Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Let's Talk Star Wars. And things I don't want to associate with Star Wars

So, this was supposed to be yesterday's post.

Abrams and Disney chose this weekend to release the first "teaser" preview of the new Star Wars.

I know a lot of people are less than happy with J.J. Abrams right now. And yes, there are many, many issues with his Trek. (I don't necessarily blame him for casting a famous white guy to play Khan, but I do blame him for everything being 20 minutes from everything else).

Here's the thing. The very things that make his Star Trek less than perfect are the same things that should make his Star Wars...pretty damn good.

But then here's the "problem".

The trailer starts with John Boyega in a Stormtrooper uniform on what looks to be Tatooine. And hoo boy is this causing a furore.

Apparently, there are quite a few fans who have a problem with this. Some are making the argument that as Stormtroopers are clones they have to be white. (Except Jango Fett isn't white and by 30 years after Endor, I doubt the Stormtroopers are still clones).

Most are just being, well.

Racist.

The Youtube comments give a good picture.

Commenters saying things like "If they need to put in a black guy" (And insisting Jango Fett, played by an actor of Maori descent, was Caucasian/white).  According to these people the black Stormtrooper is stupid, "they have sinned". Apparently there was some real racist filth in the comments that has fortunately been deleted.

The point being, people are mad.

A bit of history. Lucas did not originally intend Lando Calrissian. He was put in because people bitched that everyone in the universe appeared to be white.

Now we have people bitching that what is presumably a very significant character (the first we see) is black. I'm just going to say: Get over it. Whether he's an actual Stormtrooper (perhaps in the process of defecting) or somebody in Stormtrooper armor, there is no legitimate justification for complaining about his color. None. It's not like this is a character canonically established as white. They are not wrecking canon.

Jango Fett was not white. Not all Stormtroopers are clones. We have never seen a Stormtrooper without his helmet before, so for all we know they're all black.

Complaining about this is racism. Sorry, but it is.

Now, rant over, the rest of the teaser. We see a young woman who matches well with Carrie Fisher on a new kind of landspeeder - my guess is she is Han and Leia's daughter. We see a Sith with a red lightsaber who's apparently worried about losing his hand, based off of the guards. There are a lot of fan complaints about this, but there is rather a precedent (from 1-3) of Sith using cool looking but not entirely practical lightsabers.

And we see an X-Wing pilot - another important character, I suspect. Plus the Falcon versus TIE fighters.

And that's about it. It's a teaser, so they aren't handing us very much to go on. Except a fan controversy that shouldn't be.

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