24 ms·

Why would the board be upset about star wars?

madrox 7y ago
The movies have generally underperformed and hasn't hit internationally like they hoped. They've had to revise a lot of their long term plans of Star Wars. It hasn't been great. Regardless, I don't think they're that upset. Star Wars hasn't been a home run, but it's been a solid double and net positive to Disney.
tomohawk 7y ago
The mismanagement of the franchise turned off so many people. This caused Solo to tank. This cause lots of major talent such as Lawrence Kasdan, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to leave the franchise. Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  What about Solo in particular? I thought Kasdan saved it from the comedy pair.
  - m-p-3 7y ago
    I think Solo was good, but it was a collateral damage from the fanbase.
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    They should have given Solo a year from The Last Jedi, especially after there were such vocal complaints about it. Instead they stuck to their May release date. A lot of people feel that hurt Solo’s box office a lot.
    - randycupertino 7y ago
      ^ agree. If anything is ruining Star Wars, it's Disney's non-stop focus of milking the franchise like a bottomless cash cow. They're rushing storylines, inventing characters just to sell merchandise (porg plushies!) and creating fans fatigue with movies coming out nonstop like clockwork every year.
      - Lazare 7y ago
        I don't disagree exactly, but: One: SW has always had a hefty focus on merchandising, and porgs are at least better than Ewoks. (Also, I kind of love the porgs, and may in fact own a porg plushie. And have a porg desktop wallpaper. And some porg vinyl figures on my desk.) Two: I think a release cycle of a movie every year could have been sustained with better movies. I, for one, would be thrilled if another Rogue One type movie was coming out this year. And the MCU (which I have to assume was their model here) has been doing okay with 2-3 movies per year. The fans didn't get fatigued by the quantity of movies but the quality IMO. I think their execution was absolutely terrible and the result was quite bad, but the strategy was fine.
        ta999999171 7y ago
        You can't have quality and quantity. Been a trope forever for a reason. Your plushies show your bias/that you are the new target market.
        snowwrestler 7y ago
        The thing that the MCU does—that Star Wars has not yet figured out how to do—is have multiple parallel stories that only occasionally intersect. Marvel can release a Guardians, Spider-Man, and Thor movie in the same year because those movies basically have nothing to do with each other. In contrast, every Star Wars movie is squeezed into a single linear storyline. Lucasfilm has created alt storylines but so far they are all in TV shows, not movies.
        Lazare 7y ago
        Yes, agreed. And I think some of the most compelling storylines have come from the TV shows (and computer games). I'm more interested in Bastila and Revan than the Skywalkers, at any rate. :)
- rblatz 7y ago
  I thought they got booted after the shitty rushed final season of GoT.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    Absolutely. They wanted out of GoT so bad (to work on Atar Wars I assume) they overshot themselves right out of future jobs. Nothing else explains just how poorly GoT was once the books ran out.
- bootloop 7y ago
  > Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time. They kind of forgot that they were busy.
Lazare 7y ago
Financially it's been fine, but the last movie was disliked by critics, the audience reviews were mixed at best, and the fanbase has been at each other throats. Hollywood tends to pay a lot of attention to CinemaScore (very roughly: exit polls of people seeing it on the opening night), and The Rise of Skywalker got the lowest CinemaScore (B+) of any live-action Star Wars movie - lower than Solo and the prequels. "They audience liked it ALMOST as much as the one with Jar-Jar!" is not what Disney wanted to hear, especially since that sort of thing will have huge flow on effects to the ongoing revenue stream (toys, theme park rides, merchandising). For example, I believe the newest Star Wars ride has sharply underperformed, and Disney leadership will probably believe (correctly) that the poor reception the latest movies got was a driving factor. And the box office take, while still very substantial, was underwhelming for what was meant to be the crowning glory of a 40 year franchise, and compares poorly to other end movies for big franchises. The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies. It's not that bad, and I'm sure it's fixable, and the Mandalorian is doing great, but MAN is it less than what they were hoping for. (And persistent rumours have it that Iger intervened directly into the creative process of The Rise of Skywalker late in the cycle. If true, that makes the disappointing TRoS results reflect on him...but I obviously have no idea if that's true.) That being said....I don't think Star Wars was bad enough to trigger this. CEOs typically can do much worse for much longer, and as others have noted, the choice of replacement (and the speed of the replacement) is mystifying. I would guess ill health, or maybe some sex scandal rather than poor performance being a factor.
- garmaine 7y ago
  > The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies. Sounds like they shouldn't care what the fans think. I mean, existing comic book readers aren't the target audience for the Marvel movies anymore. If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.
m-p-3 7y ago
To be honest I was underwhelmed by the last trilogy, and I'm no longer eager to see other Star Wars movies because of that.
- garmaine 7y ago
  To be honest, it was way better than the prequels...
  - irrational 7y ago
    That's not saying much ;-) The best part of the prequels was making out with my wife in the empty theater.
    - SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
      I thought it was the memes, seriously quotable movies though.
      - newsgremlin 7y ago
        As someone born in the 90s I actually enjoyed the prequel movies, being a kid and all. They are terribly campy but it has been the source of many in-jokes.
  - RichardCA 7y ago
    The prequels were problematic for many reasons but at least they flowed from one person's vision. The 6-9 trilogy suffered from too many people's ideas of what it was intended to be. There was no unifying vision.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > The 6-9 trilogy 7-9, presumably.
  - m-p-3 7y ago
    At least I had fun watching the prequels.
irrational 7y ago
The first movie I remember ever seeing was the first star wars movie at a drive-in when I was 5 years old. I love the Star Wars movies. But, I haven't even bothered to see the one that came out this past December. I'm not even sure of it's name. I was severely underwhelmed by the previous ones in the most recent trilogy. They weren't as bad as the prequels, but bad enough that I honestly don't care whether I see the most recent one or not.
- CDSlice 7y ago
  I would actually say that the latest one is better than The Force Awakens, and MUCH better than Last Jedi. Then again, I'm in my early 20s so I can't really compare it to the original movies.
- trustfundbaby 7y ago
  My exact sentiments. When Disney Plus came out, I actually attempted to watch the entire star wars lineup from start to finish, the prequels (episodes 4-6) were unwatchable, couldn't even get through those, but watching (more like sitting through) the last 2 reminded me of exactly why I wouldn't be seeing the latest one ...
  - zacharycohn 7y ago
    The Prequels were episodes 1-3. The Original Trilogy was episodes 4-6.
  - cable2600 7y ago
    Latest Star Wars films focused on diversity of actors rather than the plot and storyline because the original Star Wars was all white and only one woman in it. Disney tries to appease the SJWs in their films, not what the original fans want not what the children want and not what the average viewer wants. The same thing was tried in Ghostbusters and it was a flop as a reboot with all female Ghostbusters. The Mandorian was a hit because it followed the original Star Wars plot and storyline. It didn't focus on diversity, and instead focused on a good story. So Disney can still do Star Wars right if they do what they did in the Mandorian.
yabatopia 7y ago
That’s too bad. I was really looking forward to go watch another spin-off or trilogy about the gardener who knew the dentist of Han Solo. One can only hope that people finally get enough of the merciless milking of franchises.

The movies have generally underperformed and hasn't hit internationally like they hoped. They've had to revise a lot of their long term plans of Star Wars. It hasn't been great. Regardless, I don't think they're that upset. Star Wars hasn't been a home run, but it's been a solid double and net positive to Disney.

tomohawk 7y ago

The mismanagement of the franchise turned off so many people. This caused Solo to tank. This cause lots of major talent such as Lawrence Kasdan, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to leave the franchise. Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time.

selimthegrim 7y ago
What about Solo in particular? I thought Kasdan saved it from the comedy pair.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  I think Solo was good, but it was a collateral damage from the fanbase.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  They should have given Solo a year from The Last Jedi, especially after there were such vocal complaints about it. Instead they stuck to their May release date. A lot of people feel that hurt Solo’s box office a lot.
  - randycupertino 7y ago
    ^ agree. If anything is ruining Star Wars, it's Disney's non-stop focus of milking the franchise like a bottomless cash cow. They're rushing storylines, inventing characters just to sell merchandise (porg plushies!) and creating fans fatigue with movies coming out nonstop like clockwork every year.
    - Lazare 7y ago
      I don't disagree exactly, but: One: SW has always had a hefty focus on merchandising, and porgs are at least better than Ewoks. (Also, I kind of love the porgs, and may in fact own a porg plushie. And have a porg desktop wallpaper. And some porg vinyl figures on my desk.) Two: I think a release cycle of a movie every year could have been sustained with better movies. I, for one, would be thrilled if another Rogue One type movie was coming out this year. And the MCU (which I have to assume was their model here) has been doing okay with 2-3 movies per year. The fans didn't get fatigued by the quantity of movies but the quality IMO. I think their execution was absolutely terrible and the result was quite bad, but the strategy was fine.
      - ta999999171 7y ago
        You can't have quality and quantity. Been a trope forever for a reason. Your plushies show your bias/that you are the new target market.
      - snowwrestler 7y ago
        The thing that the MCU does—that Star Wars has not yet figured out how to do—is have multiple parallel stories that only occasionally intersect. Marvel can release a Guardians, Spider-Man, and Thor movie in the same year because those movies basically have nothing to do with each other. In contrast, every Star Wars movie is squeezed into a single linear storyline. Lucasfilm has created alt storylines but so far they are all in TV shows, not movies.
        Lazare 7y ago
        Yes, agreed. And I think some of the most compelling storylines have come from the TV shows (and computer games). I'm more interested in Bastila and Revan than the Skywalkers, at any rate. :)
rblatz 7y ago
I thought they got booted after the shitty rushed final season of GoT.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Absolutely. They wanted out of GoT so bad (to work on Atar Wars I assume) they overshot themselves right out of future jobs. Nothing else explains just how poorly GoT was once the books ran out.
bootloop 7y ago
> Benioff and Weiss were slated to do a whole new trilogy for Star Wars, but they suddenly realized they didn't have time. They kind of forgot that they were busy.

Lazare 7y ago

Financially it's been fine, but the last movie was disliked by critics, the audience reviews were mixed at best, and the fanbase has been at each other throats. Hollywood tends to pay a lot of attention to CinemaScore (very roughly: exit polls of people seeing it on the opening night), and The Rise of Skywalker got the lowest CinemaScore (B+) of any live-action Star Wars movie - lower than Solo and the prequels. "They audience liked it ALMOST as much as the one with Jar-Jar!" is not what Disney wanted to hear, especially since that sort of thing will have huge flow on effects to the ongoing revenue stream (toys, theme park rides, merchandising). For example, I believe the newest Star Wars ride has sharply underperformed, and Disney leadership will probably believe (correctly) that the poor reception the latest movies got was a driving factor. And the box office take, while still very substantial, was underwhelming for what was meant to be the crowning glory of a 40 year franchise, and compares poorly to other end movies for big franchises. The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies. It's not that bad, and I'm sure it's fixable, and the Mandalorian is doing great, but MAN is it less than what they were hoping for. (And persistent rumours have it that Iger intervened directly into the creative process of The Rise of Skywalker late in the cycle. If true, that makes the disappointing TRoS results reflect on him...but I obviously have no idea if that's true.) That being said....I don't think Star Wars was bad enough to trigger this. CEOs typically can do much worse for much longer, and as others have noted, the choice of replacement (and the speed of the replacement) is mystifying. I would guess ill health, or maybe some sex scandal rather than poor performance being a factor.

garmaine 7y ago
> The "point" of buying Lucasarts from Disnye's point of view was to apply a lot of money and some of the magic they've used on the Marvel franchise to make a truly vast amount of money, get a bunch of critical acclaim, and set up the franchise as a money spinning machine that will keep filling theatres for spinoff movies every year forever. Instead they merely made a very large amount of money, the critics said the last movie stunk, and the fanbase seems deeply disinterested in more movies, which had led to them cancelling a bunch of planned movies. Sounds like they shouldn't care what the fans think. I mean, existing comic book readers aren't the target audience for the Marvel movies anymore. If they want Star Wars to reach similar success, then they need to build a loyal fan base an order of magnitude larger, of which traditional fans make up only a small amount.

m-p-3 7y ago

To be honest I was underwhelmed by the last trilogy, and I'm no longer eager to see other Star Wars movies because of that.

garmaine 7y ago
To be honest, it was way better than the prequels...
- irrational 7y ago
  That's not saying much ;-) The best part of the prequels was making out with my wife in the empty theater.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 7y ago
    I thought it was the memes, seriously quotable movies though.
    - newsgremlin 7y ago
      As someone born in the 90s I actually enjoyed the prequel movies, being a kid and all. They are terribly campy but it has been the source of many in-jokes.
- RichardCA 7y ago
  The prequels were problematic for many reasons but at least they flowed from one person's vision. The 6-9 trilogy suffered from too many people's ideas of what it was intended to be. There was no unifying vision.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The 6-9 trilogy 7-9, presumably.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  At least I had fun watching the prequels.

irrational 7y ago

The first movie I remember ever seeing was the first star wars movie at a drive-in when I was 5 years old. I love the Star Wars movies. But, I haven't even bothered to see the one that came out this past December. I'm not even sure of it's name. I was severely underwhelmed by the previous ones in the most recent trilogy. They weren't as bad as the prequels, but bad enough that I honestly don't care whether I see the most recent one or not.

CDSlice 7y ago
I would actually say that the latest one is better than The Force Awakens, and MUCH better than Last Jedi. Then again, I'm in my early 20s so I can't really compare it to the original movies.
trustfundbaby 7y ago
My exact sentiments. When Disney Plus came out, I actually attempted to watch the entire star wars lineup from start to finish, the prequels (episodes 4-6) were unwatchable, couldn't even get through those, but watching (more like sitting through) the last 2 reminded me of exactly why I wouldn't be seeing the latest one ...
- zacharycohn 7y ago
  The Prequels were episodes 1-3. The Original Trilogy was episodes 4-6.
- cable2600 7y ago
  Latest Star Wars films focused on diversity of actors rather than the plot and storyline because the original Star Wars was all white and only one woman in it. Disney tries to appease the SJWs in their films, not what the original fans want not what the children want and not what the average viewer wants. The same thing was tried in Ghostbusters and it was a flop as a reboot with all female Ghostbusters. The Mandorian was a hit because it followed the original Star Wars plot and storyline. It didn't focus on diversity, and instead focused on a good story. So Disney can still do Star Wars right if they do what they did in the Mandorian.

yabatopia 7y ago

That’s too bad. I was really looking forward to go watch another spin-off or trilogy about the gardener who knew the dentist of Han Solo. One can only hope that people finally get enough of the merciless milking of franchises.