Following in Dave 2112's footsteps : A STAR WARS thread!! (some observations)

[tickle_demon]

Just an observation I made between the original trilogy and the new trilogy:

The reason WHY the old trilogy is so much better than the new trilogy is because the older trilogy doesn't overuse the special effects (the special effects are there to enhance the film, not to make the film revolve around the special effects, the older films has a main villian who was truely frightening to young children everywhere (Mr. Asthma Inhaler...or simply Darth Vader), you didn't know how the orginal trilogy will end (while in the new trilogy, we ALL know that Anakin will become Darth Vader, Jedi will be hunted and Obi-wan will somehow survive will Mace Windu will croak it) and finally...George Lucas only directed the FIRST film, not all 3 of the new trilogy like he's doing now (whoever directed Empire needs to be recognised, as imo, it was the best star wars film, and still is.

Also, another interesting observation for all fellow brits on the forum. Notice how all the Alliance heros are American (with the exception of Wedge, the only non-main character who is in all three films. Notice how the Imperials are British.

STAR WARS IS THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE IN SPACE!!!! (and in a galaxy far, far away).

I think I'll shut up now, and let Dave 2112 do all the Star Wars threads from now on...

 

[milagros317]

I just saw "Attack of the Clones" on cable. I'm glad that I did not pay to see it as a first run film. Mediocre.

 

[BigJim]

I agree about the special effects. The CG Yoda? Oh God, don't get me started! 😡 IT was bloody awful and horribly, obviously fake. As were all the other bleeding CG characters. The background were slightly less awful, but I'd still rate the ambience of the original trilogy above the new films. Even if they were puppets on strings, THEY WERE REALLY THERE AND LOOKED IT! The new Yoda is so obviously fake it's untrue.

I admit you would need CH for the scene with Yoda and Dooku dueling, but apart from that it was ruinous.

Not just the imperials but every single Sith Lord is British too.

David Prowse, Ray Parkes, Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid............

Yanks just love to demonise Brits don't they? 😛

 

[Dave2112]

I don't think it's a matter of demonizing Brits as much as it is an accepted "form" in modern cinema, not only Star Wars. As Jim mentioned before, the British character actors lend credance to the roles. There may have been a vague reference to the American revolution there, comparing the Galactic Empire to the British Empire.

Let's remember that Ewan McGregor and Alec Guiness were of British/Scottish origin as well, and they played heroes. Using well-known actors for the bad-guy roles and lesser-known ones for the heroes also lends to the illusion of the common man defeating the overwhelming odds...at least in the original trilogy.

Yes, AOTC went overboard in the CGI department. I'll give you that. But people tend to overlook the work that actually goes into creating these characters. On a much smaller scale, I get asked all the time what software I use for my artwork and where you can get it, while people rarely realize that it's not all point-and-click. It's just a tool. One thing Lucas is great at is "directing within the computer". He takes it very seriously and has frustrated many an ILM employee as they work on scenes.

In the beginning of AOTC, when the Jedi are in Palpatine's office and they all have the "who's trying to kill Padme" exchange...Palpatine speaks and the camera pans to a shot of Yoda looking over his shoulder and slightly scowling, as if he's in deep thought, or something has stirred his thinking. There's no dialog. You can infer from his face that there's something going on, that he doesn't completely trust Palpatine. That takes direction. With an actor, you can tell them "Ok, you don't trust him, but you don't want it to show". With a CG creation, you have to go to great lengths to convey this without words. Lucas could have easily left that out, or had a human actor do it.

My point is that even though some stuff was overdone, I can't slam CGI all the way. It has its place. Don't think that these guys just "point-and-click" to make a pretty picture or creature. There's direction involved. If the illusion doesn't work, or the message isn't conveyed, why bother?

I think that people spend so much time picking apart the CGI, that they don't appreciate the stuff they don't even know is there. That's the real magic of ILM. Look at the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back. All of the Bespin shots are much better looking. Where you once saw a white background out of a window, you see a sprawling cityscape. It's the little things that make the illusion real.

The bottom line is this. Star Wars is an epic space fantasy. There are massive visuals to be represented, things that simply cannot be done without the help of the CGI department. A movie like The Piano isn't trying to tell a story that needs outlandish settings and fantastic creatures. My problem with AOTC isn't that the CGI messed up the Battle of Geonosis...it's that the story focused too much on it, and not the actual impact of the Clone Wars and what they meant to the galaxy. There wasn't enough emphasis on the fact that this was all planned. People think that Vader and Palpatine personally hunted down and killed every Jedi in the Purge. Wrong. True, they did for some...but the Clone Wars were engineered to overwhelm and wipe out the Jedi. The Battle of Geonosis itself took out a large portion of them. Many Padawan were left without Masters and were susequently grouped together in small pocket-forces rather than give field commisions to Knight out of sheer neccesity. The Clone Wars comics are covering this quite well, but the movie should have. This is the problem I had with AOTC, not the CGI.

 

[Admiral Trouser]

What makes the origonal three superior to the prequels? Simply put, the acting, or rather, the lack of it in the latter.

I just can't watch AOTC all the way through: I skip every other scene, and the scenes I skip all have Anakin talking to Padme in them. It truly is dire, dire acting, and held up to the dynamic, pithy and *genuine* chemistry that's between the origonals love-interest (Han and Leia), the whole Anakin/Padme plot, which is pretty essential to the whole damn trilogy, reeks of ineptitude. That, and wood. lol.

These new films, thanks to poor casting and reliance upon CGI to convey ambience, have subsequently lost all of the charm that the origonals were so imbued with, and therefore *made* us root for the charecters and identify with there surroundings. The prequels, to me, felt nothing like a Star Wars film....they were merely an exercise in making some nice, if pointless, eye-candy.

Still, I want to see the next one. If any of them are going to be good, it'll be that one.

AT

 

[primetime]

i dont know about you guys, but i LOVED AOTC. i guess i am the type of fan that gets more caught up in the story, rather than the special effects. i LOVE the story of Star Wars. i loved the OT and watching the history of the events leading up to the OT is thrilling. i loved it when Palpatine was telling Anakin how he was going to be the most powerful Jedi ever. you knew what he meant by that! i also loved discovering how Palpatine set up everything (Clone Wars, emergency powers, etc) so he could become Emperor. the man is a freakin genius!! i get chills when i think about the story because you see everything coming into place.

what i didnt like was the love story. i will admit it, i am a sap for true love stories. i didnt "feel" the love building up between Anakin and Padme. it all seemed so hashed together. BUT, after watching the deleted scenes from AOTC, if they had included those scenes with Anakin and Padme, it would have helped the "love" story a great deal. they shouldnt have been deleted. another thing i didnt like was Hayden's acting. the man is a board. i didnt "feel" his anguish, except when he slaughtered the Sand People. now that was a chilling moment. that was great acting and delivery. otherwise he was average.

some fans get too caught up in the effects, which is fine, but i just wanted to say that it is the story that is the key point. i think this trilogy isnt as "exciting" because we all know what happens. just like tickle_demon said, we didnt know how the OT was going to end, but we know what will happen in this trilogy. i love the story and that is why i love this trilogy. i cant wait for Episode 3, when we finally get to see big bad Vader!!

 

[Dave2112]

I have to agree that the acting in the so-called "love story" parts was not that great, especially Natalie Portman's. I think Hayden Christiansen is a wonderful actor outside of that, as witnessed by the sheer emotion after slaughtering the Tusken village. There's more than just rage happening, there's remorse. This is vitally important, as without some inner remorse, he never would have committed his final act of redemption. The scenes with Hayden and Ewan McGregor were good as well, so I think the blame lies with Portman. I hated the scene when she falls out of the troop transport, gets found by a Clone Trooper and just gets up, brushes herself off and starts giving orders.

There was real chemistry in the Han/Leia scenes, especially in ESB, aboard the Falcon. The whole exchange was classic. You could see Leia fighting within herself not to fall for Han. It was a great scene.

 

[tickle_demon]

I don't think I agree with you there Dave.

In the orginal theatrical edit of ATOTC, there was a nightmare scene in which Hayden goes though the 'No, no, no' (as he's having a nightmare of his mother). However, the way he delivered those lines as he tossed about in his sleep just made everyone in the theatre (myself included) burst out laughing. That small bit seems to have been cut out of the DVD release.

Also, did anyone notice that in the cinema version, after Padme get's flung out of the transport, that she makes a VERY quick recovery (Dave obviously did). On the DVD, it was obviously replaced with a different take, as her recovery is slower (but still horribly acted).

Apart from those two bits, I would say the acting of the film (in general) is just average...apart from Samuel L. Jackson (you could give him the worst role in the world, and he would still look kick ass while doing it). I would like to see if Hayden can pull off the full transition into Darth Vader, but i guess we'll just have to wait till 2005 to see.

 

[BigJim]

I've only seen the DVD release, but I thought Padme recovered waaaaaay to quickly when she fell out the transport. I always thought that looked a bit crappy.

I think the original trilogy benefitted from the presence of Harrison Ford. He was the only actor in it apart from Alec Guiness who was truly a class film-star. I think he pulled the performances of second-raters like Mark Hamill up by their boot laces. I would say that Carrie Fisher was better than Hamill, but even she benefitted.