It’s overused, but so applicable that it matters. Here’s another get woke, go broke. Just look at who’s in charge below and you can see it isn’t the people who thought up A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back.
Back when Star Wars was a franchise people cared about, one of the most beloved characters in the movies and shows was everyone’s favorite 900-year-old Jedi master, Yoda. That’s quite an accomplishment for a small green muppet, who somehow became an icon of the galaxy far, far away.
Yoda is known for the nuggets of wisdom he would impart — in backward English — to his pupils. One of his most famous quotes is what he said to Luke Skywalker to warn him against the temptations of the dark side of the Force, of seeking quick power and strength, as opposed to learning the Jedi way of discipline, patience, and tradition:
‘Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will.’
After listening to the producer and one of the actors in Star Wars’ latest installment in a franchise that has turned itself into a joke and a dumpster fire, it’s clear that no one at Disney ever bothered to pay attention to Yoda. Watch:
New Star Wars series ‘The Acolyte’ is the “gayest Star Wars yet” according to the producer and cast.
The setting is roughly 100 years before the events of “The Phantom Menace.” The Jedi Council is alive and well, training young Padawans and learning hard truths about some alum.
Namely, Osha (Amandla Stenberg), who in the show’s opening moments does a very bad thing. That’s all we can say thanks to the Emperor … we mean Disney’s legal team!
Star Wars continues down an unfortunate path of ruin and bad storytelling. The latest entry in this journey to the Dark Side is a new show called “The Acolyte.” The creators say it is the “gayest” yet. Matt Walsh has thoughts.
After recounting a series of rough financial numbers, Walsh says:
Disney, over the past eight months, has apparently decided to double down on agenda-driven content, to the point that they’re openly attacking their own fans. It’s a remarkable turn of events.
Faced with this brand collapse, Disney had two options. One option was to retool their content to focus on entertainment and family values instead of activism, which is what Disney used to do, when it was a universally beloved and much more financially successful company. They could get back to their roots. Not in the sense of churning out more remakes, but in the sense of being a company that makes wholesome family films that capture a sense of wonder and imagination.
The other option was to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing, and continue to shove the same agenda — the equity/representation/LGBTQ approach — that they’ve been pushing for years now.
Eight months ago, Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, publicly pledged to pursue the first option. He declared that Disney would refocus its efforts on entertainment, not political messaging. That was the plan, or at least the plan that was shared with the public. But that’s not what happened.
“The Acolyte” dispenses with any talk of Skywalkers, past or present. The focus is on the Jedi way of life, which it turns out is rather dull. So is the writing in the first three episodes. Showrunner Leslye Headland (co-creator, “Russian Doll”) has a sprawling canvas on which to create, but so far it’s a paint-by-numbers affair.
Disney+’s “Andor” delved into the geopolitical workings behind the saga. Everything in “The Acolyte,” at least from the jump, is surface-level deep.
Sometimes, it’s not even that.
“The Acolyte” moves at an agreeable pace, but there’s precious little “why” behind the narrative so far. Yay, diversity! Woo-hoo! Female characters aplenty! Bechdel Test … nailed! That feminist streak gets a workout. It’s also where Comic-Con nation may shriek the loudest.
Disney should be accustomed to that by now, but it least the sequences feel fresh to the franchise.
For a while.
That episode loses control mid-story. The ensuing plot pivots make little sense beyond getting to where the storytellers need us to go. To label it clunky is being kind.
“The Acolyte” could find its legs, eventually. The bigger threat looming over the story might be worth the wait, and the writing could mature with more time.
How many people will stick around to see is another question.
here and more, but didn’t anyone tell Disney about Bud Light and Target?
All the combined efforts of feminism and diversity and equity and wokeness have brought us to this point. But it’s bureaucracy and inertia that’s keeping it alive, long after everyone’s tired of it. That inertia is the reason why — whether you’re going to a restaurant or a movie theater — you’re now guaranteed a product that’s as mediocre as the people who created it.
I’m big on guns for personal defense, but at the same time, I’m not a big fan of killing people. That may sound contradictory, as shooting someone to defend yourself can easily (and often does) involve death. But, we have to keep in mind that the goal of a legitimate defensive shoot isn’t to kill. The goal is to incapacitate, and hopefully cause them to stop what they’re doing (trying to kill you or someone else) before they’re done doing it.
Sadly, today’s technology doesn’t give us a lot of alternatives to shooting if it’s rapid incapacitation we need. Pepper spray and tasers are the obvious alternative, but pepper spray relies on pain compliance an emotional or drug-addicted person can fight through, and tasers aren’t good against deadly force because there’s no guarantee that both darts connect and complete the circuit. So, we’re stuck with having to stop the action through the pain of getting shot, rapid blood loss or through damage to neural tissue. Given the time constraints of a defensive encounter, we don’t usually get to choose which one we go for.
But, in the world of science fiction, we have other options. It may seem silly to compare fictional weapons (even if that’s fun), but we have to keep in mind that many things that are real today started out as fake things on the TV or movie screen. By comparing these weapons, we can figure out what things are worth pursuing and what things really don’t help us defend ourselves better.
You’d think that Disney would learn from their mistakes (or at least Bud Light) but no…this.
Disney+ is taking more flak for crowbarring a them/them character into its latest Star Wars series.
The animated show Tales of the Empire, is made up of six shorts, with one of the episodes featuring a non-binary Jedi.
In a scene below, the they/them agrees to surrender to an Inquisitor, a character that hunts Jedi, just as another Inquisitor sneaks up from behind and attempts to kill the they/them.
You’d be forgiven for having missed it, given that there are so many crapped out Star Wars things now, that only someone with no social life at all can keep up with them.
This is the most obvious example of forced diversity. And it completely destroys the immersive nature of narrative storytelling, which is why it is so detrimental. And that doesn't even touch on how jarring and confusing it is for the viewer. I assumed it was a scripting error.…
There may be bigger Trekkie or Star Wars fans than me, but they are at conferences and cos-play. I have been disappointed in TPTB who made both woke. Read below and weep for those of us who have been shit on by the movies and TV shows that have been put out lately.
For those who do not follow science fiction, Star Wars and Star Trek have been on the decline since 2005, at the very least.
Things did not come to the forefront until George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney in 2012 and Kathleen Kennedy took over as head of Lucasfilm. Kennedy loudly announced “The Force is Female” while Disney executives while Disney executives proudly proclaimed their “Not so secret gay agenda.”
Although Trump-supporter Manny Coto was the showrunner for the last season of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005, the series as been on the decline ever since the Berman/Braga Era. This was after Gene Roddenberry, the coke-addicted alcoholic who abused the staff of Star Trek: The Next Generation through his attorney, Leonard Maizlish, was forced out in 1989.
Alex Kurtzman took over after the 2009 Star Trek film, and things went downhill from there. Star Trek: Discovery is one of the most widely-mocked shows in history, and Star Trek: Picard was an overall terrible production. Star Trek: New Worlds even had January 6 as a “major event.”
Michael Culver, an esteemed British actor, passed away on Feb. 27 at the age of 85, The Hollywood Reporter (THR) reported.
Alliance Agents, who represented him for the last ten years, confirmed his passing. The agency did not share details about his death, according to THR. Culver was known for many roles, but his most famous was as Captain Needa in “Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back.” He played the captain who disappoints Darth Vader and faces consequences, famously ending with “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.”
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
Animal House, Caddyshack, Richard Pryor – Live in Concert, The entire Star Trek TOS, Captain America – The Winter Soldier, Star Trek – The Wrath of Khan, Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back, Le Mans, Avengers, Captain America – The First Avenger, Star Trek, Best of Both Worlds
A sure way to make a movie flop is to hire a director who alienates a big chunk of the audience before the film is even released.
Will Disney ever learn? Not until it goes broke, it would seem.
The company has hired activist and documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy to direct the next “Star Wars” movie, slated to be released in 2026.
Obaid-Chinoy is on record saying, “We’re in 2024 now, and I think it’s about time that we had a woman come forward to shape the story in a galaxy far, far away.”
In case Obaid-Chinoy isn’t aware, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has led the “Star Wars” franchise for a decade. So much for breaking the glass ceiling. Kennedy’s been there, done that.
In a 2015 interview with Obaid-Chinoy, Jon Stewart observed that there seems to be a thread running through Obaid-Chinoy’s work — the idea that “men are a**holes.”
Stewart’s comment caused Obaid-Chinoy to giggle like a schoolgirl, exposing her hatred for roughly half the human population. I wonder if she holds male dogs or cats in equal disdain.
“I like to make men uncomfortable,” Obaid-Chinoy said in the interview. “I enjoy making men uncomfortable.”
I didn’t think it could be worse than the last three, but they managed to lower the bar. Look at who the hero was in Episodes 4,5 and 6 and stop making it be the opposite. They are even telling audiences that it’s going to suck
2023 marked Disney’s 100th anniversary of making movie magic.
It also marked a disastrous year at the box office.
Out of eight major theatrical releases from Disney this year, seven of them significantly underperformed with audiences not just in the U.S. but overseas as well.
A look back at the rough year for the House of Mouse:
Superhero slump
One of the most popular film franchises in the 21st century has been the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ever since 2008’s “Iron Man,” Disney’s catalog of superheroes and the stars that play them drove tens of millions of Americans into theaters. That wasn’t the case with two out of the three Marvel flicks released in 2023.
The first was in February with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Despite an all-star cast including Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer and Bill Murray, the $200 million-priced film earned only $215 million domestically and $476 million worldwide, far short of the $600 million it needed to break even on its theatrical run, according to Variety. That’s less than the $519 million worldwide earnings from the first “Ant-Man” film in 2015 and the $623 million the second installment earned in 2018 (not adjusted for inflation).
“The Marvels,” however, opened to just $46 million and may not even reach $100 million domestically (its total gross so far is less than $90 million domestically and roughly $200 million worldwide), making it the lowest-grossing Marvel film in the entire franchise and putting it in box office disaster territory, given its reported $274 million budget.
I was a super hero fan and a Star Wars fan. Disney, courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy made them woke and terrible. Ultimately, the are all but unwatchable. It’s going to be a long time before I can see good movies again. Men, and white’s are not the villains every time. Captain America was a hero since WWII, even he is going woke in the new rendition.
I will probably see Ferrari though. I’d own one if I had some F/U money come my way.
Disney actress Rachel Zegler, a vocal left-wing activist, is singing a different tune about the 1937 animated film “Snow White” amid backlash over her past feminist complaints about the Disney classic — and after The Daily Wire announced it is producing its own take on the timeless fairy tale.
During an interview for Variety with fellow Disney actress Halle Bailey, Zegler gushed over the original “Snow White” as “a monumental moment in film history.”
“The cartoon is so beloved — it’s like a monumental moment in film history. It’s the first feature-length cartoon movie, to the point where it won honorary Oscars, and all these amazing things that happened for that film are the reason that you and I get to sit here today, because it made Disney what it is,” Zegler told Bailey, who starred as Ariel in the live-action version of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”
The actress went on to veer away from her past comment, saying she “loves everything the Disney company has put out” since its inception.
Disney has ruined every movie for the last few years with either feminist, woke or diversity. I guess investors are finally tired of losing billions. Walt would be turning over in his grave if he knew what Kathleen Kennedy had done to Star Wars, Marvel and classic remakes.
When Star Wars was first advertised (it wasn’t even A New Hope back in ’78), the ad went, never before has so much money been spent for so much fun. It was completely different than the disaster movies that was the genre.
We had hero’s, villains, a mystic power of an unknown force. There was emotional attachment to the characters, both love and true hate. When they introduced the interplay of the father/son reveal it was some of the best storytelling to date.
It was the unlikely hero rescuing the damsel. Good versus Evil. Believing in a higher power who could guide you through life.
I remember going to see The Empire Strikes Back eight times in the movie theaters, because that’s all you could do back then. Four years later, my stockbroker roommate got pre-release tickets to Return of the Jedi and it was to date the only movie I got to see prior to the public consumption.
There was interplay between characters, development of the hero’s course, the introduction of even more evil than we were used to (the emperor) and the ultimate risk of death to save your family.
The fan base was loyal and huge. We wanted to have the Force or a light saber.
The destruction of the franchise began after that.
THE PREQUELS
It was the back story and it could have been done a lot better. George Lucas should have overseen the story telling rather than trying to control so much. It still stuck to the theme, but the horrible acting by Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Samuel Jackson and Jar-Jar Binks made it tough to take. Few could relate to the poorly written romantic scenes, with some being gag worthy.
Sill there was the original theme of bad versus good, the Force, the characters you could relate to and we already knew how the story would end, but this filled in the details. We wanted to see how Anakin became Darth Vader.
The men still protected the queen and you walked through their adventure, being able to put up with it as you already knew the Darth Vader story.
Action figures and Lego flew off the shelf with a loyal fan base and conventions to cosplay at. Fans flocked to the movies to see hero’s and villains. It was a good story, you could relate to the characters and the hero’s were men, who save the day.
DOWN THE TOILET WITH THE SKYWALKER TRILOGY AND THE DESTRUCTION OF STAR WARS BY KATHLEEN KENNEDY
That was the end of any good Star Wars film. Disney has ruined MARVEL, Star Wars, Indiana Jone and every other franchise they own. People are tired of woke.
The Force Awakens was just a remake of A New Hope, with a less believable and far less intimidating Kylo Ren as the new Darth Vader. It was misandry and woke before woke was de rigueur. Lucas wasn’t around to make sure that the story stayed on theme and it showed. It wasn’t fun or believable.
It went against the story and essence of what is Star Wars.
What really made these bad was the de-masculinization of the hero’s. Rey became Luke, and no one believes that the girls were really the hero’s. It was Kathleen Kennedy who introduced woke narratives into the story line, stop it. There was other woke mistakes like a black storm trooper. We already knew how they were clones of Jango Fett. Storm Troopers are pre-programmed. You don’t get a renegade wanting to be free. It’s not believable they way they wrote it.
So despite the lack of Force training that we know was needed (as told in Empire), Rey overcomes a Force master in Kylo Ren. In no real life believable fight does a girl ever beat a guy. We saw how much training Luke needed and what poor training did to Anakin. It was writing woke instead of a story.
The others tried to channel Luke back into the story, but it was to take away his hero status. It re-wrote what the force was. All that just to bring down the truth of who really saves the world, men willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of others. Luke and Han were willing to do anything to rescue Leia, who needed saving. It’s good versus evil, the story that Hollywood hates, especially when good triumphs.
THE FORCE (IS NOT FEMALE)
Kennedy further went on to say that the force is female. It’s not, but then it’s not male either. It’s the force. The problem the celebtards had was that it was similar to religion, something else they hate….God.
Here is one of the top Star Wars sources on that issue.
TELLING A GOOD STORY, UNLIKE J.J. ABRAMS
To capture the audience, hero’s have to be believable to make a good story. You need to get them emotionally invested in their struggle and journey. You want to will them to victory or help them overcome bad guys.
The problem with the last trilogy, besides it being woke was that it was just a re-hash of the original trilogy, only swapping out girls for men. It was the same place, Tatooine, the same villians (Ren was the grandson of Vader) and the force, albeit not the one that Lucas told us about.
J. J. Adams had already ruined Star Trek by re-telling the Wrath Of Khan story just as poorly as this movie.
The last movie, the Rise Of Skywalker was so bad, it had to rehash the Emperor to try to put butts back in the seats. Real Star Wars fans have had enough, but Kennedy has killed the franchise.
Can it be saved? The Mandalorian was good, but they couldn’t let a good thing not go woke as they ruined Obi-wan with it being feminized. Asoka is about to tarnish the after stories even more.
To save it, Disney needs to sell Lucasfilm. Don’t let Kennedy touch any part of the franchise if they don’t. Make Luke the hero he always was. Stop the woke crap and get back to what made it both good and believable.
I think they can’t see or there is some defect in the clones. Storm Troopers went from deadly, murderous villains doing the work of the evil Lord Vader, to the 3 stooges who couldn’t hit Han Solo or Luke in a hallway a few feet wide in the prison cell.
I don’t think AI is bad, I think the people behind them doing the programming or look to do bad things will use it for evil. The common code being used is also flawed. One mistake compounds on itself as you add complexity.
Perfectly Synced AI Dogs. We've seen these introcuced to many industries over the past few years including farming, private security firms & even national police forces. pic.twitter.com/YDYYk64W8m
M&M’s pulled their woke spokescandies because of the backlash. Customers want chocolate, not woke.
M&M’s won’t be going woke after all.
After two weeks of ridicule over an “all-female” version of the iconic chocolate pieces and lesbian overtones in new marketing of its female “spokescandies,” M&M’s said “we get it” on Monday.
In a statement posted on Twitter, M&M’s said “America, let’s talk.”
“In the last year, we’ve made some changes to our beloved spokescandies. We weren’t sure if anyone would even notice. And we definitely didn’t think it would break the internet. But now we get it — even a candy’s shoes can be polarizing. Which was the last thing M&M’s wanted since we’re all about bringing people together. Therefore, we have decided to take an indefinite pause from the spokescandies,” the company said.
In the now-abandoned marketing campaign, Green and Brown had their femininity toned down in their shoe choices while the new Purple female “spokescandy” was designed to promote inclusivity by, among other things, appearing to be plus-sized and sashaying around a theater singing “I’m Just Gonna Be Me.”
Jane Hwang, global VP at Mars Wrigley, had said consumers would “relate to and appreciate” the reworked spokescandies.
Kathleen Kennedy ruined both Star Wars and Marvel for Disney. Their movies are down also when they took away the real hero’s, Ironman and Captain America.
Get woke, go broke. There seems to be a trend here that enough of us go by. The other trend is which woke executives are ruining our lives.
Mars uses child labor for their chocolate and are in a suit right now after being charged with such.
I want to enjoy a movie or sports with some food or drink that doesn’t involve politics, gender, racism or woke.
At least I know that they will continue to cut their own throats with people like me if they continue.
Michael Jordan refused to be woke. His line was republicans buy basketball shoes also. That is right. They go to movies and eat candy too (I’m not politically affiliated to any party anymore on purpose, it is a uni-party now)
The latest campaign featured the female characters upside down on a candy bag with the ad slogan, “Supporting Women, Flipping the Status Quo.” Why are they pushing this? Chief marketing officer Gabrielle Wesley stated, “The M&M’S brand is on a mission to use the power of fun to create purposeful connections, as we work to create a world where everyone feels they belong.” Is that really candy’s purpose? Is candy really an appropriate venue for identity politics?
This wokeification of candy has predictably sparked a lot of backlash from many people.
One YouTuber put it this way: “[M&M’s is] pandering to the woke idiots instead of giving a sh*t about actual issues that this chocolate company has been a part of for quite a while. You know, like the fact that many of their employees are children.” For the record, it is in fact true that there is a lawsuit regarding child slavery against big chocolate. Mars, Nestlé, and Hershey are all named in the suit.
The backlash was so severe that Mars decided to pull the M&M characters entirely. According to Mars’s public statement:
With a domestic take nearing $300 million after only ten days in release, Top Gun: Maverick continues to prove the obvious: moviegoers of all ages will show up in droves if you entertain and inspire us.
Moviegoers aren’t losing that loving feeling for Top Gun: Maverick this weekend as the movie is destined to become Tom Cruise’s top-grossing movie ever at the domestic box office with $273.6M. The 3x Oscar nominee’s previous high earning title was Steven Spielberg’s 2005 sci-fi title War of the Worlds at $234M.
Top Gun 2 is expected to beat War of the Worlds on Saturday; the Joseph Kosinski-directed sequel eyeing a second Friday of $20M, -61% against last Friday (+ previews) on its way to a 3-day of $68M, -46%. Some rival studios see it much higher, but again, it’s still early.
A second-weekend hold of just -46 percent [UPDATE: -32 percent] is extraordinary. Most blockbusters dip 60 percent or better. In other words, Top Gun: Maverick has real legs and is almost certainly benefiting from repeat business.
Leftists are already mad that a non-woke movie that doesn’t violate human nature with woke lectures, woke perversion, woke revisionism, and woke emasculation, is not only breaking records but being embraced by wingnuts like me.
Why People Love It
Look at that last paragraph. The world has woke fatigue. In war, it’s almost always men fighting, but that is the woketard’s biggest target. They hate the reality of who are hero’s and do the dirty work of war. It’s really a picture of reality.
We love a hero that swoops in to save the day. Throughout history, it’s not the woke who put their lives on the line, it’s guys with big balls, like Maverick.
It is indeed true that Top Gun: Maverick does not go out of its way to celebrate inclusion and diversity in the sometimes-cloying, corporate way most closely associated with various Disney properties.
Bingo! We don’t go to the movies to celebrate inclusion and diversity because inclusion and diversity are fucking stupid. We’re Americans. We don’t dwell on our differences, especially differences as shallow as skin color. Instead, we come together as one to get the job done.
Themes drive good movies. “Inclusion” and “diversity” are not themes. Instead, they’re buzzwords spouted by smug, over-educated, shallow bullies whose self-esteem is based on everything but character and integrity.
To prove my point, here are hero oriented movies, but change the character from male to anything.
Woke Movies That Failed
Woke West Side Story: Flop
Woke Eternals: Flop
Woke In the Heights: Flop
Woke Wonder Woman1984: Flop
Woke Charlie’s Angels: Flop
Woke Men In Black International: Flop
Woke Birds of Prey: Flop
Woke Ghostbusters 3: Flop
Woke The 355: Flop.
Woke Terminator Dark Fate: Flop
Woke Oscars: flop
Woke Netflix: Stock tanking
Woke Groomers at Disney: Stock tanking
Woke Star Wars: Doornail dead as a film franchise.
How many franchises, including Star Wars — woke has been so rejected it killed freakin’ Star Wars! — have to commit Woke Suicide before these morons smell the coffee? It’s Kathleen Kennedy who killed both Star Wars and is killing Marvel for the sake of not having men as hero’s and replacing them in the same story with woke losers.
But, as we all know, they smell the coffee just fine.
It’s admitting to what the coffee smells like that they don’t have the moral courage to admit.
I wanted to choke the shit out of a lot of people. Just click either work or IBM in the tag cloud to the right.
There are some people that deserve this and I’m the one that would deliver it to them, especially Sandy Carter, but that would be a long line to wait in.
There are some people I’d force choke their balls instead to end their tirades or whatever nonsense they were bringing to the table. They’ agree to my point a lot faster.
I’d use the Jedi mind trick to get people to do stuff also, like give me a raise or stop giving me a hard time.
Like a lot of things, it’s probably better for the world that I’m not a force wielder. There are too many dark side things that need doing to some people.
Since I don’t have the force, I have to settle for my usual super power.
I only thought the originals were good. The acting and story were so bad in the prequels that it was hard to take. Oh, and Jar-Jar Binks didn’t help anyone. The final three were some of the worst rip-off’s of the original series imaginable.
Delusions of Adequacy 