I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture

by A.D. Jameson

"Funny, incisive, and timely ... Jameson does for geeks what geek culture does for its superheroes: he takes them seriously, respects their power, and refuses to hide his deep affection." --Lawrence Kasdan, co-screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, and Solo: A Star Wars Story

In I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing, A. D. Jameson takes geeks and non-geeks alike on a surprising and insightful journey through the science fiction, fantasy, and superhero franchises that now dominate pop culture. Walking us through the rise of geekdom from its underground origins to the top of the box office and bestseller lists, Jameson takes in franchises like The Lord of the Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy, Harry Potter, Star Trek, and, in particular, Star Wars--as well as phenomena like fan fiction, cosplay, and YouTube parodies. Along the way, he blasts through the cliches surrounding geek culture: that its fans are mindless consumers who will embrace all things Spider-Man or Batman, regardless of quality; or that the popularity and financial success of Star Wars led to the death of ambitious filmmaking.

A lifelong geek, Jameson shines a new light on beloved classics, explaining the enormous love (and hate) they are capable of inspiring in fan and non-fan alike, while exploding misconceptions as to how and why they were made. I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing tells the story of how the geeks have inherited the earth.

Genres: Nonfiction, Star Wars, Pop Culture, Audiobook, Humor, Sociology, Geek

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 8, 2018

Reviews

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 1 out of 5]

By about halfway through, I didn't feel like finishing this book. I'm stubborn and obsessive, and so I did finish it. But it wasn't worth it.

The main problem with I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing is that it is almost purely descriptive, with very little critical reflection. What A. D. Jameson writes is little more than what any geek already knows from reading some of the same websites Jameson reads. The end result is a book that I guess would be useful for aliens visiting Earth who don't have internet access; otherwise, it's unnecessary.

Jameson is a big fan of Marvel movies (and I'm not), and one of his main purposes with this book is to prove that superhero/fantasy movies are just as "realistic" as the grittier, real world–based movies that critics fear have been harmed by the popularity of Marvel and Star Wars and other franchises. He asserts that what geeks want is, in fact, not escapism exactly, but the creation of a fantastic world that demonstrates internal logic and cohesion. Thus, he suggests, there's really no difference between Taxi Driver and Avatar, and so people shouldn't be so harsh toward geeky properties.

Ok, fine. I grant him that critiques based on realism-vs.-fantasy are inadequate. But that leaves ninety-nine other ways to criticize big-franchise filmmaking.

Jameson briefly mentions the commercialism that drives the big franchise titles but, again, says that all movies are selling something, so why look down on Marvel and Star Wars? And sure, that's true to a point. But I think it's wrong to say that the commercial motivations are equal for all filmmaking. Selling action figures of Iron Man probably means something different for Marvel Studios than selling action figures of, say, Gene Hackman in The Conversation does to Francis Ford Coppola.

And that brings up another point that I was surprised Jameson didn't mention: directors vs. studios. One of the recent trends in geeky movies is the clear idea that directors don't matter very much. Edgar Wright with Ant-Man, Gareth Edwards on Rogue One, and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with Solo . . . the message here is that the studio is making the decisions, and making them based on what they think audiences will pay for and how one movie interacts with another, rather than based on a single movie's own integrity. All three of those movies turned out fine (in fact, I rank Rogue One as one of the best-ever Star Wars movies), but I still believe the ideal situation is one filmmaker enacting a clear vision for what that one film is supposed to be and do. I find it odd that this issue wasn't part of Jameson's book.

I don't recommend I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing, but there are other similar books that are much more worthwhile. For people who want to read a behind-the-scenes account of the original Star Wars trilogy, I recommend J. W. Rinzler's series of comprehensive Making of books. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, by Chris Taylor, is an excellent look at the social, cultural, and historical influence of Star Wars. And for a book about thinking about Star Wars, I like The World According to Star Wars, by Cass Sunstein. Any of those books are better choices than this one.

[Lea Bowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh 1.5, I think. Mostly because I feel like I already knew most of this and it wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's not terrible at all but it's not really great either. It's mostly just ... lacking? I felt like there was a lot of potential for some meta about why geek culture is so popular now but most of it felt pretty generic.

Also I think it's worth noting that just because 'geek' stuff is popular not everyone is going to enjoy the same things within that. Online people get into fights all the time about who is better: Superman or Batman? Which franchise is better: Star Wars or Star Trek. To me things like that are a waste of time. People should just like what they like and let the other stuff go. I'm bringing this up because the author seems to feel that all geeks like the same things and spends a lot of time justifying/defending Marvel. I'm not really that into Marvel so I got kind of bored in parts. (In fact near the beginning he brings up a rather negative review of The Avengers movie and I found myself nodding in agreement - at the review instead of what he was saying to defend it.)

There's also a lot of whining that people don't understand or appreciate geek culture.

It was a pretty quick read which helped me finally start to get over my reading block so that's good at least. *shrugs*

[Jeremy Garber · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engagingly written and sophisticated analysis of the rise of the “Golden Age of the Geeks," both its content and the audiences who pursue it. Jameson, who is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, lovingly identifies his own place as a Geek with a Capital G as he looks at George Lucas’ work as the archetypal geek narrative. Part I provides a particularly useful analysis of Lucas as partaking in the New Wave cinema of the Seventies, not rebelling against it; Lucas sought a gritty and realistic portrayal of his narrative that just happened to be set in space, not in Brooklyn. Rather than the shiny (and horribly designed) escapism of previous science fiction, Lucas provided a broken-down universe that one could imagine extended off the screen into an entire time and place. This in turn set the template for “what every geek wants” (Part II), a demanding hyper-realism that in no way connects to our contemporary time and place. This seeming oxymoron lies at the heart of geek culture (and explains the male geek propensity to intensely deride continuity errors and reject symbolism – it’s not “real!”). Jameson also observes that this intense desire for realism contradicts the studios’ desire to, well, make money and hold on to their copyrights, which requires periodically remaking their archetypal characters (Batman especially) in a way that flatly contradicts previous retellings. Jameson backs up this intriguing and convincing thesis with charming autobiography, copious examples, and penetrating critique. A joy to read and a lot to think about.

[Zombi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. It started off interesting, a history of geek culture. But then it felt too personal in its experiences and opinions that when they were lumped into a "all geeks feel this way" tangent, I wasn't feeling it. Being a geek myself I know that everyone has different opinions and that geeks tend to argue that their opinion is correct and your wrong for not agreeing with them, but this was a little too much for me. I found myself getting bored and annoyed at some points. I also thought it was weird that not a single female geek was mentioned by name at length. Women are geeks too and despite men "dominating" the scene we are still here and helped contribute. All in all it was a tough read from an attention holding point of view. Halfway thro it became somewhat repetitive and I had a hard time caring what happened next.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

"In writing this book, I've felt obliged to demonstrate my own geeky background and bona fides, even as I imagine that some readers out there will doubt the sincerity of my commitment."

That's putting it lightly.

Dude has a pic of Vader on the cover and never figured out how to spell Wookiee. Says he's a lifelong Trekkie and can't remember how many TV series existed. And so many other things across other fan bases.

This was like reading a very long, unedited Buzzfeed article no one had the good sense to pull offline the next morning. I mean, I get the argument, but try to be consistent next time and have your OWN thoughts, not just constantly rebutting some other guy's book.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guess I am not enough of a geek to enjoy this book. Waaaay too much justification "being geek" and waaay too much whining about how geeks have been misunderstood and mistreated by society in general and a few film critics in particular.

[Steve Erickson · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I've ever read about culture. It's incredibly blinkered, using the dire Peter Biskind and his book EASY RIDERS, RIDING BULLS as a straw man for any kind of criticism that disrespects the blockbusters that STAR WARS & JAWS introduced to American cinema. Jameson also seems to have little knowledge of any alternative to those blockbusters except '70s New Hollywood, which he refers to obsessively. He has zero political perspective on consumerism and capitalism, thoughtlessly celebrating the proliferation of franchises and domination of mainstream American cinema by geek culture.

To pick the key passage: "Looking back now, I can see that my fragile sense of adulthood required that I dismiss movies like X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN in favor of artworks that I considered more sophisticated: the foreign films of the French New Wave, the underground experimental films that I could find in New York City, and the independent cinema being released to arthouse screens by companies like Miramax and Sony Pictures Classics." This is a book-length exercise in a reverse snobbery that's far more pernicious because it dominates American media and most people's experience of cinema.

[Dennis Keithly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great look in the mirror for the geek community. Although the title suggests that the book is more of a history of geekdom and how it became mainstream, and it does cover that, it is also very much about the “why” geeks like the things they do and a defense of their tastes.

Overall, it is quite fun. I had never really thought about the role of “realism” in Geek culture, but Jameson is correct. One only needs to reflect on their favorite Geek properties to see it. Or, read half this book and then spend an evening watching your favorite MCU movies while perusing the Twitter feeds of your geek friends.

I highly recommend this book.

[Rachel Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should’ve put the book down when the author, who wrote a book about geek life and culture, misspelled ‘Wookiee’. Credibility immediately lost…

This should’ve been an essay, not a 250 page book. The only reason this is 2 stars and not 1 is that I learned some cool facts about my favorite movie.

[Ron Samul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a lifelong card-carrying Star Wars fans, this book was merely a fan pick to make sure that commentary on the film(s) was in line. What surprised me was that this book was more than just a book on Star Wars and its cultural effect, but a focused and insightful look into the culture of fandom and geeks. That isn't meant to put geeks down, in fact as Lawrence Kasdan (Empire Strikes Back screenwriter) states that Jameson takes geek culture "seriously, respects their power and refuses to hide his deep affection). Being a geek means being a fan that cares. Jameson methodically considers the dynamic elements of being a fan and a geek and why it has carried some films to fame and also broken a few.

If you're interested in any sci-fi/superhero culture, then you should just read this book. At some point, he will stop off at some of your favorite movies, books, comics, and other references. Beneath his discussion of Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, comics, fan culture, Lord of the Rings, and hundreds of other references, Jamieson develops significant underlying ideas that bring substance to the discussion of these cultural art forms and why they are important to the world we consume. He begins by discussing the concept of world-building, a term that dates back a long time ago, but is brought into focus by Tolkien and his work in the 1930s. This concept of creating a world that people desire to immerse into is important to fans, writers, and popular culture purveyors. It isn't that people want a completely new reality, but they want a world that has as Tolkien called it, "the inner consistency of reality." While we want spaceships, creatures, and all those glorious moments, we also want to see ourselves and something that we can find of ourselves. Jameson goes on to explain that "Geeks differ from mystics, however, in knowing that their invented worlds aren't real, even as they want their fantasies to seem as real and as believable as possible."

The next important element is bringing realism into the mix. Like Star Wars and the concept of a "used world," viewers can see a gritty and complex world that looks real, and therefore closer to something else. "This is why geeks favor realism and world-building, which impart to fiction the look of nonfiction, and the weight of historical fiction." This is part of the immersion and the believability of the story. And this is exactly some of the elements that geeks fight over all the time. There is a great discussion based on expanded universes and how these franchises sell and direct their merchandise and concepts to the true fans. This can be a gamble that pays off or fall short (think Star Wars 1-3).

While this book has some significant concepts and relevant vision of geek culture, it moves quickly and never gets bogged down. Even books and websites I didn't know didn't change the reading. I just kept going. Often, curious about a movie or book, I found myself searching for a few titles or more information to go back and explore later.

If you are interested in Star Wars, geek fandom, popular culture, or you just like to watch movies, this book is very satisfying. Jameson makes an important point in the book when he says, "That's why learning to read an artwork, to interpret it and evaluate it, requires study and practice, learning how to untangle the web of allusions, of conventions and associations, through which artists encode and transmit meaning. Whatever else it happens to be, an artwork is also always a text, a representation of the world after a fashion, but never the world itself." He goes on to quote Alfred Korzybski when he famously said, "The map is not the territory."

Really good book for fans and pop culture enthusiasts. It clearly explains some of the implications of being a fan, a geek, and someone who does more than just watches but lies in bed wondering what great things might be coming for our favorite heroes and archetypes.

https://ronsamulreview.blogspot.com/

[S.E. Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is ultimately like the experience of hanging out with my favorite friends sharing movie references and exploring down rabbit holes of cannon and true facts behind our favorite geek obsessions. Not sure his thesis is the most cohesive, but he paints an elegant picture and has fun doing it.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Review of the Audiobook

Published in May of 2018 by Macmillan Audio.
Duration: 6 hours, 58 minutes.
Read by Holter Graham.
Unabridged.

A.D. Jameson is a student of cinema - not just science fiction and fantasy movies, but of cinema in general. I used the word "student" in the previous sentence carefully because he is not just a fan of movies, he studies the directors, the movements and the ideas behind the movies.

But, he is also a proud geek - a fan of sci-fi and fantasy literature and movies. Like me, he was really into those genres in middle and high school, moved away from them for a while during and after college and then came back to them in a big way when the Star Wars "Special Edition" movies were released.

My own children do not believe me, but there was once a time when the mere sight of a Star Wars t-shirt or bumper sticker was worthy of comment. Now, they are everywhere. My family probably owns more than 20 Star Wars-related t-shirts alone.

A.D. Jameson explores how this happened by focusing on the world of cinema and television. He argues that Star Trek, not the original run on NBC but the re-run episodes running night after night, day after day until everyday, normal TV viewers got used to the idea of spaceships and aliens. When Star Trek was starting to fizzle out, Star Wars came in and made a big splash - the biggest splash in movie history up to that point. When the Star Wars phenomenon started to fade away, Star Trek came back with the movies and then with four different TV shows that spanned 18 years. Many of those shows aired every day (sometimes multiple times per day) because they were syndicated.

Star Wars came back with the troubled (but immensely successful) prequel series. X-Men movies started coming out - another troubled franchise, but it has been going on for 19 years! The Lord of the Rings movies and suddenly it seemed like every movie was a sci-fi, fantasy or a comic book movie.

As I mentioned, Jameson focuses on TV and especially cinema, spending a lot of time arguing that Star Wars fits perfectly well in with its peers from the time period like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather. He makes a compelling argument, one that would undoubtedly be argued against by Martin Scorsese...

Read more at: https://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2019...

[Quinn Lavender · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author A.D. Jameson felt the need to defend "geekdom," apparently after reading a book by a dude who called into question geek culture. That's fine, but Jameson specifically calls out the other author so many times it becomes laughable, like some kind of Twitter war.

This book is meant to be a treatise on geek subculture, its merits and society's misperceptions of it. The book seems way too disorganized to effectively do this. Ironically, the most organized argument in the book is in the first chapter, where the arguments *against* geek culture (that youth don't want to grow up / move out / get a job / live in reality) are so clearly articulated that the rest of the book failed shoot those arguments down. At least for me: I didn't walk away from this book feeling like geek culture has been exonerated due to any clearly organized defense. The majority of the book has seemingly un-related entries regarding a million thoughts about geekdom. At many points in the book, I couldn't even remember which part of geekdom the author was trying to defend. At the end of the day, the "argument agains" just wasn't very clear. For example: I don't think that geek cinema-goers are just as refined as others because they demand that Batman movies have "gritty" backdrops or explosions that look really "real."

On the other hand, there were several examples of wonderful analysis in this book. Among them: comparisons between the original, prequel, and newer Star Wars movies (where they intersect and diverge artistically), the difficulty of pleasing Star Wars fans, how Star Trek effectively ret-conned its various series, the autobiographical nature of Star Wars: A New Hope, a really intriguing look at Batman over the years, and contrasts of Batman and Superman that found resolution in the movie....Batman vs. Superman. I found all of this to be extremely entertaining and thoughtful, though I know that was not the author's purpose for this book.

[Lance Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a delightfully interminable Star Wars fan, this book triggered all the feels. Jameson provides a personal and cultural history of geek culture since the emergence of Star Wars in the 1970s. He marks Star Wars as the birth of geek culture's rise to pop culture dominance in TV, film, conventions, and much more. Throughout, he explores the pivotal ways in which Star Wars and other major geek-entities (comic books, RPG tabletop gaming, fantasy books, etc) played pivotal roles in making geek culture more mainstream culture. Of course, within that, he acknowledges the tension between those who are hardcore fans of the cultural product in its "original form" (whatever we want to mean by that) and in its various adaptations, remakes, deviations, etc. He has a very strong bone to pick with Peter Biskind and his film and cultural histories, believing Biskind, among others, have disregarded and devalued what films like Star Wars truly are. In fact, in a later chapter, Jameson gives one of the most powerful and fascinating analyses of Star Wars as a reflection of the New Hollywood crew that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in their aspirations for realism and pushing back against the industry models.

In many ways, I appreciate this book because it resembles my own experience both in enjoying geek culture growing up, reading comic books, watching Star Wars a bajillion times, and getting my hands on so much fantasy. Equally, the high points that Jameson mentions are ones that I too would likely have called out were I writing such a book--from the emergence of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight to the first X-Men film to the Batman trilogy by Nolan, these are definitely hallmarks that decry a shift in the things that once were considered to nerdy to be spoken about in public. If you want a nostalgic but thoughtful and critical venture down pop culture in the last forty years, this is definitely worth the read.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is definitely some interesting and fun topics covered in "I Find Your Lack Of Faith Disturbing" for all those who consider themselves "geeks" or "nerds" of the sci-fi/fantasy variety. Unfortunately, author A.D. Jameson can't quite decide whether the book is a research tome or a personal editorial, so it kind of falls into that "muddled middle" of making a lot of brash statements and going in a few scholarly directions that the text can in no way back up.

At face value, this is a book that can be enjoyed by most people. It flows very well and I found myself done with it much more quickly than I even thought I would. The reason for this, however, is because "Lack of Faith" seems to cull a great deal of information from other sources...sources that most geeks/nerds will have likely already frequented. As such, the book comes off more as "this is what being a current nerd is like" by sifting through previously-established material from other books, magazines, websites, etc.

While that approach can be fun (who doesn't like talking about Spielberg, Lucas, and the like?), I felt like Jameson either needed to double down on that approach (i.e. make this a very personal book about his own "geekdom") or really delve into the "triumph of geek culture" promised in the book's title. This is something that doesn't happen, probably if only because the project likely wasn't begun as any sort of academic or scholarly treatise whatsoever. I would have preferred that the book didn't try to delve into the "deep stuff" and instead just focus on Jameson's own personal experiences (something that is much easier and less messy to quantify).

Like I said, though, overall this is just a "right down the middle" sort of book for those who mighty loosely be interested in it by the tagline/cover. It touches on some interesting and fun material, albeit never really going anywhere informative or ultimately useful with any of it.

[Casey Winters · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not generally a fan of boiling things down to their essence, but this book feels like little more than a lengthy, somewhat obsessive debate against a certain book Peter Biskind wrote in 1998, which lambasted geeks for their childishness. Why does Jameson engage here, in the late 2010s, with aged debates between geeks and non-geeks on the merits of speculative fiction? How many are still engaged in that old, cold war? Sure, I understand setting the stage with these former conversations, but Jameson's words stick in that place, never veering away from stereotyping geeks as only he sees them, nor toward the present dramas within geekdom--gatekeeping, representation, the democratization and widening of our interests--which are far more evergreen and which reveal geeks to not be a monolith, far less the one note Jameson thinks he speaks for. Instead, Jameson swims in the black-and-white thinking of fantasy/sci-fi pitted against drama (when so many movie geeks have the capacity to love both), plus providing another elongated, tired punch at the Star Wars prequels and the Star Trek sequels, again as if all geeks agree. I'm not saying he's wrong to dislike changes to his beloved franchises, and I'm not even saying I disagree--but I know I'm not all geeks, Jameson seems to think he is. And the irony of Jameson's "hate" (his words) toward the shifts in approach and tone and philosophy in both Star Wars and Star Trek is that mere pages later he hypocritically lauds the ability of Batman to evolve over decades of print and film, of artists and creators to mold Gotham City and its Crusader as they see fit, to keep the franchise fresh and healthy and in a state of natural experimentation.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected, but overall very good. I am placing this as a 3.5, with a round up to a 4.

This is a book about 'the Geeks' versus the world. In an era where the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, etc... was frowned upon and believed that adults were wasting their minds/time on a hobby that distracts from real world issues... author A.D. Jameson fights back and goes against the grain on why news, politics, sports, and non-fiction literature is fine and dandy - but not everything life has to offer.

Lots of very passionately delivered Star Wars content here, but surprisingly a truly wonderful deep dive on Batman is found here. I mean honestly... it kind of makes me want to go down the Batman path one day the way this guy pours his heart out to the Dark Knight and Gotham City - extremely well done.

He even gives Guardians of the Galaxy some love too, especially focusing on Rocket. Absolutely loved it.

He closes with a strong George Lucas, Empire, Rebellion, Lord Vader, etc., finisher that was very insightful.

I am extremely surprised to see so many 1 and 2 star ratings for this book. Seems like fan on fan combat is at an all time high in the review battle field. That's all good though, this is a common thing it seems as of late. Criticism and all the like is the way things go nowadays with social media, as opposed to being a united front where we all love our space ships, laser swords, alien worlds and their inhabitants, and we just embrace that passion together.

If you are expecting 100% Star Wars content in nothing else, you may get your feelings hurt. If you are willing to be open enough to hear some great content on Batman, X-men, and more, you should enjoy this 'Geeks vs the World' love story.

[Ursula Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long Winded Diatribe about what Should be a Fun Subject

When I saw this book while browsing, I was looking forward to it. A book about geeks and geek culture. Be careful what you wish for. While this book does indeed discuss geeks and geek culture, it also managed to reference a number of non geek films. It also managed to be a long winded doctoral dissertation about what should be a fun subject. The Big Picture was a book about new Hollywood that was more fun than this. A great many elements are broken down and discussed and referenced to film critics and artists who hate geek culture. While several good points are made, others miss the boat. Good points include why Transformers fans aren't wild about Michael Bay. Missed points, most notably is the comparison of the films Solo vs Rogue One. This was written before Solo came out. Rogue One was brilliant, perfectly fitting the Star Wars universe, while being new and different, yet familiar. It was a great story. The author thought Solo would be more successful due to the more familiar subject matter. That couldn't have been further from the truth. While Solo was a fun film, it was not what most geeks wanted. Had Lucasfilm made a film about Grand Admiral Thrawn or the Old Republic, it would've been much different. A good book for non geeks to learn about the culture. It just wasn't fun like it should've been. I read this book using immersion reading while listening to the audiobook. Narration was ok, not great. Overall a disappointment.

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A.D. Jameson obviously did a lot of research; some of it has probably been life long experiences for him. He talks about what art is and if movies qualify as art. Geeks (as described by one who knows) are those people whom delve deep into their art, oblivious to what others think about them or their obsessions. They found a real niche in society through the internet, where they meet up with others of like-thinking. There are some whose whole life seems to center around certain movies, tv shows, characters, etc. I understand where geeks come from, having known them (and been bent a little that way myself). p220 "By projecting alternate visions of what we could be, geeks are trying to come to grips with the present moment, and where it might lead." So, Jameson philosophizes quite a bit in the book. One might think that geeks can not handle the real world, so they dissolve into make-believe. Not so easy to conclude, though, since many "geeks" have succeeded in various fields--ie. Bill Gates, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, etc.
I don't agree with Jameson's conclusion, which he based upon Star Wars. He gave reasons for why George Lucas made Star Wars and what it all means. Only George really knows. Many people have tried to find inner meanings within what has been written throughout history, but the heart is only within the writer.

[Em · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, I'd really give this half a star. It's badly disjointed, to the point you forget what the chapter is even about. Jameson writes like his opinions about geek culture are not just shared by everyone, but the rule of law within geekdom. This entire book reads like "things were better when I was a kid, and they're bad now", and honestly, I don't care. If you don't like what Star Wars or Marvel or whoever did, don't interact with it, and that includes spending gods know how much time complaining about how bad they are (yes I'm talking about the bit where he bashes the Star Wars prequels).

Jameson reads like every other pretentious male fanboy, and I've met plenty of them in my life.

(Oh, and to defend the prequels? Phantom Menace was made using mostly models and limited CGI, like the OT that Jameson loves so much. The CGI use in the subsequent movies was *groundbreaking* for the early 2000s. I agree it hasn't aged well, but that doesn't quite matter, does it? The stilted dialogue is what happens when you divorce, fire and blackball the editor that made the OT such a coherent narrative. Star Wars, despite what many adult male fanboys believe, are kids movies, and that doesn't make Jar Jar out of place at all. He is beloved by many people, especially those of us that grew up with the PT as "our" Star Wars movies.)

[Jasmine Banasik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is fluttering between two and three stars. Three because I didn't hate the act of reading it.
The good: There are some wonderful moments. Jameson compares comic con to the Cantina scene in Star Wars, calling back an earlier comment about how the cantina is a representation of different identities and stories coming together, even if in the background of a larger story. There is a decent argument to be made about the inherent politics of geeky things and how even a "bad" geeky movie can represent cultural worries and ideals.
The bad: It's a very messy book. Jameson starts a few different arguments- how Star Wars started the geek revolution, that geek movies are just as worthy of acclaim as movies like Taxi Driver or Citizen Kane, the importance of realism and immersion. But none of these are ever finished and contain glaring contradictions within the arguments themselves. Basic facts are just wrong. This is focused primarily on the white cis straight male perspective of geekdom, which feels extremely lacking in a somewhat recent book. There are some icky moments of gatekeeping.

This was one of my dollar tree finds and I'm not actually sure if I would suggest someone pick this up for a dollar (and twenty five cents). While I didn't hate reading this, I did feel like it was pretty much useless.

[AN · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.7/5) I found this to be a truly fascinating look at geek culture and the place that some mainstays, like Star Wars and Marvel, have had in the creation and preservation of geek culture. This is a book with a lot of things to say about how geek culture is formed and why it has the traction it does, and with whom, not to mention it is the most articulated reasoning for some of the disputes in geekdom that I have ever read. I would have liked for Star Wars to have been a smidgen more prevalent considering that it purports to focus on it, and it could have been a bit longer, as I felt like some of the concepts had the opportunity to be much more intricate and what we got was rather surface level. On the whole though, I would recommend it for anyone interested in the way that geek culture has changed and become influential for pop culture in the last couple of decades.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a person who came of age in the 1980s, I saw the word "nerd" go from an insult to a somewhat irreverant badge of honor, but this book--while decently researched--doesn't fully explain how this shift in attitude happened. It's a mostly anecdotal account of what it means to be a geek as well as many opinions about nerd culture.

The book's thesis is well presented and, for the most part, solid. But the author asserts that there are connections between Star Wars and a number of "isms" (realism, romanticism, Hegelianism, etc.). Rather than choosing just one "ism" and applying it, the author seemed to be cherry picking schools of philosophy that he'd heard of and applying them to Star Wars.

It's not a bad book by any means, but I really wished he'd gone further with his ideas and explanations of how nerd culture became mainstream.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very excited to read this book (yes I was sucked in by the clever cover) and for the first half or so, I really enjoyed it. In a way I felt like I paralleled the author's experiences. Growing up loving Star Trek and other nerdy shows and now those are actually popular culture. But after a while the author got too repetitive and defensive. His arguments boiled down to defending "geek culture" against mainline critics by focusing on its realism and its substance as art. But again, it could have been a magazine article, not a book. His arguments are repeated and his sidebars to establish his nerd credentials seem forced after a while. Still, a fun quick read with some interesting anecdotes.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn I wish I had written this book. Aside from some personal preferences I disagree with, and a few personal experiences, this is certainly the way I see geekdom, both personally and professionally as a high school teacher who mentors much of the geeky student body of my school. Frankly, I don't understand some of the criticisms of this book in other reviews posted here; this isn't film critique, and this isn't deep psychological examination. But it is a more than adequate explanation of a personal journey: the discovery that people like me and the author are not alone in this world...and that our combined influence has been strong in the last few years, in so many matters of culture. This little editorial/memoir suits me just fine.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like any book that makes broad generalizations about a group of people, there were things here that I really agreed with, and things that were less true of me than of some geeks, but overall I thought it was an interesting look at the development of geek culture over the last forty years or so. I'm also enough of a geek myself that I've seen most of the genre movies the author discusses, and read most of the comics, since he generally sticks to the ones that had large impacts on their respective mediums. He does misspell "Wookiee" every time, but he also understands my geeky little heart quite well, and I appreciated someone spelling out things I've generally understood but never really thought about in quite so much detail before.

[Ryan Laferney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very readable. An interesting combination of personal memoir, film history, geek culture insight, that also happens to read as a defense of pop culture . I personally enjoyed the background Jameson gave on the New Realists filmmakers of the 70s and the rise of Star Wars and how Lucas essentially reinvented cinema. I also appreciated his frank discussion on why science fiction, fantasy, and superheroes can be considered a form of serious art while also admitting the there is nothing wrong with a little escapism as well.

With that being said, he was preaching to someone who was already converted.

[Robert Knotts · Rating 3 out of 5]

(via audiobook)
I finished this book only because I am always willing to listen to anything Star Wars. However, I found the book a little whiny on how geeks were originally treated. Like most of us hadn't already lived through this treatment. I found the book basically has his opinion with some Star Wars and Star Trek facts thrown in. Although, I am not a huge fan of Star Trek, I am confident that some of the facts he gave was a little off. (But I could be wrong...)

I ending up believing that this book would be acceptable to someone who has become a Star Wars fan later in life and haven't had much experience with it. Basically a starter book for the later in life Geek.

[Steve Donoghue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide-ranging and terrific exploration of geek culture's rise to world domination, where Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man are now billion-dollar franchises and the whole world can rattle off a reasonably accurate Avengers roster. I loved all the careful nerdy detail in the book, and I was especially grateful for the author's complete lack of easy reductions or condescension - this is a study/celebration of geek culture that geeks themselves can enjoy. My review of it is here: https://openlettersreview.com/open-le...

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, it turns out I must be a geek...

Investigating the geek world and how the world looks in. Through critical analysis, A.D. Jameson gives an in-depth argument on why science-fiction and fantasy movies like Star Wars should be viewed in the same light as 'mainstream' film. I loved Jameson's argument and description of George Lucas' use of realism. He also wrote extensively how many mainstream fandoms use these same techniques through merchandise, books and fantasied wiki's.
I think it's fair to say I loved this book and found it really interesting.