The visceral effect of Star Wars...is it gone forever?

I'm not looking at any of it as a pop culture phenomenon, but just the feel of the movie at the time it came out. I think this appeals to just about any movie. Ghostbusters can't be remade today. Mad Max can't be remade today. These films are a product of their times as well. You can't make movies like that today and have them be financially viable.
 
Cephus said:
I'm not looking at any of it as a pop culture phenomenon, but just the feel of the movie at the time it came out. I think this appeals to just about any movie. Ghostbusters can't be remade today. Mad Max can't be remade today. These films are a product of their times as well. You can't make movies like that today and have them be financially viable.
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I don't diasagree bit I think pop culture phenomenon and visceral reaction can be comaprable, especially back in a time when Pop culture wasn't even defined.
 
Bryancd said:
Indy in retrospect feels like the result of Star Wars as opposed to its own unique contribution. And not because Ford and Lucas involvement, it seemed to me like the natural progression of the pop culture wave Star Wars created.

Crap, maybe really Jaws should get some of this credit.
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No other film changed the landscape like Star Wars did in 1977. But yes, Jaws was huge two years earlier, with lines around the block, and a big cultural impact. As was Rocky, just one year before Star Wars. And in terms of merchandising, Star Wars wasn't the first motion picture to really exploit it with kids. That distinction goes to The Planet of The Apes, and its sequels/prequels in the late 60s to early 70s. If you middle-aged guys didn't have a POTA lunch box and thermos, then I'm sure you knew many kids who did. Yes, George took merchandising to a whole new level, but it began with POTA nine years earlier.

The Wook
 
The Wook said:
No other film changed the landscape like Star Wars did in 1977. But yes, Jaws was huge two years earlier, with lines around the block, and a big cultural impact. As was Rocky, just one year before Star Wars. And in terms of merchandising, Star Wars wasn't the first motion picture to really exploit it with kids. That distinction goes to The Planet of The Apes, and its sequels/prequels in the late 60s to early 70s. If you middle-aged guys didn't have a POTA lunch box and thermos, then I'm sure you knew many kids who did. Yes, George took merchandising to a whole new level, but it began with POTA nine years earlier.

The Wook
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And more importantly he retained the merchandise licensing rights.
 
I think at this point about all that we can hope for is to watch a SW movie and be happy if it feels like SW to you. If you find that movie, that's great. If you don't like any of them, that's okay too.

I also wonder about what factor age has to do with it. For those of you who were in your teens, was it different than those of us who were younger? I was 3 in 1980 when I saw ANH and ESB so I wouldn't have much to compare it to besides Sesame Street. :lol Still it had such a huge effect on me and it was obvious even at that age that it was much different than anything else.
 
Sluis Van Shipyards said:
I think at this point about all that we can hope for is to watch a SW movie and be happy if it feels like SW to you. If you find that movie, that's great. If you don't like any of them, that's okay too.

I also wonder about what factor age has to do with it. For those of you who were in your teens, was it different than those of us who were younger? I was 3 in 1980 when I saw ANH and ESB so I wouldn't have much to compare it to besides Sesame Street. :lol Still it had such a huge effect on me and it was obvious even at that age that it was much different than anything else.
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More imortantly how do kids currently 5-10 years old think. Today I built a Lego Stat Wars with my son who is almost 5..
 
Lucas having retained the sequel & merch rights matters to all of us. It's the reason why ANH was followed by ESB instead of a retread sequel on a TV-grade budget called Star Wars 2.

Say what you want about Nirvana now, but there hasn't been a paradigm shift that big in popular rock music in the 25 years since.


I don't know if we will ever see another ANH moment in the film industry. It was a helluva combination of factors, pop-cultural, commercial, and technical. It jumped into a major gap in the market that had been left open for years. It took advantage of a lot of technology advancements for SFX. The SFX made it possible to put a lot of things onscreen that had not been options before.

I recall hearing an anecdote about ANH from somebody. It might have been an actor or actor's agent. Before ANH was in production he was flipping through a script or treatment for it. He quickly lost interest because he assumed it was going to be an animated cartoon. The subject matter seemed completely beyond the realm of live-action at the time.
 
I just feel like Star Wars isn't new or fresh anymore. It's retreaded, rehashed and regurgitated. It will never have the same effect on us like it did when we were kids, when nothing like it had been seen before.

Now the world is awash in incredible special effects, sci-fi and fantasy films are common place. I don't expect that any new Star Wars film is going to 'wow' me like it used to. Those days are long gone.

Even my 2 children are 'meh' when it comes to Star Wars. My 16 year old son grew up with the PT and like most kids thought they were cool but he's burned out on the whole thing now. He hates the PT now, hates TFA and TLJ and thinks Solo looks like garbage.

My 6 year old daughter doesn't care at all. She's been seeing spaceships and CGI since birth and she just yawns at the stuff that blew me away when I was her age.

I think that Star Wars was a once in a lifetime event for us older folks. It's run it's course and I know for me at least there's no recapturing that magic.
 
TheMechanic; I think that Star Wars was a once in a lifetime event for us older folks. It's run it's course and I know for me at least there's no recapturing that magic.[/QUOTE said:
So very true.
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first off, congratulations on the lady friend!! me personally, i wouldn't feel like she HAS to watch the OT. but... it sure wouldn't be a bad date to have her come over and watch ANH, then ask her to come over again to watch ESB, and then since she's seen the first 2 might as well ask her to watch the 3rd!
 
the magic has gone from movies. No longer do you get the same magic feeling of seeing something on screen.

Its just the same generic CGI overload and "Franchise" mentality that has killed the magic of movies. Along with that, people's attention spans have been reduced to a timespan equivalent of going for a quick dump in the bathroom.

There aren't many auteurs left such as Chris Nolan, Tarantino, directors who actually give a crap about what they put on screen. The lack of original scripts and ideas and lack of risk taking in movies has killed off your chances of seeing maybe an ET or a Back to the future again.


This generation has social media to fulfil itself instead.
 
halliwax said:
first off, congratulations on the lady friend!! me personally, i wouldn't feel like she HAS to watch the OT. but... it sure wouldn't be a bad date to have her come over and watch ANH, then ask her to come over again to watch ESB, and then since she's seen the first 2 might as well ask her to watch the 3rd!
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Well, my attempt at watching ANH with my first girlfriend who's never seen it ended up me having to pause the movie and grudgingly perform my eagerly requested manly duties, so I guess it depends on the lady...:lol

airair said:
the magic has gone from movies. No longer do you get the same magic feeling of seeing something on screen.

Its just the same generic CGI overload and "Franchise" mentality that has killed the magic of movies. Along with that, people's attention spans have been reduced to a timespan equivalent of going for a quick dump in the bathroom.

There aren't many auteurs left such as Chris Nolan, Tarantino, directors who actually give a crap about what they put on screen. The lack of original scripts and ideas and lack of risk taking in movies has killed off your chances of seeing maybe an ET or a Back to the future again.


This generation has social media to fulfil itself instead.
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True that. What's more there's hardly any opportunity for starter directors to develop themselves. Once you make a successful movie you'll be sniped by a big studio and put at the helm of one of the aforementioned franchise-blockbusters. Rian made a successful and good movie with Looper, Disney gave him EP8, Colin Trevorrow made a successful movie with Safety Not Guaranteed, Universal gave him Jurassic World. And most of the time these relatively new guys do not succeed, end up being scapegoats and the next one will take their place.
There's no room for a John Carpenter, a Spielberg or a James Cameron to build themselves up from movie to movie and develop their own character and direction.
 
The Wook said:
A decade older than you, and therefore a child/teen of the 70s classic rock/folk rock era, I can tell you that there wasn't anything all that novel about Nirvana when they arrived on the scene in the early 90s. They were throwbacks, sure. And yeah, they had their own distinct sound--like any good band does. But there was nothing really new about them, for people my age.
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Ugh, I hated Nirvana when they first came out. Everyone was all "Nirvana! It's alternative!"
I was like "No, it's not. It's garage rock". I had already played in 3 garage rock bands by the time Nirvana hit.
It wasn't "alternative" - alternative was The Smiths and The Cocteau Twins and The Cure and The Cramps and The Dead Milkmen and The Violent Femmes and The Pixies -
which our local "alternative" radio station used to play, until Nirvana. Then they stopped playing good music entirely and only played "grunge".
"Grunge! It's alternative!" No it's not! It's the new norm! It sounds like mud. It's brown and colorless. It all sounds the same.

I eventually learned to appreciate Nirvana, and a few of the grunge bands, like Soundgarden, but I never forgave them for ruining popular music and causing people who now identified as "alternative" to say "Who?" when I asked them if they'd ever heard of My Bloody Valentine.

Sorry for the rant/hijack. Carry on...
 
Timing is everything in art.

Star Wars came out at just the right time and had it been released any earlier or any later I'm not sure it would have had the impact that it had.

I hope I'm wrong but I don't forsee there ever being anything quite like it again in film.

It's just a shame that there are no true visionary filmmakers anymore. At least not ones that are as well known as a Lucas or Spielberg. I think Guermo Del Toro and Christopher Nolan come close.

Movies have always been a business, but it's like so little ART is left in them anymore. They just churn out load after load of garbage anymore. So little of it is even worth watching.
 
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