Disney buys Lucasfilm

[Blarghagh]

I've always thought that Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd got a bad rap for their acting skills. It wasn't their fault their dialogue was crap and the directing was abysmal. The 'love' scenes especially always made me cringe. Wasn't hard to wonder how Lucas ended up divorced after seeing those. There's no way a man or woman who was ever truly in love wrote those.

 

You have very good established actors that all look like they are horrible actors in the prequels, not because they suck, but because the dialogue and directing is so abysmal. Don't get me wrong, Hayden may be a bad actor, but how would we really know from the prequel trilogy? If we only knew Portman, Neeson, McGregor, Lee, et al from the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy we'd generally think they were all bad actors too.

 

Yeah, this view has recently come into favour - the actors aren't bad, just George Lucas is. Hayden Christensen has since proved that he can definitely hold is own (he made the festival rounds a while back with a film called Shattered Glass or some such). The love scenes are interesting, the novelisation implied that Anakin was in fact as creepy a stalker as he seemed - instead of Padmé falling in love with him, his need of her bled into her through the Force and he unintentionally did a "Jedi mindtrick of passion" on her. This view actually improved the prequels for me. Especially since I've realized that this could be spun into an explanation of her "losing her will to live" at the end of the third film despite being presented as a strong woman who now has two children to live for! It was like a withdrawal effect from the Force connection between her an Anakin being broken. Because that is by far the thing in the prequels that makes me the most angry!

 

Really, the problems are with the plot, dialogue and direction. I think the same stories could work easily if they had just been plotted and executed better. Even the Trade Federation and politics, hell even Jar Jar could have worked if it was well-directed, but he just stands out as even more annoying because there is nothing else to do but be annoyed. The movie elicits no other emotions because there are no characters or relations we care about. If Jar Jar was there in the midst of personal turmoil, he'd have been no worse (okay, somewhat worse) than C-3P0 in Empire butting in and annoying the hell out of Han and Leia all the time - but because there is no tension to relieve, his entire role of comic relief can't possibly work and that's what made him so annoying.

 

Here's a thought. If you had been an exec at Fox, the only one with the balls to stand up to George and force him to make changes, while the prequels came out. What would you have done? Belated media made two pretty cool videos with the idea:

I don't agree with all he does, but a lot of it makes sense.

Edited May 7, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[TheChris92]

A cop-out argument is to assume that everything bad about a film can solely be blamed on the director, screenwriters or even the actors etc -- It reminds me of that classic argument "God moves in mysterious ways", trying to deny the ugliness before you so hard that the fabric of reality seems to change before you. No one is denying the atrocity of Lucas' dialogue as seen in some of his other films that aren't Star Wars related. I get the feeling it's partly because some people seem to have a different idea of a director's job actually involves. The fact that Mark Wahlberg's acting is **** in most of the film he's done cannot be blamed on the writing as much as it can be put on his ability as an actor. Are we to assume the reason why he's quite good in The Departed is because of Martin Scorsese? Not really, right? Even the most atrocious film can be held up by its actors to a degree like Christian Bale in Reign of Fire. I know for a fact that Hayden is ****e if Jumper or Taken is anything to judge from. I'm gonna use another example -- Lars Von Trier's Nymphomanaic has Shia LeBeof on the cast, whom surprisingly does a good job but it's mostly due to the fact that Trier likes to hold his hands over the actors with an iron fist. He always do that to a large extent. All directors have different approaches to how they want their actors and etc. to perform, sometimes the producer's word will overshadow the director's, but in Trier's case it's different. It's all on him. It's hard to say then if Shia actually has some sort of potential or not. It's like trying to excuse the fact that Nicholas Cage has done nothing but subpar performances after another but it's okay because he was quite brilliant in Leaving Las Vegas, which beckons the question of whether or not he wants to take his career seriously or is simply in it for the cash.

Edited May 7, 2014 by TheChris92

[Blarghagh]

Hayden Christensen was in Taken? I remember thinking he wasn't terrible in Jumper, not good either but not nearly as bad as he was in Star Wars.

 

But yeah, it's not fair to blame it all on the director, but Lucas is infamous for not actually giving his actors directions at all. "Faster, more intense" as it goes. Beyond that, Lucas is also the writer, the producer, and as far as anyone can tell the only real decision maker when it comes to the prequels. Blaming Lucas in this case is not the same as just blaming the director. Of course, blame also lies with the surrounding people who didn't come out and be more assertive and question George, but in case of actors, I can imagine it's very difficult to give a good performance if you don't have proper direction nor a clear character motivation anywhere in the story.

 

Now keep in mind I'm saying this as somebody who actually didn't hate the prequels. There's real imagination on display there, and a lot of the sequences are really cool. George gets credit for that too, in my opinion. But the story decisions that don't work, being seemingly unable to direct actors to the point of getting bad performances from good actors, the awful dialogue and the insistence of wallowing constantly in fanservice by going "look! here's something related to the original movies!" even when it wasn't neccesary seem fairly directly traceable to him. I mean, I've read his scripts and unlike most movies they deviate from what's on the screen very, very little. I don't think he ever stopped to think it through and go "okay, this part doesn't really work, let's see if I can change it" and I think that's why George is probably to blame for most of what goes wrong in the prequels.

 

In making-of documentaries of New Hope and Empire, we're constantly hearing about actors ad-libbing lines, story decisions being changed, the scripts are entirely different from what there is on screen. I know of barely any cases where this happened in the prequels.

Edited May 7, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[TheChris92]

Did I say Taken? Hmm, don't know why I wrote that. Anyway I meant Takers

 

Anyway, the producer for Attack of the Clones was Rick McCallum, who's done frequent work with Lucas' prequel trilogy. Hayden Christensen might have delivered a somewhat subpar performance in another film which I haven't seen, who can say? But his acting in the prequel films are generally awful and was about as convincing as someone doing a finger-puppet re-telling of Citizen Kane. It was just generally bad, and he carried every scene like an accountant carries bricks. The choreography is bad too because it's preposterous, and it doesn't carry any emotional weight in comparison to that of Bob Anderson's choreography of the Skywalker movies -- or that of The Princess Bride being another example of fantasy with nice choreography. Heck even the battles between the Stormtroopers and droids as showcased in that honest trailer, are hollow and flimsy -- they just perplexingly stand out in the open and open fire, like they forgot the first rule of warfare about taking fire. But I suppose you could argue that it's a good thing the film itself realizes how awful it is at portraying somewhat believable battle sequences by having its combatants act like cannon fodder.

 

The reason why the whole fad of "cult-film" actually exists is because it usually refers to films that didn't do well at box-office, or involve an extremely absurd setting but with otherwise good qualities -- usually it can be the acting overshadowing the faults in the plot. It doesn't necessarily have to be but it's just an example.

 

What I believe held Return of the Jedi up over the prequels was the acting, Bob Anderson's choreagraphy, some of the things that was great about Empire was still retained in Jedi -- Ultimately, in terms of tone and overall direction, the introduction of Ewoks, and other preposterous things, it falls flat. Lucas should get the blame for editing his movies, which nobody asked for, like having Han shoot first etc. Even if it was his decision to make Hayden Christensen Anakin Skywalker, it doesn't excuse the fact that he was still awful in 'em. Because he most certainly was.

 

I'm not gonna go there and say Liam or Ewan wasn't great either in any of 'em because of their acting -- I love Ewan in Trainspotting, Love Phillip Morris etc. And I love Liam as Oscar Schindler, and I don't their acting fell flat as much as Hayden Christensen.. Ultimately, his acting was a result of not just a bad script but also a poor delivery and performance.

Edited May 7, 2014 by TheChris92

[Tale]

I'm going to say that Neeson's acting was awful in the prequels. And McGregor's was similarly awful in The Phantom Menace. It's not until Attack of the Clone that McGregor actually starts to express emotion and then it's mostly just him having fun. When he's not trying to channel Guinness, he's just having fun pretending to be a space knight.

 

It's clear right before the General Grevious fight. He's standing right there about to duel some giant robot monster and he has this giant grin on his face. It makes no sense for the character, but I like to imagine that it's McGregor hyping himself up about stuff he can't even see.

[Blarghagh]

Neeson and McGregor weren't so much bad as they were wooden. Chris is correct in assessing that Christensen's acting in the prequels was inexcusably bad - even if I think he would have done better under other direction (as I've seen in Shattered Glass) he still would have been bad. I expect he's just wrong for the character. Whereas Neeson and McGregor are decent actors in general and have the occassional bad performance, Christensen is bad in general with the occassional good performance.

 

Not sure why he's explaining the concept of a cult film though.

Edited May 7, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Hurlshort]

I can't really think of a decent acting job in Episode 1.  Darth Maul was forgettable, the kid was bad, etc.  I guess the Emperor was ok.

 

Episode 2 had McGregor loosen up and I thought he was the one bright point in terms of acting, and he carried that into Episode 3.  In fact if I look at it strictly as the story of Obiwan, I tend to enjoy the whole plot much better.  If they edited down all the Anakin parts it would probably vastly improve the movies.

[Tale]

Neeson and McGregor weren't so much bad as they were wooden.

I guess I've only recently been introduced to that distinction.

 

See Mya in Bermuda Tentacles. Or preferably don't.

[Blarghagh]

It's not a real distinction, wooden is generally bad, but in this case I would say it's because their character have nothing to feel most of the time, so they become, well, wooden. I don't know how else to describe it. It's more that the characters are wooden than the actors are. : /

 

I can't really think of a decent acting job in Episode 1.  Darth Maul was forgettable, the kid was bad, etc.  I guess the Emperor was ok.

 

Episode 2 had McGregor loosen up and I thought he was the one bright point in terms of acting, and he carried that into Episode 3.  In fact if I look at it strictly as the story of Obiwan, I tend to enjoy the whole plot much better.  If they edited down all the Anakin parts it would probably vastly improve the movies.

 

I forgot the actress' name, but Anakin's mother in Episode 1 knocked it out of the park, I think. The best moments are when Neeson and she are sharing screentime.

[Amentep]

^Pernilla August, IIRC.

 

There's a lot about the prequels that are fairly similar to the other films in the series - look back at Star Wars: it is plot heavy and doesn't contain a lot of character development (why Han and Luke are pals at the end when they're still bickering as late as the choice to rescue Leia seems to be writers fiat; why Leia has bonded with either is never explained; Luke is more crushed by Obi-Wan's death (a man he was only vaguely familiar with prior to his saving him from the Sand People) than he is his Uncle and Aunt who raised him as a son). 

 

But it also - very rightly - excised a lot of back story (the scenes with Biggs, Wedge and Cammie, the scene with Han and Jabba) to make sure the story really stick to the exciting path of the rebels vs empire.  Phantom Menace doesn't excise these scenes, and I think it effects the pacing a good deal.  A lot of film problems can be ignored if the pacing keeps pushing us past them. 

 

ANH also starts Luke as an adult and I still think fundamental mistake #1 for PM is not starting Annakin off at an equivalent age.

[Blarghagh]

Ah yes, Pernilla August. I thought she did quite well.

 

As for starting Anakin off as Luke's age being the fundamental mistake for Phantom Menace, I've heard that said before but I disagree.The fundamental storytelling mistake of the prequels, not just Phantom Menace, was focusing on Anakin in the first place. That never should have happened.

 

I hope I can explain this right because I've never put this into words before, but here goes: As far as I can tell, Anakin is supposed to be the genius, the wild card, the too-powerful Jedi, the dark horse seduced by the dark side. He is a plot driving character, and very rarely do plot driving characters work as viewpoint characters.

 

It's why Frodo is the main character of Lord of the Rings instead of Aragorn - the viewpoint character is the character who the plot happens to, not who drives the plot. It's why everything Indiana Jones does in Raiders of the Lost Ark is pointless and all he does is react to what other people are doing. It's why the first Matrix movie works when Neo is still the guy stuff happens to, and the Matrix sequels don't work because Neo is the Superman who makes stuff happen.

 

Not Anakin, he's shown to be awesome at everything and get all his wishes of being the greatest pod racer, pilot and jedi even as a kid and this continues throughout the prequels, getting to be the one Jedi who gets to love, the youngest Jedi on the council, etc. This is not someone we can identify with. Moreso than being the character that makes the plot happen, Anakin IS the plot. He is not the character who experiences the plot, thus not the character who we experience the plot with.

 

On the other hand, Obi-Wan's arc is already there, even in the prequels he is the character that the plot happens to. He is a too-young Jedi Knight who loses his master and takes on a job he can't handle. Even Anakin's eventual betrayal (spoiler alert) is a plot point that happens to Obi-Wan, not to Anakin. Anakin's fall and eventual redemption is the plot of the entire series, but somewhere George Lucas decided it's also Anakin's story. It's not Anakin's story. It's never been Anakin's story.

Edited May 7, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Amentep]

I see your point, but I'm not sure I agree; if Star Wars IV-VI is the archtypical Hero's Journey, then there's no real reason that I-III can't be.

 

Anakin can still be the character who is introduced into a magical world, wins a decisive victory and returns to grant boons to his fellow man (remember, ultimately from the story's perspective, the prophesy that Qui-Gon thinks he will fulfill is true and as in all monomyths, Anakin achieves the goals of his quest (even if, ultimately, his quest ends up not being what he thought it was)).

 

The problem, then to my mind, isn't the overarching hero's journey and focusing on Anakin.  While they could have focused on Obi-Wan entirely and probably had a decent film out of it, he's ultimately Han Solo in the original films.  The difference being that Han and Luke ultimately end up on the same side after they separate but Obi-Wan and Anakin don't.  He provides a different perspective on the events in the film, but ultimately I don't think Lucas was wrong to make the first three about Anakin (I'd argue, for example, Anakin's betrayal of Obi-Wan is important only in how his hubris in dealing with Obi-Wan led to him becoming Darth Vader; the real choices that Anakin made were all in his scenes with the Emperor.  Betraying Obi-Wan was only a consequence of those previous, more important actions).

[Tale]

That looks like a false dichotomy to me. There's lots of give and take in most stories. If there's one where the hero only reacts or a hero only drives things to where he wants it to go, that story can probably be dismissed summarily. Except in videogames.

 

The try-fail cycle can occur whether you're reacting or you're taking the initiative.

 

I'll agree with you to a point though. The hyper competent hero archetype is boring, but mainly because it ruins the tension and stakes. You're not going to worry about Superman losing. Anakin however does lose, he's almost never driving the action, but there's still nothing at stake.

[Amentep]

I'm not sure I presented a false dichotomy and I'm not saying that Obi-Wan couldn't have been the central character; I'm just saying that if Lucas is going Joseph Campbell again then Anakin's character arc fits that role better than Obi-Wan (as Obi-Wan's story is antithetical to the monomyth).

 

I'd disagree that nothing was at stake with respect to Anakin; his romance with Padme and his friendship with Obi-Wan were both lost - after the loss of his mother probably the only two things that really meant much to him.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Amentep

[Tale]

I was responding to True Neutral with the false dichotomy comment. The reaction vs. driving.

 

But there was nothing at stake for Anakin. Take the entire Attack of the Clones movie. They actually lose the fight at the end. And nothing you might care about was changed as a result. The Obi-Wan & Anakin vs Dooku fight was totally consequence free, aside from a superficial severed. And the Clones vs Droids is so inconsequential they don't even bother to show how it ends.

 

Take the ending of Empire to contrast. Han, Leia, and Chewie fail to get to Boba Fett in time, so Han is kidnapped. And Luke shows far more pain and distress than Anakin did for the severing of his arm. And losing his hand actually ends up serving a thematic purpose, a warning about losing himself. Reflected in the "more machine than man" line from A New Hope and the recognition from seeing his father's cybernetic hand in Return of the Jedi.

[Amentep]

Whoops, misread the replies, sorry.

 

Regarding the ends of AotC vs Empire, you could argue that Anakin has already lost himself since his mother died and he slaughter the Tuskan Raiders, thus making his lack of reaction to losing his hand a part of the path Anakin is on (and that he's so far lost he's not able to recognize loss anymore).  In general Anakin's Path, in many ways, is an inverted path relative to Luke's; where Luke is self-aware, Anakin shouldn't be.

[Blarghagh]

Well yeah, it's not a complete distinction. I mean, parts of Lord of the Rings focus on Aragorn after we've been introduced to his story through Frodo, and plot things happen to other characters as well. But in general, this is how stories work. Protagonists are much more reactive forces than other characters.

 

Amentep, I see your view and I'd say we both have valid views - but I don't think I-III should fit the monomyth type so I think we can just agree to disagree. Since we know Anakin is eventually not the hero by virtue of these movies being prequels, and that there can be no refusal of the call due to the fact it is essential to his fall-by-hubris that he desperately wants nothing more, and Anakin's fate and story essentially removing all possibility of the entire last third of the monomyth due to it ending at the belly of the beast/transformation step (depending on which version you subscribe to) that the hero's journey does not fit Anakin in the prequels. Agree to diagree?

[Amentep]

Sure, I agree to disagree with you on it, I just found it fascinating to discuss.

[Tale]

Whoops, misread the replies, sorry.

 

Regarding the ends of AotC vs Empire, you could argue that Anakin has already lost himself since his mother died and he slaughter the Tuskan Raiders, thus making his lack of reaction to losing his hand a part of the path Anakin is on (and that he's so far lost he's not able to recognize loss anymore).  In general Anakin's Path, in many ways, is an inverted path relative to Luke's; where Luke is self-aware, Anakin shouldn't be.

You could argue that, I don't think it rescues the situation though. There needs to be something at stake. Something the character is fighting to protect and that the audience can sympathize with. It can be pain, love, revenge, his best fiend, himself, whatever.

 

But for the first two movies of the prequel, the only thing at stake for the climaxes are government bodies. The audience does not care about the Republic to any serious degree. We're not going to be tense about Naboo's trade policies either.

 

If we want a mirrored arc, Dooku should have been the one to kill Shmi. Then he can really mean something.

[Amentep]

Well I wouldn't argue it would necessarily rescue the situation since my position is that the movie doesn't start in the right place to begin with; but "in theory" I don't think the idea of Anakin having an twisted hero's path as being unworkable.  I do think Lucas doesn't pull it off, however.

[Tale]

Well yeah, it's not a complete distinction. I mean, parts of Lord of the Rings focus on Aragorn after we've been introduced to his story through Frodo, and plot things happen to other characters as well. But in general, this is how stories work. Protagonists are much more reactive forces than other characters.

I'm going to take a step back here and see if we're saying the same thing in different ways.

 

The stakes and threat have to be established. This can be seen as something happening to the protagonist and they have to respond. I can agree on that.

 

But I still disagree that Anakin's failure was that he drove the plot. He was still reacting in that sense, just to things that didn't matter.

[Zoraptor]

Neeson and McGregor weren't so much bad as they were wooden.

 

I dunno, that's probably a fundamental problem with jedi as a concept- they aren't meant to show or have (most) emotions so are, fundamentally, pretty wooden and boring.

 

And that really is George's problem as well, since he had so much control over the setting that things like saying casual sex was ok for jedi (so long as they didn't love the person, of course. Which is one weird Conservative stereotype of Lieberals that, apparently, exists for real) automatically became canon. He was far more of a broad concept guy and should have left the fine detail to others.

 

I'd agree with whoever it was that said that Palpatine was best acted, but then he had the big advantage of being a pantomine villain ("Where's Sidious" "He's behind you!") and mugging/ winking at the camera in every scene, something none of the others could do.

[ManifestedISO]

 

He is a plot driving character, and very rarely do plot driving characters work as viewpoint characters.

 

It's why Frodo is the main character of Lord of the Rings instead of Aragorn - the viewpoint character is the character who the plot happens to, not who drives the plot. It's why everything Indiana Jones does in Raiders of the Lost Ark is pointless and all he does is react to what other people are doing. It's why the first Matrix movie works when Neo is still the guy stuff happens to, and the Matrix sequels don't work because Neo is the Superman who makes stuff happen.

 

Hmm, that is a cogent bit of illustration. And now that you mention it, I see it everywhere in character stories. It explains why, for example, despite my enjoyment, Sam Flynn in TRON Legacy was a viewpoint character that also drove the plot right off a cliff.   

[Blarghagh]

I first noticed it in, of all places, Pirates of the Carribean. I thought the first installment of that series was fun, despite its many flaws, mostly due to Jack Sparrow - but the sequels were not, despite giving him a lead role instead of a supporting role. In the first film, all characters are constantly reacting to whatever stuff Jack pulls and that's what makes him interesting. Seeing him react to stuff happen to him is not interesting. That's why the first one was a decent adventure that didn't take itself too seriously and the sequels are bloated tripe (in my opinion).

 

 

Well yeah, it's not a complete distinction. I mean, parts of Lord of the Rings focus on Aragorn after we've been introduced to his story through Frodo, and plot things happen to other characters as well. But in general, this is how stories work. Protagonists are much more reactive forces than other characters.

I'm going to take a step back here and see if we're saying the same thing in different ways.

The stakes and threat have to be established. This can be seen as something happening to the protagonist and they have to respond. I can agree on that.

But I still disagree that Anakin's failure was that he drove the plot. He was still reacting in that sense, just to things that didn't matter.

 

 

Like Manifested, I noticed this "trend" in character stories and the whole "plot driving character vs plot feeling character" is my own theory, so keep in mind that I could be completely off and I honestly haven't thought it all the way true. It could be a case of correlation =/= causation. What you say makes sense but it's not exactly the same thing. I wouldn't say it's a fast and loose rule that the character doesn't "react" so to say, but more of the narrative nature of those reactions. To be perfectly honest I'd have to think about it more if I were to put it into more concrete terms.

 

Honestly, there are plenty of things work against my argument. Breaking Bad starts out with Walter White reacting to the plot, but he ends up being the driving force of the plot and is still the viewpoint character, so thinking about it even Anakin *could* work. I've just noticed that a lot of stories don't go that way. It's more of a narrative trope to get the audience on your side easier than a real "rule", I guess?

[Calax]

It's there to create sympathy. You feel for somebody who's tossed about by forces rather than a guy who's forcing the plot because we've been taught that those who use their power to flat out drive the plot are the Villains... usually