Is it just me...?

[John Crichton]

Well, it's the best I've got. ;-)

LOL! Well, that works for me. I see that your trying to stay objective about this which is very cool. Since neither of us have any solid proof with the sole exception of box office & DVD sales (which don't really prove my theory) I'm willing to just let my opinion sit and get back to the topic at hand.

Since its statistically insignficant to say - "Well, me and my friends liked it OK." "No way dude, me and all of my friends hated it." - I'm shooting for some empirical evidence. And it is that; it's 1500 sci-fi fans who, as a group, pooped on TMP and AotC. It's a good sample size; probably as accurate as any national news media poll.

I appriciate the effort to prove the point with some evidence. It's very hard to quantify with statistics. Best to just let it go unless we can find some other stats to back either arguement.

 

[Kai Lord]

Late 70's and early 80's. We'll never see the likes of those years again.

Star Wars
Conan movies
first few Star Trek movies
Terminator
first few Alien movies
Predator
Hawk the Slayer
Battle Beyond the Stars
Deathstalker

First off, recent sci-fi fantasy films are every bit as good as those listed and better. Second, your list does not even come close to doing justice to the films of the late 70's/early 80's.

Today we have:
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
The Matrix (first one)
Spider-man
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

and lots of second tier but still fun sci-fi like X-Men, Daredevil, and Minority Report (damn this one would have been a classic if Steve didn't blow it in the last 20 minutes).

As for back then, throw out junk like Hawk the Slayer, Battle Beyond the Stars, and Deathstalker and replace it with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Blade Runner, and Superman: The Movie.

 

[Umbran]

In any case though, I think that not being nominated is still a great failure - Star Wars starts with a franchise fanbase, just like Star Trek. How can you not collect enough rabid fans together to outvote a Buffy episode?

Star Wars had a fanbase that had, for the most part, been allowed to lie fallow for many years. The Trek film had a fanbase that had recent, active TV series to keep it's enthusiasm up.

Buffy is/was a TV show that manages to stretch out to more mainstream audiences without losing much in quality. It has a huge, active, rabid fanbase all it's own. Biggest genre fanbase in recent TV, I'd suspect. No shame in not being able to beat it.

In the end, nominations for awards aren't the arbiter of mass appeal. Anyone know the box-office grosses for the year?

 

[John Crichton]

Star Wars dominated '99.

From http://us.imdb.com/Sections/Years/1999/top-grossing

431,065,444 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
293,501,675 The Sixth Sense
245,823,397 Toy Story 2
205,399,422 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
171,383,253 The Matrix
171,085,177 Tarzan
155,247,825 The Mummy
152,149,590 Runaway Bride
140,530,114 The Blair Witch Project
140,015,224 Stuart Little

In '02 it took its fair share.

403,706,375 Spider-Man
339,104,919 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
310,675,583 Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones
261,970,615 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
241,437,427 My Big Fat Greek Wedding
227,965,690 Signs
213,079,163 Austin Powers in Goldmember
190,418,803 Men in Black II
176,387,405 Ice Age
168,962,297 Chicago

Edit: With the exception of '02 which was an enormous genre year Star Wars has dominated the box-office every year a film was released. 2005 will depend on what else is out, of course. '03 is another good genre year. Plenty of good genre flicks already out with the best to come...

 

[Darrin Drader]

OK, in all fairness, I didn't think the Star Wars prequels were all that bad. Each movie had memorable moments that made them worthwhile. My biggest beef with TPM was simply the overuse of Jar Jar. He wasn't funny and he was obviously there for the kids. Some usage of him in the movie would have been OK, but the overusage was just bad execution.

AotC was an improvement. I was relieved when we saw more C3P0 and R2-D2 doing the comic relief and Jar Jar was reduced to a bit part. Of course that simply shows that Jar Jar was an experiement that failed (quick Lucas, nuke the character so you don't take any more heat! Who cares about the continuity?). My main beef with it is that its too dry. I really haven't found a reason to like Anakin yet at all, and I'm currently of the opinion that Darth Vader was a much more compelling character. At least Luke, while being a whiny brat, was likable. Speaking of which, we haven't seen a compelling villain yet other than Palpatine, but we already know what he's all about. Darth Maul had potential, but his lack of lines and rapid exit pretty much scrapped any interest there. Jango Fett pretty much made the movie for me, and I'm hoping that we get to see Boba Fett come back in episode III and disintegrate Mace Windu.

I also had a problem with the way Yoda shows up at the end of the big fight scene and save Anakin and Obi-One. Sure, it was neat to see him fight finally, but it takes away from the final scene. It would have been like Obi-One showing up and kicking Vader's butt at the end of Empire. They should have gotten beat, and then had to escape Dooku on their own. Oh well, it wasn't the best movie and it wasn't the worst, but at least it didn't have ewoks.

 

[Jemal]

How can you not collect enough rabid fans together to outvote a Buffy episode?

The question should be how CAN you. Buffy = awesome sci-fi (Well, it used to. last season wasn't phenomenal... though a non-stellar buffy season is akin to a great season of most other series.)

I mean come on, do you have any idea how many Buffy fans there are? Here's a hint.. the only reason the show ended was because the lead actress decided she didn't want to renew her contract. The fans were still hanging around after more than a half-dozen apocalypses.

EDIT:
BTW, on the star wars front - what does everyone have against Jar-Jar and Ewoks????? I kinda liked them. *Hides away from the soon-to-be-flying rotten vegetables*

 

[Kai Lord]

Of course that simply shows that Jar Jar was an experiement that failed (quick Lucas, nuke the character so you don't take any more heat! Who cares about the continuity?)

How was sidelining Jar Jar a break in continuity?

 

[Darrin Drader]

How was sidelining Jar Jar a break in continuity?

OK, maybe not so much a break in continuity, but in the original 3 films, the only characters that played a huge role in any of them that were sidelined later were the ones that were killed. That pretty much limits the list to Obi-One, and even he had more lines as a dead man than Jar Jar had in Clones.

 

[Kai Lord]

OK, maybe not so much a break in continuity, but in the original 3 films, the only characters that played a huge role in any of them that were sidelined later were the ones that were killed. That pretty much limits the list to Obi-One, and even he had more lines as a dead man than Jar Jar had in Clones.

Copying the formulas of past SW films was a trend started by Return of the Jedi, and I for one have not been a fan of it. Copying the formulas just for the sake of keeping an annoying character around would have been even worse. I was really hoping that the prequels would give us an entirely new kind of Star Wars, like Empire compared to the original, rather than pale re-enactments with digital effects (isn't that what the Special Editions were for?) But...ah it doesn't matter I've let go of new Star Wars being anywhere close to the originals. At least AOTC was fun in enough parts to be enjoyable on its own.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Copying the formulas just for the sake of keeping an annoying character around would have been even worse.

I'm not saying that Jar Jar should have been a major part of Clones. I just find the fact interesting. I wonder if the extra special TPM DVDs will edit out Jar Jar completely and replace him with a character with a greater appeal to a wider audience.