Anakin's descent to the Dark Side is really uneven. He kills children in a fit of rage, and the movie presents it as a forgivable mistake, not as a complete atrocity. And Padme's lack of reaction when Anakin confesses paints her either as a sociopath or dangerously codependent.
Also, as awkward and dumb and Anakin and Padme's romance is, it could have been something really interesting. Anakin was raised by a bunch of stoic monks; Padme was was practically married to politics. Both of them have zero experience with romance. It would make perfect sense for them to have an awkward, dumb relationship. Look at Anakin's backstory: he's exactly the kind of doof who would hit on his dream girl by comparing her to sand.
But the rest of the movie frames their dialogue as if we're supposed to take it seriously. As if this were the a grand love story for the ages.
I'm not sure where George Lucas screwed up here. Whether he wanted to signal that Anakin and Padme's relationship was flawed from the beginning, and failed to make it clear that was intentional—or whether he was trying to give them beautiful young love, and he just failed at writing their dialogue.
IMHO 1 is the one I find myself having the most affection for, if only because the Maul fight scene is legitimately one of the great scenes of the series and for all its faults there is genuine charm in 1
3 is the most technically competent but boring as all hell and assumes audience understanding of character motivation that isn't dramatized
2 is one of the most unbearable films I've ever seen. An absolute pandering mess. All of the fight scenes are shit. The plot is overly confusing nonsense. Pretty setpieces are lost in the sound and fury of the bad fights and in the boggling, mind numbing dialogue.
I could buy episode 1 being better than 2. It's been long enough since i've watched them that it's hard to remember. I will never waver in my belief that episode 3 is the worst though. Of all the words that could describe a Star Wars movie, "boring" should be the absolute last one on the list.
I could buy episode 1 being better than 2. It's been long enough since i've watched them that it's hard to remember. I will never waver in my belief that episode 3 is the worst though. Of all the words that could describe a Star Wars movie, "boring" should be the absolute last one on the list.
Well yes, 3 is inexcusable boring. 2 is offensively, infuriatingly boring.
Something I said in an email conversation with Section:
Oddly enough, for all its faults, The Phantom Menace was the only PT film that really felt like the OT ones did, I think.
Even beyond the use of film vs. digital cameras, I think the shot framing and set designs were different enough that it subconsciously felt off. The clearest example I can think of is if you compare the interior of the Tattooine moisture farm in A New Hope with the return to that set from Attack of the Clones. In the 1977 version, Luke's home is a physical set, so all the equipment in the background doesn't do much, and certainly doesn't distract from the conversation in the foreground. For the 2000-whatever version, I don't know offhand if the set was entirely CG, or a physical set touched-up with CG, but the background suddenly has a lot more going on than the original did. In that scene where Anakin confesses to Padme about murdering a bunch of sandpeople, there are blinking, moving lights constantly behind the characters.
That kind of cinematography pops up all over Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Establishing shots of new locations would have random aliens mucking around in the foreground. Any scene inside a spaceship would have obtrusive blinking lights. During the big, climactic duel on Mustafar, Anakin leaps onto a platform floating above the lava--except for some reason, the platform is a floating droid, who fusses over having a Jedi on his head. It doesn't affect the duel at all; the CG people just didn't think a simple floating platform was interesting enough. I know the OT did that kind of thing sometimes, but not nearly as pervasively.
The guys creating the CG seemed to be operating under the philosophy that every time they could make a shot visually busy, they should do it, context be damned. (Cue that one clip RLM ran into the ground with Rick what's-his-name talking about how there was so much going on in every shot.) Sometimes this does work (like the battle scenes), other times it's outright distracting, and other times it only registers subconsciously. But on some level, it makes it harder to believe that Clones and Sith happen in the same universe as the original trilogy.
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3 is the most technically competent but boring as all hell and assumes audience understanding of character motivation that isn't dramatized
2 is one of the most unbearable films I've ever seen. An absolute pandering mess. All of the fight scenes are shit. The plot is overly confusing nonsense. Pretty setpieces are lost in the sound and fury of the bad fights and in the boggling, mind numbing dialogue.
Oddly enough, for all its faults, The Phantom Menace was the only PT film that really felt like the OT ones did, I think.
Even beyond the use of film vs. digital cameras, I think the shot framing and set designs were different enough that it subconsciously felt off. The clearest example I can think of is if you compare the interior of the Tattooine moisture farm in A New Hope with the return to that set from Attack of the Clones. In the 1977 version, Luke's home is a physical set, so all the equipment in the background doesn't do much, and certainly doesn't distract from the conversation in the foreground. For the 2000-whatever version, I don't know offhand if the set was entirely CG, or a physical set touched-up with CG, but the background suddenly has a lot more going on than the original did. In that scene where Anakin confesses to Padme about murdering a bunch of sandpeople, there are blinking, moving lights constantly behind the characters.
That kind of cinematography pops up all over Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Establishing shots of new locations would have random aliens mucking around in the foreground. Any scene inside a spaceship would have obtrusive blinking lights. During the big, climactic duel on Mustafar, Anakin leaps onto a platform floating above the lava--except for some reason, the platform is a floating droid, who fusses over having a Jedi on his head. It doesn't affect the duel at all; the CG people just didn't think a simple floating platform was interesting enough. I know the OT did that kind of thing sometimes, but not nearly as pervasively.
The guys creating the CG seemed to be operating under the philosophy that every time they could make a shot visually busy, they should do it, context be damned. (Cue that one clip RLM ran into the ground with Rick what's-his-name talking about how there was so much going on in every shot.) Sometimes this does work (like the battle scenes), other times it's outright distracting, and other times it only registers subconsciously. But on some level, it makes it harder to believe that Clones and Sith happen in the same universe as the original trilogy.