I hope you have a good sense of humor as the primary definition for blockbuster is “a large bomb used to demolish extensive areas”. ;-)

The other definition encompasses “widespread popularity” which some of us have difficulty seeing in a production that opened worldwide but appears to have isolated the requisite huge popularity solely to North America.

Thank you Anthony for putting this debate to rest.

Some people love to profess their admiration of the new film, but look to cut it down at every opportunity. Why?

Multiple viewings are the definition of a blockbuster. Ask fans of Harry Potter, Transformers, Up, The Hangover, etc. how many times they saw each film. Show me a blockbuster movie that everyone saw only once!

Another really lame excuse to knock a very good and very successful film.

FWIW even the “captain” of this new incarnation had the same experience that I had with children in the same age range:

“I saw most of the original episodes. I watched a lot of them with my kids and they loved it so much more than I every (sic) thought they would and were scared to death! It was so cool to see these episodes through the eyes of a seven or eight year old.” – JJ Abrams (from this site’s coverage.)

So I doubt that the first cast’s eventual obscurity will happen as fast or at the hands of the current production as many prognosticate.

Once you win the hearts of the Onlies, you are almost guaranteed a resurgence 25 years hence (In the event of genetic manipulation gone haywire, maybe a millennium.)

I’m sure you could find a few of us who treat it that way, but alot more of us who do not….and even if there were significant numbers of those who ignored ST09 (even though it is hardly a prequel), who cares?

The film grossed $385 million worldwide anyway!!

To the tune of $385 million…..(insert sarcasm here) yeah, “unwatchable mess”.

I watched it 4 times, and didn’t find it “messy” at all.

Haven’t ordered it yet, but looking forward to purchasing it on BR.

Yep Australia had the premiere and no-one turned up.

That was the only real promo the film had…no posters, no billboards, no ad on buses..nada.

you can’t take the USA promo as an example, cause there was hardly any promo outside of the states.