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'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Negative Buzz Amplified By Russian Trolls, Study Finds (hollywoodreporter.com)
bestweasel writes: The Hollywood Reporter highlights an academic paper which finds that half of the criticism aimed at director Rian Johnson over Star Wars: The Last Jedi was politically motivated. From the report: [Researcher Morten Bay's paper] titled Weaponizing The Haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation, examines the online response to the movie that has come to be considered controversial amongst the larger fanbase of the franchise. Bay suggests that reputation may not be earned, and instead "finds evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments." He continues, "The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society. Persuading voters of this narrative remains a strategic goal for the U.S. alt-right movement, as well as the Russian Federation."
The paper analyzes in depth the negative online reaction, which is split into three different camps: those with a political agenda, trolls and what Bay calls "real fantagonists," which he defines as genuine Star Wars fans disappointed in the movie. His findings are fascinating; "Overall, 50.9% of those tweeting negatively [about the movie] was likely politically motivated or not even human," he writes, noting that only 21.9% of tweets analyzed about the movie had been negative in the first place. "A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls," Bay writes of the negative tweets. In response to a tweet announcing the release of the paper, Last Jedi director Rian Johnson shared the tweet, adding, "Looking forward to reading it, but what the top-line describes is consistent with my experience online."
The paper analyzes in depth the negative online reaction, which is split into three different camps: those with a political agenda, trolls and what Bay calls "real fantagonists," which he defines as genuine Star Wars fans disappointed in the movie. His findings are fascinating; "Overall, 50.9% of those tweeting negatively [about the movie] was likely politically motivated or not even human," he writes, noting that only 21.9% of tweets analyzed about the movie had been negative in the first place. "A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls," Bay writes of the negative tweets. In response to a tweet announcing the release of the paper, Last Jedi director Rian Johnson shared the tweet, adding, "Looking forward to reading it, but what the top-line describes is consistent with my experience online."
Well, actually in this case it sounds fishy, what's the purpose - a training of new cadre?
Not the fact the movie was shit and just happened to piss all over one if the franchises most beloved characters, totally wasting any opportunity to use Luke Skywalker in any interesting capacity before unceremoniously killing him off.
For an example just look at the hearing last week.
Unless it's Russians all the way down.
They're trying to polarize both like and dislike for the movie and then cause both camps to draw an assumption about the political affiliation of the other camp. They're doing this with every element of pop culture that people disagree on. Like the summary says, the overarching goal is primarily to foster the public perception of increased social dysfunction from within and without.
Not interested in Disney's fanfic anymore. Made the mistake of seeing The Force Awakens. The plot was just a fan-service rehash of the original Star Wars and Rey was an annoying Mary Sue. So I just stopped giving Disney my money after that. Didn't make a YouTube video bitching about it or anything. I just stopped buying their toys and seeing their movies. Problem solved.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Hey look guys, I found one!
Is there anything we can't blame them for?
Messing with elections is one thing, but messing with Star Wars is going way too far.
Table-ized A.I.
"The paper concludes that while it is only a minority of Twitter accounts that tweet negatively about The Last Jedi..." Oh so everyone else's opinion is valid then. It was a crap movie.
"more than half are bots, trolls/sock puppets or political activists using the debate to propagate political messages supporting..."
Yeah I know, I've been flooded with posts of FeministComicNerd, GenderFluidMovieRanter, and MarySuePenisHater about how Last Jedi is the greatest movie ever and
that Asian chick is important to the story and not at all to pander to Chinese audiences.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
they're trying to sow discord in American society in order to weaken us politically. That's it. Nothing else.
And you know what? It's working. Not that we needed very much, given how Balkanized we are, but it's like a vial of blood in a shark pool...
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I hated it. And yes, I 'm a russian troll that traveled back in time 15 years to get this username.
Red Letter Media: RED?! MUST BE RUSSIANS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
4.49 rubles well spent, I assure you.
because that movie sucked ass.
Not being a movie maker I can't say why, but the younger folks at my job like it and the old timers who grew up with the 1st 3 movies hated it. That's the thing, it's mostly young folks going to see movies. So they make moves for them. Not us.
As for Luke, as last Gen's hero he pretty much had to die. Same as Kenobi. I suppose a much, much better writer could have bridged the gaps, but that's a risky and Herculean task I can't blame Disney, or Ryan Johnson, for not trying.
Oh, and if we could just get a decent Star Wars game that wasn't a platform for micro transactions all would be forgiven. I'll be you 2/3rds of the nerd rage is up to that.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I really never got The Last Jedi freak out, Sure, there was the admiral with blue hair who for some unexplainable reason left her crew hopeless rather than tell them where they were going. And sure, in a civilization with sentient robots for some reason she needed to piloted a suicide attack against the chasing fleet. And sure, if that attack is so devastating why aren't there weapons that do that?
In the end though, at least the movie wasn't a fucking carbon copy of one of the original trilogy movies. The second it came up they were going on a third fucking Death Star run in The Force Awakens (complete with: "another Death Star?", "No! It's bigger, see...") I have had no use for that movie. What a terrible ending.
Rogue One is still easily the best of the new movies (that scene where the rebel fleet warps in right on top of those two star destroyers!? And a hammer head corvette doing its thing in action!?) but Last Jedi really wasn't that bad. Especially relative to just fucking copying a classic.
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The main thing that really bothers me about The Last Jedi, is that all the hate and trolling has managed to pretty much taint any and all actual criticism of the movie. You're now no longer allowed to be critical of anything in the film, without being labeled a misogynist, part of the "toxic masculinity", or whatever the trigger words are these days. Heck, I've even heard that some characters were written in such a way that you'd automatically labeled "part of the problem" if you don't like them.
Do I think the movie had issues? Of course I do. Are there characters I didn't like? Yes. Did I at least somewhat enjoy watching it? Also yes.
But do I think it was a terrible pile of garbage that everyone involved should be ashamed of and harassed endlessly over? Absolutely not.
But I now somehow feel awkward and uncomfortable actually expressing any criticism.
yeah, they present no actual evidence. This is literally the "Everyone I Disagree With Is A Russian Bot" mentality.
The Last Judi sucked ass. The box office reflected that only a little bit, because everyone had to see it for themselves. It had far fewer people seeing it multiple times, however.
The sales figures for the bluray (absolutely awful) reflect it.
The sales figures for the toys (absolutely awful) reflect it
The sales figures for Solo (absolutely awful) reflect it.
The sales figures for the Solo bluray (absolutely awful) reflect it.
If there's someone sewing discord in America it's people like Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson. These shitlords actively attacked fans and customers. They continue to double down on alienating the people who give them money when it doesn't work. Oh, the movie did poorly because we didn't listen to the fans and their concerns? Time to call our fans racist, sexist, etc. Time to say "the Force is female" and literally say we don't need male fans. Time to insult people for not "getting" that the new animated show (at a 10PM time slot) is shallow, bland shit because it's for kids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Disney doesn't understand Star Wars. They got a freebie with The Force Awakens because people wanted new Star Wars. They got a crappy ripoff of the original with major plot holes (who the fuck is making this map and why does R2 have a missing piece of it and if you have a portion of some map/tracking data why not just start searching in in the blank areas?). Adam Driver is a bad actor. Emo Darth Vader is a terrible character. Daisy Ridley is a plank of wood. Rey isn't a terrible character, but that's only because she isn't even a character. She's a foil, at best. A fucking Milhouse.
I won't see Episode IX in the theater. I'll wait for Redbox.
I agree with sexconker.
This is a blatant case of "Russian bot delusion".
Twitter found less than 50 identifiable "Russian bot" accounts out of 200 million. And then it suspended a couple of million people for supposedly being "bots".
That alone should tell you that the Russian bot thing is nothing but BS conspiracy theory.
How could you have not liked the Holiday Special? Unthinkable! :p
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This is cute... first off $437 is more then enough to live on, if you don't live in a hyper inflated country (Russia actually pays it's debts), Second gays aren't killed in Russia by the state, read the Russian laws, it doesn't say anywhere at all gays must be killed, it says it no where... so a group of people might be doing it... hows the KKK doing? Oh wait we won't go there...
As far as I'm concerned, the cheap shots at Russia need to stop, we been on the look out for Russians since the 60's always with the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, why doesn't the west be a grownup for once and stop blaming everything on everyone else? The West spends more money on war then on the walfare of its own citizens and for some reason when shit hits the fan, it's always the Russians.... seriously grow up, Starwars bombed because it was a shitty movie full of SJW bs, Hell even PETA got in on this movie. Here is a hint to all the clueless idiots out there... If you force your believes on everyone else their will be resistance, there always is, If I don't like something, do you really think I am going to pay money to see it? If I see something and I don't like it, do you really think I won't review it? You people need to open your eyes up and realize it's okay not to like something, its okay to disagree and have your own opinion. Stop attempting to ram SJW nonsense down everyones throat. Thats why people didn't like the movie, it wasn't because gravitys pull was the strongest that day, it wasn't the Russians, it wasn't the some magical event, the movie was shit, pure and simple.
No Russian Trolls
I notice you didn't throw specific criticism at Rogue One. I agree with you that Disney doesn't understand Star Wars, but I liked Rogue One anyway. It almost felt like Disney accidentally made a good one.
In this case it's a Canadian troll denying it. The idea that Russians care about American reactions to a movie in order to spur discord fails the sniff test on a few counts.
1) Americans are already tearing themselves apart quite handily on their own. The bi-party system is just fundamentally broken. What "your" party does is always ok, and what the other party does is demonized even when they are the same thing. The Republicans can block a democratic supreme court nominee by using control of the senate to block discussion on it, and for Republican supporters that is justified and the Democrats all cry fowl. The Democrats can demand an investigation into criminal allegations of a Republican nominee and the Republicans all cry fowl. If things continue like they are going, US elections will devolve into something like UK football match on a country-wide scale. There will be violence in the streets. At best.
2) The Last Jedi was patently awful all on its own, Russian trolls weren't needed. JJ Abrams' movies and their follow-ons have done what JJ Abrams' have always done throughout the Star Trek and Star Wars movies he's done, which is take all the old story lines, toss them in a blender, hit frappe, and pour out regurgitated Sci Fi shakes with sprinkles of new FX on top. They really are Star Wars for millennials.
Americans just take themselves waaayyyyy too seriously. Sure, a healthy ego is not necessarily a bad thing, but seriously.... listen to yourselves. "Russians are trolling our movie reviews in order to make us hate each other".
Because our perception of social disfunction is caused by disagreement over a movie.
And not, say, a broken healthcare system, a broken pension system, corrupt and stupid politicians, the church abusing small kids and then covering it up, the media actively, openly and much more aggressively reinforcing the split of society into camps, the economy being plundered by banks and the super-rich or everyone with a buck to make denying or opposing climate change.
Or any of the other issues of the day that nobody, least those whose fucking job it is, taking care of.
Sure, of all the real issues that divide and threaten society, a paid army of trolls picks movie reviews as their choice weapon to destabilise western society.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Your missing 3 zeros there buddy.
They said they found 30,000. Not 30. Between them they logged in 570,000 times , removed 220,000 'suspicious' applications that had generated over 2 billion tweets. (According to twitter)
So...yeah, vet your sources man.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
"I suppose our ruling class does it too"
Bing, bing, bing - we have a winner!
You kind of missed the bit where Russians are on average more into science fiction than Americans and thus proportionally would have been more put off by crap science fiction but of course if you are Russian and you hate something, express your opinion online you are a troll and of course if you are Russian and you like something, express your opinion online you are a troll and if you are Russian and you are indifferent to something and express your opinion online you are a troll.
To put it simply https://www.rbth.com/news/2015... and thus will use English language websites and they all are trolls, this is called rampant prejudice as is typical coming out of a very racist and prejudiced US, which is now also hugely sexually conflicted across multiple genders, I am going with Bunjil as my gender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., in preparation for more SJW bullshit coming out of the US, that or other ;D.
American main stream media, please fuck off with your racism and prejudice, one thing I have noticed, it is funny in American media for white men to be raped in prison but not funny anywhere for women of any kind to be raped, why is that?!?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
C'mon man - everyone knows the economic policies of the Demopublicans and the Republicrats are 99.9% identical.
President Trump is an independent who ran as a Republicrat for expediency. He's obviously not a deep political philosopher or a hardcore economic reformer. But at least he's not openly, brazenly contemptuous of working people.
The idea that voting Demopublican is somehow in the average Joe's best interests is quite silly, because it's so cryingly obviously false. Tepid half-socialists like Sanders and Warren are kept around for decorative purposes only. It's obvious they will never be allowed to shape public policy.
in this case, the trolls have it right.
Hear, hear!
I remember when I though Jar-jar was as bad as any SW character would ever get. Hell, I thought Disney would FIX things.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You don't know what you're talking about. The cost of a car is the same in Russia as it is in the US. The cost of clothing is actually about 27% more in Russia. Cigarettes are cheap, but rents are about the same, if you live in the kind of place you'd want to live and not the middle of nowhere. If you want to go to a movie in Russia, it's about $9.50 US. In the US, it's $10. Groceries are more expensive in Russia, and their shitty quality. It's been almost six years since I was there, but since then, wages have declined. A lot.
The cost of living in Russia is only a bout 30% less than it is in the US, but the average income is 80% less. "Hyper inflation" has absolutely nothing to do with it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This sounds like reverse plot harvesting. Someone from the future goes into the past and sells plots from reboot movies from the future to people in the past, ie. Ghostbusters Reboot, Star Trek Reboot, Mad Max Reboot, etc. The Hollywood writers and directors in the past then improved the plots, creating what we call the "original" versions of these movies. It makes more sense then the currently held narrative that the reboots were created after the "originals". After all, how could the revised version of a script be so bad compared to the version it was based on?
So, by occum's razor, time travel must be possible.
When the Five Year Plans failed, it was never because Communism was stupid, no, it was because of "wreckers" (or 40 consecutive "unexpectedly cold" winters).
This is just the same tune with new lyrics. It's not because they were stupid, make drek and insulting fans directly, no it was because of "Russian trolls". Presumably when IX tanks it will be the unexpectedly cold winter.
The dysfunction will continue until the companies implode.
But no bad talk about Emo Darth Vader! Emo Darth Vader is best Disney Princess!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
https://www.wired.com/story/ho...
White men should rape more than any demographic, because they are the majority demographic. However, do the math per population and you'll find that Mexicans rape the most followed closely by blacks per capita. In fact, blacks likely rape the same as mexicans because clearance rates for rape in majority black cities is below 20% while nationally the clearance rate is much higher. There's your lesson in stats for the day, but hey, don't let that get in the way of your outrage followed by that homo fantasy you ended with.
We made it PRECISELY according to the committee-approved 'Star Wars action film' formula, how could it not be perfect?
I mean:
When the focus groups showed kids found it stultifying, we added cute little things that were optimized for cheap production according to our Vietnamese factories. They are perfectly designed by slave-labor engineers to be adorable.
When the focus groups showed Asian viewers thought it was stupid, we bolted onto the story a pudgy Asian chick, hopefully snagging the 'all body images are positive' demo as well.
We made the lead character a woman because powerful vaginas are super-trendy now.
We added gay dudes because well duh, you have to have gay people in an adventure.
We employed only faceless mediocrities, pretty much just like George Lucas did (except we did it so we could lock them into lifetime contracts of servitude).
WE EVEN MADE THE BAD GUY A WHITE MAN. How could that possibly be wrong in 2018?
We clearly hit all the IMPORTANT mechanics needed to make a perfect film; it had to be Russians that fucked this up.
-Styopa
Fuck off, Rogue One took a massive shit on Leia's legacy and made the opening of a new hope a joke.
What the actual fuck? Can you please explain that one.
Love to.
Because Leia's main big thing was building the rebels death star understanding through the expanded universe. They first learn of it in the force unleashed (with the original starkiller whos family crest became the rebel alliance emblem) then over the course of years they built up their copy of the plans by multiple missions, raids and operations all orchestrated chiefly by Leia. The empire knew of the potential and didn't keep all the plans in one place, the people building the engines had the plans for that, the weapons only knew the weapons and so on. There was no one place or group that had the whole picture. Look up operation skyhook. Anyway, rogue one wiped all that out and just had the plans neatly handed over on a platter with relatively little fuss. Leia's contribution is now essentially a courier.
As for the start of A New Hope the whole I'm a diplomat on a peaceful mission line should be followed by vader saying 'Bullshit! We just watched your little ship coming out of that big one that just attacked that base that we blew the fuck up'
That's not to mention The Last Jedi making the whole thing fucking pointless because they should've just rammed a few x-wings at hyperspeed into it because that's now an established legit tactic, but that's a different rant.
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