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For some time it has been said that Star Wars is the demarcation point for "modern" audiences vs "traditional" audiences. If a movie was made before the first Star Wars film, it's old.

I think the chronometer has moved well beyond that, and probably Harry Potter (or maybe Lord of the Rings) is the new demarcation line. But in the interests of what I'm about to discuss, let's say Star Wars is still some kind of plumb-line in film history, sort of like Citizen Kane in that regard: an undeniable historical point in cinema for all the ages to come.

I may have been the last movie fan over the age of 30 to have never seen the full Star Wars original trilogy. I'd seen bits and pieces here and there, but never the whole schmear. So, last month, I sat down with my wife (the only other person over age 30 in the world to have never seen it) and 2 of our kids (teenagers) to watch each movie, three Saturday nights in a row.

I suspect our reaction is typical of how the post-Potter generation probably reacts, despite our age. Star Wars is slow. Its exciting parts have completely lost their ability to excite. Its technical innovations, which I won't deny, look clumsy nowadays. Darth Vader has no looming presence; he's a guy of average height who likes to swish around in a black cape -- big deal. R2D2 and C3PO are tiresome and unfunny; how could anyone have ever seriously compared them to Laurel and Hardy? And even for a pulp serial tribute to the cheap serials of the Thirties, there are jarring gaps and inconsistencies in the storyline.

The films are not bad. They've been bypassed by so much in the past 40 years that for a newcomer, they have no resonance or impressiveness at all, which means they have to stand or fall on their storylines, characters, and drive. For me, they don't. My wife and both kids gave up on each film with about 20 minutes left to go; they were actually bored.

I'm certainly not offering this as the definitive word on Stars Wars today, but I will totally understand those under-30s who find the original trilogy completely underwhelming and wonder what all the fuss was about back in the 70s and 80s.

Anybody else have similar experiences with Star Wars?

Jim

Only in that I was seriously wowed by it when I saw it in 1977 (I was 21). Since then I view it with benign amusement, not expecting to recapture the original impression. It's the only STAR WARS I ever look at now, though I'm curious about the upcoming sequels with the original cast making appearances.

I was 23 when I saw it and it was a great movie. When the Death Star blew up Alderan, I stood up and shouted "Yes!'. For years I had seen that in my mind, an E.E. Smith Q-Helix, and here it was. I wasn't alone. Others knew what it looked like.

Bob

I saw it when it first came out and I was bored by the end. I was 17 or 18. After all the hype and gushing by people I knew I was expecting something better. At the time it just seemed to me to be a souped up version of "Flash Gordon" - big deal.

My inner child remains charmed by the first Star Wars, for what it was then. I think the definitive moment of why we loved it so was the shot of C3PO and R2D2 walking through the desert and there's a giant, dinosaur-like skeleton in the sand in the background, as you might come across a cattle skull in west Texas. Fantasy for so long had been the province of cheap exploitation filmmakers, in the 50s stapling extra stuff onto poor iguanas, in the 60s and 70s bad modern architecture and hair standing in for the future, so to suddenly have someone who would populate a world with throwaway details on such a scale was like getting to make movies ourselves. Like the seven fighting skeletons where one would do in Jason and the Argonauts, it was joyous to not be given the least necessary to extract our money.

Now, of course, as Lucas himself proved, you can use a computer to cram the screen with everything, and it means nothing. But kids who grew up on today's movies can't see why a styrofoam skeleton in the background meant anything.

I had a similar experience taking the kids to see 2001 in 70mm, as I suspected they might (but forced 'em anyway). What was once hypnotic, what once made us drunk with sheer visual joy as spacecraft waltzed to Strauss, seemed static and dull to them now; they've seen its kind every week. (They liked the original Tron a lot better, incidentally.) That said, we have at least had a number of conversations since then about the film's themes, why HAL turned murderous, whether killing is the definitive marker of evolution, etc. etc. I think the older one, certainly, got more of an appreciation for how you can bury levels of meaning within art, even if his judgement at the time was whispered to my wife: "This may be one of dad's favorite movies, but it isn't one of mine."

Jim Roots wrote: I may have been the last movie fan over the age of 30 to have never seen the full Star Wars original trilogy.

How dare you claim this distinction for yourself! Yes, I admit that, coerced by the overwhelming advertising hype, I saw the original--but not one of the sequels!

Mike Gebert wrote:I had a similar experience taking the kids to see 2001... What was once hypnotic, what once made us drunk with sheer visual joy as spacecraft waltzed to Strauss, seemed static and dull to them now; they've seen its kind every week.

Though I watched it in stunned & speechless awe 3 times during the first year of its release, some instinct for preserving that original, treasured, impression has detered me from ever even wishing to view it again.

I saw STAR WARS before it exploded (so to speak), and so it was a naive, fresh experience. Same with JAWS--saw it opening day, thinking "what can be so special about a shark?"

By contrast, I couldn't wait for PHANTOM MENACE to end.

Though I watched it in stunned & speechless awe 3 times during the first year of its release, some instinct for preserving that original, treasured, impression has detered me from ever even wishing to view it again.[/quote]

I saw 2001 during its original run, and was impressed. But only on repeat viewing eons later do I like it even more. Not all movie experiences work that way.

westegg wrote:I saw STAR WARS before it exploded (so to speak), and so it was a naive, fresh experience. Same with JAWS--saw it opening day, thinking "what can be so special about a shark?"

By contrast, I couldn't wait for PHANTOM MENACE to end.

I haven't seen the full Jaws, either. Keep thinking it's obligatory. Keep thinking, "Naaaaahhh... Just not interested."

However, I did finally get around to seeing the complete Godfather saga last year. Worth it. A great epic.

Jim

westegg wrote:Though I watched it in stunned & speechless awe 3 times during the first year of its release, some instinct for preserving that original, treasured, impression has detered me from ever even wishing to view it again.

I saw 2001 during its original run, and was impressed. But only on repeat viewing eons later do I like it even more. Not all movie experiences work that way.

It certainly didn't work that way for me. I saw it in its original run ... in Cinerama, no less, which has to be the ultimate way to watch it, short of 3D ... and I liked it (I was, what... 12 years old?) But watching it again 40 years later, I was just so totally bored out of my skull!

(In case I'm giving the wrong impression here, I am not an A.D.D. action-addict. I like Tarkovsky's films. 'Nuff said.)

But I understand exactly where Westegg is coming from. As a teenager, Ingmar Bergman films were my life-line. I have all of the greatest ones on video now, and will not watch them even once. Just don't want to tamper with what they meant to me in the roughest patches of my life.

Jim

Jim Roots wrote: I haven't seen the full Jaws, either. Keep thinking it's obligatory. Keep thinking, "Naaaaahhh... Just not interested."

In the company of friends, I'll reveal my shame: I DID see it. Once again (though it's no excuse), the relentless hype & ubiquitous chatter overwhelmed my good judgement; however, even before I left the theater, I was aware I'd covered myself with dreck. Therefor, "Keep thinking, "Naaaaahhh... Just not interested."

EYE was the one who spoke of viewing 2001 3 times, but I never realized it had been offered in Cinerama. Considering, however, the state of stupified amazement to which I'd been reduced by seeing it on a standard screen, I fear Cinerama might have injured my nervous system.

I've shown my kids (6 & 10) the original Star Wars and both loved it. And the 10 year-old has read and seen the first Potters (she just finished #6 this past weekend). I'm curious Jim, did you show the original film first? Showing the prequels first will ruin it, because those films are fast and flashy but TERRIBLE, which would make following them with the original make it feel slow and unimpressive despite having a better screenplay. (Yes, there's some hokey dialog in the original, for sure, but I think the performances save it.)

The neat thing about the first films, perhaps less so in the last, is that their battles are engaging and are part of the story, rather than exciting* intermissions as they are in the prequels. If I saw any battle from one of the prequels as a stand-alone short I'd have gotten just as much out of it as I did by watching the whole two hour film around it. On the other hand, the final battle in the original film was made better and more engaging by having seen the film leading up to it. And the battle felt like the story was continuing, whereas in all of the battles in the prequels it felt like just a bunch of battle shots stuck together that would go on until the makers of the film felt the scene was long enough, then they'd end it. In other words, if you'd never seen the original film and someone showed you the Death Star battle you might think it was nice, but it wouldn't have the same impact as if you'd seen the whole film. But if someone showed you a battle from the prequels you'd get the same experience from it whether seen the rest of the film or not.

*"Exciting" so some anyway; I felt that all of them went on way too long, which is very common these days. Indiana Jones 4 is another example of that. Jackson's King Kong too.

Sorry, but my teenage boys loved the original three Star Wars movies. The latter three prequels were so bad that I cannot stand to watch them ever again.

But I'm stunned that people here don't like Jaws (1973). It's a great adventure and suspense film. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw were all perfect for their parts. It's one of the few movies that I have seen that was definitely much better than the book! I think about it every time I go swimming at the beach!

silentfilm wrote:Sorry, but my teenage boys loved the original three Star Wars movies. The latter three prequels were so bad that I cannot stand to watch them ever again.

But I'm stunned that people here don't like Jaws (1973). It's a great adventure and suspense film. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw were all perfect for their parts. It's one of the few movies that I have seen that was definitely much better than the book! I think about it every time I go swimming at the beach!

I haven't seen either the Star Wars movies or Jaws since they first came out, but I remember them fondly, the Star Wars films especially. The 70s weren't really a great time for fun at movies, as I recall, so the Star Wars films were a welcome relief from all that angst and despair and seriousness and Greate Arte and...well, pretentious twaddle, actually.

And as I mentioned in some context a while back, compared to modern action movies, Jaws seems almost a documentary-like portrait of Martha's Vineyard, too. Compare it to something a decade later like Die Hard, which is fun, but full of characters overdrawn in the thickest Magic Marker, who make "realism" synonymous with yelling and swearing and nothing more.

Oh, and speaking of movies better than the book... I saw my parent's old copy of The Godfather on my sister's shelf and started rereading it. There's nothing there! We're constantly being told that Don Corleone has this mystical power over others, like Dracula or Dr. Mabuse, but we never see it. Coppola inspired Puzo to put flesh on the bones in the script and then, really, casting made it come to life as anything that meant anything to anybody— God bless John Cazale and John Marley and Lenny Montana and all those indelible people throughout the cast who made so much out of, it turns out, so little.

Jim Roots wrote: [...] As a teenager, Ingmar Bergman films were my life-line. I have all of the greatest ones on video now, and will not watch them even once. Just don't want to tamper with what they meant to me in the roughest patches of my life.

Jim

Ye gods, watch 'em watch 'em! I possess all but perhaps two or three of Bergman's films. I've never seen a Bergman that I didn't appreciate even more on a subsequent viewing (and I liked them all, to a greater or lesser degree, the first time around; well, maybe not Persona, which is too self-indulgent in my humble estimation, and I didn't like it any better on a second and third viewing; OK, come to think of it, Seventh Seal seemed not-so-good the second + time around). Every viewing brings a new richness, a new wrinkle, a new ambiguity... I share your feeling about Bergman. I watch them and think, "Thank god, someone else understood . . . "

I was in college when the original STAR WARS came out, and from the trailers I was expecting a cheesy kiddie show. The first time I saw the movie I was unexpectedly transfixed from beginning to end. Seeing it a second and third time later that year, however, it seemed to drag terribly at many spots and never recaptured that original experience. I was lukewarm (no pun intended) about the second film (part 5), but then really liked RETURN OF THE JEDI (the third film/part 6) and still prefer it to any of the others.

I do rather like the sixth film (part 3), however, for its operatic blend of image, sound, and tragic hero's fall that explains everything that is to come (but which we've already seen since parts 4 through 6 came out first). The first two prequels each have their moments, but would work much better if trimmed down to 20-minute serial episodes and digitally re-casting that obnoxious little boy in episode 1.

All six of these films are movies that require a big screen for their impact, and the stereo surround sound is definitely an integral part of the storytelling. Many of today's films seem to use their elaborate multi-layered soundtracks to hide the artificiality of the CGI sets and props more than to actually tell the story.

I have had both experiences. I grew up with Star Wars as a constant presence in my life (my brother watched it on video every day; this is no exaggeration). I returned to see the re-released version of the original film in cinemas in the late 90s with a group of friends of a similar age, and we came out quite shocked: was it really that bad? Was it simply the shine of nostalgia that had endeared it to us in the first place?

Then, some time later, I caught a marathon of the original trilogy on television and watched the whole thing in one go, loving every moment of it. If you approach them as nothing more than a bit of fun in the mode of the old Flash Gordon serials, you end up much better disposed to them than if you seek anything deep and meaningful in them. The dialogue is pretty terrible, and despite all that is said about George Lucas setting out from day one with a grand plan, continuity is not a strong point either. But, damn it, it's enjoyable, and that's the most I ever demand out of a movie.

The first and second films of the newer trilogy are unforgivably awful, but I liked the third one a lot.

Saw STAR WARS on its first run at 13. Fun. The original sequels messed with the fun; the prequels were the opposite of fun.

What makes me feel old is that the 3 theaters I saw the original 3 SW films in have all been demolished.

I was 15 when STAR WARS came out and I was unimpressed. I saw the sequels when they came out, EMPIRE and JEDI, and during my years as a projectionist I saw each of them several more times. I just never got what the big deal was. Still don't.

fwtep wrote:I've shown my kids (6 & 10) the original Star Wars and both loved it. And the 10 year-old has read and seen the first Potters (she just finished #6 this past weekend). I'm curious Jim, did you show the original film first? Showing the prequels first will ruin it, because those films are fast and flashy but TERRIBLE, which would make following them with the original make it feel slow and unimpressive despite having a better screenplay. (Yes, there's some hokey dialog in the original, for sure, but I think the performances save it.)

I used the phrase "original trilogy" to refer to the film that was first released as Star Wars and later as A New Beginning; The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.

I saw a few stretches of Phantom Menace one evening on a road trip when I was stuck in a hotel and there was nothing, absolutely nothing else to watch on TV. Even then, I could only stand a few minutes of it at a time. Dully clicking the remote like a robot for five minutes beat watching that film.

I have zero interest in any of the other films in the series.

Jim

What makes me feel old is that the 3 theaters I saw the original 3 SW films in have all been demolished.[/quote]


Same here--all original 3 SW theaters gone!

I rarely go to an actual theater anymore, but was impressed with the 4K projection of SKYFALL. But that's another story.

I first saw STAR WARS about a week before it opened nationally, at a press showing in 1977. Being an avid reader of Science-Fiction in those days (back when there was quite a lot of good Science-Fiction being written), and one who was involved in putting on Science-Fiction Conventions as a side-line, I had been hearing hype about it for some time (in fact, somewhere in a closet is a pile of pre-release handbills, several sets of lobby cards, and a number of the pre-release posters all in mint condition that I’ll have to unload one of these years). After seeing it, I was frankly unimpressed, I could rattle off exactly what and from-whom Lucas had ripped off pretty much every actual Science-Fiction concept the film contained apart from his “California Beach Dudes in Space” motif, and I was also sad to see real actors like Peter Cushing and especially Sir Alec Guiness reduced to doing this sort of thing (though I’m sure both enjoyed the residual paychecks that cushioned their retirements, it was nice to know that especially Guiness despised the Star Wars films and was ashamed and annoyed by his participation in them, and the attention he got from their fans). I found the film simple-minded, manipulative, and the pacing hurried and annoying in the “don’t slow down lest the Audience gets time to think about it” school (I find it hilarious that it is now considered “too slow” as Audiences attention spans have been reduced to milliseconds), and the “lets have a big explosion at the end to get the Audience to cheer” gag had already quit working for me post-JAWS. So, yeah, ho-hum, didn’t think much of it, wrote it off as Hollywood once again mucking up Science-Fiction as other recent attempts like LOGANS RUN and didn’t think it would make that huge of a splash.

After the huge splash, I would get dragged to see it again at various times by various friends and dates as it played over a year at the Cine Capri and elsewhere in Phoenix and I came to sort of shrug and enjoy it like I was taking a kid for another ride on the Matterhorn or Splash Mountain at Disneyland. Yet it soon became apparent that the huge success of STAR WARS and Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND that quickly followed that year was going to spawn numerous imitations, so the chances of anything resembling a decent Science-Fiction film that was anything but “boom in space” or endless “state of the art” special effects totally storyboarded like a comic book without any real thought being put into a script were becoming practically nil.

I almost gave Spielberg and Lucas a pass when EMPIRE STRIKES BACK turned out to be an much better movie than its predecessor (most likely because Irvin Kershner was a much better Director than Lucas was), and Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was a fun hark-back to the Serials I loved, so it didn’t matter that it was pretty stupid as well, but by this time, there seemed to be a lot more loud and stupid movies coming out, and by the time the third STAR WARS movie came out, just basically a brainless expensive toy commercial designed to sell action figures and cuddly fur-covered things (what the hell were they called, ewoks or some such crap?) , the soulless mercenary aspect of Spielberg and Lucas’s “art” was too damn obvious and it had dragged the Movie Industry into nothing but copycatting them to try to get a piece of that kind of success, and Movies just kept getting dumber and louder. By the end of the 80’s. I went from being a frequent movie-goer to a sometime movie-goer, by the end of the 90’s, I could count on one-hand the number of times I’d go to see a new movie every year.


I haven’t gone to a new first-run movie in a theater since 2005, today the only bits of new movies I see are on airplanes.

So now, looking back in hindsight, STAR WARS is indeed a historical milestone for me, it’s when I began to lose interest in the movies, and most of modern culture in general.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Richard M Roberts wrote: and Movies just kept getting dumber and louder. By the end of the 80’s. I went from being a frequent movie-goer to a sometime movie-goer, by the end of the 90’s, I could count on one-hand the number of times I’d go to see a new movie every year.


I haven’t gone to a new first-run movie in a theater since 2005, today the only bits of new movies I see are on airplanes.

So now, looking back in hindsight, STAR WARS is indeed a historical milestone for me, it’s when I began to lose interest in the movies, and most of modern culture in general.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Amen, Richard. I couldn't agree more. But in response to Frederica, I remember movies that were a lot more than "pretentious twaddle." The late 60s and early 70s seemed to be an incredibly optimistic period for American filmmaking, one that was finally free of both the self-censorship and dumbing-down of the American studio system. Unfortunately as things transpired, that optimism was false.

Richard M Roberts wrote:I almost gave Spielberg and Lucas a pass when EMPIRE STRIKES BACK turned out to be an much better movie than its predecessor (most likely because Irvin Kershner was a much better Director than Lucas was)\
RICHARD M ROBERTS

You might also have noted that the original script was written by Leigh Brackett.

Bob

Jim Roots wrote:For some time it has been said that Star Wars is the demarcation point for "modern" audiences vs "traditional" audiences. If a movie was made before the first Star Wars film, it's old.

I think the chronometer has moved well beyond that, and probably Harry Potter (or maybe Lord of the Rings) is the new demarcation line. But in the interests of what I'm about to discuss, let's say Star Wars is still some kind of plumb-line in film history, sort of like Citizen Kane in that regard: an undeniable historical point in cinema for all the ages to come.

I may have been the last movie fan over the age of 30 to have never seen the full Star Wars original trilogy. I'd seen bits and pieces here and there, but never the whole schmear. So, last month, I sat down with my wife (the only other person over age 30 in the world to have never seen it) and 2 of our kids (teenagers) to watch each movie, three Saturday nights in a row.

I suspect our reaction is typical of how the post-Potter generation probably reacts, despite our age. Star Wars is slow. Its exciting parts have completely lost their ability to excite. Its technical innovations, which I won't deny, look clumsy nowadays. Darth Vader has no looming presence; he's a guy of average height who likes to swish around in a black cape -- big deal. R2D2 and C3PO are tiresome and unfunny; how could anyone have ever seriously compared them to Laurel and Hardy? And even for a pulp serial tribute to the cheap serials of the Thirties, there are jarring gaps and inconsistencies in the storyline.

The films are not bad. They've been bypassed by so much in the past 40 years that for a newcomer, they have no resonance or impressiveness at all, which means they have to stand or fall on their storylines, characters, and drive. For me, they don't. My wife and both kids gave up on each film with about 20 minutes left to go; they were actually bored.

I'm certainly not offering this as the definitive word on Stars Wars today, but I will totally understand those under-30s who find the original trilogy completely underwhelming and wonder what all the fuss was about back in the 70s and 80s.

Anybody else have similar experiences with Star Wars?

Jim

It makes perfect sense. I was quite impressed when I first saw them at age 17. Later I thought acting and dialogue had already gone down the drain in ROTJ - the only part that I only saw on television...
Scale and speed of the story can disguise a lot (AKA the usual suspense of disbelief). I still think ESB is well-paced and delivered well. But once it's no longer breathtaking, then there's no second level to discover in these films, you see through it.

All eye candy has an expiration date. In ten years time, avatar will no longer look stunning compared to the rest, and no-one will be able to watch it anymore without head shaking at such a flimsy story.

so the chances of anything resembling a decent Science-Fiction film that was anything but “boom in space” or endless “state of the art” special effects totally storyboarded like a comic book without any real thought being put into a script were becoming practically nil

And yet Blade Runner got made anyway...

But once it's no longer breathtaking, then there's no second level to discover in these films, you see through it.

True, which is why I like Star Wars, which to me has the seemingly guileless innocence of, say, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and is thus beyond reproach, as Kerwin Matthews as an Arabian prince is. The rest, not so much.

If you really want to bore a modern kid, though, suggest they watch The Last Starfighter. Voice of experience...

Richard M Roberts wrote:(...)I could rattle off exactly what and from-whom Lucas had ripped off pretty much every actual Science-Fiction concept the film contained apart from his “California Beach Dudes in Space” motif(...)

And don't forget non-SF such as Kurosawa's Hidden fortress.

Mike Gebert wrote:

so the chances of anything resembling a decent Science-Fiction film that was anything but “boom in space” or endless “state of the art” special effects totally storyboarded like a comic book without any real thought being put into a script were becoming practically nil

And yet Blade Runner got made anyway...

BLADE RUNNER included, my words stand....(that film's all style, no substance, not one zillionth as good as Phil Dick's story)

But once it's no longer breathtaking, then there's no second level to discover in these films, you see through it.

True, which is why I like Star Wars, which to me has the seemingly guileless innocence of, say, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and is thus beyond reproach, as Kerwin Matthews as an Arabian prince is. The rest, not so much.

[/quote]


On the best and most box-officey day of STAR WARS life, it's not fit to be mailed in the same can as THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD.


RICHARD M ROBERTS