The force isn’t actually real, so it can be whatever people want it to be.
…which is well written. Jyn has a character arc that works.
Whoopi Goldberg was the worst Captain Kirk ever.
I think there is an aspect where a really good actor/actress can carry a TV show or movie.
I would argue David Tennent in Dr Who, or Bill Murray in Ghostbusters bring an element that makes it relatable. A hard to describe chemistry that makes it enjoyable/funny etc.
Whilst I agree the writing was not as good as earlier series/films. I don’t think the actors/actresses where as good either.
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yes Rey is what they call a Mary Sue. No weaknesses, basically kicks ass from Day 1. Luke gets his ass handed to him by a Sandman early doors. She can fix things, fly things, fight things and never loses.
I don’t think so, as Luke was the Child of the most powerful Jedi ever (until Rey) and there was apparently a lot of training between getting is ass kicked in the Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi. Luke had a clear destiny and a direction, all be it with many forks and dangers in the road. Luke became a weak depressed character, despite all the training to the contrary. He has become a mental shadow of himself. But your point does touch on another side issue with these films, which is how they constantly dream up new Jedi powers just to keep the story going. That is a failure in writing I feel. They even gave to Luke with his cross galaxy appearance, Yoda as a ghost blowing stuff up, and now Jedi’s can heal.
There’s no problem with Leia being a Jedi other than she showed no real interest in it before then. All of sudden, from nowhere it’s done, another direction change. Another writing failure I think but obviously there were difficulties with Carrie Fishers unfortunate passing.
Funnily enough I’ve just watched Ghostbusters with my kids for the first time this evening. Murray carries the whole film.
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Completely agree in principle, but the difficulty is that we can’t really make the comparison because if the actor has nothing to work with, it’s very hard for them to bring those qualities.
I think David Tennant would struggle to be Mr Charisma with the scripts Jodie Whittaker has been given, and I think even Bill Murray would find it difficult if he’d turned up on the set of Ghostbusters and Dan Ackroyd had told him to make up his lines and do funny stuff, and they’d sort it in the edit.
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There is a great documentary on the making of Ghostbusters on Netflix. They had no idea if Bill Murray was going to turn up on the first day of shooting.
It was also originally going to be called Ghost Smashers, because there was already an obscure forgotten TV called GhostBusters.
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Wasn’t he allowed of the leash for this one?
Nope sorry it was Caddyshack.
Yeah Steven Moffat is a really good writer, and I like his other shows (Sherlock, Dracula, Jekyll) .
I guess for me the biggest turn off for Dr Who, was not the writing (at least initially) but the actors.
I liked Christopher Eccleston, and David Tennant. But could never connect with any of the subsequent ones (Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker). Despite giving each of them a chance. I wanted to like it, but found it just average. Perhaps Sci-fi has just moved on a bit, I dont know. Or Steven Moffat got less involved over the years.
But none of the subsequent ones formed the human element of the show like it did in the past.
Actually Moffat got more involved. The Eccleston and Tennant ones were overseen by Russell T Davies. Moffat took over for Matt Smith’s first and left with Capaldi.
The Jodie Whittaker ones are led by Chris Chibnall who once did a Torchwood episode about a Cyberwoman and thought the best way to realise this would be putting a woman in a metal bra, knickers and high heels.
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What did the kids think of it?
I think I underestimated the PG rating! 
My son’s nearly 4 and watched the whole film with me. He’s been talking about demon dogs almost ever since, uhoh. Thankfully, he slept fine last night, with no nightmares.
My daughter, who’s 8, joined us for the second half and also seems OK. Hopefully, they both missed the 4 or 5 uses of “shit” and I deliberately spoke over the “this man has no dick” moment.
My son now thinks there may be a demon dog in my ensuite and thinks we shouldn’t open our fridge door again. Shit, I may have broken him. He was such a sweet kid.
Be careful with those Christmas movies, they always seem to question the big guys existence putting questions in the kids heads before time.
With scary type movies, I’ve got one child who hid for them and one who didn’t get affected at all, and they are the same age.
As 15 Yr old girls they now both over analyse movies rather than just watch them for the reason I do, entertainment,although they loved Rogue One, as did I, but i never heard them discuss anything about the lead being female, just that it was a really good movie.
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When you say “big guy” do you mean Santa or Jesus? 
The former was never really big in my house, we never pushed religion on them but encouraged them to think about Jesus as a man who helped people in need rather than what the church would have us believe,whereas the latter is still seen as the big guy even at their, and my age.
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I agree, there is a definite agenda, and I believe it revolves around Hollywood’s fear of the #MeToo movement. Hence the elimination of leading male roles in a majority (all?) of Disney’s recent output. For example Li Shang has been eliminated from the remake of Mulan.
A Disney producer says the character Li Shang is missing from the live-action remake of Mulan, as his storyline is not “appropriate” in the #MeToo era…
…In the 1998 animated original, based on the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, General Li Shang developed a bond with Mulan’s male warrior alter-ego Ping.
After her true identity was revealed, she and Li Shang have dinner together.
Given recent revelations in Hollywood, however, producer Jason Reed confirmed they were uncomfortable with the power dynamics in their relationship.
“I think particularly in the time of the #MeToo movement, having a commanding officer that is also the sexual love interest was very uncomfortable and we didn’t think it was appropriate,” Reed told Collider.
So, a character is eliminated, not for any artistic reason, but because of political correctness.
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There are lots of things problematic in older movies. A lot of the sexual politics and attitudes to romance are horrific (Star Wars especially so) and give a really bad message about relationship in what are, essentially, children’s films.
When these films are remade or brought forward into the modern age I think it’s entirely right that such attitudes are left in the past.
By the way, the #metoo movement was not/is not about identity politics. It’s about Hollywood turning a blind eye to at best nuisance behaviour and at worst, rape. Let’s get this right.
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