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SW - Star Wars

The Scribbling Man

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Off the back of the current discussion, I ended up watching this all the way through for the first time. Seeing the mistakes being made, accompanied by such excitement and joy from the people involved.... It's interesting, frustrating and even a little heartbreaking. :(

 

Zamros

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The Phantom Menace's Behind the Scenes documentary is up there with the Lord of the Rings and Apocalypse Now.

They're all incredible insights into what not to do, what to do, and how not to lose yourself in the process, respectively.
 

Hymie

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The Phantom Menace doc is a great piece of storytelling, far better than the movie it is hightlighting.

It also in a microcosm shows how Lucas was out of touch for the project, as there was seemingly a great actor that read for Anakin that was passed over for Jake Lloyd, for the sole reason that occasionally, he can do something good. This is probably the approach he took as a whole for a project, thinking he could fix mistakes or get lucky and make magic happen as it did with the OT.  But the biggest thing Lucas never truly realized is that the OT was probably far more successful due to people such as Lawrence Kasdan, Gary Kurtz, John Williams, and even his wife Marcia than it ever was due to him.  Yes, he adapted the classic hero concepts and created a new IP but it was the others that he surrounded himself with that truly gave them life and made them special.  Lucas was simply the facilitator, but when it came time to be the man with the plan and spread his creative wings, he showed that all he was truly good at was repurposing old concepts and giving them a coat of paint.
 

Zamros

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The standout moment of the documentary for me was when Rick McCullum says "I think everybody's in the right frame of mind", and it cuts to the two animatronic supervisors just looking exhausted and depressed.
It was amazing how much of the film was still being made, even after they'd seen the initial cut. Like, George Lucas knew how big a piece of shit it was during post-production, but he had to keep lying to VFX artists to make sure he had a finished movie.
The reason I don't like the idea of "auteur theory" is that it completely subordinates everybody to the writer-director-producer. There were so many creative and talented people working on this, who thought they were making something to be proud of, and instead they got the Phantom Menace. It's kinda shitty to claim a movie to be yours, when you're using other people's creativity to make what amounts to faeces.

I also love how much of the production was spent saying "Ehh, good enough!", just because they were working to a budget.
 

Gaith

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True story: the last time I watched that documentary, I went to a graduation ceremony at my former high school the very next day. At one point, in order to stretch my neck, I turned around and, two or three rows behind and above me, was Rick McCullum. I wondered if I was imagining things, but this was Marin County, CA, and, sure enough, it was him. :p
 

TomH1138

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Neat! Did McCallum look over the large crowd of people gathered for the graduation and say, "It's so dense"?  :D

(Actually, I have quite a bit of sympathy for the guy. If he hadn't done what he was told, he would have just been fired. But I couldn't resist the joke. I hope he doesn't take it personally, in the extreme likelihood that he spends all his time hanging around this forum wondering what I'm going to say.)  ;)
 

TV's Frink

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TomH1138 said:
thecuddlyninja said:
IMO you guys are being too harsh on the actor and not enough on the director.

If you'll recall, I did say that Christensen has reportedly been good in other projects, and that it's possible Lucas specifically directed him to perform the scenes with no emotion.

I'm going to guess I've seen more of his movies than anyone here (unless there's a weird Hayden completest among us) and IMO it's completely dependent on the movie (and by extension direction, I assume).  He's very good in Life as a House and in Shattered Glass.  He's terrible in Virgin Territory.

Which in my mind makes him an average actor.  Unable to elevate his performances above the material or director when they're poor, but able to produce in the right circumstances.
 

Zamros

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Yeah, I don't care how bad the direction was, some of his anunciation was beyond speaking English.



About half of these lines are readable by a human being, but even then he's either stumbling over the lines or speaking without any stress on any syllable.
But yeah, nobody could possibly say "Love can't save you Padme, only my new powers can do that" in the way the writer-director assumedly intended it.
 

Masirimso17

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TVs Frink said:
Which in my mind makes him an average actor.  Unable to elevate his performances above the material or director when they're poor, but able to produce in the right circumstances.

Yeah pretty much agreed. I assume that's why Ewan McGregor was so great as Obi-Wan. Despite poor lines he was able to elevate his performance.

JEDIT: I came across this video which claims that Hayden was perfect for Anakin because he was supposed to be monotone and soulless since he was raised by monotone soulless monks and taught to be that way. I don't really agree though, it feels like a bad excuse to me. Why would you need this excuse to justify a boring performance? He wasn't like that in The Clone Wars at all. Plus he was different from all the Jedi and was supposed to feel lonely and mistrusting the rest. So I think these kind of even each other out. Even though I like Anakin, Hayden wasn't that good, and the dialogue was iffy to say the least.

 

TV's Frink

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Masirimso17 said:
TVs Frink said:
Which in my mind makes him an average actor.  Unable to elevate his performances above the material or director when they're poor, but able to produce in the right circumstances.

Yeah pretty much agreed. I assume that's why Ewan McGregor was so great as Obi-Wan. Despite poor lines he was able to elevate his performance.

Same with Liam.  And Ian to some extent (although, through no fault of his own I'm guessing, he's absolutely wretched in the second half of ROTS).
 

Masirimso17

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TVs Frink said:
Same with Liam.  And Ian to some extent (although, through no fault of his own I'm guessing, he's absolutely wretched in the second half of ROTS).

Agreed with both, though hard disagree that Ian botched the second half. Loved his diabolical villain performance. Plus I love the character of Qui-Gon (independent from dialogue quality ofc, even though love lines like "feel, don't think" etc).
 

Moe_Syzlak

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I think Ewan managed to not embarrass himself but I wouldn’t call his performance great. Ian McDiarmid managed to be pretty good a bit in the prequels, but not consistently IMO. And once he was under the prosthetics I thought he was downright bad.
 

ThrowgnCpr

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I would strongly disagree with Ian/Liam/Ewan being great in the PT. Some of their delivery/scenes are really cringe-worthy. I think they did okay given the material and direction, but I don't think any actor in the PT gave what I would call a great performance.
 

Masirimso17

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ThrowgnCpr said:
I would strongly disagree with Ian/Liam/Ewan being great in the PT. Some of their delivery/scenes are really cringe-worthy. I think they did okay given the material and direction, but I don't think any actor in the PT gave what I would call a great performance.

Would you like to see them in a better script though (plus Sam Jackson)? I would.
 

Moe_Syzlak

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ThrowgnCpr said:
I would strongly disagree with Ian/Liam/Ewan being great in the PT. Some of their delivery/scenes are really cringe-worthy. I think they did okay given the material and direction, but I don't think any actor in the PT gave what I would call a great performance.

Absolutely. Perhaps they stand out as being much better than other performances in the movies, but they are still pretty bad. I’m going to go out on a limb as say none of these guys are highlighting those performances in their portfolios.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Masirimso17 said:
ThrowgnCpr said:
I would strongly disagree with Ian/Liam/Ewan being great in the PT. Some of their delivery/scenes are really cringe-worthy. I think they did okay given the material and direction, but I don't think any actor in the PT gave what I would call a great performance.

Would you like to see them in a better script though (plus Sam Jackson)? I would.

No

I'm with Throw. There were no stellar performances that I saw in these movies. The best character imho was Maul, and that was because he didn't even really say anything, he just did it naturally. Ewan wasn't really convincing to me as Ob-Wan until the aesthetic of III coupled with the reading of Labrynth of Evil and Episode III. Ewan was the best of the cast, but I don't think the character of Obi-Wan is as integrally tied to him as it is to Alec Guinness.

I'd be interested in a stand alone movie about the fall of the Jedi seen through the eyes of the republic populous that has Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Palpatine as secondary characters along the lines of Vader in Rogue One. They would be seen and known, but they wouldn't be featured. That would allow for the mythos of their fallout to continue. Knowing everything about someone or something kind of kills the magic of discovery and possibility. That was the issue with the prequels for me.
 

TomH1138

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Masirimso17 said:
I don't really agree though, it feels like a bad excuse to me. Why would you need this excuse to justify a boring performance?  

I concur. There have been so many documentaries and YouTube videos based around the idea of "Are the prequels secretly brilliant?" But here's the thing: Nobody makes a documentary or video saying "Is Back to the Future secretly great?" or "Is Toy Story actually amazing?" because those movies just are great. 

When once asked why he thought the Original Trilogy was so successful, Alec Guinness said, "Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one."
 

TV's Frink

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As usual I'm guilty of skimming instead of reading.  I didn't mean to agree they were great, I meant to say they did a great job by turning in decent performances under very difficult circumstances.

And I'm sorry but Ian (or rather his character) is terrible once he makes the switch to Sidious.
 

ThrowgnCpr

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Masirimso17 said:
ThrowgnCpr said:
I would strongly disagree with Ian/Liam/Ewan being great in the PT. Some of their delivery/scenes are really cringe-worthy. I think they did okay given the material and direction, but I don't think any actor in the PT gave what I would call a great performance.

Would you like to see them in a better script though (plus Sam Jackson)? I would.

No. For a few reasons, including those in the most recent prior posts. Most importantly, I don't need to see more from these characters. I think an Obi-Wan movie is a terrible idea, and Qui-Gon's character isn't interesting enough to warrant more screen time. I also feel we have spent more than enough time in the Clone Wars era. They've beaten that horse beyond death. Time for new eras/characters/stories.
 

addiesin

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Masirimso17 said:
Would you like to see them in a better script though (plus Sam Jackson)? I would.

I would have liked that, if we're talking alternate universe where someone other than George wrote the scripts or Disney decides to shunt all prequel material for a mulligan. But if we're talking another movie in the prequel era as-is, no. No thank you.
 
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