Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[Judge Holden]

The fanboys and SJW-goons love to emphasize that this movie was great cause it "diverted expecations", which is technically correct - but the movie did so in the most asinine way. It didn't divert expectations by revealing something super surprising... it just went "Yeah, nah. This shit ain't important. Plot-thread resolved." It was literally taking anything JJ Abrams set up and just smashed it on the floor.

Ya know there was once upon a time a series of films built entirely on diverting, subverting, and averting audience expectations. It was known as the "Seltzer/Frieberg" movie series with such "gems" as Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, and the Starving Games.

And guess what?

Despite so much subversion and diverted expectations being the very building blocks of these movies, they absolutely fucking sucked on every level to the point that society has effectively wiped all memory of them from collective consciousness. Its almost like building a movie on dumb jokes and "WAT A TWEEEEST!" writing instead of just writing a movie to be a cohesive and fitting part of the larger franchise is a really dumb idea

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

With the rumors regarding Kennedy stepping down, what does it say about Disney and it’s handling of Star Wars in reality?

If these rumors turn out to be true then this tells us the Mouse is pissed and afraid.

They paid a couple billion dollars and their movies so far haven't been up to speed. TFA did good, RO did okay. TLJ was okay (but with a sharp drop-off) and now Solo is a flop.
The toy sales are weak 3 years into this franchise.

These last 2 points aren't particularly bad for any other movie, but for Star Wars, that's a massive hit against its value. It's absolutely atrocious.
If Kennedy's hijinks end up ruining Episode IX, too, SW might as well become a toxic franchise for a couple years.

 

[A Useless Fish]

If they are in fact dumping Kennedy, they're gonna have to hire a gay black dude next, that is if they wanna keep their woke credentials.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

Here's the thing about "subverting expectations": In order to do it correctly, you need to give the audience something they didn't know they wanted. The Last Jedi subverts expectations by saying "Gotcha! There's actually no payoff to this part either!" every step of the way. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I'm not going to pretend that I understand how someone could view that as satisfying storytelling.

Infinity War subverted my expectations with Thanos. I honestly was expecting for them to set up Lady Death with Hela from Thor: Ragnarok (as an easier way to follow the comics), but nope! The movie gave us a more complex relationship that (what I thought) was the heart of the movie: The father-daughter relationship between Thanos and Gamora. The movie gave me something I didn't know I wanted to see, and I'm glad for it. As a lifelong fan of the comics, the movie gave me a Thanos that I thought was more interesting than the original one in the comics.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

If these rumors turn out to be true then this tells us the Mouse is pissed and afraid.

They paid a couple billion dollars and their movies so far haven't been up to speed. TFA did good, RO did okay. TLJ was okay (but with a sharp drop-off) and now Solo is a flop.
The toy sales are weak 3 years into this franchise.

These last 2 points aren't particularly bad for any other movie, but for Star Wars, that's a massive hit against its value. It's absolutely atrocious.
If Kennedy's hijinks end up ruining Episode IX, too, SW might as well become a toxic franchise for a couple years.

I always figured that the merchandising under Disney has been mediocre prior to TFA. When the merchandising turned out crap I would hope the movies would be at least good but TFA and TLJ turned out to be boring shitshows that made everything in the original trilogy useless and had boring new characters that had no impact to the audience.

I mean, I can’t come across a fan that does have new toys from the Disney era. They’re all lazy reused elements from the original trilogy and that’s the worse part. I’ve yet to find a fan who has a toy of Kylo’s lightsaber.

The one time I did, he told me that he considers the Disney era not canon and only considers the Legends and prequels and originals as canon.

 

[Commander X]

I have yet to encounter an image of Chuck Wendig that is flattering. Ooof.

 

[Gordon Cole]

In light of today's events, I threw this together:

 

[Ruin]

If Kennedy's hijinks end up ruining Episode IX, too, SW might as well become a toxic franchise for a couple years.

I suspect if IX under performs (which it will) Disney will put Star Wars on "indefinite hiatus" a la Mass Effect.

 

[Mola Ram]

I suspect if IX under performs (which it will) Disney will put Star Wars on "indefinite hiatus" a la Mass Effect.

No way. They spent four billion on this, and before they drove it into a ditch it was probably the most highly regarded genre franchise in the Western world, with plenty of crossover appeal overseas. Disney is not EA, and they don't like watching their properties turn to shit. If there is a hiatus, it'll just be long enough to come up with something they hope will fix it. If they decide it's beyond repair, they might sell it off to someone else.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

If they decide it's beyond repair, they might sell it off to someone else.

I'm honestly see this happening. I feel it would be best for both sides because the fans won't see something they love turned to shit and Disney won't lose any more respect from it.

The downside would be the SJW beta-journalists that pretend to be SW fans like MovieBob would rage against the fans and accuse them of being racist and sexists.

 

[Hodor]

Honestly, I think the biggest issue with Solo is that nobody wanted a Han Solo prequel. Like, if you're gonna milk one of the OT characters into a prequel? Just make a fuckin' Obi Wan movie. People actually want that, and honestly? I somehow doubt that it'd be hard to just take something like Yojimbo and put it on Tattooine.

Shit, give the Logan guy that as a project and let him go nuts. Guarantee you it'd make a shitload of money. also I don't think anything sums up the new movies quite as well as "The guy who wrote Justice League and BvS is co-writing Episode IX."

I suspect if IX under performs (which it will) Disney will put Star Wars on "indefinite hiatus" a la Mass Effect.

I don't think it'll be indefinite hiatus as much as it'll be shifting to TV for a bit. We'll probably get some cartoons, maybe a live-action show, video games, and some EU shit for like half a decade and then bam. We get a new movie.

 

[Stock Image Photographer]

The downside would be the SJW beta-journalists that pretend to be SW fans like MovieBob would rage against the fans and accuse them of being racist and sexists.

True, but that's going to happen no matter what course of action Disney takes; it's a sunk cost.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

True, but that's going to happen no matter what course of action Disney takes; it's a sunk cost.

I feel the rage would be higher than ever before if Disney ends up selling it to someone else or spun it off. Though I would love to see Rain Johnson flip his shit over this at the fans.

 

[Stock Image Photographer]

Though I would love to see Rain Johnson flip his shit over this at the fans.

In the event that Rian loses his trilogy, I can see two possible outcomes for him. The first one, which is highly unlikely, is that he either accepts it with grace or goes completely silent on social media because he knows his career is over. The second, much more likely, option is that he blows the fuck up like you're describing. If that happens, I can picture people throwing his weirdly hostile "manbabies" tweets back at him when he starts acting like a petulant child.

 

[mrdk_04]

Good lord, the opening (0:00 - 02:15) and closing statements (17:40 - 21:15) of this video infuriate me beyond belief.

!AUTISM INBOUND!

Spoiler

The video's main topic is the story of a rather horrible Legends novel but Mcconnell has a bone to pick with the (admittedly large amount of) youtubers who have tried to bank on the polarization of TLJ by making lazy and simple videos screeching that TLJ is the worst thing in existence.
He harps on the length of some videos and the titles of others, whilst making it clear TLJ is, in fact, awesome.
Then follows a joke about the detractors having ‘bad opinions’ and himself having ‘impeccable’ production values.
He finishes the opening statement with a self-depreciating joke about his own style.

The closing statements is what makes me and several commenters beneath his video absolutely livid, as he compares bad passages of the book to often criticised plotlines in TLJ (Luke being ooc, Holdo’s plan, Canto Bight, bombing scene) and shows the ways how people reacted to TFA (too samey) and TLJ (too different) with “Which way do you want to have it?”.
He concludes with saying this polarization is unhealthy for everyone (obviously), that it is a sure-fire way to have a bad time and that it drives fans away from SW.
Sadly, he considers the cynicism surrounding SW (despite all the evidence put forth in this thread and multiple tweets, articles, etc.) is unwarranted and asks that we “Just enjoy the show.”
He makes it very clear that he doesn't want SW to stop, as if a franchise can keep going forever with no lapse in quality or relevance (Doctor Who, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, etc.)
I despise this mindset, as I'm sure many of you do too.

Honestly, if you're going to claim TLJ is awesome whilst harping on its critics, don't have it as part of your video, dedicate an entire video addressing the topic, at this point he's asking to be harassed by toxic zealots.
Not to mention, that he acts as if it's inherently more profitable to rant on TLJ, when in reality shills everywhere have come crawling out of the woodwork and the prevailing narrative surrounding TLJ is positive.
I expected better from this essayist, considering his past work and his dissection of “HP and The Cursed Child”, but apparently we all just need to relax, enjoy the show and sit in the cinema with our brains in our hands.

Next up is Shaun's video as to why he loves TLJ, let's hope his arguments hold more water.

 

[Flexo]

And hell, Toys 'R' Us is in its casket ready to be lowered into the earth, and the stores are still filled with Star Wars shit. I think if it wasn't for the poor business decisions they made years back that landed them in debt, Star Wars could've been a potential cause for the death of Toys 'R' Us. (And maybe it was the final nail in their coffin, I dunno.) I feel the most bad for Hasbro, though, being forced to continue making these toys.

From Fortune, March of this year:
View attachment 467682 View attachment 467683
Yowch.

The selling point of SW was always neat robots and freaky aliens for kids to play with in a galaxy unbounded for their imagination.

What neat robots and aliens were in TLJ? Oh right, just different shades of humans...

and shows the ways how people reacted to TFA (too samey) and TLJ (too different) with “Which way do you want to have it?”.

As my buddy pointed out: There is one simple fix to make TFA work: Take out the doomsday weapon. Remove starkiller base and the movie would work out fine and part of the issue with that weapon is that it subverts the existing expectations the movie set up of finding Skywalker (when it turns out we should have been looking for this weapon all along).

 

[friedshrimp]

Ya know there was once upon a time a series of films built entirely on diverting, subverting, and averting audience expectations. It was known as the "Seltzer/Frieberg" movie series with such "gems" as Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, and the Starving Games.

And guess what?

Despite so much subversion and diverted expectations being the very building blocks of these movies, they absolutely fucking sucked on every level to the point that society has effectively wiped all memory of them from collective consciousness. Its almost like building a movie on dumb jokes and "WAT A TWEEEEST!" writing instead of just writing a movie to be a cohesive and fitting part of the larger franchise is a really dumb idea

See the Channel Awesome School of Writing and Comedy.

Infinity War subverted my expectations with Thanos. I honestly was expecting for them to set up Lady Death with Hela from Thor: Ragnarok (as an easier way to follow the comics), but nope! The movie gave us a more complex relationship that (what I thought) was the heart of the movie: The father-daughter relationship between Thanos and Gamora. The movie gave me something I didn't know I wanted to see, and I'm glad for it. As a lifelong fan of the comics, the movie gave me a Thanos that I thought was more interesting than the original one in the comics.

It also helps that they've built up Thanos and Gamora for years, allowing for this revelation to occur naturally. In ST, everything is half-assed and thrown at you without allowing it to breath or develop naturally: Snoke dies without ever doing anything memorable on-screen, the First Order exists...without no build up, it's just there for its' sake of having to battle a bad guy again and you'll have to deal with it; Rey is a nobody with no flaws, past or charm, but we have to trust in her cause she's the SaviorTM; Poe and Finn and Rey just turn into instant BFFs just 'cause, Holdo comes out of nowhere and orders us to take her seriously...Any of these things need to be developed and paced naturally and take its time if you want it to resonate and have a satisfying send - off (they reaaaally wanted us to feel something when purple haired witch died, and blame Poe for her death, but even if Poe was acting "dumb" he still made more sense than this rando slowpoke).

 

[Absolutego]

I'm honestly see this happening. I feel it would be best for both sides because the fans won't see something they love turned to shit and Disney won't lose any more respect from it.

The downside would be the SJW beta-journalists that pretend to be SW fans like MovieBob would rage against the fans and accuse them of being racist and sexists.

They spent 4 billion on this franchise. George essentially sold Lucasfilm to the only entertainment company who could afford to buy it. What entity do you think would be a viable purchaser of the IP, provided Disney isn't willing to take a loss on the sale and expects at least what they paid for it in return? There isn't a movie studio with that kind of money lying around besides Disney.

Disney Star Wars isn't going anywhere, they'll keep tweaking it until either it settles into a smaller scale IP with a more limited fanbase (kind of like where it was post-Prequel Trilogy but pre-Disney acquisition), or they manage to pull off a convincing reboot of the tentpole blockbusters and recover from the bad PR the sequel trilogy has dumped on the brand.

 

[Judge Holden]

As my buddy pointed out: There is one simple fix to make TFA work: Take out the doomsday weapon. Remove starkiller base and the movie would work out fine and part of the issue with that weapon is that it subverts the existing expectations the movie set up of finding Skywalker (when it turns out we should have been looking for this weapon all along).

Here is another idea. Keep the Starkiller Base, but have it actually fucking matter in terms of story and setting instead of being generic nu-death star. Have it be the literal capital of the First Order and since its planet sized, have it contain a half dozen different environs that can be handwaved as training/food production/recreation areas and thus make it stand out visually. Also if you gonna borrow the "sucks up star energy" thing from the star forge in KOTOR, have it borrow more in terms of concept by having it be a gigantic factory, churning out and hiding this vast New Order battle fleet the republic is convinced does not exist.

Also throughout the movie emphasise how utterly secure and militarily unstoppable the New Republic is, and how the First Order forces never even try to take on a republic battle fleet, and indeed have it be made obvious in subtext how the military situation is a flipped version of A New Hope, with an overwhelmingly powerful republic assuming it is just casually hunting down a fanatical remnant of the empire that poses no real threat to them.

Most importantly instead of it destroying the republic's capital worlds halfway through the film and then be unceremoniously blown up, have it explicitly blow up Coruscant (not some crappy stand-in) and its surrounding planets along with the majority of the Republic's military forces and ships at the end after the seemingly overpowered republic fleet attacking what they think is just some desolate planet which holds the last remnants of the old empire is utterly kurbstomped when its whole equator splits open revealing not only a deathstar sized solar system destroying gun, but thousands of Star Destroyer hangers that vomit out all the ships they have been building for decades onto the now horribly outnumbered and utterly outgunned fleet, routing it and causing what its survivors to flee in panic as the First Order end the movie pretty much just casually undoing everything the Original Trilogy heroes did in the past 30 years.

Hell you can even work in Harrison Ford's contractually mandated death scene into this with him piloting the Falcon into the core of Starkiller Base and ramming some irreplaceable ancient sith tech doohicky in order to disable the automated factories/supergun/both and thus not only have him die awesomely but also have the gut punch of both him AND the falcon being lost. And ofcourse you set up a ticking clock story thread since the First Order will spend the next two movies trying to repair this damage and thus it gives some more urgency for the events in the next films.

 

[ShittyRecolor]

You know what slays me to this day.

A New Hope is a completely autonomous and complete movie. There were no loose ends, so to speak. You didn't need a sequel or prequel to explain or complete any plotline, however, they continued several aspects to lead into The Empire Strikes Back. And they did it masterfully. One movie flows into the other perfectly, they expanded on everything.

Strangely enough, after A New Hope - despite being a self-contained movie! - there had been more plot-threads available to connect it to a sequel then there are plot-threads at the end of TLJ to connect it with the 3rd movie of this trilogy.
All TLJ did was going "Oh, so you expected this to be important? Well fuck that shit! It's not important at all!" but it set up nothing in return. There's a minor setup for whatever Darth Columbine and his buttmonkey Hux are up to, but that's it.

The fanboys and SJW-goons love to emphasize that this movie was great cause it "diverted expecations", which is technically correct - but the movie did so in the most asinine way. It didn't divert expectations by revealing something super surprising... it just went "Yeah, nah. This shit ain't important. Plot-thread resolved." It was literally taking anything JJ Abrams set up and just smashed it on the floor.

"The fact that we began to merchandise the film in September and the film came out in December was just too long a period of time to sustain retail interest..."
Shouldn't the movie be what sparks interest in (and thus sales of) that merchandise, even in December?

It's crazy how these supposedly learned people can't grasp that execution matters, and there's no single artistic approach that is inherently and infallably good. Imagine their outrage if Steven Universe was suddenly full of toxicly masculine hetero male gems that all got paired up with the supposedly precious lesbian female ones. It'd be a complete subversion of their expectations, yet I doubt they'd defend it with a lot of vehemence, and neither would they claim that everyone who doesn't like it is just a narrow minded fanboy that needs to read more.