Star Wars fans ARE mindless whores. At least all the ones I've met outside this thread. Allow me to provide anecdotal evidence.
My friend, who is normally a very smart man, went and saw TFA and he said it wasnt that good at all. He then went and saw TLJ and proceeded to spend several hours razing it to the ground in front of me. He swore he'd never go and see another Star Wars movie again.
The dumb fucker went and saw Soylo and spent several hours bitching about it to me after.
He is now bragging about how good the Mandalorian is. I can't wait for the other shoe to drop on his dumb ass so I can overdose on schadenfreude and finally shuffle off this mortal coil.
I just dont understand. Why the fuck do you keep going? They called me paranoid for waiting to see if TFA would be any good (I remember Star Trek JarJar you useless hack, I remember) but I was vindicated and it has coloured all my interactions with post-Lucas Star Wars. I haven't touched a single piece of Disneywars media, haven't played a single game, haven't read a single comic, haven't watched a single episode of a single tv show, because I saw the writing on the wall after TFA's rather lackluster response in certain circles and now the extent of my participating in this fandom (god that word sucks) is to watch it burn with you fucks.
I havent been burned at all by Disney Wars, he has. He's spent maybe, what, 100 bucks if you include popcorn and shit? And I can guarantee you he'll still go and see TROS.
So yes, it seems that when it comes to Star Wars, the fans are mindlesss whores. Even when they aren't in the rest of their lives.
I saw 1.5 seasons of Lost (got tired of the constant wanking over the MYSTERY! by like disc two, hit wikipedia, then proceeded to remove all future discs and season from the netflix queue) so knew what JJ was likely going to get up to with TFA, and that for most things there would be no payoff - and any payoff there would be would disappointing and completely stupid. I did not quite expect Johnson to go... that heavy on shitting all over the franchise, including VII.
And what your describing is the machine i'm raging against this fine, cold Sunday: people who should know better hating the shit sandwhich they've been served, saying how much they hate it.... but continuing to go back for seconds, while also buying the $20 souvenir T-shirt, the $15 trucker cup, the $10 mug, the lapel pin, and then coming back to their seat, wiping the corn from the corner of thier mouth and saying "I just don't understand how this place stays in business! They could make so much money if the food was good. Hopefully its good when come back tomorrow like I've been doing religiously for the past 10 years"
The number of posters in this thread buying tickets/planning to buy tickets and making excuses for doing so has been sad.
People lacking even the basic self discipline to even wait till after opening weekend to give Disney money for a product they claim to not like.
Ive always found that just buying exactly what you want gets the point across. Just not engaging with disney at all isnt gonna send them a message on what people actually want. Sure they could listen the the voices on twitter, but that's exceptional. The reason why something like the mandalorian got green lit is because Disney saw (surprising no one) that Boba Fett stuff always does really fucking well.
You should be able to buy what you want if you want it. Thats not to say the people who buy literally everything that comes out arent problems, but thats more of a problem with their brain. If you like stormtroopers. Sure, buy a stormtrooper action figure, youll get more characters that look like stormtroopers. Cutting cold turkey in some sort of protest goes about as well as the occupy protests.
As for overall numbers, merch is in the shitter compared to prequel stuff, and thats because one of your previous statements is wrong, the people like the people in this thread who still buy stuff almost have no effect on overall merch sales. Its all children, and children just arent asking for rose and holdo figures. The "hardcore" fans or even older star wars fans barely factor in. Also, as for buying tickets, the over all success of the movies is secondary to this franchise and its naive to think otherwise, the already mentioned merch is what matters. Whether the movie is critically panned or loved, if it flops or makes 10 times its budget. What matters is the merch.
While I do understand where you are coming from, its just a naive stance. Also it does make you come off as MATI.
Naive is still buying anything star wars branded. I posted earlier, a total Fan boycot would send one hell of a message. Failing that not buying anything star war branded, regardless of era, until Plan 9 leaves theaters (Ideally the not until after the end of the quarter it happens, but even I'd admit that's too 'tistic to figure out) would also be very effective messaging. People seem to lack that basic level of control.
Parents buy shit for their kids, and
adults man-children account for a a significant portion of merch sales, particularly high-margin sales. The Black Series has been selling well, they keep expanding it, and it is DEFINITELY not aimed at Children. High-end Japanese figures are not aimed at children.
You can buy what you like. But understand what you're doing when you do buy that shit: you are telling Disney you like nuWars. So don't be surprised when you get more Woke shoved into star wars, and don't get buttmad when you get called out for funding this shit by giving money to the Rat. As
@Adamska said, you'll do whatever mental gymanstics to justify getting your next wave of toys, just don't get all offended when you're called out on it.
I'm not immune. I got talked into seeing Rogue One with a paid-for ticket; I didn't give the Rat money but someone did. (Did turn down a ticket to TFA & TLJ though.)
I want to see exactly how bad the Master and Apprentice novel is.
Yo-ho-ho...
edit: To give an idea of how "popular" the new books are, it was several months after it was published before anybody bothered to post it to libgen.
Personally I think free too high of a price and I prefer to not even give the Rat's fanfic space in my head, but I accept that's both a personal choice and an extreme hardine approach; I can't see taking actual issue with people who aren't feeding the Rat and at least take to the high-seas instead.
A complete boycott of Star Wars* if it succeeded * will just make Disney think it's a dead brand.
Let me tickle your brain with this:
Its 2015 in an alternate timeline. TFA comes out. There is a complete, 100% fan boycot on all things Star Wars.
Based on the abysmal box office & merch, Disney cancels all SW projects and never makes anything Star Wars related ever again.
Are you going to seriously try to convince me that TLJ never getting to theaters would be a bad thing?
Sometimes dead is better.
Selective buying actually does send a message.
Disney is well aware the only things people are buying are OT stuff ergo they know the ST is vastly unpopular. Which is why Iger is all but begging the old fans to watch episode IX and insisting that JJ is totally listening to fans.
Please fully consider the topic of this thread, and the posts & arguments made thus far when you read the following:
For reasons too autistic to get into, you are wrong in the short term. In the long term, yes, they will be breaking down SKUs and seeing what sold well and what didn't.
What they are looking at now, what they are taking to investors and shareholders, is raw numbers. Those numbers have not great. They've been getting worse. The shittier that raw figure is when they're tallying up total trilogy dollars, and especially Episode 9's portion of that take.... The harder Episode 9 tanks, the better odds they're going to sit back and really think about what went wrong and how to not fuck it up in the future. I mean it is not merely a corporation but Disney, so odds are they'll learn & apply the wrong lessons, but maybe they won't.
Again, if you are too much of man child you can't just completely walk your wallet away, at least don't buy anything till like June. Tank the numbers, tank them hard. Do you part to slap the
Jap Rat.
But it was always going to suck. Fans didn't have the power to change who would be put in charge, and didn't have the benefit of hindsight until Star Wars already sucked. And they aren't a hivemind who could have all decided instantly that they didn't like TFA or some comic and weren't going to give Disney a single cent more, or all voiced their unanimous disapproval of Chuck Wendig like the Borg. If you're still consuming Star Wars after bitching about it endlessly, that's dumb sure, but there's a sea of people who don't follow this stuff and are just going to see whatever big blockbuster is coming out, and any course correction is going to be slow if it happens at all.
Sure, Normies are going to Norm, that's a given. That's not an excuse for people who should know better to go with the herd.
You, the person
still giving money to the Rat, you are why Star Wars sucks now.