… and then realized were dreck.
Why did you watch them so many times?
Actually, Star Wars Episode I
Anything by Ralph Bakshi. Wizards especially.
The intrinsic coolness of his movies is dashed on the rocks of his production values, pie-and-chips budgets and/or studio interference. Then the sloppiness and general mired malaise of it completely repels you. Finally, you find its level, which is a kind of clever, idiosyncratic 'zine pretending to be a movie, and can appreciate all the little injokes and touches.
“They killed Fritz! The bastards killed Fritz!”
Temple of Doom. Really.
I realize that it’s television and not a movie, but I really didn’t like DS9 when it first aired. Now I own all the DVDs and am convinced that it is the best of the Star Trek bunch.
Heh. Your answer works for both ToD and the Indy film series, IMO.
ToD came off overly frenetic to me when I first saw it. Characters I didn’t care about attempting to provide comic relief in a film where the main character is the comic relief, after a fashion. You know who would have benefited with a wacky Asian sidekick and complaining obnoxious non-girlfriend? Rambo, maybe. Then, a bunch of cheesy gross-out scenes and then some seriously idiotic fantasy bullshit. I mean, the ending of Raiders was fantastic in both senses of the word. We all bought Toht’s face melting and because it was shocking, that only helped. Some dude yanking a dude’s heart out, the opening magically opening and closing like an airlock? Not really shocking, just kind of fruity. Indy reciting whatever, Mesopotamian, to set the Ioun Stone on fire or whatever. Absurd predicaments like the mine cars, jumping out of an airplane on an inflatable raft. Come on.
I saw the documentary of its filming, then I realized the film was more about Spielberg pimping ILM than anything else. The second time I saw it, after seeing that, hammered the point home. The mine car sequence is essentially a long demo of how to cut between a live-action shot and an fx shot and make it look seamless. Great, I’ll buy two.
But, some time later I saw it, after summer films had long fallen into uninspired kerboomy schlock, and it still has enough going for it to make it a fun film to watch. Ford being Ford of course helps (“Hand over the antidote…or anything goes”), but the bridge scene is still pretty killer (although the effects are looking pretty dated), and it still has enough little touches (like when Indy off-screen punches the whipmaster guy so hard he slides like 10 feet on the ground, to the feet of the kids he was rescuing; Indy grabbing his hat from under the fallen rock door, as a quick riff of his theme plays). And, of course, the timeless “WE. ARE GOING. TO DIE. :(”
Yeah, they saw what Babylon 5 was doing and thought, “Hey, we should steaadapt that ‘war story arc’ idea!”
Of course, that’s pretty unfair and all, but if they hadn’t steaadapted the theme, we’d now be stuck with only a clunky scifi show instead of with a brilliant one and a clunky one. So, no damage done.
Starship Troopers. Saw it with some friends when it premiered and if it wasn’t for them I would’ve walked out on it.
Now when I catch it on cable I’m able to enjoy it for what it is, but back in '97 I was expecting something along the line of Aliens (never read the ST book) a compelling and visceral movie which took itself seriously. Instead ST came off like Melrose Place Joins The Space Marines.