Sfdebris.net

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/j ... ts-prequel

Thoughts?

Like many people I've been irritated by Disney's milking of the Star Wars franchise. Not that Lucas didn't do it when he was in charge but he and everyone else involved did a better job despite the quality of the prequel films. I mean, the video games were better in that era and both Clone Wars cartoons were pretty good (apart from that dreadful movie.) I don't like having a Star Wars film or two come out every year, Disney made that work with the Marvel cinematic universe because there was much more to work with there.

I think Disney should just do a soft reboot with Episode IX, if they bother making it at all.

Disney is going to be broke buying 20th Century-Fox. No more money to waste on the side bets.

If it goes through, then Episode IX might get to go back to the trumpets and searchlights before the crawl. Plus-1 point bonus (it'll probably need it, being on the fourth writing team and third director already)

There is a still a chance the Fox purchase won't go through.

I have no idea what the money situation might be - I mean, by instinct I kind of just assume of course Disney can afford whatever it darn well pleases, but I guess buying 20th Century Fox is kind of a big deal - but just in terms of 'Solo didn't do well, should we keep doing more of these?'... I feel like yeah, of course you keep doing more. So they're in a rough patch (although I thought Solo turned out okay, even before considering the behind-the-scenes mess), just power on through. Maybe you get some under-performing films along the way, some fans disappointed (and fair enough), some other fans (yes, those ones) whining because oh who the frell cares - hold steady and keep on truckin' is, I think, how you get through this teething phase to where you want to be, where Star Wars is a machine that turns out movie after movie after movie, year after year, an old-time serial writ big.

I don't feel like that's a bad thing, or that it'd gut the 'heart' of Star Wars - it could, if poor decisions were made, but I think equally it could be the kind of setup where, yes, it's churning out sellable toys by the crateload, but it's also the nest where genuinely good Star Wars stories can hatch. So if it were me behind the big desk, I'd take that chance and try to make that work.

Disney started out on decent footing, their first offerings of New Canon books and comics were decent, Rogue One was a fun war story with good action beats, and TFA, while having a lukewarm plot, promised some interesting mysteries for future movies to delve into.

Then TLJ happened, and it's been a clusterf**k of poor storytelling decisions, insane merchandising decisions, Psychotic PR, and one Spin Doctored piece of nonsense after the other. The final Season of Rebels was a crash and burn, Toy sales are down, lets not beat a dead horse talking about the game scene, and books and comics are failing hard as well.

The reason Disney is failing is the same reason Star Trek: Beyond, which I think was the best of the Reboot movies, failed. It's just being seen as having gotten too far away from the spirit that made fans of the franchise to begin with. And the prior two films failed to bring in enough new blood for the third one to have any kind of ongoing success without the traditionals.

This is not unexpected, and, like new Star Trek, it's a sign that the old school fandom, those of us who have been fans since before Disney tried twisting the franchise into something else entirely, hold the power in this scenario. It's sad that the only way to get Disney to listen was by withdrawing our support, hopefully in the weeks ahead we can see new projects that will bring their customers back on board. I may think Disney screwed the pooch, but I'd rather see them turn things around rather than see the franchise fade away entirely.

MyUserName wrote: ↑Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:48 am The reason Disney is failing is the same reason Star Trek: Beyond, which I think was the best of the Reboot movies, failed. It's just being seen as having gotten too far away from the spirit that made fans of the franchise to begin with. And the prior two films failed to bring in enough new blood for the third one to have any kind of ongoing success without the traditionals.

This is not unexpected, and, like new Star Trek, it's a sign that the old school fandom, those of us who have been fans since before Disney tried twisting the franchise into something else entirely, hold the power in this scenario. It's sad that the only way to get Disney to listen was by withdrawing our support, hopefully in the weeks ahead we can see new projects that will bring their customers back on board. I may think Disney screwed the pooch, but I'd rather see them turn things around rather than see the franchise fade away entirely.

It's hard to say. Companies often seem to take away the wrong message when something like this happens. Beyond didn't fail because it was bad, it failed because the previous two films disappointed people enough that the audience didn't care for the third, even though it was a substantial departure from the first two. But the take-away appears to be to double-back on the franchise instead of trying to improve on Beyond and attempt to win back an audience.

So the question for Disney is whether they'll attribute Solo's poor performance on itself, or on the heavily-mixed reaction to TLJ. I haven't seen Solo yet (given TLJ combined with my lack of desire to see Han's backstory) so I can't say myself if I think it was better than the box office indicates. All I know is that the studios seem to have trouble reading their audiences. Presumably this is what their marketing firms are for, and I suppose they get it right more often than not, but when they get it wrong... they really seem to get it wrong.

MyUserName wrote: ↑Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:48 am Disney started out on decent footing, their first offerings of New Canon books and comics were decent, Rogue One was a fun war story with good action beats, and TFA, while having a lukewarm plot, promised some interesting mysteries for future movies to delve into.

Then TLJ happened, and it's been a clusterf**k of poor storytelling decisions, insane merchandising decisions, Psychotic PR, and one Spin Doctored piece of nonsense after the other. The final Season of Rebels was a crash and burn, Toy sales are down, lets not beat a dead horse talking about the game scene, and books and comics are failing hard as well.

The reason Disney is failing is the same reason Star Trek: Beyond, which I think was the best of the Reboot movies, failed. It's just being seen as having gotten too far away from the spirit that made fans of the franchise to begin with. And the prior two films failed to bring in enough new blood for the third one to have any kind of ongoing success without the traditionals.

This is not unexpected, and, like new Star Trek, it's a sign that the old school fandom, those of us who have been fans since before Disney tried twisting the franchise into something else entirely, hold the power in this scenario. It's sad that the only way to get Disney to listen was by withdrawing our support, hopefully in the weeks ahead we can see new projects that will bring their customers back on board. I may think Disney screwed the pooch, but I'd rather see them turn things around rather than see the franchise fade away entirely.

Beyond is just as Treky as the 2 Kelvinverse movies before it.

I think that Star Wars movies should be special events, with one trilogy divided by every 10 to 20 years and three to five years between each part of said trilogy to make sure the story is as good as it can be instead of rushing each one out the door before they could have a chance to properly cook. Case in point The Last Jedi, which is the most polarizing film in the series to date, was apparently written in a year and made the following year wand Johnson was still writing it the plot out while he was making the film.

I say apparently cause I couldn't find the site where I heard that and I might be misremembering what was actually said. However, on TV Tropes Trivia page for Last Johnson did say that there was no planned revolutions to any of the questions The Force Awakens raised so he had to create answer to questions the first filmed raised which is should have been a red flag for anyone working on these films and doesn't fill me with much confidence as JJ Abrams now as to resolve questions that Last already addressed and resolved.

Namely Rey's purpose, Kylo Ren's redemption or damnation, Finn and Poe's roles in the Rebellion, and the fate of the First Order and the Resistance. So just to recap the first story was all set up with no planned pay off, the second story answers all your questions to the first film and the third film is going to try and be the conclusion to the whole series even though most of the issues for the Prequels and the Original Trilogy have already be resolved and undone by the current Trilogy. And Episode 9 will apparently have the most characters in any Star Wars movie... Why?

Since we already have at least one thread full of people addressing disappointment or satisfaction with The Last Jedi, I won't be addressing that film except very lightly.

Rogue One did OK at the box office, but not nearly as well as TFA and not quite as well as TLJ. Solo might have made a profit if they hadn't basically had to film the movie twice, but even then it wouldn't have been a big win. So there's financial reason for them to not do the side stories, whether they're blaming oversaturation of Star Wars or have just decided that the audience wants more "epic" films. I don't trust my judgement on whether or not either cause would be valid, and I'll just leave that at that.

I'm pretty sure episode IX will be filmed. In fact, I haven't heard anything about Rian Johnson's upcoming trilogy being canceled, so I see no indications that the powers that be are blaming The Last Jedi. But I cannot discount that they are being coy about it for public relations.

I am surprised that Jon Favreau's live action series will continue on, but it's supposed to be a major anchor to Disney's planned streaming service.

At current numbers, Solo would have only broken even if it had been a less that $100 million dollar movie with a more conservative advertising campaign. Hollywood accounting tries to obfuscate things as much as possible which makes box office numbers a guessing game and Disney isn't going to be sending out any signals that might worry investors. Especially when they're working on their ultimate monopoly of everything buyout of Fox.

Solo's losses could be far higher.

Studios don't make movies to break even though. They make movies to make fistfuls of cold, hard cash.

Further to that, the Star Wars business plan has been to use the movies to sell toys. If the movie doesn't do well and the toy sales bomb when you've got warehouses full of merchandise you thought you could shift, you have a far bigger problem.

MyUserName did bring up a good point though. Star Wars drop-off is similar to the situation with Into Darkness leading into Beyond. Into Darkness was a confusing mess of rehashed ideas from Wrath of Khan, it did a fair box office but despite Beyond being a much better received movie numbers dropped sharply.