1. Due to the increased amount of spam bots on the forum, we are strengthening our defenses. You may experience a CAPTCHA challenge from time to time.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Notification emails are working properly again. Please check your email spam folder and if you see any emails from the Cantina there, make sure to mark them as "Not Spam". This will help a lot to whitelist the emails and to stop them going to spam.
    Dismiss Notice
  3. IMPORTANT! To be able to create new threads and rate posts, you need to have at least 30 posts in The Cantina.
    Dismiss Notice
  4. Before posting a new thread, check the list with similar threads that will appear when you start typing the thread's title.
    Dismiss Notice

Starlog 007

Discussion in 'Original Trilogy' started by Djas Puhr, Sep 16, 2014.

  1. Djas Puhr

    Djas Puhr Clone Commander

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Posts:
    155
    Likes Received:
    140
    Trophy Points:
    284
    Credits:
    1,152
    Ratings:
    +255 / 14 / -7
    • Great Post Great Post x 1
  2. Jedi77-83

    Jedi77-83 Force Sensitive

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2014
    Posts:
    2,285
    Likes Received:
    4,428
    Trophy Points:
    13,687
    Credits:
    5,976
    Ratings:
    +6,712 / 176 / -38
    Very interesting to read anything about Star Wars before it hit the bigtime. It's interesting to see Lucas say that the movie was made for 14 year olds, as that is always what I thought was the best age to see a SW film (old enough to understand what is going on, but not too old to be cynical of anything). It also shows that Lucas mis-read the market for the PT movies as the humor for that trilogy was geared towards kids under the age of 10, and the movies don't hold up as well because of it.
     
  3. Ree Yees

    Ree Yees Rebel Official

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2014
    Posts:
    635
    Likes Received:
    855
    Trophy Points:
    6,892
    Credits:
    2,027
    Ratings:
    +1,575 / 91 / -24
    Not only that, but he also apparently thought than kids under the age of 10 would think it was interesting with the seemingly endless monotony of scenes where characters stand in mostly empty rooms talking to each other (the whole Coruscant sequence). Boy did those scenes need someone who doesn't care about authority to kick up some dust.
    My son, 8, loves Star Wars, The Empires Strikes Back, and, most of all, Return of the Jedi.
    When I ask if he wants to see a prequel (daddy must needs be open-minded enough to allow this), he sometimes picks The Phantom Menace but wants me to fast-forward to a] the pod race and b] duel of the fates.

    Now you can of course argue that the middle section of Empire - in particular, the Dagobah scenes - don't exactly roll along either, but at least these scenes feel vital and meaningful to the plot's progression, helping to build toward the meeting between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
     
  4. Jedi77-83

    Jedi77-83 Force Sensitive

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2014
    Posts:
    2,285
    Likes Received:
    4,428
    Trophy Points:
    13,687
    Credits:
    5,976
    Ratings:
    +6,712 / 176 / -38
    It's funny you mentioned this part of Empire, because as a kid I always thought these scenes were very slow, and that is why I ranked Empire my least favorite of the OT. Then I remember watching the OT on SciFi in Highschool (around 1990) for the first time in a few years, and I did a total transformation towards ESB & ROTJ. I realized that night how great Empire was, and how inferior Jedi was to SW & Empire, and I never changed since.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  5. Ree Yees

    Ree Yees Rebel Official

    Joined:
    Sep 8, 2014
    Posts:
    635
    Likes Received:
    855
    Trophy Points:
    6,892
    Credits:
    2,027
    Ratings:
    +1,575 / 91 / -24
    Yeah, Jedi is very much inferior to the first two original episodes, though there are hints of that old greatness (in my opinion, of course!) - it would have been so lovely if Lucas didn't burn out and we had gotten a film closer to the original ideas for the continuation of the saga, with Leia not being Luke's sister, the Emperor still only mentioned, etc.
    Still, as a kid I loved me some Jabba's palace, and I still enjoy the speeder bikes, the showdown with the Emperor, and the space battle.
    But what's up with giving scouts helmets that impair their vision?!
     
  6. Jedi77-83

    Jedi77-83 Force Sensitive

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2014
    Posts:
    2,285
    Likes Received:
    4,428
    Trophy Points:
    13,687
    Credits:
    5,976
    Ratings:
    +6,712 / 176 / -38
    Don't get me wrong as a kid I loved Jedi when I saw it in 1983. I was 11 years old so it was the first SW movie I was old to follow the hype as I remember hearing Revenge of the Jedi title in 1982. I just walking out of the theater with my older brothers and wanted to see it again.

    I actually think the SE changes have tainted Jedi for me. They are the worst of the changes of the 3 movies, and have just soured my love for the movie in many ways.
     
  7. DEKKA129

    DEKKA129 Professional Slinger of Balderdash

    Joined:
    Jul 3, 2014
    Posts:
    795
    Likes Received:
    1,679
    Trophy Points:
    8,474
    Credits:
    2,889
    Ratings:
    +2,596 / 24 / -4
    It's good to see Lucas' old statements confirming what I always felt to be the case as far as what age the original Star Wars was intended to target. 14 sounds about right. I was nine when it first came out, and at that time I had seen plenty of movies aimed specifically at small children. We still had "The Wonderful World of Disney" running Disney movies on TV every Sunday night, our local children's library showed movies a lot during the summer, and my folks had taken me to see Benji and Charlotte's Web at the local theatre. Star Wars was the third movie I'd ever seen in an actual cinema, and it was completely different from anything I'd ever seen before - mainly because, to my nine year-old mind, it was a "grown-up movie."

    It certainly was not kiddie fare. Charlotte's Web was a cute, harmless little movie about a spider trying to save a little pig from being turned into bacon sandwiches. In Star Wars, within the first five minutes of the movie we see at least half a dozen or more guys being shot on camera, and another man has his neck very audibly crunched by the film's villain. Kiddie movies didn't generally rack up a body count.

    And then, of course, ESB sealed the deal with an even more serious storyline, some well-chosen metaphysical concepts snagged from sources like Carlos Castanada, and a final duel between hero and villain that leaves the hero beaten to a pulp, missing a hand, and struggling with the sudden revelation that the villain was actually his own father. Nobody "escaped to Witch Mountain" in good ol' Empire!

    I never understood Lucas' need to turn around and start aiming the series at very small children with the inclusion of pointed stick wielding teddy bears as the unlikely heroes of ROTJ, and then with the entire thrust of TPM. I understand that he had children of his own by this time, but Star Wars and stuffed animals really never did go together all that well. Lucas' efforts in that direction always remind me of the old Peanuts comic, where Linus learns the hard but valuable life lesson that "No matter how hard you try, you can't bend a *******."
     

Share This Page