TPM's Appeal: Did the Media Make it Appear that ALL SW Fans Were Dissapointed With It?

Sure you are. But I don't know where you get the convincing idea that long-time fans are all TPM-haters. Or where you get the convincing idea that to be disappointed in the movie is the same as hating it.

Perhaps you're letting the facts get distorted. TPM hit the long-time fans the hardest as far as disappointment goes, and thus the huge outcry from them. But it wasn't all of them.

 

That's true, I doubt every long-time fan like myself (34) "hated" the movie, I don't hate it, I was largely dissapointed with it but i don't hate it. Although to be honest there are elements in it that i do loathe like Darth Mauls death and the way the Gungans speak.

D.Homer, TPM is no way as bad a film as Batman and Robin although it's pretty close to Godzilla in terms of dissapointment. But the fact remains that as a SW film its visuals remain unrivaled and a "Must see" regardless of whether you realise you are "conned" as you put it from the initial viewing. I can't imagine any SW film being made so bad that i can't watch it at least 3 or 4 times for the visuals and the spectacle alone. It's like C_Minor says, people realise they're being conned but they just don't care! Besides, Hook did not have the essential B.Office draw that SW had, I loved the film but never bothered to see it first in the cinema. Peter Pan just doesn't have the SW attraction I'm afraid and it's very hard to find anything that can pull multiple generations in to see a film such as SW. You have to go into the realms of popular TV shows and Comic books heroes to come even close!

 

CeeJay, are you saying you think TPM only would have flopped at the box office if it had really bad special effects? Interesting theory
I think that TPM was good enough to provide an enjoyable two hours viewing for many people, but not good enough to please all the fans.

 

Okay, I've got two more thoughts to add.
I heard recently that AOTC's advance ticket sales are already rivalling Harry Potter's. Bit odd for the sequel to such a universally hated film, don't you think?
Also, I read an article about merchandising in The Sunday Times today that said TPM sold about $2 billion worth of merchandise! Do you have any idea how much that is? Trust me, it's a lot - more than almost any other film could ever hope to generate. So I think that the merchandise sales (like the film itself) were only considered a disappointment because people had such unrealistic expectations in the first place.

 

quote:

So I think that the merchandise sales (like the film itself) were only considered a disappointment because people had such unrealistic expectations in the first place.


Who exactly had these expectations? What were they? And why were they unrealistic?

 

The expectations were that TPM would be both the best film ever made and the most successful. Sadly, that was not to be.

 

quote:

The expectations were that TPM would be both the best film ever made and the most successful. Sadly, that was not to be.

anyway...

 

Anyway what? Do you have anything enlightening to add to this debate?

 

The fact of the matter is this: Most of the expectations of TPM was based off of Star Wars: A New Hopes record. Adjusted for Inflation; Star Wars made 865.1 million dollars.

This was the figure that TPM was supposed to reach. Mind you Titanic only made 680 million dollars (u.s.) But everyone (except George Lucas) thought Star Wars should easliy make this money.

The Phantom Menance ended up in the same range as the other two sequels.

Did Star Wars "dissapoint" the financial people. Yes-they had unrealistic expectations. Did Star Wars "dissapoint" fans, yes-especially those who had another movie in mind, rather than the creator did.

 

I agree, Lukecash. The media expected TPM to have the same cultural and commercial impact as ANH, when really it should have been compared to the sequels. And it was just as much of a success as ESB and ROTJ, IMO.

 

Further proof that the media plays games:

Look at this link IMDB.COM Studio Briefing

I will also provide the text.

Get set for Star Wars: Attack of the Critics. The first reviews of Episode II are hitting U.S. weeklies, British newspapers, and numerous Internet sites -- and many are as ornery as those for Episode I (although virtually all mention that the latest film is an improvement over the Jar Jar Binks episode). Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly writes that the latest installment exhibits "a chill, conservative grimness of purpose, rather than an excited thrill at the possibilities of cinematic storytelling." Roger Friedman of FoxNews.com says that die-hard Star Wars cultists will have to "live with the enormous faults: hideous dialogue, bad plotting and infomercial-grade acting." David Thomson in the London Independent asks rhetorically, "What's missing?" Then observes: "A movie, characters, a story. Just those antique elements." Especially missing, he indicates, is a "feeling in the series for some profound struggle between good and evil. The ethics are like cartoon thought bubbles." On the other hand, Alexander Walker in the London Evening Standard writes that the movie "is intimate and spectacular, event-packed and technology-triumphant." Indeed, most of the London press gives high marks to the film's special effects. But Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter is unimpressed. "Does anyone fondly recall the day when creatures in a Star Wars movie were guys in funny costumes?" he asks, adding: "There's no doubt the digital realm has enriched Lucas' vision with unimaginable worlds and creatures, but there can be too much of a good thing."

Over on the AOTC (Spoilers Forum) we have been tracking the reviews and so far there are like 55 positive and 10 negative. Will the above news release quotes 4 of the negative and 1 of the positive.

No attempting io influence or show bias there. Tongue firmly planted in cheek.

 

"The Sunday Times today that said TPM sold about $2 billion worth of merchandise!"

Unfortunately, I own about half of that.

 

I suspected as much

After the TPM debacle, nothing the media comes out with would surprise. That's why I'm mostly ignoring them, this time. Although it's hard to take Entertainment Weekly's constant bashing of the prequels. Are they owned by one of Fox's rivals, or something?

 

As far as the media is concerned, the prequels are a total washout. but does that make it so for us?

 

But doesn't it seem like the media is down on everything, except for the flavors of the month??

Cynicism is "in" these days.

 

"Are they owned by one of Fox's rivals, or something?"

Yeah, they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner.

That's why every single word about the Matrix was GREAT in '99, while every word printed in their mag about TPM(even from secondary writers)was/is negative.

Actually, I think it's more a Anti-Lucas agenda they're pushing than against Fox.

 

Some of this has been posted before...But if you need any proof of some bias take a good look at this.

May 13th Studio Briefing by Lee Irwin

If there is a theme to the negative reviews that continue to pour out from the major critics about Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones, it's that the movie seems, well, forced. Kenneth Turan in today's Los Angeles Times notes that when the original Star Wars was released, none of those involved in the production felt that they were under any great pressure. "Now, everything has been close to sanctified," he writes, "and those currently involved seem weighted down by the knowledge that they're part of a phenomenon. There's an unshakable self-consciousness about Clones that does not work to its advantage." Turan's review is not scathing, but it sighs with disappointment, concluding with these words: "Impressive though the computer work is, it soon descends into video game overkill. Only a teenage boy could find this kind of stuff continually diverting, and only a teenage boy would not notice flimsy emotions and underdeveloped acting. It seems George Lucas, like Peter Pan, has never really grown up." Roger Ebert wrote similarly in Saturday's Chicago Sun-Times: "As someone who admired the freshness and energy of the earlier films, I was amazed, at the end of Episode II, to realize that I had not heard one line of quotable, memorable dialogue. And the images, however magnificently conceived, did not have the impact they deserved." David Ansen in Newsweek begins his reviewing recognizing that it will be greeted with scorn by the Star Wars faithful. "Let the hate mail commence," he remarks in his open paragraph, then dismisses the movie in just four more paragraphs. "The enterprise is showing its age," he writes. "The movie feels long, and ... the storytelling feels stiff in the joints." Of the major U.S. critics, only Time magazine's Richard Corliss, who wrote glowingly of the movie after seeing a preview of it last month, has submitted a positive view of the film, attacking his colleagues in the process: "Like the army of clones deployed in Episode II, a gaggle of critics has already spread the news that the picture stinks. It doesn't," he writes in the current issue. Corliss reminds his readers that "There's nothing deep or emotionally grand about this enterprise, but Star Wars never occupied that part of the cinema spectrum. The series was -- and remains -- Lucas' elaborate reconstruction of his Saturday-matinee memories and fantasies."

May 9th Studio Briefing by Lee Irwin

Get set for Star Wars: Attack of the Critics. The first reviews of Episode II are hitting U.S. weeklies, British newspapers, and numerous Internet sites -- and many are as ornery as those for Episode I (although virtually all mention that the latest film is an improvement over the Jar Jar Binks episode). Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly writes that the latest installment exhibits "a chill, conservative grimness of purpose, rather than an excited thrill at the possibilities of cinematic storytelling." Roger Friedman of FoxNews.com says that die-hard Star Wars cultists will have to "live with the enormous faults: hideous dialogue, bad plotting and infomercial-grade acting." David Thomson in the London Independent asks rhetorically, "What's missing?" Then observes: "A movie, characters, a story. Just those antique elements." Especially missing, he indicates, is a "feeling in the series for some profound struggle between good and evil. The ethics are like cartoon thought bubbles." On the other hand, Alexander Walker in the London Evening Standard writes that the movie "is intimate and spectacular, event-packed and technology-triumphant." Indeed, most of the London press gives high marks to the film's special effects. But Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter is unimpressed. "Does anyone fondly recall the day when creatures in a Star Wars movie were guys in funny costumes?" he asks, adding: "There's no doubt the digital realm has enrich