General Star Wars Thread

I feel so bad for the kind of crap Jake Lloyd must've gone through just because of the fact that he starred in Episode 1. Good to see he's put the hard feelings behind him.

I loved his acting and could see why he was cast.

His script didn't do him any favours, but the first scenes in tatooween's 'Boy-Slavery-Sucks-Town' he really did sell this powerful desire for escapist wonder.

The thing is that Jake Lloyd wasn't the greatest child actor in the world, but he wasn't half bad either. On occasion people find a Macaulay Culkin, Haley Joel Osment or Natalie Portman (you know, Oscar worthy kids) but you are often going to find merely okay. The behind the scenes documentary showed some of the other auditions and it was actually pretty obvious why Lloyd was cast. The other kids acted as like normal kids, jovial, friendly and social. Llyod's interpretation of the character was very pensive, thoughtful and with a piercing gaze (which was a big part of the novelization). In screen tests he won out, but with the whole screenplay Anakin whiplashes from Wise Beyond Their Years into an Adorkable ten year old, he didn't have the right direction and wasn't a skilled enough actor to pull it off. When you have actors like Liam Neeson and Ewan Mc Gregor struggling to stay interesting on screen, you can't really blame a kid for not keeping up. You can see much of the same issues in the early Harry Potter movies (which had a competent director to minimize those problems) and The Last Airbender (which did not).

I imagine his relationship with Star Wars is also a matter of maturity. Growing up with that kind of stigma would be devastating to a kid, but like Wil Wheaton he probably came to realize the opportunity to be part of such a major cultural phenomenon is a rare and special thing.

edited 2nd Aug '14 3:05:07 PM by KJMackley

I don't know if any of this means anything to you, for good or ill, but Orson Scott Card wanted Jake Lloyd to play Ender in the film of Ender's Game, despite otherwise hating the prequels. I think he had potential. Still does, of course, though now not in acting.

edited 2nd Aug '14 4:13:15 PM by Tuckerscreator

I've heard much more shit lobbed at Hayden than the EP 1 kid.

New Stormtrooper and Snowtrooper helmets possibly leaked.

Less unfair with Hayden. Most child actors tend to be shitty — children barely act with nuance or maturity in their own lives. It's much harder to achieve that for a role.

And it's equally hard to act when you're being given poor directing choices in 97 percent green screen.

I should think.

Any of you seen the commentary on the DVD of Lean On Me that talks about how hard the director worked with the young actors to get their performances, and all the behind the scenes stuff that went into making them better actors and building rapore? And that was with young actors so good that they all went on to have rather decent acting careers afterwards (speaking of Will Wheaton as he had been mentioned...).

Rumor: Disney plans on releasing the unaltered versions of the original trilogy on Blu-Ray.

I wonder who their sources are. I hope it isn't just wishful thinking.

It is Disney after all. Persistent re-releases have been their bread and butter even before the days of home video.

I read somewhere that Fox holds the release rights for the original Star Wars forever, and the rest until 2020. Surely Disney of all companies can work out some kind of deal with them... Trade a human being, maybe? It worked to get Oswald back...

I'm sure Fox would be okay with Disney doing it as long as they get some of the money for the release.

No matter how much The Scrappy a character is, going after the actor as a person over that is inexcusable.

edited 21st Aug '14 3:28:09 PM by HamburgerTime

-Deactivates lurking field-
Hello people. This subject came up in the Looking for GMs thread and I'm posting it here because it's OT there: can Sith and/or Dark Jedi be "not evil"?

Given the Star Wars binary good/evil system, nope, I am not sure that that is possible.

Maybe a Dark Jedi, if they're strong enough to resist using their Dark Side powers to harm others, but to be a Sith you HAVE to jump off that cliff and use your powers to drive the weak into submission. Enslave the compliant, kill those who resist. Their deaths will make you strong, and your new slaves will extend your will through their actions. That's just how the Sith roll. To be anything but a manipulative or brutal warlord is to make yourself too weak. To care for others will only sap your strength.

Plus the power functions like a drug, so the more you use it, the more it turns you.

There's no such thing as a good Sith and a Bad Jedi. There's at most Noble Demon Sith and Jerkass Jedi. The Force prevents them from striking out of that sphere of alignment without becoming something else (i.e if a Sith turns good, he becomes a Jedi, if a Jedi turns evil, he becomes a Sith/Dark Jedi, and so forth).

The Tabletop game is full of guys who used Force Lightning but it's okay because they're cool.

Simply put the ideology of the two stray towards a hard line good and evil, but individuals have the capacity to switch sides.

@Gaon: I don't think a Sith that turns to the Light Side automatically becomes a Jedi. I mean, Jedi that turn to the Dark Side become Dark Jedi because being a Sith means more than just being a Darksider; ditto for being Jedi — not any Lightsider is a Jedi.

Indeed. I stand corrected, however.

I also don't think Hayden deserves much of the bile he gets. He's not the reason why Anakin is whiny, the writers of the movies are why Anakin is whiny in the prequels.

Also, who here actually likes the prequels? I actually find Episode I to be a good movie (like around a 7/10), while I love Episodes II and III.