Who else feels AOTC has suffered a worse fate than it deserves?

The lines uttered by 3PO on Geonosis challenged a lot of things I thought I knew about GL's writing ability.

 

first off i would like to say the only thing that probably hurt aotc from getting non-sw fans to see it in droves was from:

TPM and any bad reviews it got for any reason may have stopped non-fans from seeing a new SW movie???

the dialogue AND either pacing or editing (i'm not a film expert but i'm sure you know what i mean) was a bit rough, a little stilted at times.

and a bit long with the constant animation scenes like the clone wars starting and overuse of cgi scenes. (not saying the space scenes or background effects but whole sequences of shots of the clone wars i think may have become tiresome, and no guys in costumes is just plain wrong (if you really want to wow people)

i say all this because i can take a bit of criticism of my favorite of the series

I was shocked when i first saw aotc on how interesting it was.

i felt like this one finally delivers on the strange worlds (geonosis), the cool sound effects (jedi fighters and space scenes), the jarring explosions (jangos bombs), retro style cool ships, dark stuff to throw in and make fascinating, cool languages and aliens.

i felt i felt like if this was released as a non-sw movie it would have blown people away as finally something new and imagination inspiring.

i also felt like this is what was lacking in TPM.

i think that overuse of cgi is one of the worst and tiresome things to ever happen to movies.

every long action sequence completely animated in TPM made me get bored and my eyes hurt, and possibly for this reason AOTC suffered a bit-but it should have been a huge winner.

 

I disagree. To me it not so much about the lines as it is about the actors being able to sell them. By this I mean that the actor is able to say the lines in such a way as that it seems to me as it is the character actually speaking. I've seen many films where the characters are given very odd things to say but in some cases the actor can sell the lines and then the cheesy lines does not matter. But in AotC I felt that the two actors did not belive in what they were saying and thus they could not sell them and it came across as stilted and unbelivable. So instead of seeing two people in love and not finding the words, I saw two actors struggling with dialogue they did not feel comfortable with. And so the romance did not seem real to me.

This then caused a further problem, since many of the romance scenes were only about the romance and if that does not work then the movie grinds to a halt whenever we switch over to those scenes.

In closing, there is a very relevant comparison that one can make between ESB and AotC.
And that is if the romance is belivable or not. In ESB I belived that Han and Leia were really in love so it worked,but it did not work in AotC.

Regards
Nordom

 

nordom, you're right. and i'm sure you loved aotc as much as i did. assuming now.

it's true, the movie was basically on the right track but either the lines, the acting and delivery, or IMO the editing or pacing messed up the love story. han and leia pulled off a love story (mind you, not a deeply romantic film) but you did see that it worked for a love story in the middle of a space opera much better than aotc.

maybe gl should have angled it more towards young love, it seemed like it was stuck somewhere between mature love and teenagers.

 

This.

Also, the "That's how teenagers really talk to each other" excuse doesn't hold water for me, because Lucas's dialogue in these movies has NEVER been about sounding like how people actually talk. Besides that, everything else in the love scenes suggests a sweeping, fantastic sort of romance, and not a realistic one. From the moody lighting and elegant scenery to the lush score by John Williams, these are not scenes designed to fit with the dialogue of awkward teenagers.

And to even further hammer home the point, something many people overlook is that Anakin is only technically a teenager. Most nineteen-year-olds I know are honestly closer to their twenties than their teens. And PADME is in her mid-twenties; not a teenager by any stretch of the imagination. So it's disingenuous when people describe or excuse the scene as 'two teenagers in love'.

 

I agree. Had the actors been able to deliver the lines convincingly, it might've worked, but I don't think the lines were deliberately meant to be clunky and awkward, that was just bad writing on GL's part. The lines George Lucas gave them to perform were just plain bad and Natalie and Hayden jusct couldn't make them seem believable.

 

Yep. You can find clunky dialogue aplenty in all the films. In some, the actors believe in what they're doing and have chemistry, and that's the difference.

 

AOTC was as good as star wars could ever get IMO. Its was the "boiling point". ROTS would be when the water boils over, the payoff that completes the process.

Thats how i felt when it first came out and amazed me and all my friends and thats how i feel to this day. That movie has all the perfect elements of a truly great star wars movie. The places we go, the things we see and learn, the themes of the movie, the things and events that happen, its all basically 90% perfect and it works beautifully. Now could it work even better? maybe, we will never know. But that doesn't change the fact that AOTC is perhaps the best of the PT.

To this day i can still remember reading the issue of TIME magazine that had the first digital yoda on the cover and how absolutely amazed i was JUST at the things that were going to be covered in the movie...

Going back to the homestead and finding out vaders relationship to uncle owen...the clone wars and how they started...seeing the young Darth Vader fighting in the war alongside Obi-wan-kenobi...seeing how luke and leias parents fell in love and married...seeing the jedi knights all fighting together as a whole...seeing how the stormtroopers were created and came to be...JANGO FETT!!!

Just...OMG.

It has everything! More so than ANY star wars movie this one truly had ALL the real "meat" of the backstory and the things that have always truly made star wars STAR WARS.

This is why it kills me when people try to pick it all apart and find a million little excuses to call it a bad movie when it was the very epitome of an awesome, fun and truly exciting summer blockbuster.

 

I use to find AOTC romantic dialog clunky and uninspiring.
However, I sat down and thought about my own teenage years, I realized that I really wasn't all that great at talking with the ladies, and probably sounded like Anakin. Awkward, bad pick up lines and desperate attempts to impress.
Maybe one of the reasons AOTC's dialog hits people the wrong way is that it is too much like high school drama we have seen. We are expecting something lofty or more stylish, and instead we get something awkward. I know the feeling because it was like acting in high school.
But, neither Anakin nor Padme are Romeo or Juliet, raised by the high rollers of their day, provided with going to court, exposure to other romantic interests of siblings or colleagues.
No, one is an apprentice to an order with a code of conduct including self-denial, and the other is a politician from the age of 14.
Again, is there a reason why we are expecting Shakespeare?
Also, what would look better to people? Different actors maybe?
I am genuinely asking because I think it would give a better idea of what people wanted from the romance between Anakin and Padme.

 

The dialogue's not really the issue IMO. As I said before, you can find clunky dialogue throughout the saga. I was hoping for chemistry and conviction from the actor's playing Anakin and Padme. These things were largely lacking and that's what left me uninspired and unconvinced by their love story.

 

I felt that Natalie Portman did a decent job as Padme. She didn't exactly pull any punches with the role but acting on auto-pilot is still acting. The actor that really didn't do his job, and he plagues nearly everything he is on screen with, is Hayden Christensen. A decent actor would have delivered the sand rant as if he was stumbling over his words, struggling to come up with something romantic like any teenager would. But he bulldozes through the script with the same drab, monotonous tones.

One thing I love about AOTC that really took it's time to grow on me was the stark difference between the two war factories seen in the film. First we have Kamino, a pristine city cloning organic beings with clunky military hardware. Then as a stark contrast we visit Geonosis, a hot, dingy dustball of a planet manufactoring droids. It took me a little while to truly respect what GL did there.

Another thing that has grown on me over time is Chritopher Lee's Count Dooku. It's the only chapter in the films that stars him (Unless you really want to include what was basically a cameo in ROTS) and I feel that having him alongside Cushing, and a lesser extent David Prowse, in the saga is a very nice wink to cinema savvy fans.

Overall I would now say AOTC is a good film, it's certainly grown on me since I came out of the cinema bawling my eyes out because I detested it, it's just plagued by a horrible actor who drags anyone else on screen with him down while he plows through a wordy script.

 

Well then i guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder because i saw chemistry and conviction in there performances just fine. There is so much exposition in the PT (and in AOTC most of all) that it helps you believe these are real people with there own thoughts, problems, pasts, hopes and dreams. That to me, is what makes them seem so real and believable, its what makes me care about them. There is not at all enough of that in the OT. They are more like characters for kids who don't think of things like that with the OT.

We dont have big histories invested in the characters of the OT like we do with the characters in the PT unless you are watching it in order because then you would at least have something with luke and leia because you would know how important they are. The *ONLY* exception in the OT is MAYBE luke because we had some time with him in the beginning of ANH but (unless we are watching the movies in order from 1 to 6) we dont see leia's mother and father, we dont hear her talk about whats important to her, or what she is fighting for besides what the rebel forces as a whole are fighting for but theres nothing personal or dramatic invested in it like it was with padme. Its the same case with han solo or any other OT character. The movie says "these are the good guys" and thats it. There is SOOO much symbolism and themes and exposition in the PT that by the time you get to the beginning of AOTC you feel like your in something so big and dramatic and epic.

By AOTC there is ALREDY a big nostalgic feeling when anakin and padme meet again because we know all the characters are back together from the great adventure we watched and obsessed over the whole summer of 1999. The scenes on naboo are very smart because there is no more "not stop pulp sci-fi action" to get in the way, instead its ALL character development between the two. The plot slows down for them and gives them a chance to talk about whats in there hearts. We know a lot more about the two of them after the naboo scenes. The closest the OT came to things like this was the yoda scenes in TESB and thats part of what makes THAT movie so great.

The fact of the matter is that AOTC does not get the credit is deserves. It is INDEED a very underrated movie.

 

See, I feel kind of the opposite. Portman seems to me to not even be trying, while Christensen seems to be trying his best though his best (as with Lloyd) isn't particularly good.

 

Given that she can act and we know how well she can act then yes it's a bad performance in comparison. But she still does a fair job as Padme. Where as Hayden Christensen tries his best and yet you swear you can see the strings.

 

lol i swear to god i will never be able to understand why people try soooo hard to make such a BIG DEAL about the part in the movie where anakin says he doesn't like sand. You called it the "sand rant" .....whats a sand rant?? Since when did it become an apparently infamous thing? I want to take an unbelievably insignificant little throwaway line from the OT and bring THAT up as a big deal every time someone mentions one of the OT movies. Because thats basically what the so called "sand rant" is. Its like in peewee hermin when someone says the secret word...everyone has to jump up and make a big deal out of it.

Ill tell ya what the sand line is...its brilliant writing.

It was very smart to have the character mention a line about not liking sand because think about all the symbolism in that one line. He comes from a planet made up of nothing BUT sand! The planet where he was a slave and live a hard life of servitude. Now where does he wind up by the end of ROTS? Laying on a bank of burning black sand being burned alive by the lava that puts him in the suit...the suit that turns him into a servant of the darkside! A slave once again!

Now look at that. There is NOTHING in the OT as powerful and dramatic and epic as that point i just made. THAT is one of the reasons why the new york times sed ROTS was "BETTER than the original star wars!" and why the boston globe said ROTS (a prequel film) was "THE most emotional powerful of all 6!". Because the OT just doesn't have things like that built into it.

AOTC is the one that has all the heart because those scenes on naboo and tattoine take the time to let us finally SEE that heart and we see it through sympathizing with these two characters and how all they want to do is be together but there conflicting responsibilities wont let them. And when they are about to be executed and the galaxy is officially at war they finally allow themselves ebchouther in spite of everything. Its beautiful and epic and its a truly great thing about the PT as a whole.

 

Seeing as you are also the sort to get flustered when the Anakin/Padme relationship looks like it's going to become a love triangle in TCW, I'm going to take your words with a pinch of salt. Or in this case sand.

The sand rant is a classic case of corny, horrendous scripting. I will usually defend GL to the death but this snippet of dialogue was truly face palm worthy. In fact I did face palm in the cinema when it was uttered. You mention the word sand to any Star Wars fan who has suffered that scene and you are probably going to watch them squirm as if you muttered some kind of disturbing pornographic phrase. And judging by your reaction the sand rant is infamous.

Also I think you need to brush up on your geology mate. There is a very big difference between sand and ash. What was poignant about the immolation is because the film takes it's time to remind you that Anakin is still the same character played by Jake Lloyd, you see a ten year old kid burning on Mustafar and turning into Vader.

I think you are looking into symbolism that just isn't there.

 

It says right in the ROTS novelization that what anakin was burning on was indeed SAND not ash and it even makes the comparison of him being a "slave" in the book witch is a direct point of his line in AOTC. Also you can tell just by looking at it that its grains of sand (not ash or anything else) in the close up shot of anakins mechanical arm clawing at it.

And the line itself is not "corny" or "horrendous" at all and the fact that **some** (not all) fans do cringe and wine and fuss over such a random, insignificant, throwaway line only proves how truly locked up in your own heads some of you are. Some fans have just made up there own "standards" of what they think star wars "should be" or "should have been" and these "standards" are so narrow and strict and boring that it scares me to think of how bad star wars would be if the saga was just 6 different "A New Hopes" one after another...

I just cant believe how some would choose to make a big stink over one quick throwaway line in AOTC yet not have any problem at all with brother and sister open mouth kissing in TESB. And then they'll swear up and down that there is no bias against the PT and OT nostalgia has nothing to do with it. Yea ok...give me a break.

If theres anything thats face palm worthy its that.

 

Well done, you made a comparison with a purely descriptive term in a non-canon novelisation in a thread about the FILMS!

No it's just a bad line through an through. Besides what do YOU know of MY standards from just one post on a corny piece of dialogue? This reeks of someone that can't think of a plausible response to valid critisism. Strilo edit: Watch it... this post comes close to being antagonistic and disrespectful.

You seem to fail at telling the difference between a shock twist in a story and a bad piece of scripting, and that invalidates whatever you have to say on the matter IMO. The sand rant isn't just some throw away line, it's a very big line that Anakin uses to seduce Padme. Such an important line shouldn't have been so cheesy and awful, but rogueish and romantic like the "Scoundrel" banter between Han and Leia.

And I'm not biased at all. People will tell you that I'm a SAGA lover not an OT lover.

 

There's nothing wrong with the kiss in TESB. Because in TESB they're NOT siblings. The problem is with RotJ, for making them into brother and sister. Many if not most 'bashers' (myself included) have acknowledged the sibling reveal as a major problem in RotJ, and you've been around here long enough to know that. So don't lie.

 

Chewgumma: The baiting stops now. If you cannot have a civilized discussion in here without baiting users you disagree with, your time here will be short lived.

 

Lucas is said to have line-edited the book, but then again that doesn't mean he caught everything.

 

You see it as a problem with ROTJ but i don't. They have been brother and sister since you see them born together in Episode 3 and if you watch it in the *official* order that has been deemed the right way to watch the story over and over again by the creator witch is (believe it or not) what NORMAL people do when they think about going to the video store and renting the star wars movies than it actually works very well for the story that they are siblings. The *ONLY* things that get in the way are the parts where it hints at any kind of romance. Scenes like the long open mouth kiss in TESB.

I will totally admit that the brother/sister story need to be "crafted" a little be more. Witch means getting rid of things like the long open mouth kiss.

 

Well, the romance is a clear element in both SW and ESB, and the burden is on the later-produced works to mesh with the earlier ones. The burden rests, and has always rested, with RotJ. The fact that the problem was continued into other films and that they now outnumber the films with the original version of the story does not somehow shift the burden of the contradiction onto SW and ESB.

 

Yes i have always understood that argument but i disagree. As it stands now and has stood for 27 YEARS, they are brother and sister and the story works very good that way too. The answer is simple, the reason why ANH and ESB complemented the idea that the two might have a romance is because the whole story and how it would BEST work just simply wasn't figured out yet. That is why.

And even if they stayed with the idea of them NOT being siblings or if they came up with a whole new THIRD alternative then that is what they would have to go with and stay with.

The story is what it is now and it should work the way it was figured out all those years ago. Without any contradictions.

 

It works in RotJ and the PT only. It has NEVER worked in SW or TESB. The sibling angle has stood in RotJ for 26 years, but the romantic angle has stood in TESB and SW for 29 and 32 years, respectively. And while TESB could arguably be fixed by the excision of the kiss, the romantic angle is one of the driving forces in SW. Even if there WAS some way to remove all the romantic subtext without utterly destroying the flow of scenes, it would utterly demolish Luke's character in the film. It would be "Greedo shoots" x1000.

It's truly a shame that Lucas has so distorted things that people forget that SW is the central document of the whole franchise, and that everything that followed was responsible to avoid contradictions with it, not vice versa.