Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director Reveals the Best Way for Fandoms to Handle Trolls

The release of the Star Wars projects since Lucasfilm was acquired by The Walt Disney Company has seen a surge in internet trolls attacking the cast and crew of various projects with relentless harassment, which includes racist and sexist attacks, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson claiming the best way to deal with such figures is to directly confront them. While stars of the sequel trilogy John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, and Kelly Marie Tran suffered the brunt of attacks, just earlier this year, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram spoke out about the racism she endured, which resulted in official Star Wars social media accounts defending the star and speaking out against the attacks, while such official accounts largely remained quiet on the matter for years.

When speaking with Wired.com about racist and sexist trolls attacking Ingram similarly to how the stars of The Last Jedi were attacked, Johnson replied, “It’s all the same. There was a phase where the common wisdom was, ‘Don’t feed the trolls. Ignore it.’ That’s not true. You gotta shut it down, like a body fighting an infection. It was very heartening to see the huge outpouring of very vocal, ‘This is not who this fan base is.’ And shoving it out. It’s just so depressing. But if there’s any kind of hopeful glimmer, it’s the notion that these fan bases are getting wise and realizing, ‘No, we gotta punch these people out.’”

The filmmaker was happy to admit that these trolls were entirely in the minority of most fandoms and also that, while not all criticisms among any fandom are rooted in hateful perspectives, it’s quite obvious what motivates the more passioned attacks.

“Well, and also, that one percent tries to do this shell game where they say, ‘Anyone who doesn’t like the movie is a racist.’ That’s a bad faith argument. It’s so clear,” the filmmaker expressed. “We’re not talking about whether you like something or whether you don’t, we’re talking about whether you’re toxic and abusive online and whether you’re an odious sexist racist.”

Johnson also confirmed that there are no updates on his planned trilogy of Star Wars films that were announced back in 2017, detailing, “There’s no status. Right now I’m just focused on the mystery movies. That’s kind of taken up my whole creative sphere at the moment.” He’s still collaborating with the creatives at Lucasfilm, though, pointing out, “I still have conversations with the folks at Lucasfilm and with [president] Kathy [Kennedy] and it’s my hope that we can still do ’em.”

Stay tuned for details on the future of the Star Wars franchise.

What do you think of the filmmaker’s remarks? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!