Dan Aykroyd came to my house, crapped on my carpet, ground it in, and ran off

[wp34]

Aykroyd is a lot like a George Lucas, Has wild, creative ideas, but really needs someone to ---smurfette--- slap it into reality. (Only reason Indiana Jones was good because of a huge Spielburg bitchslap). I read about a lot of the stuff that Landis tanked out of Aykroyd's original Blue Brothers script, otherwise it would have been taking place partly in outer space and underwater as well. For Ghostbusters, Ramis and Reitman did a lot to fix it because it was really, really out there.

Well put.  Aykroyd is one of my all-time favorites but he does really need a governor.  I had never thought about the Lucas comparison but you are spot on.  The reason Empire is a classic is because Lucas was out of the country working on the special effects while his mentor was doing the directing. 

[pbj]

Except that A New Hope > Empire Strikes Back

[wp34]

Except that A New Hope > Empire Strikes Back

Only for sentimental reasons.

[lamprey]

Except that A New Hope > Empire Strikes Back

Only for sentimental reasons.

Seeing this reboot is a real thing, I think I died a little.

That having been said, I really enjoyed the first Star Wars movie (Episode 4). Unfortunately, I didn't really care for any of the others, even Episodes 5 and 6. However, I was able to obtain some of the fan re-cuts of Episodes 1-3 that, supposedly, make them more watchable. So, I might try to sit though them to see how they compare. The movies were just so bad, I'm not sure any amount of re-cutting could fix them. but, I watch a lot of movies so I'll probably break down and do it relatively soon.

[yotsuya]

I'm not sure what people expected from Eps 1-3. It's not like 4-6 were Citizen Kane or anything like that. They were fun Sci-Fi films that appealed to us because they hit us at the right time/age. TRON and The Black Hole were considered duds, but I loved those as a kid as well. 

[wp34]

I'm not sure what people expected from Eps 1-3. It's not like 4-6 were Citizen Kane or anything like that. They were fun Sci-Fi films that appealed to us because they hit us at the right time/age. TRON and The Black Hole were considered duds, but I loved those as a kid as well. 

Agreed.  I loved the Black Hole and Tron and my childhood was not ruined by Eps 1-3.

Empire > Citizen Kane   

[shponglefan]

I'm not sure what people expected from Eps 1-3. It's not like 4-6 were Citizen Kane or anything like that. They were fun Sci-Fi films that appealed to us because they hit us at the right time/age.

This is true to a point, Eps 4-6 were hardly high-brow cinema.  But the character development in 4-6 was miles beyond anything that happened in 1-3.  Eps 1-3 were little more than CG technology demos.

Not to mention they went out of their way to ruin the mythos surrounding the Force and lightsabers.

[Well Fed Games]

But the character development in 4-6 was miles beyond anything that happened in 1-3. 

This. The entirety of my complaint about the prequels is that the characters are so shallow, particularly the relationship between Padme and Anakin that so much of the later films hinges on. Even the Ewoks, who I may have hated if I saw RotJ first as an adult rather than a kid, have character development. This is the only reason I'm letting myself get a little excited for the new Star Wars films, I think (hope?) that Abrams knows it is about the characters and not the epic.