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[SPOILERS] Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Thread #2) - One Thumb Up

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But what if Rey becomes the villain, and Kylo the hero?

I don't think Kylo would be the hero. But if Rey falls, I'd bet it's Kylo who brings her back. Maybe she even kills him as he tries to do it (like between Ben and Han), but this time it ultimately breaks her free of the control.
 
So basically strong woman loses (emotional) control and has to be saved by the heroic man.

Fuck that shit. Rey going dark would ruin her character.

You mean the same emotional control Kylo loses throughout the entire film? It's not nearly the same.

She may lose control but it's very focused. Kylo is just unstable.
 
Guys, there's a very good in-the-real-world reason why Rey shouldn't fall to the dark side, which is that as the first high profile (higher profile than Ahsoka, since this is a movie and not a tv show) female Jedi protagonist in the franchise, she embodies the hopes and dreams of a lot of the female fanbase and a potential new generation of female fans, and to turn her evil will ruin a lot of that. Male characters are taken as the default, so we as men don't really care when a male character turns bad or has to be redeemed by others; but since there are so few role models for young girls to cling to in the films in comparison to the amount that guys can, Rey is a disproportionately important figure right now.
 
*sigh* that's pretty clearly not what I'm saying at all.

THen I don't get it. Like another poster said if she's not the moral fiber of this series it seems you reject and speculation on what her character could do.

Your reasoning presented in this thread for her not being capable of falling to the darkside is because of how females in SW have been treated in the past. That should absolutely have no bearing on how a fictional story is told.

I would have no issue if she never feel to the darkside. but the reasoning you provide shouldn't be why they never explore that. Rey is a great character. A powerful character and I like what's she's doing. Showing a female can lead and can be strong. But that shouldn't prohibit creative storytelling.
 
I meant that Kylo create the instrument of his own destruction. He awakes Rey's jedi power.

Maybe, but she already was seeing visions because of the lightsaber. And she was already pulling off moves with the Milennium Falcon she couldn't explain. Don't forget kid Anakin could race pods which no human could do.
 
Because this franchise hasn't had a dude lose emotional control and fall to the darkside, needing to be saved by others...?

There's been a handful of male jedi protagonists. Rey is the only female Jedi protagonist in the history of the entire movie series.

Fuck she's going to be more of a protagonist than Leia.

Rey going dark and being the redemption story for Kylo or getting saved by Finn's love would be awful.
 
Guys, there's a very good in-the-real-world reason why Rey shouldn't fall to the dark side, which is that as the first high profile (higher profile than Ahsoka, since this is a movie and not a tv show) female Jedi protagonist in the franchise, she embodies the hopes and dreams of a lot of the female fanbase and a potential new generation of female fans, and to turn her evil will ruin a lot of that. Male characters are taken as the default, so we as men don't really care when a male character turns bad or has to be redeemed by others; but since there are so few role models for young girls to cling to in the films in comparison to the amount that guys can, Rey is a disproportionately important figure right now.

And this is the only reason why I see that won't do it. Which would be a lame cop out in my opinion.
 
Watched it yesterday, was rather disappointed with it. Thought it leant on A New Hope too much instead of doing its own thing. Felt more like a reboot at times than a new movie. I got rather tired of all the winks to the old movies. Even the only memorable scene in the movie for me was super predictable (Kylo/Han).

One of the few things I liked was the character designs for Rey, Kylo and Snoke. Liked Finn's arc too and I thought it was the only well paced thing in the whole movie. Everything else felt like a rush job jumping from action sequence to action sequence. Poe's arc seemeed to start off in a promising fashion but then he got completely sidelined. And lol Phasma.
 
Guys, there's a very good in-the-real-world reason why Rey shouldn't fall to the dark side, which is that as the first high profile (higher profile than Ahsoka, since this is a movie and not a tv show) female Jedi protagonist in the franchise, she embodies the hopes and dreams of a lot of the female fanbase and a potential new generation of female fans, and to turn her evil will ruin a lot of that. Male characters are taken as the default, so we as men don't really care when a male character turns bad or has to be redeemed by others; but since there are so few role models for young girls to cling to in the films in comparison to the amount that guys can, Rey is a disproportionately important figure right now.

There's been a handful of male jedi protagonists. Rey is the only female Jedi protagonist in the historyof the entire movie series.

How incredibly condescending
 
It could go either way, frankly.
It can't. Think of Star Wars' terrible history of treating its female characters. Now consider Rey in that context, and then consider this: "The only referendum I needed came from my daughter, who during the final battle yelled out 'Go Rey! She's so good!'."

If Star Wars had a far better history of treating its female characters - far more of them, more developed, more engaged - then it would be conceivable that Rey could turn, because we would have others to look to for our desire to see someone good like us kick ass. As it is? You can't, because that would be treating her like shit. You think they'll have the one Jedi that women of all ages can look up to and enjoy - feel empowered, want to be! - and turn her to the dark side, where she'll do terrible things and be a horrible person.

Uh uh. Not gonna happen. That would be shitty.
 
Guys, there's a very good in-the-real-world reason why Rey shouldn't fall to the dark side, which is that as the first high profile (higher profile than Ahsoka, since this is a movie and not a tv show) female Jedi protagonist in the franchise, she embodies the hopes and dreams of a lot of the female fanbase and a potential new generation of female fans, and to turn her evil will ruin a lot of that. Male characters are taken as the default, so we as men don't really care when a male character turns bad or has to be redeemed by others; but since there are so few role models for young girls to cling to in the films in comparison to the amount that guys can, Rey is a disproportionately important figure right now.

What The Librarian is arguing against is Rey falling to the dark side like Vader or Kylo Ren, not being tempted by the dark side like Luke.
Ding ding ding!!!!
 
The novel, which is canon, confirms at the very least that she felt the dark side and wanted to kill Kylo before the earthquake split them apart.

She'll be scared of that aspect of herself later. Ben is willing to allow himself to kill her, but she's not the same and he'll pray on that.
 
So basically strong woman loses (emotional) control and has to be saved by the heroic man.

Fuck that shit. Rey going dark would ruin her character.

Strong CHARACTER loses themselves, is brought back to the light by another character who is clearly not as powerful but has an emotional connection with them.

Her gender never entered into my thinking, and I wish you hadn't jumped to that conclusion. I thought it would be interesting if the emotional connection between a non-force user was the reason for a super strong force-user either prevented their fall or helped bring them back.
 
Guys, there's a very good in-the-real-world reason why Rey shouldn't fall to the dark side, which is that as the first high profile (higher profile than Ahsoka, since this is a movie and not a tv show) female Jedi protagonist in the franchise, she embodies the hopes and dreams of a lot of the female fanbase and a potential new generation of female fans, and to turn her evil will ruin a lot of that. Male characters are taken as the default, so we as men don't really care when a male character turns bad or has to be redeemed by others; but since there are so few role models for young girls to cling to in the films in comparison to the amount that guys can, Rey is a disproportionately important figure right now.

I don't think sacrificing good story ideas for the sake of creating a perfect role model is a good reason to do anything. Let's have some characters with depth to them! Let's tell some interesting stories!
 
What The Librarian is arguing against is Rey falling to the dark side like Vader or Kylo Ren, not being tempted by the dark side like Luke.

If Rey does fall to the Darkside like Vader does. What's the issue? I'm still not seeing a legit reason why that can't happen.
 
SO that alone makes her immune from dealing with things the main character from each trilogy had to deal with?
I'm not saying she can't get tempted but having her need to be saved by Finn or switch roles with Kylo and becoming both a villain and the catalyst for his redemption is not part of the deal.

Luke was tempted but didn't fall, Anakin had to go evil because he's Vader.

Rey can surely flirt with the dark side but for her to go full Anakin would be horrible writing.

Think about it they introduced 4 new characters in TFA and Rey is the only woman. Even in progress Rey is still the sole female hope for the series.
 
I don't think sacrificing good story ideas for the sake of creating a perfect role model is a good reason to do anything. Let's have some characters with depth to them! Let's tell some interesting stories!
This is a consequence of gender inequality in our film representation.

Besides: "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."
 
How incredibly condescending

It's not condescending, I'm explaining why some people and Lucasfilm may not want Rey to turn to the dark side. It's not condescending to take real world gender politics into account to make positive role models for young female Star Wars fans when crafting the story. Who knows if we'll have evil female Star Wars characters going forward? They're certainly not opposed to it, as with Ventress (and even she turned into an antihero) and the Seventh Sister.

It's more condescending to not take the female audience's concerns into account. And yes obviously women are not a monolithic block who share the same opinion. But Star Wars is a Real Thing as a franchise property and you have to consider what the story means to different people.

Think of how a lot of black posters in the first spoiler thread or in the Community side fretted about rumors that Finn was an idiot who couldn't do anything well. You could sit there and go "well it's the best thing for the story, so it's condescending to say that a black character can't be a goon!" But when there have been no black leads (Mace and Lando are second tier characters) in Star Wars, it is not a bad thing to ask black fans what they want to see and what they don't want to see in a leading black character.

Movies are not separate from real world politics.
 
Ding ding ding!!!!

So it's really all about that marketing? Sorry but to me that would be cheap and a copout. You shouldn't limit yourself creatively. If it would tell a better story overall if she fell to the darkside. Then do it. It wouldn't diminish her character in the slightest if she wasn't the moral fiber of the story for half a movie.
 
Strong CHARACTER loses themselves, is brought back to the light by another character who is clearly not as powerful but has an emotional connection with them.

Her gender never entered into my thinking, and I wish you hadn't jumped to that conclusion. I thought it would be interesting if the emotional connection between a non-force user was the reason for a super strong force-user either prevented their fall or helped bring them back.
I wish I could be in the position not to worry about the gender of protagonists :((((
 
Guys, there's a very good in-the-real-world reason why Rey shouldn't fall to the dark side, which is that as the first high profile (higher profile than Ahsoka, since this is a movie and not a tv show) female Jedi protagonist in the franchise, she embodies the hopes and dreams of a lot of the female fanbase and a potential new generation of female fans, and to turn her evil will ruin a lot of that. Male characters are taken as the default, so we as men don't really care when a male character turns bad or has to be redeemed by others; but since there are so few role models for young girls to cling to in the films in comparison to the amount that guys can, Rey is a disproportionately important figure right now.

I'm sorry but your heart is going be broken. I wanted a strong black core character after Lando and (cinematic) Mace Windu failed to fit the bill, and all I got was a treacherous sanitation worker who got bodied by lowly storm trooper.
 
I'm not saying she can't get tempted but having her need to be saved by Finn or switch roles with Kylo and becoming both a villain and the catalyst for his redemption is not part of the deal.

Luke was tempted but didn't fall, Anakin had to go evil because he's Vader.

Rey can surely flirt with the dark side but for her to go full Anakin would be horrible writing.

Think about it they introduced 4 new characters in TFA and Rey is the only woman. Even in progress Rey is still the sole female hope for the series.

Again the only reason you say she can't turn is because she;s the only woman. You're looking at a role model/ what tropes she would fit in if this was the case. I'm just looking at an interesting arc. Kinda if like Luke fell to the darkside.


At the end of the day we just agree to disagree.
 
Strong CHARACTER loses themselves, is brought back to the light by another character who is clearly not as powerful but has an emotional connection with them.

Her gender never entered into my thinking, and I wish you hadn't jumped to that conclusion. I thought it would be interesting if the emotional connection between a non-force user was the reason for a super strong force-user either prevented their fall or helped bring them back.

It's entered into a lot of women's minds, young and old. SW is probably tapping thst demo now more than ever. Rey is a bonafide hit with the vast majority of people and this is only the first movie, that's only been in theaters for a week.

Hell, Disney doesn't have to do it to be socially progressive, they'll do it because it's making $$$ and it'd be stupid to rock the boat. The gender of this character is extremely relevant.
 
It's not condescending, I'm explaining why some people and Lucasfilm may not want Rey to turn to the dark side. It's not condescending to take real world gender politics into account to make positive role models for young female Star Wars fans when crafting the story. Who knows if we'll have evil female Star Wars characters going forward? They're certainly not opposed to it, as with Ventress (and even she turned into an antihero) and the Seventh Sister.

It's more condescending to not take the female audience's concerns into account. And yes obviously women are not a monolithic block who share the same opinion. But Star Wars is a Real Thing as a franchise property and you have to consider what the story means to different people.

Think of how a lot of black posters in the first spoiler thread or in the Community side fretted about rumors that Finn was an idiot who couldn't do anything well. You could sit there and go "well it's the best thing for the story, so it's condescending to say that a black character can't be a goon!" But when there have been no black leads (Mace and Lando are second tier characters) in Star Wars, it is not a bad thing to ask black fans what they want to see and what they don't want to see in a leading black character.

Movies are not separate from real world politics.

But If I wanted to I could spin that on it's head and say the Black community feels shafted that Finn is nothing more than a bait and switch for the white female lead.

But I won't do that because I like Finn's character. I have no idea what he's going to do going forward but I'm interested. But an argument can be made on how his character was used from a marketing perspective.
 
It's entered into a lot of women's minds, young and old. SW is probably tapping thst demo now more than ever. Rey is a bonafide hit with the vast majority of people and this is only the first movie, that's only been in theaters for a week.

Hell, Disney doesn't have to do it to be socially progressive, they'll do it because it's making $$$ and it'd be stupid to rock the boat. The gender of this character is extremely relevant.

It's amazin how much Rey's story was important to me. They avoided every pratfall writers of Strong Women (tm) often fall into. It was a clear decision to avoid it. It was beautiful.
 
I'm sorry but your heart is going be broken. I wanted a strong black core character after Lando and (cinematic) Mace Windu failed to fit the bill, and all I got was a treacherous sanitation worker who got bodied by lowly storm trooper.

I'd say Finn is a strong character, he's just not perfect. He's going through the ropes and learning how to be a hero. His story's not over yet. It sucks though that they teased everyone with the lightsaber so much and made it seem like he was going to be something else, so I do wish they hadn't done that.

You know, a lot of this reminds me of the GamerGate-esque mentality over on the other board about the "censoring" of lewd stuff from Japanese games recently. "The rights of the artist!", "freedom of speech!", etc. but never consideration for what the actual presentation means or represents.
 
I'm interested in seeing where Finn goes from here. I can see the potential trajectories of Rey and Poe, considering their competencies in the first film. But Finn? He's not particularly skilled in anything.

I'm hoping it's more than just "soldier dude".

I'm not saying she can't get tempted but having her need to be saved by Finn or switch roles with Kylo and becoming both a villain and the catalyst for his redemption is not part of the deal.

Luke was tempted but didn't fall, Anakin had to go evil because he's Vader.

Rey can surely flirt with the dark side but for her to go full Anakin would be horrible writing.

Think about it they introduced 4 new characters in TFA and Rey is the only woman. Even in progress Rey is still the sole female hope for the series.

The lure to the darkside (And now with Kylo, the lure to the light) is a major aspect of 5 out of 7 SW movies. (Only ANH and TPM don't deal with this).

I doubt that Rey would end this trilogy as some sort of evil figure...but it seems pretty obvious that she will in fact flirt with those temptations.

I think that they will obviously do it in a respectable manner, just as they did with Luke.

Apparently, the novel already has her thinking "Kill him. Quicker. Easier" during her confrontation with Kylo.
 
So it's really all about that marketing? Sorry but to me that would be cheap and a copout. You shouldn't limit yourself creatively. If it would tell a better story overall if she fell to the darkside. Then do it. It wouldn't diminish her character in the slightest if she wasn't the moral fiber of the story for half a movie.
No. It's about Star Wars horrible history when dealing with female characters.

Blame that. Or the patriarchy. Same thing, really.
 
Gender shouldn't play into the decision.

What we have to ask is, does it make sense from a narrative point of view.

We've tread the same ground with the Prequels and it categorically did not work. Setting characters up to knock them down has a novelty feel to it, but the only way it'll be truly satisfying is when you build them back up.

So no. We won't be seeing evil Rey any time soon.
 
I'm sorry but your heart is going be broken. I wanted a strong black core character after Lando and (cinematic) Mace Windu failed to fit the bill, and all I got was a treacherous sanitation worker who got bodied by lowly storm trooper.

Shit still hurts breh.

Edit :
Yeah, I feel the same about Finn. There are no black characters in film that are as good as him that I can immediately think of.

These are not accidents or flukes.

What?

I feel like Finn is borderline problematic, tbh. Only saved by the fact that he does show courage at the end. I certainly hope this isn't LF idea of a "strong black character".
 
It's amazin how much Rey's story was important to me. They avoided every pratfall writers of Strong Women (tm) often fall into. It was a clear decision to avoid it. It was beautiful.

Yeah, I feel the same about Finn. There are no black characters in film that are as good as him that I can immediately think of.

These are not accidents or flukes.
 
No. It's about Star Wars horrible history when dealing with female characters.

Blame that. Or the patriarchy. Same thing, really.

Or the writers can do what they feel is best instead of trying to adhere to a certain demo. Again they had no issues doing a bait and switch with Finn which is disgusting for a whole host of reasons.
 
This is a consequence of gender inequality in our film representation.

Besides: "The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."


I could easily start railing that I was hit with a bait and switch with Finn being shown in the promos as a Jedi but in the movie for the most part he is a cowardice janitor. But as it turns out they have set up some interesting routes they could take with his character other than the pure light side Jedi hero. So if I get to see something interesting done with the character I'd prefer that than just being a stereotypical hero.

She doesn't have to become the next Vader but showing how powerful the dark side of the force is by showing it really affecting her would be good for the series as a whole. After all they are both one half of an extrmely powerfull force. Maybe she could be the one who ends up being able to successfully tap into both spectrums without becoming Vader. That would be pretty cool.
 
I'm sorry but your heart is going be broken. I wanted a strong black core character after Lando and (cinematic) Mace Windu failed to fit the bill, and all I got was a treacherous sanitation worker who got bodied by lowly storm trooper.

Bro, that stormtrooper was so badass that he demanded that a damn lightsaber resistant shock stick be built into his armor and they let that happen even though it was about as likely as needing a parachute as a ground trooper. No other trooper gets that privilege. Finn is LUCKY he got his shit wrecked by this alpha.
 
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