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The Last Jedi (spoilers): Only a Sith deals in plot holes


Kalbear

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Why is their gender important? Can men or boys not admire strong, fictional characters that don't have penises and - gasp - have bewbs? 

Also, Rose and her sister are both women. Not girls. 

Suppose thus movie is 100% pro-women/men suck (it's not). That would be 1/8 movies that are not dominated by men - where is that equality?

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1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

A New Hope is nothing like Last Jedi in its portrayal of the male characters and it seems to  me to be wilfully ignorant to try and pretend New Hope has similar treatment. If that were released today you would see nothing like the sort of anger you see now. Wildly different, as you can surely see if you give it a fair look. Come on.

 

Principal cast for this film has 10 males to 5 females Mormont? Snort, only in Scotland.

Luke, Kylo Ren, Poe, Finn, Snoke, maybe include Hux and Chewie

vs

Rey, Leia, Holdo, Rose, Phasma, Maz Kanata, Commander D'Acy, Lt Connix, Page Tico

Seems pretty even to me. It's not about numbers of course, it's about what the characters do and how they are shown and therein lies people's issues with the film. But even a simple line-up of the main actors per gender does not match your incorrect "defense". It's got nothing to do with moving towards equality, equality is not on display here, people find the film overwhelmingly skewed to one side. Now, you will love that, but let's not turn a blind eye to what is there.

And really, with all the complaints about how Luke is portrayed in 2,5 hours, you're going to point to his force projection at the end as proof of how important the male characters were opposed to female? Really? Why not point to the girl ( Rose's sister) who saves the Resistance ass by unloading those bombs from  the last remaining bomber, about as critical a move as what Luke does? Wasn't that among the 3 most heroic acts in this film? Aren't we also led to believe Holdo saved the resistance by what she did? Or how Rey frees the remaining resistance from the mountain at the end by moving rocks, just before Kylo can get to them?

 

You say "maybe include Hux and Chewie", characters who are on screen the whole movie and, at least in Hux's case, have significant screen time and lines of dialogue. But you're willing to include Maz and Phasma, who have less screentime than Yoda, and a bunch of characters who are basically extras (I have no clue who any of those last three are) as "the main cast." Really?

Whether or not male characters or female characters got more heroic moments or not (and what a stupid argument this is), male characters clearly had tons of screen time and a lot of the more interesting arcs and character development of the film. And it's also indisputable that the climax of the movie focuses on these male characters: Finn's suicide run, Poe taking up the mantle of leadership, Luke and Kylo facing off and Luke saving everyone. Rey, comparatively, is backup in the millenium falcon, finds some rocks and lifts them.

I find it truly sad that people are so "angered" that a movie can have female characters doing heroic things and that sometimes they might be able to even be sometimes more heroic than the male characters or teach the male characters things: meanwhile there are still tons of male characters doing heroic things throughout the whole movie!

 

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How does Mormont come to 10 male actors in the principal cast then? Surely he is adding secondary characters to come to that number but of course we will gloss over that.

To me, it's Kylo Ren, Luke, Poe, Finn and that's it that I would consider main cast.

Versus Leia, Holdo, Rey, Rose for the women. It seems pretty evenly divided to me, which is what I was saying.

But no of course we also have to be told that despite what we have seen, it was still a mismatch in favour of the men, it was still not enough for the Mormonts of this world, because supposedly it's all about working towards equality.

I think you're wrong to say that Yoda has a bigger role than Phasma btw. He's in one brief comical sequence.

Finally, why does Star Wars Last Jedi have to compensate for the fact that other films have male dominated "heroism" or cast? I see this pop up a lot, "why even complain about Last Jedi when there have been so many films in which there have been more men than women"? As though that somehow alleviates the issues of the film. There are likewise thousands of films out there catering largely to female audience, we don't bring those into the discussion do we?

This film is pretty clearly a product of what the SW story group and Rian Johnson wanted, they wrote the film together,  the SW story group had editorial oversight on the script, and one of their main stated goals was to have a strong female presence and strong female characters, see NY Times article for reference. Why do we have to deny that this is obvious in the end product and that it seems to have come at the expense of the male characters? It would have been better to have strong roles from both genders to balance the film.

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The movie is clearly actively feminist in its leanings, but I’m not seeing the anti male elements that are complained about. 

If anything annoys me it’s the pass that movies get for simply being feminist in their outlook:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/18/star-wars-the-last-jedi-women-bechdel-test

There are plenty of articles like this extolling the virtues of this movie for simply including certain races and genders, regardless of whether the characters are any good at all. 

So it’s fantastic that Rose exists because she’s female AND Asian! Forget that she’s an irritant as a character and wildly out of place in the franchise with her comedic style and bumbling mannerisms. She gets a pass. 

You can see the same thing in Wonder Woman reviews which place heavy emphasis on its pro female agenda, despite it being a barely above average movie. 

More equality in the movie industry is a great thing, it should be encouraged, but movies aren’t automatically better for having female characters any more than for having male characters. 

I can understand some people’s frustration at a seeming ham fisted attempt to crowbar as many women as possible into this franchise , placing equality over quality, you could maybe argue that is happening. But I don’t think there is any real anti male bias at the same time, and this is coming from someone who is interested in male depiction in the media  

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7 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

There are likewise thousands of films out there catering largely to female audience, we don't bring those into the discussion do we?

 


The point is that women dominate the roles and plot only in films specifically catering to a female audience (if even then) which is almost inevitabely some sort of romance, whereas men dominate the plot in almost every other film. Star Wars, right now, is not trying to cater to the women, it's trying to include the women. And the men.

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8 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 


The point is that women dominate the roles and plot only in films specifically catering to a female audience (if even then) which is almost inevitabely some sort of romance, whereas men dominate the plot in almost every other film. Star Wars, right now, is not trying to cater to the women, it's trying to include the women. And the men.

I’d also say that romantic movies that include men as real people and not just wish fulfilment projections are often far better for it. Something like Harry met Sally or 500 days of Summer for instance. So there is room equality in all genres 

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Just now, Calibandar said:

How does Mormont come to 10 male actors in the principal cast then? Surely he is adding secondary characters to come to that number but of course we will gloss over that.

To me, it's Kylo Ren, Luke, Poe, Finn and that's it that I would consider main cast.

Versus Leia, Holdo, Rey, Rose for the women. It seems pretty evenly divided to me, which is what I was saying.

But no of course we also have to be told that despite what we have seen, it was still a mismatch in favour of the men, it was still not enough for the Mormonts of this world, because supposedly it's all about working towards equality.

I think you're wrong to say that Yoda has a bigger role than Phasma btw. He's in one brief comical sequence.

Finally, why does Star Wars Last Jedi have to compensate for the fact that other films have male dominated "heroism" or cast? I see this pop up a lot, "why even complain about Last Jedi when there have been so many films in which there have been more men than women"? As though that somehow alleviates the issues of the film. There are likewise thousands of films out there catering largely to female audience, we don't bring those into the discussion do we?

If we want to talk about the main, main characters, then sure, that list seems fair. Though I'd probably not include Holdo, who doesn't get much screen time and is nearly always filtered through another character's perspective, either Poe or Leia.

If we do want to talk about the main cast, including named secondary characters who get significant screen time or dialogue that's important for the plot, and not counting  the beeping droids, then:

Male: Luke, Kylo, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, Yoda, Hux, the codebreaker, Snoke, C3PO

Female: Leia, Rey, Rose, Holdo, Maz, Phasma

Yoda's scene has comical elements, but it's also one of the most critical in the movie for Luke's character development and charting the new direction of the Jedi. It is also, incidentally, an occasion when a male character teaches another male character something. So if we do want to do this sort of analysis, then yes, Mormont's point does stand.

But again, I don't think it's a particularly interesting form of media criticism to do this kind of bean counting (Kylo killed more people! No Rey did! This female character was more 5 points more heroic than this male character, and that's bad!). But this is what your criticism of The Last Jedi's handling of gender amounts to:  in the ratio of male to female characters and the male to female heroics, the women are just doing too darn much and the men too little! So I do think it's fair to retort that, actually, there are a lot of male characters, and actually, they do a lot of heroic things in this movie. 

And this just sheds light on how ridiculous it is to claim that The Last Jedi is somehow compensating for other movies having a male dominated cast. This is the insanity: that somehow, having three female main characters and supporting female characters, some of whom do heroic things, in a science fantasy blockbuster, must somehow be pandering or a problem. Why is this a problem at all for you? Why do you care?

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2 hours ago, Calibandar said:

Principal cast for this film has 10 males to 5 females Mormont? Snort, only in Scotland.

Well, no, in all of the world actually: except perhaps the cinema where you saw whatever film it is you saw, which we have already established was not the one the rest of us saw.

For the record: male principal cast (IMNSHO) - Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron, Finn, Hux, Luke, Snoke, C-3PO, Yoda, DJ, Chewbacca. Female: Rey, Leia, Holdo, Rose, Phasma. 

Your comparison needs such absurd stretches (Lt Connix is 'principal cast' but DJ isn't? ) that if you're honest, you'll reserve your snorts for after you've read that back and shaken your head at how you could have been so silly.

2 hours ago, Calibandar said:

It's got nothing to do with moving towards equality, equality is not on display here, people find the film overwhelmingly skewed to one side. Now, you will love that, but let's not turn a blind eye to what is there.

But that's exactly what you're doing. This film is moving towards gender equality, and that's good, but the idea that it is 'overwhelmingly skewed' to the female side requires blind prejudice, nothing less.

15 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

So it’s fantastic that Rose exists because she’s female AND Asian! Forget that she’s an irritant as a character and wildly out of place in the franchise with her comedic style and bumbling mannerisms.

Why would we 'forget' these things when they are not even remotely true? Rose is fine. She's not the greatest character discovery of 2017 or anything, but she's good and fits well into the film and the wider franchise.

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This is why the alt-right tizzy is relevant. People can easily be swayed into misogynistic arguments - tinged with racism to boot - who would never identify as the alt-right. E.g.

Quote

So it’s fantastic that Rose exists because she’s female AND Asian! Forget that she’s an irritant as a character and wildly out of place in the franchise with her comedic style and bumbling mannerisms

Assumption being that the role and her casting is 100% due to her gender and race. If you didn't mean that then you shouldn't have said that. The remainder is your opinion to justify your original premise. Others disagree on their enjoyment of the character rendering your initial assumption both moot and offensive.

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1 minute ago, Week said:

This is why the alt-right tizzy is relevant. People can easily be swayed into misogynistic arguments - tinged with racism to boot - who would never identify as the alt-right. E.g.

Assumption being that the role and her casting is 100% due to her gender and race. If you didn't mean that then you shouldn't have said that. The remainder is your opinion to justify your original premise. Others disagree on their enjoyment of the character rendering your initial assumption both moot and offensive.

Clearly didn’t understand what I’m saying. So I’ll repeat. 

Rose is being held up by the left wing press as a great character because she is Female and Asian, and her qualities as a characterisation seem to take a back seat to that. You can say the same thing about the movie, it being a seemingly pro feminist movie means it must therefore be good. 

My point is that the two things are unrelated, the movie can ( and does) still suck even if it is feminist. 

 

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33 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

Clearly didn’t understand what I’m saying. So I’ll repeat. 

Rose is being held up by the left wing press as a great character because she is Female and Asian, and her qualities as a characterisation seem to take a back seat to that. You can say the same thing about the movie, it being a seemingly pro feminist movie means it must therefore be good. 

My point is that the two things are unrelated, the movie can ( and does) still suck even if it is feminist. 

You take down that boogey-man monolith of the left-wing press - you go boi!

Nobody legitimately enjoyed the character - I mean, you didn't so that means that nobody must have. That leaves the only source value that anyone could place on her was her gender and race. Which the left-wing media and SJWs love, love, love - even if the character is utter garbage. It's all going according to their dastardly plan.

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1 hour ago, Lady Of The Crossbow Inn said:

AHEM. *Munches popcorn*  So in the meantime, folks, how the film's box-office doing? 

Highest grossing in the US this year, 3rd worldwide going by boxoffice mojo.

Interestingly still dropping while other movies have increasing visitors from the weird Christmas weekend, but still estimated to be no 1 this weekend.

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3 hours ago, mormont said:

For the record: male principal cast (IMNSHO) - Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron, Finn, Hux, Luke, Snoke, C-3PO, Yoda, DJ, Chewbacca. Female: Rey, Leia, Holdo, Rose, Phasma. 

 

Ahahahahaha!

Yoda is a male principal character in the Last Jedi? Oh my you are reaching here Mormont, your arms must be hurting like hell.

So Yoda, who is in this film for a hilarious and ill-conceived two minutes is a principal male character, but Rose's sister ( Page Tico) who in a lengthy scene singlehandedly unleashes the Resistance Bomber and destroys the Mega Dreadnought at the start of the film,is not?

Why not throw C-3PO in there as well? Oh wait, you actually did that. What about the black BB8, he's a principal male character as well right? 

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3 hours ago, Week said:

You take down that boogey-man monolith of the left-wing press - you go boi!

Nobody legitimately enjoyed the character - I mean, you didn't so that means that nobody must have. That leaves the only source value that anyone could place on her was her gender and race. Which the left-wing media and SJWs love, love, love - even if the character is utter garbage. It's all going according to their dastardly plan.

I liked Rose and I thought others did as well. Didn't we talk about this in this very thread?

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1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Buddy of mine with questionable taste (likes the prequels, kinda) made a fun observation.

Kylo Ren is a better Sith than we've ever seen by far.

This dude is straight Darth Nihilus at this point.

Can't say I disagree.

Darth Nihilis didn't smash his mask in a temper tantrum :P

My swotor Sith Warrior has his Mask :)

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