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Backlash against Kathleen Kennedy and Star Wars in general
- Thread starter wdisney9000
- Start date
xdan0920
Think for yourselfer
TL;dr
There is so much internet BS around this film. Let's simplify. A lot of people, like me, and anecdotally the few of my friends and relatives who are Star Wars fans....
1. Loved TFA. It was a wonderful Star Wars popcorn, feel good, have fun movie.
2. LOVE Rey. Rey, who is in fact, a girl. Love her. Love her as the hero, love her as a character, loved her. Full stop.
3. Loved Rogue One. Which starred, you guessed it, a girl!!!!
4. Hated TLJ. A movie that looks like it was cut from a completely different cloth as TFA. A movie that made little to no sense. A film that marginalized the very characters TFA was working to build up. Rian Johnson made a movie that just flat out stunk.
5. That stink bomb of a movie kept me and most of my friends away from Solo. It sucked the Star Wars excitement right out of me.
The backlash against Star Wars is because TLJ wasn't a continuation of TFA. It was just a crappy movie, and it (temporarily) ruined Star Wars for me and many others it seems. The backlash has nothing to do with having female leads. Any loser claiming there are too many girls in new Star Wars is in the extreme (vocal) minority. I didn't skip Solo because Rey(who isn't in Solo by the way) is a girl. I skipped it because after TLJ, I need a Star Wars break.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Back in the original trilogy days when we waited three years between films we would have thought a new star wars movie every year was heaven. It probably would have been except for the that small vocal minority that the internet echo chamber amplifies. Heck, if it weren't for that echo chamber, Disneyland wouldn't be packed to gills 365 days a year.
LSLS
Well-Known Member
I feel similar to you. Loved the things you also did. I didn't hate TLJ, but was not a fan of it. That maybe partly kept me away (particularly because TLJ caused me not to get excited by the Solo trailer), but I think the upheaval around this movie really kept me away. Everything leading up to the release just seemed like the movie was going to be awful. It sounds like it was pretty good (full marks to Ron Howard on somehow saving it), but just hasn't done enough for me to jump up and go spend the movie at the theater.
c-one
Well-Known Member
Woke up to the news that Kelly Marie Tran quit Instagram. Not too long after Daisy Ridley did the same. One more great fanboy moment for the list!
Princess Leia
Well-Known Member
Yeah, not a great moment for the fans.
I don’t care if you like Rose Tico or not, or either prequel version of Anakin (Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen were bullied into retreating from public life) or Rey (Daisy has also taken time away from the internet due to stress), harassing these people constantly has consequences, and it makes the fans look petty and gross. They’re all people who were/are excited about being included in the Star Wars universe, and the ‘fans’ are relentless in singling them out.
Evilgidgit
Well-Known Member
I assume you're being sarcastic about harassing Kelly Marie Tran as a being a "great" fanboy moment.
The plain and simple fact is this: many of the original fans who make their presence known on the Internet (which make up a minority of fans from 1977 onwards and a minority of fans in general) simply hyped up everything, from the prequel trilogy to now as the equivalent of the Second Coming of Jesus, an absolute religious must-see event that will be everything they wanted from their days playing with the toys and reading the EU material, which had hardened into absolute dogma and holy scripture. When George Lucas and Rick McCallum, and then Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson did even the slightest deviation from that ossified vision, they were condemned as heretics for "devaluing and betraying the one true faith", and anyone who said that they were fine with this direction, even that they loved it, was similarly tarred with the same brush.
No film in the series was ever going to match those same heights that the original trilogy, especially the original film, reached then they were released. It was simply impossible and foolish to even try, and Lucas et al wisely chose not to. If any of the movies from The Phantom Menace onward had been made strictly to please the fans, it would have ended in colossal failure, and everyone else would've found it inaccessible and full of pretentious nerd-ery, for lack of a better term. For all the faults that every Star Wars film has (and that includes the original trilogy), each outing transcends those flaws, and always results in a damn good movie that can easily stand the test of time. And the vast majority of the public recognizes this, and has accepted these films with open arms. The only reason it may not look that way is because a very vocal minority has hijacked the narrative, thanks to social media, and is able to amplify their presence to make themselves look larger than they really are.
Simply put, technology and time has helped gaslight the public, and helped spread cancerous myths about these films that no matter how often and how soundly they've been debunked, are simply impossible to eradicate. It, after all makes it appear that the public roundly turned their backs on The Phantom Menace and rejected it outright, when that wasn't the case whatsoever at the time. And the toxic, gatekeeping fans who especially turn their noses at any younger fans and say "you weren't there at the beginning, so what you say doesn't matter", and especially those who have been radicalized by "anti-PC" brigades are the ones to blame for all the hate and discord, and creating division where there was none before. Their noxious presence was a cumulative, additional effect in impacting Solo's box office performance, along with the decision to release it so soon after Infinity War and at a time when Incredibles 2 and Deadpool 2 would easily eat away at their potential profits.
No film in the series was ever going to match those same heights that the original trilogy, especially the original film, reached then they were released. It was simply impossible and foolish to even try, and Lucas et al wisely chose not to. If any of the movies from The Phantom Menace onward had been made strictly to please the fans, it would have ended in colossal failure, and everyone else would've found it inaccessible and full of pretentious nerd-ery, for lack of a better term. For all the faults that every Star Wars film has (and that includes the original trilogy), each outing transcends those flaws, and always results in a damn good movie that can easily stand the test of time. And the vast majority of the public recognizes this, and has accepted these films with open arms. The only reason it may not look that way is because a very vocal minority has hijacked the narrative, thanks to social media, and is able to amplify their presence to make themselves look larger than they really are.
Simply put, technology and time has helped gaslight the public, and helped spread cancerous myths about these films that no matter how often and how soundly they've been debunked, are simply impossible to eradicate. It, after all makes it appear that the public roundly turned their backs on The Phantom Menace and rejected it outright, when that wasn't the case whatsoever at the time. And the toxic, gatekeeping fans who especially turn their noses at any younger fans and say "you weren't there at the beginning, so what you say doesn't matter", and especially those who have been radicalized by "anti-PC" brigades are the ones to blame for all the hate and discord, and creating division where there was none before. Their noxious presence was a cumulative, additional effect in impacting Solo's box office performance, along with the decision to release it so soon after Infinity War and at a time when Incredibles 2 and Deadpool 2 would easily eat away at their potential profits.
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FettFan
Well-Known Member
I still maintain that Trevorrow was fired because he complained too loudly and too often about the direction Johnson was taking Last Jedi.
FettFan
Well-Known Member
They had one GREAT female lead, played by an actor who has a lot of Sci-Fi/Fantasy cred thanks to her turn on Game of Thrones.
They gave her a distinct look, featured her in all of the marketing. Because really, how often do you see a SILVER/CHOME Stormtrooper commander?
And look how THAT turned out.
Maybe Rian Johnson has a thing against capable, competent female characters, hence he incinerated Phasma, put Leia into a coma, had Rey bumble around and accidentally destroy the Caretaker's homes.....and then put the illogical Rose Tico on a pedestal.
She prevents Finn from sacrificing himself to disable the giant cannon and says: "We don't win wars by destroying the enemy. We win by saving the people we love."
Meanwhile, in the background the giant cannon fires and blows open the bunker door, allowing stormtroopers to overrun it and kill the rebels inside. Thanks, Rose.
Tick Tock
Well-Known Member
That's just sad. Kelly Marie is a cute actress who played the character of Rose very well (imo). The problem I had with Rose's character was how it was written, and how her contributions to the overall plot seemed unnecessary....none of which being Kelly's fault.
I don't care how upset people are over a movie, nobody should be forced to back down to bullies.
If you want a real example of cynically hitching the diversity train in a cheap and transparent ploy, take a look at the writings of Cassandra Clare and her Shadowhunters series. Besides being very plagiaristic and recycled, as well having a very shallow and flimsy representation of world building and cardboard cutout characters that only pine over each other, she very clumsily shoehorns social justice points and characters in just to be looked on as tolerant and "hip and cool", and earn more money. Rey, Finn, Rose, Holdo et al don't come anywhere close to this.