I literally linked a translation in that same post, and you can try Google translate if you doubt it. A portion of the interview is available on video, but not that part of it.
I completely understand people’s need not to get their hopes up. As long as people aren’t derailing other people’s positive speculations about the movie I think everyone is entitled to their pessimism/caution. In general I hate it when people police others’ reactions. As long as things are tagged properly and people stay in their lanes, let people deal with their hopes, fears, and whatever other anticipations in peace.
Still, the fear is understandable at this point. JJ is the one who made Finn into a red herring for Rey in the first place and downplayed his competence to boost her up by comparison. It’s entirely possible that that was just the first stage of a what was to be a phenomenal arc for the character that got derailed when it was determined that fumbling, bumbling Rian Johnson would helm Ep VIII, but we’ll never know now. All we have to go on for certain is what JJ’s done with Finn so far, and it doesn’t inspire a lot of hope, at least not in me personally.
Yeah, JJ just looks so much better than RJ by comparison which… talk about low bars. I put more trust in John here: he has talked before about Finn being more of a growing hero than one who gets everything right from the start, and though a lot of his best qualities were artificially curtailed and downplayed in TFA they were still there. So I’m cautiously optimistic.
This may sound silly, but it’s hair of all things that’s giving me a sense that things may be different this time. John is the only cast member so far to have announced a change in appearance, and hair often has quite a lot of visual and story significance. This was thought out and planned ahead of time, since JJ would have had to let John know to grow his hair out through the spring and summer. It also had enough story meaning and prominence that John teased it well ahead of the first teaser, saying we would see what it was for when we saw the trailer. As I jokingly pointed out, a certain section of the fandom would have gone batshit if this had been for one of their white faves. Though a small detail, this points to more care and thought being put into the character, and excitement on John’s part if he’s discussing it already.
It also gives me hope that JJ has evidently been talking to Ava DuVernay and accepted her recommendation of Victoria Mahoney as second unit director. Obviously neither Ava nor Vic can influence Finn’s story in any final manner, but it’s a reminder that JJ respects Ava and is receptive to her views–if not specifically about Finn, at least about the importance of representation and diversity. That is my hope anyway.
All this is just me, of course, and I agree JJ deserves no passes at all for how he’s treated Finn. He could have done a growing hero without using Finn as bait or turning him into the butt of the joke in so many scenes. I hope he’ll be better than RJ but that is, again, a massively low bar.
What you’ve told me does sound like it could turn out okay after all, but all the same, I’m going in with the cynical outlook on this one. What made TLJ so tragic was that, as the middle film of the trilogy, that was the point where all of the main characters should have experienced crucial development in accordance with that stage of the overall narrative. The last movie is where things are supposed to come full circle and be wrapped up. But TLJ wasted all of the time it had to do that. Finn repeated his arc from the first movie, and Rey sped through her development and didn’t earn it. Poe’s character is in shambles after what Rian did to it, and Kylo doubled down on his assholery when he was poised to end the First Order and instead chose to take the reins and…..keep going in the same direction. There’s arguably just as much narrative ground to cover as there was at the end of TFA, if not more, only with half the time left to do it. I don’t see all that being accomplished within the span of one more movie, not effectively, at least.
And then there’s the fact that another bait-and-switch really can’t be ruled out. Cosmetic updates to Finn’s appearance may sound nice, but not as nice as trailer shots of him using the lightsaber, like the ones for the promo for TFA – and we saw that turned out. I really don’t trust anything now. At this point, I don’t even need Finn to be an actual jedi; it’s overrated anyway, and even if it wasn’t the writers have demonstrated they clearly don’t understand the original material they’re building off of. I just would like to see Finn be a badass with a lightsaber. That’s what they advertised, that’s what I want. That doesn’t seem to far out of the realm of possibility, but again, there was no groundwork laid in TLJ to build that up, so I don’t see it happening in Ep 9. Well, I guess the least they may be able to accomplish is to actually write Rose well this time.
I admire your patience and your ability to still be optimistic this late in the game, but I’m not getting burned a third time.
Kylo Ren’s lack of Motivation: Regardless of how I feel about Uncle Luke sneaking in Ben Solo’s room late at night to poke him with his Lightsaber, I don’t like btw, the real problem I have with Kylo Ren is the fact that I don’t know the actual reason why he did what he does anything. Ben thinks Luke tried to kill him, but why did he kill Luke’s other students or burn down the temple? Why did he join the First Order? What did he hope to accomplish by joining the First Order? Why did he dig up Vader’s mask? If he thought killing Han Solo, his father, would finally snuff out his light, why didn’t he kill Finn and Rey when he had the chance? Even know, why does he say “Let the past die”, but continue to lead the First Order in the same direction that Snoke did? Snoke wanted the Resistance dead, so why take up his mission. Why did he go from calm and controlled in most of TLJ to a screaming lunatic again by the end?
The problem I have with Kylo Ren is that there isn’t a clear motivation on why he does anything. Kylo Ren seems like he acts how the plot demands him to act and actually doesn’t even have a clear motivation. And it’s not like the Joker’s lack of motive. The Jocker has a motive, even if that motive changes throughout the years. The consistent motive he has had has been “Just Because”. The motive to do things just because you can do them has been clearly displayed in his actions and his unpredictable nature. That’s not the case with Kylo Ren. It’s been 2 films and I have no idea why he does anything. The only reasons we have are headcanons but no actual proof or canon confirmed information.
It’s this lack of actual motivation that many people find issues with the character. I know I like the character’s backstory, it’s interesting. The son of two war heroes that fell to the darkside and is now one of the biggest threats to the galaxy. It’s a cool concept…the only problem is that there is no motivation. That problem makes Kylo Ren a cool concept for a character, but not an actual character.
It’s this lack of motivations why so many people argue if he is a flat traditional villain. A complicated Anti-Villain, or something misunderstood in-between. It also doesn’t that since this character lacks the context needed to understand why they do what they do, many people are left wondering why they should care. I’ll be the first to say that Kylo Ren’s popularity is carried by Adam Driver’s acting chops but still fails because the Writers give nothing to us in regard to motivation.
Here are two examples of two characters that I feel have amazing writing and character development.
Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender – His sense of honor is what drives him for the entire series of ATLA as the antagonist to dueltagonist. It’s what makes him a full character. Even when you didn’t agree with the character, you knew where he was coming from. That’s important. It’s what drives him to spend the entire 1st season trying to capture the hero for his father – training that same hero to defeat his father. It’s his motivations throughout the series that makes the character so interesting. I don’t even need to know his backstory or have a fan explain why I should like the character. Even when he is doing that’s I don’t like, I enjoy the character because I can understand why he does things.
Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones – Jaime’s motivation is the struggle he faces between doing what is right for the many vs doing what is right for his family. These motivations are what drives him to do many morally ambiguous or downright bad things. Ranging from killing the mad king he had sworn to protect before the king could end countless lives – to pushing a child out of a tower when the kid caught him having sex with his twin sister. These are things that could make a weaker written character look so inconsistent, yet because the writers take time to develop Jaime Lannister and his motivations, we can understand the character. Do we agree? No. But we can understand it. For the most part at least.
Kylo Ren doesn’t have any clear motivation as to why he does what he does. So when we see him Kill Lor San Tekka in cold blood, order the slaughter of the Jakku villagers, Mind torture Rey and Poe, kill his father Han Solo, almost kill Finn, but not finish the job, offer training to Rey, hesitate in kill his mother Leia Organa, kill Snoke, takes over the First Order because the past should die, but then continues with the same mission as the First Order.
No one can actually explain why he does the things he does without having to resort to a headcanon, or resort to a third party media to explain his actions. That’s a failure in writing. If you can’t explain the motivation for a character in the main source of media he appears in, that means you have not done a good job in writing your character.
I can watch Zuko and I understand his character perfectly. Anything from the video games, the comics, or commentary by the creators just explores a deeper meaning or shows to more to what I already know, but I don’t need any of that extra stuff to understand the character, just appreciate him more.
Even Jaime Lannister, who was suffering from a lack of character development in the most recent seasons, his motivations were still clear. Did his fans agree with his choices? No. Yet we all knew why.
I understand Kylo Ren now as much as I did when he first walked on screen. Everything I know about him is through his ambiguous backstory, which is even missing large gaps in it.
That’s my problem with Kylo Ren though. Adam is doing a great job, honestly carrying the character. I just wish the writing was a good as the acting.
Shipper: I relate so so deeply to this character because of my abuse and mental health issues. This character and the fan community around them got me through some really tough times so it really messes me up that there are people who actively hate?? my ship??
Anti: As it happens I’m an abuse survivor too, and I try to stay away from your ship because it brings back painful memories. I also push back against abuse apologist arguments for your ship because that same logic has been used to hurt me and others in real life.
Shipper: No… that can’t be right… only I can cope with trauma in fandom spaces, not you… it’s not abusive sweaty, it’s just fiction 🙂 ship and let ship 🙂
@lj-writes please correct me if im wrong,so in this situation you would tell to the shipper not to ship even if it is to cope?
if not idk how they would reply in such a way,so defensive.
also the shipper
also i dont understand the thing of “fandom space” like is the shipper here telling you that you cant ship???
i dont understand
Where in the post do I mention anyone telling anyone else not to ship something? Maybe read again without defensive lens. This post is about the hypocrisy of certain shippers saying only their type of coping through fiction is valid, and people with different reactions to their ship are losers who can’t distinguish between fiction and reality.
Lupita’s a Latina but y’all staying silent about her
Quick question: Why didn’t yall care about getting your own “Captain America”, “Iron Man”, “Superman”, “Wonder Woman”, “Batman”, “Thor”, “Avengers”, I👏🏿 CAN👏🏿 GO👏🏿 ON👏🏿
Quick answer FOR FOREVER the same as Asian people. We’ve all been waiting for our people to be seen as more than side kicks, to be able to be seen as love interests and not exotic foreign woman that gets with hero white male. Or not just be the Asian male who can only tell jokes and will never be seen as a romantic lead. People can wonder when they will achieve a success and opportunity like Black Panther. But sure say how others haven’t stood behind you all. How everyone is riding your “coat tails” bitch you should want other minorities to succeed. You should want them to be able to attain opportunities. Not say fuck everyone else stay the fuck down and shut up.
Yet you only start talking about it when black people finally get something. That’s the only time these damn convos come up. Just like every February when it’s Black History Month, “why ain’t there such and such month” when Google is two clicks away from showing you that that shit been there. And when I say “riding our coattails” I mean yall expect us to do all the work for you and when we put our issues first you get all pissy and outraged. But newsflash, we ain’t your mules and our success in one thing doesn’t make us equivalent to white ppl. I ain’t saying fuck everyone else, but fuck you if you think we should lift you up even over our own selves.
Coco and Ferdinand came out and we didnt come out our face talkin about “whoa whoa aint we about due for an animated nigerian movie??” every Black person i follow on this site gets excited af whenever ANY non-white racial group gets good representation and WE always call out erasure of other non-white groups when we see it BUT WE ARE NOT YOUR GODDAMN WORK MULES non-black poc are so fucking obnoxious, STOP EXPECTING ALL YOUR SHIT TO COME OFF THE BACK OF OUR HARD WORK we only hear yall run your mouth when you see black people making progress, its not our fault you assholes dont fight for shit until you see us with something you think yall should just get automatically bc how dare Black people get it first when we’ve been fighting for it since day one
^
And y’all don’t say shit when black people in your ethnic groups get left out.
Y’all want Latinx representation, but no Afro-latinx representation. Y’all want Asian representation, but not Afro-Asian/Black Asian representation. In fact, Black Panther released in East Asia and people are complaining that there are too many black people and it’s boring/irritating/making them drowsy.
Let’s also not forget that Black people have fought for Latinx and Asian rights despite a history of both communities engaging in anti-blackness or trying to be classified as white in many cases.
Black people, women specifically, coined intersectionality and the term People of Color to include non-black people in struggles against discrimination, the lack of representation, and so much more and still expect black people to do the rest of the work for them, as well.
If you want representation, fucking fight for it and create your own movements and on your own time, not just because Black people finally have something that represents them. We will still continue to support y’all but we not supporting this shit. If y’all want representation, fight for it but don’t try to fight for it by overshadowing and overreaching because we finally have some.
Please, nonblack pocs, especially Asians since I am one, stop this shit. This corrosive envy, this what-about-me-ism whenever Black people get anything at all, is really transparent and sickening. It’s like we believe Black people, particularly Black women, are at the back of the line and anything they have we deserved yesterday. From past experience I know that Black people will be excited for us and support us when we have a triumph like this, but trying to make a great moment for Africans and the African diaspora about us is just ugly. Celebrate with Black fans, let them enjoy this moment fully and stop derailing because, guess what? Any crack in the wall of white supremacy helps all of us and we are all richer for seeing more people represented in our media, treated well in our communities, and empowered to live without fear. Also, self-interest aside, it’s just the right way to act.
when Black Panther comes out, we let everyone enjoy it regardless of their race, because while this is definitely a huge step forwards in POC representation, people who enjoy the character and who aren’t black deserve to be excited about this movie too !
Here’s a better suggestion: if Black fans call others out on their racism over this movie, don’t whine about not being allowed to enjoy it. If the only way nonblack fans can enjoy this movie is by being racist about it, then no, they DON’T deserve to enjoy it. Not without being dragged to hell, anyway.
Signed,
A nonblack fan who was just squeeing excitedly about this masterpiece with Black fans and does not appreciate the implication that they are mean, racially-motivated gatekeepers.
Pedophilia is bad should not be a radical statement.
No really, please reblog this if you can, because this site in general, but fandom spaces especially bad for this, to the point where people are genuinely afraid of harassment they may face for saying ‘Pedophilia is a bad thing and you probably should not encourage it’ or for calling it what it is. Fandom spaces are also especially bad for screaming about how it’s ‘just fiction’ when we know damn well that fiction impacts reality.
L.J.'s Obsessions 