Sci-fi movies with big budgets that looked pretty came before 'Star Wars'...

So how come '2001: A Space Odyssey' isn't seen as so great?

Or television. "Space: 1999" looks fantastic for the time and, all in all, is highly entertaining.

I sat through "Star Wars". It's the most unimaginative pile I'd ever sat through. Cliches galore, a plot that could fit 10 minutes worth of dialogue - stretched to over 10 times that length... when the computer announces Darth (that's what everyone calls him in this flick) that the death star will be in range in 10 minutes, I want to stand up and announce "The snack bar is still open!" And I did that once! Because the movie is a big throbbing cliche on celluloid!

So why is "Star Wars" remembered so undeservedly fondly?

That's right! It's vapid! Anything requiring thought, or is intellectual, or discusses metaphysics, or tries to be different - that's bad! K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple (by making 'em) Stupid) works every time.


Granted, "The Empire Strikes Back" is a great movie in its own right. Of course, it's got some depth to it and it's the only one of the (six) where Captain Dingdong himself, George Lucas, doesn't have his psycho creepy overlordy control over every stinking aspect.

Of course, for his eight millionth remastering pet project, he screws up the big continuity revelation at the denouement of "Empire" (but don't worry, for the sequel, he doesn't bother to make its copycat revelation any more exciting... which would not be easy to do because everybody remembers how Luke and Leia got all kissie one or two movies back. Now if Georgie is serious about his master plan from day 1 about all six parts, he's got some 'splainin' to do about the near-incest kissie-kissie scene. Of course, sitting through the original trilogy, we all know he was fudgin' the facts about it all being a six-parter... especially as "Darth" (sheesh, Georgie writes him as "Darth" in the 1977 flick, soon to be retitled "Episode IV: A New Hope" because somebody actually bought a ticket to see it), in the original trilogy, is just a bad ass mofo with a dorky name... in comes the new trilogy and now we're supposed to feel pity. Watch these in numerical order and who's going to give a sh**? Watch these as IV-V-VI-I-II-III and then it almost works... except they brought in some of the worst actors ever conceived to do I-III... so if not caring about little Anakin and the fanwank emoswamp retconfest about how Anakin builds C3PO despite being a penniless slave and all that isn't bad enough, who they get to play Anakin helps to seal the breaking of the deal.

Which reminds me, how come Shinzon in that used-to-be-worst-trek-movie-ever could be a poor penniless slave yet find the time and resources to build the bad-ass Scimitar behind everybody's backs AND make it so big that he can wipe out the Romulan fleet, nearly destroy the Enterprise, et cetera, et cetera...

Modern sci-fi is just toilet fodder. Sorry. Aged badly or not, give me some substance to go with the eye candy. That's what sci-fi is truly about. Substance. Not emotive pablum.

Better than anything in George Lucas' wet dreams.

Star Wars is a Western set in space. It extended the Western motif to be of interest to a younger generation. The genre itself was very popular leading up to Star Wars, but it wasn't very "family friendly." Star Wars, for good or ill, was believed to be family friendly. Blowing up an entire planet is no big deal since you supposedly can't really do it. Shooting a man dead in the street is more shocking to the senses.

2001: A Space Odyssey is real science fiction. It's thoughtful. It's not very family friendly either since it's hard for a kid really to get into that level of depth on a screen.

Star Wars was custom built for action figures.

With 2001, let's just say it's hard to conceive of an action figure that you can really play with based on HAL.