In other words, you are NOT a "real" Star Wars fan if you don't want to watch "The Phantom Menace". You're just a fair-weather fan, a stormtrooper of the Internet looking for some loser to beat up on, yet "The Phantom Menace" is anything but a loser. Just check some data from Box Office Mojo and you'll see what I mean.
| Movie | All Time Domestic Gross |
|---|---|
| The Phantom Menace | $474,544,677 |
| Star Wars (A New Hope) | $460,998,007 |
| Revenge of the Sith | $380,270,577 |
| Attack of the Clones | $310,676,740 |
| The Return of the Jedi | $309,306,177 |
| The Empire Strikes Back | $290,475,067 |
And I know all the lame, sorry excuses you want to raise in objection to this table. I have heard them all before.
"But those are OLD dollars versus NEW dollars". That just makes your case worse, given that the original trilogy has been released multiple times. Every time someone tells me "The Empire Strikes Back" was a better movie than "The Phantom Menace" I fall out of my chair laughing. If that is the case then why don't the fans like it as much as "The Phantom Menace"? Sorry, that dog won't hunt.
"Box office totals don't count when it comes to determining movie quality." Yes it does. In fact, that IS ALL THAT COUNTS. Why? Because the box office is all about people laying down money to go see a movie. They don't like to pay for crap and they sure don't pay for that painfully miserable crap that movie snobs and film critics like to include on their "all time best movies" lists.
If a movie isn't good enough to draw a big audience it isn't good enough to be called a "high quality movie". Art films and other limited distribution agreements do justify some exclusions, but in general if your movie bombs at the box office it sucks, it sucks big time, and while people are allowed to love it above all other movies their personal favoritism doesn't in any way justify mislabeling bad, boring movies as "good" movies.
I suffered through "Citizen Kane" once. ONCE. I will never watch that dog again, I don't care how many "best movies of all time" lists the film snobs and wannabe critics add it to. "Citizen Kane" is one of the most boring movies of all time. If you are basing your story-telling on this movie, you suck at telling movies in a cinematic format.
Give me films that keep me entertained, that bring me back to the box office, and that compel me to buy the DvDs. I don't ask much, just for something I am happy to pay for.
And that is why it is time to stand up and defend "The Phantom Menace" (again). But as far as this new Star Wars movies portal goes, it's not all about putting the wannabe fans and film snobs in their places. They may be the vocal minority who shout down all the real fans but there are some interesting things to say about all the movies (not just trash talk). I have watched them all multiple times (more often than I have watched "The Return of the King", which I personally do not enjoy).
But we're doing other things with this new set of essays. We're collecting interesting videos, and we're looking at the background of these stories, and we're collating cool trivia that isn't as popular on the Web (yet) as a lot of the Star Wars trivia you find in media articles.
And we're also interested in promoting the fan films because there are some really nice fan films out there. I wish I had more time to enjoy fan films because you see the love of fandom in the work they do for each other.
We can argue all day and all night about which Star Wars movie is the best but we can agree that we watch them, right? Well, now let's agree that we need more Star Wars fan sites. Xenite.Org is doing its part. Your Twitter and Facebook accounts don't count. If you gave up on making fan Websites years ago it's time for you to get back into the game. All snide remarks aside, Tweets last about 90 seconds. Fan sites last for years. Say something powerful to the rest of fandom.
UPDATE: When I wrote the above I meant to qualify the data by pointing out these were "George Lucas" movies. I failed to do that and it would be wrong to change the article now that people have been reading it. But obviously "The Force Awakens" is in a position to hit the top-selling mark of all time for the Star Wars franchise. I have no problem with that. The purpose of sharing this data is to point out the huge disconnect between people who don't like "The Phantom Menace" and the immense popularity of the film.
UPDATE 2: See "Star Wars: The Adjusted Numbers" for more data.
Well, I am not your typical TPM/Jar Jar hater by any means, but I don't think those numbers are fairly portrayed. My basis for this is:
ReplyDelete1) You really have to show adjusted for inflation amounts, despite the multiple releases you mention. If that is the case above (but I don't think so) then I will gladly strike this.
2) The majority of the TPM numbers come from its initial release, I would even comfortably venture to say within its first two weeks, when opinions formed on it good or bad were still very unsettled. In looking back and comparing quality of cinematic story telling, there is no way anyone would say it is better than all 5 others.
3) If you are just going to use dollars (or ticket sales) then are you ready to go ahead and declare The Force Awakens as the all time greatest? It is virtually guaranteed to sink all the above numbers.
And I did this without throwing Jar Jar under the bus at all! How about that! Nor do I feel the need to throw Citizen Kane under the bus, which I think is a great movie, along with Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Star Trek IV, The Usual Suspects, The Incredibles, and The Black Hole (just to throw some diversity in there).
I would love to show adjusted for inflation amounts but that is impossible since the source conflates all the box office receipts for different releases. These are "life time" numbers.
ReplyDeleteA better metric would be a combination of:
Number of tickets sold
Number of videos/DvDs sold
Number of video/DvD rentals
Number of cable rentals
But we're never going to get that data. We have what we have.
As for "The Force Awakens", it's not a George Lucas Star Wars movie so even though it will most likely pull in more domestic box office numbers than "Phantom Menace" it can never unseat "Phantom Menace" as the top-performing George Lucas Star Wars film.
What Disney *COULD* do to jigger the numbers is release other Lucas films without releasing "Phantom Menace", but since fans liked that one the most that would not make good business sense.
Well, adjusted for inflation numbers are available at Box Office Mojo (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm) and show the following (domestic US amounts only):
ReplyDeleteStar Wars (A New Hope) $1,485,517,400
Empire Strikes Back $ 818,826,500
Return of the Jedi $ 784,455,500
The Phantom Menace $ 753,202,700
Revenge of the Sith $ 494,767,000
Attack of the Clowns $ 445,927,000
I think this is a much more accurate portrayal, don't you? This is pretty much what I would have guessed. Most interesting is how close TPM is to Jedi, just missing 3rd place, and the big dropoff from there to ROTS. No surprise at all AOTC is last.
Of course ANH blows them all away. It is #2 of all time behind Gone with the Wind.
You would probably appreciate this article:
ReplyDeleteThe Star Wars prequels don’t deserve your hatred
http://www.avclub.com/article/star-wars-prequels-dont-deserve-your-hatred-226732
Sorry it took so long to approve your comments. I was busy after Christmas and just got around to looking at this blog again.
ReplyDeleteI have reviewed the adjusted numbers here:
http://sf-fandom.blogspot.com/2016/01/star-wars-adjusted-numbers.html
The huge bump for "Empire Strikes Back" is due to rampant inflation from 1979 to 1981 (it was in the double digits every month throughout 1980). I suggest the number of weeks of the original theatrical run is a better (if also flawed) metric.
I wouldn't. Movies that people really like ALOT get re-released for the very reason that demand is high to see them and therefore they get multiple runs (especially in the pre-VCR/DVD era). Also wouldn't what you are saying about inflation also be in effect now for EVERY movie released not only then or before, and therefore equal out?
ReplyDeleteAnd here is another:
ReplyDeleteThe George Awakens
A strange thing has happened since the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”: people are talking about George Lucas with something other than contempt.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-george-awakens