How I lost the will to bash Star Wars :)

[Julius Seeker]

Long story short: There's no point in bashing Star Wars when its own fanbase hates it MUCH more than I could ever muster the energy for
These guys are seething with hatred, snobbery, bias, and extreme counts of "our opinion is FACT"ism.
Also, I actually like a few of the Star Wars films.

It began around Rogue One, when I realized "Wait, I actually dig this one!"
Second, I watched Star Wars 1977 (A New Hope), and thought "I kind of dig this one, too!" - basically, the menace of the Death Star and actually feeling the sacrifice and depth of the rebellion really gave the weight needed for me to like A New Hope.

I'll also slip in that I worked on a doomed Star Wars game for a few months around that time, and got really into the lore as I was doing a lot of research and content design stuff... before, Star Wars: TIE Fighter, TIE Fighter vs X-Wing, and Shadows of the Empire were really the only thing I knew of the Star Wars universe outside the original three films.

But The Last Jedi, the one so many people hated, I enjoyed that one too. I loved the twist, I loved the action, the beautiful shots, and the tight pacing. I don't get why so many Star Wars fans dislike that one, and they can't even properly rationalize it, the most that I can find are a list of nitpicks which that they put WAY too much weight behind. The thing about nitpicking a film is you can nitpick list EVERY film - and most of their nitpicking was loaded with "this is just bad" without any justification as to why it was bad--there's even complaints about pacing when The Last Jedi is actually one of the most to the book paced films you can watch. Hate-band wagons are nothing new, look at Titanic and Avatar... Why Star Wars fans are so susceptible to jumping on these band wagons nowadays compared to other fans, I don't know. If you think the Star Trek fanbase has too much negative/hate bandwagoning, it's got nothing on Star Wars fandom.

Anyway, I recently watched Solo all the way through for the first time, and liked that one too. I was buzzed! But I'm thinking a sober run would be about the same.

I'll leave The Rise of Batman vs Super Wars off this discussion =D

That's at least 4 Star Wars films I like more now which is one more than the hardcore Star Wars fans, like that ewok who calls himself Red Letter Media.

I've heard of toxic fanbases. Essentially, fanbases that gatekeep people from being fans unless they hate certain elements or parts of the series. I thought extraordinary toxicity was limited to Game of Thrones fandom - which surprises absolutely no one

But a little while before Game of Thrones went toxic, Star Wars did, and I've never seen anything so horrific. . Someone got 400+ upvotes on a comment telling me to go kill myself for saying positive stuff about The Last Jedi, and nothing negative about any of the other Star Wars films. Lots of comments about how The Last Jedi raped their childhood... and I'm pretty sure these are people like half my age.

I've never seen a self-loathing fan base as bad as this one. By my count, I like more Star Wars films than actual Star Wars fans.

They're the fanbase equivalent to Jonestown. Drinking the toxic kool-aid. So, even if I do dislike a Star Wars film, there's no way to have enough energy to bash it when Star Wars fans already dedicate entire youtube channels to bashing their worst enemy: Star Wars. I'd end up defending the film by saying "Well, it's not that bad, and you're being melodramatic with your 26 paragraphs of ALL CAPS shouting about how much some one's film hurt you."

It's a bit different when everyone loves a film (in my case, the Star Wars films) and you don't really like it.

Although, I wouldn't yell it out in the middle of public like that, but I'm not from New York

[Don]

I didn't think the new movies are that great so I don't think much about why they're bad. It's good for some relatively mindless fun though even the light saber fights are pretty unexciting probably because none of the cast are anybody you'd care about. I understand they don't want to just keep paying Harriston Ford $50 million and hogging all the spotlight but the new cast is just very underwhelming.

[Eric]

Star Wars is like any other huge franchise. It can have bad media, and it can have good media. The biggest problem is that when it has bad media, it has really really long reaching bad media. The prequels are really awful movies in general for example, but there's a foundation there for good Star Wars lore, world building, and seeing the fall of Republic. The later seasons of Star Wars: Clone Wars is actually some of the best Star Wars stories ever made. That somebody who just saw the prequels, and has no interest in any of the expanded stuff won't really care about that, they'll just see a bad movie and wonder why all these idiot fans are so passionate about it.

To answer why Star Wars fans hated The Last Jedi is really simple. The Force Awakens set-up a lot of things that excited your core fan. Who is Rey? Why can she fight so well and use the force so well? Why did Kylo-ren fall to the dark side? Who is Snoke? Why is Luke not fighting? How will the Republic respond to the New Order, etc etc.

I don't want go into a piece by piece about it, but The Last Jedi basically shat on any and all speculation and felt like it was being contrary for the sake of being contrary to really stick it to people who thought they had Star Wars figured out. it isn't necessarily a bad thing you can't predict a where a movie is going, but The Last Jedi felt like it went out of its way to make these really incredibly stupid choices to deflate any excitement people might have about Star Wars and especially your core fan. Rey? She's no one. Snoke? Eh who cares he's dead. Luke? Yeah he gave up on his nephew, btw Luke's gonna die in this one because why not. Kylo's bad because....I still don't' know why he really turned to the Dark Side, and I've watched all 3 movies rofl.

Was The Last Jedi a bad movie? I dunno my exact reaction after watching the movie was stunned silence, and my girl looked at me and her exact words were "Are you ok?" to which I replied "I....don't think I liked it...I...I think that movie kinda sucked." rofl. I'll never forget it. No other movie in the franchise really gave me that reaction, and I sat through Episode 2 during a midnight release.

All that being said I like most Star Wars movies, even the Prequels for all their flaws, what they set-up for the fall of the Republic was really great. Rogue One was also pretty fun, I liked seeing the shady side of the Rebel Alliance, I liked seeing just how intimidating The Empire could be, and the last 30 minute space battle is A+. Solo wasn't a bad movie, it was just cheesy fun, it probably would have been better received as a Disney+ series.

Only films I don't particularly like are Episodes VIII(The Last Jedi), and Episode IX(The Rise of Skywalker). I think those movies shat on Star Wars, pretty much killed and destroyed any hope of interesting world building, and there's a reason that quite literally no media has come out around the Episode VII-XI era outside of a few comics, it's poison. I think Lucasfilm is probably gonna pivot into the High Republic era at some point.

[Don]

If they want to do something new with new characters then don't make everything that's a clear copy of what's been done before. They basically want to milk the old characters but also want to push some new characters that took a lot less money and you can't have it both ways. If the characters from the original trilogy never showed up I'm guessing nobody would really pay that much attention to the new trilogy and that's the problem right there.

[Julius Seeker]

I agree, one problem with The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker was how they recycled way too much from earlier films. That's actually why I liked The Last Jedi—it felt fresh. Yeah, it had Luke and Leia in it, but they felt like they had proper roles, rather than the forced involvement of Han and Leia in The Force Awakens.

On the other point. As far as the fans who didn't like The Last Jedi because it didn't match their speculation, that's unfortunate; but, it's really their own problem, not a problem with the film itself or the filmmakers. I'll get to that in a moment. I wanted to first clarify that my main gripe is the militant cult-like gatekeeping among certain factions of Star Wars fans. They take it MUCH further than just not liking a film for whatever reason. Many of these guys are legitimately nuts—stalking and harassing the cast and crew, and would prefer others to kill themselves than be Star Wars fans via The Last Jedi. I hesitate to call these people fans—more like Jedihadi fanatics.

Now, I understand there are plenty of fans who DO like The Last Jedi, perhaps even a majority, but most of them just keep their mouths shut because they don’t want to deal with these Jedihadi nutcases. At least, that’s the conclusion I’m drawing after dipping my toe in the waters of Star Wars fandom and finding it full of shitballs. The fanatics need therapy or something–they’re unfit to live in a society.

Back to blaming Rian Johnson. It’s absurd to think he was reacting to, and shitting, on the fan speculation. What would he gain from that? What would be the point? Also, literally not possible, because he wrote the entire script over a year before The Force Awakens came out—well before the speculation began. In fact, he’d already filmed half of The Last Jedi before the Force Awakens even came out.

Yeah, I can understand fans being emotionally attached to their own speculation, or even the type of groupthink bandwagon speculation of these Star Wars fans. The incapability of a person enjoying a film they speculated wrong about is, as I mentioned above, unfortunate. But then saying it’s the quality of the film or that the filmmaker was poor is just childish and egotistical “my opinion is fact” nonsense.

The Last Jedi is one of the two mainline Star Wars films not cheapened by cliche or contrivance. I'd argue A New Hope used to suffer from contrivance, but that's been fixed with Rogue One. How great is that? A prequel that actually enhanced existing films?

Going off on a tangent here - Rogue One's scenes are stunning! The use of shadows and grit, the destruction. They turned the original Death Star into an even greater menace than it already was—something of Typhonic levels - like a planet eating Cthulhu. Speaking of menace, there was Vader. But, apart from that, it really built into the factions of the Empire and Rebellion and their desperations. It gave a depth and disjointed quality of the rebellion that never existed in the other films, but needed to—they weren't just one unified force of good. Right from the beginning, killing Galen's wife in front of him and Jyn set the tone for the film. This one would not be the same Star Wars as the others. It was way darker - and not in the cartoony-melodramatic way of Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones, or Revenge of the Sith - but in a much colder, visceral way. - Now I'm finished.

Anyway, apart from not being plagued with cliches and contrivances like 7 of the 8 other mainline films, there are also a lot of other very strong points about The Last Jedi. It's well paced, beautifully shot (IMO), and well structured. Yeah, it had some cartoony moments, but every Star Wars film has that (Rogue One aside) - the original trilogy much more so than any of the newer ones. I’d argue the plot was easily the best crafted and most fresh feeling of the mainline Star Wars film since at least The Empire Strikes Back.

IMO, Rogue One has shots that top it. But Rogue One is easily my favourite Star Wars film.
Anyway, Eric, try watching The Last Jedi again some time with an open mind, ignore the fanatics. I’d say there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it.

But I won’t make that same argument about The Rise of Skywalker
I agree, I felt like I was watching something as ridiculous as 300 or Batman vs. Superman. I just feel bad about bashing that one because the Star Wars Jedihadis already do it. It'd be like shoving a nerd in a locker after other nerds who were supposed to be his friend already stabbed and poisoned his bone marrow. Batman vs. Superman is at least watchable because it doesn't camera cut every 1-3 seconds like The Rise of Skywalker. While The Last Jedi was free of cliche and contrivance, this one was dripping with them.

There is a bit of a tragic reason for it—Carrie Fisher died, and they had to re-write the script, and I'm guessing timelines didn't allow it to go through a proper pre-production.

[Eric]

I ignored the fanatics the first time I watched it. I didn't enjoy it, tried again, still didn't. It's just a bad Star Wars film for me. I don't think Rian Johnson intended to shit on Star Wars, but he did, I can't get into it, and I'm glad that era of storytelling is dead honestly.

I went into The Last Jedi blind, I watched none of the trailers, avoided spoilers, pre-reaction videos, everything. I just don't like the movie it sucked, that was my raw feeling with no outside influence opening night, and that was my same feeling after I gave it a fair shake later down the line after hearing from people like you that somehow enjoyed it. I just didn't.

[Julius Seeker]

To each his own. I wouldn’t call The Last Jedi a bad film for Star Wars, or even otherwise. It’s a well made film, and I predict in 10 years the general feeling will be that it’s one of the best Star Wars films of all time.

The way I look at Star Wars right now is that it’s sort of like four different stories. And not like “first trilogy, second trilogy” either.

1. The Hope series - Rogue One and the original Star Wars.
2. The Empire Strikes Back series - the prequels, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
3. The Force Awakens series - Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
4. Then there’s Rise of Skywalker.

Solo has more of a side-story feel. It doesn’t quite fit.

1. Hope - The first story is Rogue One and A New Hope for obvious reasons. These ones are grittier than the others, and have more attitude. The droids and some of the other stuff are a bit cartoony, but it’s not to the point of ridiculousness like the other films. Characters aren’t so black and white. There’s not really any side-plotting, everything is right to the point and driven forward. Also, experience matters, Luke isn’t great at anything aside from fixing droids , and characters rely on skills they’ve learned all their lives. These two films actually feel A LOT like old samurai films, it’s a different feeling from any of the other Star Wars films.

2. Empire Strikes Back series. They’re more cartoony for the most part, FILLED with melodrama and general cheesiness. The physics are way different from the Hope films—they flip around, are ridiculously fast, shoot lightning out of their hands—lots of silly stuff. Also, cliches and contrivances in the story—Darth Bader being Luke’s father, gimme a break! The core of this story is all around that Darth Vader is Luke’s father stuff. It was originally different, too. Empire Strikes Back changed the script, and Darth Vader’s voice over changed in post production. That’s why Luke’s melodramatic “Nooooooooooooo!” reaction makes no sense—the original plot twist had Obi-Wan kill Luke’s father. Luke’s reaction actually made sense, originally. All these films have a lot of side-plot. You could cut at least 1/3rd of the scenes of any of these films without breaking the main story. I’ll note, many of the Jedi in the prequels l talk like they’ve had lobotomies

3. The Force Awakens - t’s not that it’s so much a different universe but rather the story is about establishing a new paradigm for the force users. No more Jedi, no more Sith. There are semblances of the remaining order left, and they’re being destroyed by Kylo Ren. The first film, The Force Awakens, doesn’t really do much new, it’s a retread that introduces the characters and what’s going on. The Last Jedi is where the characters take the reigns - it’s a much more character driven story, and drops all the contrivance, retreading, and cameo “hey! Look what’s back” feeling of The Force Awakens. One of the interesting things is this brings back the Hope series physics. There’s no flipping around and such any more. It has a more modern blockbuster feel than any of the others.


4. The Rise of Skywalker feels like some Frankenstein’s monster between The Empire Strikes Back series with the characters of Force Awakens—and it tries to be an ending to both those stories. It’s really out there! The physics are again back to being ridiculous. Palpatine is randomly back, a giant fleet randomly appears. I think the main feeling I have about this one is how nothing makes sense. It’s like the makers of Lost (well, Abrams) and Batman vs. Superman conspired to make this monstrosity.

[Eric]

I predict in 10 years the general feeling will be that it’s one of the best Star Wars films of all time.

If I'm still alive in 10 years I'll take that bet.