It would appear that some Star Wars fans still haven’t gotten over The Last Jedi. The eighth installment in the Skywalker Saga may have received widespread critical acclaim and earned over $1.3 billion at the box office, but it would be an understatement to say that it proved to be more than a little divisive.
A lot of people were in uproar over director Rian Johnson’s decision to make wholesale changes to the established mythology, and the movie faced a level of backlash and vitriol the likes of which the franchise had never seen before. However, once The Rise of Skywalker came along and gave the fanbase something new to complain about, the Knives Out director found himself trending online after being thanked for his contributions when the fury was redirected towards J.J. Abrams’ underwhelming conclusion to the story instead.
One fan in particular is still keenly feeling the effects of The Last Jedi, though, and jumped into a harmless social media exchange between Johnson and comedian Mike Birbiglia about streaming services sidelining the credits of movies and TV shows to demand that the filmmaker apologize for the blockbuster every day for the rest of his life, which caught the attention of Yoda legend Frank Oz, as you can see below.
I'm still not over your awful SW entry that shat all over everything. I hope one day someone breaks something you cherish, Rian. And i hope, one day, you realize what you did, and you apologize EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. I hope you feel that amount of pain.
— Dave Handelman (@davetheslave) November 14, 2020
It’s sad to me that you’ve harbored this internal darkness for so long about a movie. Rian is a great director, writer, & human being. Please try to understand that writers & directors are not there to fulfill the audience’s expectations. Good work breaks expectations.
— Frank Oz (@TheFrankOzJam) November 15, 2020
Harboring such intense resentment over a movie three years later is not a good look for anyone, and taking things so personally reflects very poorly on the wider Star Wars fanbase. Sure, there are a lot of people that don’t care for The Last Jedi, but there are also millions that rank it among the best entries in the entire franchise. And besides, at the end of the day, all art is entirely subjective and open to interpretation from every single individual viewer.