The Last Jedi The Last Jedi Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 1

[gerrym51]

I have a question.

Is there an actual definition of a movie slog. What parameters are used to define it.

When is a movie in 'slog mode'.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I'm not entirely sure we will see a total wrap up at the end of Ep 9. Just because that's how it was done in the past doesn't necessarily mean it will always be that way.

Given that we know Disney is going to continue making Star Wars films, it probably shouldn't.

 

[Mjölnir]

I have no clue as to why fans are so troubled by Luke "dying". As a Jedi it means that he's become one with the Force - something that all Jedi strive for in life or death. As a kid I always felt that Obi-Wans presence loomed large over Luke in Empire and Return despite his brief appearances and I fully expect Luke to play a larger role as a Force Ghost in IX. Irony of ironies because fans will probably get their "wise" Jedi Master Luke in this form.

Rey says that she feels "peace and purpose" from Luke. He's not finished.

A lot of people were underwhelmed with Luke, and/or annoyed at how they changed his core characteristics, so to these people it becomes annoying that he died since the end showed that they had a shot of redeeming him, yet it became anticlimactic and didn't lead anywhere.

Luke had an enormously powerful display with the force, but ultimately it didn't amount to much more than a fancy "hey, look over there" kind of distraction that only helped a handful of people, while so many had already died partially because of Luke's absence. That's a pitiful amount of action taken by Jedi master Luke, whom fans had longed for so long. The guy that in the OT would never stop doing what he felt was right to protect people he cared for, and would never give up on people. The breaking of his character traits didn't become the speed bump, it became 95% of what the character was.

And you definitely don't need to throw around walkers to be impressive. The by far most talked about (in a positive sense) and awe-inspiring scene in the new movies this far is Vader cutting down normal soldiers. They did that while not really having him do anything he didn't seem to be able to do in the OT. If he didn't need any new force powers made up to make him awesome then neither does Luke (although I still think the handling of his character traits is a much bigger deal than what power he showed).

 

[Mjölnir]

Given that we know Disney is going to continue making Star Wars films, it probably shouldn't.

I think they should at least end this copy meta plot of the OT (empire vs rebellion). They should end that and start giving us something new like they should have in the first place.

 

[Agent Orange]

It's funny because I responded with a resounding *shrug* to Vader's rampage. Like almost everything else in Rogue One it stunk of shallow fan service. A cut scene from a video game.

Honestly I'm really only looking forward to the Episode chapters moving forward and I hope that Disney goes beyond IX. (I might make an exception for an Obi-Wan solo film starring Ewan McGregor.)

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah the Vader scene was blatant fan service, and it was never a huge selling point for me. I would've been fine if they went with the idea of Vader killing off the heroes. Like really show Vader as a true villain and not an antihero.

 

[Mjölnir]

It's funny because I responded with a resounding *shrug* to Vader's rampage. Like almost everything else in Rogue One it stunk of shallow fan service. A cut scene from a video game.

Honestly I'm really only looking forward to the Episode chapters moving forward and I hope that Disney goes beyond IX. (I might make an exception for an Obi-Wan solo film starring Ewan McGregor.)

I shrug at people that think that "fan service" is a negative term. It's also very weird to just point that to RO, when TLJ is the one of those two that really repeats plot beats and even direct scenes from the OT. RO is actually the most fresh SW film they've made, despite that it tells a story so closely connected to ANH. That said I wasn't a big fan of RO either, due to poor execution in the first two acts.

As for the scene in question it made sense for Vader to be there, given how ANH starts, and it's the ultimate threat to the end of the plan which is needed to create tension to a scene that we already know how it ends. I never said it's a deep scene, but neither is Luke's so that's a pretty moot point. We were discussing getting something relevant out of a character that died, and I just pointed out that Vader's little scene (which is not meant to be a big deal) got more positive buzz than Luke's supposed final stand. I can't really see how it's hard to understand why people thought that was anticlimactic to have him die after that being it, even if you don't think so yourself.

For the future of SW I hope that they will finally do something that's actually new. Neither of these three new films are as fresh as how Lucas made the prequels (with what quality he made them is an entirely different matter though).

 

[Silver Surfer]

The problem with the prequels is the execution, everything else about it, setting, characters, narrative, scale, etc is gold.

 

[Aximili86]

Exactly, Silver.

Ballsy & ambitious too, I'll always give Lucas major cred for that.

 

[TheVileOne]

The problem with the prequels is the execution, everything else about it, setting, characters, narrative, scale, etc is gold.

To each their own, but I disagree. The settings? I think some of the ideas for the settings are cool, but a lot of them lack immersion. They look fake, and they feel fake. A lot of them look too clean and static, making them feel faker as a result. Something looks off about the ones that were shot on digital and converted to film. They don't hold up very well.

Narrative? Attack of the Clones' narrative has plot holes you can drive a truck through. The Jedi being full of hubris and hypocritical, ok yeah. But basically, Attack of the Clones, The Clone Wars, and Revenge of the basically forces you to accept that the Jedi Council, Master Yoda, and Mace Windu were all the dumbest schmoes in the galaxy. It's not something you can hand wave away by saying "The dark side clouds all. The dark side temple underneath the Jedi temple also clouded their minds from the truth." A dark side temple that didn't get thrown in until around 10 years later mind you.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

I guess I'm in the minority but I absolutely love the astral projection. It illustrates the vast power of the Force without getting silly (throwing AT-ATs around). In a lot of ways the Force itself is the primary focus of this trilogy. Disney is pushing the franchise further into fantasy territory over it's previous soft sci-fi (fantasy) status.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Dave Filoni's post-Star Wars Rebels project revolve around the post-Return of the Jedi, pre-Force Awakens galaxy. Failures with Ben aside, I would really like to see those years dramatized.

The prospect of that excites me and I hope they're able to convince Hamill to voice Luke. I'm actually surprised that he's never portrayed the character in animated form (video games etc.) considering his extensive voice acting resume.

People automatically assume that fans who wanted to see Luke in action, we wanted him throwing AT-ATs about and taking on the whole First Order himself. We didn't.

If the scene had gone down much like it had, but instead Luke projected himself from inside the base, instead of from Ach-To, to get Kylo out into the open, followed by a lightsaber fight (again, not filled with twirls and stuff) with Luke actually being there. Luke makes a show of Kylo and shows he is a far superior fighter, Before throwing that same line at Kylo and letting himself be killed, I would have been much more satisfied.

 

[Delwin]

For those who do not remember - Luke dropped two walkers in TESB. Thus I believe that such action is not out of the blue ;-). In any case I believe that such "Fan service Luke" would have heavily limited the criticism of the movie - ending with higher income. It actually does not matter what would be that "fan service" - it could be charge with X-Wing or keeping the blaster shots from walkers in mid-air.

 

[007]

How many weeks does this have left in theaters?

 

[Blitzkrieg]

How many weeks does this have left in theaters?

Hard to say right nao. I'll venture a guess and say that TLJ still has around 6-7 more weeks where it can still bring in useful money, i.e money that'll make a difference to the final gross. After that TLJ will be in dollar theaters and no one really knows how long TLJ will manage to stay there and if it'll make a big/small difference to the domestic total. So 1st week of March '18 is where TLJ is most likely going to make it's last significant dent at the domestic BO.

 

[InCali]

I think they should at least end this copy meta plot of the OT (empire vs rebellion). They should end that and start giving us something new like they should have in the first place.

I'm not too sure about that. If I were writing it (clearly none of us are that unlucky), I'd keep the empire/rebellion angle with the tide slipping back and forth and introduce new characters. That's what, eventually, makes or breaks any franchise.

 

[Iceman]

Those Chinese numbers just got a lot worse.

 

[Mjölnir]

To each their own, but I disagree. The settings? I think some of the ideas for the settings are cool, but a lot of them lack immersion. They look fake, and they feel fake. A lot of them look too clean and static, making them feel faker as a result. Something looks off about the ones that were shot on digital and converted to film. They don't hold up very well.

Narrative? Attack of the Clones' narrative has plot holes you can drive a truck through. The Jedi being full of hubris and hypocritical, ok yeah. But basically, Attack of the Clones, The Clone Wars, and Revenge of the basically forces you to accept that the Jedi Council, Master Yoda, and Mace Windu were all the dumbest schmoes in the galaxy. It's not something you can hand wave away by saying "The dark side clouds all. The dark side temple underneath the Jedi temple also clouded their minds from the truth." A dark side temple that didn't get thrown in until around 10 years later mind you.

When he said setting (singular) I take it that he doesn't mean locations but the setting for the story, which would be a galaxy long at peace, ruled by a republic that's become increasingly corrupt. The look and feel of locations is mostly about execution, which is what he already said was the problem.

There are certainly some issues with the story as how it's detailed out, but there's plenty of stupidity in the new trilogy as well (on both sides of the conflict) and the prequels at least win originality by a mile as they aren't copying beats and scenes left and right. At least Sidious had a pretty good plan in both the prequels and OT (RotJ), I'm not sure there's any particularly good plans in the new trilogy yet (even using Starkiller base seems to be on a whim, and Hux for some reason needs to spell out to Snoke what the Republic is and why that should be the target).

 

[Mjölnir]

I'm not too sure about that. If I were writing it (clearly none of us are that unlucky), I'd keep the empire/rebellion angle with the tide slipping back and forth and introduce new characters. That's what, eventually, makes or breaks any franchise.

I guess since the damage is done you might be right, they've already harmed the climax of the OT by making that only give some years of peace before almost the exact same situation occurs again.

That was the biggest reason to have a new kind of conflict, to make it so the OT actually feels like it accomplished something big instead of a temporary setback for the enemy. But I still think there's worth in actually going somewhere new, just to keep the franchise fresh and varied.

 

[InCali]

I guess since the damage is done you might be right, they've already harmed the climax of the OT by making that only give some years of peace before almost the exact same situation occurs again.

That was the biggest reason to have a new kind of conflict, to make it so the OT actually feels like it accomplished something big instead of a temporary setback for the enemy. But I still think there's worth in actually going somewhere new, just to keep the franchise fresh and varied.

What suggestions would you have?

 

[Yellow Cyclone]

I think most people expected Luke to die in this trilogy. If he'd done the exact thing he did in this film as a hologram as the real Luke and then died, I think it would have been more palatable to many. Unlike Obi Wan and Yoda who are already past it when we first meet them, I think many wanted to see one genuine (non-hologram) last hurrah from Luke as Jedi-Grandmaster before he went out. People have had their fantasies of what Luke could have achieved in all these years having seen him as Jedi master in RotJ and I guess for a fair number those personal fantasies weren't quite fulfilled.

this.

people have waited 30+ years for grandmaster luke to just mess $#&* up ONE TIME on screen with modern fight choreography and specialFX

completely annihilating everybody and outclassing everybody. people wouldn't mind him dying if he went out in a blaze of glory or did something incredible

instead the film not only didn't do it, but did the exact opposite and neutered his character to a point where it'll go down in sci-fi infamy as character assassination

poor word of mouth spreads quick, kennedy and rian have nobody to blame but themselves. hopefully iger wakes up after solo because i think most people think that's going to flop

 

[Mjölnir]

What suggestions would you have?

I don't have any concrete ones as situations without thinking of a story for them aren't that relevant. I'm open to basically anything that's not a direct rehash of the Empire vs Rebellion, but of course preferably also not a stale republic with a Sith supreme chancellor and a separatist movement.

 

[Flemm]

I guess since the damage is done you might be right, they've already harmed the climax of the OT by making that only give some years of peace before almost the exact same situation occurs again.

To a point. I certainly get the complaint that The Force Awakens should not have gone straight back to a scenario that resembles the beginning of the first trilogy.

But only to a point. The reason being: historically (meaning in our world), revolutions against tyranny don't produce stable, just, democratic institutions immediately, or without continued struggle.

To take one example, the French revolution violently overthrew a religious monarchy, installed radical reforms, then there was a reaction against it, and Napoleon established what amounted to a military dictatorship about 10 years later. Most of the 19-century is spent flip-flopping back and forth between the republic and various unsuccessful attempts to restore the monarchy.

The early history of the United States isn't particularly stable either. And there are countless other examples.

So the fact that the Empire was defeated, and then another authoritarian group rose to prominence, and threatened the Republic... it's not much of a stretch to imagine that something along those lines would happen.

Historically, that's exactly the type of thing that can happen.

Going from Return of the Jedi to an era of perfect peace and galactic unity would be the unrealistic thing.

 

[dataSlave]

Non-China international grossed $19 million over the weekend vs $12 million domestic and $36 million comp for the prior weekend.

$32 million more to go to reach $1.3 billion global cume as of yesterday. That probably happens next weekend or shortly thereafter. RO had done 96.3% of its domestic total by w/e #6. Percentage wise TLJ is now tracking well below RO and slightly below in dollars. So let's be generous and say TLJ can go 4% more after next weekend. Crossing the $1.3 billion line in week 6 with 4% fumes left in the tank is pretty much the definition of limping across the line.

 

[dataSlave]

Disney was able to strong arm theaters into locking TLJ in their biggest seating venues with a 4 week guarantee and a 65% split domestically. TFA only got a 2 week guarantee and 64% split. I'm sure the onerous terms for TLJ were due in part to the big success of TFA.

By the last weekend of the lock in, Jumanji was pulling in twice the revenue per screen. I'm sure the multiplexes would have liked to free up some of those big capacity venues committed to TLJ. We will see if the weak legs of TLJ will reduce the willingness of cinemas to give similar guarantees in the future.

 

[TheVileOne]

When he said setting (singular) I take it that he doesn't mean locations but the setting for the story, which would be a galaxy long at peace, ruled by a republic that's become increasingly corrupt. The look and feel of locations is mostly about execution, which is what he already said was the problem.

There are certainly some issues with the story as how it's detailed out, but there's plenty of stupidity in the new trilogy as well (on both sides of the conflict) and the prequels at least win originality by a mile as they aren't copying beats and scenes left and right. At least Sidious had a pretty good plan in both the prequels and OT (RotJ), I'm not sure there's any particularly good plans in the new trilogy yet (even using Starkiller base seems to be on a whim, and Hux for some reason needs to spell out to Snoke what the Republic is and why that should be the target).

At the time, no one talked about originality when the prequels came out. In fact, many complained that the prequels weren't enough like Star Wars and the story starting over trade franchises and disputes was lacking.

I think we can go back and forth on what's original all day long, but while there are things even I like about the prequels, I would just say I disagree with the idea that all of what they created was gold.