posted
So, as far as I can tell no one has posted on this topic so I feel safe doing a new one despite the thousands of forum topics...
I just had to tell someone (my wife's at work, so you hatrackers get my comments instead) how excited I was having just read Mr. Card's review of Star Wars III RotS. I have been basically arguing the same points as Mr. Card made about George Lucas's strengths and weaknesses and why the first three films were such masterpieces and the later films so poor since I saw Ep. 1, and it was just very exciting to see another person make the same points about Lucas being surrounded by Yes Men and not having other writers and directors saving his work like on the first trilogy. I also would like to see Oscars for acting saving horrible writing given out to Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford for their work in the first trillogy, and Ewan MacGregor for Episode 1.
Anyway, just had to be excited about that for a moment since I've been making the same points for years and this is the first time I've heard them come from someone else, and for it to be a great writer and thinker like Mr. Card was rather exciting.
Time to stop raving or I'm going to be late getting to set to work on a completely unrelated film. Pay is better for working on films as they're being made than it is for working on those that have already been made anyway. Unless you're Roger Ebert perhaps. Posts: 6 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
There's a really cute segment in the 80 hour long documentary on disc 4 of the OT DVD's where the actors talk about how horrid the dialogue was.
Carrie Fisher says, "You can type this stuff, but you can't say it."
They go on for a while about how "Acting" just wasn't part of the process that Lucas got. His direction basically consisted of, "Faster and more intense." The actors felt pretty lost, and all of them all but say they managed a believable performance almost in spite of Lucas's presence.
So you can imagine the disaster that would ensue if he was handed a bunch of actors who thought he was to be listened to absolutely.
The situation for ESB and ROTJ was perfect. Lucas was around to supervise everything, but an actual director was also around to give the actors an anchor.
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, it's too bad Lucas didn't go the route of using other directors with Ep II and III as he originally said he was going to. We probably would have got some better dialogue and more believable characters/relationships.
Ford and Kershner have said in the past how bad the love scenes for Leia and Han were on Lucas’ script for The Empire Strikes Back. In the DVD docs you mention, both the actor and director point out the scene where Han is being lowered into the Carbon pit to be frozen and how he was supposed to say "I love you too" to Leia just before he freezes. Kershner's like, "Han Solo would not say something like that!" So Ford and Kershner ended up with the classic: Leia: "I love you." Solo: "I know," line.
Lucas should have utilized other directors.
Posts: 339 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I felt the film was rushed through. Where little happens in I and II, III overthrows everything. Lucas should've had "IIIa" and "IIIb".
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think he should have skipped them altogether.
Back-story is for the author, not the reader/viewer. The writer comes up with it so he/she can understand what has transpired before the REAL story begins.
I felt that there was simply not enough material here for three films. It could have been told in two by skipping all the childhood stuff and compressing the rest. It's the fact that this was all back-story is why the pacing and delivery were off IMHO. Lucas took what he used to flesh out the timeline and relationships in his head to make three new films that never should have been to begin with.
In addition, going back and revealing everything robs the original stories of some of their magic. I can no longer see Vader as anything other than Hayden in a suit. I am no longer interested in Boba Fett's mysterious past. I can no longer imagine what the clone wars or the Jedi purges must have been like. Lucas has pulled back all the curtains and shown us everything that matters. And now that I've seen it, I care for it less.
Back-story is best left in the mind of the author. That's why you're always supposed to begin your story in the MIDDLE of things.
Posts: 339 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
I stood in line for "Sith" with an unabashed lore-master of the Star Wars universe who, among other tidbits, related this bit of apocrypha to me.
It seems Alec Guiness more or less hated the Star Wars films and the whole pop-culture phenom surrounding them. When asked by a young fan to sign some bit of paraphernalia or other, he replied, "I'll sign it, if you promise me not to waste your life on this garbage."
implausible, but kinda funny.
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: There sure was a lot of "faster and more intense" in episode III ...
Maybe I'm just getting old, but it sure seems like I'd have to see the film five or six times just to see everything that happened. I don't know about you, but I can only look at one part of that huge screen at a time.
Personally, I think the emperor's efforts to turn Anikin to the dark side were trite. Anikin turned far too easily, especially when asked to kill all Jedi.
And then, Master Wendo would have killed Palpatine if Anikin wasn't around, but the more powerful Yoda is stalemated.
Oh well, the movies are fun to watch anyway, and that's what matters.
Posts: 115 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
ALso his killing of the younglings was too early in his new darkness. To go straight from feel good jedi to mass murdering young children seemed like quite a leap.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agreed with Card's points on Ep3, the only thing he failed to mention was how awful the editing was. The fights have so many quick cuts in them you don't really get a chance to see what im sure was a beautifully choreographed fight by Nick Gillard, and the camera is in so tight you dont really get the big epic sense of action on any of the lightsaber battles. For the love of all that is holy, give me a wide shot or two that lasts for a few seconds!
More editing woes in the unfortunate sacrifice of the senator meetings with padme. I was sorry to see those scenes go, but instead we get that 10 minute space battle sequence in the beginning that didnt really do much of anything to move the story forward. It was special effects spectacle. Id rather have had the dooku lightsaber fight more closely resemble the one detailed in the novelization than have that pointless starfighter battle.
One of the worst things lucas missed though, was the chance to let ewan mcgregor really give us an emotional moment when hes watching that holo tape of anakin slaughtering the younglings. NOW give me that close up on ewan mcgregor, not when hes fighting. Leave the camera on his face for a while and cut between footage of the holotape. Let me see the anguish, let me see how betrayed he feels. That should have been such a huge moment, and instead its just played off like its nothing. UGH! Part of me wants to give the star wars prequels the rocky 5 treatment and just pretend they never happened.
Im not even going to go into the turning point moment where anakin goes from "what did I just do" confusion to "rise lord vader" in like 5 seconds of screen time.
BTW, for those interested, a quick plug. I write a star wars fan comic book at http://www.fandom.swnsu.com feel free to check it out.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:And then, Master Wendo would have killed Palpatine if Anikin wasn't around, but the more powerful Yoda is stalemated.
I didn't get that sense at all. Palpatine pretends to run out of gas and then nukes Wendo as soon as he accomplishes his main goal - showing Anakin that the Jedi are the enemy of the Senate and the Republic, willing to stage a coup.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Nitpick: his name is Mace Windu, not Wendo. Not that you can really tell from listening.
The way I feel about Episode III is that it's the best screwed-up movie I have ever seen. By that I mean that there are so many things that are wrong with it, the dialogue, the editing, the skipped character development, etc., and yet I still really enjoyed the movie. The core of the story is so strong that it gets past all the things that Lucas did wrong. That's one reason I'm really enjoying reading the novelizations of the movies right now (I'm halfway through Episode II). It gives the authors a chance to flesh out the things that Lucas neglected. Anyway, I thought Card's assessment was pretty good.
Edit: Oh, and I disagree with Exploding Monkey about the prequels devaluing the originals. I just rewatched the original trilogy this week after seeing Episode III, and it actually made me appreciate them more. It never made sense to me before that Vader could turn back to the light side so quickly, but after seeing the prequels, I noticed a lot of things that I didn't before about the originals. He really was conflicted about turning Luke over to the Emperor. It just seemed more believable that he still had a tiny bit of humanity left under all that despair and self-hate.
Also, I just found this comic that's a great take on the shortcomings of Episode III. *Warning* It has a couple naughty words, I hope it's all right to link it. It's so funny, though! VGCats Comic
posted
He lost one hand to Luke's chopping (and his saber now that I think of it), but you get my point. Someone tries to fry my kid and he gon' pay. Posts: 339 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I thought this movie did really well. (For what it had to work with.) Really, was there any way this movie could be amazing, since Anakin was barely showing any sign of turning to the dark side? Yes, he killed some sand people, but big whoop, and then he thought what he did later in the movie was a bad thing. They killed his mother and they were barabarians. What was he stuppose to do? Sorry, stuck on rant mode.
But then George felt the need to basically go from Anakin being slightly dark to basically how Darth Vader is exactly in the movies. I thought the "youngling" murdering part had a great twist and emotional impact in the story, but I also thought it was way too soon. Maybe if this happened after he was left limbless and burning in flames by Obi Wan. (Obi is so merciful...) And if Anakin changes that mucgh in 2 and a half hours it is very amazing to me that he doesn't change at all in the next twenty and a half years! Darn rant mode...
Anyway, it was a Lucas movie, so it suffered from terrible dialouge (the begining of the movie's dialouge was so awful that the rest of the movie didn't even seem that bad.) terrible directing, (the emperor's performance after Windu dies,) and making it obvious that the prequels came after by putting in completely random and unnecesary things. (Chewbacca being in it for no reason at all.)
But it also had some very creative, cool, and humorous stuff in it. Like that thing that Obi Wan rode. General Grevious, even if he was much cooler in the cartoon series. R2-D2 kicking some butt. The detail to the lava world was pretty extrodinary.
But anyway, I still like this movie. I'll just have to see it a few more times before I decide exactly how much I like it.
edit: forgot about the positive stuff of Lucas. Oh yea, and the best part... Jar Jar had no lines! Yaaaaaaaay!
posted
Eh...if I were a critic, I would be mercilessly bashing this movie right now.
But I'm a high school freshman, and I really enjoyed this movie as just an entertainment experience. I think the thrill value of just watching it without analyzing it is far higher than a lot of the movies around these days. Sound effects, great visuals...what else matters when you're watching in the moment? There just aren't movies these days with the simple freedom of the Star Wars films. Everything has to have a detailed plot, realistic characters, and most of them bog down, while Star Wars remains two very adrenaline-driven power-hours.
(In reflection, of course, I concur that Ep3 is a sorry sack of 'motion picture artistry': script, directing, etc., but at the time, I was just in 'that's so cool!!' mode.)
Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hated the movie, but did laugh at it's awfulness. Perhaps I will give it another go on DVD because in all fairness I was in a terrible mood when I watched it. My roomate screwed me over big time and I was to angry to care about the film. But everyone I saw it with hated it too.
It may just be that I had a better imagined view of how Vader came to be than Lucas could ever come up with. I wanted him to go bad due to Palpatine or some other Sith hurting him to the point of extreme rage, not because he had a nightmare. Oh well at least the first trilogy was good.
Posts: 17 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
