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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16505133
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Actually Star Wars fans aren’t that bad
Someone downvoted you for that opinion. I don’t even know where the stereotype comes from. Every star wars fan I’ve seen just wants to talk about Star wars. They’re not toxic or anything in my experience, they’re just really into star wars.
There’s a reason that the term “Fandom Menace” and the saltierthancrait subreddit are things.
As a fan since the 80’s, and a woman, I’ve seen my fair share of toxicity, but nothing will compare to the level it’s gotten since the release of the sequels. I also hated the sequels, but goddamn the level of hate towards the actors themselves was just awful. There were many valid technical reasons to criticize those movies - diversity wasn’t one of them.
It’s definitely made us all look like idiots regardless if you were a part of the drama or not.
Granted there was toxicity and yes the level greatly increased when the sequels came out. But a lot of it was instigated by Disney, they started to spout the nonsense of “The Force Is Female” and “Star Wars has no strong women”, no one previously claimed the force to have a gender, or declared Leia a whimpering lass. But this was the Disney that promised a new hope for Star Wars when it was bought, and a conclusion to the story the “later” generation of fans were hoping for, to see how their old heroes had fared, after perhaps reading all the books the hopes were high. And it was all thrown in a puddle of mud and stomped on on purpose by Disney. The heroes were willfully destroyed, in movies that had no production planning and lousy writing. This is what made the mouthier fans angry.
On top of that Disney’s media output was only making it worse, and, as was later proven, a lot of the negativity some actors perceived was pushed on them by the media, not the fans (both John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran said as much, Gina Carano’s story falls in the same category, Disney attacked her through social media bots or so it is said), yet the blame landed firmly and only on toxic fans. Disney’s opening toxicity was always waved off.
Anyone daring to comment on the sexist remarks of the force being female or Rey being a Mary Sue was immediately stamped as toxic.
And for just about every tv show there was a remark or two from Disney far ahead of the release of the show that got the fans raging, Andor was just about the exception, that one had a lot of radio silence.
In all, I as a fan am bummed out there was/is toxicity, but I can’t swallow it no more that legit, polite, grievances and criticism are being cast off as being toxic and the Disney product is beyond reproach and can only be revered.
The Acolyte has shown cringely bad writing so far, from episode 1 to 3 it’s only gone downhill, and I think people should be allowed to comment on that, if it turns out to be the next Shakespeare at the end, well the first 3 definitely never will be.
Sure, it kind of goes with the characterisation. Most ex-Star Wars fans are a sour lot though. Why can’t they just accept that one era is over and the franchise is in a different place. Sure I’m sad that the style of Star Wars I grew up with is not only over, but actively being dismantled. But that’s been going on for close to 30 years.
It’s a simple fix for grown-ups: There hasn’t been any Star Wars movies made since the 80’s. And if you subjectively disagree, you’re objectively wrong as per any fandom law.
People have hope and heart for Star Wars … hope that got rekindled by a spark here and there like Andor and The Mandalorian’s early seasons. So the fans get pulled back in.
But soon after Disney brings pain again, and it is always on purpose, usually from very bad writing that should not have seen the green light, and lousy planning.
It’s the casual fans who are bad imo. The ones who hate everything except the OT. And they just constantly talk about how Disney has ruined Star Wars because the only thing they watched was the numbered movies.
Disney has ruined Star Wars. Everything outside of the main 6 is questionable
Have you seen the acolyte? Their anger is justified.
Have you seen the Acolyte? I’m convinced that the people angry about it aren’t really the big Star Wars fans that they claim to be, because there’s absolutely nothing in the Acolyte so far that hasn’t been done (or taken further) in the EU.
The Acolyte is a pretty mid show, it has some promise but has been a 6/10 show so far. Better than Book of Boba Fett for sure.
The majority of the criticisms I have seen are just typical fragile little white boys getting angry that they have to share their toys. The other criticisms that I have seen are pretty deliberately obtuse (budget too high) portray extreme lack of media literacy (how fire do that) or are just ignorant of the wider star wars lore (why they make jedi bad? why they call force thread?)
There are genuine criticisms that can be made about The Acolyte, but all of the usual suspects crying about how it’s “cringe” that a witch coven is in Star Wars and uses magic powers without a buddhist monk aesthetic, before switching topics to ramble about some completely unrelated right-wing talking point.
Ironic you say that because it’s proven that the actors and staff of The Acolyte (and some in the Kenobi series as well) never saw a bit of star wars and have no basic knowledge of the property.
So it is an issue that fans complain how badly written the Acolyte is for the budget, even if they only heard about it from others or seeing clips, but it is no issue the cast and staff don’t know a single thing about Star Wars lore but do force their own mind-canon of star wars on the fans … ?
See, this kind of comment just proves how absolutely nonsensical the majority of the criticism is. Actors and crew members don’t need much, if any, familiarity with Star Wars to act and produce good Star Wars content, and writers don’t even need much beyond a casual familiarity. Do you think Lawrence Kasdan had an encyclopaedic understanding of SW when he wrote Empire? It’s a nothingburger complaint that people only make when they don’t actually have a coherent argument. Want to criticise the writing? Critique the actual text of the movie, not the credentials of the author.
Anyone who is making hay over the budget of Acolyte is explicitly a fool. There have been three episodes released. The fourth episode might be the most spectacular episode of television ever created for all these people know. Again, it’s a total nothingburger. It’s the kind of thing you talk about when you don’t actually have any substantial criticisms to make.
No you’re right, the actors don’t have to, but then they ALSO don’t need to spout falsehoods about starwars like “Star Wars never had strong females”, or 'Anakin blew up the Death star" like it was gospel … as an actor for an IP if you don’t know anything about it just say so and don’t make toxic comments just to rile up people.
The actor playing the inquisitor in Kenobi said he knew nothing of star wars … I don’t recall anyone really flaming him personally for that (but the character was put through the wringer in writing).
I brought that up because if they don’t know anything about SW, why did Lucasfilm put them out on the interviews to spout as much nonsense as possible? That is plain wrong.
Interestingly, the creator of Andor was not even a SW fan but he properly read up on the material and did not let himself be used for someone else’s agenda by giving empty headed interviews.
Lawrence Kasdan had George Lucas beside him … The crew of The Acolyte have someone next to them who is almost saying George Lucas shouldn’t be Star Wars’ creator.
If the writers don’t know what entails star wars … then why get upset if star wars fans don’t recognize star wars in the product? It’s not a magical faerie dust the Disney team sprinkles over it post production. No matter how much they’d like that. A good writer studies its subject and writes about it with passion, if neither are done you get drivel like “the power of one, shallala, the power of two, mulalala, the power of thr’many-y”
Final point, if they boast the outrageous 180M (movie!) budget, and up to epsode 3 out of 8 (at ~30 minutes a pop) it gives you that, it does not bode well for the rest of the show and it’s a bad thing once again no one higher up pulled the brake on this… In you calling the complainers a fool (oops toxicity seeping in!), you absolutely miss the point, what is shown now is not up to the quality deserving such a budget, not even 30% at $60Million… but dividing it per episode would make you say it’s unfair too because each episode has different effects etc. Even reviewing the series per episode is a no-no then because one can’t see the whole series … so reasoning with you on that is moot.
Other flopped SW series had far less of a budget to work with, and with more budget for the Acolyte it promised a lot, but the team still put out subpar writing … again … and it is the again that people are upset about. So I will quote someone: “Who is more foolish, the fool, or the one following him?” … The people complaining are definitely not accepting the budgetary worth of the series so far.
In all, it is clear the people having heart for the IP are on the wrong side of the fence and their points and passions declared unsubstantial by the selfcentered other side.
But I bet if it does turn out to be amongst the best SciFi we have seen in a while there will be plenty of praise and no more complaints about the budget, anyone remember Andor?
Somehow I don’t see it happening this time. <cough>Rebel Moon<cough>
Can’t find a source for the “star wars never had strong females” thing, so I can’t really respond to that. Could you share who said that at least?
As for the Anakin death star thing, when you watch the interview, it’s clearly just a young actor in Star Wars getting excited talking about Star Wars and misspeaking, it’s not a big deal. Getting Luke and Anakin mixed up is literally a meme because it happens so commonly. He clearly enjoys Star Wars even though he may not be a mega fan or whatever.
Actors will always do interviews about their role in upcoming shows and movies and it’s mega common for them to not to be star wars fans. You’ll often hear them say stuff like “I wasn’t really a fan before I got this part, but I love it now” in those interviews. These kinds of criticisms are often not being made in good faith, they’re being made to push a right-wing narrative, so they just cherry pick quotes and make a ton of hay about absolutely nothing.
Don’t you feel some cognitive dissonance about the Acolyte being different from other Star Wars works while also liking Andor… which is different from Star Wars works? What makes the Coven cringe but the dude with the hammer in Andor cool? Because a lot of the criticisms I’ve seen just straight up hate women, it’s hard to accept that isn’t a big reason for all the hate that the Acolyte has received. Maybe also because right wingers got some representation in Syril.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the coven’s chant. This is one of the many things which expose people as not being the huge star wars fans they claim to be, because they are making it clear that they haven’t watched Clone Wars or read any of the books/comics. The Dathomiri nightsisters (which were a major inspiration for the coven in acolyte) also use chants to focus their powers. Jedi meditate and use mantras to focus their powers. It’s pretty much a self-own to call it “not star wars enough”. If someone is making that claim, they’re not star wars enough to realise that, if anything, it’s kinda overdone.
If I told you that in June 2024, I spent $50,000, but you only saw what I did for the first week, you’d be asking “how did you spend $50,000 in a month on food?!” but then in the third week I revealed that I bought a car but you didn’t see it yet, you might feel a little foolish for jumping to conclusions, mightn’t you?
A show having a high budget has absolutely never been considered a bad thing until someone could use that as a means to complain about women. That’s what it just keeps coming down to. Really poorly thought out, bad faith arguments being made by people who don’t want to come out and tell the truth - they don’t like that there are women in the show, or non-white people, or portrayals of vaguely LGBTQ+ vibes. It’s just stereotypical reactionary crap, and I’m really sorry that you have fallen for it.
But there is hope. There is a Star Wars character who realised that he was on the wrong side, who refused to allow the evil authoritarian regime to continue unopposed. I don’t know if you are strong enough to follow their example, but I hope you are, for your sake. Anger, hate, fear - these things are the path to the dark side, and once you allow yourself to be seduced by it, forever will it dominate your destiny.
I am sure that there is good in you. I hope it doesn’t take a traumatic experience for you to find it within yourself and turn away from the dark.
The Acolyte is the best series since Andor, but that isn’t saying much. I think 6/10 is far to generous and given the pattern these shows follow, it’s only going to get worse.
If they wanted a good fanbase, they need to make good content. Unfortunately the last good movie was released in 1983.
Naw, Rogue One was passable, never mind the few dumb fan service quips. Andor is straight up good. Mando was acceptable.
The rest? Yeaaahh… Disney has added little quality to the universe. At least George expanded the universe in ways that felt natural to the universe, even if he did it like a huge dork.
Disney keeps pulling a Hollywood and making things about grand spectacle with the thinnest of stories and actual plot holes everywhere. It’s … genuinely sad to see a multi BILLION dollar company squander and shit on such an expensive IP. You’d think they’d at least understand they paid a shitload for it and shouldn’t devalue it with garbage productions.
I also liked Rogue One. At least it wasn’t straight up stupid. Andor was amazing. Mandalorian had a promising start then caved to cuteness.
Everything else since Disney bought Star Wars has been forgettable.
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Meesa takes issue with yousa tastes
Idk man I thought the one from 2005 was pretty good
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DOTA fans are worse.
I thought it was swifties or k-pop fans.
Yeah it’s pretty bad. People harassing actors and other people involved is disgusting. I’m also not the biggest fan of some of the new content, but sometimes it seems like a significant portion the fanbase just wants to hate on everything.
I am going to leave this example here, it shows a then and now, and ask you, who is being toxic, where does the toxicity start, every time, far before a project is launched? Because there was no negative fan backlash before these interviews aired.
https://youtu.be/qCtwjmuXu2E?si=XJuu1SEtHCd_NKom
(No I am not affiliated with the channel, it just presents a striking example)
Also, tell me why hire such incompetent people shown here and such writers while there is an astronomical budget? Why shouldn’t people get angry about it?
And also ask plain why, why insult your fanbase and your product like that and play innocent when the fans pick up their pitchforks.
This is a billion dollar company that IS ABLE to produce quality content, but it chooses to pump out this junk every time, why?
I think most fandoms are pretty bad. Here are a few I’ve interacted with in the past and their “outbursts”.
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WWE fans being tribalistic as fuck when it comes to any other type of pro wrestling existing. Honestly, go look at social media for AEW and it’s mostly idiots slating everything they ever put out - while simultaneously being the best advert for the product.
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Wrestling fans in general. Some woman managed to get leaked pictures of a pro wrestler with his baby in a private setting, and she got angry when people told her on Twitter to stop sharing them, because “they were her pictures”. Alongside this, you’d be shocked at how many people camp out at hotels or airports to bother pro wrestlers that just want to go about their day, often to sign shit that’s 100% going on eBay.
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I’ve told this story before, but I was briefly a mod on /r/soccer, and some fans were unhinged. One mod was stalked in real life by a 16 year old fan of a rival team, to the point where the police got involved and Reddit admins had to reach out.
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One Punch Man fans being toxic regarding the animators for seasons two and three, while also drawing risque pictures of a main character that looks like a child in provocative poses.
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Taylor Swift fans. Need I say more?
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Hajime No Ippo fans believing that watching a boxing anime makes you an expert in combat sports. This came up hilariously when some guy on Reddit challenged me to a fight in a boxing ring to prove him right on the intricacies of the Japanese national boxing rankings…something that I genuinely wish would have happened.
Even small fandoms can be pretty toxic places, like most places in public. I don’t know what it is about bringing like-minded people together, but it usually ends up in small pockets of them attacking others that share something in common with them…
Also, also League of Legends and most video games, with a few exceptions.
Harry Potter fandom is horrible too
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Blame the mouse and his focus groups, not fans who are upset with their beloved franchise getting skull fucked.
lol holy shit, just yesterday I made a comment on some SW thread about how some fans have been proven to be toxic (citing the bigotry a few of the actors were subjected to) and I got fucking blasted with angry responses. Yeah they’re toxic- and tribal about it.
Is mercury really one of the most toxic substances? I used to play around with it as a kid.
By itself maybe not. But dimethilmercury is scary AF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning
It is toxic
Not sure what degrees of toxicity are measured in,like is there a Richter scale of toxicity
I tried to think of a witty measurement but it’s late and I’ve had a hard day so I’m going to bed instead.
Hopefully you had a great night’s sleep!
Same and I’ve honestly wondered if it’s had lasting damage for awhile now.
Mercury alone is safe enough to handle a bit where you would be mostly worried about breathing too much of its vapor. Organic compounds of mercury on the other hand can kill you within days of a drop touching your skin.
Thank you!
Imagine being a fan of any multinational fan fiction group. Lmao
Based
Jar-Jar did nothing wrong!
You mean Darth Jar Jar?
This is outrageous AND unfair. How can you be an star wars fan and be toxic?
