Ah, the holiday special. I haven't been able to face it again. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, this is the one with the Wookie cooking show? I remember seeing it many years ago, airing on tv. I may consider watching the Rifftrax version, seen here:
http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/star-w ... ay-special
Can't get the sample to play on this one, sadly.
As for the hate for the prequel trilogy, well, life's too short to squander hate on a movie. That said, I can understand the disappointment in a lot of it. Phantom Menace wasn't bad. The story seemed to be reasonably cohesive and clicked along pretty well, despite the presence of Jar Jar, who, though it has become trite, has a presence that simulates the sensation of chewing tinfoil. Attack of the Clones was probably the worst because it lost that cohesion. Even in the immersive, reasonably focused environment of the theater, I found it hard to follow. If we had simple been following Obi-Wan's search for the blanked out part of space, thus receiving a clearer idea of what this mysteriously commissioned clone army was supposed to portend (I still don't know exactly what the implications were or what was really going on, something to do with Darth Sidius, obviously, but still?) or if the Skywalker plotline had been better interwoven with the large picture, that would have helped. I could make a long list of reasons why the Anakin/Padme plot was so bad. In fact, here's just my reasons, I'm sure others have more:
Padme is, supposedly, a woman sharp enough to achieve executive public office at 14 and to maintain a senatorial office ever since. Yet she falls for a not-particularly attractive teenaged boy she once knew as a kid, a boy whose primary personality trait smacks of a snotty, spoiled brattiness he didn't even achieve as a child.
To aggravate the difficulty we have in accepting this, it's also against the law in some way for her to have this dalliance with him. Yet, once again, smart and responsible Padme does little but scowl a few times as if filling a quota before succumbing to his charms. And that raises another question...
What charms? I've mentioned his okay looks, but he has nothing that bears any resemblance to the charisma a lot of us would have expected him to have, given the woman he is supposed to have seduced into going against her better judgment and marrying him. I hate to even suggest it, because I certainly would not prefer it, but his approach to her smacked more of a stalker, someone who would produce his Jedi-potential twins through an eventual rape.
Finally, and so important this is, Hayden Christiansen can't act.
Don't get me wrong, I think he can learn. But will he, now that he's been assured that he's good enough to star in major blockbuster movies? He didn't fail in every respect, mind you. He can be an angry little jerk REAL good. But with Natalie Portman, he had zero chemistry. There was something there, mind you, something that would put a woman off rather than attract her. He certainly looked like he wanted her, in a very teenaged way.
Had George Lucas chosen to make Skywalker's lady be someone less lofty and unattainable, I don't think it would have been so far-fetched. If he had given Anakin a little charm, either by writing or casting, we could have bought it. But their scenes still would have been cliched and strained and would have detracted from the whole story... so the best thing he could have done was to work it in a bit better.
It really was just a sub-plot. Seems like a lot of fuss to make over a sub-plot, but it really bothered me that a man of Lucas's past achievements should make such a rambling, discombobulated story after having so many years to ponder how to do it.
The third movie mostly needed to tell more of the story in an active way... even in writing you really want to explain as much as possible through events, rather than exposition. In a visual form, you certainly want to make sure that your most dynamic character isn't spending all his time discussing things with everyone and talking dully of his bland love for his pretty wife who mushes all over him yet seems to have no warmth whatever toward him... I swear I don't know how she did that...
But yes, it wasn't the worst made of the movies... but what a dark flick. As it should have been.
The Christmas special was cheesy as heck. It was only brought up to get a discussion going. But the prequels were irritating enough to make a lot of people wonder if it could be true...
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"Pack up my head, I'm goin' to Paris!" - P.W.
The world loves diversity... as long as it's pretty, makes them look smart and doesn't put them out in any way.
There's the road, and the road less traveled, and then there's MY road.
15 Feb 2009, 10:35 pm
