Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Thread

[Recoil]

While I am looking forward to this movie as much as the next guy, I'm going to admit that I can't wait for this damn Star Wars "craze" and hype to just be over.

I think my problem with it, is I *AM* just looking forward to it "as much as the next guy" and not nearly as much as some of the fanatics. And unfortuately for me, I live with a fanatic, and its really making me start to hate all things Star Wars. Yes, moreso then the first two prequels did to damage my fond memories of the original 3.

[rant]
My roommate is 31 years old. And he has the star wars craze bug worse than most children. A few weeks ago I came home, and there were about a HUNDRED Star Wars Action Figure boxes on his bed. I was in shock and disbelief. He said he is collecting them all (like, I guess some of the original star wars toys are collectors items if they werent opened). He said that he bought one of each, and duiplcates of some of the ones he wanted to have. That raised an eyebrow. OK, I guess I can understand buying them all and never opening them in vein hope that this movie will be decent enough to make these toys sought-after a couple generations from now. I doubt it will be, but its possible. But I had to wonder what he meant by "ones he wanted to have." Am I to come home one day and see him playing with them like Colonel Sanders walking in on Dark Helmet playing with his dolls again?

It gets worse.

The next week he is putting together one of the playsets. I think it is one of the troop transports from the end of the Second Episode movie. You know, the one Yoda was riding in on? So hes putting decals on that, and putting some storm trooper guys in it. Well. That one is obviously not going to be an unopened collectors item, and it sure as hell isn't a model to build as a hobby.

The guy is wanting to get money together to buy a house, and I bet he has dropped close to $1,500 on toys. Yes, not collectors items, but lets be honest here. They are fucking TOYS.

At a recent card game he mentioned that he hasn't been playing cards lately ($20 buy-ins, not exactly high stakes) because he is putting his money towards Star Wars figures, and has to have his priorities.

It gets worse.

As of today, there are 4 collectable Star Wars slurpee's from 7-11 on our kitchen counter. The ones with the Darth Vader helmet on the top of them. Hes been making trips there every few days so he can get them all.

Now he is working on making a model of a light saber out of various pieces parts he has ordered on the Internet. He has also bought on eBay a foot tall Darth Vader posable figure.

Have I mentioned he is 31 years old?

He actually does have a girlfriend, which contradictory to most people who fit the "Star Wars Geek" profile that he is currently painting himself into. I'll admit she hasn't been around much the last few weeks, but I can't help but wonder her opinion of all of this.

Needless to say, I have made it a point that this stuff is to be kept in his room and not on "display" around the house. I don't want to come home and feel like I am walking into a Kaybee Toys store. (Are they still even around?)

[/rant]

Ok, so theres my deal. I have seen so much Star Wars shit around the house lately, that I can't wait for this goddamn movie to come and go. It seriously has started to detract from what little interest I had in the first place. Admittedly, the first two prequels pretty much sucked most of the interest out, but it did start to come back as I kept hearing how good this last one was supposed to be, and how much darker, and better than the other two. But having a roommate who has to be the President of the fan club at this point, has gone and taken away that interest. I can't wait till its done, till the DVD comes out, and he gets tired of this phase and boxes this stuff up.

I'm expecting on seeing him on the Episode III Edition of the Triumph the Dog special...

 

[Fas]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

Dude, you should write for a living. That was a classic rant.

As for the entire Star Wars "hype", i'm rather indifferent about it. I see the toys everywhere, the magazines covers, and the posters and I find myself surprised that i'm not "in it" anymore... weird. I'm neither annoyed nor excited right now.

I suppose on the day it opens it will all come back to me.

 

[Sindatur]

Actually, some of the stuff from the original trilogy has gone up drastically, even out of the package. But, yea, with the huge variety that has come out over the years, I would say it's unlikely a 31 year old man is gonna make good money off the newer trilogy stuff, en masse (although a few figures here and there are likely to be variants or limited edition and probably will go up in value, but you really have to selective about it)

 

[GKarsEye]

"And which button calls your parents to come pick you up?"

Of course my first question about your roommate was going to be "is he getting laid?" Even though the answer is "yes," he doesn't deserve to be.

My girlfriend is smart, cute and funny, pursuing a PhD in bio-chemistry. In college she didn't date much. I was surprised that such a catch wasn't taken and asked for an explanation, especially from the male-dominated science field where I expected there would be a lot of elligible men seeking an intelligent woman for companionship. Her response:
1. A lot of the guys insisted on being with bimbos;
2. The guys that were interested in her and whom she worked with were obsessed with Star Wars.

No shit, people: Star Wars. She started ranting about how the guys in her lab, including her teacher/advisor (also in his early 30s), would spend all day for an entire year talking about Star Wars. Collecting and obsessing over stupid minutia and every goddamn detail. All The Time.

She's not judgemental and obviously is receptive to semi-obsessive geek hobbyists if she's with me. So you can imagine how insane these grown men were.

Of course a couple of the guys were into her. Hah!

"That will be the last time he ever sees female genitalia"


Anyway, is this flick digital like the last one? I plan on rounding up my friends (yes, and my gf) to seei this at a swanky theater with a digital projector in Mass.

 

[colonyearth]

My heart goes out to you, my friend. I've been in the collectable phase, myself, though I never came even remotely close to where your roommate is...in fact, not even a fraction of where your roommate is. Besides, tell him such things aren't so collectable any longer, but then, who knows.

I am by no means a geek on any show or film. Being a filmmaker, I'm more of a geek on the industry itself and the people I respect within it, and (I'm sure you can tell by some of my posts here) GL as a director or writer is not someone I respect (I do respect him in other areas, however).

I, too, am ready for this to all be over. I've not been able to figure out what there has been to be hyped about in the last two movies, they were so bad on so many levels. I have, like others, been somewhat sucked back in by the rumors that this one is the best of the prequels by far and better than RotJ...supposedly. I still have no expectations for it, those went into the trash with EP II.

I feel for you, man. It will all be over soon...I promise.

CE

 

[GaribaldisHair]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

Aaargh!

Even against my better judgement, I want to see Ep III as soon as I can after May 19th, even though I thought Eps I and II sucked big-time. I guess even two lousy prequels can't distract me from a story that I really wanted to see after watching the OT, i.e. how did kindly old Sebastian Shaw become the evil, sadistic David Prowse ... sorry, Darth Vader.

Contrary to my own expectations I really want Ep III to be good, to send the series out with a bang rather than a whimper.

The fact that it is darker in tone, and more "grown up" bodes well - I just hope GL has managed some half decent dialogue and character stuff to go with all the light saber duels and nifty digital effects.

And I think my little brother had the right approach to collecting Star Wars figures back in the early 80s.

* Buy
* Open
* Play
* Play some more
* Play some more again
* Discard when they have become so battered that you can't tell Leia from Chewbacca

 

[GKarsEye]

Re: collecting
I have a bunch of crap from both the old 70s/80s toys and the last two flicks, all open. I bit of research told me that the amount of money I could get is so little that I'm just gonna wait until October so I can dump it all at Toys for Tots.

 

[Quagmire]

Your roommate's collection is about as valuable as it will ever be. If everyone gets the idea to save something than it won't become scarce.

Even though I should know better I'm still geeked out about the movie. That's probably because I don't know any super-nerds in real life.

I actually do have two of the slurpee cups however mine came because I had a slurpee jones and thought the cups were a lark.

 

[GKarsEye]

Here's what I was just thinkin':

Sci-fi fans defend their unique geekdom of things like Trek and Asimov and B5 because they claim it deals with grand themes and is high-brow literary blah blah blah with social relevance and intelligence and other stuff.

Star Wars is none of that- it's just action/adventure eye-candy. Nothing wrong with that, but it's really no different than something like Indiana Jones or Harry Potter, just made well (at its best). Yet it has the geeky-obsessiveness thing.

So that high-fallutin' "our entertainment is BETTER than yours" explanation is bullshit.

 

[Flounder]

I'm just writing this for posterity: I haven't watched the trailers, and have stayed away from Star Wars discussion boards for a long time. And I have really high expectations for episode III.

Now I'm off the thread for fear of spoilers. zing!

 

[GeoKuutio]

Holy... shit. This is scary. Your roommate, I don't know, is losing all of his active brain cells? And he has a girlfriend? Is she maybe blind/deaf/braindead or something?

I myself "collect" some figures you see, I don't buy SW toys and that, I just buy those that are "cool" in my opinion. So far, I've bought one per year. Because most of them just aren't cool enough to be spent on. Now you're saying that this friggin' grown up man is buying _toys_?! This sounds just too... I don't know, awkward to be true. Yes yes, SW maybe cool as a phenomenon and all that, but your roommate is just grown up idiot. Seriously, that is not sane anymore, what are his parents thinking about this? Or do they even know? Does his girlfriend now about this idiocy that he has been up to?

 

[Sinclair]

I've always been a huge Star Wars fan. When I was a kid I was all about it. I had (and still do have) almost all of the figures from the original line. When they started making the figures again in the '90's I bought a couple, only ones of my favorite characters. You have no idea how happy I was when they finally made the Grand Moff Tarkin figure. This was one I actually did buy two of. I opened one and set it on one of my shelves and kept the other in the package. Hell, I even got the 12" Tarkin figure. The only figure I plan on buying from the Episode III line is the Tarkin figure when it comes out. That's really the only Star Wars stuff I collect: Tarkin memorabilia, and that's pretty limited.

I just don't understand how some people can just go out and spend literally almost all of their money on Star Wars things. I actually know a couple people like that, but luckily I don't live with them.

 

[Chilli]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

Quick side question ..

"That will be the last time he ever sees female genitalia"

huh?

 

[Sinclair]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

Quick side question ..

"That will be the last time he ever sees female genitalia"

huh?

I believe he was referring to Triumph the Dog from the Conan O'Brien Show. There was a segment a few years back (not sure if it was Ep I or II, or could have been both) where there are Star Wars fans waiting in line to see the movie dressed up as the characters and basically showing what losers they were. Triumph (a puppet dog) basically just asked them questions and made fun of them. The genitalia thing was in reference to Triumph making fun of someone.

You can actually download it on most any filesharing program. It's worth it for a few laughs.

 

[The Juche Warrior]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

There was a pregnant lady in line for episode two. Triumph asked when the future nerd was due. After she told him, he told her that it will be the last time he will ever see female genitalia.

 

[darth_librarian]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

That is all too funny. I've got a certain amount of sci-fi tack in our house, my GF is very tolerant and occasionally indulges me, but $1500 on toys!!!!

I agree, I do without seeing Darth-Vader Lotto tickets kicking around my local shop. On with the movie and forget all of this...

I suspect when we end up buying a house of our own, i will flog all of mine on ebay to pay for something dull like a dishwasher.

And another thing, I can't see how these things are ever going to create a collectors market when every person who would want to buy them has already got his greasy pwas on a complete set.

Recoil, this should give you some heart when dealing with your room-mate...
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1477031,00.html

 

[Sindatur]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

I actually have quite a few myself, most of them from the original issue, but, we're picking them up for pennies a piece, at a "By the Pound" thrift store, so if we get something for a nickel, and are able to sell it at the comic book store for $5.00 or more, we did good. I do have quite a few B5 Action Figures (both 6 and 9 inch) in their packages, and a set of the first Farscape action Figures, but, they are all cool (plus I'm a married off old man, unlikely to have human children, not a struggling college kid)

 

[KoshFan]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

I admit the hype and all the product tie-ins are starting to get annoying. And now that Firefly's on its way to becoming my true love I'm less enthusiastic. Moreover Episodes I and II were disappointing. (I don't hate them; I don't love them, either.)

But every time I see another trailer I get goosebumps. And more and more reviews say nice things.

 

[tlsmith1963]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

We just got Star Wars slot machines at the casino where I work. The excessive hype continues...

Tammy

 

[Bab5nutz]

Re: Star Wars III: The Official Hype, Bitch Threa

I hated The Fandum Menace , and didn't even bother going to see Attack of the Clones - although I did see it later on DVD. I certainly hadn't planned on going to this one.

Yet, I am finding myself starting to get interested. I have read the reviews so far on "Rotten Tomatoes", and read a number of articles on it.
Last night, I went to the local video library, and got the three original Star Wars movies, and watched them back to back. I enjoyed them.
They were not quite as I remembered them - although I last saw them years ago. I could have sworn that Jabba the Hutt was not in the first one . And the fight between Luke and Vader in the second didn't last quite as long as it did in this version. And the ending for the third one seemed different too. I think that maybe GL did an slight update for the end of the third one. At the end, Luke looks away from the celebrating Ewoks [teddybears with attitude!], and he sees the ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and his dad. Dad looks like Hayden Christiansen. And I am pretty sure that when this film was done in the early 1980s, Christiansen would have been not long out of nappies!

And is it my imagination, or does Anakin/Vader look a bit like Frodo?