Solo "bombs", so what happens next?

I loved it. I enjoyed it much more than TLJ. It was a fun ride from start to finish. Maul popping up made me feel like Disney is finally starting to tie all of the media together. How many people are going to rent or buy TCW animated series now just to get caught up that had no idea of it's existence and/or implications until this movie came out?

 

Ok. What movies do "fans" want?

 

Anyone not seeing Solo is only really doing themselves a disservice.

That being said...

Spoiler: Speculation based off Solo spoilers

While this film is a lot of fun, its real potential is in that it could have an incredible sequel. An all out gang war between Maul and Jabba, with bounty hunters, Han, and Chewie as the soldiers on both sides, while Han and Qi'ra's relationship crumbles beneath it.

I'm sorry, but that could be amazing.

And even if that's not exactly what will happen, there's no doubt that the end of Solo has some really interesting ramifications, and I'd love to see them played out on screen. It'd truly be a shame if we never get to see it because of the toxicity of this fanbase.

 

It's not their goal obviously, it's one thing to cater to the fans, but to call Star Wars fans that didn't like a movie, man children, chauvinists, etc. isn't the greatest business strategy., and maybe they are feeling the repercussions now? The numbers are quite obvious. TFA represents the core fan base, Solo numbers are what we have now. Even when the evidence is there, a Star Wars flop, the excuses continue to come. If there is no problem, why is Solo bombing? Why is it making less money its opening weekend then the Hangover 2? A Star Wars movie! Give me a good, reasonable explanation.

 

Here's a wonderful article about what happens when you try to give "fans" what they want:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/10/16448816/rick-and-morty-szechuan-sauce-backlash

Admittadly, it does go into "males harrasing females" again, but this whole "fan outrage" over not getting enough sauce is so absurd, that it kinda puts stuff like TLJ hatred into perspective.

 

I'd like to see a spinoff of this. But not a true sequel in the sense of Solo : 2. Let's see where things go from here with Enfys Nest and her crew. We know the story arc of Han now, but now we can see how the rebellion begins, and also have Maul and his syndicate be part of the larger story as well. This could incorporate Hera and Chopper to an extent, as well as perhaps Bale Organa. There are a lot of directions they can go from here. But they need to be creative and smart. To be honest, I would like to see someone like Dave Filoni take Kennedy's spot. He has ideas coming out of his ears.

 

SJW stands for Social Justice Warrior.

These are activists in the media and life that pursue a radical agenda to promote various causes like LGBT and feminist issues via media.

As an example of getting beaten over the head with such issues...You get a scene where Goofus (Poe) leads a Mutiny only to find out that Gallant (Holdo) was actually correct because SHE is always right. But then they had to reset the characters rather than space Poe as would normally happen... so you get the 'he's so cute'. Well fine.. ITS ALL GOOD I GUESS. Thanks for the mutiny, pal! It was ok because you were cute!

This is rather than... you know... having a logical story. They torque the story and bias the story and content so as to have 'teachable moments' to promote whatever their favored class of people are as a means of Social Justice, at the expense of whichever class of people they don't like. TLJ was so ham-handed in its attempts at this, that it completely removed any entertainment value because the story was so ludicrous.

Its also why certain people just LOVE the movie. They are in no way fans of Star Wars, but they sure are fans of having their social agenda promoted. These are the same people that wanted the Skywalkers turned into failures by making Rey a Rando, or for Rey to ultimately 'save' them. Your movie series about family sucks! Here... WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW ITS DONE.

Its also why any true fan of Star Wars ran away from TLJ like their hair is on fire and why it did real and lasting damage to the brand. When I go to watch a Star Wars Saga Movie, I go to watch stories about family(which is what seperates it from the rest and isn't just a Flash Gordon pew pew Ship and Lasersword movie) set against the backdrop of space. I didn't come to the movies to be lectured to by people with the writing ability of a 6-year old looking to promote Agendas.

If you want a good view of how this is actually done, watch Black Panther. Or probably Captain Marvel next year. Marvel has consistently shown that they can have strong women or minorities and actually have them in great movies that people actually like, that provide a great story first and foremost.

Most fans just want a great story, well told. The people who cry that you can't give fans what they want are the people that want to write anything they want(usually involving Social Justice) and call it good. They want to make bad stuff and have it sell. But it doesn't work that way. If you start making bad movies, the audience will stop coming to them.

TLJ(while still making enough money to make profit), took a ~$800 million drop from TFA, and Solo is now busy drowning in red ink... even though its apparently a decent SW film from everyone I've heard who has actually watched it.
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I don't want subversion, or fake "Gotcha" moments in Star Wars. Star Wars was never broken, I don't get why they feel the need to try and fix it, upend the force, make it convoluted, turn Rey's motivation into something I don't really care about anymore, Why bother? The Prequels were brilliant in imagination, not so much in execution, there was never a problem with the tone. Just make the movie right, it never needed a complete overhaul. When everyone is Super, nobody is. Make a movie that fans want, it's worked with Marvel. Why can Marvel do it, and Star Wars be so dead against it?

 

Except this is what happens when you treat fans as a joke and don't expect backlash.
Are there fans that need to be told to 'cut the crap!', yes, and I can think of a few. However, completely disregarding the very people who financially support your product is never a good thing.

 

Most want a Obi-Wan movie like most wanted Rey Kenobi (I wanted Rey Clone) But knowing u, your probably gonna tell me that somehow a Kenobi movie is "wrong" & The Mouse is always rite.

 

Well, considering how the current canon leaves little room for a Kenobi movie- I'd be all for it if they could pull off something exciting, but I'm afraid it's unlikely we'd seem Kenobi leave Tatooine

Spoiler: Rebels spoiler

and he'd never even get to fight Maul, unless we rehash Rebels

 

Seems like this is a tradition with Star Wars. Lucas basically said the fans were idiots and didn't know what they were talking about when they complained about the crap he served up in the PT. If I remember he said the same thing when he rereleased TPM about 10 years ago in a 3d version (I think that's what it was). Someone asked if he wanted to do more SW films and he said "no" as he didn't want the backlash he'd received for the PT.

Anyway, if I were Disney/LFL, this is what I'd do.

1. Why did this flop? Why the soft numbers? The film itself had good reviews, especially from the people who actually watched it, so it's not a problem with the film itself. Is there some backlash from TLJ? Yeah. How much? How do we quantify it? In other words, a full analysis needs to be done. The rest of this is based on what I think they'd find from this analysis.
2. The lesson from Solo itself and the troubled production: get solid writers/directors. You don't hand the keys of the kingdom to idiots like Miller and Lord.
3. I don't buy into the idea of "fatigue." The MCU released what, 5 films in 10 months? Talk about saturation. Good films will sell tickets. Period. Even in February (as evidenced by both Black Panther and Deadpool 1).
4. One film/year for now.
5. Stay away from characters from the OT. Don't do an Obi-Wan film. Not now. Unless you get a good script. Scratch that, a great script.
6a. I liked the Last Jedi, and I think RJ is very talented, but I'd have him on a shorter leash than he was on for TLJ. I think he'll do much better writing his own thing. Definitely needs to be set in a time period not covered by any of the films (put it back in the Old Republic).
6b. One thing I think they did screw up was that they killed Luke off in the film right after they killed of Han. I like the old tired warrior Luke. But I have to admit that if they were going to go that direction then perhaps they shouldn't have killed him off. If they were going to kill him off, then they should have made him less jaded and bitter. It was a bit too far for more than just a few. Again, I liked it, but I have to admit this was quite divisive.
6c. Don't be divisive simply to be contrarian. At the end of the day LFL and the powers that be are custodians and need to remember that.

 

I am a big old time fan and I do not have SW "fatigue". My feeling at the end of Solo, which was the same after seeing Rogue one, was: "Keep sending them our way baby!".

In my opinion this is the best time to be a Star Wars fan. Sure, something is more flavourful when it's rarer, so I agree that you should not have big saga movies every year. And, we don't. What we're getting is a big saga movie every 2 years and then a SW story movie in between, for one Star Wars movie every year. One could argue that perhaps it should be a big movie every 4 years and then a story movie in between, for a SW movie every 2 years. Which way would you prefer?

I don't think one movie every year is too much, at least for the time being where there was a big hunger for Star Wars, and I feel there's hunger still. You had the Lord of the Rings movies every year, and then the Hobbit was the same. Sure, there was almost a 10 year gap between the two installments but still it was 1 movie every year when they were on, and one couldn't wait to see the next.

Look at the Bond movies. In the past they were made every 2 years. Now we're getting between 2 to 4 years a movie, but in the past 2 years was the frequency.

Who knows what will happen when IX is over. Will there be new movies right away or will there be a 2-4 gap?


Personally, I'm very pleased with the SW story movies so far. I am a huge Han Solo/Ford fan and I liked Solo. I loved Rogue One. Would I see a Kenobi movie? Sure.

What I'm not very pleased about is with the ST movies. Found TFA too safe and equal to ANH. And TLJ, while I liked the spectacle and parts of it there were other parts that left me cold, especially the way Luke was handled.

BUT, have the ST shortcomings had any impact on my fandom and willingness to see every SW movie in theaters? Ok, I have to be honest, perhaps a little, but that little is very small compared with my desire to see SW in the big screen. That said, I hope they push the ST envelope further, otherwise we may start to have some fatigue if IX is not spectacular and consensual.

Bottom line, as long as the movies are very good, I'll bet every fan will see every SW movie in theaters every year. As for SW stories, keep them coming. Kudos to the teams involved as I think they made a great job.

 

People don't go to space westerns to be slapped in the face with political messages. If you don't believe me, just look at Solo's box office, which is suffering as a direct result of TLJ. Now, of course, I grant you that TLJ was bad on a lot of levels, not just the political silliness.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand there we go. The old standby of "anyone who criticizes these movies is a racist/sexist/misogynist/etc....

--- Double Post Merged, May 29, 2018, Original Post Date: May 29, 2018 ---

I doubt that the movie makers will consider themselves beholden to non-movie storylines. I don't care how many members of the story group tell us all those EU stories are canon, I expect the movie producers will do exactly what Lucas did when making the prequels: The movies are the highest priority and they will completely disregard anything from the EU which contradicts what they want to do on screen.

 

That's possible. I know, for instance, Pablo has said that when the films and books contradict, consider the movies to be of a higher degree of canon.

But that was for relatively small stuff. If we're talking a major(ish) character's death, I'd imagine they'd be a little more careful. Otherwise, what was the point of cleaning up canon?

 

Star Wars has never been that great here in Brasil. Not even TFA was that big, it was only the 6th movie of the year in 2015. That's why I say that Lucasfilm should "forget" about US/Europe a little, and start looking to grow in another markets where it is not so strong yet.

And for the ones who couldnt understand the numbers, Solo only made something like 1,3M dollars here (meanwhile IW is with 61M). It's very low even for the normal standards. TLJ made 19M dollars and it was a "failure" (only 15th movie of 2017 here).

 

Wolfpack, not going to let you off. OK so you say we are slapped in the face with political messages. Ok then what are they? Start listing them.

As for the racist,sexist, etc. That directly ties with your list that you will be sending along quickly. Not to mention that is what people saying Star Wars has some sort of SJW agenda is exactly that. Isnt it? If not what do people then mean by SJW?

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...are-movies-about-white-men-box-office-poison/
^this happened.
Let the blame game begin

 

The blame game already began with "They're not listening to the fans."

Though I agree, we don't need articles like this either.

 

I do wonder if Solo had been released in December 2018 instead of May, that earnings and reactions would have been better, with a full year gone since TLJ and a year to go before Episode IX. A nicer "in the middle" strategy. Might have been better, or not.