PT Do JJ Abrams, Lucasfilm or Disney no longer consider the PT canon or part of the Star Wars universe?

If that were the case, then TPM wouldn't have gotten the repeat business that it garnered. Nor would it have made bank on DVD time and time again.

 

I don't know what "general popular opinion" means to you.

When it comes to the "general popular opinion" the reactions of the audience make most sense based on objective measures of popularity. That reaction is that all 6 Star Wars films are massive all-time hits that just sell and sell and sell across all platforms of theater then various home video releases (VHS, DVD, BD, Digital) as well as TV sales.

The physical BD's of the entire saga and the individual OT and PT sets are quite consistently in the Amazon top 100 Movie and TV sales quite often in the top 40 or so and even in the top 20 recently.

"Masterpiece" is a very subjective critical term that is bestowed sometimes quickly sometimes many decades after a movie has been released.

No one was calling ANH or TESB masterpieces when they came out anymore than many other films.

http://screenrant.com/100-best-american-films/

Of the films on this particular list many took a long time to get there like Vertigo, The Searchers, The Wizard of Oz was not a hit on it's first release.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/59990/11-beloved-movies-were-box-office-flops

Many movies that were huge flops are all-time "greats" not due to general popular opinion but interested parties pushing forward their own story of the movies and that becoming accepted or others through repetition on TV like Oz or Wonderful Life.

Ace in the Hole which is 100 on that list was nothing on release and is still basically unknown to all but a relative handful of people. Rio Bravo is another one that totally perplexes some people ( I quite like it myself).

That is all well and fine because it's all ultimately subjective individual opinions. I would easily put ROTJ, TPM, AOTC and ROTS on this list with Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Annie Hall and any other Scorese or Woody Allen movie or Hitchcock, Hawks, Spielberg, Coppola, Wilder and Kubrick.

The fact that a whole generation of kids going forward have been and are going to watch all 6 Star Wars movies over and over again but few are going to ever see Citizen Kane or Singin' in the Rain. Each and every single Star Wars movie is of far more significant ongoing cultural importance than most of these movies and that is a fact that these critics would not like and take personally.

 

This could work but some for people TFA is gonna be the first SW they see and the random voice would probably be confusing for them. If Obiwan or Anakin have something important in the movie to say they should be force ghosts.

 

Well according to Disney... ANYTHING GOES!

 

Yes it would. We know that because it did. It did bcs despite being ordinary it was still a damn Star Wars film! One with some really cool stuff in it! & fans had 16 years worth of anticipation built up! & the lightsaber fight alone was reason enough for fans to go back & see it 10 times!

The real question is what would it have made had it been a truly great film. Perhaps Titanic levels of "bank". Even more I'd say.

 

Are we still trying to spin TPM's box office into, "If it were a good movie it would have made more than the astounding $430 million it made" ? 1999 wasn't 2015, folks. It seems like every summer anymore, thanks to inflation and 3D ticket prices, that there's at least one movie a year breaking the $500 million mark, or a billion worldwide. This wasn't exactly the norm in 1999. TPM's run was AMAZING (which only happens, *gasp*, with good word of mouth--we don't get to change the rules just because it's a Star Wars movie), and no amount of 2015 spin is going to change that.

 

So then that just makes it like TESB or ROTJ at that point then.

If only TESB or ROTJ had been better they could have made a lot more money. TESB was "only" number 3 all-time domestic and ROTJ was only "4th" (though it made more than TESB). While TPM "only" made it to 3rd all-time behind Titanic and the freshly juiced ANH from the SE release. Then again since so many fans dislike that let's just take that box office away from it since it disturbs then so much.

Now TPM is well ahead of it as is ROTS. It still beats out AOTC though.

Still even with the SE's poor old TESB is the runt of the litter.

Well that is what happens to less than ordinary films.

If it had only been better.

 

If were talking quality based on amount of money made, I guess that means Transformers Age of Extinction is better than Revenge of the Sith.

Amount of money made, awards received, or critical acclaim is insignificant next to the power of the Force*.

(* The "Force" being your personal love of whatever is being talked about.)

 

No one's talking truly about quality. We're talking popularity. And yes, Age of Extinction, whether the internet crowd likes to admit it or not, was popular. Not as popular as the first three films, but popular enough for Paramount to say that they were jumping on the Story Group bandwagon.

 

It completely blows my mind to see that after all these years how so many people still bend over backwards to downplay the success of the PT? The PT, like it or not is a success! Deal with that fact. That fact isn't going to change. Contrary to what people like to believe, there are many many fans of the PT. Myself included. It wasn't the SW brand name alone that made these movies popular, it was because it connected with the fans of the series.

If the SW brand name was the reason for the PT success, then I guess we have to apply that to the upcoming movies as well. So if the new SW movies do great, which no doubt they will then all that success was due to the SW brand name and brand name alone. Because if people want to attribute the success of one trilogy then it must be applied to the new trilogy too. But of course some "fans" can't be truthful with themselves and apply consistent standards within their own fandom.

 

And if we're going to go that far, let's go further. Why did people go to the TPM 3D showings? I sat in a theater with a few people my age that still complained about the film, but paid the matinee prices to watch it. Why did parents bring their kids to a movie that was just put out on Blu-Ray, less than six months earlier and had been on DVD for nearly eleven years?

 

No. It made a mere 245M domestic so "even" TESB with the SE boost beats it out.

Yet we often see the shift from the objective box office argument to the subjective "quality" one.

Yet it's often brought up if TPM was a "better" movie then it would have made more box office. Nevermind it's place as the second biggest hit worldwide at the time and 3rd biggest domestic.

So sometimes box office is linked to "quality" IF those people like the movie. Not if they don't.

 

It's just too bad that folks have to bring in box office, Rotten Tomatoes, RLM, whatever as if the inclusion of such lends weight to the arguments. It shouldn't make an iota of difference if TPM or the PT was pretty low in revenue if one is speaking about if the movie is deemed a success or failure by the poster.

What tends to happen is Poster A says "yeah or nay" to the PT, then Poster B comes in and disputes that. It should end there, or at least start a dialogue about the differing viewpoints. Instead, somewhere along there, someone, whether A, B, C or Z, comes in and thinks the conversation is over because "RLM, box office, my cat's whiskers twitched," or some such.

It is fair game to dispute "universal dislike" with "but box office/DVD sales" of course, but why does it have to get there? Can't the fanatical haters stop interjecting their hate into every thread? Can't someone say they dislike the PT without appealing to "authority"? Can't the PT fans express the like of the PT without someone trying to prove the "universal truth"?

All this "PT vs OT" arguing could be actually be an interesting dialogue if "we" expressed "our" viewpoint and left the rest of the universe out of it.

Edited to add: PT dislikers don't all appeal to authority; I don't mean to imply that. They should be just as free to state their opinions as the PT fans. (Added just in case that isn't clear.)

 

I love how all the PT haters that are now being catered to by Disney are calling for calm and civil behavior from others, mostly people who are not happy with the marketing of this new film. Yes the PT haters. The same PT haters that coined the phrase "Lucas raped my childhood" are asking people not to take this seriously.

WOW! Ain't that some ****?

 

No, not really. It is the PT Defensives that are dragging this nonsensical divide out. As much as some said people deny it many OT Preferents HAVE relaxed quite a bit on these matters it's simply PTers ignore/deny it. Plus, people DO grow and change.

 

Yeah well you can thank Abrams and Kennedy for starting it all.

 

In a way I feel sorry for them because come December, it's all going to backfire.

 

Exactly. When you cater to disenfranchised fans then there is no room for error. Because those same disenfranchised fans that turned on Lucas for whatever reasons will no doubt turn on the people in charge if they fail to live up to even 1 expectation. Thus as you said, the backfire will begin.

 

Not if the film is good.

 

Bcs it's not all bad. There's some good stuff in it. In between the fart jokes, inane dialogue, & wooden acting there's the pod race, the scenes on Coruscant, the epic lightsaber duel. Also if you're a Star Wars fan you still love the story & seeing the beginnings of the Skywalker saga. The execution & some of the finer details didn't come off...but it's still frickin Star Wars!

There are few things more ridiculous than fans listing box office returns for movies & suggesting one is "better" than the other bcs it's returns were higher. Still if you're going to do it you could at least be clever enough to realise you need to adjust for inflation. Pointing to higher returns simply based on the higher ticket prices of the day is amateur hour. Here you go: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

You'll note that TPM is the forth highest domestic earner in adjusted dollars. TESB aka "the runt" is at no 2. By adjusting this gives us the only real measure of cinematic popularity which is attendance rather that $$ which is skewed by inflation. Attendance = popularity. That's just a logical truth. ANH up to now has made double that of TPM in adjusted $$ which means twice as many people have sat down in a cinema to see it. TPM is the forth most popular SW movie behind all 3 OT movies in terms of domestic cinematic attendance. Pretty amazing considering the OT movies gained most of their attendance during releases in the late 70s & early 80s. At a time where there was a lower population & far fewer cinemas around.

Unfortunately after the huge event that was TPM (being the first SW film in 16 years) AotC got its butt kicked by its fantasy rivals at the time, TLOTR, Spiderman & also HP at the worldwide box office. In the late 90's no one would've dared predict that a film in the upcoming SW trilogy would earn less than other contemporary fantasy movies. One explanation is the mixed reaction to TPM after the dust settled following its release. Also the mixed early reviews for AotC itself. Of course that's not an explanation you will entertain. There'll be some other factor that's not any fault of the PT.

Finally, only the deluded would deny or fail to see that a huge contributor to the financial success of TPM was the massive pre-existing fanbase ready & waiting to see it from the second it was announced. That audience existed & was delivered courtesy of the OT. That's not opinion, just an obvious fact.

 

Well I do agree with you there. I have never been let down with a SW movie yet, and I don't think that will ever be the case. I just hate the marketing angle though. I personally don't think that the makers will let their personal feelings get in the way of making the film. But the way they market it makes me feel that way. I am not really a fan of Abrams, but I will not take that bias into the movie theatre with me. I will just look at the new film as a new SW film and nothing more than that.


And now the ST have the built in fan base of both the OT and the PT waiting to see it the second it comes out. Courtesy of course of the OT and PT fan base.

 

Great to hear. Any fan who wishes failure on TFA has lost. The day a SW fan hopes that a new episode will fail due to some petty axe to grind is the day he falls to the Dark Side. Nothing worse than wishing ill of something you're supposed to love.

 

Yeah... I don't get that kind of attitude. I didn't love TPM, but I certainly didn't want AOTC or ROTS to be bad. Always best to go with an open mind.

 

Yeah I have no ill will towards SW itself. Never had never will. But the marketing I kinda take some issue with. One thing of it is how they promote the greatness of the OT. Yes it is great no doubt. But I feel that some folks who were brought into the SW universe via the PT might feel left out over hearing how great the OT is and no mention of the PT.

That is an issue I have regarding the marketing. For many the PT is as special to them as the OT is for others. I understand the makers involved have their favorites which is cool. But being in a position that runs the entire company that oversees the whole SW saga should at least give recognition to the entire saga and not just separate trilogies. Just my take on it.

 

We all take biases in with us, preferences too. However there's no need to be so inherently negative about things.