"If you don't love every single Star Wars movie, you're not a true fan!"

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Has anyone else been unlucky enough to run into one of those fanatics who thinks every cinematic entry in the Star Wars franchise (god forbid you call it a "franchise", it's the "collective works of an auteur!") is magical and sacred, and if you feel that certain entries don't measure up to par with others, you're not a "true fan"?

 

I've spoken to them online and met them in real life. I worked with one bloke who insisted that to call yourself a true fan, you shouldn't criticise any entry in the series for perceived failures, and he asked how you could only like one part of the series?

 

I've always been baffled by this mindset. It's as if they're incapable of assessing a single, individual work of art by its own merit, and instead seem to be blinded by brand loyalty. And they hold the content creators (ie George Lucas or whoever) to an almost deified level, that criticism of their work shall not be tolerated. And if you're the poor sod who dares to hold the content creators to account for their failures, the white knight fan brigade will attempt to vilify you by making false accusations toward you or attempt to ostracise you from their community. The Harry Potter fandom has a few vocal participants like this who believe every entry in the novel series is flawless and equally great and JK Rowling is incapable of mistakes or errors in judgement. I guess they're free to think so, but just because they think so doesn't make it so.

 

But it seems to be most prominent in those two fandoms from what I've observed. You might have seen it elsewhere. But I've never seen anyone bark at others for expressing dislike toward certain DC or Marvel movies and accuse them of not being real fans if they only see merit in certain films but not all of them. Same goes for say, Star Trek, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Godzilla, James Bond, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, just to name a few examples.

 

I dunno, this is just my ponder for the day.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Don't look at me. My favorite one is the second Ewok movie.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

They are not connoiseurs, they will consume anything regardless of its quality, as long as the Star Wars badge is on it.

 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

7 minutes ago, Nick Tatopoulos's Beret said:

Don't look at me. My favorite one is the second Ewok movie.

 

Faker! 

[A24 4,322]

I know someone like that. Impossible to talk with.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I wish more people would just admit that TFA didn't feel like a real Star Wars movie and that Kyle Ren, Ray, and that other idiot were terrible characters.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It felt far closer to it then the Prequels.

[A24 4,322]

1 minute ago, Nick Tatopoulos's Beret said:

I wish more people would just admit that TFA didn't feel like a real Star Wars movie and that Kyle Ren, Ray, and that other idiot were terrible characters.

 

But Ewok movies are?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Just now, Alexcremers said:

 

But Ewok movies are?

 

POWNED!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Yes, and no.

 

They felt Star Warsy, but the Ewok TV movies weren't meant to be connected to the film series.

[Quintus 5,399]

The Force Awakens: the big new Star Wars movie ET & Elliot Forever swore blind he would not see but saw anyway. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It was opening night. Of course I couldn't resist the temptation. What does that prove? That Ewoks: The Battle for Endor isn't my favorite one?

[Quintus 5,399]

Nothing other than you're unreliable. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

He must be taking the piss!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I'm afraid not.

[Bespin 8,472]

For Star Wars will always be 4-5-6 only. I love Episode 7 too, but that's not the same.

 

Star Wars: 4-5-6

Nightmare on Elm Street - Nancy Trilogy: 1-3-7 (the 7th is Wes Craven's New Nightmare)

Halloween - Laurie Strode Trilogy: 1-2-7 (the 7th is H20)

Friday the 13th: 1-2-(3) * I don't like this 3rd "3D" installment in the franchise.... but, eh, that's the one where Jason receive his mask...

[Melange 446]

Fans / Fanatics..........they can't be bargained with........

 

They can't be reasoned with..........

 

they don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear............

 

And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you agree that every single work is a masterpiece.

 

 

[Thor 7,451]

Don't know about the original argument, but I DO love every STAR WARS movie. For different reasons, of course, and I recognize the flaws in each of them (some more than others), but I wouldn't be without any of them. The prequels are some of the most underrated films in the history of cinema.

[Wojo 2,453]

They were a missed opportunity, each of them. They were decent but they could have been so much more. They could have been something special. 

 

I love each of them at the precise moment the end credits begin. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

They arent underrated at all. You are far too forgiving of bad filmmaking, which is what they are.

[mstrox 6,637]

I've certainly run into people online who think "all things Star Wars are perfect or whatever."

 

I'd caution you not to place everybody who likes the prequels in that boat.  I know plenty of Star Wars fans online who genuinely like or love the prequels - usually they are 5+ years younger than me, which is right in the sweet spot where the prequels were part of their childhood.  People are gonna like what they're gonna like.

[Thor 7,451]

5 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

They arent underrated at all. You are far too forgiving of bad filmmaking, which is what they are.

 

They are definitely underrated. Most people rate them poorly (especially SW fans of my generation), but I think they deserve more kudos. Hence they are -- IMO -- underrated.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

There are interesting ideas throughout the prequels, but I can find nothing about the execution of thise idea that is "kudo" worthy.

[Thor 7,451]

5 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

There are interesting ideas throughout the prequels, but I can find nothing about the execution of thise idea that is "kudo" worthy.

 

Nor can most critical voices of these films. That's why they're underrated.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

As usual you seem reluctant to expand on your opinion though, just repeating several times everyone else is wrong.

 

Typical Thor.

 

Anyway....

[Thor 7,451]

7 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

As usual you seem reluctant to expand on your opinion though, just repeating several times everyone else is wrong.

 

Typical Thor.

 

Anyway....

 

Yeah, if I'm going to enter the whole 'prequels - good or bad?' ordeal yet again (which is about as tired and old as 'Horner copies himself!' or 'who is better - Williams or Goldsmith?' or 'everything used to be so much better back in the day' debates), I have to be in a certain kind of mood. And today, I'm not. Maybe later.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

36 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

They arent underrated at all. You are far too forgiving of bad filmmaking, which is what they are.

 

There's a certain class of schlock filmmaking that I adore. Many of these are the old school B-grade variety. They were made with low budgets and knew they were throw-away. Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, Earth vs the Flying Saucers, Tarantula, etc fall within this class of filmmaking. And they've endured and resonated because they've been remade and they were remade well by talented people who grew up with them.

 

These people created a movement of films in the 70s, 80s and 90s that tried to recreate those stories with better scripts and better production values. These include of course Star Wars, Raiders, and at the very tailend of this timeframe, Independence Day, which borrowed from just about everyone and made a slick and exciting movie from it.

 

But the class of movie I despise are the ones that make a feeble attempt to retread those past glories, and fail miserably at it. These include the SW prequels, sort of KotCS, Superman Returns, and Independence Day: Resurgence, etc. They all fall within a class that isn't even schlock, it's absolute shit. Bloated budgets, overconfident filmmakers, uninspired scripts, bored actors, and visual effects that somehow look inferior to their more handcrafted predecessors from two or three decades earlier.

 

I think TFA managed to escape this class by a few notches. But it's still a retread created with more streamlined tech, but only a fraction of the freshness and enthusiasm of the first few films.

 

This is why I'm baffled by the "I love every entry and if you don't, you call yourself a fan?!" mentality that I've seen permeate message boards and one-on-one and group conversations I've been involved with. I think it's important to assess the historical context of the time the film was made, who made it, what were they trying to express, did they keep or lose their filmmaking mojo as time progressed? These are the crucial elements that inform a viewer whether a film is superior or inferor to its predeessors, its contemporaries or its successors.

 

I feel that many posters on JWfan have this down to second nature when assessing works of art, with a few exceptions. But I've seen the opposite across other fan domains, and again, I wonder if these people are really film fans at all or are they just brand loyalists, unable or too intellectually lazy to assess films individually and weigh them on their merits and their failures?

[Thor 7,451]

3 minutes ago, Shatner's Rug said:

This is why I'm baffled by the "I love every entry and if you don't, you call yourself a fan?!" mentality that I've seen permeate message boards

 

Agreed, that's a rather absurd sentiment. You can be a fan of only the first STAR WARS film and still call yourself a STAR WARS fan. Not a franchise fan, perhaps, but still a STAR WARS fan. Fandom isn't measured by quantity, but by depth and intensity.

[Jay 37,249]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

The prequels are some of the most underrated films in the history of cinema.

 

Haha, good one Thor!

[Thor 7,451]

But oh, so true!

[Muad'Dib 1,800]

Bullshit. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

They're Saturday matinee popcorn movies for kids.

[DarthDave 1]

I can tell you that the SW fans with more refined taste have posters of Star Wars on their wall and own 7 different copies of the trilogy on home video and detest the prequels.

[Brónach 1,301]

I've met people like this but not to that point.

 

I'm still waiting for my second Star Wars film. But when I was 13 I liked most of them.

[A24 4,322]

2 hours ago, Thor said:

 

I think they deserve more kudos. Hence they are -- IMO -- underrated.

 

 

I didn't know it worked that way. See, I always thought it was up to the consensus and not one man's judgement.

[Thor 7,451]

2 hours ago, Alexcremers said:

 

I didn't know it worked that way. See, I always thought it was up to the consensus and not one man's judgement.

 

Then you misunderstand. The rating is up to the public or consensus, of course. But 'underrating' (or 'overrating') is an entirely subjective term. In this case, the rating/consensus is mostly poor. So it's up to those of us who like the movies; those of us who see qualities that others do not, or don't acknowledge -- to suggest that is should have been rated higher, hence that it's underrated.

[Bespin 8,472]

The old trilogy is a story of a man who needed people to help him making is vision come true.

 

The prequel trilogy is a story of a very rich man with a bad entourage of lackeys and bloodsuckers.

[Wojo 2,453]

7 minutes ago, Bespin said:

The prequel trilogy is a story of a very rich man with a bad entourage of lackeys and bloodsuckers.

 

I wonder how many of those yes men and lackeys are still working in Hollywood and owe their careers to working on the prequels. No, I don't, I don't really care. 

 

 

Crying that something is underrated is pretty sad. "It's my opinion that not enough people share my opinion about the quality of a manmade work, though quality itself is an entirely subjective opinion." 

[Bilbo 3,709]

1 hour ago, Nick Tatopoulos's Beret said:

They're Saturday matinee popcorn movies for kids.

 

Which was the intention with every Star Wars movie!

 

Dont pay attention to anyway to who talks about being a "true fan". 

[Bespin 8,472]

2 hours ago, WojinPA said:

 

I wonder how many of those yes men and lackeys are still working in Hollywood and owe their careers to working on the prequels. No, I don't, I don't really care. 

 

If you are talking about Rick McA-hum, yes, nobody cares where he's now.

[Will 2,215]

Something to ponder:

 

If you eat a cake, and you like 3/7 of the cake, dislike 3/7 of the cake, and sort of like 1/7 of the cake, is it accurate to say you are a true fan of the cake? Is it even accurate to say that you like the cake?

 

I'm not necessarily saying it isn't; I'm just throwing this out there.

 

--------

 

Is it possible that you can be a "true fan" of SW but not the SW saga, which is one unified epic story, if that makes any sense?

 

@Thor's words here seem to say the same thing:

 

"You can be a fan of only the first STAR WARS film and still call yourself a STAR WARS fan. Not a franchise fan, perhaps, but still a STAR WARS fan."

[mstrox 6,637]

If you are able to like 3/7 of the cake, you can definitely say that you like cake.

I want cake.

[Will 2,215]

4 hours ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

Which was the intention with every Star Wars movie!

 

@Shatner's Rug

 

"But the class of movie I despise are the ones that make a feeble attempt to retread those past glories, and fail miserably at it. These include the SW prequels."

 

 

Do we know that was still Lucas's intention with the prequels? 

 

Because it can't be called a feeble attempt to return to the old fun adventure stuff if that wasn't what he was attempting. 

 

The prequels could also be looked at as an incredibly ambitious attempt to solidify SW as an epic saga for the ages, moving above the more accessible stuff.

 

The interesting thing about Star Wars—and I didn’t ever really push this very far, because it’s not really that important—but there’s a lot going on there that most people haven’t come to grips with yet. But when they do, they will find it’s a much more intricately made clock than most people would imagine.

—George Lucas, Vanity Fair, February  2005

http://www.starwarsringtheory.com

5 hours ago, Nick Tatopoulos's Beret said:

They're Saturday matinee popcorn movies for kids.

 

The prequels? 

 

I think the best parts of them are those that most kids won't notice, understand, or care about.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

42 minutes ago, Will said:

Something to ponder:

 

@ThorIf you eat a cake, and you like 3/7 of the cake, dislike 3/7 of the cake, and sort of like 1/7 of the cake, is it accurate to say you are a true fan of the cake?

 

 

It'd be accurate to say that it's one weird cake.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

50 minutes ago, Will said:

Something to ponder:

 

If you eat a cake, and you like 3/7 of the cake, dislike 3/7 of the cake, and sort of like 1/7 of the cake, is it accurate to say you are a true fan of the cake? Is it even accurate to say that you like the cake?

Think of it this way.  You are given a nice chocolate cake.  Then the baker adds Spaghetti sauce.  

[Wojo 2,453]

It's accurate to say the kid doesn't understand how a cake is baked: from one homogeneous tub of batter put into the oven at one time. 

 

If you bake three cakes two years apart, then three more cakes two years apart twenty years later, then the 7th cake ten years after that.... It's not one single cake. It's a set of seven cupcakes, maybe. 

[Thor 7,451]

All of this cake talk is making me dizzy.

[Jay 37,249]

Really?  It's making me hungry.

[Will 2,215]

@Thor, I am delighted to find someone who like me isn't dismissive of the prequels. And you're a film critic! I'd love to hear your thoughts sometime on the prequels. I know you said that you didn't feel like getting too deep into that argument today, but I hope you will feel more inclined to explain your thinking in the future. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Thor is a film critic?