Best video I have ever seen when it comes to the dissection of the new disney films.
By his standard Ripley and Sarah Connor are passive protagonists
Both of those protagonists’ first films were on the horror side of Sci-fi, which is all about having things happen to them until they take action to defeat the threat.
It’s notable that their second films (Terminator 2 and Aliens) are much more conventional action films, allowing the protagonists to be very active.
Come on, that’s just special pleading. There are countless movies where things happen to the protagonist that they have no control over. All that matters is whether it’s well done or not. I mean think mow many origin stories involve something happening to the protagonist that serves as an inspiration for later action. Heck, Luke Skywalker was pretty damn passive until his parents got incinerated.
I don’t think the guy was trying to hate on anything, but some of his points were just silly.
Luke is passive for much of the runtime of Star Wars, but he’s still an active protagonist. There are really only 2 major actions that he takes without coercion: rescuing the princess and joining the Rebellion. However, these two actions drive the last half of the film, and that’s the point. There are often limited opportunities for the protagonist to take action, so those few actions must be consequential, and in Star Wars, they are.
In Alien, Ripley is in command throughout the second half of the film and continually drives the plot through her decisions (learning about the Company’s plans, confronting Ash, deciding to abandon ship, and most importantly overcoming her fear and using ingenuity to defeat the alien at the end). And it’s not special pleading to say that this is a horror film, since almost all horror films are designed so that the antagonist has the upper hand with the hero on the defensive for most of the runtime. The same can be said for Terminator.
With regards to Jyn and Rey, they are often passive protagonists because the few active character moments they share do not drive the remaining action, at least in the case of Rey. Jyn’s (somewhat confused) decision to get the Death Star plans galvanizes the entire Rebellion into action, which is a very active role but a bit late in the story. She really needed a decision in the 2nd act which was more impactful to the plot, like Luke’s rescue of Leia. In the case of TFA, Finn takes the active role in rescuing Rey and becomes the protagonist for almost the entire Starkiller plot, at least until Rey retrieves the lightsaber. I do not count her mind trick, since although it is an active choice, it doesn’t drive the plot - Finn could have almost as easily rescued her and arrived at the same place.
Maybe I wasn’t been clear… I actually don’t give a shit about rules for “active/passive protagonists”… I only care if a movie is good or not.
I thought Rogue One was awesome and could care less whether it followed some made up rules for screenwriting or not.
The Force Awakens actually followed those rules more, yet it was quite a bit worse IMO.