**SPOILERS AHEAD**
When it comes to super diehard fans of any franchise, there’s no pleasing them unless the movie or TV show delivers the exact narrative they wanted. Thus, here we are with “Star Wars,” with some Force sensitive folks complaining that “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was too much like the original trilogy, and others chastising “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” from moving too far away from the sacred texts.
As it seems to go with any popular series these days, a small segment of very hurt fans are putting their names to a petition calling for Disney to remove “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” from the official canon, which is hilarious. The film has been widely well received by critics and already nearly halfway to a billion dollars globally after a single weekend, but sure, I’m sure Disney will listen very carefully to these demands:
Star Wars has long been a story about two things, the Jedi and Luke Skywalker. After over 260 novels where we could follow the adventures of that great hero you, the Walt Disney Company decided to strike all of that from the official canon and wiped out three decades of lore. We were excited to see Episode VII to see how our heroes lives turned out since you took away what we knew. We saw the death of Han Solo, we saw less than a minute of Luke Skywalker.
Episode VIII was a travesty. It completely destroyed the legacy of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. It destroyed the very reasons most of us, as fans, liked Star Wars. This can be fixed. Just as you wiped out 30 years of stories, we ask you to wipe out one more, the Last Jedi. Remove it from canon, push back Episode IX and re-make Episode VIII properly to redeem Luke Skywalker’s legacy, integrity, and character.
We stuck by you when you did things that hurt us before, so we ask you now, please don’t let this film stand. Don’t do this to us. Don’t take something so many of us loved so much and destroy it like this. Let us keep our heroes.
With this storm of supposed controversy around the picture, director Rian Johnson is taking the slings and arrows on Twitter, where many other filmmakers likely would’ve logged off. But as he emphasizes to Business Insider, the dissent for ‘The Last Jedi’ is coming from a very small fraction of fans. Moreover, he’s pretty understanding and gracious about it all.
“Having been a ‘Star Wars’ fan my whole life, and having spent most of my life on the other side of the curb and in that fandom, it softens the blow a little bit. I’m aware through my own experience that, first of all, the fans are so passionate, they care so deeply — sometimes they care very violently at me on Twitter. But it’s because they care about these things, and it hurts when you’re expecting something specific and you don’t get it from something that you love,” he said. “It always hurts, so I don’t take it personally if a fan reacts negatively and lashes out on me on Twitter. That’s fine. It’s my job to be there for that. Like you said, every fan has a list of stuff they want a ‘Star Wars’ movie to be and they don’t want a ‘Star Wars’ movie to be. You’re going to find very few fans out there whose lists line up.
“And I also know the same way the original movies were personal for [George] Lucas. Lucas never made a ‘Star Wars’ movie by sitting down and thinking, ‘What do the fans want to see?’ And I knew if I wrote wondering what the fans would want, as tempting as that is, it wouldn’t work, because people would still be shouting at me, ‘F— you, you ruined ‘Star Wars,’ ‘ and I would make a bad movie. And ultimately, that’s the one thing nobody wants,” Johnson continued. “And let me just add that 80-90% of the reaction I’ve gotten from Twitter has been really lovely. There’s been a lot of joy and love from fans. When I talk about the negative stuff, that’s not the full picture of the fans at all.”
Like it or not, “Star Wars” is moving on, and it’s no longer just Luke Skywalker’s story. For those who only have a single-minded view of what the franchise can be, they years ahead are going to be filled with ongoing disappointment.