Parallels between episodes (screenshots)

Character Reveals

heroines


force mentors


fathers & sons


stormtrooper rescue

 

Good call, she's wanted one of those for 30 yrs.

 

There are visual symmetries between each trilogy, so that's how it works:



Episodes "I - II - III" are the Prequel Trilogy: Anakin's story part 1

Episodes "IV - V -VI" are the Original Trilogy: Anakin's story part 2 (Vader) + Luke's story

Imaginary Episodes "A - B - C" are the unseen story between VI - VII: Ben Solo's story part 1

And Episodes "VII - VIII - IX" are the Sequel Trilogy: Ben Solo's story part 2 (Kylo Ren) + Rey's story

As you probably know if you've already read Mike Klimo's theory ( http://www.starwarsringtheory.com ), Anakin's and Luke's stories are parallel and very similar:

I - II - III / IV - V - VI

But it's visually reversed, I = VI, II = V, and III = IV

So hypothetically with the same reasoning, Ben's and Rey's stories are parallel too:

We can imagine in an abstract way that A - B - C / VII - VIII - IX

However, Anakin/Vader's and Ben/Kylo's stories are parallel but in opposite directions:

I - II - III / IV - V - VI <=/=> IX - VIII - VII / C - B - A

I = IX, II = VIII, etc... That's why Ben will more and more look like Anakin in TLJ, whereas he looked like Vader until now in TFA.

Exemple of this in III and VII:



Luke's and Rey's stories are reflections of each other:

IV - V - VI >< VII - VIII - IX

And IV = VII, V = VIII, and VI = IX, it's easy to see that between TFA and ANH

Finally, Anakin's and Rey's stories are parallel in an other way:

VII - VIII - IX / I - II - III

Thanks for reading

For now, visually, this logic works perfectly between TFA and the entire saga, wait and see...

 

Love this. I hadn’t ever thought about that Ben Solo Part 1. Very interesting angle. I thought of the new ring as being kind of layed on top of the existing one. With ST films connected to PT films and then also, by association, to OT. VII=III(IV).

 

Considering how 8 responded to four films instead of just two, I no longer can go along with that circular model, which assumes the pattern will continue as it existed in the prequels unto the sequels...8 showed that isn't happening. 8 responded to 1, 2, 5, and 6 in one film, which means that IX is now set up in a different position than expected. It can do whatever it wants - respond to everything in a casserole, or respond to the overall allegorical metanarrative, or something else entirely.

This is actually how I've so far mapped Star Wars' chiastic structure. It flows in a sort of spiral fashion of order.


Cheers,
Jayson

 

Here's another Star Wars Chiastic Narrative Map that I made.
This one works a little differently because instead of just a 1:1 relationship, it examines what kind of relationship stories have with each other by breaking down the parallels into two categories: Primary and Secondary moments and themes.

A primary theme or moment are parts that are of principle focus in the story - the main thrust of the story.

A secondary theme or moment are parts that are secondary, or more, focuses.

For example, Rey's story in TFA is the primary theme, while Kylo's is the secondary theme.
Meanwhile, in TLJ, both carry equal weight. Rey and Kylo both have primary themes - Rey to ESB, Kylo to ROTJ, with a dash of bleed-over here and there a bit where Kylo dips into ESB themes and Rey into ROTJ themes...lightly. Mostly they stick to the Rey=ESB, Kylo=ROTJ pattern.
The secondary themes, however, are moved to the supporting cast. For example the entire Canto Bight sequence is a secondary theme connection to TPM and AotC (with a dashing through those to ESB and ROTJ, but the primary focus is on TPM and AotC - there's just an echo of ESB and ROTJ, ergo, DJ as the Lando, the "break it from the inside while dressed as the enemy" ploy, the enemy walker piloted by a friend, Phasma dying in a surprisingly flippant death like Boba Fett, and the dashing rescue escape while things explode on the big ship/barge).

Another example is back in the prequels. TPM connects to ANH and also ROTJ. It's thematic connection to ROTJ is the primary narrative parallel that it runs on, but it does have supporting themes that connect to ANH (which is why many, at first glance, thought it was a rehash of ANH back in the day, and several find it fascinating when Mike Klimo points out that it actually has more connections with ROTJ than ANH).

Typically, the middle films only connect to the other middle films for both the primary and secondary films, BUT, TLJ flips on this because it crammed in 4 film connections instead of just 2. It connects to 1, 2, 5, and 6 in one film. The "why" of this is still unknown, but my guess is to free up 9 to have more flexibility in narrative form so that it doesn't have to constantly look over its shoulder to check if it connected X, Y, Z elements back to 1 and 6. Why 9 might need this, no clue. It makes me guess that it means that 9 is going to act like a final cap and either go around responding to several themes from all films, or do none of that and answer the overall allegorical them of the Saga as a whole. But this is all guessing; the point is that TLJ stands unique of all films in connecting to WAY more films than any other film so far. It connects to just under 60% of the previous films in one go, which .... in itself is an insane undertaking.

Anyway, onward.
There's arrows inside of 2, 5, and 7 which point to A and B sides of these films.
This is because the approach that's been done in the past has been that the middle films are symmetrical films.
ESB is remarkably symmetrical, and can nearly be played backward and forward simultaneously and you would find yourself looking at the same parallels when doing so (though, it would be best if the second half was reversed in scene order, but played in forward direction).
For more details on this pattern, see Robert Lockard's very well written article.
https://dejareviewer.com/2014/05/20...strikes-back-is-a-perfectly-symmetrical-film/


AotC is also symmetrical, but in reverse pattern to ESB.
So ESB's B parallels with AotC's A, and ESB's A parallels in AotC's B.
AotC is also less pedantic about the self-symmetry thing than ESB - it's mostly symmetrical.
For details on its reversed pattern, just read Mike's well written outline:
http://www.starwarsringtheory.com/ring-composition-chiasmus-hidden-artistry-star-wars-prequels/4/


TLJ, on the other hand, didn't go this route exactly. It took the idea of self-symmetry metaphorically, rather than literally. It's narrative themes unfold symmetrically, but the shot alignment doesn't align with the run time to unfold as a symmetrical sequence of shots. The narrative middle of the film is when everything keeps getting split in half (e.g. Snoke cut in half, Snoke's ship blown in half, the light saber breaking in half, Rey and Kylo's final departure from each other and ceasing of wanting to be with each other), but this isn't the run time middle of the film. It's just the "middle" of the narrative themes.
Everything before this part went one direction (good guys make bad choices, bad guys make good choices, hero doubts self and hasn't faith), and everything after this point goes the other direction (good guys make good choices in similar moments as before, bad guys make bad choices in similar moments as before, hero believes in self and has faith in similar moments as before).

So, now that everything's explained, here's the map.



Cheers,
Jayson

 

The principal themes of Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones, and Last Jedi) are love and war.

War

All three films feature battle scenes at the beginning and at the end with contrasting visual styles - one large-scale and intense, the other smaller and more subdued. The War scenes all feature Luke or Anakin winning the day on the strength of their lightsabers. That's significant, as we’ll see the weapon is employed quite differently in each film. The way the weapon is used pointedly indicates the ways the characters have grown throughout the saga. In short:

• Young Luke rushes into a fight alone, before he’s ready, and loses.
• Anakin depends on his friends’ help, and wins.
• Old Luke wins without fighting at all.

The opening of Episode II has Obi-Wan and Anakin rescuing Padme from an assassin. They catch the assassin in a bar and Obi-Wan cuts off one of her hands. This clearly mirrors the final scene in Empire where Luke attempts to rescue Leia and Han only to have his hand cut off by Vader.

Clones' final battle takes place in an arena on the mountainous desert planet of Geonosis - a clear contrast to both Hoth and Crait. The battles of Hoth and Crait begin with a series of nearly identical establishing shots.

The opening battle scene in Last Jedi (the Dreadnaught battle) looks nothing like this and Luke is not there. But curiously, the film cuts away from the battle to look in on Luke and Rey from minute 20-26. Here Luke says a line that ironically echoes a line from minute 25 in Empire, which also foreshadows his eventual role in the Battle of Crait.

There is a pattern to the way the scenes are synchronized across the Trilogies. Following this pattern, it's clear that Luke's scene with Rey, not the Dreadnaught battle, is meant to be the parallel to War scenes of the previous two. Just like Poe taunts General Hux as a distraction before the attack, that war scene is merely a distraction from the scene that has delivers a message about war.

The War sequence plays out as:

• First, Luke rushes to fight and takes down a Walker with his lightsaber (Walkers enter @ 26'). Later, he rushes to fight, and lose, another lightsaber duel (26' from the end).
• Next, Anakin is aided by Obi-Wan's lightsaber (24'). Later, he is aided again by a legion of lightsabers when the Jedi army attacks Geonosis (22' from the end).
• Last, Luke refuses to fight during the first battle ("Time for the Jedi to end" spoken @ 26'). Later, he appears in the battle only to reveal he had kept his promise, and wins while still refusing to fight (20' from the end).

The original and Prequel versions offered diametrically opposed images of battles. The Last Jedi subverts them both by removing Luke from the physical battle and instead highlighting his internal struggle with the morality of violence in general.

By winning the battle, and saving his family NON-VIOLENTLY, Luke has learned lessons from his past mistakes and truly transformed himself into a Classical Hero with the power to transform his world as well.


Love

All of the War scenes described above are book-ended by the Love scenes we will describe below - the Love scenes we found in each film appear immediately after the first battles, and immediately before the last.

There is a budding romance in all three films (Leia+Han; Padme+Anakin; Rose+Finn) where the couple begins the film at odds with one another, then they find each other during an off-world venture, and finally kiss at the end just before the climactic battle scene.

They all fit this pattern, but there are complicating factors in The Last Jedi. Last Jedi actually has multiple romantic soirees with overlapping entanglements. Rose+Finn follows the same basic arc as Leia+Han and Padme+Anakin. Finn warms up to Rose and she does kiss him on time. But, he also pines after Rey throughout. Rey does not initially reject Finn (actually seems to like him a lot), but the circumstances at the end of Force Awakens keeps them apart for most of Last Jedi (she goes to find Luke while Finn's unconscious). While Rey is away she reaches out to Kylo Ren, who embraces her affections at first, only to be rejected by her at the end.


Leia+Han and Padme+Anakin are tortured romances, and the romantic web of Last Jedi is exponentially more tortured. This is why it is so interesting that following the pattern of synchronized scenes through Last Jedi bring us to a different type of love scene altogether:

• While escaping Hoth, Leia bickers with Han over the Falcon's ongoing mechanical issues (34'). Later, Leia kisses Han then says “I love you” (32' from the end), just before the lightsaber duel.
• After the bounty hunter is dispatched, Padme rejects Anakin's first romantic advances (29'). Later, Padme says “I love you” then kisses Anakin (38' from the end), just before the lightsaber battle.
• At the end of the Dreadnaught battle, we get a shot of Leia alone, reaching out to her son with the force (30'). Later we get another shot of Leia alone, waiting for her son to arrive on Crait (35' from the end) before the final battle.

The first thing to notice is the continuing subterfuge Last Jedi employs against the audience:

In the War sequence, the Dreadnaught battle becomes an afterthought once Luke pays off his promise to not fight. The Dreadnaught presents a more obtuse parallel with the other large-scale battle scenes, but carefully watching the scene leads us directly to Luke's words to Rey.

Likewise the Rose+Finn romance is an eye-catching parallel to the other two love stories. Like Leia+Han, and Padme+Anakin, they are driven into each other's arms amongst the terrifying backdrop of galactic war. But we realize it is a red herring when Leia appears at exactly 30 minutes into the film. Thus when we line up the three films side-by-side, another message emerges. While the war had sparked the passions of young lovers, Last Jedi's Leia (once the young lover, now the wizened mother) becomes introspective in the heat of battle and refocuses on the most important relationship in her life: Mother and Child. An expression of a mother's love - the purest love of all, helps make Last Jedi a true sublimation of Episodes II and V.