These are two objectively bad movies, but over the years, their badness has been exaggerated by angry fan boys. A lot of problems with fandom can directly be traced back to these two movies... 
First let’s look at Batman and Robin. Thanks to studio pressure to be more family friendly and to sell more toys, Joel Schumacher attempted to make a campy film that call back to the 60s Batman show but without the wit, fun, and self awareness that made that show work
But the main problem of Batman and Robin is the clunky and over stuffed script. When it hit theaters, critics and audiences rejected it and the film was a box office disappointment, sending the Batman franchise into an 8 year hiatus
At one point, the Batman franchise was the only successful comic book movie franchise and seemingly brought legitimacy to the sub genre and the character of Batman. Being a Batman fan was mainstream. Batman comics were cool.
After B&R’s failure, many pointed to the campy tone being the reason why the film failed, and for years after, every conversation around a future Batman movie included the word “dark”
This became the beginning of DC and Batman fans mistaking tone for content. They convinced themselves that Batman could only work as a dark and brooding character. The success of TDK years later seemed to vindicate this belief.
Anything light and comical became “bad” in these fans minds, as well as anything too “comic booky”.
After B&R, many fans started to think that the world saw Batman and comics as a laughing stock, the irony being that these were just insecure fan boys projecting onto others...
One could also argue that this is where the image of Batman as a super competent, unstoppable and infallible caricature started to take root in fanboy psyches. In their minds, their hero was portrayed as a joke, a buffoon, and they and writers felt the need to overcompensate
B&R was seen as the film that brought the comic book movie genre and the Bat-franchise to a grinding halt, something that could scare Hollywood from ever making another comic book movie again. These fans ignore that Blade hit just a year later, ushering in the current era
But still, Marvel was having success while DC wasn’t thanks to that “cheesy” Batman movie. WB/DC and Batman fans convinced themselves that all Bat-films had to be dark to make people like them
Then there’s Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, which also had a similar effect on fandom....
The Star Wars films at their core are fun science fantasy films meant for families, but at some point the narrative around Star Wars hyped these films up to be something mythic, an event that transcends cinema as we know it.
While I tend to hold the opinion that the original Star Wara trilogy are some of the most influential movies ever made that changed cinema and storytelling in cinema, in the end they are just well made adventure movies
But the decades between ROTJ and TPM created a hype around the possibility of the Star Wars prequels that could never be met. Then the Expanded Universe came along to add fuel to that fire
The EU helped create and reinforce this mythic, impossible ideal around the Star Wars films while losing the sense of fun that made the movies enjoyable. In the EU, every thing was deathly serious, high off of its own sense of self importance.
In this time, between Jedi and TPM, the EU and possibility of Star Wars prequels swirled in fan boy minds. During this time, we see the rise of people whose entire personality is centered around being a Star Wars fan
Then add into this toxic concoction the hype around Ep 1, which started with the release of the special editions in 1997. That’s two years of build up, expectations, and merchandising
In 1999, in the months leading up to Ep 1 it seemed like Star Wars was around every corner. It was beyond hype for a movie. It felt like an event, like the coming of something truly special and once in a lifetime
The the movie hit... and then the reviews hit... then the fans saw it. They saw Jar Jar and the Gungans, they saw Anakin shouting “yippee!”, they saw Darth Maul, heralded as the next great villain, do nothing at all for much of the movie
Something happened with Star Wars similar to what happened with Batman: the fans thought that the rest of the world saw the thing they love as a laughing stock, as kids stuff. Once again, the irony is that the fans were the only ones laughing
In their mind, Star Wars was a deathly serious epic saga, a story that should be treated with reverence, not something to be laughed at, and not kids stuff. This attitude persisted throughout the prequels
Like Batman fans, in Star Wars fan’s minds, cheesy and fun became a bad word because they believe this is what people didn’t like in the prequels, never mind that the prequels were just poorly written movies written by a man who had mentally checked out of the franchise in 1981
This insecurity became a scar on the psyche of Batman and Star Wars fans. They convinced themselves that the only way anyone would accept the things they love is if it was treated with the utmost reverence and seriousness.
At the heart of this is the belief that if people stop liking these things then they’ll go away. Every Bat-fan remembers the 8 long years between B&R and BB. Star Wars fan are terrified that their favorite movies will be seen as cheesy kids stuff...
But another thing at the heart of this is that being a Batman or Star Wars fan is about as mainstream as a geek can get. Being a fan of these two things doesn’t make you special because everyone loves Batman and Star Wars now.
This also plays into the insecurity of these fans because now there’s a desire to show who are the “true fans”. This manifests in the gatekeeping, racism, and sexism seen in Star Wars fans now
They see the inclusion of women and minorities as just appealing to the “SJWs” that in their mind aren’t real fans. They’re terrified because in their mind, they’re losing the thing they love to this new group of fans
They insist that the new films don’t know the fans or don’t know the saga. The new films keep the cheese and the fun but audiences aren’t making fun of them so these fans have to be the ones to object to show they’re the “real fans”
They insist that Star Wars is deathtly serious, but don’t understand why the world isn’t laughing and pointing out these flaws like before. It doesn’t register to them that these new movies are good so in their mind it must be the new generation edging them out
With Batman, fans blindly praise anything “dark and serious” because they’ve convinced themselves that this is the only way comic books can work. They defend Batman killing by cherry picking from the first few comics
All of this in the service of proving who is the “true fans” though the person that they are trying to convince the most is themselves
So this is blowing up so I just want to say that if you enjoyed this and want to hear me talk about movies, check out @cinemadamore. We’re tackling Star Wars in December!
