Attack of the Clones

Near the end of the conversation that Anakin and Padmé have while she's packing in her apartment, she tells him, "Anakin, don't try to grow up too fast."  When he replies, "But I am grown up," he stands up, as if to prove his point by showing that he's taller than she is.

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Jocasta Nu's insistence that "if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!" is an example of what Yoda comments on in an earlier scene, after Obi-Wan remarks on Anakin's arrogance:  "A flaw more and more common among Jedi.  Too sure of themselves they are, even the older, more experienced ones."

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When Darth Tyrannus meets Darth Sidious near the end of the movie, he greets him with, "The Force is with us, Master Sidious."  Unless I'm mistaken, this is the closest that any Sith gets to saying, "May the Force be with you" in the entire series.  That none of them say this is an indication of the character of the Sith.  As Palpatine explains in Revenge of the Sith, "All who gain power are afraid to lose it."  The Sith want to keep the power of the Force for themselves, so they don't wish it upon others.

The Phantom Menace

Like Return of the Jedi, the title The Phantom Menace is ambigious.  There are three characters who could be "the phantom menace":  Anakin, who is only a child in this movie but will grow up to become Darth Vader and terrorize the galaxy; Palpatine, who uses his position as a senator to disguise his identity as a Sith Lord; and Darth Maul, who mysteriously appears in order to track down Queen Amidala and harrass her Jedi protectors.

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During their dinner conversation, Padmé tells Anakin, "Our ship was damaged, and we're stranded here until we can repair it," and he replies, "I can help; I can fix anything."  His prodigious technical ability seems to be an attribute of his status as the Chosen One.  In the same way that he will restore balance to the Force, he can restore balance to mechanical systems and get them to work again.

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While Qui-Gon cleans Anakin's cut, they talk about the stars, and Anakin comments, "I wanna be the first one to see 'em all!"  There may be a nascent feeling of conquest in this that's fulfilled later when Anakin becomes Darth Vader and takes over the galaxy with the Empire, but considered together with Anakin's interest in podracing, this also illustrates simply that he has qualities that make him a less than ideal candidate for a Jedi.  These are the same qualities that Yoda specifically warns Luke against in The Empire Strikes Back:  "Adventure.  Heh.  Excitement.  Heh.  A Jedi craves not these things."  That Anakin does crave these things may be part of why the Jedi council initially rejects him for training as a Jedi.

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In the movie, the chancellor is referred to only as "Chancellor Valorum," but in the expanded universe, his first name is Finis.  Finis valorum is the Latin phrase "the end of values."  Finis is a third declension masculine singular noun in the nominative case, and valorum is a third declension masculine plural noun in the genitive case.

Based on the little that's seen of him in The Phantom Menace, it seems that Chancellor Valorum is a chancellor "of values," as his name suggests.  (Senator Palpatine tells Queen Amidala that the "accusations of [Valorum's] corruption" are "baseless," but this might just be part of his manipulation.)  His name has more significance in light of Palpatine's replacing him as chancellor.  Valorum represents "the end of values" because once Palpatine becomes the chancellor, he uses deception to gain power and eventually turns the Republic into the Empire.

Return of the Jedi

It's ambiguous who the titular Jedi in Return of the Jedi is.  Originally, I thought it referred to Luke, either specifically or as a representation of the whole Jedi order.  Yoda tells Luke that he will be a Jedi only after he confronts Vader.  Since he does confront him, he earns the title, and the order is revived in him.  As he tells the Emperor, "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."  By the end of the movie, the Sith have been defeated and the Emperor has lost his hold on the galaxy, so, in a broader sense of the title, the entire Jedi order can return from near extinction.  Luke is free to follow Yoda's instructions and "pass on what you have learned."

The "Jedi" in the title could also refer to Anakin.  He had been a Jedi and turned to the dark side, but near the end of the movie, he returns to the light side and becomes a Jedi again.

The Empire Strikes Back

When Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO arrive at Cloud City, there are panels in the background that have a warm glow behind them:

By the time Luke arrives, however, after the Empire's trap has been sprung, this warmth has disappeared, and the panels are colorless:

This contrast in color illustrates the change that has occurred.  At first, Cloud City seems like an inviting place, but once the Empire's presence is revealed, it becomes a stark and unwelcoming environment.

The Original Star Wars Trilogies

Here are some more general comments about the original Star Wars trilogies; in the coming weeks, I'll have posts about each movie individually (with the exception of A New Hope, for which I don't have any significant comments yet).

In "The Beginning: Making Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace" (at ~3:08), George Lucas comments on the parallelism between The Phantom Menace and A New Hope:  "with Anakin, you know, kind of duplicating the Luke Skywalker role, but you see the echo of where it all's gonna go:  instead of destroying the Death Star, he destroys the ship that controls the robots.  Again, it's like poetry, sort of; they rhyme.  Every stanza kind of rhymes with the last one."  This parallelism extends even to the grammatical structure of the titles.  The Phantom Menace parallels A New Hope ([article][adjective][noun]), and Revenge of the Sith parallels Return of the Jedi ([noun][preposition][article][noun]).  Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back are the exception here, but both titles describe a military conflict, so they're similar in a more general way.  There's also an echo between Attack of the Clones and The Empire Strikes Back in that both feature a scene where R2-D2 reconstructs C-3PO.

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Near the beginning of each movie in the original trilogy, there's a shot of a Star Destroyer overhead:

Visually, this illustrates the dominance that the Empire has over the galaxy.

The Clone Wars - S6E10 - "The Lost One"

In "The Lost One," when Yoda goes to see Chancellor Palpatine about a file on Sifo-Dyas that has been sealed by the office of the Supreme Chancellor, Palpatine's shadow falls on Yoda for most of their conversation:

That Palpatine's shadow falls where it does illustrates Palpatine's deception of Yoda and the Jedi in general.  He's obscuring the Jedi's vision so that they don't discover his other identity as Darth Sidious.

The Clone Wars - S6E7 - "Crisis at the Heart"

Near the end of "Crisis at the Heart," a droid starfighter shot down by a clone pilot crashes into the office where Clovis is desperately trying to convince Anakin and Padmé that it's Count Dooku who's deceiving them, not Clovis himself.  The office is at the top of a tower, which starts to tilt because of the damage it's sustained.  Anakin catches both Padmé and Clovis as they slide off the edge:

Significantly, he's holding Padmé with his remaining human arm (his left arm) and Clovis with his artificial arm (his right arm):

The arms with which he's holding these two characters illustrate the different type of connection he has with each.  He has a very close relationship with Padmé, so he's holding her with his remaining human arm.  On the other hand (literally), he hasn't trusted Clovis throughout this arc of episodes (thinking he's too involved with the Separatists), so while he's holding him too, it's with his artificial arm, which symbolizes that distance between them.

The Clone Wars - S6E6 - "The Rise of Clovis"

In "The Rise of Clovis," after Clovis repeatedly asks about the relationship between Padmé and Anakin, Padmé asserts that "there is nothing romantic between he and I."  The pronouns "he" and "I" are in the wrong grammatical case here; they should be "him" and "me."  Presumably, as a senator, Padmé has a quality education and wouldn't normally make such a mistake, but her misuse of these pronouns indicates that she's flustered because of Clovis's suspicion - or perhaps even discernment - of the romantic relationship that does indeed exist between the two.  It's also significant that Padmé separates herself from Anakin here; she says, "he and I" and not "us."

The Clone Wars - S6E3 - "Fugitive"

Throughout "Fugitive," AZ-3's mouth lights up when he's speaking, so in other words, a lit mouth is an open mouth.

After Fives becomes convinced that, like Tup, there's a chip inside his own head, he tells AZ, "You have to take it out."  AZ is hesitant and tells Fives that it's a "dangerous surgery" and "you may die," but Fives replies, "It's a chance I have to take.  I trust you."  Before finally agreeing, AZ's mouth lights up without his saying anything and stays lit for a few seconds.  This is the droid equivalent of his mouth hanging open in surprise.

The Clone Wars - S5E19 - "To Catch a Jedi"

Near the end of "To Catch a Jedi," Barriss Offee (whose identity isn't revealed until the next episode) steals Asajj Ventress's mask and lightsabers and, disguised as Ventress, attacks Ahsoka Tano.  During the fight, she slashes a pipe so that the resulting exhaust temporarily stuns Ahsoka.

While this is somewhat similar to an event in The Empire Strikes Back, where Luke directs exhaust from a cut hose in the carbon freezing chamber at Vader, creating enough of a distraction so that he can retrieve his fallen lightsaber, it actually has a closer analogue in an earlier episode of The Clone Wars, and this holds greater significance.

In "Cloak of Darkness" (S1E9), there's a lightsaber duel between Luminara Unduli and Asajj Ventress in which Ventress does the same thing:  she cuts a pipe in the Jedi cruiser so that the steam compromises Luminara's vision.  Ahsoka was present at the duel (albeit the later stages), and since Barriss is Luminara's padawan, it's likely that she's familiar with it, too.  In "To Catch a Jedi," she adopts this move as an-other facet of her disguise and an-other way to make Ahsoka believe that she is Ventress.

The Clone Wars - S5E16 - "The Lawless"

During Obi-Wan Kenobi's escape from Mandalore in "The Lawless," he and a group of Mandalorians encounter a giant, closed door.  As it opens, the camera angle tilts.  At first, the camera is level with the ground:

But as the shot goes on, the camera shifts so that everything is at an angle:

The shot as a whole illustrates the civil war that has beset Mandalore.  Previously, there had been stability, but now there is confusion.  Along with this shifting camera angle, the chaos is illustrated in the background, where Mandalorians are fighting each other and there are various blaster shots and explosions.

The Clone Wars - S4E15 - "Deception"

In "Deception," after Moralo Eval, Cad Bane, and Rako Hardeen (Obi-Wan Kenobi in disguise) have escaped from prison, they steal a police speeder to get to the docks to steal a ship and leave Coruscant.  Moralo Eval and Cad Bane take the front seats, leaving the back seat for Rako Hardeen:

Since this is a police speeder and the back seat is where criminals are detained, there are bars in the interior and on the canopy.  Visually, this represents Kenobi's situation.  His goal is to investigate a kidnapping threat against Chancellor Palpatine that Eval is allegedly involved with, and for the moment, he simply has to go along with Eval's plans in order to discover more information.  In the same way that he experiences this temporary lack of agency, he's confined in the prisoner's seat of the police speeder.