Star Wars: Why are fans still hating on The Last Jedi?
By Meg Dowell
J.J. Abrams and John Boyega spent a lot of The Rise of Skywalker press tour answering questions about a different Star Wars movie.
The second installment of a trilogy is never an easy thing to pull off. And this puts even more pressure on the third and final chapter to exceed expectations that have been set up in the chapter that came before it.
Star Wars fans are no stranger to the struggle of waiting over a year or more between the second and third parts of film trios. Instant gratification be darned. But the wait between 2017’s The Last Jedi and 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker — releasing in theaters this week — has felt particularly challenging in more ways than one.
Possibly the biggest pain point — if you want to call it that — is that The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just the final film in the sequel trilogy, but the final chapter of the entire Skywalker Saga, a continuous story that has been ongoing for over four decades. It’s a big deal, and something some fans have been anticipating for decades.
Add to that the fact that Carrie Fisher’s death prior to the start of production on this film left both fans and executives with heavy hearts and a thousand questions. How do you finish out the Skywalker story without one of its most important players?
What has bothered and divided fans most of all since The Last Jedi, however, is the overall discourse revolving around the film itself.
The gist of it all is this: Some fans loved it, some hated it, and some hover happily in the middle, accepting that they didn’t favor some parts and really enjoyed others, but nonetheless still found themselves able to enjoy a Star Wars movie all the same.
The problem is that the extremes — you really loved it or you hated it a lot — started and continued to disagree to the point where disagreeing on either end became hostile … and often evolved into toxicity.
While it might seem ridiculous to judge and criticize a film against all that came before it despite the fact that it’s an incomplete part of a still unfinished product, that hasn’t stopped people from launching their respective #NotMyStarWars campaigns all across social media and beyond.
In fact, so many of the questions the cast and people like J.J. Abrams were asked during the press tour for The Rise of Skywalker weren’t about The Rise of Skywalker. They were about The Last Jedi and its impact on the fandom … for some reason.
Why, on a press tour centered on possibly the most important movie to be released in the 2010s (in terms of cultural impact), are we still talking about a movie that came out in 2017?
Yes, The Last Jedi matters in relation to The Rise of Skywalker — they are part of the same trilogy and will impact each other, even more so when both movies have been viewed by the masses. But two years in, and we’re still arguing and asking leading questions and spinning our respective narratives the way we want them interpreted?
What is the point?
Why do so many people insist there is some kind of underlying feud between J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson when Abrams openly admires and respects his fellow Star Wars director?
On that note, why do so many so-called fans fuel all their hate into the directors and others involved when it’s perfectly OK, it turns out, to just not like a movie and move on?
Why, instead of collectively buzzing in excitement for this upcoming movie, are we wasting so much time and energy ripping apart a story we technically haven’t even seen the end of yet?
It’s too late now to say “save the arguing for after the last movie.” The world premiere is upon us.
But there are plenty of fans who could have spent the past two years having the time of thier lives speculating about what is soon to come, but instead spent all this time exploiting every flaw and thing they didn’t like about a movie that ends on a cliffhanger … on purpose.
Here’s the truth: People will still argue and rant and whine about all this even after the third and final movie is released. But what are they gaining from that? What is the point? As much as it may shock you to hear this (and I write this as a longtime fan) … it’s just a movie. Star Wars is just a fictional story set in space. It’s all pretend.
Yes, it’s fun to go deep into the lore and see how different things connect. It’s even fun to debate certain facts and story points among friends.
But Star Wars is not so important to the real world that anyone should have to flee social media for appearing in a movie, or worry about their private information being leaked online. No one should receive death threats for directing a film in a mjaor film franchise. Should I go on?
You can keep talking about The Last Jedi if you want to. And in the weeks and months to come, we likely will as we start to make connections between this movie and the two it falls between — and the entire saga as a whole.
But some fans are tired of hearing the same complaints over and over by now. It’s been two years. We get it. You had expectations for a movie and your hero Luke Skywalker, and things did not go the way you thought they would.
Do you know what that’s a sign of? A good story — one that surprises, one that does something different. Johnson took risks. Some people didn’t like that, and that’s fine. But some did. And we’d like to be able to express that freely, thanks.
You are allowed to love or hate or feel indifferent about a movie. But there comes a point where you are also allowed to stop talking about it and move on with your life.
You can stop talking about how much you hated The Last Jedi now. It’s okay. Your heated opinions and long, drawn-out essays defending your dislike have been heard. It’s over now. It’s all behind us.
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