Tomb Raider Fans Fight Back Against Alicia Vikander Criticism

While Lara Croft may be a tomb raider, some of her critics are just total cavemen.

Fans and filmgoers looking forward to the upcoming reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise, starring Academy Award-winning actress Alicia Vikander, have had to face down some sexist grumbling regarding the performer's take on the video game heroine, archaeologist and adventurer Lara Croft.

Introduced in 1996 as part of the original Tomb Raider video game, the first Lara Croft design became infamous among gaming magazines and middle school playgrounds thanks in large part to the character's sizable assets — by which we mean her exaggerated, triangle-shaped breasts.

The character's oddly-inflated anatomy originally had to do with the limitations of game design technology, with developers having to exaggerate Lara's design in order to make her pixelated form appear more recognizably female. 

Since the days of the original game series in the late 90s and early 2000s, designers on Tomb Raider games have taken advantage of advancing technology and changing social standards to tone down the unrealistic design of the character, resulting in the relatively grounded, easier-on-the-spine take that's featured in the series today. 

The new movie, heavily inspired by the series' more recent games, cast Vikander on her resemblance to that version of the character — and for some people, it's apparently a decision worth complaining about.

One commentator, TJ Kirk — AKA YouTube personality The Amazing Atheist — wrote a post on Twitter saying that casting Vikander was a mistake because "her t*** are too small."

The post drew criticism, quickly eliciting over 2,100 comments and multiple follow-up posts, with many replies reading as angry and indignant. 

The issue of Lara Croft's breast size is an odd, somewhat embarrassingly enduring bit of trivia in video game history, with her outsized anatomy sticking in the popular consciousness more than her personality ever has. 

Conversations about the importance of Lara's body don't just take place on the back alleys of Twitter, either — according to The Hollywood Reporter, multiple academic papers have attempted to litigate whether the character can be considered a feminist hero with a look so seemingly informed by the male gaze. 

To play the character in her 2001 and 2003 movies, Angelina Jolie wore a 36D padded bra as part of her costume, matching her look to the stylized version of the character that was still in play in the games at the time. 

While the modern-day Tomb Raider is taking pains to make its Lara more realistic, the filmmakers still haven't quite gotten away from the issue of the breasts, as Vikander has said she too wore a little extra padding during the making of the new movie. 

So take note, people — there are still professional filmmakers out there running around during their workdays with measuring tape and Kleenex, trying to make sure Lara Croft's big boobs get properly adapted for a Warner Brothers action movie. If that's not good enough for some people, well... that's their weird problem, not ours.

Tomb Raider touches down in theaters on March 16. Check out the trailer for the upcoming video game adaptation now, and then read up on all about how Alicia Vikander got ripped to play Lara Croft.