The Panda

R2-D2/C-3PO Han/Chewie Rey/Finn (I actually like them, they have good chemistry. Not as great as Finn-Poe, but good chemistry) Also some ships that picked up on Tumblr Finn-Rey-Poe Kylo's Ren/Hux Ren/Rey Jabba/Leia

You mean... Blanks doesn't just like my posts?

That's true, but this last sunday hold wasn't great either due to weather.

I bet 50 point to two people TFA is over 90m this weekend

Minus previews, this last weekend was a 22% drop. That's also not taking into account the bad weather that effected the weekend by at least 5m or so. A 32.9% drop is definitely doable.

Also, if it didn't drop near 50% off its opening weekend with massive previews and a massive weather disaster. It won't drop 50% this weekend.

Also, I hate it when I hear, "A movie didn't deserve its money." Theres plenty of movies I hated that made good box office, but if they managed to make the money they deserved it. If it's a terribly received movie it'll either not make as much as it could have due to WoM, or the sequel will drop off. Box office doesn't reflect quality either way, it just reflects that they managed to get people to go out and spend their money. Fifty Shades of Grey deserved its money, because they managed to get butts in seats (as frontloaded as it was). Its poor quality affected how much it made due to legs, and will likely affect the sequel, but it isn't undeserving of the money it did make. It would only be undeserving if Universal forced people at gunpoint to buy tickets or some other extremity (which they didn't do, shocking I know). You can say it's a shame (in your opinion) that a movie you thought was awful made the money it made. But you can't say it didn't deserve to make it, unless something unethical was done.

Gosh, I guess Avatar, Titanic, and E.T. all really didn't deserve top grossing ever. Last one that deserved it must have been Star Wars, and Star Wars 7 once it gets the title.

The weekend was affected as well. Without the bad weather Saturday and Sunday would have been 3m bigger each, at least. I think Tuesday will be a slight increase and Wednesday could go either way. I think this weekend will have a much stronger hold than last weekend because of no weather and no previews.

It'll do better than ROTK's multiplier.

That means I can see it at 6:00pm tomorrow instead of driving out of my way to see it in Arlington this week. Nice.

Tuesday could honestly be even bigger because weather will have died down by then...

Doesn't look like Sidious, his theme is different, and people complained about there being another desert and snow planet, calling it unoriginal. Imagine if JJ literally just brought Sidious back as the big baddie again?

That's assuming Plagueis didn't manipulate Palpatine and faked his own death. There are references to Plagueis in the new canon novels, and he was supposed to be able to foresee the fall of the Republic and the New Empire. It's entirely possible, that foreseeing this and knowing there needed to be a sith after Palpatine's death, he made Palpatine think that he killed him, and then went into hiding to watch everything play out. I also don't see how Snoke could be anybody else. Palpatine is definitely dead, Vader is definitely dead, and VII is only 30 years after Return of the Jedi. The rule of two pretty much ensured that Palpatine and Plagueis were the only two sith until Palpatine "killed" Plagueis. Snoke is very ancient (as was Plagueis), and is described by Kylo Ren as "wise", which is exactly how Palpatine describes him in the opera scene. I also don't think it would have made Luke or Anakin a puppet. I think Plagueis intended that family line to be his puppets, but Vader turned back to the light at the end, and Luke obviously never turned to the dark side. There's also no other real explanation for how Anakin was born and how his line is so powerful with the force. There's just so many parallels from the little we know about Snoke, that it just fits. I'd say it fits even better than Rey being Luke's daughter.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Snoke's first scene and the opera scene have the same music to them.

Another thing, is the only way I see the deep scar on his forehead being possible to survive, was if he knew how to manipulate the force to give life. And the only known force user to be able to do that is Plagious (he also looks like Plagious form the novels just with a scar on his forehead, which would be where Sidious tried to kill him)

Revenge of the Sith, when Palpatine tells Anakin the story of the Sith Lord, that's Plagious (his old master, and it's confirmed). If Snoke is Plagious, then he actually was able to use the force to manipulate life and save himself. In this theory, Anakin would have been created by Plagious, and he would have taken the back seat to let Palpatine do a lot of the dirty work setting up the Empirical structure so he could come in afterwards and take over with a new Sith Order (the First Order).

I think there's something to Finn's past. I possibly think he was memory wiped and turned into a storm trooper, but because he was turned so late, he was defective. Kylo seems to recognize things about him, beyond just being defective, as if he knows something about him. Plus, even though he wielded the lightsaber poorly, he still wielded it. Maz said she was looking into the eyes of a man who likes to run. Possibly, he had something to do with the new Jedi or the Knights of Ren but he ran from it, and instead of killing him, they memory wiped him and turned him into a stormtrooper? I think Lando being his father would be too cliche, but maybe? Also, the more I see Snoke, the more certain I am that he's Plagious. It's also just like Abrams for him to be Plagious.

During the vision scene I swear at the very end I can hear Obi-Wan say, "Rey... Follow in your father's footsteps." And then Rey mutters Luke after Maz says, "Whoever left isn't coming back. But there's someone that could." Like she let a tragic memory relapse for a second. Her father has to be a force user of some kind (most likely Luke), even if Luke didn't raise her before she got left on Jakku.

I wonder if Tuesday will actually increase, unlike last week, due to the weather dying off some.

Not necessarily today. The storms are likely affecting Saturday night, Sunday, and today. We need to see if it can pick up some of the steam it lost from the Midwest storm on whether or not it hits 1b.

Yeah, despite the movie being a comedy, it works up your emotions more than a drama and is a lot more horrifying to watch (at points) than a horror film. I thought it was structured brilliantly.

FYC BEST FORUM MOMENT Excel's rant about Star Wars not being hip FYC Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Ensemble, Editing, and Adapted Screenplay FYC FUNNIEST MEMBER (JK, I'm not really doing a FYC for myself... Maybe...)

I already knew most of everything the movie was going to tell me, but there were plenty of people that didn't. And even as somebody who already knew about the situation (not really the guys betting against the American economy part, but the specifics of the fraud of the big banks), it still hit it home and hit hard (for me) at the very end.

Except the fraud the big banks were doing was The primary reason for the crash. You can't make a truthful movie trying to educate the public about the situation and not demonize the big banks to an extent, because what they were doing WAS stupid and illegal and it WAS coming from a standpoint of greed. There's no other way to put it. It also reveals a major practice in most businesses, and it's that the CEOs tend to only look short term. They realize they can milk something for all its worth and then high tail out of there (avoiding the consequences the workers or others might face) once things go south. The movie was intended to be an educational piece, the betting against the American economy aspect was just a hook/angle to tell the story and inform. It definitely displayed the consequences for the characters (not all of them bad, actually most werent, which kind of adds to the punch), and Brad Pitt's ending line actually had a lot of depth on that subject. Looking at the movies intentions, it absolutely does what it's trying to do, that is wake up the audience on what happens behind their backs. Throughout the film I heard people in my theater gasp at things, hear a small audible "no way", there were laughs where funny things happened, and whenever McKay wanted to audience to pay attention the packed room was dead silent in an attentive manner. The number one thing I heard people say as they left the theater, "I can't believe that actually happened," or, "I had no idea this was happening!" I don't really have flaws with this film, and if I did, I'd forgive them. Most Americans won't watch (actually) important documentaries or educate themselves about subjects like these. I have a lot of respect for McKay making a film that will reach out to a number of people and inform them on information that actually is important. This is a rare case where Id say a movie actually is an important viewing, especially if you're clueless about the crash in 2008.