George Lucas, pattern cognition, and mirroring

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/12/26/did-george-lucas-change-cinema-with-star-wars-prequels/

Did George Lucas change cinema with ‘Star Wars’ prequels?
Dec. 26, 2010 | 12:56 p.m.

*GUEST ESSAY*

*George Lucas should have stopped after three original “Star Wars” films —
that’s a common sentiment among Jedi fans of a certain age and disposition,
and they passionately point to Jar Jar Binks, an over-reliance on CG effects
and numbing dialogue as the unforgivable sins of the second live-action
trilogy, which began with “The Phantom Menace” in 1999 and closed out
with “Revenge
of the Sith” in 2005. But are old-school fans missing the true value and
actual innovation represented by the prequel trilogy? Yes, they are, says Kevin
McLeod, who has made online games for productions in other media, including
those for”A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” and the television show “Jericho.”
Here, in a guest essay for Hero Complex, he makes a case for the idea that
the prequel trilogy was in fact a landmark moment in cinema.*

Ewan McGregor and Ray Park as Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace."
(Lucasfilm)

*George Lucas *pushed all of film into the 21st century when he made his “*Star
Wars*” prequel trilogy. And like a magician, he used mirrors.

Remember that mirrors do not duplicate images — the way a copier does — they
reverse them. Although mirroring has been around for a long time in art,
Lucas took it much farther. His most basic mirror, the through-line of the
trilogy, simply inverts the power structures of his original trilogy,
reversing who discovers the flaws of those in power (in the original
trilogy, it is the rebels; in the prequels, the Sith do it).  And why would
Lucas do this? Why would he sacrifice much of the excited feeling that
audiences had in rooting for the “good” guys? He did it to show you that
power does not align with good or evil, or with lightness or darkness, and
that *power itself *can be evil. To shade his stories beyond black-and-white
extremes, he uses colors and forms that, under his abilities, transform into
patterns.

These patterns tell stories of which you likely are not aware.  By reversing
the story and focal points, he engages the audience in a search for patterns
they normally would not be looking for and what they mean. And his primary
target audiences are always kids and the youthful, whose minds are still
flexible and whose brains are malleable and growing. Viewing motion, form
and color above and beyond speech is fundamentally linked to cognition.

Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. (Lucasfilm)

Welcome to the age of pattern recognition, better called pattern cognition,
and it’s an age Lucas has been elemental in creating and reflecting. Still
in its infancy, pattern cognition is one of the key tools of future media
(including future languages).  Appearing in 1977, “*Star Wars*” was an
evolutionary leap in pattern cognition.  Notably, the first film arrived
alongside household *Pong *and arcade *Space Invaders*. Video games, like
“Star Wars,” are rife with patterns and forms at war with one another.
Lucas, *Steven Spielberg*, *Charlie Chaplin*,  *Stanley Kubrick *and a few
others have worked at the highest levels of pattern cognition, as have
others — some of whom you’d expect and others you wouldn’t: *John McTiernan*,
*Quentin Tarantino*, *James Cameron *and *McG *(who all offer pattern
cognition with bullets).

Also notably, “*The Matrix*” (itself an evolutionary step in patterning)
appeared the same year as “*Phantom Menace*.” Like many other viewers, I
initially rejected ”Menace” as a simplification of “*Return of the Jedi*“;
it seemed childish and chilling. Much later, as I began to consider certain
very strange scenes in the new trilogy, I realized that they were *all
*elements
of a hidden story, adding up to a precise opposite of the original trilogy.
This story is both satiric and visionary. As I mentioned above, for example,
there’s an intentional self-assuredness to the heroes’ characters that the
original trilogy lacked, which dulls them and subtracts a nuance we’re
expecting. Characters you thought you would love you actually hate or
dislike. Their sense of discovery too is gone; now it resides with the Sith,
aiding their quest to topple the current order — not until later in the
original-trilogy Empire’s cold efficiency do they lose this sense. This is
what draws *Anakin *to the Sith: They make him run; they challenge him. I
can’t possibly review or analyze the whole story here, but below are three
examples of concepts that ingeniously appear solely in the imagery.

Natalie Portman as Amidala. (Lucasfilm)

1) Gesture mirrors: “*Star Wars: Episode IV*” begins with a Blockade Runner
that has obviously just escaped a blockade, and “Phantom Menace” begins with
a (too) similar ship approaching a blockade, willingly entering it.
Mirroring begins the trilogy. Even basic plot gestures are mirrored. *Vader
*wants her alive; Sidious wants them dead. And subtly there is a doubling of
doom; we meet the trilogy’s central conflict: hooded humans who want to kill
one another within the film’s opening seconds (the Jedi and Sidious).

2) Character mirrors: “Phantom Menace” is saturated with strangely similar
bipeds that are overt mirrors: *Jar Jar Binks *and the Droid Troopers
present living versus mechanical beings that nevertheless have similar
coloring, shape and form and are equally awkward; Lucas even introduces them
in mirrored framings and movements, and ultimately they go to war with each
other on a massive scale. Also, *Obi-Wan *and *Darth Maul *(under all the
makeup) are dead ringers, as are *Natalie Portman *and *Keira Knightley *(also
under the makeup), who alternate roles. There are even subtle mirroring
devices: Upon meeting Trade Federationists, Portman wears a gemstone that
behaves as their third eye. The “phantom menace” of the film is this
mirroring — it’s everywhere. Some mirrors we don’t recognize, and some we do
(or are shown). The height, of course, is the Sidious-Palpatine “mirror,”
which the audience sees but the Jedi do not — they can’t see his mirror
simply because they can’t recognize their own.

George Lucas. (Lucasfilm)

3) Location mirrors: In “Attack of the Clones,” the planet Kamino mirrors
Bespin of the original trilogy. These planets have opposing color formats
(gray versus colorful) yet each possesses an  atmosphere made up primarily
of moisture. Both are where the Slave I is encountered, and, as essentially
the center of the trilogy, we see the Fetts, father and clone, play mirrored
roles, the lure of Skywalker to Bespin and the lure of Obi-Wan to Kamino.
And on both planets we have heroes — Luke and Obi-Wan — falling to near
peril.  The result of the lures also have similarly mirrored outcomes: Vader
tells Luke the truth, and *Dooku *tells the truth to Obi-Wan. Both trilogies
end by revealing what those truths mean.

Consider this: With all these mirrors, a form takes shape — it’s a sphere.
It’s a mass that Lucas slowly animates into a behemoth. The prequel trilogy
might accurately be called the hidden story of the Death Star since he
animates large spheres of all kinds in reference to this weapon: the
Federation Droid Control ship (a ring that surrounds a sphere means many of
these ring a planet for its control), the Congress of the Republic,
Coruscant as the planet that is one city. Consider the vast, curved landing
bay of the Droid Control ship and Death Star’s trench as subtle mirrors of
each other; Anakin even mirrors Luke’s last battle accomplishment when he
destroys the Droid ship. Finally, even more wickedly, we see the water-opera
sphere in “Revenge of the Sith,” which appears to be reenacting the last
battle of the next film, while *Palpatine *explains Anakin’s origin without
directly telling him. Look carefully and follow the patterns: Overall, there
is a transforming flow of identities that take spherical form, a path from
nature into the mechanical.

Darth Maul, played by Ray Park. (Lucasfilm)

Now the whole enchilada: Since you have these basic examples, look around
and you’ll see hundreds of these patterns between and within the trilogies.
Want some more? OK: Two asteroid chases in the middle films, with Obi-Wan
imitating the Millennium Falcon’s hiding style in “Empire”; the Jedi’s
temple tower resembles the Emperor’s tower; Geonosis, hot and arid, is the
exact opposite of Kamino, yet each planet is the source of the war’s troops.
Still want more? Notice Luke is suspended upside down both in the beginning
and the end in “*Empire Strikes Back*“; the Lars homestead entrance is a
dead-on mirror of *Artoo*. Luke kneels while he gazes at a loop of
*Leia *kneeling.
Watch Luke duel the remote device in “Star Wars” wearing a type of helmet he
also wears while destroying the Death Star; he duels both successfully in
similar states of limited vision yet at wildly different scales. As Leia’s
torture approaches, watch the TIE Fighter’s hexagonal wings wipe frames with
the cell block’s hexagonal corridor. Check out the cantina scene in Star
Wars: It is carefully rescaled as the holographic game played aboard the
Falcon.

Now take a look and see for yourself. Not only are these patterns not
random, but they also intentionally and artfully tell a story outside (and
inside) the surface drama that unfolds among the protagonists. Lucas’ visual
ingenuity is relentless; he offers us a strikingly revolutionary level of
storytelling. I agree that no one can make you like films you simply don’t
like, but look deeper and go back and watch a film you’ve actually never *
seen* before. Welcome to the future, where George Lucas already is. Take a
look around…

– Kevin McLeod


Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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