I coined Star Wars Syndrome to capture the plague of allowing nostalgia to create the illusion that a movie is far better than it actually is. In and of itself, wildly exaggerating the quality of movies is harmless.
But when it becomes habit in how you see everything: Either gushing with over-the-top praise or seething with over-the-top scorn — that’s a plague.
Echo chambers across social media worship channel hosts as “National Treasures” — treating them like they’re some of the greatest minds to ever live. Isaac Newton and Einstein were brilliant — partisan hacks and high-minded influencers telling you what you wanna hear, are not.
Repeatedly rehashing issues is not the mark of problem solving.
It’s the mark of a market
Ratings, popularity, money:
We’ve created a culture that assigns quality and truth from factors that often have no bearing on either (especially in the era of the internet and the cable clans). Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has made about billion worldwide. I thought it was unwatchable.
And Top Gun: Maverick was okay but completely forgettable — that it’s made $1.5 billion doesn’t mean jack to me.
If you loved it, great — I don’t care.
But I do question the fashionable fixation around it — as I question all-things obsessively exaggerated in America.
How many things in the last seven or eight yeras have just been fun?
That’s your first clue that someone’s carrying something extraneous into a belief. Perhaps it’s because of those 7 or 8 years of so little fun, that a movie like Maverick seems more fun than it actually is?
I love nostalgia as much as anyone — just like I love Elvis. But no amount of nostalgia will make me think that movie looks good. I could be wrong though, so I’ll keep the door open.
Perhaps the love of Elvis and longing for better times — shapes how you see the movie?
Just Roll It Around Is All I Ask!
Duvall’s nod of acknowledgement embodies an honor code in one’s willingness to listen.
None of that goin’ around
For all those geniuses you love to laud — you sure aren’t learning much. The measure of your critical thinking skills is not your capacity for listening to people you already agree with.
It’s what you do with information you don’t like.
Your track record is not what I would call astute — so maybe I see something you don’t. If you cared about critical thinking the way you claim — you’d be willing to consider that possibilty.
Give it a go
And I’ll be happy to show you the courtesy so few have shown me.
One Voice Became Two 