Akwat Kbrana said:
Asteroid-Man said:
Akwat Kbrana said:
So regarding the PT as badly-acted is elitist, but asserting with equal dogmatism that the entire saga is badly-acted is...what, fair & balanced?
they're incredibly cheesy - people take their love of the original universe created and blow it out of proportion.
See, in my opinion this is far more elitist than the manifold complaints about the PT's poor writing, acting, and execution. You're basically saying that those who prefer the OT over the PT don't have valid opinions because their opinions have been distorted by nostalgia. And that's a lot more elitist than anything RLM and his fans are saying.
First of all I never said the saga was "badly-acted", I said the acting wasn't it's strong point - for example, look at an ensemble cast like that of in BB/TDK and even LOTR and compare it to SW. Saying "the acting in SW is amazing" is just naive and biased. Look, I LOVE Star Wars, but even I can admit Hamill's acting in the SW and ESB wasn't anything special... ESPECIALLY his reaction to Vader's revelation.
That's not what I'm saying, I'm saying those who unconditionally see the OT as perfection and the PT as pure dribble have their opinions distorted by nostalgia - so if you think everyone at OT unconditionally loves the OT and sees it as perfect then I guess you would take it that way, but most people on these forums can point out the flaws to even the OT.
Ok, so you're talking mainly about the haljordan28 types, who really do assume that the OT is utterly flawless and the PT is utterly flawed. Well that makes a bit more sense then; I just thought you were being hyperbolic. In that case, your charge of elitism is probably pretty accurate. Then again, that mindset is really only displayed by the kook fringe, both in terms of Star Wars fandom at large as well as on this site in particular. I'd say the kind of knee-jerk OT = good / PT = bad mentality has so few adherents on this forum that you could count them on one hand. Most of the members here would be considered "bashers" by TFNers, but are actually pretty rational in approaching the SW saga and criticizing the PT. So why focus on the few loonies whose poorly-expressed ramblings are (in my opinion) not really even worth reading?
As for the acting merits of the OT...well, as Bingowings said we're obviously going to have to agree to disagree. I'll confess that the OT's acting may not be quite on par with, say, LOTR, but I wouldn't agree that it's inherently weak. Obviously what makes acting good or bad is partially subjective, but my criterion is this: good acting is that which effectively portrays characters as real people, and thus succeeds in suspending disbelief. Are some of Han's one-liners cheesy? Perhaps. But at no point in SW or ESB do I find the characters to be unconvincing or artificial. (ROTJ is admittedly a good deal weaker in this area.) When I'm watching Han, Luke, and Leia in these films, I see Han, Luke, and Leia. Quite to the contrary, when I watch the PT, all I can see is a group of actors trying valiantly to portray some poorly-written characters, and failing in that endeavor. In Ep. 1-3, the characters don't feel real to me. This, at least as far as I'm concerned, makes the PT acting incredibly bad.
Even at its weakest point (ROTJ), I don't think the OT approaches the level of poor acting that the PT evidences throughout its run. Carrie and Harrison do seem to be "phoning in" on this one, though its more noticeable in Carrie's case since Harrison's natural charisma allows him to coast a little without too much collateral damage. Moreover, Mark really pulled out all the stops in this one and delivered such an impressive performance that it almost makes up for the weak performances of his co-stars. IMO, at least.
Yeah I meant those who blindly love everything about the OT and hate everything afterwards.
And I didn't say the acting was POOR I just said it wasn't the strong point of Star Wars - NO ONE watches Star Wars because of the acting... I think we can all agree though, that the acting in TCW is better than the acting in the PT.
twooffour said:
Asteroid-Man said:
I didn't doubt the greatness of Star Wars... you just assumed that I did. I was just mentioning in response to people saying that "CW and PT" retcon everything that it's fair to make judgment like that as long as you can make judgment on the originals too, including it's acting, cheese and retcons in ESB and ROTJ - not doing so will only limit your own credibility.
You know, by this point I feel the need to askyou the question directly: do you understand the difference between "bad" (or "not good") and "cheesy"? Because they ain't the same thing.
As for my previous response, I never said those movies were bad because of all the cheese, did I? Fact remains, there's a whole shitload of cheese and narm in LOTR, ST09 and Batman. And you said "virtually cheeseless"
No I understood that, but you were prepared to put the cheese of Star Wars in the context of the film, but you didn't do it for LOTR or ST. And Batman isn't cheesy - at all. The one thing you might not have liked was the voice, but that was a poor choice on the audio editor's fault, not the director or the actor or the writer. And LOTR was meant to show the dark moments very dark and the light moments very light to reflect the feelings people got reading the books at the time which were meant to reflect peoples REAL emotions at the time of the Second World War. Star Trek 2009 wasn't cheesy...
By cheesy, I'm talking about those truly *face-palm* worthy scenes. Star Wars has a few in every film - denying this is foolish. It's the aspect that draws in kids. Star Wars has elements of film targeted for all audiences and ages, obviously they have to implement cheesy one liners and predictable outcomes (ESB aside) to appeal to them.