The topic of media narratives lying about movies has been on my mind a lot lately, because I've been on the butt end of the narrative surrounding the new Star Wars movie for the last week and a half. I didn't like the movie, and that is simply unacceptable to some film journalists, so they must explain it away so that potential moviegoers are not deterred. I don't know why this is important to them. They didn't make the movie, and they don't profit from the film's success. And I thank heaven that Disney, Lucasfilm, and Rian Johnson have not embraced this narrative, the way some filmmakers have in the past...
Hollywood fake news hit a fever pitch in 2016 during the time between the release of the trailer for Ghostbusters, and the release of the film itself. The trailer hit YouTube in early March and quickly became the most disliked movie trailer in YouTube history, currently sitting at 1,000,000 dislikes and 300,000 likes. All over YouTube and the rest of the internet the trailer was ridiculed and torn apart for being awful, because it was honestly an awful trailer. One YouTube critic went so far as to say that he would not be reviewing the film when it hit theaters.
Sony had a problem on their hands. Unfortunately for Sony, the film's director, Paul Fieg, and the four leading ladies of the cast were the ones who answered the call. It was one of the most amazing downward spirals I've ever seen.
I don't know when or where it started, but pretty early on Paul and his stars played the sexist card: "if you don't like this trailer, it's obviously because you don't like women." With seemingly no hesitation, the filmmakers decried all detractors as misogynist bigots who could not abide one of their cherished male-dominated movies remade with women. Not surprisingly, this tactic backfired monumentally, with more and more people disinterested in the movie simply because the filmmakers so obviously resented their own audience. Sony did nothing to rein in Paul and company's unprofessional behavior, and when the movie finally came out it actually opened okay, but its total domestic take was $16,000,000 under its production budget. Figure in the marketing budget and the international receipts and the movie may have broken even, but I doubt it.
The most disturbing thing about all this was how willing the film journalists were to champion this false narrative about sexist fanboys. They were in lockstep with Paul and his cast from day one through to writing good reviews. The levels of denial were alarming. In light of a Trump presidency, this kind of media behavior is not so alarming anymore.
Fast forward eighteen months...
I was very excited for The Last Jedi before release. I had no reason to doubt Rian Johnson's filmmaking ability, and the trailers looked really good. The Force Awakens had minor issues, but was an enjoyable and exciting film overall, and I thought The Last Jedi had the potential to outgrow those minor issues.
And then I saw it.
Before I go on I must say that everything in this movie with Rey and Kylo was absolutely spot on. Kylo is still the most interesting new character in decades, in my opinion. But it's all downhill from there. The humor is what stuck out to me the most, and not in a good way. It was really bad. There are also some pretty hefty plot and character issues, along with a string of missed opportunities, but that's not really the point of this post.
The point is that it was not a good film. It was very clearly not a good film. I thought I would be alone in my proclamations of this until I saw the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which has gone on to being the lowest for any Star Wars film ever. I already had friends on my Facebook feed preemptively defending the movie from criticism, and the film journalists were not far behind.
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| Deadline Hollywood |
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| Collider |
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| Vanity Fair |
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| Vox |
As the story goes, people like me who didn't like the film are upset because our fan theories didn't pan out. The movie is flawless, but you can't please everyone, because some fan theories obviously aren't going to happen. So get over it, you basement-dwelling nerds! Oh, also, people like me are responsible for heavily skewing the Rotten Tomatoes audience score, by spamming it with bad reviews, since the critics can't possibly be wrong about this one.
It's embarrassing. The amount of mental hoops these articles' authors have to jump through is hilarious and disgusting at the same time. I haven't seen this much BS in a piece of writing since high school English. It's so dishonest, and the numbers are starting to prove me right (duh).
The Force Awakens hit theaters in an almost identical situation, on December 17, 2015. Same franchise, identical target audience, same studio, similar budget, similar frame, similar marketing, etc. The Last Jedi opened $27,000,000 under The Force Awakens. That's not alarming, as it still scored the second-highest opening weekend ever, at $220,000,000. What is alarming (besides the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes - 52% to The Force Awakens' 88%) is The Last Jedi's current ten day domestic total, which tallies $175,000,000 behind The Force Awakens, at $365,000,000, as well as The Last Jedi's second weekend drop, which is looking close to a whopping 70% compared to The Force Awakens' 39%. Yesterday TLJ's domestic total was 27% under TFA, and today that number is over 32%. This percentage will obviously make smaller jumps as the days go by, but the fact that this number is growing at all is scary.
Put another way, The Last Jedi is missing almost a full third of its audience. Make no mistake, this movie is still likely to make over a billion dollars, so it's nowhere near a bust. But The Force Awakens made over two billion. Bob Iger (Disney CEO) knows Lucasfilm can do better, and you can bet he's going to want to see some changes after this whole mess. He hasn't forgotten that with the cost of acquiring Lucasfilm, these movies haven't even turned a profit yet. If I was Rian Johnson, I would be feeling very nervous right now about that trilogy promised me by Kathleen Kennedy (Lucasfilm President).
So where does this all leave us? What changes? Well, we have even less trust in film journalists, for one thing. I want to make special mention of Variety for remaining honest in their reporting and not capitulating to this nonsense. Also, I wouldn't be terribly shocked if Kathleen Kennedy is a little less sure of her job security moving forward. She knows now that you can't just crap out a Star Wars sequel willy nilly. She knows now that the box office can strike back just as well as the Empire. I don't care that much if Rian Johnson gets his spin-off trilogy or not, just as long as the main saga is handled with more care. As it stands, J.J. Abrams is at the helm for Episode IX, and I think he's right for it. We know he loves to please fans, and he has mentioned how excited he is to apply what he learned from directing The Force Awakens.
As for people like me, I thought that maybe I should learn to let go of my expectations after all. Perhaps I shouldn't be this disappointed over a movie. But then, what of hope? I would rather feel disappointed than cynical. A major theme of The Last Jedi is learning from failure, and clinging to hope in spite of it. That is certainly more meta than our friend Rian realized it would be, and I choose to follow it. Maybe, after all this, Lucasfilm will give George his advisory role back! Wouldn't that be something? And if you scoff at that idea, then maybe you just need to let go of those unfulfilled fan theories you had for the prequels.
