cab00se

Among my group of friends, this has become something of a running gag with me, since it's my gripe with just about every movie that I don't like... but aside from George Lucas being a hack, I think my problem with the entire prequel trilogy is that Anakin Skywalker was miscast (Kristy, if you ever happen to read this--bite me). Seriously. As a little boy, the actor portraying Ani (*shudder*) was clearly trying far too hard to be cute, and the lines he was given to recite weren't helping (hearing him ask Padme if she was an angel made me embarrassed just sitting there in my seat). Terrible. And I'm sorry, but Keanu Reeves would have made a better Darth Vader than Hayden Christensen. I honestly never thought I'd live to hear myself say that Keanu Reeves would make a better anything, but Hayden really takes the cake. It's almost like he wasn't sure how Anakin Skywalker was supposed to behave, so he just borrowed from his role in Life as a House and reduced Darth Vader to a whiney b*tch. Reeves can't be anything but sullen or stoic, but that's still far preferable to whiney. I don't know what possessed Lucas to cast Christensen for this role, but he f***ed up. Big time. James Earl Jones left some admittedly big shoes for Hayden to fill, and he just wasn't up to the task.

@Yst, Okay, I'll grant you that even the original trilogy can barely stand on its own three legs as being considered "good" movies, but they're still vastly superior to Lucas' latest crop. The OT had some genuinely memorable characters, good acting (Harrison Ford, anyone?), humor that didn't have to cater to a prepubescent audience, and an at least passable storyline, all of which I attribute to Lucas' acknowledgement that he wasn't/isn't a sufficiently talented writer/director to take on the telling of his story alone. The entire prequel trilogy is riddled with laughably bad dialogue (delivered even more so), unnecessary exposition, and a completely unconvincing story arc. Even the special effects, which are heralded as being Ep3's saving grace, are mired by muddy choreography that flies by so fast you can't possibly follow what's going on. Lucas botched just about every major fight scene. Count Dooku? He spews a few lines and is then promptly defeated and killed. Obi-wan and Grevious? I'm really not sure how Lucas managed to make a lightsaber duel with a droid capable of wielding four at once so uninteresting. Mace Windu and Sidious... Yoda and Sidious... Obi-wan and Anakin... all suffer from lackluster sword play. The fight between Obi and Ani at the end of the movie dragged uneventfully on and on until Obi-wan finally arbitrarily declares that he has the "high ground," and this is supposed to explain why he's about to win. Does Lucas really have so little faith in his audience's capacity that he feels it necessary to beat us over the head with this kind of needless explanation? Probably the movie's greatest failure, though, is that it reduces one of cinema's greatest villains to a whiney brat. The scene with Darth Vader, having at last donned his trademark life support suit, stomping along like Frankenstein and bellowing "No" just made me shake my head in disgust. I'm ranting now, but I guess I am just kind of pissed off that these movies sucked so bad. It's a silly thing to get all bent out of shape about, but, well... damn it!

Was I the only one utterly disappointed by this movie? The acting and dialogue was as abysmal as ever, and Anakin Skywalker's descent to the dark side and ultimate transformation into Darth Vader was entirely implausible. There was no hook. Palpatine just says, "Aww, come on!" and Skywalker gives in. He readily turns his back on the Jedi Council, Obi-wan, the Republic, and ultimately Padme, and for what...? Natalie Portman? I really figured it would have taken her death, not the possibility of death, to push Anakin over the edge. A better writer could have made his fall to the dark side much more convincing.

I'm having a problem with the quest to reunite Aaida with her husband. I've spoken with both of them, and have agreed to help, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can say or do to get Aaida out of the refugee camp. The two thugs at the entrance aren't at all interested in fighting me, and the only way I've been able to kill them is by accepting a DSP (which I'm okay with). Even after disposing of them, however, I still don't have the option to tell Aaida to leave. I've also tried exhausting all of my dialogue options with Saquesh, to no avail. What am I supposed to do here?

The topic pretty much says it all. I can't really think of a single reason to take a consular over a sentinel, other than a measly 2 FP's per level (and it's largely unanimously agreed that FP's aren't exactly hard to come by, regardless of class). A sentinel gets more VP's, more SP's, more class skills, and most importantly, more feats. The sentinel is tougher in combat and just about as deadly with the force (slightly fewer FP and no +2 DC bonus). Can anyone make a compelling argument for the consular?