Were "fan expectations" the problem?

Exactly, the casual fans get their cues from the SW diehards and what I call the solid SW fans. I know one girl who only saw TFA (she would be considered a casual fan) only because it was breaking box office records, so she became curious to see what this phenomenon was? She did not see R1, did not see TLJ, nor did not see Solo.

If diehards showed up multiple times (as we always do for a SW movie), and the solid SW fans showed up once (maybe twice), than Solo does well at the box office. There is no way that casual fans not showing up can make up THAT much of a loss from R1 and TLJ. TFA is a movie that appealed to everyone (for various reasons) and that is why it made over 2 billion.

 

That's a fine theory, but do you have anything other than anecdotal evidence to support it? You can dismiss Pablo if you wish, but the fact is the average movie goer sees 4 films a year. I'm a hardcore Star Wars fan and I saw Solo twice. People were going to watch Deadpool and the Avengers. Those two films were released within a month of each other. The casual fan wasn't going to see Solo when it was getting mixed reviews.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with expectations and The Last Jedi. So I'll bow out of the statistics debate.

 

Considering people were confused on Maul showing up in Solo, People thinking the Resistance and New Republic are one in the same, and people not knowing that the planet that was destroyed in TFA was named Hosan Prime. It's safe to assume to come up with that conclusion.

I was personally only saw about 1 to 3 movies a year before I subscribed to MoviePass then AMC A-List. SO his statement is true when you're talking about me. There's not telling how many movies people see in a year but his comments are in line with there are less people going to the movies now than 10 years ago.

Ant-Man 2 was darn good movie and it had IW wave help bring it's interests because people wanted to know if Ant-man was one of the people who "disappeared". What did TLJ do that helps people relate to Solo? How does Solo relate to TLJ? That question can be answered between IW and Antman.

That's because there hasn't been a credible evidence to show that TLJ is the SOLE responsibility on why Solo didn't do so well. Now if Episode 9 doesn't do well and the money it makes is not in the ball park of where a 3rd film in a trilogy should be making than TLJ hurt SW argument holds more wight but as of right now, it's impossible say for sure. All of those reasons you listed has numbers and facts that support it. May was busy month for people wallets. Solo had to compete with the same crowd who wanted to see IW, Deadpool 2 (People on here underestimate how popular that movie is) and The Incredibles 2. You think families and people that don't have that much disposable income have enough money to see all of those movie within weeks of them showing? That's easily $60 for a single person would spend to see IF, DP 2 and Solo all in the same month assuming a $9 ticket with popcorn and a drink. That's a potential video game purchase. Solo was dead since day 1. The marketing dropped the ball with Solo, no one outside of the SW community even knew about the movie. If i had to pick between Solo and IW, i'll pick IW because of the 10 years of anticipation. I personally think had they moved Solo in December, it would of performed way better. May was just a busy month and i'm pretty sure Rogue One wouldn't made the billion dollar mark if it was in the same position. In other words, there isn't enough data and time to see if TLJ is the culprit of hurting the franchise. Episode 9 will be the real test.

 

We can go round and round in this debate, but the one thing I take issue with the narrative that everyone is a casual fan after you go through the diehards, and that is not true. There are fans in the middle who are SW fans (who are just not as obsessed as we are), that are pretty loyal to the franchise, even during the PT.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 27, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 27, 2019 ---

I'm a diehard SW fan and I was confused about the Darth Maul cameo as I thought he died in TPM? lol My buddy gave me the update in the Clone Wars TV show and how he came back. So that was going to get lost on ALOT of people, not just casual fans. That's my only beef with Solo as Qi'ra should have worked for Jabba as that would have tied nicely with the OT.

 

I'd imagine it would of been even worse on the people who only follow SW movies which is majority of the casuals. Only reason why I wasn't confused about Maul is because I been watching Rebels and binged watch TCW between Season 1 and 2 of Rebels. I agree that Jabba would of made more sense but I was happy to see Maul on screen again.

 

I don't think I made the case that TLJ is solely responsible (I think it's principally responsible but that's besides the point). My point is that the well circulated and oft repeated talking points generally suggested that TLJ had little or nothing to do with it.

All SW movies compete against other movies, that is nothing new, it's just thatnow 2 of them met or exceeded projections, 2 of them did not. If there isn't enough data and time to see if TLJ is a culprit hurting the franchise, there isn't enough data and time to rule it out... but it's still being ruled out. In the end none of this matters because I recognize the pattern here, and know that this has become a matter of faith that TLJ hasn't hurt the franchise. It is not a falsifiable position, no amount of evidence will convince someone who likes TLJ that it hurt the franchise. No matter how EPIX performs, no matter what story it tells, the immovable object is the conclusion that TLJ didn't hurt the franchise.

I don't hope for EPIX's failure. I will be there on opening night (just like I have been for every recent SW movie) despite TLJ. I am a fan; wavering albeit. But I don't expect EPIX to wow with box office numbers unless it wows the core fans. If EPIX does not tell a story that the "fans" want to see, but instead tells the story of someone who thinks the GFFA needs to be re-imagined, it will do comparable or worse numbers than TLJ.

That's what it comes down to, will the franchise follow Rian's approach or George's old approach. Do they go with the new Coke formula that tested well with focus groups but met with popular opposition, or do they go with old Coke formula? We'll see in December.

 

Came across this article yesterday. What's interesting is when it came out. Adam Driver talks about what Kylo is suppose to represent, and based on his explanation. There was never going to be a Reylo or redemption story in this trilogy. He represents the privileged white male who believes he was wronged when things don't go his way. I think fan expectations will be an issue with this trilogy, because the real information is not getting to the public. I haven't heard any site that covers Star Wars bring this up.

OPINION
Kylo Ren from Star Wars is more politically relevant than you think
by Stephen Kent
| November 11, 2017 10:19 AM
previously noted, Star Wars used to thrive in very clear light versus dark dynamics, and fans were drawn to that clarity in defining good and evil. Kylo Ren is different.


In a recent interview with GQ, actor Adam Driver, who plays Ren, shared his view on the political context in which Kylo Ren’s character was born. He is “juvenile,” says Driver, and behaves like our own world’s politicians whose actions all “come down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.” That may sound like an anti-Trump statement to some, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a political scientist who doesn’t recognize these traits in the personality types drawn to politics. Driver goes on to say that in his conversations with directors JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson, terrorism came up in regard to how Kylo Ren’s nature. “You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.” This comment should sound familiar in how we collectively talk about radicalization and how angry young men serve as a driving force of terrorism at home and abroad.

Driver leaves a lot to unpack with this revelation about the inspirations behind the character of Kylo Ren. The First Order and Kylo Ren stand distinct from the Empire and Darth Vader, despite aesthetic similarities. The events of The Force Awakens show the First Order to be a military rogue faction with no clear government or citizenry. They are ISIS-like in their lack of legitimacy as a state. The First Order conquers, kills, and declares territory in the name of the Empire’s ideals. They also wielded a super weapon, Starkiller Base, to destroy Republic worlds in a fashion that can best be described as galactic terrorism. There was no military strategy attached to the act, just ideology and a desire to inflict pain.






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What is both fascinating and frustrating about Kylo Ren is why he feels so “torn apart” and conflicted. He is the child of Han Solo and Princess Leia, making him galactic royalty. His uncle is fabled Jedi Luke Skywalker. You could say Kylo Ren is the epitome of being privileged, yet he still isn’t satisfied. After all, his grandfather Darth Vader ruled a galaxy with an iron fist, so perhaps his place in life felt remarkably small compared to what could have been. Supreme Leader Snoke told him stories of the Empire’s glory, of Vader’s unquestioned power, and Kylo soaked it all in. He was radicalized by the First Order’s neo-Imperial version of galactic events and embraced it instead of trying to live in his famous parents’ impossibly large shadow.

In our own world, there are two prominent concerns when it comes to terrorism: Islamic extremism and white nationalism. While the First Order possesses elements of ISIS, North Korea, and Iran, the best way to understand them is to look at right-wing nationalist movements in the west. Their slogan might as well be Make the Galaxy Great Again, which is only to say that after the Empire fell to a rebellion there would obviously be large swaths of people who lost status, privilege, and power in the new order. General Hux, the First Order commander in The Force Awakens, for example, was just a child when the Empire fell. His father was powerful and he was going to inherit that one day. Then, the Empire was toppled and his family suddenly had only exile and disgrace. Just like the alt-right is a confluence of troubled individuals with grievances ranging from economic anxiety to blatant racial bigotry, the First Order is held together by Imperial descendants and young people indoctrinated into a reimagined history where the Empire wasn’t monstrous, but something to be envied.

Kylo Ren may well have earned the Twitter account Emo Kylo Ren with his unfortunate choice of haircut and temper tantrums, but there is something eerily familiar to what his character reflects in politics today. Why would a young man like Ben Solo, who had everything, kill his own father and take on the task of reviving the memory of Darth Vader? Why are young white men in America feeling so lost they’d march alongside Nazis in Charlottesville, gun down churchgoers in Charleston, and embrace the not-so-subtle dog whistle of Make America Great Again?

Because when people don’t have everything they want in life, they tend to gravitate towards whatever tells them they are entitled to more. This December, with the release of The Last Jedi, we will get one step closer to discovering where Kylo’s path leads – and in the Nov. 2018 midterms we will see just how strong the grip of resentment and nationalism is on politics.

 

Are there big event movies anymore?

Like, I sort of felt that way with The Force Awakens and a few months later with Batman v Superman. But even then, I don't think they come close to matching the hype that stuff like the prequel trilogy or Lord of the Rings did back in the day.

Maybe it's just because as an adult I have a different perspective, but I could also see it simply as films simply having more variety of these types of films. That's totally not a bad thing, but it means that if you consider yourself a comic book fan there generally isn't a single defining movie of the year that you and all your friends will be hyped for. I mean, even last year with Infinity War there were people who would argue that Black Panther or even Aquaman (somehow) was the more iconic film.

As a kid, I think of stuff like Return of the King where even my parents copies of Newsweek had articles leading up to release, or The Phantom Menace where you couldn't drink a can of Pepsi or eat Doritos without seeing Darth Maul's face. The local news would be at theaters hours before the showing, interviewing the cosplaying fans in line.

Now, marketing is basically done with trailers on YouTube, and advanced ticket sales mean people don't necessarily stand in line like they used to. Again, not a bad thing by any means, but I just feel like the culture around movies has changed.

So, for Star Wars, while I do understand your concern, I think we can see it like this- arguably the most successful franchise in history could be the MCU.

Hype for the MCU varies film to film. You've got huge events like Infinity War that sell like crazy. You have surprise hits like Guardians of the Galaxy that exceed expectations. Then you have smaller titles like Antman and the Wasp that help with the worldbuilding but certainly aren't the "big events" that stuff like Infinity War are.

I think that's not a terrible model for Star Wars. Obviously we're not gonna be getting 3 movies a year (nor should we) but what if we had something that looked like this hypothetical example?

2021- Rian Johnson trilogy film (BIG EVENT)
2022- B&W trilogy film (possible surprise hit?)
2023- worldbuilding spinoff film (maybe something like a gritty war film?)

Then rinse and repeat for 2024-2026 and so on. We get one huge film every three years, then some spattering of good stuff in between. Star Wars stays saturated with content, but still manages to remain exciting.

 

Can you quote where he explained that? That article has very little actual content from Driver who is talking about Kylo's motivations and why he feels his cause is justified.

There's nothing you can say to convince anyone in the "TLJ is causing a backlash camp." In the face of all the evidence there's people still citing things RT audience scores and whatnot.

People are seeing less movies every year. The movie industry is hiding the decline by raising prices, but people have been seeing less movies since 2000 (was the peak). There's a lot of reasons for this, but TV is chipping away at the movie industry.

 

I have a real problem if this Trilogy was supposed to reflect today's politics, or morphing into what happened in the 2016 election. The OT/PT were loosely based on events from WW2 as Palpatine's rise is lifted straight out of Hitler, and the Empire are straight from the Nazi's. Many pundits say it shades Vietnam too, but the big picture stuff were from WW2). Lucas and Spielberg were fascinated with WW2, so they use a lot of those analogies in their movies.

I don't have a problem with that because history gives us all perspective. We can now (and even in 1977) look back at WW2 and get a clearer picture of how, why and what happened to cause it ( I don't like doing that when something is currently going on politically, because sometimes people become partisan and look at it from their narrow view. I'm not going to debate Trump or the Democrats who are running in 2020, and I don't think the ST should be reflecting it, because we may look at this era of politics MUCH differently 20 years from now.

 

The writer of the article is just pulling up nothingness out of thin air. He is doing nothing more than the old "hey let's take the bad guys and find out what they have in common with people I disagree with politically!"

 

It's not a punditry perspective. George Lucas has repeatedly, on the record, multiple times, unequivocally stated that the malfeasance of the Nixon administration and the war in Vietnam were direct influences on Star Wars. It’s not a theory. It’s a direct A:B correlation. The movie released in 1977 was a deliberate reflection of what was happening at that time. A lot of the imagery was intentionally based on WW2 aesthetics to invoke that perspective, but the underline subject matter was based around the time it was made. That’s the fact of the matter.

 

Because it's a condense version of the conversation. The GQ article is a long read before you get to Adam talking about the idea behind Kylo Ren.

I'll just paste it here.

In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson saw Driver go light years beyond his own experience. "Adam was always pushing the context of the character," Johnson says. "He's put in this unhealthy environment and goes through the worst of youth, the selfishness and volatility, he's representing that side of adolescence."

Of course, these days immaturity and insecurity are no strangers to power. "It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be," Driver says of Ren, who prefers lightsabers over Twitter for his tantrums. "You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine - or hope or pray - are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation."

Even more topical and even more touchy was the decision to play Kylo Ren like a radicalised extremist. "We talked about terrorism a lot," Driver says of his early conversations with Abrams and Johnson about his character. "You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part."

The demagoguery drives him to the most famous film patricide in galactic history, as Kylo Ren kills Han Solo in the shocking denouement of The Force Awakens. "When I watched the premiere, I felt sick to my stomach," Driver recalls. "The people behind me, when the scroll started, were like 'Oh my god. Oh my god. It's happening.' Immediately, I thought I was going to puke. I was holding my wife's hand, and she's like, 'You're really cold. Are you OK?' Because I just knew what was coming - I kill Harrison - and I didn't know how this audience of 2,000 people was going to respond to it, you know?"

 

OK get this in here. Do we need any more definitive proof that RT audience score is useless.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/captain_marvel

 

I just laugh when people try to push this as a valid metric.

 

There's nothing in this GQ article where Adam Driver speculates about the future of his character.

I could be missing this, but nothing you've posted supports the conclusion you're making.

 

I don't think it was "fan expectations" per se, but there is no denying that there was massive build-up, particularly regarding Rey's parentage, all for it *seemingly* to be for nothing. There was also some semblance of secrecy surrounding Snoke, all for it *seemingly* to be for nothing.

Based on the history of this series, I don't think it was unreasonable for fans of the series to expect more than "oh our protagonist after all this build-up is just nobody. Oh, and our antagonist that came out of nowhere that you never heard of is just a nobody to set up our real bad guy's story arc. Don't worry about his background or the fact that he ruined the lives of all of our heroes that had a happy ending when we last saw them."

....the story's not over though.

 

@Jaxxon Yes some expectations were the problem. Some where way back in this thread a mystery box was mentioned and we found out the box didn't have much in it. As a fan I have looked at what I got with what I wanted. I cant say that TLJ was 100% what I thought was going to get. 2 directors style in the middle of a trilogy is where the disconnect happens. So we had time to think what JJ would do and then they changed it up. So the fan ideas stayed the same but the guy behind the lens changed, which didn't work well.

 

I actually agree with a lot of this analysis. I do feel that, intentionally or not, Kylo Ren somehow represents your typical disenfranchised privileged young man of the west, threatened by a changing world... add to that a fundamentalist fervour, a righteous yet thwarted sense of cause, of justice... you bought yourself a “holy” warrior, a modern age crusader.