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Notes -
I’ve sometimes heard that the left wing takeover of corporate America is a hollow one - they don’t REALLY cars about minorities, just look at umm their Middle East twitter accounts! They care about $$$ and aren’t true believers
I found an interesting counter point recently.
https://upstreamreviews.substack.com/p/high-republic-low-sales
This is what a corporation that has no idea what their audience is about, but does in fact know clearly what it’s ideology is about.
I’ll summarize the link but you really should read it for yourself, it’s astounding how bad Disney gets the Star Wars franchise: for instance, the books need to be (in addition to all the old touchstones of diversity etc) ANTI WAR. And then there’s the characters, who are somehow all androgynous.
The sales figures reflect an enormous lack of interest of enthusiasm. But it doesn’t matter for Disney - they get to spread the Good Word of gender ideology and anti fascism/anti traditionalism.
Funny. I’m a regular /r/MawInstallation participant, and I’ve mostly heard good things about the High Republic. Sure, a niche fan group isn’t going to generate the sales Disney expects. But wouldn’t the anti-war message annoy them first? The sub is literally themed around Imperial military research!
Reading the article, it starts to make a little more sense. The first section is all about how woke the buildup was, based largely on a screencap of a whiteboard. Plus some tea-leaf interpretation on character designs. By his standards Maya here is far too androgynous to be, uh, a good character. If the tits aren’t out, she can’t be a good Jedi, hmm?But I digress.
The follow-up to this condemnation of the rollout is…an argument that the first book was actually successful. Which segues smoothly into all the reasons High Republic sucks. There’s no self-awareness in sight. This author started from the premise that Star Wars was woke badthink, and by the Force, he’s going to see it through.
Here we get to another shocking claim: Zahn did it right. Truly the hottest take in this article. I suppose it demonstrates better taste than the Rabid Puppies whom this author so openly apes.
Never mind the graveyard of non-Zahn Star Wars projects. Media tie-ins are a crapshoot. If we weren’t lucky enough to get Zahn, we’d have been stuck with Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. I’m sure the author was aware of melodramatic runs like Dark Empire or Legacy of the Force. Not to mention multimedia projects like Shadows of the Empire. More successful than High Republic, surely. But it’s easier to say “member Zahn? I ‘member.”
Could there be another reason than a woke mind virus? Maybe writing a decent novel is tough, and even tougher if you’re stupid. Er, third-rate talent operating on a budget. Maybe it gets worse when there is stifling corporate oversight. (Hey, I hear Marvel has multimedia projects. And is owned by Disney. And has a plan with similar Phases…) Maybe 2021 wasn’t the best time to release half a dozen books. How’s the hardback market looking, in this era of streaming services and Fortnite tie-ins?
I shouldn’t be surprised that the pseudo-review ends with a Joker quote. Censored, too. How fitting for an article which regurgitates so much else.
Yeah, Redditors don’t really reflect the true fan base for, well, anything anymore. surprised someone still thinks that, especially in this space.
Successful? It merely is the best selling of the bunch, which is….not high praise given the pathetic numbers on display:
Yeah, why would the middle of a pandemic when everyone is stuck at home be a bad time to sell books?
According to the fans, yes, Zahn “did it right”. Money talks. Shit walks.
Judging by the fact no one knows who this character is, yes. Correct.
Lol, Disney is operating “on a budget”. Yeah, a billion dollar marketing budget.
This article has made you really angry. Why? Did you enjoy the new Star Wars and it’s abject commercial and cultural failure feel invalidating to you?
Less sarcasm and psychoanalyzing the person you are responding to, please.
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I think the author of this piece is a hack, and that you’ll accept anything for evidence so long as it flatters your worldview.
Sales figures are pretty good evidence of quality of product, but go off I guess
Are you sure about that?
Was Fifty Shades of Grey a well written product?
Was Jersey Shore a well produced TV show?
I'd never suggest the quality of the product and the sales figures are anything but loosely correlated.
Perhaps quality assures sales but sales are affected by much more than quality, so looking at good sales as indicative of quality is a sketchy metric but poor sales is a much better metric of poor quality?
Though I can think of examples here that buck the trend as well. Bach wasn't well known during his lifetime, after all.
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