I disagree. But I also don’t wish to hijack the thread, so I’ve opened a new one hereabouts.
On second thought, something about Lucas (perhaps my unending loathing for him) really sticks in my craw when I’m of a certain tired/stressed mind. It’s kind of silly for me to be so vehement when it won’t change anybody’s mind or endear my arguments to anybody (and does come down to a matter of taste anyway). Sorry about my earlier tone and Merry Happy everybody!
Though I will say that while making my Life Day cookies earlier, it occurred to me that the Star Wars Holiday Special is exactly the level of awfulness I believe Lucas is capable of.
OK. But please, have a look at American Graffiti some time. There are good reasons it was nominated for five Oscars and was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry
Yeah, it’s a good thing he didn’t direct it. Or write it. Or even produce it. In fact, I just looked through the credit list for it on IMDB, and for the life of me, I can’t see where his name appears anywhere on it.
The “That’s no moon, that’s a space station” scene. Run it through three times and compare Alec Guiness’ realisation with Hammill’s and Ford’s. That, my friends, is real acting vs bad acting.
Another vote for good acting.
It was good casting too. All the actors fit their roles well (with the caveat that two of them don’t look like brother and sister…).
Sure, it’s camp dialogue but wasn’t it the case that Lucas had originally wanted to do a Flash Gordon movie?
I think you could argue that Lucas wrote a Flash Gordon style romp, and it would have been pretty forgettable were it not for the acting, casting, sets, costumes, music…
Perhaps I should have included a smilie face with the comment. Either 
or :D. FTR, the cookies turned out nicely.
One of those reasons can’t be Richard Dreyfus, can it?
I’ve always wondered how fantastic AG could have been if Dreyfus would have been in another galaxy, far, far away.
you’re either unaware, or underappreciative of this tidbit
doing something great in your teens or 20’s that’s deeply personal is no indication of lifelong potential.
there’s a lot to be said for and against the Star Wars movies, but that Lucas is a great director is not among them, AG not withstanding.
Harper Lee wrote a great book, but she did not become not a great writer.
No, it doesn’t mean it’s “okay”. That’s a gross oversimplification. What it means is, it’s not going to BE GWTW. And when I see people describe how they would have liked to have seen the plot go (apologies to Miller for one), they’re trying to change it from light, fun adventure to some heavy angst filled drama in many cases.
My entire point wasn’t “people forget,” but if people are having heartburn with it, maybe that TYPE of movie isn’t their cup of tea. Frankly, nearly every popular movie I’ve seen always garners absolute droves of anti-fans, very shortly after its becoming popular. It’s always the same thing “the acting is horrible, the lines are horrible, the plot is horrible!”.
And then their reasons for all of these things supposedly being horrible boils down to one thing, it’s not what THEY wanted to see. For instance, when I asked similar questions in one of the multitude of “why is star wars so bad” threads, some of the answers I got back were (shortened and paraphrased) “Clone Wars should have had MORE war and the clones shouldn’t have been a tool of the allies, because that would have been evil and the rebellion wouldn’t have done that”.
And “Padime should have had an affair with Obi Wan…etc”. What? We’re going to turn this into Godfather, or Peyton Place now? When I said “based on serials”. I mean the campiness and basic good vs evil storyline, I didn’t mean old black and white “.Teenagers from outer space”…Sheesh.
Different people have different personalities, some are more enthusiastic and OUT there, but I don’t really find whatserfaces acting “stiff and dead” as others whine. I Liked her in SW and I’ve seen her in other stuff, and for me, she does soft spoken, steel magnolia elegance CORRECTLY (unlike Gweneth Paltrow for instance, who appears to be drugged and/or depressed all of the time).
It’s strange though, whenever I ask people what THEY think should have been done instead in the storyline, all they come up with is crappy stuff. And they never really point out (still haven’t in this thread, really “I wanted to go to toshi…? is the horrible plot/acting example?) what it is that is sOOOOOoooooo supposedly crappy”.
And still, not once, even in this thread has someone come up with a clear cut, valid example of horrible writing, a plotline or acting that is MSTK3 worthy etc.
.
So all characters in a movie must react to circumstances in an understated stoic way, or they’re not “good actors”? How boring movies would be if all of the characters reacted to things merely with a sardonic lift of the brow, or a faint long-suffering sigh!
With my experience of teenaged boys, Luke’s reaction was EXACTLY what I’d expect of a young man (particularly THAT young man, he was after all Luke Skywalker, not exactly your most patient or self-disciplined kid). And the reactions of Han Solo are exactly what I’d expect of a smart aleck, jaded, semi-bad boy.
So again, what exactly was bad acting about this above all others? Details. What did Mark Hamill do that wasn’t what a real person would have done in that situation? How, EXACTLY, point by point, did his reaction constitute “bad acting”?
I was just out of high school in '77 and Stars Wars was COOL! It was a fun story pretty well told and the intended audience like it enough to see it over and over and then come back for a sequel.
By the time The Empire Strikes Back was over, though, the draw, in my mind, was Harrison Ford.
Looking back, the first one might have flopped without Ford, but the “I love you” “I know” exchange more or less cemented the fact that he was the actor people were there to see. The Indiana Jones movies and the next phase of his career indicate to me that his presence was what “made” Star Wars more than anything else. He headed up some of the biggest box office draws of all time in quite a short time.
Lucas owes him everything.
I’m fine with light, fun adventure. Worked pretty well with the original trilogy, after all. But I don’t think that Lucas was aiming for “light, fun adventure” with the prequels - or, if he was, that’s an inappropriate approach to take for the sort of story he’s trying to tell. The stated purpose of the prequel trilogy is to tell the story of how Anakin Skywalker, a great hero, turned into Darth Vader, one of the most evil men in the galaxy. That’s not really “light, fun adventure” fare - it’s more “high Greek tragedy,” if anything. This is, after all, a series of movies whose protagonist’s character arc ends with him butchering defenseless children with a laser sword, then murdering the mother of his own unborn children. Which is, I think, way more dark and angst filled than anything I’ve ever proposed as a rewrite for the series.
Miller… Well, you’re right…but I didn’t say JUST “light fun adventure” and "light fun adventure alone. And you’re right the second (or prequel) trilogy, is a lot heavier and more serious than the first.
But it still isn’t supposed to be some high brow, work of the ages, and that’s what it seems people still keep trying to turn it into, or are mad that it’s not, or more to the point, are mad that the story wasn’t THEIR story. It’s a space adventure, one peopled with fallible human characters. Yes, there are plot twists that I didn’t care for, (that’s true in a lot of movies AND books I otherwise enjoy, not everything is everyONE’s cup of tea).
The biggest one to me was the motive for Anakin to allow whatsisface to start making him come over to the dark side of the force. Come on! A society that it capable of space travel and hyper speed, but yet still has women, (a high society woman with access to the best medical care?) dying in childbirth? I’m not buying it. And the clone wars one? WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many battle scenes, that lasted WAAAAAAAAAAY too long… And the first one? That dang pod race thing went on FOREVER.
So again, I’m not saying it was some masterpiece. I’m not saying it was perfection itself, but it’s not all this MSTK3 bad that so many try to make it out to be, and that anyone that was entertained by it is retarded (gee thanks, what great insight you all have into the IQs of others based solely on their movie going likes and dislikes ).
And as to the acting, different people in REAL life have zillions of ways of emoting and reacting to things, SW (both trilogies) characters acted like people I would expect to see in everyday life. Some are calm and assured like Alec Guinness and some are spastic, whiny teenage boys like Luke and Anakin. Others are somewhat icy princessly types. And then there were the clever little sayings, which I personally LIKED, yes even in the darker prequels. So? It’s a matter of opinion, not fact or lack of taste, knowledge or intelligence if a person does enjoy that sort of thing. And it doesn’t make the movie “bad” that they were included in the dialogue. What it makes it is something that some people don’t care for or enjoy.
It was entertaining and it was Star Wars, it didn’t NEED to be Lawrence of Arabia, or Das Boot (or whatever pinnacle of cinematic success some people are griping that it didn’t live up to).
I find it extremely interesting that some of the same people I see (IRL as well, I’m not pointing out any particular dopers) jumping on the uber-cool “I hate SW” bandwagon are the same ones who adore trash like Seinfeld.
Really? Someone stupidly wandering around a parking garage trying to find a corner to pee in, or two women arguing over a piece of TP in adjoining bathroom stalls is brilliant entertainment, but “I wanted to go to Toshi (or any other example)” is retarded? wow.
High brow? I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. My complaint with the film is certainly not that it’s insufficiently high brow. I don’t go into Star Wars films looking for rich subtext, or a detailed examination of the human condition. I’m looking for slam-bang adventure on an epic scale. I’m not mad that they aren’t telling “my” story. My story didn’t exist until some years after I’d seen the films. I’m mad that it’s so trivially easy to put together a better story.
One of my chief problems is that the films don’t appear to be populated by any human characters. No one in the film reacts in a rational way. No one has any believable motives. Almost nothing any of them do makes any sense. Why was the Trade Federation blockading Naboo? Why didn’t the Senate care about the blockade? Why don’t the Jedi take Anakin’s mom with them when they leave Tatooine? Why do the Sith hate the Jedi? Why doesn’t the Jedi Council trust Anakin? Why is Anakin so pissed at the Jedi Council? These are all major, plot-driving motivations, and not one of them makes a lick of sense. And because of this, when something they do advances the plot, it almost always makes the film worse. It’s not a matter of a few plot twists that I don’t care for, it’s nearly all the plot twists.
Well, this really gets down to personal taste, and I agree with you, calling people “stupid” for liking or not liking a movie is absolutely asinine. It’s all subjective, there’s no right or wrong answers, etc. etc.
With that in mind, I have to say that Attack of the Clones was one of the worst mainstream movies I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film that failed so completely, on so many levels, all at the same time. If you got more out of it than I did, then I’m genuinely envious of me. I sure as hell didn’t want to hate the movie. But my experience of the film - how I reacted to what I was seeing up on the screen - was almost uniformly negative.
Also, there is an MST version of Phantom Menace available.
Really? That’s a weird overlap. It always seemed to me that the people who were into Seinfeld would care for science fiction in general, and vice-versa. Like, if Star Wars fans were the geeks in high school, Seinfeld fans would be the preppy kids.
For my own part, I never cared for Seinfeld, and I don’t really know anyone who was a big fan of it. Most of the folks in my social circle (which, if you haven’t guessed, is *exceedingly *geeky) never got into it.
Exactly. I think in the last 30+ years we’ve grown accustomed to teenaged characters in movies and television being portrayed as either clever smartasses or sophisticated beyond their years. The result is that an “accurate” portrayal looks “off” to us.
Yup. I was 11 when I saw the original SW in the theater in 1977. My family was not a movie-going family, and I don’t recall seeing anything in a theater other than the occasional animated Disney movie re-release (hooray Bambi!) prior to seeing SW, so I was essentially a blank slate for this movie to write on. I saw the commercials on TV and had to beg and beg and beg my parents to take me to see it, and they finally caved and took me. And it was the most freakin’ incredible, amazing, awesome thing I’d ever experienced in my life. It made an impact on my tastes like nothing else has done since. It introduced me to science fiction, and probably predisposed me to enjoy fantasy as well (which is in line with the statement I’ve seen many times that SW wasn’t so much sci-fi as a fantasy story placed in a sci-fi setting). To this day, 33 years later, my preferred genres in reading material and film are sci-fi and fantasy. And Princess Leia probably has a lot to do with the continuing appeal of pale women with black hair and red lips (the “Snow White” look) to me.
And then I was a high school senior when RotJ came out, and the Ewoks made me go, “WTF?”
Whoa Whoa whoa! Slow down, I can only type so fast.
I don’t claim to know all of the answers, but one reason is there’s only an hour and a half for each movie, so they simply don’t have TIME to go into all of the political reasoning. Who cares why the federation was blockading Naboo, and why the senate didn’t pay attention if it was necessary to the plot that they do so? It may be that it wasn’t that they didn’t care, but that they were stretch too thin financially. Perhaps it’s explained in the books, but I’m not enough of a SW geek to have read them.
Back when GWTW came out, there were similar gripes re “but that didn’t make sense, blah de blah” have you SEEN the book? It could kill a small child if dropped oh him. As it was the movie was over three hours long, and had to have an intermission. So yeah, I agree, stuff that would have made more sense was left out.
As to Anakin’s mom, she still belonged to that flying critter, and it was part of the agreement having to do with the bet over the pod race thing. At least that’s what I got from it, though I’ve only seen it twice, once when it came out, and once when my son was small.
As to the “high brow” thing, that wasn’t toward you, but toward those who ARE acting as if that’s the problem, and there is quite a large following toward that end.
Yes, thanks, because that’s one of my main gripes toward people who are all "it’s SOOOOOOOOOO pathetic. That is, that they are snobs that act as if those that enjoyed it are somehow mentally deficient or some such. And yes, I do agree with you, there were things I didn’t care for in the second trilogy as well. But other plots, even the ones you’ve brought up before would make OTHER people unhappy with it. So yeah, it’s a matter of some not liking the way it went rather than that it was (as someone said when dino’s roamed the earth ) “OMG, it’s MSTK3 bad”.
Yeah, for me Attack of the Clones had far too many battle and getting ready for battle scenes in it. I think I’ve seen the version you’re talking about, and I didn’t think it was valid.
I knew I liked you for a reason! heh…appropriate taste in TV fare anyway!
Yeah, I agree, I didn’t like the prequels nearly as much as I did the first three. And I’m not some sort of over the moon fan of them or anything, but I was entertained enough to enjoy them and was willing to suspend my disbelief as the saying goes.
Last thought, until you said something in a previous SW thread, I though that the whole political structure of the second trilogy was going over my head because I simply wasn’t bright enough to understand what they were talking about. 
It’s a relief to know that, though my brightness is indeed limited, that the reason is, it really DIDN’T make sense.
Actually, it just happened to have been on TV while we were all discussing this, so I TiVoed it and did as asked. Yes, played it three times. Ford’s part in this scene was actually BETTER and MORE believable than Guiness’ whose was stiff and slightly melodramatic (yes, he did seem to manage both at the same time). Not overly so, but Ford’s was much more that of a person not quite believing it, and then “oh, you’re right”! As well as in keeping with the smart alecky “I’m the cool bad boy” persona that WAS Han Solo. And there was nothing wrong with Hamill’s portrayal of a wide-eyed teen on a somewhat scary adventure.
As I’m watching it, I’m realizing that I like Guiness’ acting LESS than the other actors in the movie, something I didn’t realize until this discussion. A lot LESS realistic when it comes down to it.
I don’t really buy the “not enough time” excuse. Phantom Menace was over two hours long, and going by memory, approximately one hundred and ten minutes of that time was taken up by the pod race. They could have pretty easily cut out Anakin’s third victory lap to make room for a couple of lines of exposition to clear things up.
Really, a line of dialogue is all you need for this kind of thing. Star Wars did it pretty well. There’s a line in the first film, about the Emperor dissolving the Senate, and the Death Star being used as a stick to keep the planets in line. (“Fear will keep them in line. Fear of this battle station.”) Two seconds of dialogue, and you’ve established why the Rebel Alliance exists (the Emperor is squashing political freedom) and why the Death Star needs to be destroyed (its the tool he’s using to squash all that freedom).
And not all of this stuff needs to be explained! Again, in the original film, they never explained why Vader betrayed Obi Wan. But that was okay, because it just made it clear that the important conflict was between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire, and that conflict made sense. They could have gotten away with not explaining why the Trade Federation was invading Naboo, if they’d explained why the Sith hated the Jedi. Or they could have gotten away with not explaining the Sith/Jedi thing, if they’d explained the conflict between Anakin and the Jedi Council. But they didn’t explain anything, all the way around, and so there’s no conflict you can focus on and say, “This is what the movies are about, the rest is just backstory.” All of the conflicts are equally indistinct. Not everything needs to be explained, but something needs to make some kind of sense in order for the audience to attach any kind of value to the protagonist’s actions. As it is, the movies give us no reason to invest in them. The protagonists are only recognizable as such because they get the most camera time.
Right. They take her son away, and leave her behind in slavery. This gives us a very sad scene, where Anakin and his mother, Shmi, (No relation.) have to say goodbye to each other, because this is his one shot at freedom, and she must stay behind in bondage.
Except, she doesn’t. There are two Jedi standing around with magic powers and laser swords. Plus they’ve got a squad of bodyguards with guns chilling on the billion-credit Space Yacht they borrowed from their friend, the Space Queen. If they just take Shmi and Anakin with them, what the fuck is a backwater junk merchant like Watto going to do about it?
I have to say, I don’t think I’ve really seen this with Star Wars. A lot of the time, with stuff like this, you get a lot of fanboys complaining that the film should have been “darker,” because they’ve confused “dark” with “grown-up,” (and, often, “grown-up” with "for children). But as I pointed out earlier, you can’t really go a whole hell of a lot darker than the films as they are. Most of the complaints I’ve seen have been over basic failures as an action-adventure movie.
Well, I did say “one reason” not the “BE all and END all of reasons”. For me, it doesn’t really change the whole “the empire is evil and does things for evil and power hungry reasons”. Don’t we know regimes in our own world like that? Like the other thread on “plot points I don’t get” I was willing in this case, to suspend my lack of understanding and just go with it, I guess.
Well, as I said, I’ve only seen it twice, but from what I remember it was an honor thing, not a “we don’t have enough power to get her out of this” thing. She herself agreed to stay because there was an age old agreement of some sort in place that she do so, some debt they were paying. So yeah, the Jedi COULD have gotten her out of it with sheer force but she was the one who made the decision to stay.
Not to mention, him losing his mother (twice, once the first time he leaves, and the second time when the sand people get and eventually kill her) is part and parcel of the beginnings of his journey toward the dark side. And though, as I’ve said, I didn’t agree with the whole “losing Padime in child birth” part of the plot, the early loss of his mom does play into the idea of loss, and in particular loss of important women in his life as being part of the reason for his being so easily swayed to the dark side.
Yes, the pod race was roughly 9000 hours long, you’ll get no arguments from me there.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with the first part of your statement there. I’ve seen that in a lot of entertainment. The second part, you know, I have never gotten that sort of sentiment from any of the discussions I’ve read or heard IRL. It’s almost always a matter of compLETELY bashing the every last thing, how horrible the acting is (no different than any other movie of any other genre really), how horrible the plot is. So yeah, there are some things that don’t make sense, or that I wish had been done differently, but again MSTK3 bad, I mean really, has anyone ever seen “Teens from Outer Space” or “The Beast Must Die”?
But you’re really the only person I’ve ever seen state that their dislike comes from the fact that it wasn’t what you considered to be a true swashbuckler. Most people slam it, and the people who don’t think it’s just dogmeat as being retarded to the nth degree.