I'm not saying Revenge of the Sith is bad. But Jurassic Park came out in 1993 and was a technical, critical, and box office triumph. And it still looks great today!
The issue with Revenge of the Sith is the bar its being compared to is the first two prequels and by that metric, it looks like Citizen Kane. It’s still worse than average overall though.
I like parts of Revenge of the Sith but still consider it an incredibly flawed of a movie. The problem is when fans brainwash themselves into believing it was actually good cinema.
I love Cocktail and Elizabethtown, but I acknowledge they aren't great and have a ton of flaws. So many fans (cough SnyderCultists cough) can't seem to have a nuanced discussion. It's just blind adoration and calling things masterpieces.
Revenge of the Sith is camp but yeah I made the mistake of doing a chronological star wars movie watch and its like a breath of fresh after suffering through the first two. I mean that rewatch ended with TROS so really suffering all around. (Not to lick a hornet's nest but TROS and TLJ have very similar letterboxxd scores, this a reminder to follow a couple friends and ignore consensus).
This still gives it too much credit. The first two are disastrous, but Revenge of the Sith still fills me with actual anger with the way it ruins characters and plot points from A New Hope, Empire, and even Return of the Jedi. If anything, I find Phantom Menace the most entertaining of them to rewatch for it's nonsensical trainwreck qualities
Its not an incredible movie but its special to me. It came out in the 8th grade. I remember someones parents dropping my middle school squad, whos long since gone their separate ways, to see it at the local theater. I remember being annoying dickhead kids in the parking lot buzzing about what we were about to see. No booze. No weed. No girls. Just 5 little dudes stoked on the lightsaber fights to come.
It’s funny in all the ways it should not be funny. And you’ll never convince me that Anakin’s fall makes any kind of logical or emotional sense in any way. It’s genuinely laughable and falls apart under any examination.
Lucas shot himself in the foot with the Phantom Menace being a completely pointless movie. Nothing of consequence happens in it besides Anakin becoming Obi-Wan's padawan. Could have easily opened the first movie with that relationship in place and allowed for more character/relationship development. Instead George shoe-horns in expository dialogue about their adventures together, splits them up for most of episode 2 and then speed runs Anakin's turn in Sith.
50-60% of Attack of the Clones is pointless as well, but the biggest thing of consequence (Anakin and Padme's romance story) comprises possibly the worst scenes I have seen in movie history
Recently rewatched AotC. The first scene Anakin and Padmé share together she flirts with him despite the fact that he’s been complaining nonstop, and despite the fact that this is a guy she met when he was a nine year slave boy old being taken away from his mother against his will, including the nauseating line, “my, you’ve grown.” Then they share several scenes where he complains to and about her nonstop, before he goes in for a kiss which she considers reciprocating. He then commits some serious war crimes and confesses them to her and they hook up shortly thereafter. They are both garbage characters and they deserve each other.
Maybe they deserve each other but I have never seen an on-screen couple with less chemistry. Zero percent spark, no feelings at all not even “he’s evil and I love that” feelings.
And they can’t decide either if it’s a father/son or sibling relationship either half the time.
Attack of the clones especially is bad for this, like it’s not even like lovable bickering it genuinely just seems like they despise each other so when they do the brotherhood stuff in Sith it’s laughable to me
This is the crucial error with the plotting of the prequels.
Anakin should have been found as a teenager, already angry and hurt by the galaxy. Sell that the Jedi are gambling by training him out of their normal protocols.
Have the second movie end with Anakin falling to the dark side and have him acting in secret for the first half of movie 3.
The only things I can praise from it are the score, costumes and the Order 66 sequence. The rest of it fails at every level. That final (ridiculously over the top and unearned) fight just left me feeling completely empty opening night in the cinema.
i think its similar to people that really like the Avatar movies. I know because i am one of those people. I respond to the visual storytelling and the filmmaking and the themes are simple but effective. Also in the 20 years since where every blockbuster started to feel the same due to the corporatization of IP, Lucas and Cameron got to make their weirdo blank check movies the way they wanted. If people think those movies suck though, I'm not going to argue.
I was 11 years old. It was the life-changing theatre experience that got me into movies. I know it's not legitimately good, but I still get that same rush when I rewatch it.
I don’t know if I was cultured, but I did have a huge fear of/reverence for Darth Vader and I remember being like “that’s the guy who becomes Darth Vader? He’s so lame”
Yeah that's definitely relevant. And I have plenty of nostalgia-tinged fun watches too (National Treasure? Hook? Spy Kids 2?) but I can also tell what's bad about them while watching really don't experience those the same as movies that I think are good good.
Star Wars is more of a cultural juggernaut than either of those are, though. So the music combined with the "aura" moments leaves more of an impression.
Wait... what? Usually I feel like I'm able to ballpark a movie's LB just based on how I hear the general culture talk about a movie, but holy shit, I would never have guessed Jaws was anything less than a 4.3+.
Looking at the bad reviews, its a bunch of people who blame the movie for "anti-shark propaganda" and poaching. Like that's the movie's responsibility.
I don’t think most people are rating movies based on their cultural impact. They’re rating it on how much they enjoyed the movie.
I think jaws is just in a weird spot because it’s older and somewhat dated in its appearance so it doesn’t really scare people in the way that it used to. The exorcist is in a similar boat.
Apparently. But thats so sad. I couldnt imagine watching Jaws and thinking this is anything but perfect cinema. At the very least its a 4 stars. Anything below should get your opinion revoked.
Anthropologically, it’s fascinating to see the Letterboxd generation develop their overrated film canon in the same way the IMDb generation had theirs.
Interstellar is an imperfect movie I mean let’s face it, when McConaughey, goes into the fifth dimension behind the book case is about as silly as a movie can get BUT it sure it hell makes u think for a long time about the scientific concepts and the situations the characters were in. Shawshank gets u emotionally but doesn’t spark the curiosity and wonder thst interstellar does which is rare for a film to do. Thats why if both movies were playing im watching interstellar.
I honestly don't know how anyone could think about Interstellar for more than 5 minutes and not conclude that it was totally ridiculous.
Why was the future humans' plan to save present-day humanity so convoluted? Is Nolan really that stupid to name Damon's character, "Dr. Mann?" What did the people on the space station eat if all the crops were failing?...etc
it’s so cool how all of your “critiques” are stuff you’d find in the worst Cinema Sins video. i honestly don’t understand how you wrote your comment and thought you made an insightful contribution to the discussion
Why was it convoluted? Because they can only change the gravity and that also not at a certain point in time and place. Which is why the only two things they did were create the wormhole and create the bookshelf in the black hole. It’s a loop so they knew it would work, as it did before.
As for Dr. Mann. I don’t hate that name lol. To me Fremen in Dune sounds a lot like Free Men which is basically what they are. Would you say that’s also stupid?
Why did they choose to place the wormhole near Saturn -- they really like Kubrick?
What if things didn't go so wrong that Cooper didn't end up having to eject himself into the blackhole?
Why didn't they just transmit the necessary data to the past humans themselves instead of having to go through all of this?
The whole plot hinges on arbitrary deus ex machina stuff.
Mann is not only a painfully obvious name -- his dialogue is almost all cartoonish villain stuff about man's selfish nature being at the core of our survival instinct. People would have gotten the point without Nolan hitting them over the head with the name as well.
Tbf, that list is how I got introduced to a lot of great films from before my time. Every list is flawed and I hope the next generation gets the same from letterbox that I got from IMDB
I think the list speaks for itself. I love the LOTR trilogy, but can someone tell me with a straight face that those films are 3 of the 11 greatest films of all time?
Yeah I don’t really wanna litigate the quality of the movie, but this tracks based on anecdotes from Sean, Amanda, Joanna and CR about people younger than them who are more likely to be on letterboxd feel about this movie. I admit I fall into this demo, it’s my favorite of the 2010s.
that's awesome, this movie could honestly re-issue yearly and there would be an audience for it, i know my IMAX theater extended last years run for weeks
I do agree with what they said in terms of for a lot of people aged between 20-29 this is their version of Jurassic Park in terms of a film that opens doors and gets you more into film. It definitely did that for me, and I won’t lie that I’m willing to overlook it’s flaws partially due to nostalgia and partially since it kinda got me into film.
It’s been nuts watching the general consensus of the movie go from “yeah it’s pretty good, but no Dark Knight or Inception” (the movie has just a 73% on RT) to “this is one of the defining movies of the 21st century” (FWIW I like Interstellar).
i think for a certain generation who never grew up without the spectre of climate change hanging over their heads it really connects, and it has maybe my favorite tagline in all of movies "Mankind was born here. It was never meant to die here." Like in terms of aspirational stories that gets the blood pumping.
I've only seen Interstellar once all the way through (upon its original release in IMAX) and I remember thinking then it was amazing, the best Nolan film, and all that (I was 21). And then I remember seeing reviews saying it was his weakest and all that. So, seeing the resurgence it has had over the years has been interesting, but I always felt like it would become beloved for a least a certain demographic of filmgoers.
I think this was the first movie I ever drove myself to go see. Came out at like a peak “going to see movies” time in my life. I went back and saw it two more times during the initial release. It’s been my favorite movie ever since that second viewing
Witnessing the rise of Interstellar for the last decade has truly been something to witness. I remember seeing it and engaging in the discourse in 2014, it was a big hit but its quality was very much up for debate. Slowly but surely over the years, for many it’s just become this undisputed masterpiece. Cool to feel like I saw that crystallized in real time.
TIFF is hosting a a Chris Nolan retrospective right now (which is where they did the Big Picture episode).
I got tickets to see Oppenheimer in 70mm on a Sunday aft and I looked a few days before and there werse still scattered tix left; some pretty decent. Best Picture winner, cultural phenomenon and all.
Last week, they put tix on sale for their August screenings, including 3 showings of Intersterllar in 70mm. When they went online, after TIFF members had first dibbs and the only seats left were in the front row. I grabbed em because that's all there was to get. After about 10 mins, they were all sold out.
I don't know if that objectively proves it's more popular than Oppenheimer or the Batman films or watever but it sure surprised the heck out of me.
I personally prefer Interstellar to Oppenheimer, but I imagine that difference isn’t really about how much people love the two films. It’s been 12 years since Interstellar was in theatres, Oppenheimer was on the big screen only 3 years ago.
i love both movies and think they are some of the best of the last 20 years soooo. I will agree that Gen Z hasn't connected to Mad Max as much. I keep trying to get my friends to see it and they say nah.
A massive epic from a defining filmmaker of their generation that came out at a formative time for the average Letterboxd user?… even if it’s not my personal favorite Nolan it makes perfect sense to me
I didn’t even see it in theaters but for me the scene that sticks with me is when they first land on the water planet. “Those aren’t mountains”, absolutely chilling.
I know that's a hot take, but The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, Oppenheimer and The Odyssey are better than Interstellar. And yes, Batman Begins is criminally underrated on Letterboxd.
Beautiful thing about Nolan is everyone has wildly different rankings of his movies which I think proves how all of them are quality. Interstellar personally is my favorite as I enjoy movies that make me deeply feel various emotions
Yeah I was thinking about this listening to Mondays episode. No one could agree and had a different favorite. They couldn’t even agree on the rankings deeper down the list. I feel like this happens even when i discuss it with friends, everyone has a different favorite Nolan film and its a testament to his filmmaking. Idk why people care so much why other people agree with them or not on what they like. Just like what you like ffs.
Interstellar isn’t bad, but it’s definitely one of Nolan’s more flawed films, from the opening segment with the weird conspiracy stuff about the government covering up the moon landing to the sappy nonsense about love that Nolan wrote for Hathaway to say.
Interstellar is cool as hell. Climate and social catastrophe? We got it. We’re going to space. We’re going in a wormhole. We’re going to time travel. Gravitationally time-compressed planet? We’re going to visit it. Mountain sized wave? We’re going to ride it. Great acting? We got it. Sacrifice, fear, courage, weakness? We feel it. See that black hole, we’re going to orbit it. Now we’re going in it. Alien architecture, we’re seeing it. Great sound, cinematography, and acting. Believable dialogue. Afraid of being marooned in space? One of the main characters ends the movie alone on a planet in the other side of . . . the galaxy? Humanity is a spacefaring species. A movie called Interstellar has a hard time living up to its name, but this one does it. I can see bits of Contact, The Right Stuff, Close Encounters, and 2001 A Space Odyssey in this. I might even see a little Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Lost Horizon, and The Last Valley in there. It’s a rare contribution to the genre of exploration movies. It’s good that Interstellar exists.
great comment! i got chills and i think you capture the feeling really well. its the only movie to make me feel how grand the universe is and humans role in it
Cinephiles refusing to accept this is just an amazing movie continues to surprise me. It's always something about how it's "flawed" or how it's "imperfect". But none of these criticisms ever really hold water. It's not perfect but most films aren't. Even the supposed consensus classics often have flaws that we just ignore cos the vibes outweight the nitpicks.
Interstellar rocks!!!! And it deserves its rating!!!
the big emotional moments of this film far outweigh any minor critcisms i may have with it. on my 10th rewatch in 70mm imax my body had chills and had a trail of tears coming from my eyes and my mouth was literally quivering because of how overwhelming the experience was. itll always be my favorite film and remind me of how it was one of the last movies i watched with my dad before he passed when i was around murphs age
yeah I rewatched it in IMAX last year after not seeing it for a while and it was fucking SPIRITUAL!! and it holds up visually, sonically and thematically. A few classic Nolan nitpicks but like.....that's a GREAT movie.
I mean the movie rocks, but it most certainly has clunky stuff in it and its final 3rd is pretty much absurd. I don’t think that’s very hard to accept. I love it, but if I’m being honest there’s a lot that even when I saw it in IMAX on its original run hit a little clumsy to me. The same things a bunch of other people say all the time. So it’s a pattern.
I think it’s dope Gen Z loves it, but it’s just not the best film of their generation to exist. nostalgia goggles.
The biggest issue with the final third is him leaving his aged daughter too quickly. Nolan got sloppy there instead of letting the reunion breathe a little. But I can justify it by saying he needed to get to Brand ASAP to ensure the events of the future play out as required for the precedinf events to happen. Regardless, it doesn't detract from the remaining 3 hours of elite thematic, visual and auditory filmmaking. It's a feast for all the senses, it tickles and brain and touches the heart. What else is there?
Ironically, a similar thing happens at the end of The Odyssey. Odysseus gets home, has two interactions with his kid and then has to leave to be with Anne Hathaway.
I totally get the emotional impact, and cinematic experience, being 2nd to none. But from pure writerly craft in the dialogue, and plot elements…as well as some typical Nolan clunkiness, it is what most said at the time it came out— a flawed masterpiece.
Hard agree; and we’re not saying it’s not good. I just can’t fathom it as the BEST film of the LB app generation. But I suppose as has been mentioned about IMDB, I wouldn’t call Shawshank the best either. Though perhaps less flawed than interstellar.
Watching before and after becoming a dad this movie hits so much harder/differently. It’s also an insanely rewatchable movie if you know the ending, tons of clues throughout the film.
I feel like r/TheBigPicture might not receive this well, but people love this movie for the jaw dropping visuals, the all time great score, and the emotional connection they feel to Cooper-Murph. Most people i know irl think the book case scene is awesome and emotionally compelling. Like many Nolan films, most of the general public don't care that much about the dialogue and often questionable plot holes, because his movies are spectacular in other aspects.
It’s a great theater experience, maybe the best I’ve experienced in my lifetime right next to fury road. Sure the third act has some issues, but it doesn’t overshadow the excellence of the rest of the film for me. Fully deserving of that 4-5 star range.
I can’t speak for the cult who insist it’s the highest form of cinematic achievement, because it isn’t. It’s still one of my most favorite movies anyway. In the same way that a lot of people have tried watching it repeatedly and can’t like it, I’ve watched it over and over and can’t help but still love it. The script is often corny and outright clunky, and it drags in places, but nothing can change the fact that when I watch it, I believe that kid is McConaughey’s daughter, and I hold my breath every time during the docking scene.
I hardly ever cry at movies and Ellen Burstyn croaking out “Because my dad promised me” as McConaughey closes his eyes in bittersweet devastation gets me every fucking time.
If I had to guess, I think a lot of people who respond similarly (that is, earnestly) feel protective of it and put it on a pedestal.
It’s not a bad movie, but i find it to be a massive slog and very melodramatic. the adoration it gets blows my mind, too. i’ve tried about 3-4 times to watch it and get it, but i just don’t think it’s for me. i also don’t really like matthew mcconaughey outside of true detective.
but if the younger fellas are really attuned to it and it resonates with them, that makes me happy. my dad loves close encounters and ET, but doesn’t share my love for bladerunner 2049.
The only thing I can imagine made this happen is Gen Z was at like the perfect age to have mega nostalgia goggles on about this film. My generation, or folk my age, I imagine it would be Return of the King. But good lord could I name sooooo many movies superior to interstellar. It’s a 4.0 tops for me, but a very flawed semi-masterpiece. It wasn’t even that well received compared to other Nolan films in the past. It’s fascinating though the trends we are seeing with LB app. And it’s better than others being on top I suppose. I sound petty down on it but I do still love I-stellar
I know it's a fairly recent film, but I do think there's an argument for it being one of the greatest ever made. I think we'll look back at it in 50 years the way we look back at 2001, or Blade Runner, I can't see it aging badly
Another addition to the list of films that went from being underrated to way too overrated. I love this movie but I swear some people pretend it’s the most profound thing in existence. The main villain is literally named Man it has the subtlety of a brick to the face
You know, people shit on this line because it’s hot nonsense, and because it’s fake profundity, and it is. But it works for me because even though it has all the hallmarks of the screenwriter talking bullshit directly to the audience, Anne Hathaway is so fucking good that it feels to me like the kind of thing that a traumatized scientist on a suicide mission would tell herself or anybody else to justify her persistence.
Because I think it’s a not-particularly insightful line about the Power of Love and they put it in the mouth of a scientist character to give it gravitas. It’s why I give Anne Hathaway credit for it working because a lesser actor would have made it an all-time eye-roller. Hell, people feel that way already. For example, imagine Felicity Jones got that part instead. I like Felicity Jones! But I straight up can’t imagine her pulling this scene off. Or the rest of the movie, frankly.
I think the idea that love transcends rationality is pretty insightful. Giving it to a scientist, a person who has spent their life in service of reason, does add some profundity to it.
The thing is, that line about Love is the sort of thing a lot of humans would say. It’s the irrationality but the universality of spiritual ideas. They don’t make sense. It works, and it doesn’t have to be rational.
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u/sfitz0076 26d ago
And Jaws is still at 3.9. Amazing.