The thing about movie channels like HBO and Showtime is that, when they buy the rights to show a movie, they buy the rights to show it A LOT. So, unless it's "prime time", you're apt to run into the same selection of movies pretty regularly. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Mr. Deeds (yes, they even show the bad ones a lot!). And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If I'm just looking for something to have on in the background while I'm doing something else, a movie I've seen dozens of times is an easy choice, since I don't have to pay attention to follow it (and the movie channels are well aware of this behavior among their subscribers).
So this morning I was killing a little time and looking for something on TV to do the killing and I switched on Attack of the Clones. And what strikes me watching one of the early scenes isn't how bad the movie is (we all know that, while it's marginally better than Phantom Menace, it still falls into the "god, what was Lucas thinking" end of the Star Wars universe).
But what's really amazing to me is Lucas' uncanny ability to pull horrible performances out of really good actors. Samuel Jackson is not a bad actor. He's done a lot of work that I really enjoy and it's probably safe to say that he's actually a pretty damn good actor. But you wouldn't know if from his first scene in the film, with Chancellor Palpatine and Princess Amidala. His "performance" is so stilted and awkward, it's as if they took the first read-through of the script and simply shot that.
I remember watching one of the extras on the Phantom Menace DVD with Lucas talking about how it's all about the visuals for him… that he's a visual storyteller. And it's been obvious, especially in these prequels, that this translates (more often than not) into a director that has no idea what to do with his actors or how to get a decent performance out of them. Even when they're good actors, like Samuel Jackson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen… all the good actors in the world aren't going to help if you simply don't understand how to direct them.
So no, if there was any doubt in anyone's mind, Episode III is not going to be a good film. All we can hope for is that there's a good story at it's core (as there actually is for both Phantom and Attack—despite its being buried under way too much of everything else that gets in the way of that core story).
That, and go out and play Knights of the Old Republic, since that's probably the best Star Wars prequel to come out to date.
So this morning I was killing a little time and looking for something on TV to do the killing and I switched on Attack of the Clones. And what strikes me watching one of the early scenes isn't how bad the movie is (we all know that, while it's marginally better than Phantom Menace, it still falls into the "god, what was Lucas thinking" end of the Star Wars universe).
But what's really amazing to me is Lucas' uncanny ability to pull horrible performances out of really good actors. Samuel Jackson is not a bad actor. He's done a lot of work that I really enjoy and it's probably safe to say that he's actually a pretty damn good actor. But you wouldn't know if from his first scene in the film, with Chancellor Palpatine and Princess Amidala. His "performance" is so stilted and awkward, it's as if they took the first read-through of the script and simply shot that.
I remember watching one of the extras on the Phantom Menace DVD with Lucas talking about how it's all about the visuals for him… that he's a visual storyteller. And it's been obvious, especially in these prequels, that this translates (more often than not) into a director that has no idea what to do with his actors or how to get a decent performance out of them. Even when they're good actors, like Samuel Jackson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen… all the good actors in the world aren't going to help if you simply don't understand how to direct them.
So no, if there was any doubt in anyone's mind, Episode III is not going to be a good film. All we can hope for is that there's a good story at it's core (as there actually is for both Phantom and Attack—despite its being buried under way too much of everything else that gets in the way of that core story).
That, and go out and play Knights of the Old Republic, since that's probably the best Star Wars prequel to come out to date.
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