A Thousand Stars: Episode I, Part 1
Jan. 6th, 2022 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilTime for a new series! I'll be analyzing one image from the films each week. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Eh, maybe I'll think of a better title for the series later. But let's get started.
Episode I starts quietly enough, which generated some rather petty complaints in my opinion. It really doesn't take long for the ambassadors' peaceful arrival to devolve into an intense confrontation, leading to our first thrilling look at the fighting prowess of two fully-trained Jedi Knights. And it starts with this tantalizing image.
To the battle droids, who presumably have very little data about the Jedi in their memory banks, it's just two strange lines of light appearing in the fog. There was a little fake-out first with the protocol droid showing up, so now their guard is down. Surely the ambassadors are dead by now. But we know better. We know what those lightsabers presage. Sure enough, the Jedi emerge seconds later and make quick work of the battle droids. It's a highly evocative choice to show the sabers appearing first amid the fog. For a moment, it almost seems like the weapons are floating on their own, a delightfully eerie image.
Fog of various sorts will appear frequently in the saga, a useful way of denoting uncertainty, mystery and suspense. A fitting introduction for the first use of lightsabers in Episode I.
Next time, a striking vista....
Episode I starts quietly enough, which generated some rather petty complaints in my opinion. It really doesn't take long for the ambassadors' peaceful arrival to devolve into an intense confrontation, leading to our first thrilling look at the fighting prowess of two fully-trained Jedi Knights. And it starts with this tantalizing image.
To the battle droids, who presumably have very little data about the Jedi in their memory banks, it's just two strange lines of light appearing in the fog. There was a little fake-out first with the protocol droid showing up, so now their guard is down. Surely the ambassadors are dead by now. But we know better. We know what those lightsabers presage. Sure enough, the Jedi emerge seconds later and make quick work of the battle droids. It's a highly evocative choice to show the sabers appearing first amid the fog. For a moment, it almost seems like the weapons are floating on their own, a delightfully eerie image.
Fog of various sorts will appear frequently in the saga, a useful way of denoting uncertainty, mystery and suspense. A fitting introduction for the first use of lightsabers in Episode I.
Next time, a striking vista....
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Date: 2022-01-07 01:23 am (UTC)For all the fuss made about "Episode IV opening with action," I did get to thinking right away on seeing your comment that The Empire Strikes Back takes a while setting up even with the Wampa attacking Luke, and Return of the Jedi delves that much deeper into mood. I also tend to push back against insistences that "you can't get started in any other way than the way it started in 1977" by trying to contemplate the hypothetical case of "sorting out TPM with nothing more than maybe some generic science fiction knowledge," as much as we glimpse Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan igniting their lightsabres right after their ship has been blown up with its crew. This moment does have me considering the later moment of Qui-Gon melting through another circular door with the Trade Federation people losing their cool on the other side.