The Star Wars Saga

[starri]

2 hours ago, Joe said:

Poe is an unreliable hothead. I'd like to see Mon Mothma or Wedge Antilles return

I believe Mon Mothma was on Hosnian Prime.

[benteen]

Game of Thrones was great last season.  As much as I've been critical of D&D, they delivered on that front and deserve credit for not getting bogged the bloated world-building of GRRM.

The character of Mon Mothma I believe is dead around that time.  Dennis Lawson was actually offered a chance to return for The Force Awakens but turned it down as he's never had any great attachment to Star Wars.

I would like to see Lando come back though I imagine it would only be for an extended cameo.

For story purposes, it has to be someone from the new generation to lead.  Poe is that person even though he doesn't deserve it.

Edited February 13, 2018 by benteen

[absnow54]

Or maybe Lando? Billy Dee WIlliams has appently been outspoken about how he wants to come back.

I know he's been vocal, but isn't Billy Dee Williams not in the best health? I agree with the above poster that I he'd probably be better as an extended cameo. Then again, the new generation of rebels have basically taken over, so the resistance leader can be a small supporting role.

[Joe]

2 hours ago, starri said:

I believe Mon Mothma was on Hosnian Prime.

Do you have a source for that? It isn't on Wookieepedia.

[VCRTracking]

3 hours ago, benteen said:

For story purposes, it has to be someone from the new generation to lead.  Poe is that person even though he doesn't deserve it.

I'm sure we'll get his redemption arc in Ep IX. Although I would love for him to be like Ted Stryker in Airplane! and also have a drinking problem:

[Katsullivan]

On 2/12/2018 at 9:06 AM, doram said:

It's not cause and effect. It's Hollywood being racist and then using money as an excuse for that racism even when the numbers literally don't add up. It's audience members validating that excuse because apparently feminism = white women first, everyone wait your turn - instead of challenging it.

Thanks for this.  Black female leads have the double burden of racism and sexism, and it's so bothersome to see the racism aspect ignored, and swept under the blanket of generic feminism.

io9 just published an article about Wesley Snipe's recent Blade interview that is so pertinent to this:

Quote

 

I remember, one of the executives of the studio at the time, in the screening, commented after they did the focus group, and they got back the numbers, and they saw how the numbers was so high, and there was so much appeal for the character and the world, he commented, ‘I don’t understand why people like this.’

There were others who thought that black people or black talent in film doesn’t sell internationally, doesn’t sell foreign, doesn’t sell in Japan. Bladecomes out, and it blows up in Japan, despite the fact that the lead is a black guy. These were testaments to the lack of cultural awareness, intelligence about the world itself, the global landscape, and the appeal that African American culture has around the world.

 

"I don't understand why people like this."

As @doram said:

On 2/12/2018 at 9:06 AM, doram said:

It's Hollywood being racist and then using money as an excuse for that racism even when the numbers literally don't add up.

 

On 2/12/2018 at 9:09 AM, Wynterwolf said:

Even if she wasn't from this time frame, I agreed that was still a huge missed opportunity.  So many things about the Solo movie are frustrating, but that is definitely a huge one (and I think it actually does a disservice to Leia's character, if they're just trying to show that Han had a 'type'... I detest that trope, because it relegates women's importance to their physical features and their 'attraction quotient', rather than who they are as a person).  And frankly, the more GoT influences that leak into the franchise as a whole, the less I like it.  

 

Exactly. I mean, apart from the fact that there's already a "Legends" -foundation for this, and we've seen the new canon pick and choose from this whenever they want, there's nothing stopping them from - GASP! - just casting a female character as non-White. I'm not particularly interested in the "well, Hollywood only started making female-led action movies in the last 5 years" because apart from the fact that it's blatantly not true, Emilia Clarke isn't the lead of the Han Solo movie. Jyn might have been technically the first-billed star on Rogue One, but I'll argue that just as Jack got first billing in Titanic even though the movie was equally about Jack and Rose, Rogue One was just as much Cassian's movie as Jyn's.

Which reminds me of how disgusted I was with Felicity Jones and Daisy Ridley mocking theorists of coming up with Luke+Jyn=Rey theories then. Jeez, maybe if the role of Rey had been given to a Nigerian-British girl and/or Jyn was being played by a woman of Korean ancestry, people won't be trying to come up with non-racist explanations for why Disney kept casting the same brand of generic thin white girl as their female leads. At least with Padme and Leia there was a canon excuse. What exactly was so unique about Rey and Jyn that only white women could play them?

[Danny Franks]

3 minutes ago, Katsullivan said:

Thanks for this.  Black female leads have the double burden of racism and sexism, and it's so bothersome to see the racism aspect ignored, and swept under the blanket of generic feminism.

It shouldn't be so easy to shout racist at a franchise when the last three male leads have been black, Guatemalan/Cuban and Mexican. Would they still be racist if they'd cast Lupita Nyong'o as a lead, opposite a white guy? Are they only not racist if they cast non-white actors for everything?

[SnoGirl]

I for one, would love to see a black female lead in Star Wars. Actually bring on ALL types of diversity to Star Wars. It literally makes no sense to me to not see diversity in space considering how diverse our planet is. I was seriously bummed that Lupita Nyong’o wasn’t a character who wasnt CGI.

First, backtrack, I was bummed that Daisy was the only new female when they first talked about The Force Awakens. Then, when the females were added, I was bummed about Lupita’s character being CGI. I want diversity! I hope these new Star Wars movies have more, but with how Lilly White most of the main characters are on Game of Thrones, Im not holding out much hope.

 

I do love Kelly Marie Tran. And Im so glad she was a character. Come on Disney. Do better.

Edited February 13, 2018 by SnoGirl

[Katsullivan]

18 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

It shouldn't be so easy to shout racist at a franchise when the last three male leads have been black, Guatemalan/Cuban and Mexican. Would they still be racist if they'd cast Lupita Nyong'o as a lead, opposite a white guy? Are they only not racist if they cast non-white actors for everything?

Your logic that not being "racist" in one casting gives them leeway to be racist in another fails me. These male supporting characters (by your own definition, Finn and Poe and Cassian aren't leads) are constantly subject to abuse. In a world populated with droids, I'm sure racists were glad to know that PoCs can still clean white people's toilets. No one in any star wars movie had ever been slapped on screen. TLJ had not one but two men of color slapped around by white people was disgusting. 

Just because they put male leads in offensive, supporting roles does not make them "not-racist".

[Danny Franks]

2 hours ago, Katsullivan said:

Your logic that not being "racist" in one casting gives them leeway to be racist in another fails me. These male supporting characters (by your own definition, Finn and Poe and Cassian aren't leads) are constantly subject to abuse. In a world populated with droids, I'm sure racists were glad to know that PoCs can still clean white people's toilets. No one in any star wars movie had ever been slapped on screen. TLJ had not one but two men of color slapped around by white people was disgusting. 

Just because they put male leads in offensive, supporting roles does not make them "not-racist".

Subject to abuse? Because Finn wasn't brainwashed enough to be a good soldier? That's why he was assigned to toilet duty. That's your example of "constant" abuse? Okay. Not seeing it for either Cassian or Poe either.

And my logic is that not being racist in casting is... Not being racist in casting. I find no reason to believe anyone at Disney, or Lucasfilm, said, 'we need white girls only' when casting these movies. But fine, you believe Star Wars is racist, whatever.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Danny Franks

[afterbite]

I'll admit it's been a while since I've seen TFA, but I have the vague recollection that Finn being in sanitation was, at least in part, in service of setting up the 'throw Phasma in the trash compactor' joke. He knows where some thing-a-ma-jiggy is because he was in sanitation, which is why they come upon Phasma who they then throw in the trash compactor so that Han can make a throw-back joke to ANH. That entire plot point was essentially ridiculous, though. First, you have the extra extraneousness of Phasma. The woman has a concept car modeled after her, but aside from being shiny, the filmmakers clearly do not give a shit about her story. Then you have Finn being in sanitation as the entryway into this whole bit. Are there reasons why he could have been in sanitation? Sure. I've never been in the armed forced, but I did read a book about the French Foreign Legion once and the soldiers had to do all sorts of housekeeping tasks, including mopping and cleaning toilets, etc. Likewise, there's probably only so much military training a fascist organization can do with a child, so they likely keep them busy in other ways. I imagine there were all sorts of squads of young future Stormtroopers in sanitation squads, food prep squads, etc.

Finn could have mentioned that everyone had to do upkeep tasks and so he's pretty familiar with the ins and out of the base. He could have said that the children were made to work menial tasks while they were in child soldier training. These make it either routine for everyone or yet another reason to hate the FO for their exploitation of children. What they did, instead, was to make him part of sanitation (probably also in part because Finn has a comic relief function in addition to his primary character arc) without thinking through the optics of it beyond 'isn't it funny that he's going to use the info he learned scrubbing toilets to bring this place down'. It seems like the kind of thing a writer wouldn't notice unless they were keyed in to the trope (likely because it applied to the group to which they were a member and they were sick and tired of it). They very easily could had made it so that he was in training to be a systems tech or system engineer, etc., but they just wouldn't have been able to make those "jokes" if they had done that.

[afterbite]

37 minutes ago, doram said:

39 minutes ago, afterbite said:

Then you have Finn being in sanitation as the entryway into this whole bit. Are there reasons why he could have been in sanitation?

In a world where even the most decrepit places have service droids? I'd say a hard no to that. They practically invented the concept of human janitors in star wars for a black man.

Yeah, I can concede that. Then again, the latest entries into this series have often done nonsensical things just because they're copying and echoing a modern convention, like our military, often in ways that make me think that they didn't think through the implications besides 'it'll look badass' or 'for the lulz'. I don't know what the writer's room looked like, but I imagine there are definite blindspots. I don't mean to undersell just how easily this could have been corrected, probably by increasing the diversity in the room. Finn, in particular, has not been well served, I think. He went from central character in the first film to 'off on a wacky hi-jink adventure of little importance to the overall plot' in the second. No matter how people describe the implications of his journey as somehow important, he was sidelined. In terms of importance to the story, he was demoted.

As much as I love SW in general, I often find myself perturbed by the fact a by-product was the repackaging and selling of space nazis so that Stormtroopers and Vader have become beloved cultural icons when really (specifically for the OT) they're SS troopers made into adorbs plushie dolls. (This seemed somehow connected in my head.)

Edited February 14, 2018 by afterbite

[VCRTracking]

1 hour ago, afterbite said:

1 hour ago, doram said:

1 hour ago, afterbite said:

Then you have Finn being in sanitation as the entryway into this whole bit. Are there reasons why he could have been in sanitation?

In a world where even the most decrepit places have service droids? I'd say a hard no to that. They practically invented the concept of human janitors in star wars for a black man.

Yeah, I can concede that. Then again, the latest entries into this series have often done nonsensical things just because they're copying and echoing a modern convention, like our military, often in ways that make me think that they didn't think through the implications besides 'it'll look badass' or 'for the lulz'. I don't know what the writer's room looked like, but I imagine there are definite blindspots. I don't mean to undersell just how easily this could have been corrected, probably by increasing the diversity in the room. Finn, in particular, has not been well served, I think. He went from central character in the first film to 'off on a wacky hi-jink adventure of little importance to the overall plot' in the second. No matter how people describe the implications of his journey as somehow important, he was sidelined. In terms of importance to the story, he was demoted.

Finn being a janitor was written before he was cast. I don't think Abrams was like "Let's make him a janitor because he's black!" I admit I cringed in the theater when he said "sanitation" but I just thought the filmmakers were clueless and not racist. I honestly think if Finn had been cast as a white actor he'd be Rey's "Peeta", the gender-reversed damsel that needed rescuing, instead of going on missions on his own and getting hero moments.

 

1 hour ago, doram said:

Well said. It's not enough to have PoCs play the slapstick sidestick and call it diversity. The offensiveness of Finn being pushed to his knees to be slapped by a white Nazi was so horrifying to me that I still can't wrap my head around the idea that this is what Star Wars has been reduced to. 

And that's where they left it. No wait, he actually gets the opportunity to kick her ass and kill her. So demeaning.

Edited February 14, 2018 by VCRTracking

[absnow54]

Wasn't Hux the one who slaps Finn? I totally understand there's outrage towards the scene, but I think the intention was to show how cowardly and weak Hux was. That the only hand to hand combat this "experienced" general has seen is when our hero has been captured, cuffed, and can't fight back. I get that the scene read very differently to a lot of people, and I agree, it's a direct result of not having a diverse enough group in the room when the scene was being written.

[VCRTracking]

4 hours ago, doram said:

And you know this how...?

I'm not being disingenuous, by the way. I really want to know if you have confirmation that the casting had no effect on the way the character was written or retooled.

Because I don't believe Abrams or co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan would be such a racist asshole as to deliberately make a character a janitor because he was played by a POC?

4 hours ago, doram said:

And don't see the point of this. We have 6 movies of good triumphing over evil without any hero needing to be pushed to their knees and bitch slapped. Or of one hero getting bitch slapped by another hero.

It's telling that the only time this plot line becomes necessary is for PoCs. If course, it's anyone's choice to overlook that but the feelings of disgust/repulsion that these scenes generated don't just go away because they're "whitesplained".

Han was bound to a rack and tortured, Leia was put in a skimpy bikini and chained by the neck. Bad guys treat the heroes very badly in Star Wars.

BTW I'm not white.

[WritinMan]

2 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Leia was put in a skimpy bikini and chained by the neck.

And tortured...by her own father! Yikes!

[Katsullivan]

4 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Han was bound to a rack and tortured, Leia was put in a skimpy bikini and chained by the neck. Bad guys treat the heroes very badly in Star Wars.

Poe wasn't slapped by a "bad guy".

Off the top of my head, I can imagine scenarios where Anakin would have earned himself a slap or two from Obi-Wan or Padme. Or where Han should have been slapped by Leia, at the very least. But as @doram pointed out, none of the creators saw it fitting for any of their white heroes to be slapped because that's a specific kind of humiliation. 

 

But since you've brought up the counter-argument of heroes suffering in general, it's worth examining how Finn's heroic suffering is entirely different from the other white heroes.

At the end of TFA, Finn is in a coma, from a severe injury he got from battling Kylo Ren. (I use battling very loosely here). Finn's injuries are grave enough to require him to be put in a coma, in a bacta suit. This is superficially similar to Luke's injury from the wampa at the start of ESB. It's not a light-saber duel with a pseudo-Sith but it's a severe injury, and this plus Luke's exposure to hypothermia is clearly supposed to be something the audience should be worried about. Han and Leia are shown to be visibly worried about Luke while he's in the bantha tank. They are by his bedside when he wakes up, and we see them bantering with him, not at him. None of the jokes there are at Luke's expense. 

In contrast, no one seems particularly worried about Finn before he wakes up. When he does, it kickstarts a series of British humor moments - he bangs his head, falls off the floor, wanders around the ship naked nad leaking. Finn is supposed to be our hero, right? Who - according to you - has gone through the same kind of heroic crucible as Han, Leia and Luke's at the hands of their respective nemesis? Even Poe - apparently the only person in the Resistance besides Rey who gave a hoot about this - can't express sympathy towards Finn without the insertion of a BB-8 joke to remind the audience that yes, this isn't an accident. We're really supposed to find this entire scene a hoot. Ha! Ha! Ha! Stupid clown of a black man! What a riot!

The fall-out of Finn's injury at Kylos's hands, the culmination of his arc in TFA, is slapstick comedy that is quickly forgotten. 

 

4 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

BTW I'm not white.

Non-white people can also consciously or subconsciously support white supremacy. The way I see it, if I'm not solving a problem (and this includes, at the very least, being willing to admit that there is a problem), then I'm part of that problem. And whether my motivations are conscious, subconscious or just passive disinterest, it doesn't change the effect on the people who are on the receiving end of that problem. 

Like I can never understand the point of trying to rationalise these things. It's not like if racism doesn't have a history of being whitewashed by everything from Science to Religion. Being backed up by the Gospel according to Matthew or Darwin has never made racism less racist so I have no clue what statements that boil down to: "This isn't racist because I don't [want to] believe that it is" are trying to achieve besides telling me that personally, you're not willing to have an open-minded discussion. 

Edited February 15, 2018 by Katsullivan

[VCRTracking]

19 minutes ago, Katsullivan said:

At the end of TFA, Finn is in a coma, from a severe injury he got from battling Kylo Ren. (I use battling very loosely here). Finn's injuries are grave enough to require him to be put in a coma, in a bacta suit. This is superficially similar to Luke's injury from the wampa at the start of ESB. It's not a light-saber duel with a pseudo-Sith but it's a severe injury, and this plus Luke's exposure to hypothermia is clearly supposed to be something the audience should be worried about. Han and Leia are shown to be visibly worried about Luke while he's in the bantha tank. They are by his bedside when he wakes up, and we see them bantering with him, not at him. None of the jokes there are at Luke's expense. 

Except the part where he kisses his sister. They and the audience didn't know at the time, but now it's really funny in hindsight.

The stuff with Finn is to show he's okay. Rey worried for him at the end of TFA but now he's walking around and ready to go looking for her.

19 minutes ago, Katsullivan said:

Poe wasn't slapped by a "bad guy".

No he was slapped by a 50-something woman shorter than he is for screwing up. I don't know how he was able to recover.

Edited February 15, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Katsullivan]

12 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

Except the part where he kisses his sister. They and the audience didn't know at the time, but now it's really funny in hindsight.

At the time Lucas hadn't decided that Leia and Luke would be siblings. It wasn't written to be a punchline. 

15 minutes ago, VCRTracking said:

No he was slapped by a 50-something woman shorter than he is for screwing up. I don't know how he was able to recover.

The argument has never been about "recovering" physically from a slap. It's the specific humiliation which has only ever been used in this series on POCs. I specifically used this example as a counter to your argument that implied that "slapping" was just another version of heroes suffering at the hands of "villains". And I also said that here have been situations where slaps would have made sense but the creators held back from having white characters subjected to this specific humiliation. 

Neither of your posts is a response to any of the actual points I've made. Instead, you seem to be deliberately misunderstanding them and/or mocking them. Which I would really rather you not do. This might be a mere intellectual exercise for you to see who can make the most "points" but for me it's personal. That's neither of our faults but I am interested in a genuine discussion, not in replying to statements that are apparently made just to get a reaction. 

[Perfect Xero]

3 hours ago, Katsullivan said:

The fall-out of Finn's injury at Kylos's hands, the culmination of his arc in TFA, is slapstick comedy that is quickly forgotten.

Well, hey, at least his friend who he was injured while protecting spent half the movie ... becoming friends with the guy who put him in a coma.

[benteen]

Quote

Well said. It's not enough to have PoCs play the slapstick sidestick and call it diversity. The offensiveness of Finn being pushed to his knees to be slapped by a white Nazi was so horrifying to me that I still can't wrap my head around the idea that this is what Star Wars has been reduced to. 

Oh, please.  There have been tons of movies where heroes of many colors and genders have been thrown to their knees before villains and slapped around.  I almost started laughing during this specific scene because Hux's slap was so weak and pathetic.  Hux, a white man who easily gets humiliated more than anyone in the movie by being thrown around the room by both Snoke and Kylo in front of his own men.

But you're right, white people have never been humiliated like POC in Star Wars.  Except for when Princess Leia, a white woman, is captured by Jabba and forced to wear a humiliating costume in front of his band of criminals and groped.  Or except for the time that Han, a white man, is frozen in a block of carbonite (after being loudly tortured by Darth Vader) and Jabba decides to hang it in his hall, publicly declaring that its' his favorite decoration.  No humiliation there.

There's plenty to criticize JJ Abrams about, particularly a lack of originality.  But he's not a racist or subconsciously trying to humiliate POC.

Edited February 15, 2018 by benteen

[absnow54]

At the time Lucas hadn't decided that Leia and Luke would be siblings. It wasn't written to be a punchline.

Leia kisses Luke to make Han jealous. In my opinion, it's a punchline. Han is acting smug and implying that Leia is super into him. Leia lays one on Luke to shut him up. Han shuts up and exits the scene with his tail between his legs. There was a scene that implied that Leia might have romantic feelings for Luke, and they kiss in private, but thankfully, that was cut.

Which had me thinking, Han Solo was the coolest character ever when I was a kid, but now watching the movies as an adult, he's a badass in A New Hope, but in Empire (except for his big hero moment) and especially in Return of the Jedi, he's the bumbling comic relief. It's not as noticeable because he gets the girl and it's 1980's Harrison Ford, and it's probably because Harrison Ford stopped caring about Star Wars when Indiana Jones made him a star... anyway, I would compare the slapstick comedy of Finn waking up from his coma to Han being released from carbonite, and then wondering around blind during the epic rescue battle. I'm not calling them equivalent scenarios, because even though both characters were in this situation because they made grand selfless gestures to protect the people they cared about, Han's rescue is an elaborate adventure, while Finn's revival is incredibly underwhelming, and just kind of there. I really don't understand the reasoning for even leaving him in a coma between movies. They should have had him wake up in TFA right after Rey left his side.

The argument has never been about "recovering" physically from a slap. It's the specific humiliation which has only ever been used in this series on POCs. I specifically used this example as a counter to your argument that implied that "slapping" was just another version of heroes suffering at the hands of "villains". And I also said that here have been situations where slaps would have made sense but the creators held back from having white characters subjected to this specific humiliation.

On top of that, it didn't make sense for Leia to slap anyone, period. Leia has always used her words to cut others down. Her slapping Poe was completely OOC, and people going slap crazy in TLJ was a bizarre choice in my opinion.

Edited February 15, 2018 by absnow54

[Katsullivan]

34 minutes ago, benteen said:

There's plenty to criticize JJ Abrams about, particularly a lack of originality.  But he's not a racist or subconsciously trying to humiliate POC.

Another variant of the "This person isn't racist because I don't want to believe he is."

By definition, JJ Abrams can't even vouch for his own subconscious but you apparently have such intimate knowledge of him that you can? 

[benteen]

28 minutes ago, Katsullivan said:

Another variant of the "This person isn't racist because I don't want to believe he is."

By definition, JJ Abrams can't even vouch for his own subconscious but you apparently have such intimate knowledge of him that you can? 

I have as much intimate knowledge of JJ Abrams and his subconscious as you do, which is absolutely none.  But go ahead accusing him of being a racist anyway...

Edited February 15, 2018 by benteen

[afterbite]

I think this is probably well trodden territory, but Finn never should have been a comic relief character in the first place. Boyega is an incredibly charming and affable guy but he can also play more of a hard case. Finn is a child soldier who was taken so early that he doesn't even remember his own name. He is unwilling to kill villagers and plots an escape with someone from the other side in what is very much so an 'odds are quite clearly against us' moment. He's terrified of the FO. His should be the story of the involuntarily indoctrinated who is struggling to overcome the things done to him and the mindset that's been drilled into him since birth, essentially. I've read a few accounts of child soldiers and they're not comic figures. The movie wanted the coolness of having a stormtrooper taking off his helmet and (eventually, kind of) joining the other side without having to put in the work that would make it realistic. And his hero's moment of defeating Phasma? She wasn't some terrifying villain. She was visually imposing, sure, but TFA completely undermined any sort of menace she might have. Instead of fighting the two (three?) rebels who surprise her, she gives them the keys to the castle and then, presumably, gets dumped down a trash chute. Thus, in what should be a triumphant moment of Finn standing up to and conquering an oppressive (but important) cog in the system that had stolen his life from him in TLJ, it comes across more as managing to humiliate that irritating middle manager who was always more bark than bite anyway.

IMO, his real hero's moment was when he took on Kylo Ren, but it gets lost in the shuffle of Han's death. Yeah, in the day or so since she'd known this figure of myth, Rey had really taken a shine to him, but Finn was her friend. He was her very literal comrade in arms. Give Leia and Chewie their much deserved hug at the end of TFA and let Rey be hovering nervously at Finn's bedside. He's the only reason she isn't dead or in the hands of the FO. He stood up to someone more (force) powerful and better trained than himself while she was incapacitated, and was grievously wounded in the process.

I've got to stop replying to this thread for a while. I end up ruminating, once again, on all of the things I perceive as weak and lazy storytelling and major missteps in these movies, which makes me grumpy.

Edited February 15, 2018 by afterbite

[absnow54]

Another variant of the "This person isn't racist because I don't want to believe he is."

I can't speak for them, but I really hope the people behind the recent Star Wars movies weren't intentionally trying to be malicious towards POC. I think they made some ignorant choices that have led to valid criticisms, and I hope that these creators have been made aware of how their decisions were perceived by members of the audience. Unfortunately racism is very deeply ingrained in our society, and it's not to say "don't blame him, he didn't know better!" it's to say that sometimes we do and say the wrong thing without realizing that it hurts others, and deserve to be called out on it so we stop doing it.

I've got to stop replying this thread for a while. I end up ruminating, once again, on all of the things I perceive as weak and lazy storytelling and major missteps in these movies, which makes me grumpy.

Yeah, this debate is just reminding me how shitty I find the new Star Wars movies. They created a great set of characters (except you Kylo) but have no idea what to do with them.

[Katsullivan]

20 minutes ago, benteen said:

I have as much intimate knowledge of JJ Abrams and his subconscious as you do, which is absolutely none.  But go ahead accusing him of being a racist anyway...

All of my conclusions are based on creative decisions that Abrams (and Johnson to a worse extent because Abrams planted the seeds but Johnson not only took the comedic element of Finn to blatantly offensive slapstick territory, he also minimized the heroic element and sidelined him as a main character) have done that are, objectively, racist. Now whether Abrams (or Johnson, but I'm less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt) set out to be deliberately offensive or they are responding to ingrained/subconscious racist biases is something that I don't have the knowledge to conclude on.

I am giving Abrams the benefit of the doubt that at least he didn't set out to be offensive. Because it's one of the two things.

You, on the other hand, are whitewashing every decision he's made about Finn, excusing it, rationalizing it, and essentially endorsing it. It's more important to you that your White Hero be seen as flawless than as someone who - intentions aside - is almost certainly as subject to biases as the average American - a country that was literally built on the foundations of racist oppression and has institutionalized racism, working in an industry as Hollywood that has a recorded problem with diversity of race, sex. religion and sexual orientation (to mention just a few) in the way it create stories. 

(And for the record, I actually like and admire Abrams, and I think he's one of the "good" guys. But he's not flawless. And it's entirely possible for a white man to be good/good-intentioned and still be subconsciously racist. The fact that so many (mostly white) people cannot wrap their heads around this simple fact is why racism is so ingrained in America because people would rather deny and obfuscate than confront and improve).

[Katsullivan]

2 minutes ago, absnow54 said:

I can't speak for them, but I really hope the people behind the recent Star Wars movies weren't intentionally trying to be malicious towards POC.

Unfortunately racism is very deeply ingrained in our society, and it's not to say "don't blame him, he didn't know better!" it's to say that sometimes we do and say the wrong thing without realizing that it hurts others, and deserve to be called out on it so we stop doing it.

Thank. You.

17 minutes ago, afterbite said:

I've got to stop replying this thread for a while

I think I'm going to stop. Not just because the movies are bad but because I've basically said all I can think of saying for now, and because this type of discussion is just a lower-stakes model of what happens every fricking day on a large and small scale to PoCs and I know it's hard for (white) people to believe, but PoCs don't watch movies or go to fanforums to find racism, they go there to escape it. 

[benteen]

28 minutes ago, Katsullivan said:

All of my conclusions are based on creative decisions that Abrams (and Johnson to a worse extent because Abrams planted the seeds but Johnson not only took the comedic element of Finn to blatantly offensive slapstick territory, he also minimized the heroic element and sidelined him as a main character) have done that are, objectively, racist. Now whether Abrams (or Johnson, but I'm less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt) set out to be deliberately offensive or they are responding to ingrained/subconscious racist biases is something that I don't have the knowledge to conclude on.

I am giving Abrams the benefit of the doubt that at least he didn't set out to be offensive. Because it's one of the two things.

You, on the other hand, are whitewashing every decision he's made about Finn, excusing it, rationalizing it, and essentially endorsing it. It's more important to you that your White Hero be seen as flawless than as someone who - intentions aside - is almost certainly as subject to biases as the average American - a country that was literally built on the foundations of racist oppression and has institutionalized racism, working in an industry as Hollywood that has a recorded problem with diversity of race, sex. religion and sexual orientation (to mention just a few) in the way it create stories. 

(And for the record, I actually like and admire Abrams, and I think he's one of the "good" guys. But he's not flawless. And it's entirely possible for a white man to be good/good-intentioned and still be subconsciously racist. The fact that so many (mostly white) people cannot wrap their heads around this simple fact is why racism is so ingrained in America because people would rather deny and obfuscate than confront and improve).

Creative decisions that in, your opinion, are racist.  I've brought up examples of how non-white heroes in Star Wars have also been humiliated in the movies, which you've chosen to ignore.  Heroes of all colors, races and genders have been slapped, punched and thrown to their knees in front of villains.  There's nothing racist or original about that. 

JJ Abrams is not my hero.  I think some of the creative decisions he and Rian Johnson made were not good ones.  But I'm not going to recklessly accuse either of them of racism because it fits "my agenda" or because I have to try to find racism in every corner of every movie or show that I watch.  Nothing is perfect.  Just because Hollywood has legitimate societal problems doesn't mean every person who works and is associated in the industry is racist or secretly trying to undermine POC.  Sometimes creative decisions are just bad because they're bad, not because they're racist.

Edited February 15, 2018 by benteen

[Avaleigh]

17 hours ago, absnow54 said:

Wasn't Hux the one who slaps Finn? I totally understand there's outrage towards the scene, but I think the intention was to show how cowardly and weak Hux was. That the only hand to hand combat this "experienced" general has seen is when our hero has been captured, cuffed, and can't fight back. I get that the scene read very differently to a lot of people, and I agree, it's a direct result of not having a diverse enough group in the room when the scene was being written.

That's how I took the scene. To me it came across as another way to show what a weakling Hux is. I'm reminded of the Charlie Murphy/Rick James skit on the Dave Chappelle Show where the action of slapping a man is used for comedic effect.(It also makes this characterization of Rick James look weak and foolish.) Here are Charlie Murphy's thoughts on a man slapping another man.

First of all, you don't slap a man. Ok? I mean, even when slapping was fashionable. You know, they did it Paris. The guy would come up, WAPAP! 'I challenge you to a duel.' They would have a gunfight after that, somebody had to go!

When I saw the scene I was entirely focused on how Hux was the exact opposite of a bad ass villain. He's a sniveling, coward who is regularly humiliated by stronger characters. It never occurred to me that I, as a PoC, should be offended by this scene because of it supposedly carrying racist undertones. I was angry for the Finn character but there isn't anything to suggest to me that the character of Finn still wouldn't have been slapped if he'd been played by a white actor. 

Hux thought about killing Kylo when the latter was briefly incapacitated. That's how this character rolls. He's only willing to get physical when there's no chance of the character fighting back. And when he does decide to use his hands, he has the impact of a slightly stronger Mr. Burns. It's kind of hilarious actually.

[VCRTracking]

2 hours ago, Avaleigh said:

That's how I took the scene. To me it came across as another way to show what a weakling Hux is. I'm reminded of the Charlie Murphy/Rick James skit on the Dave Chappelle Show where the action of slapping a man is used for comedic effect.(It also makes this characterization of Rick James look weak and foolish.) Here are Charlie Murphy's thoughts on a man slapping another man.

 

 

When I saw the scene I was entirely focused on how Hux was the exact opposite of a bad ass villain. He's a sniveling, coward who is regularly humiliated by stronger characters. It never occurred to me that I, as a PoC, should be offended by this scene because of it supposedly carrying racist undertones. I was angry for the Finn character but there isn't anything to suggest to me that the character of Finn still wouldn't have been slapped if he'd been played by a white actor. 

Hux thought about killing Kylo when the latter was briefly incapacitated. That's how this character rolls. He's only willing to get physical when there's no chance of the character fighting back. And when he does decide to use his hands, he has the impact of a slightly stronger Mr. Burns. It's kind of hilarious actually.

Exactly. I really really want to see Hux be totally Starscream to Kylo Ren in Episode IX, just totally trying to find an opportunity to usurp him behind his back.

[HunterHunted]

It's a cut for time Saturday Night Live sketch poking fun at Star Wars. It cracked me up. Though I think "Where's the bathroom" would have been funnier and more accurate.

Edited March 4, 2018 by HunterHunted

[VCRTracking]

I want Rey's Episode IX hair to be EXACTLY like Kate McKinnon's hair in that parody. Her "Last Jedi" hair but with loose strands on either side of her face. Perfect.

Uproxx's Mike Ryan wrote this article last week:

We Dare You To Explain Luke’s Plan To Rescue Han In ‘Return of the Jedi’

The accompanying Twitter thread where people have different theories on the plan is also hilarious:

Edited March 6, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Morrigan2575]

That article was great and I love all the tweets trying to explain it.

[Perfect Xero]

Errr ... What we see is that Leia sneaks in with Chewie, disguised as a bounty hunter, she tries to sneak Han out at night. When this fails they move to plan B, which is Luke going in and Jedi mind tricking his way out. When this fails they move to plan C, which is that everyone is now in position, they wait for Jabba to take them out of the palace for the execution and then fight their way free then.

Lando is positioned as a spy, so we can infer that he's passed information about Jabba and how he reacts to various things along to the others, so they're able to predict how he'll react to the various steps and are prepared for it. Obviously they're taking risks, but they're calculated ones based on having studied their target.

They try two nonviolent solutions before being pressed to using force.

The article dismisses this for no particularly good reason.

[absnow54]

But even if Leia successfully ushers Han out into the night, Chewie, Threepio, and R2 are still stuck there. Sending in Theepio and R2 first doesn't make sense, but the audience needed a familiar translator. Plan A should have been Leia and Chewie going in. Leia getting Han and Lando freeing Chewie. If that didn't work, then they could have sent in the droids as a peace offering to get R2 and the light saber into position, followed by Luke to do cleanup.

[Perfect Xero]

I just assume that Leia would have got Chewie and the droids out too if she hadn't been busted grabbing Han first.

[absnow54]

That just seems like an unnecessary obstacle (especially since Threepio isn't exactly resourceful.) I think planting Lando was a great idea, and Leia using Chewie as a diversion was good too. The droids as Step A does not make sense to me, outside of knowing George Lucas is a formulaic story teller and therefore wanted to start the adventure through the droid sub plot like he did in the first one. 

ETA and how does Luke's holo about being friends with Han help with their plan of sending in a bounty hunter with Han's best friend the next day. That would be a major red flag, but I can hand wave it because Jabba is so arrogant. 

Edited March 6, 2018 by absnow54

[Perfect Xero]

The droids are the oddest bit, but they got Luke's lightsaber in place.

Quite frankly we may be placing more value on saving that droids than team Skywalker did.

End of the day are the droids "people" to Luke, or are they just a slightly less annoying Siri and a souped up Roomba?

I'd gamble my iPhone to save my friend from a crime lord, and that's a lot more useful than 3PO usually is.

[absnow54]

I could see the gang sacrificing Threepio (although Chewie went through the hassle of rescuing him piece by piece from a junkyard and reassembling him) but I don't think Luke would sacrifice R2 as a set up in case they need to reach plan D. I know Return of the Jedi is completely independent from The Last Jedi, but in that film I feel like there were at least two occasions where the simple answer was "Have a droid do it!?!?!" yet Threepio was stashed safely away on an escape transport while resistance members were sacrificing themselves. And anyway, Threepio was completely useless in the plan. They may as well have left him with the rebel fleet, since R2 was the only member who needed to be in play. Plus, R2 had Luke's lightsaber stashed away, and it's not like those are a dime a dozen. Weren't Kyber crystals practically extinct by this time? So why would you stash your brand new weapon in a sacrificial lamb for a "If Everything Goes to Shit" plan, when you've got two or three plans already in play?

I get why Lucas paced the escape the way he did. They had to build up suspense through immersing the droids in Jabba's lair before they started bringing our heroes in, and to be fair, the first 30 minutes of Jedi is Star Wars at its best, in my opinion. But to me, the sequence of events that lead up to Luke telling Han "Relax, this is all going according to plan" is a fucking mess. A fun mess. But a mess. I just imagine Luke laying out the plan to Leia, Chewie, and Lando, all "and then when they're about to push me off the plank, I'm going to do a fucking somersault off the board and catch my light saber in mid-air. I have foreseen it." and them just nodding and smiling tightly while they start planning their own escape plan on the side, because Luke sounds crazy.

Edited March 6, 2018 by absnow54

[VCRTracking]

From the Making of Return of the Jedi book, an excerpt from the transcript of the story meeting with Lucas, writer Lawrence Kasdan, director Richard Marquand, and executive producer Howard Kazanjian:
 

Quote

 

Lucas: Then we can cut to Tatooine, and then we can cut to the robots going along the road, “beep beep,” complaining, sand blowing …
Marquand: Really nice cut.
Lucas: … trucking up this road by themselves; I sort of like that image.
Marquand: Oh, it’s wonderful.
Lucas: Saying, “Why us, why me? How did we get into this mess, what are we doing?”
Marquand: Can I suggest that Lando is actually in Jabba’s in disguise, that he has infiltrated?
Kasdan: The real problem is to figure out a plan; if you figure out a plan you can stick those people in anywhere you want.
Marquand: What if the next arrival is Chewie in chains, with a bounty hunter, which is in fact Leia dressed up. Luke’s not there yet.
Lucas: I could go with that.

Marquand: I think if you go along with that idea, then she could be discovered, which is why she is then turned into a dancing girl. That would be neat.
Lucas: It isn’t until it’s revealed that she is Leia that you realize the whole thing is a trick.
Kasdan: Then you don’t have to deal too much with how Luke was going to use Chewie. He just wanted him in there. We have to give Chewie something meaningful to do, but it may just be physical.
Lucas: The only thing that makes me nervous, is that it’s the same trick that they used to get Leia out of the Death Star, which was to dress Chewie up like a prisoner.

Kasdan: Is she speaking in an alien language?
Lucas: She can speak in an alien language if you want.
Kasdan: Then it’s a great Shakespearean court scene: girl dressed up as a boy. To work back from the skiff, I was wondering if Artoo, when Luke says these droids are my gift to you, instead of putting Artoo to work as a janitor, which is not doing that much good for us, what if Bib says, “We need a translator and Artoo is perfect for our barge where we lost our Artoo unit,” which is part of Luke’s plan.
Lucas: Yes, that’s possible.

Kasdan: See the trick to me is that we have to work back from the Sarlacc pit.
Lucas: What Luke wants to do is to get on that barge and the only way he can do it is as a prisoner. He has to become a prisoner and Chewie has to become a prisoner; they have to unfreeze Han and they all have to be at the same execution, which is what his plan is. He figures once he kills the rancor, then they have to go to the pit. He knows that’s where the execution is going to be anyway. What they do with ordinary nuisances, or solicitors, is they drop them into the rancor pit. Luke knows or doesn’t know that is what would happen, what kind of trap they have laid for him. He’s assuming that when he is discovered and when he is subdued, which he will be, that he is bound to end up with Han and Chewie in the skiff over the Sarlacc pit.
The plan is, “I am going to knock everybody overboard into the pit and we’re going take off”—but it goes a little awry because Boba Fett screws everything up and suddenly they are in trouble and they get into the fight.
Kasdan: You can assume that Luke’s plan is multilayered and the court of last resort is they are going to take him to the Sarlacc pit and they’ll all be in place. But when he comes in and says, “I want to bargain for Han,” he is hoping that will work.
Lucas: Yes.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

Speaking of Luke and Jabba, I have always wondered why Luke needs to throw the rock to hit the switch to drop the door on the beast below Jabba's palace. Why not just use the force to turn the switch?

[Perfect Xero]

5 hours ago, absnow54 said:

I could see the gang sacrificing Threepio (although Chewie went through the hassle of rescuing him piece by piece from a junkyard and reassembling him) but I don't think Luke would sacrifice R2 as a set up in case they need to reach plan D. I know Return of the Jedi is completely independent from The Last Jedi, but in that film I feel like there were at least two occasions where the simple answer was "Have a droid do it!?!?!" yet Threepio was stashed safely away on an escape transport while resistance members were sacrificing themselves. And anyway, Threepio was completely useless in the plan. They may as well have left him with the rebel fleet, since R2 was the only member who needed to be in play. Plus, R2 had Luke's lightsaber stashed away, and it's not like those are a dime a dozen. Weren't Kyber crystals practically extinct by this time? So why would you stash your brand new weapon in a sacrificial lamb for a "If Everything Goes to Shit" plan, when you've got two or three plans already in play?

I get why Lucas paced the escape the way he did. They had to build up suspense through immersing the droids in Jabba's lair before they started bringing our heroes in, and to be fair, the first 30 minutes of Jedi is Star Wars at its best, in my opinion. But to me, the sequence of events that lead up to Luke telling Han "Relax, this is all going according to plan" is a fucking mess. A fun mess. But a mess. I just imagine Luke laying out the plan to Leia, Chewie, and Lando, all "and then when they're about to push me off the plank, I'm going to do a fucking somersault off the board and catch my light saber in mid-air. I have foreseen it." and them just nodding and smiling tightly while they start planning their own escape plan on the side, because Luke sounds crazy.

From a Jedi POV, obviously you'd sacrifice your weapon to save someone.

The rarity of Kyber wasn't really a plot point until decades and  change of ownership later, but even so I think it's safe to assume that there was a sudden surplus of Kyber crystals in the Yavin system after the events of A New Hope.

It's interesting to note that Luke's new lightsaber is the same color as the Death Star's super laser, makes me wonder if he grabbed a crystal as a souvenir after blowing up the Death Star and then later used it to build his own lightsaber.

2 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Speaking of Luke and Jabba, I have always wondered why Luke needs to throw the rock to hit the switch to drop the door on the beast below Jabba's palace. Why not just use the force to turn the switch?

Now that's the thing that actually has always bothered me about that scene. My only theory is that he doesn't want Jabba seeing him as a 'real' threat and deciding that he's too dangerous to keep alive until the Sarlacc pit, which he might if Luke is moving stuff around with his mind right in front of him.

[Kel Varnsen]

41 minutes ago, Perfect Xero said:

Now that's the thing that actually has always bothered me about that scene. My only theory is that he doesn't want Jabba seeing him as a 'real' threat and deciding that he's too dangerous to keep alive until the Sarlacc pit, which he might if Luke is moving stuff around with his mind right in front of him.

In all the movies they seem really bad about remembering that Luke and various other characters can move shit with their minds. I mean in Jedi, the is the whole speeder bike chase scene where Luke should have just as easily been able to crash those things into a tree with a thought.

[BetterButter]

Jon Favreau Will Write And Executive Produce A Live-Action STAR WARS Series

[VCRTracking]

Mark Hamill getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with George Lucas and Harrison Ford in attendance:

Edited March 8, 2018 by VCRTracking

[absnow54]

Aw, I'm so happy for Mark, he looks like he's been having the best time this past year.

[Silver Raven]

I'm surprised Harrison Ford was there.  I never got a "big happy family" vibe from him.

[VCRTracking]

2 hours ago, Silver Raven said:

I'm surprised Harrison Ford was there.  I never got a "big happy family" vibe from him.

He got along fine with Mark. He just never liked talking about Star Wars after he finished the first three movies.

Edited March 9, 2018 by VCRTracking

[starri]

On 3/6/2018 at 3:38 PM, Perfect Xero said:

It's interesting to note that Luke's new lightsaber is the same color as the Death Star's super laser, makes me wonder if he grabbed a crystal as a souvenir after blowing up the Death Star and then later used it to build his own lightsaber.

The current canon explanation for lightsaber color is that the Kyber crystals take on a color based on the aura (for lack of a better word) of the wielder.  The most recent Darth Vader comic revealed that the red crystals are created by the Dark Jedi corrupting it.  Although the gang from Rebels did happen upon a giant crystal being taken to Project Stardust, that was also green, so...