https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/where-did-all-the-money-go-star-wars-fans-can-t-believe-disney-spent-twice-the-money-as-godzilla-minus-one-to-make-each-episode-of-the-acolyte/ar-BB1odua1
First of all… This is the most bloated, ChatGPT article ever.
Second. Godzilla Minus One just looks OKAY. Let’s not kid ourselves here. When half your story takes place in very simple, small sets, and another 40% can be shot in a water sound stage or on the open water with little set design needed, no shit it’s gonna save you a lot of money.
Do people think these Star Wars sets just exist already or something? They take huge teams to conceive of and dress them. And then you’ve got the volume stages where not only are you spending a fuckload to rent out for the day, but your CG artists have to generate those environments ahead of time.
Articles like these are fucking idiotic.
Do people think these Star Wars sets just exist already or something?
Yeah i do. After the new movies, several tv shows, and the galaxys edge theme parks they have a decade plus of star wars specific production infrastructure to draw on. They're not starting from scratch on this show.
Does that matter prop wise? I'd say I have above average knowledge of star wars lore and I have absolutely no idea how to visually tell the difference between say the old republic era and the most recent trilogy. The only thing I can think of that reliably identifies a time period in star wars in terms of visual design is storm trooper helmets.
Sure, but none of them have been a movie or a TV show though, so they're not going to have the sets, props and costumes just sitting in a warehouse somewhere
You would think they aren’t starting from scratch, but each crappy shot of an underbaked Coruscant suggests otherwise.
Usually the film the pilot on the real Coruscant, then they recreate the interior in a pavilion, and use the same exterior footage over and over again.
Second. Godzilla Minus One just looks OKAY.
It looks great, and it was a great film, and I had a great time watching it.
Its still more expensive, per episode, than other SW shows and more expensive than Episode IV itself ($57M) adjusted for inflation.
I dont think this is a SW problem tho. TV and movies seem to be getting ridiculously expensive to make for some reason
The power of one, the power of two, the power of millions of dollars down the drain. shakes violently in a trance
Not that I think that CGI is cheap, but spending millions in computer graphics with today's powerful hardware sounds absurd. So, something else must be it.
Edit: Oh, please. CGI is cheaper than actual props. ET the movie would be way cheaper to remake today than 40 years ago.
It's still human intensive to actually make. Also, when nearly every scene has something that was cgi it really adds up fast.
Yeah, yeah, but it surely beats creating gigantic props, or miniatures, like back in the 70s and 80s in terms of costs.
I'm sure even with the advances we have seen that the costs have not dropped even slightly for a per hour like break down for rendering anything.
In fact this space is such a hot bed for rampent price gouging, hedgeing against the movies production, shell companys as standard opperation procedure to absorb and off set potential losses, the fine fucking print is almost illegible... Its surprising any money is "made" anywhere.
Which is exactly my point. It's not CG, the technology, that's expensive. It's the human factor surrounding it.
I was worried as soon as the "GMO cost $15 million" mindvirus got started that it would be weaponized for bad faith arguments. To replicate Godzilla Minus One, you need a leader with an unhealthy approach to work/life to throw himself into hours of work. Another way to get that budget is to exploit the shit out of your workers
There is obviously a ton of waste in Western entertainment budgets, particularly from Disney. But online commenters are doing the work of Disney's executives by holding up an outlier as an example of the new benchmark for budget success. You shouldn't fixate on the profitability of the endeavor, but instead on the effectiveness of the investment.
Godzilla Minus One was a risk. Any Star Wars content is a cash cow they're not worried about throwing money at.
I read that headline and thought it meant:
(Cost per Episode) = 2 × (Cost of Godzilla Movie) - $1
The Acolyte. All my friends said it was such utter shit that I didn't even bother to give it a chance.
Your friends are morons. There are three episodes out and they're all pretty good so far but they story will have to pay off. It's not even possible to know if it's shit yet because the it's just getting started lol. Imagine going to see a movie, leaving after 30 minutes and then telling everyone how bad of a movie it was. You didn't see the movie idiot, why are you commenting on its quality?
Hmmmm.... if a movie starts with stupid plot points in the first few minutes, and not in an ironic/satirical way (e.g. "I'm alone in a park - what's that noise in the dark? Let's investigate!" or "Everyone is carrying a gun. I'll fight them with my katana sword!") then I kind of know what I'm getting myself into for the rest of the movie.
Same deal.
Yeah exactly, like this one time I watched the first couple episodes of this show called The Good Place, and it's basically about a bunch of characters who are in heaven? Kinda boring, would have been a bit more interesting if they weren't in literal heaven the whole time... made everything feel like it had no stakes.
Your friends are morons.
IMDB 3.5
Hmm. So clearly most think the episodes blew chunks...
There are three episodes out and they're all pretty good so far but they story will have to pay off
lol
It's not even possible to know if it's shit yet because the it's just getting started
Imagine going to see a movie, leaving after 30 minutes and then telling everyone how bad of a movie it was
If the first 30 minutes are total garbage then yeah it doesn't seem great for the rest of the movie
IMDB got review bombed by right wingers angry that the show had non-white women in leading roles. Most of these reviewers never watched the show at all and will freely admit that they didn't watch it because they "heard it was bad". Some of them got confused and review bombed the wrong thing (these reviews have since been removed by RT staff, but still shows how all of these reviewers never even fucking watched the show...)
You know how at the start of a thriller movie you might see some events transpire and you're interested, but you're thinking "I wonder how they'll resolve this plotline!"? That's where we are with it. If they handle the resolution well, then there will be a good pay-off, but if they blow it, then it'll suck. Imagine watching the first 30 minutes of like, Memento, or something, and complaining that the movie is bad because it doesn't make sense.
Everywhere I look the audience reaction seems to have been bad. And with what my friends said, I'm starting to think that it might not just be review bombing but maybe the audience just didn't like it. Remind me of the whole Ghostbusters shit all over again.
Of course it's my friends' comments that weigh the most to me, not audience scores and such. I was just talking about that to show that it doesn't seem to be at all some outlier opinion.
You know how at the start of a thriller movie you might see some events transpire and you're interested
But it didn't interest them and they felt it was dogshit. So it failed to get that interest. That's sorta the whole issue. Starting out slow is one thing but being shit and uninteresting because of that from the get-go is something else.
Imagine watching the first 30 minutes of like, Memento, or something, and complaining that the movie is bad because it doesn't make sense.
Memento was very interesting and great from the start. This doesn't seem to have achieved that. It's nice that you're willing to give this show so much benefit of the doubt so to say, but for most, if it starts as garbage then I totally understand if they expect the same from the rest and drop it. For me, if all my friends say it's shit and not worth my time, then it does sound like there's a high chance I won't like it and that's why I won't be checking it out.
The problem with the show is that it has been review bombed to absolute hell, so it's pretty much impossible to use the opinions of others unless they're people you know and trust. Ghostbusters is a great example, because that was actually a decent, enjoyable movie that got absolutely review bombed by the usual suspects because it had women in it, basically.
Acolyte is a 6/10 show, and it frustrates me that I feel like I have to defend it because there's sooooo much bad faith criticism. I wish I could discuss the flaws with the show without some chud weighing in with some absolute nonsense about how it's pushing an agenda or whatever.
Acolyte hasn't started as garbage. So far, it's just fine, but if it doesn't resolve some of it's own mystery/intrigue, then it'll be a let-down. The first three episodes have been enjoyable enough, nothing incredible... exactly the same as the first three episodes of Andor, surprisingly enough! Andor just didn't make the mistake of upsetting some fragile little white boys.
I did watch Ghostbusters and felt like it was pretty shit. The whole online discussion about it turned into some culture war shit and a lot of the criticism was dismissed as part of that, when a lot of it seemed to just be that it just wasn't funny.
My friends aren't much into politics. And their criticism wasn't about politics either. So considering how I know what they like, they know what I like and how similar our tastes are, it's going to be a solid no from me on that basis. If they all felt it was garbage then it's very likely I'd feel the same way.
Maybe the show turns around and some of my friends start recommending it to me. But with this sort of start, I'm not going to hold my breath.
Acolyte is a 6/10 show, and it frustrates me that I feel like I have to defend it
That's pretty bad on a 1-10 scale. I wouldn't bother defending such a thing.
Ghostbusters was exactly what I expected to be - a kind of silly, fun romp with some comedic elements. It delivered that pretty well. It wasn’t a great work of cinema like Everyting Everywhere All At Once, but it wasn’t trying to be.
And yet the only criticisms you ever saw about it at the time was people being like “omg, it’s so shit, so cringe” from people whom if you clicked their profile they’d be posting about how the alphabet mafia controls the media now and anti semitic shit.
Thats where we are with Acolyte. I’m not saying you should watch it, it’s completely fair to say it’s not for you or whatever, but by talking about how if it has a 3.5 on IMDB that must mean it sucks, that’s just pushing right wing misinformation. it’s not a great show, and it’s frustrating that I’m essentially being compelled to defend a show that I personally am kind of ambivalent about, exclusively because the criticisms of it are so fucking bad and are being so heavily pushed by the far right as a way to shift the conversation towards their misogynist, racist agenda.
I’m sure you’re a decent person and that you’re not like those people at all, but you kind of are helping them by making their arguments for them. just say it’s not for you and move on, don’t try to criticise a show you haven’t ever seen…
It’s not great, but there are some who have enjoyed it. If it were “Legends” content I think it would go over better.
Hah, I dunno about good taste but it's very similar to mine so I value their opinion on this stuff
