CT Boy were they wrong!

Negative reviews of Star Wars.
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker criticized the film, stating that "there's no breather in the picture, no lyricism", and that it had no "emotional grip".Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader stated, "None of these characters has any depth, and they're all treated like the fanciful props and settings." Peter Keough of the Boston Phoenix said "Star Wars is a junkyard of cinematic gimcracks not unlike the Jawas' heap of purloined, discarded, barely functioning droids.
Boy were they wrong!

 

Fools!

 

They say the same thing about ROTS even though it has very long portions of the film with no dialogue at all just pure visual storytelling -- Padme's and Anakin's ruminations scene, the Jedi purge scene, and the entire end of the film is virtually one long montage with no dialogue -- 1st back and forth between Vader being put together and Padme giving birth and then dying; then Padme's funeral, Vader and Palpatine watching the Death Star construction, and the children being delivered to their respective foster parents. Very rarely do you see "entertainment" films that tell so many important story elements with such beautiful images and music alone.

 

Bleh, I hate Pauline Kael. I'm not sure why she is perhaps modern cinema's second most revered critic after Roger Ebert. To me, the two of them are polar opposites. When I read Ebert's criticism, I can feel his enthusiasm and love for film, because you get the impression that he really goes into every single film with an open mind, and that he truly loves the medium itself. Meanwhile, Kael relies on being controversial in her opinions, which I don't see as being much of a positive thing. It's very easy to shock--it's much harder, in my opinion, to express your love of something in such a way as to help make others enjoy and appreciate it more.

Granted, I've read much more Ebert than I ever have Kael, but I've never read anything by Kael that made me breath fresh new air and renew my love of cinema. Instead, she seems to enjoy putting things down and to be a non-conformist merely for the sake of being a non-conformist, which I find rather tiresome and juvenile. Again, it's far easier to be negative than positive, which is one of life's long lessons, I believe. She reminds me of a female version of David Thomson. Though they are both regarded as some of film's great critics and historians, the amount of film classics loathed between the two of them is staggering. Is it so wrong to try to appreciate and enjoy things? Does that make one's taste less pure, less advanced? I don't believe so, but of course there are also elements of the elitist in me. But the difference between me and them is that I try to resist those feelings, while they bask in them.

Still, I really want to read the biography of her that came out recently.

 

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Hm... so the OT also was bashed back when it first came out? This gives me hope that one day, the PT will also be properly appreciated.

It also gives me a bad feeling (about this) that the ST will be poorly received at first.

 

Those were just critics opinions. This just shows that critics opinions are just opinions, nothing more.

 

Sounds like they were spot on to me, if it was about the PT

 

There hadn't been a film like Star Wars before and the certain 'arty' critics were not ready to accept SW as anything more than a 'children's' space film....it's amazing how jealously can sway your opinion

 

It only took a few moments for the OT bashers to be swept under the rug of populist opinion. The PT's problem is that it alienated fans so hardcore that 14 years later we still feel the sting of disappointment over how not right those things were. An entire generation is going to have to die off for people to quit talking about how bad they were...

...that or Disney needs to start up where GL left off and continue to produce low quality garbage, thus putting an end to Star Wars' greatness once and for all.

 

It was easier for OT criticism to be swept under the rug simply because the internet wasn't really a big thing then, and therefore you didn't have digital articles with an infinite half-life or a widespread use of message boards fanning the flames that ordinarily would've died down enough for a movie's true fanbase to be the last ones standing after enough time had passed. Technology shapes the way that conversations about movies evolve in a big way, and had those conversations been taking place online in a mainstream way decades past, things would be different on so many fronts. The OT probably would've been endlessly nitpicked as much as the PT, but at least we might've seen Roger Moore shamed out of the Bond series before Moonraker happened.

 

Many of those negative OT reviews are still valid today. The characters have no depth, they do not develop, few days ago I read a review of TESB that states the movie is badly edited which I agree with, they're filled with plot holes etc. The thing is that today is more popular to bash the PT. It doesn't matter how big the thing is, just bash them. Negative PT ''reviews'' are blown out of proportion and they're often used to mask the OT flaws. The most obvious example of it is RLM. Stoklasa made his little videos, he took ''the best parts'' of the OT to make his point, but he won't make the same style videos about the OT.
So, in response to this topic's title, they were not wrong. Or, at least, they were just the same as the PT critics. No more, no less.

 

I disagree.

RLM was spot on, not blown out of proportion at all.

And he did a commentary for Ep IV. Fact is, there is less to pick at in the OT than there is in the PT.

 

I like RLM. Those guys are funny.

 

LOL there was nothing wrong with the PT

 

I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brain.

Seriously, that single scene alone includes more bad dialogue than the entire PT. Wooden is one thing. Outright stupid, complete with godawful mugging-the-camera overacting, is quite another.

ESB has its good moments. But in terms of acting, it's got more overcooked ham than a non-kosher deli.

 

I don't know where you get your delusions, if you think the one line "laser brain" is worse than the dialogue in the PT. "It's only because I'm so in love" "No I'm so in love with you"

Or even that the acting is worse in ESB than the PT. That comment makes me lawl

Maybe it's because I am in the marines, maybe it's just my unit, or maybe even just my fire team, but a common comment when someone is being thick is to refer to them as "lead head", the rebel alliance is a military organization so it makes sense for them to use a futuristic version of lead head when someone is being thick.

 

But I thought we were supposed to respect criticism as the final, discussion-ending word? Guess that only applies if said critics publish their work through the scholarly e-journal that is youtube.

 

lawl? You mean there weren't scores of critics in magazines and newspapers who published their criticism of the PT in their magazines/newspapers? I don't remember reading a single positive review of TPM or AOTC for months after they came out. Or even, ever, for that matter.

However, I do remember dozens positive reviews from critics of ANH and ESB, and RotJ when they were released.

 

You kind of missed my point. I didn't ignore PT criticism. And I don't ignore OT criticism. Even though I likely wouldn't agree with every aspect of their reviews, I don't think any of the cited critics in this thread are ultimately "wrong."

 

Forgive me if I don't look at Princess Leia and immediately think of "Full Metal Jacket". And really, the military model they're patterned after is more the everyman army of idealists from the WWII era, and not the subsequent generations of hardened vets and professional soldiers. Still, if the lame dialogue here can be excused as realistic from a military perspective, I'll chalk up the wooden lines and awkward exchanges in the PT as in character for politicians and teenagers.

And yeah, some of ESB's acting is good, but a lot of it is hammy as hell. I prefer Han in ANH where he's casual, rather than that scene where he's mugging so hard he's practically auditioning for "Oklahoma".

 

Ebert's review of TPM was very positive, and his review of AOTC improved after he saw a good digital screening of it. There was also Anne Lancashire writing favorably of both, as she had for the OT.

 

Princess Leia's association in a Military organization to Full Metal Jacket is a far leap.

The "army of idealists" in WWII still conducted themselves in a manner suitable for a military. They still saluted, they still had rank, and it's not unreasonable, in fact, very reasonable and accurate to assume they used military lingo and language as well.

I've never met any teenagers or politicians who talk or act anything like the awful acting and dialogue witnessed in the PT, particularly AotC.

 

Guarantee there were a dozen negative reviews for each one of those positive ones.

The same cannot be said about any film in the OT.