Originally posted by mephistodesigns
thanks! one could argue the locations in Star Wars are more complicated than X-men, but thats just the thing. Padme's apartment may be thousands of stories up, but its an apartment, I know the actors have seen apartments. When reacting to the Geonosian arena, just watch Sparticus and Gladiator to get an idea of what you're reacting to. And, as Lucas pointed out in the Clones commentary, he doesn't want to to overreact as all of this seemingly fantastic world is their everyday boring world. That's why the Anakin and Obi-wan were supposed to look relatively calm chasing Zam through Coruscant. Even Anakin jumping out of the speeder was supposed to be "just doing their jobs". I think what really screws up the acting, above all else, is the stress of being IN Star Wars. Had they made these back in the day, whoever was playing the parts wouldn't have to deal with 20 years of build up and fans getting specific pictures of characters and events in there heads. Even a lot of the actors (everyone but Portman) has spoken of playing star wars as kids. So the ones who are into it and respect it, probably have a lot of underlying stress as to how to play these characters without pissing everyone off.
I totally agree with the expectations that have been formed for the prequels. I would hate to be under so much pressure...at least Nat can sort of make the character her own, as there was no Padme in the originals for us to fall in love with and have expectations for. Get me??