Saga Wow! Old-style Hater bashes Star Wars

Snooty East Coast intelligentsia movie critic bashes Empire while Siskel and Ebert defend on the old "Nightline" news show.

I have to say that Siskel's defense is a bit weak, defending Empire as good filmmaking "of its kind", contrasting it with Spacehunter. That implicitly accepts the snob premise that genre filmmaking cannot be good cinema as well.

 

These are drama critics. Dramatists tend to not like fantasy stores of these types. The language is ridiculous but unsurprising. Doesn't make him wrong for not liking ESB. I don't either. Manner could be nicer, though.

 

Not the first critic I've seen who took down the originals in familiar terms ("90 percent special effects" "Lousy acting" "Ghastly dialogue"). And yeah, I could see some fans being miffed that the defense there mostly came back to the films being made for children.

Overall, though, I had a good laugh at the presentation, where suit-wearing guys on nightly news sat around debating Star Wars. Could've been a great setup for a parody video.

 

I'd be curious as to your objections to Empire (as a side issue). it's generally considered the strongest of the OT films.

 

So many claim here, yes. My main two are ESB is dull and too dark in tone.

 

Bold. I mean, I personally disagree but, I still admire the rather unique naysay. I don't necessarily think Empire is the cat's pajamas of any-and-all things Star Wars either, at least not to the de facto extent that reflects the most general, cultured reference to the franchise. I love the movie. It's a favorite. But it's not my favorite of the six installments.

Still, dull? Too dark? ...this is why we can't have nice things.

 

There are only two elements in ESB I like at all: the reveal and Yoda on Dagobah. Thanks for the praise but I don't understand why being honest is bold. Not everyone is alike and contrary to how many act and treat others that isn't bad. SW fandom is needlessly negative. My fave SW entry is RotJ because of the redemption thread.

ESB as well as SW and basically all the PT show the Jedi and Rebels are hypocrites. I don't like it but that is bold. It's a shame so few are able/willing to see it but everyone's wiring is different. In spite how many act no one is wrong in how they see SW we just differ.

 

The critic, of course, is John Simon, and the film under discussion is actually "Return Of The Jedi", not Empire.

Seen it before; has been around for a while. But you've created a fun thread here.

John Simon, of course, is the critic who wrote disobliging things about the original Star Wars movie, including the somewhat notorious line, "Star Wars will do very nicely for those lucky enough to be children or those unlucky enough never to have grown up." Clearly, he had an intellectual preoccupation with children being "stunted" by what he regarded as inferior entertainments; and as Cushing's Admirer wrote, he seems to have come at the series wielding an axe, based on a dramatic or literary background (which, again, as Cushing's Admirer appears to have noted, is often cause for trouble when it comes to movies of this kind).

Undoubtedly, a fiercely intelligent man (if somewhat snooty and dismissive), Simon is still around at the rather tender age of 89 -->

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_(critic)

Sixteen years after that "Nightline" interview, Simon rolled up his sleeves again and wrote this rather tepid review of "The Phantom Menace":

https://web.archive.org/web/20110506005533/http://old.nationalreview.com/movies/simon061499.html

Ironically, prequel bashers would probably find much that resonates with Simon's perspective, particularly his lamentation that "there is not much human feeling" in TPM. Some would probably also agree with his general criticism of ROTJ (as in the above video) -- he seems to deride it for being simplistic and "mechanical". Arguably, he is simply much more consistent than they are, rallying against all the films as grating, inhuman pablum; but with perhaps some grudging admiration for the original.

Obviously, I don't exactly share Simon's views, but I do respect people that go against the grain, especially when it's sincere. You can't exactly say he's wrong; you can simply offer a different view. I think Lucas somewhat identified the problem in an interview with another surly critic -- another "John S." -- back in 1997.

http://www.booknoise.net/johnseabrook/stories/culture/force/

Quoting from there: "Pauline Kael never liked my movies. It's like comparing novels and sonnets, and saying a sonnet's no good because it doesn't have the heft of a novel. It's not a valid criticism."

People still don't even know what Star Wars is. They only tend to "know" if they like what they think it is or not.

Richard Marquand had this to say in an interview with "Starlog" magazine, appearing in June 1983:

"I preferred that surface naiveté to the much more sophisticated way [Irvin] Kershner told his story. His style very much suited this rather more dark, metallic second section of the saga. I think this third segment has a different kind of glow and flavor to it. But, I tried to make it simple because the textures in Jedi are so very, very complex. There's a world of new people and some of them are incredibly difficult to appreciate at first meeting."

I've pulled that little nugget from here -->

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/to...-of-Return-of-the-Jedi-June-1983/topic/13176/

Read the full interview and you'll notice that Marquand himself actually articulates a similar prejudice toward TESB as John Simon, claiming that the actors were "very lost" and that the special effects "rode through" the movie.

Certainly...

Star Wars bashing is not a new thing. Everyone has their own point-of-view.

We have, alas, been subject to attempts at re-writing history. There was a time when people were more mixed on TESB. It may have a fond following now, but I sense it partly got that reputation, or has been held there, as a slightly churlish means of "proving" how everything post-TESB sucks.

 

Yeah, that interview is a nice reminder of Richard Marquand, period. He is someone who has since become something of a cliff note or distant echo amidst the history of the franchise, at most credited as Lucas' on-the-set placeholder for Jedi. There is, in fact, a lot of Marquand in both the details and overall wholesome storytelling presentation of that film. His hand in directing might have been invisible, but by no means immaterial.

 

I quite agree with everything you just said.

It is, in fact, rather unusual if I don't.

 

The issue with Empire being "dark" is that it not only has to tell an entire story on it's own (which gives it dark elements during the rising action and complications portions of the script, but that it is also serving double duty as Act II of a 3-act story of it's own (Act II being all about rising action and complications, hence "dark").

 

That is certainly a valid way of looking at it, yes. It has zero to do whatever with why I said it's too dark personally, though. It's too dark for me because it's brooding and very narrow in presentation, it reads wrong.

 

The older gentleman sounds just like OT purists ragging on the prequels. Goes to show how people don't like change.

 

As I was listening to John Simon I was thinking, wow this is what it must look like when I bash on Game of Thrones.

Maybe I should reconsider my behaviors.

 

AHAHA!

Seriously, though... be yourself.

If you wanna be a crusty old git railing at the stupidity and insularity of the world -- let's have a coffee!

 

I don't like Game of Thrones either.