Would you say it's been a good or bad year for Star Wars?

[Sacred Knight]

People were seeing what they saw as anti-Bush sentiments all over the place in the latter two prequel films. Whether purposeful or imagined, lets not pretend like people seeing politicizing in SW as something new with Disney.

[ChrisIII]

The production of Force Awakens, Rogue One, and a good chunk of TLJ's scripting/filming happened before the current climate/issues etc., although a few actors (Hammil, mostly) and writers associated have been fairly active on social media regarding current events.

[sirmarkus]

Good year. Rogue One and The Last Jedi are both good films, though not great. The expanded universe stuff has by and large been excellent, though with a few disappointments in some things (Maul's last episode on Rebels could have been better as a movie, Sabine's arc on Mandalore hit its high point in Trials of the Darksaber and didn't reach those heights again). Battlefront is really the biggest blemish on everything, and even that's because EA screwed over what was still a workable game in order to monetize it as a premium-to-play.

To me, it could have been better, but it's still overall pretty strong.

I agree a longer story would have been better for Kenobi vs. Maul, but that duel was brilliant. The build, the tension, and how quick and brutal it was.... That would have been amazing in a live action movie. But still, I think it was one of the strongest episodes of Rebels yet. https://wp.me/p81uZL-2Y

[Starter Set]

Battlefront 2 sure was one sad fiasco. Still haven't seen episode 8 so i'm not going to comment on it but of course it's going to end up making an ocean of money, no doubt here, so i guess from Disney's point of view the most important thing is accomplished for this year.

[David Walton]

Not sure why all the hate for Battlefront 2. I love it.

The Last Jedi is arguably the best Star Wars film so far (I'm not sure yet, it would take a while for my feelings to be fully settled, but it's in the running).

So yeah, I'd say it's been a really great year for Star Wars.

[Carabas]

Not sure why all the hate for Battlefront 2. I love it.

Seems to be a mixture of anemic single player, and pay real money to win in multi-player.

[Buried Alien]

How are the toys and other merch related to THE LAST JEDI selling? That, as much as box office receipts, represents important data to measure the health of the franchise overall.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[ClanAskani]

Toy and merchandise sales are down compared to The Force Awakens - but that's always going to be expected. The question is the comparison with Rogue One. From just my impression, there's a lot of toys left on shelves that people aren't buying. Unfortunately it includes many of the female characters. The explanation for "Where's Rey" back when The Force Awakens came out was female figures don't sell. Now the peg-warmers are Rose and Paige and Rey is easy to find. Most Kohls have any Last Jedi figure you want, only you need to pay $12.

The Last Jedi opened in China today and will continue the trend of Star Wars under-performing despite all the marketing done to try to grow the Star Wars brand in China. It will end up 2nd at the Chinese box office this weekend losing to a local comedy in its 2nd week. I do wonder how much of the plot of TLJ was changed to make it appeal more to Chinese audiences (especially the Canto chase scene). The latest Fast & the Furious movie made 1 billion worldwide, making the 200 Million domestic irrelevant. (In terms of top movies worldwide of 2017, Last Jedi still hasn't beat the Fast & the Furious sequel or Beauty & The Beast.) Star Wars films make 50% of their movie domestically (US & Canada). Most movies do 25-40% domestic. Disney's goals have to be to expand the brand internationally, especially in China, and that's not working. For fans, this isn't going to be a positive since the movies that do well in China are not plot or character driven. They're Michael Bay style explosion, car chase action driven movies. The fight scenes in TFA were seen as laughable to the Chinese. Rogue One didn't do any better despite Chinese stars and now Last Jedi is opening to under 10 Million in China (compared to 32 Million for Force Awakens).

The upward momentum, sky's the limit type of trend has ended with Star Wars and now there's the reality. Merchandise and toy sales weren't going to be the same as Force Awakens, the movie isn't going to beat Fast & Furious, Transformers or even Avengers in China. The question is whether Disney execs knew that going into Last Jedi or not.

[David Walton]

Seems to be a mixture of anemic single player, and pay real money to win in multi-player.

They disabled the payment function after the controversy. It's still a loot box system, but credits are earned by playing, not buying.

[Carabas]

They disabled the payment function after the controversy. It's still a loot box system, but credits are earned by playing, not buying.

It takes more than that for players to get over a bad first impression.

[Bruce Wayne]

The Last Jedi opened in China today and will continue the trend of Star Wars under-performing despite all the marketing done to try to grow the Star Wars brand in China. It will end up 2nd at the Chinese box office this weekend losing to a local comedy in its 2nd week. I do wonder how much of the plot of TLJ was changed to make it appeal more to Chinese audiences (especially the Canto chase scene).

It seems the main audience base there is more the Rey/Kylo shipper types (so people who gravitate around idol flicks and k-dramas) than the people who watch TFs or MCU movies. Perhaps they are getting bad or conflicting data (or working from their experience from other places) in the Sinosphere like Malayasia or Hong Kong.

[ClanAskani]

It seems the main audience base there is more the Rey/Kylo shipper types (so people who gravitate around idol flicks and k-dramas) than the people who watch TFs or MCU movies. Perhaps they are getting bad or conflicting data (or working from their experience from other places) in the Sinosphere like Malayasia or Hong Kong.

The fact that pirated versions of movies are released well ahead of time likely impacts the Chinese box office. But Jumanji opens in China next week and probably will do better than Jedi because it's family appeal and something people want to see in theaters.

Reylo is definitely not something that will translate to the Chinese box office. The Prequels should have done better - lots of action, cool sword fights, chase scenes. But there's not a history with the franchise there. When the OT was shown theatrically a few years ago at a film festival, the quotes from Chinese moviegoers were bizarre - Leia isn't sexy enough, Luke isn't hunky enough, not enough action, it was boring, etc. But the overall very Japanese influence of the mythology is a turn off to many Chinese movie fans.

What does worry me is that likely when JJ pitched Episode IX to Bob Iger a few days ago (if the news report was true), Iger was likely more focused on what was being done to appeal to the international audience (more action, chase scenes, spectacle) than how to appeal to SW fans or the American audience.

International is becoming so much more important. Someone I know that works for one of the major studios said a marketing person from a European country was irate that more hadn't been done to make the movie appeal to international audiences - on a Marvel movie. The movie did fine and that won't change what Marvel does. But my concern with China and Star Wars is that Disney assumes all of us will show up no matter what. If Disney want 2 billion plus dollars from international box office for every Star Wars movie, then Star Wars has to appeal to the Chinese. Then it's more Fast & the Furious or Transformers style action and less Japanese themes. With the changes to the jedi in TLJ, does it accomplish making the Jedi appeal more to a Chinese audience?

[Starter Set]

Iger was likely more focused on what was being done to appeal to the international audience (more action, chase scenes, spectacle) than how to appeal to SW fans or the American audience

Yeah cause it's pretty well known that lot of action, chase scenes and form over substance are things the American audience never cared a lot about.

[Username taken]

Battlefront was a disaster. Not that the game was terrible but the PR around it was disastrous.

The Last Jedi got a mixed audience reception but critics loved it and its making bank (primarily in the US though because it flopped in China and fell hard from TFA in other territories). I believe it’s already over a billion and will probably tap out around $1.5 billion which is crazy huge.

[Username taken]

Gotta say it...Just have to. Disney has politicized Star Wars movies to the point of ruining it. Rogue One was genius. But TLJ was pure political posturing and myself and many many SW fans will not stand for a political agenda being crammed down our throats. EA's B2 was a joke. Where was the single player galactic assault? They didnt put it in because they want everyone to be online, paying for boxes that may or may not give them a chance at beating other players more easily. Just another joke for the Star Wars Universe this year.....Very very sad indeed...

The prequels had politics.

Revenge of the Sith explicitly dived into the post 9/11 discussion of security vs personal freedoms and how people were willing to trade one over the other due to enemies real or fake (Iraq War scam).