As we excitedly await the arrival of our Star Wars Pinball machine (see: Upcoming Star Wars Pinball from Arcade1up and Zen Studios Looks Amazing), news of Star Wars fan anger erupting over the firing of Gina Carano is flowing through our newsfeeds.
Like a ragtag group of Rebels taking on a Death Star, angry Star Wars fans who are furious at Disney / Lucasfilm over the firing of Gina Carano from The Mandalorian are absolutely thrashing the official Star Wars YouTube channel. Nearly every new video posted to the Star Wars YouTube channel is met with a massive amount of downvotes and comments expressing support for Carano.
Disney’s Official Star Wars YouTube Channel May Be Irreparably Damaged.
Am not a fan of the term “toxic fandom” but will admit that obsession over anything is problematic. At the same time, I agree that The Last Jedi was a terrible movie and wish Disney would have found some other way to deal with Gina Carano than cutting off all business contact with her (Disney Has Had Enough – Gina Carino Out From The Mandalorian over Social Media Activity). It is a terrible optic, regardless whether you agree or not with Carano’s political beliefs, especially when Disney took the extra step of stopping Hasbro from making Cara Dune toys, Am not sure I agree with Carano that she was bullied (see: Gina Carano Tells Her Side, Claiming Disney Bullying, in Interview With Ben Shapiro) but do see how reasonable people could come to that conclusion.
What should Disney have done if they didn’t want to work with Gina Carano any longer? The answer is obvious. Don’t offer her a contract for more TV show appearances as the character. Behind the scenes, it sounds like they’d already done that. But they didn’t need to come out with a public statement distancing themselves from Carano. I think this last PR move poured salt in the wound.
As previously stated, I wasn’t that excited about Cara Dune, the character. She might have been popular for more hardened Star Wars fans but she was to me at best a very minor character in The Mandalorian. If she never appeared in the series again, that wouldn’t have been something I found disappointing. Will she appear in The Mandalorian pinball game? I don’t know, but if she’s there or not, I’m cool with it.
I’m not going to Disney’s official Star Wars channel to downvote the video. The number of videos I’ve downvoted on YouTube can probably be counted on both hands. That’s since YouTube first started many years ago. I would rather promote than downvote, so I will thumbs up videos I like more than actively downvote those disliked. If I dislike something, I don’t engage with it, stop following, stop paying attention to it.
This brings back Star Wars Pinball. I bought that table because I love playing the Zen Studios FX3 pinball tables and liked the design of that table. This was before Gina Carano’s fallout with Disney. When the table comes I’m going to setup and play. The only thing that’s going to impact how often that is played is how much fun the games are on the table.
Not going to tell Star Wars fans how to spend their time, so if they want to spend those minutes of their life downvoting videos on Disney’s official Star Wars channel have at it. That seems to be important for some (many?) of them right now. Disney is the enemy for distancing themselves from Carano, I get it. My guess is in time this Carano situation will blow over. Is it reminiscent of what happened to Luke Skywalker’s character in The Last Jedi? I don’t think so. The comparison is being made, but Cara Dune was never Luke Skywalker.
If people want to be mad as Star Wars fan, it’s more understandable being upset about Luke Skywalker than what happened with Cara Dune. The character Cara Dune didn’t have anything negative happen except the actress that plays her won’t be Gina Carano (according to Disney as of this moment in time, but who knows what the future holds?) could still be recast and maybe will in future shows. Luke Skywalker’s character arc is pretty much ruined, unless they go all Star Trek and parallel universe or retcon what happened to him in The Last Jedi.
If you love a franchise, whether it be Star Wars, Jurassic Park, etc, you don’t have to love everything involved with it. That’s what I’m taking from this. It’s not blind loyalty to the franchise. I don’t like everything Star Trek has done, in fact most of the newer Star Trek by Alex Kurtzman hasn’t been to my liking. Have voted with my feet. Not watching it. Maybe I’ll give it another chance someday. Maybe I’ll like something new Kurtzman does with Star Trek, but so far his record is abysmal with me.
How wrapped up as a fan do you get in something you like? What do you think Disney should have done if they didn’t want to do business with Gina Carano any longer?
Movies, Movies, Movies 