Lightyear

[Darin Steffl]

I made a true statement. The left isn't mad about Lightyear but the right is. I've said what I need to say so I will be done responding on this now.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Well, maybe I've been sleeping under a rock lately, but there is very little fuzz going on about that Female to Female kiss in this movie around here...But yeah, I'm living in one of those countries where the population has yet to be divided into left and right wings... and where LGWHATEVER+ stuff is generally not seen as a political hot potato, but more like a given fact that needs to have a place in a somewhat open society... Still, shows are almost empty... Nobody seems to have heard about "Lightyear", there has been zero advertising for it, not on TV, not on-line, not on other media. I've read two local reviews, none mentioned the particular kissing scene, but both reviews concluded that the movie felt somewhat "redundant".

Maybe the fuzz about the movie has some Disney execs spooked and they decided to pull the plug on advertising. Still, if properly advertised, I don't see any reason why this movie couldn't perform like most other animated features in the market over here...

[Lyle Romer]

I made a true statement. The left isn't mad about Lightyear but the right is. I've said what I need to say so I will be done responding on this now.

True or not you still brought politics into a movie review thread. You didn't NEED to say anything. You just took the opportunity to violate forum rules, bring in politics and go off topic. In fact, it appears to me that the only reason you started a review thread of a movie that you didn't see was to add political commentary. It seems you are predisposed to believe that the only reason for business not to be meeting your expectations is the kiss controversy.

Maybe it just isn't a good movie or not that many people are interested in seeing it? I didn't know about the kiss until Friday and I had no desire to see it before I knew. None of the marketing piqued my interest.

[Mike Blakesley]

I have a niece from Texas, who is definitely right-wing in her politics, who took her 8 year old son to see the movie. I thought this would be an interesting test because (having seen "the scene" at CinemaCon) I wasn't sure that a kid that age would even pick up on what was happening, since the scene is very brief. But, the kid did ask his mom: "Wait, why is she marrying another girl?"

So my niece told him they would talk about it after the movie, and then afterward, she explained to him what the scene was all about, that sometimes girls fall in love with other girls and boys fall in love with other boys, and saying we don't judge anybody based on who they want to marry. Boom, question answered, no controversy, no panic. This is the way it should be handled. When the parents go all ballistic at anything "new" is when the problems arise.

For the record, my niece also told me she didn't think the movie was all that good, overall. Maybe THAT is the main reason it didn't do so well, along with coming out too soon after Jurassic World. Kids are probably wanting to see the dinosaurs more than a movie about a toy spaceman guy. Who knows, maybe it will have some legs as the dinos' appeal fades in the next couple weeks. But all the publicity about how bad the opening was combined with the "controversy" is going to drown it before it gets any traction, so it'll probably get fast-tracked to Disney+.

I look at this as a marketing mistake by Disney, more than anything -- in other words, a pretty rare thing on their part. Somebody is really going to get yelled at over this one.

This is an example of what the industry gets for putting all its eggs in one opening-week basket. "Back in the day," they could have retooled the marketing a bit and re-promoted the movie in a couple of weeks and maybe pulled it out of the fire. As it is, they're now left with a soiled product that is only worth being flushed down the video toilet. Too bad.

[Darin Steffl]

What I don't understand is lots of people told us they were excited for this movie. I'll watch it this week and see if it's good or bad I guess. Like you said, maybe it'll do better week 2 or 3 for us.

Our booker also said Lightyear should do better for us than Jurassic but we're seeing the opposite. Our theater is strong with family movies.

[Leo Enticknap]

Daily Mail[/URL]]Recession fears mount as flight bookings slump by 2.3 per cent and car sales drop four per cent as inflation forces Americans to rein-in spending and Obama economist warns downturn IS inevitable

Americans have started changing their spending habits and an Obama-era economist has warned a recession is inevitable.

Data shows that many have cut back on large-scale purchases, as evidenced by the 2.3 percent slump in flight bookings and the 4 percent drop in car sales.

Citizens have cited soaring costs, likely fueled by the country's skyrocketing inflation rate, as reasoning for scaling back on vacations, dining out, and routine services like haircuts, manicures and house cleaning.

A trip to the movies is a significant expense for a typical family of, say, Mom, Dad, and two kids. As Mike pointed out, Buzz Lightyear came out a week after the dino yawn. Part of its poor performance might simply be that much of the family audience had seen Jurassic World and simply can't afford to do both.

[Mike Blakesley]

The theater down the road from us is running Lightyear, Jurassic and Top Gun. Lightyear was in 3rd place for the weekend!

I didn't think it would be a Toy-Story-sized blockbuster but I thought it would do better than it's doing.

[Jon Dent]

And everybody armchair quarterbacking the reason(s) why is getting nasty.

Just hope it does better than Jurassic for us this weekend. If not it could make next week interesting with Minions 2

[Geoff Jones]

The 89'er [SIC] Theatre in Kingfisher, Oklahoma has made some news by vowing to fast-forward to past the kiss. They've also gotten themselves a bunch of new reviews on Google decrying their bigotry and censorship.

https://kfor.com/news/movie-warning-...in-kingfisher/

KINGFISHER, Okla. (KFOR) – An air of controversy hung over the town of Kingfisher Monday, after a sign was posted in the window of the 89-ER Movie Theater warning parents they were going to fast forward through a scene of the new animated movie “Lightyear”.

The scene in question occurs near the beginning of the film, and shows two women briefly kissing; it has been banned in several other countries because of the scene.
The sign was reportedly posted over the weekend and KFOR became aware it was shared repeatedly on social media, and after a viewer sent in a copy of the photo.

A content warning for the 89-ER for the popular animated film Lightyear
As of Monday afternoon, it had been removed.

Lightyear was rated ‘PG’, or ‘Parental Guidance Suggested: some material may not be suitable for children,’ meaning the movie should be investigated further by parents.

Movie ratings were established in 1968, and according to The Classification and Rating Administration (CARA), as a tool to help parents determine if a movie is suitable for their kids to watch.

“That poster [that] the Kingfisher theater posted upset me a bit,” said Jacqueline Williams, a parent who was taking her son to see the movie at another theater and saw a post about the warning on Facebook.

“I don’t want my child to be afraid of anyone based on who they love or what their orientation is,” she added. “And I feel like that poster breeds fear.”

Jacqueline said it was only the second time ever that she’d taken her son to see a movie in a theater; she told KFOR that it’s her responsibility as a parent to decide what her young pre-schooler sees.

“I think it’s not giving parents a choice,” she said about the idea of fast forwarding through the movie. “If I’m taking my kid to see the movie, chances are I know what the movie is going to have and I’m going to understand it.”

Jacqueline Williams viewing the movie with her son at another theater Monday
And I’ve chosen to take my kid there anyways,” she added.

Theater management declined an interview with KFOR; they also did not respond to additional questions about why they posted the sign, or if they’ve posted similar warnings for other movies in the past.

The other movie showing at the theater, Jurassic World Dominion, is rated PG-13. No warning was posted about that film.

As Williams entered the morning matinee with her husband and son, she said the kiss represented an opportunity to teach a lesson, rather than breed a culture of fear.

“It’s important to start having conversations with them early so you can help them navigate that world,” she said.

“I don’t want my child to ever be afraid of somebody or less kind of somebody because of their orientation or who they love.”

[Darin Steffl]

Wow the bigotry from that Theatre is insane. I think they'll be in trouble with their agreement with Disney for not showing the movie uninterrupted.

[Mike Blakesley]

Yeah they should probably brace for a phone call from Disney - or their booker will get the call, and they may be taken off service if they don't cut it out.

The scene is question is so brief and it's not like the two women are making out or even kissing romatically -- it's more of a "see you after work, honey" kind of kiss. And, it'll spoil one of the major plot points of the movie if they skip the entire scene, because the two-women-couple scene is a series of flashbacks that depict other happenings too.

I'm sure the scene is designed to either be innocuous, or stimulate a conversation, depending on who is looking at it and what their attitude is. To deny or try to hide the fact that these kinds of relationships are becoming more common and open in society is just dumb, because the kids are gonna find out anyway -- and most of them probably already know, at least by the time they understand what a "couple" is.

To me the sad thing is the situation won't improve for the theatre even if they take steps to rectify it. They posted the notice.... got castigated for it... and have now removed it. Maybe they even already got a phone call from Disney. But thanks to social media the damage is now done to them and can't be undone. Even if the owner was to apologize and say "Sorry, I made a mistake," it wouldn't matter because people just aren't allowed to make mistakes these days.

[Geoff Jones]

Hmmmm.

"Sorry, I made a mistake" seems like something you might say if you got distracted and waited too long to dump the popcorn and it burned.

"Oops, I accidentally posted a sign on the front door and have been accidentally fast-forwarding through a portion of the movie that I can't tolerate" doesn't feel quite the same.

Did they remove the sign because they gave it further consideration and realized that what they were doing "is just dumb," or did they remove the sign because they realized they were getting a backlash?

Since they declined to speak to the press, I guess we're left to draw our own conclusions.


I'm glad social media provides more visibility into the behaviors of different businesses so that customers can make informed choices in a competitive free market. I guess that makes me "conservative."

[Dustin Grush]

We are also doing about 25% of what I expected Lightyear to do. Most kid movies do well at the Drive-In during summer. I think that it suffered from bad press leading into it, what with the "kissing scene" and the lack of Tim Allen, that enough people wanted to stay away. There wasn't much excitement from patrons about it leading up to it either... people usually ask about movies when they see the posters/trailers. There have been a lot of questions about Jurassic and Minions, but I can't remember any about Lightyear, and there is no excitement about Thor, which will likely be our next Disney flop...

As to the movie itself, it does not seem to hold anyone's attention for very long. I can usually tell when the movie is interesting because the snack bar/restrooms will be dead while the movie is on, then come to life again during intermission. This movie sees traffic throughout.

[Leo Enticknap]

I think they'll be in trouble with their agreement with Disney for not showing the movie uninterrupted.

And they deserve to be. Once you start allowing individual theaters to edit the movies they play (and the scary thing is that by means of "jump forward to [timecode]" cues, this is now very easily done), no paying customer can ever be sure that they've seen the complete picture. Even without the political dimension, it would allow some theater manager to decide that a given movie drags a bit, and that by taking 20 minutes out of it, they can squeeze an extra show into the day.

This place either needs to play the complete movie as it was supplied to them, or not play it at all.

[Jon Dent]

I remember it was very common 'way back when' for movies to be edited according to their 'community standards'. One of the reasons why there's 6,482 different versions of the original "Last House on the Left" out there.

That theater had it's head in the sand if it didn't think it would get a huge online backlash for doing something like that in this day and age. If you think the film will so horribly offend the community then just don't play the damn thing.

I had to put in a call to our booker to make sure we can still get Minions 2 in next week if Lightyear falls again to Jurassic World this weekend, which it looks increasingly like it will.

This thread should really be moved to the "Ground Floor" section....