Can Disney's Star Wars Franchise succeed?

[Endus]

Again, I'm just talking about things generally. However, I'm fine with the first thing. I'm not fine with the second. People basically never change IMO. Their ideals, etc... maybe. But someone like luke wouldn't turn into a hermit like he did, because he never would have failed like he did, etc. That's what I mean.

If "people never change", you've now declared that Anakin's redemption was impossible, and that Luke could never become more than a whiny farmboy.

Clearly, that isn't even true of the OT, so it's bad form to attack the newer films for continuing with it. Ignoring the observable fact that the idea is incorrect, in terms of the real world; people change all the time. Not everyone, obviously, and some try and fail, but there are plenty of cases of criminals reforming themselves and doing good things, just for a really blatant example.

To make matters worse, the failure you see in Luke's flashback echoes his failures in the Original Trilogy. It's the exact same character flaws. So even here, this is a case where Luke didn't actually change. His apparent victory over the Dark Side at the end of RotJ was fleeting, and didn't result in lasting personal growth; he relapsed, briefly, in that moment.

Your argument here doesn't hold up for multiple reasons.

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2019 - when 'bad writing' became the Deus Ex Machina of the critic.

These days the moment someone says 'bad writing' is an reason they don't like a show, I know I can safely ignore everything else they have to say.

See also "bad/shallow characters".

It's essentially an admission that you can't actually define what makes it "bad". You just don't like it.

For instance, to use a completely separate example we'll probably all agree on, take Avatar. I fuckin' hate that movie. Almost walked out of the theater. The reason I hate it is because the plot is implicitly racist as fuck. It's a "white saviour" story. The Na'vi are stupid aboriginals and are gonna get wrecked by the Awesome White Men, and their fates are sealed, until one of the White Men deigns to go native and out-natives the natives and saves them from the other White Men. Worse, the Na'vi are so lazily written to be Native American stereotypes (and the bad, racist ones at that) that it's just egregious.

Note that I'm using capitals because I'm talking about a long-standing trope. Making it about aliens and humans just means "White Men" are "any humans", even if the trope originally emerged in less-fantastic stories; it's not a criticism of white people or men, but a specific racist trope that describes aboriginals as "lesser" than the European colonists/explorers/etc.

[Mirishka]

At the end of the day (again) everyone of us sets the standards of what counts as a success...and then there is Disney (and I guess their shareholders) who really is the only player in this who gets to decide what counts as a success.

Making the gross somewhat relative because "critics (and many fans) largely panned." - no idea what to make of it? maybe it is justified, maybe the movie is indeed not good?. But you can compare numbers here https://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdo...?ref_=bo_hm_sd and go down into details (at least domestically) - the movie is already doing "worse" than TLJ. Seems the first 3-4 weeks is where it is at in raking in the money.

Budget is not confirmed yet, rumors have it at 350 million (not at all unreal IMHO compared to TLJs 317 million). As a rule ppl say to double that because of marketing..so we look at 750 million. And whatever theatres keep. (btw, the film also runs in like 10% more theatres than TFA)

Granted, we should wait until more numbers are in - but I leave it to everyone to make their decision if this counts as a success.

Wikipedia has the budget listed at $275m: assuming that is accurate, it has already made back well over 3x its budget and nearly double budget + marketing. So I don't care what anyone says, $945 million dollars in 21 days is a success by any measure.

"Rise of Skywalker bombed, it only made a billion dollars in 3 weeks" said nobody, ever. :P

As for my 'panned' remark, word of mouth often helps or hurts movies and RoS had a number of negative critic and fan reviews (might explain it performing weaker than TLJ). Solo for example also had middling reviews and that movie was considered a box-office failure - several other 'SW character' movies were iced because of that.

[Enthusiastic Steward]

Star Wars has always been mediocre at best. I remember being a kid in the 90s and not really understanding why people held it in such high regard.

Says the person with the Star Wars themed profile.

[Kokolums]

Disney will succeed with Star Wars - they know how to make successful stuff.

The issue many here may have is that the success may not be to the same audience that grew to love the franchise.

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2019 - when 'bad writing' became the Deus Ex Machina of the critic.

These days the moment someone says 'bad writing' is an reason they don't like a show, I know I can safely ignore everything else they have to say.

If you cannot distinguish between good and bad writing, that's your problem, not mine. I even literally explained it you. Talk about pearls before swine...

[schwarzkopf]

It's essentially an admission that you can't actually define what makes it "bad". You just don't like it.

The one I kept getting on multiple shows in 2019 was that because a character in a show acted irrationally or made a mistake, it was bad writing (poorly developed characters)

Then if a character acted perfectly rationally and made no mistakes, it was bad writing (Deus Ex Machina).

I expect 2020 will just see people double down on a show either being 0/10 or 10/10 ... when in fact shows can be good without being great, great without being exceptional and exceptional without being perfect.

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If you cannot distinguish between good and bad writing,

Well it seems you cannot either - as Endus said, if it was bad writing and you knew it - you would provided some evidence of said bad writing.

Maybe you can share some samples of your own writing - so we can all bask in quality writing for once in our miserable lives ?

[CostinR]

If they make more stuff like Rogue One they will.

If they give us more shit like the sequel trilogy then no.

[Endus]

Well it seems you cannot either - as Endus said, if it was bad writing and you knew it - you would provided some evidence of said bad writing.

Maybe you can share some samples of your own writing - so we can all bask in quality writing for once in our miserable lives ?

To expand on this, @Kokolums , take comments like "interesting characters". You need to be able to describe why they're not interesting. Not just to you, to anyone.

I'm not even saying this is impossible; I find Rey to be bland as table salt. Her character boils down to some basic tropes of growing up poor/orphaned, but the real issue for me is that the Force is what's supposed to make her unique, and they focus on talking about her power, not about her struggle. I think they should have focused a lot more on her eagerness to reach for the Dark Side, as we were shown in TLJ. If I were re-writing the whole shebang, I'd likely try to end TFA with that moment, because I think that should have been the big "oh fuck" cliffhanger; is Rey going to go Dark? The Luke reveal was fine, but it's just "Hey, look, Mark Hamill! Yay!" and not actually a cliffhanger, despite him literally being on a cliff.

On the other hand, I think Poe and Finn are both great characters. I think Poe needed more consequence to overcome; the demotion in TLJ was fine, but everything worked out. He got most of the Resistance killed, and then the films just kinda . . . moved on, rather than forcing him to deal with that. I think Finn was just not given much by the writers, but Boyega did a great job with what he had. Kudos to both actors, though. I'd say they're both "interesting", as characters, even if the writing tends to make them supporting cast to the Rey Show, more than the OT did with Han and Leia compared to Luke.

Just saying "they're not interesting" isn't an argument, though. It just expresses your dissatisfaction; it doesn't provide an objective analysis that others can follow to come to your same conclusion.

Edit: And yes, I know you mentioned something about showing their struggle, too. I agree on that. I'm speaking in generalities; I originally responded to schwarzkopf's post, not yours, specifically, I'm expanding on what he said; I think you had some notes of specifics there, they just need expansion and explanation to function as an argument.

Where Luke's main struggle with the Force was not believing in himself, I think Rey's should have been believing too much in herself. Thinking she can handle the Dark Side, and risking losing herself to it in the process. Something we really didn't get, even if the groundwork was laid.

[talmar]

Well, in just 3 movies Disney made more than what they paid for Lucasfilms. And this article was published in Jan. of 2018. I'm sure Disney would call that a success.

https://qz.com/1169393/disneys-star-...as-bought-for/

[Shadowferal]

It'll succeed only on Disney+ feed.
Big screen movies...probably not since they can't figure out how to fucking write this sort of thing well.

[schwarzkopf]

Well, there are also quite a few content creators on youtube who can supply arguments why they think SW does not work anymore (or why the story on films they critique doesn't work).

I've seen a few of them, and the core they come up with is that fundamentally it doesn't work for the established Star Wars fan any more.

Many of them equate 'breaking canon' to 'bad writing' which is a fallacy.

Star Wars has literally become a religion (see Jediism) in the real world, so any changes to the mythology are generally received poorly.

However - Disney is doing to Star wars, what it has done over decades of successful story telling, that is making it accessible to a far wider audience.

That has a downside - the broader the audience, the shallower the result, but make no mistake - Disney is good at this stuff.

[Yelmurc]

Disney just needs to do two things to succeed with Star Wars. Put Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni at the creative leads and fire Kathleen Kennedy.

[Altrec]

Well, in just 3 movies Disney made more than what they paid for Lucasfilms. And this article was published in Jan. of 2018. I'm sure Disney would call that a success.

https://qz.com/1169393/disneys-star-...as-bought-for/

Seeing as that article was debunked back then I doubt it matters much now. Total box office does not equal money that Disney received(Not by a long shot).
Disney will eventually recoup their money from the purchase it just isn't happening anywhere near as soon as they would have thought.

[Wilian]

Financially this has been disaster to them. They are still some 2 billions to minus after all these years and time goes by the gap to profitable only becomes expotentially larger.

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Disney will eventually recoup their money from the purchase it just isn't happening anywhere near as soon as they would have thought.

As far things have gone, they'll never really 'recoup'. The value of acquisition has a declining curve over time (due to inflation and other matters related). They are so far off that they most likely will not see real monetary benefit but will still retain strong IP

This is pretty reliable sight into the finances of Star Wars franciche as far as we can get

https://practicaleconomics.org/disne...-the-finances/

And this does not account in the plunder of Galaxy's Edge at all, which cost a billion dollars alone:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/05/01/...axys-edge.html

[Altrec]

Financially this has been disaster to them. They are still some 2 billions to minus after all these years and time goes by the gap to profitable only becomes expotentially larger.

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As far things have gone, they'll never really 'recoup'. The value of acquisition has a declining curve over time (due to inflation and other matters related). They are so far off that they most likely will not see real monetary benefit but will still retain strong IP

Maybe. I have a feeling they will make it back eventually, but it might take a lot longer than the investors will like or tolerate.

[Wilian]

Maybe. I have a feeling they will make it back eventually, but it might take a lot longer than the investors will like or tolerate.

I elaborated in an edit with actual data, forgive me for not doing so first.

[BeepBoo]

Your argument here doesn't hold up for multiple reasons.

You're correct. I'm just having difficulty describing a generalization around "something like this will piss off the cult, but something like this won't." I have an easy time being able to tell what fits into that, but I can't rightly put it into words without writing an entire novella, which I really don't feel like doing and would ultimately boil down to intuition anyways with no firm line in the sand being presented, so the point is moot. Apologies, and I digress.

[Altrec]

I elaborated in an edit with actual data, forgive me for not doing so first.

Thanks for the links. Gives me more to consider. I know doing some quick math with estimates looking at only the movies their production costs and nothing else just to break even including the IP acquisitions costs the movies would need to bring in a combined $10.4 Billion.

I would love to take a look at that ledger book lol.

[tromage2]

The only Disney Star Wars movie i liked was Rogue One.

And that was pretty mutch because it did not break anything that came before but just added and respected the alrdy made universe.
Also the woke and feminist agenda was not bothering me in that one, it was pretty balanced and a few male characters did not act like fools.

Can Star Wars come back? well only if they go either far far into the future or way back into the past.
They turned Rey into Jezus so nothing interesting can come from that when you make a god like figure without any weakness.

But my fate in Lucasfilm and Disney is not really high, i dont see any new ppl come in and those that failed keep making more crappy movies.
So before actually new ppl are in charge to make these movies i guess the SJW agenda and diverse cast ect has the main focus and the story and plot (most important for me) has no thought or meaning in these Disney movies.

[Thekri]

Star Wars has always been mediocre at best. I remember being a kid in the 90s and not really understanding why people held it in such high regard.

This has actually always been my position, but I am surprised to see it from you, given your avatar, lol.

Star Wars is a rather mediocre science fiction universe. It contains a few excellent works of fiction, a few terrible ones, and a lot of mediocre stuff in the middle. I don't hold the original trilogy in particularly high regard. They are fun and enjoyable movies, but absolutely nothing in them is original or particularly noteworthy either. Honestly I think the KOTOR character arcs are way better then anything in the original trilogy.

As far as the new Star Wars entries in this universe succeeding, well yes, of course they can. Star Wars has reached a sort of cultural singularity, where the universe itself is clearly understood by general audiences, and as such they can set any story they like in it. Disney can tap into a huge amount of public interest, and there aren't going to be a shortage of people buying tickets any time soon.

The thing that can kill Star Wars is if the entries stop being fun. Right now they are still fun to watch, so they will keep doing well, without being anything really special.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It will make money off of the brand name recognition alone.