Maz Kanata (Spoilers)

[The Nth Doctor]

From Lupita herself:

“There was a liberation in being able to play in a medium where my body was not the thing in question.”

 

[{ Emilia }]

That really echoes what Gwendoline Christie said about her role, too. She keeps saying it felt liberating.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Oh, okay, thanks for clearing that up. Helpful.

I'm sorry - are you under the impression that the rest of us saw a version of the movie that you didn't with more information, and we're just choosing to withhold it from you?

 

[RoJoHen]

I really enjoyed this character, and I would love to see a lot more of her in the sequels.

Though I was a little confused by Han's "Don't stare" line. I was expecting Maz to have some way more distracting features. Instead, she's just a little alien with bifocals.

 

[Arrrrgggh]

Oh, okay, thanks for clearing that up. Helpful.

I'm sorry - are you under the impression that the rest of us saw a version of the movie that you didn't with more information, and we're just choosing to withhold it from you?

No, I asked a hypothetical question as part of a broader conversation, pointing out that there's no reasonable explanation for how the lightsaber ended up with Maz. Then someone comes and states "someone brought it." Hence my response.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Oh, okay, thanks for clearing that up. Helpful.

I'm sorry - are you under the impression that the rest of us saw a version of the movie that you didn't with more information, and we're just choosing to withhold it from you?

No, I asked a hypothetical question as part of a broader conversation, pointing out that there's no reasonable explanation for how the lightsaber ended up with Maz. Then someone comes and states "someone brought it." Hence my response.

Well, I mean, that's just true, though. If you're wanting more of a story, then okay: A janitor on Cloud City found it while they were cleaning the facility to get it ready to reopen, and took it with him. His daughter, Kiel, became fascinated with it, and when she heard that Master Skywalker was looking for students to train, she ran away to try to get to him. Part of her journey took her to Maz's bar, trying to book passage with some smuggler or courier for the next leg of her trip. Maz recognized the lightsaber - not specifically whose it was, but just what it was - and also figured out quickly that Kiel was not actually attuned to the Force. After imparting some wisdom and getting the girl to come to the conclusion that she really just wanted to go home and tell her dad that she wanted to be a musician, rather than going into janitorial like he expected, Maz traded her a very nice (insert Star Wars instrument) and a safe trip home for the lightsaber. And then stuck it in a trunk in her storeroom, and didn't think about it much again until Rey found it - except occasionally, when one of Kiel's songs played on the holofeeds. (The girl actually made it fairly big.)

Happy? It's just as canonical as anything in the EU.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I thought the clear implication was that this will be explained in a later film (or perhaps spin-off material). Didn't Maz say, basically, "there's an interesting story behind that, but it's a story for another day"?

In the old EU, Vader recovered Luke's lightsaber and hand. The latter was later used to produce a clone of Luke...hmm...could Rey be of similar derivation?

 

[USS Triumphant]

I took Maz's statement as a Force handwave at the audience: "You don't need to worry about this. It isn't an explanation you're looking for."

 

[Trekker4747]

JJ and Co. didn't want Lupita Nyong to actually appear in the movie. She totally could have been believable as the bar owner, and then they could have populated the bar with various aliens. Why would they choose to this rather silly looking motion capture character over this physically beautiful actress? I'm having trouble reconciling this because, it doesn't make much sense to me. They could have shaved her head or whatever but, it seems that her beauty is what she's known for not voice work. I can understand the use of motion capture for Snook because, this character may turn out to have a certain backstory and the stature of the character is relevant to Kylo Ren's arc. Anyway, I still enjoyed the movie!

It's stuff like this that causes people to speak about and rail against "social justice warriors."

A perception of inequality where none may exist and insistence that it's there and real and it's unfair!

There's plenty of social injustice out there we still need to solve and the prominence of black actors is certain one of those things. But this? This isn't that.

First of all, I'm assuming the plans and character designs for Maz were finalized and decided on before the voice for the character were cast. It's not like once the cast her they were going to say,"Throw away everything we settled on! We're going to put this beautiful woman in make-up and set the world on fire!

I was reading an article earlier about a perceived slight on black actresses in Hollywood and that this was another example of it. Black women can have roles but they cannot be seen on screen. Because, you see, no black woman in the history of ever has ever been scene on screen and there certainly aren't at least two black women working today with some acclaim and fame, one of whom is in two major franchise and, theoretically, and third.

I speak of Halle Berry and Zoe Saldana. Now, one article I read did mention Saldana but was sure to point-out that the two sci-fi characters she plays (her character in Avatar and Gamora in Guardians) are covered in makeup so as to not see her true skin color. So a black woman can have a prominent role, so long as we don't know she's black. The article conveniently forgets she's Uhura in the "Star Trek" movies where she plays a black human and isn't covered in skin-tone altering makeup like Gamora or a CGI creation like the Na'vi character.

They had a character design. Something they wanted to use. A character design that was impractical or impossible to recreate with make-up on a human being so they had to go with a CGI creation. They needed a voice, they hired one. It could have been a black-woman, a brown-woman, a yellow-woman, a white-woman, whatever. They hired a voice, not a skin-color.

If we're going to challenge the movie based on it choosing to have actors voice characters rather than play them on-screen then we're left with a universe full of humanoids, like in Star Trek. (Which, naturally, has its reasons for what it does, but you get my point.) If we extend that to notion that any concealment of the racial identity of the actor using makeup or prosthetics then we arrive at TOS aliens where basically everyone looks human unless we reallllly have to, in which case pancake makeup. There's only room for one alien here with prosthetic appliances for altering physical atributes.

They hired a voice. What she looks like is irrelevant. She's a beautiful, talented woman, regardless of her skin color I'm guessing she's going to do fine in Hollywood and we'll see her in all her splendor at some point.

...... Wait. So if she were ugly then it'd be okay to use her as a voice talent as opposed to on-screen talent?