Ignoring the Star Wars haters

The problem is that people often think of their own interpretation as the only valid oppinion. Haters and Fanboys of TLJ are both sitting on their high horses unwilling to accept any oppinion other than their own. If you still think that TLJ is a "flawless masterpiece" or the "worst movie evurrr" chances are you didn't listen to what other people had to say at all. If you find yourself pressing the "ignore button" a lot more frequently since the release of TLJ maybe the problem is you...

 

Great post

 

Amen.

 

I'm glad that most of my comments passed your quality standards -.-

English isn't my first language so I could take your statement the wrong way but posts like the one above can come across as belitteling which is exactly what I mean with "get off your high horse". Maybe it's not entirely up to you who is toxic and who isn't. "Let's stick to real criticism" is a terrible approach to exchange oppinions as it inherently means that you feel entitled to decide which kind of criticism is valid and which isn't.

From my personal experience I base the validity of criticism on 3 simple guidelines.
1. Voicing your like/dislike in a polite way. (I'm afraid the Pizza wasn't as good as I had hoped for)
2. Explaining the reason why you like/dislike a product, movie, etc... (The dough was still soggy and the cheese didn't melt properly)
3. Making suggestions what steps could be taken to improve the product, movie, etc... in the future (If you pre-heat the oven at X degress for Y minutes the Pizza will turn out much better)

I get a lot of criticism and I give a lot of criticism at work but it's usually not a problem if criticism is presented like this. I had art directors who were notorious for sending back the hard work of their employess over and over again for further improvement. However, the good art directors were always capable of following the 3 guidelines and many of my projects have benefitted a lot from this kind of criticism. All it took was getting down from my high horse every now and then. Just because an oppinion is different doesn't mean it has no value.

 

If you say so

 

Quote in OP seems to be very biased saying that the vast majority agree with the writer and I'm someone who liked TLJ. Kind of an annoying thing to shoehorn in. TFA and Rogue One were victims of the same virulent and ugly hate. It's not enough to explain the reaction to TLJ.

 

Since when did SW do well in China? Also don't forget Transformers: Age of Extinction almost made 2 billion in China, and The Fate of the Furious made 2.6 billion (which is the highest grossing Hollywood movie in China). I'm sorry, China isn't a reliable when it comes to SW and holds little weight overall.

 

True, China never was all that much into Star Wars.
Maybe it's because in Star Wars they touch sensitive topics like religion (The force) and ghosts and stuff, there is much more censure and social security there.

 

I think it is simply that here in the U.S., we have an entire generation that grew up in love with the original trilogy and the characters in it. It has permeated our culture. Star Wars references are everywhere.

China has no such attachment to the brand. I have often said that if E1 was the first Star Wars movie, there would have been no E2. China is demonstrating something similar, only with the sequel trilogy.

 

Exactly! I think those financial analyst articles and people who say SW "bomb" in China fails to take their culture in account. I'm honestly asking, has China even been shown the OT and PT? If so, how was their numbers?

 

Even Rogue One with China pandering (they apparently deliberately casted a Chinese actor for the market) made almost no money.

I bet they'll shoot a special Chinese version of IX (all the actors paid to learn Chinese) to desperately try to crack the market.

 

China came in second place in terms of international gross for the TFA.. Grossing more capital than Germany which is a western european country. I think you must give the audience some credit maybe they wern't feeling the marketing campaign of the TLJ they complained about the actors and actresses in terms of beauty I think people aren't as ignorant as some may think... maybe the gimmicks didn't translate as well this time around.



United Kingdom 12/17/15 $163,599,922


China 1/9/16 $124,159,138
Germany 12/17/15 $111,351,219

 

The only reason anyone cares how much money TLJ made in China is because they are looking for anything negative they can find to support their opinion that the movie sucked - even though it has no baring on the quality of the movie one way or the other.

The top grossing 2017 American movies in China were Fate of the Furious, Transformers, Coco, Pirates of the Carribean, Kong, XXX, and Resident Evil. No matter how much some of the people around here may want to believe otherwise, China's rejection of TLJ was not because of their sophisticated tastes. Nor was it because of complaints about the movie from western audiences.

TLJ would not have succeeded in China whether it as the best movie in the saga of the worst. Its baffling that anyone could think otherwise. How much it made there is completely irrelevant.

But its still okay to not like it.

 

You can hope for 800+ domestic but EXPECTING it is between unreasonable and delusional in the current media environment in a declining market forced to jack up prices to offset declining ticket sales.

Two movies have ever done it, both over preformed almost all expectations wildly.
In context of the market the reality is there is not a rational argument for any movie to pull the kind of dollars some are trying to paint as some kind of baseline.
There are too few data points, the entire foundation is The Force Awakens made 936 million without even requiring the feeble argument to even understand why it made that much money nor accepting that even if you think you have the magic formula that it doesn't work to just keep making the same film.

If the take isn't in the goldilocks zone, it is because you went hog wild on essentially a lone data point and/or got hopped up on some strong franchise entitlement juice.

As for China, I'm sure they would love better market penetration but even with a 100% hold from TFA we are talking 1.3 being 1.4 and still 600 million less. Disney would love another 80 million I'm sure but it isn't conversation changing.
The same folks would continue to go on and on about the "disappointment" with little modification of their talking points.

 

Begun, the Fan Wars have. A Great Schism, The Last Jedi has created. Now... things are worst.