Seems pretty lazy to deride a 50-year-old movie for not being diverse enough. I mean if that’s where you are at as a journalist… fuck man.
I came here to say the same thing. We don’t judge Gone With The Wind by current standards. Why judge Star Wars by current standards? It’s half a century old and societal morals and norms have changed significantly.
Lucas heard the criticism back then too. He admitted that it was a mistake on his part. That’s why he added Lando as a new main character in Empire Strikes Back.
He’s also now married to Mellody Hobson.
And, to his credit, made Red Tails, which showed the heroic black Tuskeegee Airmen.
Unfortunately, it was a bad movie and it flopped, but the fact that he tried shows that he was interested in telling stories featuring people of color.
He’s also now married to Mellody Hobson.
He might have married a Twi’lek instead were there a chance.
Let’s be honest, we all want to marry Twi’leks
Didn’t he cast his daughter as one?
Yeah, according to Wookiepedia, Katie Lucas has actually had a few small roles and cameos in the prequel trilogy as well as several writing credits in The Clone Wars. In Episode 2, you know that sports bar scene? “I don’t want to sell you death sticks/Jedi business go back to your drinks” as they’re walking around a Twi’lek extra in the background turns and checks out Anakin, that’s her.
Mellody Hobson
holy shit, george is getting with that smoking hot lady? damn
Gone with the Wind was backward looking even for it’s time frame. It’s depiction of the South as a happy place for everybody wasn’t agreeable by many films even then. Meanwhile, Star Wars is just a science fiction film, set in a different universe with little direct connotations.
Gone with the wind had a black woman in it
Using the word “journalist” in the loosest possible sense there I see
From what I remember, original star wars was filmed in London and Lucas didn’t realise until after filming that there wasn’t a black actor in the whole movie, which kinda dismayed him and led them to hire James Earl Jones. This is also why he specifically created Lando for Empire. Lucas has always been aware of the need for diversity and was one of the earlier proponents of it, it’s really silly for people to imply Lucas is racist. The only modern movie he’s ever directed was literally about a squadron of black pilots.
And he’s also married to a black woman. Strange behaviour for a supposed rascist.
Lucas didn’t realise until after filming that there wasn’t a black actor in the whole movie, which kinda dismayed him and led them to hire James Earl Jones.
The original voice is pretty fun :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQFho0_G1VI
David Prowse did the vocal takes seriously too. People may recognise him in Clockwork orange as the writer in the wheelchair’s … bodyguard? Servent?
Greedo was black, after Han shot first.
He was a perv, though
Edit: not saying he’s a pedo, at least not that I know of. But see my lower comment, he definitely was thinking with his dick sometimes is all I’m saying XD
I have tried googling, I can’t find anyone accusing him of anything specific, care to fill us in?
“there’s no underwear in space” to get Carrie Fisher naked under her robe thing. I’m sure she knew what was going on and there’s a lot worse people out there but George was still a bit of a horn dog lol
Being a horn dog isn’t a perversion it’s the default
Who Lucas? I mean name me one young guy with money who wasn’t thinking with his dick. I’m sure that’s why his marriage fell apart but he’s an old man now, with a new wife and a new Outlook who I’m sure has very little in common with his young self.
I say this as a guy who is finally reaching the age where I don’t want to fuck every woman I meet. Where I no longer need a new girl all the time. It feels like I’m an alcoholic who is slowly losing his taste for it and I feel great. People grow up.
I remember when people hated on the newer ones having black main cast. I pointed out that it always had all colors, even green (prominent example: Yoda), blue and red. It’s impossible to please all the haters. They’ll always find something.
George Lucas shouldn’t get so much shit for this. Disney should. John Boyega’s character Finn got sidelined in the sequel sequels partly because of the concern that the movie wouldn’t do well overseas. He was removed entirely from the movie posters for Force Awakens in China.
RIP Greedo
Who definitely did not shoot first.
Also a black guy is the main villain.
Off topic, but my love for the Star Wars franchise was killed by all the new movies (from 7 forward): not that I found the new movies were terrible (I found them average, entertaining at times), but they made me simply “not care” anymore about Star Wars and it’s universe. 6 movies were enough.
So now when people ask me “do you like Star Wars” I answer with: “meh”.
What made me lose interest was bad writing. “Andor” is a great Star Wars TV series, and I’m looking forward to its second season, because it has…let’s see…good fucking writing!
Honestly Star Wars has always had trash writing, it was the people around George Lucas that made Star Wars good and the more success and fame Lucas got the less he listened to others and the worse the movies got.
Specifically Lucas subscribed to Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces which is a widely discredited work of anthropology and besides Campbell was an outspoken raging sexist (women can’t be the hero they have to help the hero he said many times).
It is a reductive, authoritarian way of telling stories, it only leaves spaces for the chosen heroes. I also find it makes the universe of Star Wars cynical, evil just happens because we are sinful and it is inevitable. It is boring and not very compelling.
Andor of course goes against the grain on all of these things, brilliant series!
I’ve seen all the movies from 1 to 7 at the theater (4,5,6 when they were remastered right before Episode 1). I like the old 4,5,6 though they’re not perfect, but they are enjoyable. I tolerated 1,2,3 and applaud their existence since they made me discover Mr Plinkett and Red Letter Media. When I saw Episode 7 I had to stop. It felt too much of an insult to the viewer’s intelligence (it wasn’t enough to have two Death Stars in Episodes 4 and 6, they had to have a Mega Super Death Star in Episode 7… But this was very much not the only awful thing about the movie). I’ve watched Episode 8 on an airplane and I still have to watch episode 9
I watched half of 2 and haven’t seen 3 (though I’ve read a ton about both) because I just couldn’t do it to myself anymore.
The lemon has been squeezed. There’s just a husk left. Doesn’t stop someone new from coming around for a try at one last drop
When people ask me if I like Star Wars, I tell them that the first two were really good and the third was only so-so, so it’s probably good they never made any more.
I didn’t think the phantom menace and return of the clones were the best ones
Whatever.
I bet you call the first Star Wars movie “A New Hope” or “Episode IV.”
Its name is Star Wars.
And so the cycle continues. You’ve officially caught up to late 90s me
What about the spin off Live action and cartoon shows?
The expanded universe stuff has always been better than the main line movies.
What about the animated spinoff about the 3rd backup targeting officer on a non-capital Empire refueling ship?
Yeah a lot of us stopped caring a long time ago. The market has been saturated with Star Wars.
Or a musical, they haven’t done that yet.
The holiday special…
As they said, they HAVENT DONE THAT YET.
Just kidding. This is also one of my favorite Rifftraxes.
I’m still hoping for a holiday movie.
They did a new Star Was Holiday special and I was pretty sad when they didn’t lean into the awfulness of the original
Darth Vader is black.
Darth Maul is red.
Chewbacca is brown.
Greedo, Jabba, and Yoda are green.
Max Rebo, Thrawn, and Cad Bane are blue.
Threepio is goldenrod yellow.
IG-88 is gray.
Jar Jar and Ahsoka are orange.
Zeb Orrelios and Ziro the Hutt are purple.
Ackbar is salmon.
It’s a very diverse galaxy.
/s
Bro you can’t call ackbar salmon
Dont be fishist man! How dare you assume his species. If he identifies as a salmon its fine, so long as he doesnt swim up my stream to spawn I’m fine with it.
Well, someone did:
If you shave Chewbacca, will he still be brown?
Don’t dogs have the same skin colour as their fur? I think wookies are a lot like dogs
Polar bears have black skin, under their white fur. But I always enjoyed the fight scenes with the gorn aliens.
So you think wookies are more like bears than dogs?
“Most” of the people are aliens!? It’s a distant galaxy. They’re all aliens. Many of whom would be classified as “white” by the systems of racist classification prevailing in typical Earth audiences. Also they speak English.
They speak galactic basic not english.
It’s because of this that I can put on resumes that I’m bilingual.
Some of the people are robots.
Illegal Aliens!
Build that forest moon shield, build that forest moon shield!
Criticism from people who never watched a star wars movie
Yeah… White (or the species equivalent color) male aliens. The only specifically female aliens I recall were slaves and pole dancers.
I’m sure some were pole dancing slaves.
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Sorry, I’ll stick to serious articles on this community designed for comedic headlines
Yes. This sub is for satire adjacent reality. Not posting people.com articles and pointless micro aggressions on 50 year old films. This is just bullshit pointless rage bait that isn’t funny.
You’ve convinced 1 person, now you just need to chase down all 89% of the people who upvoted this post!
Actually, as a strong supporter of the European Union, when people ask me what United in Diversity even means, scenes from Star Wars are my go-to explanation. No one like him showed the possibility of a, I would argue, racially diverse population surviving and becoming an effective force against a power expressed through uniformity.
Stupid criticism but also not a very good response. I don’t think he meant to put it that way, but it makes it sounds like he’s saying they aren’t white men because they’re from another planet and that planet doesn’t have black people on it so there is no ‘white’ there. Again, I don’t think that’s what he meant, but he could have put it better by saying something like it was an unfortunate oversight not to have more human diversity in the early films, but it was not his intent to show a galaxy of white men and he hopes we can all look at Star Wars as inspiration since it’s a galaxy where all types of intelligent beings are equals (except droids).
it makes it sounds like he’s saying they aren’t white men because they’re from another planet and that planet doesn’t have black people on it.
Does it? It sounds to me like he’s saying that most of the people aren’t human at all. In fact that’s definitely what he’s saying… Like they don’t look like white men or black men, because they don’t look like men. He’s suggesting that viewers may be forgetting that a great many of the characters in the movies are in extreme costumes where ethnicity isn’t apparent whatsoever.
Let’s take the main cast for example, the skywalkers (Luke Leia Vader) are all family, so that makes some sense to be the same race. There Han and ObiWan, as well, so that makes 5 white. But then there’s chewy, Yoda, c-3p0 and R2, so 4 that fall into "other"and finally Lando an actual poc. Yes, the cast is half white, but half the cast is really not bad, especially for the 70’s & 80’s.
And then there’s the Empire, they’re British (apparently). Make of that what you will
The Empire is ridiculously racist and specist. Stormtroopers are all human. Officers are almost all white men. Compare that with the rebels who are multiethnic, have multiple species and female members.
There hasn’t been enough media delving into the bigotry of the Empire.
I understand that’s what he was intending to say. I’m talking about what it sounds like he’s saying, at least from my perspective. And I would suggest that people upvoting me implies I’m not the only one.
Yeah, we need more things with an approved percentage of non-white characters. Like Gentleman in Moscow, in which there is black dude with dreadlocks named Pushkin. In 20s bolshevik russia. Or new unwatchable Netflix series Ronja the robber’s daughter, where there is a black robber. In early medieval Sweden. I’m pretty sure there will also be a proper ratio of asians later on. I’m waiting for a period drama, where there will also be black slave owners. Let’s work towards Idiocracy.
“I accept the depiction of trolls, gnomes and harpies in medieval Sweden, but I draw the line at black people.”
Depends.
Are the trolls depicted as fantastical, and the humans as mundane? If so it would be pretty rare to have that type of ethnic diversity. (Not impossible, people be traveling)
If the human society is depicted as very unnatural, then to your point who the fuck cars?
And zooming out, who the fuck cares at all? All TV and movies are optional and we spend way to much effort on that shit
The trolls are depicted as being normal inhabitants of the forest.
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Why does it matter if something has an anachronistic person cast? It doesn’t bother me in the slightest if George Washington is black or if Queen Victoria has dreadlocks. I personally only care if the acting is good.
Why Star Wars? Temple of Doom was actually problematic. Not that it really matters anymore, but Small Round and the banquet scene were odd choices.
I seemed to have made a controversial statements, but watch this and try and tell me it’s actuate. Also, the ending with the British Army just showing up and saving everyone was a bit much. He could have had some local India forces show up instead. Ironically, the cult is based on a real group and that part aged just fine. In fact, I even saw the weird grab-heart-out-of-chest thing in a Bollywood movie, so maybe it’s a preexisting thing too.
You want to see some real bias in Hollywood? Count the number of actors/actresses with rh- blood types. I bet there haven’t been any since the 1960’s.
What do you mean by rh- blood types? I don’t understand
Thanks for that, but I’m still struggling to understand the link between this blood type and “actors/actresses”
It’s a joke. The op basically says that looking if a race is represented enough is as arbitrary as looking for if a specific blood type is represented enough. Or something along those lines, joke can be enterpreted in varying degrees of severity.
A “what about…” joke with a sarcastic undertone.
