Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

To clarify, I didn't actually mean that the title was chosen with any malice. I chose the word "unfortunate" and meant that literally, not in a deliberately understated way as a substitute for a harsher word. There's a slight connotation to "out of hand," (a phrase which brings issues of control to mind) but I don't think it was intentional.

No, neither do I.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

"Female lead remakes vs. original scripts: FIGHT!"

This is arguably what it attempting to do but the manner in which it does it seems highly questionable to me. We basically have an authority figure behaving in a fashion that seems to demand that their authority is rejected only to have the plot bend over and tell us that actually they are behaving for the greater good. It really doesn't cast Poe as self absorbed or overly warlike to me, his crime is simply that he doesn't follow orders.

You end up with something that seems like a strongly pro establishment message to me and I think highlights how tokenistic political correctness has been co copted by the establishment for unearnt moral authority. Seems rather akin to the "Bernie bro" line to attack against figures like Sanders and Corbyn.

The problem I'd say is that blockbusters are an increasingly corporate driven enterprise. Rather than the likes of James Cameron driving them who actually had something to say politically you instead have execs who really don't have anything to say but believe that some positive PR will help their films. This often seems to go hand in hand with questionable rewriting of history in terms of the importance of new releases which is anything undermines the real issue of general representation, one female led film is not a breakthough anymore.

Honestly the Starwars sequels as a whole to me seem highly questionable when you actually look at this. Its black lead in Finn is ultimately cast as a clichéd bumbling sidekick coming from essentially working as a janitor. Rose the character introduced as a non classically good looking woman ends up playing a clichéd geek with a heart of gold rather than say a Jedi or an ace pilot which to me seems to reinforce not combat the issue of obsession with appearances its claiming to target. They actually seem more like films behind not ahead of the curve to me with rather clumsy attempts at representation.

I mean I remember JJ Abrams having Kirk and the audience oogle Carol Marcus in her underwear. I'v no problem with much more graphic sexuality onscreen(indeed a lot less problem than graphic violence) if its in service of some aim of substance but this felt as cynical and objectifying a moment as I can remember from recent mainstream Hollywood. The same man is then suddenly being lorded some hero of politically aware film making and personally I don't buy it at all.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

My vote is for actual good films with a balance of male and female leads, unless the director wanted an all female main cast.
Remakes? That's just saying you don't have faith in your ability to create something new.
Some are okay, but changing the genders and ethnicities of characters in a remake is actually kind of offensive to the people who worked so hard on the original.

It does seem like I should try and hear you out at some point since you do seem so sure of yourself, but this thread is clogged enough as it is just by the on-topic posts.

Yeah, I'll admit I can't think of any films that fit that particularly outlook. At least you acknowledge the incongruity at play here, which is fine, I guess.

Why does it seem that way? This is another thing that probably deserves its own thread, but I don't necessarily think that a work's artistic value and political philosophy are always so mutually exclusive that you can appreciate it as art despite personally disagreeing with its messages (at least not to the favourite-movie-of-all-time extent that Sedai does with Blade Runner - I do wonder how far down a list of my favourites I'd have to go before finding a film where I had a similarly divided reaction).

The idea is that Holdo is fundamentally the same as Leia and the only significant difference comes from how they relate to Poe. In Leia's case, her long-established relationship with Poe (and, by extension, the audience) is built on a sense of mutual respect where she will chew him out for bad actions (e.g. disobeying orders and losing bombers at the start) but still ultimately like him at the end of the day. Meanwhile, Holdo is a stranger (to Poe and to us) who doesn't meet Poe's expectations of what a renowned vice admiral should be and, considering that the first impression he's made on her is the aforementioned bomber situation that got him demoted by Leia herself, understandably doesn't trust him with sensitive information. Of course, the audience doesn't know Holdo either so we side with the character we know over her and think she herself is an untrustworthy tyrant begging to be overthrown simply because...she didn't immediately become best friends with a character who has himself made himself look untrustworthy to her through his own bad decisions. Poe may have good intentions in launching his own mission, but it's still more a reflection of his own flaws (and how he hasn't earned his own authority) that he goes through with it rather than accept Holdo's authority in the same way that he accepted Leia's.

Like I said before, it's a case-by-case basis. I could certainly make the case that James Cameron's "something to say politically" is no more complex or insightful than your average MCU movie (but hey he gets to chat sh*t about Wonder Woman not being feminist enough for him even though he hasn't made a film with a female protagonist in at least 20 years now). I will concede that it's some nonsense when people pay lip-service to being progressive without doing decent follow-through in the movies themselves (like creators saying a character is LGBTQ+ only for the finished film to not indicate that e.g. Thor: Ragnarok, Solo, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom).

But that feeds into Last Jedi's whole "anyone can be a hero" thesis and it's seeing them progress through that that works. It's straight-up character development for Finn to go from being a self-preserving survivor to being the hero standing up for something greater than himself, while Rose's humble status as a mechanic who nevertheless keeps a supposed hero like Finn on track throughout the film underlines (as with the whole Poe/Holdo conflict) that there's more to being a hero than just the Epic Moments.

It probably helps that Star Wars is a decidedly non-sexual franchise so there's virtually no way he could've pulled something like that anyway, but even so it's not like he can't change over the passage of time either.

*slaps Sedai for Cat and the rest of the women in the world*

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

I hate sexist arseholes who dont know how to discuss on a human level...

Honestly the situation with the bombers earlier on really doesn't make much sense. I mean this is the same Leia that has sent large numbers of people to their deaths against evil superweapons how many times now? 3? it just seems like a totally arbitrary shift that really fails to make Poe seem excessively warlike or arrogant.

Holdo herself just seems to come across as arrogant and behaves in a highly illogical fashion keeping her plan secret in the face of open mutiny for the sake of the plot. Again to me it simply gives the message that your superiors are correct and should be obeyed without question.
Cameron has only made one film in the last 20 years or course so that's not really the harshest judgement and whilst it was male led(although disabled) the next two largest roles were female. I mean I think its politics were rather simplistic compared to his best work with but still there was some ambition to it.

You wouldn't call him the most incisive or deep political film maker but as far as action blockbusters go I do think something like Terminator 2 has a lot more substance to it than most of the examples you mention, the Russo's perhaps being an exception.

Very much I would judge things on a case by case basis, a film like Fury Road for example does clearly have more substance to it as well but I think we've seen a clear rise in the number of cynical blockbusters pushed in this fashion. The speed at which the defence of The Last Jedi turned to casting all criticism of it as bigotry for me highlighted that it was very much something that had been considered beforehand.

I think Cameron was absolutely correct in his comments on Wonderwoman personally, he did point out that actually by far the worst area of underrepresentation in Hollywood for women is in the directors chair for major productions. Arguably hinting that execs "letting" a women direct only films like Wonder woman or Captain Marvel comes across as a much marketing gimmick as sign of progress. Also going back to the idea of the film itself being some great shift forward as massive revisionism, personally I would say the product of both the drive towards profit for studios and a media keen to play up the idea of social progress in a fashion that isn't threatening to the current status quo. The degree of hostility he faced to me seemed driven mostly by the media being very defensive about the above.

That's a pretty basic theme of course that's always been present in the franchise and for a film looking to highlight its representation it seems like pretty dated choices of character. We still ultimately have the white good looking person saving the day.

Rose's character as well for me was just more poor writing looking to hide behind representation. We see her criticisize Finn's focus on helping Rey early in the film over the wide cause and then do exactly the same thing herself saving Finn at the expense of the cause before Jedi ex Machina makes things ok(ish). Indeed any talk about self obsession doesn't really make sense in the light of the ending were theres a jovial atmosphere because this tiny band of people are somehow "special" with a sense of destiny.

To be Abrams is pretty clearly a maker of entertaining diversions without any real political drive to him at all.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

J.J. Abrams is to movie making...what salmonella is to hamburger.

I am not sure how the discussion devolved into a debate of capitalism, but I cannot disagree with you more. Capitalism has made the world a much, much better place. All other systems, feudalism, socialism, etc., are all far, far inferior to capitalism.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

Oh no, not another one.

The difference being that in this particular instance, Leia's order was for the Resistance to retreat from the Order as quickly as possible with as few casualties as possible - by taking the time to launch his own attack on the dreadnought against her orders, Poe ended up causing unnecessary casualties.

Even if she had been "nice" to him (and it's not like she has any obligation to be because he's a subordinate who's done nothing but make a bad impression between the bomber situation and his overly familiar approach), he's a fighter pilot and they're in the middle of a retreat from considerably superior firepower so at that point there is literally nothing for him to do anyway, hence why she tells him to stay put (also, this is the same guy who got captured and successfully tortured for information at the beginning of Force Awakens so honestly it makes sense to keep him on a need-to-know basis).

Not really - there's a reason it was far too easy for critics and audiences alike to compare it to structurally/thematically similar works like Dances with Wolves or Pocahontas or Ferngully. It's technically ambitious, sure, but thematically it's aggressively basic (and having a human avatar become the aliens' hero is an obvious variation on the white saviour cliché anyway so how's that for cynical progressivism?). As for the 20+ year gap, that was meant to reflect that he may have created iconic heroines back in the day but may not be as up with the ever-evolving times as you think - he's like Joss Whedon in that regard.

How much substance does T2 have to it anyway? Some lip-service paid to the idea of nuclear war being bad and how humans will "destroy themselves" (complete with a heavy-handed image of two kids playing with real guns) or some wishy-washy talk about defying one's fate? I like the film and all, but I find it less and less substantial as time goes on.

Yeah, well, the speed at which people criticised Rose and Holdo at length for not simply acquiescing to Finn and Poe respectively highlighted what really bothers the people who hated the film the most (and does throw into question how much of the criticism regarding plot points or character decisions was concocted as a result - I did see one person suggest that Admiral Ackbar should've been the one to do the lightspeed ram, for example). That kind of nonsense really makes it hard to sort the legitimate criticisms from the bigotry so it's not surprising to see why people throw up their hands and simply conflate the two.

Alright, fair point. At this point, it just seems less like cynical marketing ploys and more like reparations for all the times when women didn't get to make blockbusters while getting passed over by studios in favour of mediocre or possibly even abusive men (speaking of which, did you hear that they announced the Red Sonja remake was going to be done by Bryan god-damn Singer?) and he's not some sort of genius cynic for pointing out how messed-up that is.

I'm starting to get the impression that there is very little any blockbuster could do that wouldn't meet your overly cynical standards. At least the white good-looking person is a woman, which isn't a problem for the likes of T2 or Fury Road.

You mean the bit where Poe quickly reaches the conclusion that none of them would be able to damage the giant cannon in time and orders everyone to back off, thus implying that Finn would've died for nothing if he'd been allowed to continue? I keep thinking of it in comparison to the scene at the end of Last Crusade where Indy is risking falling into a bottomless chasm to reach the Holy Grail only for his dad to talk him out of it. Besides, not sure where you're getting the idea that the survivors are all "special" when the fact that it ends on the child slaves being inspired by the events of the film is meant to imply that there's more to the Resistance than just the people left on-board the Falcon.

Tell that to kids living in trash piles. Well, they do have more things to pick through than they used to because of capitalism, so that might be a bad example. :p

My point was that Leia's position doesn't make sense, this is someone who has previously been willing to sacrifice lives to destroy a superweapon capable of causing large scale death and destruction. Indeed even within this film her position ends up making little sense, had Poe not destroyed the dreadnought with its powerful weapons surely it would have destroyed the Rebel fleet in the low speed chase?

Basically the film wants to cast Poe as arrogant and warlike but I find does a very poor job of doing so. It also looks to cast him as self important but then ends up with a climax brimming with highly questionable self importance in which the previous deaths of most of the rebellion are forgotten.

For her to do nothing in the face of open mutiny really does not make sense, it only happens so we can have a reveal of her rightness and Poe's wrongness.

The whole subplot to me just feels horribly confused in its tone and again I think reflective of the kind of viewpoints that seem to be increasingly pro establishment in the media. The idea of showing the Rebels in Starwars as being a military force more reflective of the real world in terms of making questionable calls was obviously explored in Rogue One but that film was basically the story of the movement towards the purer situation we saw in the original films, showing the original situation as a negative thing.

The Last Jedi actually takes pride in its postion, questionable internal politics and treating people arrogantly whilst keeping them in the dark needlessly is now something that should be celebrated and is considered in line with the larger than life heroic atmosphere of this film rather than Rogue Ones somewhat more serious tone. We weren't asked to get behind Gen Draven's methods were we?

As I said I'd agree it was a pretty standard rather simplistic political position it held but still it did hold a position.

Camerons point was that Wonder woman was being talked about as a singular advancement in cinema in terms of feminism yet I think there is a very good argument that compared to Aliens or Terminator 2 its really nothing of the sort, a simpler much less interesting film that falls back to rather dated views of female heroines.

Honestly I think if a female led blockbuster being hyped to that degree perhaps shows that the times haven't been as "ever evolving" as their often talked up as and that his work in the 80's and early 90's was not followed up on as well as it might have been. Superhero films especially have seemed like a step backwards in terms of representation over the last decade.

Again I wouldn't say Cameron is the deepest political film maker you'll ever find but for blockbuster cinema I would say yes theres substance to it. The idea of science run amok put to destructive use, Sarah's character being tempted to resort to brutal pragmatism killing Miles Tysons character and indeed showing that character could actually be enlightened rather than just treated as a faceless villain.

I mean the film clearly went fishing for and got some bigoted responses but I would say most of the criticism went back to what I mentioned above. Basically that it felt like the films attempts at politics were being used to cover poor writing. it didn't careful draw us into supporting characters taking questionable actions in Poe and Finn it merely had their actions proven wrong via plot alone whilst attempting to tell us we were actually seeing some kind of demonstration of male warlike arrogance simply because it involved a woman in a position of power. That the film thought it could sell this to me seems like a much smaller reflection of the environment in todays media that also overestimated how well it could sell Hilary on her gender.

I'm not seeing the mention of Ackbar as being relevant to any kind of bigotry so much as just fans a little obsessed with a cult character.

Honestly if anything I think the film as a whole just feels gutless to me, is not actually prepared to have Poe really show the faults it claims he has, it hints at the the idea of a simplistic view of good and evil might be questionable but the retreats to it with Rey and Kylo's characters.

I would say it feels cynical in that we have female directors put in place for films sold as carrying heavy political weight due to having female leads in them. It feels more like tokenism and marketing that it does a push towards actually addressing the lack of female directors given big projects.

My point certainly isn't that a blockbuster film must have some political weight to it but rather that I think were seeing cynical claims to the above made to promote films that are actually lacking in much weight along with a good deal of revisionism. I see this as very much part of the same climate that exists in politics today were tokenism increasingly is pushed as substance in itself.

This conclusion by Poe in itself again feels totally illogical to me just as Leia's position did at the start of the film. The situation is actually setup that the attack of the weapon is needed to save the rebellion and indeed we see Finn in what looks like the position to do just that. The remaining Rebels are then only saved by the totally unexpected appearance of Luke..I don't see that as at all similar to the situation in Last Crusade were nobodies life is directly at risk should Indy fail to claim the grail.

Given that the film is pushing the idea that it isn't worth sacrificing lives for the greater good and talking against excessive self importance having the remaining Rebels celebrating on the Falcon and then selling the importance of the moral boosting "victory" makes little sense to me. Surely it should be a a far more solemn situation akin to the end of ESB? the idea that events of TLS would be especially inspiration to future rebellion relative to what had happened previously doesn't really make much sense either, "we barely escaped with a handful of lives as Luke Skywalker created a diversion and then died".

To me the film as a whole just gives the impression of being massively underwritten, something that might have made an effective first draft but needed to be tighted up and improved massively but wasn't due either to time constraints or just general hubris from those involved. I do personally still suspect that whatevers is claimed that the whole ending was probably studio mandated as well and that Johnsons original idea was to follow though on the Rey/Kylo teese and have her either join him or at least leave the situation uncertain.

They didn't know the Order had the technology to track them through hyperspace at that point so they were more focused on making a clean getaway than wasting time and resources on further battle. Poe managing to destroy the dreadnought first manages to come across as dumb luck more than anything else.

I think the problem is that we don't really have a point of comparison for this particular situation within the original trilogy - we don't know what OT-era Leia would do in the exact same situation as Holdo (ST-era Leia obviously sides with her, but who knows how relevant you'd consider that) so the best we can do is a pre-Alliance general setting up a fail-safe for a mission involving a valuable asset who is to be recovered or killed if necessary, which is considerably different from the matter of keeping everyone as alive as possible. For all we know, what Holdo does is exactly what would happen in "the purer situation".

Lots of films hold some position, including Wonder Woman.

I grant that Wonder Woman is a technical advancement more than anything else - when was the last time a film like it came along (a major blockbuster with a female star/director that is wholly centred around its female protagonist instead of, say, a monster like Aliens or Terminator 2 are)? Even films that fit that criteria like Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey still get criticised over their reductive plots and characters. Wonder Woman is different enough in that regard to warrant a degree of recognition, though exactly what degree is debatable (as is the question of what does or doesn't qualify as "dated" - Cameron's heroines being defined to a significant extent by their connection to motherhood makes them questionable in this regard).

Also, just to see if I'm following you right, on one hand you say that Wonder Woman being hyped so much due to a lack of female-led blockbusters is an indictment of the system that didn't allow them to happen, but on the other hand you constantly "feel" that any recent attempts to correct that come across as cynical displays of tokenism?

It seems like we keep going back and forth on what qualifies as "enough" substance for these kinds of movies.

We've been over this. Poe's used to dealing with Leia (who will admonish him but ultimately let him off the hook) so having to deal with Holdo, who is effectively Leia without the friendly relationship to Poe that allows him to get away with not growing as a character, takes him out of his comfort zone by not meeting his expectations. Also, like I said before, he's a fighter pilot and they're retreating instead of fighting so there is literally nothing for him to do in this situation, but he chooses to reject the idea of not getting to do something in favour of a decision where he does get to do something - and that backfires on him and everyone else.

Also, what more would it take to show Poe's faults? He wastes a bomber squadron and stages a ship-wide mutiny because of them. I also question what use your suggested level of moral ambiguity has in Star Wars, especially when the character who makes the best case for it also turns out to be a greedy traitor who sells out the heroes to the villains.

You should try feeling cynical about whether or not you're too cynical. I've read the word so many times now it's lost all meaning (and I think the points are starting to repeat, especially your constant accusations of empty tokenism).

Like you said about Avatar, "at least it has a position". Also, how do you know that you're not writing off rejections of the status quo by reducing them to "tokenism"?

And we are also told/shown that the ships they use are old, slow and falling apart anyway so there's a significantly increased risk that Finn wouldn't have made it anyway and explains why expert pilot Poe judges the situation and decides to abort the attack. Also, in Last Crusade everyone is literally in the middle of a crumbling temple with bottomless chasms everywhere so...yeah.

Also, how solemn is ESB's ending anyway? The film's final scene involves Lando and Chewie heading off to find a frozen-but-not-dead Han, Luke gets a brand-new hand and is finally reunited with Leia, and the Special Edition even ends with a massive pan over a sizeable Rebel fleet - if anything, it ends on an even more optimistic final note than TLJ (and both films end in narrow escapes to fight another day anyway). Besides, I'd make the case that "legendary Jedi master comes out of hiding to clown the #1 fascist in the galaxy" would be a popular story among Resistance-sympathisers for reasons that I would think are obvious.

As for the idea of actually teasing a Kylo/Rey cliffhanger, eh, I don't hear it and immediately think it would automatically be better than what we did get. Maybe if it's done right, but I'm not overly convinced.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

There a whole new thread to argue TLJ?

Sweet

Tell that to the kids in Venezuela (the socialist paradise) who have to prostitute themselves (along with Doctors and teachers) just in order to have food to eat. And that is when they are not breaking into zoos to eat the animals.



Yes, there are people who are poor and fall through the cracks in capitalism. However, the vast majority of people in a (relatively) free capitalist system like the USA have enough to eat and do fairly to very well. There is food aplenty in grocery stores, toilet paper and other basics are available aplenty. So are luxury items.



Compare that with socialist countries like Venezuela where everybody starves, where toilet paper is an incredibly scarce commodity and where even police officers have to dig through garbage cans to eat. Where the 2018 inflation rate is over 1,000,000%.



A few people can go hungry, do without and be miserable in a capitalist society or nearly everybody can go hungry, do without and be miserable in a socialist society. I will take capitalism each and every single time.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

I like how your passionate defence of American capitalism still involves referring to it as "{relatively) free".

It is, to the best of my knowledge, the freest place on Earth. (And I have traveled quite extensively.) However, we are still very heavily over-burdened by regulation, taxes and incredibly expensive and invasive government programs and laws from 100 years of socialist government creep. Thus, I think that my description is accurate and I am glad that you like it.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

You still got billionaires, you're not over-burdened.

cue the Yoda

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

Well I watched The Last Jedi and I don't feel that one had a statement to make about having more females in the cast. Mainly most Star Wars movies have one female character. The originals had Leia, and the newer ones had Padme.

Now The Last Jedi happens to add two more female characters into the supporting characters. But that I thought was fine, and they were not making a statement, or I didn't see it that way.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

@Theophile: I’ve learned not to engage, amigo, so I wouldn’t waste too much energy responding to my posts. If believing what you believe makes you happy there’s nothing I can do to convince you otherwise: this is the beauty of capitalism. :yup:

Your mind is chained and placated. :indifferent:

*my mind is chained and placated, too, sadly* :(

Thank you for conceding the debate to me. I am unsure how to respond to your second and third paragraphs, but I can assure you that my mind is free. :)

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

Only because nobody would pay anything for it anyway.

Don't think the issue has ever been the amount of females, rather the strange behaviour of the females in power.

Admit it: you're just happy there's someone else pulling the strings. :p

Are these remakes getting out of hand now?

That's a better topic! The old topic is done talked out and moving into silly territory.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

Oh please, it started in silly territory

What strange behavior?

See TLJ thread.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

Never mind that, the thread is about 70 pages long and covers all sorts of ground. To simplify it, when gandalf26 refers to "strange behaviour" he means instances where the female characters will say or do something that is seemingly illogical and undermines the story at large - the most discussed examples include Vice Admiral Holdo refusing to tell Poe her plans for evading the First Order (which is what prompts him to distrust her and lead a secret mission behind her back and eventually mutiny against her) and Rose flying her ship into Finn's and preventing him from crashing it into a giant First Order cannon (which, it is presumed, would have destroyed it and allowed the remaining Resistance members to hide within their base at the end).

Sorry, root canal and a few other things distracted me for a bit:

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, provided you give it all a fair hearing.

Economics utilizes data enough that a few very general things can be established that can clarify what the disagreement is really about and (I'm very big on this) show people that the things they advocate still have downsides and the things they oppose still have upsides. That is very much the case here. And while I don't know that I'll change many people's minds about which upsides or downsides to prioritize or avoid, at the very least most of them come out the other side understanding that the things they want to change are pretty nuanced.

For a couple of reasons, I think.

The first is that most art is very technical, which means someone can exhibit skill completely independent of message. Well-shot films can have "bad" political messages in the same way they can have crappy writing.

The second is that it suggests open-mindedness. Frothing partisans have a tendency to reduce all things to the political, and to make everything binary. If someone is able to express the nuanced position that X film is wrong, but still has merit otherwise, I'd imagine that strongly correlates with the ability to find common ground with ideological opponents, concede points where appropriate, or other things like that. Both stem from the same mindset of considering each thing fairly and independently, as opposed to the mindset of grouping things together and opposing people on all issues because of a disagreement on just some.

I agree, sometimes this is not really possible. Sometimes the work of art is constructed so they're difficult to parse in this way, and sometimes the idea being expressed is so bad (or just obnoxious) that it overwhelms other considerations. I'd say this is pretty rare, though. And I'd also say that for every film where this is the case, there are dozens where the viewpoint really isn't that awful, but the person watching it just has no tolerance for it.

I actually nearly asked this hypothetically, but decided it sounded too much like a challenge ("how many people here can say the same?"). I do think it's important, though.

There's an edge to this idea because frankly, as a conservative, you either get used to enjoying art from people who hate you, or you don't get much to enjoy. I'm not sure progressives really understand what this is like, since most of the art they consume comes from the like-minded. I know this concept isn't foreign, either, given the very similar points made about representation and exclusion in popular culture.

There is a lot to bite off in this thread but I guess my main question to @Iroquois is would Blade Runner be such a different movie and change your enjoyment if the Tyrell Corp was switched out for the reigning government of the time? Would that change your mind about how big we should allow government to get? Because one of my biggest disagreements with anti-capitalists is not that corporations can't get too big and be corrupt. It's that they don't seem to think government can.

I will also add that as a Christian I constantly see the themes of a flawed humanity and the need for unconditional love played out in "progressive" art. This is the over riding theme of the oldest book there is and one that many of those same progressives call a fairy tale. So the idea that you can't fundamentally disagree with someone yet still engage with their ideas seems very silly and narrow minded to me.

Anyway, some of this has maybe already been addressed but wanted to get my 2 cents in.

Oh okay, I would have to watch it again to see about Rose flying the ship into Finn's as I do not recall that part exactly.

As for Holdo, she is just doing what other male military characters do in other movies. In other movies, there is often a male military commander, who everyone one else thinks not thinking straight, and they feel they have to stop him. Movies like Crimson Tide or The Cane Mutiny.

So I feel that Holdo is just doing what normally male characters in other movies do. So I can't think that the movie was trying to make some sort of statement with her being a female character, cause she is filling in the 'my way or the highway' male military commander we normally see in other movies. Unless I'm wrong?

I think perhaps time and influence dulls the effect of the original that very much has Leia shooting down Luke and especially Han's expectations of what she should be. Basically having your classic witty anti hero being outwitted by the woman he was sposed to be rescuing as she took charge of the situation.

You have a deadly superweapon that we see could be used to wipe out the rebels, why is this different to what we've seen previously from Leia? the film does IMHO a very poor job of selling why it should be with her position coming across as hypocritical and arbitrary. As with so much of the film I think the real fault is in the execution, it feels as I said before like politics is being used as a shield for poor writing.

I mean we see that Leia won't suffer fools gladly in the originals and is a very confident person but that doesn't feel like what were seeing here. More importantly we don't see Leia engaging in secretive morally questionable plans.

The originals basically feel like there portraying an idealistic viewpoint in a heroic fashion. Rogue One feels like its showing idealism replace morally questionable pragmatism. Last Jedi on the other hand feels like its glorying that same kind of questionable pragmatism, I don't think it should be surprising that people take issue with that.

I think Aliens is clearly focused around a female pragmatist.

I would say I feel that yes not as many female lead blockbuster films happens as might have been expected post Cameron and indeed that those which did often lacked the clout his work did. I also feel that its revisionism for a single female lead blockbuster to be cast as revolutionary in terms of longer cinematic history and that really as with directors the problem is much more in overall numbers. There has often been talk about Hollywood having devolped a negative view of female superhero films in terms of box office success over the last 10-15 years.

Someone like Cameron basically being treated like an example of the bad old backward Hollywood that enlightened modern times were sweeping away by much of the media was I think a disgraceful and cynical situation.

I'm not sure I do, its more that I'm holding films to their own hype, if something is talked up as having political weight I'm more likely to judge the lack of it more harshly.

We see that whatever his rank Poe is very much privy to decision making in the rebellion and indeed we see all though the originals that the rebels are a naturally open about these kinds of decisions, people knowing what they are being asked to die for.[/quote]

As I highlighted previously Poe doesn't actually "waste" bombers, he saves the rebellion which would have been destroyed without his actions and behaves in a fashion identical to that which we'd previously seen Leia in favour of. The shift into this behaviour being "wrong" seems highly arbitrary and the overall message to me becomes highly questionable. Basically that you cannot trust your own moral compass and judgement, your better off abdicating these things to your superiors, especially if they have rather thin identity politics on their side. I do absolutely see that as a reflection of negative aspects of the current political environment.

The kind of list like posting you favour does obviously mean that the same points end up being repeated a lot. To me the real judgement comes down to the quality of these films, I feel the likes of Force Awakens, Last Jedi and the Ghostbusters remake are all poor cinema that look to shield their mediocrity partly via a cynical use of politics(as well of course as a heft dose of nostalgia).

We see that Finn has the chance to destroy the weapon flying into it only to be stopped by rose. Poe's appraisement of the situation again feels like arbitrary writing, he "learns his lesson" because Johnson has him do so not because he's shown a shift in character and a situation in which it feels natural for him to do so.

The idea of Poe being overly warlike and learning to value lives is I think perfectly fine but the execution of it for me fails totally.

The ending of ESB basically has the hints of hope for the future in it whilst staying true of the downbeat events that we've just seen. The ending of Last Jedi feels like a party on the Falcon when events have arguably been far worse than ESB. If the film is previously trying to speak out about self importance it does a really bad job of reflecting it here as the heroes come across as simply delusional to me, and once again it all feels very arbitrary.

I think it very clearly would have been. I mean the film seems to spend so much of its runtime building up the idea that simplistic views of good and evil have led to the current situation but then seems to reject its own premise.

As it is what really is the message of the end of the film? that Rey is foolish for thinking Kylo can be saved? yeah that's obviously "unexpected" but ultimately I think a highly questionable message. As with the Holdo plot it seems more inline with the worst of establishment politics today "don't try and understand your enemies their just irredeemably evil".

I mean not that I think those involved were intending the film as being especially strong pro establishment political piece, I think its more that they were making it in that kind of environment and didn't care or notice too much about the messages they were sending.

By all means, PM it to me when you feel like it.

Perhaps, though I suppose it's a matter of weighing whether or not open-mindedness is the likeliest conclusion to draw from such a situation, and you don't find that out for certain without questioning it. Maybe it's cynical of me to immediately assume there's cognitive dissonance involved or that a person's interpretation is rooted in shallow misunderstanding based on surface-level elements, but I don't think I completely rule out such apparent open-mindedness either (if only because I find it so curious in these particular instances).

Yeah, it is a question of what a person will or won't let slide.

That is a good point - sounds like when I come across reviews for ostensibly progressive films that tear the film to shreds for not being nearly progressive enough (e.g. when acclaimed LGBTQ-themed films are heavily criticised by actual LGBTQ people for perpetuating harmful stereotypes and failing to tell worthwhile stories even by creators who "mean well"). It probably doesn't help matters that the first conservative film critic I can think of off the top of my head is Armond White of all people, who has demonstrated some capacity for good criticism that is all too often overwhelmed by his apparent eagerness to treat the bulk of Hollywood films as liberal con jobs (which is why I used to think he was worth reading as an alternate viewpoint but less so these days).

Considering that the "reigning government of the time" would've been the Reagan administration, I don't think it would've made a significant difference. If anything, I get the impression that anti-capitalists understand how corruptible governments can be precisely because of how much government interests can overlap with capitalist interests (especially when capitalists themselves become politicians).

Such themes do technically transcend political and religious divides, I suppose.

No, that's pretty much it - I do wonder how much scrutiny a male Holdo would have drawn for the exact same choices. Maybe it would've been the same, maybe considerably less. As for it being any kind of "statement", I don't necessarily assume so. Maybe a means of correcting/maintaining female representation, but I did already mention in another post how I considered Holdo to be a Leia-like character that the characters/audiences simply didn't know and thus would be inclined to side against less because she's a woman and more because she's the kind of stock character that you described above, which might well be how Leia would come across to a similarly unruly and unknown subordinate.

Because in those other instances the "superweapon" in question was capable of destroying a planet (or even multiple planets at once) and continued to present a galaxy-wide threat no matter where it was so it definitely had to be eliminated, whereas a single dreadnought was still ultimately a ship that could be eluded like all the other ships in that fleet and (as has been noted) the goal here is to escape as soon as possible rather than hang around and risk losing ships in a fight. If Leia doesn't react the same way, you can't necessarily assume it's hypocrisy on her part so much as her assessing that it represents a lesser threat and thus doesn't deserve the same attack-at-all-costs treatment as a Death Star. Besides which, enough has been done to establish that Poe's being more than a little reckless here (prank-calling General Hux, shutting down communications with Leia when she orders him to return) so as to drive home the idea that he's not completely in the right to be doing this. If anything, this is what comes across as "questionable pragmatism".

And yet this same concern over questionable pragmatism doesn't extend to anything Poe does (apart from calling off the cannon attack, of course).

Which is why it's called Ripley Returns.

It probably doesn't help that it's coming from a filmmaker whose current project is four consecutive sequels to Avatar (and who endorsed Terminator Genisys as being the best one since the second one) so his comments seem more than a little out-of-touch even if he is having a broken-clock-is-right-twice-a-day moment by pointing out this problem.

I'm sure you are.

Yeah, when he's actually got something to contribute regarding fighter-pilot strategy...which is not necessary when the entire fleet is retreating from superior firepower and thus doesn't need fighter pilots like Poe at that point so there's nothing for him to do (and also, you say "whatever his rank" but do we actually see him get to make any decisions following the scene where Leia demotes him? Even him managing to rally other Resistance members into helping him mutiny against Holdo still results in him getting stunned by Leia).

Yeah yeah, you want a reflection of negative aspects of the current political environment, try seeing it as the story of a (relatively) inexperienced man thinking he knows better than experienced women and going against their orders only to cause trouble each time he does it.

I guess I can't tell you to like them, but so far you haven't really given me reasons or arguments worth conceding.

I already broke down the readily-observable internal logic behind the situation and your response is just "it feels like arbitrary writing", which comes across as a cop-out more than anything.

Yeah, well, I'm not about to begrudge these people finally getting a breather after having spent the entire course of the film in the midst of relentless toll-heavy battles and pursuits and very nearly getting wiped out once and for all. You're acting like it's an Ewok party.

I would've thought it was more along the lines of explicitly-stated ones like "failure is our greatest teacher" or "not killing what we hate but saving what we love", both of which are better reflected in the Rey-Kylo dynamic than the idea that she's a fool for thinking he can be redeemed (if anything, that seems like a failure-is-a-teacher moment more than anything else since she fails to turn Kylo). She's spent the whole film bouncing back and forth between whether or not to believe him or Luke (and then ultimately what to do with the "truth" of Luke almost killing Kylo) and ultimately starts to sympathise for him turning evil because of both Snoke manipulation and the trauma of Luke's mistake, but when he effectively stays evil even after both those issues have been confronted by Snoke's death and the revelation of what really happened with Luke, she realises that he's still making his own decision to be evil and thus no longer feels obligated to "fix" him, instead opting to rescue the remnants of the Resistance. If anything, it emphasises how trying to understand your enemies is not guaranteed to make them any less of an enemy to you and it also dispels the idea that one is obligated to put up with their flaws in the possibly-vain hope that they can change a person (which hews uncomfortably close to abusive-relationship logic). Also consider the real-world political message it sends of how trying to understand the seemingly-sympathetic reasons why people attach themselves to toxic ideologies/organisations still doesn't justify their continued attachment.

I think people make more of "The Last Jedi" than what it really is. Its creators often went for the most dramatic things the characters could do, which are not always the most logical. That's really why Yoda blows up the tree and Hodo keeps her plan a secret.
The reason Hodo was added, as another female leader, is the creators didn't think the same conflict would work between Leia and Po. Rose, another new female character, is not an authority figure and actually idolizes a male character.

Pretty sure you know I meant the government in the world of Blade Runner but whatevs.

So if neither government or big business in incorruptible what makes you think the takedown of capitalism would lead to better results for the working class?

Better question in relation to the topic. What keeps a capitalist like me from enjoying a movie about an evil corporation as opposed to an evil government?

Yes, in hindsight it should've been more obvious to me that Reagan would (hopefully) not be in power in 2019, though I did recognise the implication that you meant an "evil government" that did not necessarily subscribe to right-wing/pro-capitalist ideals.

I think there's the matter of how an uneven distribution of resources and finances results in less-than-ideal conditions for the working class and how capitalism allows (or even encourages) that imbalance to exist in order to thrive.

As for your other question - I would say it's because an evil corporation is an obvious indictment of a specific economic philosophy whereas an evil government can theoretically be depicted as vague enough in its actual politics that one could personally project whatever politics they like (or don't like, rather) onto it. It's like vampires - do they represent modern/foreign decadence that'll destroy humankind by undermining the traditional values that society is founded on or do they represent antiquated isolationist notions that continue to impede the continued development and survival of humankind? Something like that, anyway.

To think big government can be depicted as vague but a big corporation cannot shows that you are totally coming at this from your own point of view. Which is completely fine. In fact I think it proves the point of how subjective all of this is and to shows how silly calling someone out for loving a movie that doesn't 100% jive with their politics truly is. I just am not sure how you argue the opposite with a straight face. I actually think you probably don't, but that's fine to.

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I thought we were talking about "evil government" as opposed to "big government"; that you apparently think they are interchangeable also says a lot about your point of view.

Besides, I covered this in my most recent response to Yoda and I understand that defining one's opinion entirely by how politically agreeable one finds it is more than a little impractical, but I still think it is worth noticing when the overlap between a person's politics and the politics of a movie they like are much closer to 0% than they are to 100%. At the very least, I will find it curious and want to hear their reasoning.

That's what you call a Freudian slip, but yes it does. I bring my POV to everything.

Calling Blade Runner closer to 100% than 0% is more than a stretch in my opinion. Honestly, when you called Sedai out on that it took me a few minutes of thinking to come up with why you picked that movie. If his favorite film was Capitialism A Love Story I would be on board with your premise. The big and evil corporation (see what I did there) as reigning supreme in a dystopian future is something that I would consider a trope at this point. I am sure there are political undertones there, but honestly it brushes right past me with seeing it so many times. Maybe that makes me a less than thoughtful viewer , but I choose to think I just respond to character and tone more than I do subtext.

I think you would see my point if I called you out as a social progressive for having TGTBATU as one of your favorites. That film obviously glorifies the white alpha male as reigning supreme while treating the characters of color as either evil or dumb.

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I felt ill watching Wonder Woman, but I don't mind it. They can be good if they hit the right spots.

Evidently.

Which again begs the question as to whether or not you should treat these concepts as mutually exclusive, especially when the subtext (that is even spelled out in the actual text at times) is what informs so much of what makes character and tone resonate.

And I refer you back to the previous page where I already acknowledged this and even Yoda, who reached the same conclusion independently, agreed with me enough about it to leave it be. Even so, I question that take on the film since the unquestionably irredeemable "bad" character is also a "white alpha male" who acts in a far more violent and monstrous (i.e. "alpha") manner in the name of nothing more than his personal greed while the "good" and "ugly" characters are at least shown to have some sympathetic qualities when they're not constantly screwing one another over out of personal reasons.

@Iroquois I suppose I could throw out movies and why I think they reflect my values. Then you could give me reasons why their themes have more grey area than Blade Runner. I don't really want to though and I am sure you don't either. I will just be over here wishing I was as clear eyed as his majesty.

Which characters were of color though, in TGTBATU? I thought every character was very similar to the same color, or at least not too far different. Every character in the movie is reasonably smart, no?

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That would probably be the case, and like I said before, I'm not immune to this either, but I'm at least going to try to think of a good explanation first.

Tuco is definitely a Latino Mexican (at one point he comments on how much easier Blondie's white skin will burn in the sun) so it stands out when he's the only one played as a blustery fool compared to the coolly collected Blondie and Angel Eyes (both of whom frequently comment on his apparent lack of intelligence compared to them, like Angel Eyes telling Blondie that he's too smart to be tortured, unlike Tuco).

I guess you wouldn't know for sure unless you went around to every single police department to verify it, though - if anything, the idea of a police department without any minorities in it sounds like they have a good chance of turning out to be horror-movie villains.

As I recall, they don't deliberately quit their jobs in the original but get fired instead so they're effectively forced to resort to ghost-busting (whereas this only happens to one or two of the remake's Ghostbusters), so there's nothing "typically male" about how the Ghostbusters get started.

Ah, remakes and comic book serials have always been a thing. Bullitt came out the same year that a musical adaptation of Oliver Twist won Best Picture, after all.

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A lot of cops being white guys with shaved heads, huh? Not gonna touch that one.

Also, it's weird to think that "only guys" would come up with an idea as crazy as busting ghosts for a living.

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It's the same where I live it seems that 70% or more of cops are white guys with shaved heads. Why do they shave their heads, are they that concerned about having their hair pulled, even if it's short hair?

But the filmmakers of TGTBATU are Italian, in an Italian film industry and Italian people have latin mixed in with them as well. So why would they aim to make Tuco dumb, because he is Latino if that's the case?

I think it's less about having it pulled than just about it getting in their eyes or interfering somehow. I presume it's mostly for the same reason soldiers wear their hair short.

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Oh okay. I thought that the shaved head look, looks kind of "punk-ish" for police officers, but maybe that's just me.

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I guess. I wouldn't shave my head if I were a cop, it's just too weird.

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This thread, man.

We're talking about a property centred around the idea that not only do ghosts exist but that a handful of modern human scientists have invented a means of capturing and imprisoning them, yet somehow the possibility that said scientists might turn out to be female is the unrealistic part? Like in the original, they know how to catch ghosts for real and they're also broke so it doesn't exactly take crazy male genius to realise that they can use it to make a living.

*shrug* I don't know, man, you can either take it up with seanc (who insinuated this line of reasoning in the first place) or just accept that the filmmakers didn't know or didn't care too much about what they were doing in this regard.

Tell me about it.

Maybe it's plausible for women to open up a paranormal activity detection service (something that would likely appeal more to men anyhow), but implausible that they would call themselves the Ghostbusters, buy a used police car, spend time and money inventing "proton packs", so on and so forth. Maybe I should have specified that it's hard for me to picture relatively normal women in such a scenario. That's why the remake was trashed and burned, because it was so awkward and forced. It's such a politically correct, hipster-y, nerdy remake. The guys however were everyday fellas aside from their occupational interests. It looked natural. Let me provide a picture to support my argument. The second pic looks like a poster for a cheap Marvel movie.


https://static1.squarespace.com/stat...1497377352072/http://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/site...?itok=L1UzItgv

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Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

It seems like an extremely arbitrary distinction to say the original Ghostbusters were all just regular dudes when I'd contest that Venkman and Zeddemore were the "normal" ones (and as a result were shown to not take the matter all that seriously e.g. Venkman doing the shock test or Zeddemore going "as long as there's a paycheck") compared to the obsessive academics Spengler and Stantz, and even then how much of a glimpse do we really get at their exterior lives in either case to show how "normal" any of them are? Like somehow all of them moving into a run-down firehouse to run their business is just a thing that ordinary guys will do at a moment's notice? As a result, I never had trouble accepting the premise that there might be a grand total of four women who'd end up doing the same thing (and the idea of complaining about it being "nerdy" is especially rich).

As for remakes that couldn't work because of subsequent advances in modern technology, I mean, they do still make movies (original or remake) that involve and thus write around such technology - how often have you seen a movie where the characters can't use their phone to call for help because there's no reception or the battery ran out or the villain is jamming their signal?

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I mean, it's not like such phone problems are without precedence in reality, and besides which certain movies will try to rationalise it like through magic curses (like in the Blair Witch sequel that came out a couple of years ago revealing that the woods were cursed all along) or the villain managing to jam the signal (which I believe happened in Mike Flanagan's Hush). That's supposed to be where the horror sets in - when the obvious solution out of the horror simply doesn't work.

I did see the remake of Death Wish and (minor spoilers if you haven't seen it, I guess) the main character's first attempt at shooting criminals does end up being captured on video and going viral online, but he gets away with it since he's wearing a hoodie and his face can't be seen on the video.

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I am going to try to watch all of the new Ghostbusters and give it a chance. The thing that bumbs me out about it, is that Kristen Wiig is just not funny in the same league as Bill Murray for me. But I will see.

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I think I found it easier to like because I wasn't all that fond of the original in the first place (and I'm in the minority in thinking that Bill Murray's character was more annoying than anything else, which is a problem when he's so integral to what makes the movie work).

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I finally watched the new "Ghostbusters" recently. I didn't hate it but it wasn't my cup of tea. I think it was because they just talked too much. I see that in other new comedies. The writers just try too hard and often beat a joke to death. With the original, there was a setup for the joke, the joke and then they moved on. Does anyone know what I mean?
I was open to the idea of them being women. But I'm not sure, except perhaps for Kristen Wiig, the characters' perspectives were much different from the males.
I think a lot of people overreacted to the news the new cast would be women. But I think the folks behind the sequel didn't understand how popular "Ghostbusters" is, even after all these years, with kids and especially boys. I don't think there was a strong interest in the sequel from women. Any women care to comment?

I would say that the problem is that Hollywood does not want to risk money on new ideas or stories for films whether they have female leads or not. They just are recycling. Worst of all is when they remake a foreign film like City of Angles did for Wings of Desire or create an American release for Cinema Paradiso which cuts 40+ minutes from the original they are saying that Americans no longer have the attention span to let a movie develop its story or characters. If things keep going like this imagine the American film industry in ten or twenty years after they have been marketing their films to the lowest common denominator to ensure the biggest pay-off. Film could be a wonderful art form if they would put a fraction of the money they spend on these blockbusters into a good film. They could still make their blockbusters, but could use the profits to make some quality films.

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Speaking of movies making political statements possibly, I was wondering if Forrest Gump was trying to make one after watching it again. In the scene when Lieutenant Dan introduces his fiance, she is of Asian decent, and I wonder if this was some sort statement the filmmakers were trying to make since Dan fought Asians in the Vietnam war. Do you think so, or is it just me?

It's not uncommon for soldiers posted in foreign cultures to become very attracted to the women of the culture. I think that's all it was showing. Same thing happens with men who've been in hospital for a long time developing a fetish for nurses. It's the same thing.

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Oh okay, but was the movie trying to say something about that?

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“Is this expansive retrospective on the 20th century saying something political?”

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The real issue with the Ghostbusters remake I would say was mostly a shift in the tone of the film relative to the original. Whilst that film does obviously have a highly fantastical central conceit to it the style of the film itself is generally pretty down to earth, the humour is mostly in the form of wit and more realistic character foibles. The remake on the other hand is I think something much broader, cheesier and just fundamentally less intelligent.

It came up on that thread a few weeks/months ago with the claim the original was "about nothing" that actually its quite a clever satire on small business and blue collar work. The remake for me is a classic example of less ambitious cinema looking to sell itself on tokenism.

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I think the "about nothing" argument stems from the idea that its supposed thematic concerns don't develop or cohere enough to provide a sufficiently well-rounded subtext, reaching the point where it ends up supporting vastly different interpretations because it's so messy in that regard (and that same lack of clarity would ultimately undermine the strength of its satirical elements).

Contrast Renegade Cut leaning into the Reaganomics/Objectivism angle (which definitely complicates its superficial blue-collar elements)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-wD3HVElY

...against MovieBob trying to circumvent that (after all, how elitist can the Ghostbusters be if Winston is able to immediately become a full-fledged member?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPoILjs6BYI

Does that necessarily mean the remake is better by sticking to a simpler but much more consistent thematic throughline instead of one that's maybe a little too open to interpretation for its own good? That's a good question that defies easy answers, but again I'm not so fond of either version in the first place so I guess my interest in this is more academic than anything else.

Great :)

I haven't seen the remake yet but I agree with all your points about the original here, especially the down-to-earth and realistic approach.

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I also read that there is going to be remake of Cliffhanger, with the main character changed to a female now. Well if Hollywood wants to have female lead remakes, instead of remaking movies that have had male characters in before, why not remake movies that have already had female protagonists, instead of taking movies with male protagonists and changing them?

Like there are plenty of older movies with female characters in already, like Set it Off, or Thelma and Louise, etc. So why not remake those, instead of changing male characters to female in remakes, which comes off like some sort of gimmicky payback, unless I'm wrong.

Most of the comments I'v seen don't seem to go beyond simply stating it has no meaning at all because it doesn't conform to a standard character arc. Really I think this is the result of a lot of commenters these days glorifying rather simplistic film making as an effective way to target the lowest common denominator.

Of course Ghostbusters really is mostly concerned with entertainment which as I stated I think the original carries off far more successfully whilst the remake attempts to parody its style ala JJ Abrams whilst also IMHO being fundamentally less intelligent and well made(also ala JJ Abrams). Still though I think its politics is a more interesting and intelligent mix than a standard simplistic and ham fisted action blockbuster message, as evidence by it inspiring such videos.

I don't think that's automatically the product of it being recast as "all female", it would/could have been perfectly possible to make a film as well done and intelligent as the original whilst also making comment on gender issues, something like say Fury Road is I think just as good or better than the originals whilst doing so(indeed with vastly more weight). That said I do think we see an environment today were Hollywood has viewed such political issues as a bit of a cheap sell just indeed as it views nostalgia for existing franchises in the same fashion.

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But I don't think Ghostbusters should make any comment on gender issues though, as it's not that kind of movie.

Re: Are these female lead remakes are getting out of hand now?
 

I recently saw on John Woos Instagram that he is remaking my all-time favourite film The Killer. And yes he is going down the PC route of having a black female in the role previously portrayed by Chow Yun-Fat.
I will probably watch this out of curiousty alone with it being a John Woo film (as i did with the remakes of Once a Thief and A Better Tomorrow), but i am not a fan of remakes in general, let alone remakes that pander to the snowflake/PC brigade.
I have no problem with women of any ethnicity in lead roles but i think the films should be original instead of retreading old ground.
I want to see action films like Proud Mary and Atomic Blonde, not remakes of The Killer and Shoot 'em up.

I'm so afraid of this film. I think it will suck. I'm a big John Woo fan, but boy, I don't think that film needs a remake, not even if the one directing is the man himself. And a woman in the lead role... Damn, it makes me fear more 'cause of the stunts. Just wish he makes a new one with Chow after this remake.

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Atomic Blonde is an interesting one, cause it has a female action hero, but the way the character is sexually portrayed, especially with the lesbian sex scene, which I felt was done out of male titillation so it's still a guy movie at the end of the day, so it wasn't really aimed for a female audience I don't think, even though it had a female action hero.

As for female lead remake of The Killer, maybe...

SPOILER FROM ORIGINAL THE KILLER

So the person that the killer blinds them will be male love interest then, who she is trying to get money to repair his eyesight with? That might be interesting.

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Actually with the talk on this thread about female lead character movies, I just saw the trailer for Black and Blue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCfSeVCr7ng

And it looks like a female lead action movie, where the main character being female, plays naturally in the story, doesn't feel forced, like the filmmakers are trying to push an agenda. At least from the trailers it looks that way!

I hope you're right about Black and Blue since I feel like The Kitchen is kinda forced.

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What's The Kitchen?

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Someone might've said it already, I don't know. TagoMago kinda hit the nail on the head a bit but Hollywood is just following what they think people want to see and right now the hot topic is diversity. Somewhere around when PC culture started to get popular, all the talk about female this and black people that on social media made executives believe that PC culture has to be featured in film. So now we have female terminator and black Ariel.

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Uh, we've had female Terminators since 2003 - besides, I question how much you can really accuse the franchise that gave us Sarah Connor of only recently starting to "pander to PC culture" or whatever.

As far as remakes go, the idea of Woo remaking The Killer with Lupita Nyong'o is too intriguing to write off completely.

I actually didn't realize there was a female robot already, but I was really just referring to the reason why male characters are being randomly switched to female.

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I mean, the whole idea of the Terminator is that it's a killer robot designed to look human so of course they'd have to use a variety of "random" appearances to make them effectively infiltrate human society - otherwise, they would all just look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and that would be all kinds of impractical.

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You know what I would love to see an all female remake of just for the heck of it, is Fight Club.

The T-800, within its world, was a practical solution to a problem.

There is a homuncular aspect to the early models; it is a kind of person in a person--a robot person with a bacon-wrap of human flesh, an outer person hiding the inner person. It's a clever idea. Instead of a person hidden inside a machine (like the chess playing "Turk"), we have a machine hidden inside a person.

The problem is that this takes up a lot space. Just as Jame Gumb needed "big girls" to make his "woman suit" in Silence of the Lambs, the machine under the skin of the T-800 is quite large. It has large mechanical joints and pulleys and so on, so the T-800 needs the skin of a "big person" to cover it. Thus, it makes sense, as a practical solution to a problem (i.e. infiltration) as to why it would look like a large man (it had to). They were "big boned," so don't judge!

The T-800s were not designed to get job at Tyrell Corporation or dance with snakes at seedy bars. They just needed to pass for human long enough to gain entry into a human compound and then mow everyone down. It's not so much that they needed to deeply infiltrate society, but rather that they needed to get past watchmen who were on the lookout for the rubber-skinned robots they were using before the T-800s.

As for the later models which are increasingly implausible and deployed in increasingly convoluted time-travel schemes and which were intended to blend into 'Ye Olde' Days, yes it makes sense that they started swapping looks to be random.

The thread necromancy on this forum cracks me up.

Don't kill the thread by noting that we're past the "sell by" date.

Just roll with it.

No, I just meant that since I've been on here, which is not long, I've seen multiple threads from the past just suddenly resurrected without any seeming rhyme or reason. Which is kind of a new one on me. I will roll with it.