26 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

Well, they erased the EU to reboot the franchise... some fans never took it.

Disney is good to create a universe, just look what they’re doing with Marvel. But it takes time to do it. We are starting to see cross reference in their movies and no doubt that the end of Solo is setting the stage for something bigger. I personally really like it, and I can’t wait to find out what’s next.

Personally I'm also pissed at erasing the EU. At first I gave Disney the benefit of the doubt. The old EU was a huge amount of content, ranging from great to terrible so I said hey, they're cleaning it up so they can do better. However, IMO at least, they didn't. It's the same kind of stuff, ranging from great to terrible, only with different stories.

Actually, probably about half of what Disney has put out for Star Wars is stuff that I consider bad (things like helicopter lightsaber, space whales, Force-sensitive taking wolves, the ridiculous incompetence of the First Order, almost the entire TLJ etc.).

However, there s the other half. Stuff like Rogue One, Maul's arc in Rebels (actually most of Rebels), Luke's story, hopefully Solo when I get to watch it, which I greatly enjoyed.

1 hour ago, LordBlades said:

That's sad. Disney is probably the best thing to happen to Star Wars in a long time, for the very basic reason that they're putting out new content, and a franchise without new content slowly withers and dies. Yes, some of it (possibly a lot of it) is crap, some of it is full of personal agendas that IMO don't belong in Star Wars, but some of it is good. I highly doubt we would be seeing any new good Star Wars content right now if George Lucas was still owning it.

Between the early 80's and 1999 there was no new movies the franchise did great.

Between 2005 and 2015 no new movies franchise did fine.

These days the general audience has lost interest in star wars and so has large portions of the fanbase.

Toy sales have never been lower while there was new content being made.

Under Disney the first theatrical film has bombed losing at least 80 million probably more because they won't say how much reshoots cost.

This is the darkest timeline.

12 minutes ago, Hobojebus said:

Between the early 80's and 1999 there was no new movies the franchise did great.

Between 2005 and 2015 no new movies franchise did fine.

These days the general audience has lost interest in star wars and so has large portions of the fanbase.

Toy sales have never been lower while there was new content being made.

Under Disney the first theatrical film has bombed losing at least 80 million probably more because they won't say how much reshoots cost.

This is the darkest timeline.

The point I was trying to make was that, without Disney, I think the franchise would be in an even worse place. Not that this means Disney is doing a great job by any measure. George Lucas seemed to have 0 interest in new stuff after The Clone Wars animated series, so I think the franchise would have slowly faded away in from of the newer flashy stuff like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

2 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

They're (arguably) better than the holiday special.

We do not speak of the greatest evil.

*Indiana Jones voice "Don't look at it! Keep your eyes shut!!!"

2 hours ago, LordBlades said:

Personally I'm also pissed at erasing the EU. At first I gave Disney the benefit of the doubt. The old EU was a huge amount of content, ranging from great to terrible so I said hey, they're cleaning it up so they can do better. However, IMO at least, they didn't. It's the same kind of stuff, ranging from great to terrible, only with different stories.

I think they had to to start fresh. Sure, there has been some collateral damage (looking at you Thrawn Trilogy), but I don’t think they could have only erased half of it.

I think that once Episode 9 is done, that’s when we’ll really start to see some real new content and ideas. They’re in it for the long run and as I said, we are starting to see some cross reference. What could makes it better than the Marvel universe is that instead of limiting themselves to movie only, they are also cross referencing animated series, books and comic books (not sure about the comic books, but at least they’re canon). That’s a lot of potencial to build a universe. But it takes time.

33 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

I think they had to to start fresh. Sure, there has been some collateral damage (looking at you Thrawn Trilogy), but I don’t think they could have only erased half of it.

I think that once Episode 9 is done, that’s when we’ll really start to see some real new content and ideas. They’re in it for the long run and as I said, we are starting to see some cross reference. What could makes it better than the Marvel universe is that instead of limiting themselves to movie only, they are also cross referencing animated series, books and comic books (not sure about the comic books, but at least they’re canon). That’s a lot of potencial to build a universe. But it takes time.

There are many reasons that make me doubt Disney can pull off a cool and coherent universe, but I would be extremely glad if you turn out to be right

Wow. Those look... terrible. No John Williams?

7 hours ago, Hobojebus said:

Between the early 80's and 1999 there was no new movies the franchise did great.

Between 2005 and 2015 no new movies franchise did fine.

These days the general audience has lost interest in star wars and so has large portions of the fanbase.

Toy sales have never been lower while there was new content being made.

Under Disney the first theatrical film has bombed losing at least 80 million probably more because they won't say how much reshoots cost.

This is the darkest timeline.

Considering how many 20-somethings I've met in recent years that have never watched any of the Star Wars movies, I'm pretty sure Star Wars lost the "general audience" long before Disney bought LucasFilm. Making new movies has done a lot more to reinvigorate the franchise beyond those of us who have been fans for literal decades.

As for "between the early 80's and 1999", I can say from my own life experience that wasn't really true. Until the Zahn Trilogy came out (starting in 1991) the only "EU" was the old WEG RPG, which had a loyal, but very niche following. Even the X-Wing video games didn't start until 1993. It simply wasn't true that the franchise did "great" until there was new material to work from. The books helped, but they mostly catered to people who were already fans. Somewhere in the early 90s was when they released the THX remastered edition of the movies on VHS, and they put out a huge marketing push to promote that. Then came the Special Editions in the late 90s, which brought the movies back to the theaters and created much hype. Then, we got to the prequels starting in 1999. So even then, they made much use of the movies to keep things going. Frankly, the books had lost even a decent segment of the hardcore audience over the years (myself, included).

In terms of toy sales - you might want to check how toys in general are doing. Toy sales are down across the board, not just for Star Wars.

As for movies - sure, Solo is the first to lose money, but the top three Star Wars movies at the box office were TFA, TLJ and Rogue One. Even accounting for ticket price inflation puts TFA at #2, TLJ at #6 and Rogue One at #7. As a side note, while Solo is losing money, it still grossed more (after adjusting for inflation) than the Special Editions of ESB and RotJ.

Reference link: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm

The "darkest timeline" would be one where George Lucas decided that he didn't want to sell LucasFilm, but also was so fed up with the insults that no more Star Wars content was produced. Instead, we get a new movie every year and multiple TV shows, either already done or in the works.

Considering how much money the movies alone have made, much less all the merchandising, Disney's pretty much already made back the $4 billion they paid to acquire LucasFilm. That's also a sign that Star Wars isn't really in trouble. Solo is merely a speed bump.

One would also need to consider how much the Solo loss is due to the movie itself and the lack of interest in Star Wars and how much is it due to the very unfortunate release date (right after Avengers Infinity War and Deadpool 2).

5 hours ago, LordBlades said:

One would also need to consider how much the Solo loss is due to the movie itself and the lack of interest in Star Wars and how much is it due to the very unfortunate release date (right after Avengers Infinity War and Deadpool 2).

Avengers had been out a month and deadpool a fortnight when solo released, they didn't share an opening weekend.

Lucas film has been attacking the fans for years now it's no surprise everyone but the die hards snubbed this movie, and there are not enough of them to keep the franchise going, you need the older fans and the general audience.

32 minutes ago, Hobojebus said:

Avengers had been out a month and deadpool a fortnight when solo released, they didn't share an opening weekend.

Lucas film has been attacking the fans for years now it's no surprise everyone but the die hards snubbed this movie, and there are not enough of them to keep the franchise going, you need the older fans and the general audience.

In other places they were even closer together (here for example everything released within 3 weeks). Regardless, two movies don't need to share an opening week-end for them to influence each other's results. Most people I know don't go to the movies 3 times a month, and I doubt people in other places do it all that often.

There also was, at least as far as I could see, way less publicity for Solo than for the other movies.

I'm not saying the way Disney has done stuff so far didn't chase away some fans, but that, had Solo released some 1-2 months later and with a bigger hype build-up, it would have done better.

2 hours ago, LordBlades said:

In other places they were even closer together (here for example everything released within 3 weeks). Regardless, two movies don't need to share an opening week-end for them to influence each other's results. Most people I know don't go to the movies 3 times a month, and I doubt people in other places do it all that often.

There also was, at least as far as I could see, way less publicity for Solo than for the other movies.

I'm not saying the way Disney has done stuff so far didn't chase away some fans, but that, had Solo released some 1-2 months later and with a bigger hype build-up, it would have done better.

Yep. Of everyone I spoke to about it the only people who knew Solo even existed were the hardcore Star Wars fans. It’s like Disney didn’t even want it to be popular.

Since I buy 1 of each (and continue to do so) I would get both Republic and CIS factions.