MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) Discussion > Don't you all get fed up of the revision...

Don't you all get fed up of the revisionism and bickering between fans?

posted 6 years ago by [deleted]
12 replies | jump to latest

I was only about five when the first Star Wars came out, and in a foreign country, too, and I wasn't as obsessed with it as most apparently were from my generation (X), but that could be because my parents possibly didn't take me and my older sister to the cinema, but had us babysat instead. I have no memory of having seen ANH or ESB in the cinema, but only an early memory of ANH that could've been on a TV broadcast in 1982 (ITV, UK). I definitely remember going to the cinema to see ROTJ and I loved it, and years later saw ESB on VHS, which we "shared" with a next door neighbour via a cable. So maybe that's why I'm not enamoured with Star Wars, because I saw it out of order.

Star Wars was fun, but I wasn't as caught up with the characters as most, but what caught my attention was the villains and their tech - the Death Stars and Super Star Destroyers absolutely fascinated me, and later on in the Prequels, the idea of Coruscant. But the battles were fine, even if the puppets were over-the-top, and the music is always great.

But my liking of Star Wars has been tested over the years with the Special Editions and Lucas' endless tinkering with home video releases (VHS, DVD, Blu-ray) and whilst the Prequels were only OK (as I said, I'm not a rabid OOT fan), the Disney crap and their trashing of everything that happened in the first six movies is absolutely damning and demoralising. Unfortunately, this Sequel Trilogy will remain canon forever, and will tarnish what was once a great trilogy of movies, one that we can't even get in isolation anymore (the laserdisc DVD transfer that was on sale must be sold out by now) except as a lame fan edit.

I love many other franchises about the same or even more, like Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, James Bond, and I don't think I've ever seen so much bickering amongst those franchises as among Star Wars fans, nor so much coverage of the latter. It's gotten to the point now where I think that I'm just going to make my life easier and have nothing more to do with Star Wars. It depends on what happens with IX, and I don't hold out much hope for it. It's going to be a disaster.

What about you? Does your love of this franchise outweigh the crap that's happened over the years that doesn't happen with any other franchise? Or are you too fed up of the problems?

[–] Threadkiller (3089) 6 years ago

I get where you're coming from and mostly agree. Sadly the toxicity that has existed in the Star Wars fandom for some time has significantly contributed (Based on comments made by Lucas himself) to the Di$ney dumpster predicament the franchise has found itself in.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Keelai (36157) 6 years ago

I saw Star Wars in the movie theater when it first came out. I became a fan within five minutes as Vader's ship crossed the huge screen to disable Leia's ship. I never saw SFX like that. Every release was a huge event with some fans on line for weeks.

I'll always be a mega SW fan and I have enjoyed 100s of hours of SW gaming, books, radio, podcasts, music, fan films, etc.

Between the negative politics of SW vloggers and Disney's mediocrity, I decided to just enjoy SW from the Lucas era.

No bickering with the other franchises' fans but Star Trek is now crap too.

[–] FootOfDavros (8712) 5 years ago

I think if you view Star Wars now - or ever did - as a "franchise" then you never truly ever loved it.

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

What does that even mean? the word "franchise" is just another way of referring to an Intellectual property. You could say Lord of the Rings or Godfather or Aliens are a franchise and it is fully appropriate to say it is a franchise you love.

I really do not know what you mean by this.

[–] FootOfDavros (8712) 5 years ago

As far as I'm concerned you just need look at the OP's final paragraph and replace the word "franchise" with your "intellectual property". It's a good substitution because it highlights the absurdity of viewing it like that yet still feeling "love" / "fed up" or anything else with it...

If you still don't know what I mean after that, then that's cool, not everyone needs to "get it" 👍

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

reading the OP's last 2 paragraphs, he is clearly using the word franchise, perhaps incorrectly, to mean "series of films that i love" rather than "linked collection of intellectual property I can monetise"

[–] arflexit (2376) 5 years ago

Yeah that is kind of what I get too. The OP like most fans enjoyed the stories and films so much that they feel the word "love" them is appropriate. I do not really disagree with them, even though they might be using the word love too loosely. For a series (franchise) that is so well liked for its story and characters to plummet in quality as Star Wars did, the idea of being "fed up" with the direction it has gone in seems fitting and appropriate.

That being said, I do kind of agree with the idea people should not become that attached to 'franchises'. Star Wars is a film and entertainment franchise, it is not life and death it is not a family member or loved one. People should not love things like cars either. But they do and that is their prerogative, I might think they are wrong or silly to love something that is for the most part inconsequential. Simply put Star Wars are just films, we should get so caught up in them.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I was 6 when ANH came out
I loved the Orig trilogoy
the films that happened since dont bother me , and i welcome them into the family , as odd cousins ...
I'm not fed up with the bickering , there isnt that much bickering ,
Its more the universal , mob mentality , bandwagon joining , prejudging hate that i'm fed up of.

[–] Ace_Spade (9658) 5 years ago

I'm kinda fascinated by the different kinds of revisionism going around.

Some people are revising history to make the prequels as revered as the originals, attempting to sandblast the sequels.

Disney declared the extended universe null-and-void, attempting to make people only care about their new material (arguably, this is also why they're treating the exploits and heroes of the first three films in a negative way).

Other fans are trying to revise history so that the prequels are thought of as only hated and rejected. (Guilty)

My take?

Every generation bonds with "their" Star Wars. The first waves of fans only had the first three films to go on. They love these films. When the prequels came out, they didn't "feel right" to (many/most) older fans and the prequels developed a reputation as inferior and sour. Then, as the people who were kids grew up, they started pushing back: "I love the prequels!" But they've hit their own wall: these new-fangled Disney films aren't what they remember as being "Star Wars" - off with their heads!

I'm going to guess that in ten-fifteen years (or so) there will be a lot of vocalising about how great the first Disney movies are, but these new films (whatever they are) are getting old and boring and just don't have the "magic".

As much as I can remove myself from my own nostalgic rose-tinted lenses, I think there was something special about the first films (particularly the very first one) which makes Star Wars deserve a place in the pantheon of Great Films. But a lot of the love these movies get seem to be just what we got used to.

I don't say this is everybody. I don't need to hear from people going, "I WAS THIRTY-FIVE WHEN THE PHANTOM MENACE CAME OUT AND I LOVED IT!" because I'm aware that people like that exist. I'm going off of what I've seen and heard in discussions.

[–] FilmBuff (7437) 5 years ago

I chalk it up to the times we live in. How good or bad a new Star Wars film doesn't matter to the most vocal fans. They have an opinion about the studio making it, or the director, or a certain actor, or some plot point, and even if they haven't seen the film, they hate it. It's activism, and it's everywhere. For those of us who judge a film based on merit, and put politics aside, it's an annoyance, but one that has become so common we almost don't notice it anymore.

I was 7 when Star Wars came out. It came out on my 7th birthday, in fact, and it was a movie that every kid I knew loved. That entire year we went to see it in groups 3 or 4 times, acted out Star Wars at recess, traded Topps' Star Wars cards, collected action figures, and basically lived, ate, and breathed Star Wars. Each sequel was a big deal, but then we grew up and (most of us) moved on. When the prequels came out 22 years later, it was pretty exciting, but then the movies were terrible, and it was a big letdown. Part of it was because we were grown up, because I'm sure to a child, the prequels were a lot of fun. Aliens, spaceships, light sabers, robots-- it didn't matter that the plot was nonsensical, the characters had no believable, or even identifiable, motives, and the entire trilogy was just a lot of special effects to kill time while Lucas got from point A, cute baby Anakin, to point B, big bad Darth Vader.

Of course, if you look back with an unbiased, critical eye, while the original Star Wars was something unique, and a great sci-fi/western/samurai mashup, you have to admit that the following two films aren't all that good. They're good Star Wars films, but they aren't Great Films in the capital G and F sense. Star Wars is a Great Film.

So now we fast forward to today, and while The Force Awakens is at least as good as The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, it doesn't matter to some, because... politics. People can't put their political views aside and simply enjoy a (lowercase) great film for what it is, because they are (capital a) Angry.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I was 11 when I saw ANH at the drive-in. It was fun, and I had never seen effects like that. I enjoyed ESB a few years later; ROJ sort of got a bit much with the teddy-bears picnic, but I was in high school by then. The most I had in merch was the record of the original John Williams score, and a record of a radio-play version of the movie when I was in 7th grade. Everybody has their thing, but I never quite got the adult Treky or Star Wars fans.

That said, the new movies are just woke propaganda, the Lucas films were traditional characters that both my parents and I could identify with. It's too bad the way it's gone, but anyone with eyes to see knew what Disney was going to do with the movies if they ever got their hands on them. For George to feel double-crossed is a joke - he knew better than anyone how that company operates, much less how the industry is.