Hokeyboy

Fandom in 1980 wasn't like fandom today, but make no mistake: Star Wars was EVERYTHING to fanboys. I was 10 years old, a D&D playing geekboy who listened to Dr. Demento and watched the slim pickings of sci-fi on TV (Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, the shitty Marvel TV movies, Wonder Woman, Hulk, Bionic Man, Star Trek in reasons and the first Motion Picture, etc.) Empire Strikes Back was not only highly anticipated, it was THE only event of 1980 that really mattered to sci-fi fans. I saw it a dozen times that summer. It was anticipated, theorized upon, analyzed, and speculated about for years after (if you didn't catch it in theaters, you didn't catch it at all until the eventual TV showing years later).

I can only of course speak anecdotally, but Empire barely disappointed. In fact, if it did anything it was the opposite. It opened up the universe and sparked dozens of fan theories.

Josh-da-man

coli

While I don't disagree there were sci-fan fanboys in 1980, what SW did was create non-SciFi fans like me who ended up being fanboys. I'm not a big SciFi fan as I enjoy the usual favorites (Terminator, Back to the Future, Aliens but I'm not big on Bladerunner or the Star Trek movies), I never read comic books, or really geeked out at that kind of stuff. But SW was different as it's the only thing I really ever geeked out at and ESB and ROTJ sort of sealed the deal. What people forget is geekdom really wasn't accepted back in 1980 and 1983 as I didn't tell many people in school I was a SW fan (I was in elementary school). I would talk to my SW friends about the movies, and that was IT! You didn't bring up SW around girls, I never brought SW up when I went to Baseball or Football practice, I was sort of a closeted SW fan who was obsessed with the movies. Now geekdom is a part of pop culture as Conan O'Brien is doing live shows at Comic Con, but that wasn't always the case. That is why SW is the #1 franchise because it reached out to non SciFi fans like me and made me fans for life.

Rob V

Word. I had 100% the same experience growing up.

Mabuse

Josh-da-man

Star Wars was the gateway drug got me into science fiction when I was a kid.

Star Trek and Doctor Who soon followed. And then Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein. And William Gibson after that.

Mike86

I’ve actually been a Star Trek guy longer than I’ve been a Star Wars guy. Even as a kid having access to both I enjoyed both, but Trek was more my thing. I watched TNG and the TOS movies (TOS itself too) a lot and had a bunch of the figures. I always liked Star Wars though too.

Hokeyboy

I'm Trek over Wars any day of the week, but my gateway into sci-fi was probably Planet of the Apes; my earliest memories were of watching the movies on syndicated TV with my Dad when I was 4 or something. After that it was Star Wars and TOS (in syndication) at roughly the same time (age 5). But there really wasn't much in terms of GOOD science fiction (not "sci-fi") on television for a long, long time. I loved TNG (even with all the cheese) but I discovered X-Files and Babylon 5 at roughly the same time, and both were absolute game-changers.

tanman

Trekker here too. (There's room for both!) I don't want to stir up something again but personally for me it was doubly disappointing to be let down by Star Trek Discovery and TLJ in the same year when I was beyond excited for both. I've come to accept them for what they are now. But at the time it was disappointing.

Mike86

I haven't even watched Discovery yet. I probably will eventually, but from what I hear of it I don't know that I'll like it.

Hokeyboy

I really enjoyed Discovery but it had some issues. But then again, so did every iteration of Trek. Definitely a worthwhile show though.

Mike86

Hokeyboy

I loathe the trend of PREQUELS FOR EVERYTHING!! I agree: MOVE FORWARD. Give us a Trek show 200 years after TNG. A thousand years, even. The older iteration Trek shows were firmly rooted in 60s-90s sci-fi trends, which is why revisiting them can often get a bit tiresome if you follow contemporary science fiction regularly.

I think Discovery is a fine show but there's no reason it couldn't be set long after the TNG era, a time in which the Klingon Empire and the Federation are at odds again. Or it's another universal power in play. A human officer raised by Vulcans that DON'T have to feature Sarek, Spock, and Beverdina (I forgot her name).

tanman

I agree. And I think a lot of fans do as well. Chalk it up to them not knowing what the fans want. We love TOS Kirk and Spock but that doesn't mean we want to see them remade. Move FORWARD. Well I guess they are now with the new series with Picard.

I watched the first season of Enterprise live but gave up like everyone else. But I recently (within the past 2 years) rewatched the whole series since it was the only trek I had yet to see and I was pleasantly surprised by how much better it had gotten and how out of context of the other Trek series at the time it holds up much better. Except for that terrible series finale.

Discovery is a decent show if it wasn't called Star Trek. I can't explain it but it just doesn't feel like Trek. Let alone TOS era Trek.

brayzie

As a kid, it was cool to like Star Wars, I guess. It was on the same level as Transformers.
In my teenage years, there was no Star Wars movies, and if you liked Star Trek: TNG you were a nerd.
I only watched TNG because it was on one of the few channels that we could get on our TV. Despite not being into science-fiction, I ended up really enjoying the series.
It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I started getting into science-fiction and reading stuff by Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, and Phillip K. Dick.
I gained a greater appreciation for Star Trek after I revisited TNG, and later saw the first 6 films for the first time.
That's a pretty good run. Two classic television series', AND a great film franchise? I'm someone who thinks ST: The Motion Picture is great.

I agree.
Hokeyboy and tanman are right, that a new series should move forward and take place AFTER Star Trek: TNG. That's what Star Trek is about, right? The future? And yet, they're going backwards into nostalgia territory. Somehow the mirror universe became lame.

brayzie

I thought I'd quote you here instead of the other thread.

I'm curious to know why you think Rian Johnson purposely tried to be disrespectful to the characters and lore of Star Wars?

I can imagine not liking his approach to the characters, but despite my criticisms of the Disney films, and TLJ, I never felt like they were going out of their way to disrespect the characters. It always felt to me like Abrams and Johnson were trying to do something that would't come across as predictable, despite hitting some of the same notes in other aspects.
Having Rey being Luke's daughter=predictable, and something that's been done before in many, many stories.
Rey being a "nobody"=an unexpected twist that worked well for the scene.

Considering Johnson was writing AND directing, and trying to juggle all these different themes, and characters, I'm not surprised that he would overlook the relationship between Luke and one of his droids. If anything, it only makes me appreciate Mark Hamill more as an actor, that he's so in touch with the character and material. It sucks that that was his only main part in the new trilogy, but his performance was up there with ESB.

Brack

Mr. Flix

The scene: I'm eight years old and playing with my Star Wars toys. My mom insists that I invite the new neighbor kid, Rian, over to play.

Rian: So this blonde guy is all mad and stuff. He kills people in their sleep.
Me: No, he wouldn't do that. He's the good guy.
Rian: Pew! Pew! Pew! Luke Starbucker can't be killed because he sends holograms into battle!
Me: Have you ever watched Star Wars?
Rian: Fwoosh! White bun lady flies through space!
Me: I'd like you to leave.
Rian: Come in, Star Command! White bun lady has an urgent message... for your mother! [Laughs at his own joke.]
Me: MOM!!!

Rob V

If he can't come up with nuances that make Star Wars Star Wars, perhaps he wasn't the right guy to lead the project? Or maybe he should have asked for help.

Jay G.

If anyone's wondering what's going on, it's due to this statement Mark Hamill made in a recent interview:
https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/mark...tfall-season-2
Oh wait... that's not it...

Let's see...

OMG, Rian Johnson listened to an actor's input and let him add something to a scene. That monster.

Seriously though, this reminds me of Leia walking past Chewbacca in TFA, which JJ Abrams admitted was a mistake. When writing the script and directing a scene, you're focused on the main thrust of that scene between the main characters of that scene, and maybe forget about the fact than another character is in the scene off to the side. But this is why film is a collaborative process, and at least for this film, the omission was noticed on set by Hamill, and RJ agreed and let him improvise an interaction, and then put that interaction into the final movie. it also reminds me of LOTR: FOTR , where after Frodo wakes up in Rivendell, Sam comes in and holds his hand, which was something in the book but not in the script, but Ian McKellen pointed out the omission on the day of filming. The director is the ultimate arbiter of what goes into a film, but they're not perfect, and everyone on the film works to make it as good as it can be.

Mark Hamill also complained about Solo's death and his death, but admitted it was for selfish reasons.

coli

It's more to the fact that he didn't even think of something like that (Luke just walking by his old friend C3P0 without acknowleging him) tells you their mindset towards the OT characters. I honestly thought it was weird the way Luke interacted with Chewy in TLJ on Ach-Tu (or rarely interacted) as it was almost like he never knew him. Other than their interaction at the beginning when Chewy breaks down the door, he is just there on the island (isolated and eating Porgs). You think Luke would have alittle more respect for his old friend, you know that wookie who saved his life on the trech run and came back for him on Cloud City? And as I said in the other thread, JJ is not exempt from this either as you explained with Chewy walking by Leia in TFA. Now in fairness, I didn't make a big deal of this in 2015 because I thought Rey was Luke's daughter so there was a special connection that was alluded it with this scene. But of course it was a botched scene in the end as Rey Nobody has no connection to Leia, Luke, Han.

Again, I will reiterate, they should have given Episode 7 to Luke, Leia and Han and let the pass the torch in a dignified way to Rey, Finn and Poe throughout the movie and move the f**k on with the story to the new characters for Episode 8 & 9, instead of them hanging around for 3 movies and hurting any storytelling because they have to keep going to well to please the fans.

Jay G.

So... the same mindset that JJ Abrams had because he overlooked Chewy? Or the same mindset George Lucas had in the first movie when Chewy didn't get a medal at the end? Trying to build a "mindset" out of an omission that, RJ, out of all 3, corrected on set is building a mountain out of a molehill.

coli

You're really comparing Chewy not getting medal in 1977 (which was a standalone movie at the time and not a narrative like the sequels) to Luke walking by C3PO (who he hadn't seen in years) or Chewy walking by Leia after her husband died? Good lord, I'm starting to wonder if you're Rian Johnson!

Jay G.

Except he didn't walk by. He winked at C3PO. It's in the movie. RJ acknowledged that it made sense for Luke to acknowledge C3PO, and had Hamill improvise something, and then put that in the final cut.

It's a creative, collaborative project. This petty nitpicking is exactly why most EPKs and bonus features are unabashedly positive, because people will grab onto anything remotely negative and blow it out of proportion, even though filmmaking is full of these moments of figuring things out as they go, making changes, improvising, disagreements on set about things, etc.

I mean, it's one thing to damn RJ for the final film, it's another to try and damn him for "omitting" something that's actually in the final film. It's like going through his earlier drafts of the screenplay to find more things to complain about.

stvn1974

It would have been nice if Leia had acknowledged Chewy after Han had died in TFA but they showed them both hug and have a greeting earlier in the film. I am still not convinced that Johnson has even seen a Star Wars film other than when he edited TLJ.