Star Wars 7 shit talk

the problem with the second and third prequels is always gonna be whether in your childhood you imagined young Darth Vader as Leif Garrett in purple lipstick

they do?

did you miss all the ticket sales numbers croup cited

Shakes, a lot of us went out of curiosity. Some of us made regrettable choices in friends.

I can't believe you're still arguing about this

yep the character stuff in those RLM videos is pretty awful - but the actual film analysis is funny and otm

this was TWO YEARS AGO

After its 3D re-release in 2012, the worldwide box office gross exceeded US$1 billion. Although in the intervening years the film had lost some of its rankings in the lists of highest-grossing films, the 3D re-release returned it to the worldwide all-time top ten for several months. In North America, its revenues overtook those of the original Star Wars as the saga's highest grossing film when not adjusting for inflation of ticket prices, and is currently the fifth-highest-grossing film in North America.

It is pretty much a given that Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen were terrible as Anakin Skywalker; neither could act, Lloyd wasn't cute enough to make up for his non-acting and Christensen had negative charisma with his costars, which made his performance worse.

There's enough enjoyable nonsense throughout the rest of the movies for me to still enjoy them despite the fact that their focal character is almost the worst thing in the world (Jar-Jar Binks is actually the worst thing in the world btw).

I honestly believe the active awfulness of Jar-Jar in TPM informs his decision to be the deciding vote that destroys the Republic in ROTS.

Absolutely. Well, from a storytelling standpoint, it's really the failure of everyone around him to recognize Jar-Jar's awfulness that ultimately leads to the destruction of the Republic. He is the true Phantom Menace.

this was TWO YEARS AGO

http://bottledgoose.net/gifs/ROTJ-ForceLightning.gif

Shakey your argument is so painfully obtuse

Like are you really equating box office popularity with "typical ilxor and their circle friends thought it was good at the time"?

I wish the final shot after the anguished "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" had been Palpatine and Jar-Jar congratulating each other on their collusion to take down the empire, with Jar-Jar's reward being stewardship over Naboo and the subjugation/enslavement of its human-like population

"typical ilxor and their circle friends thought it was good at the time"?

I never said this.

I was speaking of the moviegoing public in general, I guess that wasn't clear

link to the post where someone said TPM was a flop?

multiple people in this thread argue that everyone agreed TPM was awful upon seeing it, which is just not borne out by the film's performance

RLM character stuff was fine in the first couple. They'd reach way less people if they just went full film school crit for similar lengths without some absurd character gimmick interjections running alongside. They started to put too much focus on it in the end but whatever. Didn't bother me so much.

Shakey I thought what people were pushing back was your assertion that it took at least a year for people to admit TPM was bad.

when not adjusting for inflation of ticket prices

couple years ago was peak price premium for 3D glasses movies iirc and it's not a progressive ticket price increase to children's tickets, just a flat one

so basically a parent and two kids would be paying... oh hell I'm not going to run out the math

it's not borne out by my personal experience either - which was that people saw it, and most came back saying some variation of "eh it was ok", which over time gradually morphed into "wow that was awful". For some people that was days for other people it was months for some it was years, but this idea that everyone acknowledged it was crap right out the gate is nonsense.

xp

I wish the final shot after the anguished "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" had been Palpatine and Jar-Jar congratulating each other on their collusion to take down the empire, with Jar-Jar's reward being stewardship over Naboo and the subjugation/enslavement of its human-like population

Thanks for getting me to imagine Jar-Jar in Imperial commander outfit staring wistfully outside window at Death Star

it was critically panned

critics hated the original trilogy too, I'm not talking about them

now I'm just repeating myself

Meesa gonna control the universe

I guess Ebert gave it a thumbs up? lol

fwiw Kael on Empire:

By far the most imaginative part of the STAR WARS trilogy. This middle, bridging film is chained to an unresolved plot and doesn't have the leaping comic-book hedonism of the 1977 STAR WARS, but you can feel the love of movie magic that went into its cascading imagery. George Lucas kept the first movie hopping by cutting it into short, choppy scenes; Irvin Kershner, who directed this one, is a master of visual flow, and, joining his own kinks and obsessions to Lucas's, he gave EMPIRE a splendiferousness that may even have transcended what Lucas had in mind. When Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is frozen into sculpture-his face protruding from a bas-relief, the mouth open as if calling out in pain-the scene has a terrifying grandeur. The characters in this fairy-tale cliff-hanger show more depth of feeling than they had in the first film, and the music-John Williams' variations on the STAR WARS theme-seems to saturate and enrich the intensely clear images. Scenes linger in the mind: the light playing on Darth Vader's gleaming surfaces as this metal man, who's like a giant armored insect, fills the screen; Han Solo saving Luke's life on the ice planet Hoth by slashing open a snow camel and warming him inside; Luke's hand being lopped off, and his seemingly endless fall through space; Chewbacca, the Wookie, yowling in grief or in comic fear, his sounds so hyper-human you couldn't help laughing at them; the big-eared green elf Yoda, with shining ancient eyes, who pontifically instructs Luke in how to grow up wise-Yoda looks like a wonton and talks like a fortune cookie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_%28film%29#Critical_response

Upon its release, contemporary critical opinion was positive. In his 1977 review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "... an out-of-body experience ...", compared its special effects to those of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and opined that the true strength of the film was its "... pure narrative".[120] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "... the movie that's going to entertain a lot of contemporary folk who have a soft spot for the virtually ritualized manners of comic-book adventure ..." and "... the most elaborate, most expensive, most beautiful movie serial ever made."[121] A.D. Murphy of Variety described the film as "magnificent" and claimed George Lucas had succeeded in his attempt to create the "... biggest possible adventure fantasy ..." based on the serials and older action epics from his childhood.[122] Writing for The Washington Post, Gary Arnold gave the film a positive review, writing the film "... is a new classic in a rousing movie tradition: a space swashbuckler."[123]

British press for the film was positive. Derek Malcolm of The Guardian concluded that the film "... plays enough games to satisfy the most sophisticated."[125] The Daily Telegraph '​s Adrian Berry said that Star Wars "... is the best such film since 2001 and in certain respects it is one of the most exciting ever made." He described the plot as "... unpretentious and pleasantly devoid of any 'message.'"[126] In his review for BBC, Matt Ford awarded the film five out of five stars and wrote, "Star Wars isn't the best film ever made, but it is universally loved."[127]

I was going to say, claiming critics panned the 70s/80s films is some weird revisionist thinking.

I saw a scan earlier in the week of Samuel Delany reviewing the original Star Wars and he really enjoyed it, so it's not as if science fiction writers were panning it either.

I didn't say universally panned

Star Wars isn't the best film ever made, but it is universally loved.

lol quality criticism there mate

I'm fairly shocked that people would have fond enough memories of a not-so-hot movie they saw as children that they would pay to see the 3-D theatrical rerelease of said film. I can't think of any other recent instances of people shelling out cash for lukewarm rehashes of subpar children's entertainment.

critics hated the original trilogy too,

claiming critics panned the 70s/80s films is some weird revisionist thinking.

I didn't say universally panned

masterclass in debating here.

either 100% of people loved it or hated it, there is no in between. love and light, hate and darkness.

(Jar-Jar Binks is actually the worst thing in the world btw).

In so many ways! It's actually amazing.

better overview than wikipedia's: http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/originaltrilogyreception2.html

Pauline Kael, New Yorker: "The only real inspiration involved in Star Wars was to set its sci-fi galaxy in the pop-culture past and to turn old-movie ineptness into conscious Pop Art."

Star Wars: 83%

Empire Strikes Back: 92%

Return of the Jedi: 76%

Never forget.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xFk6oCjJU80/T0Pof4oEbXI/AAAAAAAACoE/iutXxOUu8xg/s1600/cc2742f4-c147-4bf9-b047-ab410447ea0c.jpg

I thought a brilliant structural idea in Empire was to build tension and release out of the malfunctioning hyperdrive in the Falcon. When it finally does take off at the end, it's a fantastic moment.

(Empire also has an advantage in being able to delegate some of the more difficult storytelling challenges (getting the story going, wrapping it up) to its two adjacent episodes.)

Empire also has the advantage of Vader kicking ass

lol

he wipes out an entire officer's class because they can't park the star destroyer between the cones

xp it seems like the dramatic device of technology-not-working-right hit-the-tv-again gets a lot of mileage in the original trilogy, now that I think about it.

that's what Lucas doesn't get: the original trilogy worked in part because distant planets and shit are dirty.

Takes a lot of sweat, grease and trips to the tachi station to maintain a droid

it's obvious Aunt Beru reeks of BO as she pours bug juice from her aqua Tupperware.

Using original boxoffice to claim people loved film originally. Claiming people turned on it over the years. Then using re-release box-office from 2012 to claim... what exactly? That the change of opinion is actually only two years old? Like, even your own facts argue against you.

it's kinda hard arguing against a bunch of random points thrown at me that often willfully misinterpret what I've posted, what can I say.