Pain and Gain? That was a piece of shit. Really. (Wasn't even that fun as a piece of shit.)

Nah, look beyond the lame jokes. Underneath there's something poignant about Misdirected American Machismo.

Counterpoint: it owned

As you said earlier, people complain about the writing, and Lucas wrote the prequels. The visuals in the prequels were great. The action was great. The actors were good actors. The writing, though, stunk on ice.

I've agreed with every one of your posts until this one. The visuals in the prequels weren't great. A ton of the CGI served no purpose beyond cluttering up the screen. It's like the Special Editions with how Lucas had to just add in random stuff all over the place just because. The entirety of the prequels was soulless, and the writing just happens to be the worst of it all. The action also wasn't that great, mostly due to the aforementioned CGI. All of it lacked subtlety. And the actors, unfortunately, weren't great by virtue of the horrible writing. They didn't have a chance to be great or show their greatness. The acting was terrible, and I blame that almost entirely on the script and director.

This is true. Go back and look at say, Attack of the Clones. The CGI backgrounds look terrible nowadays, and they completely overused the light wrap and bloom when doing green/blue screen keys. It stands out as completely fake when you watch it now. The acting WAS bad, but again, that is the fault of Lucas, as Kermit originally pointed out.

Heh, I haven't watched them since they were the in the theaters. The special effects were state of the art then, but yes, you're right. Lucas doesn't know when enough is enough. Frankly, I thought things started getting too busy in Return of the Jedi. (And too cutesy--another Lucas indulgence.)

I never meant to imply that the acting was good. It's a testament to how bad the script and direction was that those talented actors couldn't pull it off.

As you said earlier, people complain about the writing, and Lucas wrote the prequels. The visuals in the prequels were great. The action was great. The actors were good actors. The writing, though, stunk on ice.

I've agreed with every one of your posts until this one. The visuals in the prequels weren't great. A ton of the CGI served no purpose beyond cluttering up the screen. It's like the Special Editions with how Lucas had to just add in random stuff all over the place just because. The entirety of the prequels was soulless, and the writing just happens to be the worst of it all. The action also wasn't that great, mostly due to the aforementioned CGI. All of it lacked subtlety. And the actors, unfortunately, weren't great by virtue of the horrible writing. They didn't have a chance to be great or show their greatness. The acting was terrible, and I blame that almost entirely on the script and director.

I believe him when he says the special editions were how he originally wanted the movies to go, because he did the same kind of thing with all of them and all the prequels. I think he never had an eye for subtlety or minimalism or downplaying things and was forced into a bit of that by the technology and by the people he worked with and it happened to turn out well. I contest the claim that the action was bad, I thought the duels and battles were just as good as in the original movies aside from one or two (or maybe three). For the actors, I think he was saying that they were good actors, not that they gave good performances. I would add that a very good actor can deliver a good performance even if the script is bad-- their lines won't be very good, but they can still be delivered well, with good intonation, pacing, diction, volume, accent, body language, and whatever else, and the actor can still hit all their marks and do whatever they're required to do physically and do it well, and I think the prequels are good examples of that, you have a lot of less than great lines with almost paradoxically beautiful delivery.

Does he still hate sand?

Who is by far my favorite Star Wars author. He's done 4 or 5 of them and they're all stellar. "Traitor" is one of my favorite books, period.

Gotta say, that movie was definitely thrown under a bus by someone. The book is astoundingly better than it. Even Anakin is great.

I remember reading that before the movie came out (Over ten years ago now), and it was pretty good. I distinctly remember wondering why the book had so many good one-liners that were omitted from the movie.

General Grievous: You fool! I've been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!
Obi-Wan: Really? I trained the man who killed him.

I revise my statement. I've always appreciated Harrison Ford. His early work is fantastic (even the non-action stuff like American Graffiti and Witness). There are a few movies he's done that I'm not sure I'll like, but I haven't watched them in part because they weren't well received, but Ford is the kind of actor who can be better than the movie he's in. Actors (and writers, for that matter) have a limited amount of control over making a film good. Being involved in something that won't turn out as well as you'd like it to is precisely the situation he was worried about with the new Star Wars, which is why your logic is silly--you assume that his judgment of scripts is necessarily reflected in every movie he's made.

That's almost the opposite of what I was saying. I was saying that his judgment would be reflected in the scripts he made as a whole, which is why I asked if there were any that you didn't like. If it applied the same to every one then it wouldn't matter, you could look at one and apply it to all of them.

You speak a version of English I don't understand. "As a whole" implies to me that there might be exceptions, but generally something is true. The bottom line: I respect and give credence to Ford's opinion when he says a script is remarkable.

Good scripts get changed. Good scripts can get made into lousy movies. That said, bad scripts seldom get made into good movies. The man has starred in some of my favorite movies, so when he calls a script remarkable, that's an endorsement.

Here it sounds like you are just taking the movies you really like that he made and applying that to this with his positive comment about it.
I see your point about how not every movie will reflect his judgment, but that can be turned around-- what if this script has changed, what if it's poorly executed, what if there's some other hiccup?

What the eff if? That doesn't keep me from being excited about hearing him saying very nice things about the script. A good script is hard to find.

Also, not turning out as well as you wanted isn't the only issue with quality. Beyond some technical aspects, a movie is like any other work in that quality is subjective. My point was very much about, not the movie turning out badly, but the movie not turning out in a way you like. Tons of people, including presumably George Lucas himself, thought the prequels were fine, while you obviously consider them garbage.

Heh, find three people over the age of 30 who thought they were good.

That's a subjective thing, and something only you can decide, and something you can only decide once you've seen the movie. Please forgive me if this sounds obvious, but this was supporting the point that you're ill-informed on the movie as it stands, which you've now said is true.

Read my posts again. Where did I ever say that the new Star Wars movie is good? How could I know that? You keep responding as if I said that--I didn't. To be clear: As of now I've heard, read, and seen enough (which I bet money is more than you have) about the new movie such that I hope and expect it to be good, and therefore I'm excited about it. This wasn't true when the movie was announced, but every bit of info I've gleaned since then has gradually gotten me to this point, not least of which what I heard and saw last week. I wouldn't have gotten into this discussion had you not said "we know next to nothing about the script" when what I knew about the script has been a big driver of my excitement. I didn't expect the Perry Mason treatment regarding my admiration of the people involved.

I think you're reading it wrong. He betrayed my faith in him as a creator. It's another way of saying I lost confidence in his judgment and his abilities as an artist. If he decided the make documentaries, or art house films about migrant workers or something, I wouldn't feel justified calling it a betrayal just because he's not making space operas any more. If Bungie decides that what will work best for them as a studio involves making a game for a different platform, that's not a betrayal. That's a business decision. (If I felt differently, I would have been part of the crowd that ditched Bungie in 2000.)

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of the other movies he's made since the original trilogy, or have you seen any of them? I heard Red Tails was pretty good.

Haven't seen any and don't really care to. It's not just his artistic abilities I don't trust anymore. He's shown himself to be an idiot and an ass. I'm not interested in supporting him.

My hopes are intertwined with my excitement for the new Star Wars movie. I'll never understand how fan sites seem to attract people who object to fans who act like fans.

I'm fine with fans acting like fans, it's when they act like fanatics that I get worried. That's not to say you're doing that, but an extreme degree of excitement-- more than I've seen in this thread-- is what I'd call fanatical, and I'm sure you've seen it and seen those people become the most disappointed with the final product, whatever the product may be.

I don't think that's me, but better to be fanatical about something that to be coldly analytical to where I won't let myself savor the anticipation of something that has the potential to be awesome. I know all about disappointment. I'm not scared of it.