Yeah, I hate it when people are so stupid that they actually like things I don't.
Legomancer | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 11:30 am | #

Wow...you really put me in my place! Thank goodness you're here to prevent me from expressing an opinion with which you may not agree.
Dorian | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 11:45 am | #

About Star Wars... I liked the first two and a half movies fine, I went to see Episode I and I thought it was fun, but Episode II was really bad. And I don't mean in a fanboy-you-shat-upon-my-sanctuary-way but in the simple terms I apply to blockbusters. The pacing was completely off balance, the dialogues were tiresome and clicheè-ridden (and not in a good way) and the special effects looked outdated.

Point is: I accept the original trilogy and even Episode I as fun movies which I enjoy watching every once in a while. But Episode II was simply bad as a movie... you don't have to compare it to "Citizen Kane", it was even bad when compared to other blockbusters such as "The Rock" or "Starship Troopers".
Björn W. | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 11:57 am | #

WOW someone is grumpy today.
Larry | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 12:34 pm | #

"Because, as we all know, the original Star Wars films were the most perfect works of art of all time. Utterly and completely flawless."

Oh thank god somebody said it, and this is coming from someone who IS a Star Wars fan. People act amazed and angry that Episodes I and Deux don't live up to 20 years of overblown nostalgia... they just amaze me. Compared to Episode IV, Episode I is a lightning-fast rollercoaster of a ride.

Let's get it straight, fans: the original Star Wars trilogy is a filmmaking achievement because it was something innovative at the time. Not because it was masterful filmmaking, because it is fucking well NOT. If Episode IV came out today, it'd make 60 mil and disappear forever.
Ken Lowery | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 12:52 pm | #

This infantilisation of culture IS a problem I reckon - though I'm as guilty of it as anyone else, ifg not more so. We seem to have reached a point where thirty something guys just buy their childhood up again in newer formats. We get reimagined Charlies Angels, more Star Wars etc.- which I suppose is OK, as long as it doesn't prevent us from moving onto new stuff as well.
We have a similar thing with 70's and 80's music revivals.I think nostalgia is OK - especially with a cheeky soupcon of postmodern irony thrown in - As long as that's not all we do.
psychbloke | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 12:55 pm | #

Can't say I agree with this bit :"Well, except for Micronauts and Battle of the Planets, because apparently nobody ever really liked those two properties".

I remember a stunning Micronauts back- up strip in the 70's (In Marvel's 'Star Wars' funnily enough)

Very stark use of black and white - no outlines, just shade.

Don't 'spose you know how I could go about tracking this down?
(Sorry for this sort of enquiry - when I worked in a record shop people use to come in and hum tunes they didn't know the title or artist for - guess this is just as irritating)

Anyway - thought provoking post- cheers
psychbloke | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 12:56 pm | #

I have to agree on the Star Wars thing (despite being a Star Wars fan myself), as I'm sick to death of people wanting new movies to live up to the memories of things they first saw when they were five. They can't.

G.I. Joe, Transformers, etc. are hardly artistic achievements, but I find it odd that they get derisively sneered at with the "nostalgia" label while things like, say, Spider-Man don't. (Semi-interestingly, the one "nostalgia comic" I enjoy these days is Voltron -- and that's one where I never actually watched the original as a kid.)

So, er, why does the homoeroticism of Masters of the Universe make it stupid?
Steve Pheley | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 1:42 pm | #

But guys, episode one was really, really bad...

I kid. Well, I don't, since it was horrible, I just want it to live up to a standard of mediocre entertainment, but yeah people do certainly invest a lot of themselves into artifacts of youth and all.

That said, I don't think that taste improves with age. Is the stuff that adults like that much better? The top selling books are weak thrillers and diet books, the popular tv shows are repetative sitcoms or repetative copshows or repetative reality shows... its not like as a whole we've improved with age. Everybody buy things of dubious quality all the time.
hcduvall | 08.24.04 - 1:57 pm | #

While I disagree a bit (just a bit) with the tone of your piece I do agree with its message.

I think there's a high people get when they return to something they loved as a kid. I know I feel it when dealing with the NES and all its games (now only if I can get one of these emulators to work!). It really is the peak of esacpism to delve into a fantasy comic only to delve further back into one's own life.

I never could get into Star Wars, but I think people became such rabid fans because there's so much to be a rabid fan about. It's not like there were just three movies and now the three new ones. There's comics, toys, cartoons, music etc. etc. etc. Lucas and Co. know how to keep people buying merchandise and don't show any signs of slowing down. After all, why should Lucas try to make quality Star Wars films, are Star Wars fans not going to see it?
Ian Brill | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 2:04 pm | #

Or see them I should have written. There's no end to the Star Wars franchise in sight.
Ian Brill | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 2:06 pm | #

Larry--Today? More like everyday, I think.

Psych--Unless they were reprints of the Michael Golden issues, I have no clue what they were.

Steve--Just a gratuitous dig at the expense of Masters fans. Pay it no mind. (Though I do blame a childhood of playing with He-Man for warping my sexual identity.) And I don't lump straight-forward super-hero titles into the "nostalgia" category because I think they're a disntinct genre worthy of contempt for entirely different reasons.
Dorian | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 2:27 pm | #

Hey, what's with the Boba Fett hate? He was responsible for what I think is the greatest rap ever... MC Chris' "Fett's Vette"

"Cruisin' Mos Espa, in my Delorean,
War's over, I'm a peaceful Mandalorian, Story has stumped Star Wars historians, even debate, but they play at BENNIGANS!"
And that's only for starters.
Robby Karol | 08.24.04 - 2:40 pm | #

but our tastes, for the most part, are set in our youth. True, we can move beyond them, but there's a part of me that will always like the music that I was listening to when I was 12. And the movies that I watched at about 14 when I first began to realize that movies COULD be something more than just passive entertainment.

Dorian, you work in a field that is driven by nostalgia, so you see it in its rawest form. Comics in general are read by people nostalgic for what first drew them to the medium. I've had a few friends who first read comics as adults, and they have much more refined tastes in terms of what they read and like (and advocate for). They are more easily able to dismiss the standard stuff as just standard stuff without also having that nostalgic appeal to it. (and they still "get" the superhero stuff like Moore's Supreme or Miller's Batman and Daredevil stuff -- so it's not just that they eschew what the majority likes -- they simply have better cliche filters).
Jim Kosmicki | 08.24.04 - 6:04 pm | #

Dammit man. Now I have to search e-bay for that box. Be back later.
Shane | Homepage | 08.24.04 - 8:05 pm | #

Nah.

I always hear the people saying, "Folks, Star Wars was never that great." And that's fine; you're allowed to argue.

However, the fact is that kids through the 1970s, 1980s, AND the early 1990s - three decades - all grew up with it and were excited, and liked it quite a bit. It's not like Independence Day, which came out, was slightly above mediocre, and faded into oblivion; Star Wars lasted because people liked it, and they liked it because it was good.

Now, maybe you might not be able to perceive a difference in quality - but if kids twenty years from now are still going, "SHOW ME PHANTOM MENACE ONE MAW TIME, DAH-DEE!", I'll cheerfully eat my hat and suck it up. But I'd bet you $100 that they won't.

And yes, Lucas is trying his best to make a good product. The same could be said of Ed Wood, Joss Whedon's X-Men, or any creative endeavor. It doesn't mean shit; all that matters is the final product.
The Ferrett | 08.25.04 - 5:29 am | #

Oh, and...

I agree completely with the nostalgia sentiment. I mean, I love Star Wars, but plenty of other movies, bands, and comics have arrived in the last twenty years or so. Enough to keep ME busy, anyway.
The Ferrett | 08.25.04 - 5:30 am | #

you are totally my hero.
jbrandt | 08.25.04 - 7:54 am | #

Oh, Jesus Christ. I can listen to someone put down Star Wars, but not suggest that it's the equal or inferior to "Episode I." That's just crazy.

It's conventional anti-wisdom to say that Star Wars's quality comes from everyone's childhood memories of the '70s. Star Wars's quality comes from the Silver Age of Filmmaking that was the late 1970s. There was a whole generation of super-fucking-gifted USC graduates working with George Lucas on that first movie -- he just denied them credit.

(continued)
John G | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 9:11 am | #

But "Episode I" is a product of a completely different culture...trigger-happy computer graphics autistics sitting around in the Presidio with no sense of what really makes a movie cool. It's really true that movies aren't what they used to be. Not that there aren't new good ones, but they have to be good in a completely different way.

And Dorian, I'm not going to let you casually disgrace the memory of pulp goddess Leigh Brackett, who wrote "Empire," conceptually the best sci-fi sequel short of "Star Trek II."

Return of the Jedi sux, Star Wars pwns.

I agree with you about nostalgia for "Battlestar Galactica." That show was stupid and terrible, and the fact that this Mormon epic is available for $90 in a box set is a disgrace to American society.

The Japanese are surpassing us. "Cowboy Bebop" makes the stuff I watched as a kid, like "Buck Rogers," look like poo.
John G | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 9:12 am | #

John G: we read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls too. Try again on your Lucas history lesson.

"It's really true that movies aren't what they used to be. Not that there aren't new good ones, but they have to be good in a completely different way."

Statements like that drive me absolutely crazy. That is exactly the kind of thinking that keeps the nostalgia machine going, that very basic "nothing is what it used to be" crap, built through 20 years of you telling yourself nothing will ever be as good as that. OF COURSE nothing will compete with THAT kind of mental hype. Are you nuts?

It's a kneejerk response to change, and an easier route to say "oh, new stuff just sucks" instead of actually attempting to understand it.

Lazy.
Ken Lowery | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 9:53 am | #

Also: Cowboy Bebop is not intended for kids. It's pretty clearly aimed at teenagers and adults.
Ken Lowery | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 9:55 am | #

Statements like that drive me absolutely crazy. That is exactly the kind of thinking that keeps the nostalgia machine going, that very basic "nothing is what it used to be" crap, built through 20 years of you telling yourself nothing will ever be as good as that. OF COURSE nothing will compete with THAT kind of mental hype. Are you nuts?

Are you a frothing maniac? I kid.

No, I'm just looking at a pretty obvious truth, dude -- "Star Wars" is rooted in the '70s. You can't recreate a 1970s concept in the 1990s, it just isn't going to work. That's why "The Matrix" made sense in 1999 and "The Phantom Menace" didn't, not on any level. You can never go back.

It's the same rule that applies to every great rock band: as much as they may have been divinely inspired in their heyday, they're still going to fucking suck trying to recreate the magic 30 years later.
John G | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 12:02 pm | #

Maybe Dorian should step up to the plate and denounce Dr. Who...

I should mention that I've known him since 1988, so I'm not some hostile guy dropping by to savage Postmodernbarney. He's awesome, honestly.

But like Monty Python, Star Wars was a bunch of really gifted people coming together at a certain rich period. People cared about space. Who gave a fuck about space in 1999? This is why Golden Age Sci-Fi makes so much more sense on a gut level than all the lame-ass Sci-Fi Channel shows about space marines.
John G | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 12:16 pm | #

There making a Silverhawks comic?

Cool ;)
Chris | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 3:33 pm | #

Maybe Dorian should get out of the business he's in, because it's making him (possibly more) bitter and misanthropic (than has always heretofore been his norm). I mean no attack; I would say the same to a teacher who became enraged when kids acted up, or a waitress who was revolted by the sight of people eating. Like it or not, D. is in the nostalgia business --- not that comics is only nostalgia, but yes, kids who grew up reading comics aimed at kids now either want to read or create the same concepts, but aimed at other 30somethings. So if nostalgia creeps Dorian out, he should perhaps no longer sell people nostalgia-driven entertainment.
N | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 4:14 pm | #

BTW PS: I'm also not saying the above comment as a fan of any of the (admittedly lame) animated shows that he mentioned, or even Star Wars, which I regard as a damn fine and dated movie. The new comics that reinvent the characters with more complex art and storylines are interesting, I guess. I'm not commercially interested in them, but they don't enrage me and I don't think they should enrage anyone. So I honestly think D. should step back and examine why he's so annoyed by these harmless past-times of harmless, creative and fun people. Christ, at least they're not out killing dogs or torching hobos.
N | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 4:15 pm | #

N--You seem to be assuming more familiarity with me than you have, especially since I have no clue whatsoever who you are. You also couldn't have missed my point more if you'd tried.
Dorian | Homepage | 08.25.04 - 7:12 pm | #

Lawrence Kasdan! That's whose name I couldn't remember at the store yesterday, the actual good writer who wrote or co-wrote Empire and Jedi. As opposed to tin-ear Lucas, who insists on doing all the writing on the new films, despite being utterly inept at writing dialogue. As Harrison Ford said, "George, you can WRITE this shit, but you can't SAY it."

Dammit, I wasn't going to chime in on this, and yet here I am. Land of the Lost rules and you're crazy!!!!!!!
tomthedog | Homepage | 08.26.04 - 2:05 pm | #