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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Funny review from along time ago.

Discussion in 'Classic Trilogy' started by Sithblade11, Aug 9, 2016.

  1. Sithblade11

    Sithblade11 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 2013
    Sounds familar - Poor script, acting and too many special affects! Also prophetic comments regarding Disney.



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  2. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    Nothing to do with the PT. This should be in the CT forum.
     
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  3. Sithblade11

    Sithblade11 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 2013
    I put it here because all the usual PT complaints were mentioned in it, so it's ironic there were people moaning about the same things then. When the CT is now held in such high esteem.

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  4. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    ^^^I get the feeling he was feigning ignorance about it's great relevance to people's views on the PT.
     
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  5. {Quantum/MIDI}

    {Quantum/MIDI} Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 21, 2015
    The CT people tend to hang out here more here than their own forum.....Not like either will matter, since posting this in the CT will have the same effect and OP is referring to the PT also...I'm pretty sure this will get locked though..
     
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  6. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    I know...but it has nothing to do with the PT.
     
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  7. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    Nothing to do with the PT.

    Move along, move along...



    Very good proof, indeed, that Star Wars has always been harshly maligned. It didn't start with the PT. But some people don't want other people talking about that.

    Here's how Lucas himself put it in an article published January 1997 (in ostensible promotion of the 20th anniversay of the original and the upcoming release of the "Special Editions"):

    "Pauline Kael never liked my movies. It's like comparing novels and sonnets, and saying a sonnet's no good because it doesn't have the heft of a novel. It's not a valid criticism."


    Read the source of that remark here:

    http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/01/06/why-is-the-force-still-with-us


    And note the author's own shrill dismissiveness in a paragraph of amazing condescension:


    Here, at this first screening of “Star Wars,” a group of writers, directors, and executives, all with ambitions to make more or less artistically accomplished Hollywood films, were confronting the template of the future—the film that would in one way or another determine everyone’s career. Not surprisingly, almost every one of them hated it. Polite applause in the screening room, no cheers—a “real sweaty-palm time,” Jay Cocks, who was also there, said. It’s possible that, just this once, before the tsunami of marketing and megatude closed over “Star Wars” forever, these people were seeing the movie for what it really was—a film with comic-book characters, an unbelievable story, no political or social commentary, lousy acting, preposterous dialogue, and a ridiculously simplistic morality. In other words, a bad movie.

    Those sentiments obviously so incensed -- or, more likely, wildly amused -- Lucas (a laughably hyperbolic, perfect crystallization of movie-critic antipathy) that he had them printed in stark white lettering on a black t-shirt, which he and several crew members wore while filming TPM.

    If you own the book, "Star Wars: Episode I - The Making Of The Phantom Menace" by Laurent Bouzereau and Jody Duncan, consult page 94 for two adjacent photos of Lucas wearing it (in my UK "Special Collector's Limited Edition" copy, anyway: ISBN 0 09 186945 5).

    You can also see Lucas wearing it during "The Beginning" when inspecting the torn-up podracers after a storm in Tunisia that ravaged the outdoor sets and props (the photos in the "Making Of" book derive from the same event). Time index 38:46 >>



    Additionally, you can view a still photograph of Lucas in the t-shirt, posing with R2-D2, at the following link:

    https://www.facebook.com/StarWarsPr...066454277539/1427066454277539/?type=3&theater


    Interesting how Lucas donned this shirt, and a "JEDI" cap, in Tunisia: the spiritual "testing ground" of the series (filming commenced in Tunisia on the original and inauspiciously set the tone of the whole production -- made infinitely worse by a severe rainstorm that hadn't happened in many decades; with history repeating on Episode I). It's as if he was trying to say, "Come at me, God!" He's a "Jedi" who can "weather" any storm, be it physical or lexical denunciation. In a way, by dressing in that wittily provocative, two-tone way, Lucas was both saying something about himself, his own resilience, and the ability of the thing he created to endure slander and setback.

    Two further observations:

    i) The back of Lucas' shirt says something else. Not sure what.

    ii) Lucas had to have been really determined to make a statement there by donning black in the gruelling heat of Tunisia (black is maximally heat-absorbant). He can "stand" the heat.



    And an earlier thread based on the same video clip from December 2014:

    http://boards.theforce.net/threads/wow-old-style-hater-bashes-star-wars.50025472/
     
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  8. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    Especially ANH, the way they cruelly nominated it for TEN Oscars including Best Picture & Director. It won 7.

    No, I think all this proves is that SW has never been universally praised. But then no movies ever have.

    Anyway, in terms of relevance maybe I'll go & post a review of TPM in the CT section 8-}
     
  9. Seagoat

    Seagoat Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 25, 2013
    I understand the intention, but yeah, really is not relevant to PT

    Moving to OT section
     
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  10. Sithblade11

    Sithblade11 Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Oct 12, 2013
    [​IMG]

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  11. Kenneth Morgan

    Kenneth Morgan Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    May 27, 1999
    Well, better that he can look at such frankly mean comments with a sense of humor than go all Edward Lionheart on the critics.
     
  12. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005

    Yeah, but...

    The sorts of criticisms he makes...

    ...are very caustic criticisms, and they are all the criticisms that have been thrown, with little variation, relentlessly at the PT:

    - No humanity: "Completely dehumanizing"
    - All about the technology and effects: "Might just as well be watching an animated cartoon"
    - "Lousy actors" giving marginal performances
    - "Ghastly dialogue"
    - "Terrible plotting"
    - "Miserable characterization"
    - You can't tell who is fighting who; no reason to care: "It is all such a chaos, such a jumble, such a confusion"
    - Films are "stultifying" and "brutalizing": "They're not for adult mentalities"; "These films try to keep children stupid children forever"
     
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  13. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    So one review of ESB was similar to hundreds of reviews of the PT...& that review belongs in the PT section? I don't think so. Neither do the mods it seems.

    Also, this one critic's harsh opinion was so notable that he was put on national tv. And the two most renowned critics in the land disagreed with him. Imagine just one of the harsh critics of TPM being so newsworthy?
     
  14. Kuro

    Kuro Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 17, 2015
    It’s certainly true that John Simon hated STAR WARS. It’s also true that he hated 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE GODFATHER films, TAXI DRIVER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and many other films that I guess were huge critical disasters.

    I think some people have STAR WARS mixed up with ALIEN, which people forget received incredibly hostile reviews when it first came out.
     
  15. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    He sounds like a contrarian & attention seeker.
     
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  16. Kuro

    Kuro Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 17, 2015
    Darth Downunder, John Simon was a contrarian clown. His schtick mostly consisted of hating everything and making pithy comments about the physical appearances of the actresses. For example, he claimed that Cybill Shepherd gave a bad performance in TAXI DRIVER because he thought she was fat and looked like “Mussolini in drag”. Aside from the fact that he didn’t say a word about anything other than her physical appearance, I have no idea what planet he was living on if he thinks that this woman looks like “fat Mussolini in drag”:

    [​IMG]

    Oh, and he also thought that the great Diana Rigg was a bad actress because her breasts were too small. As I’m sure you can tell, John Simon’s a real class act. I think Roger Ebert nailed it when he described Simon thusly:
    http://bit.ly/2bi3iwN
     
  17. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    Okay then. Credibility = 0.
     
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  18. Cryogenic

    Cryogenic Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2005
    I don't care what the mods think. But I notice you're always trying to mini-mod.

    And it's not TESB under discussion in the clip. It's ROTJ.

    More to the point, I see you're dodging the point, which is that some people -- and who really cares how many? (does a majority opinion suddenly make something more true?) -- held exactly the same views of the OT that were later expressed regarding the PT. The only real difference being: opinions of this kind shifted from a few patrician critics with a lisp to a vitriolic man-child-dominated online fan base. Simon's vituperative remarks eerily presage the subsequent epoch of anti-prequel, net-driven hate.



    A couple of things:

    i) News media was a bit different back then. And there was no Internet. So one person -- or seemingly one person -- with an axe to grind probably stood out a bit more.

    ii) It's unlikely they would have put him on TV if they didn't think he was articulating what some other people felt. And this was at a time when fantasy films with the production quality of Star Wars were a rarity and the home video market was barely underway. In other words, the spectacular nature of the original trilogy saved its own skin, a bit, from wider-scale detraction. But clearly, even under those conditions, there was some! Again, John Simon's remarks sound rather prescient, in retrospect.



    Oh, for the love of irony.
     
  19. theMaestro

    theMaestro Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2015
    Well, if we put aside the question of whether or not what said critics are saying is true, then it does matter how many people held such opinions. Because if the amount of criticism for one movie is only a fraction of another, then are we really describing the same phenomenon? I think not. And so the conclusion, very much based on how many people thought this way, would be that the two movies did not have the same general reception. The Secret History of Star Wars does a nice analysis of the OT's reception: Page 1, Page 2.

    But this begs the question: does a majority opinion necessarily mean that it is correct? No, it doesn't. But this point should be distinguished from the separate question of: what exactly was the majority opinion? Was the majority opinion for Movie A the same as the majority opinion for Movie B? The quest to answer that question is again why the amount of people expressing said opinions matters.
    Hmmm so I wonder what the news outlet actually thought of this critic. Did they think he was one contrarian man with an axe to grind or did they think he was articulating what many others felt?

    I feel like it's more likely that a contrarian would make the news rather than someone who was simply saying what others felt. After all, that would get people watching and generate buzz. It makes sense.
     
  20. Kuro

    Kuro Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 17, 2015
    Cryogenic, Simon was more or less the Armond White of his time. He frequently adopted contrarian views and took potshots at other critics for not having the same opinions he had. Again, are you really gonna claim that THE GODFATHER films were poorly received by critics?

    Even Pauline Kael, when writing her takedown of the original STAR WARS, acknowledged that she was writing it as a rebuttal to the nearly-unanimous critical gushing it had gotten up to that point. I should also point out that she absolutely adored THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and she actually made a point of giving all the credit to Irvin Kershner (whom she was a huge fan of) and pointing out how he was a vastly superior filmmaker to George Lucas, and how Lucas could never make a film that good in a million years. She talked about how Kershner gave it a human quality and brought it to life, unlike the inhuman Lucas. So yeah, that all started with Pauline Kael back in 1980, not with angry Internet fanboys.
     
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  21. Darth Downunder

    Darth Downunder Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 5, 2001
    Cryogenic I don't see any point in this. Some muppet of a critic who slammed Taxi Driver, the Godfather & 2001 also didn't like the OT. This is big news? All movies have some critics. This thread hasn't established a single point of any significance.
     
  22. Dr_Cthulhu

    Dr_Cthulhu Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 29, 2015
    John Simon didn't like the first Star Wars, either. You can read his review here:

    https://books.google.com.ph/books?i...onyoATh2IG4DA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

    Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers also disliked A New Hope - his reason, if I remember correctly, is that it ushered the end of New Hollywood, a period in the the early 1970's when American filmmakers were aping European methods of filmmaking and churning out gritty, realistic films. But get this: Travers heaped praise on The Force Awakens!

    http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/star-wars-the-force-awakens-20151216
     
  23. Bob the X-Winger

    Bob the X-Winger Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 8, 2016
    That was really interesting to watch. I never bother with critics.
     
  24. Darth Formidious

    Darth Formidious Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015
    This review must've been from a place far, far away!