Of course, Flash Gordon was nothing other than a rip-off of Buck Rogers, anyway.
Just to be clear, I'm not *criticizing* Star Wars for lack of originality. I'm criticizing George Lucas for claiming originality for Star Wars. I know lots of people who love the Star Wars series. I have not encountered many who love it for its breakthrough originality. Many great films are great due to execution rather than concept. There is a reason "high concept" is not, for the most part, a term of praise.
I do have think the triumph of Star Wars represented a step backwards in filmic Science Fiction. That step backwards is not so much in itself. The problem is that its overwhelming blockbuster success helped change the ecology of the movie industry, intensified the already existing trend towards high budget formula films that needed overwhelming success to pay back their investment. Particularly in the Science Fiction and Fantasy realms, I think it played a role in encouraging big explosion space opera, and swords and sinews fantasy in film. Stuff outside of that range still happened, but I think at a lot slower rate than would have occurred otherwise.
Apparently I'm all fannish about Star Wars universe now. (I really floved TFA). I knew there was a film coming out late this year, but I thought it would be the next installment in the story. But apparently Rogue One is a... side story set between the prequels and the original trilogy? Yes, I only learned this just now.
Uh. How important is it for a hitherto indifferent viewer to catch up on the prequels for Rogue One to make sense? 'Cause I watched The Phantom Menace in theater and NOPE'd so hard out of the franchise that I never bothered with the next two films. And would I need to know stuff from ancillary shows like The Clone Wars and what's the other one, uh, Star Wars Rebels?
(I have not watched the original trilogy in over 20 years. The new movie made me go and order the Blu Ray set. Who knew, after all these years!)
But apparently Rogue One is a... side story set between the prequels and the original trilogy?
It's more like a prologue to the original Star Wars (i.e. it sets up certain things in that movie regarding
stolen plans for the Death Star
). I doubt that much (or any) knowledge of the prequels will be required.
Clone Wars doesn't really add anything plot-wise that's required to understand the universe. It adds depth to the prequel characters, but the movies are understandable without it.
Oh, excellent. At some point, I'll probably need to read up on what happened on prequels, but I could just wiki it.
The Rogue One cast seems like a dynamite. Could do with more women, but colour me intrigued.
Seriously, as far as the prequels go, it's mostly three movies of Anakin turning to the dark side, Palpatine brilliantly manipulating the Republic and executing a power grab, and...Luke and Leia are born.
...But what Dana neglected to mention is that all of that is
terribly
written and directed.
I thought that was a given.
Just checking; maybe there were one or two people left in the universe who don't know that?
