Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker Reactions: SPOILERS

[Screamface]

JJ put him on the island.

I find people keep looking back at this choice, knowing the outcome. As if the two are always linked.

We now roughly know JJ's vision of the trilogy, Luke was off looking for the relics and stuff. JJ also had Luke leave/send a map to where to find him, right before The First Order attacked. If not for Kylo interrupting the map exchange, Luke would have been back before Starkiller was unleashed. That's most likely on purpose.

It's also likely the original plan was to next see Rey being trained by Luke. Similar to the Rey being trained by Leia in TROS. The film just shifted roles across. Like bringing back Han to fill the role Leia would have done in bringing Kylo back to the light.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

See above, Scorp...it’s actually a lot worse than I thought originally. I thought it’d be 5th or so alltime...

Not even in the ballpark

I mean...adjusted....I'm just rooting to beat 101 Dalmations at this point.

 

[BrianLo]

I think the real question is..where do we go from here. We have a good thing with Mandalorian. I'm holding out hope the Kenobi series will be good. But from a movie standpoint. There needs to be a new team. Kennedy can't take this forward. She's caused too much divide.

The "ending" of the Skywalker saga should have been on par with Endgame. Both financially and from a hype standpoint. Endgame did $1.2 Billion opening weekend. SW is going to struggle to get to $200 mil (if it even gets there). That's all on Kennedy and Iger.

The comparison is still not great, but 1.2 is Endgames worldwide total, it made 350 domestic opening weekend. The 170’s we are talking about for RotS is domestic.

 

[Tony Perkis]

Now we’re way off the map...talking about licenses and retribution.

I mentioned all of this because they’re the key equations that make up how long a film is in theatres.

If you believe theatres yank a movie out of its and replaces them with more profitable ones as they wish/need to, you’d be flat out wrong. That’s not how it works. Only after specific metrics have been hit can theatres do this.

Is your contention Disney will keep the movie in theaters at gunpoint?
There great.

I expect Disney to hold theatres accountable and adhere to the terms of their licensing deals.

 

[flynnibus]

Marvel fans are no where as toxic and if they have a film they dont enjoy, they move on and look forward to the next movie.

why is Star Wars the exception to the rule?

You have no idea why Comic Book fans have different expectations of story and consistency vs sci fi/sci-fantasy fans?

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

The comparison is still not great, but 1.2 is Endgames worldwide total, it made 350 domestic opening weekend. The 170’s we are talking about for RotS is domestic.

True. To put it in perspective though it'll end up doing a third of what Endgame did globally. 1.2 B vs 374M. We're talking Space Mountain vs The Tiki Room here.

‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Awakens With $198M Overseas, $374M Global; ‘Jumanji’ Tops $300M WW – International Box Office

SUNDAY UPDATE, writethru: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker has come in below industry projections, and predecessor Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in its offshore bow. The international box office total this debut weekend is $198M in 52 material markets. That’s about 16% off The...

deadline.com

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I mentioned all of this because they’re the key equations that make up how long a film is in theatres.

If you believe theatres yank a movie out of its and replaces them with more profitable ones as they wish/need to, you’d be flat out wrong. That’s not how it works. Only after specific metrics have been hit can theatres do this.


I expect Disney to hold theatres accountable and adhere to the terms of their licensing deals.

I get your point...

But it doesn’t matter if a movie is in theaters if nobody is watching it. Tickets don’t sell simply because it’s there.

Do you believe this is movie is going well? Honestly?

 

[flynnibus]

"pushing an agenda" see what I mean about worms for brains?

You should head back to the children's table...

 

[TROR]

I find people keep looking back at this choice, knowing the outcome. As if the two are always linked.

We now roughly know JJ's vision of the trilogy, Luke was off looking for the relics and stuff. JJ also had Luke leave/send a map to where to find him, right before The First Order attacked. If not for Kylo interrupting the map exchange, Luke would have been back before Starkiller was unleashed. That's most likely on purpose.

It's also likely the original plan was to next see Rey being trained by Luke. Similar to the Rey being trained by Leia in TROS. The film just shifted roles across. Like bringing back Han to fill the role Leia would have done in bringing Kylo back to the light.

Luke never sent a map. It's always been established from TFA that Luke went into exile, not wanting to be found. They believed he went to the first Jedi Temple and that's where the map leads.

 

[BrianLo]

Again, I actually don’t blame the directors entirely. But the onslaught of advice and mandates that came down from all angles really screwed the pooch.

JJ is a cautious, blockbuster, re-teller of tales.

Rian is a progressive, indie, often original story teller.

The problem comes down to sandwiching this trilogy with two entirely dichotomous styles. Rian basically receives a mandate from fandom to course correct for JJ’s too cautious story beats retelling. Rian didn’t need that feedback, that’s not the director he is. Therefore you have something that clearly went too far for fans as a follow up episode in the opposite direction...

Then you have JJ returning and being given a mandate to course correct. The series actually needs more fan service and fantasy fulfillment. The problem is he is already that director. So what we get is a mess.

The feedback JJ needed went to Rian and the feedback Rian needed went back to JJ. That’s on the studio and fandom partially as much as the directors.

I’ll say it again, a trilogy entirely from Rian would have worked.

 

[flynnibus]

Palpy porking is now cannon.

That is JJ's Christmas gift to all of us.

This seems like a perfect Robot Chicken scene...

 

[Indy_UK]

Isn’t the issues more that Disney dropped Colin Trevorrow who had been visiting the set of TLJ to try and continue the story for JJ quite late in the process to keep to the deadline?

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

Again, I actually don’t blame the directors entirely. But the onslaught of advice and mandates that came down from all angles really screwed the pooch.

JJ is a cautious, blockbuster, re-teller of tales.

Rian is a progressive, indie, often original story teller.

The problem comes down to sandwiching this trilogy with two entirely dichotomous styles. Rian basically receives a mandate from fandom to course correct for JJ’s too cautious story beats retelling. Rian didn’t need that feedback, that’s not the director he is. Therefore you have something that clearly went too far for fans as a follow up episode in the opposite direction...

Then you have JJ returning and being given a mandate to course correct. The series actually needs more fan service and fantasy fulfillment. The problem is he is already that director. So what we get is a mess.

The feedback JJ needed went to Rian and the feedback Rian needed went back to JJ. That’s on the studio and fandom partially as much as the directors.

I’ll say it again, a trilogy entirely from Rian would have worked.

I agree with some of your assertions as well. Maybe Johnson with a clean slate - would have worked. But he didn't have clean slate. He tried to clean a slate that has been occupied for 40 years. Hence the problem.

 

[Tony Perkis]

I get your point...

But it doesn’t matter if a movie is in theaters if nobody is watching it. Tickets don’t sell simply because it’s there.

Do you believe this is movie is going well? Honestly?

It underperformed, but let’s be clear here: it still made $175 million over the weekend. Despite disappointing, claiming that it isn’t selling or nobody is seeing it is such a gross exaggeration that such boasts can’t be taken seriously.

 

[flynnibus]

I’ll say it again, a trilogy entirely from Rian would have worked.

Maybe they should have focused on getting a good writer and kept them the whole series instead of everyone getting all spun up about the directors and swapping everyone along the way.

The director should make the film about the story someone else wrote...

 

[BrianLo]

True. To put it in perspective though it'll end up doing a third of what Endgame did globally. 1.2 B vs 374M. We're talking Space Mountain vs The Tiki Room here.

‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Awakens With $198M Overseas, $374M Global; ‘Jumanji’ Tops $300M WW – International Box Office

SUNDAY UPDATE, writethru: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker has come in below industry projections, and predecessor Star Wars: The Last Jedi, in its offshore bow. The international box office total this debut weekend is $198M in 52 material markets. That’s about 16% off The...

deadline.com

Indeed. Endgame is a bananas benchmark though. I realize Star Wars essentially is a 3 episode cap on a longer running (from a temporal perspective) series. But 3 of the episodes inherently weren’t well received before we kicked this off. Endgame was riding a lot of good will from far more high quality movies. RotS is riding the wave of Solo.

This movie will still make the company good money and frankly (without pulling the math to back it up), Disney has already made dividends on their Lucasfilm purchase.

What the diminishing returns established is that the Skywalker story needs to stop and they need to take some time to actually plan and redirect their franchise. The Solo movie strongly sent that message more than this. This is still a cash cow that they’ll breath a sigh of relief over and quietly close the chapter on this boondoggling of fandom. But this train has been unstoppable for the company and fortunately won’t prevent them from moving forward in a different direction.


Contrast that to Potter (Fantastic Beats) - a franchise Warner Bro’s are still actively on the hook for a few more films and very much something that may start losing the company money. Unlike Star Wars (which had plenty of wins this year outside of the films), the reaction from fandom is apathy as opposed to passion.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

You should head back to the children's table...

The “agenda” was this:

Use the old characters to bring in new copies...

I don’t disagree with that - it was done terribly - but it’s not unreasonable.

The side agenda I think was sniffed out right from the go. Don’t use new stories...do basically a reboot. And make minor changes to canon to try and sell swag.

Change stormtrooper Helmets slightly...xwings
Slightly...Star destroyers slightly...death star slightly...

“Rebellion” becomes “resistance”...hodo for akbar...snoke for emperor...and on and on.

Disney’s marketing machine really didn’t figure out that this sham already happened with Lucas and the prequels...
The merch fatigue at the expense of the story is the real “phantom menace”

That is a fail anyway you slice it.

 

[Tony Perkis]

Maybe they should have focused on getting a good writer and kept them the whole series instead of everyone getting all spun up about the directors and swapping everyone along the way.

I find it flabbergasting that Abrams, who co-wrote, the first film, laid the foundation for the sequel trilogy, and didn’t have any sort of plan or road map for the remaining films.

The director should make the film about the story someone else wrote...

100% agree. Don’t like it? Write the film yourself.

 

[Screamface]

Luke never sent a map. It's always been established from TFA that Luke went into exile, not wanting to be found. They believed he went to the first Jedi Temple and that's where the map leads.

The definitively know the map is to Luke. If he's off looking at temples and ruins, they wouldn't know it was definitely to him.

The map is in two parts. One is a puzzle piece that fits into the other perfectly. They both even have the yellow hyperspace path to take. The map was made and split in two.

Artoo's plot makes no sense if Luke doesn't want to be found. So he just powers down and Leia keeps him in the command room of the resistance, only to awaken when they have the other part of the map and then project the rest of it. There was intention here.

Snoke wasn't meant to be Sith, he was meant to be ancient. So Luke going off to ancient temples, learning mysteries makes sense. As to not telling Han and Leia. Their son is Snoke's apprentice. So they will always be compromised.

 

[BrianLo]

Maybe they should have focused on getting a good writer and kept them the whole series instead of everyone getting all spun up about the directors and swapping everyone along the way.

The director should make the film about the story someone else wrote...

I partially disagree.

Rian is actually a good writer. Had he handled all three there would have been internal consistency amongst ‘his’ trilogy at least.

Maybe the real shame is that he shouldn’t have been shoved into the main series and just been allowed to do his own in a completely different era.