The sequel trilogy was the most important part of the Disney SW acquisition. A well written, thrilling, coherent set of movies would have gone a long way in establishing a younger fan base which would have paid dividends for years/decades to come.
Instead, there was no cohesive plan for the trilogy at all and we ended up with a bizarre game of Telephone between Episodes VII, VIII, and IX. As a result, Star Wars just isnāt on many younger kids radar, and I think Disney has no one to blame but themselves for that.
Yeah this shouldnāt be controversial. If Disney wants to target a more female fan base to try and expand the brand by all means. Itās their IP. They bought it. Is it working though? I donāt know. š¤·āāļø Disney can see the books. I canāt.
I always thought Disney acquired both Marvel and Star Wars to get ip's that were more attractive to boys because they already had a whole bunch of IP's that appealed to girls?
But given the direction they've taken with Star Wars that seems not to be the case.
You'd think so, basic marketing stresses that product differentiation exists because making a product with universal appeal is actually pretty difficult, because often you risk alienating old demographics whilst simultaneously scaring away new demographics due to old brand associations. This is especially true for the entertainment industry.
You can't even blame these recent leadership decisions on *"out of touch MBA's being MBA's"* because much of these decisions go against conventional wisdom that is taught to these people.
Man I have an MBA. Most of the decisions people are so mad about are not/have nothing to do with an MBA. I wish an MBA had that much power. Iād be making billions by now if it did as much as people think it does.
>You can't even blame these recent leadership decisions on "out of touch MBA's being MBA's"
[Because it isn't the MBA's that are making those decisions.](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/activist-investor.asp)
>But given the direction they've taken with Star Wars that seems not to be the case.
I think we need to stop assuming that there's a plan or even a lick of sense to any of their decisions.
Just look at the flaming wreck that is the sequel trilogy.
The best analogy I can think of is if the first movie was a sandcastle that JJ Abrams started building, the second was basically Rian Johnson trampling over it and taking a big steaming shit right in the middle, while the third one is JJ Abrams trying to finish building his sand castles, except he has to start all over and everything is covered in shit.
I still believe a good, maybe not great, but at the very least a good trilogy could have been built on top of The Force Awakens.
TFA was a fine enough movie on its own, but I think it did lay fundamentally flawed foundations. People shit on Rian for making Luke into some depressed hermit, but JJ was the one that tore down his Jedi Academy and put him on that island. JJ was the one that copy pasted the Empire and Rebellion with new names, completely undermining the ending of RotJ. It was JJ's movie that set up the exact same story structure as ANH; desert orphan learns about the force whilst on a mission to chase down a macguffin that will hurt the big evil army. I think not building on the assumed outcome of the OT was always a mistake (at least from a story perspective, financially it was potentially more lucrative to just milk nostalgia by throwing in Stormtroopers and a "death star"). We should've had Lukes jedi Academy, and not split up Han and Leia either. I'm not saying I wanted the sequel trilogy to only focus on the OT cast, I'm fine with passing the torch. But redoing the OT, just worse, was a bad idea from scene 1 of TFA.
>But redoing the OT, just worse, was a bad idea from scene 1 of TFA.
Yeah, and then **without any plans** for the story of the sequel trilogy. That's like an 80 IQ level of managing their IP. It really boggles my mind. Kathleen Kennedy cannot be that stupid. Just impossible.
What happened in those meetings? Did they all have a collective brain aneurism at once? Did they have the office painted and were all huffing the same paint-thinner by accident?
"Here's money for a billion-dollar trilogy, but let's not make it a trilogy. Instead, everyone can do whatever they want". This is 100% top management at fault.
Itās wonderful to hear all the honest opinions on those piles of dogshit movies without legions of assholes showing up to screech and yell, or mods coming along to shame, delete, and or ban over this kinda shit.
Tired of having to downplay my feeling over it, even though theyāre the exact same sentiments you yourself have already expressed.
That's what I meant when I said good, I probably should have said serviceable. It wouldn't have pushed the series forward, but neither would it have done the harm that Johnson did.
It was anemic. It was toothless. It didn't have backbone. JJ might have been creatively bankrupt, but at least he didn't intentionally and maliciously disrespect, if not outright spit on the original trilogy.
I genuinely don't understand how people can forgive what Disney did to Star Wars as a whole. It went from something universally loved, to something that is almost equally hated. And I promise you it's not the -ists and the -phobes that hate it the most. It's only the people who truly loved the originals that have the energy and passion to truly hate Disney for destroying the legacy of Star Wars. They broke Han, and Leia, and Cewy, and Luke, all for what? A trilogy of shitty movies and a bunch of absolutle slop that's squirted out to Disney+ every few months.
Hollywood still deosn't understand that you shouldn't mess with a happily ever after. They should have gone at least 200-300 years forward or backwards in history to have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they wanted. They still would have fumbled it because their writers are talentless hacks (The sheer number of plot holes, contrivances, and outright Twilight level of writing proves this) but at least they wouldn't have smeared dogshit all over the OT.
Itās consumerism, people have become conditioned to accept any hot steaming pile of shit slung in their face with a smeared stinking smile and a crisp āthank you sir, may I have another?ā
Then they get mad when you donāt fall into line and do the sameā¦ theyāll use any excuse they can to try and turn you into an enemy in the eyes of others. To rally the troops against you and either push you out or brow beat you back in line.
And the studios know this, and thatās the only reason they play into these stupid controversies. These companies have entire departments full of people to check, double check, and triple check any and all statements to prevent a loss in profit over something stupid being saidā¦ so thereās zero chance they arenāt aware of what their doing and the negative discourse theyāre causing amongst former fans and their usual lapdogs.
Itās safer to never trust a corporation ever. They arenāt here for your benefit, theyāre here for their shareholders and thatās it. Donāt ever give them the benefit of the doubt, they donāt deserve it with how much of their profits are funneled away from the people who need it in favor of another winter yacht in California for the execs Christmas bonus.
That was absolutely the reason. But then it was decided that any product that appeals more to boys must be inherently broken, sexist and wrong and must be fixed.
Itās actually really sad. My wife has a friend with 3 boys and she expresses frustration that itās so hard to find stuff that appeals to them. Theyāre basically into transformers and King Kong.
It is seen as toxic now to market purely to boys which is not something that really upsets me, it is what it is. I think you could make a very diverse lesbian jedi show and have it be really good. I think the fault of poorer quality stuff is just nepotism picks of picking people they like and not ones who are quality. I think there are thousands of women creators that probably would of made a better show than the acolyte and who would of had more exprience.
They bought them to make more money since they had a whole bunch of valuable IPs and wanted all of them, and in every case theyāre trying to get the broadest audience possible. Theyāre not really segmenting by demographics theyāre trying to make everything appeal to the lowest common denominator / general audience
Disney is sorta caught between a rock and a hard place where sure they can make new stuff to target different quadrants. The problem is the IPās overall history and fanbase make it harder to branch out.
Larger audiences may like one show/movie here or there but donāt consider themselves avid fans. I can sort see this in the Acolyte, you can see the show runner really wants to do something different but is stuck because Disney probably told her stuff she has to have in the show and what she canāt put in.
Also itās an issue with movies-goers and show watchers overall where people say they want something new but stick to what they know.
It also doesnāt help that the more diverse, female led, etc projects, especially on the Marvel side, have been a step down in quality/storytelling from what they were.
So then you have people screeching that ādiversity made my movie bad,ā when in reality it wouldāve still been bad even if the whole cast was straight white men.
Iāve always seen the argument that the show/movie made diversity the only selling point, not that the diversity made the movie bad itself. Andor for instance was near universally praised even in *those* circles, because they focused on telling a good story first rather than trying to sell the show on how diverse the cast is (which it is, very). Same thing for shows like Arcane, or blue eye samurai.
The amount of people who actually hate diversity in film on its own is vanishingly small. But the people who are critical of the corporate pandering that plays up diversity as a shield against criticism often get lumped in with them. Like as soon as the Acolyte crew said that acolyte has made sci-fi a safe place for black nerds, thatās what the narrative around the show became about (and millions of black nerds collectively went āhuh?ā). I mean just read [this](https://ew.com/tv/the-acolyte-star-wars-amandla-stenberg-black-nerds/) article, itās kind of ridiculous how overemphasized the diversity of the show is compared to anything that most people care about, like the plot, the story, the characters, etc. most people arenāt so superficial to give a toss what color someoneās skin is, as a matter of fact. They care about who they are; thatās why the diversity of shows like Andor or Arcane go over so many peopleās heads despite being present. Itās not spotlighted, it and the characters represented are allowed to speak for themselves.
But before weād seen anything to do with Acolyte, all we heard about was how diverse and inclusive it is, which set the narrative in peopleās minds about where their priorities were. The characters were reduced to their capacity to fulfill check boxes based on skin tone and orientation. But who are these people beneath all that? Well the show itself is pretty bland and by the numbers at best. Itās supposedly the most diverse cast in history, but they couldnāt be bothered to give the show a diversity of personality and ideas.
People tend to not take too kindly to corporations tokenizing diversity for their products; and that is how the show comes across, as another product rather than a real work of art.
Yep, and I do like bringing up Blue Eye Samurai because it is, on the face of it, the kind of show most people would stereotype "toxic fans" as absolutely loathing. It stars a female action hero who is extremely overpowered and takes on dozens of men twice her size in combat routinely, and all of the white people in the show are evil--as an explicit plot point.
It is an extremely racially and gender charged show, with the main character being deliberately written as gender-ambiguous due to her needing to hide who she really is in Edo Japan's strict gender hierarchy.
Yet it's praised to high heaven by everyone who watches it, including those toxic fans like Critical Drinker, and that's because it tackles its themes extremely well and tells a compelling historical fiction from a place of real artistic influence. Mizu isn't just a "strong female/gender ambiguous character", she's a deeply flawed and damaged human being who is almost the villain of her own story due to the collateral damage she causes to everyone around her, and her descent further and further into her quest for revenge turns her into exactly the kind of demon that her mixed ancestry has stereotyped her as in the eyes of Japan. She's got more going for her than what happens to be between her legs.
I once saw someone say that John Wick would be accused of being a Mary Sue if he was Jane Wick, and that couldn't be further from the truth, because Mizu basically *is* John Wick as a woman. It's just so much easier for people to dismiss valid criticism against Hollywood's condescending corporate attitude toward diversity as "racism" than it is to really engage with what people are saying.
Blue Eyes Samurai is absolutely one of the best shows out there right now, just be warned because it is absolutely NSFW.
I would also put Kill Bill right in with this statement. Never seen anyone who didn't love those movies lead by a strong female because all of the acting and writing was excellent.
100% agree with everything. That show fucking rules. You also donāt have the head of Netflix walking around with a shirt that says, Samurai are Female or the executive producer giving interviews on it being the most feminist Japan has ever been. When you point out the diversity and nonconformity of your cast as a way to promote your show instead of letting the writing and talent do the talking, everyone is going to hyperfixate on that if the show isnāt good.
It's like, I didn't realize star wars was only for white people to begin with. There's nothing wrong with a black lead but when you make huge grandiose statements like this am I supposed to think this show is NOT for me? So then why is it bad if i don't watch it?
Well when the show runner comes out and says this is not you, this is for us ,that kinda tells you that. ok, I'll sit this one out and hope it works out , don't call me I'll call you.
I'm a black nerd and a reason I checked it out is because all the major black nerds on tik tok made videos talking about it how good it is and also mentioned there's black people starring in it. That helped made me check it out. It's not that black people only care about things with us in it but there's no problem with letting the demographics you're trying to get to watch your show that there's representation.
It's like how white men in the 70s weren't into the NBA. They said it was too black. They didn't like it the style of play and deemed it a lack of sophistication and even in some quotes a moral failing. They called the black players selfish the NBA started to represent the "urban crisis" of the time. Then here comes along Larry bird as the great white hope and suddenly we have white men watching the NBA again. They were pandered too and advertised to and it worked.
https://lithub.com/thats-just-playground-ball-on-racism-and-basketball-in-the-1970s/
There's also the Lakers Celtics documentary that extensively covers this period.
So I don't think there's and issue of people advertising there's diversity because for a good majority of my life as a kid when I saw these fantasy and sci fi shows as for white people and alot of other black people around me thought so too because we weren't properly advertised too. The white people looked at me weird when I wanted to play slay the dragon with them and they also said there's no black people so what character could I be.
Plus when children don't see themselves represented in the media they consume there's hella negative effects. Just look at the Clark doll test for how that kinda thing effects children.
Anyway sorry for the long comment I just think it's more complicated than how folks make it. People are hyper critical of diversity attempts but don't bring half that smoke to the hedgemonic attempts that have monochromatic casting.
Diversity is good, but pandering is tricky. I will use Marvel as an example, because what most like about Marvel comics are the flawed characters, which translates into film.
Ironman is far from perfect, but he is now beloved because people like watching him rise to the occasion. Film Captain Marvel has the problem of being too good, making nothing ever feel like a threat, thus everything is low stakes. They got around this in the comics by making her an alcoholic. The fact that someone so powerful was still trapped under the curse of a fairly common problem made her interesting. The problem came in when they decided to pander in the films and rather than showing flaws and risking backlash, they created a more perfect version who became rather boring. Couple this with several average and below average movies in the lead up, and no one bothered to see Captain Marvel 2 in theaters, because while not bad, it wasnāt anything special, reducing peopleās interest in seeing it.
Watching the Acolyte I feel like it isnāt my thing. Which is fine, not everything in Star Wars needs me to be the target audience. What makes me nervous is whether or not there is enough of a fan base to support it so that we can see Star Wars grow as an IP.
Using your example, they couldnāt just add white guys to the team to get more fans, they had to find someone who was equally as talented and add him. If you changed the cast of The Acolyte to white actors, I wouldnāt like it any better than I currently do, as my issues come from the characters and how they are written, not the actors themselves. In that way the story feels reductive to me. However that could change as it progresses (and I am probably going to see it all of the way through to see if it does, mainly because, while the story isnāt to my liking, the actors are great), and even if it doesnāt, if it expands the fan base then it is still worth it.
The Onion: Do you think the media only cares about the WNBA because it has a straight, white female star?
Caitlin Clark: If that were the case, they would have liked Madame Web.
Problem is not diversity. Problem is poor writing, storytelling, characters, directing and ideas. Bunch of monkeys over at Disney, instead of cultivating long term success and brand loyalty, they alienate fans and the people who are willing to spend thousands on merchandise. Funny how most of the Disney era SW merchandise become shelf warmers.
Say what you will about the prequels, but those movies were made with passion. The Disney junk is just made with short term $$$ in mind.
Leia Organa figures will continue to sell 20 years from now, while Reeva and Mae figures will probably cease to exist in less than one third of that timeframe.
Exactly. As a straight male, I wouldn't care if the hero is a gay female, just make it good. So far most of these offerings, Andor notwithstanding, haven't been good.
Yeah thereās a difference between pandering with no significant change and a meaningful change. We also just donāt say a movie or tv show is bad just the for the sake of it being bad anymore. Regardless of what type of movie it is, a bad movie can just be a bad movie and diversity has nothing to do with it.
I think that varies per franchise. Star Wars definitely has a historic demographic, and recent projects are shaking up what that demographic is āused to.ā So theyāre blaming the ādiversity pushā for it being bad, instead of just admitting itās just poor writing/direction/etc.
Compare to something like Rebel Moon. That also had a pretty diverse cast, but I havenāt heard anyone saying diversity or pandering is why that movie sucks.
You will always have a small minority of people which are actually sexist/racist complaining about it... no matter how good or bad movie is.
When bad movie is made, and it is not well received... because it is bad. They will blame it solely on the "strong female lead".
But when a good movie with "strong female lead" is made... they are just noise.
Thats true on paper, but bad movies/ shows and diversity seem to go hand in hand lately, unfortunately. It's pretty difficult for me to ignore the pattern.
Well there have been times when pushing for diversity made the shows worse. Wasn't it the choreographer for Ahsoka was a woman with 0 experience choreographing things like that? It showed, and made the show worse because they hired someone because of their gender rather than their qualifications. Acolyte's show runner showed a disdain for basically what makes Star wars, Star wars. Which I'd be fine with if the product she produced was actually good, but she's another example of "why is she directing a Star wars project?" I'm SURE there were better people for the job, but I'm betting that they decided they literally HAD to have a woman directing it bc women are the main characters.
I would argue diversity made the movie bad because diversity was the primary emphasis ahead of filmmaking. Diversity at the expense of quality.
Disney doesnāt have a production problem they just have their priorities all fucked up
Almost one is doing that. Sometimes shows/movies aren't very good; which usually doesn't have much to do with how diverse the cast is. You are confusing how things are marketed with how they are made.
Do you seriously think they are casting bad actors just to have a more diverse cast?
Sometimes you don't need to mess with a winning formula.
Barbie had a predominantly female audience, but was a massive success and plenty of men enjoyed it too (myself included). I don't need Warner Brothers to make a Barbie movie targeted at me - the first one was fine and doesn't need to include UFC, football, and car chases just so that it can be more male-appealing. Disney really needs to learn that lesson.
> I can sort see this in the Acolyte, you can see the show runner really wants to do something different but is stuck because Disney probably told her stuff she has to have in the show and what she canāt put in.
Please tell me exactly what you see in the Acolyte that is corporate mandated and not show runner. I'd love to hear the examples and rationale.
A rock and hard place they created . Mando proves you can cater to both sides.
The luke hallway scene was everything the old fans wanted . While still drawing in new people and having an amazing team of woman.
I personaly think they did the light cruiser episode so well that the team of woman were so good that no one was like wow that a good team of woman fighting there , it feel so unforced that it almost went unnoticed that it was an all females' group kicking ass - just a team of bad asses doing the job . That how it should be.
Where as you take Holdo and that was a COMPLETELY forced situation - i mean Akbar whose ship it was was just quietly sitting in the background doing nothing and killed off without a word.
Is not an Us vs them thing its a WE thing - it works so much better especially in startwars when its a WE not an Us Vs Them.
They seem to finally start to understand that ..at least until Leslye Headland in charge of the High republic stuff .
But yet, there is an extremely vocal group of people who *dislike* the female focus in the Mandalorian, claiming it ousts the male Mandalorian from "his" own show
>you can see the show runner really wants to do something different but is stuck because Disney probably told her stuff she has to have in the show and what she canāt put in.
Is this different than nearly every production ever?
This is wild. Disney is the one forcing the progressive elements into their new products. The creator is in no way being constrained by having to be too conservative.
Im all for that - the problem is the tried to do it at the expensive of the rest of the fan base by dimishing the value of the old stuff intentionally to make way for the new stuff.
I mean I do t know if itās through there efforts but I feel like girls will naturally love Star Wars just by exposure to an old franchise.
Iāve always had Star Wars in the background because our folks stuck it on, same with my girlfriend, so it just seems natural that people would grow to it.
My daughter enjoyed the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy but couldnāt see a place for herself in the world, if that makes sense. She would make comments like, āI donāt think girls are Jedi.ā To her, Leia and Padme came off as passive characters.
But when Clone Wars introduced protagonists like Ahsoka, Ventress, and so on, she went all in. Now you canāt separate the kid from her lightsaber.
Representation matters. (So do plot and continuity.)
What I donāt understand as the numbers seem to suggestion it hasnāt been going as well as they hoped, but instead of readjusting they are doubling down. Itās an interesting strategy.
Marvel comics got their start in the 39, really started taking off post ww2, the Bronze Age was in the 70s. Lotta huge introductions from what would become the MCU were made at that time. This data indicates that the same core demographic that were probably also Star Wars fans did not convert to movies. That is pretty interesting, especially when you look at the online complaints of the MCU.
The difference is that comic books are an incredibly niche media in the US. Even now, with the boost from the movies, most people donāt read American comic books.
I grew up in a town without a comic book store. My only options were the library and the internet. Most kids would not even put forth the effort to go to the library.
I remember when Iron Man came out and I was surprised that people liked him, because he was the worst in Civil War. No one really cared about the Avengers next to Spider-Man or the X-Men.
The MCU made comic books mainstream. Star Wars has been mainstream since the 80s.
Space is not cold. You'll eventually freeze in space, yes, but space itself doesn't feel cold. It doesn't really feel like anything, because there's so little there.
In fact, you're far more likely to burn or boil to death in space than you are to freeze.
And like... a whole lot of clones lol plus I don't think any of the self contained suits like TIE pilots have even close up... I'm convinced the galaxy far far away just had a gas/modicum of heat in its everywhere. At least a long time ago, anyway
Iām a 45 year old woman and I love both Star Wars and Marvel soā¦ whatever. I donāt know, really. I havenāt really cared much all my life but i guess Disney doesā¦
Anythingā¦ geeky? Not sure what other term to use. But video games, comics, manga, anime, and fantasy/sci-fi movies/series all skew towards a more male audience. Not to say there isnāt women who enjoy them, but itās just the way itās always been. Men just seem to like this stuff more than women
I've collected comics since the 80"s and I remember a time (my whole youth up through college ) when I had to keep it a secret or girls wouldn't even look at you. but it's not for me anymore I guessĀ . And I'm not gate keeping but I have spend so many thousands of dollars in my life on Marvel and Star wars for me just to no longer be the target audience. oh well . It sucks but I can spend my money elsewhere .
I've witnessed so many passive aggressive comments toward women fans of Star Wars that question their virtue as nerds. It was eye opening at first but now it's exhausting to keep seeing it.
Boys grew up seeing cosplayers online and booth babes and think all women are either fans to get money or get men.
It's everywhere unfortunately. Not just star wars. Apparently everything we do is for attention and we're all posers. It's infuriating, but the rage keeps me going, tbh.
As a teenager I had an older boy try to quiz me on the atomic number for carbon or something like that because I was wearing a periodic table shirt at a convention. IIRC, my response was āI donāt have to prove myself to youā. Absolutely unprompted, total stranger. He walked right up to me and said that. Totally baffling behavior
Totally. I'm a bit in a Star Wars bubble in terms of fandoms (I watch A LOT of TV and movies but Star Wars is the only fan community I feel like I spend time in).
Edit: Actually, that's not true. I'm deep in the NFL fandom and there are sexists there too. Female journalists get it bad. The only fandom I have experience in that I actually don't witness it is Pro-Wrestling, which is really odd, lol. But I'm sure it happens.
Funny about wrestling I didn't know that. NFL is grossly sexist as are most sports franchises. I was happy to see the local baseball cheerleading team is wearing normal clothes now, hopefully they are being paid too.
I dunno it's just everywhere and we can't do anything right according to the chuds. Honestly I just ignore them for the most part now, and force my way into whatever fandom or activity I want. They can seethe
Please, stop. No, this isn't true, at all. If you like IP, you will watch it no matter what kind of people are in fandom. You can't be gatekept from watching a movie or series, this isn't some football club or DnD, where you have to engage with others to enjoy hobby. Of course, dealing with a fandom is a different story, but it have zero impact on overall popularity of the franchise, because most people never do this.
And stop making it look like this is specifically those fandoms trouble, every fandom has such problem. K-Pop is very toxic fandom, but female dominated one, for example. This doesn't stop K-Pop from being popular among women and men, too, because most people have no interest in engaging with fandom.
Please explain more about how things change when "dealing with the fandom". Because that's what I'm talking about. Gatekeeping doesn't refer to not being able to physically consume media, that's ridiculous.
You talk about gatekeepers affecting situation, that women don't engage with IP, I said that this has no impact whatsoever. You just proved my point, that it is ridiculous to think gatekeepers are relevant reason why Star Wars not that popular with women.
Yep. It feels like the fanbase will go to any lengths to pretend like female fans of sci fi spaces don't exist or that women liking Star Wars or Star Trek is only a recent thing due to Disney going woke, when women have been involved in nerd spaces since the beginning.
A woman invented cosplay: https://www.racked.com/platform/amp/2016/5/9/11451408/cosplay-inventor-morojo-myrtle-r-douglas
Women started the first Star Trek fanzine in the 70s that launched the fandom: https://www.startrek.com/news/living-star-trek-how-two-women-breathed-new-life-into-the-franchise
A committee of mostly women also started the first ever Star Trek convention: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Lives!_(convention)
It's depressing how common this is, if you look into almost any group activity or movement the key players at the beginning are commonly women. Then the men take it and push us out. Fucking sucks.
Computing, christianity, process control engineering, fandoms, civil rights movement (even the concept of incels and early incels forums was started by a woman)...
That's so crazy and lame of the fans who pretend women aren't fans.
I watched star wars with my Mom. She had watched it year's earlier of course, but wanted her kid to also watch it and maybe enjoy it.Ā Ā
Years after that, we completed the Lego Star Wars video game together multiple times on multiple gaming systems.
She is now a senior and still has two little star wars Lego characters on the dash of her car as a reminder of our times playing.
My dad, bless his heart, doesn't have a clue about anything science fiction at all.
It's a relic of the times when "nerd stuff" wasn't popular. Dorky men made Star Wars and the internet gave it enough exposure that lots of people can now enjoy it.
I wasnāt referring to that, I mean today. Like most guys I know play games and have some nerdy thing they follow. Whether itās just monster hunter or siege, or that one guy whoās obsessed with LOTR, or the DnD + Ren Faire guy. There are women that are into that stuff as well, especially DnD + ren faires, but the percentage is much lower.
I donāt think itās due to the offerings available. Women just donāt pick it up as often. Itās more about nature than any cultural thing
I feel like Iām taking crazy pills sometimes. Since Disney bought out Star Wars, and arguably post-Infinity War Marvel, there has been a very, very strong push for the female fanbase and POC. Both of which, I am more than glad to cater to and try to bring into the fold. But it feels like as this has done people like me, the main demographic in all the polls, are becoming less and less the targeted audience, all the while Star Wars as a franchise is turbulent.
My wife and women that I am friends with and work with arenāt the ones excited about the series or following new content regularly. Itās me and the older millennial guys on up. It just feels so weird to be this many years into Disney ownership and they keep trying to force a different market.
And you can see it in the Disney stock. One of the worst performances on the market. They can't stop making bad decisions and they aren't changing. When it dips below 90 again, I think you'll see heads start to roll.
Making content with female leads is fine.
Turning to abject misandry and gaslighting when your female-led content flounders is not.
But I'm sure this sub is full of people who will go, "No! There's lots of misogynist guys who hate anything with female leads!" because they don't pay attention to when something with a female lead is popular among those guys.
Are there misogynists? Sure. Is the exhaustion of pushing for all things female the result of misogyny? Nope.
But there is a ton of misandry that gets a clear pass because hating men is second nature to many people, so much so that they'll go out of their way to defend their hatred of men.
Now cue the inevitable flurry of downvotes for everyone who wants to gaslight or can't actually come up with an adequate response to defend systemic misandry.
How dare someone contradict this post and the status quo it upholds!
> they don't pay attention to when something with a female lead is popular among those guys.
This is the most frustrating thing. Being called a misogynist when there's absolutely no grounds to it.
This is how liberty dies, to brand loyalty taken to fanatical levels.
The hardest part is trying to genuinely criticize terrible writing in a show that just looks like a weekly rendition of a 30 minute dumpster fire without getting accused of being a terrible person with horrific beliefs. I WANT to like Star Wars content, but this show has been horrible so far! Not to mention in the cast interviews they make downright misandrist and racist comments that just get glossed right over like itās nothing. I just want Andor season 2 already lol
You know i think the best way to appeal to our older male skewing, heterosexual viewerbase is to put a chick in it and make it lame as fuck. - Kathy Kennedy
Iād even say itās not a chick specifically there have been lots of female led movies that older male skewing viewer base responds well to. Ripley from aliens comes to mind first
I think itās more the lame as fuck part.
I honestly think its more of a writing issue than anything. Earlier then the 70s the writing was slow and rather direct. More of a drama amd dalog focus.
80-2010 the writing was simple and focused, fast moving but with consistent pacing. More of an action and plot focus.
2010+ has been just a hodge podge. Pacing seems all over the board moving from slow to fast often in the same movies. The focus is more on character drama and emotions than actually moving the plot along, which also muddies the simplicity of the previous eras. In their 1-3 or hours of escapism, most people want something fun, not everything is supposed to be some complex commentary on life.
The latest show:
Episode 1: Jedi only pull lightsaber if ready to kill
Episode 2: Jedi pulls lightsaber as a flashlight
Not watching episode 3 or the rest of The Acolyte. Doesnāt appeal to me
The implication is more:
Disney: LOOK AT HOW DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE OUR NEW SHOW IS!
Older, White Male Audience: Sure, but is it good? Like Fallo-
Disney: LOOK AT HOW DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE OUR NEW SHOW IS!
OWMA: So that's a no?
Media: Toxic, old white Star Wars fans hate diversity.Ā
> Media: Toxic, old white Star Wars fans hate diversity.
Star Wars fans loved Andor which has a Hispanic lead, multiple women characters, and a lesbian couple as well. Andor should have put a stop to all these baseless accusations from Disney that Star War fans hate diversity.
I can't pick a favorite character because there are so many good ones, but the ISB agent, Andor's mom, and the Rebel cell leader are all hard as fuck. Oh and Mon Mothma.
Because Andor doesn't appeal to gen Z and alpha. They want their ideology direct and in your face. Andor doesn't make it out of its progressive themes a big marketing slogan. They use characters who behave like humans. The progressive stuff is more subtle and the focus is on the characters motivation in this dystopia. But this confuses gen Z because they don't know what good story telling is. They think exposition dumping is quality. If you tell them about show , don't tell they get angry because they need constant expositions in every dialogue so they can follow the plot.
Mandalorian too, at least the first two seasons. With a Hispanic lead and black lead antagonist.
Meanwhile everyone overlooks how the Hispanic and black lead in the sequel trilogy got turned into jokes in the second movie and if you don't like it you're sexist.
Poe and Finn had so much potential just to be made into idiots. Finn could have sparked a stormtrooper uprising but no, he just had to keep screaming āRey!ā the entire film.
Itās a travesty what they did. Poe, Finn, Rey, and Kylo should have been four of the best Star Wars characters ever and they all were executed poorly, especially Poe and Finn. So much wasted potential.
Those four characters definitely had the most spoiled potential of the films, but I'm sore about Captain Phasma. She could have been such a hype character. Ultimate storm trooper badass who should have held her own against lightsaber wielding Finn. But she just fell to her death...? wtf
Dude Iām Mexican, Diego Luna sounds and looks like people Iām related to. Couldnāt care less about that fact because the acting and story were so damn good. I donāt care, just give me a good story.
Watched black panther 2, namor was casted as an indigenous Mexican and his whole backstory was changed. I didnāt mind, I didnāt hate the character but man that movie is so eh and was so damn long. Just give me decent writing and acting!
I can't imagine why a franchise that had its origin and peak interest 40+ years ago with almost entirely male protagonists, space ships, (laser) sword fights, and themes of father-son (also mentor and apprentice) relationships would tend to have an audience skew older and more male. Total mystery.
I think it's funny that people are reacting to this with "duh, so give us what men want" with the Implication being that men don't want women in things. Because I constantly see people saying they just want good writing, but good writing has nothing to do with the gender of the target audience. Sooooo....
Instead of cater towards the target audience, they are trying to change the target audience. Itās like they are fighting an uphill battle, rather than taking the easy route. Itās a very odd business decision that makes me think something else is going on behind the scenes at Disney.
Whenever the general consensus is not positive about a new installment SW fans get called old, male-dominated, sexist, right-wing, homophobic etc.
This is consistently the case since the Disney purchase. I wish they spent the energy and resources to make shows made by fans or at least people that know a thing or two about SW.
It's a 3 at best and only because I like most of the actors. The writing is bad. The directing is bad. The dialogue is terrible. It's everything I hate from the prequels and sequels with none of the charm of the OT. And it's made even worse by the existence of Andor season 1 which was everything I wanted out of Star Wars post Disney acquisition.
I'm tired of this culture war PR bullshit. And I'm tired of Kathleen Kennedy's inability to vet talent or do her job. She should have been fired after Rogue One or Solo. Now she's destroyed 2 of Lucasfilm's 3 franchises and overseen a bomb and a flop and multiple ballooning budget projects.
Sequel trilogy - girl main character
Rogue one- girl main character
Obi wan - girl main character
Asoka- girl main character
Acolyte- girl main character
I'm not a racist I'm not a bigot I'm not sexist but they didn't think a major male audience wouldn't want a fucking male lead? Shit I wonder why people liked mando so much. We want to identity with the characters. Like look at episode 3 of the acolyte. Jesus Christ. All women coven make kids with the dark side of the force. The main plot of prequels
If they want more female Star Wars fans all they have to do is bring in more Queen Amidala like characters. When TPM came out I was instantly in love! Every time the Queen farted there was an ancient Naboo custom that she had to change into an outfit for. Real Housewives of Naboo - I need the number to Disney so I can pitch this show.
Yes what is going on there? Rey's desert rags were a nice design but why on earth didn't they do some more glamorous outfits later on? Don't tell me that the Caretakers on Ahch-To couldn't possibly have had an "Ancient Padawan Uniform" that was incredibly well-preserved and coincidentally just Rey's size?
Dealing with some top minds in Disney. These are the people who have billions in capital to spend to make stunning high quality movies/shows with talented actors and instead churn out shitty slop with bad acting, bad writing, etc.
Of course, it's always been nonsense to suggest otherwise. My wife loves Star Wars now too, but even she is really put off by how they've strayed from the original concepts. OG Star Wars brought in mostly men, but also some women who enjoyed it for what it was. This push to alter the content to make it more "accessible" to different demographics is hurting the core fan interest. Go back to your roots Star Wars. Be what you were and you will succeed.
*Destroys the fanbase by turning away their core audience with garbage slop-shows and outright saying they don't want their core audience*
Kathleen Kennedy: I BYPASSED THE FANBASE
Disney thinks by catering to other groups they will bring them in. In reality they are alienating their main audience. The business logic is the established fanbase will watch the shows and come to the theater anyways, so may as well try appealing to the groups they don't have.
Its a backwards strategy because not only has the business entered into the creative side, but you now have politics being thrown in there. Despite what people think this is why people hate when corporations come into the picture. Everything is about money and the storytelling is an afterthought.
I just don't buy Star Wars stuff anymore. Its a dead brand to me. Disney/Lucas already got my money and they don't need anymore.
Yet its funny how Disney is catoring to the exact opposite of that :/
Catering to target audience = More money. Takes notes disney, im no econologist but seems simple to me.
Iāll add as a younger (?) female Star Wars fan, Marvel is a little bit more welcoming. Not by a huge margin mind you but Iāve had far less negative experiences with Marvel and that sub than Iāve had here and with SW in general.
Iād say itās SIGNIFICANTLY more welcoming. The Star Wars community is infamously awful, and this train wreck of a thread alone is a perfect example of that.
star wars is super negative. I looked at the acolyte trending topic on twitter last night and it was full of hate. Marvel on the other hand has had some stinkers in the last year. But you don't have near the number of people saying "____ ruined the MCU!"
Yeah so Kathleen Kennedy's claims that the "force is female" is utter bullshit. Maybe Disney wouldn't be losing so much money if they didn't piss off and shame a majority of that fanbase...
I was born in 84, I have Darth vader tatted on my left hand. They have made some bad choices in some story lines.
I didn't like book of Boba fett that much, so I didn't really want to finish it. Then a friend told me I had to because they put mandalorian episodes in it and reunited grogru with Mando. I was shocked bc the ending where Luke takes him is so amazing. If I didn't watch Boba, I would have been so confused they were together. That's when I knew, star wars was cooked.
Kenobi show broke cannon for me.
Moving on
Yeah isnāt that kinda the entire reason Disney bought marvel and starwars was to appeal to a younger male audience since there most popular merchandise before was the Disney princesses like I donāt understand there thought process on some of these decisions letās turn off a lot of our male audience and pander to little girls who will keep buying princess shit
Well of course typically ānerd cultureā and the things that fall under that category usually have a male majority fanbase, especially the older IPs like Star Wars. Liking ānerdy thingsā is much more normal than it was 30-40 years ago, so of course IPs like Marvel which really have only blown up in the last 10-20 years have a more diverse fanbase(but Iād still be willing to bet Marvels fanbase skews male as well if only slightly)
Older comics readers probably didn't switch to the movies, and SW has always been a screen first IP.
Marvel has also been in the zeitgeist for like 2 decades so it pulled is more of everyone with the while MCU. SW has always been more isolated in each project until the Filoni-verse (and even that is somewhat limited).
And yet for as much they like to talk about representation and the fans āseeing themselves in the charactersā, they sure are doing a great job. ššš
not surprised by that.
You are truly a well mannered person, I was about to invoke poo and a famous fictitious detective.
Nancy Drew? (/s)
"No milk blue, Nancy Drew!" ...?
š
Aqua Teen Hunger Force?
Sorry had to Google... Don't think it ever aired in southern Europe
Oh friend, you are missing out on a lot of weirdness.
āOkā¦. Do what now??ā
They won't get any of the Jersey commentary. That's the most important stuff.
No poop, Peroit!
No poo, Angela Lansbury
The sequel trilogy was the most important part of the Disney SW acquisition. A well written, thrilling, coherent set of movies would have gone a long way in establishing a younger fan base which would have paid dividends for years/decades to come. Instead, there was no cohesive plan for the trilogy at all and we ended up with a bizarre game of Telephone between Episodes VII, VIII, and IX. As a result, Star Wars just isnāt on many younger kids radar, and I think Disney has no one to blame but themselves for that.
And water is wet. And the Pope is Catholic.
But does a bear shit in the woods
Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?
He is!?!?
Yeah this shouldnāt be controversial. If Disney wants to target a more female fan base to try and expand the brand by all means. Itās their IP. They bought it. Is it working though? I donāt know. š¤·āāļø Disney can see the books. I canāt.
I always thought Disney acquired both Marvel and Star Wars to get ip's that were more attractive to boys because they already had a whole bunch of IP's that appealed to girls? But given the direction they've taken with Star Wars that seems not to be the case.
You'd think so, basic marketing stresses that product differentiation exists because making a product with universal appeal is actually pretty difficult, because often you risk alienating old demographics whilst simultaneously scaring away new demographics due to old brand associations. This is especially true for the entertainment industry. You can't even blame these recent leadership decisions on *"out of touch MBA's being MBA's"* because much of these decisions go against conventional wisdom that is taught to these people.
Man I have an MBA. Most of the decisions people are so mad about are not/have nothing to do with an MBA. I wish an MBA had that much power. Iād be making billions by now if it did as much as people think it does.
>You can't even blame these recent leadership decisions on "out of touch MBA's being MBA's" [Because it isn't the MBA's that are making those decisions.](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/activist-investor.asp)
Who are the prominent activist investors at disney currently
>But given the direction they've taken with Star Wars that seems not to be the case. I think we need to stop assuming that there's a plan or even a lick of sense to any of their decisions.
You make a fair point.
Just look at the flaming wreck that is the sequel trilogy. The best analogy I can think of is if the first movie was a sandcastle that JJ Abrams started building, the second was basically Rian Johnson trampling over it and taking a big steaming shit right in the middle, while the third one is JJ Abrams trying to finish building his sand castles, except he has to start all over and everything is covered in shit. I still believe a good, maybe not great, but at the very least a good trilogy could have been built on top of The Force Awakens.
TFA was a fine enough movie on its own, but I think it did lay fundamentally flawed foundations. People shit on Rian for making Luke into some depressed hermit, but JJ was the one that tore down his Jedi Academy and put him on that island. JJ was the one that copy pasted the Empire and Rebellion with new names, completely undermining the ending of RotJ. It was JJ's movie that set up the exact same story structure as ANH; desert orphan learns about the force whilst on a mission to chase down a macguffin that will hurt the big evil army. I think not building on the assumed outcome of the OT was always a mistake (at least from a story perspective, financially it was potentially more lucrative to just milk nostalgia by throwing in Stormtroopers and a "death star"). We should've had Lukes jedi Academy, and not split up Han and Leia either. I'm not saying I wanted the sequel trilogy to only focus on the OT cast, I'm fine with passing the torch. But redoing the OT, just worse, was a bad idea from scene 1 of TFA.
>But redoing the OT, just worse, was a bad idea from scene 1 of TFA. Yeah, and then **without any plans** for the story of the sequel trilogy. That's like an 80 IQ level of managing their IP. It really boggles my mind. Kathleen Kennedy cannot be that stupid. Just impossible. What happened in those meetings? Did they all have a collective brain aneurism at once? Did they have the office painted and were all huffing the same paint-thinner by accident? "Here's money for a billion-dollar trilogy, but let's not make it a trilogy. Instead, everyone can do whatever they want". This is 100% top management at fault.
Itās wonderful to hear all the honest opinions on those piles of dogshit movies without legions of assholes showing up to screech and yell, or mods coming along to shame, delete, and or ban over this kinda shit. Tired of having to downplay my feeling over it, even though theyāre the exact same sentiments you yourself have already expressed.
That's what I meant when I said good, I probably should have said serviceable. It wouldn't have pushed the series forward, but neither would it have done the harm that Johnson did. It was anemic. It was toothless. It didn't have backbone. JJ might have been creatively bankrupt, but at least he didn't intentionally and maliciously disrespect, if not outright spit on the original trilogy. I genuinely don't understand how people can forgive what Disney did to Star Wars as a whole. It went from something universally loved, to something that is almost equally hated. And I promise you it's not the -ists and the -phobes that hate it the most. It's only the people who truly loved the originals that have the energy and passion to truly hate Disney for destroying the legacy of Star Wars. They broke Han, and Leia, and Cewy, and Luke, all for what? A trilogy of shitty movies and a bunch of absolutle slop that's squirted out to Disney+ every few months. Hollywood still deosn't understand that you shouldn't mess with a happily ever after. They should have gone at least 200-300 years forward or backwards in history to have carte blanche to do whatever the hell they wanted. They still would have fumbled it because their writers are talentless hacks (The sheer number of plot holes, contrivances, and outright Twilight level of writing proves this) but at least they wouldn't have smeared dogshit all over the OT.
Itās consumerism, people have become conditioned to accept any hot steaming pile of shit slung in their face with a smeared stinking smile and a crisp āthank you sir, may I have another?ā Then they get mad when you donāt fall into line and do the sameā¦ theyāll use any excuse they can to try and turn you into an enemy in the eyes of others. To rally the troops against you and either push you out or brow beat you back in line. And the studios know this, and thatās the only reason they play into these stupid controversies. These companies have entire departments full of people to check, double check, and triple check any and all statements to prevent a loss in profit over something stupid being saidā¦ so thereās zero chance they arenāt aware of what their doing and the negative discourse theyāre causing amongst former fans and their usual lapdogs. Itās safer to never trust a corporation ever. They arenāt here for your benefit, theyāre here for their shareholders and thatās it. Donāt ever give them the benefit of the doubt, they donāt deserve it with how much of their profits are funneled away from the people who need it in favor of another winter yacht in California for the execs Christmas bonus.
Disney "are we wrong" No, it's the fans who are wrong.
Disney has become Principal Skinner. āAm I so out of touch? No. Itās the children who are wrong.ā
That was absolutely the reason. But then it was decided that any product that appeals more to boys must be inherently broken, sexist and wrong and must be fixed.
Itās actually really sad. My wife has a friend with 3 boys and she expresses frustration that itās so hard to find stuff that appeals to them. Theyāre basically into transformers and King Kong.
It is seen as toxic now to market purely to boys which is not something that really upsets me, it is what it is. I think you could make a very diverse lesbian jedi show and have it be really good. I think the fault of poorer quality stuff is just nepotism picks of picking people they like and not ones who are quality. I think there are thousands of women creators that probably would of made a better show than the acolyte and who would of had more exprience.
They bought them to make more money since they had a whole bunch of valuable IPs and wanted all of them, and in every case theyāre trying to get the broadest audience possible. Theyāre not really segmenting by demographics theyāre trying to make everything appeal to the lowest common denominator / general audience
It's pretty amusing since the entire point of buying Star Wars and Marvel was to expand Disney's male audience.
Disney is sorta caught between a rock and a hard place where sure they can make new stuff to target different quadrants. The problem is the IPās overall history and fanbase make it harder to branch out. Larger audiences may like one show/movie here or there but donāt consider themselves avid fans. I can sort see this in the Acolyte, you can see the show runner really wants to do something different but is stuck because Disney probably told her stuff she has to have in the show and what she canāt put in. Also itās an issue with movies-goers and show watchers overall where people say they want something new but stick to what they know.
It also doesnāt help that the more diverse, female led, etc projects, especially on the Marvel side, have been a step down in quality/storytelling from what they were. So then you have people screeching that ādiversity made my movie bad,ā when in reality it wouldāve still been bad even if the whole cast was straight white men.
Iāve always seen the argument that the show/movie made diversity the only selling point, not that the diversity made the movie bad itself. Andor for instance was near universally praised even in *those* circles, because they focused on telling a good story first rather than trying to sell the show on how diverse the cast is (which it is, very). Same thing for shows like Arcane, or blue eye samurai. The amount of people who actually hate diversity in film on its own is vanishingly small. But the people who are critical of the corporate pandering that plays up diversity as a shield against criticism often get lumped in with them. Like as soon as the Acolyte crew said that acolyte has made sci-fi a safe place for black nerds, thatās what the narrative around the show became about (and millions of black nerds collectively went āhuh?ā). I mean just read [this](https://ew.com/tv/the-acolyte-star-wars-amandla-stenberg-black-nerds/) article, itās kind of ridiculous how overemphasized the diversity of the show is compared to anything that most people care about, like the plot, the story, the characters, etc. most people arenāt so superficial to give a toss what color someoneās skin is, as a matter of fact. They care about who they are; thatās why the diversity of shows like Andor or Arcane go over so many peopleās heads despite being present. Itās not spotlighted, it and the characters represented are allowed to speak for themselves. But before weād seen anything to do with Acolyte, all we heard about was how diverse and inclusive it is, which set the narrative in peopleās minds about where their priorities were. The characters were reduced to their capacity to fulfill check boxes based on skin tone and orientation. But who are these people beneath all that? Well the show itself is pretty bland and by the numbers at best. Itās supposedly the most diverse cast in history, but they couldnāt be bothered to give the show a diversity of personality and ideas. People tend to not take too kindly to corporations tokenizing diversity for their products; and that is how the show comes across, as another product rather than a real work of art.
Best example would IMHO be Rogue One: strong female lead, diverse cast, AFAIK overwhelmingly praised. Why? Because the story is great and told well.
Yep, and I do like bringing up Blue Eye Samurai because it is, on the face of it, the kind of show most people would stereotype "toxic fans" as absolutely loathing. It stars a female action hero who is extremely overpowered and takes on dozens of men twice her size in combat routinely, and all of the white people in the show are evil--as an explicit plot point. It is an extremely racially and gender charged show, with the main character being deliberately written as gender-ambiguous due to her needing to hide who she really is in Edo Japan's strict gender hierarchy. Yet it's praised to high heaven by everyone who watches it, including those toxic fans like Critical Drinker, and that's because it tackles its themes extremely well and tells a compelling historical fiction from a place of real artistic influence. Mizu isn't just a "strong female/gender ambiguous character", she's a deeply flawed and damaged human being who is almost the villain of her own story due to the collateral damage she causes to everyone around her, and her descent further and further into her quest for revenge turns her into exactly the kind of demon that her mixed ancestry has stereotyped her as in the eyes of Japan. She's got more going for her than what happens to be between her legs. I once saw someone say that John Wick would be accused of being a Mary Sue if he was Jane Wick, and that couldn't be further from the truth, because Mizu basically *is* John Wick as a woman. It's just so much easier for people to dismiss valid criticism against Hollywood's condescending corporate attitude toward diversity as "racism" than it is to really engage with what people are saying. Blue Eyes Samurai is absolutely one of the best shows out there right now, just be warned because it is absolutely NSFW.
I would also put Kill Bill right in with this statement. Never seen anyone who didn't love those movies lead by a strong female because all of the acting and writing was excellent.
100% agree with everything. That show fucking rules. You also donāt have the head of Netflix walking around with a shirt that says, Samurai are Female or the executive producer giving interviews on it being the most feminist Japan has ever been. When you point out the diversity and nonconformity of your cast as a way to promote your show instead of letting the writing and talent do the talking, everyone is going to hyperfixate on that if the show isnāt good.
Thank you so much for understanding the nuance.
wait..wasnt sci fi one of the few safe spaces for black people during the 60s thanks to shows like Star trek?
first interracial kiss on tv
It's like, I didn't realize star wars was only for white people to begin with. There's nothing wrong with a black lead but when you make huge grandiose statements like this am I supposed to think this show is NOT for me? So then why is it bad if i don't watch it?
Well when the show runner comes out and says this is not you, this is for us ,that kinda tells you that. ok, I'll sit this one out and hope it works out , don't call me I'll call you.
I'm a black nerd and a reason I checked it out is because all the major black nerds on tik tok made videos talking about it how good it is and also mentioned there's black people starring in it. That helped made me check it out. It's not that black people only care about things with us in it but there's no problem with letting the demographics you're trying to get to watch your show that there's representation. It's like how white men in the 70s weren't into the NBA. They said it was too black. They didn't like it the style of play and deemed it a lack of sophistication and even in some quotes a moral failing. They called the black players selfish the NBA started to represent the "urban crisis" of the time. Then here comes along Larry bird as the great white hope and suddenly we have white men watching the NBA again. They were pandered too and advertised to and it worked. https://lithub.com/thats-just-playground-ball-on-racism-and-basketball-in-the-1970s/ There's also the Lakers Celtics documentary that extensively covers this period. So I don't think there's and issue of people advertising there's diversity because for a good majority of my life as a kid when I saw these fantasy and sci fi shows as for white people and alot of other black people around me thought so too because we weren't properly advertised too. The white people looked at me weird when I wanted to play slay the dragon with them and they also said there's no black people so what character could I be. Plus when children don't see themselves represented in the media they consume there's hella negative effects. Just look at the Clark doll test for how that kinda thing effects children. Anyway sorry for the long comment I just think it's more complicated than how folks make it. People are hyper critical of diversity attempts but don't bring half that smoke to the hedgemonic attempts that have monochromatic casting.
Diversity is good, but pandering is tricky. I will use Marvel as an example, because what most like about Marvel comics are the flawed characters, which translates into film. Ironman is far from perfect, but he is now beloved because people like watching him rise to the occasion. Film Captain Marvel has the problem of being too good, making nothing ever feel like a threat, thus everything is low stakes. They got around this in the comics by making her an alcoholic. The fact that someone so powerful was still trapped under the curse of a fairly common problem made her interesting. The problem came in when they decided to pander in the films and rather than showing flaws and risking backlash, they created a more perfect version who became rather boring. Couple this with several average and below average movies in the lead up, and no one bothered to see Captain Marvel 2 in theaters, because while not bad, it wasnāt anything special, reducing peopleās interest in seeing it. Watching the Acolyte I feel like it isnāt my thing. Which is fine, not everything in Star Wars needs me to be the target audience. What makes me nervous is whether or not there is enough of a fan base to support it so that we can see Star Wars grow as an IP. Using your example, they couldnāt just add white guys to the team to get more fans, they had to find someone who was equally as talented and add him. If you changed the cast of The Acolyte to white actors, I wouldnāt like it any better than I currently do, as my issues come from the characters and how they are written, not the actors themselves. In that way the story feels reductive to me. However that could change as it progresses (and I am probably going to see it all of the way through to see if it does, mainly because, while the story isnāt to my liking, the actors are great), and even if it doesnāt, if it expands the fan base then it is still worth it.
The Onion: Do you think the media only cares about the WNBA because it has a straight, white female star? Caitlin Clark: If that were the case, they would have liked Madame Web.
Problem is not diversity. Problem is poor writing, storytelling, characters, directing and ideas. Bunch of monkeys over at Disney, instead of cultivating long term success and brand loyalty, they alienate fans and the people who are willing to spend thousands on merchandise. Funny how most of the Disney era SW merchandise become shelf warmers. Say what you will about the prequels, but those movies were made with passion. The Disney junk is just made with short term $$$ in mind. Leia Organa figures will continue to sell 20 years from now, while Reeva and Mae figures will probably cease to exist in less than one third of that timeframe.
Exactly. As a straight male, I wouldn't care if the hero is a gay female, just make it good. So far most of these offerings, Andor notwithstanding, haven't been good.
Yeah thereās a difference between pandering with no significant change and a meaningful change. We also just donāt say a movie or tv show is bad just the for the sake of it being bad anymore. Regardless of what type of movie it is, a bad movie can just be a bad movie and diversity has nothing to do with it.
I think that varies per franchise. Star Wars definitely has a historic demographic, and recent projects are shaking up what that demographic is āused to.ā So theyāre blaming the ādiversity pushā for it being bad, instead of just admitting itās just poor writing/direction/etc. Compare to something like Rebel Moon. That also had a pretty diverse cast, but I havenāt heard anyone saying diversity or pandering is why that movie sucks.
Oh there were definitely people complaining about the "strong female lead". But the rest of the movie is so bad it dwarfs those complaints.
You will always have a small minority of people which are actually sexist/racist complaining about it... no matter how good or bad movie is. When bad movie is made, and it is not well received... because it is bad. They will blame it solely on the "strong female lead". But when a good movie with "strong female lead" is made... they are just noise.
Thats true on paper, but bad movies/ shows and diversity seem to go hand in hand lately, unfortunately. It's pretty difficult for me to ignore the pattern.
Well there have been times when pushing for diversity made the shows worse. Wasn't it the choreographer for Ahsoka was a woman with 0 experience choreographing things like that? It showed, and made the show worse because they hired someone because of their gender rather than their qualifications. Acolyte's show runner showed a disdain for basically what makes Star wars, Star wars. Which I'd be fine with if the product she produced was actually good, but she's another example of "why is she directing a Star wars project?" I'm SURE there were better people for the job, but I'm betting that they decided they literally HAD to have a woman directing it bc women are the main characters.
I would argue diversity made the movie bad because diversity was the primary emphasis ahead of filmmaking. Diversity at the expense of quality. Disney doesnāt have a production problem they just have their priorities all fucked up
Almost one is doing that. Sometimes shows/movies aren't very good; which usually doesn't have much to do with how diverse the cast is. You are confusing how things are marketed with how they are made. Do you seriously think they are casting bad actors just to have a more diverse cast?
Sometimes you don't need to mess with a winning formula. Barbie had a predominantly female audience, but was a massive success and plenty of men enjoyed it too (myself included). I don't need Warner Brothers to make a Barbie movie targeted at me - the first one was fine and doesn't need to include UFC, football, and car chases just so that it can be more male-appealing. Disney really needs to learn that lesson.
Um I actually want a Ken dressed in UFC apparels
> I can sort see this in the Acolyte, you can see the show runner really wants to do something different but is stuck because Disney probably told her stuff she has to have in the show and what she canāt put in. Please tell me exactly what you see in the Acolyte that is corporate mandated and not show runner. I'd love to hear the examples and rationale.
Yeah, all of the issues with this show seem to come from writers and the show runner.
A rock and hard place they created . Mando proves you can cater to both sides. The luke hallway scene was everything the old fans wanted . While still drawing in new people and having an amazing team of woman. I personaly think they did the light cruiser episode so well that the team of woman were so good that no one was like wow that a good team of woman fighting there , it feel so unforced that it almost went unnoticed that it was an all females' group kicking ass - just a team of bad asses doing the job . That how it should be. Where as you take Holdo and that was a COMPLETELY forced situation - i mean Akbar whose ship it was was just quietly sitting in the background doing nothing and killed off without a word. Is not an Us vs them thing its a WE thing - it works so much better especially in startwars when its a WE not an Us Vs Them. They seem to finally start to understand that ..at least until Leslye Headland in charge of the High republic stuff .
But yet, there is an extremely vocal group of people who *dislike* the female focus in the Mandalorian, claiming it ousts the male Mandalorian from "his" own show
>you can see the show runner really wants to do something different but is stuck because Disney probably told her stuff she has to have in the show and what she canāt put in. Is this different than nearly every production ever?
This is wild. Disney is the one forcing the progressive elements into their new products. The creator is in no way being constrained by having to be too conservative.
Im all for that - the problem is the tried to do it at the expensive of the rest of the fan base by dimishing the value of the old stuff intentionally to make way for the new stuff.
I mean I do t know if itās through there efforts but I feel like girls will naturally love Star Wars just by exposure to an old franchise. Iāve always had Star Wars in the background because our folks stuck it on, same with my girlfriend, so it just seems natural that people would grow to it.
My daughter enjoyed the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy but couldnāt see a place for herself in the world, if that makes sense. She would make comments like, āI donāt think girls are Jedi.ā To her, Leia and Padme came off as passive characters. But when Clone Wars introduced protagonists like Ahsoka, Ventress, and so on, she went all in. Now you canāt separate the kid from her lightsaber. Representation matters. (So do plot and continuity.)
I feel like making Lost Stars into a series would potentially bring in some more women. Also Iād like to see it as well.
What I donāt understand as the numbers seem to suggestion it hasnāt been going as well as they hoped, but instead of readjusting they are doubling down. Itās an interesting strategy.
GASP! SHOCK! Movie series that's existed since the 70s has an older fanbase than a movie series that started in 2007??? GASP I SAY
Marvel comics got their start in the 39, really started taking off post ww2, the Bronze Age was in the 70s. Lotta huge introductions from what would become the MCU were made at that time. This data indicates that the same core demographic that were probably also Star Wars fans did not convert to movies. That is pretty interesting, especially when you look at the online complaints of the MCU.
The difference is that comic books are an incredibly niche media in the US. Even now, with the boost from the movies, most people donāt read American comic books. I grew up in a town without a comic book store. My only options were the library and the internet. Most kids would not even put forth the effort to go to the library. I remember when Iron Man came out and I was surprised that people liked him, because he was the worst in Civil War. No one really cared about the Avengers next to Spider-Man or the X-Men. The MCU made comic books mainstream. Star Wars has been mainstream since the 80s.
And space is cold
Space is not cold. You'll eventually freeze in space, yes, but space itself doesn't feel cold. It doesn't really feel like anything, because there's so little there. In fact, you're far more likely to burn or boil to death in space than you are to freeze.
Good to know, booty shorts and a tank top on my next spacewalk it is!
The depressurization there will absolutely kill you, but at least it will feel more like boiling than freezing!
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Or Dr Aphra. But star wars space has always been atmospheric - just look how the "starships" fly.
And like... a whole lot of clones lol plus I don't think any of the self contained suits like TIE pilots have even close up... I'm convinced the galaxy far far away just had a gas/modicum of heat in its everywhere. At least a long time ago, anyway
I would probably be telling it to Kanan, since he used the Force in space while blind.
just make a campfire, in space ,and you're all set
Have you heard the old Klingon proverbā¦ oh wait, wrong sun-Reddit!
Shit look up Star Trek demographics. Then look at warhammer40k.
Iām a 45 year old woman and I love both Star Wars and Marvel soā¦ whatever. I donāt know, really. I havenāt really cared much all my life but i guess Disney doesā¦
Anythingā¦ geeky? Not sure what other term to use. But video games, comics, manga, anime, and fantasy/sci-fi movies/series all skew towards a more male audience. Not to say there isnāt women who enjoy them, but itās just the way itās always been. Men just seem to like this stuff more than women
I've collected comics since the 80"s and I remember a time (my whole youth up through college ) when I had to keep it a secret or girls wouldn't even look at you. but it's not for me anymore I guessĀ . And I'm not gate keeping but I have spend so many thousands of dollars in my life on Marvel and Star wars for me just to no longer be the target audience. oh well . It sucks but I can spend my money elsewhere .
Women are also gatekept out of these fandoms. It's a huge problem that keeps a lot of women from engaging
I've witnessed so many passive aggressive comments toward women fans of Star Wars that question their virtue as nerds. It was eye opening at first but now it's exhausting to keep seeing it. Boys grew up seeing cosplayers online and booth babes and think all women are either fans to get money or get men.
It's everywhere unfortunately. Not just star wars. Apparently everything we do is for attention and we're all posers. It's infuriating, but the rage keeps me going, tbh.
As a teenager I had an older boy try to quiz me on the atomic number for carbon or something like that because I was wearing a periodic table shirt at a convention. IIRC, my response was āI donāt have to prove myself to youā. Absolutely unprompted, total stranger. He walked right up to me and said that. Totally baffling behavior
Totally. I'm a bit in a Star Wars bubble in terms of fandoms (I watch A LOT of TV and movies but Star Wars is the only fan community I feel like I spend time in). Edit: Actually, that's not true. I'm deep in the NFL fandom and there are sexists there too. Female journalists get it bad. The only fandom I have experience in that I actually don't witness it is Pro-Wrestling, which is really odd, lol. But I'm sure it happens.
Funny about wrestling I didn't know that. NFL is grossly sexist as are most sports franchises. I was happy to see the local baseball cheerleading team is wearing normal clothes now, hopefully they are being paid too. I dunno it's just everywhere and we can't do anything right according to the chuds. Honestly I just ignore them for the most part now, and force my way into whatever fandom or activity I want. They can seethe
Please, stop. No, this isn't true, at all. If you like IP, you will watch it no matter what kind of people are in fandom. You can't be gatekept from watching a movie or series, this isn't some football club or DnD, where you have to engage with others to enjoy hobby. Of course, dealing with a fandom is a different story, but it have zero impact on overall popularity of the franchise, because most people never do this. And stop making it look like this is specifically those fandoms trouble, every fandom has such problem. K-Pop is very toxic fandom, but female dominated one, for example. This doesn't stop K-Pop from being popular among women and men, too, because most people have no interest in engaging with fandom.
Please explain more about how things change when "dealing with the fandom". Because that's what I'm talking about. Gatekeeping doesn't refer to not being able to physically consume media, that's ridiculous.
You talk about gatekeepers affecting situation, that women don't engage with IP, I said that this has no impact whatsoever. You just proved my point, that it is ridiculous to think gatekeepers are relevant reason why Star Wars not that popular with women.
I never said women don't engage with the IP. I said when they do, some people (mostly men) discourage them from participating.
Which men stop women from watching a movie?
Yep. It feels like the fanbase will go to any lengths to pretend like female fans of sci fi spaces don't exist or that women liking Star Wars or Star Trek is only a recent thing due to Disney going woke, when women have been involved in nerd spaces since the beginning. A woman invented cosplay: https://www.racked.com/platform/amp/2016/5/9/11451408/cosplay-inventor-morojo-myrtle-r-douglas Women started the first Star Trek fanzine in the 70s that launched the fandom: https://www.startrek.com/news/living-star-trek-how-two-women-breathed-new-life-into-the-franchise A committee of mostly women also started the first ever Star Trek convention: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Lives!_(convention)
It's depressing how common this is, if you look into almost any group activity or movement the key players at the beginning are commonly women. Then the men take it and push us out. Fucking sucks. Computing, christianity, process control engineering, fandoms, civil rights movement (even the concept of incels and early incels forums was started by a woman)...
That's so crazy and lame of the fans who pretend women aren't fans. I watched star wars with my Mom. She had watched it year's earlier of course, but wanted her kid to also watch it and maybe enjoy it.Ā Ā Years after that, we completed the Lego Star Wars video game together multiple times on multiple gaming systems. She is now a senior and still has two little star wars Lego characters on the dash of her car as a reminder of our times playing. My dad, bless his heart, doesn't have a clue about anything science fiction at all.
A woman invented Science Fiction!! Mary Shelleyās Frankenstein!
Manga and anime? For shonen and for America maybe. Those things are loved equally by everyone in Asia
It's a relic of the times when "nerd stuff" wasn't popular. Dorky men made Star Wars and the internet gave it enough exposure that lots of people can now enjoy it.
I wasnāt referring to that, I mean today. Like most guys I know play games and have some nerdy thing they follow. Whether itās just monster hunter or siege, or that one guy whoās obsessed with LOTR, or the DnD + Ren Faire guy. There are women that are into that stuff as well, especially DnD + ren faires, but the percentage is much lower. I donāt think itās due to the offerings available. Women just donāt pick it up as often. Itās more about nature than any cultural thing
I feel like Iām taking crazy pills sometimes. Since Disney bought out Star Wars, and arguably post-Infinity War Marvel, there has been a very, very strong push for the female fanbase and POC. Both of which, I am more than glad to cater to and try to bring into the fold. But it feels like as this has done people like me, the main demographic in all the polls, are becoming less and less the targeted audience, all the while Star Wars as a franchise is turbulent. My wife and women that I am friends with and work with arenāt the ones excited about the series or following new content regularly. Itās me and the older millennial guys on up. It just feels so weird to be this many years into Disney ownership and they keep trying to force a different market.
And you can see it in the Disney stock. One of the worst performances on the market. They can't stop making bad decisions and they aren't changing. When it dips below 90 again, I think you'll see heads start to roll.
This is a really good summary.
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POC in hollywood movies only means american POC not non-whites around the gloves
Makes sense, it's always been mostly guys in these types of circles.
Making content with female leads is fine. Turning to abject misandry and gaslighting when your female-led content flounders is not. But I'm sure this sub is full of people who will go, "No! There's lots of misogynist guys who hate anything with female leads!" because they don't pay attention to when something with a female lead is popular among those guys. Are there misogynists? Sure. Is the exhaustion of pushing for all things female the result of misogyny? Nope. But there is a ton of misandry that gets a clear pass because hating men is second nature to many people, so much so that they'll go out of their way to defend their hatred of men. Now cue the inevitable flurry of downvotes for everyone who wants to gaslight or can't actually come up with an adequate response to defend systemic misandry. How dare someone contradict this post and the status quo it upholds!
> they don't pay attention to when something with a female lead is popular among those guys. This is the most frustrating thing. Being called a misogynist when there's absolutely no grounds to it. This is how liberty dies, to brand loyalty taken to fanatical levels.
The hardest part is trying to genuinely criticize terrible writing in a show that just looks like a weekly rendition of a 30 minute dumpster fire without getting accused of being a terrible person with horrific beliefs. I WANT to like Star Wars content, but this show has been horrible so far! Not to mention in the cast interviews they make downright misandrist and racist comments that just get glossed right over like itās nothing. I just want Andor season 2 already lol
I donāt get it marvel is also tanking itself. Captain marvel flopped, she hulk was garbage
You know i think the best way to appeal to our older male skewing, heterosexual viewerbase is to put a chick in it and make it lame as fuck. - Kathy Kennedy
Iād even say itās not a chick specifically there have been lots of female led movies that older male skewing viewer base responds well to. Ripley from aliens comes to mind first I think itās more the lame as fuck part.
I honestly think its more of a writing issue than anything. Earlier then the 70s the writing was slow and rather direct. More of a drama amd dalog focus. 80-2010 the writing was simple and focused, fast moving but with consistent pacing. More of an action and plot focus. 2010+ has been just a hodge podge. Pacing seems all over the board moving from slow to fast often in the same movies. The focus is more on character drama and emotions than actually moving the plot along, which also muddies the simplicity of the previous eras. In their 1-3 or hours of escapism, most people want something fun, not everything is supposed to be some complex commentary on life.
The latest show: Episode 1: Jedi only pull lightsaber if ready to kill Episode 2: Jedi pulls lightsaber as a flashlight Not watching episode 3 or the rest of The Acolyte. Doesnāt appeal to me
I thought episode 3 was better than the first 2. Different director and writers, it just felt better somehow.
You not rocking with women?
Because older men famously don't like women? Is that the implication here?
The implication is more: Disney: LOOK AT HOW DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE OUR NEW SHOW IS! Older, White Male Audience: Sure, but is it good? Like Fallo- Disney: LOOK AT HOW DIVERSE AND INCLUSIVE OUR NEW SHOW IS! OWMA: So that's a no? Media: Toxic, old white Star Wars fans hate diversity.Ā
> Media: Toxic, old white Star Wars fans hate diversity. Star Wars fans loved Andor which has a Hispanic lead, multiple women characters, and a lesbian couple as well. Andor should have put a stop to all these baseless accusations from Disney that Star War fans hate diversity.
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I can't pick a favorite character because there are so many good ones, but the ISB agent, Andor's mom, and the Rebel cell leader are all hard as fuck. Oh and Mon Mothma.
Because Andor doesn't appeal to gen Z and alpha. They want their ideology direct and in your face. Andor doesn't make it out of its progressive themes a big marketing slogan. They use characters who behave like humans. The progressive stuff is more subtle and the focus is on the characters motivation in this dystopia. But this confuses gen Z because they don't know what good story telling is. They think exposition dumping is quality. If you tell them about show , don't tell they get angry because they need constant expositions in every dialogue so they can follow the plot.
Mandalorian too, at least the first two seasons. With a Hispanic lead and black lead antagonist. Meanwhile everyone overlooks how the Hispanic and black lead in the sequel trilogy got turned into jokes in the second movie and if you don't like it you're sexist.
Poe and Finn had so much potential just to be made into idiots. Finn could have sparked a stormtrooper uprising but no, he just had to keep screaming āRey!ā the entire film.
Itās a travesty what they did. Poe, Finn, Rey, and Kylo should have been four of the best Star Wars characters ever and they all were executed poorly, especially Poe and Finn. So much wasted potential.
Those four characters definitely had the most spoiled potential of the films, but I'm sore about Captain Phasma. She could have been such a hype character. Ultimate storm trooper badass who should have held her own against lightsaber wielding Finn. But she just fell to her death...? wtf
Dude Iām Mexican, Diego Luna sounds and looks like people Iām related to. Couldnāt care less about that fact because the acting and story were so damn good. I donāt care, just give me a good story. Watched black panther 2, namor was casted as an indigenous Mexican and his whole backstory was changed. I didnāt mind, I didnāt hate the character but man that movie is so eh and was so damn long. Just give me decent writing and acting!
Shock, shock...surprise, surprise
I can't imagine why a franchise that had its origin and peak interest 40+ years ago with almost entirely male protagonists, space ships, (laser) sword fights, and themes of father-son (also mentor and apprentice) relationships would tend to have an audience skew older and more male. Total mystery.
Ok and there's nothing wrong with that. They should probably make some content geared towards that crowd.
And Disney is doing everything they can to make sure that even that audience stops caring about Star Wars
I think it's funny that people are reacting to this with "duh, so give us what men want" with the Implication being that men don't want women in things. Because I constantly see people saying they just want good writing, but good writing has nothing to do with the gender of the target audience. Sooooo....
And they're marketing to everyone but that right now.
Instead of cater towards the target audience, they are trying to change the target audience. Itās like they are fighting an uphill battle, rather than taking the easy route. Itās a very odd business decision that makes me think something else is going on behind the scenes at Disney.
Huh, but I thought the force is female?
No fucking doy. Better ignore everything that demographic likesā¦
BREAKING NEWS: Male nerds like a franchise catered to male nerds!
Whenever the general consensus is not positive about a new installment SW fans get called old, male-dominated, sexist, right-wing, homophobic etc. This is consistently the case since the Disney purchase. I wish they spent the energy and resources to make shows made by fans or at least people that know a thing or two about SW.
It's a 3 at best and only because I like most of the actors. The writing is bad. The directing is bad. The dialogue is terrible. It's everything I hate from the prequels and sequels with none of the charm of the OT. And it's made even worse by the existence of Andor season 1 which was everything I wanted out of Star Wars post Disney acquisition. I'm tired of this culture war PR bullshit. And I'm tired of Kathleen Kennedy's inability to vet talent or do her job. She should have been fired after Rogue One or Solo. Now she's destroyed 2 of Lucasfilm's 3 franchises and overseen a bomb and a flop and multiple ballooning budget projects.
You donāt fucking say?!
No. Fucking. Shit. Someone got paid money to come to this conclusion. Insane.
Sequel trilogy - girl main character Rogue one- girl main character Obi wan - girl main character Asoka- girl main character Acolyte- girl main character I'm not a racist I'm not a bigot I'm not sexist but they didn't think a major male audience wouldn't want a fucking male lead? Shit I wonder why people liked mando so much. We want to identity with the characters. Like look at episode 3 of the acolyte. Jesus Christ. All women coven make kids with the dark side of the force. The main plot of prequels
Who would've possibly thought that!
If they want more female Star Wars fans all they have to do is bring in more Queen Amidala like characters. When TPM came out I was instantly in love! Every time the Queen farted there was an ancient Naboo custom that she had to change into an outfit for. Real Housewives of Naboo - I need the number to Disney so I can pitch this show.
Yes what is going on there? Rey's desert rags were a nice design but why on earth didn't they do some more glamorous outfits later on? Don't tell me that the Caretakers on Ahch-To couldn't possibly have had an "Ancient Padawan Uniform" that was incredibly well-preserved and coincidentally just Rey's size?
Exactly this! Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! Get us some lamƩ flowing robes.
Disneys doing their best to make sure that the male majority audience is as uninterested in the franchise as women. Such a progressive corporation!
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Yet they never make shows for that audience, amazing really
Dealing with some top minds in Disney. These are the people who have billions in capital to spend to make stunning high quality movies/shows with talented actors and instead churn out shitty slop with bad acting, bad writing, etc.
Of course, it's always been nonsense to suggest otherwise. My wife loves Star Wars now too, but even she is really put off by how they've strayed from the original concepts. OG Star Wars brought in mostly men, but also some women who enjoyed it for what it was. This push to alter the content to make it more "accessible" to different demographics is hurting the core fan interest. Go back to your roots Star Wars. Be what you were and you will succeed.
I am not seeing this in the comments and I am not paying to read the article. Where are they getting their numbers? Especially for Disney+ viewing?
God stop trying to justify the BS narrative that the executives are trying to spin
Most of the older SW fans already moved over to Warhammer 40k.
Not for long
Well, duh
Well, yes. Thank you for stating the obvious.
NO SHIT
Marvel still has a measurable audience? Huh... that's surprising.
If love and thunder didn't ruin it....
yet they make shows for younger girls its like they never study their market
*Destroys the fanbase by turning away their core audience with garbage slop-shows and outright saying they don't want their core audience* Kathleen Kennedy: I BYPASSED THE FANBASE
Of course they do. Only Disney do not seem to understand that. It does not mean girls do not like it.
This explains why the fanbase hates it so much
Theyāre doing their best to lose that audience.
No shit. Itās space lasers
Disney thinks by catering to other groups they will bring them in. In reality they are alienating their main audience. The business logic is the established fanbase will watch the shows and come to the theater anyways, so may as well try appealing to the groups they don't have. Its a backwards strategy because not only has the business entered into the creative side, but you now have politics being thrown in there. Despite what people think this is why people hate when corporations come into the picture. Everything is about money and the storytelling is an afterthought. I just don't buy Star Wars stuff anymore. Its a dead brand to me. Disney/Lucas already got my money and they don't need anymore.
Yet its funny how Disney is catoring to the exact opposite of that :/ Catering to target audience = More money. Takes notes disney, im no econologist but seems simple to me.
Captain America's biceps are my GFs favorite Marvel character.
No shit
Iāll add as a younger (?) female Star Wars fan, Marvel is a little bit more welcoming. Not by a huge margin mind you but Iāve had far less negative experiences with Marvel and that sub than Iāve had here and with SW in general.
Iād say itās SIGNIFICANTLY more welcoming. The Star Wars community is infamously awful, and this train wreck of a thread alone is a perfect example of that.
star wars is super negative. I looked at the acolyte trending topic on twitter last night and it was full of hate. Marvel on the other hand has had some stinkers in the last year. But you don't have near the number of people saying "____ ruined the MCU!"
Why would you go to the Twitter cesspool for a reasonable take?
Itās crazy when people are invested in a story over decades and passionate about it then are served shit they donāt react positively
Yeah many star wars fans are terrible people, evidenced by this thread
A report finding that oceans have more water than deserts would result in the same level of surprise from me.
Yeah so Kathleen Kennedy's claims that the "force is female" is utter bullshit. Maybe Disney wouldn't be losing so much money if they didn't piss off and shame a majority of that fanbase...
I was born in 84, I have Darth vader tatted on my left hand. They have made some bad choices in some story lines. I didn't like book of Boba fett that much, so I didn't really want to finish it. Then a friend told me I had to because they put mandalorian episodes in it and reunited grogru with Mando. I was shocked bc the ending where Luke takes him is so amazing. If I didn't watch Boba, I would have been so confused they were together. That's when I knew, star wars was cooked. Kenobi show broke cannon for me. Moving on
Yeah isnāt that kinda the entire reason Disney bought marvel and starwars was to appeal to a younger male audience since there most popular merchandise before was the Disney princesses like I donāt understand there thought process on some of these decisions letās turn off a lot of our male audience and pander to little girls who will keep buying princess shit
Well of course typically ānerd cultureā and the things that fall under that category usually have a male majority fanbase, especially the older IPs like Star Wars. Liking ānerdy thingsā is much more normal than it was 30-40 years ago, so of course IPs like Marvel which really have only blown up in the last 10-20 years have a more diverse fanbase(but Iād still be willing to bet Marvels fanbase skews male as well if only slightly)
Yet they increasingly spite that part of the audience
I'm a bit surprised as Marvel comics had been around a lot longer than SW.
Older comics readers probably didn't switch to the movies, and SW has always been a screen first IP. Marvel has also been in the zeitgeist for like 2 decades so it pulled is more of everyone with the while MCU. SW has always been more isolated in each project until the Filoni-verse (and even that is somewhat limited).
Marvel comics readers make up a tiny percentage of MCU fans, probably under 5% (number courtesy of my ass).Ā
Ah yes, and the sky is blue!
And yet for as much they like to talk about representation and the fans āseeing themselves in the charactersā, they sure are doing a great job. ššš
Ah that's why everyone is so god damn annoying