Biggest Star Wars Facepalm
- Thread starter TheLobes
- Start date
According to what he believed at the time, that would have meant condemning Padme to certain death.
Well, in my opinion, Empire made the Star Wars galaxy a bigger place, a place that felt lived in, where people can be betrayed and real drama can happen. So it was really disappointment to see Jedi feel like it was written by a computer whose program was to tidy everything up neatly, starting with the first third of the film where, instead of watching anything truly interesting play out, we are watching a giant slug for a long time, and Vader and his buddies feel like they are in separate film altogether from the heroes. Instead of the dialogue reflecting that these people are in a living, functional universe, almost everything that is said in the film is strictly exposition. It call it a film of arrivals, as more time is spent on arrivals than anything else. It starts out with a shuttle arriving at the Death Star. Then Vader walks out, so a lot of time is taken up with just him walking out. The scene has nowhere to go in terms of real momentum, and just ends. Then we see the droids arriving at the palace. Then we them given a tour of the place and what they'll be doing. Then Bousch (leia) arrives, then we have to see Luke arrive. Then we see the Emperor arrive on the Death star in a scene that looks and feels like the scene at the beginning of the film, and so far our main antagonists have done nothing. it's by the grace of god that we didn't see Luke arriving at Dagobah or the Rebel meeting. Then there is the shuttle arriving in orbit of Endor then on the moon. Everything just seems so pat. The only drama in the film is Luke and Vader and the emperor, but the previous film promised us that there wasn't just personal dramas, but that the galaxy itself was a setting where a lot can happen.
What I hated was how they pushed the heroes out of their own story. Somehow the rebels stolde an imperiel shuttle. Bothan spies learned important information. Both of these plot points are important and should have been shown on screen, with our main characters involved. If they had to keep the Tatooine rescue, imagine if the Empire had a garrison there, as a trap to lure Skywalker. In the ensuing rescue Luke learns some handy tips and the group steals the shuttle. It has a working code clearance for Endor shipments but that code won't last long before it's re-encrypted, and that is why the rebels must plan their attack, and why the Empire can actually set an effective trap.
Instead of something interesting like that, we get a lot of filler, a lot of arrivals, a lot of exposition, and a lot of cuteness. What is left is still very strong stuff, but, yeah, it's padded. That, coupled with some awful post production voice-looping makes Jedi a rather unpleasant film to watch. The speeder bikes and the final battles are fantastic, which is why the film is so frustrating.
What I hated was how they pushed the heroes out of their own story. Somehow the rebels stolde an imperiel shuttle. Bothan spies learned important information. Both of these plot points are important and should have been shown on screen, with our main characters involved. If they had to keep the Tatooine rescue, imagine if the Empire had a garrison there, as a trap to lure Skywalker. In the ensuing rescue Luke learns some handy tips and the group steals the shuttle. It has a working code clearance for Endor shipments but that code won't last long before it's re-encrypted, and that is why the rebels must plan their attack, and why the Empire can actually set an effective trap.
Instead of something interesting like that, we get a lot of filler, a lot of arrivals, a lot of exposition, and a lot of cuteness. What is left is still very strong stuff, but, yeah, it's padded. That, coupled with some awful post production voice-looping makes Jedi a rather unpleasant film to watch. The speeder bikes and the final battles are fantastic, which is why the film is so frustrating.
I think it's terrible, but I don't think it's worse than the original version.
3PO still wasn't sure where he was, and didn't know Luke from an Imperial probe droid.
It's apples and oranges. The original was a sleazy, proto-jazz kind of thing you would find in a skanky nightclub or a gangster's lair. The SE version had two singers, giant drums, dancers and was just completely out of place.
Yet he readily accepted him as his new master, making several comments to r2d2 to that effect. I'm not sure how not knowing where you are affects the ability to tell stories.
Was never a big fan of Chewie's "Tarzan" scream in ROTJ when he and the two Ewoks swung their way to the top of the walker. Just didn't seem right to me.
Pee- yeuza!
There is much wisdom in this. I'd like to see a Jedi fan edit someday that
- Does a cold open on the Vader arrival scene, then
- Opens properly on the sail barge, then
- Omits that pointless Palpatine arrival, thereby making Luke's first sight of him that much more dramatic, and
- Trims the Jawa silliness as much as possible.
Actually, "Lapti Nek" is a straight-up disco tune. There's nothing "proto-jazz" about it, unless, I guess, you first heard it when you were six years old and it made such an impression that you can't hear the song without conjuring the things you imagined when you were a kid.
The thing is, the camera zooms in on the torture droid's syringe, not giving you a look at what else it's got. I've seen the prop in person, and it's got various other nasty looking medical apparatus jutting out of it. It's also composed of two Artoo domes, so who knows what other nasties can pop out.
For me the big facepalm was when ROTJ became The Muppet Show at Jabba's.
Hayden Christensen opening his mouth.
At the time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to George Lucas being one of the worst "performance" directors currently working in cinema. Then I saw him in a couple of other movies and decided he was just a terrible, terrible actor.
At the time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and chalked it up to George Lucas being one of the worst "performance" directors currently working in cinema. Then I saw him in a couple of other movies and decided he was just a terrible, terrible actor.
Thank you!
I got tired of people saying "it's not Hayden's fault!!!" Granted, Lucas is terrible at working with actors. Just look at the performances of the big three in the first film and compare it to the second, and you can tell this.
But every other film I've seen Hayden in he is just as wooden as he is in the SW films.
The tinkering with the Greedo scene, hands down.
It's bad enough to have to sit through the b.s. in the other films (besides TESB), blue snoopy laughing in Jabba's palace, Ewoks dropping rocks on stormtroopers and having it work, Jar Jar, nausea-inducing young love, buzz droids, and so on. But to go back and undercut the original is just adding insult to injury.
It's bad enough to have to sit through the b.s. in the other films (besides TESB), blue snoopy laughing in Jabba's palace, Ewoks dropping rocks on stormtroopers and having it work, Jar Jar, nausea-inducing young love, buzz droids, and so on. But to go back and undercut the original is just adding insult to injury.
My own Star Wars related "facepalm" comes from the EU novels rather than the films themselves.
Del Ray spent 19 books of the New Jedi Order series establishing a new generation of characters to take the lead in stories and allow the movie characters to act more according to their age and experience.
And they did it quite successfully too only to then use the following novel series to kill off, corrupt or character assassinate the new generation.
Which results in the same tired old status quo of Han, Leia and Luke handling every single crisis that comes along, and renders the character building efforts of past authors completely pointless.
Del Ray spent 19 books of the New Jedi Order series establishing a new generation of characters to take the lead in stories and allow the movie characters to act more according to their age and experience.
And they did it quite successfully too only to then use the following novel series to kill off, corrupt or character assassinate the new generation.
Which results in the same tired old status quo of Han, Leia and Luke handling every single crisis that comes along, and renders the character building efforts of past authors completely pointless.
I often get the feeling that's a the heart of most of the anger against the Special Editions. Both songs are pretty terrible, though the special edition version has more energy to it (which may not be a good thing).
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