Star Wars Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, available on home video

[azrael]

14 minutes ago, TehPW said:

... what does Doomcock mean about the FCC and channels on YT? I have never understood this concept of monetization (If YT doesn't know my bank account, how do you make $$$ from YT then?)… but what could happen if DC is right? 

Don't know what the FTC's smack on Youtube has to do with it (FTC fined Google for the whole child porn on Youtube-incident, therefore, Google altered the TOS). Youtube is just changing their TOS...again. Youtube's language is vague so creators are getting nervous again, just like when the Ad-poclypse happened.

[JB0]

21 minutes ago, TehPW said:

The rant was average... but... (and this IS off topic) but... what does Doomcock mean about the FCC and channels on YT? I have never understood this concept of monetization (If YT doesn't know my bank account, how do you make $$$ from YT then?)… but what could happen if DC is right? 

I've seen something about this, from EEVBlog.

Most folks on YouTube make money from ads, not your bank account. Google prefers to serve targeted ads, because they are worth much more.

Under federal law, it isn't legal to track children online, which makes targeting ads to them harder.

Google was recently fined quite a bit for tracking children online, because of course they were. They settled with the FTC.

 

Here's where things get fun.

In 2013, the US government recently strengthened the rules about tracking children. Not just the platforms, but individual content providers, can be held responsible for not tracking children. And what constitutes tracking has been expanded from "actively collecting information" to "deploying tracking cookies". Having been fined, Google's reworked things so Youtube now requires content providers to specify if content is meant for children. If you say yes, you get ads that don't use user tracking for demographics targeting, which are worth a lot less. As part of the settlement, Google gets to claim they did due diligence and the FTC will now fine the video uploader instead of Google. If the FTC decides, in their sole discretion, that the uploader lied(which they could easily do accidentally, given the vague standard the FTC lays out), they can be fined 42 grand per offending video.  That is not much money to Google, but it is a life-altering sum for most of Google's unpaid videographers.

 

 

In short, if the videographer checks yes, they lose 90% of their ad revenue. If they check no and the feds decide they were wrong, they are fined several thousands of dollars.

THAT is what Doomcock is on about.

[Chronocidal]

So, it might even be a bit more convoluted than that.  Based on another video I watched through, a lot of these flags for targeting children's content may be automated.  As in, Youtube looks for common children's themes, and auto-labels videos for them.

I watched one of the Midnight's Edge videos, and they specifically scattered some gory scenes from horror films through the video at random intervals to intentionally flag the content as inappropriate for children, because otherwise a bunch of Star Wars footage would probably not set off any alarms, despite the words being said.

It seems there isn't solid knowledge of what is going to be happening yet, but maybe people are preparing for the worst in different ways.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Chronocidal

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

So, it might even be a bit more convoluted than that.  Based on another video I watched through, a lot of these flags for targeting children's content may be automated.  As in, Youtube looks for common children's themes, and auto-labels videos for them.

I watched one of the Midnight's Edge videos, and they specifically scattered some gory scenes from horror films through the video at random intervals to intentionally flag the content as inappropriate for children, because otherwise a bunch of Star Wars footage would probably not set off any alarms, despite the words being said.

It seems there isn't solid knowledge of what is going to be happening yet, but maybe people are preparing for the worst in different ways.

Oh geez. I mean, I guess it is better that Google auto-flags videos as for children than NOT for children, given the financial liability, but... darned if they don't need something better than "here's yet another inscrutable secret algorithm to screw you over, thanks for contributing your unpaid time to making us billions, see you in banklruptcy"

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, I honestly do not know all of the details, but it sounds like a mess, and it has caused literally every content creator I follow (all three of them) to add a blurb about this at the start of every video, asking for subscriptions and such, because Youtube keeps deleting subscription clicks for whatever reason.

[JB0]

Youtube: A bigger mess than Star Wars, somehow.

[jenius]

I'll see what happens with my revenue, I just said none of my videos were intended for kids... 

[Roy Focker]

COPPA has the potential of being something very damaging to YouTube channels.  Marking your videos "For kids" will not only get you less ad revenue and you'll lose several features used to promote your videos.  Nobody will know you've made a new video.

Marking a video as "Not for kids" will have very negative effects if the FTC determines that your video is actually for kids.  Even if your video isn't made for kids they'll be looking at whether it will appeal to kids.  Everyone's praying that the FTC watching a video doesn't declare their videos as "for kids" just because Spiderman, Mario, Transformers and Star Wars are in it.  

If you play it safe and mark "for kids" you risk less revenue and less audience.  Mark it "not for kids" you risk a up to $42,000 fine if the FTC sees that animated still from Macross Delta and they believe all cartoons are made for kids.

This will start in January.  The FTC is still taking public feedback.  We don't know how heavy handed they'll be but there's enough to be concerned about.

[Seto Kaiba]

12 hours ago, jenius said:

YT just made you define if your videos are intended for children. If you say yes, YouTube doesn't collect user data so they put cheaper ads on your videos. If that's what he's referring to... Seems pretty tinfoil hat.

For the most part, it is... the FTC's not going to take 99.9999999% of complaints under consideration, they're going to go after the worst offenders and make an example of them.

 

9 hours ago, JB0 said:

Oh geez. I mean, I guess it is better that Google auto-flags videos as for children than NOT for children, given the financial liability, but... darned if they don't need something better than "here's yet another inscrutable secret algorithm to screw you over, thanks for contributing your unpaid time to making us billions, see you in banklruptcy"

The algorithm's really not all that inscrutable... it's just that, like any other heuristics-based detection software, it takes a little while for its analysis criteria to stabilize as it grows its sample dataset. 

One of my favorite analogies for this kind of thing relates to autocorrect, likening it to a little elf living inside your phone who is very helpful but also quite drunk and needs some time to sober up.

 

8 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, I honestly do not know all of the details, but it sounds like a mess, and it has caused literally every content creator I follow (all three of them) to add a blurb about this at the start of every video, asking for subscriptions and such, because Youtube keeps deleting subscription clicks for whatever reason.

That's (mostly) unrelated.  YouTube's started doing the same thing Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have recently started doing... identifying the hijacked, bot, and troll accounts on their services and removing them.  In their case, I don't think it's so much the Russian troll farms and other malicious foreign actors so much as it is the pay-for-likes, pay-for-subs, and pay-for-views bot farms used to artificially inflate subscriber counts.  

Like the last few YouTube "crises", the content creators I've seen complaining about this are mainly the shills and gutter snipes trying to work their personal extreme political agendas into everything... the kind of people who would absolutely pay for subs to make themselves and their views seem more legitimate.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[jenius]

Ha, maybe I'll add "not for kids!" to my intro animation.

[technoblue]

I know it isn't directly related to Star Wars, but I thought Jang summarized most of it well over on his JANGBRiCKS channel. To give some background, his channel is focused toward adult LEGO collectors and those interested in seeing his own creations, speed builds, and so on. Now the FTC/COPPA changes have a potential to dismantle the adult YouTube community in the LEGO space, since the broad government definition classifies most LEGO videos as for kids.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't pretend to be one on-line, but Jang is taking a serious stance. I don't blame him.

Jang's FTC & COPPA Video

Sorry about the LEGO FTC tangent. Now back to Episode IX discussion.

Edited November 19, 2019 by technoblue

[Mommar]

The Adult Lego thing is applicable because the law is ludicrously broad.  The interview with the head of the FTC on C-Span was interesting.  He said anything that is deemed as of an interest for kids means they will assume kids are watching and therefore you can be fined.  That's damn near everything really.  No toys, most movies, cars, video games, comic books.  It's so broad that you could shut down almost anything.  Talking about Star Wars, like on Doomcocks channel, could be considered of enough interest to a kid to justify a fine.  From the my understood perspective a channel like Trekyards would have to be considered for Kids.  I'd have watched the hell out of stuff like that if Youtube were around when I was six or seven.

The second half, the bit about Youtube having the right to delete your channel if it isn't profitable, is tinfoil nonsense.  They've always had that right, nobody was paying attention until they realized they really might be 100% demonitized because of the FTC ruling and that could give legitimate reason for Youtube to pull the plug on them.  But it's always been there.  Anthony from AnthonysCustoms has two fairly well thought out explanations on what the law is and what it does without going overboard or panicking.  For a guy who isn't a lawyer, anyway.

But potential $42,000 per infraction is pretty incredible, enough to make anybody sit back and wonder if they really want to risk it on something that seems so nebulous.

[azrael]

Alright...enough about a talking head and Youtube.

 

 

[Chronocidal]

I mean, they're contractually obligated, so of course they would be dragged along with it to the end.   

I'm thinking to stick with tradition, I'll probably see this with my brother over the holidays, but I'm going in with zero expectations for anything good.  What I will do is happily munch on popcorn while I watch the franchise being set on fire and driven over a cliff.  I figure if I've already invested this much time and thought, I may as well try and enjoy the fireworks.

This will then be followed by an extended session of expunging these new movies from my memory via a combination of re-reading the Zahn trilogy, and consumption of strong drink, in the hopes that I will wake up the next day firm in the belief that those were the movies we've been seeing for the past several years.  

I will say, I am truly looking forward to the aftermath of this mess.  I don't know how long it will be, but I really just want to see the unfiltered thoughts of everyone involved once they're off the clock, and the contracts are done.

I had a lot of fun in the past watching that old documentary, "The Making of Star Wars."  I'm curious if we'll later get a sequel to this called "The Unmaking of Star Wars."

Edited November 19, 2019 by Chronocidal

[Mommar]

13 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I will say, I am truly looking forward to the aftermath of this mess.  I don't know how long it will be, but I really just want to see the unfiltered thoughts of everyone involved once they're off the clock, and the contracts are done.

That will definitely be interesting.

[Seto Kaiba]

25 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I will say, I am truly looking forward to the aftermath of this mess.  I don't know how long it will be, but I really just want to see the unfiltered thoughts of everyone involved once they're off the clock, and the contracts are done.

Really, I'm looking forward to the reactions from the Star Wars fans when the movie finally drops.

It's not often you get an opportunity to see wailing and gnashing of teeth on a biblical scale, y'know?

[anime52k8]

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Really, I'm looking forward to the reactions from the Star Wars fans when the movie finally drops.

It's not often you get an opportunity to see wailing and gnashing of teeth on a biblical scale, y'know?

If God could send down a plague to smite all the people who complain about the sequels,  that would be great.

Edited November 19, 2019 by anime52k8

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

If God could send down a plague to smite all the people who complain about the sequels,  that would be great.

No dice, he already promised not to destroy the Earth by flood. 

If even a tenth of the test screening leaks are true, this'll be the Star Wars franchise's Hindenburg.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[anime52k8]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

No dice, he already promised not to destroy the Earth by flood. 

If even a tenth of the test screening leaks are true, this'll be the Star Wars franchise's Hindenburg.

[TehPW]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

No dice, he already promised not to destroy the Earth by flood. 

If even a tenth of the test screening leaks are true, this'll be the Star Wars franchise's Hindenburg.

Oh. Flooding? Nah, he doesn't have to do anything. WE the People on Earth are getting around to cause the 3rd Impact eventually... 

[TehPW]

5 hours ago, azrael said:

Alright...enough about a talking head and Youtube.

 

 

May I start a thread about this (If a dedicated YouTube thread doesn't exist)? I am still fuzzy just on the concept of monetization at the very least... plus the responses where interesting. I'm asking because some threads just get smitted automatically.

Edited November 20, 2019 by TehPW

[Mommar]

3 hours ago, anime52k8 said:

If God could send down a plague to smite all the people who complain about the sequels,  that would be great.

We aren’t allowed to complain about the sequels?

[JB0]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

No dice, he already promised not to destroy the Earth by flood. 

If even a tenth of the test screening leaks are true, this'll be the Star Wars franchise's Hindenburg.

It survived Phantom Menace, it can survive this.

[Seto Kaiba]

36 minutes ago, Mommar said:

We aren’t allowed to complain about the sequels?

I think the sentiment expressed was that they'd like to hear something besides complaints about the sequel trilogy, since that's about all that passes for discussion of them is people saying how much the new films suck. 

 

26 minutes ago, JB0 said:

It survived Phantom Menace, it can survive this.

Phantom Menace was followed by a passable movie (Attack of the Clones) and then an actually pretty good movie (Revenge of the Sith), plus they had Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson.  It was an upward trend.

The sequel trilogy's kind of doing the opposite.  It had a bad movie (The Force Awakens), a movie that Star Wars fans want to have the filmmakers crucified for (The Last Jedi) and which totally derailed the entire plot by killing the big bad a movie early without so much as a by-your-leave, and now we're looking down the barrel of a conclusion (Rise of Skywalker) that's been reworked so much in a futile bid to please everyone that it's all but guaranteed to please nobody and outrage the fans further.

Star Wars might survive this, but it'll be one of those persistent vegitative state ethical quandries.

Anyhoo, I'm rather excited to see Jar-Jar Abrams fly this one into the ground so hard it contravenes strategic arms limitation treaties.  Esp. with the movie's politics hanging over its head like the Sword of Damocles, and similarly politicized cinema like Terminator: Dark Fate and Charlie's Angels flopping at the box office.

[jvmacross]

The sequel trilogy has seemingly made it safe to openly praise the prequel trilogy! 

 

[JB0]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

The sequel trilogy has seemingly made it safe to openly praise the prequel trilogy! 

 

At last, a bright spot!

[Mog]

Well, ranking the prequels from worst to best, it should be:  AOTC, TPM, then ROTS.

I cut TPM only a little slack for having to live up to 20+ years of hype/build up.

But AOTC screwed the pooch with the Ani-Padme romance, showed minimal camaraderie and fun between Obi and Ani, and made the Clones vs. droids battles a dull CGI-fest (with stupid, unnecessary quick zooms).

[electric indigo]

It's a bit unfair to judge the CGI-battles from today's perspective. When I saw AOTC in cinema, it was the most epic space war stuff out there. Same when I saw ROTJ during it's original release. But I agree that the human interaction scenes kill the movie.

And for all the bashing that TFA gets, it felt refreshingly alive, seeing that JJ actually got some momentum from his competent cast.

[anime52k8]

8 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Esp. with the movie's politics hanging over its head like the Sword of Damocles, and similarly politicized cinema like Terminator: Dark Fate and Charlie's Angels flopping at the box office.

This is why the problem is the "fans" and not the films.

[Ryoma]

I am not a big Star Wars fan but after watching the last movies i started to think that for saving the franchise they should bring everything in the past...like thousands of years ago, as they did in Knights of the old republic. I played only the first game but i was really excited to finally see how the Jedi were when they were at their best. Knowing more and more about them, their spiritual aspects, the war with the Sith and so on...i would definitely be interested in a movie like that. What do you guys think?  

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, anime52k8 said:

This is why the problem is the "fans" and not the films.

Eh, no... that's why the problem is the filmmakers who, like the makers of Terminator: Dark Fate and the Charlie's Angels reboot, prioritized inserting their personal political agenda into the Star Wars sequel trilogy over engaging with its audience and telling a compelling story.

(I'm not saying films have to, or even should, be apolitical... but for f*ck's sake, if you're going to make a movie a vehicle for a political message at least try to do it with some subtlety and grace.  As Star Trek demonstrates, you can work a blunt political message into a story so completely that nobody will even think to question it... but if you beat the audience and your story to death with it, it's not going to be well-received.  You have to be a REALLY good filmmaker to attack your audience and have them thank you for it, and like it or not the Disney Star Wars staff are NOT good filmmakers.)

 

 

3 minutes ago, Ryoma said:

I am not a big Star Wars fan but after watching the last movies i started to think that for saving the franchise they should bring everything in the past...like thousands of years ago, as they did in Knights of the old republic. I played only the first game but i was really excited to finally see how the Jedi were when they were at their best. Knowing more and more about them, their spiritual aspects, the war with the Sith and so on...i would definitely be interested in a movie like that. What do you guys think?  

That was what the trilogy that Rian Johnson, and later Benioff and Weiss, were supposed to head up was reportedly about... before their respective failures got them politely invited to leave.

[Knight26]

Put in the hands of competent filmmakers, and especially writers and actors, Star Wars can be great.  The biggest mistakes Star Wars made prior to TFA were when people gave George more creative control.  He's a great idea man, and a decent director, but someone else needs to help him bring the train into the station.

TFA's failing is that JJA is a hack, with a hack writing team.  He is a good director, with a great visual eye, but has rarely produced anything truly "new" with most of his projects being rehashes of earlier properties, just with a shinier new coat.  His writing team, Lindelöf especially, are just bad.  For an example look at the script to Prometheus before he got his hands on it.

TFA was a wonderful movie to watch, but once you thought about it the fact that it was just a redo of ANH shines through.  It could have been so much better with just a few tweaks.  There is no excuse for why TLJ was as bad as it was.  But it is a shining example of why Writer/Director oftentimes doesn't work.  I wonder how much outside input RJ even had/allowed on that script and storyline.  Once again though, it could have been fantastic with just some tweaks.

IF anything, the Mandalorian shows that live action Star Wars can still be done well, even with a limited budget.  I hope that the show does phenomenally and it becomes the kick to the head that Disney/Lucasfilm need to make them not just change direction, but hand the helm over to people who actually love the franchise and will help bring it back to its full potential.

[Chronocidal]

I do think TFA gets a slightly unfairly bad rap by association to TLJ.  It had a lot going for it, and was generally a fun movie to watch, if not one to think about in too much depth.  TLJ just managed to drive all the promise it had directly into the ground, and taint the good parts it had with the fact that none of its potential was ultimately fulfilled.

Will the franchise weather this?  I'd say without a doubt.  There are still die-hard Trekkies who enjoy the older material, and there are absolutely still fans of the EU that are going to just pretend these movies never happened (waves hand).  People will still enjoy and support the portions of the franchise they like.

The "Star Wars is ruined" bit gets old though.  Is it damaged?  Absolutely.  But at the same time, it's not helpful to be so butthurt about the current state of things that you let it ruin what you used to genuinely enjoy.  

I'm not going to go out of my way to enjoy or defend anything in this last movie, but I'm also painfully aware of the fact that, good or bad, this is probably the last Star Wars soundtrack we're going to hear from John Williams.  The last two have been fairly unremarkable, but if they're so bound and determined to pull out all the nostalgia stops on this movie, I'm hoping we at least get some fresh takes and remixes of classic themes.  A little awkward to consider, but the soundtrack has the potential to be the best part of the movie.  

 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

I do think TFA gets a slightly unfairly bad rap by association to TLJ.  It had a lot going for it, and was generally a fun movie to watch, if not one to think about in too much depth. 

All told, I think the oft-returned-to point about The Force Awakens is that it's an OK film on its own... until you notice that it's just J.J. Abrams trying to pass off a cosmetically overhauled SparkNotes version of A New Hope as an original movie.  Its perceived quality is all borrowed gloss from the iconic original Star Wars trilogy, tarted up a bit with expensive CGI.  I'm not sure if it'd be better or worse if you took the Star Wars title and associations away from it.

Examining The Force Awakens's original elements on their own, it's painfully obvious how underdeveloped every part of it was.  It's all flash and no substance, and if they hadn't spent so much money on VFX the whole affair would feel more like a Star Wars mockbuster than a legitimate installment in the franchise with its shoddy dollar store knockoff versions of the first trilogy's cast and factions.

 

Quote

TLJ just managed to drive all the promise it had directly into the ground, and taint the good parts it had with the fact that none of its potential was ultimately fulfilled.

The Last Jedi was Disney's almost understandable overreaction to the entirely justified accusations that they'd tried to pass a ridiculously underthought sh*tty remake of A New Hope off as a new movie.  They got royally reamed for their unoriginality, so they tried to mix it up as much as possible and subvert expectations... which blew up in their faces when they tried to make steak with the fandom's sacred cows.  

The Rise of Skywalker seems set to be a The Force Awakens style terribly underthought remake of Return of the Jedi, complete with imitation brand Luke (Rey, who is only marginally less unoriginal than the EU's Luuke Skywalker) and imitation brand Darth Vader (Kylo Ren) killing Palpatine off (again).

 

 

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by Seto Kaiba

[anime52k8]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Eh, no... that's why the problem is the filmmakers who, like the makers of Terminator: Dark Fate and the Charlie's Angels reboot, prioritized inserting their personal political agenda into the Star Wars sequel trilogy over engaging with its audience and telling a compelling story.

(I'm not saying films have to, or even should, be apolitical... but for f*ck's sake, if you're going to make a movie a vehicle for a political message at least try to do it with some subtlety and grace.  As Star Trek demonstrates, you can work a blunt political message into a story so completely that nobody will even think to question it... but if you beat the audience and your story to death with it, it's not going to be well-received.  You have to be a REALLY good filmmaker to attack your audience and have them thank you for it, and like it or not the Disney Star Wars staff are NOT good filmmakers.)

I really, REALLY want to respond to this but at the same time I'd prefer not to invite a lengthy ban.