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A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. — Wikipedia
Star Wars has a long and rich fandom stretching back to the release date of A New Hope. [1] Fan clubs popped up almost immediately, like The Royal Order of the Rebel Forces in 1977, and Forces of the Empire in 1980. Unlike much of the science fiction fandom of the time, it quickly spread beyond the niche boundaries and into popular culture. The now ubiquitous "May the Fourth Be With You" phrase came not from an in-joke of fan-speak but from a political ad that ran on May 4, 1979, congratulating Margaret Thatcher on her election the day before. [2]
[1] Mark Hamill reacts to a photo of a fan who built an X-Wing jumpsuit in 1977
[2] May The Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations. (IMG)
The fandom is incredibly broad and distributed. Based on GlobalWebIndex polling and analysis done in 2019, the demographics of Star Wars fandom is nearly even in its distribution among Gen-Z, Millennial, Gen-X, and Baby Boomer generations. Likewise we see only about a 10% bump in fandom in North America over APAC, Europe, MEA, and Latin America. How much penetration does the fandom have? 1 in 4 internet users globally, and 1 in 3 internet users in North America. Definitely not niche.
What follows is a list of major works in Star Wars history. It is far from a complete list of all works.
It's difficult to summarize a universal view of reactions to the various films, TV series, specials, books, comics, and video games. It is helpful to speak briefly about stages of the timeline above, however, by generalizing.
Episodes IV, V, and VI were met with fanfare from most. There were outlier critics who called the series banal or childish, but their voices were drowned out in the overwhelming commercial success. A notable exception was the reception of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. There was, even at release, a split in their reception as many fans felt they were cheap additions to try to appeal to children.
In what seems a doubling-down of George Lucas on the Ewoks and appealing to kids we saw two TV movies and an animated series focused on Ewoks. These were critically panned and rejected by fans, including children. (If you haven't had the pleasure of watching them before, small spoilers ahead in the next paragraph.)
One must wonder about the mental state of George Lucas or his actual desire for a kid-friendly story line when viewing these Ewok films. While the first is relatively wholesome, depicting a band of Ewoks helping two lost human children reunite with their parents against harrowing odds; the second film manages to brutally murder all but one member of that human family in the opening 10 minutes.
In 1991 Timothy Zahn published the first book in the Thrawn trilogy, introducing us to the most exciting antagonist since Darth Vader and spawning an entire future-universe telling the tales of what happened after the Emperor was defeated. These books were a commercial success and a huge reinvigoration for the fan base who was doing their best to ignore anything that wasn't the original trilogy. Suddenly a wealth of new material was being released and the depth of characters hinted at in the films was being explored.
George Lucas saw this new attention to the expanded universe as a moment to capitalize upon. He had begun work on his prequel trilogy already and was excited about the new film-making toys at his disposal. He couldn't leave well enough alone and decided to go back and "fix up" his beloved trilogy.
And with this one act we see the first signs of what many will later call toxic fandom. Up until this point the fans had plenty of questionable material they could gleefully ignore while they remain focused on a story they loved. George managed to do the one thing they couldn't ignore: change that story.
"Han Shot First," was the rallying cry of the criticism, but it extended far beyond that one change. The addition of new explosion effects had no real benefit to the story, but the other jarring changes disrupted the action, confused the story, and scribbled all over something that was cherished by casual viewers and hardcore fans alike.
It was with the dirty taste of the special editions in their mouths that fans went to the viewing of The Phantom Menace. They were greeted with a confusing tale of questionable interstellar politics, trade disputes, flat performances from talented actors, and a Jedi order who didn't seem to live up to the ideals that had been created 20 years earlier.
Many wanted to like these films, but few did. They were bad. Badly written, badly directed, badly acted. The only thing truly redeeming was the score. [3]
[3] Duel of the Fates (Youtube)
An interesting thing began to happen with the creation of the Clone Wars animated series (not to be confused with the short by Tartakovsky). The show took the raw material of the prequels and began to stitch it together into a cohesive story that not only made sense, but seemed justified. It was a daunting task, but through years of action and deeper exploration of character than the films allowed we were reintroduced to characters like Anakin and Padme anew.
A similar note here must be said for the novelizations of the prequel films. These books were constrained by the actual on-screen action and dialogue and forced to somehow make these stunted, cold words come to life by inviting us inside the minds of the characters. It was a truly impressive feat and well done, especially in the case of The Revenge of the Sith. Matthew Stover earned a 4.2/5 star rating for that book. Impressive... Most impressive.
With a new ownership of the franchise fans were excited to see a new post-empire story come to the big screen. J.J. Abrams was a big name and had an impressive resume. While many fans expressed trepidation over what would come, many saw hope. Lucas' childish influence was gone. A cast of relatively unknown actors were arrayed and the trailers looked quite epic.
After The Force Awakens hit theaters fans were satisfied in the whole. Was it the same story as A New Hope? Well, yes. But we were introduced to these new characters and there were plenty of questions to explore. What was going on with Finn? Would he display control of the Force as well as Rey? Would Kylo Ren be saved from the dark side? What's up with Poe Dameron's relationship with Finn?
Were there dissenting opinions? Oh yes, especially focused around Rey's character. The title of Mary Sue was thrown quite aggressively. She could do everything intuitively. She could even fight with a light saber!
Even so, the overall impression was positive. Star Wars was back on track.
And thus expectations were high for The Last Jedi. And somehow it managed to disappoint on pretty much every level. And that failure continued into The Rise of Skywalker, a film which made almost no sense at all.
With these last two films, especially, the fans were torn apart in bitter arguments. For many they were so far gone from what Star Wars is or should be that they were best erased from memory. For others they were fun romps with humor that reminded them of the Han Solo banter of old.
And so later that year it came as a total shock when The Mandalorian dropped on our small screens. Nobody was expecting a TV series to hit so well, deliver on the Star Wars vibe so well, or hype us up for more of the universe. After the flat acting of stellar talent like Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, who could have predicted the amount of emotional range we'd witness from a guy who barely spoke and never took off his helmet?
Season two of the Mandalorian and the Book of Boba Fett, however, ran into some new trouble that it seems Disney was not prepared for: The two fandoms.
The fans of the original trilogy, and those born at a time when the films (and books) were the only worthwhile Star Wars content available have a certain understanding about what makes Star Wars tick. Their deep knowledge of these stories, quotes, costumes, and references all harken back to Luke, Leia, and Han.
There is another fanbase, though, which crept up over the years. For lack of a better term I'm going to call them Filoni fans. These are the fans who found their resonance with The Clone Wars, Rebels, and the Bad Batch. For them there were hundreds of hours of content to pour over, watch, and rewatch. There are a thousand characters and stories entwined with one another that make it all real.
Are there fans who span these two bases? Certainly, but that isn't the norm. Remember again the 1 in 4 internet users who are Star Wars fans: to many that means one thing or the other: films or shows.
When the Clone Wars show launched it was off the back of the failures of the prequel trilogy and still hot on the heels of the child-focused special edition changes. A cartoon was a further signal of this "for kids" mentality that Lucas was pushing for the series and something that many fans had spent decades actively avoiding. Would these stories be canon anyway?
For a decade the expanded universe existed along-side the films in such a way that once could consider them canon or not without any issue. George Lucas had set rules for authors like Timothy Zahn to ensure that was so. They could write about events after Return of the Jedi, but nothing before A New Hope. Any reference to that earlier time need to run through Lucas for approval. He had plans for those stories, after all.
When the prequels came out there were some issues right away. It seemed that somehow these stories from decades in the past were creating issues with the future. Even worse, once Filoni started on the Clone Wars cartoon he brought in the famous Thrawn as a villain, further disrupting the expanded universe. Fans were left to wonder what was real and what wasn't, or just to ignore it all and focus on the films.
The ultimate death knell for the Expanded Universe came with the sequel trilogy and its rebranding to the Legacy stories. Clone Wars achieved canon status, but by then it was far too late. The shows were past, not desirable to a portion of the fans, and about characters they didn't care about.
The Mandalorian thus found itself at an interesting position, a nexus where both fandoms converge. Fans of the films embraced the cinematic feel, the reluctant hero vibe, and the familiar desert haunts. The fans of Filoni welcomed a serial story that was their bread and butter. Subtle mentions of Mandalorian history that harkens back to the Clone Wars show? Yes, they'll gobble that up!
But with the advent of season two and then the Book of Boba Fett the show sought to bring in more and more of these characters from Filoni's world. Fans of the films protested, saying this show requires too much prior knowledge, or it's gratuitously serving up references. Who are all these characters anyway? Why are they cluttering *my* show?
And that's the heart of the matter. Fandoms are empathetic sharing of a common interest, but they also evoke a powerful sense of ownership. To be a fan is to invest your energy into a thing, to share your passion for it, and to give it a small piece of your identity. When that interest is harmed, or when there is a perception of harm, people naturally become upset, angry, protective. This is how fans reacted when the Special Editions were released: a direct attack on what they loved. This is what happens when a fandom feels like it's losing control over its passion as well.
Star Wars has two fandoms that do not necessarily see eye-to-eye on what Star Wars is or should be. For Filoni fans like my son, he could take or leave the films entirely. For Film fanatics it can be exactly the opposite. Those who span both worlds provide no tangible bridge for the masses in one camp or another.
"Star Wars fandom is toxic!" we hear. Others argue that criticism of works doesn't suggest toxicity. Battles ensue across reddit and other horrible forums. Work lunches are ruined. Your figurines on the shelf don't bring you the same joy they once did.
Is there a way forward? Will we find a way to keep both fandoms happy? If the path that Disney is taking is any indication I would suggest no.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has taught Disney a dangerous lesson about fandom and media consumption. With films routinely breaking the billion dollar revenue mark they're unlikely to steer away from that model anytime soon.
Unfortunately they're unlikely to recognize the difficult work that Kevin Feige has done to make that story a success. Lessons should be taken from DC's repeated failures instead. Disney's history suggests that will not be the case and a simplified version of "expanded universe all the things" will be the order of the day for the foreseeable future.
And that really creates a problem for Star Wars. You see, it's just about out of heroes.
The original trilogy gave us Luke, Leia, and Han. The prequels gave us Obi-wan, Padme, and about 50% of Anakin. The sequels gave us Rey, Finn, and Poe. And what have we done with them?
We were told everything in the Luke, Leia, and Han stories from birth until death already. Our sequel heroes fell flat with audiences and Disney appears to be actively avoiding using those characters any further. The prequel heroes were fleshed out and explored in the cartoons. And who does that leave?
Boba Fett's story was a scramble to take a beloved villain and try to spin him into another Han Solo. It really didn't work. They pulled in storyline characters and organizations from the Filoni era to tell the tale, but Boba Fett is firmly a favorite of the Film fans who don't know these references. When they watch the show they see the brilliant, badass character they loved acting weak, being repeatedly defeated, deferring to these unknown subordinates, and just generally being a push-over. He is not a badass villain turned hero. He's not even a stoic gunslinger turned hero. The Mandolorian is already that character, and we'll see more of him in that role.
In another few months we'll get a brief story about Obi-wan. We know he's been hiding on Tatooine all these years, and Disney will attempt to expand on that a bit by drawing deeper on Clone Wars lore.
The rest of the shows in the pipeline are all obvious scrambles to see which other characters from the past we can dust off and try to elevate to hero status. So many of them are from Filoni's works, though, that it's going to further alienate the Film fans and will likely lead to increased hostility and toxicity as they feel their fandom being torn away from them.
Is there really no hope for Film fans? Will they just get grumpier and grumpier as the story moves further and further away from the original trilogy? For a certain portion of them, yeah, that's probably going to happen. But we shouldn't give up.
1 in 4 internet users are Star Wars fans. How do we bridge the gaps? How do you introduce these characters? How do you get them on board with a richer history offered from the TV shows if they don't want to watch them?
Well, in a way, the pathway of the Mandolorian is a pretty good one. Bring in a character here and there, but make them work on screen without all the background knowledge. I would suggest the model of Fennec Shand here as a good example. She was given a stand-alone appearance which worked to test her character and interactions. Then later she was able to expand in several storylines and timelines. Perhaps an even better example is Saw Gerrera as he appears in Rogue One. Here we have a stand-alone Star Wars story establishing new heroes and zero Skywalkers and it manages to pull in and effectively use a TV show character. Saw is well introduced so that no prior knowledge of him is needed for you to understand who he is and what he's about. For a film fan, learning later that he has more story available in the other series may even draw them into watching.
Who works less well? Cad Bane pops to mind. He had a long history in the cartoons but his appearance in the Book of Boba Fett felt unbalanced. He was given more prominence on screen that seemed warranted to those without background on his character. That unbalancing makes the appearance feel forced and taints reactions to him that could have been positive.
It's a subtle difference and one that is only possible to be aware of if the creators of these programs are aware and conscious of the dual fandoms.
With people like Jon Favreau becoming more involved in this ever-expanding universe we do have hope in the future, no matter what style of Star Wars fan you might be. We can expect great stories to be told in compelling ways that will keep us entertained for years.
For our part, we can try our best to be accepting of the other fans and their unique way of relating to this common interest. We are a fandom together, after all.
Originally Published 2022-03-10 at:
gemini://tilde.team/~tomasino/fandom/fandom-01.gmi
If you have questions or thoughts to add please send me a link to your response.
![[2] May The Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations. (IMG)](/kennedy.gemi.dev/archive/cached?url=gemini%3a%2f%2ftilde.team%2f%7etomasino%2ffandom%2fmay-the-4th.jpg&t=638511241370000000&raw=False){kind=link}