No Right Answer: This Generation's "Star Wars" Part 2
- Thread starter Firefilm
- Start date
Chris, you called me good looking and smart... how's a guy NOT gonna side with you after that?! 
As much as I love the Star Wars and LoTR franchises, I'm afraid I must go with Harry Potter with this one. It isn't because I think Harry Potter had the best movies (God no.), but their impact on youth culture is undeniable. Hell, I can't walk through my high school without someone yelling out a HP reference.
Harry Potter for sure. Not only were the BOOKS a phenomenon, which is a god damn miracle in this modern age. You have people dressing up at midnight releases... for BOOKS, can not stress that enough. Then you get the massive undertaking that was the series of films, and all the videogames spun off from those movies, and it is this generation's "Star Wars."
The Lord of the Rings were just good movies, but it did not make as big of a cultural impact as Harry Potter. What did you really get from that anyway, it didn't encourage people to go back and read the books, and we're left with a series of slight above average videogames.
The Lord of the Rings were just good movies, but it did not make as big of a cultural impact as Harry Potter. What did you really get from that anyway, it didn't encourage people to go back and read the books, and we're left with a series of slight above average videogames.
Harry Potter, clearly.
Lord of the Rings was so, so much better, but the impact of Harry Potter was so much bigger. It's hard to deny - even though LoTR was the superior product (film-wise, anyway - much as I absolutely adore the LoTR books, I also adore HP because I grew up with it) Harry Potter had the greater saturation in popular culture.
As for Star Wars...well, really? A trilogy of movies which have become synonymous with disappointment? Sure, everyone remembers them, but very few of those remember them positively. Hardly the Star Wars of our generation, exept in very literal terms.
Lord of the Rings was so, so much better, but the impact of Harry Potter was so much bigger. It's hard to deny - even though LoTR was the superior product (film-wise, anyway - much as I absolutely adore the LoTR books, I also adore HP because I grew up with it) Harry Potter had the greater saturation in popular culture.
As for Star Wars...well, really? A trilogy of movies which have become synonymous with disappointment? Sure, everyone remembers them, but very few of those remember them positively. Hardly the Star Wars of our generation, exept in very literal terms.
Bent as in the character was homosexual, or that you considered the series in a negative light and therefore labelled it as "teh gay"?nackertash said:
In the first case, no, a great many slash writers agree with you. In the second, also no, but you should be aware that you've aligned yourself with a camp composed largely of people who agree with the maxim that "if it's popular, it sucks" rather than having actual opinions. Not saying you're one of those guys, just that the small number of anti-HP people I've met hated it because everyone else liked it
Okay, I have to call BS on this point, not because you're wrong, but because you technically agree with Kyle.The_root_of_all_evil said:
The Star Wars prequels, Transformers, Spider-Man, The Green Lantern, on and on and on... Generation Y has been given nothing but an endless stream of disappointing rehashes of properties that were popular when they were kids. Desperate, contrived attempts to revive nostalgic memories, falling flat on their faces.
Also recall that Star Wars was a throwback to the adventure serials and campy sci-fi that was popular when the boomers were kids. Something to think about.
Star Wars was a hodge podge of a lot of stuff, the landspeeders/Space battles were Flash Gordon; as were the Gamorreans/Jawas, Han Solo/Cantina is the Westerns; the script is Joseph Campbell, the lightsabres were pure Zorro...DanDeFool said:
But again, Zorro created Batman, the westerns went to Police Drama which went to CSI, Flash Gordon came from the Pulps and went forward to Sci-Fi (The Matrix?).
Most of film's history is self-devouring.
I think you're unfair to trot out all the crud though - there have been some truly great films (The Blair Witch Project, Police Academy (Only the first - A Real Life Police Pantomime), Troll Hunter, Pan's Labyrinth, Dog Soldiers, District 9) - YMMV but there's been startling few good series that haven't been drawn from other media first.
Just as Flash Gordon (which would be the Baby Boomers "Star Wars") came from the Pulps etc. etc.
Now Harry Potter reflects Generation Y's growing up - we're still in private school territory, with terribly middle class kids and Lord of the Rings again, is terribly terribly middle class.
Transformers though...it's classless. it may be a robotic dirge by someone who really doesn't like the Transformers themselves - but that's how Lucas was. Alec Guinness especially loathed it.
The people who liked Harry Potter liked Harry Potter. The people who liked Lord of the Rings liked Lord of the Rings.
The Transformers people though...there's not even a consistent view of what they are. Potterites, Whovians, Trekkies, Middle-earthers are all very distinct groups.
Transformers likers aren't. Star Wars likers aren't.
That's why I say Gen Z is Transformers. And Generation AA(?) will probably be the Marvel movies.