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Post by GTCGreg on Sept 30, 2018 4:03:57 GMT
Guess I never kept up on the advancement of power ranger characters. When my kids were that age, they were never really interested in action figures. They would sometimes role play the characters, but never wanted to play with figures. My son was more into gadgets. When he was 9, I got him a Radio Shack Armatron. He would play with it for hours on end. I was over at his house a few weeks ago (he's 35 now) and he still has it sitting on a shelf in his computer room. Super Sentai, the franchise from which the "Power Rangers" footage and toys are taken, refreshes every year. 50 to 52 episodes, and maybe a low-budget theatrical release, then it's on to the next team. Saban tried to ignore this when they launched Power Rangers, and did in fact originally plan on keeping the same cast members for as long as possible. But save for Austin St. John (Jason, the original Red Ranger), all of the actors were already in their 20s; it was getting harder and harder to pass them off as teenagers each season. This led to the decision to clean house during Turbo, wherein all remaining "legacy" actors save for Jason Narvy and Paul Schrier (Skull and Bulk, respectively) were let go and replaced. 4/5ths of the Turbo team were held over for "In Space", but that was it. Afterwords, save for Megaforce / Super Megaforce, each new season would bring a new team. That being said, however, the old characters weren't shut out entirely. During "Lost Universe", actress Valerie Vernon - the series' Pink Ranger - collapsed during filming due to a previously undiagnosed medical condition that would limit her ability to continue with the series. To cover for this, the "In Space" cast was brought back, and one of the female characters took over in-show. Since then, it's been tradition to have at least one character from a previous team show up for a proper cross-over event in order to reinforce each season's ties to each other. This is on top of Paul Schrier and Jason David Frank returning for full-on seasons with their characters. It's even become a thing for the Sentai movies to be cross-over events now. Glad somebody's keeping tabs on all this.
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 30, 2018 15:39:48 GMT
Mighty Morphin (Three seasons), Alien* (In effect a mini series), Zeo and the first half of Turbo Rangers were all a continuous team, although the actual characters changed over time. Austin St John, Thuy Trang and Walter Jones (The original Red, Yellow and Black Rangers) left in MMPR's second season with Amy Johnson following them the next year. Quite why they left the series is a matter of some debate, although it is known that as none union actors they were poor paid, didn't get any royalties and were expected to to their own stunts - which on at least two occasions nearly resulted in Amy Johnson being seriously injured or killed when filming the original movies. Their leaving however can't have been that acrimonious considering that both St John and Johnson have reprised their roles several times since then, St John was part of the main cast for Zeo Rangers. Jones only reprised the role of Zac this year for a table reading of the Shattered Grid comic this year (2018) but did provide voices for several monsters on the show during the original Saban run. Only the late Thuy Trang never appeared on any Rangers series again. David Yost, the original Blue Ranger, remained on the show until towards the end of Zeo although he stopped being the Blue Ranger after Alien Rangers.
Of the 'original' cast only Jason Narvy (Skull), Paul Schrier (Bulk) and Jason David Frank (Tommy Oliver) remained with Rangers until Turbo, although only Narvy and Schrier would not only continue with that season (Franks left halfway through) but appear in the next season (In Space) as well.
Jason David Frank was in around 2/3rds of MMPR's first season, starting with episode 17. He was missing for the end of season one and the first few episodes of season two. But from that point on he remained with the series until halfway through Turbo. He would return as now Doctor Tommy Oliver for the entirety of the Dino Thunder Rangers series** and make several appearances as the character over the years. Most recently in Super Ninja Steel's anniversary episode*** and on Hyperforce in which he played both Doctor Oliver and Lord Drakon (The evil Tommy Oliver from the shattered grid universe).
Jason Narvy played Skull from MMPR through to In Space****, making him one of only two main cast actors to have been on the series since the pilot episode. (Schier is the other). He would cameo in three episodes after that in Galaxies, Wild Force and Samurai.
Paul Schrier is the real Ranger veteran by a rather large margin. Like Narvy he stayed with the show from the pilot through to the end of In Space. Unlike Narvy he then appeared in a couple of episodes of the next series, Galaxies, and went on to provide voices until WIld Force, in which he also appeared briefly as Bulk. Making him the only main actor to stick with the show for the entirety of its original Saban run. He then went on to become a cast regular on Samurai, again as Bulk, for two seasons. After this he came back once again, not as Bulk but as Jack Thomas the Hyperforce Yellow Ranger.
(*Alien Rangers saw the Rangers, including Bulk and Skull, being turned into children for most of its short run. David Yost was the only main cast member to appear as his character during the series as a whole after the first and last episodes and of course not including the title.)
(**It would be more correct to say that he provided the voice for Tommy Oliver thoughout Dino Thunder. JDF had to take some time off filming in New Zealand, so for several episodes Doctor Oliver remained in costume with a body double standing in for JDF. Although Tommy is seen in one of the two cross over episodes with SPD as the Dino Thunder Black Ranger JDF neither played the character or provided the voice)
(***During the original run of the series Tommy started to become romantically attached to the second pink ranger Kat. In one of the Christmas specials the two of them were shown to be older, married and have grandchildren. In a nice nod, and to prove that at least one person on the writing staff clearly was an actual Rangers fan. In the 25th Anniversary episode we discover that Tommy has a son and is married to Kat; Interestingly the flash forward seems to indicate that at least one of their kids will go on to become a Ranger themselves)
(****Bulk and Skull actually spent the first half of Turbo as Chimps although Narvy and Schrier did provide the voices. In a world in which the heroes consider taking their 100+ ton battle robot into the middle of a major city and unleashing enough firepower to level a mountain range as a viable way to protect people...Well being turned into a chimp hardly registers on a weirdness meter)
OK, so that had nothing to do with Star Wars. But I guess I needed to talk about something that wasn't depressing.
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Post by ironhold on Sept 30, 2018 16:27:49 GMT
Austin St John, Thuy Trang and Walter Jones (The original Red, Yellow and Black Rangers) left in MMPR's second season with Amy Johnson following them the next year. Quite why they left the series is a matter of some debate, although it is known that as none union actors they were poor paid, didn't get any royalties and were expected to to their own stunts - which on at least two occasions nearly resulted in Amy Johnson being seriously injured or killed when filming the original movies. Amy Jo Johnson would later make it pretty clear that, as much as she was grateful for the role making her famous, she was also afraid that it had put her in danger of type-casting if she would stay any longer. Her career did in fact have significant trouble taking off separately from MMPR, and it wasn't until she got a role in the Canadian police drama "Flashpoint" that it would stabilize. I do, however, have an album she recorded during the period where she was trying to re-establish herself; she has a good voice and the lyrics are supurb, but the mixing is atrocious. With St. John, Trang, and Jones, the strongest rumor is that they gambled on getting a pay increase and lost. Reportedly, Jones had been invited to re-appear in the "Turbo" theatrical movie alongside St. John and Johnson, but had to refuse; he'd become a member of an actor's union since then, and since the production was non-union he'd have been forced to surrender his union card. A few years back, Yost gave a shocking interview in which he explained why he was so mentally checked out during Zeo and why he chose to leave when he did: someone outed him as homosexual during the production of Zeo, and one of the producers went full Spanish Inquisition on both him and the cast members in the mistaken belief that they were doing some form of damage control. If he'd have stayed until Turbo he could have likely had a bigger starring role, but by that point in time he was suicidal because of the pressure he was under and needed to leave the show for his own mental health. He's remained friends with pretty much everyone who he acted with on the show, but for all intents and purposes he wants nothing to do with the franchise anymore, even turning down at least one chance to reprise his character in the show. IIRC, it took a crowd-funding campaign for a movie starring a number of former Power Rangers actors just to even get him back into costume. That being said though, it was a common fan rumor that the captain who oversaw the Lightspeed Rescue team was an older Billy since both had the same last name, but this was later debunked by the production team. Not quite... Schrier was the only actor to remain with the series all the way through "In Space", with Bulk serving as a bartender on board Terra Venture. Narvy did appear in the pilot for "In Space", but this was to write out his Skull character; the in-show explanation was that Skull overslept and missed the launch. From what I understand, this was done to cover for the fact that efforts to produce a Bulk & Skull spin-off series was taking so much of the actors' time that they ironically couldn't appear in the regular series.
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 30, 2018 17:29:05 GMT
The Terra Venture was Galaxies, the season after In Space. Skull was in the latter but only had a single brief cameo in Galaxies as you noted. He had a brief cameo in Wild Force alongside Bulk (Forever Red) and then at the end of Samurai, again alongside Bulk.
Bulk joined the Terra Venture alongside the Professor he and Skull had worked with on In Space originally with the intention of joining their science department. However they were kicked out of that job after an accident and ended up working in the bar.
Aside; My personal best Bulk moment actually comes from his time on Galaxies. There is a scene when he is working in the bar when a rather attractive young woman comes in, and while Bulk initially acts like the awkward not-as-charming-as-he-thinks-he-is character we've been used to. As soon as she basically asks for a free drink he instantly switches to responsible adult mode.
I've actually toyed with the idea of doing an outline for a slightly more 'adult' Power Rangers mini-series; Adult meaning PG to PG-13 rather than NC(?) 7 rating of the main series. This would ideally bring back the original, or close to original, line up as possible. I know several of the Rangers actors have stated publicly that they feel that Power Rangers should do something aimed at the original fans of the series, as those 7-10 year olds who watched MMPR back in the day are now in their early to mid 30's and hence are now the parents.
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Post by the light works on Oct 1, 2018 5:41:42 GMT
to get back on topic, I would be thrilled to see them label the Kennedy years as "legends" restore the previously canon books to canon, apologize to Lucas, and get HIS outline for episodes VII-IX, and shoot new movies. but I don't have my feels hurt over Kennedy basically trying to disneyfy Star Wars. it's kind of what Disney does.
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Post by Cybermortis on Oct 1, 2018 14:18:45 GMT
Kennedy isn't 'Disneyfying' Star Wars.
Disney knows that at the end of the day its not actually kid who buy their products, they don't have the money. It's their parents who buy the toys and the movie tickets. Its also the parents who introduce kids to long running franchises and brands. It is these same parents, in the case of Star Wars, Kennedy and her minions are intent on insulting, demeaning and generally getting rid of. It is these same people Kennedy and her minions lie about and to.
The fans are toxic, they cry. While they label anyone who doesn't swallow their garbage as being sexist and racist. And after creating such an environment within Lucasfilm itself that no one wants to work there.
They claim that the complaints are down to a 'small vocal minority' who 'are intimidated by strong women'. If people didn't like 'strong women' no one would have gone to see Awakens. If it was a 'small minority' Last Jedi wouldn't have lost 60% of its audience compared to Awakens and if it were a mixture of the two Solo wouldn't have lost 60% of its audience compared to Rogue One and around 70% compared to Jedi.
Ooops, must be Star Wars Fatigue then. The current line that ignores the fact that Marvel has been churning films out at an even higher rate for longer and is doing fine. The only two Marvel films not to do that great were Age of Ultron and Ant Man and the Wasp. The former because it was trying to do far too much, the latter simply down to inadequate marketing and everything else before and after showing good to spectacular performance. This line also ignores the toy sales, or lack thereof. As noted, Marvel toys have been flying off the shelves consistently while Awakens toys are still sitting their waiting for their person of none specific gender to find them so they can be liberated by a three inch plastic toy. (Because you can't have a three inch figure of a woman be rescued by a charming prince now can you?)
Now I am, or at least try to be fair. Ditching the old EU was a good call, it was one I expected and in fact one I would have made as well. Not all of it is golden, and a fair chunk of it uses the same general tropes time and time again. It also frees you up to tell a different group of stories and have a world that isn't in the same place. That doesn't mean that you have to get rid of everything though. Instead you can look though the old EU and cherry pick those characters and elements that are interesting and loved. Which is exactly what Dave Filoni (sp?) did by bringing Admiral Thrawn onto Rebels. (You know, the one Star Wars product in recent years people loved all the way through...which also has a strong interesting female character people adore and don't complain about). You even have the option of taking and converting some of that EU material into TV series without people being able to predict how things will end. For example you could do an animated series based on the X-Wing books but change plots, characters and so forth so reading the books themselves isn't going to give anything away.
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Post by the light works on Oct 1, 2018 14:34:47 GMT
Kennedy isn't 'Disneyfying' Star Wars. Disney knows that at the end of the day its not actually kid who buy their products, they don't have the money. It's their parents who buy the toys and the movie tickets. Its also the parents who introduce kids to long running franchises and brands. It is these same parents, in the case of Star Wars, Kennedy and her minions are intent on insulting, demeaning and generally getting rid of. It is these same people Kennedy and her minions lie about and to. The fans are toxic, they cry. While they label anyone who doesn't swallow their garbage as being sexist and racist. And after creating such an environment within Lucasfilm itself that no one wants to work there. They claim that the complaints are down to a 'small vocal minority' who 'are intimidated by strong women'. If people didn't like 'strong women' no one would have gone to see Awakens. If it was a 'small minority' Last Jedi wouldn't have lost 60% of its audience compared to Awakens and if it were a mixture of the two Solo wouldn't have lost 60% of its audience compared to Rogue One and around 70% compared to Jedi. Ooops, must be Star Wars Fatigue then. The current line that ignores the fact that Marvel has been churning films out at an even higher rate for longer and is doing fine. The only two Marvel films not to do that great were Age of Ultron and Ant Man and the Wasp. The former because it was trying to do far too much, the latter simply down to inadequate marketing and everything else before and after showing good to spectacular performance. This line also ignores the toy sales, or lack thereof. As noted, Marvel toys have been flying off the shelves consistently while Awakens toys are still sitting their waiting for their person of none specific gender to find them so they can be liberated by a three inch plastic toy. (Because you can't have a three inch figure of a woman be rescued by a charming prince now can you?) Now I am, or at least try to be fair. Ditching the old EU was a good call, it was one I expected and in fact one I would have made as well. Not all of it is golden, and a fair chunk of it uses the same general tropes time and time again. It also frees you up to tell a different group of stories and have a world that isn't in the same place. That doesn't mean that you have to get rid of everything though. Instead you can look though the old EU and cherry pick those characters and elements that are interesting and loved. Which is exactly what Dave Filoni (sp?) did by bringing Admiral Thrawn onto Rebels. (You know, the one Star Wars product in recent years people loved all the way through...which also has a strong interesting female character people adore and don't complain about). You even have the option of taking and converting some of that EU material into TV series without people being able to predict how things will end. For example you could do an animated series based on the X-Wing books but change plots, characters and so forth so reading the books themselves isn't going to give anything away. no, it's not kids who buy their products - it is parent at the demand of their kids. and what kids does Disney feel are the most effectively demanding of Disney products? 8 year old girls.
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 1, 2018 14:37:43 GMT
no, it's not kids who buy their products - it is parent at the demand of their kids. and what kids does Disney feel are the most effectively demanding of Disney products? 8 year old girls. But they made great strides in marketing when they figured out how to get boys to want to play with dolls. I think it started with GI Joe.
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Post by the light works on Oct 1, 2018 14:41:59 GMT
no, it's not kids who buy their products - it is parent at the demand of their kids. and what kids does Disney feel are the most effectively demanding of Disney products? 8 year old girls. But they made great strides in marketing when they figured out how to get boys to want to play with dolls. I think it started with GI Joe. and there is also the point about how many of Disney's movies that are drawn from literary sources have more resemblance to the literary source than just the names of the principal characters.
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 1, 2018 14:52:02 GMT
But they made great strides in marketing when they figured out how to get boys to want to play with dolls. I think it started with GI Joe. and there is also the point about how many of Disney's movies that are drawn from literary sources have more resemblance to the literary source than just the names of the principal characters. With the exception of Pocahontas, most of the "literary" characters were fictitious to begin with.
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Post by the light works on Oct 1, 2018 15:17:17 GMT
and there is also the point about how many of Disney's movies that are drawn from literary sources have more resemblance to the literary source than just the names of the principal characters. With the exception of Pocahontas, most of the "literary" characters were fictitious to begin with. that doesn't change the point that Disney has a long history of rewriting stories - sometimes to the point that the only connection to the book is the names of the characters and sometimes the species.
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Post by GTCGreg on Oct 1, 2018 15:47:36 GMT
With the exception of Pocahontas, most of the "literary" characters were fictitious to begin with. that doesn't change the point that Disney has a long history of rewriting stories - sometimes to the point that the only connection to the book is the names of the characters and sometimes the species. And what's the point of the point. So what? If they are going to spend millions making a movie, they have the right to change anything they want provided they don't claim otherwise. So far, I never heard them say that their version of a fairy tale is correct and the original is wrong.
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Post by the light works on Oct 1, 2018 15:57:53 GMT
that doesn't change the point that Disney has a long history of rewriting stories - sometimes to the point that the only connection to the book is the names of the characters and sometimes the species. And what's the point of the point. So what? If they are going to spend millions making a movie, they have the right to change anything they want provided they don't claim otherwise. So far, I never heard them say that their version of a fairy tale is correct and the original is wrong. that changing what has long been established as canon for the star Wars universe, and writing their stories to appeal to 8 year old girls counts as disneyfication.
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Post by Cybermortis on Oct 1, 2018 16:45:23 GMT
Looking quickly through the items Disney has available in its store;
Dress up; There are a lot of dresses that seem to be aimed at girls five or under, although there are some unisex and boys costumes especially as part of the Marvel line. As the age range increases it seems that the mix between 'girls' and 'boys' costumes evens out and then turns slightly in the boys favor; Although the nature of these costumes arguably makes them unisex even if the characters the costumes are based on are male.
Stuffed toys; Seem to be aimed at the younger kids, five and below, with a fairly decent split between toys aimed at 'boys' and 'girls' and even that is debatable as they aim for 'cuteness'. These toys are likely to appeal to girls for longer than with boys, largely because it is socially more acceptable for girls to have such things when they are older.
Other toys; An interesting mix here. A lot of the standing models seem to be aimed at young girls, such as the Disney Castle, while the action figures seem to be aimed more at boys but with 'cuteness' added to some of the figures either to better appeal to girls or to just appeal to younger kids regardless of gender. Other toys are a mix between boys and girls. Girls toys being wands and similar, while the 'boys' stuff tends to consist of archery kits or toy swords that don't seem to be specifically marketed for boys. In fact I *think* one of the archery kits is technically a 'girls' toy.
Conclusion; The split between 'girls' and 'boys' toys seems to be more or less even, with maybe a slight lean towards boys at the upper age range and girls at the lower. The 'older' franchises are largely more aimed at girls than boys (the classic Disney films) while the newer franchises (Marvel) are aimed more at boys. Looking at this we can deduce that if anything Disney has wanted to get boys more interested in their products than girls. They were already marketing towards very young kids, but at older ages their lines were heavily slanted towards girls. The acquisition of Marvel would be very much in keeping with a company that wanted to expand their potential customer base by having products that would appeal more to boys; This might also explain one reason why Marvel has gone so long without making a Female lead superhero film.
As far as Star Wars goes in this light. The franchise as it was clearly aimed more at boys than girls, although anyone claiming that 'girls' were not interested in the films is an idiot. My best guess is that Disney (or Bob Iger at least) realized that while their 'classic' studios (which in context would probably include Pixar) leaned towards the female demographic and Marvel leaned towards the boys. Star Wars had the potential to appeal to both, as it was being 'rebooted' and both the existing films and the EU contained popular and well loved female characters. Basically the nature of SW meant that they could find and employ a nice mix of male and female characters in lead roles, the audience wouldn't really care and it would still feel part of the same universe. It you look at the comments about the recent films VERY few people are or were complaining about Ray, Jyn Erso, Rose Tico or Haldo being women. The complaints about those characters are all based on how they were written and used, not gender or race*. Which is to say that the existing audience for SW as of Awakens was open minded enough to allow female leads, and hence potentially appeal to an even broader audience without losing the old guard in the process. I wouldn't even be surprised if Kennedy's line about 'aimed for eight year old girls' was close to what Iger actually wanted. I suspect that he actually said he wanted the films to appeal MORE to eight year old girls (or at least the female demographic) than the prior films had. Kennedy being Kennedy, and living in her own private little bubble, just heard 'Market for girls' and thought 'Yay! Diversity!*' and threw anything resembling basic business sense out of the window.
(*Note; For all Kennedy's cries of 'diversity' and 'female empowerment' every single director she has hired, and usually fired within a few months, has been...a white man. Likewise for all Ryan 'Sad Troll' Johnson's claims that the dissenters are sexist white man babies who can't stomach diversity. It should be noted that he is a white man who apparently isn't willing to step aside and let, oh, say a female director take his place.)
As a brighter update; Grace Randal, who broke the story about Kennedy having been chewed out by Bob Iger, had some interesting points to make about her contract extension;
1; This was reported, but not actually announced. The difference is that the latter would have been done if Disney had confidence in Kennedy. Nor has Bob Iger made any comment on this officially or otherwise. Another sign that there is not much confidence there.
2; The actual information about the extension very clearly specifies that Kennedy has been instructed to focus on the TV and streaming projects and to basically step away from the films.
3; The slowdown, and Kennedy having to step away from the films, means that they can create a gap between the projects Kennedy started and any projects any successor starts. Basically it would give a replacement as close to a clean slate as possible, which seems to be a prerequisite for anyone who is remotely qualified to run Lucasfilm.
4; Kennedy's habit of firing directors left right and center has garnered her a hell of a lot of ill will. Basically right now the only directors who are willing to work for her are Johnson and JJ. Reading between the lines here that means that even IF Kennedy was able to get a new film project in the works she might not be able to get a director. I'm even wondering if one of the reasons for the slowdown in film releases is simply down to realizing that few people were willing to work for Kennedy. So getting a Director was going to take time unless they intended to rely on JJ or Johnson. In the first they would have to slow right down, in the second apparently Iger does not like Johnson in the slightest, and even if he did I someone can't see him being enamored at the thought of making films with someone who goes out of the way to insult customers at every opportunity.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 1, 2018 17:33:57 GMT
no, it's not kids who buy their products - it is parent at the demand of their kids. and what kids does Disney feel are the most effectively demanding of Disney products? 8 year old girls. But they made great strides in marketing when they figured out how to get boys to want to play with dolls. I think it started with GI Joe. Nope. While the 12-inch size was the default standard when Hasbro started making G. I. Joe product in the 1960s, even back then Hasbro was careful about making it clear he was an "action figure" and not a doll. This was, in their eyes, reinforced when they tried to supplement the line with Jane, a military nurse. From what I understand, Jane tanked so hard at retail that it's affected Hasbro's decision-making to this day. That's right: up until a few years ago, Hasbro went to some length to ensure that there was no more than a token number of opposite-gender characters in any given series, even nixing a proposed female Joe character in 1986 despite being told that she would have gone over well with the audience that watched the cartoon series. There's also a major urban legend in the Transformers fandom saying that the series was originally intended to be all-male in the first place (despite a very early concept for one character from the first assortment having them as female) -> tfwiki.net/wiki/Misconceptions_and_urban_legends_about_Transformers#General . As it is, take note of the Toys R Us photos I posted earlier. Among the biggest shelf-cloggers? An all-female line of dolls based on popular pro wrestlers and the "Forces of Destiny" Star Wars figures. Both represented 12-inch offerings of women in a toy line predominantly favored by men. Sales were so astoundingly low that both lines ended up functionally dead on arrival because they were aimed at a target audience which was too small; most boys and men didn't want them, while most girls and women were already purchasing the regular product assortments. (Point of note: the "Forces of Destiny" Sabine Wren figure is one of the greatest "What were you thinking?!" moments in recent toy design I can think of. While her shirt is molded plastic like the rest of her, her pants are fabric and thus removable... but she lacks any sort of sculpted clothing underneath them. You think that someone at Hasbro would remember the disaster that was the Transmetal 2 Blackarachnia figure from the "Transformers: Beast Wars" line that could go around topless... tfwiki.net/wiki/Blackarachnia_(BW)/toys . )
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Post by ironhold on Oct 1, 2018 19:40:22 GMT
Disney knows that at the end of the day its not actually kid who buy their products, they don't have the money. It's their parents who buy the toys and the movie tickets. Its also the parents who introduce kids to long running franchises and brands. ...Which is why killing off legacy characters is a petty stupid idea from a financial standpoint... This is why "Get woke, go broke" is now such a big mantra online. The "social justice" crowd can't understand that their views aren't mainstream, meaning that when they get into the media they refuse to accept the fact that they can't do as they please. They insist upon forcing the material - even legacy material - to fit their view of how things should be, and react poorly when people tell them that they don't like it. They see themselves as perfect little beacons, and so presume that anyone who disagrees has something wrong with them. This is the same nonsense that is killing the American comic book industry (of the biggest six companies, I only see one lasting more than a decade) and that's also making a hash of the video game industry. It's essentially what happened with the 2016 "Ghostbusters" movie as well. Paul Feig didn't understand that high fantasy was always the core of the franchise and tried to make it a generic comedy, then proceeded to accuse everyone who didn't like it if being a bigot. A *lot* of folks are bearish on Captain Marvel right now, due in large part to how wooden Brie Larson is in the trailers. Trying to remember who it was, but one guy did a video in which he noted that at his local Kroger Star Wars product was 90% off if you had a store loyalty card... and it still wasn't moving.There's simply no excuse. Rey can't even dream of being half the person Ashoka is, and then there's Sabine and Hera on the scene as well. Rose... doesn't even hold a candle to Rey, let alone anyone else. Guess whose figures and merchandise were all quick to disappear... No, seriously. An early Sabine figure that had her posed with her hip cocked to one side was unpopular because it had a hard time standing up on its own, but otherwise all 3.75-inch Sabine, Hera, and Ashoka product disappeared from retailer shelves as quickly as they were stocked due to how popular they were as characters. But Rey is still floating around in numbers, and the leftover Rose figures are all punchlines.
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Post by ironhold on Oct 1, 2018 20:00:53 GMT
About the comic book industry -
Here in the US, there are six major comic book publishers in addition to a whole slew of other companies.
These are Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, and Archie.
IDW is $7.1 million in debt. The drama with Aubrey Sitterson and his going full social justice warrior on social media pretty much spawned Comicsgate as we know it, and brought a *lot* of negative attention to the company. Rather than learn from it, however, IDW tried to charge full speed ahead until they couldn't anymore. Sales have fallen off a cliff for many of their bigger titles, something they literally can't afford because of all the money they lost on an effort to turn one of their in-house properties into a TV series. They're so bad off they've had to take out a *lot* of debt and have suspended their dividend. No one who's been paying attention expects them to survive another five years.
Archie nearly died after a toxic CEO took over, and the current guy is just throwing things against the wall at this point to see what sticks. Their continued association with Mark Waid isn't helping them, as Waid's own tendency towards going full social justice warrior has burned too many bridges among comics fandom.
Image has descended into porn and political screeds, sometimes both at once. They've got one guy there who still knows what he's doing, but that's about it.
Marvel? The current guy in charge is trying to turn it from a comic book company to a "lifestyle brand", despite his predecessor being fired for doing the exact same nonsense. Comic shop owners were literally telling his predecessor to his face that social justice wasn't selling, but just like IDW they're going full steam head.
DC's leadership, in contrast, is completely asleep at the wheel. It's almost total anarchy there now as creatives do as they please and editorial barely budges unless someone makes them.
Yeah...
Indie studios Boom! and Dynamite aren't looking too bright either given their insistence upon hiring known social justice warrior types for their books.
So who's left?
1. Dark Horse has been a champ since day one. They've a history of absolute professionalism, such that even job review site Glass Door.com doesn't have a whole lot to say against them. They've also been smart enough to diversify their offerings and marketing strategy as needed, including launching a manga division that's been churning out hit after hit. They're not going anywhere short of a major tragedy.
2. AMP! is an imprint of Andrews-MacMillan Publishing, one of the larger publishing houses. They've got the rights to do material based on comic strips handled by Universal Press Syndicate, and so are in a position to practically print money since this means strips like "Peanuts" and "Big Nate", both of which are highly popular.
3. Alterna is matching their old-school professionalism with old-school prices; their average single issue is $2 or less, half of what most other companies want. If they could move beyond mini-series and into regular runs, they could make it big.
4. A whole slew of indies like Splatto that are actually responsive to what fans want and willing to experiment.
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Post by wvengineer on Oct 1, 2018 21:27:27 GMT
Rogue One; A good solid film that tied into the original film rather nicely. While there were well documented production issues this is not apparent in the final product. Personally I did feel, even at the time, that they missed out on the opportunity to use this to create their own 'Dirty Dozen' film series here. Although this did literally half as well as Awakens looked at objectively this is not that surprising. As good as it is it isn't really the kind of film many would want to go back to see multiple times. I would like to add one more thing here, as TLW mentioned. SW has always had a very expansive expanded universe. Between books and comics and video games, there is a huge amount of material out there. For the most part Lucas Arts has done a good job at maintaining the overall cannon or be relatively consistent*. In many cases, not only is this expanded universe large, it is also very well done. Many of them have won many major industry awards awards. SW has become known and loved for it's expanded universe. Kennedy threw it all out the window. This is another ready way to almost poison the well with a lot of your long time fans. It's one thing to have to make allowances with a given story. I think even die hard fans will acknowledge that you need some leaniancy. However, when you throw out establish and well loved characters and events in favor of your new and in most cases subpar creations, it does nothing to endear your product to the established fan base. Rogue One is the perfect Example. The Character of Kyle Katarn was established back in 1995 as the person responsible for stealing the Death Star plans. The character since grown into a fan favorite with a very detailed history spanning several books, comics and video games. To completely disregard this established history without even a mention almost comes across as a slap in the face for the long time fans. That mixed with fan frustration that what movies has been made have been at best mediocre, and in some cases downright bad, it has given a lot of consternation that there was so much materiel already established to work with that was very good, why dump it to follow the junk they made? I would agree with TLW that in the end, it may be better to call this bunch of movies a JJ Abrams style alternate universe and go back to the much more establish prime universe. *Unlike Star Trek who has a cannon that is an absolute mess.
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Post by Cybermortis on Oct 1, 2018 22:46:43 GMT
Lucasfilm used to employ someone to keep track of cannon for what became the EU; It was usually Lucas who messed things up on occasion.
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Post by the light works on Oct 2, 2018 2:59:27 GMT
Lucasfilm used to employ someone to keep track of cannon for what became the EU; It was usually Lucas who messed things up on occasion. this is true.
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