Did it "flop" though? Not that I am defending the game, but I thought it had healthy sales. People bought it because they liked the first game. A good franchise can coast off it's earlier popularity even after getting woke. Basically spending the fan credit they banked.
e.g. Mass Effect 3 was a disaster, but that didn't truly show through until Andromeda.
People don’t seem to understand that popular IP and creators tank after their first bad game. Look at The Last Jedi. It made $1.3 billion, but it was a failure because of what it did to Star Wars. None of what followed was good either, but TLJ was the first real misstep. People just had to pay to see it in order to find it.
TFA reaction was basically split into three groups:
Group one basically hated it flat out. Correctly diagnosed all the problems. I think this was probably the smallest group at the time. In retrospect, they were also completely correct.
Group two was lukewarm on it. Acknowledged problems, but also held out some hope that the second part would retroactively fix problems with the first by explaining certain things—Rey’s power, the backstory for basically everything—etc.
Group three just uncritically enjoyed it, either because they were lefty feminists, enjoy pacing and spectacle over consistency, were blinded by love for the brand, or a bit of all of the above.
Then TLJ happened. It not only dashed every hope group two had, it also did other stuff that was even worse than failing to fill in the gaps of the first movie. It was so bad it pushed some people from group three into admitting group one was right. It still had fans, of course, but not enough. However, had TLJ been awesome, I think it could have gone the other way and converted people from group one and group two into being complete fans. TFA may have put a couple cracks in the foundation, but the franchise wasn’t doomed until TLJ chose to take a hammer and chisel to those cracks rather than fixing them.
Did it "flop" though? Not that I am defending the game, but I thought it had healthy sales. People bought it because they liked the first game. A good franchise can coast off it's earlier popularity even after getting woke. Basically spending the fan credit they banked.
e.g. Mass Effect 3 was a disaster, but that didn't truly show through until Andromeda.
People don’t seem to understand that popular IP and creators tank after their first bad game. Look at The Last Jedi. It made $1.3 billion, but it was a failure because of what it did to Star Wars. None of what followed was good either, but TLJ was the first real misstep. People just had to pay to see it in order to find it.
The first? Really? Not TFA which just did ANH all over again?
TFA reaction was basically split into three groups:
Group one basically hated it flat out. Correctly diagnosed all the problems. I think this was probably the smallest group at the time. In retrospect, they were also completely correct.
Group two was lukewarm on it. Acknowledged problems, but also held out some hope that the second part would retroactively fix problems with the first by explaining certain things—Rey’s power, the backstory for basically everything—etc.
Group three just uncritically enjoyed it, either because they were lefty feminists, enjoy pacing and spectacle over consistency, were blinded by love for the brand, or a bit of all of the above.
Then TLJ happened. It not only dashed every hope group two had, it also did other stuff that was even worse than failing to fill in the gaps of the first movie. It was so bad it pushed some people from group three into admitting group one was right. It still had fans, of course, but not enough. However, had TLJ been awesome, I think it could have gone the other way and converted people from group one and group two into being complete fans. TFA may have put a couple cracks in the foundation, but the franchise wasn’t doomed until TLJ chose to take a hammer and chisel to those cracks rather than fixing them.
I am ashamed to admit I was in group two. Denial was a real thing for months after that. Felt so much cognitive dissonance leaving the theater.