ST Has TFA started an adult-oriented Star Wars trend?

And having things actually go to hell is much more meaningful if they start in a better place than they end up. If you start off in a grim place and end up in a totally different equally grim/even grimmer place it doesn't have the impact the contrast can give you. A Song Of Ice and Fire/Game Of Thrones is an example for my personal tastes: starts in a pretty crappy situation, then every positive moment and decent character (morally) is dumped on from a great height and I end up not giving a damn about anything any of it. (Except Dany's hotness maybe.)

 

I work with kids in the 5-13 age group and have done so for a number of years now. Anecdotal and unscientific as it is, I've found that the most popular SW films amongst them are ROTJ and now TFA. As much as I've tried to convince them of the greatness of ANH and TESB, ROTJ is always the one they want to watch on the bus!

 

That's a bit of a change from when I was a kid because I never liked being pandered to and as far as can I remember, neither did any of my friends. It reminds me how on TV, kid's shows almost always have child protagonists, sometimes even behaving like mini adults. Is that just reflective of my circle of friends as a kid, or has society changed?

 

You wish. I don't think the makers of the movie even thought that the two ways of looking at it were mutually exclusive. It's all very postmodern.

Exactly.

 

Hey, that's fair enough. Me? I do NOT want "child-like." The humor in ANH, ESB and TFA hit all the right notes for me. As a kid I loved the action and adventure. I loved the "cool," and I loved the banter between Threepio and Artoo. In ROTJ (and then, a good chink of the PT, at least for me), the funny and cute stuff just missed the mark for me. AS for what Lucas said? I take that with a HUGE grain of salt, since he changes what he says pretty frequently. I'd argue that ANY mythology must transcend age, or else it can't really become mythology.

I've mentioned this before, but my 13-year-old daughter was ENTRANCED by TFA. It turned her form a Star Wars fan to a Star Wars FAN. The same is true for many of her friends. Whatever you may think, this film CONEECTED with them, in much the same way ANH connected with me when I was 11 in 1977.

 

Are you implying TFA is adult oriented? If so, far from it.

 

I think Star Wars has Always been Entertainment the Entire Family can enjoy !!!

Its not for kids or adults It Is for both and that goes for all 7 films!

 

I thought Revenge of the Sith was much, much darker than the Force Awakens.

 

Darkness doesn't necessarily make something appealing to adults though. Just like being childish doesn't necessarily make something appealing to children.

Strongbow I couldn't agree more with everything in your above post.

 

Spoiler

I think that ultimately, however, it's all leading to a satisfying (and happy) conclusion. With the remaining Starks alive and running the show.

Yeah, but rehash. In fact, the next time you see her watching TFA with an entranced look on her face, you should shout REHASH until she turns it off.

 

Yeah, intervention is urgently needed. The poor child has clearly been enslaved by nostalgia and brainwashed by the Disney-adoring mass media!

 

TFA is for Men and Women of the pre-distant future and the submissive past.

"Hey there sally! Gee golly, what a nice day!"

"It sure is joey!"

"Wanna go see SA:I?"

"I would love to!"

"Boy! Now where did that Lucas kid go?"

 

One could argue that the EU combined with TFA started such a trend. It remains to be seen if all three sequel films are dark.

 

Yes, she was blinded by the "nostalgia" that she didn't actually have before seeing the movie. It's so insidious that it's retroactively giving kids "nostalgia" after the fact to then be blinded by.

 

Not to mention subliminally coaxing her to make her parents vote for Trump.

 

I always thought star wars above all else was a set of family movies with something for everyone. TFA seems to continue the tradition with the action, humor and characters everyone can enjoy. Also yes, I agree that nostalgia was not the only reason people liked the film despite what some might say.

 

The Force Awakens is my favorite Star Wars film. I'm an accomplished writer - that is to say, an artist - and more importantly, a real life philosopher of the arts. So don't dismiss my opinion out of pocket by blah blah'ing about nostalgia. Do I have to write an essay to put that stuff down? Don't make me. I will do what I must.

 

Nice reference

And that's fantastic. The more Star Wars fans the merrier, I don't care where they come from

 

Again a significant issue for me would be what you mean by "adult", is it a comment on the dramatic depth of the film or is it a specific comment on the age of those targeted?

I think you could make a case that when it comes to works of fantasy/sci fi its actually the younger audience that is more receptive to greater depth. With age I think often comes a certain closed-mindedness of taking the genre more seriously for fear of being viewed as "geekish". To me that clearly marks the difference between the OT and the work of people like Abrams or the Marvel films. The OT was often amusing but again I think it clearly kept its humour within the bounds of building its characters where as with Abrams/Marvel/etc I think theres a deliberate attempt to undercut the gravitas of the story to avoid it being viewed as "too geekish".

 

Well from a marketing standpoint it was certainly made to appeal to the lost star wars fan and children.

 

This thread has walked a fair bit away from my thoughts when starting this thread, which is good! But I think you got to a bit where I was coming from, which was that it felt targeted towards the older kids and adults than the younger kids. I'm pretty sensitive to what's in a target market and what isn't, I make a game of it often trying to figure it out. While the merchandise was all over the place and really general, I just felt like this was older somehow. Not darker or whatever, just older. It might be that self-awareness that triggers it for me.

 

The Meta Wars Awakens!

 

On the other hand, Jurassic World was designed to be closer to TFA in terms of its relation to the original movies in its franchises, with the intention that the future installments would then forge on ahead on their own paths.