Looking backward

[mmcirvin]

The Washington Post site (free but stupid registration required) has an entertaining retrospective page on the Star Wars cycle collecting articles and reviews going back to 1977. The original trilogy (even Return of the Jedi, Ewoks and all) got such extreme and occasionally purple praise from the Post that, collected, it seems excessive; a couple of decades later they loathed The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, the latter somewhat more than I actually think it deserved.

The earliest news article of the lot is a story from 1977 about the chaos caused in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of DC when Star Wars was running at a theater there. It was only after I'd read some way into it that I remembered what was going on: this wasn't opening-weekend hype. Star Wars didn't have the kind of huge opening that today's guaranteed summer blockbusters get. It was only on a few screens downtown—it wasn't even playing in the suburbs yet! Only when the mobs of fans like the one described in that article descended on those theaters did people realize that the business had fundamentally changed.

Comments

[glitter-ninja.livejournal.com]

The hype from Star Wars has turned me off on this cultural phenomenon forever. I haven't seen the original and have only managed a few minutes of "Empire Strikes Back" and "Attack of the Clones". I even own the 3 original movies (sent to me for teh fr33 by Tom Kraemer before he wished hot death on me) and haven't watched them.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

A few minutes of 'Clones' is enough to clue you into the rest of the movie. Violent, crappy dialogue and scenes ripped off from the original trilogy.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

I'm getting a surge of interest in Star Wars stuff at my booth. Of course, nobody actually wants to BUY my Stars Wars stuff, but they are sure interested in looking at it.