I'm not sure you got my point about 1960? If it were 1960 and we talking about university brochures someone with an eye for such things might say: "hey why all the coeds on the brochures? Is this just virtue signaling?" But if some were to say that in 2020 we would ask "wft is a coed? What's you deal and what graveyard did you dig up that term from?" Now, in 2020, don't even notice when there is a gender balance in university photos. The point is that your politics trains your eye to see some things and keeps it blind to others.
Can't comment on the Last of US 2, never played it. But on Star Wars we have different views. Lucas did an amazing job with the first two (now episodes IV and V) and a decent job with Return of the Jedi. And then he just embarrassed himself with the prequels. Sure the special effects were great but writing was worse than many of the novels and he phoned in the direction. And there were agendas in all of Lucas' movies. Princess Leia kicked ass and saved the boys in the middle of her rescue. She was a 1970s feminist. This princess doesn't sit around looking pretty, she shows the boys how to shoot . . . But in the prequels, Lucas went backwards with the gender politics. Padme was a forgettable nothing who receded into the background to allow Anakin to take center stage. The third prequel was okay I guess, better than Rogue One.
The three recent Star Wars helped undo some of the damage that Lucas did. I thought Rei kicked ass in the Force Awakens -- I put that movie on par with the Return of the Jedi. Sure, the last one (IX) had a bit too much fan service in it but so did Solo. And the Rise of Skywalker (IX) was much better than Solo. Solo didn't have any of the elements you point to -- it had a male protagonist, it stayed true to Solo's pirate tropes and couldn't be said to stand for anything but making cash. No feminist narrative there but it was only marginally better than Rogue One.
That's why I'm not accepting that any problems with Star Wars can be attributed to a "the force is female" / "pushing an agenda" problem. The problems with Solo stem from the fact that it was directed by someone who doesn't really like sci fi and who tried transform a sci fi movie into the sort of movies he would have liked to have directed -- which is why we got car races and train robberies. Compare Solo to Fury Road. Fury road was the best Mad Max yet and its feminist 'agenda' wasn't at all subtle. I think the feminism made the movie . . .
Sure, admitting you have progressive politics sets up conservatives to dislike something but I'll take an honest expression of belief over PR department claptrap any day. When you try to stand for nothing you fail at everything but being boring. Like you I "pay attention" but I attend to different things -- I wish people would see how many movies are really just military recruitment vehicles and ads for gun manufacturers .
Star Wars is the perfect analogue for BG3 -- BG2 was the best video game ever produced. Can Larian live up the expectations? If they want to learn something from Solo's failures it would be: make sure to hire BG2 fans. There is no substitute for sincerity -- you can throw all the money you want at a production but you put people who don't like the genre and are only motivated by a paycheck take the reigns the product.
