The film "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" is very polarized.
Although it has received good reviews from the media and film critics, the freshness is as high as 91%, but it is not entirely true in the fan community. Within a few days of its release, 52% of the audience’s popularity has made the film the lowest in the "Star Wars" series, and even angry fans have petitioned to remake the film.
The freshness is 91%, and the audience loves 52%. This extreme rating gap is also the most refreshing Star Wars movie.
Minor spoiler warning.
In fact, the reason is not difficult to understand. This movie directed by Ryan Johnson is very different from the style that Star Wars fans have been familiar with for many years. The ending of the big villain Snook, the identity of the protagonist Rey, the setting of Luke Skywalker, and the plot of Cantor Bay all meet the expectations of Star Wars fans.
Without the Jedi Order, the light in the universe will not disappear. Luke felt that there was no need for the Jedi Knights to continue to exist.
For example, Luke Skywalker is no longer the legendary Jedi little angel that everyone is familiar with in the original and derivative universes. Not only was he very unwelcome to Rey, but he also felt that "it's time for the era of the Jedi to end." The film also revealed that Luke wanted to kill his nephew Ben Solo for a moment after discovering the turbulent darkness inside his nephew Ben Solo many years ago. This thought was noticed by him, leading him to fall into darkness completely, destroying the Jedi Order that Luke had reconstructed, and becoming Kylo Ren.
Luke would have this kind of thought, and so passively avoiding the world? Well, many Star Wars fans expressed acceptance of incompetence.
According to the usual Star Wars routine, the Cantorwan section will definitely use a seemingly unreliable plan to bring hope to the resistance organization, but here it harms the resistance organization, which is more logical.
Such "Star Wars" not only broke the mysterious atmosphere created by the director of "The Force Awakens" JJ Abrams, but also completely subverted the legend of Star Wars as a romantic adventure inspirational series.
Especially the film’s portrayal of female characters.
Female characters in "Star Wars" pre-series: diverse and unreal
The early "Star Wars" has always focused on the portrayal of female characters, which is also one of the most notable features of the series.
The 1970s and 1980s coincided with the low ebb between the second and third waves of feminism in the United States. In the countercurrent of conservatism after World War II, women still stay at home voluntarily or involuntarily to assume the role of "suburban housewives". On the screen, the contemporary 007 series are still showing women's fascination with men's demeanor, and the second batch of Disney princess movies still regard marriage and family as the ultimate goal of women's struggle.
In the Disney princess movies "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast", the marriage of the princess was resolved at the end of the film, and everyone was happy.
In that context, in 1977, "Star Wars: A New Hope" brought a brave and tenacious heroine Princess Leia on the big screen, dressed in white. Not only was she tenacious, independent, and assertive, she also played a positive role in promoting the development of the plot like the male protagonist, completely subverting the image of the Hollywood movie vases and oil bottles at the time. Her appearance has inspired women of an era to march forward bravely and be their own heroes.
However, due to the limitations of the times, there were few differences in the styles of women in Star Wars movies at that time, and there was no diversification; it seems that only perfect women with beauty, courage and wisdom can appear in Hollywood blockbusters, and all kinds of men. contend.
Leia in the main story of "Star Wars" and Padmé in the prequel, two "perfect" heroines with similar styles.
Take the front pass Leia Organa and the pre pass Padmé Amidala for example. Although they are typical brave and tenacious positive heroines, their styles are almost perfect without exception: not only are strong, independent and independent, but also beautiful and distinguished. The "weaknesses" they show are all the highlights or tears that are packaged by layers of romantic sentiment, rather than character defects and contradictions. After all, adventure, family, and inspirational legends are the essence of the creation of "Star Wars".
Leia was chained by Jabba the Hutt and put on a "hell-like" slave bikini.
In "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi", Leia is captured by Jabba the Hutt and bound with chains. This moment was the weakest and most vulnerable moment when Leia, the leader of the rebel army, was captured and humiliated. However, even at this time, the movie also arranged for her to show her sexy demeanor in the image of a golden bikini. Although after that, Leia in turn strangled Jabba, who restrained herself, with a chain, and reversed the image of women being controlled; but this marketing behavior of packaging women's fragile moments into highlights has existed for many years. dispute.
Padmé, who "lost the will to survive" because of the loss of his lover, died poignantly.
Padmé Amidala is even more pity, in order to maintain the legendary sentiment of the series, her strong, decisive and powerful side is rarely shown. As the former queen of Naboo, she stepped into the Galaxy Council after she abdicated. She is actually an outstanding politician. She is eloquent and articulate in work, and is considerate and compassionate in private. However, the film deliberately highlights her beautiful face, luxurious clothes and moving love, strengthens "perfection" and "romance", and weakens other characteristics that could have been shown.
In "The Revenge of the Sith", the film even arranged for her to "lost the will to survive" after losing her lover, and she was completely reduced to the heroine of a romantic drama who could not live without love. This action also successfully pushed the film's tragic color to the top and deceived countless girls' tears. As for Padmé Amidala's image of a politician and soldier, it can only be seen in the 2008 animation "Star Wars: The Clone Wars".
Entering the 21st century, under the impact of multi-ethnic, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-ethnic customs, multi-cultural, multi-sexual orientation, multi-valued thoughts, the women created by Star Wars are no longer all noble and brave, but begin to have The obvious diversification.
The animated short film series "Star Wars: The Force of Destiny" broadcast on YouTube and Disney XD tells the brief and colorful story of the Rebels and Jedi heroines.
As Delilah Dawson, the author of the film’s leading novel "Fasma," said: “As a person who believes in equality, I think there should be a variety of female roles. I don’t want to always see purely kind women, I I want to see cruel women, aggressive women, malicious women, and mean and manic women."
Various works of Star Wars strive to embody this. In addition to Princess Leia and Queen Amidala, a series of women with different identities, different images, and different personalities have appeared in that distant galaxy. There are not only queens, princesses, congresswomen and female warriors, but also female Jedi and female generals. , Female pilots, female Sith apprentices, female bounty hunters, female imperial officers, female stormtroopers, female archaeologists...
Ahsoka Tano, an apprentice of Jedi in the animation "The Clone Wars", the alternative heroine Jean Erso who stole the drawings of the Death Star in the movie "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", and the game "Frontline II" The villain heroine Aiden Versio who once strongly supported the Galactic Empire and the rebellious archaeologist of the same name in the comic book "Dr. Avra" are shining examples.
However, although the female characters in works other than "Star Wars" movies began to have a variety of character settings and background stories, the work is still their "extraordinary" and lack of authenticity to a certain extent.
An ordinary front-line rebel detachment, an extraordinary composition of personnel.
The most typical is the animation "Star Wars: The Rise of the Rebels" that Lucasfilm has vigorously promoted. Its protagonist team was supposed to be the most basic and ordinary Rebel squad, which has been fighting on the front line of resisting the empire, but none of its members are ordinary people.
The legendary Rebel pilot Hera Sindura had no trouble flying out.
For example, Hera Sindura from Tirek. She is not only a legendary pilot with technology comparable to that of Po Dameron, but also the leader of the Phoenix Squadron of the Rebel Alliance. She was later promoted to general and participated in important battles such as the Battle of Skarif and the Battle of Endor. Together with her team members, she agreed on tactics for her rebel squad, and even Marshal Thrawn, the fearsome imperial tactician, respected her for three points.
Sabine Wren received the symbolic black sword of the leader of the Mandalorian and launched a national liberation movement.
And the Mandalorian warrior Sabine Lane is equally unusual. She was originally a member of the Imperial Military Academy. During her time in the school, she created the "Duke", a weapon that can penetrate the incomparably hard armor of the Mandalorian. After discovering the hypocritical and cruel nature of the empire, she defected to join Hera's team, and then launched a liberation movement against her home star, Mandalorian. Her "Duke of Mass Destruction" weapon was transformed into a weapon that penetrates the armor of the Imperial Stormtrooper by pressing a few keys, killing an entire Imperial base.
The use of such exaggerated methods to show combat effectiveness is why some people commented that this animation is an American version of the anti-Japanese drama.
Female characters in other current film and television works: perfect but not real
In recent years, other popular film and television works have also begun to focus on powerful women who are intelligent, courageous, and unique. But their images are still single, beautiful and powerful, and their authenticity needs to be improved.
The most typical example comes from Marvel, the most popular superhero brand of late. Although in recent years the Marvel Comics Publishing Department has also begun to pay attention to the diversification of female characters, and vigorously promoted "Women of Marvel" as a new brand, allowing women of different skin colors, races and religious beliefs to enter the comics and animation works, but In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, its marketing center, the image of women is still rarely diversified.
The heroine of MCU, even her facial expressions are similar.
Whether it's Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow or Zoe Saldana's Camora, the MCU heroines are almost all powerful, capable of fighting, sometimes sexy, sometimes wild. There are few contradictions in them, and even if they do, they are extremely untrue.
Another example comes from the widely acclaimed "Wonder Woman." In the 1940s when this character was born, such a goddess with a prosperous life experience, an angelic appearance, a brave and an enemy of one hundred, was indeed a new atmosphere among many superheroes, and it played a role in the development of feminism. Great promotion.
However, in the 21st century where truthfulness and diversity are advocating, such a perfect goddess is obviously not able to keep up with the needs of the times. The United Nations also removed Wonder Woman because "this character is still a white woman with huge breasts, unreal body proportions, wearing shiny tights painted with American motifs, and bare thighs-a typical poster girl." The position of a female ambassador. This evaluation may be too sharp, but it is not unreasonable.
The Wonder Woman played by Gal Gadot is a typical "perfect woman".
And the DCEU movie of the same name directed by Patty Jenkins did make this super heroine originator on the big screen with bright colors, which has a positive meaning for the superhero movie and the female director's right to speak. However, the film not only failed to highlight her humanity, but instead strengthened her divinity and unreality with the positioning of "this world does not deserve you".
As a result, this immortal, noble-born female protagonist, and a poignant love tragedy, unsurprisingly became another perfect and flawless Mary Su, in line with the description of the famous director James Cameron. : "Wonder Woman is a well-designed perfect image, which is not essentially different from the perfect male image created by Hollywood."
The female characters in "Star Wars 8" are not only diverse, but uncharacteristically extremely real
Such as the grassroots female warrior Rose Tico.
The film's leading novel "Cobalt Squadron" features Tico sisters Rose and Page as the protagonists.
The defender of the resistance organization equipment played by the Vietnamese actress Kelly Mary Chen caused huge controversy when it was first announced. Many people feel that this is a role imposed purely for political correctness.
After the film was released, the evaluation was also very polarized. People who liked her said: "I fell in love with Rose as soon as she appeared." People who hate her went directly to the forum on the Star Wars official website and said: "This is a follow-up. The most hated character in the Star Wars series since Binks."
The reason is not difficult to understand. Regardless of the angle of view, the actor Kelly Mary Chen's appearance is really not beautiful. Just look at Natalie Portman, the actor of the prequel Padmé, and Felicity Jones, the actor of the Gaiden Erso, you can see that her appearance is very different from the tradition of this series, which makes many stars Fans of war are unacceptable.
The plain-looking Rose Tico is very real.
And the portrayal of her in this film did not "save" her terrible external image in the slightest. Not only did she not use clothing, makeup and lighting effects to improve her, but instead strengthened her ordinary and even sloppy. When she played for the first time, she sat on the ground and sobbed, her eyes bloated and her hair messed up. Such an image is so different from Rey, who is clean and tidy even in the desert dump in the seventh part.
However, it is precisely this way of portraying that makes this character appear extremely real. There is no such thing as the halo of the protagonist who can "recoil" the protagonist without being blown out of the spacecraft and falling into space, nor is there the halo of the protagonist who has been deliberately hacked and added meaningless smiles like Jaga Binks, and looks plain. Rose is an ordinary woman who grew up in a difficult war environment, and she doesn't even violate peace in any war documentary.
Rose hates Cantor Bay very much, where every brick and tile is the blood and tears of the people on her planet.
After the death of her sister Page, she broke down and cried with grief; when she saw the Rebel hero Finn, she was as excited as a little girl, and before she could wipe away her tears, she stepped forward to strike up a conversation; discovering that his intentions were not noble, she immediately telegraphed him faithfully. gosh. She didn't know Cantor Bay, but she had deep-rooted disgust and prejudice against the people in it, and felt that the people there were war mongers who made money in blood and tears. When riding a Fasi Luo dashing wildly, she broke through the shackles and laughed very happily and freely.
It is such small details that make the image of this character more plump than the previous tall heroine, and more real and lovely, because she is not only strong, brave and witty, but also vulnerable, prejudiced and ignorant.
Another example is the lead heroine Rey.
Can Rey become the heir of the Jedi Knight?
The character was not real when it was born. In "The Force Awakens", she, who has no knowledge or training about the force, can not only use advanced skills such as telepathy and fetching objects from the air, but also defeat the fully trained and deep force in battle. Kylo Ren on the dark side. In the previous part, she was the same as Wonder Woman who alone carried the entire battle zone gunfire. She was too powerful and had no weaknesses.
But this movie completely reversed this image of Mary Su. First of all, in terms of setting, this movie exposes that she is actually "no one", and that her parents are nothing but unknown vendors who sold her for wine and drink. This completely broke the tradition of "Star Wars is the story of the Skywalker family", broke the Star Wars setting of "the protagonist has a strong background", greatly weakened the legendary color of Star Wars, and enhanced the authenticity.
Not only that, the film also portrays her as an imperfect growing heroine. Not only showed her strength, but also her shortcomings, her contradictions, and her fragility.
Luke was unwilling to give guidance, and Rey explored by himself with a dazed expression on his face.
Her force is so powerful that she can shake the earth without training, and even the legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker can't help but be afraid. But it is not difficult to find in this film that the strength of the original power does not equal the perfect Jedi heir. She lacks the most basic understanding of the nature of the force, and has almost no resistance to the dark side; while Luke has reservations about her, although she is willing to explore herself, she always has the immaturity of "the unknown is fearless". As expected, he fell into Snook's trap and made the inevitable mistake of a young hero.
Going deep into her heart, she will find that she is just a lonely child, desperately looking for a family, longing for a sense of belonging. As Kylo Ren said, Han Solo in the previous movie and Luke in this movie are both father’s substitutes in her heart; and when Luke negatively refused, she kept evasive The fragility and helplessness that escaped and did not show up all at once. For the sake of belonging, she did not hesitate to approach Kylo Ren who seemed willing to listen to her, naively thinking that she could redeem him, and it was reasonable to fall into the trap.
Rey searched for answers from her family alone, even stepping into the darkness.
From having no knowledge and control of the Force, to lifting a boulder into the air alone; from naively trying to change Kylo Ren, to recognizing the nature of the dark side of the Force and shutting him out; from Constantly looking for traces of family affection in all kinds of people, to the resistance organization dedicated to fighting: it is in this stumbling process of constant mistakes and constant corrections that we have witnessed the growth of this new generation of heroines. As a result, the character became plump and real.
In addition to grassroots female fighters and growing young heroines, this film also allows us to meet female leaders like General Leia Organa and Lieutenant General Amiline Jordo.
Time has not taken away Leia Organa's nobility and strength.
It seems that unlike our galaxy, the distant galaxy of Star Wars always loves female leaders. From the female nobles and congressmen of the Galactic Republic headed by Padmé Amidala, to the leader of the Rebel League and the first speaker of the New Republic, Mon Mosma, it showcases many high-powered women, and this series also focuses on female roles. An important manifestation of diversification.
The performance of these women in their works is not inferior to their male counterparts. They are all far-sighted, taking into account the overall situation, bearing the lives of tens of thousands of people in the Galaxy Coefficient on their shoulders, and taking the benefit of them as a lifetime career. In private, they are usually approachable, empathetic, and caring about the personal lives of their subordinates-they all seem to have the same idea deeply: Leaders need to be exceptionally good in every aspect.
Mon Mosma, the well-deserved leader of the League of Rebels, was also the first Speaker of the New Republic.
And this also leads to an improper handling of the film.
Amilyn Jordo’s first appearance was in the film’s leading novel "Leia, Princess Alderaan". From the planet Tarungala, she knew Leia when she was a girl. Before the rebels and the empire had officially started the war, she and Leia were in a juvenile training class for a galaxy member. She loved fashion, hair dyeing, and astrology. She often amazed, funny, or confuses her serious classmates, but she has rare opinions and opinions. wisdom.
However, in this film, we are disappointed to find that she, who was so special and distinctive when she was young, seems to be only unique in her hair coloring in her middle age. In this film, Leia and Amilyn are actually very different female leaders, and their overall styles are almost the same, even not much different from the former leader of the Rebel League, Mon Mosma.
Amilyn Holdo, who is middle-aged, only has her hair dyed, and her clothes are no longer unique.
In addition to the traits of the usual leaders, the most notable impression they give is that they are soft and strong, not angry or pretentious, willing to sacrifice if necessary, and even in their attitude towards the brave but reckless pilot Bo Dameron. People also neglected him after discussing it, and forced him to look at the problem as a leader.
Although this may be the need of plot and contradiction, it obviously weakens the personality of this new character of Lieutenant General Holdo, which is a pity.
The diversification of female roles in the film is also reflected in Captain Fasma, a complete villain who has no sympathy and femininity.
The film's leading novel "Fasma" tells how this female warrior can get rid of the entire family, tribe and benefactor to create the image of a "perfect warrior".
Silver chrome armor, never take off the helmet, superb fighting skills, ruthless character, it can be said that the purpose of this role played by Gwendolan Christie is to interpret what the "perfect warrior" looks like. Just like Delilah Dawson, the author of the lead novel "Fasma", said: "I really like the fact that there is no kindness in Fazma's heart. She has no regrets about her appearance, and she also has no regard for what a woman should be like. no impression."
Her appearance in the film fills in the blank of women among the senior empires of the official history, and is of great significance to the diversification of female roles.
But another point that is regrettable in this film is also highlighted here.
However, Captain Fasma’s performance is limited to the trailer.
The role of Captain Fasma occupies half of the pre-propaganda. She not only has her own leading novel of the same name, but also her own leading manga personal magazine. With such a large publicity effort, only Leia has similar treatment among female characters. However, this female villain, who has been given an important meaning in the film's leading comics, novels and even the trailer, still did not play well in the film, and the playing time is still less than 5 minutes.
Such a scribbled appearance and ending is also a waste of so much foreshadowing in the early stage and a waste of such a good role setting.
In this way, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" let a series of diverse and real women take the lead in the film. But can the audience accept this realistic style of stripping off the "Mary Su" coat? From the abuse of Rose on the Internet, it can be seen that it will take a while for many people to accept it.
To grow is to break the old and welcome the new, this is the theme of this movie
Whether it’s the heroine Rey growing from a lonely child to the heir of the Jedi Knights, or Bo Dameron’s transition from a reckless flying kid to the path of leadership, or Finn’s transition from focusing solely on Rey to fully integrating into the resistance organization Fighting, even Luke Skywalker, broke through the myth of "Legendary Jedi" and grew from a remorseful elder to an inheritor of the Jedi spirit. And Kylo Ren, who refused to face the possibility of growth with new eyes, unsurprisingly failed again.
"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" also let the audience see Luke's growth.
And this is also the growth of the "Star Wars" series. It finally bravely stripped away the legendary romance that made it famous for a while, and showed the distant galaxy in a more realistic way; it also made more and more screen women no longer just empty slogans of "political correctness". It is both diverse and real, resonating with women in reality, and inspiring them to advance courageously like Princess Leia in the 1970s.
Perhaps this kind of "Star Wars" has subverted the impression of many Star Wars fans, but as Master Yoda did in the film, only the shabby can welcome the new and open the door to infinite possibilities in the future.
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