To whom it may concern,
You don't have to like every aspect of a franchise to be a fan of it.
However, if you purposefully refuse to show your Star-Wars-loving children Episodes I-III or even acknowledge their existence until your children are "old enough to properly hate it", then you are not a Star Wars fan.
You're just an asshole.
Sincerely,
A Star Wars fan.
That would be an extreme measure to take.. almost like that person refuses to like or respect anyone that enjoys episodes I-III so they train their kids to dislike them too. Are people really claiming to do this?
ReplyDeletePeople have been saying it for years, and the Wall Street Journal just ran an article showcasing such a person as not only an example of a "typical fan", but as a perfectly acceptable stance.
DeleteThis is why I get mad when people talk about Star Wars.
Wow, then yeah that's ridiculous and I don't blame you. I hate that it's so accepted that star wars fans hate the prequel trilogy and bash those movies all of the time. It's fine if a lot of people don't like them (even though I think they're great movies, but okay), but the constant bashing and hatred of them is very irritating. It's even more frustrating because I don't hate the originals, and I'd like to talk to a lot of these fellow fans about star wars, but they just can't miss an opportunity to hate on the prequel movies which I love and it ruins it. It's just a shame
DeleteAnd I wouldn't ever raise my kids to hate the originals... or any movie really, now that I think about it.
I think the extremism's obnoxious, but also I think it's absolutely fair for parents not to show their kids films they themselves don't like. It really depends on the specifics of the family and how things are run, but at least for me in the early years of growing up we watched films together as a family, so my parents would decline to watch films they didn't want to sit through that night.
DeleteOf course, needless to say, there's a big difference between "I don't want to watch these films with my kids because I don't like them" and "I will train my kids to hate these films because I get really petulant about movies I don't happen to like apparently".
Yeah, I'm not talking about just not watching them with them. I'll never mention Twilight because of my feelings about it, but if my kids discover it I'm going to let them form their own opinions before giving mine.
DeleteAnd if we're going to watch a franchise together, we're watching the whole thing if we can. I actually was kind of a victim of something similar - my father has a really dim view of non-Connery Bond (though he likes Craig), so I never saw Moore or Dalton and seeing clips still makes me uncomfortable. I was adamant that they were "bad" because Dad said so.
To his credit, he regrets coloring my opinion like that, and when the Brosnan Bonds came out (my personal favorite Bond, though I don't remember all the films that well), even though he was neutral at best, he never let on and he supported my enjoyment.
Heck, I saw "Batman and Robin" twice on Netflix and I never bothered to watch it for years because of its bad reputation but now that I've seen it, I like it. "Classics" are films people are told to like.
ReplyDeleteArt is subjective. I've said many times that the only "bad" thing about B&R is that its tone is inconsistent with the previous films in the series. And I still fully plan on having my kids form their own opinions before I say anything.
DeleteI don't like the prequels at all, but I want my children to learn to make their own opinions. If we all had the same views on everything, the planet would be a much more boring place. Besides, I kind of want to try out machete order and I imagine it's the perfect order to show to kids for the first time. Have you ever tried that, Adam?
ReplyDeleteI am 100% against machete order since it leaves out Phantom Menace, which is crucial to the setup of the story (and my personal favorite of the series).
DeleteWhile I insist on Episode Order for rewatches, since that was Lucas' vision, I fully support Flashback Order for first-time viewers (I-III shown after Empire but before Jedi) in order to preserve certain spoilers.
Oh, I had no intention of leaving Episode I out. I had no idea that was part of machete order.
DeleteYeah, machete order seems perfect for that. Why ruin that classic Empire ending the first time through?
Machete Order = Leave out Phantom Menace and pretend it doesn't exist. Boo.
DeleteFlashback Order = IV-V-I-II-III-VI. The spoilers in Empire are preserved, you have "is he telling the truth or lying?" hanging over I-III, and the stakes in Jedi are much clearer and more meaningful (not to mention that the revelation of the Twins works better as a twist in Sith than how Jedi seemed to bring it in out of nowhere).