A Thousand Stars: Episode I, Part 3

[matril]

Confronted with an overwhelming crisis at the very start of her tenure, Queen Amidala struggles for a solution. She only knows that she is determined to avoid war at all costs. Unfortunately, these events were set in motion long before she had any hope of preventing them. We transition directly from her staunch declaration of forestalling war into the scenes of invasion.

These scenes present a stark contrast; harsh mechanical forces penetrating the pristine wilds of Naboo. But it's this image in particular that I find striking.



The tanks in the background, a close-up of one of the soldiers commanding the invasion -- they are all mechanized. The ostensible leaders of the war are so removed from the action that they're literally off-planet, appearing only in hologram. What a powerful symbol of their cowardice. To lead a war by remote control, never even getting their hands dirty. Of course the true irony is that they, in turn, are being manipulated by another holographic figure, snug and secure many light years away. So many people pulling someone else's strings.

Next, unspoiled beauty of a different sort...

Comments

[krpalmer]

On seeing your latest imagery insight I nodded with interest, but did get to wondering if I'm as able to comment on these posts as I was on the somewhat different analysis of "Star Words." Then, though, I did think a bit about the "leaders removed from the action," and how their use of battle droids might be another reflection of that. I was around to watch the TV SF-action cartoons that showed up alongside and just after Star Wars, and they did have a tendency to include (or at least say they had) "robots," the better to destroy things without actual death. That did raise certain apprehensions in me before watching The Phantom Menace (although I can wonder if it was better to have worried beforehand than to "have overblown expectations upended," or something). The crew of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's diplomatic shuttle being blown up near the start of the movie might have done something to counter those worries, but more than that I have got to wondering about "those who would dodge risk" being called out within the story itself, just as the Senate wound up surrendering its authority to Palpatine rather than take responsibility in a crisis.