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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
I actually didn't like the first three movies much either. Rather typical good vs. evil, bad special effects (my standards are so much higher since I was only born in '83  ).
But ILM was a great spinoff, and being the first film to use Surround Sound are plusses.
But I've never understood why it's such a big phenomenon. |
Your first parp. tell it all. You will be only 19 sometime this year. You grew up with Computer and Video games in the home. Star Wars came out 5 year before you were born. By the time you saw Star Wars it was 12 to 15 years old.
When I was a young boy (born 3/44) all sound was mono.
I can not remember when stereo came out (Late 50s I think). Surround Sound has been out since mid to late 80s? So for us older people it is a big deal. The first Stereo Card for a computer came out two week after I bought my 486 in Feb 92.
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Garth Vader
I just saw GF and GF2 a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't that impressed. It had a good story but was just too damn long.
If you have a short attention span Asher than the 175 minutes of GF and 200 minutes of GF2 is not for you |
(JohnT takes this opportunity to talk about a real movie for a change, not this pop sciffy crap)
What???!!!??? "Not that impressed"????
This is the greatest guy movie ever - better than Cool Hand Luke (the sweatiest movie ever), better than The Dirty Dozen (did you cry when Jim Brown died?), better even than Braveheart. A bunch of men doing manly things talking manly talk - and not a mushy romance in sight! (Well, there's the Appolonia thing, but she died pretty damn quick)
The scene that, in my mind, really makes the two movies special: In the end of GF2 there is a flashback where the family is gathered to spring a surprise birthday party on Don Corleone. In the course of the scene Michael tells his family that he joined the Marines against his fathers wishes/plans. Sonny gets all pissed, Tom is irritated as hell, but Fredo... Fredo congratulates Michael on the first adult decision he made.
The only person who supported Michael, and Michael just had him killed. It breaks my heart every time I see Fredo shake Mike's hand. 
God! Look at the talent the movie introduced: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Francis Ford Coppola, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, hell, even Abe Vigoda got his break in the Godfather. Is there anybody in this film who is even a little miscast? No. Al Lettieri - the perfect Sollozo. Sterling Hayden - the perfect corrupt cop. And Al Pacino... my God, to think that this was just his second major motion picture! Is there any colder stare in cinema than Michael Corleone's?
The amazing thing about the Godfather is the difference between original conception and final product. Had Robert Evans (head of Production at Paramount) had his way, the Godfather would've been set in the 1970's, starred Ernest Borgnine and Ryan O'Neal (as Don and Michael Corleone respectively), and dealt with pimps and pushers.
A correction: Somebody in this thread made mention of SW being Harrison Ford's breakout role - wrong. He was in American Graffiti and The Conversation long before SW.
Trivia: George Lucas shot all the newspaper inserts that you see in the Godfather.
"If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone."
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MrBaggins
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Yep... Harrison would have never gotten the later roles were it not for StarWars.
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MrBaggins
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Whilst he may have acted a couple of times before, it wasn't steady work.
Harrison Ford was a carpenter before Star Wars.
Read the Hello magazine profile of him
It was a classic case of Hollywood kismet when the carpenter at MGM Studios landed the lead role in a blockbuster movie. Out-of-work actor Harrison Ford was fitting an office door for Francis Ford Coppola when a studio executive, testing actresses for a new film, asked the good-looking workman to help out by reading the lines written for the male lead. The hero was called Han Solo and the movie was Star Wars – the rest is legend.
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:19
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Asher: "But I've never understood why it's such a big phenomenon."
Hell, I'll tackle this one. Imran's explanation is a little... lacking. After all, most pieces of fiction has protagonists and antagonists... that SW has them is nothing special, of course.
1977. If there is a "dark period" of American history, it would obviously be between 11-22-1963 and 1-20-1981 (from Kennedy's assassination to the release of the Iranian hostages). Films too were dark - in story, in character, hell, even the cinematography was dark. The quality films of this decade were bleaker and more demanding than anything done in American cinema before or since, and IMHO, audiences probably got tired of one depressing ending after another.
Star Wars literally came onto the American cultural landscape at the time when it was its darkest, and to many people it was a breath of fresh air. It was dazzling, it was exciting, it was fun, the good guys won, the bad guys lost, and it just looked freakin' AWESOME! For once you actually felt good coming out of the theater - try doing that after Taxi Driver/Network/Chinatown.
You complain about bad f/x, but honestly Asher, that's just youth talking. No movie other than 2001 had decent F/X before SW (yes, I'm probably over-generalizing - it's almost midnight, fer chrissakes!) and it was SW that showed just what could be done with them. To an audience that was used to... well, 70's F/X, SW was truly something to behold.
SW also really changed the way that Hollywood approached movies and it is responsible for the infantilization of American cinema since 1977*. Why make movies for 30 year-olds when SW proves that 12 year old boys will pay full-ticket prices to see the same movie over and over (a new phenomenon with SW)? Why bother trying to gross a measly $20 mil. with a very disturbing Taxi Driver when you can gross $190+ mil. (first run, non-inflation adjusted figures) with the non-controversial SW? Star Wars pioneered the cinema of moments: of images, sound, and other stimuli increasingly divorced from the story - it's why it makes great video games. When it was all done, SW and its clones returned the increasingly mature 70's audience to pre-1960's "Golden Age" of cinema and it's simplicities. As Pauline Kael put it, SW infantilized the audience by reconstituting the spectator as a child rather than a thinking, rational adult: by overwhelming us with sound and spectacle, post-SW Hollywood has pretty-much obliterated the American audience's appreciation of irony, self-consciousness, and critical reflection. So thoroughly did SW make the future safe for itself that the original trilogy could be released in 1997 and gross $250 mil+, while the simultaneous re-release of The Godfather, an immeasurably better film, paled by comparison. We are the children of Lucas, not Coppola.
*This isn't just my opinion. Here is a quote from Marcia Lucas, who edited not only Star Wars but also Taxi Driver and a number of other 70's classics: "Right now, I'm just disgusted by the American film industry. There are so few good films and part of me thinks Star Wars is partly responsible for the direction the industry has gone in, and I feel badly about that."
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MrBaggins
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No... i'm saying his BREAKOUT role was Star Wars
Acting was not a steady job for him... I.E. not continuous employment or no need for other financial support, before Star Wars.
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MrBaggins
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To follow up...
Born on July 13, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois, Harrison, the son of ad exec Christopher and homemaker Dorothy, was hardly the leading-man type at Maine Township High School East. In fact, he claims he was the class wimp. His star began to rise after he enrolled at Wisconsin’s Ripon College, where he caught the acting bug and began performing in student plays. The would-be star launched his professional acting career at the age of 21 when he signed a $150 a week, seven-year contract as a studio player in Los Angeles. Working in minor roles in film and TV, he earned his way as a carpenter even after he got his break with a small but memorable part in the 1973 flick American Graffiti. Four years later, aged 35 and still struggling, he finally shot to fame in Star Wars and followed up with roles in the Vietnam War drama Apocalypse Now, sci-fi thriller Blade Runner and, of course, two sequels to the George Lucas epic that made him famous.
Notice he was earning $150 a week, not enough to live on. He didn't need to be a carpenter after Star Wars.
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MrBaggins
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What part of 'Four years later, aged 35 and still struggling,' don't you understand?
Was a star fixing FFC's door as a favor?
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MrBaggins
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BTW... Unless imdb has financial records of those 4 roles, that doesn't consitute proof of anything.
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MrBaggins
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I didn't say he was unknown... I said breakout. Breakout means you don't need to do oddjobs to survive
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MrBaggins
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
Anyway, a "studio executive" wouldn't be casting roles in a movie - that is usually the film director's and the casting director's responsibility. The studio is usually only interesting in casting when:
1. The film is part of a package brought to it by an agent.
2. The production head is being a **** and throwing his/her weight around on the non-powerful directors.
3. When the big, bad-attitude $20mil. a film star is throwing a hissy fit and saying crap like "I'll never appear in another Fox movie again if I don't get the role of..." |
A studio exec can do anything he damn well pleases. If he wants something done one way, and a director disagrees then the director can find himself another studio, the film may not get made... but there is definite order, and directors dont supercede studio execs unless they are REAL bigshots...
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:19
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A contract? What sort of contract? Stars don't sign long-term contracts with studios anymore - they haven't since the death of the studio system in the late '50s, early '60s. Now they are all free agents and their contractual obligations are to the film, not the studio.
Imran: Hell, if we want to go back further we might as well say the blockbuster era began with The Sound of Music. It easily crushed the competition back in 1965 and made over $163 million in its first and second runs* (this is in 1965 dollars, mind you). Adjusted for inflation however, the most profitable movie ever was Gone with the Wind - but I doubt either of us want to argue that the blockbuster age began in 1939.
http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice.html
*Today, all films are "first runs", but up until the end of the '70s you had "first runs" and "second runs." First runs were when the film was limited to 1 theater within a 75 mile radius when it was released. When the film played out, it was released in a "second run" to all the small, cheap theaters that didn't get it in the first run. This literally includes all other theaters besides the first run theaters: not just drive ins and dollar theaters, but any theater that didn't lock up the rights to the first run.
Last edited by JohnT on 24-04-2002 at 10:06
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MrBaggins
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quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
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Stars don't have contracts?
To take just one example straight out of Google, how about Aileen Quinn, who starred in the 1982 film "Annie". After "Annie," Quinn seemed to drop out of sight. Under contract with Columbia Pictures for three films, only one ever materialized.
How about you find any real information contradicting the story regarding Harrison Ford.
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24-04-2002 06:37
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