Talkie

Cavill is what he is. He's incapable of being more than a pretty, charisma-free void onscreen.

So, does all of this boil down to GWTW's earnings and ticket figures being little more than guesswork? Does even WB know how much it really made over all of the re-releases? As an aside, my mom was a kid in the late 1930s. She told me that she and her siblings would take the train to downtown Washington and pay $0.25 for tickets to matinee shows. Serials, cartoons, newsreels and short films played with every major release. Often new films would be double-featured with older ones. Kids could make a day of it and be home for supper.

I saw it with my brother. We saw Star Wars on opening weekend as kids and watched it many times in theaters. (Neither of us will ever refer to Star Wars as "A New Hope".) Both of us thought that TFA was good enough, but very unoriginal and definitely nothing special. It beat the hell out of the prequels, but only by dint of copying Lucas' inspired first installment in very uninspired fashion. I'd rate TFA as the fourth-best Star Wars film -- or fourth-worst, if you're counting from the bottom.

They were eagles, not Uber. Get over it.

No, Ren was weak because he was an easily manipulated emo headcase who threw tantrums like a two year old every time he was frustrated (which was often). Also, his voice when wearing the Dark Helmet sounded like he had a stuffy nose. It wasn't menacing at all, which contrasted with his actions.

Either Disney doesn't care as much about fudging for appearances as other studios or it reports straight numbers for the shareholders/Wall Street. Or both. Iger's regime seems very focused on what really matters fiscally, except when giving huge budgets to poorly-produced vanity projects like Tomorrowland and The Lone Ranger.

Why would Disney try to hold down the box office of its biggest films?

Joy is this year's Big Eyes, meant to be a sure-fire Oscah winnah for its star but doomed to critical and financial failure. No one took the bait.

Agents of SHIELD is not only happening concurrently with the MCU timeline, it also ties in (loosely) with the films. Most notably with CA:TWS, which happened during the end of AOS season one, destroying SHIELD and totally upending the show's structure. The tv and film universes aren't tightly tied together because there's been major executive strife between the divisions. It's too much to go into here, but Feige has broken away from the tv/comics side of the biz and gained control of the film empire. We'll not be seeing the tv characters in the MCU anytime soon, thankfully.

I'd rather theorize about Rey's parents. The Force is probably her deadbeat baby daddy, but the real twist is that her mother is Luke's daughter. That makes the Force both her father and her great-great-grandfather, leading to even more fucked up incestuous Skywalker insanity.

Coulson was resurrected in the Agents of SHIELD tv show, though he hasn't been in the films again. Joss Whedon claims that he considers Coulson still dead, despite the fact that he plotted the resurrection and hired his hack relatives to run the show. Oddly enough, no member of his family (including his brother's father-in-law) has offered to repay their salaries to Disney, so he can't be too remorseful about bringing the character back.

But...Han died onscreen.

We saw it in 2D because the 3D shows were sold out. It was a relief for me because standard films are easier for me to see with my one extremely weak eye. It looked great and I felt that the details came across better than 3D. Not having to deal with 3D darkness played a part in the crisper detail.

It's like the "Hulkbuster can't beat the Hulk" arguments on crack. The fact is, these are fictional characters with arbitrarily defined abilities that are determined by the filmmakers. If Abrams & co. portray Rey as being able to kick Ren's emo ass, that's that. No amount of talking about it will change the movie.

Wait a minute. Are people honestly saying that Rey shouldn't have beaten Kylo Ren? The same Kylo Ren who showed time and again that he was an emotionally out-of-control infant with zero self-confidence? The little bitch who spent the entire movie trying to find ways to prove himself a worthy successor to his equally weak and easily dominated grandfather? Ren didn't have enough control of his own emotions to control the Force. Hell, Rey earlier not only resisted Ren's attempt to invade her mind, but she was able to turn the tables and muck around in his empty skull. Rey proved that she was gaining more control of her abilities by the minute, while Ren was quickly losing it. The reason Snokius or whatever was able to turn Ren is because of his weakness. That same weakness along with Rey's skill enabled her to defeat him.

TFA does hew close to Episode IV in structure while throwing in bits and pieces from V & VI just to mix things up. The similarities to the OT took away from the freshness and unpredictability for me. Abrams seems to specialize in taking over franchises, updating characters and plots just a bit, switching things up just enough to make it interesting. TFA wasn't terribly original, but it's a good film. Excessive call-backs to Lucas' first three films became a hindrance after a certain point. Nostalgia can only carry the story so far. I'd rate it 7.5/10, with points off for lack of creativity.

Oh please. I never said or even implied that it's a flop. What I did say is that the sellouts/presales and sky-high predictions led me to anticipate a higher total. Not being able to read every page I missed the double AOU prediction. Sheesh.

As I said above, the sellout and presales reports suggested a much higher total. At least 10 - 20M more seemed to be the target. That should teach me not to base anything on predictions here.

Fewer females in the audience has nothing to do with "geek sexism." Male fans didn't scare women and girls off and the producers have actively courted them. It may be that the most dedicated fans are male, and they were the ones motivated to see it first. There is an alternate reading, however. Perhaps women are the ones being sexist. Maybe female filmgoers have dismissed SW because it's a traditionally male-oriented franchise. Rey's inclusion and Leia's enhanced role obviously weren't enough to overcome women's bias against the film. Fancy that.

After all the overheated hype on this site the preview number is a little surprising. I thought it would be a lot more based on the sellouts people were reporting.

The fact that next weekend is the last massive shopping spree before Christmas, millions of people will be crowding malls to buy gifts and football season (college and pro) is in high gear, there is plenty to keep people out of theaters. Hysteria is enough to counteract all those other forces. Probably.

Come on. You may be the conductor, but about 90% of this forum is riding that crazy train with you.