ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

I never said that though. I talked about sustained vitriol in a specific context.

That's what I've been saying. But there's a lot of different reasons for liking or not liking a movie.

People do have a right not to be disappointed. They also have no obligation not to be disappointed. Or they have a right to be disappointed. Hence why the acknowledgement, by LFL among others, that you can't please everyone.

The question is, is it worth it to sustain vitriol at ones disappointment at being one of the ones not pleased as if that helps to get over it.

 

I don't know. That's a question every individual answers for themself. As far as blaming oneself just for sustained vitriol, that's a different topic than what I was discussing with Ender. I'm not really concerned with how people deal with their own disappointment. Everyone's different.

 

The fact that it's the eighth movie ensures that there would be so many different expectations from different perspectives. It would be impossible to meet them all.

You've got to consider that some of the audience expects to be surprised or challenged as much as they anticipate preconceived patterns to be further defined.

I don't think anyone can be accused of doing any such thing.

It doesn't follow that the general audience should necessarily be pissed off at certain expectations being subverted though.

Why change the habit of a lifetime?

I don’t see any dissonance between the conjoined scenes. The ending of TFA was made deliberately ambiguous. The fact is that TFA was not in a position to clue as in to why it should be ambiguous. It was made so three would be no expectations of the writer/director of episode VIII, which didn't even have a title at that time. It was made public early on that this was the policy for development of the trilogy. Why, in that context, should there have been some contract with the audience that TFA had tied TLJ in to honour?

Ok. But vitriol was being discussed in the conversation you were having with Ender via the Kevin Smith quotes that were included.

"I'm not."

 

While this topic started with expectations related to Rey, and what happened when those weren’t met for some people, by no means did I limit it to only that or even say it was anyone here.

Are any of you familiar with the term “Voter coalition?” Winning or losing elections often comes down to voter coalitions of different demographic groupings who each have one issue they’re either strongly in favor of happening or against/angry that happened. A notable example was the Reagan Coalition. Trump built a similar coalition. The concept is the same. Look at all of the sizable demographic groupings and try to appeal to as many as possible to form a coalition that will lead to victory while the other side’s coalition is smaller and loses.

TLJ angered enough sizable groupings within the fandom by making choices that angered by not selecting popular theories, around division among the most political with regard to issues of socio-political representation, by deciding to give the childhood hero of many, Luke Skywalker, new struggles to overcome and later showing him die, and by ensuring that it was Reylo and not lineage that became the central conflict complication. None of the choices made in those areas perhaps apply to you and you still disliked TLJ for different reasons entirely. Okay. I understand. But that doesn’t negate the presence of outrage from lots of others who see one of those choices as their primary dealbreaker.

But the really interesting aspect that’s also similar to politics is what happens when you bring a voter coalition together. United around being either for or against something or someone these coalitions become exposed to the frustrations of the other top priorities within the other demographics that form the Coalition. And so the anger for the against side or the support for the pro side grows as these coalitions form.

More fascinating questions still, though, are why Lucasfilm made these choices that they had to know would frustrate and anger those demographic groupings who’d spent a lot of time theorizing, or who are more ideologically driven around some of the ideas TLJ explores, and they certainly had to know that seeing Luke struggle, rise and die would anger perhaps the largest demo of all. And how could they possibly not expect some pushback over Reylo? By actively making choices they knew would anger these sizeable groupings of the Star Wars fandom who could they possibly hope to be reaching out to that they hoped would lead them to still win? What demographic did they think was even larger than those combined?

The answer should be obvious now. The average film goer who has never left a review in their life before, who doesn’t post here, who didn’t theorize as much, who’s willing to suspend disbelief more for a well-made, well-acted, good movie that holds up as solid entertainment when politics, counter theories, and expectations for Luke, or what this saga could be, are removed from the equation. By now you’ve probably seen some say, “TLJ is a good movie but a bad Star Wars movie.” The biggest group of all might be the person who sees the 91% from critics and walks out thinking only that first part because where it fits into Star Wars history is less important to them overall. But that wouldn’t be enough to win. They needed to build their own coalition so they also counted on reaching out to the shipping community in the hopes of making them feel more involved and to tap into their fandom, and the young generation of new fans who by and large connect to Star Wars when on offer at any one point in time, and last of all people like me. Hard core Star Wars geeks who either guessed right at where things were going and are happy with the choices, and/or film geeks who appreciate Johnson’s film school sensibilities.

Put that coalition together and what it lacks in desire to leave reviews online or comment on message boards it makes up for in purchasing power and expansion potential. And meanwhile the Anthology films and nostalgia that can be purchased still keep those frustrated connected enough to keep buying things now and then including tickets to new movies. Maybe not everyone but enough of the angry will continue to still buy enough. Lucasfilm gets the money from the already converted while reaching their hand out to new demographics entirely. To borrow another politicial term that has origins in marketing that’s called microtargeting.

Kathleen Kennedy is a genius and I would wager that by the end of IX Star Wars as a total brand will be the most popular with the most amount of people worldwide as its been since the 70s and 80s. And I’ll also bet that Rey and Kylo Ren will be bigger draws at Disneyworld with kids than a 1970s Hamill lookalike dressed as Luke at the park will be as early as 2025. It will take them some more time but the popularity of Rey, Kylo Ren, Finn, Poe and BB8 will continue to grow as kids who were 9 in 2015 for TFA are 13 for Episode IX. I also suspect that through targeted advertising that same age 9-13 group of kids will have the most young female fans in it who like Star Wars than perhaps any time in Star Wars’ long, illustrious history.

 

How is she a genius?

Have you looked at the Star Wars toy sales recently? The sequel trilogy merchandise is not selling as well as the OT or the prequels. How can you say Star Wars as a total brand will be the most popular with the most amount of people worldwide as its been since the 70s and 80s? The OT has stood the test of time for 40 years. I don't understand why you're trying to throw Luke Skywalker under the bus. With your logic children who grew up with the prequels love those characters more than the OT ones. Where's your evidence to support this theory?

 

I think you’re using “expectations” to mean “predicting the plot.” That’s not how I’m using the term.

I’m not saying “read chapter 1 and you can predict chapter 2.”

By “expectations” I mean that if you read, say, Chapter 1 of HP and the Sorcer’s Stone, you’d be shocked and confused if Chapter 2 was from LotR: Two Towers.

That sounds obvious. Because it is. Because I’m talking about the fundamentals of audience expectations as a basic concept, putting TLJ aside for the moment.

Exactly. Generally, if one feels that that is exactly what a movie is doing, there’s something else going on. Or one simply can’t understand, but let’s assume one has put some serious thought into it.

Movies can be made badly, or in bad taste, or with bad judgement. But rarely are they made *irrationally.*

RJ deliberately subverted expectations TFA created. Presumably for some narrative purpose, especially since he does it throughout the film.

Consider that, though, alongside the many overt references and mirroring with prior movies. TLJ is “new” and “different” in that it’s the first SW movie to attempt such a subversion and so much dang meta. But fundamentally it really doesn’t try to break from prior movies. To the point where I’ve seen many complain that it’s a big rehash. (I see it more as a “remix,” but to a specific end: “We are what they grow beyond” and all that jazz.)

I think LFL was expecting a bit more than usual with this one...

 

Well in what sense are you using that to define expectations? if it's not that those are two stories, plots, written with no recognition or conception or each other and therefore guaranteed to utterly confound ant sense whatsoever.

Which expectations exactly? What are these fundamentals?

 

I used it to illustrate why “expectations,” as a general concept, are completely reasonable things to have.

First and foremost - that TLJ would answer the questions raised by TFA.

Instead, TLJ pretended to go “Nope! Those questions don’t matter/I’ll just ignore them.”

But it didn’t, really. It punted, but obscured the fact that it punted. It pretended to burn down the past; it didn’t, but it seemed uninterested in most viewers realizing that. (How many viewers noticed that split-second shot of the Jedi books in the Falcon and thought that Yoda had actually burned the last remnants of the Jedi teachings?)

 

That's not a fundamental obligation as far as I'm concerned. TFA didn't need TLJ to make sense of it. As it happens it did make sense of things relating to certain characters in it but legitimately left things in suspense that still don't affect the status of TFA or TLJ as it unfolded.

I think many people would have noticed an otherwise unmotivated shot of a cabinet stuffed with books. If they hadn't even noticed the shot then it's unlikely they fall into that category of people that engage with the film in search of their expectations being met.

I don't know what the subtlety of that reveal has to do with fundamental expectations that TFA supposedly set.

 

This seems like a very elaborate way of saying that Star Wars is “too big to fail” and that average movie-goers will simply buy tickets to whatever they see the most trailers for, and kids will buy toys of whatever dominates the commercial messaging between their cartoons. The truth is that nothing is really “too big to fail” and Star Wars can go out of style like any other brand.

 

If KK had a time machine, no way do I think she would have let TLJ happen the way it did. I don't care how much of a brave face they put on. LF was in a much better situation after being nearly universally praised for both TFA and R1 than now that they've split the audience and their merchandising has fallen through the basement. Business isn't complicated. When you sell a product, you'd rather sell a product that everyone loves and wants to spend endless amounts of money on. You don't want to sell a product that half of your target market vocally hates. When you're making SW, after having one of the biggest openings of all time, you don't want to see your central saga film creamed starting in week four or five by a one-off spin off movie.

I have a nine year old and I'm around a lot of kids. They were watching TCW on Netflix already. They all know who Princess Leia is. They're not reylo shippers.

 

There’s no way Kennedy would have been surprised by the death of Luke Skywalker dividing the audience and there being no Rey Skywalker tie-in. You really think a divisive reaction to that shocked her?!

The whole point is to move beyond this whole saga concept. This notion of the saga movies and the Skywalker family being more special than the other properties they are trying to build or that they need to perform at a higher rates is largely fan-invented.

The first Star Wars movie in over a decade always does best. TPM was the same way. They’d know that more than anyone. They are generating new films every year so there’s no way they expected TFA over and over again indefinitely. 10 years of billion dollar movies looks to be more than the plan. Star Wars is less of a world wide brand even than Marvel. It’s popularity is largely relegated to America, the commonwealth nations and Germany. That’s it.

They have 2 new trilogies on the way that aren’t saga movies. They have Anthology films on the way. If saga films were their big concern they’d have kept pumping out Skywalker family stories and announced X-XII already. They’ve made the purchase price back in box office revenue already so from here on out the concept is basically Marvel even if it ends up being Marvel-lite due to their currently being less compelling individuals and teams and powers in the brand than Marvel had. The Skywalker saga is now part of the past. It didn’t have more upside and they knew that. They want new characters eventually and I’d bet the powers of the new characters will continue to increase as well.

More screens and video games and digital toys and less actual toys. Toy trends are changing.

Kennedy is probably too busy hoping some of her writers find the next big ideas and characters in this galaxy to worry too much about the reaction to the death of Luke or lack of lineage for Rey. Two choices she signed off on and endorsed whole heartedly.

The EU blow-up made it clear. Lucasfilm is too focused on the future to worry any more about the reactions of the hardcore adult fans’ reactions to how that new impacts their past. And that includes casting new actors to play old roles.

 

Yup. Good business people don't set out to drive half of their most loyal paying customers away. That's not good business strategy. It's not a thing at all. Not that I buy your premise for what drove people away in TLJ. Luke's death isn't the problem. Rey not being a Skywalker isn't the problem. That's how LF writes off the criticism as a way to ignore it.

Check out Amazon's best selling toys right now. I see three SW products on the entire list of 50, and none have anything to do with the ST.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Toys-Games-Action-Toy-Figures/zgbs/toys-and-games/2514571011

Edit ~ Just realized that's a list of 100. In the bottom 50, there are two more SW toys, also not focused on the ST. Out of 100, there are five, and they're not for the new big thing out of the SW saga. Compare that to Marvel, the franchise that nobody seems to get sick of ever.

 

Lol, sorry, but we have no doubt that your kid is not "reylo shipper" and, of course, all kids around you.

Half of "your target market" on the internet?

 

Yeah, kids I know are not shipping Rey with Kylo Ren. No really, it's not because I brainwashed them. None of the nine year olds I know are watching SW to see pretty girls find their prince charming. It never comes up. But SW certainly comes up.

 

Exactly my point. And Disney owns most of the other characters in that top 20.

It’s a post Marvel-world now and to compete things will continue to move more in that direction with humor and increased powers and eventually new characters who will probably have their own unique power origins and alien team-ups.

I won’t be surprised if Kennedy breathes a sigh of relief when the final scroll of IX starts on premier night in anticipation of moving away from scrolls and the trappings and expectations of the saga that come with it.

It’s going to be very interesting to see the original characters they eventually work up to away from the Skywalker family.

 

Wait, what? What do you mean it's a post-Marvel world now? Which Marvel movie made as much as TFA? Hell, how many have made more than R1 and TLJ? Not too many.

SW toys are among the top selling toys in history --> https://www.nowblitz.com/blog/15-best-selling-toys-in-history/

Marvel isn't on that list. SW is. That means the trend right now for SW toys is downward, and we are right smack in the middle of a new SW saga trilogy. That's not a good thing.

 

Obviously the Kenner 1978-1985 line was game-changing. Nobody denies that Star Wars raised the bar but us kids also didn’t have anywhere near the amount of content back then that kids do now. I imagine our own childhoods would have been very different had this MCU been out there alongside Star Wars at the same time.

Toy sales for kids for any one thing won’t be what they were back then. There’s just too much content and too many choices and more games happening online.

 

Which even if it happens will be entirely irrelevant to the ST connecting to the PT and OT stories or TFA and TLJ connecting to each other. None of which I would say has happened.

What's more Rey path is disappointing because she simply has not got the care and attention that Lucas gave Anakin and Luke or Padme and Leia for that matter.

 

Rey’s story isn’t over yet. With all of the OT cast gone IX will likely become the Rey and Ben Solo show and I won’t be surprised at all if her popularity skyrockets alongside his after IX. This is what they’ve been building toward. The setback chapter has occurred. The old cast has moved to make way for the new. Now the big finale is before us.

 

It's not about numbers. It's about how these toys are doing relative to other toys. Bobblehead Ron from Parks & Rec is more popular by a lot than a Kylo Ren or Rey action figure.

I remember how crazy popular SW toys were when TFA happened. SW dominated that top selling toy list. It's become clear that Hasbro and LF expected that to continue, and now the stores have too much SW stuff that just can't unload.

 

Hasbro already admitted they released all the toys months prior to the movie instead of waiting until after and that doing so was a mistake on their part.
https://www.iol.co.za/business-repo...istake-with-star-wars-last-jedi-toys-14150459

This article supports everything I just said about the toy market:
https://www.thestar.com/business/20...-biggest-toymakers-arent-having-much-fun.html

 

IX really does need to focus on and give closure to Rey I feel. After all, Kylo is gone and isn’t coming back now. We need to learn her origins and just why she’s so powerful with the Force. It all needs to fit

 

The article says zero about SW sales relative to other toys. If all sales are down, I’d still expect SW action figures of their brand new leads from the ongoing Saga to outsell Ron Swanson.

Edit - also that article says kids are tired of movie-based action figures. I think Marvel is laughing all the way to the bank on that one. Black panther toy sales are exceeding expectations, and we can clearly see Marvel toys dominate Amazon.