Talk:Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Including Marcia Lucas in reception "From Star Wars filmmakers"

An edit including Marcia Lucas' response to the movie was recently reverted twice (1 2) due to it allegedly not being notable enough to be included. I think her response should be kept as she (according to her Wikipedia page) won an Academy Award and Saturn Award, and was nominated for a BAFTA, for being an editor on A New Hope. She was also an editor on The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi (one of the reverted falsely claims that she was "involved in one film".) 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧-𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙚-𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚^{(🕷) - (✉)} 12:53, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

She's not a major part of the films. The section pretty much just exists to give George Lucas a space to vent about he didn't like the movie. Toa Nidhiki05 16:33, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Respectfully, if the section exists to give voice to George Lucas' opinions (as you've claimed), why do we have all of the information about JJ Abrams and Rian Johnsons opinions/writing process? If the section exists to only discuss George Lucas opinions, perhaps it should be renamed "George Lucas' response"? Should the information about JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson not be moved to a separate section or removed entirely? I would also note that it is demonstrably false to claim that Marcia Lucas was not instrumental into shaping the franchise into what it is today. Marcia Lucas wrote the opening title crawl for A New Hope, among many other contributions for which she was not properly credited. I have a hard time accepting the argument that the section exists only for George Lucas opinions when this is clearly not the case (Re: Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams being the subject of two paragraphs). "She's not a major part of the films" is simply untrue. She was one of the most important people in the creation of A New Hope; her importance to the franchise cannot be overstated. To quote the article by Will DiGravio , "You can’t tell the history of Star Wars, or 20th-century American film for that matter, without talking about Marcia Lucas".

I would argue that Marcia Lucas is one of the ONLY people who deserves to be quoted in a discussion about previous Star Wars filmmakers giving their opinions. Greycouch55 (talk) 02:23, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Edit: I incorrectly attributed the rewording of the title crawl to Marcia. Please see the attached essay which discusses Marcia Lucas contributions at length. Greycouch55 (talk) 03:03, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH in the lead section

I suggest removing the following bit from the lead section: It was positively received by critics for its screenplay, direction, lead performances, action sequences, musical score, special effects, and emotional weight, although some critics found the film too similar to A New Hope (1977). We cannot use multiple individual reviews to identify general trends. Unless we have a source summarizing general sentiments by critics, WP:SYNTH applies: Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source.

The first part of the sentence should obviously be kept since it is supported by Metacritic in the article body. The "too similar" bit is also supported, though I would agree to remove it as it runs the risk of placing undue emphasis on that particular criticism. Throast ^{{{ping}} me!} (talk | contribs) 15:53, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I'd oppose any change to the lead that emphasizes negative reviews over positive ones for a film that met with near-universal acclaim. In fact, I'd argue the lead understates just how much positive reception the film received. The lead is not currently substantially different than other film articles, either, and the claims seem to be generally backed up by reliable sources. Toa Nidhiki05 16:05, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll try to lay it out a bit more clearly: Critic A says "great action sequences", critic B says "great action sequences", and critic C says "great action sequences". Those are three individual sources. If these three reviews are our basis for our claim that the film "received positive reviews for its action sequences", we are clearly synthesizing. We need a source to do this type of analysis for us.

Toa Nidhiki05, your argument that inclusion is justified because other film articles feature similar sections is not much of an argument; other film articles can be just as flawed. Throast ^{{{ping}} me!} (talk | contribs) 16:14, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that sentence violates the policy of WP:NPOV. There is no overarching source in the article body for most aspects of the sentence, and it violates policy to WP:SYNTHesize individual reviews to come up with overall trends. I've revised the sentence to be based on the Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus, which is the only passage in the article body that covers overall trends. There could be other sources in the real world that also summarize reviews in different ways, but editors cannot look at individual reviews and determine the trends themselves. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 18:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Erik's wording is more than acceptable. Toa Nidhiki05 20:09, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Glad you're satisfied, Toa Nidhiki05. ;) Throast ^{{{ping}} me!} (talk | contribs) 23:09, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Re: "Response from Star Wars filmmakers" section.

Hello all,

I believe this section of the page is something of a mess, for several reasons. The first paragraph that discusses George Lucas' opinions seem to fit, but everything else in this section reads to me as being unnecessary. I do not believe the validity of the sources or the legitimacy of the information is suspect, however, I am questioning why the information is included on the page at all. Some of it sounds like IMDB trivia.

The second paragraph deals exclusively with J.J. Abrams playing defense against criticism of the film, which is fine, but it's worded in such a way that it sounds very against Abrams. The wording sounds like the article agrees with the criticisms and that Abrams should indeed have to be defending his "oversights" and he should be ponying up the apologies he owed. I feel the entire second paragraph could be moved to the critical reception page, or to a separate section titled something like "J.J. Abrams' response to criticism of the film". Or at the very least, it could be reworded and reworked so it doesn't seem as biased against Abrams.

The third paragraph is full of information that again, seems highly irrelevant. It's a lot of J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson complimenting each other and saying nice things about one another. How is this sentence from the article relevant- '"In the same interview, Abrams said that he liked Snoke's death in the sequel." Why is this included? Why would that not be moved to the page for the sequel instead? How is that a response to the film The Force Awakens?

The title "Response from Star Wars filmmakers" to me suggests that the information will deal with previous Star Wars filmmakers reacting to the film The Force Awakens and no other films. (For example, John Williams, Rick McCallum, Frank Oz or other prominent figures who've worked on the films). At present, this is not the case. The bits and pieces about their writing process/asking BB-8 and R2D2 to be switched could possibly be moved to a different section of this page, as could a lot of the information here. Not to be too technical, but that doesn't even qualify as a response to the film, it was a request made about the script. It was a request Johnson made before the movie was filmed. I would be fine if this section included any comments Johnson made about the finished film, but this reads as IMDB type trivia to me. It doesn't talk about his actual response to the actual film.

A few months ago Toa Nidhiki05 reverted an edit that attempted to add Marcia Lucas' opinions about this film under the justification that her opinions were irrelevant, and that this section only exists for George Lucas to talk about his opinions. To quote Toa directly, "The section pretty much just exists to give George Lucas a space to vent about he didn't like the movie." As reading both the second and third paragraphs will demonstrate, this is clearly not true.

I would like to propose moving certain sentences from the second and third paragraphs to other sections of the page, and losing other sentences. However, I am mostly curious to see if others feel the same as I do. Please, if anyone has any thoughts, I would like to start a civil, respectful and communicative discussion. Cinnamonrollsaregood (talk) 01:35, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Budget

I think that $447 millions budget is Fake news. Forbes clearly make a mistake. 151.28.43.200 (talk) 11:00, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The last major budget discussion is here: Talk:Star Wars: The Force Awakens/Archive 5#budget.

The highest part of the range was $350 million toward the end of that discussion back in 2016. It appears that the 2023 Forbes source (which is actually from a Forbes contributor, Carolyn Reid) has jumped this all the way up to $447 million, but that figure appears to take into account marketing costs. Per the {{Infobox film}} template, the budget field "does not include marketing/promotional costs (e.g. advertisements, commercials, posters)". So this may need to be revisited.

Pinging Betty Logan, Fru1tbat, Depauldem, and PrimeHunter, who were among the most active in the previous discussion (another editor was but has since been banned). --GoneIn60 (talk) 16:47, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Note: A recent change at Jurassic World Dominion by TropicAces cites a similar source from Carolyn Reid making similar claims. The question is are these new numbers including marketing costs, or is that just production? As mentioned, the budget field is just for production costs. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:04, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

That Forbes article actually says $533M (£446M). Originally it was added incorrectly, but this was fixed, and then converted to net somehow. Here's the last version before all those changes, for reference: [1] If the Forbes article (which could possibly be more focused on declaring superlatives than documenting accurate financials?) includes extra costs, I think we just should go back to the previous version. --Fru1tbat (talk) 17:53, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The net figure is given in the table in the Forbes article labelled "The net costs of Disney's six UK Star wars productions". The figures are available from accounts submitted by Disney to the Uk Government, to obtain tax credits. The expenditure only relates to core expenditure (as noted by guidance here). It includes pre-production, principal photography and post production but excludes expenditure on development, distribution or other non-production activities. If it "goes back to how it was" then you would be simply ignoring factual information that is now available to us. The UK Film Tax Relief scheme offers a rare insight into the true cost of Hollywood film-making. Most figures released to the media at the time, or estimated when the film comes out usually under-estimate the cost of the film. The accounts are submitted annually, and in many cases after the film comes out, so there is often a long wait for a full set of accounts. But for better or for worse that is the expenditure that Disney submitted to the British Government, so unless Disney is committing tax fraud that is what they spent on the three phases of production. Betty Logan (talk) 18:13, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Fine with me - I honestly only gave the Forbes article a quick glance. --Fru1tbat (talk) 18:35, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Betty Logan, Fru1tbat: Thanks for weighing in. Appreciate the feedback. So are we good with the $447 mil net figure? --GoneIn60 (talk) 14:05, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

And should we even have a range now? Seems like a known amount at this point. --GoneIn60 (talk) 14:06, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Personally that's what I would do. The budget ranges are only intended to apply to estimates, and there is no point to them when there is a publicly available figure that has been audited by Government tax inspectors. We may as well give readers the proper figure. Betty Logan (talk) 08:05, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Revisiting

"there is no point to them when there is a publicly available figure that has been audited by Government tax inspectors" the earlier lower figures may represent the budget at which the project was greenlit. We simply don't know for sure what exactly the lower figures represent, which is why making assumptions and excluding any figure is not as simple as it might seem. Ideally the article body should not exclude figures but explain that there were much lower early estimates compared to the final cost, even if we cannot fully explain those differences (perhaps due cost overruns or expensive reshoots) but removing the lower figures might mislead readers thinking that had been the intended budget from the start. Even with published accounts we really don't know enough about the lower figures to casually exclude them. -- 109.77.196.205 (talk) 06:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

On the flipside, it's no accident that film production in the UK has seen an uptick in recent years. The tax break offerings are attractive, so studios spend in certain fashion knowing they are getting some of that back. Therefore, the gross spend is less informative, at least for the infobox and the footprint that it provides. Save the full unfiltered coverage for the body and keep it simple in the lead/infobox when possible. Use ranges when there is uncertainty. My 2¢ --GoneIn60 (talk) 06:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

The studios also spend hundreds of millions in the belief that they're making the next billion dollar movie, but the assumptions they're making about final cost doesn't change the up-front amount they have to spend. We can argue the semantics of the English language and the inherent problem of putting the final net cost beside a label that says budget all day long, but at least this article is in a decent state and includes some context in the article. "Save the full unfiltered coverage for the body" is a fine sentiment, but in practice the big problem is editors rushing to change the Infobox, removing figures they find inconvenient and failing to include anything at all in the article body, when the article body is supposed to be the main content not an afterthought, and the lead section and Infobox are only supposed to summarize the key points that are _actually in the article_. It's complicated, Hollywood accounting and marketing (P&A) costs, merchandising cross promotion deals, pre-sales, and other complications mean the "full unfiltered coverage" is almost always limited and incomplete information (even in cases such as (even in exceptional cases where such as The Sony pictures hack, or the lawsuit over the cost of Mad Max: Fury Road gives us more information than usual) it would be a mistake to presume we are anywhere close to having all the right information. I might argue further about the Infobox in the future but it is more important to first improve the article body. -- 109.77.196.205 (talk) 12:35, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

"I might argue further about the Infobox in the future but it is more important to first improve the article body. – No argument with the importance of making sure the article body contains the detailed coverage. 100% agree and thanks for taking care of that oversight. Perhaps down the road, the project can consider adding a new parameter, splitting |budget into two separate ones: gross and net. You can even add logic that if one is used but not the other, the infobox will still default to displaying "Budget" only until the other parameter is filled in. Lots of ways to approach that option should the project choose to address that. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I reiterate my previous point, the problem is editors over emphasizing the Infobox and ignoring the article body. Discussions about adding new parameters to the Infobox templates (the answer is almost always no) are likely to be even less productive than all the past discussions trying to get people to agree what "budget" actually means. (Here we have a reference literally saying "a total budget of $533.2 million"[2] and editors have somehow come to the consensus that only the net cost should be listed in the Infobox. Sigh.) Maybe an encyclopedia shouldn't be highlighting contentious "budget" estimates in the Infobox at all and only explaining the numbers in the article body with proper context (not that I expect such a radical change to happen anytime soon). -- 109.79.171.34 (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Well think about this logically. If I'm shopping around for a sale on a widget I'm looking to buy, and I spot one at a retailer for 20% off and purchase it there, then I've reduced my material cost immediately by 20%. If I'm somehow able to do this across the board for all materials, then the cost to produce the product I'm trying to build gets cut by roughly 20%. Since the cost savings are immediate, I would report my total production cost with the 20% reduction factored in.

The only difference in this scenario is that the studio has to wait for the tax savings, and the report documenting those savings comes out much later. Furthermore, it's a rare insight into that part of the industry as Betty points out, so we don't see this too often. But should we really treat it any differently? Does reporting the pre-discounted amount benefit anyone in the long term? I'm failing to see the logic behind the argument or concern that we are ignoring something that is being deemed more significant, when in reality, it is probably less significant years or decades from now.

And again, just to clarify, I wholeheartedly agree that the body should be complete with full, unfiltered coverage of both amounts. I think we just differ on which amount should be chosen for the infobox if we only have one listed (and there's an idea for having two listed there if anyone wants to take the initiative and try to get a parameter added...I would be happy to weigh in on any discussion). -- GoneIn60 (talk) 20:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Net?

This is for User:Betty Logan, but is the (net) actually necessary? I’m asking because every other Disney Star Wars film doesn’t have the “net” sign like TFA does. And it uses the same article from Forbes. Just wanted to point it out.

And why not just put both “net” and “gross” budget, since if you look at articles like The Dark Knight Rises and Avengers Age of Ultron, they have both the net and gross profit. So why are we just doing net, if we’re not doing the other? Furthermore, if we’re only doing “net,” do we need the sign (because the source editing already clarified this for editors to not change the budget)? DougheGojiraMan (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Reliable sources often only report the net figure i.e. the sum of money that the studio ultimately ends up spending on the film, and in such cases I generally think it is unnecessary to clarify it as a net figure (we may not know for sure). However, when a gross budget figure is being reported as well as the net figure then I think it is more helpful to the reader to include both figures with clarification. I suspect the reason only the net figure is listed is because of the discussion above, where only the net figure specifically was discussed. If you wish to emulate The Dark Knight Rises or Age of Ultron and include the gross budget as well, then WP:BEBOLD and add it—someone else may revert you, but I won't. I accept there is an inconsistent approach on Wikipedia, which is not ideal, but I don't think we should do something a certain way purely because some other articles do it in that way. Betty Logan (talk) 06:44, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Template:Infobox film warns not to cherry pick figures, excluding the gross spend from the Infobox still seems like cherry picking. The referenced article literally says "a total budget of $533.2 million"[3] which is different from the final net cost. Was there consensus behind the hidden warning comment did just one editor decide to prioritize their own preference to list only the net cost?

Nonetheless the WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE is "to summarize, but not supplant" the article body, so it is more important to first expand the article body to try to better explain the available figures and include both the gross total budget as well as the net final cost, which I have done.(diff) I hope no one will misunderstand this necessary change or mistake it for bold change to include details in the article body. Maybe later we can revisit the Infobox and see about better reflecting the range of the highest and lowest budget estimates. -- 109.77.196.205 (talk) 06:16, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

"TFA (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect TFA (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 13 § TFA (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 23:50, 13 February 2024 (UTC)