Disney's first film with LGBTQ+ lead bombs at box office – and fans have thoughts (gay fans accuse Disney of purposely trying to sabotage the movie through lack or marketing to justify lack of gay representation in future movies)

submitted by Alienhunter糞大名 from pinknews.co.uk

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[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (35 children)

I've yet to see it and I won't bother probably until it's on streaming and I'm really bored. Seemed utterly bland and disinteresting from the trailer.

Definitely makes sense not to market a movie they think is gonna do terrible. The gay conspiracy theorists are doing the whole "Disney is purposely trying to make the gay movie fail" thing so they can pretend to themselves that anything with rainbows is automatically good and =$$$$ probably so they can keep the grift going a bit longer before people realize they have nothing to offer the writing departments besides "what if X character was gay, a lemur, a retarded bisexual wheelchair" line of immature ADHD riddled brainstorming rather than actually making coherent well thought out scripts.

Of course if there was some shadowy gay bashing cabal of homophobic executives they'd just nix the gay outright rather than jump through the expensive hoops of actually spending millions of dollars to make the movie then purposely have it fail to pull a "see gay movies don't make money". Rather than just, use normal focus group shit.

Ask a bunch of San Francisco 30 something tweenny boppers if they want more rainbows and bisexual interracial wheelchairs and they'll sat golly gee yes sirree, and go pirate the movie anyway.

Ask a bunch of hardline conservative christian types what they want and they'll consistently just add Jesus to every movie.

There's money to be made by targeting both groups but not with these crappy multimillion dollar Hollywood spectacles since they need to be as mass market as possible, which is why you've got the stupid checklists of mandatory diversity.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (34 children)

Hollywood has massively misjudged what matters to the majority of their customers, and we are seeing it with the massive flops of Bros, She Said, Lightyear, Don’t Worry Darling, Amsterdam. Even Marvel films and TV series are flopping, Black Panther 2:Wakandan Boogaloo, is struggling to break even. Avatar 2 is set to be the biggest flop in history, needing $2b to just break even. Star Wars is a dead IP, Star Trek is dead, Lord of the Rings, although not Disney is potentially suffering the same fate, could be too if the animated Rohirrim film flops next year and Indiana Jones is looking to be that way ahead of Indy 5 next year. James Bond is looking very much like the producers want to diversify him, and lose everything that made him enjoyable. It’s hard to understand how this has all happened other than by the toxic effects of social media and the critical social justice cult.

Hollywood is in big trouble and it was them that killed the golden goose in service to their current year ideology.

The other disaster for Hollywood has been JJ Abrams and his coterie of directors, writers and producers. He talked up his “mystery box” style of writing and now it is being used everywhere, the trouble is that it’s not a tactic that works with existing IPs. Combine JJ Abrams with ideologically-driven productions and you explain the disastrous Star Wars sequels and series, the destruction of Star Trek both in theatres and TV and the shite that was Rings of Power (the show runners, never having had a producer credit before, got given the gig for the most expensive TV show in history on Abrams recommendation and they wrote it in Abrams style).

[–]SolidSnek 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

Excellent point about JJ Abrams. Rian johnson is by no means innocent but it really is JJ that killed star wars.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

It is Kathleen Kennedy who is ultimately responsible for the death of Star Wars and the upcoming death of Indiana Jones. She decided that they should abandon the plan George Lucas had for sequels and turn over the reins to Abrams and that they should go into a trilogy with no overall idea of how the story should play out.

How Star Wars got fucked up is such a massive topic, but at its heart it has Kennedy and the pandering to the social justice cause. Abrams just brought his incompetence to the table like a glacé turd.

[–]SolidSnek 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

KK sucks too but JJ is the one who chose to make force awakens into a bland remake of new hope as well as the fever dream that is ROS.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of the og Lucas plan. Lucas was going to do the same things to Luke as RJ did.

That all aside I really think our views are closer than it might sound. My anger with KK is a close second with JJ.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

The first, I want to say half of force awakens was quite good, they start introducing the new characters which are pretty likable, the secret plans in the droid plot is a repeat but if that was the end of it they could have still managed to have it be an homage rather than a carbon copy, but once Han Solo shows up it starts going downhill fast. And a third even bigger death start that's even easier to blow up than the last two. Please how could you be that stupid to reuse the death star again. Like Jesus where can you scale up from planet destroying weapons? Is the next movie going to have a whole fleet of deathstars that they need to blow up? (A lo it came to pass the next one he made had a whole fleet of deathstars they needed to blow up).

Kennedy is mostly to blame for her not making sure there was some overarching plot. But 2/3rds of that crappy triology was Abrams doing.

Much as it pains me to say, for as shit as Last Jedi is, it's the only one of the sequel trilogy that even attempts as doing something original even if what it does is woefully stupid.

[–]Wanderingthehalls 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I liked the plot point of Rey just being some nobody who happens to have the force. I could see a story thread of her growing up hearing legends about Luke Skywalker who discovered that the evil Darth Vader was his father and turned him back to light side. Then when she realised she was force sensitive being convinced that she must be a Skywalker and as such her destiny is to save her cousin/brother Kylo by returning him to the light. Then failing miserably, realising her parents were just nobodies who abandoned her for no noble reason and maybe even ending the second movie falling to the dark side in her misery.

When I watched TLJ, I really felt like there were the bones of a good story in there with another 20 edits of the script.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

There are really echos of something good, unfortunately it's diminished by gotcha moments and then Abrams back tracks it again in Star Wars IX: Return of Goku.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The way they killed Han, didn’t reunite Han, Leia and Luke, making Han a deadbeat dad (backtracking on his character development in the OT), having Leia hug Rey, who she had just met, instead of Chewie, having Rey beat Kylo in a lightsaber duel and then resist his mind probe, having Finn be a Stormtrooper Janitor…the list could go on. Rey piloting the Falcon better than Han despite never having left the planet and having no clear reason to know how to fly at all (she was essentially a homeless desert scavenger working for scraps of food), Rey fixing the Falcon better than Han/Chewie.

The way that Abrams works with IPs is that, in addition to employing mystery boxes, he makes a checklist of all the big events/plot points of previous versions/episodes/instalments and then incorporates them into his script but BIGGER or BETTER! So we end up with a Death Star but BIGGER! We have Luke but BETTER! (Rey). Etc etc. it’s shit. Add that to Kennedy’s insistence on inclusion and diversity regardless of story implications (the fascist regime is remarkably gender and ethnically diverse) and you have a charmless shitefest that pleases no one except boxtickers and the slackjawed.

[–]Vulptexghost fox girl ^w^ 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

So we end up with a Death Star but BIGGER!

To be fair, that was the original trilogy too.

[–]Vulptexghost fox girl ^w^ 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Star Wars XXX: Cory Baxter and Shaggy and Scooby Strike Back. With only 0.00000000000000000001% of their power.

[–]Vulptexghost fox girl ^w^ 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I also don't like how they added midichlorians halfway through ROTJ (Luke implies their existence to Leia). When Luke told Obi-Wan he wanted to be a Jedi there was no test to see if he was magic or whatever. It kind of ruins Han Solo's character too, because there was great irony in his disbelief in the force despite clearly relying on it in combat. Now that's impossible and he was just that impossibly lucky this whole time. Even R2-D2 has a little bit of this. Not C-3PO, although he has a massive slave fetish and refuses to go "against his programming" and pretends he doesn't remember anything before his supposed memory erase despite frequently having Freudian slips, so I could see him disavowing any semblance of the force. He reminds me of Waylon Smithers in that way. This is not normal droid behavior, other droids can completely change their function after going so long without a memory erase, so this is his own problem.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The moment that really broke Force Awakens for me was when the gold stormtrooper lady just disables the shield without a fight the instant they pull a gun on her.

You expect me to believe that your brainwashed soldier raised from childhood to be a soldier is just going to give up without a fight and do what two guys with a gun say? Please.

Then in the second movie turns out her armor is laser proof anyway. So fucking stupid.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Who says they are brainwashed?

Would you want the likes of Finn and Rey running your galaxy?

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In a blink and you'll miss it rare instance of sequel trilogy world building it's said somewhere the new stormtroopers are kidnapped as children and raised in the service, hence they are brainwashed from birth to be loyal soldiers essentially. Do you train your loyal soldiers , especially your top generals, to follow the 7/11 part time employee guide of what to do when a gun is pulled on you?

As for Finn and Rey, they'd probably destroy the galactic economy within a few days but it's ok because they have "the force" and would be able to Deus ex machina out some kind of joint galactic economic stimulus recovery. Oh wait sorry I was thinking of the prequels. Um. Pew pew space laser boooooooom hooray!

[–]SerpensInferna 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

So weird that people don't want to be condescendingly preached at while just trying to enjoy some mindless entertainment for a damn minute. Who would have thought.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

So weird that people don't want to be condescendingly preached at while just trying to enjoy some mindless entertainment for a damn minute.

Not to mention having paid through the nose for the privilege!

[–]Musky༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ 🐈 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

Star Trek is dead

We have never had so many Trek shows ongoing at once: Picard, Strange New Worlds, Discovery, Prodigy, and Lower Decks. Prodigy is with Wesley Crusher so... We'll see how that is, and Discovery is kind of a steaming ball of shit, but the others are decent.

destruction of Star Trek both in theatres

The Trek movies have always kind of sucked, some more than others, but the best movie was Wrath of Khan.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Picard is an abomination that humiliated Picard, destroyed the canon of TNG and didn’t even tell a decent story.

What is coming out about these shows is that the production teams actively dislike the source material/originals. The production team on The Witcher used to make fun of the books and games, and that’s ultimately why Henry Caville quit.

The sad fact about Star Trek is that Seth MacFarlane, a massive ST:TNG fan, put a bid in to buy the rights to make a new raft of ST shows in the same canon as TNG, and they refused him - which led him to make The Orville, which is brilliant. ST under him would have been amazing.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

God it's a crazy world where Seth MacFarlands goofy Trek ends up being way better than anything since Voyager.

Picard was.so horrible anyone connected to that project really deserves to never work in entertainment again.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It’s a crying shame that MacFarlane Trek didn’t happen. Everyone in the writer’s room when they decided that Picard should be berated by an admiral, using the F-bomb, and that there should be Romulan warrior nuns, a Romulan Legolas, extra-dimensional machine gods, body horror torture porn and android slaves on Mars should be taken outside and beaten with mallets. Seriously, they demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the world with that shit.

[–]bopomofodojo 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Lower Decks is on par with the Orville for sheer hilarity (Mike McMahon is a good steward), and SNW is just great. Prodigy is a kids show. Disco is meh (each season is better than the last, but given how bad 1 was, that's hard to recover from), and Picard was a travesty. It's really hit-and-miss right now (kinda like 90's trek...).

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

90's trek had bad episodes but didn't really do the all in serialized shit. Lower decks is alright I enjoyed it. Strange New World's haven't seen it yet. Eventually will. Probably when season 2 comes out.

[–]bopomofodojo 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yea that's a big aspect. Old-school (pre-rebirth) Trek was entirely episodic except for the experiments in DS9 and Enterprise. Both of which, it's quite easy to forget in hindsight, were badly received at the time but are now (at least, for DS9), looked upon as some of the best parts of the franchise. The downside of super-serialized TV is that if it sucks, it all sucks, there's no "good episodes" buried in it. Which is the fatal flaw of Discovery and Picard.

Thankfully you might be happy to know that SNW is entirely episodic; you don't need to watch them in order, and each episode is entirely self-contained. Definitely check it out of you like old-school Trek storytelling style. The last episode is especially amazing if you are a fan of TOS Balance of Terror, but I won't say more than that.

[–]Musky༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ 🐈 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Picard is an abomination that humiliated Picard, destroyed the canon of TNG and didn’t even tell a decent story.

Picard hugged Q though! I don't care about TNG canon, personally, the show is dated by the 90s ideology. Remember when Riker fucked a tranny? I like the Kelvin timeline too, it's less sleepy.

Henry Caville quit

I had no idea he quit. That show I suspect is another Walking Dead, it had an epic first season I don't expect to be repeated, although it'll probably go on for years.

[–]LyingSpirit472 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (9 children)

In defense, though, a lot of these flops may be less "wokeness is killing movies" and more "the movie theater as a whole is dying." The pandemic had made it so that a lot of people decided "why bother going to a movie theater at a certain time and spend $100 bucks and two hours of my life that I will never get back to go sit in a big room filled with people where I'm putting my and my family's lives at risk just to see a movie, when for $15 a month I can stay home, watch the same movie on my schedule, make cheaper snacks myself, and if the movie's shit I can just turn it off and watch something else?", and that toothpaste isn't going back in the tube.

Current year is AN issue, but it's not the biggest issue. Hell, current year's a stone groove to the real issue [if you decided to stream Strange World at home, for example, and the person is legitimately a homophobe and legitimately were so turned off by seeing a gay person in a movie they immediately ended the film over it to watch something else- you still clicked on it, Disney Plus got your click money- and even if you didn't even click they still got your money for subscribing.)

[–]ClassroomPast6178 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Except Top Gun Maverick is heading for what, $2billion? People will go out to see stuff they want to see, and will go again if they like it.

Disney plus is losing billions, apparently it’s bundled with other products really heavily so it doesn’t actually pull in the money to cover the costs of production. I get my sub free with my mobile phone contract.

[–]bopomofodojo 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It can absolutely be both.

10 years ago, people might go to a movie, what, every 2-3 weeks, if there were things showing, and there was a ton of choice every week. It was just a "thing people did".

Streaming and COVID lockdowns killed most of that, coupled with the consistent rise in streaming, leaving many people to having 2 years where nobody did that "thing people did". Add to that the endless rising costs of everything where a ticket is now $20.

And now we're coming out of it, and instead of jumping right back into a movie every 2-3 weeks, people might be going every 2-3 months instead, if that. Thus they're far more stingy on what they see. "A big budget sequel to a great movie from 30 years ago which hasn't already been ground into fine mist for sequels? Sounds appealing for my one movie these few months. Some random crap from Disney that's got an 'LGTBTQWTF protagonist'? Why bother, trailer looks like shit, I'll catch it on Plus later for free and if it sucks I'm not out $20 and a trip to the theater."

People have been saying that for years because it's been a trend for years. It's just been masked by the fact that fewer and fewer movies are being made every year as studios consolidate behind basically 2 giant ones, and that the movies that do get made are all these giant-budget blockbusters. What's different now is that we're seeing blockbuster after blockbuster from the studios underperform, which if that trend continues will certainly trigger some sort of correction.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Yeah people have been talking about the movie industry dying for years but frankly I don't think that's the case. Downsizing? Shifting? Definitely. I think these animated family movies especially will do worse and worse due to costs. But pop them up at a budget theater that charges $5 a pop? They'll do ok.

I think for the top cost high budget movies they need to lean into the big screen spectacle to attract people to the theater. But I think people will still go see movies in the theater even with the prominence of streaming, you just have to make movies that people actually are willing to pay to watch.

[–]LyingSpirit472 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Honestly, the problem ties into u/ClassroomPast6178 's example, as well as examples like how anime movies have grown from "special event showings" to getting regular theatrical releases- the movies that are succeeding now are the type of thing that ties to a fanbase who's dedicated and hardcore enough they will still go to the theater to see. (This even ties to Top Gun Maverick, since a high-action, high-spectacle, high- 'MURICA movie like Top Gun is the type of thing people who think COVID is a lib'rul plot to take mah FREEDOM and everyone who died of it is secretly alive and chilling out on a island near where the earth's edge is would jump at seeing.)

The spectacle aspect is going to be a good question for the Avatar sequels, since the first Avatar was basically 100% spectacle and effectively nothing else and even people who see it know that (and 3D movies going out of style in recent years ties into this, since Avatar's sequels can't possibly be as much of a spectacle as the first one without 3D.)

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The anime stuff is a weird one. Ghibli movies were quite good and I think had a potential for mass market western appeal as they seem to have done. They are somewhat reminiscent of the older Disney movies back when they weren't afraid of giving Pinnochio cigars and having scary imagery and the like before they morphed into the super family friendly sterile image they have today. Though I'm not sure American audiences would appreciate going to see a Ghibli movie in theaters like, princess mononoke, and seeing samurai getting decapitated and the like since the whole sex violence and whatever standards in Japan are quite different than the west.

I think the Makoto Shinkai movies have been doing fairly good in the west recently. I think that's mostly on weebs though. I like his movies and they aren't bad but they are so"Japanese" that I don't really get why they've become popular otherwise. They're fairly decent compared to the loads of really shit anime that exists but they are definitely not made with a western audience in mind.

Avatar will be interesting to see how it performs. Frankly I'm going to skip it. Because I didn't really care for the first one beyond the "these graphics are cool" sort of way. Does it still look cool? Sure. Do I want to watch 3 hours of blue smurf people doing stuff I don't care about? Not really.

[–]LyingSpirit472 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well, first off when I say anime movies getting theatrical release- even Ghibli films (which already got that) or Shinkai movies (which could flirt with it) are different than what I'm saying. They could get those releases.

I'm talking about movies like Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, like Dragon Ball Z movies, the Jujutsu Kaisen movie, One Piece: RED which was recently out...IIRC, the Quintessential Quintuplets movie is about to come out in December for the same, which isn't even a action film. This is the much more weeb shit than the Ghibli/Shinkai films. They're Movies that are forgettable throwins to popular series (or in the Quintuplets' case, the end of the story). Before the pandemic, movies like these would be a special appearance at theaters at best and wouldn't be given a second thought for even limited releases. After the pandemic, they're getting wide releases and even succeeding at the box office. Mugen Train was a huge hit in 2021 Stateside, a DBZ movie even hit number 1 in theaters for a week, and the other two got wide releases.

This type of thing would have NEVER happened before the pandemic, and yet it happens regularly enough to say that there's been a notable change somewhere for movies in the theater...and it's not like "anime is bigger, a rising tide lifts all boats", but much more likely "theaters are shrinking, a draining lake reveals more islands."

[–]Alienhunter糞大名[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Interesting. Wasn't aware of that. I'm surprised the shonen stuff is doing well but I guess the kids that grew up with DBZ and the like on TV are all adults now.

Makes sense the shonen is doing well since it's usually right in line with the Superhero movies that keep getting made over and over again.

I heard that one of the Shinkai movies did well in the states, I think it was Kiminonawa? Kind of surprised it did but I guess that was before the trans stuff hit the culture wars.

Saw the newest Shinkai movie recently and must say I enjoyed it but I don't think it can do well in the west. Too Japanese for mass market appeal I think, don't think the average westerner will understand 3/11 by just the numbers.

[–]LyingSpirit472 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah. Shinkai would be similar to the Ghibli directors in "they're respected enough as directors they'll succeed no matter what."

To me, the big test to see if this rise will succeed would be if the "Quintuplets" movie can take hold; we're seeing the shonen series do well due to its action/superhero stuff and how kids grew up with DBZ and the like, but we have yet to see if an anime romance can take in theaters. If even THAT does well enough, the floodgates will open and we'll see the weebest of the weeb shit get regular release.

[–]Countach_3D 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It does appear that Avatar 2 will be in 3-D though.