ST How To Make Star Wars Work In China

Hey, all! Long-time lurker, first post on this forum.

Now, I don't mean to relitigate any debates on TLJ's quality or on whether its box office performance in North America and elsewhere constituted an underperformance. This thread is meant to focus on what should be an indisputable fact - between a disappointing opening weekend and some steep drops, I think it's fair to say that TLJ's performance in China was disastrous. And it's not like nobody saw this coming. As I recall, Chinese audiences were lukewarm towards TFA, and R1 sort of bombed there. I've heard any number of reasons proffered to explain this, chiefly the lack of nostalgia that Chinese audiences have for the OT, but whatever the reason it is clearly an issue that Lucasfilms need to address in some fashion.

So... how can Lucasfilm address it? I've heard it argued here and elsewhere that they should just forgo a Chinese release for Solo, Episode IX, and any future films, and I'm... skeptical. Yes, I understand that Chinese distributors keep a large portion of the box office cut anyway and that it can be hard to market a film in a country with so many large urban areas, but just giving up on what will soon be the largest filmgoing market in the world seems like a massive loss of face for what should be one of Disney's top-tier assets, and it is not like other Hollywood franchises haven't worked there.

But regardless, what would be the best way to make the Star Wars franchise more appealing to Chinese audiences WITHOUT alienating North American and other audiences in the process? Would it be movies that rely less on OT callbacks? Movies that adopt a different aesthetic - something with a more bright and fantastic aesthetic like Avatar, the GotG movies, or even the Star Wars Prequels, as opposed to the "used future" aesthetic of the OT and ST? Working in more A-list Hollywood actors, who seem to still have real drawing power in China?

Discuss.

 

Eh, as a Chinese-American student who spends Christmas holidays usually back in China, I don't really see Star Wars ever becoming a big franchise in China, and I don't really believe that Lucasfilm should distort Star Wars to make it more appealing in China.

Some possibilities to boost popularity though...

More lightsaber and on-ground/on-planet battles. More of that featured in trailers as well. From anecdotal experience, the significance of the space battles and the difference between different types of ships does not carry across well in translations to the casual foreign viewer. On one hand, these space battles distinguish Star Wars from other action franchises in China, but it might be more appealing to tweak what's sorta familiar to Chinese audiences. Blockbuster films that performed well in China (Fast & Furious insert #, Avengers, Transformers, Wolf Warrior 2) often have some link to reality (driving cool cars, metropolitan settings like New York), but hugely amp it up in visual effects and scale. The Jedi and the Force aspects of Star Wars sometimes resemble Chinese wuxia narratives populated by sword-wielding characters who use martial arts and other special abilities. Having more lightsaber duels with more Jedi and more depiction/explanation of heroes attaining new types of skills might appeal to those who like wuxia.

More competent display of leadership from both the Resistance and the First Order. I don't necessarily think it's the idea of an optimistic, scrappy smaller group of rebels that fails to appeal to Chinese audiences because in most East Asian cultures, you grow up with classics like the Water Margin, and wuxia often tells similar stories. When I took some adults like my parents and their friends to see TLJ though, they thought that both sides seemed inefficient and stupid. The men around my dad's age seemed more accepting of other Hollywood action movies that were openly marketed as rather brainless, explosive entertainment, but to them, TLJ's rather serious tone seemed incongruous with characters' actions. Also, they did not see the appeal of rooting for the Resistance or perceive its TLJ trajectory of running away as appealing.

On a blunt and superficial level, the Chinese friends with whom I've discussed Star Wars do not find the series and the casting to be that visually appealing. In terms of costuming, returning to prequel-era grandeur might be more appealing to Chinese audiences. Wuxia and other Chinese period dramas are filled with cumbersome, extravagant hairstyles, headdresses, and flowing robes whereas the overall palette of the ST has been rather drab and abundant in grays/blacks.

I haven't been a fan of any of the Chinese actresses (like Fan Bingbing, Jing Tian soon-to-be in Pacific Rim with John Boyega, and Liu Yifei as Mulan) that Hollywood slots into its action films so I don't think throwing in a famous Asian actor or actress for zero-2 lines will do much. If the ST develops to feature more young Jedi or Force-sensitives in a reborn Jedi order, one alternative could be to find a young-ish, teens-to-twenties rising Chinese actor/actress for beyond Episode IX. Also, yeah, a conventional A-list Hollywood star would probably still have more drawing power in China.

 

I might get some flack for this, but I don’t want to see any changes made to Star Wars to pander to Chinese cultural sensibilities. Most of the time, the various elements inserted into western films to try and appeal to Chinese audiences stick out like a sore thumb, and, at worst, actively dilute the work as a whole. It’s the same when western elements are inserted into Chinese films.

I don’t want to see Star Wars fall into the trend of Hollywood films becoming increasingly directionless in order to appeal to as many demographics as possible.

 

Seeing as it underperforms so much there I just say leave China alone.

 

Give Rose Tico an actual role in the films aside from Finn's love interest.

 

I’m the thread is still unlocked