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Is Disney's Star Wars Franchise In Trouble? (cosmicbook.news)
Disney's Han Solo movie was the first Star Wars movie to lose money. But is there a larger problem? dryriver writes:
Comic book news website Cosmic Book News reports that even though Disney put bucketloads of Star Wars out there in 2018, revenues from all things Star Wars have actually fallen, according to Disney SEC filings. Disney made more Star Wars money in 2017 -- when only Rogue One hit cinemas -- than in 2018, when Solo, Last Jedi and SW Battlefront 2 were released.
A Rian Johnson-led Star Wars trilogy appears to have been delayed or cancelled entirely. Rumored spinoff movies for Bobba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi appear to have been put on the backburner or cancelled. Disney's CEO has confirmed that the Star Wars movies are being slowed down.
A Rian Johnson-led Star Wars trilogy appears to have been delayed or cancelled entirely. Rumored spinoff movies for Bobba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi appear to have been put on the backburner or cancelled. Disney's CEO has confirmed that the Star Wars movies are being slowed down.
Release too many things, too quickly, without enough time between your releases, and people get tired of it and lose interest.
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They've dumped hundreds of millions (billions?) into this franchise and produced 1 good movie, 2 mediocre movies, 2 mediocre TV shows, and 1 more or less bad movie, not to mention the controversy surrounding the games so far. I'm not surprised that Disney is looking to roll back their investment, it's been profitable but it wouldn't take too many more bad projects to kill off the brand. They're getting out while they're still ahead.
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things
I think it wrongfully took the heat and backlash for the wretched Last Jedi. Last Jedi was pretty wretched and I thought Solo superior.
Solo was no Episode IV or V but it was easily of the same quality as VI, and IMO, far more enjoyable than literally any of the other films.
I think Star Wars was a product of its time, and what made it great was the lack of competition. These days, eye-popping special effects are a dime a dozen, and audiences are used to aliens and blasters. It had nowhere to go but down.
It definitely can't help that the Star Wars video games are there to sell microtransactions these days, either. Over half the American public plays video games, don't tell me it doesn't matter.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
STORY. Star Wars in the 1970s had a fantastic story arch. The current batch of Star Wars movie (sans Rogue One, and Solo) have had no heart and soul. Only a bunch of special effects that are unimportant if the story is good.
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I saw that one SW movie where Princess Leia went through space like Superman. I was wondering at the time: how did that EVER get through any editing process? Did people really look at that and say "hey, that's pretty good?". It was just weird, and I have a low bar for movies. That scene was possibly the worst scene I have seen in any movie, ever. It was just bizarre. I wasn't really paying attention to the movie until that point.
How's this a surprise?
Disney is about making money, not about art or entertainment. Their primary focus is to turn a profit on the movie they are making. So, if cutting corners makes them more money, if not consulting with the creators of the franchise or taking their advice looks like it will produce more profit, they are going to do it.
But let's face it. The original Star Wars concept was at best 3 movies and it's been down hill since The Empire Strikes Back and we are waiting for installment 9? This franchise has been driven into the ground and milked for all it was worth and then some (pun intended). Few franchises last this long with Rocky and Star Trek being about all I remember.
Disney bought an old used up sports car, that had 200,000 miles, poor tires and a bad front end out of somebodies barn. I'm not surprised they are having difficulty making money on it's restoration. Such work is a labor of love, not profit, and Disney is about the latter. I'm thinking this franchise is about over.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Rogue One was better than any of the 3rd trilogy. First one was just a rehash, while the second was just trash.
Yes. Disney acquired the rights to the greatest movie franchise of all time and flooded the market. On top of this, they decided to make the tentpole of their investment (the sequel trilogy) without even so much of a sketch of a story arc. (Marvel people must be stunned at their incompetence.) And instead of sourcing great material from a vast and wonderful expanded universe to make the best proper sequel trilogy possible, they decided to make everything up as they go film-by-film, giving too much liberty to the creators. This ultimately resulted in Last Jedi. Just from a literary perspective, how did a script that broke the conventional trilogy story arc get greenlit? It's great, for example, when stories are successful with a non-conventional arc but those are the exception, and the "rule" exists for a reason. You don't bet the farm by taking a risk like that. But that's what Disney did.
When the 20th Century Fox rights revert, they can put out the complete, de-specialized trilogy on Blu-Ray. They'd make a fair bit of money on that.
Perhaps the gaping plot holes, illogical character actions, and inconsistency with decades of in-universe lore have something to do with it?
Just a thought.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
They seriously fucked Last Jedi for me, and technically them as well.
The scene where Leia and Poe were on that ship preparing to escape should have been totally different.
Considering the fact Carrie, you know, died, they should have reshot that scene to make Leia knock out the Admiral, put her on the ship, then had this back and fourth between Skywalker over the force about how she shouldn't do this, make it some really sad scene about the past and embracing the new generation, and she "needs to do this".
Then BOOM, ship obliterated, Skywalker fallen to his knees broken inside, and THAT is what eventually gets him involved with the battle.
Now they have to deal with doing the CG of a dead actress and voice. Great one, you morons.
Such a trivial thing to edit that one scene and it would have made the whole film even more impacting emotionally.
"b-b-but we have 2 other films with her involved!!!".
Do what any other company does, fucking adapt.
I'm not weirded out by the fact, I think it is amazing what we can do with CG now, but it was still the inferior story-line. They missed out big time.
Well, if they criticized that, then they'd actually made a good point. There's tons of stuff that you may not like there.
But if you see post that focus on the SJW aspect, you pretty much know that they just jumped on the bandwagon and don't really have a lot of points on their own. I think it really says a lot about the person's own preoccupation with gender bullshit.
To use an analogy: It's kind of like saying that midi-chlorians ruined the prequels.
Yes, it was a stupid idea. They should not have done it that way. But is that really the main thing you should focus on when levering criticism towards those movies? Would the movies have been better if they did it different? Would Episode 7 and 8 have been better if they changed the gender roles?
Personally I do not think so. Gaping plot holes would still be there. Illogical character actions would still be there. Inconsistencies and or retconning would still be there.
The Last Jedi has the lowest user score on Rotten Tomatoes (45%) of any major Star Wars film. It's lower even than the prequel films (59%, 56%, 65%, respectively), it's lower than the less-than-stellar Solo (64%), and it's certainly less than the decently well-regarded Rogue One (86%). If you want to pin Solo's failure on anything other than itself, pin it franchise fatigue (too many movies, too fast) and more specifically on The Last Jedi, which utterly failed to connect with audiences and was still fresh on everyone's minds since it had come out just a few months prior.
As for Rogue One, I'll grant that it was a significant departure for the franchise, so it didn't feel like a Star Wars episode, but they never said it was supposed to be one. Quite the contrary, they made it clear that they were going for something different that was set in the same universe, and with that in mind, I'd say it was a smashing success, both critically and commercially. It was a good film in its own right, despite being disliked by a handful of people, such as yourself, who couldn't enjoy it for what it was.
You had me until you brought the SJW thing into it. The movie just sucked in it's own right not because you are threatened by women.
it was just plain a bad movie. The character motivations didn't make sense, the fight scenes were poorly choreographed and there was no character arc like in originals or even the prequels. It was just bad film making.
No idea why they gave it to Johnson. Is he Hollywood Royalty or something? His filmography is sparse. I can't imagine him being handed the keys to the kingdom on one of the largest franchises ever with Looper under his belt and damn near nothing else.
It's pretty clear what happened to. They started doing the Solo kids story, Johnson decided he wanted it to be "his" thing and not just an existing story so he changed it all at the last moment and didn't have time to make it work with his limited skillset.
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The first three films had originality, actor chemistry and did not take themselves very seriously. At the time, no one had done what Star Wars had in terms of visuals. The actors played as if they lived in the films. Shit was easy to relate to. Most of Lucas's ineptness as a director was "cured" by skillful post production work. They were good, solid fun films.
Almost everything past them, especially the latest few has been super-pretentious, self-conscious in the "oh, look at me greatness" kind of way, but that's all they had. The cast and the fascination of Lucas with special effects killed the prequels. Portman, the new Vader, the vader-boy, young Kenobi, the bad motherfucker should not have been there. The post-RotJ stuff is all shit, everything in it sucks. The stories are a contrived and stupid rehash of the original trilogy. Nobody knows who the people in the new films are. Hamil and Fisher's characters were unrecognizable, Harrison Ford showed up briefly to die, the token black guy and the giftless flat-chested broad are boring and mechanical. I don't even remember the rest.
So no, the original trilogy is nothing like the rest of the crap.
The only acceptable film post RotJ was Rogue One.
Ask yourself this then. Did the SJW angle forced by Disney kill the possibility of a good story in the sequels? You know the answer is "yes". Just like the answer to the question "Did Lucas's obsession with irrelevant detail (of which the 'medichlorians' is the shining symbol) kill the possibility of having good prequels?" is also "yes".
And do you know what is the saddest part? That the image of the young Leia, leading a Rebellion while shaking her tits and looking like a heroine of a "next door neighbor" gonzo was much more of an "empowering girl role model" than all the vampiric old skeletons or the "wholesome", sexless Ridley of the new films.
The prequels and the sequels are a lesson in fail.
You mean the plot holes and illogical character actions that have been there since the original trilogy? Or perhaps you mean the "in-universe lore" that Lucas himself publicly stated that while he liked some of it and found it interesting, he nevertheless reserved the right to contradict any time he liked?
What long-running franchise does NOT have plot holes and illogical character actions? I won't hold my breath waiting for you to come up with one.
And as for "in-universe lore" that was always one of the major problems that arose when the Star Wars crowd invented their own "anything with the logo is canon" definition. The traditional Usenet definition of canon: "If it's filmed, it's canon. If not, it's apocryphal." presents far fewer problems. You do not, after all, see Star Trek fans getting all butthurt because TNG presents warp drive working differently than it was presented in "The Entropy Effect", presents the transporter working differently than was stated in "The Kobayashi Alternative", or that everything save fan-produced YouTube works ignores FASA's "Four Years War" RPG materials. Or, for that matter, even though Enterprise's "stolen human augment DNA" plot line is kind of a dumb way to explain the changes in various Klingon appearances; there's no general Trek fan outcry of: "How DARE Paramount contradict FASA's Imperial and Hybrid Klingons!?!?!" the way Wars fans rant and rage about the Star Wars sequels not being the Thrawn Trilogy or ignoring the whole Sun Crusher nonsense, or not including the Yuuzhan Vong and Fel Empire.
Far better to just consider secondary and un-filmed miscellanea to be "entertaining but disposable", as was the usenet standard back in the r.a.s.t days; and only hold filmed material to be legitimate. It makes for fewer of these sort of headaches.
Imagine all the people...
I don't think it necessarily did kill the possibilities. The bad writing and production did.
You can have a good story with strong female characters and weak male characters. It just has to be a good story with a solid plot.
Search your feelings. You will know it to be true.
Reductio ad SJW is about as good as an argument as claiming that men were responsible for all bad things that happened in history, because it was always men who were the leaders.
Sorry but he was right, if the producer AND the director talk nothing but Social Justice and then the entire plot is nothing but Social Justice? Then I don't see how you can call it anything but an SJW movie.
If you would like some examples here goes...ALL MEN in the movie are shown as either weak, incompetent, reckless, or just plain idiots. Our supposed male lead (Poe) gets constantly talked down to, treated like shit, ignored and kept out of the loop, and basically treated like a child. Admiral Gender Studies OTOH is brought in after killing a character everyone actually liked for no damn reason (Akbar) and then made out to be a heroine when SHE KILLS MORE REBELS THAN HUX DOES, she kills so many in fact when I first saw it I thought the twist was she was working for the Empire as she was a better killer of rebels than Hux ever was! Then you have Mary Rey who can defeat trained Sith with ZERO studies cuz...vagina I guess? It certainly is never explained in the damn movie how she is able to defeat all these trained warriors when she was literally a scrap rat a week ago. You have Rose Tico whose whole job seems to be to bring in a completely pointless PETA message and to screw Finn out of actually getting to be anything more than a pathetic comic relief. Which is rather insulting that Lando in the 80s got to be a hero and the only black guy in the new trilogy is a pathetic bumbling sidekick but I guess being a guy trumps his being black in the Oppression Olympics. Hell even Phasma which was built up to be this bad ass evil super trooper got stuffed on a bus and run off screen because God Forbid she actually be able to fight as gasp! Shock! that would mean someone would have to raise their hand to a wamens oh noes! Oh did I mention that Laura Dern announced Admiral Gender Studies is a lesbian so they could score a few more virtue points despite whether she even had genitals or not having fuck all to do with the movie?
So I'm sorry but Kennedy and Johnson made it quite clear on social media this movie was down with Social Justice, the entire plot is based on the premise the females are never wrong and all the guys are evil or incompetent, this is right up there with Ghostbusters 2016 on the SJW scale and the ones that made it are quite proud of that and will be more than happy to tell you so so I really don't see how calling a spade a spade can be argued here.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Midichlorians upset quite a lot of the fan base, but that was based on canon of a fantasy setting.
The Identity Politics card that's been played (very prominently) is all about being patronising to a whole segment of the fan base in the real world.
Again, it's pretty much what Gillette have done with their recent advertisement. The vast majority of people who this is 'targetted' at already know the 'message', and already live their lives in such a fashion as to render it irrelevant to say it. It's like having a micromanager at work. After the 500th time in a day they tell you _how_ to do something you already know how to do, it irritates the crap out of you, and you just know that you'll have years of having to endure this if you stay.
Can you aspire to be a toy? A car? A robot? A feeling?
Not really, but Disney Pixar made it work somehow in their respective animated movies.
Have you seen Short Circuit or E.T?
How do they manage that? My hypothesis is that they probably know how to write characters and plots the audience can identify with no matter what the characters are specifically.
This thinking is what is wrong with Supergirl. The show succeeds because the side characters are not inherently weak.
Win is a clever computer tech. The Martian Manhunter can handle his own, and has his own story arc.
Jimmy Olsen works because his narrative is a deconstruction of the very notion that male characters have to be weak and attracted to the female lead. He plays into the trope, and fights against it.
Finn deserves to be a character equal to Rey, like Han Solo to Luke. We're just used to Disney pairing characters like Finn and his admirer together, and hindering the character's strengths. It can be said she admires Finn because he is on the hero's path. One where he is willing to self-sacrifice. Okay, I think I am seeing a potential payoff in The Last Jedi's script... If Disney can "redeem" Finn, and preserve his character despite convincing him that he is misguided...
TLJ still sucks as a movie though...
That's exactly why it failed...
And a T posing Leia doing a Mary Poppins in space was the moment the franchise "jumped the shark".
The purple haired sjw preachy lesbian was completely unnecessary and made zero sense to the plot.
Leia should have went out piloting the ship that suicide bombed the fleet.
Beside that a slow speed chase over running out of gas also had zero place and made no sense in star wars lore.
Have you watched Star Wars before? Terrible dialogue and so so acting with the good vs evil story line.
None of that makes for a bad movie. Also none of that is listed in the GP's complaints.
Rogue One was passable but it suffered from incredibly weak writing and poor character development. The worse is Mary Sue ... err I mean Rei .... oh look, slip of the fingers but I made my point anyway.
I know someone who writes Starwars fan fiction and actually included a character named Mary Sue in his books that wasn't as much of a Mary Sue. Zero training, magical use of the force, able to hold her own against EmoVader, it was just lazy writing. The crappy dialogue can stay as it adds charm and character, but man the writers need to go back to highschool. They all would have failed grade 9 English class with this story.
They should get Marcia in to edit. She was the real genius.
I've seen every Star Wars film (except Solo), and most of them many times. Yet, for the life of me, I can only describe the plot of the original trilogy.
Perhaps the gaping plot holes, illogical character actions, and inconsistency with decades of in-universe lore have something to do with it?
Just a thought.
Yup, that's a big point. As well, the response to criticism was to insult and belittle those who complained. The people who complained were called unable to handle strong women, called racist and sexist.
Now while I suppose that we might make a case that fans of Star Wars are immature and foolish for attending the movies multiple times, and spending thousands on memorabilia.
But in a different Universe, Ferengi's Rules of acquisition number 57. Good customers are almost as rare as Latinum - treasure them.
The abuse hurled at passionate fans who cared enough to complain show that Kennedy, Johnson et al, who don't take telling and seem to think that the people they insulted will put up with anything. and still open their wallets. The fans said they weren't going to watch Solo. It appears to be true.
And the people the new Star Wars Power Brokers have tried to appeal to don't appear to have the same spending habits as the former fans.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So...you're saying that Rian Johnson killed Star Wars, because they were the one that went a head with pissing all over existing cannon, lore, and so-forth.
Pretty much. And the out of character Luke Skywalker - the most revered character in the whole series - was jarring.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You can have a good story with strong female characters and weak male characters. I
No, you cannot. For a story to be good, it needs characters that all can aspire to. We have plenty of "strong" female and "weak" male characters in the sequels. And you need no feeling search to know it is crap. Or that you're wrong.
SJWars is simply taking the Television model of the Stupid Dumpy Husband and the Hot Smart Wife and tried to apply it to movies, only substituting not so hot women.
You simply cannot win with the people they are trying to appeal to. Remember what should have been the ultimate strong female movie, Wonder Woman, they enraged the easily offended set because Gadot didn't have armpit hair, and that since she came from a female only culture, she was raped because she couldn't really give consent.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Can you aspire to be a toy? A car? A robot? A feeling? Not really, but Disney Pixar made it work somehow in their respective animated movies. Have you seen Short Circuit or E.T? How do they manage that? My hypothesis is that they probably know how to write characters and plots the audience can identify with no matter what the characters are specifically.
But they couldn't have the line "Mmmm, nice software, Stephanie!" in a movie today. Well, maybe if it was a female robot walking in on Sheedy in the bath.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So here's the thing.
I also watched and found it to be a disappointing movie, basically a bunch of characters not talking for no good reason and making stupid decisions. And there were a couple weird bits that felt preachy, but this obsession with seeing it as a "SJW" movie is just on you.
If you would like some examples here goes...ALL MEN in the movie are shown as either weak, incompetent, reckless, or just plain idiots.
Luke was none of these things.
Admiral Gender Studies OTOH is brought in after killing a character everyone actually liked for no damn reason (Akbar) and then made out to be a heroine when SHE KILLS MORE REBELS THAN HUX DOES
She was a crappy leader for keeping her plan secret (the lazy screen writer's version of dramatic tension) but basically played the one move she had.
Then you have Mary Rey who can defeat trained Sith with ZERO studies cuz...vagina I guess?
If Rey was a male it would have been one of the most standard character outlines in existence. Absolutely nothing was unusual about Rey except her gender.
Oh, and she got personal training with Luke Skywalker plus we know she's super-powerful in the force which gives you a bunch of bonus bad-assery.
It certainly is never explained in the damn movie how she is able to defeat all these trained warriors when she was literally a scrap rat a week ago
Well actually in her introduction in the first movie it was shown that being a "scrap rat" involved her learning to be a pretty competent fighter.
Which is rather insulting that Lando in the 80s got to be a hero and the only black guy in the new trilogy is a pathetic bumbling sidekick but I guess being a guy trumps his being black in the Oppression Olympics.
Or your massive obsession with race and gender means you'll find a flaw with anything.
"Girl is the hero??? That's so preachy and SJW!!! Black guy is the B-plot comic relief protagonist? Ha! They're being racist!!""
Hell even Phasma which was built up to be this bad ass evil super trooper got stuffed on a bus and run off screen because God Forbid she actually be able to fight as gasp! Shock! that would mean someone would have to raise their hand to a wamens oh noes!
I'm not even sure what you're talking about now.
So I'm sorry but Kennedy and Johnson made it quite clear on social media this movie was down with Social Justice,
Maybe, but that's not why it was an underwhelming movie.
the entire plot is based on the premise the females are never wrong and all the guys are evil or incompetent,
They inverted some gender roles, it's not that big a deal. I've seen plenty of films with super-sexist bits and enjoyed them just fine otherwise.
this is right up there with Ghostbusters 2016 on the SJW scale
A decent movie that insecure guys massively overreacted to?
I stole this Sig
Who fucking cares? Does having weak male characters threaten you some how?
Seriously, you mistake not likeing something with being threatened by it.
Kennedy and Johnson belittled and insulted anyone who dared to disagree with them.
Let's take a restaraunt for example. If you order a rare steak and it comes out well done, and you complain, so the manager comes out and calls you an asshole, upbraids you publicly, and if you don't like it you just aren't man enough to handle a well done steak - are you going to come back?
Unless you are a masochist - probably not.
Why don't you ask these presumably threatened males if they like the Alien Trilogy. Or if they like the early Terminator movies. TThere is a disconnect between how "strong women" were portrayed then, and the insecure vibe you get from present day movies, which has a strong undercurrent of misandry.
By the way - manshaming doesn't work any more.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
but for the vast majority of us it just didn't matter.
Rey didn't make those actions scenes a confused, laughable mess where people throw out attacks for no good reason, Rian Johnson did. The same goes for making Luke a depressed, whinny old goat.
Of course they want the old fans. The movie is chock full of fan service, so much that it crowds out the story. Rey is trying so hard to be Luke and Luke to be Obi-wan. That's not virtue signalling, that's bad story telling.
SJWism is annoying, but it's not the world ending event folks make it out to be. Take the couple of SJWish things out of the movie and you've still got a bad movie. Not because the people involved were busy virtue signaling, but because they're just not very good at making movies.
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to indicate he could be trusted with a by the book movie. He just doesn't have enough experience directing large projects. It's weird. Abrams I get. He had a ton of big, successful movies under his belt (that I hated, but that's just me).
Well I think my comment might have been more pithy than accurate :)
I think Abrams was the "big boxoffice" guy, and he's made good TV shows, the problem is when he's given franchises they tend to be fanboy movies, he doesn't bring any of his own vision.
I think Disney figured that out and Rian Johnson was supposed to be a more visionary director who could do something risky.
And that's what he did... the risk just didn't pan out. The ensemble didn't quite mesh and the character actions didn't quite make sense.
So now they're going back to the proven formula of Abrams for the last one, because if the franchise is dying anyway you might as well wring out every last drop on your way out.
I stole this Sig
I'd argue that Luke's characterization make perfect sense; from a certain point of view.
Look what happens to him:
Ep 4: ... a couple of days?
He starts out as the idealist with lots of faith, sure. Then, one day, with no expectation it's be any different than any other; his surrogate parents are murdered. He sees their bodies freshly dead and realizes it was only dumb luck that he wasn't there and killed too. So he latches onto an alternate father figure who converts him to a new religion and lead him off to save the princess. Next thing you know, he's flying into the scene of the mass-murder of several billion people. He rescues the princess, sure, but then he sees his new farther figure murdered right before his eyes. He then joins the war and fires the shot that destroys the Death Star; and incidentally kills its crew of several million. That's a LOT of death to see and cause over the course of... what?
Ep 5:
He's been running for his life for a few years from Vader and the empire. He gets into a love triangle between Han and (unknown to him yet) his sister. He almost dies, sees the ghost of his father figure, sees many rebels slaughtered by Vader's forces, and takes off to meet Yoda. Yoda continues Luke's indoctrination into the Jedi religion, scares the living bejeezus out of him at the tree, shows him that his friends are in deadly peril, and tries to prevent him from going to help them. He goes anyway, is totally ineffectual, and gets his ass kicked and hand cut off by Vader. Then he finds out that Vader, who is basically space Hitler, is actually his father. Luke attempts suicide and only survives through stupid luck.
Ep 6:
Luke rescues his friends. Great. But he's already using dark side powers to do it as he romps around force-choking guards. He also personally racks up a fair body count in the process. Then he goes back to Dagobah, sees his THIRD father figure die, and finds out from FF#2's ghost that the girl he's been lusting after, and sometimes making out with, all this time is actually his sister. He endangers his friends by going with them to Endor and lets himself get captured. Palpatine torments him psychologically, has DS2 start blowing the rebel fleet into atoms, and lets him know that his friends on Endor are doomed. Luke snaps to the dark, tried to kill Palpatine, and then goes dark with anger again when his dad threatens his sister. He nearly kills his own father, is then saved by him, and then watches dad die anyway. He escapes the Death Star, with millions more deaths (Imperials plus civilian construction workers.) in his wake.
At this point alone, Luke should, by all rights, be a barely-functional quivering mass of PTSD, survivor's guilt, brain injury (Near-electrocution isn't good for you. One of the SW novels actually brought this up.), depression, and who knows what else. He wouldn't just be seeing a therapist at this point. He'd be making a whole team of psychologists and psychiatrists rich for life. And he's not the only one. Leia should be in nearly as dire straits. And the rest of the heroes hardly got off lighten the psychological trauma department. But Luke also has the pressure and burden of being the one tasked with (and the only one who can) rebuilding the Jedi order.
He would have been barely hanging-on when he did go out to train more Jedi. And, setting aside whether the details of the Luke/Ben/Kylo bit were well thought-out; he did fail and many of his students did die. That failure pushed him over the edge; so he took off to the island of the Jedi, quit using the force (ie. abandons his religion) intending never to return and to die there. For all intents and purposes, he attempts suicide a second time here. He's out there, living like a hermit for years, maybe a decade or more. That sort of solitude erodes the social graces, part of which is the concern for others.
Personally? Considering what he's been though, I'd cut the dude some slack.
Imagine all the people...
Luke faces Vader and gets his ass kicked despite some training from Yoda. Rei has no training in anything but can fly the Falcon without any pilot training, manages to escape captivity using the Force and easily beats a well-trained Force user despite never having wielded a lightsaber. But not a Mary Sue oh no.
None of that makes for a bad movie.
How about being highly forgettable? The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. I did not hate the film I just found it so bland and generic that I can only vaguely remember what happened in it.
It's explicitly stated in the movie that Ray has experience as a pilot, as well as being a mechanic.
She doesn't beat Kylo Ren. No idea where you got that idea from. Kylo has been shot already by the time they clash, and he isn't even trying to kill or badly injure her. He wants her to join him, remember. She manages to fend off his attacks until the planet breaks under them and the fight comes to an end.
At least watch the movie first.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Luke is an idiot-savant farm boy who matures over the course of 3 films. Seen in that light, his character is pretty consistent.
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And in other film series you Universal's 'Dark Universe'.
They have published 1 okay movie and one terrible movie since 2014. In the same span MARVEL spat out 12 unique movies thats good.
In these movies, each scene thats a part of the 'larger narrative' is mostly terrible scenes which end up ruining the pacing of the movie. Instead of a exciting movie, the possibility of exciting scenes are 'delayed to the next movie' which never comes or delivers on its promise.
So what is going on the MARVEL side of the fence?
The MARVEL films makes money because each film is good.
But there is another benefit: Because of the MCU brand each successive movie basically gets free PR, meaning that each successive "good" movie will continue to cash in on the brand.
This has been tried before with Rocky, Highlander, Pokemon and several other franchises. Its a tried and true concept: People who enjoyed Highlander will watch Highlander II when it lands in theater, making it possible to increase or stabilize revenue.
But the difference between a movie series and MCU is that MCU is based on a franchise that already have the script for a few hundred good movies and storylines. So unlike traditional movie franchises you already have a red line to make several movies. Where movies are written per script, produced standalone, and sequels are made as standalone script with the artistic limitation of being made as a single product.
In the MCU, the framework to make all the movies is already there. The screen writers just have to decide what arc they are going with(Infinity Gauntlet) and then produce that arc, taking other arcs and making them into standalone movies to make the framework for the arc. So far the Infinity Gauntlet Arc has been 15 released movies out of 19 MCU movies.
And that is what makes the MCU into what it is. If you don't know about the source material or look over the list of featured films its not going to be obvious that this has been one large arc.
And i have trouble imaging standalone movies with standalone scripts doing Movie: Movie 19 and not have the wellspring or the structure of the script gone completely dry. Most series have problems making Movie: Movie 2 and even large problems making Movie: Movie 3
Added note: What is funny to me, is that on the movie side MCU is a success. While on the TV side its a disaster that lives purely of the fact MCU have had 19 movies and still more being produced.
On the TV side there has been 11 shows so far, some with enough audience to warrant more than one season. Each of them being produced episode by episode, script by script, with terrible arc progression, terrible budget and poor foresight/planning.
The TV side is EXACTLY what you describe, were its only working because its part of the MCU(despite being mostly terrible).
I think that Force Awakens and Last Jedi movies were phenomenal.
This must be some new meaning of "phenomenal" that is not in the dictionary.
Also, you don't know the original films very well.
Luke did not come off as a whiny, entitled baby. He was a hard-working country boy with a dream, to be a pilot. Between a sunrise and a sunset, he met a war hero and a member of a brutally destroyed legendary cult (Guinness); learned that his family was at the center of the most epic galactic story of his time; fell in love with a beautiful girl (Fisher), who was a hero and a princess (ah, that truly American obsession with royalty); and had his foster family, the closest people to him, destroyed by the person who killed his father.
Did he turn into a hero overnight? No. He chose the hero's way, but he remained relatable. He was a good pilot with some awareness of "the Force", but he did not become insta-Jedi by touching a light saber. He had to spend an episode and a half - an epoch in cinema - to become one. He was mocked by everyone, but his visions of his dead mentor. Solo laughed at him, Yoda mocked him, Vader told him, "you're not a Jedi yet", the mobster lizard dismissed his "mind tricks" and the evilest creature in that universe nearly killed him.
He faced real enemies and in number - he saved a princess only to have her fall for the other guy, fought a space battle or two, got nearly killed several times, spent a long time in exhausting Jedi training, had his hand cut off, and found out the girl he loves is his sister. Yet he did not despair. He won his battles, he learned the Jedi ways, he put on a glove and managed to do a trick no Jedi before him could - destroy the Dark Side couple, which in that universe is finding the Grail. In the end, he congratulated his sister and went on to party with two dead men and a dead lizard. Now, that's what I call a true, selfless hero.
What parts in the "phenomenal" sequel movies come even close to this epic journey? How did the sexless character of that Emma Watson wannabe became a "hero"? What "heroic" things did she accomplish that compare to the story of Skywalker? And what's the story of her getting there? Remind me, for I can't recall, those movies were that bad.
Like I said, you claim to take the movies "at face value", but it appears you don't know their faces very well. If at all.
She doesn't beat Kylo Ren.
Okay you clarified it for me. You're not dense or blind, but rather you haven't actually watched the movie.
She manages to fend off his attacks until the planet breaks under them
She fends of a very mobile and not the least bit injured Kylo attack for about 1 minute. Then Rei Mary Sues her way to becoming one with the force, goes on the offensive, injures Kylo, disarms him, and then cuts through a chunk of his shoulder. Kylo is saved by a Deus ex Machina (since we've already got a Mary Sue and a Mcguffin why not include more lazy writing right?) and spends the first part of the following movie in surgery recovering from his arse kicking.
Seriously man I know it's a bad movie but you should at least watch it to the end if you're going to join a discussion about it.
So you went to the bathroom during the where Kylo kills Han (spoiler alert) and then gets shot by Chewie? That's why he was holding his side and bleeding during the fight with Finn and then Ray.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Dude you can pretend all you want but you can't handwave this shit away. Mary Rey says QUITE CLEARLY in TFA she had NEVAR flown a ship of ANY kind, yet her very first time in the cockpit she not only trivially outflies trained TIE fighter pilots with years of exp she actually REPAIRS a ship she has never fucking been on when the GUY THAT FLEW IT FOR 30 YEARS doesn't know how!
I'm sorry but both TFA and TLJ are so filled with "its a wamen so therefor perfect" its pathetic. Mary Rey is perfect at everything the first time she tries, is able to defeat trained Sith the very first time she uses a lightsaber (Luke got his ass royally kicked by Vader in Empire and he had lightsaber training, she did not), Admiral Gender Studies is treated as a big hero despite killing more rebels than Hux (Even if you buy the fuel bullshit she could have used one of the ships about to run out of gas to do the exact same shit she ended up doing BEFORE so many got killed) and Leia becomes Mary Poppins despite never being shown to have done shit with the force.
Meanwhile not a single white guy is allowed to be anything but pathetic or evil, Han is a deadbeat dad, Luke is a tit sucking broken loser, Hux is shown to be incompetent, and if that wasn't bad enough even the non white males are made into buffoons because in the Oppression Olympics being male trumps being black or latino as Finn is made into a comic relief sidekick and Poe makes crank phone calls.
BTW two of my favorite films are Terminator II and Aliens, both of which star strong females. But unlike today where "you cannot allow them to be less than goddesses cuz wamens" Ripley and Sarah Conner were allowed to have actual story arcs, they could (and did) get their asses kicked, faced real adversity,and were able to overcome, with this? Like I said they wouldn't even let Phasma actually use her staff and kick some ass because that would have meant someone would have to raise a hand to a wamen. Don't believe me? Go back and watch TFA and TLJ and watch VERY closely at each fight with Rey, how many times does someone actually strike her? Oh that is right NONE, not a single kick, not a single punch or back hand, Kylo knocks her out using Force powers and every fight its stick on stick or saber, not once does anyone actually strike her or hit her with an object. You see you can't do that in an SJW movie cuz wamnens are delicate goddesses that must be protected.
So keep sticking your fingers in your ears and making excuses but looking at the comments here and pretty much over the entire Internet? Nobody that isn't hardcore left wing is gonna buy your bullshit because just like Ghostbusters 2016 the entire film was pushing the politics.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
First thing she does is crash a ship into the ground and try to run away from the Force.
And then she pulls off some mid air stall that lines up the turret with a small fighter behind her before restarting the engines and blasting away with feet to spare in probably the most impressive piece of flying seen in any star wars film, in a ship she's never flown of a class she's never flown and then starts telling han solo later on how to fix the fucking thing. Yeah, real progression she shows. It takes luke a whole film and massive support network to get there. It takes Mary Rey 5 fucking minutes.
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