Meanwhile, my niece came out of the movie with a new crush…
On Rey, of course. Who’s still not as cool as Merida.
Today at the supermarket I spotted a “Wasp” action figure. Actually, there were two, since one was about six inches tall or so, and the other was about three-quarters of an inch. Which is great, because then she can be shown in her “action” size.
Character info on the back says she can also “go into battle at 100 feet tall”. When did that happen?
I have noticed this too, but I was very happy the other day that the store I was in had cute little Star Wars plushies and Rey was the ONLY human they had. I bought her too because it’s been hard to find stuff of her that’s not in sets.
I saw plenty of Rey action figures before the movie came out. Once it did, I barely saw, well, most figures, but certainly no Rey’s. Sometimes things just sell out. Not everything is some big conspiracy.
That said, whoever brought up the poor quality of the current Star Wars figures was right on target. They’re nicely scuplted, but have 1977 Kenner levels of articulation. What the fuck happened to Hasbro between Ep 3 and now to make this sort of thing acceptable. I bought a lot of Ep 3 figures, and while some were better than others, most of them had pretty good articulation. They also cost less than half of what I wasted on Kylo and Finn. I suspect I won’t be buying any other Ep 7 figures.
To be honest, I’d love to have Ahsoka Tano (per Star Wars Rebels, ie, older) and Hera Syndulla 20" figures. Why? For on top of the filing cabinet at work, not for any freaky purposes, you perv. Because I like those characters.
“Hey, Chimera, where is your desk?” (on a floor with like 500 people)
“Just look for Ahsoka Tano”
Part of it is that they didn’t expect them to sell - so they didn’t make as many of them. Then she turned out to be the most popular character of the movie - so unexpectedly that they went back and rewrote the script for the next film.
And that is an infuriating sort of patriarchal blindness, a confirmation bias that presupposes a level of quiet misogyny.
The worst was the Monopoly set. With Hasbros lame-assed “we didn’t want to give away spoilers” excuse and give away that she was the hero of the movie. Yeah, even the writers didn’t realize she was the hero of the movie - that’s why they went back for rewrites.
Who?
Really, I like Star Wars but never fucking heard of any of these “characters”.
I was pleasantly surprised to look around at the checkout at the grocery store last week and see a display of Avengers shopping bags that ONLY had either the team (with no Black Widow)… or Black Widow solo. And she wasn’t even sticking her butt out! Just an action pose like any other action hero. So I bought it, to vote with my dollars.
See: Star Wars Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels, animated series.
Ahsoka Tano was the padawan of Anakin Skywalker. She left the Jedi before Order 66, turning down promotion to Jedi Knight.
Hera Syndulla is the captain of the Ghost, the rebel ship in Star Wars Rebels. Sabine Wren is a young Mandalorian woman on the team.
You can get Star Wars toys at Target that look like dildos!
Really I think this is hardly pit worthy. If fans keep buying female figures then eventually the execs will wake up and produce more female figures.
Anyway Rey is a ridiculous Mary Sue character with no flaws. She goes from clueless to being able to fight off a trained sith within the course of a few days. Something which took Luke 3 movies to do before he could hold his own with a Sith. Of course the fans love her, but as a believable character she’s a miserable failure.
OK, this just totally doesn’t make any sense at all. I could understand (not agree with or approve of, but understand) the industry being afraid to market to girls. But that can’t be what happened, because the man character (or at the very least, one of the two main characters) of the new movie is a woman. Somebody very high up was very clearly willing to have a female character in a prominent role. And yet, they’re selling a set of action figures that includes the second, third, fourth, and fifth most important characters, plus two generic mooks, and yet doesn’t include the most important character? How can this decision coexist with the decision to make Rey the main character to begin with? Are the film and merchandise divisions that far out of contact with each other?
Eventually, but I think some of us are getting tired of waiting. For those of us raised in the 70s, there was so much promise that its frustrating that here we are, going on 50 years, and still seeing shock when a woman can head an action movie profitably, or when they discover women play video games, or girls buy action figures.
“Girls don’t like Star Wars. They like My Little Pony, Barbie, and those Harlequin romance things. Just because the filmmakers are overly optimistic doesn’t mean we have to ignore reality. Besides, everyone will love Kylo Ren, so who’ll notice?”
Though I also hear the gender divide is encouraged and enforced to avoid cannibalizing one’s own sales.
If you’re paying attention it’s clear she’s been using the Force most of her life without realising it. She may have even had some rudimentary training before she was dropped off at Jakku. She fought off an injured and poorly trained Sith, after tapping into the Force, though possibly it was the Dark Side she had latched onto, which is “quicker and more seductive” than the Light Side.
And this is Star Wars. Having a connection to the Force does not make her a Mary Sue, it makes her a prime candidate to be a Jedi.
Anyways, re: the OP, I found a Rey action figure the other day, it was hidden amongst around 20 other characters, all of whom were male and most of whom were minor background characters (including one that was edited out of the movie entirely). I snapped it up, as I knew it might be months before I’d see another one.
But here is another thing I don’t get. Rey is a Mary Sue, but Steve Rogers isn’t? James Bond may be the biggest Mary Sue ever written, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about it. You get a strong female character and dismiss it as a Mary Sue. James T. Kirk has provided generations of fun, and no one dismisses him for being a Mary Sue.
Yes, Rey’s skills suspend belief - she uses the goddamned force. But we’ve been living with male characters whose skill sets suspend belief for a very very long time.
The difference is when those characters have believable backgrounds that explain why they are good at so many things. James Bond would have had years of training and is the best of the best, an elite spy.
Furiosa in Fury Road, is not a Mary Sue, they explain the background of the character to justify her skills, she’s an Imperator and the only woman to ever earn that rank. Rey is supposedly a junk scavenger who is barely scraping a living, yet she’s a kick ass fighter and can fix and fly anything. One, if she was such a shit hot mechanic / pilot she’d be able to earn a much better living with those skills than junk scavenger. Two, who was giving her access to spaceships to learn to pilot on? In reality flight capable spaceships wouldn’t be left lying around in a junkyard unlocked where some random scavenger can get into them and practise flying.
See? Its all about lack of believable back story that makes Rey a Mary Sue, not her gender.
Let’s wait for the next movie and see more of her backstory first, eh?
Why? Other movies can give a believable backstory in one movie. Also, Rey is a terrible role model for women. So she’s only good at everything because she’s a force adept , which only certain very rare people are born with the talent. So the subconscious message is, you can be a kick ass female hero if you’re born into the right magical family.
Furiosa, in contrast, is an entirely self made woman. She is kidnapped as a child and earns her position and skills with her own determination, not magical luck. I know which one I’d rather have as a role model for my own female children.
In two hours they introduced four major new characters. That isn’t enough time to give anyone a backstory. We’ve had 70 years to give Captain America a backstory. More than 50 for James Bond’s to develop.
Moreover, a lot of it can be fan wanked away with “it was the Force” similar to Steve Rogers suddenly being able to shoot and throw a boomerang shield because the super soldier serum apparently just makes you instinctively good at things.
And it would be somewhat more believable that it isn’t about gender if there weren’t a ton of chatter about Katniss Everdeen being a Mary Sue - when she has a very good backstory for explaining her competence in survival. And if it weren’t called a Mary Sue.