[Movie] Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi

[cyberglum]

Matthew Colville knows his stuff and speaks such a huge amount of sense in this video the rest of the internet (plus, in my opinion Disney) should just shut-up and pay attention to what he says:

[tyrlaan]

You expressed skepticism at the idea that the TLJ has "sjw undertones", feminist and SJW are generally used as synonyms among anti-SJWs and ant-feminists. A lot of feminists think that TLJ is a feminist film. Therefore by the transitive property, SJWs think that TLJ is an SJW film. If SJWs and anti-SJWs both agree that the film has SJW undertones, then if not literally true it's probably at least a valid inference, as those two groups rarely tend to agree on anything ideological.

I figured all that would be obvious though.

Except the two are only equivalent in the eyes of those who are anti-feminist, so no I don't consider this to be as self-evident as you say.

[OrcsRLame]

Except the two are only equivalent in the eyes of those who are anti-feminist, so no I don't consider this to be as self-evident as you say.

Most feminists that I've spoken to that are aware of the term SJW wear that label with pride, so I think you're just talking out your ass.

Furthermore it's a nitpicking of language not an argument. If someone means feminist when they say SJW and they say, "SJWs think X" if feminists think X, then that statement was true. All it is is substituting one word for another, which is not incorrect, more of rude or crass at worst.

It also goes both ways, which means you have conceded the point, that TLJ is in fact a feminist film.

[Sunseeker]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...n-bechdel-test

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/sta...nist-feminism/

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture...nist-star-wars

@tyrlaan

Feminists seem to think it's a feminist film. Perhaps you should throw your snark at them instead of forum users that are just believing what the feminists are saying.

Whhhaaaaaaa the feminists hurt my little MRA feelings!!!

God you're weak.

[tyrlaan]

Most feminists that I've spoken to that are aware of the term SJW wear that label with pride, so I think you're just talking out your ass.

Furthermore it's a nitpicking of language not an argument. If someone means feminist when they say SJW and they say, "SJWs think X" if feminists think X, then that statement was true. All it is is substituting one word for another, which is not incorrect, more of rude or crass at worst.

It also goes both ways, which means you have conceded the point, that TLJ is in fact a feminist film.

No not really, that's kind of like saying libtard and rethuglican are legit substitutions for liberal and republican.

Yes some people wear the SJW term proudly, but it's an attempt to claim it/repurpose it from those who use it for derogatory purposes. Kind of like "deplorables". I don't know about you, but when I see SJW get lobbed out there, it's with the implication that some sort of heavy handed agenda is being imposed upon the person invoking the term and it makes them uncomfortable at best.

So I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's remotely as simple/straightforward as that. If someone uses the term SJW, it by no means is clear that you can just swap in the word feminist and get the same result.

And to that end, sure I can see why people would see it as a feminist film. But SJW? Nah, don't see it. Unless you want to tell me that the mere existence of women and minorities in a film makes it SJW material.

[Aurrora]

thats not what Yoda says at all> And she took nothing.....

He says there is nothing in the books that rey does not already know.

You need to stop making shit up.

“Wisdom they held, but that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess.”

That's what he says, and you can see the Jedi texts in the drawer Finn pulls the blanket out of at the end of the film. He meant she had literal possession of the contents of the library.

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...n-bechdel-test

Hold up, does TLJ even pass the Bechdel test? When Leia and Holdo talk, it's about Poe. When Leia and Rey talk, it's about Luke.

- - - Updated - - -

The original trilogy implies very heavily that the Force is something that runs in families.

Plus the entire reason Palpatine wanted Luke was so he can have a mint condition Skywalker after his got all busted up.

[OrcsRLame]

Whhhaaaaaaa the feminists hurt my little MRA feelings!!!

God you're weak.

Hahahaha. Sperg out much? I guess your ego is so fragile that's the only possible response to being proven wrong when you shove your foot so far down your mouth you shit toenails.

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No not really, that's kind of like saying libtard and rethuglican are legit substitutions for liberal and republican.

It's not being legitimate or illegitimate, it's about knowing what the other person is talking about. Mutual understanding is kind of the point of language, unless you treat every social interaction like a high school debate club.

Yes some people wear the SJW term proudly, but it's an attempt to claim it/repurpose it from those who use it for derogatory purposes. Kind of like "deplorables". I don't know about you, but when I see SJW get lobbed out there, it's with the implication that some sort of heavy handed agenda is being imposed upon the person invoking the term and it makes them uncomfortable at best.

Once again, it's not about how the word is taken by the subject. It's about what the person saying the word means. You can say that SJW does not describe feminists, but when an anti-SJW or anti-feminist says SJW or feminist it's easy to infer that they are conflating SJWs and feminists with each other.

To use your libtard and rethuglican example, (I see republicunt more frequently these days) when someone says one of those words, you know exactly which groups they're talking about, even if you feel that cunt/thug does not describe republicans and tard does not describe liberals.

So I see what you're saying, but I don't think it's remotely as simple/straightforward as that. If someone uses the term SJW, it by no means is clear that you can just swap in the word feminist and get the same result.

Not in all cases no, but when broadly referring to groups, generally yes, assuming the word isn't being said with irony.

And to that end, sure I can see why people would see it as a feminist film. But SJW? Nah, don't see it. Unless you want to tell me that the mere existence of women and minorities in a film makes it SJW material.

I don't see it that way. The way I see it, SJW is just a blanket term to describe any kind of postmodern school of thought. It's probably safe to say that all SJWs are Feminists but Feminist might not be the primary facet of their identity. Someone might be both a Feminist and a Democrat but identify more strongly with one or the other. And I would define Feminist in this context as anyone that believes in Patriarchy Theory, as that seems to me to be the definition that best maps onto the real world. I find that Feminists that don't believe in Patriarchy Theory tend to get ostracized if they find themselves under public scrutiny. But that's all just my opinion and is getting into the weeds a bit.

[Aurrora]

The Skywalkers are the exception, not the rule. Jedi's having been making babies for at least 1000 years. Wouldnt most of the Jedi come from force-sensitives if that was the case?

Jedi don't make babies, the rule against attachment tangentially forbids it, and I doubt Disney wants to explore the possibility of breeding programs to produce supermen.

[Zeek Daniels]

Jedi don't make babies, the rule against attachment tangentially forbids it, and I doubt Disney wants to explore the possibility of breeding programs to produce supermen.

Well the guy your quoting is part right. Jedi are said to forbid having kids. But how many deadbeat dads do you know IRL. Maybe some had a child and abandoned them. Also theres force sensitive people out there who are having kids. They are not jedi but the force does move in them and give them powers.

Remember jedi is just a order/religion of force users that essentially conduct themselves like priests in the catholic church. So just because your a force user doesnt make you a jedi. In order to be a jedi you need to subscribe to certain teachings. Luke was not a jedi until he learned the jedi ways. Rey is not currently a jedi but i assume by the next movie she will be seeing as she has the books of the order.

I do think Rey is going to have a reformation when she creates her own jedi order.

[Sunseeker]

Hahahaha. Sperg out much? I guess your ego is so fragile that's the only possible response to being proven wrong when you shove your foot so far down your mouth you shit toenails.

You didn't "prove" anything. You said a bunch of people claimed some stuff and some other people believed them.

That doesn't make it a feminist or SJW movie. That just means someone claimed it was. Separating fact from opinion is a fairly simple skill you apparently have no grasp of.

[eschatological]

Again, this isn't the subforum to discuss the broad strokes of political or social agendas. Limit your discussion to the medium at hand, and *IF* there is evidence IN THE FILM of what you think is an agenda, then that topic may be appropriate to discuss - but only within the lens of the film.


On a personal level, I don't think this is a feminist movie. As someone pointed out, the movie doesn't even pass the Bechdel test, but more tellingly, the author of the linked article didn't seem to understand the themes of this movie. The whole point of this movie was that every character (at least on the side of "good") failed. Leia's sentimentality let Poe run wild. Holdo's judgment and lack of communication went hand-in-hand with Poe's actions to endanger the fleet. Rose's naive sentimentality in saving Finn means the Rebel Alliance fails to hold off the First Order. Rey's underestimating of Kylo Ren played right into Kylo's hands. In fact, the only character who can remotely have seen to have achieved something in this movie are two white males - Kylo and Luke.

I don't know, I can't see this movie as glorifying women (or anyone) in leadership positions. Sure, these characters are strong women, but generally the point of most movies are for the protagonists to be strong, regardless of gender. What I think is special about TLJ is that it subverts all these strong characters by constantly making them fail and fuck up and end up in an even more desperate situation at the end of the movie than at the beginning. The theme kind of argues that their strength doesn't matter, that legend doesn't matter, that sometimes even bravery and heroism doesn't matter. The universe is a wheel that keeps turning, and sometimes you're crushed under it, no matter who you are.

But I mean, I guess if having women in positions of power makes it a feminist movie, I guess that shows more about your viewpoint about the world more than anything else.

[OrcsRLame]

You didn't "prove" anything. You said a bunch of people claimed some stuff and some other people believed them.

That doesn't make it a feminist or SJW movie. That just means someone claimed it was. Separating fact from opinion is a fairly simple skill you apparently have no grasp of.

See, you could have just said that, but you felt the need to sperg out and start throwing out buzzwords like they were going out of style. I swear people like you have no sense of what is and isn't a proportional response. See somebody at like a 4 disagreeing with you, instantly ratchet things up to a 10. Just makes no sense to me.

Secondly, all I was doing was pointing out, (in a mildly condescending way I admit) that the people on mmo-champion and people that are uneducated about feminist theory are the only ones that don't see how TLJ is a feminist film.

Allow me to break it down.

First off, The Last Jedi was a film made by feminists for feminists. Exhibit A, Kathleen Kennedy, the producer, just hanging out with other people that worked on the movie.



But does their feminist agenda come through in the movie? I think it does, and so do a lot of feminists and anti-feminists. So let's talk characters. Kylo, Hitler General Guy, (I forget his name) and even Poe, are like perfect pictures of the feminist conception of Toxic Masculinity. Let's take a look at Kylo, he's every bad male stereotype that exists within the feminist ideology. He has an anger problem, prone to fits of violent rage. Any questioning of his dominance or authority leads to him instantly lashing out as if he has the world's smallest penis. And this violence is framed by the idea that Kylo is trying to live up to the image of Darth Vader, as if he's not a real man if he can't be as badass as Vader. We see this torment Kylo a great deal. One of his primary character traits is worrying about not being masculine enough. Sure, Vader and other Star Wars villains were violent and evil, but none of them had identity issues in the same way that Kylo does. None of them were uncomfortable with their masculinity. Kylo clearly is. This suffering Kylo puts himself through jives quite well with the idea that the Patriarchy hurts men too. Kylo needs feminism, to tell him that it's okay to not be masculine.

Rey is the perfect feminist hero. Her main character trait is that she is powerful; and not powerful in the same way that Yoda was powerful. Rey is competent at killing people; and this is portrayed as a virtue. Sure, Luke was badass, but his competence at killing was not ultimately what defined him. In the end, it was his belief in the fundamental good of the human spirit and a commitment to non-violence that lead to him triumphing over Palpatine. As Yoda said, war does not make one great.

But you can forget what Yoda said, because Rey does not need the ancient wisdom of men. There's nothing useful there that she doesn't already possess. Paraphrase of Yoda. So Rey is a good hero because she can kill, and she does not need the wisdom of the male dominated hierarchies that came before her.

This post is long enough already and I got shit to do tonight so I will be more brief with the rest of this. Note I could say a lot more on these next parts.

The casino planet was a transparent critique of Capitalism and hierarchy. I find a particular quote by radfem Robin Morgan to be very salient here. "I feel that "man-hating" is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." - Robin Morgan. It's intersectionality, multiple layers of oppression based on identity. Women are oppressed and poor people are oppressed, so if you're a poor woman you're double oppressed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality Fyi, shit like this is why anti-SJWs and anti-feminists often accuse feminism of flirting with communism. I could change the Robin Morgan quote to 'hating the rich' instead of 'man-hating', say that Trotsky or Stalin said it, and most people would not look twice at it.

Every time Poe, the straight white man, did not listen to, believe and obey women, he fucked everything up and got people killed, because the wisdom of women is superior. Contrast this with Rey not needing the ancient wisdom of men.

[eschatological]

Again, if you think the actions of Rey, Holdo, or Leia in this movie came off as wise, well-executed, or even competent in some parts, then you and I were watching different movies.

Namely, you were watching a movie filtered through your own agenda.

[satimy]

Its sad that people are trying to force an Anti-American marxist agenda into loved franchises. Im sorry but it ruins the movie, which kind of sucked anyway for other reasons.

[Fayolynn]

“Wisdom they held, but that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess.”

Library can refer to the location of a collection of books or the collection itself. Yoda's words could mean the books themselves are worthless.

[OrcsRLame]

Again, if you think the actions of Rey, Holdo, or Leia in this movie came off as wise, well-executed, or even competent in some parts, then you and I were watching different movies.

Rey was very competent at killing. If you disagree with that we did indeed watch very different movies. Note the fight against Snoke's guards.

Holdo and Leia may not have been wise, but wisdom in general is not really an idea central to feminism. The only time wisdom enters the equation is in relation to how men and women interact. It's wise for men to listen to women, and wisdom is a feminine trait even if it's not the focus of feminism. As unwise as Leia and Holdo may have been in certain ways, Poe was doubly unwise, particularly when it comes to conflicting ideas.

The fact is, everyone would have been better off if Poe did whatever the women told him to do whenever they told him to do it. That's not to say that the women were perfect, (Feminism doesn't doesn't actually assert that) just that women are categorically more wise than men.

Namely, you were watching a movie filtered through your own agenda.

That's just a thought terminating cliche.

[tyrlaan]

<Semantic argument stuff>

In the interest of following the moderator's guidance, I think we can just say we disagree and it's a semantic argument anyway.

Meanwhile, I find it amusing that you have called me out for snark and keep tossing condescension my way, but get responses like this from others...

You didn't "prove" anything. You said a bunch of people claimed some stuff and some other people believed them.

That doesn't make it a feminist or SJW movie. That just means someone claimed it was. Separating fact from opinion is a fairly simple skill you apparently have no grasp of.

[Snuffleupagus]

Because they're the lineage where you could possibly force abilities are hereditary. Other than the Skywalker's, Jedi dont have kids, therefore force abilities arent normally being passed to offspring.

Ah, basing it off the information provided in the prequels. Got it.

I mean, if you're going to do that, you should probably include the fact that Jedi in the Old Republic used to have children.

[The Penguin]

The film was a good film aside from a few glaring points.The problem was that they underused the character of Luke Skywalker, did NOT give him enough stage time to justify his absence in Episode VII and then took his character in a completely idiotic fashion, before killing him off. The Casino Planet Side Quest was too damned long, and Snoke dying was equally idiotic. If I were J.J. Abrams I'd redeem the Last Jedi in this way.

"We showed in the Force that objects can be moved across time and space with the Dice, and that the dead can interact with the living as shown with Yoda burning the Tree. Because of that, we decided that Leia will in the 9th film become one with the Force so that Luke can come back. Then again did he really die, or did he just warp across the Galaxy? Alternatively he did die, and in returning the consequence is that to preserve balance Snoke is revived as well."

Translation: "Rian your a moron. Let me fix your stupid." -J.J.

[OrcsRLame]

In the interest of following the moderator's guidance, I think we can just say we disagree and it's a semantic argument anyway.

Meanwhile, I find it amusing that you have called me out for snark and keep tossing condescension my way, but get responses like this from others...

I follow the tone people give me. I went in with a mild bit of snark, smrun escalated with me so I escalated with him, he deescalated so I deescalated. I operate in a pretty simple manner.