Quote:
Originally Posted by Beast
And those exact same complaints can be equally transfered to the OT.
Except that some people have put those films on a pedestal, and refuse to see the flaws.
The OT is just as cheesy and corny as the PT. And the non-SE versions of the OT don't hold up well in the Special Effects department either.
In the end, the PT is not lacking anything. It's just the jaded mindset of many of it's detractors when compared to the so-called Holy Trilogy.
|
There are major differences here. You seem to think that any and every complaint that someone makes about the PT can be equally transferred to the OT, but that's simply not the case.
I don't deny that the OT has it's flaws and lesser aspects. Still, at the end of the day, it does seem that George Lucas accomplished more with less with the originals compared to the PT.
Many of the problems with the OT films can really be attributed to the limitaions of the time. Both FX technology and the budget for them were limited (especially with ANH). Lucas was flying by the seat of his pants making them (again especially with ANH). Even the lightsaber battle, which is easily the weakest of all 6 movies in terms of "action" can be excused by the fact that it was the first time he was filming something like that, and he had a guy in a really stiff suit battling an old man.
The slower pace of ANH (which you often complain about) can even be attributed to the way movies were typically made back at that time. In general movies just seemed to have a slower pace back in the 70s and before hand (there are expections, but not many). Heck, by the standards of the time, ANH was actually a rather fast paced movie compared to most. While there were expections, in general going into the 80s and beyond, during the time after Star Wars came out is when the general pacing of the average movie seemed to pick up.
And most of these problems with ANH are still present in the updated versions. There's only so much that adding new CGI effects can do to improve those things.
Also most of the actors were relative unknowns with minimal acting experience. So, even if their performances weren't perfect, I think they did a good job overall. I also think that (in general) they improved from film to film in the OT. Having other directors doing the 2nd and 3rd OT movies helped in that respect. Though, I would say that even in ANH, the actors gave relatively believable performances overall. Luke was a little too whiney... that's probably the biggest complaint that I have about that. But still, they seemed to try to envoke real emotion when possible in their performances. While not flawless, I would still say that the performances as a whole were more convincing than most in the PT.
In the PT, the performances just seemed.... hollow for the most part. They often felt more like people reading lines off of a page than actually "acting" them out (even "cheesey" acting would be more desirable than this "hollow" acting).. And most of the actors in the PT were all relatively well-known actors who have had many good/great past rolls. It's hard to really blame the actors, themselves, for those problems given their past experience. The few good performances seemed to mainly come from OT actors who already knew their characters (i.e. Palpatine, Yoda, C3PO). I will say that while he was a pretty straight forward character without any real "stand-out" personality traits, Liam Nissan did a good job of acting in the Qui Gon roll. His performance was more convincing than most (even though I do feel that the character was rather pointless and was performing a roll that other character(s) should have been performing). But still, most of the rest of the PT performances, particularly by the "human" characters were pretty bland.
It's as if George Lucas (who already wasn't really an "actor's director") lost a good chunk of what ability he had to direct actors between making ANH (the only OT movie that he actually directed) and then working on the prequels.... or he just did much more of a half-assed job than he did before.
Another possibility is that since the PT contained more experienced actors, perhaps they were more used to getting much more specific direction from the director than they were getting from Lucas, which attributed to the more "hollow" performances. By contrast, the cast of the OT at the time of the filming of ANH were relative unknowns, not necessarily used to a specific process in terms of being directed, so they perhaps took what direction they were given and went further with it than the PT actors did. This is pure speculation, but it is a possibility.
I also don't think the PT actors basically being surrounded by blue/green screens most of the time (as opposed to the OT actors being on actual sets that looked like the places that they were supposed to be in) did a whole lot to help the performances.
The bottom line is that most of the problems with the OT can be and should be overlooked largely because they were due to the limits of the time within which they were made. None the less, they were ground breaking for what they were at the time and blew most everyone away.
By contrast, the PT was relatively mediocre for it's time and was received with largely mixed reviews.
The bottom line is that given the money and resources that he had available to him, there is really no good reason why the PT movies weren't A LOT better than what we ended up with. I can overlook the issues with the OT given the limitations that they were made within. Those same limitations no longer applied when the PT was made. The problems with it pretty much fall squarely on Lucas's shoulders, and not due to circumstances beyond his control.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
The changes made on these movies since the Special Editions would required so much work to be done on the originals but for some reason they just can't seem to understand that. Even more so since 1997 Lucas as been saying left and right that the true version of Star Wars are the Special Editions, god forbid the creator should say such things. After 15 years hearing the man who created the movies saying that the true versions are the special editions I would think someone would have caught on by now?
) Fanboys just aren't the biggest demographic. However, there are probably some people who would remaster the originals for free. I'm sure their out there. Otherwise, bunch of good points; hence why I have little to no problems with the special editions. I did get the 2006 DVDs but I didn't get the 2004 set (I got the bonus DVD separately from Amazon Marketplace) because I hoped for the originals. Now, I'm just going for it.
. This will be worth the wait...unless the video or audio quaility stinks. However, I seriously doubt that would happen on Lucas' watch. This will rock. To help with the wait, I'm getting the second season of The Clone Wars as well as the third, which will probably come out before this set. Anyway, great show to help sate your need for HD Star Wars, which does have HD clips of the movies. Also, get Spike HD. It has a marathon of Star Wars at least every month or two, so that helps. Hopefully, that helps until we get this set.
Linear Mode
