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News TLJ Negative Buzz Amplified by Russian Trolls, Study Finds
- Thread starter Tuskin38
- Start date
Very hard, but it can be done. The trailer recaptured the feeling at least. I was disappointed that the music in the trailer wasn't from John Williams and wasn't even in the movie itself. That trailer is probably more responsible for the grosses of TFA than anything else.
He doesn't have to, it's already been done. That's what this thread is about, the fact that someone has done exactly that research.
The claim I object to is that those who don't like TLJ are only a tiny minority. That is not what the paper says. It says this:
there are also a substantial number of fans who simply think The Last Jedi is a bad film
He also qualifies his conclusions:
Because of the limitations on the data set and the less-than-comprehensive nature of this study, generalizing and extending this to the entire Star Wars fandom should happen with extreme caution.
Ok, show me a psychology paper working with a limited population which doesn't include some sort of disclaimer about the limitations of making predictions on a wider scale?
The thrust of the paper is to objectively identify a dynamic in play which is consistent with a known and acknowledged shortcoming in our knowledge. Of course there are a substantial number of fans who dislike TLJ, it has now been viewed by a significant portion of the world's population, but on the statistical level the best evidence we have is that number looks to be vanishingly small when measured against what it appeared to be. Furthermore that much smaller figure is entirely consistent with the much more positive initial fan responses than the later controversy.
Thanks for agreeing with me on my main beef.
I disagree, however, that twitter should be construed as the "best evidence we have" as to the exact breakdown of positive vs. negative.
They say there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. What I see here is an attempt to completely negate TLJ backlash as a py-ops attempt. Whatever impact it had was minor at best.
You've got to remember that Mark Hamill himself disagreed with the treatment of Luke, and he is not under the influence of Russians nor is he right-wing. There is a significant portion of fans who simply didn't agree with some of these creative decisions and/or took issue with the quality of filmcraft on display.
Ok dude.
It certainly isn't. It's a well-known principle in polling that a self-selecting sample -- i.e. people who choose of their own volition to express their opinions -- are not statistically representative of the overall population, because the sample is slanted toward those people who are more motivated to voice an opinion, as well as those more likely to participate in social media or what-have-you, which tends to bias the sample by demographics, income, etc. That's why pollsters and statisticians seeking an unbiased sample will seek people out randomly rather than just listening to people who come forward on their own.
Also, it's well-known that people who have a negative opinion of something are more motivated to speak out than those with positive or neutral opinions. After all, if you're dissatisfied with something, you're more likely to want to speak up and demand change, while if you're satisfied, there's less incentive to say anything. So the percentage of negative opinions of a movie or show online can be assumed to be significantly inflated compared to the percentage of negative opinions among the overall audience.
But he is an actor attached to the way he was accustomed to playing his character. Actors often resist changing their comfortable images of their characters, which makes sense given how acting works, since you build up certain habits and reflexes to help you play a character consistently over time. Hamill hadn't played Luke since ROTJ, so he didn't live through the changes Luke did and thus they didn't fit his model of the character. He did say that once Johnson explained the reasons for the changes, he understood and went along with them. It was natural that he'd be protective of the character he was used to, but that doesn't mean it was wrong for the director to change Luke.
In any collaborative process, different members of the team are going to have different opinions. Directors argue with their actors, producers, writers, production designers, etc. all the time, I'm sure, because there are always going to be things that creative people disagree over. That's just part of the process. So it makes no sense to cite a single difference of opinion between an actor and director as "proof" that the director did a bad job. If that were so, then every director ever would be a failure.
The problem is the definition of “substantial.” Did the researcher quantify that? Can you? I’m not suggesting there aren’t fans out there who don’t like TLJ. I’m not even suggesting it’s not a small number. I just don’t know. And honestly neither do you. Nor does the researcher.
What we know is this: Amongst Star Wars fans, TLJ was divisive.
That is really all we can say with any degree of certainty.
I think we can only really say that about fans who actively express an opinion online. That sample is inevitably biased toward the more vocal and opinionated fans and thus has a good chance of being polarized, as well as generally overrepresenting the negative side, as I said above. It doesn't necessarily reflect the opinions of people who don't feel strongly enough one way or the other or just aren't interested in talking about it online.
If people want to appeal to authority (i.e. this essay) to prove that TLJ was better than it gets credit for, they can't, in the same breath, question a statement in the same paper that there is a substantial number of people who genuinely dislike the film rather than having been brainwashed. You just can't cherry-pick like this, but that's what people do when they start with an absolutist position and seek out to justify it by any means possible.
And yet wouldn't he know the character as well or better than a johnny-come-lately like Rian Johnson?
He's approached his negative statements towards TLJ the same way Elon Musk has treated the SEC or the "pedo guy". In other words, there are things he's supposed to say (or not) in order to not poison the well, but his lingering negativity keeps spilling out. I get the sense in his carefully qualified statements that he views TLJ as a risky what-if sort of experiment that satisfies its own deconstructionist and expectation-defying (fan trolling?) intentions but that it is not the story he wanted to see told, and that's the basis of a lot of everyday fan disenchantment, no Russian meddling required.
Apparently JJ didn't like Luke's treatment either, based on rumors of Luke having tons of force-ghost screentime in Episode IX. In fact there's so much force-ghost stuff going on that it seems that JJ is all but giving up on the idea of the torch needing to be passed to the new characters in favor of them being constantly haunted by the legacy characters at every turn. If the new characters had won the audience over by now you wouldn't need Luke's ghost, Plan 9 footage of Leia, or bringing in Lando.
If you’re suggesting I’m cherry picking, I don’t feel I am. I have admitted there are fans who don’t like the film for whatever reason. I have admitted while I defend it, the film (like any Star Wars movie) has its flaws. I am not attempting to take away anyone’s voice in their opinion. People don’t like TLJ? Fine by me. If everyone agreed on everything, the world would be pretty boring.
What I am saying is that while there may be a significant number of people who disliked the film, I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest the opposite is true. I’ve read the article. I admit it’s premise is flawed and limited. The author admits it’s limited. At the same time, utilizing any online poll is not a fair measure of the popularity of a movie.
And as much as I love Star Wars, why does any of this matter? It is just a movie. At the end of the day, if people get so out of sorts whether positive and negative that they devote hours and days to creating content, positive or negative, whether that be an academic paper or a YouTube video(s), maybe some people need to get to perspective. And I hold myself as someone who has posted quite a bit here re Star Wars in that same regard. There are a lot more important things out there in the world than this that I should be focusing on.
I am skeptical that people who play a character can be willing to allow the more darker aspects of a character's nature to come out. Any more than humans are willing to admit their own foibles and failings, and acknowledge that we are, as humans, capable of great wrong and great right.
That's not how it works, because there is such a thing as research. Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer knew little about Star Trek when they were hired to make a movie about it, but they binged the whole thing and learned what they needed to learn -- and the actors who'd known their characters for 15 years were content to be told how to play them by a "johnny-come-lately" director, because they knew he'd done his homework. Filmmaking is a job, a profession, and taking a new job entails training and study in order to do it effectively.
You forgot a word there, so I added it for you.
Some parts of the SW fandom chose to view TLJ negatively, but, in the entire scope of the franchise's worldwide fandom, they represent but a very tiny fraction and only seem to constitute a significant number because they are the people whose voices are the loudest.
That does not increase their numbers, merely their visibility.
I meant what I said, thank you.
Or is it more along the lines of people can't let go, and filmmakers are realizing this? One of the reasons I feel Discovery is so poor, is that they can't let go of what came before, but we have a whole segment of fandom that simply can't let go. And if that ends up being where the money is at, then that is where the corporations will take the properties. They are in it to make money.
I'm sorry, but citing rumors about how much screentime Luke gets postmortem in Episode IX as proof that the film is "course-correcting" after The Last Jedi is ludicrous and the definition of "reaching".
Same thing applies to using Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams' returns and the decision to actually include Carrie via archive footage as proof that the new characters aren't popular.
Same thing applies to using Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams' returns and the decision to actually include Carrie via archive footage as proof that the new characters aren't popular.
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