Several points in this list are very good, many are nitpicky, and some are just plain stupid, but I managed to get a luagh from nearly all of them.
My one argument for several of the points concerning "knocking the audience over the head" with allusions to the original trilogy is this: Think of the movies in proper terms. Think about them in order, from the viewpoint of someone who hasn't seen the OT first, and watches them all end-to-end. For someone in that situation, the parallel lines and scenes become a humorous point, and the images of things to come in later movies suddenly have a sense of mysterious foreboding.
As for the CGI argument, I totally agree. I've seen it used well, particularly for the space battles (in the special edition of ANH, I had to dig out my VHS original to figure out which shots had been added to the Death Star battle) I've seen it used badly (as the background of every scene on Coruscant), but as far as the prequels go, I've seen it used way too much.
The originals had excellent scenes with people interacting, because you focused naturally on them. Why did you focus on them? Because the background looked like something you might see every day, something which you would have no business staring at slackjawed. However, the big scenes out in space, with ships and stars and explosions, while done very well for the time, are somewhat lacking by today's standards. (remember the TIEs popping up out of nowhere in ROTJ?)
Now, in the prequels, we have the problems reversed. The interactions have gotten all the life sucked out of them by huge CGI backdrops with visually distracting elements. The space battles are better than ever, with fluid movements and dynamic angles.
I can see using CGI when filming something would be physically impossible, or at a stretch very difficult or expensive, but if something can be done on a real set, it should be done on a real set. As proof of that, look at Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: Anythign that could be done phyiscally, was. And as a result, the films looked spectacular.
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WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm and/or sophisticated satire. Any psychological damage sustained is purely your fault.
all your points are good and valid but, how would you feel if you have the knowledge to create a great film and to write this amazing out-of-this-world script with good looking aliens (not handsome but amazingly well done, good enough to fry all those star trek, flash gordon ones) and amazing battle shots but damn it's 1979 and you are thinking about personal computers when there are none and you have to create a heart with just guts. and all your script gets lost by the lack of technology.
you made money but still you where not after it. you wanted to have the shots and the droids and the aliens right and good enough for you.
fast forward to the mid'90's and you have your own computer graphics company and they just created a realistic dinosaur!!! wow i think it's time to go back and redo my movies, but wait i cant because of the way i ended up shooting them, and if i do too much, this fans are gonna hate them. well just a fix here and there but wait and see the new ones that i'm writting.
now you can have more with less money how cool is that, instead of hiring 10,000 extras and make 10,000 suits i'll just create them and make them act the way i wanted. now it looks like the movies i imagined years ago, now i can see them.
that's lucas man! that's all he wants to do, it doesnt need to be human-like it needs to be out of this world so that you can say "damn that one blew my mind".
i swear to god that i hate every time that jabba moves his mouth, the line might be great but the mouth moves like a ****ing kermit the frog.
now let's talk about another thing: can you disscus attack of the clones by comparing it just to ESB? and can you do that with ANH and TPM? remember that in the first movie there was no yoda, no emperor, or anything, lets compare one with four, two with five and 3 with 6, dont do the original trilogy against just TPM or AOTC
Last edited by atila the great on Apr 4th, 2005 at 07:41 AM
Well, despite whatever Lucas set out to do, he did successfully do one thing, and that was to disappoint a rather reasonable amount of fans, and all regarding a lot of similar things:
Chief among these are the -abuses- of CG. I don't mean, "Hey, this would help cut costs and make for a great cinema masterpiece!" I mean, "Hey, let's get with the new age and overkill the CG and -cool- stuff".
Another point would be the acting. It's pretty poor in most cases in the prequels. Unless you have an English accent to help you, the lines just sound flat, as though no one cares about the plot or themselves, or life in general. People can tear on ROTJ until the day they die, but Anakin and Padme's performances were dreadful, and Mace wasn't much better.
Third is improvisation. Stuff like the prophecy and midi-chlorians are just ugly throw-ins that should have been left out. No one likes prophecies for the same reasonw e don't like driving only on tracks. And a scientific explanation for Force affinity is stupid no matter what I hear.
And last is the cameo appearances and hints, coupled with the dreadful attempts at humor. C3PO and R2 could never have been in the prequels, and honestly, little would change. Same goes for a lot of characters, such as Boba and now Chewbacca. It's like cameo-tie-in city with PT and it's rather clumsy. And the humor... Hold on. Let me think of the funniest joke in AOTC... hold on... still... No, nevermind.
And look at me. I'm a fan. I sound like a SW-hating bastard. If that's not evidence of some screw up, I don't know what is.
But what exactly is it with the amount of British accents? I don't mind the British at all, I can fake a fair British accent myself, but in the OT you knew someone was an Imperial if they had a British accent.
Now every speaking Jedi except Yoda and Mace has a British accent. In fact, nearly all characters in TPM and ATOC do. I miss Han's slightly slurred mercenary slant, and Luke's carefree young man accent.
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WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm and/or sophisticated satire. Any psychological damage sustained is purely your fault.
Also, nobody is disputing the fact that CGI CAN be used effectively.
Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 spring to mind when I think of films that effectively pulled off CGI to create something physically impossible or too expensive to recreate.
Star Wars COULD have been done like that, but there is simply too much of it.
We don't need droids or animated creatures running around in the background all the time. There's simply too much eye candy and it detracts from the films.
Also the performaces are really down to the director. Actors are directed to act a certain way. Sam Jackson, Hayden C, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, they could have all done better - and the reaosn why it's annoying is because WE KNOW they could have done better. At the end of the day, the director is the person that says "thats a wrap" and green lights the perfomances, so its their fault if a scene comes off as hokey. I think they were given a raw deal, because I doubt even Sir Ian Mckellen could make sense out of the line:
"I hate sand, it's rough an coarse and it gets everywhere".
The actors were given absolute crap to work with, and they had to work on isolated sets and imagine props, imagine eyelines and other such hidden things, that no wonder their performances aren't natural - how can they act natural when nothing they are working with is natural? It isn't performance driven anymore, because such lack of accomodation has been made for the actors.
Very good points. Though I will argue that English accents sound more sophisticated and intelligent. Imagine all of Obi's lines in typical Yank. He'd be annoying. And Jurassic Park has some astounding CGI (for 1993 people!) and yet AOTC and TPM look fake in comparison.
And I have heard complaints about the director. I tend to agree. Those were excellent actors, and they should have been better accomodated. After all, SW was always about the plot and the characters, not the CGI wow effect.
You're absolutely right about Naboo...it's so annoying how much importance that planet is given, without any sort of reasoning behind it. You would think Alderaan would be more important...and we haven't even seen the surface of that planet yet (hopefully in Ep. III).
This is especially annoying...reminds me of Paul Walker saying 'bro' every three minutes in 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Very true...the most absurd part is that Dooku, up until that point, was not even established as a villain yet. How in blazes did she get the idea that he would try to assassinate her? Everyone (in the movie) knew that she was against the creation of a military for the Republic, so keeping in that context, with Dooku as the head of the separatists, it would be illogical for him to try to kill her, when she would in fact be helping him as a separatist. Of course we all know of his Sith affiliations, but she did not know of that at the time so it made no sense to accuse him.
WHAT THE ******* ****** ********* ************ **** ***** ********* ******* ******** IS THIS?????????????????? YOU CAN SAY **** LIKE THAT ABOUT EVERY ******** MOVIE IF YOU REALLY WANT TOO.
__________________ A day will come when the age of making movies dies.
A day will come when no director has the courage to produce a film anymore.
A day will come when every single director on earth, will give up his/her work in helpless grief, overwhelmed by the greatest movie on earth.
I agree, every movie has it's flaws. you just have to learn how to enjoy these films. whoever wrote this has way to much time on their hands and doesn't seem like he would like anything.
Reason 57
"One can't help but wonder why Jango's head didn't fall out of the helmet and roll around on the ground. It defies logic! Everyone in the theatre had to be wondering that."
You obviously never noticed that Jango head actually did fall out because it shows there is a round shawdow that has a nother shawdow come out of it that looks like a head. It would be beyond reason to assume that this head could have been anyone's other than Jango's head.
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This guy is hilarious, and he has some very good points. Few people here will agree because most of you seem incapable of handling constructive criticism, but why would I care about the opinions of fanboys who defend a highly flawed trilogy unconditionally?
__________________ "I realised that there was this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know that there was no reason to be afraid... ever." "We don't have to win, we just have to fight."
"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." "Be yourself. Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
OK I admit the prequels were no where near as good as OT but IMO they were still LIKEABLE. I totally agree with some of the points but most of them, however, are totally nit-picked and really couldn't matter less.
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Apr 3rd, 2005 09:49 PM
http://darthglentract.tripod.com/index.html Go Jawa's!!
