Considering the press releases as well as the various complaints on here and elsewhere about the reveal, not to mention the leftist media practically slobbering with joy over the reveal, yes, actually, people DID care. Otherwise, why bother reporting it? And yes, that did in fact contribute to its bombing.
As far as the games and other stuff, bear in mind that a large part of the reason why Star Wars was a huge phenomenon was precisely BECAUSE George Lucas demanded exclusive merchandising rights after the first film was released, so you can thank merchandising, such as video games, toys, books, etc, etc. for why we even had a major franchise at all, and four people is not even close to enough to sustain a franchise at all, whether films or books or anything at all. If people truly got fatigued by it, sales would have dipped by the 1980s and 1990s, period, no exceptions. Besides, Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike was a huge dud that pretty much killed off Factor 5 alongside Lair. And in Japan at least, Pokemon, the one franchise that actually gave Star Wars a run for its money during its height, managed to also distribute Pokemon to movie theaters as promotional material. Namely, Mythical Pokemon, sometimes special Legendaries or in one case, a few Pikachu with Ash’s Cap on them.
As far as Toys R Us, they competed with Wal Mart which had something similar and survived (and I’d know, I got exclusive e-reader cards from Wal Mart for Super Mario Advance 4, including Airship’s Revenge, and still managed to shop at Toys R Us), not to mention also competed with various other stores regarding Pokemon distribution stuff as well and STILL survived (went there for Diamond and Pearl download promotional campaigns for Pokemon). If Toys R Us could survive all of that up until I think 2017, I’m definitely sure it would have survived Target and Amazon. Especially when it already was competing with Amazon since 1994 when it was founded.
You want to defend the woke leftist stuff, be my guest, but don’t bother lying and claiming you are conservative. Real conservatives do NOT like woke stuff by any stretch.
It was like one quick press release. People here complain incessantly. Often times just based on their own assumptions. It wasn’t in the movie at all. Lando was flirty with almost everybody, but Lando’s always been very flirty.
No, SW wasn’t huge because George wanted exclusive merch rights. SW was huge and George demanding merch rights meant he made a ton of money. The books almost died. For the first decade of them they were not canon and kinda crappy (like most media tie ins). Del Ray (I think they were the guys with the contract) were going to let it lapse. Then one guy got a great idea: let’s get the bible from George, hire good writers, and make stories that are canon. Thus the Heir to the Empire trilogy was born and the SW media empire with it. And media tie ins changed forever. Sales DID dip in the 80s.
Problem for TRU is they had ONE product, toys. WM can “lose” the toy battle and be fine cause they sell every other cheap thing on the planet. As soon as TRU stopped being the place to go for toys they were a dead company walking.
I’m not defending anything. I’m pointing out that you’re wrong. I ain’t lying. I’m giving you the facts. And your need to get personal shows you know the facts don’t back you.