It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Yeah I can only guess that it came out too soon after TLJ, but I think it was reasonable to try that as Marvel seem to manage it- maybe audiences had just got used to SW films being in December? To be honest I still don't understand it: it's a perfectly standard sort of SW movie so I don't get why it wouldn't have done as well. I don't really buy that other suggestion that thousands of people were somehow offended it wasn't Harrison Ford because audiences generally get over recasts pretty quickly.
You may be right about marketing- I don't really follow the marketing of most movies anymore so I don't know how well that went. I was very aware of the film though.
What is wrong with the world.
Sadly it seems that's not how the world works. All you need is for people to want to believe the lies, and they will.
Do the general public care about production issues though? Maybe they do, but when you look at this 'Nomi is 007' thing suddenly taking people by surprise a couple of weeks ago I don't quite know how public perception works- even if NTTD had come out on time I bet all of those made-up stories about 'trouble on set' would have been long forgotten by the people who read them and it would have done just as well as expected. I'm not convinced people have long enough memories to be put off by stuff like that. I know it was in a different age of news dissemination but Titanic looked like a much bigger disaster at the time.
Personally I think a Star Wars film bombing is a huge surprise, considering it hadn't happened before or since.
I watched Solo a while ago and didn't like it.
Budget:$275,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend USA: $84,420,489, 27 May 2018
Gross USA: $213,767,512
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $392,924,807
Okay, perhaps "bombed" is too strong a word. Underperformed might be more apt, with the numbers not even meeting the lowered expectations being more surprising to them.
Yeah, unfortunately in this case I think public perception definitely had an impact. On its own, it likely wouldn't have been a deciding factor - Rogue One was plagued with similar issues. But certainly combined with the other issues above, it would have been amplified even more. Lacklustre marketing would have been the clincher.
They didn't exactly make it easy for themselves, considering they reshot 60-70% of the picture apparently. I don't know what the break even target was, but I'd imagine it was utterly ridiculous.
But how long can these people be expected to believe the lies these channels spew out. Like I mentioned before, I’ve seen hundreds of videos from these channels saying that Disney is going to fire Kathleen Kennedy, or that Brie Larson is going to be dropped from the MCU. Stubborn as this may sound, I refuse to believe that people are that stupid to keep believing these lies after they been stated repeatedly for the past 1-2 years. Now the latest rumor is that Disney is erasing the Sequel Trilogy from canon, which sounds like peak absurdity.
People believe them because they want to, and that's what these rumormongers prey on. They throw out these "leaks" and "confirmations" because they know they'll gain support. They ignore things like how the Sequel Trilogy has recouped almost if not all Disney paid for Lucasfilm in the first place. They ignore Kathleen Kennedy had a voluminous producing career before Star Wars.
People can be disappointed, they can dislike Kathleen Kennedy, but ignoring reality to support their desires is just sad.
But then you're the kind of guy who talks about movies on a messageboard, I'm not sure that's an average sample of the population. I am too and yet I don't even remember some of those things: I know Ron Howard took over from the Lego guys but that's about it.
Yes that would seem a stronger reason; I don't recall the trailers myself but marketing seems more likely.
They do seem to be slightly more prone to total meltdowns, yes! Although I foolishly wandered into a Facebook Bond group a couple of weeks ago when all the racist morons though Lashana Lynch was the new Bond...
Even so, did these Star Wars fans actually not go and watch the film? I guess maybe they didn't see it five times each, which may have affected the earnings, depending on how many of them do that.
Crazy though, if you ask me it's much more entertaining than Last Jedi, which I found charmless and boring. People like to bang on about its themes and ideas, which are strong when you see them written down, but when the film is as boring to watch as I find it, and the characters are no longer appealing, I just can't care. Solo is a much more straightforward and less intelligent film, yes, but it's much more fun to watch.
I do remember actually feeling like I wasn't interested in seeing much Star Wars after that because it was such a passion-killer; and I didn't really enjoy Rogue One either because that's pretty devoid of fun too. So I think I was a bit down on seeing Solo, but it turned out to be a breezy pleasure and made Star Wars fun again for me.
Because if there's anything Brexit and Trump and the rest of 2020 has shown us, it's just if you can fire up a group of people to hate another group of people enough and give them information which confirms that, even if that information is a load of old balls, they'll go on listening to it because they want to. 'I won the election', 'Black people want to take down statues of Churchill', 'No-deal is off the table', 'vaccines are dangerous', 'A black woman is the new James Bond' etc. Makes me very sad.
That’s why kills me the most. People are allowing their judgments to be so clouded by these idiots on YouTube, that they ignore the fact that Kennedy helped bring some of the most iconic films to the big screen. I mean to be fair, she isn’t the primary reason for the success of those films. Nobody is going to say that Indiana Jones and E.T. were massive successes purely because of Kennedy’s involvement, but she’s played her part in them, and deserves more respect than what she’s given. And it’s as you mention too, if Disney was seriously losing money, they would’ve dropped her long ago. I’m not a Sequel Trilogy fan, but I can at least give credit where it’s due.
Yes, it's amazing how long she's been around involved in these great films. I'm sure she's appreciated where it counts.
I think in her case and also with Broccoli in Bond fandom, it's hard to rule out misogyny as well. Being a woman doesn't stop you being open to criticism, no, but the particular manner in which both of them get talked about in some fan circles does raise that suspicion.
Yeah, that's true I am - but the people I know who were unhappy weren't (at least not that I know of). But I take the point that it might not be an accurate sample of the population; it was just something I noticed from talking to people outside of cyberspace who are bigger Star Wars fans than I am.
Misogyny is certainly a big thing at play for many. The fact that both Kennedy and Broccoli took over positions previously occupied by men for a very long time is a telltale sign. I doubt the criticisms would be as strong had they, for example, taken over from a woman. We do have a few manchilds in the Bond fandom, but I've never seen the level of vitriol that has been levelled at Kennedy - she's often made out to be a devil.
I’ve never thought of Barbara as being that controversial as Kennedy. I’m not sure if other people think that she is, but I think she’s done a great job at keeping her fathers legacy in tact. Same with Michael Wilson. I’m sure Misogyny does does play a role, but I think it also comes down to “You screwed up this opportunity; I could’ve done a better job, you need to be endlessly ridiculed to learn your lesson.”
I think their issue was that Rey somehow didn’t have to forgo the intense training that Luke or Anakin did. I mean she practically beats Kylo Ren in their first battle; whereas Luke had his arse handed to him by Vader in the first duel, and Anakin lost his hand in his duel with Dooku. They’re also annoyed with how TROS ended, and I’ll admit I have the same problems as they do, I don’t Rey is a strong character, nor a good one. But than again, I’ve never been on board for more films following Return of the Jedi. The prequels were fine, but the sequels just never sat with me from the announcement that they were making them. That’s why I love Rogue One, I think it works when compared to the Sequel films.
I always sort of figured that was down to Kylo being just as inexperienced as Rey, which was sort of tied in with the themes with the movie, whereas Vader was fully trained Jedi pseudo-Master when he fought Luke. That’s just how it went in my brain though.
Yeah, Rey was already shown to be a streetwise fighter who could handle herself very well, and Ren hadn't been fully trained- plus we'd been shown how he couldn't restrain himself or his emotions. He still nearly beats her until a bit of force, um, awakens in her.
Luke was a bit of a spoilt brat in Star Wars who was way out his depth, unlike Rey who had been looking after herself for years. And despite that he still ends up somehow being a fighter pilot by the end of the film despite having no training!
I can't really understand all of the gnashing of teeth over Rise of Skywalker to be honest: I watched it in the cinema and I was very happily entertained for a couple of hours. It was a big space adventure and it all worked well. It didn't feel quite as inspired as Force Awakens, but it's not a terrible film at all.
As we're comparing fandoms I'd say Spectre is a much worse film and I don't think the Bond fandom had as much in the way of hissy fits at the SW fandom did. Even so: Spectre's still not a terrible film.
I was thinking about which ones were the best a while ago, and I realised that I think Force Awakens is a better film than Star Wars. It's not as original, or as culturally important, no; but just as a movie judged purely on merit I think it's better in almost every way.
Yeah that’s a good explanation, but I’m not sure how much of Kylo’s training we do get into in the film, although keep in mind I’ve only seen Force Awakens once and haven’t revisited it since, so my mind may be blurry on that
To be fair, that’s been a trend way before Brexit or Trump even entered the picture. For example “The People VS George Lucas” or the Mr. Plinkett videos, both of which really could get mean spirited at times, certainly made the hate extremely loud and obnoxious. To say “George Lucas raped my childhood”, which I’m sure was a sentiment even going back to the Special Editions, were the seeds that led to this whole “Fandom Menace” thing.
I’m not sure how much I agree with that. I think a majority of Star Wars fans recognize Lucas’ faults as a film maker, that’s why the whole “People vs George Lucas” documentary came about. What I really think it is, and I’ll be blunt about this, is that the franchise simply outgrew them. They’re angry and upset that they aren’t being catered to anymore, and even though they won’t admit it, the way in which that anger manifests itself is through misogyny, all because Kathleen Kennedy is in charge.
Don't they hate him as well though? Despite also only accepting things he's done.
Basically with any fandom they want that person who did that thing once to do it again because they did it perfectly, but if they do do it again they'll hate them and say how awful they are.
The weird thing is that Star Wars used to be the 'cool' fandom, back in the 90s when it was all Simon Pegg and every other Empire magazine cover. But now they're the weirdest and scariest.
It has to be the oddest fanbase I can think of. There are still some really cool, stand out guys like Star Wars Theory who, even if they don’t like the sequels, still manage to be positive, and creative voices for the fans. Then you have the “Fandom Menace” which is this weird, subsection of the fandom dedicated to trashing Disney Star Wars whenever they can for clicks and views. They’re also hugely driven by ego, and act like what they do doesn’t make them sound pathetic and sad. They also make it sound like their battle is an important battle to “save Pop Culture.”
I agree with your latter point in general but I don't think the documentary is proof of that. Despite the sensational title, it was a fairly balanced bit of filmmaking about the fanatacism within Star Wars - it has been a long time since I've seen it, though. One (not me, as I don't really have a dog in the fight as I am a very casual fan) might argue that the fan community has drastically changed since the documentary, which was released before it became a Disney property (I think!). I think a lot of them look back on the Lucas era with that kind of "you don't know what you had until it's gone" attitude.
But regardless, the dynamics of it are often saddening, sometimes maddening, but certainly fascinating.
Which seems weird to me too because the Disney stuff is, to me, miles better than the films Lucas was making fifteen years ago. Less original, maybe, but still better.
I remember watching Force Awakens the first time and, during the early scene where Fin and Poe are escaping in a Tie fighter, having a really weird sense that I'm watching a new Star Wars movie and am actually finding the characters engaging and likeable to the extent that I already care what happens to them, and that I'm watching an exciting action scene. Which was not a sensation I'd had through the previous three movies!
Yeah, I agree. I liked a lot of the new characters, even if I wasn't enamoured with the films themselves. Attack Of The Clones is still one of the poorest blockbusters I've seen on the big screen, by comparison - with characterisation being a big problem.
I don't know if its the characterisation I have an issue with in particular, more than there's something really fundamental missing to the whole thing which makes them sort of not movies at all. There's no level of human connection or drama to anything; they're very strange to watch.
I've never known quite exactly what a director does (mostly because I think they're sort of defined by the choices they don't take, which of course you can never see), but watching those films you can certainly begin to understand the effect of a director because it seems like there's simply no director present. This isn't a vision trying to engage and amuse and excite an audience in the way its being presented to them, it's just events being put on a screen. So weird.
JJ Abrams is certainly no visionary, but he's extremely (even if not infallibly) good at what he does.
Marvel managed it better because they allowed each upcoming film to be marketed at the same time. The big mistake with LucasFilm is that they didn't want to market SOLO until well after TLJ's theatrical run, their logic being they didn't want to cross-promote and confuse people. That was a big mistake. Typically, you would want to at least put out the first trailer the weekend TLJ comes out. That's how Marvel does it. When I went to see THOR: RAGNAROK what played in the previews was BLACK PANTHER.
As for the Kathleen Kennedy fanhate/misogyny, I think she simply gets a lot more flack than Barbara Broccoli due to the fact that the Star Wars fandom is much bigger than Bond's. Because it's a much bigger on YouTube and other social media, that just magnifies the vitriol thrown at Kennedy. But it's also because Broccoli has been running Bond much longer than Kennedy has been running Star Wars. Kennedy has only worked on the franchise for 8 years so far, whereas Broccoli has over 30 years now, 40 if you want to count all those years of her slowly working her way up towards a producer credit.
Oh, very interesting.