Sniper Team 4 said:
I tease people about it. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, so when I hear that someone hasn't seen them, or doesn't like them, I'll say, "Burn the heathen!" or something like that, but I make it very clear that I'm joking. Usually a get an eye roll and a smile. Sometimes I get a laugh and an excuse, and a few times I get the "Ugh, just go away" look, which I do.
James Earl Jones was on a talk show once (Gayle King, I think?), and he said he loves meeting people who've never watched Star Wars, to the point where he now more often gives a chance to people he's never heard of. This lead to Gayle King telling him to recite the lyrics from a song by Justin Beiber, and Jones read the lyrics to 'Baby' aloud, giving it a chance because he's never heard of Justin Beiber. He's like that because he now seems to appreciate people who HAVEN'T seen Star Wars more than people that have. Imagine that.
I really hope I don't come across as too offensive when I say this, but you're lucky I haven't been around you when you do that 'Burn the heathen' thing, since I probably would have pulled you aside and told you flat out that people like me are sick of people like you and hope to avoid you wherever we go. If it weren't for 'that guy' in your LotR class, YOU would be 'that guy' to me.
I say this for two reasons. First, I used to go to college with guys who did similar things like that to me when I said I either wasn't too impressed with a cult favorite (like Blade Runner) or when I said that I thought The Princess Bride was a decent movie. Yes, a guy like you looked straight at me and said "Get out." when I said I thought Princess Bride was a 'decent' movie. Not bad, not mediocre. Decent. Instead of 'one of the greatest movies ever'. Yeah, the guy was joking, but that guy always came across as someone way too in love with his own childhood, and that's what I find a lot of Star Wars fanboys to be. He was 'that guy' in the classes I had with him.
It may be a joke, but believe me when I say that it's a joke at your own expense. Even if you don't mean it, it shows that you're too attached to something so that your first response to someone who hasn't seen it is an over-reaction to the fact that they haven't seen it. You do that enough times, and you will develop a reputation as a 'that guy' to the people around you. And as the saying goes, don't be 'that guy'. No one likes 'that guy'. I don't mean to take it out on you, specifically, but I'm not going to lie when I say that if I saw you do that more than once, you'd have a pretty solid place on my shit list, because that really pisses me off.
The second reason is because, if you haven't guessed by now, the one big stink I have with fandoms is the Star Wars fandom. I don't hate the movies. I'm not like that guy in the LotR class, I don't think they're garbage, or anything, but I don't think the prequels are nearly as awful as they would have me believe, and I don't think the originals are nearly as exemplary either, especially Empire.
Nearly everything I've come to find insufferable over the years about overzealous fandoms or pop culture enthusiasts in general can pretty much all be found in the Star Wars fandom. Anti-CGI snobbery, refusal to let go and move on from petty hatred against movies they don't like, using others' critique of things they don't like as "proof" or validation of said petty hatred (RedLetterMedia), using said critiques as a reason to not have to have an original opinion on the subject in question anymore, love of their own childhood that borders on worship, using the critically acclaimed status of their favorite movie to invalidate any contemporary negative criticism, refusal to listen to or acknowledge faults in what they consider "perfect", and even bullying someone from something they don't like until the person goes sour (Jake Lloyd), etc.
A very specific example of one of the worst things Star Wars fans do is that they've been saturating the creative industry with Star Wars-derivative designs for sci-fi media. I learned this in college when I was taking a portfolio class, and the professor was telling us about ship designs (she had worked with the studio that made the Nebuchadnezzar from The Matrix, she was a texture artist), and she happened to mention one of the other recurring creative design teachers at the college. I had never had that teacher, but I had certainly heard his name. She brought up that he tended to direct his students' design to more 'Star Wars' styles of vehicles, because he really liked Star Wars. I thought that it was horrible that he would shoe-horn his own preferences onto his students when they want to develop their own style. My professor was okay with it because she likes Star Wars, too. When you have Star Wars fanboys/fangirls directing the new generation towards the same exact styles, you're going to get a lot of sci-fi with the same over-designed ships that were approved because it's 'like Star Wars', because that's what's taught these days. It was fine in the actual Star Wars movies because it was its own style, but what's being taught in art schools is going to lead to saturation, mark my words.
Honestly, I could go on, but its nearly 2 am for me. As another poster said, sometimes "Fuck off" catharsis is really nice. That said, I'd like a lot of Star Wars fans to just fuck off. Nearly everything new I learned about their fandom just continues to piss me off. But they're not going away. With Disney planning to release annual Star Wars movies, they have no reason to. Burn the heathens, indeed.
