Is Disney's Star Wars Franchise In Trouble? (cosmicbook.news) 548
Disney's Han Solo movie was the first Star Wars movie to lose money. But is there a larger problem? dryriver writes:
Comic book news website Cosmic Book News reports that even though Disney put bucketloads of Star Wars out there in 2018, revenues from all things Star Wars have actually fallen, according to Disney SEC filings. Disney made more Star Wars money in 2017 -- when only Rogue One hit cinemas -- than in 2018, when Solo, Last Jedi and SW Battlefront 2 were released.
A Rian Johnson-led Star Wars trilogy appears to have been delayed or cancelled entirely. Rumored spinoff movies for Bobba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi appear to have been put on the backburner or cancelled. Disney's CEO has confirmed that the Star Wars movies are being slowed down.
A Rian Johnson-led Star Wars trilogy appears to have been delayed or cancelled entirely. Rumored spinoff movies for Bobba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi appear to have been put on the backburner or cancelled. Disney's CEO has confirmed that the Star Wars movies are being slowed down.
It's the SEGA effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Release too many things, too quickly, without enough time between your releases, and people get tired of it and lose interest.
Re:It's the SEGA effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney tried to copy Marvel's success a bit too much and it bit them. However, I'd argue the enormous decline in quality to be at least as responsible as the rapid release schedule.
Perhaps the two are related? With a bit more time between releases, TLJ's script might've gotten in front of more people and given them more chances to tell Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy they were supposed to be making a Star Wars movie instead of contemporary political commentary. Lord knows Mark Hamill did everything he could to tell them it was dreck.
The state of the MCU vs other series (Score:3)
And in other film series you Universal's 'Dark Universe'.
They have published 1 okay movie and one terrible movie since 2014. In the same span MARVEL spat out 12 unique movies thats good.
In these movies, each scene thats a part of the 'larger narrative' is mostly terrible scenes which end up ruining the pacing of the movie. Instead of a exciting movie, the possibility of exciting scenes are 'delayed to the next movie' which never comes or delivers on its promise.
So what is going on the MARVEL side of the fen
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People complain about "superhero fatigue" but yet Marvel is STILL laughing all the way to the bank.
The surplus Quantity ISN'T the problem.
The lack of Quality IS.
Usually when Quanity goes up Quality goes down. It takes time to craft something that will be popular.
Disney lacks a Kevin Feige -- a fan who grew up with the lore, is passionate, and understands what sells and what doesn't. DC's Extended Universe has the same problems.
And while we can complain about Marvel movies being 99% formulaic they sell.
Pro:
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Except that doesn't explain why even the tertiary-level MCU films continue to get #300+million every time. They're doing 2-3 a year and seeing no let-up in the audience at all.
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Eh I'm not so sure high release frequency is the problem, it's that the quality of the movie, story and character development are lacking, IMO.
Those generally go hand in hand. Netflix is starting to really suffer from this too.
Re: It's the SEGA effect (Score:3, Insightful)
The other AC mentioned that they do generally go hand in hand. But it's not a given. Which is true.
The problem is, ultimately it feels like none of it matters.
Take the Marvel movies where one of the 'rules' is "it's all connected" and it feels like it's all planned. Now it may not all really be connected or all really be planned. But it feels enough that way to keep people engaged.
Take Solo for instance. When they brought Darth Maul on screen my thought was 'Who the fuck cares? It means nothing anyway
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No surprise here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No surprise here (Score:5, Interesting)
Did anyone NOT think Disney would muck up the Star Wars franchise? They made a huge investment and wanted to score big, fast. They got a little slapdash about the whole thing and didn't put in the care and love required.
Disney is not a good company. They are to good movies what Monstanto is to good food.
Re:No surprise here (Score:4, Funny)
1 good movie, 2 mediocre movies, 2 mediocre TV shows, and 1 more or less bad movie
Which one is the good movie?
Re:No surprise here (Score:4, Informative)
Rogue One
Really shouldn't blame Solo (Score:3)
I think it wrongfully took the heat and backlash for the wretched Last Jedi. Last Jedi was pretty wretched and I thought Solo superior.
Re:Really shouldn't blame Solo (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't bother with Solo. Partly because of TLJ. But also partly because I had just seen a Star Wars movie and there was no anticipation or build up to wait for it. No anticipation means no drive to go. The mindset is that there's always a current Star Wars movie and it doesn't matter.
Re:Really shouldn't blame Solo (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't bother with Solo. Partly because of TLJ. But also partly because I had just seen a Star Wars movie and there was no anticipation or build up to wait for it.
Well, you can stream Solo now, and I can tell you that it's a drastically better movie than TLJ. I couldn't finish TLJ even by gaming while it was on, but I sat and actually watched Solo. I couldn't finish Episode IX either. I was so disgusted by the battle scene that I walked away. I don't go to theaters any more (just got tired of the whole hassle and expense, and I make better popcorn than they do) and the last SW movie I saw in the theater was probably TPM, which was definitely the right way to see that stinker (for the pod race.)
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Yeah, that might be worth it. I forgot the Disney/Netflix deal hasn't expired yet. Probably a lot I should get to (Is Coco any good?).
Episode IX is not for another 11 months, so maybe the fact that it's not finished kept you from wanting to watch more.
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Episode IX is not for another 11 months, so maybe the fact that it's not finished kept you from wanting to watch more.
VIII then. I skipped VII...
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> Is Coco any good?
It has your typical run-of-the-mill idiotic plot holes but just turn your brain off and enjoy the beautiful CG eye candy.
I'm a sucker for Pixar/Dreamworks CG/CGI so I'll probably end up buying it on BluRay but honesty even as a Pixar fan it was only OK; I'd rate Coco 6/10.
The Good Dinosaur is even worse, 5/10, but again I loved the CG vistas. Everything else was pretty meh or bad.
It's sad then we have have to settle for just Form when Function has become bad in CG anime movies. :-/ May
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I think Solo would have been accepted more if in fact it wasn't a Star Wars movie.
I feel the same for Hellraiser: Judgement. If they would have made it a generic horror movie it would have been better received.
Re:Really shouldn't blame Solo (Score:4, Insightful)
Solo had nigh-impossible shoes to fill. Han Solo is one of the most iconic characters in cinema. Unless they could grow a younger clone of Harrison Ford and have him star in it, there's virtually no actor in existence who could satisfy fan expectations. Disney unwisely took a huge risk in even trying.
A much better idea would've been something more like Rogue One, focusing on less well known characters who inhabited the same universe and were integral to the plots of the original trilogy. Alas, Hollywood is bereft of original ideas these days. They think the "safe bets" are reboots, retreads, and re-use of classic cinema. Personally I'm glad Solo flopped. Maybe it'll force Hollywood to come up with something at least partially original for a change.
Weird, I actually liked Solo (Score:5, Insightful)
Solo was no Episode IV or V but it was easily of the same quality as VI, and IMO, far more enjoyable than literally any of the other films.
I think Star Wars was a product of its time, and what made it great was the lack of competition. These days, eye-popping special effects are a dime a dozen, and audiences are used to aliens and blasters. It had nowhere to go but down.
It definitely can't help that the Star Wars video games are there to sell microtransactions these days, either. Over half the American public plays video games, don't tell me it doesn't matter.
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Very much this. Out of all of the newer SW films, I've liked Solo and Rogue One the best.
The problem is that Last Jedi sucked - it was a mess of a movie that insulted fans ("hey, here's an opportunity to end the Leia character in a reasonable way, an especially good idea now that the actress for that character is dead. Ooh, instead, let's throw in some quasi-divine intervention and then have her fly back, Mary Poppins style! Yeah!!"), and so IMO was on the receiving end of a lot of blowback from that. Had S
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Of course. In 1977, Star Wars was a stunning breakthrough, with "2001"-level special effects and a moderately entertaining (and utterly predictable and unoriginal) story. The stories are still numbingly predictable, and the effects are no better than you can get on TV for free every night. And you can never been the memories of a bunch of middle-aged men who saw Star Wars when they were 12.
Here's an observation - from a story standpoint, the prequels, and particularly Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith, wer
Yes, agree... (Score:2)
There's just too much Star Wars crap being put out.
That's what I think as well. I think a Star Wars movie of some kind about every two years is about right... much more than that and you start burning people out.
I also liked Solo quite a bit and thought it was a shame that it seemed to be the movie that made them pull back so heavily, when really Last Jedi should have been the movie to cause them to re-think things...
I still look forward to the third movie though just for closure. But I'm glad it's not c
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To each his own I guess, but when was the last time you looked at the unedited, unretouched originals?
The work is impressive for its time, and some things still look great, but there's also quite a bit that now looks kinda shoddy by today's standards (like when you can see the matting around ships in space or when a creature looks little better than a mid-range Halloween costume).
I think it comes down to one thing.... (Score:5, Interesting)
STORY. Star Wars in the 1970s had a fantastic story arch. The current batch of Star Wars movie (sans Rogue One, and Solo) have had no heart and soul. Only a bunch of special effects that are unimportant if the story is good.
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They are no longer about story-telling. There's a lot of speculation out there about what exactly it is that is being prioritized over the writing, but what matters is really only that the writing isn't the priority. Whether it's showing off a special effect, creating an (supposedly) interesting confluence of elements of the Star Wars universe, or extreme political statements, if there is no story going on then the audience has no motivation to engage with the product.
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STORY. Star Wars in the 1970s had a fantastic story arch. The current batch of Star Wars movie (sans Rogue One, and Solo) have had no heart and soul.
Yep, the last good SW story told was in KOTOR. Solo wasn't a horrible movie, though, which is an improvement over the other recent films (or really, everything since Episode VI.)
Re:I think it comes down to one thing.... (Score:4)
I disagree. (With what will likely be a very unpopular disagreement.)
I think the story was always bad, from the start. What made it tolerable was that when it was released, the special effects were groundbreaking. We all ignored the gaping plot holes, terrible characters, and overall lack of coherency because it was flashy and it was fun.
We got dropped into IV with pretty much zero backstory for any character. We're vaguely introduced to different planets, yet there's not even a discussion of where they are. There are no maps to tell you what else is on any given planet. We literally get 1-3 scenes on a given planet, then it's off to the next one.
I can't think of any other fantasy movies that have gotten away with forgoing any coherent description of the universe or world that the story happens in. At the start, there wasn't even a source novel to help fill in the gaps! The characters' motivations are never, ever coherently explained. Giant questions like: Given the size of your average galaxy, and given the near uncountable number of planets in any given one, how, exactly does the Empire control one? And what does that control look like? What, exactly, are they controlling? Trade? Planetary governments? Why? (Controlling the flow of spice at least makes some sense, e.g.)
When 1-3 came out, they utterly undermined the plot and characters of 4-6. Obi Wan is revealed to be a sick, twisted bastard, and Darth Vader has a really good reason for being pretty pissy. The bots' selective memory-wipe of everything that happened in 1-3 isn't explained there or in 4-6, which makes their actions in 4-6 rather inexplicable.
The CGI of 1-3 wasn't that good, and once we hit 7+ that level of effects was commonplace. It was at this time that the magic of special effects started to wear off. When your mind isn't blown by the special effects, the story and characters have to make up for it. (See the Princess Bride, e.g.) And unfortunately, I don't think they ever did throughout the entirety of the series.
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I can't think of any other fantasy movies that have gotten away with forgoing any coherent description of the universe or world that the story happens in.
I can't either, unless you include animated films. Then, it's most of them. The tendency is especially prevalent in anime, where it's actively unusual to explain the back story before just pitching right in. Perhaps that tradition stems from presumed familiarity with characters from manga, but it seems like there's usually no back story given. It's just sink or swim, which is something that I find entertaining.
To be fair it copied it (Score:2)
The reports of it's death are greatly exaggerated.
I never understood (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I never understood (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to sound too inappropriate...
But I think after we see what they do with Leia in the next movie we're going to wish she would have stayed in space.
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Um...yeah.
4-5-6 . 1-2-3, and now 7-8 (The Last Jedi) -9.
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That scene was possibly the worst scene I have seen in any movie, ever.
Finally, something we agree on. How do you feel about the lava battle in Episode III?
Re:I never understood (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, something we agree on. How do you feel about the lava battle in Episode III?
Still a better love story than Twilight.
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How do you feel about the lava battle in Episode III?
I try but I can't get past the atmosphere having zero oxygen and being at a temperature of many hundreds of degrees.
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I try but I can't get past the atmosphere having zero oxygen and being at a temperature of many hundreds of degrees.
That's where I stopped watching.
Disney killed most of what it thouched (Score:5, Insightful)
How's this a surprise?
Disney is about making money, not about art or entertainment. Their primary focus is to turn a profit on the movie they are making. So, if cutting corners makes them more money, if not consulting with the creators of the franchise or taking their advice looks like it will produce more profit, they are going to do it.
But let's face it. The original Star Wars concept was at best 3 movies and it's been down hill since The Empire Strikes Back and we are waiting for installment 9? This franchise has been driven into the ground and milked for all it was worth and then some (pun intended). Few franchises last this long with Rocky and Star Trek being about all I remember.
Disney bought an old used up sports car, that had 200,000 miles, poor tires and a bad front end out of somebodies barn. I'm not surprised they are having difficulty making money on it's restoration. Such work is a labor of love, not profit, and Disney is about the latter. I'm thinking this franchise is about over.
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9 movies each?
James Bond, or more accurately the 007 franchise has 24 films. This franchise is wearing really thin as they are out of original Fleming stores to make films out of now.
Planet of the Apes has 5 in the original series and 3 remakes, for a total of 8, but really only 5 stories. But it's dead for now.
Star Trek was one of the "few" I had in mind, but those that use the original story line characters as part of the main plot are limited. If you include all the various TV series offshoots, they'
It was nearly dead when they bought it. (Score:2, Troll)
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When the 20th Century Fox rights revert, they can put out the complete, de-specialized trilogy on Blu-Ray. They'd make a fair bit of money on that.
No planning (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Disney acquired the rights to the greatest movie franchise of all time and flooded the market. On top of this, they decided to make the tentpole of their investment (the sequel trilogy) without even so much of a sketch of a story arc. (Marvel people must be stunned at their incompetence.) And instead of sourcing great material from a vast and wonderful expanded universe to make the best proper sequel trilogy possible, they decided to make everything up as they go film-by-film, giving too much liberty to the creators. This ultimately resulted in Last Jedi. Just from a literary perspective, how did a script that broke the conventional trilogy story arc get greenlit? It's great, for example, when stories are successful with a non-conventional arc but those are the exception, and the "rule" exists for a reason. You don't bet the farm by taking a risk like that. But that's what Disney did.
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Unfortunately, the truth is the director of the Episode VII blockbuster DID have a three-movie plan, which Disney threw in the garbage and green-lit the Episode VIII they released. Only after it was DOA did they go out back and fish the plan out of the dumpster (where it was next to Bambi) and call their blockbuster guy back in to salvage their franchise from their own mistakes.
Screwed up Last Jedi. (Score:4, Interesting)
They seriously fucked Last Jedi for me, and technically them as well.
The scene where Leia and Poe were on that ship preparing to escape should have been totally different.
Considering the fact Carrie, you know, died, they should have reshot that scene to make Leia knock out the Admiral, put her on the ship, then had this back and fourth between Skywalker over the force about how she shouldn't do this, make it some really sad scene about the past and embracing the new generation, and she "needs to do this".
Then BOOM, ship obliterated, Skywalker fallen to his knees broken inside, and THAT is what eventually gets him involved with the battle.
Now they have to deal with doing the CG of a dead actress and voice. Great one, you morons.
Such a trivial thing to edit that one scene and it would have made the whole film even more impacting emotionally.
"b-b-but we have 2 other films with her involved!!!".
Do what any other company does, fucking adapt.
I'm not weirded out by the fact, I think it is amazing what we can do with CG now, but it was still the inferior story-line. They missed out big time.
I loved Solo (Score:2)
Re: I loved Solo (Score:2)
Beating a dead horse (Score:2)
The Lords Prayer (Score:2)
Disney corporate greed can f up The Lords Prayer
EA & Hyperdrive attack (Score:2)
So giving the games license to EA was a really stupid thing to do.
Another one was the hyperdrive suicide attack in TLJ. If you could do that, just stick a hyperdrive engine on an asteroid and chuck it at a starship, no fleet commander with a brain in their head would ever build a Star Destroyer or cruiser anymore, 'cause their enemies would just rip them apart from outside weapons range.
And since hyperdrive tech hasn't really changed since the days of The Old Republic... most Star Wars space combat hist
Sheldon almost solves the Forceback sequence (Score:2)
I scanned the thread as it exists so far, and there seems to be a correlation between SW movies in the Disney era: episodes that discerning viewers like lose money, while episodes that discerning viewers dislike make money.
80% of the available viewership wants a popcorn movie set in space. But you don't want too much immediate grumbling from the discerning crowd, as that might snowball into a social media buzzkill. So what the writers did was Sheldonize it: embed enough fetish lore to keep Sheldon & com
Last Star Wars Movie: Empire Wins (Score:2)
If you watch the Last Jedi and cheer for the bad guys, it's actually a really good movie.
But now I'm conflicted because the empire needs to win!
I hope the last Star Wars film ends up with most of the rebels getting killed or going into hiding.
That Chinese chick Rose that ruined TLJ is killed in some hilarious way.
Poe is offered to join the empire, and does. Becomes an elite soldier who hunts done rebel scum.
It would make up for an otherwise hilarious end to a ruined franchise.
Re:Solo was actually good (Score:5, Insightful)
Rogue One was better than any of the 3rd trilogy. First one was just a rehash, while the second was just trash.
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The Last Jedi has the lowest user score on Rotten Tomatoes (45%) of any major Star Wars film. It's lower even than the prequel films (59%, 56%, 65%, respectively), it's lower than the less-than-stellar Solo (64%), and it's certainly less than the decently well-regarded Rogue One (86%). If you want to pin Solo's failure on anything other than itself, pin it franchise fatigue (too many movies, too fast) and more specifically on The Last Jedi, which utterly failed to connect with audiences and was still fresh
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Donnie Yen? I thought he was a great addition to it. Then again, I was a fan of him in the Ip Man franchise before I went to see Rogue One, so I'll admit my perspective with regards to him is colored by past experience. Either way, however, he didn't play a significant role in Rogue One, so it seems odd that he'd be a reason to hate the movie, even if you did find him cringeworthy in it.
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You had me until you brought the SJW thing into it. The movie just sucked in it's own right not because you are threatened by women.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
Who fucking cares? Does having weak male characters threaten you some how?
Seriously, you mistake not likeing something with being threatened by it.
Kennedy and Johnson belittled and insulted anyone who dared to disagree with them.
Let's take a restaraunt for example. If you order a rare steak and it comes out well done, and you complain, so the manager comes out and calls you an asshole, upbraids you publicly, and if you don't like it you just aren't man enough to handle a well done steak - are you going to come back?
Unless you are a masochist - probably not.
Why don't you ask these presumably threatened males if they like the Alien Trilogy. Or if they like the early Terminator movies. TThere is a disconnect between how "strong women" were portrayed then, and the insecure vibe you get from present day movies, which has a strong undercurrent of misandry.
By the way - manshaming doesn't work any more.
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You don't need to be threatened by women to see forced decisions that make no fucking sense be put in for the sole purpose of "empowering women". Don't get me wrong it would still be a turd of a movie if it weren't for the SJW trend, but you turning a blind I to it (I refuse to think you're actually blind enough not to see the absurdity that came out of the shithouse attempt at making powerful and relevant female characters) is not helping the situation at all.
Now I'm going to bow out of this discussion lik
SJWism didn't kill The Last Jedi (Score:5, Informative)
No idea why they gave it to Johnson. Is he Hollywood Royalty or something? His filmography is sparse. I can't imagine him being handed the keys to the kingdom on one of the largest franchises ever with Looper under his belt and damn near nothing else.
It's pretty clear what happened to. They started doing the Solo kids story, Johnson decided he wanted it to be "his" thing and not just an existing story so he changed it all at the last moment and didn't have time to make it work with his limited skillset.
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No idea why they gave it to Johnson. Is he Hollywood Royalty or something? His filmography is sparse. I can't imagine him being handed the keys to the kingdom on one of the largest franchises ever with Looper under his belt and damn near nothing else.
This happens all of the time. The big name directors with a track record are smart enough to ask for a percentage (and off the gross, not the profits which Hollywood films mysteriously seem bad at making) which for something like Star Wars is going to be a lot (people forget that this movie that everyone seems to hate still made over a billion dollars in the box office alone) of money. Johnson was pretty well known for Looper (which was a decent movie in its own right) and had directed a few well received e
Maybe it did for you (Score:3)
Rey didn't make those actions scenes a confused, laughable mess where people throw out attacks for no good reason, Rian Johnson did. The same goes for making Luke a depressed, whinny old goat.
Of course they want the old fans. The movie is chock full of fan service, so much that it crowds out the story. Rey is trying so hard to be Luke and Luke to be Obi-wan. That's not virtue signalling, that's bad story telling.
SJWism is annoying, but it's
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to indicate he could be trusted with a by the book movie. He just doesn't have enough experience directing large projects. It's weird. Abrams I get. He had a ton of big, successful movies under his belt (that I hated, but that's just me).
Well I think my comment might have been more pithy than accurate :)
I think Abrams was the "big boxoffice" guy, and he's made good TV shows, the problem is when he's given franchises they tend to be fanboy movies, he doesn't bring any of his own vision.
I think Disney figured that out and Rian Johnson was supposed to be a more visionary director who could do something risky.
And that's what he did... the risk just didn't pan out. The ensemble didn't quite mesh and the character actions didn't quite make sense.
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That's exactly why it failed...
And a T posing Leia doing a Mary Poppins in space was the moment the franchise "jumped the shark".
The purple haired sjw preachy lesbian was completely unnecessary and made zero sense to the plot.
Leia should have went out piloting the ship that suicide bombed the fleet.
Beside that a slow speed chase over running out of gas also had zero place and made no sense in star wars lore.
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the gaping plot holes, illogical character actions, and inconsistency with decades of in-universe lore have something to do with it?
Just a thought.
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Have you watched Star Wars before? Terrible dialogue and so so acting with the good vs evil story line. Sure the original movies set the bar for special effects but that was it. The prequels were 100% garbage. I liked Rogue One though.
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The prequels were 100% garbage.
Nah, pod racing sounded awesome and produced a pretty fun video game (it was impressive on the N64, if not the PC.) Everything else was garbage, though. What percentage of the series was the pod race, and what percentage of the pod race do we have to subtract for child "acting"?
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you watched Star Wars before? Terrible dialogue and so so acting with the good vs evil story line.
None of that makes for a bad movie. Also none of that is listed in the GP's complaints.
Rogue One was passable but it suffered from incredibly weak writing and poor character development. The worse is Mary Sue ... err I mean Rei .... oh look, slip of the fingers but I made my point anyway.
I know someone who writes Starwars fan fiction and actually included a character named Mary Sue in his books that wasn't as much of a Mary Sue. Zero training, magical use of the force, able to hold her own against EmoVader, it was just lazy writing. The crappy dialogue can stay as it adds charm and character, but man the writers need to go back to highschool. They all would have failed grade 9 English class with this story.
Highly Forgettable (Score:3)
None of that makes for a bad movie.
How about being highly forgettable? The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. I did not hate the film I just found it so bland and generic that I can only vaguely remember what happened in it.
Re: Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
Luke faces Vader and gets his ass kicked despite some training from Yoda. Rei has no training in anything but can fly the Falcon without any pilot training, manages to escape captivity using the Force and easily beats a well-trained Force user despite never having wielded a lightsaber. But not a Mary Sue oh no.
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It's explicitly stated in the movie that Ray has experience as a pilot, as well as being a mechanic.
She doesn't beat Kylo Ren. No idea where you got that idea from. Kylo has been shot already by the time they clash, and he isn't even trying to kill or badly injure her. He wants her to join him, remember. She manages to fend off his attacks until the planet breaks under them and the fight comes to an end.
At least watch the movie first.
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She doesn't beat Kylo Ren.
Okay you clarified it for me. You're not dense or blind, but rather you haven't actually watched the movie.
She manages to fend off his attacks until the planet breaks under them
She fends of a very mobile and not the least bit injured Kylo attack for about 1 minute. Then Rei Mary Sues her way to becoming one with the force, goes on the offensive, injures Kylo, disarms him, and then cuts through a chunk of his shoulder. Kylo is saved by a Deus ex Machina (since we've already got a Mary Sue and a Mcguffin why not include more lazy writing right?) and spends the first part of the
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So you went to the bathroom during the where Kylo kills Han (spoiler alert) and then gets shot by Chewie? That's why he was holding his side and bleeding during the fight with Finn and then Ray.
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First thing she does is crash a ship into the ground and try to run away from the Force.
And then she pulls off some mid air stall that lines up the turret with a small fighter behind her before restarting the engines and blasting away with feet to spare in probably the most impressive piece of flying seen in any star wars film, in a ship she's never flown of a class she's never flown and then starts telling han solo later on how to fix the fucking thing. Yeah, real progression she shows. It takes luke a whole film and massive support network to get there. It takes Mary Rey 5 fucking minutes.
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So...you're saying that Rian Johnson killed Star Wars, because they were the one that went a head with pissing all over existing cannon, lore, and so-forth.
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So...you're saying that Rian Johnson killed Star Wars, because they were the one that went a head with pissing all over existing cannon, lore, and so-forth.
Pretty much. And the out of character Luke Skywalker - the most revered character in the whole series - was jarring.
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But if you see post that focus on the SJW aspect, you pretty much know that they just jumped on the bandwagon and don't really have a lot of points on their own. I think it really says a lot about the person's own preoccupation with gender bullshit.
To use an analogy: It's kind of like saying that midi-chlorians ruined the prequels.
Yes, it was a stupid idea. They should not have done
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Ask yourself this then. Did the SJW angle forced by Disney kill the possibility of a good story in the sequels? You know the answer is "yes". Just like the answer to the question "Did Lucas's obsession with irrelevant detail (of which the 'medichlorians' is the shining symbol) kill the possibility of having good prequels?" is also "yes".
And do you know what is the saddest part? That the image of the young Leia, leading a Rebellion while shaking her tits and looking like a heroine of a "next door neighbor" g
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:4, Interesting)
You can have a good story with strong female characters and weak male characters. It just has to be a good story with a solid plot.
Search your feelings. You will know it to be true.
Reductio ad SJW is about as good as an argument as claiming that men were responsible for all bad things that happened in history, because it was always men who were the leaders.
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You can have a good story with strong female characters and weak male characters. I
No, you cannot. For a story to be good, it needs characters that all can aspire to. We have plenty of "strong" female and "weak" male characters in the sequels. And you need no feeling search to know it is crap. Or that you're wrong.
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really, but Disney Pixar made it work somehow in their respective animated movies.
Have you seen Short Circuit or E.T?
How do they manage that? My hypothesis is that they probably know how to write characters and plots the audience can identify with no matter what the characters are specifically.
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I don't watch "animated movies", so I have nothing to say about them, but from what you say, they are not a story with strong female/weak male characters by producer request. I've seen E.T., though, and I definitely remember it NOT being "a good story with strong female characters and weak male characters". So maybe you really don't know what you're talking about.
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A strong female character can work. See Alien or Terminator. Weak male characters can work. Although here I can't name any specific movies, because most of them have proper character development.
In general all 'good' characters have both flaws/weaknesses and strengths. Sometimes there are no real strengths to begin with an
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Can you aspire to be a toy? A car? A robot? A feeling? Not really, but Disney Pixar made it work somehow in their respective animated movies. Have you seen Short Circuit or E.T? How do they manage that? My hypothesis is that they probably know how to write characters and plots the audience can identify with no matter what the characters are specifically.
But they couldn't have the line "Mmmm, nice software, Stephanie!" in a movie today. Well, maybe if it was a female robot walking in on Sheedy in the bath.
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You can have a good story with strong female characters and weak male characters. I
No, you cannot. For a story to be good, it needs characters that all can aspire to. We have plenty of "strong" female and "weak" male characters in the sequels. And you need no feeling search to know it is crap. Or that you're wrong.
SJWars is simply taking the Television model of the Stupid Dumpy Husband and the Hot Smart Wife and tried to apply it to movies, only substituting not so hot women.
You simply cannot win with the people they are trying to appeal to. Remember what should have been the ultimate strong female movie, Wonder Woman, they enraged the easily offended set because Gadot didn't have armpit hair, and that since she came from a female only culture, she was raped because she couldn't really give consent.
Re: Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:3)
Win is a clever computer tech. The Martian Manhunter can handle his own, and has his own story arc.
Jimmy Olsen works because his narrative is a deconstruction of the very notion that male characters have to be weak and attracted to the female lead. He plays into the trope, and fights against it.
Finn deserves to be a character equal to Rey, like Han Solo to Luke. We're just used to Di
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Finn was the one character I liked in TFA.
He had a dramatic past. He was part of 'the bad guys'. He didn't like it there. He did something on his own to change things and got out. He joined the resistance. And he kept fighting until he was wounded critically (?).
That is a pretty solid character development that made Finn i
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Midichlorians upset quite a lot of the fan base, but that was based on canon of a fantasy setting.
The Identity Politics card that's been played (very prominently) is all about being patronising to a whole segment of the fan base in the real world.
Again, it's pretty much what Gillette have done with their recent advertisement. The vast majority of people who this is 'targetted' at already know the 'message', and already live their lives in such a fashion as to render it irrelevant to say it. It's like havin
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You mean the plot holes and illogical character actions that have been there since the original trilogy? Or perhaps you mean the "in-universe lore" that Lucas himself publicly stated that while he liked some of it and found it interesting, he nevertheless reserved the right to contradict any time he liked?
What long-running franchise does NOT have plot holes and illogical character actions? I won't hold my breath waiting for you to come up with one.
And as for "in-universe lore" that was always one of the m
Re: Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd argue that Luke's characterization make perfect sense; from a certain point of view.
Look what happens to him:
Ep 4: ... a couple of days?
He starts out as the idealist with lots of faith, sure. Then, one day, with no expectation it's be any different than any other; his surrogate parents are murdered. He sees their bodies freshly dead and realizes it was only dumb luck that he wasn't there and killed too. So he latches onto an alternate father figure who converts him to a new religion and lead him off to save the princess. Next thing you know, he's flying into the scene of the mass-murder of several billion people. He rescues the princess, sure, but then he sees his new farther figure murdered right before his eyes. He then joins the war and fires the shot that destroys the Death Star; and incidentally kills its crew of several million. That's a LOT of death to see and cause over the course of... what?
Ep 5:
He's been running for his life for a few years from Vader and the empire. He gets into a love triangle between Han and (unknown to him yet) his sister. He almost dies, sees the ghost of his father figure, sees many rebels slaughtered by Vader's forces, and takes off to meet Yoda. Yoda continues Luke's indoctrination into the Jedi religion, scares the living bejeezus out of him at the tree, shows him that his friends are in deadly peril, and tries to prevent him from going to help them. He goes anyway, is totally ineffectual, and gets his ass kicked and hand cut off by Vader. Then he finds out that Vader, who is basically space Hitler, is actually his father. Luke attempts suicide and only survives through stupid luck.
Ep 6:
Luke rescues his friends. Great. But he's already using dark side powers to do it as he romps around force-choking guards. He also personally racks up a fair body count in the process. Then he goes back to Dagobah, sees his THIRD father figure die, and finds out from FF#2's ghost that the girl he's been lusting after, and sometimes making out with, all this time is actually his sister. He endangers his friends by going with them to Endor and lets himself get captured. Palpatine torments him psychologically, has DS2 start blowing the rebel fleet into atoms, and lets him know that his friends on Endor are doomed. Luke snaps to the dark, tried to kill Palpatine, and then goes dark with anger again when his dad threatens his sister. He nearly kills his own father, is then saved by him, and then watches dad die anyway. He escapes the Death Star, with millions more deaths (Imperials plus civilian construction workers.) in his wake.
At this point alone, Luke should, by all rights, be a barely-functional quivering mass of PTSD, survivor's guilt, brain injury (Near-electrocution isn't good for you. One of the SW novels actually brought this up.), depression, and who knows what else. He wouldn't just be seeing a therapist at this point. He'd be making a whole team of psychologists and psychiatrists rich for life. And he's not the only one. Leia should be in nearly as dire straits. And the rest of the heroes hardly got off lighten the psychological trauma department. But Luke also has the pressure and burden of being the one tasked with (and the only one who can) rebuilding the Jedi order.
He would have been barely hanging-on when he did go out to train more Jedi. And, setting aside whether the details of the Luke/Ben/Kylo bit were well thought-out; he did fail and many of his students did die. That failure pushed him over the edge; so he took off to the island of the Jedi, quit using the force (ie. abandons his religion) intending never to return and to die there. For all intents and purposes, he attempts suicide a second time here. He's out there, living like a hermit for years, maybe a decade or more. That sort of solitude erodes the social graces, part of which is the concern for others.
Personally? Considering what he's been though, I'd cut the dude some slack.
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the gaping plot holes, illogical character actions, and inconsistency with decades of in-universe lore have something to do with it?
Just a thought.
Yup, that's a big point. As well, the response to criticism was to insult and belittle those who complained. The people who complained were called unable to handle strong women, called racist and sexist.
Now while I suppose that we might make a case that fans of Star Wars are immature and foolish for attending the movies multiple times, and spending thousands on memorabilia.
But in a different Universe, Ferengi's Rules of acquisition number 57. Good customers are almost as rare as Latinum - treasure them.
The abuse hurled at passionate fans who cared enough to complain show that Kennedy, Johnson et al, who don't take telling and seem to think that the people they insulted will put up with anything. and still open their wallets. The fans said they weren't going to watch Solo. It appears to be true.
And the people the new Star Wars Power Brokers have tried to appeal to don't appear to have the same spending habits as the former fans.
Re:Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:4, Insightful)
The first three films had originality, actor chemistry and did not take themselves very seriously. At the time, no one had done what Star Wars had in terms of visuals. The actors played as if they lived in the films. Shit was easy to relate to. Most of Lucas's ineptness as a director was "cured" by skillful post production work. They were good, solid fun films.
Almost everything past them, especially the latest few has been super-pretentious, self-conscious in the "oh, look at me greatness" kind of way, but that's all they had. The cast and the fascination of Lucas with special effects killed the prequels. Portman, the new Vader, the vader-boy, young Kenobi, the bad motherfucker should not have been there. The post-RotJ stuff is all shit, everything in it sucks. The stories are a contrived and stupid rehash of the original trilogy. Nobody knows who the people in the new films are. Hamil and Fisher's characters were unrecognizable, Harrison Ford showed up briefly to die, the token black guy and the giftless flat-chested broad are boring and mechanical. I don't even remember the rest.
So no, the original trilogy is nothing like the rest of the crap.
The only acceptable film post RotJ was Rogue One.
Re: Rian Johnson killed Star Wars (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think that Force Awakens and Last Jedi movies were phenomenal.
This must be some new meaning of "phenomenal" that is not in the dictionary.
Also, you don't know the original films very well.
Luke did not come off as a whiny, entitled baby. He was a hard-working country boy with a dream, to be a pilot. Between a sunrise and a sunset, he met a war hero and a member of a brutally destroyed legendary cult (Guinness); learned that his family was at the center of the most epic galactic story of his time; fell in
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Go drink a bottle of bleach you communist mongoloid
Do the world a favor and after kissing more bolshevik ass like you only know how to, go martyr yourself for your lord and savior Trotsky.