Rogue One Trailer

[Brandon Rhea]

While I agree with your post, I think it's important to note that gender characteristics are still fluid. Some men are more feminine and some women are more masculine, everybody is different and there needs to be more representation of androgynous, gender-fluid or LGBT folks.

Totally agreed.

 

[jpchewy01]

LGBT representation in Star Wars is a must and something that Disney can't skirt around anymore especially with its large LGBT fanbase.

 

[Tristyn]

I don't care what ya'll are arguing about, I'm gonna spend my savings watching this in IMAX!!!!!

 

[Raider]

Spoiler

Phil Noto, artist of the Poe comic, is so excited he drew the above. I'd buy it.

*No actual spoilers. Just wanted to collapse the image.​

 

[Reya Starlyght]

That is great. Now I want to know who the Imperial is even more...

 

[Silverface]

@Brandon Rhea, I was going to write a big post about how you're a silly poop head over the matter of minorities, but that's something we can natter about in PM's or over Skype, with good scotch in hand. It'd just drag the discussion into a ditch if done otherwise. Sufficed to say, I disagree with you and we can have that discourse in the manner I suggested some other time.

As for the comparisons to the Hunger Games... well, I've yet to see any child using bloodsport for the sake of maintaining a dictatorship status quo yet. Or terrible writing, wooden acting or a shameless ripoff of Battle Royale :p

If they have all the costumes at Celebration though, I'm going to be taking so many photos of them. I've some really excellent cameras at my disposal, and I want to do an ( Imperial ) ton of research on the new trooper armours. And the Rebel costumes as well, the ground crew and staff of the Yavin IV base really caught my eye, as did the changes to the Rebel Fleet Trooper uniform. Big thing that caught my eye was how the Stormtrooper's armour have been changed slightly, probably to facilitate the stunts they'd be required to do. Having worn Original Trilogy armour, I know how restrictive that stuff is.

 

[Johnnysaurus Rex]

She's like a female Kyle Katarn!

They read my fan fic!

 

[Brandon Rhea]

@Silverface what do you disagree about? Nothing wrong with discussing it here.

They read my fan fic!

AHSOKA GOES TO TYTHON

 

[Andrewza]

I really don't under stand the female issue. Alien had a chick and was bad ass, star ship troopers though having a male lead was fully of powerfully female charters. If the story is good and well acted I am happy. Race, Sex, Sexuality does not matter.

 

[Andrewza]

O yes only problem with the movie I saw is the release date. I wanted it now

 

[Silverface]

@Brandon Rhea I disagreed with the notion that you put forward ( unintentionally I suspect ) that women and minority ethnicity actors are only hired BECAUSE they're women or by ethnicity a minority. Donnie Yen and Forest Whitaker weren't hired because they're of east asian and african descent, they were hired because they're good actors. Same with Felicity Jones.

Don't get me wrong, I like the diverse breadth of humanity R1 is bringing to the table, just as I liked Kanjiklub in Episode 7. Anything that broadens the setting is great. I just vehemently disagree with the notion of hiring people, for any job, because of a checkbox instead of their actual skill.

And I know that wasn't what you meant to say, but it certainly looked like it.

 

[Marf]

I really don't under stand the female issue. Alien had a chick and was bad ass, star ship troopers though having a male lead was fully of powerfully female charters. If the story is good and well acted I am happy. Race, Sex, Sexuality does not matter.

It does matter when there is a gross lack of representation of minorities and women in major franchises like Star Wars. Saying that it doesn't matter is easy if you're a white, straight male, but when you've grown up with only very few cool characters in your favourite universe that you can relate to as a member of your gender, race, orientation etc. then it is very important.

As a gay woman, I think one of the reasons I'm really not partial to action or fantasy genres is because there are so few female leads or same sex romance. Most of it feels alienating and distant, and just not real, because I can't relate to these stories as a person. I'd rather watch a show like Orange is the New Black.

When I was a kid, I didn't like Padme or Princess Leia, because they weren't the kind of imposing, scary villain that I liked. My favourite character in Star Wars was Darth Vader, but I always wished there was a female character who was like him so I could relate to them more, which played a big part in my writing of Andromeda on SWRP. I'm also writing a story about Andro and her girlfriend, an Imperial concubine, which is sort of my personal re-telling of Anakin and Padme.

 

[Andrewza]

not to derail any thing but who says I am straight. To me it is story and conveying said story that matters more than any thing else. I all so hate token charters don't put a gay guy in your show just for the sake of doing so. So many Local TV shows have down this and most fail because they try to make a big deal about it.

 

[Marf]

not to derail any thing but who says I am straight. To me it is story and conveying said story that matters more than any thing else. I all so hate token charters don't put a gay guy in your show just for the sake of doing so. So many Local TV shows have down this and most fail because they try to make a big deal about it.

My mistake then. No I agree, a character's sexuality shouldn't be a footnote, it should be something that adds substance and importance to the driving plot.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

@Brandon Rhea I disagreed with the notion that you put forward ( unintentionally I suspect ) that women and minority ethnicity actors are only hired BECAUSE they're women or by ethnicity a minority. Donnie Yen and Forest Whitaker weren't hired because they're of east asian and african descent, they were hired because they're good actors. Same with Felicity Jones.

Don't get me wrong, I like the diverse breadth of humanity R1 is bringing to the table, just as I liked Kanjiklub in Episode 7. Anything that broadens the setting is great. I just vehemently disagree with the notion of hiring people, for any job, because of a checkbox instead of their actual skill.

And I know that wasn't what you meant to say, but it certainly looked like it.

I didn't say it quite like that, but there was also a conscious decision made at Lucasfilm to create more diverse casts. That was something that Kathleen Kennedy brought to the company. The fact that this is a largely non-white cast is not an accident. All casting decisions are political. Every single one. That's inherently neither a good nor bad thing. It's just reality, and you hope that the right decisions are made.

The idea of a checkbox suggests forced diversity in the sense that it's a bad thing. Those of you who follow me on Facebook may have seen some of this before, but…

Let's talk "casting for race" and "casting for skill." First, treating them like they're opposites is, I think, incorrect. Just because someone is cast to bring more diversity to a role doesn't mean that they're not right for the role. The idea that someone else who might be better who is also white being unfairly left out of the role is a misplaced notion of meritocracy. In reality, it's whites who most often benefit from casting based on race because minority actors are largely not even brought into the casting process. A lot of times it's not even the studios or the casting directors who are most at fault for a lack of diverse casts. A lot of times they're going with who they're sent. There are so many minority actors who can't get past talent agents because talent agents are not forwarding them onto studios.

That's why JJ Abrams recently mandated that when talent agents send lists of actors to Bad Robot, those lists have to include women and minorities in proportion to their representation to the US population. That ensures that talented people are not being left behind because of racial and gender biases in Hollywood.

Talking about a checkbox is basically like when people say "why are you casting for race? can't we just have a good story?" Which suggests that gender or race or sexuality have anything in common with a person's utility in a story. Sometimes they can, but most of the time they don't. So saying "it's simply there to tick a box" makes it seem like diverse people aren't normally supposed to be part of the fantastical like a galactic war, or the every day like a romance story. It diminishes the fact that diversity is everywhere. And what a character like Finn shows, for example, is that anyone can get caught up in these great adventures.

Films that embrace diversity aren't ticking off a box or forcing things in. They're simply reflecting what real life looks like. It's the films that aren't diverse that are doing something wrong.

Because there's nothing wrong with diversity for the sake of diversity. Take a group of friends in a bar, as an example. Say there's two guys and two women and they're of different ethnicities. Would you ever think to walk up to one of the non-white people in that group, or non-male people in that group, and ask them what story purpose they were serving by being there? Would you ask them what their blackness or femininity or whatever was bringing to the group dynamic in order to justify their presence? Would you think to say that they were only there to tick a box?

You're probably thinking that sounds ridiculous. Because it is. But that's what it sounds like when someone says consciously creating diversity in film is just to tick a box.

Now, none of this was an attack on you or anything. You like what Rogue One is bringing to the table and you like that it's broadening the universe. So we're just talking about the process used to get there.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

My mistake then. No I agree, a character's sexuality shouldn't be a footnote, it should be something that adds substance and importance to the driving plot.

Does it have to? Like, I'm for real asking, not straightsplaining or anything. Because like what I said in my above post, you don't walk up to a group of people that includes a gay person and wonder how their sexuality is adding substance or driving the plot of the group. They're there because gay people are part of everyday life, just like straight people. In real life, our sexualities don't need utility in everyday situation. So, I am asking to understand your point of view: why can't a character be gay for the sake of being gay even if it adds nothing other than there being a gay character?

 

[Andrewza]

No problem I don't make a big deal of my sexuality though I am glad I live in South Africa and not the USA.

Back on topic


There are so many more storm troopers. Looks like a new camo schem scouter trooper, Tank troopers, Dark troopers so cool and new rebels to. All so there is a very white star destroyer some kind of flag ship?

Personaly I hope many of the rebels die or switch side, get captured. Not because I hate them but because this mission was meant to be hard and I want to see some sweet ass last stands.

"We don't surrender, we die"

 

[Marf]

Does it have to? Like, I'm for real asking, not straightsplaining or anything. Because like what I said in my above post, you don't walk up to a group of people that includes a gay person and wonder how their sexuality is adding substance or driving the plot of the group. They're there because gay people are part of everyday life, just like straight people. In real life, our sexualities don't need utility in everyday situation. So, I am asking to understand your point of view: why can't a character be gay for the sake of being gay even if it adds nothing other than there being a gay character?

That's a good point actually, I agree. Not sure what made me say otherwise tbh.

 

[Andrewza]

Does it have to? Like, I'm for real asking, not straightsplaining or anything. Because like what I said in my above post, you don't walk up to a group of people that includes a gay person and wonder how their sexuality is adding substance or driving the plot of the group. They're there because gay people are part of everyday life, just like straight people. In real life, our sexualities don't need utility in everyday situation. So, I am asking to understand your point of view: why can't a character be gay for the sake of being gay even if it adds nothing other than there being a gay character?

Agreed better to just throw hints but not make a big deal of it than make a big deal of it for the sake of making a big deal.

Example Guy says he is phoning his husband. Ok

Speaking in a serotype voice about how fabules (insert) are. Please no

It would be better if they don't make a big deal of it, like in the star wars universe a LGB, Black, Female character is so accepted that it is not even brought up in conversation would be better

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Let me ask everyone this. What would you think if Jyn died at the end of this? Although characters like Ahsoka prove that just because someone's not in the next movie doesn't mean they have to die, it is still the default assumption that someone's going to die because we don't see them in the next movie.

Here's why I'm asking: fridging.

For those who don't know, fridging is trope where a female character who still has lots of story and potential is killed off as a plot device. Men are killed off as plot devices too, but it disproportionately is done with female characters. The EU did it all the time. Probably the most blatant example was Mara Jade, who was killed off as a plot device in Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side. Heir to the Jedi did it last year solely to benefit Luke's story. Dark Disciple sort of did it but it fit the female character's story just as much as the male's. It's a bad trope.

What if it happens to Jyn? If she dies, it will surely be to transmit the Death Star plans to Princess Leia. Her death would be what allows the original trilogy to even happen. Structurally, it means that without her sacrifice, which would be a noble death, the story of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo could never happen. A good death, theoretically, but a plot device all the same. X character is going to die because X event that was already depicted has to happen. And that should be understood in the context that other than Mon Mothma, Jyn is the one female character in a cast full of men.

So, what do you think if it happens? Is it wrong to use that trope? Would the specifics of the death be what's important to you?

Agreed better to just throw hints but not make a big deal of it than make a big deal of it for the sake of making a big deal.

Example Guy says he is phoning his husband. Ok

Speaking in a serotype voice about how fabules (insert) are. Please no

It would be better if they don't make a big deal of it, like in the star wars universe a LGB, Black, Female character is so accepted that it is not even brought up in conversation would be better

People actually talk like that though. It's fine to have characters who you can't necessarily outright tell are gay, but we also shouldn't diminish the fact that you can tell that many gay people are outwardly gay.

The stereotype isn't how those people speak on film. It's what the script has them say.