sure but walrus man didn’t have a media blitz and months of lead-up marketing about how awesome walrus man is, he’s just another toy. Phasma is a pretty literal instance of a character that was designed as a toy first that then was given lines to justify the toy’s existence (see also, every single character from the prequel trilogy (the prequel trilogy only existed because of funding from toy companies to sell all the new characters being designed))
It’s a pretty significant difference from how it was usually handled pre-rotj with characters being toyefied only because they were characters in star wars and not the other way around.
i don’t know … is it? I mean you can read a lot into it, but I feel like that would happen no matter what the movies were actually like. Walrus man is insignificant, maybe, but I have a really hard time believing that Boba Fett was created just out of like, pure innocence or whatever
Edit: But I do agree that they really ramped it up with RotJ. I don’t really like that movie much at all, for many of the same reasons I don’t really like the third indiana jones movie. Crystal Skull is better than Last Crusade, and Revenge of the Sith is better than Return of the Jedi. Sad but true.
Oh, I’ll definitely blame old star wars for creating and fostering the environment where modern nerd consumerist culture could grow like fungus but it felt more innocent because it genuinely was.
That just seems like wishful thinking to me, I don’t know how you can quantify innocence.
EDIT: But basically, whether it was innocent or not, Star Wars basically created the model for hollywood film franchises, so it just seems weird for people to single new Star Wars movies out continuing to push the envelope in terms of how coordinated marketing and design and the creative process are. Again, if you hate it, fine, it just feels weird to harbor some kind of nostalgia for the way things once were, when Star Wars has always played a pretty significant part in dismantling and rebuilding the film industry into what it is today.
innocent in the sense that the kind of toyetic marketing transmedia hybrid monstrosity that defines hollywood didn’t really exist before star wars so naturally those movies were less corrupt than what came later
I guess–innocent in the sense that they weren’t absolutely positive that it would work, whereas now they happen because they are almost guaranteed to work
This has started me on a very elaborate train of thought about the movies themselves, starting from the point where you can see TFA and ANH as kind of parallel films in that both set out to create a sort of hyperreal simulation of a childhood filmgoing experience. The difference is for Lucas that experience was something that hadn’t been at all popular for decades, and arguably the result is something that had genuinely never existed on screen before–even things like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon ostensibly take place in a future version of our own reality (I’m struggling to come up with examples of movies that are truly “high fantasy” prior to Star Wars, but maybe there are some out there).
Anyway, the weird problem is that Abrams’ nostalgic re-creation is only nostalgic about a form that hasn’t gone anywhere since it was first established. Lucas made Star Wars as a way to recreate the feeling of going to a sci-fi serial movie as a kid, and, to interpret the strategy charitably, to provide the current generation of kids with a similar experience that they couldn’t really get anywhere else at that point. The Abrams/Disney Star Wars movies are just recreating the feeling of going to a Star Wars movie, which is something that everyone has been trying to do constantly since the first one came out anyway.
So that got me thinking: Are there any popular entertainment genres that have genuinely disappeared or fallen out of fashion since the 70’s / 80’s? It’s really hard to think of any.
I also have a solution to this, which is stay away from marketing. It’s easy. I mean your point may be that the existence of the character as a focus for marketing corrupts the character absolutely in its native movie environment even if one is completely ignorant of the marketing; but that hasn’t been my experience, really.
OK, moment by moment there are definitely more bad scenes in Crystal Skull than Last Crusade, but I will still never tolerate the way that movie ruins Brody and Sallah. Also most of the stuff with Sean Connery is dumb as hell. It is OK as an action movie, but so shitty as a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
EDIT: I mean fuck Sallah in general, but at least he was somewhat capable in Raiders. Also, LOL at casting this guy to play an arab
I guess my point is the reason this and other mega-blockbusters suck so much is their origin as a purely commercial/marketing activity. I didn’t even know who Phasma was until I saw those toys existing and that’s when the craven commercialism of the whole thing became apparent to me.
I don’t want to talk about the Star War forever, but suffice to say that I’m not approaching the interwoven nature of marketing and blockbusters from a moralist sense (though that is a conversation I am interested in), but purely a pragmatic one w/r/t making a good movie that I want to watch.
Sure Walrus Man got a blurb with the toy and eventually some story was written about how Greedo had a personal vendetta against Han Solo because Han stole his jacket but in no way is that reflected within the actual movie itself - compared to like the entire first 60 minutes of RotS or the entire New Order vs. Resistance conflict in TFA which makes little sense unless you’ve explored this back story via other media. This actively makes these movies worse if you aren’t willing to engage in the EU matrix.
Ho ho no way do I have the critical acumen or perseverance to go to the mat for Zach Snyder especially after he a made a movie as bad as BvS (except the crossfit, natch) but basically as he’s a fine visual stylist which made him good antidote to the era of Michael Bay summer movies that ran the last half of the 00’s.
I mean I never wanted the Zach Snyder house style to expand into the wider world but Dawn of the Dead - 300 - Watchmen was a pretty good run of movies. None of them are perfect but as far as the big money hoo-rah action movie goes I’ll take them over Transformers or Pirates of the Caribbean 2/3 or Avatar every time.
Now of course he’s made 2 sorta-bad movies and one truly awful movie, and furthermore he’s basically been usurped by Matthew Vaughn (I think Kingsman basically beat Snyder at his own game). Basically I’ve never loved any of his movies without reservation (except maybe 300) but I used to look forward to what Snyder would do next. I can’t even say that anymore.
the force awakens: the rebels already won the war vs the empire, and by no means should be scrappy underdogs vs an empire loyalist faction. Original Trilogy made some sense because there wasn’t the backstory of the other movies
Well I mean as far as inherently understandable conflicts go “oppressive fascist government vs plucky rebels” is probably up there with “dad goes to great lengths to save his kid” and “tough but kind-hearted criminal goes for one last ride.”
Within the first 5 minutes of ANH I can basically understand the entirety of the conflict based on the fact I’ve seen that same conflict a million times before. Utilizing tropes and cliche so effectively is one of the reasons ANH is such a good movie. The trope IS the explanation.
TFA tries to get away with the same thing by invoking the same conflict and imagery as ANH - “The New Order” is basically the empire and “The Resistance” are basically the rebels. But The New Order isn’t the government any more and AFAIK “oppressive fascist fringe group with seemingly unlimited resources and personnel” isn’t really something I understand inherently. What I’m saying is that you can’t rely on tropes and cliche to do the heavy lifting for your story unless you stick very closely to those tropes and cliches. It’s not a pick-and-choose thing.
Again, my issue is that I know there is some extensive New Order vs. Resistance explanation somewhere, and hell maybe its even a cool explanation. There is nothing inherently bad about the conflict in of itself. But not offering some sort of explanation in the text itself weakens the whole thing, which is where my issue is.
Actually that’s funny, because I still don’t know who Phasma is. Who is Phasma.
Dawn of the Dead was OK and 300 was pretty great (except for the interminable and meaningless Meanwhile Back In Sparta episodes) but every other Snyder movie is unwatchable trash, including Watchmen. I’d watch any Bay movie over Watchmen. Even Transformers 8 or whatever they’re on now.
Why the hell would you not want to watch The Revenant.