Firefly - Jaynestown

This post contains spoilers.

A few months ago, I rewatched the Firefly series (now I've seen it three times) so I could watch the movie for the first time.  Recently though, I found myself thinking about Fess Higgins' posture near the end of "Jaynestown."

After having heard that Jayne's returned to the factory settlement of Canton, Magistrate Higgins puts a land-lock on Serenity so that he can't leave Higgins's Moon.  Years ago, Jayne stole "sixty thousand" from him (it's made clear that the "sixty thousand" is an amount of money, although the monetary unit is not really specified), and the magistrate wants him to run into his old partner, whom he (Jayne) had betrayed in the course of the robbery and whom the magistrate releases from prison in order to create a conflict.  It's implied that Inara convinces Fess (the magistrate's son) to remove the land-lock, after he tells her about the "folk hero" and that he "sort of hate[s] the idea of his getting caught."  Fess admires Jayne as folk hero because he stole from his father while Fess is still firmly under his control.

After Serenity takes off at the end of the episode - without any trouble from port control - the scene cuts to Fess explaining to his father that he "sent an override to port control [and] lifted the land-lock on Serenity."  After the magistrate expresses his anger, Fess says (in something of a medium shot), "You wanted to make a man out of me, Dad."

Then the angle changes to see him sitting at a table before he says, "I guess it worked."

His posture here emphasizes what he says.  It's almost comically large, and - as I learned from a TED talk a few years ago - posture is related to confidence.  It's subtle, but it's a detail that really helps to visually portray how Fess has changed.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - S1E22 - Hostage Crisis

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Near the beginning of this episode, Anakin Skywalker is trying to convince Padmé Amidala to go away with him.  She declines because of the important senatorial work she had to do, but Skywalker isn't convinced by this.  He explains that nothing is more important to him than their love and that he'll prove it.  He says, "When I finished constructing my lightsaber, Obi-Wan said to me, 'Anakin, this weapon is your life.' This weapon is my life," and then he gives it to her.

As he hands it to her, it's facing a direction in which - were it activated - it would eviscerate her:

This foreshadows events in Star Wars - Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith.  In the movie, Skywalker has dreams in which Amidala dies in childbirth.  Emperor Palpatine tells him that there's a way that he (Skywalker) can save people from death, and Skywalker joins the Sith in order to learn this power.  However, his joining the dark side is devastating for Amidala, who loses the will to live.

Skywalker's giving her his lightsaber in this particular way in "Hostage Crisis" foreshadows that.  He's only a small step away from something that will fatally injure her.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - S1E15 - Trespass

This post contains spoilers.

Recently, I've been making my way through the first season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  It's the first time I've watched them on DVD, but I saw most of the first two seasons on the Star Wars website shortly after they aired (I don't think I actually saw any on television).  In any case, I noticed something interesting in episode fifteen - "Trespass."

The episode begins with a short narration:

Republic outpost overrun!  The Jedi have lost all contact with the clone security force stationed on the bleak, snow-covered planet of Orto Plutonia.  Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, accompanied by dignitaries from the nearby moon of Pantora, are sent to investigate the disappearance of the clone troopers on the desolate and forbidding landscape.

Upon arriving at the outpost, they find clone trooper helmets positioned atop spears:

Shortly afterwards, they investigate a Separatist post and find droid heads similarly displayed:

Skywalker posits, "By the look of things, I'd say whoever attacked our base took out the droids, also."  He's proven correct when they discover a band of Talz on the planet, which was previously thought uninhabited.  This discovery causes problems with the dignitaries.  Chairman Cho repeatedly declares that they are savages and believes that he has control over them.  The chief of the Talz, Thi-Sen, wishes for peace but doesn't want Cho to remain on his planet.  Despite the protestations of the Jedi and Senator Chuchi, Cho refuses to recognize Thi-Sen's authority or comply with his request, and he declares war:

The Talz ambush the Chairman and the clones tasked with protecting him when they (the Chairman and the clones) are en route - ostensibly - to the Republic outpost (it's not clear exactly where they're going).  Meanwhile, Senator Chuchi contacts Pantora's Speaker of the Assembly, and the Assembly decides that Cho is over-stepping his bounds.  The Speaker tells Chuchi to negotiate peace between Pantora and the Talz.

By the time the Jedi and the Senator catch up to the Chairman and the clones, they've been pummeled by the Talz.  Captain Rex explains that they're "in quite a mess" and that the Chairman is injured.  Chuchi tells Cho that she is going to settle the dispute, to which Cho again objects.  He dies in the midst of his protesting.

Chuchi takes Cho's hat and one of the Talz's spears and walks up to Thi-Sen.  Plunging the spear into the ground, she then places the Chairman's hat upon it.   Through C-3PO's interpreting, she tells Thi-Sen that "to die for one's people is a great sacrifice.  To live for one's people, an even greater sacrifice.  I choose to live for my people.  What do you choose?"

Thi-Sen places his own spear in the ground and chooses to live too.  Chuchi leaves Orto Plutonia under the Talz's watch and recognizes their authority and rights.

Unlike Cho's accusatory gestures when he declares war, Chuchi's body language itself (holding out her hand to Thi-Sen) is welcoming and peaceful.

More significant, though, is Chuchi's placing the deceased Chairman's hat atop the spear.  It illustrates not only that she wants to put the conflict to rest but also - perhaps more importantly - that she understands some of the Talz's culture.  It's as if she gives the Talz their victory over Cho.  She mirrors that aspect of their culture in order to demonstrate her wish for peaceful relations, to which Thi-Sen positively responds.

Ratatouille

Yester-day I watched Ratatouille, and I noticed something interesting about the designs surrounding the food critic Anton Ego.  At the very beginning of the movie, he's briefly present (on television), but when he's first properly introduced, there are design elements around him that are suggestive of death.  The typewriter on which he types his reviews vaguely resembles a skull:

And the room in which he does his writing - as viewed from above - has the same shape as a coffin, even with padded walls:

Both of these death-like features visually connect Ego with the restaurant fatalities that his reviews can cause.  He's a Grim Reaper, but of a different type of death: closed restaurants.

Additionally, while watching the movie, I found some of Pixar's hidden references.

I've seen this elsewhere, but I might as well mentioned it.  While Remy is first exploring Paris, he's startled by the silhouette of a dog that looks like that of Doug from Pixar's Up, which would be released a few years later (Ratatouille was released in 2007; Up in 2009).

Pixar's A113 is present on one of the rat's ear tags.

"Light" in Star Wars: A New Hope

Last month I read Star Wars Storyboards: The Original Trilogy.  While reading it, it occurred to me that the name Luke probably comes from lux, the Latin word for light.  I looked this up in a name source book I have and confirmed it.  Incidentally, Lucas also comes from the same root.

As a name for the character, it's apt because he's one of the heroes of the original trilogy, and it's especially apt because he embodies the light side of the force.

But because I'd been reading this book of the storyboards, it occurred to me that Luke's manifestation of light is also represented visually.  One of the first scenes that he's in features the double sunset of Tatooine:

(I have only the full screen version.)

There are two suns, which in the immediate context tacitly illustrate Luke as light, but they're also an indication of the two twins - Luke and Leia.

Back to the Future, Part II

I wouldn't necessarily say that this post contains spoilers, but it might ruin the movie for you.

I recently re-watched the Back to the Future movies, mostly so I could write about sleep and how there seems to be time-travel-related jet-lag, but it's also given me an opportunity to write about the alternate timelines in Back to the Future, Part II, a feature that's bothered me for years.  The movie doesn't follow its own logic.

The alternate timeline part is explained after Marty McFly and Dr. Brown return to 1985 but find that it's vastly different.  Doc says that "Prior to this point in time, somewhere in the past, the timeline skewed into this tangent, creating an alternate 1985."  He even draws a diagram:

This 1985 is alternate because Biff from 2015 went back to 1955 and changed the course of future history by giving his past self the sports almanac.  But since 2015 Biff changed the course of future history when he's in 1955, when he returns to 2015, it should be the 2015 of that now-alternate timeline - the same timeline that Doc and Marty experience in 1985.  Instead, the movie shows 2015 Biff returning to the same 2015:

Like the newspapers change after key events are prevented later in the movie, 2015 should change around Doc and Marty from the "original" 2015 to the alternate 2015.  I'm not sure what would happen to Biff though.

It might be that 2015 Biff can return to the original 2015 because that skewing of the timeline would change his own future so much.  So he's returned to his own time, which then vanishes as the now-altered timeline takes prominence.  That's the only explanation I can think of, but it still seems a contrivance just so that the Delorean can be returned to Doc and Marty.

Sleep in the Back to the Future Trilogy

A few months ago, I got to thinking about sleep in the Back to the Future movies, specifically the recurring scenes where Marty McFly wakes up and is told "you've been asleep for [however many] hours."  I recently re-watched them all, and I think those scenes are meant to indicate a sort of time-travel jet-lag.  In the same way that people's sleep schedules get messed up after a lot of travelling to and/or through different time zones, Marty McFly's sleep schedule is messed up because of the time travelling.

Shortly after he travels to 1955, he's hit by a car and wakes up after nine hours.

"You've been asleep for almost nine hours now."

In the alternate 1985, he's hit on the head and wakes up after two hours.

"You've been asleep for almost two hours."

In 1885, he falls down an incline, hitting his head on a fence, and wakes up after six hours.

"You've been asleep for nearly six hours now."

Granted, he's hit on the head before each lengthy period of sleep, but in Back to the Future, Part III, he wakes up (without having been hit) and says, "Oh, man, did I sleep."

Before I watched the movies, I wondered if the number of hours he was sleeping before those recurring scenes had any connection to how far away (temporally) he was from the original 1985.  That doesn't seem to be the case, but I still think that there's something to the sleeping-as-time-travel-jet-lag idea.  Those scenes indicate that the time travel is - in some way at least - affecting his sleep.