Another female lead! Oh no

i still have mine too! and oh boy yes the whitewashing deals we made for figs back then ~ hahaha!
such great memories though.

 

Rumours of middle names "Mary" and "Sue" for the new character have yet to be confirmed or denied by official sources.

 

True, there was some creepy stuff back in the day for both male and female marriage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greece.

On topic though, I'm more disappointed that they've essentially changed from having male leads to female leads. One of the more enjoyable aspects of The Clone Wars was how they were able to balance the amount of males in female-based stories, and vice versa.

The thing that really irks me though is the amount of unnecessary retconning in the new canon to make it feel more inclusive. For example, we're expected to believe there's a whole bunch of females in Stormtrooper & Imperial uniforms in locations where it's been previously been shown to be all men e.g. The Executor & Death Star.

 

My 2007 fanfiction was based on a female progonist, was set between ep III and IV and included the following themes and characteristics:

a. she was a brunette (other physical appearance of course highly sexistic and idealistic...duhhh)
b. she was of 'royal descent' and far niece of Palpatine
c. she was a youngling in the jedi temple when Anakin attacked but was spared by him when she was 12
d. she hid her knowledge of the force and became an assassin of the early rebellion movement (which originated from an uneasy alliance between separatists hardliners and republican nostalgists )
e. she assasinated Moff Panaka (I hated Panaka)
g. Is tasked to assasinate Palpatine, plots together with Vader
h. Seems to have succeeded. The early rebellion movement reveals to the public that she is a far niece of palpatine.
i. part of the Imperial Military crowns the female protagonist Empress, others support Vader and the SUPRISE surviving Palpatine
j. Instead of restoring the republic, she is seduced by the power of imperial office, the early rebellion movement disenchanted
h. a short brutal civil war - female protagonist slowly turns dark
i. Palpatine loyalists defeat insurrection.
J. female protagonist captured and tortured. Female protagonist dies

A BAD freaking ending.

So....

safe the fantastic fiction.......

I love it that they had the balls to focus new trilogy on a female lead as well as a basing the standalone on a female lead. It's exciting and new and may move the story in unexpected ways.

 

Not that I'm complaining. But shouldn't this thread title be changed to "Another Brunette British Caucasian Female Lead! Oh No."

 

i think its great that we are finally seeing more females in the galaxy.

 

I got no issue with female leads (even if it's the overload trend nowadays). When a good actor delivers you lose site of gender and are just simply engaged by the performance. Much like Daisy Ridley (to my surprise) delivered and engaged in TFA, which is more than I could say about her male co-stars.

 

Rayne Roberts and Dave Filoni speak about the roles of Rey, Jyn, Leia and the female characters of Star Wars:

 

Cool video. Interesting point of view on how they want to treat these characters. Like I said a while back in this thread, if a character is ruined because of what social Justice warriors /Feminists want in a female character, it has the potential to negatively affect the overall movie and viewing experience. Rey was too perfect of a chacter, with no weaknesses and minor character development. Id prefer to a watch a character where we could put ourselves into there shoes i.e Luke skywalker/Ripley, (from the first two alien movies) or even someone like Finn, instead of a Mary Rey Sue with practically the skill of a demi god, and knowladge of everything.

 

Since Jyn is older and less innocent than Rey, will she be presented as more, for lack of a better term, sexier.

I'm not saying Barbarella type exploitation or anything. But the level of say Black Widow or even Harlequin in Suicide Squad.

 

1) The new trilogy is lead by Rey, but all the next predominate co-stars are men. Finn, Han and Kylo being the next most predominate characters. Jen is a female lead, with just about every other character being male. The Han solo movie is a male lead. I suspect the 3rd spin off will be male led too. I'm not sure I get what a "female-based story is". I don't think TFA would've been very different if genders or races were changed.

2) How can you tell a female stormtrooper apart from a male stormtrooper? I like having no racial or sexual biases in star wars. It is a universe unencumbered by our BS.

 

There are racial and sexual biases in the Star Wars universe though. Otherwise, why else would aliens be enslaved & treated like crap, and females treated less favourably than men. Star Wars mirrors history, especially the 1940s white man empires.

 

Everything we've seen of her until now does not support any kind of sexualization. Especially her image: baggy clothes, scarf, jacket... Not to mention her costume change to a TIE-Fighter pilot has no form at all.

Also, I find any claim of resemblance to Black Widow or Harley Quin very bewildering, especially for the latter. Black Widow uses her looks to do her job as a spy, so her being sultry sometimes is more like an act. Harlequin in SS looks like a barwoman (which, incidentally, she does become for a scene in the movie), pretty much showing off her body to illustrate that she's unhinged like the Joker. She changed clothes in front of all the other inmates in a prison in the yard. Nothing of what we've seen of Jyn so far fit anywhere near of Black Widow, much less of Harley Quin. The only time we see her sneaking, Jyn has a scarf around her head, being even more covered.

And I hope it stays this way, because this kind of story does not offer any chance of Jyn to dress up or get naked. They did such mistakes with Leia in ROTJ and Padme in AOTC. I hope they have learnt by now.

 

Yeah. I consider giving Padme midriff for the sake of giving the lone female midriff in AotC pretty exploitive and the wrong thing to do.
Correct on the Black Widow spy thing as to how she uses her looks, which is what I'm talking about. Since it appears Jyn will act like a spy in this movie.

 

I just wish she wasn't British. The whole plum-in-my-mouth attitude thing got on my nerves with Rey (I wasn't a fan of Daisy Ridley's performance either, thought she overacted and tried too hard without having enough of an emotional connection to the characters) and i'm afraid Felicity will be the same. More aware that she's in a big movie than putting herself in character. Annunciating their lines while running away from explosions... Ugh!

Seriously... and i'm British! Luke was rough around the edges in Star Wars and Empire and that's why I love that character. Rey and Felicity seem to be in Jedi Master Luke mode right out of the gate, so where do they progress to? They kick everyone around and hold themselves in an authoritive way.. which makes them feel like video game characters.

More American protagonists!

 

Jyn Erso was created by sacrificing Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors. Sounds bad enough. I wish for more hero-couples like Katarn/Ors or Judge Anderson and Dredd. True equality.

At least it looks like that at this moment. Maybe Jyn Erso gets a male side-kick/companion too.

 

They looked at other actors for the role such as Canadian Tatiana Maslany and the American Mara sisters (Rooney and Kate). Felicity won the part.

The women were the weakest characters in the past two Star Wars trilogies while the men were the strongest. I think people just have this internalized sexism where that was perfectly ok until they made women the main characters. This sort of scrutiny would not be happening to Rey or Jyn if they were male characters. It would just be accepted in some corridors as "the way it is as default". People haven't even seen what Rey's progression is as only 33% of this new sequel trilogy's story has been told and people know even less about Jyn. And Rey struggled a lot more than some people ever want to give credit/blame for.

If ya want to watch some extremely weak woman as a protagonist, go watch Jupiter Ascending or something. But audiences thoroughly rejected that approach. If you want some dude hero, just watch the past two Star Wars trilogies or Star Wars Rebels or the upcoming Han Solo movie. Or a million other movies and millions of other stories.

 

It all sounds like writing a leading female role that is well balanced and not extrem or just more open to realism or just intelligent and meaningful scripts is the hardest thing out there in Hollywood. And Hollywood is since 60 years the most liberal media-community out there. If there is something to be called out its internalized sexism in that industry. Something is wrong there. Or the CEO´s aint letting people write good stuff anymore.

 

On the bases of biology, history, psychology etc....Those factors. But I think we are dealing more with internal consistency of a character. Or make them actualy relatable to the viewer.

But its all big speculations without having the #1 Trailer for Rogue One...Maybe some questions will be answered than.