If supposed fans hate Star Wars so much why do they keep seeing the new movies?

I knew the backlash from the “Negative Nancys”, “Nerdville,” “The Big Bang Theory Crowd” and any miserable social media user with a four-year-college degree in “Bitching” about how much "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017) failed to live up to their expectations despite it being the top grossing film of the holiday season regardless of the article in Forbes which laid out the doom and gloom that the franchise Disney inherited from Lucasfilm in 2012 is beginning to look like a “spent force.”

I paid ZERO attention to the reviews, negative or positive, about The Last Jedi and ignored actor Mark Hamill’s comments on his disagreements with the unexpected vision director/screenwriter Rian Johnson did with his character, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker in episode VIII. Hamill later retracted those comments saying, ““Creative differences are a common element of any project but usually remain private,” Hamill wrote on Twitter. “All I wanted was to make a good movie. I got more than that – [Johnson] made an all-time GREAT one!”

If anyone like some wannabee movie critic who thinks they know everything about films offered me their personal opinion on The Last Jedi, my comment to them was going to be the meme I subscribe to on a Facebook page called “I speak sarcasm as a 2nd language” that says, “Do you remember me asking for your opinion? Yeah. Me neither.”

My being done with everyone’s bitching about the Star Wars franchise started in December 2015 when The Force Awakens (2015) was released.

“I didn’t hate it,” said friend Patrick Keith on social media back then (though I suspect after this column he will unfriend me-like that hasn’t happened before and yet I somehow still sleep well at night despite the mild infestation of bedbugs I inherited from a laundromat!). “I just feel if you are going to spend $250 million on a film make something different.”

Keith’s less-than-glowing comments echoed much of what “Nerdville” wrote on social media back then. In short, they didn’t want a remake of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (1977) showing a different Death Star and a female lead heroine (Daisy Ridley) who comes from a sand planet similar to Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine. They wanted something new.

The trouble with the Star Wars franchise is fans who grew up on Episodes IV through VI (1977-1983) when they were barely in their teens, gullibly, perhaps stupidly, thought director/creator/screenwriter George Lucas could do no wrong when he returned to the series helming episodes I-III (1999-2005). Jar Jar Binks, a boring subplot involving intergalactic politics mixed with impressively choreographed lightsaber duels, a pod race, bad acting and laughable dialogue in The Phantom Menace (1999) changed all that.

Suddenly, the idea of furry teddy bears called Ewoks taking on the Empire’s finest in "Return of the Jedi" (1983) wasn’t such a bad idea after all. When it came to the prequels, fans went from uttering the negative words of Jar Jar Binks’ “Meesa no!” in Episode I to the one word of “Noooooo!” Darth Vader uttered at the end of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005).

Suddenly, Star Wars was just as disappointing a franchise as every other movie series spawned since the James Bond films of the 1960s. There is a difference, however. I liked a majority of installments from many franchises that had audiences searching for the barf bags. The list is endless and a majority of them end with the number “3” like "The Godfather Part III" (1990), "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" (1983), "Spider-man 3" (2007), "Superman III" (1983) and some that didn’t have the number “3” beside their title like "Batman Forever" (1995), "A View to a Kill" (1985), "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989), "Quantum of Solace" (2008) and yes, the Star Wars prequels.

I liked all the Star Wars movies and last year’s standalone film, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016). Excuse me for being entertained! I am even looking forward to "Solo: A Star Wars Story" (2018), the next standalone movie in the franchise due out next May which has had a roller coaster of behind-the-scenes drama earlier this year that started with the firing of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ("The Lego Movie" – 2014) over creative differences who were replaced by Oscar winning director Ron Howard.

The difference between the “Negative Nancys” and supposed wannabee Know-It-All movie critics who I pay ZERO attention to as their reviews are nothing more than press releases minus any ounce of an original thought is I see movies to be entertained.

The Last Jedi was not perfect by any means, but it did what movies are supposed to do. Entertain. In a world full of mass murders, terrorism, biased political nonsense and social media losers who do nothing but bitch about President Trump, if a movie manages to take me away from all the depressing garbage people talk about for a few hours, then the film did its job!

The Negative Nancy’s with a four-year-college BS degree in “Bitching” (and by BS, I am not talking about a Bachelor of Sciences) need to start putting their money (which they don’t have) where their mouth is and stop being the hypocrites who a majority of the ones representing the country in Congress are. If they have such a hatred of Star Wars, why do those same people since 2015 buy advance tickets and are the first ones at the first screening opening day to see these movies?

I wonder if it has something to do with that meme, I saw a while back where seeing a Star Wars movie is like having sex and eating pizza. “Even when it’s bad it’s still pretty good.”

©12/20/17

My first experience serving on a civil jury

I had a “Come to Jesus” meeting on Dec. 4, 2017.

After over two decades of finding successful ways to get out of jury duty either by deferring it to future dates several times or looking over the list of excuses I can check off on the jury summons (I would have chosen the option I am not of sound mind but they want medical proof of that and I don’t have the money to see a psychiatrist), that all officially ended when I was chosen to serve on a civil jury at the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building in downtown Dallas.

I was among the first eighty people called at 9:30 a.m. after sitting in that jury room on the first floor with the other hundred people who got summoned to report to the seventh floor of Judge Craig Smith’s courtroom of the 192nd Judicial District Court. There 36 of us were called to be a part of “voir dire.” We were questioned by the lawyers of the plaintiff and the defendant as they decide who’d be the lucky twelve to serve in what was a medical case where the defendant, a woman, hit the plaintiff; a 17-year-old kid, the morning of Valentine’s Day in 2014 as she pulled into a 7-11 parking lot. The plaintiff was asking for over $5000 to be given to pay a chiropractor the kid had seen for several weeks following the accident, in addition, to asking for $10000 for the mental anguish the accident apparently caused both him and his parents.

The plaintiff’s lawyer didn’t personally ask me any questions like he did some of the others. Given that I figured I would not get picked. That is until the defendant’s lawyer asked us some more questions. He zeroed in on me, and the woman sitting beside me asking us if we check our monthly billing statement making sure the amount owed is correct. Who doesn’t check their monthly billing statement? Of course, we both said yes.

And that most likely is what got both of us picked for what was a jury of ten men and two women two hours later.

Sitting there as “Juror 6”, with pen and pad in my hand, taking notes as the lawyers for both the plaintiff and the defendant asked witnesses questions about what happened that day three years ago, I couldn’t help but notice “Juror 5” sitting beside me doing nothing but having his arms folded and legs crossed the whole time, like as though he had already made up his mind about the case. I was not at all surprised when we deliberated hours later where he told us how he works for a company that shells out award settlements in medical lawsuits such as the case we had just heard and the reason why his company settles is to avoid going to court as the fees to fighting the case are likely to cost more than the settlement amount offered.

Juror 5’s comment to everyone in the deliberation room is when he first heard what the case was going to be about, he said to us, “Why in the hell are we even here in the first place?”

None of us in the deliberation room introduced ourselves. Then again, no one asked. We were all known to each other as “Juror 1”, “Juror 7”, “Juror 10”, etc. That doesn’t mean, however, that each juror didn’t have a trait that stuck out from the rest.

Juror 5 was the most colorful. Since only ten of us had to make a unanimous decision on how the plaintiff should be awarded, he then told all of us he was voting no across the board and told us all to decide and proceeded to work on his laptop.

Which brings me to another juror whose trait was that we all follow the rules when deliberating a case. That juror proceeded to tell Juror 5 how according to the video we watched on the first floor discussing the dos and don’ts of being a juror, we were not supposed to be using our laptops and cellphones when deliberating. Just when I thought there was going to be an entertaining pissing contest between the two, Juror 5 put his laptop away.

Then there’s the juror, an African American, who said he was willing to vote however way everyone else voted just so we can all go home by 6 p.m. as he had other things to do. And the juror who wished a better diagram of the 7-11 parking lot was given for us all to see in order to make a better decision on a monetary judgment.

As to my thoughts on the case, was the woman driver negligent when she hit the kid? Yes. Just because it was 7:30 a.m. that morning and the sun was in her eyes wasn’t a good enough excuse as to why she accidentally hit the boy. Did she use the visor to keep the sun out of her eyes as she pulled into the parking lot? And define “low speed” which the police officer who filed the accident report, said she was doing when the incident occurred. When I sneeze, I personally stop the car when I am driving on a residential street and slow down when I’m on the interstate.

It took less than ninety minutes for us to come to a decision and only award that $5000 be given to the plaintiff to pay for the chiropractor bill.

When it was over, my attitude changed about being picked on a jury. As the judge told us in the waiting room that morning, we are one of the few countries in the world where citizens are picked to serve on a jury, be it criminal or civil trials. Like voting, serving on a jury is one of the freedoms we have in this country and should be taken seriously.

“There is no better way to ensure that citizens receive a fair trial in our courts than to have other citizens without a vested interest in the dispute participate in the process,” Judge Smith wrote in a thank you letter I received from him a week later. “Maintenance of your rights to a trial by jury, due process and trials based on fairness and the rule of law, is worth working for.”

The next time I get summoned to serve on a jury, be it a civil or criminal case, I might not be so quick to postpone the date. I might actually “want” to show up that day in hopes of being chosen. Getting that $6 check for serving on a jury has nothing to do with it since that check doesn’t even cover a supersized Big Mac meal at the McDonald's down the street near the courthouse.

What serving on a jury does, for me anyway, is it beats going to work. I suspect a majority of people would prefer to be at work instead which may be why so many either opt out or postpone their summon dates.

Such is not the case with me these days, but you didn’t hear that from me.

©12/6/17