While that's true and a fair point they're still driving the narrative and public opinion.
I remember when TFA came out and everyone was enamored with it I was kind of disappointed a bit. Everyone was reciting the "well, everything's changed but nothing has changed and that's where you want to be" and "real practical effects done with a lot of heart" mantras from the short featurette. Then I slowly warmed up to it because my mindset was "okay, it's a rehash of ANH, but there are some interesting characters and a promise that it would be developed somewhere interesting".
Then when Rogue One came out the narrative was that "this is a very different Star Wars movie, it's gritty, it has an original approach" and people who previously loved TFA turned against it instantly saying "it was a remake of the original BUT BOOOOOOY R1 is a real original thing you should go and see it again and again!" (cue cash register ringing). Literally had this conversation with a guy I know from my old bar. When TFA came out he was raving how great it was and I was like meh. Later when we met and R1 was out I said I didn't like it and I actually very much preferred TFA and he just waved "naah, it's a remake of Ep4, this is much more original".
There's always an official narrative that is aimed to sell the product. It's no different to any other product.
With TLJ the official narrative is that "this is a very unexpected but a very right story direction". Plus tidbits with name-calling for racist fans and the like. So people follow this narrative. I swear it was extremely jarring to see countless comments under anything TLJ saying "aaaah, manbabies can't accept that their fan-theory didn't work?" and "3-2-1 incoming whiny fanboys" and "what's up fanboys, still salty?" and "pathetic people crying over not getting a movie they imagined". All those are standalone comments, not replies to anyone complaining. People were flat out provoking people who were unhappy about the movie and saying that THEY were toxic.
So when you have that sort of environment and the director tweets what he tweeted day in and out and releases a "your Snoke theory sucks" photo or someone directly associated with Lucasfilm tweeting that "you have no ownership over this property and you're not even a customer of ours if you buy a Star Wars product" then yea I kinda put some of the blame on the company for this environment.
I don't think it's an apology or an admission that anyone is looking for, it's simply not fanning the flames. A simple statement "we took a risk because we felt the franchise needs to go in a particular direction and we appreciate that this is divisive and we can assure fans of the old that there's plenty of material coming for them as well" would be all most people are looking for. Why do you think fans run to Mark Hamill like a kid runs to mum after dad slaps their butt? He's the only one who can and will speak for them and actually consider them.
The thing is, most of what you're discussing came not from Disney or LFL, but from other fans who extrapolated from posts which legitimately criticized actual toxic behavior to
all fans who were disappointed with the film. And yet, Disney gets the blame. I think it's fair to say that people who try to lump all dissatisfied fans in with the toxic ones are wrong, and shouldn't be doing that, but Disney isn't to blame, nor do they owe anyone a public statement of "#NotAllFans."
Hamill has also castigated the toxic fans, especially the likes of those who drove Kelly Marie Tran off of social media. He has no love for those people. I think the reason folks flock to him is his early comments about Johnson's story not sitting well with him initially, so folks who dislike the film assume he's an "ally" of theirs. Surely you've seen the stuff floating around about how we know that deep down Mark really hates the film, but he HAS to say he likes it because it's his job, but WE know better, don't we, nudge nudge wink wink.
I guess I look at it this way. A lot of the dissatisfied fans have taken to focusing their anger on Disney/LFL/Johnson, claiming that those entities have lumped all disgruntled fans in together with the most toxic of the lot. Except, that's not true. They've called out bad behavior -- rightly so, I might add -- and that's it.
Other fans may have taken that and run with it, unfairly describing everyone who dislikes the film as a "manbaby," but that's not Disney or LFL or Rian Johnson's fault.
Look, I get the anger, and the sense that how could anyone view this as anything other than an abject failure if only because the film so divided the fans. I was a long-time fan of How I Met Your Mother. The finale of that show basically split the fandom in two. Many who liked the finale dismissed those who didn't as people who just wanted some dumb Disney ending, and claimed that the actual ending was "more realistic." Also, that ending sought to "subvert expectations" and (in my opinion) attempted that in an extremely ham-handed manner. Not only was it disappointing, it was poorly executed. I hated it. I still do. Even though I understand what the goal was, how the show was structured, etc., I still just think it was really poorly done, separate from and in addition to my baseline dislike of the end result. And yeah, it pissed me off when people would dismiss what I thought were substantive criticisms of the way the show was handled at the end by just saying "Whatever. You just wanted a Disney ending." What I didn't do, though, is blame CBS for not coming out and saying "We know not every fan wanted a Disney ending." Likewise, if there'd been disgruntled fans who just wanted to insult Cobie Smulders, and CBS and the show runners had decided to call out their bad behavior, I would not have assumed that they were talking about me, nor that their dismissal of fans who crapped on Cobie in any way was a dismissal of my dissatisfaction. I'd still get mad if
other fans did that, but I wouldn't blame CBS. That's what I see happening here: people blaming Disney for not issuing some statement that's a caveat about their criticism of people who fully deserve to be criticized and how that doesn't apply to people who don't deserve to be criticized and aren't actually being criticized.
