After the recent revelation/insinuation that Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi was poorly received because of Russian Bots (?), a Solo film that no-one wanted, and the announcement of 64,000 new projects in the works – we take a look at the onset of what we like to call Star Wars Fatigue.

It surely is unlike a studio to milk a franchise for all it is worth. So we were quite surprised when Disney announced they would be releasing a slew of new releases on various outlets for their acquired flagship franchise Star Wars.

I’m being facetious.

The Last Jedi was a terrible film with a few redeeming features. Thats an opinion by the way. Not of a butthurt man-baby but of a fan of the franchise. As I recently explained to a poor soul (and The Walking Dead fan) on Twitter : ITS OK TO BE A CRITICAL OF A FRANCHISE YOU ARE A FAN OF. OTHERWISE YOUR POSITION IS THAT OF A SYCOPHANT.

TLJ was not totally without merit but in the pursuit of subverting expectations Johnson missed the mark. The film was arguably held back by the weight of cramming in all those social justice messages and…….actually……no, just leave out that whole Canto Bight sequence and we should be grand.

Point I’m making is – the insinuation that the Last Jedi controversy was a fabrication is insulting to fans who simply did not enjoy the film. The idea that Russian bots concocted an elaborate narrative, on the subject of a poorly thought-out Science Fiction film, in an effort to divide the American people (and less specifically the people of the world) and influence political sentiment is not only the best piece of fictional delivery associated with TLJ but is also a bold statement on the ability and motives of modern AI as we know it.

Should we now be concerned that the AI will now become preoccupied with media commentary? Will the great robotic uprising be postponed until our mechanical overlords have gotten through that Cheers box set? Will the downfall of humanity be as a result of a sentient computer system being unhappy with the latest Indiana Jones outing?

Or is this just symptomatic of the modern Cold War times that we live in? Bus is late : Russia. Stores ran out of Peanut Butter? Russia. The majority of the country voted for a specific president who got elected as a result of voting in a fair and impartial system that the candidates all agreed upon? You better believe that was Russian meddling!

This insinuation is the same one that many rallied against during the Ghostbusters : Answer The Call debacle. The implication that the audience is stupid. That the general public don’t know what they want or what they like. That they need to be told by the Hollywood elite and film-makers : “No, you are wrong. The film was perfect. If you saw any flaw in it you must be part of some political movement, a bias think-group or a meddling foreign superpower who programs robots to have opinions on modern cinema.”

Or from what I’ve seen just label critics as “basement dwelling trolls” and that should do an adequate job.

It’s ok to not like Star Wars anymore. There i said it. The franchise at this stage has become so diluted that it is barely recognisable. It’s ok to turn your back slowly on what was once a powerful element in pop culture. Not spin round with the primal force of a toddler having a tantrum but with the slow reverence of Shane riding off into the desert, wounded and slumped over in the saddle.

It’s ok to say that you were a fan of the source material. That with every iteration of that material the quality has been lessened somehow. A facsimile of a facsimile that degrades with each copy. It’s ok to appreciate what it was and then draw a line under it to clarify that it is no longer the same.

This doesn’t have to be a toxic act and you do not have to accept the label of toxicity. Opinion is subjective and so is fandom. Everyone is entitled to both.

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