@Flying Spaghetti Monster calling people naive for not ascribing to baseless conspiracy theories calls for the following:
The Last Jedi - Actually Widely Hated?
- Thread starter crookeddy
- Start date
Box office means literally zero when criticising (in the proper sense, not just laying into with a metaphorical hammer) or appraising a thing, especially when putting it next to other things in the same set. It’s a Star Wars film. It’s never, ever, going to lose money (not unless a whole bunch of someone’s seriously fucks up.)
I mean, all the Harry Potter films made bank, but at least one is basically ‘here’s some good bits from the book, you might want to read it to know what’s going on, and which bits we couldn’t spend FX money on’, and another one which is a pretty poor adaptation of the source material and suffers for its change of focus. (GOF and HBP in case you were wondering.)
I am pretty certain there’s a lot to criticise in Titanic, and lots of people seem to really hate it....but last I looked, it was still the biggest Box Office of all time once you adjust it (and it can never happen again...it was a confluence of real world things.) for inflation. It’s delay in DVD release and delayed streaming release probably hurt its ongoing figures.
Avatar...another big bank box office hit, but it’s an average film with some cutting edge production and professional workmanship in it.
But the films that had influence, that changed things, that are artistic critical darlings... the Blade Runners, the Clerks etc....don’t tend to make the bazillions. It’s a useless metric.
To carry it across, I once had a bit of a whinge about multimillionaire Alan Sugar (I have softened on him somewhat, largely because he’s entertaining.) and my dads partner said ‘well, he’s a millionaire, you’re not, so you must be wrong’
???
The Cheeky girls had a hit single, it doesn’t put them above criticism.
Mister Blobby made Christmas number one, back when such things were mildly less arranged...so did Bob The Builder, and the Teletubbies. They made bank.
Does that mean we put them next to the Beatles in musics hall of fame?
It’s *always* a stupid argument, because it’s based entirely in something unrelated to actual artistic or creative, (or in the case of Alan Sugar, product design, marketing or knowledge of home electronics) merit. Which can be very subjective, granted, but it’s apples and oranges.
‘I don’t like the story in TLJ’
‘It made money so you are wrong’
Really really doesn’t mean anything. Artistic quality is not democratic, ‘lots of people liked it/paid to see it’ is not the same as ‘it is good/perfection’
And yet, to the people in charge, it means everything.
To a fan they basically represent nothing more than whether they are more likely to get another film in the series or not. That’s pretty much it.
Otherwise roll up every film ever..,.Grand Theft Auto games make more money, and the games industry has been outperforming Hollywood for some time.
As a judgement of artistic merit, it’s utterly worthless.
That's not the argument here. The question is whether or not Disney is satisfied with the current performance and that they are willing to continue to invest in the property.
*checks thread topic* *checks where he was discussing the merits of the opening*
No. A refutation to issues around artistic merit was made with Box Office argument.
But to the studio, they mean everything. Period. TFA and TLJ were huge box office successes. Of course they had planned a trilogy so TRoS’ release was a given. Rogue One did fine. Solo didn’t do that great. While other standalone films were in the works, LFL and Disney changed their strategy to tell their anthology stories on their streaming service as opposed to the movie theater. Those are objective things and cannot be denied.
Quality on the other hand is purely subjective.
*Rereads past couple of posts*
We were discussing whether or not Johnson would get his trilogy and Disney's current satisfaction with the brand.
At least I thought...
I seem to remember the last film losing money for the studio. The film before that making less than half the money of the film it was a sequel to. I seem to remember the fandom being split. I hear lots of talk, substantiated and unsubstantiated, of desperate reshoots for episode 9, of an empty brand new theme park despite the fact Iger himself said that they didn't need to advertise (I'm seeing ads everywhere for it).. the fact that the studio had so much hubris to say that they would give us a SW film once a year a few years ago now won't have another film after 9 for another three years. Box office hardly matters when you have a steady but sure decline, or when you did not use your first film to successfully lay track for future films
*Rereads past couple of posts*
We were discussing whether or not Johnson would get his trilogy and Disney's current satisfaction with the brand.
At least I thought...
Okay, but let's take this back for a second. First, again, quality = subjective. I can find Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo to be a masterpiece and The Godfather, Part II to be a worthless piece of shit. I don't agree with that, but there very well might be people out there who feel that way.
Second, the thread title is "The Last Jedi - Actually Widely Hated?" Well, how do you define the term" widely?" Its fairly vague. But, let's play with that notion for a second and look at both critical and fan reactions.
- Rotten Tomatoes (Critics) - 91%
- Rotten Tomatoes (Fans) - 44%
- Google Users - 70%
- Metacritic - 85%
- Metacritic Users - 4.4 avg score
- IMDB - 7.1
- CinemaScore - A
- SurveyMonkey/coScore's PostTrak - 89%
- Amazon Average User Rating - 4/5 stars
- MTV Movie & TV Awards - 3
- Academy Awards - 4
- Art Directors Guild Awards - 1
- BAFTAs - 2
- Costume Designers Guild - 1
- Empire Awards - 7 (winning 5)
- Saturn Awards - 13 (winning 3)
- Teen Choice Awards - 8 (winning 1)
- Visual Effects Society Awards - 4
If anything, the film is divisive, which is something I think most of us can agree with. But hated? By some? Sure. Widely? I still don't know exactly what that means, but probably not. The numbers don't lie.
And if I do bring the box office back into it again, if the movie were that terrible, word of mouth would bring not only ALL of the user ratings down considerably but also, the movie likely wouldn't have made the money it did. So, I do believe it does matter in the idea of the OP's thesis.
You can all love Disney STar Wars, but a lot of people don't. They've taken the specialness out of it. Using a lot of recent comic books to explain oversights made in the films. You have to recognize that they've lost a lot of fans that they won't get back, and that kids are not interested in the stories, they'd rather watch MCU films or anime or whatever. Even the great spectacles that used to make these films special don't mean anything when a GotG film can fart out an asteroid scene on a computer that looks better to kids than the ESB asteroid chase...
with the well-known properties there is more to consider than just number crunching. I mean Superman Returns made more money than Batman Begins, but they made a sequel to Batman Begins.. based in part on other aspects.. like word of mouth, story potential, etc. Why is there a sense of franchise fatigue with Star Wars when Marvel can chug out three films a year? These are questions that don't necessarily have numbers alone behind them
And...? This is the part that I don't get. Why should I care? If I (and my kids, and my friends' kids) are enjoying these films, reading these books, playing with these toys, and admiring Rey then why should I care what others do? We live in a day and age where we have multiple properties for people to enjoy so I'm struggling to see the issue here.
I appreciate your passion but all this opining against Disney Star Wars is rather odd, considering the impact it precisely zero upon the average fan's day to day experience.
Accurate, but I think its more important to wait to see how Rise of Skywalker does. It is the direct sequel to The Last Jedi. Solo was a side story.
Not accurate. TFA made $2.066 billion globablly and TLJ made $1.321 billion globally. That's a drop off of 36%. However, also recall that the original Star Wars made $621.7 million in its first release and TESB made $457.3 million. That's a drop off of 27%. Not as big of a dropoff, sure, but remember that back at that time, home video was at its infancy and these movies were in theaters for a long time. TLJ, like TFA before it was out on home video a few short months after its theatrical release.
Accurate.
Reshoots happen on every movie these days. I'm not going to freak out about these until I have reason to.
And just a few days ago, the lines were the longest or closest to the longest in the Disney parks. And what's the problem with advertising?
And what primarily are the films that have seen cancellations on? The saga films? Nope, we're still getting Ep 9 which is deemed to be the last of the Skywalker saga. Which, despite what the studio says, let's be honest, we'll likely see a fourth trilogy in another decade or two... OR the anthology films, which have had a change, for the better, if you ask me, to the streaming service where it is less of a risk for the studio.
The standalones are not really designed for the average movie goer. They're more introverted films designed for the hardcore fans. They're not going to have the same broad appeal as is needed with a $350 million budgeted wide release. BECAUSE, at the end of the day, the movies need to make money.
I think Disney is very happy with the average overall box office with their investment with Lucasfilm. That's all that matters to them.
Again, you are using unverifiable numbers here. Define "a lot." I think that the sold out crowds at Star Wars Celebration Chicago and the excitement around that and what was seen at D23 says a lot more than your post and some YouTube videos. Sure, fans have stepped away. That's their choice. But I do wonder how many of them will go to see TRoS anyway. I bet more than you think.
Superman Returns had the weight of several unmade productions behind it. So did Batman Begins, but the later also had cost $50 million less when all of that is taken into consideration. So, look at it this way... Superman Returns cost $204 million after tax rebates and incentives, but made $391.1 million. Batman Begins cost $150 million and made $375.2 million. Plus, there was a Superman Returns sequel in development for sometime. Bryan Singer delayed the film for another project (more proof that directors can be developing multiple projects at the same time). I mean, it took seven years after Returns before we saw another (albeit rebooted) Superman movie. We got The Dark Knight three years after Begins.
Ultimately, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we don't know about that happens behind the scenes, or that we only catch passing word about. And no, being 100% honest, yet again, I don't think Rian Johnson's trilogy will ultimately be made. I think that in the meantime, Star Wars will take a different direction and that's okay. BUT, me suggesting that until I hear otherwise from an actual source (like Johnson himself), it does not make me naive to believe that at the moment, it is still in the works.
Actually, there is a fairly simple answer to this question. Marvel is able to generate content in a variety of different genres, around several different characters. They also have 50+ years of character stories, various plot lines, and intersecting content. Marvel benefits from a rather large history. Star Wars does not.
While its not to the level of Marvel, there is a considerable amount of Legends material to draw from. A lot of it would not interest me particularly, nor do I think it would bring in the average movie goer, but its there.
I guarantee you that if (going from the thread title) that if Last Jedi was widely liked, they would have announced RJ's trilogy bny now with names and dates.
Based upon...what, exactly? What are you using to make this guarantee?
Johnson also had committed to doing Knives Out, which he'd been interested in doing since at least 2010, shortly after TLJ was released. He shot the film starting in October 2018, which after the release of TLJ gave him a little time for a break and do preproduction on. While itscreened recently at a film festival, does not come out until the end of November, meaning he has time to tweak. The point being, Johnson spent four years developing The Last Jedi. He turned town working on Episode IX because he probably needed a break from Star Wars. Four years is a long time to put your heart and soul into something, particularly when the reaction was as mixed as it was.
As it was, the Star Wars films were put on hiatus in April 2019 almost a year AFTER Solo NOT immediately after TLJ. At that time, in regards to the saga films, Kathleen Kennedy suggested first of all:
She also suggested that she would be meeting with both trilogy creative teams in May 2019 stating:
So your belief that Johnson is the only one talking about this is incorrect, as they have had conversations as late as early summer 2019.
Of course, it doesn't matter, that's just spin, right?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter