Scream or Star Wars?

Which is better?
I think Scream is better because it has greater intellect than Star Wars, represented by Casey Becker and Stu Macher's house.

THIS IS ALSO A DIFFERENT QUESTION.

Every time someone asks you what you mean, you give a new definition. But okay, I'll answer all of them:

Star Wars.

Why?

My response is be different for each question, naturally:

Star Wars. It deals in classic themes and takes itself seriously, whereas Scream is just fun genre deconstruction. It's amusing and clever, and I really enjoy it, but I wouldn't say the things it does best are "substance."

Star Wars. This one isn't close: Star Wars involves genuine character development and difficult moral choices. It's about redemption and sacrifice. It's about broken families, moving beyond your history without ignoring it, and contains deep metaphors for everything from adoption to living on your own for the first time. It's moral themes are almost universal in their applicability across time and culture.

Scream has Skeet Ulrich.

I don't know what an "intellectual story" is, but I don't think either film is particularly intellectual.

Scream is about broken families too, and is about reality's truth that loyalties between peoples are false - symbolism is throughout the entirety of Scream, including trees being a recurring presence.


Dewey and Gale represent greater intellect than Han and Leia.

Yeah, you can find this stuff in every film, even terrible ones. Pootie Tang is about the emotional devastation of losing a loved one, if you want it to be.

They live in the suburbs. There are trees there. Lots of movies have trees. Heck. Return of the Jedi has an entire planet covered in them.

If we're restricted to talking about A New Hope, that one's got a lot of sand. Is sand less symbolically meaningful than trees, in whatever arbitrary system this judgement is taking place? Is there some kind of elemental chart I can use to decipher their relative value?

I don't see how, but again, neither film (and virtually none of the characters therein) are really "intellectual." One's trying to be a clever deconstruction of horror films, and the other's trying to be a timeless sci-fi fantasy based on classic themes. Both succeed, but on the terms they establish for themselves. Terms that require very different things of them, thus rendering these types of comparisons invalid.

Are we talking about Scream? Scream 2? Scream 3? Scream 4? The TV Series? All of them?
Hope? Empire? Jedi? Menace? Clones? Sith? Animated? Christmas Specials? Force Awakens? All of them?

Scream is designed to be a parody of horrors, and, as Yods said above, a deconstruction of the genre (this is why Scary Movie doesn't make sense).
Scream isn't deep or intellectual. It's a cleverly written tongue in cheek look at slashers and teen horror that the viewer can sit and smile at as it plays out... the series lost its way with Scream 4 though. It lost that satirical side and became almost a parody of itself.


Anyhoo... Star Wars wins, regardless.
Much larger scope on the stories and story arcs, and general world tbh.
It's also more fun.

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Why was the setting of Woodsboro chosen as it was?

Woodsboro is fictional. And they probably chose a fictional town because it would've been pretty crappy to set their film about a serial killer in an actual small town.

I think most of Star Wars only rivals Scream, but it says a lot of Scream's well-written script that just this original film (not counting the sequels) can beat lots of Star Wars - including Empire and Jedi.


Scream is a poignant reality; its emphasis is the human condition in ways as potent as Star Wars deals with the human condition.

Straw men and all?

The post I quoted and responded to was a claim that a hero's story was inherently immature just because it was a hero's story. My point was that this concept is ancient, and in some cases, very mature. I would say it is the heart and soul of most great stories, like the aforementioned classics by Homer.

Addressing the straw man above: The opening story of Tattooine establishes the main character in a way that is very similar to the way the main character is established in other adventure franchises of recent times, namely Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. A young person, stuck in a mundane, task based lifestyle, who dreams of high adventure far away, has a great burden passed down to them from their elders that whisks them up into the adventures they wished for, during which they are forced to endure tragedy and make sacrifices along the way. These all draw from various older sources, such as Joseph Campbell and The Odyssey, among others.

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Refer to one of my previous posts in that Scream is, in fact, a parody, a satire and not to be taken seriously.

The town that was used for Woodsboro is full of nature - lots and lots of fields and trees, why?


The sense I get is that Ghostface's symbolism is best suited to being based around nature heavy environments - as if the writer's are trying to say that though nature is beautiful, reality is deception.
Voice is a strong theme in Scream, which to me suggests that the film is exploring the idea that like trees can deceive the human imagination, so can the concept of the human voice.

Weeping Willow or Oak, discuss.

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Letterboxd

Sean, I think you're after something closer to: Oak Tree Vs Flatscreen TV, which is better?

Because it's set in the suburbs. Suburbs have lots of trees. Lots of other films have lots of trees, too. Is it your contention that any film set in the suburbs is inherently full of meaning and symbolism?

I'm pretty sure it's just because the entire plot is based around the fact that this takes place in a very small town, and small towns, by definition, have more natural environments around them. The "small town" aspect is why everyone knows each other, why everyone suspects their own friends, and even ties into the big reveal at the end. It enhances the tension between the characters, keeps the suspect list manageable.

And the relative isolation makes things scarier. Surely you've noticed that most horror films involve remote locations?

I can't believe how much discussion is happening here.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Blimey...

Enjoy it while it lasts, because we're like four posts away from this guy telling us that Matthew Lillard should be playing Freddie Mercury and complaining about Andy Serkis portraying the Ghostface mask.

Scream is a deeply serious film; the zenith of serious expression..


Examples include Billy and Stu's handicapping of Sidney in the kitchen (kitchens symbolize the realm of power), which is self-awareness to its extreme in the sense that the film's own supposed satire-identity is being ripped apart.
Scream is attacking its own satire-identity in the kitchen scene.


The school principal gets killed - more metaphor.
Sidney's time alone in the Prescott house is also meaningful; not just feminist, but expressive of something deeper.