Grand Theft Star Wars
A vocal - and bigoted - portion of the Star Wars fan base is stealing the franchise from the rest of us and that sucks.
One of the most upsetting pieces (to me, anyway) of entertainment news that came through while I was taking a break due to sickness was this:
LucasFilm and Disney+ decided not to renew The Acolyte for a second season, remaining tight-lipped on the reasoning - though it seems fairly clear that the reasoning was a good, old-fashioned cost-benefit analysis, the bane of many a sci-fi series over the years.
Paul Tassi wrote a convincing piece recently looking at some of the reasoning, based on information from Disney “insider” Jeff Schneider: The Acolyte cost a ton of money to produce (rumoured to be in the $30 million USD/episode range) and viewership dropped off after Episode 2.
As a long-time sci-fi fan, its a tune I’ve heard too many times.
The Acolyte is an interesting case study, though, because all of this is happening within a fan culture which is, to use the most appropriate word I can think of, toxic. It’s hard not to imagine that also had an effect.
There are Star Wars fans out there who love stuff like The Acolyte, love to see the universe taking a few chances with new ideas, new settings, new characters. But it feels like those voices - and by extension those ideas - are drowned out by a louder group of fans who don’t know exactly what they want, but know they don’t want this.
Also, by sheer coincidence (?!), the things they don’t want are generally led by female characters and actresses, and celebrate things like diversity, and try to expand the universe of Star Wars outside of the good-vs-evil, everyone-is-a-man, the-only-female-character-wears-a-gold-bikini traditions of the original trilogy.
The Acolyte’s lead Amandla Stenberg - who played the dual roles of Osha and Mae - addressed this directly: in an Instagram Live post after the cancellation, the actress said “I’m going to be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me. There has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it. That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred, and hateful language towards us.”
Its a sadly familiar story for anyone partaking in the Star Wars universe. Kelly Marie Tran famously quit social media due to harassment. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega faced harassment after being announced in Episode VII (notably the white male lead Adam Driver, not so much). Obi-Wan star Moses Ingram faced race-based harassment online as well. Now Stenberg and co.
It starts to feel like anything new and interesting in Star Wars is doomed to fail.
All of which brings us to the release of Star Wars: Outlaws, a brand new open-world video game set in the Star Wars universe (somewhere between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back) that released on Friday.
Outlaws follows destitute thief Kay Vess and her pet Nix as they climb the ranks of organised crime on the outer rim. I started the game on the weekend and its basically Grand Theft Auto V but in the Star Wars universe. I really like it.
But if you want to get a taste of the fan base reaction to the game, here is a quote from a user review over at IGN: “The environment is amazing and the concept of the game is amazing … [but] the main character is ugly as you can get. Is really sad how games are losing quality because all that woke nonsense”.
Here is another, more accurate comment:
“Another amazing Star Wars project being sabotaged by 'fans' who currently hate everything before even trying it.”
I raise all of this because I genuinely feel sad about the state of one of the best science fiction franchises we have. The Star Wars universe is massive and interesting and I love poking into new corners - the animated series Rebels and the live-action follow-up Ahsoka, or hit series The Mandalorian, or critically acclaimed rebellion-set series Andor, or - yes - The Acolyte, the first Star Wars project set outside the Skywalker Saga continuity.
It makes me feel sad and it makes me feel angry that the Star Wars fanbase seems so willing to attack anyone in a lead role who isn’t a white man holding a light saber. And I feel embarrassed when people who claim to love the thing that I love are racist or misogynist towards female actors and people of colour who land in lead roles. It feels like the majority of Star Wars fans have lost the ability to be reasonable and to wait-and-see. And they don’t speak for me.
Thanks for reading, folks. Kind of a stream-of-consciousness piece today. But I really do feel sad about the state of Star Wars.
Mā te wā,
Chris
We gave up on the Acolyte after one episode, not because of Woke but because of Star Wars fatigue. Apart from Andor it hasn't been working for us since the first season of Mandalorian. And even that we had to push through.