And I agree with everything except giving Hayden and Natalie good actor awards. As far as I'm concerned, HC is a TERRIBLE actor, and Natalie wasn't particularly good in this either, though usually she's decent.
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If you know an actor's work and liked their acting in one movie, but thought they were terrible in a subsequent movie, you can almost always blame the director.
Admittedly this doesn't always hold true. For instance a superb dramatic actor can't always do comedy, or vice versa for that matter. However, I'm willing to withhold judgement on Hayden Chrisiansen's acting ability because his filmography is still way to small to judge, especially if you discount Star Wars II and III. (And I don't think any actor deserves to be judged on their performance in Star Wars I-III.
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Haven't seen it yet - it'll be a few months before we get a decent copy here. Seriously, could watch a camera copy on DVD already, but we're not that desperate. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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But he missed the whole underlying theme of the movie, what the movie was clearly all about.
Ships.
Ships landing. Ships taking off. Ships flying past other ships. Ships filling the background like flies in the Everglades. Fully twenty minutes of the movie, minutes that would otherwise have been completely wasted on character development, were used to show every single departure and arrival of every character in a different ship.
When Anakin gets up and goes to a different room, I was honestly shocked he didn't climb into a ship to do it. Followed, of course, by Padme in her nightgown and a different ship.
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Hayden Christensen was heartbreaking in Life as a House, which was a bit on the sappy, life-lesson side of filmmaking. Tasty and moving, sort of like extra-sweet bran cereal.
AND he was convincing as Stephen Glass, played as a sort of newly-hatched sociopath, in a haze of remaking the world he lives in without regard for the truth. That wasShattered Glass, also notable for a great performance by Peter Skaarsgard(sp?). And his mush-mouth diction didn't interfere with that character at all - it just made him seem real.
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I second Olivetta's remarks. Both movies were very well done. Christianson's character was the perfect mix of rebellious and desperately hungry teenager. It was powerfully moving.
And his Glass was so very insecure and manipulative at the same time. You could see how people would gloss over his lies and make excuses for them. Until one character had the strength to ignore the emotional neediness because he recognized the calculating conniving sociopath underneath.
Brialliant. Which is why I laugh at all the criticisms of Hayden's acting. I don't even bother with critics with such idiotic comments.
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You do have to acknowledge one stellar achievement, though:
The opening fight scene of Episode III dares show something heretofore unheard of in science fiction: Ships approaching each other on different planes.
For the first time in the history of spaceflight, someone figured out that space is three-dimensional.
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quote:Originally posted by Annie: For the first time in the history of spaceflight, someone figured out that space is three-dimensional.
And then he ruined it by having all the people in Grievous' ship fall down the floor when it inverted.
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quote:For the first time in the history of spaceflight, someone figured out that space is three-dimensional.
Not the first time -- but I was always bemused that the dramatic tactical breakthrough that won Kirk the battle in STII: Wrath of Khan was to take advantage of Khan's naive 'two-dimensional' maneuvers.
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quote:Originally posted by Ginol_Enam: And then he ruined it by having all the people in Grievous' ship fall down the floor when it inverted.
It seemed to me that the since the ship was losing power and whatnot, they were being pulled down by the planet's gravity.
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I think they did remarkably well considering how very little direction if none at all they got.
They look and feel very insecure about what they are doing on screen which is a sign to me that they are practically on their own as far as the interpretation of the emotional tone of the dialog is concerned. Now, add to that the supreme silliness of the dialog and it's got to be hell for them.
If Lucas was a more involved director he would at least been able to help the actors interpret that dialog, because, lets face it folks, the only person that really knows why he wrote those words are Lucas himself.
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quote:Originally posted by Ginol_Enam: And then he ruined it by having all the people in Grievous' ship fall down the floor when it inverted.
Well, if the ships were not in orbit which is feasible because SW has technology (and infinite power sources) that we don't, then there would actually be an up and down. It's hovering in space above the planet, not orbiting, so the effect of the planet’s gravity is felt.
But that doesn't explain why the ship was burning up in the atmosphere or that you can hear explosions in a vacuum and thousands of other problems etc…
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Boon
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by twinky: Darth Maul did get cut in half, though.
Every time my kids see that scene, they laugh and say "His pants fell off!"
posted
"For the first time in the history of spaceflight, someone figured out that space is three-dimensional."
2001: A Space Odyssey. 3 Dimensions, and silence in space too. Why hasn't anyone else figured out how ominous that combination can be?
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Silence in space doesn't work that well for a major movie. Most people like the crash-bang-boom to keep them entertained. Silence is okay, but it's boring for a majority of the audience, especially when it goes on too long.
It would kill a Star Wars film--you know how Lucas loves showing space battle after space battle, and the sound of lasers and exploding death stars and whining engines.
But silence for brief periods, or just a film without many space scenes, would probably be fine. "Ominous" may hit it off with sci-fi fanatics, but wave goodbye to the box-office charts.
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The whole "you can't here explosions in space" thing is misplaced criticism. The people on a ship can hear it when it gets hit, or when they fire a laser. They can hear the whine of their own engines.
There's no rule of moviemaking that says the microphone has to be where the camera is. One of the principle theatrical advantages of sound is that we're not limited to a single point of view in presenting it in a movie. Why give that up to meet some purist ideal that isn't actually true, anyway?
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Because, expertly handled, it's eerie as hell. Space is cold, and endless, and unforgiving. It's not just a black sky and I don't want to feel like it is.
Watching the opening scenes in RotS, I never got the feeling that being sucked out of a ship would be particularly damaging to the Jedis. Watching scenes in Firefly, or Apollo 13, or just watching John Lithgow simply cross a wire in 2010, I felt the suspense and sheer terror of the harshest environment known to man.
I can accept sound in space if it doesn't diminish that feeling. There aren't many movies or TV shows that are skillful enough to do that.
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That said, I don't expect silence in space in a Star Wars movie. Star Wars is science fantasy at best, and works better as a mythic space-going fairy tale.
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Actually, wasn't there a part in the original trilogy when one star destroyer rammed another at right angles? From the top?
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The Executor, the cool looking Super Star Destroyer, was pulled into the Death Star II's gravity (I suppose it was large enough to do that) and rammed into it nose down.
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Okay, I remmeber that part now. but I still am emembering(?) a shot of two star destroyers crossing at right angles...
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I wasn't recommending silence for Star Wars movies. I wouldn't want Star Wars to be silent either. I was only pointing out that 3 dimensional motion and the silence of space have been done before, and extremely well, I might add, even 30 some-odd years ago.
As far as the whole science fiction/fantasy thing goes, I don't really know of a purely science fiction movie other than 2001.
From an academic standpoint, I've always wondered what an explosion (actually conflagration) in space would look like. It certainly wouldn't look like any conventional fireball. Maybe Lucas should hire Nasa to do some, so he could film it and make movies more realistic.
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I mostly remember the "making of" and how they actually used footage from WWII fighter pilots to figure out the space battles. Some neat trick with old film, computers, superimposing, or some such something - I think I was maybe 11 at the time I saw this and just being tickled pink that folks were putting history to a good use -
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Hmmm... I think I'll have to watch this movie so that I can agree with OSC on a more informed level.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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OSC and all other reviewers, I think, missed the most subtle and most important part: Obi-Wan confessing to being a Sith himself!
Obi-Wan: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." This is an absolute statement, so if he's speaking the truth, he's a Sith himself! Now think what he does in Episode IV: gets himself killed for the rebellion. The rebellion is a Sith plot.
So is Lucasfilm: in the opening lines of Episode IV, Lucas refers to the Galactic Empire not as "flawed" or "imperfect," but as "evil," thus showing his own Sithness. That's right: we have people right here on Earth (or in California, which is kind of like being on Earth) with hyperspace and world-destroying capability. And no Jedi training academy for billions of light-years.
Episode VII is going to be really bad news.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I couldn't stand HC in Episode II! I didn't think he would do Vader's character justice. He could barely act it seemed- but in this movie he did an excellent job. He looked like a very, very bad man.
As for the dialogue, finally someone says something about it! That was the biggest downfall of the movie, I think. The CHEESY lines.
quote:"Star Wars is science fantasy at best, and works better as a mythic space-going fairy tale."
As opposed to what, a documentary on space travel?
The prequels are closer (in my opinion) to science fiction than the original trilogy. But c'mon. Farm boy goes on a quest to save the princess from the evil, black-robed villain using swords and magical abilities? Fantasy with science fiction trappings.
[ May 25, 2005, 02:12 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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Boon, I tried to laugh out loud at the pants, but have a sleeping toddler on my lap, so instead ruptured something near my diaphragm.
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