Saga MacLeans's article: "Star Wars sucks! There, we said it."

Critics hardly all want the same kind of film and it's hardly bad that some people prefer other types, styles, or genres.

 

That's what I mean. I don't mean trash. What I'm referring to is the fact that the Saga launched the era of the summer blockbusters which were not the same as the films that had dominated the late 60's and throughout most of the 70's. And not just sci-fi and superheroes, but action films that became dominant during the mid 80s and on through to today. Whenever someone comes out to criticize the Saga, someone will take up arms in its defense. Which is fine and dandy, I do the same thing. But some people cannot be objective when they're defending it. I can admit that both trilogies have flaws, as much as those flaws can still work. These people, the ones who really take to task the criticism, they're unable to step back and admit there is some truth to it. They look for alternate view points to try and tear it apart.

The thing is that "Star Wars" does have something to it, but if you were to compare it to "The Godfather", the latter blows it out of the water in terms of complex characters and storytelling. That is why "Star Wars" is given the blame for "Armageddon". Sure, they're different directing styles and stories, but one begat the other and that's what the article brings up. As did many other critics. A critic wants a film that challenges the audience. That is relatable and set in the real world, where laser swords and telekinetic powers don't exist.

Right, but the point in posting this is that when the PT discussions began, many posters of the time refused to believe that ANH and TESB were trashed just as hard as TPM and AOTC. They were all gung-ho about tearing down the new films, but flat out refused to believe that it went on back in the day.

 

darth-sinister

There's certainly a connection there, but I still think it's an oversimplification to blame SW for the brainless blockbuster phenomenon. It's a fair point that Macleans makes, but I think it's overstated somewhat.

 

A certain objectivity is often lost defending an object of one's love, but I frequently see fans putting down the series for its writing and acting. Though, I'm not sure I'd call that objective, in itself: more like repeating a meme.

The broader notion that Star Wars triggered a surfeit of science-fiction, superhero, and action movies... well, maybe. My mind does at least tell me, however, that there were other big or popular movies in the pot toward the end of the 70s: "Superman", "Close Encounters", "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", "Alien", "Rocky", et al. When you add to these, say, the on-going popularity of the James Bond franchise, not to mention the once-popular genre of the Western, and classic sci-fi B-movies like "Planet Of The Apes", "Forbidden Planet", or the films of Ray Harryhausen, it would seem like all Star Wars did (not to diminish it) was to catalyze something that was going to have happened anyway. I think Star Wars gets blamed because it had both the fortune and misfortune to mark a turning point: it's the man in a bright jacket stood at the gate.

I see what you're saying, but the complexity of Anakin's character is a match for anyone or anything in "The Godfather" films, in my opinion. The complexity of Star Wars' storytelling is likewise underrated: you have many stories happening on multiple planes. What "The Godfather" has in its favour is a compelling social realism and something the texture of a novel. The spectacle lies primarily in the performances and the slow, studied interweaving of its plot arcs. Star Wars, in contrast, relies heavily on the whiz-bang, being several orders of magnitude brasher and louder. Lastly, the allegorical nature of Star Wars is diffused behind mythological themes, while "The Godfather" is a rather pointed commentary on American politics and corporate capitalism. Ironically, despite being a product of the 1970s, and set in an even earlier part of the same century, this makes it more timely than ever.

 

I'm still waiting for the part where he provides an insightful argument (or just an argument) against the actual content of the movies and/or filmmaking therein. Maybe there's a page 2 still pending. This is one of those 'talking about talking about Star Wars' ...or 'talking about everything surrounding the Star Wars movies except the Star Wars movies themselves'.

The whole article is in neutral. Spinning wheels.

 

The reason it is easy to blame "Star Wars" and "Jaws" is because they're the first ones to really spawn the whole genre. The disaster flicks of the 70's essentially ended with the 70's. The blockbuster owes its roots to those two films which blew away the competition, spawned numerous sequels that did about the same box office and then all the other films that the studios felt that they had to go with, as opposed to saying no, or spreading them out, rather than bunching them up during a four month period.

You and I can see it, but to most critics, they see bad acting, writing and directing masking as a cover for a weak story with dull characters and flashy effects. The realism is what critics like with serious acting, writing and directing. Along with the political commentary. In fact, some will say that is why the Nolan Batman films both work and don't work, is because of the commentary. Especially when the last film came out right on the heels of Occupy Wall Street and some people seeing it as an obvious commentary, with Rush Limbaugh's misguided belief that Bane was named after Bain Capital and not because the character pre-dated the movement by twenty years.

 

Yeah, I don't dispute that it's easy to blame, but that doesn't necessarily make it reasonable and justified. SW was more than likely going to be a one off, cult homage when it was originally made. That was where Lucas was coming from. The fact that the film captured people's imagination and was massively successful wasn't his fault. I really don't think he anticipated that.

 

No, he wasn't at fault for that. But whether or not there were going to be more "Star Wars" films is irrelevant. When the studios saw this...



They saw dollar signs and started signing off on films to be released as big blockbusters. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was given the green light after ANH came out and everyone involved admitted that Lucas opened the door for them. They in turn fed into other film success stories. More and more the big budget spectacle films began showing up. Studios have admitted to be inspired by Lucas and many filmmakers cite him as an influence. It was a chain reaction. Sure, James Bond was popular and successful, but not to the degree that Lucas achieved. Hell, the next Bond film to come out was "Moonraker" and it became "James Bond Meets Star Wars", in an attempt to cash-in. Studios started dumbing down their movies and put the quality films in dead months or direct to video, many of which are fairly good films, but are bumped in favor of spectacle films.

 

Surely what Lucas thought he was creating is relevant to whether he's to blame for the results of said creation. I guess we're getting into the realm of semantics here, but to me, 'blame' suggests more than just a causal connection. It suggests some kind of fault. I find it difficult to see that the domination of the brainless blockbuster is George Lucas's fault.

 

Is it not the audience who seemingly prefer to pay for mindless guph that perpetuates the studios creating it? And...are there no longer great films being made? Not all Science-fiction is thoughtless, empty dross. Avatar addressed some pretty big issues, Interstellar likewise. I'm looking forward to Hamlet. Was Twelve Years A Slave not a good film? Donnie Darko? Fight Club? Dead Man's Shoes? Just to name a few off the top of my head.

The idea that artistically/intellectually the modern age is dross compared to some notional 'golden age' is a very old and repeated trope. I think it's all.......well, I won't say. Cobblers...that'll have to do.

 

Each era has great films however I would say quality has lessened over the last two decades on the whole but hey perceptions.

 

He is entitled to his opinion. What else can one say?

 

Other things, made of words and stuff?

 

The audience may have played a part in accepting these kinds of films. I don't deny that. But I think part of the reason Lucas gets the blame is that he chose to make a simple movie, rather than going for something complex that would be remembered for different reasons. He broke the trend of films that started with the likes of Frankenheimer, Kubrick and Penn and along with Spielberg, he created a new trend of films which dazzled audiences but didn't challenge them. It's a bit of cause and effect.

Not sci-fi in general, but the advent of the summer blockbuster film. The movie that you have to see, because of dazzling special effects and big explosions, but has paper thin characters and weak plots. Those are the films that critics take issue with and start the blame there. Note that some of the big films weren't all sci-fi films either.

 

The article is garbage written by an idiot. Neither the article nor the author will be remembered even a few months from now. But the website achieved its goal of generating clicks.

 

I always figured that Lucas never intended to start anything or create anything other than a film in the style of the old pulpy, sci-fi serials that he enjoyed himself. Sci-fi far heavier on the fi- than the sci- was a deliberate stylistic choice, the same as deliberately simplistic and basic characterisation and plotting was a deliberate choice, it wasn't 'dumbed down' as much as distilled down to the essence. He wanted a movie about space ships and aliens and good and evil... so he made one. If you look at something like American Grafitti Lucas was more than capable of producing something without all the space opera trappings, but decided that pulp was what he wanted. And whether by a fluke of timing or just uncanny prescience he managed to tap into something everyone else wanted too, and the trend took off - same as how Jaws was never meant to set off the summer blockbuster style, it just happened.

The films have flaws for sure, as Lucas would no doubt be the first to admit what with his persistent if doomed constant tinkering with edits and effects is (or was, now)anything to go by. But it was everyone who saw and loved those films and all the executives and money men who have jumped on board the train who have ridden it to destruction - not Lucas.

 

I agree with most of that J89 but I'd say Lucas and co all rode the path of destruction together.

 

The funny thing is, though, Lucas tried his hand at a darker and more adult-oriented science-fiction story: "THX-1138". But the studio gave him little backing and the public rejected it.

Then, with Star Wars, he actually did something quite radical with the visual construction, merging Kubrick with pulp, and pioneering revolutionary in-camera effects. For all the light-hearted, buccaneer spirit, there is a political salience at work, too: in that film -- in all of the Star Wars films -- lies a sublimated critique of Vietnam, and an inherent poke at the danger of excessive nostalgia.

His next trick, for Empire, was to make a prototypically dark fable, with shades of ambiguity and moral gloom, subverting the simplistic can-do attitude displayed by the ostensible heroes of the former movie. It weaves in a visually-abstract snow battle, zen gloom, a screwball romance, black office comedy, and a near-religious pictorialism, despite its limited sets (and budget). And it ends on a bum note.

These films collectively define what Lucas was going for; and what he brought to cinema at the turn of the decade. If Star Wars simplified the cinematic landscape, it seems unfair to throw it all at the doorstep of Lucas, who was doing unprecedented things in the medium of film, and striving for quality. The real lesson in what Lucas did is that he followed his heart and was an individual fighting the system. This couldn't be more different to today's $200 million behemoths bank-rolled by major studios. They are impersonal collectivist projects: like a bridge or a turnpike. Lucas created his own island.

 

And that's precisely why the author mentions that as soon as fans hear something like that, they flip their **** without really looking at it.

 

There are 7 billion people on this planet, odds are some don't like starwars

 

darth-sinister I did read it. The piece has nothing to say, the title tells you everything that's on the writer's mind and it's pure click bait. It's as meaningful as "Finnegans Wake Makes No Sense! There We Said It!" or "Beethoven Is Boring! There We Said It!" or "Miles Davis Couldn't Play Trumpet! There We Said It!" or "Infinite Jest Is Too Long! There We Said It!" You can construct a puerile argument around a title like that but it doesn't even begin to approach the work in question in any way that is perceptive or meaningful. It's junk, pure and simple.

 

I don't agree with many of the author's conclusions, or his overall take on Star Wars, but there are a number of valid points in the article and I think the claim about fan defensiveness is at least arguable.

 

It's true of any work of art that is repeatedly attacked for irrelevant reasons by critics ignorant of the work. I don't call that "defensiveness". And "you can't criticize SW" is hyperbole. There are negative critiques of SW that are more carefully studied, no matter how transparently biased and uninformed, than the films themselves. You can hardly read an article about SW without seeing potshots taken at it, so the basic premise behind the title (which does not even reflect the bulk of the article, which itself is nothing more than warmed over Biskind) itself is faulty. Pointing out these stupidities is not being reflexively defensive, it is correcting chronic mistakes on the part of critics.

 

Yeah. Frankly, I think there are better articles to pin the charge that Star Wars fans are defensive on. This one is unbelievably tardy, cherry-picking disobliging quotes to support the idea that Star Wars is childish pap, without probing the films in any particular way -- cogent or otherwise -- or presenting even a scrap of contrary opinion. It puts an idea out there, but poorly-formed, when better criticisms have already been made. Why should people get particularly excited about this piece one way or the other?

 

Odds are some don´t even know about Star Wars.