A funny thing happened yesterday – May the Fourth came and went without so much as a single Stormtrooper cosplayer making the headlines. Sure, there were celebrations, but they absolutely paled in comparison to anything seen in previous years, including 2021. Those who have kept their ear to the ground regarding all things Star Wars-related aren’t surprised, but it may come as a shock to casual fans.
With Disney mired in one of the most precipitous stock drops in recent memory, as well as massive cultural backlash for sticking their nose into Floridian law, it’s no wonder. Star Wars was meant to encapsulate the sheer might of the Disney brand, yet it’s since become a millstone around the company’s neck.
In fact, Star Wars has somehow managed to turn fully toxic, which has caused longtime fans to flee the property altogether, damning it as a bastardization of everything George Lucas originally envisioned. With the Woke in charge, this once-indominable franchise has mutated into that horrifying clump of hair stuck in the bathtub drain.
It doesn’t help that the past year’s worth of Star Wars material has failed to galvanize and excite its core demographics. The Galactic Starcruiser Hotel attraction in Orlando was an abject disaster, sporting a marketing campaign akin to Edward Scissorhands raking his nails down a mercilessly elongated chalkboard.
Next, there was The Book of Boba Fett, a spinoff of the popular Mandalorian series, which viewers found boring, plodding, and uninteresting. It took the combined appearances of Din Djarin, Grogu, and Luke Skywalker to breathe something resembling a pulse into the overall plot, culminating in a so/so ending that left Fett looking like Joe Biden wandering around in confusion at the White House during Barack Obama’s recent visit.
On social media, May the Fourth was a non-event by all available metrics. Some may point to the recent SCOTUS draft leak detailing the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which has caused Leftist proponents of mass-infanticide to light themselves on fire, and run around screaming in terror at a return to something resembling The Handmaid’s Tale.
That, of course, is yet another blatant lie perpetrated by the Left, hot on the heels of Florida’s anti-grooming bill, which they dishonestly dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.”
Of course, it’s a convenient scapegoat in the same vein as Covid-19 being blamed for a drop in Oscar and NFL ratings, or Netflix hemorrhaging subscriptions by orders of magnitude. Star Wars sucks, and everyone knows it. Sure, there are glimmers and glints of hope strewn about, but it’s impossible to sell a property based on flecks of gold in the dirt. Fans want a solid gold nugget with some value attached.
Perhaps the upcoming Star Wars: Obi-Wan TV show will turn things around, but given the lackluster promo trailers and the all-too-apparent bait-and-switch narrative, the odds aren’t good. Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor are nothing but heads in jars without a story written by competent scribes, which seems to be in anemic supply at Disney these days.
The fandom, which represents the overwhelming majority of viewers at this point in time, has quickly soured not just on Star Wars, but other major properties with huge clout attached to them. Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, for instance, looks so categorically bad that it could have hired Adolf Hitler as its official spokesperson, and done no worse in terms of fan reception.
I once theorized that we’d get to the point where fans would instantly tune out of anything propagated by companies with a Woke agenda, and that reality has now reached a saturation point. There was a time when anti-Woke fans would tune into a TV show, or head out to see a movie in the hopes that it would be a straightforward and enjoyable experience.
Now, they aren’t bothering. This has affected everything from Netflix’s monumental membership collapse, to Disney’s colossal and abysmal stock plunge. The backlash of the whip has finally struck, and it stings worse than a thousand Africanized Honey Bees who just witnessed their Queen get stomped.
May the Fourth passed by us in total silence, popping up only in specific places, in parodic fashion. Case in point – Joe Biden’s May the Fourth-themed promo entitled “Episode 46: Building A Better America,” which has been lampooned across the board for suggesting that America’s economy is in rip-roaring, healthy shape.
This, at a time when the FED is raising interest rates, and inflation is set to soar into the double-digits for the first time since Jimmy Carter’s disastrous administration.
Those who have successfully hijacked Star Wars to use as a political propaganda tool seem altogether unsuccessful at leveraging it for the purpose they intended. It doesn’t help when Star Wars alum like Mark Hamill keep making obtuse and embarrassing statements on Twitter, earning them rightfully-deserved ridicule.
It’s like something out of a Mel Brooks comedy; a major corporation ignoring sound and wise advice from its Communications Chief not to get involved in Florida’s lawmaking, only for it to backfire in Biblical fashion, then go on to double down and hire an ex-Clinton/Obama/Biden alum as his replacement.
And people wonder why May the Fourth failed to ignite anyone’s lightsaber.