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Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Fusionaut.

I hope John Simon has sought the intensive psychological counseling that he so clearly needs. Leading such a joyless life must be really truly awful.

And, other than this brief moment, no one appears to have thought about Mr. Simon at the time or since. Which appears, except for this internet clip reburial, to be entirely appropriate.
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As someone who loves Star Wars I don't think the critic was snooty at all. Ebert and Siskel are 2nd rate, populist dudes (which doesn't mean I don't like them - I just recognize what they ARE)...

Star Wars is good. It's just that it really does belong to a dehumanized era, which IS (also) childish...

but we late humans are both of those things... and Star Wars is one of the best dehumanized/childish art options around...

And it seems he predicted everything that was wrong with the prequels aswell..

I can't say I agree with Simon, but I certainly don't agrfee with Ebert, Siskel, or (sorry) bluecliff. Star Wars was pretty crappy when it first came out, in every way but special effects, and none of the subsequent episodes got any better. A trite, cliched story combined with wooden acting and moronic, stilted dialog don't make for a good time, in my opinion.

The shameless flipflopping and revisionist history Lucas presented over the years since then pretty well sealed my distaste. First, it had nothing to do with Campbell's Hero's Journey (my guess is that he had no idea who Campbell was at that time), then later, when Campbell became such a fad, well of -course- it was inspired by the Hero's Journey all along. Even Hollywood types should be able to provide a better fake sincerity than Lucas.

As someone who saw Star Wars when it first came out, (I was 12), it completely blew me away. I still remember the feeling. That's what films should be like. I can't imagine anyone not liking it for what it was. I can imagine people not liking it because it's sci-fi,, because they have no desire to let go of reality for 2hrs, because they have no capacity for wonder, or because Lucas now sucks and so retroactively sucked, or because they want to be different.

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Interesting. I dislike Star Wars quite a bit but I still disagree with everything Simon said.

I've always found some of the core elements of Star Wars to be very intriguing, but the execution to be absolutely terrible. All the corniness always yanks me out of the story.

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Don't forget that whichever of them was still alive when the prequels came out fawned all over them.

One, one, one.

I didn't like it because I'd been a huge science fiction fan for almost a decade by that time. I was simply used to a better class of story. My distaste for Lucas came along later, as he earned it.