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Star Wars IX The Rise of Skywalker (JJ Abrams 2019)


Jay

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BvS was also horrible. It was only made because of Snyder's obsession with Frank Miller's classic graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, probably because it provided him the opportunity of showing an older, grisly, violent, darker and murderer Batman.

 

If the morons actually wanted to build a MCU-like franchise with DC characters, they should've made not Batman v Superman, but rather Batman AND Superman. Or, if they want to keep up with The Dark Knight/Man of Steel, maybe The World's Finest.

 

Just think about it: Batman is investigating some criminal scheme by the famous billionaire Lex Luthor, beloved by the media and the audiences (in this version, he could be an Elon Musk or Tim Cook style of billionaire). Superman is investigating it too, with his journalist persona Clark Kent. They bump into each other, and there's initially distrust between the two heroes - Bruce because of the Battle of Metropolis, and Clark because of Bats' violent methods (like on the actual movie). But they leave their differents aside and work together to thwart Lex' plan. Maybe he can be building his own army of super-heroes with the help of the American goverment to replace Superman (who they don't trust), with supers they can put under their control. This actually happens on DC's comics and TV shows, the Project Cadmus.

 

After a battle on which the two heroes team up with Wonder Woman to defeat the Cadmus fake supers, Lex is put in jail and the goverment agrees to work with the newly formed trinity. However, a research on Lexcorp's database shows that, to develop Cadmus, Lex was using alien tech... From the planet Apokolips, home of the legendary warlord Darkside.

 

Knowing that, for their upcoming battle with Darkseid's forces, they'll need more help, the trinity starts requesting help from Earth's greatest super-heroes. Then, a montage showing Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and Hawkwoman going to the new formed Hall of Justice. End Credits.

 

So much better than trying to stuff Miller's TDKR, Death of Superman and all of Snyder's edgelord nonsense inside one movie.

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Yes, but silly films like Playmobil: The Movie and Jumanji: The Next Level are scored higher. Says nothing about the quality of the films, but the audience receptivity.

 

When the prequels were released, audiences loved them, they were popular despite the issues and flaws they had. Nowadays, Star Wars has been tainted by two things: A saturation of the market with multiple Star Wars projects, and the divisive nature of The Last Jedi. It's not special anymore.

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If there was any doubt about it, now it's pretty much guaranteed that TROS will have a lower opening weekend than the other two ST movies.

 

The movie had an opening day on US of $90m, which is decent (second best opening day of 2019, aside only from Endgame's record setting $158m, and sixth best of all time) , but still below TFA's $119m and TLJ's $104m.

 

For the opening weekend, analysts are predicting an opening between $185m and $195m, again, below the other two movies (TFA opened with $248m and TLJ with $220m). And, if TROS somehow opens below $190m, it'll have a lower opening weekend than Age of Ultron and The Lion King remake (both with $191m). Imagining an opening of $190m and a post-opening performance like TLJ, the movie will end its career with $535m, below 2019's TLK, far behind TLJ ($620m) and, the worst part, about the same as Rogue One, which would make everything even more humiliating. 

 

These are huge numbers, of course, and the movie will take its place among the biggest opening weekends and final (non adjusted) box office numbers of all time. But still, when compared to the previous two movies and considering the reviews and audience's response, it'll be, well... very disappointing.

 

The Mouse is merciless, and does not forgive.

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20 hours ago, Arpy said:

Yes, but silly films like Playmobil: The Movie and Jumanji: The Next Level are scored higher. Says nothing about the quality of the films, but the audience receptivity.

 

Both of these films achieved what they set out to do.

Rise Of Skywalker didn't set out to shit on Star Wars, but it did.

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On 12/22/2019 at 5:02 AM, Edmilson said:

For the opening weekend, analysts are predicting an opening between $185m and $195m

 

Box Office: ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Soars to $176 Million

 

(though the 380 Mio. globally should make Disney happy)

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7 hours ago, publicist said:

 

Box Office: ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Soars to $176 Million

 

(though the 380 Mio. globally should make Disney happy)

 

It had a smaller opening weekend on North America than Captain America: Civil War, all four Avengers movies, The Lion King remake and even Incredibles 2 (all Disney, but anyway). Adjusted for inflation, it probably took even less people to theaters this weekend than 2017 Beauty and the Beast.

 

Worldwide, its opening was not only far behind the other 2 ST movies, but also behind even Captain Marvel, Batman v Superman and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, the latter of which came out in 2011, when ticket prices were smaller than today.

 

Paraphrasing Thanos: "Fun isn't something one considers when watching Star Wars movies underperform. But this... does bring a smile to my face".

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9 minutes ago, publicist said:

So you think Disney will take a big loss now?

 

Oh, yeah, sure, TROS will make them loose more money than Tomorrowland, John Carter and A Wrinkle in Time combined, what a bomb...

 

Read my post again and see that I wrote "underperform" and not "bomb". There's a difference between them. 

 

One example, Batman v Superman underperformed. It made WB about $100m in profit according to Deadline, but still fell short of the billion mark, had terrible reviews and a divisive audience response. Justice League, on the other hand, outright bombed, because the movie made WB loose tons of money - some sources say over $300m.

 

On TROS' case, the movie is not going to be a bomb, it'll certainly be over the $1b mark and will generate some profit for Disney. It'll probably be their third biggest movie of the year, behind Endgame and TLK. 

 

But, see, when you go from opening with record-setting $248m on US/$530m worldwide to (still excellent) $220m US/$450M worldwide to $176m US/380m WW, and combining it with Solo's terrible performance (it was utterly ignored overseas and made less on the US than A Star is Born and Ant-Man and the Wasp), well... it does indicate some growing disinterest with SW movies on theaters, which can create a bigger problem not for TROS by itself, but for next movies.


Remember: DC went from BvS snatching one of the biggest opening weekends worldwide of all time to JL being a humiliating failure.

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On SW's case? I guess maybe let the brand rest for a while.

 

Let people miss Star Wars, the adventures on the galaxy, the lightsaber fights, the space battles, the interesting new planets and alien species, the iconic characters... Just let it take a break for a while. 

 

After all, despite ROTJ's reception, when TPM came out 16 years later there was enourmous hype surrounding the movie, which made almost $1b (second biggest movie of all time after Titanic at the time). The same thing on the 10 year interval between the prequels and the Disney era.

 

The best thing for SW to do right now is to stay away from theaters for a while, keeping the brand alive through the TV shows, comics and games. Then, on 2029, the saga makes its glorious return to the big screen.

 

Disney will survive until then, they have the MCU, Pixar, countless Avatar sequels and a lot of animated classic they have yet to make live action remakes.

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Pardon me from quoting myself, but it's a censored version of what I posted on the other threads!

 

Quote

That’s not a perfect movie, but it ends The Skywalker Saga very well.

 

TLJ was so empty that they had really just one last movie to end the saga properly according to Lucas’s vision.

 

What a race, even if there are some futile details here and there!

 

My god, TLJ prepared us so badly for this movie... So if I have just one advice... go with spoilers before going to theater! Or make a quick visit to Wookiepedia... Read Plagueis, Sidious, Rey and Kylo Ren's articles. The Jedi, the Sith... that's not so easy to understand after all! ;)

 

Some parts of the movie go so fast that knowing in advance, a little bit, what's going on will help you to understand. I swear!

 

Merry X mas group!

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8 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Let people miss Star Wars, the adventures on the galaxy, the lightsaber fights, the space battles, the interesting new planets and alien species, the iconic characters... Just let it take a break for a while. 

 

Or maybe just let it die? Kill it, if you have to.

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The basic issue is that, if Kylo is the Supreme Leader and therefore the main antagonist of the piece, he cannot undergo a morally-questionable-but-fan-satiating redemption arc.

 

A genuine sequel to The Last Jedi would have seen Ren imprisoned, killed or otherwise dying as a villain.

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10 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

The basic issue is that, if Kylo is the Supreme Leader and therefore the main antagonist of the piece, he cannot undergo a morally-questionable-but-fan-satiating redemption arc.

 

A genuine sequel to The Last Jedi would have seen Ren imprisoned, killed or otherwise dying as a villain.

 

And there wouldn't be absolutely any problem with that

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13 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

The basic issue is that, if Kylo is the Supreme Leader and therefore the main antagonist of the piece, he cannot undergo a morally-questionable-but-fan-satiating redemption arc.

 

A genuine sequel to The Last Jedi would have seen Ren imprisoned, killed or otherwise dying as a villain.


I could still buy some kind of final understanding on Ren’s part, perhaps some kind of revelation of the suffering and pain that dynastic wars cause the common people. But no single gesture could ever outweigh the murder of billions of innocent people that he was complicit in. 
 

Actually the whole film should’ve been about how damaging bloodlines and dynasties are, and how much pointless bloodshed results from it. But Game of Thrones did that with Daenerys and look how the fans reacted to that. 🤷‍♂️

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1 hour ago, Bespin said:

It’s fun how this plenty of « Star Trek fans » forum don’t understand Star Wars. Shut the fuck up you dumb Trekkies! 🙅‍♀️

 

Reported to the moderators. 

 

You really wanna continue with this game of calling everyone who has an opinion with you a dumb fuck?

 

Might I suggest you get back on your medication?

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Seriously Bespin, let's discuss entertainment without insulting other members who feel differently than you do. Be civil or don't say anything at all! 

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I enjoyed this, probably more then most, but I still had a lot of issues, particularly with how they handled The Last Jedi stuff. I also thought that Palpatine's return thematically didn't make as much sense as it could have. I will say that the last scene got to me, it helps that most of the performances were pretty good, and John Williams's score was fantastic as ever, but it's clear that they should have had properly plotted out this trilogy from the start. In the long run, it really felt all disconnected.

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  • 2 months later...

Rewatched today and did a live text commentary on Discord. I might mine that to form more coherent thoughts but I have the perfect word to mold that all into: bleh.

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Looking back, I think a lot people were happy that there was some connection between female characters in TFA. You don't see a lot of that in the previous six. The scene with Rey and Maz was genuinely moving.

 

https://youtu.be/1N-ORTaJM3o?t=182

The music, the mood & Ridley's performance were all perfect. It's a shame that since VII, whenever Rey is with a female character, she or the other character just dumps info. :(

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After introducing a wonderful new trio of hero characters in episode 7 the writers of the two followup films ended up having no idea what to do with them and worse, seemed to actively reboot their dreams and motivations between each film

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18 minutes ago, Holko said:

Except TLJ picks up perfectly where TFA left them [...] and challenges them, making them change and grow.

 

and gives us the stupid "is Rey going to go evil and join Kylo Ren?" tease that gave JJ Abrams license to go that route with The Rise of Skywalker.

 

Rey going evil and Kylo going good should never have been a thing in the course of this trilogy, even just as a misdirect. Rey is a quintessentially good person in The Force Awakens: she's not going to turn evil in the sequels just 'cause; and Kylo is a bad person. He's not gonna become good just because he's appearantly a mamma's boy.

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Yeah, I never got why people got angry at the handling of Luke. Him being on self-imposed exile was promised to us in The Force Awakens, and Johnson followed up on that promise. I do think maybe his death should have been in Episode IX, though.

 

But the movie also teases a lot of stuff that's too stupid even just as a misdirect: "is Rey going to go evil?" - no, of course she's not; "is Kylo going to turn good?" - most certainly not; "who are Rey's parents?" - who cares?!; "has Luke secretly gone bad?", etc...

 

Plus, it would have been much more powerful if the conclusion of the film was that the Jedi should indeed end.

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It would've been more interesting had Rey turned to the Dark Side and have that conflict within her, whilst Ben was the true Skywalker who wrestled with that and overcame it, and it was his duty to sway Rey from that evil. RJ even hinted at Rey's powers and how easily she went to the darkness. 

 

The problem is, neither TLJ or TRoS couldn't explore those more interesting nuggets of character development for sake of time and the constraints of making a Star Wars movie that wouldn't piss off its fan base.

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5 hours ago, Arpy said:

RJ even hinted at Rey's powers and how easily she went to the darkness. 

 

In an abstract sequence where her attention is drawn to a black pore. I'm going to need much, much more than that to buy into the idea that a good-natured character is going to go evil. If you're going to go that route, you need to set it up clearly in the first film of your trilogy, and you need to ground it in something more tangiable than "blah blah dark side."

 

Its a dumb idea, and in The Rise of Skywalker Daisy Ridley (who's otherwise great in the role) is clearly at a loss in how to play it. Her solution to Rey's supposedly growing dark impulses is to put on a deer-in-the-headlamps look over and over again, and gets old pretty quickly.

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