Minus one billion (Off-Topic)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, December 21, 2015, 03:34 (3267 days ago) @ Funkmon

I'll chalk this one up to the extreme prejudice and stubbornness of old age. If you had seen the movies with some objectivity (at about the same time, within a couple years of each other) I'm sure you'd have a different opinion.

You're probably right if I saw what you saw, but it would be an ignorant opinion, and notice the importance of that word, ignorant. We'll all ignorant until we're not, and it's a state that can be corrected, except in this case George Lucas has actively kept younger people ignorant and prevented them from judging the original films fairly.

Doesn't make sense or feel good, does it? It's fine to disagree, but to explain away my ideas as me just being ignorant because of youth is just you not wanting to give them a fair treatment.

It feels fine, because I don't think you understand where I'm coming from.

I explained I didn't know they were out of circulation because I have them on DVDs, and didn't go searching for them. They were just the DVDs I bought at the store. I understand not liking the new versions, but dismissing differing opinions is silly.

You miss my point. You don't have them on DVD. You've got a crappy version of them, and it makes a difference.

You characterize my viewing of the trilogy as not being objective. I don't know how you can be more objective than seeing them in their first week of release in the theater. That's how I saw all of them. I dedicated several summers of my life to practically memorizing every frame of them long before anyone could watch them in their living room. I knew every beat, every shot--I knew the characters like I knew my family, and I knew what made the films work. Not only that, but I read everything I could get my hands on that explicated Star Wars, from Joseph Campbell on down. When they first came out on VHS, I tried to watch them. I didn't enjoy it very much. They were greatly diminished on the small screen.

With age comes some privileges, and one of those is having experiences that can't be had later. An analogy: one of my all-time favorite live albums is Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963. I love it, and if I could go back and see Cooke at that show, I would do it in a heartbeat. But let's say I knew a 70-year-old who had seen that show, but said, "Kerm, Sam was great, but if you could see one show, it should be Otis Redding at Leo's Casino in 1967." I'd have to defer to his experience.

You're welcome to your opinions, and I realize you enjoy being something of an iconoclast. You're looking at the originals through a lens darkly, I'm remembering them in their original, unmolested glory. Yes, it could be nostalgia, but you don't know that, and the real crime is there is no way for you to make a fair judgment