Obi-Wan Kenobi is reportedly Disney+’s most successful launch of a Star Wars series on its streaming platform but that success has come with its share of controversy within the fandom. One of the series’ stars, Moses Ingram, became the target of racist trolls that sent her offensive DM’s regarding her race which made star Ewan McGregor come out in defense of her as he declared fans like this, are not true Star Wars fans at all. Since his defense went public, some fans are noticing that the series’ audience score has taken a considerable hit and they’re suspecting that the show is being review bombed on Rotten Tomatoes because of the toxic fandom.
Obi-Wan Kenobi sits with a fresh critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 87% but I was surprised to discover that the audience score is coming in at a rather low 59%. The Twitter page Star Wars Takes is one of several pages that is pointing out that they believe the show is being review bombed by toxic fans. His caption reads, “Obi-Wan Kenobi is getting review bombed now because Ewan McGregor said racists have no place in this fandom. Same thing happened to The Last Jedi years ago when Rian Johnson called out those “fans”. Sick and tired of people pretending most hate for The Last Jedi was “valid.” You can check out his tweet below which features a screengrab of the Rotten Tomatoes page when the show was registering a 58% audience score.
Another Twitter user pointed out the audience score as well when it was even lower at 57%. Matt Martin said, “#ObiWanKenobi‘s audience score being review bombed on Rotten Tomatoes after Ewan Mcgregor called out the racist trolls. Genuinely losing faith in this fandom; don’t like being part of it sometimes. #MosesIngram#ObiWan.”
Last week, Obi-Wan Kenobi’s audience score was at 71%, still on the low end for a Disney+ Star Wars series but still fresh. It has dropped off considerably since McGregor called out the racism being spewed by some of the fandom in the last week. If you go through the audience score one-star reviews, there are a lot of complaints about casting, the scripts, and the direction of the series. Some of these criticisms could be valid but, because the fandom has proven to be very toxic in the past, it becomes difficult to determine what is legit criticism and what is just a case of the fanbase trolling over being called out.
Review bombing is common practice at times when the fanbase isn’t happy or if an aspect of a series rubs this the wrong way. Marvel’s Moon Knight, also on Disney+, was a victim of it due to the premiere’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide. The days when we could just sit back and enjoy a show or movie seem to be long gone now.
Do YOU think Obi-Wan Kenobi is being review bombed?