Originally posted by: CO
This is a good point, and I think the one thing that made the OT great and still popular today is replay value of the movies. The OT are one of the few set of movies that fans can watch hundreds of times and they aren't some niche or cult fan base, they are the masses.
Many people love movies like Shawshank Redemption, they have built a following that the fans seem to love the movie more than anything in the world, but again it is a niche fan base. Although Shawshank is a great movie.
The OT movies have so much replay value I often wonder how I have never got sick of them? How can I watch Star Wars '77 again and again and never get sick of it, same with ESB & ROTJ. I love so many other movies, but I do need some time after I watch them or I will play them out, but the OT is different.
I believe the PT fan base won't be as big for that reason alone, the way the trilogy is structured as GoMer says, the Sith doesn't hit the fan til Episode III, so it leaves you with 2 setup movies to get to the real story. What I am saying is the PT movies don't hold up well individually, cause they were designed as a trilogy. The OT movies hold up as a trilogy and individually cause Lucas was making them by the seed of his pants hoping the success will bring him enough money to make the next one. Sure ESB doesn't have an ending, but no one was sure in 1980 there would be a third SW movie, so Lucas had to make ESB just as great as SW, cause if it failed, the end of the SW.
The PT was made knowing he was making Episode III, and that is why every PT fan I have heard from thinks ROTS is the best of the PT movies. One reason: Whether you like the movie or not, it has every plot point a SW fan could dream of, so Lucas really threw all his marbles in Episode III.
I just can't see a huge amount of saga fans in the future, and I think that will have a trickle down effect on the OT too, as I don't see as many diehard SW fans as the generation that grew up with the OT. I still say the 1-6 newcomer will watch the OT totally out of context and will only love the second half of ESB, and the Throne Rooms scenes in ROTJ, the other stuff they will say is all exposition, meaning the Han, Luke, and Leia stuff. The sad thing is that supposed exposition that coincides with the tragedy of Anakin’s story is the reason I am a diehard fan.
I think that ROTS is certainly the "payoff" movie in the prequels. But certainly it wouldn't have been able to do what it did without the previous 2 films to set everything up for it. It's important to understand how the political system works, it's important to understand how the Jedi order works. There ends up being a lot of exposition in the first 2 films that doesn't pay off until ROTS, but if they didn't do that, then ROTS would have had to have done it.This is a good point, and I think the one thing that made the OT great and still popular today is replay value of the movies. The OT are one of the few set of movies that fans can watch hundreds of times and they aren't some niche or cult fan base, they are the masses.
Many people love movies like Shawshank Redemption, they have built a following that the fans seem to love the movie more than anything in the world, but again it is a niche fan base. Although Shawshank is a great movie.
The OT movies have so much replay value I often wonder how I have never got sick of them? How can I watch Star Wars '77 again and again and never get sick of it, same with ESB & ROTJ. I love so many other movies, but I do need some time after I watch them or I will play them out, but the OT is different.
I believe the PT fan base won't be as big for that reason alone, the way the trilogy is structured as GoMer says, the Sith doesn't hit the fan til Episode III, so it leaves you with 2 setup movies to get to the real story. What I am saying is the PT movies don't hold up well individually, cause they were designed as a trilogy. The OT movies hold up as a trilogy and individually cause Lucas was making them by the seed of his pants hoping the success will bring him enough money to make the next one. Sure ESB doesn't have an ending, but no one was sure in 1980 there would be a third SW movie, so Lucas had to make ESB just as great as SW, cause if it failed, the end of the SW.
The PT was made knowing he was making Episode III, and that is why every PT fan I have heard from thinks ROTS is the best of the PT movies. One reason: Whether you like the movie or not, it has every plot point a SW fan could dream of, so Lucas really threw all his marbles in Episode III.
I just can't see a huge amount of saga fans in the future, and I think that will have a trickle down effect on the OT too, as I don't see as many diehard SW fans as the generation that grew up with the OT. I still say the 1-6 newcomer will watch the OT totally out of context and will only love the second half of ESB, and the Throne Rooms scenes in ROTJ, the other stuff they will say is all exposition, meaning the Han, Luke, and Leia stuff. The sad thing is that supposed exposition that coincides with the tragedy of Anakin’s story is the reason I am a diehard fan.
I know Lucas is quoted as saying he only had like 20% of TPM and AOTC figured out ahead of time and most of his original outline ends up being in ROTS, but that doesn't mean everything else he put in there is meaningless filler, it just means he ended up fleshing that much out as he went. It all still points to the conclusion of ROTS, and the entire Saga for that matter.
I am glad your brought up how re-watch able the OT is, because the "I am your father", "Yoda is really Yoda" and "Leia is my Sister" are all blown after the first viewing. So despite these surprises being blown, many of us still find these movies to be compelling enough to watch over and over and over again. So I don't see why having the prequels blow these three surprises impacts things for the OT in an irrevocable way. Sure now we don't even get that initial shock, which was substantial, but at the same time, those surprises were not the only reason we enjoyed the classic trilogy.