J.J. Abrams shares emotional cast photo as ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ wraps principal photography

Sure I do. TLJ made almost 700 million LESS than TFA. That’s a massive drop. Solo outright bombed. I don’t even hate TLJ, but it’s clear people are already getting tired of this franchise and its poor quality. TLJ was only saved, box office wise, because of its December release date. You know how December movies always have tiny drops and great legs, right? Like Aquaman obviously. Even December movies that suck have opening weekends that account for less than 30% of the total gross. Those are great numbers. TFA had an opening that accounted for 26% of the total gross. Rogue One 29% (and R1 was a really bad film as well). TLJ? Almost 36%! For a December movie, that’s actually really bad. That’s like the equivalent of a Summer film having 45% or something. It just ain’t good and proves TLJ didn’t have good legs, which proves fan reaction was mixed AT BEST.

You may downplay it to “just some angry sexist trolls”, but there’s no evidence to support that delusional theory. It’s the exact same with BvS. You and I both know that BvS sucked and most people didn’t like it. Snyder fanboys reject that reality by saying a horrible movie that no one liked couldn’t possibly have grossed over 870 million. They ignore the fact that hype alone got that movie as far as it did, but its legs were undeniably atrocious. So the “it grossed a lot of money” is NOT an argument, so please don’t start being a hypocrite now.

Is TLJ on the same level as BvS? I don’t think so. BvS was outright hated and panned. It seems at least a good portion of the regular movie going audience liked TLJ, but it’s still extremely divisive, and from what I’ve seen, most hardcore SW fans hate the film, so it’s definitely not good.
Now back to the 1.3B gross… that’s about the same as Jurassic World 2. I think we can all agree JW2 was pretty bad and that franchise, while immensely popular, doesn’t have anywhere close the appeal that SW does… yet its second film almost beat TLJ. Now look at Aquaman. A similar release date. It’s sitting at 1.12B and counting. A film about freaking AM almost made as much as a STAR WARS film. Yeah, let’s not pretend there isn’t a problem here.
If TLJ had legs that were between TFA and R1, with the opening TLJ had, it could have grossed around 1,73B. I didn’t and shouldn’t expect it to do TFA numbers… but 2B to 1.3B? That’s an insane drop.

In conclusion… there is ZERO doubt that this franchise is NOT where it should be, both critically (from fans) and commercially. You denying that is exactly the same as BvS fanboys denying there was a problem. TLJ simply had too many objective flaws for it to be considered a good movie. 2 of the 3 main plots in the film were either terrible or completely irrelevant in the long run. Its characters behave stupidly throughout the film. And the only plot that’s actually interesting (Luke and Rey plot), still misses key story beats… like Idk.. LUKE ACTUALLY TRAINING REY?!?!?!?!?!?! All Luke did was tell her a couple of rules and some notions about the Force. He never actually trained her the way Yoda did. We’re now at the end of the trilogy and we’re still supposed to accept Rey’s Mary Sue powers? What a joke. The movie has some cool moments, but that’s about it, really.

Rey and Poe have literally just met at the END of the second film. Rey and Finn haven’t even seen each other since the end of TFA. There is no comradry between these characters. No love. You don’t feel like these characters are a family you want to thrive and win, the same way we did in the OT. Lots of people simply do not care about these characters, and as a result, don’t care how this story ends. The franchise is heading towards an insanely bad downwards trajectory. I would even bet money that Ep 9 grosses less than TFA. So YES… I do fully believe that a worrying amount of people simply do not give a fuck about this movie.
After the massive disappointment that was TFA, I told myself I would never pay to see another SW film again, and it seemed many people did the same, otherwise TLJ would have grossed much more.

“The films, other than Solo, have received critical and commercial acclaim”
But critics are not the ones making these films successful, the movie going audience is… so bringing up critical praise is utterly irrelevant. I was not talking about critical reception, I was talking about fan reaction, so you refuted nothing. Btw, Ghostbusters remake also had critical praise, what is your point? It still didn’t stop that film from being hated by fans and being a huge box office bomb.
Similarly, BvS also enjoyed commercial success. What the hell is your point here? You refuted precisely nothing of anything I just said.

“the glut of the complaints are from an overly entitled fanbase”
Even if that’s true, and I don’t care if it’s true because I don’t belong to this fanbase (or at least, not anymore), this does NOT refute the overall or mixed (at best) fan reaction. I don’t care WHY they were complaining. My point is that they were. Get to the point.

“But what is this “quality drop” from?”
I don’t know where you get this “quality drop” from. Seems to me you’re just putting those words in my mouth so you’d have a leg to stand on. Almost as if you have prebaked arguments in stock ready to be used, only when you’re met with the “right” (what you would consider to be false) arguments. Fuck the comparison… TLJ has many objective flaws, as a film that stands on its own, ignoring past films. And besides, this doesn’t at all address any of my arguments.

Also, say what you want about the prequel trilogy, but at least those films had a better overall narrative than the ST, which is ultimately just a repeat, recycled, copied and paste corporate garbage. If your best defense is, “it’s better than Attack of the Clones”, I fear your defense isn’t that convincing. Not saying the execution was better, but the ideas behind it definitely were. Also, the PT actually contributed and expanded the franchise, unlike the ST. But again, it’s completely irrelevant to my argument.

“There’s no credible objective argument to be made against the filmmaking quality of these new episodic entries”
Except for writing and directing.

“If I want to get going on something, I can rip someone’s argument to shreds”
Jesus… Stop being such an arrogant buffoon. Rather unbecoming of you. You argued in the past that Rey is as moronically overpowered as she is because there must be “balance in the Force”. Except that is simply YOUR interpretation talking, not the official canon or how Lucas viewed things. Ignoring the fact that said interpretation makes zero sense, Lucas explicitly said that “balance (in the force)” does not mean equal amounts of dark and light side users. It means the destruction of the Sith and/ or the dark side. That is why Lucas LITERALLY said: “Vader brought balance to the Force by killing Palpatine and himself”. That is just ONE argument that you probably think is an example of your expertise… except I’ve just refuted that argument completely. My point? Don’t start a discussion thinking you’ve already won or that you are the smartest guy in the room. Such a mentality only leads to arrogance and embarrassment.

“I don’t make that claim lightly, I can back it up”
No you can’t. In your eyes I’m sure, but I’ve already presented facts to you in the past you deliberately chose to ignore, so I really won’t and don’t take your word for it.

“Each Star Wars 2nd entry, including Empire Strikes Back and Attack of the Clones, have taken a 30% drop from the previous installment”
A really bad comparison. TLJ had the biggest drop with almost 35% btw.
You say this as if this is somehow a “Star Wars trend” or something, ignoring the very obvious reasons WHY this happened before in the first place.
Comparing Empire with SW is not that simple, as SW had more re-releases than probably any other movie ever. SW was also the first of its kind pretty much and a huge cinema phenomenon. There’s no way Empire would ever have made similar numbers. During the 80s and 90s, it was also extremely uncommon for sequels to make the same or more than their predecessors.
AOTC didn’t have a 30% drop because people collectively decided not to watch the second SW movie in similar numbers. AOTC failed because Phantom Menace was a massive disappointment and turned A LOT of people away from the franchise. Ep 3 was able to bring some back in because, it was actually a decent film and it was going to complete the story of Vader and everyone wanted to see the creation of this immensly popular character. What the hell does Ep 9 got going for it? The defeat of Pussy Ren? Ep 9 has nothing going for it.
So the idea that it was completely normal for TLJ to drop 35% is hilarious. As in hilariously stupid, because last time I checked it didn’t open 35% lower than TFA and that proves my point. It’s misguided at best to compare decades old films to a film from 2017.
TLJ opened 10% lower than TFA, NOT 35%… add the fact that it also wasn’t going to have the same kind of legs (which is fair… TLJ was never gonna do TFA numbers, I already acknowledged that), that still means TLJ could have made between 1.65 and 1.75 billion if it had legs anywhere between TFA and R1, which is a fair thing to expect from a Christmas movie.
Yeah… that’s 1.7B… NOT 1.3B. That’s not a 35% drop, but a 15% one. You can’t argue with this, I’m sorry. TLJ opened extremely high and very close to TFA but it dropped very fast (relatively speaking, compared to TFA and other December films). The question is why? Because people thought “Oh wait, it’s the second in the trilogy? Let’s not go watch it again”? Or perhaps because word of mouth and fan reaction was nowhere near acceptable for this movie? Only one answer actually seems reasonable and consistent with reality but I fear I already know which one you’ll pick.

“The audience metrics indicated positive word of mouth, and the film grossed over 65% of its domestic take after opening weekend. That’s better than Captain America: The Winter Soldier AND Civil War, along with Avengers: Infinity War just to name a few films”
Goes to prove you know jack shit about box office numbers. Yeah, better compared to all those films, why? Because they are SUMMER movies. Making 65% of your gross after opening weekend is actually pretty bad for a December film. Don’t believe me?
Take a look at this list: https://www.boxofficemojo.c…
TLJ is the FIFTH worst box office legs film in the top 100. The other 4 are:
Krampus with 38%
Star Trek Nemesis with 42%
Exodus: Gods and Kings with 37%
The Day the Earth stood Still with 38%

Now what do these films have in common? Oh, that’s right, they all sucked. Yet all of them had pretty respectable box office legs, in fact they all beat Civil War in terms of legs. I guess that proves WOM was better for Star Trek Nemesis than Civil War? Or maybe… just maybe you just don’t compare a DECEMBER film to a SUMMER film in terms of box office legs without actually taking into account the context.

“You can’t say that Solo was doomed by VIII’s reception. The metrics for VIII don’t support that argument”
I would mostly say franchise fatigue and a deadly lack of interest. But the poor reaction to Ep 8 was definitely a contributor. How big? Idk, but it did matter.

“Bringing up BvS, that film grossed over 50% of its total domestic gross during opening weekend”
Yeah, which is pretty comparable to a December film grossing around 40% of its total gross during opening weekend. You are just proving my point with every argument you make. Again, was TLJ as badly received? No… but to deny it was poorly received by many? That’s pure lunacy on your part.

“the same films in the series, but not direct follow-ups to BvS such as WW and SS, were in no way, shape, or form affected by its reception”
Utter bullshit. If BvS had been critically praised, you can be damn well sure WW and SS would have grossed EVEN MORE. Only an idiot would say otherwise.

“Blaming that on the most critically and commercially successful film of 2017 is silly”
TLJ is now the most critically successful film of 2017? Good way to know where you stand. You are so deeply invested into your own bias, I don’t think you could ever see this clearly even if your life depended on it.

Not an exhaustive list, but off the top of my head:

– Holdo’s over-the-top authority lording and secrecy
– I think Rose is an awfully-written character. Her Canto Bight dialogue and the infamous “save what we love” lines are the worst offenders for me.
– The codebreaker/DJ stuff
– The low fuel plot
– While I don’t hate the cynical Luke the way so many people do, the consideration of striking Kylo down bothers me. Jaded look works, but Luke who goes through what he went through in the originals and then comes out with such a cynical view of the potential for good in his own nephew—that’s hard for me to enjoy.

I know there are more things if I think about, but those are the biggies, I think.

– The save what we love line is incoherent in context. Finn was trying to save what he loved. Sometimes, that and fighting what you hate run on the same rails. And in this case, Finn was trying to fight a non-sentient object to save the people he cared about.

TO BE FAIR: You could spin Rose’s line to be a commentary on Finn’s larger past—that his willingness to die is born not of his love for Rey/etc, but of his hatred for the First Order and his desire to prove that fear of the FO doesn’t control him anymore. But I don’t think the film establishes enough relational intimacy between the two characters to give her that insight into him. And further, it’s a confused context. Probably something another line or two of dialogue might have helped, if that was what they were actually going for.

– You can find allusions in the original films, for sure, and that’s fine. My issue with TLJ’s Canto Bight dialogue is not allusion, but dang-near direct commentary. It’s rather a bit more obvious. It’s not lost on me that I didn’t live in the time of the OT, so I almost certainly spot our current context more easily; but, it still feels like TLJ—especially in this spot—is more given to moral pronouncements than the OT was.

– There’s no extended scene of pseduo-science, but there is the scene where Poe looks on confused before asking F and R to speak in layman’s terms. And there’s still the point that fuel has never factored in like this before. The technical issues with the Falcon in Empire are of a different sort—I think mainly in how those issues affect the plot. There’s even jargon in Empire—hyperdrive motivator, for one–but there isn’t a slow limp through space. The technical problems drive them into an asteroid field, through a fleet, clawed to the back of a star Destroyer. In TLJ, it seems like the fuel problem drives them to Crait, which is interesting enough aesthetically; but there isn’t much interesting along the way that the fuel shortage brings them to.

If it seems like I’m pivoting a bit on that last one, it’s because you asked me why I didn’t like the film, and some of that gets worked out better by talking through it.

This will have to be it for me, though. Already too much time thumb-typing and not enough hanging with my family today. Cheers.

Another good one:
https://media.makeameme.org…

It’s funny that you’re literally the only person here that doesn’t believe you’re a deluded sack of shit. Scratch that, it’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.

I don’t have to do anything you ranting moron. You’re proving it yourself. You’re completely ridiculous in your way of thinking and I’m not the only one who believes that. You’re actually retarded.

When you’re so thoroughly defeated, you rant like hobo in the streets, it’s time to stop.

all I remember of the sequel trilogy are just the same generic forest, desert, and snow planets. Crait wasn’t what I would call particularly interesting. At least, not interesting to “look” at. Was kind of just another barren desert type place even if it was technically “salt” instead of sand.

I am not sure what you mean by devoid of craft but whatever. Star Wars is about aesthetic. Fact is, they were creative, which is what Star Wars should be. Personally, I have seen no such creativity with these new films. Which makes them feel boring to me. Its not just the planets. Its everything really. The character designs for one thing. The lack of aliens. And of course their insistence on maintaining the look and feel of the OT. Can we get something other than generic storm troopers and X wings?

One thing? Sure. The movie being good is ONE thing you got wrong.

He left because you’re a fucking idiot. He left because you keep spewing retarded shit unendingly. There’s not point. You’re a fool. Good luck