STAR WARS EPISODE VIII: THE LAST JEDI - Toy Sales Fall

[Eric W.]

Sorry if repeat here. I've not been able to keep up with the discussion as well as I would have liked.






Watch this and listen to it. This isn't edited or doctored video. No acting by Hamill, either. This is him before and after he saw the movie and his visceral reaction. Unreal. It speaks volumes.


Probably already been discussed: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ma ... f99e16864d



What I can't help but notice is some people who have been critical of the new movie eventually doing some incredible flip flops. The conspiracy theory on that is that "the Mouse" might be reaching out. I still can't figure out how a bunch of critics are giving it high praise and a lot of the user and fan base by and large isn't. That's unusual. It's usually the other way around and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if some Mouse payola or something else is in the mix somewhere.

Hamill has nothing to lose at this point and I really feel sorry for him and agree with him 100 percent on all of this.

Now, if he flip flops or softens considerably in the next few weeks then I'm signing off on the "Mouse reaching out" concept.



Not that they have to. Let's face it. They can print money into eternity no matter what. There may be controversy but everyone will keep buying tickets for anything Star Wars from here into eternity and buying the merchandise in droves. Disney knows it.

[AndyDursin]

Thanks for posting that Eric. I think Hamill realized straight away what the reaction to this film would be.

It is curious to me how even one box-office analyst I read has stopped comparing this movie's box-office performance to THE FORCE AWAKENS. Now all of his posts use ROGUE ONE as a measuring stick. Talk about moving the goal posts -- the 2nd part of the "official Star Wars sequel trilogy" is no longer being matched up with its predecessor, but rather a one-off "standalone" with a no-name cast and mostly all-new characters.

His breathless tweets don't tell you LAST JEDI is now running $140 million UNDER Force Awakens at this precise point of time, but rather that it's 30% ahead of ROGUE ONE -- why?

[KevinEK]

There's an odd article at EW about one of the explosion sequences in the movie - it's a real headscratcher for anyone who knows anything about the Star Wars films in general.
The point of the article is to say that the cruiser/destroyer kaboom, which has an intentional silent moment before sound returns to the mix, is somehow so confusing for fans that theaters are posting signs to tell them this is not a glitch. (A photo of one such sign is included) The article also discusses this sound design as an innovative new idea from Rian Johnson, that is so unprecedented that it's taking the fans some time to realize what it is.

The article appears to be confused on two fronts.

First, the only reason some fans are wondering about the sound issues in the new movie is because of the massive publicity given to a disastrous opening night showing in Burbank. At that showing, the sound was badly muffled and got increasingly worse until the audience began loudly complaining and the theater stopped the screening to fix the problem. More complaining then happened when the theater refused to restart the screening (obviously because they didn't want to delay any other showings that night, which were already sold) and instead offered refunds. So it makes sense that other fans have been on the lookout for any sound anomalies, real or imagined.

Second, the moment in question, where a massive explosion is initially handled with just visuals and no sound effects, is not an innovative creation. It's a lift from 2002's Attack of the Clones, where Jango Fett drops seismic charges to try to rid himself of a pursuing Obi-Wan. It's a nice moment in the earlier movie, designed by Ben Burtt to start as a vacuum of sound and then get a punctuation from a loud guitar string. (They actually had Williams score the moment and then dropped the music out as it was more effective without effects or music). The new moment is a fun one, but it's more of a callback and frankly a pointless exercise, in that they could have executed that maneuver much earlier in the film and not wasted most of their ships.

[Eric Paddon]

the cruiser/destroyer kaboom, which has an intentional silent moment before sound returns to the mix, is somehow so confusing for fans that theaters are posting signs to tell them this is not a glitch.

[Monterey Jack]

Yeah, my theater had leaflets at the ticket counter "warning" about the five seconds of dead silence at that moment, like it was the FIRST MOVIE EVER to drop all of the sound in favor of nothing. Sadly, today's audiences are so accustomed to a deafening, 5.1 subwoofer assault at all times that any moment of genuine quiet might actually be startling enough to make dumber people question if it's just a glitch in the sound system.

[AndyDursin]

The point of the article is to say that the cruiser/destroyer kaboom, which has an intentional silent moment before sound returns to the mix, is somehow so confusing for fans that theaters are posting signs to tell them this is not a glitch. (A photo of one such sign is included) The article also discusses this sound design as an innovative new idea from Rian Johnson, that is so unprecedented that it's taking the fans some time to realize what it is.

The only innovation Johnson brought to this series was his inane humor and terrible writing in general.

A notice was also posted outside my theater about that "moment". I was dumbfounded afterwards why they bothered -- I expected some 5-minute sequence without sound, not something that's been done before and would never send anyone out to the lobby to find out what's wrong. I sit through movies with STATIC booming out of the left-hand side of the screen where I'm the only person to ever get up and complain.

[Paul MacLean]

And anyway, Arthur Penn faded out the dialog and sound effects in the Washita massacre scene in Little Big Man...nearly half a century ago.

[AndyDursin]

Mickey, Goofy and Donald must have paid a visit to Senor Skywalker's abode. It's OK, Mark -- we all know how you REALLY feel.

http://deadline.com/2017/12/mark-hamill ... 202232760/

[mkaroly]

Mickey, Goofy and Donald must have paid a visit to Senor Skywalker's abode. It's OK, Mark -- we all know how you REALLY feel.

http://deadline.com/2017/12/mark-hamill ... 202232760/

I lost a little respect there for Mark Hamill for backtracking.

[AndyDursin]

Same here, though one wonders if he violated something in his contract, someplace, by being so atypically "free and open" about the film.

Too late to walk it back anyway.

[KevinEK]

This is the same thing that happened when George Lucas made the crack about selling out his Star Wars characters and materials "to the white slavers." But that walk-back happened at lightspeed compared to this one.

This time, it sounds like Hamill realized he could be risking his future income from the one or two-scene Force Ghost cameos he expects to be doing in the upcoming episodes. In the end, his new Tweet is really about the money.

The earlier Tweets were his honest appraisal of the difficulties he had in dealing with Johnson's turgid script and in playing a completely new character named "Luke" who had nothing to do with the one he'd played for three movies in the 70s and 80s. Hamill's instincts there were correct. The arc of the Luke character in the original trilogy is that of the boy who becomes a man - it's the same basic arc as Lucas' only other directorial efforts. And the end of that arc was the notion that Luke will not repeat the mistakes of the past, and that there is "A New Hope" in his inherent decency and strength in the Force, etc. The logical arc for that character would be to continue into becoming a Jedi Master and helping to re-establish the notion of the Jedi Knights as "guardians of peace and justice". Johnson's odd take on Luke is that he somehow had a bad day or two and decided he'd just kill his primary apprentice and then quit everything to go sulk for the next 30 years. Johnson thought he was drawing a parallel to Obi Wan and Yoda going into hiding. But that's not so - the earlier Masters went into hiding to preserve the Jedi and to make sure when Luke and Leia came of age, they could still be there to help them. Neither of them ever quit. The character established in the original trilogy would not have quit either.

The only way Johnson's new and degraded version of Luke Skywalker works is if we really skew the way anyone would ever see him. In other words, "from a certain point of view."

As I see where these movies are going, I think it likely that I'll just fall back on my existing discs of the movies Lucas made - in the same way that the Star Trek series and original films are unchanged by the bizarre reboot choices we've seen over the past ten years.


As a sidenote, I'm reading that Disney and Lucasfilm are extremely worried about the Han Solo reboot movie - that after the major fall-off for TLJ, they could well be looking at a massive box office bomb. If that's the case, that may well be an extremely healthy sign and a wake-up call for these guys.

[Eric W.]

I definitely can see the argument where Hamill going off the way he did wasn't the most professional thing to do in the world by a mile but honestly?

I think the Mouse has been reaching out in some form of fashion with the bizarre degree of backtracks and outright flip flops I've seen. I can't prove it and yeah it's a bit conspiratorial and all but this is the same Disney that was even able to get another juggernaut like EA to blink on its ghastly lootbox gambling racket on its Star Wars Battlefront 2 videogame so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Yes, I'm that cynical.

[Paul MacLean]

It's clear Lucas was under the impression episodes 7-9 would adhere to (or at least acknowledge) the story outlines he had created for them.

So sad.

[Paul MacLean]

Not a hit in the Peoples' Republic...

http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywo ... y,amp.html

[AndyDursin]

Toy sales fell big time -- kids are smarter than adults and don't care about this series! Aging fanboys still buying in droves but then the demand drops off...can't imagine Disney is going to be happy but this is the bed they've made.

According to the article kids aren't going to the movies either in same numbers....as part of the drop off. And that's the biggest problem of all.

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/arti ... ssion=true