A Thousand Stars: Episode II, Part 1

[matril]

And here we go! Episode II starts as we would expect, with the titles and the opening crawl, then the vast field of space. This will be followed, we assume, by a pan down to a planet.



...or not. An upward pan instead! This isn't a huge, mind-blowing alteration from the norm -- it's the same basic idea, but flipped-upside down. That's the sort of thing that can give you a quiet but powerful clue about the nature of this installment of the saga: that which we expect will be turned on its head. It's just different enough to be slightly unsettling, like that nagging misgiving you can't quite put a finger on.


This eerie mood continues with the atmosphere of Coruscant -- both literally and metaphorically shrouded in fog.


Just look at that ship emerging from the mist. There's something so visceral and spine-tingling about fog, isn't there? I explored a few examples from Episode I that were used to great effect. It's even more evocative here, draping the entire planet in mystery and foreboding. Conspiracies, secret plots, not to mention the murky depths of the subconscious: all of these are foreshadowed by this imagery.

Next, a troubling mirror...

Comments

[krpalmer]

I can remember the pan up getting my attention the first time around, although I've got to admit I'd also been a bit blindsided by the reference to Amidala being the "former Queen of Naboo," having been lucky enough to have happened on Fernwithy's fanfiction after Episode I, which did place great emphasis on Amidala being Queen... As I thought about it, though, I did grow inclined to see each of the Star Wars movies as "upturning some previous expectation," the only possible issue being going from Episode III to IV in "numerical order"... (For that matter, in numerical order "Episode I pans one way to begin, and then Episode II pans the other way.") I have happened on a comparatively brief video that makes a point of Episode V turning things (including Luke) "upside down," and one moment in "How to Watch Star Wars, Part One" did note that as Episode V is the one movie that ends on something else than a group shot of characters, Episode II is the one movie that begins with a pan up.