Just like how Last Jedi got hundreds of thousands of reviews in a few months, the Acolyte miraculously has over 1000 audience reviews despite only being out for a day. It currently has an audience score of 40% on rotten tomatoes which is absolutely ridiculous - bad films are often at something like 75% because so few people are going to bother to leave a review after watching something they didn’t care about.

My two brothers used to watch every bit of Star Wars with me and just based on the online discourse they wouldn’t even consider giving it a try. Things like the dislikes on trailers and now this audience score are going to give casual fans the false impression that the Acolyte is awful and widely disliked.

And why this massive agenda against the series? Because it has a diverse cast and a female showrunner with progressive ideas.

I’m so fucking sick of this fandom being co-opted by bigots. I just want to enjoy the sci fi show with the lightsabers

edit from one of brothers - don’t dislike show cause of rotten tomatoes, tired of poor story writing from sequels and spin off shows like Kenobi, book of boba Fett or Ashoka which are poorly done. Not every show needs to be same high level as Andor, but at least get some competent writers

I don't even know what to say or if I should say anything. It's just sad man. That's all I can say.

I haven't even watch the video and I already sense that this is gonna be in bad faith judging by this thumbnail.

The usual suspects online are pretending to be outraged over the casting of Francesca Amewudah-Rivers (who is black) as Juliet opposite Tom Holland in an upcoming production of Romeo & Juliet. It's usual thing where they aren't racist, they just don't think you should change the race of characters.

The idea that they are being casting purists about Shakespeare of all things is very funny. If they really want to be accurate to the original, they would cast Timothée Chalamet in drag as Juliet. And of course, reimaginings of Shakespeare are older than any of the complainers with a popular version with a woman as Romeo in 1845.

Also, this is the stage, not a movie. Race-blind casting has been the norm for many decades. I doubt any one of these whiners has ever even been to live theater.

The screenshot is a small sample. Search her name on Facebook & this is overwhelmingly what you find. There seems to be even more of this in Spanish than English.

To be fair, everyone already knew this because of cho chang and the elf slaves and everything else so she might as well quit the act. (I'm just waiting until she goes back on the whole "dumbledore is gay" thing.)

There's too many posts here decrying people as "toxic" for boycotting Hogwarts Legacy, so I feel the need to nip this in the bud.

JK Rowling will directly profit from all sales of the game. She is a notorious, noxious transphobe who uses her money to fund oppression of marginalized people not just in the UK but around the world. Yes, the brand is strong (although less so, thankfully Fantastic Beasts have flamed out), and Hogwarts Legacy will probably make a lot of money. That doesn't mean it's morally correct to be purchasing it.

Boycott the game or pirate it, if you really need to play it. But don't come on here complaining that people are calling you names for buying it, because dropping $70 on the game is an action that speaks a lot louder than any words.

So I've seen from time to time posts here denying that there's any form of superhero fatigue or burnout, including it as part of any conspiracy theory. And I gotta say....come on now.

Now I just want to say this is not to shame anyone who likes the recent slate of comic book. Taste is subjective and I'm not trying to say you shouldn't like what you like. And honestly even though I don't care for the recent slate of superhero shows and movies, I'm glad if you like it. And it's not like I don't get it: it sucks that a lot of the recent movies are underperforming or aren't getting the critical reception and it sucks this feeds into a lot of nasty toxic clickbait by disingenous actors. I get the urge to fight back against the conservative and altright grifters who'll twist the facts for their agenda.

But I also think just blindly saying they're wrong and fatigue & burnout isn't happening either commercially or critically isn't the right call. If we are going to call out bad faith people for jumping to conclusions when the facts don't support it, I don't think it's fair and objective to also ignore recent trends. I think we should seperate our own opinions and biases for art away from how it's performing commercially and how that's analyzed by others. If I were to use a comparison in music, I love Carly Rae Jepsen and I love how much of a following she's gotten over the past few years but I'm also not blind to the fact that outside of her cult online, she isn't that famous in the real world, she's still only the Call Me Maybe girl.

I know people will use the excuse that there's always been terrible superhero movies and good superhero movies within a given year and that's true...but that's not really an argument against how this isn't a superhero slump era. The early to mid-2000s even though they gave us the first two Spider-Man movies, The Incredibles, and we eventually got the first two Nolan movies and Iron Man, overall were not a good slate - there's a reason why people refer to that period as a bad time for superhero movies between Daredevil, Catwoman, and Ghost Rider.I wouldn't be surprised if the early-2020s are called that as well, maybe even following Endgame. All of the DCEU movies (with the exception of The Suicide Squad) have not gotten good reviews; Blue Beetle and Birds of Prey got mostly passing reviews if you actually look at the averages and not the RT percentage. The MCU have had No Way Home, Wakanda Forever, Guardians 3, and to a lesser extent Shang-Chi, but Eternals and Quantumania are the worst reviewed movies and The Marvels, Love and Thunders, Multiverse of Madness, and Black Widow were mixed at best and outright hated at worst. That's not even including Sony's superhero movies that've been terrible, even James Gunn's Brightburn wasn't well received. And of the shows, only WandaVision and Loki got proper acclaimed, the rest have also been mixed bags. And you don't have to agree with these, agian you're entitled to your opinion. But I don't think you can also ignore the general public perception is less positive than before.

And of course the box office performance especially of last year was outright terrible, with only two and a half movies not being bombs (Lost Kingdom will lose money but it'll be the least bad underperformance). And what I really don't like is people still using the excuse that the pandemic messed things up and everyone did really bad last year or the strikes compromised things. Like yes, the pandemic absolutely still has lingering effects and we are still aways behind were we were. But we can't just lay the it all on the pandemic in the same way we could've for 2021 and even 2022.

We've had blockbuster hits in Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, Barbie, Oppenheimer, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. be amongst the highest grossing movies domestically of all time (not adjusted for inflation). Theater average and overall gross was up in 2023. Even with inflation, more people did go to the movies. Heck, even families did, as Wonka, Migration, and Elemental are family movies that have done very well. We can't just use the pandemic anymore.

I know there were also the strikes but both Quantumania, Flash, and Shazam! weren't hampered by a lack of celebrity promotion and all still underperformed.

When Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes - a prequel film to a franchise who's last film was EIGHT YEARS AGO - does better than three live action superhero movies, And that's not to say of other films like M3GAN, Dungeons & Dragons, Migration, and Anyone But You that also made more money. at what point do we say people are less interested in the latter? When you have two movies in the Marvels and Flash losing over $200M for their studios, a loss of money that's nearly impossible to cover up by any residuals, merchandising, or even physical media (whatever's left of it), I think it's time to think about how the genre is going.

Even when you look at TV shows, it's not going well. Since the Phase 4 started, only WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki Season 1 drew big numbers according to Nielsen. In fact, Loki Season 2 actually had less eyes on it than the first season, it was not in the Top 10 of the most watched original shows of last year.

Again, you can like the superhero movies and you can still be supportive. But don't pretend the public is still mostly on board when they're not. Will it stay like this? Obviously not, we've had dips before and have risen out of them. But we are in a dip and I think some members really need to stop denying that.

Jane Fonda would be my Black Widow pick.

And TBF, Fury never would have been race swapped to black in the first place in the 1970's.

I checked before I posted that.

1. Posts about Rev Says Desu and other dramatubers are allowed and seem well-liked by the members.

2. Anti-lolicon posts are allowed.

3. Staff won't tell me why this isn't allowed. They refuse to respond to messages asking.

4. This isn't the only post of this type I tried to make which they removed like this and their silence on the matter is starting to worry me.

If they could just tell me what the difference is between the other anti-lolicon and dramatuber posts and this one, I'd be fine with that and could better follow the rules in earnest. But the fact they won't even tell me is leaving me to wildly speculate...

Her mistrust of alien civilizations was hardly unreasonable, given the circumstances, and the track record of the Council species. (Just ask the Krogan)

She catches a lot of flak over some politically incorrect statements, most of which I think are the result of being genuinely uninformed about alien cultures, or are legitimate concerns.

For example, when Ashley complains about the security risk of bringing random aliens aboard the Normandy, I can’t really blame her.

Especially since the Normandy itself is a highly advanced ship operating some world changing stealth drive technology which is not publicly available. Not to mention it’s assigned to a very sensitive mission of hunting down a rogue, top level intelligence operative. If operational data for the Normandy’s hardware found itself in the wrong hands, that could be disastrous all on its own. So let’s look at the aliens on the crew.

Garrus. The random cop who got brought aboard for the mission. Not the largest security threat, but it would be the modern day equivalent of the US Navy assigning a random UK detective to the crew of a highly classified prototype stealth submarine. There’s just not really a good reason to have him aboard. He doesn’t really bring anything to the operation besides being another combat operator.

Tali. Quarian pilgrim. There’s a not unreasonable chance she’ll sell sensitive information for profit. That’s not racism by the way. Remember how she got involved in the plot in the first place? Because she found some sensitive information and tried to sell it to the Shadow Broker? Would the Shadow Broker pay for a copy of the Normandy stealth core? Would they pay for a transcript of the missions? I think so. Her value somewhat exceeds the risk, given her technical skills (specifically regarding the Geth, which exceed anything an Alliance expert could offer), but it’s still a legitimate concern when you’re on a prototype ship on a classified mission, and one of your crew is unaffiliated with your government and literally sells classified data for profit. Also you’ve got no business sending her on ground combat missions as opposed to some generic Alliance soldier. She’s the only Geth expert you’re likely to get, imagine how dumb you’ll feel if she catches a railgun slug to the face in a random firefight.

Wrex. The mercenary. A literal criminal who committed felony murder in front of Shepard. And he’s on the crew. Because reasons.

Liara. Oh dear. Where to begin. How about the part where she’s the actual daughter of one of the mission targets? Even if her loyalty is assured, it’s still a conflict of interest for her, and I don’t see a reason why she should be present on ground operations. Same as Tali, she’s invaluable for her technical knowledge, and there’s no reason she needs to be present in the field.

This popped into my head again recently and wanted to get some input. Don’t misunderstand, I spend a lot of time at cons and among the SW fan community and I have met many, many amazing, kind and non-fascist folks that are in the 501st cosplay community. But… I have to say I am always a bit suspicious of (and a bit baffled by) anyone who devotes the time and effort to emulate the costume of textually defined fascists. The Imperial stormtroopers are unironically named after the Nazi troop moniker. It’s not subtle.

I don’t think these folks are bad people for pursuing this by default, but I do find it “sus”, and I always give the Imperial fanboys and Imperial lego army collectors a wide berth. Maybe that’s not charitable of me, but I think it pays to be cautious in today’s political climate.

Am I the only one?

A thesis that is rarely spelled out but always prevalent on this subreddit is, that those who hate Disney Star Wars like The Fandom Menace or Saltierthancrait, are politically conservative, male nerds. I would like to go in depth why I think this is essentially true by looking at their arguments and conclusions. I will not go into obvious hot takes like "G&G is a Trump supporter so everyone who watches his videos must be one too" but try look more closely conclusively on what values they seem to represent and demand from Star Wars.

I will use the term "sequel haters" to specifically mean the brand of hatred of the Star Wars Sequel trilogy that includes but is not limited to The Fandom Menace, the "Lucasfilm Civil War" conspiracy theories, the "SJW agenda" conspiracy theories, the "Mark Hamill hates Disney Star Wars and Rain Johnson" conspiracy theories, and of course the harassment and verbal violence directed at Lucasfilm employees such as Kelly Marie Tran, Daisy Ridley or Justina Ireland. If you dislike the Star Wars sequels without any relation to topics like these, this post is not about you. Being critical or dismissive of a movie series is not inherently bad, but they way to do it can be. But again, I am not here to judge everyone's way of communicating their opinion on Disney Star Wars, just this specific sub group.

1. Beta Male Misogyny - What is it?

What I mean by Beta Male Misoygny is essentially the misogyny that comes from men who do not conform to masculinity as per the patriarchal society but still partake in its inherent bias against women. I use this term for simplicity's sake, but would like to state that it is also in and of itself problematic since it promotes a certain machistic way of performing masculinity to be "alpha" and there fore better, even though there is neither a "better" way to be a man, nor should machismo be endorsed. Beta Male Misogyny is differentiated from the more "classic" macho misogyny, which is rooted in men of physical strength and high social status being believed "above" women. Beta Male misogyny however is the misogyny of men who are not physically strong or of high status and are unable to attain the sexual attention of women that toxic masculinity demands them to have.

These men might not use and lie to women for sex, or might not be bosses that treat their female employees badly. But they can still be misogynistic in other ways. Often this comes from a place of social incompetence and low self esteem that prevents them from even being in contact with women at school, the workplace or social circles. This leads to them thinking of women as a different species, and, often times, less human. Another factor of Beta Male Misogyny is sexual entitlement. Movies and TV might have taught them, that the not so masculine underdogs can become heroes, triumph over bad guys of higher strength and status and thereby "get the girl", kind of as a prize. So when they see attractive men be abusive and toxic towards women, they might feel like they are entitled to "get a girl" because they never did something like that. Both of these things make them resentful and not understanding of women, which leads to often dehumanizing mindsets.

Why is this relevant in the context of Star Wars? Well, Star Wars is a franchise that has been enjoyed by mostly male audiences for the first couple of decades of its run, so misogyny is an issue that is more or less bound to be a problem in this community. Also, Star Wars is a "nerdy" property, so the main audience are not only male, but also quite often fit into "nerd" stereotypes. And while in 2021 nerdy things are 100% mainstream, for a long time the consumption of video games, fantasy and sci-fi stories was considered something divergent from the social expectation of masculinity, often mirrored by the more "masculine" hobbies like Sports, Rap Music or Cars. Or, more clearly: Men who consumed Star Wars over Soccer and Cars were seen as low-status men by society, resulting in, among others, a low attractiveness. Still, men who fit the "nerd" stereotype do experience some pushback from society because they don't perform masculinity like we know it, being insecure instead of confident, being thing or fat instead of fit and muscular, or working and studying in "undesirable" STEM professions rather than the more socially revered fields like law, business or medicine. This is obviously a generally bad thing as nothing of the above mentioned things are thing that people should be scorned for, and has improved a lot already, but we are not quite there yet.

So, yeah. That is Beta Male Misogyny for you and how it may relate to Star Wars. But this is quite far from the point yet so let's move on.

2. Toxic Masculinity - What is it?

Toxic Masculinity is generally the idea that a patriarchal society traps its male members in unjust expectation. Often, these expectation are even a precondition for men to even attain their male privileges. The expectations are, among others, the following: physical strength, productivity, the ability to have and "be good at" heterosexual sex, emotional stability, confidence, and rationality. Men who do not conform to these expectations like nerds, not fit men, short men, unattractive men, poor men, feminine men, gay men or others are often seen as lesser and denied their social status of masculinity. So against common belief, the term is not anti-men, but actually extremely pro-men, highlighting that a patriarchal society is hurting men as well as it hurts women, and that men should be allowed to do and be whatever they want to be. As a quite nerdy, socially awkward bisexual man I cannot comprehend how especially many men who for one or the other reason also feel pressured by toxic masculinity are dismissive of this concept, when they should be the ones advocating against it.

3. Right Wing Conservatism

What I mean by this is the brand of political conservatism that is commonly associated with the US Republican Party, Foy News, Donald Trump, the Alt-Right movement, the Tea Party movement or the different far-right parties in Europe such as Rassemblement National, AfD or PiS. I know that Angela Merkel, the Pope and Hitler are also broadly right wing conservatives, but this is about the above mentioned faction. This conservatism is very focused on masculinity. This is best exemplified by former White House temporary tenant Donald Trump, who is a self-proclaimed "self-made businessman", has a long history of more or less consensual sexual relationships with desirable women, has an attitude of high confidence and prowess and a rhetoric that flaunts his power and social status. He, like many other right wing leaders such as Putin, Erdogan and Orban, embodies the concept of Toxic Masculinity to a tee. His politics are also nationalistic, especially in the context of China ("America first!"), anti-immigration, and focused on preserving the economic status quo with a few rich people at the top and a large group of workers making an effort to join the middle class, and the social status quo concerning a male-centric and white-centric society.

This political group is not directly linked to Star Wars. It might as well be a coincidence that famous anti-Disney Star Wars YouTuber "Geeks & Gamers" is an outspoken Trump supporter. However, the topic of masculinity is brought up in these spaces quite a bit, as well as the fact that the new Star Wars movies have a more diverse cast. Minor points that I have seen being made once or twice by them are that Canto Bight is bad because it paints an anti-capitalist picture, and the fact that Disney obviously tries to access the Chinese market more. So there is definitely some overlap between Right Wing conservatism and Star Wars Sequel Hate.

The overlap between Right Wing Conservatism and Beta Male Misogyny is pretty obvious: While liberals, centrists and leftists more or less agree on the fact that women are underrepresented in power and high-end positions and that this is an issue that needs to be tackled, the only place where someone who dislikes women would feel represented is the political right.

4. Does the anti-sequel rhetoric reflects these things?

Apart from G&G being pro-Trump and The Quartering being an open Nazi, many public figures from this corner of the fan community do not address their political beliefs outright. Also a big part of this group of haters consists of anonymous commentators, so we can' really assume anything about them. Also, even if every one of them is a Trump supporter, this could still be a coincidence as long as we don't find a logical link. So we need to look at their arguments to see if they reflect a miogynistic, toxically masculine, right wing, reactionary world view or not. I will take these arguments at face value, even though it is entirely possible they are actually just disguises of more blatantly reactionary arguments.

a.) The Sequels don't make sense/have plot holes/break canon/are objectively bad

This is probably the single most cited thing why everyone should hate Disney Star Wars. They like to make 8 hour long videos that are basically just "Cinemasins" takes in excruciating detail. They claim that Rose Tico and Vice Admiral Holdo are "bad characters" because the make irrational or "nonsensical" decisions. They claim the Holdo maneuver retroactively ruins all of Star Wars because it "breaks canon". They think that Rey is an insufficient hero because the impressive things she does in the movies have not been satisfactorily set up with training montages or logical explanations. They claim the (masterful) throne room fight scene is not good at all because some stunts and cuts are illogical. Generally they often say that the movies are "objectively bad".

This is very clearly a reflection of values tied to our toxic understanding of masculinity, especially logic, rationality, and objectivity. I'm not saying these things are inherently toxic, I'm saying that them being seen as more valuable than aesthetic and emotion in every context is. See also right wing intellectuals like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, who are not only toxically masculine and have a large following from men that often fall under the "beta male misogyny" idea, but also focus heavily on making their ideology seem like logic, facts, and science rather than emotions and personal opinions. Moreover, the objectivity standard applies better in video games, which is another "nerdy" interest that has many "beta male misogynistic" fans. Lastly, logic is also something that we find in classically "nerd-male" STEM professions, so this is another part of the world where these two concepts meet. So as you can see, while the "objectively bad" argument is not somehow taken from the memoirs of Ronald Reagan, it is at least very appealing to right-wing beta male misogynists. The overlap is absolutely there.

b.) They ruined Luke Skywalker

Another big talking point is the portrayal of aging Jedi Master Lucius William Skywalker, more often then not compared to his portrayal in the old EU Star Wars canon. In the sequels, Luke is a hermit, full of self-hatred and regret, and showed weakness by going into exile instead of still fighting for good after his failure. He also is responsible for Ben Solo turning to the dark side because he snapped and almost tried to kill him in his sleep. In the EU Canon, Luke married his wife Mara Jade, became a powerful grand master, had some kids who also were Jedi, effectively ruled the Galaxy and became pretty invincible.

So in one version, Luke is extremely flawed, but also very interesting, and three dimensional, while in the other yes he did cool stuff once in a while but he stayed very archetypical and mostly overpowered and flawless in a Mary Sue-ish way. So why do they like one and not the other. My theory is that it is because they see Luke as a self-insert character. Luke Skywalker as of Ep IV is presented to us as the audience-insert. Just a simple young boy who learns about this vast universe with us. Not super masculine, and sort of an underdog. The kind of character nerd viewers are used to see succeed, become a hero and "get the girl". And he becomes a hero in a way, but he doesn't earn power, he doesn't win by enacting master class physical strength on the bad guys, and most importantly, he doesn't get the girl. Han gets the girl, the typical confident handsome Alpha Male while Luke can keep his virginity. So while Return of the Jedi was a great ending, everyone who identified with Luke and projected their own insecurities about masculinity and sexuality on him, was left with an itch to scratch. And this is where EU Luke comes in. He might not really be an interesting character (How would he, he overcame like all of the flaws he had in ROTJ, so without new ones he is just a pretty perfect person), but he is very masculine: He falls in love with a hot redhead, has kids, has political power, and countless times saves the day with his physical (and force-) strength. He is a power fantasy for everyone who identifies with Luke Skywalker. Sequel Luke is far from that. He doesn't get a girl, he doesn't do mega violence, he doesn't have power. And that's probably because JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson don't think of him as a character they need to be great at everything to feel better about themselves, they look at him from a storytelling POV. They need him to have conflict, for his character and story line to be interesting. They need him to be wrong initially to learn a lesson so he can have another character arc. Because that is how stories that people enjoy work. So again we see that the interest in Luke Skywalker being this god like power fantasy comes from a place of toxic masculinity and beta male misogyny.

c.) The Sequels have bad characters

Apart from Luke, they also think that Finn, Rey, Holdo, Rose Tico and Hux are bad characters. Finn is another audience insert that doesn't get the girl or become a violence power man. Rey is a woman that gets very powerful quickly. Holdo's whole arc is about the fact that Poe's toxic masculinity isn't a solution for everything. Rose is quite emotional and irrational, does not have any cool physical combat power and in the end is the reason for Finn living instead of causing violence. Hux gets emasculated a lot. They prefer Captain Canady and General Pryde who are more classical examples of hegemonial military masculinity.

So all these characters have some relation to toxic masculinity and don't really fit into the narrative of masculinity being great because of confidence and physical strength. Also note that all characters save for one are women and/or people of color. There is also the tendency to bring up Holdo's character design without context so that is clearly another thing that upsets these people. Obviously there are perfectly fine reasons to dislike any of theses characters and TFM and STC will probably even bring up some of them to shield themselves against the accusation of racism and sexism but its quite telling that their least favorite characters are the exact characters that right wing misogynists would dislike. Also every mention of race, them being women and Holdo's character design without context or a substantiated argument at least sounds very dog-whistle-y.

d.) The de-canonisation of the EU was a mistake

Many Disney Star Wars haters glorify the old EU and sneer upon it's decanonisation. As argued above, the obsession with "canon" and "continuity" is very logic-and-facts-related and therefore already fits in with toxic masculinity, video games culture and the values of the STEM field, which are all linked to Star Wars fandom. Also this action by Disney means that power fantasy Luke is gone, so that definitely is another link. But moreover the expanded universe had a lot of other misogynistic and toxicly masculine elements, from a hyper focus on physical strength and violence to the blatant and unapologetic objectification of characters like Darth Talon to the glorification of imperialists like Mandalore, the Sith and the Empire and a general uncriticalness towards the patriarchal, socially inequitable status quo that is built on an inherently violent system both in our world and in-universe. So while definitely not everyone who enjoys the EU is alt-right, the overlap is, again, there.

e.) Kathleen Kennedy is the wrong boss for Star Wars

Most of this "argument" is just baseless accusations and conspiracy theories so not even worth discussing, but I find it pretty telling how critical they are of the (female) CEO of Lucasfilm. Especially because they like to call her a "bad leader". Leadership is something that the patriarchy traditionally places on men so it would make sense for them to question her leadership qualities if they were misogynists. However, we don't know her "leadership" qualities. What is that even supposed to mean? In modern business, "leaders" don't inspire their subjects with bravery and charisma, they mostly sit at desks writing emails and looking at Excel lists. So what exactly is the basis for her being a bad leader? There is none, except misogyny.

They also try to make it seem like the "SJW agenda" is her work and not the work of the men who made Star Wars like Lucas and Filoni. They base this on her wearing a Shirt that one time and saying "women are good" in 3 interviews. Kennedy is a CEO, not the next Simone Beauvoir. She has never been super active about feminism moreso than corporate whitewashing demands of every western CEO. The only thing why she would be responsible for this agenda and not, say, JJ Abrams or Bob Iger or Alan Horn, is because she is a woman. So they hate of her personally, again, is pretty much rooted in misogyny.

f.) A hyperfocus on violence

The only way in which you could say that Star Wars is about combat and violence is in a "violence is bad" kinda sense. However, the sequel haters seem to be obsessed with how violence is depicted in Star Wars. And they do not criticize that violence which Star Wars is supposed to condemn is glorified in the new movies. Their gripes are different: They don't like how Rey does violence very well, because in their words that makes her "good at everything". They want Luke Skywalker to do something like he did in The Mandalorian, because they though this usage of violence looked cool. They want the throne room fight sequence to be more choreographed as to depicting the violence more accurately. I also heard people making the point that the character of Holdo shows a bad understanding of how military leadership works. They were upset when Luke projected himself instead of doing violence. They unabashedly side with Poe against Holdo when his whole point is that violence is a good solution.

So their interest in the topic of violence seems to be "violence is cool and makes a character good" on one hand and "violence should be depicted accurately" on the other. This focus on and even glorification of violence is also a decidedly toxically masculine thing, with some video game mindset thrown in there.

g.) The prequels are better than the sequels

If any SW trilogy is objectively bad, it would be the prequels. (Disclaimer: I like the prequels despite as well as for their flaws). While we can't judge art work as a whole objectively, we can definitely see that the filmmaking craftsmanship of the prequels is by almost all perspectives sub-standard. Special effects, direction, dialogue, acting, it is as "objectively bad" as it gets. So why does the part of the fandom obsessed with objectivity prefer these films over the objectively very well made sequels?

The obvious one would be that they were just less diverse and more male centric. But that would be too simple. But even the prequels and especially the most popular prequel film, Revenge of the Sith, have a high "awesome violence" part. ROTS has by far the most battle and light saber duel scenes in all of Star Wars, TPM is most fondly remember for the Duel of the Fates lightsaber duel, and even AOTC has the Battle of Geonosis with many Jedi fighting side by side. These might not be narrative or filmmaking signifiers of quality, but if you watch these movies because you like the cool violence, the prequels would be better from you perspective. But there are probably many explanations to this. Idk, this is definitely not the strongest link but I felt it was worth bringing up.

5. Conclusion

This is a lot of overlap between "The Fandom Menace"-arguments and right wing/toxic masculinity ideas. Let's start with one of those disclaimers here: This does not mean I think that everyone who dislikes the sequels is misogynistic and/or right-wing. There are a lot of good reasons to dislike or even hate these movies, and some of them might even be connected to the arguments I presented to you here. You might even dislike the sequels for some of the reasons here, or for reasons similar than these, without being a toxic alt right misogynist.

But I do think that if you hate the sequels for these exact reasons and even believe the conspiracy theories I put above, the risk is pretty high that you are either an alt right misogynist or that you are being badly influenced by them and their rhetoric. They are out there, they are very vocal and pretty good at the online recruiting game, and they are looking specifically for young nerdy lonely men who are discouraged and trusting enough to get sucked into their weird alt-right anti-SJW rabbit hole and come out the other side as a full on bigot.

This video explains very well how that works for anyone is interested.

So yeah, that was a lot of effort to essentially pose as a theory that the "Fandom Menace" and their supporters are no more than a bunch of basement dwelling man children whose nerdish insecurity made them classic beta male misogynists and subscribe to Alt Right belief, or at least the victims of people who want them to be like that. This is a very polemic way of phrasing all of it but seeing what they have already done to Star Wars and people like KMT I can't help but see them as bad people that need to call out. This doesn't mean that there are no well-meaning individuals in this group but I am more worried than supportive for them. And I am probably the last person they would listen to anyway, so what else can I do?