James Gunn Suggests Star Wars Fans Go to Therapy

James Gunn
LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 25: James Gunn attends the premiere of Disney And Marvel's "Ant-Man And The Wasp" on June 25, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn is getting into the Star Wars debate joining the likes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and author Chuck Wendig by insulting fans and even suggesting some of them go to therapy.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when Gunn posted an article from the New York Daily News detailing that actor Ahmed Best, who played Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequel trilogies considered suicide after a media backlash.

Gunn chimed in simply Tweeting, “People need to chill out.”

However, Gunn quickly derails and begins lambasting fans who blame the writing of Jar Jar Binks. His Tweet doesn’t even make sense as he tells people who are saying the writing is bad to “critique it. Don’t like it.” That’s pretty much what they were doing. However, Gunn seems to interpret, “Yeah, it wasn’t the actor’s fault! It was the writer’s” as “spewing hate and bile at individuals just doing their best to tell a story.”

Then in what has now become a trope among creators who work under the Disney brand, he told people not to watch the film.

He goes from telling people to critique the film to not watching it at all. I’m not sure how someone can critique a film without watching, but I guess it made sense in Gunn’s head.

But Gunn wouldn’t be done there. He makes an extremely similar argument to Chuck Wendig who said that he as a creator does not create products. Gunn channels this logic by stating Star Wars “doesn’t belong to you.” I guess he forgot that you can actually purchase the products and DVDs and merchandise and own it.

He then insults Star Wars fans who have been critiquing Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story by implying they have emotional problems and they should go to therapy.

Given the context of the ongoing debate within the Star Wars community, Gunn seems to be painting people who disagree with his opinion as emotionally unstable. It appears he wants to use this label in order to silence the critics. I don’t think that’s a winning strategy as the box office numbers for Solo: A Star Wars Story have delivered a massive bomb to Disney.

I’m not sure James Gunn should be trying to silence critics and telling people not to watch movies. It might end up back firing when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comes to theaters.

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