It continually amazes me how often the OT is shit on in defence of TLJ and people attempt to normalise the criticism of TLJ by trying to draw parallels with audience reactions to TESB.
Star Wars and its fandom is where it’s at because of TLJ, the ST at large and the powers that be handling of the situation. Nothing that came before has anything to do with the current predicament.
Val
I disagree. The tone of the complains from 1980 about TESB and the ones now for TLJ are similar. They don’t like the direction - things could have been done different. Basically fan expectations were not met. Move forward form 1980 to 1995 and the trilogy had been out and complete for 12 years and the fans had a new appreciation of the middle chapter. I’m saying give TLJ 12 years and a chance to be seen as the middle of a complete ST and then let’s talk about it. Where we are right now is that most fans liked the film but a very vocal group did not. And using the reaction to Solo to say that TLJ has left fandom in a damage state doesn’t fit. Most of the reaction to Solo was because of the troubleed production, another actor in the iconic part, bad word of mouth, and the competition when it came out. Basically when faced with the choice of which movie to see that month, Solo lost out to the competition (Deadpool 2 and Infinity War). If TLJ had any impact, it was more likely the timing than the feelings toward TLJ. When you look at home video sales, TLJ topped the year and Solo was 11, behind the same films it lost to in the box office. So the home video of TLJ doesn’t reflect bad fan reaction but the fan reaction to Solo does reflect the same lower interest as the box office numbers. Also interesting was that if you look at the previous years, Rogue One was number one and so was The Force Awakens. https://www.the-numbers.com/home-market/bluray-sales/2018
So the reaction to Solo at the box office does not reflect the current standing of fandom to the Star Wars franchise. If TLJ was so controversial with fans, I would expect a couple of the other movies to have done better in the home video market instead of it taking the prize once again. There just wasn’t the interest in Solo. People have built it into the poster child for damaged fandom and I don’t see it. I see the numbers say that it only sparked about 1/3 the interest that the other Star Wars films have. What it comes down to is that they gambled on another Rogue One and lost. But reaction and box office sales for IX will be the real telling point. I doubt there will be much change unless it is pitted against something big when it is released.