No Right Answer: This Generation's "Star Wars" Part 2

[Dhatz]

There is never gonna be a Star Wars of a generation. Everything is now spread too thin for dominance, no answer will work, all we can do is fanboy-flame or accept the parallelisation the world has grown into. Historically, the defining factor must be unforgettability and unignorability. Conclusion: it cannot be judged subjectively.

 

[TheSchaef]

Yeah, when I finished watching that movie, my impression was that it would become this generation's Star Wars. The story felt like it was aimed at younger kids, much like younger kids, with the special effects spectacle to hook adults.

But we won't know about it's success until after the next few movies.

At this point it's not even about that, really. It's about the fact that, even with effects-laden production, movies have always been about filming actors and then adding the fine details - green-screen backgrounds, CGI characters, laser blasts, whatever. Full-blown CGI efforts have been largely relegated to cartoonish efforts, even with the hyper-realistic (for the time) attempts of the Final Fantasy movie, or the motion-capture efforts of the recent Zemeckis films.

No, Avatar turns the model completely on its head: the entire setting of the movie is utterly virtual, and the ACTORS (the live ones) are the details dropped in. We've crossed a threshold that was only marginally imagined in the world of The Matrix (time dilation) and enhanced in Lord of the Rings (mass-CGI battles), where now Avatar has pushed the technology to the point where I honestly believe the capacity for computer-only locations is ready to be realized. It won't happen right away, just as Orson Welles' camera techniques and ILM's effects took time to bleed into the mainstream, but we're in transition. Scott Pilgrim and - God help us - Transformers are symptoms of this phenomenon.

The Matrix would have been my wish for Gen-Y's Star Wars, but the sequels kind of put a damper on the whole thing, and as good as the effects were, the only thing that really REALLY carried over is time dilation. The Matrix was something of a catalyst for this movement but Avatar is the realization.

 

[UNHchabo]

You weren't old enough to remember the months wait that cliffhanger brought. I am, because TNG belongs to my generation (X).

Granted, I'm at the older end of Gen Y, but "The Best of Both Worlds" is the first cliffhanger that I remember seeing. From that point, I watched the show every week without fail (as well as the syndicated repeats) until the finale. It was a big part of my childhood.

 

[Aptspire]

Wait, hold up...

(Chris talking) "You're like that fancy guy, in the smoking jacket-" *Saying that while a picture of Fancy Pants from MLP: FiM is displayed on screen*

SO.. I am going to assume two things on how you guys found out about Fancy Pants:

1) You browsed Google and came across Fancy Pants, thus thought was the best reference to use while surprising people with it.

2) You guys have actually watched a lot of episodes to where you remembered Fancy Pants, thus used him for that particular line. I could be wrong ether way, but.. :} it's funny to think about really.

OT: This was very enjoyable to watch especially with you guys trying to debate at the same time while drinking your glasses. How does that work?! I have to agree with Chris that it was a bad idea but worth seeing overall haha XD. Oh, and I felt like Dan deserved at least a point or two after making good remarks while debating. Somehow, when he earned a point Chris got another so it made me sad that Dan only got 2 while Chris has 4.. mm. No matter, hopefully Dan will get the upper hand next time and blow us away. He sure did a fine job last time! No sarcasm

Awww, yeah, Smarty Pants. I think they chose his picture on purpose
OT: I'm with LOTR on this one.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

I am going with Harry Potter, mostly because of how the question was phrased. It can't be the prequels because the question was not "what franchise best represents this generation?" and it isn't Lord of the Rings because, good as they were, they did not have this huge, over reaching popular culture impact that Star Wars did. Harry Potter is the closest to being the same sort of cultural phenomenon in its entirety that Star Wars was.

 

[artanis_neravar]

As for the cast of Star Wars being type casted; Harrison Ford was obviously the biggest break out star from that, but Mark Hamill became the Joker, and Kerry Fisher became the chick that tried to kill Jake and Elwood Blues.

Harrison Ford went on, sure. But he was still kinda his Star Wars persona, and that was only matched by his playing equally iconic characters. Hamill had to go to a medium where you never saw his face, and sounded completely different and the opposite of his Luke character in order to take on another role. He was only not still Luke because he was hiding that fact, throw him back into live action and his identity outside of star wars evaporates. And yes, Kerry Fisher was in blues brothers, where people could point out that princess Leia was in blues brothers. They were always tied to those roles.

Just because we remember them by their Star Wars names isn't the point, it's whether they were stuck in the same rolls for all time, and Fords roles are only similar in that they are all kind of gruffy

 

[demalo]

The Matrix is GenY's Star Wars and here is why:

Star Wars - Originally was not meant to be a trilogy. The movie had a beginning, middle, and end. Episode IV wasn't even added until later! Also, Jedi were dead, Rebellion saved by new Jedi, story left open but essentially could have stood on it's own.

The Matrix - Originally was not meant to be a trilogy. Neo was discovered as the one, prophesied as the savior, expected to save the world when the movie ended. Stood on it's own.

Star Wars - Unexpected smash hit! Essentially Unknown director with one good movie under his belt. Some big actors, small actors, and some unknowns. Yeah it sounded cool with the advertisements, but no one knew what it was or what it would be. People laughed at the trailers. It came out, instant cultural phenomenon.

The Matrix - Another Unexpected smash hit! Essentially unknown directors, some alright actors, some big actors. Many skeptical based on the trailers - interesting idea but otherwise a sci-fi flop in some peoples mind. Came out, changes cinematography, culture (goths anyone? and before Twilight!), and instant classic.

This is where they differ
Star Wars - The other two movies come out to compliment the first and finish the story. Written*** and directed by someone other than the original director. 2nd act and 3rd acts are still stand alone movies but answer some questions and leave others to the imagination based on the universe that's been created. Plus - *SPOILER*...... Darth Vader is Luke's father!!! Great space opera!

The Matrix - Directors decide two more movies need to be done - and probably had an idea for them in the works, but ideas seem overtly rushed. While both to compliment the first one they're barely able to stand on their own. They do answer some questions and bring up others but the execution is terrible. Certain aspects are ignored for cheesy effects. Plot holes GALORE! Yes the great Matrix secrete, but it's so under delivered and too late in the movie it makes the second movie feel like a waste of time and the third even more of a waste (but that's because of the ending).



Yes they were different, but there are more similarities to these two movies than with the new Star Wars, the LOTR, or Harry Potter. Problem was the fallow through wasn't what we all had hoped for. Maybe they'll be a directors cut someday to fix this up, or a fan mashup. They've always got prequels that they could tackle!

***EDIT: SORRY, Star Wars sequels were written by GL, some edits made by actual directors, just directed by different people (primarily).

 

[rekabdarb]

snip

Yeah and look at ron weasley!

But in all honesty i do think that Twilight is most likely this generation's star wars.

Because everyone has seen twilight.

Or the matrix.
Because they also have "the one who fixes everything" "The all knowing evil villain" and the "mentor" to name a few spots that are taken from both trilogies.

 

[disappointed]

I think you've got this all wrong. Why do you think this generation's Star Wars would be another movie? I would have given it to Harry Potter if it had stayed in purely novel form because it was extraordinary and unexpected. But the films dragged it into the mainstream and suddenly it's just another family-friendly adventure franchise with about as much cultural clout as Pirates of the Caribbean.

Look at it this way: Star Wars was sci-fi and still considered sort of geeky when us gen-x-ers were kids. But now that model of effects heavy action adventure is the standard for summer blockbusters, and the reason we have LotR, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Matrix, Transformers and so on. Star Wars changed sci-fi. It didn't just make it mainstream, it entrenched it at the very heart of popular culture.

The modern equivalent must do that same task for some other realm of cultural expression. I say we look to this generation's medium for this generation's Star Wars. It must be a game. Is there a game out there, right now, that millions of kids play, love and obsess about, in spite of the continued sneering of mainstream media? WoW? CoD? Angry Birds? If this generation has a Star Wars, that's where you'll find it.

 

[DarthSka]

Ok, can someone tell me the definition of a generation's "Star Wars," because I don't really see a set one here. In terms of cultural awareness and financial earning, I would still say Star Wars is this generation's Star Wars. The prequel trilogy isn't really that old, the Clone Wars television series is popular, The Old Republic and The Force Unleashed brought in the revenue, toys are still selling, and you show anyone a picture of Darth Vader and they'll probably be able to name him. Harry Potter definitely has selling power with the books, merchandise and theme park. Lord of the Rings, not so much really.

In terms of the possibility of story growth within the setting, Star Wars can still qualify, as new books, games, and Clone Wars episodes are constantly expanding it. Lord of the Rings also did that with Tolkien's other works, setting the mythology in place and showing how the world of LOTR got that point. With Harry Potter, I never really felt any true urgency from it. There didn't seem to be a true all-encompassing threat that the Sith and Sauron brought to the table. I just saw one guy with a couple hundred followers trying to kill a kid and take over one system of government. When it was done, I didn't really feel like anything else significant would happen. It felt like a "lived happily ever after," ending. In terms of story growth and setting expansion, besides the actual Star Wars, I would probably give it to Mass Effect. Like Star Wars, it has the advantage of a whole galaxy to work with, containing many established worlds, races, technology, and view points to explore. Hell, it also has those previous galactic civilizations that were wiped out that could possibly be explored and expanded on.

In conclusion:
Financial and Cultural: Star Wars, then Harry Potter
Story potential: Star Wars, then Mass Effect.

 

[floppylobster]

This generation's Star Wars has yet to be made. So for now it's youtube.

That or footage of September 11th. The cultural impact of that can be seen in Homeland, 24, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Transformers, Spiderman, The Dark Knight, etc, etc, etc...

 

[Rythe]

I'd go with none of the above?

Star Wars Prequels are cribbing on the originals in terms of any lasting impact. They have nothing of their own besides being a gateway drug for the originals and the expanded universe.

Lord of the Rings doesn't belong to Gen Y, and as amazing as the movies were, their impact is derived by the original books spawning today's high fantasy. This has nothing to do with the movies.

I don't see Harry Potter being Gen Y's Star Wars because it simply doesn't have that kind of staying power or cultural relevance. Maybe it's the circles I run, but nobody talks about it and I don't see any real presence in popular culture. A lot of people enjoyed it and it made a lot of money, but as far as I can tell, that's the end of its story. More damning is that it hasn't changed the way people think about anything, beyond movie tie-ins being a must for any popular book series.

The Matrix and The Dark Knight are closer to Gen Y's Star Wars equivalent than those three.

But maybe the real answer is Youtube in that I'm not sure a movie can create the sort of impact that the original Star Wars did in this day and age. Cultural memory and attention are too short at this point for any static creation to have the staying power to really dig in like Star Wars did, nevermind survive more than five or ten years without the anchor of being a remake or update of something from a past generation.

 

[TastyCarcass]

In terms of acclaim it's Harry Potter. It came from nowhere and happened in one generation, as did Star Wars. Lord of the Rings has been around for decades.

If we're talking about changing the way films are made as much as Star Wars did, it's LotR.

I don't see Harry Potty being Gen Y's Star Wars because it simply doesn't have that kind of staying power or cultural relevance.

stopped reading there.

 

[Rythe]

In terms of acclaim it's Harry Potter. It came from nowhere and happened in one generation, as did Star Wars. Lord of the Rings has been around for decades.

If we're talking about changing the way films are made as much as Star Wars did, it's LotR.

I don't see Harry Potty being Gen Y's Star Wars because it simply doesn't have that kind of staying power or cultural relevance.

stopped reading there.

Eheh, whoops. The things our fingers do when we aren't looking? Fixed.

That said, a lot of things come out of nowhere and happen in one generation. Doesn't make them special. And I look at Harry Potter's acclaim the same way I do FF7's acclaim. It's not the best game out there by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the game that got people hooked on the genre in that it was new, shiny and fun to play. Harry Potter was just the gateway for many people in terms of reading in that it was actually fun to read. Harry Potter may be an icon to the fans, but to the rest of the world? I don't see it anywhere. This also doubles back on the LotR problem. The books have all the clout, the movies are just the icing on the cake.

 

[beniki]

Yeah, when I finished watching that movie, my impression was that it would become this generation's Star Wars. The story felt like it was aimed at younger kids, much like younger kids, with the special effects spectacle to hook adults.

But we won't know about it's success until after the next few movies.

At this point it's not even about that, really. It's about the fact that, even with effects-laden production, movies have always been about filming actors and then adding the fine details - green-screen backgrounds, CGI characters, laser blasts, whatever. Full-blown CGI efforts have been largely relegated to cartoonish efforts, even with the hyper-realistic (for the time) attempts of the Final Fantasy movie, or the motion-capture efforts of the recent Zemeckis films.

No, Avatar turns the model completely on its head: the entire setting of the movie is utterly virtual, and the ACTORS (the live ones) are the details dropped in. We've crossed a threshold that was only marginally imagined in the world of The Matrix (time dilation) and enhanced in Lord of the Rings (mass-CGI battles), where now Avatar has pushed the technology to the point where I honestly believe the capacity for computer-only locations is ready to be realized. It won't happen right away, just as Orson Welles' camera techniques and ILM's effects took time to bleed into the mainstream, but we're in transition. Scott Pilgrim and - God help us - Transformers are symptoms of this phenomenon.

The Matrix would have been my wish for Gen-Y's Star Wars, but the sequels kind of put a damper on the whole thing, and as good as the effects were, the only thing that really REALLY carried over is time dilation. The Matrix was something of a catalyst for this movement but Avatar is the realization.

Well the thing is that Star Wars pushed the boundary for effects, whilst at the same time making a brand new rabid fan base... to the point where Jedi is listed as a religion in at least one country.

I'm just not sure if Pandora is a big enough place for imaginations to thrive in the same way as Star Wars. We won't know until the sequels come out. It'll be interesting to see if the Inter-tree-net will do for Generation Y growing up with the internet what hyper space did for generation X and the advent of commercial flights... an outcome which would have a great deal to thank the Matrix for!

 

[PhilipKidd]

It?s like in the great stories, Mr.Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn?t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it?s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you ...that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they
didn?t. They kept going because they were holding on to something. There?s some good in this world, Mr.Frodo. And it?s worth fighting for. [Enter flood of tears]

I'm not old enough to fully appreciate episode 4, 5 & 6. But I'd bet those who are, have at least one scene that invokes as many feelings as Sam's ode here does for me. I'd argue that no HP fan has such a scene and that fan dedication to Tolkien's world is more comparable to Star Wars than Rowling's. If Star Wars is in any way defined by it's fanbase then the LOTR has just as devoted and loving a fanbase.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Again, you guys miss the boat.

AVATAR.

Like Star Wars, like Citizen Kane, a clear demarcation line between the movies that came before it and the movies that came (or will come) after it.

but has Avatar had the same CULTURAL impact as it has had on the technical realm?

i kinda have to say no, and if you'll recall Star Wars didn't just 'change how movies' where made, the culture changed to some degree to

 

[TheSchaef]

Again, you guys miss the boat.

AVATAR.

Like Star Wars, like Citizen Kane, a clear demarcation line between the movies that came before it and the movies that came (or will come) after it.

but has Avatar had the same CULTURAL impact as it has had on the technical realm?

i kinda have to say no, and if you'll recall Star Wars didn't just 'change how movies' where made, the culture changed to some degree to

The cultural impact of Star Wars was not immediate, and keep in mind that at the time, Lucas marketed the crap out of Empire - a plot he hatched when he secured the merchandising rights from Fox - and which had been a complete mystery to people 30 years ago.

Today, everything is merchandised to death (the crux of the Yogurt joke in Spaceballs), and it's entirely possible that the mythos of Avatar will be lost in white noise. But it IS the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation; that honor still falls to Gone With the Wind), so it's definitely something that had an impact in the short term. time will tell if it has an impact in the long term, but it's a different game now than it was then. I'm not sure anything can recapture that.

Of the ones mentioned herein, LotR, Harry Potter and prequel Star Wars are all movies built on established properties; they had a built-in fan base before a single frame was shot, something which neither original Star Wars nor Avatar had going for it. The Matrix is the only "original story" candidate, and like I said, the cinematic impact was significant but not world-altering, and the cultural impact is largely limited to the first movie, and not really much deeper than the likes of Fight Club or Spider Man.

If we throw out Avatar, the closest thing in my mind is Toy Story. I don't think it changed live cinema the way Star Wars or Citizen Kane did, but it changed animation in the way Disney used to do in the 30s and 40s, it put full-length computer animation on the map, Pixar caught fire, and everyone knows Woody and Buzz. I don't think it's apples to apples but Toy Story is my silver medal choice.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Again, you guys miss the boat.

AVATAR.

Like Star Wars, like Citizen Kane, a clear demarcation line between the movies that came before it and the movies that came (or will come) after it.

but has Avatar had the same CULTURAL impact as it has had on the technical realm?

i kinda have to say no, and if you'll recall Star Wars didn't just 'change how movies' where made, the culture changed to some degree to

The cultural impact of Star Wars was not immediate, and keep in mind that at the time, Lucas marketed the crap out of Empire - a plot he hatched when he secured the merchandising rights from Fox - and which had been a complete mystery to people 30 years ago.

Today, everything is merchandised to death (the crux of the Yogurt joke in Spaceballs), and it's entirely possible that the mythos of Avatar will be lost in white noise. But it IS the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation; that honor still falls to Gone With the Wind), so it's definitely something that had an impact in the short term. time will tell if it has an impact in the long term, but it's a different game now than it was then. I'm not sure anything can recapture that.

Of the ones mentioned herein, LotR, Harry Potter and prequel Star Wars are all movies built on established properties; they had a built-in fan base before a single frame was shot, something which neither original Star Wars nor Avatar had going for it. The Matrix is the only "original story" candidate, and like I said, the cinematic impact was significant but not world-altering, and the cultural impact is largely limited to the first movie, and not really much deeper than the likes of Fight Club or Spider Man.

If we throw out Avatar, the closest thing in my mind is Toy Story. I don't think it changed live cinema the way Star Wars or Citizen Kane did, but it changed animation in the way Disney used to do in the 30s and 40s, it put full-length computer animation on the map, Pixar caught fire, and everyone knows Woody and Buzz. I don't think it's apples to apples but Toy Story is my silver medal choice.

not to sure if the 'established fan base' apply to LotR as much as it did with Potter, given just how old those books are, cause that would make me part of that 'fan base' and i don't really recall caring that much when Fellowship came out, or Two Towers or Return of the King, but i was all up for a second Matrix movie ....

till i saw it anyway ....

but i agree about Toy Story, wait -.- why wasn't Toy Story in the debate? it was much better then potter or the prequals ....

that's it, changing my answer, to Toy Story, its effects are much more wide spread then anything potter or LotR had, and there's 3 of them so it works in the trilogy sense.

as for Avatar, which was kinda of the main point >.> sorry dude, i still don't see it, but that's a 'mileage may very thing', as i've never finished watching it, just so ... boring ...