When did you sense a disturbance in the Force? — Page 3

BobaJett said:

The thing everyone has to remember is that Lucas was creating a kids movie. His target demographic was kids age 7-13. Its impossible to be objective as an adult and watch the pequals with the same child like filter we had when the originals came out. As bad, no as horribly atrocious, as the Star Wars Holiday special was, as an 8 yr old, I craved it! I couldnt wait to watch it once I knew it was coming out. Then roughly 30 years later when I got a copy of it and watched it again, I about lost my lunch it was so bad. But as an 8 yr old, I filtered out the crap, the bad acting, the fact Carrie was high on acid or drunk one, and enjoyed visiting with my favorite Star Wars heros in a different setting again. I remember my Dad making a comment several years ago about the bad acting in ANH. In my mind Im thinking, “Bad acting? You had some world class actors in that movie. How could it be bad?” But TOT is so ingrained in our minds and psyche, that its next to impossible to be objective when watching it. Fast forward to the prequals. As adults, in contrast, it is impossible to watch with the objectiveness of a childs mind. The one thing that came through for me, was the love in my heart for these movies. The prequals are like a red-headed step child that you grow to love, no matter how bad it is. I can remember as a kid listening to Obi-Wan tell Luke about his father and the clone wars, and my imagination running wild trying to create scenes of what the clone wars mightve looked like. Or a young Obi-Wan side by side with Anakin in his prime. The prequals gave us a glimpse of that, but through the muddied,cynical mind of an adult. Yeh, its not what we imagined as kids, but at least we have something as a referance, albeit kind of bad. I have not yet sensed a disturbance, but I do try my best to summon my inner 7, 10 and 13 yr old everytime I hear of something new from the Star Wars universe coming my way. The most recent thing being the discovery of TN1’s Silver Edition a week or so ago. Ive sat and watched it on my projector screen 2 or 3 times and everytime Im whisked away to that place a 7yr old me was the first time I saw it.

This is just an elaborate redressing of that old “Yeah, the acting in the PT kinda sucked, but it was just as bad in the OT, too.” canard, isn’t it?

A kids movie? So that’s why the original version was full of blood, exploding heads, arms being pulled off, humanoid looking aliens sliced into several pieces, alien bounty hunters being toasted alive? Yeah, a typical kids movie.

Yes, I know, he toned down most of the violence in post production and even more in the 1997 SE, but still the movies have many deaths, many arms cut off, the prequels have even things like that Anakin burning alive scene …

DuracellEnergizer said:

BobaJett said:

The thing everyone has to remember is that Lucas was creating a kids movie. His target demographic was kids age 7-13. Its impossible to be objective as an adult and watch the pequals with the same child like filter we had when the originals came out. As bad, no as horribly atrocious, as the Star Wars Holiday special was, as an 8 yr old, I craved it! I couldnt wait to watch it once I knew it was coming out. Then roughly 30 years later when I got a copy of it and watched it again, I about lost my lunch it was so bad. But as an 8 yr old, I filtered out the crap, the bad acting, the fact Carrie was high on acid or drunk one, and enjoyed visiting with my favorite Star Wars heros in a different setting again. I remember my Dad making a comment several years ago about the bad acting in ANH. In my mind Im thinking, “Bad acting? You had some world class actors in that movie. How could it be bad?” But TOT is so ingrained in our minds and psyche, that its next to impossible to be objective when watching it. Fast forward to the prequals. As adults, in contrast, it is impossible to watch with the objectiveness of a childs mind. The one thing that came through for me, was the love in my heart for these movies. The prequals are like a red-headed step child that you grow to love, no matter how bad it is. I can remember as a kid listening to Obi-Wan tell Luke about his father and the clone wars, and my imagination running wild trying to create scenes of what the clone wars mightve looked like. Or a young Obi-Wan side by side with Anakin in his prime. The prequals gave us a glimpse of that, but through the muddied,cynical mind of an adult. Yeh, its not what we imagined as kids, but at least we have something as a referance, albeit kind of bad. I have not yet sensed a disturbance, but I do try my best to summon my inner 7, 10 and 13 yr old everytime I hear of something new from the Star Wars universe coming my way. The most recent thing being the discovery of TN1’s Silver Edition a week or so ago. Ive sat and watched it on my projector screen 2 or 3 times and everytime Im whisked away to that place a 7yr old me was the first time I saw it.

This is just an elaborate redressing of that old “Yeah, the acting in the PT kinda sucked, but it was just as bad in the OT, too.” canard, isn’t it?

No, not at all. I argued that the acting is good in the OT. Im merely pointing out that its tough to keep the same objective mindset we had as a child and carry it over into adulthood. We view things through different eyes as adults. I dont view a new Tonka dumptruck like I would if I was 6 years old. I still appreciate it cause Im a big kid, but not like I did when I was 6. The same is for SW. I love these movies and will always love them. But as an adult, Im going to see things that I mightve overlooked as a child, or a scene might not invoke the same emotional reaction as an adult that it wouldve as a child. And yes, Lucas modeled the OT after old 50’s and 60’s TV Sci-Fi adventure shows, hence the 7-13 age demograph (one could argue higher or lower). The difference is, walrus-man was a creature, not a human that had his arm cut off. Thats why he opted for Obi-Wan to disappear instead of fall on the floor in two pieces. The PT are just a product of the contemporary desensitization of violence in TV and the movies. Hence showing Anakin burning.
Trust me, Im not knocking SW, I love it! If anything, IM defending it from all the naysayers. I wonder how many here on the forums actually have nearly 40 yrs viewing experience of these films? If youre a child of the 80’s or 90’s, that can greatly influence how you perceive these films when compared to one another.

(After pondering your responses, Ill add this: George aimed this movie specifically at 12-14 yr olds, per a conversation with him at the time, but designed it to appeal to all ages.)

pittrek said:

A kids movie? So that’s why the original version was full of blood, exploding heads, arms being pulled off, humanoid looking aliens sliced into several pieces, alien bounty hunters being toasted alive? Yeah, a typical kids movie.

Yes, I know, he toned down most of the violence in post production and even more in the 1997 SE, but still the movies have many deaths, many arms cut off, the prequels have even things like that Anakin burning alive scene …

I dont know what version you watched, but the only blood I recall is Walrus-Man in the Cantina. The key difference being, it was a creature, a monster, not a human being. Thats why they could get away with it and not get an R rating. In the ANH, they never showed the actual action, only the aftermath e.g. the Beru/Owen skeletons. Had they shown the actual killing and burning, or the action of the sabre slicing off his arm, then it wouldve garnered an R rating most likley. Whose head exploded in ANH? WHose arm was pulled off in ANH? When I stated that it was aimed at kids, I was refrring to ANH specifically, not the later movies. Once ANH became a sucess, George was able to be a bit more liberal in the next films. He probably figured he should appeal to a broader demograph for more sucess. Had the PG-13 rating been around back then, ESB and ROTJ probably wouldve recieved a PG-13 rating.

BobaJett said:

pittrek said:

A kids movie? So that’s why the original version was full of blood, exploding heads, arms being pulled off, humanoid looking aliens sliced into several pieces, alien bounty hunters being toasted alive? Yeah, a typical kids movie.

Yes, I know, he toned down most of the violence in post production and even more in the 1997 SE, but still the movies have many deaths, many arms cut off, the prequels have even things like that Anakin burning alive scene …

I dont know what version you watched, but the only blood I recall is Walrus-Man in the Cantina. The key difference being, it was a creature, a monster, not a human being. Thats why they could get away with it and not get an R rating. In the ANH, they never showed the actual action, only the aftermath e.g. the Beru/Owen skeletons. Had they shown the actual killing and burning, or the action of the sabre slicing off his arm, then it wouldve garnered an R rating most likley. Whose head exploded in ANH? WHose arm was pulled off in ANH? When I stated that it was aimed at kids, I was refrring to ANH specifically, not the later movies. Once ANH became a sucess, George was able to be a bit more liberal in the next films. He probably figured he should appeal to a broader demograph for more sucess. Had the PG-13 rating been around back then, ESB and ROTJ probably wouldve recieved a PG-13 rating.

I am talking about his “original vision”. We know that the first movie was planned to be much, MUCH more brutal. Some of the brutal scenes were shot, some of them were only planned, and even those who WERE shot were either edited down for the 1977 release or censored in the 1997 version.

Let’s be perfectly honest - he didn’t want to do a kids film. But he was forced to because he had the rights to the merchandise stuff.

Then why, in an interview, was he quoted as saying, “My target group is 12-14 yr olds.” Im not doubting what you say about how he envisioned it vs how it was ultimately presented, but from all the interviews Ive seen over the years and stories Ive read, his influence and vision for ANH was akin to the old Flash Gordon TV show and other serials of his childhood.

George has a new original vision once every three or four years!

Frank your Majesty said:

The first step to figure out was Lucas’ original vision was is to disregard anything he said in interviews, as he only talks about his Original Vision™, i.e. stuff that he thinks makes him look like a brilliant writer and director. That’s where this “I had it all planned from the beginning” myth comes from.

Thats a bit cynical dont ya think? I highly doubt that in 1977/78’, during his interview about his target audience, that he had the forethought to be that egotistical. He was a budding/struggling film maker hoping to break through and Star Wars was his break through. Its no mystery what his influences came from for the film. But we digress. The OP asked at what point we felt George let us down/“felt a disturbance.” I read many replies about how the PT didnt live up to folks expectations, mine as well, and thought Id point out that its tough to see something that many of us fell in love with as a child with the same enthusiasm and interpretation as an adult. As much as the PT fell short with me, I find ways to look at it differently, to conjure up my inner child and grow to like/love it. Trust me, its tough, but I do get some fullfillment from watching them, key word being SOME. I know I said I felt no disturbance in an earlier reply, but Ill be a good sport and say that I felt it while watching the SE in 97’ in the theater. I know this sounds clicheic, but Greedo shooting first was straight up asinine.

moviefreakedmind said:

A movie made for “kids” in the 70s, or even just fifteen years ago, is a lot different than what people consider a movie for kids now. When I was a kid(10-13), we all wanted to see movies involving people getting shot and/or stabbed to death, with lots of sex and/or fast vehicles in between. Kids were renting and watching Friday the 13th at sleepovers. Every kid I knew saw Tombstone at some point back in the day. My sister snuck into Scream in theatres when she was just 10 years old. Now it seems like people think kids want to see Jar Jar Binks, or maybe they don’t care what kids want to see and just care about what they think kids should see. I grew up filling my head with rock & roll music and violent movies and I turned out decent enough. Kids need to stop watching things like Norm of the North and go see It Follows.

tl;dr - I can’t imagine movies with an arm being cut off and lying in a pool of blood, along with burned corpses of an innocent aunt and uncle being directed towards children today.

😉

Frank your Majesty said:

BobaJett said:

Thats a bit cynical dont ya think? I highly doubt that in 1977/78’, during his interview about his target audience, that he had the forethought to be that egotistical.

Sure, it’s cynical, but I still think that even young Lucas had a habit of presenting himself the best way possible, not as much as in his later years, but this behavious surely didn’t came from nowhere. So whenever things worked out in his favor, intentionally or unintentionally, he sold them as part of his “original vision”.

Regarding your original point, I don’t agree. I saw the OT at the age of 8, TPM at 10, and AOTC and ROTS at 11 and 14, respectively. And while I loved all these movies the first time I watched them, only my love for the OT, and Star Wars in particular, lasted for more than 2 or 3 years. So while Star Wars appeals to children and adults alike, the PT is intentionally aimed at children/teenagers, but loses this appeal for many people when they grow up.

You actually make my point! You saw the OT when you had already been immersed in contemporary film making and special effects. You are a product of your generation. The way you viewed a movie at 7yrs old is completely different than from myself, especially the SW franchise. The same can be said about me compared to a child or young person from the 40’s or 50’s. When SW came out, it was foreign to their theater going experiences and how they viewed or perceived movies. As a 7 yr old when SW was released, I had zero interest in movies from the 40’s or 50’s. It seemed archaic to me. It wasnt until I was older that I began to gain an appreciation and admiration for classic film making from that time period. When SW came out, I and the world, had never seen nor heard anything like that before. One could argue 2001: A Space Odyssey, but even that paled in comparison to the way SW was presented to us. SW had a profound effect on me, as well as others, which is something I dont think occurs in someone of later generations. Dont get me wrong, Im not saying kids today cant be bitten by the SW bug, but its unlikely it will be perceived/received the way it was back in 77’.

adywan said:

BobaJett said:

The thing everyone has to remember is that Lucas was creating a kids movie.

If this is the case, then why would George have been panicking that he made a kids movie just before the release of Star Wars? If that was his goal all along then he wouldn’t have been worried. First i remember George calling Star Wars a kids movie was after the prequels were slammed by fans.

Ill see if I can find the interview, But there was an interview, at the time of SW, in which he said that his target audience was 12-14 yr olds.

moviefreakedmind said:

He expected kids to enjoy it since he made sure to have the merchandising rights, but as I said earlier, there’s a big difference between making an awesome movie that kids will like and making a movie "for kids"

Hence, his target audience being 12-14 yr olds, while at the same time presenting the movie in such a way that it will appeal to all ages. Seems it worked out pretty well for him.

BobaJett said:

adywan said:

BobaJett said:

The thing everyone has to remember is that Lucas was creating a kids movie.

If this is the case, then why would George have been panicking that he made a kids movie just before the release of Star Wars? If that was his goal all along then he wouldn’t have been worried. First i remember George calling Star Wars a kids movie was after the prequels were slammed by fans.

Ill see if I can find the interview, But there was an interview, at the time of SW, in which he said that his target audience was 12-14 yr olds.

Im still looking for the interview, but heres an excerpt or two from an interview in Summer of 77’

“There is some very strong stuff in there. In the end, when you know better, it sort of takes a lot of guts to do it because it’s the same thing with the whole movie – doing a children’s film. I didn’t want to play it down and make it a camp movie, I wanted to make it a very good movie. And it wasn’t camp, it was not making fun of itself. I wanted it to be real.”

"Right after Graffiti I was getting this fan mail from kids that said the film changed their life, and something inside me said, do a children’s film. And everybody said, “Do a children’s film? What are you talking about? You’re crazy.”

"So by seeing the effect Graffiti had on kids, I realized that kids today of that age rediscovered what it was to be a teenager. They also started going out cruising the main street of town again, and I went back and did various studies of towns, my own town, Modesto, we checked them out. There was no cruising and then, all of a sudden, it all started up again. So when I got done with Graffiti, I said, “Look, you know something else has happened, and I began to stretch it down to younger people, 10- to 12-year-olds, who have lost something even more significant than the teenager. I saw that kids today don’t have any fantasy life the way we had – they don’t have westerns, they don’t have pirate movies, they don’t have that stupid serial fantasy life that we used to believe in. It wasn’t that we really believed in it…”

He’s been saying it’s a kid’s movie since at least the 1992 box set.

Wazzles said:

He’s been saying it’s a kid’s movie since at least the 1992 box set.

92??? He said it before the dang movie came out in 1977!! Ive been very civil in my rebuttals of folks comments, but the facts are, Lucas had the intent to make this film for kids. Whatever your interpretation of a kid is today, it doesnt apply to 1975-76. Whatever your cynical interpretations of his personality are now, they dont apply to 40 years ago. The guy was broke. He was simply trying to do what he loved to do and maybe, just maybe be successful at it. Its called the American dream, having the freedom to do what you believe in and being able to chase that dream. He dreamt it, he realized it and he made it happen. Yeh, hes a weird dude in some respects, but its his damn movie yall, not ours. Its his dream, his imagination and his drive and hard work thatmade it a reality that we all can experience. Its his perogative in his old age to say what he wants and change what he wants to HIS liking because he created it out of his inflences from his childhood. Yes, Im with most of ya on your opinions of certain things, but damn yall, to question the mans sincerity on his original idea based on what you know now just takes away from why we love this movie.

Again, back to the OP’s thread subject, despite the fact that I agree with many of you on the direction the PT took, I sensed a disturbance in the force the moment folks grew up and became adults and forgot why we love these movies. I dont know one 74 year old guy that saw Star Wars in 77’ that was 33 when he saw Star Wars that still has the passion for these films that we do. You know why? Because it was made for a specific age group. It was made so that a generation, or two, would have something that they could talk about 20, 25, 35 years later and still be relevant, not the adult population of the time. Their time was the 50’s or 60’s.