I think Ebert's kind of a dick, but he's close to the very interesting way fandom overlaps with religion. I'll say this, too, conversations with fans get way less boring if you know how to ask pointed questions.
Hollow people fill themselves with meaning by falling into the embrace of Luke Skywalker or Jesus Christ in much the same way. A pointy question might be "why do you believe in god?" or "what makes you think Star Wars is worth paying attention to?" We often sketch these types of questions as rude, but they really don't have to be.
In deep fandom as in deep religion, you become an "expert," you buy the merch, you debate canon over trivia you've already made up your mind about, you master the lane and then stay in it. It's a parallel social process, turning towards a known cultural institution for comfort in the face of a cruel & unfair world, and I think it's facinating.
We can meet these folk with more compassion than Roger manages to muster up here, but I also think we need to be aware of when someone's so wounded it's not the time to pull their covers back, or whether we even can or should. Sometimes you just leave these circles because you're a bigger, healthier person than those who stay in them. You can criticize fandom like this and not be wrong, but Ebert's only scratching at the surface level of a really interesting phenomenon.
It's actual insane how much fandom and religion overlap. For example, "canon" is a term that's originally about which interpretation of scripture is correct. Fandom & religion even become similar in terms of their insular cultures and exclusion of others. Look back on the history of church schisms and tell me they aren't showcasing the same kind of drama that plays out in fan communities today.
For me, a really neat piece of this is how fandom and religion both attempt to define culture within certain lines, and those definitions are ultimately destined to fail if you read too literally. You can learn from Jesus as much as you can from Yoda, but if you treat anything they have to say as literal, gospel truth, you're putting too much authority in the hands of one fake guy. I think embracing the mystery & the ambiguity is empowering, but it's not without some peril of its own.
A literal interpretation of a text is certain, it's rock solid, it's well defined and safe. But we very much lack the tools to be that literal about anything, and scientists will be the first people to confirm that for you. Our condition is inevitably one of ambiguity, and it's quite telling how uncomfortable that makes us.
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