Star Wars Rogue One MASSIVE SPOILERS BY BERKUT

[Valmy]

That sounds like a pretty bad movie. Anyhow, I would really have to watch it in order to comment on it, and I certainly won't.

Anyway, the main point I want to make is that there's no escaping a romance plot if you're the protagonist of a Hollywood movie, regardless of whether you have a dick or not. There are outliers, and you'll find many more male-led outliers than female-led outliers, just because there's so many more male protagonists around. That's the issue.

That's true, but it's such a ridiculously weighted situation.

Here are the top 50 movies without a romance in them, according to Playboy magazine:

http://www.playboy.com/.../50-best-movies-without.../slide-1

Of those 50, I counted 12 with female protagonists, three of whom were children and one was a fish.

Now let me clarify something here.

I do not need movies to have romance plots nor was I demanding these two films have them. I was specifically addressing the fact that they seemed to be set up and then intentionally not followed through on and I was curious as to why.

[viper37]

That sounds like a pretty bad movie.

#2 is awful.  A friend of mine had me watch it.  I endured close to 60 minutes, because I am a very strong man.  (well, i had beers to finish ). 
But I'm not gonna repeat the experience any time soon.  And I never watched the other 2 or 3 of the saga.

[viper37]

re: Rey and Finn - remember that Jedi are not supposed to have romantic relationships. 

that was for the old rules, when there was a council.  Now, who knows?  There ain't many jedis left, and they need to make babies real fast.

[Valmy]

Hey they said Jedis couldn't have romantic relationships. They said nothing about making babies.

[Valmy]

That sounds like a pretty bad movie.

#2 is awful.  A friend of mine had me watch it.  I endured close to 60 minutes, because I am a very strong man.  (well, i had beers to finish ). 
But I'm not gonna repeat the experience any time soon.  And I never watched the other 2 or 3 of the saga.

The prequels are just bad films. IMO anyway so yeah skip them.

Though Zoupa liked them so maybe they are not as bad as I remember.

But I really enjoyed TFA so it is not like I have super high standards or anything.

[viper37]

I don't get why "no romance plot!" is such a litmus test. Most protagonists in commercial Western flicks will get a romance plot no matter their gender. It's tired but that's how Hollywood rolls, for females AND males. The issue is whether being the object of the romance plot is the character's sole reason for existence, which is never going to be the case if the female in question is the protagonist.

So, the question you can point at Rogue One is not why Jyn and Cassian look lovingly at each other when they die, but why there's not a single female besides Jyn in the Rogue One team.

That came up during the movie... I assure you. 

"Oh, but there were female pilots during the fight!" 

somebody was needed to watch over the kids and keep the home in good order

Nah.

I guess it would have been a little weird to suddenly introduce female fighters there, in a prequel, when that concept was more or less absent from the other movies.

[Tamas]

Episode 3 is bearable, but still not good.

Episode 2 and 1 are absolute monstrosities. 2 especially. The total inability of Lucas to write and direct a romantic plot (just to tie in with the rest of the discussion) is absolutely earth-shattering (to tie in with the Deathstar discussion).

[viper37]

That sounds like a pretty bad movie.

#2 is awful.  A friend of mine had me watch it.  I endured close to 60 minutes, because I am a very strong man.  (well, i had beers to finish ). 
But I'm not gonna repeat the experience any time soon.  And I never watched the other 2 or 3 of the saga.

The prequels are just bad films. IMO anyway so yeah skip them.

Though Zoupa liked them so maybe they are not as bad as I remember.

But I really enjoyed TFA so it is not like I have super high standards or anything.

I was referring to Twilight.
I saw the prequels, more than once.  They're not great, but I have seen worst.  There is one redeeming scene in The Phantom Menace, the rest of the plot could have been done away with, though

I liked the Yoda fight in #2.  It is consistent with what we see of Yoda and what he tells us of the Force in #5.

#3, the transition, even though hinted in #2, it just happens way too quickly.  I would have loved Anakin moving toward the Dark Side more gradually over the space of 2 movies.

[celedhring]

I don't get why "no romance plot!" is such a litmus test. Most protagonists in commercial Western flicks will get a romance plot no matter their gender. It's tired but that's how Hollywood rolls, for females AND males. The issue is whether being the object of the romance plot is the character's sole reason for existence, which is never going to be the case if the female in question is the protagonist.

So, the question you can point at Rogue One is not why Jyn and Cassian look lovingly at each other when they die, but why there's not a single female besides Jyn in the Rogue One team.

That came up during the movie... I assure you. 

"Oh, but there were female pilots during the fight!" 

somebody was needed to watch over the kids and keep the home in good order

Nah.

I guess it would have been a little weird to suddenly introduce female fighters there, in a prequel, when that concept was more or less absent from the other movies.

As opposed to the female pilots they introduced?  Plus in the Rogue One team, only Cassian is an enlisted Rebel. Everybody else is a robot or they pick up along the way. I thought it slightly weird that all supporting characters were guys when they already had gone the "trouble" of putting a female lead in there. Saw Gerera, a dude too. The baddies, all dudes. Oh, there's Mon Mothma in there! I guess it's all right then.

It didn't help that for some weird reason I couldn't stop thinking of the Firefly crew.

[Valmy]

The Empire has to be all white dudes. It is tradition and emphasizes their evil.

[celedhring]

The Empire has to be all white dudes. It is tradition and emphasizes their evil.

Not enough British accents though. I was a bit disappointed.

[Barrister]

The Empire has to be all white dudes. It is tradition and emphasizes their evil.

FN-2187 was black though.

[Valmy]

The Empire has to be all white dudes. It is tradition and emphasizes their evil.

FN-2187 was black though.

The First Order has embraced diversity. They even had a woman captain.

[celedhring]

The Empire has to be all white dudes. It is tradition and emphasizes their evil.

FN-2187 was black though.

The First Order is more politically correct. They have women in their ranks too (Phasma and some officer chicks in the background).

[garbon]

That sounds like a pretty bad movie.

#2 is awful.  A friend of mine had me watch it.  I endured close to 60 minutes, because I am a very strong man.  (well, i had beers to finish ). 
But I'm not gonna repeat the experience any time soon.  And I never watched the other 2 or 3 of the saga.

Actually, I think I also saw the 2nd one while drinking (first was in a theater when I had a friend bribe me with champagne). I think that's the one where there's a longish montage of how she does nothing for months but write emails she'll never send because he left her.