A new Star Wars happened, and opinions are released upon us like nibbling hounds demanding biscuits

[Hades]

Yeah I'm not really getting all those people who are going on about how the movie is infested by SJW or those on the other side who think it strives to be empowering to woman.

The whole thing with Poe and admiral pink hair comes to mind. I've heard it representing wise femininity ''winning'' out over 'toxic masculinity'' or it making Poe a victim of ''Anti mansplaining'' but I think its describing a far more real discussion about flashy but impractical heroism vs safer but less inspiring actions.
And that has nothing to gender. Its a common military discussion we've seen in our history books. Think on Fabian and his despised ''cowardly'' tactics or the hothead Roman commanders who kept going for aggressive moves that Hannibal could easily exploit. I'm pretty sure Fabian never considered himself as holding back ''Toxic masculinity'' or any of such drivel.

 

[SupahEwok]

The whole thing with Poe and admiral pink hair comes to mind. I've heard it representing wise femininity ''winning'' out over 'toxic masculinity'' or it making Poe a victim of ''Anti mansplaining'' but I think its describing a far more real discussion about flashy but impractical heroism vs safer but less inspiring actions.
And that has nothing to gender. Its a common military discussion we've seen in our history books. Think on Fabian and his despised ''cowardly'' tactics or the hothead Roman commanders who kept going for aggressive moves that Hannibal could easily exploit. I'm pretty sure Fabian never considered himself as holding back ''Toxic masculinity'' or any of such drivel.

Oh, you do not want to bring the military as a dog into this fight. I mean, you wanna compare real world military to this movie, how does an Admiral not informing her command staff of the operation's goals and general strategem sit with you? Nobody involved in writing this has read Sun Tzu.

Edit: to head this off, given their small number, we can safely assume that Poe was the only Commander of the star fighter corps, and even with his demotion, he would still be the most senior of any other Captains, making him still head of leadership of one of the Resistance's military branches, and hence still a significant part of its command staff. His tone when Holdo took over was certainly insubordinate, but he did have a right to answers for the specific questions he was asking.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Oh, you do not want to bring the military as a dog into this fight. I mean, you wanna compare real world military to this movie, how does an Admiral not informing her command staff of the operation's goals and general strategem sit with you? Nobody involved in writing this has read Sun Tzu.

I KNOW

Why didn't Admiral Pink tell anyone her plan? Why didn't the fleet try splitting up? Why didn't Poe and Finn tell Admiral Pink how the First Order was tracking them? How did Benecio del Toro know to decrypt the Resistance's stealth systems when he didn't know that those systems existed or that they were being used? Why did the dreadnought at the start target the ground base first and then the cruiser that the base was being evacuated to, instead of targeting the cruiser and leaving the people on the ground base grounded? Why didn't the dreadnought scramble their interceptors as soon as they dropped out of hyperspace? Why didn't the other Star Destroyers try to shield the dreadnought with covering fire? How were the Resistance bombers dropping unpowered bombs without any gravity to pull them down? Why were the bombers flying in such close formation? Why didn't they angle their bomb bays to hit the dreadnought's weak spot from further away instead of very slowly flying directly over it? Why didn't Admiral Pink or Leia acknowledge that Poe Dameron destroying the dreadnought while he had the chance is what gave them any hope of surviving the stern chase later on when it was revealed that the First Order could track them through hyperspace? Why don't they do the hyperspace ramming trick all the time? Why wasn't that their primary plan? Why'd they let their escort frigates run out of fuel and get blown up when they could've evacuated them and then used them as a hyperspace missiles? What's the point of miniaturising Death Star lasers when the Death Star's main innovation was that it just fired a massively up-scaled laser? Aren't you just reverse-engineering till you get to the laser you started with? And didn't the Death Star use some kind of converging beam instead of one giant cannon? Who builds a mountain bunker without a back hatch? If the goal was to protect what remains of the Resistance and regroup later, why spend the entire film selling valuable Resistance lives dearly until only a few dozen remain when you could've been siphoning them off in escape pods and shuttles for the entire film? You would've saved more Resistance members just by giving them a lift to Canto Bight! If the Resistance had stealth tech that the First Order couldn't break through, then why did Finn and Poe need a codebreaker to sneak onto the ship? If all they needed to do was get in touch with the codebreaker, why didn't Maz Kanata just call him up? Why don't Maz Kanata or any other freedom-thinking smuggler types send help to the Resistance at the end of the film when the First Order's available forces were down to a few AT-ATs and half a Star Destroyer? Where does the First Order get its dreadnoughts and mega-star-destroyers from? Who's paying for this shit? Did they get the dreadnought on credit from Canto Bight? Did Starkiller Base have a mortgage? Why is the slave kid on Canto Bight wearing his secret Rebellion signet ring with the Rebel insignia clearly visible! What kind of slave master lets his slaves keep jewelry anyway?! AUGH

Great movie, though.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

1) How is the resistance so fucking incomptent? They defeated the empire to the point Luke could have his own snazzy temple but now they get to the point they have like several hundreds of them left. How? They had several planets supporting them so they should have a sizable fleet. It doesn't help that the new empire is shown to be insanely incompetent time and time again.

Because no military in history has been incompetent? In between WW1 and WW2 (20 years) the French and British armies went from "best in the world" to "practically neutered" and suffered a devastating defeat during the Fall of France against an army that had begun mobilizing and re-arming in earnest only 6 years ago. They suffered this defeat against an army that was sorely ill-equipped to actually conduct war and was numerically inferior in all metrics. I mean, it is pretty obvious that the inter-war and early WW2 is what TFA and TLJ are modeled on when it comes to the Resistance/First Order conflict.

5) How does Finn and fat asian lady know about the inner workings on space ships? The former served as shocktrooper (if I remember correctly) and the latter gets relegated to the job of catching people who run away rather than some tech jobs?

The joke is that Finn actually served more time as a janitor then a Stormtrooper and that's why he knows Starkiller Base and the Star Destroyer. Rose is also explicitly stated to be a technician, so why shouldn't she know some plot vital tech info?

6) Why does Luke randomly die? I mean, I guess it's justified in script as "he used too much power" (despite it only being an hologram) but as a writer why would you kill him for a cheap gut punch?

Because his hologram was a force projection across the galaxy? The movie shows him re-connecting with the force and then pushing himself to his very limit to save the Resistance. Thematically, he died because one of the themes of TLJ is that of legacy and how the different generations deal with it. It was simply time for Luke to let a new Jedi (Rey) be the hero.

7) Why burn the jedi writings? it's still knowledge that can be passed on and a massive waste.

By whom? Luke is the last jedi, quite literally, and Kylo Ren and his knights have explicitly abandoned the Jedi way. If Luke burns the writings he's the only one who knows what was written there and he didn't intend to pass it on.
Never mind that the movie is explicit about why he intended to burn them: They were old and outdated and Luke felt that it was time to find a new way of approaching the force.

8) Where is the criticism of the jedi? For all his hatred of the Jedi, Luke's explanation why they deserve to die is shitty. Couldn't he've gone to length on stuff like forbidding feelings which ended up driving Anakin.

In the movie. If you didn't catch it the first time, re-watch it. It is all there.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

7) Why burn the jedi writings? it's still knowledge that can be passed on and a massive waste.

By whom? Luke is the last jedi, quite literally, and Kylo Ren and his knights have explicitly abandoned the Jedi way. If Luke burns the writings he's the only one who knows what was written there and he didn't intend to pass it on.
Never mind that the movie is explicit about why he intended to burn them: They were old and outdated and Luke felt that it was time to find a new way of approaching the force.

It's worth poiting out that Rey took the scrolls with her, when she was leaving, though. Making Yoda's demonstration, dramatic, yet a tad pointless.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

It's worth poiting out that Rey took the scrolls with her, when she was leaving, though. Making Yoda's demonstration, dramatic, yet a tad pointless.

Yeah, I noticed that. My sister suggested that Yoda knew that Rey had taken the books, thus making Yoda's act more of a push to get Luke to stop his moping than an actual attempt to end the Jedi, as he knew Rey would attempt to re-establish them.

 

[Hades]

The whole thing with Poe and admiral pink hair comes to mind. I've heard it representing wise femininity ''winning'' out over 'toxic masculinity'' or it making Poe a victim of ''Anti mansplaining'' but I think its describing a far more real discussion about flashy but impractical heroism vs safer but less inspiring actions.
And that has nothing to gender. Its a common military discussion we've seen in our history books. Think on Fabian and his despised ''cowardly'' tactics or the hothead Roman commanders who kept going for aggressive moves that Hannibal could easily exploit. I'm pretty sure Fabian never considered himself as holding back ''Toxic masculinity'' or any of such drivel.

Oh, you do not want to bring the military as a dog into this fight. I mean, you wanna compare real world military to this movie, how does an Admiral not informing her command staff of the operation's goals and general strategem sit with you? Nobody involved in writing this has read Sun Tzu.

Edit: to head this off, given their small number, we can safely assume that Poe was the only Commander of the star fighter corps, and even with his demotion, he would still be the most senior of any other Captains, making him still head of leadership of one of the Resistance's military branches, and hence still a significant part of its command staff. His tone when Holdo took over was certainly insubordinate, but he did have a right to answers for the specific questions he was asking.

I don't bring the military in any fight. I'm using the military to illustrate that the fight itself is silly. These days people on both side of the conflict are far to sensitive and ignore more tangible themes that could be depicted in favor of bringing up their preferred positions in this silly culture war.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

But being a janitor doesn't make you adept at signal processing so it's still dumb. Fat asian lady being a technician raises a question of why did they give a job with potential violent outcomes to a single none-fit person who might be knowlegable enough to help the situation rather than give it to the pilots or regular disciplinary officers who don't have anything to do right now. It's bad writing of jamming two characters together despite the location makes no sense.
Granted if I think the Resistance is made of morons it makes perfect sense.

...couple things:
1)Rose is a Starship mechanic, not a freaking plumber.
2)Rose is a member of the Resistance, a covert military operation previously funded in secret by the New Republic. It's safe to assume broad competence with combat operations.
3)If you think Rose is too fat to be "not fit", I've got some athletes to introduce you too. Or most athletes, come to think of it.

Rey could use it or any other people who want to know the mythology of the force (even if not for combat) and in general burning books because you don't like what was written in them is not something that is looked upon favourably.

The "mythology of the Force" being the entire problem with the Jedi was a major plot point.
And burning books becomes a valuable tool when magic is in play. Burn the shit out of that necronomicon

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

If I remember correctly, the German army wasn't that in a bad shape after WW1. As well as the French lost mainly due to relying on trench warfare and thus rather than act agressively bunkered down on the border (which the german army bypassed around). The British were going full pacifists no matter how the apperant the German were bad and acted after it was too late.
Regardless, I was under the impression the leaders of the Resistance were capable in some way considering people like Leia and Akbar were already in a previous war and it wasn't that aweful of power balance last film (granted watching the movie, maybe getting wiped out id the best thing that can happen to them considering their stupidity).

The German Army was restricted to 100,000 active personnel in the treaty of Versailles and were forbidden from developing armored vehicles, the Navy got harsh tonnage restrictions and were forbidden from building any new ships for 15 years after having most of their fleet taken away and Germany was explicitly forbidden from having a military air force.

The German re-armament began in earnest in 1934, five years prior to the invasion of Poland, and the speed and determination of it took everyone by surprise. As I understand it the tie-in novels to TFA makes the Inter War analogy explicit: the Republic disarmed itself after beating the Empire, content that the New Order would be unable to re-arm and resume hostilities. 40 years later, that turned out to be a bad move.

6) Why does Luke randomly die? I mean, I guess it's justified in script as "he used too much power" (despite it only being an hologram) but as a writer why would you kill him for a cheap gut punch?

I said it was justified in script. But thematically it is just bad as the movie hammered the idea into our heads anyways and killing loved characters to emphasize it further is lazy screenwriting. It gave me more of a feeling that they aren't sure Mark Hammil won't survive to later films. Also there is absolutely no sense Luke won't appear as Force ghost anyways.

He probably will, but thematically having him survive would be even weirder. The movie is about legacy and what we pass on and how it is received. Having the character at the center of the legacy theme survive would fuck the theme up completely. "Here's my gift to you, but I'll play an integral part in the next movie too so bummer."

Rey could use it or any other people who want to know the mythology of the force (even if not for combat) and in general burning books because you don't like what was written in them is not something that is looked upon favourably.

Imagine for a moment that you got a hold of last copy of the collected writings of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Imagine that someone came to you for political tutoring. Would you seriously hand over books you believed were wrong and harmful to them? Luke is disillusioned with the Jedi teachings and what he perceives as their elitism and moral absolutism, so why should he give those books to someone he's trying to steer away from that?

What I caught was "bad things happened on their watch", it might have been subtler but this was one part that subtelty should have been thrown to the wind.

It wasn't very subtle. Luke believes that the Jedi were moral absolutist elitists that fostered the myth that only they could use the force in the right way. His mistake with Ben was believing in the Jedi teachings that there could be, literally, no darkness in any "real" force user. Instead of allowing the darkness in Ben to co-exist with the light side and supporting the light, the Jedi way was to stop the threat before it got serious. Which caused Luke to nearly kill his own nephew.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Also way to make Yoda look worse than he did in the 70's.

Funny thing about that is that TLJ Yoda is a puppet like in the OT. Not the original Empire one, but an exact replica. Goes a long way towards explaining why he moves so, well, puppet-like. I rewatched Yoda's OT scenes and it really isn't all that different, aside from the old movement being sparser and slower.

But the blue force ghost aura does seem to be CGI tho, and it's weird, like they just slapped it over the puppet and called it a day. Makes his ghost look like a glowing, but very corporeal thing, because it mostly is. The mix of puppetry and modern film-making techniques like CGI doesn't really seem to gel. A bit strange considering the new movies otherwise pulled off pretty convincing blends of practical and digital effects.

 

[Hawki]

But the blue force ghost aura does seem to be CGI tho, and it's weird, like they just slapped it over the puppet and called it a day. Makes his ghost look like a glowing, but very corporeal thing, because it mostly is. The mix of puppetry and modern film-making techniques like CGI doesn't really seem to gel. A bit strange considering the new movies otherwise pulled off pretty convincing blends of practical and digital effects.

Pretty much this. I'm fine with Yoda being either CGI or a puppet, but the mix here just doesn't work. As a puppet, he has a more solid look, since he's actually there, except as a Force ghost, we know that he isn't corporeal. It's a weird mix of a puppet making some look less real, because in this case, he actually isn't (in the physical sense).

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

But the blue force ghost aura does seem to be CGI tho, and it's weird, like they just slapped it over the puppet and called it a day. Makes his ghost look like a glowing, but very corporeal thing, because it mostly is. The mix of puppetry and modern film-making techniques like CGI doesn't really seem to gel. A bit strange considering the new movies otherwise pulled off pretty convincing blends of practical and digital effects.

Pretty much this. I'm fine with Yoda being either CGI or a puppet, but the mix here just doesn't work. As a puppet, he has a more solid look, since he's actually there, except as a Force ghost, we know that he isn't corporeal. It's a weird mix of a puppet making some look less real, because in this case, he actually isn't (in the physical sense).

There is a common complaint about CGI creations looking like they're not really there, but here we have a case of the practical side of the effect making the whole thing look 'there' too much, when it shouldn't.

I guess there's just no pleasing us.

I jest tho. Yes, it looked a little off, but I thoroughly enjoyed the scene nonetheless. Frank Oz still got it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I don't really have a dog in this particular fight, not having even watched the films in question, but honestly, has anyone ever actually made that argument?

Yes.

Has anyone ever actually seen one of these hypothetical people?

Yes.

Unfortunately, the conversation around the character quickly became polarized, so any kind of nuanced discussion is impossible because of those polarities. And it became polarized because of the people you're questioning the existence of, and their counterparts. As a "dyed in the wool GooberGator", you should be well familiar with the effect polarized camps have on a discussion.

What's bizarre (and ironic) to me is how she's somehow perceived as having improved in TLJ, when nothing could be further from the truth. Her character is even more hastily sketched in, and still performs rather rote heroism (only this time barely breaks a sweat doing it, to the point where it feels perfunctory and boring). The "female character who as a symbol of empowerment never fails at anything ever" spent the first film having PTSD and running away, getting overwhelmed and captured by the primary antagonist/deuteragonist (although it's becoming increasingly apparent Kylo Ren might be a stealth protagonist, or at least co-protagonist), exposed to torture/interrogation by same, knocked out with a single force power in their second encounter (during which her only real friend is maimed and left near death), recovers, duels (poorly) and is pushed to the brink of death, overcomes and wounds the antagonist/deuteragonist, and is able to escape from the collapsing superweapon with the help of Chewbacca.

I was told this character "never struggled with anything", was "perfect at everything she attempted", and was given examples like "Luke being menaced by aliens in a Catina" as counterpoint examining the Herculean tasks faced by "A New Hope's" protagonist.

Did Rey get lightweight characterization in TFA? Yes.
Was the way in which she accessed her force powers vague? Yes. Maybe even appropriately so, given canon, but yes.
Did she receive some questionable writing and a few too many perky/assured character beats, to the point were it was occasionally obnoxious? Yes.

Does any of that mean she's "A Mary Sue", or the most OP character in the history of films that included Space Jesus, Farm Boy destroys the Super Weapon with a mind controller laser shot, Old Man shooting lightning, Man lifts spaceship from bog, etc, etc, etc? No. And the argument she WAS is inane. It's hardly surprising people wonder WHY folks are making it, or how it became polarized around her gender. You want a character who effortlessly succeeds at everything in TFA? Poe. Poe does that. Poe destroys Starkiller Base. Poe is "the best pilot anyone has ever seen". No one complained. Here we already have people complaining about "Fat Rose".

I mean, come on.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Here we already have people complaining about "Fat Rose".

That one also has a whiff of racism about it because Kelly Marie Tran is Vietnamese and if you've ever met people from South Asia, a lot of them just have naturally round faces. Nothing to do with body fat percentages.

My beef with Rose was less that she was a chubby ethnic character and more that she led Finn by the hand into a pointless excursion to a casino planet.

I mean, I'm all for the casting of more chubby-looking Vietnamese women in blockbuster films. But Rose was a fairly standard character (tragic backstory, hates rich people, falls in love with a protagonist over the course of a day) whose primary noteworthy aspect was that...she was a chubby-looking Vietnamese woman in Hollywood, where chubby-looking women and Vietnamese women are both rare and unusual sights.

They could've done more with the character, is what I'm saying. As is, she existed primarily to accompany Finn as he wasted his time and the audience's time in the cinematic equivalent of a goddamn side quest. It wasn't even a B-plot. It was a C-plot.

[sub][sub]Also, I am a Finn/Rey shipper and Rose needs to back the fuck off[/sub][/sub]

 

[BloatedGuppy]

My beef with Rose was less that she was a chubby ethnic character and more that she led Finn by the hand into a pointless excursion to a casino planet.

I mean, I'm all for the casting of more chubby-looking Vietnamese women in blockbuster films. But Rose was a fairly standard character (tragic backstory, hates rich people, falls in love with a protagonist over the course of a day) whose primary noteworthy aspect was that...she was a chubby-looking Vietnamese woman in Hollywood, where chubby-looking women and Vietnamese women are both rare and unusual sights.

They could've done more with the character, is what I'm saying. As is, she existed primarily to accompany Finn as he wasted his time and the audience's time in the cinematic equivalent of a goddamn side quest. It wasn't even a B-plot. It was a C-plot.

[sub][sub]Also, I am a Finn/Rey shipper and Rose needs to back the fuck off[/sub][/sub]

Oh absolutely. Rose is a terrible character, and her entire excursion with Finn is exhausting and pointless. There are lots of perfectly valid angles from which to eviscerate her. "She's fat" is not one of the compelling ones, and is more illustrative of the person making the complaint than any issues with the character itself.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

[sub][sub]Also, I am a Finn/Rey shipper and Rose needs to back the fuck off[/sub][/sub]

/quote]

The real problem is that she's the third wheel in the epic Poe/Finn romance. Poe needs to land his X-wing in Finn's hangar if you catch my drift, but Rose keeps getting in the way.

 

[Ogoid]

Unfortunately, the conversation around the character quickly became polarized, so any kind of nuanced discussion is impossible because of those polarities. And it became polarized because of the people you're questioning the existence of, and their counterparts. As a "dyed in the wool GooberGator", you should be well familiar with the effect polarized camps have on a discussion.

What's bizarre (and ironic) to me is how she's somehow perceived as having improved in TLJ, when nothing could be further from the truth. Her character is even more hastily sketched in, and still performs rather rote heroism (only this time barely breaks a sweat doing it, to the point where it feels perfunctory and boring). The "female character who as a symbol of empowerment never fails at anything ever" spent the first film having PTSD and running away, getting overwhelmed and captured by the primary antagonist/deuteragonist (although it's becoming increasingly apparent Kylo Ren might be a stealth protagonist, or at least co-protagonist), exposed to torture/interrogation by same, knocked out with a single force power in their second encounter (during which her only real friend is maimed and left near death), recovers, duels (poorly) and is pushed to the brink of death, overcomes and wounds the antagonist/deuteragonist, and is able to escape from the collapsing superweapon with the help of Chewbacca.

I was told this character "never struggled with anything", was "perfect at everything she attempted", and was given examples like "Luke being menaced by aliens in a Catina" as counterpoint examining the Herculean tasks faced by "A New Hope's" protagonist.

Did Rey get lightweight characterization in TFA? Yes.
Was the way in which she accessed her force powers vague? Yes. Maybe even appropriately so, given canon, but yes.
Did she receive some questionable writing and a few too many perky/assured character beats, to the point were it was occasionally obnoxious? Yes.

Does any of that mean she's "A Mary Sue", or the most OP character in the history of films that included Space Jesus, Farm Boy destroys the Super Weapon with a mind controller laser shot, Old Man shooting lightning, Man lifts spaceship from bog, etc, etc, etc? No. And the argument she WAS is inane. It's hardly surprising people wonder WHY folks are making it, or how it became polarized around her gender. You want a character who effortlessly succeeds at everything in TFA? Poe. Poe does that. Poe destroys Starkiller Base. Poe is "the best pilot anyone has ever seen". No one complained. Here we already have people complaining about "Fat Rose".

I mean, come on.

I'll take your word for all things concerning Star Wars; as I said, I haven't watched any of the new films, and in fact, have no interest to.

I only mentioned my being a GooberGator because it means I hang out in places where these people are supposed to congregate (hell, I am one of these people if you ask most of our purveyors of Truth at the noble institution of the Fourth Estate), and every criticism of the character of Rey I've come across in any of them has been at least considerably more substantial than "because vagina"; and to dismiss it as such shows, in my opinion, not only a complete lack of anything even remotely resembling a willingness to engage in a discussion in good faith, but in fact, a readiness to condemn someone as so reprehensible a human being as to hate half the world's population... over what? Some arguably shoddy writing in a Hollywood blockbuster?

Really, I think that says more about the people condemning these critics than the critics themselves.

As for this "Poe" character... isn't he a Han Solo type of character? Han was a good pilot too; nobody minded because he was presented to the audience that way from the get-go. Besides, they're support cast, not protagonists.

It's absolutely fine to write badass characters. You just have to be consistent. If you go out of your way to write your hero as some simple bumpkin from the ass-end of Nowheresville, Backwatershire - particularly if you're going for an archetypical, Campbell-esque Hero's Journey - you can't have them instantly succeed at everything they do, or what you end up with is an unsatisfying story.

Besides, wasn't the protagonist of Rogue One a woman, too? I mean, if that's the point of contention, why aren't these supposed woman-haters putting all that effort into finding flaws in her writing?

Could it be that it is simply better? Could that be, perhaps, a more resonable motive to assume of them in the first place?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I only mentioned my being a GooberGator because it means I hang out in places where these people are supposed to congregate (hell, I am one of these people if you ask most of our purveyors of Truth at the noble institution of the Fourth Estate), and every criticism of the character of Rey I've come across in any of them has been at least considerably more substantial than "because vagina"; and to dismiss it as such shows, in my opinion, not only a complete lack of anything even remotely resembling a willingness to engage in a discussion in good faith, but in fact, a readiness to condemn someone as so reprehensible a human being as to hate half the world's population... over what? Some arguably shoddy writing in a Hollywoood blockbuster?

It's never that black and white, Ogroid. It's seldom a case of "Roar, I hate vaginas, and thus will condemn all female characters ever for having one", and more likely a case of "My hackles are already up because the character is female, so I'm far more cognizant of flaws/faults than I would be for a NORMAL (I.E. White Male) character." We already had one individual in this thread accusing the thread of "pandering to minorities", and listing "women" as one of them.

As for this "Poe" character... isn't he a Han Solo type of character? Han was a good pilot too; nobody minded because he was presented to the audience that way from the get-go. Besides, they're support cast, not protagonists.

Yes, Poe is a good pilot. "Poe is an amazing pilot" the film tells us, and he goes on to do amazing stunts for the rest of the film. You do understand what "Mary Sue" means, as a descriptor right? It's character as authorial wish fulfillment. I *believe* it was originally coined as a condemnation of self-authored RPG characters who were always the children of Gods or the best at everything because there was a hyper focus on what would be "cool" rather than what makes for a good narrative device. It's already a slightly cumbersome device to apply to a Star Wars film, where "It's in the film because it was cool" is literally how the entire IP sprung into existence in the first place. Death Star, AT-AT, Lightsabres, none of it makes a lick of pragmatic sense. It's all Rule of Cool. Is Poe a Mary Sue? Absolutely he is. "This guy is the BEST PILOT EVER PEW PEW" is his entire characterization. Rian Johnson tries to texture him a bit by also making him a hot head, but it's kind of like "character texturing 101". It's the sort of thing Stephanie Meyer would do.

It's absolutely fine to write badass characters. You just have to be consistent. If you go out of your way to write your hero as some simple bumpkin from the ass-end of Nowheresville, Backwatershire - particularly if you're going for an archetypical, Campbell-esque Hero's Journey - you can't have them instantly succeed at everything they do, or what you end up with is an unsatisfying story.

Luke is a simple bumpkin from the ass end of Nowheresville, Backwatershire. A simple farm boy who in the course of a single film turns the Empire on its ear and performs astounding acts of mystical heroism. Campbell's Monomyth is literally diluted into a single 2 hour film. Lucas never planned a trilogy from the get go. Luke's Hero's Journey is over by the end of the film. Vader is defeated, the Death Star is destroyed, Luke gets a giant ass medal hung around his neck and a kiss from a Princess. It's simple, Archetypal storytelling. This is not HBO's "The Wire". Rey gets a very similar arc in TFA, in large part because TFA is slavishly recreated from the DNA of A New Hope, due to Disney's desire to reboot the IP by evoking the Original Trilogy to wash away the prequel stank. Suddenly, a portion of the fanbase is feverishly incensed at the presence of this UNBEARABLE MARY SUE.

Besides, wasn't the protagonist of Rogue One a woman, too? I mean, if that's the point of contention, why aren't these supposed woman-haters putting all that effort into finding flaws in her writing?

She was. And her writing was terrible. And people did hate the fact she was a 2nd female protagonist.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=star+wars+sjws&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7gNn5-KrYAhUBR2MKHaMPA50Q_AUICygC&biw=1440&bih=777

You don't have to look far, dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McJfTpAGXK0

Could it be that it is simply better? Could that be, perhaps, a more resonable motive to assume of them in the first place, instead of outright moral condemnation?

It's not. Rogue One was AWFUL. And it got plenty of hate, from many of the same sources. It doesn't get nearly as much attention as TFA did because it wasn't the first film in a new trilogy, or the first Star Wars film to be released since the miserable prequels.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Just saw it. SPOILERS AHEAD. Away we go:

I went into this with the mindset that if this was going to elicit as little reaction as Rogue One I would be done with Star Wars. And it almost did that. Almost. It barely scraped by by having an interesting character dynamic with Kylo Ren, which makes me wonder what direction they're going to take with it. Which is probably pointless, since this movie was about as cookie-cutter and safe as I was expecting.

And honestly, that's about all the good I can say about this film. This film is maddening on so many levels.

Story
What fucking story? One of the rebels just chugging along in their spaceships, one of the supposed main character sitting on her ass. And a completely pointless C-plot that serves nothing but incredibly flimsy worldbuilding and some special effects. Oh, and of fucking course you had to give both the new prominent creatures those big baby seal eyes to tell to the audience "YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD FOR THESE. DO YOU FEEL BAD YET?????" The main story here is with Luke, and the others exist to only distract from it with special effects.

Characters
Rey is a fucking terrible character in this film. I like Daisy Ridley, I think she's charismatic and likable, but my fucking God did the writers drop the ball on this. She's an entirely reactive protagonist for 90% of the film. Her story is only dictated by things that happen to her or someone else does for her, not by choices she herself chooses or is forced to make. First she has to wait for Luke to teach her. Which is not achieved by persistence, good rhetoric or social skills. She just waves a lightsaber around some until Luke seems to give up more out of annoyance than conviction. Then she has those Skype conversations with Kylo, which we later find out were enabled by Snoke, so that's another thing out of her control she did nothing to achieve. Speaking of Kylo, he almost feels like a background character and...



You know what? I was going to go on a whole rant about how this is more recycling of the same, lazy writing (it's never been established how the First Order or Snoke got into power, OR WHAT SNOKE EVEN FUCKING IS), thin plot, lame-ass characters, shit story, poor pacing, ass-pulls of the highest (First) order (Leia and Jedi ghosts can now apparently use the force) but... I honestly don't care. After trying (and failing) to get Doom to work properly for almost 2 hours, the movie has now almost completely disappeared from my mind. This is the most insipid film I've seen all year bar Justice League. For all its talk about how "it's time for old things to die", it sure seems awfully comfortable languishing in Star Wars nostalgia, once again essentially recreating visual references and entire scenes from the originals.

If anything, this film makes me both glad and mad about movies like Deadpool and Logan: glad because they got made before the House of Mouse got its gloved mitts on them, and mad because I know those fuckers will never, ever, ever let filmmakers make movies like those again. This is basically the baseline for what we can accept from the future: safe, insubstantial, unmemorable, drab, colourless slop where a shitton of things happen yet nothing happens at the same time, and Disney keeps laughing their way to the bank.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I *believe* it was originally coined as a condemnation of self-authored RPG characters who were always the children of Gods or the best at everything because there was a hyper focus on what would be "cool" rather than what makes for a good narrative device.

It originated in Star Trek Fan Fic circles (as a parody of Fan Fic no less), where it described characters that were obvious authorial inserts and wish fulfillment. TV tropes [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue] has a pretty good run down of what a Mary Sue can be, though the term obviously has different meanings in different places.

Rey can definitely be called a half-baked character in TFA, but Mary Sue is hard as we learn absolutely nothing of her background and the exceptional background (which orphan junk scavenger really isn't) component isn't there. What skills she has are not extraordinary in the universe she is in, as there are better pilots (two shows up in the very movie), better mechanics (one or two, depending on if you count BB-8, in the same movie) better shots (three in the same movie) and better force users (three shows up, but only one uses his force powers). What Rey has is essentially quick wit and iron will, which isn't enough to be a Mary Sue. But I think you nail the reason why she gets called it pretty well.