I've had it up to here (two feet over my head) with people slinging around that figure to prove that AOTC was a success. I don't care how you cut it up, adjust for inflation, count ticket and DVD/VHS sales. Rotten movies will take in huge sums of money, just because people like them or want to see how really bad it is. Slap a SW label on something, and the most rabid fanboys will always show up in droves, regardless of quality. Titanic made a lot of its money from people who saw it 50 times! No, I can't back that up with scientific surveys, I'm going by what I've seen and heard from other people. Discount it as anectdotal evidence if you want to. Money is too general a marker because we don't know exactly who paid to see it and why.

$650 million is a success on paper. That does not always translate to quality, friends, and that's all I'm concerned about.

Fun Fact#1:

Did you know that George Lucas planned to open "Star Wars Stores" and was attempting to sell rights merchandising before he filmed even one frame of Star Wars A New Hope?

Source: Charles Lippincott, former vice president of Lucasfilm in Unauthorized Star Wars Story, now available on Video.

Fun Fact #2

John Milius says at one point that he thought George Lucas was going to get into making pornography because it was less stressful and more lucrative than working in the Hollywood system.

Source: Easy Riders Raging Bulls, now available on video.

Fun Fact #3


"I'm going to make five times as much money as Francis on these science-fiction toys and I won't have to make 'The Godfather,'" he boasted to cult filmmaker John Milius. "I've made what I consider the most conventional kind of movie I can possibly make."

Source: "Skywalking" The Life and Films of George Lucas, available at libraries everywhere.

Fun Fact# 4

"I'm going to go from complete success to complete failure," he told me, without a wink or a smile. On the contrary, Lucas said he anticipates utter rejection from his fans once Star Wars concludes.

Source: Roger Friedman, Fox News

Fun Fact #5

"What I didn't tell George was that I couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo. I shrivel up every time someone mentions Star Wars to me."

--Alec Guinness

Idolatry:

George wanted to make porno? That's something I never heard of before!



Dude, you've gone from complete success to complete failure the moment you released the first prequel! Any TRUE Star Wars fan knows that.

Sadfly, I was no longer a fan after the second movie and I considered myself totally detached from sci-fi at the moment. Maybe one day a good sci-fi movie that has a decent appeal to me will come out and I'll finally have something to hold instead of SW.

Make your own. Write a book. Make a comic. It'll be fun.


I agree full-heartedly with what Sagacity said. Financial success is no indication of quality. The only thing it can tell you is how popular it is, how well marketed it was or how expensive the tickets were. And anyone who tries to argue the merits of a film by its popularity won't win with me.

Sagacity's example of The Titanic is the best example of this. It won thirteen Oscars (or something like that) and was the highest grossing film of all time. It was also a shit movie.

So Sagacity, I feel the same way when people try to defend the prequels or the new DVDs by bringing up the amount of money they raked in. I'm only interested in whether the movies are good or bad.



And Hannibal, mate - those fun facts were fantastic.

Fun Fact #6




"I said to George; 'You can type this shit, but you can't say it.' and it's still true." - Harrison Ford

Man, I didn't even recognize Harrison Ford at first. He looks so old It's safe to say all the really good lines in ANH and ESB were written by persons other than Lucas.

And Titanic may be the worst movie to ever win Best Picture. Funny about TPM coming in second all time at the box office. Lucas said in Entertainment Weekly he didn't expect Episode One to do good in the box office because it was about a kid. So not only did he realize it was stupid centering the film around a kid, but more proof he's a liar. Or really stupid. Episode One might have been the most anticipated movie in history, how could it not do good in the box office.

That's a really stupid thing to say: ET is about kids, for crying out loud.

Gaaaaahhh.

TITANIC is pretty bad, but not the worst film to win Best Picture. BRAVEHEART was a little bit worse. I'm not sure where that honour should go, but off the top of my head I'd say maybe AMERICAN BEAUTY.

it was a financial success. wether it was an artistic success or not is something totally different of course. I will say this though



come on now, if that was the case, Ep2 wouldve ended up like Gigli, or even Van Helsing.



that simply just doesnt account for the amount of mone that the film made. not even close. The fact is that, good or bad, AotC was an incredibly popular film.



cant argue with that.

Oh I'll be doing that, no need to worry about it. I've been thinking up of a sci-fi story that's more or less been evolving in my head ever since 1997. It looks pretty good to me, but I don't know if I'll ever put it down on paper.

Also I want to get done with the story I'm writing now... or at least finish a few more chapters before cancelling it. I haven't written a complete novel in more than two years, can you believe that? I always start writing a story... only to cancel it a few chapters later. Why is this so? I do not really know.

Hey, I made a rhyme