Star Wars Megathread

ClockworkOcean wrote:How does it compare to The Last Jedi in terms of misandry?

It's still majorly in love with Rey as a character (infact Po and Finn come back from one disastrous mission with the falcon in tatters, complaining that they really needed Rey with them there) and there is a scene where Po Dameran loses his confidence halfway through a space battle he led, as if to retroactively justify how Holdo and Leia despised him in the previous film for being too much of a hot shot.

Oh and Holdo is mentioned once by a cuck of a male rebel who seems still in awe of who she was and what she did.

And finally Rey is shown to only be able to win the final light sabre battle with Leia's lightsabre rather than just Luke's.

Beyond that though, it wasn't that noticeably bad for misandry. Certainly not in the way the previous two films were. I think the makers seemed to have learned something of a lesson in the need to tone that shit down, maybe.

I just have to share this video. It's a cute little review in itself, but towards the end, Armoured really presses home a point and says it all perfectly about the obnoxious way that the sycophants of the new trilogy (much like the RTD sycophants) almost try to confuse and guilt us into feeling bad for criticizing the films' logic because 'they're for kids'.

I remember seeing Revenge of the Sith in the cinema. It was a cloudy Sunday morning and it was a ten o'clock showing. I remember someone walking in late and missing the entire Dooku fight scene. I also remember being on the verge of tears when the Jedi Knights were slain and then again when Anakin and Obi-Wan were shouting at each other before their duel on Mustafar. It was an intense film for a six year old to watch and I was certainly moved by it at the time.  I don't find the Order 66 sequence particularly sad these days because none of the Jedi masters had any likeable character traits in the prequel trilogy. You would have had to have seen the 2003 Clone Wars series in order to feel the impact of their deaths. I personally found the scene where Luke discovers the charred remains of his uncle and aunt to be more emotionally devastating because they were genuine people who were perhaps too protective of Luke, or at least Owen was. Luke's over eagerness perturbed Owen and so he purposely limited Luke's options so that he wouldn't become too much like Anakin. Luke never mended his relationship with Owen which was perhaps the saddest thing. I'm afraid Aayla Secura's Destiny of the Daleks style fall doesn't quite compare.

ClockworkOcean wrote:How does it compare to The Last Jedi in terms of misandry?

What 'misandry' is that then?

Ludders wrote:

ClockworkOcean wrote:How does it compare to The Last Jedi in terms of misandry?

What 'misandry' is that then?

Well I think it was largely the way that Poe Dameran gets treated like shit by both Leia and Holdo just for trying to do the right thing or even get some reassurance from their cagey new leader.

Quite often it seemed pressed hard in the dialogue that Poe's 'mistake' is wanting to be seen as some hotshot macho hero and that Holdo was apparently better and wiser than that, and he needed to trust and obey her more.

When watched, the action doesn't really support this take at all, but it feels like the makers put finding a way of inserting and hammering this message first.

Tanmann wrote:

Ludders wrote:

ClockworkOcean wrote:How does it compare to The Last Jedi in terms of misandry?

What 'misandry' is that then?

Well I think it was largely the way that Poe Dameran gets treated like shit by both Leia and Holdo just for trying to do the right thing or even get some reassurance from their cagey new leader.

Quite often it seemed pressed hard in the dialogue that Poe's 'mistake' is wanting to be seen as some hotshot macho hero and that Holdo was apparently better and wiser than that, and he needed to trust and obey her more.

When watched, the action doesn't really support this take at all, but it feels like the makers put finding a way of inserting and hammering this message first.

It’s not just that. It’s how schizophrenic, idiotic and redundant the whole sub-plot truly is. Holdo had no feasible narrative reason to completely debase Poe at every opportunity; he lost a few lives, but destroyed a dreadnought, and it’s very quickly established that the contrived hyperspace tracker McGuffin means that it would have followed them regardless of where they escaped, alongside the rest of the first order, thus culminating in the likely loss of infinitely more lives had Poe not destroyed the dreadnought, making the whole scenario feel very contrived and artificial.

Above all else, the fact that Holdo is presented as the hero in spite of letting so many rebels die due to doing absolutely fuck all whilst the transports were being destroyed when she could have revealed her plan very easily (Poe even exclaims “That’ll work” upon discovering the plan, so her concealing it wasn’t very astute, yet the film still presents her as the righteous character here) only muddles the narrative schizophrenia all the more. As does her bizarre final statement “That one’s a troublemaker. I like him”- it so, why go out of your way to let several resistance members get massacred purely because you didn’t want to tell him your plan?

Christ, this film is appallingly written. It probably requires a thread in itself.

Bernard Marx wrote:It’s not just that. It’s how schizophrenic, idiotic and redundant  the whole sub-plot truly is. Holdo had no feasible narrative reason to completely debase Poe at every opportunity; he lost a few lives, but destroyed a dreadnought, and it’s very quickly established that the contrived hyperspace tracker McGuffin means that it would have followed them regardless of where they escaped, alongside the rest of the first order, thus culminating in the likely loss of infinitely more lives had Poe not destroyed the dreadnought, making the whole scenario feel very contrived and artificial.

Above all else, the fact that Holdo is presented as the hero in spite of letting so many rebels die due to doing absolutely fuck all whilst the transports were being destroyed when she could have revealed her plan very easily (Poe even exclaims “That’ll work” upon discovering the plan, so her concealing it wasn’t very astute, yet the film still presents her as the righteous character here) only muddles the narrative schizophrenia all the more. As does her bizarre final statement “That one’s a troublemaker. I like him”- it so, why go out of your way to let several resistance members get massacred purely because you didn’t tell him your plan?

Christ, this film is appallingly written. It probably requires a thread in itself.

Yep, it is pretty much Warriors of the Deep levels of schizophrenicness AND heavy-handedness.

My first thought when we're first introduced to Holdo and are quickly getting an icy sense of her, was "She's definitely meant to be Hillary"

And I actually thought the film was going to be about Poe taking some of her light away, or even ultimately exposing her for the snake she is, and maybe in some way hint that she's not much better than the Trumpian opposition (obviously that'd be a reach, given the nature of the Empire, but you get my point).

That's what I was expecting to happen. That's what the story seemed leading to.

The problem is I misjudged it. She was probably meant to be Hillary, but the makers think that makes her awesome and they subscribe to her cultish following. And ultimately that plot thread seems to have the take that male voters didn't trust Hillary as leader simply because she's a woman, so we're going to show Poe get taught that he was wrong and just another 'deplorable' not to. Because that's the cultish line of Hillary's campaign.

Regardless of the quality of the writing, I don't see the gender of the characters as especially relevant, so I didn't detect anything that I would describe as 'misandry'. Obviously my sensitivities in this area are in a completely different place, because it didn't register with me at all.

Ludders wrote:Regardless of the quality of the writing, I don't see the gender of the characters as especially relevant, so I didn't detect anything that I would describe as 'misandry'. Obviously my sensitivities in this area are in a completely different place, because it didn't register with me at all.

To be honest, I didn’t see it as misandry at the time- it’s only really been after the production team have attacked critical SW fans for being frightened of women (an argument that J.J Abrams proposed around a mere month after the release of The Last Jedi) as a smokescreen to avoid addressing valid criticisms that such readings of the film became a little more pertinent. The sub-plot doesn’t have any purpose whatsoever in the grand scheme of the narrative (alongside many other moronic B-plots), so I can see why people would assume they were inserted for reasons beyond the narrative at hand.

That being said, it didn’t really register with me either initially. The one thing that did register was how shite the writing was on every level, and how the media was still calling it a subversive masterpiece regardless.

That's fair enough.
I'm not enough of a fan of Star Wars to really know about all that.
I enjoy most of them to varying degrees, bar the first two prequels, but I couldn't really consider myself a fan.
That's not meant as a put down. I'm a fan of lots of things that could never by any stretch of the imagination be considered anything approaching high culture.
Interestingly though, The Last Jedi definitely came across to me as the weakest of the latest trilogy.

Ludders wrote:That's fair enough.
I'm not enough of a fan of Star Wars to really know about all that.
I enjoy most of them to varying degrees, bar the first two prequels, but I couldn't really consider myself a fan.
That's not meant as a put down. I'm a fan of lost of things that could never by any stretch of the imagination be considered anything approaching high culture.
Interestingly though, The Last Jedi definitely came across to me as the weakest of the latest trilogy.

No worries, mate.  

Yeah- I wouldn’t describe Star Wars as being high culture (the only instances where I’d say the series approaches bonafide excellence in terms of scriptwriting would be the KOTOR game series, and Empire Strikes Back is certainly very tightly written), but the Original Trilogy and both CW series do have a rather special place in my affections. Although as I’ve stated previously here, I don’t actually like most of the films. Revenge of the Sith is OK, the other two prequels are tacky shite (bar some decent world building and music), and I can’t say I like any of the sequels whatsoever. Even The Force Awakens (which I enjoyed at the time) has aged horrendously in retrospect.

One thing I will say is that I rate John Williams very highly as a film composer, and his music is a great contribution to all these films. Iconic infact.

Ludders wrote:One thing I will say is that I rate John Williams very highly as a film composer, and his music is a great contribution to all these films. Iconic infact.

Agreed. It’s just a shame that Murray Gold’s music for NuWho was basically a stale and mawkish imitation and caricature of Williams’ style.

Yes, that thought is very fresh in my mind having tried (and largely failed) to re-watch The Impossible Astronaut earlier...
If I hear that DA DA DA... DA DA D'DA! one more time....

I much prefer the Imperial theme from Star Wars to the more famous one from the other films.

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Ludders wrote:Yes, that thought is very fresh in my mind having tried (and largely failed) to re-watch The Impossible Astronaut earlier...
If I hear that DA DA DA... DA DA D'DA! one more time....

The big problem with that theme (and I know *exactly* the one you mean) is that it was frequently applied without context to the climax of an episode, regardless if the turnaround victory made any sense or was properly, satisfyingly resolved.

So often the invoking of that happy victory theme just seemed confusing more than anything, and didn't help you feel any of the happy catharsis you were meant to. It's almost like it was telling you, "okay this went nowhere again but..... it's Doctor Who and the Doctor's awesome, so just be happy!!!!"

Keff McCulloch's scores weren't the best, but when they were applied to the right story and the right action in Remembrance of the Daleks, they became a key part of a greater whole. It has something to punctuate.

In Moffat's era the music was all punctuation, but no content.

Tanmann wrote:

Keff McCulloch's scores weren't the best, but when they were applied to the right story and the right action in Remembrance of the Daleks, they became a key part of a greater whole. It has something to punctuate.

I adore Keff's work. The music beginning at 0:40 is right up my street.

A pretty on-point video I think

This has made my day