Jaitea said:
Just had a thought, I can't remember the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness, I enjoyed it at the time, but now I'm starting to think that the film wasn't that great at all, fantastic effects, but really stupid film, who's fault was that, the writer obviously, but it was JJ's movie
I've got a bad feeling about this, I hope it passes
J
I haven't seen Into Darkness, but I have seen the original, which was similarly awesome when you watch it but forgettable afterwards, and it's for a simple reason: Abrams wanted to make a Star Wars movie, not a Star Trek movie, so the plot was nothing but an excuse to get a lot of action going in the Star Trek universe. I hadn't really thought of it before, but he did kind of miss the mark for it to be a great Star Wars movie, too. It's more one of those other big budget sci fi movies, like Stargate or The Fifth Element, that were good but didn't really stay in the public consciousness.
That last part is kind of how I felt about the prequels, too. I truly believe that if you dropped the Star Wars name from them, they'd be every bit as well remembered as the two movies I just mentioned, by about the same numbers of people. Especially the first one and the third one, both of which were decent to good movies with a few bad points. I'm at a loss for how to call anything but the special effects and the sound good in the second one, which fails at pretty much everything but having pretty colors on screen. Whereas (heretical comment incoming) I feel like TPM is every bit as good as Jedi, if not better, and RotS is a decent, if not great entry in the series. Not being able to live up to the hype killed those two more than the actual quality did.
Getting back to that soap up there, I wasn't there in '77, but I was in '97, and the buzz and the merchandising was /insane/ all the way up to the release of TPM. I may not have had bar soap, but I had toothpaste, a toothbrush, a toothbrush holder, bath foam....
Point is there isn't a movie on the planet that could live up to that kind of hype and advertising blitz, let alone the legacy it was up against even without it.
Edit: Since you're the one who quoted me in the other comment, I may as well edit in a reply: I always figured the same thing myself, and I was surprised the first time I heard of the idea of there being a species called the Sith, but it kind of makes sense if you think about it. I don't think there was anything prior to TPM that connected the Emperor to the Sith, just Vader. It may not be the most obvious conclusion to make, but I guess the writers were giving lucas a bit more credit than necessary, thinking he might surprise them.