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 ...
Or "Ringworld."
Ah, now I see! (John Wayne movies had white heroes, too ;-).
In addition to action, the science fiction genre in movies and television (and associated books) has produced a lot of thoughtful exploration of many themes. Even the current fad of comic-book based movies raises important questions that can generate interesting discussion.
Perhaps this article was generated because today is Star Wars Day. One has to agree that Star Wars is not the most sophisticated exemplar of the genre; aside from the visuals, the various movies stand or fall as “Westerns,” without much more to be said.
Lando was black. Chewbacca a thing. Droids don’t have a race. Lots of weird aliens in the alliance.
Don’t know what this guy was watching.
You almost exactly described “The Princess Bride”! (The “old wizard” part in that movie is distributed among several characters.)
‘How ‘Star Wars’ ruined sci-fi”
It certainly increased the % of people who first think of movies or TV shows when they hear the term ‘sci-fi.’ I think of books first for sci-fi, but I think of movies and TV shows when I hear the term ‘western,’ as opposed to Zane Grey or Louis L’amour. I still think of books for the term ‘mystery.’
Freegards
Never cared for sci fi but I’m starting to feel a little embarrassed that I’ve never seen ‘Star Wars’ or any of it’s progeny.
What color was Chewbacca?
This is silly. Star Wars is classic pulp magazine SF,aka Space Opera, in concept, if lately clumsy in execution. Space Opera WAS SF, or most of it, in the 1930s-50s.
This stuff was aimed directly at geeky boys and still is.
Some of the boys never grow up of course.
And some of the Space Opera did approach actual literature, as with Dune. But SF never needed to be great literature to be authentic or appealing to its target audience.
Octavia Butlers stuff is come-lately chick-lit junk.
Also Oath of Fealty, but it's pro-corporate message would detonate minds throughout Hollywood.
No prob but you need to see Lord of the Rings to be cool
/ sarc
Never got why no story by Niven ever got
made into a movie.
Ringworld would be a hoot to see on the
big screen.Always been fascinated by the protectors
Guess I`d rather see the Motie movie tho
Kind of a golden-retriever shade.
Now there’s a space western.
Chewbacca is a ginger. :)
Yes, it is.
LOL!
That WAS SF in the old days.
Burroughs Mars books for instance are just that, wild adventures in a more exotic setting. He could have set them as Caribbean pirate tales just as easily, or as Louis L’Amour westerns, or redone medieval fantasy in the setting of Orlando Furioso. Its just that in his time Mars, Aliens and super-science were cooler.
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