Fandom, Disney Is Killing "Star Wars"
In one of the better-known installments of the Peanuts comic strip, Linus makes the following observation during a conversation with Charlie Brown: “I love mankind—it’s people I can’t stand!!”
I'm starting to feel much the same way with regards to Star Wars. I still love George Lucas' creation - it's the fans and the new distributor I'm learning to hate.
I just read an article stating that Solo: A Star Wars Story may end up being the first Star Wars movie to lose money, and that Ron Howard feels badly that his contribution to the saga has fared so badly.
This news kind of ticks me off.
First of all, Ron Howard gave us the best SW movie since the original, as far as I'm concerned. The REAL problem is Disney's decision to churn these things out like so much hamburger meat - coupled with a certain segment of fans who apparently feel honor-bound to bad-mouth each new film and nitpick them to the point where the rest of us are starting to feel ashamed to call ourselves SW fans, for fear of being lumped together with these know-nothings.
I'm looking forward to the end of the current trilogy, just to see how the story ends, and I hope plans to make a Kenobi standalone film move to fruition - but after that, as much as I hate to say it, this first-generation SW fan is likely done with it. It's just not as fun as it used to be.
As much as I've liked the new movies to date, I'm STILL cheesed at Disney's decision to jettison 30-plus years of Expanded Universe stories.
I'm still angry at the way some so-called "fans" continue to badmouth George Lucas, the man who created the thing they claim to love in the first place.
I'm royally pissed at the way some of those fans have treated SW actors like Kelly Marie Tran and Jake Lloyd with such unwarranted hatred.
And I have ZERO interest in Rian Johnson's "non-Skywalker" trilogy. ZERO.
I've been following this saga since 1977, when I was 14 years old. Many of my most cherished memories revolve around Star Wars in one fashion or another: the thrill I felt when I read the first Marvel Comics issue set after the original move, for example, or introducing my two young sons to the series.
But now at the ripe old age of 55 I'm growing less and less enthralled. Disney's sausage grinder attitude, coupled with the vile behavior of certain so-called "fans," are robbing me of the joy created by these stories that have helped keep the spirit of childhood alive in me for so many years.
And I don't mind admitting, it's breaking my heart.
In : Pop Culture
Tags: star wars. opinion
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
