I still think you're being a bit selective in your responses to the characters and how they were played by their respective actors. Hamil's nasally whine is incredibly grating when watching Ep IV. And it's not just when it's appropriate to the character either. He whines about doing his chores. He whines about losing the droids. He whines about the cost of the flight on the Falcon. He whines about saving the princess. He whines pretty much constantly. Yes, it's absolutely about showing the character and how immature he really is. But frankly, it continues through EP V and VI as well. He switches between being whiny to pretending that he's mature. Again, that's part of his character development and we get that.
The point is that while also annoying (but slightly different) the character flaws of Anakin are intentional as well. To be honest though, I find Christenson's Anakin slightly less annoying than Hamil's Luke. That's obviously subjective, but I found his portrayal of the whiny kid constantly complaining about why the universe doesn't just hand him what he wants falling to the dark side a whole hell of a lot more believable than Hamil attempting to portray Luke's heroic decision to rise above such things (and far far less nasal).
Both actors are mediocre at best, and the characters they're portraying are intentionally cardboard cutout like. And perhaps if they were amazing actors they could have portrayed those characters better. But the problem is one of mass marketing. To get those characters emotions and changes exactly right would require a subtlety that might not work for most audience members. Let's not forget that the typical moviegoer has to be literally hit over the head with plot and character developments, or they wont understand what's going on. Overacting is required because if you don't, and you don't have a perfect performance from a top notch actor, you'll lose the audience.
Which is why I don't really put much weight in the whole "OMG! Christenson sucks as Anakin because of X, Y, Z". I really think Hamil was just as bad. We just remember his portrayal more fondly because for most of us the original films themselves are more a part of our childhood. I suspect that as time goes by and more people who watch the films watch them for the first time in Episode order, we'll start getting people who think Christenson's Anakin was far more interesting and better acted than Hamil's Luke. I just think that our current perspective really is heavily biased. When I watch the whole set of films in order, It's very jarring when going from Ep III to IV because of how whiny Luke is. I think that's because with Anakin we're introduced more gradually into the character. We have him as a kid, all excited and fun loving. Then we see him as an adult Jedi, full of bluster, but with some clear emotional problems developing. Then we see him totally lose it and become Vader. Go from that to Ep IV and Luke just seems like a total brat.
idiggory, King of Bards wrote:
As for the plot, my issue isn't with WHAT the armies were, or why they were the choices. My problem is the fact that they didn't properly establish them within the trilogy so the narrative from one to the next doesn't work if you aren't actively engaging with the EU. They never once give you a reason to care about Grievous in Episode 3, and you have no frickin' clue who he even is from the movie alone. They spent all that time establishing Dooku, and then tossed him aside in the first few minutes.
From a narrative point of view, from 1-3, it's atrocious.
Yeah. That was clearly marketing because of the clone wars stuff they'd done along the way. And I agree that it would have been better to have Dooku be the main bad guy though more of the episode, with his death at Anakin's hands being a pivotal point that pushes him to the dark side. As it is, it's still used to set it up, but it is kinda too early IMO. I think that part of it is that they needed to have a way to split up Anakin and Obi Wan for the full fall to happen, so they needed something for Obi Wan to deal with. And they also needed something significant enough to pull away and divide the Jedi enough so that their betrayal by the Emperor would be effective *and* so that the Jedi council could be destroyed by Anakin.
I can kinda see the problems that creates. You want Dooku's death instead of capture to be a key part of Anakin's fall, but you need a threat sufficient to pull Obi Wan away for the full fall. Have to kill Dooku before the second event, so you need someone else to be the main bad guy for Obi Wan so that he's not there during the fall, but fights with Vader *afterwards*. To be fair, the plot they came up with was far from the worst they could have used to accomplish all the elements they needed in the story.
And frankly, sometimes plot lines for films are written almost by committee. Like I said, I've seen lots worse. I actually think that Episode III edges out Episode VI in terms of cool factor (and lack of Ewoks). I guess I'm just much more able to overlook the actor in favor of the story/action than most. Let's not kid ourselves, the entire franchise is built on cookie cutter storylines. We watch them for the special effects. Star Wars didn't have lines of people around buildings waiting to watch it because it was the latest Citizen Kane. It had huge lines because of ground breaking special effects. The story was simplistic and the characters formulaic. So I never went into Episodes I to III expecting anything more, so I wasn't disappointed.
Edited, Nov 5th 2012 6:18pm by gbaji