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

Jabba I agree with you except for one point EU and KOTR

I rather enjoyed John Carter. Don't really remember much of the marketing other than TV ads so I can't say that it was good or bad.

The Avengers however...that was EVERYWHERE you looked.

That being said...I don't imagine Disney will have problems marketing Episode VII.

Not sure what kind of lessons they can learn from The Phantom Menace other than it was awesome a made a ton of money.

Oh and what I mean by KOTR is that I simply mean the Old Republic, because we all know that movie adaptations of games generally suck

Cameron doing Star Wars would be more blasphemous than Bill Shatner showing up....

Disney plan on having them make new Star Wars movies every second or third year beyond EpIX. That sounds like taking an interest in LFL as a film studio to me.
Potentially serious mistake? That's what everyone except Alan Ladd Jr. thought when GL wanted to make the first SW movie.





Everything is a potentially serious mistake
/LM

Except it is. You've all seen Avengers - I'm sure? What story did that have? None. What about Transformers?


I wish it didn't though.

So we should sacrifice timeless story telling for momentary awe?

I hope you are just teasing?

Yeah, god forbid someone actually likes a good movie.





Yep
/LM

Is this a serious question?

I shall now list my problems with Avengers off the top of my head:

Weak villain.
Derivative story line with no depth whatsoever.
The constant battle between the characters to come up with the best one-liners or in this case the weakest.
The endless and, yes, boring action.
Lack of character development - I didn't even know the names of Hawk Eye or Black Widow by the end of it.
Childish conflicts throughout which appeared entirely forced.

Poetry, DarthBrian, poetry.

I guess I have to concede this one. The Transformers movies are just a long, slow burn of loud and shiny nonsense. That's the bar for a billion dollar movie, and it's really low.

From the looks of it The Phantom Menace was a box office success... John Carter? Not so much.

For all the hate towards Episode I... The Phantom Menace >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> John Carter!

I don't think John Carter failed just because it was lame, Bay's Transformer mvoies were lame but they still made lots of money. Twilight is terrible but it has a massive following and has been very successful.

Hollywood has a habit of releasing movies just to cash-in on a name, such as a new Rocky or Ghostbusters which people will see regardless of how good it is.
Star Wars is the ultimate movie brand name, slap it on anything and it will sell big-time.

John Carter failed because it was lame, and nobody could relate to any of the characters AT ALL.

No, John Carter failed because it was marketed poorly. The title should have been John Carter of Mars and it should not have been compared to Star Wars in their own trailers. Those were the two biggest mistakes.

Everyone wants Star Wars to be entertaining and make a lot of money. The question is: how best to achieve it. I think at the end of the day we all agree that gungans are the key to making this work. Lots of gungans. Maybe an underwater gungan adventure set entirely in the swamps of Naboo.

Yeah, I kinda liked John Carter. But the only reason I went to see it was because I got a free ticket to a sneak preview showing. Would I have gone to see it had that not been the case? Probably. But would I have known about it in that case? No, because the marketing just didn't really work that well.

And about weak story: virtually all movies have a weak story to someone. It's just a matter of opinion. TPM maybe didn't have the strongest plot, but as long as people put their butts in the seats to see Star Wars in action, that's all that matters.

Having seen John Carter and hating the movie with a passion... trust me, bad word of mouth played a HUGE role. A bad movie is a bad movie and John Carter is a BAD MOVIE!

I'm sure bad word of mouth played a huge role for it's second-week drop-off at the BO. But for the opening weekend tally, it wouldn't have mattered. And people deciding what to see might look at that title and think to themselves "why would I want to see a movie about the guy who discovered King Tut's tomb?" But if the title was "John Carter of Mars", then they'd be going, "oooooh a sci-fi movie! That should be fun!".

How can it learn from both of these movies when their respective outcomes and legacies are the opposite?

John Carter was a colossal flop but is generally well-regarded by those who actually saw it.

Phantom Menace was hugely successful but widely lambasted by internet/geek culture to this day.

You're right, bad word of mouth wasn't part of the first week downfall, but the bad press solid for the few months leading up to it sure has hell was. Critics were bashing it's development at every turn, and then when they had previewed it, it confirmed their findings and thus got horrible reviews.

I think it may depend on how much GL has at hand with this project. I can assure you that he has some say in what will go on in the script. He will most likely be a "consultant" and will give it the thumbs up or down with his approval. At least for Ep 7. It depends on what the contract reads and if he is even required to do anything.

The absolute worst thing that the new directors and writers for Episodes 7-9 should do coming in is have the attitide that they have to right the wrongs of the PT. Look at Dave Filoni's attitude towards the prequels (he loves them), and look at what he has done with the CW. The attitude the new filmmakers who come in to do these movies need to have is to try to hold true to Lucas' vision, to his style and spirit of the movies, to feel honored to carry the torch, and to keep the spirit of Star Wars alive.

I have not seen John Carter, so I can't comment on it. But Phantom Menace is a movie that gets way more crap than it deserves. I only hope I love Episode 7 (and even 8 and 9 for that matter) nearly as much as I love TPM.

As for the OP's comment about not pandering to small children, well TPM was designed to be a little more cutesy because of the niave nature of the film that Lucas wanted. Obviously the PT got darker and darker and less "kiddy" as it went along, and that was by design and for storytelling purposes to show a progression from a happy galaxy to a tragically oppressed galaxy. There is no way anyone can reasonably make the argument that TPM was only cutesy simply to pander to small children. I don't buy that for one second.

Also, yes story does matter. The PT had plenty of it, and a good one too.