Hello there! I do hope you are enjoying today's special event, served up warm on a shiny dish by the sexy folks of the PLB and their minions.

Indeed, a suitable title might have been Ablogalypse Now!
Cue Ride of the Vageres.

So, onto my entry in this cornucopia of frozen moments; scenes etched into our subconscious that drive our daily decisions and ultimately lead us down a path that many others gleefully follow.

Here is my still - rather apt in this, its 25th anniversary year.

Look at it - now look at it again. Do you remember how you felt when you watched the speeder bike chase for the first time? Can you recall the excitement that threatened to burst out of your chest, as the trees zipped past? Can you still hear the high-pitched whine of the repulsor engines as they thrust the bikes ever faster into the endless forest of the Sanctuary Moon? The rush of the wind in your ears? The staccato yelp of the throttles as the bikes were pushed to their limits, avoiding trees and blaster fire? Did you duck as the trees threatened to lop off your head? Find yourself leaning first left, and then right, as the Skywalker twins navigated the deadly trunks, and the even deadlier scout troopers?

The image I have to analyze is a basic one. The composition is simple; I have something in the foreground, something in the mid-ground, and a backdrop. Yet, despite its simplicity, the image is as dynamic as any other that could be plucked from the saga.

Let's start at the back.
Choosing the giant redwoods of Northern California was an inspired choice for the forest moon, for these trees are as alien as anything a young British kid could ever see. The largest trees we had in England when I was a kid (and still living there) were oaks and some pines, but these monstrous trees were something else! Now that I live up in the Bay Area, I delight in taking a couple of trips up to Muir Woods - not the place where the scenes were filmed, but very similar - and wandering among the giant redwoods and sequoias. Sometimes I even imagine I see a fuzzy ear or a flash of white armor behind the gnarled limbs of the forest. The speed of the chase through the forest was breathtaking, and perfectly complimented by the sound design, which pushed the viewers' adrenalin levels through the roof!

In the mid-ground we can see Leia, hunched over her controls, trying to outpace the scout who is (literally) gunning for her. At the time I had no idea that stop-motion puppets were being used (something I only really explored when I got into effects a couple of years later), and Phil Tippet and his team did an amazing job of seamlessly blending their animation into the live action. As an aside, for some reason I still love the physics of the blaster bolt that is fired at Leia, which peels off behind her - just another touch that highlights the speed they are traveling at.

In the foreground, taking up 50% of the frame, is the scout trooper. He should really have his eyes on the trees ahead, but instead is focused on Leia. As much as I loved the snow trooper design, it was always the scout trooper figure that I coveted most as a child - it was just so damn cool. In their semi-armor and visor helmets, the scout troopers were the epitome of laid back biker dudes, you could just imagine them cruising the main drag, leaning on their bikes and flirting salaciously with the twi'lek chicks.

The sign of a well-crafted film is that any frame can be taken out of context, and still tell a story. Kurosawa was a master of mise en scene, and naturally Lucas (channeled by Marquand) is the same. Just check out the composition of the shot.

The scout trooper dominates the frame - he looms large and imposing, almost leaning over the tiny frame of Leia. He is higher in the frame, suggesting a position of dominance, and the strong diagonal slash of his torso creates a powerful line of force.
Leia, in contrast, is small and woefully unprotected. She resembles a small, trapped animal trying to outrun a larger, meaner predator. She is concentrating on the objects in her path, trying to survive, waiting for a moment to turn the tables on her pursuer.

I hope you have enjoyed my brief exploration of a key still from the saga, and I truly hope I have inspired you to go and grab your copy of Return of the Jedi so that you can watch the scene again - and lose yourself amongst the giant trees on the forest moon of Endor.

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Ooh, I nearly forgot...