Yep. It doesn’t matter that the added line “makes sense” for the character moment as Lantern describes, because so would having Vader shout, “I HAVE DECIDED TO FORSAKE THE DARK SIDE AND REJOIN THE LIGHT.” It still works better without dialogue. The dialogue is extraneous. We get the point without Vader saying anything. In fact, Vader’s silence is all the more powerful because we as the audience are being shown the decision as it happens, rather than breaking up the moment with words. From a basic storytelling standpoint, silent Vader is better than “NO!” Vader.
And all of that’s ignoring the woodenness of the actual line delivery, which is where the Vader “NOOOOO” really fails, IMO. It’s delivered in the same sepulchral monotone as the similar moment in “Return of the Sith,” and in both cases comes off as curiously unemotional and, well, really fuckin’ cheesy. Compare that to Elijah Wood’s delivery of the “NOOOOO” in Fellowship of the Ring. Wood’s performance is raw and painful and horrified and anguished. It sounds like it’s being physically torn out of Frodo. The same goes for Luke’s “NOOOOO” after finding out Vader is his father in ESB. In both cases, the actors sell the moment, turning what could have been silly into an empathic connection between the character and the audience.
Even if he did, he’s still wrong. Having a broken shark made “Jaws” better, and having limited technology made the original “Star Wars” trilogy better. The difference between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg is that the latter understands this.
Spielberg understands this now, he’s the one that got Lucas infected with the idea in the first place with his constant corpse-fucking of “Close Encounters of the 3rd kind”.
i’m with rickjay on this one. neither ‘no’ adds anything to the scene. you can see vader’s conflict without a word being spoken, hell, without even seeing his face. much more powerful that way. that’s one of the basic rules of a good scene, “show, don’t tell”.
While I agree with you, do you realize that you’re essentially calling Elijah Wood and Marc Hamill better actors than James Earl Jones? Maybe it’s an unfair comparison, as he “only” has his voice to work with (which, in his case, is more than most other actors have altogether).
No, I’m saying that Elijah Wood and Mark Hamill (both of whom are fantastically talented actors) gave better performances in two particular instances than James Earl Jones did in another.
Incidentally, we should know by now that if there’s any director who is capable of turning a good actor into a bad one, it’s George Lucas.
Do you mean because people would be saying that DV being Luke and Leia’s father would seem like it didn’t fit with the first movie? I mean, they are now, but at least it was the same writer.
Did Lucas call James Earl Jones back in to record the new lines for Vader in the Blu-Ray release? If so, then maybe JEJ failed to emote that line for some reason, but I suspect the line was dubbed from some previous sampling. As such it wasn’t JEJ performing Vader’s reaction to this event and his resolve to stop the Emperor.
I’d put JEJ’s ability to give a powerful, emotional, NOOOO up against pretty much anyone, but I strongly suspect he wasn’t give the chance to do so here.
No, Lucas was just reading the script of the new trilogy over to James Earl Jones, and he recorded the latter’s reaction (he took off the sound of James Earl Jones crashing through his window though).
Irrespective of whether or not Jones was brought back in to say “No,” the fact the line doesn’t work doesn’t make him a worse actor than Mark Hamill… geez, that doesn’t make any sense at all. It may be the same word, but it can be a well chosen line in one place and a terrible line in another.
The “No” is awful and distracting. That scene is the core of the entire saga (even more so when you add the prequels), it was so well done the way it was originally and now it is a poorer scene.
The rest of the changes I have seen I don’t really care about but this change is dumb.
Then again, I literally have seven different home video versions of these movies and will get an 8th when the Blu rays come out so I think I have a serious problem…
The ‘noooo’ was done really well in a Harry Potter film, when Mr Diggory reacts to his son’s death. Link as a reminder..
A long drawn-out ‘noooo’ is for desperation, grief, a final denial in the face of disaster, not resolute refutation. ‘No.’ said bluntly and quietly would have worked. It wouldn’t have been better than silent decisive action, but it would have been OK.
I don’t actually mind too much in a way, because I have the version without the noooo and I think they’ll be around for a long time.
If he is so disappointed with the original movie and its sequels I wish he’d just remake them they way he wanted them to be made from the very beginning.
A good “Noooo!” example that comes to mind is in Back to the Future. Marty sees Doc Brown gunned down, yells “Nooo!” hops in the DeLorean to escape, accidentally travels back in time, etc. returns to the present a few minutes early to try to stop the shooting, gets on the scene too late, witnesses the shooting again from a different angle, is about to yell “Nooo!” again, but is interrupted by the “Nooo!” of his younger self, who then hops in the DeLorean, and so forth.
