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Soundwave on 19 March 2018
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Insidb said:
Soundwave said:

Actually I prefer the OT Star Wars. 

And the OT Star Wars using "traditional motifs" all over the place, lol, go read a Joesph (1) Campbell book. 

Cameron is a better director than Lucas (2) (maybe it was close in the 70s, but Lucas lost it and was a joke by the 90s/2000s) and JJ Abrams (3), Rian Johnson, lol puleaze. These guys wish they could make a movie as good as Terminator 2. 

Cameron's films move people on a global scale (4) in a way that even Star Wars cannot. There's no shame in giving the man his due. The way he shoots action but keeps things very much rooted to the main characters is amazing too. 

James Cameron understands story structure, building tension and emotion, he is simply good at what he does. 

Star Wars has been mediocre/average to bad since 1997 (5) and Star Wars was never some unstoppable box office force, it's been humbled multiple times by other IP like E.T. (the movie event of the 80s), Titanic (the movie event of the 90s), Star Wars prequels got wrecked by multiple IPs in the 2000s,  etc. (6)

I'd say Avatar persists in pop culture too (7), just not in such an annoyingly aggressive way that it's thrown in your face. I was at Disney World just a few months ago and the new Avatar ride there is a freaking 3-4 hour wait, and the crazy thing is it's worth it. Obviously some people still care. 

If we're gonna talk "pop culture" impact, what pop culture impact has Star Wars had past the OT? Is Jar Jar a classic character? (7) Would normal/regular people know who Darth Maul is? Count Dooku? General Grevious. Get real. The Matrix had more impact on pop culture than the Star Wars prequels did (it was spoofed way more and referenced way more).

1) Who is "Joesph?"

2) Cameron was always better than Lucas, by A LOT.

3) Don't hate on JJ; he's an excellent director.

4) As in "global audiences?"

5) I'll give until TFA.

6) Name the movies that outperformed Star Wars films in the same year.

7) Avatar never was ingrained in pop culture; it was a 3D film pop culture moment.

8) Jar Jar had a MASSIVE impact; people just hate him lol. After him, Kylo Ren has become something of a weird phenomenon.

Cameron is better than Lucas, Abrams, or Johnson. Fact is Cameron is probably the top tier action-adventure film director, his vision, his control of huge action scenes, and his ability to ground and create relatable characters in fantastical scenarios is simply unmatched. It's popular to hate on him because he's had such massive success, but his film's work, I can watch Titanic or even Avatar on a crappy SD feed on TV and those movies still work. 

I don't know what Avatar 2 will do, but I'd say there's a good chance it's a better movie than any of the Star Wars prequels or sequels/spin-offs because Cameron is simply a better director and better storyteller, and that's not to crap on JJ Abrams, but he simply isn't on that level (very few are). 

Jar-Jar was a big deal to angry Star Wars fans, normal people didn't care much, in 1999 I was kinda stunned at how quickly the "popular conversation" of movies turned to other films like The Sixth Sense, Blair Witch Project, and even American Pie (the kid humps an apple pie in it!), lol. "I see dead people" and "I shall call him ... Mini-Me" were the most quotable lines of that summer. 

For the general public Star Wars is still riding largely the coat tails of the original trilogy with Vader, Yoda, Han/Luke/Leia being by far the most popular characters. No one in these new movies is close.

Spider-Man destroyed AOTC in 2002, ROTS was no.1 for 2005, but is only the 6th biggest film of the decade getting beaten even by Transformers 2 (lol). The Star Wars sequels have huge drops when they don't have like 10+ years of pent up hype. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 19 March 2018