If you’ve seen ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ a few times, you might realize how much of it Luke spends upside down. It happens on every planet that he goes to. You could talk about how it symbolizes how his beliefs get turned upside down, how being a Jedi is different from being a “hero,” or how Darth Vader is actually Anakin Skywalker. But this series of “upside downs” also looks at how George Lucas wrote the first 6 movies.
It would have been convenient to keep using the same formula of ‘A New Hope’ to make the sequels, but Lucas wanted something completely different. He wanted a movie that would “end up in a completely different place than A New Hope.” And the first of these reversals is when he took what happened at the end of the first movie and put it at the start of the second. The battle above the death star is now a battle on the ground, and it’s at the beginning. And, of course, the final reversal is that the Empire wins the battle.
The rest of the movie is like this as well; the entire narrative of the second movie is based on deception and the idea that nothing is what it seems. And the characters introduced also follow this narrative. Yoda doesn’t look like the warrior he is known as, he even speaks backward. These reversals become more crucial to the story as it moves on, ending with the betrayal of a friend in a heavenly city that turns out to be like hell.
The prequels also turn the beginning of the Empire upside down. With an army advancing from right to left, in walking machines, on a group of defenders trying to escape into space. But making our heroes fight with the advancing army instead of against them is what makes the attack of the clones, and the prequels, the biggest turn yet.
The prequels are 3 movies about how everyone is either hidden or is being hidden from, people missing things, and losing track of who they are when they’re not just lying. The prequels are a group of movies that turn the first 3 upsides down. But this all happens because, in Star Wars, there’s always a different side to the story.
The prequels then are the ultimate “other side” of the story. The promising young hero is in both Luke and Anakin, but Anakin falls. The Republic is the Empire. The list of scenes that are mirrored goes on and on. Luke and Darth Vader compared the Qui Gon and Kenobi, the way Kenobi senses life in Luke the same way Palpatine felt for life in Darth Vader on Mustafar, and these are just 2 of the parallels.
This kind of reversal is also shown in a different franchise, Terminator. In ‘The Terminator’ the T-800 is the villain and Sarah Connor needs protection. While in ‘Terminator 2’ James Cameron wanted the T-800 to be the hero, so the T-800 repeats scenes, and lines including the famous line “come with me if you want to live.” And in Terminator 2 Sarah Connor gives protection, instead of needing it. And the final reversal is that in the first movie, the future is inevitable, while in Terminator 2, the future can be changed.
George Lucas’s storytelling bravery to keep exploring the other side makes Star Wars, Star Wars.
It would have been convenient to keep using the same formula of ‘A New Hope’ to make the sequels, but Lucas wanted something completely different. He wanted a movie that would “end up in a completely different place than A New Hope.” And the first of these reversals is when he took what happened at the end of the first movie and put it at the start of the second. The battle above the death star is now a battle on the ground, and it’s at the beginning. And, of course, the final reversal is that the Empire wins the battle.
The rest of the movie is like this as well; the entire narrative of the second movie is based on deception and the idea that nothing is what it seems. And the characters introduced also follow this narrative. Yoda doesn’t look like the warrior he is known as, he even speaks backward. These reversals become more crucial to the story as it moves on, ending with the betrayal of a friend in a heavenly city that turns out to be like hell.
The prequels also turn the beginning of the Empire upside down. With an army advancing from right to left, in walking machines, on a group of defenders trying to escape into space. But making our heroes fight with the advancing army instead of against them is what makes the attack of the clones, and the prequels, the biggest turn yet.
The prequels are 3 movies about how everyone is either hidden or is being hidden from, people missing things, and losing track of who they are when they’re not just lying. The prequels are a group of movies that turn the first 3 upsides down. But this all happens because, in Star Wars, there’s always a different side to the story.
The prequels then are the ultimate “other side” of the story. The promising young hero is in both Luke and Anakin, but Anakin falls. The Republic is the Empire. The list of scenes that are mirrored goes on and on. Luke and Darth Vader compared the Qui Gon and Kenobi, the way Kenobi senses life in Luke the same way Palpatine felt for life in Darth Vader on Mustafar, and these are just 2 of the parallels.
This kind of reversal is also shown in a different franchise, Terminator. In ‘The Terminator’ the T-800 is the villain and Sarah Connor needs protection. While in ‘Terminator 2’ James Cameron wanted the T-800 to be the hero, so the T-800 repeats scenes, and lines including the famous line “come with me if you want to live.” And in Terminator 2 Sarah Connor gives protection, instead of needing it. And the final reversal is that in the first movie, the future is inevitable, while in Terminator 2, the future can be changed.
George Lucas’s storytelling bravery to keep exploring the other side makes Star Wars, Star Wars.
