RANT.
Ugh. I've been watching the Star Wars movies showing on TV--and man does replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden really tick me off. I know it's supposed to tie the crappy prequels in with the original trilogy--but it doesn't even make sense.
THIS is the Anakin that's supposed to be 'light'? At this time in his development, he'd already slaughtered all the Tuskins--and potentially all the younglings. The only Anakin it would maybe make sense to show as 'light' or 'redeemed' would be Tatooine Kid Anakin--or super early Padawan Anakin. But you can't show him as Hayden/Anakin and have it make any more sense than Shaw. Really, it's SHAW/Vader who is redeemed--and only at the end of life. Showing Hayden is just a lame link to the prequels.
The more I think about the Prequels, the more I think they spectacularly suck in a giant suck-fest of suckage. And I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan. But all the pointless characters with build-up that went no where. Aurra Sing, Zam, the Diner scene, the Chancellor, underused Dooku and overused Windu. What was the point? the various subplots that are too complicated for a child to follow & too boring--also, the story lines. Bad dialog, wretched acting. Hello, Natalie?
The Anakin character failed to deliver. He was bad nearly immediately. There wasn't a slow degeneration--no opportunity to see him struggle against the dark side, or have a shattering moment of character reversal. Hayden or the writers or both just played him like a self-indulgent jerk from the beginning. He never seemed to be a 'good' kid who got corrupted. He seemed like a jerk who stayed a jerk and then ended up acting like a jerk and blah blah blah...yawn. Oh wait. He's worried Padme might die. And then he kills her.
Never believed Padme would fall for someone she first met when he was a chubbly little kid. Yuck. I'm thinking about kids I babysat for--and I wouldn't have wanted to sleep with any of them a few years later. She's a senator and Queen and has spent her whole life defending the rights of others, working with endangered populations--but her boyfriend slaughters a troop of Tuskins and suddenly she's fine with revenge/murder? Padme must be a lot more messed up than I thought--or was portrayed in the movies. It doesn't track with the character that she'd forgive him that atrocity. If we're supposed to believe it, then the movie's already failed to show plausible strong love between Padme and Anakin--or why Anakin's worth sticking with. Padme disintegrates from an awesome Leader and awesome Let Me Climb Up this Arena Pillar and Save Myself to weepy and useless. By episode III she's really only a womb.
Maybe if Anakin had been shown increasingly violent against Padme--abusing her/mistrusting her more as he descended into madness--slapping her, apologizing etc, then I'd have bought the sudden choking. I remember watching that scene and thinking "huh?" which totally took me out of the movie. There wasn't any emotional build-up, just scene after unfolding scene with no emotional grit.
You know a character that I totally believed as conflicted and desperate to balance himself--the guy who played the Goblin's son in the Spiderman flicks. Whoever that guy is nailed a tortured, conflicted persona. I totally believed his love/hate of Peter Parker, reluctant twisting into a new and terrible person. If the Anakin character had been played with that complexity, I would have cared about his fall. I would have at least believed the story I was being told.
Obi was a bitchy, snarky ass up to and throughout Anakin's training. He was incredibly patronizing. I'd have hated him as a master--and it didn't make sense for him to have such a passive-aggressive attitude toward Anakin. Jeez. I wanted to fight Obi by the end of the movie, just to make him stop being such a pissy girl.
The Jedi don't seem like guardians of peace, they seem ineffective and foolish. All that meditation and training for what? What's the point of the Jedi Council except to be dithering time-wasters and nay-sayers. How crappy was the training anyway if one pissed Jedi and a bunch of clones can kill them all? ALL those Jedi and no one suspects Anakin's turning dark? No one can penetrate the secrets he's keeping? Murder, revenge, sex, duplicity? Wait, let me guess--the 'dark side' masks it all. Remember the Arena? Got their butts kicked there too. Are these the B-Team jedi? The Jedi don't seem particularly special.
It even bothers me that Ben and Owen Lars sport robes on Tatooine that look like the outfits the Jedi are all wearing in the Prequels. I like the desert robes for the desert. That everyone wears them seemed like a heavy-handed nod toward samuri and fighting monks. I get it already.
Lava surfing. Really. This is how the big final fight goes down? Overly colorized and elongated computer images, unfathomable fight location--and a final fight that looks like they were testing out a Star Wars video game? What a disappointment. Lava surfing and stupid stunts don't make an impressive final lightsabre duel.
Midichlorians make me SO freaking irate I can't even go there.
MAN. I'm really irritated.
I wanted to love these movies. All the green screening must have really thrown the actors off--cause the overall emotional effect is tremendously flat. All the costumes and digital locations in the world can't make up for the fact that the story is overly padded in silly ways and lacking in grit and depth when it needs it. I'm actually becoming a fan of the Phantom Edit/fan edits. They restore the coolness I expect via good editing. Characters become more soulful, story lines tighten up. Ugh. It kills me that a franchise I love so much, whose existence literally saved my life when I was a kid, ended via the prequels on such a disappointing note.
I want Shaw back. And Han shoots first. And if those freaking Midichlorians had never been mentioned I think I'd be a lot more chill about the Prequels.
Ugh. I've been watching the Star Wars movies showing on TV--and man does replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden really tick me off. I know it's supposed to tie the crappy prequels in with the original trilogy--but it doesn't even make sense.
THIS is the Anakin that's supposed to be 'light'? At this time in his development, he'd already slaughtered all the Tuskins--and potentially all the younglings. The only Anakin it would maybe make sense to show as 'light' or 'redeemed' would be Tatooine Kid Anakin--or super early Padawan Anakin. But you can't show him as Hayden/Anakin and have it make any more sense than Shaw. Really, it's SHAW/Vader who is redeemed--and only at the end of life. Showing Hayden is just a lame link to the prequels.
The more I think about the Prequels, the more I think they spectacularly suck in a giant suck-fest of suckage. And I'm a HUGE Star Wars fan. But all the pointless characters with build-up that went no where. Aurra Sing, Zam, the Diner scene, the Chancellor, underused Dooku and overused Windu. What was the point? the various subplots that are too complicated for a child to follow & too boring--also, the story lines. Bad dialog, wretched acting. Hello, Natalie?
The Anakin character failed to deliver. He was bad nearly immediately. There wasn't a slow degeneration--no opportunity to see him struggle against the dark side, or have a shattering moment of character reversal. Hayden or the writers or both just played him like a self-indulgent jerk from the beginning. He never seemed to be a 'good' kid who got corrupted. He seemed like a jerk who stayed a jerk and then ended up acting like a jerk and blah blah blah...yawn. Oh wait. He's worried Padme might die. And then he kills her.
Never believed Padme would fall for someone she first met when he was a chubbly little kid. Yuck. I'm thinking about kids I babysat for--and I wouldn't have wanted to sleep with any of them a few years later. She's a senator and Queen and has spent her whole life defending the rights of others, working with endangered populations--but her boyfriend slaughters a troop of Tuskins and suddenly she's fine with revenge/murder? Padme must be a lot more messed up than I thought--or was portrayed in the movies. It doesn't track with the character that she'd forgive him that atrocity. If we're supposed to believe it, then the movie's already failed to show plausible strong love between Padme and Anakin--or why Anakin's worth sticking with. Padme disintegrates from an awesome Leader and awesome Let Me Climb Up this Arena Pillar and Save Myself to weepy and useless. By episode III she's really only a womb.
Maybe if Anakin had been shown increasingly violent against Padme--abusing her/mistrusting her more as he descended into madness--slapping her, apologizing etc, then I'd have bought the sudden choking. I remember watching that scene and thinking "huh?" which totally took me out of the movie. There wasn't any emotional build-up, just scene after unfolding scene with no emotional grit.
You know a character that I totally believed as conflicted and desperate to balance himself--the guy who played the Goblin's son in the Spiderman flicks. Whoever that guy is nailed a tortured, conflicted persona. I totally believed his love/hate of Peter Parker, reluctant twisting into a new and terrible person. If the Anakin character had been played with that complexity, I would have cared about his fall. I would have at least believed the story I was being told.
Obi was a bitchy, snarky ass up to and throughout Anakin's training. He was incredibly patronizing. I'd have hated him as a master--and it didn't make sense for him to have such a passive-aggressive attitude toward Anakin. Jeez. I wanted to fight Obi by the end of the movie, just to make him stop being such a pissy girl.
The Jedi don't seem like guardians of peace, they seem ineffective and foolish. All that meditation and training for what? What's the point of the Jedi Council except to be dithering time-wasters and nay-sayers. How crappy was the training anyway if one pissed Jedi and a bunch of clones can kill them all? ALL those Jedi and no one suspects Anakin's turning dark? No one can penetrate the secrets he's keeping? Murder, revenge, sex, duplicity? Wait, let me guess--the 'dark side' masks it all. Remember the Arena? Got their butts kicked there too. Are these the B-Team jedi? The Jedi don't seem particularly special.
It even bothers me that Ben and Owen Lars sport robes on Tatooine that look like the outfits the Jedi are all wearing in the Prequels. I like the desert robes for the desert. That everyone wears them seemed like a heavy-handed nod toward samuri and fighting monks. I get it already.
Lava surfing. Really. This is how the big final fight goes down? Overly colorized and elongated computer images, unfathomable fight location--and a final fight that looks like they were testing out a Star Wars video game? What a disappointment. Lava surfing and stupid stunts don't make an impressive final lightsabre duel.
Midichlorians make me SO freaking irate I can't even go there.
MAN. I'm really irritated.
I wanted to love these movies. All the green screening must have really thrown the actors off--cause the overall emotional effect is tremendously flat. All the costumes and digital locations in the world can't make up for the fact that the story is overly padded in silly ways and lacking in grit and depth when it needs it. I'm actually becoming a fan of the Phantom Edit/fan edits. They restore the coolness I expect via good editing. Characters become more soulful, story lines tighten up. Ugh. It kills me that a franchise I love so much, whose existence literally saved my life when I was a kid, ended via the prequels on such a disappointing note.
I want Shaw back. And Han shoots first. And if those freaking Midichlorians had never been mentioned I think I'd be a lot more chill about the Prequels.
