Broom Kid

I think the next season is going to have to do some light-to-heavy lifting on educating its characters (and by extension, its audience) on how understandably-yet-weirdly misinformed they are about the larger galaxy. I think it’s great that these people are mystified and bewildered about the larger truths of the universe they occupy. Yoda’s species (and Jedi in general) are considered an “Enemy sorcerers,” the Mandalorians themselves operate under a code that obviously wasn’t being observed by the larger Mandalorian people as little as a decade prior to this show’s beginning.

The Darksaber’s presence hints that those discoveries are coming, and I think the one-two reality-shaking revelations for Din and co. are going to provide a lot of dramatic opportunities I hope the creators are up to the task of exploring. It’s a really cool hook they’ve provided, because it puts the audience members one up on the characters they’re watching, and that can make for some very satisfying storytelling depending on how they ratchet up the tension in those revelations coming to fruition.

2nd Weekend is looking to land somewhere around 75-76mil.

With that sort of turnout for the 2nd weekend, chances are pretty good this stops around Rogue One’s total. Whether its more or less depends a lot on that 3rd weekend drop, and if the weekdays hold somewhat steady, or continue to decline. (It’s also possible the actuals for this weekend are lower than 75-76… today’s totals seem to be DECLINING from yesterday’s. Which is a very bad sign)

it’s been great seeing more now accepting the numbers you’ve always stuck by

As one who pushed back on those numbers, I still don’t think the pushback was out of bounds. Anticipation WAS higher for the film than those numbers were suggesting right up until the first reviews started dropping, and only started to settle in around those numbers after it became clear to general audiences that the quality of the film wasn’t up to the modern era’s standards (whose low point was Solo and whose high point was The Last Jedi).

The numbers as posted earlier in the thread were, I think it’s safe to say, crafted with the assumption the film wasn’t going to be the worst reviewed film Star Wars film in the last 20 years. Had this film delivered on the promises made in either TFA or TLJ (or optimally, both, which wasn’t impossible, btw) I don’t think those numbers would have borne out as accurate. It took the movie being a giant mess for those numbers to finally fit.

Also - looking at international numbers, I should specify: Barring a further fall-off in audience engagement, “Stopping around Rogue One’s total” refers to domestic. It’s still pretty possible it doesn’t make a billion worldwide as international audiences aren’t responding very well either.

It’s Qui-Gon.

That doesn’t really have anything to do with camera moves though. And genre can inform style, but it also doesn’t dictate it. Star Wars isn’t “niche” anything, and never has been.

Looks like Sunday was 1.5mil higher than they intially projected this AM. So $177 mil OW.

Star Wars isn’t a genre. I haven’t missed your point, I think maybe you’re not grasping the terms you’re trying to use to arrive at the definitions that aren’t quite right. And your description of genre honestly doesn’t have much to do with filmmaking techniques anyway, because now you’re talking about character types and characterization tropes.

ray_afraid said:
There’s only a very small fraction of sad weirdos doing that.

This really isn’t true. And even if it was true, that wouldn’t make it acceptable. All I’ve said is that it isn’t acceptable, people aren’t helpless to engage in it, and I’ll I’ve really gotten back is “Yes it is, yes they are, and on top of that he brought it on himself.”

It’s not a small fraction of sad weirdos. It’s a lot of people. It’s happened in here many times. I don’t agree with it, is all. I can’t stop people from doing it, but I can choose not to join in, and that’s my choice. I can disagree with the man without maligning him personally and attributing things to him out of spite and anger. And if I’m in a position to debunk false accusations and ugly conspiracies, I’ll do that, because I think that’s only fair.

ray_afraid said:

Slavicuss said:

All the anger and bitterness could have been easily avoided if he released the originals alongside his preferred SEs.

Broom Kid said:

Definitely, but on the other hand, it’s not his fault people are being like that.

So, it’s his fault, but it’s also not his fault?
Hmm…

No - I agree that anger and bitterness would have been avoided if the thing that happened hadn’t actually happened. But that doesn’t mean he deserves to be blamed for other people’s actions and behaviors. Again, that’s some victim-blaming thought process going on. “You made me do this. You made us do this. Look at what you made me do.” It’s pretty poor justification for acting in a way you don’t have to act. You have a choice to take things that personally. You’re not helpless.

And to be clear, I’m not any different here. I used to indulge the sort of easy, cynical, and mean-spirited demonization of this guy despite never knowing him, meeting him, hanging out with him, or having really anything to do with him other than watching his movies and buying the stuff. The whole of my “relationship” with George Lucas is consuming product, and that’s it. And after seeing the toll the internet and people’s behaviors have taken on so many people, not just associated with Star Wars but associated with ANYTHING remotely popular, there is no amount of product consumption that bestows upon me the absolute right to treat another human being like dirt. Even when I convince myself it’s justified, or worse, that it’s okay because he’ll never see me doing it. I’m still contributing to a pretty mean-spirited and shitty atmosphere towards a man who never did anything to me personally, for no other reason than he didn’t let me buy a blu-ray.

I think it sucks I can’t buy that blu-ray. It’s why I’m here, obviously. But I can think it sucks, and I can think he’s wrong, but I don’t have to let it personally affect me to the point where I’m indulging in conspiracy theories and ugly insults. That’s my choice to make. I used to make a different one than I do now. And making that other choice back then didn’t make me feel any better, in hindsight. It certainly didn’t get me what I want, either.

I don’t think it’s a gotcha at all, it’s basically going to my point! You gotta let Star Wars grow visually, and Star Wars is often the best possible vehicle to introduce new/more interesting ways to make movies in general. I often think the biggest positive the Prequels have going for them is that they were so groundbreaking in terms of how movies got made for the next 20 years, much in the same ways the Originals were.

Basically, some of the best movies of the last 20 years probably wouldn’t even have gotten MADE if it werent for the way the Prequels changed the production models in the industry. Attack of the Clones is a flat-out bad movie, and it’s not made very well on top of that - but a lot of what that movie did right became the basis for a TON of productions going forward, and those productions realized the promise of that movie and its production.

And to Ray’s question: Of course these are the right tools. Why wouldn’t they be? I can’t really see an argument that suggests Star Wars can’t avail itself of new tools, new ways of looking at things (especially since the series has a history of not only doing JUST that, but inventing more than a few along the way) simply because your favorite Star Wars was made in a time when those tools didn’t exist. The argument tends to become a binary disagreement over whether one tool is better than another and one tool should be used AT THE EXPENSE of the other, but I don’t like those arguments. Any POV that says ANY of those tools need to be taken out of a filmmaker’s toolbox is one I just disagree with. Let these people use what’s available to tell the story the best way it can be told. And if that means modern visual elements are being applied, I’m more than fine with that. If they’re blending them, that’s fine too. But that’s more a conversation about design and practical vs. cgi, and this conversation was at least initially more about filmmaking techniques. Cinematography, blocking, camera movements, that sort of stuff.

I think the big problem (and Creox is kind of getting at it) has more to do with people artificially limiting what Star Wars can be based on a sense of “tradition” where it doesn’t really exist. If anything, the most reliable “tradition” when it comes to Star Wars’ visuals is that it traditionally pushes the envelope when it can and it’s makers do what it needs to to stay relevant to the audiences they’re trying to reach.

Granted, you can use tools poorly, and I wouldn’t disagree that The Rise of Skywalker did so. It’s a very, VERY poorly edited movie. But I don’t think that movie’s problems are primarily with the fact the camera moves more, and the framing is often pretty dynamic (extreme low and high angles) in a way that wasn’t really seen in 77 or 80.

The phrase “typical blockbuster” is also sort of… styrofoam, to me. Some of the biggest blockbusters of the last few years don’t have a lot in common, visually or stylistically. They’re doing different things, and the variety of eyes behind the camera lead to very interesting, and rewarding, results. I think arguing Star Wars shouldn’t be a part of that simply because other very successful and very entertaining movies are already doing it is kind of a weirdly defeatist argument, and one that again relies on this weird notion that Star Wars is “precious” and needs to be treated as such.

It’s not precious. Not anymore. Hasn’t been since the late '90s, honestly, and it often feels like Star Wars fandom’s most pressing, constant source of friction comes from its members refusing to deal with that simple fact. Once you accept that other movies can do what Star Wars did, and ARE doing it, and HAVE been doing it for AWHILE now, it becomes EASIER to accept that Star Wars can (and should) shift with the times it finds itself occupying.

Star Wars was never a “niche” genre. It’s not a genre unto itself (despite various people’s attempts to make it as such) either. And if you see a similarity between superheroes and fantasy-based mythologies, it’s because they both draw from the same ideas. Jedi are, more or less, superheroes.

In 1977, what Lucas was doing with Star Wars was visually unlike anything ever tried within the sci-fi/fantasy genres, and it was also considered to be FAST. Very, very fast. It seems slow now, but in 1977 the editing and pacing of that movie was considered breakneck. You’re arguing it has to look and feel like it did in 1977 and that’s death. It’s got to speak to the kids who are watching the movies in the time period they’re coming out, so they can grab onto it without having to read a bunch of wikipedia entries or watch a bunch of YouTube videos to find a hook or an “in” for the movies.

If it shares the same visual language with other movies they like, and then uses that shared language to introduce new ideas on top of that, then it works! Part of the reason The Force Awakens made as much money as it did is BECAUSE it moved like an Abrams film while looking like a Star Wars movie, for lack of a better term. All the iconography people recognized for 40 years was being lit, shot, framed, and edited in a way they’d never seen it before, and that was EXCITING. It wasn’t JUST nostalgia at play. The filmmaking DID matter.

There’s no real reason to handcuff directors and cinematographers who have more -and better- tools, to styles developed 40 years ago. Or even 30 years ago. It just doesn’t make sense. Star Wars can’t be hermetically sealed off like that, it’s going to suffocate that way. And it’s not like other films and filmmakers are going to sit around and decline using those tools to tell their own stories. People are going to go to the theaters not to hear new stories, because most stories have almost NOTHING new to them. But they will go to see new ways of telling them. Star Wars needs to be part of that. If that means whip pans, crazy camera moves, speed ramping… so be it. So long as the tool is right for the story element being executed, to quote a certain Chancellor: DEW IT.

I just disagree with the idea that you HAVE to behave like that in response to some guy you’ve never met and don’t know, and I choose, personally, not to justify being mean-spirited and angry for all this time at the guy, and I definitely don’t agree with the justifications I’m seeing for indulging that behavior and essentially victim-blaming. I know that’s a phrase that is sort of loaded and might even seem unfair, but “he brought it on himself” and “he basically made us do this” is the vocabulary victim blamers tend to use.

I don’t think he ever declared himself a genius, btw, but even if he did, if YOU choose to take that personally (I don’t even understand why you would, he’s not talking about YOU) that’s on you, and I think you should take responsibility for your decision to do so. It’s not his fault you’re taking that personally, it’s yours. You’re making a choice to do that. You’re not helpless.

Anyway - hoping for the isolated scores.

I think searching for ANY “formula” is probably a bad idea, at least any “formula” beyond “find good collaborators, listen to what they’re saying, team up with skilled craftsmen, and synthesize those talents.”

But that’s more or less the “formula” for any movie that ends up being good, really. And I think that’s maybe the greatest lesson this film (and this trilogy, and this era of ownership) can teach us: Star Wars isn’t anywhere near as precious as everyone thought it was, and treating it as such is just going to stunt it’s potential and make it stale and disappointing. There really isn’t anything special about it, not in the way there used to be. There’s no behind-the-scenes magic that other movies aren’t able to call upon in order to execute their respective visions.

That preciousness about Star Wars is obviously starting to hold it back, and that fear of “breaking” it is, ironically, what’s breaking it. It’s an entire studio playing not to lose instead of just trying to make good movies.

It’s not going to be “one director” that gets this right, and I don’t know that we should even WANT a singular figurehead in control. Even when we had that we didn’t like it, and it’s not like it made for better movies, either.

I disagree - I think there’s a ton of amazing directors out there who could make great Star Wars movies. But nobody’s going to make a perfect movie, and there’s not a magical “perfect” director for Star Wars.

Hell, George Lucas created the series and 3 of its poorest-quality movies are his.

There’s nothing about Star Wars so special that simply asking a strong, capable, and interesting director to play in that sandbox isn’t all you really need to do. There’s always going to be pluses and minuses, things that the individual directors bring to a picture that will turn some viewers off BECAUSE of how individual that voice is. I’m willing to make that trade every time, because that individual voice is probably what’s going to make a movie more special than it otherwise would have been.

It’s hard to argue for Star Wars to adhere to what makes it unique while simultaneously arguing for a one-size-fits-everything approach to the material. People can’t even agree on what “Star Wars” is, there’s no way that agreement is going to embody the shape of a single director.

I will say this, though: Filoni isn’t the answer, and probably never will be.

“All the anger and bitterness could have been easily avoided”

Definitely, but on the other hand, it’s not his fault people are being like that. People are in control of their own behaviors and reactions, and people don’t HAVE to be assholes about it. And their asshole behavior isn’t justified at all. I just don’t agree with “He brought it on himself” or “he deserves it.” Very few people deserve to be treated so poorly, and people shouldn’t really want to act that way - especially not to someone none of us even know or have ever met, and especially not over something as ultimately small-stakes as a movie.

You can want these things released in a pretty big way, without taking it that personally.

Slavicuss said:

The 2006 disc release was bonus material and hardly an acceptable way in which to view the unaltered versions.

I know what they were. And I know how useful they became on the way to this place becoming THIS PLACE and doing all the great things it did.

But what I was responding to was the notion that Lucas is at open war with his fans and that’s why he’s withholding the original cuts from us. It’s a take that looks at Star Wars in terms of an absentee, abusive father mistreating his children, and that’s kind of an unhealthy, presumptive, and unrealistic take on it. It also doesn’t line up with what we know about what came out and when it did. Not releasing the OT can’t be “punishment” for disliking the Prequels when the decision to vault the OT happened years before the Prequels even started production.

His reasons are weird and complicated, like he is. He’s a weird, introverted guy who isn’t easy to predict - it’s part of the reason he ended up being the success he is. So to ascribe very simplistic (and often sort of solipsistic, i.e. “he’s doing this TO ME! PERSONALLY!”) motives to him seems questionable. It’s the same as people who love to suggest the Special Editions only exist as a middle finger to Marcia Lucas. That’s sort of tasteless, honestly, to get that soap opera about the man’s personal life to that level as a means to express bitterness about not being able to buy a movie you’ve already bought 30 times.

It sucks we can’t just go to the store and buy a version of Star Wars that looks like it did when we watched it 30,000 times on VHS growing up. I absolutely agree with every historical, logic-grounded argument people at this site have lodged, made popular, and embedded in the public consciousness for the last 15 or so years, and I think a lot of other people agree with those arguments too. But this weird sort of neverending anger and bitterness towards Lucas also sucks.

Disney’s already learned the lesson they’re moving forward with:

Star Wars is a television property now. It’s essentially Star Trek. It lives on TV, you watch it on TV, and every now and again they try a movie and you go to the theater and you hope they didn’t botch it too much and then you put it on your shelf next to the rest of your collectibles and you go back to watching the TV shows (and every now and again the movies you’ve already seen).

Honestly, you could make the argument that aside from Rise of Skywalker, the quality of their output is mostly very good so far as the general audience is concerned. This is the first property that’s garnered a Prequel-level score, with prequel-esque word of mouth. (And even in the prequel-era, the word-of-mouth was hard to put a finger on because it SOUNDED like everyone hated them, but the numbers looked like people were having a good time).

edit: OW = Opening Weekend. DOM = Domestic. WW = Worldwide. WOM = Word of mouth.

Also, looking at the day-to-day drops and the projection adjustments even on the day of, arguments that this is primarily a reflection on The Last Jedi don’t hold too much weight. The two years of constant arguing and toxicity probably did have an effect on people wanting to even mess with this thing on opening weekend, absolutely. But the way this thing declined day-to-day starting with Thursday night says this movie is doing what it’s doing because of its quality.

We’ll know more in a couple days when we get a chance to see how high the Christmas Day bounce goes.

$175.5 dom, 373.5 worldwide.

if WOM continues to solidify as mixed-to-negative (and it’s probably going to, if that happened with The Last Jedi despite better reviews and higher box-office, I can’t imagine it won’t happen here) there is probably no way it crosses $1 bil.

This has made less than Incredbles 2’s OW, and is making less worldwide than Batman v. Superman did in its opening weekend.

“Own the originals last time” was 1995. The prequels wouldn’t come out for another 4 years.

He went back on that anyway 10 years later.

Projections for today are putting it around $48-50 mil. If it has a typical Saturday-to-Sunday drop, we’re now in $180-185mil range for the OW.

With that opening (especially if it’s closer to 180) we’re looking at an increased possibility it misses a billion worldwide.

Honestly, for this set, the OOT isn’t even my biggest hope, partially because I’ve had years and years of accepting the fact it’s not a priority at Lucasfilm or Disney.

I’m hoping for isolated scores. Especially since The Last Jedi’s isolated score seemed to be a pretty big success, and was actually NEWS for a day or two. It seems weird that a feature that was - if not standard - commonplace in the DVD era is now newsworthy, but still. If The Last Jedi can get one, I’m hoping they’ve decided this Skywalker Saga set will include isolated scores. I’d prefer they be on disc, but if it’s the same sort of “online extra” thing, I’m fine with that too. However we get them, I want them.

Neverar just won post of the year.

“Ow.”

IIRC, The camera isn’t even shaking during the TIE Fighter attack in Star Wars. The shot was locked down due to the way the gunner shots were set up. They’re moving the frame around in post to simulate the camera shaking, aren’t they?

That’s definitely not “shaky cam”

“Shaky cam” is basically what happens when people who don’t have the vocabulary for an established film technique create a term, and that term gets popularized through common usage. “Shaky Cam” was what people who didn’t previously know what handheld photography was called came up with to describe what they were watching. The internet made that sort of adoption of terminology a lot faster than it used to be. Sometimes that speed basically renders words and terms more or less meaningless. Sort of like how “Reboot” essentially replaced “Remake” and is now used almost interchangeably with “sequel.” Or, in the world of videogames, how the term “cinematics” became “cut-scenes” despite the fact “cut-scenes” basically doesn’t make any sense as a term.

Anyway, physically grabbing the camera and shaking it to simulate environmental vibrations isn’t really “shaky cam.” “Shaky Cam” is just handheld photography. It’s “shaky” because the frame is unstable. That’s it.

It’s even funnier when you see the shots as they appear in the movie.

He’s yanking the hell out of the mag on the camera and in the film it registers as a slight vibration on the edge of the frame. But it definitely gives the impression that the camera is sitting on a platform that has a giant beam of energy shooting out the bottom of it, so it ultimately worked.

I bet the closest we get to deleted scenes in any usable fashion will actually be the Art Of book.

Once he decides he’s going to be Ben he absolutely starts peppering parts of his performance with subtle nods to Harrison Ford, that’s a great call.