ST Episode IX Box Office Discussion

Yep and now we are about to drive away the new creators...how ironic.

Obviously you are not interested in a serious conversation. You have not responded in a constructive way to any of the responses and answers I and others posted.

 

None of it has been serious questions so why bother? What do you seriously want to know?

An argument about Endgame that broke nearly every record but domestic BO is pointless.

If someone doesn't realize that everything isn't peaches and cream why bother trying to explain it now?

 

Don't feed the trolls...

Anyway, FOUR MONTHS until The Rise of Skywalker!!!!

 

Speaking of Age of Ultron @cerealbox it just got passed up by The Lion King on the all time worldwide list as TLK is now 9th all time and should be hitting $500 million plus domestically sometime this week. Again we can argue that perhaps Disney saw a bit more potential out of but a Top 10 finish worldwide along with a Top 15 domestically is something they are going to have a pity party over anytime soon.

 

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LiteralGenie

 

I know Iger prefers a hands off approach where the studios pretty much run themselves, all I was saying is that (barring Solo's May release) that's been his approach for all the films and there's no evidence that he's been any more hands on since TLJ/Solo.

I just thinking look at what's been announced we can't say that LFL hasn't been as open. Surely what projects are coming are the direction they're going in? They first announced 5 movies, ST films every two years with stand alone stories in the off years. That's their equivalent of Phase One. During that time they officially announced two more trilogies/sagas coming once the ST was finished. Once TROS is out and done, then we'll likely learn details about what's next (their Phase 2). Just like Marvel announced Phase 4 at SDCC after Endgame and Far From Home completed Phase 3. And can we really say what direction Phase 4 is heading in right now?

As @Othini says, it's not her job to be the storyteller, she's a studio head and producer. There's an argument to be made that the jumping around eras may have potentially hurt/confused the forwards momentum of the core story at the box office, and that (combined with Solo's performance) is likely why some of the projects that were often rumoured but never officially confirmed (like Boba Fett and Obi-Wan) have been re-worked and moved to Disney+ series. But that's hardly on KK, Star Wars has always jumped around the timeline (look at CW, look at the comics and novels, both canon and legends). If that approach was part of the problem then they identified it at the first opportunity (Solo, because no one thought it was a problem after Rogue One) and have adapted the plan going forwards.

 

No - KK did not need to be the storyteller. But she should have known she needed one.

The jumping around is definitely on KK. If she wasn't the one to oversee the stories fitting or didn't hire anyone to do that - that's on her.

SW hasn't always jumped around from GL's work. The EU stories (comics/novels) wasn't GL. Lucas had the OT, then had the setup with the PT. Clone Wars was made afterward the PT but it was also long talked about as a story and was first brought up in ANH - so I get that pet project. Even that is pretty linear. GL did OT, then went back and filled the gaps that was missing in his story - first the PT and in depth with Clone Wars. That is at least easy to follow. When Disney sent all of the EU away, the assumption was they'd have a plan in place for the new EU but that hasn't proven to be the case.

And how do we know they adapted the plan going forward? Everything is still jumping around. Say the end of TROS is the new starting point of Star Wars and then build a timeline after that:

Resistance - Setup for TROS. Done after Season 2. Year or so before starting point, wherever TROS lands after TLJ.
The Mandalorian - 3 years after ROTJ
Clone Wars - Before ROTS
Cassian Andor Series - Before RO
Obi-Wan Series - Between ROTS and ANH

Everything with confirmed titles is set in timelines before the ST. I see no evidence they have adapted the plan. A Kenobi series is the same mistake they made with Solo - telling a story that doesn't need to be told (and has already been filled in elsewhere by Disney Star Wars). Just because its the same actor doesn't change the fact its misguided under the "More Star Wars" mantra instead of trying to tell a complete story.

Star Wars under KK is about whatever projects sound cool or whatever directors are hot at the time with nothing tying them together.

 

The thing about the supposed Obi-Wan Disney+ series has going for it that Solo didn't IMHO is the following:

1. It is something hardcore fans have shown an interest in seeing. Much more then I say a young Solo project.
2. It's on a streaming site, not a massive theatrical release. Obviously that is much lower expectations.
3. It's target audience is much smaller because of #2. It's targeted at the core fans and many IMHO will tune it at least initially.
4. They already have the main character cast and fans happen to love Ewan in the part. Doesn't it hurt too it's something he has really wanted to do for a while now.

While I do think Lucasfilm seems way too invested in staying around the same time period (at least for the short term), I do think doing a Obi-Wan TV series on Disney+ is a much better move then a Han Solo big theatrical release. I still say Solo would have worked as a TV Series though the cost I think would made it most likely impossible.

 

yeah yeah, we all know Disney secretly wants to fire KK, that’s old news.

 

We'll see. The quality of the story will be the real measurement. In a story that's reportedly a short mini-series and is trapped in a relatively small window, I'm not expecting much. Likely a few episodes of Obi watching over a young Luke, with him fighting Tuskens and some big baddy from the Empire looking for him.

It would be wise to incorporate what was done in Rebels with Obi-Wan to start putting things together but I'm not betting on it. This appears to be Ewan's project - which has fit the MO of KK/LFL under Disney from the start.

Who has said anything about firing KK recently?

 

She has storytellers - Abrams, Kasdan, Arndt, Johnson, Edwards, Filoni, Favreau, etc. Star Wars isn't the MCU so it didn't need a show runner like that, making sure everything lined up in one overarching story. Whether or not the loose outline & baton pass approach worked for the ST is totally open to debate, but she did have story tellers for each project.

Clone Wars was George though, and that was all over the timeline. And the point was that Star Wars media has never been strictly linear in its story telling and the new releases were merely continuing that approach. They weren't telling one continuous narrative like the MCU. Whether or not it worked is another matter. As I said, there's an argument that could be made that jumping around did hurt them/confuse people who are these days expecting a cinematic universe to look like Marvel's and tell a single ongoing story (mostly) in chronological order.

The plan for the new EU seems to be mainly to support the film and TV releases. The comics and books no longer drive the story forward. Sure, we have the main title filling in the blanks (again) between ANH and ESB, but the main push of the publishing program each year is the "Journey To" each film. It will be interesting to see what comes our way in the next few years with no films coming. I'm guessing they'll start to flesh out the ROTJ-TFA era now the ST is complete.

As far as adapting the plan, we know the Story movies have been put on hold and some of those ideas moved to series. We know that Star Wars is going to a film every two years rather than annually. Presumably to make them more "event" movies. Removing the stand alones should allow them to release each trilogy in order (assuming they don't alternate between trilogies) which solves the "jumping around the timeline" problem for the films.

As for the Disney+ series - Clone Wars is a one shot back because of fan support/demand for a proper conclusion. Obi-Wan is also likely to be a single season (and highly fan demanded as @Luke02 says). Mandalorian starts this year, Cassian presumably 2020. The new films don't come until December 2022. If they're still going Mandalorian will be starting season 4 and Cassian season 3 at that point. Maybe new series after that will tie in to a single ongoing narrative like the MCU. Maybe they'll let the series carve out their own spaces in the narrative (and maybe some will have crossover elements, like Saw in Rebels). We can't really say either approach is wrong, especially without seeing how the first few series are received. Jumping around the timeline is certainly easier with series as I think audiences will be less confused by each series standing alone than by movies alternating between different time periods.

 

KK has a lot of storytellers but none of them are telling the same story (not even in the same trilogy). When taking over a franchise that has been basically one person telling the same story to have a bunch of people telling whatever they want to tell - its going to lead to something being disjointed.

The MCU did not have to have one over-arching story. They chose to and ended up with a great result.

As far as the new EU plan - I'll take your word for it. I stopped reading when I realized it was mostly cleanup for whatever the last director did in the ST movie.

Your points on films and TV shows are reasons but doesn't change the results. If you draw a SW timeline under GL vs under KK, there is a lot more jumping around in the latter. And we've seen how audiences respond to a good overarching story vs jumping around in films. Casual audiences will continue to get turned away and lose motivation to follow the story if they are all jumping around and disconnected. For example - DC cinematic movies obviously lost its audience but there TV shows do well with having multiple shows that are interconnected when they want to be with crossovers.

Disney has routinely done a great job in making its universes that are all connected - directly or indirectly. Marvel. Pixar. Even the live-action remakes. Audiences know what they are going to get it and they trust them as a result. Star Wars? Everything is going in its own separate direction - and its a business mistake imo. Even Star Wars Galaxy isn't really connected (none of the shows/movies are known to be going to touch Batuu that I'm aware of and its supposed to be set in the ST but none of the future Disney+ or movie projects are during that timeline. How does that make sense?). Sure - some fans love everything with a Star Wars logo but its clear that the general audience won't accept that. These upcoming stories need to be really good to build momentum back up for Star Wars. I have the most hope for Favreau.

 

I think this is the crux of it. Like I said, we can debate whether or not the baton pass approach worked for the ST, or whether jumping around the timeline hurt the franchise. Those are both very valid questions and not easy to answer definitively (especially the later). But there was a plan. This approach was a choice LFL made. It was announced way back in 2014 that ST would alternate with stand alone spin offs. And before Solo crashed at the box office no one questioned whether jumping around the timeline or not having a singular narrative would hurt the franchise. Rebels, TFA, RO, and TLJ were all critically and commercially well received. And after Solo they appear to have taken these factors into account and changed the plan, putting the spin offs on hold/moving them to Disney+ and slowing down theatrical releases.

The DC movies tried to copy the MCU and failed (thankfully they're getting back on track now). Surely that proves that a singular narrative universe isn't an automatic win and is actually an argument that quality wins out. And, yes, the Arrowverse is popular (and I can't wait for Crisis!), but DC also have several other shows set in different eras and universes as well. I know you can't compare ratings like for like across networks (eg: Gotham year on year had higher ratings than Flash but just ended at five seasons) so I'm not sure you can do an apples to apples comparison with all the various series (and now streaming series) but I think the TV series all being generally better received than the films is an argument that you can jump around and audiences will be fine with it as long as they enjoy the content. In fact DC TV might be a good comparison to make for going forward, with the Arrowverse being your new trilogies and main story on the big screen and all your other shows (Gotham, Krypton, Titans, Doom Patrol, etc) being your Disney+ series.

 

A simple plan like the following:

Part 1: Introduce the conflict and characters and have a small piece of a villain's motives defeated. But more mysteries remain.
Part 2: Heroes investigate the mysteries that remained from part 2. Villain regains composure, seeking an opportunity to become even more powerful. Heroe's find out more about the villain's mysteries and past but in doing so, they actually open "pandora's box" and that is what the villains were waiting for to become stronger. A mini-battle is won but the heroes are in deep @#$% because the villain just got stronger and exposed the heroes' weaknesses.
Part 3; Heroes on the run, find out a twisty weakness, and engage that weakness but only toward the very end just as the villain is about to completely win.

This is pretty much the formula of the OT, Marvel's Thanos story, Harry Potter, LOTR, and other stories.

TFA utilized part 1 perfectly (although a bit too similar to ANH). TLJ sort of hit on a few of the components of part 2 but missed the "mysteries of the villain" part. TROS will likely fill in the aspects of part 2 that were missing in TLJ and then go onto part 3, making TROS a potentially longer film (which, in my opinion, would be GREAT).

 

The questions came when it started happening. RO was still honeymoon phase.

Agreed a singular story isn't an automatic win - key is the story being good. Agreed you can do more when audiences enjoy content.

Even more is the setup. Cinematically Star Wars was pretty linear under GL. Under LFL - not at all.

Looking at the results so far, I'm disappointed LFL hasn't done better creating a whole universe. None of the films or projects have felt connected - even in the same trilogy.

 

@2Cleva There has been some connection, but primarily on the animated side (RO in Rebels, ST in Resistance). There's more jumping around now as there's more content. If Lucas had got the live action series off the ground along side CW and The Force Unleashed it may have been similar, just without the movies.

Looking to the future the next two trilogies (that we know of) both have a singular creative vision rather than the baton pass approach of the ST. And both of these were announced before Solo. After Solo the story movies were put on hold and the schedule slowed down so it looks like we're getting (theatrically) uninterrupted trilogies. I think it's fair to say that if those are the lessons they needed to take from "phase 1", then it looks like they have.

 

If TROS makes $400 mill domestic then :

1. JJ would have made the worst Star Wars movie by far
2. It would be a massive bomb and make Solo's box office look quite good in comparison
3. JJ will struggle to get anymore work
4. Star Wars will never recover

 

Yup.

Which is why it's a little baffling that so many people want this film to fail.

 

It's such a straw man to suggest that people here are pretending that everything is ideal. Even people on the positive side have acknowledged that there have been mishaps - it's the extent to which this will negatively affect IX that is being discussed.

 

Are you trying to tell me Solo wasn't a smash hit?

 

Solo BOMBEDDDD Baby!!!! TROS will likely make more in its OW than Solo's domestic total lol

 

If Disney+ is launched later this year and only in the USA, then we fans in Malaysia are going to miss out on lots of goodies - notably the Mandalorian and Kenobi series - at least until the service is made available here in the next year or so... Unless we have to make do with watching clips over YouTube or streaming via Android Box...

And Solo definitely bombed, that's the sad truth - even if it's a movie that I've gradually appreciated over time, more so than TLJ!

 

I would LOVE for that to happen. Not sure it will (nobody can be sure of anything) but I would really love that.

 

I think it will (got a be positive )