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This story contains spoilers for "Knives Out."

One of the season's hit movies has racked up a ton of praise and it's also spurred some vigorous debate.

"Knives Out, a murder mystery with an all-star cast, shows the tensions around Americans views of immigrants and the immigration process.

The movie, which has spurred Oscar buzz and recently nabbed three leading Golden Globe nominations, is on Top 10 film lists and has inspired heated questions about how to tell immigration narratives ethically and effectively.

Following the movie's release, many praised its depiction of undocumented immigrants in the United States, as told through Golden Globe-nominated Ana de Armas' character, Marta, the nurse and caregiver of family patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).

As the murder investigation of Harlans death unfolds, so does some of Martas backstory. Her mother is undocumented, having come to the U.S. from an unspecified Latin American country, and this fact consumes Marta daily. Worried about her familys precarious legal situation, she tries to melt into the background, but the murder investigation led by the whimsical Benoit Blanc (Craig) launches her into a glaring spotlight.

Marta's employers are a family that includes both progressive, "New Yorker"-reading types, as well as alt-right conservatives who call Marta the pejorative term, anchor baby." They've tolerated Marta for coming to the U.S. the right way. But when they discover their inheritances from Harlans will are threatened and that Marta has undocumented family members, they direct their animosity toward her going so far as to frame her for Harlans murder and lord her mothers status over her head.

Marta may well have the last laugh in what many call a triumphant final scene.

On Twitter, author Daniel Jos Older posted, Knives Out didn't just open a wound for kicks and leave it open. It didn't make it melodramatic or shove in our faces the horror of deportation, and it didn't ignore it altogether, which most movies do.

"It acknowledged it as a reality and vulnerability of one of its characters, and an unfair advantage of others, and dealt with that, and kept it moving. That's what I want from art: honesty without berating, preaching, or manipulating. And a good time, which this was too of course, he wrote.

Not everyone thought the social commentary in the film was effective, however. Some Latino viewers criticized the film's handling of an issue that was perhaps a bit too close to home.

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Unfortunately Mr. Johnsons ambitions on this front reminded me that sometimes, well-intentioned art can backfire and offend (and even hurt) those its intended to champion, film critic (and NBC Latino contributor) Monica Castillo wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed. Through the character of Marta, Knives Out has a tendency to exploit its storys immigration angle, which left me feeling uneasy as strangers at the screening I attended laughed at real-life issues Im genuinely frightened of.

Luis Paez-Pumar, a freelance culture writer, echoed Castillos analysis.

Knives Out was a really fun movie that I almost entirely enjoyed, and yet I cant help but feel like the whole immigration stuff was a well-intentioned mistake of whiteness. Oh, well, Paez-Pumar tweeted.

Knives Out wasnt marketed as a movie dripping with social commentary; the trailer leads viewers to believe that the film is simply a comedic whodunit murder mystery drawing on Clue and Agatha Christies detective novels with an ensemble powerhouse cast.

But the differing perspectives are part of a larger debate on the ethical and effective ways to tell immigration narratives, experts say.

Media narratives about immigration must center around the people directly affected and they must show people are fully dimensional human beings, Ryan Eller, executive director of Define American, a nonprofit media organization whose mission is to shift the conversation about immigrants, told NBC News. Id love to see more filmmakers collaborate with people who have lived experience when taking on stories about immigration. Its so important for immigrants and people who come from mixed status families to not only be consultants on these projects, but creators of them.

Though Knives Out was directed, produced and written by Rian Johnson and does not appear to have much Latino representation in its crew, other experts thought that the film met the criteria of examining Martas immigration story with nuance.

Rian Johnson takes a familiar formula and revises it in a really progressive way, Charles Ramrez Berg, a professor in media studies at the University of Texas at Austin, told NBC News. He took an established genre, the whodunit form, and put a twist in it, by casting a Latina whos a professional, intelligent and not the murderer.

Anglos are people in movies and they can run the range of the complete spectrum of humanity. They can be good, they can be bad, they can be smart, they can be not so smart, Berg added. They can be everything. But when it comes to Latinos theyre not presented as people; theyre ignorant or illegal or immoral ... Theyre stereotypes.

Kristian Ramos, communications director of Define American, similarly praised the nuance of Martas character.

You have this Latina nurse who inherits all the money because of her hard work and her genuine relationship with her patient, Ramos said. She wasnt a caricature; she showed the difficulty of being undocumented. Her being there and being intelligent and kind, but also having a backbone and learning how to stand up for herself was subversive.

According to a study conducted by the University of Southern Californias Norman Lear Center and Define American, immigrant characters on television remain underrepresented and stereotypical. Of the more than 140 episodes of television the groups analyzed from 2017 and 2018, 11 percent of characters were immigrants and almost half of these characters had fewer than 10 speaking lines. While numerous studies have shown that immigrants dont commit any more crime than U.S.-born citizens, 34 percent of these television characters were connected to a past or current crime.

Once someone sees a stereotypical immigration storyline, it enables them to see them as second class citizens, Eller said. It impacts their abilities to see immigrants with dignity and respect and has real consequences, like the children kept in cages and the El Paso and Gilroy shooters who embraced a false narrative of invasion.

Theres been a long tradition of using documentary as a form to tell immigrant stories, according to Mauricio Espinoza, assistant of Spanish and Latin American Literature at the University of Cincinnati. The form, he says, takes advantage of emotional connections to present a story of a real person affected by a real issue. But while documentaries have long been an effective method of storytelling, fictionalized immigrant stories like Knives Out may be able to reach new demographics, he said.

Whether an immigrant narrative is told through a fictionalized or documentary form, however, Espinoza said its important to probe the motivations behind telling a certain story.

One of the dangers of having so much access to video technology everywhere it that it doesnt take long for stories with unfiltered, disturbing images to go viral, Espinoza said. We need to address these difficult situations, but we also cant dehumanize them. We need to question if sharing the gory details will help pave the way for change in policies or if theyre just sensationalism that will perpetuate the trauma immigrants have gone through.

The conversation about the Knives Out immigration plotline has been occurring as a video of Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a Guatemalan teenager who died in Customs and Border Protection custody has circulated online. The video, which was published by ProPublica earlier this month, shows Hernandez collapsing to the floor and has also stirred controversy about when to use graphic imagery in immigration narratives. After ProPublica posted the video, the late teenagers family released a statement to the Texas Civil Rights Project saying it was painful to have people watching him die on the Internet.

Stephen Engelberg, ProPublicas editor-in-chief, told NBC News that the publication believed the American people need to see this video in order to understand the actions of their government and what really happened to Carlos.

Espinoza suggested adding content warnings or additional steps before accessing violent or potentially disturbing imagery could help ensure immigrant narratives are shown in a respective and human way.

Berg added that were on the verge of breaking through to a new kind of narrative. The problem is its very hard to get anybody to watch. Its easier to dismiss it or look the other way, but we need to find a way to look at those hard and harsh realities.

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'Touching and Triggering': 'Knives Out' sparks question of how to tell immigration stories - NBC News

Members of the Shield Wall Network celebrating Hitlers birthday on April 20. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

When Dylann Storm Roof walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he joined the Bible-study class before gunning down nine African-Americans as they prayed.

Roof still communicates with his admirers on the outside. In jail, he began exchanging letters with a man in Arkansas named Billy Roper. A former schoolteacher and the son and grandson of Klansmen, Roper leads the Shield Wall Network, a group of several dozen white nationalists who organize rallies and conferences often collaborating with neighboring hate groups with the goal of building a white ethno-state. I have a lot of empathy for him. Im 47, and hes young enough to be my son, Roper said of Roof when interviewed recently for this project. These millennials and now, I guess, Gen-Zers that are coming up, they are not stupid about the demographic trends and what they portend for the future. That angst, that anxiety that plagues them, drives them to do rash things whether its that rash or not I can empathize with. I would humbly suggest we believe that Roper is being sincere, and that he speaks for many.

Roper and Roof are only two of those affiliated with the 148 white-nationalist hate groups in this country. Though it is impossible to calculate their exact membership numbers (as individual groups either conceal or inflate them), their violence is indisputable. White supremacists were responsible for the deaths of at least 39 people in 2018 alone. And the activity has not slowed this year: not in January, as neo-Nazis plastered flyers outside newspaper offices and homes in Washington State and the Carolinas and an army veteran pleaded guilty to killing a black man in New York to ignite a racial war; in February, as Vermont synagogues and LGBT centers were vandalized and a self-described white-nationalist Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested for plotting a domestic terror attack; in March, as WELCOME TO GERMANY and GAS THE JEWS were spray-painted outside Oklahoma City Democratic Party and Chickasaw Nation offices and, on the Upper East Side, classmates handed their schools only black ninth-grader a note reading ns dont have rights; in April, as a shooting at a synagogue left one dead and three injured and FBI Director Christopher Wray called white supremacy a persistent, pervasive threat to the country; in May, as swastikas fell from the sky on flyers dropped by drones outside an Ariana Grande concert and were scrawled on public spaces in at least three states; in June, as far-right groups rallied in Portland, Oregon, for the first time that summer; in July, as a man promoted a white-power manifesto on Instagram before killing three and wounding 17 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California; in August, as another angry young man this one 1,000 miles away in El Paso, Texas posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online then committed this years most deadly mass shooting, killing 22 and injuring 24 at a Walmart; in September, as the Department of Homeland Security added white-supremacist extremism to its list of priority threats, the same month a swastika appeared on its walls; in October, as swastikas also appeared on Cape Cod and invitations to a white-supremacist gathering were mailed to Maine residents; in November, as a white-supremacist group filmed a video outside Mississippis Emmett Till Memorial; nor this month, as students flashed possible white-power signs at an Army-Navy football game.

The photojournalist Mark Peterson has documented this year, traveling the country to surface the extent of the activity and catalogue the most dangerous ideologies. His quotidian look at contemporary American Confederacy and white nationalism shows us our neighbors in other robes. The people portrayed are living among us in every region of the country, in our workplaces, in our government, on social media, and, for some, in our homes. Their culture is made up of both public rallies and private rituals. We see their homes and their streets and their schools, and that these are also our streets and our schools and our neighbors. These pictures werent just taken in the South, says Peterson, who covers the right wing and began documenting the rise of white nationalism after the 2016 election. They were taken in New York, in New Jersey, in California, in Portland. The idea of quarantining it or ignoring it: That didnt work in the past when they tried to do that, and it wont now.

The barrage of daily headlines makes it easy to see this years incidents as isolated, as white noise in the background of our relentless political moment. But as disturbing as they are, these images portray the American story. It is our inheritance, institutionalized since the Civil War by a government that only recently, and tentatively, began to address domestic terrorism for what it is. White nationalism, legitimized by our presidents support of very fine people, has flourished in part because of this refusal to look it squarely in its face and acknowledge it as homegrown. Without a full accounting of the reality, there can be no remedy. To look away is a form of collaboration. Claudia Rankine

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Ill be honest with you, we dont have as many members as they do down in North Carolina or South Carolina, said the Grand Dragon of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (in green),here in his home in suburban New Jersey on October 5. Since first joining the Klan in the 1970s, he has been a member of Aryan Nations, the National Alliance, and the Imperial Klans of America. One state over, the grand dragon of the Loyal White Nights of the KKK (in white) is seen near his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Both men were photographed in the months following Homeland Security named white supremacy a primary security threat.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, KKK membership has declined in America even while the industry of hate has thrived, fueled by the next generation of white supremacists who have aligned with newer alt-right and white-nationalist organizations (the kind whose members carry tiki torches and wear khakis instead of hoods). White supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis overlap with self-described identitarians like the American Identity Movement, fascists like the Patriot Front, ethno-survivalists like the Shield Wall Network, white-power fight clubs like the Rise Above Movement, and antiwhite guilt provocateurs like the Proud Boys. Sometimes even they have a hard time describing how their ideologies differ. Reporting by James D. Walsh

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

This rally in Portland, Oregon on August 17 one of at least eight such far-right events in major cities this year was organized by the Proud Boys, which claimed its goal was to drain Portland of its law-enforcement resources until the city condemned antifa. Critics, led by Fox News, often compare antifa with violent far-right groups, calling it the radical lefts violent mob. But statistically the equivalency is unsubstantiated. We counted a representative sample of antifa attacks and threats on MAGA supporters, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino. The bottom line is we havent seen any hard-left or antifa homicides.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

On June 8, about 15 members of the National Socialist Movement the largest neo-Nazi group in the country, with 30 to 40 core members protested Detroits Motor City Pride parade, captured in these two photographs. We were legally armed, said leader Burt Colucci. The Detroit Police Department was criticized for providing an escort for the protesters, a measure Police Chief James Craig defended as an attempt to prevent a Charlottesville No. 2. No one was arrested, but a GoPro video Colucci shot of himself shoving a counterprotester to the ground was later released.

Public events like this one led to tensions ratcheting up among law enforcement, far-right groups, and the public. It didnt help that, also this year, hate was regularly exposed in the ranks of those charged with fighting it: In April, two Virginia police officers were fired because of their links to white nationalists. Two months later, Reveal reported on nearly 400 current and former law enforcement officers who were members of, or engaged with, extremist Facebook groups, including anti-Islam groups and anti-government militias like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. In St. Louis, 22 police officers were added to an exclusion list, prohibiting them from bringing cases to prosecutors after the Plain View Project found racist and anti-Muslim comments they had made on social media. Earlier this month, a photo surfaced of 37 West Virginia corrections officers performing a Nazi salute at their graduation ceremony.

After a white supremacist killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in March, President Trump was asked if he thought the threat of white nationalism was on the rise. I dont, really, he responded. I think its a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.

Hate-crime statistics are notoriously difficult to calculate. Local and state law-enforcement agencies are not required to submit numbers to the FBI, laws defining hate crimes vary from state to state, and experts estimate that more than half of all hate crimes go unreported. According to the FBI, hate-crime violence hit a 16-year high in 2018 with the black, Jewish, Latino, and transgender communities being targeted more than ever and the nations largest cities seeing the most activity. The FBIs 2019 numbers wont be available until next November, but indications suggest they will continue to trend upward. The most deadly mass shooting of 2019 was committed by a xenophobic extremist in El Paso, Texas. Lone wolf killers have found their pack.

Fractured as it may be, the far right is now connected by public figures arguing for some form of ethno-nationalism. One such figure is Jared Taylor, founder of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference, which brings together far-right leaders from various strands of neo-Nazism, the KKK, and the alt-right. Not long ago, Taylors pseudo-intellectual ideas were widely considered fringe. Now, they have a powerful advocate in the White House: Before becoming a top Trump adviser, Stephen Miller cited Taylors American Renaissance work to a Breitbart News reporter, suggesting that she aggregate a recent AmRen story on the (specious) link between immigration numbers and crime rates.

Taylor has also counseled Patrick Casey and Richard Spencer, members of the alt-right involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Nate Snyder, a former counterterrorism official in the Department of Homeland Security, says activity on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront jumped after the rally. But when it really hit a spiking point was directly after the presidents comments, his infamous words about very fine people on both sides. You saw activity on this thing exponentially spike, he explains. It was a validation point. You started seeing posts like We now have an ally in the White House. Im setting up a similar rally in my town. Lets take this online action and move it offline and supply it with money and supply it with people. It was a mass mobilization. James D. Walsh

JANUARY: Jared Taylor, head of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Chester Doles, a self-described fourth-generation KKK member, at a pro-Trump rally he organized in Dahlonega, GA. Counterprotesters, police, and media outnumbered Doless allies. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

JANUARY: Jared Taylor, head of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Chester Doles, a self-described fourth-g... more JANUARY: Jared Taylor, head of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Chester Doles, a self-described fourth-generation KKK member, at a pro-Trump rally he organized in Dahlonega, GA. Counterprotesters, police, and media outnumbered Doless allies. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

SEPTEMBER: Anthony Petruccelli, member of the National Socialist Movement, is surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia in his Lynn, MA, apartment in September. MAY: A Proud Boy covers his face at San Franciscos Demand Free Speech rally. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

SEPTEMBER: Anthony Petruccelli, member of the National Socialist Movement, is surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia in his Lynn, MA, apartment in September... more SEPTEMBER: Anthony Petruccelli, member of the National Socialist Movement, is surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia in his Lynn, MA, apartment in September. MAY: A Proud Boy covers his face at San Franciscos Demand Free Speech rally. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

MAY: Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement, at Tennessees American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Arkansass Shield Wall Network celebrating the birthday of George Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

MAY: Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement, at Tennessees American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Arkansass Shield Wall Ne... more MAY: Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement, at Tennessees American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Arkansass Shield Wall Network celebrating the birthday of George Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Billy Roper, leader of the Shield Wall Network (pictured below holding the letter from Roof and wearing a white shirt), says their protests are intended to polarize: to force normal white Americans to choose between us and them. This year, Members of the Shield Wall Network celebrated Hitlers birthday on April 20 on Lake Dardanelle (photographed above) and protested a Holocaust Remembrance Day march on May 5in Russellville, Arkansas (pictured preparing and marching, below).

In June, Calfy, 24 (on the far right of the boat, above, and seated next to the Confederate flag, below), Nicholas Holloway, 20 (seated far left in the boat), and John Carollo, 29 (standing at left of boat, with neck tattoo), created a Grindr account for a fictitious 15-year-old, used it to lure a man to Calfys home (which they called the Hate House), and assaulted him, leaving a scar across his chest and a welt the size of a golf ball on his head. Calfy called 911 and claimed they had apprehended their victim as part of a vigilante To Catch a Predator scheme. All three were arrested and, earlier this month, took plea agreements and were sentenced to probation, including Calfy, who previously served five years in prison for possession of explosives and threatening to carry out a mass shooting at his high school.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Loyal White Knights of the KKK chaplain Douglas Munker is pictured on September 8 in Yanceyville, North Carolina, with the head of the group, Chris Barker, Barkers wife, Amanda, and another member at a gathering at the Barkers home (photos above). In 2017, when Munker lived on Long Island, he was found distributing KKK literature near East Hampton Middle School. Flyering is a way for hate groups to recruit and stir up fear with little risk. According to the Anti-Defamation League, white-supremacist propaganda surged 182 percent in 2018. In a review of news items from this past year, New York found at least 300 incidents of vandalism involving a swastika: at a Queens elementary school and a California synagogue, at Yale Law School and a Missouri park, on a baby crib at a hotel in Florida, and in dozens of other states.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Neo-Nazi Jovi Val, pictured above on Fifth Avenue on September 18, was disowned by the Proud Boys a year ago after he organized a rally in support of members of the far right facing charges for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, including James Fields, who would be convicted of murdering Heather Heyer. The Proud Boys sought to distance themselves from Charlottesville. Many of the subjects in these photos were eager to condemn violence when interviewed, but their actions this year suggest otherwise: Many were training for a race war, or carrying shotguns at a Pride parade, or bragging about beating up anti-fascist protesters. In October, two Proud Boys were sentenced to four years in prison for attacking protesters outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan.

*A version of this article appears in the December 23, 2019, issue ofNew York Magazine. Subscribe Now! To read more about the reporting process behind this story, click here.

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Inside the White Nationalist Terrorist Movement in America - New York Magazine

The rebranding campaign made a warm and fuzzy appeal: Facebook is where you look at pictures of puppies and babies. Its where you can stay connected with loved ones, wherever they may be. But in private, the company was embracing Thiels conservative values.

Much of this has come out via the companys shifting relationship with the media. Last year, Facebook empowered former Republican Senator Jon Kyl to investigate the conservative claim that Facebook, like other Silicon Valley tech companies, was suppressing speech from the right. Like a similar partnership with the Heritage Foundation, the move may have been intended to bolster the companys credibility with conservatives. But it backfired, with Kyl blasting the company for not taking conservatives concerns about speech seriously, even though those concerns had little to no basis.

Then, in October, Facebook launched a partnership with a number of news outlets. Facebook had become synonymous with the fake news problem, and its response was to empower legitimate outlets by launching Facebook News, a tab on its mobile app. But one of Facebooks new partners was Breitbart, the alt-right hub that regularly publishes racist stories. As The Verges Casey Newton noted at the time, Breitbart was included in the tab precisely for ideological reasons. Certainly no one at Facebook seems to be suggesting that Breitbart is a reliable producer of high-quality journalismthe argument seems to be rather that it would be poor form to exclude them just because they once (for example) tagged relevant stories with the label black crime.

Meanwhile, Zuckerbergs public rhetoric has gotten more MAGA. He now makes a nationalistic argument on behalf of Facebook: Empower us, or cede ground to China. Defending the companys digital currency, Libra, before Congress this summer, Zuckerberg said, I believe that if America does not lead innovation in the digital currency and payments area, others will. If we fail to act, we could soon see a digital currency controlled by others whose values are dramatically different.

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Facebook Is a Right-Wing Company, Part One Million - The New Republic

Spoiler alert! The following reveals key plot points from"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." Stop reading now if you don't want to know.

When they say don't feed the trolls, it's implied that you shouldn't make movies catered to their every whim, either.

Like politics and journalism, Hollywood movies inspire their fair share of abusive and abhorrent behavior online. These trolls aren't just expressing negative views of a movie they're campaigning to take that movie down at the box office and to hurt the people who made it.

But in the quest to please all potential moviegoers, there has seemingly been an alarming trend in filmmaking of late that is starting to trickle into theaters: creating films designed to satisfy the most hateful, abusive segments of the internet.

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One of trolls' complaints about Daisy Ridley's Rey: She couldn't possibly be important to "Star Wars" if her parents were junk traders.(Photo: Disney)

One of the most toxicgroup of fans online is a certain segment of the "Star Wars" fandom, and the new film will all but make them giddy."Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,"directed by J.J. Abrams, concludes the latest trilogy about the Skywalker clan that was last seen onscreen in 2017's "The Last Jedi," directed by Rian Johnson. "Jedi" is a film that is systemically hated by many trolls. "Skywalker" makes many choices that are counter to what "Jedi" established, and containsso much fan service it might as well have been made by them.

Many complaints about "Jedi"are either subtly or overtly sexist and racist. The men are emasculated. The women are too powerful. The characters of color don't belong. Rey can't be important if her parents were junk traders.Many complaints are more about story and character, arguing that the film flew in the face of "Star Wars" tradition and broke the rules of the universe.An alt-right troll claimedcredit for tanking the film's audience score on popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes (the site has denied this), and there was intense racist, sexist harassment aimed atKelly Marie Tran, who played Resistance fighter Rose Tico.

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Sparks fly in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" between Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Finn (John Boyega).(Photo: DAVID JAMES)

It'san awfully big coincidence that so many of the gripes about "Jedi from the bowels of the internet were heeded in "Skywalker." Its a coincidence that Tran's Roseis sidelined completely in this film. Its a coincidence that Rey is suddenly the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine. Its a coincidence that Han (Harrison Ford), Luke (Mark Hamill), Lando (Billy Dee Williams) and even Wedge Antilles (Denis Lawson) all return, some from beyond the grave.

Whether or not "Skywalker" was a direct response to the backlash against "Jedi," it is undeniably a retreat from the risks Johnson took with that film, landing the franchise so safely it becomes boring and messy. The film looks and feels like it was designed by committee, with too many acts, too many fight scenes and too little emotional resonance. It was trying to please everyone and offend no one.

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More 'Star Wars': How director Rian Johnson's 'Last Jedi' backlash inspired a 'Knives Out' internet troll

The redesigned Sonic the Hedgehog, shown in a still from the latest movie trailer.(Photo: PARAMOUNT PICTURES)

This trend goes beyond an overly cautious "Star Wars" film. Two films that haven't even been released yet, "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," are heading down this same path.

"Sonic" (in theatersFeb. 14) has admittedly been influenced by online reaction.When the first trailer for the live-action film about the video-game characterwas released online, the backlash was swift and vitriolic. In particular, fans took issue with the humanoid appearance of the CGI Sonic. The response was loud enough, apparently, that the studio reversed course immediately, with director Jeff Fowler tweeting that the character would be redesigned.

"Ghostbusters: Afterlife" will be the second attempt at revisitingthe 1980s "Ghostbusters" franchise. The first was Paul Feig's 2016reboot "Ghostbusters," featuring a primarilyfemale cast, which became a slight box-office disappointment and the victim of an organized troll campaign, particularly a racist one directed at star Leslie Jones.

"Afterlife" (out July 10)is directed by original director Ivan Reitman's son Jason and stars Paul Rudd, andthe first trailer revealed an achingly sombertone with littlelevity. The message to fans of the Feig movie appeared to be: The studio didn't take "Ghostbusters," and the man children who cried that it "ruined their childhoods," seriously enough. Now just look how seriously they're taking it.

"Ghostbusters: Afterlife," hitting theaters in 2020, will have original and new cast members.(Photo: COLUMBIA PICTURES)

As loud as online voices can be, they are not usually indicative of what the greater population thinks.Hatred for "Jedi"is a distinctly online phenomenon. Despite alow user rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie receivedan "A" from moviegoers on Cinemascore. The movie didn't make as much money as "The Force Awakens," but it did make a cool $1.3 billion at the global box office. But, sure, everyone hates it.

It seems uncanny,bad forbusiness and terrible for storytelling for any kind of mass-produced productto try to capture the attention of so few people. The rest of us are left wanting."Skywalker" is getting eviscerated by critics in large part because of its undoing of "Jedi." How many more movies can we redesign via trending Twitter topics? Many thought Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" was too long, so maybe Netflix should cut an hour because some anonymous hashtag said so.

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Although the "Sonic" director explicitly stated his movie's redo was the result of online response, we can't know for sure about "Ghostbusters" or "Skywalker." And there is theslim possibility thatthe first trailer for "Ghostbusters" could be a head fake in terms of its tone.

But even if the storytelling choices had nothing to do with the online discourse, they skirt too close to it. Like a child who throws a temper tantrum in the store for a piece of candy, we shouldn't reward those who abuse internet platforms with moviescurated to their tastes, even if the parent was going to give the kid the candy bar anyway. It doesn't help make good movies, it doesn't help clean up the internet wasteland, and it certainly isn't helping casual moviegoers enjoy a well-produced film.

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Was 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' made to please 'The Last Jedi' trolls? It sure seems like it - USA TODAY

Writer-director Rian Johnson took inspiration from his favorite Agatha Christie mysteries for Knives Out, which has has been holding its own with adult audiences at the fall box office. But he told the crowd at Deadlines recent The Contenders New York that he also wanted to write a modern-day original.

In the tradition of Christie ensembles, the all-star cast of the Lionsgate film plays possible suspects in a murder mystery. Daniel Craig is Benoit Blanc, the sleuth investigating the Thrombey family and their maid (Ana de Armas) after the death of patriarch author Harlan (Christopher Plummer). Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell play the Thrombeys. They represent the 1%, with some specific 2019 digressions. For example young Jacob (Martell) is an alt-right online troll.

We see it today, its usually an Agatha Christie adaptation, Johnson, joined onstage by his producer Ram Bergman, told the DGA Theater crowd of Academy and guild voters. Its usually a period piece set in Britain. Its easy to forget that when she was writing, its not like she was a heavy political writer, but she was always engaging with contemporary British society of her time through her characters.

He added: I love the Agatha Christie adaptations, but the notion of doing an original and really plugging it into 2019 America, not just giving it a modern skin but using this little microcosm to look at that, that seemed like that could be really interesting.

The mystery unfolds in the Thrombey house, which is a character unto itself. One day we saw a picture, we said, This looks like the house, Bergman said. I took Rian there while he was still writing and we zeroed in on the house, but it took us like months and months to actually negotiate a deal. We literally cemented it like two weeks before we started filming.

Check out the conversation in the video above.

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'Knives Out's Rian Johnson On The One Thing Missing From Modern Mysteries The Contenders NY Video - Deadline