ST Anakin Skywalker in the New Films

I'm looking for the dislike button.

 

Sort of stuck between two different threads, but if MVS is going to play old Obi-Wan's ghost and they go back to the Sebastian Shaw look for Anakin's ghost then who could play old Anakin?

 

They really won't be doing that.

 

Not in the least.

What people constantly seem to fail to realize is that it's not his acting you dislike. It's his performance which was done exceedingly well for what the story called for and the vision of Lucas of what he wanted.

This is exactly the point that many people seem to miss over and over no matter how much it's pointed out.

I've talked to people who just can't figure out why they like these actors (Hayden included) in other films but they have a problem with the performances in the PT. Do they think it was just a co-incidence or something? No, it was what the parts called for.

Remember that Lucas sees the films as silent movies ie visuals plus sound meaning music and sound effects. The whole point is that at the core that is how the films are designed. To watch them without dialogue and simply have the intertitles.

To pretend that Star Wars movies are simply dialogue based with visuals as support like other films is not the case. It's the other way around. They are visual films with dialogue as support. What's more the dialogue and characterizations are out of step with modern times. The PT even more so because what worked as not being too terribly out of step in the 70's now comes off all the more archaic and Lucas pushed the style of acting and dialogue even further into the past as well as the staging and visual subtext.

Look at the scene from AOTC as written this includes bits that were cut out:

INT. NABOO LAKE RETREAT, LODGE, FIREPLACE ALCOVE - TWILIGHT A fire blazes in the open hearth. PADME is sitting in front of it, gazing at the flames.

She looks up as ANAKIN arrives. She makes room for him. Brief pause.

ANAKIN May I tell you something?

PADME I don't know.

ANAKIN Then how can I tell you?

PADME Maybe you should use your Jedi
intuition.

ANAKIN It doesn't work around you. My
mind is always a muddle... I can
only think of you.

PADME Anakin, don't...

ANAKIN From the moment I met you, all
those years ago, a day hasn't gone
by when I haven't thought of you.
And now that I'm close to you again,
I'm in agony. The closer I get to
you, the worse it gets. The
thought of not being with you
mskes my stomach turn over - my
mouth goes dry. I feel dizzy. I
can't breathe. I'm haunted by the
kiss you should never have given
me. My heart is beating, hoping
that kiss will not become a scar.
You are in my very soul,
tormenting me. What can I do? I
will do anything you ask...

Silence. The logs flame in the hearth.

ANAKIN (continuing)
If you are suffering as much as I
am, tell me.

PADME ...I can't. We can't. It's just
not possible.

ANAKIN Anything's possible. Padme,
please listen...

PADME You listen. We live in a real
world. Come back to it. You're
studying to become a Jedi Knight.
I'm a Senator. If you follow your
thoughts through to conclusion,
they will take us to a place we
cannot go... regardless of the way
we feel about each other.

ANAKIN Then you do feel something!
There's an extraordinary
connection between us. You can't
deny that.

PADME Annie, it doesn't make any
difference. Jedi aren't allowed
to marry. You swore an oath,
remember? You'd be expelled from
the Order. I will not let you
give up your responsibilities...
your future, for me.

ANAKIN I was destined to be a Jedi. I
don't think I could be anything
else. But you are asking me to be
rational. That is something I
know I cannot do. I wish I could
wish my feelings away... but I
can't.

PADME I am not going to give into this.
I'm not going to throw my life
away. I have more important things
to do than fall in love.

There is silence as they stare at the fire. ANAKIN is thinking.

ANAKIN It wouldn't have to be that way...
we could keep it a secret.

PADME Then we'd be living a lie - one we
couldn't keep even if we wanted
to. Mt sister saw it. So did my
mother. I couldn't do that.
Could you, Anakin? Could you live
like that?

Silence for a moment.

ANAKIN ...No, you're right. It would
destroy us.

This is written, acted and performed exactly the way it should be for the style it wants to acheive and what it invokes. If you think doing it that way in the first place is a mistake then fine but as a realiztion of what they wanted to do it was done beautifully.

 

Oh right. Well, I consider myself to have been enlightened. So the notion from the outset was to have cliche ridden, soap opera style dialogue and acting then? And here i was all this time thinking that it was terrible because who ever wrote it was clueless. I mean after all, a decent script and good, solid acting performances from the actors arent actually very important are they? No, let's just all marvel at the visuals and listen to the music.

 

I don't see Christensen as a poor actor, but I'd still like to reply.

As much as I loved it, after more than a decade of being completely immersed in the PT/Clone War era, I'm quite happy to be moving along.

That said, there is still one production from the period that I'd be absolutely thrilled to see made...


I'd love a live-action feature film - a war genre film - which centers around a single, protracted, and highly pivotal campaign of the Clone War. The kind of movie we haven't yet seen.

Consider, we've seen two of the three critical phases of the war. Episode II let us in on the tail end of the period of political tumult known as the Separatist Crisis, which led us to the launch of the Clone War, proper.

Meanwhile, Episode III gave us the all-important culmination of the entire war, and the birth of the First Galactic Empire.

But what we haven't necessarily seen in the new canon (and certainly not in a film) is the opportunity to glimpse the "high water mark" of the CIS, and the story of how the forces of the Republic were eventually able to turn the tide in their favor once and for all.

The kind of the movie I was half-expecting Episode II to be, had it not been deemed more vital to the overall arc of the PT to focus on Anakin and Padme's blossoming romance, and the start (rather than the pinnacle) of the war effort.

The kind of movie I always imagined in my head, beginning all of those years ago, when I first heard Ben Kenobi reminisce about his adventures as a young man, fighting the Clone Wars alongside his good friend Anakin Skywalker.

One last grand hurrah for Obi-Wan, Padme, Anakin, Master Yoda, Mace, Ahsoka, Captain Rex and Commander Cody, Dooku, Grievous, Palpatine, Artoo and Threepio, and all of the rest.

And I think I'd set it circa 20-19 BBY, sometime during the Outer Rim Sieges. Considering they were mentioned in ROTS, but, due to TCW's cancellation, were never able to be explored by anything which currently classifies as SW canon, I think it makes sense.

And to (finally) answer your question, as long as they were agreeable to returning, and as long as this hypothetical film were made while the actors are still believably the right ages for their characters during the time period, I would not re-cast a single player.

Nope. Not a one.

We'd have the same faces from the PT, and the film would be thoroughly "canon."

Put a quality writing team on the project and have an enterprising and talented director at the helm, and let's see what comes of it.

I don't expect it, of course, but I'd love it.

===========================================

And speaking of "war genre" pictures:

I wish I could "Like" this more than the one time. Good, quality recommendation.

And this scene:



Yeah. Wow.

 

Reading it is almost as bad as watching it. You are really defending this stuff? SMH

 

I think the main issue is that it would seem weird having Anakin (the father) be young and good looking and Luke (the son) be the old man....

 

I know you're not the first who has shared a similar sentiment.

But for whatever reason, the thought doesn't bother me in the least. Like, it doesn't even register as a blip on my radar of concerns.

I'm not suggesting that everyone should feel the same, or anything, but, I don't know - it just doesn't strike me as weird or odd or anything.

 

Are you talking about the OT or PT? Last time I looked the OT wasn't famed for either it's dialogue or acting. Even some of the best scenes in the OT contain poor/clichéd dialogue and very hammy performances. What do you think Sir Alec Guinness thought of the dialogue and characterisation?

I think the best thing that can be said about the OT, when compared to the PT (in terms of this highly stylised approach) is that the OT never lingered... the scenes were much more snappy and had more context. The problem with the Anakin and Padme fireside scene (or the 'sand gets everywhere' scene), is not particularly the dialogue or acting (it's in keeping with all the Star Wars films) but, IMHO, it's that the scenes are too long and static. When juxtaposed with Han and Leia on the Falcon (TESB), their scenes come across as more dynamic because they are actively doing things like fixing the ship or figuring out a way to escape the Empire. Whereas Anakin and Padme are basically just sitting around enjoying the scenery... and the entire Naboo sequence, in AOTC, is pretty much redundant because nothing actually happens there - apart from them falling in love. It would of been much more interesting, IMO, if they'd been on the run like Han and Leia. However that's NOT the acting, NOR the dialogue... it's much more a script thing. Still, as I see it, it's about 5/10 mins of screentime.

 

i completely understand everything u just wrote and still disagree with u. it wasnt the style it was the poor direction and poor dialogue. the dialogue in the ot was just as corny but the actors their pulled it off. and it also helped that lucas didnt direct empire or jedi.

 

The "it's meant to be bad" defence can take a running jump.

 

For the most part, but this scene in ROTJ(which I love) is cringe worthy for everyone in it:

A lot of the fault is mainly the dialogue and how formal it is. It's okay when Luke talks to Vader and the Emperor but with Leia it's just weird.

Compare this deleted scene from TESB. As squicky as it is now with Luke and Leia almost kissing, at least they sound like regular people!

 

Ford's "performance" at the end of that scene is cinema masterwork I've seen better performance in local community theater... just painfully funny.


Yancy

 

Is ANYONE saying that it's 'meant to be bad'? I think the assertion is that SW dialogue is very stylised and the acting is quite basic throughout the entire 6 films. I personally think the only scenes that transcend the 'style', in the OT, are Luke's training scenes on Dagobah. That's like what? 30 mins in circa 6 hours of material. I personally think ROTJ is the worst offender out of all the SW films in terms of both dialogue and acting.

 

The problem with the dialogue in the Anakin/Padme scenes isn't that it's "corny" it's that it's so "formal". There are little moments when they drop it and sound like normal people and it's great but they are so few. There's a difference between "corny" and "formal" dialogue. Corny can be fun just as formal can be good. It's how it's used and pertains to certain characters. Like the dialogue involving the Emperor and Vader in ROTJ is formal but it totally works, just as the corny dialogue that Luke, Leia and Han say works. Luke can't talk to Vader or Palpatine the same way he talks to Leia and Han in the previous movies so we accept it. But when he suddenly becomes formal just before he leaves the Ewok village it's jarring. Leia's lines when talking to Tarkin is formal and so it comes across as stilted(the weird British accent didn't help) but when she talks to Han the lines are more natural, and a result her acting's more natural.

 

I agree... I think the PT seems to have a more formal approach to most of the dialogue and scenes... the exceptions being some of the Anakin scenes in TPM, the picnic scene (AOTC) and Obi-Wan/Dexter... I think the PT needed a little more informality, for its own sake, but I think it was something that Lucas was conscious of.

 

Nobody's saying it was supposed to be bad. It was a stylistic choice. A difference of taste.

 

Yep. Which makes it ******* stupid that Lucas even changed that. The whole learning to become a Force Ghost is just as bad, too. It should have been a natural thing that happened to Jedi and something that only happens for so long. Considering how Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan, and Yoda, and now Anakin are all Force Ghosts now, and that it's something that is supposedly eternal, will only confuse matters more when they don't show up in the ST. I mean, what's the point of having them ghost if they aren't around anymore?

 

From what I've read on Lucas talking about the subject, they're only ghosts for a while but eventually they still have to become one with the Force.

Back to dialogue in Star Wars, the problem with Leia's performance in ANH isn't that it's bad, it's that it's inconsistent and it's not her fault. It's because the style of dialogue is different in different scenes. Where in the scenes with Tarkin it's formal, but the scenes with Luke and Han it's not. If it had been one or the other throughout the whole movie it would have been fine because she is actually good doing both. I still love the way she says:


I also love the way she says:



She's sassy in both but the style of performances are so different and the fact that's in the same movie is schizophrenic. It's like one minute she's George Sanders, the other she's Thelma Ritter(both in All About Eve).

 

Fisher also seems to swap accents between US faux British to West Coast American. Very odd.

 

no . just no .

 

Ok. Would anyone who posts on these forums inform me of any better acting performances we got in the entire saga than what was we got in ESB? There are none. This was the OT at it's very best. This was Star Wars at it's very best. It was the episode that drew the very best performances out of its cast. When compared to anything the prequels, and ROTJ had to offer it was in a different league. It should've been the template, in terms of thematic weight and acting performance, for every episode that was to come after it. Number One, make it so it's on a par with ESB. *gets off soapbox*