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Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n
Sat 6 June 2026 20:15, UK <\/p>\n
As much as Roger Ebert<\/a> loved cinema, and he loved it a lot, since he dedicated most of his adult life to it, he didn\u2019t have anywhere near as much affection for certain groups who enjoyed certain kinds of movies.<\/p>\n Obviously, just because you\u2019re a critic, it doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t hold a grudge against cinephiles of a different persuasion. He did have a point, though, and if anything, that point has only been reinforced in the years following his death, reiterating Ebert\u2019s habit of being the filmic Nostradamus of his day<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a huge difference between enjoying a movie for what it is and not enjoying a movie because of what it isn\u2019t. It\u2019s something that\u2019s become increasingly endemic to franchises, but auteurs aren\u2019t immune, either, as the nonsensical outcry<\/a> over casting, American accents, and armour in Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey has shown.<\/p>\n Whenever a filmmaker says their picture is being made by the fans, for the fans, it\u2019s often a red flag, since they may as well come out and admit that it\u2019s pandering, key-jangling, nostalgic service. On the other hand, when a well-known property doesn\u2019t give the diehards exactly what they want in precisely the way they want it, they can\u2019t type their social media messages of fury, rage, and misery fast enough.<\/p>\n Ebert, ahead of the curve again, spelled it out as far back as 2009. \u201cA lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It\u2019s all about them,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey have mastered the Star Wars or Star Trek universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion.\u201d<\/p>\n To that end, he suggested, not inaccurately, that \u201canyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.\u201d Harsh, maybe, but not as harsh as when he offered that \u201cextreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills.\u201d<\/p>\n From his perspective, as someone who loved movies, as opposed to a specific set of movies from a particular series, the last thing he wanted to do was find himself stuck talking to an obsessive, because they didn\u2019t know anything about anything else. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s excruciatingly boring to talk to such people,\u201d Ebert proffered. \u201cThey\u2019re always asking you questions you know the answer to.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/p>\n His criticism was limited to Star Trek and Star Wars, but it rings truer than ever today. You can add Marvel and DC\u2019s shared superhero universes, Harry Potter, everyone who moans about a video game adaptation not being a beat-for-beat recreation of the video game it\u2019s adapting, and Zack Snyder<\/a> to that list, and that\u2019s just a few of them, and we\u2019ve not even mentioned the music industry.<\/p>\n These days, the way the world works, especially on the internet, is that if you say you like apples, it\u2019s offensive to imply the erasure of oranges. Trekkies and whatever Star Wars fans call themselves may have gotten there first, but the problem is only getting worse<\/a>, and Ebert saw it coming.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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