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Welcome to our readers' forums, which we fondly call The Arena. You must be REGISTERED to post here.
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Will Smith turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix. Reeves was perfect for the part anyway.
One of the only movies to meet the hype generated by cryptic (and brief) trailers and buzz was the quite terrible but fun Independence Day. (Recall the early previews were little more than gathering storm clouds and a slight glimpse of a massive spaceship.)
The movie that caused the creation of the term "blockbuster" was, if I'm not mistaken, Jaws.
George Lucas is the most successful terrible director in history, followed closely by Roland Emmerich.
I suspect I Am Legend will go the way of Water World. But I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Cloverfield will open huge but will end up suffering the fate of Blair Witch, i.e., critical acclaim from folks like Peter Travers, but your People and Us Weekly crowd will cry that there's just no "there" there. They'll be wrong.
Producers of The Dark Knight started a "campaign" in which they're leaving clues in an around Manhattan as to plot points and characters of the new Batman movie.
And for you Star Wars fans, you'll want to chop off the top of your head, open it, and take a wooden spoon to stir the contents around nice and good after you watch this: Merry Christmas! |
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| I love to make a wookie happy |
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Oh man, even before the Jefferson Starship video was spliced in (nice touch with the eyebrow), I'd have to think that wasn't canon. Um, yeah.
News flash: Star Wars sucked. Much as I loved it when I was eight,* it was a turd: bad dialogue, worse acting, jerky directing, and with the exception of a vaguely embarrassed Alec Guinness and that Cushing guy, rife with no-names. But it was still awfully fun, and it scratched an itch for a lot of people. (Empire Strikes Back was a good movie, however.)
So maybe Cloverfield has a shot.
I can't tell what I am Legend is about from the previews, which I trust is a bad sign. But I think Will Smith would have made a(nother) great Neo. He'd look suitably badass in a black overcoat too.
I should be working.
K
*No, the math doesn't quite work out. |
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There's only 1 good Star Wars movie. And, as you know, it's Empire.
If you watch the entire Star Wars Christmas Special in its entirety, it's rumored there's a The Ring consequence. But instead of water and a deformed death, it's more like vomitous sobbing and wailing.
Near as I can figure, a virus is released accidentally in 2009. Will's character survives, but he's been asleep for 3 years (or is it 2?). And he's the only person alive on the planet (or is he?). And there's lions, a dog, and possibly zombies. The zombies are a troubling plot point, but I do like the ambiguity of the trailers.
Perhaps one of the best things Saturday Night Live ever did with regard to shorts, when Lucas had the brilliant idea of re-releasing the trilogy digitally re-mastered (in 1997?) with additional footage originally left out; it was a great study of why the footage was left out originally because it was so stupid and dumb.
Enjoy
P.S. Thoroughly enjoying your takes on TAR. Unfortunately I'm missing a lot of it because I've become addicted to Extreme Makeover. (For whatever reason, ABC sort of comes in on the rabbit ears Sunday evenings.) More on that later. |
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swit: My mistake with blockbuster. Seems like my editor should have caught that. But upon second reading, I'm not exactly saying star wars gave birth to the term--even though that's what I meant to say. I'm think Lucas' main problem is his screen writing. Given what he's had to overcome as a director directing his own movies, I suspect he'd be really good at directing someone else's well written, well structure film.
keif: I don't believe I've ever disagreed with you so completely. I especially take exception to the whole star wars sucks in retrospect pose. Get over yourself. And Smith would have sucked as Neo. |
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| Re: I love to make a wookie happy |
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Man I so agree with you. It has its charms, but it hasn't aged terribly well. Cloverfield could be just fine.
Legend looks like it might be interesting. Strangely, I love the dog, which looks like the dog I want when my dog finally bites it. (though she's awfully perky now, thanks to the drugs).
My favorite George Lucas movie is still American Graffitti.
I, too, should be working. Need to be working. See ya. |
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I Am Legend = Omega Man (sorry - Will Smith is no Chuck Heston). Richard Matheson (the author) also wrote The Incredible Shrinking Man, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet and (ka-ching) Duel. So...can't fail. |
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Your post reminded me (for no good reason) about Gore Vidal's vicious little quote about Heston: directing him is like animating a lumber yard. |
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Knows how to google but couldn't bring himself to cite Billy Jack as the first, or any kind of, blockbuster. |
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Didn't mean to imply that you misinformed with regard to Star Wars and "blockbuster". I was just sharing. Though the fact that wikipedia cites Billy Jack as the first blockbuster does make me want to jam paperclips underneath my fingernails. And it's pretty clear from your (really good) article that you weren't claiming anything of the sort.
But, yes, Star Wars is an awful movie that's also brilliant, in spite of its director. Did you know he wanted to have rock music originally instead of having John Williams score it? He's a pathological doofus with unlimited vision. He may have ushered in a new generation of special effects, but he also ushered in a new age of idiotic dialogue that not even Tom Stoppard was able to salvage.
There was also a rumor that 'N Sync were going to be Padawan Learners in the 2nd prequel (I think) because his daughter at the time loved their music. (SNL, when they got word of that, did a phenomenal skit of them jumping around and singing with light sabers. I can't find it on youtube. Hilarious.)
(Charleton Heston could quite possibly be the worst actor ever to make a lot of money. His best performance is in Bowling For Columbine.)
And speaking of Gore Vidal, what everyone seems to have forgotten, especially in the wake of Norman Mailer's death, is that Vidal cleaned Mailer's clock on The Dick Cavett Show. It wasn't even a fair fight.
Anyways, high hopes for you next January. I've got my fingers crossed. I may even stumble out of the house and go see it. |
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I admit that three utterly indulgent prequels have colored my perceptions. But you know, I re-watched Empire about a thousand times in college, in various stages of intoxication, and the original only once or twice. (Friend of mine had those ridiculous giant laser disks as I recall.) I actually think Jedi was pretty solid too (maybe a couple hundred viewings), even with the obvious caveats.
I think Smith would have looked the part. He might have added too much personality. He couldn't say "whoa" in a hundred years.
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See, the zombies don't seem to make a lot of sense with respect to the rest of it. Walking by the corn patch bugs me a little too. But hey, it still might not suck. And I also hope not, as it's a movie my wife and I could actually agree on seeing.
Those SNL takes were hilarious, esp. Lemmon and Matthau. Jesus. |
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Clearly Empire is the best (no argument there). And the prequels, well, I liked Yoda in them. But that's about all. As for finding flaws with Star Wars, or the 70's, I'm well equipped. However, in 1977 Star Wars was unfuckingbelievable, and we were lucky enough to be kids. |
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the flaws of the prequels are the same flaws as in the originals: terrible dialogue and a leading man who cannot act well. so what? i have enjoyed all of them. now, given i was an infant when Star Wars first came out, i don't really have any cherished memories of it. but looking at all six movies, the only significant difference is the improved effects. i mean, come on, the plot is as far, far away from original as luke's galazy is from ours. however, who the fuck cares? they are enjoyable movies: familar epic theme, plenty of action and bad-ass mystical warriors. frankly, a big reason the prequels were viewed as dissapointing, is that people seemed to think star wars was something beyond an enjoyable homage sci-fi b-movies. |
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My biggest issue with the prequels (especially the first) was that they were aimed a kids, and the die hardest Star Wars fans weren't kids anymore. Not that I don't see the logic of hooking a new generation... But for me, it was a serious disapointment. Nevertheless, I own all 6. |
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a big reason the prequels were viewed as dissapointing, is that people seemed to think star wars was something beyond an enjoyable homage sci-fi b-movies.
The primary guy who thought that was Lucas. That's what made it so problematic. There's a fair amount of ink about how seriously he took the subject, guarding the story line, honing it, building the franchise. Had he just admitted they were better than average popcorn munchers, he'd have made a better product. |
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Gave George high-flown ideas about the merits of the Skywalker family.
Oddly, I don't mind the prequels. What I object to is the editing of the originals. Han Solo fires first because Han Solo is a badass - and a badass is what's needed to escape from Tatooine.
I saw Star Wars as a young adult (stoned). I thought it was exactly the movie for which I had waited all of my life. Sure, the dialogue was flat - but who cared? |
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Well, well.
1. Blockbuster - wiki cites GWTW as the obvious first, really. Hard to disagree with that. Of course, I can think of 4factors that seem to go into the use of the term - cost to make the movie; sales; star power; and more importantly, the ability to transcend into a phenomenon (sometimes a rather mundane one like Star Wars) of some sort or another.
I haven't done research, but I'm confident the term was used to describe films earlier than Billy Jack - and as wiki states, BJ only gets the nod here because of a novel approach to releasing it - mulitiple theatres in every city.
I'm suprised at the nod to Jaws. The Exorcist was the obvious first film to transcend something or other. Newspapers didn't just right about the film - they began interviewing people who claimed to have witnessed exorcisms. The topic made it to Phil Donahue, etc. People began reading books on related topics. It created a genre. Actually, the transcendent nature of Jaws was far less. The number of copy cat films were fewer. Sure - there were shows on sharks.
Without a doubt Star Wars managed to transcend the expectations of even George Lucas himself. I don't think highly of any of them mind you. The dialogue isn't just poor - it's absolutely horrifying. Indiana Ford is not a multi-dimensional actor by any means but he even manages to outact Guinness here.
The incestuous theme of sexual attraction between Princess L and Luke (the only potentially redeeming idea in any of these films) is quickly trampled on and destroyed. The rest is drivel. Special effects were awesome for the time, I'm sure, but frankly the magic/force stuff was ill thought out and too often served as a plot convenience.
But it did mix magic with science fiction - which is actually, I guess, quite rare. You get your fighter space ships and your magic too in one movie. That is special.
But it certainly falls short of Star Trek in that ST was clearly a political allegory while SW is intellectual mush.
Anyway - does Heaven's Gate count as a blockbuster? (It certainly had an impact on Hollywood.....)
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