J.J. Abrams Continues Self-Destruction of Star Wars Franchise

Star Wars Episode IX director and The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams continued the self-immolation of the Star Wars franchise.

J.J. Abrams spoke ill of fans who didn’t like Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi in an interview with IndieWire.

“Their problem isn’t ‘Star Wars,’ their problem is being threatened.”

Abrams elaborated:

“Star Wars’ is a big galaxy, and you can sort of find almost anything you want to in ‘Star Wars. If you are someone who feels threatened by women and needs to lash out against them, you can probably find an enemy in ‘Star Wars.’ You can probably look at the first movie that George [Lucas] did [‘Star Wars: A New Hope’] and say that Leia was too outspoken, or she was too tough. Anyone who wants to find a problem with anything can find the problem. The internet seems to be made for that.”

Abrams would go on to say the criticism of The Last Jedi would not affect him as he moves forward with Episode IX.

“Not in the least. There’s a lot that I would like to say about it, but I feel like it’s a little early to be having the ‘Episode IX’ conversation … I will say that the story of Rey and Poe and Finn and Kylo Ren — and if you look, there are three men and one woman, to those that are complaining that there are too many women in ‘Star Wars’ — their story continues in a way that I couldn’t be more excited about and cannot wait for people to see.”

He continued:

“I think everyone is going to have their point of view. Certainly something I discovered early on in the ‘Star Wars’ world, is that you’re going to have an incredibly passionate and vocal fanbase, and they’re all going to have a lot of specific opinions.”

It appears that J.J. Abrams might not have even delved into the criticism of The Last Jedi. It’s not that Star Wars fans don’t want women in the franchise. As Abrams points out Princess Leia’s role is universally beloved and she is a strong, outspoken leader.

The issue with The Last Jedi is that it shoehorns in characters who have no depth or take actions that don’t make any sense at all.

For example, Admiral Holdo’s inclusion in the film seems completely pointless. She takes over for Leia after she Mary Poppins back to life. She then keeps her plans to save the Resistance a massive secret for who knows what reason. Her eventual plan doesn’t even make sense. She tries to shuttle the Resistance onto Crait while keeping the main cruiser continuing forward. This plan is supposed to work because the First Order’s sensors won’t discover the shuttles. This plan completely throws away Star Wars technology we saw in A New Hope. The Empire has sensors that can detect life forms. They would obviously be able to detect the shuttles. It’s a pointless plot idea from a pointless character that doesn’t add any value to the Star Wars story. And then Johnson decides to break Star Wars completely by having Holdo suicide attack the First Order.

But even with the criticisms of the female characters, there are plenty of other criticisms for The Last Jedi that have nothing to do with female characters. One of my personal complaints was the destruction of General Hux’s character. In The Force Awakens, Hux has no issue standing up to Kylo Ren. He even wipes out the Republic and pushes the Resistance to the edge of destruction. And then in The Last Jedi, he is turned into a complete buffoon in the opening scene.

And one of the biggest criticisms was the complete reversal of Luke Skywalker’s character. Rian Johnson takes Luke Skywalker from a man who would sacrifice his own life to save Darth Vader into a man who would try and kill his nephew because he sensed the Dark Side in him. Even with the explanation that it was a “moment of weakness,” Luke decides to abandon the galaxy and allegedly abandon the Force and go into exile on Ahch-To. It’s a complete reversal to Luke Skywalker actually seeking out Darth Vader and the Emperor in order to redeem Vader. It just doesn’t make sense that he would abandon Kylo Ren to Supreme Leader Snoke.

It’s also extremely interesting this attack on the fans is coming from J.J. Abrams. Abrams is the same guy who had Alice Eve’s Carol Marcus strip down to her lingerie in Star Trek: Into Darkness.

J.J. Abrams is treading dangerous waters with Star Wars franchise. Abrams admits these are Star Wars fans, but he still decides to insult and attack them. These are the people who obviously go see the Star Wars movies. They spend their hard earned dollars on the product. To see people who are in charge of creating Star Wars, insult and belittle you, could turn many of these fans off. And given the Audience Scores from The Last Jedi, the franchise might be in trouble.

 

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