Friday, January 10, 2020

Star Wars, nostalgia, and the insanity of fandom appeasement


(Warning: Spoilers if you have not seen the new Star Wars film. And rant coming).

Over the Christmas break I made a trip to the movie theater with my family to watch Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. I had seen the prior entries in the new trilogy, and found them to be entertaining, fun, and occasionally moving, if somewhat predictable/formulaic action films.

I expected nothing less out of the third and got about what I was looking for: A reasonably satisfying conclusion to the arc that sees Rey (Daisy Ridley) go from homeless desert scavenger to self-actualized being and member of the Skywalker family, through making her own choice. This wasn’t done with particular grace or subtlety or complexity, and it was amid the usual wash of edge-of your-seat space battles and alien spectacle, but for what it was—a character narrative bolted on an action film that appeals to children, which is what the Star Wars franchise is and always has been—it worked, at least for me.

Then I watched Youtube to catch a few reviews. Big mistake.

I’m always curious to hear about others’ opinions of media I enjoy. In this case I wish I hadn’t. What I found was great swaths of 40-year-old man children in their basement complaining that the new Star Wars films did not meet their expectations.

That last bit is the key to why the fandom is pissed off: Unmet expectations. I might add, unrealistic expectations. I love A New Hope, and still feel a swelling in my chest when I hear the theme song kick in, or when Luke is staring into the sunset of Tatooine and into his future. But if I’m being honest, it’s also clunky and childlike. The acting is fairly wooden. I love the characters and the underlying mythic elements, the hints of the force and the scattered bits of references to the Old Republic and the Jedi Knights. But director George Lucas has admitted on several occasions that he was creating a film meant to be enjoyed by children. It worked. In 1983 I was 10, and thought Return of the Jedi was the best thing I’d ever seen, Ewoks and all. If I’m being fully honest my perception of the original trilogy is awash in nostalgia and my objectivity is severely compromised as a result.

Nostalgia is an amazing emotion, and part of the human condition. But nostalgia is the longing for something that you cannot recover. We’re never going to recover “Star Wars” as we knew it because we’re no longer kids ourselves. And the man-children and fandom at large have not come to grips with this fact.



Films meant to be consumed by 12 year olds cannot satisfy the expectations of 45-year-old men who have grew up venerating The Empire Strikes Back like Catholics did The Passion of the Christ, while holding a complex established “canon” in their heads assembled from a sprawling, complex web of novels and comics. That’s an unbridgeable gap. Someone will be disappointed—either the 10 year old listening to complex dialogue and “easter eggs” from the shared universe inserted for the old fans, resulting in boredom, or the adult who grows weary with the aliens and spectacle and wants more Jedi history and nuance. And also finds himself frustrated or bored.

Trying to appease “fandom” in any real work of art is the path of madness. I’m a fan of Robert E. Howard’s Conan. I love the original Weird Tales stories and believe they are best left alone. But something in my brain allows me to enjoy the 1982 Schwarzenegger film without screaming “it’s not canon! The real Conan would never be enslaved!” I can watch and enjoy Peter Jackson’s The Lord the Rings films, and I do, even though they flatten out the rich landscape of Middle-Earth by compressing a multi-layered story onto a two-dimensional screen, and cut out some important characters and poetry.

For me the litmus test is: Do these films stand on their own as successful works of art? Are they self-contained? Do they have an enjoyable story to tell? The answer for the above movies is yes, and I also believe the new Star Wars films are a (moderate) success. They’re entertaining, well-made, enjoyable. Just not for the “true fans,” evidently.

We’ve already seen what happens when you try to appease the fans: the prequels. It doesn’t get more canon than movies from the head of George Lucas, and with the prequels he delivered gobbledigook storylines about political machinations that absolutely no one cares about, short of creepy Simpson comic book shop owners who belong to the cult of Timothy Zahn. But Star Wars fandom evidently cannot grasp the impossibility of ever making a film that takes into account all the “canon” of the endless novels, comics, and media-tie ins, and satisfies every fan such that they can all sleep secure and warm wrapped tight in their Star Wars sheets.

I don’t have a problem with being a fan of an author, or a particular genre, or a shared universe. But being a fan does not excuse childlike behavior. I’m simultaneously amused, bemused, and annoyed with overgrown man-boys who would shit their pants if they ever had to direct actual smart human beings on a movie set, manage camera-men, CGI designers, and god knows how many post-production crew, all while feeling the massive weight of accountability that accompanies a $300+ million budget, while blithely declaring that they could do better than J.J. Abrams.

Do I completely turn off my critical radar when I watch movies? Not completely. After a great start I’m growing wearing with the stale, safe formula that Marvel superhero movies seem to have settled into. I think Conan the Barbarian worked because John Milius did what he wanted to do with the film, unbeholden to a media empire. The Hobbit films were ruined the minute that Guillermo del Toro walked, and someone at Warner Brothers opted for three three-hour wallet-milking films in lieu of a single good film, truer to the book. I’d like to see the return of independent artistry to film making: Talented directors with a vision producing art, studios AND fans be damned.

I recognize that the new Star Wars films are imperfect. I would have liked to have seen Rey as something slightly more three dimensional and less Mary Sue-ish. Because I’m not a fan, I admit I don’t have the knowledge or the emotional investment to appreciate the arguments about the problems introduced by force healing and the other complaints I’m hearing.

But I’m glad I don’t have the level of “sophistication” unique to this particular fandom, one that signs petitions in droves to have The Last Jedi removed from the “Official Canon” because it “murdered Luke’s character.” They hated the prequels, they hate the sequels, and they’re stacking up every new entry in the Star Wars universe against The Empire Strikes Back. But, crucially, not just Empire. Rather, it’s Empire as they remember it when they were 10, and the world was young, and possibility and hope and unbounded freedom was part of their lives. And it no longer is. They’re not really arguing about movies that fall short of Empire—they’re disappointed by new movies that fall short of a lifetime of accumulated memories and unmet expectations. The fandom would be better off enjoying the films for what they are, for their spectacle and adventure and epic sweep and occasional moments of true emotion and nostalgia, and keeping their memories of the original trilogy safe. Instead of going into theaters ready to pounce on divergences from the shared universe, be glad that a new generation (a new hope, you might say) are experiencing the same feelings you did, some 40-odd years ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.

7 comments:

Paul R. McNamee said...

It's insane. If the Internet is to be believed, no one can just watch a movie anymore.

Watch it, enjoy it or don't enjoy it, then get on with your life.


Matthew said...

I sort of lost interest in Star Wars in my late teens which is interesting since I was obsessed with Star Wars in my early ones. I don't have an opinion about the last two movies since I did not see them.

But yeah the Star Wars fandom is notorious for it's man children.

Narmer said...

Amen. This is pretty much exactly my thoughts on the matter.

Martin Christopher said...

There certainly are plenty of people who are talking serious shit about Disney Star Wars. And it very much looks like they are the ones who scream the loudest. Which is unfortunate because it drowns out the people who are making well reasoned arguments based on story structure, pacing, character motivation and development, and narrative coherence on why the movies are really badly made, independent from their context of the greater Star Wars series.

Though when that is the case, the reasonable thing to do is to write Disney Star Wars off as not worth watching and sit down again with the good old movies. If a company wants to make poor dumb movies, it is entirely within its rights. If you don't want it, just don't watch it.

RedWizard52 said...

This is an interesting blog post. I appreciate your frustration. Small caveat: I wonder if you're dismissing the crowd of people who are upset by the movie too quickly. People getting super pissed about art has a long and enthralling history. For example, when Stravinsky's experimental ballet, *The Rites of Spring* was performed in 1913, people rioted! What about the Nazi's despicable "Degenerate Art Exhibition" or "Die Ausstellung 'Entartete Kunst.'" Modernist art was just too experimental and was seen as a symptom of the end of the world. It became a big issue. People were really, REALLY threatened by it. This was the years leading up to World War I, so people were already on edge. I'm not saying the new Star Wars films are experimental like modernist, artsy art; however, for many who have a very small comfort zone, a female protag., the throwing away of a sacred lightsaber, the resurrection of a defeated arch-villain, the wholesale dismissal of a bloated canon, blah blah blah, MIGHT be comparably threatening, riot worthy (albeit digitally rioting). We have difficult understanding how important artworks are to people's experience, their sense of "at-homeness" in the world, the basis of their (fragile) calm. I'm getting philosophical. Don't want to test anyone's patience. But I find the reaction to the Star Wars films fascinating (and often appalling). It evinces a tragic ubiquity of fear in our culture for a lot of sad people. :-(

Brian Murphy said...

RedWizard52: Thanks for the comment (likewise, Martin also). I did probably vent a little too much spleen here. I think there are some legitimate complaints to be made against the new Star Wars films.

I think I'm referring to a specific brand of criticism, the "purist" perspective. Films are different than books. As well as those who hold up the original trilogy as a masterwork. No new film is ever going to compare or be received the same as when you were a 12-year-old boy.

Andy said...

I can't join in any chorus about new Star Wars because I haven't seen much of it and don't have interest in seeing it. I saw the Force Awakens and found it sort of okay, although it reinforced in my mind that Abrams isn't a very good filmmaker. I could never bring myself to watch The Last Jedi, and since I haven't seen that one I'm not going to see the new one, either. I dunno, I just don't care. I still love the original trilogy, though. I have the de-specialized editions saved on my hard drive.

I did watch the first few episodes of The Mandalorian and thought that was pretty decent. Not earth-shaking or anything, but it seems closer to the sort of Star Wars vibe that resonates with me. And Rogue One wasn't bad - I wish Jedis were more like Donnie Yen in that one than the increasingly cartoony superheroes you see in the other movies and stuff now.

I read Heir to the Empire years ago and thought it was kind of a stupid book, which is why I can't work up much sadness that Disney wrote off all the EU works that had accumulated over the years. The 90s video games were generally a lot of fun, but otherwise Star Wars hasn't been good in a long time.