My name is Bradley Weatherholt in the documentary "The Prequels Strike Back."
I travel thousands of miles interviewing movie critics filmmakers and Star Wars
fans on George Lucas and his controversial prequel trilogy.
The film became larger than I ever expected...
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...and the response was incredible.
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Though not everyone was on board.
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Now a year after release, I'm at it again with the goal of
covering new topics and tying up loose ends.
This is "The Prequels Strike Back...
...Strikes Back!"
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In "The Prequels Strike Back," we discussed many of the cinematic influences
on the prequels. But, we barely scratched the surface. There are dozens of homages
throughout the prequels to filmmakers such as Kurosawa. Even the poster art
draws from classical cinema.
But, my favorite Easter egg of all is from "2001"
where you can actually see the space pod from Kubrick's masterpiece stashed in
the background of Watto's junkyard. Highlighting Lucas's nods to classical
cinema in the prequels doesn't necessarily lead to an appreciation of
the films. But, it does give you an idea of the type of films Lucas wanted to make.
When you view Lucas as a visual maestro connections open everywhere
sometimes this leads to thematically significant elements.
For instance, Padme
the avatar of the Republic and democracy wears a headpiece in the style of the
Republic order and later in the same film as the Republic is remade in the
image of the Empire, so too is Anakin rebuilt to that of a machine.
The imagery is just as poignant, but sometimes the visual connections between the films are
puzzling, almost whimsical. For instance, in Attack of the Clones
Lars mentions...
[Lars] 30 of us went out after her, 4 of us came back.
[Bradley] In the original Star Wars,
30 rebel ships were deployed to attack the Death Star.
[Captain] We count 30 Rebel ships Lord Vader,
but they're so small they're evading our turbo lasers.
[Bradley] Only 4 returned...
What does this mean? Who knows. Could be an accident but the connections
keep piling up that believing it all an accident seems unlikely.
Even the accidents were repurposed to have intention and connect the film's for
instance the original Star Wars features a famous gaff.
Where a Stormtrooper runs into a door.
Lucas saw this as an opportunity.
And in attack of the clones,
he made Jango Fett experienced the same gaff.
On the commentary, he wondered,
"I thought wouldn't it be funny if that's a trait that Jango has?When he puts his
helmet on he can't really see that well and so he's constantly bumping his head
and that trait gets cloned into all the stormtroopers and that's why they keep
bumping their heads."
That may sound like a lot of things but
it doesn't sound like someone who wasn't trying to intricately linked his saga together.
In "The Prequels Strike Back," we showed some of the visual links between
the Skywalker mentors but it goes beyond that all the way to
the point where the characters share almost identical lines of dialogue and
almost identical time codes of each movies.
[Palpatine] I need your help, son. [Obi Wan] I need your help, Luke.
Like their mentors, the Skywalker heroes
share narrative elements as well take these scenes where
each Skywalker makes a spectacular fall.
Anakin leaps out of his ship in a flippant, arrogant pursuit.
Juxtapose that with the son's desperate leap of faith
after learning Vader's true identity. The visual connections down to each
individual cut parallel each other even with the audio
the scenes almost completely match.
[music tracks from both films play at the same time]
[musical cues in each score overlay almost exactly]
[Mike Klimo] It's a great illustration of how Lucas intricately connected these films on a
visual and narrative level.
[Bradley] This is Mike Klimo. He wrote a now famous essay arguing
that Lucas painstakingly connected his Star Wars trilogies together using a
classic literary technique known as ring composition. In our original documentary
I talked with Mike on the basics of Star Wars ring composition, but this time I
wanted us to explore a specific chapter in the Skywalker narratives and take a
look at their scenes on Tatooine.
[Mike] So essentially, you see these two parallel journeys.
A father and son going through the same things but ultimately making different choices.
Not only are they both going on a quest to find a character and
it ultimately ends in the tragic death of a family member you see both father
and son at the same age they're both roughly nineteen years old at that point
they both venture out into the desert from the same location.
From the Lars' homestead.
We see them both actually sitting at the same dining table.
We see them both of them watching the twin sunset.
We even see both of them traveling across the desert,
in these hover vehicles, right? And actually,
they go into the same area, the Jundland Wastes, and you can then take any one of
those scenes again and you can then drill down to another layer. For example,
let's take the the scene at the at the dining table so obviously in a new hope
we see Luke sitting at the dining table with his uncle and aunt.
In Attack of the Clones, we see
Anakin sitting at the table with Owen and Beru
but also Clete Lars.
Not only do you see Anakin and Luke essentially sitting in the same location
you see actors framed in similar shots and for example you'll see a
similar three shot but the camera angles are reversed and then it's down to even
just very very tiny details. Like the beverage that's served.
In A New Hope,
you'll see blue milk versus the the red Jawa juice that Beru
serves in Attack of the Clones.
When Anakin and Luke are at the dining room table,
in Attack of the Clones, Anakin is learning about his mother's fate.
[Lars] 30 of us went out after her, 4 of us came back.
[Mike] Whereas in Star Wars, Luke asks about Obi-wan Kenobi which in turn brings up
the subject of Luke's father.
[Owen] He died about the same time as your father.
[Luke] He knew my father?
[Mike] Both Anakin and Luke become emotional at
one point and they get up from the table Owen asks Anakin...
[Owen] Where are you going?
[Anakin] To find my mother.
[Mike] Beru asks Luke the same question believe it or not.
[Beru] Where are you going?
[Luke] Looks like I'm going nowhere.
[Mike] Immediately following both of
those scenes in both films we then cut to a Skywalker watching the twins sunset
from a crater just outside the homestead.
And they're both essentially standing in the exact same spot.
In Attack of the Clones, we see two shadows
cast on the wall whereas in Star Wars we see two Sun setting.
At this point in Attack of the Clones,
Anakin actually leaves to find Shmi.
Luke is going to leave very soon to find R2D2, but he doesn't actually leave at sunset.
[Luke] It's too dangerous with all the sand people. We'll have to wait until morning.
[Owen calling out] Luke... Luke...
[Mike] So at that point we see Anakin speeding through the desert
on a swoop bike. Luke will then take his land speeder and we see him zooming
across the same desert.
What's interesting though is here is how Lucas
uses screen direction to really emphasize you know the differences in
the journeys that they're taking.
Anakin's swoop bike is is pointed frame left
whereas Luke's land speeder is pointed frame right next from high above we see
Anakin and Luke entering the same area of the desert, the Jundland Wastes,
and it's it's interesting to point out the Tuscan raiders actually
sneak up on Luke previously now in attack of the clones we see that Anakin
is the one who sneaks up on the sand people and attacks them and then
comes the climax of both sequences here where father and son are
suddenly confronted with the death of a family member.
Shmi she's hanging from a wooden frame. Owen and Beru, their skeletal
remains are actually laying on the ground and both scenes actually ended
the same way we see a skywalker framed in a close-up looking down
and then back up but there's a crucial difference here. Luke will be able to
move on from the deaths of his aunt and uncle Anakin will be unable to let go of
his mother really bringing to the forefront the difference of the journeys
between these two.
[Anakin] Their like animals.
And I slaughtered them like animals.
I hate them!
[Bradley] For Mike, the ring completes itself in the sagas sixth episode.
[Mike] When I think about the end of Return of the Jedi for me I think
that's the point where the journeys of father and son you know really intersect
in a powerful way. Now we see Anakin Skywalker who's now facing a
similar situation and a similar choice that he faced in Revenge of the Sith in
those moments we see Anakin who's standing next to another character who
is you know standing over a third character whose life is in jeopardy and
Anakin is faced with the decision only in Return of the Jedi now his son is
involved and ultimately the fact that his son is involved will then
help him I think make a very different decision.
[The Emperor screams]
[Bradley] Knowing this about the Star Wars films may or may not give you more to
appreciate about the prequels but much more than liking or not liking
individual films in the saga it should serve as a reminder that Star Wars is
unique from other franchises in that it was designed to be treated as a whole
and when viewed under this lens, this unassuming space opera can be viewed as
what it really is,
something truly spectacular.
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