The Force Awakens

[Nordic]

Hell yeah it's weird. Star Wars is okay but are they great movies? No. They're fun, they're entertaining, but great?

Maybe I'm just a little too old, but when I was a kid we truly had the Golden Age of American cinema, all those incredible films in the late 60s and early 70s. Looking back it's amazing how many of them there were, all crammed into such a short period of time.

For me, that set the standard for great filmmaking. Then as the 70s dragged on, both music and cinema started to gradually go downhill. Star Wars hit the same time Disco did. Not that Star Wars was as bad as Disco, it certainly is not. But standards had slipped. A lot.

Hell, maybe it was the seriousness of the Golden Age of cinema that made Star Wars so damn popular, a fluffy piece of Sci Fi kids' adventure/action movie, a film that you didn't have to think about, or that made you think of all the fucked up complexity of the human condition. It was just fun. Pure escapism in a world of stagflation and post Vietnam What-the-fuck-are-we-doingitis.

I had just moved to yet another military town and had met my only real friend there who had seen the damn movie like 14 times. I hadn't seen it yet because I was at that point friendless. So he took me to see it and, well, it was fun, it was happy, and it was short enough to leave you wanting more. Kind of like the first Toy Story.

But I really don't understand the mania surrounding it. The 3rd one, with the Ewoks, was dreadful. Then the next one with Jar Jar Binks? I was done.

This trailer, it's just shots of spaceships flying around with THAT MUSIC. Do most people really go along with having their emotions deliberately tweaked? I don't trust that.

Still ... Fun is fun. But great art it ain't.

[semper occultus]

.....wasn't it Jaws that single-handedely is supposed to have ushered in the era of the "blockbuster" and killed off films for grown-ups....( to the extent adults ever grow out of extended adolescence in this post modern era ).....no studio exec would give Lucas the steam off their piss when he was trying to sell the concept to them beforehand ...


jaws: the monster that ate hollywood

Steven Spielberg's great white shark and the summer that changed everything

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... /jaws.html

[Luther Blissett]

I mean there are still thoughtful films, like films of a certain quality.

I guess I've never thought about it before, but haven't audiences always been divided? I imagine that audiences were split between films like "North By Northwest" / "The Seven Year Itch" and "Six Days of the Condor" / "Wild Strawberries", with some overlap.

What exactly was the moviegoing population that sought out "Rashomon" instead of "Fantastic Voyage"? Were theaters segregated the way they are today? If I want to go see "Wild Tales", for instance, I have to go to a specific theater. I grew up in a city that was practically lousy with movie theaters, including drive-ins and single-screen movie houses. I was born in 1980 but I have very foggy memories of a handful of foreign and independent movies being played at some of the less-bustling single-screens, which had mostly modernized into a siloed "art house" system but the late 1990s.

Is this what it was like in the middle of the 20th Century? Did American audiences even really get to see "The Silence"?

[Wombaticus Rex]

NetFlix is gonna change that. They're proven you don't need a mass audience -- you just need a massive enough audience. Several of their programming/procurement execs give credit to HBO, for obvious reasons, as the trailblazer there.

Meanwhile, HBO is "on war footing" indefinitely because they know Reed Hastings is currently eating off their plate and is keenly interested in bigger serving sizes in 2016.

But the shift in the temporal nature of "programming" is huge, huge, huge. CBS/ABC style sub-tard mainstream fare will die with their audience, and their audience already skews pretty close to the grave.

Edit: this is not to imply "things will get better" / "smarter" - things will get radically worse, of course. But, it will at least be more interesting and diverse.

[82_28]

I would have to say it is "great art" just due to the special effects crew (ILM). Model makers, matte painters and stuff like that. I remember the "making of" features being basically just as popular as the films themselves. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Also the varying fades from scene to scene. And good call on the blockbuster phenomenon, semper. I never thought about it like that. But you are exactly right.

When Star Wars came out all I remember is that it was at a drive-in and my parents put me in my pajamas and all the other kids were playing at this little playground in which I could not play that was set as in placed before the screen as everyone awaited nighttime. My parents wanted me to go to sleep in the back of the Gremlin they drove. Funny.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I would have to say it is "great art" just due to the special effects crew (ILM). Model makers, matte painters and stuff like that. I remember the "making of" features being basically just as popular as the films themselves. Nobody had ever seen anything like it.

Quite, the behind the scenes book on Empire Strikes Back was a formative influence on my love of cinema arts.

That said - have you ever seen Black Narcissus? Absolutely the most amazing matte work I've ever seen and I think it was made a full 30 years before Star Wars...at least.

[Elvis]

I always hoped and wished Lucas would make more movies like THX1138. Oh well.


THX1138 Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hLXOVCZr-8


(The trailer doesn't really do it justice.)

[Nordic]

I would have to say it is "great art" just due to the special effects crew (ILM). Model makers, matte painters and stuff like that. I remember the "making of" features being basically just as popular as the films themselves. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Also the varying fades from scene to scene. And good call on the blockbuster phenomenon, semper. I never thought about it like that. But you are exactly right.

When Star Wars came out all I remember is that it was at a drive-in and my parents put me in my pajamas and all the other kids were playing at this little playground in which I could not play that was set as in placed before the screen as everyone awaited nighttime. My parents wanted me to go to sleep in the back of the Gremlin they drove. Funny.

Agreed, but I would argue that that is craft. It was brilliant and groundbreaking but what got people was the story, supported by the music, mainly. I mean the bar scene wasn't terribly groundbreaking, mainly people in rubber suits and some puppets. As a for instance. We all can name several instances of big budget movies with spectacular effects that were complete duds as viewing experiences.

[82_28]

Heeeeere it comes!

http://io9.com/star-wars-the-force-awak ... 1701856594

What a well oiled machine! Like fucking clockwork. Put the "collectibles" out or "toys" as it were then wait a few months for the movie and raking in cash all that time. Then the jackpot at Christmas! Amazing. Don't make me hate you Star Wars. Please don't. So many fond memories that I do not want to throw away. But coming out with the merch months before the opening is pretty damned brazen.

[Luther Blissett]

I don't think the toys for the prequels were quite as popular as the toys for the original trilogy. Analog toys don't really compete with electronics. The really money to be made will be with games like Battlefront (and whatever else the future holds).

Watch the "trailer" for Star Wars Battlefront and I'll bet you'll consider buying a console (like I admittedly did for one second).

[82_28]

The only reason I got a SNES was because of the new star wars games. I had to beg my parents for it just because of this Star Wars we speak of. I have always checked out the new Star Wars offerings but all the games sucked.

I also used to try and game master Star Wars RPGs in which everyone said I sucked at it because I was way too intricate.

[82_28]

Somewhat interesting as it is a "lost and found sound". A brief glimpse of americana in 1977. But, it's not that good if you don't "care about" Star Wars. However the reactions are.

http://boingboing.net/2015/05/08/star-w ... -1977.html

I am just trying to figure out the reason Star Wars got so insanely big. What were the fundamental elements? We know the story. We saw the cutting edge special effects. We heard the score. Since I was just a baby in 1977 I cannot come up with a memorable thing to compare it to because I didn't exist "behind" 1975. Yet this shit lives on. As Nordic says, it was the score. I think I said the same as well. But it comes down to the music which moved people so much -- and really for no reason.

I will always be confounded by this thing that is fake but seems so real.

[Elvis]

I am just trying to figure out the reason Star Wars got so insanely big. What were the fundamental elements? We know the story. We saw the cutting edge special effects. We heard the score.

I think the notes at the link sum it up:

it was just the coolest thing people had ever seen.

[82_28]

I won't force any of you to watch football, but the "official" trailer comes out tonight at half time on Monday Night Football. It's making me have to watch.

[Luther Blissett]

Are you sure? Even though Philadelphia is playing, I really don't want to watch.

I saw the old trailer on an imax screen for the first time yesterday when I went to see Crimson Peak. My partner said my eyes went glassy.