Star Wars Episode VIII North American poster
Reference News Network reported on December 18 that roller coasters have always been a major selling point for Disneyland. On December 14, Eastern Time, Disney Pictures itself experienced the feeling of riding a super roller coaster. At noon, Disney Pictures completed the historic acquisition of 20th Century Fox Pictures, and analysts believe that Disney will henceforth occupy more than 40% of the US film and television industry, becoming the absolute boss of the entertainment industry.
On December 15, EST, the latest game in the "Star Wars" series, "Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi", produced by Disney and highly anticipated, was released in the United States. The "Star Wars" series was originally the most box office appeal film IP in the United States, and this one has been praised by film critics and the media before its release, and has received more than 95% of the praise on the authoritative film review website "Rotten Tomatoes". At this moment, Disney can be described as a spring breeze and double happiness.
Evaluation polarization: honey A, arsenic B?
However, after the release of the film, the situation took an unexpected turn. Star Wars fans across the united States walked into the movie theater with great anticipation, but at the end of the day, they looked at each other with a blank face. Then on the major movie rating websites, the audience ratings of "Star Wars 8" began to decline like an avalanche, also on the "Rotten Tomatoes" website, next to the scores of the radiant film critics, the netizen audience gave less than 60 points, which was particularly dazzling. In the audience reviews, the distribution of positive and negative reviews shows a polarized C shape: positive and negative reviews account for almost half of each, and general evaluations are relatively scarce.
Since last year's presidential election, "torn America" has become a frequent topic in The Social and Cultural Discussion of the United States, why do popular film series such as "Star Wars" inevitably embark on the road of "tearing"?
As of press time, viewer ratings are still polarized (image from Metacritics)
If measured by the standards of Hollywood commercial entertainment blockbusters, "Star Wars 8" is definitely a work above the standard: the special effects are gorgeous and realistic, and the music is shocking. The producer Disney is an expert in the Hollywood narrative model, and even many of the principles of the current American screenwriting industry that are regarded as golden rules were first fixed in "Star Wars", so in terms of narrative, this work does not have much hard damage.
Star Wars 8 tells the story of a new round of confrontation between the righteous resistance organization and the evil "First Order" that takes place in a distant galaxy. The film includes exciting space battles and lightsaber battles, as well as mysterious superpowers and touching life and death. "Star Wars 8" has to explain the new event background and rich content, so the film is 150 minutes long, which is the longest Star Wars film to date. Fortunately, the director interspersed all kinds of funny bridges and fancy cuteness in it, so that the 2-and-a-half-hour viewing process has no sense of fatigue.
It can be said that if "Star Wars 8" is not a new work in the Star Wars series, but an independent cosmic adventure movie, it will inevitably be a masterpiece that will satisfy most people. However, precisely because of its Star Wars status, Star Wars fans will use different standards to look at it.
Stills from Star Wars Episode VIII
Star Wars Bloodlines: Wealth or Baggage?
As we all know, the Star Wars series is the number one IP in the American film and television industry. Since the birth of the first Star Wars, nearly 10 movies and countless games, anime and novels have been spawned in the past 40 years. Released in 2015, "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" has earned more than $900 million (1 US dollar is about 6.6 yuan - this online note) in the United States, which is the highest-grossing film in the United States so far.
It is the rich accumulation and extensive fan base of the Star Wars series that has led to the commercial success of Star Wars today. But these accumulations and foundations are both the wealth of Star Wars and the baggage of Star Wars: each new Star Wars work must undertake the world settings and story lines of the previous Star Wars series, and the old fans are certainly addicted, but for the audience of the new "pit", the threshold is getting higher and higher, if you do not understand the stories and characters of the previous parts, it is really confusing to see the new works.
This is evident in Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens, when the film was screened in China, many Chinese audiences who did not know anything about the history of Star Wars often watched in the clouds and fog, inexplicably. In China, the world's second-largest film market, "Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens" only earned more than $100 million, failing to enter the top ten of the box office list that year.
Not only in China, the Star Wars series has received a mediocre response in almost all emerging market countries, and the box office is average. "Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens" in the United States box office more than "Avatar" nearly 200 million, but the global total box office has been thrown away by nearly 700 million, "fan special" color is too strong, is the main reason why Star Wars in the international market is not as good as "Avatar", "Fast and Furious" and other IP.
From the large-scale acquisition of Fox, it can be seen that Disney is obviously a very ambitious company, it is not satisfied with making Star Wars a big IP in the United States, but to transform it into a box office king that can sweep the world.
Say goodbye to the past: is it a blessing or a curse?
Disney's global strategy has led to a fundamental rift in the future architecture of the "Star Wars" series of stories and the vision of old fans. Old fans hope that Star Wars should be more and more grand, including more story lines and characters, the history and whereabouts of popular characters can be explained in detail, and should also come from time to time to a "return of the king", the foreshadowing buried in the previous works can get a perfect solution, it is best to have a magnificent main line plot, which can run through several movies, games, animations, complement each other, and complement each other, that is called enjoyment; and Disney hopes to streamline the cosmology of the Star Wars series. Let those passers-by who know little about the background of Star Wars also enjoy the film without obstacles.
To this end, a few years ago, Disney announced that the content of thousands of Star Wars series published in the past few decades would be invalidated, and the various events that occurred in the novels would no longer have anything to do with the movie and would no longer be regarded as the orthodox story of the Star Wars series.
This time in "Star Wars 8", Disney and the previous Star Wars series made a more decisive separation. As the film's villain Kylo Ren says, "It's time for everything in the past to die." "Tragic or sloppy, the legends of the Star Wars world are separated from fans in this film, and the countless secret histories and mysteries in the Star Wars setting are also directly characterized as "unimportant" in the film and burned; even the villains who buried countless foreshadowings in the previous "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" to set off their powerful power and mysterious backgrounds have also hurriedly received bento boxes.
After the launch of the current work "Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens", various fans on foreign Star Wars forums fiercely debated the unsolved puzzles in the film and the direction of the future story, while in "Star Wars 8", the choreographer was equivalent to telling everyone that "everyone don't guess, these pits I am not going to fill in, let's forget the past and start over." ”
In this situation, how can we not let old fans be angry and attack their hearts and shout to be deceived?
What is particularly ironic is that during the release of "Star Wars 8", Disney and electronic arts games launched a Star Wars video game, and hinted that the game's plot content will be deeply related to "Star Wars 8". The game is full of countless elements that require players to pay separately to "unlock", and many Star Wars fans are itchy and have to scold Disney for being greedy while obediently paying money.
But in fact, the plot of the movie and the game have no connection in the slightest, and many Star Wars fans finally laughed furiously, jokingly and helplessly: "Is it difficult for me to watch the fake "Star Wars 8"? Do real videos need us to spend more money to unlock? ”
Hope Chinese audience: Are you ready?
In contrast to abandoning tradition, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi has also introduced many new faces. To our surprise, there was another Asian face in Star Wars, and Rose, a rebel soldier played by Kelly Mary Chen, was the first female Asian character to appear in a Star Wars movie.
On the one hand, this is in line with the current trend of "political correctness" in Hollywood, and on the other hand, it can also be understood as an effort to open up the Chinese market. Along with Chen, there are also cute alien creatures called PORG and crystal ice foxes that are so cool that they have no friends, there is no doubt that these will bring huge benefits to Disney's toy department in the world, associated with the vicious appearance of the villain who was "box lunch", is it not because his model is not easy to sell?
Star Wars Episode VIII stills: Cool Ice Fox
Many Star Wars fans in the United States call the film "Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Star Wars", and the various "disrespects" to tradition in the film, Star Wars fans use this to express their anger at renunciation. However, ordinary fans have praised this film. In fact, in Disney's grand strategy, the real decision to the success or failure of this film is the performance of the international market, especially the increasingly important Chinese market, January 5, this film will be released in China, are you ready for this "alternative" Star Wars?