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I had a Star Wars marathon recently and...


Quetzalcoatl
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Question one.

 

Audiences with an attention span can sit through films that go through long periods of time without any action. Much of the first act of ANH is a lot of talking, much of Act 2 of ESB is the same. They've cut out the need to show Rey learning how to use her power so they can cut straight to the action.

 

Question Two:

 

Finn is the typical black guy side kick, hyperactive, and is meant to be funny. He's a slave. He's a thief (steals a ship and a jacket). He's a liar (claims to be with the resistance), chases after the white girl (the main reason he lies), and is a traitor who doesn't want to do his job.

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I think (or rather hope) you'll get that "talking" in VIII because Rey still has to learn how to control and master her Force abilities (my final verdict on VII will depend on the quality of VIII). From the way some people are going on, you'd think that she had been entertaining the Resistance with X-wing juggling before she left with Chewie.

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1. Rey's introduction on Jakku

2. The meeting between Han, Rey, and Finn

3. The "it's all true" conversation

4. The entire beginning of the Maz's castle sequence

5. The entire interlude at the Resistance base, and the briefing about the attack on Starkiller Base

6. The aftermath of the battle and discovering the map

7. The final sequence of the film

8. Everything with Snoke, Kylo, and Hux

 

Those are just the big sequences I can think of without actually scanning through the movie. There's plenty of times when people sit around and talk.

 

The point remains that Rey doesn't need to learn her power in this movie. That's for the next one. TFA is about her discovering she's a powerful Force user. Kylo Ren says as much to Snoke.

 

As to your second point, I have a whole lot of thoughts about this. Why is it a bad thing that Finn is funny? How exactly is he hyperactive? There's plenty of moments when he's not exuberant or exclaiming - case in point, most of the scenes I mentioned above. Should he always be somber? Finn is a slave, yes, but he escapes his captors; how is that a bad stereotype? If anything that's him exercising his own agency. He takes a jacket left in a TIE fighter that belonged to a man he believes is dead. The Rebellion uses a stolen ship in Return of the Jedi, so I'm not sure why Finn stealing a ship to escape the bad guys is considered more of a bad thing (especially considering he wasn't alone). He's no more of a liar than Obi-Wan Kenobi. Chasing after the white girl? I don't even know what this means. When does he chase after her? Do you mean he likes her, or that he physically chases her? Because the second thing doesn't happen in the movie. Rey chases him down. If you just mean that he likes her, why is that a bad thing? Han Solo liked Princess Leia. It's a bad thing that he's a traitor to the First Order, aka the bad guys? I don't understand this, especially in light of your complaint that he was a slave. Him turning traitor is a good thing.

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I'm going to regret asking these questions, but....

 

 

What does Rey's lack of training in this film (ignoring that this will be a plot in later movies) have to do with people who are diagnosed with ADHD?

I've heard this from several "millennials" myself. If it were released today ESB would be boring as hell. You have a great battle in the beginning, a great duel at the end, but nothing happens in between but a bunch of talking! Luke talking with a puppet and Han and Leia playing hard to get.

 

I just sigh and wonder if I ever sounded like this to older generations when talking about their films/music or if this generation really has gone off the rails.

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1. Rey's introduction on Jakku


2. The meeting between Han, Rey, and Finn


3. The "it's all true" conversation


4. The entire beginning of the Maz's castle sequence


5. The entire interlude at the Resistance base, and the briefing about the attack on Starkiller Base


6. The aftermath of the battle and discovering the map


7. The final sequence of the film


8. Everything with Snoke, Kylo, and Hux



Those are just the big sequences I can think of without actually scanning through the movie. There's plenty of times when people sit around and talk.



Yes, obviously there is some talking, this isn't a silent movie. The dialogue driven scenes are short in comparison to the earlier films. It's not just about the length either. In the original trilogy is was scene after scene of talking which built up tho the action, with TFA is a little bit of talking, loads of action, a little more talking, loads more action etc...




The point remains that Rey doesn't need to learn her power in this movie. That's for the next one. TFA is about her discovering she's a powerful Force user. Kylo Ren says as much to Snoke.



But she has learned it. She's learned how to do a Jedi Mind trick and use a Lightsaber FFS. Obvioulsy she needs to learn more and she will, but to get where she already is without the training is total BS.



As to your second point, I have a whole lot of thoughts about this. Why is it a bad thing that Finn is funny? How exactly is he hyperactive? There's plenty of moments when he's not exuberant or exclaiming - case in point, most of the scenes I mentioned above. Should he always be somber? Finn is a slave, yes, but he escapes his captors; how is that a bad stereotype? If anything that's him exercising his own agency. He takes a jacket left in a TIE fighter that belonged to a man he believes is dead. The Rebellion uses a stolen ship in Return of the Jedi, so I'm not sure why Finn stealing a ship to escape the bad guys is considered more of a bad thing (especially considering he wasn't alone). He's no more of a liar than Obi-Wan Kenobi. Chasing after the white girl? I don't even know what this means. When does he chase after her? Do you mean he likes her, or that he physically chases her? Because the second thing doesn't happen in the movie. Rey chases him down. If you just mean that he likes her, why is that a bad thing? Han Solo liked Princess Leia. It's a bad thing that he's a traitor to the First Order, aka the bad guys? I don't understand this, especially in light of your complaint that he was a slave. Him turning traitor is a good thing.



The thing about Finn is that he wasn't funny (to me anyway). He's a stereotype through and through, he's just like the black woman in the new Ghostbusters. I have only seen the trailer but that character comes across to me in the trailer alone much like Finn does in the entire film. A friend of mine has seen the film and he even said, the black token woman is just like Finn. He is hyperactive, shouts all the time... that scene where he's telling Phasma he's in charge, total complete typical black stereotype, even Han say's 'bring it down'. He's just a loud mouth like every other black stereotype.


The difference between the rebels stealing a ship and Finn is that we don't see it. For all we know a black guy could have stolen it and let them use it. We don't know. We don't care. What we do know is that Finn stealing and lying is a significant part of his character in this film, and this is also significant in how he is established and presented to us, the audience. Not to mention how he represents black people. We don't see who steals the Imperial ship in the earlier films, it's not really relevant because we know nothing about those characters.


Finn aks, sorry I mean asks (that was a typo, I thought it funny to leave it in there) Rey if she has a boyfriend back home. He goes after her when she is captured. Have you actually watched the film ? He fancies her and is probably in love with her, yet he's not smart enough to realize she isn't interested in him in that way,


If you knew what a stereotype was you would see where I am coming from, but you obviously don't because you are drawing comparisons to Han liking Leia. A convention of the black male stereotype is to get the white girl, so is stealing, lying and cheating, oh and being a slave. Anakin was a slave too, but that's just being pedantic. Finn is a stereotype, and that doesn't really bother me, what bothers me is how racist this film is in it's portrayal of young black men by having a black stereotype. Lucas was accused of racial stereotyping with Lando, because he betrayed Han (the black people are always dodgy, watch out for them). Lando is no where near a stereotype than Finn.


People said Jar Jar is a racial stereotype because he sounds Jamacian, yet he's an alien. This is a black human,played by a black human. Massive difference.

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People have been raving about Star Wars: The Force Awakens' progressive casting and script.


The heroes of the film are a black stormtrooper named Finn and a young woman named Rey, a step forward for a franchise that has some dark, deeply racist moments. But, digging beyond just the casting of the lead characters, Disney, the new owner of the Lucasfilms franchise, hasn't done nearly enough to bring the hugely influential and popular Star Wars franchise into 2016, when it comes to progressive racial politics.


Roth Cornet and Donna Dickens of HitFix, Nicholas Powers of the Indypendent and Jacob Hall of Screencrush love the racially diverse cast. Gwendoline Christie (of Game of Thrones fame) says she is proud to be playing a "progressive female character." The U.K.'s Pink News agrees.


Even bigots see the movie as too progressive. There was the reprehensible #StopAppropriatingWhiteCulture hashtag on Twitter, which surfaced images of the black lead character saying: "Where da white wimmins be at?"


They're all wrong -- and not just in regards to their backward and demeaning comments. Star Wars VII is far from progressive. The movie still promotes age-old stereotypes of black men.


Let's look at Finn, played by Nigerian-British actor John Boyega. He has been ripped from his family and forced to work for his captor. Sound familiar? Finn's life story casts him as a slave.


And how does Finn get his name? He starts the movie with a name given to him by the original slavers, FN-2187 but then is named "Finn" by Poe Dameron, a white pilot. It reminds one of Kunta Kinte in Roots, who is forced to take the name "Toby" by his white slaver. Some read "Finn" as his liberation name, but I see it the other way around. Star Wars' "Toby," truly liberated, should have picked his own name.


Finn is a buffoon. He's a stormtrooper, trained by the evil First Order, but he can't fight -- Rey, the film's female lead, is a much better fighter than he is.


"We got a character who couldn't win one fight on his own, who repeatedly needed saving, who didn't get a 'traditional' win," writes Greg Anderson-Elysee, a self-described "black nerd" on comic news site the Outhousers.


He can't fight but he's also not savvy. When Han Solo tries to subtly signal that he look in a certain direction, he's confused by the pantomime. And when it's time for him to be competent, what is he competent at? His special skill that earns him a place in the Rebel plot to destroy the bad guys' evil base: He was a janitor there once. Really, Disney?




Perhaps dashing the fears of the most racist Star Wars fans, Finn doesn't get the girl in the end of the movie -- he is harmless and impotent, a racist's dream. In fact, Finn is punished for chasing the white woman in the movie. He almost dies on several occasions, trying to save her.


Finn "didn't even get to kiss Rey. Romance tends to be at the center of American hero films, and if both Rey and Finn were Caucasian, I bet there would have been some lip lock at the end of the film," writes Joseph Phillip Illidge, the former Batman editor for DC Comics and co-owner of production company Verge Entertainment.


No wonder other prominent African American voices aren't completely happy with Finn either.



Disney took a big and long-overdue step making a person of color the lead of its new Star Wars film, but not nearly big enough. (And what about African American women? New character Maz Kanata's voice is that of Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o. It's almost an insult that, given Finn's flaws, there aren't any black women actually seen on screen.)


And let's be clear: When young African American men and women see Star Wars, they may not even think about the skin color of the protagonists, but the subtext of Finn's background and story do not help them understand that they are -- or should be -- full and equal citizens, with all the privileges and rights entailed.


Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in cash and stock in 2012. This was an opportunity to erase bitter memories -- both for Star Wars and other signature Disney franchises -- and it's unfortunate that it fell so short in a movie that has already been seen by so many. It has so far grossed nearly $2 billion dollars worldwide, a number that is sure to increase on this holiday weekend celebrating the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


While the America we live in today may be more appealing than the one King left, too little has changed. Movies, commercials and music are one of the best ways to combat racist ideology. Perhaps the next installment of Star Wars will really be the progressive film this universe needs.

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Rey and her force abilities: The reason it's not the same as Luke is because Luke had direction. Obi Wan was teaching him from the start. The training orb, trusting his instincts. That directly connected to him turning off his targeting computer. His strength with the force was obvious, but he still needed some basic instruction and direction to do it. Rey straight up used the jedi mind trick even though she didn't even know it was a thing. Her natural ability would allow her to do it, but she would first need to know it was a thing and there was nobody to show her. Of course that may be explained later. I think she was beginning to be trained before she was abandoned after Ren destroyed everything. I also agree with whomever said it earlier, that she is channeling the dark side, even though she doesn't realize it. Luke flirted with the dark side when Vadet taunted him in rotj. He came out aggressively and attacked Vader, and won because of it. At the last second he pulled himself back. Rey does the same thing. She channels the force and goes on attack mode and beats Ren. I also hear her breathing mixed with Vader's labored breathing when she has her eyes closed. The two breathing patterns merge and she attacks.

 

As far as the prequels go, I went back and forth. I often defended them and I often attacked them. While tfa has it's flaws, my first thought after seeing it was how it made the prequels look even worse. I watched them again recently and they not only look like cartoons, they are just poorly made.

 

Tfa had flaws. Star killer base was the worst idea ever. They made Han a little too "funny". He had quips in the ot, but in this he was either serious and how I'd expect Han to be, then he would turn into George Carlin. Ren and his "Vader halloween costume" seemed silly too. But overall, I enjoyed it a ton more than the pt.

 

Naturally the rest of this trilogy could change everything. The next two could make tfa even better or worse. We'll just have to wait and see.

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I wonder why people can't accept Rey is more powerful than Luke. Hmmmmmmmm. I can't quite put my finger on it.

 

(And once again people disregard the fact that Kylo Ren is not fully trained, is emotionally and mentally unstable, was badly injured, and completely underestimated his opponent.)

Oh, yeah, because everything is about misogyny.

 

Nowhere near reality in this case.

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How do we know that Rey didn't know about the Jedi mind trick? She knows enough about the Jedi to think they're a myth. Luke didn't know about the mind trick but he didn't know anything about the Jedi at all.

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I wonder why people can't accept Rey is more powerful than Luke. Hmmmmmmmm. I can't quite put my finger on it.

 

(And once again people disregard the fact that Kylo Ren is not fully trained, is emotionally and mentally unstable, was badly injured, and completely underestimated his opponent.)

Oh, yeah, because everything is about misogyny.

 

Nowhere near reality in this case.

 

The thing about misogyny, or racism, is that so often it is far more subtle than we realize. For example, Mara cries foul and your perception is that if you don't agree with her, she's calling you a misogynist. People who don't see misogyny get really upset that they're being blamed if they don't see it.

 

Or, maybe you think she's being ridiculous because no one is being as forward to say UGH REY IS A GIRL SHE CANT BE A HERO GROSS.

 

But things like misogyny and racism and white people mattering and representation are the result of something way more subtle. A lot of times things things are subconscious.

 

100 years of movies with white male heroes has us programmed. You can be the most liberal person out there, but these perceptions are subliminal. They aren't even intentional, they just end up hard wired because the human mind generally is bothered by change and disarray.

 

100 years of white male heroes, Presidents, race car drivers, news anchors, whatever-- when something different comes along, the human mind freaks out a bit. Not because you are actively prejudiced, but because the human mind bristles at change.

 

An outright red state imbecile has no problems crying out HAY WRONG when he sees this.

 

A more educated conservative or a liberal person-- they might go digging for reasons to rationalize this weird feeling they have that something is wrong. They aren't burning crosses on anybody's lawn, they don't hate on minorities-- so they can't possibly be misogynist.

 

Sure, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes our subconscious has a prejudice that our active mind knows is wrong, so we look for "reasons."

 

I'm not saying you or Trumpet Player fits into this role, but when you are in a minority your whole life and experience the effect of it directed at you, it might be more readily apparent to you.

 

And when somebody comes along and dismisses it without a second thought, that contributes to the over-arching problem.

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The ST is NOT Luke's story, it's Rey's. She is the new hero. Anakin was supposed to be the MOST POWERFUL JEDI EVAAAR and yet Luke was trained in a fraction of the time and took him down.

 

 

Oh? Come on. Let's just skip over the fact that TFA was not happening without a massive infusion of characters and mystique from the OT, where Luke is as much the center of dialogue from both hero & villain as the super-weapon, Rey or anything else.

...and if you think audiences (SW fans and even casual viewers) are not sweating in anticipation of Luke returning to some fight against the dark side, then you're kidding yourself. Its no stretch to say that more are looking forward to Luke in action in E8 than anything else, and that cuts this new trilogy 70/30 in favor of Luke being the anticipated focus. This is no ANH/Kenobi situation, where the older mentor briefly returns to the scene, then dies. Han was the surrogate Kenobi in TFA. Luke is so much more.

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While I appreciate your clever ploy of completely skipping over my last post and choosing to pick a fight over something I said several posts back, I think you're trying to push what I am saying into a corner.

 

Yes, Luke is obviously important to the story. Yes, we all are dying to see more of him. Yes, the ST is going to echo the OT because hey, it's Star Wars. But none of those things make it Luke's story. He was the catalyst to the story, but saying it's all about Luke is like saying Apocalypse Now is about Kurtz, or that Kill Bill is about Bill, or that Waiting For Guffman is about Guffman.

 

Go back to Campbell 101, Luke's "hero's journey" is complete. Its now on to Rey and Finn. FANS want all the Luke they can get, but my educated guess is in E8 he will be similar to Han in TFA or Obi-Wan in ANH given that everyone involved-- Abrams, Kennedy, Murphy, and Hamill himself have said it's about passing the torch to younger heroes.

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1. While I appreciate your clever ploy of completely skipping over my last post and choosing to pick a fight over something I said several posts back, I think you're trying to push what I am saying into a corner.

 

2. Yes, Luke is obviously important to the story. Yes, we all are dying to see more of him. Yes, the ST is going to echo the OT because hey, it's Star Wars. But none of those things make it Luke's story. He was the catalyst to the story, but saying it's all about Luke is like saying Apocalypse Now is about Kurtz, or that Kill Bill is about Bill, or that Waiting For Guffman is about Guffman.

 

Go back to Campbell 101, Luke's "hero's journey" is complete. Its now on to Rey and Finn. FANS want all the Luke they can get, but my educated guess is in E8 he will be similar to Han in TFA or Obi-Wan in ANH given that everyone involved-- Abrams, Kennedy, Murphy, and Hamill himself have said it's about passing the torch to younger heroes.

1. I did not skip over your post--specifically the belief that Rey is just stronger in the force than Luke. I agree with the films (and the trumpet player 2) that using the force has always been presented as something requiring some growth/training before anyone could use it with any serious measure of efficiency. No one was stronger in the force / had greater potential than Anakin, but even he required intensive training in order to harness it.

 

The point is not about Rey as a female being stronger in the force, but consistency with the other films (at least with this one point). The same analysis would apply if the character in question was Finn or Poe.

 

2.You are marginalizing Luke with inapplicable examples. To take one, Luke is not Kurtz--the latter was more of a latent draw (for most of the film) for that which was already working on Willard's ideological decline. On the other hand, so much of TFA is built around the where, when and why of Luke, that he is far more than a glorified "special guest star." He was only a 10 second cameo in body, but the rest of the movie constantly reinforces the idea that he's still "it" in that universe. E8 cannot just sweep that away. Well, a bad E8 could...

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I know being uber obstinate is your thing, but to point one, you're once again being reductive. I'm not stupid. You're intentionally repeating back exactly what I'm not saying. You're attempting to disarm my point by acting like I haven't made it. I've repeatedly explained a dozen times in this thread what I think and you're selectively ignoring it and restating the wrong interpretation to piss me off.

 

On the second point, you're just wrong. From Kasdan and Abrams mouths, they are doing exactly what I said. Luke is a catalyst like Kurtz. Details and execution are obviously different, but the idea is the same-- a mythic figure is the catalyst for a journey that leads to a change in the self.

 

But hey... What do I know about movies.

 

I've only spent the last decade of my life studying them to death, almost went bankrupt, and ruined my first marriage to finally become a professional screenwriter a year before I turned forty.

 

I try not to throw that around. I never tell people they are wrong for disliking a movie and that my opinion is worth more as somebody in the industry. I know it's subjectional. But when it comes to nuts and bolts, when it comes to the construction and narrative intent-- never mind that I'm quoting the guys actually wrote the script-- maybe, just maybe you're wrong?

 

This is my job. I know what I'm talking about. I hate how pompous that makes me sound-- and again, I'd never toss that out as a reason to tell somebody they are wrong for disliking a movie.

 

I'm not stupid, Justus.

 

I see exactly how you try to use wordplay and selective responses to try and make people look dumb. You're not as clever as you think you are. You're nightly's Glenn Beck with you reductive responses.

 

But that doesn't matter to you-- here's all you want to hear... something I've never said-- not to tsquare, POE, Kwan Yu, Rev or anyone else. .. you win.

 

You actually got to me. Congrats on getting under my skin by being so ****ing dismissive of everything I say without for one second considering the possibility that you might ever be wrong about something, or that just maybe somebody might know something you don't.

 

Sometimes our sparring is good natured and fun, but when we get into the fact you, some disembodied voice on the internet that is clearly a miserable curmudgeon, actually gets to me by needling away at the one thing I'm good at? Yeah, fuck you. It's not fun any more. You win, welcome to the ignore list.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I'm a total geek and love geeky discussions and tried catching up on the reading...but gawd, I had to stop. The overanalyzing Rey and Luke in this thread has gone beyond completely stupid.

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Slightly off topic but I had a dream about Rogue One last night. It was terrible. It had an 80's style synthesizer soundtrack, Kylo Ren was in it and it turned out his reasons for turning to the dark side was a result of him coming to terms with his sexuality. The bad guys all wore trainers and hoodies and had bad teeth and there was lots of nudity in it.

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I'm a total geek and love geeky discussions and tried catching up on the reading...but gawd, I had to stop. The overanalyzing Rey and Luke in this thread has gone beyond completely stupid.

Totally agree. I've kinda stop posting lately for that reason, though I have been lurking and reading threads like this a lot.

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