tell me whats better than star wars????????

https://www.youtube.com/user/EndGamefilmstudio/

It's been written.

Exactly!

True, early fairy tales often were pretty gory and violent by today's standard, but as they also had morals to them it's usually the villains or people who do wrong who suffer these fates.  While Han is somewhat more in the grey area and more self-interested than Luke or Leia, he's still clearly on the side of good (after all, he returns at the critical moment in the battle at the end of Episode IV and becomes a Rebel General).  Besides, there's no shortage of rather nasty ends, what with Jabba getting strangled, The Emperor falling into to the Death Star reactor, Boba Fett getting eaten by the Sarlacc, and all the various appendages that inevitably start flying around every time someone ignites a lightsaber.  The whole "spaghetti-western" ending wouldn't have worked well at all in Star Wars, in my opinion at least.  Though I'd still prefer Wookies over Ewoks any day (Chewbacca, Artoo, and Jawas are by far the most adorable things in SW).

@Max: As for the rest, I do see your point, but your assertion that if you push SW into a new direction, it ceases to be SW still makes no sense to me.  I mean, if any film takes place in the Star Wars universe, it by definition MUST be a Star Wars film--anything else would contradict itself--no matter how closely (or not) it is related to the original trilogy.  Even if it isn't Episode 7, it's still Star Wars.  Also, your other point about this franchise being "mutated beyond recognition" is moot as Star Wars is so widely known that even casual audiences would be familiar with the story, and would have almost certainly have seen all the films beforehand anyway.  Certainly, they'd be familiar with Luke and Vader (he's easily the most famous movie villain of all time--it'd probably be impossible to find someone who doesn't recognise him).

I see what you mean about the whole "Episode 7" thing.  However, Lucas himself said that he wanted to make a "trilogy of trilogies" several times in the past; so if the creator of Star Wars himself thinks that there would be enough material for a further trilogy, surely that is an indication that there's at least some hope left for Star Wars?

As for Indy 4 being bad, it mostly seems to be the fanboys who are incapable of accepting anything new that hate it.  Loads of people seem to complain about how bad it is, yet all they ever use to back up their statements are the fridge-nuking and aliens.  Which comes across as pretty weak at best, considering all three original films involved some pretty ridiculous things:

-surviving a fall off a building by falling through several awnings conveniently stacked beneath each other under the exact window Willie and Indy happen to crash through,
-surviving a jump from an aeroplane using nothing but an inflatable raft, then not getting impaled on any rocks or not hitting any trees, before conveniently sliding into a river that just happens to be in the path of the raft,
-Indy getting dragged underneath a truck without having his pants shredded in the process,
-a petroleum well that explodes when a single match is dropped in it yet miraculously isn't set alight by Indy's torch,
-a guy who can rip people's hearts out of their chests with one bare hand,
-a 900-something year old knight,
-the tons of creepy-crawlies that apparently manage to survive for centuries in those tombs despite there being no obvious food sources and serious overcrowding,
(I could go on all day....)

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (July 17, 2013 (04:53pm))

Oh gosh yes you're right, I should be ashamed of myself.  The acting in the original films was amazing; Willie Scott and Short Round were absolutely brilliant!  And how could I even think that Indians eating bugs and live snakes and chilled monkey brains while participating in child slavery and human sacrifice is culturally and racially insensitive?  And of course jumping from a plane using nothing but an inflatable life-raft and surviving and getting dragged underneath a truck without getting your skin shredded off is so much more realistic than that atrocious fridge scene, because nobody's actually calculated that it's theoretically possible to survive that.  You're absolutely right, everyone left the Crusader Knight's tomb and Temple of the Grail perfectly intact while shamelessly destroying the Temple of the Crystal Skull (because there's absolutely no doubt that an ancient city built directly on top of a giant spaceship is going to remain unscathed when it takes off)!  And of course using Judo-Christian religious artefacts that can melt people's faces or instantly turn people into skeletons or grant immortality are so much more acceptable than, shock horror, ending the film in a chapel of all places!

Perhaps I over-reacted somewhat, in which case I apologise.  But my point still stands.

Firstly, since when are you suddenly not defending Temple of Doom?  You mentioned Indiana Jones films as being a contender for the best saga ever (which would surely include Temple of Doom) yet now you suddenly claim you're not defending it?  It's part and parcel of the Indiana Jones saga, so if we're discussing the original IJ films we by definition have to include Temple of Doom.  It's illogical and fallacious to suddenly remove it from the discussion.

So you say my points are lacking--how so?  Whenever somebody criticises Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they invariably cite things that are all present in the original films.  People keep banging on about how ridiculous the fridge-nuking is, yet it's no different in terms of believability than many of the things Indy did in the original films (several of which I listed above).  Everyone's perfectly fine with these admittedly pretty stupid things happening in Raiders, Temple, and Crusade because these films are "classics", yet as soon as Crystal Skull does something outlandish people are suddenly up in arms.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was the spaceship taking off that destroyed the temple--it had nothing to do with Indy or anyone else willfully wanting to destroy it.  And this is still nothing compared with the stupid and downright moronic characterization of the Indians in the palace in Temple of Doom, which is far more damaging seeing as it's degrading a real-life culture (and the one of the world's second most populous nation, no less).

And as for the "juxtaposition", I honestly cannot find any connection.  I haven't seen the film in a while, but I'm pretty sure the only reason everyone was in the church was because Indy and Marion wanted to marry.  If they didn't want to marry, they wouldn't be in the church.  It doesn't imply anything, and why should it?  The characters are simply there because it's the next place they wanted to go.  If they'd wanted a drink, they'd have gone to a cafe or bar--and if that really were the case, I highly doubt you'd be trying to imply "negative connotations".  At the most it might seem a bit insensitive or not very well thought out if you have that sort of frame of mind, but any sort of supposed "connotations" are weak at best; certainly, I don't think Spielberg or Lucas would have deliberately tried to draw such a parallel.  And I still don't see how this is worse than using quasi-biblical artefacts as the main plot device--after all, portraying them in this manner could be offensive to people who believe in that particular religion.  Besides, what's wrong with a "conventional church"?  From what you've said, your statement could suggest you have some problem with Christianity, in which case I dislike what you're implying.

You're right though, this discussion is irrelevant to this topic, so we should move on.

Last edited by Mr Vertigo (July 18, 2013 (01:42pm))

Lord of the Rings

Ok just for you----- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxAEo3CWeq8

https://www.youtube.com/user/EndGamefilmstudio/

I'm sorry, but you should probably learn the difference between "but" and "butt" if you want anyone to take you seriously.

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The film adaptation of Lord of the Rings has been around only for a relatively recent time; it's only been 10 years since Return of the King came out.  Most of the people who grew up with and were inspired by LotR have only recently become adults/started working in the film industry.  Star Wars, by contrast, has been around for nearly 40 years, and the generation that grew up with it is much older and more well-established.  Besides, you may not have heard a specific director who said he/she was inspired by LotR, but it would be foolish to deny the impact it's had on our culture.  It basically created the Fantasy genre, and is just as influential, if not more so, than Star Wars is to their respective genres.