These arguments take many forms. There’s the direct assault of, “Your opinion shows that you are a bad person who hates art \/ people.” Then there’s the more indirect attack along the lines of, “Clearly you weren’t paying attention, or you’re ignorant of Star Wars, or you don’t understand how warfare works. Therefore your opinion is invalid.”<\/p>\n
To be clear: I’m fine if you love the movie. I’m fine if you hate it. I’m fine if you’re indifferent or you haven’t seen it. We’re friends! It’s all good!<\/p>\n
What I absolutely cannot bear<\/b> are the people who feel the need to project insidious motives onto the opposition, or who see their appraisal of the film to be some sort of position of virtue. I’m not going to mince words: These arguments are not welcome here<\/b>. If you get anywhere near projecting stupidity \/ malice onto the opposition, or if you drag in any culture-war arguments, or if you’re obviously pissed off and spoiling for a fight, then I’m going to delete your comment without warning. I promise to be unreasonable and trigger-happy about this, because this argument has been driving me up a wall since the movie came out and I’ve basically lost my patience with the entire mess.<\/p>\n
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Why Does This Have to be so Difficult?<\/h3>\n
<\/div>I find TLJ to be a fascinating movie. I don’t personally care for it, but it’s an interesting movie to examine for the way it pulls at the various threads of “What makes something FEEL like Star Wars?” It embraces some aspects of the series and thoroughly rejects others, and this reveals all sorts of differences among fans about what they’ve been celebrating all these years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My frustration is that we can’t ever have this analysis because as soon as the topic pops up, the angry haters and sanctimonious scolds show up and fling shit at each other until it’s impossible for the rest of us to have a reasonable conversation about laser guns and space wizards. They suck the joy out of everything by threadjacking every Star Wars discussion to serve their insatiable hunger for more chances to rage about all the Wrong People who plague the world with their constant Wrongness. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Also, all of this applies to the passive-aggressive weenies who show up with the attitude of, “Shamus, this culture war stuff is super-important and as a society we need to talk about these things and you’re being immature by not letting us use your blog as a place to host our shit-flinging competition. Besides, it’s literally impossible to discuss a piece of art without using it as a lens to project villainy and disdain onto the Bad People in the world because that’s the only proper use of art.”<\/p>\n
You’ve got lots of places to have your culture war. Go find someplace on Reddit to rage against the Great and Horrible Other Tribe. I’ll allow that sometimes cultural conversations are important, but there are lots<\/strong> of things that are life-or-death important in the world. If we’re only allowed to discuss important things then we might as well abandon all forms of entertainment criticism because we can’t talk about frivolous things while [insert global crisis] exists.<\/p>\n This is my website and I want this little corner of the internet to be a place where I can talk about Star Wars without a bunch of emotionally incontinent ideologues dragging us off-topic and creating endless stress and moderation headaches for me.<\/p>\n I sincerely apologize for the combative tone. I really want everyone to enjoy this discussion and this website. I realize that starting off with all this negative energy isn’t helping. I’m hoping that if I’m abrasive enough, then the Usual Suspects will steer clear of the topic rather than trying to push me and see how much they can get away with.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like I’ve said before, I’ve got people I love and care about all over the cultural and political spectrum, with quite a few landing at the more extreme-ish ends. Their rhetorical sniping is often painful for me. Over the last few years I’ve become frustrated at how hard it is to keep this place friendly while still discussing the things that interest me.<\/p>\n TLJ didn’t sit right with me, but I have no quarrel with anyone who loved it, or thought it was exactly what Star Wars needed<\/a>. I’m not going to try to persuade you otherwise, and I certainly wouldn’t want to take away the joy you have with this film. Love it or hate it, we’re all cool here as long as we’re all willing to accept that – as a departure from earlier works – there is plenty of room for critique, praise, and analysis when it comes to The Last Jedi<\/i>.<\/p>\n Okay? Great. Now that I’ve set some limits, hopefully I can mention The Last Jedi<\/i> without starting a war…<\/p>\n I said above that I’m not a huge fan of TLJ. On the other hand, I actually really like writer \/ director Rian Johnson. Or at least, I dig the kinds of things he does as a creator. He’s the Demolition Man of genre films. His favorite thing to do is to take a set of established tropes and destroy them by (and this is the part everyone gives him shit about) subverting audience expectations.<\/p>\n This is an artistically valid thing to do! In fact, that’s sort of what created Star Wars. Lucas took the classic fantasy template of castle-stormingIn case it isn’t clear: The Death Star is “the castle”.<\/span>, princess-saving and villain-dueling in a world of simplistic black-and-white morality, and set it in the context of a space adventure with lasers and starships. This was essentially subverting the expectations of both genres. Fantasy fans expect their heroes to ride horses and use a bow, and sci-fi fans of the time often expected something cerebral<\/a>, speculative<\/a>, scary<\/a>, or perhaps even horrific<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n There was nothing apparent in the Star Wars script that would indicate that Lucas was about to smash box office records and create a cultural sensation. A lot of people thought his film sounded like a terrible idea because it didn’t fit into the expectations of the audiences of the day. In short, if you’re not willing to mess around with audience expectations then you can’t create explosive new things like Dr. Stranglove<\/i>, The Godfather<\/i>, Star Wars<\/i>, Pulp Fiction<\/i>, The Matrix<\/i>, or Shrek<\/i>Yes, the Shrek series went to hell. But that first movie? That was VERY clever and unexpected on several different levels. Same goes for the Matrix, I suppose.<\/span>.<\/p>\n Demolishing a genre is not necessarily a bad thing. A certain degree of creative destruction is needed to keep things fresh and interesting. And if you’re looking for someone to mix up the status quo then Rian Johnson is the right man for the job.<\/p>\nI’m Just Trying to Stay Sane<\/h3>\n
<\/div>The Demolition Man<\/h3>\n
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