Star Trek vs. Star Wars (and a collection of memes)

Some cool x-wing miniatures repaints!

 

So what are we debating about?

I listed my personal metric for TROS' financial success. I never represented that benchmark as being universal.

If adjusted purely for ticket price (inflation) then yes, I believe it ranks 44. But that ignores the other factors such as increased global distribution, more theater seats and a larger population. Also, and much more importantly, TLJ earned its financial success because of the greatness of the Star Wars franchise. On its own, it would have failed miserably.

The creator of the movie/story is the ultimate source of what is real... period. Even you admit that Lucas is the most important contributor. Some SJW writers/directors hired by Disney are not in the position to overrule George Lucas. That doesn't mean that I like everything Lucas puts out there. I hate Ewoks and Jar Jar but they are still real Star Wars. Who is in the position to overrule Rowling when it comes to Harry Potter... or Tolkien when it comes to LOTR? It has nothing to do with following a cult, the author of the story is simply the purest source.

The IP is just a purchasable asset. It gives you the legal right to release and profit from the stories/ideas/concepts of the IP. You may own it, but you didn't create it. As for "content" and "general presentation" that is completely subjective and thus irrelevant. Our personal opinions do not overrule those of the author/creator of the franchise. However, if you are attached to it, then TLJ seems to have failed on that front as well. The major criticism among half the fan base is that TLJ is not true to real Star Wars.

I have no issues with a "us versus them" division. I align with ideas I deem credible and have no issues with a further splintering of the fan base. I don't need everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. You've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. I prioritize dissemination of good ideas (and the critical destruction of bad ones) over everyone being included. #chaos #sith #IDoNotServe

It's funny, when Disney first put out that narrative, I wondered who would actually believe such a thing. But there it is. (I have a friend who buys into it as well)

Funny how the same is not true for Marvel. The time between the releases of Black Panther - Infinity War and Captain Marvel - Endgame was FAR shorter and those movies didn't suffer from fatigue. We live in a world where people binge watch hundreds of hours of TV shows and we're supposed to believe that a 2 hour Star Wars movie released every year (or 5-6 months in the case of TLJ - Solo) will lead to fatigue? That just doesn't make any sense. Simple excuses. I see through those lies.

 

As I laid it out before, that narrative fails from a financial standpoint.


Black Panther (released Jan. 29, 2018) - Infinity War (released April 27, 2018) ➨ (88 day spread, Infinity War grosses $2 billion)

Captain Marvel (released Feb 27, 2019) - End Game (released April 26, 2019) ➨ (58 day spread, End Game grosses $2.8 billion)


The Last Jedi (released Dec. 15, 2017) - Solo (released May 10, 2018) ➨ (146 day spread, Solo is the first Star Wars movie to lose money at the box office)

The MCU movies were much closer to each other in terms of release dates and they fared exceptionally well at the box office. TLJ and Solo had more time between them, but supposedly Star Wars fatigue caused Solo's box office failure. You're expressing how you personally feel and I am providing you with facts that contradict your feelings. Facts > Feelings (or if you prefer: "facts don't care about your feelings")

On top of that, we live in a culture (in North America) where people binge watch shows all the time. Many people watch entire multi-season TV series in a matter of weeks. People are always in search of good content (the keyword is: good). If people can't manage 4 hours worth of Star Wars movies in the course of a year, then it is probably because those are shitty Star Wars movies. I recognize that those movies are also accompanied by other sources of media (TV, video games, etc.), but the same is true for the MCU and it didn't fail because of fatigue! Now if the MCU crashes and burns because of phase 4 wokeness, people will likely blame fatigue (and toxic masculinity).

And yet it was always financially successful before the Disney acquisition. ALL the movies were box office successes and the toys flew off the shelves. How you personally feel about it is irrelevant in the face of overwhelming societal metrics.

If anything, I'd make that implication based on your assertion that "content" and "general presentation" are greater measures of Star Wars "realness" than the direct stories & ideas of the franchise's creator, George Lucas.

I've outlined why that is absurd, but at the same time, you are entitled to your opinion. However, it is not a winning strategy from a debating standpoint.

 

Says who?... that is the claim made by Disney (CEO Bob Iger, plus some others)
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/09/disney-ceo-bob-iger-star-wars-solo-flop-1202175861/
https://www.inverse.com/article/55608-new-star-wars-trilogy-release-dates-fatigue-disney

(the above is an example of a fact, I make a claim and then support that claim with facts... more on this later)

That was the PR angle that Disney threw out there. Which I first brought up here:

Of course, if you felt otherwise, you could have simply said so. All you had to say was that the Star Wars fatigue was bulls%$^ and state that the real cause was the fan's reaction to TLJ (which I actually agree with, I just don't think it was an overreaction). At this point, that avenue of debate would have been closed, however... that isn't what actually happened:

In response to this I opened up a series of arguments disproving the Star Wars fatigue claim. Counter-arguing a point that you made (and we have the exact quote to prove it) is not setting up a strawman. I have no desire to explain how a proper debate is conducted or what a strawman is. However, this appears to be a microcosm of our overall debate...

• you make a claim with no factual support (you don't believe in Star Wars fatigue, or at least in its effect on the Solo collapse and that I am setting up a strawman)
• I disprove your claim factually by providing an exact quote of you supporting the idea of Star Wars fatigue (thus negating your strawman accusation and legitimizing my counter-arguments)

Another baseless and unsupported claim made by you. I will once again provide facts to dispprove your claims. Here are some examples of facts I used in our discussion to support my arguments:

All three of those are facts, you could google that information yourself and you'll find them to be factually correct. In the case of inflation, I even gave you a bit of a head start with the image and website link.

That is a factual statement. Bob Iger said these things in his book. You can look it up, it is not just my subjective opinion.

• George Lucas had outlines for the ST
• Disney bought those outlines
• Disney did not use those outlines to craft the ST

Those are all cold hard facts. You have several options available to you:

• read it in his book directly
• watch YouTube videos on the subject (many of which are well supported)
• read articles about it
• any combination of the above

There is plenty of information that is readily available, you have simply not taken the time to look it up for yourself.

All the points above, with the exception of the last one, are clear facts. You can look them up very quickly on your computer to confirm this. I should mention that the second point should read "ST toys are not selling well". Of course some units have been sold, but not up to Star Wars historical standards.
The last point might be a bit more murky, only because it might not be "fully apparent" to some. It is there, but it is not factual that it is fully apparent to everyone. However, aside from that, these are more valid demonstrations of my usage of facts. With a bit more effort, I could have provided links that definitely prove each of those statements. That is a great deal of work though and I expect you to do some work too. However, had you have strongly argued against one of them, rest assured, I would have countered with direct supporting evidence.

How are these not facts?!?!? How can you claim I don't present and use facts. Please, google it for me before you make such a unsubstantiated claim. If I was able to collect factual data using google, I'm pretty sure you can too.




I think I've sufficiently proven (with evidence) that your claim that I don't use facts is completely incorrect. I never considered you to be dishonest, so I can only hazard a guess that you haven't been following along very closely. If you had, you would clearly see that your accusation holds no merit.

To be honest, I'm not exactly patting myself over the back for this one. You're not really a debater (by your own admission!) and I had the high ground (pun intended) to begin with. My side was admittedly far easier to defend.

That said, what did you expect? We've already discussed at great length how we have different approaches to "debates". You knew full well that we did not have compatible styles. Why do you feel that the burden of conforming should fall on me?

This is analogous to wargaming in terms of fluff/narrative/casual players (having a discussion) and power gamers (having a debate). There is nothing wrong with either group, but they don't intermix very well. And in the end, the casual player is the one that gets hurt.

Well then, it isn't worth too much to us now, is it? (although it is probably for the best)

Funny that you should describe my ideas as crude. Since you've dropped the guise of politeness, let me be blunt: you're outclassed. Normally one might take offense to having their ideas dismissed as crude, but your argumentation in this discussion has been so disjointed, inconsistent and unsupported, that your characterization is completely meaningless. Normally I wouldn't be so mean spirited, but if you have the desire to label my theories/ideas as crude, then I will defend myself.

This is the third time you have pulled the victim card on me in Star Wars discussions. When you did it the second time, I kindly suggested that we not engage in Star Wars discussions. I did not start this discussion with you, I was having a discussion with someone else. You chimed in an quoted me (and you did so several times before that).


Once again, I'll factually prove the claim I made above...

With all that said, I think you are good member of this community. I harbor no ill will against you personally. I actually think you are a pretty nice guy. As I said before, we just shouldn't discuss Star Wars with one another (like a Jedi and a Sith trying to have a productive discussion together... I'll even take ownership of the sith ) I predicted that no good would come of it; sadly (and regrettably) time has proven me wise. This is exactly the type of situation I was trying to avoid the last time. I'm to blame as well, I should have ignored your entry into the discussion. My competitive nature does leave me susceptible to be being goaded (even if unintentionally, I'm not claiming a nefarious plot on your part) into debates.

At least now, looking at the positive, we both agree that Star Wars topics shouldn't be discussed between us.


Go in peace. May the force be with you.

 

Here we go again, and this time, it was me who started it with a less-than-hopeful comment about Episode IX...

 

It takes two to tango, as they say.

For the record, you are shifting the goalposts slightly. Your original comment was that I don't use use facts and I don't argue with facts [which I then proceeded to prove otherwise]. To be specific you wrote "You act like what you say are facts, you claim to argue with facts". If what you meant to say was that the facts I provide do not support my arguments, then you should have said so and provided some rationale as to why that is true.

I assure you that the facts I provide support my argumentation exceptionally well. Once again you make a claim (based on your personal feelings) without actually demonstrating anything. Show me the discrepancy between the facts I provide and the arguments I am claiming. Throwing out a general blanket statement is not very helpful in making your point. I've written and evaluated enough essays/papers to know how to produce an argument that is factually supported. You haven't provided any supporting evidence this entire discussion and it is a very rare occurrence when you do (I do admit that you have done so at times in other discussions). I don't particularly find you to be a strong debater (which you shouldn't be as, by your own admission, your focus is on discussions) so your unsubstantiated claim that there is an incongruency between my arguments and supporting facts carries little weight. As such, I find little purpose in going through the trivial but extremely laborious task of going back through the entire discussion to demonstrate how the evidence I provided supports my arguments.

We continually end up at this point. The problem is that your threshold of what constitutes a personal attack is extremely sensitive (we've discussed this whole left vs. right triggered/snowflake phenomena at length). Furthermore, this threshold seems to vary greatly depending on whether these "personal attacks" are incoming or outgoing. The last time we got into this, you called my position an overreaction but were then were offended when I jokingly (which you acknowledged that you recognized as a joke) called your position that of a shill. Live by the sword, die by the sword. There are more examples of this from the first time we got into it, but I'm not going to drudge up old wounds (mainly because I am lazy to go through hundreds of pages of this thread to find the quotes ). I think we disagree greatly on what constitutes a personal attack. If I actually wanted to go down that route it would be extremely easy; wittiness has always been my ally.

The statement "Go discuss your crude theories with someone else." was anything but polite. If your intention was the actually bring the discussion to a conclusion there, that was a very poor choice of words. It was an antagonistic statement that virtually assured an escalated response on my part. You are free to feel otherwise, but my theories in this discussion were both better argued and better supported than yours (you actually didn't provide any supporting evidence) so for you to throw out such a parting statement was either exceptionally well thought out or completely naive (depending on your intention).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not deeply offended by it, but it did force me to call a few things out. I've been in debates that have been infinitely more aggressive than your statement and I've enjoyed the process.

Maybe you did way back when, I don't remember. A quote would be helpful (just as I had provided when I made my claim).

As for the "personal attacks", I don't remember what you are specifically referring to, so it is hard to deny or confirm (unless quoted). As it stands, I'm not going to abide by your arbitrary measure of what is and isn't a personal attack, especially in the absence of the contextual framework within which it was written.

Anyways, me saying that I thought it best that we discontinue the discussion for fear of hurting your feelings is not some sort of grand victory on my part. That is actually very much against my motto of "iron sharpens iron", and is more of a loss on my part. I don't view it as a victory or show of strength.

I disagree (specifically in terms of Star Wars conversations, not in the case of other conversations). Three times we have ended up in this exact same place, so it is fair to assume the trend will continue in the future. You and I have had many peaceful and fruitful discussions in other topics, but Star Wars is not one of them.

I'd kindly suggest (as it pertains to Star Wars alone, not other topics) that we don't tag or quote one another. What is the point? Our inherent debating/discussion styles are ultimately incompatible and will constantly end up with us butting heads. I honestly don't want that and I'm wiling to simply avoid such interactions in the future. I'm hoping you are willing to do the same. Why try to delicately dance between mines when we can just avoid the minefield altogether?

For the record, leaving it off with a sequel trilogy picture was not the best way to leave things off! That could only serve to entice a counter "not real star wars" blah blah blah rant on my part.

 

No worries. The exact same can be said of me. I am also at fault.

To use my own line against me, it takes two to tango.



Now that all of this is behind us... maybe I'll get back to working on my Hellcannon.

This is true.