Star Wars is better than everything

[ThePenitentMan1 744]

7 hours ago, Edmilson said:

About what I said on the other thread:

 

 

 

Obi-Wan was at least victorious in Episode I.

 

[Edmilson 7,466]

The Force is strong with Batman 

 

[Dr. Rick 1,157]

 

1 minute ago, Dr. Rick said:

https://twitter.com/swculture/status/1773153032538300568?s=42&t=l9YYLnje0jzJk2Rry0GlLQ

[Bellosh 3,419]

Has Star Wars reached the Godzilla-verse where there is just so much good and bad entries, that its basically like fighting over Coke and Pepsi.

 

Nobody cares which side you're on?

 

Shit, it seems like even Godzilla fans don't give a shit if someone hates on something in it.  They just go "meh, whatever, they're probably right, but i don't care."

 

Is this a silver lining for Star Wars?

[Schilkeman 964]

9 hours ago, Bellosh said:

Has Star Wars reached the Godzilla-verse where there is just so much good and bad entries, that its basically like fighting over Coke and Pepsi.

 

Nobody cares which side you're on?

 

Shit, it seems like even Godzilla fans don't give a shit if someone hates on something in it.  They just go "meh, whatever, they're probably right, but i don't care."

 

Is this a silver lining for Star Wars?

I mean, the old EU was always kind of like that. Arguments about the Denningverse, the unevenness of the Bantam era, comparing the Clone Wars MMP to The Clone Wars, Karen Traviss'...everything. I would say 1999 fundamentally changed the fandom, but there are still '77 die-hards out there--you should read some fanzines from 1980. People have been arguing about Star Wars from the moment there was more than one movie to worry about.

[Groovygoth666 670]

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

 

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

Thanks. That gave me a good laugh.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Thanks. That gave me a good laugh.

 

You disenchanted guys need that once in a while.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

27 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

You disenchanted guys need that once in a while.

Yes, gate-keeping the fandom is a generally mirthless pursuit. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Yes, gate-keeping the fandom is a generally mirthless pursuit. 

 

At least you'll have something to look back at when old.

[Tallguy 3,398]

Ahsoka (and Chopper) has been added to Star Tours.

 

 

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

 

[Bespin 8,483]

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

2 hours ago, Bespin said:

This reminds me of a true story I read...

 

Your typical dad raised on the Star Wars OT wants to share his passion with his son by showing 'A New Hope' to him — and through his young eyes, relive the magic of seeing it for the first time...

 

The movie ends, and the son says:

 

"That sucked!"

 

Wounded, the dad replies:

 

"No, you suck!"

 

 

[Faleel 5,353]

2 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

This reminds me of a true story I read...

 

Your typical dad raised on the Star Wars OT wants to share his passion with his son by showing 'A New Hope' to him — and through his young eyes, relive the magic of seeing it for the first time...

 

The movie ends, and the son says:

 

"That sucked!"

 

Wounded, the dad replies:

 

"No, you suck!"

 

 

[Schilkeman 964]

You know, show your kids stuff. Let them make up their own mind. They have one, after all.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

1 hour ago, Schilkeman said:

You know, show your kids stuff. Let them make up their own mind. They have one, after all.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to turn my kid into a little clone of myself, but I'd admit to being a tad disappointed if he'd rejected Star Wars and declared that it "sucked." lol

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Well, most of SW stuff sucks.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

1 minute ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Yeah, I wouldn't want to turn my kid into a little clone of myself, but I'd admit to being a tad disappointed if he'd rejected Star Wars and declared that it "sucked." lol

There is another not unlikely scenario. Your kid likes Star Wars, but only the new Disney stuff and calling the OT boring and old fashioned.

 

[Schilkeman 964]

1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

There is another not unlikely scenario. Your kid likes Star Wars, but only the new Disney stuff and calling the OT boring and old fashioned.

 

Life is full of tiny disappointments. Eventually, one of them will kill us.

[ThePenitentMan1 744]

2 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Well, most of SW stuff socks.

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

2 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

calling the OT boring and old fashioned.

 

Especially the music. Not epic enough!

[GerateWohl 4,370]

18 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Especially the music. Not epic enough!

Sure. If you let the movie croak in your TV instead of watching it in cinema where it belongs, then the music probably dies the same unworthy death.

[Bespin 8,483]

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

On 10/04/2024 at 8:51 AM, GerateWohl said:

There is another not unlikely scenario. Your kid likes Star Wars, but only the new Disney stuff and calling the OT boring and old fashioned.

 

I think that's very, very likely. A kid in 2024 is much more likely to first encounter a contemporary Star Wars show or a recent Star Wars film or couple of films, and much less likely to first hit upon the original, 1977 film, especially seeing as how its nestled into the midst of the whole thing as "Episode IV." There's nothing to say that's the original: its just one of the episodes.

 

And, if that's the case, I do think it will take the edge off of the original film when kids DO get to it eventually. Its a much quainter film - it was made for far less money, and with less means - its more light on its feet, much more referential of then-fashionable pop-culture works, and all those qualities really work for the film in isolation, but when viewed after having seen a good helping of the larger "saga", all that stuff make it feel out-of-place, quaint and kind of underwhelming.

 

Tatooine was probably pretty darn cool in 1977. But if you've seen Episode I (which I think had a far better location scout for Tunisia) and other entries into the expanded series that take place on Tatooine or on other desert planets (Jakku, Geonosis) and which far greater means to showcase the vastness of the desert (not to mention films depicting the antecedents of Tatooine: Barsoom and Arrakis), then the shots of the desert in the 1977 film lose a lot of their grandeur and mystique. Certainly, after all the frenetic lightsaber action in the other entries, the brawl between Old Ben and Vader comes across far lamer than it did in 1977.

 

Probably the best essay written on the film has this to say on the matter: 

 

Quote

The success of “Star Wars” has obviated a lot of its original virtues. Much of the fun of watching the film for the first time, now forever inaccessible to us, was in the slow unveiling of its universe: Swords made of lasers! A Bigfoot who co-pilots a spaceship! A swing band of ’50s U.F.O. aliens! Mr. Lucas refuses to explain anything, keeping the viewer as off-balance as a jet-lagged tourist in Benares or Times Square. We don’t see the film’s hero until 17 minutes in; we’re kept watching not by plot but by novelty, curiosity.

 

Subsequent sequels, tie-in novels, interstitial TV shows, video games and fan fiction have lovingly ground this charm out of existence with exhaustive, literal-minded explication: Every marginal background character now has a name and a back story, every offhand allusion a history. But Mr. Lucas’s universe just doesn’t have the depth of Tolkien’s Middle-earth; it was only ever meant to be sketched, not charted. Sequels and tie-ins, afraid to stray too far off-brand, stick to variations on familiar designs and revive old characters, so there’s nothing new to discover.

 

[ThePenitentMan1 744]

14 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

I think that's very, very likely. A kid in 2024 is much more likely to first encounter a contemporary Star Wars show or a recent Star Wars film or couple of films, and much less likely to first hit upon the original, 1977 film, especially seeing as how its nestled into the midst of the whole thing as "Episode IV." There's nothing to say that's the original: its just one of the episodes.

 

And, if that's the case, I do think it will take the edge off of the original film when kids DO get to it eventually. Its a much quainter film - it was made for far less money, and with less means - its more light on its feet, much more referential of then-fashionable pop-culture works, and all those qualities really work for the film in isolation, but when viewed after having seen a good helping of the larger "saga", all that stuff make it feel out-of-place, quaint and kind of underwhelming.

 

Tatooine was probably pretty darn cool in 1977. But if you've seen Episode I (which I think had a far better location scout for Tunisia) and other entries into the expanded series that take place on Tatooine or on other desert planets (Jakku, Geonosis) and which far greater means to showcase the vastness of the desert (not to mention films depicting the antecedents of Tatooine: Barsoom and Arrakis), then the shots of the desert in the 1977 film lose a lot of their grandeur and mystique. Certainly, after all the frenetic lightsaber action in the other entries, the brawl between Old Ben and Vader comes across far lamer than it did in 1977.

 

George could've taken more care to preserve ANH and ESB's original appeal while making the prequels.  But, we've got Tatooine, R2, 3PO, Yoda, and Anakin's fall to the Dark Side all onscreen with significant focus in the prequels.

 

But, at least he never showed the cockpit view of the Hyperspace jump until ANH.

[Tallguy 3,398]

On 10/04/2024 at 1:51 AM, GerateWohl said:

There is another not unlikely scenario. Your kid likes Star Wars, but only the new Disney stuff and calling the OT boring and old fashioned.

 

 

My kids love the OT and the ST. But I would argue they never got to "see Star Wars for the first time".

[Chen G. 3,949]

2 hours ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

George could've taken more care to preserve ANH and ESB's original appeal while making the prequels.  But, we've got Tatooine, R2, 3PO, Yoda, and Anakin's fall to the Dark Side all onscreen with significant focus in the prequels.

 

But, at least he never showed the cockpit view of the Hyperspace jump until ANH.

 

Yeah, but then we got Rogue One, Solo, Obi Wan etc...

 

Imagine watching all that stuff and then seeing the original for the first time:

 

Vader's entrance? Meh. Seen him plenty for that to maintain its drama.

The Droids wandering through the dunes? Meh, we've seen endless amounts of far-more-impressively-framed desert shots AND we know Tatooine so its no longer about the Droids venturing into the unknown.

The cantina? Pfft, we've seen more weird aliens than stars in the sky.

The Death Star blowing up Leia's home? Pfft, please! We've seen the Death Star blow up several planets by this point.

The lightsaber battle? Pfft, we've seen people - including Vader and Obi Wan - slash and jump and throw objects at each other, so these two geezers gently poking at each other? NEXT!

 

etc... You get my point.

[Tallguy 3,398]

37 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Vader's entrance? Meh. Seen him plenty for that to maintain its drama

 

As a card carrying prequel hater, the two entrances that work in Star Wars as part 4 are Vader (a bit) and Obi-Wan (really well). They go from entrances to re-entrances. Actually they work better than Han's entrance in The Force Awakens. (Not nearly as good as the Falcon's.)

 

38 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

We've seen the Death Star blow up several planets by this point.

 

Really? Do name these planets.

[Faleel 5,353]

10 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

 

As a card carrying prequel hater, the two entrances that work in Star Wars as part 4 are Vader (a bit) and Obi-Wan (really well). They go from entrances to re-entrances. Actually they work better than Han's entrance in The Force Awakens. (Not nearly as good as the Falcon's.)

 

 

Really? Do name these planets.

Jedha, Scarif

[Chen G. 3,949]

29 minutes ago, Faleel said:

Jedha, Scarif

Quite. Now, I know the comeback will be “well, technically they don’t blow up those planets wholesale!” But frankly that blowing up of Jedha looks far more cataclysmic than the blowing up of Aldeeran, insofar as we see the effect FROM THE PLANET SURFACE.

 

Definitely undermines the impact in the original.

[Tallguy 3,398]

2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Quite. Now, I know the comeback will be “well, technically they don’t blow up those planets wholesale!” But frankly that blowing up of Jedha looks far more cataclysmic than the blowing up of Aldeeran, insofar as we see the effect FROM THE PLANET SURFACE.

 

Definitely undermines the impact in the original.

 

That's only the comeback because it's true. Technically Darth Vader didn't kill Luke Skywalker, he only cut off his hand.

 

Alderaan's destruction is physically not very dramatic. It's a popping balloon. Even from the surface it would be a flash and then nothing.

 

Jedha was horrific devastation. But it was devastation that could be run from and escaped. If you watch Rogue One before Star Wars then, well, you need better friends who wouldn't let you do that. But if you did, then Alderaan is what is teased at in Rogue One. There's a whole planet left in Rogue One. In Star Wars it's just rubble. In an instant.

 

"The entire star fleet couldn't destroy the whole planet..." But I bet the entire star fleet could paste the hell out of a good chunk of it. What happens to Alderaan is unique.

 

Also we're told from the first moments of Star Wars that the Death Star can destroy a planet. That's not the drama. The drama is that this is the Princess' home planet.

 

Of course all of this is done away with if you accept the simple truth that the first Star Wars movie that one should ever watch is Star Wars. No one has made a film that could naturally be seen before it.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

Yeah, but then we got Rogue One, Solo, Obi Wan etc...

 

Imagine watching all that stuff and then seeing the original for the first time:

 

Vader's entrance? Meh. Seen him plenty for that to maintain its drama.

The Droids wandering through the dunes? Meh, we've seen endless amounts of far-more-impressively-framed desert shots AND we know Tatooine so its no longer about the Droids venturing into the unknown.

The cantina? Pfft, we've seen more weird aliens than stars in the sky.

The Death Star blowing up Leia's home? Pfft, please! We've seen the Death Star blow up several planets by this point.

The lightsaber battle? Pfft, we've seen people - including Vader and Obi Wan - slash and jump and throw objects at each other, so these two geezers gently poking at each other? NEXT!

 

etc... You get my point.

it really depends on how much appreciation you have for minimalism. because on paper 100 Tie-Fighters sounds a lot more thrilling than 4, but thanks to how effectively they're utilized in the Tie Fighter Attack scene in the first movie it overcomes that limitation significantly

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

40 minutes ago, Tallguy said:

Of course all of this is done away with if you accept the simple truth that the first Star Wars movie that one should ever watch is Star Wars.

 

The simple truth is that, in every case, release order is the preferred order for watching a film series for the first time. 

 

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

10 hours ago, Chen G. said:

A kid in 2024 is much more likely to first encounter a contemporary Star Wars show or a recent Star Wars film or couple of films, and much less likely to first hit upon the original, 1977 film

 

Well that's just bad parenting.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

32 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Well that's just bad parenting.

I'll refer you back to the story I shared of the father who was blindsided by his son...

 

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

Sure. Kids make up their own mind on what they like. If the kid doesn't like Star Wars '77, not much to be done about it. 

 

But just because a kid prefers McDonalds doesn't mean I'm not making them eat their vegetables.

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

23 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Vader's entrance? Meh. Seen him plenty for that to maintain its drama.

The Droids wandering through the dunes? Meh, we've seen endless amounts of far-more-impressively-framed desert shots AND we know Tatooine so its no longer about the Droids venturing into the unknown.

The cantina? Pfft, we've seen more weird aliens than stars in the sky.

The Death Star blowing up Leia's home? Pfft, please! We've seen the Death Star blow up several planets by this point.

The lightsaber battle? Pfft, we've seen people - including Vader and Obi Wan - slash and jump and throw objects at each other, so these two geezers gently poking at each other? NEXT!

 

etc... You get my point.

 

I get your point indeed. Those scenes in the various prequels tend to rob the original scenes of much of their power, especially, I imagine for a first time viewer who foolishly chose to watch the films in in-universe "chronological" order.

 

Of course, the same can be said for The Hobbit trilogy, which has many callbacks to images and sequences to those done (better) in The Lord of the Rings.  Seeing dark Gandalf say "I am not trying to rob you" isn't as powerful and shocking once you've seen the same bit done with the "If I say Bilbo Baggins is a burglar..." in the prequel.

 

Anyone who watches Star Wars or Middle-Earth for the first time in "sequence" is robbing themselves of something very special that they can never get back.

[Chen G. 3,949]

6 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Of course, the same can be said for The Hobbit trilogy, which has many callbacks to images and sequences to those done (better) in The Lord of the Rings.  Seeing dark Gandalf say "I am not trying to rob you" isn't as powerful and shocking once you've seen the same bit done with the "If I say Bilbo Baggins is a burglar..." in the prequel.

 

Anyone who watches Star Wars or Middle-Earth for the first time in "sequence" is robbing themselves of something very special that they can never get back.

 

I feel like its much, much, MUCH more detrimental in Star Wars, and while the prequels do give some stuff back, I feel like in that case the scales are tipped way too far in the direction of detracting from the original film, as opposed to enriching it.

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

I feel like its much, much, MUCH more detrimental in Star Wars, and while the prequels do give some stuff back, I feel like in that case the scales are tipped way too far in the direction of detracting from the original film, as opposed to enriching it.

 

But even if that's true, there's still nothing to be gained, and certainly something to be lost, by watching The Hobbit first.

[Chen G. 3,949]

4 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

But even if that's true, there's still nothing to be gained, and certainly something to be lost, by watching The Hobbit first.

 

I actually wrote a lengthy essay arguing to the opposite in that particular case...

 

But I feel like the Star Wars case is very different.

[Tallguy 3,398]

Yeah, for whatever butcher job Jackson did on The Hobbit, it still existed before Lord of the Rings. 

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

15 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Sure. Kids make up their own mind on what they like. If the kid doesn't like Star Wars '77, not much to be done about it. 

 

But just because a kid prefers McDonalds doesn't mean I'm not making them eat their vegetables.

 

 

That dad who tried to bond with his kid maybe committed the parenting error of showing him Episode IV after he'd already seen some new stuff...

 

To the kid, it would definitely seem like a leap backwards—which may have prompted him to commit sacrilege by saying it "sucked." Though I say he was possessed by demons.

 

So, to weigh in on the debate of "Does it matter which order you watch them in?," I'll say it may be better to introduce kids to Star Wars through the original before flooding their senses with slick and shiny Disney-era stuff.

[Edmilson 7,466]

When I have a kid, this is the closer he or she will ever get to The Phantom Menace 

 

 

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

When I have a kid, this is the closest he or she will ever get to The Phantom Menace 

 

You'll have to show it to her/him so s/he understands the parody! You don't want your kid to be one of those people who laugh at the surface-level gags in The Simpsons and don't get the pop-cultural references! That would be bad parenting! 

[Edmilson 7,466]

51 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

You'll have to show it to her/him so s/he understands the parody! You don't want your kid to be one of those people who laugh at the surface-level gags in The Simpsons and don't get the pop-cultural references! That would be bad parenting! 

You're right. So, the only solution for this is... to forbid they watch this specific episode from The Simpsons until they're old enough to pay their own bills (and streaming services). 

 

It's a pretty weak episode anyway, it won't be missed.

[Mr. Hooper 1,792]

4 hours ago, Edmilson said:

It's a pretty weak episode anyway, it won't be missed.

I actually wouldn't know. Haven't watched The Simpsons since around 1999, and remember thinking the quality was beginning to drop off around 1995.

[Bespin 8,483]

[Tallguy 3,398]

"Which do we throw away? This one says Anthology and these other three just say Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. He doesn't need ALL of them does he? And how is Star Trek different from Star Wars?"