Saturday, October 28, 2023

Star Wars: Rebels - S1E5 - "Breaking Ranks"

At the beginning of the Rebels episode "Breaking Ranks," there's a brief establishing shot of Lothal City.


At first, I noticed only the visual symmetry that this shot has:  the Imperial facility is centered, and the Star Destroyer on the left is somewhat balanced with the sunset on the right.  Then, I realized that there's a contrast between the two sides of this shot and that this contrast illustrates how the Empire's occupation is changing Lothal.

The right side of the shot shows a bright city with rolling hills beyond it, but the left side shows a darkened city emitting smoke from Imperial factories.  The Star Destroyer overhead indicates the Imperial oppression, and the sunset with which it's balanced may even represent the fading of the old days of Lothal.

There are episodes later in the series that demonstrate more clearly how the Empire is stripping the planet of its resources ("The Occupation" S4E5 and "Crawler Commandeers" S4E8), but this episode shows it in its early stages.