Quote Originally Posted by Agent Z View Post
This is from the same trilogy where the bad guys are Nazi stand-ins yet Leia and Lando are the only characters who aren’t white men.
True, but at the same time, Darth Vader is voiced by James Earl Jones, and some of the alien characters, like Yoda are coded as being Asian.

It isnÂ’t surprising that this franchise ended up with a right-wing contingent among its fanbase.
Ideally, you shouldn't really be thinking about the political affiliations of your fans when you set out to tell a story. Because art is meant for everyone and a purely propagandistic story that only targets the base is not always going to be good, mostly because the base isn't always going to be a static thing. And it's not always the case that the film-maker's politics will always come across in the story.

There isn't a single mass market blockbuster franchise without a "right-wing contingent". Whether it's Lord of the Rings, D&D, ASOIAF-GOT, The Witcher. A lot of medieval fantasy enthusiasts tend to be voice conservative views, with their geek fixations about feudalism and so on, at times amounting to normalizing royalty. People who like Disney Princesses tend to take that and apply that to real life people like Marie Antoinette who believe you me, was absolutely someone who hated peasants and started a war to keep herself in power. That she got executed is because of her stupidity more than anything else. Even Harry Potter has one, what with the fact that the hero of that story ends up owning slaves and it being treated as normal, and the story normalizing abuse in a lot of sense (JKR being a transphobe didn't really come out of nowhere). Superhero stories absolutely have right-wing fans, some more than others (Batman, The Punisher, Iron Man for instance). So Star Wars isn't exceptional.

When you add in the racial stereotypes Lucas introduced into series with the prequels it makes the defense of those films all the more laughable
The ST is not substantially better. Since for all the diversity, the actual narrative leads and center of the story is two white characters -- Rey and Ben/Kylo. Lando Calrissian got a complex character arc in the OT, immediately establishing himself as someone who really isn't Han's "black sidekick" and friend, but a dude with his own responsibilities, life, and duties, and who also has his own moral code and conviction that people can't take for granted. Whereas in the sequel trilogy, Finn, Poe Dameron, Maz Kanata, hardly get a single great moment among them.

Poe is a deconstruction of the cocky ace pilot archetype that Star Wars and other stories have pushed so strongly.
The fact that this "deconstruction" (which it isn't) happens when a Latinx actor plays that archetype is the problem. It would be more progressive to have Oscar Isaac embody that to the fullest, so that Latino fans can say "That's our Maverick Tom Cruise guy, our "don't tell me the odds" guy".

And DJ is a foil to Lando by showing that not all smugglers
Lando is not a smuggler. The fact that you think that or consider him that, proves that you are very much part of the problem rather than the solution as you would prefer to think.

Lando Calrissian in ESB is a former smuggler turned successful businessman who was elected to power in Cloud City, fully leaving the past that Han Solo was stuck in. Lando kept Cloud City neutral and out of the Empire's clutches on his own, but Vader's arrival forced him into a difficult position, a conflict between his responsibilities as a civic leader who needs to do what is best for Cloud City, and his personal conviction. The reason Lando turns on Vader is because the latter was a jackass who made Lando hate him far more than fear him, first by humiliating him and openly disregarding treaties, then torturing people at his facilities when he promised him that wouldn't happen, and then ultimately defecting.

So you missed the part where Luke being like this was a bad thing?
The framing of the movie is that Luke Skywalker is dramatically interesting this way, and this is the only story they want to tell of his final days. That informs the audience what the film-maker's judgment about the character, and especially interesting characterisation is supposed to be.

So now we're accusing the movie of not being political enough?
Yeah. If you want to go with "the jedi suck and you shouldn't hero worship" you don't end the movie with a bunch of kids playing action figures with the guy who tried to kill his nephew.