The New Order Continues, featuring thoughts I've had before!

[krpalmer]

My plans to watch all the Star Wars movies but view the three new movies in between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi continue. I suppose that even before starting to watch The Phantom Menace, I was contemplating one small point picked out by having it follow TESB directly, that the tauntauns and the kaadu help illustrate how the "popular image" of dinosaurs changed in the course of two decades. The tauntauns (which have been called "snow lizards" at times) stand in what might be called a "kangaroo at rest" posture, with their bodies angled sharply upwards and their tails dragging on the ground. In what might be called a post-Jurassic Park era, the kaadu stand with their spines more or less horizontal and perpendicular to the line of their legs. (I was going to mention the eopies as well, until I realised again that they wound up with four legs.)

I suppose, though, that I was also contemplating something else ahead of time... I was beginning to toy with the thought that I can simply no longer see why anyone would get as upset about TPM as some people have kept themselves worked up to. Then, I started to worry that this was somehow starting to indulge in a sort of hubris bound to be clobbered by hard facts, and reverted to thinking that perhaps the comedy relief was laid on a little thick for some unable to make the certain efforts of will I do, and even being willing to allow some to question the particulars of the plot... Then, when watching the movie, I basically wound up convinced that I could no longer see why anyone would cling so desperately to their dislike as some people do, and enjoyed the viewing. To be fair, though, I might not have been that concerned with trying to focus on TPM as a continuation from TESB.

I can admit I've been indulging in some contemplation of the "machinations of Darth Sidious" part of the plot, specifically what the Trade Federation itself was hoping to get from having blockaded Naboo. Nasty cracks about "a Star Wars movie about a trade dispute?" aside, we know from the movie that with the range of our heroes severely limited after escaping from Naboo, they have a hard time finding a planet where the Federation won't find them at once. That makes me wonder if Naboo had somehow been given preferential treatment from the Senate as one of the last independent worlds in its region, and the Federation was seeking to "close that loophole..." although I was a little surprised to realise again that the Federation is just a little hesitant to land on the planet. Perhaps they had been expecting either the Senate to resolve matters just by revoking Naboo's preferential treatment, or the planet to surrender to their control just for having been blockaded.

Comments

[may-child.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really thought about the tauntauns representing the popular image of two-legged dinosaurs circa 1980, though I had noticed how the popular image of two-legged dinosaurs, particularly the Tyrannosaurus Rex, has changed from "upright" to "horizontal."

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I suppose a part of me can think first of how the "popular image" of dinosaurs changed quite quickly by remembering the Transformers of the mid-1980s who changed into robot dinosaurs, all of which were bulky, lumbering things... and not quite a decade later, there was Jurassic Park. That said, I'm also aware of how new scientific evidence was being discovered (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_renaissance) years beforehand. For some reason, too, I'm also thinking of "Boga" in Revenge of the Sith, who sprawls like a regular lizard but has a ruff of feathers, something that's been connected to dinosaurs with even more recent new evidence.

thank you

[(Anonymous)]

nice work, dude

Re: thank you

[krpalmer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if this is surreal or not, but I'll say "You're welcome" anyway.