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An inclusive universe and a new generation of fans.

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I just got back from lunch out at a local wrap/bowl type of place. After I sat down, a family of five came in. The three kids were about ages seven to ten. The ten-year-old was a girl. She came in holding a Star Wars novel, her finger marking where she was in the story. She read it while they waited in line and while she sat at the table after she finished her meal.

Disney/Lucasfilm having a strong female lead has been discussed at length the past two years and has received criticism and praise in equal measure. I’ve been vocal of my support of it since the beginning. To me; character, story, and depth are paramount. I thought Daisy just about carried the film, more than held her own with some heavy hitters, and offered a character worth admiring.

It looks like they intend to do the same with Rogue One. They again have my full support and admiration. I feel like I saw the effects their decisions are having on the franchise and how it appears to be creating a new generation of fans. I was elated to see a young girl walk into a restaurant carrying a Star Wars novel. It was, I believe, a testament to the power a positive role model can have on a young girl.

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Totally agree.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

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I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead. And PT generated as much of fans as ST does now. And in the end, to me, they are equally bad.

I also wouldn’t agree that film was carried by Daisy. In my opinion film was pretty much carried by Ford (even with his average performance). Not that there was much of a film anyway.

真実

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I’m very happy that they’ve gone in the direction of strong female leads (though having a young female scavenger main character rather takes the steam out of my own prequel rewrite). However, I feel like Rey is a bit too competent to act as an audience avatar, and may even do some harm if seen as a role model. Keep in mind that Luke was always a flawed character who failed as much as he succeeded in the OT, so people seeing him as a role model recognized that failure is a necessary element of success. Rey on the other hand succeeds to an uncanny degree in TFA. I hope that Episode 8 delves into her character flaws to a greater extent. Of course, we haven’t seen enough of Jyn Erso to make a determination about this, but from the trailer it seems like she will be a more obviously jaded and damaged character with a balance of strengths and weaknesses.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

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NeverarGreat said:

I’m very happy that they’ve gone in the direction of strong female leads (though having a young female scavenger main character rather takes the steam out of my own prequel rewrite). However, I feel like Rey is a bit too competent to act as an audience avatar, and may even do some harm if seen as a role model. Keep in mind that Luke was always a flawed character who failed as much as he succeeded in the OT, so people seeing him as a role model recognized that failure is a necessary element of success. Rey on the other hand succeeds to an uncanny degree in TFA. I hope that Episode 8 delves into her character flaws to a greater extent. Of course, we haven’t seen enough of Jyn Erso to make a determination about this, but from the trailer it seems like she will be a more obviously jaded and damaged character with a balance of strengths and weaknesses.

We’ve already seen a bit of Rey’s flaws and failures. Her reluctance to admit she’s been waiting in vain for family that’s never coming back, makes her pass on Han’s offer to join him and Chewie. Running away from her destiny is what gets her captured, and almost costs Finn his life. I imagine she may carry some residual guilt over Han’s death going forward as well.

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Where were you in '77?

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SilverWook said:

We’ve already seen a bit of Rey’s flaws and failures. Her reluctance to admit she’s been waiting in vain for family that’s never coming back, makes her pass on Han’s offer to join him and Chewie. Running away from her destiny is what gets her captured, and almost costs Finn his life. I imagine she may carry some residual guilt over Han’s death going forward as well.

I was referring more to her physical competency more than her emotional weaknesses. I have no complaints about her emotional issues, and to your list I would add that she may have anger/darkside temptations going forward, which is perfectly understandable. It’s just that she is a mechanical wizard, a fighter who can hold her own against several opponents, an ace pilot and a crack shot. She herself seems surprised at how adept she is at these last two things, which gives me hope that her abilities will be explained in the sequel, but as it is now her abilities strain my credulity. I don’t want to give the impression that I am against ANY female character having such competence, for example I fully buy the character of Imperator Furiosa. I just don’t buy Rey’s abilities thus far.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

(though having a young female scavenger main character rather takes the steam out of my own prequel rewrite)

That just means your rewrite will rhyme with with ST.

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

Yep. Star Wars toys featuring females you could get at Target before TFA? Pretty much only the Black Series Leia (which was the slave outfit version, of course).

Now there are books about her and toys and Legos and everything. It’s cool. And I’m not a person who’s down with shoehorning female characters into things because it’s a good way to pander to a certain audience (because I feel like the mentality of “just shove a girl in because it’ll sell well with feminists!” further undermines the credibility of female characters: more female characters doesn’t matter when they’re poorly done), which is honestly what I expected when I walked into the theater.

Fact of the matter is that Rey was developed well, written well, and is a genuinely cool character who stands on her own as an equal among her male counterparts in the film, much like Leia did in '77. I left the theater pleasantly surprised and excited to see where she goes in Episode VIII.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

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Male or Female lead doesn’t have any significant impact on the audience.

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TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

真実

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I agree that Leia was a very strong female character, especially for the time. Even in the third movie where they went a bit exploitative with the slave outfit thing, she ultimately literally used her chains to strangle her captor to death which was pretty badass.

But Rey is just on another level, and I only see it as a good thing. People who bitch about it have probably never had a real conversation with a woman except maybe their mothers in their lives, let alone actually seen or touched a boobie.

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imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

Even with Rey, we still have Finn and Poe. We still have more male characters at the center then female characters. And Rey being a girl didn’t stop the young boy sitting next to me in the theater from loving every second of the movie, but on the other hand I can get why girls might not have cared much for the original Star Wars considering Leia was basically the only female in the entire movie and she didn’t get all that much screen time. Let’s face it, the original Star Wars was very clearly designed exclusively for boys, but the new Star Wars can have strong appeal to both sexes. That’s what makes it more inclusive.

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Density said:

imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

Even with Rey, we still have Finn and Poe. We still have more male characters at the center then female characters. And Rey being a girl didn’t stop the young boy sitting next to me in the theater from loving every second of the movie, but on the other hand I can get why girls might not have cared much for the original Star Wars considering Leia was basically the only female in the entire movie and she didn’t get all that much screen time. Let’s face it, the original Star Wars was very clearly designed exclusively for boys, but the new Star Wars can have strong appeal to both sexes. That’s what makes it more inclusive.

Well I could certainly agree if compared to OT. But that wasn’t the point since OT has completely different conditions compared to TFA. I pointed out that having a female lead is no more inclusive than having a male lead, under the same conditions (i.e. talking about TFA specifically here). By that I mean either Rey being a female and Poe/Finn being male or Rey being a male and Poe/Finn being female.

真実

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To me, movies can be as inclusive as the studios want, as long as they’re interesting, fit in their genre and the directors are free to express their personal vision. Generally, choosing the characters also depends on the movie’s genre and its main audiance (would they actually do a plain Romance film for male to be more inclusive?).
Star Wars has always tried to be “family-friendly”, so Rey being the main protagonist shouldn’t be an issue. Take Blade Runner, though, clearly inspired by classic noir hard-boiled stories, and it just wouldn’t be the same movie if, for example, Deckard weren’t male, if Rachael weren’t Deckard’s damsell in distress, or if he didn’t kill Zhora and Priss with no mercy: nowdays, Scott would’ve probably been accused of being misogynist, and maybe WB would’ve deemed his movie too risky to be screened or even produced!
So being inclusive is not necessarily better for movies.

The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201

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Tyrphanax said:

NeverarGreat said:

(though having a young female scavenger main character rather takes the steam out of my own prequel rewrite)

That just means your rewrite will rhyme with with ST.

It’s like poetry.

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My next door neighbours have two kids. I kind of expected the boy to be interested in Star Wars as he loves cryptid and dinosaurs but it never clicked with him. His sister who just turned six saw TFA and is obsessed with it as I was with the first film around the same age.
Much of that is down to Rey and BB8.

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HansiG said:

Male or Female lead doesn’t have any significant impact on the audience.

I thought impscum was saying the dumbest things in this thread but I was wrong.

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imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

The point of the thread is that strong female leads have been few and far between, and therefore having one opens up the universe to more people, making it more inclusive.

If you want to pretend that you don’t understand the thread, that’s on you.

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TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

The point of the thread is that strong female leads have been few and far between, and therefore having one opens up the universe to more people, making it more inclusive.

If you want to pretend that you don’t understand the thread, that’s on you.

As I said in my previous reply, it makes the whole franchise generally more inclusive/balanced. However, according to the thread title, this is about new generation of fans. Therefore my argument was with respect to them and consequently within the scope of TFA/ST.

Or in other words, I stand correct. 😛

真実

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Completely agree Anchorhead. Great that all the young girls can finally find role models in films such as these. About fucking time.

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TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

The point of the thread is that strong female leads have been few and far between, and therefore having one opens up the universe to more people, making it more inclusive.

If you want to pretend that you don’t understand the thread, that’s on you.

Strong female leads have been a staple of Science Fiction/Fantasy for the past 40 years. It might be different in other genres, but not here. It gets me when people say that Rey is something amazing and new.

It seems like people are really embracing the new characters. In fact, the big question people ask me now about Star Wars is, “Are Finn and Poe gay lovers?” And really how the f*ck would I know? My second husband left me for a man, so my gaydar isn’t exactly what you’d call Death Star level quality. ----Carrie Fisher

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Two of my favorite SF/F female characters kicked a lot of butt in the 70’s.


If BSG and Buck Rogers had been on the same network, my dreams of a Wilma Deering/Lt. Sheba team up might have come true!

I think it’s more that we haven’t had a strong female in Star Wars before other than Leia. Padme kicked some butt in AOTC, (and stole Col. Deering’s uniform) but she didn’t do a whole lot in ROTS.
People and media outlets tend to overlook comics and novels, and only consider tv and film characters. And even then, they forget anything more than a decade old.

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Where were you in '77?

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lovelikewinter said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

TV’s Frink said:

imperialscum said:

I don’t see how would having a female lead be more inclusive than having a male lead.

This is so dumb it’s not even worth explaining to you.

My young daughters love Star Wars and Rey has a lot to do with it.

It is not dumb. You just don’t get it, despite being very simple.

If you have a female lead then young females will be able to associate/relate more. If you have a male lead then young males will be able to associate/relate more. Either way you “include” one more than the other.

The point of the thread is that strong female leads have been few and far between, and therefore having one opens up the universe to more people, making it more inclusive.

If you want to pretend that you don’t understand the thread, that’s on you.

Strong female leads have been a staple of Science Fiction/Fantasy for the past 40 years. It might be different in other genres, but not here. It gets me when people say that Rey is something amazing and new.

If you had shopped for Star Wars stuff for your girls pre-TFA like my wife has, you’d get where I’m coming from.