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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Speculation Is Disney Capable of Learning the Lessons of John Carter and Phantom Menace?

Discussion in 'Archive: Disney Era Films' started by Jabbadabbado, Nov 1, 2012.

  1. ezekiel22x

    ezekiel22x Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2002
    I liked John Carter better than any superhero film or Joss Whedon project. And script work by Chabon on Episode VII would actually get me excited about the film.
     
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  2. Teasser38

    Teasser38 Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    I guess the question is can LucasArts do this? What human assets does it have left? (Besides ILM of course.) Marvel was putting out films pretty regularly before Disney took it over albeit mostly through other studios.

    For all its faults, John Carter was still an odd misstep for Disney's promotion peeps. Star Wars will sell itself.
     
  3. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    Honestly, there's no reason to worry too much about a situation similar to John Carter -- the primary reason that film failed was marketing. I doubt many people knew what it was about, which won't be an issue with Episode VII. Heck, I thought for months that John Carter was a Civil War movie. I don't think anyone will have such large misconceptions about Star Wars.

    I don't see anything wrong with looking at The Phantom Menace as a model, though. The only thing I would suggest is toning down Jar Jar and not having Anakin's one-liners during the space battle. Jake Lloyd's performance during the podrace was great, though, so no issues there.
     
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  4. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    It's such a copout to claim that John Carter failed over marketing. The movie was intensely boring - had many of the missteps that made The Black Hole fail decades earlier - cutesy animals/robots that make the movie dumb,cardboard cutout characters, computer-generated dialogue.
     
  5. Jack-Jedi

    Jack-Jedi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    Sure, this lessons no one will ever forget, I think.
     
  6. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    Avengers was incredibly successful. There's no doubt about it. And kids loved it even though it lacked the cutesy elements that made TPM and John Carter so cloying.

    That's why I say kill Lucasfilm and put Star Wars into the Marvel unit.
     
  7. captain_trips

    captain_trips Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2012
    John Carter bombed because Disney chose a story that NOBODY had ever heard of except for a small niche market. It was phenomenally well done, a great story, and a great movie that followed well on the short story.. However, the problem was they picked a near century-old story out of the blue that the mainstream, and especially Disney goers, just had no exposure or recollection of. And most people likely passed on it, because they had never heard of it.

    It's the same reason Universal and all these other studios keep passing on Stephen King's epic "Dark Tower" saga (which does have huge starwars-tie in's, mind you)... It's one of the best written sagas of all time... BUT... no one in the mainstream movie market has ever heard of it, and just like John Carter, would be a strange story for the mainstream to understand.
     
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  8. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    John Carter bombed because it was about as interesting as watching the Mars Curiosity Rover analyze dirt samples.
     
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  9. StampidHD280pro

    StampidHD280pro Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2005
    I'd rather have well-thought-out movies than successful ones. In other words, TPM over Dark Knight. All day.
     
    Billy_Dee_Binks likes this.
  10. DRush76

    DRush76 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 25, 2008
    "JOHN CARTER" failed for me, because I could not retain interest in the story. On the other hand, I don't personally view "THE PHANTOM MENACE" as a failure, because I liked the story.

    I'm not going to sit here and analyze about how Disney should avoid this or that in making the next three STAR WARS movies. What is the point? They and Lucasfilm are going to do it their own way.
     
  11. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    I don't know that everyone agrees with that assessment though. It's currently sitting on over 1,000 reviews on Amazon.com. With an average of 4.5 stars. So I'm guessing some people must have liked it. At least enough to keep it from bombing as hard as it did had the marketing been better.

    For comparison's sake, the second (and immensely successful) Pirates of the Caribbean movie has 826 reviews and only 4 stars.
     
  12. Moorplant

    Moorplant Jedi Master

    Registered:
    Feb 26, 2004
    It seems Disney did learn some lessons with John Carter: When the property you hope to turn into your own Space Opera Epic Trilogy bombs, simply buy the best one in town. ;)

    Marvel's currently a bit busy turning out 6 films in the next 3 years at the moment.
     
  13. captain_trips

    captain_trips Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2012
    And those dirt samples are amazing to the people who aren't shallow enough to call it dirt, but want to understand what it's composed of, what might be in there, and what it ends up being alongside all the effort and tech that got us there. Point in case.
     
  14. ezekiel22x

    ezekiel22x Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2002
    No cutesy robots please. Especially if they warble like babies and don't taste very good.
     
  15. Darth_Martus

    Darth_Martus Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    May 11, 2011
    I keep seeing James Cameron's name everywhere. NOOOOOOOOO!
     
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  16. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    I'm all for making everyone happy. Avengers and Avatar made nearly everyone, on a vast global scale, happy. If Star Wars is too stuck in the TPM/Red Tails legacy, it will not scale those heights. Fewer people will be happy.

    The Hobbit is likely going to scale those heights.

    But Lucasfilm no longer has the corporate culture to pull this off.

    Disney has two choices if it wants to scale those heights for SW Episode VII:

    1. Put Star Wars into the hands of Bruckheimer

    2. Put Star Wars into the hands of Marvel.

    Kathleen Kennedy is not the answer. Her best days are long behind her. She's the old guard. She's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
     
  17. Qui Gon Jim23

    Qui Gon Jim23 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 11, 2002

    Pretty sure that's the point, unless your audience is 15 people at the JPL and a couple of geologists. John Carter was marketed as well as any other film, but it generated no buzz on its own. Most of the people I know, including some big movie buffs, knew what it was but had no desire to see it.

    I went ahead and rented it on iTunes and fell asleep twice before the midpoint -- in the middle of the afternoon. It was a $250 million niche film. Also, though I love FNL, that magical dirt you speak of has more charisma than Taylor Kitsch.
     
  18. Commander Ciege

    Commander Ciege Jedi Padawan

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    I think this is a very important thing that the new production team is going to need to remember
     
  19. Commander Ciege

    Commander Ciege Jedi Padawan

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    This is beautifully said
     
  20. JediMJS

    JediMJS Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2012
    I don't think writing of Kathleen Kennedy is the answer. Sure, in all her interviews thus far she seems pretty disinterested IMO, but every morning when I wake up I look at my Back to the Future poster and see her name in bold under Executive Producer, and I feel okay about giving her the reigns.
     
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  21. Vespasian

    Vespasian Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    What if Kathleen Kennedy's best days are ahead as head of Lucasfilm? Her record is very impressive.

    Take a lesson from Yoda: you can never be certain what will happen. (unless it's foretold in a prophecy)
     
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  22. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    The good news is that Disney has shown what seems to be a fair amount of flexibility with their recent acquisitions.

    Pixar's quality may be showing signs of faltering, but that was probably inevitable. I'm sure the one ironclad directive from above was: thou shalt do sequels.

    Marvel seems headed into a Golden Age under Disney.

    The problem with Lucasfilm is that it doesn't have the same kind of leverage for continued autonomous existence that Pixar and Marvel has. The primary value of Pixar was the brand, but also the creative talent. The primary value of Marvel was the pipeline of potential movies and the near-infinite amount of copyrighted content to mine for future movies.

    The primary value of the Lucas properties is just the Star Wars brand name and the licensing/merchandising business, plus to a lesser extent ILM and the other technologies/technical intellectual property.

    The Lucas movie studio is superfluous. Making another Star Wars movie in the framework of that institution would be, in my view, a potentially serious mistake.
     
  23. Ron Fett

    Ron Fett Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    Disney has made FANTASTIC movies with Marvel, so I have faith.
     
  24. ShaneP

    ShaneP Ex-Mod Officio star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    That is a helluva lot right there. It's not "just" the SW brand.........it's friggin SW man!
     
  25. ThatWanFromStewjon

    ThatWanFromStewjon Jedi Knight star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 8, 2012
    More of the same garbage again.

    Can the management create a new community for pointless, embittered waffle?
     
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