ST Impact of TFA on your life

Thanks for the response as I see your point now. It's really amazing that 2 SW fans like us can love the movies and see them in 2 totally different ways.

The Anakin redemption actually does nothing for me and never resonated with me going back to 1983. Luke, Leia and Han and their story is what resonated with me in the OT and Rey, Finn & Poe are what resonate with me now, specifically Luke & Rey. I understand what Lucas was going for in the redemption angle, but I can't get past feeling for a character in any emotional way that has murdered hundreds maybe thousands of people. The Saga 1-6 being about Anakin just doesn't sit well with me. The Saga 4-9 focusing more on Luke & Rey really resonates with me as I guess you can call me a fan who likes the good guys.

 

I think most people respond similarly. I think George and I are part of a minority that see his part of the saga differently. He always said he made 4-6 first because he felt they would be the most commercially successful and he was right. Most see the PT as bad and irrelevant. I just see it as bad, lol.

 

For me TFA represented the point at which the world came round to my point of view that SW is awesome! I've been a fan since 1978. There were high points and low points, but for nearly 40 years part of me has lived in the GFFA. When TFA erupted last year, I felt that i was joining a sort of pilgrimage to that galaxy with 1000s of people from every nation.

 

You don't think that was true in 1978?

 

It impacted me on 2 fronts.

1) I was so disappointed in TFA that I no longer look forward to future SW movies. I've seen the 6 movies triple-digit times each, read dozens of novels, would kill idle time by randomly reading Wookiepedia articles, played SW video games from ESB on Atari 2600, to The Old Republic, and countless others in between. Back when Hurricane Sandy knocked power out in my city for numerous days in 2012, I was temporarily staying in an electricty-happy rundown motel when I heard the news of more movies, and for a while, I was so happy that I didn't care about my predicament anymore. So to say that I am apathetic about future movies, that's pretty impactful.

2) TFA has actually lessened my enjoyment of movies in general, especially "popcorn action" films. I've seen the direction that many movies have been going for years, what with the exorbitant amount of over-the-top CG action scenes, reboots, shallow plots, etc. It's like an analytics team got together and came up with a checklist for a financial "blockbuster," and everyone goes off of that list. The same reason why lots of music sounds nearly the same these days. It makes money, so they keep producing it.

I've been seeing the blockbuster formula in practice, but seeing it land squarely on something important to me like SW has really rubbed me the wrong way. I expected more, and I thought that it deserved better. I never thought of SW as action films to begin with. Much more sci-fi/fantasy adventure. Now it's a full fledged action movie, and everything that doesn't come with it... mainly depth and development. IMO, naturally.

While watching Independence Day 2, hey look..... lots of crazy action, same threat as before but BIGGER, fast paced, plenty of playing of the nostalgia card, someone spitting one-liners left and right. Sounds like the same checklist from another movie I saw last December. I guess I look more at how movies are made now, than simply trying to enjoy them, like I used to. I see through them a lot more now.

 

Where have I heard that before?

People seem to forget that these were the same complaints levelled at ANH in '77.

 

You are still here, so you care about future SW movies.

So unless you watched TFA already 100 times, you are not giving it an equal comparison.

A film or a song make money when enough people like it in order to watch or listen to it.
Enough people liked TFA in order to make it the #1 film of all time in the U.S and #3 of all time in the World.

SW is the definition of a blockbuster. George Lucas and his friend Steven Spielberg CREATED the first blockbuster movies.
George Lucas earned his fortune on the fact that SW is a blockbuster, selling merchandise of his films. So much that Fox has the full rights for distribution of Episode IV, forever.
SW is not a Cannes art film, never was, never will be.

 

Not to police or mini-mod, but just to repeat that the point of this thread is specifically about ways in which Star Wars impacted on your life; the implicit meaning is *beyond* enjoyment (or lack of) and specifically about peripheral, unforeseen side effects of how the film influenced bits of your life that weren't the watching of the film, or the reacting/reflecting on its quality.

Not that the conversation isn't interesting, just that it's more appropriate for the complaints thread

 

I think the original Star Wars was a mega blockbuster by coincidence. Lucas, as a western/fantasy/kurosawa buff, just happened to have a movie close to his heart that caught on deeply with massive numbers of people. I don't think Lucas actually studied demographics the way focus groups do. Which is not to say he didn't have his intuitions about how to maximize the draw. But he needed to make money specifically in order to make the other chapters. He started with IV because he felt intuitively that out of the stories he wanted to tell, that would be the most commercially viable. He also bought the merchandising rights for the same reason. He wanted to tell the whole story. He built the company in order to do that. Disney is the opposite. Disney creates films in order to sustain the company. The difference is noticeable. TFA must be a product that appeals to the broadest possible audience or the 5b Disney spent on Lucasfilm goes into the crap drain. There's no getting around that. For anything to have the kind of impact the original Star Wars did, you need to be willing to make riskier decisions than those that will reliably provide a profit. For Disney to do that with their first SW flick out the gate would be suicide. Mickey needs to feed his family.

 

It was yet another great study in differing perceptions.

 

It brought me a nice evening watching it. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

It brought me great entertainment in dire times in life! Really helped me out But since I'm a cynical and analytical human being, it really drained me to a thought provoking extent..It gave me a reason to study human behavior and why people "fall for mediums" such as this strange and hypnotic way.

It impacted me, but I'm not sure if it was overall a positive one. Made me love the prequels and change my perspective of them though

 

I think you just answered you're own question.

[edit]Actually, now that I think about it, I'm kinda curious how TFA made the prequels better. They seem to be the most disconnected, with only R2 and 3PO as a common thread.

 

I would like to contribute to this thread subject by saying that TFA gave me the chance to bring at least 3 more new adult fans to the SW world.

Before the first screening, I had a SW marathon with friends that did not know much about SW. I mean, they only knew that there was this guy in black with a cape and such, but nothing much more than this.

I screened the OT and then the PT, to keep the "I am your father" moment intact.

It was so funny to see their reaction to "I am your father".... I remember reading that Lucas was worried about how children would handle it, and a psychologist said to him that children would assume that Vader was lying since he was the "bad guy".... it was so funny to see adults turning her heads to me IN SHOCK and asking if he was lying or not....

From that moment on, they were hooked. Until that, ANH and the first half of ESB were "very cool", but THAT changed everything. They were into the story big big time.

Another moment that had a very fun reaction (especially from the females) is when Han said "I know"... very funny reactions !

So I did my homework and prepared my friends for TFA. Their first reaction was to be in shock with the death of Han, as it was the character they loved the most. It was very nice to see them really touched for this new character that they had just met the other day. They loved everything about it.

The fun thing is that while I was screening the OT and the PT, they asked me questions, and I of course knew the answers. After TFA, they asked me loads of questions about Rey, Kylo, Snoke, Finn, Poe, but I said "nobody knows yet", which was cool. They are on the same level as I am now.

They are hooked for SW forever.

 

Oh for sure. TFA reawakened the kid in those who were around in the OT, but who felt non-plussed by the saga from 1983-2015. For me, being a SW fan was quite lonely from 1983 - 2015, even with new films and animated TV shows around. Once TFA arrived, I felt the world had returned to the galaxy that I had never left.

 

I'm interested to see what you mean by this about people 'falling for mediums'. Can you expound?

 

Yes, Ezon, please explain.

 

The impact on my life from TFA?????????


WELL.....


I can now eat Star Wars character shaped Spaghetti O's...






But Seriously, mainly for me it's just nice to be surrounded by my favorite thing in culture, even though it's practically shoved in our faces at every turn...Knowing that more films are on the horizon with no end in sight-and the prospect of being able to now share SW with my kids-the movies, not just toys! 10 years ago I didn't think that would be possible. Heck-even 5 years ago!


It is a great time to be a SW fan.

 

I think the greatest way TFA has impacted my life is that it's popularity no longer makes me feel like a dweeb for a being a Star Wars fan, as I felt from 1995 to mid 2015. For crying out loud, that was a 20 years span of being looked at funny for being excited about Star Wars.

 

Here in Malaysia, SW still seems like an American thing for me... For instance, one of my Gmail accounts has the name of my online alter ego but even when I read it out or wrote it down to people, no one batted an eyelid - considering the Falcon is the most iconic spacecraft in all of SW history!

But still, thanks to TFA, awareness in SW has never been higher... Which can be seen in one thing - compared to the years before 2015, there is now a huge variety of SW merchandise (spacecraft, figurines, lightsabers, replica models, etc.) in all sorts of toy stores and hobbyshops locally, enabling us SW fans to build up our collection much more easily than before!

And the most significant TFA impact on Malaysians is this - when Royal Selangor got the coveted license by LucasFilms and Disney to produce pewter replica of SW characters (they also obtained the one for Lord of The Rings earlier)... The company had very heavy promotional activities in December, in anticipation of the release of TFA, and crowds always thronged the Royal Selangor booth wherever they were located...

Which is why I want to get this very beautifully designed SW item from them - the amazing Death Star replica, with its iconic "big blaster" and jagged-looking surface (the thing can be opened up as well, as it's a trinket box)!

 

TFA made me no longer consume over dosages of Death Sticks...

Thats something...

 

TFA created an opening for me to gracefully exit my previous fandom, which I was beginning to resent. The average age of my last fandom was 15, 95% was female, and all were extremely prone to pettiness. It was a toxic recipe for disaster, which regularly occurred every few weeks. So TFA brought me into a much better fandom environment. Yay!

 

Would that have been...Twilight???

Holla!!





In fact, nowadays with SW being so popular in mainstream, not only are we no longer "dweebs," but now it's kind of the opposite-everyone calls themselves a fan, cos SW is "cool" now!

I talk to clients at work, or out and about day by day, and they're like "Oh yeah man, I love Starwarzzz! Star Warz is teh awesomist!! r2 ROXXORZ!" And I'm like, "You don't even know...you don't even knnoooowww..." And then I'd talk with them about something like Grand Admiral Thrawn, or which ship in the saga was the Sundered Heart, or the fact that Chewbacca is over 200 years old, or "What are the names of the two guys Obi-Wan fights with in the cantina," or their stance on seeing young ghost Anakin in ROTJ, or even something simple like mentioning Darth Plagueis, and they just look at me like a deer in headlights!!! I think to myself: "Yeah, there's a REAL FAN right there!!!"

 

Lol, it was the international Korean pop fandom. 15 year olds can be so vicious where their favorite idol is concerned...

 

Ugh, I cannot imagine how crazy and rabid those K-Pop fans can be... Maybe just as bad as that insane Facebook-based fandom that some people I know were previously active in - JELSA (where they imagine Jack Frost from "Rise of the Guardians" and Queen Elsa of "Frozen" as a couple), where those who were against that "roleplay" were harshly criticized and flamed!

That's why I feel you have joined a more mature bunch of fans here (with some of us having watched the first movie, way back in 1977), when it comes to the wonderful world of Star Wars!