PT The Prequel Trilogy and Historical Revisionism

This is kind of a catch 22 or whatever, if they were afraid of getting bashed wouldn't that mean they are in a very small minority to begin with?

 

Online yes, but the online world doesn't represent the real world. i don't hear people talking about star wars in random every day conversations.

 

Yeah, I agree. I think a good comparison is "closeted" fans of Michael Jackson in the late '80s and early '90s. At that time, MJ had gotten so strange that most people were afraid to admit they liked him or even his music (at least in the US and the UK; he still remained more popular internationally). Yet, at the same time, MJ's albums still sold around 10 million units each domestically, which were phenomenal sales numbers; his stadium concerts kept selling out; the release of his videos on MTV kept being huge events even up to his duet with Janet in 1995. There was really a full decade where MJ's music did phenomenally well yet virtually no one would admit to liking him, and then after his death, with his death ending all the weirdness, all of a sudden, mostly everyone was willing to admit that they liked him again. Maybe if the PT became a Force ghost, people would suddenly start showing it a lot more good will!

 

that's actually a good example

 

No one was ever afraid to admit that they liked Michael Jackson's music. Not sure where you are getting that from. People have know he was an total weirdo for a really long time.

OT - I had a Thriller RECORD when I was a kid (man I'm old)

 

I'm not really sure that holds a lot of water. Most people don't really care what the internet fanboys say and most people don't take Star Wars to be gospel. I prefer the OT over PT, but I don't bat an eyelash at friends that feel otherwise.

 

The market has changed since 1999. Before it took a truly remarkable case to reach 1 billion (Titanic). Now it's significantly easier with more revenue from foreign markets.

I believe TPM would have passed 1 billion in it's initial run if it was released in December rather than may.

It probably would not have surpassed TFA's run because TFA is the third (or fourth if you count TCW) big wave of star wars. With the PT more people became star wars fans and that led to a bigger fanbase willing to see it.

If they do another long wait between films such as 10 years (very unlikely now) I believe a future successor by Disney could even pass TFA. But with their fast production of movies I don't think we will see another TFA unstoppable run

 

LOL um no. i am old enough to remember michael jackson being made fun of for being effeminate---long before the accusations--by kids at school

 

Dude - we made fun of MJ back when Thriller was super popular.. but no one was afraid to admit they liked his music. It was INSANELY popular

 

Depends on the age, I'm sure.

I was about 7 when Thriller was at it's height. NO ONE made fun of Michael.
When Bad came out. NO ONE made fun of Michael.

He was untouchable to kids. Heck, he even had a cartoon on network TV - something like "Michael and the Jackson 5" or some such.

 

For whatever it's worth, ESB seems to be the internet's favorite but ANH seems to be the favorite of most people I know.

 

that cartoon was way back in the early 70s.

 

Well all Star Wars films are "epic" to some degree by their very nature but it is just a matter of degrees. Actually the film that I think finds the best balance between epic and intimate is Return of the Jedi and that it is why it is my favorite. Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith probably tie in terms of being the most epic, the latter is less intimate. A New Hope is the most intimate but of course even it has epic elements. As far as The Force Awakens I am a little more generous but kind of agree with you, for me it is sufficiently epic and intimate but it excels at neither, it is more intimate than the prequels but less than the originals and it is less epic than the prequels and ROTJ for sure.

 

While i don't see the point ov validating ones opinion by proving that everyone else thinks the same (this goes both ways of course) i suggest using Rotten Tomatoes over IMDB anytime. While online scores are far from perfect, IMDB is easier to abuse.

 

Just to address the above: I was born in 1981. My older brother was a huge Star Wars fan growing up in the 80s. All the toys and action figures he had and we both played with. I always loved Star Wars. I saw TPM when I was 18 after graduating high school. Having loved the OT my whole life, I loved and looked forward to all three preguels. I didn't get more involved into Star Wars fandom until after ROTS was released. I felt so effected by the story in ROTS, I just couldn't walk away. While ROTJ is my all time favorite Star Wars movie, ROTS is second in line. You can't really generalize about how much a person likes or dislikes the PT based on their age or when they first started watching Star Wars. I've met people older than me who love the Clone Wars but don't like any of the Star Wars movies; people who are the right age for the OT but find the old EU more interesting than the movies. Star Wars fandom varies by the individual.

Second, the internet was around during the PT era. The internet was not something that just sprouted up in the last 10 years. The smartest thing GL did was re-release the OT in theaters in 1997 before the release of the TPM. The re-release got the general public talking about Star Wars again. And it was the OT re-relase that got critics circa 1997 to re-evaluate the OT. That is why the rating for those movies have gone up over time. The kids who loved Star Wars in the 70s and 80s, grew up to become film makers and critics, who when given the chance spread the love in the 90s.

And the "vocal fanbase" as you call them have been around for over 16 years. Disgruntled Star Wars fans aren't new. They didn't just find the internet after TFA was released.

bran

 

Myth: Ewoks and Jar Jar were greedy attempts to sell toys. If GL wasn't so greedy, Boba Fett and Darth Maul would have had bigger roles.
Reality: Fett/Maul-type characters sell far more toys than Ewok/Jar Jar-type characters.

Myth: GL is a greedy tyrant who exploits us starving fans.
Reality: If GL wanted to make as much money as possible, he'd release the OOT.

Myth: The OT is in truth a product of the studios, Marcia Lucas, and Gary Kurtz.
Reality: The studios thought that the Battle of Yavin and John Williams weren't worth the cost and Kurtz was fired during the production of ESB for going over budget and Kurtz has since been fired from other things for going over-budget.

 

Isn't the idea that this is an argument that is seriously made, a myth? (I don't think I have EVER heard or read an argument that the studios were responsible for Star Wars)

I think what many would argue, far more cogently, is that the OT is a product of collaboration; that Lucas understood his weaknesses and brought in colleagues who he could rely on to compensate for those weaknesses (drafting a workable script, outlining a concise story and paring away excess, directing actors, as examples). While filming the OT he had actors who weren't afraid to question the lines they were given - and could do so because they either had the gravitas to do so (Guinness) or were 'bristly' and abrasive in nature (Ford)...and Lucas was just (at the time) this young upstart. By the time of the PT...many of the actors were fans, awed just to be involved in Star Wars...

 

Of course you can. That's the point of a generality. It doesn't discount outliers, but the average remains that people that grew up with the OT tend to have more nostalgia associated with them.

So, of course you are going to find the perfect snowflake that grew up with the OT but preferred the PT - but that doesn't discount a generality.

I did not say the internet did not exist. I said it was not as prolific.

People were still using dial-up, AOL, Compuserve. It was not anywhere close to what we consider the internet of today's world.

 

When the actors and other prominent figures associated with the films acknowledge Lucas made decisions purely based on toys -- I think there is legitimacy to this.

 

Who has asserted this? The only one I know of was Kurtz who had a clear axe to grind after getting fired and it also helped him to beef up his resume by asserting that he walked away from Star Wars b/c of creative differences rather than getting canned.

Also, I have to question the ability of anyone to know something like this. Did Lucas ever say to anyone else: "Yes, these ideas are better, but I'm rejecting them so that I can sell more toys?" If Kurtz or others suggest these motives on Lucas's part without ever actually hearing Lucas say something along these lines, how do they know this? Can they read Lucas's mind?

 

Kurtz is the biggest voice, but you cannot discount his input simply because he had a falling out. Especially when the falling out was over these issues.

I'm not going to go quote hunting, but I remember even Harrison Ford (in his snarky way) stated that the reason he wasn't killed in the OT is because there was no money in a dead Han Solo toy.

Typically, where there is smoke there is a fire.

I'm sorry, but that is argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Simply stating that there is no verifiable proof of a conversation that is likely never to take place out in the open or recorded for posterity isn't really a real argument.

That's like saying - "Well, Hitler wasn't into killing Jews because he never openly said 'Hey guys, lets go kill them Jewish People'. I mean, he might not have known. We weren't there. We can't read his mind." Granted, that's an extreme example, but I'm trying to prove a point on your argument.

The purpose of establishing motive is usually done in isolation of an actual statement to the reasons that someone did something.

 

Since 1976, Lucas has said this.

“Star Wars is total fantasy for today’s kids who don’t have the opportunity to grow up watching Flash Gordon and have to sit through movies of insecurity instead (like Earthquake or Towering Inferno).”

--George Lucas, Sight & Sound interview, 1976.

Right after Graffiti I was getting this fan mail from kids that said the film changed their life, and something inside me said, do a children's film. And everybody said, "Do a children's film? What are you talking about? You're crazy". You know, I had done Graffiti as a challenge. All I had ever done to that point was crazy, avant-garde, abstract movies. Francis really challenged me on that. "Do something warm," he said, "everyone thinks you're a cold fish; all you do is science fiction". So I said, "Okay, I'll do something warm". I did Graffiti and then I wanted to go back and do this other stuff, I thought I had more of a chance of getting Star Wars off the ground. I had gone around to all the studios with Apocalypse Now for the tenth time and then they said, no, no, no. So I took this other project, this children's film. I thought: we all know what a terrible mess we have made of the world, we all know how wrong we were in Vietnam. We also know, as every movie made in the last ten years points out, how terrible we are, how we have ruined the world and what schmucks we are and how rotten everything is. And I said, what we really need is something more positive. Because Graffiti pointed out, as I said with these letters, that kids forgot what being a teenager was, which is being dumb and chasing girls, doing things – you know, at least I did when I was a kid.

Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology – looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does. Anyway, I became very aware of the fact that the kids were really lost, the sort of heritage we built up since the war had been wiped out in the Sixties and it wasn't groovy to act that way anymore, now you just sort of sat there and got stoned. I wanted to preserve what a certain generation of Americans thought being a teenager was really about – in a strong sense from about 1945 to 1962, that generation, several generations. There was a certain car culture, a certain mating ritual going on, and it was something that I'd lived through and really loved. So by seeing the effect Graffiti had on kids, I realized that kids today of that age rediscovered what it was to be a teenager. They also started going out cruising the main street of town again, and I went back and did various studies of towns, my own town, Modesto, we checked them out. There was no cruising and then, all of a sudden, it all started up again. So when I got done with Graffiti, I said, "Look, you know something else has happened, and I began to stretch it down to younger people, 10- to 12-year-olds, who have lost something even more significant than the teenager. I saw that kids today don't have any fantasy life the way we had – they don't have westerns, they don't have pirate movies, they don't have that stupid serial fantasy life that we used to believe in.

--George Lucas, Rolling Stone interview, 1977.

“I think that Revenge, for better or worse, is going to put the whole thing in perspective. I don’t know whether people are going to like it that much, but the truth of it is, that’s the way the film was originally designed. I think people have perceived [Star Wars] sort of different from the way it really is, and in this one it becomes obvious – which, essentially, is a fairy tale.”

--George Lucas, "Starlog" interview, July 1981.

Truth is, he made it for children. But he also had it in the same vein as an Errol Flynn or a John Wayne film. Not to mention that in 1980, "Nightline" did a show talking about TESB and had film critics John Simon, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel arguing the merits of Lucas's films.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/enterta...ilm-critics-spar-in-1983-nightline-interview/

Simon dismissed the films as condescending towards kids and not really worth their time, while Siskel and Ebert defended them as they were like the films they grew up watching as kids.

Also, something to consider, the box office for the last seven years has shifted dramatically with movies crossing the billion dollar mark is a relatively new thing. Just as ANH making four hundred million was a new thing back when it came out. That doesn't diminish the PT, since its numbers even out to the OT's, with or without inflation.

Kurtz also said that Lucas never read "The Hero Of A Thousand Faces", but Marcia disputes this. Also, Ford is probably going by something that Kurtz told him and not something that Lucas said to him. Lucas himself had intended for Han to play a vital role in ROTJ. First by having Han be responsible for going out to find his step father who was needed to help fund the Alliance. Later, he had intended for Han to get together with Leia and thus bring his story full circle. Ford felt that Han shouldn't have even been in TESB. That his story was done in ANH. By his own admission.

 

And how the hell can they know? Can they see into his head and read his mind?

 

Again, argumentum ad ignorantiam.

Your supposition cannot be that "he didn't directly say it to a video recorder, therefore it isn't true". It's a fallacious argument.

His actions have shown that he has been more interested in merchandising (even Space Balls made fun of this) than telling the best story. It doesn't mean he hasn't told some decent stories, but he did learn where his bread was buttered.

 

This must be one of the silliest argument I've read. Han is now dead in TFA , but it won't stop people buying Han Solo action figures. Besides, for what good purpose Han would be killed immediately after being rescued in ROTJ? It wouldn't make sense in the narrative structure of ROTJ.