Does this Make Sense!?!?

POSTED BY: XanderHarris
UPDATED: Sunday, October 9, 2005 13:25
VIEWED: 13249
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ROCKETJOCK

Saturday, October 8, 2005 5:47 AM

For the record, I'm not putting down Lucas, or Star Wars (The original trilogy, at any rate.) Just pointing out that Star Wars wasn't always the unstoppable behemoth it seems now in retrospect.

"It's not my fault." -- Han Solo

THECRAZYIVAN

Saturday, October 8, 2005 5:54 AM

time...we just need time...we just gotta hold as zoe would say. WE keep it in theatres and THEY will come.

~~~~~~~~~~
"There is a sense that this is still not over. It's hard to put a finger on what's so special about this project and about this group of people, but it's just one of those things you have to trust in, and relish. I am very, very proud."
---Jewel Staite on "Firefly" and "Serenity" in "Finding Serenity" (essay collection by Jane Espenson)

JASONZZZ

Saturday, October 8, 2005 6:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
For the record, I'm not putting down Lucas, or Star Wars (The original trilogy, at any rate.) Just pointing out that Star Wars wasn't always the unstoppable behemoth it seems now in retrospect.

"It's not my fault." -- Han Solo

nah, nothing missed. I didn't want it to seem like Lucas was a no name small time potato when he made Star Wars either though. I mean the guy had pretty good studio clout and good awards under him plus mentorship from Coppola...

Either way, who can really predict the next thing is great or flop in the $$$ making biz or how the public will like it or hate it (or even notice it to begin with). If you look at the kind of crap that "the greats" crank out like DeNiro and Pacino... You gotta say "what?"... Then you look at Keanu Reeves being propelled into Pluto's orbit from being associated with stuff like "Bill + Ted" and Matrix... You'd just never know.

For me, Lucas is pretty ok, I don't worship the guy. He's done pretty good things with blending a bunch of different things and using the craft to help tell the story. But lots of behind the scenes stuff that you don't end up realizing first hand when you watch a film - is that good or bad. I don't know. He's rich, and for me, I don't really get to see too much of the stuff that he does to really get a feel for what I think or to really evaluate it...

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CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, October 8, 2005 1:00 PM

Ever seen The Princess Bride? I watched the writer's commentary on the DVD yesterday and it gave me a bad feeling about Serenity in theaters.

The movie had good reviews, the movie was the second best previewed movie, and the movie was loved by critics and viewers alike. If it were judged just by box office sales it wouldn’t be worthy of mention. No one knew how to sell it, is it a comedy, a love story, action, fantasy, satire, something else? They couldn’t figure out how to market a genre crossing film and as a result it didn’t do well in theaters.

People would go and see it, love it, and then try to tell their friends, but fail. Instead they would have people saying, “I’ll watch it when it comes out on cassette.” It was only the VHS sales that stopped it from being considered a flop.

With Serenity people say, “I’ll watch it when it comes out on DVD,” but the result is the same. People don’t want to risk going to see a funny but serious sci-fi drama action flick with western elements in theaters. You say sci-fi you drive away people who would love it, you talk about characters you drive away people who would love it, you say action you drive away people who would love it, it goes on like that. It seems like the best I can do is get people to say, “I’ll check it out on DVD.”

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, DVD and VHS sales are important, but Serenity is genre crossing which means no matter what you say about it you will convince some people not to watch it in spite of the fact they would love it if they only saw it. After that bias creeps in a lot of the time the best you can do is get them to watch it when they can rent it.

This isn’t some excuse here; it’s just the way it works.

Sad really, anything that isn’t in some easy to categorize rigidly defined box seems to be doomed for immediately failure, the best you can hope for is a rebound after theaters.

I mean look at Flightplan, whether you liked it or not you have to admit that it isn’t exactly complex. Since I have no plans to see it I asked someone who did see it to tell me what happened. She told me the plot in as much detail as she could remember and sure enough every twist she could think of, every "surprise" was something I knew from watching the preview. I'm not special, these were things everyone knew from watching the preview. Who was good and bad, what was real and wasn’t, the driving force behind the plot, the exciting conclusion, all of this was immediately obvious from a standard length preview.

Maybe that’s what people want, something you can predict, something that won’t surprise you. Something that deviates from the expected only in details that don’t effect the plot.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, October 8, 2005 1:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Haken:
Hate to say this, but the "average" moviegoer usually decide on what to watch based on who made it and who is in it.

My mother is like that, if you put a star she likes in the movie she'll go, she doesn't even try to figure out if it will be good or not.

Two For the Money is an example, she's not even really sure what it is about but she's all ready to see it. All that she really knows about the movie is who is in it, and while that isn't enough to make her buy it later on it is all that it takes to get her in the theater.

A lot of people are like her.

HAZE

Saturday, October 8, 2005 2:14 PM

I think this quote taken from the end of the review on UKs Channel 4s teletext says a lot about the viewing public “Apart from Glau’s gymnastic exploits, it’s one for the sci-fi geeks only”.

Hmmm

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, October 8, 2005 2:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Haze:
I think this quote taken from the end of the review on UKs Channel 4s teletext says a lot about the viewing public “Apart from Glau’s gymnastic exploits, it’s one for the sci-fi geeks only”.

Hmmm

I don't think that tells you about the viewing public at all, because it isn't true. A lot of people who don't like sci-fi at all love it. What it tells you about is the reviewers, and the problem is that the veiwing puclic will listen to them.

Saying, "For sci-fi only," will drive a lot of people away. The fact that it isn't true won't bring those people back because they'll assume anyone who tells them it isn't is really a just sci-fi fan pretending to be objective.

GGREEN29

Saturday, October 8, 2005 3:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Sad really, anything that isn’t in some easy to categorize rigidly defined box seems to be doomed for immediately failure, the best you can hope for is a rebound after theaters...

You should change your name to ChristheLucid, because I think you've identified the major problem with the marketing. They market it as a standard sci-fi show, when I think the characterization and relationships put it well ahead of that, even for the newbies.

There should be a series of ads focussing on the various relationships, emphasizing to the non-scifi crowd that this is first and foremost a story about interesting and appealing people.

I also think it was a big mistake not to have the BDHs on the talk show circuit. From the interviews I've seen and read the actors are engaging and funny people, expecially when paired up. They should've been scattered across the afternoon and nighttime shows. That alone would have had people say "these are funny and nice people, let's go see their BDM."

While I appreciate the daring-do of a viral marketing scheme, there should have been a plan B.

GGREEN29

Saturday, October 8, 2005 3:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
He could have shut it all out just by closing his eyes, humming something to block out the sound.

If I start to hear word that there's no sequel that is what I'll be doing. I'll live in my imaginary world where the BDS comes out two years from now, and I'll be sitting in a theatre watching a Tim Burton or Jodie Foster movie, yelling "Yeah Jayne, go tussle.""Mal you're our Big Damn Hero!""Whoohoo, you can't take the sky from me!"

JASONZZZ

Saturday, October 8, 2005 4:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Ever seen The Princess Bride? I watched the writer's commentary on the DVD yesterday and it gave me a bad feeling about Serenity in theaters.

The movie had good reviews, the movie was the second best previewed movie, and the movie was loved by critics and viewers alike. If it were judged just by box office sales it wouldn’t be worthy of mention. No one knew how to sell it, is it a comedy, a love story, action, fantasy, satire, something else? They couldn’t figure out how to market a genre crossing film and as a result it didn’t do well in theaters.

Wonderful funnny movie... It's success? lots of quotables... People associate with those tag lines at the watercooler and reinforces the in-factor... Same thing like "Office Space"... how many of you actually painted in SwingLine red before they even atually started selling it?

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:

People would go and see it, love it, and then try to tell their friends, but fail. Instead they would have people saying, “I’ll watch it when it comes out on cassette.” It was only the VHS sales that stopped it from being considered a flop.

With Serenity people say, “I’ll watch it when it comes out on DVD,” but the result is the same. People don’t want to risk going to see a funny but serious sci-fi drama action flick with western elements in theaters. You say sci-fi you drive away people who would love it, you talk about characters you drive away people who would love it, you say action you drive away people who would love it, it goes on like that. It seems like the best I can do is get people to say, “I’ll check it out on DVD.”

It might be good if people actually wanted to "buy" the cassette or DVD, but what a lot of people mean is they might look for it in the 99cent bin at the blockbuster.

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, DVD and VHS sales are important, but Serenity is genre crossing which means no matter what you say about it you will convince some people not to watch it in spite of the fact they would love it if they only saw it. After that bias creeps in a lot of the time the best you can do is get them to watch it when they can rent it.

This isn’t some excuse here; it’s just the way it works.

Sad really, anything that isn’t in some easy to categorize rigidly defined box seems to be doomed for immediately failure, the best you can hope for is a rebound after theaters.

I mean look at Flightplan, whether you liked it or not you have to admit that it isn’t exactly complex. Since I have no plans to see it I asked someone who did see it to tell me what happened. She told me the plot in as much detail as she could remember and sure enough every twist she could think of, every "surprise" was something I knew from watching the preview. I'm not special, these were things everyone knew from watching the preview. Who was good and bad, what was real and wasn’t, the driving force behind the plot, the exciting conclusion, all of this was immediately obvious from a standard length preview.

Maybe that’s what people want, something you can predict, something that won’t surprise you. Something that deviates from the expected only in details that don’t effect the plot.

Eh, sometimes you just want to watch a story. Not so much anything intelligent, emotionally uplifting, or culturally significant... It's like potato crisps, you know what it does to your body, it's not healthfood by any definition, but sometimes you just wanna sit down and run thru a bag of it.

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