Top 5 Ways The Phantom Menace Got it Right
#2: Location, Location, Location.
Say what you will about how real most of the environments actually looked in the prequels (although as I’ll explain in a moment, that accusation is actually somewhat misapplied to The Phantom Menace), the concepts behind these exotic locales are nothing short of breathtaking. The idea that an entire galaxy’s parliament could be held in a big round room with floating platforms housing each representative, or that a whole functioning city could be located underwater (and that it would actually look plausible) was unthinkable prior to 1999. In the Original Trilogy, the most exotic a setting got was a floating city in the sky, and even then it was relegated to interior sets with small windows and awkward lighting.
Obviously they worked with what they had, but the original Star Wars films were significantly limited by the technology they had at their disposal at the time, and usually the most open locations the characters could actually explore were locations any of us could have easily stumbled across on Earth – a desert, a snowy mountain, a forest, a swamp… You get the picture. Not exactly the sorts of places that scream “otherworldly.” But all that changed when the new films came out – the limits were much farther out, and while sometimes the prequels could be faulted for assuming they were in fact limitless, they still deserve a nod for creativity when it came to the worlds their concept artists were imagining. From a design point of view, the prequels are really quite impressive and certainly more daring than the originals.
As for The Force Awakens, so far we haven’t actually seen footage of any surroundings that would seem all that inventive, but there are rumors going about that elude to a gloriously original set piece that would certainly ignite the imaginations of this generation’s child moviegoers – who knows, maybe we finally have a Star Wars film on our hands that can effectively be its own generation’s Star Wars, if you get my meaning, sir.
And if taking a page from the prequel book gets it there, that’s just fine by me.
5 comments
… [Trackback]
[…] Info on that Topic: thelibertarianrepublic.com/5-things-star-wars-the-force-awakens-should-learn-from-the-prequels/ […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Find More Information here to that Topic: thelibertarianrepublic.com/5-things-star-wars-the-force-awakens-should-learn-from-the-prequels/ […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Info on that Topic: thelibertarianrepublic.com/5-things-star-wars-the-force-awakens-should-learn-from-the-prequels/ […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Here you can find 10736 more Information on that Topic: thelibertarianrepublic.com/5-things-star-wars-the-force-awakens-should-learn-from-the-prequels/ […]
… [Trackback]
[…] Info on that Topic: thelibertarianrepublic.com/5-things-star-wars-the-force-awakens-should-learn-from-the-prequels/ […]