A Thousand Stars: Episode I, Part 10

[matril]

I love the title of Episode I. It has just the pulpy sort of feel of the old serials, and its meaning is really quite simple. The Phantom Menace is Sidious. Not a spoiler, just a straightforward fact. For the audience, anyway. For our heroes, it's a complete mystery -- a phantom menace. They don't even know there's someone pulling the strings behind the Trade Federation.

But while they're tending their wounds on Tatooine and getting troubling messages from Naboo, we take a brief trip to Coruscant -- our first look at the capital city-planet.



And who are the first characters we see? A gathering of august leaders and diplomats? Or the leaders of the noble Jedi, perhaps? Nope.



It's the Phantom Menace himself, Darth Sidious, and his toady. Right there at the heart of the Republic is the essence of corruption and evil. It's night in this part of the planet, a place of secrecy and ominous danger even amid all the shining city lights. And the source of all the trouble is hidden in plain sight. If you take note of certain details like the shape of Sidious's partly-concealed features and the balcony where they walk, you'll know how to spot his alter-ego later on. Assuming you didn't already know, of course. But our heroes don't.

I'd also like to point out the delightful use of screen wipes, though I couldn't get a good capture of it. I wish more films used this feature; you can create all sorts of interesting juxtapositions with it. In this transition the sandstorm on Tatooine sweeps in from the left, erasing Sidious and Maul like a furious gust of wind.

Next, an intriguing domestic scene....

Comments

[krpalmer]

"The threat is at the core itself" is an interesting thing to point out, but it also got me thinking that while some arguments have been advanced that the Jedi are "detached from the 'real' world and in an actual 'ivory tower,'" (and the urban location of their temple-headquarters also gets contrasted with how "many people" have long supposed Obi-Wan and Yoda's situations in Episodes IV and V would mean "of course the Jedi would rebuild in some natural environment), this movie isn't quite a matter of "the threat is remote and had to be looked for..."