Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Dec 15th, 2017)

[Khev]

Fake jye approves.

And with that I will once again permanently retire from this thread until I feel like posting again tomorrow, lol.

 

[crows]

And with that I will once again permanently retire from this thread until I feel like posting again tomorrow, lol.

The enemy is Retreating!!! FLOOD THE THREAD WITH HATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Adolfo]

This movie still and will forever sucks

 

[jye4ever]

Isn't that Khev in a hoody giving Jye a piggyback ride?

"Look Khev another TLJ hater, let's get him!!!"

And with that I will once again permanently retire from this thread until I feel like posting again tomorrow, lol.

I am also good I yield the floor to DiFabio the Hutt and Salacious Rorycrumb.

The enemy is Retreating!!! FLOOD THE THREAD WITH HATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khev and I are collecting 2 of each animal.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Khev and I are collecting 2 of each animal.

 

[Adolfo]

Any Transformers film > TLJ

 

[ZaCHw117]

Man, am I looking forward to that Han Solo trailer tomorrow.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Man, am I looking forward to that Han Solo trailer tomorrow.

I bet it beats the Infinity War trailer in 24 hour views.

 

[aa909]

This movies still and will forever suck

^^^^I think all the rational arguments ultimately get distilled down to these 7 words

 

[Darth Skywalker]

opportunity cost is a difficult concept for many to grasp. If something should be worth $2 but only sells for $1 (even if it cost you 40 cents) it is a failure...

and we haven't even accounted for the future lost revenues when the box office take for Solo and Ep 9 come well below what Disney exec were expecting for Lucasfilm revenue projections before TLJ.

But I understand this way of thinking (analysis) isn't intuitive for everyone. I do portfolio analysis as part of my day job (I run a biotech start up and regularly pitch VC's), It's not an easy concept to grasp unless you're used to doing complex financial analysis.

You are right on with everything you’ve been saying. Unfortunately there aren’t many forward-thinkers in fandom. They just look at a big number and think everything’s happy and healthy. If Episode 9 revenue drops like 8 did from 7, there’s gonna be trouble going forward.

I was at Target today and saw 8-10 pegs full of Rose, Jyn, Rey, Leia and Rose’s sister. Like 40 female figs left unwanted with 2 or 3 Hux figures. They are really trying to push this as a gender-equal franchise and it’s NOT WORKING. IT WILL NOT EVER WORK. It is a Sci-Fi War franchise set in space.

I am female, and when I want my fix of female characters, I don’t look to and DON’T WANT TO look to Star Wars. That’s not what I want from it. Ugh.

 

[Darth Skywalker]

The historic disaster that is TLJ's box office continues this weekend as it passes $591 million domestic and officially becomes the highest grossing 2017 film worldwide (1.264 billion over BatB's 1.263.)

Disney execs are reportedly panicking at the thought of TLJ becoming the sixth film in history to top $600 million domestic over the next few days.

You are not looking at the big picture. What if you made a 1 million dollar salary per year. Great, right? You bought a big house (Lucasfilm) and budgeted your life and provided for your family (Lucasfilm employees and its contractors) based on that salary. Then you lost close to 40% of your salary every year going forward. At what point do you realize something went wrong and that something needs to drastically change?

 

[Spazz]

So the best justification that TLJ naysayers can come up with to hate the movie are:

1. $1.3 billion projected global earnings is a failure

and

2. The prequels were actually pretty awesome.

Got it.

No, the best justification for hating TLJ is that it is character driven fiction where the main protagonist lacks a character arc. The second best justification is that the humor consistently fell flat. The third best justification is that Luke Skywalker's character was completely inconsistent with the original trilogy, his portrayal in this film was anti-climactic for his character arc, while most people specifically went to see this film because Luke Skywalker was in it. The fourth best justification is that the implicit political propaganda lacked subtlety, nuance or even coherent normative principles, while depicting men in a chauvinistic way. The fifth best justification for hating this film involved a boring, useless yet time-consuming subplot, the significance of which was undermined by the plot of the film. I could go on.

Think of nostalgic intellectual property as being similar to the job of a comedian: Aesthetics may be subjective, but you can still bomb. If the majority of people in the room don't think you're funny, you've failed as a comedian because that's your goal. Likewise, the goal of Star Wars has always been mass appeal. George Lucas tapped into the work of Joseph Campbell, intentionally creating a myth that was intended to be universal. Lucas succeeded with the OT. TLJ failed miserably.

 

[Star Puffs]

You are right on with everything you’ve been saying. Unfortunately there aren’t many forward-thinkers in fandom. They just look at a big number and think everything’s happy and healthy. If Episode 9 revenue drops like 8 did from 7, there’s gonna be trouble going forward.

I was at Target today and saw 8-10 pegs full of Rose, Jyn, Rey, Leia and Rose’s sister. Like 40 female figs left unwanted with 2 or 3 Hux figures. They are really trying to push this as a gender-equal franchise and it’s NOT WORKING. IT WILL NOT EVER WORK. It is a Sci-Fi War franchise set in space.

I am female, and when I want my fix of female characters, I don’t look to and DON’T WANT TO look to Star Wars. That’s not what I want from it. Ugh.

I agree there is an organic ceiling to female fandom just because of how interests distribute between the sexes. The female equivalent of Star Wars in terms of enduring popularity is probably Pride & Prejudice, or Jane Austen's works in general. How many heterosexual guys love that?

If I had to choose between the two, I'd go with Austen. I liked Star Wars more as a child in terms of true passion (whereas I grew to really love Trek); I honestly admire it's design elements more than anything as an adult.

I have to disagree with 'not even looking for it.' I definitely hoped for a female lead, or at least better representation, in the ST, but I didn't want them to pursue that at the expensive of a compelling, coherent story line. Rey is a real regression in story-telling that I've likened to pulp-heroes like John Carter. I was very happy with Jyn Erso as a character.

 

[TaliBane]

I'm laughing at the box office plunge in China.

Who knew Han Chinese were almost all Alt-Right miscreants, living in their mom's basement, sustained only by Cheetos and their fear of Strong Female Characters, and taking their cues on politics and pop culture from the likes of 4chan and this thread full of haters.

Jokes aside, for the Hollywood Reporter to use the words "'Last Jedi' Crashes and Burns" in a headline yesterday, and to use the term "shocking flameout" to describe the 91% collapse is like nothing I've ever seen in that paper in 20 years.

Sigh. Those of you who voice this opinion simply don't understand how investors analyze economic performance.

It's not merely being profitable, it's matching investors expectations on what you should earn.

Grossing $7-800 million dollars less than TFA is not a sign of success in relative terms.

won't happen. will settle at ~$1.35B or $750M below TFA. Keep in mind opening box office was only -8% behind TFA but will end -35% below TFA. People just quoting gross sales aren't looking at the dynamics (cause it undermines their talking points). Per the numbers, the anticipation was very high for TLJ but repeat viewings plummeted due to fan disappointment.

For folks saying otherwise they are ignoring the dynamics of the drop off, otherwise this would've opened -30% vs TFA and basically followed at -30% to -35% trend line. For it to plummet from opening -8% delta and close at -35% total tells you the drop off was massive, >50% after the initial hype. \

Not sure that Disney was expecting $1.8/1.9B out of TLJ as some have suggested but $1.5B would have been the low end of their expectation. This didn't have the return-of-SW or return-of-Han factors like TFA, but it had the return-of-Luke and was the hotly anticipated follow-up to a $2B grossing movie.

TLJ is on track to finish with just over $620M domestic and $1.35B worldwide, which as Khev is saying is a heap of cash and a profit of over a half billion dollars (even if yes, that's $345m adjusted domestically [more than total domestic of "Zootopia"] and $780m adjusted worldwide [total worldwide of "Guardians of the Galaxy"] less than TFA as StarPuffs says.)

Some have noted the spike in TFA vs TLJ percentage difference (from opening to later weeks) above. What this generates is TLJ's opening-to-final-total multiplier, which will be the lowest in the modern franchise (OT multipliers are off the scale and not comparable): TPM: 6.6, AOTC: 3.77, ROTS: 3.5, TFA: 3.79, RO: 3.43, TLJ: 2.8

That multiplier is what is usually (not always) associated with viewer satisfaction - repeat viewings. Divisive movies like Justice League (2.4) and Suicide Squad (2.41) tend to have lower multipliers, supposed crowd-pleasers like "Wonder Woman" are higher (4.0) though with the front-loaded nature of releases these days it's not quite as clear as it was a few years ago.

Interestingly as reference, Ghostbusters 2016 had a 2.8 multiplier - the same as TLJ. While its box office was not even remotely in the same league as TLJ (GB also isn't in the same league as SW as a brand) it did have a similar release phenomenon: fresh critics rating on RT, contrasting with a 52% user rating, overwhelmingly friendly press coverage with claims of "old male fans" who couldn't stand girls running a boys' franchise, claims of fake ratings etc.

In the end, TLJ is a hugely profitable movie for Disney (helped by their despicable 65% cash grab from theater owners) but at the same time, you really can't say that TLJ earning 15% more domestically than "Rogue One" would please Disney - given that RO was a gritty, non-mainline story with all-new leads... who all die. Or TLJ earning just 15% more than "Minions" worldwide.

Um, excuse me sweety, Luke was always a hologram. TLJ's story was justified.


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[Khev]

Once again thanks for the detailed breakdown and context TaliBane. I think that people keep focusing on TFA and RO's numbers as if they were somehow normal when in fact they were *both* anomalies. Obviously TFA was off the charts for reasons already mentioned but once again RO doing the numbers it did with a cast of no-names who die was equally crazy. I think the one-two punch of RO being as good as it was while segueing *directly* into the great ANH itself made for a combo that blew away financial expectations.

Obviously these movies can't be mindblowing anomalies each and every time and now we're simply seeing TLJ be a more common blockbuster that earns an incredibly impressive and respectable profit more in line with other fan favorite franchises that share the accelerated "new movie every year" release schedule like the MCU.

 

[jye4ever]

Once again thanks for the detailed breakdown and context TaliBane. I think that people keep focusing on TFA and RO's numbers as if they were somehow normal when in fact they were *both* anomalies. Obviously TFA was off the charts for reasons already mentioned but once again RO doing the numbers it did with a cast of no-names who die was equally crazy. I think the one-two punch of RO being as good as it was while segueing *directly* into the great ANH itself made for a combo that blew away financial expectations.

Obviously these movies can't be mindblowing anomalies each and every time and now we're simply seeing TLJ be a more common blockbuster that earns an incredibly impressive and respectable profit more in line with other fan favorite franchises that share the accelerated "new movie every year" release schedule like the MCU.

Khev it’s amazing how just how many people here don’t understand that (what you just wrote) or just have hate blinders on because they would rather be burned alive than utter one word of support for TLJ.

You and I have already mentioned the items we thought could’ve been better we’ve already acknowledged that no SW has been perfect other than the first 2 we already said that the casino scene was parts PT quality.

Disney is THE FIRST to know that increased output = normalization of box office meaning some will do better than others but the averages will keep the property alive. Movies just need to be profitable not make 2.3 billion every single time you’re crazy if you think over 2 billion is the norm hell even 1.5 and above is not the norm when you consider how many movies are made.

People here trying to school Disney on their long term box office goals with SW is like me trying to school Oppenheimer on splitting the atom or Fisher and Kasparov on playing chess lol.

Want a true disaster look at freaking JL!

The Avengers of DC and it barely broke even.

 

[Vault Boy]

You have to look at this deeper from Mark's positon. Look at who he's sitting next to. His open criticism of the films not only, in his mind, hurts Disney's profits, but it also adversely effects his colleagues. So he's probably thinking that he may have been being selfish when he aired his grievances publicly.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Want a true disaster look at freaking JL!

The Avengers of DC and it barely broke even.

Grace already explained this. Big box office (BVS/SS) is not necessarily strong box office (JL). We'll know when Solo and ep9 comes out if TLJ really divided the SW fanbase and the general audience, or if it's fake news.

 

[Darth Snoopy]

People here trying to school Disney on their long term box office goals with SW is like me trying to school Oppenheimer on splitting the atom or Fisher and Kasparov on playing chess lol.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

You have to look at this deeper from Mark's positon. Look at who he's sitting next to. His open criticism of the films not only, in his mind, hurts Disney's profits, but it also adversely effects his colleagues. So he's probably thinking that he may have been being selfish when he aired his grievances publicly.

She doesn't look happy or comfortable if you look at her body language and face.