Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker **Spoilers from post 2076**

silverharp

Spon Farmer wrote: »

I don’t pay much heed to box office beyond the a general interest what breaks a what record for trivia purposes because the money is not mine

However I had assumed it was going to make more than Endgame or at least match it. When I read it was trailing the others I also thought Disney and the shareholders would be freaking out but apparently the fact that any of them got to a billion was a surprise to Disney and they had been telling the shareholders since the beginning that to rein in any crazy billion expectations.

this film only started making money a couple of days ago , ~900m is breakeven for this movie. they kinda need the billion plus to even make it remotely interesting.
Then there is that 4billion investment that needs a return. By all accounts merch isn't doing well, nor their theme parks. Its all on baby Yoda now to use his force powers to do the heavy lifting

ednwireland

saw it last weekend, actually thought it was ok, better than some of the last 6 movies

Spon Farmer

mloc123 wrote: »

I felt that was tacked on, to avoid sympathy for all that were killed. Since 'the good ones' had all defected just like they did... and the ones willing to kill people were now fair game.

To avoid sympathy for killing stormtroopers?

I don’t see why as they are always just cannon fodder.

I don’t know why they went with more defecting stormtroopers. A tribe of aliens would have been more interesting.

Spon Farmer

silverharp wrote: »

this film only started making money a couple of days ago , ~900m is breakeven for this movie. they kinda need the billion plus to even make it remotely interesting.
Then there is that 4billion investment that needs a return. By all accounts merch isn't doing well, nor their theme parks. Its all on baby Yoda now to use his force powers to do the heavy lifting

I thought it had had a massive start and was now slacking off.

I thought the budget was 300 million. Why is 900 million breaking even?

I haven’t seen The Mandolorian (and I was annoyed to learn the spoiler of baby Yoda before Christmas) but I believe you are correct - the show (or maybe just the baby seem to have hit the mark for everyone.

Homelander

Normally with films like the advertising cost is as big as the movie production cost, if not bigger. You will often see with films of that calibre that they need to make considerably more than double the production budget to break even.

Justice League for example cost $300m in production, made $650m and actually still lost something like $100m.

Riddle101

Riddle101 wrote: »

Despite the criticism George Lucas gets for the prequels I really do wish he had been a the helm of these movies. Neither JJ nor Johnson had the vision of Lucas and that's where I think the sequel movies fail. They rely heavily on nostalgia which I'm sure a lot of Star Wars fans appreciated, but outside of the nostalgia they were kind've weak.

Who knows, maybe Lucas wouldn't have been any better with those movies but I think it would have been in safer hands under Lucas.

There's one problem with this opinion: Midichlorians.

silverharp

Spon Farmer wrote: »

I thought it had had a massive start and was now slacking off.

I thought the budget was 300 million. Why is 900 million breaking even?

I haven’t seen The Mandolorian (and I was annoyed to learn the spoiler of baby Yoda before Christmas) but I believe you are correct - the show (or maybe just the baby seem to have hit the mark for everyone.

in very broad terms the studio gets half the box office in the US but only about 1/3 abroad. Disney may be able to put the kosh to cinemas more perhaps and extract a bit more, then as Homelander said you can double the production cost in marketing and distribution.

Spon Farmer

Homelander wrote: »

Normally with films like the advertising cost is as big as the movie production cost, if not bigger. You will often see with films of that calibre that they need to make considerably more than double the production budget to break even.

Justice League for example cost $300m in production, made $650m and actually still lost something like $100m.

I always forget the advertising

Spon Farmer

[Deleted User] wrote: »

There's one problem with this opinion: Midichlorians.

There’s one problem with this opinion: the Sequel Trilogy has a lot of problems much bigger than midiclorians.

Tony EH

Foxtrol wrote: »

There were so many good directions they could have gone with him over the course of the trilogy. The favourite I heard mentioned was him trying to turn more stormtroopers away from the New Order. They could have gotten rid of the whole terrible casino quest in TLJ by having them getting captured and him talking a group into helping them get on board the main ship and taking down the tracker.

In TROS they briefly touched on more stormtrooper defections but it made even less sense that Finn never makes any effort to do more, instead just seems to enjoy killing his old colleagues.

There's a million directions that Disney could have gone in for everything, but they seemed to have chosen the absolute worst direction for nearly every way unfortunately.

The problem with Finn though is that his story ends as soon as he defects. Because that's all they had for him. He's just a concept, not a character. In fact, all of the people in Disney's Star Wars are just concepts. They never grow beyond that.

The idea of a Stormtrooper who defects is an ok one, even if it's shamelessly poached from the original Han Solo backstory, but it cannot go anywhere else after that and not interfere with the lead story that was being set up in these movies. Unlike Luke, Han, or Leia, we're given nothing to really go on with Rey. Therefore the story has to spend the bulk of its time focusing on her and revealing her. This means that any other character that takes up screen time will be stepping over her constantly.

With the three leads in the originals, we get just enough in the first film so a background is formed in our heads. We don't really need any more and the characters grow over the course of the next couple of episodes.

In the opening sequel film we get nothing for the lead. She's a mystery, while still retaining focus upon her. We don't even get anything in the second film and by the third film, it's too late. But, even then, what they chose to go with was a disaster.

But, even with the lack of character for Rey, if we were to expand too much on Finn, he'd just potentially eat up the time that's needed for Rey. So, the inevitable is that he becomes comedy sidekick and stays there.

The fact is that there's just no room for Finn in Rey's story, as empty as it turned out to be, because Finn's story is kinda needs a film all of it's own.

Tony EH

Spon Farmer wrote: »

To avoid sympathy for killing stormtroopers?

I don’t see why as they are always just cannon fodder.

Because in Diswars, they are (stupidly) kidnapped children.

LazySamaritan

Tony EH wrote: »

Because in Diswars, they are (stupidly) kidnapped children.

I hadn’t read or heard anyone expressing sympathy for them because of that (which I consider cold hearted to honest).

So is it something that has been discussed over the the years?

As my opinion of the film it had the correct level of fun and action but was too little too late. Like someone said earlier I too was prepared because it was JJ “not star wars with stormtroopers” Abrams. These movies and characters are just part of Legends as far as I’m concerned and know that Young Darth Vader and the Empire replica are gone I look forward to Star Wars getting back to being great - Rogue One, Solo and Rebels are proof it can be.

johnny_ultimate

I continue to be bemused by the suggestions that these films were / are in any way financial disappointments or failures. They were ****ing monster hits, deservedly or not (said as someone who thinks this film was a creative failure as anything other than a Babu Frik delivery device). Star Wars sequels always perform on a lesser level than the series openers (Empire very much included), but they’re still golden tickets to the upper echelons of the box office charts. Solo is the deserved exception.

I’m as much of a Disney cynic as you’ll find and hope their reign of box office dominance ends soon and comprehensively. I also increasingly don’t think box office charts represent much more than an illustration of Disney’s financial and marketing clout. But as an observer of reality, these films - all three of them - have been commercial hits by any standard other than not being literally the highest grossing films of all time (and TFA and TLJ comfortably made the top three and ten respectively on their releases, so they made a damn good effort), and it’s strange to me that suggestions to the contrary keep coming up.

Foxtrol

Tony EH wrote: »

There's a million directions that Disney could have gone in for everything, but they seemed to have chosen the absolute worst direction for nearly every way unfortunately.

The problem with Finn though is that his story ends as soon as he defects. Because that's all they had for him. He's just a concept, not a character. In fact, all of the people in Disney's Star Wars are just concepts. They never grow beyond that.

The idea of a Stormtrooper who defects is an ok one, even if it's shamelessly poached from the original Han Solo backstory, but it cannot go anywhere else after that and not interfere with the lead story that was being set up in these movies. Unlike Luke, Han, or Leia, we're given nothing to really go on with Rey. Therefore the story has to spend the bulk of its time focusing on her and revealing her. This means that any other character that takes up screen time will be stepping over her constantly.

With the three leads in the originals, we get just enough in the first film so a background is formed in our heads. We don't really need any more and the characters grow over the course of the next couple of episodes.

In the opening sequel film we get nothing for the lead. She's a mystery, while still retaining focus upon her. We don't even get anything in the second film and by the third film, it's too late. But, even then, what they chose to go with was a disaster.

But, even with the lack of character for Rey, if we were to expand too much on Finn, he'd just potentially eat up the time that's needed for Rey. So, the inevitable is that he becomes comedy sidekick and stays there.

The fact is that there's just no room for Finn in Rey's story, as empty as it turned out to be, because Finn's story is kinda needs a film all of it's own.

Agree with a lot of that and though our opinions align a lot more on this movie than TLJ I again feel you have rose tinted glasses towards the originals. I think they had the same difficulties sort of difficulties but the audience now is much more demanding of deep exposition than they were in the past, this likely made worse by JJ's more blatant waving of mystery boxes in our faces. The set up here allowed for digging deeper into Finn but instead the directors spent more time 'fixing' the previous movie in the trilogy.

Tony EH

LazySamaritan wrote: »

I hadn’t read or heard anyone expressing sympathy for them because of that (which I consider cold hearted to honest).

So is it something that has been discussed over the the years?

It's been discussed on here and elsewhere, in relation to the general make up of the First Order and, especially, in relation to Finn's actions. For instance when he first decides to defect based on seeing his "buddy" die in action, then he proceeds to gleefully slaughter many more of his comrades, all of which were kidnapped children themselves.

The kidnapped kid thing was, frankly, a piss poor idea that was only there to soften Finn even further than he was.

silverharp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I continue to be bemused by the suggestions that these films were / are in any way financial disappointments or failures. They were ****ing monster hits, deservedly or not (said as someone who thinks this film was a creative failure as anything other than a Babu Frik delivery device). Star Wars sequels always perform on a lesser level than the series openers (Empire very much included), but they’re still golden tickets to the upper echelons of the box office charts. Solo is the deserved exception.

I’m as much of a Disney cynic as you’ll find and hope their reign of box office dominance ends soon and comprehensively. I also increasingly don’t think box office charts represent much more than an illustration of Disney’s financial and marketing clout. But as an observer of reality, these films - all three of them - have been commercial hits by any standard other than not being literally the highest grossing films of all time (and TFA and TLJ comfortably made the top three and ten respectively on their releases, so they made a damn good effort), and it’s strange to me that suggestions to the contrary keep coming up.

you are ignoring that Disney paid $4bn dollars in 2012 , so yeah sure, the movies combined including the loss with solo has made Disney a profit of around 1.5bn , that would be great for a studio if it self generated these movies but not when you factor in the investment cost.
it depends what they do going forward, but if they become more streaming focused and less movie focused that wont be throwing off billions of dollars.

Tony EH

Foxtrol wrote: »

Agree with a lot of that and though our opinions align a lot more on this movie than TLJ I again feel you have rose tinted glasses towards the originals.

Each of the original films have their share of issues. But the difference is that their problems never overwhelm them as is the case with the sequels.

Foxtrol wrote: »

I think they had the same difficulties sort of difficulties but the audience now is much more demanding of deep exposition than they were in the past, this likely made worse by JJ's more blatant waving of mystery boxes in our faces. The set up here allowed for digging deeper into Finn but instead the directors spent more time 'fixing' the previous movie in the trilogy.

Perhaps the original films potentially faced the same problems, but they were handled much, much better and more coherently, even with their mid flow changes, like Luke/Leia Bro/Sis which was a hell of a thing to ask an audience to buy into. They barely get away with that.

Thing is, they don't really get away with anything much in the sequels, because it was all handled so much more haphazardly and it didn't need to be. The ball was firmly in Disney's court and they just hit it over the wall in an unnecessary panic.

I agree that there are more uphill struggles to face with a cinema audience these days. Far too many cinema goers are part time critic, film school rejects, screenwriting 101 merchants and will take to the web to register disgust about "character arcs", "show don't tell" and "the hero's journey", without having any real knowledge of what all of that means. Plus, they adhere to such things like the were written in stone and something to be stuck to rigidly and any deviation at all is met with an outraged Tweet directed at the folk than made the film!

This can force a film makers hand in the most lamentable way too, because studios are now fixated on projections and other nebulous junk and will attempt to adjust course based on internet feedback.

In the old days, the only gauge of a film's popularity is if people went to see it or not. So, film makers took many more risks and, in my opinion, turned out a better and more interesting result.

As for JJ, I'll say it again, he is one of the absolute worst things to happen to Hollywood in the last 20 years. He's all flash with no substance whatsoever and in that respect is modern corporate blockbuster film making personified.

johnny_ultimate

silverharp wrote: »

you are ignoring that Disney paid $4bn dollars in 2012

I’m not I am stating that these films have been unambiguous, indisputable box office hits. However many extra zeroes Disney needs to make to pay off their costs and dazzle their shareholders is on them - regardless of complex corporate book-keeping, these three films (plus Rogue One) have been mega hits. As the poll attached to this thread illustrates (strange, skewed options though they may be), a number of Internet denizens had put forward the theory that this film was going to be a flop because ‘something something The Last Jedi’ (I’ve even some some people hilariously try to argue that TLJ was a financial flop). They were wrong.

Although personally I’m much happier to see the outrageous, continued commercial success of the only TLJ follow-up I cared about - Knives Out - than however many hundreds of millions TROS eventually ends up with

LazySamaritan

Foxtrol wrote: »

Agree with a lot of that and though our opinions align a lot more on this movie than TLJ I again feel you have rose tinted glasses towards the originals. I think they had the same difficulties sort of difficulties but the audience now is much more demanding of deep exposition than they were in the past, this likely made worse by JJ's more blatant waving of mystery boxes in our faces. The set up here allowed for digging deeper into Finn but instead the directors spent more time 'fixing' the previous movie in the trilogy.

There wasn’t much mystery boxing on Abrams two films.

The “difficulties” with the ST and OT are not at all the same because the problem with ST is that Abrams has done nothing original or creative whatsoever. It is all either copying the OT or rasacking the old Expanded Universe.

Slydice

Total flop and a financial loss for Disney

https://twitter.com/SleepHussy/status/1214595273646841857

LazySamaritan

Tony EH wrote: »

It's been discussed on here and elsewhere, in relation to the general make up of the First Order and, especially, in relation to Finn's actions. For instance when he first decides to defect based on seeing his "buddy" die in action, then he proceeds to gleefully slaughter many more of his comrades, all of which were kidnapped children themselves.

The kidnapped kid thing was, frankly, a piss poor idea that was only there to soften Finn even further than he was.

Okay I missed that talk but I agree with it.

silverharp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I’m not I am stating that these films have been unambiguous, indisputable box office hits. However many extra zeroes Disney needs to make to pay off their costs and dazzle their shareholders is on them - regardless of complex corporate book-keeping, these three films (plus Rogue One) have been mega hits. As the poll attached to this thread illustrates (strange, skewed options though they may be), a number of Internet denizens had put forward the theory that this film was going to be a flop because ‘something something The Last Jedi’ (I’ve even some some people hilariously try to argue that TLJ was a financial flop). They were wrong.

Although personally I’m much happier to see the outrageous, continued commercial success of the only TLJ follow-up I cared about - Knives Out - than however many hundreds of millions TROS eventually ends up with

Im just looking at it from Disney's point of view, they clearly thought that they could pull a Marvel and churn out a billion dollar movie every year for the next decade, that aint going to happen. Mostly there was a consensus that this last movie would probably be a billion dollar movie but that TLJ had damaged the trilogy and it would end in a meh. kind of how its turning out

Foxtrol

LazySamaritan wrote: »

There wasn’t much mystery boxing on Abrams two films.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic here or not, both are filled to the brim with mystery boxes. For TFA it is somewhat excusable, being the first of a trilogy, but he was doing it throughout TROS when he clearly had no plans to even try to deal with them.

The “difficulties” with the ST and OT are not at all the same because the problem with ST is that Abrams has done nothing original or creative whatsoever. It is all either copying the OT or rasacking the old Expanded Universe.

I meant that they faced the same difficulties that Tony was talking about regarding introducing characters, my argument was that during the OT audiences weren't expecting everything to be explored in detail. If you watch just the OT, without the prequels or supporting materials, you're left with plenty of gaps with the characters.

Whether JJ copied stuff is a completely separate discussion.

Foxtrol

silverharp wrote: »

Im just looking at it from Disney's point of view, they clearly thought that they could pull a Marvel and churn out a billion dollar movie every year for the next decade, that aint going to happen. Mostly there was a consensus that this last movie would probably be a billion dollar movie but that TLJ had damaged the trilogy and it would end in a meh. kind of how its turning out

This will likely break $1bn before it finishes up or at least come very, very close.

I doubt they ever thought it would get to Marvel levels but unless the market completely dries up they should be able to churn out movies every 18 months and get a return of at least $750m. Add in toys, theme parks, streaming content they aren't doing too bad out of it.

LazySamaritan

silverharp wrote: »

Im just looking at it from Disney's point of view, they clearly thought that they could pull a Marvel and churn out a billion dollar movie every year for the next decade, that aint going to happen. Mostly there was a consensus that this last movie would probably be a billion dollar movie but that TLJ had damaged the trilogy and it would end in a meh. kind of how its turning out

That is what I thought but if you look into it Disney has been telling shareholders for years not to expect Marvel money from Star Wars.

LazySamaritan

Foxtrol wrote: »

Not sure if you're being sarcastic here or not, both are filled to the brim with mystery boxes. For TFA it is somewhat excusable, being the first of a trilogy, but he was doing it throughout TROS when he clearly had no plans to even try to deal with them.



I meant that they faced the same difficulties that Tony was talking about regarding introducing characters, my argument was that during the OT audiences weren't expecting everything to be explored in detail. If you watch just the OT, without the prequels or supporting materials, you're left with plenty of gaps with the characters.

Whether JJ copied stuff is a completely separate discussion.

I’m not being sarcastic. What was the mystery in any of it?

I don’t view the “gaps” that as a difficulty and I don’t know anybody who did. It also happens in the Prequels and I’d be fine with it in the ST and any other film in the franchise because part of the fun is is coming up with theories and discussing it.

As I said the difficulty in the Sequels is not that - it is that there is nothing original or creative.

I don’t know how you use the phrase “whether Abrams copies stuff” - are you suggesting he didn’t?

Kylo Ren is an imitation Vader.
Han and Leia’s son going bad and being a galactic tyrant is straight from the EU.

The resurrected Palpatine, transfering to another body and the Force “dyad” are from Dark Empire.

The Rebellion is back. The Empire is back. Stormtroopers are back. Same uniforms. Same ships. Same war.

Foxtrol

LazySamaritan wrote: »

I’m not being sarcastic. What was the mystery in any of it?

I don’t view the “gaps” that as a difficulty and I don’t know anybody who did. It also happens in the Prequels and I’d be fine with it in the ST and any other film in the franchise because part of the fun is is coming up with theories and discussing it.

There's a difference in being gaps and pushing the gaps to being center point of the story. Look at the difference in how ANH dealt with Luke's parents and how JJ beat the audience over the head with Rey's in TFA.

As I said the difficulty in the Sequels is not that - it is that there is nothing original or creative.

I don’t know how you use the phrase “whether Abrams copies stuff” - are you suggesting he didn’t?

Kylo Ren is an imitation Vader.
Han and Leia’s son going bad and being a galactic tyrant is straight from the EU.

The resurrected Palpatine, transfering to another body and the Force “dyad” are from Dark Empire.

The Rebellion is back. The Empire is back. Stormtroopers are back. Same uniforms. Same ships.

Yes, I don't disagree. All of that is however completely separate to what we were discussing. If anything, the more JJ copied the more that the film makers faced the same difficulties with the characters (e.g. having enough time to expand on Finn's story, like they were able to do with Han)

LazySamaritan

Foxtrol wrote: »

There's a difference in being gaps and pushing the gaps to being center point of the story. Look at the difference in how ANH dealt with Luke's parents and how JJ beat the audience over the head with Rey's in TFA.



Yes, I don't disagree. All of that is however completely separate to what we were discussing. If anything, the more JJ copied the more that the film makers faced the same difficulties with the characters (e.g. having enough time to expand on Finn's story, like they were able to do with Han)

You have me confused.

Earlier you said the OT had difficulties like, eg Han’s backstory was completely unknown.

And that today we don’t want any missing parts of the backstory.

Tony EH

LazySamaritan wrote: »

Okay I missed that talk but I agree with it.

With the sheer amount of yap that has happened with these movies, numerous things are easy to miss.

peteeeed

I've not clicked buy now yet.......yet
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Wars-Skywalker-Limited-Complete/dp/B082WXCSKN/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?