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Post by spockoda on Apr 11, 2018 18:00:31 GMT -6
Much has been made of some sexist comments attributed to Kathleen Kennedy saying Star Wars doesn't need male fans or at least doesn't need to cater to male fans. If comments like this were made I find it disappointing that someone in her position at Lucasfilm would basically take a swipe at part of the Star Wars fan base with her feminist viewpoint. I feel stuff like that should be kept out of Star Wars and if she has a separate agenda maybe she could write a book or something. I also feel like she is the type of person that wants to wipe the slate clean, so to speak, of Star Wars fandom. I don't have any facts or figures to back this up but when I was growing up during the OT years Star Wars was primarily a boys type of property. I believe Kennedy knows this well and wants to rewrite the book on Star Wars. I recall in TLJ Kylo said something to the affect of "Let's kill everything old.". Although that is merely a line from the movie, I get a feeling that is what Kennedy has in mind and far as crapping all over the OT/PT fan base and reinventing the wheel as in "her" Star Wars. I'm a fan since the beginning but I am starting to feel marginalized to an extent, like let's forget all the time, energy, and money I have put into Star Wars in my lifetime. And I'm sure JJ Abrams would be on board with this as he had originally wanted to reboot Star Wars altogether. This coupled with the fact that when he first did the Star Trek films he wanted CBS to stop making merchandise from the original Trek so it wouldn't be confused with "his" Trek. I definitely smell a rat somewhere and I might keep her words in mind the next time I go to spend my hard earned money on new Star Wars merchandise, although to be fair I don't really buy a lot of new Star Wars stuff anyway since I only collect the OT and have just started again dabbling in PT figures and I don't collect Disney's "sequel trilogy" as you could call it.
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Post by Thor Laserpunch on Apr 11, 2018 19:26:23 GMT -6
I don't know how much of that actually checks out, but I watched TLJ for the first time this weekend and I was kinda surprised at all the women among the rebel ranks... like it seemed they were outnumbering the males both as troops and leaders. Beyond that, besides Poe, Finn, and Luke, every single heroic moment went to the ladies--Rose, Rose's sister, purple hair Laura Dern, Leia, and, of course, Rey. Maz Kanata's in it for two seconds--handling a business call while handlin' her bidness, and then Phasma is born again hard. I mean, there wasn't much room for male character development at all outside of Luke. So I'm a very tolerant person, consider myself pretty open-minded, very socially liberal, and I believe in the milk of human kindness and all that and can appreciate that certain subsets of the population feel like they're due their moment, but when it comes to massively popular franchises like DC, Marvel, and Star Wars, that built themselves on characters that were conceived as white males, I don't see why everything has to be rewritten to fit the current wave. Every formerly white male superhero part has to now go to a woman or a minority, and it's really a joke, it's straight pandering, and I get why it alienates people, particularly longtime fans who feel slighted. And in this case with Kathleen Kennedy, she does have that reputation that she rides that empowerment card hard. I mean, I literally think she hates men just based on the content of the last film. Snokes killed by phallic dismemberment. Luke killed by male ego? Han Solo is the biggest cad of all and he was the first of the major stars to bite it in the new world order. Leia isn't even dead yet AND YET CARRIE FISHER IS DEAD! It seems like they could have just written her dead for no simpler reason than not forcing the audience to witness another ghastly CGI reincarnation of her like in Rogue One. Plus she just out of the blue uses the force?!? Give me a literal freakin' break. I try not to think about it, because sometimes it's just too much. It's too stupid.
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Post by spockoda on Apr 11, 2018 20:41:23 GMT -6
Some of my rant was speculation on my part, but speculation based on what I have seen and/or heard. I have joked that if another Indiana Jones movie is made it will feature a brand new female character that will be able to use a whip as good or better than Jones the first time she picks one up. I do believe it's possible that more girls/women are into Star Wars than ever which is great but to Kennedy I would say if someone was purposely giving females a slight in the Star Wars movies or its fandom then it's okay to slight males? And to be fair when I was a kid it wasn't me paying for the Star Wars toys and comics but my folks bought those things for me because little Spockoda was clamoring for them. There have been predominately female franchises or toy lines out there and I have not been offended or feeling like my male-ness was under attack. The I Am Elemental figure line immediately comes to mind, aren't all the figures based on female characters? I don't collect it but I'm fine that it exists and not offended if it doesn't feature any male characters. And then there's JJ saying if you didn't like TLJ you are threatened by strong female characters. I'm sorry but I feel like that is an ignorant idea.
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Post by Thor Laserpunch on Apr 12, 2018 13:56:23 GMT -6
TLJ was just not that exciting to me, and it had nothing to do with the female characters. It is easily the weakest of all the feature films for me. It just feels it exists in a bottle and in a universe separate from the rest of the franchise. And again, it feels like there's some legit man-hate bubbling under the surface, or, at the very least, pussy power gone too far. I definitely do not wanna sound like some douche claiming "white men are under attack!" or some such drivel, and I'm fine with strong female central characters like Rey, but it is what it is. I don't know if the killing off of the old is mainly her contribution, or JJ's, or the studio's, or whathaveyou, but I'm not loving the direction they're going with everything after TFA and am not gonna keep paying money for an end-product that is no longer relatable or enjoyable. Plus they are kinda killing the specialness of the franchise for me by churning out these shallow blockbuster movies year after year. I try to keep an open mind, but I'm pretty sure Solo isn't gonna move me either.
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Post by spockoda on Apr 12, 2018 16:05:51 GMT -6
Everything you said in that paragraph is true! I'm definitely going to skip Solo and I may or may not be skipping new Star Wars movies in general if everyone, everyone being Kennedy, Abrams, etc. ,are basically going to turn an entertainment franchise into a we've got this axe to grind type of franchise. If they weren't intent on throwing the other trilogies out the proverbial window they would have done some things differently with these new movies. It seems to be like they are trying to remold a new Star Wars audience, I just didn't catch on after TFA. When the prequels came out, I saw each one 2 or 3 times at theaters and I even snuck in and watched a few minutes of one while waiting for another movie my wife and I were going to go see started. After seeing TFA and TLJ I had no desire to see them again. The only "spark" that makes me want to see TLJ again are the scenes with Luke. I feel Kennedy has an agenda and somewhere George Lucas is smiling, asking Star Wars fans "Miss me yet?.
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Post by Thor Laserpunch on Apr 15, 2018 6:02:35 GMT -6
I was trying to articulate my feelings on this to my wife over drinks the other night but I did a horrible job. Now I have to get a divorce and I'll lose half my action figures.
I just can't stand when entertainment has an agenda. It is a huge turnoff.
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Post by spockoda on Apr 15, 2018 10:31:52 GMT -6
Online there are a lot of very vocal people that think TLJ was an incredible cinematic achievement. I say have at it. Even Mark Hamill doesn't really like it so to me the actor that actually portrayed Luke Skywalker himself's viewpoint has some pretty decent weight to it outside of fans that have been there since the beginning.
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