That's true, in my area, there are whole sections of TFA merchandise, and those girls star wars bratz style dolls no one wants.there's tons of Rey, Finn, Poe figures in the 6 inch scale..hard freaking pressed to find a dang Darth Vader, not to mention any of Luke Jedi Master. Storm Troopers I like. First Order..meh. I'd rather have a clone warrior. Hard to find now.., but tons of Star Wars Merchandise still on shelves. But boy those batcave playsets with a Jim Lee style grey and black Batman included, those things are going like hot cakes! Edit: my wish is to have a 6 inch scale Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Clone emperor, and dark trooper. Loved all that.
Yes, but they weren't so bad it was laughable. There is literally half a dozen soldiers shooting Han out in the open and not one of them makes a single hit, infact they miss by a considerable amount. Luke was whiney on Dagobah, but not nearly as bad.. Well that would explain it, and I would become a lot more sympathetic :-) Acutally yeah, or maybe third after DC.
It’s a movie. A fairy tale. What do you want? The Stormtroopers to kill or maim one of our heroes in the very first movie? Are you secretly rooting for the Empire? It’s called character growth. He was a child on Tatooine and growing up on Dagobah. It’s contrast. Hell, even on Dagobah on Jedi he does a little whining but again it’s more mature.
They could've had him, atleast take cover or run up. But he just stands there and shoots a few with pinpoint accuracy before running up. Not so secretly :-)
Exactly-they were kids films, and treated as such by the studio. Only for the studio to be blown away that this "kid's film" did so well, completely destroyed Fox's big scifi movie and created a franchise. But, they are, at their heart, kids' films. The fact that they are taken so seriously now really fails to understand what they were meant to be from the beginning. The merchandising is the same thing-aimed at kids. And, as a kid, I loved every minute of it. On the topic of the OP, calling SW underrated misses the social context of the times and what the original did and what the PT did. Regardless f story, the films pushed the technological envelope as far as it possibly could. Lucas should be credited with a lot of filming techniques that are taken for granted by audiences today. The fact that the fan base has exploded doesn't change the impact that they have had.
I've never thought of the original trilogy as being purely "kids' movies," but, rather, as movies that universally appeal to the "kid" in all of us. When I actually was a kid, the grand, operatic themes of SW were way beyond any typical kids' show, and there were plenty of aspects that I didn't fully appreciate until years later. Then TPM came along with Jar-Jar and little Ani. Kor
Why wouldn't we hold it to a high standard with all the money that goes into selling it to us? And if Star Wars is the most overrated franchise ever that what would you consider not overrated in today's world? Star Wars kicked off the franchise and blockbuster ball 40 years ago and it's still in possession of that ball today even with everything else that is out there. It's not Shakespeare but it did reinvent the hero for the movie age and obviously has things that appeal to a wide variety of people. There is long and personal investment in it from one generation to the next.
Why shouldn't SW be seen as akin to Shakespeare? Shakespearean literature itself is overrated and put on an unmerited pedestal, when the bard's plays were actually just part of the popular everyday entertainment for the masses of that era. Kor
"A New Hope" still has legs. It's a lean story that moves like gangbusters and still looks great and entertains after many decades. "The Empire Strikes Back" looks like a shitload of money was spent on it and the cinematography is beautiful to behold ... but there's too much sitting around and waiting around and roaming around to cushion a very thin script. It's style over substance. Everything afterwards is repetitious, middle-of-the-road and uninspired rubbish.
Yes it's probably overrated (like everything really) but it's greatest strength is how it inspires the imagination and the underlying complex themes it juggles about with from Good versus Evil, Failed Father figures, lust for power, fear of the unknown, faith, hope and many more issues. Star Wars also helped push technology of film making making a Science Fiction Universe world look real and not cheap. There are plenty of cracks within the Star Wars foundations but after so many movies, books, games and simple decades of existence with a huge fan base to boot, that cannot be helped.
I never clicked with Star Wars until The Force Awakens, which I saw in theatres because I'm a fan of JJ Abrams' other work. After that I enjoyed Rogue One and The Last Jedi. The older stuff ranges from watchable to dire, IMHO.
When ANH (aka in 1977 "Star Wars" with no episode number or sub-title) it was a revelation, a fully enjoyable movie with no anti-heroes etc. a scifi fantasy film with an upbeat premise throughout, It really affected American culture in a way that nothing has since. Most SF fantasy films released up to that time were rather dark with dis-utopia following dis-utopia and downer ending after downer ending..All of a sudden, it became fashionable to have a positive outlook on the future again, and it stayed that way until 9/11.. I feel we desperately need something like it again.. Now as to currently over-rated franchises, I do feel the Marvel extended universe and the Star Wars prequels and on are equally over blown.
HA! That's not a sentiment I share, I'm afraid. No .. not I, sir. When I think about STAR TREK: The Motion Picture coming out after STAR WARS and how different it is from that, it makes me love TMP that much more. It didn't jump the bandwagon, even though SW was so fresh in the public's mind and its effects on the entertainment industry were at their most profound. But I do wish that the STAR WARS franchise had been a whole lot better. It had the potential to be. It just wasn't in the cards ... and yet, people still empty their pockets out for it, like they did and do for Thomas Kinkade prints (... kitsch of the worst sort)!