Star Wars: The Last Jedi (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

[Moonhawk]

Guvernator said:

Same thing happened with Ghostbusters............

To be fair - TLJ wasn't as blatant as Ghostbusters 3.

At least they didn't have Rey kill Snoke by chopping his cock off with a lightsaber.

[r11co]

Moonhawk said:

To be fair - TLJ wasn't as blatant as Ghostbusters 3.

At least they didn't have Rey kill Snoke by chopping his cock off with a lightsaber.

True, but the effective emasculating of Poe was pretty blatant.

[glazbagun]

I must say I didn't think the film was OTT Feminist Device when watching it either.

It may be that they created and killed purple hair-admiral-who-Poe-doesn't-know because they wanted a woman in a top role (although with female lead in R1 and TFA, and Leia being pretty much THE leader of the resistance, I'm not sure why).

But watching it I just saw the inexplicably bad general who happened to be purple haired and female being given lots of screen time and then dying needlessly to be bad writing as it could have been Leia or Akbar.

Same with Phasma's damp squib, and Rose's saved-you-so-we-can-all-die final act of bullst plot.

When bemoaning the poor end given to an iconic character who has a fish-head, or any of the other low points of the film I'm not sure heavy gender politics was even in the top 20 things this film should have done better.

Edited by glazbagun on Wednesday 10th January 22:59

[Halb]

Moonhawk said:

To be fair - TLJ wasn't as blatant as Ghostbusters 3.

At least they didn't have Rey kill Snoke by chopping his cock off with a lightsaber.

That was the audience preview version
They did some reshoots

[KillerHERTZ]

Quickmoose said:

loved the prequels and hate this...? that is damming....

Yep, re-watch them, they arent (well, maybe attack of the clones) arent anywhere as bad as the you/everyone remember. They still feel starwars where as TLJ does not.



Fingers crossed Solo will be ok.


Why oh why was Snoke killed off in TLJ,??? he was the only character with an interesting back story, sinster and owned every scene he was in.

[Mothersruin]

When you watch the prequals, they all make sense, even if they're bad films.

[Daniel1]

Mothersruin said:

When you watch the prequals, they all make sense, even if they're bad films.

I agree. Take the same story for each three films but get a better screen writer and director and they could have been brilliant.

Even Hayden would have been far better as it was his script that didnt help. Sand anyone?

[IforB]

r11co said:

bhstewie said:

I haven't knowingly read or watched anything from Kathleen Kennedy so maybe I went in without any pre-conceptions about her, Disney, who knows

Irrelevant - you didn't need to be expecting it to notice it. I was just informing you of the producer's intentions to let you know what a klutz you were being.

The old saying that everyone is entitled to their opinion is true, but it is equally true that not everyone's opinion has value and one should accept theirs may be wrong in the face of evidence to the contrary.

You've said a lot about what you thought of the film but you've admitted to missing one of its main stated themes. That puts everything else you've said into persepective.

Edited by r11co on Wednesday 10th January 19:43

Seriously, who cares if there was a feminist agenda or not. You seem to think that having strong female characters is a bad thing in some way. Why?

There were issues with the film in many ways (I still enjoyed it though) but having women in main roles didn't register with me one little bit. If a women is in charge, so what? If a bloke is in charge, so what?

Enjoy the film (or not) for what it is. Don't get your nickers in a twist about something so facile about having women in lead roles.

[Moonhawk]

IforB said:

Seriously, who cares if there was a feminist agenda or not. You seem to think that having strong female characters is a bad thing in some way. Why?

Strong female characters arent a bad thing when there is no agenda behind it.

Some of the best scifi movies of all time have had strong females in the lead role e.g. Alien(s), Terminator(s) etc

The point was however - their role in the movie didnt generally come at the expense of denigrating, mocking or emasculating the male characters. They were just treated as equals.

I find it odd that despite the strides that have been taken towards gender equality in society - some movies from the 1970s and 1980s actually seemed to handle gender equality in a much more neutral and believable way.

[Halb]

It is interesting when you look at it.
LIkewise Star Wars is the same. Princess Leia is fundamental to the film, without her, the film doesn't exist and the rebellion is destroyed. She steals plans and delivers them. Bit of a shame that Rogue 1 rubbishes that.
She survives torture due to her strength (force whatever) surprising even Vader/Tarkin and then saves her supposed rescuers a dopey farmboy and a selfish pilot who utterly cock up their endeavour.

[chris watton]

I think that perhaps the problem with 'strong female leads', as Hollywood sees it today, is that it is done at the expense of making the male characters artificially weak and dumb, whereas in the past, the balance was more or less equal.

I didn't give this a moments thought when watching TLJ at the cinema, I thought it was just a very disappointing experience, but now I can see just how dumb and weak the male characters are compared to females.

To a larger extent, they did this trick with Ghostbusters 2016. Balance is key, but you cannot have balance if scripts are agenda-driven, and I have a feeling agenda-driven entertainment will age very badly.

[uuf361]

I've just seen this and was somewhat disappointed.........reminded me a bit of (I think) a Family Guy episode. Jedi something something, Force something something, baddies something something......could have easily been an hour shorter and more interesting.........just way too slow moving and in places rather dull/pointless.....

Hopefully the next one will be better.

[Moonhawk]

chris watton said:

To a larger extent, they did this trick with Ghostbusters 2016. Balance is key, but you cannot have balance if scripts are agenda-driven, and I have a feeling agenda-driven entertainment will age very badly.

Exactly this.

How would the original Ghostbuster be viewed today if the guys had defeated Gozer by shooting her in the boobs.

[IforB]

Moonhawk said:

IforB said:

Seriously, who cares if there was a feminist agenda or not. You seem to think that having strong female characters is a bad thing in some way. Why?

Strong female characters arent a bad thing when there is no agenda behind it.

Some of the best scifi movies of all time have had strong females in the lead role e.g. Alien(s), Terminator(s) etc

The point was however - their role in the movie didnt generally come at the expense of denigrating, mocking or emasculating the male characters. They were just treated as equals.

I find it odd that despite the strides that have been taken towards gender equality in society - some movies from the 1970s and 1980s actually seemed to handle gender equality in a much more neutral and believable way.

I detected no agenda and nor did I see any character being emasculated or denigrated for being male in the slightest. I am genuinely confused as to what bit of the film that appeared in.

[Guvernator]

IforB said:

I detected no agenda and nor did I see any character being emasculated or denigrated for being male in the slightest. I am genuinely confused as to what bit of the film that appeared in.

Almost every single scene with Poe and Purple Hair for a start.

I know different people have different viewpoints etc so you might not have noticed it but it's definitely there, enough for lots of other people to notice it at any rate, I certainly did.

[Moonhawk]

IforB said:

I detected no agenda and nor did I see any character being emasculated or denigrated for being male in the slightest. I am genuinely confused as to what bit of the film that appeared in.

Almost every male character was either evil, morally bankrupt or was shown to have major character flaws in need of correction guidance or remonstration. Even Luke had to be talked around by Rey.

Both Poe and Finn were pysically assaulted by female characters.

Most of the ‘heroic’ and leadership actions taken in the film were fulfilled by women (the destruction of the drednought, the rebels escape plan, thwarting Poe’s mutiny, the destruction of snokes ship, leading the tiefighters away from the skimmers, saving Finn, rescuing the rebels at the end).

Where the men were show in ‘heroic’ situations - it was mostly portrayed as being the result of recklessness, reluctance or stupidity.

[ukaskew]

chris watton said:

I think that perhaps the problem with 'strong female leads', as Hollywood sees it today, is that it is done at the expense of making the male characters artificially weak and dumb, whereas in the past, the balance was more or less equal

Both Molly's Game and Three Billboards have had female leads with very strong male supporting characters recently. Neither are mainstream blockbusters, but I don't see too many discussions around the female aspects of those films, good or bad. They are just two absolutely superb performances.

[Guvernator]

I'll give Wonder Woman as a good decent example, no over the top virtue signalling, no obvious agenda with a strong supporting male cast. It just has a decent story, a pretty well made film with a very charismatic and likeable female lead and yet she has effectively become a strong roll model and poster girl for a whole generation of females. Subtle and effective without feeling the need to bang people over the head with the feminism hammer to get it's message across.

The political messages in TLJ are about as subtle as a brick, obviously everyone has their own viewpoint but to those who claim to have missed it, well you were obviously watching a different version of TLJ to me.

Again on it's own or handled with a little more subtlety it wouldn't have been so bad but when you add it to everything else that's wrong with this movie it really grates.

[Mothersruin]

Guvernator said:

I'll give Wonder Woman as a good decent example, no over the top virtue signalling, no obvious agenda with a strong supporting male cast. It just has a decent story, a pretty well made film with a very charismatic and likeable female lead and yet she has effectively become a strong roll model and poster girl for a whole generation of females. Subtle and effective without feeling the need to bang people over the head with the feminism hammer to get it's message across.

The political messages in TLJ are about as subtle as a brick, obviously everyone has their own viewpoint but to those who claim to have missed it, well you were obviously watching a different version of TLJ to me.

Again on it's own or handled with a little more subtlety it wouldn't have been so bad but when you add it to everything else that's wrong with this movie it really grates.

There were times in TLJ where the missus and I looked at each other and mouthed 'WTF!' at the blatant preaching.

Not a film I'll be watching again.

[confucuis]

Whilst I wasn't thinking about gender politics and virtue signalling at the time, even when I was watching the film something seemed "off" to me, like the film was saying something besides the actual story and ended up ruining the immersion I had felt up to that point.