mikejs78
Premium Member
I second this. The Americans was one of the best shows on TV this past decade, from beginning to end. And it actually had a very satisfying ending, unlike many shows...
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Damage Control PR Spin for Star Wars Begins
- Thread starter WDW Pro
- Start date
socalifornian
Well-Known Member
Pretty sure they were referencing comments like this -
>>fans who decried Rian Johnson’s film for its focus on more female-centric stories, Abrams was clear: “Their problem isn’t ‘Star Wars,’ their problem is being threatened.”
truecoat
Well-Known Member
Or their problem was they didn't like it as it sucked.
planodisney
Well-Known Member
T
However, now you’re arguing Force Awaken weaknesses which are valid, but have nothing to do with the original point of the fact that the fan base was, for the most part, on board with Force Awakens. I Get what you’re saying about the story arc.
Don’t forget a lot of the ORIGINAL hardcore fan base gated or at least disliked Return of the Jedi and were as out off by Endor and Ewoks as they were with Jar Jar.
There ya go. You expressed your point very clear there. I disagree with about half of what your point is there, but I get it.
However, now you’re arguing Force Awaken weaknesses which are valid, but have nothing to do with the original point of the fact that the fan base was, for the most part, on board with Force Awakens. I Get what you’re saying about the story arc.
Don’t forget a lot of the ORIGINAL hardcore fan base gated or at least disliked Return of the Jedi and were as out off by Endor and Ewoks as they were with Jar Jar.
britain
Well-Known Member
Nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans.
They were on-board. Many would argue the box office returns for The Last Jedi was pretty decent. It made $1.3 Billion, 65% of A Force Awakens. This is no slouch. But the residual effect is to punish Solo with $392 Million. Repairing the damage of TLJ will be difficult. We'll soon find out.
Another point is you can't isolate A Force Awakens from the damage that TLJ has caused. The same characters appeared in both movies. TLJ made every character into more of a doofus that they were already except for Rey. She is absolutely perfect in every way.
Return of of the Jedi wasn't my favorite, but it didn't make me to leave the franchise. It made $475 million compared with $538 million for Empire Strikes Back. 88% of Empire.
When Kathleen Kennedy took over Lucasfilm, she brought in extremely partisan and ideologically driven individuals and placed them in positions of power. This was dramatically true on the new Lucasfilm Story Group. These individuals did not like the original Star Wars, they did not believe in its mythos, and they saw the franchise as so unassailably popular that they could use it as a means by which to influence the culture. Whereas from a business standpoint you would never, ever, in a million years take the steps they did, they systematically destroyed the characters from the original trilogy, killed them, and attempted to replace them with facade stand-ins that had no depth whatsoever. Han Solo was made into a father who abandoned his wife and child, returned right back to where his original story arch began for no reason, and then was unceremoniously murdered by his son. Chewbacca was made to be a non-threatening caretaker of furby-lites. R2D2 and C3P0 were made non-existent. BB8, also known as Marketing Ball, was pushed front and center for comedic murdering of bad guys with tokens like a rabid slot machine. Luke Skywalker, the hero who refused violence against his evil father in the belief that anyone could be redeemed, became a psychopathic, bitter hermit who once pondered murdering his own nephew in his sleep because he was becoming a bad guy... and then promptly died of force exhaustion. Yoda was turned into a crazy ghost who lights trees on fire for no damn good reason. Princess Leia became an unkillable space goddess with zero context whatsoever. In the place of the beloved, now mostly killed trilogy characters, they gave us Rey who has almost no character development, zero training, but out of nowhere is more powerful than anybody in the galaxy... and has already beaten Kylo Ren twice, so really who cares at this point? Kylo Ren, aka Emo Baby Vader. I started to keep going, but honestly, there's no point. You can get an idea of just how bad this all is.
Anyway, George Lucas felt so betrayed by what he saw them doing to his characters and his original mythos, that he called Disney the "white slavers." Mark Hamill felt so betrayed that he called his character "Jake Skywalker" because Luke would never have done these things. Colin Trevorrow was set to direct Episode 9, but he looked at the Episode 7 and 8 scripts and warned Kathleen Kennedy that this was going to go horribly wrong if they stayed the course... he told her he needed Luke alive in Episode 9 and that fans had a reasonable expectation for him that wasn't being met. She fired him. This was just after TFA had come out, so at that point she was basically untouchable.
Bottom line is this: Lucasfilm as is currently formed sees the original Star Wars and the prequels as fundamentally flawed and not worthy of today's standards. They wanted to change all of it. And they succeeded. They destroyed the story arch and character of Han Solo. They made Luke Skywalker a loser and a failure. They wiped out basically every original character they deemed less than what they could come up with. And now they get to live with this situation.
The word has gone out from the very top of Disney, and the actors are just following along with the directives. I wasn't sure that the messaging campaign was official to accept that The Last Jedi was a bad movie, but I'm fully aware today that it is true. I'll be providing more info soon.
Funny how that tune has changed in the past week, eh?
If you look at the purchase patterns of TFA and TLJ, TLJ was on pace to beat TFA according to the first week sales. And then that movie fell off a cliff in regards to tickets. That's because the critic reviews were incredible and most people really enjoyed TFA. Then word of mouth got out. Then China removed it from their theaters within one week.
More Spin Time:
OC Register with an article about how Disney actually isn't empty, even though it feels like it is!
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/07/...-after-the-opening-of-star-wars-galaxys-edge/
Daisy Ridley, who previously though TLJ haters were misogynistic alt-right trolls, continues to give interviews where she agrees TLJ really did suck... and the next film is 100% going to fix it!
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/daisy-ridley-star-wars-fans-upset-last-jedi-1202155140/
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a28256532/daisy-ridley-star-wars-the-last-jedi-backlash-rey/
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/daisy-ridley-fair-star-wars-163814185.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/ente...st-jedi-backlash-feminist-ophelia/1612188001/
https://boundingintocomics.com/2019...ars-the-last-jedi-backlash-i-wasnt-surprised/
I sure am glad Daisy Ridley wasn't surprised that TLJ was a hated movie, because Disney and Lucasfilm seem to have not been quite as prescient.
SyFy, a website that I'm sure always does theme park news (not), suddenly has an article about how Disneyland has no reason for being less than crowded, Star Wars Land is great, and you should totally come sooner than later!
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/theme-park-news-no-lines-at-disneyland-and-some-juicy-parks-drama
Screen Rant says all those problems with the new Star Wars movies aren't problems after all, and the fans are just too stupid to understand!
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-sequel-trilogy-misunderstandings/
Amazing how all of these articles are suddenly coming out after a complete lull in Star Wars activity other than glowing reviews of Galaxy's Edge for the past month. The word is out from the top of Disney - change the narrative and change it now, even if that means acknowledging TLJ was a hated movie.
OC Register with an article about how Disney actually isn't empty, even though it feels like it is!
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/07/...-after-the-opening-of-star-wars-galaxys-edge/
Daisy Ridley, who previously though TLJ haters were misogynistic alt-right trolls, continues to give interviews where she agrees TLJ really did suck... and the next film is 100% going to fix it!
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/daisy-ridley-star-wars-fans-upset-last-jedi-1202155140/
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a28256532/daisy-ridley-star-wars-the-last-jedi-backlash-rey/
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/daisy-ridley-fair-star-wars-163814185.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/ente...st-jedi-backlash-feminist-ophelia/1612188001/
https://boundingintocomics.com/2019...ars-the-last-jedi-backlash-i-wasnt-surprised/
I sure am glad Daisy Ridley wasn't surprised that TLJ was a hated movie, because Disney and Lucasfilm seem to have not been quite as prescient.
SyFy, a website that I'm sure always does theme park news (not), suddenly has an article about how Disneyland has no reason for being less than crowded, Star Wars Land is great, and you should totally come sooner than later!
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/theme-park-news-no-lines-at-disneyland-and-some-juicy-parks-drama
Screen Rant says all those problems with the new Star Wars movies aren't problems after all, and the fans are just too stupid to understand!
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-sequel-trilogy-misunderstandings/
Amazing how all of these articles are suddenly coming out after a complete lull in Star Wars activity other than glowing reviews of Galaxy's Edge for the past month. The word is out from the top of Disney - change the narrative and change it now, even if that means acknowledging TLJ was a hated movie.
socalifornian
Well-Known Member
RescueTheDay
Well-Known Member
Reading this post made me feel like I was watching Fox News... I can’t even begin to make this coherent, but I would love to see the facts that prove this. Especially all this information about Colin as I’m pretty sure he was let go for just being a bad director. I shall wait though for this vast information you have to appear and not just a fanboy who has been writing their own manifesto.
THE 1HAPPY HAUNT
Well-Known Member
Well then you need go back to school because this was very well written and very coherent with points laid out very clearly.
TROR
Well-Known Member
Even though he didn't direct that movie?
Nirya
Well-Known Member
He did write and EP it, and it’s not like the first Jurassic World is some flawless work to begin with.
socalifornian
Well-Known Member
This made me wish he did it. Also wished they weren’t in that mansion for so long in JW2
>>Ousted 'Star Wars' director made Daisy Ridley cry when he told her what would happen to Rey
Ousted 'Star Wars' director made Daisy Ridley cry when he told her what would happen to Rey, according to Bobby Moynihan
Former "Star Wars IX" director Colin Trevorrow revealed Rey's fate to Daisy Ridley, Bobby Moynihan said.
www.google.com
mikenatcity1
Well-Known Member
This article is an interesting read...it makes a little more sense of the crowds. I talked with my friend who went during the initial reservation period- she said the people she knew and talked to loved it because they didn't have to wait in crazy lines. Maybe this was one of the smartest things they did when opening a new land. This weekend and end of next month hopefully will tell how popular the land will be.
Tony the Tigger
Well-Known Member
Except that's misrepresenting what she said, or reading your own bias into it.
"Q: Writer/director Rian Johnson received a ton of backlash online after "The Last Jedi," with many fans petitioning to remake the film and redeem Luke Skywalker's character. Were you surprised at all by the controversy?
Ridley: I wasn't surprised, no. It’s just a different thing. Everyone’s going to have an opinion now anyway on the internet, but I also think it’s fair. If people hold something incredibly dear and think they know how it should be and it's not like that, it’s fair for people to think they were done wrong. It doesn’t mean they were – ultimately, Rian’s a filmmaker and one person can’t dictate how a film is supposed to be – but freedom of expression, sure."
Villains0501
Well-Known Member
As someone who, like the OP, doesn't much care for Disney's handling of the Star Wars franchise, I always cringe when ST criticism turns political. As a proud, card carrying Leftist, I have absolutely no problem with female leads or racially plural casting, nor do I think "diversity" is one of the ST's myriad sins. Heck, I was all for JJ Abram's original idea of having the trilogy's Big Bad be a vampy, force-wielding female villain, likely on par with a Maleficent or an Evil Queen. What a difference that would have been from what we got - another wrinkly, deformed geriatric (no offense, Palps).
Since the release of TFA, I've long thought the ST's biggest issue is that we, the audience, are really seeing Episodes 10, 11, 12 of the saga, instead of Episodes 7, 8, and 9. Think about it - the most interesting elements of the ST (i.e. the establishment of the New Republic, the transformation of the Imperial Remnant into the First Order, the concurrent falls of Kylo and Luke, and the breakup of Han and Leia) have all happened off screen. We have to be filled in about these momentous events either through clumsy flash backs or supporting ancillary EU material. There's an awful lot of telling, not showing in the new films to make up for the thirty or so years we missed. From my experience, this has created a lot of canon whiplash and confusion:
"Wait - what's the First Order? Where did they come from? What planets did they just blow up? Where's the rest of the Republic? What's the difference between the Resistance and the Republic?" Etc., etc...
Now, obviously ST defenders will say that these new films should be strictly about the new cast. But there are clever, satisfying ways of bridging the gap between the old and the new that just require more sophisticated, nuanced storytelling - something that becomes increasingly difficult for a screenwriter beset by mandates from Disney execs (i.e. immovable release dates, merchandising requirements, park tie-ins, reboot strategies - you get the point).
Hopefully, Episode 9 will tie all three trilogies together. But JJ's comments about it functioning as much as a stand-alone film as the conclusion to a 9 film saga has me worried. We shall see...
Since the release of TFA, I've long thought the ST's biggest issue is that we, the audience, are really seeing Episodes 10, 11, 12 of the saga, instead of Episodes 7, 8, and 9. Think about it - the most interesting elements of the ST (i.e. the establishment of the New Republic, the transformation of the Imperial Remnant into the First Order, the concurrent falls of Kylo and Luke, and the breakup of Han and Leia) have all happened off screen. We have to be filled in about these momentous events either through clumsy flash backs or supporting ancillary EU material. There's an awful lot of telling, not showing in the new films to make up for the thirty or so years we missed. From my experience, this has created a lot of canon whiplash and confusion:
"Wait - what's the First Order? Where did they come from? What planets did they just blow up? Where's the rest of the Republic? What's the difference between the Resistance and the Republic?" Etc., etc...
Now, obviously ST defenders will say that these new films should be strictly about the new cast. But there are clever, satisfying ways of bridging the gap between the old and the new that just require more sophisticated, nuanced storytelling - something that becomes increasingly difficult for a screenwriter beset by mandates from Disney execs (i.e. immovable release dates, merchandising requirements, park tie-ins, reboot strategies - you get the point).
Hopefully, Episode 9 will tie all three trilogies together. But JJ's comments about it functioning as much as a stand-alone film as the conclusion to a 9 film saga has me worried. We shall see...