‘Boondock Saints’ Director Blasts Woke ‘Star Wars’
Troy Duffy says Disney team should 'burn in hell' for crushing franchise
Troy Duffy doesn’t hold back. Ever.
We saw the downside of that approach in “Overnight,” the 2003 documentary about the “Boondock Saints” director’s sudden rise to fame and subsequent struggles.
An older, more congenial Duffy joined the Film Threat podcast this week to talk about more “Boondock Saints” projects. He offered a fascinating glimpse of behind-the-scenes Hollywood in the process.
Co-host Chris Gore, sensing the director might have sharp views on Hollywood’s woke obsession, pressed him on the matter.
That set Duffy off.
He started by attacking Disney for buying the “Star Wars” franchise and, in the minds of many, crashing it into the ground.
“May you burn in hell for what you did to ‘Star Wars’ and continue to [do]… that was sacrilegious, man,” Duffy said. He likely referred to Disney+ fare like “The Acolyte,” torched by online critics for its excessively woke storytelling tics.
That’s part of a larger critique of woke storytelling, where the message and agenda too often lap the creative process.
“You don’t say, ‘I’m gonna make a golf movie because golf is hot,'” the director said. “You don’t say you’re gonna make an LGBTQ character because that’s what’s going on out there right now and that’s what people wanna see.”
“[That mindset] starts leaking in on directors and writers that you’re choosing. These reasons have nothing to do with art or creativity whatsoever. It’s obvious why [woke] sucks. It’s obvious why it’s failing,” he said.
“It’s taking the longest time to kill this thing,” he added, saying even established stars like Sean Penn are finally speaking out about the cultural scourge.
“These guys are coming out and saying some of the greatest movies we’ve ever made couldn’t be made now,” Duffy said, like his favorite comedy of all time, “Blazing Saddles.”
“Even a guy like Mel Brooks would never be allowed [to make it] today,” he said. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot in the entertainment business, and it has to stop.”
Woke is the modern term for Communist. The Acolyte made Jedi evil and Sith good. Woke in this real world does the same thing about America being evil; racist, bigots, etc.
headline should have been a little more specific.
Rush Limbaugh always used to say that left destroys everything they touch. He was right about many things. The Star Wars you grew up to as a kid is gone forever, I’ve already moved on.
What a shame, we coulda had a real Star Wars universe with Kevin Anderson and Timothy Zahn* screenplays.
*The Corelian trilogy IS ORIGINAL Star Wars, and when Han and Leia return to his home planet after Endor, things get “hot”. As the Imperial remnant has a THIRD death star, hiding in a ring of black singularities REQUIRING FULL Jedi training JUST to go THERE! And “uncle” Luke is “away” for the time being…..
And, a third permanent character ‘droid to tutor the Solo children, yeah, we coulda had the REAL Star wars…..
Yowza. Don’t hold back, dude.
And he’s absolutely correct.
I remember, of all things, a comment II saw posted to a Breitbart column written by John Nolte Note write the column immediately after the George Floyd video went vital and was talking about how insufferable Hollywood was going to become. If you think it’s left-wing now, Notle wrote, just wait. You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
As is usually the case with Nolte, he was right. But what interested me was one of the comments posted to the column. Short and sweet, it said “I give it five years”
That was 4 years ago. Given what I(‘m seeing, I think one more year of this garbage sounds about right. They can only lose so much money and market share before reality sets in and, as Ben Shapiro says, reality remains undefeated.
I hope you are right. After every woke failure I see whether it is a movie, TV show, streaming series or video game I’m scratching my head thinking maybe this time is the time the entertainment industry FINALLY understands “Get Woke Go Broke” but then they just seem to double down and crap out a new project that pushes THE MESSAGE even harder and is also destined to fail. They say doing the same thing over again and expecting different results is madness but it seems like the standard operating procedure of the entertainment industry.