I was reading in the anti hero thread some posts about people voting for Han Solo as the anti hero they'd like to see the most, and about a TV show that would bridge the gap between episodes 3 and 4. And I thought to myself " god, a han solo movie would be terrible" and " man, that TV show is going to suck bawlz". And it occurred to me.. I am offically over star wars. Not only did Han Solo not occur to me as the "anti-hero" i'd want to see, I scoffed at the very idea. Now, I grew up loving star wars. Not a little, a whole freaking lot. The three movies we my absolute favorite, any time they were on tv, i was glued to the set. When they first released the VHS boxed set, i ran out and got a copy. When they re-released the movies, I was there every opening night. Star Wars was magical for me, and it was a magic that lasted far longer than any of the other things of my childhood. I even got things like the comic, and some of the early books, the Xwing computer game, etc. I had literally waited for the episode one my entire child hood. I'd freak out with every rumor I would hear about a possible new star wars movie. I freaked the fck out when it was offically released, and I saw episode 1 opening night...


And that's when the magic started to die. I wanted episode one to be good so badly, that I remember thinking " oh, that's not so bad" when I saw it the first time, I focused on the shiny things about it. BUt I didn't see it in the theatre again. When it came out on video, that's when the hate for the movie began. Each time I would watch it, it would seem more ludicris and god awful than the last. It seemed like such a crass money grab by Lucas, that it even made me view Return of the Jedi in a new, money grabbing light.

Since then, while I did see E. 2 and 3, I found them to be poor as well. Episode three sucks alot less than 1 and 2, but it still sucks by any objective view. If it didn't have the star wars label, the movie never would have been made.

And now, I am so over star wars. The first movie is a landmark of american movies, and empire is probably the best of the series, Jedi has major flaws, but some redeeming qualities. But the rest of the movies suck. The star wars franchise itself sucks. Every piece of media they have put out since Jedi has been the crassest of money grabs, holding no art at all, and only trying to milk suckers like me who fell in love with the franchise as a child out of more money. I would not want to see a Han Solo movie. I would not want to see any more star wars anything. I just want it to go away. I want some part of the magic of my childhood to survive. But I know it's not going away. I know there's just too much money Lucas can make by pimping stars out perpetually. I wonder how long star wars merchandising will go on? It's been 30 years since this train started moving. I would guess it's still got another good 30 years left in it, maybe more. I have no idea how to handicap it any more, it is a phenomenon without precident ( well, I guess maybe star trek set the precident, and there's no sign that train is slowing down, either).

i understand, though it isn't the same for me.
I am not a die hard star wars fan, but i do like it. seeing a han solo movie would be cool for me.
However, in my case i can relate this to 24 and seinfeld. after 24 is over, lets say it comes back for a season with outh kiefer. i would still watch, but it wouldn't be as good. i doubt making a han solo movie would still have harrison ford, but since i was never a die hard fan, i would matter. extreme fans of the star wars would care however.
also, you always hear that the tv executives wanted seinfeld to go on for another season and they were offering the casts loads of money but jerry turned it down because he wanted to go out on a high note. i guess its like this as well. why do a prequel when it already has a great legacy?

Not everything that has been put out with a Star Wars label has sucked. The Thrawn Trilogy was a great series, they have some excellent video game titles (Knights of the Old Republic for one), and the Clone Wars cartoons were really well done.

I'd like to see more of the Star Wars universe done without Lucas's involvement, though its highly unlikely.

I agree with you BigD for the most part, except that the recent crapfest doesn't diminish the original trilogy to me. The only thing that made me view those movies as something less is after Episode 3, when I learned that Return of the Jedi was originally supposed to have wookiees instead of ewoks. Man, do those ewoks suck.

I also agree with Jadaki in that there is still some good Star Wars stuff out there; just keep Lucas out of it.

If Joss Whedon writes it and Kevin Smith directs it, I could dig a Han Solo movie. Harrison Ford won't do it, though, so I can't really imagine it.

he's desparate for work and respect. I think he'd do it.

Rumor has it he turned down the chance.

Kevin Smith doesn't like to direct action stuff, he admits as much on his Evening with Kevin Smith DVD's.

I guess you and I have different tastes in video games and literature, then. The only thing cool about the KotOR is the fact that you could use the dark side to zap the sht out of people, other than that it was a pretty banal rpg, imo. The thrawn Trilogy is glorified fan art. The clone wars cartoons were probably the best thing in the history of the label that isn't the original trilogy. But it's a blip in a sea of crap.

i know its just a joke for kevin smith to direct it, but i'm sure he would love to be part of it anyways

I very much enjoy all 6 star wars movies. I honestly believe that they ALL suck though... as far as quality filmmaking goes. Anyone that doesn't think so, needs to watch 4, 5, and 6 again and pay special attention to the excellent acting skills of Mark Hamill... he's almost as bad a Hayden Christensen. I can still overlook all that and just enjoy watching them for what they are.

ok. Peter Jackson?

I don't think I could ever be over Star Wars. It is the first theater experience I remember. As a four year old, it captured my imagination like nothing ever has or likely ever will. I think we have all been waiting for something to change our pop culture world in the way Star Wars did back in the 70s. The Martix made an attempt, but failed miserably. Everything since Star Wars has been derivative.

That being said, I am in no way some fanboy who is ruled by the Cult of George. But, to me, Star Wars simply defines my generation. Like Before Christ and Anno Domini, the movie has extreme significance in the realm of properly putting anything in its timely place. Far be it from George Lucas turning a great premise with lackluster writing into a cash cow for himself. All he was really doing was responding to supply and demand. I don't think he went into the thing thinking he'd change the world. There was a huge vacuum created when the Trilogy came out. Someone had to fill it. He would have been an idiot if he hadn't. I cannot begrudge Lucas that.

But, I understand OP's disdain for it.

As adults I think it is impossible to not see behind the curtain of a money-making machine. It's like trying to convince yourself that a chick who weighs a buck-oh-two really does have those DDs in her sweater without any surgical enhancement. You have to suspend reality a little in each case. If you can't (and you don't like fake tits), then the magic may be lost.

I think where it all went wrong was when Lucas took the movies into the digital world. Sure it was nice that he could design new creatures and hide the wires, but the lack of physical sets sanitized it and made it sterile looking. You knew the boobies weren't real. The question was could you ignore that fact.

That, more than anything, ruined the new episodes for me. In I and II, I couldn't ignore how fake it looked. But the strength of the premise in III made me ignore what I didn't like. I watched "A New Hope" 10 times in the theater and more than 100 times on HBO, TV and VHS in the 80s. Other than Revenge of the Sith, I can't see watching the new movies over and over.

A few closing thoughts:
KoTOR sucked. How can you make a Star Wars games into Zork with graphics? But, it did get me to buy an XBox which was good for me.
Does anyone else think that Ewoks are the unholy union of Jawas and Wookies?
Is it just me or did Darth Vader look short in the final scenes of Episode III? They shoould have got David Prowse to put the costume on again.

McGee:

As often, we've experienced more or less the same thing. In '96 (I was 9 or 10) I first saw. Ep.1. My brother and I, once released from rapture by the credits, ran to our parents, and off to the video store, we were.

We bought the Tril. box set, watch Empire, Jedi, and then Hope, again. An obsession was born.

We watched at least one movie a day for a year (felt longer than that. Time is excruciating when you're 10), owned every action figure, read comics, books, fan fiction, wrote fan fiction, and even went to a convention (no costume). I too was at every rerelease premier. I dreamed of Ep.1; couldn't bare the wait.

By the time it'd come out my interest had moved on, but I still – out of tradition, prolly – caught the first showing I could. It was the last one I paid to see. I walked out furious.

Worse still, everyone – people who laughed at my interest – were all-the-sudden into it, love the new Tril., are ambivalent toward the Org.Tril., and tell me I'm a snob for hating it. This premise continues today, though passively.

Everything outside the Org.Tril. was always lame, but that was understood. It was lame in a cool (to us) way; campy, obscure, elitist. The second Tril. was not only made to make money at the expense of art, but was made in such a way as to, which was the real unforgivable act.

Ep.1 was made for little kids, seemingly; with "comic" "relief" in the form of an obviously contrived attempt at a doll selling, overlyquotable catchphrase machine – an attempt that fail to captivate even the most bovine American shill – in Jar-Jar (hyphen?).

Ep.2 was better, my favorite of the three, but still stupid. I think it was the first major movie shot with all digital, which is something.

Ep.3 was supposed to be the big nostalgic moneyshot. Problem was, they'd jerked us off so much, and there was nothing left in the sack; it just sorta' twitched then went limp; a booby payload, like a clown's bucket-of-confetti trick. It couldn't even deliver the one simple thing – the Darth Vader transfer – that could have redeamed it, without screwing it up.

Note: my NP fixation was formed later, independently. Even that snatch couldn't save those abominations.

No, but the story holds a certain intangible "magic", and maybe it was something that couldn't be recreated, 25-years later. Maybe someone should have known this, and they shouldn't have tried. Maybe it could've been been better had they tried to make a movie instead of a hyper-accessible, all-appealing moneymachine. Maybe the latter was in inevitable. What we do know for sure is, for the sake of the fans, they need to just stop.

KotOR is one of the better action RPG's made in the last 5 years, the second one was rushed and semi crappy but the first was really well done and introduced a lot of new RPG mechanics and gameplay elements that are being copied in new games today. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone not liking that game. Sidenote: after reading H factor's comment, it was really good on PC, the xbox version didn't have the control features of the PC and it suffered for it.

I'm not sure what you mean by the Thrawn Trilogy being glorified fan art? My books didn't have illustrations.

I feel Episodes I-III are much worse than the originals....but I thought the main plot line....how the emperor came to power, how vader came to be, how luke and leia managed to be separated.....was actually handled quite well.

Sure things like jar-jar stunk, and the movies had a fake feel. The acting was at times mediocre but often below average. However, the story of how a sith took over a galaxy almost on his own with a series of brilliant manuevers was great. They showed it to be a well thought out far reaching plan that was 10-20 years in the making. I enjoyed that part. The rest.....well it was probably hard to recapture the magic of the originals and so they failed./ oh well.

Actually, that would've been interesting... had it not been painfully vague and intentionally avoided.

Well, I played it on the xbox, but In general, I don't like rpg's that are so scripted. I suppose it's a critizm of the genre, more than anything else, I haven't played an rpg i've liked in years. To show you what I don't like in RPG's, the only one of the Final Fantasies I liked was the original.

And I should have said "Fan Fiction" not "Fan Art" my bad..

Absolutely true. That was the problem with the second trilogy, they spent so much time on useless crap. Everything in the first movie you could throw out the window, nothing in the movie served the plot of the trilogy, only served character development. But lucas is damn shitty at character development. He was much better at making stylized two dimentional characters in the first trilogy than he was trying to make anikin a 3D character. And I agree somewhat with the idea the filming in digital hurt the look. IN the first 3, you get this concept of an "old future" where everything looks.. dirty, and grimey and old. The falcon looked liked it could fall apart any minute. The cantena looked gritty. There was no grit in 1-3, only polish. I could go on and on and on and on. But it just comes down to the fact that the orginal was magical, and 1-3 were not. I have exactly zero hope that they aren't just going to pump Star Wars out of every red cent, milking every bit of it. I just don't care any more. I won't be buying or seeing any more star wars material unless i hear from an unbiased, non-fanboy source that it's good.

On a slightly different note, you ever wonder if some time in the future if they are going to remake iconic movies of our generation, like star wars and indiana jones, they way they did psycho, or any of the numerous other movies of yesteryear?

Good luck with that.



I hope not.

Ep. 1, obv a steaming pile of cow dung. But Eps. 2 and 3 I enjoyed.

OG trilogy still rulz. The key was that Lucas didn't write the dialogue.

I'd still hit it...

After consulting a few items/things including but not limited to my Forum Name(Yoda), FCP Poker Name(_4LoM_), E-mail Address (LeoR2D2@), my Yoda FCP Jersey, The Yoda Mosaic on my wall, and the star wars books on my shelf...I have determined, I am not yet over star wars. That is all, good day.

which is basically the same thing as me saying " I never will"

I understand what you're saying, but wasn't that the point? The universe was deteriorating under the rule of the Emperor.



I really liked the pod race scene in 1. Especially with the bass on the home theater really cranked up. And I think Liam Neeson's character and acting were on par with Sir Alec Guinness.

i also thought liam neeson did a great job.
and i have a question:

I saw the Episodes 1 2 and 3 before i saw the original 3, when you saw the light saber fights in episode 1, were you impressed?

Yes.

The lightsaber battles in the new episodes were the only things that compared or bettered the original.

whenever i watch the original and i see vader and luke fight, i just think that obi wan can take them both (if he fights like he did from the first 3)

Obi Wan is the true chosen one. If Lucas wouldn't have written such crappy dialogue forcing Guiness to beg Lucas to kill him off the world would truly know this.

"yeah, but did you see the light saber scenes?"

LOL this is an a common defense of 1-3. Yes, the light saber scenes are sweet. Yes, the fan boy in me absolutely geeked out at them. I love them, I really do. The darth maul is particularly impressive. yoda whipping out his light saber made me tingle. But, I mean, come on.. a few light saber scenes doesn't save a movie.


Alec Guiness hated the role of obi wan, btw, thought the movie was stupid and absurd, and it was a bitter irony for him that a great, knighted actor such as himself would be remembered for Star Wars. I like Liam Neelson as an actor tremendously. In fact, I like Natalie portman and Ewan McGreggor. As of course, everyone loves Samuel L. But none of them did their best work in SW. It's hard to work with lines like those, however. It was like it was written for a bad Sci-Fi channel mini series or something.

Twisted though it be, I like to consider myself to be a top authority on the subject, as I've literally seen everything she’s done (including student films that NO ONE's seen), and acting-caliber-wise, although an argument could be made for Everyone Says I Love You (which I say doesn’t really count), Ep.3 wins this little showdown by a landslide. And, yes, you might-could blame the dialog, but I get the feeling that by Ep.3 that weren't even trying, anymore.

Double post.

Her best acting was in Ep.3? Dutch, I always knew you were crazy. This just proves it. How can you ignore her work in Beautiful Girls opposite Timothy Hutton?

And to un-hijack this topic, I don't know why the majority thought the Yoda saber scenes were so great. I thought they were comical.

They should have kept the muppet.

I'm pretty sure he means it was her worst performance, not best. And i think people thought it was great, just because yoda had been part of the SWU for 20 years, and never touched this lightsaber.. it was the mere fact that he was using it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_en_...9t.Gb_sxfhsaMYA

LOL that's just funny.

I meant worst, and I don't care to reread to see what I said. BG was her best, followed by Free Zone, which I barely got through. It's unwatchable, despite her performence.

The cool fight scenes don't even BEGIN to make up for how clunky and horrible the movies were, and I enjoy even the most SENSELESS violence.

I loved her in Beautiful Girls. The hint of taboo between her and Timothy Hutton made lecherous 30 somethings look good for a day.

Guess I didn't read far enough. I thought I was the only person alive who actually liked that movie.

I actually ran into one of those R2D2 mailboxes in downtown Raleigh. Literally, walking down the street backwards/drunk, on a St Pats bar crawl, I backed right into it. It's pretty cool.

I saw one yesterday in downtown Des Moines, wasn't really expecting to see one here.