Colum, OH I just watched The Empire Strikes Back

I just finished watching "The Empire Strikes Back" and I have to say it solidified itself at the top of my favorites list once and for all. While I enjoyed AOTC very much, Empire was a far superior movie on so many levels. The acting was far better in almost every respect, from the lead actors all the way down to the bit players, the dialogue did not come off nearly as hokey and the action was well paced and did not need all of the spectacular computer effects to make it memorable.
I know I may be stepping on some toes here, but I can't help it. I was so much more impressed with the quality of Empire (even after 20+ years) than I was by Clones. I do not believe that Clones was a bad movie in any way. I just feel that it could have been so much better had a few of its week spots been taken care of during production.

 

I have to disagree with you on the acting as far as Mark Hamill compared to Hayden is concerned.

If you take Mark's most emotional acting scene, when he has to react to Vader revealing that he is his father. When Mark starts yelling "Nooooo!! Nooooo!", his acting right there is definetly a step down from Hayden's confession scene (his most emotional scene in Clones). The way Hayden played that scene was absolutely flawless.

Not that I am taking anything away from the "I am your father" scene at all. That is an absolutely awesome scene, and will and has gone down as a brilliant scene in movie history.

As far as entire movies are concerned. I think that the prequels are not really meant be like the originals in that they aren't quite as swashbuckling and cut-to-the-chase. Which makes it understandable, becuase the prequels have a bit more political exposition and jedi talk expostion, instead of Han Solo running around, and I totally understand why many don't dig the prequels as much for those reasons. But me personally, I love the prequels and the way they are turning out.

That being said, I think I might like ESB a little better than AOTC as well. I dunno, I love all the movies alot. Its hard to choose.

 

I agree with you about Hayden. I think He and Ewen's performances were the highpoints for the actors with the majority of screen time (Christopher Lee was good as well but his on screen time was very short). The biggest dissapointment in this movie as well as the last is Natalie. While she did show some improvement, her preformance was not up to the level of her talent. I do not blame her for this. The blame can only be placed on the director. As much as I love George Lucas for creating Star Wars and all of these characters that I have loved for 25 years, I just don't think he is as talented a director as he is a story teller.

 

that is something that needs to be pointed out...while ANH was great and AoTC was an awesome film, we have to realize that Empire and Jedi were in fact directed by different people. It may be this that made those movies stand out, instead of Lucas's directing, which I have heard described as "Do it again, like that, only better."
I dunno though, i rank them in order: 5, 6, 2, 4, 1...will three step into that order there? we will have to wait a few years to see...
CJ