I Hate Star Wars

Published: 01/09/2020

Subscribe Premium $10/month

Checkout with Stripe

A friend of mine once said she didn't understand why "Adults watch movies made for children and then get angry when they're bad". And she's right, nothing about the latest star wars trilogy is surprising and if I don't like it then I probably should have anticipated not liking it. I liked the original trilogy a lot as a kid. And then as a slightly older kid I enjoyed the prequels. But as an adult I saw the reprehensible, soulless, money grabbing disaster for what it was. I'm angry because I feel I got scammed, hoodwinked, deceived. And sure in a lot of ways it's my own fault but I'm still a little angry.

I told myself after star wars 7 that I'd never watch another star wars movie. What was really insulting about the whole affair was that it was a shot for shot remake of star wars 4. The show opens with our early 20s hero stranded on a dessert planet. Important information (carried by R2-D2) is jettisoned onto the planet from an orbiting star destroyer. The information and our hero commandeer the millenium falcon. They run into Han Solo. The only difference between 7 and 4 is that in 7 Han Solo is also Obi-wan. There's some boring stuff in the middle. The bad guys destroy a planet. In 7 its several planets because of inflation. Obi-Wan (whose also Harrison Ford this time, like I said) dies in the big bad guys lair confronting the younger of the two big bad guys. Our hero destroys the death star. The end.

In the end I watched star wars 8 too. Definitely one of the bigger regrets of my life but I'm a sucker for social pressure. It was such a boring pointless movie. I didn't care about the characters. I didn't care about the settings. There was a long interlude about social commentary of modern life that had the insulting moral message "Maybe we didn't change anything but we sure fucked some things up". Who does that message appeal to? I thought the movie was about to end but then there was a weird thing about cave cats showing them the way out instead of you know ... they could have just known the way out. I can't remember the movie super well but there were at least four suicide bombers (on the good side!). I was going to put a ridiculous number like 20. But I think the actual number is goddamn ridiculous enough. The whole snoke thing was a boring red herring.

So I wised up and I didn't watch star wars 9. I read the wikipedia plot summary and that was more than enough. Which brings me to a thing another friend told me when I said I didn't intend to watch the last star wars "You're kinda obligated at this point". No sir, I am not! No one has ever been obligated to watch any movie or TV show. Least of all me! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 9 times?! That's too much man. I'll have you know that I've watched all but the last episode of game of thrones. Because fuck that shitty ass shit. When things get bad, I am out. I'm not going to stick around to see this fantasy world resolution. I'm not gonna help add digits to these fuckers fat pay checks.

The thing about star wars and game of thrones is (to me) that they came out of some love of their creators. They had fun novel and interesting visions. People saw that and liked it. I liked them! But I can see when the spark is gone and when the new creators (because the actual creators seem to have vanished) are shoveling their stinky shit into the inviting mouths of their consumers ... I am out.

The tone of this blog post sort of got away from me (What is a Jake blog post with out a meta comment at the end). But Star Wars just makes me angry. I was in a group chat with some MTG friends. And one of them ranked 8 as their second favorite after 5. And I simply could not believe that he wasn't trolling. That this was a real opinion a person could have in earnest. I started writing up something similar to this in the chat and I got so angry I had to stop without saying anything. I hate star wars. Star wars makes me angry.