Disney and Lucasfilm are despicable. They are also paying the price for their lack of respect towards the fans. In a new series of tweets by Star Wars, and backed up by a preemptive article from the Independent back in May with Moses Ingram, who plays an Inquisitor in Disney+’s ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’, Star Wars warned Ingram that she would face racist backlash from “toxic fans”. Disney was destroyed in watch hours over the Memorial Day weekend, and trounced by the debut of Stranger Things season 4 and the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ release. Disney knew this series was going to be trash, and that Star Wars fans were not going to like it, so they decided to blame the fans, instead of a deceptively poor written story and badly written inquisitor named Reva. Star Wars has claimed “massive” racist backlash among the Star wars fandom, with no proof other than a few screen shots from Moses Ingram’s Instagram account. They have incited the mainstream media, Twitter sycophants, and even Obi-Wan’s star Ewan McGregor to come out and defend Ingram from the “massive” racist backlash. The Inquisitor Reva, is a poorly written character, and equally acted just as bad. Now whether that’s the actresses fault or the direction she was given, remains to be seen. Either way, Disney needs to start owning up to its failures of bland, canon destroying, Star Wars content, and stop cowering in the face of criticism for their crap storytelling.
There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist.
— Star Wars (@starwars) May 31, 2022
Disney is Being Characteristically Deceptive With it’s Numbers
Disney is ritualistically secretive about its Disney+ content success or failures, failing to provide the numbers on how well any given show has done. ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ is no different. They have been mum about the watch hours for Kenobi, while Netflix has provided those numbers right away for Stranger Things season 4. Netflix broke their watch hours record with the debut of Stranger Things season 4, with 287 million watch hours over its initial 3 day release. All we got from Disney was a tweet thanking fans for Obi-Wan Kenobi being the most watched premiere for a new Disney+ series globally. That was deceptive, since Disney dropped two episodes at once for a total of almost a 100 minutes. Also, ‘Kenobi’ had 1 billion watch minutes compared to Stranger Things, which had 5.1 million watch minutes. Granted Stranger Things dropped all their episodes at once, but given the fact that most people didn’t sit down for all 560 minutes of Stranger Things at once, and given ‘Kenobi’s’ shorter 100 minute watch time, you would think there would have been more repeat watch time from a major character like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Also, it took ‘Kenobi’ two episodes to reach that “biggest global premiere” status, while ‘The Mandalorian’s’ season two finale, which gave us a Luke Skywalker, trounced ‘Kenobi’s’ numbers in just one 50 minute episode. Most Disney+ premieres are anywhere from 39 to 50 minutes long, so saying Kenobi was the most watched premiere globally is characteristically deceptive. Neilsen has released numbers for Kenobi vs Stranger Things, and on paper, Kenobi did pretty good all things considered. But, over all watch time and interest, comparatively, has Stranger Things season 4 with a decided edge. If you look at search trends for Kenobi vs Stranger Things vs Top Gun: Maverick, interest in Kenobi has flatlined. There are many reasons that interest in Kenobi is waning among fans, but when you preemptively call fans racists or bigots because of a character that happens to be a villain and is also black, you’ve just ignorantly insulted half of your audience.
It’s the Fans Fault Reva is Not Liked in Obi-Wan Kenobi
Moses Ingram, in an article from the Independent, said she was warned in advance from Disney to expect racist backlash because of her character. Ingram also ignorantly said, that it was time for more black representation in Star Wars.
“Obi-Wan is going to bring the most diversity I think we’ve ever seen in the galaxy before. To me, it’s long overdue. If you’ve got talking droids and aliens, but no people of colour, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s 2022, you know. So we’re just at the beginning of that change. But I think to start that change is better than never having started it.”
From the Independent – “Ingram says she was warned by Lucasfilm, Star Wars’s production company, to brace herself for a similar reception. “It was something that Lucasfilm actually got in front of, and said, ‘This is a thing that, unfortunately, likely will happen. But we are here to help you; you can let us know when it happens.”
Has Moses Ingram ever watched a Star Wars movie? Has she heard of Mace Windu played by Samuel Jackson, Finn played by John Boyega, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, Carl Weathers as Green Karga in ‘The Mandalorian’, or one of the best Star Wars characters ever, Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams? I’m sorry, but when you have an actress, or anyone in Hollywood prefacing the importance of a role with a prerequisite of diversity…there’s a problem. And that’s been a Disney problem with all of their content over the last decade, and is also why they are becoming more and more insignificant. Could it be that fans actually don’t like a character that Lucasfilm created? Kenobi’s Reva, is a bland, boring, overacted character, with no depth. ‘Kenobi’ is depicting Reva like they did with Rey in ‘The Last Jedi’…an overpowered empty shell that Star Wars is demanding we believe in.
Related: We Hope it’s Worth the Wait
More of the Same From a Boring Playbook
Lucasfilm thinks, like they always do, that bringing attention to a persons skin color, and holding imaginary racist fans accountable, is somehow going to flip the switch on another poorly written show. Blanketly calling fans of Star Wars racist is not the answer. Stranger Things has plenty of representation, but never came out with tweets or articles warning those actors of potential racist backlash. Stranger Things just told a great story that fans could get behind without all the politics. The same for Top Gun: Maverick. Whether you hate him or love him, Tom Cruise helped bring a story to life, devoid of all the political divisive commentary, and had plenty of representation. Disney is so obsessed with representation and diversity, that they have forgot how to tell a great story. It’s almost as if they have bought all these great IP’s to just make a buck off of the existing built in fan base. What did Disney and Lucasfilm think was going to happen when they decided to infuse well established lore with identity politics? That the fans were going to blindly accept their forced point of view? Apparently. But when the fans decided to voice their dislike or opinions, Disney and Lucasfilm thought it wise to start blaming those fans for their failures at the box office and on Disney+. Disney has forgot how to tell a good story, and has bowed down to the political activists within their company. Disney preemptively calling out fans as racist, because of their dislike for Moses Ingram’s Reva character, is just more of the same from a boring playbook.
Disney is Using the Fans as a Scapegoat for Their Failures
Disney has some of the most recognizable IP’s in history, yet they can’t ever hold themselves accountable for fans lack of interest in their content, and instead blame the fans. Star Wars did it with ‘The Last Jedi’, and ‘The Rise of Skywalker’, Pablo Hidalgo, a Disney executive, made fun of a fan for crying when Luke Skywalker made an appearance in ‘The Mandalorian’, and Rian Johnson, the director of ‘The Last Jedi’, has trolled, ridiculed, and insulted fans via Twitter. Does Disney and Lucasfilm realize that the same fans that love Star Wars, also love Stranger Things and Top Gun? Apparently not. That’s why those franchises will win, and Lucasfilm and Star Wars will fail. Moses Ingram, and her character Reva in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’, is just another example that pandering and virtue signaling, has taken precedence over actual story. It also shows the lack of confidence Disney has in their product, that they have to resort to scapegoating, by accusing half their audience of being racists.
I’m noticing some of you all haven’t looked into the whole situation but Moses Ingram has been getting some racist and hateful messages on her social media. Here are some screenshots of her instagram story. pic.twitter.com/OsKzYRBjWk
— Dune Eirborne @ the edge of the galaxy (@eirbornecosplay) May 31, 2022
Your “implication” was not an implication at all, it was explicitly stated in your tweet: you’re conflating critiquing a movie with being an abusive asshole to people online, when it’s clear as day they are two seperate things & we’re condemning the latter and not the former.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
I’ve started blocking assholes, and it feels soooooooo good.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 11, 2018
Their names change — MRA, incel, gamer-gate, comics-gate, sad puppies, Real Star Wars fans — but at the heart of it is the same fragile rage born of the poisonous chemical combination of white supremacy and toxic masculinity.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) May 31, 2018
