Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Post-release)

[vader1974]

After reading the novel, I wonder if Rey's parentage was shared with the author or whether some of the dialogue was pulled from the screenplay. Seems like all the key players (Leia, Han, Chewie, Snoke, and Ren) know who Rey is.

 

[spastromech]

QFT! Modern action movies are pure garbage. There is only one movie made in the last 22 years (since Shawshank) that is an all-time classic: Gladiator.

The Wook

Because of the strong, white male lead in the gladiator costume, right?

 

[Solo4114]

Just wanted to throw this in for s$&ts and giggles.

View attachment 576914


Ben

Minor quibble, but that's Luke in ESB. You can tell by Mark Hamill's face, and by the fact that his suit has the puffy collar.

Thank you, Axlotl. You are right. My wish was merely to vent about my disgust with the film. Not to troll those who like it. Heck, I wasn't even trying to convince people to see it my way. But my expressed opinions drew some nasty responses, asking me to leave the thread, calling me a misogynist, a sexist, etc. So I engaged my attackers. But then I got piled onto, because I'm clearly outnumbered in this thread. I thought Bryancd and everyone strongly wanted ALL comments, positive or negative, in this master thread. But that isn't true. No dissenters allowed, here.

The Wook

The misogyny comments were because you dismissed Rey as just some embodiment of Hollywood's liberal agenda. While the comment itself isn't necessarily misogynist, the underlying attitude that the comment conveys can be taken that way. It suggests that Rey being female and having that much power is somehow inappropriate because she's female. By calling out the liberal agenda, your comment can be taken to suggest that it's her femininity coupled with her power that is objectionable, and that it's only done to serve the liberal agenda...and that's where the misogyny comes in.

You don't seem troubled by the fact that both Luke and Anakin have fantastic power with next to no training (or, in Anakin's case, zero training), which calls into question whether your issue is with a character having apparently unlimited power, or with a girl character having unlimited power. And you seem to discount, ignore, or simply missed the fact that the filmmakers lampshaded the mystery of the source of Rey's abilities and the fact that they're way, way more than what we should expect. When Rey is, herself, stunned at how well she flew the Falcon, or doesn't understand why Finn doesn't speak droid, or where she seems surprised that JB-007 accedes to her demands, etc., those are all attempts to demonstrate that her power is (a) unexpected, and (b) as-yet unexplained. She's a mystery and a surprise waiting to be revealed. Or, at least, that's what I think the goal is with how she's been written and played.

Now, if your complaint is that no character should ever be that powerful under any circumstances, ok, fine. Go ahead and make that point. But that has nothing to do with any liberal agenda. That has to do with general concepts of storytelling and the fact that, whether it's with a blond, white boy, or an East Asian woman, or whatever, characters shouldn't be inexplicably powerful.

If your complaint is that the filmmakers didn't effectively convey that Rey's abilities are totally unexpected, strange, and mysterious, and that the source of those abilities -- and their presumed limits -- will be explored in later films, cool, go ahead and make that complaint. But, again, that's got nothing to do with any liberal agenda. Again, that's more about ineffective storytelling.

The fact that you couched your complaint in the realm of liberal agenda, though, suggests that your objection is not with a character -- any character -- being too powerful, nor with the ineffective storytelling conveying any sense that further limitations will be explored or that the source of the power will be explained or that it's at all remarkable, but rather with the fact that it's a girl who is powerful. That's why people called you out on the misogyny stuff.

They'd call you out on racism if you said something like "The only reason Finn knows how to wield a lightsabre is because he's black and it serves Hollywood's liberal agenda."


Now, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your main objections aren't with Rey being a woman, but rather with "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" (or, more accurately "competent men/women" -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competent_man) characters in general, and that the filmmakers didn't -- for you -- effectively convey that this character isn't a Mary Sue/Gary Stu, but rather is someone who has both limitations, and an explanation for the source of her amazing abilities, all of which will be explored in subsequent entries in the series.

If that's the case, you might want to drop the whole "liberal agenda" thing, because all it does is lead people to dismiss what otherwise might be legitimate points (or at least points worth debating, and which won't trip the "no politics" rule here) and write you off altogether. I tend to think that the whole "Bah, it's just the liberal agenda" thing is unfortunate and inaccurate shorthand for "I didn't like it" that ultimately may in fact mask what the viewer is really bothered by.

Are you bothered that it's a girl with power, or are you bothered that it's a character with Swiss-army-knife fantastic powers and no suitable explanation for their source? Because those are two different things.

Oh I get the business angle of it. And there's no denying it's a commercial mega-hit. But they played it waaaaaaaaay too safe, in making it waaaaaaaaay too derivative (a nicer word for ripoff). I'd be kinda okay if they'd made a good derivative film, but it stinks. It stinks from top to bottom...with just a handful of pearls in between: Daisy (not Rey's absurd powers, but Daisy's performance), BB8, Finn (although his humor bordered on being too much), Chewie getting up to play Dejarik, Luke was awesome at the end (he looks totally badass), I loved the "That was Lucky!" line as well as the "Stop holding my hand!" lines (see I told you I like girl power!), Kylo's fits of rage, the lightsaber duel choreography looked old school like the weapons were heavy instead of twirling batons, the TIE fighters flying towards us with the sun behind them, 3PO stepping between Han & Leia was funny, the laser blast halted in mid-flight was cool and novel...I really can't think of anything or anyone else that was good, and I've seen the movie twice.

The filmmakers could've accomplished everything you listed that they needed to accomplish and turned out a better, a MUCH better derivative to reboquel the series.

The Wook

There was a point where I might have agreed with you on this. But I think that you underestimate how people who aren't hardcore Star Wars fans relate to the Star Wars universe. For folks like that, they know...very little about the franchise, actually. And I don't even mean the ephemera that geeks like us know (e.g. "It's not an X-wing. It's an Incom T-65B X-wing, and the wings are called S-foils because the internal mechanics actually are somewhat S-shaped at the central hinge to allow the top half of the left wing to form the bottom half of the right wing..."). I'm talking, like, they know only the must superficial aspects of the series. They know the broadest cultural iconography about the film, and mostly from generalized images. Bad guys wear all-black and helmets and use red laser swords. Good guys use blue laser swords. Han Solo has a big furry wookiee pal named Chewbacca, and they fly the Milennium Falcon spaceship. Princess Leia has funny hair, usually in a cinnamon-bun shape. Final battles involve fighter spaceships blowing up a big, super-destructive space station, and the hero always -- always -- has some secret about their ancestry. They know "LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER" (even though they misquote it), even if they've never even seen the film.

And that's it. That's what they know. That's all they really know, or at least that's what they most know at the core.

When you strip those elements out -- particularly in the modern age -- you have what is now just a generic space adventure story. The stuff I listed is what makes Star Wars "star warsy" for the bulk of the populace. We, the hardcore fans, recognize that there's so much more to it than that, but for the people who are casual fans, who don't know the full scope of the Star Wars universe or its potential, it's those things that say "Star Wars" to people on an unconscious level. The rest of it, the adventure elements, the blaster guns, the spaceships, references to mystical powers, etc., it's become so baked in to the popular culture and genre fiction in general that it linfluences damn-near everything else out there, to the point where people will say stuff like "Jupiter Ascending is basically just Star Wars with genetically modified dudes on hoverskates."

In order to bring people along into the new era -- to take the Star Wars universe and move it beyond just the original trilogy that everyone knows -- I think they had to take this film and heavily ground it in the iconography that everyone knows. And yes, that means TFA is a "soft reboot." And it therefore suffers from the same problems that all reboots do: how to distinguish themselves from their predecessors, while still remaining "of" the predecessors. In some limited cases, a franchise can effectively reboot itself by subverting expected tropes (e.g., Casino Royale and Bond not giving a damn whether his martini is shaken or stirred, limited gadgetry, only saying "Bond. James Bond" at the end of the film), but for the most part, any reboot has to still "feel" like the original material in a recognizable way. And TFA was purposefully designed to "feel" like Star Wars to the absolute broadest swath of the audience as possible, meaning that it definitely targets a "lowest common denominator" version of what Star Wars is. And hence, the "repetition" in the film from the previous films.

That said, I think it's (unfortunately) easy to get caught up in what was repeated, to the point where you miss what was definitely different about this film -- and different in what I think was a good way. But, regardless, it's undeniably repetitive of previous films, and absolutely was done that way on purpose.

I think, basically, that our choices were either (1) a wonderful financial failure of a film that would effectively kill the franchise (or kill it within 1-3 films), where the film was notably different from the original material to the point where it didn't really reference it at all, or (2) basically what we got. As a soft reboot, I think this film is about as good as you could ask for or expect. If what you wanted wasn't a soft reboot, but rather a totally different story in the future of the universe...yeah, I guess you were gonna end up disappointed.

Colin T. teasing Rey's lineage out to Ep.9

http://www.starwarspost.com/colin-trevorrow-declares-a-satisfying-answer-to-reys-lineage/

Cool! Nice to know they're following the fan theories. I just hope that nobody succumbs to the desire to "fool" the audience or prove they're more clever than the audience. I hate when writers leave a trail of fairly obvious breadcrumbs to the solution of a mystery, and then say "We changed it because too many people figured out where we were going."

 

[kristen jones]

Heaven forbid in a free speech society someone gets "out of line".March on political correctness. Let's not really have a real discussions in the fear I get branded. I should just zip it.

Someone once pointed out political correctness is just a way to say I don't agree with you so you better shut the f~$k up.

[emoji12][emoji12][emoji12]

For my part in the above mentioned dialogue, i wasn't being politically correct at all. I was simply pointing to the fact that The Wook blatantly called Rey a Mary Sue, and I called him on the fact that he later on said in plain English that TFA was "Girl Power Run Amok". It isn't about political correctness... it's about stopping someone incorrectly characterizing something; stating that it is something that it clearly is not.

 

[Bryancd]

Solo4114 I had no idea that's why they call them "S-foils".

 

[kristen jones]

However, while I can sympathize your initial plight - you lost all credibility in my book with your comments about Rey and the "Hollywood's liberal agenda." That's inane rhetoric - and frankly, you deserve to be called a sexist, misogynist and worse.

See JD... we Do agree, occasionally

 

[kristen jones]

Unbunch the panties.

Isn't this getting close to that same line...? I suppose a bunch of guys aren't offended by this sort of thing.

But we aren't *all* guys, here.

All I'm saying: be mindful when in mixed company.

 

[Solo4114]

@Solo4114 I had no idea that's why they call them "S-foils".

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall from some technical readout guide or something that that's why.

 

[kristen jones]

and, because this one apparently needs repeating: as I said, I loved this movie. It's great. It's also not the holy chosen film penned by the inky finger of God and immune to all criticism. Even though we liked it, the fact that some didn't doesn't make them bad people. It really doesn't. And it's actually been established that this really IS the correct place for them to articulate that criticism. Even if we don't agree with it, shocking as that may seem.

I never said that i didn't invite criticism of TFA to The Wook... in fact rather the opposite. I stated many times over that if he had a meaningful comment to make, we would love to have it. But most here agree that by the end he had strayed rather far from that, and was instead clearly putting his effort behind baiting us to garner a reaction.

Big difference.

 

[kristen jones]

Something else to consider on both sides of the debate: You are more than welcome to have your opinion on this movie and share that opinion here. That is the purpose of this thread. However, this comes with a price. Someone else is allowed to have their own, differing opinion and share it here as well. Neither voice is right or wrong (except if they intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent undisputable facts). That's the purpose of an opinion: to allow one to believe as they will so long as that opinion does not contradict fact. Now, those two differing opinions may get into a debate, and that's to be expected, but casually dismissing someone's opinion because it doesn't agree with your own is the height of arrogance.

On my end, I may not agree with your opinion in the slightest and might even debate you about it, but so long as it doesn't contradict the facts, I will ALWAYS respect your right to have that opinion and I expect the same consideration in turn.

Seconded!

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly and I too welcome HEALTHY debate and everyone entitled to their own opinion. What I don't agree with,and is my opinion also,is people coming into the thread with "JJ is a hack" " I hate JJ" " The movie is a failure" etc etc and misquoting articles just to bait.


Ben

i made precisely this point to The Wook. I don't consider those types of comments a healthy debate.

 

[kristen jones]

hese aren't the characters I saw in the OT.

No kidding... it's thirty years later. People do change over a period that long. they tend to have life experiences which change their character, and would therefore make them seem unrecognizable to some degree to someone who was acquainted with them back when, but had been out of touch for that long (e.g. US, the audience)

 

[Stormy320]

For my part in the above mentioned dialogue, i wasn't being politically correct at all. I was simply pointing to the fact that The Wook blatantly called Rey a Mary Sue, and I called him on the fact that he later on said in plain English that TFA was "Girl Power Run Amok". It isn't about political correctness... it's about stopping someone incorrectly characterizing something; stating that it is something that it clearly is not.

All good. I disagree with him too.

I thought Rey was a great believable character and the right direction.

 

[The Wook]

To All:

If you have a problem with the content of my posts, I stand by every word. Deal with it. Not everyone shares your point of view.

If you have a problem with the tone of my posts, then I'm sorry you received it that way. Everything I posted was written to convey my opinions on the film, or to share facts about the film. None of it was posted for the purpose of being incendiary. Please accept my apology, I was not looking to make enemies.

TFA is the most polarizing film Star Wars film ever. I think that's due to the film itself, but also due to the PC era we live in of hyper-sensitivity and hyper-partisanship.

You guys loved the film, and I envy you. I SO wish I could check in here every day and join you in celebrating its wonder and achievement. But I can't. The movie was dreadful. And it boggles my mind you can't see that. (Just as I'm sure it boggles your mind to hear someone didn't love it).

So, I will leave it at that. I'm not interested in making people hate me, which clearly seems to have happened. I suppose all I can say is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=238kiM8AOLs

Love,

The Wook

 

[astroboy]

You know is also a bit too played out for me? The whole mystery parents thing. didn't they already do that on Rebels? And also with Guardians of the Galaxy? And Harry Potter? And....and....and....


The great thing about ANH was that we knew who Lukes Father was. There were no questions after that. They didn't need to dangle anything in front of us.

But Then ESB came along with a truth about his father that was earth shattering, franchise changing AND plausible.

 

[The Wook]

Just to set the record straight, on the point that seemed to have angered y'all most, I'll add this ps.

ps~FTR, I'm most definitely not a misogynist. Make Rey a boy, same age, same everything except gender, and I have the same problems with the character. (Luke, and even little Ani to an extent, were different.)

I love strong female characters. Buffy was my favorite TV show during its long run. I'd sit and cheer her on beating the crap outta the monster of the week with all my heart!

I've written a Star Wars fan film, with a totally badass female character. (Hopefully one day you'll get to see it!)

I'm not going to get political, but suffice it to say there are a few prominent women in this country who I would love to see in the Oval Office.

I am a huge fan of Ronda Rousey's, and all that she's accomplished in breaking down stereotypes that women are weak.

This list could go on and on. But hopefully you get my point. I didn't object to Rey's gender, I objected to her absurd facility with the Force, in such short time, with no training, no struggle, no sacrifice. I'm fine with Buffy being invincible, because the show is pure fantasy. Star Wars, and its characters, from the day I first saw the film in that magical summer of '77, struck me as real. As relatable. Even though I was seeing them do things I didn't know were possible. Rey, is not relatable. She is not believable. And for the last time, it's not because she has boobs.

The Wook

 

[Solo4114]

Just to set the record straight, on the point that seemed to have angered y'all most, I'll add this ps.

ps~FTR, I'm most definitely not a misogynist. Make Rey a boy, same age, same everything except gender, and I have the same problems with the character. (Luke, and even little Ani to an extent, were different.)

I love strong female characters. Buffy was my favorite TV show during its long run. I'd sit and cheer her on beating the crap outta the monster of the week with all my heart!

I've written a Star Wars fan film, with a totally badass female character. (Hopefully one day you'll get to see it!)

I'm not going to get political, but suffice it to say there are a few prominent women in this country who I would love to see in the Oval Office.

I am a huge fan of Ronda Rousey's, and all that she's accomplished in breaking down stereotypes that women are weak.

This list could go on and on. But hopefully you get my point. I didn't object to Rey's gender, I objected to her absurd facility with the Force, in such short time, with no training, no struggle, no sacrifice. I'm fine with Buffy being invincible, because the show is pure fantasy. Star Wars, and its characters, from the day I first saw the film in that magical summer of '77, struck me as real. As relatable. Even though I was seeing them do things I didn't know were possible. Rey, is not relatable. She is not believable. And for the last time, it's not because she has boobs.

The Wook

If that's the case, then it sounds like (as I said) your issue isn't with the "liberal agenda of Hollywood," or anything to do with PC-this-or-that, but rather with what you see as poor storytelling. In which case, better to just avoid the "liberal agenda" kind of language and focus on what's really bugging you.


Focus on the poor storytelling line, rather than bringing up the political stuff, and you'll likely get some kind of reasonable debate.

 

[matty matt]

I really liked the movie. I saw it with my brother. He didn't like it. We didn't even argue about it or anything. Crazy, right?

 

[The Wook]

If that's the case, then it sounds like (as I said) your issue isn't with the "liberal agenda of Hollywood," or anything to do with PC-this-or-that, but rather with what you see as poor storytelling. In which case, better to just avoid the "liberal agenda" kind of language and focus on what's really bugging you.

Focus on the poor storytelling line, rather than bringing up the political stuff, and you'll likely get some kind of reasonable debate.

It's both, Dan. Poor story-telling, driven by Hollywood's liberal agenda. You know it's true.

The Wook

 

[G W Zipper]

Minor quibble, but that's Luke in ESB. You can tell by Mark Hamill's face, and by the fact that his suit has the puffy collar.



The misogyny comments were because you dismissed Rey as just some embodiment of Hollywood's liberal agenda. While the comment itself isn't necessarily misogynist, the underlying attitude that the comment conveys can be taken that way. It suggests that Rey being female and having that much power is somehow inappropriate because she's female. By calling out the liberal agenda, your comment can be taken to suggest that it's her femininity coupled with her power that is objectionable, and that it's only done to serve the liberal agenda...and that's where the misogyny comes in.

(.... a lot more stuff...)

Cool! Nice to know they're following the fan theories. I just hope that nobody succumbs to the desire to "fool" the audience or prove they're more clever than the audience. I hate when writers leave a trail of fairly obvious breadcrumbs to the solution of a mystery, and then say "We changed it because too many people figured out where we were going."

You know, I hate it when people, especially people who just mainly lurk on a forum without contributing much, chime in with a "yeah, I totally agree!" comment, but...

Yeah, I totally agree. Solo4114, that obviously took a fair bit of time and care to compose, and I thank you for it. Well done.

 

[kristen jones]

Not to mention, I think that maybe for YOU Rey is "not believable" "not relatable" but you certainly don't speak for anyone else when you say that. My experience with her is quite different. So are alot of others' experiences. I'm not sure you really believe that she's "not relatable" because you'd mentioned before that you liked many things about her character. How can that be if you didn't relate to her at all? On some level?

I just wonder if your statement isn't too extreme.. too all inclusive.