ezetram and ea.

Crash and Spyro are now in the nostalgic remake phase where the current IP owners pretend the decade of crap that was released never happened and once again start mass producing sequels.

Pretty much an ending in comics is the end of a head writer's tenure.

Definitely agree.

Exactly. Say what you want about the prequel and even the Force Akakens, they still felt like Star Wars. Those movies meant something. Then Last Jedi ruined everything which not only retroactively made the Force Awakens weaker but also threatened the meaning of the original 6 films. This is a huge deal becuase Star Wars, perhaps more than any other mivie franchise in history, was heavily dependent on its own history, mythos, and overarching continuity.

Except I can't justify $25 for a 48 or 60 page book.... I'm happy he's been funded and others have been too. Hopefully their model can sustain itself.

and deservedly so.

I would point out (cautiously) that they didn't UNDERestimate so much as MISSED their guess about the fandom with Star Wars. They knew very well how big and formidable the SW fandom really was... They knew very well that it had grown since the first episode release in the 70's... AND it had just continued to grow EVEN AFTER the original trilogy was done. There were no pretenses about it, with "The Return of the Jedi"... that project was over, and other than a steadily growing fandom of cos-players and markets and conventions gathering steam across the country (world?) Lucas didn't exactly elaborate any great intention for new movies... for TWENTY (20) years! With the prequels, everything changed almost overnight... There were re-releases of the original movies to theaters first... with some "touching up" (?) AND then the prequels came out. A whole new generation of fans was added "to the fold"... and Disney saw magic. Disney made the assumption that the enormity of fanbase Lucas had gathered, they could "get away with anything"... Lucas seemed to get away with plenty of license and to spare over the re-releases and prequels, even with the "Han shot first" controversy... (lolz). SO Disney just assumed the fans would "lay down and take it" when they decided to run amok with whatever the hell they wanted, and bought LucasArts out, hoping the momentum would just keep going... Only that didn't work... It didn't work because it was ALWAYS Lucas' heart that sold the Star Wars product... He probably had some really dark and even depraved ideals about sequels or whatever was coming next (if he'd stuck it out to see it all through)... BUT he would've done it well enough that the fans would've likely eaten it up. He respected the original craft he'd built, and while some minor points in the prequels seemed a bit "hammered in there", he was careful enough to avoid eviscerating the mythos... Disney's leadership (or lack thereof) just didn't care. AND what they missed about the Star Wars fandom was that these were not ordinary "just collect everything in sight" fan types... They were OLD SCHOOL fans who would wait out five or ten YEARS for the next movie, because it was always good enough to justify the wait... That's not a fandom you want to alienate. It's not the kind of fandom you want to piss off, piss on (for the matter) or dismiss as "mere peasantry"... AND this miscalculation cost them... Leaving the leadership (or lack thereof) to berate, attack, dehumanize, and defame fans over the lackluster reception of poor product is only worse. The oldest rule in business (any business btw) is "The customer is ALWAYS right." Any of these corporate's who forget that, regardless of their reasons, will nose their precious franchise into the ground... Splat. ;o)

I think The Last Jedi is an odd case of a franchise entry created by studio mismanagement and a creator in over his head. Rogue One and Solo were also almost disasters.

I don't think that will ever happen willingly. They'll keep lobbying to change the law until they can just hang onto the rights for things forever. Literally until the end of time. :(

Look at Disney. They are the ones that made this normative. The right for Mickey Mouse lapsed into public domain law, then the company sued for it. If a corporation owns it, and can make money off This is why we keep getting shit movies

You can thank Disney and Mickey Mouse for completely killing the public Domain its very unfortunate and the laws need to change or we will have a future where it everything is under corporate control

What does the Constitution have to do with copyright law?

Dissonant Vibe nothing other than Freedom of Speech which allows Satire and commentary on copyrighted wrks

i absolutely hate when people talk about franchises in art. it makes my skin crawl. didn't star wars used to be a saga?

I will gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today. -anonymous

And yes, I'm aware it probably shouldn't have been a franchise to begin with.

He should have leased it out to whoever had the best idea instead of selling it.

I think Lucas got old and tired. He must have put a lot of work into the Clone Wars.

Mark J In his Biography it said he considered hiring a director ect but in the past when he had brought in other people to direct produce ect he wouldn’t leave it alone he’d still show up on set every day and tinker with everything but I wish he would have done something like that I also think he undervalued his company by a lot it also said in the bio that Bob Igar promised him on a handshake only that he’d be involved as a consultant with the new movies and of course he was not it’s unfortunate b cuz Lucas wrked so hard to build his own studio ect so that he could be 100% the independent of the Hollywood studio system even buying all the rights to Star Wars a new hope from Fox when he negotiated distribution of phantom menace with them only to go and sell it all to the biggest studio / IP farm in the whole of Hollywood

+Sam Kressin I definitely agree. It's bizarre that he didn't go for a bidding war. I assume he thought the other studios made trash, and he has some integrity, but he seems naive in an interview of him and Kennedy. This is the guy who created Sidious and the Empire. I guess it's because Kennedy is a woman. He had a much better relationship with his mom than his dad, though his ex wife took a lot of his early money. What if Universal had gotten Star Wars? He should have temporarily leased out the movie rights to whatever studio had the best idea. This is what Lucasfilm did with comics. Who cares if the movie distribution rights are all over the place if there are quality movies. He and his family maybe could have made more money over time. I suppose he saved some people some jobs at Lucasfilm but whatever.

I agree leasing out the movie rights would have made way more sense than outright selling it off.

SammyRi _ As a long time comics reader, I’ve seen my interest moves towards Image comics exactly because of that.

Honest question, and I realize it’s a mountain of a question, but what is with all the hate for TPM? The younger Anakin could’ve choked on a dick, but for me that was more the actor playing him than the character. Well, Jar Jar, too, I’ll concede that one, as well.

TLJ was just as bad. There was vision alright... but filled with hate for the OT and the fan base... The movie exists merely to take up time, rug-pull and troll the very audience viewing the garbage.

I'm not sure TFA is worse than TLJ. Yeah TFA feels automated and is retarded at places, but TLJ is retarded from start to finish, hell, it doubles down on the stupid points inherited from TFA.

Luluko He's not putting TPM in the same bag as TLJ. He's comparing them and showing the similarities and differences, of which there are mostly differences, with the exception of overall quality.

Soren Sorensen I agree. Watching TLJ actually made me hate TFA more. I find it somewhat irksome at the claims that TFA was a good setup. It completely retread the same story of ANH. There were no hints of Snoke being anything more than the Emperor 2.0. Rey faced no adversity and defeats the villain in the first act. Finn is selfish and inconsistent and an absolute waste of a character who's backstory of a stormtrooper never manifests itself in a meaningful way. The rules of hyperspace and the force were already broken. If the knights of Ren were going to play a role in this trilogy, they needed to be in the first film. Any explanation for why Luke hid and left a map anyways was going to be weak. OT characters were already receiving character assassination. The efforts of the heroes of the OT were made worthless. The state of the Galaxy and who the new sides were ambiguous and never explained...I'm probably still missing stuff, and TLJ was still an awful movie, but Disney Star Wars was garbage right out of the gate.

Maybe the best way to keep a franchise vital is to constantly reboot it like they do in Japan. In the U.S., the best results seem to come from creators reinterpreting franchises from a beginning. Also, if a reboot sucks, you just have to wait for the next one and not give up on a franchise completely.

You are wrong that good talent doesn't want to work in franchises. The thing is now there is a political monopoly where people get hire based on politics and not talent. Right now artist are not in charge of Hollywood as it was before. That is considering progressives have always been in charge of hollywood but there is a difference between dreamers and idealist. Artist of today are not dreamers or innovators hopefully it'll pass.

+Simply the Best When you look at when a creator follows another creator in a film series there seems to usually be a drop off in quality. It's not their creation, so even if they like the money and series and want to be successful, ultimately they are working in something that is not their own which is hard to get around psychologically. But if a creator is allowed to recreate, reboot, or nearly reboot a franchise, the results seem to usually be much better. Rebooting also opens up storytelling possibilities. It's the norm in Japan. I wish it was here. It doesn't seem like the talent exists to do this anyway, though Hollywood's poor output could be because of constant studio meddling. I suspect that their is a lack of talent now like with music. Reading novels for pleasure is not popular anymore, and the newer generation of creators has been raised on trash TV and video game cut scenes. Most of them start out on TV, which is how we get bland soulless junk like the current MCU movies. The old cultural memory is now lost. Beat sheets and screen writing books can't replace it. I think Hollywood needs stronger producers who understand storytelling or a better creative system. I think the MCU and Feige have become hugely overrated in the years following phase one, but the MCU batting average is decent and the movies appeal to many people. Though much of the reason why the MCU has been successful is because of the high quality of phase one which began before Disney bought Marvel Studios, and I would be very suspicious of any "big man" explanation for anything. A better model might be Pixar's where all the creators work together.

+Simply the Best It's called Pixar's brain trust. If something like that had existed at Lucasfilm (that wasn't a bunch of no names like in the Lucasfilm story group), maybe many of Rian Johnson's idiotic decisions wouldn't have happened. Johnson claims he made a 250 million dollar personal movie in a massive and beloved franchise that has become the biggest modern cultural myth of America and beyond.

That's not necessarily true look at the star trek series, TNG was an improvement of the original and deep space nine was an improvement from TNG. voyager wasn't necessarily a decline either story wise it was good and hold to the last two, just the production was not. So that a very good example that is not because it's not their creation but rather money. Reboots are not better if the creator doesn't follow the source material. Not following the source material always results in decline of the audience because the audience doesn't like change. If it embraces change is due to visuals and a long break. studio meddling does result in poor quality but the studios meddle based on statistics so ultimately I think that's not something the audience has realized till now with starwars. Which is making it acknowledge and starting to reverse the damage idealist have been putting. As for your MCU thing honesty, it's success is due to the fact that the MCU did not start alienating their audience with poor customer treatment.

Seagulls Gather Disney did not invest 4 billion dollars in a declining IP. Clearly they saw a lot of untapped potential in SW but they are just not handling the IP well enough to actually make use of that potential.

declining returns in ongoing sequels/series is pretty much a given, there are very few exceptions (probably only marvel). they may have felt star wars would buck the trend, but there is no evidence to suggest that would happen and some to the contrary: star wars out performed empire and jedi and the phantom menace did the same with episodes 2 & 3. so either they felt they could succeed where others didn't or they thought they had a strategy to mitigate the decline. at the moment it doesn't look like they're succeeding on either count.

A lot of artists are very arrogant, they won't accept a corparation's impact on their work's success through marketing. However, they are logically the maker of the franchise and should come above the marketing department and the corporation. The story comes before the franchise. IMO The writer should die with their creation and copyright or keep its private ownership, like Schulz and the peanuts comic strip. If they wish to sell their IP that's their problem.

Thats what happened to Nikola Tesla and his work. Much of it was ceased by the Government.

Precisely LordMalice6d9.. I'd mentioned in another of David's vids how life in the military is basically civilian life cut and dried.. ei, if Thomas had listened to and taken care of him instead of screwing him, as did a few others a bit later, Edison Electric would have emmerged at the forefront as winner of the War Of The Currents, having initial sole rights to the Tesla AC motor patents, and Alva wouldn't have been forced out of his own company, becoming plain GE, instead of EGE.. Most usually do good things until the knife hit's the bone, as in good friends Sarnoff and Armstrong, after he became head-honcho at RCA but couldn't legally swindle Farnsworth over TV

Prometheus, on the other hand, was a lukewarm attempt at rebooting it, while Alien Covenant definitely annihilated the Alien series for good.

It's the product of lazy cultural liberalism.

Of the affluent.

"it felt like it was created by people who understood and genuinely cared for the original film." If they had they wouldn't have discarded the basic rules set by the precedent movie, nor would they had changed it to a video game because "get with duh times" (people still play board games). It didn't hate this movie, but it's about as jumanji as any of its ripoffs.

SPTX The update from board game to video game made sense to me.

I didn't say it didn't, I said they were slick to follow the safest trends.

Ben Scrutable funny part of that is that the first 2 seasons its more or less the same as every other startrek before it.

The submarine vet in me loved the ship and crew. The elevator in the engineering bay is the only real ship issue I had.

About long-running seasons, personally, I thought the 26 episode seasons were too much for any Star Trek. Usually, my interest would start slumping around eps 15-19.

so did I, it was perhaps just a little bit too samey at the start and never recovered its audience.

I rather enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, but I'd only seen Next Gen the whole way through and a few episodes of TOS, so I didn't have fatigue.

Still better than GT.

Watchu talkin' bout? Dragon Ball Super was a lot of fun, and a good continuation of the story! Piccoyo, Dadgeta, and 17 = Best Characters!

Unfortunately, Goku's existence in any given plot line ruins all tension in that series for me. All fights are meaningless until Goku makes the final round, all people's hopes (Kai's wish to be revived) are going to be dashed with needless dicking around in the filler episodes.

Well, the only arcs in that series that dodged the "Goku as Paragon savior" problem were if I remember, the Cell arc and Majin Boo arcs. Goku's son Gohan defeated Cell, and Goku would have lost to Buu if not for the Spirit Bomb with everyone's energy in it. Everything else was the writers blowing their loads all over Goku.

I count Goku's Buu Spirit Bomb as him being the solution since no one else knows it who fights. It's the same as the Zabasu fight; looks like Trunks landed the final blow, then super final form pops up and Goku pulls the "I win" button out, quite literally. Cell really is the only story arc ended by someone else. Still rooting for Krillen though. (::: 8 )

I loved it.

Bart de Jong if businessmen dont produce the numbers for the shareholders they are going to get fired. So they will try to control the production as much as they can by looking at, and implementing, the formulas and trends that are proven to push the numbers. Of course, this stifles creativity. So for the businessmen its a balancing game between how much they control the production vs how much freedom do we give the creative

Then I guess what the world needs in order to get creativity back, is for the public to start spotting these patterns. Basically, as long as consumers can be tricked into thinking a sequel or a reboot is the same as the thing they originally liked, they'll keep buying movie tickets and so on. Once more people start to see the pattern they may not be so quick to go for these cheap knock-offs. (I mean cheap in terms of story content, or soul if you will, not production values since those tend to be through the roof) Then again, not all consumers are that discerning. Sometimes they really do only care for the spectacle. I wonder if there's any loophole here..

This is already happening, people are becoming more and more critical thanks to social media, IMDB, Rottentomatoes etc. And you can see it in the fact the the new Star Wars movies are not doing as well as expected. You can only milk a franchise for so long before the public catches on and stops giving its money. At the end of the day, we all want quality content. The businessmen want quality content, because quality is the best predictor of long financial success. And the consumer obviously also wants quality content. The problem is when the businessmen see that numbers are falling, they try to milk a franchise even more by enforcing even more formulaic production onto the content. Because they have to sell a 'strategy' to the shareholders. If the higher ups don't have a strategy to increase sales, the shareholders will pull out the pitchforks and demand some names because the shareholders don't really care about the movies. The shareholders care about the value of their shares. And in general, shareholders are short term thinkers. So this will create a loop which strangles the creativity in big money projects. The solution isn't so simple. I would say that the best thing to maintain the authenticity of an IP is that the major shareholder of the company is a person who has a majority stake(51%). And has love and involvement in the products and doesn't just care about the numbers.

Overlooked? Hardly. Shit like Kickstarter and Patreon has enabled lots of independent artists and other entities to pursue their projects, be it petty or large. Artists are also notorious for having shit business skills.

wouldn't UBI cause rampant inflation?

Sean, you can disagree without devolving into a petulant douche.

John Garrison That's socialism, and socialism doesn't work. It incentivizes people to reduce their productivity.

You know you guys are right. David clearly agrees with you and that's why he clearly said that artists are only in it for the money and without that money there'd be no motivation for them to create art. /s Or do you disagree with David's point that artists don't need money to be motivated to create good art? Do you disagree that a bunch of people with UBI wouldn't pool their money to fund a movie? Do you think that reducing their income and allowing Disney to have even more money would spur innovation/artists? Some things to think about.