My Two Cents

My Two Cents: Rogue One Female Lead

Okay so I don’t normally do this but I thought it prudent to give some opinion on an article I read yesterday. Now before I go on my rant, let me give you a little background just in case you all are out of the loop. So way back in 2013, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that Disney and LucasFilms would be producing at least two new stand-alone Star Wars films with the hopes that at least one would feature a younger Han Solo. Fast forward to March of 2015 when Disney announced that the one of the lead roles for one of the stand-alone films would be going to Academy Award nominated actress Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything). Please remember this point in a few minutes.  In April of that same year at Star Wars Celebration the title and the synopsis of the first stand-alone film was revealed to be Rogue One: A Star Wars Anthology (later changed to A Star Wars Story). The story would be about the band of rebels that infiltrate the Empire to steal the plans for the original Death Star leading into the events of Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope.

Now since August of 2015 the cast and crew of Rogue One have been working tirelessly to bring a reminder of the classic Star Wars and a movie that every Star Wars fan can be proud of. Yesterday, April 7, 2016, Disney released the first (very much anticipated) teaser trailer for Rogue One and I among many others were stoked to no belief. The trailer encompassed the look and feel of the Original Trilogy with the costumes and set pieces. I was also impressed with the cast and the surprise appearance of a young Mon Mothma (Leader of the Rebellion).  I have a strong feeling that this is going to be a very gritty Star Wars film, something that we Jedi have never seen before and the trailer just got me even more excited for more Star Wars.

Of course there are a few people that are Negative Nelly’s, as to be expected with a franchise so beloved. But according to many news reports (one that I read was here at junkee.com) that many of my fellow Fanboys are upset with the film already. The film isn’t released yet and they are upset? Yeah I don’t get it either, but I am more perplexed by WHY they are upset. It seems that many people are upset that the lead character in the film is…wait for it…FEMALE! Now can you tell me how stupid this is? I guess I just don’t understand the big deal.

As I have said I don’t really like to respond to stupid stuff that I have read on the Internet of all places, but I just had to get my opinion out there. First, I understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion about anything in this world, but is our society still that chauvinistic and sexist that we are getting upset by a character in a movie? Anyone that knows me knows that I live and breathe Star Wars, but I don’t think I am ever going to be upset by a NEW character casting. Plus after I have thought about this, there are MANY female lead (and strong) Star Wars characters. Of course the most famous being Princess Leia (did we forget about her?) and I’m sorry J.J, but the EU is still canon to me and the list of strong female characters is humongous. Mara Jade Skywalker, Jaina Solo, and Asajj Ventress are just a couple off the top of my head.

Second, why are we upset about this now? The synopsis and casting has been revealed for over a year.  A year has gone by knowing that Felicity Jones was Disney’s top choice for this film and now the trailer dropped we’re going to be upset? That’s asinine to me. Felicity Jones is an award nominated actress with loads of depth and because of her acclaim she now has “star” power. Did we not think that she was going to be top billed in this film? Why in the hell would you hire someone like Felicity Jones, coming off of award recognition, to sit in the background? Jones’ star has skyrocketed and if a Hollywood company is going to pursue someone that is currently hot, said company is going to push her face in every way possible. This is especially true with their marketing because as much as it pains even me, Hollywood creates trailers for EVERYONE not just fanboys that wait till all hours of the night on the Internet to pick it apart when it drops. The filmmakers of Rogue One are after a larger audience than just us fanboys.

Stuff like this gives Fanboys a bad name. I would have thought that our society would have gotten past this by now, especially with the amount of strong female characters within the Star Wars universe and among a lot of comic book/action films that has been/going to be released in theatres. I mean The Hunger Games, Black Widow (The Avengers), Wonder Woman are all strong female characters and the last character is getting her own movie for crying out loud. Widow was supposed to get her own film too. Are we going to be upset about this too? I’m excited about Gal Gadot’s solo Wonder Woman.

In closing I would just like to address the people I am talking about…Get over it. Felicity Jones is an outstanding actress that will bring her everything into this part. Plus, shouldn’t we be more worried if this film is going to be another Batman v Superman? A super hyped film that was a letdown? As long as this film delivers everything that we Star Wars fanboys want, it shouldn’t matter if a female is the lead character or some dog off the street.  Grow up and quit being simple minded.