What was the "fatal flaw" of the Prequels if you think they sucked? (aka. Let's take a break from hating on the blu-rays) — Page 5

SilverWook said:

As the prequels are set decades before the other films, being familiar with the OT ought not to be a major requirement to playing a part in them. (Obi Wan notwithstanding.) Either the character is there on the script page or it isn't.

Aren't we all forgetting a certain actor who wanted to tie George to a chair, and force him to say those lines back in 1976? Carrie Fisher probably still has nightmares about "faster, more intense". ;)

disagree. actors and actresses need to be familiar with what their getting into.  George didnt do that due to not having his act together(story,script).  So its on george.  I credit Fisher with a good performance despite Luca$ shatty directoral skills.  When casting for the PT started, the PT roles were some of the most sought after roles, ever.  Im sure there were plenty of young women who new the OOT phenomenon and were willing to give their all.  Natalie wasnt.

xhonzi said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

He should have hired an actress that knew and loved SW, an actress that wanted to throw herself into the role with passion. 

This never seems to be the case.  Look at all of the comic book movies being made where the director has the passion for the character and the actors have to google the name as soon as they get the part.

Maybe, maybe not.  But I havent seen a comic movie with a lead actress' performance that was as bad as Portmans.  Portmans was the worst and she didnt want to be there.  And what an aweful time to pick such a shoddy performance, during the most anticipated films of all time.  Your point reminds me of the x-men movies though.  Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, and Famke Jansen werent too familiar with x-men prior to their filming, but they fell in love with it and even read some comics.  And they loved their job and wanted to be there, and their performances were great for 3 movies.  Not Natalie's though.  A good actor/actress will read the script, research the role and mentally prepare himself/herself for the performance.  Thats Luca$s' fault for hiring Natalie, and Natalie's for not being professional.

How come nobody ever talks about the dark side of the midichlorians?

Hoth-Nudist said:

xhonzi said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

He should have hired an actress that knew and loved SW, an actress that wanted to throw herself into the role with passion. 

This never seems to be the case.  Look at all of the comic book movies being made where the director has the passion for the character and the actors have to google the name as soon as they get the part.

Maybe, maybe not.  But I havent seen a comic movie with a lead actress' performance that was as bad as Portmans.  Portmans was the worst and she didnt want to be there.  And what an aweful time to pick such a shoddy performance, during the most anticipated films of all time.  Your point reminds me of the x-men movies though.  Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, and Famke Jansen werent too familiar with x-men prior to their filming, but they fell in love with it and even read some comics.  And they loved their job and wanted to be there, and their performances were great for 3 movies.  Not Natalie's though.  A good actor/actress will read the script, research the role and mentally prepare himself/herself for the performance.  Thats Luca$s' fault for hiring Natalie, and Natalie's for not being professional.

Fair enough.  It just always seems in the interviews that these actors/actresses say "I had no idea until I got the part!  Then I had some reading to do!"  Which just seems odd.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I have to assume that a large percentage of the acting community knows and loves some of these classic characters.  If I were making a big genre movie like that, I think I'd lean a little to the side of the people that are already fans.

EXCEPT- I guess if you want to bring YOUR vision/version of the characters to the screen, you don't want someone with THEIR OWN ideas.  Maybe that's why it's so common.

And Nick Cage as Ghost Rider is an... interesting example of when you cast the biggest fan to play the part.

Both Portman and Jackson's performances/ delivery actually made the dialogue seem worse. That is quite an accomplishment!

For the most part MacGregor, Neeson, and McDiarmid made it somewhat better or had no effect. That's not saying much of course. McDiarmid was the only one who seems to have understood the theatrical style that Lucas was (stupidly) going for and was also able to tailor his performance accordingly. But even he, at times, seems to have been playing a spoof of Palpatine.

Christensen is all over the board. Sometimes he butchers the dialogue, sometimes he has no effect, sometimes he made it better. I love the look on Hayden's face (in RLM's review of ROTS) when Lucas informs him that he changed his dialogue over the weekend!

Hoth-Nudist said:

xhonzi said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

He should have hired an actress that knew and loved SW, an actress that wanted to throw herself into the role with passion. 

This never seems to be the case.  Look at all of the comic book movies being made where the director has the passion for the character and the actors have to google the name as soon as they get the part.

A good actor/actress will read the script, research the role and mentally prepare himself/herself for the performance.  Thats Luca$s' fault for hiring Natalie, and Natalie's for not being professional.

Hey Hoth-Nudist - i remember you from when I was lurking in TFN's basher's sanctuary many years ago :) hope to see if binary_sunset posts here! 

To you last point - The problem with this is that there was no role to research.  Even if Natalie asked lucas a bunch of questions, she wouldn't get any answers (kinda like what terence stamp tried for Valorum).  By the time of AOTC, it was obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature that padme's only purpose in the PT was so someone can give birth to luke and leia.  She exists because she has a uterus.

Everything else - being a queen, senator, marrying anakin, etc - was pitifully contrived in order to create something that resembled a character in the most superficial sense.  And what was once a touching moment in ROTJ is now a hysterical plot hole.

I believe that the real reason why lucas is one of the most secretive filmmakers is not because he wants to protect the storylines, but rather he did not want anyone to know that there was no multi-episode saga and everything was made up.

I also find natalie to be a grossly overrated actress and not the wunderkind everyone has made her out to be.  But one thing i respected about her was she seemed pretty choosy in her roles (at least when she was younger).  it wouldn't surprise me that her attitude was the result of realizing how pathetic her non-character was and being completely appalled about it.

zombie84 said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

xhonzi said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

He should have hired an actress that knew and loved SW, an actress that wanted to throw herself into the role with passion. 

This never seems to be the case.  Look at all of the comic book movies being made where the director has the passion for the character and the actors have to google the name as soon as they get the part.

Maybe, maybe not.  But I havent seen a comic movie with a lead actress' performance that was as bad as Portmans.  Portmans was the worst and she didnt want to be there.  And what an aweful time to pick such a shoddy performance, during the most anticipated films of all time.  Your point reminds me of the x-men movies though.  Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, and Famke Jansen werent too familiar with x-men prior to their filming, but they fell in love with it and even read some comics.  And they loved their job and wanted to be there, and their performances were great for 3 movies.  Not Natalie's though.  A good actor/actress will read the script, research the role and mentally prepare himself/herself for the performance.  Thats Luca$s' fault for hiring Natalie, and Natalie's for not being professional.

I think that's unfair. Natalie Portman is a great actress; so is Sam Jackson. And look at Ewan McGregor in Episode I. There were ton of Oscar-winning actors in this series that gave in shitty performances.

Why? Well, Lucas can't direct actors. Older actors have learned how to just direct themselves, that's why Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid gave the best performances, followed to some degree by Pernilla August and Liam Neeson. But Lucas can't direct actors that need guidance, and that's the directors failing. He's also to blame for miscasting any roles if you feel it is the actors after all.

But the main reason is that the script. That's why the actors are shit: the characters are shit. The dialogue is bad, there's no development, they don't behave like real people. Why does Padme fall in love with pyscho stalker Anakin? Who the hell talks the way she does? What makes her character tick? Who are these people? The only scenes that attempt to answer these questions were cut out, and that's not coincidentally the only scene in AOTC that has good acting in it (Padme's parents house).

The fact is, she probably didn't want to be there, but she had no choice--she was tricked. Everyone was. They had to sign up in 1997 and 1996 without seeing any scripts. Think of how Star Wars was regarded back then--god-like. Lucas was a genius! Even though people knew Star Wars never had the best dialogue, it had well-developed, likeable characters you could relate to. So everyone assumed the prequels would have this but not only that, be better! Imagine their shock when they read the script for Episode I. But Episode I is pretty light, it's just setting everything up. But then imagine their shock when Episode II is even worse! They didn't even get the script until the week they began filming (because it wasn't done!), not even the main cast.

So yeah, probably Portman was like "are you fucking kidding me?" Even Hayden Christensen said to reporters that he was "worried" when he first saw the script because he didn't know "how to make the dialogue sound believable." He never found a solution. There is no solution, the character was simply written awfully.

See, if any good actor saw that script beforehand, they would have turned down the role. "Are you crazy? I can't make this work. No one can. This is professional suicide, I'll be laughed at." That's why it's usually shitty actors that take shitty parts, because the good actors have turned down the role. But Lucas tricked everyone because he made them all sign up based on the success of the OT without ever having seen a script or any scrap of dialogue.

Luckily, Portman continued to take good roles after the films. Christensen, well, his whole career is a bit of shame. He's a good actor if you've seen his early stuff, he thought Star Wars would be his big break but now he can't get good roles because no one has confidence in him as an actor so he gets stuck with stuff like Jumper. Same thing happened to Hamill, who was probably the best actor in the OT aside from Harrison Ford and even then maybe better.

I partially agree with you. I think Portman always plays a very similar character (or plays all her characters in a similar way). Jackson is good in certain roles but has limited range as an actor. Or perhaps he has just fallen in love with his bad-ass persona.

George's impatience with actors is indeed a big problem. A lot of the TPM and ROTS dialogue (AOTC was a mess) is serviceable if you are willing to do multiple takes until you get it right - I doubt that was the case. With Portman he must have seen Leon and said "shit, she is amazing" and figured that she needed no real help. I feel bad for Portman - her best performance (Oscar or no Oscar) was as a child. Peaking early sucks.

You are correct: Hamill was (and is) a superior actor to Ford. Ford's problem is that he is conservative and does not take risks. He was awesome - and so not the stereotypical Harrison Ford -  in The Mosquito Coast, but it tanked and he has stuck with playing heroic roles pretty much ever since.

The dialogue in the OT is great for the type of films that they are. Ford did not think so ("you can type this shit but you can't say it"), but when you actually see the films the dialogue works beautifully.

TheBoost said:

I gotta disagree. Ford doesn't work that much, but I think he's picked lots of interesting parts between his iconic hero roles.

He's an obsessed weirdo in Mosquito Coast. He's a jerk, then a recovering patient in Regarding Henry. The villian in What Lies Beneath. He's mostly a comedic  bumbler in Hollywood Homicide and Six Days Seven Nights, and he's a stuffed shirt in Morning Glory. He's was a morally ambiguous anti-hero in Blade Runner. Havent seen it yet, but wasn't he also the villain in Cowboys and Aliens?

 

Seems like Ford was at his peak from 1980-1993.  He should have been nominated for Mosquito Coast.  What Lies Beneath i thought was cool, but it wasnt that popular.   Although i don't think its good, IJATKOTCS is the only big hit he's had in the last 10 years.  Its a shame whats happen to his career nowadays.  If IMDB is correct that he turned down Traffic and Michael Douglas replaced him, then thats probably the biggest mistake of his career. 

We all remember his WTF!? look when he announced that shakespeare in love won best picture over the heavily favored saving private ryan.  Maybe he offended the movie gods cuz his career has been a shadow ever since then :( 

TheBoost said:

walking_carpet said:

TheBoost said:

I gotta disagree. Ford doesn't work that much, but I think he's picked lots of interesting parts between his iconic hero roles.

 

 

Seems like Ford was at his peak from 1980-1993.  He should have been nominated for Mosquito Coast.  What Lies Beneath i thought was cool, but it wasnt that popular.  

 What Lies Beneath made almost 300 million dollars.

 hmmm  guess you're right.  between uk and us, it made more money than I thought.  I missed it in the theatres cuz it was only around less than a month so it appeared to me the response was lukewarm. 

TheBoost said:

walking_carpet said:

TheBoost said:

 

 What Lies Beneath made almost 300 million dollars.

 hmmm  guess you're right.  between uk and us, it made more money than I thought.  I missed it in the theatres cuz it was only around less than a month so it appeared to me the response was lukewarm. 

 It just always stuck in my mind because Robert Zemekis is the only director to have made 2 $100 million dollar movies in the same year (along with Castaway).

I've seen most of his films and he always seems to play his different characters in a very similar manner. Like Natalie Portman.

Most of his roles are him playing Han Solo/Indiana Jones, just in different circumstances - he tends to play his characters either as a slightly nicer or meaner version of them, depending on the film. Since a lot of people disagree with me this might be just my perspective.

But his performance in the Mosquito Coast (which I finally got around to seeing a few years ago) stood out as being very different: facial expressions, vocal tone, everything.

zombie84 said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

xhonzi said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

He should have hired an actress that knew and loved SW, an actress that wanted to throw herself into the role with passion. 

This never seems to be the case.  Look at all of the comic book movies being made where the director has the passion for the character and the actors have to google the name as soon as they get the part.

Maybe, maybe not.  But I havent seen a comic movie with a lead actress' performance that was as bad as Portmans.  Portmans was the worst and she didnt want to be there.  And what an aweful time to pick such a shoddy performance, during the most anticipated films of all time.  Your point reminds me of the x-men movies though.  Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, and Famke Jansen werent too familiar with x-men prior to their filming, but they fell in love with it and even read some comics.  And they loved their job and wanted to be there, and their performances were great for 3 movies.  Not Natalie's though.  A good actor/actress will read the script, research the role and mentally prepare himself/herself for the performance.  Thats Luca$s' fault for hiring Natalie, and Natalie's for not being professional.

I think that's unfair. Natalie Portman is a great actress; so is Sam Jackson. And look at Ewan McGregor in Episode I. There were ton of Oscar-winning actors in this series that gave in shitty performances.

Why? Well, Lucas can't direct actors. Older actors have learned how to just direct themselves, that's why Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid gave the best performances, followed to some degree by Pernilla August and Liam Neeson. But Lucas can't direct actors that need guidance, and that's the directors failing. He's also to blame for miscasting any roles if you feel it is the actors after all.

But the main reason is that the script. That's why the actors are shit: the characters are shit. The dialogue is bad, there's no development, they don't behave like real people. Why does Padme fall in love with pyscho stalker Anakin? Who the hell talks the way she does? What makes her character tick? Who are these people? The only scenes that attempt to answer these questions were cut out, and that's not coincidentally the only scene in AOTC that has good acting in it (Padme's parents house).

The fact is, she probably didn't want to be there, but she had no choice--she was tricked. Everyone was. They had to sign up in 1997 and 1996 without seeing any scripts. Think of how Star Wars was regarded back then--god-like. Lucas was a genius! Even though people knew Star Wars never had the best dialogue, it had well-developed, likeable characters you could relate to. So everyone assumed the prequels would have this but not only that, be better! Imagine their shock when they read the script for Episode I. But Episode I is pretty light, it's just setting everything up. But then imagine their shock when Episode II is even worse! They didn't even get the script until the week they began filming (because it wasn't done!), not even the main cast.

So yeah, probably Portman was like "are you fucking kidding me?" Even Hayden Christensen said to reporters that he was "worried" when he first saw the script because he didn't know "how to make the dialogue sound believable." He never found a solution. There is no solution, the character was simply written awfully.

See, if any good actor saw that script beforehand, they would have turned down the role. "Are you crazy? I can't make this work. No one can. This is professional suicide, I'll be laughed at." That's why it's usually shitty actors that take shitty parts, because the good actors have turned down the role. But Lucas tricked everyone because he made them all sign up based on the success of the OT without ever having seen a script or any scrap of dialogue.

Luckily, Portman continued to take good roles after the films. Christensen, well, his whole career is a bit of shame. He's a good actor if you've seen his early stuff, he thought Star Wars would be his big break but now he can't get good roles because no one has confidence in him as an actor so he gets stuck with stuff like Jumper. Same thing happened to Hamill, who was probably the best actor in the OT aside from Harrison Ford and even then maybe better.

To each their own.  IMO, aside from Jake Lloyd, Natalie had the worst performance.  IMO, its Luca$' responsibility as I said before.  BUT, I still think Natalie should have been more professional.  That's what she's paid for.  She wasnt the only miserable soul though.  Liam almost gave up acting after TPM, and Hugh Quarshie(sp) and Terrance Stamp were fed up with Luca$ and didint sign on for the subsequent episodes. 

walking_carpet said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

xhonzi said:

Hoth-Nudist said:

He should have hired an actress that knew and loved SW, an actress that wanted to throw herself into the role with passion. 

This never seems to be the case.  Look at all of the comic book movies being made where the director has the passion for the character and the actors have to google the name as soon as they get the part.

A good actor/actress will read the script, research the role and mentally prepare himself/herself for the performance.  Thats Luca$s' fault for hiring Natalie, and Natalie's for not being professional.

 

Hey Hoth-Nudist - i remember you from when I was lurking in TFN's basher's sanctuary many years ago :) hope to see if binary_sunset posts here! 

To you last point - The problem with this is that there was no role to research.  Even if Natalie asked lucas a bunch of questions, she wouldn't get any answers (kinda like what terence stamp tried for Valorum).  By the time of AOTC, it was obvious to anyone with an IQ above room temperature that padme's only purpose in the PT was so someone can give birth to luke and leia.  She exists because she has a uterus.

Everything else - being a queen, senator, marrying anakin, etc - was pitifully contrived in order to create something that resembled a character in the most superficial sense.  And what was once a touching moment in ROTJ is now a hysterical plot hole.

I believe that the real reason why lucas is one of the most secretive filmmakers is not because he wants to protect the storylines, but rather he did not want anyone to know that there was no multi-episode saga and everything was made up.

I also find natalie to be a grossly overrated actress and not the wunderkind everyone has made her out to be.  But one thing i respected about her was she seemed pretty choosy in her roles (at least when she was younger).  it wouldn't surprise me that her attitude was the result of realizing how pathetic her non-character was and being completely appalled about it.

Hey Walking_carpet!  Glad ur here dude!  Im so glad to be away from TF.net.  This site allows free speech! LOL!  I havnt heard from Binary in years, but hope he'll find his way here.

I think u make a good point.  IMO I think Portman should've studied and honed in Carrie Fisher's performances in the OOT.  They were close to the same age for their respective trilogies.  Portman's research was basically renting and watching the OOT on a weekend.  Im right there with you on feeling that Natalie is grossly overrated.  IMO the movie "brothers" with Tobey Mcguire and Jake Gyllenhaal(sp) is her best performance, but yet again was outshined by her costars.

theprequelsrule said:

I've seen most of his films and he always seems to play his different characters in a very similar manner. Like Natalie Portman.

Most of his roles are him playing Han Solo/Indiana Jones, just in different circumstances - he tends to play his characters either as a slightly nicer or meaner version of them, depending on the film. Since a lot of people disagree with me this might be just my perspective.

But his performance in the Mosquito Coast (which I finally got around to seeing a few years ago) stood out as being very different: facial expressions, vocal tone, everything.

According to this review of Cowboys & Aliens, Harrison Ford "is certainly one of the few actors who can afford playing the same role over and over again and stay entertaining all the time." So, you are not the only one with such an opinion. I think in Witness he was a little bit different than usual too.

rouged said:

theprequelsrule said:

I've seen most of his films and he always seems to play his different characters in a very similar manner. Like Natalie Portman.

Most of his roles are him playing Han Solo/Indiana Jones, just in different circumstances - he tends to play his characters either as a slightly nicer or meaner version of them, depending on the film. Since a lot of people disagree with me this might be just my perspective.

But his performance in the Mosquito Coast (which I finally got around to seeing a few years ago) stood out as being very different: facial expressions, vocal tone, everything.

According to this review of Cowboys & Aliens, Harrison Ford "is certainly one of the few actors who can afford playing the same role over and over again and stay entertaining all the time." So, you are not the only one with such an opinion. I think in Witness he was a little bit different than usual too.

I think Air Force One is probably what started that perception.

didn't get a chance to see cowboys and aliens in theatres, so hopefully its good but it wasn't a big hit :(   Witness he was great,l also liked him in presumed innocent.  Tommy Lee Jones stole the show, but he was great in the fugitive

Devil's Own was a huge let down.  a great idea for a movie with an awesome cast but it fizzled out and there were behind-the-scenes issues.

overall, Im worried about Ford.  In interviews and talk shows he really seems slow, sad and a little spaced out.  He's very old now and will probably retire in few years but hope he's ok health wise.   maybe he can get a great role like jeff bridges did and win oscar. 

Just the overall Luca$ mindset.  After all this is the same guy that almost caved in to another Katie demand to allow the pop group "NSYNC" to make a cameo during filming AOTC.

So many of you have already made really good points in this thread. I can only summarize what has already been said in my own fashion.

I think the "fatal flaw" was that Lucas should have done the PT back in the 80s. Instead, he waited for CGI technology to develop and he ended up heavily relying on it. Then he felt compelled to rework the OT. That was a bad idea.

When I first saw the PT, I didn't expect much because I knew the context: Star Wars is a tribute to the cheesy sci-fi serials. And I enjoyed and didn't think too much about it. I was actually annoyed at all of the extreme criticism. But then I started to deconstruct them. And I realized the important thing that RLM pointed out: who is the protagonist? RLM really nails it and I can't top that criticism.