Quote from: deadDMwalking;1112186If you want to bring film critics into it, not just marketing dollars, Star Wars the Force Awakens has a 93% meta-critic score (tied with the original Star Wars in 1977) and The Last Jedi has a 91% (better than Return of the Jedi).  

In terms of Box Office Gross, the original trilogy combined for $1.9 Billion in world-wide gross; The Force Awakens grossed more than $2 Billion by itself.  

There are a lot of lies you have to tell yourself to see Star Wars as a 'failure'.

Seriously? You're bringing up critic scores in 2019 as a mark of popularity and success? In an age when any critic score above 90 all but guarantees that the movie is a pile of steaming social-justice garbage (goes up to 100% when the fan score is half that)?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1112577Seriously? You're bringing up critic scores in 2019 as a mark of popularity and success? In an age when any critic score above 90 all but guarantees that the movie is a pile of steaming social-justice garbage (goes up to 100% when the fan score is half that)?

I'm saying that Star Wars is still popular, just not the way it was with my generation.  Did you know that people who were 8 or 9 years old in 1999 enjoyed Pod Racing and Jar-Jar Binks?  Did you know that people who are 8 or 9 right now like Porgs?

When Star Wars came out in the 70s and 80s it was squarely aimed at people like me (well, by the time Jedi hit theaters, anyway) and I think it's fair to say that people like me expected the Prequels and now the Sequels to be aimed at people who have loved Star Wars their entire life.  And it wasn't.  

Star Wars continues to be wildly popular.  When I go to places with other adults I frequently see people wearing Star Wars t-shirts.  And the children LOVE Star Wars.  

I understand that people get resentful when they feel like they've been abandoned by a franchise that they have a deep attachment to, and I don't blame them for that.  But when someone tries to ignore the reality around them, of course I'm going to call them back to facts and objective measurements.  

What do you think is a good measure of popularity and success besides 'what your gut says'?

My child was 'meh' on The Force Awakens and HATED The Jast Jedi.  He was 8 & 10 when they came out.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1111918After TLJ, I skipped Solo and won't be seeing Rise of Skywalker.

Solo was actually much better than I expected. I should have saved my money on TLJ though. With Rise of Skywalker, I'll wait until some decent quality reviews weigh in before choosing whether to watch this in Theatres or not. TLJ totally ripped off my Star Wars game from 2001-2002 where I created some graphics of X-wing Fighters dogfighting TIE fighters at a Coastal installation...

Quote from: S'mon;1112602My child was 'meh' on The Force Awakens and HATED The Jast Jedi.  He was 8 & 10 when they came out.

My son got up and walked out after 2-minutes of TLJ. I had to tell my daughter to shut up, because she was laughing so hard at how stupid it was... I just sat there... and winced scene-after-scene...

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1112588I'm saying that Star Wars is still popular....Star Wars continues to be wildly popular....

Good stories are well received because they communicate the truth. The original Star Wars was a classic story of good vs evil. TLJ on the other hand was strictly political propaganda, which means it is filled with half-truths and distortions of reality, which is why it gets very mixed reviews at best. Star Wars merchandise is NOT selling, and Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland is a ghost town.

The target audience, liberal extremists, don't produce very many children. They are literally killing themselves off.

Public schools in my hometown (Pasadena) are shutting down (they recently voted to close 3 elementary schools and will reconvene to shut down a number of middle and high schools in an attempt to keep from going under) because tax-payers are fleeing the state (high taxes), the diehard liberals who remain don't create very many children, and the wealthy conservatives that remain send their children to charter schools. Similarly numerous liberal colleges have shut down since 2016; Hampshire college for example has had their enrollment drop from 1200 to 600 students -- in Fall 2019 they had only 13 new students.

Unless there is a sudden change of course for Star Wars, it is doomed to total failure and will fade into obscurity, and it may already be too late since there is plenty of competition for entertainment dollars out there. You can't cut your customer base in half, especially when your preferred half is going extinct.

The only reason the Star Wars sequels will be remembered in 20 or 30 years, will be because they have Star Wars in the title. I don't expect anyone will give two shits about The Force Awakens 25th anniversary.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1112622Public schools in my hometown (Pasadena) are shutting down (they recently voted to close 3 elementary schools and will reconvene to shut down a number of middle and high schools in an attempt to keep from going under) because tax-payers are fleeing the state (high taxes), the diehard liberals who remain don't create very many children, and the wealthy conservatives that remain send their children to charter schools.

OR there's a population growth peak in 1992 you can see here.  It's not the BABY BOOM but it has a lot of things in common.

QuoteMillennials are sometimes referred to as "echo boomers" due to a major surge in birth rates in the 1980s and 1990s, and because millennials are often the children of the baby boomers.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1112635OR there's a population growth peak in 1992 you can see here.  It's not the BABY BOOM but it has a lot of things in common.

Why are you an apologist for the biggest group of assholes on the planet?

Quote from: GameDaddy;1112604Solo was actually much better than I expected. I should have saved my money on TLJ though. With Rise of Skywalker, I'll wait until some decent quality reviews weigh in before choosing whether to watch this in Theatres or not. TLJ totally ripped off my Star Wars game from 2001-2002 where I created some graphics of X-wing Fighters dogfighting TIE fighters at a Coastal installation...

Sure, just, see thread title. Why be the customer of a company that loudly proclaims that it doesn't want me as a customer? Even if Rise of Skywalker is great, I'm not going. Though I can't imagine what anyone could do to effectively salvage the flaming dumpster full of poo that was the end of TLJ. Pretending it never happened, maybe, but Carrie Fisher is gone now.

I'll take Rogue One as an imperfect-but-lovable last Star Wars film, say check please, and spend my money and time on something else.

Not to begrudge you if you enjoy the product and want more -- go be happy. God knows life is short and hard enough as it is.

The only way to fix Star Wars now is for Disney to sell it off to people who are not political fanatics, have these people say the Disney canon is false, fire Kathleen, fire her followers, bring back the expanded universe as canon as it was, and continue on a few thousand years later in the future of Star Wars.  Given Knights of the Old Republic was four thousand years in the past it would be nice to see Star Wars four thousand years after the first trilogy.  New jedis, new siths, and new stories of good vs evil to tell to the next generation without bullshit that politics bring.  Keep it with the classical hero of the thousand faces structure, but without it being a the repeat of the first trilogy.

EDIT: Actually I am going to take that idea for my own setting and skip the Star Wars bit.

Oh my, this might be a long reply from me, as there are a bunch of things to address:

First, i have seen the highly political issue from both sides.
Sure, you may also claim that it is an entirely non-political issue, as the ones flinging shit on each other is just a bunch of baboons, claiming to be "left" or "right", when in reality they are a mix of scammers, trollers, flamers, and wannabees ...
Well, there is indeed a bunch on the left and the right as well, that has fallen for the lies, or being pushed into either camp by rabid proponents from the opposite side.

Oh, and the two parties are flinging the shit on those on the other side of the fence ... the problem is, the fence is not where they think it is.
Their own extremists has over the years moved the fence to exclude more and more people, so by now, they are just as often flinging their shit on the large middleground, and even on people that used to belong to their own group ... (extremists eat their own, and so on).

More than a year ago, i hadn't been to a cinema for years(decades?), the last i watched might have been Ang Lee's HULK....
But then, i got the opportunity to go to the cinemas with someone else ... and the first two movies i chose, was (political) statements as much as that i actually wanted to see them.
The two movies were Alita(i refuse to use the full title, as the director put it in the wrong order) and Captain Marvel.
I truly liked them both, Despite what jerks and oversensitive types had claimed about them.
Yes, both sides have jerks and oversensitive types.
Now, do not insult me by thinking i've watched the Ghostbusters  ... ugh ... "reboot".
I haven't, and i do not plan to, either.
I'm looking forward to GbIII, though. ^_^

By now, you may grasp where i stand politically.
I say i'm a leftie, but that is mainly for the ideals, as i am fully aware that reality requires different political structures for different areas and different situations.

Is there a "culture war"?
If you call monkeys flinging shit on each other, and some protecting what they think is their territories from "the other side" as "culture war" ... then yes.
If not ... then no.
I'd say no.

If you're a die-hard fan, then you might buy things even if you don't really want those things, yes.
If you are less obsessed, though, then you may be more picky.
I'm extremely picky, but it happens that i buy things to see if they is as bad as they are claimed.
(By the way, in comics, the first iteration of "Unstoppable Wasp" sucked, the first iteration of Gwenpool (not counting #0) was actually great, first iteration of the "new Champions" was decent, but not great, the second thus far seem better, first iteration of Kamala Marvel ... was good, the second thus far seem good as well .... and in the recent iteration of Captain Marvel has thus far managed to squander the use of the Nuclear Man ... which was not very good.)

Essentially, i do as i like, and occasionally i end up buying rubbish, and occasionally, something proves to be far better than i expected.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1112588Did you know that people who are 8 or 9 right now like Porgs?

Porgs were the best part of TLJ! Their acting outshone the rest of the cast!

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1112588Star Wars continues to be wildly popular.  When I go to places with other adults I frequently see people wearing Star Wars t-shirts.  And the children LOVE Star Wars.

This is my experience as well.

It's also why its so important for SJWs to shitfest Star Wars. It grants them a major cultural foothold, especially upon children. SJWs only need GenX and older to STFU and be scared of getting fired for wrongthink, but their real focus is indoctrination of GenZ and "Alphas" (the little kids). Star Wars is just another SJW disease vector.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1112622Star Wars merchandise is NOT selling, and Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland is a ghost town.

Links? I've only heard that Disneyland's wait times are getting worse and they raised the ticket prices because attendance was so high.

Quote from: Catelf;1112652Is there a "culture war"?
If you call monkeys flinging shit on each other, and some protecting what they think is their territories from "the other side" as "culture war" ... then yes.
If not ... then no.
I'd say no.

The right calls it a "culture war", while its really just "cultural domination" by leftists who have been incredibly successful in destroying America's cultural and social fabric and rewriting the culture in their image through their dominion of media companies, academia and social media tech titans.

Cloyer Bulse is right. The Disney blogs are having "clap for tinkerbell" fanatics going after fans who deeply believe in Disney, and stake their businesses on in (like travel bookings), howling that there needs to be a course correction. Youtube has umpteen videos -- on articles -- charting the fall, so much so even big business names like Forbes is commenting on the dumpster fires. Teachers and toy retailers are noticing the dearth of youth interest in Star Wars.

Space Horsies. "Always, I want to be with you..."

Quote from: Snowman0147;1112648The only way to fix Star Wars now is for Disney to sell it off to people who are not political fanatics, have these people say the Disney canon is false, fire Kathleen, fire her followers, bring back the expanded universe as canon as it was, and continue on a few thousand years later in the future of Star Wars.  Given Knights of the Old Republic was four thousand years in the past it would be nice to see Star Wars four thousand years after the first trilogy.  New jedis, new siths, and new stories of good vs evil to tell to the next generation without bullshit that politics bring.  Keep it with the classical hero of the thousand faces structure, but without it being a the repeat of the first trilogy.

EDIT: Actually I am going to take that idea for my own setting and skip the Star Wars bit.

I'd probably set it a thousand years in the future so the OT characters can still be remembered as legends, and you can have stuff like the Quest for Darth Vader's lightsaber. I'd probably bring in a bit more of a 'Dune' vibe to emphasise the feeling of Deep Time, with some Force-using historians/psychics who may or may not consider themselves Jedi. Perhaps a renascent Sith Empire would work well battling a largely non-Force User & human-dominated 'secular' state, the old Jedi remembered only in legends that need to be rediscovered by a new generation of potential Jedi. Also needs to be plenty of space for non-Force User characters such as diplomats/aristocrats from the human 'empire' (presumably a descendant of the New Republic), fuzzy aliens, mercenaries, pirates, smugglers et al. The Sith could also be trying to harness the power of Darth Sidious and other sources to conquer the Galaxy, but hampered by the usual internal conflict.

I think what would be really good, that Star Wars has mostly shied away from, is big space battles between two peer competitors. Begin with the bad guy's Dark Side powers giving them a big edge, so they are growing rapidly at the expense of the human empire & neutral/minor powers. But don't just lazily re-run Empire vs Rebels again.