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[jason10mm]

I only slightly disagree here because I don't like the idea lately that creative ideas must be neatly put into different boxes. "Women must act this way, men must act that way" is a very rigid approach towards creativity.

Yeah, and we get good examples like Alien where none of the characters were written with a specific gender so we don't have "man moments" or "woman emoting" scenes, though I suspect some stuff, like Lambert just crying as the alien approaches, may have been tweaked to take advantage of the actresses capabilities.

I'm more thinking about the typical girl boss character that really feels like a dude in a shapeless dress given bad setup to "defeat misogyny" rather than any actual character growth.

Consider Tom Hank's character in Saving Private Ryan. His big emotional break is something he does in private and tries to hide from his men. This FEELS very real and generates a TON of empathy, from men and women, because I think it resonates with a lot of men on how we deal with extreme grief/stress and it opens him up just a little for women that he does have vulnerability and does care. It's not "toxic masculinity" as many might say today, but rather a reflection on the price of leadership in war and the sacrifices leaders make to maintain moral for their soldiers. Now maybe a female combat unit (or WAC, competitive knitting team, or whatever the situation) might have the leader emote in front of her team and they all share in it, but that's a feminine thing to do (maybe, never really been in that situation myself) but I know VERY few men who would cry outside of a small circle of close confidants or family (other than that one guy who gets weepy over everything, we all know one

Anyway, not to get too into the weeds with action hero screenwriting, it's just how I approach these things as a viewer.

 

[March Climber]

Yeah, and we get good examples like Alien where none of the characters were written with a specific gender so we don't have "man moments" or "woman emoting" scenes, though I suspect some stuff, like Lambert just crying as the alien approaches, may have been tweaked to take advantage of the actresses capabilities.

I'm more thinking about the typical girl boss character that really feels like a dude in a shapeless dress given bad setup to "defeat misogyny" rather than any actual character growth.

Consider Tom Hank's character in Saving Private Ryan. His big emotional break is something he does in private and tries to hide from his men. This FEELS very real and generates a TON of empathy, from men and women, because I think it resonates with a lot of men on how we deal with extreme grief/stress and it opens him up just a little for women that he does have vulnerability and does care. It's not "toxic masculinity" as many might say today, but rather a reflection on the price of leadership in war and the sacrifices leaders make to maintain moral for their soldiers. Now maybe a female combat unit (or WAC, competitive knitting team, or whatever the situation) might have the leader emote in front of her team and they all share in it, but that's a feminine thing to do (maybe, never really been in that situation myself) but I know VERY few men who would cry outside of a small circle of close confidants or family (other than that one guy who gets weepy over everything, we all know one

Anyway, not to get too into the weeds with action hero screenwriting, it's just how I approach these things as a viewer.

I think there’s a small misunderstanding. To clarify, I’m alright with everything you’ve just listed and used as examples, but where we differ is that I’m also okay with the opposite.

I’d rather creatives just create what they want, whether good, mediocre, or bad, and let their vision speak for itself. I just want it to be a creative vision in the first place.

Regardless of complaints regarding this movie, it’s a movie that George Miller wanted to create. So even if he has a slight weak point where he didn’t write his stoic female protagonist as good as the best ones out there, I’m fine with that. In his own mind maybe he feels that he excels at it.

It doesn’t feel right when there’s pressure from people telling a creative to make something according to an agreed upon defacto pattern, or to simply not create. Even if it’s offensive to some, I want to see how they came up with that offensive vision.

 

[jason10mm]

I think there’s a small misunderstanding. To clarify, I’m alright with everything you’ve just listed and used as examples, but where we differ is that I’m also okay with the opposite.

I’d rather creatives just create what they want, whether good, mediocre, or bad, and let their vision speak for itself. I just want it to be a creative vision in the first place.

Regardless of complaints regarding this movie, it’s a movie that George Miller wanted to create. So even if he has a slight weak point where he didn’t write his stoic female protagonist as good as the best ones out there, I’m fine with that. In his own mind maybe he feels that he excels at it.

It doesn’t feel right when there’s pressure from people telling a creative to make something according to an agreed upon defacto pattern, or to simply not create. Even if it’s offensive to some, I want to see how they came up with that offensive vision.

I dunno, there ARE established "rules" for how these things have been shown to work. An "anything goes" attitude can be DISASTEROUS for creatives as they often do need some left/right limits and constraints to really do their best work. We have 100+ years of cinema as a medium, if you are gonna throw that ball out the window you had better be SOLID on the fundamentals to know where you can push things. I don't want checklists dictating the film but nor do I think totally ignoring the accumulated weight of film and what works/doesn't work is necessarily the best idea either.

Furiosa as a film coulda used some more work. Maybe George just wanted to get as many ideas out there as possible while he had time left to do it, but the film was over stuffed and suffered for it. If he had 30% less budget and more folks yelling at him to "just get it done!" I think it could have been a leaner, meaner, more raw experience that would have, for me, been a closer experience to Road Warrior which is what I wanted. Zero in on Furiosa, her journey, and less time myth building around Dementus, Immortal Joe, peach pits, and wild eyed mommies.

 

[March Climber]

I dunno, there ARE established "rules" for how these things have been shown to work. An "anything goes" attitude can be DISASTEROUS for creatives as they often do need some left/right limits and constraints to really do their best work. We have 100+ years of cinema as a medium, if you are gonna throw that ball out the window you had better be SOLID on the fundamentals to know where you can push things. I don't want checklists dictating the film but nor do I think totally ignoring the accumulated weight of film and what works/doesn't work is necessarily the best idea either.

On the other hand, I feel like there are so many, many movies releasing on a regular basis and so many that have released in the past 100 years, that I think it's fine at this point for people to forgo certain rules to attempt to make what they truly want to make. Again though, both what you suggest and what you don't are fine to do in my opinion.

This doesn't invalidate the idea criticisms or critique. For example I agree with the fact that the movie could have been slightly better in certain regards as the next part of your post pointed out. My main hope going forward is that creatives like him aren't pressured to change characters or writing based on public sway, online discourse, and things happening outside of their control.

 

[jason10mm]

On the other hand, I feel like there are so many, many movies releasing on a regular basis and so many that have released in the past 100 years, that I think it's fine at this point for people to forgo certain rules to attempt to make what they truly want to make. Again though, both what you suggest and what you don't are fine to do in my opinion.

This doesn't invalidate the idea criticisms or critique. For example I agree with the fact that the movie could have been slightly better in certain regards as the next part of your post pointed out. My main hope going forward is that creatives like him aren't pressured to change characters or writing based on public sway, online discourse, and things happening outside of their control.

I'm with you on ignoring the social media circus. This relates to the checklist as death to creativity. The only thing the internet has ever done in a positive light was give us the Ryan Reynolds Deadpool movie.