Star Wars Fandom: Hate Leads to Suffering

image by Weweje; original logo by Suzy Rice, 1976.

 

I am a life-long Star Wars fan.

We Star Wars fans are a very peculiar bunch.  I think we come off as a tad more obsessive about our corner of fandom because of what this franchise means to us.

I don't think I'm alone when I say that Star Wars shaped a lot of my childhood, and thus also shaped much of the man I am today.  It is true that when I became a man I was called to set aside all childish things.  We in the fandom are often accused of being childish, as though our attachment to Star Wars is a sign of our arrested development.

But Star Wars was the prevailing hero myth of my childhood.

Yes, I had Batman and Robin, as well as Hulk Hogan and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, along with Rambo and Bruce Lee.  But Star Wars takes up the preeminent place.  I've written previously about how as a child it radically altered my world-view about what a hero truly is.  Before I thought that a hero was the person who killed the bad guy.  After Return of the Jedi, I understood that the hero is the one who saves the villain with sacrificial love.

Mixed in with these deeper things are the nostalgia for the fun and innocence of childhood and you can understand the bond that George Lucas made between us and his creation.  In many ways, Star Wars is secularly sacred to so many people.

For that reason, the fandom is very protective of it.

This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.  In many ways, it is a sign of how special this story is.  I do not see any levels of controversy like those found in Star Wars fandom in other franchises like Avatar.

This takes us to the Prequels.  When The Phantom Menace came out, it had been sixteen years since we had a theatrical Star Wars film.  Those of us who grew up with Star Wars were now adults and we were hungry for that same magic we experienced as children.  But in that, many made a crucial mistake: Star Wars is primarily for children.  Obviously, it can be enjoyed on an adult level.  But Lucas was telling a story to help shape the next generation.  Many of us wanted the Prequels to be about us and our more adult sensibilities.

At the time, I took a lot of flack for being a defender of the Prequels.  They are flawed to be sure, but there is still the Star Wars magic in them if you look for it.  Lucas made a number of miscalculations.  I have written an entire article about this, but a few examples are that he should have written all of the scripts in advance for consistency and payoff and he radically overestimated how fun Jar Jar would be.

The time of the Prequels brought out a lot of haters.  And they have every right to their opinion, even though I disagree.  What saddens me is that some of this hatred became targeted on people like Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best.  I always try to avoid being critical of children in film.  Acting well is very difficult and even more so for kids.  In the case of Best, I think he gave Lucas exactly what he asked for, so any fault with the delivery of the character lay more with Lucas than Best.  Regardless, a great deal of venom was unleashed on these two.  You can read for yourselves what they've endured.  Hayden Christensen also received a great deal of blowback for his portrayal as the older Anakin.  Like Best, Christensen gave Lucas the performance he wanted and as a result, Christensen was on the receiving end of fandom's blaster fire.

This makes me think of the wisdom that is found in the Prequels about attachment.  Anakin's path to the Dark Side stems from his attachment.  Lucas was wise to show that the total detachment of the Jedi was also foolish.  But Anakin becomes selfish, self-centered, and possessive of that which he loves.  The danger for the Star Wars is that this can happen with Star Wars itself.  Fear of Star Wars not being as good as we remember or fear of it being ruined can trigger substantially negative responses and move someone from a lover to a hater.

Then after twelve years, Disney gave us the Sequel Trilogy.  If the fandom was divided over the Prequels, the Sequels led to all out civil war.

The Force Awakens was received fairly well.  There were disappointments but most was forgivable.

But everything fell apart with The Last Jedi.  As with the Prequels, I have taken a good deal of flack for my stance on this movie, which is essentially that it has some great parts to it.  For many, this movie broke the fandom and broke Star Wars itself.  

I am actually much more sympathetic to those who hate the Sequels than I am to those who hate the Prequels.  While both are flawed, the problem with the sequels (particularly The Last Jedi) is that it felt like an intentional subversion of the Original Trilogy and its heroes.  Rian Johnson is a talented filmmaker, but it is clear he was not interested in aligning his vision to Star Wars, but instead wanted to shape Star Wars in his image.  Particularly, there are many who find the degradation of Luke Skywalker as completely unforgivable.

This brings us to an interesting turn in this fandom civil war.  There is a contention of fans who try to shield current Star Wars from criticism by accusing the critics of bigotry.  Those who didn't like Rey and Admiral Holdo were accused of sexism.  Those who didn't like Rose Tico were accused of racism and sexism.  My own problem with Rey is that the story didn't let her earn her hero status on the traditional hero's journey.  Admiral Holdo was poorly written regarding her baffling motivations.  And Rose Tico was a morally insane character who was willing to doom the entire resistance because of her crush.

Accusing someone of bigotry does very little to win their affections.  The critics of the sequels felt under personal attack, especially from those in charge of Star Wars.  As a result, battle lines were drawn between the pro-Disney and anti-Disney sides.  

One of the few things that seemed to unite the fandom was The Mandalorian.  The novelty of the story along with its strong production guidance from Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni created a pop culture phenomenon, especially with Baby Yoda.  This came to a head in the finale for season 2 which gave fans a glimpse of the glory of the central character of the mythos.

And now we are witnessing the fandom fight over Obi-Wan Kenobi.  As of this writing, there is still one episode remaining.  Those of anti-Disney, anti-Last Jedi side have been tearing this show apart.  The criticism is rooted in the feeling that Obi-Wan is being treated like the Sequel version of Luke and that he is being sidelined in his own series, particularly by Reva.  The pro-Disney side has accused the critics of racism in their dislike of Reva.

I think both sides are wrong.

I will give a full review of the show later.  But I have loved it so far.  I found it to be a worthy follow-up to the Prequel trilogy and it is telling an engaging and compelling story.  To be sure there are some flaws, especially from a staging standpoint, but the good greatly outweighs the bad.  

But I also think the accusation of racism of the critics is largely unfounded.  To be sure, you will always find some nasty elements in any group or fandom.  But as a whole, the fandom does not reject characters because of their race.  This is especially true of Star Wars with characters like Lando Calrissian, Mace Windu, Moff Gideon, Fennec Shand, and Jango Fett.  Accusing the critics of racism only hardens their opposition to Disney Star Wars.

In addition, the pro-Disney side is intentionally antagonistic towards its critics.  Quentin Tarantino talked about the people who did not like The Hateful Eight and he said that he understood that the movie wasn't to everyone's tastes because the characters were so nasty.  When Rian Johnson was asked about the critics of The Last Jedi, he commented on how fanboy tears were "delicious."  I understand how you have to promote your art, but it is another thing to sound like an elitist who is above hoi poloi.

Personally, I would hope that everyone could let go of their hate.  I hope that we could celebrate what is good in anything Star Wars.  I think that a lot of people are missing out on the greatness of Obi-Wan because they are looking focusing on all the ways Disney is letting them down.  The pro-Disney side also appears to needlessly antagonize the core fanbase and to promote things that seems to disrespect the Original Trilogy.  For evidence of this last point, you can look at the Star Wars area of the theme parks as well as their Galactic Cruiser.  

All of this hatred has led to more suffering in the fandom on both sides.  I think if we all could just listen to each other, we would not be so filled with hate.

Instead, we could have a new hope.