Daisy Ridley Speaks On The Upsetting Backlash To 'The Rise of Skywalker'

Daisy Ridley now has been involved with Star Wars for over five years and has seen the best and worst sides of the Star Wars fandom as a whole. We all have seen the backlash to The Rise of Skywalker online. Everything from mild annoyance or fans being displeased with the way Lucasfilm had taken the direction of the film to showing over all hatred and even death threats all over twitter towards the actual cast who was in the movie.

In an interview on the podcast DragCast Ridley spoke out on her personal social media and why she has chosen to not use it herself. Speaking on what she though about the fans who chose to lash out at the recent Star Wars films, and most recently The Rise of Skywalker.

Many wonder why Daisy is not on social media at all:

“I was asked to go on it, and, at the time, I was like, ‘Okay,’ and then it got to the point where I didn’t want to be on it and I was at my friend’s house in L.A., and I remember being like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be on Instagram,’ and they were like, ‘Well, why don’t you come off?’ and I was like, ‘Oh.’ And it was really a nice, autonomous decision. Because I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t actually have to be on it. This is nice.’ And I always had a limit to what I shared anyway and, honestly, my life isn’t that exciting. So there were a lot of separate things.”

Back in 2015 Ridley was active on social media but since the release of The Force Awakens, which was mostly loved by everyone who saw it, since then the fans on social media have become much harsher and brought a lot of negativity to to the surface, so much so that it has caused her to not want to participate.

“It’s changed film by film, honestly. Like 98%, it’s so amazing. This last film, it was really tricky. January was not that nice. It was weird, I felt like all of this love that we’d sort of been shown the first time around, I was like ‘Where’s the love gone?’ I watched the documentary, the making-of, this week, and it’s so filled with love, and I think it’s that tricky thing of when you’re part of something that is so filled with love and then people. You know, everyone’s entitled to not like something, but it just, it feels like it’s changed slightly, but I think in general that’s because social media and what have you.”

Ridley has spoken out and said she takes part in a saying her parents taught her, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Unfortunately, we live in the age of raging fandoms and social media where angry people can hide behind their usernames and be seemingly anonymous and say whatever they like without any real consequences. Daisy has said that she has stayed away from the online sphere since the release of The Rise of Skywalker because of what people have had to say about the conclusion to The Skywalker Saga.

“I think in general, people share so much on social media that if I went—I don’t have social media, anyway—but if I went to a film and didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t tweet about it,” she continued. “But it’s such a conversation and it always has been. I guess now conversations are just more public, so there’s stuff I wouldn’t have seen, but honestly trying to scroll through my newsfeed in January and trying not to see Star Wars stuff, I’d see headlines and be like ‘Oh my god this is so upsetting.’ So it’s been tricky, but then it’s having that thing of I feel really proud of it, and I’m so thrilled to be part of it. Yeah, but it’s a funny thing.”

The backlash to The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker is definitely unwarranted and has no place in our society. We have seen people make death threats against the actors who are just simply doing their job and I personally think it needs to stop. If you have nothing nice to say then please keep it to yourself and stop fueling the massive amount of hate we have in our society. We live in a very decisive time and I get that but it does not give anyone permission to be rude, and just plain evil to innocent people who are just trying to create something for you all to enjoy. If you don't like it, cool. Just keep your opinions to yourselves and stop harassing people on twitter. The movie industry is hard enough and we are all just trying to create things that we love, it is disgusting that we now have a culture that whenever they are displeased with something they spew hate on the creators. I will say this one more time, if you have nothing nice to say then don;'t say anything at all. That is a sentiment that I personally identify with and stand by daily.

The more Star Wars "fans" poison social media with all this negativity, the harder it will be to get hard working people on Star Wars. If you were asked to work on a project that you know the fans will hate in the end how likely are you to want to work on said project? If we don't stop going after the ones who are creating more stories from the galaxy far, far away we won't be getting any more films, books, shows or anything from that galaxy.

The negativity online has various degrees of hatred and some of the biggest extremes are those who will threaten the lives of people online. Below is one example that SWNN used in their article and it is disgusting to say the least.

Now, you may say that kind of behavior is not representative of all fans out there and there are plenty of fans who loved The Rise of Skywalker, which personally it is my favorite movie of all time. But it is a small sector of online culture and we should be paying attention to it. Even if someone is not actually serious about their threat it is still a serious thing to say and should be handled in a serious manner. If you do not like something that is fully okay, Daisy Ridley says that you have the right to not like something and you have a right to your own opinion. But with that being said it does not give you the right to threaten someone's life or threaten to kill that someone just because you are displeased on how a movie turned out, or how your favorite characters decided to play out a scenario. These are just movies. They are fiction, they are not real. It is taking it way too far to go out and actually threaten an actor, crew member, director, or anyone just because you are not happy with a creative direction that a studio went when telling their story to audiences.

When The Last Jedi came out, I did not like it at all and to this day I have only seen it a handful of times. But just because I didn't like the film I did not go out and threaten anyone saying I was going to harm them because I wasn't happy with the creative direction of the film. The only thing I said was that I thought it was going to go into a different direction and them I moved on with my life. I think we have a responsibility to keep our mouths shut during times where we have nothing nice to say and be respectful to those who are trying and working their hardest to bring us new stories and forms of entertainment.

The negativity online is not just for Star Wars, it is found in almost every medium online. I think social media is amazing and can do so much good in the world because it brings us together but it also poses a massive threat to those who are public figures. It brings out all the good in the world but it also can and often does bring out the worst in people. I think that if we start releasing as a society and culture that we need to be kind to one another society as a whole will improve. Those who hate, please just keep it to yourself and stop attacking people online because you have a different view about a movie, tv show, song, or so on. We need to remember we are all in this together and we are all part of one.

Remember

“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger… anger leads to hate… hate leads to suffering.”

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