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Post by coldenhaulfield on Sept 28, 2018 4:29:29 GMT
Does he really think Padmé’s going to want to stick with him after he brutally murders pretty much everybody? Yes!
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:31:43 GMT
It’s nuts. Kill all the kids to save his kid(s)? Lacking all human emotion? OK, maybe the writing doesn’t quite warrant this change in Anakin’s character, but this is an excellent movie so far. I maintain it's not out of the blue or "in one scene" that Anakin turns -- or, rather, falls to the Dark Side. It's THE through line of his character, starting with the moment he's separated from his mother. I understand the point, but I wasn’t sold on it in this one movie: he seemed to be fine with Obi-Wan early on, and even after that marvellous scene with the Emperor-as-Mephistopheles, he didn’t seem any more apt to give in to evil just like that (“my master”), certainly not to the point of murdering children. It just doesn’t seem like the same man we’ve seen before. With that said, the imagery and the scope of this are amazing—and the general flow of it, the storyline, even if I don’t think the character arc is completely convincing.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:32:12 GMT
Does he really think Padmé’s going to want to stick with him after he brutally murders pretty much everybody? Yes! The dark side really does cloud everything. Innit?
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:33:11 GMT
Christensen’s performance has also improved in this movie. He’s still not the best for this, but he’s much better.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:34:31 GMT
I’m actually caught up with these people, concerned about them. Wow.
Did he really just kill Padmé?
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:40:28 GMT
The thing is, I can actually see Anakin turning into Darth Vader now. I couldn’t see the little kid or Christensten in Clones as Vader, but now I can. That’s impressive.
The lightsaber fight is perhaps too quickly edited, but just as pure artistic imagery… Wow.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Sept 28, 2018 4:42:56 GMT
The thing is, I can actually see Anakin turning into Darth Vader now. I couldn’t see the little kid or Christensten in Clones as Vader, but now I can. That’s impressive. The lightsaber fight is perhaps too quickly edited, but just as pure artistic imagery… Wow. One thing people give Hayden no credit for is how even and measured his delivery is, especially as Vader. People've called it "wooden," evidently oblivious to the fact that he's intentionally speaking like the sixty-year-old black man whose same cadence he's supposed to have going forward.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:46:30 GMT
The thing is, I can actually see Anakin turning into Darth Vader now. I couldn’t see the little kid or Christensten in Clones as Vader, but now I can. That’s impressive. The lightsaber fight is perhaps too quickly edited, but just as pure artistic imagery… Wow. One thing people give Hayden no credit for is how even and measured his delivery is, especially as Vader. People've called it "wooden," evidently oblivious to the fact that he's intentionally speaking like the sixty-year-old black man whose same cadence he's supposed to have going forward. Well, I definitely think a good deal of the performance, especially in Clones, was wooden. More apropos of emoting—he just couldn’t emote in that movie—than of the actual pitch and timbre of his voice, though even his idiolect seems somewhat off. (It’s not a Star Wars thing—he sounds like this in Shattered Glass.) But I agree that he’s definitely trying, especially for vocal control—modulating his voice to produce a very definite effect. In this one, at least.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:49:14 GMT
Oh, God, this is like a Dantean hell here.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Sept 28, 2018 4:54:01 GMT
One thing people give Hayden no credit for is how even and measured his delivery is, especially as Vader. People've called it "wooden," evidently oblivious to the fact that he's intentionally speaking like the sixty-year-old black man whose same cadence he's supposed to have going forward. Well, I definitely think a good deal of the performance, especially in Clones, was wooden. More apropos of emoting—he just couldn’t emote in that movie—than of the actual pitch and timbre of his voice, though even his idiolect seems somewhat off. (It’s not a Star Wars thing—he sounds like this in Shattered Glass.) But I agree that he’s definitely trying, especially for vocal control—modulating his voice to produce a very definite effect. In this one, at least. I love his performance in both movies, but I agree that he's even better in Revenge of the Sith. The shot of him marching, hooded, on the Jedi Temple with the 501st behind him is as good as anything in the original trilogy.
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Post by President Ackbar™ on Sept 28, 2018 4:54:47 GMT
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:56:32 GMT
OK, so everyone agrees that this is structured and shot like a horror movie, right?
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Sept 28, 2018 4:57:04 GMT
OK, so everyone agrees that this is structured and shot like a horror movie, right? Did you finish it?!
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 4:57:52 GMT
OK, so everyone agrees that this is structured and shot like a horror movie, right? Did you finish it?! Just about. They’re deciding what to do with the children.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Sept 28, 2018 4:59:31 GMT
Just about. They’re deciding what to do with the children. Okay. Didn't want to spoil anything, per se, but -- re: your Dante comment: "I think that this is the creator of Star Wars basically giving us the nucleus of his entire epic. You know? This is the Origin Story. We finally 'earned' this. You know, we watched The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but this is really where the galactic civil war is created, and this is where Darth Vader is born. It's where Luke is born; it's where Padme dies. It is such a critical moment in Star Wars, and this is the creator of Star Wars not answering to any studio, just creating what he wants to create the way he wants to create it." -- Bryan Young, Star Wars Oxygen podcast
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 5:01:12 GMT
The funeral is gorgeously shot.
The resemblance to Elaine of Astolat has to be intentional.
Dino-Man should be ashamed of himself.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 5:01:56 GMT
Just finished it.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Sept 28, 2018 5:02:27 GMT
The Circle is now complete.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 5:11:42 GMT
This isn’t a criticism—to the contrary—but this is the only one of the lot that left me without a smile on my face. Because it’s really well done, really very well done, and it’s not supposed to leave you with a smile on your face; evil wins. It’s not perfect (what is?), with Christensen’s voice and emoting still off, and I could probably find some nitpicks, but it’s a great film. Purely considered as scene-painting, mise-en-scène, it’s a masterwork.
Some general impressions, though: none of the prequels was as much fun as the originals. While I was regularly impressed with the staging, imagery, and set-design for all of them, The Phantom Menace struck me as somewhat pointless and Attack of the Clones somewhat badly filmed. (Still liked ‘em, though.) I think this is the only one of the three to compete with the originals just for pure quality, and fittingly there are rather clear cross-references to all three of the originals.
All the originals, even The Empire Strikes Back, left with a smile on my face; this is serious, and dares to take itself seriously. But I think the subtitle of Star Wars, “a new hope,” makes more sense now: the situation at the end of this movie seems pretty damn hopeless, but Luke is that one small hope in a sea of evils from Pandora’s box. I think that this movie, at least, makes the originals more satisfying and makes everything more wholistic.
It’s a good one. I’m delighted I saw these movies at long last.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 28, 2018 5:15:04 GMT
Just about. They’re deciding what to do with the children. Okay. Didn't want to spoil anything, per se, but -- re: your Dante comment: "I think that this is the creator of Star Wars basically giving us the nucleus of his entire epic. You know? This is the Origin Story. We finally 'earned' this. You know, we watched The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, but this is really where the galactic civil war is created, and this is where Darth Vader is born. It's where Luke is born; it's where Padme dies. It is such a critical moment in Star Wars, and this is the creator of Star Wars not answering to any studio, just creating what he wants to create the way he wants to create it." -- Bryan Young, Star Wars Oxygen podcast It’s pure auteurism, and it’s great. Oddly enough, with the Dante comparison, this is Dante and Virgil at the very center of hell, before they escape on Easter morning. Star Wars and The Empire Strike Back can represent Purgatory, then, and Return of the Jedi Heaven. Yes, of course I’m overanalyzing it!
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