Star Wars: Solo is doing really badly (and further analysis of Last Jedi)

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Shipyard Locked

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The cold hard numbers are in for Solo, and they aren't pretty so far. Analysis and discussion from the wonks at /r boxoffice:
https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/8mauhf/na_solo_a_star_wars_story_35631m_friday_estimate/
https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/8magsm/why_is_solo_flopping/

Some choice quotes from the second thread.

Why is Solo flopping?
I know there was a general lack of interest for this movie from Star Wars fans, but I still expected enough general audiences would go and see it because of the Star Wars brand. Why is it flopping so much?
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I can think of 4 contributions. A general lack of interest, the RT score isn’t so great, Star Wars fatigue, and TLJ backlash.
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It seems to me TLJ backlash is by far the biggest. People say “oh fatigue”, look at Marvel. If movies and universe are loved and good you get opposite of fatigue, you get MORE interest in c dissolver characters etc.

Or “no one asked for this.” I don’t recall anyone asking for a third Thor film either, or Guardians and yet here we are. Execution is what matters, fucking Cobra Kai took an early 80s dead franchise and made it awesome.
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  • Release date (1): it was close to Infinity War and Deadpool 2, two hits that overshadowed Solo release
    Release date (2): it was only 5 months after The Last Jedi. All previous Disney Star Wars movies were released around Christmas, people were not expecting a new Star Wars so soon
  • The production issues: The troubled production (directors fired, reshots, etc) is not a good advertisment for the movie. That being said, the average movigoers are not aware of the behind the scene controversies.
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And news to me was this linked article about The Last Jedi's troubled writing:
http://www.slashfilm.com/jj-abrams-episode-8-story-rian-johnson/

Overall, this incipient flop is a complex affair, like all such things, but I think it's enough to support the things I said in the Last jedi thread: this franchise is in serious trouble and there's a lot of denial going around. Question is, what's the correct next move?
 
I'll be leaving in about an hour to go see it. I'll let you know where it sits in my rankings of the movies.

The next moves are already made. Rian Johnson is working on a new trilogy because they are taking a break from Skywalkers and Lucasfilm hired Logan's director James Mangold to do a Boba Fett movie.

I don't think Star Wars is in trouble at all. If Harrison Ford were in Solo, it would be doing much better. But he's retired from Star Wars and they wouldn't de-age him anyway. My wife won't go see this one because Ford was so iconic, she can't see anybody else as Solo.

What I think they should do is spread out the schedule a little more and only do one movie per year.
 
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Well...from what I've read it sounds kinda dumb, like how they decided they needed to explain his last name...in a galaxy where "Skywalker" is accepted without comment. Also, and this is just based on what I've read, they take a guy named Solo because he's a loner who looks after number one and decide the obvious thing to do is make him team up to save the world. Which kinda undercuts his character arc in the original Star Wars films. But I haven't seen the actual movie and doubt I ever will, so maybe it's actually good and just sounds dumb in the descriptions.
 
One SW movie per year is max...and that might be too much if there's SW on TV as well.

In LA, there is an insane amount of weenie waving by studio execs and crashing tentpoles into each other is a form of Hollywood combat...mostly because it isn't their money at stake. You even see this internally with competing producers within a single studio as people jockey for positions of power. Thus, the DP2, IW and Solo tumble into each other.

As for Solo, the trailers don't look very good and the press around the production was really crappy. There is no excitement around this actor who needed to either be Dead On Awesome or a Famous Dude doing his own take.

And after the lame killing off Han with no worthy death scene, they should have just done Lando: A Star Wars Story with Donald Glover with cameos by Billy Dee and whoever else. As Lando has been weirdly absent from SW, his story might have more intrigue.

However, I keep hearing the Solo is fun and it seems like Hollywood blew most of its summer load already. Thus, Solo might crank out money week after week as the "hey we already saw everything else so let's see Solo" option.

We will see. As for me, I'll see it in the El Cheapo 2nd run when it shows up in October. If its any good, I'll see it twice for $6! Hot sauce popcorn 4tehwin!
 
Changed my mind about The Last Jedi when it turned out that Star Wars: Rebels was the legitimately better work (Seriously, the finale was good). But I heard good things about Solo.
 
Templum Domini said:
Changed my mind about The Last Jedi when it turned out that Star Wars: Rebels was the legitimately better work (Seriously, the finale was good). But I heard good things about Solo.
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I've seen a few with my kids and Rebels is far and away the best Star Wars I've seen since 1983. I actually watched one by myself to gauge it before telling my son (the Star Wars nut) about its existence. I'm not crazy about that style of animation but it had some really good stories and characters in the episodes I've seen.
 
Spinachcat said:
Star Wars: Rebels and Lego Star Wars have been my favorites since the original trilogy.
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The Lego Star Wars cartoons are a riot. Hilariously self-aware and not afraid to poke fun at some of the stupid things that got into Star Wars "canon.":goof:
 
The problem with Solo that I saw from the previews is that it's basically an Origin Story. Solo...
  • Gets introduced to the smuggling life
  • Meets Lando and gets the Falcon
  • Meets Chewy and incurs the lifedebt
It's everything we know about Solo in one movie. I wouldn't be surprised if Jabba makes an appearance. This is Fan Fiction.

I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.

If it didn't have Emilia Clarke and Woody Harrelson, I wouldn't even think of seeing it.
 
Reddit is not a source I take serious for anything. I'll judge the movie myself based on the film, not its box office. The modern obsession with box office numbers is mind-numbing, as if we were all movie moguls or something.
 
Voros said:
Reddit is not a source I take serious for anything. I'll judge the movie myself based on the film, not its box office. The modern obsession with box office numbers is mind-numbing, as if we were all movie moguls or something.
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Wait you aren't? WTF why have I been wasting breathe on you?
 
I went and saw it with my daughter. First things first, we both liked it. I’m the diehard SW fan and like all the movies, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. However my daughter does not like all the movies and puts this in Rogue One territory. It is not an essential SW film by any measure but if you like the characters of Solo, Calrissian and Chewbacca, there is something to enjoy here. Good action sequences and a decent plot. Lots of Easter eggs.
 
Voros said:
I'll judge the movie myself based on the film, not its box office.
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Fair enough. Every conversation on this site is optional to participate in. Some people find the business side of geek hobbies interesting and like analyzing it.
 
I'm mainly just amazed that we can have this level of information so quickly; I genuinely didn't even know the film was out this weekend, despite having heard publicity interviews on the radio.

As for the film itself, I can't say I'm that fussed about seeing it. I still haven't seen TLJ - and other than one thing, I've managed to avoid spoilers so far, but I don't really care that much anyway - and while Solo is a fun character, I don't really care about his past; it's fine left as a few offhand sentences, and I'd have accepted pretty much any character being introduced in a film as "someone Solo had a troubled interaction with in the past".
 
I was going to boycott Solo as only Harrison Ford should have that role. But curiosity will get to me and I will have seen the film by the end of this fortnight.

I do wish they would of gone with a Lando Calrission movie, or brought Rebels to live action.
 
They have had multiple actors for several characters, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader to name the obvious ones, so why not for Solo? Harrison Ford is a great actor, but the amount of CGI involved in getting him to look, sound and act young again would be incredible.
 
That opening weekend number sounds about right. We were in a huge theater last night, maybe 225 seats and a quarter of them were filled for a 7:15 show. Total opposite of The Last Jedi, which was stuffed.

I will also say this about the movie. It’s one of the funnier films in the series, despite the trailer looking very bleak at times. It could have been edited better.
 
Shipyard Locked said:
Fair enough. Every conversation on this site is optional to participate in. Some people find the business side of geek hobbies interesting and like analyzing it.
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There’s an excellent column in Film Comment once a year that analyses box office returns for the year. I find that interesting as I trust the source much more than Reddit and the writer doesn’t have a particular axe to grind.

One thing that writer notes is that sequels and franchise film rarely if ever improve the returns of the original film. Studios like sequels and franchises because of the predictabilty of their profit, not because anyone expects them to top the earlier films. That kind of insight you won’t get from Reddit.
 
Voros said:
That kind of insight you won’t get from Reddit.
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In fact, you will.
I'd suggest specifically browsing /r boxoffice more and looking at non-Solo analysis before passing this sort of judgement.
 
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Son and I are going with a friend and his son and another friend. Friend’s son recently decided he was going to marry black widow after seeing her kick ass in winter soldier, so he has high standards in movies.
 
Well, I guess they're going to stop making Star Wars movies and merchandise now that Han Solo has underperformed on the opening weekend.:wink:
 
Call me wierd. I want to see Solo more than The Last Jedi.
 
Shipyard Locked said:
Probably because whatever Solo's flaws may be, it can't possibly undermine the original trilogy to the same extent as Last Jedi.
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I think you are referring to Luke’s character portrayal and while I see where that view is coming from and understand it to some extent, I don’t agree with it.
 
I haven't seen TLJ yet, and I doubt I'll go to a theater to see Solo. I'll likely watch them should they pop up on Netflix, like I did with Rogue One.
 
Actually, I am curious about why people aren't going to see this movie as it seemed to me Star Wars fans paid to see pretty much anything regardless of quality in the past. Now, I have no idea if this movie is great or stinks, but it just seems odd to me that the nerds aren't lined up around the block. So: is there anyone reading this who is a big Star Wars nut but not going to see Han Solo? If so, why not?

I know my household is not seeing it yet just because my kids don't like the cramped, crowded, loudmouth movie theater experience and would rather watch it at home in three months or whenever, and be able to rewind and pause the movie as needed.

(I read some stuff about Han Solo coming out too soon after the last Star War movie and too soon after the latest Avengers and Deathstroke movies, but I'm not sure I believe that's a major reason for nonattendance as plenty of big movies have opened close to each other in the past and still made tons of cash.)
 
Krimson, how did you like Rogue One?
 
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It was good, though long. I've watched the ending several times. Mostly I can't be bothered to go to theaters anymore unless something really interests me. I think in the last five years I have been to a theater three times.
 
When I was in my late teens I think I went to the theater like once a week or two weeks, no exaggeration. When my daughter was really young, we went twice in five years. Now we go to the movies about once every two or three months.
 
There was a time when I used to see a movie probably every month. But I have much less free time now so a movie needs to really attract me for me to even bother with the hassle and cost of going to the theater. So far nothing has made me want to see it that bad in the past five or six years so the only movies I've seen at a theater lately have been documentaries on IMAX screens on school field trips. Gotta say, lemurs and insects and dolphins and elephants are much more interesting to me than Star Wars and superheroes nowadays. :clown:

(Plus books are so much better than movies!)
 
I think the last two movies I saw were It and Ghost in the Shell. My mom, who never goes to theaters especially not on opening day, insisted on seeing It on opening day. :grin: Then I promptly had to order the Tim Curry mini series so she could watch that a week later.

I love Star Wars, but nothing dampens my enthusiasm more than the Fandom Menace. So I generally wait until the hype is gone, and then watch the movies alone, and then never discuss them with anyone. :grin:
 
My biggest problem with Solo (which I haven't seen yet,) is that I'm just so tired of prequels. Star Wars prequels. Star Trek prequels. Prequel television series. I want to see what happens next, not what's already happened. I have problems with elements of TFA and TLJ...but at least they aren't prequels. I enjoyed TLJ more than TFA, and while I enjoyed and had no real problems with Rogue One...it was still a prequel.
 
Endless Flight said:
I think you are referring to Luke’s character portrayal and while I see where that view is coming from and understand it to some extent, I don’t agree with it.
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It goes beyond that. I'm referring to the cynical, downbeat, anticlimactic pall of futility it casts over the original trilogy. Even Force Awakens is damaged by association. All that fanservice and yet they failed to deliver on any sense of progress, that our heroes had accomplished anything worth protecting and building on. All your icons and triumphs can and will tumble into the mud, like we're watching history instead of heroic fantasy.

Star Wars as an IP could have benefited from all sorts of new ideas, new directions. A deadly mix of retread and deconstruction was the last thing it needed.
 
I see what you are saying but how many years need to pass for it not to cast a pall over the original series? 100 years? When the main characters from the original trilogy are dead? I like the fact that the universe is not stuck in “happily ever after” mode after Return of the Jedi. in the old canon, there were massive threats that took place after the trilogy, albeit they were in book form. Dark Empire, the two Galactic Wars, etc.
 
Endless Flight said:
I see what you are saying but how many years need to pass for it not to cast a pall over the original series? 100 years? When the main characters from the original trilogy are dead? I like the fact that the universe is not stuck in “happily ever after” mode after Return of the Jedi. in the old canon, there were massive threats that took place after the trilogy, albeit they were in book form. Dark Empire, the two Galactic Wars, etc.
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But were they new threats or just the same thing again as the new films seem to be (Empire = First Order, Rebel Alliance = Resistance, Death Star = Starkiller, etc.)? What I liked about the old Marvel comics was they brought in new enemies and problems for the heroes to confront.
 
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