So the Skywalker saga, one of the longest-lasting, most influential, and most lucrative movie franchises in the history of the world has come to an end. What George Lucas began back in 1978 with Star Wars, featuring a few actors and some special effects people who were essentially making it up as they went along, J.J. Abrams brought to a close in 2019 with Star Wars: Episode Nine: The Rise of Skywalker, leaving nine films for nerds to debate and discuss far into the future.
The final film finds our dutiful heroine, Rey, discovering
her true heritage while trying to save the galaxy from a familiar evil.
Visually and thematically, it’s naturally much more in keeping with Abrams’
first effort, The Force Awakens than
with Rian Johnson’s darker, weirder contribution, The Last Jedi. Unlike Last
Jedi’s long, meditative sections without a lot of action, Rise of Skywalker moves at a breakneck
pace, never pausing even the story and character development might benefit from
a moment of stillness. It’s sleek, epic in its scope, and nostalgic in its
answers to many of the series’ lingering questions.
By now, if you’re even a casual fan, you’ve seen the film
and had lengthy discussions about it. Perhaps you’ve posted a ranked list of
what you think are the best films and tv shows set in a galaxy far, far away.
You’ve weighed in on Rey’s parents, Kylo Ren’s fate, the dramatic scaling back
of Kelly Tran’s character Rose, the repurposed scenes of our unfortunately
departed princess, Carrie Fisher, and the various cameo appearances.
In all of this, regardless of your opinions one way or the
other on any of these subjects, in person and especially online, I hope you
were polite. I hope you were nice and understanding of another person’s point
of view. I hope you weren’t racist, sexist, or just generally an insensitive
idiot who think his opinion on lightsaber technique or Sith protocol is more
important than the feelings of another living, breathing human being.
I understand feeling passionate about a fandom. I am a
die-hard Star Wars fan since the very beginning. I’ve collected comics and
action figures my whole life, and I am more keenly aware of goings-on in the
Marvel and DC universes than a 46 year old man should be.
But it’s important to remember that Luke Skywalker, Emperor
Palpatine, Rey, and all the rest are not real. It’s an imaginary world – a
wonderful one – but utterly fictional. The person getting called names online
for having the “wrong” opinion about Last
Jedi, however, is real. She’s a person with feelings and thoughts. We
shouldn’t sacrifice kindness and patience with actual people in the name of
defending our ideas about imaginary things. Toxic fandom is a thing and it
should be done away with completely. We should practice saying things like,
“Huh, I guess I had a different take on that” and “Interesting. That’s a whole
other perspective than mine” and “Why do you think that?” It’s okay to dislike
something and simply say, “You know, I’m just not the audience that particular
thing was made for.”
We should be able to disagree about fandoms without being
unkind because:
#1. As I said, these things aren’t real and therefore should
not cost us connection and relationships with real people.
#2. It’s what adults do. They find ways to express their
opinions and be heard without resorting to name calling, insults, and cruelty.
If you can’t deal with a disagreement about Rey’s heritage, how do you function
at work or school or in a relationship?
#3. If you want to get super nerdy about it, it’s what the
Jedi would do. They are about justice, peace, balance, and light. You wouldn’t
find Obi-Wan engaging in a Twitter flame war at 3 am because that’s not what
he’s about, you know? If you love Star Wars so much, remember what it actually
stands for and act like it.
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