fumanstan

I couldn't name any of the new characters. Although, I'm the same way with Rogue One which I disliked.

Mike86

I can definitely name all the main Rogue One characters. Easily. It’s probably my favorite of the Disney Star Wars films though.

Obi-Wanma

The Honest Trailer for this one is right on. Love the shot of Paul Bettany with the tagline "Name this character. You can't, can you?"

TomOpus

I was surprised when I saw it listed too. Ant-Man and the Wasp along with The Incredibles 2 drop towards the end of January.

Mike86

Were those deals with TBS in place before Disney bought Lucasfilm? Kind of weird to me that they wouldn’t have opted to show the films on one of the channels they own.

Noonan

Yeah. They have the rights until 2024 for both TV and streaming. AT&T basically told Disney to pound sand when they tried to buy back the rights.

Jay G.

Disney already owned Lucasfilm when they licensed 5 of the first 6 films, and the next 3 films to TBS/TNT (the original Star Wars was licensed by Fox separately). The deal was made in September 2016:
http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/tnt-tbs-tv-star-wars

At the time, Starz got the new ones first on cable for a while before TBS/TNT, and Netflix had streaming rights.

As to why they were licensed to TBS/TNT instead of say, ABC Family, ostensibly divisions of a corporation are supposed to act somewhat independently, and get the best deals they can get, whether that's with a different division of the same corporation, or with an outside competitor of that different division. It's how Netflix got some Marvel shows originally, instead of them all being on ABC or Hulu.

Now, in practice, these "independent" divisions seem to favor other divisions of the parent company more often than not, but TBS/TNT must've been offering one hell of a deal that looked really good to Lucasfilm at the time, and Disney hadn't yet hatched the plan to launch their own streaming service, where having these films exclusively would be a big advantage.

TGM

I missed not having a new Star Wars to see around Christmastime

Mabuse

That’s it. Even though SW sort of owned May, I really got used to seeing these films in December. I had a real hankerin’ this month to see a Star Wars movie. I wasn’t really in the mood last summer.

story

That's exactly how I feel. They truly should just keep it at Christmas every year.

Mike86

Yep totally agreed. Star Wars works as a holiday movie. It’s a good kind of movie to cap off the year, and even though it had only been the last few years it already felt traditional to take my dad or other friends and family members to go see it around Christmas.

ViewAskewbian

Agreed. My father and I have been doing a Star Wars flick on Boxing Day here in The Great White North every year since Force Awakens. Felt weird this year. Glad it comes back next year, though.

Josh-da-man

They should have dropped it this December, especially with no MCU films between July and March. Should haven given Solo the December Mary Poppins spot, and dumped her off to May; MP was always going to underperform.

fumanstan

I don't know about Mary Poppins, seems like a musical over Christmas is the best place for that kind of movie. Anywhere else and I don't think it does nearly as well as it's doing now, which isn't too shabby at all.

tanman

This is so true. It is entirely forgettable. Which is good in one way at least it's not controversial or hated in any way. But on the other hand a Star Wars film should be anything BUT forgettable.

tanman

I'm kinda thinking the opposite now. I thought it was dumb for them to release it in the summer but this November/December has really been packed with releases. Even if you just consider Disney releases. Between Wreck it Ralph 2, the Nutcracker, the Grinch, Harry Potter, Bumblebee, Mary Poppins and Aquaman there has been no shortage of family friendly entertainment. And while I agree I like Star Wars during the holiday time (same with Harry Potter, just feels like a Christmas movie) I am starting to see why they didn't. But they thought it would have been a total smash hit. If they knew it would be the mediocre hit it was they might have made room.

Mike86

Thing is though there’s always going to be competition. Seems like there’s big movies releasing all times of the year. I just think it was especially dumb to release it so shortly after the last Star Wars film and around the same time as a mega blockbuster (Infinity War). Mary Poppins could have gone wherever in my opinion. That would have left Aquaman and Bumblebee as the main competition, which I think it might have done better against.

slop101

Nah, I prefer them as Summer movies, like they were originally - "May the 4th be with you" and that shit.

Mike86

The problem now though is that May has belonged to Marvel releases for the last ten years, so there’s always at least one big film to compete with. On top of that May is the kickoff to the summer blockbusters. That time of year just overall seems busier for films, and especially big blockbusters. I just think they had a good thing going releasing the films during the holidays personally. There’s competition there too, but generally not as many of the big blockbusters (more family oriented films aside from this year). I don’t really care if the others released in May or not. That and just the spacing between didn’t help I don’t feel. Some were already feeling like Disney was over-saturating us with Star Wars once a year, and I think twice within five months give or take was a mistake.

JeremyM

If nothing else, I doubt they will try to release more than one Star Wars film a year going forward, which would have been a terrible idea. They seemed to be gearing up to release two a year at one point and I know there was investor pressure to do so.

coli

See, I sort of like that it is not trying to be big and bold (And I say this as a person who was only hyped for the Saga films in 2012 when all of these movies were announced). I think the Saga films try to be big and bold so they can stand next to the OT films (they usually recycle the same plots and themes), and that usually leads to their downfall for many fans (they keep trying to compare them to the OT story because they have an episode # next to them).

Rogue One and Solo are their own entity and can be seen in that context when watching it. I don't think either of them are great films that shattered the moviegoing world, but that doesn't still mean they can't be fun and entertaining to base of SW fans (I totally understand they are not for everyone). I think the internet has created this extreme opinion of movies that it can only be the 'best' movie or 'worst' movie of all-time, as there is nothing wrong with a good/very good movie. I equate them as guilty pleasure SW films that are still solid, well done films.

GuessWho

The phrase was made popular years after the movies. It was never part of release marketing.

slop101

No shit! You missed my point entirely.
My point was that these have historically been summer moveis, and I don't see why people suddenly want them to be Christmas-time movies now.

story

By "suddenly," do you mean in the last four years since they've been at coming out at Christmas-time? That's not very sudden, plus many of us already said why we like the movies at Christmas-time.

DJariya

FYI, this movie will be available on Netflix January 9th if any of you who didn't purchase it want to give it another watch.