There are a couple of tidbits over on TF.N about Star Wars Episode III: The Phantom Attack of the Menacing Clones. First is the item that there is apparently to be no location shooting at all on Episode III. So all the “planetside” shots will be digital, except for those shots already known to have been filmed during Attack of the Clones shooting, a couple of years ago. Second, it appears that a long-lived rumor — that footage of Natalie Portman has been shot for later insertion into even-more-Special-Editions of the original trilogy — is, in fact, not the case. I can deal with that.
And finally there’s this intriguing item: “Color and darkness will be emphasized in the film. Rick McCallum says it will mimic paintings by Mark Rothko.” I assume this refers to the film’s visual look, as opposed to its story, but George Lucas is a very visually-oriented storyteller, so this may be kind of important. I found this gallery of Rothko’s work yesterday. I am unfamiliar with him, but it appears that his work features bold colors with a lot of contrast. Episode III would seem, then, to have a look of its own, different from the initial “naturalistic” look of A New Hope (which gives way halfway through the film as technology takes over the story).
Finally, in news items thus far regarding Episode III, Jonathan Hales — Lucas’s co-writer for Attack of the Clones — has not been mentioned. I wonder if Lucas again did the script all by himself. I rather hope not, since as much as I love Lucas and Star Wars the guy has always needed help in the dialog department. We’ll see. (I was also surprised to learn that the current draft of the script is only 102 pages, but this might not be that indicative of anything.)
