This is part 3 of 4 loosely related posts.
Part 1: RIP Star Wars
Part 2: My thoughts on George Lucas
And then Disney bought Lucasfilm, and put new ill-equipped leadership in charge. The first thing they did was declare new rules on what is and isn’t canon by scrapping the entire EU. Since then, almost everything they have made has been poorly executed derivative work. Episode VII: The Force Awakens was essentially a high-budget fan-made remake of A New Hope, but without any concept of world building, sense of Star Wars history, or understanding that these films are chapters in a long story, so there needs to be consistency and explanations for things. Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was essentially a “greatest hits” from Empire and Jedi with humor and social justice shoehorned in. I don’t think they actually understand Star Wars, along with the concepts of world-building and how to maintain a fanbase. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that they have to do whatever the fans want – like if they held a poll for whose family Rey should belong to they should change the story to go with whatever had the most votes.
Part 1: RIP Star Wars
Part 2: My thoughts on George Lucas
And then Disney bought Lucasfilm, and put new ill-equipped leadership in charge. The first thing they did was declare new rules on what is and isn’t canon by scrapping the entire EU. Since then, almost everything they have made has been poorly executed derivative work. Episode VII: The Force Awakens was essentially a high-budget fan-made remake of A New Hope, but without any concept of world building, sense of Star Wars history, or understanding that these films are chapters in a long story, so there needs to be consistency and explanations for things. Episode VIII: The Last Jedi was essentially a “greatest hits” from Empire and Jedi with humor and social justice shoehorned in. I don’t think they actually understand Star Wars, along with the concepts of world-building and how to maintain a fanbase. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that they have to do whatever the fans want – like if they held a poll for whose family Rey should belong to they should change the story to go with whatever had the most votes.
But what is quite clear they didn’t have a plan for a
trilogy at all (nor any understanding of what a 3-act play looks like), and
it’s also evident that they weren’t really fans of the series based on their
lack of knowledge of the Star Wars universe, and the fans know it. Their hearts weren’t really in it
and instead of feeling like temporary caretakers of American mythology and expanding/extending
the world, they used it as a platform to push their social/political agenda.
The Last Jedi in
particular reminds me of Kevin Smith’s story of Jon Peters. Lucasfilm doesn’t
understand Star Wars and just makes a generic movie that has Star Wars-ish elements (like a lightsaber and people with poorly defined super powers) and calls it good, putting in diversity instead of decent writing/continuity. In an effort to promote their new characters and make
them look good, they write the newer ones as already good at everything (aka, a
Mary Sue) and shit on the old characters.
The term for these people I speak of is Social Justice
Warriors, or SJWs [Edit: a newer, better term is NPCs]. They have a particular brand of regressive, far left leaning
politics mixed in with post-modernism and neo-Marxism. And they are slowly
trying to take over media (and have been fairly successful, I might add).
SJWs took over Marvel Comics and replaced most of the major
heroes with gender or racial swaps. They took over Ghostbusters and did gender
swaps. Instead of it being Ghostbusters 3 with the girls being their
daughters/nieces/whatever, they just remade it with SJW values in place of
actual humor or good writing. Then they blamed the fans who didn’t like it as
being misogynistic or sexist or racist manbabies living in their parents’
basement.
Gamergate was something that they caused by trying to invade
the gaming world and declare anyone who didn’t agree with their particular flavor
of feminism and identity politics was automatically an alt-right nazi who
deserved to be doxxed. Many point to Gamergate as the opening salvo in the current culture war.
Then they also remade Ocean's 11 with an all-female cast, among other
things. The problem is that they force the values down our throats and shove it
in our faces rather than being subtle about it. Instead, they should have done it similar to how the X-Men and mutant
discrimination could be a stand-in for racial intolerance in the 60’s or gay
acceptance in the 90’s or whatever.
One critical mistake SJWs make is that they’re pandering to
a non-existent audience. They believe that the reason young black girls don’t
read Iron Man is because Tony Stark is a grown white male. If he were replaced
with a young black female, not only would the fans currently purchasing the
comic monthly continue to do so, but the young black girls would then also buy it. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, they are
wrong on both fronts. It only temporarily interests new readers for like the
first issue or so, and it drives away all the old fans.
Ironically, it’s the SJW mindset that is actually racist –
meaning that they believe people only watch things because they can identify
with the character based on race/sex/etc. When I watch Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, I identify with Buffy. When I watched Wonder Woman, I identified with
her more than Steve Trevor. When I watch MiB and Pursuit of Happyness, I
identify with Will Smith. When I watch Brave, it’s Merida. I watched She-Ra to see her kick some Hordak ass, even though I was a boy. I’m not making these
decisions based on the gender or age or skin color of the people involved; rather, it’s
because of the fact that they are the main character or hero, usually. I mean,
it’s okay when those things line up (like how Wolverine is a hairy white male), but it’s not the reason I like a character.
But the reason they push that kind of thing is because
*THEY* can only identify with someone who looks like them, and assume everyone
else must feel the same way. What that shows is that THEY are the ones who
can’t look past race and the other categories. [Editor's note - it's similar to my discussion on JRPGs vs. WRPGs] When older fans reject the newer
things, SJWs interpret it as a rejection of women/LGBT rather than the rejection of
politics being shoved down our throats or a rejection of the poor writing. They also have trouble separating the
criticism (even if it’s constructive) of the work from personal attacks on the actors
or director. Just because I don’t like the Mona Lisa doesn’t mean I think
Leonardo was a terrible person. If I think the scandal involving the Catholic
Church was horrendous and the leaders’ actions despicable doesn’t mean I think
everyone who attends the church is a bad person or that I’m necessarily against
religion. But SJWs usually do think in such absolutes.
I can go on listing examples of how I could take over a
show/project and change something non-“geek,”
and thereby ruin it. Maybe I make Luke and Rory have a tawdry affair in Gilmore
Girls because I am interested in challenging societal norms. Perhaps I make
Barbie into a butch dyke who infiltrates drug gangs and takes them out with
machine guns. Maybe we take Pride & Prejudice and put some zombies in it –
oh, wait, that’s been done. And longtime fans of Jane Austen hated it. Weird, right?
And let's be clear - criticism isn’t hate. Rather, it’s love and disappointment that it wasn’t made well. The reason a lot of the fans passionately hated the new Star Wars it is because they passionately loved it once. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy, which is how I feel about Star Wars now. What the studios seem to be going for is a wider but more casual fanbase who buy everything that has an official brand slapped on it. The definition of someone who buys everything with a Zelda or Star Wars label isn’t fan – it’s sheep. Thor Skywalker’s YouTube channel has a lot of good points and commentary about stuff like this (link below).
To be completely honest, I used to think that poking fun at or criticism of something was a sign of hate. I now see (with the benefit of hindsight and a developed adult mind capable of reasoning) that it's because they expect better. Sports fans commiserating together is a reaction to wanting/expecting better but having to support each other when outcomes aren't what they were hoping. As a fan of Nintendo, Star Wars, Marvel, and Boise State Football, when I poke fun at these things it's because I want them to be the very best they can be. And when they're not, I'm hoping that my jabs will motivate the writers/programmers/coaches/players into doing better. But it's not because I hate these things. But to someone with an undeveloped/black & white view of the world, it might look like hate. I used to get really bothered by Wizard magazine ragging on Marvel Comics and the X-Men in particular. But now I see that they were disappointed that what was being printed in the mid-90's was sub-par compared to what used to come out in the 80's. Scott the Woz on YouTube does the same thing with Nintendo. Similarly, a lot of teens think their parents hate them for telling them to stand straight or use silverware properly - it's wanting them to be better.
The reason that these fandoms exist is to give people an escape from reality, and they just want it to be made well to preserve the fantasy. In some cases, it serves as a replacement for religion in a way, and can give people all kinds of emotions like hope, excitement, and anticipation. It can, if done correctly, serve to teach a moral lesson like the way the X-Men did (but again, it was subtle and well written, not ham-fisted).
And let's be clear - criticism isn’t hate. Rather, it’s love and disappointment that it wasn’t made well. The reason a lot of the fans passionately hated the new Star Wars it is because they passionately loved it once. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy, which is how I feel about Star Wars now. What the studios seem to be going for is a wider but more casual fanbase who buy everything that has an official brand slapped on it. The definition of someone who buys everything with a Zelda or Star Wars label isn’t fan – it’s sheep. Thor Skywalker’s YouTube channel has a lot of good points and commentary about stuff like this (link below).
To be completely honest, I used to think that poking fun at or criticism of something was a sign of hate. I now see (with the benefit of hindsight and a developed adult mind capable of reasoning) that it's because they expect better. Sports fans commiserating together is a reaction to wanting/expecting better but having to support each other when outcomes aren't what they were hoping. As a fan of Nintendo, Star Wars, Marvel, and Boise State Football, when I poke fun at these things it's because I want them to be the very best they can be. And when they're not, I'm hoping that my jabs will motivate the writers/programmers/coaches/players into doing better. But it's not because I hate these things. But to someone with an undeveloped/black & white view of the world, it might look like hate. I used to get really bothered by Wizard magazine ragging on Marvel Comics and the X-Men in particular. But now I see that they were disappointed that what was being printed in the mid-90's was sub-par compared to what used to come out in the 80's. Scott the Woz on YouTube does the same thing with Nintendo. Similarly, a lot of teens think their parents hate them for telling them to stand straight or use silverware properly - it's wanting them to be better.
The reason that these fandoms exist is to give people an escape from reality, and they just want it to be made well to preserve the fantasy. In some cases, it serves as a replacement for religion in a way, and can give people all kinds of emotions like hope, excitement, and anticipation. It can, if done correctly, serve to teach a moral lesson like the way the X-Men did (but again, it was subtle and well written, not ham-fisted).
But with its rise in popularity came new fans, both devoted
and casual. I think some of the nerds that were used to being outcasts were so
starved for attention and acceptance that they welcomed anyone in (especially girls, despite the insistence of SJWs calling these fanbases misogynistic), but weren’t
savvy enough to realize that there might be bad actors in the bunch. The result is that it's driving away the old fans and killing the business.
So what’s ended up happening is that SJWs are 1) invading
these spaces, 2) taking over, 3) gutting its heart and soul for profits, 4)
injecting their identity politics into it and using it as a delivery method for indoctrination, and then 5) kicking out the original
adherents as any combination of sexist, racist, misogynistic, and homophobic
man-baby neckbeard degenerates that live in their mother’s basement well into
their forties. And when the fans fight back, the SJWs just screech louder
(REEEEEEEeeee!!!) and it's getting old.In addition to labeling fans who reject the new regime and racist/sexist/toxic/whatever, they also make a judgment that they must not be "real" fans and are "haters" because they don't like the new stuff. But critiquing isn't a sign of a hater or a bad fan, and blindly liking/buying everything put out by a company isn't a sign of a good fan - that's just a sign of an undiscerning consumer.
For what it's worth, I believe that Disney has a pretty good track record of purchasing something and being fairly "hands-off" about it, like with ABC, ESPN, Marvel, and Pixar. As long as money is being made and a family-friendly image is preserved, they let the individual studios do their thing and only step in when necessary (like when a film loses 80 million dollars or a director ends up with pedophillic tweets). What I'm trying to say is that I blame the LucasFilm execs/producers and not Disney directly, other than not seeing that they had appointed the wrong people for the job. Hopefully it's fixed soon. In the meantime, the fans are revolting. Several YouTube channels have joined forces calling themselves the Fandom Menace or the Rebel Alliance to let Lucasfilm know how displeased they are with the quality of recent releases.
It's quite easy to find many videos about this just by browsing the channels of
- Geeks + Gamers,
- ComicArtistPro Secrets,
- WorldClassBullshitters,
- Diversity in Comics,
- Thor Skywalker,
- The Quartering,
- Overlord DVD, and more.
Part 4: Fandoms
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