ST Laura Dern (Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo) in TLJ

As long as none of those fossiles kill the emperor in the end by throwing their dental protheses to his head it's ok

 

If anything, Stallone looks MORE awesome now than he did back in the day. Because now he has that "grizzled veteran who's seen some bad stuff" thing going for him.

 

Maybe he should appear as Darth Rambo bringing back the balance to the Galaxy

 

Sexism.

Happens all the time. I lost count of the amount of people on TFN who, prior to any TFA scoops, assumed Luke would still be an active Jedi, Han would be involved in either smuggling or the military, and 50 something Leia would be...retired and at home still raising kids.

In these kinds of franchises it's not uncommon for women to be thought of as lesser, if considered at all, once their geek pin-up status has expired with age.

 

Oh believe me I get that. For every Ellen Ripley, or Sarah Connor, or Rey, or Leia, or Black Widow, etc in these types of movies, there's many more female leads who are either just there to be damsels, love interests, or just annoying in general. It's improving now, but there's still a LONG way to go.

Heck the SW films haven't exactly been stellar in their treatment of female characters in the past either, to be honest. Not that I think that they were being deliberately sexist, I don't. I just chalk it up to a rather careless oversight on their part due to the genre that they're working in.

 

She won't be playing Rey or anyone else's mom.

You heard it here first folks.

 

Let me see if I understand this correctly - lots of people want Laura Dern to be playing Mara Jade, or a character much like her? A character who served Emperor Palpatine and acted on his behalf, killing both rebels and imperials at his bidding and was later commanded by him to assassinate Luke Skywalker before she went rogue, fell in love with and married him?

Hmm, I guess it's o.k for a villainous female mass murderer to find love and redemption with a saintly male hero without fear of punishment for her crimes.

 

I'm gonna be honest If she is going to fight, I don't want her doing light saber fights. Same with Luke. All I'm going to think is why are they putting my Aunt and Uncle out there to throw there hip out XD

Firing a gun or using the force is fine if thats how they are going to fight. Also Don't have them physically fight one of the younger cast members, that will just stand out worse to me. The reason Han worked was that I can believe An Old Man or Women with a gun would be able to out maneuver younger, more untrained people.

 

Marshall132 "I'm gonna be honest If she is going to fight, I don't want her doing light saber fights."

Ageist!

Your version of Star Wars would have to be edited to take out any fight sequences involving Qui-Gon Jinn, Darth Sidious, Darth Tyranus and Mace Windu. That's a lot of film on the cutting room floor.

 

I'm no ageist, but I certainly wish some of those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor...

 

Spoiler

 

Qui-Jon atleast had the most of his fight including his apprentice to take up the slack. Also it helped That his actor has had alot of sword training in other rolls. All others........... Well Samuel Jackson wasn't aweful but those two other guys where just sad ......... Somethings should not have been filmed...... or atleast had stunt actors for alot of it with no close up face shots for the most part except for the beginning and the end of the fight.

 

Considering that the majority of Star Wars lightsaber battles involve middle aged, and older, characters I have to wonder how you made it this far as a Star Wars fan.

Perhaps Twilight is more to your taste?

 

gutted that this thread about the exciting news that an absolutely fantastic actress has been cast in Star Wars has predictably descended into the usual ageist drivel.

she's not even 50!

She looks in pretty good shape to me.

 

The ageism is strong on this board, so sadly it's not surprising. Just par for the course.

 

So true. I however was thrilled when I heard an actress over forty had been cast. The diversity of the new cast just gets better and better.

 

Laura Dern is 47, and that's just turned (IMDB has her birth year off by 2).

That's around Harrison Ford's age when Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released, just to give perspective. She's only 10 years older than Oscar Issac. She's young enough to be Harrison Ford's daughter, and almost Mark's too.

Something is very wrong here.

 

I don't know how we started talking about the age of lightsaber combatants but it needs to stop. This thread is about Laura Dern in Episode VIII. I'll also give a reminder to all that bashing any character/actor based on age, appearance, etc is not allowed.

 

When I have talked about her age (before all this debate started) I only did it to point out if she could the part of the Skywalker family. Daisy is 24, she is 47 and Mark is 64. She is kind of in between. She could be Rey´s mother by today´s standards, but who knows.

PS: Not sure it this kind of comments about her age are allowed Darth Chiznuk, if not please tell me and I edit it.

 

Darth_Bertie While personally I'd be cautious about talking about actors ages because it can easily descend into bashing, I don't find anything wrong with your post. As long as you're not bashing the actor based on their age it's fine.

 

Why, Laura Dern is young enough to be Bruce Dern's daughter ... oh, wait ...

 

Darth Claire Do we have fanart thread in this section yet? I'm sure the fanart of Dern as Mara and Del Toro as Thrawn must be out there already. ;-)

 

I think of Dern and I think of a phenomenal actor who is still relevant in the business today. She's an Oscar and Emmy nominated talent, multiple times over. She's not just the college age girl who was once in Jurassic Park.

I hope she's well utilized. I hope she's not just some passive, sweet thing that's only seen in flashbacks as somebody's mom or Luke's chick. If she plays those roles, fine, but let it be fleshed out and layered (as far as you can in SW film, this ain't a kitchen sink drama).

 

Yeah I'll be bummed if the only time we see her is in a vision or flashback looking angelic and passive.

 

All this talk is reminding me of Andy Serkis and Lupita NYong'o. All the spec, talk, and assumptions and it might all boil down to her being a mo-cap character, or some alien that has her buried in make up and/or prosthetics.