Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

How can Star Wars get back on track after Solo's disappointing debut?

An interesting perspective which discusses the state of the entire franchise and what Disney need to do next.

I'm fairly certain that Solo doesn't deserve what's getting dumped on it by the fans. But the fans have decided to send Disney a message the only way they seem to respect - by hitting them in the wallet.

Eh.

Solo is still gonna be profitable. Let the reaction of those who've seen it be their guide - not the reaction of those who bang on about TLJ.

I didn't notice the fans have dumped on it. Certainly some of the most vocal Dakka-based critics of TLJ loved Han Solo.

It's scored better on Rotten Tomatoes than TLJ (though worse with professional critics, which is a point in its favour.)

I think it's going to be difficult for it to be really profitable because of it's troubled production. Its the most expensive SW movie to date, mostly because they re-shot 70ish% of the film. It would have been WAY more profitable if that wasn't the case.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I didn't notice the fans have dumped on it. Certainly some of the most vocal Dakka-based critics of TLJ loved Han Solo.

It's scored better on Rotten Tomatoes than TLJ (though worse with professional critics, which is a point in its favour.)

It's a better film than TLJ but this is not actually an achievement. In fact I would go further and say that Solo is a good film (and also the first time I enjoyed Emilia Clarke acting) but unfortunately it will be crucified at the altar of sending a message to Lucasfilm. Likes and ratings don't give revenue to the movies, ticket sales do. People who don't mind the corporate hate story will go and see the movie and rate it high, but a movie that costs 300m to make needs more people to get its money back, and the internet of 2018 does not give second chances. Opening weekends are crazy important for the movies, and Solo fell really short for a SW title. Also I think the profit plan for long term of the Solo movie is weak. Long term profit for movies is usually merch and if I look at it, I can't see any action figure made for the Solo movie that I would prefer over any other SW action figure really.

That's true and Disney won't want to repeat that mistake if it can be avoided.

That said, Disney doesn't need one individual film to make a profit. They need the whole SW franchise overall to be profitable.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
How can Star Wars get back on track after Solo's disappointing debut?

An interesting perspective which discusses the state of the entire franchise and what Disney need to do next.

And yet, as per, it glosses over most of the issues some people have with TLJ, reducing it to the nice & easy "fans didn't like Old Man Luke", and presents one of if not the biggest of them as a virtue.

So, I'd say, the very first thing Disney(and columnists seeking to opine on the matter) need to do if they're going to "right the ship" is actually listen to people's issues instead of trying to put them into neat and easy little boxes that can be dismissed as irrelevances. I've said this before, but it bears repeating - the only reason so many people nitpick TLJ so hard is because the core of the film is so flawed, for them, that every other flaw and minor dislike is magnified. If they don't understand why the core was considered so flawed by so many, and keep focusing on the nitpicks, they aren't going to fix anything.

The fact is, a lot of people don't want their expectations dashed, the fiction's tropes subverted, its sacred cows butchered gleefully on camera. They don't want something they like turned into something else, they want more of the thing they like.

What's utterly baffling is Disney seemed to grasp all of that and appeared to have devised a release model to please everybody, and then they somehow managed to get things completely back-asswards such that the main saga trilogy that people were walking into expecting a traditional, well inside the comfort zone Star Wars film has ended up the home of the postmodernist trope-subverting franchise takedown, while the off-year Stories brand where they could safely go as fully batgak mental as they liked without upsetting anyone has ended up putting out the two solid, fan-friendly films of the Disney era.

Frankly I think the first and main thing they need to do if they're going to get things right going forward is to get rid of Kathleen Kennedy, who just seems like a total weather vane with no real direction to give the franchise. TFA gets criticism for being a bit too safe and nostalgic, so she gives TLJ to the human embodiment of the opposite of those things. First she gives Solo to Lord & Miller, and when that doesn't go well she swings completely the other way and brings in Mr Safe Hands himself Ron Howard. What Disney needs is a Feige for Lucasfilm, someone who's both well versed in the industry and the source material, who can pick directors and writers who're appropriate for a project first time, and who can make them understand that they're involved in Star Wars to do a job and serve the brand not use it as a vehicle to signal-boost their otherwise decidedly non-blockbuster fare.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Eh.

Solo is still gonna be profitable. Let the reaction of those who've seen it be their guide - not the reaction of those who bang on about TLJ.

Oh, don't worry, we can absolutely be both

But I'm both. I've seen Solo and I say it's brilliant and well worth seeing. I've also seen TLJ, and I say it's gak and has killed the main trilogy stone dead. One attitude does not interfere with the other.

 Vulcan wrote:
I'm fairly certain that Solo doesn't deserve what's getting dumped on it by the fans. But the fans have decided to send Disney a message the only way they seem to respect - by hitting them in the wallet.

I'm sure the fans love to take credit for solo bombing at the box office, but I doubt they really had any signigicant impact on that.

China is a huge market, and they don't seem to care at all about the franchise, that's where the first major blow came in at. They never saw the OT when it first was released, so China is more representative of the casual viewers and the casual viewers of the world were given 3 big named movies in 3 weeks. most of them just decided on seeing the infinity war over star wars.

I'm sure Disney expected this to some degree, they own both franchises so it's odd they'd have two major titles competeting against each other, unless they never saw solo as blockbuster potential. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if star wars came out first, or they waited a few months between the releases.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's true and Disney won't want to repeat that mistake if it can be avoided.

That said, Disney doesn't need one individual film to make a profit. They need the whole SW franchise overall to be profitable.

I think the real barometer will be episode 9. It will really show if people really boycott SW or if Solo was just a spinoff movie and simply did not attract many people.

topaxygouroun i wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's true and Disney won't want to repeat that mistake if it can be avoided.

That said, Disney doesn't need one individual film to make a profit. They need the whole SW franchise overall to be profitable.

I think the real barometer will be episode 9. It will really show if people really boycott SW or if Solo was just a spinoff movie and simply did not attract many people.

Yes, that is true.

I'm still on the fence about episode 9 myself. I don't know if it's going to be worth paying money to see.

I didn't go to see Rogue One because it was a spin off and I was busy and so on.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I didn't go to see Rogue One because it was a spin off and I was busy and so on.

Do you regret not seeing it? No wait, a better question, have you seen it?

I saw it this morning at the IMAX in Waterloo, and despite being the biggest screen in the UK it was mostly empty. But I enjoyed the film more than either TFA or TLJ.

Maybe it’s been answered elsewhere, but was the ‘I thought we were in trouble for a second, but it’s fine, we’re fine’ line in the trailer cut from the film? I found it memorable from the trailer and it seemed absent in the film.

I haven't seen it yet but I've heard it's quite good so I'm going to buy the DVD.

Once I've seen it I'll know if I should have gone to see it on the big screen.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I saw it this morning at the IMAX in Waterloo, and despite being the biggest screen in the UK it was mostly empty. But I enjoyed the film more than either TFA or TLJ.

Maybe it’s been answered elsewhere, but was the ‘I thought we were in trouble for a second, but it’s fine, we’re fine’ line in the trailer cut from the film? I found it memorable from the trailer and it seemed absent in the film.

it was in there, I noticed it as he said it, I forget exactly where he said it.

It's amazing to watch certain pundits pretend TLJ is the way foreard when TLJ is one of the reasons Solo took such a hit on it's opening weekend.

 Manchu wrote:
It's amazing to watch certain pundits pretend TLJ is the way foreard when TLJ is one of the reasons Solo took such a hit on it's opening weekend.

What is really sad is that Disney won't see it that way. They will think the problem was Solo, so they will change their approach AWAY from Solo, essentially doubling down on the things that made TLJ poor in the eyes of so many.
So by so many "fans" protesting SW by not going out to see Solo, they actually will be making things worse

-

From the POV of the people boycotting Solo, it cannot be a good movie because Kathleen Kennedy is still in charge. But I am not talking about the small number of people actually boycotting the movie. I am talking about the large number of people who saw TLJ and now have SW fatigue and just don't care anymore.

Maybe the world's headspace only has room for a couple of blockbusters every year, especially when they are big SF action films.

It's like when I was in the video game business. There were "superfans" who bought at least one game a month, but the long term average was two games per console per year, indicating that most users actually had one game at Christmas and one more on their birthday.

But there are multiple MCU movies per year, ya know?

 Manchu wrote:
But there are multiple MCU movies per year, ya know?

And there aren't people feeling the fatigue there? I didn't see Black Panther, Infinity War, or even Deadpool 2 after the last Thor movie, which I really enjoyed. Most of the other MCU movies I've seen lately were via one streaming service or another. The first Pirates of the Caribbean was good, saw 2 & 3 streaming, ignored 4, and didn't even know about 5 until I saw it on sale at a grocery store. I hated TFA so I only saw Rogue One on Netflix. It convinced me to give TLJ a try despite really bad feelings going in and found it worth the matinee ticket. I actually paid full price for Solo and enjoyed it more than TLJ. I will skip 9 since JJ is back and at this point I rank his storytelling gimmicks to be a slight step above M. Night's, but even still I think done with SW for a while unless the choice is that or a SyFy original. Look how long it took before anyone thought a sequel trilogy would be a profitable idea after the prequels.

Black Panther and Infinity War both did a helluva lot better than Solo.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Maybe the world's headspace only has room for a couple of blockbusters every year, especially when they are big SF action films.

It's like when I was in the video game business. There were "superfans" who bought at least one game a month, but the long term average was two games per console per year, indicating that most users actually had one game at Christmas and one more on their birthday.

Didn't see any problem with various MCU blockbusters, doubt there will be a problem with Jurasic World.

Star Wars was damaged by TLJ, reamins to be seen how badly.

I've never watched any of the Marvel films. In fact, I didn't actually understand what MCU meant until the context of later posts revealed it. But that's not film fatigue so much as the fact that I dislike superheroes in general.

My daughter went to see Deadpool 2 with her school friends, but isn't it a kind of post-modernist subversive spoof superhero flick? (I haven't seen either 1 or 2.)

The character of Deadpool himself is a self-aware, fourth-wall-wrecking-ball meta-narrative device. This originated on the pages of comic books but has been carried over to the films.

Speaking of which, I am wondering how LucasFilm will approach the Boba Fett film. Will it really be a film about Boba Fett, as in he is the protagonist, or will it be about some bounty hunters trying to collect a bounty on our protagonist(s) and Boba Fett is the lead antagonist in that scenario?

If Solo is the first part of a series of loosely connected films, I could see the next installment being about Boba Fett trying to hunt down Enfys Nest.

It's hard to imagine Boba Fett being the main character unless it's a piece about him being a kid post-Geonosis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Has anyone else noticed there has been no marketing for Solo since last Friday?

There was so little marketing before release and now there is no attempt at a second weekend boost?

I feel like Disney decided to cut their losses on this film months ago and the box office is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On a brighter note, I have been listening to the score all week and it is killer. I really like the Marauders theme heard at the beginning of this track:

 Manchu wrote:
Black Panther and Infinity War both did a helluva lot better than Solo.

Sure, but we're not living in an age were people are willing to shell out money multiple times a month to see movies in the theater anymore. With Infinity War coming out a month ago and almost directly competing against another blockbuster movie, Deadpool, is not exactly the release time any other blockbuster wants to be in these days. Coupled with the fact that people were expecting a bad movie, including many people here, because of all the crap going on behind the scenes. I only saw it because I read so many people here saying that they were expecting a bad movie, due to things like director changes and acting coaches, but ended up really enjoying.

I mean, the fact remains that people pay to see multiple MCU movies per year regardless of theoretical super hero movie fatigue.

Are you now saying people only want to see one movie per month and the movie for May was Infinity War?

 Manchu wrote:
The character of Deadpool himself is a self-aware, fourth-wall-wrecking-ball meta-narrative device. This originated on the pages of comic books but has been carried over to the films.

Speaking of which, I am wondering how LucasFilm will approach the Boba Fett film.

Totally thought you were gonna suggest the Boba Fett film be a 4th-wall breaking romp in the style of Deadpool. Now I can't get eh image out of my head

-