Also, Portman's a joke. She was and still is a poor actor. She's a pretty face, nothing more.

Her performances in Star Wars ranged from bland to uninspired. On the other hand, she was mainly working in front of green screens and reading Lucas' tin-eared dialogue, and that's not a situation designed to show off any kind of range or depth as an actor.

But she's also the actress who went on to do much more impressive work in Cold Mountain, Brothers, and some other very good movies. (Admittedly she's back to wasting her time and talent in the Thor movies, but I bet her rent checks aren't bouncing.)

Not to decry or support Miss Portman (I liked Black Swan, though), but a grand total of 2 actors managed to even look alive and neither of them were Samuel freaking Jackson.

If Samuel "badass motherfucker" Jackson can't act as anything but a robot, it is no longer a problem of actors regardless of their talent

Huge props to Mcgregor and even more to emperor Ian McDiarmid for getting some semblance of emotion and creating something fun out of that dreadful experience, respectively

Waitaminit, when did Vader cry that ridiculous 'Noooooooooo' in this scene? Was that added by Lucas on the BlueRay or was that some internet troll edit?

It is sad and telling of the situation that I even have to ask.

I just found a clip from You Tube and was talking about the editing of the two scenes. I don't know who added Vader yelling at the end.

Also, Portman's a joke. She was and still is a poor actor. She's a pretty face, nothing more.

Her performances in Star Wars ranged from bland to uninspired. On the other hand, she was mainly working in front of green screens and reading Lucas' tin-eared dialogue, and that's not a situation designed to show off any kind of range or depth as an actor.

But she's also the actress who went on to do much more impressive work in Cold Mountain, Brothers, and some other very good movies. (Admittedly she's back to wasting her time and talent in the Thor movies, but I bet her rent checks aren't bouncing.)

There was an interview she gave where she said that after Star Wars no one wanted to hire her because they thought she couldn't act.

No, he really, really doesn't.

TIE Pilot, please, explain.

The facts are that the two films that Lucas had the least to do with are the most loved and critically acclaimed.

The prequel films, which he micro-managed, were the least well received.

Midichorians. Natalie Portman. Jar Jar Binks. Hayden Christensen. I mean, c'mon, it's like he hit his head or something.

I think that's unfair on Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, both of whom act very well in other films. And I'm not just saying that because Black Swan made me want to be Natalie Portman and/or Mila Kunis.

It would be like Leonardo coming back 15 years later and touching up the Mona Lisa.

That's a very good point, but it means the opposite of what you meant. Classical painters altered their own paintings all the time long after they were first shown to the public. It's the artist's prerogative, in my opinion.

I recommend people read The Secret History of Star Wars and judge for themselves.

(But I personally think Lucas should have his hands cut off before being allowed to touch Star Wars again.)

On the other hand ... what's this about Return being in the top two films? Empire, yes, but ... Ewoks? Sister? C'mon, the original Star Wars is better than Return, even if Return does have a rockin' fleet battle sequence.

You can't read one book and then "judge for yourselves" because one book is a subjective interpretation of facts, no matter how unbiased it portrays itself.

True that. Great space battles. I mostly love the battle in the beginning of the 4th movie too (movie number 3). The only real dumb things in both though...

I don't understand which film you mean. The fourth film made was Epidosde I, the fourth film in-universe was Episode IV, so what do you mean "movie number 3"?

Star Wars is/was so big now, that even Lucas shouldn't have sole dominion over it. He shouldn't have been able to cock it up as much as he did.

Despite that fact that he came up with it, made it, and prior to selling it Disney owned it? Spare me the "Star Wars belongs to the fans" rhetoric, it doesn't. It belongs to Disney.

As for cockups, the EU's got far, far more than the prequels.

On this I disagree with you. To my mind Star Wars is a work of art, not a legal entity. In my eyes Disney may own some legal rights, but the artistic ownership still lies with the original creators - George Lucas, John Williams, etc (yes, I credit John Williams as probably the second most important person in making Star Wars great, as he is in Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Jaws, etc).

I agree that if the EU material had been made as a film and attracted the same critical attention people would see how terrible a lot of it is.

In fairness it took me about 3 goes to work out just how bad the film was (I was about 13?). I came out buzzing and excited, and then someone said "Hey, do you want to see it again?" and I was like "Sure!" and then I came out of that thinking "Uummmm" and then on the third playthrough it was all "aaargh, it's killing my brain...".

Yeah, It was the same for me (except I was 25). I mean, Jar Jar put me off immediately, but I let it go at first. After the second or third viewing it slowly sank in that the movie was terrible.

For some reason I never imagined before then that a Star Wars movie could be bad, like the possibility defied the laws of physics or something.

He's not alone alot of directors I use to like are now turning out trash, look at Spielberg of late or Ridley Scott.

Lucas however has a small filmography and most of its bad.

Yeah Prometheus devastaed me: I was like: "aw no Ridley Scott! not you to! you are suposed to be better than that!"

Bah, first we had "George syndrome" where Lucas and Romero followed up on their original awesome trilogies with another trilogy but this time those movies sucked.

And Tarantino's movies aren't nearly as good as 'dogs and 'fiction. (And have way to much foot fetish in them)

Now Scott as well!

And i'm pretty sure Peter Jackson is sufferiing from "George syndrome" aswell. The Hobbit ain't LOTR...

My theory is that each director has one or two movies he really want's to make (usually early in his career) and then the later stuff is made because it's their job to direct movies.

You see that in music too. I think of it as Rolling Stones Syndrome, where you've done some legendary work when you were young and full of fire and strife, then you get famous, fat and lazy. You get the band back together and put out a bunch of crap, and tour your boring selves around the world, feeding off society's nostalgia, like a sonic tapeworm. You can see it in lot of punk bands too, where 60 year old rockers are doing lifeless versions of their hits with better gear than they'd ever had before, and more experience as musicians, but it somehow sounds worse.

I'll just leave this here:

“The team threw a Hail Mary to George, saying the game would have more credibility if the apprentice had a ‘Darth’ title,” a Force Unleashed team member says. Lucas agreed that this situation made sense for Sith royalty, and offered up two Darth titles for the team to choose from. “He threw out ‘Darth Icky’ and ‘Darth Insanius.’ There was a pregnant pause in the room after that. People waiting for George to say ‘just kidding,’ but it never comes, and he just moved on to another point.”

Excerpt from Fall Of The Empire: How Inner Turmoil Brought Down LucasArts

I'll just leave this here:

“The team threw a Hail Mary to George, saying the game would have more credibility if the apprentice had a ‘Darth’ title,” a Force Unleashed team member says. Lucas agreed that this situation made sense for Sith royalty, and offered up two Darth titles for the team to choose from. “He threw out ‘Darth Icky’ and ‘Darth Insanius.’ There was a pregnant pause in the room after that. People waiting for George to say ‘just kidding,’ but it never comes, and he just moved on to another point.”

Excerpt from Fall Of The Empire: How Inner Turmoil Brought Down LucasArts

****. I guess he really had a hard-on for "Starkiller"

EDIT: well I read the article, and the way it was framed implies Lucas was serious...

I thought he was just being a spiteful bastard ("You don't like Starkiller? Fine, here's a choice: Starkiller or Darth Icky."), but this is something else

Well there are several but I can't recount them without rewatching and taking notes. But:

The Empire Strikes Back. Hans is trying to escape Hoth with Leia who says 'You'll never get this bucket of bolts past that blockade'. The next scene is them arriving to setup the blockade. Scenes reversed.

A minutes or so longer you see a flash and Han says "see" we assume referring to the blockade being destroyed; Leia says "someday you're going to get it wrong...". The next scene is the e-web being destroyed. Again scenes reversed.

There are several like that, mostly in the first and second movies. I love the special effects but paying too much attention to that and missing simple editing was a shame.

I don't believe there's any inconsistency here. The blockade they're referencing are the Star Destroyers in orbit, not a handful of Stormtroopers.

Aside from that, the Lucas-Portman-Christensen love in this thread sickens me. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

What I was disappointed about was, when Lucas fix/added all of the special effects no one ever bothered to fix all of the out of sequence editing errors. There was a boat load in the first two movies Star Wars and RotJ. The most obvious is when Han's gloats because the Falcon destroyed a blockade before it was even setup as they were trying to escape Hoth.

I'm not familiar with this inconsistency. Can you elaborate?

Does anyone know what he's talking about? I've probably seen ETB 80 times and I'm not familiar with this.

Also, Portman's a joke. She was and still is a poor actor. She's a pretty face, nothing more.

You may not like her as an actor, but she has a master in polisci from Harvard, and is/has been an ambassador to the UN. So she's more than a pretty face.

You may not like [Portman] as an actor, but she has a master in polisci from Harvard, and is/has been an ambassador to the UN. So she's more than a pretty face.

And again, I don't think her work in Star Wars is a particularly relevant basis on which to evaluate her--or, frankly, anyone involved with the prequels. As several other people have suggested, Hayden Christensen is basically a cardboard cutout with a wig and even he has turned in better performances than he did in Star Wars.

Also...Lucas created a terrible story. Only after people told him it was terrible did he start rewriting things and blatantly taking scenes from other films and throwing them in resulting in the Star Wars we know. Several examples come to mind but the most obvious one is the finale of 633 Squadron.

And he didnt create ILM. John Dykstra did so in order to handle the fx work. Lucas just took it all in a fit of peeve after Dykstra decided to work ob BSG and we all know that story

No, he really, really doesn't.

TIE Pilot, please, explain.

The facts are that the two films that Lucas had the least to do with are the most loved and critically acclaimed.

The prequel films, which he micro-managed, were the least well received.

Midichorians. Natalie Portman. Jar Jar Binks. Hayden Christensen. I mean, c'mon, it's like he hit his head or something.

George Lucas is a fantastic producer and he was innovative when he was getting started. Also I think Natalie Portman was one of the few things he did right with the prequels, that and better saber fighting scenes.

Portman was terrible and I question your ability to determine good acting from bad.

Go watch the "so love has blinded you" scene and tell me again how good of an actor she was.

Her, Hayden and jar jar were the sole 3 reasons the prequels were so terrible.

No, he really, really doesn't.

TIE Pilot, please, explain.

The facts are that the two films that Lucas had the least to do with are the most loved and critically acclaimed.

The prequel films, which he micro-managed, were the least well received.

Midichorians. Natalie Portman. Jar Jar Binks. Hayden Christensen. I mean, c'mon, it's like he hit his head or something.

George Lucas is a fantastic producer and he was innovative when he was getting started. Also I think Natalie Portman was one of the few things he did right with the prequels, that and better saber fighting scenes.

Portman was terrible and I question your ability to determine good acting from bad.

Go watch the "so love has blinded you" scene and tell me again how good of an actor she was.

Her, Hayden and jar jar were the sole 3 reasons the prequels were so terrible.

Don't forget, midi-chlorians, some space ships/tech looking more advanced than that from the trilogy, Yoda's pinball lightsaber fighting, kid Boba, silly battledroids , the list goes on!

He's not alone alot of directors I use to like are now turning out trash, look at Spielberg of late or Ridley Scott.Lucas however has a small filmography and most of its bad.

Yeah Prometheus devastaed me: I was like: "aw no Ridley Scott! not you to! you are suposed to be better than that!" Bah, first we had "George syndrome" where Lucas and Romero followed up on their original awesome trilogies with another trilogy but this time those movies sucked. And Tarantino's movies aren't nearly as good as 'dogs and 'fiction. (And have way to much foot fetish in them) Now Scott as well! And i'm pretty sure Peter Jackson is sufferiing from "George syndrome" aswell. The Hobbit ain't LOTR... My theory is that each director has one or two movies he really want's to make (usually early in his career) and then the later stuff is made because it's their job to direct movies.

Hell no, Inglourious Basterds and Django were excellent films.

Id argue that Quentin Tarantino is about the only director that hasn't gone from great to suck.

Im still a big fan of Peter Jackson.

I was a bit dissapointed in Inglorious bastards. Maybe because it was marketed as Tarantino's dirty dozen, and instead we didn't get enough jew commands and hitler wearing that cape. But you are right Tarantino is the one who didn't go from great to suck.

But in my opinion he hasn't made anything that surpases/equals his first two movies.

I'm still a fan of PJ but i was a bigger fan of him before i saw desolation of Smaugh.

I wish he went back to making zany and gory zombie movies. Braindead (dead alive) was awesome!

I really liked the hobbits, I came away from the second film really disappointed and won't bother with the third film at all.

King Kong was overly long, he could of cut most of the boat footage without losing much and gotten a film with much better pace, wasn't terrible but wasn't great.

I really liked the hobbits, I came away from the second film really disappointed and won't bother with the third film at all.

King Kong was overly long, he could of cut most of the boat footage without losing much and gotten a film with much better pace, wasn't terrible but wasn't great.

Had to much (non tenacious D) jack Black in it. Like you said, not bad but not great either. Original was better.

I find myself liking the first LOTR and the 1st Hobbit the most for each trilogy. I think it's the contrast between the shire and the outside world.

I still to this day do not understand the initial plot of The Phantom Menace with trade routes and taxes and why they need a treaty signed, why blockade a planet, then invade anyway. Its the movie that is supposed to setup the prequel trilogy but makes no sense.

Wait, you seriously don't understand it?! The political maneuvering was almost insultingly shallow.

Basically:

Members of the Trade Federation get a better deal on taxes when dealing with certain governments than others. Naboo is "others".

The Trade Federation blockades Naboo in order to strangle their economy, and force a more favorable trade deal.

The Chancellor sends a couple Jedi to Naboo to straighten things out: when member states blockade one another, it's a major government weakness.

The Trade Federation knows they're doing something massively illegal, and that the Jedi will call them on it. So they panic and try to kill the Jedi.

The Jedi escape to Naboo.

The Trade Federation panics even more hardcore: they've just tried to murder Jedi who are also representatives of the Chancellor. This is an act of war against the entire Republic.

So they invade Naboo hoping to a) find the Jedi and b) force the Naboo government to quickly capitulate.

If the Naboo government had signed the treaty the Trade Federation had wanted, the Trade Federation would have basically owned Naboo. At that point, the Republic just sort of shrugs and decides that they've sorted out their own problems.

By militarily defeating the trade Federation, the Naboo are able to get a treaty signed where the Trade Federation owes damages, and admits war guilt.

Because Valorum is weak enough to have allowed an invasion of one state by another, his Chancellorship is at an end. Because Palpentine is was the Stalwart Defender of the Naboo, his prestige rises. That, combined with what is no-doubt a legendary intra-Senatorial campaign, allows him to take the Chancellorship.

Because the Republic government is shown to be unable to defend its members against the predation of the strong, the climate is ripe for Count Dooku to agitate for either succession or revolution.

I hope I don't sound condescending by saying that this is all Highschool level World History stuff.

Bold and underlined text is not true.

One of the Nemoidians says in the movie "You know this blockade is perfectly legal."

The point is not argued by Amidala.

Thanks for trying to explain it. I get real world issues but that whole thing you just explained does not 'feel' Star Wars.

If we want to talk about Tarantino...

He's a lot smarter of a director than I think he gets credit for. Look at Pulp Fiction. It's actually not a very violent movie. I mean that. Watch it again. It's a very tense movie, and the _threat_ of violence hangs over every scene. That sense of looming disaster is so omnipresent that we feel as though the movie as an assault on our senses. By drenching the movie in the threat the characters live under, the audience is forced into sympathy with the characters. The movie is about the way violence is ultimately dehumanizing. Brilliant.

Inglorious Basterds is even better. You want the movie to be "Tarantino's dirty dozen", and instead the movie is about you wanting the movie to be Tarantino's dirty dozen. Basterds is an extended meditation on the way Hollowood created our understanding of history, in a way that can utterly divorce it from reality. American Jews kill Hitler. That's what the movies have conditioned us to want from a WW2 movie. And so the murder of Hitler takes place in a movie theater.

Django was basically a way for Tarentino to call the Confederacy Nazis, over and over again. As such, I love it. By failing to engage with the reason history doesn't record more Djangos, though, the movie is something of a miss. It _is_ a fairy tale, rather than being _about_ a fairy tale. It would have been better as a legal drama.

I wish Tarantino would make a movie about the Vega brothers, like he said he might do once.

According to Bloomberg, Disney CEO Robert Iger thought the treatments "had a lot of potential."

"Yeah, George, I can definitely see these treatments have a lot of... er, potential. We'll just put them over here in a safe place, okay?

The Best use of the Disney Vault Ever!....... Ever!

Only as long as they NEVER let it out to see the light of day.....

According to Bloomberg, Disney CEO Robert Iger thought the treatments "had a lot of potential."

"Yeah, George, I can definitely see these treatments have a lot of... er, potential. We'll just put them over here in a safe place, okay?

The Best use of the Disney Vault Ever!....... Ever!

Only as long as they NEVER let it out to see the light of day.....

Let it rot alongside song of the south.

According to Bloomberg, Disney CEO Robert Iger thought the treatments "had a lot of potential."

"Yeah, George, I can definitely see these treatments have a lot of... er, potential. We'll just put them over here in a safe place, okay?

The Best use of the Disney Vault Ever!....... Ever!

Only as long as they NEVER let it out to see the light of day.....

Let it rot alongside song of the south.

What's wrong with Song of the south? Br'er Rabbit is a great character and... Oh the slavery thing... Yeah awkward...

Yeah happy slaves in the south after the American civil war has ended, but it's not just song of the south dunno has racism as do several old Disney films.

But we advance as a society learning from our mistakes, which is why we'll never watch a movie by Lucas again.