Would it be best for them to just cancel this series? Put it down like Old Yeller?

 

They aren't ever going to cancel anything Walking Dead. Even a poor Walking Dead show still brings in more ratings than virtually anything else AMC can muster up (AMC is traditionally a channel that really struggles with ratings). The whole franchise has become extremely stagnant anyways. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the main shows ratings go down into the 2's and 3's this year. There just isn't any excitement anymore. I guarantee you more people will play Last of Us 2 come February then there will be who are still watching TWD these days.

 

I said this going into season 5, but I'll repeat it here for 6. I think season 6 will be the end of this series and will be used to connect the other series together.

The brain trust behind TWD universe will need to make some hard decisions. FTWD's bad publicity is going to hurt the franchise overall. I compare the two franchises a lot, but it reminds me of Star Wars in a way.

The Last Jedi was arguably the most divisive movie of the entire franchise, and it absolutely hurt the box office for Solo. A lot of people were so turned off by TLJ that they simply weren't excited about Solo. There was a lot of talk about over exposure and simply losing excitement. So much so that they pulled back on a bunch of movies they planned. They realized that Star Wars fatigue could actually be a thing. I firmly believe if TLJ had the same reception that The Force Awakens had, Solo would have had larger numbers and the planned movies would have not been canceled or delayed.

The same thing could happen here. People are still excited about the main show, mostly due to the positive reviews from season 9. But with a third series about to film and three planned Grimes movies (I still think theaters is a bad idea). It's getting to the point where the negative reviews for FTWD could effect those other shows. If FTWD was amazing, people would be excited. It would be more of a "I can't wait to see what they come up with next" feeling for the third series. But because it sucks so bad it could easily have a negative impact where people only focus on the main show. It could be "TWD is good but so far their other show sucks and the others will probably suck too.".

If they really want this universe to work, every single property must be strong. They can't have one series that everybody hates because the writing is complete ass garbage, and hope people tune into a third series. This isn't "well let's try again"....it should be "People can't get enough of our ideas".


They need to take a half season approach with FTWD, write the first half in such a way where if it doesn't work and fans don't come back, you can write the second half to connect to the helicopter people and shuffle over the popular characters to the Grimes movies and eventually the main show or third series. AMC needs to give these clowns an ultimatum, 6A better be pronominal and see rave reviews or 6B will be the last thing you make.

It can be fixed, anything can be fixed. I don't think these show runners are capable. But maybe if AMC hires new writers to help them out, it's possible.

 

Yeah. It's brutal. Appropriate, but still. I felt sorry for the Tweedles sitting on the Talking Dead couch. They've had all the stuffing knocked out of them.

 

Same. No sense in listening to these clowns talk about telling a story while Hardwick feliatiates them like a circus seal blowing horns.

 

Yeah. I figured the majority of people wouldn't have. It's why I repeated some of the things I heard.

 

The TLJ comparison to Solo was just something that people who didn't like TLJ invented in order to place blame onto a movie they didn't like. And it was largely the click bait channels that invented the theory. There were a dozen other reasons why Solo didn't do well and TLJ's reception would have been one of the last reasons on the list.

As far as them pulling back on the standalone movies that had as much to do with them launching their own streaming service as it did anything else.​

Likewise if the next season of TWD continues to drop in the ratings it will have had little to do with a completely different show in FTWD. It will largely just be that people are getting tired of TWD. Yes a portion of the fan base was pleased with season 9 of TWD but the ratings still dropped just as much in season 9 as they did in seasons 7 and 8. THe show is simply well past its prime. They are in their 10th season now and there still is no end game or wrap up point in site. THe actors are wanting to move on with their careers and are leaving the show. This isn't a franchise like Marvel or Star Wars where it's vast fan base wants it to last forever. Walking Dead is a series mainly tailored towards horror fans. It is basically a fad that has come and gone. Zombies aren't a thing now like they were back in 2012-2014.

 

The Last Jedi really broke the back of the franchise because it screwed up Luke. The handling of him was poor from start to finish. It's fine that they wanted to build up new characters for the future, but you don't do it be deconstructing and destroying old ones. It's even made people go back and become more critical of The Force Awakens.

The only Disney Star Wars film that I really like is Rogue One. It's both a standalone movie and one that does an amazing job of linking back to the original trilogy. If they had taken that sort of creative energy and applied it to this recent trilogy, with the return of Luke/Leia/Han we could've really had something special.

 

Eh not really. @Chr1s was pretty much just repeating a lot of the same junk that youtubers who were trying to create fancy thumbnails in order to get people to click on their videos were saying. Sure a portion of the fanbase didn't like the way Luke was handled just like portions of the Star Wars fanbase are critical of every Star Wars release. It's a massive fanbase and their devotion to the franchise makes TWD look like childs play. And when you deal with fans who are that devoted they are going to dissect and be critical of almost every aspect of a film.

This is how much TLJ broke the back of the franchise though. Ep. IX is still three months away but it is still trending about two to three times as well as films that are being released now are (and that includes other huge releases like Joker). The little two second clip they put out of Dark Rey has created dozens and dozens of theory videos over what it is supposed to mean.

And I'll just repeat again. If TWD's ratings continue to fall for season 10 it will have had little to do with FTWD that has an entirely different cast of characters. It will simply be that people are growing increasingly tired of the main show. It has been going on for ten years now and there still is no end in sight for the story. Fans of episodic television generally don't have the patience for that kind of thing. Add to that is that the actors themselves are growing tired of the show and wanting to move on. Rick and Maggie were last season, Michonne will be this season and you know there will be more to come. Finally the zombie fad just isn't what it was five years ago. People are starting to grow tired of zombie stories in general.

Last of Us 2 is getting a huge amount of buzz mainly because people trust NaughtyDog and the last game created two of the most well developed characters arguably in the history of gaming.

 

Ok, forget Star Wars. I'll simplify my overall point so things can't be taken out of context.

My point is, FTWD being so terrible this past season absolutely can have an effect on viewership for the main show and even future shows and movies. Obviously other factors come into play in regards to the ebb and flow of ratings and no matter how good TWD, FTWD, the Grimes movies or the new series is, TWD will never see 12 million viewers per episode again. We all agree with that.

But my only point is having a "universe" like this means each property needs to be high quality or the overall product will suffer.

EDIT: It's funny, I was just browsing the FTWD sub on reddit and there is a thread on there were people are talking about not bothering to watch the new show because of how bad FTWD was and with Gimple overseeing everything the new show will probably be bad. Some also said TWD is bad too, and I know that doesn't "prove my point". It's just a few people talking on reddit, but it does go towards my point that FTWD being so bad can have a negative effect on how some people see the overall property.

 

No the bigger issue is that they shouldn't even be attempting to give TWD a universe like this. It's simply not a vast enough or devoted enough fan base to make multiple shows and movies all set in the same universe worthwhile. When your tentpole show is losing an average of about two to three million viewers each season that isn't a sign that you should be expanding.

Walking Dead definitely was a thing for a couple years but its turning out that it was more just a fad than anything else. What AMC should be doing is instead of creating even more shows and movies to boot (movies which I still have doubts are even going to happen) is they should be putting all their effort into the one show and creating a wrap up plan and shooting for a memorable ending. But instead of doing that AMC continues to say "Walking Dead universe is going to last for fifty years' even though it is becoming very evident now that the franchise isn't meant to be that. And as a result of that stance the show just jumped from one long drawn out conflict during seasons 7 and 8 to another long drawn out conflict in seasons 9 and 10 (both having equally cheesy villains more cut out for the comic than an actual tv show).

No the last season and a half of FTWD hasn't been good but one thing I definitely appreciate about it is that it is a far more realistic version of a post apocalyptic situation than the main show is. THe main show has basically just turned into a never ending cartoon.

THe reason AMC is doing this with the TWD franchise in my opinion is quite clear. And that is that they really struggle to get good ratings for their shows. TWD was not the norm for them. Most of their shows struggle to even get a million viewers an episode so if they create more Walking Dead shows which say only gets 1.5 million viewers they would still have more people tuned into that than virtually anything else they could make that didn't have the Walking Dead title on it.

 

Some of the recent episodes of FTWD, especially in the back half of S5, were so bad I thought I was watching a parody. The fact that there is no talk by tptb about recycling the showrunners makes me very nervous for TWD3. And I'm already nervous considering the average age of the main cast is mid-toddler. The good news is we can put that car wreck behind us as 'tis the season for the real TWD!!

 

That final sequence in Rouge One with Darth Vader completely made up for the lame final scene from Revenge of the Sith. They were going in the right direction when Anakin slaughtered the Padawans at the temple. Then once he actually becomes full DARTH VADER all he does is cry and force crush a couple of robots. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. The Rouge One Darth Vader was the Darth Vader that we all wanted and needed to see.

I just realized that this post has nothing to do with the topic. Sorry! lol

 

And there is a good chance you will see more of that Darth Vader fighting in the recently announced Obi Wan series. As a lot of people are theorizing that the main plot of that series will be Obi Wan giving it one last try to redeem Vader. Which leads to Vader's statement in ROTJ in that 'Obi Wan once thought as you do'


Edit. And this has been a good day to be a Star Wars fan as they have announced three new titles today at New York comic con.

 

I am VERY excited about the Mandalorian series. It's got Apollo Creed, baby!

 

Yep. And it comes out in just a little over a month. It's set in a time period that they can do virtually anything they want (at least without having a full out galaxy wide war) as there is very little we know from about 5ABY to about 28 ABY (there havn't even been any books or comics released during that time period).