I like to pretend the following about Revenge of the Sith:
After the abysmal first 2 prequels, Lucas wised up and quit. He brought in the intelligent folks who know how to make movies and had them make the third movie. They had the bullet points of what had to happen and, of course, realized they now only had 2 hours screen time to do it.
A real screen-writer wrote the best possible script that crams everything in and a competent director came in and filmed the whole thing, trying to get it all in and make it make sense.
From that point of view, “they” did a pretty good job.
So, in reality, Lucas kind of patched up his prequels at least decently with the last one, but the fact that he is the one that screwed it all up doesn’t really give him a pass.
He blames Lucas for destroying the prints of the wrong trilogy.
As soon as he realized he was making garbage with the prequels (as even he must have) he could have burned the prints and pretended the film never existed. But instead he destroyed the prints of the original trilogy and banned their sale forever, while the prequels are (to the dismay of anyone involved, Lloyd in particular) not going anywhere.
Jake Lloyd and Wil Wheaton (Wesley on Star Trek the Next Generation) should get together. I am reading Wil’s book “Memories of the Future: Vol. 1”, and in it, he describes how upset he was as a teen with all the Wesley haters on Usenet and at conventions, etc. One of the Star Trek writers, D.C. Fontana, even had a panel at a convention called “Solving the Wesley Problem” which turned into a total Wesley bashfest where a 14-year-old Wil had to try to defend himself. Wil now asks why Fontana didn’t solve the Wesley problem by…writing a better character!
Maybe Wil could take Jake under his wing and mentor him…a sort of “it gets better” for former child actors who played poorly-written-and-directed annoying characters in reboots of iconic science fiction franchises!
Well, I’m glad someone finally had the courage to speak out about The Phantom Menace. For some time now, I’ve secretly suspected it’s actually not a very good film.
QFT. I know that Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill often comment on how little useful direction Lucas gave them (his standard direction was apparently “Faster! More intense!”).
I consider that, before appearing in AotC, Hayden Christensen received critical acclaim for “Life as a House”…and, then, turned in two whiny performances as Anakin. After looking extremely wooden as Padme in the Prequel Trilogy, Natalie Portman won an Oscar for “Black Swan”. Ewan McGregor has won a ton of awards for roles in other films (though, I’d also argue that he’s the only actor who really managed to do anything with his role in the Prequels). I have a hard time indicting any actor as being a “bad actor”, based on what they did in a Star Wars movie.
Ford, at least, didn’t think much of Lucas as a writer, either. He’s famously supposed to have said to Lucas about Han Solo’s dialogue in ANH, “George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can’t say it.”
I’ll also note that the SW movie which is seen by many (if not most) fans as being the strongest (from the standpoint of story, dialog, and, yes, even the performances of its actors) is The Empire Strikes Back. TESB was directed by Irvin Kirschner, who was known for his focus on character development in his movies. It was written by Leigh Brackett (a well-regarded sci-fi author and screenwriter) and Lawrence Kasdan (who has gotten three Oscar nominations for writing), based on Lucas’s story.
Agree with Bosstone, that was a great analysis! Totally makes sense, and he has empirical data to back it up! It makes me want to kidnap a hobo from off the streets and show him the Machete Order of Star Wars!
I was shocked recently when rewatching the prequels with how YOUNG Anakin comes off, its shocking and totally wrong. Probably because I’ve been watching The Clone Wars CGI show and the animated version of Anakin looks like he is in his late 20s(27-29) and he doesn’t seem young or immature, the voice actor sells him as a mature but hot headed young husband which is what the prequels should have shown.
