slop101

You're not wrong, you're just an...

MBoyd

Excellent work, Comrades...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...y-says-1148475

kefrank

In before the TLJ haters minimize or dismiss this...

Draven

THE APPARENTLY ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED DISLIKES AND DOWNVOTES ARE JUST BECAUSE TRUE STAR WARS FANS KNOW THE LAST JEDI IS BAD11?1!!

Did I do that right?

fumanstan

For what it's worth, the paper analyzes about 1200 tweets directed at Rian Johnson to come up with it's data. I found it somewhat interesting skimming through some of it, but I just kind of figure that twitter in general is filled with trolls/puppets/bots targeting anything high profile or even slightly political, so it would be curious to see how the data targeting Johnson compares to other major celebrities or media personalities in the news.

I'm not surprised that there's a lot of social media presence is manufactured.

Rob V

FWIW, I don't care if 1 or 1,000,000 people hated TLJ outside of me... I didn't care for it, I was disappointed and I agree with most points by fellow DVD Talkers as to why the movie failed - for me.

Franchot

Okay! I admit it. I'm a Russian trolling bot. I was engineered back in 1999 when I first joined DVDTalk. My wife and kids are also Russian bots, but they loved TLJ.

Hokeyboy

Russian Trolls conspired to shit-talk The Last Jedi? What a commanding use of resources

DVD Josh

TLJ sucked because it sucked on its own merits. I've seen it several times. It's never gotten better. It's shirtless cheese bullshit canon-destroying self-righteous nonsense.

Jay G.

The research paper notes that the trolls/bots seemed to focus on the political complaints, i.e. "SJW" and the like. They hypothesize it was just another avenue to increase the political divide in the US. They were trying to make it another Gamergate (not that the Russians necessarily had a role in Gamergate).

Draven

Tell us how you really feel

DVD Josh

Rob V

as if our political leaders aren't doing enough on their own...

milo bloom

I look at it the same way I look at it the same way I do the idea of Russian trolls affecting the 2016 elections: it wouldn't have worked so well if there weren't already issues. The Democrats are spineless weasels and the Republicans are heartless cocksuckers, that's the same as always - but push the people towards the extremes and you get Trump.

TLJ really pushed some interesting boundaries: Kylo dumping his mask, killing Snoke and Force Skyping with Rey, who goes on a mirror journey and takes a level in badass, but then Ackbar gets a shitty death and Leia doesn't get a noble death (she should have done the lightspeed ramming instead of Holdo) and the Canto Bight sub-plot was poorly done, so you push the extremists, and you get people who think it's a masterpiece, and you get people who think everyone involved should be fed to the Sarlacc.

It's not bad enough to have the reputation it has, it makes a lot of sense that outside agents would push opinions to divide Americans even further. Whether you want to admit it or not, Star Wars has become a part of American culture. It's one more thing our enemies can do to divide us.

DaveyJoe

Leia didn't get Holdo's death because they were planning on using her in Episode IX.

tanman

It is important to note the limitations of the "study". 1200 tweets is such a small subset and not representative of the fan reaction to TLJ. Also like the paper stated a lot of tweets were generated by bots. Also I think it's important to note the author of the study clearly introduces his own bias into the paper. I don't agree with him in that he states that Star Wars has always had a left leaning political view. You can tell he clearly is looking for something specific. It's not a hypothesis supported by evidence but a personal viewpoint looking for evidence in support of that viewpoint. I think this sentence especially shows his predilection and assumptions. "Regardless of motive, almost all negative fans express the belief that they are in the majority and that most Star Wars fans dislike The Last Jedi." It reminds me of that line "Only a Sith deals in absolutes." which is an absolute statement of itself. Either way I very much dislike it when people try to politicize something that isn't political. But on the other hand hopefully this means that not as many people are as stupid to protest Star Wars because it has a strong female lead and this is just Russian bots perpetrating that idea.

fumanstan

That assumption in itself seems wild to me, since I'm not sure that "almost all negative fans" think they're in the majority at all but end up in defense mode from those claiming that the data points to it being equally received to Force Awakens. But yeah, just because there's some artificially generated attacks on Rian Johnson doesn't discount that there's plenty of legitimate dislike for the movie.

Josh-da-man

It’s really a larger phenomenon out there in pop culture that isn’t limited to Star Wars fandom.

It’s gamergate, comicsgate, Ghostbusters, the puppies, and the backlash against “political correctness” in general. There exists out there a very vocal group that is angry that the pop culture isn’t constantly reinforcing their own sense of white male specialness, and they’re lashing out at just about everything that involves women and minorities. So, yes, Star Wars is going to be a target, and the pop culture reach of Star Wars is great enough that there is going to be some crossover between the “gaters” and Star Wars fandom.

I can’t begin to say how big this group is, but I suspect it’s probably a few hundred or thousand hardcore influencers, and many, many more who are, in varying degrees, sympathetic to the cause who perpetuate the bullshit over social media.

Russia? Who the fuck knows. It seems like sci-fi and fantasy fandom would be too insular and small potatoes to draw their attention — they seem more interested in meddling in our political process — but there’s a lot of intensity in fandom that they could probably weaponize and spill over into the mainstream.

brayzie

The user rating at Rotten Tomatoes for TLJ seemed like bullshit.

I didn't like The Last Jedi, but it was entertaining enough. Just like The Force Awakens. Except, I thought the director of that one said they had to retread the same ground from A New Hope in order to do new stuff in the subsequent sequels.
To me, a lot of the shit Lucas got criticized for ("it rhymes"), was kind of continued with TLJ.

It's funny to me how there's people on both sides calling each other "haters" and "SJWs" but they act the same, and use similar styled arguments.
So you had some people who disliked the movie calling it the worst, that it was awful, when it was clearly better than all of the prequels, and a solid popcorn flick. And you had others that made it seem like it was so "intellectual" and "a subversive masterpiece."

Josh-da-man

Star Wars is, I find, historically mostly apolitical. The biggest political message has generally been “Nazis are bad,” though these days there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus on that point.

If you scratch under the surface, though, there has always been a bit of left-leaning politics in it. Lucas himself has said that the Rebellion was inspired by the Viet-Cong, a tiny band of rebels who drove the American empire out of their country. And, if you look closely at the older movies, the Empire has been composed exclusively of humans, while the Rebellion and Jedi Order have included non-humans, which, while it’s never outright stated, seems to imply that the good guys promote “diversity” while the villains racist nationalists. It was never quite as overt as it was in TLJ, though, and even then I think the critics were overplaying it.

brayzie

Wonder Woman was heavily promoted, featuring one of the most recognizable superheroes ever, and I don't remember it getting much hate if any.
The Force Awakens didn't seem to garner the outrage that Ghostbusters and TLJ got either. Most people seemed to really like Rey, especially after seeing asshole Anakin in the prequels.

Josh-da-man

I’m thinking they either know which battles to pick, they’re skilled at riling people up (esp. with regards to race and gender swaps), or they’re able to insert themselves into pre-existing controverseies and making them explode. Probably a bit of all three.

I can remember some grumbling around TFA because the protagonists were a woman and a black guy, but it didn’t really go anywhere. With Wonder Woman, there were a few people trying to stir up shit over those women-only screenings for mothers and daughters, but it didn’t go anywhere either.

They also tried, and failed, to sabotage Black Panther.

Another factor, I think, is having Kathleen Kennedy in a “Force is Female” shirt and Paul Feige pushing the “girl power” angle with Ghostbusters. That’s basically waving a red flag in front of the MRA bull.

TGM

LOL the idea of Russian trolling of this movie is absurd.

Jay G.

James Cameron Calls ‘Wonder Woman’ a ‘Step Backwards’ for Female Protagonists
https://variety.com/2017/film/news/j...ds-1202538440/

Jason

Wouldn't be surprised if the genesis of this SJW nonsense surrounding Star Wars came from some sort of orchestrated trolling effort. Trying to turn a bad movie into a politically divisive movie is right up their alley. The whole point of these trolls is to sow doubt and discontent.