Star Wars: Rogue One [Now with GIANT SPOILERS, so beware!]

It's curious but people have screamed and begged to have new star war movies produced after Return of the Jedi in 1983, but at the time George said that he was done with it. He made his trilogy and that was that. Fans were bummed out. They wanted more star war movies made. Then came the prequels, which fans were excited about. Unfortunately, in many peoples minds the prequels were Now that star wars is going to come on the big screen every year or every few years or so and everyone is like "oh man the market is going to become over saturated with it". "It's too much", "Disney is going to milk this franchise for all its worth" etc etc. But people have wanted more star war movies for years ever since Return of the Jedi. I personal think, let Disney go to town with the franchise and produce tons of star war movies, and anthologies, and more movies, and anthologies. I'm happy that I get to see this in my life time. As a kid I was devastated when told that there weren't going to be new star wars movies. Now that they they are being made again, I'm excited to explore this universe and enjoy the thousands of stories that can be written. They've pretty much done this with Star Trek, why not with star wars. And I personally would never compare Marvel Cinematic Universe/super heroe movie saturation with up coming star wars movies coming out. sgtmono is right Marvel and Lucasfilm are 2 separate entities. Disney is coveting Star Wars and will treat star wars like a first born child. They will do everything they can to care for it and not run it to the ground.

 

Maybe instead of wringing our hands over gender politics and fears of over-saturation, why not get back to the news of the awesome trailer that just dropped?

I thought it was a good solid teaser, but somewhat cliched. I didn't get the same deep emotional feelings of awe and wonder I did from the Force Awakens teasers and trailer, which were each miniature works of art in themselves.

I'm not saying R1 looks cliche as a movie, I'm just saying the teaser was constructed in more of a standard modern-teaser fashion, and that's OK.

However, that shot of the Death Star was utterly mind-blowing!

 

I find it hard to separate the two. As Deesky said upthread, years down the road, what will it mean to watch a Star Wars movie? This used to be something special, but there's a whiff of "product" about it all now, even in this trailer. Maybe because it's going to be one per year, but maybe that's the attention span of the world now. I dunno, I love a good, smart, science fiction/science fantasy story no matter what, and if they can give us something other than standard action films with the Star Wars brand slapped on them, then great. But I'm skeptical.

The unknown at the moment is how much Disney will allow directors and screenwriters to innovate as these films begin to roll out. I said a while back that there will never be another film like The Empire Strikes Back because of the conditions under which that film was made. Will Disney realize they can take chances, or will they continue to play it safe, as with The Force Awakens?

 

So...the guy in the trailer who says "Is that clear?"......is he supposed to be Admiral Motti (the guy from Star Wars who said "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader")?? Because they look eerily similar.

 

Star Wars has always been "product", from the first moment Lucas realized he could become a gazillionaire from merchandising. That's why you get cute cuddly Yoda and Ewoks. (to bring in the kids, and to sell Wicket dolls and Degobah playsets) Why you get a relatively pointless scene with Vader and the Bounty Hunters (so you have new IG-88 and Dengar action figures to sell). Why we get A-Wings and B-Wings and Imperial Shuttles and Scout Walkers and Speeder Bikes in ROTJ (all new toys to sell - several of which I had as a kid) And so on.

I am not being purposely cynical. For those of us kids of the late 70s and early 80s, SW is magical. But I am just being realistic about what we're discussing here.

 

Hasn't star wars always been about "product"? Even though George Lucas never initially thought about the toy/merchandising side of his movies while he was creating star wars. It was after Star Wars A New Hope, where it was trademarked and every toy and merchandising company wanted a piece of the action. 20th Century Fox struck gold with Star Wars and made millions upon millions because of it. I personally think that Disney won't just do standard scifi/action movies and slap the Star Wars logo on it. They don't want to and cannot afford to disappoint and alienate star war fans. They know true hard core fans want the new movies to stay true to what Star Wars is all about and Disney definitely does not want to disappoint. It's no secret that Hollywood makes movies to make money and Disney is definitely no exception, but i think Disney is smart enough to make solid Star War movie stories focusing on everything within the star wars universe in order to not disappoint fans. Disney more than likely saw the disaster with the prequels and knows that the new Star War movies will be ripped apart if fans aren't happy. And if fans aren't happy, than the franchise could fall apart. And this time it won't be George Lucas that will be blamed, it's going to be Disney. And Disney does not want that at all.

And now in 2016, if new product and merchandise is going to be cranked out for every new movie coming out for the next 10 to 15 years, so be it. Disney will make a fortune and any other toy/merchandising company will profit big time, just like how it was in 1977. Star war product was always part and parcel with the star war movies and always hotly anticipated by kids ever since The Early Bird certificate. Sales of Kenner's Star Wars range in 1978 reached 40 million units, accounting for a revenue of $100 million (Wiki). Same for sales in 1979 again topped $100 million. This momentum continued up until 1985 when Kenner discontinue production. But merchandise and product was still being sold even after Return of the Jedi. It's going to be no different now with a new generation of children introduced to the Star Wars universe, they will be as excited and anticipate the new toy just as much as kids were in 1977.

 

I see your point, but no-one is forcing you to watch any of these films, and there are still loads of great non-superhero films being made, films like Nightcrawler for example, its not like there are less good films. Perhaps the 'type' of films not being made now due to the Superhero films are those big budget action flicks, which are not missed really.

For me being a comics and Star Wars and Sci-Fi fan then the current era is like a golden age, so exciting. Not that I just like those genres, Taxi Driver and The Seven Samurai are probably my favourite films, the point is there is something for everyone whatever your tastes.

 

This is how far Disney has gone with "milking their franchises":

Star Wars Tsum Tsums:

Marvel Tsum Tsums:

 

What the heck are those things? What is the yellow puppy dog in the middle row?? What is the one with the green Eddie Munster haircut in the middle row??

 

Mad Magazine covered quite while how Disney went merchandise psycho ..
On star wars.. I could fill up to large dump trucks and still
wouldn't be all.. Star Wars in 80's was magical..
Now it's just product push.. what hell ! I am going to do with
4 foot storm trooper.?..
I wished Fox would bought Star Wars..
Disney will milk until the end of time.

 

It remains to be seen if these stand-alone films are successful (or any good, for that matter) but I love the idea of Star Wars pictures that live or die on their own merits. There is something to be said for a movie that doesn't have to withhold the best ideas for future installments.

 

I would guess Ewok and Yoda, respectively. I think they look hideous, though.

 

Yeah. Stephen gets it. Sometimes I think he's a funnier, more articulate version of me.

 

I think the green haired chap is actually the almighty Jabba.

 

Agreed that is whats gonna happen,but just like Jaws is my all time favorite movie I can easily ignore the sequels that followed it.It might be harder for future generations to sift thru the garbage tho.

 

I agree,but maybe that's the idea they are going with.The episode movies are the deeper epic stories of the Skywalker family/Force /galactic politic and war ,and the 1 off movies like Rogue one are about the other folks who inhabit this galaxy.

 

Rey wasn't a "strong female character" in any real sense. She was basically written as a boy: you could take the entire character, all of her lines, everything she does, and have a guy play the character and nothing would change. Try doing that with Sarah Connor or Ripley.

But where the character fails even more is that you realize that her sex -- for political reasons outside of the movie universe -- means that she has script immunity. She can't fail at anything, she can't even be ridiculed (compare that to how silly Luke Skywalker was sometimes written to be, banging his head on the ceiling of Yoda's shack, needing to be saved by old man Kenobi, not knowing anything about life and sucking at pretty much everything the first time around). Rey can't have flaws because modern-day commentators would have accused Disney of misogyny. So THAT is the problem: when silly contemporary politics hurt the story and the characters.

Maybe that new character will be different, we’ll see. But the traditionnal charm of Star Wars was always the basic male nerd/weakling fantasy (Lucas being the ultimate nerd himself): maybe, even though I’m lame and living at home and don’t have a girlfriend, maybe I can become an interstellar warrior and fight against evil and fly spaceships and end up saving a cute princess.

That doesn’t work when you change it to a girl, especially if she’s already great at everything.

 

Not sure I'm in with all of your logic.

I think Rey is a strong heroic character that happens to be female. That may be more important that being a "strong female character". She doesn't succeed because she's a woman or because people treat her like one and she overcomes things in that arena. She succeeds regardless of her gender - which is a good thing IMO.

And for me, the "traditional charm" of Star Wars (and I'm one who was 12 in 1977, so I was smack dab in the middle of the target audience at the time - even met Mark Hamill shortly after Star Wars' original release) isn't a male nerd/weakling fantasy. It's traditional charm was that it was a huge, fun action/sci-fi story with huge archetypal characters, a story that was so big it couldn't be contained in one movie - you knew there were going to be more from the moment the screen crawl came on and declared this was Episode IV.

 

Interesting, I watched one YouTube "reviewer" with a pretty big following; she's female and kinda seems to like most everything, a bit of "Entertainment Tonight" vibe usually, very "industry" usually, and she described Felicity Jones as being the main problem with the trailer. She even mentions her "resting bitch face."

I'm not too passionate one way or the other about the film (cool to see AT-ATs, I kinda just want to root for them though), but I have to say Jones does look rather dour, bland, and humorless and kinda does have that look/face. I don't need good-timey swashbuckling or anything either, but Jones seems rather bland as presented in this teaser trailer.

 

Stephen Stanton, who provides the voice of Tarkin in The Clone Wars and Rebels is very good. Surely they could have picked a decent actor to play Tarkin and speak a few lines too. Maybe he should have been prominent throughout the Prequel Trilogy too. And I agree, the reveal of Tarkin at the end of RotS is mere fan service and poorly added.

 

I reckon we should have had more Mon Mothma appearing in the Prequel era, even The Clone Wars but maybe we'll see more of her in SW Rebels. Now looking at Diego Luna, how much does he resemble Biggs Darklighter, Luke's best friend but no way can it be him. He would have still been enlisted in the Imperial Academy and he only revealed his intentions to Luke of joining the Rebels in that ANH deleted scene. Going back to Diego though, maybe he's Poe Dameron's father or something.

Also, seeing Martial Arts skills on display by the always impressive Donnie Yen, no complaints at all as after all, George Lucas cited Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress as a major influence for Star Wars. Speaking of The Hidden Fortress, I wouldn't mind seeing that again actually.

 

It seems like the efforts at realism that JJ made for The Force Awakens are not being replicated here in this spin-off. The CGI of the Walkers (and the slow motion splashes of water by their feet) is as cartoony as most fan films, and the CGI makeover of the London tube station is downright prequelly (the running troopers look real, but the large objects painted over the tube station's benches look like Lucas cartoons).

The bits of dialogue heard in the teaser are absolutely cringeworthy - "I rebel"? Oh for the loving... followed by Mon Mothma looking down to hide her amusement - just terrible.

The character cliches of Bad Girl Duck Lips and Bad Boy Stubble Face and Asian Martial Arts Expert are surprising in their conventionality (though I guess it could be argued that Poe Dameron in Force Awakens was also meant to be a Stubble Face).

And there weren't any shots that had the kind of emotional resonance that, say, the crashed Star Destroyers did in The Force Awakens teaser. Many symmetrical shots (the officer with the white robe, the guy in the hood approaching the sci-fi glowing tube, the officer with the white robe AGAIN striding across the water) that just felt dull.

The impression this teaser gives me is that these non-Abrams side films might be the equivalent of Disney's direct-to-home-video spin offs - low effort, lower budget, and not meant to compare to the main features.

But, we've seen terrible trailers before that turned out to be good films… haven't we? Maybe?

 

Why is it with these new films that so many people feel the need to try and relate these new characters with those from the past. Lots of speculation whether Jyn is Rey's mother, Lando is Finn's father or that Diego Luna's character is Poe Dameron's father. I just don't get it.

The guy in the trailer who says "Is that clear" is a rebel commander, not an Imperial.

 

Why the Reaction to Star Wars: Rogue One Proves the term Mary Sue is Meaningless


I can’t say I was very surprised to learn the news that the female lead in Star Wars: Rogue One, Jyn Erso, is already being dubbed a “Mary Sue” and her being a woman is generally being bemoaned by a small subsection of fans. Rey’s recently been getting called a Mary Sue as well. I’ve seen this pattern before in fandom, many times.

If you somehow don’t know, a Mary Sue refers to a character who is too perfect or powerful for the reader’s tastes. They’re often considered to be self-inserts, an idealized version of their creator. It’s honestly an incredibly vague, nebulous concept. TV Tropes, a popular resource, lists a huge amount of different “Sue” types and admits that it’s hard to define. It is also notable that one of the controversies listed is whether it’s even possible for a male character to be a “sue”. Men can’t ever be too perfect, right?

Several years ago, a trailer was released for a movie related to an anime I was a fan of (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, if you’re curious) that featured a new female character. Obviously, the trailer didn’t really tell us much about her, but the movie's tag on Tumblr was already stuffed with people accusing her of being a Mary Sue. Simply because she was female and existed.

From the Star Wars: Rogue One Trailer

This got me thinking hard about the term and how misapplied it is and how I’ve seen every female character called “Mary Sue” at some point but very rarely male characters. I came to the conclusion it was a heavily gendered term that was used mainly as a way to discourage female characters from existing at this point, and maybe it always had been.

After all, the male variation of the term (Marty Stu or Gary Stu, people can’t seem to decide) doesn’t get nearly as much use and I’d wager there’s a reason for that. Male wish-fulfillment fiction is pretty common. One could argue that a lot of fiction is wish fulfillment at its core. But once women get in on that action, oh boy, how dare they!

So I dashed off a quick 30 minute rant about it. It got a huge amount of attention to my surprise, both negative and positive. (Lots of people assumed I just had my feelings hurt because someone called my fanfic original character a Sue. I don’t write OCs in fic, so nope, it’s never happened.) I’ve seen every argument under the sun for why I am wrong about this issue.

From Star Wars: The Force Awakens

But I think the current reaction to female leads in Star Wars gives my argument some additional weight. It’s like I’ve traveled back in time- a woman appears in a trailer and she’s called a Mary Sue immediately. But wait, there’s more!

Jyn is not the only female lead in Star Wars who has been accused of being a Sue lately. Rey has gotten a lot of flak too, even from fairly respected sources. Rey is the lead character ofThe Force Awakens, The Chosen One, following in the footsteps of Luke and Anakin before her. And honestly, her high level of skill is not all that different from theirs.

Many people before me have laid out comparisons of Luke and Anakin’s unlikely genius and shown it as equivalent to Rey’s. Here’s a refresher: Anakin built a fully functional robot, built a pod racer and won a pod race against experienced adults when he was nine. The last one was through subconscious use of the Force, much like several things Rey did. Luke destroyed the Death Star when he flew an X-Wing and was basically the best pilot ever. It was implied that Luke, like Rey, had never flown off planet before his trench run. Luke also went toe to toe with people who had twenty years of training on him.

Rey was knowledgeable about ships, flew a ship well enough to escape several tight spots (after a rocky start), managed to resist Kylo and escape and then was able to use a lightsaber well enough to beat a badly injured Kylo Ren after tapping into the Force.

Most of Rey’s accomplishments in the movie were given a lot of justification due to her backstory of having to work her ass off to even survive in a hostile land. We see at the beginning of the movie that she’s proficient in stick fighting, since she needed to fight to survive and all. This translates to how she wields her lightsaber. It’s been confirmed that Rey spent a lot of time using flight simulators and also presumably flew some ships, just not off-planet, before her big escape. In addition, she was probably pretty familiar with how ships worked from scavenging.

She took to the Force pretty well, but her predecessors did too, especially Anakin, who again, was wielding it for the win at age nine. The man she defeated was not only bleeding to death, but stated in the movie to have not fully completed his training.

Lucas and Hamill on the the Star Wars set

By the way, Mary Sues are generally considered to be self-inserts. Mark Hamill himself confirmed that Luke was a self-insert of George Lucas. He is literally Lucas’s wish-fulfillment power fantasy.

So, looking at all that, why isn’t Honest Trailers or other fans griping about Luke and Anakin’s accomplishments like they are Rey’s, especially when Rey’s have more justification? It’s simple. People aren’t used to having a female lead be able to easily do impressive things the way male leads always do. We’re used to men as those power fantasy, wish fulfillment, Chosen One-style heroes. But women? That’s just too much. Women should be sufficiently vulnerable and/or in a supporting role.

That’s the knee-jerk reaction many people have. The fact that Jyn’s already been loudly declared by several people to be a Mary Sue just for being a female lead proves that.

The term Mary Sue needs to be retired. It’s such a vague, subjective label that it was never very useful as literary criticism to begin with (criticize a character for not struggling enough, sure, but you need to be more specific to be constructive) and now it’s just a convenient way to say “I hate this female character for existing” without having to actually say it.
Why the Reaction to Star Wars: Rogue One Proves the term Mary Sue is Meaningless »