#89 – Nerd Rage

Since yesterday was Star Wars Day, Lucasfilm released the details for the upcoming Blu-ray release of the Star Wars Saga. This announcement upset a number of nerds because only the special editions of the original trilogy will be released. This means that nerds the world over will have to see Greedo shoot first in the stunning clarity of 1080p. This news made a lot of nerds angry.

It shouldn’t be surprising, though. Nerds are given to fits of nerd rage.

Here are a few things which really grind my gears and cause my nerd rage to flare up. 

Star Wars

My nerd rage over Star Wars actually has nothing to do with George Lucas or the direction he’s taken the Star Wars universe over the past 15 years. I don’t like Jar Jar Binks and I think that Lucas should have handed off the screenwriting and directing duties for the prequels to someone else like he did with Empire and Jedi. But Lucas doesn’t inspire any nerd rage in me. All the nerds who feel like Lucas personally attacked them, though, when he made some changes really get my nerd rage going. George Lucas created the entire Star Wars universe; it is literally his creation. In the end, he can do whatever he wants to with it. Even if that means creating annoying characters, promoting racial stereotypes or ruining Darth Vader with Jake Lloyd. There’s no use in getting angry at George Lucas and when people do, my nerd rage flares up like a Roman candle. And besides, how angry should we get at someone who’s been wearing the same clothes for 35 years?

The X-Men Movies

I remember talking about a potential X-Men movie when I was 10. At that point the rumor was that Clint Eastwood was going to play Wolverine. My friends and I didn’t really know who Clint Eastwood was but we thought there had to be a better option. 20 years and four X-Men films later, with another coming this summer, I still find myself thinking there has to be a better option. X-Men 3 caused gave me a case of nerd rage that has yet to see its equal. I hate that Marvel sold the rights for X-Men movies to Fox in the 90s. I hate that as long as Fox keeps making a crappy X-Men movie every three years that the license won’t revert back to Marvel. I hate that a movie called X-Men: First Class has only one of the five original X-Men. X-2 was so good but not good enough to make up for what’s happened since. Maybe X-Men: First Class will restore some of my faith in Fox’s ability to make an X-Men movie. I’m not holding my breath, though. (Really I just miss Patrick Stewart and wish that he could play a younger version of himself).

Gamers

I frequent video game websites to keep abreast of what’s coming up and what I might like to play. There’s nothing more infuriating than reading some of the comments and message boards on a video game website. I’m not really bothered by all the fanboys celebrating their chosen platform while denigrating the others. Mostly my nerd rage is directed at how cheap gamers are. Over the past few years there have been a lot of stories about studios laying employees off. Gamers will often comment on those stories and suggest that the cost of games should be lower since the companies no longer have as many people to pay. Gamers love to complain about how expensive games are and that they never have enough money. This discussion sends my nerd rage through the roof. If games are too expensive, gamers need to either work more or cultivate less expensive hobbies like conversation and seeing the sun.

Nerd rage isn’t a great thing. Usually nerd rage involves strong emotions directed at the insignificant minutiae of life. Granted, I get nerd rage like a lot of people but I do my best to keep things in perspective. I may get angry about X-Men 3 but I should get much angrier about human trafficking.

It doesn’t really matter if we get angry at trivial things as long as we realize they’re trivial things and they don’t push us to sin. It would be better though to reserve our anger for injustices that actually matter and allow that anger to push us towards action.

What gets your nerd rage going?