His own favorite film was Jinnah, in which he played the title role of Pakistan’s ascetic founder. It’s very credible, but it’s not why audiences loved him. Lee redeemed almost anything he was in, but had his work cut out when George Lucas signed him for the Star Wars prequels. By then Lucas was a director without peer when it comes to getting bad performances out of great actors. Once upon a time Ewan McGregor was one of the sexiest actors on the planet. Then George Lucas cast him as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and turned him into a souvenir action-figure with no private parts and a flat monotone voice. As Princess Amidala, Natalie Portman couldn’t be Aniduller. The kid who plays Anakin seems like he should be the shy fellow in the back in some passing boy band but instead his agent stuck him with some lousy movie gig in a language not his own. He and Miss Portman roll in the grass like it’s a contractual obligation. The most fully realized characters are the computer-generated ones, like Yoda, the wrinkly midget with the inverted word order that nevertheless sounds less unnatural than the rest of the inert, stilted dialogue.
But, when it comes to such acting honors as there are in the series, the Empire strikes back! Lee as Count Dooku and Ian McDiarmid as Chancellor Palpatine have the measure of Star Wars: go with the hokum, have some fun doing the standard creepy-snooty Brit bad-guy shtick, and cash the check.
Mark Steyn, “Fangs, Light Sabers and a Supernumary Papilla”, Steyn Online, 2015-06-13.
May 4, 2017
QotD: Christopher Lee in the Star Wars prequels
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