ST Franchise's Legacy vs. Short Term Profit

I don't think major studios can afford to think about long term legacy when it comes to 200 million dollar films. If they did, they would fund more 200 million dollar niche films that would make up their money over time. They have to be a hit with general audiences, something Star Wars never tried to do before. "General audiences" are not a fanbase. Fanbases are smaller groups within society. Something needs a fanbase to have a legacy.

 

Return of the Jedi is the very definition of a movie geared towards the "general audience".

 

I don't think so.

 

Star Wars: Legacy of Profit should be the title of one of the new sequels.

 

You can easily rename the entire saga that. People have been making that argument for 35 years. And you know what, it's true. Anyone who denies Star Wars is, in part, about mass appeal and cynical cash grabs is either delusional or just ignorant. Lucas engineered Star Wars to be a total consumer product, with licensees making stuff for every aspect of the retail market. He very famously negotiated the merchandising rights with Fox when the original Star Wars was being financed in the 70s. He also openly talked about how toy sales were his bread and butter and that Return of the Jedi was specifically engineered to sell more stuff. In fact, he made creative decisions on how the story should proceed based solely on how he thought he could market those ideas to consumers in the form of plastic tchotchkies (Ewoks and the deaths of Han and Lando for example). Sounds cynical, but it's true. George was always very honest about it. As for the movies themselves, he wanted to make Star Wars movies for as long as the market would allow, primarily to fill Lucasfilm's coffers so he could make smaller movies which he thought were more worthy of his attention. That was his original business model until he got burned out in the 80s due to a messy divorce and working on the same thing for a decade. And so what? Most of the the things we love from the era were glorified toy commercials meant to sustain themselves for short term and long term profit. Transformers, GI Joe, Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, etc. Star Wars was just the first movie franchise to have massive success with this.

Guys, if this is what you've sunk to it means you're losing things to argue about.

 

Never said you couldn't. Which is why I think such a title would be amusing--kind of like a real life "The Search for More Money."

 

They're all geared towards a "general audience", lol. It wasn't an accident Lucas took a huge influence from hundreds of super-popular fables, archetypes, and ideas in creating these movies. He wanted to make a popular movie. These aren't some esoteric little indie films made for arthouse cinephilles. Its not an accident that Return of the Jedi stops dead for a 20 minute commercial to sell kids on Ewoks. Or the movie opening(which had NOTHING to do with the main plot) goes on for like 40 minutes so they could fill it with puppets and side characters and character costume variants to sell.

 

Yeah, I know they're not tiny indie films, but they are indie films, and they are made for cinephiles and lovers of fantasy adventure. Beyond that, their success was an accident. They thought they would be lucky to get a fanbase as big as Star Trek the original series had in the 70s, and that was the business plan and the target market. Don't know what you mean about the 20 minute commercial. That part of the movie is based on one of the earliest Star Wars scripts.

 

SW has not been niche for a very long time. The brand is as mainstream as you can get. The SW films, with the exception of ANH, are independent movies, but to say they were aimed at anything but the “general audience” is wrong, IMO. I know GL always liked to say that he made the SW movies for himself, but let’s face it, that’s never been the truth.

 

I hate to admit it, but eventually the franchise will degrade into short term profit, and the quality will decline.

It's just inevitable.

 

Star Wars hasn't been niche since May 25, 1977.

 

The target market never changed from lovers of fantasy and adventure films. Every Star Wars movie so far was made for George Lucas and that target market. Just like JJ Abrams targeted non fantasy/adventure fans, so is the new Star Wars. "This is the first Star Trek my girlfriend likes." "This is the first Star Trek my mom likes." "This is the first Star Trek my grandma likes." "This is the first Star Trek I don't feel embarrassed about liking and have to hide from people."

The target market and demographic is expanding.

 

You could maybe say that about the ANH, but after that exploded commercially in 1977 all of the following movies, with the possible exception of ESB, were created to be mass appeal flicks that generate a ton of revenue from box office and merchandising.

You can deny it all you want but the Ewoks were designed to be cute and sell toys to kids. That is an indisputable fact.

 

I wouldn't even exclude ESB. Everything about that film is created in the wake of ANH's success and the quest to be bigger, better, most polished, richer in themes, more dramatic. Course that doesn't preclude Lucas and everyone involved having a huge personal stake and genuine love for the film they're making. How is that any different from TFA's production? You get the feeling Kathleen Kennedy and JJ Abrams have been BSing how emotionally invested they are in the universe and the movies?

 

That's just an opinion, not a fact. There's no proof of that. You're confusing a marketable series with a toy commercial. Studios couldn't buy success in those days. It was the beginning of blockbusters. Blockbusters were accidental then. Everything was trial and error.

 

Just as MILLIONS of people who saw Star Wars for the first time in 1977 said "I don't normally like fantasy or sci-fi but I love Star Wars."

 

"The only sci-fi I like is Star Wars" "I don't really read sci-fi but I like Star Wars" "Star Wars is about the nerdiest thing I'm into"

 

Yeah, that was an accident.

 

Numerous sources involved in the production of ROTJ openly said that by 1983 George cared more about merchandising and the Star Wars brand as a whole than he did making the best movie possible.

 

That level mass appeal was an accident, not planned for. It was planned that the audience would be broadened for JJs Star Trek, and it was done rather self consciously. You can see it in the movie.

 

The fact is that Star Wars, whether by accident or not, has mass appeal. HUGE mass appeal. One of the massively appealing things ever. That's something nobody making the movies can do anything about. "Oh no, our movie series is really popular ". All you can do is focus on making the best film you can. I'm sure that's what Lucas and co thought when they created Empire Strikes Back, and I'm sure that's what Lucasfilm is thinking about when they're creating new Star Wars films.

 

There's a difference between that "to hell with the haters" attitude Lucas had when making his films, and what new Lucasfilm is doing. They are doing everything they can to please as many people as possible. That is the complete opposite of just doing what one man thinks is the best idea. It is the most expensive Star Wars film ever. The total creative freedom Lucas earned and keeps now was not transferred to Lucasfilm or their future directors in the Disney sale.

 

I'm always amused by people who think that Star Wars is niche, and that they are somehow special for being fans, and hugely offended by the idea that Disney are involved.

It's an enormous, gigantic, family-friendly franchise, probably the biggest, most popular that there has ever been, and it has been that way pretty much since 1977. Sure, there were a few quiet years (1987-1994) when general interest waned (and the EU took off), but that period apart, it's been the biggest thing since sliced bread for more than 40 years.

It's family entertainment: that's all it is, folks!

 

Or maybe they are just trying to make a good movie..

 

Considering how terrible the last 3 films were when one guy got total creative freedom, maybe this is for the best.