I was 8 when Star Wars came out, and I remember quite well how it changed the world. Not only were there lines around the block for weeks after the movie opened, our music teacher stopped teaching what she had planned, and changed to just playing the soundtrack while telling us about what happened in the film. If you watch the George C. Scott movie Hardcore, you'll see a giant billboard for Star Wars in one scene, and when Scott goes into a stripclub, the strippers are on stage, wearing plastic capes and dueling with toy lightsabres. That's the kind of impact Star Wars had back in '77. Literally, everybody and anybody was talking about it constantly. It stayed in some theaters for over a year (When was the last time you ever hear of a movie staying in a theater for more than a couple of months, let alone a year?) The closest we've come in years since, IMHO, is the LOTR movies, and I say this as someone who hates them. I do not think we'll ever see the like again, not because I don't think that Lucas' vision was such that it can never be equaled, but because our world has changed so much since then. You could plunk an equally revolutionary movie down in theaters today, and it would do well, but it wouldn't do as well as the original Star Wars, simply because going to the movies isn't the kind of thing that it once was.
Very well put. Like I said before GOTG is a good flick but trying to compare it to Star Wars is ludicrous.
So, what I'm hearing is that T.R., Zor Prime, and Tuckerfan love Guardians Of The Galaxy more than Star Wars.
I don't think the Star Wars comparisons are over done if you're comparing the tone and scope of the two movies. In terms of history and society, Star Wars hit a sweet spot, and nobody, not even Lucas, expected a success. It was a one-off. And it stayed in the cinema for so long, because back in the late 70's you didn't have cheap media, Netflix, or any of that shit. You had a pricey bit of hardware that would occasionally chew up your pricey tape (they were what in the 80s? $/£80 per movie). It took 5 years to be released on VHS. The only way of seeing it again was going back to the cinema for 5 bloody years. There were claims that ESB would never be released to the home market due to cost. Now you can pick it up on ebay for less for a burger. So, there may be 37 years of home entertainment advancements that could possibly explain why GotG only got a few months on the big screen. Hell, I saw TWoK a year after it was released at the cinema, because even though that was released on tape at a discount, cinemas knew that it was cheaper for people to go see films there still. It was pretty standard then to show successful movies for years, as they still pulled in a crowd. I'm pretty comfortable that if you swapped the two movie scripts in time and space GotG would have achieved everything SW did, I'm a lot less convinced SW would do as well as GotG though. Don't get me wrong, I love SW, but were it released today, in a world with no previous SW experience, it'd be slaughtered. And that is assuming it was released without the cloven hooves of the studio stamping around on the script for good or ill.
Even in the '70s it was unheard of, at least in the US, for films to stay in the theater for a year. They lasted longer than they do now, but that's due to a combination of factors, not simply because there was no home video market at the time.
A but of a google tells me SW initially ran for 44 weeks, beaten by ET, both of which are beaten by the Rocky Horror Show (albeit, not quite in as many cinemas!) So this means Rocky Horror is the bestest everer movie. I'm not going to disagree, as it is one of my favourite films! SW had several re-runs afterwards, as did several movies - in the 80's cinemas would dig out the crowd pleasers and do a run between a few days and a few weeks. Yes, there was a combination of factors, but pulling it out as some kind of evidence that GotG isn't akin to SW as a film is just balls.
Rocky Horror doesn't count, since it spent most of its life as a "Midnight Madness" movie Actually, that was how things worked until home video came along, movie theaters were always dragging out old films and reshowing them. Basically, they followed Disney's home video model before there was home video. (That's one of the ways Gone With the Wind has the highest number of tickets sold of any movie in history, BTW.) But as Star Wars proved, movies are more than just what you see on the screen. When somebody says, "Its this generation's ______________!" I don't think that its something which bears some superficial similarities to the original concept, I think of it as having the same overall impact as the original. Stop and think about it for a second. Everyone, just about, bagged on Avatar for being a rip off of FernGully, but nobody said, "Its this generation's FernGully!" If I said, "Its this generation VW Beetle!" would you expect something that looked like the VW Beetle, or a car of spartan appearance, that was cheap to own and operate and was ubiquitous?
I know that's how it worked, hence why I pointed it out a few posts up as reason why SW was still in cinemas a long time after release and GotG wasn't... In terms of a movie, it does have the same impact - you grin, you laugh, you want to go see it again, you want to own the damn thing, and you want toys of the characters, and you want to next one out next week - in terms of social impact it doesn't, because we've changed as a society. You'll never get something that'll have the same effect SW did, for a whole multitude of reasons, but that is no reason something can't be a generations version of it. Taking your VW example, if a new car came along that was called the Beetle of the new generation, would it be fair to pooh-pooh that on the basis no one decided to get a pile of them in a film with Michael Caine or a series of family friendly movies where one races?
By that logic every movie people like is "this generation's Star Wars". Yet the Palestinians, and other groups, have seen fit to dress up in Avatar-themed outfits as part of their protests, whole groups of Avatar uber-dorks, within weeks of the movie being released, started learning the language of the blue people, and other things we've only seen in the fandom of things like Star Wars, Star Trek, and the Lord of the Rings (Titanic might be another one, though its kind of faded now). If that's happening with GotG, I've seen no signs of it. Remember the rash of people wanting clown fish as pets after Finding Nemo? Seen any news stories about people trying to keep raccoons as pets in the wake of GotG? And yes, they can be trained to be house pets. I haven't seen the incessant dropping of lines, characters, images, etc. for GotG like we saw with Avatar, LOTR, Star Wars, Titanic, and Star Trek. Both the Beetle and the Mini Cooper were already ubiquitous when people decided to build movies around them, and the movies were a reflection of that cultural phenomenon. So, if they were as common as iPhones are today, and didn't feature in a film, that'd be more than a little odd. (And yes, while there hasn't been a movie focused around a particular brand of smartphone in the same way that the Herbie movies were around the Beetle, smartphones, in general, are so commonplace that if we didn't see any in a film set in 2014, we'd think it was odd as fuck.)
I'm going to be going to see "...The Wrath of Khan" in a theater at the end of this month. "Ghostbusters" too. On the other hand, "Guardians..." has been out for some time and is still in the first-run theaters, commanding first-run prices. I know, because I really want to go see it again, but I've said I'd wait until I could see it for $5-7--while eating pizza and drinking beer.
That is not what is being argued. Everyone has different tastes and its all a matter of opinion. But Packard said... THIS is the crux of the argument.That line implies more than just the film's merits. Its indicating that GOTG is a cultural phenomon on the level that Star Wars was which is simply not true.
Yes. I didn't want to see it myself after seeing those goofy trailers but after seeing its success and good word of mouth I went to see it. It was a bit over the top at times but still entertaining.
Nope. Here's what I actually said: There. Didn't say it was or wasn't, but gave you precise perspective on what the comparison was supposed to mean, and it has nothing to do with the size of the cultural phenomenon or even with the film's general merits (although I think they're excellent), but with one dominant aspect of its style.
Haven't seen this one either, and I don't really want to; I liked the TV series so much that the writers for the movie would really have to do some real writing to make the movie as interesting or more. But what I see the writers doing is "hey this was a big success 20+ years ago; let's take the title and run with it," Instead of figuring out what made the series a hit and then running with it.
possibly Packard meant something else. in the reviews I saw where that phrase was used, the context implied that GotG was like SW in that it wuld be the movie that would be beloved by this generation of movie goers fr years or decades even. Those of uis old enough to remember seeing SW in theaters when it first appeared have a special fondness for it. Those born 8in the "electronic media generation" (say since 1990?) are much harder to impress, so you'll never completely replicate that emotion, but GotG captures a similar sort of "feel" that, so the argument goes, is more likely to stay in the hearts of the EMG that - for an example - Avatar or other big budget movies of the 21st century. I think that is a much more intangible claim, since it can't really be proven by "weeks in the theater" or other sch metrics, but I'm inclined to find it a reasonable claim. If it is not true in the absolute, it's certainly not irrational or indefensible.
I can feel when a flick is going to be an immortal hit, because I've been there for them before. Avengers will be talked about decades from now, ditto Guardians. The first Iron Man, for sure. I sense Avengers 2 is going to be another whollop. That'll kill Avatar. Bet on it.
Groot was certainly that film's Chewbacca:Makes people laugh without saying much and can be a ferocious fighter one second while fun loving the next.
Hell, Guardians is still playing here on the big screens in theaters on both sides of town. Kind of surprising in this day and age.
Finally caught this. I do think the comparisons to Star Wars are completely off-base, but it was a helluva fun and entertaining flick. IMO, it's easily the best Marvel movie yet. Head and shoulders above Avengers.
