ST Rotten Tomatoes predictions

Well, of course it was pushed. But so were the Jurassic World trailers.The point is the reaction was overwhelmingly positive and proof that interest in SW is huge. If that interest and reaction carries across to the reception of the film, BO will be huge. I don't really see your point to be honest.

 

My point is that the one doesn't beget the other. I wasn't bombarded with JW trailers in my social feeds as I was with TFA. The number of hits for the teaser trailer, although huge, is not evidence of guaranteed success of the film come December... I'll take the bet now, TFA will not be the biggest film of the year (unfortunately), given JW's current numbers.

 

I'm not necessarily saying it is. What I'm saying is, if it matches TFA will be huge - I also agree that TFA will be doing well to be JW. But no one was predicting that success iirc. Anticipation for TFA seems to be far higher than for JW. So if the film is good and gets great WOM, is there anything to suggest it can't outstrip JW?

 

I find RT ratings pretty useful. I think they generally reflect pretty well how good a film is; however, we have to consider that critics still have their necessary biases (like anyone). One bias most have is that a genre film is failing if it's not doing something new or innovative. But most genre fans like movies if they are well executed, not necessarily if they are innovative. I'm a horror and noir fan, for example, and I don't need every one I see to break the mold. I watch them because I'm looking to be scared or to see the motivations behind a crime. I like innovation too, but it's not fair to say a film fails if it's only trying to be good genre entertainment. So when I look at the ratings for these genres, I keep in mind the critical bias and know that if a horror movie is only a 50%, I may still enjoy it.

Usually though, if RT rates something over 80%, I almost always like it.

 

Super 8 and MI 3, films JJ wrote, are both in the 70s on RT. SW will get a boost just for being SW so I expect it will end up in the 85-89 range. It's going to be a bit overhyped though which could limit how high it goes.

 

From your lips to God's ears. On this, everything depends.

 

Really? It seems to me like they hardly did anything at all.

What did they do? They showed the trailer a couple of times at SWCA and then threw it up on YouTube.

Then everybody went bananas. The only reason it seemed like it was everywhere (to me) was because everybody was going "ZOMG DID YOU SEE THE NEW STAR WARS TRAILER!!??" People were crying, for Pete's sake. When was the last time people posted reaction videos of themselves in tears after a two-minute trailer for a movie that doesn't come out for another 6-7 months?

The thing practically markets itself.

 

Good point. There was no push there beyond what any marketing tries to push IMO but TFA took off because people responded to what they saw. I suppose you could argue celebration gave it a big push, but again if the demand wasn't there or the teaser didn't connect it wouldn't have taken off the same way.

 

So I'm not prepared to go into the detail of it... but if you think they did little to promote it, and it left grown men the world over weeping with joy... then all power to you. 'Normal' people don't cry over a new SW trailer... and if they do, they'd probably cry over everything else too. Suffice to say, there was a targeted social media push to get the trailer feeding into all our favourite social media feeds. It was also pushed on the game platforms. It was also pushed by Apple on various forms... and of course to multiple digital TV broadcasters, who were told to expect a news story (I know... I saw the press release myself). It was pushed to the demographic that will readily click on links, like and share. That was the target audience... and they achieved their goal with aplomb. This is all part of the same marketing narrative that would have us believe that the new leads would be selected from open casting. And which lead exactly got the part from open casting? But it’s a great news story isn’t it?

What I find interesting is that people seem so prepared to, indirectly of course, set this film up to fail by buying into this marketing. If we buy into this ‘narrative’ of ‘biggest trailer of all time’ and ‘grown men left crying’, then what happens IF TFA doesn’t get the same box office as Jurassic World? Where’s the marketing narrative then? I sit here and see all the same kind of expectations being put on this film as there were on TPM...

 

No one is setting it up to fail by suggesting that the teaser obviously connected. And it did. I'm a grown man, I cried. It's pathetic and I'm not proud of it, and for some reason it connected. I've never cried at a trailer before so go figure. I'm well aware that may not translate across to the finished film but I didn't connect to the footage because marketeers were pushing it. People connected with it because they connected with it. This isn'y some media spin to make it appear that there is huge anticipation for TFA, nor that the reponse to the footage so far has been overwhelmingly popular. Does "adults who should know better" play a part in that? Probably, but yet it's normally for any adult to spend the amount of time that we do on here talking about about a set of family adventure films. The expectations are the expectations. All people want to see is a good SW film. I think people are well aware it might suck to some/ many - anyone who lived through the PT knows all about that. If JW tops TFA, who actually cares so long as the movie is good? And if the movie isn't good, who cares what the anticipation was before hand. The PT gets flak for a lot of reasons and while expectations played a part, they are far from the only reason.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that IF TFA comes close to generating the response the teasers did, it will be huge. Even three films that received mixed reception made a stack at the box office because people love Star Wars. They'll love good to great Star Wars even more. Whether they love Star Wars more than Dinosaurs remains to be seen.

 

I refuse to be ashamed of reacting with genuine emotion to a work of art. The problem, today, is not people who cry watching a trailer. It's people who refuse to do so. Screw cynicism. If a film, or a trailer, is so wonderful that it causes you to tear up, maybe that means you're alive.

ETA: Or drunk.

 

I wept like a baby. I blame the bottle of red I was drinking. That and John Williams.

 

Really? You cried? Man, I wish I could feel that way. Perhaps that's why you have more emotional attachment to TFA than I do... I feel quite emotionally detached from it, but I think that’s probably the best way to keep expectations in check.

In terms of “setting it up to fail”... I’m not suggesting it didn’t "connect" for you... it clearly did... and I was obviously giddy for it too... it’s new Star Wars!!! However, I think that’s different from what is the inference here (not necessarily from you) i.e. that there’s something significant going on at a cultural level in terms of TFA. I don’t see any evidence for that at all... apart from a cleverly marketed trailer; that’s proved hugely popular (of course it would). Given that the Jurassic World trailer didn’t set any records, but the films box office actually did, only goes to show that one cannot automatically correlate the popularity of a trailer to the success of the actual film (has anyone pulled historic data on that? I’m not sure?). So whilst SW’s significant and consistent popularity isn’t in doubt, I’m not sure that’s the thing being contested.

I mentioned the “narrative” of PR/marketing as that’s the term used ‘behind the doors’ when devising a marketing strategy such as this. I think that this particular “narrative” has been quite clear. And that you believe that there’s been little “push” only underlines the success of their marketing in this particular instance... given the LOE Lucasfilm have spent promoting this thus far... which I applaud (their marketing has been, and continues to be, great IMO). Of course, the box office crown isn’t the be all and end all... but again, that’s not what I’m contesting. TFA could be the best SW film without doing half the money of TPM... this is more about general perception as a result of the marketing narrative, rather than our individual opinion of the technical application.

 

It was really weird. I wasn't expecting to get emotional at all, and I don't know why it happened but it just did. It just triggered something that must psychologically be hugely nostalgia based, whilst also being the hope of more great adventures in a sandbox that means a great deal to me.

 

I did not cry. It was 3am here and I think I was too tired to feel much of anything.

I may have cried when I realised I had to work the next day, however.

 

I think RT scores will reflect the first Star Trek score. If you look at the little blurb reviews for that first star trek movie, a lot of them mention JJ "refreshing" the series or essentially doing something to 'better' the series from where it was. With the first two prequels not rating highly, i could see reviewers rating TFA on a same kind of scale.

I think it opens 95% and doesn't go below 90%.
I could see a lot of headlines referring to JJ as "resurrecting Star Wars from the dark days of prequels", or things like that to grab a cheap provocative headline.

 

What argument are you making, exactly, because I'm not following it.

Example:

So there's nothing significant going on at a cultural level with TFA beyond a cleverly marketed trailer which turned out to be hugely popular, because of course it would.

Why would it necessarily be hugely popular if it was just clever marketing, and if there wasn't anything significant culturally going on?

Secondly, if there was something culturally significant going on with TFA (a film which doesn't come out for another six months), what would that look like? What kind of evidence would you expect?

Look, I get it -- don't buy into the hype, TPM/PT, expectations, etc. But you don't have to necessarily buy into the hype and set expectations unrealistically high to acknowledge that a new Star Wars film -- with the original cast -- is a Very Big Deal. It's not the nth reboot of Spiderman we're talking about.

 

Or the 3rd Jurrassic Park sequel

 

F'ing ay.

 

I thought it was quite clear? A popular trailer doesn’t equate to successful film. In terms of ‘cultural significance’, I think you’d be better off asking the question of yourself. Do you think there’s something culturally significant going on with TFA? If something significant is happening, 6 months before its release, how is that demonstrated? A trailer that gets more hits than the rest? What then does it mean, if and/or when, TFA doesn’t do the same numbers as Jurassic World? Does that mean it was just largely hype or that JW was more ‘culturally significant’? How does one quantify that beyond hits on a website?

Of course a new SW film is a big deal... no one is arguing that... and it may not be "nth reboot of Spiderman" but it is Star Wars film No. 7... and Lucasfilm and Disney are well aware of the films marketing requirements... it certainly won't market itself just by being 'Star Wars'. However, it seems that some are expecting this film to break box office records and re-invent the genre as if it's a given... when in all likelihood, it probably won’t even be the biggest film of the year. So yes, let's please set expectations accordingly and not try and pass this off as something it, as yet, currently is not.

 

Will probably score right around STID (87%). Critics will pick apart the script for all its flaws, but will still rate it fresh and hail JJ for "saving" the franchise. I have foreseen it . . .

 

If revenge of the sith can score high on rotten tomatoes I don't see why this won't... ( course i'm just assuming at this point but this is a thread of speculation)...

I say 80's to 90's. Part may be because of nostalgia, part of it will because it's just a well done movie with a great team assembled to make it.

 

Not really.

That's really an academic question. Of course a popular trailer doesn't equate to a successful film. But we're not talking about any old popular trailer for any old film. We're talking about a specific trailer for a specific film, and that's where I felt your argument (in general terms) kinda went off the rails when you tried to apply the general principle to the specific case of Star Wars/TFA.

You seemed to say in one breath that the number of views of trailer 2 was because of clever marketing, and then in the next said that "of course" it would get lots of views. I asked, why did you say "of course" if the success had so much to do with clever marketing? I.e., *what other factors* besides the marketing drove the record number of views? You've just kind of hand-waved that away.

Well, you didn't really answer all of my questions, but I'll answer yours.

Yes.

Broadly-based, quantifiable enthusiasm. You don't seem to think the number of views of teaser 2 seem to count for much in this respect, attributing the number of YouTube views to a clever marketing campaign. I disagree, and we may just have to agree to disagree on that.

Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

Let's have that discussion in February, 2016.

I can think of a number of ways. One is approximate net worth of the franchise. For Star Wars, in 2012 (before the sale of LFL), it was conservatively estimated at $30B. What is it for Jurassic Park? I couldn't find anything for JP (although I admittedly didn't look terribly hard). The number for Star Wars, however, popped up at the top of Google search in a highlighted answer box, indicating ... I dunno. I don't know what the criteria are for those answer boxes, but it seems significant that there's one for the net worth of Star Wars.

Another, arguably more subjective, but still significant, I think is the existence of books like this:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Star-Wars-Conquered-Universe/dp/1480532525

I don't want to overstate my argument, which is simply this. A lot of people watched that trailer, and that means something, and it cannot be attributed to clever marketing. There is tremendous enthusiasm for the film, and it transcends boundaries of fandom, and it transcends most of the demographic slices that tend to drive attendance for other types of movies. I think its performance at the *US domestic* BO will in the end come down to how good of a film it is. I think there's a floor which it will get regardless and that floor is in the neighborhood of JW numbers (maybe not on opening weekend) but certainly in terms of total US domestic gross. If it's GOOD, then all bets are off -- it will make more than JW at the US box office, and not by a small amount.

 

I predict that the main thread of the critic reviews will be a variation of the following, for good or for ill:

"The prequels are dead. Long live the sequels."

 

Well I hope it’s much clearer for you now.

It wasn’t really a question I was posing. It was an opinion based on experience of major studio marketing strategy… and popular brands.

You think “clever marketing” exists separately from “popularity”? You believe that something that’s “popular” doesn’t require marketing and that marketing doesn’t feed popularity? Based on that, why have a trailer at all? Why send press releases to major news networks to advertise the fact that a trailer would be released? Of course a new Star Wars trailer is going to prove popular, especially if one ensures that the key demographics are exposed to it. That’s marketing.

I didn’t think there was a particular question to answer… and I’m not sure you’ve convinced me that a cultural shift is taking place due to TFA.

You believe that equates to “culturally significant”? That’s setting the bar low in my opinion. I do believe the trailer view count means something i.e. that the Star Wars brand remains, generally, very popular/strong…. However, I don’t believe that has any bearing on the actual film itself… or is it reflective of something going on under the surface in terms of a new cultural phenomenon.

So given that you believe that trailer buzz is suggesting something culturally significant going on (is that what you’re stating?), you seem rather reluctant to nail your colours to the mast. Surely the net result of that should be that TFA will be the biggest film of all time? It’s a no brainer isn’t it? If not, what’s the actual significance of a hugely popular trailer if the payoff is not a hugely popular movie? That marketing can increase interest in a product before it comes out? Yes, I’d say that’s about right.

You seem to be making a case for the cultural significance of Star Wars, as a brand, rather than the significance of The Force Awakens based on trailer interest. Are they the same thing? I don’t think so. My original post on this was about the narrative of TFA’s marketing and how some are buying into the idea of it, and by default setting expectations too high.

I refer to an earlier response. These are not mutually exclusive. The popularity of the brand is matched only by the business model underpinning it, and the marketing put in place to re-enforce and regenerate popularity. I agree with the points about SW transcending both the genre and demographic… but you seem to think I’m making a case for SW not being popular. That is not the case at all.