Dear Star Wars Fans: The Last Jedi was Bad. Stop Harassing Kelly Marie Tran

By:  H.T., Website:  Rogue Black Nerd

I became a Star Wars fan back in 1997, when I was a child and my father showed me “A New Hope”.  I was enthralled.  Eventually, I saw Empire Strikes Back and and Return of the Jedi when apparently Fox showed it on TV.  By the time episodes 1-3 were released, I can honestly say my faith in said franchise never waivered.  However, I will admit that as far as Prequel stories go, we never really needed The Phantom Menace.  Attack of the clones was excruciating to watch.  While I won’t lie and say Revenge of the Sith was the greatest movie in the franchise, I will say that as far as storytelling, it did its job and made you actually kind of sad watching Padme die and seeing the disturbing path Anakin went down that eventually made him the Darth Vader we know now.  Seriously, the guy kills kids and then gives a speech that makes him sound like Jim Jones before handing out cups of Flavor Aid.

But in recent years since new movies have been put out, there’s been a strong contingency of fans who have grown to hate what the franchise has become, but really when you hear their arguments one can’t help but feel as though we’re being forced to listen to whiny fanboys complain about not seeing a bunch of white guys running around when really it’s not that big of a deal that the latest leads of said franchise aren’t white guys.  I mean look around, the only reason they killed off Han is because Harrison Ford said he was tired of doing the movies, Mark Hamill knew he couldn’t play Luke forever and wanted to send off his character with dignity, and Carrie Fisher sadly died.  So they were going to need new blood either way.

The problem with The Last Jedi was that it attempted to do something that no movie in any franchise should ever attempt to do twice, which is attempt to recreate the feel of the other successful movies in said franchise.  The Last Jedi’s mistake was it attempted to not just recreate the success of one movie, it attempted to do it with two:  Empire Strikes Back and Rogue One.  Like Empire Strikes back, it attempted to recreate the suspense of the Resistance being on the run from the New Order, but attempted to that while simultaneously fitting in the grittiness of Rogue One where we see that despite the hard work and sacrifices of the good guys, we watch them suffer.  The reason this doesn’t work is because from break we know that the New Order is completely wrecking the Resistance’s shit to the point that the last of the Resistance is literally on three ships.

However bad the plot, I think there’s one character that badly gets the brunt of the hate for this film and that’s Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran.  Many fans liken her to this generations Jar-Jar Binks.  I disagree on as while Jar-Jar was a bad attempt at comic relief by George Lucas using all CGI, Rose actually served a purpose in the grand scheme of things.  Hell, we met her morning the loss of her sister on essentially a suicide mission led by the very officer that would later send her and Finn on a mission to attempt to sabotage their pursuers, which failed, not due to incompetence, but rather that they kinda hinged this whole plan on a criminal helping them and thus ended with betrayal.  So really the plan, which was hatched by Finn and Poe, was kind of shitty and had a slim chance of working.

Also, while we’re on this subject, can fans please stop with their hate hard-on for Laura Dern’s character.  Six movies of characters with odd hairstyles and fashion, and suddenly one who just happens to keep Poe in check, the same Resistance fighter that both pulled two badly thought out plans that in one led to the deaths of SEVERAL Resistance fighters and the other countless more when the codebreaker gave up their plan of escape.  People get mad that Rose stopped Finn from sacrificing himself to stop the cannon, but clearly it’s not like they NEEDED the cannon to get into the base, so yeah I can see why stopping him from killing himself was a good idea.  Finn isn’t actually a useless character when you think about it.  If anything the guy could make a good infiltration specialist with a little training, but with Rose we establish that she was completely out of her element with some of what they had her do.

Star Wars fans for years have claimed to be the more superior fanbase over others, particularly Trekkies.  However, the reason Trekkies get shat on is that the mythos are way more complicated than Star Wars ever could.  In fact, if anything, Star Wars only gets complicated when you read the Extended Universe (EU) books, which is probably why Disney decided to ignore those entirely.  The outrage for not using such ideas is partly why people laugh at Star Wars fans, as they really do put their desires for said fandom over any real logic.  The reason they could never do the EU is because for the actors that would mean doing this franchise till the day they fucking die.  Sadly for Carrie, this was literally the case for her.  People often forget that the main 3 of the franchise are old as hell.  Mark Hamill is 66, Harrison Ford is 75, and Carrie was 60 when she died.  Did fans really think they were going to do these roles forever?

Fans who say that bringing in new characters and giving a middle finger to the old diehard fans is bullshit have to realize that a franchise like Star Wars can’t live entirely off a small contingent of fans.  If anything, they need to keep feeding them while also moving forward and gaining new fans.  This is why Power Rangers has been around for 25 years, they keep making new seasons that are more for younger fans while still throwing the red meat that is MMPR stuff to the old ones, despite the fact that it isn’t even the best season (to me, that would Be Time Force).  The fact that people are harassing Kelly Tran doesn’t make them a true fan, it just makes them a dick.  For as much as fans don’t like being lumped in with the sweaty neckbeards, it must be pointed out that this is one of those things you don’t do if you don’t want that label.  Just saying.