posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
connielane at 02:45pm on 25/05/2007 under franchise films
connielane at 02:45pm on 25/05/2007 under franchise filmsHostel 2. Shrek the Third. A third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. A fourth Die Hard movie. Ocean's 13. And Harry Potter, Book 7. And that's just this summer! What is it about good stories that make us constantly want to hear or see more about them? Lots of things, I guess. Familiar characters that we love or love to hate - from Barbossa to Obi Wan to Donkey to Q to Ron Weasley to Hannibal Lecter. Audience in-jokes and favorite lines that we repeat to each other ad nauseum - "Why is the rum gone?" ... "Fear me, if you dare!" ... "U NO POO" ... and "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf***er." For whatever reason, certain films offer us a home away from home, and we feel comfortable and welcome on the screen or in the pages. And we enjoy coming back to those homes again and again.
So I thought I would add to the joy of this sequel-heavy summer by doing a post a day on what I'm going to call Franchise Films. Movies that are part of a set. In most cases I will be doing a post on each film in the franchise I'm covering, but some franchises are simply too huge - or the sequels not noteworthy enough - to do that. I believe all of the franchises I'm covering, though, have a pretty hardcore fan following. Well, if they didn't, there wouldn't be sequels, would there?
We begin our journey with the Star Wars franchise. Several of you correctly guessed that today is significant because thirty years ago today the world was first introduced to a galaxy far, far away. We met Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi Wan Kenobi. We saw Han shoot first, cheered at the magnificent destruction of the Death Star, practiced breathing like Darth Vader, and tried to do Jedi mind tricks on our friends.
Despite the anniversary, though, I won't be starting with the original 1977 film; I'm going in story order. That's right, I'm kicking things off with that bane of the series, The Phantom Menace.
The hype for this was unbelievable. We'd had our appetites whetted for this by the theatrical release of the Special Editions of the original trilogy, and we were really and truly going to get three more Star Wars movies. OMG x infinity! This was, I think, the first of these films - or any others, to be honest - where people were actually camped out in line weeks (or even months) in advance to be the first people to see it. There were huge stars attached to it - Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, and lots of original folks like Anthony Daniels and Ian McDiarmid reprising their roles from the original movies.
I camped out for roughly a few hours and was surprised how easy it was to get in on the first screening of opening night. The Lucasfilm logo appeared and the room exploded in cheers. I shed a tear as the crawl started. And I was fairly entertained by the movie itself. I thought the kid playing Anakin was all kinds of annoying, yet he was nothing to everyone's least favorite sidekick Jar-Jar Binks.
I was surprised by the negative responses to the film, though, and felt that the people who were reviewing this thing as fans of the old movies were looking at it from their new adult perspective and had lost the wonder that made them fall in love with the originals when they were kids.
The movie has its flaws, to be sure. I could never understand the politics of these films and had a hard time keeping track of the things that all the much harder-core fans seemed to know all about before even seeing the movie. But something I've always loved about these movies is that they take place in a rich and fully realized world. I don't think we're meant to understand every single thing, and we're supposed to be a bit lost - we've stepped into a world that's not our own and some things, even if they're explained to us, are just *going* to feel foreign and not quite right.
I'm not going to bother with a plot summary for this (or any of the other SW films, probably), because anyone who's a fan of these movies can probably explain it better than I can and anyone who isn't a fan is not going to care. :P What this film is essentially about is introducing us to the future Darth Vader and the woman he loves who bears him twin children, Luke and Leia. It also sets up an atmosphere that leads the characters to create the world to which we were introduced in the original Star Wars.
As a first set-up film for a story we already know, I think it did its job fairly well. And it felt like its own story with only occasional glances at future events from the original trilogy. I do think it could have been better - Lucas has clearly lost the talent he once had for engaging character dialogue. But I don't think it's quite as bad as everyone seems to remember.
So I thought I would add to the joy of this sequel-heavy summer by doing a post a day on what I'm going to call Franchise Films. Movies that are part of a set. In most cases I will be doing a post on each film in the franchise I'm covering, but some franchises are simply too huge - or the sequels not noteworthy enough - to do that. I believe all of the franchises I'm covering, though, have a pretty hardcore fan following. Well, if they didn't, there wouldn't be sequels, would there?
We begin our journey with the Star Wars franchise. Several of you correctly guessed that today is significant because thirty years ago today the world was first introduced to a galaxy far, far away. We met Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Obi Wan Kenobi. We saw Han shoot first, cheered at the magnificent destruction of the Death Star, practiced breathing like Darth Vader, and tried to do Jedi mind tricks on our friends.
Despite the anniversary, though, I won't be starting with the original 1977 film; I'm going in story order. That's right, I'm kicking things off with that bane of the series, The Phantom Menace.
The hype for this was unbelievable. We'd had our appetites whetted for this by the theatrical release of the Special Editions of the original trilogy, and we were really and truly going to get three more Star Wars movies. OMG x infinity! This was, I think, the first of these films - or any others, to be honest - where people were actually camped out in line weeks (or even months) in advance to be the first people to see it. There were huge stars attached to it - Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, and lots of original folks like Anthony Daniels and Ian McDiarmid reprising their roles from the original movies.
I camped out for roughly a few hours and was surprised how easy it was to get in on the first screening of opening night. The Lucasfilm logo appeared and the room exploded in cheers. I shed a tear as the crawl started. And I was fairly entertained by the movie itself. I thought the kid playing Anakin was all kinds of annoying, yet he was nothing to everyone's least favorite sidekick Jar-Jar Binks.
I was surprised by the negative responses to the film, though, and felt that the people who were reviewing this thing as fans of the old movies were looking at it from their new adult perspective and had lost the wonder that made them fall in love with the originals when they were kids.
The movie has its flaws, to be sure. I could never understand the politics of these films and had a hard time keeping track of the things that all the much harder-core fans seemed to know all about before even seeing the movie. But something I've always loved about these movies is that they take place in a rich and fully realized world. I don't think we're meant to understand every single thing, and we're supposed to be a bit lost - we've stepped into a world that's not our own and some things, even if they're explained to us, are just *going* to feel foreign and not quite right.
I'm not going to bother with a plot summary for this (or any of the other SW films, probably), because anyone who's a fan of these movies can probably explain it better than I can and anyone who isn't a fan is not going to care. :P What this film is essentially about is introducing us to the future Darth Vader and the woman he loves who bears him twin children, Luke and Leia. It also sets up an atmosphere that leads the characters to create the world to which we were introduced in the original Star Wars.
As a first set-up film for a story we already know, I think it did its job fairly well. And it felt like its own story with only occasional glances at future events from the original trilogy. I do think it could have been better - Lucas has clearly lost the talent he once had for engaging character dialogue. But I don't think it's quite as bad as everyone seems to remember.
cheerful
There are 3 comments on this entry.