Disney buys Lucasfilms(/Star Wars)

[Howmanheyman 33827]

See! That's what it means. Use the term all the time, myself.

[Park Life 71]

Our masters noticed half the population wasn't paying tax. That's it.

 

What followed was a massive media barrage starting in the 70's and 80's to reconfigure their identity and make them want things (it started in magazines). Women were resistant to capitalism (penny pinching housewife) whereas men were easily fooled by shiny things and horsepower. Women were remade and the family ideals of the 50's chucked out the window.

 

The current media obsession with sexual identity is the follow up (LGBT) as the strong male is now to be done away with as well. He is simply old fashioned don't cha know...

 

Stalin said it took 50-70 years to change society, Bernaise did it in 20...The classic getting women to smoke is still taught on media courses.

 

The new Luke who knows more about the Millennium Falcon than even Hans Solo. It's an androgynous de-sexualised pixie figure.

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Park Life

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3962]

Nobody complains about stupid unrealistic male characters. Non comic book ones.

[Meenzer 15716]

I'm starting to understand why those Fathers 4 Justice protests so often involve men dressed in superhero outfits.

[Rayvin 5295]

Nobody complains about stupid unrealistic male characters. Non comic book ones.

Starwars kind of is comic book though... If they had done the same thing with a guy I'd feel the same.

 

It has to be open to criticism at the end of the day or it does no one any favours.

[Happy Face 29]

 

One criticism I never hear about male led action films. "It was shite, he was too competent".

[Rayvin 5295]

I said that about Thor actually. But KCG ruled it out with his comic book qualifier.

[Kid Dynamite 7169]

Our masters noticed half the population wasn't paying tax. That's it.

 

What followed was a massive media barrage starting in the 70's and 80's to reconfigure their identity and make them want things (it started in magazines). Women were resistant to capitalism (penny pinching housewife) whereas men were easily fooled by shiny things and horsepower. Women were remade and the family ideals of the 50's chucked out the window.

 

The current media obsession with sexual identity is the follow up (LGBT) as the strong male is now to be done away with as well. He is simply old fashioned don't cha know...

 

Stalin said it took 50-70 years to change society, Bernaise did it in 20...The classic getting women to smoke is still taught on media courses.

 

The new Luke who knows more about the Millennium Falcon than even Hans Solo. It's an androgynous de-sexualised pixie figure.

 

Is she meant to be de-sexualised? Cos I think she's fit as fuck

[Park Life 71]

It's a man/woman.

[Park Life 71]

 

One criticism I never hear about male led action films. "It was shite, he was too competent".

Bond and Bourne are another kettle of fish innit.

 

Both are psychologically emasculated - Bond is adopted and has a lingering father complex (shares his dad with a villain) and Bourne carries obvious psychological trauma. Their brutish violent acting out of inner demons renders them incomplete as real men but knee jerk victims of their own inner turmoil. Both are unfinished articles....When Bond is confronted about his life he replies 'I don't really think about it'.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/11/why-fiction-needs-more-female-spies

Edited September 3, 2016 by Park Life

[Kid Dynamite 7169]

But they're both good at knacking people and shagging lasses which is the important thing

Edited September 3, 2016 by StraightEdgeWizard

[Monkeys Fist 43063]

[The Fish 10963]

So let me get this straight; the new Star Wars heroine is an androgynous omnipotent character and that's a bad thing.

 

But it's ok that Luke Skywalker is an androgynous omnipotent character because he's a bloke? 

 

There's plenty of reasons to criticise the Star Wars movies, but that they've a powerful woman in the lead isn't chief amongst them.

[Meenzer 15716]

It is if you're terrified by your relationship with your own masculinity.

 

Or something.

[OTF 7485]

The term Mary Sue was gender neutral as far as I knew. It's kinda the character equivalent of deus ex machina.

[Rayvin 5295]

So let me get this straight; the new Star Wars heroine is an androgynous omnipotent character and that's a bad thing.

 

But it's ok that Luke Skywalker is an androgynous omnipotent character because he's a bloke? 

 

There's plenty of reasons to criticise the Star Wars movies, but that they've a powerful woman in the lead isn't chief amongst them.

 

Luke wasn't omnipotent... he was androgynous I grant you (that was more Parky's area) but he sure as shit wasn't omnipotent.

 

 

Rei learns the force far too quickly with no tutoring whatsoever. Luke needed to be trained by a master and even then he was basically shit until the last film. Rei had no training at all but managed to overpower Kylo Ren both in a lightsaber fight and with various aspects of the force. I'm not saying Ren is great, but he had presumably been training for years since he's potentially the one that destroyed the training school that Luke developed. Why on earth would he lose? Unless he is just the worst sith/dark jedi ever. Even if he is though, it still has the effect of making Rei look all powerful.

 

 

I really don't think they're comparable.

[Rayvin 5295]

The term Mary Sue was gender neutral as far as I knew. It's kinda the character equivalent of deus ex machina.

 

I have to say I thought it was gendered (probably because of the name), but if it isn't I'll happily call Thor a 'Mary Sue' from now on. It's more concise than calling him an invincible douchebag who is under no real threat at any point in the story and could resolve the whole thing, if he wanted to, in the first half an hour.

[Alex 35570]

Let me get this straight, Fish has a problem with people having a problem with something?

[The Fish 10963]

Luke wasn't omnipotent... he was androgynous I grant you (that was more Parky's area) but he sure as shit wasn't omnipotent.

 

 

Rei learns the force far too quickly with no tutoring whatsoever. Luke needed to be trained by a master and even then he was basically shit until the last film. Rei had no training at all but managed to overpower Kylo Ren both in a lightsaber fight and with various aspects of the force. I'm not saying Ren is great, but he had presumably been training for years since he's potentially the one that destroyed the training school that Luke developed. Why on earth would he lose? Unless he is just the worst sith/dark jedi ever. Even if he is though, it still has the effect of making Rei look all powerful.

 

 

I really don't think they're comparable.

 

In the very first film Luke is able to use the force to direct the missiles he fires, down a small vent and destroy the Death Star. The training he'd had up to that was what, duelling with a floaty orb? In the second film he goes toe-to-toe with Vader (who's supposed to be one of the most powerful force users ever) again, with close to fuck all training.  Also, until this trilogy is over we are unclear as to Rei's power and how much influence Luke was exerting upon her? And yes, maybe Kylo Ren is a bit shit, or at the very least conflicted?  

 

I'm not saying Rei isn't stupidly powerful, I'm asking why, in this concocted universe, does it matter?

[The Fish 10963]

Let me get this straight, Fish has a problem with people having a problem with something?

I don't have a problem with people having a problem with something, I have a problem with there being problems with a person's problem with something. I find it problematic.

[Rayvin 5295]

In the very first film Luke is able to use the force to direct the missiles he fires, down a small vent and destroy the Death Star. The training he'd had up to that was what, duelling with a floaty orb? In the second film he goes toe-to-toe with Vader (who's supposed to be one of the most powerful force users ever) again, with close to fuck all training.  Also, until this trilogy is over we are unclear as to Rei's power and how much influence Luke was exerting upon her? And yes, maybe Kylo Ren is a bit shit, or at the very least conflicted?  

 

I'm not saying Rei isn't stupidly powerful, I'm asking why, in this concocted universe, does it matter?

 

I'm going to spoiler tag my whole response since I can't be bothered working out which bits are and are not spoilers.

 

 

I don't think using the force to place a shot is quite the same as mind control, pushing back against 'force interrogation' and just being really good with a lightsaber. Also in film two, Vader is actively trying to recruit Luke, not kill him - and even so, he'd had more training by that point than Rei who had never actually turned her lightsaber on by the time she was fighting Ren. 

 

I'm not saying that the fact she's a girl matters, I'm saying the fact that she's hopelessly overpowered to the point where it looks like Disney is at best playing up to social movements (feminism) rather than developing a compelling narrative. I mean from here, where does the story go? We've established than Ren is fucking useless and can't beat her. She's better than he is. Even if he spends the next five years training, she's better than he is with no training at all. It's like Messi vs Shola at this point. He's lucky to even be alive ffs! 

 

 

I would be saying the same stuff if she was a guy (concerning the film story at least). My cynicism suggests to me that the underlying reason for the Mary Sueing is to appeal to the Twitter/Tumblr crowd, but I actually care less about that than the fact that it's set a very low expectation for the entire trilogy.

[Happy Face 29]

Luke was a slow witted mong.  That's why it took him 6 years to get any good with the force.  It's not Rey's fault she's better than him.

 

Darth Vader was winning the biggest pod races in the Galaxy when he was 5 year old.  No-one moaned about him being a Mary Sue.  The racists just picked on Jar Jar Binks for his Afro Caribbean laid back demeanour in those films.

 

Different Jedi have different midi-chlorian counts.  "The force is strong in this one" can't apply to women among misogynists though. Leia had to be rescued and sit out the battles despite the force in her lineage and that's the way nerds like it.

[The Fish 10963]

I'm going to spoiler tag my whole response since I can't be bothered working out which bits are and are not spoilers.

 

 

I don't think using the force to place a shot is quite the same as mind control, pushing back against 'force interrogation' and just being really good with a lightsaber. Also in film two, Vader is actively trying to recruit Luke, not kill him - and even so, he'd had more training by that point than Rei who had never actually turned her lightsaber on by the time she was fighting Ren. 

 

I'm not saying that the fact she's a girl matters, I'm saying the fact that she's hopelessly overpowered to the point where it looks like Disney is at best playing up to social movements (feminism) rather than developing a compelling narrative. I mean from here, where does the story go? We've established than Ren is fucking useless and can't beat her. She's better than he is. Even if he spends the next five years training, she's better than he is with no training at all. It's like Messi vs Shola at this point. He's lucky to even be alive ffs! 

 

 

I would be saying the same stuff if she was a guy (concerning the film story at least). My cynicism suggests to me that the underlying reason for the Mary Sueing is to appeal to the Twitter/Tumblr crowd, but I actually care less about that than the fact that it's set a very low expectation for the entire trilogy.

 

I don't think it's a feminism thing, I just think it's a bad writing thing. I don't doubt there's pressure to redress the imbalance when it comes to the number of male protagonists in action/adventure stories, but her seeming supremely powerful isn't SJW feministas or whatever, it's just bad writing.

 

The new prequel movie looks all right from the trailers (but then, so did Suicide Squad), and I couldn't give a toss that the lead is a girl. It certainly isn't suggesting she's an uber-Jedi in waiting, just a competent protagonist.

 

Re: what to expect from the forthcoming sequels, I expect Ren will continue to struggle with his choices and the Big Bad will test Rei's resolve. I'd anticipate another couple of duels between these two, and that those duels will be a closer match. Perhaps Rei's arrogant? Perhaps Ren isn't distracted by the patricide he just committed?

 

End of the day, isn't "bringing balance" what the whole Star Wars folklore is about?

[Rayvin 5295]

Luke was a slow witted mong.  That's why it took him 6 years to get any good with the force.  It's not Rey's fault she's better than him.

 

Darth Vader was winning the biggest pod races in the Galaxy when he was 5 year old.  No-one moaned about him being a Mary Sue.  The racists just picked on Jar Jar Binks for his Afro Caribbean laid back demeanour in those films.

 

Different Jedi have different midi-chlorian counts.  "The force is strong in this one" can't apply to women among misogynists though. Leia had to be rescued and sit out the battles despite the force in her lineage and that's the way nerds like it.

 

I mean, come on.

 

1 - Luke and Rei are both fictional. 'It isn't her fault that she's better' is a bizarre thing to say. She is a written character. She was written a certain way for a reason.

 

2 - Loads of people moaned about the first film. I can't recall if pod-racing was amongst the complaints but I agree, a five year old winning pod racing is dumb. Not sure it's Mary Sueing but if it is then I happily accept that. Fortunately it wasn't a trilogy spanning plot point. They did overpower Anakin in the follow up films, but this came with massive personality failures to balance it. Also, the consensus was that these films were bad. They were railed at for being bad.

 

My point here is that Disney have already blown their collective load on the final victory of the good guys. Rei is already better in the force than the bad guy. Who will go away and whine about it, probably come back in the second film with some means to get back at her without actually fighting her since he'd be annihilated if he did, before she eventually wipes the floor with him in the final film. Luke wasn't better with the force than the bad guys in his trilogy at any point. Therefore there was some 'threat'.

 

3 - You got me. I'm a misogynist. You can always tell when someone has a winning argument when lines like that come out. You realise your argument could have stood without that point, and we'd just be two people discussing the merits of the film? I think it's poorly written and I think it's written that way to pursue an agenda. I don't give a shit about the agenda, it just bothers me that it is poorly written, in my view, because of this.

[The Fish 10963]

Vaders #1 you nerds

 

He should be, but the prequels turned one of the most iconic bad guys into a snivelling whining shit. They Twilight-ed Darth bloody Vader ffs.