Originally posted by: lordjedi

Well, aside from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, I can't think of any lasting franchises. I suppose you could include Back to the Future and Ghostbusters in there, but that's still only one extra franchise.

So what was the point?

I think the Terminator movies, 1 & 2 have stood the test of time, as they have real characters you can identify with. I think Superman I & II with Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder really made those movies better then they should be, considering they were a comic book movie. Of course as you stated BTTF, as Marty McFly & Doc Brown were classic characters with chemistry.

There just wasn't as many summer blockbusters back in 1981 as there are now, as usually there were 1 or 2, and they kinda ruled the summer mostly cause nobody could get them on DVD 5 months later. Movies like SW, Raiders, ET, Back to the Future stayed in theaters after Labor Day, as now a movie has one huge opening weekend, a second pretty good weekend, and by week #3 people are on to the next summer special effects flavor of the month.

My whole point is that will anyone be talking about these summer movies 20 years from now like we are talking about Raiders, SW, and Back to the Future? Now a classic is a classic, so I can't name 20 films from the 80's growing up that were great, but movies like Transformers, POTC 3, Spiderman 3 will not even be talked about years from now, the same way nobody cares about Independence Day 10 years after that was the must see movie of 1996. The Reason: The characters are one dimensional and lame, and when you watch them years later, the movies are utterly laughable cause the special effects are not mindblowing anymore.