Alright, Lando!
My bad... Anakin!!!
So many lines, ugh, agh... I'll go with...
With all these programs have been through, these newer ones have become a little eccentric.
That's very cool to know!!! You and I have brought up that very linkage before. So I was teasing a bit. If that one observation has sat in your mind's eye and inspired so much, I'm most gratified.
We could even finesse my earlier observation a bit. The droideka bursts forth from the white of Padme's garment (and this is the first scene -- the announcement of the clone army to more than just Mace and Yoda -- that Padme wears her non-covered all-white jumpsuit in). White, in Asian culture, often signifies death, and white is the main colour of the cloning facilities and living (heh) quarters of Kamino, and is carried through to the clones themselves. The appearance of the clones is an epochal event in the SW galaxy on many levels. Indeed, TPM is the only live action SW film without white-suited soldiers, or even much in the way of "hot white" ship interiors or landscapes. It is like death hasn't fully entered the world yet. Episode I is sort of the dream before the dream; the podrace before the sonic boom.
Yes! And to all that you subsequently said on the topic: I agree that this is a core theme in the PT. The loss of the sacred feminine. In fact, it's so core, especially in AOTC, that I sometimes forget how vital it is, becoming distracted by the cortex or all the sheafing around it. But boy (or girl), it gives AOTC, in particular, tremendous symbolic power -- a movie that is already teeming with juicy and provocative symbolism; or, put another way, like its brethren, positively rippling (where's Pyro?) with fluidic elusive minutiae. Ack (lay)! Don't get me started on these majestic prequels and triadic braids. I'll be here for the rest of the century.
That's quite interesting when you remember that C-3PO was inspired by the robot in "Metropolis", and C-3PO is putatively male, while the robot in Fritz Lang's visual masterpiece is female. Also: C-3PO and the Ewoks. Including a long-haired Leia, who can't convince the Ewoks by herself to free her friends.
The circle is now complete! Can't deny those circles and epicycles; or Grievous-cycles.
"A long time ago". Time demands to be obeyed! But yeah, absolutely. I've found the same thing, just when it comes to sorting through my pictures, or writing out certain thoughts in certain circumstances. It's especially problematic for me on a social media platform like Facebook. If I'm trying to capture the essence of an article I'm sharing, for instance, I often find myself quoting too much of it. But when I cut it down, I find that it's missing essential details. I often want those details to be there, instead of just posting a link (as many people do) or offering a quick caption that "sums" up the thing I'm linking to. It's a struggle to find the right balance. And then, at some point, for a variety of reasons, I invariably get bored, frustrated, and weirded-out by the whole Facebook experience. Well, that's another discussion...
You've just aligned editing with the Dark Side! You're just a simple man trying to make your way through a trailer of textual nuggets and visual impressions. No, but seriously, that line of Anakin's is interesting in that light (and many others). Lucas has said that filmmakers are like mini emperors (or Emperors).
Seeing Jar Jar in different contexts... I'm all about seeing Jar Jar in different contexts...
Hey, not THOSE kinds of contexts... Maybe those kinds...
I do wonder what Jar Jar is thinking in that moment. It's almost a little preview of "seeing" Anakin struggle inside the mask of Vader in his final moments, fighting his conscience and deciding what to do, as Palpatine fries Luke. "If only Senator Amidala were here." And later: "Come to your senses! What do you think Padme would do if she were in your position?" And a non-SW line: "The terrible fluidity of self-revelation" (Henry James).
We do get to glimpse Jar Jar's innocence -- much like Anakin and Padme's (and, in a way, the "innocence" of the Jedi, when they lead the clones and go to war for the Republic/the Sith) -- slipping away in that moment. Jar Jar, barely more than a youngling himself, especially in the world of Machiavellian, cutthroat politics, now feels pressured to make a deep and serious choice. The fate of an entire galaxy is practically hoisted onto his shoulders in this one moment. He wasn't built for these things. Oh, for one more day of swimming and brisky mornin munchen. I hate (love) how he's on his own in the scene! The office may be populated with powerful mentalities, but no-one is reaching out to Jar Jar. A very sombre and quietly intense moment, which these films are full of.
The waning of the feminine is also an interesting concept to explore through Jar Jar. After all, he comes from the same lush garden planet Padme does, and he's her "representative" -- by her own wording -- in AOTC. And there is that earlier line from Anakin to Obi-Wan: "I think he's a she. And I think she's a changeling." The repetition of the word "think", too, after Obi-Wan told Anakin, before crossing the threshold, "Use the force. Think!" I feel like responding with a Han line from TFA: "That's not now the Force works!" Anakin is now somehow sensitised to going through the world in terms of categories. The person they're trying to capture is a "this" or a "that". What, by comparison, is Jar Jar? We may move closer to solving this riddle by looking up the word "changeling" in a dictionary. And then considering his x-ness, or his y-ness, in more contextualised terms. But that might also be to repeat the fallacies of Obi-Wan and Anakin. What *is* Jar Jar?
Sorry. I do get carried away when Jar Jar enters the frame...
Was it dangerous?
I'll bring some Jedi round!
Such a great and hypnotic opening image! You know, I knew an early shot from "The Last Jedi" (dare I keep mentioning these Disney films here?) was resonating with me in a peculiar way:
And now, Subtext's igloo shot is all that remains of the silhouette religion...
They saw a city in the clouds. A city of murder, fog, and mayhem. A city without Jar Jar. He was banished from the Gungan city, don't forget...
It's like poetry...
Your wording even rhymes.
OMG! The resonances now...
"Right." My responses have become meta...
I had a thought on that imagery of Anakin, in particular, years ago. Something along the lines of his being yanked right, into the future, toward his destiny...
But yes, Obi-Wan is the onlooker ("I have observed..." -- he does a lot of this in the movie), and it's interesting you noticed that little inversion.
There are, indeed. Heck, it even has people talking through a wall! Muffled voices.
I was going to comment on your trailer's sound mixing/editing, but I forgot. The bosses will do terrible things to me...
I'll have to revisit your trailer a couple of times to focus more on the sound field. You've done well.
Ah! Great stuff! So now we can actually look upon the Republic as a "her"? That's quite inspired. Padme, the prequels, Jar Jar, and now, the Republic. Yes, feminine qualities are here in droves, all tracing back (in a way) to Han referring to his beloved Millennium Falcon with the female pronoun.
I think I have even eased on Kathleen Kennedy wearing that "The Force Is Female" t-shirt because of this stuff. Oh, God! Cryo, would you please stop with the Disney references? But yeah, as prequel fans, we should strive to understand the inner meanings better, and be less reactive...
"So this is low liberty dies." Not intended as snark based on the former paragraph. Just pondering things.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibertyFrom the entry:
So Padme, the prequel trilogy's central female character, is passing comment on the death of the prequel trilogy's other central feminine character (they're twin suns, okay?), from a certain point of view.
Clones is such a tangled web. Oasis fits. In the middle of the movie, Anakin states that Padme's presence is soothing. How I love that line and that whole scene! It's really just an intermission, but what a beautiful and poignant one it is...
I also love how the film transitions (by design) from blue to orange: Watto to Jar Jar. Or whatever in-universe metaphor you want to pick. So it goes from, I dunno, false comfort (Watto owning his shop and getting by with cool confidence) to a sort of jangled (jangoed) outsider status. The galaxy becomes jarred. Jar Jar's Big Adventure.
I've got onto Jar Jar again, haven't I? No again! No! The beings here about...
But anyway, I guess there has to be a mild, misty-eyed middle, since -- as you imply -- there's such a menagerie of moods, events, and emotions happening on either side. There are heroes on both sides. A great Star Wars movie is everywhere.
Right. Trouble in paradise and heaven's not the same. Oh, what a great song that is. But yeah: Anakin cannot find peace and tranquility on the garden paradise of Naboo. In that sense, he echoes Boromir in Lothlorien. See, Tony? I can say nice things about LOTR -- sometimes.
And it's through this departure of Anakin's, where he races off to a forsaken world he knows better, and Padme accompanies him (Naboo is truly being left behind -- until the close of the movie), that he ends up putting himself out of sync with Obi-Wan. The weird thing is, the film reaches this intense moment of visual overlap between the Jedi brothers on their private journeys on rocky worlds, as if they are almost the same character, only for the symmetry to break down once Anakin makes his fateful leap into the Tusken camp -- the world of the unconscious/the underworld -- below. Paradise (and synchronicity) lost.
Yeah. Great alignment; very thematically cogent. Secrets and lies. And how they have a way of undoing things in time. The SW saga, to say the least, is something of a learning portal.
Right. He's even staring at that same hand before he makes his confession. And when Padme first enters the scene, he's idly working on that mechanical part (presumably a speeder part, since he says, "The shifter broke"), which I feel visually echoes his exposed robot hand, or what's left of it, when Luke cuts it off in Episode VI (the sticky-outy wires). And that mechanical hand, the replacement hand that Anakin receives at the end of AOTC, is the hand that Padme grasps portentously in the wedding. Not to mention the hand that Anakin chokes Padme with in Episode III. So Luke cuts off the last tactile remnant of their bond, with all its promise and tragedy. Some sort of purification event.
Yes. AOTC is the medulla or marrow of the entire PT and SW saga. I do think, by and large, the middles are the best installments. That's why, in part, I've developed a fondness for "The Last Jedi", lately... Jiminy Crickets! Would you stop mentioning those Disney things, Cryo?
Anyway, yes. It seems that Lucas may have had the same recognition when he was developing and assembling the movie! It's such a crazily dense installment, with so much going on, and so many important subtle beats, and so much changing and transfiguring like quicksilver.
Well, glad I could be of assistance. You have now created another triad. There are those and there is yours. AOTC does seem to lend itself to this epic treatment better than the rest. Stop resisting obvious choices. Hmmm. A nice note to close on. Words to live by, perhaps!
