ST If there's a female lead... is Disney going after the Hunger Games money/audience?

Personally speaking, my concern is for any decisions being based solely on commercial interests.

Why? Because when the motivations behind a decision is based not on the organic needs of the story, but by the almighty dollar, it tends to show in the work.

It has nothing to do with gender. Remember I said I want Luke's son to be the protagonist? Well, if I were to get my wish, I'd want it to be because it's what Lucas wanted for the story of the saga, and, for example, not because a male with the Skywalker name is what is thought to be most profitable.

 

I'm really tired of the "son of the hero" cliche. I DO want a Skywalker/Solo daughter, if only to mix it up a little.

Wanting a selection of female characters and not just teen royalty isn't an unreasonable demand, I think. Because all of the hype over Star Wars being a "boy's thing" is due to marketing in the first place, and honestly I feel like most of it came with the prequels. Why don't girls buy action figures? Because they've been told that girls don't like action figures, and there's no female figures to buy anyway. Quite honestly, Star Wars has been marketed at boys so effectively, they don't need to go after that market anymore. It's the girls that will bring growth to the market. Shows like Legend of Korra prove that boys will watch media with a female star if they are well written. Girls will be drawn in by the female star, because there are so few of them to choose from, especially in sci-fi, fantasy, and action stories.

Because the female audience IS the untapped one, in this case. Yes, it is somewhat insulting to have it be called a marketing gimmick, but it's also somewhat insulting that in six movies made over 30 years, we still only have two female main characters. The originals get a pass due to age, the prequels get partly forgiven because of continuity of existing characters (though they get a major fail on adding new female secondary characters). The sequel trilogy is completely up for grabs, apart from Luke, Han, and Leia. This is the chance to do whatever the filmmakers want in the Star Wars universe.

Clearly we don't know anything concrete at the moment. I don't want to get my hopes up. But I will be very disappointed if the filmmakers continue to ignore half their audience.

Sometimes I wonder why being female supposedly negates my geek cred of breaking my umbrella in a lightsaber duel in 4th grade.


Corvax855 - Obi-Wan doesn't count as a main character?

 

That is a principled and well thought out stance. My problem with the extension of that train of thought, is that there is no version of Hollywood where executives are sitting around saying "Throw out the creator's plans! What this mega budget action franchise picture needs is a female protagonist! That's what all the kids are into these days! Tell the fellas at Hasbro that the era of the hetero-normative white male hero is over!"

 

Well, I agree that that part of it is overblown and I'm perfectly willing to admit that my concerns may be entirely unfounded!

Like I said, though, I still find it insulting to the audience when the sole reason given for a female protag is to, you know, "address an untapped demographic" (there are a heck of a lot more important reasons for doing it than that). And as a fella, I take it personally when someone says "the boys will come, no matter what we do with the franchise." Whatever the topic at-hand, I don't care to be thought of by a corporation as a simple-minded lemming, and it would be disconcerting to find out that Disney underestimates the SW fan base like that, literally feeling free to do as they please, because the kids (boys and girls, alike) will just eat it up, regardless. I just hope that quote was a fabrication (or at least taken out-of-context).

 

Lucas wrote the treatment, right? Sounds like a female protagonist would be his idea.

What's also funny is that Lucas is the king of marketing. And yet people think that his Star Wars is somehow free of this kind of thinking? Some people see the PT itself as one large marketing campaign, super-packing each shot with plenty of toys completely unrelated to the plot.

 

Lucas said he wanted the ST protagonist to be Luke's son? Or did I misunderstand you?

 

He's a main character, but not THE main character (i.e. Anakin in the PT and Luke in the OT).

 

If his treatment has not been altered, yes. That's been a big issue for me from the start. That what we get it what Lucas intended. As we all know, Disney is in no way beholden to Lucas' vision for the ST.

I don't think it's free of it. Of course not, that would be absurd.

I do think George Lucas, first and foremost, was interested in telling his story as he saw fit. While marketing was a concern, I've never once felt that he made his important story decisions based entirely on those concerns.

Until I see some actual Star Wars product, produced and released under the Disney banner, this is something I wonder about. Plain and simple. When Rebels, and later, Episode VII, are released, I fully expect to have my concerns alleviated, but the proof's in the pudding, you know?

 

You misunderstood. I meant that if the protag is Luke's son, I'd hope that the reason it were so is because that is what Lucas wanted, and not because that's what the powers-that-be feel will sell.

 

As it is, they are saying the girls will come no matter what. As a customer that's not being catered to whatsoever and never has been, it is very annoying. What's almost worse is that people assume that strong female characters are only brought about by the likes of Hunger Games and Twilight. Ugh.

Star Wars having a female MC is about too much to hope for. I only want Abrams' characters to NOT to be completely offensive stereotypes, since he wasn't too apologetic about doing this in the latest Star Trek. I'm setting the bar as low as humanly possible and I still think it's going to be slithered under.

 

These companies have been attempting to reduce you to a demographic for decades, as well as use something you love to take advantage of another demographic. I don't know why it's all of the sudden insulting now. As a fella, I take personally that someone would suggest that I couldn't sympathize with a female's Hero's Journey, or that my grandnephew who will be 5 in 2015 couldn't. But the fact is that such demo-specific decision making is insulting for everyone.

I just think everyone is mistaken about the power dynamic in these decisions. If anyone's pitching the idea of a female protagonist as a solution to an untapped demo, it's the poor soul who wrote a female lead, and is trying to justify it to the folks on the top floor. I'm sure there were more than a few nervous discussions when GL walked into the Board of Directors meeting and said "hey guys, Anakin's sidekick in Clone Wars is going to be a bratty teenage girl!"

 

Of course. Doesn't mean I have to like it (and cannot moan about it here as it relates to SW).

No, I know that. You already said as much with your "there is no version of Hollywood" message, and I think it's more than a fair point you've made.

 

Here is what I think is going to happen: Your main concentration of the next films will revolve around three leads of 2 males and female. But, your main focus will be around the relationship between the male/female leads with the other male as an anchor lead. I'm not exactly even sure that the next film will even have a "chosen one" binary hero(ala Luke). I think the journey of Luke was largely based around artistic necessity. Luke was the last of the Jedi. In time of ST, I would assume that would not be the case.

Considering that the theme of the ST could revolve around the the whole idea of family and what that means: You may not have a completely binary hero's journey. It may, in fact, be about "the team."

 

Ah, gotcha.

 

Technically, Dra--- said it better about a page before my post.

 

Along these same lines, I've always said that my biggest wish for the ST would be a dual-protagonist (Ben and Jaina) story, but I've never allowed myself to really believe that the filmmakers would attempt such a thing.

I'd really like to see your version of events, a story more about "the team" than any one individual, come to pass.

 

Devil's advocate response: The Phantom Menace was a team movie, with the protagonist role dispersed among Anakin, Qui-Gon and Padme, with Obi-Wan and Jar-Jar being secondary protagonists. The greatest evidence of this was back and forth editing of the last act, as well as Anakin's strongest character beats being during the middle section of the movie. A strong argument could be made that none of these characters was the definitive primary protagonist. Needless to say, the response was lukewarm.

 

Can either of you provide an example of a story that necessitates a female lead? If ANH was made today, and the gender of the protagonist was changed to appeal to target new demographics, would we even be able to tell the character was originally male? I highly doubt we could, because there is nothing about the story that is gender specific. Luke could very well have been female and no one would have been the wiser, just as no one would blink if Katniss Everdeen had been male. The reasons why the gender is chosen are irrelevant if in the end it does not effect the story. The gender won't effect the story, therefore, the reasons the gender is chosen are irrelevant.

However, even though the gender will not change the story, this is not to say the gender of the hero does not make a difference. Women deserve to have just as many positive roles models as men do. As a child, I had Luke Skywalker as a role model, and it is my hope that if I ever have daughters, they will have a Skywalker to look up to, also. This is not to say, of course, that we cannot look up to or emulate those of another gender (I can think of quite a few women I look up to), but young minds tend to gravitate towards those with whom they share characteristics. Given this fact, I think it is important that popular culture contains heroes of both genders (and all ethnicities!) who are worthy of our children's admiration.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that if we were being truly impartial, we would expect every film to feature males and females at about even split, 50/50. Anything less would be artificial and unnatural. This is clearly not the expectation, however, and it begs the question: Why are people not offended that most scifi/adventure films target males more than females, and do so clearly for commercial purposes, but get up in arms when it appears the opposite may occur? Commercial interests have already skewed the landscape of popular culture towards one gender, guys. This much is clear. As such, why anyone would fear the commercially motivated inclusion of a female main character could harm the film mystifies me.

If by "no matter what we do with the franchise" we mean "even if we make the main character female", Disney would be correct in assuming I will see the film either way, so this would not offend me in the slightest. There are probably things Disney could do to make me less likely to watch the film in theaters, but making the protagonist female is definitely not one of them. In fact, it would suggest Disney actually trusts in the maturity of its audience enough to think we won't mind if the main character is not our gender. If film studios decided to coddle audiences less, it would actually be a rather pleasant turn of events, in my estimation.

 

A female MC would be awesome.

A female main villain (Darth?) would be even more awesome. And she should be old as hell. And powerful. And not sexyfied because sexy and scary are mutually exclusive (unless you're attracted to power).

She should not be like this ridiculous Ventress chick who is at the lowest point of the villain food chain, beneath even idiots like Grievous.





Was anyone really afraid of Bill? No, Elle was the scary one.

 

I agree, if it's not needed then don't use it. Star Wars is a dying franchise at the moment, the last thing I want is for it to be dragged into the scale of fandom Hunger Games or Twilight has. I don't want to be hated for being a Star Wars fan.

If they really had to go with a female lead then yes an ensemble cast would be best. I mean that's what Star Wars are yes? The best example of an ensemble cast I could think of which I would prefer they follow would be the kind seen in the show Revolution(also a JJ Abrams show). The first season's pretty much told from Charlie's(the female protagonist) point of view and it wasn't just her show too, you were also invested in other characters too.

^This. I also find them quite annoying too. I find(at least from my experience) when they have characters like that they demean the other characters they are surrounded by in order to make themselves look better, men being most hit hard by this. A good analogy for this is how sometimes certain DC Comics writers like to downgrade Superman in order to validate the importance of other heroes like Batman. We already know Batman's important, otherwise he would never be included in the story in the first place. Star Wars is an ensemble cast movie where all of the characters involved are given good limelight and characterization and more importantly everyone's given the chance to be the hero of the movie.

If you write in a character who's like: "Look at me I'm a butt-kicking girl and I'm better than all the men who do exactly the same feats because I'm the goddamn girl of the story!!!", then you are simply alienating fans(especially in the traditional target demographic) just to win over feminists.

There was some tweet or something sent out saying "Who says the lead for Episode VII is a male?" or something along the lines of that.

It's not so much Star Wars it's just the stigma with female led action/adventure type movies in general. I mean there's a reason DC has never been bothered to get a Wonder Woman movie fully green-lit and going.

 

Hollywood must think we're dumb. Did Alien or Hunger Games suffer from having a female action hero? Nope. Did Kill Bill? Nope.

But we're still told by some how "difficult" it is to use a heroine instead of a hero (like the people who claim it would be so "hard" to do a Wonder Woman movie). They must think of fans as imbeciles.

 

I have absolutely no concerns about a potential female lead and I think it would be awesome to have a badass female character in the spotlight.

These "concerns" about decisions being made solely based on marketability, profit margins, ratings, toy potential etc. are far too easily applied to anything these days, no matter if it has any basis in reality. The very fact that they are making more movies can be considered a move defined solely by search for more money. You can look at it like that, if you want, but I find that quite cynical and unnecessary.
Yes, people want to make money. Does that always compromise the creative process? Of course not. Not to mention that I have no idea how anyone can fabricate such "concerns" about movies that we have absolutely zero information on.

 

It was intended to sound silly, kind of like the whole overdone debate about the gender of the protagonist.

But wait- not very SW like? Are we forgetting about the golden bikini? Padme and the mid-riff showing outfits? Those are too unforgettable to forget, especially the bikini.

That was a pretty good one. That was the first thing I saw when I came the page, and for a moment I thought you had really quoted me, I was like "Wow, I made one HELL of a Freudian slip there."

 

Anyone see the trailer for the video game "Beyond: Two Souls" with Ellen Page?

That's kinda what I think of when I think of a Jedi-ish lead for a female.