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Started By
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re: Is casting a 9 year old as young Anakin the worst casting decision of all time?
Posted on 5/4/20 at 11:44 am to TheTideMustRoll
Posted on 5/4/20 at 11:44 am to TheTideMustRoll
quote:
who Natalie Portman finds herself strangely attracted to?
This is the first of many problems with their relationship. She looks 18ish and he looks 9. Yet the movie insists on putting out the seeds of attraction and then AOTC basically jumps straight into them being into each other like the last thing we saw wasn't a massive age difference.
2
Posted on 5/4/20 at 11:44 am to TheTideMustRoll
quote:
Anakin in the prequels should have been a character in the same mold as Dacre Montgomery's Billy from Stranger Things - an arrogant young shithead with a ton of charisma. It would have been easy to see that character transition into Darth Vader. He's better than everyone else at the Force and that makes him think he's better than everyone else at everything, and all problems could be solved if everyone would just shut the hell up about "the Senate" and "the Jedi Code" and get the frick out of his way. That kind of character would be easy for Palpatine to subtly manipulate into becoming Vader because he truly believed it was the right thing to do. Instead we got, "I had a really bad dream! TIME TO KILL CHILDREN."
Now this is what I come here for.
Age solves so many things, namely the creepy start of the Anakin/Padme relationship.
It’d have made so much more sense to start their romantic angst in PM with a cocksure Anakin who’s “hot, a self-strained pilot, and overall badass” that Padme isnt used to being around due to her stifled, kush palace upbringing. And it makes Yoda not wanting him trained make more sense. Also makes his relationship truly seem more like a brotherhood thing that a quasi-father/son relationship.
Now.. Lucas’ shitty dialogue still needs fixing though but much easier with two characters of the same age.
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 11:45 am
Posted on 5/4/20 at 11:58 am to BitBuster
quote:
I really don't understand how a billion dollar franchise could screw it up that badly.
Because you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of the prequels. The prequels were not to tell the interesting back story of Darth Vader.
The prequels were set up from the beginning to broaden the "brand" and sell toys. He had already gotten there by Return of the Jedi, but the foundation was so good, it was virtually impossible to fail with the third installment. Plus, he still had decent creative folks around him at Lucasfilm and associated groups.
He had eliminated all but the arse-kissing "Yes" men by the time of the prequels and it showed.
His distaste for long-standing fans of the franchise was brazenly on display with his ludicrous "improvements" to the originals with the "Special Edition" version of the OT.
I agree with others that casting Jake Lloyd was very low on the list of things wrong with The Cartoon Menace.
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 1:04 pm
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:01 pm to BitBuster
quote:
Things that would have been more believable if Anakin would have been 14.
-Built C3PO
It’s not the characters age that makes Darth Vader building C3PO stupid
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:02 pm to Rep520
quote:
This is the first of many problems with their relationship. She looks 18ish
I believe Portman was 15 when it was filmed. But I agree it was handled poorly.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:07 pm to RLDSC FAN
She was born in 1981, though i think they say the character Queen Amidala is elected at 14 . 
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 12:08 pm
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:07 pm to RLDSC FAN
quote:
I believe Portman was 15 when it was filmed. But I agree it was handled poorly.
Googling, it looks like she was 16-17 during filming and it released when she was 18.
My major point is she seemed fairly adult in a lot of ways, like becoming queen, and he was clearly a little kid. It's a really bad foot for a romance to jump off on. It's all done so directly too, you feel like Lucas didn't even see why this might be weird.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:20 pm to BitBuster
quote:
Yes, the "Are you an Angel?" exchange when he first meets Padme is ultimate cringe. I think Lucas came up with that after reading a book on cheesy pick-up lines.
More like “you know where we should inject some completely unnecessary religious allusions? Into this inappropriate, hamfisted flirtation I’ve poorly written between a 9 year old and a 16 year old. I NEED to explain that angels are just space sirens and next I’m going to explain that the force is just a blood type...”
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 12:22 pm
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:21 pm to H-Town Tiger
It was so freaking awful. Lucas cannot write love stories. He should've brought in some writers to help him out.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:27 pm to RLDSC FAN
I’m not so sure he can write non love stories either. Dude is the ultimate example of a guy who kind of had a good idea based on an amalgam of western and samurai tropes that other people came in and made really good (ILM, Kershner, Brackett, Kastan, John Williams, etc). Which is completely fine except he took the universe that the whole group contributed to making into a medium rare filet mignon and turned it into a happy meal because he could offer a toy in the box.
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 12:28 pm
Posted on 5/4/20 at 12:31 pm to tylerdurden24
For the first 2 and a half movies he had people telling him honestly what worked and helping him write and create. For the prequels he had Rick McCallum, the ultimate yes man. No one dared stop him or tell him what he was doing sucked. They green lit everything because he had all the money and listened to no one.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 2:10 pm to BitBuster
quote:
-Destroys the power generator ship
This always bothered me. I believe that Lucas wrote a first draft, and one of his people after reading it said "Uh, George? It says here that Anakin is 9 years old, but Obi Wan told Luke in the first movie that Anakin was already an accomplished pilot when he first met him."
"Did he really?" George replies.
"Yes sir."
"shite. Well I can fix that easily" as he pencils in Anakin destroying the generator ship. "Now THIS is podracing!"
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 2:14 pm
Posted on 5/4/20 at 2:18 pm to BitBuster
The material was very, very bad. I doubt any other actor could have salvaged it.
Look at the following movies and the interactions with Padme and Anakin. Natalie Portman is a great actress; Hayden Christensen, while not amazing, had these for a movie he starred in literally between Episodes II and III:
Face it, Lucas is a great idea man but a terrible script writer. When he was new and making the first three movies, he listened to a lot of people who steered him away from bad ideas. By the time the prequels came out, he was so wealthy and being told he was so amazing, he took way more control and ended up making 2 bad movies and 1 decent-to-good one.
Look at the following movies and the interactions with Padme and Anakin. Natalie Portman is a great actress; Hayden Christensen, while not amazing, had these for a movie he starred in literally between Episodes II and III:
quote:
Las Palmas Film Festival – Best Actor (shared with Peter Sarsgaard)
Nominated – Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
Face it, Lucas is a great idea man but a terrible script writer. When he was new and making the first three movies, he listened to a lot of people who steered him away from bad ideas. By the time the prequels came out, he was so wealthy and being told he was so amazing, he took way more control and ended up making 2 bad movies and 1 decent-to-good one.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 3:35 pm to boxcarbarney
quote:
"shite. Well I can fix that easily" as he pencils in Anakin destroying the generator ship. "Now THIS is podracing!"
Just had to quote this because your Rick Hunter avatar is awesome. Long live Macross!
Posted on 5/4/20 at 3:59 pm to skrayper
quote:
Natalie Portman is a great actress; Hayden Christensen, while not amazing, had these for a movie he starred in literally between Episodes II and III:
It goes further than that. Neeson, McGregor, McDiarmid, Sam Jackson...there are a lot of actors in the prequels that have done good work outside the prequels.
Yet, they all wind up looking wooden and reading stilted dialogue. It's obvious where the issues came from.
The emotional climax of the best movie of the trilogy has these quotes:
Anakin Skywalker: Love won't save you, Padme. Only my new powers can do that.
Padmé: [crying] I don't know you anymore! Anakin... you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow!
And of course:
Again, that's the best movie of the 3.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 4:17 pm to BitBuster
Had the maul fight and duel of fates not been in it..could've been on mystery science theater
Posted on 5/4/20 at 4:21 pm to Rep520
Except Ewan. I don’t k ow how that man did it. But he made every line of his work.
Posted on 5/4/20 at 4:39 pm to Rep520
quote:
This is the first of many problems with their relationship. She looks 18ish and he looks 9. Yet the movie insists on putting out the seeds of attraction and then AOTC basically jumps straight into them being into each other like the last thing we saw wasn't a massive age difference.
Still better than Lucas wanting Indy to have banged 12 year old Marion.
This post was edited on 5/4/20 at 4:40 pm
Posted on 5/4/20 at 4:48 pm to BitBuster
Wasn't 9 year old Anakin also "too old" to train as a Jedi, In a Universe that shows that there's no problem whatsoever with mastering the force as an adult (now even without actually training!).
Might be handwaved as maybe the Jedi didn't know better during the time of Anakin's youth - but that would make Yoda not as wise as perceived.
Also, how much talent had the Jedi Order wasted over the years not scouting out force sensitive pre-teens and teens throughout the galaxy? They could have been much better prepared to defend against Order 66.
Might be handwaved as maybe the Jedi didn't know better during the time of Anakin's youth - but that would make Yoda not as wise as perceived.
Also, how much talent had the Jedi Order wasted over the years not scouting out force sensitive pre-teens and teens throughout the galaxy? They could have been much better prepared to defend against Order 66.
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