L3-37 a parody character?

L3 reminds me of Oddball from Kelly's Hereos. Her part is significantly smaller and she's hilarious.

I have to admit... is every female character gonna be some point of complaint for a certain group of Star Wars fans?

 

No complaints from me on Val or Qi'ra.

 

Is that really a fair thing to ask? LucasFilm is making a point of having as many of the new characters be women, so you probably need to get used to people complaining about the women characters. It goes hand-in-hand. More characters being women, more complaints will be leveled at new characters...that happen to be women.

At to your question, she did seem like a parody. We first are introduced to her trying to convince a battlebot that there's a better way, and everybody rolls their eyes at her. There's also a scene when Lando and her are on the bridge of the Falcon, and he asks if she needs anything or something, an offhand comment as he walks away, and her quick response is an out-of-left field "equal rights"? It absurdist because it showed how she was entirely obsessed with that and only that.

 

I thought L3 was pretty much just funny. A parody might be a little strong, but she definitely came off comedic. But to hear Jon Kasdan talk, it seems like we're supposed to take her seriously.

My only real problem with L3 is that, like certain other things in Solo, her character and the plot points she creates don't really matter. They really do nothing for the story. They create some emotional moments, but just for the moment. Her actions, and the things that happen to her, really don't seem to have any significant bearing on the plot or character development outside the moments in which they occur. Which I think contributes to her feeling like a parody.

She feels like parody because, in the context of the movie, her actions and motivations never actually matter. The movie cares about Han, and L3's motives only serve as plot complications on the journey to Han's goals. If the movie wanted us to take her seriously, it needed to build that into its own structure.

Let me be more specific in a spoiler tag:

Spoiler

Her robot revolution on Kessel does nothing but complicate their escape, it has no real bearing or significance on the plot or even the theme of the movie, from what I can tell. And her death, though an emotional moment, really doesn't change anything either. It doesn't create any significant change in Lando. It doesn't affect the plot. If her revolution had played some key role in the movie, or if her death had really brought Lando to some point of crisis, then maybe she wouldn't seem like parody.

 

L3 definately comes off as a comedic character and for the... liberal political agenda it's better this way. Because, as on local conservative blogger put it, if outsiders come and urge you to fight for your rights, it means they are going to rob you.

 

I think they just swung for the fence and it was so cringey it come off as parody.

 

I didn't like L3, her personality and the over-the-top emphasis on her ideology annoyed me quite a lot (I don't appreciate anything that reminds me of SJWs ). And that's even in this comedic form, so thank goodness it was pretty much all for laughs, because if I was to take her seriously, it would be very jarring.

I think that at the core of it, it was a rather innocent play on the trope of AI sentience. Basically, a lighthearted version of Blade Runner or Terminator. But if the caricature wasn't intentional, then... yikes.

Yeah, I saw his comment and it seemed pretty weird, because nothing in the movie suggests we are supposed to take her seriously. It's the contrary.

 

If L3 was a parody/comedy it came off as failure. 4 instance, when Lando asked her if she "Needed anything" & her reply was "Equal rights" Lando walked away & said nothing.

It could of bin funnier if he said, "When Banthas fly" or "When a gonk-gonk droid becomes Emperor".

 

Two things, first, L337 upside down is "LEET" , there is a significance to this that ecapes me, someone please help...

Second, can you imagine being onboard a ship with just you, L3 and K2SO? Now THAT would be hilarious....

 

leet is the name of the "code" in which numbers represent letters (just as you described).
probably just a really deep-rooted geek in-joke.

 

Its a cool theory, I hadn't thought of that. If true it would certainly make me enjoy the character more. I was quite pleased when she died, she was funny and everything but i think if she had more screen time it may have got a bit much. I also liked

The whole droid rights thing is quite intresting, its always been a bit vague as to how "alive" droids are. I mean Obi Wan said if Droids could "If droids could think, there'd be none of us here, would there?" but that kind of contradicts alot of what we have seen. So droid rights could be an intresting topic in a future star wars film. But I guess that story line has been a lot in other properties lately.

I enjoyed both Characters, Val's death seemed a bit rushed, but wasn't horrendous or anything. other then that I enjoyed both characters and am very interested in where Qi'ra's story went next.

 

How serious, exactly, am I to take a character named L337, "elite"?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I didn't take her seriously and the droids-lovable as they are-are not humans and shouldn't really be compared to human slavery imo even as a metaphor. Theyre basically high functioning toasters and Alexas. I was a little concerned when she was first introduced, but since her plight didn't make any real difference on the story or human characters (who mostly ignored her rants) I took most of her dialogue as comedy and enjoyed the character. I just can't take droid rights seriously. They're droids. No go and free your cell phones, Alexas, and x-boxes!

 

I don't think L3 is meant to be a parody, but clearly she is meant to be funny. And in terms of message, Lando and Han treat her social activism the way their characters probably would, with a lot of eyerolls. And that's all there really is to it, you don't have to overthink it. Viewers have a hard time taking droids in Star Wars totally seriously as actual people, because if you get annoyed with C3P0 you can just switch him off, so there is a bit of a disconnect with them psychologically because you know they are still sort of like toasters, and the characters surrounding droids usually take the POV of the audience so they have similar attitudes.