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A movie I waited 3 long years for....
I feel cheated. But I feel more sorry to see George Lucas now rank as one of the worst directors in the industry, where did this man’s talent go?
At the time the original Star Wars trilogy was accused of having lame dialogue, but Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, James Earl Jones, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and even Mark Hamill made those lines shine, they knew how to deliver those lines to make them believable - even in the fantastic world that Star Wars is set in. Lines like 'Chewie bring me the hydro-spanners' could only be delivered and made sound good by someone of Harrison Ford’s talent. Lucas surrounded himself with a brilliant team, Gary Kurtz, Marcia Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, Leigh Brackett, John Mollo, Ralph McQuarrie, Joe Johnston and John Williams etc...And they turned in some of the finest work of their careers for Lucas.
15 years is a long time for anything in the film, music, and TV world. The Beatles – after a 15 year break – could not/would not have hoped to have captured their old magic if they had ever decided to reform, they'd have still sold a load of albums to hard core fans but music tastes may have made them think again.
Lucas
after 15 years of movies like Aliens, Independence Day and Jurassic Park must have
been nervous about reaction to The Phantom Menace, but then again the
expectation of Episode 1 had reached such mythic proportions that he knew he had
nothing to lose. It was Box-Office guaranteed!!!! After a mixed critical
reaction the film still became the 2nd highest grossing film of all time, and
for quite a while Lucas must of felt pretty chuffed, but no doubt took to heart
the criticism levelled at Episode 1.
So why hasn't he made an effort to rectify the faults in Episode 2??
Because, basically, he fell into the trap that many Star Wars wannabe movies did in the late 70's early 80's; he figured it was the FX that made Star Wars. How wrong he was… Compare the original cuts of all 3 of the first trilogy, not the special edition nonsense. 90% or so of the SFX are there purely to serve the story - nothing else.
In Attack of the Clones you see, in one establishing shot, a couple of robots outside Padme's apartment putting the window back in. That's all an audience needs to know - that the window is getting fixed. Cut inside to a conversation with two key characters, they should be able to play the scene together; after all as Lucas says so many times himself, these movies are about characters. But does Lucas let the characters do their work? No he frames the shot in such a way that you can still see the robots outside the window putting the glass in, they then proceed to wiz off into what is already a very busy background to the shot. The audience does not need these distractions.
On cloud city in the Empire Strikes Back we see Leia looking out of her apartment window, establishing shot, cut to inside. Han enters, the scene is played out with the two key players without any distractions, and for that reason you focus on the dialogue and it's delivery. The AT-AT Battle, The Speeder Bike chase, The Rancor Pit, The Sarlacc Pit, The Escape from the Death Star, The Death Star Battle...just some of the action scenes that have graced the original trilogy. Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas and Richard Chew's editing on Star Wars was Oscar nominated, and Paul Hirsch's work for TESB and Sean Barton, Marcia Lucas and Duwayne Dunham's work on ROTJ should have been. Ben Burtt's editing of Attack of the Clones, especially the action scenes, really is some of the worst work I've ever seen. He has no sense of how to pace a scene to make it exciting. Burtt was just an assistant on The Phantom Menace and must of thought he'd learnt enough from Paul Martin Smith to have ago himself, he couldn't have been more wrong. Despite it's over use of FX The Phantom Menace is pretty well cut in terms of pace, especially the Pod Race and the Maul Fight.
How could a scene with 200 Jedi play so badly? They really do look like a bunch of extras dragged in off the street and told to wave these sticks in front of a green screen. The arena in Gladiator had a battle that genuinely had you rooting for the key characters. That was part of its audience, critical and Oscar success. In AOTC I didn't give a s*** about the Jedi because they were just Star Trek red shirts - you know they're all going to get killed so who cares?
Characters you do care about like Jango, a classic anti-hero, is not an evil man - but he will work for the highest bidder, and do anything to protect himself and his son. He is badly under used, and his death at the hands of Mace Windu is so badly played that this must rate as naff as Boba flying into the Sarlacc Pit, although at least that scene was well cut!
Dexter Jetster and his diner must, along with the Pod Race commentator, be the naffist thing in the Star Wars movies! The Cantina in Star Wars was loosely based on a western saloon, but at least it didn't have swing doors! The Diner on the other hand is straight out of American Graffiti/Happy Days with a dreadful female robot and her 'How can I help you Honey?' lines, and Dex with his fat belly and his grease covered T-Shirt! This is straight from Spaceballs! As a character design Dex is pretty awful, and they said Jar Jar was bad. As for the nightclub, - the Cantina has a band, Jabba has a band, and even Caprica in Battlestar Galactica had an all girl group, - They go into this nightclub and what do we hear?........... John William's score! Where's the Alien nightclub music? Or the Sy Snootles of Coruscant? We see video screens of droids playing what looks like American Football or something; this just says Earth and America!
There are characters with names like Elan Sleazebaggano,
doesn't take
much to break down this name. I think Lucas's kids named this one!
You have a character called Zam Wessell; a shape shifter for some reason. It/she
wears a very distinctive outfit. Now
if all you can shift is your face/humanoid body but not your outfit then what's
the point in shifting? In Star Trek 6 Iman's shape shifter shifted everything,
clothes, shape, size; perfect for an assassin and for blending into crowds
etc... It's never explained why Zam is a shape shifter; it serves the story not
one bit, and is also a very Star Trek not Star Wars type idea!
As far as Anakin and Padme's relationship goes, it just doesn't come across as credible. He was a boy when they last met and she a young woman, he's been training to be a Jedi and she knows this, she also knows that his commitment is to the order. So as far as she is concerned after 10 long years she has no chance of seeing him again, why isn't she married already, or at least got a boyfriend? They barely seem to have time together and she says she loves him? She can't love him that much, neither her nor her government bothered going back to Tatooine to free his mother after Anakin more or less saved their planet in The Phantom Menace! Han and Leia's love/hate relationship worked perfectly and when Leia says 'I love you' to Han in TESB you can tell in her heart she means it!
Mark Hamill was always classed as one of the weaker Star Wars actors, but next to Hayden Christensen he is potential Oscar material!! Hayden Christensen can't act; anger is more than a frown. His relationship with Obi-Wan is even less credible than his love for Padme. Obi-Wan looks too young to be a father figure; and you never get the feeling that, even though Anakin says he's like a father to him, they share a bond. Had it been Qui-Gon then it may have been a different story. Ben says in Star Wars that it was Yoda who taught him. Lucas first planned Qui-Gon as Obi-Wan’s apprentice and it may have been wiser had this happened. The fact that Obi-Wan would have lost one apprentice to Maul, then the boy who he looked at as a son to the Dark-side, would have made Obi-Wan's story more tragic.
Lucas really seems to be over complicating what was once a simple story. Like having Owen and Beru show up, and especially having C3-P0 living there, and R2 visit. Why doesn't Owen or Beru recognise C3-P0 when the Jawa’s in Star Wars EP4 sells him to them? He has a pretty distinctive personality and it was Anakin who apparently named him C3-P0, after all he's built from scrap robots. Anakin recognises C3-P0 straight away in AOTC even though he has outer covering on! I mean C3-P0 must have been the last robot Owen and Beru thought they would ever see! I'm sure Lucas will try and write some thing along the lines of, the droids have their memories of Tatooine erased, and Yoda erases Owen and Beru's memories for the hell of it!
The Australian extra's really stood out like sore thumbs. In the original trilogy most extra's were Brits and quite a few were over dubbed with American accents, but they didn't bother doing this in AOTC and it shows!!
Yoda was on the whole well done. In some shots he was spot on to the puppet, in others his skin looked a little shiny and his eyes slightly glazed. Along with Frank Oz's voice one of the best performances in the film. I can't knock the actual quality of most of the visual FX, but again most, like the droid factory scene and the end battle, were just so badly cut they seemed bad!! Even the Clone Troopers that were blokes in costume seemed CG. I'm sure the digital cameras they used are the business, it's a pity the cinematographer didn't know how to use them! Most shots were very flatly lit, and Lucas's setting up of the shots lacked any real drama.
Lucas has become a man driven by technology, he thinks that makes a good movie...does it f*** !!!!
He should have left the Star Wars prequels in someone else's hands, even the writers at Dark Horse comics are writing better dialogue and doing more dramatic things with characters than Lucas has done in AOTC. Coppolla was right when he said Lucas wasted his career on Star Wars, he could have been directing other movies whilst someone else handled the prequels. As they stand they are like Star Wars TV movies made by people who don't know what Star Wars is, which is sad, because Lucas showed such promise with his first 3 Movies THX-1138, American Graffiti and Star Wars and he could have ranked with the Greats like Hitchcock, Lean, Kurasowa, Kubrick, Spielberg, Ford etc... If he knows Star Wars fans will accept sub standard fare like AOTC, he'll be able to produce any old crap for Episode 3 and still make money.
The sad thing is The Phantom Menace, for all of its faults, works on more levels than AOTC and is a superior movie when you get down to it!
If AOTC had anything other than Star Wars on the title it would be picking up more Turkey's than Battlefield Earth!
And as my saying goes 'You can't polish a turd, but Lucas has discovered that at least you can CG over them now!'
G L A Z Y