Star Wars Episode 8

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by dl316bh

I mainly balk at the idea it's at all recent. It's not. It's gone on since the internet started up and you had the first bulletin boards. When you have direct contact with more people with opposing opinions, some are going to butt heads and some will just be dicks. Like in real life. I've been on or lurked on a lot of forums like this, back when forums were still popular, and you'd get legendary flame wars. The only thing that's changed is venue, where nerd wars are on social media now.

If you want to argue that's bad, well, sure, I won't disagree that it sucks stuff can boil down to that, but that either requires policing - and hell, even moderators on forums couldn't keep a complete handle on it in the big forum days - or the internet going away, and it's a little late to put that genie back in the bottle.

Exactly.
But there's another thing to consider: The mainstreaming of fandom and all things geek.

The toxicity we're seeing now was always there, it's just it usually had a much smaller venue. And those venues were considered safe spaces so long as you agreed with the dominant paradigm. For the longest time it was gold-star gatekeeping geeks who got to control what that paradigm was.
And now they don't.
And they are not happy about that.

You can see it in the video game world.
For years video game fandom wanted to be taken seriously, and wanted their medium of choice to be viewed as art.
And now it is...and there's a very vocal portion of that fandom who really does not like all the side effects of that legitimacy.

Things like deconstructive media criticism.

At the end of the day the stories we make, and how we make them, say something about us as creators and our culture as a whole. We affect the media as much as it effects us.

To be blunt, geeks are sore winners.
We're not shoved into lockers anymore, but instead of being better people...we're just go around shoving other people into lockers because we can. And we think that they deserve it, because people did it to us first.

[Sumac]

Those articles...
Some people really trying to turn everything to fuel for their agenda, by brainfarting some ridiculous stuff.

And then they are surprised, why people are divided and aggressive...

[Vegita-San]

Originally Posted by Sumac

Those articles...
Some people really trying to turn everything to fuel for their agenda, by brainfarting some ridiculous stuff.

And then they are surprised, why people are divided and aggressive...

Yep. exactly.

It's the curse of geek things becoming more popular. the People who arn't really interested in things geek (I.e.Fake Geeks), but only into it because it's the current popular thing...are trying to turn it into something it's not.

and then they wonder why the older crowd, the ones they shun because something they used to like is turning into something totally different, get upset.

look at all the political crap berlanti is putting into their shows now. It went from a fun super hero series like Flash, to all kinds of agendas being inserted.
now I barely feel like watching flash anymore. because the casuals are driving things more and more away from what made the medium so good in the first place.

ugh.

[Spike Spiegel]

Originally Posted by sdp

I
Also I don't want to start a endlessly toxic Vegita/Plastron debate but yeah these movies are being politicized heavily by FAKE geek news blogs, all I did was read some Mark Hammill interviews and now google was suggesting articles like these:
Toxic Masculinity Is the True Villain of Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Den of Geek
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Offers the Harsh Condemnation of Mansplaining We Need in 2017
Vanity Fair

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Vegita-San

Yep. exactly.

It's the curse of geek things becoming more popular. the People who arn't really interested in things geek (I.e.Fake Geeks), but only into it because it's the current popular thing...are trying to turn it into something it's not.

It's basically analogue of people who are starting listening to some artist because this artist is popular at the moment, even though, they previously didn't have any interest in genre and abandon it as soon as will not be considered "en vogue".

I am not talking about representation or some other stuff, but about desire to turn everything into something to their liking at the expensive of the people who previously liked it. And then call those people "horrible", when they disagree with it. And then be surprised why those people become overly protective of the franchises.
What a riddle, really!!

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by sdp

I'm surprised by the negativity this movie is getting

I'm not, for reasons relating to the content of the film and reasons outside of it.

Keep in mind I haven't seen it quite yet - probably going this week, because a friend insists I see it enough he's actually buying me a freaking ticket despite having skipped Force Awakens and Rogue One both in theaters - but I've been spoiled to high heaven about it.

But with that in mind, it sounds like The Last Jedi is about letting the old fall away, which was never going to sit well with hardcore fans.

Spoiler:

The film apparently takes the Jedi and its religion to task for failing to stop the evil of the galaxy and declares it an institution that needs to die. Not only that, but for kind of fostering the big split between light and dark. All of which is true in the context of the seven prior films. That's not going to go over well for obvious reasons. Even less for others. I'm betting some are subconsciously taking it as an attack on the concept of religion itself; if they are, that's probably going to be a right media talking point in the near future if there's a slow news week, which is rare these days, but hey.

It sounds like a condemnation of clinging too tightly to the past - which is funny considering what Force Awakens ended up being - which is going to put some people on the defensive because they probably feel like the movie is talking to them directly and they don't like what they're hearing.

I could go on given what I've heard, but it sounds like it more or less burned the house down regarding sacred Star Wars stuff. It deconstructed Star Wars and while that's been done before in, like, KOTOR II, that wasn't film canon, did not have lasting impact on the direction of the franchise and was, frankly, a bit niche so it got away without backlash to collect it's cult classic status and love.

There's also the fact that the bloom is off the rose now and it's the third Star Wars film in three years. Some people scoff at the idea of getting "Star Wars fatigue", or did at the start, but I've seen several admit "geez, I'm just not that excited about it anymore". I don't know how widespread that is yet, it's anecdotal, but the longer this schedule goes on the more it probably happens. It's different from things like the Marvel movies, because Star Wars always has the gigantic marketing campaign and is almost inescapable - I've seen R2-D2 and C-3PO on bottled water of all things - so for half of every given year, you're getting blitzed and it really does get old. It's like having a song you like play on the radio over and over again while you get progressively sick of it, a phenomenon that's happened to all of us, I think.

You also just kind of can't recapture the lightning in a bottle. The prequels were a gigantic event the likes of which we haven't seen before, the first time Star Wars came back in twenty years, and you can't really replicate that first return or the blind fan love that comes with it. Especially not just ten years later. It took three years for people to start turning on Phantom Menace for not being what they wanted, even more before it became common opinion. Force Awakens took months. Rogue One took weeks. The Last Jedi days. To be honest, even if they put out the best Star Wars film ever, I don't think there's ever going to be one that's unanimously considered great again. Not that, well, any of them ever really were until pop culture impact took hold.

It will be interesting to see the divide between hardcore fans and general audiences over time. The movie does a lot of things that seem destined to annoy the hardcore, but general moviegoers rarely care about that sort of thing and they're the majority of the people who go to see these things. In the case of the kids, they're generally the ones who grow into the franchise too.

Anyway, I may or may not give my opinions when I do see it. I'm kind of predisposed to like this film though, I admit, because it sounds like it actually does something different with the franchise, which is what I wanted in the first place. I decided to skip Force Awakens because it became clear real early it was going to be A New Hope II, and if I wanted ANH I'd watch that again. Most of the non film media has been the safest stuff you could imagine too. I just kind of fell out of Star Wars. But this sounds interesting and more of what I wanted.

To be blunt, geeks are sore winners.

Oh god yeah. I remember being, like, thirteen in 2000 and everyone's angry about ratings and why "gamers" aren't taken seriously - I was one of them at the time - then gaming hit the mainstream, got the critical eye and respect enough to take seriously they always wanted and suddenly they didn't like what they heard, or the effects from everyone else taking it seriously. Same thing happens with things traditionally thought of as geek circles. They want to be taken seriously right up until it means actually having to be something anyone but they care about.

It's the curse of geek things becoming more popular. the People who arn't really interested in things geek (I.e.Fake Geeks), but only into it because it's the current popular thing...are trying to turn it into something it's not.

The very notion of Star Wars being strictly a geek thing and not a worldwide phenomenon popular with general audiences makes me giggle, honestly.

[Vegita-San]

Originally Posted by Spike Spiegel

https://i.imgur.com/14pDVr1.gif

All I do is say my piece. how others take it is entirely up to them .

[Spike Spiegel]

Originally Posted by dl316bh

The idea of Star Wars being strictly a geek thing and not a worldwide phenomenon popular with general audiences makes me giggle, honestly.

The movies are a worldwide phenomenon.

The average person would probably look at you in bewilderment if you asked them who Mara Jade, Admiral Thrawn, Ahsoka Tano, or Darth Revan are, or how kyber crystals work.

Those basement dwelling nerds who buy all the figures and play all the video games and watch all the cartoons are the lifeblood of any franchise. They'll be there when general audiences move on from TLJ to Infinity War hype or the Wonder Woman sequel. They'll tolerate DLC sh*tfests like the new Battlefront games because they love the lore and characters.

Those same individuals are the ones who seem to feel let down by TLJ, at least by my understanding.

[Vegita-San]

yep. The people these movies SHOULD be made for.

But, because in this day and age, it's easier to reboot things when some CEO's grand idea doesn't come to fruition... or wait a few years when the general audience forgets about something and bring it back for another try....

the hardcore fans are LONG forgotten about. But, lets continue to call them insulting things like 'gate keepers' and see how well that goes over.

there are reasons why the franchise works with your hard core fans in place. and if you can't bring in new fans using what works, or create something new that feels like it's always been there (Old Hob, for instance)...you shouldn't be working on the franchise.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by Spike Spiegel

The movies are a worldwide phenomenon.

The average person would probably look at you in bewilderment if you asked them who Mara Jade, Admiral Thrawn, Ahsoka Tano, or Darth Revan are, or how kyber crystals work.

Those basement dwelling nerds who buy all the figures and play all the video games and watch all the cartoons are the lifeblood of any franchise. They'll be there when general audiences move on from TLJ to Infinity War hype or the Wonder Woman sequel. They'll tolerate DLC sh*tfests like the new Battlefront games because they love the lore and characters.

Those same individuals are the ones who seem to feel let down by TLJ, at least by my understanding.

I think this is overselling things a bit.
Everyone of a certain age was a fan of the original trilogy.
Everyone had the toys.
The movies were critically acclaimed, were nominated, and won awards.

But not every person who loved those movies went on to become a superfan. That's a distinction for a much smaller audience. That audience isn't anywhere near large enough to keep a franchise afloat, no matter how much they wish they were.

Also I'm no less a fan of the franchise because I've never read any of the novelizations.
Much the same way someone isn't less a fan of the TMNT than I am by not knowing who Dale Evans McGuillicutty, Radical, or Lucindra are.

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by Spike Spiegel

The movies are a worldwide phenomenon.

The average person would probably look at you in bewilderment if you asked them who Mara Jade, Admiral Thrawn, Ahsoka Tano, or Darth Revan are, or how kyber crystals work.

Those basement dwelling nerds who buy all the figures and play all the video games and watch all the cartoons are the lifeblood of any franchise. They'll be there when general audiences move on from TLJ to Infinity War hype or the Wonder Woman sequel. They'll tolerate DLC sh*tfests like the new Battlefront games because they love the lore and characters.

Those same individuals are the ones who seem to feel let down by TLJ, at least by my understanding.

And every one of them started somewhere with an easy in, as kids, whether it's the original trilogy or the prequels. Which have always been the stuff that matters, something the fandom always used to understand. There were charts about levels of canonocity, with it understood that anything but film canon was a class lower that held up, sure, but the films held the right to ignore them at any time. Which happened with the prequels. I also feel like, if you care about Mara Jade and Admiral Thrawn and didn't drop out when Disney canned it all - something I did, in regard to caring and dropping out - then you should have known better.

I used to be big into the "listen to the fans" stuff, but over time I've realized there has to be a balance between listening and doing your own thing and sometimes you really can't listen to fans at all or you'll never do anything. Hardcore fans often want safe things that don't really rock the boat much, most of the time, because they want things preserved. We got that film. It was Force Awakens. And people turned on it quick for being, ultimately, nothing.

And frankly, anyone who tolerates Battlefront I or II because of pure franchise love is someone I don't think I can understand.

As a side note, knowledge of Mara Jade, Admiral Thrawn, Darth Revan and the kyber crystals is useless these days anyway, because Disney threw them out of continuity years ago. Thrawn exists again, but in a different form. They already turned their backs on those fans in favor of the freedom of doing what they wanted. This is just the first time they went ahead and took advantage of that.

All of which is not me arguing in favor of The Last Jedi or defending it, I'd like to reiterate, because I haven't seen it yet. I'm just glad they didn't play it too safe. I'll see if I think it paid off soon enough.

But, lets continue to call them insulting things like 'gate keepers' and see how well that goes over.

Of course it doesn't go over well. People don't like being called out for s***ty behavior. Gate keeping is just shorthand for the people who run others out of fandoms or interest because they're not considered "true fans" because, I don't know, they don't know what suit style Batman wore in the 70's or what Kyber crystals are, they don't like things getting too popular, they don't like different perspectives or how they might change the conversation or they simply think their opinion means more because they love it more. Which has absolutely been a thing in "geek culture" for as long as I've been a part of it. Because I guess you can't just like or love something, you have to be obsessed with it and have the "correct" opinions.

Fan is basically short for fanatic and we usually use fanatic as a derogatory term for a reason.

Also I'm no less a fan of the franchise because I've never read any of the novelizations.

You're better off, for the most part. The EU books were great for years, but they started getting weird in a bad way at some point past the New Jedi Order series. Still plenty of classics to read before the tipping point, though, and I still have a fond attachment to the OT cast going through their lives and trying to rebuild the Republic, as done there.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by dl316bh

The very notion of Star Wars being strictly a geek thing and not a worldwide phenomenon popular with general audiences makes me giggle, honestly.

It's not really a "geek thing", but a lot of people care about franchises only when new movie is about to be released.
And then they move on, but not before not complaining about "evil nerds" and things not catering to them.

The gist that all parties want things to be catered to them in the end, whether they are nerds or casual audience. There should be a fine line between respecting both parties. In before someone will start crying that there is no reason to respect long time fans and source materials.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by dl316bh

You're better off, for the most part. The EU books were great for years, but they started getting weird in a bad way at some point past the New Jedi Order series. Still plenty of classics to read before the tipping point, though, and I still have a fond attachment to the OT cast going through their lives and trying to rebuild the Republic, as done there.

Now see, that there in bold?
That's my jam.
If I seek any books out, it'll be those. I love slice-of-life stuff.
Thanks for the rec!

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by Sumac

And then they move on, but not before not complaining about "evil nerds" and things not catering to them.

As someone who actually did used to think that was the way it was when I was a teen, I've ended up realizing at least part of it is projection of insecurities. When it isn't, it's often earned because of their behavior. We'd all just convinced ourselves that everyone else had it out for us. Which continues into the modern day in the form of "well they're not real fans, they're out to kill the things we love, they have it out for the true believers".

There should be a fine line between respecting both parties.

Sure, but no one is ever going to agree what that line is, so there's never going to be agreement on what's accomplished it.

In before someone will start crying that there is no reason to respect long time fans and source materials.

Considering they already threw out the old material even before they put out their first movie?

I feel like part of the problem is that long time fans feel like they deserve more respect than anyone else, which causes a lot of the problems and clashes.

Now see, that there in bold?
That's my jam.
If I seek any books out, it'll be those. I love slice-of-life stuff.
Thanks for the rec!

No problem. Definitely seek out some of the stuff from New Jedi Order on back in the old continuity. There's some fun stuff and since they were books, they could actually take some risks on material a lot of people might not care about. There's a whole anthology book just about characters in Jabbas palace. Hell, the X-Wing pilots had their own book series.

Keep in mind a lot of the books do still have plenty of adventure or things to stop alongside that, though.

[Andrew NDB]

I'd recommend the Courtship of Princess Leia, the Thrawn trilogy, the Dark Empire graphic novels, the Jedi Academy trilogy, Darksaber, the Thrawn sequel duology, the Young Jedi Knights books and... that's probably about it. Plenty of great anthology stuff too.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by dl316bh

As someone who actually did used to think that was the way it was when I was a teen, I've ended up realizing at least part of it is projection of insecurities. When it isn't, it's often earned because of their behavior. We'd all just convinced ourselves that everyone else had it out for us. Which continues into the modern day in the form of "well they're not real fans, they're out to kill the things we love, they have it out for the true believers".

This sounds very dismissive (not to mention ironically paranoid), because it gives someone who proclaiming such position a free-out-of-jail-card to dismiss every bit of criticism as just ramblings of paranoid fanboys, which is not always the case.

What I am seeing now and what I have seen back at release of TFA is that even when people had a legitimate criticism of the movie, they are a lot of times, when their complaints are dismissed as "rambling of stupid nerds".

Which is as bad as fanboism of nerds themselves, because, such dismissive attitude is basically a form of "fanboism" in itself - completely dismissing one side of argument, because of preconceived notion that people you are opposing to are worthless, don't understand anything and their opinion is worthless by default.
Does it remind you of anything?

Originally Posted by dl316bh

Sure, but no one is ever going to agree what that line is, so there's never going to be agreement on what's accomplished it.

Then it's up to third party to draw the line.

Originally Posted by dl316bh

Considering they already threw out the old material even before they put out their first movie?

I feel like part of the problem is that long time fans feel like they deserve more respect than anyone else, which causes a lot of the problems and clashes.

I am agree that this is the problem.

I don't think that creators should be slaves of long time fans whims and desires. Creators should have right to be absolutely free to tell the story they want.
It doesn't automatically absolve them of responsibility for a failure, though.

[Andrew NDB]

What I've always said is that yes, absolutely, the EU stuff needed to be wiped out for any kind of 35 year later sequel trilogy to work. That said, it's also kind of necessary that in doing so, the new movies they make need to be good enough in their own right to justify that.

I know 7 does not and I'm not sure that 8 does either.

[Vegita-San]

and then they just cherry picked what they liked from the EU and switched around the details. smh.

and they wonder why alot of old fans where not around for the TFA love from the start.

[Andrew NDB]

Also, this occurred to me:

#1: When Kathleen Kennedy mentioned after Carrie died that 7 was always intended to be the Han Solo movie, 8 the Luke movie, and 9 the Leia movie... how can this be, when we know now there was 0 story plans for 8 when 7 was being made, and 0 plans for 9 when 8 was being made (well, beyond Trevorrow's rejected pitch)?

#2: Johnson telling interviewers that he hadn't seen any fan theories about Snoke that were accurate... since Snoke isn't anybody in this movie, was he just trolling people or is there something deeper there? And there's also the Serkis interviews where he says he "absolutely" knows who Snoke really is.

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by Sumac

This sounds very dismissive (not to mention ironically paranoid), because it gives someone who proclaiming such position a free-out-of-jail-card to dismiss every bit of criticism as just ramblings of paranoid fanboys, which is not always the case.

It's a lot more like growing up and realizing the persecution complex is offputting and that wrapping yourself up so much in one thing is kind of insane and even detrimental to your own mental health, but you can call it dismissive if you like. I got so much s*** over enjoying Episode 1 for years - to use a relevant example to the thread - and probably acted like a bit of a baby about it until I realized it didn't matter years and years ago and just kind of let the whole thing go. Now I can joke about it and have a laugh (and once I got over myself I've had a lot of good conversations about what worked and what didn't with that movie while still enjoying it to this day).

I suppose I realized that acting like that was kind of dumb, so I changed, and yeah, maybe I even feel a little like rolling my eyes at the people who do take it too seriously. If I still took my nerd stuff way too seriously, I'd probably be pissing and moaning constantly about Tom Kings Batman run reframing his entire mission as a slow burn suicide. But man, I can't even look at old posts of mine anymore when I was still like that, because I was so damn obnoxious.

I have lapses from time to time, but eh, I'm human.

What I am seeing now and what I have seen back at release of TFA is that even when people had a legitimate criticism of the movie, they are a lot of times, when their complaints are dismissed as "rambling of stupid nerds".

Honestly? Some of the complaints do sound silly and nitpicky, but I can't say if they actually are until I see it. As for TFA, I saw a lot more nerds defending that movie while others were like "this is... basically the same movie". Seriously, I saw a lot of people like "stop s***ting on this, they had to take the time to get Star Wars right, to reassure us, this is what Star Wars should have been instead of the prequels, what is your problem" for that one, or infighting about that. So maybe we just move in different circles again.

Which is as bad as fanboism of nerds themselves, because, such dismissive attitude is basically a form of "fanboism" in itself - completely dismissing one side of argument, because of preconceived notion that people you are opposing to are worthless, don't understand anything and their opinion is worthless by default. Does it remind you of anything?

Sure, it reminds me of the majority of differences of opinion in general. There's never been some utopia where we all got along. The perception is just that it's so much worse now because the internet has a lot of us essentially the equivalent of in a big room together arguing about this sort of thing, rather than just small town communities who didn't talk to much outside unless they, like, had a pen pal or traveled. We've all rolled our eyes and wanted to dismissively wank on the inside even before social media blew up and tuned people out.

Then it's up to third party to draw the line.

That brings us back to moderators, which you can't really do with something on the scale of social media. That means getting the platforms themselves to tamp down on abusive bull, but they're reluctant to do that. So it's pretty much convincing them, I guess.

I don't think that creators should be slaves of long time fans whims and desires. Creators should have right to be absolutely free to tell the story they want.
It doesn't automatically absolve them of responsibility for a failure, though.

If they fail, they fail - though it's Star Wars, so the terms of failure are different as it'll make a bajillion dollars and fans are used to failure enough they'll just move on and hope the next is better - but even if I see this and think it's garbage, I'm happy to hear they're at least doing something different than just remaking Empire, which was what I expected.

What I've always said is that yes, absolutely, the EU stuff needed to be wiped out for any kind of 35 year later sequel trilogy to work.

Oh, yeah, if they insisted on doing it with the old cast, there was no choice. It doesn't mean I was happy about it - and honestly, it kind of killed Star Wars for me more than a bit - but there was so much post OT stuff at that point and they sure weren't just going to make film versions of some of the books. If they wanted to put it in a timeline beyond them, though, they could have worked something out. Dark Horse had a series - Legacy, I think - about a hundred plus years in the future with a Skywalker descendant. You could do something like that. But with Luke and company? Nope.

since Snoke isn't anybody in this movie, was he just trolling people or is there something deeper there?

Just promotional misdirection, probably. It happens a fair bit. They use it to try and keep things mysterious and people guessing in an age where it's hard to keep things hidden.