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Post by Alexrd on Jun 14, 2022 16:47:45 GMT
The "no war" flag shows up because these are images with dead links that were hosted on ImageShack.
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Jun 20, 2022 23:30:52 GMT
The "no war" flag shows up because these are images with dead links that were hosted on ImageShack.
Should we ask people not to use ImageShack for hosting images then? Any other notorious ones to be avoided?
I recommended starwarsscreencaps.com in my original post, and it still looks pretty reliable.
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Post by Ingram on Jun 21, 2022 3:20:57 GMT
Star Wars: Episode III - The Motion Picture 77 78 79 
If one is to understand “the great mystery” one must study all its aspects...  Wait, if Coruscant in Episode I featured a gleam of 1980s magic-hour and in Episode II was the stuff of '90s neon cyberpunk gauche then Episode III should be something, something aughts, right? Not so fast. Through a glass darkly do we look upon Revenge of the Sith. In order to move forward we must first go furthest back to an era of genre dealings -- science fiction, horror and fantasy -- that catered to a level of ultramodern where either the fantastical was brought into the realm of cosmopolitan or the cosmopolitan sophisticate traversed weird realms of the otherworldly; and where on the thriller end of things our urbane protagonists were often either a thinking-man or hyper-intuitive woman, or both. I'm talkin' the Late 1970s. Heaps of content silly as shit on paper were nonetheless injected with celebrated stage actors or Oscar pedigree stepping in front of the camera to proceed with airs of authenticity.
Cult filmmakers Donald Cammell and David Cronenberg, respectively, delved into A.I.-to-human conception in Demon Seed and psychoplasmic therapy yielding asexual reproduction of humanoid horrors in The Brood while John Boorman helmed one of the most chastised sequels of all time with Exorcist II: The Heretic that upended the original's fairly straightforward premise of satanic possession with funky new-age pseudoscience of experimental brainwaves and biofeedbacks. San Francisco is the setting in two offbeat science fictions: Philip Kaufman's remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a character roster of city-politic intellectuals on the run from conformist pod people and Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time with H.G. Wells himself pursuing Jack the Ripper across spacetime from 1893 London into Bay Area modernity. Director Michael Crichton's (yes, he made movies, too) anesthesiological thriller Coma explores an earthbound high-tech black market of human organs while Ridley Scott's Alien ventures into deep space with humans themselves as incubators for psychosexual metaphor monsters.
What-the-Fuckery. The natural order of things usurped with blasphemous mutations.
The black arts of medical sciences.
Backwards and the forwards. Alien vamp, and all manner of para-dimensional gaze.
Regan in Manhattan.
 ....  What the hell does any of this have to do with Episode III, you ask?
Nothing, really....but also something kinda.
On the PG-friendlier side consider the Roger Moore-run Moonraker, Richard Donner's Superman and Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. All three appropriated the cosmic with songlike awe, all three bring centerfold modernity and futurism fused ever so resplendently as one. Metropolis makes for an evening of city twilight perfect for romantic interlude between the Daily Planet's empowered albeit quirky working girl and a Kryptonian prince. Industrialist sociopath Hugo Drax corrals onto his orbital space-mecca a commune of vapidly beautiful youth in order to achieve some madcap utopia of the stars where he can lord over a society of perfect specimens. The Enterprise and her crew, now cinematic, constitutes the paragon of humanity streamlined before enveloped by the uterus ship V'Ger and tasked with the riddle of existence— V'Ger is that which seeks the Creator. All three films are poised with moments of waltz staging and lofty monologues.   Roddenberries. The Motion Picture was nothing if not a brochure of smashing onesies.
 Interestingly, all three films are highlighted with scenes depicting horrors observed or agony experienced with something almost vaguely ecstatic; such is a filament that connects these late '70s productions, adult horror and mainstream whimsy alike, just beyond their presented forms amidst a strange aether of cathartic entertainment. Maybe it was a post-counterculture thing: a generation of baby boomer ex-hippie filmmakers/moviegoers shouting at the heavens on screen to release all that pint up cerebralism and lost innocence knotted together in the wake of Vietnam, Watergate, civil rights, the moon-landing, acid, Saturday morning cartoons, porno theaters, Pong ...who the hell knows. Those weren't my people. But I can tell you that this cinematic disposition was on the surface, where budgets provided, one of ritz where always underneath lurked ghastly surrealism, artfully intended or not.    The Elephant of Irony in the room is of course George Lucas' very own 1977 A New Ho—eh, excuse me, Star Wars, just plain; ironic in how it doesn't fit in all that much with any of these films stylistically, not even with Superman, the latter of which is more gauzy Disco ode to then-zeitgeist glamor. Star Wars by comparison is a blocky utilitarian looking low-tech vision of space wonder scarcely mesmeric and more rough around the edges akin to Battle Beyond the Stars. Things only get more complicated when we throw Revenge of the Sith into the mix. Yes, it's squarely part of the saga tone & experience in tandem with Episode IV and, no, I don't think there is any cross-pollination of symbolism between it and the aforementioned films. Moreover, Revenge of the Sith does not even have the "look" of said late '70s fare, necessarily. It does however exemplify outside the retro of The Phantom Menace and raw neoteric of Attack of the Cones a standalone Star Wars Prequel experience outright contemporary to 2005 -- unwittingly, perhaps, and in its own unique Prequelesque way -- relative to the moods and aesthetic proclivities catalogued above.
The very name "Coruscant" can be taken as a play on au courant, and where in Episode III this feels at last finally realized, yet also revealed in full is the midichlorian-induced phantasmagoria that matches Coruscant's modern twinkling brilliance with, well, the dark side. Padme and Palpatine mast the city's thematic extremes—the sacred and the profane; both are relegated to Coruscant throughout the first two acts until meeting Anakin on Mustafar in the 3rd. The topic at hand, below are some of my favorite frames from the movie: Au courant. The planet that never sleeps. With the digital cinematography in Episode III having eclipsed the hazy videographic look of Episode II, nowhere in Lucas' Star Wars was luminescence contrasted more richly against night.
For a composite shot the color spectrum here is consistently deep and well balanced in its minutiae.
This always struck me, being the first legitimate abstract POV in Star Wars, at least outside Luke's vision in the cave on Dagobah which was still presented in more conventional terms. Here, we're privy to a splinter in the mind.
Nocturnal forms. Anakin is Stygian followed by a frame beautifully racked between focuses.
"And the baby?" A frame functioning on levels. Notice how the hallway decent into the background from start to finish compositionally connects the two; Anakin, his back to us, is seeing Padme from a metaphorical distance.
 It never occurred to me until now that the title for Episode I refers to not one but possibley either/or two phantom menaces, for what is little Anakin if not the future menace that will follow Darth Sidious? Here we have future Phantoms of the Mon Calamari Opera, both of them prior to hiding their disfigurements behind masks and beneath cowls.  Everything in this shot is bold yet I also dig the third empty chair. The Sith Rule-of-Two by its nature is defined by a perpetual third option.
Daytime Coruscant cannot escape the shadows and the hour of dusk is no longer magical but that which feels cursed, visited by.
Padme is to some extent the barometer for all this. Lit hellish...
 ...or Hadean.  I always wondered what that massive console board was for, as if Coruscant was a planet-city that could move through space like the Death Star, with Palpatine at the command deck.
Shadowcasting Mace.
Darkly glass shattered. Jedi Master and Sith Lord enwrapped by panorama Coruscant.
 There's something to be said about this whole sequence. It's decidedly...off. It doesn't go through the usual channels of dramatic presentation, not even for Star Wars. I always took it in with a sense of disconnected curiosity that I think actually benefits as a story fulcrum. A Disney-era filmmaker would've depicted Anakin's turn with sentimentalism measured in tonnage, with nearly every main character present to give their reaction and aback a simplistic narrative of circumstances one could predict well in advance, all in order to make most accessible for audiences such an anticipated moment in Star Wars lore. But Lucas throws us a curve ball venue. We're witnessing key variables of galactic fate convene during after-business hours for some sorta batshit contest of discordant motivations that leaves little room audience's sympathy.
"He's a traitor!"
"He. is. the. traitor! Aauugh!!"
... as both vie for Anakin's side in a weirdly-timed acknowledgment of his teetering alignment and their own respective precariousness. It reveals for instance just how much has gone unspoken between Anakin and Mace while also begging the question of Palpatine's exact strategy in all this. It's not that the sequence is confusing as a thing of causality; it's just so unabashedly awkward. The Prequels up till now were Lucas' nightcap but here he ditches the glass and goes straight to the bottle. This is George Lucas hammered!
And can there be such a thing as a "hate triangle", I wonder?  Anakin leers at Mace as Mace leers at his prey. All rationality got sucked out that window.
 Mace Windu was never a sympathetic character for that matter. Stoic and badass, for sure. Admirable. It's why this moment is so bizarre, as he's stripped of all dignity and we behold his sudden demise in an odd state of unreality; it's horrific in a way similar to watching hyenas tear apart a stranded lion cub or organisms devour one another under a microscope.  Seriously. How is this NOT morbid?  What-the-Fuckery indeed. An intercellular demon Sithazoid reaching out across the dimensional membrane towards audiences.
The Sithazoid takes stock before donning the final stage of his appearance. We never again see him in Lucas' Star Wars without the hood.
Shadowcasting Anakin.
Chief-editor of the Daily Planet Coruscant Times presiding over the facts, spinning the narrative.
 Bail reckoning Order 66 carnage flanked by light rows. Vapor-white lines the image.  Figuratively, C-3P0 and R2-D2 came from a happier trilogy. Just look at 'em; they don't even know what to think of all this.  These last two frames are simply undeniable in their tableaux command.
1. Anakin sits small against a city wide. Still in its 1st act, the movie is quiet here. Where Luke and Leia were held up in remote war bases or dashed across frontier-scapes, their parents lived pensively atop jewels at the bright center of the universe.
2. Padme stands large against a city narrowed. Paradise is lost with the Jedi temple doubling as Satan's Pandæmonium, yet it's Padme herself that means so much here as a visual outline, her curled hair undone and her bare shoulder faintly lit from below by city ambience. Her silhouette is like a vacuum in the frame.
 Well that about wraps up my Coruscant Pictorial trilogy. Thanks to any-and-everyone for indulging my stupid nonsense. 
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Post by Subtext Mining on Jun 23, 2022 15:47:30 GMT
Action sequences usually don't do a whole lot for me, but the space fight between Kenobi and the Fetts is such a stunning visual treat. As a lover of planet imagery, seeing this on the big screen was a very awe-stirring experience.   Watching them fly through the craggy inside of the asteroid was another astonishing sight to behold.  As well as the continued fight in the asteroid field. Lucasfilms really outdid themselves this time. Any shot with Geonosis hanging in the background, like an amber gemstone, I love.  So many OT references and call-backs, too. Slave 1 landing near what appears to be mini Death Stars! I've always loved this shot.  The most alien planet in Star Wars yet. I was beside myself here in the theatre. And the whole space fight and exploration is all paced out so well to us. Keeping us in awe and keeping us in intrigued anticipation of what we'll see next.  I only wish this shot was longer. Other-worldly gorgeousness.  Transition porn.  Such delightfully bizarre alien architecture.  On the inside as well. Cathedral of the Grotesque. What kind of strange creatures could dwell here and what are they up to?  |
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Post by Samnz on Aug 19, 2022 5:15:21 GMT
I thought this was obvious the first time I watched the movie, but have subsequently felt being treated like someone seeing a Fata Morgana when I bring it up: The shape of a heart that is formed by Anakin, Padmé and the leaves. To complete your view of me seeing things that aren't necessarily there, I always felt the clouds in the backgrounds evoke some sort of develish imagery, bringing images of the devil's horns to my mind. Seems to fit a relationship that was beautiful - but doomed from the beginning. Whatever can or cannot be seen or interpreted, I like that frame in every scenario.  |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Aug 20, 2022 15:35:02 GMT
These are more examples of what makes the Prequels different, and also some favorite frames of mine. By different I mean the understated way in which so many of these monumental turning points everyone's been anticipating for so long transpire. For example, when Palpatine reveals to Anakin he's a Sith Lord. Most people were expecting something grandiose with fire and brimstone and Palpatine doing crazy theatrical things. But no, he just stands there in his office and smiles!  And can we talk more about how hilarious his outfit is here? I mean, my lord! And I think it's intentionally so. This suit is the comic relief in this scene.  There's also the moment Palpatine declares to Vader that the Jedi, even Obi-Wan, are enemies of the state that must be eliminated. Many were expecting Anakin to don an evil face of delight, start laughing manically and say that he would kill them all with pleasure, while lightning strikes wildly in the background and the Imperial March theme blares thunderously. But no, Anakin is just like, "(Ah, fuck...). I understand."  And again, when Palpatine turns Vader, is about to start killing the Jedi and basically becomes Emperor, the expectation was a long, drawn out bombastic scene of explosions and all hell breaking loose. But no, he just sits at his desk and says "...and we shall have peace." and smiles.  In a way, these could kind of go along with what Ingram talks about in his post above regarding the Palpatine/Mace fight, a key variable of galactic fate, being off and unabashedly awkward. Though with the moments I'm highlighting, it's about the restrained, understated implemention. Both of which however, I find brilliant, unexpected and (probably mostly unintentionally) funny (in a good way) in their own George Lucas way. |
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Post by Samnz on Aug 21, 2022 12:28:20 GMT
Subtext Mining I agree with your notion of many "monumental" moments being shot in an understated way, although I think Anakin's POV shot when Palpatine reveals himself is pretty spectacular and also one of my favorites. Ian's expression is perfect here, encapsulating the certainty that his plan has worked and the revenge of the Sith is his. And isn't there a tinge of sympathy in his eyes? Sympathy of the devil. 
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Post by Subtext Mining on Sept 5, 2022 8:54:47 GMT
I like how Lucas made sure to include Chewbacca witnessing the goings-on here, in the shot, as Yoda defends himself against his Clones.  One I noticed while at starwarsscreencaps as it's at the top of a page. A hero caught in a stalemate. Great lighting and posing.  And as a kid of the '80s I always got a kick out of seeing Yoda running around in just his brown jumpsuit. Most of us who had the Yoda action figure lost his cloth tunic pretty quickly and just had the figure. Along with these shots of Padmé preparing to confront Anakin being some of my favorites, I also recently noticed the brooch she's wearing is a nicely symmetric design, evoking the concept of twins, to some degree.  And also, 3P0's unemotive face really stands out in these scenes! In juxtaposition to everything else going on. I love Daniels' acting in RotS, he really captures a sense of unawareness of the magnitude of what's unfolding for the galaxy and his people, creating a deftly subtle breeze of comic relief. |
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Post by Moonshield on Sept 5, 2022 17:34:48 GMT
"And the baby?" A frame functioning on levels. Notice how the hallway decent into the background from start to finish compositionally connects the two; Anakin, his back to us, is seeing Padme from a metaphorical distance.
I myself noticed this perspective. Look at this! It creates the depth, but it is also almost invisible!
Yeah, Ingram, you should make movies.
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Post by ArchdukeOfNaboo on Mar 27, 2023 5:13:57 GMT
Episode II (2002) and East of Eden (1955)
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Post by Ingram on May 23, 2023 11:15:43 GMT
After 24 years The Phantom Menace continues to become a better and better movie. It's as if there's no stopping it, as if one day it may even exceed any one or more of my three higher ranked Star Wars installments (IV, II and VI). It is such a beautifully simple presentation. It's like the 1953 Shane of Star Wars movies: characters either speak in an innocent or edifying tone while every beat of the story is so carefully gestured with grace. Its very existence continues to outclass Disney Star Wars media with its fidelity, its uncompromising commitment to a center of movieverse gravity that established the Prequels entirely within their own pop-cinema removed especially from today's homogenized trends & biases.
Anyhow, let's call this one the How Have I Never Noticed This series. How have I never noticed before that:
Watto looks like he's standing not in front of a Sebulba/pod-racer garage tableau but rather a screen or film projection of a Sebulba/pod-racer garage tableau. Lucas framing a sad Shmi center the doorway from which she exited a moment prior.
This tracking shot. Seriously. The single frame below doesn't quite do it justice but the detailed minutiae is superb, where you'll even notice Anakin talking to Kitster about something.
The sheer maximum effect of perspective in this shot.
The lens spectrum of titan machines racked alongside Anakin's buddies in the distance blurred by engine vapor.
Watto and Qui-Gon. This whole final moment between the two. Watto alone, isolated in defeat...
...usurped by this simple yet bold blocking of Qui-Gon's silhouette like a passing mountain.
And the reverse of Qui-Gon almost haunting his way out from underneath a shadowed arch. The daylight in this continuing shot is Western Film-Grammar 101.
...
How have I never noticed this lone shot of Jar Jar Binks the quiet observer. Palpatine has just made his way onto the ballot for the galaxy—cut to Jar Jar Binks standing next to a lamp.
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Post by Gen on May 23, 2023 19:48:13 GMT
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Post by Subtext Mining on May 24, 2023 22:08:41 GMT
How have I never noticed this lone shot of Jar Jar Binks the quiet observer. Palpatine has just made his way onto the ballot for the galaxy—cut to Jar Jar Binks standing next to a lamp.  I love that. Such a bold compositional choice, and a seemingly random edit. I tend to see so much subtle symbolism in the editing in the PT. I was nerding out about it last year in the Things You Noticed thread. And here's something I noticed since day one but never thought about the implications of before. Ani and Jar Jar get up and exit the screen right as Palpatine suggests that Padmé push for the election of a new chancellor. It's as if at this turning-point moment, the innocence is leaving Galaxy. Just like the fleeing birds and fish as nature is disrupted by the events set in motion by the Sith, so is the purity.  Which soon brings us to the scene where we're given the news that Palpatine has been nominated for the position of Supreme Chancellor. When Panaka says the words "Supreme Chancellor" it's not Palpatine who is on screen, it's Padmé and Jar Jar.   And what have those two just tacitly done moments before? Decided to move to fighting, despite Padmé earlier saying she would not do that. However, Palpatine's schemes have forced her hand with no other viable alternatives available. So it's not only that Jar Jar later moves for Palpatine's emergency powers, but it was he and Amidala who together basically colluded to resorting to war in an epoch of peace. Therefore both the innocence and the femininity of the Galaxy have been compromised as Sidious takes advantage of Padmé's protective instincts to further his master plan. It's also an interesting bit of possible emergency powers foreshadowing when it cuts to Jar Jar after Queen Amidala says  Before and after, yellow eyes remain. Think how genuinely terrified Wat Tambor must have been at that moment and the morbid absolution in the following image.  I know! I'm always unable to stop myself from laughing at this shot. Wat is anxiously sitting there like a dog that did something bad and and knows it's about to get punished. |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Dec 2, 2023 3:58:55 GMT
I love this establishing shot of the Mos Espa race track. The imported Huttese architecture is a nice world building detail, but I also especially love the fact that they included the rock outcropping which was left intact during the building of the seating area. (Far left) The set designers could've easily just put something together that was fine enough, but knowing this is a rocky area, perfect for pod racing, they made it so the in-universe designers left the rock there, rather than leveling it to make room for more seats.  |
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Post by Ingram on Dec 2, 2023 20:44:18 GMT
I love this establishing shot of the Mos Espa race track. The imported Huttese architecture is a nice world building detail, but I also especially love the fact that they included the rock outcropping which was left intact during the building of the seating area. (Far left) The set designers could've easily just put something together that was fine enough, but knowing this is a rocky area, perfect for pod racing, they made it so the in-universe designers left the rock there, rather than leveling it to make room for more seats.
Another considered detail is how the grandstands are not uniformly packed with spectators but rather in some rows sparsely populated. Many are still making their way across the track or from the ground-level atop to be seated before the race kicks off while it's also reasonable that maybe not everyone in Mos Espa can make the event—farmers, shopkeepers, slaves etc. And to the far left is but a small portion of the sandstone butte that towers over the proceedings, which has been littered with various sized tower lookouts and stone cut landings, and is likewise populated only to a degree that seems realistic.
A lot of creative engineering logic went into the design of the whole layout as presented. The model makers and FX supervisors (and Lucas, of course) had to imagine with credibility how a place like this could feasibly exist and function.
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Post by stampidhd280pro on Dec 2, 2023 23:21:29 GMT
Iirc, the audience is made of Q tips with dye in them
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Post by Subtext Mining on Dec 5, 2023 0:51:01 GMT
Iirc, the audience is made of Q tips with dye in them That is correct. And they had a fan blowing underneath the set to move the q-tips around.  |
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Post by Subtext Mining on Mar 29, 2024 16:04:03 GMT
For this sad, touching scene, George decided to cut to the sky and pan down. Which helps add a lot of atmosphere, no pun intended.    I mean, we're cutting from a scene of Anakin and Padmé, to a scene with Anakin and Padmé, so this helps buffer that, but still, a very simple yet elegant flourish which allows some breathing room to process everything that just happened, and sets the tone for the eulogies. |
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Post by Samnz on Mar 30, 2024 8:17:50 GMT
For this sad, touching scene, George decided to cut to the sky and pan down. Which helps add a lot of atmosphere, no pun intended. I mean, we're cutting from a scene of Anakin and Padmé, to a scene with Anakin and Padmé, so this helps buffer that, but still, a very simple yet elegant flourish which allows some breathing room to process everything that just happened, and sets the tone for the eulogies. Yes, this is one of my dearest little momens as well, especially because Cliegg's line of dialogue flows in perfect harmony with the camera. "Wherever you are..." when we see the sky (or heaven) to "it's become a better place" (than this) when we see them. I wrote a bit more about that scene on my former tumblr but I have just realized I can't even read it anymore without registration of some kind, which is... as unfriendly as it is unfortunate. |
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