the prequels get a lot of shit but hayden christensen is a very talented actor and does a lot with his expressions and body language to sell the character and "speak the drama" of the web of interactions in the 2nd and 3rd part. him and christopher lee were very good in the films. natalie portman was horrible in the first one but improved bigly in the later installments

i think part 3 tanked his career for some reason. never saw him in a major feature again after that

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5918617&forum_id=2#50233878)

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5918617&forum_id=2#50233884)

he was being sold as the next dicaprio at the time iirc

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5918617&forum_id=2#50233885)

not sure what made it so poisonous in the US over time

maybe nepotistic hollywood patronage. i vaguely remember some essay talking about how bad "New Hollywood" (the brando/coppola generation) was for the actual craft in hollywood being studied and worked on prior

the jews get bashed for hollywood's excesses but if you look at the names involved in that era it seems like it's mostly italian-americans (italian cinema in italy is another story entirely; rife with fraud and scammery but the population is already inoculated to it so it minimizes the cultural damage. apparently those 70s schlockshit exploitation films popular with evolution of films types were more often than not basically just for foreign export) while many of the golden era classics were from european directors working with jewish producers and writers

neither here nor there but i've heard that "Intolerance" was the last hurrah for old hollywood and that imagery of the entire set of the pre-classical scenes winding up wholesale rotting in some garbage dump backlot has stuck with many a writer

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5918617&forum_id=2#50233919)