I used to love Star Wars when I was little, even had a decent sized collection of the toys (several tote containers filled to the top) and still have them. I still do appreciate Star Wars but it has been a let down for me over the years, a consistent letdown. I never had something, a series, or something or other that I liked disappoint me so much. First it was great when I got VHS tapes of the movies, then the digitally remastered ones, then the games for Nintendo 64, I LOVED ALL OF IT. Then the prequels came out, I seen them for the sake of continuity, but absolutely hated them. Then some games came out over the years, all mediocre. Then some guy made a mod for Battlefield 1942 called the Star Wars: Galactic Conquest mod. It was the best thing ever, then Lucasfilm threatened to sue him (so i read, years ago), so EA bought him out, and later Worked with DICE to make the abomination Star Wars Battlefront (Which I just gave up on tonight, with only 22 achievements, I just couldn’t play it anymore, it’s terrible, so BORING! I’m going with a single player game with a story from now on). I noticed that Disney bought the franchise, and I absolutely knew the movies and games would be nerfed and awful from here on out. Disney was great at one point but is just a company out for a money grab now. Then Star Wars: The Force Awakens was out, I of course gave it a shot, maybe it would redeem everything, and it was the biggest letdown yet, the plot was so loose with the story of the originals, the acting was so bad, it lacked that pride and wouldn’t give me the same feeling rooting for the Rebels, no tingly feeling. Nothing. It was empty, just like everything else that came after the prequels, ESPECIALLY the games. Makes me sad and wishing I had got into Star Trek instead, because Star Wars became worse than a Space Opera that people speculated it was. Just In My Humble Opinion.
What do you all think?
Sorry If I piss some fan off, I don’t mean to, just expressing how I feel about it.
You haven’t gone far enough. Go back and analyse the original trilogy with a critical eye, and they will seem far less shiny and the sequels will improve in comparison.
I’m not saying the annual release of a new Star Wars movie isn’t a sign of money being paramount, with the potential of enjoyment decreasing as a result, but the only way to retain a childhood fascination with something like is to keep a child’s enjoyment of things severely lacking in sophistication.
Nothing is going to seem as great as you remembered it to be as a kid.
That said, I strongly disagree with you on the Disney films. I think they are kicking ass. My only criticism of them is they felt the need to cast the original actors.
I mean, it makes for great novelty for all us old folks. But I would have rather seen them start new, and maybe draw in some of the younger crowds.
Nope. Disney is vapid and boring now, and relying too much on fancy graphics. Jungle Book was completely forgettable, and it shredded every detail of what I loved about the original.
And what’s with all the remakes now? Can’t somebody come up with an original story anymore?
Finally saw Rogue One, and it was a vast improvement in every way over the originals.
I was never a knocked out Star Wars Fanatic, so I didn’t suffer any huge “let downs” over it. I saw flaws in my first viewing of what eventually was renamed "A New Hope, back in 1977. Lucas was always a fairly clumsy director, who rushed plot elements in, often just to solve short term shooting schedule challenges, and then had to write in some real nonsense later in order to try to band-aid over the clunky mess he’d made.
I still like the thing overall, but I suggest you work on gaining a more realistic perception of the entire world. It’s disappointing to face how flawed existence is, at least at first, but after you completely recognize that it is, you can start going the other way, and begin contributing actual improvements to it all yourself.
I watched the originally trilogy lots of times and, a couple of years before I turned 40, I realized that A New Hope isn’t such a great movie. It is terribly slow in places. I still enjoy it, but mainly out of nostalgia. A huge, and new, part of the fun is watching my daughters get excited watching it.
I never bothered with the prequels. From what I’ve seen over the years, they look dreadful indeed.
But I do think that the new films work very well. At 42, I cannot really recapture that feeling of awe I had in 1980, but so far, they’re doing a fine job making the franchise exciting again, with some bold decisions and a tone that’s distinctly darker, while keeping a palpable respect for the original trilogy.
I’m not a big Star Wars fan. I like the premise well enough and, having been born in the early 70s, saw all the films of the original trilogy a bunch of times, played with the toys and been generally aware of it. The prequels were nothing interesting but, since I wasn’t dying to see them, didn’t ruin my year either.
The Force Awakens was a bit of a disappointment. I thought Kylo Ren was woefully miscast and lacks any menace. I spent the movie mentally mocking him for being such a pud. I wasn’t even aware that the actor was on Girls (though that wouldn’t helped my attitude any); I just saw some whiny dork. His little slap fights with the other commander were pathetic. That, plus the general rehashing of New Hope, left me feeling ambivalent about the whole thing. Rogue One was better but still felt very formulaic and left me thinking that maybe all Star Wars movies largely feel the same and I shouldn’t expect anything better from them than 120 minutes of acceptably entertaining movie watching. They’re not going to break new ground or do anything surprising but you can watch ships go pew-pew and laser swords go whaaa-whaaa for a while and not be challenged into thinking. That’s fine, no one ever said that Star Wars was highbrow science fiction but I feel as though it gets more credit than it deserves.
Also, I assume this will get scooted off to Cafe Society.
Gosh, my experience was the exact opposite. Going back to watch the originals just exacerbated how terrible the sequels were.
That said, there is a dropoff in quality from “Star Wars” and “The Empire Strikes Back,” which are first rate, magnificent films, to “Return of the Jedi,” which is good but not great. The prequels are all very bad.
You don’t have to embrace everything in a franchise. That way lies madness. Pick and choose.
For me, Kirk-era Star Trek has two movies: TMP, TWoK. NextGen has First Contact and insurrection. (I have never even given Nemesis the benefit of a single viewing). If I ignore the others, it’s like they don’t exist, and aren’t destroying the franchise. Same with the Chris Pine reboot. I’ve never even watched them, so they can’t “retroactively ruin” the original stuff.
Star Wars consists of IV, V and Force Awakens* and Rouge One.
There were never any sequels to BTTF. The first was an awesome stand-alone movie.
It makes for less headaches this way!
*even if it IS just a rerun of IV, I don’t hate it. So far.
Do you know some guys are putting up MacBeth on stage in Chicago next season? I mean it’s great and all, but sheesh, it’s 411 years old and it’s not like we don’t know how it ends.
I wish somebody would write some original plays.
I saw Rogue One last night. Or rather, I saw about half of Rogue One, because I fell asleep. I loved the original Star Wars movie, and every subsequent movie has been downhill since then. The fun of the original has not translated into any of the sequels/prequels/side-quels/let’s see if we can drag butts into seats-quels.
My daughter loves them, I am a huge slobbering Harry Potter geek, but Star Wars? Nope, sorry.
Jungle Book hit above $900 million worldwide, Beauty and the Beast passed $1 billion. As long as people keep spending money on them, they’ll keep remaking them.
Of course I mean the original Disney film, and no, there’s no disconnect. The original Disney’s Jungle Book had about as much in common with the Kipling stories, as Frozen has to do with Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen.
The remake of The Jungle Book may have made beaucoup bucks but according to this thread from when the movie came out,
the reaction around these parts was from “meh to okay”. Most of the praise was for the stunning visuals, which as I said Disney relies too much on. A couple of Dopers said they really liked the movie. You can see, my own opinion hasn’t changed much. I missed the emotional impact of these movies and still do.
And as for those sneering about my complaint about the lack of original stories these days, because obviously nobody should even attempt to write anything new because they’ll never outdo Shakespeare, I abjectly apologize. I’d rather be bored to death than dare to insult the Bard.