PT Nute Gunray's Accent

Although I thought it was a mistake on Lucas' part to make some of his characters speak that way, mainly because some people were offended by it, I myself think it's a more realistic touch that they do and should talk with an accent. It makes sense that someone who is foreign to another language would have an accent. And since most speak Basic in their galaxy (which is our own world's English), who's to say the Neimodians don't have an Asian sounding language, too? Besides, Watto was from Tatooine and one of their main languages is supposed to be Huttese. Hence the accent. It's funny how nobody mentioned Bib Fortuna and his accent in ROTJ, but they jumped all over Watto's.

Having these characters speak basic English would have been safe, and probably boring, too. But if Lucas would have gone with a new alien language instead, I'm sure it would have made the story more interesting and the Neimoidian characters would have been appreciated better as villains.

 

I would rather have the mechanical jaw that was limited rather than a corrected CG one. Just like how I prefer the puppet Yoda in TPM over the blu-ray CGI one. Just gives a cool feel to the appearance of the movie IMO.

 

Right. Actually, the problem isn't with the movement. It's the timing. It seems like it's a full second behind the dialogue in some of the scenes, especially the "they must be dead by now" scene.

 

Agreed, I think that's something that subconsciously spoke to something wrong in TPM's production. They let that go out like that? It completely broke the suspension of disbelief. I mean, with Yoda 20 years earlier there were fewer lip sync issues taking you out of the film. The Nemoidians were like the worst of the Jim Henson Muppet Factory.

 

Not comparable. Yoda's mouth is moved by hand (which gives you great control), and that was impossible to use with the neimoidians for obvious reasons. Why don't you compare it with the "excellent" lip movement of Greedo, Jabba, and the like? Oh right...

 

Good post

I don't mind Nute's voice and lip sync issues. Doesn't make the PT any less awesome at all!

 

It just adds to the long list of things Star Wars fans notice!

 

Seriously, I think you see things that aren't in the films. That's only my opinion though, please OH PLEASE don't get offended.

 

One can say the same thing about what accent Gunray is supposed to have (Japanese? Transylvanian? French? I honestly never heard anybody call it French until this thread), among other characters.

I do buy the idea that the shoddy lip-movements is a nod to b-movies. There's method to the madness.

 

I would say it is probably... Neimoidian. Just a guess.

 

Stop fooling yourself.

 

They're not in your conception of the films, perhaps, but they're in mine.

I'm not offended per se, but that's ad hominem nonetheless, isn't it?

One-line statements about another person's opinion don't really get anyone very far, though I always appreciate a robust, witty retort.

Films are art. They don't have one meaning. This idea that films should have a very particular set of meanings based on authorial intent, though you can't see it, is actually a form of paternal absolutism -- an argument from authority.

I don't need the priestly approval of George Lucas or anyone else to see inside his movies what I will. I am my own Ecclesiast, my own scholar. Of course, it's nice when opinions overlap, but it's also good when they diverge.

What bothers me is this tedious level of ignorance where art is concerned. Art is the realm of the subjective. To hammer down a specific set of meanings and reject any other viewpoint as "not in the films", completely misses the point of art to begin with.

 

no, they aren't in the films. You're drawing huge connections where none exist. You might see different things in them, just like the Pope and Steven Hawking see different things in the bible. That doesn't change what's in the bible.

Oh, and in that metaphor, you aren't Steven Hawking.

 

I hope I'm not the Pope, either.

And by "Pope", I assume you mean the Roman Catholic Pope. The title itself, however, has also been used, or is presently in use, by leaders of rival sects, like the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Bible is a literary text like any other (and also, for one reason or another, not like any other). It therefore remains open to interpretation. Just on a religious level, this can be seen with the thousands of Christian sects -- or heresies in the eyes of the dominant sect -- there have been in the past 2,000 years. When you remove religion and allow for secular reading, the different interpretations theoretically skyrocket.

You do not have a mandate to tell me what is and isn't a correct interpretation of either Star Wars or the Bible. If you think you do, or that someone else does, then you are either a despot or would willingly bend your knee to one. But I don't go in for either of those things, thank you very much.

 

Again, you're seeing things that aren't there and making massive conclusions when one should not. I never said you were wrong about what's in the films, but you sure are far from right, also.

 

Unless George Lucas makes an account just to tell Cryogenic he's incorrect, I wouldn't immediately dismiss his theories just because they seem unlikely to you.

Also, the Neimoidian lip syncing was finally perfected in Revenge of the Sith. The new technology really shined.

 

If nobody ever made "massive conclusions when one should not" out of sheer conjecture over their personal interpretations of the SW films, then nobody would've complained about Nute Gunray, Jar Jar or Watto being "racist caricatures" or things like that. As long as people keep doing that, at least, there's no reason others can't go a little meta over animatronics.

 

All of that, is your opinion, and far from fact. Very far from fact. For me (which means in my opinion, it is not meant to offend and my opinion will not be changed, because what's on screen will not be changed), it was a pretty short conclusion and even painfully obvious that Watto was a racist caricature.

 

Yeah, they did a great job in ROTS. The behind the scenes footage showing the tech development was really interesting.

In regards to TPM, though, I remember reading that originally the Nemoidians were supposed to speak an alien language, but Lucas changed his mind pretty late into the game because he thought it would create to many scenes requiring subtitles and thus they overdubbed in accented English. I don't recall where I read that rumor, though, so I can't speak to its credibility.

 

Yes, that's your opinion. My point is that it doesn't make sense to lambast somebody for their conjecture-based opinion, while maintaining the same kind of conjecture-based opinions of your own. There's just as much stretching and straining that goes into "Watto is obviously an Arab/Turkish/Jewish/Italian/Russian/etc. stereotype" as there is in "Nute Gunray's lip-synch problems are a game of Brechtian 4th wall breaking", if not moreso. I'm not arguing against the legitimacy of either argument at this time, just saying that it's fair game for somebody else to go out on a limb if you're already clinging to a far branch, yourself.

I wonder what language they would've spoken. Huttese? Something else? I would've preferred this myself, simply because I think it's cool to see subtitles in sci-fi movies.

 

Jedi_Ford_Prefect

I have a little pet theory that the Neimoidians might be a reference back to old kung fu movies. These movies usually had rather...interesting...shall we say, English overdubbing of the lead actors and I do wonder if Lucas didn't decide to make a homage to that in TPM. It's fun to ponder, regardless.

 

Never heard that before. It definately could be an early concept. Though by the time filming rolled around, the masks were controlled on set to the actors' dialouge (there's some cool behind the scene footage of the radio-controlled masks being lined up). The problem that's visible onscreen, however, seems to be the result of post-production work, where lines were delayed, or simply changed altogether.

 

That's possible, though I've never really heard Lucas say anything about Kong Kong action movies. Kurosawa and Japanese samurai movies, yeah, but never heard any connection to kung fu stuff. If he did, I'd have assumed he'd see things in school in subtitled form, but he has lived in San Francisco forever, so maybe he checked out a grindhouse back in the day. The same argument could possibly work with the horrible dubbing that kaiju movies like "Godzilla" got, and I'd be more likely to believe Lucas was into those (Godzilla's director, Isihiro Honda, was even a great friend and collaborator of Kurosawa). I do think that the rubbery-face/bad-dubbing thing is a deliberate homage, though it's more of a broad thing, and we can all see our own particular objects of fascination in there.

 

Watto being racist isn't really conjecture.

If you can't see how much insulting that character is, I pity you.

All of that, is still you opinion and not facts in the slightest.

There is no where near as much conjecture or conclusive jumps from Watto being a racist caricature as there are from Nute Gunray's lip syncing being a nod to B movies.

If you can't see what makes sense in lambasting something racist, that's your problem, not mine.


DISCLAIMER: This is all my opinion and not meant to be offensive.

 

Yeah, except it's still just percieved racism. And given that there's four or five other groups that claimed it was racist, it's a little hard to take the jumps as anything all that conclusive, especially given the inflamatory way that controversy-baiting can fuel claims like those. I'm reminded of the way that some groups rushed to call Jango Fett a racist caricature of Hispanics because of his brown skin, despite the fact that the actor who played him, Temurra Morrison, is from New Zealand.

The B-movie lip synching thing, by comparison, is pretty innocuous.