Could the Star Wars prequel movies have been saved?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 1:01 pm

How did Episode 1 ruin Ray Park's acting career?

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jun 07, 2010 1:07 pm

I am not sure, but Ray Park loudly bitched about it doing so for a while.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:49 pm

But... but he got to be in Heroes, and...

Hmmm, maybe he's right.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:14 pm

Ray Park did not, to my knowledge, have an acting career before Episode I; he was a stuntman.

Now, I haven't seen him in any role where he had to deliver dialogue, so I can't say if he's any good or no; but The Phantom Menace is why people know his name.

Wyzzard · Post by **Wyzzard** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:46 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Ray Park did not, to my knowledge, have an acting career before Episode I; he was a stuntman.

Now, I haven't seen him in any role where he had to deliver dialogue, so I can't say if he's any good or no; but The Phantom Menace is why people know his name.

Well, he has a few lines in X-Men.

I won't blame Ray Park for being upset though, playing Chuck Norris in a chinese TV-show can't be anyones childhood dream.

K · Post by K » Tue Jun 08, 2010 8:05 pm

The prequels could have worked if and only if Anakin had an actual reason to go Dark Side.

Like, if he needed the power to win the war, or he made some kind of Faustian bargain to protect his children, that would have worked. At it is, he went evil for no reason and got nothing in return.

The space battles and sword fights and imperial politics are just background for that morality play. Fail the morality play part, and no one cares about how awesome the CG is.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jun 08, 2010 8:23 pm

K wrote:Fail the morality play part, and no one cares about how awesome the CG is.

CG fail didn't help.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jun 08, 2010 8:57 pm

I have to agree with Maj.

What is wrong with using puppets? I understand CG has gotten pretty advanced and all, but seriously, for the time that these movies came out there was no reason in the fucking universe not to stick with puppets.

Take the first and second TMNT movies. As the Nostalgia Critic and AVGN readily point out, the ninja turtles are still a really good special effect even to this day. Yoda in the second and third SW movies looks great and realistic, the Yoda in the prequels looks like garbage.

K wrote:The prequels could have worked if and only if Anakin had an actual reason to go Dark Side.

This, too. They also needed to spend more effort into making Anakin look sympathetic. I think it's mostly the scriptwriter and director's fault in this instance rather than the actor (since the same shit happened with Portman, MacGregor, and fucking BRIAN BLESSED), but Anakin didn't come across to me as a promising young prodigy that got in way over his head. He came across to me as a whiny, snotty teenager with an entitlement complex who needed a swift kick in the taint. Right in the taint.

If those two aspects of the movies worked then the overall effect, everything else aside, would've been 'passable' rather than 'godawful'. But Anakin's character was the worst thing about the series. He completely ruined the Phantom Menace for me; I would in absolute fucking honesty rather watch 90 minutes of Jar-Jar's antics then have to spend 30 minutes with that Mary Sue again. I was relieved when it turned out that AotC was going to be a timeskip, but his character got even worse.

While we're on the subject, I don't find Jar-Jar that bad. Don't get me wrong, he's a stupid fucking character with probably the worst 'good' voice-acting of all time, but at least his motivations remain consistent and his character is relevant to the plot. A lot of the rage with Jar-Jar's character could've been tampered down by giving him a less stupid design or at the very least just changing his voice. His role in the movie didn't need to be changed much since he's the closest thing TPM has to a sympathetic character, just the presentation.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:23 pm

Wyzzard wrote:Well, he has a few lines in X-Men.

And a main character role in Echs vs. Sever. Speaking parts even. Oh, wait, that movie was tripe and his "acting" didn't help.

Blaming a bad movie for wrecking your career is pretty pathetic. Try being more choosy about the parts you pick or just stick with what you do best - pretending to beat up people in the most inefficient way possible. Or just go into dance/theater.

Wyzzard · Post by **Wyzzard** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 3:34 pm

Wesley Street wrote:And a main character role in Echs vs. Sever. Speaking parts even. Oh, wait, that movie was tripe and his "acting" didn't help.

Ack, Ecs vs Sever. I had forgotten about that one.

No amount of fancy martial-arts is going to save your Cool when you're taunting people in a silly british accent.

Wesley Street wrote:Blaming a bad movie for wrecking your career is pretty pathetic. Try being more choosy about the parts you pick or just stick with what you do best - pretending to beat up people in the most inefficient way possible. Or just go into dance/theater.

Heck, George Clooney managed to salvage his career after Batman and Robin, and that piece of crap makes the Mortal Kombat movies look good.

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:01 pm

Ballistic was two hours of my life I'll never get back.

Wyzzard wrote:No amount of fancy martial-arts is going to save your Cool when you're taunting people in a silly british accent.

I was able to hand-wave the accent with his role as a Canadian secret service agent though I can't hand-wave the FBI operating in Vancouver.

Wyzzard wrote:Heck, George Clooney managed to salvage his career after Batman and Robin, and that piece of crap makes the Mortal Kombat movies look good.

He was Jo's boyfriend on The Facts of Life. It's not like he started out in high drama. Clooney has charisma and, seemingly, a decent sense of humor along with acting chops. That and patience will get you in the door. Actor's with an attitude of entitlement because they're ACT-IIIING are irritating.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:01 pm

Batman and Robin was released at totally the wrong time.

If it was released before Batman (1989) and the campy elements turned up a bit it probably would've been a runaway hit. But Joel Schumaucher released it right when fascination with Darker and Edgier and the Iron Age was at its height and it was doomed to fail. I mean, not that it would do good today (because Batman is more or less taken seriously by the public at large these days) but the director if he had the smallest bit of knowledge about comic books should've known that a silly take on the franchise would not be well-received.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:06 pm

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 5:13 pm

Wyzzard wrote:
Heck, George Clooney managed to salvage his career after Batman and Robin, and that piece of crap makes the Mortal Kombat movies look good.

I maintain the first Mortal Kombat movie was decent. If I could find it on DVD, I'd buy it.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:54 pm

Maxus wrote:I maintain the first Mortal Kombat movie was decent. If I could find it on DVD, I'd buy it.

The first MK movie was only mediocre, but it was so much better than it had any right to be. The actors in that thing were selling it so hard.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:09 pm

Mortal Kombat has to be judged on the special Videogame Movie scale:


Rating	Movies
7	Resident Evil, Silent Hill
6	Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil 3: Desert Zombies
5	Super Mario Brothers, Max Payne
4	Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Resident Evil 2: Ninjas, not Zombies
3	Dead or Alive, Hitman
2	Street Fighter, Doom
1	Blood Rayne, Alone in the Dark
0	Alone in the Dark 2, Double Dragon

-Username17

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 1:38 pm

Where do the pokemon and tomb raider films go on that rating scale?

Wyzzard · Post by **Wyzzard** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:09 pm

LAGO wrote:Batman and Robin was released at totally the wrong time.

If it was released before Batman (1989) and the campy elements turned up a bit it probably would've been a runaway hit. But Joel Schumaucher released it right when fascination with Darker and Edgier and the Iron Age was at its height and it was doomed to fail. I mean, not that it would do good today (because Batman is more or less taken seriously by the public at large these days) but the director if he had the smallest bit of knowledge about comic books should've known that a silly take on the franchise would not be well-received.

Yeah, it would have been better off as a '60s Adam West movie.

It could probable have worked in it's own time as well, if it had a script that wasn't strung together from puns and one-liners.

Maxus wrote:I maintain the first Mortal Kombat movie was decent. If I could find it on DVD, I'd buy it.

Mortal Kombat was worth watching, despite the camp overdose.
Just a shame MK: Annihilation was so bad it torpedoed the whole franchise.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:41 pm

Wyzzard wrote:
Mortal Kombat was worth watching, despite the camp overdose.
Just a shame MK: Annihilation was so bad it torpedoed the whole franchise.

Or did it?

-Username17

Vnonymous · Post by **Vnonymous** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:43 pm

Frank, the Street Fighter movie was a god-damn masterpiece. Raul Julia acted the fuck out of every scene he was in, and everything about it was hilarious.

Sometimes I even think it was meant to be like that.

Wyzzard · Post by **Wyzzard** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 3:52 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Or did it?

-Username17

Well I'll be damned!

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:07 pm

Unfortunately, that was a short made by the director to try to sell a gritty reboot on the Mortal Kombat franchise. No guarantee if those will be the actors, the plot, or even that it will happen at all.

That being said, I'd totally watch that.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 4:28 pm

There is a 2013 Mortal Kombat reboot under development, and the only for sure info about it is that "It's a reboot" and "It will be much darker."

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 6:48 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Unfortunately, that was a short made by the director to try to sell a gritty reboot on the Mortal Kombat franchise. No guarantee if those will be the actors, the plot, or even that it will happen at all.

As someone working in the visual arts I find this kind of high production fan film to be slightly depressing. It looks cool. It's obvious a lot of time, talent and, probably, money were put into it. But there's nothing the director can legally do with it other than treat it as a proposal for a licensed property that fell out of the public consciousness over a decade ago. And if nobody bites, it's relegated to the bowels of YouTube (see: Neil Blomkamp/Peter Jackson/Halo).

It can't be that hard to create a The Villains of Batman meets Enter the Dragon flick, even if it's just Mortal Kombat with the serial numbers filed off. Call it Immortal Fighters featuring the adventures of Benny Kage, Tanya Edge, and the three armed mutant Poko, and roll on.

I'm going to reiterate what Stan Lee and the late Jack Kirby said; artists should be creating their own characters rather than constantly re-telling the story of Captain America, Spider-Man, etc.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 7:21 pm

And Stan Lee continues to be an "executive producer" on every new marvel film property.

There is something to be said about shared universe writing. Yes, it isn't as lucrative but it does do a whole lot to bring up ones' profile.

Film & Comics today are based partially on shared universe property.

Hell, everytime we make a new rpg or addition to an existing rpg, I'm sure there's some hope that somehow we might be recognized on a larger scale. It works the same across the board for other things as well.