But I was saying the same thing about Natalie Portman and she came into the Star Wars universe with a big acting resume and fell flat. A lot of that comes down to the dialogue that was written for her, but you got the sense that in a lot of ways she mailed it in.
Probably the most inspired two choices for the prequel trilogies were Ian McDarmid as Palpatine who was exceptional throughout the trilogy, and the opera house scene was fricken inspired. And Ewan who channeled the ghost of Alec.
I thought you weren't going to mention Ewan. I was going to scold you.
Ian and Ewan were awesome.
Hayden Christensen's hair in Episode III was awesome too.
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Originally Posted by Regulator75
It'a all that blue / green screen and piss poor dialog that killed the acting.
In addition to Portman being less than stellar, I found that even experienced Samuel Jackson's acting felt, I don't know, sterile maybe? Something was missing. I feel like he could have done that role but it just always felt wrong for some reason.
Gosh, even Liam Neeson felt miscast.
Maybe it was just the movies were bad all in all, and the actors weren't able to deliver inspiring performances because of it.
Agreed, half the time it looked like they had a lazy eye pointed at the wall when they were supposed to be talking to a CG character right in front of them. Brutal. I wish that Lucas didn't feel the need to be right on the edge of the new tech for those prequels. If he had just gone more to his roots, like it seems they did for this one, he would have been so much better off.
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
I'm going to put it out there, I love George Lucas, he had this incredible vision for Star Wars, and the only way to deliver it was with massive special effects, and state of the art bleeding edge technology. He has an amazing eye for detail as well. I remember reading a book on the making of the trilogies and in pre-production and post production his eye for details and the small changes and big changes that he made to things like how a scene should look, or how a ship or weapon should look, and what the wardrobe would be was amazing.
I don't think that there's any doubt that he hated directing he's said it time and time again, but he kept sitting in that chair because he likely like most creative minds doesn't trust anyone else to see it as he saw it.
He also can't dive into the details when it comes to people or characters in his universe, and because of that his direction and dialogue often felt flat and unispired unlike the story itself and the universe it lived in.
We saw how great it worked in Empire Strikes back when he threw a veteran director in the chair and had a proper script doctor and he stood back and said, ok this is the story I want to tell.
I agree that Phantom Menace wasn't a great movie, but it had some incredibly inspired moments and characters. Darth Maul and Palpatine were inspired in that movie and the three way duel was amazingly well done.
Attack of the Clones wasn't a great movie for dialogue, but to me the story itself was great, and the battle scenes were awesome to me as were the settings. He also got a great performance out of Chris Lee.
I will state this now, I still love Revenge of the Sith. I loved the opening battle scene, I loved the fall of Skywalker to Vader and to me it made sense. I loved the confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin, and the filming of the ending of the characters was inspired. But people focus on two things, and they are rightfully focused on. First of all the will to live thing was terrible, and the Vader "NOOOOOOO" was the right intent but the bad execution.
I want to add on that Lucas was heavily consulted on the Clone Wars cartoon, in terms of story lines and Dave Filoni did a great job of translating that vision to the screen. Even Lucas' daughter wrote some of the best episodes of that series, including the amazingly well done Order 66 season 6 storyline.
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I thought you weren't going to mention Ewan. I was going to scold you.
Ian and Ewan were awesome.
Hayden Christensen's hair in Episode III was awesome too.
In addition to Portman being less than stellar, I found that even experienced Samuel Jackson's acting felt, I don't know, sterile maybe? Something was missing. I feel like he could have done that role but it just always felt wrong for some reason.
Gosh, even Liam Neeson felt miscast.
Maybe it was just the movies were bad all in all, and the actors weren't able to deliver inspiring performances because of it.
Hayden really struggled with that role, it was funny because he had those moments where he was very good, and I think that they bought him onboard because he had a look of an angelic killer.
I would agree that dialogue was his enemy.
It was the one time of a few times that a relatively inexperienced actor had trouble transcending to Star Wars.
Its funny that the clasically trained actors with Shakespeare classical backgrounds really were able to rise above the dialogue.
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Hayden is just a poor actor. The dialogue he had to work with was bad but his lack of acting prowess made things worse. It was hard to watch his scenes as they were so unconvincing.
Although concession lines... ya those are a bugger. But hard to avoid ANY night.
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
Hayden is just a poor actor. The dialogue he had to work with was bad but his lack of acting prowess made things worse. It was hard to watch his scenes as they were so unconvincing.
I didn't follow him before or after the Trilogies, the last movie I saw him in was a horrible samuri type movie with Nicholas Cage that was tremendously bad.
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Although concession lines... ya those are a bugger. But hard to avoid ANY night.
I like avoiding the concession anyway. I find cinema tickets to be overpriced to begin with. I don't need to garnish my expensive night with $47 popcorn and $22 pop.
No it just enhances the experience! Ya it is over priced as crap, but there is just something that goes together about popcorn, a drink and a movie in a cozy seat.
I look at it like going to the pub. I can go and sit there and visit and drink water or have a diet coke, but to truly enhance the experience I want to have some pints, maybe 4 or 5. Each pint is costing me around $6.50-$8.50 depending on the venue, that same 1.25 beers at home costs me about $2.50. To each their own, but I don't see the difference.
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
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I actually went to the CPO's music of science fiction concert last spring I guess it was and they pulled a similar gag. They basically ended the concert as normal, bowing, applause etc, and then Vader came out with some storm troopers and forced the conductor back out for the Imperial March.
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I'm kind of wishing they'll eventually make a Star Wars anthology movie just based on Obi wan played by Ewan Mcgregor. Imo, he was one of the few bright spots from the prequels.
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