I can't BELIEVE this guy!? What an A**HOLE!!!! ROTJ Review

I found this Nightline clip yesterday on YouTube while looking at some Siskel & Ebert clips.

I’ve never heard anyone so <span style=“font-style: italic;”>totally</span> clueless about the Star Wars films. John Simon must be the most humorless person on the planet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB3V3qyZiFM

^ ‘Star Wars Nightline Discussion - Summer of 1983’

Very nice find.  Now, is he talking about RotJ or RotS?

fsb

"Where they dumber than they needed to be?"

LOL

HE "described Empire Strikes Back as malodrous awful" whatever the that means.

Wow this dude knows big words, so naturally Star Wars is 90% special effects.

It find it funny that everything he says about the oot would actually be true if he was talking about the prequels.

I mean i loved Return of the Jedi just as much as anyone,   but How could not fans and critics see the writing on the Wall at the time.

Ewoks in Jedi awful.  Han solo basically stands around the movie having no character development whatsoever.  Big dissapointment after empire strikes back.  I agree with Harrison if they could not give him better material then Han should have died in the carbonite, after beeing thawed. 

Leia is also pretty badly written in jedi and comes off as a cardboard character compared to her role in Empire.

The whole movie is Luke centric, and the better parts of that i'm suprised they were able to pull off.  Even though they were aping Empire Strikes back during the more serious parts.  I'm sure the film would have come off as silly if not for the wagnerian operatic movement chosen when Luke casts his Lightsaber aside.

End Credits said:

Very nice find.  Now, is he talking about RotJ or RotS?

 

fsb

A movie that is 90% special effects that all look completely unreal, and more like an animated film?  ROTS.

Mr. Simon definitely has an expansive vocabulary, polysylabalisms like "whirley-gig" really made me rethink my opinion.

The guy is a bit more uptight than he needs to be, but I can understand where he is coming from. Obviously he feels that film should be used to express great drama and teach people about life. Ebert really expresses my exact feelings on the greatness of film as an art form by saying that essentially every film is a special effect, it is not real it is a dream. In real life all sorts of horrible stuff can happen to us, and all sorts of great thing can happen to us, but some things can only happen through the magic of film. It is fun to imagine far off worlds that are very different from our own, and honestly, I think a lot more can be learned about life from fantasy stories like Homer's Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and other works of fantasy than can be learned from more serious true to life stories. Fantasy can be a hyperbolic and magnified way of expressing and teaching very true things about life. But then again, I grew up with this crap making me certianly dumber than I need to be.

Watching this video reminded me of an essay written by C.S. Lewis about adults with childish tastes. Lewis was a very strong believer in fantasy stories and fairy tales. If he would have been born a few years later, or lived long enough to see it, I have a feeling Lewis would have been a huge advocate of Star Wars, even if he had only ever read the novel and never seen the film. I really like that, because her is a learned Oxford professor, in a world where science fiction is considered children's fare, and the guy considers the worls of Juels Vern and H.G. Wells to be on the same level of story telling as Charles Dickens and other "more serious writers".

What an awesome find!  Siskel and Ebert look so young (Brokaw too).  Simon tipped his hand when he said "...if I had them" (refering to kids).  I bet if he had kids, or spent more time with them (or had a happier childhood himself?), then he might be singing a different tune.  As it is, I agree with Siskel that I feel sorry for him.  Siskel and Ebert rock!

Wow, that was very interesting indeed.  Watching it didn't piss me off as much as a lot of the YouTube commenters seemed to be.  But it's nice to get some alternate perspectives, especially contemporary perspectives when the movie was released.  While we deny to our detractors who accuse of us being nostalgic, you have to admit that there is at least some nostalgia in us, and there's nothing wrong with that.  So it's nice to see that not everyone back in the day loved Star Wars.  I think the guy was wrong, but at the same time, I also find it quite hilarious to put it into perspective.  I'd love to see his reaction to the prequels if he thought that ROTJ was 90% effects with robots fighting robots.

I think what I found the most offensive was how badly he trashed Disney cartoons.  Actually, it seemed as if he trashed the entire medium of animation, and that just seems extremely close-minded.  I mean, I can respect that there is a movie or a series of movies that he just doesn't like, but to totally dismiss an entire medium of art invalidates his opinion just a bit.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

What an awesome find!  Siskel and Ebert look so young (Brokaw too).  Simon tipped his hand when he said "...if I had them" (refering to kids).  I bet if he had kids, or spent more time with them (or had a happier childhood himself?), then he might be singing a different tune.  As it is, I agree with Siskel that I feel sorry for him.  Siskel and Ebert rock!

Hey- that's my man Ted Koppel! (or as I like to call him "The Koppster") LOL!

I agree, if Simon had children, I think his perspective would've been different.

I read a bit of his bio, and it seems that had a bit of a notorious reputation for being a harsh critic of theater (mostly) and film.

Oops, yeah my mistake.

sunday256 said:

it just reaffirms my belief that there's very little difference between both trilogies other than time and technology. The core is the same.

 

Time and technology? Nah.

The major difference to me between the OT and the PT is that the PT has no sympathetic characters. They're not loveable and I don't care what happens to them. The complete OPPOSITE of the OT.

sunday256 said:

Mielr said:

sunday256 said:

it just reaffirms my belief that there's very little difference between both trilogies other than time and technology. The core is the same.

 

Time and technology? Nah.

The major difference to me between the OT and the PT is that the PT has no sympathetic characters. They're not loveable and I don't care what happens to them. The complete OPPOSITE of the OT.

 

So let me get this straight...

You sympathize with a narcotics smuggler, a bitchy princess, a whiny/complaining adolescent teenager, an old self-serving-conceited-liar of a drunk, a two legged bear and a couple of droids?

 

 

LOL! HELL YEAH!

Not a fan of 'colorful' characters, are you?

What makes Han Solo so great is that he's this kind of questionable guy. Is he trustworthy? Who knows. Princess Leia is a bitch? Great! At least she speaks her mind and doesn't have a stick up her butt. 

Are you calling Luke whiny? At least we see him mature through the films and become a Jedi.

As far as 'whiny' goes, sorry, but young Anakin has the market cornered there.

Do you actually LIKE Padme and Anakin? I was hoping there was some way they could both die in the 2nd movie!

Thanks, that was the best laugh I've had all week.......:-D

Okay... I can understand self-serving-conceited-liar, but you left me scratching my chin at "drunk".

There is a big diffrence between Anakin and Luke.  Though the Anakin of the prequels will never be canon to me.

Anakin in the prequels whiny emo goth anti hero,  serial killer murderor of younglings and wife killer. Selfish asshole who deserved to burn up on Mustafar.

Luke Skywalker real hero who saved the Galaxy.

sunday256 said:

This guy felt about the OT a lot like the adults these days feel about the prequels. It's no different. I could care less the reasoning many of you throw out there why the OT should be respected and the PT shouldn't, but I'm sure if John Simon were reviewing both trilogies he'd say they're both crap. One's just newer crap.

If John Simon is proof to you that both trilogies are equivalently crappy, then, logically, Roger Ebert should be proof to you that both trilogies are equivalently great. Hmm, unfortunately, Roger Ebert (who was an adult when Star Wars came out) thought original films were superior by more than marginal amounts and so your idea doesn't quite work. . . .

Oh, wait, you say you "could care less" about the "reasoning" you're offered (so I guess I shouldn't waste my time arguing logic with you). ;)

sunday256 said:

I look at some of the effects from the OT and cringe...

Really? What for example?

sunday256 said:

That's why when I hear a lot of people bash the prequels because of the script, the dumming down of everything and all the CGI, etc...I'm think back to what others have said about the OT and it's not much different. I believe age has a lot to do with it.

This guy felt about the OT a lot like the adults these days feel about the prequels. It's no different....

I'm understand what you mean but I think your argument is flawed.

This is one critics negative opinion. And I'm not that naive to think his was the only one, but the overwhelming majority of opinions were positive. Not so much with the Prequels though. And I'm talking about adult critics of the time vs adult critics now.

Same with the regular audience members then vs the regular adult audience now. Of course there is exceptions to the rule like your dad in regards to the OT but that's a small minority. But there's a whole bunch of adults I know of that think the prequles are crap that would talk about the OT positively. And I'm not talking about adults who were kids at the time of the OT with rose coloured glasses on.

And don't be so harsh on Obi Wan. His character never started out that way.

You get so see some of the selflessness of Luke Skywalker in Anakin in Episode 1 and especially in the novelization.

Well that actually is when Luke joined the rebellion and became a pilot that attacked the death star.  and you see him as a leader in empire strikes back.  Now looking back Luke is incredibly selfish in many parts of the trilogy following his father's lead, its in the genetics, lol.

In the films this is all but gone in Episode II when anakin Becomes a brooding prick.

Again the novelizations for episode II and III make the character seem more human, which bring me back to Lucas being a hack storyteller and terrible writer.

Apparently for a newer purer Jedi order to come about, Luke's New Jedi Order.  Anakin was the scourge of destiny that had to wipe out both the sith and the jedi for this to come about.  But as with Lucas Yin and Yang concept or two sides of a coin that means another sith order had to come about as well, one that would replace the sith of old and the rule of two.

This is all EU anyhow but Darth Krayt's New sith Order emerges 90+ years after return of the jedi.  The jedi mostly being wiped out by the yuuzhan vong and the war angainst Darth Caedus.  THe lines of Jaina Solo and Ben Skywalker keep the jedi flame burning in the universe.

To be a regular person in the Star Wars universe you would have to be pissed as you get hundreds of years more of religious war between the Jedi and the Sith.  I'm suprised a Hitler like Character does not come on the scene and say lets wipe them all out.

sunday256 said:

I liked SW, EST and ESTB that's why I'm here...

I have no problems with Anakin being whiney in the PT because he matures into something completely different in the end. 

Okay, I am pretty sure EST means Eastern Standard Time, but I am completely lost with ESTB.

Yeah, Anakin makes an amazing transformation during the course of the trilogy, all the way from a whiney Jedi into a whiney Sith Lord with a charred body covered by a sleek black suit (Noooooooooooo!), and all this in a time period of less than 15 minutes film time! In comparison, Luke's transformation sucked, he went from a whiney farm boy, to a selfless hero, to a mature Jedi Knight gradually over the course of the films. Luke is a looser who failed to make an awesome transformation in an impressive amount of time.