Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Wild Hoss]

Anybody who thinks The Phantom Menace was ever viewed as a highly-regarded film clearly spent 1999 with their head in an oven. That movie was bagged on from Day One.

Force Awakens is not going to hold a position of honor in the pantheon of great films, but far and away a more polished product than any of Lucas' disjointed, cringe-infested work.

[WM Wolverine]

What Star Wars movies are actually worth watching, specifically the later prequels? IMO the original trilogy is arguably the most overrated of all-time. Any of the prequels worth watching, certainly plan to at least watch The Force Awakens when it's out on rental/bluray.

Worth buying? I to like to buy digitally too. You do lose some frames streaming and I'm a bit of a video & audiophile so at home I'll always watch the blu-ray but I do enough travel that I love to have digital movies I can watch wherever I maybe.

[WM Wolverine]

Comic book movies are extremely well done, I didn't want to enjoy them as much as I do but they have some of the best writers, directors and studios working on them so they have massive budgets and A-list actors. It's grown into arguably my favorite genre though never a comic book fan.

[froot loops]

Sure they put all their resources behind it. Most of them are well done, but most of them do not interest me.

Star Wars was a pastiche of old movies, but the point was the technical breakthroughs it employed. It is easy to say they just set a basic rescue the princess story in space. But that wasn't being done at the time. A lot of the flaws it has are strengths in my mind, Lucas never realized this. Hammil and Fisher's acting was pretty wooden, it gets redeem by Return of the Jedi. By that movie they are much more comfortable. For all the technical breakthroughs, it is pretty unglossy. It was the time when studios gave a director money and relative autonomy. That era is pretty much gone.

I really enjoyed the Force Awakens, but I saw Star Wars first.

[iam416]

Anybody who thinks The Phantom Menace was ever viewed as a highly-regarded film clearly spent 1999 with their head in an oven. That movie was bagged on from Day One.

This.

As for fight scenes, they can be great...when Omar pistol whips Slim Charles, that's a great scene....

[Da Geezer]

When the first Star Wars came out I'm not sure if cable tv even existed anywhere and watching movies at home probably meant you had a screen and an 8mm projector. You can now get those on ebay for $20-40. I'm sure they cost a mint in the 70's. Not long ago at my parents house, I found the receipt to our first VCR. It cost over $500...in the 80's! Before Best Buy pulled them for being obsolete I think they could be had for $30-40

I paid $ 1,200.00 for my Commodore 64. It took 5.5" floppies and had a printer.

[edindetroit]

LOL, movies are not worse than they used to be.

Agree, there have always been winners and losers.

[entropy]

What Star Wars movies are actually worth watching, specifically the later prequels? IMO the original trilogy is arguably the most overrated of all-time. Any of the prequels worth watching, certainly plan to at least watch The Force Awakens when it's out on rental/bluray.

Worth buying? I to like to buy digitally too. You do lose some frames streaming and I'm a bit of a video & audiophile so at home I'll always watch the blu-ray but I do enough travel that I love to have digital movies I can watch wherever I maybe.

None... But I'm not a SW fan either. If you named those movies anything else, people would be ripping the plot holes. And if you say SW isn't that good, you are a hater.


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[entropy]

I think animation movies are far superior to the past. They have continues to improve, IMO.

Comic book movies have given studios the license to use technology and super human stunts without making heroes or villains unrealistic. In other words, they have a bigger sandbox to play in without suspending disbelief in the heroes. They're not human to begin with...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Wild Hoss]

What Star Wars movies are actually worth watching, specifically the later prequels? IMO the original trilogy is arguably the most overrated of all-time. Any of the prequels worth watching, certainly plan to at least watch The Force Awakens when it's out on rental/bluray.

None of the prequels are worth watching IMO. The second two are basically cartoons, as they are 99% outdated CGI. The "first" one, The Phantom Menace, had Liam Neeson...but even he looked like he was acting for the first time.

You do lose some frames streaming and I'm a bit of a video & audiophile so at home I'll always watch the blu-ray but I do enough travel that I love to have digital movies I can watch wherever I maybe.

I usually download to my device to avoid hitches with streaming.

[Wild Hoss]

My son showed this to me...voiced by comedians like Jack Black, Maya Rudolph and Bill Hader. Pretty witty stuff.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w8Z0UOXVaY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w8Z0UOXVaY[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkiI2vM2lfA"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkiI2vM2lfA[/ame]

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ge4_stUpqs"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ge4_stUpqs[/ame]

[Hannibal]

Anybody who thinks The Phantom Menace was ever viewed as a highly-regarded film clearly spent 1999 with their head in an oven. That movie was bagged on from Day One.

Force Awakens is not going to hold a position of honor in the pantheon of great films, but far and away a more polished product than any of Lucas' disjointed, cringe-infested work.

When I saw The Phantom Menace in the theater there was loud cheering at about five different parts of the movie and applause at the end. The crowd where I watched Revenge of the Sith also gave the movie a standing "O" at the end. It took a while for the true level of shittiness to sink in for both of those movies. With The Phantom Menace people hated Jar Jar right away but the rest of the movie largely avoided the harsh criticism until a little later. (This might be a good time to point out that both times I saw Episode VII the theater was stone cold silent the entire movie except for the one part where BB8 makes a "thumbs up" with the cigarette lighter). Anyhow, the point is, lots of movies get hype and praise when they come out, but a few years later or on a second viewing people realize that they weren't that good. Blockbusters aren't about story or even good action anymore -- they are about visual spectacle and cramming as much CGI shit and explosions onto the screen as possible at all times. I'm not asking for another Citizen Kane here. They can't even get shallow entertainment right. If you don't like the original Star Wars trilogy then that example may not mean much to you, but there are tons of others.

[hack]

Disagree about animation. CGI sucks IMO. Just another area where handmade is superior to newer technologies.

[Dr. Strangelove]

When I saw The Phantom Menace in the theater there was loud cheering at about five different parts of the movie and applause at the end. The crowd where I watched Revenge of the Sith also gave the movie a standing "O" at the end. It took a while for the true level of shittiness to sink in for both of those movies. With The Phantom Menace people hated Jar Jar right away but the rest of the movie largely avoided the harsh criticism until a little later. (This might be a good time to point out that both times I saw Episode VII the theater was stone cold silent the entire movie except for the one part where BB8 makes a "thumbs up" with the cigarette lighter). Anyhow, the point is, lots of movies get hype and praise when they come out, but a few years later or on a second viewing people realize that they weren't that good. Blockbusters aren't about story or even good action anymore -- they are about visual spectacle and cramming as much CGI shit and explosions onto the screen as possible at all times. I'm not asking for another Citizen Kane here. They can't even get shallow entertainment right. If you don't like the original Star Wars trilogy then that example may not mean much to you, but there are tons of others.

I don't think there's any chance Force Awakens will ever be held in lower regard than Phantom Menace. There was enormous anticipation for those movies whereas in the buildup to the recent one, you had the memory of the prequel turds leading up to it.

Phantom Menace had child Jake Lloyd playing what was theoretically the lead role (Despite not appearing until 45 minutes into the film). He was god-awful. Jar Jar, like you said, was reviled almost immediately. Whatever Lucas tries to claim I think it's pretty likely that he originally going to have major roles in all three films until audience reaction was so poor. Liam Neeson and especially Ewan McGregor are completely wasted. They look dazed and confused. Liam Neeson's character is completely unnecessary to the film and the franchise as a whole. Actually, damn near everyone looks like they're on valium except for the kid and Jar Jar.

They run around in front of (now) painful green screen effects spouting lines by that brilliant wordsmith, George Lucas.

Force Awakens looks and feels a lot more like the original film than any of the prequels. Maybe a bit TOO much at times when they reference space chess or have a pointless cameo by Admiral Akbar. But it's easy to see why that stuff was thrown in. It's what Star Wars nerds largely want. They have this picture in their minds of this great universe with loads of memorable characters. I think though that if you go back and watch the original trilogy and judge it on its own merits, and try to keep all the post-1983 mythology out of it, they aren't as great as the childhood memories (For a lot of people) insist that they are.

Star Wars fans have always been great about inventing details and nuances that aren't actually present in the original films. Boba Fett is a great example of that. Here's a character that was basically created to sell toys, has no development or backstory ever told, and barely has any lines. Yet he's got this huge fanbase obsessed with him for literally no reason other than he "looks cool". I think the silver storm trooper in the new movie is either a parody of the Boba Fett phenomenon or a mediocre attempt to duplicate it.

[Wild Hoss]

When I saw The Phantom Menace in the theater there was loud cheering at about five different parts of the movie and applause at the end. The crowd where I watched Revenge of the Sith also gave the movie a standing "O" at the end. It took a while for the true level of shittiness to sink in for both of those movies. With The Phantom Menace people hated Jar Jar right away but the rest of the movie largely avoided the harsh criticism until a little later. (This might be a good time to point out that both times I saw Episode VII the theater was stone cold silent the entire movie except for the one part where BB8 makes a "thumbs up" with the cigarette lighter). Anyhow, the point is, lots of movies get hype and praise when they come out, but a few years later or on a second viewing people realize that they weren't that good. Blockbusters aren't about story or even good action anymore -- they are about visual spectacle and cramming as much CGI shit and explosions onto the screen as possible at all times. I'm not asking for another Citizen Kane here. They can't even get shallow entertainment right. If you don't like the original Star Wars trilogy then that example may not mean much to you, but there are tons of others.

TFA has an 8.4 on IMDB. PM...6.5.

Rotten Tomatoes has TFA at 90%. PM...60%

Now, these are not as quantifiable as The Hanni Clap Factor, but with over 100 million users between them, its a decent counterpoint.