scott91575 said:
SpiderJerusalem said:
Urh said:
It was my understanding that Lucas' dream was in fact to do a remake of Flash Gordon, but he couldn't because Dino de Laurentiis had already got his hands on the film rights. Also, after having read some of the early drafts of Star Wars, I can actually understand why Lucas' colleagues had some misgivings as to whether or not the film would work. Heck, Fox were having so much trouble getting Star Wars in cinemas that they initially had to resort to block booking (which had been illegal for nearly 30 years) to get it on screens. When you add to that the budget blowouts (a rather large chunk of change was spent on SFX shots that Lucas ended up discarding), and it's kind of a wonder that Star Wars was the big hit that it turned out to be.
This is true and is one of the numerous things left out or skewed to match Bob's view of this "big picture".
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this is wikipedia lite at best and I'm constantly stunned why this is being lauded as anything but lazy moneymaking. Seriously, it's not informative, new or in any way a BIG Picture of anything except Bob's hideously askew view of the big evil Hollywood. I'm consistently surprised Escapist continues to fund this stuff.
I don't really see anything that he is saying as really skewed to this point. I am not really sure what you are expecting here. You say it's wiki lite, and then state it's skewed. So is it a new viewpoint you hate or regurgitation of something old?
He is just throwing out movie history here, and much of what he has talked about has been discussed before and agreed upon in many circles. Yet is history class just wiki lite? What do you expect, some new information in something like this? I doubt Bob is privy to information that has not already been published. Do you expect Bob to be throwing out bombshells in something he is calling movie history 101? It's seems from the title he is putting out there what should be expected...A basic history of movie making done in his allotted time. I am sure there are plenty of people who come here not aware of this stuff, and it may pique their interest to look into it more.
It's no real secret movie sales have stagnated and even declined in the past decade. I am not sure what you want. Would you like someone to tell you everything is great with movies? I don't even think Hollywood thinks that, and consumers are becoming more jaded with movies. As Bob has shown, this has happened before.
Bob's displeasure with much of Hollywood is being mirrored by the consumer, and as we have seen in the past Hollywood is slow to react when it's run by large conglomerates.
This part, like the previous before it, is filled with the kind egregious film school idolizing of the late 60's, early 70's filmmaking, painting the studios like an excessively corrupt empire, dropping information on numerous places to what led to the ultimate recessions in film, what brought it back up, and consistently drawing an image of saintly directors arriving from geek-fed neighborhoods to save cinema.
I'm guessing that this is going to continue to the "oh the 90's sucked and the studios are wrong, blahdiblahblahblahihatemichaelbay" shtick that Bob keeps pushing.
And movie sales haven't stagnated, that's another illusion that people are trying to pull. They've pretty much kept a consistent rise over the years, facing the same crisis' that the other economies have as well. The writers strike didn't help either, but from that there came numerous great films that wouldn't have come at another time.
I worded the Wikipedia-lite thing wrong, I'm sorry, I meant to point out that it's info that can be gotten with a glance from that site, then twisted and turned into a badly misinformed point and presented like Bob wants to view himself; as a resident expert, while all he's doing is the Glenn Beck type of reportage fit for maybe Harry Knowles, but is way below the standard of The Escapist.
