If you saw somebody swinging a sword in a movie in the last sixty years, Bob Anderson was probably involved. He started working back in the fifties on some of Errol Flynn’s final movies (after fighting in WWII and competing in the Olympics). He did sword training for Star Wars, James Bond, The Princess Bride, The Three Musketeers, First Knight, Lord of the Rings, The Guns of Navarone, Highlander, Barry Lyndon, The Mask of Zorro, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Doctor Who. Sadly, he died last year (at the age of 89) but he worked right up to the end - his final credit was this year’s Movie 43.
Was it one of these? I laughed, sounds like ads for space balls, lol.
Taomist, did you mean to include links there?
Wow, that’s right up there with Raul Julia’s last movie being Street Fighter. Way to end a great career with a total stinker.
Were there supposed to be links there?
Anyway, it might have sounded like ads for SpaceBalls, except that SpaceBalls was a parody and 9 years into the future. Sadly, people who grew up with what came after Star Wars can’t imagine the effect the movie had when it came out. I remember when I saw it in a theater that was absolutely packed to the rafters, that in the opening scene the little ship crossed the screen, when the big ship came shooting after it, that the audience collectively rocked back and as the big ship kept going on and on and on, they began cheering. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that in a theater. As I said earlier, 3rd showing on the first day it opened, no one knew what to expect. And I saw it as an adult, not as a child.
Looking at it today, maybe it doesn’t seem impressive. When I was a kid though, I loved Star Trek and any sci-fi movie or cartoon that came my way. When I saw the trailer in the theater it was clear this movie was going to change everything. EVERYTHING. Well, sci-fi movies at least. I was excited. There was no shutting me up about it.
I’ll say one thing for that trailer. If Star Wars were coming out today, the opening shot would be in every single ad.
I was 12 when Star Wars was released. I never saw the trailer or heard anything about the movie until after it was released, and all I heard was my friends saying that it was a really cool movie.
I saw it on a Friday evening, the 5pm showing. This was the first time I’d seen a line outside of a theater. Before Star Wars, a movie would run continuously all day and you could go to the theater at any time and stay for multiple viewings. Star Wars changed that.
I cannot overstate the cultural impact that Star Wars had for a kid my age. I mowed lawns and pulled weeds that summer so I could see it multiple times. My Junior high school’s year book had a Star Wars theme. No movie had ever been marketed like that before. Besides the toys, they sold Star Wars collector cards like baseball cards. I got Star Wars bedsheets for Christmas.
i didn’t care for the creepy music and the way the star wars title was ominously approaching the camera. :eek:
My memory’s a little hazy on this, but I seem to remember a lot of press on Star Wars that made me want to see it–like 60 Minutes stories on the amazing effects. Possibly that was after it became a hit.
I do vividly remember a story in the Smithsonian (why? who knows) about the amazing miniature effects in the then-forthcoming “Battlestar Galactica”–the original TV series. I got SO EXCITED. And then…a weird robot-dog and capes.
Neither the robot-daggit (dogs are soooo Earth) or capes were miniature effects. The space battles were, and were quite cool for the time.
I don’t think he was claiming that those were miniature effects, he was complaining that he got those instead of miniature effects.
Not a complaint entirely without merit. While the effects on the original show were quite good, they were also quite expensive, and got recycled constantly. There’s only so many times you can watch exactly the same shot of a Viper shooting down a Cylon Raider before it starts to lose its novelty.
The production and style are very much a product of the time. That was how a trailer was done for the most part back then but the key thing that is being missed was every single image they cut to was brand new for the audience. We have seen all of that stuff for the last 35 years but just imagine you are sitting in theater and see the Millennium Falcon, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Droids hell even Jawas for the first time. Damn straight you’re going to want to see that movie.
Star Wars was such a leap in Special effects and set design compared to other movies of the era and all of that is very clear in the trailer.
In fact, the ‘daggit’ was actually a trained chimpanzee in a body suit! I guess a midget (dwarf, whatever) wouldn’t have been strong or agile enough.
I did not know that. That is weird, wild stuff.
Looks like they posted the Empire teaser.
I was 11 when the movie came out. I remember the first time I saw it in the theater and I was instantly hooked. I even remember watching the Star Wars Christmas special and liking it.
Actually, as a former fencer, SCA and Kendo student, I always thought that the fencing in the original Star Wars was some of the best in all six movies.
A lot of effects hadn’t been pasted in yet. Those spaceships don’t look like anything but toys on strings. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsabre powering up just looked embarrassing. And this trailer predates the release by a year; 20th Century Fox sat on this movie for a long time because they thought it was a steaming turd.
I don’t think kids today realize just how cheap and awful SF films were prior to Star Wars. 2001 was the only really good-looking one, and it lost money in is initial release; the profitable ones usually starred Charlton Heston, and not in a good way. In 1976, Logan’s Run was actually considered something of a high water mark.
As far as I can tell, 2001 approximately broke even in the first year after its release. It made a lot of money fairly soon after that. Do you have a reliable citation for the claim that it initially lost money?