Editorial: Clarifying J. J. Abrams’ Recent Statement On Star Wars Backlash

(I have an alternate title for this piece: Reading Comprehension In Reporting And Reading Beyond Misleading Headlines: A Star Wars Story. Doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, so I’ll stick to the first one.)

J. J. Abrams recently made a statement about sexism and backlash against Star Wars that seems to be taking the internet by storm. However, it’s worth looking at the story beyond the headlines and contextualizing his statement to see what he meant, as certain accounts of the story are vastly misleading and are sadly spreading quickly.

 

As we all know by now, The Last Jedi is a contentious Star Wars movie as far as a portion of the actual fandom is concerned (unlike with general audiences, who have been polled scientifically to have liked the film quite a bit). That’s okay, because this franchise has come up with contentious sequels since 1980 (contrary to popular belief, The Empire Strikes Back was not universally-beloved by the fandom upon release, and that film’s reception at the time it was made could very well be compared to The Last Jedi). Another thing that we know is that Abrams is back in the director’s chair after Lucasfilm was unsatisfied with Colin Trevorrow’s vision for Episode IX. Ergo, it’s rather timely to start talking to Abrams as he goes all-in on completing pre-production for the movie in time for production to actually begin this July.

 

 

Let’s make another thing clear: the sexism directed at the Star Wars franchise since Disney bought Lucasfilm is coming from a vocal minority, some of whom never really cared for Star Wars to begin with, but somehow feel compelled to use the film series as a place to whine about how oppressed the movies make them feel because Hollywood’s casting decisions are now reflecting a greater amount of cultures. But since the debate over diversity has become so permeated with the conversation about Star Wars in an age where everything is pointlessly politicized, IndieWire asked Abrams about this in an interview, to which he came to the conclusion that people that hate Star Wars aren’t automatically sexist (as some ridiculous narrative-pushers might have you believe), but that they hate Star Wars on the principle that it runs against their personal beliefs:

Asked by IndieWire about pushback from “Star Wars” fans who decried Rian Johnson’s film for its focus on more female-centric stories (bolstered by the edition of franchise newbies like Laura Dern and Kelly Marie Tran), Abrams was clear:

“Their problem isn’t Star Wars, their problem is being threatened. If you are someone who feels threatened by women and needs to lash out against them, you can probably find an enemy in Star Wars. You can probably look at the first movie that George [Lucas] did [Star Wars: A New Hope] and say that Leia was too outspoken, or she was too tough. Anyone who wants to find a problem with anything can find the problem. The internet seems to be made for that.”

 

In and of itself, this should not be a controversial statement, as this does not paint the majority of actual Star Wars fans in a negative light, but calls attention to the rather unpleasant discourse that has been piling up as of late. (As Abrams noted, if A New Hope had been released now, we never would have heard the end of the “Mary Sue” or “political pandering” accusations about Leia being able to take care of herself.) However, several publications – including IndieWire, inexplicably enough, who just as easily could have run a headline reading “J. J. Abrams Believes Sexists See Star Wars As A Target” – and other vloggers ran headlines to the effect of “J. J. Abrams Thinks Critics Of The Last Jedi Are Sexist”, which is missing the point entirely and misrepresenting his statement, and so here we are.

 

There are a lot of problems with pigeonholing Abrams’ comments here with his alleged discontent with The Last Jedi backlash. For one thing, he does not explicitly mention The Last Jedi at all when describing the new movies, and in spite of the presence of a horribly-edited “Safe Space” fan cut which minimizes the role of women characters in the film, The Force Awakens was arguably hit much harder with sexist backlash over the character of Rey than anything that came out of its sequel. He also does not single out Star Wars fans with his statement, implying that this would likely happen with any major franchise that becomes popular enough. But the biggest issue presented here is that instead of being used as a statement to dismiss the complaints of a few sexist keyboard warriors, it’s being used to paint people who disliked The Last Jedi for other reasons as sexists. And that’s just bad for discourse.

 

 

Politicizing criticism of a movie is a slippery slope to go down, and it’s something that benefits absolutely nobody in the end. We’ve seen these shenanigans overtake a movie once before, with 2016’s Ghostbusters reboot. I thought that the movie was complete garbage from start to finish, but the issues I had with the film – along with many other fans – was that it wasn’t respectful of the source material, and that the movie was lazily-written and really, really unfunny because of that. However, the narrative established by the press – and supported by director Paul Feig and Sony Pictures themselves – was that all of the fans who were irritated with the movie were sexist, which made it impossible to discuss online. What made these accusations more unfounded was the fact that a proper Ghostbusters 3, which had a story element of introducing women to the team in addition to serving as a send-off to the original characters, was actually in development and supported by the fans before the movie was abruptly cancelled and a reboot was handed to a director who had no real experience with genre filmmaking.

 

At the end of the day, nobody gained anything from Ghostbusters, as the movie flopped for the reasons the fans were concerned about from the start, and a fringe minority of people who are actually sexist cite the movie as a reason why there shouldn’t be women-led movies at all (at least until Wonder Woman told them to pound sand merely a year later). The good news here is that Abrams is clearly not interested in following the path that Feig took with Ghostbusters – in fact, he dealt with something similar before. Ahead of the release of the last trailer for The Force Awakens, some opportunistic trolls took to social media to call on people to boycott Star Wars for allegedly being racist against white people and sexist against men (sadly, no, I am not kidding – this is what a very insecure group of people actually believe). They subsequently used the widespread coverage of Star Wars in anticipation for said trailer to spread a message of bigotry. Abrams took the high road and denounced the message while he otherwise avoided drawing attention to the “movement” (which subsequently failed spectacularly for over two billion reasons):

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/9CpEuawbDk

 

 

And this approach he took in 2015 is no different than the one he’s taking now: the story comes first, and people who you’re never going to please because they’re bigots aren’t worth your time. It’s a shame that the press doesn’t see it that way, because it’s instead going to reinforce the crowd participating in the First World Problems category of the annual Oppression Olympics to act deplorably for the foreseeable future. This, instead of allowing people to actually move on to the next easy target, or to go home and rethink their lives. This kind of stuff contributes to the cycle, which is why it’s so smart for Abrams to not engage in it. Shame that the people writing about it didn’t get that memo.

 

So while this one soundbite blew up portions of the internet, I’d like to bring attention to some of the other comments that Abrams made in his interview that have sadly been ignored. The first of which addresses the fact that there are more male leads in the story of Episode IX than female leads…

“I will say that the story of Rey and Poe and Finn and Kylo Ren — and if you look, there are three men and one woman, to those that are complaining that there are too many women in ‘Star Wars’ — their story continues in a way that I couldn’t be more excited about and cannot wait for people to see.”

 

…And the second of which actually states that there are fans who have every right to dislike The Last Jedi if they so choose, provided that it’s not out of bigotry:

“I think everyone is going to have their point of view. Certainly something I discovered early on in the Star Wars world, is that you’re going to have an incredibly passionate and vocal fanbase, and they’re all going to have a lot of specific opinions.”

 

Both of these points – that there’s still plenty of male characters to focus on and that it’s okay for people to not like things – go against the notion that J. J. Abrams thinks that the only reason anyone disliked The Last Jedi or even The Force Awakens was because they’re sexist racists, which multiple articles perpetuated. Abrams did not at all pull a Paul Feig here, and I think that it’s important to point that out. If we want to stop building up a reactionary culture in which discourse on Star Wars becomes pointlessly political and alienating to audiences like what happened with Ghostbusters, then we need to start by actually presenting statements as they actually appear.

 

 

+ posts

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

275 thoughts on “Editorial: Clarifying J. J. Abrams’ Recent Statement On Star Wars Backlash

  • March 9, 2018 at 6:12 pm
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    What a waste of words this all was.

  • March 9, 2018 at 6:35 pm
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    Thank you for posting this.

  • March 9, 2018 at 6:47 pm
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    Yeah, he wasn’t saying people who disliked TLJ are sexist. He was saying the ones who disliked it bc of too many women are sexist. It’s quite clear to those of us who can read.

    • March 9, 2018 at 7:57 pm
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      The problem isn’t that there are too many women, the problem is that they are all written into the movie (VIII) and Star Wars content badly.

      Holdo, a new character (excluding from a book that most people would not have read) that had 2 purposes, one cause Poe to freak out by not sharing her plan and two to sacrifice herself…which has no meaning or feeling because she is not important to the story and seems she was only in the story so a woman could sacrifice herself and seem heroic.

      Rose, again her sister died, which to me felt like was only in the movie to appeal to the Chinese audience, and give Rose a quick backstory and reason to be there, again you could have taken out the whole rose/fin story and the story would be exactly the same.

      Phasma, this character has literally no purpose, the character would have been just as bad if it where a man, with those scenes and dialog.

      Rey, literally has no explanation of why she can use the force/lightsabre with no experience or teaching, just because, with one of the dumbest lines on movie history about her parents “Your parents where drunkards who sold you for drinking money”, that sounds like a 10 year old wrote that line. Again, she represents the epitome or a mary sue.

      Leia, disappointing use of her character in VII and VIII, but she was older and no longer the best actress, but is/was always nice to see her.

      The issue is it’s not just TLJ, almost all major content for Star Wars since Disney/Kathleen Kennedy took over have been serious push away from the primary fan base and more towards women (except Rebels).

      Rogue one
      Female lead, not only that the whole cast seems to have been put together to appeal to various demographics of the world, with the intent to attract those markets, not necessarily because they where the best actors or for story reasons.

      Battlefront 2: Female lead, not a problem, except with all the other Star Wars content centering around female character, seems like they are pushing an agenda. Unfortunately we don’t really have any other Star Wars games to look at except mobile

      Forces of Destiny cartoons: A whole series on Female leads. Wouldn’t be a problem except it was literally marketed as content for females, not just star wars fans!

      There is no problem with women being leads or in Star Wars, they just need to have good dialog/acting and fit the character and story. And above all else, not seem there only to appeal to women or marketing reasons in an attempt to increase the Star Wars fan base.

      Since Disney took over I feel like Star Wars has lost it’s place and worrying to much about representation and PC then simply good story telling.

      • March 9, 2018 at 8:47 pm
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        Rey’s ability to use the force without training is a problem but it never was with baby Anakin or teenage Luke? Why?

        Kelly Tran isn’t Chinese. Her role was being auditioned by black and white actresses in addition to herself.

        If Holdo was a man, why would his character be any different?

        Casting men prominently in movies was never a problem for the first 100 years of filmmaking. No one ever complained about a pro-male agenda. And as soon as someone decides to change that formula just a little bit….it’s unacceptable activism and “forced diversity,” as if to imply that men are entitled to star in everything and any deviation from that formula is bad.

        • March 9, 2018 at 9:07 pm
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          “Rey’s ability to use the force without training is a problem but it never was with baby Anakin or teenage Luke? Why?”

          There is a difference. Starting with Anakin, He was a messiah character created by the will of the Force to bring balance to the Force*, a mythical archetype.

          If Anakin was a demi-god, Luke was the son of a demi-god! Additionally he had some training with Obi-Wan and Some weeks(?) one-to-one training by probably one of the greatest Jedi masters. Additionally in between films he had devoted himself to developing his mastery of the Force, so that when we see him again he is a different person to the one who failed at Cloud City.
          I don’t get Rey yet. I’m sort of hoping she’s more than we’ve been told. We will see.
          *Unless of course he was created by the will of Palpatine’s former master as implied.

          • March 9, 2018 at 10:37 pm
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            I’m pretty sure she’s some imperial experiment from Jakku. All the evidence with the planet holding secrets and scientific research and Palpatine’s final plea to destroy all evidence makes me still hold on to that theory.

          • March 9, 2018 at 11:27 pm
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            It’s all connected!…unless some guy decides its not.

          • March 10, 2018 at 1:56 am
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            Yup lol. All the questions we had post TFA we had to wait patiently to see if they would be answered in TLJ. Now I really enjoyed TLJ, but all that patience for answers didn’t pay off and now we have to wait for IX.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:19 pm
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            It felt like that’s what they were going with from what I’d read about the published stories (I’ve not read them myself)

          • March 10, 2018 at 4:23 pm
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            Same. Aside from a very few of the new comics, I haven’t read any of the new novels. I’m slacking.

        • March 9, 2018 at 9:11 pm
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          GET EM

          • March 9, 2018 at 10:18 pm
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            Surely at your…cough…particular level of discourse, you meant ‘SLAY!!!’.

        • March 9, 2018 at 9:19 pm
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          There is less an issue with Anakin because he didnt start using mind tricks or fight with a lightsabere with no training, he just touched the force for flying, more a natural thing, not forced force powers, then had 10 years of training between I and II.

          Luke, same reasons as Anakin for the Flying in IV, in V he had some training and a year or so between IV and V and VI he had even more time between V and VI.

          Rey, her whole life no force use, then within a day or so of learning she has the force and no knowledge of the force or powers, uses a mind trick, then defeats Ren who has been training his whole life she just touched the lightsabre for the first time and somehow uses the force to defeat him. Same for VIII literally the movie takes place right after VII and is only a couple days TOTAL, she again somehow can beat anyone.

          I am aware that Kelly Tran is Vietnamese, but you hit the nail on the head, she was not selected (opinion) because of acting ability but for demographic representation and marketing. Now that being said she seems like a nice woman and not a bad actress, but she felt forced, just like the whole Fin/Rose story line in general.

          Holdo was a waste of a character male or female, existed solely to be heroic sacrifice, should have been someone more meaningful Ackbar or even Leia, given her (CF) death IRL!

          “pro-male agenda” that is a step to say it was an agenda…compared to the movements we see a lot lately that is definitely a pro-women agenda, hell there was even a “national womens day” yesterday…how do you think a national mens day would go…there would be outrage..i don’t care if there are leading women in movies, but at least write good stories and stop trying to force this womens agenda, let things be natural in representation and realistic in roles (though this has a lot to do with dialog and acting).

          • March 9, 2018 at 11:17 pm
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            No freaking 9-year old has the ability to master advanced jet propelled vehicular engineering, complex robotics, race vehicles at insane speeds though canyons that kill other professional racers, and fly to escape unharmed from exploding spacecraft. Anakin’s abilities in that movie are beyond absurd.

          • March 9, 2018 at 11:47 pm
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            But it is explained in the movie, unlike Rey’s use of advanced Force techniques. Even if his abilities are amazing, it’s all explained in the movie. “He sees things before they happen”. That’s why he’s good at racing and flying. Even then he crashes his fighter into the mothership and accidentally blows it up. Sure that’s silly, but it’s not comparable to Rey’s use of force pull, mind trick, mind reading, lightsaber skills. I’ll give her the unbelievable pilot skill since that one seems to the starting skill for star wars protagonists, and i’ll giver the mind reading since it was reactionary to Kylo’s mind reading and seems a little more like something that could be innate. And I think her ablilty to sneek around the base and not get caught makes sense, since she grew up crawing around in star destroyers. I’m not worried about Rey at all. She’ll be fine. If something comes along that she can’t handle…she’ll just be able to handle it.

          • March 12, 2018 at 1:54 am
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            No human was able to win a pod race due to the fact that human reaction speeds/reflexes weren’t sufficient to keep up with the other alien species. Being force sensitive and the “chosen one” he used the force simply for instinct which granted him his “Jedi reflexes” as Qui Gon said. He wasn’t going around mind tricking Watto to free him and his mother and slaughtering Tusken Raiders with a lightsaber lol. Compared to Rey, I would say his ability to use the force was far less experienced and more instinctive.

          • March 12, 2018 at 5:44 am
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            So why aren’t Rey’s abilities instinctive in flying and in fighting?

          • March 12, 2018 at 5:59 am
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            Flying is justified. Most force sensitive people I’m assuming would be naturally good with that. Fighting, sure! But with a lightsaber? Prior to the force awakens, I was under the impression that lightsabers where elegant weapons that required years of strict training and practice to use. But apparently that’s all out the window now. She made Luke (who at least had some knowledge of the force before confronting Vader) look inexperienced in comparison to her skills. That was also the reasoning the lightsaber duels in the PT were so quick and agile compared to that of the OT. To demonstrate that the inexperienced farm boy was far from achieving the skills of the Jedi in their prime. They should have done something similar in the ST to show that Rey still had a lot of work to do.

        • March 9, 2018 at 10:15 pm
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          Hey now, to be fair, I had the exact same complaints when little Anakin used the Force without training to defeat Darth Maul, and when Luke, without the benefit of any training, defeated Vader in ANH too!
          And man, woman, sentient mushroom – whatever. Holdo was ineptly written.

      • March 9, 2018 at 9:08 pm
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        First, never watch any youtube videos. They don’t get anything.

        Second, Holdo’s point was to challenge Poe and make him understand that he has to be a leader and trust the larger plan and not be impulsive.

        Her sacrifice was about the bigger picture, further cementing this point for Poe.
        The Rose/Finn story is the entire theme of the film.
        Rey? A Mary Sue?

        Haha, I’ve read enough. Later.

        • March 9, 2018 at 9:48 pm
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          “Second, Holdo’s point was to challenge Poe and make him understand that he has to be a leader and trust the larger plan and not be impulsive.”

          that might have been the point, but it was poorly written and unrealistic to not explain the plan. The whole sub plot that Poe is impulsive and makes bad decision was wrong, his sacrifice of his forces to take out the dreadnought was while impulsive and against the chain of command was the correct move and it paid off, the victory was well worth the losses as heartless as that sounds.

          Holdo not explaining the plan was amateurish and unrealistic and looked incompetent. Her sacrifice was the sole reason that character existed, useless filler character, they let Ackbar die from bridge being hit with torpedoes but sacrifice a new unknown character be the hero…

          Finally the Poe bigger picture was poorly done from a writing and story perspective.

          The Rose/Finn story was not the point of the movie, it was however the most useless part of the movie, except to show that look we can save animals and slaves and a kid can use the force.

          Rey is a Mary Sue anyone who cannot see it doesn’t know what a Mary Sue is.

          But we all have our opinions, good luck to you!

          • March 10, 2018 at 8:11 pm
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            In the military, you dont have to explain plans to junior officers.

            if you dont think Rose/Finn and the Canto Bight part was the point, you missed it.

            Rey isn’t a Mary Sue, if you can’t see that, you don’t know what a Mary Sue is and you are ignoring Anakin and Luke.

            Good luck as well!

          • March 11, 2018 at 8:58 am
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            Deadly, all of your claims here can be dismissed with two simple words: Poor Screenwriting.

          • March 12, 2018 at 4:19 pm
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            How is Rey a Mary Sue? You realize she learned the Force from when Kylo entered her mind?

      • March 9, 2018 at 9:16 pm
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        “Rogue one
        Female lead, not only that the whole cast seems to have been put together to appeal to various demographics of the world, with the intent to attract those markets, not necessarily because they where the best actors or for story reasons.”

        baseless speculation. Can you point to anyone who did a poor job?

        “Battlefront 2: Female lead, not a problem, except with all the other Star Wars content centering around female character, seems like they are pushing an agenda. Unfortunately we don’t really have any other Star Wars games to look at except mobile”

        But if it were male, no agenda?

        “Forces of Destiny cartoons: A whole series on Female leads. Wouldn’t be a problem except it was literally marketed as content for females, not just star wars fans!”

        Yes, because we had about 40 years of Star Wars focused on male heroes. Did a few short cartoons really hurt you?
        White Male is the not default and you don’t need a reason to cast any other kind of person.

        • March 9, 2018 at 9:38 pm
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          “baseless speculation. Can you point to anyone who did a poor job? ”

          Look at the cast and speculate on how Disney and Lucas film have been pushing trying to change.expand the fan base demographic.

          “But if it were male, no agenda?”
          Considering how many lead roles in star wars have been female lately (almost all), this feels forced, not natural, i have no problem with it being a women, but so many at a time, then if feels unnatural and forced agenda. I will also I do have some bias toward women in combat roles, while I do believe many are capable, just like men not all are suited for such activity, and I would argue that less women are capable as soldiers then male, this is a societal and gender issue far beyond this conversation.

          “Yes, because we had about 40 years of Star Wars focused on male heroes. Did a few short cartoons really hurt you?
          White Male is the not default and you don’t need a reason to cast any other kind of person.”

          It didn’t hurt me at all and i’m not against the concept, but your missing the point…females can be heroes too, of course they can!

          • March 10, 2018 at 8:11 pm
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            So, you can’t.

            It’s not forced. It’s the stories they are choosing to tell. Lucas did the same. Why was that ok?

        • March 9, 2018 at 10:20 pm
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          No,clearly. Now “waifish, brunette English girl’ is the default. Progress!

          • March 10, 2018 at 2:01 am
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            Lol

        • March 10, 2018 at 5:53 pm
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          Most of SW or scifi audience are men. That won’t change. It may, if they try to do and heavily advertize a romantic story. Women in general are not for space battles. (or peeing standing) Some things you can’t change. Most of money comes from men nerds, not women. And most of young girls loves different movies. I try my daughter likes Star Wars and even if she does, she would always prefer anything else instead. I’m firmly convinced that no matter how much girls will love Star Wars, it will never ever be that groub like the boys. They will not start to buy action figures, spaceships, all that merchandising and become devotee for many years. Mostly, if so, they will like the movie and go on. It is a great idea to have women heroes, but it would be good not forget the boys. And I don’t see a male hero in Disney era SW. Finn could have been one, but hee’s really not. Two movies and two exact journies. Plus Boyega’s overacting is making a clown of him. Plus in central and eastern Europe where you can’t see a black person on street, his action figures no one buys. Kids prefer Kylo Ren (but only in helmet) but that’s a bad guy, not hero type as Luke when we were young….I would make spin offs from SW universe as romantic movies for girls, if I would really like to attract girls to this franchise. Even then I doubt about the success…

      • March 10, 2018 at 5:37 pm
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        TheRe is one thing I can’t agree with you, my friend. Two vietnamese actresses are not and never went in the movie because of chinese market. Look I’m just ordinary moviegoer, know next to nothing of chinese people yet even I know that vietnamese are to chinese the same as gypsy to western people. To them it’s garbage. You can’t make money in China with one not beautiful vietnamese actor. Chinese moviegoers like to watch beautiful chinese actors. If foreigners, so beautiful caucasian actors. If black actors, it better be Will Smith or above in term of physical appareance. If I know this, then the team behind Last Jedi knows million times better.

  • March 9, 2018 at 6:56 pm
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    Why do they give this clown movies? Everything he does sucks.

  • March 9, 2018 at 6:58 pm
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    I’m wondering what the purpose of this article is, other than to malign a huge chunk of Star Wars fans as misogynist or racist or who knows what. I loved TLJ, but I can certainly allow other fans to think differently without labeling them as cretins like this article does. You folks running the show might want to rethink articles like this.

    • March 9, 2018 at 9:48 pm
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      The entire point was to clear the air on what he said. I repeatedly state in this article that it’s completely fine not to like TLJ. It’s just that the narrative spreading was “if you don’t like TLJ, you’re a sexist piece of garbage”, and seeing as that has created a horrible environment for discussing film before, I wanted to state that it should be discouraged.

      – Pomojema

      • March 9, 2018 at 10:33 pm
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        My opinion is that you guys should avoid writing articles about people either hating or liking Star Wars movies, because it is too murky of a topic and prone to politicization. There are people who love or hate the movie just on merits, but there are others who choose to love or hate it based on what appears to be active attempts by Disney to diversify everything.

        Note I have specifically not stated how I feel about it, just stating that there are two sides, and love/hate is sometimes about the movie and sometimes about PC correctness. In fact, some people feel one way about the movie on its merits, and the other way about the PC correctness.

        So with this in mind, I really don’t think there’s an upside for you to “officially” weigh in on this. Let the fans angrily debate it without doing so (pointlessly) yourselves.

        • March 10, 2018 at 12:12 am
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          Read the article. He didn’t write about loving or hating the movie, he was clarifying JJ’s comments due to all the click-bait headlines and the ignorance of some people for not reading the actual story beyond those headlines. He was stating that he believes it’s important to clarify those comments because otherwise it makes it look like JJ thinks everyone who didn’t like TLJ is a misogynistic bigot, which only sets up more anger and drama in the SW community.

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:21 am
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      I certainly think this constant responding to people is just adding fuel to the fire. They need to just shut up and let things blow over. They’ve got a new film coming out in 2 months’ time; once that’s out TLJ will no longer be the new thing; everyone will be talking about Solo, and we can hopefully kick all this fuss into the long grass.

  • March 9, 2018 at 6:59 pm
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    J.J.’s better than all of this caca de toro. Most of us know this — it’s yesterday’s news and already resolved and all-but forgotten. Why dig up a non-story?

    • March 9, 2018 at 9:46 pm
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      I wanted to post this earlier but I got sidetracked by life. Better late then never, I feel.

      – Pomojema

  • March 9, 2018 at 7:12 pm
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    Here’s a well thought out article, and then you have a comment section where most people that are commenting so far haven’t even read the damn thing. Nobody is trying to “Malign a huge chunk of Star Wars fans as misogynist” and it’s not a “waste of words.” It’s clarifying the incredibly misleading headlines that half of people didn’t bother to click on to read the real story, which is that the fans that don’t like that there are Women leads all over Star Wars now are indeed misogynistic, which is absolutely 100% true.

    • March 9, 2018 at 10:19 pm
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      Rey’s story is literally a week old from the beginning VII through the end of VIII, somehow she went from having zero knowledge of the force to more powerful or equal power to Ren/Luke with literally no training what so ever. Has no real weaknesses, except for confidence and family identity issues.

      How is this not a Mary Sue?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

      • March 10, 2018 at 12:01 am
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        How is Luke not Gary Sue in A New Hope? Barely any training and turns off targetting computer and uses force to guide missiles to an exhaust port in a ship he has never flown before. Really Mary Sue is something that should never be said when Gary Sue has never been an issue.

        • March 10, 2018 at 12:14 am
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          Luke in IV only touched the force for insight on when to fire, he didn’t use mind trick or fight skilled force users. In V he lost badly, and by VI he had a couple years of training.

          Rey has had literally a week from startof VII to end of VIII…a week

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:16 am
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            Guided missiles need to be guided. Without a targeting computer they just go straight. Still I dont think it matters. He was flying at thousands of miles an hour with Tie fighters on his tail trying to take him out. To be able to concentrate that well and not call him a Gary Sue is well biased.

            Rey only beat Kylo because she had years of melee combat experience and Kylo was badly wounded.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:18 am
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            That would be an assumption, even if dumb fired them, all he would have to do is fire them at the right time, which is what he does, he doesn’t actually use the force to guide them.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:51 am
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            Kylo is badly weakened and is focused on both Rey and holding himself together. That was the whole point of all throughout TFA showing how brutal a weapon the bowcaster was. I consider and have always considered force pull of a light saber as a minor skill. Just like levitating rocks. Rey was different then Luke. She believed fully. He didnt. He was skeptical of the Force. That is what the lesson Yoda teaches him when the X-Wing starts sinking. Luke says “You want the impossible”. Then after Yoda pulls the X-Wing out Luke tells him he doesnt believe it and Yoda replies “That is why you fail”. Rey was never the skeptic Luke was.

          • March 10, 2018 at 5:23 pm
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            Yeah yeah, we saw how badly wounded he was. Took him few hours, a day max from that bad wound to pilot his fighter and do all that skype and mutiny and all…

          • March 10, 2018 at 7:39 pm
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            Just like Luke in ESB. Star Wars has always taken liberty with time to travel and time to heal. So not going to argue about how much time past or the nature of medical assistance in a Galaxy far far away. For f’s sake Palpatine was able to travel all the way from Coruscant to Mustafar and save Anakin. Come back with a real argument. All through TFA JJ established that the bowcaster was a devastating weapon. He established when Kylo showed up in the woods that he was bleeding out. That was for a reason. The reason was for people who want to complain about a girl beating Kylo to whine about Mary Sue (although they never would if she was a man).

          • March 12, 2018 at 12:14 am
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            Now THIS is talking lol. i answer to you because you are at the bottom. sry i can’t help it 😀

          • March 12, 2018 at 12:30 am
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            If Rey was a boy and had beaten Ren, that would have been as awkward as it is now.

          • March 12, 2018 at 12:25 am
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            there is really 2 years between 5 and 6 ?

        • March 10, 2018 at 5:58 am
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          So he turned off his targeting computer and had a lucky shot that destroyed the Death Star. He didn’t fight Vader and beat his behind with little to no training. Vader would have carved Luke up like a Thanksgiving turkey in ANH. Even Anakin got his arm chopped off by Dooku in AOTC. These are examples of powerful Jedi who lost to older and more experienced Jedi. But not Rey. Can’t cut a limb off of that pretty girl. The audience wouldn’t stand for it. It was just….illogical. Luke and Anakin both had their @sses handed to them in multiple battles. Lost FREAKIN’ BODY PARTS. If only those guys had been more cute and charming, maybe they could have avoided all that mutilation…

          • March 12, 2018 at 12:24 am
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            Rey definitely deserves to lose both arms for all that Marysueness.

        • March 12, 2018 at 12:21 am
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          First he sighted it only. The Force pushed the proto missile vertically to the heart of DS. Luke said himself that the bat of Tatooine were less difficult to shot at 200 meters away

      • March 10, 2018 at 12:08 am
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        She’s not a Mary Sue as during her mind probe, she discovered how to use the force from Ren being inside her head, then her being inside his. Some of the knowledge, and training that Kylo Ren had built up over time, was shared with Rey during that scene.

        This is why she didn’t need to do similar Jedi training as Luke did with Master Yoda on Dagobah.

        This has been explained already.

        • March 10, 2018 at 12:10 am
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          can you please share the source on this?

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:11 am
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            Then again, you could always just watch The Force Awakens.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:12 am
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            This is never said or even implied in TFA, you could perhaps think this happened in a way to explain her “powers” but that doesn’t make it real.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:13 am
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            It’s in TLJ novelization.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:15 am
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            Novelizations are not canon, they have said this many times, and it is only in there to make up for the mistake of it in TFA.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:17 am
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            Thats not true. Novelizations are indeed considered canon. Only exception is conflict between book and films then film wins.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:29 am
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            That not what they mean. You are just searching for a way to not learn something.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:31 am
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            If it wasn’t in TFA novelization then it’s after the fact damage control and the novel of TLJ is not canon if the items are not in the movie.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:32 am
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            That hole you are digging, is getting mighty deep.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:34 am
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            The “Where they align” is the defining statement, this literally and definitively means that only things in the movie AND novelization are canon, any extra content in the novel is not canon.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:34 am
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            But it was in the movie, the novelisation simply dwells deeper into the scene. That’s the luxury of having material in a novel that equates to far greater screen time.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:35 am
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            The “Where they align” is the defining statement, this literally and definitively means that only things in the movie AND novelization are canon, any extra content in the novel is not canon.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:37 am
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            But they do align, because that scene in the book was in the movie. Like I already said, the novel has the luxury to dwell further into the detail.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:39 am
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            The scene might have been in the movie but there is no reference in the movie that rey learned force from kylos mind meld.. yes i went there

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:50 am
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            1. That link to canon you provided was way out of date, appears to be around 2014 the last time it was updated.
            2. The novelisation is canon, unless a film contradicts it. In this case, the explanation in the novelisation was not countered by the film.
            3. The novel was written with input from Rian Johnson

            That is all.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:52 am
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            on point 3, that doesn’t make it any better!

            But your right, i’m done (with the conversation) explaining it for you.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:23 am
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            They’ve said the exact opposite, novelizations are canon. Don’t make up your own facts.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:28 am
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            You are twisting their words to suit your own agenda here. “Where they align” would imply “Where they don’t contradict.” And Lucasfilm has said that where the films and the novelizations do contradict, the film takes precedent and is canon over the novel’s events.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:28 am
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            You are doing the same thing, from a different point of view!

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:33 am
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            lol. I’m not though. “Align” means to come together in agreement. If there is nothing to refute TLJ novelizations revelation of Rey gaining insight into the force from Kylo Ren prodding her mind in VII in the film version of TLJ then they do not contradict. They are in agreement, they align. And to further my point, Pablo Hidalgo, who is pretty much the authority on these matters, says: “The novel is finished before the movie. So it will never be the same. Where the movie differs, it wins.” We never get anything in the film to contradict the statement made in the novel, therefore that even IS canon.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:34 am
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            The “Where they align” is the defining statement, this literally and definitively means that only things in the movie AND novelization are canon, any extra content in the novel is not canon.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:37 am
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            Okay so because Vader wasn’t Luke’s father when George made ANH he was doing damage control on ESB? Get outta here.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:40 am
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            No that was story development and it IS in the movie. If TLJ had scne included the “I learned the force from our mind meld” i would literally be ok with it, but it does not

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:43 am
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            This is story development too. Here you’re given an answer as to how Rey developed her powers so quickly, which is story development, and you are saying anything you can to refute it. I suppose any novels that come out set between any of the original films in which they develop Luke aren’t story development either, because they’re not in the films? In addition, there is still 1 movie left, in which they could easily reference TLJ novelizations statement that she got knowledge of the Force from Kylo Ren due to his probing her mind.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:46 am
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            Sigh, if it’s something between the movies then (now) it is canon, but as for the movies, only things in the movie is canon, nothing that is in the book that is not in the movie is canon, nothing, that definition of canon for the novelizations of the movies only is explicit.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:48 am
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            Wrong. That is plain wrong. I’m sorry you’re getting the wrong impression here, but that is honestly just not true. You are warping words to support your narrative. I have zero patience or time for people who refuse to accept facts because they don’t align with their views. We’re done here.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:50 am
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            I’m not warping anything it is right there in black and white, read the canon response from lucasfilm regarding the novelizations again.

            Thank god!

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:23 am
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            The novelisation is very much canon, unless something in the film contradicts it. The novel is being billed as an “extended edition” of the story.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:24 am
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            Yes, that’s where I heard it was explained.

        • March 12, 2018 at 12:06 am
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          i ve already heard that a lot of times. we could argue endless. this is a weak explanation from filmakers though. What not just tell Rey is born from the Force like Anakin ? AT this point it would be better.

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:43 am
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      Indeed. Let’s not forget that Luke, in a matter of a few days, goes from being a whiny teenager to destroying the damn Death Star using nothing other than The Force!

      The funniest thing about all this? What is one of the major complaints about TLJ? It’s that Luke is depicted as someone who went in to hiding. Someone flawed who is not the perfect hero. So when a woman is a strong hero she’s a Mary Sue. When the man is the flawed hero the character has been destroyed and all hell breaks loose. The hypocrisy is really quite something.

    • March 9, 2018 at 7:37 pm
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      Feminist 🙂
      Actually in Spanish words have gender, and the force is female.

      • March 9, 2018 at 7:50 pm
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        If I had a T-shirt with “the Force is male” on it i would be considered sexist, but a female with “the force is female” is feminist, go figures. The force is in every living things and has no gender.

        • March 9, 2018 at 9:05 pm
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          It has an easy explanation, let me enlight you little grasshopper, with your permission:
          This world has been male chauvinist since many generations ago.
          Those T-shirts are subversive, it is the moment to stop that, and a male force is not going to change it, so Yes, The Force is Female.

          • March 9, 2018 at 9:45 pm
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            So because there were and still are sexist males, females must be sexist too, for what? even the odds? Not very subtle…

          • March 10, 2018 at 2:30 am
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            Actually there are male-sexist men and women.
            And there are feminism supporters men and women.
            Feminism is not sexist, it is about equality, don´t ask me to explain you the historic background and context, language is beyond maths.
            I don´t understand why you see discrimination for males in 4 females wearing the vindictive motto “The Force is Female”, your female side should be thank to it.
            Probably for your understanding “The Force is Equality” would have been better, go and ask Katheleen K. about it.

          • March 10, 2018 at 2:38 am
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            You are absolutely right that feminism is about equality. However, sadly there are those who abuse feminism. Those who claim they are about equality when they aren’t. This has allowed bigots to latch onto the word feminism and promote it as a dirty word. That any feminist is, by default, a man hater.

          • March 10, 2018 at 3:37 am
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            Mmmm, human rights don´t work revengeful… if it was like that, million of germans would have died in gas chambers after WW2, white south US people would be slaves these days, or not a single man could obtain an University Degree for a millenium.
            The bigots you are talking about are the proof male-sexism is alive and rampant, even they win elections and they are voted by women.

          • March 11, 2018 at 12:11 pm
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            They are probably not true Scotsmen either.

          • March 11, 2018 at 2:58 pm
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            If an ethnic minority unjustifiably plays the race card, would that not be an abuse of those who are fighting against genuine racism? If someone calls themselves a feminist but uses the term as an excuse for misandry, it’s the same principal, no?

          • March 9, 2018 at 9:59 pm
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            But assigning a gender to it is making it sexist, the force is gender-less, why does it have to have a gender? The force has nothing to do with our worlds politics.

          • March 10, 2018 at 2:19 am
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            Sorry, but this is not maths, language has a historic background and context.
            The same in a historically racist world discrimination always coming from the same side, black power has not the same meaning of white power.
            The T-Shirts of the actually deleted picture have a vindictive aim.
            Well, if the force has nothing to do with feminism or it has, you should ask Lucasfilm president who was wearing the T-shirt in the photo.

        • March 10, 2018 at 5:11 am
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          Oh jeeze, come on guys. “The Force is Female” is funny. The alliteration is clever, and I don’t think it’s a message out to hurt anyone. Everyone seems so politically charged these days – doesn’t anyone have a sense of humor anymore? This is what “political correctness” has done to us – turned us all into a bunch of hand-wringing weenies that are paranoid that we might have offended someone. When can we just be normal people again?

  • March 9, 2018 at 7:45 pm
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    I thought the new Ghostbusters and the Last Jedi were good movies. But I don’t really see why star wars is a girl-power issue for many people these days. I just like to watch the movies. I don’t care if there a hundred girls in it or none.

  • March 9, 2018 at 7:45 pm
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    Pomojema, this is a very well written article and probably one of the best I’ve seen on this site. Thank you. This social movement of projecting ones prejudices and hate on anything pop culture is stale. My wife and I have a running joke, “stay away from comments, Carol Ann”. It’s toxic and it’s damaging the community. Even the handful of people who have responded here, some still managed to troll this story and exactly prove the point you were making.

    I’m losing interest in Star Wars. Not because of Disney, or Kennedy, or Abrams or Johnson. I have personally liked everything released so far. It’s the “fans”. To get to anything of substance, I have to wade through comment after comment of bile and vitriol. Pages of hatred from people who claim to like the series. Seriously, I’ve never seen a fan base hate their fandom as much as Star Wars fans. If they’re not complaining, they aren’t happy. I don’t like special editions, prequels, spin offs, Clone Wars, Rebels, Sequels, Hasbro, EA or Battlefront or anything.

    This whole argument of too many women is laughable. How many women have speaking roles in A New Hope? Beru, Leia. Anyone else? How about Empire? Leia and Toryn Farr. “Standby ion control”, is not enough. Jedi? Leia and Mon Mothma? Considering women are 51% of the population, pop culture in general is extremely disproportionate towards women. 1:4, 1:5, 1:6? Take a look at any major franchise and men outnumber women drastically. And anytime more than two women have speaking roles, “Mary Sue” and “Feminist Agenda” are thrown around and even it 30% of the cast is female, people complain that it’s an anti male movie. Despite facts showing men still have more roles. It’s hatred as a projection of their own failures and insecurities.

    I get you can’t make everyone happy, but there is a section of this fan base whose only goal is to complain and destroy and they need to go away. You’re ruining it for the rest of us.

    • March 9, 2018 at 9:10 pm
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      Ignore the fans, focus on the content.

      • March 9, 2018 at 11:06 pm
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        Its hard when you want to talk about something you enjoy and jerks feel the need to jump in and tell you that you are a stupid expletive for liking something.

        • March 10, 2018 at 8:09 pm
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          That’s true. I would say find the right group. On Twitter, there are some good people.

          • March 11, 2018 at 2:55 am
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            Really? Ok, I’ll take your word for it. But you can’t spell “Twitter” without “Twit”….

          • March 12, 2018 at 4:18 pm
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            That’s ok, I feel the same about reddit and youtube.

    • March 9, 2018 at 9:55 pm
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      Yeah, I agree about some of the toxic fandom is taking some of the joy out of being a Star Wars fan. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back to a positive fandom in the future.

      • March 10, 2018 at 5:01 am
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        The “fandom” has been negative ever since the Ewoks in ROTJ. Probably even before that. I would advise to not hold your breath until the “positive fandom” returns in the future. I’m not advocating that artistic critique isn’t warranted with Star Wars. As art, it most certainly is. But us Star Wars fans can be SO PASSIONATE, that our passion can easily turn into angry, self-entitled vitriol when we don’t get what we “want.” I’m guilty of it myself. I believe most of us are. It means that much to us. Sometimes it’s hard to remember – this is a story about “Space Wizards.” Freakin’ Space Wizards.

        • March 12, 2018 at 12:01 am
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          Space Wizars in pajamas !

    • March 9, 2018 at 11:09 pm
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      “Mary-Sue.” I literally never heard that term before TLJ was released. However, I do believe that explanation is needed for Rey. She apparently can do anything without any real training which is not very believable. I like asking “How is Rey not a Mary-Sue?”

      • March 9, 2018 at 11:19 pm
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        I’m sure there will be. I guarantee if this had been another Anakin, the vocal crowd would stay hushed. It’s completely gender based.

        • March 10, 2018 at 2:35 am
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          Yup.

        • March 10, 2018 at 4:50 am
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          Not so sure. Even Anakin in the PT wasn’t gifted with such powers without training or explanation. And (at least for me) it’s not “gender based.” I like Rey. Daisy has done so well in that role (other than just a couple clunky lines in TLJ, but even our revered heroes in the OT were saddled with some of those). But I’m a bit torn with Rey – I find her charming and completely “likable,” but at the same time I don’t like how her story arc and “hero’s journey” has been handled.

      • March 10, 2018 at 6:04 pm
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        “How is Rey not a Mary-Sue?”
        -Live in denial of her parents nearly all her life
        -Nearly crashed the Falcon at the very start
        -Released the rachtars
        -Runs away after touching Lukes lightsaber

        -Got captured by Kylo Ren.
        -Failed to let Luke train her (R2D2 succeded)
        -Failed to turn Kylo Ren to the light

        • March 11, 2018 at 5:34 pm
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          that’s not he was referring to i m sure. Mastering a force grip, a mind control in TFA and mastering a lightsaber for the first time she used it in front someone who already knows this weapon.

          Hell Boyega fighting Ren was an heresy. he even doesn’t lose a limb and get well at start of TLJ. So what ? the guy got his spinne cut but he still can walk days after his injury. And here starts the incoherence

          To get back to the point even the Chosen One needed 10 years between 1 & 2 to master the basic power and how to handle a saber. Why Rey is so gifted ? That doesn’t make sense, for now, and better they ve to come with good explanation (in her true parentage) in 9 if they want to save a bit of credibility for ST

          • March 11, 2018 at 6:11 pm
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            The Force Awakens, the title really referes to Rey. A growing connection. The Force helps her. Does stuff on instinct. Like Anakin being the only human pod-racer, as a boy.
            Snoke explains that the Force balance the growing strenth in Kylo Ren, by allowing others connect better, but since Luke cut himself off, its Rey that connects more freely.

            Kylo Ren was hit by a very powerfull weapon, after he killed his father. Snoke explains how that event unsettled Kylo Ren.

            If the Force is strong in individuals thanks to their parents, then why would we not know anything about Yoda or Obi-Wans parents? Star Wars has never been concisent about such a thing, so best not to expect such.
            The Chosen One, Anakin, got a carefull education. We have seen 40 years of his life, what he has done. We have seen like a month in Reys life. We dont know what she has actually done. Her story, has just started.
            For the record, Luke did defeat Darth Vader with just a small amount of training and no lighsaber fighting practice what so ever, other than deflecting a laserbolt. Rey on the other hand had used a melee-weapon all her life to survive. And she knew about the stories of the jedi and Luke.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:46 am
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      I’ve mentioned it before, it’s a horrible byproduct of the internet age. I think it comes down to the fact that the toxic fans are probably late teens to late 20’s with a lot of time on their hands, that may not be strictly true for all of them, but definitely people with very little else to focus their attention on (children, keeping a roof over their heads etc). They feel that this is the one thing they can somehow control, or that it should meet their big bangs/explosions/kill everyone videogames level expectations. Hopefully they’ll leave in droves and go and be angry at something else.

      • March 10, 2018 at 2:33 am
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        As a forty year old, sadly my experience is that many are also in my age range. I think a lot of it is to do with the environments people are in and who they are surrounded by.

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:32 am
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      Good post. Thing is I can tolerate complaints if they are well argued, even if I disagree. Moaning about “SJW” agendas because the movies have a few women or minority leads or making hyperbolic statements as if TLJ has no value to it at and is the worst movie of all time is where I get tired. Sadly, as you say, too many of those people litter fandom now.

    • March 10, 2018 at 8:46 am
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      Ok, I have to get serious now: Having read Pomojema’s article intently, including Abrams’ quotes, I must conclude that with all due respect JJ is STILL pulling a Paul Feig.
      You may deny people who disliked TLJ for other reasons are being painted as sexists, but all I read here is JJ drawing attention to sexism and racism as if these were the main arguments in the discussion.That’s called spinning. That’s called narrative-pushing. And finishing your statement with “I don’t care” or “there’s gonna be a lot of opinions” is not gonna fool me. Let me put an example: “I don’t care if those who don’t like this comment are Nazis, murderers or pedophiles, I just hope they will respect my opinion.” See what I’m doing here? I’m demonising my oponents with a horribly biassed depiction disguised as an invitation to open discourse.
      For the record I don’t particularly dislike JJ, I think TLJ was ok, and I most definitely have no problems with women, but these sleazy corporate tactics come straight out of Palpatine’s handbook. Please stop. Let us enjoy SW for what it is.

      • March 11, 2018 at 11:42 am
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        While these tactics do get used, I’m sure, I’m not certain I can see it here. It appears he was asked specifically about people not liking TLJ for its focus on women – he responds by saying if that’s their criticism (focus on female centric characters – as per the question) then it’s not Star Wars or the film that’s the problem. If too many women was my problem with TLJ, then it’s my problem, essentially. Which is true, right? He’s not saying, ALL criticisms of the film are sexist, at all. He’s simply saying that sexist criticisms of the film are sexist – to be honest he’s pretty much just stating the obvious and it’s kinda a pointless question.

        While I certainly don’t think all critics of TLJ are sexist or racist or political, I do think it’s important to call out those kind of criticisms for what they are – personally motivated and irrelevant to the actual quality of the film. It calls for better criticism.

        I’d rather talk about why some people think there are so many plot holes, when I don’t see that many, or any that are not well within genre norms, for example. There’s a discussion to be had, which can actually lead to shifting perspectives and analysis. Fans should come together to explore our opinions and expand our appreciation for the films, good or bad.

        But of course, the political anti-TLJ movement isn’t imaginary – I see complaints about Kennedy, Liberal and SJWs agendas on almost every thread on this film. Even before it came out. It’s a minority, for sure, but it’s there.

        We should call it out, whether you like the film or are critical. It devalues the discourse.

        • March 12, 2018 at 8:50 am
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          Agreed! This why I’m full-frontally against this narrative that presents movies like GB3, WW or Black Panther as milestones of human rights: It dumbs down discourse, whether about the films themselves or the causes they claims to uphold. I will give JJ the benefit of the doubt, but in view of the current promotional trends with movies like the ones mentioned above, I will remain extremely distrustful and vigilant about “casual” statements like Abrams’ latest. And in the meantime, as you say, let’s focus on our appreciation of the films, good or bad.

          • March 12, 2018 at 9:22 am
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            I think the bigger question is, why does greater representation in movies cause such a political divide, anyway? As far as I know, it’s not against any major political party or movement in the West (and many places East) to be inclusive. Perhaps the sad reality is that our anti-argument, anti-discussion culture is causing everyone to become very defensive. And that it allows fringe voices to argue that the political and ideological consensus around things like human rights is ‘fake’, allowing people to both attack and defend perfectly normal casting or story choices as ‘agendas’. On the other hand, treating all people with fairness is something that societies all over are struggling with, despite decades of ”equality”, “human rights”, and “good intentions”. So is it any wonder our art, music and movies are still openly dealing with these themes?

            As such, I don’t think we should ignore the political or ideological messages in movies, or try and disconnect them from their social and cultural context.

            That being said, if we accept movies as products that aren’t politically neutral, then we also need to be able to separate critiques of the film’s messages with how those messages make us feel – i.e. whether we agree with them or not. The Last Jedi does provide more female perspectives than previous movies in the saga, for example. But the question isn’t whether I like or agree with that choice, it’s whether it was executed in a way that enhances the film’s narrative and thematic depth.

            Basically, we can all keep our political opinions, but, as long as the artwork is not preaching hate or advocating/ breaking human rights/ free speech laws, our opinions about the film’s politics don’t matter in any sense that involves right and wrong.

            There is an argument about the ideology of Star Wars to be had, but it needs to be more mature than, ‘it doesn’t/does fit my own/ my social group’s view of the world, so it’s bad/good.’

            So, yes, while we should look past ideology, we shouldn’t ignore it, completely. We just need better discussion.

            Part of that is not accepting the sensationalist way interviews and media try and stir up reductive narratives that are designed to pit us against each other and ignore basic, decent, balanced, thoughtful conversation.

          • March 12, 2018 at 6:54 pm
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            I can easily imagine issues such as equal rights or even racism becoming an integral part of the SW narrative: A particular Sith Lord’s prejudices against a female apprentice, for instance, with the “do not underestimate X and Y” theme sprinkled at the right times. On the other hand, the way these themes are currently more of an extra, a background thing that needs praising and explaining… feels rather fake and shoe-horned. IMO!

          • March 13, 2018 at 10:11 am
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            Yeah. I pretty much agree. I don’t know if subtle is always a problem, but I think when it leads to confusion or a sense that things are happening in a way that is designed to cause viewers to do a double take, then it can have a distancing effect on the narrative. The whole plot with Poe and Holdo is essentially a bait and switch – we’re not meant to trust Holdo at first, then Johnson subverts the expectation and has us realise that, oh damn, Poe was in the wrong. He could have easily signposted this plot to be clearer, but it’s intentionally designed to be disruptive to traditional narratives where heroes are the plucky underdog and mean leaders don’t know what’s best. I think the fact Holdo is a woman, in a dress, no less, is purposeful misdirection to call out people’s unconscious bias. It’s clever. A little virtuous, depending on your POV. But boy it doesn’t make you feel great!

            And ultimately that’s the legacy of the movie. I think I has integrity, but it’s a stylistic departure and it’s going to split opinions from all filmgoers based on their tolerance for these kind of tactics. Some people just disagree that entertainment genres should ever mess with the viewer to make a point. Or, even if they don’t disagree with the idea, in practice it just leaves them feeling cold and disappointed – which ultimately has the same effect.

            I admire Johnson, but I also know that Star Wars is bigger than any one director or style and I think there’s room for lots of voices. When you examine TLJ on it’s own (which I think is a bit unfair, but necessary), it is, I think, fair to say that the director’s vision is a little oblique and is unapologetic in wrong footing fans and moviegoers. That’s his style. TLJ is therefore not a film for everyone and nor, if they’d really thought about it, was it meant to be… Oversight!? Error? I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer to that. But I think it’s damn interesting to have a film that creates so much discussion of what Star Wars should be…

          • March 14, 2018 at 7:55 am
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            Exactly! If there is something I like about TLJ is the risks it takes. I like it when they mess with us viewers but too many secondary plotlines have, as you say, a distancing effect on the narrative. Rey’s storyline should be the main focus in TLJ, but ironically I find it more linear and less compelling than the Poe & Holdo bit, for example.

  • March 9, 2018 at 7:52 pm
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    I noticed a bit of whining about casting in online discussions but it was pretty marginal. After reading the headline I thought this article would be about the mismanagement of the big three and the squandering of Luke and Leia’s characters. I’ve heard a lot more griping (backlash) about that from the more hardcore fans. I get making a movie that appeals to a new generation of fans but considering they are doing another trilogy and some sort of movie every year they could have waited to do that until after Luke had been given a proper send-off. We all love Rey and her story but hardcore fans have been way more upset with hermit Luke not having a part in the first movie and then dying in the second.

    They overthought it, it was simple, Luke forms a new academy and a new threat is introduced. The reins to the new jedi order are passed to Rey at the end of the trilogy after Luke dies in a final act of selflessness setting up Rey’s motivation for what ever comes next. I’ve heard way more beef with Deathstar 2.0 and the First Order cult of the Empire being too much of a re-hash of the OT… complete with trench runs.

  • March 9, 2018 at 7:57 pm
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    I like these movies, but I think the problem here is not racist or sexist viewers more that Disney make me feel like there is a check list on the physical appearance of human characters and a gross scarcity of colorful alien races. I also felt that Rian took a lot of the male leads and made them dumb – especially Finn and Hux.

    • March 9, 2018 at 10:18 pm
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      And with the Poe-Holdo interactions. This is precisely why people could argue that the Last Jedi was anti-male.

    • March 9, 2018 at 10:55 pm
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      what?? lol

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:28 am
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      How is Finn “dumb” any ore than, say, Han was?

      As for check boxing, while I have no doubt that it does go on in some parts of Hollywood, I have a hard time regarding an attempt to make things more representative of society a bad thing. Isn’t it more about us facing up to the fact that our (or at least my) dominance as males or white probably isn’t that fair and there isn’t that much of a good reason for it, if any.

      • March 10, 2018 at 3:32 am
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        Did you just call Han dumb? Those are fightin’ words son!

      • March 10, 2018 at 7:57 am
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        The problem from my perspective is that it is US and commercial centric. Call me a cynic but if Disney were trying to crack the Indian market then these movies would shoehorn in some Bollywood stars.

        Hollywood in total has some obsession with a very tiny subset of diversity. They are so obsessed with this they fail to pay attention to the gross prejudice they have towards aesthetic appearance in general, not least that they even have actors whose facial characteristics subscribe to a narrow geometric subset that could dumbfound facial recognition software.

        In a galaxy far away, equality would be represented by more alien race diversity than by duplicating colors and creeds of human America. If we were to represent global society more accurately I suspect the majority of the cast would be “Asian” of some persuasion.

        In the prequels, GL showed the alien diversity of the galaxy. Alien diversity in the ST only happens when they do the cliche walk into Mos Eisley type scene – cue music and diverse aliens. It seems the majority of “foreigners” are alcoholics, smugglers and weapons dealers. Rebels is far smarter in my opinion.

  • March 9, 2018 at 8:21 pm
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    I love the casting of Daisy Ridley as Rey. And I love that women characters are becoming more prominent in Star Wars. But to me the issue has always been a “protagonist” one. It doesn’t matter if it’s male or female. Give them more flaws. I’m still trying to figure out what Rey’s flaws are? Is it her search for her identity?

    I still feel like Rey and Finn should have both lost to Kylo in the snow (only to get rescued by the earth spliting.) In the Last Jedi Rey and Kylo seem to be more evenly matched. And that makes more sense since she had some “minor” training in Ach-too with Luke. (Although she practically trained herself) Luke and Anakin had their asses handed to them by others (Dooku, Obiwan, Darth Vader, before becoming very strong jedi. But to me it almost seems like Rey is already at Jedi Knight status and
    didn’t go through any trials, or needed any training from anyone. It feels like she trains Luke to find the force again. That is the only thing that really bothered me. They could have gone more “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” regarding master and a talented force user. I still enjoyed both movies very much.

  • March 9, 2018 at 8:40 pm
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    I love the casting of Daisy Ridley as Rey. And I love that women
    characters are becoming more prominent in Star Wars. But to me the issue has always been a “protagonist” one. It doesn’t matter if it’s male or female. Give them more flaws. I’m still trying to figure out what Rey’s flaws are except for searching for her identity.

    I still feel like Rey and Finn should have both lost to Kylo in the snow (only to get rescued by the earth splitting). In the Last Jedi Rey and Kylo seem to be more evenly matched. And that makes more sense since she had some “minor” training in Ach-too with Luke. (Although she practically trained herself).

    Luke and Anakin were defeated by others (Dooku, Obiwan, Darth Vader, before becoming strong jedi). It almost seems like Rey is already at Jedi Knight status and didn’t really go through any trials. Unless the Star Wars principles have changed in these new movies which I’m still trying to figure out. That is the only thing that bothers me. They could have gone more “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” with Rey and Luke, regarding master and a talented force user. I still enjoyed both movies very much.

    • March 9, 2018 at 10:20 pm
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      Rey’s flaw is her inability to believe in herself. She feels like she needs to have a parental figure in her life, which is why she took to Han so well, why she was insistent on bringing Luke back to the Resistance, why she thought she could turn Kylo Ren good. When she lifts those rocks at the end of TLJ and then closes the door of the ship while staring at Kylo Ren through their Force connection, that’s when she understands that she doesn’t actually need anyone, that she is more than capable of managing her own destiny.

      • March 9, 2018 at 11:25 pm
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        So now that she’s solved that, she truly has no flaw.

        • March 10, 2018 at 12:17 am
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          It’s not that she has no flaw, it’s that she overcame her flaw. That flaw could still pop up down the road and cause her problems. Luke’s flaw was that he was headstrong, never focusing on the moment, always on the future. He overcame that flaw in RotJ, but that flaw seemes to have reared its ugly head again when he briefly thought about killing Ben Solo, as he saw what could become of him rather than what he currently is. Just because a flaw is overcome doesn’t mean that it is gone.

          • March 10, 2018 at 12:36 am
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            Well said

        • March 10, 2018 at 2:24 am
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          What makes you think she’s solved that? Personally, I view that scene as more her beginning to realise things.

      • March 11, 2018 at 12:04 pm
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        So her flaw is essentially “she’s too amazingly perfect even for her to believe”?

  • March 9, 2018 at 9:05 pm
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    The Ghostbusters reboot was absolute trash for the reasons you stated, but you literally couldn’t say that online when the movie came out without everyone jumping down your throat and calling you a sexist toy unboxing manbaby. For Sony to double down on the stupidity and market the movie as some sort or revolution (acting like women have never starred in a scifi movie before) and cause was beyond stupid.

    Whoever is saying that TLJ and Star Wars in general has a “SJW” problem clearly hasn’t been a fan of the saga since it’s inception. The way to make these people go away is to ignore them, not to respond and create a louder echo of hate and that is exactly what JJ Abrams did and continues to do. Lucasfilm is taking the right approach to diversity and inclusion and I know that it is going to continue and light the way for the industry.

  • March 9, 2018 at 9:26 pm
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    Now that the writer of this piece is done rambling and drinking the disney juice lets get real. The Last Jedi is filled with flaws and agendas not wanted or meeded in a Star Wars film. Star Wars should not be a platform for such over the top PC…SJW garbage. Everyone can see it…those that are on the disney payroll of stand to lose their standing with disney of course will try and deny it and paint those that see it as crazy or whatever else they see fit. Ive been a fan through it all…novels..comics…toys…clothes…music..celebrations etc. My gripe is not Star Wars…its about the hit-you-over the head agenda that I have issues with. Just make a good movie where I dont have to think about this crap and I’ll be happy. If I want to hear about feminist views…PC thoughts and how this race or color did this to that race or color I’ll turn on the news. Keep it simple…keep it safe.

    • March 9, 2018 at 9:55 pm
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      “Now that the writer of this piece is done rambling and drinking the disney juice lets get real. The Last Jedi is filled with flaws…”

      And I can already tell that you didn’t read the piece.

      “…and agendas not wanted or meeded in a Star Wars film. Star Wars should not be a platform for such over the top PC…SJW garbage.”

      And if that’s the takeaway you have then you’ve missed the point of Star Wars, in its forty years of existing, altogether.

      – Pomojema

    • March 9, 2018 at 11:01 pm
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      I suggest Preparation H

      • March 11, 2018 at 12:38 am
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        Tried it but it didnt work. Thanks though. Looks like thx1138 was taken huh? Guess thx1139 will have to do.

    • March 10, 2018 at 1:41 am
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      Yeah, lets keep real world agendas out of films and art in general eh… Let’s have writers who don’t express thoughts and opinions… Let’s have science fiction that doesn’t address agendas, because that is what science fiction has always done – you do know this don’t you? Right back to the original Star Trek series which addressed causes and issues in a way that small minded people like yourself could accept. And let’s not forget that the Battle of Endor and a lot of the original Star Wars film was subtlety addressing the Vietnam war. Wake up morons – art expresses opinions!

      • March 11, 2018 at 12:36 am
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        When the agenda overshadows the story then yes theres a disconnect. Morons? That just threw out any credibility you may have had. Calm down. You made my point for me..thanks a bunch.

        • March 12, 2018 at 12:07 am
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          In a world where Trump is president and fascism is on the rise (and morons like you spout nonsense), it’s good that Star Wars is setting an example, in so far as it is trying to create a moral code that young viewers may learn from and try to live up to. That is what SW has always done. If you don’t like it, go and watch Transformers.

          • March 12, 2018 at 12:32 am
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            Actually the level of SW is very close to Transformers in terms of storytelling

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:18 am
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      The fact is that many people who offer up opinions like yours do so because they are offering up thinly veiled bigotry. I have no idea if that applies to you (insofar that you are aware of the inherent bigotry in what you said), but the argument you just made is essentially for more white males to be depicted in media and for women and and ethnic minorities to remain in the background and marginalised with a small peppering of roles, despite the fact that they make up more of society than it depicted on screen (especially women).

      There’s simply no getting around the fact that that’s a bigoted argument and one that displays fear of change.

      • March 11, 2018 at 12:34 am
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        You make me smile.

        • March 11, 2018 at 2:00 am
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          Shame. I hoped I’d make you think.

  • March 9, 2018 at 9:49 pm
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    I honestly don’t understand people who see an agenda in the current Star Wars movies. I see bad writing… nothing more. I know people will debate that aspect as well, but seriously. If you didn’t like Finn, Rose or Holdo… wouldn’t you say it was because of bad writing? Not diversity? What does their race and gender have to do with it?

    Plenty of examples on the net explained how a sentence here, or a plot tweak there fixes a lot of the problems TLJ had. So again… what does gender and race have to do with it? I can’t take people seriously who claim their is an agenda.

    Which brings me back to this article. I’ve actually said on this very site that really JJ was talking about those particular wacko birds. The ones who do feel threatened by Rey or Finn. Their dumb sexist arguments derail most sensible discussions. It’s beyond annoying and sadly spread to practically every form of entertainment not starring a white male.

  • March 9, 2018 at 10:00 pm
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    I agree with the point you’re attempting to make. However, it could definitely be made with far fewer words and more direct sentences. College student? Just get to the point!

  • March 9, 2018 at 11:01 pm
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    I think we can all read. And I think we can all read between the lines too.
    And in between those lines, I see “if you don’t like new star wars, its because you wanted to not like it.” JJ using “threatened by women” as his example is just ridiculous and condescending. What are you talking about? Who is threatened by women? Where are these people?

    Just make better Star Wars and people will like it more. But really, all new Star Wars will be disappointing because it will never be as good as the OT. I just don’t think it’s possible. If George couldn’t do again, I don’t know what makes us think Disney can….but it’s hard not to get hyped up when we get the chance to see Han and Luke and Leia again. I think when its all said and done, in 20 years these new movies will be considered apocryphal.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:08 am
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      Its only disappointing if you actually expect it to be better or on par with the OT.. I sure as hell don’t! But yeah, where are these people who feel threatened by women? I’ve never met or seen one – besides the usual internet trolls.

      • March 10, 2018 at 5:49 pm
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        “Threatened by women”. Only the insecure which, I’m not seeing or a justified claim to such BS.

  • March 9, 2018 at 11:02 pm
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    When we have butt ugly heroes or even average looking and overweight heroes, I will believe Disney cares about equality and representing society rather than just making easy cosmetic statements.

    • March 9, 2018 at 11:07 pm
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      “…butt ugly heroes…” Dude, have you not seen Nien Nunb, Ello Asty and Raddus? 🙂

      • March 9, 2018 at 11:08 pm
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        As far as sullustans go, Nien Nunb is super fine.

        • March 10, 2018 at 5:46 pm
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          Talk about it. Wait I’m attracted to the FEMALES. Is Nien Nunb even female? Lol. I think Iv’e got a problem here. 🙂

      • March 9, 2018 at 11:09 pm
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        Good looking for aliens

      • March 10, 2018 at 3:58 pm
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        Just because a being has a different form doesn’t necessarily make them ugly. Open your mind. It’s one of the many lessons of AGFFA.

        “Where is my boyfriend? I like that wookie.”
        Maz Kanata

    • March 9, 2018 at 11:08 pm
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      Well of course they don’t care…but they probably care about appearing to care.

      • March 9, 2018 at 11:10 pm
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        To be fair, eject the Disney reference and type Hollywood and there’s a legit argument.

      • March 10, 2018 at 3:55 pm
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        “The appearance of the law must be upheld, especially when the law is being broken”.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:09 am
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      To the person that mentioned Rose Tico and got deleted, I am sure it was a well meaning comment. Kelly Marie Tran herself is rather talented at hiding her amazing good looks. Just take a look out there – she has some lovely photos.

      They dressed her down to be an engineer. They should hire a real ugly engineer if they want equality and to get viewing figures up among the engineering community. Ludicrous concept right? – but basically that is what they do by with fashionable equality.

      And why indeed should the engineer not be hotter than the sabre swinging girl that grew up in the desert without a dentist, hairdresser, proper diet and hygiene?

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:26 am
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      Great point

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:22 pm
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      You clearly didn’t notice the butt ugly big nose woman or red 5 in Rogue One

      • March 10, 2018 at 5:23 pm
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        I would not single out any specific background character, and probably my taste is different to others anyway. However, it is pretty clear (to me at least) that the lead characters all have good looks, complexion, and physical appearance/form – with the exception of snoke – who they made with a computer.

  • March 9, 2018 at 11:33 pm
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    ‘..scientifically polled’. I stopped reading after that artful statement.

    • March 10, 2018 at 4:51 am
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      The fact is that it follows the scientific method – based on proven, quantifiable data – as opposed to creating twenty accounts to vote on a movie that you didn’t actually watch.

      – Pomojema

      • March 10, 2018 at 10:19 am
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        Do you have data to back that up?

        • March 10, 2018 at 11:15 pm
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          The polls I was referring to – CinemaScore and Screen Engine – actually poll people before they walk out of the theater. Deadline has a good article on this.

          I’m not denying, in the slightest, that this is a contentious movie. I’m just saying that the divide is smaller than the internet suggests it is.

          – Pomojema

  • March 10, 2018 at 12:16 am
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    People can spin things how they like….the facts are;
    THe last jedi was s terrible agenda driven movie which was lazily written and ignored the story foretold. The characters were terrible which many of us don’t care about.
    A new hope if released now would still be awesome as it was a great story with great characters. Leia was not a Mary Sue as she was well written and performed
    For the first time in 40 years I’m not excited about another Star Wars movie and will not be spending my money on anything Star Wars.
    If anything I will wait and get the Dvd for a pound on eBay when that person realises how bad it was.

    • March 10, 2018 at 3:15 am
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      That’s NOT a fact

  • March 10, 2018 at 12:22 am
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    The over-politicising of TLJ (left-wing propaganda was jammed into pretty much every single story beat) wasn’t even the most egregious thing about the film – the worst thing was the total and utter mockery it made of the promising story foundation laid down by JJ in TFA. Call TFA derivative or whatever, but it set the trilogy up with a decent base…which Rian Johnson promptly shat over, purely out of hubris.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:26 am
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      Star Wars has always been left wing oriented story. For F’s sake George Lucas is liberal and the stories are about battle against far right entities.

      • March 10, 2018 at 2:09 am
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        Yeah. I mean if it wasn’t already obvious in the OT, the prequels pretty much rammed it home.

        • March 11, 2018 at 3:10 am
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          “If you are not with me, then you are my enemy!” riffing on George W. Bush’s “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists!” is still the most blatantly on-the-nose political line in Star Wars, and that’s about as far as it should go.

          – Pomojema

          • March 11, 2018 at 4:08 am
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            Yep

          • March 12, 2018 at 6:53 pm
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            “Whoever is not with me is against me” – Jesus. So it’s not exactly an original quote by the time GWB and Anakin use it.

    • March 10, 2018 at 1:27 am
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      Totally agree, though SW has always had left-wing sentiments. Whether that’s good or bad depends on your POV. I thought TLJ was politically quite a bit more on the nose to the point of feeling pretty preachy but my main criticism is exactly what you in say in regards to Johnson’s “carrying of the torch” from TFA. He pretty much ignored or undermined any potentially interesting plot threads JJ had set up in TFA. The new characters he added were almost entirely unnecessary and halfbaked and his treatment of the existing ones went to the point of character assassination in some cases. It honestly seemed like he was more interested in leaving his mark on the franchise rather than simply continuing the second chapter of a trilogy that began with TFA, in any kind of logical or interesting way that meshed with what came before. With him crapping on most of what JJ had already been set up (for better or worse), he also certainly wrote Abrams into a corner in regards to the third movie. It almost felt like he had some grudge against Abrams and his writing was a passive aggressive snipe at him. TFA and TLJ feel so disjointed that I do miss the feeling of there being a unified vision guiding this trilogy along, like George provided, regardless of whatever flaws he had. I was shocked when I started seeing TLJ apologists trying to bring sexism/racism into the equation. Lol wut? Someone such as myself that liked TFA but not TLJ is suddenly a bigoted woman hater? Hell, Rey (and her counterpart in Kylo) is the best part of these new movies though her plotline and direction in TLJ was not terribly interesting.

      • March 10, 2018 at 2:08 am
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        Putting aside complaints about how characters were written, how was the movie “preachy”?

        • March 10, 2018 at 2:44 am
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          Don’t be mean to animals, rich people are bad, commentary on war profiteering, etc etc.

          • March 10, 2018 at 3:06 am
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            Well, if that’s your idea of sci-fi and fantasy going too far I urge you to stay away from it.

            Animal cruelty happens. Some rich people exploit the poor. Some people profit on war. These are things that happen in our world. Sci-fi and fantasy has always been a medium through which contemporary issues have been explored. The original SW trilogy was a commentary on fascism, power and colonialism. The prequel trilogy offered up a commentary on politicians using events to erode civil liberties and democracy. I’m really not seeing anything in TLJ ‘s approach that was absent from past SW, even if the topics of commentary were different.

          • March 10, 2018 at 3:37 am
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            Not really. The OT was never about social commentary on the order of Star Trek, etc. The OT was traditionally a more “escapist” form of entertainment with mythological themes. The story of good vs evil is as old as time itself. The struggle of the little guy vs big guy is not a contemporary concept. TLJ pretty much dangled its political agenda in your face. About as close as the OT got to any kind of “contemporary” political statement might be the technologically primitive Ewoks defeating the Empire (aka: Vietcong in Vietnam). George had always said that concept fascinated him. I’ll give you that. The PT did offer more commentary on politics, bureaucratic bloat and corruption etc and was not the better for it. A common complaint against it, actually. In regards to TLJ, I know not to be mean to animals and don’t need a SW movie to tell me so. The sins of rich people are a matter of opinion and perspective and don’t need a SW movie to try to make some hamfisted statement about it. It got to the point of being pretty eyerolling.

  • March 10, 2018 at 12:25 am
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    Keep pretending that “women” are the reason for the treason

  • March 10, 2018 at 12:44 am
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    I just want address this phony narrative that there was the same type of split in fandom with ESB that there was with TLJ.

    Most of the fans I know who hated TLJ are the diehard fans who are there opening night. Whereas the fans I know who liked/loved TLJ are the more casual moviegoer who sees a blockbuster and then move onto next one. Obviously I’m generalizing so not EVERYONE fits into this category.

    ESB was exact opposite in 1980 (I saw it so I have a context of that time). The casual fans like my mom and my older brother didn’t like the darker tone and never cared about the franchise since. Then there were fans like me who latched onto the story and wanted to see where it was going with Vader and Luke. We read that there were possibly 9 or 12 episodes in this Saga and even a backstory.

    Plain and simple, ESB created a fanbase that is still strong in 2018, whereas TLJ just divided that same fanbase.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:57 am
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      If the fanbase is what you say it was/is TLJ would not split it. I was also around and a huge fan back when ESB came out and there were plenty of people fans and non fans who were upset about it. Especially ending with hanging plot threads not resolved.

      • March 10, 2018 at 3:47 pm
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        I’m an Empire child as well. The difference IMO between Empire and TLJ is that Empire was true to it’s predecessor while TLJ wen’t into sw twighlight zone territory and was completely disjointed from TFA. There will always be upset sw fans but being upset over TLJ and TESB are two completely different things. Empire didn’t get criticism about it not feeling like a star wars movie which to me is the necessary basis of ANY sw film: it has to FEEL like star wars. And Empire FELT very much like star wars.

        • March 10, 2018 at 4:10 pm
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          In my opinion TLJ is the most true to its predecessor. It takes off exactly where the predecessor left off and didnt miss one beat. The “Feel” argument is the most arbitrary argument you can make. It took all the characters and naturally put them in a situation to challenge them. It was meant to be the darkest of the ST and it was. It took hotshot pilot Poe and challenged his thinking. It put Finn in a situation and made him understand he needed to become part of something larger. In TFA he wasnt the Resistance he was a guy who had made a friend he cared for and used the Resistance to save her. He didnt become part of the Resistance he simply left the FO. Rey it made her look into herself and realize she doesnt need some fairy tale family for her. Kylo was meant to go from apprentice to the big bad and turn Snoke manipulation against Snoke. It was meant as a turning point for the characters. So yeah it FELT like Star Wars.

    • March 10, 2018 at 1:31 am
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      A New Hope created that fanbase. ESB just expanded upon it, and it is true that the reaction was mixed, albeit I agree it wasn’t as controversial. Your own experience isn’t necessary a microcosm of the fanbase at the time, a fanbase in it’s infancy and without the internet.

      • March 10, 2018 at 12:27 pm
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        Starwars wasn’t even gear the same then. Hard comparison. TLJ just was a poor movie. A bad rip off.

    • March 10, 2018 at 4:05 am
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      I’ve been a fan since my father introduced me in 87 with all three films on VHS, I’ve been a die hard fan ever since. I’ve read most of the EU novels and every new novel, I’ve read all the comics, marvel and Dark Horse. I’ve probably invested more time into this franchise than a lot of your friends and aside from few complaints, I loved TLJ. To say that you’re Generalizing is a big understatement. It’s safer to keep your opinion and those of your friends to yourself and not assign it to the general population of fans. Both you and I don’t know for sure what sort of “fans” made TLJ a financial success. What is fact is that moviegoers in general enjoyed it, unless someone here has a fantasy that any movie, SW or otherwise can generate 1.7 billion on hype alone.

      • March 10, 2018 at 4:29 am
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        Actually it grosses only 1.3 billion worldwide. Now 1.3 billion is no chump change, it’s still 800 million less then TFA made (315 million less domestically).

        So what happened because the opening weekend for TLJ 220 million was on par with TFA opening weekend of 240 million.

        TFA has legs into February as it grossed 936 million domestically while TLJ was done the bulk of its gross by the 4th weekend and ended up at 617 million.

        So almost 40% of TLJ domestic gross came from opening weekend. That tells me the diehards didn’t go back for repeat business as that’s is where these blockbusters make their money.

        I’ll just give you an example of my friends who are diehards that is relative to the Box office drop. I saw TFA 4 times, my best friend saw it 3 times, and one of my co-worker also saw it 3 times. We all saw it once cause we didn’t like it. My friends/co-workers who liked it all saw it once too. It’s the crazy fans like us that control the Box office to these franchise movies and that is why it grossed 800 million dollars less domestically and internationally.

      • March 10, 2018 at 12:26 pm
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        Oh realky, you then donthe very thing your admonishing him for. i dont know about others, but his commemts seems to play out pretty well with the Starwars fans in my orbit.

  • March 10, 2018 at 2:07 am
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    With respect to the Ghostbuster comparison, I objected to Ghostbusters, but I am not interested in the sexism on display over Star Wars. Why the difference? Paul Feig deliberately set out to make a movie around the gimmick of four female Ghostbusters. In other words, he made that decision before settling on a story or script. The decision to have four female leads wasn’t an organic process. What’s more the resulting movie was absolutely littered with misandry. It was littered with nasty potshots at socially awkward males and men in general. There was hardly any, if any, men portrayed in a good light. Built around that was, as the article says, a largely unfunny and lazy remake and part of that was the not so subtle gender banding of the four original roles (five if you count Hemsworth). Of the objections to the project, the sexists were probably in the minority and the narrative that they were the majority was stirred up by the media and the production team. That’s not to say there weren’t nonetheless a good few out there, but that fact is that Ghostbusters was portrayed as a great step forward for equality, when it reality it was simply advancing women with the cost of misandry, which is no greater a positive for gender equality than those who would marginalise women.

    In contrast, the Star Wars movies so far from Disney have not taken this approach. They simply have the “crime” of having several strong female characters (and several ethnic minority characters if we are including the racism as well), and the ratio of make to female characters isn’t that much more than in the original trilogy or the prequels. So really the reactions I have seen whining about “PC gone made”, “SJW agendas” and so on are simply coming from those who cannot stand the fact that the lead actor/hero in these movies, the Luke Skywalker role, has a different set of genitals from themselves. I mean look at some of the comments already posted in this comment section. “Left wing agenda”. Can someone tell me what the hell is “left wing” about a hero who happens to be a woman? Was Princess Leia part of a left wing agenda? Ellen Ripley? Lara Croft? Sarah Conner? Wonder Woman? Clarice Starling? No.

    Of course, when it comes to TLJ a lot of these people will say “I’m not a /sexist/racist, it’s just a bad movie”. Well, some will genuinely think that. It is certainly not a perfect movie and there are legitimate criticisms. But the gender and ethnicity of the leads isn’t one of them and the reality is that almost any talkback I read has a selection of people using the mixed reaction to advance their political views and bigotry, whether it be complaining about Rey or the ethnicity of some of the leads. Sadly the fact is that there are a lot of people out there emboldened these days who are now able to get away with (or so they think) bigotry and sexism by passing it off as political opinion. They say “i’m not sexist, it’s just liberal SJW agenda” or some other tedious catchphrase. They cry about the white man supposedly being under threat. They act as if it’s a crime to be white and/or a man. But the reality is that Hollywood is still vastly dominated by white males in front of and especially behind the camera. Until that changes there is no case that Hollywood is marginalising males or white people. While that remains as it is any complaints about agendas ring hollow and do little other than to establish the complainant as a bigot who wants little more than to preserve white and male domination. Proof in the pudding, just yesterday there was a guy on here complaining that Disney has an agenda as evidenced by A Wrinkle in Time. When I pushed over and over for a summary of how the movie established that agenda I could not get an answer out of him. The amount of jumping around to avoid answering was ludicrous. Why the evasion? Because the likelihood is that upon scrutiny the complaint was likely little more than “too many black people/women”. People cry foul when being told their attitude is bigoted, but theyu’re quite happy to offer up the complaints about left wing agendas/liberal Hollywood/SJW causes before stopping to consider whether, firstly, more equal representation and diversity is actually a bad thing, and secondly whether or not, as I said above, there is actually any real threat to male and white dominance in Hollywood anyway. To my mind, if your complain is that more equal representation is a bad thing (not dominance of one social group over another), which is the only complaint possible right now, then to my mind that makes you a bigot.

    Oh, and FWIW, I am white, male and not left wing.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:23 pm
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      I dislike Rey after TLJ, she’s a Mary sue and it sucks, to walk was s chance to create another iconic strong female character. And turning Luke into a whiny baby boomer was equally bad.

      HAving said that, I want a left wing anti capitalism Starwars Agenda. This country has issue, I’ll take whatever brand we can to force that fact in front of people.

  • March 10, 2018 at 2:08 am
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    Good article Pomojema. I agree with most of your arguments. A couple of comments though:

    1. “(As Abrams noted, if A New Hope had been released now, we never would have heard the end of the “Mary Sue” or “political pandering” accusations about Leia being able to take care of herself.)”

    – Do you really believe this? I don’t buy this for a second. “A New Hope” was released on the heals of the women’s movement of the ’60s and ’70s. I don’t recall anyone complaining about Leia “being able to take care of herself” in all the years since that movie came out. She was the right heroine for the right time. Are you implying that the women’s movement has taken steps BACKWARD from the 1970s? Because I really don’t think it has. I have 2 daughters myself, and even though we don’t have complete equality of the genders in the Western World – it’s arguably a more level playing field than it’s ever been, and I expect progress to continue as time moves forward..

    2. “…The Force Awakens was arguably hit much harder with sexist backlash over the character of Rey than anything that came out of its sequel. He (Abrams) also does not single out Star Wars fans with his statement, implying that this would likely happen with any major franchise that becomes popular enough.”

    – The first 2 “Alien” movies are some of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies (after “Star Wars” of course). Sigourney Weaver was fantastic as the hero of that series – and I don’t believe her gender had anything to do with it, at least not for me personally. It was the perfect combination of a well-written character along with a great actor that knew how to make the performance work. Some people forget that Weaver was actually nominated for a BEST ACTRESS Oscar for her performance in “Aliens,” a rarity even today for sci-fi movies. It didn’t matter (to me at least) that she was male, female, black, white, brown, or green. In my opinion, Daisy Ridley is extremely likable, very charming, and obviously attractive – but I feel there are problems with the way her character has been written. Rey is no Ellen Ripley. Just like your “Ghostbusters” argument, often times when I or others express our issues with the character, we’re instantly labeled “sexist” or “misogynist” and our arguments are dismissed. Nobody is allowed to be critical of Rey (especially if you’re male) because then you’re just a knuckle dragging neanderthal stuck in the 1950s. It’s political correctness run amok, and it’s complete B.S.

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:13 am
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      Complaints about how Rey is written should have nothing to do with all the tedious barking about “PC nonsense/SJW agendas” and all the other garbage you see littering every SW comments section.

      If a character is badly written it should, in theory, have nothing to do with the character’s gender or ethnicity. Once people start bemoaning perceived political agendas and use it as the basis for a complaint, that’s when the bigotry starts and complaints about bad writing being the only issue start to look hollow.

      • March 10, 2018 at 2:30 am
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        Agree with you. I can only speak for myself personally – but my issues with the character of Rey have nothing to do with her gender, only the choices made by the writers for her character. But yes, I’m sure there are people out there that just don’t like Rey only because of the simple fact that she is female. Or they don’t like Finn because he’s black. That kind of ignorance has always – and unfortunately will probably always – exist. The internet has given almost everyone a voice, and it’s up to each of us to filter out the nonsense and the ignorance and listen to what we truly feel is worthwhile.

        • March 11, 2018 at 11:54 am
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          Are there? I mean, I guess there were a couple of idiots prior to TFA opening saying stupid things, but I don’t really recall seeing much more than people expressing various degrees of frustration with the writing since then.

      • March 11, 2018 at 11:45 am
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        I think some people misinterpret the agenda, and, yes, it’s pretty clear there is one. Rather than a political or social one, I think there’s a fairly blatant economic agenda LFL and Disney are working with. The franchise has locked about as many 8-20 something boys as it’s going to. To grow the fanbase, and more importantly YoY revenue, they need to look to new demographics, and girls of the same age range is a natural place to turn. So, yeah, I think there’s an agenda – just not the one some people seem to think there is.

        The problem is that the characterization for the leads in three films and one narrative video game so far has been just so, so bad though. The company is so preoccupied with presenting “strong, empowered” role models (god, how often have those descriptors been uttered by Kennedy over the past three years?), that they seem terrified to make these characters anything but boring checklists of positive traits. I WANT to like these characters, but without even the remote possibility of them failing, how am I supposed to care what they do, how am I supposed to relate to them? And I don’t think I’m alone here – by contrast, look at the reaction to Ahsoka, a character who has made mistakes and suffered meaningful losses. She was definitely put there to open the franchise up to young girls, but it turns out when a character is more than a 2 dimensional poster for ’empowerment’, nobody is raising the spectre of ‘agendas’.

        • March 11, 2018 at 2:56 pm
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          I’m not sure I agree with the whole “not failing” thing. Rey fails twice over in Last Jedi. She starts getting tempted by the Dark Side and she fails in her bid to turn Kylo Ren. Then there’s Poe, who basically costs a ton of lives unnecessarily at the start of the film. DJ, played by Latino Benicio Del Toro is a double crossing scumbag. Phasma, played by a woman, is not only largely useless, but gets bumped off – by a man no less. Finn himself is basically a bit of a headstrong idiot. I think on greater analysis the whole “perfect character” narrative doesn’t stack up as well as people think. Rose is probably the only character who fits the “no fault or fail” narrative right now.

          I have little doubt that there are those in Hollywood who see increased diversity as a way of broadening audiences and earning more money, rather than it being about a genuine attempt at inclusion. But perhaps that is a necessary evil if it still brings in more women and minorities. I don’t see the benefit in an ever globalised world of keeping things as white and male as possible. It’s like being in denial.

          As for the demonstrably false idea that all the female and minority characters are perfect, lets suppose that narrative was right. There is probably still some argument that at this moment in time there is a greater push for women and minorities to be portrayed in a positive light to try and combat the negative societal attitudes towards them. Its basic common sense that the more women and minorities are depicted, the more developed, and therefore ore flawed, the characters will become. The way I see it, you have two options. You can call for things to be as they used to be. Or you can wait until things balance out. Only one relies on the continued marginalisation of woman and minorities, and given your comments about Ahsoka, it stands to reason that the latter of the two options is the best hope for you.

    • March 10, 2018 at 11:24 am
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      Problem with both your arguments is, there was no internet back then.
      Ergo, not every idiot was able to spread his bullshit from safe home into the world.

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:12 pm
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      Yes, as a country the women’s agenda has been set back, the election of the Orange North Korean dictator wannabe sexual assaulter in Chief is proof of that. But it’s coming back strong.

      • March 10, 2018 at 10:16 pm
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        When I speak of “the Western World,” I’m not just talking about the U.S. I’m including all of North America and Western Europe. I get it – I’m an American too and we tend to think that we’re the center of the world, but it’s not true. And the election of Trump in the U.S. has not set back the women’s movement. Remember, he never could have been elected if women didn’t vote for him – and the truth is, some did. Not saying I’m a Trump supporter, but it seems trendy these days to pin all of America’s ills on Trump. He does himself no favors by making himself an easy target, but the villagers with fire and pitchforks at the ready seem too often to go way overboard…

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:17 pm
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      I don’t care about political correctness, hurting others for no reason should be checked. But you’re right, TLJ defenders will often make reactionary claims when Rey is criticized.

      I loved TFA Rey. RJ ruined the character.

      Having said that, don’t feel sorry for yourself, this backlash against your views is nothing compared to the sexism women face every day.

  • March 10, 2018 at 3:07 am
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    Give me Alien 1& 2, Terminator 1 & 2, or Erin Brockovich, Fargo, 3 bill boards, kill bill and TFA; they all have strong female leads but more importantly … they’re good films IMO! I disliked TLJ for its clunky pot hole ridden plot with lack of genuine peril. I think people walked out the cinema and thought ‘I don’t care anymore’ and that in itself upset them because they always did when it came to Star Wars.

    • March 10, 2018 at 3:08 am
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      That’s all fine. It’s when those complaints suddenly are used as an excuse to bellyache about “SJW agendas” and the like that the bigotry starts.

      • March 10, 2018 at 12:09 pm
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        I dislike the gender or race argument. Far as I’m concerned we needed a female and minority lead. The sooner we get a gay and trans lead the better. But write a better movie.

        And for heavens sake people, learn what bigotry is. If anything shutting down the white defender said opinion I should bigotry. They are just flat out being sexist, racist, and xenophobic.

      • March 11, 2018 at 11:18 am
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        Ah, see, I’ve witnessed much, MUCH more of the exact opposite phenomenon here – “You know, I think that character was really poorly written” answered by choruses of people howling “You sexist MONSTER!!!!!!!!!!!”. It’s almost enough to make you throw up your hands and say “Sure, whatever – I must be a misogynist racist. You win, there’s no point in trying to discuss these films in any meaningful way. Well done.”. Almost 🙂

        • March 11, 2018 at 1:05 pm
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          yes characters are badly written. They are caricatures of what their role is. the comic guy, the head burn, the hero who never fails. This was blatant in TFA then blurred in TLJ IMO

        • March 11, 2018 at 2:42 pm
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          Well, if you discuss the problems with writing, etc without bemoaning gender and ethnicity then what do you care if you are accused of being a sexist or misogynist? The accusation would be without merit, no?

    • March 10, 2018 at 4:17 am
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      Will you come here in 2019 to excuse yourself when ep IX make a 2 billion box office, and obvioully everybody that have repeated the half in the bag opinion “i-dont-care-anymore” will have gone to see EP IX five times?

      • March 10, 2018 at 12:07 pm
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        Everyone won’t be seeing it five times, and what’s that have to do with his disappointment. All TLJ apologists Have is the money Disney made. Hey, The PT did great at box office too.

      • March 11, 2018 at 1:59 pm
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        Box Office does not equal quality in anyway.

        • March 12, 2018 at 12:19 am
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          Unless it’s Chinese box office.

    • March 10, 2018 at 4:30 pm
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      Yep. Before even walking into the theater (ONE TIME ONLY!) people were walking out in a daze, looking at each other, saying very little, and shaking their heads. No one cheered when the movie ended during my screening. No one clapped. No one did anything but shuffle out of the theater after watching the WORST Star Wars movie ever made. Disappointing beyond belief.

  • March 10, 2018 at 4:44 am
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    Love it or hate it – clearly there is a problem with this movie. It’s
    dividing people where Star Wars (until recently) has traditionally
    brought people
    together. Ignore the facts as much either way as you like, but the
    reality of the matter is that THOUSANDS of people have a problem with
    TLJ, conversely
    THOUSANDS adore it. Bottom line is we really don’t need any more
    divisive Star Wars movies. I think we can agree on that much. These
    movies used to be for everyone, this one unarguably wasn’t despite
    everyone’s best efforts. These films are hard to make, maybe everyone
    should just lighten up.

    • March 11, 2018 at 6:12 am
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      Where have you been the last 35 years? Star Wars films have been dividing fans since empire.

      People hated the twist in empire.
      People hated ewoks.
      People hated the prequels
      People hated the sequels.

      The division is simply amplified by the internet.

      Dissenting voices increasingly have a louder megaphone. That’s all there is to it.

  • March 10, 2018 at 6:48 am
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    Disney ruins Star Wars, then rather than going back to the drawing board and fixing THEIR mistakes, they instead lash at the fans, through mouthpiece JJ.

    These smug corporate elitists have nothing but contempt for the fanbase. They hate Star Wars fans, and their actions reflect this.

    • March 10, 2018 at 11:19 am
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      Go to sleep, dude…

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:02 pm
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      Well, companies allways tries to maximize the profits. Nothing new there.
      Son, you don’t have to watch star wars if you don’t like it. Disney doesn’t owe fans nothing.

      Jar Jar Abrams ruined Star Wars, Ruin Johnson ruined Star Wars, George Lucas destroyed my childhood, Kathleen Kennedy ruined Star Wars, Disney ruined Star Wars…and so on and so on.

      “Well yeah, that’s just your opinion man…”

  • March 10, 2018 at 8:58 am
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    It’s too bad that I’m not allowed to post a link to my response to this pure poppycock.

    Maybe he’ll allow a pingback?

    • March 11, 2018 at 1:26 pm
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      You’re not allowed to use two accounts with different names in the comments section. That’s not the way to make your point. Choose one of the two accounts. If you continue to mislead people you will be permanently banned.

      • March 11, 2018 at 9:17 pm
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        I’m not misleading anyone. You’re misrepresenting me.

        See my other post.

  • March 10, 2018 at 10:53 am
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    Hey guys, who’s up for a Star wars chat and a cup o’ te………….oh, this is the PC, SJW agenda’s, bigots debate chat room…….yeah, f**k that. Gimme a shout when you wanna talk laser swords and Sith lords.

    • March 10, 2018 at 2:32 pm
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      Gimme a shout when Disney wants Star Wars to be about laser swords and Sith Lords. Until then, I’ve tapped out of this film series.

  • March 10, 2018 at 12:02 pm
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    All Starwars make political points, so expect political backlash. In fact, I think RJ made a political hitjob on baby boomers that many are missing, and he’s not wrong, but it wasn’t the right place. But first…

    Sorry, but this article partly comes off as a pathetic attempt to do the very thing it claims J.J. Isn’t doing and i don’t even disagree with J.J., those who have issues with TLJ because of strong minorities and females can poop off. A few times the article seems to outright dismiss the claims of those who don’t care for TLJ.

    The Mary Sue argument would have never applied to Leia plenty of real adversity, like her planet blew up. Rey is a Mary Sue, because it all comes so easy for her, never failed even when making massive mistakes, etc.

    But more importantly, the author here tries to hide (poorly) his disdain for fans who don’t like TLJ.

    The ESB fan response comparison is absurd, mainly because the problem with TLJ is it is ESB, except for when RJ decides to make right turns for no reason, when left turns wouldn’t of even done much. That and this whole let’s pee all over the OT legacy, literally flipping the iconic light saber over the shoulder.

    Let me put a political spin on it, and explain why I think RJ did this.

    Baby boomers screwed everything up, failed as caretakers of this country. It’s why they are so fast to make fun of Mallenials. Shame for letting the progress of the Greatest gen die. They let the military be sold to private businesses, ignoring the Great Eisenhower’s warnings. They created massive debt. Healthcare cost is higher than everywhere and we take care of less people. College cost goes up 70% every ten years. Cost of living has dwarfed wages. The youth of today 18-35 have little shot keeping up. College grads often will seen 200k in debt just to get a regular job. Kids can’t even feel safe on the classroom. Other industrial countries have none of this bs.

    RJ captured those failures and placed them on Luke, Leia and Han. Failed parents, failed at taking the winnings of the war and building a better world. I get it. So Rey must learn from that mistake. She’s a highly technical super gifted Millennial.

    Problem is, I already lived through those failed heroes in real life. I didn’t need anyone rewriting Starwars to reflect that. The ST was a chance to see Starwars progress, it regressed. It went no where. Same battle, same enemy. Nothings changed except my trust was put into failures of Luke.

    • March 10, 2018 at 4:04 pm
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      Great essay, man. I still need to read this article, so I won’t comment on my feelings towards it. I usually like to give people a fair chance to explain themselves. But yeah; I can see where you are coming from.

      Funnily enough, I believe the best explanation about the state of Star Wars came from Alex Beckman’s channel. Despite being an entrepreneur/ self-made millionaire, he succinctly broke down why LucasFilm from a business angle is in danger right now.

      If you want, I can link the video. Needless to say, I believe a lot of LucasFIlm’s agenda/ identity politics stint is a byproduct of their own bubble and Kathleen Kennedy making movies that mainly appeal to those people there. As opposed to making a more general product to hardcore fans.

      Now, that shouldn’t be conflated Star Wars shouldn’t have women. That’s stupid as you stated. Especially, in Star Wars which I argue preached an egalitarian society. Its predominantly white casting a byproduct of the 70s.

      So having a female character is a non-issue, especially in a galaxy full of aliens. The issue is virtue signaling and rubbing it in one’s face.

      To conclude; I believe the best example of having a female character that has managed to appeal to both men and women in these recent times is the new Wonder Woman movie.

      It is by all accounts a feminist in its ideas, but rather than shaming men the movie purports that Diana is strong and fights not just for women, but men as well. And given her strong characterization, motivations and development; there’s a reason why I argue that movie was so successful besides the cultural aspect.

  • March 10, 2018 at 12:03 pm
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    When didn’t comments need to be approved. Did Disney outright buy this site?

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:05 pm
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      Oh the big bad corporation ia going to get you…

    • March 10, 2018 at 12:23 pm
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      Since some members turned the comments section to a curse fest. Only comments with bad words are held for moderation.

      • March 11, 2018 at 12:22 am
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        Seems like a damn good plan.

    • March 10, 2018 at 3:10 pm
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      No. We follow a moral etiquette.

      The comments section on the blog is intended to be a place for all Star Wars fans to share their thoughts, opinions, and points of view in a safe and respectful environment. While everyone is free to share, certain behaviors will not be tolerated. Any inappropriate comments or personal attacks, especially those concerning a person’s ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion will be deleted. We have implemented a new system which holds every comment with foul language for moderation. Our moderators retain the ability to ban members who are clearly derailing and spamming the comments sections with unnecessary content, especially comments of offensive, abusive, or threatening nature.

    • March 11, 2018 at 3:02 am
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      I’m still waiting on my DI$N€¥ $HI££™ money myself. Seems to be lost in the mail….

      – Pomojema

  • March 10, 2018 at 4:13 pm
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    The problem isn’t that there is an abundance of diversity in Star Wars, it’s that Disney and Kathleen Kennedy want to shove it in everyone’s faces that they are “champions for equality”. Furthermore, it’s an issue due to the fact that they spend resources on this diversity rather than spending that money or other resources on making a quality product. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed TLJ and TFA as I do all Star Wars, but this problem is consistently present. I mean my God, “The Force is Female”! I could be wrong, but that sounds a little biased to me. I just want to watch Star Wars.

    • March 10, 2018 at 4:30 pm
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      I believe Alex Beckman put it really well when describing LucasFilm and this push for diversity. He’s a self-made millionaire and entrepreneur and has an amazing channel.

      But he sums up how LucasFilm’s promotion of diversity and virtue signaling are actually misaligned with what most hardcore fans want.
      But Instead LucasFilm is focusing on identity politics/ social issues. In other words, pandering to their own bubble as opposed to the demographics of a general audience.

      Beckman used a wonderful example of how if someone were to buy a bar for 40-60 year old people went to and all of sudden started playing J-pop and making drastic changes; those customers won’t come back.

      In essence, knowing your audience which most of th e merchandise sales comes from male fans. That isn’t to say female fans aren’t important or they don’t contribute. My cousin she is a huge Star Wars fan.

      It is just numerically; most of the merchandise being purchased are from male fans who have families, grew up with SWs and have income.

      Also, I believe the proof as to why this sole diversity push, at the expense of story and characters, is really damn evident when you consider superhero movies, like Black Panther and Wonder Woman.

      Both have diverse casts; both have a black and female lead respectively. And why is there no divide? Because, those stories were well-written. And the public was less split on them.

      You could argue that bias towards Star Wars, specifically the OT, could have been a contributing factor to The Last Jedi’s divisiveness, eschewing the other issues. But considering The Last Jedi and The Force Awakens were the followups to those storylines; even that argument is hollow.

      Either way, LucasFIlm needs to do some serious soul searching. Especially, if Solo underperforms. Which it may not. Who knows?

    • March 10, 2018 at 11:58 pm
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      Agreed. I love all of the new movies and shows so far, but they need to cut out the virtue signaling. And they certainly shouldn’t let their political views bleed into the franchise. I fear the PETA commercial in TLJ is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t screw this up, Lucasfilm.

    • March 12, 2018 at 6:22 pm
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      I miss the days when the Christians complained that the OT was too New Age, and the atheist rolled their eyes because the PT was too Christian. haha.

    • March 10, 2018 at 11:23 pm
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      I won’t dignify your alt account’s wall of text with a response, but I will tell you this: I haven’t been deleting your posts, and your posts that have been deleted were deleted due to self-promotion and other violations of our comment policies. Furthermore, I have allowed dissenting opinions here, so please stop pretending that I haven’t.

      – Pomojema

      • March 11, 2018 at 2:22 am
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        Too much to read? I guess that’s one way to avoid embarassment over being so incredibly wrong.

        I see you’ve censored (redacted) my link. So I was right. You are only interested in one way lecturing. Too bad. You’re not really knowledgable or authoritative enough to pull off such nonsense succesfully.

        There’s no pretending that your comment policies seem to be specifically designed to disallow dissenting opinions, regardless of the contrived rationale for doing so.

        I mean honestly, why on Earth would self promotion be cause for deleting a post?

        • March 11, 2018 at 2:57 am
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          Did you not actually read my remark? You’re blatantly self-promoting (which is spam, just in case you’re wondering), and that’s a violation of site rules. (Not persecution, give me a break.)

          If you have something to say, you can do it here instead of trying to use this article as a place to leech viewers to your little page that won’t get any traffic otherwise.

          – Pomojema

          • March 11, 2018 at 5:31 pm
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            Of course, I read your remark. That’s why I posted exactly what I did.

            Self-promoting isn’t automatically spam. Spam is advertisements for male enhancement and so forth. You’re manufacturing pretenses to excuse your censorship. Why not just admit it, since it’s so transparent anyway?

            What’s wrong with writing opinions on a blog and pointing to it? You do the same thing here after all. Are you under the delusion that you ought to have the only blog on the internet, or something equally stupid?

    • March 11, 2018 at 1:25 pm
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      You’re not allowed to use two accounts with different names in the comments section. That’s not the way to make your point. You’re misleading people. Choose one of the two accounts. If you continue you will be permanently banned.

      • March 11, 2018 at 5:29 pm
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        You make false accusations. I’m not misleading anyone at all by having two accounts. Remember, two accounts wouldn’t be necessary if the staff here weren’t attempting to censor opinions they disagree with. There’s no way to make any point at all if bullies are taping my mouth shut after all. All I’ve done here is point to opinions that you and Pomojema disagree with, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that at all.

        Rather, the post that Pomojema wrote here is what is misleading, and it was very important for someone to point that out, as I have on my blog. Self-appointed authority and massive stupidity always walk hand in hand; it’s a universal constant. And Pomojema’s post here serves as an excellent tool to demonstrate that point. So go ahead and ban away. The point has already been made anyway.

        • March 11, 2018 at 10:56 pm
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          False accusations? At least admit when you have made an attempt to break the rules making two accounts trying to mislead people that there are two members trying to share your link.
          You could have pretty much copied the story from your site and posted it here and it would have been OK.
          We have like more than hundreds of comments to deal daily. And we have our personal lives. That’s why we have rules which are helping us doing that job. If you think we are being unfair then good. Maybe our site is not the place for you. We’ve tried our best to be neutral and our readers know it. But we will not tolerated anything like this.

          • March 13, 2018 at 5:02 pm
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            Oh please. I’ve chosen two primary related characters from The Holiday Special for my accounts. The only people who might think they were two different people are the hopelessly naive or the willfully offended. Or those who seek to enforce “rules” designed specifically to excuse censorship.

            I could have copied the story from my site and posted it here. Sure. But then it would be in danger of being deleted by your jackbooted moderators. No, when I have something substantial to say in response to the kind of utter nonsense that Pomojema wrote in his editorial, I’ll kindly post it outside of those moderator’s reach. There’s nothing wrong with that.

            If SWNN suddenly finds itself concerned with misleading people, then it really needs to put an editor in place to watch over the misleading nonsense that Pomojema is writing here, rather than clamp down on alternative opinions that correct him. Pomojema is in desperate need of good management.

            We all have personal lives. No one here is special in that regard. The “rule” not to self promote is a contrivance meant to excuse clamping down on alternative thought and intellectual competition. So it’s very important to openly defy that completely ridiculous rule.

            Tolerate it or not, my off site responses to editorial nonsense like this will continue anyway. Enjoy.

          • March 13, 2018 at 10:04 pm
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            You have every right not to be happy with our rules. But this is our house and these are our rules. BTW, this particular rule is pretty common. Every site has it – no self promotion. I remember that back in 2012 I ran through all this myself. 🙂
            Farewell.

  • March 10, 2018 at 5:34 pm
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    He just needs to grow a beard and wear flannels and jeans and he will look exactly like a young Lucas

    • March 10, 2018 at 7:38 pm
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      At the time of Phantom Menace the complaint was that the different aliens were developed with traits stereotypical of different races and nationalities, and that it was insulting to some groups of people. Frankly I thought it was true but tasteful and humerous.

  • March 11, 2018 at 1:56 am
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    The only reason I didn’t like the film is because its full of things that I would consider bad filmmaking. No other reason. And that’s my opinion, I don’t need anything explained to me by anyone within or without the making of the film.
    And I love Star Wars, have done since 1980. Don’t read the books or comics or go to celebrations, but I do love Star Wars. TLJ is the first film in the saga that’s made me lose interest in what’s to come, and there is a huge amount of lovers of SW that feel the same as I do. Not scared of diversity or strong women, just didn’t like the film for simpler reasons.

    • March 11, 2018 at 2:59 am
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      And there we go – a reasonable response that runs contrary to my personal opinion of the film. People like you are part of the reason why I wrote this article – because, again, most people who don’t like TLJ don’t like it for reasons like the ones you listed – so thanks for reading it through.

      – Pomojema

    • March 11, 2018 at 1:52 pm
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      Very well said. And exactly the same reasons I did not enjoy TLJ. In the end of the day I have to go with the feelings I had in the theatre on opening night, and I just did not enjoy the experience and felt incredibly disappointed with the filmmaking and story. It was the first Star Wars film that has provoked that response on first viewing. Nothing to do with casting or diversity. In fact I think John Boyega was criminally underused in TLJ and I wish Rey had an actual Hero’s Journey.

  • March 11, 2018 at 3:52 am
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    Very, very, very well said.

  • March 11, 2018 at 12:56 pm
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    All of the criticism I’ve heard has to do with poor story choices and badly written characters, nothing to do with women or diversity.
    In the cinema, when Luke drank from a sea cow, my gf and I looked at each other with similar expressions – “wtf was that?”. To me, TFA was a typical Abrams reboot and I felt gutted because of it. Really let down. I’d never felt that way about a SW film before.
    I liked TLJ a lot better, but most of the story was pointless. The Canto Bight arc ultimately contributed nothing to the overall story. Also, suicide runs seems to be the Resistance/Rebels only strategy.

    These are the main issues I’ve heard. I notice Abrams hasn’t addressed any of that. When I heard he was coming back for IX there’s no way I’m watching it.

    I loved Rogue One, and I’m optimistic about Solo. I think the spinoff films are where it’s at, as I’ve no interest in the ST at all.

    • March 11, 2018 at 1:11 pm
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      yes but you ll watch it. Me too. Even i m completly agree about TFA “rebooting SW when nobody look at me ” and the worst screeplay/storytelling of ALL SW movie. But clearly i will not go to 9 with the high hopes i had for TLJ

      • March 11, 2018 at 2:54 pm
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        I’ll probably stream it. No way I’m spending money on a ticket though.

  • March 11, 2018 at 2:38 pm
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    That GIF reminds me there is awkward scenes in every SW movies. But, even if i reunite all these moments of the seven previous movies, that can’t compete with awkwardness and clunkiness of TLJ

  • March 11, 2018 at 8:22 pm
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    For those who had a problem with the female characters, i think it was how they were written compared to their male counterparts. To them it seems that ALL the females show more empowerment than the men do. Holdo puts Poe in his place, Rose “teaches” Finn in humanity, Maz is taking out people like shes a Mandalorian, both Paige and Holdo have the best scenes as far a combat sacrifice is concerned and Rey is the more righteous one and “bests” Luke in combat………..while Kylo is evil, Finn is “confused and bumbling”, Luke is shameful and in exile, Poe was wrong, DJ was shelfish. I can see where there are those who feel that the tables have been turned and that the male characters are playing up to the female characters as far as “strength of character” is concerned. I still enjoyed the movie though. lol.

    • March 11, 2018 at 9:18 pm
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      she doesn’t defeat Luke. She draws her lightsaber in anger so she fails here.

    • March 12, 2018 at 10:26 am
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      The issue is that this is a trend running through many disney movies recently. Cars 3, Frozen, Moana – all have girls with suppressed powers and guys on the spectrum of emotionally defective, stupid to evil.

      It is clearly to get more girls into the stories and merchandise – disney admitted as such. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be on some meds that help them ignore reality.

      I do not understand the reason to try to argue otherwise. It is a shame they felt the need to bring the same to SW universe.

  • March 11, 2018 at 10:04 pm
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    What really angers the fans is that Daisy just revealed there was a plan that JJ had written the last jedi script and it was thrown out by Rian Johnson in favour of his own script which really shows in the last jedi.

    The way he just completely ruined every plot element JJ set up in TFA was just really bad writing and for JJ to yell sexism when that is not why people are angry just angers fans even more.

  • March 12, 2018 at 5:30 am
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    Whoa! This article reaks of biased cuck. SWNN, what happened to you!? You’ve turned into shill central. I cant take this site serious anymore and it’s a shame, it use to be my go to since the hype and anticipation for the force awakens, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. You can keep lying to these good people about a vocal “minority” standing up against this trash, but you know it’s not a minority moron. Merch doesn’t sell, TLJ is hated by many long time SW fans like myself not due to being sexist like you retards like to label us more because they mistreat Luke Skywalker and Kathleen Kennedy is a sexist idiot, if you can’t see that your straight cuck and just a useful idiot. Your their tool. Stop disrespecting people who only want SW to be great again.

    • March 12, 2018 at 5:57 am
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      I’m impressed that you managed to put every alt-right MAGA bullet point into one comment. Color me impressed by your dedication to either trolling or being on the wrong side of history. Oh, and go die in a fire.

  • March 12, 2018 at 9:33 am
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    In the original trilogy Leia did not have to be dumbed down for Han and Luke to shine. I would say they all shone because they were equal but different.

    Another point avoided in the discussion is that as a representation of society – global society – recent feminism is actually quite restricted globally. Go to other cultures and the role of male and female is wildly different around the globe. Transferring that to a galaxy far away, you might expect that different balances and roles in the sexes may have developed other than current day American equality – especially across alien races. And this could work either way but instead it is not explored in favour of advertizing 2018 views of a certain portion of a certain country.

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