zombie84

TV's Frink said:I'm shocked anyone thinks a discussion of Criterion quality, especially in relation to previous/current NON-SW work, is in any way on-topic.  Yes, I can ignore the posts, but then why do we need rules here?  Can't everyone ignore my Deal With It gifs just the same?

 I don't know why this annoys you. Someone says "I wonder if Criterion could do SW." Someone else says, "Criterion isn't very good so why would you want that?" Three other people then say "actually, they are very good as seen in these examples." That's on topic, and it's only like 5 or 6 posts actually.

asterisk8 said:I am very curious to see how SW looks with regard to film grain on Blu-Ray.

 Well, you can see the HD broadcasts, which is basically the same master we're gonna get. Which is, most of the o-neg grain is scrubbed out, although not quite all of it, and thankfully it at least wasn't done through DNR.

What more is there to post about? We don't control the details. Lucasfilm released the details, so there is nothing to add, there is only discussion and opinion on the details. One opinion was that the details suck and Criterion should handle it; Criterion's capability was then questioned, and then this was resolved with examples. Thats it. It's the topic--the topic of Star Wars on Blu Ray, what the details are, whether this is good or bad, and any other opinions related to it. The thread was never specified as being specifically about one aspect of it, but simply the release in general.

You'll probably know if there are more details released because everyone will be talking about them then, so come back when that happens if you don't want to hear about a Blu Ray restoration company that could have or could have not handled the job better than Lucasfilm.

Then don't view the thread if you don't like the current subtopic. There would be no activity here otherwise so it makes no difference.

Someone posted a link to this on the SW page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=225576627457656&set=o.169299103121699&type=1&theater

Brilliant. Is this Skyjedi or Generalfrievous?

canofhumdingers said:(the Samurai Trilogy is one I'm hoping they eventually redo, hopefully on bluray - the laserdisc ports of it that they put on dvd are pretty bad).

 Agreed. In 2005 I found some discount release that had all three Samurai films in an extra-fat case on 3 discs. The quality was worse than Criterion, but only by a bit. However, the discount release was $19--a steal back in 2005--while the Criterion set was $100. The discount release even had a short documentary (on how swords were made) while the Criterion version just had a trailer. I don't have to tell you I've never owned the Criterion set. Shame, because those films are as good as any of Kurosawa's, but I've never seen them look good. All murky and scratched up. I guess the colour will always be a bit dull because of the photography, but these films deserve to be seen.

Xhonzi: I would pick up any disc that was released after 2006 without worry. So, if you see a Criterion Blu Ray, don't worry about it, because they are all excellent as far as I can tell. You'd probably be very impressed with their Seven Samurai BD. I'm waiting for them to re-do Rashomon--it is probably their best early release (from 2000 I think?) and holds up well on DVD if you were to give it a shot, but I know if they tackled it again they would blow everyone away. There was a fully restored print of it touring in 2009 that I saw theatrically and it was breathtaking.

xhonzi said:

Fair enough.  I have no disagreement here.  Their LD work was extensive.  It seems it took them a long time to produce DVD quality DVDs...  

I just don't know of any Criterion DVDs that are 'reference' quality when it comes to A/V.  I only have 4 of them (two Terry Gilliams, and two Wes Andersons).  The first two have crap A/V, and the other two are "pretty good" but nothing that would make me say, "Holy Crap!  Get these guys to do all of my movies!"

 

This seems very strange to me. I have never had a Criterion DVD that wasn't reference quality. That is what they are known for.

I will conceed, however, that they didn't get their act together until around 2001 or 2002. Their transfers before this sometimes used material that by todays standards was not so impressive, and their early discs sometimes re-pressed their Laserdisc releases. This was standard practice for everyone mind you, as DVD in general from before 2001 or so is poor by todays standards, from the special features to the re-used LD masters, to non-anamorphic presentations of release-print sources, to EE and other problems that encoders struggled with. There were few releases that hold up today, which is why every company re-released their early DVDs in new editions--including Criterion starting in 2006.

It just seems to me that people continued to go nuts over Criterion stuff on DVD merely due to what they did for LD.  Even when their DVD stuff was sub par. 

Rather the opposite. No one had LD players, so most people don't know Criterion LDs. Criterion is known for doing custom restorations on all their releases.

I guess you have just had bad luck. I would encourage you to give them a second chance. They are the absolute best company in home video history as far as quality control goes, in my opinion, up there with Warners.

I'm glad I got to go on the original. For a kid growing up in the late 80s when SW was basically dead, it was a total trip to heaven to see a 20 foot AT-AT guarding a Star Wars gift shop full of merchandise that led into one of the most entertaining rides I had ever been on. I guess it couldn't hang around forever, it's starting to get dated, but it's nice to know that it was connected to the OT with its models and optical composites. It's a shame, because I've watched the preservations of the video, which are cool, but it doesn't do the ride justice. Unlike most other thing Star Wars, there truely is no substitute for the experience of this, and its slightly sad that no one will ever be able to get this again. I guess that makes all of us who had the experinece among the elite. I have to hope that in 50 years from now, this will be re-activated at some sort of Star Wars museum.

The Brazil DVD was bad? They released a whole boxset of all the multiple versions in a time that was 5 years ahead of when it became standard practice to do this, plus a feature-length original documentary about the struggles of the film--they did the Blade Runner set half a decade before the Blade Runner set existed. Without Criterion, DVD wouldn't have been what it is today. They practically created all the high standards that we hold, or hope, studios abide by, whether its uncut versions, cinematographer or director approved transfers from the highest quality elements, original audio, deleted scenes, commentary tracks, audio essays, retrospective documentaries, rare television appearances, and insert booklets. The only thing I used to complain about was their price, which was preportional to their sales/interest, but that has come down close to the same as big studio releases. Their innovations in the LD era and continuing efforts in the DVD era helped create the home video standards we now have.

Fox owned the copyright to Star Wars, but not ESB or ROTJ. They sold Star Wars to Lucasfilm in 1998 or 1999 in exchange for prequel distribution. So, since 1999, they've been purely in a marketing and distribution position.

Well, this is biggest home video news since 2006 and it was just announced this morning, you can't expect people to not comment on it. By next week, people will forget about it.

dark_jedi said:

Sorry, couldn't help myself, all this whining is just to funny.

 Are you saying these specs don't merit critcism? Whining is a funny way to put it.

That's actually the only thing there that might be cool, only because it's probably the last video interview Kersh gave.

Few thoughts:

1) VERY surprised there is no definitive making-of docs here. Fans always said, wait for the super-duper boxset and you'll have the ultimate behind-the-scenes type of stuff. No such luck. It looks like some of the stuff from the previous DVDs is being carried over but the best things, the full-length docs, are being left out. I realize the OT only has limited footage to work with but there was a full-time camera crew on the prequels.

2) Impressed that the classic docs are being put on here. Nothing new for us, but a lot of people haven't seen them. Unfortunately, they are 1970s and 1980s video masters, and not likely to look much better than what was on the LDs. Not much you can do about that. Maybe the footage will be good replacement candidates for the GOUT but I doubt it. Too bad the best one--SW to Jedi--is left out.

3)The new docs are absolute crap. 90 minutes on the 501st??? Are you fucking kidding?? Okay, I know they are an interesting group and do good work. Maybe a 45 minute or a 60 minute piece. But 90 minutes of the disc taken up with this? It feels like they are just promoting them because they are loyal customers because no offence to them, but a lot of them tend to be the most brainwashed of all the SW fans and will spend money on anything with the SW label. The other docs are lame too. There's so much that could have gone on here. That "Mythology of SW" would have been a good candidate if you want a prequel-intensive post-saga piece. Disappointing is an understatement.

4) No new prequel docs. In fact the 9th disc is 100% OT from the looks of it. They are really trying hard to lure us to the disc!

The audio track from archival interviews sounds interesting, as does the extra OT interviews and of course deleted scenes. But otherwise--nothing new, and nothing worth seeing. The PT DVDs are still better for supplements, maybe even the OT DVD boxset. The deleted OT scenes will be the first thing to go up on the internet when this comes out. Download them and save your money. I guess we won't even know if the collars are fixxed until a few days before this actually comes out. And, to be honest, I don't really care.

The one thing I will give TPM much credit for is it's design and imagination. As Roger Ebert said, there really is this genuine sense of wonder in every scene. I mean, the story and the characters aren't very imaginative, unfortunately, but the world itself is quite captivating. I guess this is complimenting the art department rather than Lucas himself, but just visually, the film is to this day quite breathtaking, even if sometimes the CG is a bit hokey. Actually, there is something weirdly charming to the sorta-perfect-but-not-quite CG and digital composites, compared to the slicker, more seamless stuff of today, maybe like how the early model and stopmotion work has its own charm. It has a character that the other films lack, and part of it I think is that it's still archaic in some ways--shot on film, still had big sets (Theed hanger), lots of big location shooting (Mos Espa), more model work than ROTJ, wasn't finished digitally but photochemically, filmed in the old English studios rather then the new Australian ones, etc.

Maybe when people say it has a more OT feel, this is subliminally influencing them.

With the closing of the official site forums I guess this is now the official way to bug Lucasfilm.

What, did you expect her to not be annoyed when people bug her about her dad's work?

Careful though, or she might get her older sister to come by and beat the shit out of you. She's MMA.

none said:

...People's Choice.

Alexr wrote: Below 5, I suppose.

So there's the difference. Would assume most consider that entertainment should have a higher initial expectation.  Like grades in school the 60% level is scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that's what many consider a 3 out of 5 star review.  66.6%.  (but if you want to add in zero, then 3/5 is 50%...)

But like the polling for presidency rating, anything over 50% like you have it, is saying that it is acceptable and generally positive.

With expectations that low, i'm going to go comment on something else.  Which is another value of public opinion which can't easily be determined.  The numbers who do go do something else instead of commenting on the piece of culture in question.

 

I agree with this wholeheartedly as far as the topic is concerned. If I took a test and got 60% I would consider that unsuccessful. If I took a test and got 70%, I wouldn't consider that particularly bad, but I would be disappointed that I didn't do very well, because 70% to me is not exactly a good grade, it's so-so.

Also, if I saw a movie and didn't like, I wouldn't go to its IMDB page and vote against it, and neither would a lot of people I think. If you don't care for a film, you usually simply forget about it and move on, unless the film has just come out and its on the IMDB main page and has a lot of hype about it. IMDB didn't have much registered voters in 1999 compared to today, which is why regular viewers aren't likely to be represented in its rating and why it's probably mostly fans of the film who have taken the time to visit its page over the subsequent years and vote. You have to consider the context.  Those interested in the film come back to it, perhaps drawn by all the prequel EU and CW cartoon. So, over time, it's rating has increased in voters due to fan interest, while its earlier rating which likely had non-fan audience participation only had a small number of voters in the first place compared to IMDB movies today. Case in point, in 2004 TPM only had 71,00 votes while today it has over 200,000, so extrapolate back to 1999 and you realize its not a very good representation of audiences. The numbers simply aren't there, and in 1999 a lot of people weren't even on the internet, and didn't know about IMDB anyway so for a film this old its not something to put so much significance on. Probably it was mainly SW fans back in 1999 voting anyway just because average joes didn't use IMDB. In fact, I would say it was fans all along, I remember there were SW websites and message board threads encouraging people to support the film at IMDB.

Even with all the fan interest, it still only scores 6.5, which is on the poor side anyway so it's not like this poll is in its favour other than demonstrating that IMDB viewers like the film a bit better than the critics--this is relative, of course, because critics gave it a lousy 5.2. Its IMDB rating of 6.5 is mediocre. When you average IMDB and critics for an "overall picture" if you even believe in the IMDB numbers, you get 58.5%, which is still a pretty bad failure. You end up in the 50s either way.

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

I would even go so far as to say that TPM has hurt the general public's image of Star Wars, by moving the franchise from the realm of moviedom to the realm of computer-based kiddie fare.  The AFI might put Star Wars in their top-20 films of all time, but to most people you say Star Wars and they think light futurama video game pablum, and we have the PT, especially TPM, to thank for that.

That perception could be one of the reasons that more people aren't upset by the lack of restoration of the OT.  Something like TPM, most people wouldn't care if its theatrical release is preserved or not.  They'd say, "it's just a movie".  But I'm not sure many people who blurt that out if the topic were preserving "Citizen Kane", or "Casablanca".  Nor should they about "Star Wars", and yet they do. And that too is something for which we can thank the PT, particularly TPM. 

 That's an interesting theory, I had never thought of it like that. In 1997, the OT was sure considered a classic; in fact, I would say this is the height of its reputation. It had all the popularity and hype and financial success of 77-83, but now it also had something else: prestige, because it was a re-release of a series of classic films from the past. And you had all those "Power of Myth" and Smithsonian things debuting. That was something new. It was now a modern classic. The issue of "preserving the OOT" didn't exist, because the SE was brand new and available in VHS (LD was obsolete by then) so the versions were totally equal, and there were still a ton of the Faces tapes in stores.

But there were huge voices clamoring for the original versions into 2001 and 2004 and 2006. I think by 2006 when the GOUT came out, the prequels had been so far in peoples consciousness that they stopped caring. It was tiring, and SW's image was shifting. Stuff like the Clone Wars cartoons, even though its very good, further orients things towards prequel-era and cartoon stuff. I'm not sure I would pin the blame on TPM or even the PT as a whole, but rather the re-orientation that LFL enacted towards the content and style that now people think of when they think of Star Wars. It began with TPM, but it didn't end there.

On the plus side, it won't last, its just the way things are now. In 30 years from now, Lucas will be dead, there will be much less Star Wars stuff, and the original versions will be available in high-def. People will look back on the OT as classics and everything since then as not-classics. It's the same thing with Star Trek: TOS is considered more of a classic now than ever (it was derided as silly in the 70s and 80s and 90s), despite forgettable stuff like Voyager and Enterprise and spoofs like Galaxy Quest. No one remembers the crappy spin-offs, except as a footnote to the classic original. King Kong had a sequel; so did Wizard of Oz; French Connection did too; Breathless was remade with Richard Gere. Etc. At the time, it cheapens the original, but after a while people don't pay attention. Rocky is still a classic even though Rocky V exists.

Weird.

But I guess Fox Home Entertainment is the division that distributes the star wars videos, so it does make some sense that they host the website. Usually Lucasfilm takes care of this, especially if its on the starwars.com site. Maybe they are letting Fox have a bigger hand in the home video production line.

Yeah. That's the problem when you have a market as saturated as the EU is. That's why I liked the Tales of books--hardly even has the main characters. Why should every book be about Luke or Han? There are a million books about them if you are interested in that.

Ultimately the problem with the EU is that they produce books not because they have a good story in mind that they would like to tell, but because they simply have to publish something. They need a new novel out every month or so for each demographic; the selling comes first, and then they quickly plunk down something that will be ready for the release date they have pre-set. So, many of the stories aren't worth telling or don't fit in with continuity or seem out of character or whatever. But then they become part of the canon or chronology, so future books instead of coming up with a continuity that would be best, have to abide by a lot of the crap from the past. Over a long enough time, you get tied down by your own volume. It's what happens to comic books, and at a certain point they just sort of start ignoring things and starting over. Unfortunately, SW is sort of defined by its chronology and the concept of "Canon", so its difficult to break away and reset the clock.

Leonardo said:

yes but, Ady, the difference between colour and sound and 3d movies is that while eventually colour and sound catched on, 3d didn't catch on in the 50's, nor in the 70's or 80's. What makes you think it's gonna catch on now, apart from the technology being ready? people are already tired of it.

 You answered your own question. If people had to go see Avatar wearing red and blue paper glasses do you think anyone would have given a shit about 3D? You get those things out of cereal boxes.

Alexrd said:

It doesn't normally require proving except to prequel fans, because its in a category called "common knowledge", exemplified by all of the previously-mentioned sources and examples which anyone who was alive in 1999 witnessed firsthand. Maybe one could question how negative that perception is, because I will agree that is hard to precisely measure, and I would also argue that it is not as negative as some may think, but as far as most reasonable people are concerned there is little doubt that the perception is negative overall to one degree or another. It has a bad reputation. Period.

Yes, that's the word. Bad reputation. I don't deny it. However, and as I said before, if the negative press was the majority, it wouldn't pass the 50% average rating. On any website.

Is a grade of 52% any better than 50? It it didn't have a majority of bad reviews it wouldn't score so severely low. A grade of 65% or whatever it is on IMDB, improvement, but still mediocre.

The film received mediocre reviews and was slaughtered by the major press.

No, it wasn't.

 

Yes it was:

http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/episodeirelease.html

The major press gave it the worst ratings of all, in the early wave of reviews.

And how many were those who saw the pre-release? An handful if that much. I wouldn't call it the major press, only part of it.

This is what I mean by major press. The pre-eminant publications in the country. Rolling Stone, etc. The top 10 publications with the most clout and the most readership in the country. Probably more readers than over 50% of the remaining press. These guys tore the film to pieces. The newspapers and second tier magazines, etc. that reviewed it a week later were much kinder.

I didn't make this up. That's what happened. And overall, its critical ratings are mediocre, at best--5.2 or something by both RT and Metacritic, and confirmed by a brief perusal of major media sources.

That's the average rating. Negative reviews are in both cases the very minority, with mixed and positive reviews tied.

See, I think this is where you aren't thinking it through. Yes, that's the average.

If the average is 5.2 it CANNOT be overall liked. There are positive reviews, negative reviews, lukewarm reviews--and together, there is more negative ones if it is averaging at 5.2. The case closes here. Do you get this?

But with all the other bad press, bad reviews, and the majority of reviews which are mediocre (take a look yourself),

Once again, the majority are mixed and positive.

This simply isn't true, otherwise the film could not have scored so lowly. Are you getting this? You seem to simply see positive reviews and then take that as proof that there are more positive ones. Maybe you just don't pay attention to the negative ones. But if the film scores a tomatometer from critics of 38%--a ratio of fresh to rotten reviews--then clearly the vast, vast majority rated it rotten. And if the film averages a 5.2 rating from critics, then this means there were more who were rating the film low than there were who were rating the film high. If it scored mostly mixed and positive reviews it would have 75% tomatometer and a 7.5 rating.

the scale tips to the negative, hence this is irrelavant as far as "disproving" its negative overall reception. As far as consensus it matter little if there are numbers of fans that think the film is great when most people don't, because consensus, or overall impression, or basic public reputation, or however you want to describe it, depends on what the overall balance is. Few people would believe anyone who said the overall balance of TPM's rep is positive. The evidence backs this up.

From your site:

The best legitimate example (as opposed to web ranting) of this camp comes from Jonathan Bowen, who self-published Anticipation: The Real Life Story of Episode I  (and later Revenge: The Real Life Story of Episode III ). The book tracked the hype, release and reaction of Episode I, offering a sympathetic view that the film was initially liked but then began to cultivate a snow-balling negative reaction that encouraged a negative slant.

That is my opinion. Nobody should confuse overall reception with vocal negative slant.

I was actually quoting him to prove how he was wrong. The research I have on that very page shows that it was the opposite. Read the reviews yourself there, I didn't make it up. You are cherry picking an out of context quote while literally ignoring every single fact on the page itself. The worst reviews were the earliest. The second waves of reviews were much better. So its critical reception actually got much better through May.

Anyway, as we can see on IMDB, the negativity is the minority:

The overall impression then, is one of negativity.

See above.

On IMDB, yes, sort of. Let's not apply IMDB as a representation of the planet Earth. But actually, on IMDB, the positive and negative votes are close to being equal even though there are more on the positive side, with the majority opinion of 6 and 7 being lukewarm. No one denied that, I can see it on the average rating. So are we talking about critics or audiences now? Or if we are talking about overall rep (i.e. everybody) then the poor overall reviews, jarjarbinksmustdie.com, Phantom Edit, etc., doesn't just go away because IMDB voted it mediocre to lukewarm overall. If its the big picture you have to balance this against all that stuff. You also have to balance it against the fact that its badness has become a cultural meme.

You seem to be under the impression that those average critic ratings don't matter because you can point to positive reviews. But that average rating accounts for those positive reviews, you realize, it's part of the score. Hence, if two seperate critical measurements--plus, you know, most people's impression of the same reviews from being alive at the time--as well as the tomatomer "positivity" measurement, all say the film scored lousy OVERALL, then the argument ends there. Critics, overall, gave the film a rather lousy rating. If that wasn't the case, it would not score 5.2 at both Metacritic and RT, and get a lowly 38% tomatometer rating.

With audiences, the film scores higher. 6.5 on IMDB, and a 68% tomatometer or something like that when accounting for non-professional critics as well. So then if you want to include audience polls in the mix let's average the two sets. I'll give the higher score of 68 for audiences and 52 for critics. Between them you get 60. Not terrible, but still rather poor. Ergo, the total balance of both audiences and critics rate the film as poor. Not god-awful, mind you, but certainly not positive.

C3PX said:

Anchorhead said:

sound like books I might need to look into.  If they steer clear of the revised miniature Star Wars universe where everyone is related to each other, they would be something I’m definitely interested in.

 

 

Tales of the Jedi (it is a comic book series, not any actual novels as far as I know) have a radio drama adaption for the first few parts of the series, as do a few selected stories from Tales from Mos Eisely (which is a novel). If you live in a city with a halfway decent public library, they might have them, and if not, should be able to aquire them for you through interlibrary loan.

As for the Star Wars: Tales of... books, a lot of it really is crap, but for the most part it is unrelated to the main story and characters of the films. Each one graps a handful of background characters and makes them the main character of their own random sci-fi story taking place in the SW universe. If you are into sci-fi books in general, you might enjoy these. The nice thing about them is they are collections of short stories, so if you find you are not enjoying one story at all, you can skip over to the next one without missing anything.

 This is why these are the best EU books I have read. They truely do expand on the universe, and aren't creatively castrated by being tied to some hack-job chronology, etc. I like the individual author styles, which are often much different from what one might expect from a SW novel, whether they are uncharacteristically realistic or totally out there. I'll admit I haven't read that much EU, but I enjoyed the Tales Of stories a lot. Even though people make fun of stuff like IG-88 being the Death Star brain--I like it. It's Twilight Zone for Star Wars sometimes. Or would you rather have Chewbacca killed by a moon colliding with him? Honestly, what stoner thought up that one? "Duuude...what if Chewie gets hit by a moon?? Woah, far out!"

Alexrd said:

zombie84 said:

You can call it something else, but you'd be wrong--or at least, that the majorly held opinion and wide public census is that its "poor" to one degree or another

Poor to whom? On what basis do you claim the wide public census?

We base it on whatever the majority opinion is. The majority opinion, as exemplified by the media, reviews, the internet, and also daily interaction as far as can be reasonably expected (i.e. not just the SW fan club), says the film was poor, overall. This is a public consensus. This doesn't mean everyone dislikes the film, but that on balance there is (much) more negativity than positivity. I don't know of anyone who doubts this other than prequel fans, but based on this I don't know what would convince them otherwise. It's in books, in magazines, in newspapers, in awards (or lack thereof), in ratings, in websites, in TV shows, in the news, and in conversation. As I said, it's not that the film was deemed the worst film of all time--although there were people being this harsh--but simply that it was not particularly good.

It doesn't normally require proving except to prequel fans, because its in a category called "common knowledge", exemplified by all of the previously-mentioned sources and examples which anyone who was alive in 1999 witnessed firsthand. Maybe one could question how negative that perception is, because I will agree that is hard to precisely measure, and I would also argue that it is not as negative as some may think, but as far as most reasonable people are concerned there is little doubt that the perception is negative overall to one degree or another. It has a bad reputation. Period.

The film received mediocre reviews and was slaughtered by the major press.

No, it wasn't.

 

Yes it was:

http://www.secrethistoryofstarwars.com/episodeirelease.html

The major press gave it the worst ratings of all, in the early wave of reviews. I didn't make this up. That's what happened. And overall, its critical ratings are mediocre, at best--5.2 or something by both RT and Metacritic, and confirmed by a brief perusal of major media sources. Once again, that's not me talking, that's simply the way it is. Period.

Many fans hated it,

And many loved it, and many liked it.

But with all the other bad press, bad reviews, and the majority of reviews which are mediocre (take a look yourself), the scale tips to the negative, hence this is irrelavant as far as "disproving" its negative overall reception. As far as consensus it matter little if there are numbers of fans that think the film is great when most people don't, because consensus, or overall impression, or basic public reputation, or however you want to describe it, depends on what the overall balance is. Few people would believe anyone who said the overall balance of TPM's rep is positive. The evidence backs this up.

I don't know where there is perception amongst a small group of people that believe it isn't infamous; were you guys around in 1999? The entire non-PT-fan world didn't just get amnesia and forget all the bad press it received.

I'm not saying it hadn't bad press, it just wasn't the majority of it. Just like TESB or RotJ.

 

ESB had little bad press. ROTJ did. But people today still hate ROTJ. Many will admit its not that good a film and even in 1997 it had some poor reviews. But this is irrelevant. And a common tactic--bring up TPM's rep by trying to bring down the OT. Strawman. I didn't realise we were trying to argue TPM was reviewed as bad as ROTJ, I thought we were arguing wheather TPM overall had a poor public image. Stick with the topic.

There are a swath of editorials on it, many of them still online for you to view yourself. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it has a moldy 39% meter from actual critics, and a 5.2 rating, which metacritic basically corroborates. Not exactly great. In fact, pretty poor. At IMDB, it rates better, but only 6.5 or something like that, still rather mediocre. It swept the razzies, routinely appears on "disappointing movies" list and the like, and just in terms of general experience gets mentioned in connection with mediocre films. Personally, I don't think it's totally terrible, but I will agree with the public concensus that it's not very good.

Again, public concensus is not made of film critics, or a couple of lists made by a couple of people. It's the audience, the general public. There was a survey about this back in '99 that I'm almost sure is still online. I'll try to find it and post it here.

The public consensus is made up of all these things--not one, and not the other. The media, the conversations, the websites, all these things. More people on the internet have negative things to say about the films than those who have positive things. In my own experience, and the experience of many others, people in real life are not particularly fond. By reviews, the film did poorly. By editorials, there are more negative than positive. By the largest survey online, IMDB, the film has a sub-par rating. By awards, it swept the razzies. And on, and on.

The overall impression then, is one of negativity. If you like the film, fine. I like tons of movies that the public consensus deems poor, or whatever. But I'm not going to deny it. Let's get real here, jesus.

I don't recall those GL claims. But even if true, I wouldn't call them entirely incorrect.

So even though you don't know what I am referring to, you still claim it's "not entirely correct." This is called putting a conclusion before the evidence, and its pretty consistent with the rest of your response.

The film received positive notices, sure, in fact quite a few, but it received a lot of awful, terrible reviews as well; most reviews were so-so, and even in the positive ones there is often a tinge of disappointment that the film wasn't as good as the others. That being said, there is this perception that critics ravaged the film, and that it is universally hated--and that's where the misperception comes in. According to reviews, it is disappointing overall, sub-par--but not the worst film in history.

While I agree about the general misperception, I have a slightly more positive view of the film's reception (still based on the info that came out at the time, and over the years). Anyway, since none of us have the universal survey, truth, whatever, I guess we have to leave it at that.

However, someone who has researched much more and has not based his conclusion on logical fallacies ad nauseum has much stronger legs to stand on than one who has not.

I've studied the critical reception of the film in two separate studies if you would like to look at the reviews at least.

Yes, I've read those before. I respect your opinion and research, even though I still disagree with some points.

 You can disagree all you like, but you haven't made any coherant counterargument.

None: That book is not something to throw around as though it has much merit. It's self published. Its basically some prequel gusher decided to publish his own defense of TPM through a self-printing service. It's filled with the same logical fallacies, research holes, rhetoric, and ignorance to the larger picture, not to mention denial, that you see on the boards at TFN. It has some merit for its tracking of the TPM hype, and it clearly came from a good place, but as far as the "Defense" of the film, it's academically lacking. He did another one for ROTS which is even worse from what I can tell. I don't know of any reputable publication that has ever referenced his conclusions as far as this issue is concerned.