StarWars debate anyone???

[tkbill]

Well, Ive recently been on something of a starwars kick lately, and reading a novel about my all time favorite character Boba Fett, which drummed up the question thats been going on since AOTC came out... who is Boba Fett? Ever since I was little (early 90s) I read all I could bother my parents to get me on star wars, which included my 'go to guide' the "esential guide to characters" which said that Fetts' real name was jaster mereel. Now I always believed that... even more so when I read the same story in a novel with a story called The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett, and it said the same thing. Then after AOTC came out it seemed like all previously stated went out the window. Then somebody came up with a 'loophole' of sorts saying the name was only an alias... but I always liked to believe the things I read origionaly. I guess its more of a personal thing, believing what you will as I suppose a fictional character can always have some new story pop up. Id love to hear if anyone knows how I feel, or just what Im talking about!

 

[Violetta]

For me, there's an enjoyability factor that takes priority over what George Lucas says. I liked Star Wars better when I was young and could imagine whatever I wanted whenever someone talked about the old Jedi Knights or the Clone Wars or whatever. And then The Phantom Menace hit the screens, and I actually liked a lot of it. It was a sort of galaxy I could imagine existing some several decades before the old movies.

Then came the two movies about the Clone Wars. Ugh.

Suddenly all the magic in Obi-wan's talk of being a Jedi with Anakin in the Clone Wars was ripped away. Suddenly I could no longer believe in Anakin being the greatest pilot in the galaxy. Suddenly it wasn't that Obi-wan couldn't train him as well as Yoda, because Yoda was an idiot. The same issue befell Boba Fett. This great and mysterious villain, reduced to a giddy child and retconned to have an accent instead of his gravelly, sinister voice.

So I called bullshit on it. I realized that my enjoyment of this stuff takes precedence over a film or two. So I don't think about AotC or RotS. And I definitely didn't watch that dumb looking CG movie or its spin-off show. I don't care about them. I do care about returning to the same views I had of Star Wars as a child, back when it was fun. And that's my advice to ya. Just ignore what those phoned-in movies say. They were crap anyway.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Unfortunately, this is the direction movies take when you re-up after several decades. I have not truly enjoyed a movie since the first Matrix. All the other movies redone have been about CG and ripping away from the story. Didn't care much for the redone Halloween. I have hope for the redone Nightmare on Elm Street, but I won't hold my breath. Freddy Krueger; Rorscach ain't. I saw the trailer, and he can't get the voice right.

Michael Bay is producing it, so I expect a flaming motorcycle to come crashing out of a skyscraper, into an exploding helicopter, that rains burning shards of metal all over as giant transforming robots battle in the streets, each time Freddy kills somebody.

So if you like CG and exploding helicopters, this era of movies is for you. Story is dead.

 

[Ghost_Host_9991]

It's funny, I had to try and explain to someone at work why I thought The Maltese Falcon was a great movie. I tried to tell them there were no real action scenes, it was in black and white, and there was special effects of any kind. I tried to tell them about how it was all about the story, characters and dialogue, and all I got was "sounds boring".

 

[player 01]

^My brother is exactly like that.

But honestly this era of films really just represents the times we live in, who really has time for complex storylines and characterizations anymore when just ensuring your basic survival has become a challenge, this is the problem for the majority of people in the world and subsequently the majority of the world's movie going audiences. Then again it still should be recognized that within the last decade Hollywood has largely been devoid of creative talent, constantly remaking all that is old and/or foreign.

IMO this is perhaps due to the fact that the cultural industry has grown to the point in whree it is an industry dominated by businessmen who only understand success being equated with numbers [1], where profit is all that matters and what guarantees profit is formulaic entertainment. Or perhaps i'm just looking back at past eras of films all wrong, after all Hollywood has always an industry, and like all industries practice economics of scale, so odds are this generation is really no different from previous ones, where you have a majority of mass produced products of low quality and a small number of 'experimental' projects which are really innovative, as the original Star Wars and Star Trek were in their times. We're only aware of these problems perhaps because we're all much better informed and aware of this due to the modern nature of mass media, the size and quantity of Hollywood's productions, and of course the internet which brings us all together, none of this is new as some of the oldest and most successful films in Hollywood's history were adaptations of pre-existing works, like Dracula.

As pointed out by HP Lovecraft who hated the invention of motion pictures, the moment you allow the existence of mass culture you embrace the mediocre, which is why he advocated that literature should be kept under a small aristocratic class of writers, I don't necessarily agree but he does have a good point. Sergei Eisenstein i believe once said that everything is propaganda, whether they want you to think a certain way or don't want you to think at all, which was his thoughts on hollywood.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0N-kgMUbA

2. http://www.esotericrabbit.com/essays/kino_fist.html

 

[toyoyo]

Star Wars needs to be released to the public domain at this point. George Lucas has destroyed the saga with the last three movies, and all the ancillary franchises stemming from them. We have all been so profoundly affected by the first three movies, the narrative and its mythos, that I believe the 1st three equal the great american novel.

Just like filmmakers and artists are allowed to elaborate on and take license with mythical figures like Beowulf or Huck Finn, so it should be allowed for Star Wars. The way it is now, anyone who wanted to make a "Boba Fett The Movie" would get shot down by Lucas, or have to conform to his poor adaptation of the character and allow JarJar Binks or some stupid BenHur race scene into the plot line. FREE STAR WARS!!! The story now belongs to the people, and Lucas is plenty rich.

Boba was my favorite figure, BTW.

 

[Darth Vegeta]

Actually I'm a fan of both the prequel and sequel movies. I also used to read a lot of novels. But ever since that 'Vong War' thing I haven't touched a book. (especially after hearing what came after)
Junk games like the Force Unleashed don't improve my views.
I still have a subscription on some of the comics though.

Also it always cracks me up when 'fans' say Lucas destroyed Star Wars. Things like making them 'public domain' are plain silly.
Besides given what fans come up with and the companies not decently supervized by Lucas... I hope he never does.

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

Didn't Steven Spielberg direct the first three movies? Consequently, I had a dream about how George Lucas kept mouthing off that Spielberg wasn't a real director and wasn't good at his job. Yeah, and you did SUCH a wonderful job yourself at directing Lucas. :rolleyes

 

[Violetta]

I believe you're thinking of Indiana Jones. Lucas and Spielberg worked together on the Indy movies, with Spielberg directing. George Lucas himself directed the original Star Wars: A New Hope, while Irvin Kershner directed The Empire Strikes Back, and Richard Marquand directed Return of the Jedi.

 

[Darth Vegeta]

I believe you're thinking of Indiana Jones. Lucas and Spielberg worked together on the Indy movies, with Spielberg directing. George Lucas himself directed the original Star Wars: A New Hope, while Irvin Kershner directed The Empire Strikes Back, and Richard Marquand directed Return of the Jedi.

Yep. Though Lucas did show his idea of SW to Spielberg.

 

[HOLLYWOOD]

the hollywood brother just take it as it come and do not get too deep into this. the bottom line is that george lucas gave us these characters and it is his to do as he sees fit. we may not agree with everything or anything but the man owns the rights and can do what he will with them. it is up to us as fans to either see the moives or not.

 

[Darth Vegeta]

the hollywood brother just take it as it come and do not get too deep into this. the bottom line is that george lucas gave us these characters and it is his to do as he sees fit. we may not agree with everything or anything but the man owns the rights and can do what he will with them. it is up to us as fans to either see the moives or not.

Words of wisdom if I ever saw any. I utterly hate the new novels... so I don't buy them for example. But it's not my call to make how the setting evolves. A lot of old novel fans have been turned off by those novels yet a new kind of fan was pulled in. The same with the movies. You don't like the prequels? Don't watch them.

 

[tkbill]

Well, I suppose now that I rethink it, in a philosophical pov BOTH stories are right, considering were talking about a fictional story line here. Boy, Idono why it took me so long to think of that one lol!

 

[The_Crusader]

a'ight this is a summirization from fett's entry in ORIGINAL character guide that does not include characters and or references to the christ awful new trilogy. i/e this is the real boba fett, not that whiny little clone bitch whose make believe daddy was decapitated by mace windu. and while I do agree with hollywood brother i only agree to a point. the characters and rights are oowned by george lucas, which means everything published around that has to go through him. the LEAST he could've done is stick to the accepted canon that's been written over the past three decades instead of telling us all to fornicate ourselves with a hot iron pole and rewriting everything as he saw fit anyway.

*ahem* boba fett was once known as jaster mereel, a journeyman protectir (a cop basically) from some no name little backwater world. he was essentially judge dredd, upholding the law with great fervour until one day he caught one of his fellow officers taking a bribe. upon further investigation mereel discovered the fellow officers corruption went much deeper, so he executed him. his superiors refused to listen to the evidence he brought them and thus jaster mereel was exiled from his homeworld. He traveled throughout the galaxy and evidently wound up spending time amongst the mandalorians where he adopted the "fett" honorific. how he took up the name "boba fett" or acquired his mandalorian battle armor remains a mystery to this day. the Slave I is also not a family heirloom but a custom built ship from kuatt drive yards, the folks WHO ALSO BUILT THE GODDAMN DEATH STAR, NOT A BUNCH OFBUGSWHOLIVED INCAVES THROWING ELECTRIFIED SPEARS AT ONE ANOTHER. got off track for a bit but that aspect of the new trilogy pissed me off as well. anyways, Slave I, yeah custom built ship packing all kinds of nasty weapons, supposedly designed by fett himself. he also keeps a second ship the Slave II on standby, which he only used after he was thrown up by the sarlaac and the slave I had been trashed. anyways thats my rant.

 

[The_Crusader]

It's funny, I had to try and explain to someone at work why I thought The Maltese Falcon was a great movie. I tried to tell them there were no real action scenes, it was in black and white, and there was special effects of any kind. I tried to tell them about how it was all about the story, characters and dialogue, and all I got was "sounds boring".

An addendum that shoulda gone on the end of my first post. the maltese falcon WAS a fantastic movie! just cuz something doesn't explode every five seconds or someone isn't bisected with a machete doesn't mean a movie is "boring"! people just have no taste anymore...:cry