Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

[Professor Bear]

Star Wars fans are the absolute worst.

Signed, a Star Trek fan.
ps: don't ask me my opinions on Star Trek Discovery

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I do feel that internet trolls often end up getting much, much more credit than they deserve for how much of the fandom (or any group, media-related or no) they represent, and then often the other side dig in and become even more extreme in their opposite opinion to try counter-act this perceived threat. It all polarises pretty darn fast and anyone can get sucked into it if they're not careful!

[JOE SOAP]

And I don't agree with the opinion that star wars fans are a toxic bunch, I don't think that could be further from the truth. There's just a bunch of unpleasant vocal extreme fans who are making a lot of noise....they are a part of every fan following, including this one.

They're the most militant and vocal section, naturally, but many other fans who're just unhappy have found a common goal with them: Kill Kennedy. They don't care if there are Trumpettes leading the charge as long as they get rid of the woman and her cohorts whom they see as obstacles standing in the way of them getting the Star Wars they want – whatever that means amongst 3 generations of fans. I heard one particular middle-aged woman say that Star Wars should only be run by an 'alpha male'. How you parse the lot of them out I don't know.

The failure is Disney's expectation of a higher yield on all Star Wars revenue: if they can't pump out successful and well received yearly ads (films/TV shows like Marvel) to sell their upcoming SW theme park, then they will perceive a problem in the chain. They have concentrated on the fan backlash because they see it as influencing who turns up, and toy sales, rather than being a Star Wars centric phenomenon, have fallen globally for Hasbro, Mattel and Lego, so it probably means a restructuring with a concentration on games, streaming shows and streamlining the film releases.

[TordelBack]

often the other side dig in and become even more extreme in their opposite opinion to try counter-act this perceived threat.

Thing is though, if you aren't in the group that constantly uses misogynistic and racist language, attacks actors and filmmakers online relentlessly, asserts their personal version of SW to be the only 'true' one and demands that people be fired, films be scrapped or remade to adhere to that, it can be quite hard to shrug and say "all fans together, eh".

Again, as so often these days, I just don't see the two positions as being equally valid, or equally squalid.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I wasn't saying that all sides of any particular argument are equally valid, or that we should all just be friends. I just meant that the 'correct' side often loses balance and nuance too, and additionally I think the constant outrage and polarisation on the internet is changing us for the worse, indulging our tribal tendencies constantly and in an addictive way.

Personally I don't know if I've ever even heard of this Kennedy person before, but if she's been running Star Wars it might not be a bad thing if she's replaced, there's been some royal cock-ups in my opinion. I'm sure I'd be lumped in with sexists for saying that in some quarters! Thankfully I only use social media to annoy games companies

[TordelBack]

I wasn't saying that all sides of any particular argument are equally valid, or that we should all just be friends. I just meant that the 'correct' side often loses balance and nuance too, and additionally I think the constant outrage and polarisation on the internet is changing us for the worse, indulging our tribal tendencies constantly and in an addictive way.

Sure, didn't mean to suggest you did, just that I frequently find this argument goes along the '...from a certain point of view' line, whereas I tend to see a significant element of the 'SJW Bitch Kennedy Must Die!  Remake Last Jedi But Without Whores and Asians! Star Wars is about the MOST POWAHFUL MEN EVAH HITTING EACH OTHER WITH GLOWSTICKS!' crowd as being just another facet of the 'enemies of all that is good in the universe' gang, who I am heartily sick of accommodating with silence.   

Disllking current SW, or feeling it's got things wrong (it has), is fine. A quick glance at the TPM trailer I keep on my desktop reminds me that its been that way for 20 years.   I'd rather a whole raft of different choices had been made at the start, but I accept that corporate interests meant that if new films were going to happen it was only going to go the one way: one of the reasons I like TLJ, it felt like a welcome change in direction.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

Yeah those people are poison absolutely, no-one should feel they have to just grin and bear their shit. But we have to be mindful not to let that toxic minority cloud and polarise our opinions on the subjects they bring up.

[Professor Bear]

I'm not saying there aren't dicks out there, but it's worth remembering that corporations now run their own Youtube channels for trailers rather than letting the trailers out into the wild like they used to, and what they have done with this new level of control over the visibility of public reaction is to delete reasonably presented criticisms (IE: "this does not seem very original", "there are no funny jokes in this trailer" etc) and yet leave the misogynistic, racist, alt-right anti-feminist and entitled fanboy comments in place.
They've deliberately cultivated the narrative of fandom as an awful thing, my own theory being that they resisted the current models of media distribution for years, preferring instead to try and put the genie back in the bottle much as they did when home taping went mainstream*, and they similarly resisted the rise of social media as an important marketing platform ("this forum is on thin ice!") until they absolutely couldn't anymore, and now because they sat with their fingers in their ears yet again for - let's be honest here - decades, fandom has organised in their absence and established their own communities where reactions to new things will likely first materialise, and possibly even a consensus will form.  Corporations need these organised fandoms to go away so that they can be replaced with more easily manipulated consumer groups, and that's why we're seeing these attacks on Ghostbusters, Star Trek and now Star Wars fans - in order for the corporate owners to exclusively dictate the terms of discussion about and reactions to their products, they have to invalidate voices or opinions that might not play along.

The latest target seems to be She-Ra fans, who are apparently all misogynistic jerks for pointing out that She-Ra looks more abstractly stylised than she used to because Filmation's techniques could accommodate the animation of more complex character designs such as those based on toys or action figures. whereas 2d animation has latterly erred to more consistent but less detailed character models that are easier to replicate digitally and can lend themselves to more easily produced toy molds.
In other words, new She-Ra has a big chin and no cleavage so it must be sexists complaining, and the best way to combat them is to do loads of fanart and promote our show for us.  OUR SHOW WHICH IS ONLY ON NETFLIX etc

* Though unsurprisingly they also tried to keep all the extra profits that came from emergent platforms, hence the last two major writers' strikes

[TordelBack]

I think that's a pretty astute analysis, but it doesn't take away from the current and immediate consequence, where the antediluvian whinings of overgrown infants is the loudest noise in creation, and commensurately garners the most attention.  Whoever is smoothing their path towards ever-greater cultural (and political) influence and normalisation of behaviour and distortions of language that I can hardly believe, I wish they'd lay the feck off. It's wall-to-wall Sc*j* out there now, with a side order of unironic Godpleton.

And the She-Ra thing had me nodding along in agreement with JMS' comments, which is always disturbing.

[SIP]

My general opinions haven't changed, I thought Force Awakens was a very safe and promising start, but I didn't like the token death in it. Last Jedi was not my thing at all, with a flurry of bad decisions that not only ruined that film, but has retrospectively robbed Force Awakens of some of its strongest story elements. The attempts at humour in Last Jedi fall entirely flat and feel out of place.

I do not find common ground with any of the extreme voices on you tube beyond my dislike of episode 8. I don't care who runs lucasfilm, I don't care about the gender, sexuality, race or religion of my heroes.....I just want an exciting action adventure film with positive aspirational role models for both of my children* (girl and a boy), hope, and good triumphing over evil. And please aim the films at all ages......I'm increasingly bemused by who each film is for. Last Jedi certainly played at a lot younger audience that the Clone wars cartoon.

On a positive note......it took me until the age of 45 to get bored about talking Star Wars. I think I just need to accept that it's an entirely different beast now and it seems is just not "my thing".

*can anyone point at the positive male role model in Last jedi?

[TordelBack]

Perfectly reasonable!

I don't really get the idea that TLJ aims younger than CW, though. Complexity-wise there was the manner of Rey and Ben's connection, Luke's fake-out, the arms dealing... all at least CW level stuff. In the grim/violence stakes, there was the whole bit with Snoke and his guards getting sliced and diced, Paige's death, Holdo's sacrifice (a particularly CW moment, actually) and the erosion of the entire Resistance down to the hold of a YT-1300 light freighter... even if there were a few hiding in the cape room.  I don't see much there that isn't at least at the age-level of CW, without quite as much of the exposition that dogged that show's middle period.

[Professor Bear]

I think that's a pretty astute analysis, but it doesn't take away from the current and immediate consequence, where the antediluvian whinings of overgrown infants is the loudest noise in creation, and commensurately garners the most attention.

This has surely long been a problem with the mainstream media - that negatively-skewed stories are the ones that have been proven to grab attention and thus reward those with advertising revenue to generate?  Add to which, most websites now rely upon "hate clicks" (deliberately provocative and/or wrong scenarios presented as fair comment in order to make people angry enough to share, view or respond to the text) as a revenue model with the rise of adblocking and popup blocking plugins wiping out the malware profit margins.
The real problem - as usual - is capitalism, as the issue is not the entitled man-babies who were always there, it is that their hate has now been successfully monetised and corporate concerns are not known for wanting to change course at the best of times, let alone when they've found a new money printing method.

[JOE SOAP]

Once youtubers realised they had a massive upswing in viewers and donations to their channels when they made a negative Lucasfilm video, the volume increased exponentially, and just about the only thing they talk about now is Star Wars and whole channels have been created to exploit it – which financially benefits youtube as well as its content producers.

[TordelBack]

...whole channels have been created to exploit it – which financially benefits youtube as well as its content producers.

Whole channels full of nothing but lies, in many cases.  Multiple videos per day by people (men, for want of a better word) whose ability to spell Kashyyyk might reasonably be called into question (I kid, no gatekeeping at Tordeltowers! Arriviste scum) with headlines 'KENNEDY FIRED!' turn out to have nothing to do with the content, said ranting usually consisting of reports of reports from Personal Contacts and Rock-Solid Sources who were at Top Secret Disney Boardroom Meetings where @joeskywalkerLIVES999's most recent observations were being taken Very Seriously. It's as if SuperShadow has metastasised and monetised in one hideous evolutionary leap. 

And again, none of the wit of RLM or a Jenny Nicholson type (her scathing review of Solo well worth a look, BTW), where at least you got a grin out of the invective.  This is just goateed baseball caps surrounded by Hot Toys Clone Troopers jealous much pretending they never doubted George Lucas (or Dave Filoni) for a second.

[TordelBack]

ADDENDUM:  It'd be an interesting study to analyse how many of these guys previously did the equally cynically uncritical Lucafilm fan panels for fun (and profit), before turning to the dark side (and profit).