Star Wars: Entering an uncivilized era

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

33 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Marvels main advantage is that it's universe so far feels real, with all the moving parts at least feeling connected to each other. I think this phase is really going to struggle to keep all that together, and each tv show is pushing it even further. The Multiverse might seem like a good way to expand things, but it might also blow it apart.

They also lucked into the most perfect casting decision in the history of cinema with RDJ as Iron Man, If the studio got their way and put someone else in that role, I suspect the history of the MCU would have been different. also the first Iron Man film was pretty damn good. The next two, less so; but we don't talk about those. 

36 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Star Wars sort of has that too, it has a timeline and set number of locations and events that are shared. Where I think it's kind of messy is that, from my own personal point of view, I struggle to believe the Prequels and Sequels are canon, because they are so bad. I'm just not buying into that universe when I hate the movies that created bits of it. It is possible to go and watch Clone Wars and enjoy it, but I'm still kind of grossed out by it. 

The other problem is that Star Wars fans are laser focused on consistency and world building. They stood by Disney when the nerfed the extended universe (legends) stuff, but Disney has proceeded to drop the ball with apparent continuity problems that could slide in the MCU. 

Then you have the nostalgia problem. This seems to be what Disney is focused on now (I've commented on this before), but in markets where there isn't much nostalgia for SW, isn't doing so well. It's basically a dead franchise in China.  

[Darryk]

I'd rather people didn't look to Marvel as a model for what to do with Star Wars. I don't want the Star Wars universe turned into a factory for churning out formulaic mostly forgettable films.

Sadly this is no doubt exactly what Disney intends to do with it.

[DaveSumm]

Marvel is the model that everyone wants to emulate, for better or worse. Everyone’s looking for a franchise nowadays. I don’t think it has to be a bad thing though; there’s certainly ample room in the SW universe for good and interesting stories. It’s just that they fucked up the main trilogy around which this should all be revolving. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

43 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I'd rather people didn't look to Marvel as a model for what to do with Star Wars. I don't want the Star Wars universe turned into a factory for churning out formulaic mostly forgettable films.

Sadly this is no doubt exactly what Disney intends to do with it.

I think they are doing that. That's the problem. Again, "world building". How many column inches were barfed up by fan boys/girls over whether or not the Haldo Maneuver breaks the universe or how stupid the Resistance bombers were? 

Yet no one comments on the fact that literally none of Ant-Man's action scenes make any sense given what's established about how the Pym particles work (regarding mass conservation). 

Remember the scene in Endgame where they go back to the battle of New York and ant-man is standing on Tony Stark's shoulder? Why does no one say, "Um, hey, If mass is conserved when he shrinks, He'd be like 70 kg supported by two feet about 1mm^2 each. How come he doesn't punch straight through Tony's flesh and come out his ass?"

They don't care. What they remember is, "That's America's ass!" 

ETA: I may have misread your post...

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Racist. 

I mean, I thought that was a given, lol

[mormont]

4 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I don’t think it’s that outlandish to claim that people went to see TLJ, didn’t like it, and thought ‘I’m not gonna bother paying to see anymore new SW films’. That must have had an impact.

Well, put it this way: I'm struggling to think of another example of this phenomenon, where an extremely successful franchise film is somehow responsible for the failure of the next, otherwise unrelated, film in the franchise because fans grumbled about it online.

Can somebody name one?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

56 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, put it this way: I'm struggling to think of another example of this phenomenon, where an extremely successful franchise film is somehow responsible for the failure of the next, otherwise unrelated, film in the franchise because fans grumbled about it online.

Can somebody name one?

That scenario literally could have only gotten more specific if you included, "Name a Star Wars franchise film".

And, no offence, "fans grumbled about it online" is an absurd understatement. 

[felice]

48 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, put it this way: I'm struggling to think of another example of this phenomenon, where an extremely successful franchise film is somehow responsible for the failure of the next, otherwise unrelated, film in the franchise because fans grumbled about it online.

The Wrath of Khan? Star Trek Beyond?  Not "failures", but significant drops in box office following flawed prior installments. and TLJ had a 35% drop in box office compared to TFA; that wouldn't be considered "extremely successful" for any other sequel. It seems pretty obvious to me that box office for a film in a series is going to be strongly affected by the previous film. It's nothing to do with grumbling online - quite the opposite, the vast majority of the filmgoing public don't pay any attention to the conversation around the film. They just think "another Star Wars film - the last one was [great/disappointing], so I'll [see/skip] this one". It's impossible to decide whether or not to see a film based on the overall quality of the film, because you need to see it in order to evaluate it. You can only guess what you're likely to think about it based on limited advance information. For most people, that's mostly the trailer, and for sequels, the prior installments.

Disney spend three years establishing a tradition of new Star Wars at Christmas, then released Solo seven months early. I'm sure that didn't do it any good.

[mormont]

44 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

That scenario literally could have only gotten more specific if you included, "Name a Star Wars franchise film".

Not really. Marvel was suggested as an example, and there should be plenty of examples there. But there are none.

James Bond? Transformers? Pirates of the Caribbean? DCEU? Alien? Take out the unrelated if you like! That gives you Fast and Furious, Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and more. I still can't think of a single example.

44 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

And, no offence, "fans grumbled about it online" is an absurd understatement. 

Anything else is an overstatement.

Just now, felice said:

The Wrath of Khan? Star Trek Beyond?  Not "failures", but significant drops in box office following flawed prior installments.

Maybe? Into Darkness is the second biggest box office in Trek history, but Beyond is the third biggest. So not a great example, perhaps.

[felice]

21 minutes ago, mormont said:

Maybe? Into Darkness is the second biggest box office in Trek history, but Beyond is the third biggest. So not a great example, perhaps.

Beyond's box office was a 26% drop from Into Darkness's.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

25 minutes ago, mormont said:

James Bond? Transformers? Pirates of the Caribbean? DCEU? Alien? Take out the unrelated if you like! That gives you Fast and Furious, Mission: Impossible, Harry Potter and more. I still can't think of a single example.

None of these franchises had a film come out that divided the fanbase and then have a subsequent spin-off/prequel hit theaters 4 months later. Either way, I only argued that it contributed to the decline, not that it was a primary cause. 

Now that you mention it, Alien covenant likely lost money. 

31 minutes ago, mormont said:

Maybe? Into Darkness is the second biggest box office in Trek history, but Beyond is the third biggest. So not a great example, perhaps.

On their respective production/marketing budgets, Into Darkness eked out a tiny profit. Beyond probably lost money. Hence, no more Star Trek films. 

[RumHam]

16 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

On their respective production/marketing budgets, Into Darkness eked out a tiny profit. Beyond probably lost money. Hence, no more Star Trek films. 

They seem pretty determined to make the fourth one now. After like four tossed out scripts. They announced it without even telling the cast or getting them to sign on.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 minutes ago, RumHam said:

They seem pretty determined to make the fourth one now. After like four tossed out scripts. They announced it without even telling the cast or getting them to sign on.

Yeah, after 6 years...

It makes one wonder if they intend on continuing the Kelvin timeline or doing something else... Multiverse?!? I don't have much awareness of it TBH.

According the the Wikipedia page (citing Deadline) Beyond lost ~$50.5 million. I saw it. It was OK. 

Speaking of which, how excited do you think the suits at WB are that Shazam! Fury of the Gods opens 1 week after Avatar 2? How many trailer views was it? 148m in the first 24 hours?

[sifth]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

Well, put it this way: I'm struggling to think of another example of this phenomenon, where an extremely successful franchise film is somehow responsible for the failure of the next, otherwise unrelated, film in the franchise because fans grumbled about it online.

Can somebody name one?

The Justice League film comes to mind. People really did not like BvS all that much and the backlash was real. Heck they even have a director that was fired and replaced by someone who was ordered film refilm a large part of the film in common.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, felice said:

The Wrath of Khan? Star Trek Beyond?  Not "failures", but significant drops in box office following flawed prior installments. and TLJ had a 35% drop in box office compared to TFA; that wouldn't be considered "extremely successful" for any other sequel. It seems pretty obvious to me that box office for a film in a series is going to be strongly affected by the previous film. It's nothing to do with grumbling online - quite the opposite, the vast majority of the filmgoing public don't pay any attention to the conversation around the film. They just think "another Star Wars film - the last one was [great/disappointing], so I'll [see/skip] this one". It's impossible to decide whether or not to see a film based on the overall quality of the film, because you need to see it in order to evaluate it. You can only guess what you're likely to think about it based on limited advance information. For most people, that's mostly the trailer, and for sequels, the prior installments.

Disney spend three years establishing a tradition of new Star Wars at Christmas, then released Solo seven months early. I'm sure that didn't do it any good.

Not just a 35% drop; TLJ had all the hype but no legs compared to TFA. As I commented before, the opening weekends were nearly identical domestically. It gets worse with TRoS, which not only saw a lower domestic opening ($177m vs. $220m for TLJ and $247m for TFA), but TRoS and Solo are the only ST films ever to take more that 50% of their domestic cume in the first week. More and more, that's die hard fans coming to to support these films and not much else. Not failures by any definition, but definitely a worrying trend. 

I think it's easy to underestimate how durable this film franchise is. I mean, love them or hate them, everyone agrees that the prequels are pretty flawed films. People came out in droves to see them anyway. There are various estimates on this, but  when you adjust for ticket price inflation, the prequels compare pretty favorably to the sequel trilogy in terms of box office. 

https://www.statista.com/chart/20306/star-wars-box-office-results/

[IlyaP]

14 hours ago, Heartofice said:

What has been good is that I seem to be able to dismiss Solo and forget it exists, and it doesn't spoil my enjoyment of the OT. The prequels do make it quite hard to view Vader in the same way however.

It's the sand, right? It just got everywhere on the screen and was too coarse and harsh?

[IlyaP]

9 hours ago, mormont said:

Solo was, in relative terms, a box office dud but it didn't tank Rise of Skywalker. Nor has any Marvel film, no matter how disappointing, tanked any other. Check out the figures. That's not how these things actually work.

Worth mentioning: from a pure numbers perspective, the budget for Solo ballooned to astonishing levels after Lord and Miller were let go and Howard took over, as he apparently reshot a considerable chunk of the movie, which resulted in the budget increasing and the movie needing to make a massive chunk of change to get back in the black and then also earn a profit.

Not an enviable position for anyone to be in.

[IlyaP]

8 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It is possible to go and watch Clone Wars and enjoy it, but I'm still kind of grossed out by it. 

Curious, how did you respond to Rebels? That show still feels like the best thing since the original trilogy.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, sifth said:

The Justice League film comes to mind. People really did not like BvS all that much and the backlash was real. Heck they even have a director that was fired and replaced by someone who was ordered film refilm a large part of the film in common.

JL definitely opened soft. 

[IlyaP]

14 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

JL definitely opened soft. 

Am I a bad boy for preferring Whedon's version to the Snyder cut?

Now, hear me out - it's 'cause Danny Elfman's score really appeals to me, whereas Junkie XL's score does not speak to me one bit, and feels musically uninteresting and lacking in any memorable leitmotifs when compares to Elfman's. (As always: de gustibus non est disputandum.)