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Sellout: George Lucas in HypeSpace
A couple of months ago, Rob (CmdrTaco) Malda and I were trading e-mail about "Star Wars: Phantom Menace." He gracelessly reminded me that even though he?d seen "Star Wars" 100 times or so, he hadn?t seen it in a movie theater when it first came out (he would have been in diapers) and I had.
Alas, this is so. And given the insane commercial and media hype surrounding "Phantom Menace," I?m the lucky one. (This isn?t a review - I haven?t seen the movie yet.)
The original "Star Wars" came as something of a shock when it appeared two decades ago. It was promoted, of course, but before the age of Mega Hype it was possible to discover a great movie, rather than have one rammed down your throat and into every other orifice.
And the original "Star Wars" was discovered by transfixed nerds and movie lovers. It was a weird movie, half fairy tale and half comic book, yet a very human and accessible one. It proved an instant smash with almost everyone, ordinary ticket buyers along with the non-normal. It celebrated science fiction, technology and heroic oddballs all at once.
A pre -Web movie, fans had fewer ways of spreading the word, but the raves got around. The movie?s genuine stars were technology, animation, imagination and special effects. But in other ways, it was a very old story: the young man or woman called to a great adventure, one in which his community?s survival was at stake. He battles the forces without, but first has to conquer the ones within.
For eons, in various forms from Hercules and the Trojan war to "High Noon" to Batman, this idea has been an elemental myth in virtually every culture. Do we have what it takes to confront evil when it arises and threatens us and the people we love? Will we do the right thing, and comport ourselves with honor and dignity?
The power of myth permeated the original "Star Wars", and not by accident. George Lucas credited the late mythologist Joseph Campbell as a major inspiration for characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and even invited Campbell, an academic and writer, to a special screening to view the "Stars Wars" trilogy at Lucas? Skywalker ranch in California.
The journalist Bill Moyers was there at the screening, too, and later recalled that Campbell "reveled in the ancient themes and motifs of mythology unfolding on the wide screen in powerful, contemporary images." Campbell, Moyers remembered, especially exulted aloud in the fact that Lucas had put an up-to-date spin on the timeless hero/quest.
"And what is that?" asked Moyers.
"It?s what Goethe said in Faust but which Lucas has dressed in modern idiom - the message that technology is not going to save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being."
Campbell also loved the Darth Vader character - the dark and evil man in the mask - as a staple of mythology dating back to ancient wall scribblings.
"Darth Vader," he told Moyers in a later interview, "has not developed his own humanity. He?s a robot. He?s a bureaucrat, living not in terms of himself but in terms of an imposed system. This is the threat to our lives that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out and deny your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system so that you are not compulsively serving it?"
Re-reading this interview in "Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth," I couldn?t help thinking that twenty years later, that Lucas has lost touch with the spirit of his own creation.
Vader would now be out on the network in the employ of some giant corporation, or maybe a gargantuan tel-com, directing the Hype machine and pushing around the competition. Bill Gates doesn?t make it as a truly menacing figure who wants to hurt people, but the mammoth corporatism he has come to embody is creepy enough. It invokes empire, and hovers above us all like some giant spaceship, just waiting to plop down and squash us. And it definitely evokes a system that denies humanity.
Mostly, what I recall about the first Star Wars was the almost spine-tingling sense of simplicity, menace and drama.
There was the first appearance of Lord Vader, the ironic and deflating presence of Harrison Ford?s Han Solo (who, along with R2D2, kept the movie from getting too pompous or heavy-handed), and that curiously emotional moment when Ben Kenobi says to Luke: "Turn off your computer, turn off your machine and do it yourself, follow your feelings, trust your feelings."
And when he did, it worked. Luke rode a crippled, defenseless machine into a Death Star to save the world, and in the end, rose above all the machinery to get the job done. The dozen or so times that I saw the movie, that moment always brought the loudest applause.
If the original "Star Wars" invoked the power of myth, Phantom Menace invokes the power of hype. Lucas has shamelessly sold his soul, thus that of his movie, to magazine editors, TV producers, toy-makers, pizza and fried-chicken purveyors, and the massive corporations cranking out toys, books, calendars and videos. There?s almost no piece of Lucas?s story that he wasn?t happy to peddle to the highest bidder. One can only imagine how many - unlike the original figures -- were created with marketing tie-ins in mind. On May 3, Toys "R" Us sold 1.25 million units of "Phantom" products. According to Entertainment Weekly, tie-ins from the movie will probably represent the biggest event in the history of the toy business.
This week, Pepsi-affiliated Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken began a months- long, TV-saturated, cross-promotional campaign. Each restaurant will be turned into one of the planets in the movie. Each will have its own toys "that can?t be found anywhere else." KFC gets the Jar Jar Binks Squirter, Taco Bell the Anakin Skywalker Transforming Bank, and Pepsi itself is offering four separate commemorative soda cans. There are rumors that Yoda himself will soon be on the tube, guzzling pop.
Is that Lucas message, the point of one of the great creative works in all of popular culture? Get as much as you can? Embrace the bigness and squeeze it for every last nickel?
Yuk. This kind of hype isn?t just about making a few bucks. It?s about manipulating children in the name of greed and influence. It?s about ego and cash. This round, we?re not allowed to discover a great work; we?re nearly beaten to death with it, and it?s calculatedly cute, most profitable and commercial manifestations.
The cacophony is demeaning to Lucas and to his film and insulting to his audience. It?s hard to know which would be worse: if "Phantom Menace" is a great movie defiled by Lucas and his marketing tie-ins or, if it?s a crummy movie lost in the cloud of hype.
Every big movie arrives in a cloud of tie-ins, toy promotions and fast-food marketing schemes these days. Lucas can?t be blamed for that. But if any producer every claimed that his movies were not like all the others, it?s Lucas. The gross commercialism of the pre-Phantom Menace campaign has gone way beyond the usual hard sell, especially given that he has worked to studiously to invoke the image of the pure, independent, anti-Hollywood producer, holed up in his far-from-LA compound in the interest of art and integrity.
Lucas himself has graced the cover of Wired and even corrupted Popular Mechanics (which refers to "film genius" George Lucas) and the films? various stars have fanned out to be photographed for the covers of Time, Newsweek, Premiere, and Vanity Fair. This doesn?t count the barrage of TV appearances ("60 Minutes", et al) scheduled to be unleashed this week.
And for good measure, he?s turned a chunk of the Web into a giant, teeming fanzine and Star Wars shopping mart. X-Files and Buffy sites are crammed with adoring fans too, but they aren?t droid like. They can also be independent, creative and original - their members sometimes writing original episodes when their programs are in hiatus, sometimes even breaking news the producers don?t want to get out. But many of the Star Wars sites are simply worshipful, the movie a faith rather than an imaginative amusement.
Contrast the irony of the man who loudly prohibits any form of advertising in or around his movie in theaters with the one behind money-grubbing sales outlets like the Amazon.com Star Wars Store. The one behind the "paper-engineered" Pit or Battle droid display that can be ordered with the purchase of any of the scores of "Star Wars" titles, calendars, toddler books, paper-action figures and other paraphernalia being sold in chains and books stores.
Lucas himself seems tired of his humble origins, eager to shed his geeky roots, to come in from his self-imposed cold and join the pantheon of mainstream, big-time Hollywood producers. In his interviews, he?s gone to great pains to cast himself as a normal (read: non-geek) guy, sitting at his California breakfast table, appearing in most of his interviews in a plaid shirt, talking about his kids, his digital backlot and his past life as a Hollywood rebel.
Seems like he?s embracing some myth off-screen, too. These days Lucas seems as much of a rebel as Bill Gates, and even more greedy.
The truth is, director James Cameron of "Titanic" (probably not as nice a guy, by most accounts) showed a lot more courage and rebelliousness in the making of his movie. He actually risked forgoing his share of the profits in order to go over budget to make the kind of movie he wanted. "Titanic," was plenty hyped, but Cameron knew to stay away from Pizza Hut, and avoided Lucas? holier-than-thou posture.
Is hype without limit or shame or any shred of dignity? Isn?t there some boundary between a lot of bucks and every buck? Nobody needs that much money, and the avalanche of toys and tie-ins has already obscured the power of myth that suffused the original "Star Wars," no matter how good "Phantom Menace" is or isn?t. We should have been prepared by the end of the trilogy: remember those revolting Ewoks?
"Star Wars" was a breathtakingly original idea in its day, but for all the intergalactic battles, the original movie stayed refreshingly grounded. Ford?s Han Solo was constantly smirking at all the chatter about the Force, Princess Leiea was stuck with that awful hair, and the Empire?s white plastic foot soldiers were profoundly cartoony. The movie never forgot that it was a simple story at heart - high stakes, good guys versus bad guys, the real weapons being good hearts and plenty of guts.
Reeling under the deluge of magazine covers last week - the final straw for me was Vogue?s "exclusive" spread on "Star Wars Couture," complete with the outfits Natalie Portman wears around the Planet Naboo -- I told my family last week that I was considering skipping the movie. A protest against hype. My wife and daughter laughed.
They?re right, of course. I?ll go, eventually. But I?m glad I did get to see "Star Wars" the first time around, in a very different context.
It?s probably just as well that Joseph Campbell died before "Phantom Menace" appeared. It?s hard to believe he?d feel the same way that he did about the original: "?the movie communicates. It is in a language that talks to young people, and that?s what counts. It asks, Are you going to be a person of heart and humanity - because that?s where the life is, from the heart - or are you going to do whatever seems to be required of you by what might be called ?intentional power?"?
"Phantom Menace raises a different set of issues. Here?s Pepsi?s pitchman Hal Oates: "If you mail one of the Yoda cans back to us," he says on TV, "you?ll get a special collector?s check worth $20 - or you can hold onto the can for the future."
The next generation deserved better. Lucas has proven to be yet another sell-out and spin-meister, his hypocritical posturing collapsing under the weight of Toys ?R Us royalties and inter-galactic pizza.
Some of use were discussing this Saturday. We're wondering if this movie is going to be a bomb, in part because people are SICK of hearing about it. I've been a MAJOR fan of Star Wars since the original movie, and it was Star Wars that got me into Sci-Fi, but I'm tired of hearing about the Phantom Menace.
I'm also rather pissed off that the original Trilogy isn't available on DVD, and doesn't look to be any time soon! I was waiting to get a DVD player till it came out, but finally gave up on it in January.
Lucas really annoys the heck out of me. He makes good movies, but he's a jack ass and a yuppie. Don't give me the bull that it's marketing execs forcing Lucas to do this. Lucas runs the show more so than just about any other producer, and as Katz mentioned, Cameron didn't sell out.
The pizza hut/taco bell/pepsi/kent. fried chicken commercial kind of shocked me. I wasn't expecting that kind of exploitation. I was also especially annoyed when Lucas started talking about cracking down on people trading pirated copies of the movies.
I'm still waiting for a Star Wars condom commercial. It will happen.
Hype is what makes Star Wars what it is. Just look at the first three (I was very young.. but I remember Ewoks like it was yesterday). I have a Pepsi bottle with Star Wars on it.. and I may even stop by Taco Bell today. If you have a problem with hype you need to leave the US. Infact leave the Linux crowd too (glibc and Red Hat bring hype to my mind).
The kentucky fried chicken / pizza hut/ taco bell advertisement disgusted me.
The toys and everything... yes, that is hype and it is about making money, but they don't disturb me as much as ads such as that one.
Lucas created a mythology for me when I was young. I was born in 1971 and saw star wars in the theater. I was very young, and the movie affected me deeply.
Now, he is taking that mythology, those dreams, and perverting them. It hurts me the same way hearing my favorite songs being used to sell hamburgers hurts me.
This problem is much deeper than just Lucas. The problem is that on our culture, *everything* is product. Even our dreams.
I don't want much TV and I have only seen the taco bell add but the key is the movie. *I* for one am going to see it and *I* am giong to enjoy it because *I* love star wars, I love the settings, the myth like story telling, all of it. I don't care if some reviewier doesn't like it, I don't care if it's hyped, *I* am going to see it because *I* love star wars. You should be happy George lucas is letting us in on his story instead of whining about TV ads.
*I* don't care about the hype, it doesn't effect the way I feel about the movie at all.
I'm just replying to Katz's story...not intending to reply to a specific article...just my first time posting.
> Lucas has shamelessly sold his soul, thus that
> of his movie, to magazine editors, TV
> producers, toy-makers, pizza and fried-chicken
> purveyors, and the massive corporations
> cranking out toys, books, calendars and videos.
Oh, come off it. This is no critically acclaimed cinematic endeavour, just a fun film with lots of special affects that I will enjoy immensely.
The first three movies had PLENTY of merchandising. Lucas himself held the rights to it, which is why he has enough money to make this one. Lucas arguably started the tradition of selling merchandising rights...so don't accuse him of selling out, just being another smart businessman (in addition to a great artist) who recognized the possible profits in selling the rights to a name or product (ala billg@microsoft.com).
See you in the theater! Plenty of tickets still left in the Boston area...
If Lucas was a sell out, he would have created about 100 bad Star Wars movies by now like: "Return to the Planet of the Star Wars" and "Star Wars 3D!" Instead, he is spending lots of time and money trying to produce the best movie he can, and needs to make money in order to fund it. He has basically created the entire special effects market that exists right now because of his desire to tell a *better* story.
He almost did not make any more SW movies because he did not think technology would be able to portray what he could imagine. Now with computers, he said he could create almost anything. (Which is why he is doing the next 3 movies).
#1) You'd have to be an idiot not to capitolize on your own creation, because somebody will in a CAPITOLIST society. Deal with it. It's called reality
#2) Lucas did not sell out. He could easily turn Star Wars into a television show or saturday morning cartoon, and he hasn't (yet)
#3) Anybody that doesn't "sell out" is an absolute freakin moron that is being shafted without knowing it. It's the way the world works. You can sell out or cheap out. Don't be a cheap out.
i don't watch tv, except to catch specific programs (on at 6:30, off at 7) and i typically turn down volume for commercials.
thankfully, i don't eat fast food often enough to know what's in the happy meals this week, what taco bell feels like throwing in with a soy taco, and what the marketing strategy of the corporation who owns them is.
because i don't give a rats ass
i'd like to see the episode 1, but i'm not in a really big hurry -
i don't want to hype the film for myself, i don't want to play into all of the marketing.
i want to just have that good time, which will find me whenever it does, and whoever i'm with, and we'll say "hell, lets go see star wars"
if you are concerned about the hype: yawn.. and turn the ID10T box off. cook a real meal and don't worry about this weeks promotional items at the local Microwaved Soy outlet.
if you don't want the hype to spoil the film then just don't listen to it, don't get in the position to have corporate america screaming in your ears -
and this is applicable to so many things. don't like an operating system? don't run it. don't like george lucas? watch someone else's films, relax, let other people watch them.
calling george lucas a sellout loser is pretty strong. i'd like to think that when jon katz has managed to write produce and direct all of the accomplishments that george has, over the span of a couple of decades..
nah, no flames from me.
i have no idea what marketing strategies are in place in what corporations, and i don't care
i'm going to see the movie sometime without letting some jackasses spoil it with the almighty buck.
Wait let me get this straight:
This site is now bitching about the amount of hoopla associated with Star Wars. The site that has been posting Star Wars rumors for the last 3 months. The same site that has been mentioning Star Wars like, 3 time a week for the last 5 months. The same site that deletes or downgrades post from people that have been complaining about the incessant and trivial babble that this site has been posting for the last 6 months.
Uh, whatever. Well, as long as all of you are happy with this, 'cause I sure as hell am! I can't wait until the stupid movie finally is out, and then I won't have to hear about it, 3 times a week, for 6 months, on this site, only to have some twit complain about the overexposure on the same site. Twits.
Almost everyone is complaining about too much hype and marketing, but what would have happened if there were no early press? No trailers on the net? No toys being released early? Probably everyone upset by the hype would be assuming that the movie sucked! What major summer movies of the past few years haven't had at least a few tie-ins?
I remember being at a Star Trek convention a few years ago; one of the panels was about how the over-commercialization of Trek franchise was ruining the series. The panel's "conclusion" was simple -- if you don't want the tie-ins, don't buy them. If you want something for enjoyment or decoration, go for it. Most items are produced in such quantity (now) that they'll never increase in value the way the old toys and collectibles did.
I have an ironic addition to that story: right before the panel began, one of the convention attendees was loudly bemoaning the *lack* of Babylon 5 collectibles. It seems that the creator of Babylon 5 didn't want the series to become a "franchise" with low-quality collectibles saturating the market.
there was the ewok adventure movie, then there was
the battle for endor movie, and also a ewoks
cartoon series.
-- i like my ewoks with lots of gravy and taters --
For the past several weeks, it's been media-chic to bash Star Wars. Why not Katz too?
And like all other mainstraim mashing, Katz shows his wealth of ignorance as well. It's only now they he complains about the big KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hutt merchandising? Where was he in 1996 when Lucas signed the 4 billion dollar, 11 year Pepsi deal? Did he keep his eyes close to the commercials that ran during the release of the Special Editions in 1997?
But it plays really well. For years Lucas lamented about how the media bashed him and his films. I thought for sure with the new movie he would be praised without honest criticism. With the largely undeserved treatment he's been showered with, he's being put in the position that he works the best in and that people like to root for - the underdog.
Congratulations, Katz.
Lucas is so caught up in the technological aspect of movie making that he forgot how to write a decent script.
The screen play SUCKS. There is little to no interesting dialog and banter that the first 3 flicks were known for.
There is little to no character development in this film.
The giant gapping hole at the middle of the movie is the TOO CUTE Anakin. There is no development or explanation of how he turns evil.
The movie takes itself *Way* too seriously. Who is there too like in the piece of CGI cow manure? An annoying Jamican Fish Boy?
Actually, I was 14 when Star Wars came out, and the marketing that came after the movie opened positively *saturated* the public. Each film in the series had their own massive marketing campaigns. I'm sure you know the tale of Lucasfilm originally announcing the 3rd film's title as "Revenge of the Jedi" in order to trap the illegal merchandisers. I recall the Empire Strikes Back campaign was particularly brutal.
This time around, I've seen very little pre-marketing, except for that created by the fans and the media themselves. I applaud Lucasfilm's decision to hold back on the toys and such as long as they have.
Of course you realise that even if Lucas made the movie in secret in his basement, then released it in secret in some repertory cinema somewhere in Utah, people would still go apesh*it over it.
Star Wars is self-generating hype; it's the fans that create the hype, not Lucas, not the media. The media buy into it because there's a buck to make. They see all the SW fans go, 'Man, I'd wait a MONTH in line to see this!' and realise they'll double their sales if they put R2D2 on the cover.
Denouncing Lucas is BS. All he does is make movies. It's like blaming him for being successful. I think what needs to be done is for all the diehard fans to take a breather, repeat 'It's just a movie', wait in line a DECENT amount of time, and then enjoy the pretty pictures and popcorn.
George Lucas pretty much invented the modern concept of movie merchandising tie-ins. This was more innovative 20+ years ago than it is now.
20th Century Fox paid Lucas pretty meagerly for the first Star Wars but he did negotiate to keep licensing rights. Fox was willing to give him this only because they saw it as small change.
Star Wars made a lot of money at the box office, nearly all of which went to Fox; Lucas himself made his money off the licensing rights, which he leveraged to previously unimaginable (by movie studio execs anyway) levels.
Needless to say no studio gives away the merchandising rights now.
Is Lucas a sellout? Well, he's doing something now that he did 20 yrs ago so that he, as the inventor, could make some money off his work and not have it all go to the studio.
However, saying that Star Wars is some long-term philanthropic gesture/labor of love is wrong. Lucas has always been a very savvy marketer.
>The truth is, director James Cameron of "Titanic"
...
>"Titanic," was plenty hyped, but Cameron knew to
>stay away from Pizza Hut, and avoided Lucas?
>holier-than-thou posture.
Bad example, Katz. Cameron didn't stay away from fast-food chains -- I had either a Taco Bell or Del Taco "Terminator 2" cup, and there were plenty of other T2 marketing tie-ins (not to mention the Terminator 2 3D Universal Studios attraction which is only now getting ready for the public).
Not to mention those damn Titanic songs played over and over again on the radio, with dialogue clips from the movie.
Lastly, cut it out with those damn Windows editors which make apostrophes look like question marks to us Linux folks.
There was also a Star Wars christmas special that was aired .. once? And then never mentioned again.. I think that came between episodes 4 and 5
Why would anybody want to see the Mummy?
It sucked. It was terrible. If you like "campy movies" I recommend "Basket Case" or "Killer Clowns from Outer Space". The Mummy was horrible, with horrible actors, with horrible script, with dismal plot line. If this is your idea of a good time, I heartily recommend it, but the special effects were nothing to brag about and it's dopiness hardly adds to it.
Indiana Jones was "camp", the Mummy was just crap. Unless you easily can suspend disbelief, you'll likely hate it. Wait for video or a 1.50 theater, it was about as good as a television movie, no more.
Am I the only one that's been subjected to NPR shamelessly promoting Katz' new book, "Running to the Mountain"? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone at the hype-mongers.
Lucas was smart enough to keep the merchanidising rights when he made the first Star Wars, and it's paid off to the tune of over a billion dollars! One might say he started the trend of "kids" movies" making more on merchanidising than on ticket sales. Of course, he's going to try to repeat that with the new movies. Nothing wrong with trying to make a profit.
On the other hand, I will NOT be standing in line to see The Phantom Menace any time soon. The hype around the old Star Wars movies turned me off, the hype around the new ones turns me off even more so!
"Jaws was never my scene
And I don't like Star Wars!"
-- Freddy Mercury, Bicycle Race, Jazz, 1978
I find your references to 'synthetic mythology' disturbing. Your brief comments leave the appearance that you believe the Star Wars tales to be some combination of earlier, unacknowledged, works, and, by inference, that this synthesis is "bad". Yet you do not acknowledge that earlier works (in particular, Manes' doctrine that Light=Good, Dark=Evil) are in themselves combinations of earlier works (in particular, an amalgamation of Christianity with Zoroastrianism).
As a religious theme, Light=Good/Dark=Evil goes even further back in time than Zoroaster. So does the theme of an everpresent "life force" that is present everywhere. And no, I wouldn't begin to equate the Star Wars "Force" with tao. Yoda is more like a Zen master... and Buddhism is more prevalent than Taoism on any given continent.
I think most readers are quite capable of enjoying a movie such as Star Wars without having to delve deeply into its root sources. Some may be inspired to "look behind the curtain", especially if they have heard the Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell. That doesn't make the films any less fun, or interesting. Consider it like sprinkles on a cupcake -- nice to have, but not necessary for the enjoyment of the cupcake.
You've obviously missed the point. It's Star Wars in a KFC commercial. There's a big difference. A $2.5B difference, in Lucas's favor. And while that can still be seen as selling out, it's certainly not as bad.
Off topic a little,
You asked 'why mess with perfection'. Good question.
In the re-release of Star Wars, why did Lucas
edit the Greedo-Solo scene to make Greedo take
a lame shot at Han first!?!?
In the first release, Han killed Greedo in cold
blood, smack went his face on the table, Han
leaves a tip, 'Sorry about the mess'. An excellent scene!
In the second release, Lucas edits into the scene
a lousy shot by Greedo that goes waaaay above
Han's head, followed by the killer shot by Han.
God forbid that Han actually be presented as a
mercenary! Greedo was a damn bounty hunter.
He would not have missed!!!!
THAT was my clue that the new movie was going to
be way to kind and gentle and f'n cute. Never
mind the ewoks.
-kabloie
It's a shame folks are throwing "hype" in with over commercialization. Granted... one certainly helps out the other. But they're not the same.
The fans are certainly going to hype the film. They're excited about it. Let them have fun. But they're not the ones selling softdrink cups with sip-through-the-head Darth Maul tops.
I believe Katz' point was as much as Lucas would like to protray himself as a rebel (and his origional work walked that walk), he's now firmly entrenching himself in the Hollywood machine. He's become the uber-example of tie-ins and marketing; he has a property any money-driving Hollywood exec would kill for.
Sure... it's his show. He certainly has a right to do it. But concidering the message Star Wars used to stand on (the story, going your own direction, not becoming a part of 'the machine')... its sad to see it happen.
With any luck, the movie is great... not only will it be chock-full of interesting effects, but it will remain true to its storyline roots. Then perhapse the marketing machine will move on after the power of that initial-release punch has worn off, Mr. Lucas can collect his money, and we can have another great movie to cherrish (and forget the sickening pimping it involved).
Sorry, Jon, but I have to quote Krusty the Clown on this one:
"They rolled a dump truck full of money up to my house. What was I supposed to do, say NO?!"
If Lucas was truely selling out he would have just handed it over to a big studio and had them do it. And we would have gotten an equally overhyped Independance Day like action crap movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt as the Queen. But no, he flipped the bill to make sure that it got made exactly the way he wanted. It was the fans that helped create the hype. Lucas and the fast food places would be stupid to not make a few bucks off of it.
As for the reviews, as soon as I read that it was a "dissappointment like Return of the Jedi" I immediatly wrote those people off as morons because that was clearly the best movie of the 3. The fans have become victims of thier own overhyping. Dont blame anybody but yourselves.
As can be seen by the great majority of the posts here to /., it is much easier to be destructive than constructive.
Capitalism is merely the most sucessful way that humankind has fond to reward and encourage contructive tendancies in mankind: If you make something, you can sell or trade it for something else.
The next step in that sequence happens when you make something that MAKES something. (the means of production) In doing this, a person/entity/corperation enhances the ability of scores of other people/entities/corperations to make things that they and other people WANT to buy or trade for.
In other words, _WE_ (humanity as an aggregate) determine what gets made, anywhere that it requires the person doing the making to trade some of what they make for the resources that they need to live.
If it weren't for this system, _Star Wars_ wouldn't be a movie: we'd be lucky if it were a manuscript scratched out in longhand with a quill pen!
Don't blame Lucas for the cups and figurines: he didn't make them; tyco, pepsi, et. al. did. And they only did it because we wanted them (something that can be measured by our willingness to spend money on them.)
It says something about how deeply Lucas can touch our collective psyche to induce such a deep lusting for more of it that it would change our preference for what kind of cup that we drink our colored sugar-water out of!
Kudos to Lucas! I don't begrudge him his sucess; in fact, I will be contributing to in in a week or two when I get around to actually seeing the movie. Until then, however, I'll be drinking my colored sugar-water out of bulk-purchased cans - just like last month. And that's the GREATEST part of capitalism: the myriad personal choices that get made every day by regular people that keep things moving; and in balance.
Regards'
holmberw@rconnect.NOSPAM.com
The argument that the so-called "movie elite" didnt like the original trilogy and therefore TPM is a good movie doesn't hold water.
The standards for a passable move have lowered significantly. The fact that so many major newspapers have dissed TPM as not even comparing to the original flick mean that Lucas is either selling out more than he was before, or that he just isn't a good writer and director.
I think Lucas has people surrounding him who just care about special effects and money. No one around him cares or knows about decent film making with a pitiance of character development.
YOU TELL HIM!
Lucas didn't sell out, he invented movie hype. Before Star Wars came along the only movies which sold related paraphanalia were disney animations. Lucas took a page from Disney's book and proved that a movie can make more money at the checkout than at the box office.
Besides, if you don't like the hype, don't go see the movie. If you like the movie, and you want to see more like it (and advertise yourself as a Star Wars fan) buy the stuff. Lots of it. Maybe twenty years from now you can sit back and claim to have been a TRUE Star Wars fan, while surrounded by your collectables, and bitch about the hype surrounding the latest episode!!
A long time ago
A galaxy far away
Show me the money
The way I heard it, Revenge of the Jedi had a name collision with Star Trek II: the Revenge of Khan, and both studios agreed to back off.
I think the reason is that it was pushed out to the theaters sooner than they had planned. So there wasn't time for a big marketing blitz.
;)
But the movie did quite well because word of mouth got people into the theaters. So discovering a movie can still happen... but not if the marketers have anything to say about it
You think George Lucas made that commercial, or even likes that commercial? The people who are responsible for over-hyping starwars are the companies, the televesion shows, and everyone one else who thinks they can make a buck by providing geeks with their starwars hype. George Lucas didn't spend a cent on starwars hype, it just happened. Yes, he allowed a few interviews, but they didn't have any hype in them. The hype came from the TV shows advertising WE HAVE AN EXCLUSIVE GEORGE LUCAS INTERVIEW blah blah blah... That's not Lucas' fault. He's just making a movie, he can't control how much the public anticipates it.
As far as all this hype getting out of control, I agree with you. Even George Lucas agrees with you. However about Katz being "Right on," I couldn't disagree more. George Lucas didn't sell his soul and his movie's soul, he simply had the misfortune of making trilogy of movies so popular that 20 years later he still can't release a movie without the media hyping it to mythic proportions.
Only by people who don't distinguish marketing from movies. The advertisers will do anything they have to for attention; that's their nature. Lucas hasn't sold out unless it *affects his movies*. If he starts making mindless pap loaded with product placement and gratuitous sex, then I'll agree with you.
No DVD? That just exhibits the darker side (har har) of IP law, which rather than guaranteeing just compensation for your contribution to civilization, lets you forbid anyone from using certain forms of your work because they're too useful (or you just don't like them).
I agree, but you miss one major point.
George Lucas is not to blame. Who is? The American public. Why can you buy a landspeeder pool raft? Why can you buy Jar-Jar Binks Toothpaste? Why can you get Darth Maul rollerblade pads?
Because people buy this crap.
-F
Enough talk...
Voice your opinion by buying a ticket or by ignoring all the hype (including this post by katz).
"Dodge This!" - Trinity (The Matrix)
I don't buy the mysticism notion. Lucas' Force always struck me as plain old magic, with a bit of what-goes-around-comes-around (a very wholesome, almost Wiccan notion) thrown in.
The first set of figures were not ready Chirstmas of '77 so Kenner sold the special early bird certificate package that could be traded in for the figures in teh Spring of '78. It wasn't until Christmas of '78 that Chirstmas hysteria hit. I remember asking for the Death Star(I was 9 at the time), but Sears sold out way in advance. However, I did get the Millenium Falcon next Christmas(1979). I remember the toys, Burger King glasses, bed sheets, Network TV Special, Disco Album, etc, etc. The hype was really bad by 1970s standards, but this latest round takes the cake. Lucas has been slowing putting the hype machine into full gear since he licensed the first Timothy Zahn novel eight years ago. Then came the Star Wars computer/video games(some were really good, others were garbage), more novels, comic books, new toys from the first trilogy(suddenly all my toys from childhood are "vintage"). I'm a long time fan of the original trilogy, but even I have my limits. As much as I am annoyed by the MegaHype, what really disturbs me is the early reviews I'm hearing about the movie.
Maybe Trinity or Neo...not Anakin
New generation. New cool movie to see 5 times.
And no, not The Phantom Menace, damnit.
-kabloie
I've been assuming "self-defined rebel" is based on something he said to the Hollywood wonks, the people who think the industry is one centrally-planned cohesive whole instead of a bunch of competing businesses. The fans, of course, care how he writes and directs, and not a bit how he interviews.
Are there any other nerds out there who didn't understand this *at all*? Does Babelfish do postmodern->English?
"Like many children of the counterculture, Lucas has become an arch-capitalist. It's estimated that he made more than $3 billion in licensing fees from the original "Star Wars" trilogy. So far, he's already pocketed $1 billion in tie-in rights for "The Phantom Menace" and negotiated a promotional deal between Lucasfilm and Pepsico worth $2 billion. Does each of us really need to enrich him further by paying up to $9.50 apiece to
/ 14/star_what/index.html
see the wretched thing?"
from "Star what? 10 reasons not to see "The Phantom Menace"
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/05
I am not too sure that selling out is fair or even correct. I don't know how you expected him to be able to pay for this film out of his own pocket (and he did) without selling toys and the various other garbage that kids and toy company execs dream about. At leaset doing it this way, he is assured of doing it exactly as he see's fit without the blundering insistence of studio suits.
Now I agree with you, all of these toys and hype do seem a little stupid, but then so is conspicous consumerism. Try changing that societal model. But in the mean time, let's let a story teller do what he feels he must to continue to tell great stories.
Big Din K.R. / Group 7 Systems
Is it just me or was this complete nonsense to everyone else as well?
Oh yes. How about that movie set in the future where Sandra Bullock played an airhead with Sylvestor Stallone. Ah yes, "Judge Dredd" that's it. They even had Pepsi and Taco Bell IN THE MOVIE! I suppose this proves your point, eh?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... do some reading, he controlled it quite perfectly but all right, no one is forced into it and most people are not going to admit it is just a boring nice try again of a film either.
Not being cold blooded rational all of the time is part of the fun too, isn't it ?
I agree. I mean, when I go to a bookstore and see six different dustjackets of the hardcover story by Terry Brooks all I can see is greed. No doubt some people will be quite compelled to buy all six.
Toys are one thing, aligning yourself with food chains is not...I mean, doesn't anyone think it really cheapens the movie (or, ha, provide another chance for greed!). If you raise people's expectations SO HIGH they're going to be pretty disappointed if the movie is not good.
At least it wasn't with McDonalds. But I have a serious moral problem with Pepsi-Frito Lay, in that they used their marketing power to convince Health Canada to add caffiene to Mountain Dew - a drink mostly consumed by kids here. And caffiene in kids is a really bad thing. After all, it is addictive (funny clip on The Fifth Estate. Reporter asks the kids what caffiene is and one kids says "It's like a drug". The reporter than asks, "Are drugs good for you?" and the kids all shout back "NO!") OK I'm rambling, but anyway...
DON'T PREY ON PEOPLE'S NOSTALGIA FOR THE SAKE OF GREED!
I find that so sickening. I mean, just look at Woodstock 2 (and soon to be 3). There is something sad about anyone who feels that they must push all this SW stuff (I am a fan, really!) on people's memories and nostalgia. Kids back in 1977 didn't associate the movie with soft drinks or fried chicken! It's so greedy and disgusting. Yet I bet Pepsi has their psychographics all down past.
The original series stood on its own two legs by the power of the writing, acting and plot. Does this one need to stand on the legs of greed and hype? I should hope not...
I have always enjoyed arty movies as well. I saw Trainspotting twice, most of Terry Gilliam's three times or more...hehehehe I'd like to see some Brazil action figures...you know a movie is mainstream and souled out when family pleasing restaurants get involved...it's a sign to me that the movie is neither radical or controversial.
Give me my Trainspotting, my Sex and Zen, my Crumb, my Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Give me my mainstream movies too that I can enjoy. But don't give me hype and don't treat me as a target market.
Has anyone considered that Lucas may be planning to use the profits from all the tie-ins to finance the sequels? He *is* paying for everything himself, remember? The studio (whatever it is) is only distributing the film.
Lucas is not a saint. Lucas is now and has always been a sellout. He is all about making movies to make money. Period. Star Wars essentially invented the hyped movie-as-event notion. Titanic and its ilk owe everything to Lucas -- style over substance, and hype over all.
TPM will make bags of money. Lucas -- already a billionaire -- will take the bulk of it home. The "myth" we talk about is his overhyped product, not fundamentally different than brand-name sneakers.
I know I'll get flamed to hell and back for this, but it needed to be said. I don't have an ID here, but I'll close with my email so I'm not a complete anonymous coward.
chet@well.com
Lucas and Star Wars had an advertising budget of almost zero. It was the news people and others that took the ball and ran with it. Lucas even urged people to calm down.
I agree with Ripp. Nothing has changed. TPM isn't being hyped any more than any of Lucas' more recent Star Wars films. It's not fair to compare TPM with the original Star Wars. You can, however, compare it with Return of the Jedi. Remember the hype surrounding that movie? I remember that you could buy just about everything with a Star Wars logo on it. I have seen bedrooms in fanzines that had nothing that wasn't Star Wars related. I remember getting candy, breakfast cereal (C3POs), toys, board games, arcade games, Pizza Hut tie ins (I still have an Ewok collector's glass to prove that one), clothes, sleeping bags, you name it.
I was also kind of peeved with Katz's criticism of Lucas' lack of mythology in the new movie. If you haven't seen the movie yet, how do you know if he used mythology or not? Return of the Jedi had just as much mythology as the original movie and it was hyped out of our ears. Just because something is hyped doesn't mean that it isn't a quality product. I'm not saying that the movie will be the best of the bunch, but the product tie-ins don't diminish the quality of the actual product.
I need to register so I won't be an Coward any longer.
John
Whats with all the question marks where there should be apostrophes? Looks like Katz needs the demoroniser. I don't tend to be critical of others but this article is a complete waste of space, as are most of Katz's other articles. Like we need some one to tell us what we already know, and do a piss poor job at that. It just comes off as a feeble attempt to score brownie points with computer geeks/nerds. He's trying to enter a "gift culture" by handing out last year's fruitcake in a new wrapper. Try coming up with something original and then maybe people would respect you. If I wanted rehashed crap I'd go back to high school.
I agree, if we were all 9-14 years old again would we be bashing the film around? Of course not. We'd be having fun, bugging parents for that new figure, pretending we're Obi-Wan or JarJar j/k, and watching it again and again. ::P.
And I seem to remember quite a bit of hype surrounding Jedi when it came out. Hell I even have Burger King glasses for Jedi so don't tell me the hype has changed. Has it changed from Episode IV to now? Yes. Has it changed from Jedi to now? No.
Go out and enjoy the movie, or hate it, sacrifice a goat to Lucas if you want. But no matter what you do in 2 hours the movie is over, period, you go back to reality hopefully with a good smile on your face.
The scary thing is alot of us might even have kids of our own in 2004 when Episode III comes out. Now THAT'S alot more scary than this movie being a let down
Forgot my password,
alienz
I agree 110%!
I thought I was the only one who felt that way.
Actually, the Jabba scene disgusted me the most.
Han solo stepping on Jabba's tail was lame, and it made Jabba look like a fool instead of an evil criminal overlord.
After seeing the butchery of Episode 4, I didn't go back for the "enhanced" 5 and 6.
I'm glad I have my THX enhanced trilogy, which came out a couple of years before the butchered episodes.
How do you know it's hairy? It could be hairless or he could shave it.
> This isn't a life-altering event, this isn't going to solve world hunger, promote peace on earth and good will towards men.. it's a movie.
Ah. There, I'm sorry to say, you are completely wrong. What really bugs me is that people seem to think that "a movie is just a movie," and not worthy of any praise, obsession, or myth.
Well, what about books? Books and movies, when you come right down to it, are really basically the same thing. They are stories. Told in very different ways, I admit, but still stories.
People seem to be willing to accept that books can change people's lives, have influence on people. Heck, for thousands of years people have been obsessed with one book: the bible. I don't understand that, but I respect it.
Why then, must a movie be so different? Are movies not allowed to be serious, not allowed to affect people? Maybe just old movies are, like Gone with the Wind or Casablanca?
I know that this movie has effected me for one already. If not for it, I would probably have had a mental breakdown or something by now. It came during a very tough part of my life, and sustained me through some very hard times. I just had to think about Star Wars, maybe watch the trailer, and I would get inspiration to push a little harder. It may sound silly, but that's real. That's not just a movie.
The point is, the original Star Wars was a diamond in the rough, a jewel of the memory for those of us who were just looking for a movie one day and happened across it. The hype surrounding Episode 1 just serves to tarnish that memory a bit for those of us who actually have it, is all he's saying.
And he's right.
Its just a damn movie. Deal with it.
These films belong to Lucas. If George Lucas wants to go back and reworks some of HIS movies....then so be it. It is NOT the same thing as adding color to someones movie long after the director/producer have died. Lucas went in and added a few scenes here and there and touched up a few shitty scenes in the effects. Sorry dude, some of the effects in the original just show their age now. Especially all the trash mattes around the ships! Plus the inclusion of Jabba the Hut talking to Han Solo sets up WHY Jabba wants Han so bad. Before it was just that lame exchange with Greedo in the Cantina.
And he had total control over merchandising rights, he always had them. He gave up some of the money he was going to get as director for total rights to all the merchandise. Remember, the first movie was a small film...it only cost 9 million to make, while not a small budget 22 years ago, it wasn't very high! 2001 which was made 9 years earlier cost 12 million to make
The new effects in the movies are GREAT.
But hey, can't please everyone all the time.
Bottom line though, these are HIS films, not yours. If he wants to add and change things a little, so be it. It's not some studio trying to cash in by colorizing Citizen Kane long after Welles died.
To tell the truth, only Star Wars was enhanced a lot. Most of the things in Empire and Jedi were first totally cleaning up the original negatives and bringing the color back up. The THX enhanced laserdiscs you have are not up to par quality wise with the re-releases...in terms of transfer and color rendition and what-not. They really are very good.
Yes, there are a few scenes that are "tweeked", but not as much as the original was.
But possibly Criterion or Lucas himself will include BOTH versions of each film when they're finally released on DVD (or whatever the high-end flavor of the month format will be years from now). But he's already stated that he's probably going to wait until all the first three prequals are finished before going to DVD...by that time HDTV may be more mainstream....but who knows.
I saw this one fact in Newsweek:
"Amount spent on advertising for The Phantom Menace: $0"
I don't buy it. Movie trailers aren't free to assemble. Movie trailers are advertisements.
I have an ironic addition to that story: right before the panel began, one of the convention attendees was loudly bemoaning the *lack* of Babylon 5 collectibles. It seems that the creator of Babylon 5 didn't want the series to become a "franchise" with low-quality collectibles saturating the market.
I, for one, respect JMS for that decission.
I don't mind cleaning up the film or doing other touch-ups, but to be honest, the quality of the special effects never bothered me.
The Jabba scene annoyed me because it changed Jabba's character and altered the original (as released) movie.
Lucas originally cut that scene, and it should have stayed that way. The Jabba of Empire and Jedi was a menacing, evil character that demanded respect, while the Jabba that was grafted onto Star Wars was a comical slug who wasn't taken seriously.
Dude, I'd *love* to see "Battery" in a Gap ad!
hontoo da yo. kurushii!!! kurushii!!!
I couldn't agree any less with you. To use a colloquial phrase - He's so full of it. Why is Katz being inflicted on us anyway. I read /. for news that matters. Not for views that don't. I am sure all of us have plenty of opinions but are we invited to publish these essays on /. with the rest of headlines? Please ! Get this guy out of here. Or give him a web page and we promise to go there, read it and flame him crisp.
Oh, give 'im the benefit of the doubt. he *did* say that *both* studios agreed to back off...
Was Alec Guinness anybody back then? Oh, Alec Guinness had been making excellent movies for decades before Star Wars.
You also forgot to mention Peter Cushing's involvement. Quite a well-known figure. Ah, if only they could've gotten Christopher Lee for Darth Vader!
I think, personally, the only thing you like is to start flamewars. You seems to be getting better and better. Even saying your name now on slashdot generates a flamewar.
Now that you've showed us again your m1gh1y sk111z, STFU and let us in peace.
Or maybe it's just that the art of making movies has, in the hands of major production studios and in the face of increasingly connected corporate interests and media niches, turned into the art of making Media Events. Honestly - who cares about movies any more? They're just the finished form of a story, a peice of in-process mythology - Star Wars more than most - for whomever chooses to identify with it.
Seen that way, though, I say we push for opening up the development process on Media Event production and modern mythology. Let's have some open-source mythologies, dammit! What's lacking there is a convenient architecture in which to develop the story and the various bits of animation, soundtrack, and spinoff video-games. The process wouldn't be too hard - though it might appeal to a more literate audience (gasp!). But honestly: who sat through all of Phantom Menace and didn't want to play with the code (read: script) a little? Tweak the editing? Follow a link on some character for more background? Somehow, watching a movie isn't the same as it was ten years ago, is it?
Sometimes I think the only reason I bother going to the theatre at all is the sensory I/O bandwidth.
My memories of the first few Star Wars movies are mostly marketing anyway. It was years before I could set the stories straight in my head, but I do remember I had Empire bedsheets when I was learning not to pee on Darth Vader's head. Actually, sometimes I still do.
I dunno, all the crass commercialism seems to have financed some R&D that looks to have paid off. Who cares about all the toys and crap? There was lots of toys and crap for the first three as well. Hell, I had most of it. All the hoopla, etc will be the furthest thing from my mind when i sit down to see the movie. Hell, he can sell all the crap he wants if it furthers the look and feel of the flicks.
Besides, theres a demand for all this stuff. Not from me mind you, I read the book (I hope Brooks got paid with a kick in the nuts, a 12 year old could have written that) and that was it.
Imagine a movie selling toys, models, tshirts, bedspreads, pjamas, wallpaper! Wow! Bastards! Oh wait... it's Star Wars... they've been doing that for 20 years now.
Katz. Get a clue. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Don't see it. Don't watch it. Don't watch it when they re-do the special effects and re-release it in 15 years. It's not Schindler's List and it's not trying to be.
I know, you're just pissed because there isn't a wookie.
I'm assuming that because I don't watch TV,
that this hype you're talking about is mostly
on the boober.
Cancel your cable subscription and you won't
have any problem with the hype.
Try it, it's wonderful.
Has the movie been changed in any way to make it more commercial? Does Yoda chug a can of Pepsi in the Movie? Does Darth Maul eat a taco or a slice of delicious Pizza Hut pizza in the movie? Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I can with full assurance answer no to all those questions. If Lucas had somehow changed his creation, his art, to be more commercial then he would have sold out; however, it is not selling out if you accept money from large corporations who have no voice in how your art should be done.
For Lucas to have sold out, there has to be something different about his art which would not have been there if he had not accepted money from the corporations. This is not the case; the movie is the same as it would have been regardless of whether he got $0 in licensing or $1 billion in licensing.
I remember the day I walked into the movie theatre to watch Star Wars. It had debuted the night before, and I had caught enough information to learn that it was a science fiction movie with robots and spaceships. I breezed into the theatre the next afternoon (no lines ... this was the only time there were no lines for the entire run of the movie in a single theatre in the San Diego area) and had a most enjoyable time. The movie was good.
I actually went to see it again while on a tour of duty that brought my ship to Hong Kong. Theatres were much nicer there. Happily the movie was still in English, with Chinese subtitles. Did I mention that I was impressed by the theatre?
Yes, I did see the other two movies at the theatre. I didn't collect any of the neato toys, although my dad recently found an Escape from the DeathStar game that was made by Kenner and gave it to my now 8-year-old son. I taped the Bill Moyer interviews with Joseph Campbell (which cover a whole heck of a lot more than Star Wars) and thought he had some very valid points.
I don't idolize George Lucas. I've liked his movies. He is not a mythic character. I would consider some of the characters he has created in the Star Wars movies as mythic in proportion and quality.
Somehow, I've managed to miss almost all of the hype, the action figures and the commercials about the forthcoming "Phantom Menace" movie. I do remember seeing the second half of the first movie trailer (walked into the theatre a bit late for the movie I was seeing), and the visual look was neat. I wasn't planning on going to see the movie for a week or three after opening. I imagine there are a number of people out there who have had a similar experience -- the hype is out there, but I just don't see much of it.
Perhaps its because I don't look for it. If you don't watch a lot of commercial television, if you don't read [insert name of any entertainment/news] magazine, if you don't shop on a monthly basis at Toys R Us, if you spend time with your kids or read or listen to music -- the Hollywood Hype Machine(tm) just kinda passes over you.
I did get to look at a game card put out by Taco Bell/Pizza Hut/whoever. I was getting a quick bite to eat with my boys, and the 8-year-old picked it up. I read it over, and the movie is starting to sound a bit more interesting to me.
I still won't see it on 19 May, but I look forward to seeing the movie sometime before Summer Solstice.
Mr. Katz and I appear to have grown up during the days before movie tie-ins were part-and-parcel of the movie process. That was then, and this is now, and Oz gets milked for all its worth these days. There was a time last year when one couldn't seem to switch radio channels fast enough to cut off that darned 'Titanic' theme song. And I especially find the use of Apple computer equipment in movies to be ludicrous. But hey -- I liked the movie 'Titanic', and thought there were some nicely funny bits to 'Independence Day'.
Keep repeating: "It's only a movie". Apparently hyped in all the places that Mr. Katz looks, but hardly to be seen in the places that matter to me.
- David
I know exactly what you mean. I was 8 at the time of Empire, and I can remember all the glasses, the press coverage on the TV, the H-U-G-E Toys R Us displays that seemed to dominate the store well into the mid-80s. With Jedi, the press was even bigger. I still have something like 18 or 20 magazines that had features on the movie, and I'm sure that a Lexis-Nexis search would turn up several hundred articles from that time. The only difference between then and now seem to be that the tie-in was relatively new 20 years ago, whereas now any movie that appeals to kids inevitably needs action figures and toys. The only reason Cameron didn't release them for Titanic is because the demographic that went to the movie wasn't into action figures (though the Leo figure would probably have done well in the pubescent female group who are now throwing all their money at 'n Sync and the Backstreet Boys).
/. arguments to the contrary. But I'm increasingly getting the feeling that he just wants to hear (see?) his own voice. "[Microsoft] definitely evokes a system that denies humanity." Admittedly, this might start a flame war, but denies humanity? Are we really going to condemn a corporation for the same crimes that we attack certain Eastern European leaders?
Some of Katz's articles are actually somewhat insightful, despite many
He also failed to recognize the difference between Star Wars and such shows as Buffy is that there's an already-established storyline for Star Wars. Unless you count the $2.99 books available at your local WalMart that chronicle the further adventures of Bully, Dawson - not to mention Sabrina or those Olsen Twins - these shows have nothing comparable to the volume of books that have appeared in the last 5-6 years for the Star Wars Mythology. Add in the comic books and there's really not too much one can write about.
I'm really starting to get sick of Katz - someone really needs to read his stuff before he posts it. The comments to his essays usually devolve to arguing that he's got to check his facts, which isn't particularly productive.
Actually, metallica DID sell out. Members of the band have admitted that they needed the money that the mainstream-type music offers.
Nicely written, Jon, but while I am WAY sick by the whole hype and commercialism myself, I think it is simply a corroboration of the old syaing that 'Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'.
*ANY* Star Wars sequel would have such incredible hype to live up to, that it would be impossible to meet any expectations of the fans - couple that with the incredible, overwhelming runaway marketing in the interest of the allmighty $$$ these days, I believe it would be hardly possible for any of us to resist the temptation of being abused...
In the end, the proof will be in the pudding, or rather in the theatres. Either Lucas has provided content that his audience will accept, in that case all of the hype and marketing won't matter - or the movie will not do as well as expected (it will still make tons of $$$), and Lucas has the opportunity to do better in the next two.
In the end, one thing to consider is that all of us were much younger when we saw Star Wars, and most of us have grown up in the interim - this comes, unfortunately, with other expectations and points of view.
Lucas points out, repeatedly, that his movies are for kids. *WE* were kids when we saw Star Wars, and what kids like, or how to present it to them HAS changed in the past 20 years.
We *WANT* Star Wars to feel as fresh when we see TPM as when we saw Episode IV, but, sadly, that simply won't happen. The best we can hope for is to get back in touch with that 14 year old in the back of us, and enjoy the ride.
Harry
harry@spotfans.com
I, for one, admire Bill Gates. Getting to the point in his career where he can lay down the rules to the IT machine; dictating what standards users must adhere to in order to use his software; maintaining tight control over his licenses.
It is an envious position to be in. But I don't wish I were him. I don't know why.
AC
With regard to the merchandising, you can't make the comparison between the old Star Wars, the new Stars Wars, or even Titanic. When the original Star Wars came out, there was no precendence. It was a low-budget movie, and they barely finished the movie. You can't tell me that there were no product tie-ins with ROtJ, what with all the Ewoks 'n stuff. And how are you going to merchandise Titanic? Your very own sinking ship?? It's completely different. James Cameron had to gave up his directing share of the profit because he is using someone elses' money. Lucas used his own money to bankroll the entire project. He has every right to sell merchandise from the movie in any way he sees fit. Notice that commercials for the product tie-ins did not appear until May. A typical Disney hype begins almost and entire YEAR before with product tie-ins and posters/poster boards in movie theaters. Phantom Menace posters were only available from their web site, and poster boards did not appear in movie theaters 'till well after the 2nd trailer came out.
I am sure there will be those who says all the restrictions on the actors to talk about the movie, and the tight control he exhibits over ever aspect of the movie is aimed at generating hype. Perhaps. But that's just one point of view. It could also be seen as a man trying to do the right thing, and not ruin his own vision.
That whole bit about technology. If Lucas had completed the movies as they were, why bother with a 2nd edition? Obviously it was because he never did put his vision into the original movie. Now that he can, he utilizes all that is within his power to make the vision come true. Technology corrupts, but only if you become dependent on it. Vader became completely dependent on it, but Luke still uses technology as much as he can. So does Lucas. He is not selling out to technology, he is making sure he can tell the story the way he wants it to be told. Only in this way can his dream be fully fulfilled.
AC
Every big movie arrives in a cloud of tie-ins, toy promotions and fast-food marketing schemes these days. Lucas can?t be blamed for that.
Or can he? Salon's Charles Taylor sure seems to think so.
Did Lucas, ever the hater of Hollywood, succeed in helping destroy it?
-Andrew
I don't read too much Jon Katz at all - but I do read as much as I can about Star Wars.
I wasn't even born when the first Star Wars movie came out. I didn't know about the T-Shirts, popsicles and stuff, all I knew was that it was a great movie - and so were its successors. As long as Phantom is a movie that deserves its title "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace" I will happily go and take part in the "myth of Star Wars."
Sure, I don't really think that when I go to the mall, seeing all this Star Wars crap all over the walls is the greatest thing in the world, but I definitely have to look at the other side of the coin:
All these companies, be they Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken or even just the niche store at the mall that just sells pens or socks, are trying to make money
The reason that they are trying to make money is irrelevant - their goal is to make a profit. Also, in the end, Lucas would definitely like to make some money if he can - it's almost the American Way to take advantage of this type of situation.
Lucas spent his life and MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of his own money to create an epic story. He basically dropped $110 MILLION of HIS OWN MONEY to make The Phantom Menace.
I would bet that if Lucas could make another Star Wars movie for only $10 Million like he did the first, he would have - but that just isn't possible today. Katz - YOU try recouping $110 MILLION of YOUR OWN MONEY.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
As if that sickening fast food commercial where the three Heroic Registered Trademarks(tm) rush off to save the Naboo system wasn't bad enough, some of the other merchandising is just bizarre - Darth Maul intertube sleds et al.
Anywhere else it would be okay, but for me (someone who was born the year Star Wars came out), it seems like this sort of blatent marketing is defiling an old friend. Toys and action figures are one thing -- they just helped out my imagination when I was six and wanted to be Han Solo -- but the rest is just too much.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
You should check out Excessive Use of the Force, a review of the Star Wars special edition by Jonathan Rosenbaum. He is the film critic of the Chicago Reader and IMO one of the most knowledgeable film writers in the world.
Jon, you're really missing the point badly. With luck I'll not waste too much time replying to this and will sum it up in one post: ;P ): Zappa was another artist able to produce very extensive, elaborate and well-funded artworks by locking in to the business game and making it work on his own terms. Zappa fought record companies all his life, but he was not a monk, or a hippie- he was a _businessman_ and that is how he financed his art. Lucas is a businessman too, and I personally consider it ludicrous that you criticize the exact skills that allow him to _make_ Phantom Menace exactly how he wants- movies are _very_ expensive, much more than record albums, and the man wouldn't have _shipped_ the movie were it not for his ability to turn hype to his own ends and get companies to pay for his artistic freedom.
You did tremendous hype on RTTM. Lucas is doing more tremendous hype on Phantom Menace.
The problem here is that you're behaving like hype is some kind of moral crime. I'd love to see Frank Zappa debate you on the subject (he's dead but might still win
No-one is making you buy Jar Jar Binks cup-holders, and in fact you are suffering from an annoying boomer trait, which is the assumption that most of the world are peasants who just consume what they're told to consume, and that there are _spiritual_ _elites_ which understand the triviality of modern life. This is insulting and wrong- as near as I can tell, most people, rich, poor, smart or dumb, have a native savvy that's enough to tell them what hype is, and they see no reason to be _angry_ or _betrayed_ by it- what do you expect from corporations, anyway? Dignity? _Apple_ had that for awhile (sort of) and it near kilt them off entirely.
Your smug pride in not getting paid is strictly the product of a wealthy dilettante, and if you had to wonder where your food money was coming from for the end of the month, you'd be less pompous about Jar Jar Binks Toilet Paper... or maybe you'd be more pompous, but frankly it's hard to imagine why you didn't simply vote 'pissing me off' in the Slashdot PM Hype poll and be done with it. This article is poorer than any recent article you've done, capped off by the fact that you won't even see the movie. I'd think you might at least see it and watch for product placement opportunities >;)
Right, moderate this down- I just had to get that off my chest. From the instant I saw the teaser I knew Katz was running amok again, and it turned out to be quite true. *feh* hippie!
Please allow me to point out that the first wave of "Star Wars" collectable stuff did not show up until after the first movie had been out for a while. It was only after the studio realized they had a mega-mega hit on their hands that they started with the merchandising.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
no one said he can't. he just shouldn't. I can use my computer to transmit filthy foulmouthed flames to slashdot, but that doesn't mean I should.
Posted by Jester Hat:
How the hell cares about the hype, when did making money become a bad thing. Lucas has said himself that he doesn't like all the hype. It isn't him that is putting starwars on the cover of all these magazines and whatnot, it is the owners of the magazines. And why wouldn't they it sells!
And so what if George lucas makes some money off the movie? it is his right isn't it? It is not like the quality of the movie is going to suffer because of it. He didn't take all of these promoters suggestions on making the movie or anything they all came after the fact. So the phantom menace is 100% pure lucas. As it should be. But hey if someone wants to give me 2 billion dollars to promote a movie i made on my own am i going to say no?? HELL NO!! would you? Would you be saying something like, "oh no Pepsi, i can't take your two billion dollars then it would look like i was selling out." No sir!
I say sure keep the money rolling in!
I think the important thing to understand here is that Lucas didn't go out looking for all of this hype, it came to him. Pepsi came to him and asked for the rights to use his movie to sell their products, the magazines came to him asking to use his characters to sell their magazines. If he benefits from their use of his ideas then good for him! He deserves it. The second and most important thing to remember is that Lucas made this movie wholly on his own, in his own studios with his own employee's with his own money. It totally his vision and ideas that created it. all of the money that is now comming in is after the movie has been made. Had pepsi and all the rest had a hand in making the movie THEN lucas would have truely sold out because he compromised his vision for corporate money. As things are that has not happened and any money he is getting is well earned!
-Jester Hat
"The opinionated one"
Posted by Mike@ABC:
:)
I was but a young lad when Star Wars first came out, but if I remember correctly, there were juice glasses, action figures and fast-food tie-ins before Empire even came out. Lucas sold out to marketing a long time ago.
However, he didn't sell out to Hollywood, a distinction that I think is missed here. He retained creative control and didn't bow to the studios' whims. THAT makes him a rebel. And all the Jedi burritos in the world won't change that.
Now...let's hope, after all this, that Phantom Menace is a good movie. Opening night, 8 p.m., I already have my tix.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
>>Please allow me to point out that the first wave of "Star Wars" collectable stuff did not show up until after the first movie had been out for a while. It was only after the studio realized they had a mega-mega hit on their hands that they started with the merchandising.
Ummm, not the studio it was George Lucas who was behind all of the merchandising of the series. That was a part of the deal he struck with the studio.
It was LUCAS. Not that I blame him or think that it's bad or anything, who wouldn't have done the exact same thing? But he's no shining example of the starving artist who cares only about his artistic vision making it onto the screen. Just like everybody else he wants to pay the bills and feed his kids.
LK
Posted by Wookie Trainer:
Don't you think "sellout" is a little strong? I mean really, he never did (or is now, for that matter) design Star Wars to be the blockbuster that it's sure to be. Read an interview from four years ago. He never really wanted to make another Star Wars. Some may say that he's finally given up under the pressure and "sold out". But think about it.
Is it really seeling out to wait an entire decade, then make an entirly new movie with his own money?
2) Selling out (if we must use that term) always includes not only a change in one's public persona, but altering one's art to fit someone else's ideas.
Selling Out is Selling Out. An unknown can sell out too. Almost all commercial endeavor (I'm keeping this in reference to the arts) is, to some extent, a sell out. If you "alter one's art to fit someone else's ideas", whether producers, execs, or some imagined audience, you're selling out; it may be so slight as to not be worth mentioning, or it may be blatant.
Now, let's take Lucas. I see nowhere in Katz's article where he cites Lucas explicitly stating that he will not do promotions with fastfood places, etc. This is all based on incredibly vague implications as seen by Katz about the "myth" of Star Wars, and the assertion that somehow these things that have nothing to do with the movie itself degrade the quality of the art.
No. It's about a movie. Not selling out means that you make a movie, that you capture some sort of vision on celluloid that just had to get out; I saw Star Wars three times, and it's merely OK in my books, but I would say there's minimal sellout there -- it was a fun movie in a decade full of great, often heavy, films. There was a freshness about it. Where Lucas went wrong -- both in the rest of that trilogy, and even more so with TPM, is that the film is now part of a money-making apparatus that goes beyond the vision-captured-on-celluloid. It's now a minor, though necessary, cog in a marketing machine, no longer fresh or different -- just Your Basic Hollywood Blockbuster. There is, really, little or no vision at that rarefied level of marketability; it's more just a matter of punching the clock, getting the film done, and amassing the varied marketing forces for battle. Lucas' only responsibilities are to make sure it doesn't suck so badly that it harms the marketing, and to sell the hell out of it with personal appearances (and doing a little myth-making himself about "George Lucas").
As someone who has lambasted Katz of late, I'm very pleased to defend him this time -- amidst all those dreaded Smart Quotes (and that Blind Orange Washington proofreading) lies a rant of substance. Two thumbs up :) I won't be going to see TPM, and I've had the Star Wars stories filtered out from Day One of /. filtering. I miss the old (pre-sequel, pre-hype) George Lucas.
--
--
=8^
>You have a character like JarJar created specifically to be marketed to kids.
:-) (Or maybe it's just that he hasn't seen the movie yet.)
My four year old talks about Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker; he's shown no interest in Jar Jar Binks. Maybe he's too young for a character aimed at the kids?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
"Never trust the storyteller; trust only the story." -- Neil Gaiman, _Sandman_ issue 38.
Mashed potatoes can be your friends!
lucas has said often that he didnt like all this hype thats surrounded Episode I, but he couldnt really control it, cause it just got out of his hands and the media etc took over as the hype machine
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
I saw this one fact in Newsweek:
"Amount spent on advertising for The Phantom Menace: $0"
Lucas spent some big $$$ to make the movie but HE himself hasn't spent a DIME on advertising . . .
If I had a product and big time ad agencies and other establish big name brand types came to me and said "We're gonna advertise your movie on EVERYTHING we have . . and get this . . you won't have to pay a thing . . you know, we'll even PAY YOU to let us !"
I think he would be a FOOL not to take that offer!
Be it business or not, who can say NO to that !
And one more thing . . .
Control IS Power ! (as long as it's used for good)
Think of the Lucas thing . . the Orsen Wells thing with Citizen Kane . . . Mark McGuire home runs . . . all of the power came from CONTROL.
No one seems to understand that . . .
Just my TWO PESOS and a SHOT of CUERVO.
yea... that jitlov presentation was amazing... well worth it... (oh yea... and thanks againg for the STAP speaking of SW toys)
:)
anyway, onto the meat... how many starwars ads have you seen... I mean actual adds for the movie... Ive seen exactly 1.
I dont think lucas is overhyping... its the media thats doing it (and complaining about it too I might add). yea, the hangers on like thumb wars are bad but thats not lucas. the toys and merchandizing is bad (esp. the pepsi subsidiary adds) but fox wants to hedge its bets and raise some serious money (I realy cant blame them for wanting more money, although it would be nice if things were different)
so there ya go.. no starwars adds but a shitload of media genrated hype and hangers on... I cant blame lucas for much of the worst of the hype (and I wont blame him for making the movie in the first place
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
The point is that I came away from that discussion with the fear that this movie is going to suck, but that noone will EVER admit it if it does. The hype is too big. People are forced to love it now.
Exactly. Look at the advance reviews of the movie coming out -- most of them say the movie is not so hot. However, everybody either says "Episode 4 had bad reviews too" (interesting, because I have seen some links back to reviews of the original and they have been positive) or "George Lucas would never make a bad movie." And then, they've got themselves all convinced it will be a great movie and it will be really hard to admit that it was bad even if it was bad. It ain't easy to admit that you're wrong, especially if you've been telling other people the wrong thing for a long time.
Lucasfilm showed some preview screenings Sunday night in cities around the nation for $500 donations to various charities. The Washington Post took their computer van to the Washington D.C. screening and let people post their comments on the movie. I noticed that most of them said the movie was great, but also most of them were from children under 15. Also, someone who pays $500 to see a movie is NOT going to come out and admit the movie sucked!! (Just like people who get scammed by con artists never complain because they don't want to admit that they were the victim of a fraud.)
I was expecting a dry, atypical scarry mummy movie, and was instead greeted with a campy, enjoyable movie. Go see it before TPM hits the theatres.
* ikilledkenny@execpc.com * * Because I can. *
Umm... What planet were you on Mr. Katz when the original movies came out? Star Wars came out as a sleeper hit, but the next two were media blitzes. I don't know what kind of deranged memories you have, but the hype that exists now is only proportional to the time people have waited for something more to chew on. Fans have created more hype for SW:TPM than Lucasfilms has. Open your eyes and look around you.
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
>He doesn't want to release any of the Star Wars (4-6) movies on DVD until all the Star Wars prequels (1-3) are done.
I can see his point. Why would he want to go through the hassle of releasing Star Wars (4-6) on DVD when Star Wars (1-3) aren't done yet? You'ld be missing an very important part of the story line. Besides DVD or Divx isn't all that it's cracked up to be anyway. This could also be what Lucas is saying......
In the immortal words of Yogurt: "Moichendising, Moichendising, Moichendising".
The crass commercialism of STARWARS is nothing new. If you think that this is something limited to the first episode of STARWARS, you're just kidding yourself.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Except that doesn't really describe Gates. He's as much a prisoner of his past decisions as any of his customers are.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This is factually true. Lucas is capable of complete freedom due to the fact that he can finance his own ventures. The only thing that is different between him and other indies that is relevant to the moniker is scale.
The term is INDEPENDENT film maker, not pretentious film maker.
He could make THX-1139 next if he really wanted to.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I dunno about you, but my kernel has a built in firewall so that I can flush adfu and my TV remote has a mute button to silence those annoying commercials.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I can almost hear Darth saying "I find your lack of faith disturbing..."
Perhaps I should be more specific. I doubt Mani made a concious decision to "cut and paste" this bit from Zoroasterism, that bit from Gnosticism, a little from Christianity, some from Judaism, etc., and come up with a marketable "movement." However, Lucas has been quite aboveground about how he's retelling the Hero's Quest.
Perhaps the best thing I could say is that the process doesn't seem organic to me. People write books or make movies with elements of the Hero's Quest (and notice how strongly we've abstracted away mythology into generic Hero's Quests and the like, thanks to Lucas and even Cambell; I'm not convinced this is good) all the time, while managing to maintain an organic process.
Alternatively, look at Babylon 5: the story line for John Sheridan is weak and ineffective because it follows the Great Mythic Hero Cookie-Cutter plot, but the story line for G'Kar and Londo was much stronger, because even though it drew from earlier stories, etc., yada yada, it did so in an original way and not in a cookie-cutter fashion.
Phil
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
(currently testing something about signatures here)
I find myself in disagreement with John Katz much of the time, on a wide variety of subjects, but this time I would have to say I agree with much of what he's saying in this article.
I saw Star Wars when it first came out; I was nine years old at the time. I liked it, and liked Empire a bit more. I disliked ROTJ. As I grew older, and read more books, both science-fiction and non-science-fiction, I started to become more and more disenchanted with the Star Wars movies.
I am especially dubious about the Star Wars movies because of their attempts to push their synthetic mythology on people. I have actually gained familiarity with the original stories and myths, and philosophies, that Lucas drew on to create his stories, and frankly, the original myths are much better. The whole mythos of the Force, which seems like an attempt to weld together Manicheism and Taoism in an inappropriate fashion, is IMHO very misguided.
I think most of the people here are perfectly capable of reading about Taoism or Christianity or Homer or what have you on their own, and will find it more fulfilling than Lucas' synthetic feel-good attempt to combine all of them.
Personally, I think there's only one really good movie in recent years about mythology and "mythic themes," and I would recommend that everyone here see it: The Secret of Roan Inish.
And although I didn't agree with everything in the essay, Neal Stephenson's In The Beginning Was The Command Line has many interesting observations on the Synthetic Culture business. He also touches on a lot of the same topics in Cryptonomicon, which I'm currently reading.
ps: Jon, thanks for finally coming through and validating my decision not to put you in my Slashdot "kill-file" equivalent.
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
(currently testing something about signatures here)
reminds me of that scene in Spaceballs. Anyways, I'm sitting here drinking my Anakin Skywalker (tm) Special Edition (tm) Pepsi-cola (tm) and my Anakin Skywalker (tm) Special Edition (tm) Lay's Potato Chips (tm) (tm) (tm). I can't say I was there for the original star wars, but I remember some of the stuff from Jedi, and it was pretty bad... but this is beyond the scale of anything I have ever seen in my life. It started at the beginning of may, and it can only get worse as the summer goes on. To a certain extent it can be expected, but I think lucas went a tad overboard.
Sure he can do whatever he wants. But he has the responsibilty of doing service to the ART, not his already-full pocketbook. Most people don't live up to their responsibilities in life.
It's one thing to give people what they want, that seems to be a noble goal to me. It's another thing to give people what the think they want, solely in order to make a bunch of money. That, to me, is selling out. Sure, artists need to live, too, but when they are already multi-millionares, it is disgraceful not to focus back on the art, and doing the best job you can.
I won't say Lucas didn't, I haven't seen PM yet. If it doesn't live up to my standards, I'll be upset, and rightly so. I have every right to resent Lucas for not putting his heart, soul, and everything into this. If I were in his position, that's what I'd do.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Well, I don't HAVE to go watch his movie, I can find a pirated copy from hong kong or something stupid like that. I didn't have to watch the re-realeases in the theatres... he's rich and famous because of ME, and all his other fans. Granted, his work was amazing, and he deserved what he got, but he still has a responsibility to his fans and his reputation, not matter what his or our rights are.
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
I didn't separate the 'Lucas' hype from the 'Rest of the World' hype, and you're right to point that out. However, the merchandising tie-ins (especially the burger bars) cannot happen without his permission. He keeps control (as I understand) over EVERYTHING to do with the Star Wars mythos (books, games, collectibles etc). He personally may have just been on TV and said 'I made a new movie, it's out soon' but he has to take some responsibility for the hype - Lucasarts could always refuse permission for people to show the clips, trailers, etc.
Are you seriously saying that if all you knew was that a new Star Wars film was out you WOULDN'T see it unless it was hyped according to it's EXPECTED impact? I didn't think so. I said in my previous article "Hell, I'm still going to see it" and I stand by that.
Big money doesn't always mean crap. But you only need to look at Waterworld, Godzilla, Batman & Robin to see that Big money doesn't always mean great, either.
To tie in the other responses - wait and see. That's what Lucas wants us to do. That's what I'm going to do.
Mark
Liked this comment? Why not buy me something nice
Re: 'Discovering' a movie - I always like that. When you go to see something a friend said was pretty good and come out knowing that only a few of you (so far) know about it. Unfortunately, movies are now positioned as 'sleeper hits' - to try and capitalise on this. No longer will a movie be released to an unsuspecting market place, it'll be marketed as 'unknown'.
Perhaps it'll drive more people into art-house cinemas, where they can rediscover plot, characterisation, and genuinely innovative moviemaking.
I'll stop short of a call to boycott 'The Phantom Menace' (hell, I'm still going to see it when it finally opens in the UK) but if I keep hearing 'it's the movie of the millenium' (another pet peeve - the cinema is only just over 100 years old) I might wait for the next millenium.
In the meantime, go see something arty. It won't hurt you, and it'll give you something to think about.
Liked this comment? Why not buy me something nice
My copy of Joseph Campbell's seminal work "Hero With A Thousand Faces" has, amid pics of gods and myths, a Star Wars pic on the cover.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
The New York Post reports that Lucas is as disatisfied with the hype as anyone, but the article talks mostly about out-of-hand fans.
I blame the marketers and licensees, but fortunately, I've been immune to the hype: I don't have a television, and my embargo on Episode I news, gossip and talk has been very successful. Katz's piece is not about the movie, really, which why I'm here.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Star Wars was not a movie "discovered" by "movie lovers" as Jon Katz claims. It was very popular among the geek and children segment, but most "film weenies" regard Star Wars as a lame "plebian" film. While I find the SW trilogy more "fulfilling" than other supposedly "less superficial" films of the 1970s, Star Wars takes a lot of the blame for inspiring such travesties as Independence Day, Starship Troopers, and other manifestations of lameness. The "movie establishment" most certainly did not like star wars. The people who gave it good reviews were the "mainstream" press and "popular" reviewers, rather than professional film people at the time.
-Dean
A few notes on selling out:
1) Usually, selling out involves blatantly
reversing one's previously stated position.
2) Selling out (if we must use that term) always
includes not only a change in one's public persona,
but altering one's art to fit someone else's
ideas.
Now, let's take Lucas. I see nowhere in Katz's
article where he cites Lucas explicitly stating
that he will not do promotions with fastfood
places, etc. This is all based on incredibly vague
implications as seen by Katz about the "myth" of
Star Wars, and the assertion that somehow these
things that have nothing to do with the movie
itself degrade the quality of the art.
Of course, none of this can be backed up by
pointing out examples in the actual movie, as
we haven't seen it yet. But Jon Katz still feels
the need to make blatantly ignorant statements
on the subject and defile a man whose work in the
past has been impeccable. I'll admit that I tend
to find Jon Katz's writings rather puerile and
generally foolish, this kind of attack on someone's
character shocks even me.
--
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
I don't see how you get that idea. It is not your right as a fan to have a personal copy of TPM right away. And as far as Lucas being selfish, that's just plain absurdity. This man didn't have to make any more movies . . . EVER. But instead of doing what most red-blodded Americans would have done -- sit back on their pauches and sip lemonade on their front porch until doomsday -- he decided to undertake a 10-15 year project. And not only that, but he is paying for this project! So I have absolutely no problem with anything the man is doing. He could have spent his millions any way he wanted, and he chose to provide me and billions of other people three more wonderful movies. And about the hype. Katz needs to get a clue. Lucas is spending an incredible amount of money on these films. It appears that Katz thinks that Lucas should just do this pro bono. That is utterly insane. The man isn't able to maintain his artisitic integrity by personally funding his own multi-million dollar movies by throwing his money away. This project involves some very hard work, and I think Lucas & the Lucas machine (so to speak) deserve to reap any & all of the benefits of this massive undertaking.
RFC2119
It's all overhyped yes. Here's the solution:
Commercial for something star wars comes on, hit mute. Or change the station.
Dont go to Pizza Hut.
Dont go to Taco Hell.
Dont buy Pepsi (yuck anyway).
Dont buy an action figure.
Dont buy Star Wars shaving cream (no shit, there I was, in Walmart... )
Dont buy any of the souvenirs at all.
Dont write about it and hype it even more.
and last but not least,
Dont go and see the freaking movie!
Of course, if you dont go see the movie, that will be an article you'll miss out on writing.
BTW, I'm puzzled, you say in another post that you didnt get money for RttM? And yet you're promoting it on C-span and here and other shows.... who's getting that money? You're getting nothing? How is it that you make your living?
So... sorry we won't hear that TPM review from you Jon, since you won't be seeing the overhyped movie. Or maybe I'm sorry I will see that review.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
C'mon people, you're supposed to ignore trolls, not feed 'em. Katz is nothing more, nothing less. Katz's job is just to stir things up by saying something outrageous in the hopes that someone, ANYONE will notice. As to the silly marketing being something new...WTF...Remember: the Star Wars Holiday Special was made in 1978. Actually, I think there was MORE marketing & hype back then. Christ, when the first one hit I went see Darth Vader at Thalheimers; a JC Penny type dept. store when I was 7. I still have a big photo of Darth Vader that says Thalheimers on it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when Taco Bell (and KFC/PH) "sponsor" a movie, doesn't that movie end up sucking ass?
I can only recall Congo and Godzilla right now. Any other sucky movies that PepsiCo has "sponsored?"
And don't say SW:TPM, because everyone knows Colonel Sanders is a bad ass, with or without a lightsaber.
When a well known band or individual does a commercial for the gap, that entity has officially sold out.
Aerosmith, Run DMC, and LL Cool J have all sold out. I've always had the gut feeling that Metallica would be next on The Gap sell out list, because their (new) music sucks now, and the only way to get people back into it is to turn to The Gap.
As far as I know, Lucas has no affiliation with The Gap, so he hasn't officially sold out......
Yet.
I say Katz should no longer be allowed to post here until he figures out how to remove those
friggin' annoying question marks from his articles.
As for "hype", I guess that's one thing Katz IS
an expert on, since he spends most of his free time hyping himself.
Jittlov is indeed amazing. I saw him a couple years ago at Harvard - he was showing the LD version of WoSaT, commenting on it the whole way though (with the assistance of several laser pointers).
If you can find a copy of WoSaT, I _strongly_ suggest you watch it.
ObLucas: I am rather frightened by all of the merchandising going on. I work near a mall, and I can't swing a dead cat in there without hitting some kind of SW crap. I'm not impressed by the toys so much, and the KFC/PH/TB ad nearly gave me a heart attack. Still, if Lucas is okay with it, I'll let it slide. I don't care, I just want to see the damn movie. Hopefully as Eps 2 and 3 come along (AICN has a *small* bit of info on Ep2 today) the big L (the other big L) will lay off with the media blitz.
What's even worse are all of the leeches. Thumb Wars, every news outlet on the planet, etc. I forgive Austin Powers 2 for riding on Star Wars, because they did so in a pretty clever way.
If it makes me laugh, I'm okay with it. If it makes me blanch I'm not so okay with it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Nice title. Star Wars fans have only been demanding a new movie for what, 16 years? Yeah, heavily promoting this movie sure sounds like a sellout. I guess Disney is constantly selling-out too. I have no idea where you're coming from. (notice "you're" is not you?re)
If you want to see the new Star Wars movie, go see it. And if you don't, then don't. It's really not that hard. All of this babbling about the social consequences and the selling-out by moviemakers is ignoring one glaring fact: you can choose not to participate. That's what I did with Titanic.
You mention that James Cameron "showed a lot more courage and rebelliousness in the making of his movie" by risking his share of profits. Gee, what a hero. Lucas financed this entire movie out of his own pocket. So who showed a lot more courage? (And I actually tried watching Titanic last week, but couldn't bear it. There was more cheese in Titanic than in an entire Kraft warehouse.)
Jon, I like some of your articles but this is way off the deep end. It seems that you forget that it is a movie. It's fake. It is intended for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be taken orally.
Note that I have no idea of the truth to that rumor, but it would really be too bad. The Star Wars RPG has been pretty much universally acknowledged as one of the best systems ever made, and the universe really lends itself to role-playing. I have a group of friends with whom I have played since college, and we still have folks who fly in occasionally just to play.
It's interesting - one of the problems may be that the RPG was *too* successful. The authors for the books have openly acknowledged that they go to the RPG references for information about the Star Wars universe. The universe has probably grown more from the RPG than just about any other source. It seems like some of Lucas' control issues may play into not wanting the universe to be arbitrarily expanded by other people, as it has been.
In reference to Mr. Katz' column, I agree with a lot of what he says. I've been trying not to get too depressed about the seeming corporate onslaught, and also with some other seeming nastiness coming from the Lucas empire (notably, check out Daily Sci-Fi for the story of what happened when they tried to run a fairly innocuous little ticket giveaway contest). I guess the most depressing thing about this is the harsh reminder that this is only a movie, and that Lucas is still just the head of a corporation. I guess we all wanted to believe it and he were somehow more than that. I keep hoping I'll see some sign of that being the case, but as yet, that hasn't been the case.
On the other hand, the control regarding theaters and such has, I think, been mostly to Lucas' credit, and he has relented when it seemed to be in the fans best interest (i.e., buying advanced tickets). It really does appear that he was trying to make sure that everyone had a good experience seeing the movie, rather than seeing it on what is essentially a big-screen TV with bad sound, as a lot of theaters are. We need to give credit where credit is due there.
To sum up, I'm still very excited about seeing the movie, but a little of the magic has gone out of it for me, which just makes me sad. My only hope is that Lucas will see some of this and take it into consideration for Episode 2. I would certainly love to have him prove us all wrong.
Hope everyone has a good time at the film...
--Derek
Time to pull out the ol' video library and check the film titles (it's Wrath of Khan - and I'm not even a serious trekker)
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
well spoken, sir. In my own (admittedly limited) experience, the people who are most enjoying all the hype KNOW it's hype. They're not being tricked, or suckered, or manipulated by The Man and Corporate Money(tm). People get excited about what they choose to be excited about. In my area, the people most excited and who are buying into the hype to the greatest degree AREN'T naive kids or teens trying to own more merchandise than their peers - those who are the most manic tend to be people from about my age (23) to about 10 or 15 years older, who remember how much fun the HYPE (and the movies) were as a kid, and are trying to relive it now. The actual movie itself is NOT the biggest part of what's going on here, and we need to remember that. To a great degree, what makes Star Wars and its assorted sequels and other similar movies so much fun and so wildly successful is precisely the hype that people are criticizing. HYPE IS FUN! PEOPLE LIKE TO GET EXCITED! While I certainly agree that the KFC/PH/TB ad was in poor taste, I'm not going to stop eating Tacos in protest. Let's keep this in perspective - the same people who are screaming "It's just a movie! Get a life!" need to remember "It's just hype! No big deal!" The "desecration" of the Star Wars mythos by commercialization is what people seem to be upset about. To that I say - why did any movie ever get put on such a high spiritual pedestal to begin with? It IS just a movie - so let's have fun with it, enjoy the hype, poke fun at the dweebs who've been in line for two weeks or more, but take the entire debate with a grain (or three) of salt. I'm personally not buying merchandise (I'm too poor) but I enjoy seeing the excitement of people who do, and listening to all the hype by kids from 4 to 44. It's not often that a single event can so thoroughly capture the interest of such a wide demographic group. Ack, that was too long-winded. Well, in closing: HYPE IS NOT EVIL. HYPE IS JUST HYPE. Enjoy it if you can, ignore it if you can't, but don't get all bent out of shape because it's there. The Star Wars series was never intended to be one of non-hype "artsy" type films. Let's stop being offended because people are reacting to it as could be expected.
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
It seems as if Katz has a definite blind spot regarding recent history: he has (incorrectly) regarded Bill Gates as a celebrity of the 80's who seized upon the Internet, now he is downplaying Star Wars to a "sleeper film" that was "underpublicized" because there was no World Wide Web in which to spread the word. The fact that he isn't twenty years old makes this more shocking. ;-) dead-end ;;-)) series on TV called "Happy Days". Spielburg had already done another "sleeper" (athem) about some sashimi odori called "Jaws" that in my school, was *the* movie to avoid (no lie) for being a "typically overhyped piece of studio and commercial manipulation". So when everyone started *raving* about a film that seemed to have nothing going for it but some special effects and a heroine who didn't act like a damsel in distress, I held off. And held off. It stayed in the theaters for about a year. (Really, it did.) Some people saw it a dozen and more times.
OK, well, let's see: as I recall, I didn't see Star Wars at first since I thought it was overhyped, and I don't think that the Web is (yet) so big of a Force in peoples' lives that they won't hear about something without it. In 1977, Lucas had already scored big with a little film called "American Graffiti", which begat a short-lived
Breaking down, I finally saw it...and was conquered. No, it's not deep. No, it doesn't really do much more than rehash classic space opera in a new, jazzy, package with some added new twists. BUT, nothing else looked like it, not even 2001. After years of "normal" looking folks bumbling around with cloudy intentions in movies, these people looked and behaved like Gods and Goddesses (even the aliens and droids). The sets avoided sterotyped Art Decoish sets and the "too new" look of whiz-bang SF (or most film and TV, for that matter) for a grungy universe where there was dust and dirt everywhere, where things seemed to have a past, a present, and a future, and most of the aliens, sets and costumes looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Never mind it had ships making noise in space. It was a feast!
It was also the first film, I think, that engendered a lifestyle. Previous to this, there had been great films (Gone With The Wind), endlessly repeated films (Wizard of OZ), and even revered films (Citizen Kane), but no one ever dressed up as Charles Foster Kane for anything but a Guess Who I Am? costume party, or quoted whole scenes from OZ from memory, or took bits and pieces of Gone With The Wind out of context as being Guiding Philosophies in Life. (To do so would have seemed like writing Dr. Kildare for advice about a suspected cancer.) Within a year, however, Princess Leia wigs were a huge seller, earth-toned tunics-and-leggings-with-boots became an instant fashion classic, people quoted the dialog verbatim at the drop of a hat, and ministers in the pulpit spoke approvingly of Obi-Wan's guidance and wisdom. It engendered books, cartoons, radio drama, comics, arcade games, board games, and made George Lucas rich beyond all dreams of old Hollywood.
That said,its not at all surprising Joseph Campbell spoke of it : it's like hearing a middle-aged English prof quote Madonna. As for its philosophy, it seems like nothing more than recycled Zen Buddhism and Christianized Tao, with a lick of hippie portentiousness thrown in (Lucas has said that he first contacted the Force while convalescing from a concussion.) To say that its message is that "technology cannot solve our problems" is like saying that Dorothy learned nothing from her experience/dream but the futility of trying to move out of Kansas: here Campbell seems to be cleaving to the time-honored aristocratic/intellectual tradition of denigrating the New (with its confusing machinery) in favor of the Old (which left such matters to the servants, dahling) while the real issue is something like "your instincts can work more adaptably than logic" (If he'd really wanted Luke to abandon technology, then why didn't he have Luke fight with an actual sword, instead of some glorified flashlight?) While left brained logic was a specialty of the computation of 1977, right brained functions (or simulations thereof) are the new frontier of the 90's. That said, I wonder how Campbell would have responded to my news and sales agents being able to pick out what I might like as well as an old-time sales clerk, or to computer-generated animations that indistinguishably simulate the "organic" motion of a flock of birds, or a school of fish.
It's also intreguing to note the values he assigns to the Bright and Dark sides of the Force. In 1977, it was still a given that heroic individuals = good, while society = bad. Nowadays, we would talk about Darth being a representative of an upstart authoritarian society that champions the selfish will to individual power (Darth's posture as he kneels to the Emperor looks anything but humble) while Luke is a rootless orphan who comes to realize the value of the continuity of tradition and of subduing his selfish wants and desires to a greater community. (That he also gets to run away from home, hang out with a pretty girl (before he knows this is incest), and have the cheers of a vast auditorium is immaterial.) Neither of these views is hard-and-fast reliable in my humble opinion: organic relations to one's homeland were one basis of Nazi philosophy, and remain a problem in Kosovo right now, while "heroic" Bill Gates (who defied his competators, his old boss, and even the United States Government) is now pitted against the "beaurocratic" and "collectivist" Linux community, with its operating system that was based on something from AT&T, for krissake! Unlike THX 1138, Star Wars was an effort that required lots of teamwork and lots of individual vision, and I don't think that the prequel is going to be any less awesome for that.
Damn, I wasn't going to write this much. sorry.
teleny, friend of cats.
This movie looks like another big Hollywood feature-length commercial for sugar-coated crap. The creatures look like they were borrowed from Deep Space Nine, and no movie is complete these days without an annoying, bratty child actor whose only function beyond his first movie will be to provide fodder for a future "E! True Hollywood Story".
Skip the movie. Skip the Happy Meal.
argh. you make me sick with your anger. how can you become so enraged at these people? they certainly aren't hurting anything, and they certainly aren't hurting you personally. i can't comprehend the source of your intensity on this issue. you claim these people have been brainwashed. they must have brainwashed themselves, because there hasn't exactly been a glut of pre-release hype for this film. these people are big fans of star wars, what exactly is your problem with that? and then you go on to say that this "hype engine" producing the phantom menace could be used to endorse racism or genocide? poppycock, i say, that is pure conjecture, and such a leap of logic that i can't even comprehend how you came to such a conclusion. again, lucasfilm has not been overhyping this film. a few trailers, a few posters is all i've seen from them. the fans are zealous, because they care about this movie. who are you to point at them and say "don't care about that!"? i think you need to take a look at why these little things get you so incensed, and maybe try some breathing excersizes to calm down, or something to that effect.
I'm so sick of the hype. I mean, how much more shameless can you get than having taco bell, and the KFC guy in a star wars commercial. Really now, it's blindingly obvious the reality won't live up to the hype, and millions of geeks will try to cram in may 19th to see.. a movie.
This isn't a life-altering event, this isn't going to solve world hunger, promote peace on earth and good will towards men.. it's a movie.
I'll go see it after everybody else has. I won't be there at midnight listening to a bunch of 13 year old kids cheering whenever Yoda appears on the screen, and throwing popcorn arond. No, I'm going to enjoy it with a group of my friends well after all those people are done trashing the place. And it'll be a better experience for me as well.
--
I got to hand it to you, rhuff, comparing excerpting RTTM with George Lucas marketing for Phantom Menace has left me speechless. Well, how bout one difference: I didn't get paid? Beyond that, you've truly left me slack-jawed.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
I kinda like Katz the Inflamer..But take it easy there, Ripp. We don't want an online seizure. If you compare the $between then and now, that was truly peanuts..Calm yourself,tho.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Rob, while I respect the integrity of the question, I have to add, as one writer who has never made a nickel off of any book he's written -- that would be six -- I would have no trouble keeping Thomas Merton's picture off of a Pepsi can. God Help me if I didn't.
I don't fault Lucas for making some money (I'd like to), but it's a question of proportion.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Let's flash back to May 1983, shall we?
I was 10 years old. Jedi (sorry -- Episode VI) had just come out, and by the time summer vacation started, my friends and I had all seen it, and we'd all heard rumors that Lucas was going to start writing and filming Episode I any minute now, and that he was planning on making nine Star Wars movies in total, showing us the history behind Star Wars (sorry -- Episode IV: A New Hope) and everything that would happen after Jedi. By all guesses, we all figured that Episode IX would be in the theaters before the year 2000. We couldn't wait!
And here we are, 16 years later, and Episode I is two days away from its release.
A generation of kids (of all ages, mind you) has been waiting for this movie all that time. Even without the Pepsico tie-ins, the endless array of action figures, and all the press, this is *still* a movie that's got more than 15 years of hype behind it already. For a lot of people who've essentially been waiting for this for more than half their lives, this is a very big deal. Even without a dozen magazines devoting cover stories to The Phantom Menace, the majority of Star Wars fans already have May 19, 1999 etched in their minds, circled in red ink on their calendars, marked with a few dozen exclamation points on their PDAs, etc.
Is the hype necessary? No, certainly not. But anyone with half a brain would have to expect it.
Jon, didn't have time to do much research for your latest, did you?
1. Lucasfilm is independently owned and as such Lucas represents the triumph of the artist over the corporation (Fox)
2. Fox, a unit of News Corp. is projected to make $100 Million profit via distribution on The Phantom Menace.
2a. Fox owns the distribution of the other 3 Star Wars movies, not Lucasfilm.
3. Lucas's first Star Wars single-handedly SAVED 21st Century Fox which was completely floundering in 1977.
4. RE: Lucasfilm and marketing, Jim Ward, head of marketing at Lucasfilm"
Jim Ward, head of marketing at Lucasfilm, said the official site was partly born out of an awareness that especially after the first three "Star Wars" films were re-released in 1997, a new generation of fans was created--one that happened to be very Web-savvy. The site was always intended, however, as more than a sales pitch. "Our site was really established as a way for us to communicate with our core fans. They've sustained us all these years, and we wanted to make sure there was one place they could go to get the official information as promptly as possible," Ward said.
5. My rant:
Your age is showing. You have no idea what it was like to see the first Star Wars movie at the age of 7, at the height of the Divorce Years and Looking for Mr. Goodbar morality playing its way through the suburbs, when as a kid, you saw everything falling to shit all around you, and you went to this movie just expecting to see the same hokiness as the Sinbad movies and instead you experienced something that was less like a movie and more like a code of ethics you could live by.
A universe where people helped each other at the risk of their own life...A universe where Good and Evil was concrete and knowable...A universe where integrity, bravery, and belief mattered.
If the Phantom Menace touches 7 year olds the way Star Wars touched me when I was 7, then May the Universe Bless George Lucas!
diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
Think hard....that's right: FOX.
There's your real article, Jon...
diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
Okay, I can only assume that twenty years ago, Jon Katz was living in a cave withing walking distance of a small cinema.
Having been in the target demographic of the original merchanising blitz, I can assure you that every six-year old at the time HAD to have the Milleneum Falcon and AT-AT walker, or risked being a social outcast. I happily munched away on my C3PO's breakfast cereal, enjoyed a stack of Star Wars coloring books, had to have all the Ewok collector's glasses from Burger King, bawled my little heart out when my mother accedentally threw away my Han Solo action figure.
Many people view the past with nostalgic rose-colored glasses, and I can't see this as being any exception. This is almost as disgusting as baby boomers who look down their noses at modern "slacker" youth for not having such a morally excellent counterculture as hippiedom.
Star Wars is a big Hollywood movie phenomenon. It is made to entertain and rake in cash. If you demand something more profound, read a book.
There is no way to get back the wonder, the sheer thrill of watching the original Star Wars on the big screen after you've seen it for the first time, so you might as well stop trying and enjoy it for what it is, a fun kid's story.
When Star Wars first came out, I remember seeing it maybe three, four times tops. I was too poor to afford seeing it more and buying the toys was out of me and my family's reach. My little brother and I built X-Wings and TIE fighters from the Legos we had and fought hundreds of battles. We'd run around the house flying these ships and crashing them into the unfortunate Lego city on the family room floor. At night in bed, I'd wonder what it would be like to fly in one of those starships around the universe. Before then, I had read some minor science fiction and some fantasy stuff, but Star Wars became the turning point. It gave me the gift of dreaming of space travel, of discovery, of fighting for Good and Honor. I was a convert, I believed it all.
Nowadays, I know I can never reach that point again. Too much life between The Empire Strikes Back and now has made me cynical and more than a little bitter. I've seen the whole Star Wars trilogy too many times to count (and rooted for Darth Vader on more than few occasions) that the effects the series once had on me has wore off.
I hate the hype. I hate seeing George Lucas popping up nearly everywhere mumbling about how he created the Great American Myth. I hate the stories of adults standing in lines for toys that will stay in the box forever or for tickets weeks before they are issued (I do like that it was done for charity, but it still doesn't make up for the audacity of it). I hate the commercialism that surrounds TPM and that I'll be encased in it for months on end. I hate the sheer amount of marketing around TPM, waiting for suck the almightly dollar from children. I hate that adults putting their lives, their dreams, their hopes on the line for this film. How can they justify dedicating so much time, effort, and money on a movie? It seems so insane to me now.
But most of all, I hate the fact that I'll never be able to see the whole series with the eyes and the innocence of a ten-year-old who could believe it all.
Once in a while, I can still find the kid in me that flew mis-matched X-Wing made up from Lego gate-pieces and feel thankful for the hours of fantasy that I got from George Lucas.
It's a film for kids. I'll probably see the new one a few times, but I'll damned if I'm going to buy any of the toys unless my nieces want some. Just as long as they promise me they'll actually play with them.
-S. Louie
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
I completely agree with your article.
This time around Star Wars is completely about making money. What other reason is there for Colonel Sanders to jump out of his grave to save the queen?
Really, I think Star Wars has sucked since Return of the Jedi.
On a related note, has anyone read any of the recent 'Wars books? They totally blow. Shameless.
For some odd reason, I thought the use of '?' in lieu of ''' was pretty damn funny...
www.ihatestarwars.com
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Ok, I was also there...in fact, by sheer chance
(running into some friends in downtown Philly),
I happened into opening night of Star Wars.
Yes, it was incredible. And yes, there was *also*
analogously as much marketing *then* as there is
*now*. There were the same complaints of Lucas
"selling out". Don't you remember the Ewok's
Xmas special on TV?...Hmmm, been a while, maybe
it was Han, Leia, Luke, and Chewy, with the yet-
to-be-seen Ewoks.
Explain to me this phrase, "selling out", or
"hype", as well as calling Lucas a "self-defined"
Hollywood rebel.
From my view, Lucas is in the movie business. He
wants to make good, enjoyable movies, that are
*not* written by a committee, as 99% of all of
them are. With all the merchandizing, he was
able, 20-odd years ago, to set up ILM, and his
ranch, and set himself up to be able to afford
to create the movies he wanted, and to be taken
seriously (i.e., he had enough $$$ of his own)
to be able to raise the money to make the movies,
and distribute them.
Don't want to be commercial? Ever seen Mike
Jittlov's Wizard of Speed and Time? That *is*
Jittlov, and he's a really nice guy...but won't
compromise to reach the audience he really *should*. Lucas wants to reach the audience.
Selling out, in many cases, is a phrase I've
noticed used by folks who don't pull the big bucks
themselves, and by those who seem to think that
anyone who actually manages to appeal to the
masses, in terms they understand, and in a
really meaningful way, has "sold out". Has John
Williams sold out, or has he brought more folks
into classical music?
Then there's your appellation of "self-defined"
rebel. In Hollywood terms, I'd say he is. He
doesn't have a committee writing and rewriting
his scripts; he doesn't take a novel and run it
through a blender, and poor in artificial
sweetner, "lite" beer, and Chock Full 'O Egos.
So, tell me, once you see the story, whether he's
"sold out". And then define your terms.
I mean if people are willing to pay all sorts of money for paraphanalia (sp?) and food in containers adorned in Star Wars characters, then more power to George so he can make more good movies. I've read and heard of the restrictions placed on manufacturers, resellers, advertisers, and anyone else who wants to use or sell Star Wars related gimmicks and products. Of course there's hype to end all hype...we've been waiting for 20 years!!! Considering the anticipation, I'm surprised there isn't more advertising and gimmicks. The only one I've seen thus far is the taco bell, pizza hut, and kfc commercial. I've seen displays in bookstores to sell the books, and I even bought the soundtrack. I haven't listened yet because I want to hear it in the theater first. What's amazing is the lack of promotion and advertising. I haven't seen a tv commercial for it yet, but every other major movie does. why not? Because it doesn't need it. Everyone knows, and everyone wants it so bad they can taste everyone else tasting it. Where is Lucas during all of this? He's keeping whatever grip he can on the way his vision is used. I will bet vital parts of my anatomy that if this was being run by a marketing guy, we'd be bombarded by advertising and gimmicks and merchandise. It's no worse than anyother major movie. ID4 had more promotion from what I remember.
Leave George alone so he'll finish it out and give us great memories.
damon
Jon, I may not always agree with your posts, but generally, they do seem like there's some thought put into them. However, your recent postings have had sort of a "knee-jerk" quality about them, especially this one. I hate to point this out, but the Star Wars series has always been inherently commercial. I remember when I was little, Star Wars stuff was everywhere. Toys, restaurant promotions (yeah, they had them then, too), kids books, comics, etc., etc. There has been no selling out, just an increase in demand and the media rising to that demand. And the movies themselves are very much geared towards manipulating the audience also. Even the merest concession to reality, the explosions in space thing, was ignored by Lucas. When scienc-fiction writer and movie novelizer Alan Dean Foster was talking to Lucas about this issue, pointing out that you cannot hear explosions in space (so the story goes), Lucas said that the explosions were there because people wanted to hear explosions. Lucas has always been out to manipulate people like this, and the current hype is just an extension of this. And since you admit to not having seen the movie yet, how can you say that it is lacking in the mythical quality? If anything, so far it looks like the acting, writing, and effects are all vastly better in this movie than the three previous ones. Plus, there's no Mark Hamill, so that's a good thing. Really, Jon, you'd get a much better reception if you would just think things through before you stick them up on the Web.
I read a review online where Lucas actually calls himself an independent filmmaker. Kinda jumping on the bandwagon if you ask me though.
I wish I had the URL for that... It was one of the Lucas interviews linked from slashdot, I think.
W
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
While I concede the points in your article, I really admire Lucas for getting to the point in his career where he can literally lay down the rules to the Hollywood machine.
From what I understand, Lucas financed TPM by himself; he has dictated what standards theatres must attain to show his movie; he has maintained tight control over his licensees. And through all this, he is beholden to no one other than himself, making exactly the movie HE wants with no other influence other than his desires.
In my mind, that's a pretty envious position to be in. *I* wish I had a job over which I had total, 100% control -- don't we all. Yes, he may be accused of playing the commercialization card to the hilt, but I'd rather have him do it than the Hollywood Menace.
...I was very pleasantly surprised by "Matrix", --movie I have never heard about before I saw its title at the ticket counter. And Ii have a feeling that I will like TPM much, much less. With all this stupid "comic relief" (phrase that reminds me of taking a dump in a very uncomfortable position) Jar-Jars and stuff -- aimed squarely at selling more junk food to drooling fat kids.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
You are all forgetting that he wrote one script, and broke it into six parts. This movie is going to be great, and just because the media is hyping it w/o asking doesn't mean he is responsible for that hype. Secondly, just because he is willing to accept marketing deals in advance doesn't make him into some souless, inhuman capitalist. He is proud of what he has created, and who are you, Jon Katz, to criticize one of the greatest filmakers of all time. What have you accomplished? Making lots of /. readers loathe your writings, and make a fool of yourself. The only reason I haven't censored you is to see what stupid article you're going to write next.
Kent Davis
Poopdick.
You obviously haven't been through a bookstore or a toy section lately.
For the last week or two, every major bookstore I've seen has had racks of character diaries and the screenplay (with 4 different covers featuring a different character on each, I might add) sitting in the entrance. Anywhere there are toys to be bought, you can't walk past without seeing Darth Maul's face on every one of the dozens of packages bearing Star Wars merchandise - and that's just facing the areas where passers-by might see them; if you go into the actual aisle where the Star Wars toys are sold, it's solid red and black as hundreds of Darth Mauls hang there, waiting to be bought.
Then there are the commercials, the Pepsi marketing deals, the video games based on the movie, the clothes, the candy, etc. There are very few things (if any) that could conceivably be used for promotional purposes which aren't already out there. And the movie hasn't even been released yet.
I'm not saying that we should attack those who are getting into the hype. I'm just pointing out that anyone who thinks Phantom Menace is only receiving the normal amount of pre-release publicity needs to open their eyes. The hype is out there.
No, Lucas isn't publicizing the movie much - directly. But who's authorizing Pepsi Co to hold Phantom Menace-based contests and make commercials with Col. Sanders waving a light sabre around? Who's telling the toy companies what characters look like and allowing the production of action figures? Who's giving screenplays to book publishers along with pictures for 4 different covers on (what I assume to be) the same book?
Lucas made the film with his own money. (I even saw a blurb in the local paper today about him claiming to be an independent film maker.) Lucas dictated the conditions on which theatres would be allowed to show the film. Yes, the toy companies and publishers and all the rest are out to make as many quick bucks as they can. But, except for (perhaps) the magazines, they all need one man's permission to use the Star Wars universe to do so. They're in bed with Lucas.
I wish I could get people to pay me that kind of money to advertise my product...
By buying toys and promotions, we fans are making II and III possible. The movie sales alone won't cut it.
Steer clear of the candy promotions, though. The gum in the candy filled double bladed lightsaber doesn't keep its flavor.
--
John Tokash
Homestead Technologies
http://www.homestead.com/hackfurby/
Woah--The Star Wars trilogy _is_ a great thing. And it's exciting for someone to see the _first_ showing--it's akin to being a band groupie.
And while I'm not sitting on the sidewalks (i'm working), i think it's neat that there are folks out there that feel this _strongly_ about something that they'll wait for weeks to get tickets. I don't think this is a good measure of one's "life".
Let people have their fun. Let people create stories that help them define their lives and their persons. No real star wars fan is going to say "It wasn't important to me so I waited a month before I saw the first 'sequel' to come out in a decade."
As i recall, before the original Star Wars opened, George Lucas was going around the toy industry trying to get companies to back his star wars action figures. Most of the companies said that it wasn't what kids wanted, but George kept trying--until he hit Kenner (i think it was kenner--might have been Hasbro--shrug). They said ok and after star wars launched it created the action figures industry and whichever company it was that produced the action figures--they made a bazillion dollars.
My point being that George Lucas is not as you have portrayed him. Amongst other things, he is a business man and he is putting forth lots of effort to make money. Even back then though you may not have noticed it much.
I remember watching The Power of Myth and marvelling at the depth that Star Wars had through Joseph Campbell's eyes. But I wouldn't be surprised if Joseph Campbell helped make the Star Wars trilogy what it is today by instilling that mythological quality--and George Lucas just packaged it all together.
I really think that much of this mega-hype is planned. It's unfortunate that some of us got so sick of it months ago and now it's like you can't hardly sneeze without spraying some new Star Wars mega-hype fu-fu thing.
I live in the town Lucas grew up in, and because of this I've been buried under what is literally an avalanche of hype. Not only do I have to deal with the nationwide media frenzy you're all talking about, but there's also the inevitable onslaught of "hometown boy does it again" stories. Despite this, I think Katz's allegation of Lucas being a sellout is boneheaded and unresearched.
Last Friday our local paper scored an interview with Lucas and he addressed this very issue. Story: "Phantom" cost Lucas $115 million during its 4 1/2 years in production. Toy sales alone could cover that, and Lucas in unapologetic about turning his imaginary characters into plastic playthings. Lucas: "I'm an independent filmmaker. I've had to make sure I've exploited everything I possibly can. It's like an Indian killing a buffalo. You have to use everything. You can't leave the carcass out in the prairie to rot". He continued with "I'm a very small company relative to the studios, who have millions and billions of dollars. They make millions and billions on movies every year, so they can afford to just do whatever they want. I can't. Selling Star Wars toys has really helped finance the movies for me". --Excerpted from the Modesto Bee, Friday, May 14, 1999
Now, that quote may specifically deal with toys, but it's easy to see how he can expand that line of thinking to the rest of the marketing campaigns. Lucas may be a millionaire (or even a billionaire) but that doesn't mean he can carry the cost of the movies out of pocket. How much of his personal value is tied up in his companies? What's the land under Skywalker ranch worth? Remember, it's possible to be a billionaire and not have a dime to your name. Should he sell off ILM or the software division of LucasArts just to finance the films? No. The best way for him to make money is hype. Take Pepsi's money for marketing, take the toymakers money for spinoffs, lease out character rights for endorsements. He still has to make two more Star Wars movies, and he has to make sure he has the funds to complete them.
There's another statement in here that got my attention and showed me what kind of guy we're all talking about. Story: Lucas insisted that he has no interest in breaking box office records or winning film awards with "Phantom". He predicted that it would end up among the top-10 all time box office hits (due to the hype), but no higher than fourth...he's ok with that. Lucas: "This is not a contest. It's a movie. I made it because I enjoy making movies. I hope it does well but I dont have any interest or desire to be No. 1 or to win an Academy Award or anything like that. That's not what it's really about. It's about making a movie". He also said that "This is a Saturday afternoon serial for children. Somehow over the years people have kind of drifted away from that and tried to make it something other than what it is".
I think we all need to take a long hard look at that last line. No matter how you feel on the hype topic, don't forget that this is a kids movie. TPM wasn't written so that I would enjoy it, he wrote it for my 5 year old daughter. He wrote it "to stimulate young peoples imaginations and allow them to go on to other creative pursuits". He doesn't care what we think of his marketing campaigns, his endless line of toys, or even the movie itself. What he cares about is it's effect on kids...and rightly so.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Am I the only one that was totally disgusted by the 'enhancements' they put into the first three movies when they re-released them? The CG sucked and was totally out of place. To me, going back and doing anything but 'digitally remastering' these classics was akin to colorizing the old black and white classics. It was disgusting and catered to the kiddies who, if a movie doesnt have at least one complex CG shot, write it off as a waste of time.
I mean come on, he took a dusty, dirty, grimy, scum ridden backwater planet and, in one CG scene, turned it into a cutsie, comical, 'fun for the family' stellar body. It pissed me off, more then the Phantom Menace will ever piss anyone off. The Phantom Menace is something new, let it be what it will be, allow it to evolve into its real form. Marketing, money, great filmaking, whatever that is. But to alter the originals, its disgusting.
Even all of the 'flashback' star wars shows are using the new footage to illustrate the original. That huge new death star explosion sequence is totally out of place and uses colors that don't even _exist_ in the rest of the film. Yet a whole generation will grow up thinking 'thats the way it was'.
Don't fuck with the classics. Oh, but I forget, he needed to get total control over the merchandising rights now that so many years have passed....
Actually it was Lucas who did the merchandising, he made sure to obtain these rights from Fox because he felt that they would not promote the movie properly and of course he made a fortune because of this. He says this in many interviews.
My memory is a little vague, I was only 4 at the time, but I remember getting certificates for the action figures pretty early on (a couple of months after release?) because they were not ready yet.
Q.
Isn't there anyone who believes in tact anymore? If someone has a good idea and it becomes popular, it's raped for all it's worth to make as much money as fast as possible. I picture the Pony Express in the old west, with all messengers riding their horses to death for speed rather than taking care of them. In this case I'm not going to specifically blame Lucas... people and the media have been hyping this movie forever.
And it's hard to place blame, so I'm not going to try. I just wish people, businesses, and the media could have a little more tact... a little more decency, instead of being so greedy. If they have a truly great idea or product, it will sell without being crammed down everyone's throats 24 hours a day.
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
I agree. Katz's piece was a total waste of bandwidth.
I lost it when he started comparing Bill Gates to Darth Vader. Roll out the cliched MS-bashing for the Linux weenies, that'll make you popular.
James Cameron sold out just as bad with Titanic as Lucas did with any of his movies. That sickening Celine Dion music all the way through. The cheapass graphics which, despite the fact the rendering was done on a cluster of Linux boxes, still sucked to the point that my wife remarked on it, and she's not into computers at all. A screenplay that lasted about an hour longer than it needed to. Leonardo di Caprio (sp). A serious dose of Cameron ego and self-indulgence.
I don't care, is the bottom line. If Lucas and Cameron want to sell toys and make oodles of cash, that's their right. Good luck to them. I still liked all the Star Wars movies, Aliens, and the Abyss.
Star Wars was JUST A MOVIE. Making money is not a crime. If you don't like it, STAY AWAY. I DON'T CARE about your opinions unless they get in my face as bad as this poorly written piece did. Got it?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
All the marketing of toys and hype might be more attributable to marketing execs than Lucas. Its quite probable that Lucas cannot escape them with anything to do with Star Wars. I have seen an interview where he states that the film is over-hyped and cannot live up to the hyped expectations.
As for the publicity that directly surrounds him, that's not surprising at all.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
I've actually grown accustomed to hype.
I need and crave hype. Hype for hype's sake. I'm going to get a second job so I can buy it all!
Star Wars rox, Empires rox,and Jedi well hated the ewoks. I'm an optimist I think it will be a good movie not the movie of all time but a good movie. BTW which sci-fi universe do we think is the best Star Wars or Star Trek? My vote is Star Wars. If Lucas was wanting to make money he would havbe turned star wars into a sci-fi show like star trek a long time ago. I have my tickets for Friday night woo hoo!
Use the scwartz
laz
...or it could be colorfully bloated, like a striped-assed baboon...
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
Actually... I heard that Lucas is supposed to personally gross somewhere in the upwards range of ...
1 million dollars... err.. umm... I mean, 1 BILLION dollars, rather.
So while he is spending a good 112 mil of his own cash.. the expected payoff is many time greater for him. This billion includes everything related to Episode I.
This is why works of fiction are not GPL'ed.
Artistic integrity is a very different animal from closed source.
iSKUNK!
OK. Jon makes some valid points about the whole Star Wars Saga(tm) and it's deep meanings, it's effect on us all, and for that I'll give him a little credit....
Mr. Lucas himself has stated several times that Lucasfilm *itself* has purposely kept the hype down to a minimum, on *their* end. And I would tend to agree that there could have been a LOT more hype. I don't think the hype surrounding this movie has been any worse than that accompanying, say, "Jurassic Park" or "Toy Story" or even "The Flintstones" a few years ago. The difference being that they all faded away into oblivion, whereas Star Wars will be remembered for years to come.
Now, back to the hype. The licensees and the news shows are the ones creating most of the hype out there. What have we seen from LFL? A couple of trailers, a few low-key, and sparsely played TV spots, and a music video. Meanwhile, Hasbro has saturated the Toy Stores, the Pizza/Taco/KFC trinity is lambasting us w/ their stuff....blame them, if you're going to blame anyone.
And re: the fans and their 'droid'like tendencies to worship rather than expand Star Wars in their own ways....There *are* plenty of fan-written chapters out there, have been for years. There is fan-art aplenty....etc, etc. And after all, why mess with perfection?
This ripping-on-the-fans stuff in the media as of late is getting old real fast. Now you've joined those ranks me friend.
Blech. Signatures.
Alright, I've stayed out of the Katz-flaming to date, but this one takes the f*cking cake.
Katz, in short,
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
How can you possibly put the previous Star Wars films up on some kind of holy pedestal, seemingly oblivious to any sort of "hype"...
Where WERE you 18 years ago, my friend? Were you on some far flung corner of the MOON? Were you not present for the many Burger King Glasses, the infinite toys, the Star Wars Popsicles, the T-shirts...WHERE WERE YOU?
This is NOTHING new!!!! Go find Mr. Peabody and jump in the old wayback machine to circa '79 or '80 when the hype was in full force. Hell I was only 8 or so then, and *I* remember it being all-consuming. It so consumed the passions of this entire country that the 'product' was in demand enough to warrant said 'product.'
This article is nothing but pure, sheer ignorance and inflammability, whether on purpose or out of true ignorance, I can't say. Sure you're right about SW being the 'modern myth' yadda yadda boom boom...and I agree fully.
BUT...don't try to tell George about how his artistic integrity is somehow violated because there are action figures and coloring books w/ his movies' marque on them. He'll be the first to tell you, while yes it is a modern myth, etc. etc., it's also just a Saturday afternoon serial....
....And every kid wants his Red-Ryder BB gun....
Blech. Signatures.
Common Katz, Lucas has done very little to hype the movie. A few tv adds, a couple trailers, some books and action figures. 95% of the hype is generated by fans and the media, which he has no control over.
:)
And its not like cheap crap wasn't produced from the first three movies. I recall trashing a Falcon when I was a wee lad; it was a POS. Of course, it'd probably be worth $300 today if I'd left it in the packaging.
If you want to see hype, look at Disney movies or Godzilla.
I was 8 when the first movie came out and I can still remember it had its fair share of hype. I recall the Wonderbread trading cards the most. I didn't even like WB, but I made my mom buy it. I had all the toys. Because I wanted them. because it was fun. 20+ years later I am still buying toys...because I want to. Because it is fun. SW has always been about fun. Lucas never intended to be an "artistic" filmaker. SW is about fun and enjoyment, and to some, like me even the hype can be enjoyable. I watch the trailers over and over and still get excited. I bought a ton of toys. My wife (bless her) even *encourages* me to buy toys because she says I look like a happy little boy when I buy them ( I am a 30 year old 5'7 215 pund Bodybuilder-Sys Admin). Some of the hype is sill...ie Darth Maul underwear....but werent' there Darth Vader Underoos at some point??? Besides some kid will get his mom to buy them for him and he will be *happy*. It is all about kids being happy. No matter how old we are. And George...thank you for making me happy for more than 2 decades....I suppose the only thing that makes me stop for a moment is how people who would have never have admitted being fans of SW 20 years ago are now suddenly die-hard fans. I guess I lost one of my vestigal childhood geek-prides....I can see the effect of mass hype there.
the rest of you ppl are argueing about how, it is other people doing it(advertising etc etc), for sure, george can't do all the work, but noone in anything does that. but he is pushing all the buttons to get this done, he is in control of all of it, it is him accepting all the billions of dollars from here and there.
i don't believe jon is attacking the movie itself. but rather only the hype..
looking at the poll results for the star wars hype is amusing, i have checked the results as more and more people vote, yet it is staying at approx
(not in order)
40% to be expected (yep ok)
32% pissing me off (and this is the nerd?s voting,.. ie the people that are what is holding most of it up)
11% just media hype (true, but most people are just lapping it up)
then finally
14% deserved...
and what are you basing this on?. you have only seen some previews,most of the movies i have seen cannot be fairly judgeed once the previews have been seen. how can you say it is deserved. perhaps it may be a good movie but you cannot yet say it. therefore you cannot say it is deserved.
hey don't get me wrong i am seeing the first showing over here(i fell to the pressure).
but i'm sure its not going to be the best movie i have seen this year.
and finally
why can't you guys handle a little critizism?, he is not saying keep away at all cost, cos hey, hes still gonna see it, hes just commenting on the hype and how this is not in the heart that the old ones were.
your attitude reminds me of MS, there are people who think MS are the best thing since sliced bread (i don't), and can't handle any critizism,. we some is due (as we all agree)
...
if star wars:PM is going to be so wonderful by itself , why couldn't we turn around without seeing its hype or adverttising crammed down into our brain. and not totally sold out for every buck there is and more.
acctualy has to be Space Balls.
Now, THAT was a good...
...Ummm, Pizza, y're delicious.
A truth that's told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent. -- William Blake
Mr Katz implies that artists are people who don't "sell out" by providing what the masses demand, prefering instead to pursue at any cost a vision which, in order to validate its artistic integrity, must challenge established values and beliefs. Indeed, by this standard Lucas is not an artist.
On the other hand, any sane artist would love to make a living by selling his product. If Pepsi came to a painter and said, "please let us promote your paintings... we'll pay big bucks," it would be stupid to refuse, not true to some unquantifiable artistic spirit.
Mr. Katz, on the other hand, has "sold out" in that he takes a "controversial position" in order to get attention. He aims to be a center of attention, not a provider of information or useful perspective.
Congratulations, Mr. Katz. You got your attention. All poor Mr. Lucas got was satisfaction of knowing he made a lot of people happy. And a lot of money.
The only problem I see with this article is it's attack against Lucas as a money hungry movie maker. He has had no hand in the marketing, besides the release date, or the liscensing of the rights. That is done by a bunch of money grubbing lawyers. I have read many interviews and in all Lucas has stated he didn't want this much hype , because along with hype comes expectations, and if you fail those expectations then you will fail completely. I think the major reason for all the hype is all of us 20 somethings that grew up with Star Wars have been calling for more and we finally get it and all we do now is complain about what we are seeing.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
Lucas did turn Star Wars into a TV show. Don't you remember Droids or Ewoks? I'm still trying to forget them. There was also a live action special I seem to remember, barely. Something based in the SW universe. Anyone remember what it was?
Now very few people can claim that seeing movies is their life, but it definitely is a hobby. First off, this isn't the first time people have slept in front of ticket counters to be assured tickets to something. And this won't be the last time.
However,
It is arguably the first time that people have slept in front of ticket counters to see a movie that is going to be seen on the very same screen thousands of times before it ends its first theatrical run some six months hence.
It is one thing to camp out for tickets for a one time event. Take a music concert for example. Your favorite artist might visit your town once every five years at best, and each concert by that artist is a little bit different and unique. THIS is worth camping out for. The event will never be repeated.
However, this is a MOVIE. It will be shown thousands of times. It's not like it's going to be that difficult to see. I stated that I have every intention of seeing "Phantom Menace." I assume that I'll enjoy it a lot. I just don't find it necessary to camp out (for WEEKS, in the case of a few people) in order to see it!
I'm really not trying to be insulting. Nor did I really intend to berate anyone. I just don't get it, that's all.
I remember seeing the original Star Wars movie in the theater.
I was living in Minneapolis when it came out and the St. Louis Park Cinema had an area exclusive on it.
This was almost the last hurrah for that theater, which was a grand and gigantic one screen movie theater of the old fashioned kind.
It had a humongeus curved "surround" screen that had been designed for "Cinerama" moves (the type shown by three projectors at once). A thick gold glittery curtain slowly parted to reveal the screen as the movie started.
I did think that Star Wars was perhaps the best movie I had ever seen.
The St. Louis Park Cinema closed a year or two later, run out of business by the multi-screen cineplexes at the malls.
Now, all these years later, "The Phantom Menace" is about to debut. I'm sure it will be an enjoyable movie, and I intend to catch it within it's first few days out. But, I truly never thought I would live to see such hyperbole and hysteria over any movie.
To those who have been camping out for the last three or four weeks to get a ticket, I'll be about the millionth person the scream at you: "IT'S A FSCKING MOVIE FOR CRISSAKES!"
By definition, anyone who has nothing better to do than to sleep in a tent on a sidewalk for weeks on end just so they can make sure to see the very first presentation of a FSCKING MOVIE at their local cineplex has no bloody life whatsoever, period!
After this mythical "first showing" at hundreds of theaters nation wide, I'm sure that I will have no problem calling the automated ticket sales phone line of my local mega-cinema ("The Palace" here in New Orleans), and scarf me a couple o' tickets to a showing on the second, third, or fourth day. No big deal, and I'm happy.
The fact that there are so many people out there willing to dedicate weeks of their life to camping out to ensure they see that "first show" indicates just how the masses can be brainwashed by hype and effective advertising. In a very real sense, this is scary. Individual independent thinking is apparently a rare commodity in today's society. Suppose the hype engine that is producing the "Phantom Menace" hysteria were to be used to sell the masses on some sort of race hatred or ethnic cleansing campaign? Think about it.
Since there are so many people willing to get this worked up over a FSCKING MOVIE however, I really can't say I blame Lucas et. al. for milking them for all they're worth!
On the contrary, Mr. Katz. I'd like to offer the view that "The Phantom Menace" is nothing other than the biggest independent film ever made. Note that Lucas personally put up the $115 million to make the film: no studio money. This gave Lucas complete artistic freedom to do whatever he wanted. This is normall the realm of art/independent film makers, people too independent to tow to the studio line. Lucas is so wealthy from his success that he can afford to blow off the studios, and make exactly what he wants.
Look at this as a brave new experiment in film: the very first time that 9 digits of money was spent on a film totally under the control of an imaginative film maker, instead of a gang of bankers and focus groups.
Crispin
-----
Crispin Cowan, Research Assistant Professor of Computer Science, OGI
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How about the load of books out there??
Also, I play the Star Wars Role Playing game -- I'd call that pretty creative. We've had several alternate post ROTJ and post Zahn books universes...
matt
Come off it, of course Phantom Menace is surrounded by hype. That's what happens with films these days. I seem to remember that it was the Star Wars movies that basically founded movie hype (along with maybe Grease and Saturday Night Fever).
I dislike the circus that goes along with anything like this these days too - but hey - wake up! It's the world we live in. Moaning about it is like wanting to go back to a world without computers.
We talk about the New Economy on the one hand as an amazing change in our lives, but don't forget that a big part of the New Economy is cross-promotion and making your bucks from sources other than product/ticket sales.
Finally, Lucas may be big - godlike in many eyes - but stuff like this is just out of his hands.
In the meantime, why don't you try ignoring the hype, or at least disassociating it from the movie, and just concentrate on getting into that cinema, sitting back in that seat and enjoying the ride.
(And afterwards, you can eat your *EmpireBurger tm* and wear your "I saw the first episode" beany hat with pride)
A little planning goes a long way...
Look, people, the hype DOESN'T MATTER. It's safe to say that any movie/director who appears on every major news magazine's cover in the space of a month is pretty well hyped. These very news magazines are whipping themselves into a froth about the hype surrounding this movie, hype which THEY are responsible for making.
What's Lucas to do? There's a HUGE grassroots fan movement around this movie. The fanboys (myself included) are beside themselves with anticipation for this movie. It IS only a movie, but it's a BIG FUN movie that I've been waiting a good long time to see. If he declines all these interviews, he becomes a reclusive antisocial hermit. If he accepts all these interviews, and tries to communicate his goals for these films, he becomes a narcissistic sell-out. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. What would YOU do in his situation?
As far as the marketing blitz, it's annoying. It's kitschy. It's pretty darn grotesque in the form of that Taco Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut commercial. However, it's ALSO American business. Would YOU refuse that enormous pile of money? I know that I can't say I would.
George Lucas is in my opinion making quality films for children. They're not soft-pedaled Barney crap, but they're also not Reservoir Dogs (and that's a Good Thing IMHO). It just so happens that a bunch of us who were the target audience for his last films are VERY VERY excited about this next batch. I can't understand why that's a bad thing.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
While I too long for simpler times when it was possible to have a piece of art, an event, or a building that wasn't sponsored by some huge corporation, I have to question Jon's integrity.
I think that he honestly believes that he believes what he wrote, but his own actions in hyping Run to the Mountain here, differ from what Lucas is doing only in degree, not in essential manner.
Jon: would you honestly have refused a Pepsi ad campaign for RttM if it had been offered?
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My neighbor works at ILM as an intern, over the weekend they had a special showing for all the ILM employees up in Marin. She took her Dad. George Lucas made a point to attend the showing, and sat down for lunch with all of them. She's met him on a number of times and from what she has said he appears to be a nice fella.
As far as the hype goes - every single Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Toys R Us, etc. is making a buck on this too. Not just George Lucas. If you find the merchandising that troublesome, Mr. Katz -- vote with your wallet and don't see the movie, or buy the stuff. Pretty easy.
-j
I see both sides of the issue here, and i really don't care. I ignore the hype, i dont buy the Star Wars crap, i take each and every critic's opinion with a grain of salt (good or bad). All i'm expecting to see is a good movie for 4 bucks.
What I am baffled about is this lynching of George Lucas for his endless barrage of hype. But has anyone seen any advertising for the movie itself other than the movie trailers? There have been no TV commericals, radio, or print advertisements. Everything you have seen has been from companies like KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut milking their expensive investments. So why do you blame Lucas? For making a movie? Get real. If youre gonna complain, then get it straight.
BTW, my friend saw a theater prescreening two weeks ago, and he said it is an incredible movie.
"Ahh... The net is vast..." - Maj. Motoko Kusanagi
It's one thing to try to sell a book, film, etc. by giving interviews, permitting excerpts to be republished, etc., but it's quite another to use the work to market other stuff. What Lucas is doing -- using his product to sell fried food and plastic junk -- is what Katz would be doing if he marketed Katz-Korp Kozy Mountaintop Kabins(tm) to people who had purchased his book.
K surely isn't saying that L doesn't have the legal right to squeeze every last marketing dollar out of his product if he wants to do that. K's point, if I read K correctly, is that by choosing to do that, L is making a pretty strong statement about how seriously he takes his work product, a statement which counts for a lot more than the mytho-religious Campbellian claptrap he'll spout for Charlie Rose or Barbara Walters or whomever.
(I suppose I could rationalize the toy thing as follows: If L tried to limit toy sales at all, the entire output would be snapped up as collectors items. While I am not the biggest fan of tie-in toys for kids, if an eight-year-old kid wants a Jar-Jar action figure, he should be able to have it for a few bucks.)
I hate to interrupt your blustering, but I was speaking of Star Wars, as in the original movie entitled "Star Wars", i.e. Episode 4.
He doesn't want to release any of the Star Wars (4-6) movies on DVD until all the Star Wars prequels (1-3) are done.
In any case, I never claimed any rights. I simply said Lucas was being selfish. I stand by this assertion.
--
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Jason Eric Pierce
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Jason Eric Pierce
Go see it or dont.
Pay attention to the hype or dont.
Yes, its a damn shame that Lucas has chosen this route to pitch his film. It is a sort of slur against the 'soul' of the original film(s)... But is it so bad?
I mean, Katz just said it.. Lucas is no longer portraying himself as a hollywood rebel. So he's gone mainstream. So what? The guys got a right to do so. We stand here and covet a movie made twenty years ago for its beautiful values and ahead-of-its-time special effects that gained popularity through its purity more than anything else... And then we decide to make Lucas the villian today when he has grown up and grown into his station in Hollywood. A station he has because WE gave it to him.
Its his life. Its his movie.
He's hardly Gates-ish.
.02
When I first saw SW as a kid, I didn't know what to make of that scene where Luke halucinates the voice of Kenobi telling him to turn off the targetting computer.
Now, I'm an adult living in a "new-age" world where appearances and "feelings" often have more weight in decision-making than conclusions reached by research and strenuous exercise of logic. True, SW was about heroism and making hard decisions, but it was also about tech. Why does it have to be spoiled by a rejection of technology and the hard work and logic behind it?
Presumably a hell of a lot of military technologists sweated blood to build those X-wing fighters and their weapons systems and here comes this bozo who switches to manual just because he hears voices in his head. I can only regret that I didn't have the presence of mind to shout "Turn ON the targetting computer, Luke!"
Can you dig it? He risks an entire revolution against opression, just for a voice in his head. And of course, he hits the target. Proof that wishful thinking is an effective Force in dealing with the Universe.
Crap. If Lucas had been a European film-maker things would have been slightly different. Luke switches to manual, misses, the Death Star destroys the rebel base, and Luke escapes, only to commit suicide by plowing into an asteroid when he realises what a terrible mistake he made. A Greek tragedy - man destroyed by hubris.
Now I run across people who had "mystical experiences" when they saw SW and these are the same people who wear a piece of pink quartz around their necks (or maybe pitchblende) because "it improves their energy flow". Thanks, George.
The level of influence of SW on "new-ageism" is certainly debatable, but I can't help but believe that it added to the crud. Too much hype? Who cares?! What about the destruction of critical thinking and effort?
I would like to close with two quotes, the first by Richard Stallman from the book "Open Sources".
And the second, from fortune(1):
...than on the mountaintop. I find it difficult to condemn someone for being too successful, what I condemn them for is hypocrisy. Katz with all the promotion you've done for your book, don't you think all of this falls under the same heading? Didn't you, *gasp*, do a book tour to propogate your ideas?
Of course there is another issue at stake here. Something I've heard about how Lucas has approached a particular issue. In this case it would have to be the defense of I.P. The exchange of ideas for money. "You can use this image and make money for it because you paid me, and you, who might have an actual emotional tie with this image, cannot in any way shape or form reproduce redistibute or oven think about it without sending me a royalty check, in advance."
Sure they are his ideas and he's, I guess, entitled to gettin' some, but when things reach a certain critical mass in our culture it exposes the stupidity of many arguments. When pop culture reaches religious prportions perhaps we should step back or up for a moment.
And an interesting, albeit trivial and most likely erroneous, tidbit I've picked up somewhere (could have been here)... the total merchandising bill for Star Wars Ep1-$4.5 billion. The total cost for Reagan's Star Wars initiative-$4.11 billion. Nah, we don't have too much leisure time in this county, do we?
+&x
Yeah, that Mean Old George Lucas (MOGL). There he goes wanting to make MONEY from the Star Wars religion. How crass! And all of those evil, tie wearing corporate types out there who would actually defile the images of our great and blessed Saints (Luke, Obi Wan, Yoda, etc) for nothing better than to sell chicken. HOW DARE THEY TAKE THE NAME OF YODA IN VAIN!!!
Katz, you and anyone who agrees with you are nutz. It's a movie. A figment of imagination created by quickly flashing images in a dark room. It is meant to amuse people for a short while. George Lucas (Mr. Mogl) and all the actors worked hard for a long time to make the flickering images as amusing as possible. They did not do it as an atonement for sins. Believe it or not, the people who make movies actually do it to get rich!!! Get over it. If you are bothered by the fact that you have to pay people to amuse you, don't pay them.
Don't buy your kid a Happy Meal. Don't go to Pizza Hut. Fry you own damn chicken. Pay for a billboard to cry out in the darkness that the truly faithful should avoid this abomination that profanes the holy name of the Force. MOGL doesn't care. He has done the movie for mainstream Americans, and we LIKE the hype. (proof? how the hell could so much money be made off of the hype if we didn't like it).
PS. I use Netscape 2.02 on OS/2. Many of your characters appear mangled. You wouldn't happen to be using a Micros~1 product to edit you HTML would you?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
>Calm yourself,tho.
Gag. I could virtually see the veins popping out of your neck during your ad hominem attack of Lucas.
Get a life. It's only a movie. And the Merchandise Machine is only a merchandise machine. And Columbine High School was only a shooting gallery. We live in a sick society. Surprise! Just be glad that only half the people on this planet are dumber than average.
I just wanted to remind everyone that another reason that the first Star Wars film did so well was because most of the wipes, angles, etc (As well as the bumbling of R2-D2 and C3PO) were (as admitted by Lucas) borrowed from the Akira Kurosawa film "The Hidden Fortress".
Lucas did not direct the second or third film, and to my knowledge has only directed Star Wars, American Graffiti, and THX 1138. He is now directing the new film... I wouldn't expect much.
I completely agree with Katz. There has been too much hype. Would Rushmore, Good Will Hunting, or Silence of the Lambs been great films if you could buy action figures, blankets and toothbrushes months in advance??
How about an article in Vanity Fair about the costumes wore by Hannibal Lecter.... You'll see here a style that is sure to be a big hit next season... the Prison uniform with the top button unbuttoned, notice the power and grace that it displays.
Personally I'm sick of all the hype, and I'm really looking forward to three other movies this summer: Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick's Last Film), Austin Powers: The Spy who shagged me, and of course South Park: The Movie.
-- Thomas Hunt
atlaz
read more rants: thunt.net
I as disappointed to say that even the Coin World newspaper has bought into the hype. There was a fairly long article in the latest issue about medals and numismatic items related to Star Wars. I predict it won't go down well with hardcore coin collectors (I can't wait for the outcry in the letters columns for the next few issues). Coin collectors don't even want bubblegum card collectors and other junk vendors at coin shows.
I hate the hype too, but mostly I've been ignoring it. However, I think this article misses the mark for two reasons:
First, Lucas is not responsible for the hype. Most of the hype is for merchandising tie-ins, people trying to sell toys, books, calendars, what-have-you. As the originator and copyright owner, he has only three choices that I can see.
1. Don't license the stuff at all. This is the "non-sellout" position. Probably there would be Taiwanese knockoffs and a black market if he took this position.
2. License exclusively. Possible, but probably throws a big windfall in the direction of a few corporations, and limits accessibility. Not Lucas' style.
3. License to whomever will pay at roughly the same royalty. Retain approval over what gets put out there so they don't push stuff that you don't want associated with your movie. No inflatable Amidala sex dolls, for example.
Given this he chose 3. I would too. All the licensees now shamelessly try to cash in on the public's expectations *before* the movie, just in case it's a stinker, or more likely, a yawner.
This machine works way too well for us to be comfortable with it, I agree. But how does this make Lucas a sellout?
The other way this misses the mark is that John compares the actual movie (Ep 4) on the one hand to the hype on the other. This is clearly not an apples to apples comparison, not really relevant. Star Wars: A New Hope had no hype, but Return of the Jedi had plenty... At the time, I believed that the Ewoks were there simply to sell more toys; I've since learned different.
In the original story they were supposed to be Wookies, but he cut the story back to fit into one movie, and gave Han a Wookie sidekick. But it turned tout to be big, so Endor goes back in ROTJ, only now he can't use Wookies. So instead he makes the big furry savages into little furry savages. He's said they didn't quite work out like he wanted, he didn't want them to be so cute.
I'll judge him based on the movie he made, remembering that there's a lot of stuff in SW:ANH that isn't all that good.
"I see great things in baseball" - Walt Whitman
I can always count on the fact that exactly half of the people on the planet are dumber than the median.
A few weeks ago, people were giving shit to some company that was charging $1.99 more than the next for shipping a CD-ROM.
And the same people are now saying the George Lucas should milk each and every nickel possible out of his product.
Lots of people here don't like spam in their mail boxes, but they encourage the film producers to shove all that publicity mercilessly down our throats.
Jon Katz is one of the few persons making Slashdot more than a bunch of clueless nerds and I hope he will continue to contribute his thoughts.
Serge
--- Whatever takes you through the night...
As for 'no one needs that much money'... that's like saying 'no one needs to live forever'. The implicit question is: 'What would you do with it all?' If you honestly have no idea how to spend 'too much money' responsibly and in a way that would benefit several good causes, check out Elizabeth Barrette's excellent What to Do With Entirely Too Much Money. I bet you'll think twice next time you buy that lottery ticket.
-- Micah Lionette
While I know this'll probably be scanned over like I scan most of these comments, I felt my two cents was appropriate since I don't know if many others are sharing this possibly common perception.
Aren't we allowed to like movies like id4, tpm, or the matrix not for the story, but for the multi-million dollar effects, big explosions and guy-gets-girl ending? Plot aside, I'd see these movies for that alone. CG is so sexy.
If you want to go see a mind twisting movie, one that'll make you think, examine and watch again to understand something about character, go see these movies:
Seven, 12 Monkeys, Slacker, The Usual Suspects, Dark City, Falling Down
Good movies not because of anything expensive, just good story writing with things that will almost always be sure to keep you thinking, keep you critical of your perceptions, things that will make you question your own assumptions. But when you are done watching these thought-provoking movies, go watch the blockbuster multimillion-dollar movies for a nice evening and not much more.
It's probably pretty obvious by now to everyone over the age of 13 that Lucas has sold out... But clearly this isn't the first time, right? I mean, I remember buying the Star Wars cereal when I was five or six, collecting the Ewoks cards at the bottom of the box... I had Land Speeder and the Ton-Ton with the rubber belly that I could stick my Luke action figure in, and my next door neighbor had the plastic Ewok village. I don't know about Empire Strikes Back, but the Return of the Jedi had *plenty* of associated marketing. Asking for purity from Lucas at this point is probably like asking for honesty and integrity from a politician. He talks big, but when it comes time to make the decisions that make the money..... If you go in for the movies today, you go for the story and the nostalgia, and attempt to avoid the hype. That's about the best anyone can hope for...
"The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum does not vary."
Should we respect George Lucas because he "laid down the law" and has Hollywood doing what he says, and makes the rule and makes others follow him?
Or should we say, "it's not his fault, he had no control over all this hype?"
Which one is it?
And this is the first time I've ever agreed with something Katz has written. I'm not sure how to feel about that (btw, gotta love those question marks for apostrophes... what HAS he been writing with?)
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
"As the suffocating Episode I buzz closes in upon us quicker than the walls of the Death Star's trash compactor (the prequel premieres Wednesday), there are scattered confirmations of series fanatics naming their kids after Star Wars characters."
Full story here
Katz = Complain O' Matic
Lucas = poet with a camera, who did his best to keep hype to a minimum. He also has a following, he knows it. And released the trailers/previews in such a way as to tease, but to give nothing away.
Early Reviews = from what I have seen, alot o reviewers have been giving it lukewarm reviews. But, what it all comes down to is what the fans think. Also, Ebert has seen it, and thought it a good film.
Selling out: I dont think lucas has sold out at all. He honestly hasnt had time, if you think about it, as he has been involved in production right up until release. In addition, ive noticed that there is a trend to slam those who have something big, mainly by people who lack any talent of their own.
I also think it should be pointed out, Lucas is doing this with his own money. He has every right to recoup some of it. If he didnt care, he would have pulled the money out of Fox.
I noticed that someone mentioned something about Lucas resisting DVD release. So what? Its his film. Not yours. He has every right to control how/when it is viewed, and the medium in which it is viewed. And, knowing lucas, he has something in mind.
In other words, lets stop all the complaining, see the movie. form an opinion. But or gods sakes, quit complaining about what lucas is/isint/could be/hasnt done to *your* satisfaction.
Having a vision of something isint easy. Making the vision a reality is even harder. Making a vision a reality when you have a bunch of people telling you what a bastard you are for this or that is even more tough.
Cluepon = get a vision. make it happen. you'll see what Im saying. Ill bet Linus knows what its all about.
Supernaut
Supernaut
I will be the first to admit that this movie has recieved hype beyond the bounds of the imaginiaton and that the only way for the movie to live up to all the press if if God, Jesus, Budda, Yaweah, Manno, and every other diety ever prayed to by any humanity would come out of the movie screen and pass out salvation with a side order of beluga caviar on a 24K gold platter. But I cannot fault Lucas for all this. He did not actively seek the promotion that Star Wars has been given (with a few rare exceptions). If some toy company or fast food chain offered me a deal that would be worth billions, and all I had to do was let them use the image of my creations, I would not refuse it on the basis that someone would call me a "Sell Out" and nither would any body else. Some places in the world they have another word for "Sell Out" it's called "not starving to death." Shure, the main reason that he went back and did another Star Wars movie was to complete some personal artistic cycle, but let no one kid them selves, this movie was a large business venture. And being a business venture it was intended to make money.
And as far as the hype on the first 3 films goes: the first movie was an extreamly low budget film made by an almost unknown cast and crew, so of course it had little hype. I do however, recall many advertisments, talk shows, toy deals, fast-food promotions, and magazines around the Empire and especialy Jedi movies.
To aptly have the term "sell out" apply something being "sold out" must be an ideal, institution, or artform. While Star Wars will always be one of my all time favorite movies, and is a master piece in its own right, it does not qualify.
"Selling Out" is Ghandi doing ads for the American Beef Asociation and NRA for a 10 Million dollar a year contract, not George Lucas selling the image of Jar-Jar to Kenner.
It was the Pizza Hut/Taco Bell/KFC flier I found in my mailbox that finally made me want to puke. Before I found that thing I was already pretty sick of the hype and I am a Star Wars fan too. I mean, with the line-ups and the midnight toy grubbing things were getting kinda out of hand. Every channel on tv has something about Phantom Menace at least once every half-hour (at least that's the way it seems).
When the first trailer was out my friend and I discussed it at length. Yeah, it was quite exciting, this movie is gunna kick ass, blah blah blah, but too bad those battle droids look so goddamn cheezy, and that kid looks like he's a pretty bad actor from what I've seen of him on the tv (the hype machine was just beginning to roll), etc.... The point is that I came away from that discussion with the fear that this movie is going to suck, but that noone will EVER admit it if it does. The hype is too big. People are forced to love it now.
The funny thing about hype is that it can turn the hard-core fans off. Hype will get you the masses, easy as pie. Alot of the real fans will hate you for it though.
I probably won't see this movie until it hits video. I won't be able to say I saw it on the big screen, but I feel the need to fight the hype in some way (no matter how insignificant my $8 * ? is).
I won't even entertain the topic of Lucas as a sellout - he finances his own movies - who is he selling out to?
What I want to say is that Katz's continuous, insufferable whining is an really becoming quite grating. Jon - don't you have anything positive to say? I'm really starting to wonder about your psychological profile.
If the rest of you want to trash Star Wars as the worst film series in history, go ahead. I'm going to go to the theater and have some fun on Thursday.
Yes, indeed. Who *are* our heroes now (in 1999)? I'm pretty much stumped. But we certainly have a lot of simulations (media images mainly, but also video games and such) of heroes! I think we've had plenty of real-life heroes in the past (explorers, warriors, defenders of the poor and the weak, seekers of Truth etc.). I'm just not sure if they're still around. And even if they are, they're drowning in a sea of simulation.
Maybe it's nonsense... but it's *interesting* nonsense if you look into it.
The more I think about the (fairly recent) explosion of simulacra in our society, the more I recognize the core Truth in what Baudrillard is saying. We are mass-manufacturing simulacra to replace Real Truth. And we're doing it at such a rate that it we're now essentially bent on destroying, concealing or subjugating Truth almost everywhere. Why? Because we don't want to face the reality of what we're losing or what we've already lost. And the actual losses have been truly staggering.
I'm pretty sure this is what early religions were concerned with when they tried to stop people from worshipping idols and creating "graven images". They were worried (and rightly so, I think) that mere simulacra of God would replace the living Truth of God that (they believed) surrounds us. In fact, they were probably too late even then: God was already dead or dying (as an inherent cultural Truth), and thus all the simulacra -- to try to conceal it from ourselves. Certainly an odd way to behave (on the surface of it, anyway), but with multi-million dollar athletes, TV stars and politicians like Clinton held up as our leaders/heroes/role-models, it's easy to see why we might need The Phantom Menace to remind us of what heroes used to be like.
It seems to me that the more evident the absence of Heroes in our society becomes, the more our anxiety grows and thus the louder and more omnipresent the replacement simulacra must become to conceal the issue. Thus all the hype. If even to name something is to kill it, then surely The Phantom Menace is the epitaph of the Hero.
Jonathan
It's a mistake to think that this in any way detracts from the movie though. The movie and the hype are two seperate things. Just because he's hyped it up, doesn't mean he didn't take care to make the best bloody movie he could. Has everyone forgotten the mid-eighties commercialization of Return of the Jedi? I've still got posters and cups and loads of other marketing crap from then. I still love the movie too.
As far as I'm concerned, he did 3 fantastic movies before, and until I've seen it, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I think Mircrosoft have made you all think that big money=complete crap. It doesn't have to be made for 20 bucks and a couple of bits of wire for it to have a "soul" you know :)
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
Uhm. This seems like a silly argument. The marketing execs are responsible entirely? That..doesn't make any sort of sense, unless you're trying to tell me that the marketing execus keep Lucas tied up in a chair and force him to sign these contracts.
Wow.
There's nothing that precludes art, money and Lucas from all existing together - even merchandising can be in there.
Lucas invented Star Wars, made the movies and deserves to make whatever he can from it.
As far as the merchandising, someone else here hit the nail on the head:
You can't stop people from buying what they want.
If he releases a Star Wars movie - people are going to want all kinds of related merchandise. Star Wars won't happen any other way in our world.
Feel free to ignore one of the ugly sides of capitalism.
My point is: Go watch the movie.
If you don't like it, bitch to Lucas.
If you like it...hooray!
(It's late. Good night!)
I don't normally read or listen to movie reviewers, but I do enjoy Roger Ebert and his tastes seem to mirror mine in terms of movies.
He loved the movie, said basically what others are saying about great visuals, flat characters...but he saw the movie for what it was...great entertainment! Which is exactly what I'll be seeing it for.
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
The original Star Wars movie didn't have any hype or toys before it opened...it was a small movie at the time and it didn't even get a premier! But after a few months when the movie took the world by storm, the toys, the bed linen, the product endorsements etc etc....took off like nothing before it!
But you seemed to have forgotten The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Both these movies were surrounded by incredible hype. The Empire Strikes Back was surrounded by the hype almost as much as Phantom Menace is. It was most anticipated movie ever made (the same sort of thing people have been saying about Phantom Menace).
What is the point of your article? Did Lucas sell out? Of course he did, and he'd be a fool not to! If he hadn't sold out 22 years ago with the original, we wouldn't be here today talking about the Phantom Menace...which he financed totally by himself.
What's the deal with you Katz? Your whole article reeks of hypocrisy and of the Rolling Stone magazine article submission guildlines (were they tell their writers to make sure they hate everything and slant it to make the artist look like they sold out because they were smart enough to make a buck).
Wow, you're so controversial! I hope you don't get paid by Slashdot for your articles...after all, you'd be a sellout!
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
EXACTLY!!!!!
Then again, heretical as this probably sounds, I'm no great fan of the original SW either. I think it's a good movie, but I disagree with what it's been hyped into. Of course, being female, I'm outside of the original movie's intended audience anyway
Why my (male) friends expect me to be as enthusiastic as they are about a film series that has ONE major female character, who spends the entire movie gradually losing the spine that she at least SEEMED to have in the beginning
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I have to say that I agree with you. Well said.
What disturbs me the most about the hype is that it has gone WAY the hell out of its target audience: little kids, especially little boys. Women's magazines are doing fashion articles based on Queen Amidala. WHY?! Lucas is on the cover of major news magazines. WHY?
This is a kids' story, folks. What little there is in the way of "larger Truths" in it have been distorted beyond all recognition. And supposed adults are eating it all up just because it's called "Star Wars."
I can't wait until this week is over, and I can put being dragged by my Yoda-worshipping friends behind me.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
Sure, there is an awful lot of hype surrounding this release, but to say Mr. Lucas sold out because of that is going too far. Until you see the movie, you simply don't know if he has compromised artistic integrity for the almighty dollar. Given his already extreme wealth, I don't think he's doing this for the money. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps Mr. Katz should too. I have every reason to believe that this will be a quality picture in spite of the hype.
It still leaves the intereting question of whether we "really" have lost heroes in our society unaswered, but Star Wars isn't evidence of anything like that except that we STILL have many of the same myths. Larger than life un-realistic heroes have been around forever, didn't you read beowolf in high school?
I had the good fortune of meeting someone who was on the set of the the original Star Wars towards the end of the filming. He got to see a Harison Ford that was absolutely convinced he would never work again because the movie was so overbudget it couldn't possibly make any money. Lucas was confident in it's success. Lucas believed that he was making a "Disney movie," one that probably wouldn't break even at the box office, but would rake in more than enough through merchandising to create a hefty profit. Christ, I remember seeing Star Wars bedding when I was a kid!
The media has gotten bigger, but I think it would be a shame to begrudge Lucas the marketing strategy that allowed him to make the holy trilogy in the first place. The fact that he makes money off of his movies should have no impact on how we percieve him as an original and innovative artist.
Only the most pious become inquisitors.
As usual, Jon Katz gives us a well written(excluding the question marks), thought provoking article that misses a big point.
George Lucas has every right to sell out.
When I went to target a few days ago and saw the "Official Darth Maul Boy's Bike!" I almost threw up. It was disgusting. Star Wars merchandising is greed and American capitalism at its worst. Just spoon feeding crap with a logo on it to anyone who will buy it.
But a few moments after taking such offense at it, I realized that George Lucas WORKED HIS ASS OFF TO GET WHERE HE IS. George Lucas pumped blood, sweat and tears into the original Star Wars, and suckered Fox out of the liscensing rights to make sure he would always be able to do whatever he wanted to with his stuff from then on. And he busts ass to pack serious quality into everything else he touches. He has every right to dump this crap out into the market place and rake in the bucks, because he didn't get there by fucking around.
If the hype depresses you Jon, just ignore it. If you get that much of it on TV that it bothers you, you are watching too damned much TV anyway. If you don't like the merchandise, don't buy it. But don't get pissed at George Lucas about it.
...or I'm gonna have ta lay da smack down on yo ass... beeyotch!
I try to be fu
We the people share the blame for the holocaust.
We the people share the blame for bad operating systems and integrated web browsers.
We the people share the blame for commerce and merchandizing.
We the people share the blame for all prostitution of ideals and principles.
Preaching and proselytizing ones beliefs alone stand accused more than the blame we share. I share the blame for this thread with Katz:-)
Ciao
I for one have to admit that I have some problems with the whole George Lucas/Star Wars thing these days. It just seems to me that George has become, as many people do when they get older, more conservative, more of a "wuss," so to speak. Both ANH and ESB were less "kiddy" than either Jedi or the new one seem to be. I mean, the Ewoks, and Jar Jar... neither ANH or ESB seemed to need that sugary sweetness to still be good stories and cool as hell, to both kids and adults. I was 4 when I saw Star Wars in the theatre for the first time. Sure, it's not Shakespeare but the story had a certain maturity to it that by the time Jedi came out seemed to be lost.
Yeah, like anyone else, I had the sheets and the lunch box, the coloring books and figures. But it seems to me now that those things did not have any impact on how the story unfolded. Now it seems like the plot is dictated by merchandising, rather than the merchandising being dictated by the plot and characterisation. You have a character like JarJar created specifically to be marketed to kids. It's corny and it's cheap. It shouldn't need that. The original just seems that much stronger in those terms.
--arkiver
I have to tell all of you to take anything you read witha grain of salt. If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that the more adamant someone is about a point, the more wrong they are. That's just how it works.
Thus I don't trust Katz, or anyone else who's convinced of anything, to form my opinions for me. Personally I refuse to form an opinion on the hype surrounding TPM, other than to say Lucas' motivations in that area are a bit "iffy". But I really don't care about that as long as the movie is good.
I think everybody who is content to be either "for or against" something should look deep within themselves. You'll find that none of it matters. That's what (the amazing) Joseph Campbell was all about, that realization. And viewed in that perspective, if you like this movie, you like it. If you don't, what the F*CK DOES IT MATTER?! Just think. Everybody. Think. You'll feel like a dumbass for not having done it before.
I don't understand you people.
You seem to have nothing to do but bitch about the hype and call Lucas a sellout. Why can't you just accept that fact that people are having FUN? People are going out and buying star wars toys and getting them with their mugs and being excited and having FUN! There's nothing wrong with that. Even if the movie isn't that great, people have had fun anticipating it.
Also, what's with the opinion trends towards The Phantom Menace? Suddenly, everybody decided it was cool to say "It's all hype!". You've lost something valuable if you've lost the excitement present in antipating it.
It may be "just a movie", but that doesn't mean you have to slam people who think it is more.
-dh
Diehard
It's easy to be captivated by the amount of money being thrown around - mostly because I (and most of us) don't operate in that kind of money on a day-to-day basis. If Pepsi walked up to me today and offered me $10 million, my first response might be "Who do you want me to kill?". However, if I had $800 million in the bank I would be in a better position to consider what that measley $10 million was worth as far as image and values are concerned.
So considering that in just ticket sales alone, it's pretty clear Lucas will be able to make his kids braces payment, it's a fair question to ask how much responsibility Lucas has himself for approving all of the ad campaigns and product tie-ins. This created the hype which he then goes on record as denouncing.
Dave