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

[Mike S]

It reminds me of a line the Onion published: “J.J. Abrams and Disney have ruined an incredible film saga that George Lucas ruined.”

I love Star Wars, but it's a franchise that has had mixed results since Empire was released in 1980. Why do people have impossibly high expectations? This isn't a franchise that suddenly went downhill after decades and decades of perfection. It's always been a mixed bag.

Because people wanted it to reach the incredible highs again. Not remain at the lower points.

 

[flynnibus]

Not really. In a small sample, one value can skew the results more than a large sample.

What's the median? Can I get a standard deviation in here?

Different arguments. He's not arguing the math.. he's arguing that it's harder to be consistently good over a longer run than a smaller number of successes.

 

[LSLS]

The MCU is a unique and impressive phenomena. There have been attempts at cinematic universes for the Universal monsters (the Tom Cruise Mummy movie), for King Kong and Godzilla, for DC comics, etc. No one has come close to duplicating that level of success (yet people here seem to think it's simple and easy).

When the MCU is set as the bar by which all other franchises are evaluated, they're all failures.

Star Wars under Disney/Kennedy could have done many things better, but I don't buy into the doom & gloom overview held by many. They re-launched the series with a movie that evoked the feeling of the original Star Wars and introduced characters that were immediately embraced. Casting and chemistry is important (looking at you, Anakin Skywalker x 2).

They over saturated the market. Again, MCU successfully having multiple hit movies in a single year, year after year, is impressive, but not the norm. There's a reason there's generally three years or more between movies in a franchise. Five Star Wars movies in five years was too much. Marvel manages it because the movies are diverse in style and story. Guardians is a different type of movie than Ant-Man and Doctor Strange. The Star Wars movies are too similar to keep audiences excited without a break.

It's also bizarre how people, with apparent sincerity, manage to criticize Kennedy when they don't like what JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson did, but also criticize her if they like what Jon Favreau delivered in the Mandalorian.

Kennedy is criticized for having no vision and not bothering to have any sort of an idea of where the story was going.

And I'll say it again, the fatigue argument is the most ridiculous excuse here. First off, you can't exclude Marvel movies for being different genres (FYI, look at the movies the came out during Star Wars for Marvel, they are mostly space movies) and then leave Rogue One and Solo as part of your 5 in 5. Second, Marvel is not the only franchise to not experience fatigue. Harry Potter saw successful trends upwards to it's culmination as well (and that has very much the Star Wars model of having incredible hype for the first movie). Third, it's funny how that fatigue magically disappears for the Mandalorian. The whole idea that people somehow wouldn't be excited for Star Wars every year or 2 if they were done really well with story lines that gelled is ridiculous, especially when you consider that somehow the fatigue is ignored for Disney Plus, with 3-4 shows coming out in the next couple years.

 

[easyrowrdw]

Different arguments. He's not arguing the math.. he's arguing that it's harder to be consistently good over a longer run than a smaller number of successes.

Ah, that makes sense. I'd probably agree with that.

 

[Tony Perkis]

Because people wanted it to reach the incredible highs again. Not remain at the lower points.

They didn’t. The sequel trilogy films are significantly better than the prequels, and I don’t even like The Rise of Skywalker at all.

 

[Tony Perkis]

Kennedy is criticized for having no vision and not bothering to have any sort of an idea of where the story was going.

And I'll say it again, the fatigue argument is the most ridiculous excuse here. First off, you can't exclude Marvel movies for being different genres (FYI, look at the movies the came out during Star Wars for Marvel, they are mostly space movies) and then leave Rogue One and Solo as part of your 5 in 5. Second, Marvel is not the only franchise to not experience fatigue. Harry Potter saw successful trends upwards to it's culmination as well (and that has very much the Star Wars model of having incredible hype for the first movie). Third, it's funny how that fatigue magically disappears for the Mandalorian. The whole idea that people somehow wouldn't be excited for Star Wars every year or 2 if they were done really well with story lines that gelled is ridiculous, especially when you consider that somehow the fatigue is ignored for Disney Plus, with 3-4 shows coming out in the next couple years.

The fatigue argument is very real, and when dealing with event films, you simply can’t put 5 films that are tonally similar with the same characters in most of them out in 5 years. You may not buy it, but I assure it, it’s real.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Because people wanted it to reach the incredible highs again. Not remain at the lower points.

And not to be a lazy retread of the much better films using beloved characters as punchlines and relying on nostalgia to hide the lack of compelling characters and storylines.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Kennedy is criticized for having no vision and not bothering to have any sort of an idea of where the story was going.

And I'll say it again, the fatigue argument is the most ridiculous excuse here. First off, you can't exclude Marvel movies for being different genres (FYI, look at the movies the came out during Star Wars for Marvel, they are mostly space movies) and then leave Rogue One and Solo as part of your 5 in 5. Second, Marvel is not the only franchise to not experience fatigue. Harry Potter saw successful trends upwards to it's culmination as well (and that has very much the Star Wars model of having incredible hype for the first movie). Third, it's funny how that fatigue magically disappears for the Mandalorian. The whole idea that people somehow wouldn't be excited for Star Wars every year or 2 if they were done really well with story lines that gelled is ridiculous, especially when you consider that somehow the fatigue is ignored for Disney Plus, with 3-4 shows coming out in the next couple years.

Exactly - Mandalorian blew up the ridiculous “fatigue” argument just as Rogue One blew up the ridiculous “fanboys don’t like strong female characters, diversity, new characters, etc, etc”.

Good movies are celebrated and embraced and the four horrible Disney Star Wars films (7-9 and Solo) are ridiculed for the terrible films they are, it really is that simple.

 

[RobWDW1971]

The fatigue argument is very real, and when dealing with event films, you simply can’t put 5 films that are tonally similar with the same characters in most of them out in 5 years. You may not buy it, but I assure it, it’s real.

Boy didn’t Marvel and Harry Potter learn THAT lesson the hard way!

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The Box Office for Endgame is actually more of an outlier from the MCU than Force Awakens is for the new Star Wars. Even if you do remove TFA, the worldwide average is only $20 million below the entire MCU, with a higher median. (Yeah, I calculated it. ). Domestic gross is still higher for Star Wars by about $90 million.

Star Wars has been disproportionately weighted towards North American gross because its the quintessential western franchise...see if that continues with bad product...

And the trajectory is way down...they had to shelve it.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

How does the Mandalorian refute the notion of franchise fatigue?

It seems to have been well received, but how does one compare it to the movie franchise in terms of audience interest? We don't know the total number of viewers. We don't know how many people paid for Disney+ versus got it in a deal. Hitting play on your TV remote is very different than going to a theater and paying to see a movie. Are we basing it on the pandemic like spread of Baby Yoda memes (so many Baby Yoda memes!).

It's also possible that the Mandalorian impacted Rise at the box office. I certainly was less inclined to go see it a fourth or fifth time because I just got an additional 4 hours of Star Wars content on my TV at the same time.

They really should have had a Marvel series ready for the Disney+ launch and saved the Mandalorian for a few months later.

 

[Tony Perkis]

Boy didn’t Marvel and Harry Potter learn THAT lesson the hard way!

Marvel films are largely tonally different, which is a major key as to why that franchise works. The only few times it veered close to fatigue was with Captain America: Civil War, as that one felt too similar too quickly to the Avengers films.

Harry Potter is a vastly different beast, and you know this. It’s based on one of the most popular book series of all time, and it told a singular, linear story. We knew there was an ending and when it would be.

 

[Tony Perkis]

How does the Mandalorian refute the notion of franchise fatigue?

It seems to have been well received, but how does one compare it to the movie franchise in terms of audience interest? We don't know the total number of viewers. We don't know how many people paid for Disney+ versus got it in a deal. Hitting play on your TV remote is very different than going to a theater and paying to see a movie. Are we basing it on the pandemic like spread of Baby Yoda memes (so many Baby Yoda memes!).

It's also possible that the Mandalorian impacted Rise at the box office. I certainly was less inclined to go see it a fourth or fifth time because I just got an additional 4 hours of Star Wars content on my TV at the same time.

They really should have had a Marvel series ready for the Disney+ launch and saved the Mandalorian for a few months later.

I would argue that The Mandalorian is further support for the Star Wars fatigue notion. It is entirely disconnected from the character and storylines we’ve followed thus far, is tonally and structurally very different than its predecessors, and rehashes very little SW lore. It got embraced because it felt new and different, as if it was Star Wars in name only.

 

[RobWDW1971]

How does the Mandalorian refute the notion of franchise fatigue?

It seems to have been well received, but how does one compare it to the movie franchise in terms of audience interest? We don't know the total number of viewers. We don't know how many people paid for Disney+ versus got it in a deal. Hitting play on your TV remote is very different than going to a theater and paying to see a movie. Are we basing it on the pandemic like spread of Baby Yoda memes (so many Baby Yoda memes!).

It's also possible that the Mandalorian impacted Rise at the box office. I certainly was less inclined to go see it a fourth or fifth time because I just got an additional 4 hours of Star Wars content on my TV at the same time.

They really should have had a Marvel series ready for the Disney+ launch and saved the Mandalorian for a few months later.

The Mandalorian is the only thing that gave them cover to the tepid reaction to their hyped “end of the saga!!!” Thank God they had the Baby Yoda frenzy and the excitement around The Mandalorian series to help distract from what they had done to the core series.

It also speaks volumes that even Disney is bored with Rey’s journey - why is it the “end of the saga”? She’s now the most powerful Jedi ever and can pull launching ships out of the sky (and here Yoda can barely lift an X wing out of a swamp - what a loser) and is ready to take on the world.

If she’s such a compelling, interesting character why is the saga over, it should be beginning.

 

[RobWDW1971]

I would argue that The Mandalorian is further support for the Star Wars fatigue notion. It is entirely disconnected from the character and storylines we’ve followed thus far, is tonally and structurally very different than its predecessors, and rehashes very little SW lore. It got embraced because it felt new and different, as if it was Star Wars in name only.

So people devouring more Star Wars enthusiastically proves Star Wars fatigue. Got it.

Perhaps if the movies, oh I don’t know, had interesting characters we cared about and a compelling storyline then maybe they wouldn’t feel like the rinse/repeat mess that makes them so repetitive and uninteresting.

Your point only damns the new films’ mediocrity more. We agree - they were all the same and boring.

 

[Tony Perkis]

So people devouring more Star Wars enthusiastically proves Star Wars fatigue. Got it.

Perhaps if the movies, oh I don’t know, had interesting characters we cared about and a compelling storyline then maybe they wouldn’t feel like the rinse/repeat mess that makes them so repetitive and uninteresting.

Your point only damns the new films’ mediocrity more. We agree - they were all the same and boring.

This isn’t a difficult notion: 5 similarly structured with interconnected character and themes within 5 years can and did lead to fatigue within the franchise. You know nobody is tired of The Mandalorian? It’s different, and doesn’t feel like a retread.

 

[erasure fan1]

The MCU is a unique and impressive phenomena. There have been attempts at cinematic universes for the Universal monsters (the Tom Cruise Mummy movie), for King Kong and Godzilla, for DC comics, etc. No one has come close to duplicating that level of success (yet people here seem to think it's simple and easy).

No one thinks it's simple. Everyone says how amazing a feat it was to accomplish. The implied argument was Kennedy is greater than Feige. And what Feige did was/is unprecedented and Kennedy isn't in the same league.

Star Wars under Disney/Kennedy could have done many things better, but I don't buy into the doom & gloom overview held by many.

It depends what you call doom and gloom. I don't think star wars is dead by any stretch. But this era of star wars was full of problems.

They over saturated the market. Again, MCU successfully having multiple hit movies in a single year, year after year, is impressive, but not the norm.

No they oversaturated with mediocrity, that's the issue. A great star wars movie should have no problems coming out yearly.

It's also bizarre how people, with apparent sincerity, manage to criticize Kennedy when they don't like what JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson did, but also criticize her if they like what Jon Favreau delivered in the Mandalorian.

People criticize Kennedy because all but 3 projects on her watch had major problems. She had no vision for the sequels and her anti fan attitude is why people are so critical. The reason why she takes heat even though Mandalorian was on her watch is simple. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. As far as I can tell, all signs point to Kennedy not being that involved with the show. And it turned out great. Hmm coincidence?

 

[erasure fan1]

This isn’t a difficult notion: 5 similarly structured with interconnected character and themes within 5 years can and did lead to fatigue within the franchise. You know nobody is tired of The Mandalorian? It’s different, and doesn’t feel like a retread.

Yes the Mandalorian doesn't feel like a retread. That is the base of this whole argument. @RobWDW1971 is right, you are strengthening the it's not fatigue, it's mediocre product argument. Good star wars will be celebrated, even if it's every year. But take the lazy approach and don't make a cohesive story, and sure you'll have fatigue. Fantasic beasts isn't harry potter fatigue. It's just bad harry potter. Simple as that.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Fantastic beasts isn't harry potter fatigue. It's just bad harry potter. Simple as that.

So beautifully and succinctly put.

We’re just lucky we didn’t have to endure the Disney non-sensical spin of “fan boys don’t like ginger leads!!!”

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Just one excuse after another being spun...amusing if it wasn’t so sad