By Jamie Miller
“Star Wars” the king of space operas and one of the most popular science fiction franchises of all time. Created by George Lucas all the way back in 1977, what started off as little more than a throw away movie quickly turned into a pop culture phenomena which will likely outlive us all. A phenomena which gave us some of the best quotes in all of fiction, created many tropes still used in sci-fi to this day and ironically despite giving us some of cinema’s worst acting performances it also gave us some of its best. Sadly with positivity comes negativity, enter the fanbase…
Now as a “Star Wars” fan I need to stress that most fans are genuinely positive and good people, from the 501st Legion cosplay group who often work for charity to numerous actors and actresses who started off as fans of the franchise before going on to star in the franchise serving as role models to the rest of us. However that being said the fan base is often infected with a spot of toxicity.
Let’s start by mentioning the most recent controversy, that being the reactions to “The Acolyte” the newest show in the franchise having premiered on June 4, 2024. Now granted the show isn’t perfect, no “Star Wars” show ever is, heck no show in general ever is. However, multiple so-called fans of the franchise have decided that the show is somehow the worst TV show to ever air. Numerous videos on Youtube are attacking the cast and makers of the show, calling it woke simply because it has people of color in the show. Which always confuses me, that’s not woke that’s just realizing that people of color exist. When a gay character pops up, oh my goodness you would have thought the creators slapped the complaining fans’ mothers in the face, like can you say overreaction? People were trying to review bomb the show only for some of them to review bomb an older “Star Wars” fan film instead.
This isn’t even anything new, this has been going on since the sequel trilogy of movies first came out. And for the record I did not like the sequel trilogy, I thought it was mostly poorly written and planned out and I hate what they did to Luke Skywalker. Some fans however seemed to hate it for very different reasons. I mean from so-called fans buying action figures of Rose Tico only to behead them out of anger for Disney having the audacity to cast Kelly Marie Tran, an Asian woman, in a major role to the sheer amount of hatred Rian Johnson received over making a bad movie. I repeat, over making a bad movie.
These perceived slights by the fans have caused many of them to start singing the praises of the prequels acting as if they were perfect and begging for George Lucas to return to save the franchise from the so called woke mob and Disney and Kathleen Kennedy. Ironic given the fact these are likely the same people who were bullying child Anakin Skywalker actor Jake Lloyd out of the acting industry, sending Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best so many death threats and horrible vitriol that he was pondering taking his own life and sent so much hate and negativity towards Lucas including writing a horrible song and making a whole one-sided documentary about how Lucas sold the franchise to Disney..
The thing that’s most ironic about all of this is Lucas intended for the franchise to be progressive to begin with. The evil Empire is inspired by the Nazis in WWII. This rebellion is made of various races following various religions and creeds, some of the coolest toughest characters from Ahsoka Tano too Mara Jade and Leia Organa are women, Mace Windu and Adi Gallia two Jedi masters who were on the Jedi High Council were what we could consider black and heck the battle of Endor was inspired by the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. To pretend like Disney having progressive ideals in “Star Wars” somehow goes against what Lucas intended isn’t just wrong, it’s laughable. Having Black people in the franchise doesn’t go against Lucas’s vision, having gay people in the franchise doesn’t go against his vision either, but do you know what does go against his vision? Gatekeeping, acting like you’re somehow the lord of “Star Wars” ordained to harass and pester anyone or anything you feel like goes against what you want out of the franchise. It’s ironic people calling themselves fans of the franchise then acting like it’s their job to control it. That’s like what the Empire does. And we all know how it ended for the empire, they lost. Just as these so-called fans trying to force the franchise to remain this one thing will lose because at the end of the day the force is for everyone.
