SW II: Attack of the Clones

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Asher
When they're in that robot factory thing, his arm is continually pressed down upon with presses and it doesn't phase him at all. The metal just conveniently moulds around his arm and doesn't hurt him...

There's a similar scene in Minority Report except that you're actually tense watching it. AotC is worse than tripe rations in Nethack.

[optimus2861]

AOTC = bad, very bad

Hayden Christiansen was dreadful. Only when he shared the screen with Ewan MacGregor did he have any screen presence, and I'm sure it was only what Ewan rubbed off on him. His petulant whining about Obi-Wan holding him back didn't have any depth to it; he comes across as any other whining teenager denied the car on a Saturday night, instead of a budding Darth Vader. The "romance scenes" with Natalie Portman are nothing short of dreadful -- it's obvious the two have no chemistry together, the dialouge is atrocious, and Padme is given no motivation whatsoever to fall for this jerk. In fact, just the opposite -- after Anakin's whiny, "I hate them all!" bit, one would expect most sane people to back away from such an unstable headcase.

Lucas' direction is also glaringly at fault throughout the entire film: Dooku is given no motivation whatsoever -- heck, not even a proper introduction; the political undercurrents of the film are murky, ill-defined, and just plain boring; the overuse of CGI is rampant -- the droid factory scene took me right out of the film, it's hard to believe they couldn't find a bunch of extras to film some of the clone-trooper scenes, and once again having droids as the enemy army just takes away any emotional punch. And the single biggest flaw was not showing us Anakin's cold slaughter of the Tusken village, instead choosing to leave it up to H.C. to portray the results through his acting -- a very poor choice given the calibre of the actor.

TPM's ending lightsaber duel alone very nearly makes up for the putrid garbage that was the rest of the film, and in some ways I actually think TPM had a more cohesive plot running through it, by choosing to stay centered around the crisis on Naboo. By contrast, AOTC jumps from Padme in danger, to unravelling a clone-army mystery, to Anakin/Padme, to Obi-Wan in danger, to the big CGI army fight, to fighting Dooku, with nothing to really tie all these elements together, save fan rationalizations that Palpatine is pulling all the strings behind the scenes.

I, for one, have no expectation that Ep III will be any better than the trash Lucas has shovelled out in Eps I and II, and will not mourn the overdue death of this movie franchise.

[rah]

I liked AOTC except for the god awful acting by HC.
You must really be bad if you can make a romantic scene with NP look painful. How hard could it be to act like you're enjoying it.
What were the casting directors thinking. All the money spent on this movie and your main lead can't act.

Screw all the other shortcomings (which were many)
Star Wars isn't about great movie making, it's about making escapist enjoyable mind drivel, which this episode accomplished. Turn the brain off for a few hours and have a little fun.

I must admit that during the yoda fight sequence, my wife and I were laughing uncontrolled throughout the entire sequence. But the love scenes were unbearable due to acting.


But, maybe HC is the greatest actor known to man. He did play the perfect uncaring, clueless, overacting, petulant teenager that people hate just watching.
NAW, that would have required skill and coaching

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba


That was so horrible! The other thing was in ESB after Vader and Luke fight and Vader, walking through the halls of Cloud City, says "tell my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival".. or something like that. Horrible voice actor they picked to do that.

It kills me to think you don't recognize James Earl Jones' voice.



ACK!

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by rah
But the love scenes were unbearable due to acting.

That and the awful dialogue. Its one of the worst dialogue I ever heard... Its so bad that I sometimes wonder if it wasn't meant to be bad.