7 ms·

The Indiana Jones franchise exists because of the Indiana Jones character. People that go to one of those movies want to see him. If you setup a Mary Sue that

The Indiana Jones franchise exists because of the Indiana Jones character. People that go to one of those movies want to see him. If you setup a Mary Sue that treats him like an useless geriatric waste of a man, and finish the movie by having this Mary Sue knock him out, you're basically pissing in your own franchise. And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one, this is how the franchise ended, with a sour note.

jonathankoren 3y ago
Well, Harrison Ford is literally 80 years old. I think Indiana Jones is about 80 in the latest movie as well. Complaining that a *gasp* woman could beat up an octogenarian is more of a commentary about you than the inevitable march of time.
- busterarm 3y ago
  > Complaining that a gasp woman could beat up an octogenarian is more of a commentary about you than the inevitable march of time. I think it's more about how anyone _would_ beat up an octogenarian, rather than their ability to do so and it being a woman.
  - jonathankoren 3y ago
    No. It's specifically the "Mary Sue" part that he's annoyed by. That term is never used online to refer to male character. Of course, a dude that can not only be athletic, can read every inscription in every ancient language, is an expert in every ancient civilization, and use a bull whip as a grappling hook at will gets a pass.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      Perhaps only because Gary Stue is used. Male Mary Sues certainly exist.
    - busterarm 3y ago
      No, then they're called a Gary Stu, Marty Stu, Marty Sam or Tom Sue and they exist too. They too are annoying and numerous, but less common. Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim, James Bond, any character Vin Diesel plays, etc. Mary Sues are called out rightly because they're a shitty trope used by lazy writers. Nobody (with any intelligence or credibility) ever said that George Lucas was a particularly great writer. It's popcorn entertainment for a mass market. Indiana Jones movies came out in a time where movie studios thought audiences were fucking morons and we have much higher standards today after being fed decades of high-concept movies and television. Hence the flat reception and pushback. Even Crystal Skull had its asshole ripped open by audiences without needing misogyny to be a diversion/excuse to explain the turd released by the studio. Movies can't cash in by gender/age/race-swapping classic franchises because if you released those movies as they were today they would ALSO bomb. But Hollywood is certainly trying and trying and scratching its head wondering why it isn't working.
      - jonathankoren 3y ago
        Come back when any of those characters you listed are called Mary Sue. Let’s use Star Wars for an example. A teenager with little education, grows up on a backwater desert planet immediately uses the Force and flies an advanced space craft into battle, becoming the focus of attention of a galaxy spanning fascist military, and a hero in an under resourced underground partisan movement. You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker, but Rey? OMG, the knives were out after the trailer dropped. To deny this dynamic after almost 10 years of it playing out very visibly online and off, at this point is willful ignorance at best.
        mcpackieh 3y ago
        > You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker That's just not true. The whole "chosen one" premise is extremely common in fantasy and scifi and widely criticized by people with sufficient taste and media literacy to become aware of the pattern and grow weary of it. Media that fits this pattern is considered adolescent; adults who are obsessed with Star Wars or Harry Potter are called manchildren. "Mary Sue" is gendered language that isn't used to describe male characters, but that doesn't mean this same exact sort of bad writing for male characters doesn't exist, or isn't recognized as such. Off the top of my head: Harry Potter, Star Wars, the Matrix, virtually all shonen anime, The Wheel of Time, anything Branden Sanderson has written... all of these are considered adolescent (have I pissed off everybody yet?) It's extremely hard to think of any example of "chosen one" media that isn't considered adolescent... Dune maybe? This trope is so common, it taints the reputation of all fantasy and sci-fi by association.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Nobody should be fighting with 80 year olds. Show them respect (if they lived a decent life) or GTFO.
  - emmelaich 3y ago
    Then again I'd be wary of fighting Gene Labell (RIP), Patrick Devellerez or this old guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsfJabI46c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsfJabI46c
majormajor 3y ago
And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive - both in aggregate and in the theater I was in - it's the critics that have been more sour compared to how they reacted to Crystal Skull (while the audience disliked that one much more). If you wanna say "don't make a movie about an old version of that character," fine. But give it a fucking break with the idea that the filmmakers are attacking you by showing that an 80 year old version of the character wouldn't be the same as a 40 year old version. Let's remember that the last successful film in the franchise made EXCELLENT use of aging and the effect of that on the character's relationships with a great premise and execution by Ford and Connery, too. We were already getting to peek beyond just "here's Indy again doing Indy things"
- bakugo 3y ago
  > And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive Because audiences with good taste aren't watching the movie at all, hence the box office bomb.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  “Audiences,” seem to have a very positive reception to every Disney movie no matter how bad it is or the average person thinks it is. This isn’t proof of anything other than Disney has very effective marketing
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive I'm not sure that's true. It doesn't seem to have done particularly well at the box office?
djur 3y ago
What is a "Mary Sue"?
- matthewrobertso 3y ago
  https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
  - djur 3y ago
    Unclear to me how this fanfic concept could apply to a character in an official movie.
    - matthewrobertso 3y ago
      How could this be unclear? They are both narratives. They both have characters. Why wouldn't a concept about characters from one map to the other? Do you think fanfic characters and official movie characters are incompatible types? I have never read or written a fan fic and encountered this term countless times in discussion of media. I'm honestly baffled how you can't imagine a movie with a character embodying the qualities described in the tvtropes entry.
      - djur 3y ago
        I'm going by the description in the source you provided me, which provides a detailed and specific meaning in the context of fanfic and then says the term is also used as a general pejorative. If I'm not meant to use the description in that source I'm not sure why you linked to it.
paulmd 3y ago
> And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one I don't know, maybe ask Holo-Reagan or Holo-Tupac what he thinks about that? Or we've got holo-leia or holo-tarkin even within the star wars universe already. You just have to face it, death isn't the obstacle it used to be. There's lots of dead actors out there living kickass lives.
- mrleinad 3y ago
  I absolutely abhor using a dead person's image or material for new material. I don't want to hear an AI Beethoven or read an AI Hemingway. Actors are the same. Those are not the real artists, just what some corporate shill thought those actors would do. If you enjoy that, understand that it's not different at all from watching an animated movie.
7952 3y ago
I think the visual effects made a huge difference. The practical effects were good enough to be impressive and believable. But also some placed limits on the craziness of the story. Modern VFX has just destroyed that balance.
ufc290 3y ago
[dead]

jonathankoren 3y ago

Well, Harrison Ford is literally 80 years old. I think Indiana Jones is about 80 in the latest movie as well. Complaining that a *gasp* woman could beat up an octogenarian is more of a commentary about you than the inevitable march of time.

busterarm 3y ago
> Complaining that a gasp woman could beat up an octogenarian is more of a commentary about you than the inevitable march of time. I think it's more about how anyone _would_ beat up an octogenarian, rather than their ability to do so and it being a woman.
- jonathankoren 3y ago
  No. It's specifically the "Mary Sue" part that he's annoyed by. That term is never used online to refer to male character. Of course, a dude that can not only be athletic, can read every inscription in every ancient language, is an expert in every ancient civilization, and use a bull whip as a grappling hook at will gets a pass.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Perhaps only because Gary Stue is used. Male Mary Sues certainly exist.
  - busterarm 3y ago
    No, then they're called a Gary Stu, Marty Stu, Marty Sam or Tom Sue and they exist too. They too are annoying and numerous, but less common. Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim, James Bond, any character Vin Diesel plays, etc. Mary Sues are called out rightly because they're a shitty trope used by lazy writers. Nobody (with any intelligence or credibility) ever said that George Lucas was a particularly great writer. It's popcorn entertainment for a mass market. Indiana Jones movies came out in a time where movie studios thought audiences were fucking morons and we have much higher standards today after being fed decades of high-concept movies and television. Hence the flat reception and pushback. Even Crystal Skull had its asshole ripped open by audiences without needing misogyny to be a diversion/excuse to explain the turd released by the studio. Movies can't cash in by gender/age/race-swapping classic franchises because if you released those movies as they were today they would ALSO bomb. But Hollywood is certainly trying and trying and scratching its head wondering why it isn't working.
    - jonathankoren 3y ago
      Come back when any of those characters you listed are called Mary Sue. Let’s use Star Wars for an example. A teenager with little education, grows up on a backwater desert planet immediately uses the Force and flies an advanced space craft into battle, becoming the focus of attention of a galaxy spanning fascist military, and a hero in an under resourced underground partisan movement. You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker, but Rey? OMG, the knives were out after the trailer dropped. To deny this dynamic after almost 10 years of it playing out very visibly online and off, at this point is willful ignorance at best.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        > You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker That's just not true. The whole "chosen one" premise is extremely common in fantasy and scifi and widely criticized by people with sufficient taste and media literacy to become aware of the pattern and grow weary of it. Media that fits this pattern is considered adolescent; adults who are obsessed with Star Wars or Harry Potter are called manchildren. "Mary Sue" is gendered language that isn't used to describe male characters, but that doesn't mean this same exact sort of bad writing for male characters doesn't exist, or isn't recognized as such. Off the top of my head: Harry Potter, Star Wars, the Matrix, virtually all shonen anime, The Wheel of Time, anything Branden Sanderson has written... all of these are considered adolescent (have I pissed off everybody yet?) It's extremely hard to think of any example of "chosen one" media that isn't considered adolescent... Dune maybe? This trope is so common, it taints the reputation of all fantasy and sci-fi by association.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Nobody should be fighting with 80 year olds. Show them respect (if they lived a decent life) or GTFO.
- emmelaich 3y ago
  Then again I'd be wary of fighting Gene Labell (RIP), Patrick Devellerez or this old guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsfJabI46c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsfJabI46c

majormajor 3y ago

And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive - both in aggregate and in the theater I was in - it's the critics that have been more sour compared to how they reacted to Crystal Skull (while the audience disliked that one much more). If you wanna say "don't make a movie about an old version of that character," fine. But give it a fucking break with the idea that the filmmakers are attacking you by showing that an 80 year old version of the character wouldn't be the same as a 40 year old version. Let's remember that the last successful film in the franchise made EXCELLENT use of aging and the effect of that on the character's relationships with a great premise and execution by Ford and Connery, too. We were already getting to peek beyond just "here's Indy again doing Indy things"

bakugo 3y ago
> And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive Because audiences with good taste aren't watching the movie at all, hence the box office bomb.
edgyquant 3y ago
“Audiences,” seem to have a very positive reception to every Disney movie no matter how bad it is or the average person thinks it is. This isn’t proof of anything other than Disney has very effective marketing
robertlagrant 3y ago
> And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive I'm not sure that's true. It doesn't seem to have done particularly well at the box office?

djur 3y ago

What is a "Mary Sue"?

matthewrobertso 3y ago
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue
- djur 3y ago
  Unclear to me how this fanfic concept could apply to a character in an official movie.
  - matthewrobertso 3y ago
    How could this be unclear? They are both narratives. They both have characters. Why wouldn't a concept about characters from one map to the other? Do you think fanfic characters and official movie characters are incompatible types? I have never read or written a fan fic and encountered this term countless times in discussion of media. I'm honestly baffled how you can't imagine a movie with a character embodying the qualities described in the tvtropes entry.
    - djur 3y ago
      I'm going by the description in the source you provided me, which provides a detailed and specific meaning in the context of fanfic and then says the term is also used as a general pejorative. If I'm not meant to use the description in that source I'm not sure why you linked to it.

paulmd 3y ago

> And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one I don't know, maybe ask Holo-Reagan or Holo-Tupac what he thinks about that? Or we've got holo-leia or holo-tarkin even within the star wars universe already. You just have to face it, death isn't the obstacle it used to be. There's lots of dead actors out there living kickass lives.

mrleinad 3y ago
I absolutely abhor using a dead person's image or material for new material. I don't want to hear an AI Beethoven or read an AI Hemingway. Actors are the same. Those are not the real artists, just what some corporate shill thought those actors would do. If you enjoy that, understand that it's not different at all from watching an animated movie.

7952 3y ago

I think the visual effects made a huge difference. The practical effects were good enough to be impressive and believable. But also some placed limits on the craziness of the story. Modern VFX has just destroyed that balance.

ufc290 3y ago

[dead]