Star Wars: Skeleton Crew - Disney +

[Thom]

It wasn't bad. Was it perfect? No. And yes, it felt rushed and got a little chopped at the end, but it was not a bad ending.

As for Solo-rippoffs, there are any number of movies with the conman-trope.

[jvmacross]

2 hours ago, Big s said:

I don’t know if Disney even cares that much about the numbers anymore. The Acolyte may have had better numbers and didn’t get renewed, but then again cost quite a bit more to make. Andor had pretty bad views, but still got the green light for a second season. I think Disney may be hoping that word of mouth overtime would make the show successful enough to bring in more viewers, but fumbling the last episode as badly as they did definitely hurt the show’s reputation. Now it went from the only good thing Disney has made from the Star Wars franchise in the last couple years to being known as the show that’s just “not as bad as the other Star Wars shows”

Oh yeah, they care....they would have been touting their success if the viewing "numbers" were something they could brag about....sadly they are worse than their last canceled show....

[jvmacross]

39 minutes ago, Thom said:

As for Solo-rippoffs, there are any number of movies with the conman-trope.

The point is now SW is borrowing from itself.....this show was literally a cut-and-paste story from start to finish.....it'd probably be more entertaining than the series itself to go through it and match the scenes to what movie it was ripped-off from...LOL

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Big s said:

I don’t know if Disney even cares that much about the numbers anymore. The Acolyte may have had better numbers and didn’t get renewed, but then again cost quite a bit more to make. Andor had pretty bad views, but still got the green light for a second season.

Based on recent comments by the Skeleton Crew showrunners, Disney is looking beyond just the absolute viewership in terms of the total minutes watched when assessing the performance of these shows.  They suggested that the trend in individual viewership - whether the show is gaining or losing viewers across its release period - when determining whether the series is successful or not.  They noted that it's encouraging that Skeleton Crew steadily gained viewers across its run as Andor did.  That may get it its second season if the showrunners can sell the studio on the new storyline.

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Based on recent comments by the Skeleton Crew showrunners, Disney is looking beyond just the absolute viewership in terms of the total minutes watched when assessing the performance of these shows.  They suggested that the trend in individual viewership - whether the show is gaining or losing viewers across its release period - when determining whether the series is successful or not.  They noted that it's encouraging that Skeleton Crew steadily gained viewers across its run as Andor did.  That may get it its second season if the showrunners can sell the studio on the new storyline.

Nah.....Disney is trying to come up with creative ways to try to convince itself that their shows are what their subscribers want....these alt-facts may work on the weak-minded uber fans, but I doubt their advertisers are going to be OK with paying top streaming show dollars for stuff no one is watching.....and as far as I can tell, Disney is still a profits-based company beholden to its investors who expect higher performance for the best returns...weak ad revenue isn't compatible with high investment returns...but that's exactly the situation they will be in if they continue with pointless, safe series like Jedi Hondo's Adventures in Space....

[jenius]

I guess that depends on how many people have plans that include ads. For the people who don't have ads, they need to make sure they have compelling content so they keep their subscriptions so there would be lots of metrics used to figure that out.

I don't understand the criticism about SW borrowing from itself or anywhere else, it was always borrowed elements. Your 'didn't like it' vote has been registered though.

[Big s]

I think a lot of the copying was more of a paying homage kinda thing, but I don’t know exactly what show or movie they were trying to copy from by not having an ending.  There’s been a few, but nothing that’s really memorable since most of those were mistakes. Maybe it was Blood Debts, but at least that one lets you know in an awkwardly immediate way how it ended and what happened after in what has become the most epic ending for a movie ever for its quick wrap up. Now that I think about it, Blood Debts is the exact opposite, so that can’t be. It was extremely informative in like ten seconds of footage 

[Seto Kaiba]

Nah, I wouldn't even call it "copying".

Star Wars is right up there with Gundam as a franchise that obsessively follows a formula set down by its earliest installments, and woe betide anyone who tries to deviate from it.

It's not that they're copying, they just only know how to write one kind of Star Wars-Approved rogueish character. 🤣

[Thom]

10 hours ago, jvmacross said:

The point is now SW is borrowing from itself.....this show was literally a cut-and-paste story from start to finish.....it'd probably be more entertaining than the series itself to go through it and match the scenes to what movie it was ripped-off from...LOL

Star Wars A New Hope was basically a 'cut-and-paste story' from Akira Kurosawa, a Western and others shows, so I don't understand how this is a criticism. You can take several examples of movies from the same genre (and even beyond) and find similar plot points used to help drive the story all over the place. Everyone does it. This is not a valid criticism.

Bad acting, bad direction, a story without any nuance or risks, sure those are. A show that is boring that puts the viewer to sleep? Sure. A scene with guy doing a useless spin in the middle of a blaster fight (you know what I mean?) oh hell yeah! But plots points? No.

[jvmacross]

3 minutes ago, Thom said:

Star Wars A New Hope was basically a 'cut-and-paste story' from Akira Kurosawa, a Western and others shows, so I don't understand how this is a criticism. You can take several examples of movies from the same genre (and even beyond) and find similar plot points used to help drive the story all over the place. Everyone does it. This is not a valid criticism.

Bad acting, bad direction, a story without any nuance or risks, sure those are. A show that is boring that puts the viewer to sleep? Sure. A scene with guy doing a useless spin in the middle of a blaster fight (you know what I mean?) oh hell yeah! But plots points? No.

Guess you don't get it...although it's right there in the first sentence you quoted...so not sure how to make it any less vague for you...it's valid in the context I am referring to not in the way you are trying to spin it....

 

[jvmacross]

Skellington Crew will eventually be forgotten and/or re-evaluated for exactly what it was (already starting to see the good-will erode on-line)....another waste of time for subscribers and money for D+...right now people were so disillusioned with The Acolyte that it is clouding their judgement on the latest series.....had it come directly after a much better show like The Mandalorian S1 or Andor, the expectations would have been higher as has been demonstrated in the past....right now it is getting some good vibes due to how bad the previous show was and not due to it being anything ground-breaking or contributing anything to a sustaining future for the IP....it's merely a soft and safe reset for the IP at best....was it needed....probably, but it was like placing a bandaid on a severe stab wound...Hopefully if Andor does not dissapoint, Skellington Crew will go off into obscurity and be forgotten or another show no one wants to bring up again...

[jenius]

Why do you keep repeating yourself? Got it, you don't like it. You're not adding anything new.

[Big s]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

Skellington Crew will eventually be forgotten and/or re-evaluated for exactly what it was (already starting to see the good-will erode on-line)....another waste of time for subscribers and money for D+...right now people were so disillusioned with The Acolyte that it is clouding their judgement on the latest series.....had it come directly after a much better show like The Mandalorian S1 or Andor, the expectations would have been higher as has been demonstrated in the past....right now it is getting some good vibes due to how bad the previous show was and not due to it being anything ground-breaking or contributing anything to a sustaining future for the IP....it's merely a soft and safe reset for the IP at best....was it needed....probably, but it was like placing a bandaid on a severe stab wound...Hopefully if Andor does not dissapoint, Skellington Crew will go off into obscurity and be forgotten or another show no one wants to bring up again...

I think that the acolyte definitely harmed this shows reputation, but with the few viewers it had are mostly complaining about how it ended is doing even more harm and it may not get those extra over time views due to poor word of mouth.
It’s sorta like the problem people had with game of thrones. Not a show I was into, but people loved it more a more as it went on til whatever went south in the last season or so. Now all I hear are complaints about how poor the show was. I guess the next show did alright for a while, but I hear the viewers are dipping there as well and didn’t seem to like how it’s going for whatever reason. But the big difference is that even though they may be in a similar situation, game of thrones still has a much much higher viewership than Star wars in the modern era and probably will bounce back.
Star Wars is just constantly flopping at this point due to poor writing. if this show had just stuck the landing, it could’ve been the show to bring back interest in the galaxy far far away. Instead it’s like you said, totally forgettable and mediocre overall.

[Dynaman]

19 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Who does he actually fight though?  He sucker-punches that one guy while escaping from the stockade at Port Borgo, he buys his way out of trouble on At Achran, he outwits a mall cop or two at that day spa, bullies some children half his size, and then struggles with two out-of-shape desk jockets on At Attin.

Only way to answer that is with another question.  Who in the entire show gets into a fight?  The Droid is the only one that really does.  Jod does a bit more then any other character.

[jvmacross]

2 hours ago, Big s said:

I think that the acolyte definitely harmed this shows reputation, but with the few viewers it had are mostly complaining about how it ended is doing even more harm and it may not get those extra over time views due to poor word of mouth.
It’s sorta like the problem people had with game of thrones. Not a show I was into, but people loved it more a more as it went on til whatever went south in the last season or so. Now all I hear are complaints about how poor the show was. I guess the next show did alright for a while, but I hear the viewers are dipping there as well and didn’t seem to like how it’s going for whatever reason. But the big difference is that even though they may be in a similar situation, game of thrones still has a much much higher viewership than Star wars in the modern era and probably will bounce back.
Star Wars is just constantly flopping at this point due to poor writing. if this show had just stuck the landing, it could’ve been the show to bring back interest in the galaxy far far away. Instead it’s like you said, totally forgettable and mediocre overall.

Correct....thanks for "getting it"...

I want great, epic shows....not safe, mediocre shows....D+ can't afford to keep making them....so hopefully they understand that these type of series releases are not a long-term solution....still, they can have their place in D+'s overall content if purposefully done as movie "one-shots"....sort of like they did for the Halloween Marvel Werewolf movie....

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I think that the acolyte definitely harmed this shows reputation, but with the few viewers it had are mostly complaining about how it ended is doing even more harm and it may not get those extra over time views due to poor word of mouth.

The glaring asterisk hanging over this statement like a Death Star is "Does anyone actually take what Star Wars fans say seriously anymore?".

Word of mouth can help or hurt a series, but only if the opinion of the person spreading it can be respected.  Ever since Disney acquired LucasFilm and Star Wars, Star Wars fans have been loudly complaining about practically everything to do with Star Wars.  A fair amount of that overlaps, intentionally or otherwise, with obnoxious culture war BS.  Nearly thirteen years of non-stop complaining has taken all of the sting out of negative word-of-mouth from Star Wars fans because negativity is the expected reaction to anything new.

If Star Wars fans were unanimously praising something, that'd probably turn heads because of how out-of-character it is... but the world is so used to Star Wars fan negativity that I'd assume it'd actually prompt people to check the series out assuming it can't possibly be as bad as the fans say.  Never mind that almost all of the actual coverage of Skeleton Crew is broadly positive and has been for the show's entire run.

 

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

It’s sorta like the problem people had with game of thrones. Not a show I was into, but people loved it more a more as it went on til whatever went south in the last season or so. Now all I hear are complaints about how poor the show was.

That's very different, though.  Game of Thrones was very well received by die-hard and casual audiences alike until that disastrous last season.  It wasn't just unsatisfied die-hard fans complaining, it was poorly-received by everyone.  The nearly universal vehemently negative reaction to that last season is what ultimately soured public perception of it to a degree that nobody is willing to recommend it.

It was like having a delicious meal at a lovely restaurant, and then spending the entire night sh*tting yourself unconscious from food poisoning.  No matter how good the food tasted, you wouldn't recommend that restaurant to anyone.

 

1 hour ago, Big s said:

Star Wars is just constantly flopping at this point due to poor writing. if this show had just stuck the landing, it could’ve been the show to bring back interest in the galaxy far far away. Instead it’s like you said, totally forgettable and mediocre overall.

That's just denying reality.  These shows are developed to be limited series from the outset, and if they were flopping we would not be seeing Disney doubling down on its promise to deliver a new series every year and developing new seasons of existing shows like Ahsoka and Andor.  If they were truly all flopping like The Acolyte did, we'd expect to see more news of confirmed cancellations (direct statements that any future plans have been scrapped) and we'd be seeing breaks in the release schedule as production scaled back or the whole concept was abandoned like the anthology movie series was after Solo: a Star Wars Story spun in.

The reality seems to be more that the fans are just determined to be unhappy, and will declare failure no matter how well a series does.

[jvmacross]

50 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

.....The reality seems to be more that the fans are just determined to be unhappy, and will declare failure no matter how well a series does.

Again....the facts don't lie....this series failed worse than the series that was more or less universally panned.....and no matter how much you try and spin it with loads of the same repeating text vomit....the numbers don't lie.....the few SW megafans who actually watched the show and will love any trash put out by D+ doesn't make it a "success"...not that hard to understand....sheesh!

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The reality seems to be more that the fans are just determined to be unhappy, and will declare failure no matter how well a series does.

But the series didn’t do well. Lower viewership than their biggest flop isn’t a win. The only thing successful was that it didn’t cost as much to makes. This also isn’t all about Star Wars, but everything Disney has been in charge of lately . The marvel stuff is failing hard at just about every turn, Star Wars has lost its cool Indy should’ve stayed retired and I feel really sad for poor little Willow. If this show just had an ending, it could’ve made people feel like things were back on track.

As is Nobody is excited for the Mando movie or the upcoming Captain America movie, and we’re all hoping Daredevil doesn’t end up trash.

[jenius]

I don't know, the fan ratings are much higher than Acolyte, so what are you all arguing about? Not a lot of people watched it, but those who did had a much more positive response (there are numbers for that too). It's wrong to say only SW megafans watched it and will love anything because they didn't love Acolyte. Seems unfair to say that this space goonies story needed to be so good it made everyone forget all the misfires... I don't think anything can be that great. Time for the great SW reboot!

[Big s]

2 minutes ago, jenius said:

but those who did had a much more positive response

I do have to agree on that as most episodes weren’t bad at all. I think the other at planet episode and the ending really were the only ones getting bad talk. Unfortunately many people don’t want to watch a show if someone says the ending sucked or it just doesn’t have an ending. It’s tough to recommend a show when you can’t say it ends at all. There’s far too many options out there for people and if they weren’t excited for more Star Wars from when it originally was added, they’re not gonna be all that interested when they hear that it’s meh at best overall

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, Big s said:

But the series didn’t do well. Lower viewership than their biggest flop isn’t a win.

Are you claiming to be privy to the internal decisionmaking criteria Disney uses to decide if these shows are successful or not?

A third-party estimation of the total viewership in terms of minutes watched during the release period is not an infallible metric for judging success or failure.  It's not even all that reliable, given that it is an estimation based on sample populations in 210 regions within the Unites States only.  Most other analytics being cited are similar, limited to capturing viewership statistics voluntarily and/or mainly in the US market.  Skeleton Crew was released worldwide.  So even if those estimations are accurate, and they probably aren't, the data is far from conclusive because it only covers a fraction of the global viewership.

The TL;DR here is you're jumping to conclusions based on data we know to be incomplete and can reasonably argue is only a rough approximation.

Whatever criteria Disney's going to use to decide if Skeleton Crew was a success or not are known only to them and possibly the showrunners, but they have more reliable data than we do because they're the ones collecting first-party viewership statistics from their subscribers directly.  It's been suggested by people connected to the production that criteria like how the show ranked on their service and trends in episode-by-episode number of viewers are among the factors being considered by Disney.  We'll know if it was successful or not in a couple months when Disney reports out to its shareholders.

 

4 minutes ago, Big s said:

This also isn’t all about Star Wars, but everything Disney has been in charge of lately . The marvel stuff is failing hard at just about every turn, Star Wars has lost its cool Indy should’ve stayed retired and I feel really sad for poor little Willow. If this show just had an ending, it could’ve made people feel like things were back on track.

As is Nobody is excited for the Mando movie or the upcoming Captain America movie, and we’re all hoping Daredevil doesn’t end up trash.

... looking at the numbers, I don't think this is accurate either.  Marvel seems to be suffering a bit from diminished returns after over a decade of pumping out content, but their box office gross (adjusted for inflation) shows they've really only had a few stumbles lately.  The Marvels was basically the only one they actually lost money on, and the underperformers largely are doing about as well as the first couple films with the exception of Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.  They're not making as much money as they were when Marvel movie madness was at its peak but they're making damned respectable bank on it still.  Same with Star Wars.

[jvmacross]

If only "fan ratings" always equated to series success...

SW Megafans are those who will love anything SW....look them up, there are plenty who enjoyed The Acolyte....but their appreciation is a given and likely a constant figure with anything released on D+ or elsewhere....their views cannot really be used in determining if a show was a success.....

If only Disney had not disclosed their rationale on what makes a series successful....hint...it's not based on how "liked" a show was for the superfans, as they will like anything....it's mainly based on viewership....don't need to be an insider, just look it up on the webs...Disney explained their decision-making logic....

I have already said that the latest show is potentially a good "reset" point for the SW D+ shows....it was nothing that was going to be trailblazing or too controversial....just cut and paste all the stuff SW fans like....and then see what happens....unfortunately, nothing happened, well....other than no substantial amount of streaming  consumers caring enough to watch the show...so the show can be used as a lesson on how being too safe is also not a good option for D+ SW....I have said it before, as long as people are "talking" about SW....bad or good....it still keeps the IP in the public eyes....these shows exist to keep selling tickets to their parks....to keep them relevant....unfortunately, a good or bad SW D+ show is inconsequential....either will get the parks packed with customers and their spending cash....

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Are you claiming to be privy to the internal decisionmaking criteria Disney uses to decide if these shows are successful or not?

No, but when they’re making their own statements that the show had lower numbers, then I think that’s it right there. They are putting the spin that the numbers were growing episode to episode, but that’s just trying to make a loss into a win. As far as dollars, the show may actually be more profitable than the acolyte due to it being a far less expensive show.

[azrael]

Mod note

This thread is going on ice for a bit.