clearspira wrote: ↑Tue Aug 07, 2018 11:40 pm
Let me introduce you to something here my friends: they are called ''the Chinese sales'' and how TLJ was down by 92% in its SECOND week. ''Oh, who cares about the Chinese sales?'' I hear someone cry. Because the Chinese market is now the second largest market in the world, not only capable of doubling the revenue for a film, but is actually factored into modern Hollywood budgets. The producers expect to make half of it up in the US and half of it up in China. The Chinese LOVE American films. The MCU is absolutely blowing them away. And yet, they turned their noses up at Star Wars.
If you want to know if a blockbuster Hollywood film is a critical flop, look at the Chinese sales. ''Yeah, well, so what? It still made a billion dollars, everything is doing great.'' In the short term, yes. But critical acclaim is what determines long term sales and continued brand viability - and that is in the toilet. You honestly think that Disney has put a hold on the planned next trilogy for no reason? That the Solo sequel is on hold for no reason? That the planned Obi-Wan Kenobi film is now in doubt for no reason? That Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson nearly lost their jobs for no reason? No. It is because that Disney knows full well what I am talking about and they are worried.
(Heck, I might as well throw in their falling toy sales while I am at it despite the MCU toy sales doing great).
These are all excuses distracting from fron the yopic of the film. Chins has never latched onto Star Wars, why? Who knows? The film was the highesy grosding of the year regardless. Toy sales are down? Kost of the toy industry is struggling outside a few exceptions?
Because this can't be a film discussion anymore, it must be a propaganda war. I've seen entire videos trying to spin doctor the films earning and trying it make out it was some great financial failure all because they can't live in a reality where a movie they didn't like made money.
Donnie Yen explained it in a recent interview. The summarized version of is it Star Wars is close enough to Chinese mythology that it doesn't come off as particularly innovative the way it does in the west and that it wasn't a cultural phenomenon like it was in the 80s to 90s so the cultural power it has in the West doesn't exist there.
Whereas, ironically, Warcraft and LOTOR is exotic and weird.
Because this can't be a film discussion anymore, it must be a propaganda war. I've seen entire videos trying to spin doctor the films earning and trying it make out it was some great financial failure all because they can't live in a reality where a movie they didn't like made money.
This is something that really is pissing me off about discussing Star Wars, it's not enough to dislike a film and leave it at that. The film must be a failure, it must ruin your childhood, videos must be made detailing all its flaws, the cast and director must be harassed.
CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:15 am
Donnie Yen explained it in a recent interview. The summarized version of is it Star Wars is close enough to Chinese mythology that it doesn't come off as particularly innovative the way it does in the west and that it wasn't a cultural phenomenon like it was in the 80s to 90s so the cultural power it has in the West doesn't exist there.
Whereas, ironically, Warcraft and LOTOR is exotic and weird.
Maybe the weak returns on Solo were a referendum on TLJ, I don't know. I suspect if there's weak returns on Episode IX, that WILL be a reflection on the audience's reaction to TLJ, but we're a year and a half from that, so I'll just stick a pin in it.
Here's where TLJ fails, though: They give you absolutely nothing to attach yourself to.
We're two movies in and I really don't get what Rey is as a character. The only real character trait is that she's got some parental abandonment issues. This would have been GREAT if Luke actually acted as a mentor to her and let her get attached to him, so that we could have a relationship to follow where Luke becomes essentially a surrogate father to her. Then you could write a story where she's so desperately latching on to anything she can call a family in order to fill that void in her life and her actions are informed by that. Perhaps Luke is in really bad shape, nursing an old injury, but he insists on returning to the fight, and Rey, desperate to hang onto the one parental figure in her life, tries to stop him?
But no, Luke is very disinterested in teaching her, and the film puts VERY little focus onto their interactions, and what we do get are filled with dumb gags that ruin the impact. And also, she was there, what, 2 days, and then Yoda tells us that she already learned everything she needed.
Other than that, I have zero idea what drives or informs Rey as a character. Luke was much easier to get-he yearns for a bit of adventure and excitement, he's naive, and to some extent, he's trying to fill the shoes of his mentor. He's also trying to impress the girl in a naively boyish fashion, but he doesn't do so in an overtly harmful way.
Luke would have been a great way to let the audience attach themselves to an element of the film, but he's almost unrecognizable. I'm fine with the fact that time passes, but this is the man who refused to give up on his father, who was the greatest mass murderer in the history of the galaxy, but he entertained the idea of killing his nephew in his sleep when he hadn't even done one evil deed! Sure, time passes, but that's a very extreme divergence from the established character and we haven't seen any of the events that might have changed him over time. If you want him to be different, you need to start him off as behaving similarly, and then ease the audience into the fact that he's not the same man he used to be. Instead, from the get-go, they refuse to treat him like a serious character as he throws the lightsaber over his shoulder in a gag! Why should I get attached to any character when they're going to behave so nonsensically?
Then there's Admiral Holdo. She's gotten a lot of flak because there's a small segment of fans who are trolling and complaining about her being a woman, which has another crowd thinking every criticism of her is from the far-right hate crowd. She's full of major issues.
1) She's not Admiral Ackbar, who was beloved and iconic, and oh, this movie tells you not to care about it because he died off screen and there's only one throwaway line about it. Okay, fine, the fact that they killed off Ackbar off screen isn't necessarily the fault of this character. I'm fine with introducing a new character in a leadership position, but the dismissive way they dealt with a fan favorite lends itself to the great point of "don't bother getting attached to anything."
2) She's a fucking authoritarian. She has nothing to offer other than, "I'm right because I'm in charge" And guess what? She's proven right in the end, but it runs counter to every individualistic instinct I have. I will follow someone else's lead as long as they do something to demonstrate their competence or at least give me some confidence that they know what they're doing. That's exactly what Poe is asking for-he essentially says he'll support her as long as she gives him one little hint that she has some idea what she's doing. Instead, she says, "Shut up, I'm in charge." Given how much disdain Hollywood has for our current commander-in-chief, I don't know why they went that direction.
3) She's got almost no personality, but I'm supposed to be sad about the fact that she died. The only thing saving this character is the fact that Laura Dern lifts up the performance. If you look at just the "written" elements of her character, she's dry and dusty. If you need to have a heroic sacrifice, it should come from a character we've had a chance to get attached to. They instead did this the opposite way: We're supposed to be attached to the character BECAUSE she heroically sacrificed herself. That's not how it works.
bronnt wrote: ↑Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:44 amThen there's Admiral Holdo. She's gotten a lot of flak because there's a small segment of fans who are trolling and complaining about her being a woman, which has another crowd thinking every criticism of her is from the far-right hate crowd. She's full of major issues.
1) She's not Admiral Ackbar, who was beloved and iconic, and oh, this movie tells you not to care about it because he died off screen and there's only one throwaway line about it. Okay, fine, the fact that they killed off Ackbar off screen isn't necessarily the fault of this character. I'm fine with introducing a new character in a leadership position, but the dismissive way they dealt with a fan favorite lends itself to the great point of "don't bother getting attached to anything."
2) She's a fucking authoritarian. She has nothing to offer other than, "I'm right because I'm in charge" And guess what? She's proven right in the end, but it runs counter to every individualistic instinct I have. I will follow someone else's lead as long as they do something to demonstrate their competence or at least give me some confidence that they know what they're doing. That's exactly what Poe is asking for-he essentially says he'll support her as long as she gives him one little hint that she has some idea what she's doing. Instead, she says, "Shut up, I'm in charge." Given how much disdain Hollywood has for our current commander-in-chief, I don't know why they went that direction.
3) She's got almost no personality, but I'm supposed to be sad about the fact that she died. The only thing saving this character is the fact that Laura Dern lifts up the performance. If you look at just the "written" elements of her character, she's dry and dusty. If you need to have a heroic sacrifice, it should come from a character we've had a chance to get attached to. They instead did this the opposite way: We're supposed to be attached to the character BECAUSE she heroically sacrificed herself. That's not how it works.
I agree with most of your post, but point 2 here bears some more debate.
Holdo, when Leia got spaced, had two options. She could be Picard, or be Jellico. Being Picard means "I want suggestions, you're all the best in the galaxy so let's hear options and I'll pick the best one" and then she can just go ahead with her plan anyway and call it a fusion. Being Jellico means "I'm in charge, shut up," and then if anyone protests their ass goes in the brig, hero who just took out the Death Star 3 or not.
Instead, she goes up there out of uniform, initiates Operation Hard-Ass then fails to stick the landing, coming off more as a soccer mom telling off a kid than a military leader. She insulted the profession, competence, loyalty, and intelligence of a man who she openly states is a cocky, reckless free spirit with a penchant for stupid crazy plans--then walked away. No brig, no guards, she just pissed in everything he holds most dear and cut him loose.
After that, is anyone really surprised that he went ahead with the stupid plan and then fucked her over?
Christ, I have no idea how this movie was written, there are just so many basic fucking problems with it.
I have the opposite view on Holdo but I view it in the larger sense of Poe is a traitor.
Poe acts like he's second in command of the Resistance but he's been demoted because he didn't answer to LEIA. Yes, I'm entirely okay with roguish heroes who don't play by the rules. However, that runs into a brick wall like the Coyote chasing the Roadrunner into a painted tunnel when it's the most beloved heroine in sci-fi history (rivaled only by Ripley). Poe disobeyed Leia, got hundreds of Resistance soldiers killed for a meaningless victory, and then demanded to know classified information.
He's...been...demoted.
And never acts like it.
Trusting in Holdo is not trusting in Holdo, it's trusting in LEIA. Which Poe doesn't and he has nothing but my contempt and disdain for that.
Because this can't be a film discussion anymore, it must be a propaganda war. I've seen entire videos trying to spin doctor the films earning and trying it make out it was some great financial failure all because they can't live in a reality where a movie they didn't like made money.
This is something that really is pissing me off about discussing Star Wars, it's not enough to dislike a film and leave it at that. The film must be a failure, it must ruin your childhood, videos must be made detailing all its flaws, the cast and director must be harassed.
It's the nonsensical idea that opinions need to be validated somehow. This also happened with discussions around Mark Hamill and whether he did or did not like the film. Why on earth should this matter to our views on the film?
While the Trek fan base is split over Discovery, it is comparatively handling itself far better. No videos attacking other fans for the 'wrong' opinion, no channels dedicated to deconstructing every lityle petty thing they hate about it.
MrL1992 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 08, 2018 9:17 am
While the Trek fan base is split over Discovery, it is comparatively handling itself far better. No videos attacking other fans for the 'wrong' opinion, no channels dedicated to deconstructing every little petty thing they hate about it.
It's faint praise, though. I suspect part of the problem with Star Trek is that fanbase has been split so many times that this is just the latest thing. I'd guess that Star Wars is mostly OT versus PT groups, at least until this new set of films came around. Star Trek has TOS purists, anti-DS9ers, anti-Voyagers, anti-Enterprisers, anti-JJers... So if you want to make a huge rant about Discovery, which subset of Trek fans is your audience? Anyway, I'm fairly certain those videos exist, but I have no desire to seek them out.
I could be wrong about that. It's also still not "cool" to be a fan of Trek like it is for Star Wars, so that surely changes the metrics too. For good or ill, Star Wars is mainstream now in ways that even the astounding success of the OT didn't facilitate.
Because this can't be a film discussion anymore, it must be a propaganda war. I've seen entire videos trying to spin doctor the films earning and trying it make out it was some great financial failure all because they can't live in a reality where a movie they didn't like made money.
This is something that really is pissing me off about discussing Star Wars, it's not enough to dislike a film and leave it at that. The film must be a failure, it must ruin your childhood, videos must be made detailing all its flaws, the cast and director must be harassed.
It's the nonsensical idea that opinions need to be validated somehow. This also happened with discussions around Mark Hamill and whether he did or did not like the film. Why on earth should this matter to our views on the film?
While the Trek fan base is split over Discovery, it is comparatively handling itself far better. No videos attacking other fans for the 'wrong' opinion, no channels dedicated to deconstructing every lityle petty thing they hate about it.
They are glad just to have Trek on the screen. Star Wars is the King of brands.
