I wonder to whomever they might be referring?
The “User Reviews” sections of Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and The Internet Movie Database – all of which let users leave scored reviews regardless of credentials or official status on the web – are uniformly on the more mixed side as the film enters its second day of release, marking the widest disparity between critic and “audience” scores for a Star Wars movie in Tomatoes’ history in particular. Granted, the film has proven more divisive among many fans than the previous installment, with unexpected character turns and further cementing of the push for a younger, more diverse cast of new generation heroes – but this level of disparity has raised eyebrows.
Accusations of such activity are currently being leveled on social media by culture-commentators like activist Peter Coffin, who compared the proliferation of anonymous reviews name-checking the same set of points repeatedly (references to “forced diversity” and “SJWs” abound) to more explicitly politically-motivated “brigading” attacks from earlier in the year related to elections and social movements. The deeper recesses of Reddit and 4chan are indeed littered with threads in which enraged “ex”-fans organize campaigns in an attempt to control the narrative and create a situation wherein the idea of the new Star Wars Trilogy as “poorly received” can overtake the reality of its reception in the public discourse.
The term “Sad Puppies” has been raised, a reference to a collective of right-wing fiction writers who gained fame by manipulating the Hugo Awards several years back, along with the GamerGate and ComicsGate social-media movements. Some point to the aforementioned politically-tinged reviews as evidence of motive, while others allege that some of the brigading has been conducted by fans of Justice League seeking revenge on the critical press for its negative reviews. Also posited is that this comes from anti-corporate activists who see the recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney as the rise of a dangerous monopoly.
Let’s see: Sad Puppies. GamerGate. ComicsGate. Now, who do we know was involved in all of those things…. The sad thing is that I now officially make for a better Dark Lord than anything in the current Disney SJWStar Wars mythos.
Man, they are NOT going to know what hit them when Alt★Hero comes out.