Epic Movie Syndrome.

[Svengoolie 3]

OK, a thread's talking about the original star wars movie. It also talked about how a lot of the sequels were awful.

I think I know one reason a lot of movies are worse than they should have been: They suffer from what I call "Epic Movie Syndrome".

EMS is what happens where a movie is not made to be the best movie it can be, and I think star wars was made to simply be the best movie they could make. It's when a movie is made to be an epic movie, it's when the writer/director whatever says "This can't just be a good movie, it has to be an EPIC MOVIE!"

I mean, star wars blew the top of the box office, reinvented movie making, started the tie in craze with toys, comics, models, shirts, dildos, ad infinitum. It created the massive tie in thing. It changed movies for good or bad.

So, the sequel suddenly had this massive load laced on it, it could not just be the best movie that people could make, it had to be a massive blockbuster.  I think the pressure to make it an epic movie caused it to suffer under what was expected of it.

To a degree I think star trek the motion picture had the same issue, it could not just be a good movie, it had to be an epic movie. Again, something that partially collapsed under the burden of having t be an epic movie.

Dune, of lord, that movie just beat you over the head with the fast it was no a movie it was an EPIC MOVIE! God, the sound track actually seemed to bellow at you "This is an EP-IC MO-VIE! EP-IC MO-VIE! EP-IC MO-VIEEEEE!"  We all know it pretty much collapsed under the weight of it's own epic aspirations.

Seriously, film makers, just make the best movie you can. Don't try to make an epic movie.  You're only adding to an already heavy burden when you try to do more than make an epic movie.

[RCMerchant]

Or AVATAR. or 300. Or any Superhero movie (I'm getting burned out on them real fast.)
I agree about the first STAR TREK movie. It tried to hard to be 2001, but it was an unemotional f/x fest.

[FatFreddysCat]

Ever since JAWS, there's been a mentality in the movie business, especially during the Summer, that EVERY movie has to be an EPIC, and let's be honest, many of them do not live up to that hype. Especially if it's yet another installment of an long running franchise.

For example, I haven't seen Solo yet, but as soon as it opened to less-than-spectacular box office a few weeks ago, everyone in Hollywood was like, "but... but it's a Star Wars movie! You people are supposed to LOVE Star Wars movies! What went wrong?"

...well, maybe you shouldn't have released it just a few weeks after Avengers: Infinity War cuz that's obviously the movie that's eating everybody's lunch this year.

One of the most famous examples of this sort of thing blowing up in a studio's face has got to be Last Action Hero. The wheels started coming off of that movie early on, yet the studio made sure to keep that hype machine cranked up for months on end, like "It's gonna be HUGE! It's gonna be GREAT! Everyone is gonna love it! It is gonna THE Summer movie for 1993!" ... and then it opened the week after a little film nobody had ever heard of called "Jurassic Park." :D The rest is history, as they say.

[RCMerchant]

I miss movies where the blood looks like red paint and the fangs look like dime-store plastic teeth.  

[zombie no.one]

JAWS is probably one of the very few 'epic' movies that I love. however it's more like 50/50 mix of epic and popcorn

most 'epic' movies to me sound so dull in theory that I can't even be bothered to watch them and find out (DANCES WITH WOLVES, TITANIC, LOTR, BRAVEHEART)

[Pacman000]

I wouldn't consider JAWS an epic movie; it lacks the grand scale of Gone with the Wind, Ben Hur, Star Wars, etc. It's certainly the movie which made producers consider blockbusters the key to survival; in the early 70's WB thought smaller films were a better investment. Less risk.

I don't mind epics; I just wish someone would bring back the intermission. Two and a half hours is too long to sit down without a bathroom break!

Especially when you're downing pop.