Box Office: ‘Rise Of Skywalker’ Turned ‘Star Wars’ Into A $6 Billion Wash

[ray245]

The Rise of Skywalker will only make it past $500 million domestic because most of its competition either moved to 2020 or crumbled. And the Star Wars series is now, in terms of creating excitement and interest, back to square one even after five movies and $5.9 billion in global grosses.

Lucasfilm and Walt Disney’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has earned $491 million after exactly a month in domestic theaters. That’s after an $8.3 million (-45%) fifth-weekend gross, meaning it’ll probably earn around $10.41 million for the Fri-Mon holiday and end tomorrow with $494.05 million after 32 days in theaters. It’ll end its run between Beauty and the Beast ($504 million in 2017) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($529 million in 2016/2017). With middling reviews, comparatively indifferent audience polling and a lack of buzzy “must see that again” moments, Rise of Skywalker’s domestic and global cume (now at $1.025 billion) could have been much worse.

Warner Bros.’ Wonder Woman 1984, MGM and Universal’s No Time to Die, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog and Fox/Disney’s Death on the Nile fled November/December 2019 for 2020. Among the post-Frozen 2/pre-Star Wars releases, only Sony’s Jumanji: The Next Level clicked, legging its way past $275 million domestic (and $700 million worldwide) from a $59 million Fri-Sun launch. Universal’s Black Christmas and Warner Bros.’ Richard Jewell both crashed with $5 million opening weekends. And the two films opening alongside The Rise of Skywalker, Universal’s Cats and Lionsgate’s Bombshell (in its wide release expansion) both barely cracked $5 million on their opening weekends.

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Fox/Disney’s Spies in Disguise (now at $130 million global) won’t come anywhere close to Ferdinand’s $290 million global cume, while Cats sure as hell won’t approach Fox’s The Greatest Showman ($441 million in 2017) or Universal’s Sing ($571 million in 2016) or even Paramount’s Daddy’s Home ($250 million in 2015) or Universal’s Pitch Perfect 3 ($185 million). Sony’s Jumanji: The Next Level is huge, but it wasn’t quite the (comparatively speaking) leggy monster as the $404 million domestic/$962 million worldwide-grossing Welcome to the Jungle.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker had much of its pre-release competition hitch a ride to the first half of 2020. The “big” films that opened before it, concurrently and after it (we can debate whether the clearly successful Little Women and Uncut Gems were “big” movies), almost all disappointed or outright flopped. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker actually faced less competition than The Last Jedi, along with a friendlier release schedule. And yet, here we are.

Rise of Skywalker’s biggest competition was Disney’s own Frozen II. The animated mega-smash (it has passed $1.4 billion worldwide and is now the tenth-biggest movie ever) actually had several story similarities to Rise of Skywalker. Frozen II also had a narrative that seemed patched together at random, or perhaps written to match up with previously solidified song choices, the character arcs still packed a punch and the emotional beats still hit appropriately hard. Maybe Frozen II legged out because Star Wars IX didn’t quite click. Maybe Frozen II was strong enough to become “the danger” overseas to foreign audiences indifferent to Star Wars.

Rise of Skywalker’s very good/excellent $177 million domestic debut wasn’t necessarily cause for alarm, even with that B+ Cinemascore grade and 1.96x weekend multiplier. The film earned $29 million on day four, dropping less from Sunday ($40 million) than did even The Force Awakens on its first Monday/day four in December of 2015. It earned another $20.2 million on day five and $32 million on Christmas day, giving it a hopeful $259 million six-day cume. That set the stage for a possible over/under $90 million second-weekend gross. It wasn’t until its first Friday, when it dived 70% ($26 million) that the glow wore off.

It fell a harsh 59% on weekend two, but the second Mon-Thurs weekday frame didn’t really play that much like a “holiday blitz” period. With 2020 beginning in earnest, Star Wars IX dropped 53%, which was one of the biggest third-weekend drops ever for a $100 million-plus opener. Its 56% weekend-four drop was the second-worst weekend-four drop ever behind the 61% plunge for Batman v Superman, which is not the comparison you want. If Wonder Woman 1984 and No Time to Die had opened in November and/or had Cats and Spies in Disguise connected, well, this might be an even grimmer conversation.

The mediocre (for Christmas) legs for The Rise of Skywalker were about The Rise of Skywalker, as opposed to “Star Wars fatigue” or any adverse reaction to The Last Jedi or even Solo (which was more ignored than disliked). It opened pretty damn well and held strong until Christmas. This wasn’t a Star Trek Nemesis-like collapse ($43 million domestic from a $18 million debut in 2002), but a comparative lack of November/December competition prevented a collapse on par with Jurassic Park (from $619 million for Lost World to $383 million for Jurassic Park III) or The Matrix (from $742 million for Matrix Reloaded to $427 million for Matrix Revolutions).

Yes, we’re talking about five Star Wars movies that have earned around $5.87 billion worldwide in just over four years on a combined budget of around $1.256 billion. But since Disney wishes to continue this franchise indefinitely, Dawn of Justice ($873 million from a $424 million global debut) really is an apt comparison. And like that Zack Snyder epic (which, ironically, has aged pretty well as a one-off gonzo bananas apocalyptic Elseworld), the studio is left with a poorly-reviewed movie that made a ton of money but still left the brand/franchise in a ditch in terms of maintaining forward momentum.

The mixed reception of Batman v Superman left Warner Bros. scrambling in terms of “fixing” its DC Films brand, for better (letting Patty Jenkins do whatever she wanted with Wonder Woman) or worse (fatally rejiggering Suicide Squad and Justice League). Dawn of Justice put the whole game plan for the DC Comics universe back to square one. The Rise of Skywalker was the Disney Star Wars equivalent of Justice League, a heavily retooled and Frankenstein-ed film that still failed to gross more than a random stand-alone offering (Man of Steel for DC, Rogue One for Lucasfilm).

Disney is now also at “square one” in terms of how to get audiences and fans excited about Star Wars movies again. Now, that was always going to be a challenge after the Skywalker Saga wrapped up, since the next Star Wars movies presumably won’t involve the core Skywalker/Solo characters. But Disney’s Star Wars franchise is now A) on the defensive, B) in a position of having much of their prior goodwill erased as a result of a deeply compromised (and seemingly crafted to appease YouTube trolls and/or potentially disingenuous alt-right mobs) “series finale.”

That’s the cruel irony of all of this. The Force Awakens ($2.068 billion), Rogue One ($1.056 billion), The Last Jedi ($1.333 billion), Solo ($394 million) and The Rise of Skywalker earned around $5.88 billion worldwide, pushing the whole Star Wars series (counting reissues but not accounting for inflation) past the $10 billion mark. Alas, all of that goodwill and earned credit, because even Solo got decent reviews and positive audience scores, has been more-or-less washed away in the aftermath of The Rise of Skywalker. As my father likes to say, “trust is a must or your game’s a bust.”

Had they at least made Rise of Skywalker a “yes, and…” sequel to Last Jedi and Force Awakens, or at least given us a “Skywalker Saga finale” that worked as meat-and-potatoes entertainment regardless of its story choices, Lucasfilm and Disney would be better off. They now in a position where Disney’s Star Wars franchise is a $5.9 billion wash. It made money and earned some new fans, but it’s now, like DC Films after Batman v Superman, going to have to start from scratch in terms of making Star Wars exciting again. In an attempt to preserve the past, Disney may have just killed the future.

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I've said for a while now that Disney have effectively traded short-term profit for long-term harm, and the fans that wanted a short-term nostalgia-fix have also helped to damage the appeal of the Star Wars brand and story-telling potential in the future.

The utter failure of SW to appeal to new demographics ( tanked in China and female audience are turning away from the franchise) is a result of fanboys acting like gate-keepers and refusing to allow the Star Wars franchise to move in a new and organic direction that can broaden its appeal.

[Vendetta]

Star Wars was a poisoned chalice.

There were too many creative shackles demanded by an exceptionally vocal fanbase to leave room for a creative and interesting "big event" movie. It needed to be "like the originals", especially aesthetically, because that was one of the major whines about the prequels, nobody would accept a big fate-of-the-galaxy story that didn't have the original three leads in somewhere whilst the actors were still alive, but they're frankly all too old to be carrying action movies, Space Expendables was never on the table. None of the EU stories are directly usable because the protagonists are too old and almost all of the EU is fetid shit anyway, and following on from the EU was never on the table because four people and a dog know the stories well enough to maintain interest.

So they were fucked. There was literally no chance of a good "sequel trilogy" to Star Wars that wouldn't have been rejected sight unseen by what is, frankly, the most rabid fanbase on the internet (srsly, just ask Jake Lloyd or Ahmed Best what Star Wars fans will do to you). It could not have been done.

[Gandalf]

It also doesn't help that cinema just isn't what it was back when the originals or even prequels dropped. There's a lot of films coming out, and only so much in everyone's entertainment budget.

[Darth Yan]

I think it was more that a lot of people didn't let it evolve. The prequels were flawed but that was execution. One thing that a lot of people don't remember is that AT THE TIME the OT was very revolutionary. The Evil Dark Lord ultimately being a.) the heroes dad and b.) a broken man beneath his facade of evil monster? Ballsy. The mentors being well meaning but ultimately making massive mistakes? Different. Luke and Han and Leia also had good development and focused on telling a story. Palpatine was also great because he played with expectations. The harmless old man turning out to be strong enough to make Vader his bitch was shocking.

The prequels issue meanwhile was execution. The acting wasn't good (The OT had weak acting at points but for the most part holds up), clumsier dialogue, and some wierdass plot points. Even the idea of the Jedi being flawed was fantastic. The thing is, as Vendetta said people don't like change and they built up this idea in their heads. When it didn't match their head canon or went against what THEY assumed they got bitchy and overplayed the flaws.

I LOVE the OT but I also realize that franchises need to go their own way and experiment. Fans who refuse to let that happen are a lot of the problem

One thing the old EU did well was that it DID explore other eras in history. Tales of the Jedi, for all it's pulp cheesiness really did feel like one of the old myths that would have been told. KOTOR as well. Hell the Darth Bane trilogy had the bad guys as the POV characters. Even Legacy for all it's flaws was trying something sorta different. The NJO also tried something other than the Sith and it had some interesting views on the force (that were retconned.) If anything the films and EU fell into the trap of clinging to the past rather than trying something new

[ray245]

Star Wars was a poisoned chalice.

There were too many creative shackles demanded by an exceptionally vocal fanbase to leave room for a creative and interesting "big event" movie. It needed to be "like the originals", especially aesthetically, because that was one of the major whines about the prequels, nobody would accept a big fate-of-the-galaxy story that didn't have the original three leads in somewhere whilst the actors were still alive, but they're frankly all too old to be carrying action movies, Space Expendables was never on the table. None of the EU stories are directly usable because the protagonists are too old and almost all of the EU is fetid shit anyway, and following on from the EU was never on the table because four people and a dog know the stories well enough to maintain interest.

So they were fucked. There was literally no chance of a good "sequel trilogy" to Star Wars that wouldn't have been rejected sight unseen by what is, frankly, the most rabid fanbase on the internet (srsly, just ask Jake Lloyd or Ahmed Best what Star Wars fans will do to you). It could not have been done.

There is a chance. It's to ignore the OT crowd and make a movie that can appeal to new audience. The OT fans won't be happy no matter what you do, because even if you give them everything they wanted, you will still end up in a mess of a trilogy because the OT fans don't know what is the end product of their demands.

It's swallowing the short-term bitter pill and reap long-term rewards. Instead, Disney tried to chase short-term rewards, ended up pissing off the OT crowd anyway, alienated new audiences to the franchise and basically ended up with an entire era unusable.

I LOVE the OT but I also realize that franchises need to go their own way and experiment. Fans who refuse to let that happen are a lot of the problem

I think getting those fans to admit they themselves are a problem is going to be a tough ask. Few fans want to accept they are the problem and wish to shift the blame entirely to other people.

There's a puritan element of the SW fandom that essentially brings out the worse in people.

[Darth Yan]

They could just declare the sequels non canon somewhere down the road and try again.

If anything sequels didn't HAVE to be bad. The OT is a classic but you need to do your own thing. For all that Geoff Johns is a fanboy for the Silver age of DC he's NOT afraid to include new ideas (the different lantern corps for instance), or to modernize elements that haven't aged well (villains are more fleshed out for instance) and he DOES have an understanding of stories that he doesn't necessarily agree with (Doomsday Clock was actually a fairly respectable sequel to Watchmen and Johns main issue with Watchmen was more that a lot of people copied it without understanding WHY it was a good story, which led to the dark age of comics). DC seems to have gotten better because they were able to finally try and balance wonder and absurdity with genuinely serious storytelling.

In short, even if you have a fidelity to the past YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR OWN THING. Stray to far and you loose what made it work. Stick to close and you stagnate.

Hell even though I intellectually know that Avengers Endgame made the smart choice by ending the stories of Tony and Steve and having real change, a part of me is emotionally resistant. Change can be fucking scary but it MUST happen to some degree.

PS: I've said it elsewhere but the First Order REALLY should have been a bunch of reactionary terrorists rather than an army. It would be a good dynamic and it would show the darker side of rebellions. They're good when fighting true injustice, but bad when it's a bunch of reactionaries wanting to go back to when THEY benefitted.

PPS: I'm also a fan of Conan the Barbarian. Thing is, Robert E Howard was a southern man in the early 1900s and there were times it REALLY showed. I've made points on the forums about how change was needed, and to be fair I haven't gotten TOO much pushback but a lot of the older fans do have a difficult time. Now in fairness the early adaptions butchered the source material and got rid of a lot of genuinely good elements.....but on some level those adaptations DID try to iron out Howard's racism and sexism. Finding balance is HARD.

[ray245]

They could just declare the sequels non canon somewhere down the road and try again.

That will open a can of worms. At this moment, the only way to declare the sequels non-canon is if the Star Wars crash and burn and Disney washed their hands off the franchise for good ( highly unlikely).

Personally, I am pissed off with Disney, that due to their mismanagement, I might never see a New Jedi Order in my lifetime on the big screen.

If anything sequels didn't HAVE to be bad. The OT is a classic but you need to do your own thing. For all that Geoff Johns is a fanboy for the Silver age of DC he's NOT afraid to include new ideas (the different lantern corps for instance), or to modernize elements that haven't aged well (villains are more fleshed out for instance) and he DOES have an understanding of stories that he doesn't necessarily agree with (Doomsday Clock was actually a fairly respectable sequel to Watchmen). DC seems to have gotten better because they were able to finally try and balance wonder and absurdity with genuinely serious storytelling.

In short, even if you have a fidelity to the past YOU HAVE TO DO YOUR OWN THING. Stray to far and you loose what made it work. Stick to close and you stagnate.

That requires the management at the top, and the directors to have a creative backbone. Disney has shown they don't have any creative backbone when it comes to managing the Star Wars franchise.

[Darth Yan]

Part of me wonders if Dave Filoni should have been in charge creatively. He seems to have his head on his shoulders.

[Darth Yan]

Mandalorian was good because it was still unique. I mentioned tales of the jedi earlier. Cheesy pulp but i can see it as an old legend and there WERE genuinely good elements (Ulic Qel Droma's fall from grace, his redemption).

I also brought up Howard. Fans don't like change and they'll lash out at any. If some of the changes are genuinely godawful they'll focus on those and ignore changes that worked or were just plain necessary (Howard needs to have some updates if he's to be viable in today's age).

They might just reboot it in a few decades. I wouldn't mind if they waited that long. Pete's Dragon is the only remake of the original disney movies that didn't bother me precisely because it was 39 years after the fact.

[Patroklos]

The simple fact is like Indiana Jones the waited too long, or not long enough.

Long answer: if you want to use the original actors, you can’t wait until they are in their seventies. If you don’t want to use them, wait until they die so nobody can hold their exclusion against you no matter how unreasonable it is.

The simple fact is none of the original cast didn’t deliver anything of value to these movies. All but one were washed up and so out of practice at their craft calling them actors at all is ridiculous. Even the one who has acted in a major movie within a decade is the oldest of them. If you didn’t know who Carrie Fisher was her selection as a actress in her role would be baffling. Same with Williams. And while Hamil is still working in Hollywood, it is rarely in front of the camera . The only actual movie actor, Harrison, knows he is over the hill and you can tell in his performance.

Also this what “OT fans want” line is hilarious. I am an OT fan and I don’t think any of the old cast or their characters should have been included on screen at all. If you must, one could be a grizzled old foggie that drops a line of exposition before heading to water aerobics. The fact is there is no monolithic group of OT people demanding any one thing. There are lots of different OT groups demanding different things but vocally, and you can only make so many of them happy. Same goes for the hypothetical non-OT fans I have never actually run into. With a property this big and with so much pop culture exposure over decades, there are just too many constituencies to tiptoe around.

[Vympel]

TROS was a failure in conception and execution and didn't have to be that way. Unlike both TFA and TLJ it represented a ridiculously obvious course correct to pandering to part of the fandom that simply never got over 1977-1983. And no, TFA being similar to ANH has nothing on TROS. But I simply don't accept blaming 'the fans' as if they somehow made Abrams and Terrio make an aggressively medicore and at times outright cynical film that didn't seem to have any sense of an identity beyond tick fan-pandering boxes. The movie is the way it is because JJ never let go of 1977-1983.

Fans weren't breathing down their necks telling them to tell an aggressively contrived story that hijacked their own original heroine's story to pay homage to Luke and Leia. That was Abrams and Terrio's bizarre idea.

In any event, catastrophising a mediocre movie is an overreaction. Any talk of 'decanonising' the sequels is as overwrought and ridiculous as the talk of decanonising the prequels was.

[ray245]

TROS was a failure in conception and execution and didn't have to be that way. Unlike both TFA and TLJ it represented a ridiculously obvious course correct to pandering to part of the fandom that simply never got over 1977-1983. And no, TFA being similar to ANH has nothing on TROS. But I simply don't accept blaming 'the fans' as if they somehow made Abrams and Terrio make an aggressively medicore and at times outright cynical film that didn't seem to have any sense of an identity beyond tick fan-pandering boxes. The movie is the way it is because JJ never let go of 1977-1983.

Fans weren't breathing down their necks telling them to tell an aggressively contrived story that hijacked their own original heroine's story to pay homage to Luke and Leia. That was Abrams and Terrio's bizarre idea.

The fans reception of TFA enabled Abrams to return to the franchise, and allow him to think he can get away with pure fan-service. If fans had rejected TFA ( which I think Rian Johnson did in a way), Abrams would not have returned to the franchise.

The flaws of JJ Abrams as a filmmaker has always been apparent in his prior movies. The fans who got a nostalgia-fix with TFA was just far too blinkered to acknowledge those flaws. If the fanbase had been smart, they would have acknowledged the flaws and pointed it out just after the movie came and put pressure on LFL to make sure Abrams never return to the SW franchise.

The problem is the 77-83 fanbase are now the generation in charge of Hollywood, and also the generation writing articles after articles about how JJ Abrams is this great saviour of Star Wars in all the various media.

In any event, catastrophising a mediocre movie is an overreaction. Any talk of 'decanonising' the sequels is as overwrought and ridiculous as the talk of decanonising the prequels was.

While I don't think they really should decanonise the sequels, you must have thought just how much of a poisoned chalice the sequel era is for storytelling. I am uncertain if there will ever be a demand for Ep 10 featuring Rey and co.

[Vendetta]

Fans weren't breathing down their necks telling them to tell an aggressively contrived story that hijacked their own original heroine's story to pay homage to Luke and Leia. That was Abrams and Terrio's bizarre idea.

I think that's the lesson they took from the bawling about how much everyone hated Rey and what TFA did with Luke. So yeah, fans pretty much were breathing down their necks for exactly that.

TRoS is the movie you would make if you listened to all the pissy whiners who hated TLJ and have hated Rey from the beginning because she's "a Mary Sue who is too good at the Force".

[Vendetta]

(Doomsday Clock was actually a fairly respectable sequel to Watchmen and Johns main issue with Watchmen was more that a lot of people copied it without understanding WHY it was a good story, which led to the dark age of comics)

Doomsday Clock is an abject and ultimate betrayal of the single biggest idea Watchmen stood for, which is that the comics medium is stronger if stories are allowed to stand alone and end on their own terms not fit into an eternal soap opera where nothing matters and things are only remembered as far as they can be weakly imitated.

But then, that's what DC have always done to Watchmen...

[Vympel]

I think that's the lesson they took from the bawling about how much everyone hated Rey and what TFA did with Luke. So yeah, fans pretty much were breathing down their necks for exactly that.

TRoS is the movie you would make if you listened to all the pissy whiners who hated TLJ and have hated Rey from the beginning because she's "a Mary Sue who is too good at the Force".

Well - yes. It really does. And it feels goddamn awful. But to be clear on what I meant - this wasn't 'fans' so much as a 'very loud, very obnoxious segmnent of fandom'.

The fans reception of TFA enabled Abrams to return to the franchise, and allow him to think he can get away with pure fan-service. If fans had rejected TFA ( which I think Rian Johnson did in a way), Abrams would not have returned to the franchise.

The flaws of JJ Abrams as a filmmaker has always been apparent in his prior movies. The fans who got a nostalgia-fix with TFA was just far too blinkered to acknowledge those flaws. If the fanbase had been smart, they would have acknowledged the flaws and pointed it out just after the movie came and put pressure on LFL to make sure Abrams never return to the SW franchise.

The movie made like $2B, it's highly unlikely any amount of fandom complaining would have restricted his return to the franchise. And frankly, I don't think any such complaining would be justified. TFA's a much better film than TROS. TROS is almost inexplicably worse than TFA, if not for the kind of obvious-in-hindsight substitution of a skilled co-writer like Lawrence Kasdan with Chris Terrio, whose every answer about this movie has betrayed an utterly bizarre mindset and set of storytelling priorities.

The problem is the 77-83 fanbase are now the generation in charge of Hollywood, and also the generation writing articles after articles about how JJ Abrams is this great saviour of Star Wars in all the various media.

Well thankfully that's over.

While I don't think they really should decanonise the sequels, you must have thought just how much of a poisoned chalice the sequel era is for storytelling. I am uncertain if there will ever be a demand for Ep 10 featuring Rey and co.

I wouldn't be so sure. I'm an almost 40-year old man now. I have absolutely no idea how a 10-year old feels about them. Even now the biggest source of discontent / demand in the fandom is Ben Solo's death and wishing it was undone. Lots of people got very invested in these films. I know I still like them a lot. Just not TROS, lol.

[ray245]

The movie made like $2B, it's highly unlikely any amount of fandom complaining would have restricted his return to the franchise. And frankly, I don't think any such complaining would be justified. TFA's a much better film than TROS. TROS is almost inexplicably worse than TFA, if not for the kind of obvious-in-hindsight substitution of a skilled co-writer like Lawrence Kasdan with Chris Terrio, whose every answer about this movie has betrayed an utterly bizarre mindset and set of storytelling priorities.

It would if the fans and media are willing to engage with the problems of TFA, and understand what will happen if a director known to be bad at endings is put in charge of ending a trilogy. The fans and media have no problem chasing Lucas away from the Star Wars franchise.

Well thankfully that's over.

Too late now. The damage has already been done.

I wouldn't be so sure. I'm an almost 40-year old man now. I have absolutely no idea how a 10-year old feels about them. Even now the biggest source of discontent / demand in the fandom is Ben Solo's death and wishing it was undone. Lots of people got very invested in these films. I know I still like them a lot. Just not TROS, lol.

The problem is trying to continue the saga is pointless because the most appealing character is dead. The entire sequel era lasted for a mere year. There is barely anything worthwhile about the setting to develop, barely any side characters worth expanding.

A 10 year old today might feel nostalgic about the sequels in 10-20 years time, but that does not mean there's enough of a story left to tell about the sequel era, at least for a high budget movie.

[Darth Yan]

(Doomsday Clock was actually a fairly respectable sequel to Watchmen and Johns main issue with Watchmen was more that a lot of people copied it without understanding WHY it was a good story, which led to the dark age of comics)

Doomsday Clock is an abject and ultimate betrayal of the single biggest idea Watchmen stood for, which is that the comics medium is stronger if stories are allowed to stand alone and end on their own terms not fit into an eternal soap opera where nothing matters and things are only remembered as far as they can be weakly imitated.

But then, that's what DC have always done to Watchmen...

Agree to disagree but Alan Moore was by his own admission willing to write sequels at one point so the claim it was always meant to stand on its own seems like revisionist nonsense to me. Geoff John’s point about how people failed to understand why Watchmen worked was also a fair one and he DID understand why Superman is a great character

Add in that Moore was entirely willing to do the same thing with lost girls and it comes off as hypocrisy that makes it damn near impossible to sympathize

[Vympel]

It would if the fans and media are willing to engage with the problems of TFA, and understand what will happen if a director known to be bad at endings is put in charge of ending a trilogy. The fans and media have no problem chasing Lucas away from the Star Wars franchise.

The problems of TFA are all based on 'world building' and 'setting' arguments rather than its issues as a film. There wasn't some sort of mass delusion at play when TFA was well received by virtually everyone - fans, media, and most importantly, the general audience that actually makes these movies a success or not. It's a highly successful movie and well made. Expecting some sort of backlash because it's got an uninspired premise isn't realistic.

Too late now. The damage has already been done.

Eh, Star Wars could survive the reputation of the prequels, it can survive a bad ending to the sequels.

The problem is trying to continue the saga is pointless because the most appealing character is dead. The entire sequel era lasted for a mere year. There is barely anything worthwhile about the setting to develop, barely any side characters worth expanding.

A 10 year old today might feel nostalgic about the sequels in 10-20 years time, but that does not mean there's enough of a story left to tell about the sequel era, at least for a high budget movie.

I don't know whose idiot idea it was to make the time gap in between TLJ and TROS only 1 year. It could've been 2, or 3, and it would've made absolutely no difference. It's a baffling choice. Any stories would have to be post-TROS, but it remains to be seen whether anyone will have the balls to try and tell those stories as opposed to recooking the OT era until everyone is sick to death of it.

[ray245]

The problems of TFA are all based on 'world building' and 'setting' arguments rather than its issues as a film. There wasn't some sort of mass delusion at play when TFA was well received by virtually everyone - fans, media, and most importantly, the general audience that actually makes these movies a success or not. It's a highly successful movie and well made. Expecting some sort of backlash because it's got an uninspired premise isn't realistic.

I will argue the neglect of setting related issues is a major problem in how we approach and think about major franchise films. If for example, people can approach Avengers Endgame as less of a movie on its own and see it as a finale of a tv series, then we ought to be able to treat SW movies as their own solo films. In fact, the major core issues with the new movies was because the studio treated each film as its independent project instead of overseeing it like a TV show like what Kevin Feige has done with Marvel.

Eh, Star Wars could survive the reputation of the prequels, it can survive a bad ending to the sequels.

Only if you ignore the difference between the reception of the prequels and the sequels. No prequel film ever got below A- on cinemascore, and the prequel era was full of spin-off EU materials that helped make the era as a whole interesting to a whole generation of kids. The sequel era lacked all that. The fact that they've put a secret teaser for ROS in a non-SW game shows how badly mismananged the sequel era is as a setting.

I don't know whose idiot idea it was to make the time gap in between TLJ and TROS only 1 year. It could've been 2, or 3, and it would've made absolutely no difference. It's a baffling choice. Any stories would have to be post-TROS, but it remains to be seen whether anyone will have the balls to try and tell those stories as opposed to recooking the OT era until everyone is sick to death of it.

Abrams. He's an idiot that barely knows the consequences of his action. Numbers, setting and world-building is alien to him.

Abrams is the worst person you can hire in a franchise that relies heavily on its setting.

[Vympel]

Only if you ignore the difference between the reception of the prequels and the sequels. No prequel film ever got below A- on cinemascore, and the prequel era was full of spin-off EU materials that helped make the era as a whole interesting to a whole generation of kids. The sequel era lacked all that. The fact that they've put a secret teaser for ROS in a non-SW game shows how badly mismananged the sequel era is as a setting.

The reception of TROS ! = the reception of the sequel trilogy as a whole. Both TFA and TLJ were very well reviewed, successful movies which audiences liked. TROS is unique in that its a badly reviewed movie which not even audiences liked as much as they liked the previous films. That doesn't take the stink off the comparably poor critical reception of the prequels or their poor reputation. As for the stuff about the prequel era being full of spin-off EU materials to make the era interesting - basically you're talking about Clone Wars. That (the pilot movie) premiered over three whole years after ROTS, and it's reputation as being some sort of touchstone for a generation is an exaggeration. Some kids liked it, sure, but it ain't Transformers. And if those kids did like it, it's quite likely a large portion of those kids had no opinions on the prequels at all and indeed hadn't even seen them yet.

Ultimately, the idea that the critical and cultural stink of the prequels was erased by a cartoon and other supplementary material that a fraction of the audience for the films ever watched is just not credible. It maintained interest in the brand, sure, but you know, its Star Wars. If the sequel trilogy is a moribund setting they can just move on to literally any other until the younger fanbase for the ST is identified as a ripe target for new content.

Right now, that job (maintaining interest in the brand) is already being done by Mandalorian and the new shows they've got coming.

Abrams. He's an idiot that barely knows the consequences of his action. Numbers, setting and world-building is alien to him.

Abrams is the worst person you can hire in a franchise that relies heavily on its setting.

Oh well, can't put spilt milk back.

[ray245]

The reception of TROS ! = the reception of the sequel trilogy as a whole. Both TFA and TLJ were very well reviewed, successful movies which audiences liked. TROS is unique in that its a badly reviewed movie which not even audiences liked as much as they liked the previous films. That doesn't take the stink off the comparably poor critical reception of the prequels or their poor reputation.

People's opinions change. A lot of the hype surrounding TFA was because people were invested in finding out what is inside the mystery box. The long-term reception of TFA depended on how the sequels were going to end. When ROS revealed that there was no coherent story to tell across three movies to begin with, and that the mystery box that built up hype amongst the fans were ultimately worthless, that can change people's attitude towards the TFA and TLJ.

Whereas the prequels ended on a relatively high note with ROTS. While the initial short-term reaction to the prequels was mixed, the prequels benefited in the long run as we now see the people who grew up with the prequels retaining a more positive outlook on the era as a whole. On the other hand, because of how the sequels ended, its long term outlook will not be as positive, because it ended in a way that didn't really make too many people happy with it.

As for the stuff about the prequel era being full of spin-off EU materials to make the era interesting - basically you're talking about Clone Wars. That (the pilot movie) premiered over three whole years after ROTS, and it's reputation as being some sort of touchstone for a generation is an exaggeration. Some kids liked it, sure, but it ain't Transformers. And if those kids did like it, it's quite likely a large portion of those kids had no opinions on the prequels at all and indeed hadn't even seen them yet.

Ultimately, the idea that the critical and cultural stink of the prequels was erased by a cartoon and other supplementary material that a fraction of the audience for the films ever watched is just not credible. It maintained interest in the brand, sure, but you know, its Star Wars. If the sequel trilogy is a moribund setting they can just move on to literally any other until the younger fanbase for the ST is identified as a ripe target for new content.

I am not talking about the cartoon show. I am talking about the flood of merchandise, novels and video games that came out with the prequels. In an era where kids today are increasingly opting for video games as the cornerstone of their childhood, the failure of Disney to produce major SW video games after video games to keep the interest of kids is a major failure compared to the prequels.

I content that the success of the prequels amongst my generation has far less to do with the actual movies themselves, but the fact that we had endless amount of Star Wars content to consume over a whole decade. The intervals between the movies, created ample story-telling space for other content. The 10 years gap between EP I and II gave us a whole decade of stories to be told in different medium, and the three years gap gave us the Clone Wars.

But in real life, the three years gap between movies also granted us time to enjoy Star Wars content in different formats.

Right now, that job (maintaining interest in the brand) is already being done by Mandalorian and the new shows they've got coming.

And I content that it is not sufficient. Mandalorian is well received amongst adults, but the ratings for resistance tv show is terrible. And the Mandalorian is still much closer to the OT era than the ST era anyway.

Oh well, can't put spilt milk back.

You can pretend it doesn't exist. Or just create EU books and TV shows that aren't handicapped by the sequels. Use the "Legends" continuity to create more SW content. The sequel era is now a major handicap for the future of the SW franchise.

[Vendetta]

I am not talking about the cartoon show. I am talking about the flood of merchandise, novels and video games that came out with the prequels. In an era where kids today are increasingly opting for video games as the cornerstone of their childhood, the failure of Disney to produce major SW video games after video games to keep the interest of kids is a major failure compared to the prequels.

Ultimately, the Star Wars sequels were not aimed at kids. They hired a director who lives in the nostalgia bubble and have put that at the centre of everything they've done. They made a sequel trilogy that aped the aesthetic of the originals, and made character prequels and side stories set only around the originals.

Disney already has the wallets of the kids, whether it's from Frozen or Marvel.

Their version of Star Wars was aimed at the 45-50 year olds.

That's why nobody will have nostalgia for the sequels in 20 years, because the sequels are already Ready Player Obi-Wan.

[Vympel]

People's opinions change. A lot of the hype surrounding TFA was because people were invested in finding out what is inside the mystery box. The long-term reception of TFA depended on how the sequels were going to end. When ROS revealed that there was no coherent story to tell across three movies to begin with, and that the mystery box that built up hype amongst the fans were ultimately worthless, that can change people's attitude towards the TFA and TLJ.

That's totally ridiculous. Do you actually think that movie made $900M domestic in the US alone because "people were invested in finding out what is inside the mystery box"?

Whereas the prequels ended on a relatively high note with ROTS. While the initial short-term reaction to the prequels was mixed, the prequels benefited in the long run as we now see the people who grew up with the prequels retaining a more positive outlook on the era as a whole. On the other hand, because of how the sequels ended, its long term outlook will not be as positive, because it ended in a way that didn't really make too many people happy with it.

People were saying the same stuff about the prequels back when they came out. Wasn't real Star Wars, had ruined everything, kids didn't like it, etc etc etc etc. It's an old story and its ultimately just people projecting their personal preferences onto some grand fandom narrative on the basis of no real evidence.

I am not talking about the cartoon show. I am talking about the flood of merchandise, novels and video games that came out with the prequels. In an era where kids today are increasingly opting for video games as the cornerstone of their childhood, the failure of Disney to produce major SW video games after video games to keep the interest of kids is a major failure compared to the prequels.

That flood of stuff was mostly mediocre tie-in crap. The Clone Wars is the only thing that came out with any sort of longevity or mass appeal.

I content that the success of the prequels amongst my generation has far less to do with the actual movies themselves, but the fact that we had endless amount of Star Wars content to consume over a whole decade. The intervals between the movies, created ample story-telling space for other content. The 10 years gap between EP I and II gave us a whole decade of stories to be told in different medium, and the three years gap gave us the Clone Wars.


But in real life, the three years gap between movies also granted us time to enjoy Star Wars content in different formats.

The prequels were only a success in the sense that they were in general bad films with a poor reputation that neverthless had a lot of spinoff material. I mean, that's fine so far as it goes, but they didn't 'save' Star Wars. TFA didn't make $2B at the box office because people liked the prequels or Med-Star II or Jedi Starfighter or whatever, and it certainly wasn't because people got enarmored about mystery boxes. Like, if you honestly think that a movie made $2B at the box office because people cared who Snoke was, you can, but it's not extending the movie any credit for its actual quality in why people enjoy films.

And I content that it is not sufficient. Mandalorian is well received amongst adults, but the ratings for resistance tv show is terrible. And the Mandalorian is still much closer to the OT era than the ST era anyway.

There's absolutely no evidence that kids don't enjoy Mandalorian. And again, I'm not talking about the ST, I'm talking about Star Wars. Star Wars survived the cultural embarassment that were the prequels, it'll survive a mediocre end to some other trilogy.

[Vendetta]

That's totally ridiculous. Do you actually think that movie made $900M domestic in the US alone because "people were invested in finding out what is inside the mystery box"?

Mystery boxes are a marketing tool. They keep people talking about a movie and that ongoing conversation makes it more likely other people will go and check it out to see what all the fuss is.

There's absolutely no evidence that kids don't enjoy Mandalorian. And again, I'm not talking about the ST, I'm talking about Star Wars. Star Wars survived the cultural embarassment that were the prequels, it'll survive a mediocre end to some other trilogy.

Star Wars will survive, but the next Star Wars thing won't be as big an event.

[Patroklos]

That's totally ridiculous. Do you actually think that movie made $900M domestic in the US alone because "people were invested in finding out what is inside the mystery box"?

Sure. If you are walking into a known trilogy your expectations for the next installment definitely colors your appreciation for the first. Properly setting up themes and cliff hangers pecans generating interest in those themes and cliffhangers and an expectation that someone has already thought about the follow up. A follow op you are invested in.

If you buy a ticket to TLJ expecting a pay off and there is nothing there if definitely impacts the the perception on both installments.

TFA also had the benefit of the doubt regarding ticket sales by being the the first installment. Nobody knew anything about the ST other than “Star Wars!” You had to pay to get a taste, whether you walked away craving more or hacking up bile. This also means the ticket sale numbers for TLJ reflect heavily on the reputation of TFA, not the quality of TLJ. Same goes for TROS, it depending heavily on the reputation of both previous installments. At least for opening weekend numbers before viewers can have much knowledge to judge whether to see the current release on its own merits.

The fact that TROS numbers are low is as much a consequence of disappointment TLJ, either as a self contained movie or it’s Inconguities with TFA, as any knowledge of TROS itself by audiences. Unless you want to blame it all on poor TROS marketing. That’s fair as it was terrible.

I agree a one year gap between TLJ and TROS was two short. It is, however, 365 times better than the TFA/TLJ gap.