ST Measuring The Success Of The Last Jedi

http://www.theforce.net/story/front...426.asp?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Now that the Box Office has closed - this would be a good discussion.....

 

Nothing really new there we didn’t cover in the box office threads as a community or through the Mendelson Forbes articles beyond the Blu-Ray addition.

The home release seems to be going well though. 4.5 out of 5 on Bestbuy with nearly 2000 people. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/star-w...y-only--best-buy-2017/6166202.p?skuId=6166202

7.0 out of 10 on Amazon.

Holding 7.3 and 7.2 on IMDB and Douban with over 430,000 people included now.

The Golden Tomato Award for Best SciFi film of 2018.

The Empire award as voted by audiences for best picture.

The AARP Best Picutre as voted on by general audience retireees.

So, it’s doing well with the general audience and casual fan and then in the hardcore community the divide is big between those who really like it and those who think it’s the worst.

Winning the casuals and new generation is huge though. That’s likely Disney’s goal all along.

 

yup it's a huge success. Hard to argue otherwise although people will try.

I think its clear in the casual department they have had huge wins there as its the older hardcore fan base that have the biggest problem.

The new Generation is where Disney really shines. That's where the parks and the animated series come in.

Now if they can only get some good studios to make new Star Wars games...

 

Quite surprised to see it doing so well with casuals when all casuals I've spoken to about it are lukewarm, and it's actually mainly hardcores I know who rave about it.

 

Multipliers (Gross divided by first weekend)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens: 3.78
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: 3.43
Star Wars: The Last Jedi: 2.82 (one of the worst December release multipliers)

If one compares the first year of TESB to the first year or so of ANH domestically, that was only about a 18 or 19% drop. And comparing 4 years of re-releases of ANH to 2 years for TESB is where it becomes a bit of an unfair comparison. AOTC (-30%) and the TLJ (-34%) were worse drop-offs. Globally even when any and all the re-releases were counted, TESB dropped 26%, AOTC dropped 35%, and TLJ dropped 36%. The movie was doing worse box office than Rogue One far more often than not after the fourth week. A heck of a lot of sequels don't drop like TLJ - even Justice League domestically (-31%) didn't coming off of Batman v Superman; pretty much all the Marvel movies do better with their sequels and do not drop but rather increase with the exception of Age of Ultron (-26%).

Deadline claims/estimates as far as profitability for the studio (which includes estimates for home release video and tv rights)
TFA: $780.11M, RO: $318.80M, TLJ: $417.50M (TFA -46.48%, RO +30.96%)

user ratings (for canon SW live-action movies)
IMDb: 7.3 weighted (3rd worst rated SW movie), 7.1 unweighted (3rd worst rated SW movie)
Metacritic: 4.6 (worst rated SW movie)
Rotten Tomatoes: 5.8 rating (worst rated SW movie), 47% liked (lowest 'liked' SW movie)
Letterboxd: 7.4 (5th worst/best rated SW movie)
Amazon: 7.0 (worst rated SW movie)
Best Buy: 9.0 (worst rated SW movie)
Google: 75% liked (lowest 'liked' SW movie)
iTunes: 6.9 (second worst rated SW movie)
Douban (China): 7.2 (second worst rated SW movie)
Mtime (China): 7.4 (worst rated SW movie)
Allocine (France): 5.8 (worst rated SW movie)
Filmstarts (Germany): 6.4 (worst rated SW movie)
MyMovies (Italy): 5.34 (worst rated SW movie)
Yahoo! Movies (Japan): 7.56 (second worst rated SW movie)
Daum (South Korea): 5.8 (worst rated SW movie)
Filmaffinity (Spain): 6.3 (second worst rated SW movie)
Amazon (U.K.): 7.2 (worst rated SW movie)

So not a failure as far as box office goes if you define failure as breaking even or not making any money, but I attribute that to the power of the Star Wars brand pre-TLJ. One divisive movie won't pop the balloon with a pin. There probably won't be any popping, but rather a gradual letting out of some of the air. Like Michael Bay Transformers gradually deflated. Making half the profit of TFA if that's true could be seen as a disappointment.

If they intentionally sought to divide the audience then that is a success, but if they didn't then that is a bit of a failure IMO. The audience SW didn't grow. It shrunk.

 

When it comes to Star Wars - box office alone is a poor measure. A Star Wars movie could be a 2 hour musical or the greatest film ever conceived and it still would set records.

Pure $ money-wise, box office is a factor but also merchandising and DVD/Blu-Ray sales are factors as well. TLJ did very well at the box office, fell off on merchandising and TBD on home sales.

Even bigger - I would argue Star Wars are a cultural impact both to the movie industry itself as well as to the general audience and fandom. Is Star Wars a factor that other films try to avoid - the previous sign of complete respect? Studios openly gunning for it says otherwise. Has TLJ had the cultural impact on the masses. Evidence like removing The Last Jedi from Ep 8 merchandise is quite telling imo whereas other movies are going strong.

No doubt TLJ made plenty of box office money but its hard to argue it had the impact on the industry and general population/fandom like its predecessors when movies are no longer avoiding Star Wars release dates, fans aren't buying merchandise in droves or dressing their kids up like characters as much as they did after TFA or when you see movies like BP have a real impact.

It will be interesting to see if Solo or Ep 9 brings back the fanfare of impact from being a Star Wars movie. Or will Star Wars become just another film series instead of the industry standard? TBD.

 

Well as far as the merchandising goes, the quality and the rehashing of the same characters/figures has a lot to do with it.

With The Last Jedi line, most of the pops were from TFA, same with the figures. No need to buy the same figures of the same characters with the same outfits. With new characters like Holdo and Rose, I can see a lot of collectors not in a rush to get them. They weren't really well received compared to other characters in the ST so far.

The quality was pretty bad from the get go. Besides the packaging, the 3 inch TFA line was meh. I think it did well only because it was the first SW figures in a long time with new characters. Now the black series, on the other hand, makes up for the quality. But with those being 20 a pop, you have to wait for the discounts before anyone would really consider buying characters that sat on shelfs for the longest time (Cassian Andor).

I do think that releasing SW films year after year is what hurts the merchandising. It's different with let's say Avengers, because each year a different character/line gets to shine. With SW, it's Kylo/Kylo/Kylo/Rey/Rey/Rey/Jyn/Jyn/Rey/Kylo, you get the point. There isn't too much of a variety. Yes there is a new mix with the Solo movie. But to be honest, I have all that I need besides maybe some of the new characters. Hopefully they are more likable to me.

 

Quality supersedes quantity. With enough impact - people never can get enough.

If TLJ was strong enough - people would buy whatever from it, regardless of recent Star Wars films.

 

Box office probably left a bit out there. Critically, the film is a smash - so I don't think you can leave that out of the debate over quality. And people within the industry - as far as I can see - are more impressed with TLJ than TFA.

 

People I know don’t hate it as much as they used to. If anything they’ve come to appreciate it.

 

The Last Jedi's Dad can beat up your dad.

Enough said.

 

The amount of hate is the biggest difference. The degree of hate is what’s new and it’s that which brings down the “average scoring.” A truncated mean is likely of more value to Lucasfilm to determine general audience perception and it’s there where TLJ would see its biggest boost. 1 Star reviews plummet averages.

If they applied an interquartile mean to nearly every scoring system you referenced my guess is that they’d see a clear trend closer to the middle of the pack of Star Wars. Closer to ROTS/TFA/ROTJ/RO tier for general audiences.

It’s the degree of 1 Star and half Star hate and their engagement level to review bomb as many places as possible that’s new. It’s entirely possible a group of 30,000-80,000 of the angriest people around the world out of millions who never leave reviews and won’t are what’s new.

My guess is that based on what they know of the engagement level of the fan community online in comparison to the average person... An interquartile mean analysis (known as an Olympic mean by some) which chops off the highest and lowest scores (so the 10 out of 10 and 1 out of 10 reviews) at 25% is what’s likely already occurred and I suspect that by doing so they’ve probably seen that the perception of TLJ with the less engaged general audience is in fact comparable to the middle tier of Star Wars, which considering how dark the film is and the exit of Luke and the lack of lineage for Rey, would probably be seen as a huge relief for them.

IMDB understands review bombing and already took some strides but many other sites have not including Metacritic or the RT audience scores. Both of which have had concerted pushes by the DC community in the opposite direction by flooding those sites with 10 out of 10 scores by DC fans. And if the same analysis was done there on those films like Batman vs Superman and the like my suspicion is that it would reveal that the general audience perception of those was lower than the DC fans who propped the scores up there and closer to the IMDB perceptions.

IMDB remains the standard bearer both for its high sample size of data, transparency with data, community-reviewed process of ensuring reviews cannot be so easily gamed (reviews don’t appear immediately and require multiple confirmations of identity) and methodology of countering review bombing. I do realize that even IMDB has the film ranked 3rd lowest and I acknowledge and accept that as reality of course but rather than view it exclusively from a rankings perspective there I’d counter that the 7.3 from TLJ, 7.6 from ROTS and 7.8 from RO show more that they could be seen as part of a middle tier separated only by 0.5 of a review point if one was inclined to rank by tiers. The same concept of tiers probably makes sense elsewhere when discussing differences of 5% or less in assessment.

 

One measure for success is the drop from the first movie, compared to the OT and ST.

TLJ is 2/3 of TFA's DOM (620M/936M), a very typical drop for the second movie.

1.333B WW, 620M DOM, #1 most profitable movie of 2017, #1 gross revenue of 2017, #1 DOM, and so on.

Critically it was a success, with great reviews and 4 academy nominations.

 

Star Wars The Clone Wars would disagree with you

 

http://deadline.com/2018/03/star-wars-the-last-jedi-box-office-movie-profits-1202351603/

$417 million in profits cash to cash ratio of 1.72. yeah that makes it the most profitable movie of 2017. Clearly not just breaking even.

then why did Star Wars the Clone Wars not become a huge smashing success?

not really as that what's what ever second star wars movie in the trilogy does.

Every single 2nd movie in Star Wars does around 60% of what the first movie does. TLJ is no exception. Even adjusted for inflation and with world wide box office the patern is always the same

 

That’s an interesting quote by Rian Johnson. Before the sequel trilogy, I would say that Star Wars wasn’t broken, so why did Johnson think that it needed to be “ fixed”?

 

Clone Wars was an animated movie/series. Right there it decreases the mainstream appeal of the Star Wars franchise. TV series (animated or future live-action), novels, etc.. those are all niche products. The feature films are the bread and butter to the Star Wars franchise. To measure a animated movie to a franchise film is a severe miscalculation of expected impact.

 

I think a lot of casual fans feel the PT hurt Star Wars for them and weakened the brand for them as one worthy of their passion. So, winning the casual fans back has clearly been a priority for Lucasfilm from day 1.

But more to Johnson's point... it's about removing the crutch of the OT to see if Star Wars can thrive without it. Even Rogue One relies on a parent who's hated for his role in the Empire being better than he seems to outsiders and especially to his child. It also features a boss who controlled him who becomes the real enemy. And most of all it featured Vader, Tarkin, Leia, and slots in right into ANH. TFA was a soft reboot almost of ANH beat for beat. All of the Star Wars films have been reliant on ANH for much of their power. Either by explaining key aspects that ultimately pay off in ANH (The prequels, RO) or coming out of ANH right afterward to pay off the setup of it (TESB, ROTJ).

By the time TLJ ends it's is the furthest we've been from both ANH. There's no Sith leader and apprentice. There's no Skywalker hero. There's no revenge angle against a boss who did something to the hero's parent. The throne room scene of ROTJ has already occurred. The numbers of heroes has never been lower. By the time TLJ ends we are finally in unfamilar territory for Star Wars for the first time in a long time and that's what needed to happen eventually.

 

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It was a star wars movies released in theaters and saw heavy advertising.

The idea that slap star wars on something and it will break records is bunk

 

I agree with some of this, but not all. I think Rogue One is the least reliant on the OT, and the Star Wars past, for its success, as it's the least Star Warsy in tone and genre. With TLJ close behind if for introducing some more challenging themes than have ever been explored in the series. Together, the Anthology films and TLJ, I think, will be the triggers that allow Star Wars to grow.

 

Rogue One is the least connected to the overarching Force Plot that's dominated the rest of the saga but it's in some ways closer to the OT now than even the prequels are beyond that aspect. It literally connects right into ANH to the extent that many I've talked to see it as the new entryway point for any adults who've put off watching Star Wars and want to start somewhere. I know a lot of people who now recommend this:

Start with Rogue One: Modern actors you know will hook you into this world, more grounded human take on the war will establish the stakes, and understanding the Death Star weakness and what took to get it will make you appreciate ANH even more instead of seeing the exhaust port as a plot hole contrivance.

Then move to the ANH and marvel at how well what you just watched and new is a brand new film actually slots right into the remastered blu-ray of ANH. By then you're hooked so finish the rest of the rest of the trilogy and if you loved it go back and watch the PT for background info on all of the characters.

Rogue One is basically Star Wars 3.5 now. And beyond its time period and how it enriches ANH, it also borrows the central dynamic of parent and child most overtly from the OT over any other movie. That's the secret ingredient that allows it to work so well with so many fans without realizing it. A family uprooted by evil. A father whose boss turned him into a villain to the world. A child who knows their father is good and wants to redeem his past acts. His boss being killed by someone other than the hero so that the hero doesn't get a revenge kill. Rogue One is the OT parent and child arc compressed into one film, that takes place in the OT era, and fixes the contrived Death Star weakness with sacrifice and meaning, and those are huge reasons why it resonates so well with so many older OT fans.

 

There is always a considering marketing venture throughout all mediums with a new Star Wars live-action movie comes out. The release of Clone Wars doesn't come close in comparison. Apples and oranges.

 

@Ender_and_Bean , I guess I don’t see that the filmmakers were eliminating the “crutch” of the OT when they copied so many things from it, from rebellion versus empire to Darth Vader and emperor type characters to Tatooine and hothlike planets, to almost complete copies of scenes like the throne room scene. If they really wanted to get away from the OT, they should have written a completely different story... maybe about new Jedi adventures, and they shouldn’t have used the OT characters. They should have moved forward a century or two.

Now, after the first two sequel trilogy films, it seems like a scorched earth scenario, where they have torn down the beloved, iconic OT characters; completely changed the force and how one learns force skills and knowledge; made the skywalker family a cursed and failed family; and made the OT films basically irrelevant. They could have moved forward while respecting what came before.

In fact, at first, I thought they had the best possible plan. It seemed like they were going to continue the Skywalker saga while also introducing new characters and new concepts and areas and eras in their anthology films. I didn’t expect them to continue to use OT characters, as in Solo, or to connect them to the OT as in RO. I think that if they would have continued the skywalker saga, telling new stories instead of repeating past stories; and then had gone in completely new and different directions with the anthology movies, that they could have had success in both areas, and would have pleased a greater number of people.

 

I think they had to somehow finished out these movies with the OT and not jumped many centuries in the future because the audience wouldve felt cheated that they never saw what happened to them. Granted, what happened to them wasn't what many of us expected, but it does satisfy that feeling that there is an end to the Skywalker Saga in this trilogy.

Luckily, for the folks that dislike the route they have taken and/or would like new stories not attached to the OT, they have the new sagas to look forward to.

I would've felt cheated if they would've done Episode VII, VIII IX with Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford not being involved in them one way or another.

 

I truly wish that they would have left the OT films and characters alone and started new stories without them, or that they would have respectfully ended the stories of the OT characters. With the way they were treated, I now feel cheated out of a positive ending for characters and films that I loved for 30 years. They had a great ending in RotJ, and that has now been taken from them. They were given miserable lives with no legacies instead. This has also affected the way I feel about the new characters in a negative way, which means that I am now not interested in future Star Wars stories either, unfortunately.