Quote Originally Posted by i_amtrunks
but terrible acting from Hayden Christiansen and poor (in comparison to anything else she has been in) Natalie Portman
The problem with Christiansen's acting is a lack of versatility. He doesn't deliver a terribly good performance when he's supposed to be romantic. Having said that, I think Christiansen excels in other aspects as Anakin Skywalker. He performed well as a dashing hero ("If you'll excuse me!" ) and I thought he performed fantastically whenever Anakin gave into his anger. Although the love scenes between Anakin and Padmé often receive criticism from fans, I think the scene where Anakin slaughtered the Tuskens was really well delivered. And of course, his entire "coming of rage" in Episode III was great. As an actor, Christiansen is pretty ordinary when it comes to romance, but he's good when it comes to being angry. Having said that, I thought Christiansen's emotional acting was much improved in Jumper.

I thought Portman was pretty good in most aspects, particularly Eps II and III... but I found that she struggled playing royalty... she just couldn't really do the whole British accent thing. But I recently saw V For Vendetta and I thought her English accent there was a tremendous improvement over her Queen Amidala voice from Episode I. Of course, she was speaking in a more kind of working class English accent as opposed to a regal accent... maybe she just can't do "regal." Having said that, Carrie Fisher's 'regal British' accent was pretty ordinary too -- her performance as Leia was a lot better when she dropped the whole "British Princess" thing and used her American accent. Like mother like daughter eh?

Oh yeah, IMO Episode I had the best light sabre fight choreography in all the Star Wars movies. Darth Maul ftw!

Quote Originally Posted by TheDirtyDigger
A funny thing IMO now, if you were watching the entire saga in order, would be the difference in the fight scene between Obi Wan and Anakin from Ep3 to the fight scene between 'Old Ben' and Darth.
It'd be like 'wow those guys really slowed down in their old age' sorta thing. You know what I mean! It's just not as funny to explain it all.
Well that's why Ben said to Luke, "I'm getting too old for this."
And when Episode I came out, Lucas explained that this would be the first time that we'd see the Jedi in their prime.

In the original trilogy we only ever saw old men, a half-machine and a boy who was trained by old men as Jedi/Sith. i.e.: we never see a Jedi or Sith in their prime. And that is something that we see in the prequels that I really enjoyed.