The most damning evidence against Kathleen Kennedy
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- Check out my second channel for more Star Wars Videos: / @thorskywalkerplus
Enjoy my videos? Consider supporting me on Patreon and gain access to my Discord Server where we're always talking some Star Wars: / thor_skywalker
Send your art work or whatever to me at: thor_mailbag@aol.com
Or follow me on twitter @Tell_Kanjiklub
All my polls can also be found at the following link: / @thorskywalker
When Daisy Ridley stated while filming the 3rd film they were still trying to figure out who Rey's parents were it just shows they had no plan whatsoever.
Rey Kenobi Skywalker Palpatine 😂
It shows that they were never trying to tell a story - they were releasing products.
They never cared about good writing
Perfect characters are boring
Hard to believe there's actually something called a Lucasfilm Story Group. They should all be fired.
And to anyone who says: "Yeah, well Lucas didn't know Vader was Luke's father, or that Leia was Luke's sister at the start!"
The difference was that Lucas is the creator while he was writing the story as he goes, he had notes and outlines for the films and a direction he wanted to take them.
When it comes to someone else continuing a story, you do need an outline and direction you want to take the story if you're going to not follow what the creator had in mind.
Disney & KK utterly failed with the Sequel Trilogy. They did not comprehend what Star Wars was about & what Star Wars fans wanted. Their character assassination of Luke, killing of Han & failing to put the Big 3 in a single scene together was the missed opportunity of the century.
You have to understand it from their point of view: they're the ones who tell the fans what Star Wars is about, and they're the ones who decide what Star Wars fans want.
They also betrayed the New characters they created. All the fuss over a black hero... who was then utterly sidelined for the next two films. Shameful.
Here is were I disagree with some fans. I only expect quality production, writing, and acting. Everything else should be up to the creator.
@@thaThRONewe got none of that 😐
I’ll never forgive KK for not having the original cast together
I’ll never forgive Disney for what they did to Luke, Han and Leia.
And Obiwan and Thrawn.
@@user-gb7ji6xy5d Them too.
wtf they made Leia a superhero in EACH episode of the ST also Harrison FOR DECADES wanted Han killed off
You people are lost in a conspiracy bubble
@@darkthorpocomicknight7891 That's nice.
And THE Mandalorian.
Anyone could have made the sequel trilogy and it would still make money. It was a license to print money!
Was being the operative term here.
Under KK 's watch the money printers got turned off.
That license has expired and can't be renewed. Many people just don't care anymore, and apathy is worse than hatred from a studio's POV. Haters can be won back over if the product suddenly improves in quality. The apathetic are never coming back. I'm nearly at that point myself. I liked episodes 4 and 5 of Ahsoka, but the way that season wrapped up made me wonder why I even bothered.
So would have been Obi Wan Kenobi.
When "the message" is more important than Character arc and the Storyline and then blaming the fans or accusing them of ism's for the failure, that's where it went wrong.
Like many good/better movies, "the message" could still have been inserted into the story but in a way that was more subtle & better camouflaged by writing. If the ST had a cohesive strategy, better writing, less plot armor & more character development KK could have had her cake & eaten it too. The ST failed in the writing room thanks to JJ & RJ - KK failed by hiring them & not following up with them.
Or ‘the theme’ 🙄
So whats the "message" in Rise Of Skywalker you object to so much?
@@lucasoheyze4597 That they could make a story that appealed to everyone and mend the divide caused by The Last Jedi?
I dont think anyone got your reference.
I still to this day find it remarkable that someone can take one of the most widely recognised and beloved franchise in media and turn it into a bunch of (on average) middling TV series and keep their job. It boggles the mind how such a spectacular failure can warrant no action
You're lucky she didn't get promoted.
You have to wonder what Disney’s profit projections were when they bought SW for $4b. Surely with all the additional costs of reshoots and failed projects KK is no where near those targets?
"how such a spectacular failure can warrant no action" She has a "no fire" clause in her contract. Also, she and her husband are (or at least used to be) big friends with Bob Iger, long before her association with Lucasfilm.
There’s a certain joke out there which is very apt:
How do you make a multimillion dollar franchise? Give Kathleen Kennedy a multibillion dollar one.
The shows are good..the movies are what is bad. Andor is 10/10 mando is great too and while obi wan and book of Bob has issues they were still good.
Episode 7 8 and 9 were awful. Meanwhile rogue one was excellent
George Lucas made the worst decision in his life to sell his hard work to Disney
I'm not sure about that. He made a lot of money by doing it, but seeing other people ruin what he created can't feel good. Depends on how much he cares
4 billion dollars and almost no one talks poorly about the prequels anymore… I think Lucas made a great decision for himself.
He made the worst decision for the fans and the property, but he made enough money to give zero Fs
@@terig5584Except he gave those 4 billion to charity and he was already a billionaire. He didn't give a damn about the money.
And people don't praise the prequels because of the sale but because the prequel generation are now adults and have helped people see things from their eyes. It's also because the sequels are so bad they make the prequels look good by comparison.
All those people who trashed the prequels? It’s their fault. Now they wash their hands.
not to mention she oversaw Solo, the only theatrical Star Wars film to bomb
Plus dial of destiny, not sw but still lucasfilm
Looking at the figures from episodes 1 to 2 I'd argue that was a bit of a bomb. They lost 40% of their audience in 3 years
Solo needed to start over. Ron coming in and just shooting the script as written, and having no say in the writing, casting or who they hired as the director of photography is why it was a disaster. I mean you can wing it if you have one or two bad elements, but not if you have a bad script, miscast leads. A terrible cinematographer who has no idea how to light a film. Bad cgi. Its sad because the supporting players gave it their all and even Alden wanted to nail it you can tell the amount of effort he gave, but it never worked. Its an ugly looking movie that looks like a pilot for a tv series and not a major motion picture.
Got to love when people try doing the cumulative box office as proof of success. A month or two ago, an article ran claiming that "Barbenheimer" was more financially successful than Avatar: The Way of Water...and yes, it counted Barbie and Oppenheimer as one movie to do it.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Do these people conveniently forget that it's Star Wars we're talking about here? Like, the biggest film franchise fanbase in the world? A pop culture phenomenon? That it was a brand new trilogy continuing on from the original and the first new Star Wars movies in 10 years? They were guaranteed to make a ton of money, no matter how good or bad they were. If Kermit the Frog was the executive producer they still would have made money. Kathleen didn't make that money because she is Kathleen, it was made because it's Star Wars.
Kermit's vision for the movies would be pretty good, I'd pay to see them.
Since Kermit is canonically an artistic mastermind, that would have been soo much better than what we got
Now there is an interesting thought "What if Star Wars was a Henson property"
I guess it would be Farscape.
When The Force Awakens came out, a lot of us were forgiving of the fact it was a rehash of A New Hope because of the fact it was the first film in 10 years. It was seen as getting back to basics, showing the new fans what Star Wars was like, and there was the idea that the next film was going to do something different.
A lot of people are now less forgiving now that we know it was the high point of the Sequel Trilogy.
It ain’t easy being kathleen
- Kermit
For me personally, it was The Last Jedi that killed any interest in seeing where this franchise was going. I could list a number of reasons, but the primary one was the treatment of Luke. With him and Han dead, I had no reason to care anymore.
So you loved the characters more than the living and breathing universe Lucas created. Which is fine. I love the universe he created more than the OT characters. The ideas that Lucas created can breathe life into new conflicts and characters. And I think that’s what Disney should focus on.
@@VonJaythat’s the thing though. This isn’t the universe Lucas “breathed life into” anymore. Also, the characters make the universe, otherwise it’s just another generic sci-fi franchise
The only good thing about TLJ was the director's smug quote about expectations being subverted. Which is insanely satisfying to throw back in disney's face whenever they foist a dud, with the message, or, not, expecting to make bank. As in " disney it seems your expectations were subverted, if you thought this production was going to make money;be well received;ad nausem... or some variation. 😅
Disney didn't just kill the original characters. They killed the world too.
I fell asleep in the theater during TLJ, never even felt the need to go back and finish the movie. That was where I stopped watching Star Wars
I was so disappointed by The Last Jedi I had absolutely no interest in seeing the next move because I did not trust it could be good and I also just did not care any more.
I even commented as much on some video at the time and I actually got a response from someone who said I "owe" Disney my time and money and I had to see episode 9 because I'd already seen the previous two.
I also to this day have never seen The rise of Palpatine.. sorry Skywalker.. After what they did to my childhood hero Luke and the way they treated fans who had the nerve to question the great minds of Round head Rian and the mighty KK I lost all interest. To me Star Wars end with Return of the Jedi and the real expanded universe
I, too, still haven't seen Ep9. And still don't plan to.
To everyone who didn't go and see Ep9, you're not missing much. The first half ends up being a waste of time since Kylo Ren destroys the macguffin our heroes were after and Rey uses his macguffin instead. The main threat is 'the largest fleet the galaxy has ever seen' armed with planet-killer cannons (that are, once again, easy to destroy and take out the whole Star Destroyer) and the heroes have a scene where they ride animals across the back of a Destroyer and not get slaughtered. Oh, and the Knights of Ren are slaughtered by our heroes without any idea who they are.
And of course, they sum up Palpatine coming back as "somehow, Palpatine has returned." That's literally all we get.
Hey Thor, you’ve been killing it lately!! You’re pretty much the only SW YT channel I listen to at this point. You’re always fair, praising when it’s earned and criticizing when it’s deserved. Thank you and keep up the good work!!
He’s the only one that really thinks rationally about things and that makes him standout from people who shower praise and people who call Disney SW the spawn of satan.
4.5 billion only after buying the Ip for 4 billion... and Now they're wasting 100-300m per show for a streaming service they dont have extra monezated and isnt growing or hasn't the audience capture Obi wan andor and mando and boba fett and ashoka all lose the audience. There nothing show and they disappear in as show as the end credit finish.
Here here 🍻
Agreed. Thor is the only Star Wars channel I follow at this point.
Right fair he can't even get basic facts about the prequels right... ok lolol
You can't use math against these people, Thor. They ignore facts whenever they conflict with their beliefs.
Conformation bias is something that people need to learn to ignor
oh yes you can
Others; on more market based channels, have gone over the real numbers using the actual tax reports ( that Disney has to file in both the US and UK, and btw, this information is readily available for all companies who are open for public investment) for these movies. Actual financial analysts/ people have concluded that Disney has lost money on their Lucas Film purchase; over all. They could have literally bought Lucas Film, done nothing, and they would have made their money back if not turned a slight profit over the last decade ( considering interest rates vs stock evaluation) .... Instead they have a net loss. But But But ESG and Inclusion,... Welp, have no worry friend because regardless of whether "facts" matter to whomever, the reality is that , Peltz has lost all the money he is willing to lose and is about to show everyone at Lucas Film just how far "The Message" goes when the, money people, dont get a return on investment.
@@youruncleted have you ever tried?
@@christophermitchell7001 Thanks for telling such an interesting fact. I would've liked to see video eith that process that would end up with the same conclusion
The real question should be is "how much profit did the film make?" You can see how much the films took, then adjust the older films for inflation, but if the rumours are to be believed The Rise of Skywalker may not have broken even due to reshoots and then marketing etc.
@@donaldjskywalker I actually wrote a comment detailing this very thing. I didn't calculate all five movies, just the main trilogy but our numbers are looking to be very similar. Di$ney/Lucasfilm did not make as much of a profit as they were hoping.
@@donaldjskywalker Now factor in they paid Lucas 4 billion for the rights. Disney has still NOT broken even with Star Wars.
@@Banzai51 Technically they paid him 4 billion (or some portion of it) in shares, so that's not necessarily true
@@Banzai51And I feel that 4b at the time was fairly underpriced. What was the amount disney paid for marvel? I believe that was somewhere in the neighborhood, and marvel compared to star wars was nowhere at the time of their respective purchases.
@@Banzai51Didn't Disney also acquire ILM, Skywalker Sound, LucasArts etc? I feel like that should also be put into the equation
Everyone was all in with the new Disney era until The Last Jedi. No one really has addressed how much damage that travesty did to the brand as a whole just by being associated with it.
@SPQSpartacusI bought 1-9 in an ebay auction on 4k, sold 7-9
Force awakens also sucks.
TFA was the one who fucked Star Wars, it was that movie that introduced Luke as an apathetic weakling who did nothing while the galaxy plumged into chaos. But people didn't hate the movie when it release because it ticked all the nostalgia boxes
@@miguelpereira9859 exactly
People were all in for the Last Jedi until it started bringing up plot holes, contrived reasons, and making all the villains into jokes.
There's still not a good in-story reason for the conflict between Poe and Holdo. It was clearly done that way so that they could surprise us by 'subverting' the idea the hotshot pilot knows better.
Imagine getting some of the most well known characters in cinematic history back together and having them belittled and killed without ever meeting up while you give all the screen time to forgettable knockoffs. It’s not just her stupidity, it’s her raw spite.
Three things wrecked the Sequel Trilogy:
No cohesive outline/story
Sidelining Finn
Allowing Rian Johnson to wreck the second movie of a trilogy and for what he did to Luke.
I can't stand the people who say that this movie is one of the best from star wars franquise when this one killed the logic of this new saga, Rian Johnsson decided not go ahead with the ideas that JJ Abrams had left and that's why TROS feels like a film very improvised with more questions than answers. JJ Abrams had to put order after the disaster that Johnsson had made. They can say everything that they want about prequel trilogy but at least, George Lucas had a clear idea where he wanted to go.
Not having Luke, Leia and Han etc together one last time….one of the biggest mistakes in film history.
By their own admission going into a trilogy without an overall plan for the three films….utter stupidity.
Killing the main threat off in TLJ….did no one really say “hang on if we kill off Snoke now who’s going to be the villain in episode 9?” I don’t think anyone actually believes for a second that they always intended to bring Palpatine back.
Disrespecting the legacy characters and then plain insulting the fans if they dared voice their unhappiness.
Actively trying to (and in many cases succeeding) in ditching the hardcore fans….many of whom won’t be back regardless of what happens.
You forgot woke ideology, that's what really killed Star Wars.
I’ll fully agree. On top of that we didn’t get a proper reunion with the legacy characters and the bloodline for the Skywalker/Solo Family got killed off. I get really annoyed when people say that Rian Johnson is a “talented Director” and he’s proven the opposite. He is the laziest person I’ve ever seen. Even Sam Witwer calls him out on this.
@@howard7073I expected Palpatine... With how bad writing was going I have no problem believing they thought that would work with minor set up from the start😂, though in a functional writers room that would have been a temporary misdirect where you know that needs changing and will be later but you have to focus other problems first.
This just never ending stubbornness and doubling down on Rey is insane. I don’t even dislike Rey and yet I think bringing her back given the feedback is just a recipe for disaster.
They'd be better off making a Grogu movie in the future.
They have to rehabilitate Luke if they want fans to come back. Luke Skywalker is the spirit of Star Wars. It's like buying DC and trying to replace Superman with a new character. Just retcon the sequels and start over; it was a failed experiment.
Differing opinions is absolutely good. But if anyone using numbers to make an argument that the ST matches the OT and PT is actually a bit embarrassing. We are here taking about some of those movies 40+ years later with Darth Vader and “I am your father” (and MANY other parts) being used in the every day lexicon of daily life. The other is less than 10 years old and is not talked about , referenced and I do not think anyone is walking around quoting Snoke.
I'm quoting Snoke all the time, "You were unbalanced, bested by a girl who never held a lightsaber, you failed!" 😂
The only time the sequel trilogy is referenced is negatively. Even supporters of the ST can only argue the degree of suckage.
"Take that ridiculous thing off" is one I have used repeatedly, but it's bland enough that Snoke doesn't come to mind when said.
You literally got the quote wrong
My friends and I reference Snoke's death quote when a villain has a lame death.
Disney spent 4 billion dollars on a franchise and made a trilogy where it had no plan from the start is truly mind boggling.
It's also annoying when people use the argument about "the movie made a billion at the box office, so it's good." When it's not always the case.
It truly is. Far more planning goes into the construction projects I work on which have costs in the 1-10M range.
It’s absurd to me that somebody would invest billions of dollars into something and not come up with a comprehensive plan for the product (the movies in this case).
They were trying to recreate the original trilogy for this generation, which George was winging the whole time, and he's been honest about that, so they thought it'd be easy as pie.
Regarding "Empire's" drop off:
I was there waiting in ghastly long lines for Star Wars in 1977. I couldn't get to the film until 3 months AFTER it was released, and all over the country, the lines were so long that they were selling out the entire day's worth of shows BEFORE the first showing of the day. This went on for months.
Partly because, back then, there were very few multiplex theaters, and Star Wars was exclusively shown on the biggest screens in the country. (In Denver, where I saw it, the Cooper70/cameo was the only game in town for the first 4 months-ish.)
It was a cultural phenomenon that has only happened a few times in my lifetime. (Titanic and Avatar being the other two, but even as 'big' as they were, they were insignificant next to the power of the....er...first Star Wars film. Heh.)
The Empire Strikes Back had the same 'pull', but it wasn't the first. The big difference in revenue would be that people saw Star Wars over and over and over. Empire did spectacularly, but it wasn't the 'first', so repeat business wasn't as big.
Where it went wrong for me was Rey beating Kylo at the end of TFA. There is only so much disbelief one can suspend.
I agree 100% He has had all this traning and she has had none! I mean c'mon what a fucking joke!!! And Finn with his screaming REY!! all this time especially when shes in the middle of a battle. WTF!! SMH! So much annoyed me with these so called canon ST!
We all know what happened. Rian Johnson was allowed to run a muck and poisoned the cinema waters.
My problem with this last trilogy was that none of the episodes made sense together or furthered the greater story. Individually, they were 'meh.' It's sad because I wanted to love them like the others... but I don't even enjoy rewatching them. My gen alpha kids put on 1-6 only. That really says something about them!
yes, that "Modern Audiences" that KK talked about.
I really love Star Wars and I try so hard to love them but I can’t.
I'd say what mainly derailed the sequel trilogy was twofold. First, it was clear, even before we got reports of it, that by the second movie, the story wasn't following any set path for a larger three-act structure. Second, there was no consistency in tone across the three movies which leads back to the lack of a finished script.
Why do people think that quality is measured by money? Force Awakens was only the most successful Star Wars film because a) social media makes it easier to market movies and b) because more theaters exist around the world than there were during the OT and PT. Heck, it was probably the first Star Wars movie most Chinese audience ever saw.
People also ignore the fact that Kennedy only picked JJ Abrams because he was very popular at the time, she picked Rian Johnson even though he had never directed a franchise movie before and she instigated the behind the scenes drama of Rise of Skywalker. And let's not forget all her decisions that led to Solo go down in history as the first SW film to flop.
A lot people just go for what gives them the advantage in a debate so because the numbers are good that’s what a sequel defender would latch onto….if the box office wasn’t great I’m sure some would say box office doesn’t mean anything
I don’t think success money wise is more important than the quality of the work but monetary success generally means there is more of that work, which makes it longer lasting
Also other factors like ticket prices being super-expensive, and rewatches, and so on.
The important thing here is not the amount of money each movie made, but the dropoff percentage. It’s a clear indicator that public interest in the ST dropped significantly more than for the OT or PT.
You should think about it in terms of ticket sales. TFA sold 70 million tickets less than A New Hope. Which can be to various contributing factors like media that competes with theater for attention in general, anti nostalgia audiences, fan bases that died off and not being replaced with younger/newer fans, etc.
But Thor like most TH-camrs are kind of under this hashtag logic and repeat things that could be said in 200 characters or less without doing their research. Because Chris Nolan could be the president of lucas film and not have much success since the Disney hierarchy is headed by research groups and committees that are backed by the board and indirectly by shareholders. The research groups actually spearhead the creative process and influence what movies are made and goes in the script (chewy getting a medal was an actual Reddit petition). When art in the history of man is the creative expression of an individual. Art in the history of man has the scarcity like gold principle baked into the painting. Kathleen for instance didn’t want JJ Abrams as the director of episode 7 and openly spoke against mystery boxes after he was hired. She also argued against releasing films before they had a story and against the marvelization of Star Wars that would dilute the brand. Iger openly spoke about dismantling the research groups at Disney in his book and how he was only partly successful. Though the information is there people keep repeating the same things, they keep following the same train of hashtag logic and would probably do so even if they had the correct information.
The 2 biggest problems with the Star Wars sequel trilogy were hiring Brian Johnson (who has the controversial ideal of making half the audience hate the movie) and Jar Jar Abrams (whose writing method revolves around copy+pasting previous material in the franchise, slapping his name on it, and claiming in interviews that his versions are so great that people will forget what came before).
Rian Johnson made a movie for professional critics and film makers. If you follow the theme he’s actually critiquing JJ’s derivative style of storytelling (destroy the past [nostalgia], using Kylo as a villain to that approach)(derivative and storytelling in the same sentence is quite oxymoronic).
If you don’t get the theme you will be watching an entirely different movie.
I understood the direction after Kylo destroyed his derivative helmet.
But Rian gets really petty as well and actually directly pokes fun at JJ as an incompetent storyteller. Poking fun at JJ’s use of the “emotional wound” device, having Snoke ask Kylo “how’s your wound,” to Kylo saying “it’s nothing (it doesn’t exist).”
It was a really interesting film on so many levels but it was inaccessible to audiences who were expecting more of the same from TFA and to audiences who aren’t well versed in the process of storytelling or cinematic language.
@@VonJayNope. Even people who "got it" don't like it if they were fans of SW, because it shit all over the ENTIRE LEGACY, not just JJ's take on it.
@@NeoN-PeoN being a fan of Star Wars doesn’t dictate whether you like a Star Wars movie or not. Being a fan of anything isn’t a monolithic experience. It comes down to…whether you like the movie or not. Which US based on your specific tastes and experiences.
You hit the Nail on the head. As a Fan and a 53 year old:
Original Trilogy - View in Theatre - Every Release in Theatres too many to count at home -Soured a little with the return of the Jedi -the Ewok Endor thing was a little too cute for me
Prequels - As above by Padme/Anakin romance =Ewoks
Disney Trilogy:
The Farce Awakens - seen twice and watched maybe once on video
The Lethargic Jedi - seen twice and watched maybe once on video
Fromage de Skywalker - Seen twice in Theatre - but I had to take my kids and zero views after on video
The Lucas trilogies are marriages I would gladly re-enter into. The Disney was like this: Film 1 -Desperate and bias to make it work out, Film 2 - Realizing there were major problems in the relationship, Film 3: Needing a divorce and looking back on Films 1 and 2 and realizing how bad it really was.....
If Disney had purchased Lucasfilm, and done nothing but stay on cruise control (Merchandise, the occasional game and novel), the IP would be more profitable.
They could have done NOTHING and it would be in a better place for its long term success.
I believe it was a mixture of the last jedi not having any continuity to follow with the force awakens, the way the character of Luke Skywalker was treated in the last jedi, certainl employees at lucas film calling fans toxic, sexist, and misogynistic for not liking the last jedi, as well as leaks that the rise of skywalker was going to see the return of palpatine which, of course, upset many of the OT and ST fans.
These numbers are truly embarrassing, but it gets worse when we consider other metrics. Like how toy sales are down 65% since Disney took over (bear in mind the biggest money maker in Star Wars has always been the toys by a long shot, with video games and box office revenue being 2nd and 3rd), viewership numbers for Mandalorian Season 3 were so bad by the end they weren’t even listed, and now Ahsoka has viewer counts potentially lower than Andor. There are videos upon videos of Star Wars toys from The Force Awakens still unsold, clogging shelves at discount stores, and even toy aisles have seen their Star Wars space chopped down to almost nothing.
There is a lot of objective evidence that Star Wars is doing badly right now, but even without that the general feeling is one of apathy. People just don’t care anymore. And why should we? They have made it abundantly clear the movies and shows are not made for us and if we don’t like it we can just leave. So we have.
Well said
Outside of video games, they're tanking across the board
The top FIFTY selling Star Wars book on Amazon are all pre-Disney
Every discount store I walk in is filled with Star Wars merch from TLJ and Rise Of Palpatine. Those movies came out years ago.
Retailers are dedicating less and less space to Star Wars merch.
The franchise is dying fast
4.5 billion plus all the other merch, you must really be seething to try and spin it that Disney isn't making a fortune on this stuff. poor guy. Disney doesn't need you little guy, Orangeman gone. 😂
@jogreeen keep your head in the sand brother
@@jogreeen What you have to remember with the movie profits, plus with the merchandise, they are not free, it is all about cost versus revenue. Yes overall the films were successful (Solo being the glaring exception), but with the drop of revenue for each film and their cost not proportionally dropping, Disney made back less and less. Also the toy sales are counter balanced by the fees paid to Hasbro to actually make them. On top of that, The High Republic had a billion dollar marketing push behind it, and yet almost nothing has come of it. Plus, companies don’t see that something broke even and say, “Alright! That was a success!”, they panic. Each new product is an investment, in which they are hoping to get back several times what they paid for. Disney was hoping for growth year over year, yet the fact that they haven’t had a Star Wars film in theaters for 4 years when it had been every year when Disney acquired them is telling.
Lastly telling me to go away as Disney doesn’t need me is exactly why the Marvels and Wish have just bombed catastrophically in theaters. Disney has inadvertently been telling different parts of their fandoms that they don’t need them, through cast and crew, messaging and responses to criticism, to the point that no one cares anymore. If Star Wars was still amazing, we wouldn’t even be having the conversation. The last Star Wars project I enjoyed was Jedi:Survivor, and even that was buggy and unpolished on PC (though that is not Disney’s fault, it was EA). I want Star Wars to succeed, but it can’t do that without producing quality content. And at this point it can’t afford to alienate anymore fans.
Star Wars are kids movies, you will never cancel them. Disney don't care if you incels don't watch them. 🤣😅@@coda7994
The force awakens was so popular because it was the first films in 15 years.Then we caught on
The big dip with rise of skywalker was for sure impacted by multiple things. The big ones were TLJ not being a movie most of the fandom liked, rise of skywalker just being a bad movie, and disney LF not building a good relationship with its fandom. They were more interested in blaming the fandom for their issues than actually trying to make films the fandom would love and create new fans.
I don’t think any studio should build the expectation that a fandom will be satiated by their requests. I think TFA introduced that idea and TLJ didn’t pick up the torch. No artist in the history of man would have went full derivative and fan service like JJ Abrams did. Abrams cannot pass that type of torch to another artist and expect them to do the same. Rian seemed to be very triggered by Abrams’s and Disney’s democratization of art. And nostalgia advertised as art. So he made “kill the past (nostalgia)” a theme to TLJ. That if you like TFA (a nostalgia orgy on pornographic levels) you definitely wouldn’t like TLJ. I love TLJ the moment Kylo smashed his derivative helmet. Kylo smashed it once and took a long look at it, then smashed it to f’ing pieces. I felt that on an almost spiritual level. Because with nostalgia, why would I pay money I earned to see someone purposefully NOT be creative? Fans are actually encouraging half baked and uninspired material. Disney is exploiting those audiences they believe fans should have a say in the creative process. They give you nostalgia, which gives audiences an automatic response, it gives them good feelings, and audiences mistake these good feelings for good storytelling.
They deliberately sank the ship. All they had to do was put Han, Luke, Leia and Chewbacca in the same scene, but that would have pleased the original fans who KK, and her fellow goblin minions, loathe and detest; so they did everything they could to undermine the original series, while filling it with their identity politics which no one asked for. Now she's being exposed - and it's delicious to witness. Damning emails to come, apparently.
I think you go too easy on The Force Awakens. While on the surface it seems like a decent film it laid a bad foundation for the trilogy by essentially undoing the ending of RotJ and resetting the galaxy back to a pre-ANH state (big evil empire vs plucky rebels in hiding)
I'm still of the opinion that TRoS actually got a boost from the popularity of The Mandalorian. A couple of months ago I watched an interesting piece on the actual financial numbers behind each film. The sleuth put in the time to seek out the shell names for each project. Then there's the reports on the numbers of the merchandising. It all paints an even more stark picture of the situation.
I liked the "Forced Awakened," but it started the systemic foreshadowing of lazy Disney writing and character development we have now both in Star Wars and Marvel.
The success of each film is largely dictated by the success of the instalment that preceded it in the saga; The Force Awakens did well because it was preceded by Revenge of the Sith (technically Return of the Jedi); The Last Jedi got the numbers it did because it was preceded by The Force Awakens; The Rise of Skywalker flatlined because it was preceded by The Last Jedi.
Solo also bombed for the same reason. I’ve said it before, but the levels of ineptitude needed in getting The Last Jedi produced and into cinemas are staggering. Not only did it fatally wound the franchise, it left very little to work with narratively for the next film.
The Last Jedi is where it all went wrong.
And don't forget there is a huge gap in the value of currency between 1977 and 2015. Not to mention, ticket prices were far lower. 1977 average ticket prices were $2.23 and 2015 was $8.65. Also, A New Hope sold almost 100,000,000 tickets while Force Awakens did about 108,000,000, only because the population of North America rose over 4 decades. And we haven't even factored in the cost to make these films combined with inflation. The "raw data" for the sequels is not an accurate indicator of success. As Thor mentioned at the beginning, you really need to dig into the numbers.
Disney paid Lucas $4B for the rights, so $4.5B gross isn't really good. So now they're at $500M profit, then we take out the cost to make each film and the marketing, and I don't think they are really happy with it right now. Disney is going through all kinds of turmoil and reorgs because of it. Let's not forget, the Sequel trilogy jettisoned so many fans that all future Star Wars movies are starting behind the 8 ball, in fact they put all Star Wars movies on hold and it doesn't look like that is ending soon.
The Last Jedi killed Star Wars. No one was hyped for the last movie after that because TLJ left the story no where to grow and move. And Rise of Skywalker tried to first undo TLJ, before engaging in frantic and pointless action. The lack of planning and awareness was just readily apparent. And TLJ told us long time fans to fuck off, and we did. But if you don't turn around and capture young fans, which the sequels did not do, then you have a dead franchise walking. That's where we are today.
TFA was a complete reboot of A New Hope. Any Ep7 would have made $2B, like you said. If it was any good, it would have made $3B. I went and saw it 3 times in the theater. I kept telling everyone it was great, I loved it. I was lying to myself.
The rise of Skywalker was the only star wars movie i didn't care for and didn't watch, mostly because "the last jedi" (TLJ) was so bad. Force Awakens wasn't good but damn, TLJ was horrible.
Did you also skip Solo because of TLJ? I waited till it was on streaming
@@exar1806TLJ was literally the last Disney Star Wars content I have consumed. I refuse to financially support the desecration of Star Wars any further.
@@exar1806 Yeah, same, though Solo wasn't bad, it was a checklist movie though.
Also keep in mind, Studios don’t get 100% of the Box Office. They roughly get half of the Box Office.
Movies have production costs (what it takes to make the movie) and marketing costs (what it takes to promote the movie)
So, 50% of Box Office as Revenue minus both costs = profits.
We know the production costs are through the roof, especially the numerous reshoots of the “Rise of Palpatine”, so seems highly likely Disney LOST money (no profits) on the Sequel Trilogy.
Episode 7 could hsve hit even more dizzying heights with a better and more original story AND as a spectacular send off to fhe original character's.
The problem of course is that they where trying to expand on a story that wea already complete.
And rather than use Episode 7 as jump off point into a new SAGA they choose the easiest option (or so they thought).
The new cast, led by Daisy and Jon, could then have set off a new question or endeavours
The problem was no 3-movie plan BEFORE the writing process began.
Different directors for each movie would be fine, but potentially 3 writers, with no interest in connecting the stories between each other?
What were they thinking? Who decided on that path?
THAT'S who's to blame.
4bil for the franchise, 4.5bil from 3 movies, half a billion in profit, just counting that. I could guarntee some execs definetly expected more than that
Yeah just counting that is underwhelming but in all honesty we cant even say that is the case because that simple math doesnt include the cost to make and advertise the movies themselves or even the theater's cut of the revenue from the movies. There is no way Disney has made a profit off of the Star Wars IP still if you ask me.
Don't forget the actual cost of making the movies. TFA $447M, TLJ $300M, RoS $416M. $4B for the franchise, $1.163B to make the movies, and only $4.5B in revenue.
@@LDub01031994 overall? They paid it off, they saw profit, but definetly not as big as they hoped it would be. Its been a decade since they bought it. If they couldnt make ANY profit after that long, then every person working at disney has to be actually brain damaged
@@darksychoyep, people forget to take in the costs all the time. Plus how theaters take part of that money too. But yeah, Disney didn’t but Star Wars to make a billion in profit, they bought it to make billions.
Oh definitely….when the ROS struggles to the billion mark you know that expectations were not even nearly met. The final part of a saga spanning 40 years? It should have been doing End Game type numbers not limping to the finish line.
A trilogy is not and never was a core source of income, the biggest money always been merchandising. Killing the golden goose franchise and effectively dooming any future source of revenue is such a 4d chess move I dont even.
I'm glad the market numbers reflect what I think about the trilogy. People rag on the first film like it's the source of the problem, but I firmly believe that people rag on the first one and not the second because the second film is so bad that people blocked it from their memory.
Makes sense. I saw the first two Disney Star Wars movies in the theater. But after watching The Last Jedi, I was so pissed off I didn’t go back for the final episode.
Here’s another way to breakdown the numbers: I saw The Force Awakens seven times in theaters (not that I thought it was THAT amazing or incredible, but it was just fascinating to see this franchise back on the big screen again, with new content, and especially seeing the original cast back in these roles but at different stages of life than we’d seen or known them for around 35 years by that point, and I was at the very least intrigued for what they had in store and for what I naively assumed at the time they had planned out). I saw The Last Jedi all of once in theaters. I’ve still yet to watch The Rise of Skywalker at this point in time, and have no plans nor interest to do so (although I read the leaks prior to the movie’s release, and once the trailers came out and started validating those leaks, that was definitely the nail in the coffin for me in regards to this trilogy).
I would ask people who defend it and say “look at what Kennedy build” the question of “how much was done by the work before?”.
Several decades of building up the Star Wars franchise build the fanbase. They came for the Franchise, not for what Kennedy made. And they had rose tinted goggles on when the first movie came out. Go back right now and look at old reviews. Even the many positive ones actually name most of the flaws but then excuse it. “This will be explained, it will be epic when they get to it, stop worrying about it its not a big deal”. Then they started finding out it wasn’t going to be explained, it wasn’t going to be epic, that it was a big deal.
Now imagine a franchise set by Kennedy that did not have several decades of Star Wars buildup. Would this have been a success? Would it have made a loss like most of the series they churn out now? And the answer is basically from Disney itself: probably yes. Thats why they pulled the plug on movies and went for series. They saw the writing on the wall, the PLUMMETING earnings.
The Sequels had the momentum and goodwill of the Franchise that carried it to a financial success. The movies were a failure.
"Put in chick in it, and make her gay, and lame !!"
(it's just a joke, a funny joke)
I understood that reference.
The South Park skit is funny because it's recognisably true.
It's not... it's Disney's motto
and that’s where we are now…..under Disney’s ownership Star Wars is pretty much just a joke.
The worst thing to come from TLJ is that it made TFA a bad movie.
Everything we forgave about TFA, thinking that they’d make up for it with all that set up now has made that movie a waste of time.
People were so happy we didn't get more poor dialogue and convoluted plot like the prequels, they were willing to forgive them until the corporate structure became undeniable, it seems, in Last Jedi. Which is something the prequels were helpfully lacking, is the corporate structure.
@@arnoldreeves2436 "Wasn't worth all the stories it killed off." Like the Expanded Universe. Those were the first stories on Disney's chopping block.
@@arnoldreeves2436 I really feel the EU was effectively axed by Lucas and Filoni with the clone wars, so when Disney made it official it really wasn’t a surprise to me, though they could’ve gone with a more pick and choose what to de-canonize kind of approach like was done in the clone wars.
That said, it’s a pretty dumb decision. They rebranded the old stuff as “legends” already, so why not just continue publishing new “legends” material. It would’ve kept their die hard fans happier. It’s not like something like that is unprecedented (marvel still makes comics that have nothing to do with the MCU…)
@@arnoldreeves2436 Young Jedi Knights is just as good, and it takes place after those books.
They pushed them out too earlier and too fast, gave the each film a different XP/Director with had too much autonomy, before they had a clear game plan and before Lucasfilm had time to reorganize and refocus on the future of the franchise.
Where it went wrong is the idea that both Disney and Lucasfilm thought that they could reboot Star Wars and disguise it as a sequel to the Lucas galaxy when they never had that intention in the first place! Until they realize that Star Wars can never be reinvented it will continue to struggle plus you have a large portion that never invested in the Lucas/Filoni era and don’t actually know what real fandom is!
The question is, if Disney has all these real numbers, wouldn’t they be even more motivated to get rid of her than the fans that are being fed blue sky lines? It’s baffling 🤔
'The Last Jedi' unquestionably DESTROYED the 'Star Wars' franchise. Anyone claiming otherwise, is utterly DIVORCED FROM REALITY.
Jon Favreau's 'The Mandalorian' could've allowed the franchise to RISE FROM THE DEAD, but Kathleen Kennedy's interference- including firing Gina Carano- returned the franchise to the grave.
Former 'Star Wars' fans have moved onto IMPORTED media- anime, Korean dramas, European art house films- the franchise will need decades to even BEGIN to recover, and it cannot begin while Kennedy runs Lucasfilm.
I couldn't believe years ago that access media had given KK so much praise. "She made 2 billion dollars!" Yeah, with Star Wars. They acted as if she'd taken this obscure little story and turned it into a colossal hit, instead of the reality which is that she inherited what was already the greatest commercial franchise of all time and sent it straight into decline. TFA's success wasn't due to KK, but the work Lucas had already done. The greater challenge would have actually been to lose money with a Star Wars movie - and KK did that, with a movie about Han Solo no less - that's her most impressive achievement.
Will the legacy of Disney Star Wars be remembered and cherished in the same way that George Lucas’s Star Wars was remembered and cherished? No. In the 1970s and 1980s, it wasn’t just the movies that made money. It was the merchandising, including those movies when they were released in multiple formats on home video, toys, games, comics, radio programs, books and on and on that sold immensely well and kept Star Wars a success long after Return Of The Jedi was released in 1983.
Can the same be said of items related to the Disney movies with the Star Wars name on them? No. Those items aren’t selling because people aren’t interested in buying them because Disney Star Wars isn’t fun, imaginative, entertaining or enjoyable, all because Kathleen Kennedy wrecked Star Wars
The like counter seems to broken on my TH-cam app today. All the videos I have clicked on have 13k likes, and obviously this video wouldn’t have that being posted ten minutes ago.
It's predicting the future.
Thor, I mentioned this exact point on one of your channels a few months ago. I even created a detailed breakdown with domestic numbers and compared them with those of other franchises. Considering that the last film in the Skywalker saga was beaten by Rogue One domestically (515 million vs 532 million), which was released earlier, The Rise of Skywalker should have made significantly more money. As you mentioned, The Rise of Skywalker could have achieved End Game box office numbers if The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker had been better quality. However, they somehow managed to mess it up.
I'm rereading the original Thrawn trilogy. It was so good. It makes me wish that no movies were made after the OT. No prequels, no sequels.
The original Thrawn trilogy should have been the sequel trilogy.
@@christopherbarringer751 Agreed.
@@christopherbarringer751 As evidenced by Ahsoka, Disney would've just fucked it up and ruined Thrawn anyway. We'd be in the comments asking why the NR was forced to hold the idiot ball so the bumbling ass they wrote Thrawn to be could pull off constant wins against them
@@tglake2894 Agreed, it's a mess isn't it.
Success at the moment may not hold up for the long run…
I thought the most damning evidence was when she lied and said she never got a story from George for the final trilogy
The Sequel Trilogy lost me early in the first episode, where they essentially made Rey a prodigy right off the bat: i.e., a "Mary Sue". It was utter ridiculous, stinking garbage how they showed NO respect to the original 3 legendary characters of Luke, Han, and Leia - or to us truly loyal Star Wars fans who were there from the beginning. The agenda tops quality: Get Woke; Go Broke.
The sequels yet again shine to show what went wrong.
Disney Star Wars summed up: "Somehow, Palpatine Returned"
It's sly because Kennedy, she drew us all in with the force awakens, purely for the idea that there would be somekind of exploration of what exactly happened with the Legacy Characters coming off of Episode 6: Return of the Jedi. I mean that's what ALL us fans were there for.
then Kennedy just basically pulled the rug right from under us with tlj, and worse still, tried hard to shame all those of us who dared so dislike that movie; brand us haters, sexists etc. I'm pretty sure that was Kennedy's stance back then because she basically gave Rian Johnson a trilogy all of his own to make, right after seeing the "private screening" of last jedi when she was gushing over it. And let's be honest here, Kennedy's never really been a fan of *Starwars* and Rian just basically made the kind of Starwars movie SHE wanted to see. Not what was right for the SAGA overall.
And well ROS is a sheer joke the less said about that the better, infact rise of skywalker doesnt really get me mad at all, because for me personally it was the last jedi that did ALL the lasting damage. by the time they were going into ep9, too much damage was done and it was beyond repair.
For me the damning evidence against Kathleen Kennedy has been her whole attitude toward us MALE FANS! ASSUMING we're this "Boy's club" which is absolutely Not true and it really just erks me that she actually believes that bs. Sure the *Star Wars* franchise has always appealed primarily to "Boys" and just Males in general; still doesn't mean it's purely inclusive ONLY to Males. If you look at the long running series - "Sex & the City" that is a show aimed primarily at "Women" in general, but anyone can pretty much watch it, if they find themselves getting into it.
the Starwars Galaxy itself is so huge, there's just endless characters and stories you can tell. Kathleen Kennedy's whole mentality, saying dumb and very ignorant things in interviews like how she believes "Girls can't relate to Luke Skywalker", or how she "doesn't feel she has to cater to one particular demographic of the fanbase" in any way shape or form; all of these things really kind of shone a big spotlight on her own mentality and attitude toward Starwars and us fans.
You've only got to look at all the old photos of massive queues of people of all diversity and age, lining up waiting to see *Star Wars* way back in 1977; it wasn't called a "Cultural Phenomenon" for nothing; there are plenty of "girls" and Women in those photos. Also, even if the statistics have proved there are just more "Boys" who love starwars than girls, what exactly is wrong about this!? Boys and Girls can have their OWN things to enjoy. I remember as a kid playing my "Super Starwars" snes games, and you could play as Leia in Empire and Jedi i think it was; both her her Boushh disguise in Jabba's palace and her slave outfit i think. Also there were Female characters you could play as Arden Lyn in the starwars beat-em-up "Masters of teras Kasi", and ofcourse most notably the iconic *Mara Jade* in her own video-game spin-off - "Mysteries of the Sith". there were even action figures of Mara Jade and Leia galore. But these were Not "play dolls" but "Action figures". Starwars has always been a very different thing to what "Girls" like. I mean it's in the name Kathy - "Wars" lol.
Kathy Kennedy's big problem is she just made it too much about "Identity Politics", when talking about *Star Wars*. When you would hear Kevin Feige over at MARVEL talk about his MCU (that he was majority in charge of), he would just simply talk about his love of those Superheroes and all his favorite Comic tales. With Kathy, she's NEVER done this! Which has always been a big indicator to me that she was never really even a Fan. So okay, does a Exec Producer or even CEO of a company absolutely need to be a big fan of the very thing they're in charge of? No, not necessarily, thing with Kathleen Kennedy is everytime she opens her mouth to talk about Starwars, she always sounds very "Corporate" and seems more interested in talking "Gender Politics", as a Fan i don't really want to hear that kind of talk, even if that's like one of her main mandates she's having to follow, just keep that bts atleast. But no, instead Kennedy would just keep banging on about how she wants to get the numbers of Men and Women into Starwars more Even; lol Realistically that's just Not really ever going to be possible because Most "Girls & Boys* simply like Different things. So all Kennedy's rhetoric in her time running Lucasfilm has built up this image of her being a very "agenda driven" type of boss or leader of a company. One who only cares about the ideology in that Franchise and making sure every "Creative" she hires, is made to strictly follow that ideology no matter what.
When Kathy Kennedy once said in a article-interview for Rogue One way back in 2016 that "she has a responsibility to the Company she works for." I mean that just exposed exactly the type of person Kennedy truly is; she's a numbers person, a "Corporate Figure", or bean-counter. And all it showed really deep down was that Kennedy was not prepared to protect the starwars brand from (the overall Company she works for) Disney's own greed. If Mrs Kennedy truly cared about this beloved Franchise that had been entrusted to her and HER alone; she would have influenced Bob Iger early on, as to the dangers of churning out movie after movie so quickly the way it was done. Starwars is not something you can just rush out.
Also if Kennedy gave a damn she would have ensured from the very start Bob Iger AND Alan Horn (at that time) stuck to actually USING GEORGE'S Stories! and Not discard his treatments of the Sequels. While she was sat in on that crucial meeting; instead George Lucas has openly said how he knew when he walked in the room, seeing JJ, Kathy and Iger all sat down that they were not going to use his treatments. So that in my eyes is the main damning evidence against Kathleen Kennedy when it comes to the Sequel trilogy. Doesn't matter whether his stories had crazy ideas such as midiclorians or not; it was her job to HONOR his legacy for the "Starwars Saga" And Adapt his sequel treatments, didn't have to be completely to the letter; even Peter Jackson's Lotr adaps didn't include tom bombadil, yet they were still very "Faithful"; and that's what Kennedy should have ensured was done for Lucas's Sequel treatments.
So many people think TLJ is the worst, but I honestly thought Episode 9 was the worst. Instead of going with what TLJ had, it spent the whole movie getting rid of it. I read the script of the original Episode 9 Colin Trevorrow did, and it REALLY did a good job going with what TLJ had but also making it Star Wars again. I REALLY wish that Colin did Episode 9. I can watch Episode 8, but I get so bored and dislike Episode 9 so much.
Hasbro's VP told us, 😂"These new characters just don't sell & we have the numbers showing us this"
When 1st Star Wars world population 1 billion, today 8.
Movie tickets cost $4.00, today $27.00.
Explain how she can claim she more profitable.
$307 million in 1977 would be equal to $1.56 billion today
$431 million in 1999 would be
equal to $796 million.
That says a lot, just saying.
EDIT:
What I mean to say is that, accounting for inflation, the original Star Wars made as much money as the average of the Disney sequels. The difference is THAT movie, as well as the original trilogy, was and STILL IS for the majority, universally loved by all the fans. We would not have Star Wars today without them.
The prequels may have been panned by the critics, but as a whole they are (again) still liked and/or loved by the majority of fans as well. In fact, more fans who didn’t have a positive opinion of the prequels at the time, have grown to appreciate them in retrospect, in light of what Disney has offered.
The fact that the sequel trilogy cannot say the same(that they are appreciated by the majority of the fans), is quite damning in itself.
They may have made a big splash at the box office, but the costs and chaos behind the scenes, the split in the fan base…
It’s known that they won’t have the same staying power that the George Lucas movies have and will CONTINUE to have.
Disney is suffering and paying for their “lack of vision”.
... and they spell disaster for you at Sacrifice!
Wait, what are we talking about?
Lucasfilms needs a whole restructure, not just Kathleen Kennedy. For example filoni shouldn’t be allowed to write ever again
💯👍
What went wrong was the Mystery Box approach.
Disney bought Lucasfilm, then set a release date. They should have taken a year or two, hired the best writers, and planned out a decade of films and TV shows. Then if R!an didn’t want to follow the plan, FIRED, next director.
I still have not been able to bring myself to watch the Rise of Palpatine
Another thing to consider. Just 3 Star Wars Episode films have been out grossed in the year of their release by other films. Attack of the Clones was the 4th highest grossing film of 2002, Revenge of the Smith the 2nd highest grossing film of 2005 and Rise of Skywalker the 7th highest grossing film of 2019. Not only was it out grossed by Avengers Endgame, but The Lion King remake, Frozen II, Captain Marvel, Spiderman Far From Home and Joker. Much further down to the others which were always in the top 5 and usually number 1.
I saw "The numbers don't lie," and instantly in my head, i heard Scott Stiener yelling: "AND THEY SPELL DISASTER FOR YOU AT THE BOX OFFICE!"
I think never establishing a new threat to the galaxy was the first issue. Just slapping new names on the empire and rebels limited the potential of the trilogy. This is why the books worked for the most part with Victor Prime
They didn't actually have anything interesting to make a movie trilogy about. They got the rights, destroyed the legacy cannon, and started making movies with no plan. 99% of the fan theories that were coming out after episode 7 were more detailed and interesting than anything they actually came up with in episodes 8 or 9. It's clear that Disney created characters to check off some diversity checklist, added in nostalgia bait cameos, then tried to construct a plot around all these characters that weren't designed to work in the same story. There was so message, no goal, no passion to communicate something cool with the art of film making. "Somehow Palpatine returned," was just the culmination of every lazy decision made up to that point. They were so desperate to throw in just one more nostalgia bait character that they brought back someone who was thrown into an explodoing space station "somehow". It just breaks literally every rule of good story telling.
It didn't matter to Disney though that they wrote lame characters following all the same tired tropes and contrived plotlines. Disney knew the brand recognition, nostalgia bait, and a big budget would get butts into seats.
The main reason the Sequel Trilogy tanked is that Kathleen Kennedy and company didn't really have a plan for the sequel trilogy, or if they did, they didn't stick to the plan. I have heard that the original plan was to make the Sequel Trilogy a rehash of the Original Trilogy. It wasn't a great plan but it would have done well at the box office. The problem is that Kennedy then gave Ryan Johnson carte blanche with The Last Jedi. The result may have pleased a few critics, but it angered fans and didn't really provide any setup for the third film of the trilogy. There was little JJ Abrams, or anybody else could do to salvage The Rise of Skywalker. It was a mess that appealed to neither the critics or the fans. It is also one of two Star Wars movies I have only seen once, the other one being Solo. The main problem is that they didn't really have a plan for the Sequel Trilogy, but letting Ryan Johnson have full creative freedom with the second film, torpedoed the film.
It should be stated that when adjusted for inflation, Force Awakens is number eleven, it doesn't make it into the top ten. Number one held by Gone With The Wind, and number two held by the first Star Wars movie
Also, it should be mentioned that it was under Kathleen Kennedy that a Star Wars movie finally bombed, that being Solo. People had been expecting the first Star Wars to bomb, Lucas and Mark Hamill included, but it took KK to make it finally happen.
The Star Wars sequels will always have that “what if” factor hanging over it. What if we got one great, complete, coherent story? What if we got to see Han, Luke, and Leia together one last time? What if we got to see Luke’s new Jedi academy? Sure the sequels made a tone of money, which is proof that Star Wars fans are loyal and absolutely love this franchise and always want it to succeed. I just can’t help but wonder how astronomical the numbers would have been if we would have gotten a spectacular trilogy that was well written, planned out, and expanded the galaxy even more.
1:50 "Interest was cut in half" while showing Snoak being cut in half. Had a chuckle
You need to go look at Valiant Renegades breakdown of how much these films actually cost. Their REAL budgets were actually ascertained by looking at UK tax credits. The trilogy didn't do as well as you are making it out (and you aren't painting a rosy picture as is) when taking into account the ACTUAL budgets, and adding in marketing and the theater's take. According to UK tax credits, TFA cost north of 500 million before marketing. That is not a typo.
Great stuff as always, Thor. When the sale was announced, I was beyond excited because I thought Disney would put a detailed plan together ala the MCU Infinity Saga and we were going to get some great films. I became mildly disappointed during TFA when I realized it was essentially a remake of ANH. When they pointed out that Starkiller had a vulnerability almost exactly like the Death Star, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. With that said, I got the chills when Rey extended Luke's lightsaber and thought, ok, even though this wasn't the greatest, they've set it up for something that could be epic. And then Luke threw it over his shoulder and by the time the credits rolled on TLJ, I was on my way out the door. I remember posting something along the lines of "I never thought I'd say I want George Lucas back, but here we are" on Facebook when I got home. I went to TROS out of duty to something I loved as well as wanting to see how the train wreck ended, even though I was already upset they nullified Anakin's arc of the first six films by bringing Palpatine back. I made it through the first two seasons of Mando, but after seeing Disney continually double down on the identity politics at the expense of quality story telling across Marvel and Star Wars, I canceled D+ and wouldn't watch another Star Wars or MCU product if you paid me to. Yet here I am watching your videos regularly, partially reveling in the mess Star Wars has become and if I'm being honest, holding out hope that something I loved so much may find its way back.
Looking back and seeing how the original characters were treated, it's apparent to me that KK's mission was to make a better trilogy by trashing what came before it. Luke was a loser who had given up while Han and Chewy were cruising around in some hunk of junk apparently scraping to get by. Rey ending up with the Falcon simply because it just happened to end up on Jakku for reasons unknown was another dagger. And as has been mentioned ad nauseum, not having a single frame of film with the original cast in it was mind boggling (I would argue that a first film that focused on them before time jumping to the final two ala the prequels would have grossed another $500M domestically). But now it makes sense in my mind. KK didn't want them outshining her characters at all. Leia was the only one who made a significant contribution to the cause and we know why that was.
Then as the fans began to criticize the films, Kennedy went on the offensive branding anyone who didn't like the sequel characters as "ists" and "phobes". Responding to that nonsense was exhausting. Well written characters with compelling arcs aren't dependent on their gender/sexual orientation/any other characteristic, - they're simply good characters that you become invested in and the stories have compelling set ups and pay offs. In addition to being poorly written, the stories they were in were practically hostile towards a significant portion of the fanbase - namely white males. I know a lot of people are going to roll their eyes at that, but that's my opinion. But I would argue that the omission/ridicule of white male characters and fans in modern Star Wars has been intentional and done with some malice. The lack of diversity of the films made prior was due to who the target audience was (young boys) as well as the times they were made in, it wasn't intentional. There was a time when I planned my life around Thursday night preview screenings of anything Star Wars or Marvel, but the product has morphed into something with a message that practically screams "we don't want people who look like you to watch". Well, mission accomplished.
And that doesn't even factor Merchandise sales. Anyone else remember how many Last Jedi/Rise of Skywalker items sat unsold even after going on Clearance? It's not just kids those are bought by/for; there's always a collectors market for anything that ahs appeal; and when even collectors won't touch something that's when you can tell a product hasn't done well. You only get clearance blowouts as bad as eps 8 and 9 got when no-one's buying them.
I was a star wars fan for the better part of 43 years.
I had been subbed to this channel since shortly before TFA was announced.
I unsubb'd about a week after tRoP was released, as I went to see it on opening day, and a week later I wanted to purge anything and everything "Star Wars" from my life completely.
There was never anything wrong with the content on the channel. I just hated Star Wars.
Came across this video today, and I'm subbed again.
Thank you for keeping up the good work, Thor.
I've been seeing videos made about Kathleen for the last two years with titles like, "She's going to be fired", "This is the end of her Disney Career" and "She won't be working on anymore Star Wars related films or shows." All of which has been pure bullshit. She's still there, she's still working, and she's still lead on ALL Star Wars related content. Why do people keep making videos about her. It seems from Disney's point of view, she can do no wrong.
You know what's even MORE DISGUSTING!?
Is that this 9 movie, 30 year saga of the SkyWalker family ends with a PALPATINE REJECT MASQUERADING as the last descendent of the Skywalker Lineage..... Its a FLIPPIN JOKE!!!
This woman destroyed two beloved franchises. This is what happens with certain affirmative action hires.
Another factor to this. The money spent to product this content is never considered by the people who defend it.
Also, its not just film tickets that made Star Wars what it is.
The merch is just as important. Lucas sold hundreds of millions in toys, and books made their own dent.
Disney's choices collasped the Star wars merch sales to the point it helped put toysrus out of business. Merchandisers couldnt sell the disney merch. Toys from the sequels are still rotting on discount shelves. From all the sources that cover disney, the purchases hasnt made them any money. It put them in debt.
It's beyond just the trilogy though. It's the ongoing damage done to the brand. The IP that Disney bought isn't as valuable as it was because a lot of fans no longer trust them with it. Could they sell it off and make back their inflation adjusted purchase price given the damage done? Maybe, but it would take a substantial investment and good run of films and tv shows from the next owner to recover the value.
Anybody trying to say KK’s tenure at Lucasfilm has been successful is, at best, delusional. Merchandise for the Sequels (where the money is made) is virtually nonexistent. Then you have Willow, a show that was pulled off D+ for tax purposes. Finally you have all but the first two seasons of The Mandalorian being a flop. Do we even need to bring up Indy 5???
Yeah, I thought not
How does Kathleen Kennedy make a billion dollar movie?
Give her a $2 billion movie and watch her cut the gross in half!
Pretty sure there's a fable about a golden goose that Disney might wanna reread.
A lack of vision is where the movies went wrong.
The first and third movies were directed by the same director, a director that doesn’t answer questions and loves things going unanswered.
The movies still could have worked, but they were screwed when they got a different director in the second one. I don’t know the second movie’s director as well, but they wanted to push their own messaging and didn’t care about plot and ultimately made choices that doomed the franchise.
Leia never wore a bra. Instant classic!
For big franchise films like these the biggest factor in its success is the film before it. There are a lot of factors that go alongside it, but the film prior has the biggest impact on how excited people are. That single factor actually breaks down to a degree too, the success of Guardians 3 wasn't contingent upon the success of Antman Quantumania (which was not a success), it was contingent on the success of Guardians 2 and Guardians 1 before that. Star wars is the same... Last Jedi was designed to be divisive, which left some people loving it whilst other hated it, and that division left people unenthused. Not everybody, of course, but enough people to heavily impact the box office numbers.