[barend]

Actor Bids Fond Farewell to C-3PO

Sun Sep 12, 7:31 AM ET  Add Movies - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Bidding goodbye to the gold robot after almost 30 years, Anthony Daniels shed a nostalgic tear for the mechanical manservant who changed his life.

Reuters Photo

"Oh yes, it was with moisture. This was very much a fond farewell," Daniels said of his last scene as C-3PO, the android who became an icon in the "Star Wars" movies.

His last scene in the sixth and final film was hardly the heady stuff of magic for Daniels. Digital effects saw to that.

"I finished filming on the last film last week. For the final shot I walked along a blue corridor with a blue background behind me talking to someone who wasn't there." he said.

"Revenge of the Sith" is due out next May and completes a trilogy of pre-quels, which tell the back story of the original movie about a battle between good and evil in a distant galaxy.

Daniels makes no secret about his favorite of the six.

"The first film spoke to everyone on the planet. It still works as a funny, bright movie. It still has legs," he said of the films by U.S. director George Lucas.

When Lucas returned to the pre-quels, Daniels was not so sure.

"George's devotion to digital effects over-balanced the films. Too many digital funky characters become a little bit wearing. The storytelling always gets subsumed."

I enjoyed that!!

"George's devotion to digital effects over-balanced the films. Too many digital funky characters become a little bit wearing. The storytelling always gets subsumed."

This post has been edited by barend: 12 September 2004 - 09:45 PM

[the_bonic_hiphop_man]

what was old george 's reply to the 09 11 01 attacks...i like to know...well...????

[jariten]

and that has to do with...

edit-

the cgi of today is just a logic extension of the groundbreaking effects used in ANH. the story is no more suseptable to be compromised by them now as it was in 1977.

This post has been edited by jariten: 12 September 2004 - 11:41 PM

[barend]

not at all...
he uses effects to distract you from the lack of meat in the story.
in the original the effects were things like sets!!! they made the environment seem real (because they had a physical presence).
unlike the computer game grade flashing lights, and background CGI characters with antics one step away from a pie fight.

the actors delivered better performances because everything thay had to react to was infront of them (at least to the extent of believing the environment) he's just using one kind of laziness to cover up another...

"I finished filming on the last film last week. For the final shot I walked along a blue corridor with a blue background behind me talking to someone who wasn't there." he said.

how much can you expect from that... especially when George "Ed Wood" Lucarse likes to go with the first shot virtually everytime...

he tells people to walk down a corridor, deliver a line, look up, walk away. the actor is dumbfounded (and yes it shows) does the take without any effort, expecting to be DIRECTED as to what needs to be done differently in the next take, only to hear lucas yell "that's a rap, thanx for comming"

I got that from an actor in the film! that's how lucas directs a film

that's NOT how a director directs a film! Lucas should not be directing...
and Daniels comments completely back up my opinion on the matter.

this is not how you make films, this is how you make a cheap childrens show for daytime tv... IT's ULTRALAME!!!

[jariten]

well, but thats not every shot though. and Lucas does everything possible to make the actors comfortable with the CG chaacters (which again, is only a few scenes). they rehearse, plan exactly what they have to do and in the case of things like (say) the speeder chase in AotC, they have a large screen with an animatic in fornt of them so they can really visualise themselves in the scene. the only real example of this that i can think of is when Obi wan is talking to the Kaminoians (??), but i thought he was great in that scene, and i dont think he wouldve done it better if he were talking to guys in suits or whatever. and like i said its the same as any other film- they rehearse first until theyre comfortable.

i know im alone in this- but Lucas uses the effects to tell the story, nothing else.

[HK 47]

I love the fact that the actors don't keep quiet about it. I remember Ian McDiarmid saying something similar, discussing Georges (non-existant) dialogue skills.

ps. Yes you are wrong again Jariten, C3PO says so: "George's devotion to digital effects over-balanced the films. Too many digital funky characters become a little bit wearing. The storytelling always gets subsumed."

[jariten]

having an argument revoked by a fictional character. i`ve sunk to new lows.

[Helena]

Oh, for God's sake, jariten. I've seen you come up with some pretty pathetic ripostes before, but that one really takes the cake - you know perfectly well that HK was talking about Anthony Daniels, the actor who played C-3P0. If you want to address his point, why not find some other interviews with actors who don't feel that way?

This post has been edited by Helena: 13 September 2004 - 06:56 AM

[jariten]

......

it was a joke

the fictional character i was reffering to was C3PO...

[Helena]

......

it was a joke

the fictional character i was reffering to was C3PO...

I know. But in the context it came off as sarcastic rather than humorous (to me, at least). My point still stands: why not find some interviews that refute the claims the others have made?

[jariten]

ok fair enough, i see what you mean. sometimes im pretty hasty with my posting. i dont really like using the smilies much though. anyway, as for the actors thing, i`ll have a look, but I remember Liam Neeson on a breakfast tv show in the UK after TPM came out saying that he loved Lucas` style of direction. looking back on what I just wrote, it sounds like i just made that up...ok...i`ll have a look about for something...

[Helena]

Perhaps I was a little hasty in reading it as well; it's just that you don't normally make jokes. It is easy to mistake these things, which is why many people use smilies for clarification.

[barend]

for example:


i love you

[SimeSublime]

It's like a positive Tourette's syndrome.

[Despondent]

In regards to talking to actors not there, there's a scene in TPM between Qui-gon and Watto. When it becomes obvious QG isn't even looking at Watto, Watto's next like incorporates something akin to: "Why you not look at me and say such..."

I backed it up and notated for posterity. The quote's written at home tho. Check it out. Maybe the chance cube scene?

the OT principals commented on how strange it was to react to MF scenes where they couldn't visualize what was happening. THESE days it's all blue screen so EVERYONE (incl. Lucas) is flying blind. (it'll work in post. has to.)