It's a different world today. Star Wars really the first of its kind and was treated in many ways as a kids movie until we grew up.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
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Star Wars was a kids' movie. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" -- it tells us right up front that it's a fairy tale. It was Lucas's homage to all the stuff he loved as a kid, like Flash Gordon serials, samurai movies, WWII movies, Laurel and Hardy, etc. So it can't really be called the first of its kind when its entire reason for existence was to pay homage to its many predecessors. Unless you mean that it pioneered the mainstreaming of sci-fi and space opera into popular acceptance, but I think Star Trek has it beat there by over a decade. (And it was paying homage to Star Trek too, as is evident from the title.) Lucas has said that he cited Star Trek's success in syndication to convince studio execs that his space-opera movie could be profitable.
As a science-fiction blockbuster, Star Wars was the first of its kind, far surpassing the success of earlier science-fiction films that had had an influence on mainstream culture, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The size of Star Trek's audience has always paled by comparison with the size of Star Wars'.
The size of Star Trek's audience has always paled by comparison with the size of Star Wars'.
I wouldn't call it a kids movie. "Toy Story' is a kids movie. I think it was for teenagers and young adults. But also something kids could also enjoy.
As Captain America is on super Steroids, he's not even allowed to watch the Olympics on TV.
Definitely a kids movie. Plenty of 6 and 7 year old's saw it. Still do.
Yep. I was 7. My original point being, by the time of the X-Men, comic book and science fiction movies had "grown up". Alex Guinness was basically upset was for a role in what he considered a crappy movie. McKellen, being younger, has a much different take on movies than Gunness did--but also because the culture of movies and audiences changed in the intervening decades.
Oh absolutely. I also wonder how Guinness would have responded if he had been Gandalf in the late 70's. An established piece of literature.
Actually.... Was LOTR considered literature at that point?
I agree that it's a movie that will get kids to want to watch but my argument though is it was teenagers and young adults that would be the main target of something like this. Especially teenage boys in the late 70's and early 80's. These were the fans who would go back 3 and 4 and 5 times to keep rewatching it.
IMO most kids movies are actually cartoons or cartoon adjacent like Muppets, and the good ones are ones that older people also can enjoy even if they aren't the target audience. I do think Return of the Jedi might have been more aimed specifically at kids than the first 2. By that point kids were into and had all the toys and whatnot so Lucas felt the need to change the Wookies into Ewoks.
George Lucas openly stated that the Star Wars films are 'kid's movies', so it's silly that anybody would ever dispute that fact.
LOTR had a huge place in 60s counter culture. Listen to Led Zepplin lyrics for multiple references. Dungeons and Dragons owed a lot of its inspiration to Tolkien. It was not considered in the same reverential way as today, however.
It was definitely a "family" movie. Remember that Lucas didn't think it would make any money and its popularity was a huge surprise that year.
Movie 4 introduces kids to "my First genocide".
The female lead was shit faced on cocaine the whole was through the fifth movie, and kept as an Epstienian sex slave in #6.
"For this I got sober? Fuck you George."
Like with Roddenberry I think their has been some revision to his vision of what his franchise was suppose to be. Star Wars though has never really been anti-kid, except I guess maybe Andor. The one and only Star Wars made for and only adults.
While McKellen was born 25 years after Guinness, I don't find it credible to say that someone born in 1939 would qualify as the generation that grew up with SF/fantasy being respectable. There were plenty of people of McKellen's generation or younger who were dismissing genre media as frivolous kid stuff well into the '80s or '90s.
So I don't think you can attribute individual actors' attitudes and preferences to generational trends. The difference between Guinness's attitude and McKellen's is probably more personal. Maybe McKellen enjoyed his work on X-Men more because he got to work with his old Royal Shakespeare Company buddy Patrick Stewart. Guinness didn't have anyone of his own generation to work with except Peter Cushing, and they didn't have any scenes together.
There's also the story that McKellen advised Stewart against slumming in TV by taking the role of Captain Picard, and came to see how wrong he'd been. So he'd already had good reason to broaden his mind about mass-media genre work by the time X-Men came along.
And don't forget Nimoy's rendition of "The Ballard of Bilbo Baggins."
Exactly. All of the MCU-blinders in the world cannot erase the number of Marvel Studios theatrical and stream flops suffered across recent years, including one history-making disaster. That's fatigue and in some cases, outright distaste. To say Disney is gambling everything on the next Avengers film would be the understatement of the century.
He first stated that the Star Wars films were kid's movies back in 1980, so, "no".
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But "Star Wars" came out in 1977. By the time 1980 rolled around it was a big hit and also big with the kids as well. The merchandise was selling like hot cakes. No doubt a major impact on how he would forever perceive Star Wars from then on.