Spoilers What do casual fans get wrong about Star Wars?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, the trailer for The Mandalorian & Grogu dropped today. (A title only AI and SEO could love.) The Mandalorian is probably the most successful example of non-movie Star Wars media, although it has connections to the big weird galaxy of other Star Wars lore, most notably the darksaber.

I've long believed that there were two big camps of Star Wars fans:

1. The folks who watched the Skywalker movies and maybe one or two others in the theater.
2. The folks who inhale pretty much everything Star Wars.

So, if you're one of those hardcore fans, what do the casuals not understand about Star Wars that the hardcore folks tend to agree on? (Hardcore Star Wars fans being famously unified and courteous to one another.)

 

[Reynard]

That the best world building for the Star Wars universe was done by a combination of comics and tabletop RPGs.

 

[trappedslider]

So, the trailer for The Mandalorian & Grogu dropped today.

and you didn't make a thread for it? :O

 

[Deset Gled]

A nerdy one from the Legacy days that I can remember:

Boba Fett didn't escape the Sarlacc by flying back out of the mouth with his jet pack. For some reason, people seems to assume that's how he got free (including some other SW authors). The story is detailed in the Dark Empire Sourcebook. He actually blew a hole in the side of the thing and managed to get out from another opening he made himself. He was then rescued by Dengar, who happened to be around scavenging. IDHTBRIFOM, but Fett even says something like "Everyone else made the obvious mistake; I made my own way out."

A linguistic one:

Some casuals don't know about "Han Shot First!", but it's infamous enough that lots of part-time nerds know about the history and controvery. But it's still wrong. This statement implies Greedo also shot. He didn't. In the original version Han shoots Greedo, and then Greedo dies. That's it. No second shot. So it shouldn't be "Han shot first!", it's just "Han shot!"

 

[James Gasik]

Midi-chlorians. The explanation from The Phantom Menace is off the cuff and leads people think that the M-C's are the source of Force abilities. The more in-depth explanation explains the presence of M-C's are a symptom, not a cause. I had a big argument with a friend over this because most people who go to see a movie don't also go out of their way to acclimate themselves to all the secondary media.

The sequel trilogy suffers in a big way from this sort of thing, where lots of essential information are placed in coffee table books, but another example from the prequel trilogy would be General Grievous- why is he a big deal? Or, as a casual friend asked me, "why does the robot guy cough?", because Revenge of the Sith doesn't even explain that he's a cyborg!

Another one. Grand Admiral Thrawn. Unless you've read the Timothy Zahn novels, you might miss out on what made him such a great character in the first place. Then Disney decided to bring the character into modern media while firmly placing "Expanded Universe" material as no longer primary canon.

 

[Umbran]

we'll call them the filthy casuals in this discussion.

Mod Note:
If you want red text, you'll call them that.

Need we have the discussion of how gatekeeping insults are still insulting after you say, "But it was only a joke!"? No? Good.

Feel free to indulge in your fandom. But maybe don't position it as looking down your nose at others, hey, what?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I disagree with the hardcore/casual dichotomy for this franchise, because it is a franchise where I think your version of "hardcore" are less common than the third group: people who were hardcore for some part of Star Wars, but drew the line at others. Whether it is because of aging out of hardcoredom, disliking some directions the franchise has taken, not having Disney+, or just needing to draw a line somewhere on a sprawling franchise with more content than anyone can reasonably consume, I think people who have absolutely devoured everything in some branch of the franchise but are casual or non-consumers of other branches are more ubiquitous than true omnivores.

Though for my part I guess since my true hardcore days were mostly confined to the era whose wider media is now deemed non-canon, by Disney canon I am now strictly a casual who doesn't really know the galaxy far, far away at all. Read all those novels for nothing...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Read all those novels for nothing...

What was the special benefit of reading them when they were canon? Wasn't it always for enjoyment?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

What was the special benefit of reading them when they were canon? Wasn't it always for enjoyment?

Of sure. I just meant that in this "casuals don't know X" vein I used to officially have the deep knowledge of X, but now I just have "legendary" knowledge of X, and someone else gets to one up me with the "official" deep knowledge and consider me a casual. It was mainly a joke.

The point is still that I think people are more typically hardcore for some parts of Star Wars media than for absolutely everything.

 

[billd91]

So, if you're one of those hardcore fans, what do the casuals not understand about Star Wars that the hardcore folks tend to agree on? (Hardcore Star Wars fans being famously unified and courteous to one another.)

I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that the casuals understand one very important thing about Star Wars that the hardcore fans don't: the movies are an entertaining way to spend a couple hours at a time and aren't really anything more than that.