Kevin Smith has a theory on why some “Star Wars” fans have blasted “The Last Jedi”.
On his podcast “Fat Man On Batman”, Smith slams the “vitriolic” hate towards “The Last Jedi” saying some fans are too focused on nostalgia to truly enjoy the latest “Star Wars” offering.
“I think at the end of the day, audience expectation plays into that. Like when, you know, you’re like, ‘Alright the next movie is going to be all about Luke and I’ve seen Luke in the trailer and I know exactly who Luke Skywalker is and now he looks like Obi-Wan so he’s going to be like this version of Obi-Wan,’ and then they give you a version of Luke that even Mark Hamill reportedly was like ‘I don’t know, is this really supposed to be Luke Skywalker? He’s not the one I remember,'” Smith says.
Though the film may boast a 90 per cent “fresh” rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score sits at an abysmal 49 per cent – that’s 10 per cent less than the much maligned “The Phantom Menace”. While some of the low ratings have come from Internet trolls set on destroying a film with a “feminist” message and female-centric story, others point to a challenging story and not just new characters, but different versions of old characters, like the now-grizzled Luke Skywalker.
“Some people, it hit them the wrong way in a big way,” he adds. “I’ve seen, it’s not just people going like, ‘Oh, I didn’t like it,’ when they don’t like it. It’s vitriolic, as if somebody f***ed up their childhood.”
The director muses that part of the problem may be the highs of “The Force Awakens” were too hard to duplicate for the second in the new trilogy of “Star Wars” films and fans turned a more critical eye to “The Last Jedi”.
“With ‘Force Awakens’ you get the nostalgia rush, like, maybe we weren’t as judgy [sic] about that movie as people are being about ‘Last Jedi’ because like… we’re going to make three ‘Star Wars’ movies, here’s the first one and there ain’t a hint of Jar Jar in it, enjoy, and so the audience is, ‘Oh god it’s f***ing back,’ and now that they’ve had that moment, the next one had a tall order because you lose the joy of surprise and like your childhood is back and sh*t and now you just have to tell a real story,” he says.
