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Mr. McGregor hated SW?

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http://theforce.net/holonet/story/Is_Ewan_McGregor_Disappointed_With_His_Star_Wars_Role_108471.asp

I know this is from TFN, so don't go nutso at me. I thought he was good at his role, he brought a tiny piece of good to the PT if you ask me.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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big deal he's a fan of the originals and thinks the prequels suck. the majority of critics and the average filmgoar would agree.

you have to take what tfn says with a grain of salt anyway they use the music jedi rocks in their podcast, LOL

Dorks who kiss lucas butt and like the special editions and prequels. dumbasses sided with LUCASS over the 2006 gout.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Where does it say he likes the original trilogy in the article? I didn't make this so people could go bashing other SW fan sites.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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sorry but what did you expect this is originaltrilogy.com not specialeditions.com or prequelssuck.com.

none of the macgregor info is new he said in the star wars doco legacy revealed that the originals are classics, and then there are the ones he was in.

this article comes from the same site that had to issue an apology and retraction after posting a rediculous story that Mark Hamill hated star wars, the international MH fan club had to set them straight.LOL LOL.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Just found it interesting is all, however I see your point there.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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See my signature. Comments made on Top Gear the UK television program.

He was obviously very excited to be in a Star Wars movie pre TPM but has never hid his displeasure for the process and the films post TPM. You can't deny his love of swinging a lightsaber though..... there is at the very least that.



"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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Props to Ewan McGregor for realizing the superiority of the OT. w00t.

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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I don't think the opinion he gave in that article was directly about his own work in the prequels nor whether he had an enjoyable time filming them. I think the comments are directed at the final movies as a final product.

Seeing as how he was the best actor in the prequels and Obiwan was the best character, I'm happy to know that he thinks the final films weren't great (while the originals were). He'd be the one guy with the most to be proud of after all. Heh.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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McGregor has always been critical of the PT, including working in front of bluescreen for 95% of the movie. Neeson also has talked about how he was disappointed in TPM, and even Natalie distances herself from the PT, as I am sure she regrets doing the movies now, cause it did nothing for her career as opposed to getting nominated for an Oscar for her role in Closer.

This will be what the majority think of the PT years down the road, it will always be inferior to the OT, plain & simple. Sure there is a diehard niche fanbase of PT fans at TFN, but there are so many socks there I can never tell HOW many people are legit there. Whenever someone on TFN told me they loved the PT, I always remember there is someone out there who loved Battlefield Earth. I say to each his own!
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One Day, Jett Lucas will remake the PT, and will put good filmmakers in charge to get it right.
I am fluent in over six million forms of procrastination.
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In one of the Episode 2 DVD Bonus Features it is mentioned that McGregor particularly hated the Kamino scenes. The blue screen through him off because there was nothing for him to act off of. Can you blaim the actors for hating the blue screen? They have to have something to act against. It is sad what George did to them.


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Originally posted by: CO
This will be what the majority think of the PT years down the road, it will always be inferior to the OT, plain & simple.


Perhaps, but there are enough fans to give the "saga" enough geeky devotion that popular culture will move on and stop caring altogether. It's sad, but most people in the future won't sift through a bunch of crap if its not worth the time involved. Everything is a balance and even now its becoming too much work to find what was truly amazing about the original films in their time. Soon only people with film interests of an esoteric nature will give a damn.

It's kind of weird. George Lucas went out of his way in the original films to make them in a way that wouldn't look dated, even years after. Yet what we have now, with his current edits, the prequels, and his never-ending revisionism, is a complete emphasis of every aspect that made the originals dated and supposedly imperfect. George Lucas decided that Star Wars wasn't good enough and now, coming from the mess he's made, it never will be.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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McGregor always liked the OT and thats one of the reasons he took the role in 1996. You can see how excited he is during pre-production in all the docs--"I'm going to be in a STAR WARS movie!" And then Episode I is actually made and released and his attitude immediately changes to "[eyeroll]". He's always been critical of the PT but tried his best to keep quiet about it because Lucas is such a nice guy and he didn't want to trample a series that already was the most criticised films ever released. But it comes out often because so many people ask him about it. If it was just one film he probably would shrug his shoulders and not think about that one lousy role he took but this was three LONG films that took up three or four years of his life when you combine all the work he did on it. Its true that he's one of the best things about the series but thats a relative comparison when the standard for said films is so low. Its one of McGregor's worst roles in terms of performance because he's such a great actor and usually has pretty strong scripts, but it just so happens that everything else around him in the PT was so lame that he stood out as being "not sucking all the time." I think its just luck for him that he happened to get a role in the PT that wasn't written badly--it wasn't written particularly well, but if you have the right look and attitude and deliver the scripted lines with the sort of personality that the script requires then you will survive.
Contrast that with, say, Hayden Christensen or Natalie Portman--it wouldn't matter who the hell Lucas cast in those roles because theres simply no way to make the script work. Robert Deniro and Maryl Steep would suck just as much. The trick Lucas used was that he made them sign on without a script, before a script or a PT film, on the sole basis of the OT back in 1996--no self respecting actor would accept the role if they actually read the three scripts to the films. Robert Deniro and Maryl Streep, for an example, would never accept the role because they would only have to read the first ten pages and know that there was no way they could do anything but crash and burn. But Christensen and Portman keep quiet about there resentment of the material, for Hayden because it made his career, and for Portman because she basically operates on the principle of not saying anything if you don't have anything good to say. But even still you can find moments when they become more honest and admit that it was basically a dumb series that probably was a waste of time if not for the stardom it gained them. McGregor is the only one that really pulls no punches and tells it like it is.

And really, is it any wonder that he's somewhat resentful of the thing? I mean, the number of character he acted with in AOTC that never existed: Jar Jar, Dexter Jester, Yoda, all of the Kamino guys, the entire Clone War and arena sequence (basically the entire last half of the film), plus all that stuff flying a spaceship and talking to a droid. The only human contact he has in the film is two or three brief scenes with Portman and Christensen (two at the beginning of the film, plus a chase scene and one at the end), one with Christopher Lee (plus a brief stunt sequence at the end, which probably used a double), three with Mace Windu and a digital Yoda, one of which takes place in an all bluescreen stage and was filmed a year after principle photography, and one where he asks a Jedi librarian about a computer. The rest of the film is bluescreen stunts and shots of him walking and looking at stuff. And people wonder why AOTC sucked?

Do you know the only reason why actors complain so little about the film when it sucked so bad? Because it was an easy show and it payed big money. The days were relatively short, almost all of it was shot in a studio--in the case of ROTS, ALL of it was in studio--there was very little pressure or tenseness on set, most people got along and things were technically relatively simple (as far as production). The production company took good care of the cast and crew, paid them very well for it, and Lucas and most of the crew are great people that are pretty laid back and easy to get along with. Its a vacation. Some shows work you 18 hours in wind and rain with a dickhead director screaming at you, a DP that runs his camera crew into the ground, crew getting fired and tempers flaring, tenseness on set all the time, budget cuts and massive scandals, all that bullshit--that stuff happens more than regular people realise on a typical movie, and the prequels had none of that, so thats why most of the cast and crew just take the shitty content in stride and move on to their next project.
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Originally posted by: zombie84
And really, is it any wonder that he's somewhat resentful of the thing? I mean, the number of character he acted with in AOTC that never existed: Jar Jar, Dexter Jester, Yoda, all of the Kamino guys, the entire Clone War and arena sequence (basically the entire last half of the film), plus all that stuff flying a spaceship and talking to a droid. The only human contact he has in the film is two or three brief scenes with Portman and Christensen (two at the beginning of the film, plus a chase scene and one at the end), one with Christopher Lee (plus a brief stunt sequence at the end, which probably used a double), three with Mace Windu and a digital Yoda, one of which takes place in an all bluescreen stage and was filmed a year after principle photography, and one where he asks a Jedi librarian about a computer. The rest of the film is bluescreen stunts and shots of him walking and looking at stuff. And people wonder why AOTC sucked?


I know. I don't understand it when people defend AotC (though occasionally I can see how some might like it more than Episode 3).

I'm certain we don't want to turn this thread into yet another "which prequel is the worst?" thread. The collective groan emitted by originaltrilogy.com members might be more than the world could bare. But, that said, you clearly outlined how embarrassing of a role AotC must have been for McGregor. I know that for me it's certainly to the point where I don't even want to acknowledge it as a movie anymore.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Actually, my big problem with the PT at times is simply too much Coruscant, especially in AOTC and ROTS. It's probably not that big in the grand scheme of all the PT's problems, but it is one of those things that places the PT far below the OT for me as simple backstory and nothing more.
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He truly is following in the footsteps of Sir Alec.
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Crygor64, you pinned the nail right on the head. Ewan is a very good actor.
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Originally posted by: Crygor64
He truly is following in the footsteps of Sir Alec.


Not exactly, Sir Alec grew to hate the films because of the constant undeserved (in his opinion) adulation he got over what he saw as just fantasy films. McGregor clearly hates the prequels just because they are bad films, which they are. And he probably didn't have a lot of fun shooting them either, seeing as it was all CGI apart from about 4 characters.

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Originally posted by: Jobel


Not exactly, Sir Alec grew to hate the films because of the constant undeserved (in his opinion) adulation he got over what he saw as just fantasy films. McGregor clearly hates the prequels just because they are bad films, which they are. And he probably didn't have a lot of fun shooting them either, seeing as it was all CGI apart from about 4 characters.



I agree, the OT actors started hating SW, especially Ford & Guiness, because it was so popular, their careers were being overshadowed by being known as Han & ObiWan. The PT actors hate the movies, cause it did absolutely zero to further their careers and actually hampered them as Portman & Christenson won Razzies as WORST actors in a movie. Ford, Fisher, and Hammil have come around in the last few years I think because the PT has gotten so much shit and is laughable except by the TFN crowd, they want everyone to know, "Hey we were part of the first 3 movies that everyone loved, not those shitty ones that just came out!"

Remember what Ford said to Lucas at the AFI achievement awards, "I was a part of the FUNNY Trilogy, George!"
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Macgregor's uncle dennis lawson aka wedge antilles told him not to do the prequels because it would typecast him.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
Macgregor's uncle dennis lawson aka wedge antilles told him not to do the prequels because it would typecast him.


Luckily I don't think that's been the case. Perhaps because they were (degrees of) awful, the public at large has mostly forgotten about the prequels. Which leaves McGregor free to not be forever associated with Obi Wan.

Star Wars fans on the other hand - as others have said, I think his performance gave the trilogy its most redeeming quality, and we love him for it. He brought a touch of class. Maybe its because he had Sir Alec to build off of. Maybe its because he built off of Guiness so well. Despite all of McGregor's fantastic roles, it was as Obi Wan that I realized "this guy can act."

It made me want to see him in a hundred other roles, in a hundred other movies.
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Aside from the fact that they were called "Star Wars," the prequels were completely forgettable movies, just like all the other the cgi crap-fests released around the same period. I have trouble seeing how someone could get "typecasted" for starring in them. That and I've never felt all that sorry for a typecasted actor or actress, since they're complaining about being too well known.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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Originally posted by: skyjedi2005
Macgregor's uncle dennis lawson aka wedge antilles told him not to do the prequels because it would typecast him.

Like Mark Hamill? Ewan McGregor was already a fairly well-known actor before appearing in the prequels, Mark Hamill wasn't. I think Mark Hamill was typecast because SW was his first major motion picture, and so most people only knew him as Luke. Ewan had done a bunch of films prior to the prequels, so there was less of a chance of people only associating him with young Obi-Wan.

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Mark is probably the worst example to use since the SW trilogy were about the only major motion pictures he has appeared it. It is his first major appearence so everyone is going to see him as Luke, and he didn't get any big roles after that to shake it.

Ewan had roles before, between, and after. The PT was a very forgettable set of movies (though they shall haunt me forever), so while people might say about Ewan, "Hey, its Obi-Wan!" I would be inclined to say that is due to the popularity of the old films, which every one already knows Obi-Wan Kenobi from, and the over hype of the PT. If the PT had been free standing movies without any OT to fall back on, just three films from an unknown director (like the originals were), there would not have been a sequel to the first one, and therefore not three of them for one, and having been close to ten years now since TPM came out, I am sure it would have been forgotten. It would probably be remembered mostly by fans of the actors who look up their filmographies, see some odd obscure children's sci-fi film, and go out searching high and low at video rental stores for it, pop it in the old VHS player, have a good laugh, and return it nodding their head, "Oh, Ewan/Natalie/Liam, how did you ever get so hard up to sign on for that dog of a film..."

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I don't think McGregor will ever be typecast by the PT mainly cause they never appealed to the masses. A character like Archie Bunker, Tony Soprano in TV and Luke Skywalker and Dorothy from Wizard of Oz will be known by the masses cause the movies are popular. The PT are a niche fanbase of people who love them so they are the only ones who are going to think of ObiWan Kenobi when they see Ewan in some other movie.