Why I’ve Fallen Out of Love with Star Wars
Hello all! I hope everyone is doing well.
So, I’m writing this with a heavy heart. It is something I have come to realize in these past few weeks and it has taken a lot for me to finally come to terms with it: I am no longer in love with Star Wars.
At least for the time being. I’ll say that. I do have a knack for crawling back to fandoms I’ve previously abandoned due to waning interest or whatever, but, Star Wars is different. Star Wars is something I’ve had more of an emotional attachment to.
I first fell in love with Star Wars when my best friend showed me the original trilogy when I was 7. This was three years before the special edition came out and I was hooked. Her favorite was Return of the Jedi, so that’s the one I have the most attachment to of all since it was the one I watched the most. The only Star Wars movie I saw in theaters up until the sequels was the special edition of A New Hope. My parents didn’t care anything for Star Wars. They bought me the special edition set since they wouldn’t take me to the theaters for ESB or ROTJ. Same went with the prequels, which is why I don’t have as much of an attachment to the prequels because I didn’t see them until way later. Han and Leia were my favorite characters as a kid. I would attempt to put Leia buns in my hair and always messed up seeing as I couldn’t even put a basic ponytail in my hair. But I loved Star Wars and always saw myself in the characters. My interest did wane a bit. I became busy in other interests and, after my friend who showed me the movies moved away and we lost touch, I was the only person in my group of friends and in my family who had a passion for Star Wars. When Carrie Fisher died, any time I saw Leia on screen (even baby Leia from ROTS), I would get teary-eyed. I was that attached to Leia.
I was excited when the sequel trilogy was announced. I didn’t know what to expect going in. I actually didn’t spoil myself for TFA. I was hooked again. At first, I was expecting Rey to be a blood-related Skywalker. I thought Finn would be a Jedi. And there was something odd about Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo that I couldn’t put a finger on until I saw it for a second time, then started going online and discovered Reylo.
I discovered Reylo through art posted on Pinterest. I soon looked more into it and found fanfiction. I even started my own fanfic, Whispers from the Other Side, a post-TFA fic I never finished. I was curious as to Rey’s heritage and, after watching Vincent Vendetta’s Rey Palpatine video, I made her a Palpatine in that fic, but tried to at least take my time developing that Palpatine lineage. I wasn’t attached to the idea, but I liked what Vendetta said about Ben, when we first see him, coming from the light of a ship to the darkness outside and Rey, when we first see her, coming from the darkness of a ship to the light outside. I didn’t take it as concrete evidence she was a Palpatine. I was expecting them to go the boring route and make her a blood-related Skywalker. Kenobi was also high up there on my list of lineage. But out of everything, I LOVED the idea that Rian Johnson made canon in TLJ (until we got TROS) that Rey was a nobody. It sent a profound message. You can come from nothing, no lineage, no connections, etc. and become something, have success, fulfill your dreams. That gives hope to people who have dreams of a bright future, but find themselves in not so great circumstances. It’s inspirational.
Ben Solo is a character who, as I’ve said countless times, stood out to me and one I could relate to. He is, canonically, an abuse victim. If the lines regarding Snoke’s manipulation in TFA and TLJ weren’t enough of a hint, almost any time Ben was mentioned in the ancillary material heavily suggested that Ben was an abuse victim. What drove it home was Palpatine’s confession that he had put those voices in Ben’s head and created Snoke to torment Ben into falling to the dark side. I’ve described my abuse in detail before, but I relate to this particular type of abuse. My abuser took the one thing I wanted the most and used it against me. They would make me feel awful when I wouldn’t comply and even convinced me that my parents were control freaks and were bad for me. I became a Kylo Ren of sorts. I would do things that were out of character for me, act out, have awful thoughts and feel that I could do awful things. It’s scary to think about. I never acted on these thoughts, but I felt the pain of those thoughts and they tomented me. That’s something I still live with from time to time to this day. It damages a person. Even when I say I’m healed, there are still scars.
Even though I became attached to the Ben Solo character, Han and Leia were still my favorites. It was apparent in TFA and TLJ that the one thing they wanted the most was their son back. They wanted him back, alive and wanted him to have a chance to live his life and atone for his actions. Ben Solo deserved that chance.
I almost did half expect for Ben Solo to die, sad as it is to admit. I felt they would redeem him, but he would go out in an epic way and be remembered by the galaxy as a hero and not a villain. I never liked the idea of him dying, but I felt they might go for the ending we’ve seen a million times and not give a character like Ben Solo a chance. However, once I saw that trailer with the line “I have been every voice, you have ever heard, inside your head,” I felt that line drove home the obvious. Ben Solo was abused and didn’t deserve to die, but to atone. And I held out hope they wouldn’t go the route of killing him off, not only for Ben, but for Han and Leia and even Luke. And Rey. Rey cared for Ben. Ben even realized it in the TLJ novel. She was hurt and disappointed in him, but still cared. They even showed in ancillary material that she was struggling with her emotions for Ben.
Then we got TROS. I was so excited for this movie. Like TLJ, any new image, footage, etc., I was making up theories I promised not to get attached to. I knew that whatever we got, would be much more epic and satisfying than anything I could come up with. I didn’t want to believe the leaks. They all seemed like bad fanfiction to me. Like, who the hell came up with that shit, ya know? Little did I know what was to come.
Ben Solo dying isn’t the only reason my love for Star Wars has died, but it sure twisted the metaphorical knife in my gut. The rushed story, nonsensical elements, bad writing, the cringey dialogue, the shoehorned plot details (like Rey Palpatine), the blatant retconning of TLJ, the character assasination, the cheap looking visuals (aside from those Ben Solo visual I keep using), all of it was such a letdown and a disappointment. For months leading up to this, I felt we were pitched a completely different movie. Now I feel like I was lied to. I feel like the Skywalker saga means nothing now.
TROS isn’t the only reason. Toxic fans have essentially ruined Star Wars for me. It isn’t fun anymore. You’re not allowed to have an opinion, a headcanon, or anything with some of these people. You have to stay silent and agree or be ripped to shreds by people who feel they know Star Wars better than you because they read the Legends books or something. I have been accused of so many terrible things because of my opinions and headcanons. I’ve had antis, dudebros, and fanboys try to invalidate me, my ideas, even my experiences with abuse and my experience working in a facility that treats abused children. I’ve been told I’m racist or that the only reason I like Ben Solo and Reylo is because I want Adam Driver’s d*ck (which is not the case. I find him attractive, but I don’t think of him in that way. I have my boundaries and he has his and I respect those boundaries). If you rejected the JP or MSW leaks, you were labeled the “fandom menace.” Jason Ward even called for Reylos and any of his naysayers to be harassed, though it was just to follow-block-follow Reylos to get a rise out of us (I’m sure, like the whole thing that happened with JB, it was taken as a free pass to bully Reylos). It seems to be steadily getting worse. Kelly and Daisy were both bullied off the internet by these “fans.” Two years later, these fans still are bitching about TLJ. I think was hurt more was how Kelly got sidelined after that backlash. TROS basically felt like confirmation that Disney Lucasfilm cared more about the fanboys and dudebros, who were vocal about their hate for TLJ or attacked Kelly in such a racist and sexist manner because they didn’t like her character, than they did about the fandom as a whole. What is absolutely disgusting is the fans who told other fans to k*ll themselves over their opinions or that they hoped they’d get r*ped. How someone could spread so much hate over a fictional story astounds me.
I’ve found that I have no passion for Star Wars anymore. I started a Ben Solo fic the other day, but now I’m not sure if I’ll continue it. I haven’t watched any Star Wars the last several weeks and I have yet to even bring myself to go watch TROS (and I don’t think I’m going to as I feel I know the entire movie based off of what has been posted on the internet). I abandoned two fics after TLJ because of how toxic the fans were and I never went back to them. And it saddens me. It truly saddens me. Star Wars has been a part of my life for so long, but I never had anybody other than my best friend to talk about it with. Now it’s just a cesspool.
I don’t know if Disney can do anything to fix this. I really don’t. I’m not saying goodbye to this fandom. I still have that hope. But, I just don’t love Star Wars anymore. I feel like I’ve gone through a bad breakup. I hope to maybe get some of my love for Star Wars back, but I don’t know.
