The Hunger Games Franchise: What went so right (THG, CF) and then so wrong (MJ1, MJ2)

[moviesRus]

Serious question, is water a parody account? 

[Lordmandeep]

This thread is just 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vHRMeRszw4

[grey ghost]

People could smell disappointment getting closer and took a detour. 

 

Nothing is worse for a fan than that sinking feeling in a darkened theater.

[TalismanRing]

1 hour ago, water said:

 

all these arguments saying "people just stopped caring" / "it wasn't as appealing" etc, sure, no problem. if we had no other information we could discuss that all day long. but we do have more information, race and gender breakdowns for CF and MJ1 from MPAA's reports. all i've done is presented numerical data that shows that from CF->MJ1, attendance of white people dropped 30%, while attendance of non-white people dropped less than 1%. so i'm asking, in this "what went wrong" thread, what about MJ1 turned away 30% of white people, while non-white attendance wasn't affected overall? why did 30% of white people "just stop caring" but non-white people didn't. why was it "not as appealing" to 30% of white people but still equally appealing to non-white people? etc. if you think it was critical reception, why did 30% of white people care about critical reception enough to not see it while >99% of non-white people didn't care enough to not see it? if you think it was because of the lack of games, why did 30% of white people care about the lack of games enough to not see it while >99% of non-white people didn't care enough to not see it? if you think it was because it looked dull, why did 30% of white people think it looked dull enough to not see it while >99% of non-white people didn't think that? if you don't have any answers to those specific questions then please stop harassing me, because i haven't attacked anyone here, just put ideas out.

 

 

OK, I'll bite.

 

The ethnic breakdown for MJ1 is pretty in line with other 2014 blockbusters like TWS and GOTG and the general movie going population

 

Quote

Overall, white moviegoers accounted for 54 percent of overall ticket sales to movies shown in the U.S. and Canada, followed by Hispanics (23 percent), African-Americans (12 percent) and Asian and others (11 percent).

 

https://www.thewrap.com/what-hit-movie-drew-the-most-diverse-audience-the-whitest

 

Maybe a significant portion of Caucasian audiences only come out for huge event films drawn in by the buzz which is why CF was dis-proportionally Caucasian attended, or suffer from quicker franchise fatigue .  Or maybe it happened that a significantly higher % of the older audience was Caucasian and because they're older are more swayed by reviews.   Or maybe a significant % of teenagers got bored or grew out of it and they happened to skew heavily Caucasian.  The stats don't say.   

 

For comparison, the most ethnically diverse attended film of the big grossers last year was Transformers 4. (38% - Caucasian/ 22% - African American/ 26% - Hispanic / 14% - the Asian/Other)   My guess?   It wasn't because it's political themes were offensive or disturbing to the conservative white audience at large. 

 

http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2014.pdf

 

 

Edited November 24, 2015 by TalismanRing

[grey ghost]

2 hours ago, Audrey said:

There is a simple reason for what happened.  The bandwagoners got off the wagon.  Once there were no more games, that was it.  Most didn't care after the games, and didn't care about the revolution.  That is why you didn't see this happening to harry potter and twilight.  You take a core element out of a series and there you go.  It's almost like taking vampires out of twilight.  In the end, it really is sad that many didn't care as the themes were always at least subtle in the first two movies.  Mockingjay just expanded them.  I also think many expected all four movies to be hunger games because the whole series is titled that.  Once they saw where the movies were headed the bandwagoners jumped ship.

 

I want only the most loyal bandwagon jumpers to stick with MCU.

 

Purge the weak and mold the steel blade of fandom.

 

Hail, Marvel.

 

Edited November 24, 2015 by grey ghost

[water]

34 minutes ago, moviesRus said:

Serious question, is water a parody account? 

 

Serious question, what makes you think this? I'm not joking either, I genuinely want to know what I have said or done that makes you think I'm not serious. Everything I say as an "SJW" is completely normal and makes sense. Your view of the world is troubling if you think anything I say isn't legit. Not to mention how people gang up on me and make me look like the crazy one when I actually have an argument based on numerical fact, and 10 people can be like "no you're wrong" but when I ask "ok what's your answer to this question then" none of them have one. If anything, the people that argue against me seem more like anti-SJW parodies, but sadly they're not, people really are like that.

Edited November 24, 2015 by water

[water]

12 minutes ago, TalismanRing said:

 

OK, I'll bite.

 

The ethnic breakdown for MJ1 is pretty in line with other 2014 blockbusters like TWS and GOTG and the general movie going population

 

 

https://www.thewrap.com/what-hit-movie-drew-the-most-diverse-audience-the-whitest

 

Maybe a significant portion of Caucasian audiences only come out for huge event films drawn in by the buzz which is why CF was dis-proportionally Caucasian attended, or suffer from quicker franchise fatigue .  Or maybe it happened that a significantly higher % of the older audience was Caucasian and because they're older are more swayed by reviews.   Or maybe a significant % of teenagers got bored or grew out of it and they happened to skew heavily Caucasian.  The stats don't say.   

 

For comparison, the most ethnically diverse attended film of the big grossers last year was Transformers 4. (38% - Caucasian/ 22% - African American/ 26% - Hispanic / 14% - the Asian/Other)   My guess?   It wasn't because it's political themes were offensive or disturbing to the conservative white audience at large. 

 

http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2014.pdf

 

 

 

thank you for being the first person to actually provide a theory. all are plausible. the only thing i would say is that since transformers doesn't have a political message strongly paralleling real-world politics, that's a bit of a non-argument. another is, yes, maybe it happened that a significantly higher % of the older audience was caucasian, and because they're older... they grew up in a different time and are more likely to be racist and/or pro-authority. i don't see how that's hard to believe. in any case, you provide several arguments about white people where you say "but maybe they were [this or that non-racial category]". maybe. we don't know. but we do know that they were white, so i think it makes sense to explore racial reasons for the numbers, rather than non-racial reasons, since it's the only information we know.

[Plain Old Tele]

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[grey ghost]

Classic thread.

 

Thanks, mods. Lol.

[Chewy]

8 minutes ago, water said:

since transformers doesn't have a political message strongly paralleling real-world politics

 

I take it you didn't watch Trans4mers

 

 

[AndyLL]

19 minutes ago, grey ghost said:

Classic thread.

 

Thanks, mods. Lol.

 

Think of it as practice.

 

 

[grey ghost]

3 minutes ago, AndyLL said:

 

Think of it as practice.

 

 

 

Are you guys planning a BOT Hunger Games. 

[Harpospoke]

2 hours ago, water said:

i never said MJ1 was an "sjw" movie lmao, but even if i did how on earth would that be a bad reflection on "the tactics sjws are using"? i'll take being compared to freedom fighters rebelling against an evil capitol any day. what on earth are you trying to say lol.

You said this:

 

Quote

i don't think this is particularly surprising as there are probably a lot of conservative white people and men to an extent who weren't interested in/didn't like the anti-authority message of MJ1, and the obvious parallels between the "good guys" in MJ1 and various social justice movements in real life that have gotten mainstream attention since 2014.

You said there are "obvious parallels" between MJ1 and SJW movements and pointed out they got a lot of attention since 2114....which indicates that attention was what turned off the white public.   So your claim is that SJWs are having a negative effect on the attitudes of the public.

 

Quote

 

i already explained that the message was there from the beginning but two factors changed with mj1: 1) no more games, so there was nothing left but the rebellion "sjw message" as you call it. 2) 2014 saw several activist movements/protests/riots gain widespread public attention, after CF but before MJ1. coupled with the loss of the games and MJ1 being marketed as poor oppressed people in rebellion against police brutality-emulating peacekeepers in protests and riots, well... i'm sure a lot of people could see parallels between that. all that was present in the marketing prior to OW.

 

 all i've done is presented numerical data that shows that from CF->MJ1, attendance of white people dropped 30%, while attendance of non-white people dropped less than 1%. so i'm asking, in this "what went wrong" thread, what about MJ1 turned away 30% of white people, while non-white attendance wasn't affected overall? why did 30% of white people "just stop caring" but non-white people didn't. why was it "not as appealing" to 30% of white people but still equally appealing to non-white people? etc. if you think it was critical reception, why did 30% of white people care about critical reception enough to not see it while >99% of non-white people didn't care enough to not see it? if you think it was because of the lack of games, why did 30% of white people care about the lack of games enough to not see it while >99% of non-white people didn't care enough to not see it? if you think it was because it looked dull, why did 30% of white people think it looked dull enough to not see it while >99% of non-white people didn't think that? if you don't have any answers to those specific questions then please stop harassing me, because i haven't attacked anyone here, just put ideas out.

You put out ideas which fed into a political agenda.   

 

As you say here, the politics have been with this franchise from the beginning.   That part did not change.   Thus, we can rule that out as a reason for the decrease in attendance by white people.  

 

But...you ignored logical thinking and instead immediately jumped on the very thing which does not correlate with the drop in attendance.   That indicates an agenda.   You want to blame "racism".

 

Now if you want to claim that the public is growing tired of the SJW act and that effected the movie...ok.   But that puts the fault at the feet of the extremist SJW's who are making a daily nuisance of themselves...not "white people".    As you pointed out, the message wasn't a problem.

 

And we are still left with that sticky problem of the OW decrease.   How do you explain how this "racism" popped up before anyone actually saw the movie?

 

1 hour ago, water said:

 

the survey size in 2013 is over 5000 people, with a margin of error of 1.4%, and in 2014 is over 4000 people, with a margin of error of 1.55%. since i'm talking 30% vs <1%, the error has no effect.

 

That's the problem with making assumptions based on polls.   You are stereotyping an entire race based on a sample size of 4000 people.

 

40 minutes ago, water said:

maybe it happened that a significantly higher % of the older audience was caucasian, and because they're older... they grew up in a different time and are more likely to be racist and/or pro-authority. 

 

Or maybe it's something else which actually correlates?   Not as sexy as "racism" of course.

[Harpospoke]

Just noticed something kinda funny.

 

Watching Jessica Jones on Netflix.    The writers appear to be quite liberal.   Not a shock in Hollywood of course.   Seems to be a concerted effort to include interracial couples and same sex couples.   No big deal to me....hard to find happiness in this short life so people should be able to pair up with whomever can make them happy.    But the real effort on the part of the writers is there.

 

And get this...there is a scene in one episode where we encounter an obnoxious SJW on a bicycle.   He makes loud claims about how he is "saving the planet" and berates other characters for not doing their part.   He comes off as a douchebag.   

 

So even liberal writers are sick of the SJW act?   That's hilarious.

[Fancyarcher]

This thread... LMAO!!!

[AJG]

We were talking about this at work today (I'm in advertising), we were looking through the advertising for the movie and we came up with what we thought went wrong.

 

Essentially when it comes to the advertising the series uses the same design and style for each movie. Posters had the same colours and same basic design. The trailers had the same message (our lives matter, we should have choices, Capitol is evil, Katniss kissing Peeta or Gale [one of the weakest love triangles I've seen in a while, there was no debate as to who Katniss should be with]), similar music, same tone. The excitement and urgency to see the finale to this series is lost, instead of the last movie being this epic event it was treated like just another Hunger Games movie.

 

The tv spots and the trailers should have been more grim, more slow, even less footage from the movie (the first trailer was 2 minutes of fan service). The posters shouldn't have looked anything like the previous posters (we felt that they could have different colours, poses, included Peeta, Gale, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, and Finnick [this character should've been more promoted since Catching Fire in order to get a bigger reaction to his story in MJ2]).

The film itself could've added some stuff to help advertise the movie, the characters look exactly like they did in the first three movies they could've added some beards, shorter/longer hair or scars, their military costumes could've had some insignia or detail to make them seem less generic, having Lenny Kravitz return for MJ2 for a cameo with some "leaks" that could've hinted at his return may have built up some hype for this

 

The reaction to Part 1 certainly didn't help, but that generic as hell advertising was a much bigger factor than anything.

 

[ShouldIBeHere]

The first two were really good movies. The second two were mediocre (at best) movies.

 

It is a bullshit theory that Mockingjay was too bleak, serious, political, adult or whatever for people. But I see some people already live in that bubble that especially MJ2 is that masterpoiece of a war movie that the un-intellectual part of the audience does not get.

 

Coupled with the "over-performance" of the first two it was bound to drive people away.

 

But there are bigger disappointments than a four movie franchsie with these kind of numbers.

Edited November 24, 2015 by ShouldIBeHere

[antovolk]

What's not bullshit though is that this doesn't have the "games" or visceral action excitement that GA showed up for with HG and CF, closest we get to that is the sewer set piece which has been getting pretty much universal acclaim from critics. That "lack of action" comment or words to that effect is something I have been hearing a lot from more GA people.

 

Anyway here's a well thought out and expressed version of some of the thoughts that gave been echoed in this and the main MJ2 threads

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/11/22/box-office-why-a-101m-weekend-for-hunger-games-mockingjay-2-may-be-cause-for-despair/

[Goffe]

9 hours ago, tonytr87 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The games were the draw because some people are stupid and would rather not watch a movie about a rebellion that mirrors our own fucked up world. 

1

Enough of this crap.

 

The games were the only thing that differentiated THG from every other dystopian movie out there, when you take the games out of equation, THG is just another Divergent or Maze Runner.

 

Besides, the games gimmicky did wear thin, MJ2 was marketed as another games movie and it still disappointed heavily box office wise, how that works for you theory?

 

GA was never into this kind of movie because they're usually ridiculous, if you treat them as serious political commentary, then they fall apart pretty damn quickly, a series of problems arise when you try to compare the highly fantasied world that Katniss lives in with our own. The only way to enjoy those movies is to treat them as harmless entertainment, nothing less nothing more. Leave the political commentary to the pros.

 

Edited November 24, 2015 by Goffe

[Goffe]

13 minutes ago, antovolk said:

What's not bullshit though is that this doesn't have the "games" or visceral action excitement that GA showed up for with HG and CF, closest we get to that is the sewer set piece which has been getting pretty much universal acclaim from critics. That "lack of action" comment or words to that effect is something I have been hearing a lot from more GA people.

 

 

"the lack of action" argument doesn't literally mean that they didn't like it because the lack of action, it means that they didn't like it because what they got was not good.