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Post by 13leafclovers on Mar 18, 2007 10:31:24 GMT -5
Well, you heard the thread title! Loose your hate and anger upon he who turned to the dark side.
I'll begin by pointing out the HORRIBLE acting in all three of the new movies, particularly Anikan's incessant monotonous talking.
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kaertos
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Post by kaertos on Mar 19, 2007 7:14:06 GMT -5
Two questions:
1. Do you remember seeing the first three movies in the theater? (Trust me, it's relevant, just not in the way you are thinking)
2. Have you watched Episodes 4 - 6 with a real critical eye? The acting in those three isn't exactly Oscar worthy, with the possible exception of Alec Guiness in 4.
I've pussy-footed around it in the past on other MB, but I will stand up this time and defend the prequel trilogy.
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martiansushi
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Post by martiansushi on Mar 19, 2007 9:20:12 GMT -5
I'm not going to say anything about the acting. To be honest, I don't think the acting is really what was at fault in the prequels.
What I want to complain about is GL taking stuff that was totally accepted canon and changing it for no apparent reason. For instance, did you know Anakin was supposed to be roughly Luke's age in IV when he was picked up in I originally, and then somebody decided it wasn't realistic for him to be that old and be so attached to his mother. that somebody deserves to be forced to watch the excruciating scenes with padme and 'anni' over and over again.
also, midiclorians?! magical babies from nowhere conceived by force generating microorganisms?! somebody was on some serious crack when they thought that up.
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kaertos
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Post by kaertos on Mar 19, 2007 14:55:18 GMT -5
Here's the thing though, did either of those things really change anything? As far as Anakin's age, I actually like being able to see this sweet, caring, selfless little boy in I. It makes his fall two movies later that much more tragic. He had great promise...
You know, I thought the whole midichlorean thing would bother me, but it doesn't.
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martiansushi
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Post by martiansushi on Mar 19, 2007 15:38:35 GMT -5
meh, i dunno - too many deus ex machinas for me - darth vader built C-3PO... say what?! in the first place, even a smart force-using pilot kid does not have the technical expertise to build a droid as sophisticated as 3PO... although i have to say, once we got past the idiocy in 1 and the stupid in 2, i thought 3 was pretty good - i think i was bawling for a large portion of the movie, which is not a really difficult thing to achieve, but well, it was SAD!
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martiansushi
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Post by martiansushi on Mar 19, 2007 15:41:32 GMT -5
oh, but I forgot... even that's not so bad, but he keeps going back and changing the originals to fit the recent ones - the changes are completely absurd and superfluous for the most part...
:: cough :: han shot first :: cough ::
and every time he does it, he puts out a new 'special release' which is just another way of saying 'all your monies are belong to George'
heh, actually, my husband and I are planning to buy the new box set of DVDs that has the horrible redone ones and the originals together, then sell the boxed set DVDs of the horrible redone ones on e-bay... hey, maybe nobody else thought of this...
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Post by madsniper on Mar 19, 2007 21:47:52 GMT -5
I'm gonna have to agree with Kaertos on this one. I really like the prequels. In fact, Revenge of the Sith is my favorite of the six. I thought Anikin's decent was very well done. The acting was a little ... stale, and that I DO blame Lucas for (I know Ewan McGregger can act, so it must be bad directing ;P) BUT it wasn't horrible. Not enough to harm the story. Though I do have to agree with Sushi about the revisions to the originals. XP The only one that reeeally bothers me is the one at the end with the Jedi ghosts. Anikin was a good guy the moment he died, so it makes perfect sense for his ghost to be the old guy like in the original version, not Hayden Christiansen. *grr*
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martiansushi
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Post by martiansushi on Mar 20, 2007 9:55:00 GMT -5
hmm, my powers of expression are weak.. I thought Revenge of the Sith was quite excellent. I meant to illustrate that by the fact that it was so emotionally involving for me oh, one last beef - 'Attack of the Clones' sounds like one of those B horror movies... 'the Clone Wars' or 'Clone Wars Begin' or 'the First Clone War' or even something dumb and melodramatic, like 'Shadows of War' would have been better aaand i think i'm done
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kaertos
Deadlander
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Post by kaertos on Mar 20, 2007 14:55:01 GMT -5
It's supposed to sound like an old "B" Movie serial, just like "The Empire Strikes Back" which, frankly, is kind of a goofy title. It's just that most people who complain about the names of the prequels weren't around when the originals came out and didn't expierience the waves of "It's called the Empire Strikes Back"? that ran amok through schoolyards. We all wondered why it wasn't just Star Wars II.
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Post by Poofiemus on Mar 20, 2007 17:38:52 GMT -5
I have to admit, I really do need to go back and watch the originals again; I don't remember the details of them very clearly anymore...
Still, I do remember their overall tone, which is completely different from the prequels! The originals were dramedies, a great blend of drama and comedy. The prequels, especially Revenge of the Sith, tend much more to the melodramatic, which for me gets irritating very, VERY quickly. They did have some humor in Phantom Menace, but that was awkward and felt tacked on, and if you consider the humor produced by the presence of Jar Jar, occasionally even irritating.
Also, the acting is definitely different between the two sets. The acting in the first three weren't fantastic, sure, but at least the actors showed some emotion! Much of the acting in the prequels is rather wooden, exaggerating the melodramatic tendencies of the script. This wooden acting, however, seems to be the fault of the director rather than the actors; if you look at Natalie Portman in any of her other works, she's much more dynamic.
So, yeah--some of the plot ideas in the prequels were cool, but they definitley lost much of the spirit of the original set.
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Post by madsniper on Mar 20, 2007 18:13:20 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, that's my #1 beef with the prequels. Han Solo was the source of much humor and flavor in the original three, and while there were some small sources of humor in the prequels, they never came close to the brightness and character that was Han and his interaction with the other characters. They needed a character like him in the new movies. I know if they had put some random kickass rogue in there everybody would have been saying "Oh he's just a Han clone!" but there were other options. I think Jar Jar could have been a great character. Just remove the horrible accent and the blinding stupidity and replace them with something like a winning personality, and there ya go. Also, the beginning of episode three, with the interaction between Obi won and Anikin, and R2D2's little misadventure, were fantastic and recreated the feel of the originals. There just needed to be more of that.
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kaertos
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Post by kaertos on Mar 21, 2007 6:19:17 GMT -5
Now there is a point I'll agree with. Now I don't hate Jar Jar with the blinding fury of a thousand suns like most people, I actually think he is very needed in the prequels. I do think that he was a huge missed opportunity to do something a little more comic than a "normal" Star Wars movie, but I think they went over the top.
As much as I hate to admit it, when you 're talking about the differences in acting, remember that Lucas only directed "Star Wars" and more-or-less ghost directed "Jedi". Most of the acting people remember is from "Empire" and, frankly, Alec Guiness. He directs the actors to do that, to keep the delivery a little straighter, to keep the dialog very measured and even. Watch "Star Wars" again with a critical eye.
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Post by madsniper on Mar 22, 2007 12:14:04 GMT -5
Ah, okay. Well, he also let Harrison Ford get away with the "I know" line, so we can't disapprove of him too much.XD
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kaertos
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Post by kaertos on Mar 23, 2007 6:23:06 GMT -5
Actually, he didn't. As written in the screenplay, Han's response is "I love you too." On set, he and the director, Irvin Kirschner, decided to shoot it a few times and let Harrison improv a little. On the last take he nailed "I know." The difference, other than a different director, is that Harrison (and by extension, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and the rest of the original cast) were there at the beginning, when Lucas was nobody (effectively) director working on this dopey space flick that everyone thought would be a bust. They felt like they could question his direction. I don't think the actors in the prequel, with the possible exception of Liam Neeson, felt like they could question his direction.
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Post by madsniper on Mar 23, 2007 14:28:17 GMT -5
So, how is it that Alec Guiness DIDN'T let Ford get away with the "I know" line? Because that's what I was saying.0_0
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