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Major Criticism for 'Star Wars' James Cameron and 'Newsweek' Insult SW

#1 User is offline   DBrennan3333 Icon

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 08:26 PM

In an interview with Reuters, James Cameron made the following criticism of Star Wars:

"As much as I love 'Star Wars,' and as much as it's really revolutionized the imaging business, it went off the rails in the sense that science fiction, historically, was a science fiction of ideas. It was thematic fiction. It stopped being that and became just pure eye candy and pure entertainment."

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In Newsweek's preview of 2005 movies, this paragraph summarized their perception of the American public's perception of TPM and AOTC:

Fans grumbled over the first two prequels. They scoffed at starting Anakin's journey toward evil in childhood and ridiculed the young Jedi's mushy romantic babble....Still, it's hard to imagine fans will not turn out to see Anakin....become the malevolent Darth Vader.

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I don't have any larger point to make here (other than I think James Cameron is in trouble if he honestly thinks that Americans want to see serious science fiction, i.e. A.I. and The Hulk.)

But I think it'll be an interesting experiment watching lovers of Old George Lucas (no relation to Young George Lucas) rant and rave about how AOTC was actually more popular than Titanic.
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#2 User is offline   Hannibal Icon

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 08:30 PM

As much as I hate James Cameron, he's right.
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#3 User is offline   Michel Orla Icon

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 09:28 PM

Cameron has a point, but the same thing can be said about his big steamy crap of a movie Titanic. It's pure eye candy and nonsensical Hollywood romantic drivel
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#4 User is offline   J m HofMarN Icon

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 09:37 PM

I'm going to go out on a limb here and defend titanic. I actually liked it. I watched it as a movie, not as a screaming teenager luring, tear jerking, multi million making spectacle. I saw Titanic for the first time in my Aunt's living room and I liked it. Cameron is a decent director and Titanic had a far better story than the PT.

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#5 User is offline   Michel Orla Icon

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Posted 26 January 2005 - 09:55 PM

Cameron is great, look no further than Terminator and Aliens for his best work. Titanic is in neither of the two films league, but it is better than TPM or AOTC.....The real question might be which director decided to use the more annoying song in his film. George Lucas with Yub Yub or Cameron with My Heart Will Go On wink.gif

This post has been edited by Michel Orla: 26 January 2005 - 09:57 PM

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#6 User is offline   DBrennan3333 Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 01:09 AM

JM,

You wrote, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and defend titanic...."

I don't know whether this was meant to be a joke, but if it wasn't you should know that defending a movie that won the most Academy Awards of all time, earned the most money of all time, and had the longest stay at #1 (it opened with a mere 25mil on its way to 600mil!!!) is exactly "going out on a limb."

I think that this fixation with being contrarian - in America in general and amongst young people in particular - is going a BIT too far.
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Posted 27 January 2005 - 01:20 AM

Sorry, generally I dislike Titanic (the wife watches it WAY to much), but I'd take it's romance over AOTC's ANYDAY!!!

What does Cameron mean by "pure entertainment?" Does he mean more like "spectacle?" Because, I did not find TPM or AOTC "entertaining." It was more of a spectacle.
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#8 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 01:51 AM

QUOTE
It stopped being that and became just pure eye candy and pure entertainment.


Hmm...sit me down James and talk me through this. Since when was SW ever anything but `pure eye candy and pure entertainment`?
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#9 User is offline   Xombie Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 05:22 AM

I agree. There's no going out a limb to defend "Titanic." The movie is a rock-solid piece of filmmaking by an enormously talented director. Like Lucas, Cameron risked everything to make this film. If it would have flopped it easily could have destroyed the studio backing it and Cameron would never have worked again. Unlike Lucas, after achieving his ultimate blockbuster he didn't turn into a talentless pompous dick.
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Posted 27 January 2005 - 07:32 AM

James Cameron has a point, but "Titanic" doesn't even come close to matching the high quality of Terminator 1, Aliens or the Abyss.
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Posted 27 January 2005 - 07:52 AM

Why is it so hard for people to see that Star Wars is not science fiction? It's pure fantasy with a few sci-fi elements thrown in. If you watch the movies hoping for serious science fiction, à la Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke, of course you're going to find them a disppointment. If Cameron's complaint is that most people prefer this type of thing to serious sci-fi, well, tough shit.
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#12 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 06:42 PM

the thing i like about cameron... is that lucas went into hiding for nearly 20 years to perfect the art of CGI and cameron gave us that amazing water tendril in 1988 in 'the abyss' and the charming t-100 in T2 in 1991.

lucas gave us an uncovincing jabba in 1997 and an even less convincing 1950s dinner owner in 2003.

wasted life.
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#13 User is offline   littlejerryseinfeld Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 08:09 PM

QUOTE (jariten @ Jan 27 2005, 01:51 AM)
Hmm...sit me down James and talk me through this. Since when was SW ever anything but `pure eye candy and pure entertainment`?


i feel for you, jariten, if that's all you saw the original trilogy as.
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#14 User is offline   Chiefelf Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 10:13 PM

I'll watch the prequels over Titanic anyday. Unless I want to see Kate winslett's boobs.
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#15 User is offline   jariten Icon

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Posted 27 January 2005 - 11:32 PM

QUOTE (littlejerryseinfeld @ Jan 27 2005, 08:09 PM)
i feel for you, jariten, if that's all you saw the original trilogy as.


Thats what it is. It can transcend that, if you're up for it of course, the same goes for any work. But at its core, the fact is that they're all dumb movies about space wizards.
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