the crimes of george lucas ('90s on)

pardon if I missed this, but is GL's participation in the next 3 films limited to story treatments?

i think he stated himself that they would be handed to kathleen kennedy.

I think what I read is that he's staying on as a consultant, whatever that means

it means approx. dick most likely

people either just don’t care for it or are passionate about it. I guess that defines what cult movies are all about…”

it is truly weird to think of star wars as a cult movie. i sort of take his point, but i also feel that describing it that way sort of devalues the very notion of a cult movie.

was it a cult movie when it came out? i can't imagine richard nixon giving a shit about it, but by reagan's term maybe it's conquered the normals?

i can't tell if you're serious or not, but fyi star wars was one of the most commercially successful movies ever released

Star Wars debuted on Wednesday, May 25, 1977, in 32 theaters, and eight more on Thursday and Friday. It immediately broke box-office records, effectively becoming one of the first blockbuster films, and Fox accelerated plans to broaden its release.[54] Lucas spent most of the day in a sound studio in Los Angeles. When he went out for lunch with his then-wife Marcia, they encountered a long queue of people along the sidewalks leading to Mann's Chinese Theatre, waiting to see Star Wars.[38] Even technical crew members, such as model makers, were asked for autographs, and cast members became instant household names.[5]
Star Wars remains one of the most financially successful films of all time. The film earned $1,554,475 through its opening weekend ($5.96 million in today's terms), building up to $7 million weekends as it entered wide release ($26.8 million in today's terms).[2] It replaced Jaws as the highest-earning film in North America just six months into release,[75] eventually earning over $220 million during its initial theatrical run ($844 million in today's terms).[76] Star Wars entered international release towards the end of the year, and in 1978 added the worldwide record to its domestic one,[77] earning $410 million in total.[78] Reissues in 1978, 1979, 1981, and 1982 brought its cumulative gross in Canada and the U.S. to $323 million,[79] and extended its global earnings to $530 million.[80] The film remained the highest-grossing film of all time until E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial broke that record in 1983.[81]

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekly&id=starwars4.htm

Internet calculator tells me that, adjusted for inflation, it made 1.34 billion in today's dollars in its initial theatrical run (combined domestic & international). That's just in ticket sales. Obviously there were several more mints to be made on the merchandising.

yah but wasn't it just 12 nerds seeing it over and over again? did normal people care about it?

the big deal about star wars was that it WASN'T just a cult thing that only nerds cared about. compare it to star trek, which had middling ratings, was cancelled after three seasons, and only got its 'comeback' after lucas suddenly made SF profitable.

star wars is a cult movie in the same way that mormonism is a cult

widespread, profitable, special underwear

J.D. otm.

We live in a strange time where the definitions of what is nerdy and what is cult are changing and distorting and kind of becoming more and more meaningless. 'Nerds' are just another demographic these days, as plugged into the mainstream as anyone else. And they have no idea how good they have it.

the demographic of any 'nerdy' blockbuster movie isn't very nerdy anymore, but i wonder if that was ever the case w/ Star Wars either. don't think it's possible to make that much money w/ just nerds, no matter how many times they see it.

It also probably created a few million nerds, no? People who went because they heard it was hot, got into it, saw it again, saw the next few sci-fi movies that came out, suddenly realized they were going to the SF bookstore for monthly events...

Star Wars sounds like it was just some incredible freak accident where GL won the lottery x 1000.

I'm just going by this 70s show but on the show eric is the only one who is seriously into star wars, and everyone else just tolerates it.
there's a spongebob joke that titanic was star wars for girls, and i remember titanic similarly being adored by a core audience and merely tolerated by everyone else.

The question of is it cult or not has nothing to do with numbers but everything to do with the level of intense scrutiny and obsession it inspired.

it was never the case w/ star wars and tbh i think star wars nerds in general had a pretty low profile until the 90s whereas w/ star trek they were obv high profile being the reason the damn thing was revived. curious how aware of trekkies ppl were in the 60s - would ppl have been aware of them as a thing or were they just lumped in w/ general sci-fi nerds? obv there was enough awareness of that market for something like this to exist - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/44/01_MFOS_cover.jpg but it seems like ppl learning klingon and whatever comes later right? like in 1967 being a star trek fan is not that different from being a lost in space fan but by 1976 it's very different? in any case i can remember in 92 the movie theater at the local university was going to show all three of them in a marathon and it was announced that the films were being taken out of circulation for some reason (tbf the prints were beat to shit) so a friend and i went and there was a guy there dressed as admiral ackbar and the reaction wasn't 'o great, a dude dressed as admiral ackbar' it was 'wow, that dude came dressed as admiral ackbar! where the fuck did he find that mask?'. obv we were aware there were ppl that were REALLY into star wars but it didn't define the experience or whatever, it's like knowing there are ppl that are REALLY into back to the future or ghostbusters or whatever. whereas by 99 when phantom menace came out it was understood that of course there were ppl dressed up as darth maul or whatever. personal perspective only but seems to be a correlation between when star wars movies became strictly a geek thing in the culture and when star wars movies became the kind of thing only star wars geeks could care about. of course it may just be passage of time - really enjoying star wars in 77 (real time reaction to four quadrant blockbuster) vs really enjoying star wars in 97 (heavy nostalgia) vs really enjoying star wars in 2012 (ok really).

plus kael going gaga for star wars, star wars getting a best pic nod.

I remember an episode of ALF about asparagus so I guess it was probably the most popular vegetable of the 80s basically

spongebob joke that titanic was star wars for girls

Which episode of spongebob?

going to the theatrical re-releases of the o.g. trilogy in '97 were definitely my first experience waiting in line for a movie w/ people dressed up as characters

there's a spongebob joke that titanic was star wars for girls,

Ha, this is a nice example of the voice actor's work bleeding over into the writing. Tom Kenny wrote this bit after the movie came out; I remember him doing it on a Comedy Central special back when he still did stand-up in 1998

Also, I think a big difference between then and now is that nerd/geek culture took over pop culture in the last 10 years

Yes there has been a fundamental shift. The same vapid teenage bimbo or jock that would hassle someone for being into computers 20 years ago now carries one around with them everywhere they go, obsessively indulging their own interests (the social game, fantasy football, etc). Add to that unscrupulous marketing and suddenly 'nerd' more or less a catch-all for any IP from the 80's geared towards males. Since internet critics can all quote a line from Back to the Future it's a 'nerd property'. Nostalgia and pop culture referencing plus smart phones blah blah i think there is alot one could talk about the shift but yeah it more or less comes down to "2001: The Year Nerd Broke"

sorry yes it was a tom kenny bit, not spongebob. but yeah titanic the biggest movie in the world can still be a cult movie.

are people seriously saying this is a cult film?? was there ever a bigger film on release?

I think it could be classified as "HEAVILY devoted following" without just niche/tiny appeal. Most cult movies have both; these only have the one.

see also "Big Lebowski". Not niche, but there's a cult for it

There's a cult for everything tho, that can't make it a cult movie - you'd need other things, including the absence of an entire episode of the OG Muppet Show devoted to it, that'd help.

'Cult' these days meaning 'hardcore built-in demographic'.

Nah, fuck that. There was no hardcore built-in demographic for Repo Man. Or for Star Wars, for that matter.

The question of is it cult or not has nothing to do with numbers but everything to do with the level of intense scrutiny and obsession it inspired.

I have to say I'm enjoying the current cult election!

(That said, I could totally imagine someone describing Avatar as a cult movie in 20 years, if James Cameron dropped dead today)

would be fun to see a 1982 theater audience for Tron vs. a 2010 theater audience for Tron: Legacy

'Cult' these days meaning 'hardcore built-in demographic'.

What im saying is there are two definitions of 'cult' and two definitions of 'nerd', and the 2ks is when both "broke" and the meanings changed. Most of this has to do with the internet and smart phones. Cult may have once meant something like a sleeper hit but with the internet nowadays it's pretty much impossible for anything to slowly grow a dedicated fanbase like that. Repo Man is a genuinely awesome movie but maybe if it came out in the internet era we would all be so sick of Repo Man Twitter/Tumbler/FB/animated GIFs/etc. that it's status as a cult movie may be in question. It's sort of impossible to conjecture tho since Repo Man helped create the idea of a cult film.

Politics has lots of cultish aspects to it (tribalism, obsessive combing over details, etc) but I think an object of cult affection sort of has to be largely a fictional creation. Not that there isn't plenty of fiction in politics....

Has anyone written any good articles about the death of nerd culture?

getting flashbacks of this thread: EW 25 best cult tv shows from the past 25 years

adam you misspelled "dearth"

lol i didn't think that through, doesn't really work

star wars is like the most popular movie ever made

i think that takes it out of the running for 'cult.'

wasn't there a living colour song 'cult of popularity'?

...

http://images.teamsugar.com/files/upl1/1/15111/29_2008/megnafox.preview.jpg

Guess i'll read this, though I don't really like Patton Oswalt:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_angrynerd_geekculture/

That’s when we’ll reach Etewaf singularity. Pop culture will become self-aware. It will happen in the A.V. Club first

hm.

there's a wolf eyes interview from like a decade ago where they go, fuck these fake people who think that downloading every single punk album from 1976-1978 makes them an expert on punk, that is not how you become an expert on punk, fuck the internet

i. this is an entirely valid way of becoming an expert on punk
ii. only seven people in the world actually ever did this

there's some dum stuff in that oswalt piece but i liked this part:

When everyone has easy access to their favorite diversions and every diversion comes with a rabbit hole’s worth of extra features and deleted scenes and hidden hacks to tumble down and never emerge from, then we’re all just adding to an ever-swelling, soon-to-erupt volcano of trivia, re-contextualized and forever rebooted. We’re on the brink of Etewaf: Everything That Ever Was—Available Forever.

I know it sounds great, but there’s a danger: Everything we have today that’s cool comes from someone wanting more of something they loved in the past. Action figures, videogames, superhero movies, iPods: All are continuations of a love that wanted more. Ever see action figures from the ’70s, each with that same generic Anson Williams body and one-piece costume with the big clumsy snap on the back? Or played Atari’s Adventure, found the secret room, and thought, that’s it? Can we all admit the final battle in Superman II looks like a local commercial for a personal-injury attorney? And how many people had their cassette of the Repo Man soundtrack eaten by a Walkman?

Now, with everyone more or less otaku and everything immediately awesome (or, if not, just as immediately rebooted or recut as a hilarious YouTube or Funny or Die spoof), the old inner longing for more or better that made our present pop culture so amazing is dwindling. The Onion‘s A.V. Club—essential and transcendent in so many ways—has a weekly feature called Gateways to Geekery, in which an entire artistic subculture—say, anime, H. P. Lovecraft, or the Marx Brothers—is mapped out so you can become otaku on it but avoid its more tedious aspects.

Here’s the danger: That creates weak otakus. Etewaf doesn’t produce a new generation of artists—just an army of sated consumers. Why create anything new when there’s a mountain of freshly excavated pop culture to recut, repurpose, and manipulate on your iMovie? The Shining can be remade into a comedy trailer. Both movie versions of the Joker can be sent to battle each another. The Dude is in The Matrix.

The coming decades—the 21st-century’s ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s—have the potential to be one long, unbroken, recut spoof in which everything in Avatar farts while Keyboard Cat plays eerily in the background.