Baumer's Star Wars The Force Awakens Rant

[Avatree]

7 minutes ago, The Panda Menace said:

 

It depends for me.  As much as I like big numbers, it's more interesting for me to see a film perform great in context.

 

Meaning,

In context, Gravity's run for me was a lot more fun to track than Age of Ultron's was.  Gravity was doing the unexpected in a good way, and Age of Ultron was boringly doing well enough to not be a massive disappointment, but not good enough to really get excited about either.

 

Or say American Sniper, "only" an 89m opening, but the most impressive/interesting run of the year until we got to Force Awakens.  Even more so than Jurassic World, imo.

American Sniper is the most interesting and most impressive box office performance of the past year. Way more so than Star Wars. The scale of these SW numbers is incredible but none of it is surprising.

[The Panda]

Just now, Salacious Tree Crumb said:

American Sniper is the most interesting and most impressive box office performance of the past year. Way more so than Star Wars. The scale of these SW numbers is incredible but none of it is surprising.

 

I'd disagree, mostly because they aren't comparable (kind of the point of Baumer's rant).  Both were unprecedented and phenomenal runs.  Also, I'd say SW is most definitely surprising.  Everyone knew it was going to be big, but clubs like "Over Mockingjay Part 2 in a week" were completely laughed at until both of the movies released.  

 

I'd prefer not to start an AS vs. SW7 argument though.  We have enough box office comparison arguments going around right now as it is.

[AniNate]

BvS and CA paling by comparison is more a matter of being franchises that are already expected to have huge openings. If something like Finding Dory opened that big it would still be considered a huge shock

[#ED]

54 minutes ago, Salacious Tree Crumb said:

American Sniper is the most interesting and most impressive box office performance of the past year. Way more so than Star Wars. The scale of these SW numbers is incredible but none of it is surprising.

 

Stop.

[AniNate]

She's not wrong about AS. It was pretty mind blowing. Moreso being a platform expansion

[Dark 33Legend of the Sith]

Bravo Baumer!

 

And Tree, opening to 248 the weekend before Christmas and approaching 1 billion domestic is much more sthan surprising. It is stunning.

[AniNate]

Star Wars' opening was excellent, much more than I dared to predict. Though the predictions of 300 million, joking or not, kind of neutered the shock. No one dared predict a 90 million opening for AS

[rustyspoons89]

Love this. This run is history unfolding. It's l been so fun (both in theaters and discussing numbers online)  

 

[The Stingray]

JC is still king of the world, Star Wars is the king of the US and A.

 

Let's just leave it at that.

 

Edited January 4, 2016 by The Stingray

[IronJimbo]

P1: I agree that no one expected it to make this much and that it's run suprised me. A counterpoint would be that it was the most hyped and advertised film of all time, so for that reason it should become the #1 grosser. I'm sure the people's predictions from 2012-2013 would be a little higher if they were allowed to see the 2015's hype/advertising. It still suprised me though!

 

P2: You're saying that Star Wars is it's own run and we should forget other films, however if we forget other films what are we meant to be compare it too? How can it be a good run if we don't compare it too others, there are no records without comparisons.

 

P3: This is going to be my rant which is sort on a tagent but here we go.

"150 million in China, that doesn't mean it's a shit gross."

I'm sticking to my guns here, this is a shit gross for Star Wars. Americas #1 film making 40% of Fast and Furious 7 in China. Comparatively to the rest of the world, 150m is shit. If it's not shit what is it? If you say it's good then what does that leave 200m as very good, 250m as amazing, 300m as absolutely incredible, 350m as out of the world once in a life time amazing. We can't get much better than that, shame FF7 made more than that, I thought this was Star Wars people.

Imagin if football (soccer) had a happyhouse scaling like yours, as seen as everyone in La Liga are the best of the best probably all in the top 0.000003% of people who play football. Well I guess one of Real Betis's (bottom of league) worst substiute striker is still an absolutely amazing football player. What words do we have left for C.Ronaldo or Messi?

 

Also if it makes 150m in China it underpeformed, in football (and all sports) it's very common to say that a player that underpeformed "played shit".

 

P4: Enjoyed the film and haven't been giving it negative reviews! It was alright.

 

P5: It was a good read!

Edited January 4, 2016 by IronJimbo

[baumer]

There's nothing to compare it to because no other film has done what it did.  So what are  you supposed to compare it to?

 

Not every region is going to love every film.  Before Transformers did 300 million there, what was the highest grossing film in China?  I think it might have been the rerelease of Titanic.  I have no idea what it will make in China, but imo if it does 150, it puts it past Titanic WW, so good enough for me.

[75Live]

@Baumer Fett for the rant, I think this is very appropriate

 

 

 

 

 

 

[baumer]

Thanks 75

 

[75Live]

no problem @Baumer Fett

 

 

  

 

I ran out of like so I had to go with something

 

[terrestrial]

1 hour ago, IronJimbo said:

Also if it makes 150m in China it underpeformed, in football (and all sports) it's very common to say that a player that underpeformed "played shit".

 

The problem with your posts is, you do not really know the reasons behind certain possibilities. Including that a movie release in another country is not compareable to a sport player. (let's not even start with what you tried recently with BOM OS details)

 

Like: foreign countries have their own local movies, also watch movies out of other foreign countries. The local movies production in a lot of countries changed, in especial China (but also SK,..) they did a lot for their movie making industry, also the release dates in China are governmental controlled and other details that can influence the outcome.

The Chinese governemt changed a bit the release dates policy, as in movies expected to make a lot of money get worse and worse release dates (as the Chinese government does not want to loose so much foreign exchange).

If a studio already had a few nice results, the next ones usually get worse release dates....

Some movies get an extension for their run, most not. Also something not all countries have: a limited run of only a few weeks.

Some get censor based strange cuts, some get good translation / dubbing word, some not.

In a lot of countries holidays... are not at the same months, in China not even week days / weekends are how we use it (like a weekend day can be a normal work-day, depending on when). So even to compare let's say week number ?? of year whatever to the same week number of another year = not always the same

 

Based on the local movies success local people watch now those and foreign movies. The movies already established before the latest (strong) boom have a big head-start for future movies, as they do not have to fight for awareness with local movies.

 

New local movies get also repeatedly weeks/months of protection in China = no foreign movie distract from the introduction of  those...

So lets stay with your sportler annalogy:

It's a year long tournament, not a solo event.

Some sportler get perfect conditions, have all the space for themselfes, some have others so nearby standing, they cant even move the army freely to throw a ball. Some can do as they please, some get restrictions, like say additional weight or bands that hinder your moviement.

Some have to run against a few, weeker ones. some have to fight for getting the ball every second in a crowded place.

 

So back to $150m:

take a look at the list of FOREIGN movies that reached ... let's say $70m and higher. Look into which of those are either part 2-11 of a movie series (Furious, MCU, Bond,...), got a release before the protection of local movies got as extrmeme as it is or was released before the (rather recent) boom of local movies. Those you can recognise btw also by how many of those reached $70m and higher.

And how many movies not bolstered by earlier movies or earlier less harsh conditions still reached those numbers beside being new to the audience ones.

Oh, certain directors too are to a degree 'established' (I do not speak about Cameron, even if he too is an established one, Ridley Scott, Nolan,... had made big movies earlier on too)

 

Then add local preferences (see Japan's for animated),... plus prefereneces can change, especially in the earlier years of a cinema going ~ developing society. Or we would still mainly watch westerns.

 

Hence the reason you are one of the prime examples about trying to find ANYTHING to better your fandom - not realising that those tries are too obvious for nearly everyone here and frankly annoying in its ammount too.

And that is saying me, who really can't wait to see Avatr 2 too (and SW 8, and ....)

[baumer]

Thanks bkb but it wasn't about one individual it was just about a combination of things.

[IronJimbo]

2 hours ago, Baumer Fett said:

There's nothing to compare it to because no other film has done what it did.  So what are  you supposed to compare it to?

 

Not every region is going to love every film.  Before Transformers did 300 million there, what was the highest grossing film in China?  I think it might have been the rerelease of Titanic.  I have no idea what it will make in China, but imo if it does 150, it puts it past Titanic WW, so good enough for me.

 

"There are no records without comparisons"

I'm saying by even mentioning the records (which you did) you're comparing it to other films.

 

51 minutes ago, terrestrial said:

 

What a load of fluff.

 

Why the hell do you think I personally need to know all the intricies of China's box office to say that 150m will be an underperformance?

 

To underpeform is to perform worse than expected, that is all my friend.

 

Now are you saying TFS is expected to make 150m or less in China? Bullshit, that's not what I've read anywhere. What value are you expecting from China terrest?

[Dementeleus]

11 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

Now are you saying TFS is expected to make 150m or less in China? Bullshit, that's not what I've read anywhere. What value are you expecting from China terrest?

 

On the contrary, our Chinese posters have been saying -- for months -- that a 140-150m range should be considered likely. SW isn't a well-known or popular brand in China, and actually the other SW movies were only recently released there. 

 

Media reports projecting way higher numbers are just going off the assumption that since other Hollywood movies did big numbers there, SW must automatically do them as well, which is a flawed argument. 

[IronJimbo]

3 minutes ago, Obi-Wan Telemachos said:

 

On the contrary, our Chinese posters have been saying -- for months -- that a 140-150m range should be considered likely. SW isn't a well-known or popular brand in China, and actually the other SW movies were only recently released there. 

 

Media reports projecting way higher numbers are just going off the assumption that since other Hollywood movies did big numbers there, SW must automatically do them as well, which is a flawed argument. 

 

I haven't even seen any of these Chinese posters myself but from the expectations I've seen 150m is definitely an underperformance. It doesn't matter wether the expectations are correct, it's still underperforming.

[Dementeleus]

*shrugs*

 

I feel you're missing the forest for the trees here, which is (partially) what baumer's original post was about. But whatever, man.