| Shadow1980 said: I really enjoyed TROS. I've seen it twice already and plan to go at least once more. I enjoyed the other Disney-era films as well. I hope to see more. I go to the movies to be entertained, and Star Wars has always delivered in that regard. Even the prequels were enjoyable, warts and all, and I still watch them all the time. But it really seems that movies can't just be treated as entertainment anymore. They're dragged into these stupid internet culture wars (some of it political, some of it just bog-standard nerd wars). Grown people—grown people—took TLJ way too fucking personally. They're having white-hot rage over an entry in a kids' fantasy film series that's about laser sword-wielding space wizards, ragtag rebels, and comically evil Empires. TROS has been better-received, but it's obvious that some people really hate its guts as well. This is all just a rehash of the whole "debate" over the prequels and everything else that induced rage in certain parts of the fanbase. And it's not just Star Wars that gets this treatment, though Star Wars hate is certainly more visible because of the sheer size of the fan base. I can only imagine what it must look like to an outside observer when they see someone get this bent out of shape over a movie, to the point where many find it necessary to churn out constant hour-long YouTube videos about how much they hate the movie, or to harass the cast and crew on social media, or to storm review sites en masse to bombard a movie's page with 1/10 scores, or to actively discourage others from even giving the movie a chance, or to write rambling manifestos. How did this get to become acceptable behavior? This level of hate towards a movie has gone beyond all reason and sanity, and is nothing short of a reflection of the worst aspects of fandom. I love Star Wars, but it's not something that defines me as a human being. They're movies. Fun movies, but movies nonetheless. If I see something I object to, I can get over it. To paraphrase Lando: I may not like it, I may not agree with it, but I accept it. I don't go on some damn fool idealistic crusade, demanding that directors get fired or whatever, and taking every chance I get to remind everyone how much I didn't like this, that, or the other. Seriously, being a fan of Star Wars, and especially of Disney-era Star Wars, has been fucking depressing these past two years (although it's been pretty damn depressing in the past as well). It seems like every day I see something online that makes me go "This totally justifies the existence of the internet," only to later see something that makes me go "Okay. That's enough. Time to shut the whole thing down," and Star Wars "discussion" as of late has definitely been part of the latter. Toxic fandom has been an issue for way too long, and it's grown increasingly cancerous in this era of social media that we're in. I just hope that once enough time has passed between the sequels and now that cooler heads will prevail. The fury over the prequels when they were new was arguably just as bad, yet here we are 20 years after The Phantom Menace and people are far less hostile towards them. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Maybe in 15-20 years people will grow to appreciate the sequels more, though by then they'd be complaining about some new Star Wars film or show supposedly ruining the franchise forever, just like the fifty other times it was supposedly ruined forever. It reminds me of Holden McNeil's line in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back (a film that's now 18 years old): "The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another. ... This is a site populated by militant movie buffs: sad, pathetic little bastards living in their parents' basement downloading scripts and what they think is inside information about movies and actors they claim to despise yet can't stop discussing. This is where you go if you wanna hear frustrated would-be filmmakers mouth off with their two-bit, arm-chair-director's opinions on how they all could've made a better Episode One."
Well, at least everyone seems to enjoy The Mandalorian. |
"Well, at least everyone seems to enjoy The Mandalorian."
>Unfortunate that Disney didn't make the sequels more like The Mandalorian and less like the sequels.
