As first reported by Pirates and Princesses, there is a bit of a backlash going on from fans of Lucasfilm/Disney, and its effects are being felt across the videos hosted on the official Star Wars YouTube page.
Related: Will Gina Carano’s Firing Break Cancel Culture’s Grip On American Society?
Previously, we reported on the lackluster performance of the first Star Wars: The High Republic episode hosted by Krystina Arielle, which debuted shortly after her tweets denigrating were exposed and before the events that lead to the firing of former The Mandalorian actress Gina Carano.
At the time of our previous report, the episode sat at “a little over 100,000 views,” with 6.2k viewers giving the video a thumbs up and 3.5k giving it the opposite. Currently, the video sits at nearly 132k viewers and boasts 6.5k thumbs ups and 7.5k down.
Shortly after the premiere of the Star Wars: The High Republic show, an Oscars awards featurette featuring Kathleen Kennedy sparked a separate wave of outrage among Star Wars fans, as many believed that her assertion in the video was done to help emphasize the importance of such feats by women to be hypocritical given that her company had, just days prior, fired Carano.
As such, the video soon received a massive amount of downvotes, at one point possessing 10,000 dislikes to a paltry few-hundred thumbs up. When fans began to fill the comments section of the video with criticism of Lucasfilm’s hypocrisy, The Oscars page responded by hiding the recorded featurette and disabling its comments.
In turn, people went to other videos on the Oscars YouTube page, and started voicing their various displeasures all throughout.
Now, it appears that said displeasure has become laser focused on the Star Wars YouTube page, as not only are recent videos open to massive amounts of criticism, but the comment sections are also being filled with many of the same complaints leveled against the previous two videos.
YouTuber Drunk3P0 explored some of the happenings in his recent video:
A Rebellion Has Begun
I believe it’s safe to say that these commenters are (or, at the very least, were) fans of Star Wars. These might’ve also been folks who found some comfort in the knowledge that someone very much like them, specifically Carano, was on The Mandalorian (the sort of representation that a certain bunch of people keep demanding to see throughout Hollywood).
In Carano, fans found a strong, independent woman who, in her personal life, held views very contrary to the mainstream. The fact that Carano was very much unlike a majority of Hollywood celebrities, yet somehow managed to navigate her way into the membership of the collective, impressed her fans, particularly in light of her ability to do so while staying genuine to her own self.
Ya know, like most of the regular viewing audience does.
Her continued presence on The Mandalorian might’ve also given some of those fans a sense that, even though society might have a completely opposite viewpoint, it didn’t mean that there was no place for them in the galaxy far, far away. Star Wars had become inclusive at that point, as fans of all stripes felt as much a part of that universe as anyone else.
Until they weren’t.
Related: YouTuber Nerdrotic Calls Out The Independent’s Annabel Nugent For Lie About Gina Carano
When Disney and Lucasfilm fired Gina Carano, it might’ve reinforced to these fans that sense of being the outsider, as they suddenly found themselves unwanted once again. They were confirmed as undesirables and told that there was no place for the likes of them in the current Disney Star Wars.
It’s not so much a stretch to say these fans are Gina Carano, and likewise, she is every bit representative of these fans. By firing her, Disney/Lucasfilm in Star Wars emphatically said to these fans, “You are not welcome.”
The Onslaught
Unfortunately for Disney, Lucasfilm, and the Star Wars brand, the outpouring of negative fan sentiment against contemporary Star Wars media is unlikely to stop anytime soon.
In one recent video exploring a newly introduced character from The High Republic, Marchion Ro, the comment section is filled with disdain at the state of Star Wars and their decisions from leadership.
One user, Legas, wrote “starwars has bullies and hates women!”
“I will never let my children consume your woke propoganda,” added OzGreat Sage.
Lin H. asserted that “This is failing so badly I can’t believe how you’ve all managed to run Star Wars into the ground”
Peter Harris simply declared that “Sacking Gina was wrong.”
And that’s just a clipping what I could grab from one video about the High Republic.
All of these particular complaints appear to stem from the Oscars disabling comments on their video featuring Kennedy. As user Elijah Runyon asserted in one comment made under a separate Star Wars video highlighting the “War of the Bounty Hunters, Secrets of the Sith, and More!“, “Don’t turn off comments, also get good.”
Under the same video, Gary Price exclaimed “FIRE KATHLEEN KENNEDY #canceldisneyplus”.
Count Christo chimed in,”They removed so many comments and I think they even got dislikes reversed.. there was more yesterday”.
“Kathleen Kennedy needs to go,” declared Dustin Neely.
What do you make of this backlash from fed up Star Wars fans? Sound off in the comments below or let’s talk about it on social media!