h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why do people feel the need to attack star wars? It is what it is and nothing more, nothing less.

The difficulty I have with comparisons with LOTR is that it is not comparing Like With Like. LOTR is a 'high fantasy' with a deeply spiritual content principaly concerned with plot and character development in the context of a battle between good and evil.

Star Wars is Space opera, pure and simple, there is an underlying plot and Moral Tale, involving redemption but mostly it is about adventure in a vast universe from a child's perspective.

As such it is to my mind the best example of it's genre. Just as LOTR is of its.

I believe most peoples difficulty with the most recently produced episodes is that they wanted Star Wars to have 'grown up' with them, GL never had this intention in mind.

As Fans of LOTR I believe we are particularly vunerable to 'wanting things to grow with us' because following the Hobbit this is exactly what happened with Tolkien's writing. In his letters to George Allen and Unwin tolkien was constantly cautioning the LOTR would be a much more 'grown up' book and that he was concerned his readers would not like it because of this.

Star Wars is a myth for children of a technological age and to my mind should be watched from that pont of view. To compare it with LOTR seems to me to be comparable to comparing LOTR with Shakespear the frames of reference are so different that it makes no real sense, to me at least.

BUT I still feel that LOTR is the best book ever written, because it speaks to me in ways and at levels that other things don't.

There is no doubt about it Film Golumn/Smeagol is a sublime creation, I didn't find the Ents as convincing though.

Golumn/Smeagol is cutting edge, but so was Jar Jar when ep 1 was made, I struggle with modern audiences fickle response to SFX. I still love forbidden planet and the SFX in that are pretty dire compared to modern efforts, even the Monster from the Id, but they are good enough and their limitations don't get in the way.

Although I think there was a time when industrial light and Magic became too big for their boots, like most imediately successful organisations do, I think that all SF and Fantasy fans owe a debt of gratitude to them for raising the bar in the SFX field. Without ILM and Star Wars I believe it would have taken many more years not just for SFX to develop the way they have but also Computer gaming and GUI generally.

Low-tech can be fun too, as F F Coppola showed in "Bram Stoker's Dracula", in fact the oldfashioned FX were the best thing in it, next to Gary Oldman's wonderful hamming.

But Star Wars. The child in me is offended by the inconsistencies: R2d2 and C3PO are strangers to Ben Kenobi, they've never heard of him, nor he of them when we all meet first ("A New Hope"), but it turns out they were all best mates in Ben's younger days. The adult in me is offended by the interminable squabbling between Ben and Annekin, pure out-of-control bad manners in anyone let alone an enlightened jedi knight and his pupil. Bah. I've lost interest.

Don't get me wrong, I really liked the orginal Star Wars-movies, even though I'm not exactly a fan. And you're right, these films did set a new standard for special effects.

But they didn't do that in the new movies and anyway, special effects don't make up for no storyline. Also I did miss the very much loved self-irony of the original movies.

So, no, I don't think it is a question of growing-up but falling back.

Methos

Clearly this is not a topic on which we will reach agreement. I have a good deal of reasoning I could add and I still like the newer films almost as much as the older ones but: I surrender.

Hmmm... Guess I see Recumbents point about Gollum. He *is* rather different from the book (always found him the scariest creature in all of Middle Earth, ahead of Ungoliant), but I'm quite content with it, as it doesn't affect the story the way the changes to eg. Faramir does.
Don't think he's completely analogous to Judas, though. Judas, as I read him, betrays his master out of disappointment, because he isn't the political revolutionary he hoped and expected. It's an act of despair, revenge for shattering his dreams. That's not the case with Gollum, at least not the way I understand him.


Concerning Star Wars, I agree with what most of you've already said. In the old ones, though the acting wasn't always top notch, there was a touch of irony, imaginative use of FX, and a melodramatic, Space Opera story line, that appealed to the hopeless romantic in a lot of us. The new ones, though the actors are respectable and the budgets huge, have little of these.
And of course the hopeless inconsistencies doesn't really improve on matters.

>>To compare it with LOTR seems to me to be comparable to comparing LOTR with Shakespeare
Now that you mention it, I think LotR do has parallels to some of Shakespeares works.

But Strontium is right, we probably won't get any further with the Star Wars discussion.


Speaking of FX, though, let's not forget the honourable mr. Harryhausen. The scene where Shelob crawls out of her cave gave me straight flashbacks, as did the Cave Troll in FotR.



cheers
~Bistro

Great idea, let's just agree to disagree. Is there a saying in English going something like: You can't argue about taste?

And about LotR and Shakespeare - what author isn't influenced by Shakespeare at least a little?

Methos

There were so many inconsistencies with the movie and the book that it makes me angry.

They didn't do that bad of a job with Gollum's personality, etc., it was just the situations they put him in that didn't make sense.

My biggest beef is with the ending. WHAT HAPPENED TO SARUMAN? They completely left him out, and put in his place a completely unnecessary half-hour long resolution. That really ticked me off.

Also, the Ents were completely wrong; too short, too Huorn-looking.

But a good movie besides that!

Only if you believe in a higher being, though. Surely?

A lot of rotk is the appendicies - which is why the resolution is so long.

What I mean is that they took up SO LONG just to put every single bit of the last chapter in the movie, instead of the important stuff like what happened to Saruman.

Sho~ Tolkien does rely on a Higher Being. Doing so brings in unfortunate consequences for bit-players. Can't have it both ways; either the Purpose of the World required the ring to be destroyed, and saw to it that is was, or else the coincidence that occured (faltering good and blind evil cancelling each other in the only way that spells survival) was unfeasibly unlikely.

Yeah Congratulations to Lord Of The Rings! I was made up they won them all as thats the only movie I thought was the best out of them all at the Oscars. I'm a true Lord Of The Rings fan so I'm very pleased indeed.

Recumbentman - what coincidence?

The only coincidence that I see is the one present in The Hobbit, whereby the Ring finds a way out of Gollum's ownership. Is that the one to which you refer? Or have I missed your point again?

Gollum falling into the lava maybe...?

How about the final destruction of the ring coinciding with the final battle?

Recumbentman, I wasn't referring to Middle Earth. It is obvious that there is at least one higher being at work there.

There aren't really any coincidences, though, are there? Bilbo finding the ring was the ring's doing, nobody elses. Which means that it must be ... what's the word? It has precognitive abilities.

Tolkein said it was not an allegory , but if the Hobbits aren't the pre war English working man and the Brandywine the channel then I've missed something .I would have enjoyed the films more if they had been bolder about breaking away from the books . Prime example , the attempt to reconcile book fans at the end of Return of the king sends you out into the rain fumbling for your car keys and bored , and stil misses all the meaning in the scouring of the Shire , and all the hooks for it were put in the 2 Towers .

A Prescient Ring? Well...since it belongs to Sauron and has some of his power...why not?!

Thanks, Gradient... I couldn't think of that word to save my life earlier.

As for being bolder about departing from the books: no. There was too much deviation, if anyone wants my opinion. and although I think the films were truly brilliant, and I love them - there were enough departure and ommissions thank you very much.

*smashes head against wall*

Its impossible to stick to the lord of the rings. Granted it does deviate a lot but come on, he spent 7 years of his life making that trilogy - and the result is impressive enough, especially when you see how far hes pushed acting, film making, and technology.

Perhaps near the end of my days they'll remake it totally like the book. Buts whos got a few days of there life to spend watching a film (a few days being a least remember)