The Star Wars Thread

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Despite poor numbers in China it still did well internationally @712,358,507 gross.

So it is still projecting to say it is a failure or that it bombed. Numbers really do not lie here. It was still an amazing overall success.

It also wasn't that far off the mark from the Force awakens in China (124,000,000). For a sequel it performed as expected. Sequeals (SinceTFA is considered the first of a trilogy) are not expected to beat the original but are reliable and expected to be able to ride the first film's success. They are a safe gamble and TLJ paid off in that respect.

International markets are not China alone, and it is rare that China will carry a film's success. Also it's not the type of movie that tends to do well in China, but does well in other markets like Britain.
 
My early guess is that The Rise of Skywalker does about $775 million domestic and another $825 million overseas for a $1.6 billion final. Falls right in line with the other trilogies. Detractors can spin it how they like, but that is the norm for Star Wars. Even the haters will go see it at least once to be able to complain about it later before it comes out on video.
 
There's no way this movie will do badly.

Unlike Solo, a movie who's greatest crime was that it was boring
 
Endless Flight said:
Donald Glover was the standout in Solo.
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I keep hearing this, but I found him charisma-free and a poor substitute for Billy Dee Williams. The script has everyone, including Lando, tell us how cool Lando is, but it's not on the screen in anything he does.
 
As I've said before, I like Solo, but it's not a Star Wars film. The best I can say is that it's like an early 80s movie that tried to rip off the idea of Han Solo while recycling the SFX from other movies (not literally, but hopefully you understand what I mean). It's like saying Space Mutiny is Battlestar Galactica since it has the Galactica, Vipers, and Cylon Raiders in it.

The only thing I'll give it is that Lando Calrissian and Chewie are in this film not set in the Star Wars universe for some inexplicable reason.

But I do like it, and it stands as the only one of the Disney Wars movies that I think is decent.
 
It's a movie that fails because its self refuting. WE already know what it contains: kessel run, han meets chewie, han serves the empire, han meets Lando, blah. None of this can work because it can never replace our imaginations, same with the Clone Wars - even though I give the latter a pass because it's different (for Star Wars) and fun with interesting new characters. Solo...isn't. It's not that it's a terrible movie (except for the lead and the always hopeless Emilia Clarke), but just cannot live up to expectations. It should never have been made.

it's possible that a Fett movie could work because he's more of a cipher. But even his key moments have been covered.

All they need to do is tell essentially what will be the same story in another era. Set it during the Old Republic, hint at the prophecy of the Skywalker (something I had planned for a grand Old Republic campaign), have a dark lord, have space battles, exotic locations/aliens.

In that way it's just like James Bond. The same formula endlessly retold. It works because it's engaging. Star Wars is limited, but it's also fun space opera with a dash of hero mythology. We don't need anything more complicated. It's not difficult. Don't try and be subversive, that's why TLJ failed.
 
My problem with the Fandom Menace is that they think that whatever Lucasfilm puts out is automatically interior to their head canon.
 
Solo was good. I am not a fan of Glover, but the rest was good. Honestly, the only Star Wears I really disliked was The Phantom Menace and that was because it was a kid's movie that was not made for kids. Okay, I am also annoyed that they changed the Ewok celebration at the end of the remastered RotJ.
Yub yub forever.
 
It plays for me. I don't see a paywall at all. Not sure what happened
 
I think he's talking about the show itself being behind a paywall, not the trailer.
 
Unrelated to much of anything...

I wish I had bought all those Star Wars Epic Duels boxes when I saw them on clearance at K-Mart for a buck apiece.

I understand there's a recent generic version of the same engine with King Arthur and other public domain characters. But I'm bewildered Hasbro didn't give that game another go with an updated set of Star Wars characters. Then again, are kid's boardgames even a thing anymore?
 
Stevethulhu said:
Other than it being behind a paywall, maybe.
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You keep complaining about content "behind paywalls". Where the heck do you expect to get Star Wars "for free"?

You have to pay to see the movie in a theater. You most likely have to pay to see a basic cable channel, as very few people get TV "over the airwaves". You'd have to pay to either own the DVD (or Digital Copy) or even a rental fee. It's true that streaming means more payout, but I see it the same as those who get HBO just for GoT. People are cutting basic cable and just buying Broadband and getting 1 or more streaming services. Heck, nothing prevents you from buying Disney+ for a month and then cancelling your sub, which would be akin to be paying $8 for an 8 hour movie.

It's not like those special effects don't cost money...
 
JRT said:
You keep complaining about content "behind paywalls". Where the heck do you expect to get Star Wars "for free"?

You have to pay to see the movie in a theater. You most likely have to pay to see a basic cable channel, as very few people get TV "over the airwaves". You'd have to pay to either own the DVD (or Digital Copy) or even a rental fee. It's true that streaming means more payout, but I see it the same as those who get HBO just for GoT. People are cutting basic cable and just buying Broadband and getting 1 or more streaming services. Heck, nothing prevents you from buying Disney+ for a month and then cancelling your sub, which would be akin to be paying $8 for an 8 hour movie.

It's not like those special effects don't cost money...
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I don't have to take out yet another subscrition to see a movie, I just pay once, same for a disk. And bear in mind, I'm not in the US, so I have no idea if Disney+ will even be available over here at this point. So your America-centric view of things is at best useless to me. I mean, right now I'm not even sure if we'll get the full Crisis on Infinite Earth crossover, as no UK network has picked up Batwoman. Let alone a Disney exclusive like The Mandalorian.

So I will continue to complain about American paywalls, as they are a very relevant issue for me.
 
JRT said:
You keep complaining about content "behind paywalls". Where the heck do you expect to get Star Wars "for free"?
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This is a terribly disingenuous argument. No one expects it to be free. But they're also not expecting to have to pay for another service on top of any they're paying now for a single show. Assuming, of course, they don't find anything else that they want to keep paying Disney for. Even when we were paying 60 a month for basic cable, we got at least 20 channels worth of content that might have been worth it.

And worse, instead of being released in it's entirety, they'll be released piecemeal on a weekly basis, despite having the entire season already out. Why? To keep the customer paying. Unlike say Netflix (Don't have Hulu up here in my part of Canada, so I have no idea if they do the same) where they often have an entire season of show that you can binge watch in a day or a week of dedicated time then cancel the subscription.

And finally, no one knows if the service will be available outside the continental U.S. For example, I couldn't watch (thankfully, I suppose) Star Trek: Discovery because CBS All Access wasn't available up here in Canuckistan, and Netflix didn't have the contract for it here.

No one really owns anything anymore, it's all behind paywalls and subscriptions, especially media like movies, games, software and other intangibles.
 
Assuming Disney+ is 10 to 15 a month, that means you are paying an awful lot for one or two shows.
Basic cable is generally an addon for about 30 and you get a tonne of programming.
Moving to subscriptions on a network basis is a douche move and puts up massive paywalls.
Netflix is worth it for the sheer variety they offer. Others... Not so much.
 
Faylar said:
Assuming Disney+ is 10 to 15 a month, that means you are paying an awful lot for one or two shows.
Basic cable is generally an addon for about 30 and you get a tonne of programming.
Moving to subscriptions on a network basis is a douche move and puts up massive paywalls.
Netflix is worth it for the sheer variety they offer. Others... Not so much.
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I'm sure there are other avenues for those minded to watch it. I certainly won't be subscribing
 
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Chris Brady said:
This is a terribly disingenuous argument. No one expects it to be free. But they're also not expecting to have to pay for another service on top of any they're paying now for a single show. Assuming, of course, they don't find anything else that they want to keep paying Disney for. Even when we were paying 60 a month for basic cable, we got at least 20 channels worth of content that might have been worth it.
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Well, the argument was about a single show per se, but Disney+ has a lot of stuff people want to watch. It's not like you're getting a service with nothing else but the Mandalorian now.

And this was even part of the world before we were streaming. HBO and Showtime had premium content that was an add-on to your basic cable bill. These premiums have always existed--people have always chosen to buy or do without. The benefit of streaming services is the sheer on-demand feature it has.

And to be honest, cable is becoming inefficient--too many channels that are small variants of items and channels that end up filling themselves with a single program. This is why I say that basic cable plans are being replaced with one or more streaming plans, so it evens itself out. The value of Cable is dwindling thanks to the streaming platforms.

Chris Brady said:
And worse, instead of being released in it's entirety, they'll be released piecemeal on a weekly basis, despite having the entire season already out. Why? To keep the customer paying. Unlike say Netflix (Don't have Hulu up here in my part of Canada, so I have no idea if they do the same) where they often have an entire season of show that you can binge watch in a day or a week of dedicated time then cancel the subscription.
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Yes, but using that logic, all you have to do is wait until one or more seasons is out and then subscribe. You can still be smart about it. You'd have to do the same thing if you wanted the DVD set of a TV season, for instance. Because it seems like the argument is that you have to pay a premium if you want to see it first, which is how it's always been -- going to see the movie in the theater was always more expensive, but you didn't have to wait until the home release.

Chris Brady said:
And finally, no one knows if the service will be available outside the continental U.S. For example, I couldn't watch (thankfully, I suppose) Star Trek: Discovery because CBS All Access wasn't available up here in Canuckistan, and Netflix didn't have the contract for it here.
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The produc is coming out in the United States Canada and the Netherlands on November 12,, and Australia and New Zealand one week later. I think Europe will see it in 2020.

Chris Brady said:
No one really owns anything anymore, it's all behind paywalls and subscriptions, especially media like movies, games, software and other intangibles.
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Well, before the rise of video tapes, you could never "own" mass media, for instance. But sometimes ownership is overrated. As I've gotten older I've found sometimes having a physical library of items can be more burdensome, especially as there are tradeoffs--physical media eventually becomes incompatible as newer formats appear, etc. Spotify makes it easier to sample a lot of music--true the user might not own it but for the price of 1 CD a month you have access to a huge library and are allowed to discover. That kind of stuff is the new local library--you got to read a lot of books you never owned.
 
Dumarest said:
Whether this is good mews or bad news, I have no idea as I never cared for what little I saw of Game of Thrones:
www.bbc.com

Game of Thrones writers Benioff and Weiss leave Star Wars trilogy

David Benioff and DB Weiss were supposed to be writing the post-Skywalker era films.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
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I'm starting to get the feeling that Star Wars isn't quite what Disney hoped for it. Massive fan backlash, under performing movies and toy sales. Now high profile producers pulling out of presumably well paid gigs.

I'm thinking they parachuted Kevin Feige in hope for a Marvel 2.0 situation. The problem being, Marvel is now, and Star Wars is kind of old hat.
 
Endless Flight said:
Everything goes in cycles. Marvel will be old hat soon enough, especially without Robert Downey Jr.
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Marvel kind of feels like old hat after Endgame. That fatigue the critics have been talking about since the first Avengers movie has definitely hit me.
 
Dumarest said:
Whether this is good mews or bad news, I have no idea as I never cared for what little I saw of Game of Thrones:
www.bbc.com

Game of Thrones writers Benioff and Weiss leave Star Wars trilogy

David Benioff and DB Weiss were supposed to be writing the post-Skywalker era films.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
Click to expand...

Well, it's not just that. Read an article somewhere that Rian Johnson said he'd love to explore Star Wars again "if they'll have me", and Lawrence Kasdan said he's not going to explore more Star Wars movies.

I think Lucasfilm might be retrenching a bit, or re-examining the direction they want to take with the writing
 
Stevethulhu said:
I'm starting to get the feeling that Star Wars isn't quite what Disney hoped for it. Massive fan backlash, under performing movies and toy sales. Now high profile producers pulling out of presumably well paid gigs.
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Actually, I think that duo made the best choice to quit, since they would be under so much incredible scrutiny after both the backlash to their GoT ending and the backlash to The Last Jedi that it's probably better for them that they focus on a property that doesn't have that burden.

Although I doubt the backlash is "massive"
 
Endless Flight said:
Everything goes in cycles. Marvel will be old hat soon enough, especially without Robert Downey Jr.
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The key thing that Hollywood needs to remember is that the best way to keep a franchise alive is to actually put it back in the box when there are too many diminishing returns, give it a rest, then bring it back when people are missing it or nostalgic. If you oversaturate your market eventually it leads to diminishing returns.

For instance, if Marvel is beginning to have diminishing returns, cut back on releases and let another franchise out for a bit. I like the fact that Disney is going to alternate Star Wars with Avatar movies every other year for a few years this next decade.
 
JRT said:
Actually, I think that duo made the best choice to quit, since they would be under so much incredible scrutiny after both the backlash to their GoT ending and the backlash to The Last Jedi that it's probably better for them that they focus on a property that doesn't have that burden.

Although I doubt the backlash is "massive"
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TLJ and Solo had some very vocal backlash. And some pretty serious disconnect between traditional media vs social media.

I do think the Powers that Be at Disney expected another Marvel from Star Wars. And what they got was a lot of EU fans with social media followers that got pretty narked when this thin they'd invested time and money on since the 90s was written off.

Personally, I think they should give Star Wars to Dave Filoni (sp?) And let him be the Kevin Feige of that franchise.
 
Faylar said:
Still not seeing it. Still think it's projecting. People do it all the time... when they encounter something they viscerally dislike, they look for things, and only for things, that validate their opinion.
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I'm going to speak for myself. I found C Chris Brady 's response to be nearly *exactly* how I feel. I love Star Wars. I look at it now like I look at my childhood friend, who decided to get involved with heroin and ruin his life (and destroyed our first pitch-meeting to get into Image Comics) and simply wouldn't stop the self-implosion...

Personally I have *standards*. I can ignore a tremendous amount of dumb shit in a franchise. I do it daily LOL. The idea is that I want "it" to be "good" - where "it" is whatever I'm consuming and "good" being that which pleases me greatly. The context of a franchise is in the stewardship of its continuity - and there are literally no franchises that are above criticism in maintaining that consistency. The goal becomes the ability to easily dismiss the silly and retain the core and anything good added to the core with the least amount of mental gymnastics.

The older the franchise the harder it becomes (see Marvel/DC). There is literally no excuse for the Disney movies to be this bad in terms of plot/story considering the massive amount of gaming, novels, and other material out there to mine from, and synthesize new material that is of quality.

It doesn't have to be order of magnitude better - it only has to honor the continuity of the franchise. The last two movies in the new trilogy do not add up to that sum for "good" - despite whatever new material they added, it's disjointed, non-contextual, their handling of the older-material seems outright disrespectful to the franchise writ-large. It's *not good*.

As a litmus test to my own personal biases - I'm actually a shockingly big fan of 'Solo'. I avoided it at the theaters because I felt Disney had largely lost their way (and I still feel that) - but Solo was a good movie... aside from the lead actor not very good at being Han Solo at all. I just ignored that and pretended he's Dan Duo, some other kid from Corellia. But I found the movie quite enjoyable despite a LOT of people hating it.

Rogue One was even better. The Mandalorian is looking SWEEEEEEET...

But I'm not going to see the Rise of Skywalker. The whole trilogy is ruined structurally for me. I look at all this as "One big clusterfuck era for Star Wars". The franchise will outlast these dummies running things now.
 
tenbones said:
I'm going to speak for myself. I found C Chris Brady 's response to be nearly *exactly* how I feel. I love Star Wars. I look at it now like I look at my childhood friend, who decided to get involved with heroin and ruin his life (and destroyed our first pitch-meeting to get into Image Comics) and simply wouldn't stop the self-implosion...

Personally I have *standards*. I can ignore a tremendous amount of dumb shit in a franchise. I do it daily LOL. The idea is that I want "it" to be "good" - where "it" is whatever I'm consuming and "good" being that which pleases me greatly. The context of a franchise is in the stewardship of its continuity - and there are literally no franchises that are above criticism in maintaining that consistency. The goal becomes the ability to easily dismiss the silly and retain the core and anything good added to the core with the least amount of mental gymnastics.

The older the franchise the harder it becomes (see Marvel/DC). There is literally no excuse for the Disney movies to be this bad in terms of plot/story considering the massive amount of gaming, novels, and other material out there to mine from, and synthesize new material that is of quality.

It doesn't have to be order of magnitude better - it only has to honor the continuity of the franchise. The last two movies in the new trilogy do not add up to that sum for "good" - despite whatever new material they added, it's disjointed, non-contextual, their handling of the older-material seems outright disrespectful to the franchise writ-large. It's *not good*.

As a litmus test to my own personal biases - I'm actually a shockingly big fan of 'Solo'. I avoided it at the theaters because I felt Disney had largely lost their way (and I still feel that) - but Solo was a good movie... aside from the lead actor not very good at being Han Solo at all. I just ignored that and pretended he's Dan Duo, some other kid from Corellia. But I found the movie quite enjoyable despite a LOT of people hating it.

Rogue One was even better. The Mandalorian is looking SWEEEEEEET...

But I'm not going to see the Rise of Skywalker. The whole trilogy is ruined structurally for me. I look at all this as "One big clusterfuck era for Star Wars". The franchise will outlast these dummies running things now.
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That is all fair. You are more than welcome to your opinion on something. I was meaning that its projecting hen you dislike something and try to support your dislike with cherry picked or made up facts. IE TLJ did poorly in China so it must have bombed overall... this is simply not true. TLJ was financially a major success.
My lesson in this was with how I hated 2009 Star Trek. I loathed it an looked for any opportunity to say it was a failure for reasons XYZ, but I still eventually had to admit it was successful and it reinvigorated Star Trek in general despite my hatred of that movie specifically.
 
Ghost Whistler said:
I'm sure there are other avenues for those minded to watch it. I certainly won't be subscribing
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No doubt, but for people interested in a legal means to watch it, they face a paywall... at least initially.
 
Faylar said:
That is all fair. You are more than welcome to your opinion on something. I was meaning that its projecting hen you dislike something and try to support your dislike with cherry picked or made up facts. IE TLJ did poorly in China so it must have bombed overall... this is simply not true. TLJ was financially a major success.
My lesson in this was with how I hated 2009 Star Trek. I loathed it an looked for any opportunity to say it was a failure for reasons XYZ, but I still eventually had to admit it was successful and it reinvigorated Star Trek in general despite my hatred of that movie specifically.
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Well that's natural don't you think? Personally I'm not a fan of "looking" for vindication in matters like this. No amount of convincing is going to explain away the structural issues I have with current Star Wars, storywise. Can it be retconned? Sure. Ignored? even better. It's funny to see the gesticulations Disney goes through via their marketing to cover up the inconsistencies.

"Financial success" is relative to what? They forked out 4-billion for what was then the largest and most popular IP in the world. Knocking out 1-billion dollar blockbusters should have been *TRIVIAL* if they simply honored the franchise more, showed more editorial discipline. Got rid of the, well I'll say it - AMATEUR writing. The editors for Last Jedi should be fired, and shot out of the airlock.

It really isn't hard to understand that slapping "Star Wars" on a movie is going to cause it to sell worldwide regardless of the quality. And it's fanbase is LITERALLY religious in their love for the IP. They'll apologize for it. They'll make excuses for it, doing the very thing you're saying - projecting their own biases upon it because of a-priori assumptions that Star Wars = Good.

I operate from the standard of "I like/want Good. Anything that meets that criteria should be consumed."

Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, and many other things - are collectively slipping out of that Good Zone for me. And I don't want *anything* I love to do that. Yet... there it is, and largely for reasons that we're not allowed to discuss here on this forum, heh.
 
tenbones said:
Well that's natural don't you think? Personally I'm not a fan of "looking" for vindication in matters like this. No amount of convincing is going to explain away the structural issues I have with current Star Wars, storywise. Can it be retconned? Sure. Ignored? even better. It's funny to see the gesticulations Disney goes through via their marketing to cover up the inconsistencies.

"Financial success" is relative to what? They forked out 4-billion for what was then the largest and most popular IP in the world. Knocking out 1-billion dollar blockbusters should have been *TRIVIAL* if they simply honored the franchise more, showed more editorial discipline. Got rid of the, well I'll say it - AMATEUR writing. The editors for Last Jedi should be fired, and shot out of the airlock.

It really isn't hard to understand that slapping "Star Wars" on a movie is going to cause it to sell worldwide regardless of the quality. And it's fanbase is LITERALLY religious in their love for the IP. They'll apologize for it. They'll make excuses for it, doing the very thing you're saying - projecting their own biases upon it because of a-priori assumptions that Star Wars = Good.

I operate from the standard of "I like/want Good. Anything that meets that criteria should be consumed."

Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, and many other things - are collectively slipping out of that Good Zone for me. And I don't want *anything* I love to do that. Yet... there it is, and largely for reasons that we're not allowed to discuss here on this forum, heh.
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You are welcome to your opinion. I really don't share it.
Yes, TLJ was still a success. while it was still in theaters it became the 9th highest grossing film of all time. Definitely not shabby at all.
 
tenbones said:
Yet... there it is, and largely for reasons that we're not allowed to discuss here on this forum, heh.
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I don't think politics (an initialism comes to mind) has anything to do with their story choices. I won't go into it any further, but I think that's crap.
 
Faylar said:
You are welcome to your opinion. I really don't share it.
Yes, TLJ was still a success. while it was still in theaters it became the 9th highest grossing film of all time. Definitely not shabby at all.
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Financial success as the only metric for whether something is good or not is exactly the problem with TLJ. And Disney Star Wars in general.
 
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