Episode seven has dropped, but things are bad when even Grace Randolph, someone who is known among Star Wars fans as one of the biggest, most well-known defenders of Disney's attempt at Star Wars, is giving this last episode a big nope; something is definitely wrong. This doesn't mean nobody is still defending the show, but things have dropped significantly since the last episode.
Apparently Leslie Headland's response to the criticism is that she wanted to redefine what it means to be good or evil, rather than redefining within a given series which characters are normally good and which ones are normally evil -- and yes, there is a difference.
More specifically, one can not do the latter if one doesn't understand what it means to be good or evil in the first place. What is or isn't good and evil is very much set within the human conscious and held as a universal truth, which ironically--
There was a time when C.S. Lewis told Tolkien, "Myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver," and Tolkien said, "They are not ... just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth."
Headland is from a group of people who think they've got the moral right to redefine any word; however, they want to redefine the word, not understanding the basic principle that Tolkien said regarding words, that they're directly tied to humans inventing words to describe specific objects and ideas. In contrast, this group doesn't want to accept that these words are used to describe specific objects and ideas simply because this "isn't inclusive enough" as far as they're concerned.
In the same way, this same group wants to invent what truth is rather than inventing around what truth is, not understanding that what is actually true will shine through in the end.
And yes, the above quote is directly tied to Tolkien's Christian beliefs. Still, even if someone isn't Christian, they can get behind the idea of universal truths, which in turn means there is some universal truth about what is or isn't good or evil, that what is or isn't good and evil can't be redefined.
This isn't to say that society sometimes doesn't mistakenly label a certain group or activity as evil. For example, prohibition is a period in the United States from 1920 to 1933 where alcohol was banned and treated as evil when, in reality, it is not the alcohol that is evil, but the misuse of alcohol. As for groups of people, the Jews were accused of poisoning wells from 1250 to 1500. However, while certain groups of people attempted to redefine these things and groups as being evil, they never stuck.
Nor is Leslie actually writing something meant to question something someone's redefined as evil -- she's wanting to do the redefining.
To be clear, I'm hearing quotes of what she's saying secondhand and don't have a direct source, but one of the other things she says is she read all the Star Wars books growing up, but then this is someone who also claimed the prequel trilogy was a part of her adolescence and college years yet the first movie in the prequel trilogy as I've sad clearly came out right before she would have graduated from high school, meaning the prequel trilogy is more of a college thing for her.
She claims she's read all the books, yet is this true? This is someone who can't, if I remember, name a favorite Star Wars movie because all of them are her favorite, which, as I may have noted, I didn't feel I could easily say, as New Hope and Rouge One are up there at the top for me. Still, then maybe I can consider Rouge One to be a part of New Hope and something that made me appreciate New Hope more, which is how the new content should be, works that are meant to make us appreciate what came before more.
Given my reasons for not having read the books, I wonder if this is true that it was difficult to dive into the expanded universe, particularly some of the older works as I honestly held no interest in diving into the books until the prequel trilogy came out which in turn came from the fact I didn't know, until then, that there were books. I'd like to say she's read some of the books, as she knew about cortosis, yet--
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Fellowship of the Fans
Non-FictionWhat is the criticism surrounding Rings of Power really about? Is it really just a bunch of white racists and misogynist men? Or are their valid criticisms, and is race and misogyny being used to deflect criticism?
