by Matthew Waldron

In December, upon the release of The Last Jedi, an individual asked me on Reddit if I was a Star Wars “fan." It wasn’t a casual inquiry, it was a challenge. I was active in a thread where “fans” were raging against Rian Johnson and the decisions he made as the film’s writer/director. Not a single person was criticizing the quality of the script. Or the performances. No one had anything critical to say about where Johnson put his camera. No one was aghast at blurry, out-of-focus shots or anything remotely unprofessional. But many people were pissed because they’d spent, by their own choice, the past three years speculating about who Rey’s parents were, and didn’t like the answer they’d been given. I brought up the inherent dilemma behind criticizing a filmmaker’s work, not because of its quality, but because of its non-alignment with what you feel, as a “fan," you were “owed." I made the argument that Johnson owed no one anything beyond a commitment to his personal version. This was the point at which my “fandom” was called into question.