If billion-dollar-box-office is your idea of failure I hate to imagine what you'd consider a success.

31 minutes ago, deltaKshatriya said:

My guess is he means the Solo movie, which isn’t doing so well right now. I’ll agree though that overall the new Star Wars movies have done extremely well, so calling them all a failure is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Even the new Solo movie is having a rough time probably more due to franchise fatigue and too crowded a competition field. Arguably though this deserves its own thread  

Yes but it's my opinion that the others did so well only because of branding, when they didn't live up to expectations the films following would naturally start to decline. Still I believe that the market will correct these things, you can't make everyone happy although I personally believe it's better to keep the ip loyal to it's fanbase as you can always create something new targeting a new audience instead of trying to combine those when they're not all compatible.

9 hours ago, jbadams said:

You have an interesting definition of failure.

The Last Jedi grossed over 1.3 billion, was the highest grossing film for 2017, is the second highest grossing Star Wars film, and is estimated to have made over 417 million dollars net profit, making it the most profitable movie for 2017 as well.

Despite vocal objection from some of the fan base it's generally positively received, and for comparison, it is only rated slightly lower than The Empire Strikes Back on Rotten Tomatos, and scored slightly higher on Metacritic.

The Force Awakens is the highest grossing Star Wars film, and was the highest grossing film of 2015 with worldwide gross earnings over 2 billion dollars. The estimated profit is over 780 million dollars, making it the most profitable film in 2015 and for the last 7 years.

Again, despite some vocal objection TFA received generally positive reviews. It has the same score as A New Hope on Rotten Tomatos, and is less than 10 points lower on Metacritic.

(I randomly selected OT movies to compare to, but the comparisons are similarly reasonable with any choice.)

 

Not liking those films is a perfectly valid opinion that many people will share with you, but objectively it's hard to consider them a failure in any way.

The Last Jedi 46% rating on rotten tomatoes ignores scores under 10% (or something 0/1 stars). I found an article/video a while ago that went through a random sampling of reviews and found the actual rating to be 22%.

The reason these movies are considered failures is because each 1 is earning less and less. There is a clear downward trend. Basically - star wars has been riding on its legacy - there was no way on earth these movies could fail financially - ITS STAR WARS ffs. 

Compare star wars to marvel. Star wars should be taking a lot more and it should be sustained. Solo is barely projected to break even.

I decided TFA was my last SW movie and others decided TLJ was their last. In a trilogy 1 & 3 should be the highest grossing movies, i think 3 will gross less than 2. It is not because of SJW's, its because they are shite movies - there are many objective reasons and you can subjectively ignore these if you want. 

21 minutes ago, RivieraKid said:

 its because they are shite movies -

Yeah that's pretty much my take, and I actually thought the prequels were pretty good.  I know some people hated them but at least the story flowed from one film to the next in reasonable way.  The new movies staring with TFA seem to have no relation to the previous Star Wars universe.  TFA was just a retread of previous movies and in addition gave audiences no information about how the Star Wars universe got from the end of RotJ to the start of TFA. In fact it's still a mystery.  My other big problem with the new SW is the protagonist Rey, already starts out with skills and abilities that surpass the rest of the characters with seemingly no training whatsoever.  Her whole existence in the films seems to be a cakewalk.

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Sure, but when staying to the roots means not changing enough that's a problem.

Absolutely... but then, you can stay true to your roots and change quite a lot.

If you actually know and aknowledge your roots, that is. And don't follow stupid industry fads, like many in the entertainment industry, movies and games alike, often do.

I am not so sure how the team responsible for the newest batch of Bond movies worked, but I guess that either

a) they weren't aware that comedy and humour actually was the most important pillar of the older Bond movies (very unlikely)

b) felt like all the funny moments that could fit into an agent movie had already been done to death (unlikely)

c) looked at how successfull other properties had been, and just copied that (more likely)

There would have been plenty of room for change without making Bond into another dreary "brown military shooter" which took itself way too serious.

And I guess there were plenty of good balck haired actors on the market that would have fitted the role better than Daniel Craig.

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

How is James Bond a bad example? This article seems to show that Craig's movies have been at least as successful as previous Bonds, if not far more successful.

If we are talking about "more successful than the 70's Bonds", that would be an achievement, as these movies were actually pretty dope for the time and it was kind of the peak of its popularity. Of course we need to adjust for the smaller size of the movie industry at the time.

If we are talking about "bigger than all Bonds since the 80's"... the latter 80's movies actually were already on a down AFAIK. Totally underrated movies IMO, I loved Timothy Dalton and his movies.

If we are talking "Better than the last few movies before them"... the 90's movies were a travesty, to be honest. I liked Golden Eye... everything after that was getting increasingly more comical and  trashy. The last ones, the '99 and '02 Movies really fitted more into the MCU than the Bond universe.

So I am not saying that Bond didn't need a severe reimagination after getting lost in the 90's... its just that probably, it should have been taken back to its roots in the way how it handled itself and its story. You know, more british understatement, less american big action movie, more british humour, less comical grandstanding.

The newer Bond movies take it in a different direction altogether. But its simply not "british" enough for my liking. Its not quirky and charming enough, if you get my drift. Its too... "american", for a lack of a better term. To streamlined to modern hollywood conventions.

Maybe when interest wanes yet again in some years, and the Bond franchise has to reinvent itself yet again we get something closer to the originals again, who knows?

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Times change. Culture evolves a lot. The Sean Connery Bond wouldn't really do very well today since it's really rather antiquated. What fans loved then won't necessarily fly in today's world nor from a future perspective.

James Bond was a rather old fashioned guy in all eras his movies came out in. So I don't think this is really a valid argument. He wasn't all that hip and modern in the 70's really with his suit and machoism...

If it "doesn't fly anymore" probably its time to put the IP on ice for now, and come up with something new that fits in with the current mainstream. I mean, I guess if it would "fly again" in the future (which I am not sure about, but thing have swung back and forth before, so I wouldn't extrapolate from todays sensibilities to future ones really), the whole IP will be rebooted again, and all that is canon today will simply be invalidated... its not that this hasn't been done before. So its not exactly the end of the world for old fans. They can ignore the new stuff until the big reboot comes (Hope dies last).

I just again find it tragic that this way, existing IPs get butchered to be fitted into new clothing, while almost no new IP is allowed to really get that big. Just IMO.

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Every Bond has been pretty different from previous iterations. Sean Connery was the first Bond, more of a suave gentleman type. Roger Moore was a bit more on the witty side (I never liked Roger Moore personally though some really did). Dalton was very similar to Craig in many ways. Pierce Brosnan was somewhat like Connery, though with whackier stories. Now we have Craig. None of the Bonds were really that similar to one another.

Reduce "Pretty Different" to "Different" and I agree. There has been changes between the different eras, and between how the actors played Bond.

Dalton was a little bit more serious at times... but then, this was just a drier version of the dry british humour of the older Bond movies.

I mean, going down the slope in a cello carry case was quite a laugh. Using the extremly expensive cello of the czech musician as a paddle and getting it shot up in the process was also part of that dry humour.

The best I have seen in modern Bonds was the stabs at older bonds... "Shaked or stirred" - "do I look like I'd care?". Not exactly that hilarious if you ask me. Just some more meta, self-referential humour that isn't really working that well for me.

Timothy Dalton - Sean Connery - Roger Moore -> all of them hard to tell apart from a distance. Hair color helps. But also build and facial structure actually similar in some regards.

Craig -> Facial structure might still fit in with the others. Much to muscular build. Blonde hair. if this is a group of 4 people seen from a few meters away, he will stick out like a sore thumb.

When it comes to acting, Sean Connery and Roger moores Bond was quite similar. Timothy daltons is a little bit different, true. But Daniel Craigs Bond again sticks out because he acts so much different in many ways to the other, older Bonds.

Again, I am not saying the new Bond movies are bad. Some of them actually worked for me, when I watched it under the pretense of "its not a Bond movie". So again, I am hoping for the next reboot to go more into the direction of the the old Bond movies. If it doesn't, well. I will rewatch the old ones instead

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Don't knock the new God of War before trying it

Don't mean to. It's probably not on my A-List for this year (A new Sould Calibur is coming out, so most of the A-List spots will be filled with that... because those moves will not train themselves. Need to dust off my Siegfried and Nightmare skills), but its certainly on the long list for next year.

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

They tried making similar God of War type games on the PS3 after GoW 3, and it didn't really fly since it was far too much of stuff that people had tried. Taking an IP in a new direction is not a bad thing necessarily. The new God of War is an interesting evolution with a much older Kratos. Evolving/changing an IP is not a cash grab attempt to make a new game and slap an old brand name onto it. Times change.

Well.... Times change, and stay the same at the same time. But that is pseudo-philosophy at its best

Evolving an IP is all good and well. But there are limits how far you can and should take it. There is the point were you should probably stop and simply not do it.

For an example: I was a big fan of the original Army of Two on the PS3. Yes, it was not the best shooter every. Yes, the story was immature, simplistic and goofy. But it was a fun game to play with the pals in coop. Exactly BECAUSE the whole thing was a stupid immature machoism-fest. We chuckled like small boys at times at how stupid the story was... because it gave that vibe of not taking itself so serious.

The 40th hour, the second game in the series on the other hand... one of the biggest disappointments on the PS3. Not only was the stupid humour gone (apparently because fans wished for a more mature tone.... ), but the whole graphics had been tuned into "military brown shooter" territory, and suddenly the games tried to tell its (still stupid) story with a straight face.

Yeah, that didn't work well. Because a) suddenly the story became the forefront of the game thanks to not rely on macho tropes so much anymore. And the story was bad. Because b) all the stuff in the game was seen before, better, in all the modern warfare shooters.

Now, neither Ao2 nor 40th hour were brilliant or terrible games. Ao2 gave me something unique for a specific way to play (2 player coop with a pal and beers), and 40th hours was decidedly the worse expierience for the specific way to play (focus on a bad story, humour ripped out of the game, drab military shooter optics). It did evolve in a direction that maybe some people wanted. But it also evolved in a direction which took away some of its unique elements. Was it the right way to listen to parts of the fan base and make the game more "mature"? Was it the right way to make it look prettier... and more cookie cutter? Was the writing up to par to make the game rely more on the story telling instead of stupid macho slapstick stunts between missions?

As to moving God of war away from its roots... the question is WHY? Why use kratos as a hero in a world that no longer is his (nordic mythology instead of greek one... why not use some nordic hero?), in a gameplay format which breaks a little bit with his old image (from what I have seen he is still a badass, just not as insane as in the old hack'n'slashes), give him a backstory that kind of redefines his image (wasn't he pretty much a walking macho trope before?)...

Why not take a fresh hero for a fresh start? Will there really be all that many GoW fans that will buy the game now that its out and actually good, that wouldn't have bought a not-GoW game if the same game came out under a different name with a different hero? Probably there are these fanboys that simply buy everything with the right label at the front, but are there really enough to justify using an existing IP?

On the flipside I do understand that worldbuilding an IPs world takes time, and quite some investment. Using an existing IP can help bring an already wuite elaborate world with it. So its not like I am against creating different games in the same universe. I am not particuarly against "God of War: Dad edition"... I am just not sure this should be seen as the "Reboot" of the series, instead of a side-story, which it actually is.

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Culture is not what it was when the first God of War game came out in the early 2000s. Culture changed a lot similarly from when the first Bond came out. The same stuff gets boring after a while, and people change. Back when god of war first came out, it was made by a ton of young dudes. That's what gaming was then. The game dev are a lot older now, married, had kids, etc., and now have different perspectives on life. Many gamers are that way too. Gamers are also different. Culture is different.

There is not "Culture"... we are living in the time of the sub-sub-subculture. Ask two guys what the current culture is and you get two different answers.

Its not general culture or tastes that have changed... its just that after some years of overuse, something gets boring for a time. Culture hasn't shifted away from finding Zombies cool - they simply were overused in games and other media to the point were you got the urge to throw up every time a new Zombie game was anounced.

Culture hasn't shifted away from strategy games - the strategy market just hasn't grown the same way as other markets, thus the mainstream gaming industry has dropped it like a hot potato.

Culture hasn't shifted away from single player games - its just that creating a multiplayer campaign is expensive and you cannot sell players just as much digital doodas for that.

Throw a GoW hack'n'slash throwback on the market today, make it good and nostalgic... fans will eat it up. Sure not in the same numbers as when this was the hot new stuff. But then the 3rd person open(ish) world adventure game has been done to death too, so the new GoW:Dad edition is not exactly all that hot and new. Besides being a good AAA game for a change, and bringing back and old IP in some form (which is probably answering my WHY? question above).

23 hours ago, deltaKshatriya said:

Yea, dialogue is important. It's important to have honest conversations. It's important to clearly state what the goals are. It's important to educate. The larger issues we are seeing is that people's perspectives are just not informed. Simply 'letting it die' won't do anything, since at this point, we're seeing people screaming about pointless stuff. When people are being provoked by any random thing these days, simply trying not to 'provoke' won't help anything. And this isn't just a gaming related issue, it's part of a larger movement that's gained steamed, as @mikeman said. It's not something that'll be solved by 'let's not provoke'.

Can you have a dialogue when bad apples on both sides turn it into a shouting contest?

Are you ready to be educated yourself when you are trying to educate others?

Are you sure your perspectives are informed enough?

How do you prevent any kind of "dialogue" in this heated situation to be misinterpreted as another "attack"?

Again, this isn't the end goal to just segregate society into people who don't get along to have some artificial peace. My perspective is to let the heat cool down before even trying to have discussions again. If you ever had a fight with a good friend, was there any point in trying to tal it through with him or her while both where still angry? Didn't you first have to cool down yourself, and give the other one the space he/she needed to cool down also? So you could start the discussion again rationally, instead of shouting at each other?

Again, if you think that provocations lead to anything good in an environment that has already heated up to a boiling point... I don't know what to say. You want to make the world a better place by force. Good luck with that, really.

Yes, I am misinterpreting your words slightly for dramatic effects... in hope that my points gets understood better. I do understand that SOME people will always take everything as a provocation and will be always offended by something. Which is why I hope society will learn to interpret the noise of outrage warriors on the internet as what it is. Noise by a vocal minority. But there is an economy of scale behind outrage. And at the point where enough people are outraged at something that a slight provocation can blow up big time... you probably should ease off and let things slide for now.