This is fascinating. Every warsie knows that Boba Fett is like really cool and has all these really cool weapons and is a dead cool fighter and a lot of other stuff involving the word “cool”. But what does he do? Nothing. He speaks a couple of sentences (“What if he dies? He’s worth a lot to me” “He’s no good to me dead”), doesn’t even use his weapons, just walks around in that (admittedly cool) armour of his. In Return of the Jedi, he’s slightly better off and gets to fight a tiny little bit, but his main accomplishment is tying Luke up for a couple of seconds and then being killed by a blind man.
Yeah, I guess the majority of it comes from novels and the comics. He supposedly survived the Sarlac and climbed out, and then continued to be a thorn in Han and Luke’s side, so I keep thinking of him in that fashion…but aside from capturing Han, he really did nothing fancy. Still, that in itself was ten times better than anything Jengo did. Boba at least knew how to pose.
Boba Fett sorta embodies that old adage: “Better to be silent and remain a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” But in this case people thought he looked badass for a bounty hunter and their imaginations filled in the blanks. Boba is about as badass as Donald Duck.
Aiming for 15 year olds is fine by me. It would help keep the magical feel of the original. An adult film may have made is feel too “real.”
Problem is, in episode I, they aimed for 5. Good story and all, but Jar Jar seriously turned many people off. And the battle between the “primitives” and the droids should have been a total massacre rather than a losing fight.
However, they noticed this, and took steps to correct it. Episode II not only aimed for 5, but hit it square in the face. We get a love affair that basically demonstrates Anakin to be a stalker, coupled with utterly unecessary scenes that leave no part of the plot unobvious. I second the horrible acting, of course:
Basically, I was half expecting him to belt out “muahahaha!!!” through most of the movie.
^^ You have to admit that scene where Anakin starts raining blood on the Tusken Raiders was pretty damned good. At least I thought so. That image of the kiddie Tusken running around adds some serious weight to the whole spectacle.
Unfortunately thats about all thats particulary good of Episode 2. Wayyyyy too much CG, how can actors effectively act against nothing most of the time?
In Phantom Menace, make Aanakin approximately Luke’s age in A New Hope.
In Attack of the Clones, cut out the ultra-uber cheesy “love” scenes on Naboo. Instead, have the assasins follow the couple to Naboo and have Aanakin repeatedly save Amadala’s life. Then she falls in love with him because he’s heroic. Thus, a more believeable romance AND more action. And no big tick things.
It was good. But then he went and made it plainly clear to everyone - even those younger than 5 - that he let his anger get the better of him, instead of attributing to the audience the tiniest shred of intelligence to put two and two together ourselves. What ruins the movie for me is not the plot itself, but rather the insulting assumption that we won’t be able to catch on unless everything is spoonfed to us.
I wish it had. Sadly, Padme’s reaction (something along the lines of ‘That may have been wrong, but it was so damn cute I’ll fall in love with you despite your mass-murder issues’) was staggeringly awful. That’d have to be fixed.
I can only reiterate what others have said…sorry about that…but I can’t help myself when it comes to a “Star Wars” thread. I’m weak that way.
I didn’t mind all the CGI. I think Lucas has done a good job trying some different things…why make everything the same as the original trilogy? I like that he took a chance on a political story instead of a easy myth thing. There’s some intrigue there and a certain kind of realism that is kind of neat.
That said, I think Lucas needs an editor and better actors. Nix Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman. Portman at least looks the part, but she just can’t pull it off. Some scenes in “The Phantom Menace” just seem to go on and on and people are standing around at the end of the dialogue for just a fraction of a second…but it adds up. The whole film feels awkward. Just cut and rearrange and that whole awful underwater section at the begining of Phantom could be salvaged.
I think Clones works pretty well as a whole…except for the same two things. We need actors who can act in front of blue screens and editors who can chop a scene here and there to speed up the damn middle of the film.
You could see where things were going after ‘Return of the Jedi’ and those bloody awful Ewok fuzzballs. George Luc-ass is basically just remaking ‘The Muppets in Outer Space’ by adding more and more characters like Jar-Jar.
Personally, I would have either never made any prequels and left the series as is was (IV, V & VI) which lets the fans imagine the rest for themselves, or if I was forced by contractual obligations, make I, II & III at least as dark as ‘Empire Strikes Back’. To get to the position that IV starts at, there has to be a lot of grim stuff happening: repression, death, Ewok slaughter, etc. Normally, you’d never get away with having films end on a low note, but in this case I think you could; the audience already knows that the series will eventually end in a triumph for the good guys.