I also found it silly that they cast Marlon Wayans for the first GI Joe film, and then chose a character that was not African-American for him to portray, as if there was some lack of characters of color in the GI Joe mythos.  These types of things annoy me.  As a child, I had a pretty full set of GI Joe figures, and I didn't segregate Alpine, Roadblock and the rest into the GI Joe version of the Tuskeegee Airmen or anything like that.  They were part of the team.  Still, I'd have been annoyed if they had cast John Cena or Stone Cold as Roadblock.

I say all the time that there are thousands of nerds in this world that these studios could tap to make a quality product without resorting to stunt-casting to get people talking.  And they'd pay these nerds far less than the wonks they pay to go: "Hmm.  Why don't we swap genders on this character?"

The success of these things START with the nerd dollar, and they have plenty of nerds hating on this before one frame of film is shot.

Ugh.  Fox just doesn't get it.  Why swap the race of a super-main character other than to get people talking?  THIS is exactly what pisses the core fans off, their utter disregard for the characters.  While a character like, say, Hawkeye isn't exactly like his comic counterpart, Feige and the others didn't go, "hmm...  let's make him a woman.  That's creative!"

I am not one for slavish devotion to the source material, but stunts like this are ridiculous.
 

So the Rebels are the Wolverines.  Got it.

I think the brand is shaking off EU so that they don't need to worry about any continuity.  Seems like it now extends to merchandise.  I am sure the Mouse House doesn't want Hasbro making Jaina Solo figures when their EP7 negates her existence in some way.

Unfortunately, to get Groot, you have to get the rest.  He's the B-A-F.

I have often said that there is a vast pool of fan talent that they could easily tap into.  This is a great idea, at least from a perspective of input.

It blows my mind when these big companies get things so wrong when there would be thousands of nerds willing to churn out better products for little investment.  Think Transformers, DC movies, etc. etc.

Tap into those that love the product.  Emotional investment can produce dividends.

I saw a clip or read a story with the producers, and things sound grim for Judith. They wore or less said that there are limits to what they could show. I will try to dig it up.