TCTTS said:

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I was mainly referring to his "They put **** in the present" bit, but I hear you.

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Yeah, I guess "current timeline" is a better phrasing. You can put movies in the past, but as long as you don't have a bunch of characters we've already seen in the present you have a lot more freedom to do interesting stories.

From box office mojo:

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With an estimated $29.29 million, Disney and Lucasfilms's Solo: A Star Wars Story dipped 65% this weekend, a result that was to be expected following the film's steady decline during the week after its disappointing debut last weekend. The film's domestic cume ended the weekend just shy of $150 million. Internationally, Solo brought in an estimated $30.3 million for an overseas total that now stands at $115.3 million and a global cume totaling $264.2 million.

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All in all, it's a big disappointment at the box office, but probably not disastrous enough to make any sort of change at the top. (Let's also not forget about blu-ray sales.)

I think this 1.5 year break until Ep IX is coming at the perfect time. A good solid year for everyone to take a breath (especially the casual movie-goer).

The only thing I worry about is them halting production on Obi-Wan before it really begins. I hope that's not the case, but I doubt they've lost total faith in the spinoff model. You've had one massive success (in regular terms and not "Star Wars" terms), and one dud.

Kenobi will draw more interest from the fanboy segment, so I think that will help build the hype for it. Also, it's a plus that people won't have to accept someone else being Kenobi.

Kenobi's biggest issue is going to be the ridiculous expectations that the fan base has for the movie.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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All in all, it's a big disappointment at the box office, but probably not disastrous enough to make any sort of change at the top. (Let's also not forget about blu-ray sales.)

I think this 1.5 year break until Ep IX is coming at the perfect time. A good solid year for everyone to take a breath (especially the casual movie-goer).

The only thing I worry about is them halting production on Obi-Wan before it really begins. I hope that's not the case, but I doubt they've lost total faith in the spinoff model. You've had one massive success (in regular terms and not "Star Wars" terms), and one dud.

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Yeah that 1.5 years is key here and might be why they insisted on keeping Solo where it was despite the production issues.

I love the movie but the only thing I guess I can put my finger on is - it's not a Jedi movie. At all. RO was still Jedi related (Vader and feeding into the original death star, etc.). But Obi-Wan would be so.... hmmm...

I was very interested in it but it seems like not many were. I heard people saying that on here but figured it was just thread talk and negativism.

Unfortunately people are missing a pretty damn good movie - maybe they will see it through cable, BR/DVD, etc.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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All in all, it's a big disappointment at the box office, but probably not disastrous enough to make any sort of change at the top. (Let's also not forget about blu-ray sales.)

I think this 1.5 year break until Ep IX is coming at the perfect time. A good solid year for everyone to take a breath (especially the casual movie-goer).

The only thing I worry about is them halting production on Obi-Wan before it really begins. I hope that's not the case, but I doubt they've lost total faith in the spinoff model. You've had one massive success (in regular terms and not "Star Wars" terms), and one dud.

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Yeah, I think it's going to take a lot for them to abandon the idea of doing more Star Wars Stories. Really, after Ep IX that's all we've got, we'll have the Rian Johnson and Benioff/Weiss films but those will themselves be unique stories apart from the current known SW universe. If I had to guess we'll alternate years of those with returns to more familiar character we already know with the Star Wars Stories (I still really prefer "Anthology").

For me part of what's always made the Star Wars films special is that they didn't happen that often, you got one every year or two at most. I was excited to see Solo for a variety of reasons, but at the same time it didn't have that must see feel about it like Eps VII and VIII did.

The bad box office for SOLO, and the overwhelmingly positive reaction from the SW community on the film, makes me wonder about TLJ's numbers. How much of TLJ's take was just from the casual non-hardcore fan?

For TLJ, merchandising was down, video sales were off target, toys lackluster, video games under performed. These are the areas that the casual fans don't contribute as much.

Is SOLO now the "baseline" support number for a SW movie? Going forward, is this the "fanboy" value for a SW movie? If so, that does not bode well for continued expansion of the OT/PT universe.

I wasn't clear. I don't mean story expectations; more quality-level expectations. Though, Texags wasn't the only forum working up script ideas for Kenobi. So, there are a lot of ideas out there that people might want to see once we have some more official info.

I'd say we can safely add 10% to that.

What sucks is that the word of mouth is doing nothing at this point. And the marketing just dropped off the face of the Earth the day it came out. (Again, likely due to a very small marketing budget to make up for the inflated budget.)

If there was any way to see the number of reviews on release date, I would crunch the numbers. Alas, I have no idea.

Edit: Did a bit of googling, and saw this on another forum.

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Using the same criteria as RT for audience score, i.e. % of users rating a movie 3/5 or better (or for IMDB 6/10 or better)....

SOLO has an IMDB Audience Score of 87...i.e. 87% at 6/10 or greater

For 68,000+ voters.

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Nothing scientific, but a lot more accurate than what we currently have.

The actual IMDB rating is at 7.2/10. (Which is pretty solid.)

How did they get those numbers, and are there more detailed numbers?

Assuming those numbers are correct, some rough probabilities pretty much guarantee it's not a normal distribution. Either the average should be higher or there should be more observations below 6.

Human populations are usually normal (statistically speaking anyway), but there appears to be a hump on the left tail of the distribution. My conclusion is that the numbers are indeed being manipulated.

Ulrich said:

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I'm not sure why you think I'm confused when your post is a more elaborate restatement of my comment that "I'm not under the impression that Disney is particularly benevolent, but they've largely hired directors and actors who respect the franchise."

It sounds like you think a lack of attention to the source material is why they rushed it. I think they intended to have enough time to create good movies no matter how little they respect fan opinions precisely because they are a megacorp that spent 4 billion dollars on the IP knowing they need to keep fans coming back for years to recoup that expense. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by [miscalculation].

I'm fine agreeing to disagree on this finely split hair.

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"...they've largely hired directors and actors who respect the franchise, which is all I can ask."

I'm saying that's a given. They don't get credit for doing what's the obvious bare minimum.

In hindsight I can see why my phrasing may be confusing. By "fans" I mean the moviegoing audience in general. And when I say Disney didn't care about said audience, I don't mean that they had malice (although Rian makes me wonder...). I mean Disney neglected the sole thing a movie company is supposed to do: make people want to see their movies.

Disney neglected the major storytelling principles that make people emotionally invested in characters, and that's important because it puts butts in the seats long-term; Disney also (laughably) didn't have a vision for where they wanted to take this series, which created a story that's a jumbled, illogical mess. Meanwhile, Marvel doesn't neglect those two things, and that's why they're successful.

So either the Disney execs are arrogant and feel they can neglect those things and whatever they touch will still turn to gold, or they're incompetent and can't do their jobs effectively.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by [miscalculation]."

"Miscalculation?" If you're supposed to be a glorified wizard-of-smart in charge of a major movie-making company, how do you mess this up?

(Render: "Hey boss, sorry your investment is showing an incredible lack of returns in ticket sells and merchandise, I just "miscalculated" the thing that was my sole job to study throughly so this exact situation wouldn't happen." Would I still have a job?)

"I think they intended to have enough time to create good movies no matter how little they respect fan opinions"

Disney didn't have time or leeway; if they thought they did then they were very mistaken. Unlike Marvel which was introducing new stuff, SW was old with a poor recent history. Because the prequels sucked so hard, the nostalgia had lost its effectiveness; people were moving on; apathy about SW was normal. So SW lacked leeway for making big mistakes. The original actors were also irreplaceable and old, so no reboots or recasting if things go south. So SW also lacked time.

If that's the historical context you're up against, you really gotta make sure that what you're doing is great from a story standpoint. Anyone with common sense could see the situation. So either the executives could see that and didn't care (arrogant) or they were incompetent and couldn't do their jobs effectively (stupid).

Meanwhile, Marvel didn't take the audience for granted. They cared about the audience and knew they had to go all-out on storytelling principles or else audiences wouldn't care. That entire effort was run by professionals.

Disney is simply getting what they deserve. "Your overconfidence is your weakness." Or they're just a bunch of dumbasses. I'm not saying that with hate, just a clinical diagnosis.

I'm fine agreeing to disagree too. This was an enjoyable conversation.

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Human populations are usually normal (statistically speaking anyway), but there appears to be a hump on the left tail of the distribution. My conclusion is that the numbers are indeed being manipulated.

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This is exactly the case. The trolls took control of the RT audience score (same as they did with TLJ), and are artificially bringing that overall score way below where it should be.

The "real" RT audience score may even be in the 90's. (Judging by your observations of the IMDB score.)

Bottom line is the number itself is meaningless, but it proves that the overall fanbase enjoyed the movie for the most part. But unfortunately it's just not catching on with general audiences.

Edit: Here's the detailed IMDB ratings.

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"...they've largely hired directors and actors who respect the franchise, which is all I can ask."

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One note is that Tony Gilroy is apparently the guy who fixed Rogue One, and I think that film came across really well. Maybe the prerequisite of being a "Star Wars fan" shouldn't necessarily matter.

Truth be told, I actively want more non-fan filmmakers involved with these movies.

TCTTS said:

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This deserves a galaxy of stars...

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So freaking true

I agree with a lot of that post. Good talk!