Coming from Deadline:
Donald Glover, who will be portraying the role of Lando Calrissian, a role made famous by the legendary Billy Dee Williams, says the transition from directors when Ron Howard took over was fairly smooth with “not a ton” of reshoots. “…he did a good job of coming in and didn’t want us to change what we were doing at all. He wanted us to be comfortable with our vision.”
When asked how he felt about playing Lando Calrissian Glover responded: “It’s weird. I didn’t have a lot of stress on me”. He says this is primarily because, in this instance, he only has to focus on acting as opposed to writing and doing music.
Uh huh.
The news outlets are desperately trying to play down the Star Wars: The Last Jedi backlash as only a small thing.
The Last Jedi has:
A rotten tomatoes audience score of 50% (at the time of this writing).
An IMDB score of 7.6 (lower than both Rogue One and The Force Awakens) .
A metacritic user score of 4.6.
These results aren’t just anomalies, they are indicators that something is wrong. That there is a growing dissatisfaction with the product from the core audience who support that product. These people are the canaries in the coal mine. They are the harbingers of the future. There are hours and hours of negative YouTube reviews and critical vivisection of the films flaws. These videos have high ‘liked’ counts and tend to be among these users most watched videos. This indicates that not only is there a passion and drive to discuss one’s dislike of the film…this topic is rallied behind and drives traffic. That is not a good sign for a franchise, see the DCEU for more on that dynamic.
Mainstream media these days has become the last sector to grasp a trend they don’t understand (or don’t like). Regardless, the backlash is certainly real and the wave is going to hit targets like Star Wars: Episode 9 and the upcoming Solo film next. As a result of The Force Awakens and now The Last Jedi backlash these films are going to be under even more extreme critical analysis and those fans upset by the previous films who even bother to watch at all will be looking for any excuse to tear them to shreds.
This backlash wave will only grow stronger in repercussions as Disney continues to take Star Wars in the direction it has chosen.
So Donald, regarding you not being stressed. I offer you this quote from Master Yoda:
“You will be. You will be.”
