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So apparently the finale has caused rifts within Lucasfilm.  The box-ticking SJW that is Kathleen Kennedy is livid at being (what she perceives as) undermined by Favreau and Filoni.  No "agenda" beyond good stories and great telling.  Having a white male as the saviour undermines her entire "female lead with no training" heroine figure.  Rumour is that there are deep divisions and she's slyly trying to find ways to derail the narative, using things she controls such as comics and so on.

 

Or take this with a pinch of salt as the source I heard it from is one of those who rants about such stuff.  But look back at the last few SW films...

35 minutes ago, NJ Louch said:

So apparently the finale has caused rifts within Lucasfilm.  The box-ticking SJW that is Kathleen Kennedy is livid at being (what she perceives as) undermined by Favreau and Filoni.  No "agenda" beyond good stories and great telling.  Having a white male as the saviour undermines her entire "female lead with no training" heroine figure.  Rumour is that there are deep divisions and she's slyly trying to find ways to derail the narative, using things she controls such as comics and so on.

 

Or take this with a pinch of salt as the source I heard it from is one of those who rants about such stuff.  But look back at the last few SW films...

What's done is done, you can't retcon the whole ending half of the season final.   If it's true and she's mad for some reason well too bad.   She should be happy fans love Ahsoka so much and that there's a show with her on the way, there's your female hero if you're craving for one.    Besides the first half of the final ep was chicks being badass.   

 

Personally, I don't have issue with the idea of Rey, it was interesting till they screwed it up themselves.  The fans are done with the sequel trilogy, I bet most would be happy if they retconned them fully.     The whole first order bit is dumb thinking back on it, a planet size version of the death star , though I know it's from the comics but come on.     You can spend all day poking holes in the trilogy till there's nothing left, just bad story telling.

  • Like 3
13 minutes ago, NJ Louch said:

So apparently the finale has caused rifts within Lucasfilm.  The box-ticking SJW that is Kathleen Kennedy is livid at being (what she perceives as) undermined by Favreau and Filoni.  No "agenda" beyond good stories and great telling.  Having a white male as the saviour undermines her entire "female lead with no training" heroine figure.  Rumour is that there are deep divisions and she's slyly trying to find ways to derail the narative, using things she controls such as comics and so on.

 

Or take this with a pinch of salt as the source I heard it from is one of those who rants about such stuff.  But look back at the last few SW films...

Well doing a search I found this site, but I don't know anything about their history or validity.

 

I don't know what she is expecting. Luke's appearance wasn't cheered because he's a white male who would be the hero. Hell, one of the few things I really enjoyed about the sequel story was that it showed how he failed after RotJ, and his appearance in The Mandalorian didn't change that story. He and Boba Fett were cheered because they were childhood icons. For me, my issue with the sequels had nothing to do with a female lead character and everything to do with it being a rehash of the original's story which lost its direction as the films went on.

If she tries to change the narrative solely in the name of feminism she won't gain an audience, she'll just lose the current audience.

  • Like 2
1 hour ago, NJ Louch said:

So apparently the finale has caused rifts within Lucasfilm.  The box-ticking SJW that is is livid at being (what she perceives as) undermined by Favreau and Filoni.  No "agenda" beyond good stories and great telling.  Having a white male as the saviour undermines her entire "female lead with no training" heroine figure.  Rumour is that there are deep divisions and she's slyly trying to find ways to derail the narative, using things she controls such as comics and so on.

 

Or take this with a pinch of salt as the source I heard it from is one of those who rants about such stuff.  But look back at the last few SW films...

Yes, let's look at the last couple of SW films like Episode VIII where Luke Skywalker was the savior/hero?

 

9 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

Well doing a search I found this site, but I don't know anything about their history or validity.

 

I don't know what she is expecting. Luke's appearance wasn't cheered because he's a white male who would be the hero. Hell, one of the few things I really enjoyed about the sequel story was that it showed how he failed after RotJ, and his appearance in The Mandalorian didn't change that story. He and Boba Fett were cheered because they were childhood icons. For me, my issue with the sequels had nothing to do with a female lead character and everything to do with it being a rehash of the original's story which lost its direction as the films went on.

If she tries to change the narrative solely in the name of feminism she won't gain an audience, she'll just lose the current audience.

That link has to be the dumbest thing I have read in a while...

 

"In fact, I’m even told that individuals at Lucasfilm have been reading articles here on Pirates and Princesses, as well as watching videos on Clownfish TV..."

 

Someone has to tell this guy no one cares about his blog.

6 minutes ago, Superuser said:

Yes, let's look at the last couple of SW films like Episode VIII where Luke Skywalker was the savior/hero

Not only was he not the savior, they made him out to look like an idiot.

  • Like 2
7 minutes ago, warwagon said:

Not only was he not the savior, they made him out to look like an idiot.

Are you talking about Episode VII? LOL He showed up in Episode VIII and all the other rebels were literally in awe of him and he saved the day while in the process sacrificed himself.

10 minutes ago, Superuser said:

Are you talking about Episode VII? LOL He showed up in Episode VIII and all the other rebels were literally in awe of him and he saved the day while in the process sacrificed himself.

I'm talking about when he acted like an idiot at the start of the film, just tossing the light neighbor. 

  • Like 2
Just now, warwagon said:

I'm talking about when he acted like an idiot at the start of the film, just tossing the light neighbor. 

OK? All heroes first make mistakes then redeem themselves. A story told a million times. I don't want to debate every scene in the last trilogy because a lot of it was not very good. I am referring to the idea in the original quote that white males can't be shown being heroic in Star Wars anymore.

 

TBH I am so tired of insecure males getting their panties in a bunch (not referring to you) over every strong female character that comes about.

  • Facepalm 2
1 hour ago, Superuser said:

OK? All heroes first make mistakes then redeem themselves. A story told a million times. I don't want to debate every scene in the last trilogy because a lot of it was not very good. I am referring to the idea in the original quote that white males can't be shown being heroic in Star Wars anymore.

 

TBH I am so tired of insecure males getting their panties in a bunch (not referring to you) over every strong female character that comes about.

It's not about the strong female characters, it's about the strong male characters being REPLACED and then EMASCULATED by those making the movies in the first place.  This isn't even the actress's fault, she's just reading a script and doing her job.

 

I have zero issues with strong female character roles, but I DO have a problem with them replacing existing male characters and destroying them in the process.  If Hollyweird wants us to embrace their female leads, then give us ORIGINAL characters with GOOD story lines, not super powered Mary Sues with story lines that pee all over our childhood heroes.

  • Like 3
46 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

I have zero issues with strong female character roles, but I DO have a problem with them replacing existing male characters and destroying them in the process.  If Hollyweird wants us to embrace their female leads, then give us ORIGINAL characters with GOOD story lines, not super powered Mary Sues with story lines that pee all over our childhood heroes.

Exactly, anyone who disagrees with me is entitled to their own opinion, but I am fed up of being force fed political correctness in the guise of "entertainment".

  • Like 3

The sad thing is that they tried to make Rey a female version of Luke and did a ###### poor job of it. Instead of making her original /unique. 

 

 

  • Like 2
21 minutes ago, George P said:

The sad thing is that they tried to make Rey a female version of Luke and did a ###### poor job of it. Instead of making her original /unique. 

 

 

Like I said, super powered Mary Sue's.

  • Like 3
2 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

It's not about the strong female characters, it's about the strong male characters being REPLACED and then EMASCULATED by those making the movies in the first place.  This isn't even the actress's fault, she's just reading a script and doing her job.

 

I have zero issues with strong female character roles, but I DO have a problem with them replacing existing male characters and destroying them in the process.  If Hollyweird wants us to embrace their female leads, then give us ORIGINAL characters with GOOD story lines, not super powered Mary Sues with story lines that pee all over our childhood heroes.

 

1 hour ago, Steven P. said:

Exactly, anyone who disagrees with me is entitled to their own opinion, but I am fed up of being force fed political correctness in the guise of "entertainment".

 

There is many Star Wars show/movies and some have strong male charterers while other others have strong female charterers (or both). Sorry, one of three trilogies had a lead female character. LOL

 

 

31 minutes ago, George P said:

The sad thing is that they tried to make Rey a female version of Luke and did a ###### poor job of it. Instead of making her original /unique. 

 

Not going to totally disagree with that but I hate tell you this but the story of Luke was NOT original /unique. A common folk, orphan who doesn't know his parents who becomes a hero has been told a million times.

13 minutes ago, Superuser said:

There is many Star Wars show/movies and some have strong male charterers while other others have strong female charterers (or both). Sorry, one of three trilogies had a lead female character. LOL

Uh yeah... Not sure what you're on, but it must be some good stuff.  We're not talking about past Star Wars, we're talking about Kathleen Kennedy Star Wars.  You know, the SEQUELS that have been released over the past few years and are widely hated by a large percentage of the fan base because of the Mary Sue character and how they gutted Luke and the others?  Hell, they even turned Leia into Mary Poppins...

 

13 minutes ago, Superuser said:

 

Not going to totally disagree with that but I hate tell you this but the story of Luke was NOT original /unique. A common folk, orphan who doesn't know his parents who becomes a hero has been told a million times.

No one claimed the basic story line was original.

  • Like 2
1 hour ago, Superuser said:

Sorry, one of three trilogies had a lead female character.

And yet it didn't have a strong enough story with character development or justification to carry her.  You wanna tell the story of a strong powerful female?  Ahsoka has the fans basically wetting themselves for it - and Filoni indulged so amazingly well with her character going from the padawan "snips" through to someone who defied the definitions of the SW universe.

 

Or Mara Jade...

8 minutes ago, NJ Louch said:

And yet it didn't have a strong enough story with character development or justification to carry her.  You wanna tell the story of a strong powerful female?  Ahsoka has the fans basically wetting themselves for it - and Filoni indulged so amazingly well with her character going from the padawan "snips" through to someone who defied the definitions of the SW universe.

 

Or Mara Jade...

Ahsoka is a great character, no denying it. Filoni handled her growth from an obnoxious smart ass padawan to wise ex-jedi masterfully BUT, if Mara Jade showed up, SW fans would literally explode from excitement...

1 minute ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Ahsoka is a great character, no denying it. Filoni handled her growth from an obnoxious smart ass padawan to wise ex-jedi masterfully BUT, if Mara Jade showed up, SW fans would literally explode from excitement...

Exactly, so this baseless ad-hominem "You don't like it because boys can't cope with strong female leads, you're all just mysoginists" (also known as the "Sony Ghostbusters Tactic") is utter hogwash.  Heck even to the point that Rogue One was possibly my favourite modern SW movie.

 

It's all about priorities:

  • Filoni's priorities seem to be good stories and character development
  • Kennedy's seem to be shoehorned inclusivity and setpieces

I'm all for inclusivity, but not at the cost of the actual story or trampling over existing cannon.  My generation grew up watching Ep6 at the cinema and had our "Hero Luke" that we had held on to for decades.  We wanted to be him and play with lightsabres as a kid, we read about his ongoing stories as a teen, we saw his back story in our 20s, we played games that skirted close to his world in our 30s.  And then he was suddenly turned into some grumpy, weird old hermit in our 40s - with such a thin backstory for this change that it wasn't acceptable.

 

Then Filoni and Favreau reminded us of the Jedi Master that we last saw on screens in 1983.  And it wasn't to anyone's detriment.  It didn't hurt any wannabe-victim society group.  It wasn't forced and it wasn't unjustified - heck it was fully explained via Moff Gideon's facial expressions.  Was it a little deus-ex machina?  Sure, for now.  But it's going somewhere.

 

And let's look at it this way - what has kept Disney afloat in 2020?  Disney+, and what is the ONE THING currently worth watching on Disney+, the one thing that has pushed subscriptions through the roof?  Yup, the awesome storytelling, world building, character arcs, reverence to cannon and presentation of The Mandalorian.

 

Realistically, Disney should look at Kennedy and her cohorts (massively including Pablo Hidalgo for his stupid comments*) and realise that they aren't the massive money spinners that they thought they would be.  Did the sequel trilogy make dollar?  Sure.  But did it setup an ongoing franchise for long-term storytelling and a bankable future?  Sweet lord no.

 

* Telling someone who cried at the season finale that "Emotions are not for sharing"... 'Scuse me?  I cried like a baby, and Disney love that because there's no easier way to get people to part with money than to play upon emotions.  When they play the SW theme in the fireworks and hold that note for just a couple of seconds longer, or when they play the theme lightly on piano, they know what they are doing.  It's the same bankable nostalgia a showing us a Jedi Master arrive in a single X-Wing.  "That thing you love? Here's more of it without watering it down!"

  • Thanks 3
9 minutes ago, NJ Louch said:

And let's look at it this way - what has kept Disney afloat in 2020?  Disney+, and what is the ONE THING currently worth watching on Disney+, the one thing that has pushed subscriptions through the roof?  Yup, the awesome storytelling, world building, character arcs, reverence to cannon and presentation of The Mandalorian.

 

Realistically, Disney should look at Kennedy and her cohorts (massively including Pablo Hidalgo for his stupid comments*) and realise that they aren't the massive money spinners that they thought they would be.  Did the sequel trilogy make dollar?  Sure.  But did it setup an ongoing franchise for long-term storytelling and a bankable future?  Sweet lord no.

I think Disney are starting to wake up to this fact too.  From what I've heard on the rumour mill, they've already shut down Kennedy's attempts at expanding her upcoming Acolyte show into a wider universe and are giving Filoni and Favreau more leeway in what they can do.  Don't be surprised to see more and more elements from SW Legends brought into their shows in the future and quite possibly, a backdoor retconning of the sequels.

 

Fortunately they have about 30 years of time they can play with between Jedi and Awakens.

  • Like 2
6 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

I think Disney are starting to wake up to this fact too.  From what I've heard on the rumour mill, they've already shut down Kennedy's attempts at expanding her upcoming Acolyte show into a wider universe and are giving Filoni and Favreau more leeway in what they can do.  Don't be surprised to see more and more elements from SW Legends brought into their shows in the future and quite possibly, a backdoor retconning of the sequels.

 

Fortunately they have about 30 years of time they can play with between Jedi and Awakens.

That's exactly what I'm hearing.  So, worth noting that while I'm a huge Star Wars fan, I'm a MASSIVE Disney follower.  I'm not gonna say "fan" because that suggests that I love watching cartoons (which is not my thing).  I love the parks, I am fascinated by the backstage machinations, I have memorabilia dating back to before the Disneyland opening and so on - and from that I understand Disney.  I know how they work, why they do what they do, how they manipulate their guests and viewers - I've no issue with it, I just recognise it.  And from that, I can guarantee that they value longer-term bankable storytelling over short-term goals.  While yes, they are a massive money and marketing machine, there genuinely is a respect for their stance, and they absolutely are not the box-ticking leftists that many people assume.  That was ALL on Kennedy; if anything was on Disney it would have been the marketing and tie-in products aspects.  This is the same company that signed-off on "so everyone dies at the end" of Rogue One, the same company that turned Tony Stark's death into manipulative horror scenes in Homecoming, the same company that heard for 5 years that "Elsa needs a girlfriend" and simply did not, the same company that showed Trump the same reverence as any other president in their Hall Of Presidents.

  • Like 1
1 minute ago, NJ Louch said:

That's exactly what I'm hearing.  So, worth noting that while I'm a huge Star Wars fan, I'm a MASSIVE Disney follower.  I'm not gonna say "fan" because that suggests that I love watching cartoons (which is not my thing).  I love the parks, I am fascinated by the backstage machinations, I have memorabilia dating back to before the Disneyland opening and so on - and from that I understand Disney.  I know how they work, why they do what they do, how they manipulate their guests and viewers - I've no issue with it, I just recognise it.  And from that, I can guarantee that they value longer-term bankable storytelling over short-term goals.  While yes, they are a massive money and marketing machine, there genuinely is a respect for their stance, and they absolutely are not the box-ticking leftists that many people assume. 

 

Absolutely. Disney are a money making machine.  Hurt their income and they WILL take note.

1 minute ago, NJ Louch said:

That was ALL on Kennedy; if anything was on Disney it would have been the marketing and tie-in products aspects.  This is the same company that signed-off on "so everyone dies at the end" of Rogue One.

I greatly enjoyed Rogue One, but it wasn't without its problems.  The main one being that as I knew they'd all die at the end, it was hard to get emotionally involved with the characters and thus I didn't care when they all died.  That was a shame as there was some REALLY good characters introduced in that movie and there was NO need to kill them all off.

6 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

there was some REALLY good characters introduced in that movie and there was NO need to kill them all off

Yeah, I agree.  It felt a lot like they were making a point, but I'm not sure what the point was.

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This week in gaming The latest issue of Pulasthi's Weekend PC Game Deals curates several exciting games on sale this week. Epic Games Store is now hosting Robobeat and Citizen Sleeper as free-to-claim titles this week, which you can add to your library. Latest issue of Xbox Free Play Days features four new games: PGA TOUR 2K25, Two Point Museum, Assetto Corsa, and Dead by Daylight. Meanwhile, Xbox Game Pass got another Call of Duty addition, the latest soccer game from EA, an indie road trip hit from last year, and more. Summer sales have made NVIDIA's gaming service cheaper, and it has added support for seven new titles. That said, here are some more stories from the gaming world: Rockstar gives last-gen GTA V players free upgrades tomorrow Major Xbox layoffs may claim South of Midnight developer Compulsion entirely Steam Next Fest returns with thousands of new demos to try out Forza Horizon 6 gets another hotfix for one of the game's online modes Major Xbox layoffs may claim South of Midnight developer Compulsion entirely From the review corner This week, Steven got his hands on the Creative Sound Blaster AE-X internal PCIe sound card, primarily intended for headphone wearers. In the list of pros, it comes with a high-quality headphone amp, low-latency communication enhancements via ASIO v2.3, offers 256-times the audio quality of CDs via DSD256, and has great build quality. On the other hand, it's a bit on the pricier side, only offers stereo output over speakers, and has no EMI shielding. More price drops! We got you covered with some hot tech deals all week. For some reason, if you missed out on a great discount, here is a summary of some recent deals that are still alive: GEEKOM X16 Pro at GEEKOM - $1,119.67 (17% off) Acer 4K Webcam for PC/Mac with All-Metal Unibody Sculpted - $59.99 (14% off) Samsung 990 PRO SSD 2TB - $369.99 (42% off) Nothing Ear Wireless Earbuds Bluetooth - $73.15 (51% off) PowerColor Reaper AMD Radeon RX 9070 16GB - $579.99 (17% off) To view all of our recent deals, click here. So, these were some of the biggest tech news and other updates from this week. There will be more issues of our 7 Days series in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing to extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option. Have a great weekend!
    • It certainly is a waste of time clicking it if you're not interested in Windows 11's development. If that were the case for you, you could easily ignore the headline and move on given the headline makes it clear that's what the article is about. Instead, you're contradicting yourself here calling it a waste of time yet clicking on the headline and commenting... If it were a totally different topic being presented than what's stated in the headline, then you'd certainly have a point, 'cause that's totally deceptive and unavoidable if not actually interested. On the contrary, here you can totally avoid it if you're truly not interested.
    • No, it did not work. I did not read the article. I saw the title in my Feedly feed and came to continue putting pressure about such titles on a website I used to love. In fact, based on your reply, it seems you think it's fine to visit click bait title articles to find out what it's about, to waste people's time. That's up to you, mate. I remember when news websites had pride in their content and therefore didn't need to resort to cheap tactics.
    • Nothing misleading nor deceptive about it, just sensationalized and catchy to grab reader's attention, and it's clearly working...
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