Re: George Lucas, pattern cognition, and mirroring

Denial can be fascinating.  :P




On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Johne Cook <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> 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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