It used to be my tradition to try and "celebrate" May 4th by at least watching some Star Wars movies or shows or something, and making a blog post. It's not a real holiday, but it was kind of fun to do something, because I was a Star Wars fan from back when I was five years old, after all. Just like May 5th isn't a real holiday, but it's a good excuse to make some Mexican food. (And since I'm an ethnic Texan, that means "Tex-Mex" which is as much Texan as it is Mexican anyway, in spite of the label.) I'll still make a blog post, but I doubt I'll do anything different than what I would do it if it wasn't May 4th today.
By which I mean, I will play some SWTOR, which is a Star Wars game, but I'd almost certainly do that anyway, especially given that we're in a week of double XP and I've got a bunch of lower level characters who can actually take advantage of that this week. I won't watch any Star Wars movies or Clone Wars episodes, or anything like that. I may, in fact, take a break from playing SWTOR for a while and read my Brian Daley Han Solo novel. But I've been reading those three novels for a while anyway. So, again, I'm not looking to uproot my routine any, although maybe I'll focus just a tiny bit more on some Star Wars activities than I otherwise would have, but not really.
SWTOR has traditionally given a modest gift to people on May the 4th. Usually its a reskinned little astromech pet. This year, it's actually something different, but it's coming from some other thing and been reskinned. It's a floating droid that looks for all the world like a space cooler so your character can keep his space beer cold on the tailgate of his speeder. It's been a little funny watching everyone running around with them the last day or two. Yeah, yeah... I'll get it for all of my characters too, no doubt. I launch pets (if I remember to) so that it picks one at random, so it won't come up all that often when I'm playing. It's also an esoteric in-joke and reference to a bug at launch, the "orange pixel." Either way, the whole thing is a bit sillier than normal, but it's nice that they put at least a little more effort into it than they usually do. But they still didn't put a lot, unfortunately.
I mean, the real story of Star Wars this year is how the franchise has managed to make fans like me completely apathetic if not actively pissed off. While not literally everything Star Wars in the last few years has been terrible, its obvious that even when they do something good, it's almost accidental, or because some creative type was able to go against the grain of the direction of the franchise overall. The Mandalorian show briefly excited the fanbase because it was OK. I have a funny feeling, however, that after the debacle of the Boba Fett spinoff that most fans will now have their eyes opened to the fact that The Mandalorian isn't really that good, the problems of Boba Fett were natural evolutions of Mandalorian, and the direction of the show is to entropy, not a satisfying resolution. Boba Fett was, for me, the last straw. I'm no longer a fan of the franchise. I'm a fan of SWTOR the game. I'm a fan of the original trilogy, although not as much as I used to be. I'm a fan of a few elements of the Clone Wars era content, although not really a big fan of that content overall. The prequel trilogy really just isn't all that good, and neither is the Clone Wars animated show, so that even when there's good stuff in it, it almost feels like happenstance rather than because of a good plan. And the good elements are dragged down inevitably by so many bad elements. And I've liked very little at all from Disney Star Wars; most of what they'd done has actively turned me off from the franchise. Star Wars is like the bad girlfriend that you had when you were young. You were honestly in love with her, but her behavior and attitude were never really going to work for a long term relationship, and as you gradually realized that, it all just went sour. It wasn't a bitter, angry, explosive break-up. I'm just tired of being taken for granted and treated to toxic behavior in this relationship, so I walked away. I'll still check in on Star Wars occasionally to see what it's up to, but I don't feel like I have a relationship with the franchise anymore. I just have memories of a time when the franchise was much more fun and likable. And that means a lot to me; as I've said for a long time, The Empire Strikes Back was my favorite movie from the time I was a teenager until I was a good 40 years old or so, when problems with the franchise made me realize that I didn't like it as much as I had thought I did and I moved on even then. Star Wars was a huge part of my life, as was my fandom of the franchise. But now I'm left with a few DVD-Rs of the old laserdisc rips, the DVD editions that I bought but won't actually watch as long as my DVD-Rs still work, a few Clone Wars episodes, and a few EU novels that I think are worth keeping. And I have the Old Republic games, although that won't last forever either. Other than that... I'm pretty much over Star Wars. I'm on to something else that is more likely to engage with me in a healthier way.
UPDATE (5/6/2022): https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/05/05/this-is-how-may-the-fourth-dies-with-thunderous-silence/
Also, by coincidence (well, not really) this was posted yesterday; the Revenge of the 5th.
All of the above. People are apathetic towards Star Wars. Quite honestly, even before the Disney takeover, the brand was doing plenty of mediocre things that weren't helping it. The Disney Debacle has taken away whatever momentum and inertia it was using to power through mediocre (or even poor) prequel movies and other content, but that momentum and inertia was always going to eventually run dry anyway. People are also pissed off at Disney and their handling of the brand, as well as Disney as a brand in its own right. That's especially true in the last month or two, but it was already a thing among people who were paying attention, including especially Star Wars (and Marvel) fans.
But the reality is that none of that is happening in a vacuum. The self-loathing creeps of the left have gone hysterical in the last few years and have been making non-stop war on normalcy. This isn't just Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm, or Bob Iger at Disney; it's the entire structure of institutionalized Leftism. And since institutionalized Leftism is our government, our academia, our advertising, our corporate leadership, our media and entertainment industry, most churches, and pretty much the entirety of any Establishment organization that we interact with normally other than regular, normal people around us in our families and neighborhoods, normal American people, especially if they're men, conservative, white, Christian or southern have had to adopt a siege mentality to our interactions with everything and everyone other than our own families and closest friends. It's not Star Wars that I'm through with, it's everything. I play an older video game, watch old movies and TV shows on blu-ray or DVD, and read old books for entertainment, or go for walks, travel to the West or the South where people are more normal, and go hiking, camping, etc. In other words, I've gone Galt in terms of interacting with The System™ as much as possible. My apathy towards Star Wars is just a small facet of my apathy towards everything that is hostile towards me that I'd rather not interact with anymore.
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