I don’t know if you’ve answered this and I do not wish to bring any harassment upon you. So if you see this as possibly being a problem feel free to dismiss this.
What is your opinion on the SW sequels? and why do you feel the way you do about them?
When I expressed my dislike for them in the past I was accused of being a “traitor to women”, “not a feminist”, or full of “internalized misogyny” and wanted to “serve/protect white men”. (Even though one of my biggest problems is how dirty they did the characters of color) Which all felt really dramatic for simply not enjoying a few films and also I don’t think I’m any of those things. I work really hard not to be those things, but also realize I’ll always have room for improvement and a lot to learn.
I LOATHE the sequels and have no problem saying so. What's actually bonkers about this ask is that my reason for hating them is actually the treatment of the female characters and characters of color, which I find to be weak, disrespectful, lazy writing.
So here's the thing. I love the characters in the sequels. I love Finn, Poe, and Rey as a new central trio. I loved Rose when she was introduced. But then, I had to watch as every one of them either was pushed to the narrative wayside, reduced to a stereotype/background character, or transformed into an accessory for the actual main character and arc: Kylo fucking Renn. And fuck that. I hated him. The sequels are not about women or characters of color, they're about him and every other character is a transitive means to his central arc. It's awful.
I also just hate the way they're written. Like as a writer it infuriates me men like JJ Abrams are actually allowed into writers rooms, it's SO OBVIOUS he did not understand any of the themes of SW and didn't even have an overall plan/plot that spanned 3 movies. He just made shit up as he went along, didn't care if it made sense or was canon compliant or thematically sound, and absolutely didn't care if it was compassionate or nonsensical for the character arcs. He had a diverse main trio because it made him look good, and then proceeded to do nothing with their arcs. It was performative, at best. He's a terrible writer and director and everything he touches is positively garbage, proof men with money can do whatever they want and people will eat it up, as long as they throw the appropriate amount of fanservice (I have a bad feeling about this!) in at the appropriate moments to appeal to the broadest audience possible. It's just so lazy. I hate how much he relied on the good, meaty stuff from the original trilogy without actually understanding its meaning.
So anyway, my beef with the sequels is precisely that they're a gross display of male power in a male dominated industry: men writing emotionally bankrupt money grab narratives and proving they only see women as the means by which their self insert cool boy characters can redeem themselves (but with no understanding of what redemption actually is).
