Favourite female heroes in film ... (page 9)

_Morpheus

Its interesting to me that uni STARTED a thread highlighting good female leads and yet seems to be taking heat from you for not respecting women? Im seeing a failure in logic.

TD

MS/GS is a character who is good at everything. Someone who has lots and lots of strengths but no character flaws.

Okay.

As it relates to Rey, do you think this is a facet of the "girl power" phenomenon in movies or am I still misunderstanding?

It's no secret that movie writers have been trying to dismantle negative gender stereotypes, but sometimes in their exuberance, they do more harm than good.

For example, there's a scene in the movie Hidden Figures where the three ladies (Johnson, Vaughn & Jackson) are broken down by the side of the road. After a brief encounter with a suspicious police officer who seems to think they've stolen the car, Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) reaches under the hood with a long screw driver to "bypass the starter."

There's a shower of sparks and the engine instantly begins running.

Hidden Figures is a great movie and I've watched it over and over, but this scene does more harm than good and was totally unnecessary. It was possible with Chevrolets of this era (The one in the movie was a '57) to bypass the starter solenoid to get the engine to crank, but then as well as now, the only remedy for a bad starter is to push start the vehicle.

So instead of knocking down the stereotype that women don't really know anything about vehicles and are helpless when they break down, this scene subtly reinforces it, inasmuch as the only segment of the audience who will accept the remedy as valid are those who don't really know anything about vehicles and are helpless when they break down.

Would it be fair to say that this is part of your problem with Rey?

--That you do not object to female characters standing head and shoulders over everyone else as long as they are believable, but you dislike it when they are simply foils for the writer's agenda?

LoveUniHateExams

@TD - I'm all for gender stereotypes to be knocked down.

But when introducing strong female leads, these characters should develop organically and show proper character development.

There's nothing organic about Rey. She belongs in a superhero comic, not Star Wars films.

And, thinking about it, young Anakin in TPM pisses me off as much as Rey.

The difference between the two is young Anakin was one film only and due to George Lucas's crappy writing; Rey is for at least three films, plus there'll probably be similar crap in Hollywood for years to come because it has third wave feminism and cultural Marxism behind it.

But as Morph said, I like good strong natural female characters.

Its interesting to me that uni STARTED a thread highlighting good female leads and yet seems to be taking heat from you for not respecting women? Im seeing a failure in logic -

_Morpheus

Just to go along futher with td, a good female should be hard to identify. Why? Because her being good really isnt a function of vaginas or breasts. Its good acting, good character development etc etc...

an example that was mentioned earlier: furiousa. That she is a chick is irrelevant to the movie. Shes a good character, male or female, shes well acted, well developed and in an overall strong movie. If we want to add in a layer that she is a woman rescuing young women from sexual slavery then thats a bonus.

Another example cited: kill bill. The whole movie was centered on female assassins who turned on one of their own and her revenge.... it could have worked with male leads... but we never stopped to think about it. Uma and cast did such a great job who cares????? Ditto for alien. The riply character didnt have to be male or female. We didnt care! It worked because weaver was great.

On the character of rey, the distain has nothing to do with her being a chick anymore than hating kylo is because hes a guy. They suck all around, as has been gone into in far too much detail already.

_Morpheus

And, thinking about it, young Anakin in TPM pisses me off as much as Rey.

Lets add to thats list: young anikin and every other character in all three movies except palpatine, maul and young obi wan. Every single character. All of them were half ass written, poorly developed, paper thin shells designed to nothing more than be props for a half baked plot that cared more about cgi than story telling.

A special place in hell awaits lucas for the jar jar debacle.

LoveUniHateExams

@Morpheus - year the prequel trilogy sucked, no doubt about that.

Anakin in TPM was a Gary Stu - his mother had a virgin birth, he was great at fixing and piloting pod racers, he built C-3PO (yep, a ten year old kid supposedly built a protocol droid ), he was strong in the Force, and he took out the droid control ship by accident - WTF?!

Jar Jar was a ridiculous choice for such an important character.

Even little things about the prequel trilogy piss me off, such as the inclusion of Artoo and Threepio. Completely unnecessary and leads to retroactive plot-holes, like how is it that Artoo knows Yoda in the prequels but stays silent on Dagobah when Luke is looking for Yoda and a little green man appears.

But, however bad the prequel trilogy is, at least it's an original piece of work. Gary Stu Anakin is not part of some wider agenda - it was just Lucas going off the deep-end.

The two films from the sequel trilogy rip off the original trilogy, and Rey is a Mary Sue being forced down viewers' throats as part of a wider agenda. It stinks.