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Not sure if this was posted before or not, sorry if it was. I'm not interested in starting a discussion on feminism or whatever, but purely about whether or not Rey's character (or other characters in the film) fall under the Mary Sue trope. http://io9.gizmodo.com/please-stop-spreading-this-nonsense-that-rey-from-star-1749134275 I personally think she does. She's practically flawless as a character, and the one negative hook of her character (wanting to go home instead of being a part of the Rebellion) is settled fairly quickly.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:13
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Verisimilidude posted:Not sure if this was posted before or not, sorry if it was. I'm not interested in starting a discussion on feminism or whatever, but purely about whether or not Rey's character (or other characters in the film) fall under the Mary Sue trope. Then you're interested in a discussion on feminism because the accusation that Rey is a Mary Sue and Luke Skywalker and Anakin Skywalker are not involves the fact that she is a woman and they are not. The article you linked to even includes that discussion. You can't actually make the Mary Sue argument without going into the idea that it is being made for a female character when it wouldn't be for a male one.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:15
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Verisimilidude posted:I'm not interested in starting a discussion on feminism or whatever, but purely about whether or not Rey's character (or other characters in the film) fall under the Mary Sue trope. Spoilers: it's a gendered critique.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:16
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ImpAtom posted:How is Hollywood stagnant? Playing it safe is stagnation. So you accept that Hollywood plays it safe, which means that you accept its stagnant state. I say this because of the increased importance of marketing. Star Wars had virtually no marketing budget (limited to T-shirts, posters, a tie-in comic and novelization, and Charles Lippincott eagerly promoting the film at sci-fi conventions), whereas District 9 was heavily marketed. The ability to make a true breakout hit is limited because of the need for marketing to make people go see the movie, which in turn keeps movies from really breaking out in the way Star Wars did. And this is neglecting art films, imported films, and so on, which have suffered even more.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:17
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Verisimilidude posted:Not sure if this was posted before or not, sorry if it was. I'm not interested in starting a discussion on feminism or whatever, but purely about whether or not Rey's character (or other characters in the film) fall under the Mary Sue trope. The term is inappropriate because it is meaningless out of a fanfictional context.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:18
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Effectronica posted:Playing it safe is stagnation. So you accept that Hollywood plays it safe, which means that you accept its stagnant state. Incorrect! I believe Hollywood plays it safe with large expensive films. This is the state Hollywood has more or less always had so if Hollywood is stagnant then it has always been. (There are exceptions but Star Wars was not one of them.) Effectronica posted:I say this because of the increased importance of marketing. Star Wars had virtually no marketing budget (limited to T-shirts, posters, a tie-in comic and novelization, and Charles Lippincott eagerly promoting the film at sci-fi conventions), whereas District 9 was heavily marketed. The ability to make a true breakout hit is limited because of the need for marketing to make people go see the movie, which in turn keeps movies from really breaking out in the way Star Wars did. And this is neglecting art films, imported films, and so on, which have suffered even more. This is just flat-out incorrect. Star Wars had a limited marketing budget before it was a success but the only thing that means is that it took longer for it to get off the ground. Once it got good press the marketing machine took off. Kenner sold over 40 million Star Wars action figures by the end of 1978. Star Wars toys and tie-ins were being advertised on television https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOuSjq1Qb5c ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 21:19
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ImpAtom posted:Incorrect! I believe Hollywood plays it safe with large expensive films. This is the state Hollywood has more or less always had so if Hollywood is stagnant then it has always been. (There are exceptions but Star Wars was not one of them.) I don't disagree with this proposition and I doubt Lucas would either. The basic issue is the increased centralization of entertainment, from a brief decentralization in the 1960s and 70s.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:22
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Phylodox posted:I don't remember back in 1999, were there any background characters in The Phantom Menace that took off in popularity the way that nameless trooper has?
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Dec 27, 2015 21:24
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Apparently it hit a billion dollars in box office revenue in 12 days and doesn't even open in China for almost 2 weeks 
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Dec 27, 2015 21:24
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Verisimilidude posted:Not sure if this was posted before or not, sorry if it was. I'm not interested in starting a discussion on feminism or whatever, but purely about whether or not Rey's character (or other characters in the film) fall under the Mary Sue trope. I think the article you linked does a better job of refuting your position than I ever could!
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Dec 27, 2015 21:28
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Effectronica posted:I don't disagree with this proposition and I doubt Lucas would either. The basic issue is the increased centralization of entertainment, from a brief decentralization in the 1960s and 70s. Entertainment is less centralized now than it ever has been. Many people spend as much time watching internet personalities in Youtube as they do watching big budget hollywood films. It's entirely possible for someone to become independently wealthy just by the videos they make on the internet. It's absolutely a fact that recognizable names have an easier time with success than new names but that isn't a change. Even something like Avatar which is a new IP is driven by recognizable actors and directors. If the argument is that marketing budgets for smaller films should be increased or Hollywood is at fault then I can't really agree since it doesn't make sense from a marketing perspective. You should market it intelligently (like debuting Pacific Rim to comic nerds who will then go on to do your press for you via twitter and facebook) but I don't think there is anything preventing a new Star Wars except the fact that a New Star Wars is incredibly difficult to make because you have to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right people and the right cultural atmosphere. Merely making an excellent well-made film that gets promoted heavily isn't enough to do that. We're in an era where traditional marketing is being, if not replaced by, at least heavily supplemented by, social media. Something like Frozen (which is certainly not a low-budget film but whatever) owes at least a good portion of its success to the modern viral marketing. Let It Go becoming a youtube favorite was probably as big a contribution to Frozen's success as anything and why it made a billion dollars while Tangled and Big Hero Six (no less marketed) made significantly less. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 21:28
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JJ Abrams has done a pretty good job of keeping his opinions of the prequel trilogy under wraps from the public. It's understandable – if he says he likes the prequels he worries most of the fans, and if he says he doesn't, he annoys the small cadre of prequel apologists out there, as well as probably causes himself a bunch of internal political problems. In general, it's not really polite to openly insult the creator of a piece of art you've been given control over, regardless of what they did with it. However, Abrams' opinions on the prequels do become clear in watching The Force Awakens. The first (and probably most obvious) clue is in the film's opening (spoken) line: “This will begin to make things right”. Because JJ Abrams absolutely loving hates the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and has made an entire Star Wars film about that. Abrams' seething dislike comes out in the way he has included the very personification of the prequels within his own film. Kylo Ren, the movies antagonist, represents the prequels himself. Kylo is whiny, arrogant and pretentious, all attributes JJ believes to prequels to hold. He is possessed of incredible, never-before-seen force powers, but is incapable of using them with grace. Similarly, Abrams' considers that the prequels squandered and misused their gift of (at the time) ground-breaking CGI and other SFX technology. Kylo Ren desperately wishes to recreate what has come before, by styling himself after his grandfather Darth Vader. But he comes across as pathetic as he overcompensates and completely fails to grasp the true nature of what made Vader formidable. In exactly the same way, the prequels (to Abrams' mind) repeated and aped endless elements from the original trilogy, and played up and elaborated on the flashier elements of the canon, but utterly failed to rekindle the spark and heart of what everyone loved about the original films. Kylo owns a pointlessly ostentatious lightsaber that he impotently twirls while risking his life just make himself look cool. He even “rapes our childhood” / “ruins Star Wars” by literally murdering Han Solo. He is though, ultimately, bested by the movie's proagonist. Rey represents the spirit of the original trilogy reborn. She is unassuming, straightforward and honest. She is completely unpretentious, and spends almost the entire film wearing her simple desert rags. She very clearly follows the hero's journey that the original films were based on. As far as JJ is concerned, she is a brighter future for the Star Wars franchise than the dirge of the prequels. When Rey and Kylo confront each other at the end of the movie, Kylo sees that Ren holds Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, and demands she hand it over, as it belongs to him. He has a point – Kylo is Anakin Skywalker's grandson, and he was the original owner of the weapon. The lineage is clear: at this point in the story, as far as we know Rey has no family connection to the Skywalkers at all. Perhaps the lightsaber really does belong to Kylo? Later in the fight, however, the truth becomes clear – Kylo calls out through the force to the saber, and it appears to fly to him. But to his surprise, and the audience's delight, the lightsaber arrives in Rey's waiting hand. The metaphor is that Luke's lightsaber represents the legacy of Star Wars. The prequels, just like Kylo, are of an undeniably pure and legitimate lineage: they are the works of George Lucas, the very creator of Star Wars, himself. But Abrams and The Force Awakens tell us that that doesn't matter. The power and future of Star Wars now lies in hands of an unrelated interloper because the legitimate heir failed to understand its true nature so utterly. And that's the best possible outcome. Much has been said of The Force Awakens' similarity in tone and structure to the original Episode IV. That film's subtitle was “A New Hope”, to represent Luke Skywalker's potential to end well over a decade's worth of galactic darkness of Imperial rule. JJ Abrams has created his own film in its image as he intends for it to be “a new hope” of its own. That it will shine a light of hope and usher well over a decade of misery mired in the prequels into the past, and the true spirit of Star Wars will return. As an aside, I think this metaphorical reading of the Force Awakens makes it clear that Rey is not intended to be Luke Skywalker's secret daughter, or Kylo Ren's hidden sister, as has been speculated. She is, as of this movie, of a previously unseen bloodline. Of course, JJ isn't directing the next two films, and things can change over the course of a franchise (obviously, Luke and Leia didn't start out as siblings in their own trilogy). And at any rate, I think this metaphor would run too thin to be stretched out over multiple films. But for this one movie, I think that Rey remains untainted by the Skywalker bloodline. It's probably pretty arrogant to place the metaphorical representation of your own movie as the inevitable victor and heir of the true spirit over other entries within that very movie. But you know what? gently caress it, JJ is completely right. He's just made a better Star Wars film than George Lucas has managed since 1980, and shown he understands what made people love those films in a way that Lucas has repeatedly demonstrated he doesn't. JJ Abrams has begun to make things right.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:28
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ImpAtom posted:Entertainment is less centralized now than it ever has been. Many people spend as much time watching internet personalities in Youtube as they do watching big budget hollywood films. It's entirely possible for someone to become independently wealthy just by the videos they make on the internet. It's absolutely a fact that recognizable names have an easier time with success than new names but that isn't a change. Even something like Avatar which is a new IP is driven by recognizable actors and directors. Entertainment is heavily centralized, however. 90% of the mainstream entertainment industry is controlled by six companies. There are basically three streaming services at the moment. Google and Twitter control a lot of Internet entertainment. While there's an illusion of decentralization, in practical terms, everything is much more controlled in terms of delivery than it was 30 years ago. The argument I, and probably Lucas too, would make, is that capitalism should be overthrown, because these aren't the result of studio executives being mentally handicapped or evil, this is the result of rational decisionmaking around what to back and what to turn down and what to do to keep things profitable.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:43
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Comrade Fakename posted:Because JJ Abrams absolutely loving hates the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and has made an entire Star Wars film about that.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:44
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Guy A. Person posted:I think the article you linked does a better job of refuting your position than I ever could! Does it, though? The article focuses on the gender specifics and arguments made using the logic that character X is too good because they're a girl, rather than character X being too good because they're just too good. Gender swap every single character in this movie and certain characters still stand out as Mary Sues. I'm not saying people aren't making that exact argument (Rey is too good because she's a girl), but there's more to it than that. I feel this is an issue of pedantics more than anything. People are saying Rey isn't a Mary Sue because she's not a self-insert, and it's not fan fiction, but the term doesn't necessitate those aspects. Wikipedia isn't right about everything, but considering there is no written-in-stone definition of the term I think it's applicable here: "Mary Sue: An idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through extraordinary abilities. Often but not necessarily this character is recognized as an author insert and/or wish-fulfillment." People are also making the assumption that characters like Luke Skywalker from ANH and even other characters in TFA are not Mary Sues (or Gary Stus or what have you) when they most certainly are, although I'd make the argument that Rey is far more of a Mary Sue than even Luke. Luke's extraordinary abilities are limited. He uses them once (maybe twice?), and even then only through the guidance of someone versed in the Force. Rey just kinda starts using her powers without really understanding what she can do or how she can do it. I'll give her the technical abilities, which she probably picked up as a scavenger on Jakku, but her piloting skills are at the very least suspect. I'd like to point out that I'm of course talking about Rey as she exists within the vacuum of TFA. Within the vacuum of ANH Luke is absolutely a Mary Sue by almost every aspect of the definition (you could even make the argument that maybe he's the self-insert George Lucas [LUKE Skywalker/George LUCAS]), and he progresses throughout the series to bit a bit more dynamic and less perfect of a character (albeit still super powerful). Young orphan boy from a backwater planet gets sucked into an intergalactic battle between the forces of good and evil where he discovers his father was an immensely powerful knight of an ancient, mystical order of space wizards. Ultimately he destroys the evil Empire's super weapon using the same magical powers his father commanded. Sounds like a Mary Sue to me! I'd also like to point out that I don't necessarily think Rey is a bad character, or that Mary Sue necessarily means a character is bad. She's certainly fun to watch and I'm excited to see where her character goes, and I hope her character progresses into someone who isn't inherently flawless.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:48
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Verisimilidude posted:People are also making the assumption that characters like Luke Skywalker from ANH and even other characters in TFA are not Mary Sues (or Gary Stus or what have you) when they most certainly are, although No the are not. Mary Sues are a bad argument to begin with. They're built on the idea that a protagonist or main character having any sort of exceptional abilities is a Mary Sue. It's a tiresome meaningless criticism especially because it is never applied equally or fairly, it is only applied when people want to complain about a character. It's also a hilariously stupid definition of Mary Sue where "Mary Sue" began as a criticism of a specific fanfiction trope where an author insert was put into an existing universe in a very specific way. not "a character was good at stuff!" ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Dec 27, 2015 |
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Dec 27, 2015 21:51
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All this Mary Sue poo poo started with a lovely screenwriter who's written half a good movie and nothing else of note.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:52
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Rey reminds me of Aang from ATLA, only without the goofy part.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:54
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Rey is not a Mary Sue. Rey is a protagonist.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:57
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But I think that if by the same criteria Luke qualifies, then you've hit the problem that it's really hard for this term to work outside of fanfic.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:57
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ImpAtom posted:No the are not. That circles back to the issue being one of pedantics. Are you arguing that Rey isn't inherently flawless, or that she's not a Mary Sue by the strictest (read: your personal) definition of the term? Again, it's not that Rey is a bad character. It's that she's a flawless, perfect character, and if that's how she's going to be for the rest of the series than I'm a bit disappointed by that.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:59
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Considering that I doubt you could call the script of TFA any individual author's work at this point - though there may have been a guy who did the original primary draft - who is the author who is inserting themselves into a Star War through the vessel of Rey?
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Dec 27, 2015 21:59
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EX-GAIJIN AT LAST posted:I don't think either Maz or Yoda looked particularly better or worse than the other. Yeah, the (generously) 2005 CGI is basically equivalent to the 2015 CGI. That's a reasonable opinion rooted in aesthetics.
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Dec 27, 2015 21:59
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Why can't people enjoy a 'flawless' character any more? Why does every character need to be as flawed and lovely as we are? Couldn't a character, who works their way up to being better, allow us to strive toward something more? Isn't that a more positive message than "Uhh i'm really lovely and I'm trying, but goddamn I'm sooo lovely ugh".
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Dec 27, 2015 22:01
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Rey isn't flawless? She releases the rathtars. She's stuck in the past. She gets easily captured. She's just a standard protagonist with standard ups and downs.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:01
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It straight up doesn't work outside of fanfic, because it relies on a position of subordination to an existing work that doesn't exist outside of fanfic or other derivative works. Like, Corwin of Amber is a polyglot, master composer, incredible swordfighter and tactician, has women falling love with him left and right, does the impossible a couple times in his series, but is not a Mary Sue because he's both an original character and the narrative manages to provide a necessary level of support for his capabilities. The narrative of The Force Awakens provides a necessary level of support for Rey's competency, as well.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:01
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Thinking more about the movie, I liked it but it had flaws. The biggest one, the one that is just unforgivable to me, is that it uses the Light Side bullshit from the Expanded Universe. This completely changes the Force and makes everything less interesting by association.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:02
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MonsieurChoc posted:Thinking more about the movie, I liked it but it had flaws. Could you expand on that?
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Dec 27, 2015 22:03
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Verisimilidude posted:Are you arguing that Rey isn't inherently flawless Yes, I am. Rey is not flawless. She makes mistakes (such as releasing the Rathtar or whatever they're called), she runs away from duty, she desperately longs for her family to the point she's willing to turn down a job offer, she's relatively easily tricked (Finn puts one over on her despite being pretty bad at it, something Han Solo sees through instantly), she wears her heart on her sleeve, ect, ect. She isn't this heartbreakingly flawed hosed-up person like Kylo Ren but she doesn't need to be. She is childish and immature which is what one would expect of a young protagonist. MonsieurChoc posted:The biggest one, the one that is just unforgivable to me, is that it uses the Light Side bullshit from the Expanded Universe. This completely changes the Force and makes everything less interesting by association. I have literally no idea what you could mean by this. The TFA is a lot more about the Force from the original films than the EU "maybe shades of grey?!" nonsense.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:03
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ImpAtom posted:Yes, I am. She releases the Rathtars but then saves everyone from the Rathtars. Longing for her family isn't a character flaw. Trusting someone who is helping you isn't a character flaw. Wearing your heart on your sleeve isn't a character flaw. Running away from duty, yes, that is a flaw in her character, but she immediately changes tone and runs back to help everyone. She's not 100% flawless, but she is 90% flawless.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:09
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Maybe part of this is coming from people whose most recent experience with Star Wars is the prequels, in which the protagonists are Darth Vader as a little boy, his babysitter who falls in love with him for no explicable reason, and a bunch of mentally retarded and morally bankrupt Jedi Finn is flawless by comparison
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Dec 27, 2015 22:10
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Verisimilidude posted:She releases the Rathtars but then saves everyone from the Rathtars. Longing for her family isn't a character flaw. Trusting someone who is helping you isn't a character flaw. Wearing your heart on your sleeve isn't a character flaw. Why are those not character flaws? Is a character flaw to you only "she secretly tortures animals in her spare time" or something that is unambiguously negative instead of... a flaw?
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Dec 27, 2015 22:10
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Heavy Metal posted:Could you expand on that? Throughout the original six movies, there is no mention of any Light Side. The Dark Side is shown to be a corruption of the Force, coming from anger and fear, but Luke is never told to join the Light, just the Force. When expanding the Jedi philosophy in the prequels, Lucas was careful to use the word Balance, never Light. It's about harmony with the universe, not Light vs Dark. He then confirmed this view to be correct in interviews. And all this plays into the thematic elements of the movies: the old Jedi are shown to be out of balance because they lost their connection to the Universe. They lvie isolated from childhood, in their ivory tower, and do not pay attention to the Force. Luke, meanwhile, hangs out with rebels and smugglers. He's part of the world, and in the end closer to the Force than the old Jedi were. But people don't want something like that, they want easy to understand Good vs Evil. You lose the mysticism the fans say they wanted in favor of orthodoxy (the mistake of the old Jedi Order, ironically enough). Someone better at words than me could probably explain it better. Basically we go from Eastern Mysticism to Western Dualism, from Space Buddhism to Space Zoroastrianism. Edit: People say "May the Force be with you", not "May the Light be with you". This is significant.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:10
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Verisimilidude posted:She releases the Rathtars but then saves everyone from the Rathtars. Longing for her family isn't a character flaw. Trusting someone who is helping you isn't a character flaw. Wearing your heart on your sleeve isn't a character flaw. Those are all character flaws because they lead her to make bad decisions, in the context of the film.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:11
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90 percent flawless is easy when you're action are guided by a mystical energy field
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Dec 27, 2015 22:12
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CelticPredator posted:Why can't people enjoy a 'flawless' character any more? Why does every character need to be as flawed and lovely as we are? Couldn't a character, who works their way up to being better, allow us to strive toward something more? Isn't that a more positive message than "Uhh i'm really lovely and I'm trying, but goddamn I'm sooo lovely ugh". Yep, there's certainly nothing in between "flawless" and "lovely". Some people, like myself, just feel that Rey didn't have to struggle as much as other characters. When Luke destroys Death Star at the end of ANH, he basically relies on his intuition (well, Ben helped him a bit there). When Rey beats Kylo Ren at the end of TFA, she straight up masters the basics of the Force without anyone telling her how.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:13
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MonsieurChoc posted:Throughout the original six movies, there is no mention of any Light Side. The Dark Side is shown to be a corruption of the Force, coming from anger and fear, but Luke is never told to join the Light, just the Force. When expanding the Jedi philosophy in the prequels, Lucas was careful to use the word Balance, never Light. It's about harmony with the universe, not Light vs Dark. He then confirmed this view to be correct in interviews. And all this plays into the thematic elements of the movies: the old Jedi are shown to be out of balance because they lost their connection to the Universe. They lvie isolated from childhood, in their ivory tower, and do not pay attention to the Force. Luke, meanwhile, hangs out with rebels and smugglers. He's part of the world, and in the end closer to the Force than the old Jedi were. There's been consistently a split between passion and dispassion since The Empire Strikes Back, where we first have the notion of the dark side. This is maintained in The Force Awakens. The change is only present in your misunderstanding.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:13
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Effectronica posted:There's been consistently a split between passion and dispassion since The Empire Strikes Back, where we first have the notion of the dark side. This is maintained in The Force Awakens. The change is only present in your misunderstanding. The movie keeps going on and on about the Light Side, when the Light Side doesn't exist.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:14
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PiedPiper posted:Some people, like myself, just feel that Rey didn't have to struggle as much as other characters. When Luke destroys Death Star at the end of ANH, he basically relies on his intuition (well, Ben helped him a bit there). When Rey beats Kylo Ren at the end of TFA, she straight up masters the basics of the Force without anyone telling her how. Luke destroys the Death Star by letting go and allowing himself to be guided by the Force. Rey defeats Kylo Ren by letting go and allowing herself to be guided by the Force.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:15
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MonsieurChoc posted:The movie keeps going on and on about the Light Side, when the Light Side doesn't exist. There is a dark side, which involves passions and selfishness and allows for a quicker, easier path to power. There is a "good side" which involves dispassion, altruism, and allows for a harder, slower path to power. The motif of yin and yang, and basic literacy, allows us to conclude that this is a light side, to go with and oppose and be reintegrated with the dark.
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Dec 27, 2015 22:16
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