ST Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico) in Episode IX

I disagree. A character like Poe Dameron, who was so popular that he got a whole spin-off comic and an upgraded role, was a fan favorite. Darth Maul, who was so popular that he was given many recurring appearances even after his "death" in TPM, was a fan favorite. Boba Fett, who still gets a lot of love from the fanbase and bonus material even after his underwhelming defeat in ROTJ, was a fan favorite.

Rose Tico, a character who was consistently ridiculed by multiple parts of the fanbase, a character whose wiki was messed with because the more toxic fans decided to be racist, and a character who got so much hate that the marketing and the film practically erased her in hopes of not upsetting the fans, was not a fan favorite. She has her fans, sure, but she's not nearly universally loved like other characters. The fact that she now has gained some love from the fanbase is great, but I've had many, many conversations around the internet defending Rose.

 

As a character I thought she was an unnecessary addition to TLJ. Maybe it was hoped she’d be the “Lando” style addition to the main 3, but I felt like her story was too forced upon us. We’d just been introduced to 3 new leads in Poe, Fin and Rey and come the second film they pretty much sidelined Poe for Rose and split up the main leads. They needed to have some proper screen time together instead of just relying on the third film to bring them together and try and create chemistry. In order to achieve that I think they realised that they needed to sideline Rose for the good of the story.

 

I'm glad Rose has started to get a better following and it's actually as her own character and not just as a romantic attachment to Finn. I liked her in TROS and would have enjoyed seeing more of her, especially with Connix.

 

Rose Tico has been treated unfairly compared to Poe, Maul, or Fett on the account of two major things which you have overlooked. She is a woman and she is Asian. In fact, one could go even further and give her a third attribute that the trolls liked to attack about her, the fact that her appearance was not the typical Hollywood sexualized look. Just compare her to other SW female leads like Leia, Rey, Padme, Jyn, or Qi'ra, and Rose stands out. Most of the discourse around Rose was drowned out by all the hate and vitriol and even as she's trending, you'll see so many posts attacking her still, saying she promoted an agenda for women against men or that they're happy she wasn't in the film, or that she's a "good actress" but a "terrible character" who should never have been in the films.

Acting as though fans are only unifying around her now to defend her is grossly incorrect when she got a standing ovation at Celebration (Joonas even tweeted about that right now) and #wheresrose was trending several months earlier because of her lack of merchandise and Disney capitulated and included her on more posters and toys. Unfortunately, they didn't bother padding up her role in the actual film.

 

Why did they need to anchor her to Leia in the first place? Should have been part of the Falcon crew and taken Jannah's place.

 

I fall into the latter category. Nothing against KMT but I didn't like the character of Rose Tico. But I don't feel that this is attacking her. I didn't like the character of Count Dooku, so I was glad that he was offed early in ROTS. I am a massive fan of Sir Christopher Lee though.

 

Sounds like you’re lumping everyone who doesn’t like the addition of her into the same sexist and racist category. I still believe she was a pointless addition to TLJ as a character, nothing else, as a character. I see no good reason for her to become the focus of the story at the expense of one of the 3 main lead new characters. The writers of ROS clearly thought so too as they sidelined her pretty quickly, surely they’re not racist and sexist too.

 

I mean, yeah. I wasn't overlooking that. I just thought it was obvious. Rose clearly gets an immeasurable amount of hate by bigoted people alone for being an emotional, caring, brave, and righteous woman of color. My thing is that is that there were plenty of fans who just hated her character much more understandable reasons and yet, with the backlash that KMT has gotten and the erasure, people have really seemed to turn around even. What I'm saying is that a lot of people, whether they were fans of her or not, realize that ultimately KMT and Rose deserved better.

Yeah, but the standing ovation was more in support of KMT and less for the character that she played. It was a wonderful moment (probably the best moment in the leadup to this movie) but it didn't happen because Rose was a fan favorite. It happened because the audience wanted to show her that she has their support regardless of what the online toxic fans have to say.

No, they're just incredibly lazy. When a main character is unpopular or divisive, you don't sideline them. You stick to your guns and put in the work to make them more interesting, developed, and well-rounded. Rose's problem as a character was that she was defined by her role in Finn's life. The movie should have given Rose a role of her own that had nothing to do with Finn (especially if they weren't dating), instead of giving her 10% (TEN PERCENT!) of the screentime she had in the previous film.

Also, Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo aren't new lead characters. These are characters who have had two movies worth of development (that this film hardly capitalizes on). Rose is a character who had just premiered in TLJ, played an important role in the story, and should have ideally played an even bigger then she did in the previous film. That's how character work and development works.

 

No they shouldn't, she was a boring character, who brought nothing to the party - the first couple of scenes she had in TLJ, after her sister died, were ok, but after that - she's not clever, she's not funny, she's no fighter... why would you want to watch her? KMT's performance was fine, but it hardly oozed charisma. She was a flat boring character in a flat boring film. And it wasn't KMT's fault. Consider this - Johnson even managed the impossible feat of making Benecio Del Toro boring! A staggering achievement!

 

Personally speaking I felt she was a character with nothing to offer and TLJ to me isn’t a better film for her being in it. Her character seemed too forced for me and i didn’t feel the emotional connection to her and her messages that the writers were clearly going for. I really don’t think she had anything to offer to ROS and I think it was the right decision to sideline her to focus on the main 3 and I believe that’s how’s the writers saw it too, in particular with the main plot of the story having so many heroes on the quest, it’s crowded enough as it is without another one vying for screen time.

 

I made my own fan edit of TLJ and was able to chop her and Canto Bite out and relegated her and DJ to background characters there to help Finn break in to the Star Destroyer. It is assumed DJ is just a coward who betrays them. Rose has almost no dialog. She doesn't talk down to Finn. She doesn't stun Finn (nor does Finn try to run away). She doesn't interrupt. She is just a fellow Resistance member doing their job. Likewise with Holdo. She only is seen as the background default next in rank, who gives a small pep talk and a emotional goodbye before her kamakazi. The kamakazi itself only damages one ship. Leia doesn't slap nor scold Finn. No males appear incompetent nor unsure. Finn is bold, alpha and confident. Finally I reinserted Luke's 3rd lesson.

The result is a BETTER MOVIE.

Diversity of cast was never an issue. You still plenty of demographics represented - as it always has been in Star Wars. Forced diversity harms a movie.

Females appear strong and good team players - as it always has been in Star Wars. 2010 feminist obnoxious behaviour harms movies and adds nothing of value.

Male fans are not alienated.

Luke's reasons for not acting are better understood - yet remain thought-provoking and challenging.

Disney caved into a toxic socio-political agenda. It added nothing of value to the movie that was not already there.

Rose inclusion added nothing of value and my fan edit proved that to myself.

On a side note I encourage you all to read the section Life In The Third Reich section of The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. There is a subsection that discusses how NAZI propaganda was impacting even art and other media. People ended up rejecting that. I see the insertion and rejection of Rose character as a modern day counterpart to that.

 

So basically you're saying that while Rose herself was not a popular character in the past, and any accolades she got from the public were for how KMT was treated, but now you think that TROS sidelining the character has made more fans realize what a great character Rose was? I don't really agree with that for two reasons.

1) I think Rose was already a popular character especially in certain parts of the fandom who could see themselves in her for being an Asian woman or because she represented the everyday ordinary person who doesn't normally get to be the hero but she became one through her actions and heart. The problem was that all of this was drowned out by the mass toxicity so it created this false narrative that everyone hated Rose but not necessarily Kelly (even though both Rose and Kelly would be highly intertwined and I'm sorry to say this because a few people have already said this on here, but I just find it hard to swallow the comments that "we love Kelly but we hate Rose." It just feels like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too so you can talk about how much you dislike the character and feel like she should never have existed but don't want to be brushed off as a bigot so you point out that you had no issue with Kelly. That might not apply towards a lot of you, especially the ones posting here since I know most of you guys aren't like that, but I've seen too much of the real bigots and haters using that narrative when in fact, they were annoyed that someone like Kelly was cast in the first place.

2) By your logic of reasoning, what's to say that the current outpouring of fan support is actually going to Rose this time around and not Kelly because of how Kelly was treated and sidelined? This situation doesn't seem that different from TLJ backlash (in part because it was in direct response to TLJ backlash) so from how you view the situation, it would still appear that people don't care for Rose but are just upset at how Kelly was treated.

The writers may not be but they are just as complicit for listening to the sexists and racists by sidelining Rose. I'm glad they are getting so much flack now.

I disagreed with everything you had to say but this part in particular quite alarmed me. You're equating Rose with Nazism? I just want to make sure I interpreted that correctly.

 

No I am comparing how SJW propaganda is being forced into popular entertainment much like NAZI propaganda was. Both were rejected by many people who were turned off by it. Rose added nothing of value to the franchise. There were already females taking charge. There was already racial diversity. Star Wars was already ahead of it's time and none of the forced diversity and 2010s era on obnoxious feminist male bashing did the movie any favours.

 

oink, oink.

 

@jeangreyforever Honestly, what is happening to Rose's character is something that I've seen happen to multiple female characters (especially female love interests). For example, a show like Arrow (and sorry but I kind of have to spoil it just a bit). Oliver Queen had a main love interest who played a key role in the story and was even female lead of the show. However, the character was immensely divisive and after being outshined by a much more popular female character (who eventually became the female lead and another even more divisive love interest), the former was killed off unceremoniously one of the later seasons. The fanbase, who spent majority of the first seasons hating this character but eventually came around to her after she received more development was now on fire and absolutely furious...to the point that the creators eventually brought her back.

What I'm saying is that fanbases are very fickle. I'm not disagreeing that Rose had a lot of fans but she also had quite a bit of haters. I'm just pointing out that female characters are often hated on vehemently or at least put down by fanbase disproportionately, but when the media adheres to the fans they often shift gears. Personally I think that Rose is a great character and I'm glad that she and KMT are getting support from the fanbase now, but from my POV it didn't always look like that, especially in 2018. But who knows? Maybe I'm wrong.

 

I am really very sad that the extremist fans were to blame for the reduced participation of the character. And how J. J. put her under the rug. For him, she was one of the mistakes of the previous movie, certainly.

 

This is totally unacceptable for multiple reasons. Any more posts from you like this that include any more sexism, racism, statements about “SJW propaganda”, etc. and you’ll be getting a ban. This is the final warning.

 

Talking about males and females as if the words “men” and “women” don’t already exist and aren’t perfectly good words to use when talking about, well, men and women.

Also, regarding this choice tidbit of your (terrible sounding) TLJ re-edit:

You try to talk about representation and diversity as if you are some expert and yet you don’t even have the basic critical comprehension to realize that even if a movie featured nothing but incompetent and unsure men, all that hypothetical movie would be saying is that those featured men are incompetent and/or unsure. Why would you assume they are meant to be representative avatars for and distillations of all men everywhere.

 

You're going to talk about forced diversity then compare the inclusion and rejection of Rose as one thing alike to the reaction of Nazi propaganda? Of all the analogies to make you want to go there. Lol ok I'll bite. You know what, I grew up loving Star Wars watching a cast of primarily white actors and I never complained. This spans decades with a few sprinkles of people of color here and there. Now you get only 4 to 6 measly years where you see people who don't look like you in your little fantasy franchise and you're complaining its too diverse and its got you all triggered thinking you're witnessing the infiltration of propaganda that reminds you of Nazism. Meanwhile I've watched a franchise showing me the superiority and power of blue-eyed blond dudes from the 80s to 2005 who might I add are also the primary protagonists and I never once got triggered or threatened.

Lol you're so soft.

 

Felicity was the character who really took off with the fans right and the show shifted a lot of importance to her? And I think Laurel was the main female character at first before they scrapped her for Felicity? You're right that female characters always have it worse. That's an interesting analogy between Felicity and Laurel in Arrow compared to Rose and you could be right. I personally do think that Rose had a lot of fans even back during TLJ but they were drowned out by toxicity. The reason Rose is trending now is because fans didn't expect her to be sidelined so much. When she was absent from marketing, she was trending and now that hse' basically absent from the film, she's been trending again. This just tells me that she's always had a fanbase but we are hearing from them now because they have a reason to be vocal.

I really wish this post and all your posts about Rose in this thread would turn out to be a parody because the alternative is a little too disconcerting for my taste.

 

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that JJ cut Rose.

I mean, this is the same guy who completely cut out his own character, Korr Sella, in TFA

 

I think Rose gets a lot of distaste for her “heroic” move to “save” Finn in Episode 8.

She was much better written in 9. Too bad she didn’t get more time. But she probably got more than Luke Friggin Skywalker. So cry me a river.

 

Better written in TROS? She's not a character in this movie, she could have been replaced by any random stand-in and it wouldn't have made any difference.