I've figured out why Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor, two very talented actors in other projects, can suck so badly in Star Wars, and it is George Lucas's fault, just not in the way most people think.
Look back at American Grafitti. Lucas managed to take a cast of relative newcomers, and despite their lack of experience, pull performances out of them that would later make them stars.
The man has the chops.
So why did these last 3 movies suck so badly, as far as the acting is concerned?
Have you ever listened to Saturday morning cartoons done by actors who just don't get it? Don't think Robin Williams as the Genie, think Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta Jones in Sinbad, AKA "Really Bad." They are two talented screen actors who just don't get voice acting. Everything has to be bigger and broader to blend with the animation, and to counter your natural tendancy to be inhibited when your totally vamping the scene. During voice acting, often you have no clue what your surroundings are, and you have to make them up in your head which takes a ton of concentration and energy, energy that you no longer have to put into your performance.
Getting back to the prequels, most of the scenes, particularly in the last film, were shot against green screens with the entire set being built digitally in post production. Think of the strain that puts on the actors, to have to build an entire set in their minds, make it real, interact with it even though it isn't really there, and then act.
I can see where that would be difficult.
My guess is that the wooden performances were caused by this, combined with Lucas' failure to compensate for it, calling for broader, more energetic performances than he would usually.
Having said all that, the acting in this one was far superior to 2 and 1. At the beginning of the movie, I actually saw Anakin as he was supposed to be. In AOTC, he was nothing but an angry, spoiled punk, with virtually no redeeming qualities; it was like he was already 3/4 of the way down the dark path. In ROTS, I saw him as a Jedi for the first time, still impatient at times, but more mature and more centered. It made the fall that much more affecting.
Portman was given very little to do, except look tired, then frightened, then dead, all of which she accomplished.
The standout performance was Ian McDiarmid, who captured the schizoid Palpatine perfectly. SAs Palpatine, his words twisted sinuously as he lead Anakin to betraying the Jedi for love of Padme. Never raising his voice, speaking always in the quiet, rational tones of reason, he corrupted Anakin without him ever really knowing it. As Sidious, however, he could chew the scenery with the best of them.
The effects were as spectacular as we've come to expect, which is damning with faint praise, since they're no more than what we've come to expect. The movie opens with a long sequence of Anakin and Obi-Wan piloting their ships towards the main Separatist ship. The whole sequence seems to have only one purpose; for ILM to stand up and shout "Hey! Look at the neat stuff we can do now!"
The plot is actually deeper than most folks have given credit; When Palpatine accused the Jedi of becoming corrupt, he was right. In order to fight the Sith, the Jedi Council began to break their own rules, setting Anakin to spy on the Emperor, and when Mace Windu tried to kill Palpatine. It doesn't matter that Palpatine tempted him into it by feigning weakness, Windu still tried to strike down an unarmed and defeated opponent. The contamination injected into the Jedi by the Sith had to be purged and the price was blood.
Another interesting little plot point that hasn't been discussed much is Anakin's father. According to Schmee in TPM, Anakin had no father; she just became pregnant. Qui-Gonn claimed that he was the child of the Force, that the Mitochlorians were his father. During his talk with Anakin, explaining to mhim the powers of the Dark Side, Palpatine claimed that the great Sith master (who very well may have been Sidious's Master) had enough power to create life using Mitochlorians, raising the very real possibility that the Chosen One was in fact a creation of the Dark Side. If true, that would make Anakin and Palpatine, if not brothers, then certainly cousins.
This would also create another interesting parallel, where the apprentice Sidious killed his Master, and the aprrentice Vader killed his Master. It's not easy, being a Sith.
But I'm supposed to be reviewing this thing, not explaining it, so I'll say this. It's certainly better than the last two, and if not quite on a par with ESB, it comes close.
Posted by Rich at May 23, 2005 10:33 PM | TrackBack