Is there any excuse for bad movies nowdays? I’m not talking about B grade straight to video deals, but wads of cash movies like Attack of the Cliches. Even with the knowledge that the movies (TPM and AOTC) are aimed at 12 year olds, I can’t really think of any reason why they are so bad in so many ways. I mean, Shrek was aimed directly at kids, but the dialogue in that was funny to all ages, it even operated on an adult and a kids level.
I’ve noticed it in movies that rely heavily on CG, it seems 90% of the work and time is put into making the shiny reflective surfaces reflect everything the right way, and then 15 minutes was spent on the script and dialogue. Aside from the latest Star Wars, I noticed it mainly in Final Fantasy, yes yes very pretty, but put the eye candy aside, and the movie is something you’d change channels to avoid even at 2am.
While I enjoy the eye candy as much as the next man, (Yoda fight anyone?) I tend to find the old grungy sets look much more realistic, like the inside of the Death Star, thats how things look, they don’t look perfectly shiny and clean with every minor detail rendered.
Hmm back to the point, what possible excuse can there be for the groaningly bad, stilted and cliched dialogue in AOTC? Is Lucas surrounded by yes-men who won’t say "Damn George, who are you kidding? This reads like a 6 year olds diary, I’ve coughed up better dialogue than this
"
I can think of some of the stilted acting being due to the reliance on CG, it must be hard to act against a blue screen for most of a movie instead of talking to a real person/scene. But I can’t excuse Lucas or anyone putting out a movie with the massively obvious faults in dialogue and pathetic scenes (Anakin in TPM, can fly a ship into the landing bay and blow up the power BY ACCIDENT, but damn, nobody thought to fire a pile of torpedoes in there?) There is no excuse for bad movies in my opinion, even if a movie isn’t my cup of tea, I don’t automatically classify it as a BAD movie. Opinions?
Whine whine whine. Bitch bitch bitch. You can do better? Go do better.
The Star Wars movies have always had crappy dialogue. AOTC was no worse in this regard, it just had most of its bad lines concentrated in the awkward, bumbling romance story arc.
And whats with your “shiney” whine? Have you seen the movie? The fighters were dirty. The battledroids were dirty. Tatooine was dirty. Couruscant was dirty. The only unusually clean things were the two shiny ships, Padme’s retreat house (which had a full staff of maids, I’m sure) and the Kaminoan facility, which was a scientific/medical facility afterall.
Star Wars is popcorn fare. Always has been. Yes, even the Empire Strikes Back is just a cheesy popcorn flick.
You clearly don’t like popcorn flicks. Good for you. Get over yourself and don’t watch movies you clearly went in knowing you would hate.
And there was nothing special about Shrek. Anyone can take a bad score that doesn’t fit the film, a bunch of cheesy double-entendre dialogue and make a supposedly “cool” supposedly “kids” flick with second rate CGI. Monsters Inc was technically, creatively and artistically superior to Shrek in every way.
Apparently, it doesn’t seem to bother some people. They think that lousy acting and childish dialogue is OK for a movie that’s not “supposed to be shakespeare”. Or maybe it wasn’t really that bad and I’m just too sensitive.
I don’t think there is any excuse to having bad dialogue or bad acting, or bad subplots. Feel free to have average dialogue, acting, subplots at any point in time, but AoTC had some real stinkers. I’m talking acting that belongs in Jason X, for criminy sake.
Lucas needs to give up some control to somebody who likes to write and direct people instead of computers. I don’t know what happened to the man, his earlier work was great. I know that he wants everything about these movies to be “right”, he’s not just grubbing for money, which is why I’m so baffled.
I think the success of these recent Lucas films must be all hype. Haven’t seen AOTC yet, but saw TPM, and everything else I’ve read and heard on the success of both makes me think it is sheer hype. TPM was indisputably a weak piece of shit - given the budget, experience and potential creative talent of the production team, it is an abomination that such a film ever got to see the light of day.
From everything I am now hearing, AOTC is the same if not worse. I really do not know if I can bear bothering to see this film.
istara, what are you reading? Sure, some people still didn’t like AotC, but almost everyone I’ve talked to, and the vast majority of the posters here seem to like AotC much more than TPM. I saw the movie a second time last night, and aside from the one scene in the meadow (ugh), it’s an incredibly cool movie. It kicks TPM’s butt all over the place. I’m sure plenty of people disagree, but most people on the board that I’ve read seem to agree with me at least on that level.
For what it’s worth, I think AotC is an incredibly fun, exciting movie. Sure, some lines are real clunkers, but overall, it works…very well for a Star Wars flick.
I still think those animals looked like giant fleas.
AotC is much better than TPM. I think the last three films have suffered from Lucas’s extreme lust for money. Star Wars was “made with love”. That is, Lucas wanted to make a space opera and he wanted to do it the best way he knew how. He had piss-poor dialog; but since Star Wars was based on 1930s serials and nobody had done such an ambitious science fiction adventure* before, nobody seemed to notice at the time. (*2001 was also ambitious, but I wouldn’t class it as an “adventure film”.)
The Empire Strikes Back was also a good film. In spite of the (again) cheezy dialog, it was an “adult” film. Yeah, he continued with Arty Deco and Four-Q-2’s Abbot and Costello routine, but the story was aimed, I think, at young adults.
Then came Return of the Jedi. It was pretty good until the action landed on Ewok Planet (whatever the hell it was called). Suddenly it turned into a kids film. I mean, animated teddy bears. Come on. From a series that appealed to “children of all ages”, including adults, it became a Saturday Morning Cartoon aimed at the 12-and-under group. TPM was aimed at the same group, alienating more mature audiences. That commentator in the pod race? Straight out of the cartoons.
So Lucas decided to make kids’ films instead of broad-appeal films. He knew that he’d get the adults by getting their kids. He also knew that people who saw the original films would “have to” see the new ones. CGI was new and exciting, so Lucas decided to “be innovative” (like he was in Star Wars) and use it. But he forgot that filmmaking is telling a story. His stories are secondary to the F/X.
He’s not alone. Look at Titanic: Bad story, but look at the F/X!
As Jman says, the series is “incredibly fun”. But I think they could/should also be good.
Yes, more people did like this compaired to TPM, but I think that is largely due to A) Lowered expectations because of TPM and B) The last 30-45 minutes of AOTC is very kick butt.
I think many people over looked the many flaws simply because the end rocked. I just pray that Lucas gets over himself and hires someone to direct the actors in EP3. He may be able to do great FX, but he can’t direct his way out of a wet paper bag.
Lucas doesn’t need to do anything, nor does he require an excuse for anything, nor does he require your (or my) leave to do anything.
He isn’t spending anyone’s money but his own–LucasFilm Ltd. finances the production of the SW movies 100%; Fox only gets a fee for distribution. It’s Lucas’ money, and he can spend it however he bloody well pleases. And apparently, he wants to spend it telling the story he wants to tell, about the characters he wants to, in the manner that he wants to. If that manner includes some stiff acting and some cartoonish CGI aliens, well, that’s his choice.
Nobody has ever forcibly placed my ass in a seat to see an SW movie, and I wager the same is true of everyone else. I pay my $8, and I take my chances, but I am not under the illusion that George Lucas owes me a damned thing. If I don’t feel I got my $8 worth, then – and I know this is remarkably innovative – I don’t go see the next one. Simple, isn’t it?
Dude, the movies either made the money, or they didn’t. The industry, believe it or not, actually has methods of measuring things like ticket sales and home rentals. If you think they didn’t actually make the revenue, well, conduct a freakin’ audit or something.
Good call with Titanic, Johnny. I absolutely loathe that film, but it looked marvelous.
And everyone should remember that SW aren’t meant to be taken as something so gravely serious as, say, Shindler’s List. They are meant to be fun and adventurous with underlying concepts about right and wrong.
Frankly, I enjoy the way he has worked in politics into this first batch, as it is completely ignored in the earlier three because of the fascist regime under the Emporor. Hell, in the aforementioned and much maligned meadow scene Padme and Anikin discuss that very notion.
Damn… that was well put. Up to this point I’ve been pissed at Lucas’s handeling of the last three movies and then bango I watch his Biography on A&E and now you say this and it hits me. He just wants to tell his stories as he did when he was a struggling independant. Sure he got rich off of a few of his films but He’s just trying to tell his stories and if we don’t like the way they are going we just simply state our case and walk away.
Maybe there is far too much ownership fans fee they have over someone elses property and we should just sit back and take the time to shut up about it.
If we are so indignant about teh directions he’s takling well each one of us should go out and tell your own unique stories the way we want to.
I mean it’s ok to criticise to the extent that yes I liked it for this reason or didn’t like it for that, but we should stop trying to tell the man what he should or shouldn’t do.
C’mon, half the fun of these things is the Monday morning quarterbacking! We see something that we don’t like and decide that we can do it better. Tell all of our friends online and IRL, that such and such sucked and this is how he should have done it. There are more than a few threads in this forum doing exactly that.
Honestly, even though I believe he is just trying to tell his story, the same as he did with the original trilogy, the films feel very different. In the OT, I thought the characters played off each other very well, and they seemed natural and believable. There was a little of that in AOTC, and none of it in TPM. Even though the OT was a “cheesy” space opera, none of it was ever as painful to watch as some of the scenes in the last two.
I felt the effects were the worst thing about the last two Star Wars movies. The spaceships in the original movies looked like spaceships, the spaceships in episodes one and two look like CG.
The dialog in episode two isn’t any cheesier than it was in the originals, the older films just have nostalgia going for them. Episode one was awful in just about every regard.
The scene in the field with Anakin and Padme isn’t anywhere near as bad as most Star Wars fans would have you believe. Padme’s ship, however has got to be the worst special effect I’ve ever seen- and it probably took more time and money than most entire movies.
Ultimately it is a good movie because it is the movie Lucas wanted to make. Maybe it doesn’t speak to you but George is just trying to say his thing and he has both the money and the technology to make the movie he wants.
The dialog in the older films is better and better delivered. IMHO
i thought the movie was pretty weak. it was just too much cgi. you know, animatronics and prostheses still have their place. why did lucas even use actors? oops, my bad, no one really acted.
but this is star wars, the behemoth built on luke’s “but uncle owen” whine and wooden acting. but i was surprised at how bad portman was. hayden christensen seemed okay, though. not as bad as i thought he’d be. ewan macgregor did an admirable job, and i would have liked to see more mace windu action.
there wasn;t much of a story. sure, we find out anakin gets shit on a lot and it pisses him off. his mom dies and sends hm over the edge, i presume, into darth vader land. sure, i knew that had to happen one way or another.
and the effects turned me off. i loved the futuristic but broke-ass look of the original trilogy. the aliens were creepy and scary, with a few wierdos mixed in for comic relief. the vehicles looked like ten year old used cars. in the last two installments, everyhting was so slick and polished all the charm was lost. and there were so many aliens and monsters and vehicles, you could tell they didn’t put as much work into developing each and every one. it’s very telling when they have to bring back bob/jango just to get people excited. this guy was a simple plot device in the original trilogy. people liked him because he looked so damn cool. aint no one in these last two movies that even comes close. damn, even that muppet-ass rancor looked cool in “jedi.” maybe because you had to think “how did they do that?” we all know that the computers can do about everything now, so all the mystery is gone. really, nothing in the last two movies even came close to the aliens in jabba’s lair, not even close.
You ever notice how a lot of American cities have some really grand-looking architecture from the 1920s and 1930s, but not a lot of notable stuff from the 1940s? Or how industrial and consumer product design really hit their strides in the 1950s and early 1960s, but the 1970s are considered almost universally atrocious? Do you think there might be a reason for that?
Things like wars and economic recessions tend to push design and aesthetics to the back of the priority list. Episodes I and II take place in a galaxy living in its equivalent of the 1920s. Episodes IV-VI take place in that galaxy’s 1940s.
Agh. Love him or hate him, Jar Jar looks a thousand times more “real” than freakin’ Sy Snootles or Max Reebo. Or even Salacious Crumb, who was so obviously a rod puppet that it was shocking.
Eh, I saw TPM and I think that’s the end of my Star Wars viewing. I guess I just have less tolerance for poor scripting and dialogue now. Nothing that anybody has said about AOTC has piqued my interest in seeing it. (Before you say it, yes I read the threads because I used to be a fan and was looking for something that would make me want to see it.) It seems like the only recommendations are coming from people who say that there are some really cool action scenes to make up for the other stuff. I’ve gotten tired of light saber battles, high speed chases and filler in between. Really, does a light saber battle even compare to a fight scene from something like Crouching Tiger or Jackie Chan?
i understand that there are socio/economic factors at play between the fist and last trilogy. and i know that architecture and industrial design are influenced by the times (i’m an architect, fer chrissakes). but i just don’t find the scenery or vehicles very interesting in the last two movies. maybe it’s because i remember then through a filter, being that i was in second grade when i saw jedi (the sole original starwars movie i actually went to the theater to see).
probably the same thing with the aliens. but in no way can jar jar be remembered with ackbar, bib fortuna, or many other characters that i can’t recall names for. it just seems that the world was so much richer in the previous films.
and i think computers are oftentimes bad for creativity. call me a luddite, but just look at the films. once lucas got ahold of all this computer crap star wars lost its soul. it’s the same with architecture, i see it at work and i saw it at school. it’s very easy to quickly come up with a slick, complex looking building on the computer, but when you start to really get into the design it’s often lacking. i think process is often bypassed when you can get a finished looking image so quickly. i’ll take hand made models any day to 3-d renderings.