Is subverting expectations, whether in
Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss will make the next Star Wars movie after Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger confirmed Tuesday. Nothing else is known about the untitled Star Wars from the Game of Thrones creators, except for its pre-Christmas weekend, 2022 release date. This means Star Wars fans and Game of Thrones fans alike will have three full years to worry about their expectations and how they will be subverted.
The internet originally promised to destroy monoculture, replacing a top-down mainstream culture—determined by radio, television and Hollywood gatekeepers—with a populist paradise of niche communities and freethought promising a venue for every idea, creation and taste. Instead, thanks to social media platform monopolies and the cumulative peer pressure of all of humanity screaming at once, the mainstream is stronger than ever. Movie screens are dominated by sequels and franchises. Pop music anoints unimpeachable stars. Everyone watches the same television shows, often frantically, to avoid being spoiled on social media, where millions all discuss the same episode.
The same weight of minds leads to conformity in our critical language too, shrinking the range of reactions and filtering every critique through a handful of buzzwords: “plot armor,” “tropes,” “canon,” “fan service,” “plot holes.” One that has gotten a lot of play recently is the idea of a story “subverting expectations.
