r/SipsTea • u/cozyvoid79 • 9d ago
Lmao gottem people really don't vibe with characters who just got handed everything
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u/Fun-Memory1523 9d ago
Sarah Connor in the terminator series
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u/L00seSuggestion 9d ago
Sarah Connor made the morally ambiguous choice to try to assassinate Miles Dyson. modern writers would never give a female protagonist that kind of moral complexity that could risk losing any of the audience’s sympathy
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u/TheFBIClonesPeople 9d ago
Yeah, it feels like every modern female lead is being written with "representation" in mind, and it's like they have to be portrayed as morally perfect and good at everything. It ends up feeling plastic and fake. It just has such a "corporate" vibe to it
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u/FundamentalAttribute 9d ago
I was reading a write up about representation and how it almost doesn't matter what you do it'll always be perceived in some negative way unless the piece of media is top tier.
Part of the reason is because everything is political in some way or form, for example, if you have a black character in a show they need to be the pinnacle of what a man should be otherwise some people might think you're making a statement on the whore race when you're probably not trying to do that. You'll have the bigoted crowd using it as justification and proof if they're a bad character and the non bigoted crowd might also be upset that you only write token representation if they're just good.
They found that a good and easy way to help alleviate some of the negative views is by simply having more than 1 character in the show of the same race/nationality/gender/identity/etc cause now you have multiple of the same whatever acting different and all of that representation doesn't fall onto the shoulders of one actor so they're allowed to be more than just representation.
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u/FamiliarAnt4043 9d ago
Princess Leia in the original trilogy. Padme Amidala in the prequel trilogy. Ripley in the Alien series. Ahsoka Tano in Clone Wars/Rebels.
Plenty of strong female characters. Rey's character just sucked.
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u/therealkami 9d ago
Rey was fine as a character at first, and Daisy Ridley is a great actor.
But holy shit did they write 3 garbage movies.
Absolutely wasted the level of talent they had.
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u/trivinium 9d ago
Arcane had awesome female characters as well and is a pretty loved series. Specially the 1st season.
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u/EdgyPun34257 9d ago
oh hell, you just reminded me I haven't watched season 2 yet
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u/DocXom 9d ago
I bring up Ripley and Sarah every time somebody starts this nonsense. There have always been female protagonists, you just have to actually not fumble it and make it corny af. Simple.
If it feels shoehorned in for clout, it cheapens tf out of it and has the opposite effect.
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u/RossDrakon1 9d ago
My favorite is Eowyn from lord of the rings when she kills the witch king and say "I am no man". One of the most powerfull moments in movie history.
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u/breadexpert69 9d ago
Yeah I dont know what they are talking about. I remember watching “Xena The Warrior Princess” all the time growing up. Never even considered that she was weaker just cuz she is female.
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u/Mi113nnium 9d ago
About 7 years later, Kim Possible kicked asses on TV and handled everything with ease, but somehow, she was likeable, because we saw her struggle with everyday stuff and learning life lessons.
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u/doubleo_maestro 9d ago
The other part of it is that they also didn't undermine another beloved character. It wasn't 'just Rei' it was the fact that Luke (and the other originals) were quite purposefully shat on for her story. Don't get me wrong, I don't think she was a good character by any stretch.
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u/AllIdeas 9d ago
She's a fine character at least in concept, and a fine actress. Just the writing of the entire trilogy was so absolute garbage that nothing else mattered.
The problem, as usual, is the writing.
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u/PIPBOY-2000 9d ago edited 8d ago
The character of Rey suffers from unearned triumph. Both Luke and Anakin required intense training and failure before they were able to advance. Rey beats Kylo just because the plot says so. They all had innate force talent but Rey is the only one who succeeded without tribulations on screen.
Ripley is scared out of her wits, she's terrified and barely makes it out alive from the first movie. But she's competent, she's reasonable, and makes logical choices. That's what makes her succeed. By the second one, she suffers from ptsd and night terrors, but she goes anyway. She's surrounded by "badasses" but when shit hits the fan she is the only one who takes immediate control of the situation and saves everyone. Her weapon use is written into the plot with Hicks** showing her, and her insisting he shows her "everything." She has clear motivations, Newt is a surrogate daughter. With Ripley clearly devastated by outliving her own daughter and missing out on her entire life.
Edit: "Hudson sir, he's Hicks"
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u/RodanThrelos 9d ago
Honestly, that’s the part that bothered me more than anything.
Luke doesn’t defeat Vader at any point. He only barely holds him off after training and a long arc.There’s no reason that Kylo should ever have lost to Rey.
It would be one thing if he toyed with her and let her go, but they made it clear that she defeated him and got away.She never struggles. In fact, the only significant character growth, realizing that she was nobody important and that’s ok, is immediately rewritten by hack writers.
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u/No_Initial_7545 9d ago
If force-sensitive character with no training can manage even a stalemate against someone who has trained for decades and is considered to be among the best there is, then the whole concept of training is pointless. Everything Luke did on Dagobah was a waste of time if he always just naturally had it in him.
Even if Kylo was in some way impaired, that fight should have been like a professional UFC fighter against an Internet tough guy. Over in two seconds.
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u/RodanThrelos 9d ago
I mean she literally has no defenses. He should have been able to choke her without any effort.
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u/markus_kt 9d ago
Well, like Yoda said, the Light Side of the Force is quicker, easier, more seductive.
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u/StrCmdMan 9d ago
What makes great characters is internal conflict with one self. Rey has none of this her path is paved out before her she just shows up there’s zero reason to root for her.
Ripley is fighting demons from her past in the form of aliens, and luke has multilayered generational struggels that would seemingly crush anyone.
Kylo struggles more than Rey they show it and they make his character insufferable by design otherwise he would have taken over the show.
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u/Awkward_Region5509 9d ago
Adam Driver is still hands down the best actor in the whole trilogy. He’s an amazing actor. As everyone else, the writing was just shit. Adam Driver though, top tier.
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u/StrCmdMan 9d ago
Instead of picking him up and getting her in a place to meet or surpass him they pushed him down. He still shown through despite everything, and it was the right decision showing his struggles because it made the trilogy more watchable. But by expanding his narative and not really fleshing out Rey it highlighted the bad writing even more.
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u/Awkward_Region5509 9d ago
100%. They wrote his storyline a lot better than hers, and he is just a bad bitch, but the writers just screwed the pooch.
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u/Pirat6662001 9d ago
Ripley is also fighting corporate hacks in both of the first movies. The real enemy was always WY
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u/MrNobody_0 9d ago
Luke doesn’t defeat Vader at any point.
He literally cut off his hand, disarmed him, had him laying on the ground wheezing, ready to level the final blow. Luke absolutely defeated Vader, he just didn't kill him because that's not the Jedi way.
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u/RodanThrelos 9d ago
Fair enough, thank you for the correction.
Then I should say that after training, learning, and overcoming his “whiny farmboy” youth, he is able to defeat his greatest obstacle, but it comes at great cost.
You are right, I must have misremembered.9
u/bct7 9d ago
Jedi killed plenty.
That's not the script way.
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u/Magnus_The_Totem_Cat 9d ago
The Jedi are dirty AF but the OT didn’t have time to get into the lore of a vanished era. Luke thinks the Jedi are pure the way someone today imagines things were done “the right way” in a romanticized idea of the past.
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u/jax_vos9 9d ago
He only beat Vader because he got angry. He stopped once he cut Vader’s hand off because he realized that if he went any further he’d turn.
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u/EdgyPun34257 9d ago
"he only beat Vader because he got angry"
that's a weird way to say he beat Vader.
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u/VerdigrisX 9d ago
I also have trouble with someone who grew up from 6 or 8ish as a scavenger somehow be able to fly like she does and out do Han Solo when it came to keeping the Falcon flying. How did she learn all that stuff.
As for fighting Kylo, he had a bad wound but I dont think that justified him doing so poorly.
She is definitely a Mary Sue. And yes Ripley was much more credible. Even loader battle at the end of Aliens was setup well with her earlier experience. No "how did she know how to do that".
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u/EdgyPun34257 9d ago edited 9d ago
showing her using the loader was a piece of exposition as subtle as a kick in the nuts, but it still respected the audience enough to establish the character instead of just saying "she's just awesome at everything, don't be a hater"
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u/smellsliketeenferret 9d ago
showing her using the loader
There was a bit of dialogue earlier in the film where Ripley mentions the only work she could get was at a cargo loading dock due to her flight status being cancelled, so it's completely acceptable and consistent that she can use the loader as it's a job she has been doing.
Rey suffered from being written as "I wonder if this works? Oh look, I can do it easily" for pretty much everything she tried to do
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u/CMDR_Kaus 9d ago
Based on Rey's experience prior to the movies she should be an excellent mechanic with decent to very good bow staff and ground piloting skills.
They really missed the opportunity to create a lightsaber staff for the first time in cinematic history. I thought that's where they were going with it but guess not.
Imagine Rey on a customized-to-hell speeder chopping stormtrooper heads off with a lightstaff through a battlefield!
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u/sir_racho 9d ago
See there’s more relevant thought and analysis in this comment than there was in development of Rey’s character. Unless there was but all that footage got cut 🤔
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u/vintageribbon 9d ago
They winged the entire plot
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u/boyuber 9d ago
They had two people with vastly different visions for the franchise attempting to tell very different stories in a single narrative.
I believe that if either of them had the reins for the full trilogy, they could have made a compelling, cohesive narrative. Instead, it ended up disjointed and lacking an identity.
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u/OnlyHereForComments1 9d ago
JJ Abrams would have produced...well, Original Trilogy But Bigger. He's a hack with no original ideas, we knew this from the Star Trek reboot universe.
Rian Johnson...look, half of TLJ's problems are Rian being an ass because he got handed JJ's pile of BS and being more than a little petty about it. Give the man a trilogy and we would have something interesting at least. I don't think it'd be a Rogue One/Andor situation but someone who actually could articulate an idea might actually produce something better than what JJ did.
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u/Polar_Reflection 9d ago
I didn't think this initially, but I'd rather see a Rian Johnson trilogy than a JJ one.
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u/OneValkGhost 9d ago
Plots were raised and then ignored. The classic characters were brought back, turned into nothing, and freaking killed. Rey just wanders around without any drive or goal, while all the series' characters walk up to her. Everything is explained very poorly, too.
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u/ougryphon 9d ago
Leaving the theater from TFA, I would have agreed. The subsequent movies showed that she was just a Mary Sue - not because the force demanded a strong light-side user, but because the hack writers had screwed up her character almost from her first scene. The Force Awakens is almost unwatchable now.
A much better comparison is between Rogue One and the sequel trilogy. Rogue One is peak Star Wars with a likeable female protagonist. The best that can be said of the sequel trilogy is that it is utterly forgettable (apart from its memeable lines of bad dialog).
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u/masterjon_3 9d ago
She goes from thinking jedis are a myth to out-forcing a trained sith
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u/ougryphon 9d ago
For everyone saying Luke is a Mary Sue, he went from not knowing about to force to running away from his first sith encounter, getting his ass beat and his hand removed in his second, and finally having his ass saved by his father in the third encounter.
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u/XishengTheUltimate 9d ago
Even in A New Hope, the most impressive things he did were piloting related, and even THAT wasn't super impressive. He had to be bailed out of certain death twice during the Death Star assault.
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u/Axtdool 9d ago
And even then part of it was Han coming in last second to bail his ass out, otherwise he'd have been shot down just like every other rebel pilot attempting the trench run (except wedge who bailed half way to target)
Not sure if the whole 'X-wing controls are basicly the same as your bush plane' scenes were cut or EU though.
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u/ougryphon 9d ago
Honestly, most movies about flying vastly over-simplify the controls, handling, etc. It is a trope that any main character can jump in a jet and fly it passably. Even other pilots in the movie were like, "you sure you got this, bro?"
Maybe in a galaxy far, far away the controls really are more intuitive. At Yavin, Luke wasn't the best pilot that ever was, and he didn't need to be. What we, the audience, needed him to do was be heroic. He was willing to try rather than run away to safety (like Han initially did). In the end he got where he needed to go and Obi-Wan helped him use the force.
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u/BWoodsn2o 9d ago
Not just any Sith, one that was shown to be particularly gifted with force usage. She beats him, while being untrailed, with little to no difficulty.
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u/DrHoodMD 9d ago
Agreed, in fact I would say Rogue One is so good it makes A New Hope better.
Before being geeky was cool one of the big loop holes none fans would pick at was how ridiculous it was a lone pilot could exploit some random exhaust port to blow up the entire death star.
Rogue One explicitly tells the story of why this was they way it was and with really compelling, grounded reasoning.
Compartmentalisation for super secret weapon platforms is absolutely a thing in real life, just look at the Manhattan project. So somebody at a high enough level that turns could very realistically design in a flaw.
Having a kick ass final act doesn't hurt either.
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u/Nervous-Canary-517 9d ago
They also managed to make her look stupid, just like they did with Kelly Marie Tran.
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u/TaxRepresentative4B 9d ago
Nope, she has no personality whatsoever. I can’t describe any of her character traits. She is plain and bland. Unlike Leia. Leia is brave, witty
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u/Constant_Pen9615 9d ago
I'm all for an all female Ghostbusters and they've honestly set up something great with Phoebe. Just not whatever the fuck 2016 was.
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u/Weak_Employment_5260 9d ago
The main problem is they were all playing for laughs and it was too much a carbon copy in the situation. Part of the appeal of the first was it was played straight.
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u/TopChapter3407 9d ago
This. I was happy with the actor choice and that there would be a female protagonist. Still absolutely hate the sequel trilogy, specifically the second movie written by Rian Johnson has to be the most careless movie ever written. It doesn't respect the OT, doesn't respect the previous move in the ST nor the subsequent movie in the ST.
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u/Wardogs96 9d ago
Was going to say, i dont dislike her but the plot and development of the 2 and 3rd movie look awful
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u/Donjinmester 9d ago
Rey could’ve been a cool character.
It just so happened that it wasn’t a great idea to switch the vision of the trilogy in every movie
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u/thetavious 9d ago
This. Jfc this.
All they had to do was make her a student survivor vs the flippity floppity you're a nobody but OOPS jk lol you're actually a descendant of an incredibly powerful sith that somehow came back.
Like have her parents surrender her to luke and school, he bails on her, not thinking he had the skills to ensure she embraces the light side, and the uncertainty of abandoning her gives him the fear that paves the way to fail ben.
It gives her an actual reason for pursuing ben, because if she can't save him, how could she save herself from the dark side.
But nope. Just wibbly wobbly unclear vision the whole way through.
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u/SpudgeFunker210 9d ago
Rey's character arc in each film:
TFA: Rey is rotting away in Jakku because she's waiting for her parents to return, despite knowing deep down that they're never coming back. She is thrust into an adventure that forces her to confront that reality and she decides to move on from her parents and start her new life as a Jedi.
TLJ: Rey is obsessed with learning about who her parents are and it gets in the way of her moving on with her life and truly embracing her path to becoming a Jedi. Kylo Ren forces her to confront the reality that her parents were nobody and they're never coming back and she decides to move on from her parents and start her new life as a Jedi.
TROS: Rey is training to become a Jedi, but this is disrupted when Kylo Ren forces her to confront the reality that one of her parents was the offspring of Emperor Palpatine. Rey ultimately decides to move on from her parents and start her new life as a Jedi, but she calls herself "Skywalker" this time.
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u/taskkill-IM 9d ago
Characters like Ripley and Sarah Connor needed an entire film dedicated to their character going through absolute turmoil before coming back hard as fucking nails....
That's why they are probably two of the most beloved characters in the entire action/horror/fantasy genres... the fact they are female is irrelevant, no one sees them as strong female characters, they are seen as bad ass characters in their own universes, they still have struggles and can still be out matched but can still fuck shit up when it matters.
People grow tired of films where the main characters have no flaws, show no progression, learn fuck all and the universe is just dedicated to them being perfect.
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u/Kindly-Pair6732 9d ago
Right. Regardless of gender, seeing the struggle and rise of the character is what makes them badass and relatable. Captain America wouldn't have been as good if we didn't see him struggle and his willingness to sacrifice. Ironman needed to struggle and get kicked around for a couple of movies for us to see his humanity. We didn't need a Hulk movie because we get it. Rey won the jedi super power lottery while sacrificing nothing. It's why we all thought Finn was going to be the main person. He had the greatest personal developments while Rey acted like the plucky side character, and seemingly getting whatever they wanted along the way.
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u/DaRealKovi 9d ago
This is it, really. It's human nature to struggle and to relate to others that struggle the same way we do or did. I don't wanna watch a perfect specimen walking through life, I want to watch someone who gets beat down, learns from it and gets back up again, with determination and sheer willpower.
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u/ShatterMental 9d ago
Just for the record, men don't like male characters who are written like that, either.
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u/Artix96 9d ago
Original Mulan was an example of a well written original female character.
Didn't have no chi or other girlboss bullshit. Didn't have same physical strength as her fellow soldier but overcame the chellaneges using her smarts. Character was shown struggling, failing, expressing human weakness and emotions and people can relate to that.
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u/darkargengamer 9d ago
NO ONE likes a character that is given power WITHOUT any true sacrifice or effort.
Sadly, we live in a time where movies and videogames are plagued with that: pure raw talent (as being the choosen one) over a LOT of training, suffering and character progression.
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u/AggieNosh 9d ago
Which is why Bran’s final position in GOT was so dumb.
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u/tweak8 9d ago
He suffered being a cripple and did the stupid 3rd eye raven training. I think it's because how many suffered for him to get him further it felt unearned. Plus his immediate personality shift when he became the raven was so stoic and never really progressed personally from there.
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u/DutchVandal 9d ago
I blame that entirely on D & D; I"m pretty sure Bran was supposed to be an anti-villain of sorts and the end result was not 'happy kingdom' but 'different type of fuckery.'
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u/North-Tourist-8234 9d ago
nah fuck it, bran died in the cave, the entity inside his body is using his linage to take over Westeros
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u/MedonSirius 9d ago
100 Situps
100 Crunches
100 Squads
10km running
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u/DaRealKovi 9d ago
I know it's not gaming or movies, but Rock Lee and Might Guy are beloved in Naruto for the same reason. Dudes put up a fight with physical prowess and pure willpower that equals and (at times) outdoes the dudes that use fucking magic to beat their enemies.
"I use fireballs to burn my enemies to ash"
"I use wind and energy to tear my enemies apart from the inside"
"What about you?"
"Once, my kick broke the sound barrier and punctured the armor of a being so powerful that he could have rivaled Gods."
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u/Professional-Bad302 9d ago
One had to survive a xenomorph with a cat and a dream. The other downloaded kung-fu directly from the Force.
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u/North-Tourist-8234 9d ago
brings up a good point neo literally downloads kung fu and it isn't seen as dumb because it is clearly established in universe with the rules and he's still not great at it compared to those with actual mastery
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u/Soft-Sea7012 9d ago
Ripley made every right decision only for them to be ignored by corporate. Still did her job when everything went downhill. She was scared and vulnerable. Great character.
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u/ParsleySnipps 9d ago
Being a blue collar worker also gave her a certain charm. She wasn't the pretty girl who got to work on the bridge, she was the competent flight officer that made the right decisions and tried to fix the problem despite being scared shitless of a literal monster. They did good by having other female characters in Alien and especially Aliens to show that women weren't an oddity in blue collar and military roles.
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u/ObligationThese1364 9d ago
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u/Heeeeeeyyyyyy 9d ago
Literally though. That's literally the point of the hunger games. Katniss isn't perfect and she causes some really fucked things. (As any other character in the series).
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u/Jack_Crypt 9d ago
Men like strong women
Men don't like Mary Sue
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u/hellatzian 9d ago
i dont even need "strong" woman for me to like.
just having good character is enough for me
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u/reignsXknights 9d ago
female character whose superpower is being female vs actually good written character that just happens to be female
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u/ImperialSupplies 9d ago
Ripley aint even a mary sue either she doesnt have acess to an arsenal of machine guns to fight alien in alien 1 shes a civilian and using what's available. In 2 she kills the queen with whats essentially a fork lift.
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u/SkynBonce 9d ago
Well the thing with Ripley, is she's a character who the audience see become strong.
Rey didn't have the same journey. She was hero from the get go. Which isn't so compelling.
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u/askdickson 9d ago
Entitled Superpowers, that is one of the reasons Superman was not everyone's favorite.
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u/OneValkGhost 9d ago
There's a lot of Superman where he's suffering because everyone wants to try to take down whoever's the top dog, while Supes just wants to go save tree cats or something. On the other hand there's the entire Superdickery era! On the third hand, people are just jealous of people who can do things they can't, ignoring that that includes feeling kindness and concern for others.
Rey just wandered about wrecking things.
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u/Stunning_Box8782 9d ago
and the 2nd movie was all about her being a nobody, which was her strength,
then it turns out she's the granddaughter of Palpatine anyway
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u/GreatAndPowerfulDC 9d ago
The one interesting thing they did with her character and they just retcon it one movie later LOL it’s unreal how bad the sequel trilogy was
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u/ZeeWingCommander 9d ago
It's also the reason I wanted the ex storm trooper to be a jedi at some point.
He showed grit and he was not powerful.
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u/masterjon_3 9d ago
It's also just one of the reasons why the live action Mulan movie sucked. Original Mulan wasn't already a badass, she was just clever than most people. She had the "work smarter, not harder" mentality. When she got to boot camp, she struggled so much, she almost got sent home until she proved herself by retrieving the arrow. After that, she became a badass.
Live action Mulan showed she had skills when she was a kid and was already a badass. Saying you can't be a badass unless you're born one.
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u/xczechr 9d ago
The very first time she touched a lightsaber she defeated a Sith lord. Lame.
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u/L00seSuggestion 9d ago
Ripley made the morally ambiguous choice to not let Kane back on the ship. Modern writers wouldn’t dare anything that could risk the audience’s sympathy for the character like that.
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u/bediaxenciJenD81gEEx 9d ago
Morally ambiguous? I've never seen that take. She was following protocol. She wasn't saying leave him for dead, she just knew they weren't supposed to let alien lifeforms onto the ship.
Also, she does that before she's established as the main character, and is instantly proven correct anyway. I don't think it was a risky choice.
It's stupid to compare Star Wars and Alien because one is essentially a superhero movie set in a fantasy world, and the other is a hypercapitalistic near-future of our own world. Ripley is an employee doing a dangerous job who becomes an action hero to survive, not a superhero meant to represent objective good like a Jedi. They are written very differently because they have different roles.
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u/North-Tourist-8234 9d ago
"she does that before she's established as the main character"
this is the pat people forget, if you like me were to go into alien completely blind with no knowledge of the sequels, its very much unclear who would survive till the end. even ripley going off alone to the bridge is a misdirect as every other person got got while alone up to that point
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u/Darigaazrgb 9d ago
Ripley is taught how to use a pulse rifle by Hicks and never uses one until the end when she duct tapes a military flamethrower to one and single handedly assaults an alien hive.
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u/TheRealCabbageJack 9d ago
It's the same reason Animated Mulan is a fantastic movie and Live Action Mulan...isn't.
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u/Senhor_Lasanha 9d ago
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u/DEADdrop_ 9d ago
Any of the ladies from The Expanse. Naomi, Bobbie, Sam (books), Drummer, and my personal favourite Crisjen Avasarala. My god, I adore her.
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u/North-Tourist-8234 9d ago
i really hated her at the start of her arc, but damn did she win me over.
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u/Sashpeto 9d ago
Men Love strong female characters who had to put some effort into being that or just acted like a badass .
Man despise strong characters who had about 30seconds development arc and are now absolute god of war cause of scifi magic .
We respect hard work and effort and the gains from it .
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u/Tribe303 9d ago edited 9d ago
Just within the same IP... Princess fucking Leia also exists. Did everyone miss the part where she was rescued by a trucker and a farmer, realized they were idiots and told them so, and then took over her own rescue? She also knew they let them escape because they had a tracking beacon on the Falcon as well. Much to the denial of the 2 idiots who rescued her. 🤦
Edit: people in the comments are bringing up her Slave Leia outfit for some reason. So, Jabba put her in that outfit to embarrass and shame her, and to show how powerful he was. He kept an Alderanian Princess (and former galactic senator!) in a bikini as a pet.Thats quite the flex. However, Leia litteraly used the tools of her oppressor, her chains, to overcome and kill her oppressor. Again, no one rescued her from Jabba either. She did that herself.
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u/Old-Jicama-728 9d ago
leia had character flaws and suffered set backs. She wasnt superior to everyone in her life in every way.
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u/Future_Section5976 9d ago
I just don't like the fact she can just do Jedi stuff without training, needs no help , doesn't want any help , litterly sidelines most of the other characters because she doesn't need them , and when they are leaving that one planet if she wasn't told to wait she would've left them all behind, I guess I just don't like the ass pull of overpowered BS , there's no real growth , it's just "she's just powerful for the sake of it" Idk , it's just kinda dumb.
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u/LongjumpingEffect405 9d ago
The new trilogy should have had Rei turn to the dark side with her ease of how powerful she was and her weakness of feeling abandoned. She should have been the dark empress with kylo growing in character realizing his ways and maturing to then having to defeat Rei.
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u/Nytherion 9d ago
shhh... the disney fanboys might turn their ire on you for daring to suggest a better script!
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u/Roguespiffy 9d ago
Those still exist? How much mediocrity do you have to endure before you admit that the writing is lazy?
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u/Fun-Personality-8008 9d ago
The new trilogy could have been a lot of things that it wasn't
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u/Striking_Case_6725 9d ago
Cope. Its just bad writing. Idk where this talk came from that we didn’t like strong female characters as though we didn’t grow up with Powerpuff Girls, Totally Spies, Kim Possible, and Sailor Moon.
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u/pchlster 9d ago
I hate when something hasn't even come out yet, but the people behind it essentially go "either you'll love it or you're a bigot."
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u/Stillback7 9d ago
Also Chihiro from Spirited Away. Still one of the greatest female characters ever made
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u/IAMEPSIL0N 9d ago
It's a mutation and weak writers. We had a bunch of strong female characters who were respected by the males at the same tier and tier above them on the hierarchy and generally respected said characters in return.
It then became a thing to write female characters to disrespect the hierarchy if not completely tear it down and then the writing turns into the same drivel that we criticize with male characters in so many isekae where they know everything and can do everything and never get burnt out despite doing three plus people worth of work.
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u/VomitShitSmoothie 9d ago
The problem with Rey is she that had almost zero struggle despite there being every reason for her to struggle. The character itself could have been great but she just ended up being padded with plot armor without explanation. If she could instantly compete at the top tier and has no major flaws she doesn’t have a journey. It felt more like everything worked around her and for her than her having any real stakes in the game.
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u/BigPapaLegba 9d ago
Ripley, Princess Leia,, Beatrix Kiddo, Clarice Starling, Rita Vrataski (Edge of Tomorrow), Imperator Furiosa, Éowyn, Ahsoka Tano, Buffy Summers, Dana Scully (The X-Files), Katniss Everdeen, Natasha Romanoff, Mulan, Samus Aran, Lara Croft, Carol Peletier, and The Boss (Metal Gear Solid 3), Sarah Connor...
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u/Flat_Teach_4438 9d ago edited 9d ago
Rey is a caricature of a heroine.
Ripley is the definition of one.
~i misspelleded ripley
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u/SmilingCarrotTeeth 9d ago
Note that Ms Force-user has spent all her days since childhood taking apart complicated machines and electronics - if Disney had had the brains to show her tracing conduits and ducts rather than scrubbing electronics with a brush people would have understood that she'd got some experience with intentional use of tools.
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u/DarkRogus 9d ago
People just want to hang on that it was misogyn why 7, 8, and 9 didnt do well, not because 7, 8, and 9 were a complete cluster.
Rogue One was widely praised and that had a woman co-lead just like 7, 8, and 9.
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u/Sochi540 9d ago
My favorite strong female character since I was little is Velma, but I guess she wasn't strong enough for them and had to butcher her character.
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u/dcunningninja 9d ago
Star wars was just poorly written and inconsistent with very little to no foreshadowing whatsoever. Captain Marvel and perhaps Scarlet Witch are better examples. Never understood the Carol hate, but coincidentally theyre under Disney.
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u/2Delta_Nerd 9d ago
Movie Captain Marvel is generally seen as kind of bland, so she gets a lot of hate there.
Also, while I haven't read any comics with her in them, she's apparently been insufferable in several Avengers comics (I believe Civil War 2 is the big one that people point at).
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u/Tyrus--Maximus 9d ago
The writting is just so terrible for depiction in the MCU.
In the comics she becomes very rigid and dispassionate in her views much to everyones dislike.
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u/Scrollsy 9d ago
Rei wasnt a strong character... she was a plain slice of potato with a lightsaber she borrowed from someone else....
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u/JudgementalChair 9d ago
I remember when this debate was all the rage a few years ago. People don't like Mary Sues that stumble into being the strongest character in the setting.
People also forget that Ripley was not a physical badass, Ripley was psychologically hard as nails because she survived a horrific ordeal only to wake up decades later where everything she knew and loved was gone and dead. She had no other purpose in life but to help in the fight against the Xenomorphs.
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u/TheTearfulSiren 9d ago
Mulan is actually a really good example of this. Compared to the 2020 version of Hua Mulan portrayed by Liu Yifei, the 1998 Disney rendition of Mulan does a far better job of crafting a strong female character than its live-action movie. In the animated feature, Mulan visibly struggles to fit in both the ultra feminine and hyper masculine spheres of society, but she uses her wits and tactical ingenuity to tackle problems head on. Obviously she also has her training montage during the iconic song of I'll Make a Man Out of You", her victories and camaraderies felt earned because she actually work for them. She's earned the respect of her peers and general when she succeeds in her initiatives by thinking outside of the box. It actually feels realistic.
Now when you compare that to her live-action counterpart, Liu Yifei's Mulan falls flat for many reason. First of all, the costuming choices and make-up were utterly atrocious so there's that. Secondly, they made Mulan into a Mary Sue by having her possess the strongest Qi since day one. So there's really nothing to root for, and for some reason, Mulan could barely emote in this movie when she was very expressive in the 90s so that was disappointing as well. Looking at the two examples, it really is night and day.
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u/WaywardRogueGaming 9d ago
It's not a matter of liking strong Female characters, it's a matter of liking WELL WRITTEN strong Female characters. Ripley is still one of my favorites.
"Modern" Boss Girls are garbage because of their writers. They can't even write Male Super Heroes/strong Male characters either.
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u/No_Communication2959 9d ago
I maintain the actors did a phenomenal job and I dont blame any of them for taking the job. I blame the writers and directors.
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u/WowzerzzWow 9d ago
I think it's because Ripley isn't an OP Demigod with powers. She's just a woman. She can be scared. She can be vulnerable. And she can do incredible things when needed or when they're appropriate. It's easy to relate to her because she's just a human up against all odds. Plus, she looked at a gigantic death monster and called it a "bitch." What a fucking bad ass.
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u/Salazool 9d ago
Being in a genre explicitly centered on being an underdog definitely helps. I kinda loathe how different genres and how they function arent mentioned as influential factors for why characters are the way they are. Actually, know that I think about it. Im pretty sure both characters die immediately if placed in the others world. Rey would slice a xenomorph and get an acid deep clean and Ripley would probably just die of thirst.
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u/Hungry_Bluebird_4734 9d ago
It’s super frustrating to see Hollywood keep doubling down on trying to make women into girl bosses.
You can have women like Ripley who is a bad ass. But also she is soft and nurturing to newt and defends her like no man could. That’s pure motherhood instincts that both men and women can relate to as we know women in our lives that are like this.
The audience can see the authenticity.
I think for other genres it can still be done. It’s just not done very well. They often just make them the smartest and strongest while being the smallest person in the room.
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u/LordsWF40 9d ago
I was gonna say the exact same thing but in a different way. As a man, it doesnt matter if its a man or a women. We just like it to be believable. The same reason alot of us dont like Steven Segal movies or Vin diesel movies (fast and the furious) . They are invincible for no reason. You get a normal person in a impossible situation and watch them overcome it realistically catches us. Like Riley how she was just a normal person that came up to be a badass...I hope everyone gets what im saying
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u/DeLorean83 9d ago
Ripley, Sarah Connor, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Trinity, Clarice Starling. We’ve always loved strong female characters, as long as they were great characters.
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u/TaxRepresentative4B 9d ago
Furiosa
Dana Scully
Katniss
Leia
Galadriel
Eowyn
Xena
Mulan
Clarice Starling
Eleven
Buffy
Hera Syndulla
Elle Woods
And so on…
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u/potato_devourer 9d ago
Fury Road (and the sequel actually starring Furiosa) and The Hunger Games got criticized to Hell and back by sweaty nerds.
Idk about Eleven, but every other example you mentioned is over 20 years old. Which supports my theory that making an action movie with a female lead was easier before whining about wahmen on YouTube became a lucrative career.
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u/pervertedmortician 9d ago
Character is strong because its a female
Vs a strong character who happens to be a female
Big difference
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u/9NightsNine 9d ago
Blaming sexism on the failure of the new Star Wars or Rey is a sad excuse. There was so much wrong with the films that Rey never really had the chance to become a beloved character.
I think you saw that with the interest and later the reception of the first movie: at first people were interested how it would unfold. Then came the second movie which kind of broke the trilogy.
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u/Syepatch 9d ago
The problem is the writing. If the character is well written then people will like the character. If the character isn’t well written then they won’t like the character. Ripley is well written and Rey isn’t. I think Daisy did a fine job with what she had to work with. In an interview she talked about how they couldn’t even give her a straight answer on her back story since they constantly changed WHILE filming so she understandably had a very hard time portraying the character a certain way
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u/Narrow_Summer_9332 9d ago
I don't think I've ever empathized harder with a character than this one...
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u/NoStand1527 9d ago
plus they dont make a 55kg woman beat a man twice her weight in hand to hand combat...
you can still make her kill him, but make her an assassin, not a MMA fighter
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u/Slablanc 9d ago
The character was poorly written, handed everything and had no character arc. All of that stands above gender
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u/brandywine189 9d ago
I think it’s cuz one of them gave a yawner performance and the other fine actress gave a kick ass performance
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u/Billy_of_the_hills 9d ago
That isn't always the case. Buffy Summers was technically handed "everything," one day she was a normal 15 year old and the next she had super powers. She's also the baddest bitch that fiction has to offer, I'd defy any guy to watch that show and think she isn't a great strong female character.
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u/Highdie84 9d ago
The difference is the medium, movie V. TV show and what the main point of conflict is. TV shows generally rely on character conflicts rather than massive fights
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u/Otherwise-Music-8643 9d ago
That’s because Buffy struggles and most importantly makes mistakes. The issue is not actually with the character being given crazy power it’s about how the writers have them use that power, and when they never make mistakes and are just the greatest of all time without flaws it feels really dumb.
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u/DaRealKovi 9d ago
We like strong characters, women or men. We just don't like Mary Sues and Gary Stus, where everything comes easily to them and they have to outshine established characters to sound/look cool. It radiates "trash self insert" energy that people tend to dislike. Not to mention making a strong character a narcissistic, egotistical asshole while acting they're entirely in the right is a bad move. Velma from that trash cartoon is the prime example of this.
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u/Blue_Moon_Lake 9d ago
There's exactly one place for Mary Sue/Gary Sue.
The villain that crumble at the end when things stop going their way thanks to the heroes.
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u/SpinstrikerPlayz 9d ago
They claim misogyny for not liking these shitty girl boss mary sues, but their definition of a good female character is making them act like a man, which is ironically one of the most misogynistic mentalities, erasing femininity.
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u/Substantial_Web525 9d ago
Ive said this before, but some 'strong female characters' are written badly in more modern shows. The best female characters over time have just been there... with no one questioning why they are there. Much like Ripley. No one said in the movie 'she can't lead, she's a woman'. She was just there and got stuff done.
Nowadays they spend half the movie with people making fun of her or putting her down, then she has to break down then 'overcome'. Makes for a sappy, silly movie.
The best role models haven't had that, they just exist in their role and no one questions why they are there.
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u/Hunteractive 9d ago
honestly the best part of the Last Jedi was finding out Rey was a no one, and that a force user as powerful as she was wasn't just part of the family tree
then JJ had to rug pull the rug pull
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u/WardenWolf 9d ago edited 9d ago
I don't dislike Rey. However, the sequels just plain sucked. We should have gotten more out of Finn but the second movie's writer just forgot about him. Both characters would have benefitted from being together, although she was strong enough to drive it herself. Rey was a sound character let down by bad writing.
Original writing? Nah, let's just recreate the Battle of Hoth but with salt instead of snow. At least it made slightly more sense than Hoth (why didn't they just use the X-Wings and proton torpedoes against the walkers?).
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 9d ago
Men don't like strong female characters
Correction: men don't like preachy female characters that exist solely for the purpose of correcting preconceived biases about women which is necesarilly a preconceived bias against men in and of itself.
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u/Academic_Exercise_94 9d ago
I love the way they compare a character from one of the worst trilogies ever written with a character from one of the best two sci fi films ever. Like every character in the sequel trilogy was rubbish, they all were poorly written people don't like Rey not because she was a strong female character, she was just another character in a poorly written inferior remake of an existing film franchise. Whereas every character in Alien and Aliens was well crafted and believable.
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u/Accurate_Mobile9005 9d ago
Maybe if the female lead wasn't the excuse for the trilogy failing...
Disney will do everything except take responsibility for its poor writing choices.
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u/Elektrycerz 9d ago
But that's the point. The new trilogy is shit. It's just that some people defend it by saying "you don't like it because it has a female lead"
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u/DuckyPato 9d ago
I lament the complete and utter waste of Finn's character. What a cool concept that they did absolutely nothing with.
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u/ImmediateHoney2191 9d ago
Ironically there has been a serious decline in cool new female characters since all this pushing for “girl bosses” started. A woman doesn’t need to act like a man to be cool, just don’t be afraid to give them flaws and let them grow
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u/corneliouscorn 9d ago
I've noticed a trend where in order to show the audience a woman is cool and badass, they just have them be condescending or act superior towards a man, instead of having them do something cool or badass in their own right.
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u/AliceLunar 9d ago edited 9d ago
Men have no issue with strong female characters, they have an issue with bad writing which then gets turned around by pretending they just hate women because they couldn't possibly be poorly written.
Doesn't help that these female characters tend to be hostile towards men.
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u/Worth-Consequence247 9d ago
James Cameron simply knows how to write strong woman characters. Ellen, Sarah, neytiri
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u/ahoymatey83 9d ago
What this tells me is that they need to hire James Cameron to write and direct the new Star Wars
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u/JustinExcusable 9d ago
I liked Rey well enough although I'm not a Star Wars fan to begin with, but Ripley is a badass bitch that roared back in the face of the big mama xenomorph, she's on par with Sarah Connor, that's hard to match.
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u/Soulful-Sorrow 9d ago
Both things can be true. Rey was badly written, but I also firmly believe that if Aliens came out today, conservative YouTube grifters would be screeching about what a Mary Sue Ripley is.
"So this random lady is apparently key to the whole mission to explore the colony, and she just happens to notice the issues with the cooling system that a bunch of highly trained Space Marines don't? Typical woke Hollywood agenda."
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u/blue_terry 9d ago
Rey: Check this out force healing!
Ghost Anakin: The fuck is that master yoda? Ancient Jedi texts?
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u/realfakejames 9d ago
Don’t forget Linda Hamilton in Terminator, went from a scared waitress to the most bad ass lady blowing holes in a T-1000
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u/Cellafex 9d ago
Best strong female character in movies since 2000 is Naru from Prey. Change my mind
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u/Calinks 9d ago
Writing has hurt a lot of potentially great characters and stores on the past 15 years. Everyone loves the come up, it makes a character far more relatable. They dont just do this with women, a lot of characters are just amazing for no reason and it's really boring much of the time.
A movie that did it right was Creed. Donny had to work his way up to being a legit threat and by the end of that movie with the classic theme kicks in, or feels 100 percent earned.
Nothing Rey did felt earned because the writers did jack all ro give her a great foundation.
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u/Gian-Nine 9d ago
People love strong female characters with good writing, people hate spoon fed propaganda and Mary Sue plots
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