Star Wars: The Last Jedi hate amplified by Russian Trolls

[Kintor]

Does it matter? There is evidence.

I hope you realise the methodology of this paper is deeply flawed. It should've been a huge red flag for you when it turned out the paper was self-published, not peer reviewed. Because no self-respecting academic journal would ever allow claims this unsubstantiated ever to go to print. It's a discredit to the social sciences that such arbitrary criteria and small sample size is being used to downplay the current failures of Star Wars with this hysteria about clandestine Russian agents trying to bring down Western civilisation by giving movies bad reviews.

[thwhtGuardian]

I was originally going to say "That report is nonsense everyone knows that in Russia the movie trolls you!" But I didn't think the board would get the Yakov Smirnoff reference https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Smirnoff

I love Yakov Smirnoff, and I love Russian reversals...but strangely I've never known why that type of joke is often attributed to him as I don't think it was often(if ever) part of his routine. Now, "...What a country!" after misunderstanding some idiom, that's pure Yakov.

With the whole Russia thing in the zeitgeist lately it's a wonder he hasn't made a come back.

[The Negative Zone]

On one hand it does seem pretty easy for an 3rd party to manipulate America's divided political system, on the other hand.. do Americans need any help?

[Anthony W]

I love Yakov Smirnoff, and I love Russian reversals...but strangely I've never known why that type of joke is often attributed to him as I don't think it was often(if ever) part of his routine. Now, "...What a country!" after misunderstanding some idiom, that's pure Yakov.

With the whole Russia thing in the zeitgeist lately it's a wonder he hasn't made a come back.

If there was ever a time for him to make a comeback it's now. The material writes itself.

[Vegeta]

I just don't see what the Russians end game was here. Americans have always been divisive about movies. Heck, you could go back to the Star Wars prequels to see people on both sides arguing those films merits. It didn't exactly rip the country in half leaving it vulnerable to a "Red Dawn" style invasion.

[Baseman]

I look forward to Russian bot accusations that's going to be flying around.

[ClanAskani]

Apparently, I'm a Russian bot.

What I can tell from Reddit and Star Wars forums, about fairly evenly split between liking and hating TLJ. Fandom has been fractured more than the Prequels.

And folks at Disney know what. I know several people who work at one of the major trailer vendors who generally like most comic movies who I was rather surprised about how much they absolutely hated TLJ. And they were joking around about it with one of their clients from Disney who was completely aware of not just some fans dislike of TLJ, but how much their friends hated TLJ - enough that it was impacting home video marketing campaigns. Not that that's going to actually change anything since Disney's marketing strategy is targeting kids.

So, call it Russian bots all you want. It's not going to actually change the downward trend Star Wars is in.

[thwhtGuardian]

Apparently, I'm a Russian bot.

What I can tell from Reddit and Star Wars forums, about fairly evenly split between liking and hating TLJ. Fandom has been fractured more than the Prequels.

And folks at Disney know what. I know several people who work at one of the major trailer vendors who generally like most comic movies who I was rather surprised about how much they absolutely hated TLJ. And they were joking around about it with one of their clients from Disney who was completely aware of not just some fans dislike of TLJ, but how much their friends hated TLJ - enough that it was impacting home video marketing campaigns. Not that that's going to actually change anything since Disney's marketing strategy is targeting kids.

So, call it Russian bots all you want. It's not going to actually change the downward trend Star Wars is in.

It's not that you're a Russian-bot...it's just that your views don't match reality.

And this is coming from someone who didn't enjoy either the Force Awakens or The Last Jedi...I just don't pretend that my tastes mirror those of anything approaching a majority.

[ClanAskani]

It's not that you're a Russian-bot...it's just that your views don't match reality.

Umm, what reality? The reality that the media wants people to believe? Because the vast majority of people I know don't like TLJ. And I work in marketing in Southern California.

If Russia was really going to do something to impact the US, why not something like the Sony hack? I had a family member and many friends impacted by that breach. Their private information is online and easily available for anyone to steal. But Russia decides to ruin TLJ's Rotten Tomato score for kicks?
Oh give me a break.

[thwhtGuardian]

Umm, what reality? The reality that the media wants people to believe? Because the vast majority of people I know don't like TLJ. And I work in marketing in Southern California.

The reality we live in, which includes the general movie going audience and not the very small niche which participates in fan groups online.

[thwhtGuardian]

Umm, what reality? The reality that the media wants people to believe? Because the vast majority of people I know don't like TLJ. And I work in marketing in Southern California.

If Russia was really going to do something to impact the US, why not something like the Sony hack? I had a family member and many friends impacted by that breach. Their private information is online and easily available for anyone to steal. But Russia decides to ruin TLJ's Rotten Tomato score for kicks?
Oh give me a break.

This is a whole separate issue, I don't think the Russians are really affecting much, or even really to attempting to, but the fact of the matter is that the film did very well both in theaters and on DVD which says that there are probably more people that thought it was a decent flick than there are that thought it was terrible.

And again, I'm fully in the "this was a bad movie" group. I disliked both main line entries so far and probably won't go to see the third in theaters...but again I'm not going to pretend my view is held by most people.

[ClanAskani]

The reality we live in, which includes the general movie going audience and not the very small niche which participates in fan groups online.

Star Wars is beyond niche groups - it's part of the cultural landscape. One of the guys I work with who is in his late 40s described TLJ as baseball bat to the groin of every guy who saw the original Star Wars in theaters. This isn't someone who goes to Star Wars conventions or even watches MCU movies. It's a guy who saw ANH during it's original release. He probably didn't like the Prequels either, but he still did see the ST. But there's zero chance he goes to see Episode 9.

There are movies that are "meh" that people forget as soon as they leave the theaters. Then there are movies that really piss people off. TLJ is the latter. There's a reason people are angry enough to go online to complain about TLJ destroying something very important to them - and that's being discounted as "Russian Bots".

But this isn't unexpected. There are plenty of times when test screenings happen that the results are discounted as being "the wrong demographic" because the test didn't return the result the studio or director wanted. Essentially - studios like to say "those people's opinions don't count" or "we aren't making movies for those people".

[thwhtGuardian]

Star Wars is beyond niche groups - it's part of the cultural landscape. One of the guys I work with who is in his late 40s described TLJ as baseball bat to the groin of every guy who saw the original Star Wars in theaters. This isn't someone who goes to Star Wars conventions or even watches MCU movies. It's a guy who saw ANH during it's original release. He probably didn't like the Prequels either, but he still did see the ST. But there's zero chance he goes to see Episode 9.

There are movies that are "meh" that people forget as soon as they leave the theaters. Then there are movies that really piss people off. TLJ is the latter. There's a reason people are angry enough to go online to complain about TLJ destroying something very important to them - and that's being discounted as "Russian Bots".

It is indeed part of a much larger cultural landscape, which is why your assertion that most disliked it is faulty; if it were just some niche property you might be able to say it was mostly hated based upon anecdotes about fan communities you belong to but because we're actually talking about something an audience several orders of magnitude larger than that your anecdotes are meaningless.

I mean, let's just take this forum for instance. There are nearly four million posts in the whole forum but only eleven thousand on the Star Wars board...which is only .3% of the board's traffic which is pretty small which would mean that even if every single one of those posts represented a unique user AND if they all(or even most) hated the film then that would only represent the opinions of only a fraction of the total users of this forum...and the entire population of this forum infinitesimal in comparison to the audience that Star Wars reaches. And again even if everyone on this whole forum hated it(or even most) that wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against the over all consensus. Even if you throw in the Reddit sub communities you belong to, and your extended family, friends and co-workers to the small number of users here, and assume they all(or most) hate it...it's still a really small number.

And again, this is coming from someone who thought both of them were bad....but the fact is that the general population didn't and the ticket and dvd sales back that up.

[Kintor]

I mean, let's just take this forum for instance. There are nearly four million posts in the whole forum but only eleven thousand on the Star Wars board...which is only .3% of the board's traffic which is pretty small which would mean that even if every single one of those posts represented a unique user AND if they all(or even most) hated the film then that would only represent the opinions of only a fraction of the total users of this forum...and the entire population of this forum infinitesimal in comparison to the audience that Star Wars reaches. And again even if everyone on this whole forum hated it(or even most) that wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against the over all consensus. Even if you throw in the Reddit sub communities you belong to, and your extended family, friends and co-workers to the small number of users here, and assume they all(or most) hate it...it's still a really small number.

So then let's get this straight. You're willing to ignore friends, family, social media and internet forums - just because they dislike TLJ and Disney's Star Wars. On the other hand, when trash Hollywood tabloids produce a report that claims all the TLJ hate is really part of a vast Russian conspiracy you beleive it instantly. That's just not very logical on your part. Even Joseph McCarthy would take a look at this current level of Russian paranoia and think that you're overdoing it.

[Bunai]

So, they control the toy sales too?