This fan base never ceases to amaze me. Apparently, no one moved pass their SuperWhoLock mentality.
I loved the film, but I’m still adjusting, that is all I will say about the Last Jedi.
Having a good or bad reaction to the content does not bar me from critiquing any production experience of a major film franchise. I can admire a film franchise I dont like for its creativity and cast and crew, and I can critique one I do like for where it goes wrong.
But I have written this as a reaction the internet’s hatred toward’s Rian Johnson, not the film, not his choices, not Lucasfilm’s or Disney’s choices. That is an entirely different subject. This is about the hatred that sprung from the ground like oil out of nowhere. This dirty oil did not exists before December 15th.
People are pulling up out of context interviews and tweets to make it seem that Rian Johnson was hated by the cast and no one wanted to work with him. I’ve seen every accusation under the sun. If you ask Tumblr, Reddit, IGN, etc, he’s everything from racist to Cthulhu.
This type of reaction from the internet is predictive and cyclical.
There was, and still is, a camp of disatisfied star wars fans born in 2015 dedicated to defaming J.J Abrams and The Force Awakens. This was in the wake of the criticism that The Force Awakens was too similar to A New Hope. Coincidence? If you said no, you’re right.
I want to state here and now that I don’t have a rosy tinted view of the production, I’m not saying everyone warmed quickly to the plot points of The Last Jedi. I want to state that no one, strangely, had a problem with the director. That’s it.
I hope that I can bring up some points that are on record to remind people, that maybe, if not surely, that this criticism is transparent and stupid.
There was a slow evolution for the actors, like many of the avid star wars fan, to adjust to the change in gear for the franchise. I find it especially amazing that Mark Hamill went out of his way to publicly state his wariness and the disagreements on the script which the late Carrie Fisher collaborated on with Rian Johnson. Hamill came back and said he was wrong and now he is utterly in tune with Rian’s vision. If there were any hard feelings left they wouldn’t have mentioned it on the press tour. This isn’t remotely reminiscent of Chris Hemsworth staring into camera during the 2015 Ultron Press Tour and saying: I had no clue what was going on.
If Hamill and Johnson hadn’t reconciled you can bet that their original disagreement wouldn’t have made itself known on the Star Wars 40th Anniversary Celebration Stage. If audiences want to counter and say that it was Disney’s plan all along to bolster the image of the Last Jedi, go ahead, it’s a damn good strategy. People disagree in creative circles, and to have one publicly state their agreement is a good thing.
Carrie Fisher didn’t seem to be the only collaborator. Rian Johnson and John Boyega inform interviewers on separate occasions about how happy they were to work on progressing Finn’s character together. John Boyega took a huge lead in strengthening the character and making him stronger, he even cites rian’s auteurship as the reason for the maneuver room in the franchise.
Gwendoline Christie also cites Rian’s collaboratory attitude when forging ahead with Phasma’s story. Oddly enough so does Oscar Isaac.
Daisy Ridley speaks about her wariness for the direction of the franchise as well. But she also speaks on how open the director was to input and how much he tried to make everyone feel comfortable. I say this because I saw someone pull up a tweet of Daisy’s reaction to J.J coming back to work on IX. The article states she apparently was delighted and cried with joy at the TFA director’s return. The blog post framed it as a relief and reprieve from Rian’s supposed reign of terror. This sounds very silly because J.J Abrams wasn’t AWOL during pre-production, production and post: He’s the producer. Not even executive producer. Producer. He is also present for writing/directing the third installment in the trilogy. The most important detail left out was that this was a reaction to Colin Trevormorrow who was slated to direct the third installment. I believe he left on creative differences with the Walt Disney corporation and lucasfilm. His vision for the film was not in tune with the direction of the movie. This was also a secondary source article, there was a clear bias in the words spoken by the article.
Speaking of bias, the internet loves screenshots, so much so that they become subsitutes to whole videos and dialogues. An out of context picture is misleading, for better of worse.
The cast joke about the poker faces during interviews because their NDA comes with a side order of Mickey Mouse Snipers. But yet, bloggers on the internet take screencaps of the interviews mid questions and post them with captions like: They’re hiding their hatred for the director and/or the movie. In reality, they’re in the middle of listening to a question or trying to not react to a spoiler. If any of you have seen anything of the press tour, most of it is the cast trying to keep a straight face and avoid spoilers. And trust me, I watched the entirety of the press tour, I know which moments were screenshotted.
If this sounds familiar it’s because the internet is predictable. This is beginning to sound a lot like how people tried to frame Adam Driver like some sort of 9/11 bigoted ex-soldier with no respect for his cast mates after TFA. There was divisive crowd who initiated a backlash against him simply because they didnt like the character. Remember half the reason he isn’t in most of the press junkets and press conferences? Half of it is his self proclaimed discomfort at the whole idea of the spotlight. But it isn’t absurd to think the other half is unfounded backlash he receives for his character.
I saw people also quoted one of Adam’s interviews and his feeling on 9/11 and left it at that. The blogger made it seem like he was what all liberals fear. They forgot to mention his exit from the Marines, the creation of his foundation for returning War Vets and reintegration and encouragement through the arts as a way to explore trauma. When I did my gendered violence class we found a Ted Talk with him talking about the toxic masculinity of the US military complex. It’s a great speech and its deeply profound. If you really care about feminist issues and the nature of the military backbone in the United States there is some great reading I can recommend but this is a good start.
I don’t want anyone to mistake my fondness for any of the characters for any biased defense. They are people too, they aren’t perfect, but they aren’t evil incarnate. I’m not opposed to dumping a content creator like a hot potato for violation of ethical rights and questionable conflicts in production.
This is all to say that Tumblr finds ways to do what all bad journalists do: commence head hunts through clipped interviews, out of context quotes,images, and pseudo liberal pitchfork waving.
I’m half expecting half the disgruntled fans to be Alicia Silverstone in the Scooby Doo movies. So much of the hatred on the internet feels like Freddie’s dialgue cut together to say: I THINK COOLSVILLE SUCKS.
All for what? For the same reason they don’t like the new movie. They’ll skim the surface for buzz words, absorb misunderstood information, and ignore internal meaning, and cast aside the answers to their questions which are explicitly stated.
Until I see any facts that actually exist outside the draconian and dogmatic bubble of Tumblr’s bowels I think its safe to say that Rian and the cast are A-Okay with one another. I’m not avoiding being convinced, I just hope people can see HOW SILLY IT ALL SOUNDS.
It seems like we haven’t really progressed from the SuperWhoLock Days? Huh, Tumblr? It just seems to hide behind seemingly more lofty righteous reasons.
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