It was interesting and informative to watch a countdown show of the top 20 moments in Star Wars cinematic history. All of the top moments were from the first two movies, and the so-called “top moments” from the new movies – none of which I have seen – were almost uniformly lame. I had a hard time not laughing at the setup for the death of Han Solo, as all I could hear in my mind was Gandalf shouting “you shall not pass!”
Filmmakers really shouldn’t try to rip off great moments from other films. Sure, the visual is great, but it kicks the viewer out of the movie as surely as a poorly-timed product placement.
The only really good one was the fight between Darth Maul, the young Obi-wan, and Liam Neeson. Some of them, like Girl Luke and her Man Friday accidentally boarding the Millennium Falcon and recreating earlier flight combat scenes, were simply embarrassing.
So, I wasn’t inclined to bother seeing Rogue One anyhow, and the fact that Disney Wars is now fortified with feminism and multiculturalism only confirmed my indifference towards it.
Wait a minute, after thirty-nine years, it turns out that Star Wars is about race?
Sort of. You may not notice at first (I didn’t, until the second half of the movie), but in Rogue One there isn’t a single non-Hispanic white male among the large cast of heroes. The rebel band seeking to steal the plans for the Death Star from the Empire is led by a white woman (Felicity Jones), a Latino man (Diego Luna) and three ethnic Asians (Riz Ahmed, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang), with advice from a black man (Forest Whitaker) and a droid (voice of Alan Tudyk). Among the rebels, non-Hispanic white dudes (for convenience, I’ll just call them white from now on) are relegated to the background, while the Empire is represented by brigades of sinister white men, led by Ben Mendelsohn and (the digital reincarnation of) Peter Cushing as Imperial officers. It’s as if the cast was meant to echo a Hillary Clinton speech in which she described her coalition as everybody but white males.
The casting was not accidental. The Empire is (now) a “white supremacist (human) organization,” Rogue One co-writer Chris Weitz Tweeted the Friday after Clinton was defeated in the election. Another writer for the film, Gary Whitta, replied with his own Tweet, “Opposed by a multi-cultural group led by brave women”—then deleted it.
Needless to say, this aggression will not stand, man. Look for a literary response to the nonsense from Castalia in 2017.
It’s also unsurprising to learn that SJW-converged Wired is up to its usual tricks. The reporter is evidently confused about the difference between “reporting” and “debating”, as can be seen in her impromptu debate with Mike Cernovich:
Hi Mike—WIRED is reporting on #DumpStarWars, which I see you’ve participated in. Any chance you’d like to chat about why you’re boycotting?
Star Wars writers hate Trump voters. Why give them money?
From what I’ve seen, what they really hate are white supremacists. You don’t see throwing alt-right/lite/west support behind the boycott as reinforcing the idea that trump supporters=white supremacists?
Buddy my wife is Persian, we have a daughter, the white supremacist stuff is stupid as hell.
To be clear, I wasn’t saying you were a white supremacist. But much of the backlash has focused on the idea that Rogue One is racist against white men. Are you saying that white supremacist sentiment isn’t a factor in the protest?
Nah that’s not it at all. I don’t see why this is hard to understand. Trump supporters are attacked. Giving money to people who attack them is pathetic. I am going to organize more boycotts.
I’m struggling to find evidence that Rogue One’s writers have been explicitly against anything but white supremacy. Could you point out an example?
What’s the matter, Mike? Why come you won’t make the argument I keep trying to stuff in your mouth instead of saying what you actually think?
Also, as it happens, the movie sucks:
Lobotomized and depersonalized, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the latest entry in the film franchise, is a pure and perfect product that makes last year’s flavor, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” feel like an exemplar of hands-on humanistic warmth and dramatic intimacy…. “Rogue One” offers an international cast that, along with Jones, Whitaker, and Mikkelsen, features Diego Luna (as the rebel captain Cassian Andor, who is Jyn’s main cohort), Riz Ahmed (as the band’s intrepid pilot), and Donnie Yen (as a blind martial-arts spiritualist). But it seems as if the condition for assembling this diverse group is not letting them say or do anything of note, anything of any individual distinction, anything of any free-floating or idiosyncratic implication.