Oh god... "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" is absolutely awful. I remember loving it as a little kid, but I recently got a chance to watch it again this year and was amazed at just how dreadful it was. Just a terrible movie. I voted for Star Wars, but for me, the best trilogy is, and will probably always will be, the Clint Eastwood "Dollars" trilogy ("Fistful of Dollars", "For a Few Dollars More", "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly"). Amazing movies. TGTB&TU is my pick for the best movie ever made.
I agree in every way about making Enders Game into a movie. I think if done right it would have the potential to be great. I have heard many times how that book is someones favorite. Even Speaker of the Dead would make a neat movie. If i had to put money on it i bet one day it will come out.
Hell, Xenocide and Children of the Mind are great too, but they are probably waaaaaaay to cerebral for the average "Survivor"-watching individual. VesceySux, make sure you read all four books in the Hyperion series...I really liked #3 and #4.
Why has everyone been piling on this movie over the last few years? The same thing's happened with Return of the Jedi. It used to be popular with both critics and audiences, and it seems like all of a sudden one day people decided it sucked. Temple of Doom's last 30 minutes are some of most exciting and relentless action sequences I've ever seen in a film. Short Round is one of the few kid sidekicks who doesn't annoy the piss out of me. Mola Ram is a fun over-the-top villain(it was smart not to recycle a Belloq-type adversary). And the cult sacrifice is one of the sickest and freakiest things I've seen in a mainstream Hollywood movie(and helped usher in the PG-13 rating). About the only thing I can understand people having a problem with is the Willie Scott character. I personally liked Kate Capshaw's performance. She's supposed to be the damsel-in-distress, so it's only natural that she scream and complain the entire time. Plus, they decided to go a different direction from Marion instead of covering the same ground, which is always a wise move in a sequel(or in this case, prequel). That being said, I can see why she'd annoy some folks. And one more thing. Temple of Doom has the best John Williams score out of all the Indy flicks.
Tolkiens books are better than the Star Wars books so the material Jackson is working with is better than what Lucas worked with . .. . . Rocket River
But the Star Wars books came after the Star Wars movie, whereas the LOTR books far predate the movies. The starting point for Star Wars was Lucas' script, not some series of books.
To an extent, yes. Star Wars does have a lot of similarities to The Hidden Fortress, among many other things. It's not really a direct rip-off, though there's obviously a strong influence. The point was, though, that there weren't any Star Wars books that Lucas adapted into a movie. The movie came first.
The "original" trilogy doesn't exist anymore. Just those wretched "special editions". LotR gets my vote.
That's why I invested in a laserdisc player. I've never owned the "special editions" and I never will.
I have the original widescreen on vhs. Is the laserdisk worth it? How much did that cost you with the movies?
Also, to swerve this into D&D land, all the non white skinned people in LOTR are bad and the whitest people are the demigods.
The Hidden Fortress is definitely worth watching if only for disabusing yourself of this notion. There are some similarities, but almost everything in movieland references or pays homage to something else. Quentin Tarantino's whole career is based upon this.
I liked Star Wars. I think it has 2 things going for it: (1) Nostalgia, since they came out in my childhood; and (2) a romantic (in the classic sense) epic feel -- which is something very hard for a movie to manage to do. Incidentally, these are the 2 things that the new Star Wars movies lack and why they suck. But, LOTR has better plot, better writing, better characters, better development, better acting, better special effects, better cinematography, and better just about everything else one could have in a movie. Not that the movies didn't have flaws -- they just weren't as bad as Star Wars', which had comparable cheesiness with worse acting. The one thing I'll always love Star Wars for is this epic atmosphere Lucas somehow managed to conjure. It doesn't exactly have anything at all to do with the story but just a feel for the world he was creating. Tolkien does a good job of it as well in LOTR, but I don't think it quite translated to film. This is something that Lucas had an advantage in by starting with his own material instead of adapting someone else's. But, as important as that atmosphere is, it doesn't trump the very obvious other failings Star Wars had. Btw, why does the comparison of these 2 series seem so natural? I noticed that the Oliphant battle in ROTK was much like the first battle scene in Empire Strikes Back. I also wonder if George Lucas wasn't influenced by reading Tolkien's work. The Emperor and Vader are somewhat similar to Sauron and Saruman. The Jedi are somewhat similar to the Rangers (and the names Return of the Jedi and Return of the King are eerily similar). The Force is somewhat like the Ring. Not suggesting it's a rip-off (like Willow), but possibly an inspiration.
Lucas has admitted that he was influenced by Lord of the Rings when scripting the Star Wars movies. Its no crime. Think of all the books influenced by Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology, or the Bible. There's some website out there that gets all uppity that LOTR ripped off Star Wars and T2. Very amusing, the kid's an idiot.
This is a good discussion because it shows how great both of these trilogies are, that there can be an argument for which was better. The thing that I like about Star Wars, and that I now like about the LOTR stories, is that you get to know, and love (or hate) most of the characters. In the original Star Wars you felt like you were part of the ragtag gang taking on the evil empire...you cared about the characters (unlike the new Star Wars movies in which you don't give a rat's butt to what happens to anybody because script is so horrible). In the new LOTR the main characters are established and built upon from the first movie to the last...sure, there are a couple of new characters that come in later in both, but the core remains the same and you really care about them. Given all of this...I'd have to vote for Star Wars...for 20 years, they have been my favorit movies to watch...and even though LOTR is everything that movie making should be...its hard to knock off a 20 year champion. Perhaps in a few years, my opinion will have changed...but I have too many memories of Star Wars from my childhood to knock it off now.
I would have to go with the Origin 3 Star Wars films. I grew up with these films and I must have seen them hundreds of times (Im 23 now). The Origin Star Wars films just had everything. Having said that..... I didnt give a crap about LOTR. A family member of mine brought the video and I thought I'd give it a go....I was hooked. I thought the first move was brilliant. The second one I got on DVD and it was one of the best movies I have ever seen. Over all though.....I think history will point to Star Wars. In the age of CGI, Blue screens and actors that dont even exist.....Star Wars holds it own. The new Star Wars films are poor if you ask me. Bad acting, bad casting, bad story lines.......you want to love these films but its pretty hard when Attack Of The Clones starts and the actors look like their standing infront of a PC monitor!
