PT Why Are The PT Films criticized? (catch-all thread)

Actually I avoid agreeing always with box office results; because we should accept that a truly dreadful movie as '50 shades of grey' is good because it has pretty good box office results. So, it is subjective. As I said I very much like the prequels and I could spend all day long explaining why they are exceptional movies as many people here so I have no idea why others tell that they are horrible but the most ironic thing is that those others generally like SW. Astonishing.

 

The trailers for 50 Shades looked fine. Are you súre the movie is awful?

Well, not picking group out of one specific community is the key

As for the question whether it's better to pick completely randomly, or make sure you get people from various specific groups, at what sample sizes... no idea about that.

 

As I said this isn't statistical forum, so I wouldn't teach lessons of statistics, no matter that this is my field of work. Anyway, my point was that the size is not the most important factor (as always). I know you are joking about 50 shades but seriously I was shocked when such a movie: basically a postmodern extrapolation of the Harlequin cheap romance novels is gaining such interest. I didn't watch it, but still I read 2 pages of the so called book (it is not necessary to read more to understand it). It is very poorly written chick lit, my only explanation is that they had an inexplicably successful marketing campaign to become such a hit. But who knows , maybe many people like too inexplicable things, as the fans who said that they liked the fact that in OT Vader is so mysterious. It was irritating to me that nobody cares (at least the fans to who I talked with) why Vader is wearing such mask. “Why are so interested in that, don’t you see it? is sooo cool”.Yeah. Obviously this kind of people didn’t like the prequels because, you know, the mystery is revealed and Vader was real human who made some terrible mistakes and fell into darkness. How impossible and awful…

 

Afraod I'm not getting your PT connection there...


I've heard excerpts from 50 and the prose seemed ridiculous - if the movie is ridiculous in some way that wasn't visible from the trailers, I guess it's bad. *shrug*

 

What I like in PT is that they give the backstory of Vader. I like may more things but this was one example of the inexplicable (at least for me) bashing of the prequels: they revealed the mystery so they are bad movies. I don't know what to say to such arguments and saw such arguments many times.

 

A lot of people complain about the acting, emotionless especially by the Jedi. However, there's a video on youtube explaining quite in-depth that the Jedi are supposed to suppress their emotions. It's a great video, and adds these films.

I never hated and still don't hate any of the prequels.

I liked Phantom Menace, I thought Attack of the Clones was worst of the prequel trilogy, but i don't hate it, it's not terrible, but not great either. It's below average. Revenge of the Sith is a great movie.

 

Haha haven't seen that one much, most of the complaints/criticisms aim at the specifics of his personality rather than that.
What I have seen, is people saying it's inherently boring because you already know the outcome - that one, I have seen

The Jedi and the politicians and the aristocrats all have this stoic, formal demeanor - however, they're not emotionless.

When they are actually emotionless or inexpressive, I think it's just the actors being bored at that moment - those scenes are generally more marginal.


One thing that sort of gets on my nerves is "defenders" conceding bogus criticisms and then offering explanations/justifications for them - like the Ring Theory guy, who was justifying "TPM's boring opening" with the premise that "it's still quiet and peaceful at the beginning of the story"

 

It IS a quiet beginning if you watch Star Wars in chronological order, because the galaxy's not in turmoil yet!

 

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The prequels aren't horrible, just parts of them. Storyline filler/cheese and bad direction/acting are the two main things that I dislike about some of the PT. This is not
to be confused with the bad acting in the OT -- it's different altogether.

On the outset, I will also say, even as a kid under 10 who saw it in the theater in '83, I hated the Ewoks and wished they were never in ROTJ.

When I saw TPM, I thought, "Oh, no. Lucas is focusing too much on the Ewok crap again [Jar Jar & Gungans] rather than the good stuff." The too-long pod race, the whole Gungan storyline, treaties & viceroys...it was too long, overall, and boring. Is it a bad movie? To me, mostly -- it's the only one I don't own and I don't feel like I'm missing anything other than some great action scenes from Ray Park and Liam Neeson. Also, the visual is fantastic (planets, scenery, etc).

AOTC was marginally better. Acceptable. It was nice to see Anakin training under Obi-Wan and seeing the Clone Army beginnings. Again, the visual is fantastic with Naboo, Kamino, Geonosis, etc. On the flip side, while I feel like Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman are great actors and were right choices for the job, somehow their performances did not endear me to them. I watched AOTC recently with my son for the first time in a long time and snickered at the bad dialogue, which I'm sure has been discussed on these boards ad nauseam. I don't know if it was GL's intentional direction or maybe they had too much autonomy with their characters -- whatever it was, it left a lot of fans scratching their heads --not just me -- and made their relationship seem contrived and cheesy. I wouldn't have been surprised if emo Anakin cut himself up with his lightsaber - ha. As I've said before, the "checkpoints" of Anakin's dark side leanings were made way too obvious and made Anakin look like a whiny kid. So, while I don't hate the movie, I don't like it that much to watch it over and over again, like I could with the OT.

ROTS was far and away the best of the PT. All the buildup coming to fruition; most of it was right on target. Only gripes: pretty much the last 30 minutes of the movie. The ending was so rushed and I would've happily stayed an extra half hour for a bit more detail. I hated the way Padme died (lost the will to live? Ugh). The whole twin birth thing got jacked up and made Luke's dialogue with Leia confusing in ROTJ. Obviously, the "Nooooo!" was distracting and comical, rather than having the opposite effect; say anything else there other than that line. Show more Alderaan -- it was blown up in ANH, it was Leia's adoptive home, and we got a whole three seconds of it. Show more details of the kid drop-off on Tatooine. Maybe actual dialog with Obi-Wan and the Lars family. The whole Dagobah choice--flesh that out a bit more --in the movie -- on why Yoda picked that place. Basically, all the loose ends were tied up, but they were tied up hastily where more detail and time would've been better.

 

Most bizarre set of b.o figures I've seen. Don't know where you pulled these from.

 

They're inflation unadjusted worldwide figures, similar to but not the same as those on Wikipedia.
Unfortunately exchange rates and inflation means that reliable worldwide inflation adjusted figs aren't available unless you want to do a lot of research and maths.

But the inflation adjusted US figures give a good indication of the movies relative performance, as do estimated attendances.

OT: US Box Office ; US Attendance ; RT Audience score
SW: $1,314,850,434 ; 178,119,600 ; 96% (4.1/5)
TESB: $751,204,635 ; 98,180,600 ; 97% (4.1/5)
ROTJ: $724,064,338 ; 94,059,400 ; 94% (4/5)
Total: $2,790,119,407 ; 370,359,600

PT:
TPM: $699,066,761 ; 90,312,100 ; 60% (3.3/5)
AOTC: $414,858,818 ; 53,468,200 ; 58% (3.3/5)
ROTS: $460,743,580 ; 59,324,600 ; 65% (3.1/5)
Total: $1,574,669,159 ; 203,104,900

ST:
TFA: $936,519,683 ; 108,120,000 ; 89% (4.3/5)

I distrust the Rotten Tomatoes method, but there you go.

 

Thanks, I knew there was some weird numerical alchemy going on there. He included the o/s gross for the PT while we know in the case of the OT the o/s box office records don't exist for much of the world.

 

Yeah, the figures I posted are from Wikipedia. Box Office Mojo has some more up to date adjusted estimates, but the relative difference between the movies is still the same of course.
It's also interesting to note that Guinness World Records gives the inflation adjusted worldwide total for Star Wars as $2,825,000,000

Audience ratings suggest otherwise. The majority opinion is ambivalent, and once you account for spread of opinion the 'hate' proportion is fairly substantial. Even on this site (a PT friendly one) TPM and AOTC are ranked comfortably at the bottom.

 

The Box Office fetishes are spreading!

To the OP, opinions.

 

Try imdb and scroll down to worldwide:

$1,027,044,677 (Worldwide) <--not bad for a bad film huh??

 

My comments were for reviews of the movies when they came out at the time.

when I came out of the theater in 1999 and throughout that year...it had mostly positive reviews....never to the extent of Red Letter Media.

 

numbers are calculated differently. The numbers show the TPM did not have poor box office performance...#9 all time domestic US (inflation adjusted)...TFA #4

ReleasedFilm NameTotal Box Office
1 1977 Star Wars Ep. IV: A New Hope $1,385,311,974
2 1997 Titanic $1,147,349,023
3 1982 ET: The Extra-Terrestrial $1,133,175,867
4 2015 Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens $936,662,225
5 2009 Avatar $832,120,706
6 1980 Star Wars Ep. V: The Empire Strikes Back $814,319,243
7 1983 Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi $784,006,776
8 1994 The Lion King $761,640,898
9 1999 Star Wars Ep. I: The Phantom Menace $761,329,663

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/records/All-Time-Inflation-Adjusted



WORLDWIDE Pefromance:

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/records/#world

 

Number 18, not 9: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

 

I guess it depends on which source you trust.....

TPM #7
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm

depends what the definition of domestic is.....either way all sites report 1 billion for TPM....not bad for a hated movie...

wow TPM was better than Avengers Age of Ultron? Can't wait for The Red Letter Media Review of ultron....number 1

I guess TFA had the same hype as TPM???

 

many factors come in for statistics...

curiosity
popularity
word of mouth
over hyped
Critical reception

Hard to measure the reason for why people like a film:

1. good looking actor/actress
2. nice action scenes
3. good special effects
etc...

For me....a movie can do well in opening weekend and then take a dive in the coming weeks...usually this is the trend for bad films....TPM was top grossing film in 1999....not bad for a BAD movie.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1999

which rating do you trust IMDB (parent company of Boxoffice mojo) or Rotten tomatoes ?

TFA 8.2 stars at IMDB and 95% at Rotten Tomatoes

TPM 6.5 stars at IMDB and 55% at Rotten Tomatoes

IMDB rates TFA lower and TPM higher when comparing it to Rotten Tomatoes.....let me pick a site that suits my interests....or better yet, let me decide if I like it or not....forget the critics...

 

You said you were looking at adjusted figures. If so it's at no 18. The 5th highest SW movie. Better than being 6th or 7th.

 

All these figures get confusing...lol....well I guess worldwide TPM sites at 1 billion adjusted....half of TFA....Like I say...would you say a movie that grossed 1 Billion dollar is a bad movie?...yes only for the academy awards since they don't care about box office gross.

Any argument against the TPM box office performance can be equal for TFA?

Hype, curiosity, waiting a long time to see a star wars movie?

Lets see if Episode 8 can out do Episode 7...I am curious.

 

As Mark Hamill recently pointed out, it's irrelevant. Box office doesn't necessarily equate to quality. Eps 2 & 3 are IMO better films than TPM but were attended by only around half as many people in Nth America. As for the performance of TPM at the b.o, alot of that has to be attributed to the OT. The fact that it was a SW movie which had millions of fans, all created by the original movies.

 

I liked episode 2 and 3 better than episode 1.

I can argue that TFA success can be attributed to the Prequel trilogy....its all semantics.

Fact is you either like a movie or don't like it.

And yes box office performance does not equate to quality....so what does then?

Quality Story
Quality Acting
Quality Effects
Quality Soundtrack
Quality Production
Quality Editing
Quality Direction

Maybe the answer is an emotional connection to the story, its characters and overall general feel impressed upon the viewer, coupled with the viewers own experiences and how it relates and connects to the movie being watched.

I got all that from TPM and TFA...but TPM was more of a star wars movie for me than TFA, so for me in that regard I didn't connect as much with TFA.

Everyone's opinions are valid.