Other than Natalie Portman, the prequel trilogy has exactly three things going for it (A rant)

And they all occur in EPIII. EP's 1 and 2 should be stricken from the universe. But the three moments in EPIII are sufficient to redeem the entire film IMO. They are:

1. On Planet Volcano (or whatever) when Obi-Wan confronts Anakin with the truth:

"Chancellor Palpatine is evil," he cries.

"To my point of view, the Jedi are evil," replies Anakin.

"Then you are lost," says Obi-Wan.

MacGregor's delivery of this closing line really sells it, but much of the strength of the exchange derives from Obi-Wan's own words to Luke in EPV, when Kenobi observes that many "truths" depend upon one's point of view. It's a powerful moment in part because Lucas is usually so pig-clumsy with his film-to-film catchphases ("I have a bad feeling about this...") But here it works with uncharacteristic power.

2. Minutes later, when Obi-Wan laments that Anakin was meant to be the Chosen One. Aside from Anakin's lame quasi-parthenogenic origins, MacGregor again delivers the line with real anguish and grief. His delivery totally pulls it off, even in the face of Christensen's dreadful acting and Lucas' even worse direction. It's one of the only moments in which any part of the prequel trilogy really has any emotional impact upon the characters. Nearly everything else comes across as filler until we get around to the opening of EPIV.

3. When Anakin fires up his saber in the Jedi temple. The young Jedi-in-training recoils slightly, startled, and the purity of his reaction is more real than anything else in the prequel trilogy and IMO on par with anything in the original three films.


If Lucas had any actual skill as a director, instead of being a super-wealthy guy with a huge CGI erection, he'd have had the sense to capitalize on moments like these, rather than allowing them to slip in almost by random chance. EP1 and EP2 are sterile, emotionless video games in which the characters seem even less real than the computer generated spacecraft that they pilot.

I wish I could say that these three moments are enough to redeem the entire prequel trilogy, but they're not. But they're just about enough to make EPIII bearable, if you had to pick one of the three to watch again.

:hi:

Natalie Portman redeems the trilogy?! You have GOT to be kidding me, right? Only if she never opened her mouth! Geez, dude..Okay maybe she is attractive but I think it was a real hot competition between her and Christensen for worst acting EVAH. That whole monotone thingy she did in EP1? That was definitely a WTF thing especially as it disappeared in EP2 completely.

I agree that EP3 is not too bad, and yes, that moment of anguish from MacGregor was very well done. In fact I really enjoyed that whole volcano battle scene very much.

Finally here...on Lucas..."instead of being a super-wealthy guy with a huge CGI erection..."
Hehehehe...You said erection!!!:evilgrin: :silly:
(okay its late and I'm being childish....)

On edit: You are such a geek!

The acting sucked! The British actors were the only decent actors in the prequels.

First, she's smarter than I am by several orders of magnitude, which makes her hawt as hell right off the bat.

Second, she's hawt as hell right off the bat.

Third, she's a hardcore Liberal, so that adds to the hawtness, right off the bat.


If she were in a film that was nothing but her reading court transcripts from cases about disputed zoning ordinances, I'd so be there.


No, her acting wasn't exactly stellar in the trilogy, but it's not as though the role was well written. Anakin's role, at least, had the potential for some fine acting, but it was botched utterly by two young actors who simply lacked the chops for such a weighty role.

smarter than you by several orders of magnitude? Well thats not hard.....:P
And as for the other stuff..about reading court transcripts there is only one rational response to that...Men!!:eyes: (deja vu: I said that to a very smartmale family member saying almost the same thing about Natalie Portman...she could opened her mouth and made squeaking noises and she'd still be interesting...)

It was like Cabaret or something

The part where Obi-Wan chops off three Anakin's limbs, Anakin falls to the ground and he catches on fire. That scene right there almost made up for the roughly six and a half hours of near crap leading up to it. What does George Lucas do to ruin even that moment? He fucking puts Hayden Christensen into the last scene of Return of the Jedi.

seeing Hayden hanging with Yoda/Obi Wan in spirit forum, I choked on my soda when I saw that part....

"And I'm Hayden Christensen!"

Senator Amidala was responsible for bringing together the "Alliance" who initially opposed Palpatine in the Senate.
All of those scenes with her and Senator Organa bringing this alliance of senators was cut.

Watching those deleted scenes affirmed a simple truth I've believed in for a long time: George Lucas is an idiot.

But you're right. Ewan McGregor's performance was the best part of Ep III.

I don't think that they're on my disc, but I'm not sure which of the half-dozen money-grubbing releases I picked up.

When I saw that nearly every scene had Portman in it, I realized why her part in Episode III was so sucky: Lucas cut most of her good scenes out.

I have the widescreen two-disc set, but I just assumed that disc two was three hours of Lucas congratulating himself and wondering why no one understands his genius.

I'll have to check it out.

Thanks!

And it talks about the "choice" they made to cut some other scenes, especially those at the end of the movie.
To quote Lucas regarding the cut scenes (I'm paraphrasing here) 'the movie's all about the twins now. Nothing else matters.'

Not even showing Yoda's arrival on Dagobah and the look of quiet, sad resignation in his CGI face. It was a frivolous scene, and we know he goes to Dagobah. But...it's Yoda.

Lucas is an idiot.

The foisting of the twins could easily have been handled with three seconds of dialog.


Done. No need for effects shots. No need for bombastic orchestral scores as the Tantive races to Alderaan. Lucas himself said of Yoda that "we know where he goes" so there's no need to show it. Ditto for the kids; we know where they go, so there's no need to show it.

Also, the deleted scenes with Padme are interesting as backstory, but I have to agree with Lucas that they would have diverted the film from the central story. Besides which, the three prequels already had more than enough plodding, bureaucratic dialogue, so little would be gained by the addition of three scenes that don't really pertain to the story at hand.

Still, that doesn't excuse Lucas for utterly failing to write Padme as a convincing or interesting character.

It's amazing that of all of the millions of people who've seen the Star Wars films, George Lucas is the person with the weakest grasp of them.

They took the meat out of her part. AND, it would have been a great film-to-film link with Leia: she's continuing helping the Rebellion her mother started.

That pissed me off, too.
Amidala was key to the initial resistance to Palpatine, but did Lucas care?
Nooooooo. He wanted to focus on the angst-riddled moron who whines at the drop of a lightsaber.

I also have a feeling Lucas never did more than one take per scene and that McGregor was the only one that could pull it off the right way on the first try.

This may or may not be true, but apparently, McGregor was on set for his first lightsaber fight scene. While they were filming the scene, Lucas was getting more and more agitated. After several moments of this, he said "cut" and walked away from the set to cool off, visibly mad.

Someone walked up to McGregor and whispered to him "You're making the noise. It's making George mad."

:rofl:

What kid who grew up on Star Wars and then managed to land a role as a Jedi Knight wouldn't be making the vroom sound effect every time they waved their prop lightsaber in a fight? Even on film?

Maybe that's why McGregor was so good: he'd been looking forward to this role for a while. I have to agree with the OP: McGregor's performance in the prequels was consistent, and of good quality. Especially when compared to the rest of it all.

:rofl:

by the fact that we had already seen that line a hundred times in the trailer before we ever saw the movie.

And anyway, the whole "Chosen One" riff has been done to death a thousand times over.

But when you're looking for bright spots in the prequel trilogy, you don't have a lot to choose from...

Unfortunately after hearing that line hundreds of times before, not to mention hearing the guys at work doing their best imitations of it over and over again... it just kinda lost some of its power.

Maybe if I don't watch the movie for a year or two then come back it'll be powerful again. :P

You Dumbass!

Obi-wan "Chancellor Palpatine, Sith Lords are our speciality... you dumbass!"

Natalie Portman: "Anakin nobody dies in childbirth anymore, not on Coruscant... you dumbass."

Anakin: "Is it possible to learn such power?"
Palpatine: "Not from a Jedi... you dumbass!"

Mace: "He's too dangerous to be left alive.. you dumbass!"

Yoda: "At an end your rule is.. and not short enough it was... you dumbass!"

"Did you find his body? Then he's not dead... you dumbass!"

Obi-wan: "Anakin my allegiance is to the Republic to DEMOCRACY!... You Dumbass!"

Obiwan: "You were the chosen one!... YOU DUMBASS!"

Vader: "NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!... you dumbass!"

I wish there was a good antidote to Lucas' directorial dickery.

MacGregor and McDiarmid, acting wise, carried the film.

The sadistic smirk from Palpatine after Vader's birth tantrum was chilling.