L3-37 (or Elthree) from Solo: a Star Wars story
=Note: this was unplanned and whipped up within half an hour so please excuse any minor mistakes and I will accept any and all criticism without lashing out or attacking those who comment.
Sometimes I miss the chance to watch a movie in the cinema which is always a shame and when I do get the chance to watch it, there are all sorts of opinions out there and, in this case, often very negative ones. Now I want to get this out of the way but I greatly dislike it when ideologies and people’s agendas dominate a movie, television show or similar; the point of these things is to entertain and that should always be the top priority, so when someone damages a piece of work due to their own views, I get very upset. Yes the media is a great way to spread ideas, but those ideas are second to sheer entertainment. This is not a case where ideologies come first and I want you to hear me out.
L3-37 (or Elthree) is a character in the recent Solo: a Star Wars story movie (2018) who upset a number of people and, from what I heard, is one of the reasons why the movie flopped. She is a droid who is very vocal in her goal of achieving equal rights for droids, and she assumes that Lando Calrissian has feelings for her. Apparently this is enough to really upset people, and yet I rather enjoyed watching her. She was almost human in her actions and intent, and her assumption that another character had feelings for her, feelings that she could not reciprocate (although I did get the feeling that she wanted to) is pretty common in fiction. There are any number of stories where a self-assured character assumes another’s feelings for them and is usually amusing, not offensive.
I’ve often thought that people are just too damn serious about such things; sure, Elthree could remind you of a type of person that you despise, or maybe she is a scathing representation of your own actions.
Or maybe she is a representation of real-life people who have thus far been unrepresented in the Star Wars universe. Maybe she is meant to be a jab at real-world social justice warriors (SJWs) or maybe she is meant to represent the apparently futile efforts of those who want equality and fair treatment of all (even if I personally feel they may go too far). But my point is, and not to intentionally reference the Joker, why so serious?
Fiction involves writing about real world characters in another setting, even in unrealistic settings. So why is Elthree annoying? Because she is fighting for equal droid rights? What’s wrong with that? Especially in a universe where there are robots such as R2-D2, C3-PO and even random battle droids who show human levels of sentience, intelligence and self-awareness. I can only come up with three reasons why someone may find Elthree annoying:
1. She reminds them of a type of person who annoys them, in which case I would ask you “why
2. Her representation reminds you of your own actions, but in a negative light, in which case I ask you “if that’s how you feel then why do you do what you do, if this character makes you think as much?”
3. And finally, she is just annoying to you because everybody finds something annoying, but I would ask you to be absolutely one-hundred percent sure that this is what you think, and not just a convenient reason. Because people who think the above, may be uncomfortable admitting as much in case it looks bad on them. But think about it this way, it doesn’t matter if you do find her annoying because of one of the reasons that I bring up, a reason that may hit too close to home, because it is only you who will know this. So admit it to yourself.
Now I will always be the first person to admit that I may have missed something, such as a fourth or fifth reason, but I will also admit that there are some things I struggle even to admit to myself and so I ask you to look at your reaction to Elthree and to understand that reaction.
I personally like her as a new type of character thus far unseen in the Star Wars movie universe, but my opinion of you will not change if you are honest with yourself about your reaction to her. If you genuinely find a character who is very vocal about herself and others having equality and, I’ll be honest here, being rather presumptuous about someone’s feelings towards her, to be annoying then that’s fine.
But I would ask that you be sure that your opinion is not biased by something else, something that you struggle even to admit to yourself.
Regardless of why someone may find them annoying or if it were a deliberate jab at a certain group, I like that she was included because she is representative of a real-world group of people. And let’s be honest here, it would have been people like her who got women the vote and who stomped down racism; it was characters with strong goals and the motivation to achieve them that have accomplished any number of great things. Surely that says something about the people who dislike her; I actively dislike people who push agendas and such, yet I like her because she is a real person, and what is fiction if not real people in unreal situations?