General star wars talk/discussion/complaining

[MarkB]

I'm a big fan of porg rock. Er, wait...

Oh boy, I read that wrong for a moment. That image isn't going away anytime soon.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Oh boy, I read that wrong for a moment. That image isn't going away anytime soon.

What? Some of the best concept albums of all time:
AquaPorg
Close to the Porg
Dark Side of the Porg
In a Glass Porg
In the Court of the Crimson Porg.
Moving Porgs
One Porg Fits All
Porg of the Century
Porg Salad Surgery
Porg's Tongue in Aspic
The Porg Lies Down on Broadway
Thick as a Porg
Tubular Porgs

 

[MarkB]

What? Some of the best concept albums of all time:
AquaPorg
Close to the Porg
Dark Side of the Porg
In a Glass Porg
In the Court of the Crimson Porg.
Moving Porgs
One Porg Fits All
Porg of the Century
Porg Salad Surgery
Porg's Tongue in Aspic
The Porg Lies Down on Broadway
Thick as a Porg
Tubular Porgs

Porg wasn't the word I misread.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Porg wasn't the word I misread.

I have no idea what you...oh, ohhhhh. Oh, that's not right!

 

[Gradine]

We could always design a dark, OSR Star Wars RPG and call it Mork Porg

 

[Gradine]

Then there's this low hanging fruit

 

[payn]

I was wrong, there are fans of the penguin owls.

 

[GreyLord]

I'm a POC. I don't think the dirty done to Finn had anything to do with racism. Just different views of the story they wanted to tell and pettiness on the part of the directors.

It's hard to address certain things on these forums. People react very strongly to certain things, and crticism of Rian Johnson (and the weakness of JJ Abrahms to not truly correct those problems, and indeed in some instances, make them worse means there's no redemption in this).

Basically, Rian Johnson sidelined Finn. He took a very prominent and important character and took them from the forefront.

Amongst...many other things. However, I'm not positive HOW to actually discuss it without causing controversy (at this time). It would tend to start some nasty political discussions of what is occurring in some locations and other things, which...I don't need to bring up.

However, some of the indications of what went wrong can be seen from this interview with John Boyega (great actor, one of the best actors that was in the Sequel Trilogy if that tells you how talented I feel he is).

“It’s so difficult to manoeuvre,” he says, exhaling deeply, visibly calibrating the level of professional diplomacy to display. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” He is talking about himself here – about the character of Finn, the former Stormtrooper who wielded a lightsaber in the first film before being somewhat nudged to the periphery. But he is also talking about other people of colour in the cast – Naomi Ackie and Kelly Marie Tran and even Oscar Isaac (“a brother from Guatemala”) – who he feels suffered the same treatment; he is acknowledging that some people will say he’s “crazy” or “making it up”, but the reordered character hierarchy of The Last Jedi was particularly hard to take.

“Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver,” he says. “You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know naughty word all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

He is on a breathless roll now, breaking his long corporate omerta to touch on the unthinking, systemic mistreatment of black characters in blockbusters (“They’re always scared. They’re always fricking sweating”) and what he sees as the relative salvage job that returnee director JJ Abrams performed on The Rise Of Skywalker (“Everybody needs to leave my boy alone. He wasn’t even supposed to come back and try to save your naughty word”). Even though he also acknowledges that it was an “amazing opportunity” and a “stepping stone” that has precipitated so much good in his life and career, he is palpably exhilarated to be finally saying all this. But to dismiss these words as merely professional bitterness or paranoia is to miss the point. His primary motivation is to show the frustrations and difficulties of trying to operate within what can feel like a permanently rigged system. He is trying, really, to let you know what it feels like to have a boyhood dream ruptured by the toxic realities of the world.

And apparently from the same interview, but different article

“What I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are, and then have them pushed to the side,” Boyega said. “It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”

Star Wars: The Force Awakens played up Finn as a major driving force of the narrative. But the following two films gave more space to Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), sidelining Finn. Boyega addressed that in the interview, noting, “You guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver.” However, he continued, the franchise’s gatekeepers failed to give that same attention and care to Boyega, as well as costars like Naomi Ackie, who is also Black; Oscar Isaac, who is Guatemalan and Cuban-American; and Kelly Marie Tran, who is Vietnamese-American. Tran in particular dealt with such severe racist harassment that she ended up leaving social media and writing an essay about her ordeal.

You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know, naughty word all,” Boyega continued. “So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

As the franchise carried on, Boyega slowly became more vocal, pushing back against Star Wars fans and trolls alike. In early June he delivered a powerful speech about racism at a London rally held in solidarity with Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd. The impassioned speech quickly went viral, prompting Lucasfilm to issue a statement in support of Boyega: “You are our hero,” said the company. But some Star Wars fans were quick to point out the irony of those words, considering how the company treated the rollout of his character—including removing or shrinking Finn’s presence on international posters and staying silent when Boyega’s casting inspired racist hashtags like #BoycottStarWarsVII.

Boyega acknowledged the boycotts directly, saying he was “the only cast member who had their own unique experience of that franchise based on their race.… It makes you angry with a process like that. It makes you much more militant; it changes you. Because you realize, I got given this opportunity, but I’m in an industry that wasn’t even ready for me.

“Nobody else in the cast had people saying they were going to boycott the movie because [they were in it],” he continued. “Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and Black that and you shouldn’t be a stormtrooper.’ Nobody else had that experience. But yet people are surprised that I’m this way. That’s my frustration.”

And what did Disney do, what did Rian Johnson or JJ do? Lip service. Nothing more. Lip Service.

I'd go on an expletive lace rant here, but as I said, these forums are probably not the place for me to go on about these currently, and I'm not quite positive how to discuss it so that it doesn't become an enflamed series of posts...so...I guess the above will have to do.

 

[GreyLord]

I still have a porg as my Disney+ profile picture.

Mine is...

Well...you can probably guess..

Boba Fett

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel like (nearly) everyone can agree on two things regarding Star Wars, even if we disagree on the details:

• Rise of Skywalker was terrible
• John Boyega deserved much better