13th March 2010, 12:24 AM
Quote:Lucas has nothing to lose, really. He's built up an empire worth billions and all the fighting he did during the late 70's to make his dream a reality is over and done. His movies were self-financed [from the profits of Star Wars toys] and he likely realized, and rightly so, that the anticipation of the Star Wars PT would trump whatever shortcoming the movies might have. And, at this point in his career and with the freedom he has, there's really no one who's going to challenge him on anything.
Oh come on, that's pure speculation. He's a professional filmmaker dammit. An artist. He's not just gonna mail it in, is my speculation.
Quote:The Phantom Menace: Way too much "little kid has special powers that make up for his lack of any combat training, allowing him to destroy space stations with ease", Jar-Jar Binks ruins every scene he's in with cringe-inducing attempts to inject humor, bumbling droids troops, trying to explain the Force as a scientific phenomenon that can be measured [whereas in the OT it was much more mystical, Tarkin even said that Vader was the "last of his religion"], plot inconsistencies with the OT [these are present to some degree through all three].Noted - but the "little kid has special powers that make up for his lack of any combat training, allowing him to destroy space stations with ease" is basically the plot of ANH. Come on, man... Jar-Jar Binks has become possibly the most controversial character in the entire SW Universe, but weird aliens have always been welcome in the SW Universe. Nobody else found it hilarious that Chewbacca's language consists of growls and screams which everybody seems to understand, a la Boomhauer? As for bumbling droids, well, Stormtroopers are pretty stupid too... Their horrible accuracy is well documented. The rest I think is subjective and is honestly beyond my scope of knowledge of the SW universe. But I have read many, many articles detailing the plotholes and inconcistincies in the OT, so I don't think you can excuse that as error-less storytelling either.
Quote:Attack of the Clones: The romance between Anakin and Padme is horribly awkward in terms of acting and writing, the Ray Harryhausen-esque monster arena at the end is a bit too ridiculous, the scene where Anakin's mom dies [nothing about it feels right at all], Anakin's a bit too whiny [which is a problem in the next movie as well], C3PO suddenly spouting puns left and right for no reason at all.
Okay fine, but I think that's also subjective. I mean, in the OT, you had Leah and Luke kissing each other. Sorry, but how much more awkward can you get? And if we're talking about Harryhausen-esque monster scenes, to me nothing seemed more pointless than the Rancor scene in RotJ. At least the arena in AotC was exciting. In fact, it was AWESOME. Anakin's whiny and hates sand and all that, whatever. And his mom dies, well, at least that added some more emotion and humanized Anakin and perhaps gave some justification for his path than say, Yoda the Puppet dying, whom Luke only spent significant time with one single time.
Quote:Revenge of the Sith: Like I said before, this one feels the most coherent of the of three, but it's not without its own problems. Padme's mysterious death from a "broken heart", Anakin's whininess [as mentioned before], hit turn from "I want to save Padme and make the galaxy peaceful" to "Yeehaw! Let's kill little kids!" is way too fast even though they've been hinting at since the second movie, and...uh...General Grevious not getting enough development as a villain I guess.
Noted, I agree with all that. But there were some weird emotional turns in the OT as well. For example, Leah sees her entire planet being blown up and barely bats an eye. And other stuff. Also there was that one alien X-Wing pilot in ANH who was clearly meant to be a caricature of Japanese kamikaze pilots. What that has to do with my current train of thought I have no idea.
Quote:The actors in the original 3 weren't exactly shooting for an Oscar, but they had a charm to them that feels completely absent from the actors in the PT, barring a couple of standouts like Laim Neeson and Ian McDiarmid.
Also great performances from Sam Jackson, Ewan MacGregor, and Natalie Portman. Unlike many of the actors in the OT, the PT actors' careers didn't die when the series ended.
Quote:A New Hope was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing, Best Supporting Actor for Alec Guinness. On top of winning six Oscars for the technical side of the movie.
Yeah, because that's what all the kids care about, the Oscars! Also note ANH isn't universally regarded as the best movie in the saga despite recognition from the Academy - many, many will argue that ESB tops ANH and every other Star Wars flick, and that movie wasn't nominated for any important Oscars. In fact, I don't see what Oscar performance has to do with anything, and frankly I think it's an embarassment to all parties involved that ANH was nominated for Best Writing.