Previous Page It’s our fault. The fans. We did this. Star Wars fans are the worst. And I say that as a card-carrying member since 1995. I am a die-hard fan of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Pro Wrestling, dozens of video game franchises, Marvel, DC, and on and on the list goes. I have seen the best and worst of nerddom going back thirty years. Star Wars fans are the worst. We are entitled, spoiled, fickle manbabies who complain about staleness but resist change, who bristle at any criticism but excuse the worst parts of the movies. We demand more Star Wars then cry when Disney gives it. We gripe about redundancy then scoff at unexpected changes. We lament how ignored the Expanded Universe is, but balk at any new force powers being demonstrated. We want and we want and we complain and we complain but we’re never satisfied or at least for long. There are sad death threats. Embarrassing calls for lawsuits. Petitions. Harassments. Hyperboles. And all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that comes when writers and directors don’t play with our action figures the way we want them to. And yes I’m well aware of my own ability to lament and complain. I did say “we” and “our” after all. That being said, I refuse to be one of those fans on either side of the spectrum. I love good movies. That’s my thing. If it’s not a good movie, I’m not going to let my fandom blind me to that. Rose-tinted nostalgia might kick in some, but never to the point of overpowering me. Don’t take that to mean I’m not really a Star Wars fan. You don’t watch the movies hundreds of times, have them memorized, and have read an embarrassing number of novels and comics, played almost every game, dressed up for movie premieres, and written more words than I want to count about it, if you’re not in love with the franchise. But still, what I truly love are good stories that are well told in cinematic-form. That means well-written, acted, directed, edited, and scored. That’s why I love TLJ. The fact that it adds to the “canon” and “lore” of Star Wars and pushes the saga into new directions (or tried to before TROS came along) is just a wonderful bonus. I’m a fan of Star Wars but only because I’m a fan of good stories that are well told, and Star Wars has a fair bit of that (and some not so much). But then there are those fans on the poles. On the one hand are those who complain no matter what, who hate and gripe and complain whenever something just so isn’t exactly as they think it should be. Those are the fans that talk about “broken canon!” or “ruined lore!” or “destroyed childhoods!” Get a grip on yourselves. You’re embarrassing the rest of us. On the other hand are those fans who aren’t movie fans, or lovers of film. They just like the” pew-pew Star Wars!” injection into their veins for 2.5 hours. Those are the ones who went bananas over the sight of Darth Vader mowing down Rebels at the end of Rogue One. Like…what if you watched a WW2 movie that ended with a bunch of French soldiers being killed, one by one, by a seven-foot-tall Nazi warlord. Would you cheer that? Do you see the weird problem there? Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a great scene because it was a great scene. It was shot well, paced well, edited really well. It was great because it was great…not because it was “murder by lightsaber for manchildren to squee over!” Stop cheering that. You’re embarrassing yourself. So, on the one hand, are fans who can never be satisfied and on the other are fans who refuse to criticize or demand more when mistakes are made. You’re both the worst. You’re the worst of fandom. You’re making the jobs of every person mentioned above that much more difficult and made it almost impossible to make a Star Wars movie that everyone can agree on, which hasn’t happened since The Empire Strikes Back anyway. There. I said my peace. Now I can rest in it.
