Skip to main content

Beware Star Wars expectations

If you have managed to avoid the Star Wars hype so far, you live in a concrete bunker, and only read this blog when someone pushes a printed copy under your door. I couldn't even escape it on the train to Bristol this morning, as one of my fellow passengers had a ringtone of the Star Wars theme and a text message alert of R2D2 blurping. The novelty value soon wore thin.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely loved the original Star Wars film. I saw it three times and even got an abridged version of the first act on 8mm film (no, we didn't have DVDs back then). My favourite computer games ever were those in the X-Wing series. However, I am convinced part of the reason the movie was so good was that, like most science fiction fans, I went along to see it with almost zero expectations. I knew it was going to be Saturday Morning Cinema, 1920s space opera schlock. And it was - but what took me by surprise was that it was absolute brilliant Saturday Morning Cinema, 1920s space opera schlock.

At roughly the same time, another science fiction movie came out - Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For that, I had huge expectations - and as a result it was a disappointment. I now quite like the film (at least, in the version where Spielberg trimmed the endless hours of characters making copies of Devil's Tower), but back then, with expectations rampant, it was a depressing let down.

To be honest, I don't know if I can be bothered to go to the new Star Wars movie - but if I do, it will be with expectations suitably lowered. That way, I hope that I will have the same transformative thrill as the first time round. But for all my Star Wars obsessed friends, please (please) don't expect too much. I don't want you grumpy all through Christmas.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Richard Carter15 December 2015 at 12:01

    Don't get your hopes down. If this new film is 1/10th as good as J.J. Abrams's two Star Trek movies, it will still be the best Star Wars film ever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brian Clegg15 December 2015 at 19:38

      I still think I’d rather go not expecting too much and be pleasantly surprised!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
122 comments
Read more

Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***

Nothing seems to suit Christmas reading better than either ghost stories or Christmas-set novels. For some this means a fluffy romance in the snow, but for those of us with darker preferences, it's hard to beat a good Christmas murder. An annual event for me over the last few years has been getting the excellent series of classic murderous Christmas short stories pulled together by Cecily Gayford, starting with the 2016 Murder under the Christmas Tree . This featured seasonal output from the likes of Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers, laced with a few more modern authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, in some shiny Christmassy twisty tales. I actually thought while purchasing this year's addition 'Surely she is going to run out of classic stories soon' - and sadly, to a degree, Gayford has. The first half of Murder by Candlelight is up to the usual standard with some good seasonal tales from the likes of Catherine Aird, Car...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...
6 comments
Read more