Is Star Wars imploding?

[Anthony W]

One flop, and the knives come out. Here is the link https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/...imploding.aspx
This little tidbit from the article was interesting.

"Fighting the fans
The old adage that "the customer is always right" is a simplification, but at the very least, it's probably not a good idea to take a hostile stance towards some of your franchise's biggest fans. That's especially true when series enthusiasts have played such a big role in sustaining the property's cultural cachet over the last 40 years.

Even Mark Hamill, the actor who portrays Luke Skywalker, voiced dissatisfaction with his character's progression in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. Shockingly, the actor did so during numerous press appearances promoting the films -- behavior that's pretty much unheard of, because media events are meant to present projects in the best possible light.

It seems like Disney proceeded with the expectation that the core Star Wars audience would show up for its new movies no matter what, and that it could instead focus on broadening the appeal of the franchise. On the other hand, an entry like The Last Jedi seemed to take a more overt political position at a time when polarization is running high, and that issue appears to have been exacerbated by interactions between people involved with the franchise and social-media users."

[BeastieRunner]

I've seen this argument during the Special Edition era and the Prequel era.

Star Wars will be fine.

And at worst, Solo barely made out ahead.

I guess you could call that a flop if your expectation was that every SW movie will be the #1 all-time every time.

[Minerboh]

We will find out in 2019 (when the last movie of the sequel trilogy is released) how much damage The Last Jedi actually did.

[thwhtGuardian]

I'm pretty sure I read a book like that article when I was a kid...something about the sky is falling? How'd that book end?

[ClanAskani]

We will find out in 2019 (when the last movie of the sequel trilogy is released) how much damage The Last Jedi actually did.

It's not just Episode IX in 2019 - there will be two tv shows (one live action, one animated) and the Star Wars theme parks. Disney has a lot of money invested in Star Wars. There's still going to be crazy Star Wars fans wanting to go to a theme park, but the tv shows could have issues with fans not caring about the events before TFA.

Likely before TLJ, Lucasfilm thought fans would go crazy for any little clue about who Snoke is or an appearance of Phasma. Boba Fett and Palpatine were killed off in the OT and fans still wanted to see more of them. But after TLJ, is there the same demand?

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

Honestly I think Solo not doing well has more to due with the MCU and it's troubled production history than with TLJ backlash. Not that it isn't a factor. I just think the MCU and and Infinity War has much more to do with the sales. Not to mention Deadpool 2. Which I still need to see.

@ClanAskani: There might not be a big demand with how badly they were falsely promoted. The big problem is they were promoted to have major parts only for that to not be the case. I suppose you could argue Snoke at least played a pretty big part.

[ClanAskani]

@ClanAskani: There might not be a big demand with how badly they were falsely promoted. The big problem is they were promoted to have major parts only for that to not be the case. I suppose you could argue Snoke at least played a pretty big part.

Lucasfilm massively miscalculated how much demand there is to see backstory and how things happened. The appeal of seeing how Han met Chewie or how Han got the Falcon isn't enough that even hardcore fans went to the theater to see Solo. It certainly didn't convince kids who like the ST to go see Solo.

When Last Jedi came out, what I didn't understand was how people at Lucasfilm (not Kathy Kennedy, but story group members like Pablo Hiladago or Kiri Hart) didn't see all of the attention Snoke and Rey's parents theory were getting that it would build up false expectations. Pablo could have put something in the Last Jedi Visual Dictionary that gave clues about Snoke and set expectations that Last Jedi wouldn't answer questions about Snoke. Instead he baited fans about Snoke theories.

I think they thought all of the interest in fan theories and speculation about backstory meant they could churn out tv shows, books and Star Wars stories movies. They didn't think killing Snoke would kill off interest in who he was (since that didn't happen with Palpatine or Boba Fett) and that may be a large percentage of their model moving forward that they will need to rethink now that Solo failed.

Having Dan & Dave from Game of Thrones involved may help Lucasfilm realize that fans thought there was a larger story that they were getting clues about sprinkled through movies, tv and books - Jyn Erso is Rey's mom, Ezra is DJ, Rey is a Skywalker/Solo/Kenobi/Palpatine, etc. But the idea of they're making it up as they go takes away the allure of the backstory. Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fandom wouldn't care about speculation as much as they do if they didn't think GRRM already had the story in place and left clues throughout the books.

Game of Thrones already had material from books and the MCU can take years and years worth of comics and form them into a story. Lucasfilm doesn't want to use Legions so they can't do the same thing. And just putting in little hints about who Snoke is isn't going to be enough to get casual fans to watch a tv show or pay to see Snoke: A Star Wars Story. It's got to actually be good and compelling. And already Ant-Man 2's box office estimates are going up because MCU fans are expected to go to see any little clues about what might happen in Avengers 4. That's not the same as a backstory movie revealing who Snoke is, or how Rey's nobody parents ended up on Jakku or how Han got his dice.

[Anthony W]

I've seen this argument during the Special Edition era and the Prequel era.

Star Wars will be fine.

And at worst, Solo barely made out ahead.

I guess you could call that a flop if your expectation was that every SW movie will be the #1 all-time every time.

Star Wars will be okay, but Solo was a flop. We can admit that Star Wars is going to be okay without twisting ourselves into knots for Solo.

[Sacred Knight]

Nah. The only thing that could make me concerned about its staying power would be if IX really underperformed. THAT would be an eyeopener. Solo was a project that was in various degrees of trouble from day one.

[choptop]

Solo barely made out ahead.

It's not ahead at all it's still in the red.

[ChrisIII]

I've seen this argument during the Special Edition era and the Prequel era.

Star Wars will be fine.

And at worst, Solo barely made out ahead.

I guess you could call that a flop if your expectation was that every SW movie will be the #1 all-time every time.

Yeah, I remember 2012 kind of being a 'dark time' as well, with TPM 3D,Lucas retiring and no sign of a sale, and although "Clone Wars" was still going, there were no signs of the promised TV show, and all we had upcoming were some of the EU (Which seemed to be running a little short on ideas at that point) and the 1313 game (Which admittingly, was a loss)....and of course the awful-looking Detours.

Then October rolled around....


There were also the sort of wilderness years of 1986-1991, where pretty much everything Star Wars pretty much dried up (The cartoons, Ewok movies, Marvel comics and even the toy line were gone), with the exception of a so-so 3D comic series that only lasted 3 issues and the paper and pen RPG. By then Lucas's focus had largely shifted to Indiana Jones as well with the Last Crusade and TV show, as well as other (Not as well received) productions like Willow, Howard The Duck, Tucker etc.

It's debatable I think whether the revival of the EU/merchandising in '91 led to the 90's comeback, or Lucas decided to revisit the series after seeing what ILM did with Jurassic Park.