I am not saying Hayden is a brilliant actor but he was good/capable just watch "Life as a House" which I was somehow saw before Ep II and when I heard he was cast thought he would do well, he didn't. But the dialog was crap and he had literally 0 chemistry with Portman. Portman is a great actress and she was also miscast and her performance as padme/amadalia was stiff at it's best. I have tried thinking of actors who could have done something with the terrible dialog of Ep II and never really come up with a great answer but at the very least if you found two actors who had even a remote attraction to one another it would have helped. And this is not the actors fault this is casting and production.
And if you don't know about the christian backlash against the "eastern" religious ideals behind "the force" in the Original series you haven't done your homework. There is a definite link between the force, and yoda's speechs about hate and suffering that have virtually direct parallels with Buddhism. There was alot of insider talk that the virgin birth in ep I was a direct appeal to the largely christian audience that would consume the movie the following movies and tons of merch, just as jar jar was a direct appeal to giggling 5 year olds.
Is this an absolute fact, no, did han shoot first, of course he did. And whatever the story origins, whatever the true relgious/mythological origins of virgins births, it doesn't matter it was a terrible story moment, it didn't fit, it was a lantern light we didn't need that ruined some of the mystery. And that it was motivated out of a need to appeal to a specific demographic (To modern day christians virgin births = jesus not a phd dissertation on virgina births in world religions) makes me think of Lucas just that much worse, although this is how Hollywood works for the most part it screwed up a story I deeply feel in love with as a 6 year old seeing it on the big screen in a balcony seat in a huge theatre in Manhattan (now thats a religious experience), and yes im old.
Then to lantern the entire mystery and mysticism of the force with midiclorians, it's almost too hard to stomach how a man could just destroy a beautiful piece of art he had a huge hand in creating so he could meet demographics estimates hollywood execs were throwing at him to ensure he got an even larger wad of cash.
