Short answer: no
May 23, 2018 2:22 PM   Subscribe

Jenny Nicholson asks "Is Star Wars Forces of Destiny good?"
posted by Pendragon (22 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
I watched this earlier today and ALL OF HER IDEAS ARE SO GOOD.

Jenny Nicholson is one of my favorite youtubers and every time she does a takedown of something she always offers ways it could be done better. And they are ALWAYS SO GOOD.

I want someone with money and power to see her and give her gobs and gobs of money to create pop culture things. KATHLEEN KENNEDY HEAR MY CRY
posted by phunniemee at 2:28 PM on May 23, 2018 [11 favorites]


Her Twitter is interesting, too.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:34 PM on May 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Very smart analysis, and I think she's dead on when she says that this toy line is actually "for" adult male Star Wars fans who want to buy the dolls for their daughters, neices, etc. The execs who green lit this may or may not have had that in mind, but it really does have all the hallmarks of a "for girls" toy made by people who only have a vague sense of what girls like.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:39 PM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Her Twitter is interesting, too.

It certainly is.
posted by Pendragon at 3:14 PM on May 23, 2018 [6 favorites]


I think it's a little weird to expect character development from the advertising webisodes, when the dolls are based on characters that have entire feature films' worth of it. I disagree with comparing/contrasting them to Monster High in that particular respect.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:20 PM on May 23, 2018


I like her too, but disagreed with most of her Rogue One takedowns. They seemed like small potatoes compared to how easily the story could have been so much more conceivable.
posted by Brocktoon at 3:30 PM on May 23, 2018


Jenny Nicholson is the best and I'm sure I've made this comment before but it's fine
posted by colorblock sock at 3:31 PM on May 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ha! This is great.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:40 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh, her! I've been meaning to watch more of her stuff since her Suicide Squad Pitch.
posted by brundlefly at 5:08 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Love Jenny Nicholson's reviews.
posted by grimjeer at 5:31 PM on May 23, 2018


Well, as an adult male Star Wars fan who wants to buy Star Wars dolls for my daughter, I guess it's nice that someone is (finally) thinking of me and what I want. But at the same time, I want to get my daughter good Star Wars dolls, and Ms. Nicholson makes a convincing argument that these are not good dolls. Mainly because whenever someone sits down and says "okay, how can we do this for girls," the result is usually bad, and kind of insulting.

The beauty here is that I don't need to get her the girl-specific Star Wars toys. There are plenty of just Star Wars toys out there, and if Tiny Croft (her new nickname on MeFi) wants to see a girl in Star Wars, there are just Star Wars toys that are girls. (Thanks SJWs!). There's a Rey on my desk at work right now. When Tiny Croft is old enough to be entranced by Star Wars, then she can play with that!
posted by Naberius at 5:41 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Her comparison to Monster High was utterly incomprehensible to me looking at the dolls - you have to also have in your past a Kindergartner who binge-watched all of the Monster High cartoons on Netflix, repeatedly, where it makes sense. Much like how Megatron transforms from the tallest and broadest of the core Decepticons into a little bitty Walther P-38 handgun that Star Scream uses to shoot red lasers ineffectually from.

The doll line would have benefited greatly from the addition of Captain Phasma, Rose, Vice Admiral Holdo and Chief Petty Officer Unamo.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:59 PM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I think it's a little weird to expect character development from the advertising webisodes, when the dolls are based on characters that have entire feature films' worth of it. I disagree with comparing/contrasting them to Monster High in that particular respect.

Transformers have literally decades and decades of character-building content, but they still keep pumping out web series to sell toys.
posted by muddgirl at 12:39 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


Transformers have literally decades and decades of character-building content, but they still keep pumping out web series to sell toys.

Yeah, I get that, but her criticism is that the webisodes don't dig deep into the characters and explore their flaws and secret desires. Which is a fine thing to want, sure, but in this particular case it's not needed because anyone who's seen enough of the movies to want the doll has been treated to at least two hours of her flaws and desires, and the webisodes ate free to just be fun adventures of these characters we already know well.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:49 AM on May 24, 2018


the webisodes ate free to just be fun adventures of these characters we already know well.

Nicholson addressed this - having the webisodes for fun adventures would make sense if the toys were action figures, but they apparently aren't articulated enough to be action figures, and it's tough to do with 18" dolls in the first place. Even those big GI Joe dolls were only 12". No matter what way it's sliced, there is a disconnect between the doll and the advertising. Either it's a poor attempt at an action figure or it's a poor attempt at a fashion doll.
posted by muddgirl at 1:09 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Ugh I meant it's tough to do with a 12" doll. Those big GI Joe's mostly served as Ken's competition when I was a kid.
posted by muddgirl at 1:16 AM on May 24, 2018


My 11- and 12-inch dolls had plenty of action and adventures.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:54 AM on May 24, 2018


I discovered Jenny (I think via mefi) at the same time as I had a minor health crisis and was feeling very sorry for myself. I mainlined everything and she was basically a lifesaver
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:21 AM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Y'all are going on about the webisodes and a day later I'm still over here like STAR WARS POLLY POCKETS. It's SUCH a fantastic idea. I would have asked for all of them as a kid, and they'd be hugely popular sold today.
posted by phunniemee at 5:00 AM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


Y'all are going on about the webisodes and a day later I'm still over here like STAR WARS POLLY POCKETS.

Hasbro got halfway there with the Star Wars Micro Machines playsets where you've got the little dioramas inside the vehicles and/or character heads, but the micro-sized figures are all non-articulated die cast and not as fun as Polly figures.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:33 AM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Anyway, they're not as good as molendrix's OOAK dolls.

(Scroll down to 9th row)
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:00 AM on May 24, 2018


My 11- and 12-inch dolls had plenty of action and adventures.

Sure, handmade corncob dolls can have plenty of action and adventure play but that doesn't mean it's a smart business decision for Disney to sell corncob dolls as action figures.

The unstated thesis of Nicholson's essay is that if this toy line fails, people will blame SJWs for what she thinks are bad marketing decisions.
posted by muddgirl at 8:52 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


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