...and one I'm guilty of using.

>Starting at the end of World War Two adults stopped going to
>the movies. In 1946, 70 percent of the entire population who
>could walk attended the cinema weekly. Now it's less than
>9%. And most of that 9% is 12-25 year olds. Teens like
>escapist shit. They always have. They used to call them
>B-movies. Now that teens are effectively the only important
>market, it's all B-movies.

Tired, not because it's wrong, but because it's misleading. It doesn't get to the heart of the issue. There's nothing inherent in B-movies or escapist fare that says it has to be crap. And Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., those movies we all point to as causing the death of creativity in Hollywood, they are very much the height of storytelling.

>Jaws, Star Wars, and the coming of the blockbuster era was
>just Hollywood finally realizing that there was no point in
>marketing films to "everyone" anymore. They've always been
>whores. Get over it.

There's an article on Spielberg in last weekend's NYTimes Magazine that talks about, among other things, how Spielberg and his films.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/movies/09SPIELBERG.html

I'm not a Spielberg fan nor am I defending him against those who don't like him. But like your Lucas quote points out, popcorn pictures have always ruled -- even before WWII.

Of course, everything in Hollywood did change with the advent of the blockbuster. But not because of the quality of those movies.

RED
Ora et labora