Why did the acting in this movie suck so bad?

[Sharktopus]

I was just trying to point out it wasn't "inexplicable." 

As for the "creching," I think they wanted to teach the Jedi from the early age that the order was all about community, not the individual.  I also think that is that it was such an honor to be a Jedi that they parents willingly gave up their children to the training.  I doubt they went cradle-robbing.  Notice that Qui-Gon gave Annie The Boy a choice as to whether or not to come with him.

Nice job on knowing the word 'creching', incidentally, since Firefox doesn't. Anyway...

Taking kids away from their parents at presumably below 10, on average (since Anakin is supposed to be too old) is going to screw them up, and you'll get a large number of very powerful people with severe emotional disorders. That sounds like a clever plan.

But your right, the word I wanted wasn't 'inexplicable', it was 'idiotic'.

Isolating children from their parents so that the parent-child bond won't overpower the bond with their religious community? Sounds like Scientology.

[BBQ Platypus]

I agree, the more I look at the prequel the more it seems "The Force" only existed in order for bad things to happen later. Whereas in the original trilogy it existed to unite the characters against a common goal, in these films, particularly the Phantom Menace, it exists only to move a character from one plot point to another, it has no say as to whether or not that character actually evolves the way that Luke did. Take for example the scene where Anakin's pod racer was sabotaged (this was pointed out on the Ep 1 riff track) and they know nothing, they don't sense something is wrong. They have no idea that the Emperor is deceiving them or that their temporary enemy is only a facade for a greater foe. It takes them, what, about six years to figure this out. Then, later speculation over the force, leads Anakin to stray to the dark side in hopes of saving his wife from her death, and then once she's dead he doesn't want to bring her back.

I think Mike put it best on the riff track for Episode 1 , "...the force, being a rather impotent version of intuition."

Yeah, the Force is almost a MacGuffin in the prequel trilogy.

[aneel]

You have to admit, though, the prequels weren't that well conceived.  C'mon, the whole "Chosen One" prophecy was so horribly cliche that it failed to evoke any sympathy for Anakin.  In episode one, Lucas never seemed to stick to the plot; the whole Tatooine episode was a very lofty tangent, from meeting Anakin all the way up to the podracing sequence, which was cool but at the same time a novelty at best.  After all, they did spend a third of the movie looking for ENGINE PARTS (If only MacGyver was a Jedi).

Lucas just seemed to hurry through the prequel trilogy, hence Anakin's overnight transformation into Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith.  I agree with the comment made earlier that there was a lack of continuity between Jake Loyd's character and Hayden Christensen's character that made the Sith-transformation difficult to believe.  This happened to Obi Wan as well between Ewan McGregor and Alec Guiness in the original trilogy; McGregor's character was a sarcastic smartass whereas Sir Alec's Kenobi was wise, humble, and caring.

[LadyKenobi]

Oh, I bought the Obi-Wan connection.  I saw occasional glimmers of Obi-Wan in the trilogy, and thought that if you connect the Obi-Wan with the end of III to the moment he meets Luke again, you can see where the 20 years or so of hiding had wrought patience and wisdom that he may have been lacking in his younger self.

[Sharktopus]

I'd like to see what that "crazy old wizard" was doing in the desert for 20 years, besides cultivating Zen calm. Reading all the Star Wars novels perhaps?

[Doctor Who?]

Or maybe he was watching the prequells and banging his head against the wall repeatedly saying...

"Damn it!"  "How didn't I know that this kid was going to kill everyone!" " I mean he wanted the power of life and death,to be a dictator,and he killed a whole camp including the children!"  "This guy had Hitler written all over him and even with my force powers I didn't notice anything?!" 

Damn I'm dumb!"

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Or maybe he was watching the prequells and banging his head against the wall repeatedly saying...

"Damn it!"  "How didn't I know that this kid was going to kill everyone!" " I mean he wanted the power of life and death,to be a dictator,and he killed a whole camp including the children!"  "This guy had Hitler written all over him and even with my force powers I didn't notice anything?!" 

Damn I'm dumb!"

Supposedly, he was learning from Quoi-Gin how to communicate from the other side.

And - I hope - beating his head against the wall going "This is all YOUR fault!!!! 'Chosen One', my ass!!!"

[Doctor Who?]

Yeah some great Jedi Quoi-Gin turned out to be.

His greatest claim to fame will be setting things up so that Billions of people over the next 20 years will die.

Good going you fearless defender of peace and justice!

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

BTW.....

Lucas, on the other hand, probably told his actors exactly how to perform. Most actors look less wooden improvising than these guys did on script.

I think you can be exacting and still come up with a great performance: Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrick are known perfectionists.  Perhaps it was a culmination of the Director, the script, the pressure, and all the CGI they had to cope with that marred everything...?

I like to remember a line in Bob Fosse's auto-biographical movie, All That Jazz,  He's watching the rushes of a movie he's directed and, disgusted, says of the actor, "Now why did that asshole do that?"  And he thinks for a minute and then goes, "Because I'm the asshole who told him to."

That having been said, I can I suggest that what's-his-name playing the Emperor deserves a mention for worse acting?

Yeah, he had the "Emperor" part of it down.  But the whole time he was supposedly good ol' trustworthy Palpatine, he was just as creepy and calculating - more so than most politicians.   I couldn't see why anyone trusted him for a split-second.

Again, it's probably all down to bad writing coupled with bad direction.

[Doctor Who?]

I voted for Portman.

I cann't blaim a nine year old kid who can most likely can't read that well and can't have done much else before.

Lucas shouldn't have cast a kid who wasn't an actor.

but Portman has been acting for a long time and she still was awful.

[Nergol]

Just as Natalie Portman is a fine actress when not interfered with by a director who couldn't direct a telephone pole in being straight and wooden, so Hayden Christensen is actually a very good young actor too. Go rent "Shattered Glass" and you'll be blown away by his performance. Unfortunately, I think poor Hayden committed career suicide by being in the prequels - or maybe it was career homicide, with Lucas as the murderer.