Controversial Opinions (For Everything Other Than DC Comics)

[godisawesome]

There's nothing toxic about TLJ's messages, it delves into the problems of war behind the scenes with those who fund both sides, Rey deconstructs both Luke and Kylo for being wrong - it's not about being sympathetic with them. Kylo is revealed to be the bad guy, the fact the internet embraced his meme about killing the past didn't have him win the argument in the movie, as soon as Rey saw he was a lost cause she bounced. The movie deconstructs the hard man making hard decisions Poe makes because he's too caught up in glory to learn that he can't win a war if all his soldiers are dead and he's the one who endangered everything while speaking to Rose and Finn over the communications because he fails to grasp about "need to know" is a thing. That's how DJ is able to sell them out later on. His journey is learning how to be a real leader, which is not undermining a new leader just because of what clothes she wears. The film gets attacked by misogynists and the Alt-right for having minority leads and women in power who get **** done.



Man of Steel had far less interesting things to say than TLJ.

Rey ‘bounced’, but the issue was she never should have been there in the first place. She had utterly no reason to think she could or should ‘save’ Kylo. Luke wanted to save Vader because he was his father, not smart but understandable. Rey had none of that reasoning, but we still had to waste time with oh the guy who I thought was bad from the first movie is unsurprisingly still bad. Glad she cleared that up, lol

Yeah, TLJ’s problem is that it wants to be progressive, ground-breaking, and empowering... but the way it’s made ends up reinforcing and even exacerbating regressive stereotypes about race and gender while doubling down on the repetitive elements of TFA even more.

Rey choosing to be actualized could be empowering... if it weren’t for TFA having already shown her as actualized, motivated, and more importantly, as a strong and toughened person - because it insists on making her gullible, weak-willed, and so empathetic towards Kylo (and just Kylo) that she ends up becoming far too close to a “damsel” type of female protagonist. On top of that, the greater focus on Luek and Kylo over her (they feature in the climax instead of her, their past matters to the story for three flashbacks while her is dismissed, their character arcs are given precedence over hers which barely even exists, and their relationship is the focal point of Luke’s arc) that it’s effectively not her movie, but another one for the dudes... who are both written with a massive double standard where their comparatively pathetic feeling matter more than the lives and actions of other character.

Finn, in comparison, gets totally demoted, demeaned, and infantilized as the film tries to finagle a way to portray his attachment to Rey as a bad thing while it was simultaneously arguing Rey needed to care more about Kylo. Finn was also actualized, saw the bigger picture, and was, y’know, the male lead in TFA... but in TLJ, he’s strictly a support character who needs to be lectured on child slavery and the grimness of the world, who’s injuries and past are only ever referenced for cheap, mean-spirited jokes. And worst of all, his unnecessary, character-regressing arc is ultimately a waste of time as a supporting role to another supporting role where people screw up because his friend (played by a Latino actor) didn’t listen to a badly written white authority.

Kylo assaulted Rey and violated her mind in a metaphor for sexual assault before murdering and maiming her friends, and Luke’s only contribution after wallowing in self-pity for years is to distract people for five minutes to rescue 12 people... but in TLJ, Rey must find Kylo sympathetic and worth submitting herself to torture for while the script postpones her own arc until the next film, and apparently Luke doing the bare minimum is worth more in- and out-of-universe admiration than Finn, the guy who’s actions culminated in Starkiller Base blowing up.

We know misogynists and alt-right assholes attacked TLJ... because we already saw them attack TFA. But TFA made $700 million more and was more successful with women and minorities than TLJ *as well* as the conventionally expected white male audience... at least in part because TFA was a more progressive movie as well as more crowd-pleasing, while, to be blunt, a lot of TLJ’s regressive elements were banal at best and horribly sexist or filled with obnoxious white privilege at worst. Which, since TLJ was also trying to be more mature in some areas while being more juvenile in others, led to its incredibly divisive reputation.

But in general... you don't have to prefer focusing on white guys over women and minorities, tolerate and accept abusive and toxic relationships with shallowly written and out of focus female characters, or think the alt-right baddie makes better sense as a male lead than the child slave soldier in order to like TLJ after TFA... but it will certainly help.

I still hold that the majority of TLJ’s critics aren’t composed of alt-right misogynists and racists, but of people compelled by far more diverse reasons - including a significant number of Rey and Finn fans who feel bored, insulted and disgusted at their treatment in TLJ, alongside others unwilling to accept a shallowly written and pretentious plotline for strictly intellectual or lore-based reasons.

The idiots who protested TFA were still in the critics group... but they can’t significantly explain the $700 million loss or the lack of goodwill and investment in Rey and Finn, two characters who were shockingly popular to LFL after TFA.

TLJ’s biggest problem is it wanted to be progressive, but it’s priorities and POVs were regressive compared to what came immediately before it. It’s maybe the perfect encapsulation of accidental and unknown bias sabotaging attempts by well intentioned people to make a stand, as they end up subconsciously acting on their biases in ways that unintentionally but actively hurt their message.

[Kirby101]

Isn't there an entire Forum to discuss Star Wars stuff? My controversial opinion is it doesn't belong here.

[PCN24454]

Isn't there an entire Forum to discuss Star Wars stuff? My controversial opinion is it doesn't belong here.

The topic isn't about SW. They just used SW as an example of what we were actually talking about: the merits of "darkness" in a story.

[Kirby101]

Okey dokey.

[DrNewGod]

Okey dokey.

You were right the first time.

[godisawesome]

You were right the first time.

...yeah, he was.

I took a stab at this thread’s topic by trying to include Star Wars *and* DC... but must expand post was uni-topical.

[Adam Allen]

...yeah, he was.

I took a stab at this thread’s topic by trying to include Star Wars *and* DC... but must expand post was uni-topical.

Meh, I thought it still fit! We were talking about "dark" stuff, it just went off on a tangent. Tangents happen when you get controversial!

I have yet another Star Wars controversial one, not continuing on what you guys were talking about ... oh, but agreed with you about TLJ, my least favorite of the newer movies, and really the one that dragged the whole sequel trilogy down, imo!

Anyway, controversial opinion, mostly occurred to me from watching The Mandalorian: This is absolutely a kid's show. It only makes enough sense to be taken seriously as a kid's show; if you try to take it seriously as a show for adults, it's kind of horrible.

Extrapolating from that point, though? All of Star Wars is for kids! The Ewoks, Jar Jar -- people trying to take this stuff seriously as adults hated those things in the old trilogies, because they were wanting Star Wars to be something it really just was not: Primarily aimed for an audience that was not children.

And hey -- there is great stuff that's intended for kids. You know, Frozen is great. Toy Story. All that kind of stuff, something can be intended for kids and still be good. But, Frozen would be a different movie if it weren't for kids. And likewise -- all the stormtroopers always wearing masks, and the reveal that the original ones were all clones of Jango Fett -- makes as much sense as Olaf somehow being alive, in Frozen. In other words, don't think about it so hard: it's made for kids!

[batnbreakfast]

Comic fans should learn to let go. 89 pages of appreciation for a character that didn't have any respectable stories in 20 years... Come on

[PCN24454]

Comic fans should learn to let go. 89 pages of appreciation for a character that didn't have any respectable stories in 20 years... Come on

Who are you talking about?

[Agent Z]

Comic fans should learn to let go. 89 pages of appreciation for a character that didn't have any respectable stories in 20 years... Come on

This sounds like sour grapes over people just liking a character. So long as they aren't being uncivil or toxic I see nothing wrong with it.

[Kirby101]

Comic fans should learn to let go. 89 pages of appreciation for a character that didn't have any respectable stories in 20 years... Come on

Whoever you are talking about, why? That is like saying we can't have a long Jack Kirby or Archie Goodwin appreciation thread because their work was done decades ago.

[batnbreakfast]

Whoever you are talking about, why? That is like saying we can't have a long Jack Kirby or Archie Goodwin appreciation thread because their work was done decades ago.

Two great creators and real people. I was referring to fictional characters only

[batnbreakfast]

Who are you talking about?

A lot of the Teen Titans and most members of the Batfamily.

[Kirby101]

A lot of the Teen Titans and most members of the Batfamily.

Teen Titans have had ongoing cartoon and TV shows. And the Batfamily is half of DCs output. Now you may think the books aren't respectable, whatever that means, but it's not like they aren't publishing books with these characters.
Did you not mention them in your original post because this is a non-DC thread?

[Hepcat]

American gridiron football is boring.