Lazy Saturday Afternoon

[poliphilo]

Ailz cleaned out the gas fire in the front room and lit it. We haven't used it in ages.  It gives a pretty good impression of a real coal fire- and is comforting.  I'm sure it burns money. We spent most of the afternoon in there. Ailz was doing a cross-stitch. I was doing a crossword and sleeping.

Later we watched the second half of Revenge of the Sith. We didn't seek it out. We were flipping through channels and there it was. George Lucas has spent so long in the laboratories of Skywalker Ranch, fiddling with pixels, that he has forgotten how to work with actors.

I've started reading The Kindly Ones- Jonathan Littell's enormous novel about the German Invasion of the USSR. He is very good on the muddle, the absurdity, the sheer happenstance of war- and the ease with which perfectly decent people- in those circumstances- fall into a habit of atrocity.

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

It hasn't been cold enough here yet to light our fireplace (traditional wood burning) and I'm longing to do that because it really is a comforting sort of feeling when it's lit.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We have a grate in the back room. Ailz suggests we burn wood in it- but this is a smoke free zone and I'm not sure we should.

[mamadar.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure George Lucas ever knew how to work with actors. RotS has one good moment that almost worth the whole movie, though: Seeing the Vader face mask come over Anakin's face, from Anakin's perspective, and hearing the Vader motif in the score.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a well-conceived moment.

The acting in the first three movies is consistently lively. The actors look as if they're having fun. And Harrison Ford- in particular- turns in a career-making performance. I don't know how much credit Lucas can take for this- but at least he let it all happen. In the prequels, by contrast, the performances are clipped, inhibited and overshadowed by the CGI. Samuel L Jackson and Ewan McGregor are fine actors- but you would never guess it from the work they do here. Only Ian McDiarmuid seems to be enjoying himself- and he goes way over the top.

[mamadar.livejournal.com]

I agree about the first three movies being better acted, despite their being dominated by relatively inexperienced actors. (And Lucas only directed the first one, I think.) It's painful to watch people like McGregor, Neeson, and Jackson being wasted in the second trilogy.

[creakiness.livejournal.com]

I remember this interview with George Lucas where he was talking about the Star Wars cartoon series and how with computer animation he no longer needed actors. The interviewer then asked about voice acting, and he said that skywalker sound was well on it's way to solving that problem. I sounds George Lucas wants to be able to make movies without needing people.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Lucas takes any notice of the critics- or indeed of the fans? I don't suppose he does. If he did he might have realised by now that this project of his to eliminate the human was a pretty bad idea.