Even though it made a whopping $1.3 billion at the global box office, Star Wars: The Last Jedi garnered some controversy on its way to becoming one of the most successful movies of all time. The movie had a loud contingent of detractors, but turns out, much of that backlash was engineered by Russian trolls.
As reported in The Hollywood Reporter, new research is arguing that a near-majority of the dissent against The Last Jedi was falsified by Russian trolls in an effort to generate an image of discord in American culture.
The research says: “The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society. Persuading voters of this narrative remains a strategic goal for the U.S. alt-right movement, as well as the Russian Federation.”
The researcher concluded that about 50.9 percent of the negative online reactions to The Last Jedi were generated by trolls or bots. It’s a strange story, but it has sinister undertones. If Russia is moving past our elections and taking aim at other, more light-hearted aspects of American society, it can become difficult to trust just about anything we see online.
What’s true for certain: The Last Jedi holds a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and is the highest-selling Blu Ray of 2018. Looks like there’s not much of a problem in reality.
