Posted on 05/04/2014 2:13:54 PM PDT by Dallas59
Now that the cast of the seventh "Star Wars" movie has been announced, you can imagine the anticipation among the millions of fans of the film franchise. And why not? The six "Star Wars" films have been enormous successes: they have grossed over $2 billion domestically at the box office, spawned scores of books, comic books and merchandise (how many kids have their own light saber?) and made household names of characters like Darth Vader, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
There is an excellent study by Art DeVaney showing that media executives have no idea what will or will not be a hit. The really blew it with Firefly, but I suspect they got paid anyway.
Star Wars got Hollywood excited about SciFi again, but they’re dumb, exceedingly well-paid, bureaucrats. It’s foolish to expect too much from them.
It's amazing to me how many people are arguing that cowboys- with-rayguns is not science fiction. Of course it is. At one time, it was just about all there was. It grew, it matured, it was more thoroughly explored as a genre, but that does not make the pulp stuff "not science fiction" any more than it makes a film series with FTL travel, galactic empires, and multiple alien species "similar to the Lord of the Rings."
It's escapist ψφ. It's not deep, but I would take it over Octavia Butler's dreck any day of the week.
Absolutely. Peter Jackson does such great violence to the characters that the films are a pale shadow of the books. I truly believe PJ is incapable of subtlety of any kind. Game of Thrones was made to be adapted. LOTR was not.
And a gazillion hours of "extra material" without Old Tom? Please be serious.
One of the most underrated series ever; and it featured Adam Baldwin, too...
Good science fiction is, beneath everything else, about the human condition and good verses evil.
Hah! Comic book movies are hardly a fad.
Batman, 1966, 1989, 1992, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2012.
Superman, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1987, 2006, 2013.
Karate Kid, 1984, 1986, 1989.
Howard the Duck, 1986.
The Punisher, 1989.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990, 2014.
Captain America, 1990, 2011, 2014.
Richie Rich, 1991.
Casper, 1995.
Steel, 1997
Blade, 1998, 2002, 2004.
X-men, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014.
Josie and the Pussycats, 2001.
Spider-man, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2012, 2014.
Hulk, 2003, 2008.
Daredevil, 2003.
Elektra, 2005.
Iron Man, 2008, 2010, 2013.
Kick Ass, 2010, 2013.
Green Lantern, 2011.
Thor, 2011, 2013.
The Avengers, 2012
Wolverine, 2013.
Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014.
That's all I can think of right now.
China will have more Christians that the entire world by 2025 ...
And so much crap from Stephen King did...
Fantastic Four, 2005, 2007.
No, I think this is.
While I enjoyed the LOTR movies and think PJ did about as good a job anyone could have, I agree he had real difficulty with characterization.
The problem is that it was just a really, really difficult story to film.
Other than Batman and Superman efforts, they’re all pretty recent, at least to me.
My son informed me this morning that the book that has been filmed most is “Dracula,” followed by “Tarzan.”
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