Mr. Bungle said:
SilverWook said:
Mr. Bungle said:
Baronlando said:
Looking at the charts, boy they aren't kidding when they say blu-ray sales are still relatively soft. Not for Star Wars, just in general. (The headline isn't is as great if you say "In it's first week Star Wars sells a fraction as many copies as the dvd of Beverly Hills Chihuahua!")
Yeah, and there's a significant portion of people who 1) don't own a Blu-ray player, 2) don't own an HD set, 3) already have the DVD set and are fine with that, 4) are kind of strapped these days. Regardless, there's a huge spin here in selling this as some massive success story. Yeah, it's definitely great news for a format that some people have stupidly compared to laserdisc and declared DOA. But people in general don't buy movies the like they did 5 - 10 years ago.
As Laserdisc had a healthy 20+ year run as a niche format, (and pioneered many things we now take for granted with DVD and Blu Ray today) that's actually a backhanded compliment in my book. ;)
Oh, I wasn't trying to knock laserdisc. I was a proud owner and supporter for many years. But it was a format that never properly marketed, and people could never seem to get over the awkward size. Totally ignorant, but that and the much higher price for them really hurt its chances.
laserdisc was great! i dind't get one until late in the run (1995) but i was just happy that i didn't need to rewind movies anymore :) and it wasn't really until progressive scan that I saw a big difference in dvd and laserdisc picture quality. Up until then, the big advantage was size, price and extra features.
Even price wasn't so bad because I got 4 free movies up front, one of which was toy story! and i subscribed to that one club where you buy 3 movies and can get an additional 3 for free (forgot what it was called but you've seen the ads in the sunday paper). And there was one Blockbuster that rented out laserdiscs, so that was cool.
im not so sure if there is still a significant portion that doesn't own HDTV. nobody sells CRTs ever since the analog cutoff a couple years ago. just going off of anecdotal evidence, my whole building has blue light coming out of all the windows at night cuz everyone has a flat screen. What have you guys seen?
And the prices for TVs and blu ray players have come down. the discs themselves are still pricey, especially compared to DVDs that can be had for the single digits.
imk thinking people are getting more into streaming and just downloading to laptops. DVD dind't really have that as competition, but blu ray does. are films going to have a napster problem? the music industry was caught off gaurd 10 years ago, maybe not so much the film industry.
anyway, its a great launch. but im not so convinced that lucas has caught another generation that can easily provide him cash flow and can continue to do so. Younger fans may like star wars PT, but its not a staple the way it OT was for generation X. and they certainly will not be as loyal and unwavering the way many PT kool-aid drinkers are.
Kids that missed both the OT and the PT theatrical runs but are now learning about star wars for the first time from the Clone Wars show may like it a little more because they are truly the first ones that can follow the saga in the numerical order lucas wants with no pre-conceived notion or expectations.
But again, im not sure those kids will be attached to it in the long-term the way us 70s and 80s kids were. it was no coincidence that the resurgence and re-launch of star wars came at a time when generation X entered the workforce.
Lucas may have his eyes set on newer generations, as so many people like to theorize - but he sure loves the discretionary income of our generation.