Star Wars The Last Jedi Targeted By Russian Trolls ... Clueless Much?

Wow you wanna talk about a ridiculous article. Check out this New York Post bit about how (allegedly) Russian trolls are responsible for the negative press surrounding "The Last Jedi" citing that they were attempting to "sow political discord" (?).

Talk about clueless. The Last Jedi is one of the worst movies of all time and I'm sure the negative backlash wasn't spawned by Russians trying to influence our political system.

They just won't let this crap go will they?

If you want a laugh read on:

From the New York Post

The “Last Jedi” was taken down by the ultimate Sith Lord — Darth Putin.

The 2017 installment of the “Star Wars” franchise was reputedly widely panned by fans online — but much of the criticism was actually coming from Russians trying to sow political discord, a new study has found.

“A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls,” researcher Morten Bay found.

Related: Star Wars Vader Down #1 Fried Pie Black & White Sketch Variant Cover January 2016 Marvel Comics Grade NM

Bay analyzed all the angry tweets sent to director Rian Johnson over seven months immediately following the film’s release.

The negative reaction was split into three groups: those with a political agenda, trolls and real fans.

“Overall, 50.9 percent of those tweeting negatively were likely politically motivated or not even human,” said Bay, a research fellow and Ph.D. candidate at USC.

Out of the 206 negative tweets, 33 were sent by trolls and/or “sockpuppets” — a fake identity used for deception — Bay found. Among the trolls, 16 accounts appeared to be Russian.

One of the accounts believed to belong to a Russian troll tweeted Johnson 13 times over three weeks that he had “ruined Star Wars.”

The purpose of the nefarious anti-Jedi plot appeared to be the same as it was during the 2016 US election: to further propagate “a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society,” Bay writes.

Bay was able to pinpoint the Russian bots by using other papers describing the patterns of Moscow’s social-media influence during the American presidential contest and the UK’s Brexit campaign.

In his paper, “Weaponizing the Haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation,” Bay argues that the real response to the flick was actually much more positive.

“Organized attempts at politicizing the pop culture discourse on social media for strategic purposes are significant enough that users should be made aware of these measures, so they can act accordingly,” Bay warns.

The abstract of the paper was posted on ResearchGate Monday. It has yet to be published.

Since its release last December, the “Last Jedi” raked in $1.3 billion in worldwide box office take, becoming the second highest-grossing film in the franchise.

How 'Star Wars: Episode IX' can give Princess Leia the ending she deserves

From Yahoo!

For devoted fans of Princess Leia Organa, nothing could be more bittersweet than the knowledge that Star Wars: Episode IX was supposed to be her movie. After Carrie Fisher finished shooting The Last Jedi in July 2016, she told producer Kathleen Kennedy that she wanted Leia to be “at the forefront” of the next film, just like her fellow Galactic Civil War veterans Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi and Han Solo in The Force Awakens. Kennedy told Vanity Fair that she agreed: Leia deserved her own chapter of the trilogy. Five months later, Fisher died, and The Last Jedi suddenly became General Leia’s swan song. (Or porg song, as it were.) Fortunately, Fisher makes a hell of an exit, claiming some of the film’s most emotional and dramatic moments as her own. Still, her story is open-ended. At the end of The Last Jedi, Leia is not only alive; she’s the biggest celebrity the Resistance has to offer. It’s going to be difficult for Episode IX writer-director J.J. Abrams to explain Leia’s absence, let alone give her the sendoff she deserves. But maybe it’s not impossible.

The first thing to consider, when contemplating an ending for Leia, is that Rian Johnson gifted her with a near-complete story arc in The Last Jedi. As the leader of the Resistance, Leia begins the movie attempting to hold on to hope even as her numbers dwindle and her estranged son personally tries to blow up her ship. By the film’s conclusion, she has shown the next generation of leaders how to move the rebellion forward with the same ingenuity and compassion that led to their triumph in Return of the Jedi. Along the way, Leia gets a few scenes that are particularly gratifying for original trilogy fans. The princess who watched helplessly while Lando betrayed her friends in The Empire Strikes Back takes down the mutinous Poe with a blaster set on stun. The princess who spent years ignorant of her own Force powers uses them to dramatic effect, manipulating not just a lightsaber or pile of rocks but her own body through space. And finally, the twin sister of Luke Skywalker is reunited with her brother in a funny and touching scene that proves they’ve somehow managed to become a real family.

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Hold your horses: Rey origin still may not be factual

From Digital Spy

Star Wars: The Last Jedi answers one of the big mysteries posed by The Force Awakens– just where did Rey come from?

But it turns out that writer-director Rian Johnson isn't sure that he's had the definitive last say on her parents.

(Spoiler warning to all those who somehow haven't seen The Last Jedi yet.)

The latest Star Wars movie reveals that Daisy Ridley's character is a proverbial "nobody" – born to anonymous Jakku junkers and sold into slavery for drinking money.

But the story is out of Johnson's hands now, and he admitted that things were "open" for a last-minute twist to Rey's tale.

"Anything's still open, and I'm not writing the next film," he told Huffington Post. "[JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio] are doing it."

As much as we liked the direction the film took, we wouldn't put it past Abrams to reveal that Kylo Ren was lying about Rey's origin and that she's really Luke's third cousin once removed or a clone of Anakin Skywalker's secret twin.

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