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I suspect THE LAST JEDI just isn't a very good movie. We don't really need deeper reasons than that.
I'm not convinced there is a disconnect to figure in to the equation. I think THE LAST JEDI just flat-out isn't a very good movie. If the same is true of SOLO, the result will be the same.
I hope, hope, hope SOLO is a great movie. But considering the quality of the sequels thus far and the problems the production has had, I'd be lying if I said I was optimistic. It also strikes me as a movie that no one really wanted to begin with.
If STAR WARS is going to continue to be a viable brand for the next 40+ years, they need to get their eyes out of the past and actually go in some new directions.
I won't disagree that Last Jedi had its own problems.
I thoroughly enjoyed Rogue-One as a solid entry in the war movie genre ("The Dirty Dozen Saves Private Ryan from the Guns of Navarone").
Solo needs to be a solid genre movie as well, and there are certainly some standard genres it could be made to fit. It could even go darker--maybe a story of a Solo who had been born deep in the pocket of organized crime fighting his way out, with Jabba being the last chain holding him. There are some precedents to that in both American and Chinese national mythology.
I thoroughly enjoyed Rogue-One as a solid entry in the war movie genre ("The Dirty Dozen Saves Private Ryan from the Guns of Navarone").
Ditto. It wasn't a great movie. Certainly was far from flawless. But it was good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk
Solo needs to be a solid genre movie as well, and there are certainly some standard genres it could be made to fit. It could even go darker--maybe a story of a Solo who had been born deep in the pocket of organized crime fighting his way out, with Jabba being the last chain holding him. There are some precedents to that in both American and Chinese national mythology.
I would like that too, but don't hold your breath. Lucasfilm seems to have completely failed to grasp the distinction between making a movie "kid friendly" and making a movie "for kids." They have chosen the latter.
True story I heard from Timothy Zahn himself:
When he was first working on the novel sequels to the original trilogy, he got into a bit of a conflict with Lucas Licensing. The suits were INSISTING that Han Solo could not have been a drug smuggler, that he was just smuggling food spices or something for Jabba. Zahn dug in his heels and appealed, so the suits actually went to the top and asked George Lucas himself, "What was Han Solo smuggling for Jabba?"
George shrugged and said, "Drugs."
The Licensing folks were horrified. "How can you have a drug smuggler for a hero?"
Lucas said, "Listen, Han became a hero, but he didn't start as one. He wasn't evil in the first movie, but he was definitely a rogue and associated with some really evil people. I made that pretty obvious if you'll watch the first movie."
Lucas himself later sold out on that whole point of view. Which is why I hold little hope that the SOLO movie is going to be anything other than another by-the-numbers designed-by-committee product in the franchise.
By most standards, THE LAST JEDI was a smash hit, but by Star Wars standards and expectations, it was a flop. Markets are constantly growing and for it to have fallen short of THE FORCE AWAKENS, and significantly short at that, is nothing short of a disaster.
Let me say it flat out: they shot themselves in the foot with the female lead. Boys like fighting, girls like love. Yes, there are exeptions, but this is a hard-wired biological reality.
By making this a Disney story with a princess, boys will not be fighting in the schoolyard over who gets to be the lead Jedi, they will not be demanding every toy in the collection, they will not be insisting to watch the movie over and over again, and they will not be living for the next sequal.
And neither will girls, because whether the engineers of our New World Order want to admit it or not, it is not what girls do.
I speak from frist hand knowledge. My nephew, a Star Wars nut, has moved on to other things. My niece has not caught the infection. She still likes Ariel.
So whereas they have made it profitable enough to keep the junk machine rolling on, they have cheated themselves out of billions of overall dollars in movie tickets, movie sales, and merchandise. Films that could have gone to the next level of international hit are mere footnote blockbusters.
They have basically remade the original films in everyway except the most important one: they are male fanstasies.
That is the truth and everyone knows it deep down.
Solo won't bomb. It's a Star Wars movie. It won't be a smash, but it won't be a bomb.
Then again, redoing 80% of the movie probably cost a pretty penny.
It will be interesting to see whether the TLJ backlash is enough to harm Solo, especially if it turns out to be awful. The brand recognition should be enough to save it, though its final budget is probably the most important variable. If it's in the range of "Most expensive feature film of all time", then I can believe the rumors that Disney is expecting it to bomb.
the numerous TLJ sucks videos on Youtube are famous for their snarky and very truthful revelations of why TLJ ( and seemingly the execs and director ) kinda said "eff -you " to fans of the Star Wars films and basically put out a shoddy film that really would be Battlefield Earth level bad were it not for the fact that its named Star Wars.
the movie was just .....bad ... and was terrible usary ....
Let me say it flat out: they shot themselves in the foot with the female lead. Boys like fighting, girls like love. Yes, there are exeptions, but this is a hard-wired biological reality.
Yawn...MRA nonsense...Yawn...
BTW, anyone remember when older generations weren't lame and didn't give a crap about "female leads?" When female leads were all the rage (Policewoman, Wonder Woman, Cagney and Lacey, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Alias, Dark Angel)? Every time I hear someone trot out this "female lead" garbage, I just go, "Found the millennial," because there isn't a person over the age of 40 who actually grew up with all of this stuff who actually thinks this way.
There is no backlash. The only people who've been attacking these movies are the usual suspects--MRA/Alt Right Trolls, fanboys, wannabe film directors and lazy YouTubers who realized that the best way to gain views is to be negative. Some of them have so little time on their hands, they've been launching troll down voting campaigns across many sites, including Rotten Tomatoes. When people are going through such extremes to try to tank an IP, this is when you know the backlash is empty and just based on pure emotion and nothing else.
This stuff is why I don't read user reviews on any site and only watch two YouTube channels when it comes to reviews. 95% of what passes for "reviews" is trash. Most of them are by bored trolls, people with an agenda or people just trying to milk views by being negative. There are very few people trying to give honest opinions anymore.
BTW, anyone remember when older generations weren't lame and didn't give a crap about "female leads?" When female leads were all the rage (Policewoman, Wonder Woman, Cagney and Lacey, Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess, Alias, Dark Angel)? Every time I hear someone trot out this "female lead" garbage, I just go, "Found the millennial," because there isn't a person over the age of 40 who actually grew up with all of this stuff who actually thinks this way.
Yup. I admit THE FORCE AWAKENS had some severe flaws, and THE LAST JEDI was the first STAR WARS movie ever that I outright disliked, but the female heroes are not the problem. Female heroes are great when they are well written. That's the problem. Plain and simple. The writing in the past two movies has been a mess.
Sure, when I was a kid, my heroes were Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Steve Austin, Chief Brody, and the list goes on. But my heroes were also Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Jaime Summers, Princess Leia, Marion Ravenwood, and the list goes on. It didn't hurt my masculinity a bit.
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