posted
Kind of a bitter interview, why they're conducting it in a warehouse is unknown: its filmed like a hostage video in U.S. occupied Abu Ghraib, no wonder the poor guy's looking uncomfortable.
Jake Lloyd comes across quite well, just an average man whose partly blamed for ruining a much loved series trying to get by, Kevin Smith should cast him in his next movie.
posted
Episode 1 sucked. George Lucas given a free hand to write dialogue produces ponderous long speeches. The scripts for all the prequels badly needed rewrites and the external input which all the original trilogy had. Not only that, but the cast in the prequels were so serious throughout, because they all knew they were appearing in a legendary franchise. In the original movies gravitas came from the heavyweight actors and everyone else just seemed to be winging it. In the prequels gravitas (or rather, seriousness), comes from all the characters, which makes watching them feel like you're wading through mud. A significant number of kids who loved the prequels will wind up defecting to the original trilogy as time goes by, because they stand up to repeated viewings far better than the prequels.
Jake seems like a nice guy, who no doubt has gotten some serious stick for Star Wars over the years.
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
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posted
Here's how I choose to view the prequels' context: they were inside that reality compiled by a chronicler in the employ of the New Republic in an attempt to piece together how everything in the galaxy went so horribly wrong, perhaps as a prelude to a set of Imperial war crimes trials. Now since most of the key players from the prelude and early stages of the Empire would by then be long dead or in Jar-Jar's likely case too muddled by Alzheimers to remember anything clearly, what was compiled by that chronicler is bound to be somewhat different from what actually happened. Thus, what we saw in the prequels was that chronicler's best guess--but not the exact truth--of how the Old Republic went completely to pot; likely it was close to that, but with less corny actions by the key players and more believable emotions and so on. Try and take this mindset the next time you'd want to watch either films and see if that helps. Also keep in mind that A) it is basically all exposition anyway, and exposition is inherently boring to watch anyway, and B) as exposition it really isn't aboslutely essential or canonical, despite what Lucas might impress on we the viewers; consider just the original trilogy as absolutely canon, and you'll be just fine.
Now as for the changes since made to the original trilogy, there are ups and downs with it as I see it. Most of the changes aren't too bad, really--it certainly is funnier to have Solo run into 10,000 additional stormtroopers when chasing after those handful in the hall rather than simply coming across 2 or 3 additional ones. I only really have issue with the "who shoots first?" connundrum; I would have to agree that the Han we know would certainly blast first and asked questions later (they seem to have compromised a bit with the 2004 DVD, as he and Greedo now seem to fire at the same time, although Greedo looks to still be a split second faster on the draw). As for the change in Anakin at the very end, well, we're never told exactly how the Jedi spirit appearance proceedure works (perhaps it depends on what the person in question wants his subject to see him as), so I suppose either way is acceptable in lieu of a concrete set of guidelines (the Special Edition music for the scene is definitely better than the original tune in my book). Of course, this wouldn't be as big an issue if Lucas consented to release both versions on each set and let the viewers choose which version they'd want from them.
Posts: 2561 | From: Pennsylvania | Registered: Aug 2004 | Site Updates: 0
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posted
I could write a book about everything that's wrong with the prequels. George Lucas just isn't that great a director is what it boils down to. He's a wiz with special effects, but he can't direct actors to save his life. His writing leaves a lot to be desired as well. He's good with high concepts, but bad with details. The dialog he writes is terrible and often superfluous (characters articulating their emotions rather than acting them, long-winded monologues where a simple one-word answer or short phrase would do the trick), and he's always dumbing down his films with stupid kid-friendly characters and situations (Jar-Jar, Ewoks, Jake Lloyd which should have been Hayden from the get-go, etc.). With the prequels he let his ego get out of control and he decided he needed to direct, write and micro-manage all creative departments. The only things he let go of the reigns on were John Williams' scoring and the few scenes he let Spielberg guest direct. Not surprisingly, those were areas where the films came alive. He also seemed incapable of editing himself. I mean, how long did that stupid pod race sequence need to go on for? It wasn't even germane to the story. Then there's the biggest blasphemy of all: he redefined the nature of The Force and turned it into a master race scenario. I have never been so let-down by a movie in my life as I was when I saw Phantom Menace, and doubt I ever will be again.
Posts: 835 | From: Hawaii | Registered: Aug 2008 | Site Updates: 0
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posted
Frankly, I view 'The Ewok Adventure' and 'Caravan of Courage' as canon, everything else is just hackery.
Seriously though, I hated so much in the prequels it made me want to smash the screen. Flat direction, turgid dialogue, over-earnest acting, poor action scenes (CGI action simply does nothing for me). Honestly, on every level those films failed (except financially).
As for the ruination of the OT; I don't care what Lucas does (however bad) as long as he leaves us the original movies available in a fairly decent print (which he now has).
Posts: 3383 | From: England | Registered: May 2003 | Site Updates: 21
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posted
He only provided the original theatrical cuts in non-anamorphic widescreen which was another nice little slap in the face from Senor Douchebag.
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