They make women matter in the universe. Women are no longer held back and the universe for sure became more diverse since the defeat of the Empire. Women have top tier positions and a woman becomes the greatest force user in the history of the universe
shareLeia mattered. Leia rescued Han and Luke *during* their rescue attempt. She's always the one with the plan, organising, putting it all together. She's running things during the Death Star battle, she's running things during the Hoth evacuation. She throttles Jabba. She hops on that speeder bike faster than anybody else. Who held her back?
Mon Mothma was the leader the rebellion. That's top tier. She's the opposite number to the Emperor.
So Disney didn't make women matter in the universe. They already did.
Disney put in more female characters, which was more realistic, I guess? Since you'd expect that number to be around 50%. But Disney didn't make women matter more.
Women never didn't matter. And Disney did not write strong female characters they wrote weak, entitled princess female characters (example: Rey is given multiple moments that are supposed to be epic that she never had to work for, Rey is the very definition of a weak female character). Also I know I don't need to say this but I don't go to a Star Wars film for an identity politics lesson. I think you're just playing the victim and need to grow up.
shareYes, the universe needs more admiral purple-hairs and other kamikaze female pilots who incite mutiny in their crews.
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Best bit is it's all make believe, just like in real life.
shareThey always mattered. The only people who think Disney first invented this in Star Wars are the same idiots who never watched the first 2 trilogies, never read the Expanded Universe Books, and never played Star Wars the Old Republic, or any of the actual Star Wars games. Trust me, they mattered; and the women in the earlier stories were realistic and worked to become heroes, rather than have the script do it for them. That, and they could handle sharing the spotlight with men, unlike the ridiculously lame, bitchy, feminazi avatars Kathleen Kennedy dreamed up for this shit trilogy.
shareThe original post was like people crowing about Captain Marvel and just forgetting Wonder Woman, Supergirl (the TV Series...we all want to forget the film...), Alien, Kill Bill, and all the other "geek" properties with female leads.
shareYes there seems to be this cognitive dissonance where all the great female action heroes are forgotten to push the theory that anyone that does not like the Disney Female heroes is a bigot, sexist or racist. It is sort of insulting and the argument is getting tiresome.
In fact in seems to me that almost all defense of characters like Rey seems to be undergirded with this agenda. It seems those that want to prop up the disney era action heroes have a huge chip on their shoulders and want to ignore the competent and compelling female heroes and tear down the male of the past.
I think it's people who liked the movie and who hate that others didn't. I don't know why, but a lot of people do this. It's probably something about our tribalism-wired brains.
It's not enough to say, "I thought the movie was fun. Not Citizen Kane, but I liked it." So they guard against criticism by silencing those who disliked the film. Maybe this is because of the virulence of attack against these movies? I didn't like them, but they don't deserve some of the vitriol poured out over them.
Some portion is, no doubt, just SJW madness. But I think a lot of it is just strangely over-wrought defending of personal taste.
Yes you are right; but I think that the reason there is such a polarized effect is because of people like me. I make an argument that a film can be objectively bad; but that sometimes people (myself included) can like an objectively bad movie. In terms of the Disney Star Wars; I say they are so poorly written in terms of story and character that they are objectively bad films(in fact I say TFA was the worse big budget film I have ever seen) but it is okay if people like them. But I sort of expect people to admit they are bad, and if they don't admit it they have to make a compelling argument for why they are not bad.
Now because they are actually bad films people have a hard time making those compelling arguments and they kind of know it; which is why the response is so exaggerated. This effect I think has always existed among people arguing about objective merit vs subjective preference of films but the age of the internet chats seems to have exacerbated the effect. Also as you said there is some part of the SJW and virtue signalling madness mixed in as well.
Also I find that many times people seem to worship themselves and their own opinion. So any attack upon their opinion they seem to respond like it was an attack on their religion.
I know exactly what you mean! When "Black Panther" came out, everyone acted like he was the very first black superhero to grace the screen, when in fact, we already had them on screen 20 years ago! We had Blade, the guy on Spawn, Blankman (don't ask, it's a comedy), and Storm! How could they forget those guys so quickly?! Do these people have a 5-second memory or something?
shareI think some of it is marketing: studios push a narrative because they're looking for an audience. I don't think of this as *entirely* bad, either. Who is the audience for Black Panther? Well, non-white audiences hadn't seen a Marvel cinematic universe film lead by a person of colour, so get the word out: here is one.
Some of it is the times. It is - for some - hip to be woke. It's cool to be on the cusp of social justice trends and, hey, not entirely wrongly, either. It is a good thing to be an agent for social change in a positive direction. I lament a LOT of SJW trends, but seeing more types of voices from diverse backgrounds leads to very original material coming through (Get Out, for instance).
A lot of it is, I think, five-second memory. It's why every generation remembers the good old days and harps on the next generation. So, some of that is involved.
But it's still annoying when somebody starts running their mouth about it without researching or being knowledgeable. And what I really despise is when it's used as an offensive guard against people who don't like the film. "Oh, you didn't like the new Ghostbusters? Probably 'cuz you're sexist!" It's appalling behaviour.
Exactly, inclusion in itself is not a bad thing; but the marketing over saturating it and creating this woke agenda of suggesting the world is racist for not including more diversity sooner is a bad thing.
As you say, it is this hip to be woke trend that studios like disney are into.
Yeah the most annoying thing is the fact that objective merrit based criticisms are ignored in place of a strawman argument.
I know and love Blankman (Damon Waynes) freaking hilarious movie. I have not seen it in like 20 years I think. But yeah there was this reaction to Black Panther like it was some achievement in history. I guess they were just excited that the MCU was getting the first black lead superhero film. I guess that is fine to be happy about it but the pretense that it was some great leap forward was a bit much and seemed to want to write away the history of Black superheros.
I find this same argument about making James Bond a black actor. I am like there already was a black version of James Bond, his name was John Shaft and those films came out like 50 years ago.
To be fair, I'm not a huge James Bond fan. I like some of the movies, but most bored me, and I didn't bother with Daniel "I'll-use-my-fists-instead-of-my-brain" Craig. So I'm not gonna care what woke crap they'll do to Bond anyway.
shareI am only a 'fan' of the OG Bond (Sean Connery). I have some nostalgia for the Moore films as well but not as good.
The point I am trying to make is there are all these characters from the past and also many more that can be created or adapted, why do they want to remake, reboot, resequel, rehash, preboot etc all these old IP but replace the old characters with Diversity quotas. Just make new franchises with new compelling characters. You want a female version of James Bond; do more films like Atomic Blond but make them as compelling films as the bond films. You want black superheroes, they should do more films like Black Panther and Blade. But I agree they shouldn't make it so... i don't know, 'everything was racist before this moment' type of marketing.
I agree, that the representation of female characters in the films was light, in the OT really only Leia even seemed to exist. But the increase of inclusion of female characters should not have been so riddled with overcompensation in the form of making all the female character great and wonderful and all the male characters incompetent. That just reeks of agenda (feminazi as you would call it).
shareI remember talking to some of these idiots from the most recent generation who are old enough to graduate high school and college. They act as if the world started 5 years ago, and any movies/tv shows made before that are irrelevant. I mean, I made some nice movie recommendations to them, and some of them go "Whoa! That came out before I was born!" or "Wow, that's an old movie!" and I'm like "Yeah, so? I watch lots of stuff that came out before I was born. Doesn't make it a bad movie." Heck, I wasn't even around when the original Star Wars trilogy came out! ROTJ came out the year my brother was born, for crying out loud!
shareYeah, the younger generation seems to have lost a lot of respect for classic cinema; when I was a child I had a real respect for black and white films; today I talk to some younger adults about the films that came out in the 90's and they act like it is some age forgotten.
shareIt's because my parents are Baby-Boomers that I got a chance to appreciate older films and what they have to offer, both story-wise, and seeing the world in a different way through story-telling. There's a lot the older movies can teach us about people's perspective from times past, as well as showing that some things truly have not changed about humanity. Some of the themes that keep showing up in film are a good way to connect with the past.
shareThere does seem to be a generational gap. Me, I grew up and I think the generation before grew up on Movies and music. There was not much in terms of video games and there was no internet. I mean I remember the only console anyone was using was Nintendo. You can only play so much Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong. So movies were the primary form of entertainment. Since the late 90's that seems to have changed. Gaming and social media is where it is at now; so there is no real time to stop and go back and watch older movies. Everything is about what is new today. There is no time to stop and think, just keep consuming.
This is how they get away with making movies like the Star Wars sequels; they don't have to care if it is good because people will consume and as long as you produce the next product quickly no one will pay attention to the crap writing. It works; Rise of Skywalker was a joke of a film but people already moved on to Mandolorian.
Leia was a badass long before Ripley or Sarah Conner
shareNot saying I agree with the OP but didn't Alien come out before Star Wars?
shareStar Wars (1977)
Alien (1979)
My mistake; I thought Alien came out in 76. I stand corrected. Still 2 years I would not say is "long before" Ripley.
shareshe also didn't become a badass until ALIENS (1986)
shareand Sarah Conner didn't become one until T2 (1991)
shareLeia was blasting MFers with a space shotgun in 1977, she was far ahead of her time
shareI agree* (with Leia being ahead of her time in films); but Ripley and Sarah Connor demonstrated great strength of character and growth. They both start out as victims in their first movies but by the end become characters of action. Just because they weren't 'blasting Mfers' doesn't mean they weren't bad ass. That is just a simplistic way to define strong competent characters. There is more to strength than blasting and fighting.
So no, I disagree. Ripley was a bad ass in 1979 and Sarah Connor was a bad ass by the end of T1 in 1984.
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shareVery true, however I will offer this: her character was set up to be badass in part 1. Not just because you see her coming out of her shell, but specifically from dialog between her and Reese and the story Reese tells from her son and how she trained him. It was always intended, but she had to go through a TON to get there (the key difference!).
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shareI can agree that the OT especially seemed to have only 1 female character and that is a little bit bland; but the counter reaction to this in the Disney trilogy to make the female characters too perfect, too competent and too powerful was the wrong move to make.
Why does it take the belittling of the male characters to make the female look better? Why can't they all have their own individual talents. For example why can't Rey be the competent force power user, but not so good with the lightsaber and piloting; let Finn be the jedi that is good with teh lightsaber and Poe be the one that flies. Why did Leia have to overshadow luke and be the teacher that Luke failed to be (to a pathetic level). Why couldn't they have Luke start the training competently like Obi-wan and Leia finish it (sort of like Yoda). Why have the flashback scene that shows Leia defeating Luke and having him down on the ground amazed in wonder at her ability? Why does these films have to exagerrate the competence of the female characters at the expense of incompetence of the men. I don't remember the OT ever making Leia look so pathetic. The only time you can say she was, was when she was captured by Jabba but then she strangles the mo'fo on her own; thus cementing her as a bad ass. see what I am getting at here. They could have made females the lead and increased the 'diversity' if it did not come at the expense of the story and characters. In the case of the Disney star wars diversity was not the strength.
You're right. Ticking off diversity and virtue-signaling boxes for a film's cast should not take the place of character development. It's a very lazy way to write, and even idiots in the audience are calling these fools out on it.
I always found it stupid that Rey could use the Force without any help or training from anyone. Even the most powerful force-users had to spend a few years training with a master in order to even figure out how to harness their abilities, never mind actually using them. And yet, she can just spontaneously use them, without anyone ever showing her how, or what the Force can do. That makes no sense whatsoever. That, and she never gets into a real, lasting romantic relationship with anybody? Or that the only candidates were Beta Male, diverse losers? (Don't get me started on Crylo Ren. I could write a whole book on what was wrong with him!) Give me a break!
Rey's ability to just spontaneously use force powers does not only make no sense, it is 100% lore (continuity) breaking. Literally ever character in the Star Wars universe for 40 years at that point required at least SOME training before they could use any force abilities beyond passive reflexes and intuition. Until Rey that is. The worse part is at first they provided no reason for her to be so good (we are supposed to just accept she is just awesome) then they try to retro in some force dyad/Emperor's Granddaughter nonsense that they not only didn't set up but also doesn't explain her ability to just learn force powers without training or being shown
I am okay with her not having any romantic relationship; but what I am not okay with is this crap of her being the 'bestess' at everything and everyone just standing in dumb eyed awe at her.
I think many will agree with you, and there are even people who have made memes about this ;)
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