On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:51:23 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> From an entertainment perspective, they are rather dissapointing -
>> especially when compared to the originals.
> 
>   Even though I'm of the right age, I still managed to mostly miss all
>   the
> Star Wars phenomenon. Thus I didn't have too many expectations about the
> newer movies, and IMO they were quite enjoyable.
> 
>   To tell you the truth, I don't really like the original trilogy
> (currently known as episodes 4-6), especially not the first movie. It
> has some interesting ideas, but it's not profound enough to raise enough
> interest in my opinion. Technically it sucks. It sucks even compared to
> other, better movies of the era (Alien being a prime example).
> 
>   It's not that I dislike all movies of the late 70's, early 80's
>   because
> they aren't technically comparable to current movies. There are, in
> fact, many movies of that era which I think are true masterpieces, and
> others which are simply good. Alien I already mentioned. Other examples
> include The Thing, An American Werewolf in London, The Exorcist, and
> perhaps the best of them all, The Shining.
> 
>   The Star Wars movies, especially the first one... I just don't like
>   it.

Star Wars (the 'first' movie made in the series) had some really 
groundbreaking effects for the time period; IIRC, they were one of the 
first to use chroma-key effects and large matte paintings to flesh out a 
background.

Alien came after Star Wars (2 years later, in 1979; "A New Hope" was 
released in '77); no argument from me that the creature effects in Alien 
were much better; Stan Winston Studios have many very gifted artists 
there, something Lucas didn't have for his creature effects.

The thing that Lucas did right in the original Star Wars trilogy (the one 
from the 70's and 80's) is built an ensemble cast that worked well 
together.  He really didn't seem to do that in the newer episodes, and 
that left the acting very stilted and essentially those movies had no 
real soul the way the first three did.

I have to admit, though, I liked episode 3, if only because it *had* to 
have a dark ending.  I absolutely hated the ending of Return of the 
Jedi.  Sith had a much better ending, even though it was entirely 
predictable because episode 4 had been made decades prior to its release.

So I'd agree with Andy's initial assessment about eps 1-3 - they sucked.  
But I'd also disagree with his assessment about the "special editions" - 
those also sucked, because Lucas took something that was iconic and 
messed with it.  Even though the changes were *technically* better, you 
don't mess with something that is generally considered iconic.

Jim

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