Why is Star Wars so popular?
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
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- Mar 31, 2010
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It's magic in space, with flashy spaceship dogfights and laser sword fights. It's still got a large fanbase among youngsters who in contrast to older fans tend to like the newer stuff as much as the old and they buy the merch / toys / games.
It has WW2 combat tropes all over the place, which seems to be the de facto standard everyone likes in movies.
It has space wizards with LAZER swords.
The bad guy(Vader) is mysterious and threatening and kinda cool looking.
SFX are generally good, with a few exceptions.
Generally relatable and/or likable characters.
Fairly well defined Good vs. Evil lines without being too controversial in theme or content. Even the Genocide of entire planets is accomplished via GIANT SPACE LASER, which doesn't have the same visceral impact of a nuke or indiscriminate bombing campaigns against urban areas.
Thus appeals to a wide swath of people
It has space wizards with LAZER swords.
The bad guy(Vader) is mysterious and threatening and kinda cool looking.
SFX are generally good, with a few exceptions.
Generally relatable and/or likable characters.
Fairly well defined Good vs. Evil lines without being too controversial in theme or content. Even the Genocide of entire planets is accomplished via GIANT SPACE LASER, which doesn't have the same visceral impact of a nuke or indiscriminate bombing campaigns against urban areas.
Thus appeals to a wide swath of people
It hit the right cord at the right moment. The first one came at a time when the world needed to be reminidned: Hay, lighthearted fun is a good thing!
For the first three, it had great characters, great story, great plot, and ave us the light saber. You also had about 30 years of expanded universe in comic books, novels, video games, and the cartoons where much of the fandom can be found.
For the first three, it had great characters, great story, great plot, and ave us the light saber. You also had about 30 years of expanded universe in comic books, novels, video games, and the cartoons where much of the fandom can be found.
Yeah, Ive never felt this... until Rogue One. Vader just threatens and Force Chokes for most of the originals. It doesn't make him look like a bad ass at all
Its a fairly basic hero's journey story, of the sort that have been told for thousands of years. Its like the flat white coffee of stories, not threatening you with too much bitterness one way or sweetness the other
It had, by far, the best effects in the business at the time, and was a simple story told well by some good cast members and amazing behind the scenes script doctors. A New Hope didn't really try to explain jargon or have complicated names for things and simply showed the high-tech stuff doing things.
Nobody stopped to explain the Incom T-68B X-Wing Space Superiority Starfighter or the Twin-Ion Engine/Line Fighter or the Corellien YT-1300 Light Freighter, they were just things that existed and who would you have to explain that to? Space Magic was just "yeah, you just kinda go with the flow and steer yourself in a direction" and they skipped adding wavy magic lines to powers in post. It's theoretically powerful, but they didn't tend to have somebody pose dramatically and have process-shot light effects set off squibs.
Compare/contrast to (as far as I know) the only other decent space war movie The Last Starfighter, which stopped to explain damn near everything.
So, for lack of a better term, it went viral *hard*, and despite some fandom and critic hate, it's sequels didn't completely shit the bed. (Personal opinion on the latest one notwithstanding.)
Nobody stopped to explain the Incom T-68B X-Wing Space Superiority Starfighter or the Twin-Ion Engine/Line Fighter or the Corellien YT-1300 Light Freighter, they were just things that existed and who would you have to explain that to? Space Magic was just "yeah, you just kinda go with the flow and steer yourself in a direction" and they skipped adding wavy magic lines to powers in post. It's theoretically powerful, but they didn't tend to have somebody pose dramatically and have process-shot light effects set off squibs.
Compare/contrast to (as far as I know) the only other decent space war movie The Last Starfighter, which stopped to explain damn near everything.
So, for lack of a better term, it went viral *hard*, and despite some fandom and critic hate, it's sequels didn't completely shit the bed. (Personal opinion on the latest one notwithstanding.)
I watched Flash Gordon the other day, which really put in perspective what an amazing technical and artistic feat Star Wars was for its time. Not that Flash Gordon wasn't entertaining in its own cheap, self-aware way. But Flash Gordon tried, like a lot of other sci-fi, space operas and epic fantasy movies, and like most of them didn't even come close to the quality of Star Wars.
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It had a lot of memorable stuff in it that just worked. Can't say why, maybe they got lucky, happens sometimes.
I think when you look at science fiction films before Star Wars, it's drawing on a very limited pool of influences and indeed, not a whole lot going on. In the 60s, there was a brief trend towards comparatively "hard" science fiction due to the space race, but it didn't last. A lot of the genre, at least in film and at least in the US, was still stuck in early 20th century pulp science fiction, red-scare alien invasion scenarios and tedious propaganda films meant to interest the general public in space.
I think one secret to Star Wars success is that it took a whole bunch of genre influences, in particular influences which were becoming increasingly stale themselves, and created a new context with them. The Western genre pretty much died out in the 70s, largely because the historical consciousness of the American West was changing, but by putting western elements in space a lot of those problematic elements were removed. Similarly, world war 2 movies. It's also kind of a martial arts film at a time when martial arts were becoming a big thing in the US, but without the implied foreignness of real martial arts. Star Wars is an incredibly escapist franchise. By taking elements from the real world and putting them in a science fiction context you can strip these things of a lot of their inherent politics (although I would argue you can't, the politics of star wars are very obvious, but a fan enjoying the films might not see that).
Star Wars was also one of the first franchises (besides Star Trek) to really weaponize the concept of fandom and what we would now call "geek culture". Roger Ebert made the comment (albeit in regard to the prequels) that if a person is willing to camp on the sidewalk for 2 weeks to see a Star Wars film, they're probably doing that less out of love of the films and more out of love of being the person who camped on the sidewalk for two weeks to see a Star Wars film. Star Wars convinced a lot of bored and disenfranchised people to stake their identity on it, and that's a powerful force because those people then become advocates for the film, essentially unpaid PR representatives, and marketing a film is extremely easy in that environment.
Personally, I'm incredibly bored of Star Wars and its aesthetic. I think it's become the default aesthetic of science fiction, and nowadays it's exciting to me when a science fiction film or series doesn't look like Star Wars.
I think one secret to Star Wars success is that it took a whole bunch of genre influences, in particular influences which were becoming increasingly stale themselves, and created a new context with them. The Western genre pretty much died out in the 70s, largely because the historical consciousness of the American West was changing, but by putting western elements in space a lot of those problematic elements were removed. Similarly, world war 2 movies. It's also kind of a martial arts film at a time when martial arts were becoming a big thing in the US, but without the implied foreignness of real martial arts. Star Wars is an incredibly escapist franchise. By taking elements from the real world and putting them in a science fiction context you can strip these things of a lot of their inherent politics (although I would argue you can't, the politics of star wars are very obvious, but a fan enjoying the films might not see that).
Star Wars was also one of the first franchises (besides Star Trek) to really weaponize the concept of fandom and what we would now call "geek culture". Roger Ebert made the comment (albeit in regard to the prequels) that if a person is willing to camp on the sidewalk for 2 weeks to see a Star Wars film, they're probably doing that less out of love of the films and more out of love of being the person who camped on the sidewalk for two weeks to see a Star Wars film. Star Wars convinced a lot of bored and disenfranchised people to stake their identity on it, and that's a powerful force because those people then become advocates for the film, essentially unpaid PR representatives, and marketing a film is extremely easy in that environment.
Personally, I'm incredibly bored of Star Wars and its aesthetic. I think it's become the default aesthetic of science fiction, and nowadays it's exciting to me when a science fiction film or series doesn't look like Star Wars.
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Can't add much, but I'll try:
-The OT is pretty damn good, and even if you dislike it, from a technical standpoint, it's very solid.
-It taps into the hero monomyth, so there's wide appeal.
-Broad themes of good vs. evil, so it can get the young uns in, while keeping them invested as adults when they get to the stories that have more moral ambiguity.
-The universe is insanely fleshed out thanks to the EU, so you've got a huge playground.
-The universe is exceptionally versatile, so you can tell all manner of stories. Space samurai? Jedi. Military sci-fi? Clone troopers and the Empire. Lovable vagabonds? Smugglers. Anti-heroes? Bounty hunters. Starfighter combat? *****, please. Space zombies? Believe it or not, that also. Star Wars allows all manner of stories to be told, which means it can draw in all kinds of people.
Ultimately, Star Wars can cater for a wide audience, and does a reasonably good job of doing so. Not the biggest Star Wars fan, but I do get the appeal, and have genuinely enjoyed a lot of what it's put out.
-The OT is pretty damn good, and even if you dislike it, from a technical standpoint, it's very solid.
-It taps into the hero monomyth, so there's wide appeal.
-Broad themes of good vs. evil, so it can get the young uns in, while keeping them invested as adults when they get to the stories that have more moral ambiguity.
-The universe is insanely fleshed out thanks to the EU, so you've got a huge playground.
-The universe is exceptionally versatile, so you can tell all manner of stories. Space samurai? Jedi. Military sci-fi? Clone troopers and the Empire. Lovable vagabonds? Smugglers. Anti-heroes? Bounty hunters. Starfighter combat? *****, please. Space zombies? Believe it or not, that also. Star Wars allows all manner of stories to be told, which means it can draw in all kinds of people.
Ultimately, Star Wars can cater for a wide audience, and does a reasonably good job of doing so. Not the biggest Star Wars fan, but I do get the appeal, and have genuinely enjoyed a lot of what it's put out.
My soft spot for Jedi is well known. But I have to say Jojo isn't far off the mark.
I'm tired of always being limited to one or the other.
This is a Fantasy story, so no inventions or machinery allowed.
We're in space here. mysticism has never been even mentioned ever and we're just pure science.
I want all the things.
I like science. I like powers. I like it when it blends. And yes, this is a major reason why I love Shadowrun. Watch me lift you into the air with my psionic energy just to make it easier to shoot you with my gun, while my Elf Decker friend hacks into your computer and shows your family all of the sick porn you've been hording.
And I have a female dwarf Street Samurai friend. Because Female Dwarves are Baller and I'll always hang out with one if I can.
- Apr 1, 2009
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Its an ok series. I liked it better when I was younger before episode 3. Holy fuck that movie really killed any enjoyment I had for the starwars movies, even the original ones. As far as I'm concerned the best thing about starwars in the last 20 years was the Family Guy Star Wars specials.
I honestly hate the FG Specials.They're just lazy "parodies" almost on par with those two jackasses that killed the parody film genre. Or jokes I've already seen better on Robot Chicken or College Humor. Hell, most of the staff behind the third special did not like working on it. So that should tell you something. SW: Episode III was regular good with its faults. The only Star Wars film I truly hate is II. Almost nothing happens in that movie.
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I despised episode 3, I hated everything about it, except for that awesome lizard that Obiwan rides. That can stay, everything else should go off the cliff. What made it make me like the rest of Star Wars less was when they tied the visual style back in with the old movies, so now I can't see the old movies without seeing the prequels. Before you could write them off almost as different movies but now in my mind they are linked. The only other Star Wars movie I hated almost as much as that was Rogue One, although I haven't seen Rise of Skywalker, but from what I've heard about it, I think it would annoy me also.
Rouge One I had enough fun with, but not enough motivation to buy it. Rise of Skywalker became average due to no road map and too mch backpedaling. Still entertaining, but I have almost no motivation to buy it on home video still.
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I really didn't like it, but I didn't hate it like episode 3. Rogue one has 2 good scenes, one was when the hammer ship rammed the star destroyer and the other was the Darth Vader scene, although that does actually hurt his character in the original trilogy. I heard they made it so Rey was actually the daughter of a clone of Palpatine in Rise of Skywalker. If so then that would have pissed me off so much since I actually really liked how in the last jedi it was stated she came from nothing cause that actually adds some interesting story possibilities. Like we know that back in the day force users were much more common, but in the original trilogy there were only a few, having Rey be from nothing and getting force powers also implies that the force is coming back to the universe, which they also inplied by that random kid at the end using force pull on the mop or broom or whatever.
Eeeehhhh.....You're kinda on the money, except he is the grandfather. She's the daughter of one of his sons/clones who married a woman. It's really stupid and Disney ended up making the exact same mistakes as some of the EU novels where Palaptine has a clone and/or off spring. Making them jettison the old EU even more pointless since they did exact same fucking thing!
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