Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Aug 16, 2023, 07:52:14 AMLOTR's easy to recommend, the Oscar winning Trilogy, and the works of J.R.R and Christopher Tolkien if you are an avid reader.
For Star Wars though, I'd just recommend Andor, you can get into the weeds yourself afterwards. Even as a nerd, Star Trek took me most of my life (so far) to get really into.
Marvel I know where I'd want to start, but I'm not everyone, same goes with DC.
James Bond, easy, either Goldeneye or Casino Royale.
That's thing though, you are not the average moviegoer, you are more knowledgeable, have greater understanding in how those franchises work and invested than the average viewer. The mainstream audience taste varies a lot now though. Whereas back in 1977 when A New Hope was released, Star Wars became a sensational pop culture phenomenon of the late 70's. Because there was nothing like it back then.
Now yes, the actual story of A New Hope, if you dissect it in down in detail, isn't actually all that novel or original, a classic fantasy tale with elements borrowed from King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable, the pulp fiction stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs (who wrote Tarzan and John Carter), Flash Gordon, samurai flicks of Kurosawa and so forth. But what was truly innovative was that it wrapped that classic tale with never-before-seen visual effects* and combined with excellent editing, cinematography and the score from the legendary composer John Williams, all that created a blockbuster of unprecedented proportions. There was nothing quite like it in 1977. It was jaw-dropping and blew the minds of everyone who saw it.
Not so today, when there are far more choices available to your average moviegoer. I suspect they aren't just willing to invest in the time to watch those mega franchises like before. Maybe that's why recent sequels of big franchises just seem to be under-delivering, like Indiana Jones or Mission Impossible (in the box office sense).
P.S-Andor, yes, it certainly helps that it was developed from that one truly excellent Star Wars movie in the Disney era, Rogue One.
*A New Hope was a watershed in Hollywood too in developing and placing importance on special effects. Before Star Wars, effects on films had not really advanced all that dramatically from the 40s or 50s. Lucas himself had to establish ILM to do the Star Wars effects because there was no one in Hollywood capable of doing the kind of effects he envisioned...or at least at the budget he was limited to. And of course from a business standpoint, Star Wars made Hollywood aware of the importance of merchandizing. Lucas elected to take a cut from the toy sales of Star Wars, which in hindsight was a smart move, since merchandise sales would soon dwarf the box office ticket sales in revenue, making Lucas quite a rich man.
