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Does the Star Wars series have only one good movie?

The first two movies (77 and Empire strikes back) are very good with occasional moments of weakness. Jedi is the same, except the for the hairy buggers on endor. They sucked.

The first three movies have moments of awesome, for example, TPM for all its weaknesses, the pod racing and lightsaber bits are great. However the weaknesses are more the the prequels.
 
Actually it's got two: Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Been pretty rough from Return of the Jedi and most everything made thereafter. The Clone Wars ain't too bad, though.
 
I think the worst thing in any of the STAR WARS movies has to be the painfully wooden romantic interaction between Anakin and Padme in Episodes II and III. Natalie Portman did the best she could with the crappy dialogue she was given, but it didn't help that Hayden Christensen is far from the most talented young actor on the planet. The fireside conversation between the two of them in CLONES is probably the most awkward and badly-acted moment in any of the prequels if not the entire saga...and that's saying something considering that people like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher aren't going to be nominated for acting Oscars or Emmys anytime soon.

It pains me to say this, but I can't get through this scene without laughing...and not for good reasons.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buyflmtHcHc&feature=related[/yt]
 
"I am haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me!"

:lol:

No wonder he turned to the Dark Side. It has better dialogue.
 
"My heart is beating, hoping that kiss will not become a scar."

Oh right, a scar. Good thing that didn't happen. :rolleyes:
 
That's why I don't care about A New Hope as much. Sure, I like Han Solo and Princess Leia. I grew up with them. But Ian McDiarmid is the best actor out of the whole six movies.

Wow, McDiarmid is a good actor, but better than Sir Alec... I don't see it. Colonel Nicholson, George Smiley, Kind Hearts and Coronets!

But take for a moment the shot in ANH where the Falcon is fleeing from a few Stardestroyers, and Han comments on how he knows a few maneuvers. We got a shot, of the Falcon doing next to nothing! Makes no sense, leaves people wondering on what Han's maneuver will be, and take the momentum out of it. George just wanted another space shot there. If it was a shot like, say the Falcon making a nose-dive like it did in Empire, it didn't take the momentum out of it and told a thrilling scene, with the audience cheering for Han's great maneuvers. That's GOOD pacing.

Interesting. Might that be the influence of action movies in the years since? Pacing didn't seem to be a big issue when Star Wars came out. Pauline Kael called it "relentless," Vincent Canby called it "breathless."

As for the lack of a Falcon "swan dive" or something like at that point in the movie, I always assumed Solo didn't have time to start his maneuvers before starting to lose a deflector. That scene has always seemed quite well-paced to me, actually.

Different directors? Haven't you heard, the auteur theory is dead, dead, dead and no one ever mindlessly cites the name of the director like they're actually saying something!:lol:

Even the most ardent critics of the auteur theory wouldn't go so far as to seriously suggest that the director's influence in the collaborative effort is so negligible that one is interchangeable with anther.



Justin
 
But take for a moment the shot in ANH where the Falcon is fleeing from a few Stardestroyers, and Han comments on how he knows a few maneuvers. We got a shot, of the Falcon doing next to nothing! Makes no sense, leaves people wondering on what Han's maneuver will be, and take the momentum out of it. George just wanted another space shot there. If it was a shot like, say the Falcon making a nose-dive like it did in Empire, it didn't take the momentum out of it and told a thrilling scene, with the audience cheering for Han's great maneuvers. That's GOOD pacing.

Interesting. Might that be the influence of action movies in the years since? Pacing didn't seem to be a big issue when Star Wars came out. Pauline Kael called it "relentless," Vincent Canby called it "breathless."

As for the lack of a Falcon "swan dive" or something like at that point in the movie, I always assumed Solo didn't have time to start his maneuvers before starting to lose a deflector. That scene has always seemed quite well-paced to me, actually.

Yeah. About that scene. I love that scene. A few remarks about it.

The motion of the starfield shows that the Falcon is actually turning. Plus, the idea is to go to light speed. Really fancy "maneuvers" should only be tried if they can't go to light speed quickly enough, e.g. as what happened in TESB.

Also, Han continues to work on the Falcon between ANH and TESB, ever modifying it, improving it. For all we know, the swan dive isn't even possible in ANH. (Perhaps we are meant to interpret the modifications to the Falcon as a kind of in-universe explanation for why it can perform so much better in the sequel than in the first film?)

[Ultra-Nerd Mode] I've analyzed that scene frame by frame and determined that the Star Destroyer footage appears to be the same as from the opening scene of the movie, but its mirror image. Hypothesis: They were seriously on a budget when making the movie, and this is one example of stretching it as far as possible. It's amazing they accomplished what they did. Frakking amazing. [/Ultra-Nerd Mode]

Of course the job of TESB is to top ANH along as many axes as possible. See the asteroid chase, which gave me a total nerdgasm.
 
J.T.B. said:
Pacing didn't seem to be a big issue when Star Wars came out.

We live in a more enlightened age. In those days people would actually put their social networking on hold for the duration of a film. Losers!

J.T.B. said:
Pauline Kael called it "relentless," Vincent Canby called it "breathless."

What the hell do they know? They were probably on drugs anyway. If they had had any sense they would have gotten on the Lucas hate bandwagon early, instead of retroactively looking really uncool.
 
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But take for a moment the shot in ANH where the Falcon is fleeing from a few Stardestroyers, and Han comments on how he knows a few maneuvers. We got a shot, of the Falcon doing next to nothing! Makes no sense, leaves people wondering on what Han's maneuver will be, and take the momentum out of it. George just wanted another space shot there. If it was a shot like, say the Falcon making a nose-dive like it did in Empire, it didn't take the momentum out of it and told a thrilling scene, with the audience cheering for Han's great maneuvers. That's GOOD pacing.

Interesting. Might that be the influence of action movies in the years since? Pacing didn't seem to be a big issue when Star Wars came out. Pauline Kael called it "relentless," Vincent Canby called it "breathless."

As for the lack of a Falcon "swan dive" or something like at that point in the movie, I always assumed Solo didn't have time to start his maneuvers before starting to lose a deflector. That scene has always seemed quite well-paced to me, actually.

Yeah. About that scene. I love that scene. A few remarks about it.

The motion of the starfield shows that the Falcon is actually turning. Plus, the idea is to go to light speed. Really fancy "maneuvers" should only be tried if they can't go to light speed quickly enough, e.g. as what happened in TESB.

Also, Han continues to work on the Falcon between ANH and TESB, ever modifying it, improving it. For all we know, the swan dive isn't even possible in ANH. (Perhaps we are meant to interpret the modifications to the Falcon as a kind of in-universe explanation for why it can perform so much better in the sequel than in the first film?)

[Ultra-Nerd Mode] I've analyzed that scene frame by frame and determined that the Star Destroyer footage appears to be the same as from the opening scene of the movie, but its mirror image. Hypothesis: They were seriously on a budget when making the movie, and this is one example of stretching it as far as possible. It's amazing they accomplished what they did. Frakking amazing. [/Ultra-Nerd Mode]

Of course the job of TESB is to top ANH along as many axes as possible. See the asteroid chase, which gave me a total nerdgasm.

The Falcon clearly did a maneuver.. it moved left. It's only in light of the swan-dive in the next film that anyone would have any reason to complain. Han couldn't make the jump if his ship was doing swan-dives. He was maneuvering just enough so that the Star Destroyer couldn't hit them. They were a small target, and he in essence made them a small.. moving target.. and not just moving forward. He only needed to buy a few seconds.
 
The Falcon clearly did a maneuver.. it moved left. It's only light of the swan-dive in the next film that anyone has any reason to complain. Han couldn't make the jump if his ship was doing swan-dives. he was maneuvering just enough that the Star Destroyer couldn't hit them. They are a small target, and he made them a small.. moving target.. and not just moving forward. He only needed to by [sic; buy] a few seconds.

Exactly.
 
The Falcon clearly did a maneuver.. it moved left. It's only in light of the swan-dive in the next film that anyone would have any reason to complain. Han couldn't make the jump if his ship was doing swan-dives. He was maneuvering just enough so that the Star Destroyer couldn't hit them. They were a small target, and he in essence made them a small.. moving target.. and not just moving forward. He only needed to buy a few seconds.

Not going to argue with that. I for one never had any issues with the Falcon's movements and maneuvers in the original film. Ther Falcon can't make the jump to hyperspace if it's bouncing all over creation making wild twists and turns. It has to be pointed in one specific direction when the jump takes place or else, as Han tells Luke, it might fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova. Hyperspace coordinates in the SW universe are a very exact science to avoid collisions with stellar and planetary bodies. And like you said, Han needed only a few seconds to finalize the coordinates from the navicomputer before he could hit the controls and jump the ship.

I swear, too many people judge the original film(and the whole classic trilogy)by the f/x standards of the prequels. If young Obi-Wan zipped through a field of asteroids and darted in and out of them like a mosquito then Han and Chewbacca have to fly the Falcon like a jerky, spastic bat out of hell or it won't look "realistic.":rolleyes: The effects in ANH were just fine, thank you very much. Not all of us need our spaceships to do 500 barrel rolls and leave a burning trail of plasma in order to be impressed and entertained.
 
The Falcon clearly did a maneuver.. it moved left. It's only in light of the swan-dive in the next film that anyone would have any reason to complain. Han couldn't make the jump if his ship was doing swan-dives. He was maneuvering just enough so that the Star Destroyer couldn't hit them. They were a small target, and he in essence made them a small.. moving target.. and not just moving forward. He only needed to buy a few seconds.

Not going to argue with that. I for one never had any issues with the Falcon's movements and maneuvers in the original film. Ther Falcon can't make the jump to hyperspace if it's bouncing all over creation making wild twists and turns. It has to be pointed in one specific direction when the jump takes place or else, as Han tells Luke, it might fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova. Hyperspace coordinates in the SW universe are a very exact science to avoid collisions with stellar and planetary bodies. And like you said, Han needed only a few seconds to finalize the coordinates from the navicomputer before he could hit the controls and jump the ship.

I swear, too many people judge the original film(and the whole classic trilogy)by the f/x standards of the prequels. If young Obi-Wan zipped through a field of asteroids and darted in and out of them like a mosquito then Han and Chewbacca have to fly the Falcon like a jerky, spastic bat out of hell or it won't look "realistic.":rolleyes: The effects in ANH were just fine, thank you very much. Not all of us need our spaceships to do 500 barrel rolls and leave a burning trail of plasma in order to be impressed and entertained.

I completely agree.

In fact, if I had to point out the only shot in ANH that they could have made better even back then was trying to convince us that "glitter" served as the asteroidal remains of Aalderan. They had good asteroids in the shot, but then used glitter or something for background ones. That's the only effect I personally didn't like.
 
The Falcon clearly did a maneuver.. it moved left. It's only in light of the swan-dive in the next film that anyone would have any reason to complain. Han couldn't make the jump if his ship was doing swan-dives. He was maneuvering just enough so that the Star Destroyer couldn't hit them. They were a small target, and he in essence made them a small.. moving target.. and not just moving forward. He only needed to buy a few seconds.

Not going to argue with that. I for one never had any issues with the Falcon's movements and maneuvers in the original film. Ther Falcon can't make the jump to hyperspace if it's bouncing all over creation making wild twists and turns. It has to be pointed in one specific direction when the jump takes place or else, as Han tells Luke, it might fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova. Hyperspace coordinates in the SW universe are a very exact science to avoid collisions with stellar and planetary bodies. And like you said, Han needed only a few seconds to finalize the coordinates from the navicomputer before he could hit the controls and jump the ship.

I swear, too many people judge the original film(and the whole classic trilogy)by the f/x standards of the prequels. If young Obi-Wan zipped through a field of asteroids and darted in and out of them like a mosquito then Han and Chewbacca have to fly the Falcon like a jerky, spastic bat out of hell or it won't look "realistic.":rolleyes: The effects in ANH were just fine, thank you very much. Not all of us need our spaceships to do 500 barrel rolls and leave a burning trail of plasma in order to be impressed and entertained.

I completely agree.

In fact, if I had to point out the only shot in ANH that they could have made better even back then was trying to convince us that "glitter" served as the asteroidal remains of Aalderan. They had good asteroids in the shot, but then used glitter or something for background ones. That's the only effect I personally didn't like.

That's true.

It's funny...and sad at the same time. Lucas wouldn't add anything to the Alderaan debris field to make it look more believable as a planetary graveyard, but he goes through all the digital trouble(in 1997 no less, when it was harder to do so and make it all look believable) to have Greedo shoot first. Typical. I guess we should just be glad he didn't insert Padme's ghost into the very end of JEDI and have her standing right next to Spirit Anakin.

Oh, shit.

I just gave Lucas an idea. [Vader] NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! [/Vader]

Unbelievable. The shit he actually should refine or change he doesn't. Aspects that were spot-on perfect the first time around he feels the need to alter.
 
I'd trade a hundred shots' worth of glitter just for Han to shoot first again. Lucas was freebasing pure, uncut Stupid the day he made that decision.

Worst change of the entire Saga. Makes adding Hayden Christensen's ghost to JEDI seem like the Rosebud sled reveal or James Caan at the toll booth in Jersey.
 
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