Yet more thoughts about ROTS... What else?

[thalia_seawood]

The lighting of the movie is interesting. So many shadows! Two scenes stood out for me in particular:

- Anakin seeks advice from Yoda and his face is cast in shadow. Actually, the whole room is full of shadows, even Yoda is touched by it.

- At the end of Anakin's first scene with Palpatine in his office, they walk together towards the camera and both can only be seen as dark silhouettes for a couple of seconds. Love this moment! Talk about "foreshadowing". :-)


Anakin is just so open. Most of the time, you can just read his emotions in his face when you know him a little bit. And this is the person the Jedi want to spy secretly on Palpatine. :-) Just watch his face when Palpatine asks him if the Jedi want him to spy on him.

It totally struck me that Anakin/Vader is really the same person:
He's proud, has the air of a commander, is honorable and courageous, dislikes dishonesty, manipulation and lies (I just always got this feeling in the orginal trilogy that he *hates* poltical squabbling), and is not very good with disguising his real emotions.
Despite Anakin being so complex himself, he has a tendency to think in black and white - just like Vader. (You can see that when he says to Padme: "You sound like a separatist." The audience gasped at that in both viewings.)
I think these are remnants from his growing up as a slave on a world without law and order.
Someone also noticed that he wants to put the ones he loves in powerful positions. This would be every slave's dream - to make the ones you care about so powerful that noone will ever boss them around.

I found it incredibly tragic that Anakin never can just be happy. E.g. he's happy on Naboo with Padme, but then the nightmares about his mother's death interfere again. And as soon as he's reunited with Padme this time around he has nightmares about her death! This means he can't even look forward to the baby, because whenever he thinks about the baby, he'll think about Padme dying in childbirth.


There's one scene in the book I love, it didn't make it into the movie though:
During the rescue of Palpatine, Anakin and Obi-Wan talk about how their plan didn't go all that well.
Palpatine just asks slightly appalled: "This was a plan?!"
It cracked me up; you can see Palpatine's true thoughts here for a second, because, yes, he'd most
definitely would be appalled by bad planning.



Watched ANH today. It creeps me out when Obi-Wan gives Luke the light-saber: You're father would have wanted you to have it.
Right...
Well, Luke, the last time Obi-Wan spoke to your father, Anakin was screaming with pain! And Obi-Wan just took his lightsaber. And by the way, Luke, did you know what acts your father committed last with this lightsaber??
No, watching this scene will never be the same for me now.
Somehow, I'll be relieved when Luke loses this lightsaber in ESB. And it's quite interesting that his next lightsaber will be green, the same colour Qui-Gon's had.

Comments

[stephantom.livejournal.com]

I still haven't seen it, so your spoil-laden reviews are very temping! I will be able to read them and comment on them soon. Hopefully. :)

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Just found your LJ, so I had to comment a bit.

And yes, Anakin and Vader really are the same person -- it's just that his diction changes a lot as he gets older, so he doesn't quite sound like the same person. Anakin as a young man is much less poetic and bombastic when he's speaking than he is as Vader.

Palpatine being appalled by Obi-Wan and Anakin's 'plan' is perfect. He is so GOOD at planning, that they're "let's throw something together and hope it works" approach would give him hives.

Luke getting a green saber at the end -- I thought it was because it was the direct contrast to Sith red, and therefore symbolic that Luke stands in opposition to the Sith and is a true Jedi. But the fact that it's also Qui-Gon color is nifty, because Luke does echo some of Qui-Gon's traits (compassion and stubborness, mainly).

[thalia-seawood.livejournal.com]

And yes, Anakin and Vader really are the same person -- it's just that his diction changes a lot as he gets older, so he doesn't quite sound like the same person. Anakin as a young man is much less poetic and bombastic when he's speaking than he is as Vader.

What's so neat about AOTC and ROTS is that in turns you can hear both young Anakin or Vader in Anakin's speech patterns. "This is a shortcut... I think." is purely young Anakin. On the other hand, comments like "Your presence is soothing." or "Tell us. Tell us now." call Vader to my mind.
This effect is enhanced by Hayden Christensen's delivery. He really imitates both Jake Lloyd and James Earl Jones.