Last Jedi

Oh hey guys, its been a while.  In fact the last time posted anything it was over Charolettesville and that made me upset.   I thought about blogging about Carrie Fisher and that was impossible for me.  I love Carrie Fisher and the more I read the more I do.  I regret now not meeting her when we crossed paths at Fandom fest roughly two years ago but that's a regret and I won't dwell on it.

My mental health hasn't been what I want it to be.  I'm tired and burned out on writing so blogging isn't exactly what I want to be doing but we've been podcasting and working there so I have that going.  I'm almost done with Fall which means I can move on to other projects.  I've picked up again Ghosts of Old Hollywood which fills me with dread.  its a hard story for me to tell because its about me even when I drop the mask I know its about me.  So there is that.

What is this post about?  Last Jedi.

By now most of my friends have seen the new Star Wars Movie and are mostly mixed about it.  I have friends who adore it as much as the originals and others who think the movie is trash.  I have one who has joined the smear campaign against it because every time he sees someone post about it, he just gets angrier.  I don't agree with this concept.  I didn't like Justice League at all.  I thought the movie was difficult to get through and where Weadon ended and Snyder began was obvious and that made it almost unwatchable.  I would also say that the Flash's bullet time effect triggered a migraine for me which caused a pain reaction that I'm still embarrassed about.  That being said, I didn't bad mouth it on social media.  This is surprising to me.  I liked Last Jedi.  I will probably see it again.  I will say that there were scene with Leia that drove me to absolute tears in the theater.  I think much of that has to do with the fact that I identify with Carrie Fisher as a person.  She struggled with addiction and mental illness much like I had and was still brilliant.  The news of her death last year was terrible for me because it was like losing my mother all over again.  My mother struggled with her own demons even if that didn't kill her.  That being said, I loved that movie because of the thematic elements in this movie.

I would love to tell you what it was that made this movie for me but I'm not doing spoilers because that's not my bag.  I will say that I felt what it meant.  This was a movie burning off the old of the franchise for a new.  Its not about people who grew up with the books or the original trilogy.  I hope you come with us but this is for a new generation.  They aren't making movies for the old guard because that's the problem isn't it? Holding on to what was once set in stone in a franchise made it unbending and then kills off the thing we love.  I've been to a number of cons that didn't attend to the evolve or die.  If you don't evolve you die.  This movie talks about fandom exclusion deeply.  If you are a woman or a minority or even new to a fandom you've been here before.  You don't belong to this thing that had lasted for years and you aren't not important.  Who are you to be apart of this.  This is not what fandom means.  

I had a Doctor Who t-shirt back in the early 2000s that I never wore again because I couldn't name my favorite Doctor.  It made me sad because I wanted to learn more and I was called a fake geek girl. Me.  I was a fake geek girl.  But I think that what we need to learn.  There's a favorite line of mine from SLC Punk.  Steve-O says that at some point we're all posers.  That's it.  We're all posers when it comes to either music, or fandoms or even our every day life and that's the thing.  If people like Last Jedi its because it speaks to them on a level.  Whether it is the love for the old movies or the fact that there are themes that speak to you in it that time and place.  Last Jedi for me right now when I saw it was important because it spoke to me.  It moved me to tears because it felt like someone got me.    You have no idea what it is like when you feel like someone connects to you on that level.

If you didn't like figure out why it wasn't your bag.  Maybe it didn't feel like a Star Wars movie to you.  Here's the thing.  There is a TON of Star Wars material out there for you.  There is, in fact, forty years of material for you to roll around in.  The problem is that at some point your going to die and then that fandom dies with you.  If you think a friend is wrong the introduce them to the things you liked about the fandom and see if they agree.  If they don't?  Fine but lets not be ignorant hipsters about this.  Fandoms are for everyone.  Even if I don't understand them, I like the Homestuckers. You know why?  Because if you ask them about their fandom (if they aren't too shy) they'll tell you all about it and they have a passion for their fandom and are happy to bring new people in.  That's the key.  New people.  Communities.

Granted, I'm not counting the Dude Bros, MRAs and Alt-Righters who think this movie is trash.  You get no consideration here because, well, we're all moving on without you.  Get over it.

Happy Christmas ya'll.