“I’m never online to start a fight,” Max Landis recently told The New York Times, though he does concede that he behaves like an unhinged fanboy on social media, acting “in the same way that I used to in the back of the comic book store — very quickly without thinking about it.” And it’s that penchant of operating without a filter that led him into controversial waters last year, when he declared that Rey was a Mary Sue in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” That phrase, which describes a female character who is idealized and only succeeds because of the will of the author, and the criticism by Landis, sparked plenty of outrage. And now that the dust has settled a bit, Daisy Ridley sharing her thoughts on the matter.
“The Mary Sue thing, I was just confused by… The Mary Sue thing I just didn’t get, because it wasn’t true. But for the most part whenever anyone is mean — and I’m not saying whenever anyone has genuine criticism about something, but when anyone’s being mean — it’s irrational and it doesn’t make sense,” she told Happy Sad Confused podcast.
“The Mary Sue thing in itself is sexist. Because it’s a name of a woman. And everyone was saying that Luke had the exact same thing. I think Rey is incredibly vulnerable, and nothing she’s doing is for the greater good. She’s just doing what she thinks is the right thing. And she doesn’t want to do some of it, but she feels compelled to do it,” she added.
Essentially, Ridley argues that there’s more nuance to Rey than just being a vehicle for the heroic achievements that J.J. Abrams needed for the narrative, and I’m inclined to agree. Listen to the full talk with Ridley, and let us know what you think in the comments section. [via Yahoo]
“Wrong.” -Trump
Huh? Mary Sue is someone who can do everything just because she can, like piloting a spaceship, winning a light saber fight with a sith Lord, hypnotizing people with no training. The term originated from a real character and is used for both male and female characters. It’s not sexist to call out bad writing but… Ok.
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Daisy is a good actress and did a great job with the character, gave her a lot of nuance and made us care. JJ also shot a beautiful picture and kept it exciting. However Landis is spot on. The writer, or rewrites did a disservice to what probably was something strong in the beginning. Buried in the weak writing was the opportunity for a strong plot – a person struggling to survive in what is left after the war and despite the fall of the Empire, who finds Luke’s lightsaber and gets caught up in an adventure between the rebellion and the last gasps of the Empire as she tries to return it to him. In my what-could-have-been dream box, this is the original script that Michael Arndt wrote. Instead, Rey is absolutely a Mary Sue, and all the best attributes of every character wrapped into one. It’s so depressingly obvious that if you have an ounce of discernment, you can’t help but wonder why all involved decided it was acceptable and pawned it off on you. To call that “mean” or “sexist” shows a lack of insight, or inability to be critical of work you were involved in. Landis knows what he is talking about and has the bonafides to prove it. The movie went out of its way to make a point about a strong, female character, to the point that every overture to that end became a bit nauseating. Leia was strong without the filmmaker’s being so on the nose about it, likely because they weren’t trying to make a point, they just wrote a character they liked. Hopefully the script is stronger in the second, and not a poor carbon copy of the original. Rogue One looks extremely promising too.
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Look the discrepancy with all the Mary sue yellers is that all…yes ALL of her seemingly unexplainable capabilities are absolutely explainable in canon..it’s just that all the explanations do not occur in TFA..they occur in novels and Jr. Novels..so this caused all of the neophyte film school post grad numb nuts to declare Mary sueness on Rey and when faced with the reasoning I just laid out..also to declare” we shouldn’t have to feed Disney’s greed by pre or post researching a character in other media to know a character..IT SHOULD ALL BE LAID OUT NICE AND NEAT FOR US IN THE MOVIE THEATRE!..to this I simply say..then you all are aparently just too damn lazy to be a fan of SW in the direction it’s taking going forward! Look I’ll sum up my own novel of a rant here by letting these grumps in on a great big (not so very) secret…TFA is vague in important areas SPECIFICALLY..SW episodes come in a trilogy and it would be idiotic to spill the beans in the first Ep, so no matter what..there were going to be people pissed about EP 7. If you want all the explanations for why and how rey can do the things she can do then do like I and many other fans have done..find the fun stories that are out there about her past and learn it on your own and quit being whiney asses about it. Is that pay to play??…maybe..I’m sure even max Landis had to pay for his gold plated knowledge of story telling form and function..that’s how we get the things we want and enjoy in this world, we have to go get em instead of have them placed in our laps ??
You suck at watching movies.
Doesn’t matter if it’s ‘canon’ – it’s bad writing and makes a bad character and ultimately ruins the film, regardless of what’s coming (and the next episode was an abomination, so there’s that). Neophyte film school grad numb nuts? Either you’re not familiar with Landis’ work, or you just have no business talking about film. I’m betting on the latter.
Just sayin’.
You did a fine job with what you were given. Consider the source of the comment before you let if bother you too much.
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