StarGateWars Forums

I am currently watching Blade Runner, and it just brought a question into my mind.

Do you think Star Wars, if it was made right this second with the modern effects, etc, would be as big of a hit as it was back when it was first released?

Personally, I do not believe so. The reason? There have been such a wide variety of Sci-Fi movies like it (to a varying degree) that not as many people would become fans of Star Wars.

I love stories, roles, courage, grit, etc in movies. Star Wars has a lot of that in the old movies, however, the newer version's do not. It's more revolved around special effects than the actual movies itself. So in this time and age, I do not believe it would be as big of a hit as it was.

No matter the effects of a movie, if the acting isn't believable, it is not a good movie. Plain and simple.

Thoughts?

SuperSaiyan wrote:You have to take into consideration the effect StarWars itself has had on Sci-Fi movies in general and the pioneering it has done in cgi/special effects as well before you can answer that question with a sense of realism...

If Star Wars wasn't made, there would have been another show to replace that show. Just as Star Trek for example.

The point isn't what it did for the Sci-Fi movies in general, let alone CGI/Special Effects, but if the movies would be a hit now with our current effects > acting > story line choice rather than acting > story line > effects of the old times (I reckon that's how it was).

nah.. you've seen the episoned 1,2 and 3...

We already know the answer to this question because the 1/2 the StarWars movies were made pre-CGI in the late 70s & early 80s and the other 1/2 were made in the late 90s & early 2000s. The films were released to 2 different generations.

As a child on my families first VHS I must have watched Star Wars 100+ times, loved it, me and all my school friends thought it was the best thing ever, we all had the toys, I personally had the Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, Snowspeeder and Speeder bike ( Sadly I never got the At-Tat and was very jealous of my richer friends who did get it ). Countless hours of watching and playing, and it was every where, a worldwide phenomenon.

How many kids do you think got that obsessed by the more recent movies ? Maybe some but none I know of, none of the kids in my family, none of my friends kids, they just werent interested in it.


A few points to consider,

1) StarWars didnt make sci fi, just google sci fi movies for 50s, 60s, 70s, there are hundreds of them but they were considered 'B' movies, a low budget Genre. The success and profits of StarWars made the big studios realise the Sci Fi genre was worthy of higher budgets, and many great sci fi followed because StarWars convinced producers they could make lots of money making sci fi.

2) Remember the time when the early StarWars was released, VHS was new, most people couldnt even afford it, in the UK we had just 3 TV channels that only ran 18 hours per day, you only had 1 TV in the house and it only showed big movies at Christmas time, going to see a movie in the cinema was a treat. No internet for downloads, No DVDs, you had to chose your movies carefully and they had a bigger impact.

3) In contrast the later StarWars were released when we have 100s of TV channels running 24/7, unlimited internet downloads, every household has several media devices, PCs, Laptops, Cable, Satelite, DVD players etc, TVs in every room and world flooded with entertainment Tech.

4) Even though the early StarWars had great special effects for the time, they did not just rely on them, the story was epic, and characters engaging, every kid wanted to be Hans Solo. In the later StarWars the story was still good but it was a complete CGI fest, and the characters and script seemed to be an afterthought. Only a few scenes were made good by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor, the rest was rubbish, and none of the characters were ones that kids would want to pretend to be when playing.

5) Merchandising !!! When the early StarWars came out for the first time you had the chance to own the Ships and Characters and play with them, by the time the later StarWars was released every film and TV show had it's own toys.

I think it depends what you mean by 'as big as'.

Star Wars was a tremendous feat of film making in a massive variety of different areas. It was the pioneer of modern special effects (without Star Wars I doubt we'd have seen Avatar, Harry Potter or Transformers in the same way) not to mention the profits from the first Star Wars film gave birth to Pixar and we all know the success story that became.

For the time the films came out they were totally different than what came before. Lucas gave a very bleak, dirty futuristic take on technology and aliens worlds he didn't make it like Trek or Metropalis etc etc that were streamed and gave an attempted gleaming example of what the future could be like and all this mixed up with the type of the story line (it's a space opera that's character driven opposed to a sci-fi). Finally are the characters. Chiefly that of Vader, Kenobi and Yoda. These three fictional characters have become absolutely massive, especially Vader who has been propelled to levels of fame rivaled (i'd say) by no other fictional characters and exceedingly very few real ones.

Aspects of Star wars have entered public consciousness to a degree I doubt they'll ever be gone entirely and it has left an echo that apparently reverberates through pretty much every aspect of society in some way.. from the Pope being compared to the Emperor, to Supernatural making constant references to english football using the Star Wars music.

This all forgets to point out the films financial box office and Oscar success. Accounting for inflation (as one rightly should) the first film is the second highest grossing film of all time behind gone with the wind that was in theaters for over a year I think or something insane...

If re-released it would never recreate that success, it's impossible because it's impact and impression has already been left. Purely financial at the box office I genuinely believe they could potentially be very successful again.. I mean.. of all the generations that know and love the wars I reckon pretty much all of them would want to at least see the new attempt once even the most die hard fans would and I would confidently say there must be over a billion of them.

if u dnt know after star wars a new hope star trek 1 revolutionised film making for sci fi with new technology to record not CGI but they went out to outdo star wars like 3d made new way of filming helped film to they overused effects in most now

CC/EP wrote:if u dnt know after star wars a new hope star trek 1 revolutionised film making for sci fi with new technology to record not CGI but they went out to outdo star wars like 3d made new way of filming helped film to they overused effects in most now

I seriously doubt it... in all my years i've never heard anyone beef up Star Trek films for anything like that it's always been Star Wars to have been considered to have revolutionised cinema.

Semper wrote:

CC/EP wrote:if u dnt know after star wars a new hope star trek 1 revolutionised film making for sci fi with new technology to record not CGI but they went out to outdo star wars like 3d made new way of filming helped film to they overused effects in most now

I seriously doubt it... in all my years i've never heard anyone beef up Star Trek films for anything like that it's always been Star Wars to have been considered to have revolutionised cinema.

Agreed, the 1st Star Trek film was complete crap except for the first few mins when the Klingons got shot down.

Star Wars - epic worldwide phenomenon

Star Trek - disappointment personified

The 2 are not even comparable

would u actually read what was said? I said the way filming "special effects" was revoultionised in star trek one not actually the story and that star trek people went out and revoultionised the way camera was filming because they wanted to do sumthing better than star wars the CAMERA was revolutioned like batman with nolan did with only 2camera types in existane time of filiming i forget what they are called its 8am

CC/EP wrote:](*,) would u actually read what was said? I said the way filming "special effects" was revoultionised in star trek one not actually the story and that star trek people went out and revoultionised the way camera was filming because they wanted to do sumthing better than star wars the CAMERA was revolutioned like batman with nolan did with only 2camera types in existane time of filiming i forget what they are called its 8am

Well.. that's definitely not true about the special effects is it? How can you honestly say that.....have you seen the Star Wars trilogy? Just sit quietly there newbie. Go play in the corner with Noddy and Care Bears and leave the film discussion to the adults please.

we've got a feelin' that this is a discussion where certain people will never agree...

its on the star trek motion picture DVD extras how because they wanted to do something different n bettet than star wars that they made a new way of filming do i really have to get the damn DVD to find out exact thing they did

it was camera related that helped special effects i just cant recall what but if u read it was also complementing star wars as without that star trek wouldnt been jealous and did sumthing to make special effects better or easier to create going into the 80s and yes I saw the triology around 100 times per movie so I am not ditching star wars

and semper i been here 4 and a half years so Im no newbie

CC/EP wrote:#-o its on the star trek motion picture DVD extras how because they wanted to do something different n bettet than star wars that they made a new way of filming do i really have to get the damn DVD to find out exact thing they did

it was camera related that helped special effects i just cant recall what but if u read it was also complementing star wars as without that star trek wouldnt been jealous and did sumthing to make special effects better or easier to create going into the 80s and yes I saw the triology around 100 times per movie so I am not ditching star wars

and semper i been here 4 and a half years so Im no newbie

I think you will have to dig out your DVD and tell us what they did mate, apart from the 1st scene the rest of the film was thourally un-memorable so whatever they did it wasnt enough to make the film any good. I suppose it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they did something new unsuccessfully that others did successfully and got the credit for later.


Personally I stick to my opinion that StarWars wasn't HUGE just because of special effects, it was a combination of an epic storyline, great characters & script, effects, the time it was released and merchandising. And StarWars made all Sci Fi afterwards better by convincing producers to invest more money in SciFi movies ( that had mostly before StarWars been low budget 'B' movies ) by showing big investment in SciFi could bring even bigger profits.

StarTrek on the other hand had a lame storyline, bad acting, cheesy script an not much more than the cult following of the original TV series ( that was canceled for low ratings ) going for it, and even though I enjoyed Wraith of Khan, Im amazed they got funding to make it after The Motion Picture.

the science fiction genre is a dying genre..

what is considered to be the true science fiction (ie. Starwars, old Battlestar galatica, old V) are all story based shows.. meaning the plot moves the show forward. nowadays we get things like SGU and the new BSG.. which is very character based.. for that reason starwars would suck in todays world no matter how good the graphics are..

KnowLedge wrote:the science fiction genre is a dying genre..

what is considered to be the true science fiction (ie. Starwars, old Battlestar galatica, old V) are all story based shows.. meaning the plot moves the show forward. nowadays we get things like SGU and the new BSG.. which is very character based.. for that reason starwars would suck in todays world no matter how good the graphics are..

I strongly disagree

1) The first 3 StarWars made were very much character based, the last 3 made were just a CGI fest, so you got it backwards in that example.

2) Yes the new BSG was character based but it still had a great underlying storyline, and even the the best story lines would be useless without engaging characters.

3) You think SGU is character based ???? Really ? It only has one decent character and even he got dull after a few episodes.

4) Sci Fi is much more than just spaceships and aliens, the clue is in the name 'Science Fiction', just look at great movies like 12 Monkeys, The Matrix, Blade Runner, Logans Run, Soylent Green, Gattaca, Tron and so many others, all Sci Fi.

5) Sci Fi will never die because every generation will have new tech, imagine the tech of their future and write about how that tech could be used and abused in idealistic and nightmare scenario's.