Posted on 06/21/2015 1:57:43 PM PDT by OddLane
One day in the 1970s, George Lucas screened a rough cut of his new movie, Star Wars, for his influential Hollywood friends. And almost none of them liked it. The plot seemed incomprehensible, the made-up fantasy names absurd. Director Brian De Palma, who had just had a big hit with Carrie, made fun of everything about the film, including Princess Leia’s hairstyle: “Hey, George, what were those Danish rolls doing in the princess’s ears?”
Almost 40 years later, De Palma is mostly making low-budget movies, and the most-anticipated film of the year is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie since Lucas sold the franchise to Disney. In June, Empire magazine published its “500 greatest films of all time” list, chosen by a poll of 250,000 readers; the winner was the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, with the original also making the Top 10. You won’t hear people today making fun of Leia’s hair or Luke Skywalker’s disco haircut.
(Excerpt) Read more at macleans.ca ...
I saw this already posted. Macleans sucks and so does Jaime Weinman. There, I said it.
I took a look at the takes up....terrible actors...but then so weren’t the first ones in the Star Wars movies.
“Star Wars sucks”
Always thought so. It wouldn’t even have made a good short story for a 1930s pulp science fiction magazine.
Thin, nonsensical plots, silly, poorly written dialog, dozens of scenes and compositions ripped off from other movies.
I'll watch anything once. It's the question of whether I'll watch it twice. The Star Wars franchise doesn't make the cut.
Good and in some cases great (Sir Alec Guinness and James Earl Jones) actors in the first three (episodes 3, 4, and 5) and some pretty good to lousy actors in the others. But all were mouthing comic book dialog that was an insult to comic books. The good and great actors were able to handle it all without a problem. But some of them were laughably bad. Hopefully Disney didn’t let Lucas get near the script except maybe to nod approval.
SW was fun, the special effects were, at the time, way ahead of Star Trek TOS/Space 1999, etc., but now we look back and laugh at how weak they were. But, back in the day, it rocked the house.
I do not think the thre original movies are as bad as this guy says, but NONE of them make my list of the 10 best movies of all time.
Ouch. George Lucas will be crying all the way to the bank.
1999 had the effects and a decent idea of an arc in the first season. The 2nd is when it went downhill.
Star Wars was bad...it had real possibilities, but when I first saw it in 1977 (at age 15) I thought it was a little too immature and that opinion has not changed. The story line wasn’t half bad and overall, it could have been a great Sci-Fi thriller if those androids were a little less prominent. The princess Lay-Easy could have been eliminated (I don’t believe in royalty).
The overall concept was decent, but it was really kids movie and the entire series is intended for a younger audience.
I saw the “gathering” of former star actors and couldn't believe how utterly dumpy Carrie looked and sounded. Mu gosh her hair was greasy and unmanaged...just awful.
Ah, BS. The original was and still is a hell of a lot of fun, the second one was a terrific raising-of-the-stakes story, and the third did an admirable job of tying together the loose threads.
The prequels, though.....yeah, they suck.
It had an appeal definitely. Loved it as a kid.
Met Landau at a Dragoncon a few years ago. Great guy and his panel drew a packed large room.
Ironic that, in the 2000's, George Lucas tried to politicize the Star Wars franchise by making Palpatine into his own opinion of George W. Bush.
When I saw Star Wars IV (the original), as an SF aficionado, I was impressed by the first ‘dirty’ space ship I had ever seen in a movie. I also drove my poor 4-banger Datsun like a space fighter home to the college dorm (like an idiot!)
FYI, on the same view of having dirty spaceships, anyone having an out-gassing incident when it affects Lord Vader or The Emperor, is just asking for a throat squeeze of death! Just saying!
I think she’s bipolar.
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