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

[Tony Perkis]

 

[LSLS]

So, TRoS is a bag of contradictions.

Critics: Critics loved Episodes 7 & 8. However, they give TRoS the same low scores as The Phantom Menace. For critics, those two movies are tied for last place.

Audience: TRoS got a poor CinemaScore at B-. But, that's the only poor audience metric. PostTrak has generally good scores from audiences. And the self-reporting ratings at Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB have fairly good scores for TRoS. The audience rating puts TRoS higher than TLJ, Solo, and all the prequels.

Box Office: TRoS needs $825 million worldwide to break even. After that... it's a success financially since it will have turned a profit. Though some may want to talk about failing to succeed spectacularly with a moving goalpost... let's deal with real numbers [as much as we can discern]... a profit is a profit. And $825 million BO is that break even point based on the usual Hollywood practices (a metric which Deadline also uses).

Disney v. Lucas: The real funny thing is that if you average all the critics scores and all the audience scores of the SW films produced by Lucas v. the ones produced by Disney... they're essentially identical. Disney did just as well with SW as Lucas did by that metric.... whether one sees that as a good thing or a bad thing is personal taste. Although... Lucas's films had a much higher Rate of Investment return with the Box Office v. Budget totals. And that's because Disney loves to bust budgets, eating into their theatrical profits.

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I've seen some reports ros cost upwards of $600 million. Should be interesting once the final numbers come out. Could mean they need a heck of a lot more than $800 mil

 

[Epcot_Imagineer]

So, TRoS is a bag of contradictions.

Critics: Critics loved Episodes 7 & 8. However, they give TRoS the same low scores as The Phantom Menace. For critics, those two movies are tied for last place.

The fact that this movie is rated lower/same by critics than Episode 1 and 2 is absolutely astounding. I just watched those movies and even though they are a very guilt pleasure of mine to watch... I couldn't imagine someone thinking that they are overall better movies than Ep. 9.
There are many problems with 9, but not enough to put it on par with those two.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

"
Solo: A Star Wars Story grossed $213.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $179.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $392.9 million.[11] With an estimated production budget of $275 million,[10] the film needed to gross at least $500 million worldwide to break even.[113][114]

A week after its worldwide debut of just $147.5 million, Variety wrote that the film would lose Disney "tens of millions of dollars" off a projected final total gross of $400–450 million[115] while The Hollywood Reporter estimated the losses would range from $50 to $80 million.[116] In April 2019, Deadline Hollywood calculated the film lost the studio $76.9 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.[117] "

Solo lost money for them.
After that they stopped greenlighting tons of Star Wars films.

If this flops then they might shelf Star Wars for a while and concentrate on profitable movie divisions like the Animation/Live Action and Marvel.

I don’t see any conceivable way it “flops”...

But anything south of $1.5 is going to be a major problem back in Burbank...though they won’t admit it.
It’s tracking way lower than that.

What funny is that the critics went along with them on 7 & 8...and frankly neither of them were any good at all...now they almost “got back” at Disney for it.

It all comes down to this: Star Wars is transcendent...in many ways it defined modern pop culture...

Both Lucas and then Iger somehow didn’t fully get that...they set release schedules and deadlines when the reality is there should have been no such pressure on getting the stories right. That part of the process has been shortchanged to the point where dead ends and sloppy miscalculations were present in 6 movies.

They thought the free pass was unconditional...but all those visionaries that made the first 3 got us hooked on THAT...what they put together...it wasn’t just a label like Disney is today.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The fact that this movie is rated lower/same by critics than Episode 1 and 2 is absolutely astounding. I just watched those movies and even though they are a very guilt pleasure of mine to watch... I couldn't imagine someone thinking that they are overall better movies than Ep. 9.
There are many problems with 9, but not enough to put it on par with those two.

On one hand...I fully agree with you...no way the story I’ve read puts it near those two...

On the other hand...I haven’t seen it. Which is insane and is just an indictment of all the baggage that Star Wars carries. In a way - it’s 1 & 2 that are responsible. Disney was never going to be allowed to make mediocre or worse Star Wars movies...the backlash was guaranteed.

Talk about a “phantom menace”?

 

[Epcot_Imagineer]

On one hand...I fully agree with you...no way the story I’ve read puts it near those two...

On the other hand...I haven’t seen it. Which is insane and is just an indictment of all the baggage that Star Wars carries. In a way - it’s 1 & 2 that are responsible. Disney was never going to be allowed to make mediocre or worse Star Wars movies...the backlash was guaranteed.

Talk about a “phantom menace”?

I'm purely talking about a review standpoint. Whether or not you saw the movie from the last two is a whole different ball game. I personally have a lot of friends who were into Star Wars just enough to see TFA and TLJ, but they disliked them both as movies so opted out of seeing Ep. 9. That is not saying anything on my thoughts of the last two movies, but it is something I've seen.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I'm purely talking about a review standpoint. Whether or not you saw the movie from the last two is a whole different ball game. I personally have a lot of friends who were into Star Wars just enough to see TFA and TLJ, but they disliked them both as movies so opted out of seeing Ep. 9. That is not saying anything on my thoughts of the last two movies, but it is something I've seen.

I get what you’re saying...and i did what your “casual” friends did and I’m a diehard.

The critics...as I stated above...”got even” with Disney in a lot of ways. They gave them a lot of credit for movies that weren’t good (echo) in 2015 and 2017. Then they just took it back in blood money revenge.

I think the 91% fresh review of last Johnson really made them ashamed...I don’t think near anyone that went to that movie liked it much at all and that’s embarrassing to a critic...

In this case...the “fringe” that hijacked the narrative were the adamant defender fans of it..
...I think they are few and far between and don’t realize it

 

[DANDAMAN1]

My only thing with RoS is the "Kiss." And not the one that all the people are talking about. It just took me out of the movie when Kylo and Rey kissed. Other than that. LOVED the film. I love all the SW movies. The Prequels, RotJ and Ewoks, the Sequels and TLJ. People over analyze what they feel movies should be instead of just enjoying the awesome story and great film making. Best part of Ep.4 is the Battle of Yavin at the end. To see how CGI and special effects have come since then is awesome. These films are made by people my age who grew up, like myself, as FANS.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Alot of that comes down to casting. Not liking the character or actors in this trilogy.

I have no issues with the casting...I think they had no stories...still

There’s no meat on any of their bones. Can’t reuse OT plot weenies and provide nothing else...and in abrams case, try to be “mysterious”

 

[Epcot_Imagineer]

I have no issues with the casting...I think they had no stories...still

There’s no meat on any of their bones. Can’t reuse OT plot weenies and provide nothing else...and in abrams case, try to be “mysterious”

One of my personal problems with the films was an overhyping of characters/actors only to be severely underused. Phasma? Onscreen for maybe 10 minutes and killed twice. Holdo? Onscreen for maybe 15 minutes. Knights of Ren? Hyped for first movie but didn't appear until the last film and were nothing other than overhyped bodyguards. Benicio del Toro being made into an interesting character only to be not used in the final movie. Rose being given a very large role in Episode 8 only to be cut to nothing in 9... etc.

My problem isn't so much casting, but the casting of interesting people only to be either cut or severely underutilized. I understand some of this comes down to editing and such, but there are just too many characters that this happened to.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

My take on this whole thing is that the critics loved TLJ because they are woke. TLJ was a woke type of film. Identity politics was shoved into as many places as humanly possible and at the detriment of well established characters and stories. It was also shoved into as many places as humanly possible to the detriment of the new characters that were introduced in TFA.

So of course, the woke critics loved it. The actual audience who spent money to see it (both die hard fans - and casual fans) didn't like it. Thus the disparity in the RT scores for TLJ.

So enter RoS where Abrams tried to retcon some of the decisions Johnson made. By doing this, he PO'd the woke critics. And those woke critics reacted with the RT ratings they gave. Actual fans like RoS and the disparity between critic and audience is now reversed. But the damage to the franchise has already been done. I don't think there is anything that could've been done in IX that would have fixed that.

 

[PizzaPlanet]

The real problem with The Rise of Skywalker is that there are certain things set up in the movie, such as Finn wanting to tell Rey something and the romantic build up between Poe and Rey, that don't have any pay off or are just pushed aside for something else. There's so much tension in the line of "You know what you are? You're difficult," that Rey says to Poe, it's a perfect set up for the classic "can't get along but later fall in love" trope from every 1950's musical. Based on their interaction in The Last Jedi, the "you're difficult" line, and Poe getting offended when Finn wants to tell Rey something but won't say it in front of him (reminiscent of Han getting upset with Leia on Endor), Rey and Poe are a natural relationship in the Sequel Trilogy. Instead, it's an abusive man who tried to murder her that they pair her with? It's disgusting. Maybe there's still potential for Rey and Poe seeing as she has his droid for some reason.

I'm definitely surprised they went with that, especially since they clearly want Rey to be a role model to young girls. What kind of example does that set?

 

[Tony Perkis]

My take on this whole thing is that the critics loved TLJ because they are woke.

This is a foolish take.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

This is a foolish take.

When you are the head of a studio that begins production on a trilogy based on one of the biggest franchises in history. And you go and make up shirts to parade around in proclaiming "The Force is Female" - Not so foolish of a take.

 

[Tony Perkis]

When you are the head of a studio that begins production on a trilogy based on one of the biggest franchises in history. And you go and make up shirts to parade around in proclaiming "The Force is Female" - Not so foolish of a take.

Oh, no. It absolutely is. It was a bad take when it was used against The Force Awakens, and it was a bad take when used against The Last Jedi.

 

[Tony Perkis]

And yet you are following the fool.

Whining about wokeness is more cringeworthy than people who champion being woke.

 

[TalkingHead]

So, TRoS is a bag of contradictions.

Critics: Critics loved Episodes 7 & 8. However, they give TRoS the same low scores as The Phantom Menace. For critics, those two movies are tied for last place.

Audience: TRoS got a poor CinemaScore at B-. But, that's the only poor audience metric. PostTrak has generally good scores from audiences. And the self-reporting ratings at Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB have fairly good scores for TRoS. The audience rating puts TRoS higher than TLJ, Solo, and all the prequels.

Box Office: TRoS needs $825 million worldwide to break even. After that... it's a success financially since it will have turned a profit. Though some may want to talk about failing to succeed spectacularly with a moving goalpost... let's deal with real numbers [as much as we can discern]... a profit is a profit. And $825 million BO is that break even point based on the usual Hollywood practices (a metric which Deadline also uses).

Disney v. Lucas: The real funny thing is that if you average all the critics scores and all the audience scores of the SW films produced by Lucas v. the ones produced by Disney... they're essentially identical. Disney did just as well with SW as Lucas did by that metric.... whether one sees that as a good thing or a bad thing is personal taste. Although... Lucas's films had a much higher Rate of Investment return with the Box Office v. Budget totals. And that's because Disney loves to bust budgets, eating into their theatrical profits.

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It’s misleading to average RT and IMDB user scores like that. Last I checked, the IMDB average was below 7.0, which is fairly mediocre for a movie like this.

I just checked and it’s 7.0 now, which is lower than most SW and Marvel films. A true mixed bag.

 

[flynnibus]

Oh, no. It absolutely is. It was a bad take when it was used against The Force Awakens, and it was a bad take when used against The Last Jedi.

The creators pushed it... it's there... and they aren't shy about it.

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Saw the movie on Saturday. I loved it! Its definitely in my top 5 for Star Wars Movies! It was the best star wars movie since return of the jedi in my opinion. I really don't get why people are hating this one. I cant wait to go see this again!

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Saw the movie on Saturday. I loved it! Its definitely in my top 5 for Star Wars Movies! It was the best star wars movie since return of the jedi in my opinion. I really don't get why people are hating this one. I cant wait to go see this again!

Seeing The Emperor again was amazing! I really liked how The Emperor was the puppet master behind Snoke and the First Order. I also liked how Rey was his granddaughter.