I always hear people say that the original Star Wars movie had bad acting. Even among people who like Star Wars, it seems to come up a lot. “I mean, yeah of course the original trilogy is better, but you gotta admit the acting sucked.” Or, “yeah Hayden Christiensen’s acting sucked, but so did the acting in the original movies.”
I’ve never understood this. I always thought the acting of the first trilogy was top notch all the way around, and I’ve seen all three of the movies at least a dozen times apiece.
Could one of the people who thinks the original movies had bad acting specify which actors they found to be bad, and which parts specifically highlight this supposed lack of acting skill?
I thought Mark Hammill, usually the one who is criticized most, seemed heartfelt and genuine in his portrayal of Luke Skywalker, and I thought he talked the way a real person might talk instead of speaking in “movie-speak”, even with all the outlandish names he used.
I am with you. I think what they pick on the most is Luke Skywalker being such a whiner. But what they seem to overlook was that was the point. He was a kid who wanted to have an exciting life in the Academy but was stuck on a big empty dustbowl in the arse end of the galaxy.
His progression from whiny kid, to squadron commander, to accomplished Jedi Knight is clear and brilliantly portrayed; Mark Hamill is cruelly dismissed by his detractors.
“But I wanted to go to Toshi station and pick up some power converters!!!”
“I know… somehow I’ve always known.”
those are the most egregious, but there are a few other clunkers… Hamill was good about 80% of the time, and Fisher was great for ANH and TESB, but pretty spacey for ROTJ. Even Ford was phoning it in for parts of ROTJ… “not a scratch!”
Oh, and I could never understand a damn thing Chewie said…
I agree, there’s nothing particularly wrong with the acting in the original movies. But I think some people get tripped up because the writing is often so bad, and it’s the actor’s mouths those words are coming out of, so they tend to assign the blame to the actor. Which is kind of ironic, because the fact that these actors were able to say some of this dialogue with a straight face is a pretty impressive achievement in and of itself.
I think the acting is fine in the original, especially once actual directors were hired for Empire and Jedi.
The prequels, however, reveal the true lack of directing capabilities of Lucas. The green screens combined with not directing clues made it impossible for Hayden Christensen to act. He’s actually a decent actor, too.
All of it was bad acting. That was the point. The movie was based on sci-fi stereotypes. The acting conveyed realistic sci-fi movie acting, which is bad acting. It isn’t the worst acting of all time. The actors successfully conveyed the image of a bad sci-fi move actor. One of the measures of good acting is the sense of realism in the portrayal. Obviously this is impossible for a movie that takes place in a galaxy far, far away. People there may act just like the characters in the movie, but then nobody in this galaxy can actually know that. So don’t complain about people who are complaining about bad acting in Star Wars. Some of them are complimenting the acting ability of the cast. The opinions of the others don’t count.
Considering what passes for “good” cinema these days, I’ve been wondering this for years.
Really? “I wanted to go to Toshi station…” is bad acting? I assure you, that is a mild reaction from a teenaged boy when balked at getting to have their own way.
I think people forget that the movies were based on those, (what were they called?) serial adventures that typically played between other movies for Saturday cinema and such. The corniness is some of my favorite stuff about them. I personally ADORE “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”. People, they weren’t SUPPOSED to be Lawrence of Arabia.
Too much cinema in this day and age is sordid and black and not too terribly entertaining for it, frankly I prefer something silly to the depressing dreck on TV and the silver screen. I think someone who answered me (the last time I asked this) said it best. “because it’s cool to make fun of it”.
That line in particular is one of the lines that I always thought sounded extremely genuine. Luke’s body language and facial expressions have a lot to do with it, but all his whining on Tattooine actually seems like real whining…I don’t get why people say it’s bad acting.
I agree with much of this. When Star Wars came out in 1977, it was still during an era in popular culture when campiness was prevalent. People forget it was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi adventure and not a deadly serious space opera. Nobody from the studio to the cast to George Lucas himself expected that it would become the touchstone for a future quasi-religion by the Star Wars uber-geeks.
More than that, it was intended to call back to the old Republic serials. (Like this.) If you’re familiar with these at all, it’ll be fairly clear that the corny performances (and they were corny) were exactly what the director was after.
I don’t think he did a bad job. But I just wasn’t convinced by him as the Jedi knight. Not his fault, though. He needed to physically age, and even the best actors would have a hard time.
Similarly I wasn’t convinced by Bruce Boxleitner as the resurrected, awe-inspiring Sheridan. Also hard to act, but I thought it was mediocre at best.
I’m just curious as to which specific lines you felt were “corny”? I think that the original Star Wars did not take itself too seriously, which was a good thing. But this is not the same thing as being “corny.” How exactly was it corny?
I can only assume you have never seen American Graffiti. Proof of Lucas’ ability to get moving performances from both professionals like Richard Dreyfus and non-actors like Wolfman Jack is right there in that movie.
It was intentionally corny.
“You can type this shit George, but you sure can’t say it.” - Harrison Ford
I’ve come to suspect that George Lucas made the original Star Wars in a spirit of mockery, and the prequels arose out of a long simmering peevishness that people took them seriously and never realized what a fine joke he felt he was making.
