AOTC: Oscar nominations

I agree with The_Abstract. The AOTC sreenplay was very difficult to write and it's a script with so many memorable lines. But because of Lucas apparent "lack of writing skills", the academy would never nominate him again. He was nominated for ANH and I think American Grafitti.

 

Moriarty lost his credility? Says who, some talkback fanboys? You?

Don't make me laugh.

As to the screenplay question, the answer is simple (and the correct category is Original Screenplay):

Lucas' scripts are muddled messes. Sure, no-one predicted their plots, but that doesn't begin to offset the horrible dialogue, bland characters, logic leaps ("Dooku's behind the hit!") and plain ole poor writing (The bar brawl of Geonosis).

 

Don't know if this statement by Jabba was responded to:

"The droid factory sequence was thrown in to AOTC at the last moment because Lucas felt it was important for the film's momentum, but not because of a compelling story reason."

Au contraire...the sequence served three important story functions: it was there to demonstrate the fact that Anakin was losing his humanity, and it foreshadowed his ultimate destiny to become more "machine-like", and it demonstrated Anakin's power in the Force.

The entire sequence, I was thinking about the comparison between Anakin and the machine he would become.

 

"Moriarty lost his credility? Says who, some talkback fanboys? You? "

Frank_Booth you are so funny. I bet it was you who wrote that hilarious scene in FOTR where the two Hobbits get blown up and there faces are all black and their.....wait....oh...ha ha ha ha...their hair is all spikey. Oh my God that scene was sooooo funny. It reminded me of a school play I was in when I was 5.


Answer my question please Frank. How many Kurosawa films have you seen?

 

The stereo in my car isn't working. What the hey, I'll just blame that evil man in the flannel shirt, Lucas.

In all seriousness, I respect Lucas' vision. That doesn't mean I like every idea that comes out of his head, but I respect him. He has a vision, is set putting that vision on the big screen, not succumbing to the hotheaded naysayers who'd rather see Star Wars bite the big one than anything else. He's never, ever sold out to Hollywood, standing by the wayside, ready to continue pushing the evolution of filmmaking.

 

As far as Jackson's style is concerned when it comes to action sequences, consider Kurosawa's Rashomon.

Over the course of the film, multiple characters tell conflicting accounts of a traveller's encounter with a bandit. The bandit himself, played by Toshiro Mifune, tells a heroic, swashbuckling tale, and his exaggerated storytelling is reflected in the flashback he leads into.

In the bandit's version of the story, his duel with the traveller is a chivalrous display of finesse; their swords cross upwards of thirty times before either man scores a hit, no one pulls any dirty tricks, and the bandit never loses his rakish smile.
The choreography, tailored to match the story, plays out more like a dance than a fight to the death, with definite beats and tightly scripted strikes, parries and feints.

However, later in the film, a peasant tells his own account of the duel. The two men, locked in brutal combat, spend most of the fight grappling, rolling on the ground and screaming, both of them in a state of near-panic. By virtue of its realism, his seems to be the more true account.

Real combat isn't stylish or fun. There's no time for swashbuckling antics or fancy moves; brutal efficency is the only way to win. It's all a mass of intense, unscripted brutality, and keeping the camera in close, giving the audience hardly a moment to catch their bearings, is the perfect way to capture that.

At the same time, however, the filmmakers assemble the battle in such a way that they capture both the chaos of personal combat and the logic of larger-scale tactics.

The film first takes the time to establish the layout of the battleground: A broad, natural corridor leads up to a great wall, beyond which is a sloping courtyard, a keep with its own, higher wall, and finally the fort's central building and last line of defense, the Hornburg, topped with, as its name suggests, an enormous horn.

To maximize early enemy casualties, the defenders prepare three ranks of archers; one on each wall, and one in the courtyard. The attackers begin with a frontal assault, which the archers, assisted by swordsmen on the outer wall, easily contain. One wing of attackers, sheltered under a shield wall, breaks off to ram the gate, but the defenders redirect their fire toward the shield wall's flank, delivering casualties to the battering ram's crew and slowing them down considerably.

However, the assault is a ruse, designed to conceal and distract from the deployment of the attackers' secret weapon, Saruman's explosives. Under the cover of the front line (which the orcs, who outnumber the attackers 33 to 1, have sacrificed to make this maneuver possible), the attackers plant the bomb in the drain beneath the wall and detonate it, crippling the defender's line.

(One might ask why no one took steps to defend the drain, but consider this: Without the explosives, which the defenders had no way of knowing about, the best the attackers could have managed would have been to hack through the drain's gate and emerge one by one--a strategy not unlike attempting to fill an open funnel one drop at a time.)

The courtyard archers adapt to the breach, drawing their swords to contain the onrushing enemies. However, now that the attackers and defenders are on level ground, the orcs can use their superior numbers to their best advantage, and so the defenders falter and retreat (taking considerable casualties in the process.)

The defenders now attempt to shore up the second gate, but with their arrow fire cut down to one third of what it was, they can do little against the orcs' numbers. To buy time, Theoden deploys his two best fighters to drop in front of the gate and hold off the attackers while the defenders fortify.

Fighting from a narrow space, which only allows a few attackers at a time, Aragorn and Gimli accomplish their mission, proving that, while the Uruk-Hai are legion, they're still rookies, and there's no substitute for experience. (Aragorn, because of his heritage, ages much more slowly than normal men, and thus has the

 

C3POED_OUT has got the right idea. I don't agree with all Lucas decisions either. eg the Greedo Han scene.

But the man sticks to his own vision and has to be respected for that.

Even calling the film "Attack Of The Clones" has to be respected. Can you imagine the guys at Fox. "You're calling it what!!! How are we supposed to market that!".

In this day and age when everything is sanatised and marketed to what is "cool", Lucas does his own thing, just like he's always done.

 

You should learn to read, my furious friend. I never said I thought Jackson compared to Kurosawa, I merely said who did. It wouldn't make a jot of difference to my argument whether I had seen ANY of his movies.

Very well, I have seen two Kurosawas, both some long time ago. Shichinin no Samurai and Kumonosu Jo. NOW are you going to tell me why pressed this point?

Or are you going to amuse the crowd with another childhood memory?

Oh and bravo Darth Geist.

 

"But the man sticks to his own vision and has to be respected for that."

he has been respected for that, by the oscars when they gave him the Irving Thalberg award. what else are they supposed to do for him? they dont have any higher honors.

excellent summation of the TTT battle. i challenge any of the fans of the AOTC battle to do the same with the battle of genosis. of course, its not going to happen, because the battle had no structure. just a bunch of soldiers and vehicles stirring up dust.

prove me wrong.

 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Sorry folks, but this argument is getting old.. there's a glitch in the Matrix, because I swear that I'm experiencing a deja vu!

It's another LOTR VS AOTC, Jackson VS Lucas, Media/Hollywood VS the Billionare Independent Filmmaker tirade that has nothing to do with Award nominations!

I'm going to sleep! Have fun!

 

Because if you had seen Kurosawas movies then you would realise that comparing him to a hack like Jackson is a joke.

WHERE ARE ALL THE MODS! Every thread on this board turns into a discussion about LOTR which is duller than watching the movies.

 

I agree. I'm sick and tired of the Hobbit lover telling us all how bad AOTC is. How long is this going to go on? This is a Star Wars board.

TTT is a mess of epic proportians and I don't want to waste any more time talking about it.

 

Perhaps you might consider taking a breather, Fury. Failing that, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on my last post.

 

Lol.

What EVER you say man. I'll get back to you about Jackson/Kurosawa after I've seen the latters films. Until then, I'll have to decide whether to take your word over the critics'.

A most difficult decision.

Anyway, about dem Oscars.

Does anyone else think that the Academy should upgrade it's visual FX category to include up to five nominees? More and more movies are filled with great looking CGI and other special effects. I don't know which one I would have voted for for the third VFX slot, Spider-Man or AOTC.

AOTC was certainly more impressive technically but also cold and lifeless. Spider-Man was a lot rougher but certainly bright and cartoony as befits the film.

 

What's the point? This is a Star Wars board. If you want me to talk LOTR then I'll send you a private message telling you just how poor TTT is, including the battle scene at the end.

But this thread is for Star Wars and THAT'S what I want to talk about. Not some amatureish 3 hour Xena episode.

 

"There are plenty of anti-Star Wars sites out there."

Really? That strikes me as odd. Anyways, I love SW, I jsut don't like AOTC, and being the newest of the five films, and the only one I don't like, it inspires the most interesting conversations. What more coudl I say about ESB? Not much, its a 20 year old movie that I still think is essietially flawless.

 

"Does anyone else think that the Academy should upgrade it's visual FX category to include up to five nominees?"

I'd be in favor of that. I was sorry to see MR overlooked this year.

 

"Now what do we know about Sauron, based on the movies?"

I really wish they had not shown sauron in FOTR, I love how the book never describes him or attaches any visual information, it make him the coolest villan because after a while nothing can match your expectations of his evilness.

 

Fury, you don't seem interested in discussion.

I've read your points and answered them. If you'd like to do the same with mine, then by all means PM me, post here, or whatever you like. If you'd prefer to continue shouting and calling names, then have a nice day.

 

"Explain why in TTT there is a huge hole in the castle wall? "

Because the Uruk Hai used explosives to blow up a large section of the wall so they could penetrate the fortress.

Whats so odd about that?

 

The Fury, i challenged you to talk about the battle in AOTC on a Star Wars board... what is the problem? you can either prove me wrong or run... i guess you made your choice.

 

What argument is getting old? That Lucas is still intent with continuing to stroke his knack for rich storytelling? That the man ignores the insults and nasty reviews thrown at him in every conceivable way in the media, some of which are so obviously anti-Lucas it's disgusting?

If anything, Lucas doesn't get ENOUGH respect.

 

Speaking for myself, although I do believe that Lucas has made some questionable calls with his movies lately, I've never lost respect for the man himself.

 

"Why isn't George Lucas getting best Original or Adapted Screenplay for these movies?"

1)Its not adapted.

2)Its not very well written


"I give AOTC a higher grade of difficulty because it had to fit in with the OT and TPM. And still NOBODY could put it all together."

Excpet it doesn't, forget the OT, AOTC doesn't even work as a proper sequel to TPM.
"it was there to demonstrate the fact that Anakin was losing his humanity, and it foreshadowed his ultimate destiny to become more "machine-like""

What???????????????

I'm starting to think that you have to take special pills to watch this movie. HWere int he world do you get something like that from.

 

this does not sound like a man ignoring reviews:

"Critics aren't creators, they're destroyers. And I don't think any creative person will ever argue with me about that. Most of them that I've met are reasonably dim-witted. I mean, they aren't like the rest of us. They don't have any knowledge of anything. They're not successful in any world that I've ... They certainly don't know anything about history; they don't know anything about film. They don't know anything about politics. They don't know anything about sociology or psychology or anything. I mean, it's like, you get into a conversation with them and it's hard to find a subject that they can actually converse on. And I'm being kind,"

-George Lucas