People tend to get super invested in quality content that they love. The flipside of that is, while their love can be intense, so can their hatred. Two sides of the same coin and all.. There's also a feeling of personal attack if someone dislikes content overs love or if said content has seemingly gone down in quality - it's largely the same with video game consoles. People have some sort of investment in the product (on a personal and/or financial level), and if said product/content/whatever is "attacked" they feel it's a personal slight on them.

We're also just a very bored, overprivileged society as a whole these days. Most of us (at least younger folks) have never known the real hardship of something like war, famine, economic depression, etc, so we turn to frivolous shit to bitch about because that's about all there is these days for many of us in the Western world.. And hell, I include myself in this, and I have been guilty of the same somewhat. Outside of having mountains of student loans up the ass, I'm a pretty comfortable middle class dude with a decent life XD.

I have mixed feelings on this idea of "toxic fandom." I certainly agree that fans should definitely NOT be harassing or flinging insults at people to their face (whether it be the cast or other fans) for most anything related to entertainment - that idea is absurd to me and just screams immaturity and toxicity. But fans simply making youtube videos or ranting about the product ITSELF I think is fine, in fact it's potentially great! Art should be critiqued, as it opens discussion and potentially allows artists and their work to grow and evolve. It's freedom of speech, which is particularly justified in cases where the consumer is spending their time and money on a product. They have every right to voice their opinion, even if it's an extremely harsh or passionate one.

But again, where *I* have beef is if fans are attacking other fans or the artists/performers/content creators themselves - whether it be TLJ fans baselessly claiming "sexism" or "immature manchildren" or whatever to those who (I believe rightfully) weren't keen on Last Jedi, or old school Star Wars nerds attacking the cast, writers, director, or fans of the NEW stuff, etc. Criticize the art all you want. Spend hours on it, be passionate about it, shout it from the rooftops. Hell, this dude on youtube, Mauler, has like a 6 hour critique of the Last Jedi as well as an hour of just raw ranting of each event of TLJ. I'm not terribly proud to admit this but I watched it all and actually found it entertaining lol.

Attack the ART, not the FANS nor the ARTIST (unless said artist is baselessly/unjustly attacking the fans FIRST - which I actually HAVE seen a bit in a few cases lately). That's the separation I make, and it should be the one everyone makes.

We seem to be increasingly forgetting the very simple concept of live and let live. This is particularly worrying, and asinine considering this is seemingly even becoming the case for the harmless ENTERTAINMENT we prefer now...

I'd like to briefly resurrect this thread to declare victory on a point I had made earlier that was baselessly disputed here.

Among the topics we debated here on this thread was that of whether and to what extent moviegoing audiences enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker. I pointed to exit polls of opening weekend theater attendees (as in sources like Comscore's PostTrak survey and the CinemaScore letter-grading exit poll), all of which indicated this to be the most disliked entry in the current trilogy. Some people (I believe it was originally @Hiku specifically) disputed by highlighting the 86% audience approval score for the film on Rotten Tomatoes. I pointed out that, unlike exit polls, the Rotten Tomatoes "audience" approval score is just an online system that doesn't verify you actually saw the movie. People responded to this with non-quantified claims of the opinions they're seeing on their social medias, and it went on from there. It was a debate over how public opinion about movies can best be gauged.

Alright, people can argue with the findings of surveys I guess, but it's tough to argue with what actual ticket sales suggest. Trends in ticket sales over time are the most concrete proof there is as to just what kind of word of mouth is getting around about a given film. Opening weekend ticket sales can be written off to pre-release hype and maybe even second weekend ticket sales to an extent too, but by the third weekend, we're definitely mostly talking about the impact of word of mouth. And we now have that data. Here are the trends in domestic ticket sales for The Rise of Skywalker so far, measured on a weekend-by-weekend basis, compared to The Last Jedi:

Opening Weekend

The Last Jedi: $220 million
Rise of Skywalker: $177 million

Weekend 2 Drop

The Last Jedi: -67%
Rise of Skywalker: -59%

Weekend 3 Drop

The Last Jedi: -27%
Rise of Skywalker: -52%

In other words, The Rise of Skywalker is now dropping twice as fast as The Last Jedi did at the aligned point relative to original release, and from a lower baseline at that. It definitely won't catch up to The Last Jedi's total ticket sales. And that breaks with Star Wars tradition, it's worth noting. In both of the previous Star Wars film trilogies, the third and concluding installment outsold the middle one. This will be the first Star Wars trilogy wherein the middle installment, which always leaves you hanging, is more commercially successful than the 'satisfying' finale.

This trend aligns with the exit poll data I highlighted before. It does NOT align with the 86% "audience" approval score on Rotten Tomatoes. Case closed on which sources are more reliable gauges of audience opinion.

Once again, you're reading something the data doesn't actually show. Ticket sales are just that, ticket sales, they are not thoughts or opinions. They can only definitively show how many people went to see the movie. They do not show whether or not those people enjoyed the movie in the way a review site can. You claim bad word of mouth from people who saw the movie is what made the difference in sales, a fair assumption, but an assumption nonetheless. I can similarly say that it's the TLJ to blame for lower interest in TROS.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm only here to point out what I said in my first sentence. I've no interest in debating which movie is worse when both are trash, and arguing over audience reception is just silly.

Since, being the cool kid on the block, I can think of nothing better to do with my Saturday night than post on VGC, I feel like complaining some more about The Rise of Skywalker because I'm still pissed off about it. The focus of today's gripe will be the much-hyped "historic LGBT representation" it provides.

First of all, to be selfish and politically incorrect for a minute, let me take exception to the premise. The L, the G, the B, and the T in that expression all refer to different things. What happens in this film is a one-second LESBIAN kiss. Why do we insist on using a generic expression like "LGBT" as though the two women might be trans or something instead of the more obvious term that recognizes them as, you know, women? They are not "LGBT", they are not "queer", whatever that even means, and they are not simply "gay" as though they might be male, either. This is a LESBIAN act. Why must it be called something more obscure than that by the press? Use the expression "LGBT representation" when you include it for ALL of those groups, not just one! Sorry, pet peeve of mine there.

So anyway, yeah, they snuck in a one-second kiss between two women of no narrative importance whose names I can't even recall if they were even used near the end of the film. If you blinked at the wrong time, you'd have missed it. I had to Google the scene after the movie to confirm that it was, in fact, two women in that scene because it was so brief that I questioned my initial judgment. Anyway, this was the special "representation" the filmmakers had touted pre-release. Okay.

Let me point something out here: until near the end of this movie, THE MAIN CHARACTER, Rey, had no love interest. While I never believed for a second that Disney would dare allow anyone to make a character as central as Rey explicitly lesbian or anything like that, as that would be several bridges too far for most of the already-butthurt #StarWarsFans, let's be honest (to say nothing of One Million Moms), they could've just simply left things as they were in that regard and not given her a romance arc. (Why does everybody have to have one anyway?) As things were, it was at least possible for me to imagine Rey as a lesbian. Now that she's lip-locked with Kylo Ren (whyyyyyyyyyyyyy????), that is no longer possible. But they gave me a one-second kiss between two no-name characters in the background toward the end of the movie and that's supposed to make up the difference for me? Well, it doesn't. Not by a long shot. The logical substitution I have just described is called pandering, not progress. And the "historic" scene wasn't even included in all versions of the movie!

Groundbreaking! Let us all shower Disney with praise for their monumental bravery!

I'm a woman and I didn't need one.

And pretty much nobody wanted THAT romance arc (the one between Rey and Kylo) to judge by the audible audience reaction in the theater I attended.

Mad Max: Fury Road, for example, was a major action film released this last decade that did just fine without specifically heterosexualizing its female lead. I felt like Disney could've just treated Rey the same sort of way if they didn't want the controversy that would inevitably have followed giving her a girlfriend or something. They didn't have to do anything more. They just had to NOT give her a male love interest and I could've at least imagined her as a lesbian. But no.

EDIT:

Also, what about Little Women? Unlike The Rise of Skywalker, who's audience has been two-thirds male according to ComScore's exit poll of moviegoing audiences, Little Women's audience has been two-thirds female according to the same poll. The lead female character, Jo,  in Greta Gerwig's version of the classic novel, never marries or anything. Audiences loved it, gave it 5 stars out of 5 in that poll, a 92% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes (for those who inexplicably trust that more), all that.

Also also, what about Elsa even? Frozen 2 is Disney's other major holiday movie of the season. No romance arc for the lead character, Elsa. Elsa's pretty clearly supposed to be a lesbian character. I mean the whole core plot of the movie is that she's chasing after this mysterious female voice that she describes as her "true love" and even dedicates a whole coming out song to. We're even given a specific character who appears to show interest in her early on. But then, to prevent conservatives from leaving in protest, the voice inexplicably turns out to be that of her deceased mom instead. That way it stays safely about family and everything because Disney. But anyway, my point is that at least they didn't actively DENY the possibility that Elsa is lesbian by giving her a male love interest. They just left her as-is. Why couldn't the same company do the same thing for Rey? Anyway, also predominantly a female audience for this movie.

The success of both of these films at the box office, driven by women, shows that women do NOT, in fact, need for their female leads to always fall in romantic love to be satisfied.

The adding of LGBT stuff by Disney so lazily done it is too obvious just for cookiepoints from the media,if you want to represent diverse groups then you better do it decently.This just feels useless to be thrown into the viewers face looking at it plotwise.

The fact that this so low effort done by the company as Disney stings even more because they just adjust their diversity in order to get more sales from China.

See the Hazbin Hotel animation,that one also has different sexual orientations but it does really tie it in with the story so does not bother.

You were claiming people complain about TLJ for political reasons even after giving explicitly critical reasons and looking down on them for it. Now here you are, complaining about TROS for political reasons. "Do I as I say but not as I do."

I'd still like to know why you believe representation is so important as if it can cause change. You are even aware that the scene was removed in territories where oppression for women/lgbt/etc. is actually real, meaning supported by the majority pop and the government. It hasn't done anything, naturally as representation is not even allowed until the oppression has ended. Companies don't care about causes more than money so they'll only push them where it's safe as it's free easy brownie points.

Representation can only be the result of change, not the start of it, and change requires risk and sacrifice, as those in power generally don't give a shit about intangibles like words and movies.

I don't know about you but I thought the "tension" between Rey and Kylo was there since the start. Why would she be a lesbian anyway, why does it matter? I noticed the two women kissing at the end, and I didn't anything of it because I'm from a place where we don't give a s**t about these things. Can happen, can also not. This 'representation' thing is, with all due respect, such an American thing to be hung up about.

In my country's defense, it's a high society thing, not an American thing. Doubtless there are people who care about it in other western 1st world countries as well. When you don't have any real problems to deal with, you gotta find them, make them up, or blow up any small issues. I guess people need ways to feel like their life matters and makes a difference, that everything good that's happened to them was earned through their effort and not because of privilege/luck. I imagine people are more likely to support someone who's struggling/fighting for a cause than someone who isn't, so this false pretense is a beneficial one to have.

It just didn't feel like a Star Wars movie. Sure it had lightsabers and x-wings but...

The sequel trilogy should have had a single director from start to finish, if JJ had been in control of 8 and 9 from the beginning I think they would have been very different films.

IX while not as bad as TLJ felt extremely rushed and the brief addressing of the "holdo maneuver" made me cringe hard. Force Awakens tried to set up plot points, TLJ ripped them down. Rise of Skywalker was stuck trying to continue a story that didn't exist.

TLJ set nothing up, it left a complete blank slate by wiping out the resistance and it killed off a major villain that should have been important to the trilogies plot.

Snoke being alive, and revealed to have been palpatine all along at the end of IX could have worked but without Snoke alive we start IX and suddenly, oh there's Palpatine ok.

But all the blame can't be laid on TLJ. Star Destroyers with Planet Killing Weapons? Are you telling me that the empire had to build a space station the size of a moon, but now we can have 100's of small star destroyers with the same capability? Out of nowhere? WTF?

All logic and sensibility is thrown out of the window to achieve unnecessary escalation such as the holdo maneuever and the planet destroying fleet that completely break the universe.