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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 16, 2019 23:27:11 GMT -5
Were they worthwhile schlocky entertainment despite the fact their dialog was straight out of 1922 and the didn't show a third grader's understanding of science? Did the spot-on casting, SFX world-buildng*, and tonal dexterity** make up for the predictable melodrama of the plot?
Do they have value beyond (A) nostalgia (and generational nostalgia) and (B) a fun way to waste an afternoon? Is there anything in 'em that can be called Art?
I personally quite enjoy 'em, even as an adult, and I think they are fun to think about. And I can easily argue that they are good movies. Buuut I can also very easily argue that they are not.
* This might not make much sense. It's not just that movies had good special effects. The people who were doing the special effects created a world that felt lived in, tactily functional, and immersive. My # 1 argument for why Star Wars is better than Star Trek is that Star Trek looks like a set, and Star Wars feels like it takes place in a real universe-of-it's-own, moreso than any other space-future-aliens movie I've seen.
** This might not make much sense. The movies have funny parts, dramatic parts, semi-serious parts that are also dramatic, uneasy parts... There are a lot of shades of storytelling being used, and each scene and film has it's own tonal identity. There are plenty of movies (Logan) where you can watch one scene and guess what the rest of the movie will feel like, emotionally, to watch. I'm still not sure I'm communicating this well but it's really my favorite part of Star Wars.
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Post by Duragizer on Apr 17, 2019 15:15:28 GMT -5
I view Star Wars '77 as a live-action version of a classic Disney animated film; it's not particularly deep, but it has stunning production values and likable characters to make up for whatever shortcomings it has.
The Empire Strikes Back is an evolution of its predecessor, with the added bonus that Vader's been made a more complex and interesting villain by the revelation that he's Luke's father.
Return of the Jedi is schlock. Force users are reduced to life-sife Krusty the Clown dolls with good/evil switches in their backs. Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night becomes an instant sociopath if he assassinates a tyrannical despot; a mass murderer and war criminal gets a "get out of jail free" card and goes to heaven for a single good deed which wasn't even entirely selfless. There is no nuance, no depth, no insight; its puerile quasi-Objectivist morality given a Saturday morning cartoon facelift. The characterization is poor; the Ewoks are terribly executed; and don't get me started on Death Star 2: Electric Boogaloo or that inane Leia retcon. Only the production values and Mark Hamill raise the film to mediocrity.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2019 15:52:04 GMT -5
I like all three films equally and I felt that Empire was the best of the three; the Star Wars was groundbreaking, the Jedi to me was the weaker of the three ... but I loved those Ewoks to the point that they were mismanaged and done badly like Duragizer pointed out that the execution was done poorly. Of the three films ... I rather watch the 1st one and only the first one because it was original movie back in 1977.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,867
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Post by shaxper on Apr 17, 2019 16:46:32 GMT -5
For me, it's definitely the world-building. It was the first time we got a convincing looking sci-fi universe, and with so many planets and an implied elaborate history, it was more the unlimited promise of the series than what the series actually accomplished. Plus, Empire took some really bold moves that made the franchise seem deeper and more complex than it actually was.
I've always been more of a Trekkie than a Star Wars fan, but Trek depended upon ideas and took the easy way out on visuals. Plus, there were no over-arching storylines until DS9. Star Wars sold us on a more visually and episodically rich universe. The characters and writing were really secondary, IMO.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 17, 2019 16:48:23 GMT -5
I loved them as a kid of course, and saw them all in theatre (I was 7 when the first one came out.) When I re-watched the first film many years later as an adult, I found it kind of embarrassing. The dialogue was super-cringey. I think that was the worst thing. More recently I re-watched Empire and...it wasn't too bad. Not great but I didn't have the same reaction I did to the first film. It feels more mature. I can now see why most people say it's the best one (I disagreed when I was young.) I haven't re-watched Return, but I suspect the teddy bears would annoy me.
Oh, and also I recently read Dune, and though I didn't enjoy it much, I could easily see how much Lucas ripped it off. Like, almost everything.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 17, 2019 21:48:39 GMT -5
While I'll agree the basic plot of Star Wars is a pretty straight fairy tale, Empire Strikes Back is actually a great movie in it's own right. RoTJ was a cash in. I agree with Shax that is was about the setting and the world building, which is why I loved the EU. I disagree that Trek didn't have overarching storyline before DS9 completely, but that's a discussion for another thread  |
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Post by aquagoat on Apr 20, 2019 12:48:00 GMT -5
Criticising Star Wars for not being deep or having accurate science is like criticising The Three Bears for it's representation of bears as porridge-eating homeowners. It's like criticising Silence of the Lambs for it's lack of space battles.
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Post by Duragizer on Apr 20, 2019 17:16:29 GMT -5
Criticising Star Wars for not being deep or having accurate science is like criticising The Three Bears for it's representation of bears as porridge-eating homeowners. It's like criticising Silence of the Lambs for it's lack of space battles. In my case, there's a large disconnect between the kid I was when I became a Star Wars fan and the adult I've become in the last two decades. Back in the '90s, I didn't bat an eye at narratives with rigid moral absolutism or absolute evil villains, but my life experiences since then have left those things distasteful to me. It's why I've gravitated towards Star Trek in recent years; the heroes are still heroes, but the villains also have humanity. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 20, 2019 19:31:00 GMT -5
The acting in the first film is embarrasingly bad (especially Hammill and Fisher) but I think the other two are pretty decent. They would never make my Greatest Movies of All Time list, though. Neither would any of the MCU, Star Trek, Potter, or Bond movies, for that matter, though I enjoy all those franchises.
Cei-U!
I summon the high standards
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Post by BigPapaJoe on Apr 21, 2019 10:32:14 GMT -5
Definitely. Return of the Jedi isn't that great, but still a decent movie. The other Star Wars movie that exist are all weaker than any of those three except maybe Rogue One, which I liked. I think that is at least on par with Return of the Jedi.
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Post by tarkintino on Apr 21, 2019 18:37:09 GMT -5
Were they worthwhile schlocky entertainment despite the fact their dialog was straight out of 1922 There's nothing schlocky about that first series. The point was not to be "hard sci-fi," but science fantasy. Sci-fi is just a setting, not the drive and meaning of the original films. It was never predictable. Before 1977, film audiences had been treated with a far different kind of sci-fi/fantasy film, with almost 20 straight years of bleak, dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic films such as this short, but defining list of movies: On the Beach
The Time Machine
The World, the Flesh and the Devil
Planet of the Apes and its four sequels The Andromeda Strain
Marooned
A Clockwork Orange
Solylent Green,
The Omega Man
Westworld
Logan's Run
Rollerball...or films in general. When Star Wars hit theaters, no one knew how the plot would unfold at all, as it took directions not seen in film in generations. that, and its overall message opened the eyes of audiences who were growing tired of one hopeless sci-fi/fantasy film after another. You sound like someone who was not there to experience not only its first impact, but instant effect on film and popular culture in the years after its last film was released in 1983. They were commonly referred to as modern classics and aged well beyond anyone's wildest dreams--unlike most of the fantasy and sci-fi that would follow, which were more about gimmicks or one-note plots than telling a story that resonated because it spoke to trials of the heroes' lives against all odds, that were/are quite timeless in their execution. That's most fantasy films of the past 30 years. Most do not age well past the year of release, and were always more about spectacle and triggering a simple emotional beat, rather than bring the audience into the lives of the protagonists. This is a serious problem with the majority of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, many of Peter Jackson's fantasy films, the Alien prequels, the neverendeing stream of Terminator sequels/prequels, sci-fi westerns, Avatar, other comic book adaptations, and the sea of largely nowhere "event" sci-fi films that were answers to insomnia--not because they lacked bells and whistles, but due to the films having no purpose, other than trying to be "important" (e.g. the Solaris remake, Life, etc.). Tiresome and only memorable due to how predictable and bad they were. The original Star Wars trilogy did not suffer from the flood of pre-packaged, committee-endorsed fantasy in recent history, which is why the series endures and is still used as a measuring stick of not just entertaining, but well-conceived films with deep cultural roots. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2019 4:51:08 GMT -5
I'm going to go with "largely no". As a large-scale equivalent of a Saturday morning serial, they kind of succeed in being a rollercoaster ride and dragging the audience along, but the pacing of the films is all over the place, most of the acting is incredibly wooden (Mark Hamill in particular just cannot act at all), the scripts are largely awful and some of the plots are just stupid - Death Star fails, let's build another one! Attacking a rebel base, let's use slow plodding animal-tanks that can be tripped up! Need a local army, let's recruit some teddy bears!.
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Post by Icctrombone on Apr 22, 2019 6:22:12 GMT -5
The first two were good , with ESB being great. Jedi was bad, both in it's answering the cliffhangers and with those dopey Ewoks. But without those films, there's no franchise to still enjoy.
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Post by Duragizer on Apr 22, 2019 23:49:46 GMT -5
Mark Hamill in particular just cannot act at all Obviously, you've never watched Midnight Ride. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2019 1:55:03 GMT -5
Mark Hamill in particular just cannot act at all Obviously, you've never watched Midnight Ride. I haven't, but my implication was "... in those films", though I take your point, I could have been more specific |
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