I may have to completely give up on fandoms.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop reading Star Wars, or Batman, or X-men, or Buffy, or Sandman, etc; I'm saying I can't stand listening to fans of any of those talk about said fandoms.

In Star Wars, the stories have been getting progressively darker. This is in large part thanks to the general taste of fiction since, to pick a date at random, 9/11. Since the largest terrorist attack on US soil, fiction has been getting progressively darker, partly to reflect the state of reality. Reality gets darker, our fiction has to get darker for us to believe it. Meanwhile, there are still people who don't like this change, and turn to fiction for escapism. This is fine, but if they really want escapism in fiction, they're going to have to go to romance novels.

Star Wars has always had dark bits and massive amounts of conflict. In the first movie, Darth Vader enters Princess Leia's cell with what is clearly an interrogation droid, and proceeds to torture her in an attempt to get her to confess the location of the rebel base. In order to get a PG rating, nothing could be shown of said torture, and since the only rating above PG was R at the time, they wouldn't have made NEARLY the money they did if it was R. In the same movie, Obi-wan Kenobi cuts off a drunk walrus's arm. There is blood aplenty. All other lightsabre amputations are immediately cauterised.

In the second installment, Luke's hand is chopped right the hell off by Darth Vader, immediately before Vader reveals that he is Luke's father. In Return of the Jedi, widely considered the tamest of the original series, the Emperor tortures Luke with lightning for damn near a full minute before Vader realises "oh shit that's my son maybe I should not let him be electrocuted to death huh". That's not something I'd consider to be happiness and light.

As for Batman, I've never seen a good interpretation of the Dark Knight that wasn't, well, dark. Burton's Bat was semi-dark, and Nolan's Bat is very much dark. Batman, in fact, has only been not dark in my memory in the 30s, when dark was synonymous with EVIL, in the 60s on television (ADAM WEEST!) and in the 90s, when Joel Schumacher added exaggerated codpieces and armoured nipples. The only GOOD interpretations of Batman were always dark. Adam West's Bat was good when I was a kid, but if I look at it now, I weep.

My main point, I suppose, is that no-one will ever write something that satisfies everyone. I realise this, but it still annoys me when I'm hearing someone, even a friend, talking about 'you know it would be so much better if OMG THEY MADE ANOTHER DEATH STAR LOLZ', while the person sitting next to him says 'OMG THEY NEED TO STOP FOCUSING SO MUCH ON THE SKYWALKERS', which prompts someone else to say 'THEY NEED TO FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY ON THE SKYWALKERS OMG'. This all prompts me to stab myself in the ear until I don't have to listen to this shit anymore. So I think I'm ought to take care of that before I have to shed blood.