They didn’t have to be Shakespeare. The dialog in the originals was nothing special, but at least it was delivered properly and NATURALLY. All the characters felt real in those first 3 films. The good guys were likeable and the bad guy was truly menacing. Leia and Han’s relationship didn’t feel forced or scripted and when he’s about to be frozen, in Empire, you could see the pain in Leia’s face. There is definitely a difference in the quality of performances between the originals and prequels.
I think that’s because the scene you are talking about wasn’t scripted. If I recall correctly, the scripted dialog was trite/cliched/horrible. Harrison Ford refused to do it that way, and ad-libbed his ‘I know’ response. It went over well, and stuck. So yeah - it wasn’t forced or scripted and was natural :) Or I’m just repeating mythical internet rumors, in which case, sorry.
I think the script had him saying “I love you too” or something to that effect and he refused to say that.
Irvin Kirshner himself said that Harrison Ford changed the line, so it seems likely.
That’s quite ballsy for a carpenter with no real acting background, and that it worked so well in that scene. You get the feeling there were just too many (as in all?) ‘yes men’ around the creation of all the prequels.
It’s not like he just came out on the first take & refused to say the scripted line. They all could see it wasn’t working well, and in the process of retooling the scene, Ford played it in character & solved the problem himself.
As to the “yes men” problem, the story recounted on the Attack of the Phantom commentary track says that one employee, after having made some suggestions for ways to change & improve a scene, found himself without a parking space the next day—cowardly boss code for “you’re fired.” But lack of “yes men” is an understatement. Rick McCallum’s job title may as well have been Professional Ass Kisser.
the final awesome review of the last of the prequels, Episode III (the ‘best’ one):
Thanks for sharing that. That was really good. I recently saw your link to the Episode 2 review by the same guy. He does a great job in explaining why I found the action scenes and dialog scenes so boring during these two movies. It was interesting to see him go into the intricacies of movie making i.e. shot framing, green screen limitations, etc.
Now I’m tempted to see his Episode I review too. Mostly I was staying away from that one because I actually enjoyed that movie. There was a lot in it that didn’t work for me, but certain things that did work were thrilling: the pod racing sequence, the light saber fight at the end, and John Williams’ new musical contribution. It made that movie memorable and enjoyable for me despite not liking the gungan battle, the space battle, jar jar, and a bunch of other things. Some of the smaller things I also enjoyed or didn’t mind: I loved Greedo, I liked the sarcastic race announcers, I loved the calm and confidence that Liam Neeson’s character projected, and I didn’t mind Darth Maul being a kind of empty foil who we knew nothing about (it wasn’t necessary for him to still feel like a true threat because of the skills he exhibited, which we’d never seen before in the original Star Wars movies.
Those are the kind of intangibles that determine whether you feel invested in the action on the screen, and for the last light saber fight and the pod race I felt fully invested, so they really worked for me. I never felt invested in any sequences in Episodes 2 And 3, by contrast.
Thanks for the link Zak! For some reason I though RLM had done episode 3 already…
I still love how his reviews are as long or longer than the films they review
I think if i had one criticism of his critiques it would be that he covers much of the same ground in each of them, but as they all suffer from the same kind of problems (namely that George Lucas made them at this time in his life) that is kind of understandable. On balance i found all his reviews of the prequels, and the reasons he hated them, pretty much in line with my own disconnect with them. So i just try really hard to pretend they don’t exist and i never watched them (i certainly do go back and watch them anymore!).
Filming will begin in May. Official PR:
http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-vii-set-to-roll-cameras-may-2014.html
Disney and Lucasfilm are excited to announce that principal photography on Star Wars: Episode VII, directed by J.J. Abrams, will commence May 2014, and will be based at London’s historic Pinewood Studios.
…
It has also been confirmed that Star Wars: Episode VII is set about 30 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and will star a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces. No further details on casting or plot are available at this time.
Star Wars: Episode VII will release in theaters on December 18, 2015.
No doubt it’s set 30 years later because it is 30 years later, and hence if the original leads make cameos they can look their ages.
Why did I click on this? I had blissfully forgotten how completely awful the “You’re so beautiful” scene in Revenge was… Aargh.
Awful, I’ll grant, but for my money the absolute low point of the entire series is still Anakin’s “I hate sand” bit from ep 2.
groans…well it IS a difficult time, when you are young and in love for the first time, especially with a beautiful women…so maybe it was kind of ‘honest’ in it’s clumsy-foot-in-mouthness?
And no i don’t believe that for a second either.
I bought Anikin Episode III far more than the brat in Episode II.
The sad thing is the downfall is all in the book. He was already in the downward spiral…really from childhood, and Count Dooku’s execution is just the cherry on top.
With some editing of I and II, you can easily show Anikin’s dark side tendencies. There is a cut scene from I of him beating the crap out of a Rodian. If you remove dialog at the end of I he turns into a pretty scary kid that is a mass murderer.
Episode II has a ton of problems, but a couple of well placed nukes… ‘sand’ for example, and took away some of the wine at the beginning, you could actually buy into his fumbling teenagehood.
The issue for me is that no matter what dialog is added or subtracted, I just can’t buy the immediate willingness to kill the Jedi children when Anakin turns.
“I am enraged because my mother just died. I will immediately massacre the grunting, non-human Sand Raiders!”
“Oh crap! Master Windu is going to kill the only person that may be able to save Amidala! I better stop him!”
I get these.
“Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. I guess I’ll kill all the innocent younglings because this asshole says I should.”
This makes no sense to me.
I always figured turning to the dark side was like a major mental illness; You just go crazy. I really hate myself for writing those two sentences.
I agree with you on both counts, what makes sense and what doesn’t.