen on Coruscant at night for any sustained time. There's a lot more scenes here at night in this movie, as well as twlight and dawn; again, the symbolism should be apparent. And how better to signify the fall of darkness than the presence of two assassins, one of whom manages to infiltrate a deadly weapon into the very room of a protected Senator? The first Coruscant action sequence is a good sign that the walls are dropping, and people are becoming involved in the danger whether they like it or not, no matter how safe they seem to be.
So going back to the idea of Coruscant as home base: Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme are all dispatched in their own ways to leave the planet. Mace and Yoda will follow later in the movie. Coruscant may have its share of dangers, but the larger dangers in the galaxy have not reached it yet; people have to go "out there" to find them. A couple points of note: notice where Anakin and Padme are going, considered to be more safe than Coruscant: Naboo; it's a complete reversal from the situation in TPM. Also, the Outlander Club and Dex's Diner are the first signs of a seedy underbelly to Coruscant, as well as the presence of commoners; we only saw rich people in TPM. These have less of an overall impact, and unfortunately don't appear again, but they are an interesting example of how the futuristic utopia really isn't. In a way, TPM told us that this what Coruscant looked like; AOTC tells us what it really is.
And of course we have politics, the ubiquitous feature of Coruscant. In a way, this is business as usual; Coruscant is the place where important decisions are made that affect everyone else. The isolation is beginning to drop, though; we hear of Jedi going out into the galaxy and solving problems. Not that they didn't do that before, but as the opening crawl informs us, it's to an even greater extent now. And later in the movie, for the second time, a pivotal moment occurs in the Senate Chamber that will affect everyone in the galaxy. This is the vote for emergency powers, of course (the first was the Vote of No Confidence), showing us that while the bulk of action may be happening elsewhere, the truly important events are right on Coruscant. And at the end of the movie, what better place for the future Stormtroopers to rally than the heart of the Republic?. The massing army indicates that war has indirectly come to Coruscant, a nice bit of foreshadowing. And Dooku's return and meeting with Sidious serves the same purpose as Maul and Sidious' in TPM: it tells us that despite what we may think, the Sith are still at the heart of Coruscant, and its apparent safety is, as always, a temporary illusion.
ROTS: We begin again at Coruscant, a sign of its continuing use as home base. And to start us off we get the opening of AOTC times a thousand: Coruscant is not safe, not isolated, and not a place where people leave to take part in great things elsewhere. It is the center of the war, the center of danger, and the Separatists have shattered any misconceptions of refuge or tranquility that were left. Anakin's crash landing is somewhat reminiscent of his crash in the speeder in AOTC, except the stakes have certainly been upped from a speeder in a street full of people to a ship landing on a city. A warship rains down in pieces on the capital of the Republic; it's hard to bring the dangers of the war much closer or more obvious than that without actual fighting on the planet.
So as mentioned, Coruscant is still the home base. Obi-Wan and Anakin are still both sent out on missions, although what they go to face has changed. When Obi-Wan left to find the clone army, it was of major significance. In the large scale, the death of Grievous and the Separatist leaders isn't. The true threat lies back on Coruscant itself. But that comes later. For now, it's of note that unlike the last two, the most important events of the galaxy occur on Coruscant (that hasn't changed), but this time it's obvious that they're the most important. It's pretty apparent just from screen time that Coruscant is the central location of ROTS, unlike the last two where it really only took center stage for one act. To go back to the idea of centralization, we began the saga with all the characters separated, each living in their own part of the galaxy; we continued with the characters all living on Coruscant, but still using it as a jumping-off point to journey off into the galaxy; we complete it with everyone brought together on Coruscant and just about every important event taking place there. Padme and Anakin don't leave except for that one time to meet their fates. Obi-Wan, Bail, and Yoda leave, and are forced to return. Destiny draws everyone back to Coruscant eventually, but not under happy circumstances any more. Anyone who comes back comes back out of duty (the Jedi and Bail) or in the case of Anakin, in extreme agony and on the verge of death. Every decision to leave Coruscant is a point of no return for these characters (Palpatine excepted, because he's the architect of the tragedy).
And so eventually the danger is made apparent, and once again, people die in the heart of the Republic, in the Chancellor's office itself, the symbol of the Republic's executive power. A good example of danger at the very core of the deceptively pleasant facade. The Senate fight serves the same purpose; a familiar area put through hell to show us just how much things have changed. And of course, we have the Jedi Temple itself become a slaughtering ground. A bit about visual symbolism again: darkness, clouds, and shadows are big for Coruscant exterior shots, with a couple of noticeable examples and one exception. The first, in the scene I just mentioned, is the cityscape outside Palpatine's office. It's night, obviously, and the entire city is bathed in a sickly yellow glow. It's windy, too, which is used to great effect; when the window breaks, the characters are now exposed to the elements. The artificial barrier that separates Palpatine's office from the imminent peril of a thousands-foot drop is suddenly shattered, and it changes the mood from a relatively safe (except for, you know, the lightsabers) interior duel, to a dangerous duel on the edge of a precipice. A bit like the Duel of the Fates moving from the flat hangar to the precarious walkways of the reactor area; it ups the tension immediately, and ties back nicely to the idea that the walls that the Jedi and Senate isolated themselves within couldn't last. The dangerous universe is out there, waiting. The second example is the storm during the resurrection of Vader. Comparisons to Frankenstein aside, this is the first storm we've seen on Coruscant, and I don't think I need to explain the metaphor. The gloomy, dismal setting is perfect for what follows. And the third example is the exception; when the Tantive IV returns to Coruscant after a series of very harrowing events to witness the birth of the Empire, what's the mood? Is it dark, dismal, depressing? No, it's a bright, sunny morning, with a musical cue that manages to sound almost optimistic. This is the homecoming. The characters have left the refuge, gotten themselves in trouble, and now return. The shot tells us, "OK, we've visited odd corners of the galaxy and gotten into trouble, but now we're back home. Things are starting anew, for good or evil." Literally, it's the dawn of a new age.
For the third time, we return to the Senate for the third momentous event to come out of these chambers; the declaration of the first Galactic Empire. Look at how the dynamic of this has changed since TPM: the call for no confidence was a vote, with multiple senators from different sides speaking. The emergency powers was also a vote, but it was presented in the form of one senator giving a speech and Palpatine accepting, without any real debate. And this is even more a show; no senator speaks (in official capacity, anyway) and the entire event is run by Palpatine; all the senators chip in is applause. If the first Senate scene was to show us that the myth of Coruscant did not function as we expected, this shows us that it is a complete lie; the beings applauding are applauding away their own existence, and they don't even care. Every Senate scene, ironically enough, is one step taken closer to the death of democracy, and the final one heralds its defeat.
I've strayed from the topic of Coruscant's role to get into other related subjects, but now to bring it all back. We began with Coruscant as the grand legend, the ultimate refuge that the heroes sought, where evil could not reach and the Republic would justly defend the good and innocent. Every step after that took one more step in destroying that myth, until by the end of ROTS, it has become the exact opposite. Coruscant is the most dangerous place in the galaxy; it is the place all our heroes flee from, the ultimate home of evil, and the place where the Republic slew itself. It is a perfect microcosm of the tragedy of the prequels; the decline of a glorious metropolis into the domain of evil. But you look back, and see that from the moment we first saw it with two Sith Lords it was dark, dangerous, and corrupt. And it never changed its look; the gleaming buildings and towering spires are all still there, only now we know what lives within. Coruscant is less like Anakin and more like Palpatine, then; its pleasant facade has masked a heart of darkness. It's only after watching the entire story that we can finally see it.
Lord_Hydronium, Dec 8, 2005