A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Is Disney destroying Star Wars over George Lucas royalties? Whatever gave you that idea? Look. As a  Star Wars  fan who has seen every  Star Wars  film (including the animated  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  movie from 2008) in theaters, there is nothing more mind-bogglingly annoying than other fans who come up with silly theories such as  The Walt Disney Company is destroying  Star Wars  so George Lucas can’t earn royalties. First of all, just because a vocal and persistent minority of the fandom has obsessively jumped on the  Disney ruined Star Wars  bandwagon for any of  x  reasons does not mean that theories such as this one are valid, much less based on reality. The Internet is crawling with toxic fans who hate the Sequel Trilogy - especially  The Last Jedi  - for a plethora of cinematic sins, real or (mostly) imagined, including: J.J. Abrams ignored the Expanded Universe Too many SJW tropes and mino...

If you do not like the new Star Wars movies, why are you considered a toxic fan since opinions of movies are subjective? Oo, oo! I’ll take this one. © and ™ Lucasfilm and Dolby Laboratories From my perspective, this is what it boils down to: It’s perfectly fine to  not  like a movie. It doesn’t matter if the movie is a  Star Wars  Episode or Anthology film, or if it’s  Bolero  or  Ishtar.  As you say in your question, whether you like a movie is a subjective thing. It’s acceptable to write a negative review of a film, so long as you don’t insult the cast, crew, or director  personally.  Critique their work, yes, but stooping to calling them names or picking on them for reasons that are only tangential to the film is not okay. Your behavior can become  toxic  if you start flooding social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Quora, just to name a few) with long, overheated, and hateful diatri...

Is it fair for Star Wars fans to target Kelly Marie Tran for her role in The Last Jedi? No, it’s not. It’s not only unfair, but it shows that “fans” who target and harass anyone involved in the making of a  Star Wars  film, TV show, or any part of the canon are immature, self-centered, and have too high an opinion of themselves. Same goes for anyone who “targets” George Lucas, Bob Iger, Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, or Rian Johnson in a campaign fueled by irrational hate because they made the movies or TV series in a way that they found aesthetically or thematically wrong. Now, I’m not suggesting that people have to like  The Last Jedi, The Force Awakens,  the Prequels, the Special Editions of the Original Trilogy, or whatever it is they don’t like about the franchise. Far from it. If you honestly don’t like something, that’s fine. George Lucas, Bob Iger, or Kathleen Kennedy aren’t going to show up at your door with a real-life Darth Vade...

“There’s folks you just don’t need. You’re better off without ‘em. Your life is just a little better because they ain’t in it.” ― William Gay Well, here we are on January 3, 2017, nearly 72 hours into the New Year. I can’t say that I’m unhappy that 2016 is over; last year had its good days, of course, but overall it sucked. The Presidential election here in the States was one of the weirdest and least satisfactory in the nation’s history, lots of beloved celebrities died, and Islamic terrorist attacks here and elsewhere widened the chasm between the West and the Muslim world. On a personal level, 2016 was one of the toughest years I’ve ever lived through. It was the first year since Mom’s death and, of course, it marked my first year as a homeowner. I was used to running my household way before Mom passed away; she handed me the reins, so to speak, when she became seriously ill in 2010, so I was used to making decisions and paying bills on time already. It was a tough and some...