All things Star Wars

[davos]

*mod hat*  Ok, folks, please cool it down a bit.  There are strong feelings on this franchise, so things getting a bit heated is understandable.  Just remember to be respectful of other boarders.   Thank you */mod hat*

[Jace, Extat]

Jace is the MOST respectful.

Now come here @Darth Richard II and let me respect you!

[Week]

1 hour ago, Vetrani Weekić said:

False equivalence and white washing over the racist and misogynist bullying of Kelly Tran. No real surprise that the TRUE victims here are the Real Fans like Vin.

1 hour ago, Vin said:

*sigh* Here we go again . Nice buzzwords mate . 

Which buzzwords? I accurately described the bullying of Kelly Tran and identified you as feeling victimized.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I love the Force Awakens and Last Jedi--I think they are fantastic movies. I grew up on the original trilogy, and I think I might have even convinced myself to like the Phantom Menace when it came out. But by the time of Attack of the Clones? I had figured out the trilogy was shit? I remember my friend and I going to that second movie thinking: this is it, this is where Lucas will right the ship.

And we left the movie endlessly mocking it. I didn't even see Revenge of the Sith in the theater.

My point about all this is--people who say these new ones are bad and it'll wear off? Nah. They're good movies. You know why? Because they're Star Wars movies. I'm going to throw out a controversial opinion about the Last Jedi. I keep hearing it's "too different" for a Star Wars movie. I'm going to say, nope. It's exactly the same as the original trilogy. It felt like the Empire Strikes Back. The hero goes to a remote planet to get training from a quirky Jedi master while the other characters get sidelined/trapped on side quests. 

I kept reading all these reviews defending the Last Jedi as "different" and "pushing boundaries" which angered some fans. The only thing that's different is the fact we aren't following heroic white males. The cast is diverse. And I'll be honest, I didn't even notice until people started bitching online endlessly about their cherished Star Wars getting ruined. Fucking nerds. Ruin everything. And then they try to explain their atrocious behavior away: "Oh no. I'm totally adjusted and never display maladaptive patterns of behavior of any kind."

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I am truly disgustipated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

 

[Jaxom 1974]

4 hours ago, Jace, The Sugarcube said:

 

So gimme a break dude. TFA was an attempt to say THIS IS STAR WARS there wasn't fan service, it was a literal soft reboot. 

Fan service is Rogue One having so many blatant callbacks to previous material that it actually gets in the way of the film's structure.

There's a difference between rehashing the old plot and just cluttering up my frame with semi obscure shit for the fat beardos to stroke off to.

Its interesting how polarizing these new movies are.

TFA is absolute fan service and and nothing more than a complete rehash of ANH. It was demeaning and I despair for Episode IX, as JJ is absolutely horseshit when it comes to dealing with legacy franchises.  He absolutely tanked Star trek too, and he only served to solidify my general loathing of what he'd done with TFA.

There are some issues with TLJ, sure. But it wasn't just retelling ESB. 

Rogue One was a fantastic film.  I think they seamlessly blended their story into the existing framework of the existing Star Wars universe.  Though I will grant that it's most exciting scene was the one true instance of fan wankery, but it still worked, unlike attacking a planet sized new and improved version of the moon shaped battle station...

Rebels also added to the canon and it has allowed the mining of more material in these new films.

I have not had a chance to see Solo yet, but I suspect I'm going to like it.  Though I will admit if I'm wrong on that.

[Darth Richard II]

At this point I'm not even sure what to say. To put it as non hostile as possible, you have not answered any of my questions and keep repeating the same(proven by kalbear and others to be false) points, then accuse ME of being an echo chamber, so, I dunno. I'm not the only one who sees it.

 

anyway, I found this highly amusing:

https://screenrant.com/george-lucas-star-wars-sequels-hated-fans/

So, the midochlorians get their own trilogy, basically.

[Yukle]

It makes a bit uncomfortable that not liking the character Rey is seen as synonymous with not liking her being female. I don't like her character because she's a Mary Sue, who by the middle of the first movie was essentially at the end of her character arc: massively powered and no real character flaws.

On the other hand, Luke Skywalker was an annoying doofus who wasn't learning from his mistakes and had to keep at it until something finally worked in his third film.

ETA: I also don't like Rey being so obviously modelled on Luke Skywalker (except a flawless version of him). Female characters are always one of 5 tropes:

1) An attractive adorkable stereotype (Everything Zooey Deschanel does)

2) A masculine male who happens to be female (Lara Croft)

3) A damsel in distress

4) A magical person who has to hide their power

5) The smart sidekick to an idiotic man (Hermione)

 

Rey could have been groundbreaking. Katniss in the Hunger Games is clearly feminine in how she thinks, how she acts and how she sees other people, but for all of her "girlishness" she is deep and not easily within any of the usual tropes.

Rey is just a Mary Sue, kind of Luke but with some boobs and without the depth.

[Vin]

3 minutes ago, Yukle said:

It makes a bit uncomfortable that not liking the character Rey is seen as synonymous with not liking her being female. I don't like her character because she's a Mary Sue, who by the middle of the first movie was essentially at the end of her character arc: massively powered and no real character flaws.

On the other hand, Luke Skywalker was an annoying doofus who wasn't learning from his mistakes and had to keep at it until something finally worked in his third film.

Which is a shame because I think Daisy ridley is a good actress and I really like her . Hope this doesn't ruin her career , star Wars seems to do weird things to people's careers , some disappear and do obscure stuff while others (just Ford I guess ) blow up and do great .

[felice]

3 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I'm going to throw out a controversial opinion about the Last Jedi. I keep hearing it's "too different" for a Star Wars movie. I'm going to say, nope. It's exactly the same as the original trilogy. It felt like the Empire Strikes Back. The hero goes to a remote planet to get training from a quirky Jedi master while the other characters get sidelined/trapped on side quests.  

But it's missing the first act that builds the relationships between the main characters before they get separated (instead they don't even meet up till the very end), Rey doesn't actually get any training to speak of, the secondary-characters-running-away-from-the-bad-guys B plot is stretched out for the entire duration of the movie and IMAO is rather lacking compared to Empire's second act cat and mouse game amongst the asteroids, and the big finale has the quirky master facing the villain while the nominal heroes just run away some more. It borrows some elements from Empire, but it uses them poorly.

3 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

I kept reading all these reviews defending the Last Jedi as "different" and "pushing boundaries" which angered some fans. The only thing that's different is the fact we aren't following heroic white males. The cast is diverse.

The diversity is what angered the nazis, yeah. Less toxic people were just put off by the lack of heroism. The film is basically just one fuck up after another (and not just by male characters - the women make a mess of things too, they're just not given as much prominence in a film which only barely scrapes a Bechdel pass), and an inappropriate amount of comedy for what is in outline an extremely dark story.

[Darth Richard II]

I don't buy this Rey is a Mary Sue nonsense.

[Darth Richard II]

So back to percent drops and such, looking at the numbers, Ep 4 -> 5 was about 30 percent while episode 1->2 and 7->8 were about 35 percent. So, as stated, TLJ slightly came in under expectations, it certain did not have anything like an unprecedented drop or anything that would make the studio panic. Also, again, considering the massive global event TFA was, still pretty good.

[Slurktan]

7 hours ago, كالدب said:

Disney has already made back their money and then some from the LucasArts deal. They're probably pretty close to the $27bn mark. 

Source?

[Darth Richard II]

2 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Source?

I don't know his source, but they only paid, what, 4 or 6 billion? I can;t imagine with all the merch and game sales + movies they haven't at least broke even.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I don't know his source, but they only paid, what, 4 or 6 billion? I can;t imagine with all the merch and game sales + movies they haven't at least broke even.

Lucas got $4.1 billion as I recall, half in cash and half in stock.  If I'm not mistaken, the stock is up about 30% from when the deal was done.

I could source it but I shan't.

[Slurktan]

6 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I don't know his source, but they only paid, what, 4 or 6 billion? I can;t imagine with all the merch and game sales + movies they haven't at least broke even.

That's just guessing.  They paid 4 and a half billion.  The movies have made Disney (So not the entire amount that is the box office gross) roughly 2 and a half billion.  There have been exactly 2 paid for video games released.  Neither topping 10 million copies sold I believe (also given the budget for those two games is almost as much as Solos they didn't make too much off that).  Who knows what they make off of iPhone and Android 'Free to Play' games.  The books have sold well but nothing fantastic. I'm just curious given that all I've read toy merch is drastically down where this person (Kalbear or elsewise) is getting their numbers from.

[Darth Richard II]

I don't think the toy numbers where down until recently, but I'm also not sure how you calculate profit from that.

[Yukle]

36 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I don't buy this Rey is a Mary Sue nonsense.

But she has no character flaw to overcome. She always makes correct decisions and no one ever suffers for her mistakes (which she doesn't make).

By contrast, Luke's character arc included:

1) Feeling responsible for his family's death

2) Allowing R2-D2 to escape (which at the time was only a problem as his family would lose money on that)

3) Being too impatient to use the Force properly, and abandoning his training for a while

4) Feeling responsible for Ben's death

5) Confronting Vader, but losing his hand and the fight and succumbing to his darker impulses

And so on.

In same length of time, Rey is essentially a demi-god with powers in the Force stronger than anything Luke was ever shown to have, and with basically no bad decisions made along the way.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Like I said before, They could have given tickets for TFA aways for free and that thing would have still made boatloads of money.  I wouldn't be surprised if the merchandising profits were several multiples of the  box office profits.

Disney isn't stupid.  They paid over $4 billion mostly for the rights to the franchise and less so for ILM and Skywalker sound.  They knew full well that based on box office receipts alone, the Lucasfilm deal would have taken well over a decade to turn a profit, and that's assuming every film does well.  If I remember correctly, the rights to the original trilogy don't fully transfer to them until 2020.

Sell T-shirts, M&M's with daisy Ridleys face on the package, and little bits of molded plastic in the toy section with "Star Wars" stamped on the box? The margin on that stuff is huge.  Even if merch sales are down a bit and they have to clear it out or eat some of it, you're still talking big money.

[Yukle]

17 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Lucas got $4.1 billion as I recall, half in cash and half in stock.  If I'm not mistaken, the stock is up about 30% from when the deal was done.

I could source it but I shan't.

 

17 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

That's just guessing.  They paid 4 and a half billion.  The movies have made Disney (So not the entire amount that is the box office gross) roughly 2 and a half billion.  There have been exactly 2 paid for video games released.  Neither topping 10 million copies sold I believe (also given the budget for those two games is almost as much as Solos they didn't make too much off that).  Who knows what they make off of iPhone and Android 'Free to Play' games.  The books have sold well but nothing fantastic. I'm just curious given that all I've read toy merch is drastically down where this person (Kalbear or elsewise) is getting their numbers from.

It's always worth mentioning that Lucas wasn't in the decision for profit.

He gave the money away.

He tends to be humble in that he doesn't beat his chest about having done that, and he takes enormous criticism very well from a vitriolic fanbase. But consider that: the merchandising rights he secured for Star Wars made him a billionaire. It was a shrewd business decision that paid off for him... and he gave it all away.