Post by: Mephansteras on December 18, 2017, 08:51:13 pm
Rules for this thread: Keep it civil! No name calling, no insults, no personal attacks. Everyone is free to like or dislike what they wish. If you can't seem to agree with someone on something, just drop it and talk about something else.
Post by: hector13 on December 18, 2017, 09:31:12 pm
One thing I really do want to say is I find Finn a bit pointless.
Post by: Mephansteras on December 18, 2017, 10:55:29 pm
What I really want to know is...what's up with Snoke? We learn pretty much nothing about him. He's just...an evil, powerful dark side user who commands the First Order? And is horribly mutilated?
I don't know...he's kind of just a powered up Palpatine, but manages to be much less interesting.
Post by: NRDL on December 18, 2017, 11:09:10 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 19, 2017, 12:08:21 am
Also, it seems like a lot of people have been saying "OMG, I like the movie, I don't have to defend myself!!!" To which I say, chill. We're just discussing the movie, both its merits and its shortcomings, both of which is has plenty of. None of the discussion has been an attack on anybody, and while it's been passionate, it's because there are a lot of Star Wars fans. And that's okay.
My stance is really just that neither TFA or TLJ really feel like a Star Wars movie. And please for the love of god don't say it's nostalgia. Basically everything else that's every come out under the Star Wars brand has at least--barring any considerations for quality--felt like Star Wars. 2003 Clone Wars, The Clone Wars, Prequel Trilogy, KOTOR I&II, SW:TOR--there is a certain established aesthetic and while there isn't one style to emulate, I feel that neither of the two main movies captures that feeling.
Now, TFA specifically actually does a 50/50 job. Jakku is wonderful I think. Everything set on Jakku is lit. The First Order looks pretty good, not nearly as goofy as the shit in TLJ. Phasma is bad, straight up, like... someone had pointed out that she could be the embodiment of Finn's worst fears about the FO, but if you're going to stick by that well... it's done poorly. We all initially thought she was going to be Boba V2.0 and she just ended up getting zero screen time. The plot is actually solid, I mean after all, it is pretty much a ripoff of Ep4, but Starkiller base is lame as fuuuuuuuck compared to the Death Star (though the lightsaber duel is good.) They should have gone with the Galaxy Gun or one of the other numerous Superweapons in the Star Wars universe which are infinitely cooler. Maz and the tavern is eh, it's not a bad idea, it's just... not done right? The real problem with the new trilogy as compared to both the original AND the prequel (and again just about any Star Wars story ever) is that it doesn't do world-building very well. By which I mean, it's fucking awful at world building. There are massive skips in time, locations never make any sense or at least try to not feel incredibly random, and there are honestly too many characters which are casually thrown away or don't get the development they need. The pacing is all off, and while I agree both of the new films have been a fun romp, they just don't feel like an epic. The plot doesn't really feel like it's building to anything and as a result, the characters feel stale.
Rogue One on the other hand does a great job, and before you start telling me how it doesn't count because it's set right before Ep4, they introduced a boatload of new costumes, ships, and aliens that looks awesome and matched right up with all the content that was created under Lucas. Its story is solid and original, but nothing spectacular honestly--the idea is really good, just kind of boring protagonists.
Part of why New Wars can't world build is because they are trying to semi-reinvent the look of Star Wars which is... just not a good decision. What isn't iconic about Star Wars? If you watch the original film today it is so visually unique, why would you want to move away from that? Even if you want to argue that it's because of merchandising, there is a whole sub-genre of Star Wars comics that fucking NAILS the art style to a T, at least try and be cohesive with what fans already know and love? The world I keep using to describe most of the new designs is goofy, and it's hard to argue against that imo, so let me bring up to two points and then get some example. 1.) The new designs are bad on their own, and 2.) While every faction or thematic element had a unity in their design in the series under Lucas, things are beginning to look generic and vary in style.
Examples:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It's just off, and it's compounded by poor cinematography and editing--not to mention the fact that the new trilogy is super afraid to explore any of the new things in depth.
Post by: NRDL on December 19, 2017, 12:19:36 am
The visuals and designs of TFA and TLJ are just as equally likeable honestly. I've always been more concerned about what the new stuff DOES than what they look like, and they were all really darn serviceable.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 19, 2017, 12:50:27 am
Rogue One really did have a cool look. The aesthetics really supported the context of the events of the movie, you actually FEEL hemmed in by how crisp and orderly everything is, which matches the theme of Imperial oppression really well.
Rogue One was really awesome.
The visuals and designs of TFA and TLJ are just as equally likeable honestly. I've always been more concerned about what the new stuff DOES than what they look like, and they were all really darn serviceable.
To be fair, it's not like it's all bad. Or even in my opinion truly awful. Individually speaking, you have the Storm Trooper Assault Boats, and Kylo's shuttle which both look rad as heck, but along with the updated TIEs, AT-ATs, AT-STs, and ships... not everything fits together in a cohesive way. I agree that they are serviceable and admit I would probably like them a lot more if we spent more time with them. I mean in the original trilogy we spend a heck of a lot of time in command bridges and pilot seats, it seems like the new trilogy is afraid to do the same.
Post by: NRDL on December 19, 2017, 01:04:02 am
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 19, 2017, 02:30:41 am
Post by: IcyTea31 on December 19, 2017, 10:44:58 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 19, 2017, 11:05:57 am
Post by: Mephansteras on December 19, 2017, 12:36:24 pm
I think that the reveal that Supreme Leader Smoke is actually a Kryptonian marks a new highpoint in the saga, and even surpases "I am your father". Really, merging SW with Marvel was a smart and logical move from Disney
::)
Post by: Harry Baldman on December 19, 2017, 04:24:46 pm
There's a bunch of stuff that's pretty rough in there, and though there's fewer porgs than I expected there were still a few too many, but overall I found this to be a lot more like what I expected/wanted TFA to be like with its attempts at subversion. Rather liked the strong accompanying "burn it all down" message in the story too.
Mind you, this being the only Star Wars I've seen in a theater is probably coloring my perceptions at least a tad. Feel pretty good about my choice to do it for this one, considering JJ's back to directing the next one.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 19, 2017, 05:23:13 pm
Said in the other thread but I’ll put it here were it belongs: this film lacked hope, all the characters act with no goals beyond immediate survival. And lacked the courage of committing to a dire mood. You have this set of gungho dudes and dudette and smirky remarks basically just floating over the setting hardly being part of it.
[/quote
The point of this movie was 'good guys get their shit kicked in and desperately try to keep something alive', so that's kinda the whole point.
And no hope? Sure there was nothing through most of it, but did you leave before the last few minutes of the movie or are you just being hyperbolic?
Post by: NJW2000 on December 19, 2017, 06:09:39 pm
Whoever wrote some of the dialogue needs a slap, but hey, that's probably authentic. Acting was firmly meh, with slightly interesting performances from Laura Dern, Del Toro and Domnhall Gleeson, and Driver's typical "I am doing things with my face like a human." Kind of agreed with kylo after he murked wossname scene tbh, but came out cheering for Ginger as the only character I care about left. Some CGI looked OK, some annoyed me.
Worst thing was probably the stupid individualistic ethic of the rebellion. Even when you're sacrificing yourself it's all about you and your loved ones: ick.
Best was possibly the general on the big empire ship that seemed aware of imperial incompetence in an ironic, fourth wall breaking way. Or possibly how the Praetorian guard looked, though I didn't enjoy their fight.
In conclusion the film was quite long.
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 19, 2017, 06:41:11 pm
And no hope? Sure there was nothing through most of it, but did you leave before the last few minutes of the movie or are you just being hyperbolic?
well basically the ending was "No one answered the Gondor call" - that'll probably get rectified come episode 9, but even that slimmer of hope lasted 6 whole seconds, just slightly longer than the hope about the rebel base being shielded enough to last a siege.
Post by: NRDL on December 19, 2017, 07:15:07 pm
"Hope is like the sun" and all that.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 19, 2017, 08:48:20 pm
I'm pretty sure one of the themes of this movie is that you need to hope, regardless of whether hope gets rewarded.
"Hope is like the sun" and all that.
I think it seems that way because so much of the movie is each character unsuccessfully pursuing their unreachable goals.
Post by: MorleyDev on December 20, 2017, 07:07:39 am
Also it's amazing how Mad Max: Fury Road managed to get so much right that TFA, released around the same time, got wrong. I really dislike JJ Abrams directing style, it's basically the directorial equivalent of ADHD. No time to focus or sit, no time to think, no time to say or do anything of value, no time to actually develop characters, just always gotta be movinggoingfastgottagofast and rely on having things happening so rapidly that it doesn't matter how interesting or meaningful those things actually are.
And yet Fury Road, a film that is essentially one giant car chase, managed to have so much that TFA lacked: Long and wide tracking scenes that let you take in what was happening (whilst also being a welcome throw back to 80s styles of films), and developed and fleshed out characters with actual character growth.
Post by: Kot on December 20, 2017, 06:11:18 pm
I avoided spoilers but it have hit my ears that apparently new movie is terrible, but holy shit I have not realized how terrible it is. It's not a good Star Wars movie, not even a good movie, it's fucking terrible. I will never speak one more bad word about prequels, like, even Jar Jar was better design choice and was more grounded in Star Wars universe than this is.
EDIT:
Also, HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA THIS IS JUST DISNEY SPITTING ON THE GRAVE ISIN'T IT HAHAHAHAHA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCI1YIaLVIM). Obviously a spoiler.
Post by: inteuniso on December 20, 2017, 06:56:40 pm
Ahahaha what the fuck was that.
I avoided spoilers but it have hit my ears that apparently new movie is terrible, but holy shit I have not realized how terrible it is. It's not a good Star Wars movie, not even a good movie, it's fucking terrible. I will never speak one more bad word about prequels, like, even Jar Jar was better design choice and was more grounded in Star Wars universe than this is.
EDIT:
Also, HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA THIS IS JUST DISNEY SPITTING ON THE GRAVE ISIN'T IT HAHAHAHAHA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCI1YIaLVIM). Obviously a spoiler.
lol that was long spoiled before I watched that.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 20, 2017, 08:38:55 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on December 20, 2017, 08:45:41 pm
Very polarizing movie. Most people seemed to either really enjoy it or really *not* enjoy it.
Personally, I have issues with decisions in both 7 and 8 but found them eminently more watchable than the prequels ever were. Those I find nearly unwatchable the second time through, while both 7 and 8 were improved on the next viewing.
Post by: NRDL on December 20, 2017, 08:56:26 pm
I was both relieved and really confused when she lived, I really didn't want Princess Leia to go out in such an undignified and tragic way.
Post by: Kot on December 20, 2017, 09:52:48 pm
Eh, I liked it. Leia was always supposed to be gifted with the force in the old Expanded Universe novels, so it seemed like a nice nod to that to me.Her being gifted doesn't have to manifest in dumb ways.
I'll admit, that scene could have been done better. That being said, my jaw dropped when Leia was sucked out into the vacuum of space the first time I watched. It felt both emotionally devastating, and because of Carrie Fisher's passing, also a bit like salt in a wound.So, you mean, the scene in a movie *gave you emotions*? That's so weird and out of place, movies giving people emotions, right? If anything, the Leia move felt like... pretty much bullshit move that serves no purpose other than to make it look like Leia did a thing in the movie too. I would have accepted her death because it would serve a purpose in the story - as much as Star Wars is noblebright, people can still die, and would also make previous scene where Ben hestiated from firing meaningful. Instead it's just cheap "you thought she died but then FORCE MAGIC and she is fine buy the figurine Leia is badass", and now they have to fucking worry how to kill her off in next movie since Carrie Fisher is dead.
I was both relieved and really confused when she lived, I really didn't want Princess Leia to go out in such an undignified and tragic way.
Speaking of that, what the insane fuck was the goddamn pink haired Mary Sue Leia-lite (and to lesser extent the big-nosed Leia-lite)? What was her purpose in the plot other than to be condenscending and basically incompetent, as she didin't tell anyone of her plan *for no good reason* which directly lead to said plain failing miserably. What the fuck is with all those random-ass characters that appear out of nowhere and suddenly we are supposed to think they're important or something, just to get them killed next scene/movie? Is this all just to get more characters pushed into merch?
What's with all those random dumb gags? The whole Finn intro with him banging his head and in leaky suit, and all those goddamn fucking completly retarded and out of place jokes? The fucking irons on the ship? Great fucking joke, wow. I get it, comic relief is a thing, but I'd prefer if comic relief didin't came out as forced. For instance, initial Luke Yoda-ism was pretty decent, as it was a nice callback to Yoda, and was somewhat justified by him being an old grumpy hermit now.
I mean right, old Star Wars had a fuckton of background characters who then had their own stories developed, but none of them felt like they got forcefully inserted and got too much spotlight for no real reason, it felt natural and consistent, meanwhile in the Mouse Ears Trilogy so far it has been incredibly hard to form any sort of attachement to any character. Ironically enough, the one of more popular characters at the time was the memetic TR-8R who was one of few characters to follow old scheme of "we find which characters people like and only then we merch that shit".
I'm not even starting to complain about the implications that constant use of hyperdriving where noone has yet hyperdrived in those movies create (why the fuck even bother with guns, just hypedrive small ships into big ones), curving blasters, gravity bombs in space (although I must say I liked the idea of B-17s in space, but the way it was actually pulled off... eh), the apparent lack of any other political entity in Galaxy than First Order (was entire New Republic contained in that one system that got blown up? Where the fuck is everyone? Why does it seem like the First Order which formally is just bunch of paramilitary dudes is more powerful that Empire ever was?) and other shit because that's just nitpicking.
Probably though, my main problem with this all is... not even all that bullshit. It's that EU died for this. Solos died for this. Mara Jade died for this. Kyle Katarn died for this. Yuuzhan Vong died for this. The New Republic and New Jedi Order died for this. Goddamn Thrawn died for this (before you say it - that's not my Thrawn), and dozens of years of relatively self-consistent writing and pretty damn great stories died. We will never see the true new trilogy as it should have been, thought out and retconned to hell and back to create something that makes sense, and that is a goddamn shame.
Post by: NRDL on December 20, 2017, 10:20:04 pm
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 20, 2017, 10:24:18 pm
Eh, I liked it. Leia was always supposed to be gifted with the force in the old Expanded Universe novels, so it seemed like a nice nod to that to me.Her being gifted doesn't have to manifest in dumb ways.I'll admit, that scene could have been done better. That being said, my jaw dropped when Leia was sucked out into the vacuum of space the first time I watched. It felt both emotionally devastating, and because of Carrie Fisher's passing, also a bit like salt in a wound.So, you mean, the scene in a movie *gave you emotions*? That's so weird and out of place, movies giving people emotions, right? If anything, the Leia move felt like... pretty much bullshit move that serves no purpose other than to make it look like Leia did a thing in the movie too. I would have accepted her death because it would serve a purpose in the story - as much as Star Wars is noblebright, people can still die, and would also make previous scene where Ben hestiated from firing meaningful. Instead it's just cheap "you thought she died but then FORCE MAGIC and she is fine buy the figurine Leia is badass", and now they have to fucking worry how to kill her off in next movie since Carrie Fisher is dead.
I was both relieved and really confused when she lived, I really didn't want Princess Leia to go out in such an undignified and tragic way.
Speaking of that, what the insane fuck was the goddamn pink haired Mary Sue Leia-lite (and to lesser extent the big-nosed Leia-lite)? What was her purpose in the plot other than to be condenscending and basically incompetent, as she didin't tell anyone of her plan *for no good reason* which directly lead to said plain failing miserably. What the fuck is with all those random-ass characters that appear out of nowhere and suddenly we are supposed to think they're important or something, just to get them killed next scene/movie? Is this all just to get more characters pushed into merch?
What's with all those random dumb gags? The whole Finn intro with him banging his head and in leaky suit, and all those goddamn fucking completly retarded and out of place jokes? The fucking irons on the ship? Great fucking joke, wow. I get it, comic relief is a thing, but I'd prefer if comic relief didin't came out as forced. For instance, initial Luke Yoda-ism was pretty decent, as it was a nice callback to Yoda, and was somewhat justified by him being an old grumpy hermit now.
I mean right, old Star Wars had a fuckton of background characters who then had their own stories developed, but none of them felt like they got forcefully inserted and got too much spotlight for no real reason, it felt natural and consistent, meanwhile in the Mouse Ears Trilogy so far it has been incredibly hard to form any sort of attachement to any character. Ironically enough, the one of more popular characters at the time was the memetic TR-8R who was one of few characters to follow old scheme of "we find which characters people like and only then we merch that shit".
I'm not even starting to complain about the implications that constant use of hyperdriving where noone has yet hyperdrived in those movies create (why the fuck even bother with guns, just hypedrive small ships into big ones), curving blasters, gravity bombs in space (although I must say I liked the idea of B-17s in space, but the way it was actually pulled off... eh), the apparent lack of any other political entity in Galaxy than First Order (was entire New Republic contained in that one system that got blown up? Where the fuck is everyone? Why does it seem like the First Order which formally is just bunch of paramilitary dudes is more powerful that Empire ever was?) and other shit because that's just nitpicking.
Vice Admiral Mary Sue: I swear I saw someone on youtube mention that there's a theory floating around Tumblr that she may have had something to do with Han and Leia's marriage falling apart. And it wasn't something between her and Han. Only something I heard about through word of mouth, but given what little of her backstory I've heard about that was in a book and the general disposition of Tumblr...
Hyperdrive suicide: Ships are expensive to produce. What you really want would be a coil gun that then sends the projectile into hyperspace. Bonus, you can shell a planet from star systems away giving your enemies no warning.
Lack of Political Entity: I seem to the New Republic was the only other power, and they had disbanded their military. That's the reason why the 'Resistance' was needed.
New Star Wars canon. Where literally everyone is incompetent when it comes to military matters (Why the hell did those Resurgent classes not help the Mandator IV (speaking of, what the hell's with that design?) at all...Hell, why didn't any support fleet not do a single thing?).
Post by: NRDL on December 20, 2017, 10:31:21 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 21, 2017, 12:24:25 am
There's still a lot of Legends stuff that can be worked into canon, that's actually one of the most exciting prospects for me.
Not to rain on your parade man, but there is about a 0% chance that Disney makes a good EU movie.
I'll admit, that scene could have been done better. That being said, my jaw dropped when Leia was sucked out into the vacuum of space the first time I watched. It felt both emotionally devastating, and because of Carrie Fisher's passing, also a bit like salt in a wound.
I was both relieved and really confused when she lived, I really didn't want Princess Leia to go out in such an undignified and tragic way.
Pursuant to my last assertion and not to be a dick, but liking 8 has literally come down to two things I have seen, people either like it "just because" or hate it "because there are numerous glaring plot and design errors and [insert any number of other valid criticisms here]" Like... I don't get when people "just enjoy it for what it is", would you just enjoy an undercooked steak or raw eggs for what they are? How about wet concrete? A bed with no mattress?
It is a bad a movie. If you liked it, that's fine, but it IS the worst Star Wars movie ever made by quite a bit, and you can arrive at that conclusion with basically ANY analysis of the film. We're talking Transformers: Age of Extinction bad.
Post by: Mephansteras on December 21, 2017, 12:41:36 am
Kind of like how a lot of people who grew up with the prequels as kids instead of the original trilogy actually like the prequels way better. You can argue until you're blue in the face about all the flaws of 1-3 and why 4-6 are better movies, but you can't actually convince someone to change what they like or don't like.
You have as much luck trying to get someone who hates fish to agree that your baked salmon is better than their grilled cheese. Whatever merits you talk about won't change what their taste buds are telling them.
On a separate note:
I just had an epiphany about 7/8. They make more sense if you think of them as video games with Rey as the player character. The Force Effects are bigger and flashier, because that's how things are in video games. She does all sorts of stuff with generally high skill, because that's how it works for the player in most video games. She picks up new skills shortly after seeing them in action, because that's how it works in video games. (Ok, gross generalizations about video games there, but you get the idea. I don't think I'd blink at lot of the stuff she pull if she was the main character in a lot of video games.)
Post by: NRDL on December 21, 2017, 05:59:42 am
Like... I don't get when people "just enjoy it for what it is", would you just enjoy an undercooked steak or raw eggs for what they are? How about wet concrete? A bed with no mattress?
That's actually a really good metaphor. Yes, this movie has a bunch of flaws, very firmly embedded and which I've spent a lot of time noting and reviewing here and on Reddit in particular. It just also happens to have some of the coolest moments in the entire Star Wars franchise, a sense of humour that works perfectly for me, and tickles all of my fancies in all the right places.
It is, I suppose, an undercooked steak. That also happens to be coated in drugs that activate all the pleasure sensations in my body the second I bite into it.
I'm just rehashing what Mephansteras and what a bunch of other people have said in saying this, but the fact that this film is an inherently flawed product is not what I care about. What I end up caring about is the enjoyment I derive from this inherently flawed product.
Post by: hector13 on December 21, 2017, 08:13:14 am
I fucking loved it, though.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 21, 2017, 09:40:18 am
I think that the reveal that Supreme Leader Smoke is actually a Kryptonian marks a new highpoint in the saga, and even surpases "I am your father". Really, merging SW with Marvel was a smart and logical move from Disney
::)
In all honesty, after Flying Space Leia and the reveal that Snoke was
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
SPOILER: JAR JAR PINK WAS A KRYPTONIAN AS WELL. AND A LORD OF THE SHIT!
Post by: Mephansteras on December 21, 2017, 10:24:51 am
Post by: Kot on December 21, 2017, 12:20:55 pm
For what it's worth, I liked it last than the last two, think the Marvalization argument is ridiculous on its face (last I checked there was no shiny bullshit at the end to cater to a sequel, people actually died, and the good guys didn't win), and find that this thread isn't going to convince anyone to change their minds so much as it's going to spiral into some nonsensical argument that inevitably gets so personal that the thread is locked.I like Marvel movies. I dislike new Star Wars.
It's not that the new movies don't have good parts or even invoke ideas that could have been interesting. The fight in Snoke room was amazing really, the idea of space B-17s had a lot of promise when I saw the first shoot with them spewing fire from turrets with fighters zipping around, invoking all the good "DO IT AGAIN BOMBER HARRIS" feelings, but ultimately they were quickly crushed in ocean of stupidity and being lackluster, with what faults they have and a lot of people mentioned already.
Hyperdrive suicide: Ships are expensive to produce. What you really want would be a coil gun that then sends the projectile into hyperspace. Bonus, you can shell a planet from star systems away giving your enemies no warning.Yeah, basically. Hyperspace torpedoes. Get an X-Wing, replace the cockpit with remote control or something and hyperspace that thing into enemy ships weak points.
Lack of Political Entity: I seem to the New Republic was the only other power, and they had disbanded their military. That's the reason why the 'Resistance' was needed.Did literally 100% of Empire remnants joined up with First Order? Where the fuck are Hutt Cartels gone? Historically Republic didin't have military for a lot of their existence, but they had Judicial Forces, they had fleet, they had ships, who the fuck in their sane mind signed the complete disarmament of Republic when First Order was a thing? Like, what the complete and utter incompetence that comes from the "good guys" all the goddamn time?
It's just... eh.
Post by: Mephansteras on December 21, 2017, 12:47:43 pm
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 21, 2017, 01:41:02 pm
lot cgi looks like a preproduction draft, for example.
plot can be subjective, I hated how they used fourty minutes to hammer how everyone rich is bad, but hey that's me and ymmv. actors too: I liked Ray acting this time around.
Post by: Kot on December 21, 2017, 02:28:15 pm
I thought the fleet got blasted by the Starkiller attack in ep 7?So their entire fleet, their entire
I N C O M P E T E N C E.
Most of actors did okay, I think, it's the writing that drags it down.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 21, 2017, 07:07:41 pm
I thought the fleet got blasted by the Starkiller attack in ep 7?
Nope, that was the capital system, that for some reason is constantly moved across the galaxy causing huge monetary and bureaucratic waste as everything needed to run the government is constantly shifted around. The actual fleet itself did not exist, because the Republic, simply put, did not have any military at all.
Post by: inteuniso on December 21, 2017, 07:13:36 pm
I thought the fleet got blasted by the Starkiller attack in ep 7?
Nope, that was the capital system, that for some reason is constantly moved across the galaxy causing huge monetary and bureaucratic waste as everything needed to run the government is constantly shifted around. The actual fleet itself did not exist, because the Republic, simply put, did not have any military at all.
So are they all fighting because they're frustrated or i n c o m p e t e n t ?
Post by: Reelya on December 22, 2017, 05:55:10 am
I though The Force Awakens was kinda bad, but it's fucking Shakespeare next to The Last Jedi. I kind of feel good that they've killed off almost all the original characters, because at least that way it puts them out of their misery.
The Last Jedi had a couple of good scenes here and there (Kylo Ren + Rei vs the imperial guard was pretty much the only 'wow' scene), however the central narrative of the rebel fleet being chased by the imperial fleet was the goddamn most boring thing I've seen in any movie in a long time: the fleet fleeing the imperial fleet basically became a major drag on the plot structure. e.g. consider pretty much any other Star Wars movie, and you'll see that they're made up of 2-3 major plot sections set in different places. They're dynamic. This movie was not dynamic: the cental motif of the rebel fleet fleeing the imperial fleet took basically the entire running time. I count the scene at the end on the planet as just part of the same "running away" narrative. Two hours of the fleet being chased, the imperials can't catch up, and yet somehow people have time to go off on side quests to inhabited planets. It completely broke suspension of disbelief.
Also, a big problem is that there are many "useless" scenes, and they rip off the original trilogy so much. e.g. this movie was basically like a way shittier version of Empire Strikes Back:
- starts with rebel transports fleeing from a planet (similar to the Hoth evacuation)
- Has scenes with the falcon flying through canyons, turning sideways and tie fighters crashing
- ends with a crappier version of the Hoth Assault - except way crapper because the speeders don't actually do anything.
It's speeders vs AT-AT walkers again, except this time, there's no point to them being speeders or walkers. It could have been dune buggies vs battle tanks, and the scene would have played out identically. At least with George Lucas the details of the set piece battles mattered - the AT-AT walkers were vs speeders precisely so that the money-shot of the speeders crippling the walkers legs could be in there. George Lucas never featured another battle with AT-AT walkers for that very reason - the scene's been done. The reboots have had the AT-AT walkers, except now there's no actually reason to their existence, they're just tanks on legs for no reason.
I'm actually starting to like the prequels at lot more now because of the reboots. Lucas mentioned in an interview that he's not happy with the rehashing, because despite his flaws, each movie, he tried to do something that hadn't been done in the series before that. There's a serious lack of that in the new movies. Everything's been done by Star Wars before, and they don't even hold up when viewed as movies in isolation. If the new movies were an unknown new movie series, they'd be 100% panned as the biggest incoherent and overblown piles of shit since Water World. The only thing the new ones have going for them is name-dropping their own series, e.g. the scene where Luke is overjoyed to see R2D2 again ... it's not actually a good movie scene, it's just name-dropping nostalgia porn.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 23, 2017, 01:07:55 am
I did not believe in this movie, not even remotely. After the unnecessary everything about the prequels and the Mouse Council plastic playride of The Force Awakens, I was fully convinced that the sequel trilogy would be nothing but Extruded Culture Product which entire departments of marketing executives had approved every single syllable of. I thought it would be Empire Strikes Back's skinned corpse being worn by a sexually aggressive zombie of Walt Disney set to all top 20 Christmas songs played simultaneously, wailing the wail of the damned as the children stare into their Star Wars action figures and try not to cry even though mommy and daddy are drunk and exchanging death threats with the neighbors again. But I was wrong. Somehow, somehow against all possible odds and the Ghost of Capitalist Future, this movie managed to be its own creation, and an immensely necessary one for Star Wars.
I don't love this movie to death or anything (see my rating), but it sure as shit is the best piece of Star Wars media in over a decade. It's surreal to me looking at the non-critic reviews or the other posts in this thread. I guess The Last Jedi was just made for me. See, my background here is one of Star Wars heresy (and really, if you're gonna have an overzealous fandom in your life, you could do better than George Lucas' failure of a Buddhist Fantasy Romance), because my favorite piece of Star Wars storytelling is not any of the films. It's the two (and there are only two) Knights of the Old Republic games, which I loved above all else because the central thesis of their storylines is the deconstruction of Star Wars. KOTOR I does this by making the Jedi and the Republic kinda evil bastards, KOTOR II goes even further by making the greatest enemy the Force itself, as an omnipotent oppressor who cannot be overthrown.
This brings us to The Last Jedi. It has its faults, mostly in the beginning and a few stupid things like the bad CGI on Space Leia and the whole Yoda scene, and the continuous risk of having two climaxes instead of one (though some women like that, I've heard), but what it gives is so much more, because it is an honest to god deconstruction story in the main movies themselves. I thought it would never happen. I saw some hints back in TFA's marketing, but I figured from the movie proper that it was all squished and the same hints in TLJ's trailers was the same old bait without a meal. But here it is. Luke Skywalker hates the Jedi and explicitly calls them out for making themselves into "special people" power fantasies when the Force is a part of the universe that everyone has and shares, and he also totally might have been about to murder the "bad guy" in cold blood for the crime of being a scared teenager. Rey turns out to not be some dumb fucking chosen one of prophecy repeat, but is just a person who has taken charge of their own fate. Snoke is some shlub who got where he was by abusing the quick and easy of the dark side, and yet was raising Kylo Ren to be a synthesis of both light and darkness and also then gets fucking destroyed without so much as a fight. Poe being a reckless absolute individual Hard Man Making Hard Choices is a bad thing, because when you are operating as a group rebellion disruptive heroes who think they're invincible get everyone killed. The New Republic's "goodness" is functionally evil itself, because it plunges the galaxy straight back into a genocidal war after working so hard to get out of the last one.
And then there's Kylo Ren. Oh god, Kylo Ren. Back in TFA I thought his motive for killing Han was one of the best things about the film, because it was a villain motivation like that of Berserk's Griffith with weight and some scariness behind it. Kill the past is the theme of the whole film and what it intends to do for the franchise, and in this Kylo fucking embodies it. He gets it. He understands the endless cycle and wants now not just to sever his personal ties, but everyone's ties to the bloated past of the Star Wars galaxy. He transcended the inherent flaw in the philosophy of the Sith, the hypocrisy that embracing the dark side for your passion destroys that passion. Instead, he's embraced the dark side for...nothing. The void, the heady pure nihilism that can allow something new and unconnected to the bullshit of Empire and Republic to grow. And if the third movie in this trilogy in any way involves Kylo Ren using the First Order to crush the rest of the forces in the galaxy before turning it on itself and blowing up their dumb superweapon without a fight, I will endure any number of emo teen references in retaliation for my love of him as a villain.
Also, the FTL suicide jump was way cooler than the low-power DS shots or the destruction of the Death Stars. I got chills seeing the mountainous story roadblock of Star Destroyers just...disintegrate under the power of it, black space turned white in total silence.
They definitely should have killed Finn and otherwise rethought the whole of the Crait section. Luke's trick was a badass and appropriate way for him to go out (while also being, if you didn't catch it, so in tune with the force that he saw Tatooine's binary sunset on a planet with one sun which is neither of those colors). Letting Kylo just Obi-Wan him would have been dumb, but boosting his connection to the force until he joined it was the correct way to "kill" Luke.
I was fond of the "subtle" anticapitalism of rich people playing both the Republic and the First Order while living it up on a planet they stole.
But whether you all liked this movie or not, I hope you all see where its coming from. This movie is a purge of the curse of Star Wars upon itself. This deconstruction is necessary and should have begun a long time ago, and even if you hate this film, take some solace in the fact that it has opened up new ground for the third film and Star Wars media yet to come. Hopefully.
Post by: NRDL on December 23, 2017, 02:31:18 am
He transcended the inherent flaw in the philosophy of the Sith, the hypocrisy that embracing the dark side for your passion destroys that passion. Instead, he's embraced the dark side for...nothing. The void, the heady pure nihilism that can allow something new and unconnected to the bullshit of Empire and Republic to grow.
That's a fascinating take on Kylo's motivation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he does still spout the whole "order and control" rhetoric that Vader used as a justification for his evil, but I'd love to see more of your idea implemented in the next movie. Embracing evil for evil's sake, as opposed to any sort of "greater good" or other excuses.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 23, 2017, 03:56:05 am
I fundamentally disagree with you on any sort of "Star Wars Curse". George Lucas certainly did not write himself into a corner and frankly the sequel trilogy could have gone in any direction. You yourself admit to being a KOTOR fan, a work which is decidedly NOT affected by this curse. Within its own laws and physics and literary rules, the Star Wars universe is pretty much a blank slate. And man, why exactly do you think this opens up a whole new universe? There is nowhere to go from here! Whatever they do, it will be a serious disconnect from the both the trilogy and the series as a whole.
If your whole reason for liking it is because it dismantles what Star Wars was well... I just can't even wrap my head around that. Do you have any idea how Star Wars-y KOTOR is? There is a very certain style and aesthetic to Star Wars, certain nuances and themes, and unique storytelling/worldbuilding rules that make up the thing that is the idea of Star Wars--every great story has these things, and without them... they're something else. This movie destroys those all-important things utterly.
I mean, my god, George Lucas catches so much flak. The man is a literal genius. I think you just don't like Star Wars. Which is fine, but don't talk about how there's so much MORE open to storytellers wanting to tell a Star Wars story now. There isn't. In fact, I'd say Disney has pretty effectively destroyed and exploited an American Cultural Artifact.
Perhaps even worse than that, whatever comes NEXT is certainly not going to be any good. Disney truly is Marvelizing Star Wars. And while this is going to step on a lot of people's toes, on the whole, Marvel movies... are bad. Disney doesn't care about good stories. They're not good at making stories. What they do, on a corporate level, is sell you on a product. Seriously. Take a day to watch TLJ and Empire back to back and the difference in quality is immediately obvious. Like... it's not even a competition. These big-budget blockbusters have none of the heart or vision in them that the originals, and even the prequels are loved for. Even worse, while some of the original's choices for transitions have been questionable... the actually filmmaking itself is crazy better. The editing and cinematography are way off. The style of filmmaking is just so... ADHD. It's a bit of a problem endemic to modern American cinema as a whole, but it's plainly obvious when you can go back and watch a series that is widely considered to be exciting and dynamic and consider it slow and nuanced as compared to TLJ.
Also, here's the thing. A personal, non-theoretical opinion about Kylo. Kylo isn't a good villain--in fact, he just plain isn't a villain. He's a tragic character for sure, but he's not really a villain per say. He's not evil, he's not uncaring, rarely does he meaningful impede our heroes' progress. One of the biggest weaknesses of the sequels is the lack of a good villain. The original trilogy had two: Vader, and the Emperor and they were both scary in different ways and changed the course of events significantly for the heroes. In the sequels the plot feels so railroaded on. Things happen to these characters, but they never truly have to change course or learn from their mistakes to progress, they lose almost nothing, and every time they're about to fail, chance or stupidity puts them back on the right course. Snoke could have been a good villain, except... well, he's literally a bit fucking part--which totally counteracts the gravitas of Kylo slaying him. He's just "some guy" to us.
Also, while I do think it is a god awful, series ruining movie. TLJ had it's moments. Usually for the visuals, but Luke's death and the Hyperspace suicide run were both very beautiful. But things like that purple-haired woman being so unlikable, and Like's whole fight with Kyle being lame as all heck really undercut any emotional they have for me. There are a lot of moments like this. Every time I want to like the film, it sucker punches me with a bad filmmaking decision, plot armor, or just pure fan-fiction.
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 23, 2017, 04:04:12 am
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I mean, my god, George Lucas catches so much flak. The man is a literal genius.
at worldbuilding. that needs to be specified. he's good at that and the ot turned out right because he had plenty people correcting the film direction instead of pandering to his every whim.
case in point: prequels
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 23, 2017, 04:25:09 am
Post by: NRDL on December 23, 2017, 06:41:41 am
Post by: hector13 on December 23, 2017, 07:55:14 am
Luke suddenly getting a haircut, and becoming 10 years younger was where it started in my case. I'm not sure if I was consciously thinking astral projection yet at that point.
+1 “why have you coloured your beard, Luke?”
I initially thought Leia was having a vision, so I knew he wasn’t there. After the AT-AT barrage, I was seriously hoping he was there ‘cause that would have been so cool.
Disappointed he showed up on Poe’s binoculars, and suddenly Poe becomes wise of the Jedi Master’s motives, but ah well. Luke isn’t there to fight, he’s there to delay, so you will notice there’s no actual fighting since that would ruin the ruse.
Post by: Kot on December 23, 2017, 09:54:08 am
Rey turns out to not be some dumb fucking chosen one of prophecy repeat, but is just a person who has taken charge of their own fate.But she is. She is magically good at everything she does, everyone likes her and whatnot. Being a chosen one doesn't require a prophercy, just requires a writer to make one character objectively "best" character. Whole "Wound in The Force" theory be damned, that is still her being exceptional due to, for now, no apparent reason.
Snoke is some shlub who got where he was by abusing the quick and easy of the dark side, and yet was raising Kylo Ren to be a synthesis of both light and darkness and also then gets fucking destroyed without so much as a fight.Snoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.
Poe being a reckless absolute individual Hard Man Making Hard Choices is a bad thing, because when you are operating as a group rebellion disruptive heroes who think they're invincible get everyone killed.It's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.
The New Republic's "goodness" is functionally evil itself, because it plunges the galaxy straight back into a genocidal war after working so hard to get out of the last one.You mean New Republic stupidity? This is something that hurts me the most probably, believing that New Republic, and Mon Mothma and basically everyone except Leia believed in this crazy stupid idea of "disband our entire military, when Imperial Remnants see we did that they will disband their entire military too". This shit is the satirical propaganda that people apply to real life anti-gun movement, except New Republic took it seriously. Even during the longest time Old Republic didin't have an army, they had Jedi, they had Juicidal Force, they had goddamn Navy. New doesn't have anything, and First Order be damned, there were dozens of other political entites that would attack them for profit, Hutt Cartels and various pirates from the top of the head.
And then there's Kylo Ren. Oh god, Kylo Ren. Back in TFA I thought his motive for killing Han was one of the best things about the film, because it was a villain motivation like that of Berserk's Griffith with weight and some scariness behind it. Kill the past is the theme of the whole film and what it intends to do for the franchise, and in this Kylo fucking embodies it. He gets it. He understands the endless cycle and wants now not just to sever his personal ties, but everyone's ties to the bloated past of the Star Wars galaxy. He transcended the inherent flaw in the philosophy of the Sith, the hypocrisy that embracing the dark side for your passion destroys that passion. Instead, he's embraced the dark side for...nothing. The void, the heady pure nihilism that can allow something new and unconnected to the bullshit of Empire and Republic to grow. And if the third movie in this trilogy in any way involves Kylo Ren using the First Order to crush the rest of the forces in the galaxy before turning it on itself and blowing up their dumb superweapon without a fight, I will endure any number of emo teen references in retaliation for my love of him as a villain.
He transcended the inherent flaw in the philosophy of the Sith, the hypocrisy that embracing the dark side for your passion destroys that passion. Instead, he's embraced the dark side for...nothing. The void, the heady pure nihilism that can allow something new and unconnected to the bullshit of Empire and Republic to grow.
That's a fascinating take on Kylo's motivation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he does still spout the whole "order and control" rhetoric that Vader used as a justification for his evil, but I'd love to see more of your idea implemented in the next movie. Embracing evil for evil's sake, as opposed to any sort of "greater good" or other excuses.
Also, the FTL suicide jump was way cooler than the low-power DS shots or the destruction of the Death Stars. I got chills seeing the mountainous story roadblock of Star Destroyers just...disintegrate under the power of it, black space turned white in total silence.The FTL suicide jump indeed looked cool, but it has heavy implication as to why nobody goddamn did that before (setting aside that to this point there were explanations in lore that this wouldn't work, but obviously they aren't canon anymore), considering it's apparently the single best way of tacking space combat due to sheer power, not to mention range. Why does nobody use warp torpedoes? Just gut an X-Wing from everything except engines and warp drive, replace the cockpit with remote guidance and lug that shit at enemy ships.
I was fond of the "subtle" anticapitalism of rich people playing both the Republic and the First Order while living it up on a planet they stole.Nothing subtle about it.
Within its own laws and physics and literary rules, the Star Wars universe is pretty much a blank slate. And man, why exactly do you think this opens up a whole new universe? There is nowhere to go from here! Whatever they do, it will be a serious disconnect from the both the trilogy and the series as a whole.Precisely. EU is dead, and it was what had some of the best stories around, which is also my big issue with new movies. EU died for this, and the quality of non-existant EU movies aside, they would at least have much better source material that's consistent with Star Wars.
Perhaps even worse than that, whatever comes NEXT is certainly not going to be any good. Disney truly is Marvelizing Star Wars. And while this is going to step on a lot of people's toes, on the whole, Marvel movies... are bad. Disney doesn't care about good stories. They're not good at making stories.I like Marvel movies. While they aren't the pinnacle of movie-making, some of them are visibly worse than other, but they are decently fun, most of them have some original ideas for themselves and most importantly, they are mostly consistent. I do not have to watch a movie and feel like it in some way contradicts everything that I have known about the MCU. Meanwhile in a way new Star Wars do exactly the opposite. They take the source material and balantly disregard it to fit in more "cool" factors, more forced ideas and more corporationalism. MCU might be a product, but it's decently machined and produced product that keeps in line with other products of it's brand, while new Star Wars is just sticking Star Wars brand onto something that clearly doesn't work as Star Wars.
Post by: smjjames on December 23, 2017, 09:56:17 am
Post by: Kot on December 23, 2017, 10:21:51 am
...and people will defend this. (https://i.imgur.com/Wc4mVWH.png)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 23, 2017, 04:44:44 pm
- This movie lacks a serious villain. Snoke was a concept of one and he was killed off. Now we´re stuck with the first order being led by two nobodies: Hux (who´s basically your average mid-management figure. We´ve all had a boss like him) and Kylo Ren (who is basically a teen with ADHD). I think this is the biggest problem, together with the plot-wastage of wasting Snoke
- Disney seems stuck with the formula of copying the first trilogy and changing things just enough to avoid being accused of outright plagiarism
- Other than that movie was entertaining enough
Overall: 6/10
Post by: Egan_BW on December 23, 2017, 05:27:27 pm
Post by: Reelya on December 23, 2017, 05:43:10 pm
- Disney seems stuck with the formula of copying the first trilogy and changing things just enough to avoid being accused of outright plagiarism
Umm yeah, as I stated with my "land-speeders vs walkers" point. The real problem with merely copying a scene from another piece of media and changing "details" is that in a well-written piece of media those details matter and are what makes the thing hold together as a consistent narrative. Think about why the Hoth speeder scene is memorable in the first place, it's because of the very specific interaction of the elements in that story. e.g. the grapples that take the walkers down, and that when Luke's speeder is downed, it gets stomped by a walker's foot. All the chosen elements of the set piece matter whether or not it's the good guys or bad guys getting ahead. The speeder vs walker scene in the new Star Wars fails, because it could have played out exactly the same with any generic Imperial forces vs any generic Rebel forces.
Post by: Kot on December 23, 2017, 06:17:08 pm
Also something something Salt Speeders.
Post by: Putnam on December 24, 2017, 04:37:29 am
is
what's with this "rey isn't the chosen one" thing
"darkness rises, and the light to meet it", i.e. rey was chosen by the light side of the force as a champion to combat the dark side's champion, Kylo Ren; she gets stronger as he does, that's implied like twice in the movie, the connection between them is also to do with all that, Snoke spends a good full minute talking about how he's aware of this "champions" concept and was trying to kill Luke specifically because he thought Luke would get stronger along with Kylo
rey's absolutely the chosen one, her being a "nobody" is just the light side of the force's whole "humble origins" thing it loves so much
this personification of and giving agency to the force is nothing new, mind, KOTOR was mentioned earlier and canon has the whole Mortis thing with literal embodiments of the parts of the force
Post by: NJW2000 on December 24, 2017, 05:49:03 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 24, 2017, 06:08:14 am
I think the hyperdrive just made it impossible to dodge.
Post by: Putnam on December 24, 2017, 06:49:32 am
But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.
Post by: Kot on December 24, 2017, 11:07:51 am
I thought what the rebel general did made sense. She only did the suicide-thing once the empire saw the resistance evacuate and started blowing them up, which only occured because the rebellious teenage schmucks basically told the empire what the plan was. How the empire was not going to notice the evacuation vessels leaving was a bit dubious, but Leia seemed to believe it, so its probably canon. And the insurgency on the ship only started when she explained/formulated the "run away" plan.I dunno. I seem to recall that Poe and everyone did things against her because she didin't tell them anything about the plan, and just told them to, IIRC, keep faith, which in their situation sounds as good as "I have no fucking idea what to so I'll just try the thing that will explictly not help which is run away into space on transports". Poe had no idea the transports were cloaked, nor that they were headed for nearby planet, in his, and viewers, eyes, she was just giving away whole Resistance as ducks to shoot.
I dunno, the "sudden extreme boost in speed" thing sort of helps.IIRC, this doesn't break canon. As far as I'm concerned, the explanation was that when you hyperdrive into something, you explode (or rather vapourize or something, due to particle interacting with each other), but the thing you hyperdrive into not really. IIRC, hyperspace has a "shadow" of everything, which is why majority of the hyperdrive problem is having a computer to do calculations to not hit anything on the way there, also mind you, the thing doesn't even really have to be real, as Immobilizers and Interdictors just project a gravity well and thus stop any ship from entering hyperspace and pull ships already in hyperspace into realspace. That thing was already very strained in recent times, with Falcon hyperdriving almost into Starkillers base and there were cases (Clone Wars, IIRC) of hyperdriving from inside planets atmosphere, but eh.
But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.
FAKEEDIT:
Actually, old canon instance of someone hyperspacing into someone.
Spoiler: It ended like this. (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 24, 2017, 12:07:27 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 24, 2017, 12:39:50 pm
The plot of the movie does not exist.
I am gobsmacked that everyone seems to love the film, especially critics. I would expect them to rip this film apart, it being riddled so plot errors, bad editing, and just lame ideas at every turn. With the difference in my extremely negative response and what appears to be overwhelming support for the film, I went and rewatched Episode IV again last night to make sure I wasn't crazy and I just don't see what people think is good about the new film.
Post by: Kot on December 24, 2017, 01:04:56 pm
The fuck is this world we live in.
Post by: Jopax on December 24, 2017, 02:36:30 pm
Kylo being set up to branch off the entire story in a wildly new direction where he and Rey could've become this wierd light/dark power couple that went independent from everyone else was probably one of the most interesting things they could've done. But nope, he's just gonna become another kill 'em all just because villain.
Another thing is that the glaring plot holes and logical inconistencies could be overlooked if the movie was entertaining or the characters anything but twats or boring, sadly, when there's not much to occupy your attention you tend to notice giant holes in logic.
Like, Snoke, being powerful enough to force toss Hux around from a different part of the galaxy but not being able to notice a fucking lightsaber turning next to him. Or being able to link Rey and Kylo across the fucking galaxy but not being able to figure out where Rey is and that Luke is with her.
Also the whole balance in the force nonsense falls flat the moment you ask who's the counterpart to Snoke, can't be Luke because he cut himself off from the force. Leia? If so, why the fuck isn't she using god tier powers to fucking save people?
Post by: hector13 on December 24, 2017, 02:47:56 pm
Also, he wasn’t expecting Kylo to turn, and he was also doing exactly what he expected him to be doing at that time too - namely looking as though he was about to kill Rey.
The force balance thing is also a prophecy from before isn’t it? The prequel trilogy? I don’t think it gets mentioned in this, beyond the light ascending with the dark. Luke does rise to meet the dark, after Rey comes to see him. Kinda.
Also also, Kylo was expecting Rey to join with him, seeing as that’s what he saw when they touched during the force vision-y things. Not sure what his plan is but I was wondering what was going to happen after their fight and the movie didn’t end there as I expected so I wasn’t paying too much attention heh.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 24, 2017, 06:26:48 pm
But she is. She is magically good at everything she does, everyone likes her and whatnot. Being a chosen one doesn't require a prophercy, just requires a writer to make one character objectively "best" character. Whole "Wound in The Force" theory be damned, that is still her being exceptional due to, for now, no apparent reason.I don't know where this perception of Rey as a Mary Sue comes from. She's good at everything? No she's not, her one big accomplishment is partially self-training her Force powers...which she does by using the Dark Side. The side that's supposed to be quick and easy? Everybody likes her? Who are these people? Poe hardly interacts with her and Finn just about ditches her in TFA. Luke goes from thinking she's a stupid fangirl to a darkside dabbler timebomb. Leia is like, polite to her, I guess. The only character I remember explicitly liking her is Chewbacca, which gets her some side points with Han since they need some more crew who aren't in the habit of pissing off Wookies.
Literally an entire scene is devoted to Kylo breaking down her belief that she's special and comes from some secret royalty or whatever, and that she should just seize her own fate with what she's got. Even her venture into the dark doesn't do much more than have it tell her she's not getting any answers.
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Snoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.You mean like exactly what happened in The Hobbit films? I don't think there's much explanation needed really. Much as Rey has no special parents, Snoke needs no special past. Fuck it. He's a Palpatine wannabe who forced (pun intended) his way to the top of an Empire splinter. What more do you need to know?
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It's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.
She doesn't tell Poe anything because he doesn't need to know, just like in a real military unit. He's a pilot and a properly disgraced one for usurping command of an operation and getting almost the entire force sans himself killed. That isn't how organized militants work, ever. And there is a good reason why, spies. Which is in fact what ends up almost getting them all killed, again, because of a plan that Poe authored. If I were Leia I wouldn't have stunned Poe, I'd have shot him as a traitor.
Poe thinks he knows better and is more important than everyone else. That he just has to be the special savior somehow, because he's good as a pilot. It's a good flaw for his character but it definitely does not make him right.
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You mean New Republic stupidity? This is something that hurts me the most probably, believing that New Republic, and Mon Mothma and basically everyone except Leia believed in this crazy stupid idea of "disband our entire military, when Imperial Remnants see we did that they will disband their entire military too". This shit is the satirical propaganda that people apply to real life anti-gun movement, except New Republic took it seriously. Even during the longest time Old Republic didin't have an army, they had Jedi, they had Juicidal Force, they had goddamn Navy. New doesn't have anything, and First Order be damned, there were dozens of other political entites that would attack them for profit, Hutt Cartels and various pirates from the top of the head.Consider where the New Republic is coming from. The galaxy has a generation under the thumb of an extremely militant and human supremacist Empire, one which crushed whole worlds and centralized all true power in the hands of one Sith Master, as far as he could make possible. The New Republic wants to avoid that as much as possible. They want to be all decentralized and with as few military forces as is reasonable, so that nobody can take control of them like Palpatine did the Clone Army. Most of the worlds in the New Republic are going to agree to this because if they're the primary power in the galaxy but no one element of the New Republic is individually powerful enough to take over, there can be peace.
The First Order throws this out of balance, yes. But that's mostly because they don't know that there's another Emperor wannabe or superweapon in the mix. Remember, the First Order basically coexisted with the New Republic for decades, and the other Imperial Remnants probably did the same. It was only with Snoke's ambition that they were able to turn back to planetbusting and active expansion. Still, how are you as the New Republic Senate, a genuine democratic body of several thousand worlds, going to convince people who just want to stop having their children march to war that an expeditionary war into the First Order, who have maybe done some piracy but have had piracy done on them by the Resistance, is a good idea?
Quote
The FTL suicide jump indeed looked cool, but it has heavy implication as to why nobody goddamn did that before (setting aside that to this point there were explanations in lore that this wouldn't work, but obviously they aren't canon anymore), considering it's apparently the single best way of tacking space combat due to sheer power, not to mention range. Why does nobody use warp torpedoes? Just gut an X-Wing from everything except engines and warp drive, replace the cockpit with remote guidance and lug that shit at enemy ships.For all the same reasons that people don't generally use kamikaze tactics in real life. There are only a select few situations where it's a reasonable trade. You're gonna need mass for one, the Raddus was a capital ship. An X-Wing doing the same wouldn't leave much impact overall, even if you specially outfitted it with a hyperdrive (as we see from Poe needing to get back in the Raddus' hanger in the opening scene).
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 24, 2017, 07:27:16 pm
But she is. She is magically good at everything she does, everyone likes her and whatnot. Being a chosen one doesn't require a prophercy, just requires a writer to make one character objectively "best" character. Whole "Wound in The Force" theory be damned, that is still her being exceptional due to, for now, no apparent reason.I don't know where this perception of Rey as a Mary Sue comes from. She's good at everything? No she's not, her one big accomplishment is partially self-training her Force powers...which she does by using the Dark Side. The side that's supposed to be quick and easy? Everybody likes her? Who are these people? Poe hardly interacts with her and Finn just about ditches her in TFA. Luke goes from thinking she's a stupid fangirl to a darkside dabbler timebomb. Leia is like, polite to her, I guess. The only character I remember explicitly liking her is Chewbacca, which gets her some side points with Han since they need some more crew who aren't in the habit of pissing off Wookies.
Literally an entire scene is devoted to Kylo breaking down her belief that she's special and comes from some secret royalty or whatever, and that she should just seize her own fate with what she's got. Even her venture into the dark doesn't do much more than have it tell her she's not getting any answers.QuoteSnoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.You mean like exactly what happened in The Hobbit films? I don't think there's much explanation needed really. Much as Rey has no special parents, Snoke needs no special past. Fuck it. He's a Palpatine wannabe who forced (pun intended) his way to the top of an Empire splinter. What more do you need to know?QuoteIt's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.
She doesn't tell Poe anything because he doesn't need to know, just like in a real military unit. He's a pilot and a properly disgraced one for usurping command of an operation and getting almost the entire force sans himself killed. That isn't how organized militants work, ever. And there is a good reason why, spies. Which is in fact what ends up almost getting them all killed, again, because of a plan that Poe authored. If I were Leia I wouldn't have stunned Poe, I'd have shot him as a traitor.
Poe thinks he knows better and is more important than everyone else. That he just has to be the special savior somehow, because he's good as a pilot. It's a good flaw for his character but it definitely does not make him right.QuoteYou mean New Republic stupidity? This is something that hurts me the most probably, believing that New Republic, and Mon Mothma and basically everyone except Leia believed in this crazy stupid idea of "disband our entire military, when Imperial Remnants see we did that they will disband their entire military too". This shit is the satirical propaganda that people apply to real life anti-gun movement, except New Republic took it seriously. Even during the longest time Old Republic didin't have an army, they had Jedi, they had Juicidal Force, they had goddamn Navy. New doesn't have anything, and First Order be damned, there were dozens of other political entites that would attack them for profit, Hutt Cartels and various pirates from the top of the head.Consider where the New Republic is coming from. The galaxy has a generation under the thumb of an extremely militant and human supremacist Empire, one which crushed whole worlds and centralized all true power in the hands of one Sith Master, as far as he could make possible. The New Republic wants to avoid that as much as possible. They want to be all decentralized and with as few military forces as is reasonable, so that nobody can take control of them like Palpatine did the Clone Army. Most of the worlds in the New Republic are going to agree to this because if they're the primary power in the galaxy but no one element of the New Republic is individually powerful enough to take over, there can be peace.
The First Order throws this out of balance, yes. But that's mostly because they don't know that there's another Emperor wannabe or superweapon in the mix. Remember, the First Order basically coexisted with the New Republic for decades, and the other Imperial Remnants probably did the same. It was only with Snoke's ambition that they were able to turn back to planetbusting and active expansion. Still, how are you as the New Republic Senate, a genuine democratic body of several thousand worlds, going to convince people who just want to stop having their children march to war that an expeditionary war into the First Order, who have maybe done some piracy but have had piracy done on them by the Resistance, is a good idea?
QuoteThe FTL suicide jump indeed looked cool, but it has heavy implication as to why nobody goddamn did that before (setting aside that to this point there were explanations in lore that this wouldn't work, but obviously they aren't canon anymore), considering it's apparently the single best way of tacking space combat due to sheer power, not to mention range. Why does nobody use warp torpedoes? Just gut an X-Wing from everything except engines and warp drive, replace the cockpit with remote guidance and lug that shit at enemy ships.For all the same reasons that people don't generally use kamikaze tactics in real life. There are only a select few situations where it's a reasonable trade. You're gonna need mass for one, the Raddus was a capital ship. An X-Wing doing the same wouldn't leave much impact overall, even if you specially outfitted it with a hyperdrive (as we see from Poe needing to get back in the Raddus' hanger in the opening scene).
1.) She flies, she fights, she shoots, everyone seems to like her--she has an aggressive amount of plot armor. When does she fail? Even when she gets captured, she finds a convenient way out. Leia and Han get ACTUALLY tortured. Luke gets his hand chopped off, he gets thrown into a rancor pit, his fucking adoptive parents are brutally murdered. Also, when does she use the dark side to train her force powers? The one thing they do right is having her force potential activated when the dark side is used against her, but she certainly does not use the dark side. Luke comes to like her and even after suspecting her of being dark is pretty functionally amiable. Chewie is Chewie. Leia is diplomatic. Even if not everyone LOVES her, no one really gives her a hard time. Even the villains.
2.) Ya, The Hobbits films sucked for multiple reasons dude. Including Azog not being a memorable villain--although he's actually better than Snoke. The Emperor had some character to him, he is the evil scheming guy pulling the strings, it's all his master plan to lure the rebel fleet to the second death star, and who actually physically hurts Luke with lightning. Snoke just kind of rambles once, pokes Rey with lightning, and gets killed. He's not a mastermind, he's not a great warrior, he's just... eh. How did this guy even come to organize the FO anyways? He seems weak af even though all these people follow him.
3.) I actually agree with you here. It's just that the purple haired lady is so... un-leader-ly. The logic of the situation makes sense, but she's just so unlikable. Also, Poe really wasn't so retarded in TFA--sure he was a gung-ho hotshot pilot, but he's not risky like in TLJ, there is logic to his suicide missions, and the story makes it clear that he has to undertake these things. Or even better, in the beginning, he's out on an intel run to Jakku with little believed risk. He's not being out of line or engaging in selfish heroism.
4.) Yo, literally after every successful rebellion ever--the succeeding government(s) had a reformed military to protect their new positions. It's an incredible copout to say that the fleet just doesn't exist any more. Even if it dispersed, it would still exist and could be reformed. While it's believable that the members of the New Republic would be for a decentralized military it's also precisely the situation that allowed Palpatine to come to power in the first place.
5.) Ya, I don't have a huge problem with the concept of the FTL suicide jump. It was a good moment and a good idea. Considering Kot's previous example, and even without it, it's probably reasonable to to assume most super weapons (i.e. The Death Stars) have shields strong enough to at least mitigate damage from any sort of suicide run, and combined with a fleet, make it an ineffective strategy.
*Also, X-Wings DO have hyperdrives. They are long-range multi-role fighter-bombers.
I think Snoke was lying about connecting Rey and Kylo, seeing as how he was dead and they were still doing it.
Also, he wasn’t expecting Kylo to turn, and he was also doing exactly what he expected him to be doing at that time too - namely looking as though he was about to kill Rey.
The force balance thing is also a prophecy from before isn’t it? The prequel trilogy? I don’t think it gets mentioned in this, beyond the light ascending with the dark. Luke does rise to meet the dark, after Rey comes to see him. Kinda.
Also also, Kylo was expecting Rey to join with him, seeing as that’s what he saw when they touched during the force vision-y things. Not sure what his plan is but I was wondering what was going to happen after their fight and the movie didn’t end there as I expected so I wasn’t paying too much attention heh.
Good fan theory is good, but why even have Snoke SAY he was controlling their minds--it's like, just confusing? and not in a good way. Though he was not expecting Kylo to turn, it presents a question as to HOW he was not able to detect it. It's just a whole lot questions that don't get satisfactorily answered.
"The Prophecy" refers to something that is mentioned in, but originates in-lore, outside of both the original and prequel trilogies and refers specifically to Anakin. Though similar themes are present in most Star Wars works.
I wish Rey HAD joined him. It would have been a way more interesting third movie.
Post by: hector13 on December 24, 2017, 07:28:08 pm
Perhaps Poe was going to the capital ship as a result of low fuel or whatever.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 24, 2017, 07:31:29 pm
I was under the impression X-Wings did come fitted with hyperdrives. This isn’t just over the EU, but Luke hikes it to Dagobah and Bespin sans capital ship in V, and I’m reasonably sure there’s a bunch that FTL their way to Endor prior to the assault on the Death Star in VI.
Perhaps Poe was going to the capital ship as a result of low fuel or whatever.
I think they were just keeping the fleet together, nothing can go wrong if the fighters are just sitting in the hangar instead of in use. Johnson had to realize this at some point however and is probably why the hangar bay got blown up. Otherwise, why not just put the most important people in x-wings and jump them out of there? It's something.
Post by: Reelya on December 24, 2017, 07:33:25 pm
Critics loved it, half the audience also loves it, the other half hates it, although supposedly the relatively (split roughtly 50-50) low audience scores are blamed on "Alt-Right groups" attacking The Last Jedi for "including more women".
The fuck is this world we live in.
It sounds like standard confirmation bias / cognitive dissonance. Basically, if you can label any naysayers as no-gooders who have ulterior motives for not liking something, you can bad-mouth them while making you feel smug for being on the other side. It's a handy way to avoid having to debate the actual points (or even having to think about them. Cognitive dissonance theory again).
Including more women is great - as long as they're fleshed out women who have both strengths and weaknesses. Including female Mary Sue protagonists and females who represent "nurturing / wisdom / distilled love & goodness" while men are either flawed heroes or the embodiment of evil, is in fact sloppy writing. "Look we have more women, wise elder rebel Vice Admiral Holdo is a woman!" Yeah ... she is a woman, but is she just an archetype of the "wise mother" or is she a fleshed out person? Think about it: "Holdo was wrong and Poe turned out to be right" is a plotline they'd never go with, because it would be "sexist". As long as they're scared to cross that line, stories can't be as complex and unpredictable as they should be.
The problem with this current type of writing in action movies is that they're scared to make the women multi-dimensional people who have flaws. e.g. in Japanese media - shonen (boys media) has male protagonists who have flaws, and shoujo (girls media) has female protagonists who have flaws. The same with "chick flicks" - the women are flawed, complex people. Not perfect archetypes of infallible women's wise ways. The current shtick of every women protag in action films being "Ms. Perfect" because it's "empowering" is in fact well-intentioned but wrong-headed. It doesn't really fit with the media that girls and women tend to prefer to consume. Sure, it's going to appeal to some girls who want a cheap action hero thing similar to what the 1980s male action heroes were to boys, but ultimately, it's just as hollow and a false representation of what men and women are really like.
So you had some good character development for Luke - he's a flawed person. Poe - his plans don't always magically work out. Finn - he doesn't always get out of the scrapes by himself, he needs help. Snoke fucked up, Kylo Ren doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.
But ... while there are more female characters, if you look at their story arcs in this current movie, none of them showed a single actual flaw. They were 100% nurturing and self-sacrificing always-right people, who always acted 100% correctly to help others (not counting Phasma since she's a barely utilized cardboard trope. I'm pretty sure there's a male actor in the armor, so we'll never see Phasma's face). Yeah, there are more women, but it's just pandering rather than progressive if they're only allowed to be coded differently to how we code male characters. e.g. the problem with shoe-horning more women in is only when they're archetypes that are pandering to political correctness. e.g. why not make the code-breaker a woman? Because the code-breaker was a traitor so they couldn't fit a female character into that role, because it doesn't gel with the "wise and nurturing" cardboard Hollywood version of feminism.
Post by: Mephansteras on December 24, 2017, 07:44:58 pm
Post by: Reelya on December 24, 2017, 07:47:19 pm
I mean consider that "foolish old father figure turns out to be proven wrong by the young, idealistic hero" is a common plot. However, if you substitute "mother" there, you'd have political dynamite. e.g. a youthful male proving the mother figure's admonitions wrong is clearly in the "no go zone" as far as plots are concerned.
Post by: Putnam on December 24, 2017, 08:44:52 pm
Post by: Reelya on December 24, 2017, 08:59:38 pm
I only mentioned the bombing mainly as Poe's plan backfiring (it's listed by fans of the movie as part of Poe's character development). However, gender is relevant in that the same trope is repeated throughout the movie, of Poe fucking up, but with mother-figures there telling him what he should have done and telling him off for not doing the right thing. Yeah, if it was once sure, but he's upbraided by the "wise mother-figures" repeatedly throughout the film, making it a thing. In terms of the human archetypes film writers love to build into this stuff (especially Star Wars, which was completely based on Joseph Campbell's mythology research, which itself was based on Jung's idea of archetypes), he's definitely coded as the "wayward son" of the "wise mother". It seems likely that Holdo merely exists in the script to be a place-holder for that character achetype while Leia is injured - e.g. she's a stand-in for Leia in terms of Poe's relationship with Leia (wayward son / wise mother like I said), and is conveniently killed off when she's no longer needed, e.g. once Leia's back in action.
Actually, I'm sort of wondering exactly why Holdo was written in there at all. Leia going into the coma didn't have a single plot-relevant outcome. It could have been omitted. Similarly, Holdo comes and goes at the convenient moments so as not to step on Leia's toes too much. Poe already had a rocky relationship with Leia earlier on, so it's not unlikely that the original script plan was for Poe to rebel against Leia after a build-up of conflict and tension, but then the script writers decided that was a step too far, so they added in a plot convenience where Leia's out of action for a little while when the mutiny happens, and a very similar archetype fills her role. In fact, the script would have been stronger if they omitted Holdo entirely and built up more fallout from a Poe vs Leia confrontation.
Hell, it could have been Leia instead of Holdo who died by launching herself into the enemy flagship. But then she wouldn't be around for Star Wars IX. However, given that Carrie Fisher died, I'm thinking that the missed the boat here too. Imagine how much better the new film would be if Holdo didn't exist, it was Leia who fought with Poe, and who dies by launching herself into the enemy cruiser to allow the rebels to escape, and they'd saved Luke's death scene for Part IX? But that's partly based on hindsight, I admit. Or, they could have killed off both Luke and Leia in this movie, completely out-doing Empire Strikes Back for darkness, then had Episode IX completely focused on the new cast.
Post by: Kot on December 24, 2017, 09:50:19 pm
I don't know where this perception of Rey as a Mary Sue comes from. She's good at everything?She is great at use of force. She is great at lightsaber fighting (without training, no less). She is great at flying ships and repairing ships, even ones as unique as Millenium Falcon.
No she's not, her one big accomplishment is partially self-training her Force powers...which she does by using the Dark Side. The side that's supposed to be quick and easy? Everybody likes her? Who are these people? Poe hardly interacts with her and Finn just about ditches her in TFA. Luke goes from thinking she's a stupid fangirl to a darkside dabbler timebomb. Leia is like, polite to her, I guess. The only character I remember explicitly liking her is Chewbacca, which gets her some side points with Han since they need some more crew who aren't in the habit of pissing off Wookies."WHERE'S REY". Then they all hug at the end and all. Han was mad at her but then he liked her. Luke disliked her but then agreed to help. This is especially visible due to what you mention - everyone barely knows her, but they just go with it.
I am not calling her a Mary Sue per se. It's nothing really that jarring, and many of those things were more-or less explained to the point I am willing to suspend my disbelief for her amazigness, but she is, ultimately, one of those "chosen ones" you see so much in books and movies.
Literally an entire scene is devoted to Kylo breaking down her belief that she's special and comes from some secret royalty or whatever, and that she should just seize her own fate with what she's got. Even her venture into the dark doesn't do much more than have it tell her she's not getting any answers.Hm. I don't recall seeing it in that way, and at this point it's hard for me to check, but eh. If you want it, sure, but then I'd consider basically every force sensitive person to be "chosen one" in a way, especially when there is really not many of them left.
Snoke is some complete noone. Nothing is really known about him, which was fine in the previous movie, as we all expected an explanation in this one. But then he just died. He is just random big evil with no connection to previous movies. It's as if there was suddenly new LoTR trilogy set after original one where there is crazy new powerful wizard named Snort and then he just dies.You mean like exactly what happened in The Hobbit films?[/quote]
Except Hobbit films are prequels, and also based on Tolkien book, and also mostly have logical references and create continuity. The main evil, which also gets a fuckton of buildup and whatnot, Smaug, isin't some "noone", it's the thing that was Bilbo's adventure and is referenced in LoTR movies. And if you mean Azog, hell, his character is at least partially canon in the books too, although not in the same way, IIRC, but at least he does things.
Snoke is hard to explain because he just comes out of ass. If you logically extend him into Star Wars past, he should have existed when Palpatine was rolling around, and that kinda undermines his position as being powerful in force or actually meaningful at all, since apparently he did nothing back then and was completly irrelevant. If he was replaced, by say, a holocron that would mean he is at least excused from not being able to really do things.
Also, you have to compare the amount of buildup Palpatine, Vader or even Kylo get, meanwhile Snoke somehow manages to disappoint even if the expectations weren't high in first place.
I don't think there's much explanation needed really. Much as Rey has no special parents, Snoke needs no special past. Fuck it. He's a Palpatine wannabe who forced (pun intended) his way to the top of an Empire splinter. What more do you need to know?The main evil of the next Star Wars movie will be a Porg that sat on Snoke and now everyone is scared of him until he dies from a heart attack when someone acidentally shouts in pain when stubbing his toe on a drawer. What more do you need to know? That's probably the point, Snoke is Palpatine wannabe, but he carries no fucking weight with him.
Like, what do we know of Palpatine's past from original trilogy:
1) Has dissolved the Senate.
2) Probably was, together with Vader, responsible for destruction of Jedi and also death of Luke's father who then turns out to be Vader but w/e.
3) Something something Clone Wars.
If you include novelisations that even relased before the movies, we know the rest of him being elected the "president of Republic" and caused the transition from Republic to Empire and etc.
What we know of Snoke from the movies:
1) He came out of ass and seduced Kylo Ren and rest knights of Ren and now is wannabe-Emperor.
Sure. But as it is evidenced many times, to properly read a military unit it's commander must be trusted by his soldiers, and she is so unpopular that she gets literally ousted by people who do not believe in her and only Leia Ex Machina "saves" the situation, which leads me to believe she didin't only not tell Poe, but her plan was a complete mystery to everyone. Orders are orders, but when your commander, being an untested one in a desperate situation, orders you to do what you think amounts to running into machinegun fire with completly no explanation, knowing that your squad is the only one left, especially when there are alternatives that look much more sane, would you?QuoteIt's a war, people die, and the problem is what Poe does works. It's the "Pink Hair Sue Commander" that for no good reason didin't tell anyone her plan, which directly led to everything going badly. If you notice, when Poe is being told that they in fact have a plan, he thinks it will work. In his mind, all he did was trying to save everything because after Leia went down there was apparently no plan, and without one they would be dead.
She doesn't tell Poe anything because he doesn't need to know, just like in a real military unit. He's a pilot and a properly disgraced one for usurping command of an operation and getting almost the entire force sans himself killed. That isn't how organized militants work, ever. And there is a good reason why, spies. Which is in fact what ends up almost getting them all killed, again, because of a plan that Poe authored. If I were Leia I wouldn't have stunned Poe, I'd have shot him as a traitor.
Sure, her plan would work, but she realized that the morale was low, she realizes that people are desperate and what she offers them is "we're basically going to commit mass suicide by giving ourselves to First Order on platter" without explaining that they would be cloaked or even where they are running to.
Military genius my ass.
Poe thinks he knows better and is more important than everyone else. That he just has to be the special savior somehow, because he's good as a pilot. It's a good flaw for his character but it definitely does not make him right.Notice that Poe is completly content when Leia explains him the plan. Notice that the plan wasn't even his, but it was something he believed was better than basically accepting that they're dead and just giving in.
Consider where the New Republic is coming from. The galaxy has a generation under the thumb of an extremely militant and human supremacist Empire, one which crushed whole worlds and centralized all true power in the hands of one Sith Master, as far as he could make possible. The New Republic wants to avoid that as much as possible. They want to be all decentralized and with as few military forces as is reasonable,*screeech*
That's the problem. Not "as is reasonable". They have literally NO military forces. It's all based on complete disarmnament idea Mon Mothma apparently suggested before Clone Wars were even a thing, because back then Old Republic had reasonable forces that kept the Galaxy clean, tidy and relatively safe.
so that nobody can take control of them like Palpatine did the Clone Army. Most of the worlds in the New Republic are going to agree to this because if they're the primary power in the galaxy but no one element of the New Republic is individually powerful enough to take over, there can be peace.Clone Army was unique. They were pre-programmed to be taken control of, something that wouldn't have happened with regular people.
And you're forgetting something - New Republic agreed to this because they were primary power that has just made peace with Imperial Remnants which still had a sizeable army and without opposition was strong enough to take over, as evidenced by First Order.
Also Hutts, pirates, etc.
The First Order throws this out of balance, yes. But that's mostly because they don't know that there's another Emperor wannabe or superweapon in the mix. Remember, the First Order basically coexisted with the New Republic for decades, and the other Imperial Remnants probably did the same.THEY HAD WARS. JAKKU WAS A BATTLE BETWEEN REMNANTS AND NEW REPUBLIC. This logic is the same as if Stalin disarmed entire Soviet Union because he coexisted with Nazi Germany for a while.
It was only with Snoke's ambition that they were able to turn back to planetbusting and active expansion. Still, how are you as the New Republic Senate, a genuine democratic body of several thousand worlds, going to convince people who just want to stop having their children march to war that an expeditionary war into the First Order, who have maybe done some piracy but have had piracy done on them by the Resistance, is a good idea?Expeditionary war? Who says anything about expeditionary war? All I am asking of them is to not be completly retarded and disband their entire armed force whilist there are armed threats around the Galaxy, ESPECIALLY if Resistance is poking First Order with a stick and provoking them to go to war again.
For all the same reasons that people don't generally use kamikaze tactics in real life. There are only a select few situations where it's a reasonable trade. You're gonna need mass for one, the Raddus was a capital ship. An X-Wing doing the same wouldn't leave much impact overall, even if you specially outfitted it with a hyperdrive (as we see from Poe needing to get back in the Raddus' hanger in the opening scene).X-Wings have hyperdrives. This is literally their most defining feature, and is the main difference between Imperial "mass cheap fighter spam" tactics and Rebel/Resistance "hit&run" tactics.
5.) Ya, I don't have a huge problem with the concept of the FTL suicide jump. It was a good moment and a good idea. Considering Kot's previous example, and even without it, it's probably reasonable to to assume most super weapons (i.e. The Death Stars) have shields strong enough to at least mitigate damage from any sort of suicide run, and combined with a fleet, make it an ineffective strategy.And the Snoke's ship for some reason had none?
Fucking hell, and we thought the thermal exhaust port on Death Star or lack of railings was a fucking engineering oversight.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 24, 2017, 10:08:24 pm
Post by: Putnam on December 25, 2017, 12:23:30 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 12:46:29 am
the one posted is from the EU, i.e. not canon
Well unless shields have been retconned I will take it as a prime example.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 12:52:05 am
Well unless shields have been retconned I will take it as a prime example.But then Millenium Falcon goes under the base shields in previous movie so Ż\_(ツ)_/Ż.
EDIT: Also, when she is about to ram, everyone notices what she is doing and understands what she is doing. This implies everyone realizes that you can hyperspace ram a ship.
But nobody ever does it? It's not even a matter of "ships to costly to waste ramming" or "gotta suicide", because you could make dedicated rams that would be relatively cheap and suicide doesn't seem like a problem for many Star Wars groups, and even then, droids.
It is really problematic because guerilla groups such as Resistance should then do it way more often.
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2017, 01:04:42 am
I’m sure there was a droid rights movement or something in the EU, too :p
Edit: it’s not as though Holdor really had a choice at that point. Hux made it abundantly clear he wasn’t taking prisoners, blowing up ships that he could just as easily have captured.
The ship was lost whether or not she warped through Snoke’s ship.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 01:10:49 am
Why though? You’d need to build entire new ships every time you wanted to do it, it’d probably be cheaper to use, like, actual weapons.Compare the size of the Resistance ship and the Snoke's flagship.
It's also apparently unavoidable, could potentially have nearly unlimited range, you could bombard planets with it (why the hell even bother with Death Star), and most importantly - you could do it to inflict heavy losses in a fight you'd lose otherwise. They don't even have to be ships or even big, you can as well replace or just suplement existing weaponry with hyperspace torpedoes that get through shields (which would be incredibly useful in this situation for First Order, as they could have just battered the Resistance ship engines with bunch of those) and deal a lot of damage.
I’m sure there was a droid rights movement or something in the EU, too :pFair enough, but then I'd have hard time imagining Sith, Hutts or w/e giving a lot of shit about droids as they batter enemy fleets into oblivion with hyperspace projectiles.
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2017, 01:17:42 am
This makes planetary bombardments a pointless thing, especially since the examples we see in the movies are of turbolaser barrages, effectively limited only by the size of your rechargeable power source. Why make specialized weaponry for it when you have that?
As for unavoidability: the singular example we have of this is of two ships who were, by standards of open space, right next to each other. The attacking ship was tiny, the attacked ship effin’ huge. By the time they realized what she had planned, they had no chance of moving out the way.
Unlimited range is more of a problem, and unlikely even for hitting planets. You’re trying to hit tiny points which are moving through space in three dimensions from trillions of miles away. An effective range would be tiny.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 03:42:06 am
What would be the point in hyperspace torpedoes though? It’d be more effective to pack the space that would be hyperdrive engines with more explosives, presumably.Bypasses shields.
Goes so fast you can't dodge it.
Pretty much impossible to be shoot down once it goes, something what "more explosives" regular torpedoes/missiles are prone to.
This makes planetary bombardments a pointless thing, especially since the examples we see in the movies are of turbolaser barrages, effectively limited only by the size of your rechargeable power source. Why make specialized weaponry for it when you have that?Bypasses shields.
You can basically do it from the other side of galaxy.
Also, Star Wars turbolasers aren't exactly lasers, since they still work on exactly the same principle as blasters, which, despite it being mostly old lore, I think canonically still use Tibanna gas or some other "ammo", which means they are still limited by ammunition, rather than power sources.
The "specialized weaponry" argument is kinda dumb, as all of the weapons are specialized. I'm not implying some kind of hyperspace torpedo would be "I win!" button, but rather a logical and useful extension of arsenals of Star Wars armies, with it's own uses and downsides.
As for unavoidability: the singular example we have of this is of two ships who were, by standards of open space, right next to each other. The attacking ship was tiny, the attacked ship effin’ huge. By the time they realized what she had planned, they had no chance of moving out the way.Now imagine if that was from an ambush, or better yet, against a relatively stationary target like a planet or Death Star, but from very far away.
And the ships weren't "right next to each other", the movie made a point that the Resistance was too far away for First Order "turbolasers" (which now apparently curve in space so...) to get their shields penetrated (which is something I'm just gonna suspend my disbelief for), so First Order just decided to pursue until Resistance runs out of fuel. That seems like it is a distance much further away than at which regular combat would take place, which means that hyperspace weapons at very least are unavoidable at slightly further away than distances where regular combat would take place.
Hitting enemy ships with multiple smaller hyperspace projectiles also means you're attacking something very big with something very tiny, even if enemy ships aren't as big as Snoke's private ride.
Unlimited range is more of a problem, and unlikely even for hitting planets. You’re trying to hit tiny points which are moving through space in three dimensions from trillions of miles away. An effective range would be tiny.You have to realize that the whole thing that enables hyperspace travel is a computer that basically calculates a path through space that doesn't hit anything on the way. The only thing you have to achieve is try to hit the thing at the end of the road instead of dodging it too.
Also, if what you're saying is true, how the fuck would anyone arrive at their destinations? The planets are tiny points moving through space in three dimensions from trillions of miles away, how does anyone manage to jump exactly next to them? Why is that easier than jumping right into them?
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 07:05:04 am
Also, even normal torpedoes bypass shields in Star Wars. Shields work kinda similar to DUNE shields, where something going slow enough will pass through the shield, but high velocity projectiles will get fried.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 03:16:56 pm
Hyperspace torpedoes were a thing in the EU, and they pretty much destroyed planets. They were fired by the Galaxy Gun.No. That's the point. The Galaxy Gun fired projectiles through hyperspace, but that was only a mean of transport - they carried regular (well, "regular", it was pretty special payload, but payload working in realspace) to target system, whereas the projectiles resumed flight and hit with normal speed. Due to this the projectile had to be heavily shielded so it couldn't be shot down before impact.
Hyperspace torpedoes would not have this problem.
Quote from: Wookiepedia
Upon exiting hyperspace and homing in on its target, the projectile's automated defenses would activate to deter enemy forces. Automated laser cannon turrets exchanged laser fire with warships while thick armor plating and powerful energy shields deflected even the most advanced ion cannons and turbolasers.
Also, even normal torpedoes bypass shields in Star Wars. Shields work kinda similar to DUNE shields, where something going slow enough will pass through the shield, but high velocity projectiles will get fried.But they can be shot down. Hyperspace torpedoes can't. That's the point, they might be more expensive than regular weaponry, but there is no real defence against them.
Post by: Putnam on December 25, 2017, 03:19:00 pm
the one posted is from the EU, i.e. not canon
Well unless shields have been retconned I will take it as a prime example.
i'm not sure you understand what "not canon" means
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 04:02:18 pm
Post by: Madman198237 on December 25, 2017, 04:45:24 pm
You just preprogram a nice recon Y-Wing's navicomputer with a straight path in hyperspace, and BOOM, no more freakin' Death Star. Don't need to put a torpedo through the exhaust port if you can just hyperspace your happy way through the entire dreadnought and the rest of the fleet in a zigzag pattern, striking some enemy ships up to three times with a single cruiser. I COULD be mistaken, I've only seen the movie once, but that's how it looked (And others who saw it agreed with me). But come on now, the whole point of hyperspace is that it avoids anything without strong (Possibly only natural) gravity, and travels much, MUCH faster than light.
It is disgusting that they name-dropped Ackbar just so he's dead, even though he could EASILY just have been off doing
Luke randomly Force-ghosting himself was ALSO pretty stupid. Though I must say the projecting-from-across-the-galaxy was pretty cool, a nice nod to Luke's powers (Especially compared to Ren's/Rey's, as it is very much like them being able to see each other and touch each other even across the galaxy, isn't it....yet Ren remarked that the effort required to do so would kill either one of them, if I recall correctly.)
Anyways, a lot of that movie really, really annoys me. I don't actually hate it, but I certainly don't love it either.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 05:02:50 pm
A Y-Wing hyperspace suiciding probably wouldn't do all that much damage.
Post by: Madman198237 on December 25, 2017, 05:16:35 pm
Post by: Putnam on December 25, 2017, 05:23:48 pm
But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.
But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 06:08:03 pm
Then just use a bigger ship.But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.
It's not a matter of wether that's cost effective, because consider HOW MANY FUCKING SHIPS they lost assaulting the Death Star, and how much effort they needed, and that ultimately they only did it because they had Luke's force magic.
Now compare that with just crashing a ship into Death Star. Even if it won't kill it fully, it will probably disable it's weapon and damage it enough so it could be finished off with normal means.
Post by: Madman198237 on December 25, 2017, 06:34:36 pm
But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.
I reiterate: In the (sadly no longer canon) EU, hyperdrives would be affected (i.e., they'd stop working and the ship would suddenly pop back into "realspace") by the mass shadow of a planet, moon, or star (But NOT by the artificial gravity generated by ships). That ship just smashed into the moon with a large explosion (Pulled out of hyperspace by the gravity, perhaps?). Why didn't the cruiser just smash into Snoke's ship like that? A tremendous explosion would've been perfectly functional for destroying the ship and sending the First Order into disarray, possibly even for long enough that they could make it to the ground.
Post by: Egan_BW on December 25, 2017, 07:00:13 pm
Justifying star wars physics isn't the job of the movies, and never has been. the fact that people can already provide plausible explanations indicates that we'll probably get such an explanation in EU at some point.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 25, 2017, 07:05:20 pm
Or did I reach for popcorn and miss it actually going kablooey
(Also it's interesting that the entire resistance at the end of this film consists of a single small freighters worth. The rest are dead.)
Post by: Egan_BW on December 25, 2017, 07:06:49 pm
Post by: NRDL on December 25, 2017, 08:03:58 pm
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 25, 2017, 08:36:52 pm
Then just use a bigger ship.But it could, couldn't it? I mean, why not? The one single cruiser plowed through a super-dreadnought and a bunch of Star Destroyers...and killed them all. A single Y-Wing should be more than enough to disable a Death Star superlaser.But yeah, we've seen hyperdrive-as-weapon in other canon. Clone Wars had it within the first 3 episodes, using it to destroy a large CIS ship by... hyperdriving it into a moon, which was no worse for the wear, so the "why didn't they just hyperdrive an X-wing into starkiller base/the death star" doesn't seem to be valid.
It's not a matter of wether that's cost effective, because consider HOW MANY FUCKING SHIPS they lost assaulting the Death Star, and how much effort they needed, and that ultimately they only did it because they had Luke's force magic.
Now compare that with just crashing a ship into Death Star. Even if it won't kill it fully, it will probably disable it's weapon and damage it enough so it could be finished off with normal means.
The Cruiser only got through maybe 7 kilometers of ship, as the Mega Star Destroyer is 60km from wing to wing and the cruiser went through it perpendicular to that along part of the wing rather than through the central mass. For contrast, the Death Star is 160 kilometers in diameter, meaning that the ship would need to penetrate over ten times that depth to reach the reactor at least, and anything less than blast that could be repaired.
I can admit that the strike did make it all the way through the Mega Star Destroyer so the penetration could potentially be deeper, maybe 10 km at max, so the size of the ship to take down Death Star I would need to be around seven times as long. That type of stuff isn't just lying around and is extremely unlikely to be in a rebellion's arsenal barring very special circumstances.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 08:39:37 pm
I mean it e didn't *destroy* the capital ship, did it? I thought it was just crippled and some of the hangars blew up, but Kylo just flew down the uin-exploded ground forces to kick the rebels.
Or did I reach for popcorn and miss it actually going kablooey
(Also it's interesting that the entire resistance at the end of this film consists of a single small freighters worth. The rest are dead.)
I don't think it actually killed any ships, just did enough damage quickly enough that they had to stop shooting at transports.
The hyperspace crash wasn't enough to kill any of the First Order ships, they were still able to mobilise and fly down ground troops.It literally cut the fucking Snoke's giant ship in half and also majority of First Order fleet. (https://gfycat.com/LegitimateUnfoldedCaribou) I cannot believe when people are saying this changes nothing. She just single-handely wrecked the First Order superweapon, what is apparently majority of First Order fleet and all that in one fucking go, while First Order had no fucking way of defending themselves against it. She killed a ship that was three times as wide as Eclipse was long, had millions of crew and a number of Resurgent-class that are twice the size of old ISDs and have over 100,000 people onboard.
It took one person with a single cruiser to do this.
FUCK, why didin't they do it before even? Just load all the people in the 2 smaller ships, turn the big one and literally REMOVE the pursuing fleet from existence.
Justifying star wars physics isn't the job of the movies, and never has been. the fact that people can already provide plausible explanations indicates that we'll probably get such an explanation in EU at some point.It's not even justifying physics, I do not even want that because the whole concept disregards them, but the "no hyperspace ramming" thing was something impossible to do in Star Wars for a good reason. Just look at the goddamn video and tell me that is something that rewrites entire existing Star Wars combat theory, perhaps even completly obsoletes it. She just traded one decently sized ship for a ship that was bigger than any other existing Star Wars ship in new canon and a whole fleet of goddamn ISDs on steroids. If that is not fair trade, nothing is.
I want you to give me a plausible explanation why that is not a staple maneuver in Star Wars space combat, considering it's power and apparent lack of downsides, especially since the First Order officers clearly realized what Holdo is going to do, so they must have known that this is possible.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 08:44:36 pm
Post by: NRDL on December 25, 2017, 09:04:17 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on December 25, 2017, 09:10:26 pm
I want you to give me a plausible explanation why that is not a staple maneuver in Star Wars space combat, considering its power and apparent lack of downsides, especially since the First Order officers clearly realized what Holdo is going to do, so they must have known that this is possible.Two I've heard:
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.
Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".
Post by: Madman198237 on December 25, 2017, 09:15:48 pm
I want you to give me a plausible explanation why that is not a staple maneuver in Star Wars space combat, considering its power and apparent lack of downsides, especially since the First Order officers clearly realized what Holdo is going to do, so they must have known that this is possible.Two I've heard:
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.
Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".
I wish Disney hadn't chopped the EU. It would've made answering those questions easy: One, NO, since the lead destroyer, the one Finn and Co. were planning to sneak onto, as I recall, wasn't Snoke's ship. And two, no, ships just tend to jump in similar directions, because "hyperlanes" are much safer to travel than unmapped and potentially debris-filled self-plotted courses.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 09:30:23 pm
Two I've heard:I could accept this but then... how did Holdo knew this would work? This technology was completly unknown before, she had no way of knowing how it works, although the First Order might have been aware of this, which explains their reaction before getting rammed, but still.
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.
Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".If that was the case a lot of things would be much simpler in Star Wars, and off of top of my head would make canonical explanation of Kessel Run not work, so if that was the explanation, then it also fucks with rest of ACTUAL canon this time.
Not that it's something they give a fuck about.
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2017, 09:37:32 pm
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 09:44:07 pm
Have we considered when a ship actually enters hyperspace? At what point from when the ship starts moving super fast does it actually get there? Is this instantaneous or does it take a bit?In EU it was explained that's not really how it works, but because of >EU, even then the hyperspace weapons would be useful because:
That seems like it is a distance much further away than at which regular combat would take place, which means that hyperspace weapons at very least are unavoidable at slightly further away than distances where regular combat would take place.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 09:47:09 pm
Two I've heard:I could accept this but then... how did Holdo knew this would work? This technology was completly unknown before, she had no way of knowing how it works, although the First Order might have been aware of this, which explains their reaction before getting rammed, but still.
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.Two, you can only hyperspace jump to particular predetermined spots, and normally every starship commander avoids these spots because ramming is a danger. The first order thought they were winning and were overconfident assholes in general, so they steered onto a jump spot to chase the rebels. This also changes the "oh, shit" reaction from just "she's going to ram us" to "I have made a mistake".If that was the case a lot of things would be much simpler in Star Wars, and off of top of my head would make canonical explanation of Kessel Run not work, so if that was the explanation, then it also fucks with rest of ACTUAL canon this time.
Not that it's something they give a fuck about.
1.) It's not a new technology. Like kamikaze wasn't a new technology. She just deciding to ram her ship into theirs ASAP to give the rebels as much time as possible. She had no idea it would work.
2.)
I wish Disney hadn't chopped the EU. It would've made answering those questions easy: One, NO, since the lead destroyer, the one Finn and Co. were planning to sneak onto, as I recall, wasn't Snoke's ship. And two, no, ships just tend to jump in similar directions, because "hyperlanes" are much safer to travel than unmapped and potentially debris-filled self-plotted courses.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2017, 09:52:15 pm
Have we considered when a ship actually enters hyperspace? At what point from when the ship starts moving super fast does it actually get there? Is this instantaneous or does it take a bit?In EU it was explained that's not really how it works, but because of >EU, even then the hyperspace weapons would be useful because:That seems like it is a distance much further away than at which regular combat would take place, which means that hyperspace weapons at very least are unavoidable at slightly further away than distances where regular combat would take place.
Just to clarify, fleet combat has 100% taken place at greater effective ranges in Episodes 3 and 6. To be fair, Star Wars isn't the best at giving an accurate sense of scale in space combat so it's kind of a moot point--the range is pretty much always determined by plot. That said, the whole barely being able to outpace ISDs is an absolutely bogus looming threat. A.) No. B.) You're telling me that Mega Star Destroyer can't shoot for shit? Ridiculous. \
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 25, 2017, 10:00:47 pm
Hyperspace drives are probably the most expensive parts of any ship and have to be scaled up with the size of the ship as well. Shooting a ship with a small hyperspace weapon is only going to be catastrophic if the ship is, say, less than four times the mass of the hyperspace weapon. Otherwise it's going to be like getting shot but having your organs missed. Bad, yes. Fatal, not really, and military vessels are going to have substantial damage control systems. And once you've done this, you've blown your space load on that part of your force, it's gone. Blasting down the shields and shooting with blasters and missiles is going to be way more cost and force efficient.
Ramming is like defibrillators. Fiction and intuition tells us that it's cool and dramatic, so it must be useful. But it's really not. The Raddus was in a nearly unique tactical situation to make a hyperspace ram of the Supremacy worthwhile, and did so almost as soon as those circumstances fell into place. It would have been an incorrect or at least less correct maneuver in every other Star Wars battle to date, including the assaults on both Death Stars and the Starkiller.
Post by: Madman198237 on December 25, 2017, 10:14:45 pm
Again, there's nothing that makes hyperspace ramming any more effective than IRL ramming. If you were to steer an aircraft carrier into a fleet of ships you'd fuck them up pretty bad before sinking (or more realistically, being immobilized). You have lost out immensely by doing so, given the value of the aircraft carrier. Not only have you damaged your faction up on the strategic level by losing such an asset, but the sunk cost (pun intended) of the carrier is greater than that of the ships you murderfucked. But if it was the decisive battle of the war, the carrier's planes had all been shot down, and the only useful bodies and craft left were being picked off by those enemy ships? It's a different equation.
Hyperspace drives are probably the most expensive parts of any ship and have to be scaled up with the size of the ship as well. Shooting a ship with a small hyperspace weapon is only going to be catastrophic if the ship is, say, less than four times the mass of the hyperspace weapon. Otherwise it's going to be like getting shot but having your organs missed. Bad, yes. Fatal, not really, and military vessels are going to have substantial damage control systems. And once you've done this, you've blown your space load on that part of your force, it's gone. Blasting down the shields and shooting with blasters and missiles is going to be way more cost and force efficient.
Ramming is like defibrillators. Fiction and intuition tells us that it's cool and dramatic, so it must be useful. But it's really not. The Raddus was in a nearly unique tactical situation to make a hyperspace ram of the Supremacy worthwhile, and did so almost as soon as those circumstances fell into place. It would have been an incorrect or at least less correct maneuver in every other Star Wars battle to date, including the assaults on both Death Stars and the Starkiller.
That's horribly false, though. If you can fly a zigzag hyperspace course through an ENTIRE FLIPPING FLEET with ONE CRUISER, then the Rebels should've DONE SO at the Second Death Star. The best of the Imperial Fleet in a huge mass of Star Destroyers, lined up for a shot. Yet they didn't, even though spending one (pre-evacuated, even) cruiser like that would've been MORE than worth the loss of a single ship. It ALSO would've made sense for them to do that to the Death Star's superlaser assembly, even if they couldn't manage to punch through to the hypermatter reactor itself.
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2017, 10:26:02 pm
Equally so, this is quite clearly a very rarely used technique. If it became more common, tactics would adapt, much like a ship in the sea throwing off a firing solution for a torpedo from a sub, the ships would start changing their course and speed erratically to avoid it, or find some technology to negate the effects, like having an interdictor cruiser standard in every fleet, or even just gravity well generators on enough ships to make it untenable to commit resources to specialized rams.
Also... what if Holdor missed?
Post by: Madman198237 on December 25, 2017, 10:29:16 pm
Also, the point I'm trying to make is that it's bull crap---it makes no sense and should never have been put in that movie.
Post by: Egan_BW on December 25, 2017, 10:30:40 pm
She guessed and was proven right by getting blown apart/the force told her/everything was lost anyway so may as well try/she was an idiot who had never heard that hyperspace ramming doesn't work usually.Two I've heard:I could accept this but then... how did Holdo knew this would work? This technology was completely unknown before, she had no way of knowing how it works, although the First Order might have been aware of this, which explains their reaction before getting rammed, but still.
One, Hyperspace ramming works only on that ship in particular, because it was using a hyperspace tracker, which is new technology. Their tracker is like a periscope which extends into hyperspace, so when a ship that's in hyperspace hits it it transfers kinetic energy into realspace.
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2017, 10:34:27 pm
Nothing is certain, man.
It made sense given the context. This was the last of the Resistance being blown up, she had one ship and no fuel to be pissing about in a protracted battle. If it worked she bought her friends time, if not? Well, they were all dead anyway.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 25, 2017, 10:35:01 pm
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 10:36:26 pm
1.) It's not a new technology. Like kamikaze wasn't a new technology. She just deciding to ram her ship into theirs ASAP to give the rebels as much time as possible. She had no idea it would work.Tracking IS a new technology. That is literally what they say. Nobody ever made something that enabled you to track someone in Hyperspace, and First Order did. She could have no idea she could ram them, and yet "she decides to ram their ship".
Just to clarify, fleet combat has 100% taken place at greater effective ranges in Episodes 3 and 6. To be fair, Star Wars isn't the best at giving an accurate sense of scale in space combat so it's kind of a moot point--the range is pretty much always determined by plot. That said, the whole barely being able to outpace ISDs is an absolutely bogus looming threat. A.) No. B.) You're telling me that Mega Star Destroyer can't shoot for shit? Ridiculous. \They literally say in the movie that they are too far away for their guns to work, which is why they are pursuing them in first place and waiting for them to run out of fuel instead of just, you know, gunning them down. Fuck scale, fuck that, I am going off what characters and plot tells me.
Again, there's nothing that makes hyperspace ramming any more effective than IRL ramming.There is. Speed. Unavoidability. I will also say power, as with the speeds Star Wars capital ships seem to operate, I wouldn't say they should be able to literally cut something that seems to be at least four times as long as regular ISD in half.
If you were to steer an aircraft carrier into a fleet of ships you'd fuck them up pretty bad before sinking (or more realistically, being immobilized). You have lost out immensely by doing so, given the value of the aircraft carrier.She destroyed biggest fucking ship in Galaxy, a capital of First Order to that and multiple goddamn ISDs on steroids using a ship that was magnitudes smaller. That is if a cruiser rammed all American carriers and sunk them at once. She won.
Not only have you damaged your faction up on the strategic level by losing such an asset, but the sunk cost (pun intended) of the carrier is greater than that of the ships you murderfucked. But if it was the decisive battle of the war, the carrier's planes had all been shot down, and the only useful bodies and craft left were being picked off by those enemy ships? It's a different equation.The cost of the ships she murderfucked was much higher of her ship. Sure, technically it is a loss for Resistance, since they have only one, but in regular combat between similarly sized fleets sacrificing one goddamn cruiser to destroy entire enemy fleet whereas normally you would probably have to deal with loss of many more due to regular combat is great fucking trade.
Hyperspace drives are probably the most expensive parts of any ship and have to be scaled up with the size of the ship as well. Shooting a ship with a small hyperspace weapon is only going to be catastrophic if the ship is, say, less than four times the mass of the hyperspace weapon. Otherwise it's going to be like getting shot but having your organs missed. Bad, yes. Fatal, not really, and military vessels are going to have substantial damage control systems. And once you've done this, you've blown your space load on that part of your force, it's gone. Blasting down the shields and shooting with blasters and missiles is going to be way more cost and force efficient.But the enemy will also be shooting back. This is why I said hyperspace weapons probably aren't an "I-Win button", but they should be considered in universe as something that has it's own applications. I don't think the hyperdrives are even that expensive, considering they slam those in X-Wings, and also if you're worried about the cost of losing a whole ship, just put a hyperdrive on a fucking asteroid or something.
Ramming is like defibrillators. Fiction and intuition tells us that it's cool and dramatic, so it must be useful. But it's really not. The Raddus was in a nearly unique tactical situation to make a hyperspace ram of the Supremacy worthwhile, and did so almost as soon as those circumstances fell into place. It would have been an incorrect or at least less correct maneuver in every other Star Wars battle to date, including the assaults on both Death Stars and the Starkiller.Unique tactical situation my ass.
1) Supermacy could have hyperspaced small projectiles to destroy Resistance engines, since from rear that should be relatively easy and they couldn't dodge at all.
2) Hyperspace bombard the ground shields on Endor. Death Star now has no shields.
3) Hyperspace attack the Death Stars, with first one just attack near where the laser is to disable it and finish off the star with regular means, assuming the damage wouldn't be bad enough to kill it, and with second one that is literally half open to space just ram that fucker straight into the basically exposed core.
4) Hyperspace attack the Droid Control Ship in prequels.
And so on. The problem is IRL ramming is cool and dramatic but it's not really that useful, mostly because you can be destroyed by regular means before you ram (although a case could be made that literally all missiles are more or less ramming devices, just with explosives strapped on them). The problem however is that hyperspace ramming is pretty much instantenous, so it can't be really defended against.
Equally so, this is quite clearly a very rarely used technique. If it became more common, tactics would adapt, much like a ship in the sea throwing off a firing solution for a torpedo from a sub, the ships would start changing their course and speed erratically to avoid it, or find some technology to negate the effects, like having an interdictor cruiser standard in every fleet, or even just gravity well generators on enough ships to make it untenable to commit resources to specialized rams.This is the exact fucking point. Why it's rare? Why it's not used more? It is clearly something that they realized could happen, but did nothing to counteract it? They act like universe is completly aware this can be done, but then everyone is fucking suprised to the core it can be done.
She guessed and was proven right by getting blown apart/the force told her/everything was lost anyway so may as well try/she was an idiot who had never heard that hyperspace ramming doesn't work usually.And you're telling me in the long-ass time they hyperspace drives existed (EU be damned, the Republic was said to be old as fuck in regular canon anyway, so they had hyperdrives for at least this long) nobody tried it?
Post by: Egan_BW on December 25, 2017, 10:55:47 pm
And you're telling me in the long-ass time they hyperspace drives existed (EU be damned, the Republic was said to be old as fuck in regular canon anyway, so they had hyperdrives for at least this long) nobody tried it?If you'll check that post chain you were responding to specifically the idea that it works because that ship had a hyperspace tracker on it, which is a technology that was used for the first time ever is this very movie, so whoever was dumb enough to try ramming before that would have found that it does nothing.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2017, 11:14:36 pm
Then what is she attempting to do?And you're telling me in the long-ass time they hyperspace drives existed (EU be damned, the Republic was said to be old as fuck in regular canon anyway, so they had hyperdrives for at least this long) nobody tried it?If you'll check that post chain you were responding to specifically the idea that it works because that ship had a hyperspace tracker on it, which is a technology that was used for the first time ever is this very movie, so whoever was dumb enough to try ramming before that would have found that it does nothing.
And why First Order seems completly aware of what is she doing?
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 26, 2017, 07:17:40 am
Post by: Reelya on December 26, 2017, 07:22:58 am
Basically we can just assume that the amount of damage done with a big plasma weapon over it's expected lifetime in a battle exceeds the damage done by firing hyperspace-engine things through the target, in terms of resource units needed to create the weapons. Basically, if you took the same amount of resources needed to create that rebel flagship, but instead used them to make a single huge plasma cannon (that doesn't have hyperspace engines), it would by necessity have done more damage than hyperspace ramming the enemy with the ship.
It's actually pretty easy to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody normally does it.
Post by: Kot on December 26, 2017, 11:27:32 am
I think we can just say that hyperspace ramming is possible, but it's not an efficient use of resources. It's the same as saying that kamikaze plane attacks in general are possible however they're a really poor use of resources, whenever you have the choice to do something else, you do the something else.Kamikaze plane attacks are technically good use of resources if they all succeded, after all a plane is much cheaper than a carrier, but the problem is that the planes were often shoot down before hitting the ships and the damage often wasn't critical.
Neither of those problems applies here, especially since you don't even have to build a whole ship to ram someone, just make dedicated hyperspace missiles or torpedoes. After all, that is literally what we did in reality - missiles are now the primary weapon of choice for many tasks such as naval combat, long range bombardment (nukes) and anti-air combat. Missiles are literally unmanned ramming vehicles that go boom after hitting something.
Basically we can just assume that the amount of damage done with a big plasma weapon over it's expected lifetime in a battle exceeds the damage done by firing hyperspace-engine things through the target, in terms of resource units needed to create the weapons. Basically, if you took the same amount of resources needed to create that rebel flagship, but instead used them to make a single huge plasma cannon (that doesn't have hyperspace engines), it would by necessity have done more damage than hyperspace ramming the enemy with the ship.Probably yes, the damage would be greater, but the damage will be split over time during which the enemy is also shooting back. This is really simple, you're trading the ability for sustained firepower for the ability to deal a lot of damage instantly, especially since the hyperspace ramming seems to work against shielded opponents. You don't even have to kill the enemy ship outright, all it takes is for the hyperspace torpedo to cripple the enemy ship battle capabilities and then finish it off with regular weapons.
It's actually pretty easy to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody normally does it.No, it's actually really hard to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody does it, since as shown by the example it has great capabilites and even if it's not a staple of space combat due to w/e reasons, it's very hard to justify that noone has weapons capable of it.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 26, 2017, 11:52:45 am
1.) It's not a new technology. Like kamikaze wasn't a new technology. She just deciding to ram her ship into theirs ASAP to give the rebels as much time as possible. She had no idea it would work.Tracking IS a new technology. That is literally what they say. Nobody ever made something that enabled you to track someone in Hyperspace, and First Order did. She could have no idea she could ram them, and yet "she decides to ram their ship".Just to clarify, fleet combat has 100% taken place at greater effective ranges in Episodes 3 and 6. To be fair, Star Wars isn't the best at giving an accurate sense of scale in space combat so it's kind of a moot point--the range is pretty much always determined by plot. That said, the whole barely being able to outpace ISDs is an absolutely bogus looming threat. A.) No. B.) You're telling me that Mega Star Destroyer can't shoot for shit? Ridiculous. \They literally say in the movie that they are too far away for their guns to work, which is why they are pursuing them in first place and waiting for them to run out of fuel instead of just, you know, gunning them down. Fuck scale, fuck that, I am going off what characters and plot tells me.
How does tracking being a new technology play into her decision to hyperspace ram them?
You're just reiterating what I said--but the plot of this movie violates the logic of the plot set up in movies that come before it so... It's dumb.
Post by: Kot on December 26, 2017, 12:16:55 pm
How does tracking being a new technology play into her decision to hyperspace ram them?
She had no idea it would work.Answering the explanation that the ramming worked because only because tracker "peeks" the ship into hyperspace so it can be rammed. If she had no idea it would work, since the technology was new and Resistance had no idea how it worked, she must have thought it couldn't work and then the better option for her would be trying to shield the transports with the ship or something, not turn around and try to achieve... nothing really, at least that what she would have thought in this case.
That or she is a complete moron and had no idea it wouldn't work and just got lucky but then that is one of sloppiest explanations there can be.
Post by: hector13 on December 26, 2017, 02:41:28 pm
I think we can just say that hyperspace ramming is possible, but it's not an efficient use of resources. It's the same as saying that kamikaze plane attacks in general are possible however they're a really poor use of resources, whenever you have the choice to do something else, you do the something else.Kamikaze plane attacks are technically good use of resources if they all succeded, after all a plane is much cheaper than a carrier, but the problem is that the planes were often shoot down before hitting the ships and the damage often wasn't critical.
Neither of those problems applies here, especially since you don't even have to build a whole ship to ram someone, just make dedicated hyperspace missiles or torpedoes. After all, that is literally what we did in reality - missiles are now the primary weapon of choice for many tasks such as naval combat, long range bombardment (nukes) and anti-air combat. Missiles are literally unmanned ramming vehicles that go boom after hitting something.Basically we can just assume that the amount of damage done with a big plasma weapon over it's expected lifetime in a battle exceeds the damage done by firing hyperspace-engine things through the target, in terms of resource units needed to create the weapons. Basically, if you took the same amount of resources needed to create that rebel flagship, but instead used them to make a single huge plasma cannon (that doesn't have hyperspace engines), it would by necessity have done more damage than hyperspace ramming the enemy with the ship.Probably yes, the damage would be greater, but the damage will be split over time during which the enemy is also shooting back. This is really simple, you're trading the ability for sustained firepower for the ability to deal a lot of damage instantly, especially since the hyperspace ramming seems to work against shielded opponents. You don't even have to kill the enemy ship outright, all it takes is for the hyperspace torpedo to cripple the enemy ship battle capabilities and then finish it off with regular weapons.It's actually pretty easy to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody normally does it.No, it's actually really hard to explain why hyperspace ramming is a thing you can do, but nobody does it, since as shown by the example it has great capabilites and even if it's not a staple of space combat due to w/e reasons, it's very hard to justify that noone has weapons capable of it.
Were the First Order ships shielded though? They did say the Resistance ships were faster; perhaps they had to take power from elsewhere (like shields) to keep up.
Post by: Kot on December 26, 2017, 02:51:35 pm
TBH, fuck it, the amount of mental gymnastics and required "what if" to excuse the thing is not really worth it, as really it was just some goddamn
Post by: Egan_BW on December 26, 2017, 05:31:01 pm
Post by: NJW2000 on December 26, 2017, 05:39:05 pm
[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]It's not like Star Wars is hard sci-fi though. It's space opera: heroes journey + space buddhism + the sci-fi props they had on studio, the universe's logic isn't the point. For example, the explosion made sense visually and intuitively: big important good guys thing hits evil other big thing.
Post by: hector13 on December 26, 2017, 05:40:16 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on December 26, 2017, 05:42:25 pm
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 26, 2017, 06:47:19 pm
[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]
You know, there was an entire movie based around this one plot point...
Post by: Egan_BW on December 26, 2017, 06:50:15 pm
Which, vitally, came out after the original. :P[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]
You know, there was an entire movie based around this one plot point...
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 26, 2017, 06:51:33 pm
Post by: NJW2000 on December 26, 2017, 06:53:13 pm
Post by: Taricus on December 26, 2017, 07:05:19 pm
B: The rebellion just doesn't have the manpower or fighters to waste in suicide attacks
C: The bridge being destroyed didn't blow up the entire Executor, that was the rebel fleet doing that via concentrated firepower.
Post by: Putnam on December 26, 2017, 08:31:54 pm
B: The rebellion just doesn't have the manpower or fighters to waste in suicide attacks
🤔
Anyway, on the topic of hyperspace missiles: Starkiller Base is actually explicitly said to be a hyperspace weapon, so that's definitely not out of the picture.
Post by: Kot on December 26, 2017, 08:44:44 pm
The problem with Hyperspace ramming is not that it "shouldn't work" technically, because fuck that shit it might work, it's not like we know the science in new canon (and old canon science was handwavium all together), the problem is that it produces questions suchs as why for instance they don't ram X-Wings in Imperial ships bridges while they also have shields up at the same time, and more importantly internally in the movie - why the fuck didin't they do it earlier, since their situation was so desperate and all they knew was that they're going to die, might as well ram First Order fleet in hyperspace using one of the three ships they have and try to get away with the remaining two while First Order is in disarray and so on. It's just that ramming creates a lot of possibilities that are hard to justify as to why they weren't used more in canon. The point is it was usually said it doesn't work in old canon specifically due to those questions, and if you think my jimmies are rustled over this, you should see the roleplayers which went absolutely batshit over "YOU CAN DO THAT?!?".
Post by: Bumber on December 26, 2017, 09:30:56 pm
Were the First Order ships shielded though? They did say the Resistance ships were faster; perhaps they had to take power from elsewhere (like shields) to keep up.You must have missed the part where Finn and the gang had to slip past it to sneak on board.
Post by: Reelya on December 26, 2017, 09:47:57 pm
[Who decided not to put shields on the death star's exhaust port?! If that sort of thing works why don't the rebels just use x-wings to shoot photon torpedoes down the exhaust ports of every imperial capital ship?]
Remember the first Death Star wasn't shielded at all. The second Death Star was shielded, but it was a planet-based shield generator. We can assume that the shield in Return of the Jedi wasn't a viable ship-borne device. I can't think of a single reference to deflector shielding in either New Hope or Empire, the planet-based shield in Jedi was the first reference to shielding in the original series, I believe.
I'm not really up on the EU stuff at all, but in the main movies, how many ships actually have ship-carried shields? This isn't Star Trek.
Post by: hector13 on December 26, 2017, 09:49:46 pm
That part was scoured from my mind ‘cause it was silly.Were the First Order ships shielded though? They did say the Resistance ships were faster; perhaps they had to take power from elsewhere (like shields) to keep up.You must have missed the part where Finn and the gang had to slip past it to sneak on board.
Post by: Taricus on December 26, 2017, 09:56:01 pm
Remember the first Death Star wasn't shielded at all. The second Death Star was shielded, but it was a planet-based shield generator. We can assume that the shield in Return of the Jedi wasn't a viable ship-borne device.
I'm not really up on the EU stuff at all, but in the main movies, how many ships actually have ship-carried shields? This isn't Star Trek.
Pretty much everything apart from TIE fighters (Barring Vader's fighter). Hell, I'd go so far as to presume the death star was shielded too, just that the rebel fighters got through the shield.
Post by: Reelya on December 26, 2017, 10:02:18 pm
Ships crash into each other all the time in Star Wars and everything is wrecked in the immediate vicinity. So any ship-carried shield isn't going to protect you from a hyperdrive-speed ship ramming you. The existing shields don't in fact protect you from things running into you at even low speeds. In all likelihood then, the existing shields merely improve your odds vs plasma blasts, but nowhere near 100% protection even for that.
Post by: Taricus on December 26, 2017, 10:12:48 pm
What does stop hyperspace ramming is the precision of it. You're not gonna know where anything is outside of your immediate drop-point aside from a mass shadow, which only show up on anything of a specific size and larger; you can't detect a ship because ships don't have a mass shadow, or enough of one, to lock onto.
Post by: Kot on December 26, 2017, 10:29:19 pm
What does stop hyperspace ramming is the precision of it. You're not gonna know where anything is outside of your immediate drop-point aside from a mass shadow, which only show up on anything of a specific size and larger; you can't detect a ship because ships don't have a mass shadow, or enough of one, to lock onto.As long as you see it you can do it. You don't even need to see it by yourself, as you could have guidance ships or something, considering instantenous interstellar communication is a thing in Star Wars. Just relate the position of enemy compared to nearby mass shadows and send coordinates to the hyperspace ramming thing.
This is slowly turning into Arms Race thread, isin't it? Empire would be one damn scary people if any Forenians ever shared the knowledge with them.
Post by: hector13 on December 26, 2017, 10:35:58 pm
The second death star was destroyed by fighter craft flying inside of it. Going by the fact that the first death star had fighter bays stocked with TIEs I'd hazard the shield does not activate against fighters or the lie. If they did, the death star wouldn't have had hangars.
Well for hangars you just need to keep the atmosphere in, and allow the ships to get out.
I mean, you have their own weapons foring through their own shields, so either shields can be switched off for certain things, or they can have temporary, controlled holes in their shields to allow their shots and fighters through.
The second DS does shoot some ships with its cannon, though I can’t remember if that’s before or after the shield goes down.
Post by: Reelya on December 26, 2017, 10:46:38 pm
Post by: Taricus on December 26, 2017, 10:48:31 pm
Hell, even mid system hyperspace jumps we're basically unheard of until thrawn in the old EU played silly buggers with a couple of interdictors and kicked in a lot of the new republic's shit as a result.
As for shields, they're generally the sort of thing that's always on and you can seemingly fire through them in the case of ships.
Post by: Kot on December 26, 2017, 11:03:25 pm
Very few ships can receive or send messages while in hyperspace. And with hyperspace travel being what it is you can't change course once you're in motion and it does take a bit to get to point B from point A. Once you combine that with planetary orbits and you're gonna be in for a long wait.I don't mean send messages in hyperspace. Send them before with calculated coordinates and then fire away.
Travel time why anti-ship combat usage would probably need to be done at inter-planetary distances at most, but for instance bombarding enemy ground installations could be done from the other side of galaxy, because as far as travel time is concerned planets also move in very predictable patterns, and all you need is something powerful enough to calculate the point at which you need to strike, and they totally have that, considering you have to do the same thing, except purposefully miss, during regular hyperspace jumps.
Post by: McTraveller on December 27, 2017, 09:01:23 am
I feel like the movie maybe could have had an even darker tone had it not been catering so much for kids, but it's not a bad balance. As it was though - I'd have to consider when I'd take my kids to see it. Lots of people dying in that movie, even as "sanitized" as a ship going up in a ball of space-fire may be.
Some things to keep in mind though - it's obvious that Disney is making the series more aimed at a younger audience. If you approach the series with that mindset a lot of things make a bit more sense. Remember folks, the movie makers are not making the movie for current Star Wars fans so much as they are trying to make new lifelong Star Wars fans. They are trying to get kids at younger ages.
That said, things I liked:
- Actual new story progression. Much more than the simple "let's introduce some new characters" of Ep VII, we had progression about the nature of the Force, etc. For those of us who don't spend massive amounts of time in the EU for instance, this is welcome.
- Aside from the technical issues, the cruiser lightspeed jump was one of the most visually stunning elements I've ever seen in a Star Wars movies.
- I'm still not sure who these folks are saying there are no "wide shots" in this movie - there were actually way more than I was expecting. Think of all the stuff at the Jedi temple complex where there is no or almost no dialog, just exposition of Luke's daily life through imagery. There was basically no words at all with Luke's last moments, just shots of the suns-set.
- Some character building of the main 4 - I thought it was pretty decent for each of them, working through the various situations. You don't have to like the characters, but the way the development is done is actually better than most movies these days. And that's kind of scary/impressive.
- Did that little kid at the very end force-pull the broom into his hand, or did I dream that?
My dislikes, and most of them are technical:
- There were actually few instances of green-screen failure. By that I mean there was a discernible layering of the characters into their surroundings. The worst of these was during the hangar-in-flames fighting and escape of Fin and Rose.
- The flight mechanics of ships in the Star Wars universe is baffling. Why do ships require fuel to move at constant speed? Why do capital ships all seem to move at the same speed? That is - the Resistance fleet moves away from the New Order fleet initially to get range, but then the New Order fleet apparently keeps the same range from then out. This just suggests a response lag, not a difference in thrust / speed capability. Small aside: why would a ship start drifting aimlessly just because it ran out of fuel? Apparently this part of space is either dense fluid or uses Eve Online space mechanics.
- Snoke really needed some development. First of all, a prosthetic costume or animatronic would have been way better than that CGI mess. Also, he's supposed to be this badass, but we only get a couple menacing holograms and one "in person" scene where he basically Dies of Hubris (there's probably a TVTropes for that). No "mystery" like we had with the original Emperor, no real evidence of why people fear him other than his overt use of power, etc. But where did he come from? You'd think if you had this many super-powerful dark side adepts around, they would be more obvious...
- You can use a stampede as a story element, but having your heroes ride the stampeding animals is... reaching. Plus the stampeding animals were a bit too emotive. A horse is expressive, but doesn't have a simian face like whatever those were. Somewhat related: I don't quite understand the little bird-things that Chewie befriended. They seemed kind of like fluff (see what I did there?)
- Too much special effects money spent on odd choices - fix the greenscreen and get rid of that little greedy thing throwing coins around.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 27, 2017, 10:30:18 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 27, 2017, 03:37:24 pm
How does tracking being a new technology play into her decision to hyperspace ram them?She had no idea it would work.Answering the explanation that the ramming worked because only because tracker "peeks" the ship into hyperspace so it can be rammed. If she had no idea it would work, since the technology was new and Resistance had no idea how it worked, she must have thought it couldn't work and then the better option for her would be trying to shield the transports with the ship or something, not turn around and try to achieve... nothing really, at least that what she would have thought in this case.
That or she is a complete moron and had no idea it wouldn't work and just got lucky but then that is one of sloppiest explanations there can be.
Well that's definitely not how hyperspace works?
@McTraveller, please tell me how the story has progressed in a meaningful way and how the characters have developed at all?
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 27, 2017, 09:16:50 pm
Post by: smjjames on December 27, 2017, 09:39:36 pm
Post by: McTraveller on December 28, 2017, 09:02:04 am
I mean, Ep 7 was so couched "in the past" it was kind of painful. Ep 8 explicitly said it: "Got to move on from the legend of Luke Skywalker, because riding that legend isn't enough."
Edit: sorry I got your name wrong initially!
Post by: Antioch on December 28, 2017, 10:19:49 am
But then again most of Star Wars wasn't that great to begin with. The only real masterpiece was episode Empire strikes back, but return of the jedi throws away everything Empire build up. Empire is full of foreshadowing about Luke falling to the dark side, ROTJ just goes -> Emperor: "Join the dark side Luke" Luke: "lolno"
A new hope is good because its a pioneering movie, but overall its quite camp.
The phantom menace isn't as bad as everyone says, but its still not very good. It especially fails in portraying Anakin as a likeable character.
Attack of the clones is worse than phantom menace with its horrible romantic subplot.
Revenge of the Sith is good, but it once again fails hard on Anakins plotline, he goes from being a cocky asshole to being an irrational cocky asshole.
The Force awakens was just an episode IV rehash (yay ANOTHER death star plot), good production values though.
Loved Rogue One, it dared to be different and is overall awesome.
Post by: smjjames on December 28, 2017, 10:34:23 am
@Ispil pretty much covered what I was going to write. Lots of actual story progressing - it's also kind of ironic in that I think Kylo Ren spoke what is going to probably happen with the franchise, not just the story - getting rid of the "baggage" of the past. It could go well or ill - it's actually kind of interesting to consider it "from that point of view."
I mean, Ep 7 was so couched "in the past" it was kind of painful. Ep 8 explicitly said it: "Got to move on from the legend of Luke Skywalker, because riding that legend isn't enough."
Edit: sorry I got your name wrong initially!
And yet, at the end the kids ride that legend. Kind of almost saying the future is in thier (as in the kids, not neccesarily explictly those kids) hands.
Post by: McTraveller on December 28, 2017, 10:43:58 am
And yet, at the end the kids ride that legend. Kind of almost saying the future is in thier (as in the kids, not neccesarily explictly those kids) hands.Yeah, I should probably have more coffee before I post.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 28, 2017, 10:57:19 am
So the hyperdrive ram actually zig-zagged accross that big capital ship? I thought the cruiser had somehow splintered into three pieces that sliced up that big ship.
The Mega was hit only at one place. It was one of the support ships that was likely hit by debris from the Mega that was shown to be struck along three lines.
Post by: smjjames on December 28, 2017, 11:07:13 am
So the hyperdrive ram actually zig-zagged accross that big capital ship? I thought the cruiser had somehow splintered into three pieces that sliced up that big ship.
The Mega was hit only at one place. It was one of the support ships that was likely hit by debris from the Mega that was shown to be struck along three lines.
Debris accelerated to hyperspace speeds? I swear I saw something that was shown to be struck with three bright lines.
Post by: hector13 on December 28, 2017, 02:12:03 pm
Empire is full of foreshadowing about Luke falling to the dark side, ROTJ just goes -> Emperor: "Join the dark side Luke" Luke: "lolno"
'cept he does fall to the dark side when he fights Vader, but evidently has a change of heart when he slashes his hand off. Disappointing.
I'm reasonably sure he has a similar "giving into his hate" episode in Empire, but I haven't seen them for ages, so can't quite remember what part. It was at some point in Cloud City, I think.
Fakeedit: no it was when he attacked the Emperor prior to the fight with Vader in RotJ, that was a pretty significant moment that just completely gets brushed over.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 28, 2017, 02:15:57 pm
He's from Tatooine, he knows perfectly well that Jabba the Hutt is never going to let himself be intimidated. Jedi wisdom this is not. You don't have to go all yellow eyed and not just the men but the women and the children too to be tapping the dark side. It's more natural to an untrained mind, more attuned with the violent consumption that defines the struggle of life. Luke does it and Rey is most definitely doing it too. Shit, if TLJ is to be believed Luke's temptation with the dark is still so strong post-ROTJ he at least considered or actually decided to murder his nephew in cold blood from paranoia.
Post by: Baffler on December 28, 2017, 03:31:52 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I can't remember if this is an EU creation or not. I know they appear in some LucasArts things other than the movies, at least.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 28, 2017, 03:44:50 pm
So the hyperdrive ram actually zig-zagged accross that big capital ship? I thought the cruiser had somehow splintered into three pieces that sliced up that big ship.
The Mega was hit only at one place. It was one of the support ships that was likely hit by debris from the Mega that was shown to be struck along three lines.
Debris accelerated to hyperspace speeds? I swear I saw something that was shown to be struck with three bright lines.
That was one of the standard Star Destroyer escort ships of the Mega Star Destroyer.
Post by: smjjames on December 28, 2017, 03:52:45 pm
There actually is an in-universe hard counter to hyperspace-based weapons:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I can't remember if this is an EU creation or not. I know they appear in some LucasArts things other than the movies, at least.
What specifically are you referring to? Having some sort of jamming system to prevent local ships hyperdrives from working seems logical since it can be used to prevent a ship from getting away. But I don't know if one can be used to stop an incoming hyperdrive.
editwhiletyping: I see the name of the image now. Yeah, having something to jam hyperdrives makes sense, but the ship the Rebels were on was a military ship and is likely hardened against that jamming, plus they were able to put a lot of distance between them and the star destroyers. I imagine that in episode 4, they had to turn off the jammer as well as the tractor beam.
Also, a thought, if they were so close to that planet, heck, even close enough to send transports towards it, why didn't they gun for it? Of course, they got deus ex machina'd again with a breaching cannon.
Post by: Taricus on December 28, 2017, 04:00:21 pm
And even then, the mass shadow of an interdictor would pull them out of hyperspace before they got too close as well.
Post by: smjjames on December 28, 2017, 04:09:36 pm
And then, they'd have to get out of range of whatever tractor beams the ships have. Given that they had to disable the tractor beam, I'd assume that attempting to hyperjump away while being tractored does very bad things to the ship.
Post by: Kot on December 28, 2017, 06:39:27 pm
Although the original movies also do imply that Millenium Falcon might have the "stop from flying into things" safeguards taken off, as Han says they could fly into a star, so I'd say it can be assumed the safeguards can be taken off but it's probably something you must do by mechanically screwing with the hyperspace drive, which means that almost all ships will have the safeguards in place, especially military ones, and nobody will really have time to override them during battle.
Post by: hops on January 01, 2018, 09:13:55 am
Post by: Putnam on January 01, 2018, 09:38:36 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 01, 2018, 09:46:29 am
Which would make sense sort of, given that they explained nothing about the character origins, and the Sith from nowhere is a stupid macguffin in my eyes.
Plus neither Kylo nor General Middlemanagement are credible villains. Both are sort of ridiculous.
Post by: Kot on January 01, 2018, 10:18:25 am
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.Nobody knows. Not even in new books. He is complete mystery, he just came up, took control of First Order and was Snoke.
Post by: Harry Baldman on January 01, 2018, 10:20:36 am
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.
I'm sure there'll be a prequel book and/or trilogy explaining that he was a municipal functionary of Somewhere or Other who took Ben Solo to a play now and again and told him cool stories about how the Force doesn't actually have a coherent moral divide in how it works or is applied, maybe a tragedy about a wise scholar who used this knowledge to become immortal only to mysteriously fall down a flight of stairs and die.
Post by: smjjames on January 01, 2018, 11:01:51 am
I'm, like, 99% sure he didn't actually link the two, especially since they were still linked after his death.
Or he just thinks that he facilitated it. Not impossible that his ego blinded him to what actually happened especially when Kylo later fooled him into thinking that he was thinking about his lightsabre and not the one right next to him.
OR he isn't quite dead.
Which would make sense sort of, given that they explained nothing about the character origins, and the Sith from nowhere is a stupid macguffin in my eyes.
Plus neither Kylo nor General Middlemanagement are credible villains. Both are sort of ridiculous.
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.Nobody knows. Not even in new books. He is complete mystery, he just came up, took control of First Order and was Snoke.
Yeah, even in wookiepedia (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Snoke) he pretty much came from nowhere.
As for him being dead, Darth Maul didn't survive being bisected by a lightsabre (he also fell into a powercore, so theres that) either, and the director himself said that Snoke is permanently dead.
Seems to be all about trying to break from the past and forge a new future.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 01, 2018, 11:36:19 am
As for him being dead, Darth Maul didn't survive being bisected by a lightsabre (he also fell into a powercore, so theres that)
... he actually survived, canonically.
Anyway:
- If he turns out to have a point and a background beyond a walking McGuffin/Palpatine stand-in, then what they did is poor storytelling.
- If he turns out NOT to have a background, and he´s nothing but a walking McGuffin/Palpatine stand-in because yadda yadda we´re starting something new not going with the old, then it´s poor storytelling, and needlessly complicated (The easiest way to do away with the previous setting is NOT starting at the previous setting.
Kind of lame, too. Surprise killing characters off is a gimmick copied from the GoT gameshow which gets old very soon (Worth noting that in the books they do this stuff far less often)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 01, 2018, 11:57:25 am
Post by: Kot on January 01, 2018, 12:12:41 pm
Ye. Both in old EU and in actual new canon, since he shows up in Clone Wars cartoons or Rebels or w/e. They just give him a set of mechanical legs and he's kicking. In old Canon he even fought with Vader, I think.
As for him being dead, Darth Maul didn't survive being bisected by a lightsabre (he also fell into a powercore, so theres that)
... he actually survived, canonically.
Post by: hector13 on January 01, 2018, 03:39:56 pm
As for him being dead, Darth Maul didn't survive being bisected by a lightsabre (he also fell into a powercore, so theres that)
... he actually survived, canonically.
Anyway:
- If he turns out to have a point and a background beyond a walking McGuffin/Palpatine stand-in, then what they did is poor storytelling.
- If he turns out NOT to have a background, and he´s nothing but a walking McGuffin/Palpatine stand-in because yadda yadda we´re starting something new not going with the old, then it´s poor storytelling, and needlessly complicated (The easiest way to do away with the previous setting is NOT starting at the previous setting.
Kind of lame, too. Surprise killing characters off is a gimmick copied from the GoT gameshow which gets old very soon (Worth noting that in the books they do this stuff far less often)
Well... Palpatine in Empire pops up out of nowhere. No backstory or nuffin'. I don't think the backstory is even really explored at all until the Prequel trilogy. I mean the Prequel trilogy is pretty much Palpatine's rise to power.
A cynic would say they're keeping his backstory as a reason to make another movie or three.
The two new movies in the series have pretty much been rehashes of the original trilogy. Obviously so in the case of the Force Awakens being A New Hope, and The Last Jedi sharing elements of Empire and RotJ.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 01, 2018, 04:41:56 pm
[Not really the same. Back then there was no backstory to to conflict with. I also daresay that, particularily with the former fact in mind, we do get a bit of exposure during the movies. We dont know the details, but we have a general outline of where palp stands
Well... Palpatine in Empire pops up out of nowhere. No backstory or nuffin'. I don't think the backstory is even really explored at all until the Prequel trilogy. I mean the Prequel trilogy is pretty much Palpatine's rise to power.
Quote
A cynic would say they're keeping his backstory as a reason to make another movie or threeSloppy storytelling for the sake of greater profit is still sloppy
Quote
The two new movies in the series have pretty much been rehashes of the original trilogy. Obviously so in the case of the Force Awakens being A New Hope, and The Last Jedi sharing elements of Empire and RotJ.Yeah, everything feels like they are changing the bare minimum they can to avoid being accused of self plagiarism
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on January 01, 2018, 06:42:03 pm
[Not really the same. Back then there was no backstory to to conflict with. I also daresay that, particularily with the former fact in mind, we do get a bit of exposure during the movies. We dont know the details, but we have a general outline of where palp stands
Well... Palpatine in Empire pops up out of nowhere. No backstory or nuffin'. I don't think the backstory is even really explored at all until the Prequel trilogy. I mean the Prequel trilogy is pretty much Palpatine's rise to power.
'Sides, the equivalent of Palpatine appearing in Empire for Snoke was his appearance in Force Awakens, not the Last Jedi.
Post by: hector13 on January 01, 2018, 07:06:26 pm
[Not really the same. Back then there was no backstory to to conflict with. I also daresay that, particularily with the former fact in mind, we do get a bit of exposure during the movies. We dont know the details, but we have a general outline of where palp stands
Well... Palpatine in Empire pops up out of nowhere. No backstory or nuffin'. I don't think the backstory is even really explored at all until the Prequel trilogy. I mean the Prequel trilogy is pretty much Palpatine's rise to power.
'Sides, the equivalent of Palpatine appearing in Empire for Snoke was his appearance in Force Awakens, not the Last Jedi.
Parallels can be made with RotJ for this one then :p
Not really sure how the lack of background is different this time to the original three though. There’s enough copying of older films that the mystery of Snoke is the same as the mystery of Palpatine from the original trilogy.
Palpatine gets mentioned in passing in the first movie (emperor has dissolved the senate how will order be maintained without the bureaucracy this battle station etc.) then makes an appearance via holocomm in the second and is the big bad in the third, trying to turn our protag antag. Snoke makes an appearance via holocomm in the first, and in the second is revealed to have been a big bad for a while, and... well, thinks the protag’ll get killed by the antag. Close enough.
Post by: Kot on January 02, 2018, 02:14:03 am
Well... Palpatine in Empire pops up out of nowhere. No backstory or nuffin'. I don't think the backstory is even really explored at all until the Prequel trilogy. I mean the Prequel trilogy is pretty much Palpatine's rise to power.But... he doesn't. I think even in the first movie they mention him dissolving the Senate, and we get to know that he was, together with Vader, responsible for destruction of Jedi and I think Clone Wars are mentioned. And if you count in novelisations, which we should, since Snoke is not explained in the Disney Trilogy books either, we get to know he was elected "President of The Republic" and caused the change from Republic to Empire. Probably more things I forgot. Sure, we don't know where he was born or anything, but we know how he got to his place and why he is actually such a big deal.
Meanwhile Snoke just is.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 02, 2018, 03:59:47 am
Quote
After the fall of the Galactic Empire, the remaining admirals fought for control amongst themselves. A sith lord, Lord Snoke, emerged from parts unknown and quickly began to unite the disparate factions.All the backstory you need. Its one possible interpretation of "first order". Among many forms of order (AKA the different factions of the old empire's military) we are the foremost.
Side note: why would we count novels? Its a movie series. If you have to read supplementary novels to enjoy a movie, its a bad movie.
Post by: Kot on January 02, 2018, 04:34:40 am
Did Boba Fett need to be explained? Jabba the Hutt? Yoda? The Rebel Alliance? The thing that lived in the trash compactor? Chewbacca? I could go on. Random aliens/robots/badass humans appearing and being neither explained nor commented on is a Star Wars staple.Most of them were explained to some degree, though, and the things that weren't, just weren't big shit on Galactic scale.
Think of it this way - Fellowship of the Ring throws the damn ring into the volcano, Sauron dies but suddenly there is another dude with high-ass tower just a bit to the East called Snort, he takes over Sauron's old army and turns out to be much more powerful but doesn't even have a ring. His backstory is that he just is.
Here:He's not a Lord and he's not a Sith, but eh, about the same. The problem is he is powerful force entity and it's hard to think that nobody fucking heard of him before, really.QuoteAfter the fall of the Galactic Empire, the remaining admirals fought for control amongst themselves. A sith lord, Lord Snoke, emerged from parts unknown and quickly began to unite the disparate factions.All the backstory you need. Its one possible interpretation of "first order". Among many forms of order (AKA the different factions of the old empire's military) we are the foremost.
Side note: why would we count novels? Its a movie series. If you have to read supplementary novels to enjoy a movie, its a bad movie.Because old supplementary novels supplement the movie, and Disney's supplementary novels don't supplement the movie.
/shrug
Post by: Putnam on January 02, 2018, 06:01:49 am
The problem is he is powerful force entity and it's hard to think that nobody fucking heard of him before, really.
Have you heard of the Father, Son, Daughter, Bendu, various other powerful force entities which rarely come up and nobody's heard of? This is also a star wars staple in canon.
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 06:18:30 am
If there was another Sith Lord around then it clearly breaks the Sith principle of the "Rule of Two". So Snoke could exist, however he has to be a "dark force user" who is entirely unconnected to the Sith, which itself brings in all sort of questions if there are otherwise unrelated Sith-like people just hanging around who don't have the convenient "Rule of Two" of the Sith which is there to help explain why they don't end up with armies of Sith. The real question is whether he gained force powers after Palpatine's death, becoming a "fake Sith" or whether he had those powers already, which begs the question of why Palpatine wouldn't hunt him down just like he did with the Jedi. I doubt the Sith with their strict "Rule of Two" would allow any other force-sensitive person to exist, light or dark.
So the only real believable thing would be that he's some random force-power using person who happens to be on the Dark Side, but was hiding from the Imperial forces during the Empire period just like Obi Wan and Yoda were, and the reason he acts like Palpatine is because he's a newly minted "Sith wannabee".
Post by: Putnam on January 02, 2018, 06:27:11 am
...the question of why Palpatine wouldn't hunt him down just like he did with the Jedi...
He's from the Unknown Regions, which speaks for itself. The Empire had basically no jurisdiction there. The Thrawn novel goes into this i think.
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 06:32:28 am
Compare Palpatine to Princess Leia surviving being blown into vacuum.
Post by: Taricus on January 02, 2018, 06:34:00 am
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 06:36:06 am
However, this is again the sort of retroactive plot hole that's made worse with "power creep" stuff in a series. In any original film/series, deaths can be pretty mundane, but as more and more powers are added to the "standard repertoire" of the Jedi/Sith you need to construct more elaborate ways to make sure they'e really dead. They seem to favor being cut in half now as a way to indicate being really, really dead.
Post by: NJW2000 on January 02, 2018, 06:49:03 am
They seem to favor being cut in half now as a way to indicate being really, really dead.Mumble mumble darth vader legs mumble mumble?
Post by: Kot on January 02, 2018, 06:52:21 am
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 06:53:45 am
Also Mace Windu didn't survive going out the window. Leia's magic space journey really breaks cannon powers.
Maul only "lived" in the EU because ... EU writers. He's dead dead in movie canon. (I note he turns up in the Clone Wars tv show, which I haven't watched, but not sure how canon that even is considered now).
Post by: Kot on January 02, 2018, 07:05:54 am
Maul only "lived" in the EU because ... EU writers. He's dead dead in movie canon. (I note he turns up in the Clone Wars tv show, which I haven't watched, but not sure how canon that even is considered now).They're canon, same as Rebels, because >Disney. So Maul being alive is even more canon than ever.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 02, 2018, 07:07:18 am
Well, to be fair falling down a large hole is basically a death sentence thanks to gravity.
... It happened in a f***ing space station
(http://www.mibrujula.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/fail3.jpg)
Post by: Kot on January 02, 2018, 07:07:51 am
... It happened in a f***ing space stationYeah, like when in new movie Resistance used gravity-dropped bombs on the spaceship and it worked?
(http://www.mibrujula.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/fail3.jpg)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 02, 2018, 07:14:30 am
So yeah, no, it´s not a peak of narrative quality. If anything it´s sort of reminiscent of Poochie the Dog (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Poochie) in The Simpsons (anyone remember that?)
*The name and character implementation are so lame that I´m pretty sure the redditer who came up with this acronym hit jackpot as to it´s etymology.
Post by: Putnam on January 02, 2018, 07:15:53 am
Well, to be fair falling down a large hole is basically a death sentence thanks to gravity.
... It happened in a f***ing space station
1. a space station the size of a f***ing moon
2. yes, star wars is very well known for its realistic physics
Yeah, like when in new movie Resistance used gravity-dropped bombs on the spaceship and it worked?
bombs were gravity-based in the old canon even in space, see: battlefront 2 (classic, 2005)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 02, 2018, 07:24:01 am
1. a space station the size of a f***ing moon
More like the size of an asteroid. Also partially built.
I was willing to overlook it in ROTJ for the sake of Drama.
TLJ, however, piles stoopid upon stoopid... and it becomes hard to ignore. The bombers in the opening scene were kind of dumb as well...
BTW: how did Benicio del Toro learn about the transport plan? IIRC he really shouldn´t have been able to.
Post by: Putnam on January 02, 2018, 07:25:33 am
it's not a science-based series, it's space opera
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 07:59:13 am
BTW: how did Benicio del Toro learn about the transport plan? IIRC he really shouldn´t have been able to.
There's was a moment where he overhears some radio chatter I think. Apparently it's covered, but it's a brief moment that pretty much the whole audience missed, according to what I've read (the reviewer i read who mentioned it had seen the film more than once). That can be a sign of subtle subtext (e.g. things you only pick up on subsequent viewing) but it can also just be bad film-making: basically, subtle clues that you're guaranteed to miss on first viewing shouldn't be plot-important on the first viewing, but they should be obvious signs on second viewing, e.g. in a mystery series, you should discover the clues that the main character does at the same time as they do, however, you can foreshadow that throughout the film before that point, meaning that meaningless things take on new significance when viewed again. This is not what this film was doing.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 02, 2018, 08:09:27 am
every single star wars film is insanely unrealistic over and over again with no resemblance whatsoever to how actual space combat works as one of its main features, i don't know how anyone can act as if this is new in TLJEven Space Opera has its limits. Thats why the Wing Commander movie is acknowledged to be crap.
it's not a science-based series, it's space opera
that, and, well, the crappy story and development.
Just like TLJ really
Post by: hector13 on January 02, 2018, 02:15:04 pm
every single star wars film is insanely unrealistic over and over again with no resemblance whatsoever to how actual space combat works as one of its main features, i don't know how anyone can act as if this is new in TLJEven Space Opera has its limits. Thats why the Wing Commander movie is acknowledged to be crap.
it's not a science-based series, it's space opera
that, and, well, the crappy story and development.
Just like TLJ really
Well this was started with the knowledge there were going to be three films. You're not going to contain the story in one film when you know there's going to be another coming, else they would've ended this one after Kylo figured Rey wasn't for this dark side nonsense.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on January 02, 2018, 02:48:12 pm
every single star wars film is insanely unrealistic over and over again with no resemblance whatsoever to how actual space combat works as one of its main features, i don't know how anyone can act as if this is new in TLJEven Space Opera has its limits. Thats why the Wing Commander movie is acknowledged to be crap.
it's not a science-based series, it's space opera
that, and, well, the crappy story and development.
Just like TLJ really
Well this was started with the knowledge there were going to be three films. You're not going to contain the story in one film when you know there's going to be another coming, else they would've ended this one after Kylo figured Rey wasn't for this dark side nonsense.
You know, if they cut off the parts after Kylo had declared himself the Supreme Leader of the First Order (maybe the scene between Yoda and Luke after that if it didn't occur before then) and had Leia die when she was blown out into space, the movie probably would have been better for it. The whole battle at the end could have been stretched into a full movie on its own with a desperate defense driving the last of the Resistance deeper and deeper into the base. Hell, the Luke pulling a stalling action so a skeleton crew can escape followed by the final scene of this movie would have made a pretty good cap to the trilogy. Sure, there may have been a few dangling plot threads, but in all likelihood Disney's going to be making another Trilogy. Plus, kinda makes the Trilogies cyclical, the light to dark of the Prequels leading into the Dark to Light of the Originals leading into the Light to Dark of the (likely first) Sequels, which given what is said about the Force is kinda fitting. Bonus, if they decide to have a Vong invasion at some point, they could break that cycle and have it be fitting since the Vong are outside the Force.
Post by: smjjames on January 02, 2018, 02:53:33 pm
As for the Yuuzhan Vong stuff, TLJ seems to take place after his last appearance in the EU according to wookiepedia and so, doing Yuuzhan Vong won't work because he was alive in the EU. Then again, Disney has pretty solidly broken from the EU, so, who knows where it'll go.
edit: Actually, in canon, he apparently dies about a decade before the last EU appearance. Before the EU took a massive 100 year jump anyway.
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 03:18:48 pm
You know, if they cut off the parts after Kylo had declared himself the Supreme Leader of the First Order (maybe the scene between Yoda and Luke after that if it didn't occur before then) and had Leia die when she was blown out into space, the movie probably would have been better for it. ...
Even better, have Leia, and no Holdo, and have Leia do the hyperspace death-run into the enemy ship. Then end it there with Kylo declaring himself the new Supreme Leader as his ship disintegrates, and you can end it with Rei, Finn and Rose in dire straights, with Poe powerless to help. I mean, seriously, the ending of the actual movie is a cop-out after all the big talk: it ends with the "team back together" taking off on the millenium falcon, with a hopeful note. After all the talk of this being a darker film where things don't go as planned, tying all the loose ends up like that is a weaksauce way to end it. Empire Strikes Back was a better cliffhanger because they lost something important (old person mentors dying off is not a loss: it's a routine plot).
THey could even have ended it with Rei at least appearing to side with Kylo Ren, Finn and Rose dead or in unknown status, and Poe powerless to help on the evacuation shuttles. It would have been a much cooler ending, really, and a lot of interesting plot ideas you could go with, if there's speculation on whether Rei's really gone "dark side" or not. After all the force-powered flirtation it seems a cop-out to have her just have Rei do the "i'm sticking with the light" spiel. The film also ends on a buddy-buddy note with the entire reformed crew speeding off in the Millenium Falcon. That's too much like a sitcom ending, where all the team splintering and plot points in between the start and finish didn't actually matter.
Post by: smjjames on January 02, 2018, 03:26:28 pm
I was thinking of Darth Maul and Snoke, Anakin survived getting sliced up.
Also Mace Windu didn't survive going out the window. Leia's magic space journey really breaks cannon powers.
I took it more as a reminder that she too, is a powerful force user, even though I'm not aware of Leia ever using it in the movies.
On that side...
You know, if they cut off the parts after Kylo had declared himself the Supreme Leader of the First Order (maybe the scene between Yoda and Luke after that if it didn't occur before then) and had Leia die when she was blown out into space, the movie probably would have been better for it. ...
Even better, have Leia, and no Holdo, and have Leia do the hyperspace death-run into the enemy ship. Then end it there with Kylo declaring himself the new Supreme Leader as his ship disintegrates, and you can end it with Rei, Finn and Rose in dire straights, with Poe powerless to help. I mean, seriously, the ending of the actual movie is a cop-out after all the big talk: it ends with the "team back together" taking off on the millenium falcon, with a hopeful note. After all the talk of this being a darker film where things don't go as planned, tying all the loose ends up like that is a weaksauce way to end it. Empire Strikes Back was a better cliffhanger because they lost something important (old person mentors dying off is not a loss: it's a routine plot).
.. Since Leia is a powerful force user herself, I don't see why she can't act as a teacher for a younger generation of force users. In the EU, there are all kinds of force sensistive individuals (and entire species) and it's entirely possible for them to develop it on their own. The point is more that the Jedi and the Sith wouldn't be the only force users around.
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 04:03:01 pm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2527336/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Basically pages and pages of user reviews slamming the thing as a turd. The imdb ratings are probably higher than the people who take the time to review the thing, because of a lot of joe average types who like anything blockbustery watching it, while the people on Rotten Tomatoes are more likely to be diehard film buffs too.
So, the main argument that the pro people have is "well people are still going to see it, it can't be that bad". But ... it's Star Wars. People would go to see it no matter what. That's what big franchises do. Amount of money taken at the box office often has little connection to how good something is, it's an irrelevant detail. The Emoji Movie made $216 million worldwide. If a new Star Wars movie made $600 million then that's actually nothing to boast about, it's just expected when a movie with a literal talking turd in the trailers can make 1/3rd of that.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 02, 2018, 04:22:19 pm
You mean the new movie which spawned a giant spaceThe bombers in the opening were brilliant. SW has always been WW2 dogfighters in space, now we have a WW2 bomber in space. Complete with the obligatory midflight repair/crew death war story. That bomber is the first SW vehicle I’ve seen since the original trilogy that wasn’t based on any old vehicle, yet still felt like it belonged.lobster from nowhereSith Noone Knew Existed* and then killed him off with no previous warning? :P
So yeah, no, it´s not a peak of narrative quality. If anything it´s sort of reminiscent of Poochie the Dog (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Poochie) in The Simpsons (anyone remember that?)
*The name and character implementation are so lame that I´m pretty sure the redditer who came up with this acronym hit jackpot as to it´s etymology.
Post by: Reelya on January 02, 2018, 04:38:26 pm
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070150896/
Here's an interesting thing, The Last Jedi was around 8.1 at first, making it the most highly-rated Star Wars movie since the OG, but that's slipped now to 7.6, which is into prequel territory - any more slippage and it's below Revenge of the Sith, and if it slips 10 points, it'll be below Phantom Menance and Attack of the Clones. This will be interesting to watch how it fares with the ratings.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 02, 2018, 05:15:35 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then continuing on to talk about TLJ, still using the above points:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: McTraveller on January 02, 2018, 08:01:26 pm
-treatise-I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought Ep 8 was actually pretty good... and that sums up a lot of why. I don't think I put nearly as much though into figuring out why though.
Kudos!
Post by: Folly on January 02, 2018, 08:34:23 pm
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.
I feel like we need another side-story, akin to Rogue One. We need an explanation for how Snoke's face got jacked up, what drove him to the dark side, and what his motivations were in taking over the Empire. Also, how they got ahold of new tracking technology. And what the deal was with that order of red-armored saber-weilding guards. Maybe some backstory on the female chrome-armored storm trooper. And just because it happened around the same time, throw in some stuff about Luke's Jedi Master phase.
Post by: smjjames on January 02, 2018, 08:44:31 pm
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.
I feel like we need another side-story, akin to Rogue One. We need an explanation for how Snoke's face got jacked up, what drove him to the dark side, and what his motivations were in taking over the Empire. Also, how they got ahold of new tracking technology. And what the deal was with that order of red-armored saber-weilding guards. Maybe some backstory on the female chrome-armored storm trooper. And just because it happened around the same time, throw in some stuff about Luke's Jedi Master phase.
I didn't notice the chrome armored stormtrooper was female. Seemed like that person and Finn knew each other at some point though.
As for the red armored personal guards, Palpatine had similar as personal guards, so, they could be remnants (at least 20+ years after Palpatine died though...) of that or Snoke copied them from Palpatine.
Post by: Putnam on January 02, 2018, 10:08:38 pm
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.
I feel like we need another side-story, akin to Rogue One. We need an explanation for how Snoke's face got jacked up, what drove him to the dark side, and what his motivations were in taking over the Empire. Also, how they got ahold of new tracking technology. And what the deal was with that order of red-armored saber-weilding guards. Maybe some backstory on the female chrome-armored storm trooper. And just because it happened around the same time, throw in some stuff about Luke's Jedi Master phase.
I didn't notice the chrome armored stormtrooper was female. Seemed like that person and Finn knew each other at some point though.
She appeared multiple times in The Force Awakens and was an integral part of the plot on Starkiller Base.
Speaking of Yoda, him suddenly gaining a sadistic streak seemed wierd. I get that he was supposed to have been a little eccentric, but the whole zapping the tree with lightning when Luke hesitated or took too long seemed out of character.
He was a lil' shithead in ESB. He ate Luke's food, spat it back out, just acted as a general nuisance until he could drop the bomb on Luke that he, in fact, is Yoda.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 02, 2018, 10:46:07 pm
Post by: LoSboccacc on January 03, 2018, 07:53:55 am
this is a motive thorough the movie, people do stuff because they're told to do it, without understanding nor motivation, up to and including general fancy hair plan to reach the rebel fortress, but even if it had a meaning or a hidden message, it was executed sloppily (cfr Merovingio 'you have been sent here', maybe not the best film but drives very well home the point that everyone is just a pawn at that point )
Post by: McTraveller on January 03, 2018, 08:50:53 am
I love the little troll. The books weren't even in the temple, Rey stole them. At no point in the movie did Luke ever realize that.I was wondering how many other people noticed that :)
Post by: hops on January 03, 2018, 09:02:30 am
Post by: smjjames on January 03, 2018, 10:09:16 am
Haven’t read through the thread yet but who the heck was Snoke anyways? He came out of nowhere and died without much explanation except that he’s not a Sith Lord, doesn’t have a lightsaber, and is possibly one of the most Force-sensitive beings ever seeing as he can telepathically link two people several light years across, plus he can read minds and have weird and confusing ideas about the Dark Side.
I feel like we need another side-story, akin to Rogue One. We need an explanation for how Snoke's face got jacked up, what drove him to the dark side, and what his motivations were in taking over the Empire. Also, how they got ahold of new tracking technology. And what the deal was with that order of red-armored saber-weilding guards. Maybe some backstory on the female chrome-armored storm trooper. And just because it happened around the same time, throw in some stuff about Luke's Jedi Master phase.
I didn't notice the chrome armored stormtrooper was female. Seemed like that person and Finn knew each other at some point though.
She appeared multiple times in The Force Awakens and was an integral part of the plot on Starkiller Base.Speaking of Yoda, him suddenly gaining a sadistic streak seemed wierd. I get that he was supposed to have been a little eccentric, but the whole zapping the tree with lightning when Luke hesitated or took too long seemed out of character.
He was a lil' shithead in ESB. He ate Luke's food, spat it back out, just acted as a general nuisance until he could drop the bomb on Luke that he, in fact, is Yoda.
I thought he was intentionally doing that, acting like a crazed hermit until he could be absolutely sure of Luke's intentions. It's possible that he may actually have gone a little loopy during his isolation.
I love the little troll. The books weren't even in the temple, Rey stole them. At no point in the movie did Luke ever realize that.I was wondering how many other people noticed that :)
I noticed in a later scene some point some books that looked a heck of a lot like those jedi books, but wasn't sure if they were. So, technically I noticed.
Post by: Putnam on January 03, 2018, 10:34:11 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 03, 2018, 10:48:59 am
I just assumed the red guards were the missing Jedi.
???
You mean the new movie which spawned a giant spaceThe bombers in the opening were brilliant. SW has always been WW2 dogfighters in space, now we have a WW2 bomber in space. Complete with the obligatory midflight repair/crew death war story. That bomber is the first SW vehicle I’ve seen since the original trilogy that wasn’t based on any old vehicle, yet still felt like it belonged.lobster from nowhereSith Noone Knew Existed* and then killed him off with no previous warning? :P
So yeah, no, it´s not a peak of narrative quality. If anything it´s sort of reminiscent of Poochie the Dog (http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Poochie) in The Simpsons (anyone remember that?)
*The name and character implementation are so lame that I´m pretty sure the redditer who came up with this acronym hit jackpot as to it´s etymology.
The bombers were retarded. Actually. Where the fuck are the y-wings??? Granted they looked alright, but it's pretty well established that neither the rebels or imperials use fucking carpet bombing in a fleet action. Like y-wings are a thing. tie-bombers. These new things didn't make any sense.
As for Leia pulling herself out of space... I basically just wrote an essay about this and it digressed at some point. So I'll split this into two things. First, about Leia:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then continuing on to talk about TLJ, still using the above points:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
[rage intensifies] this movie is not how you do anything correctly!
Shit. I don't even know where to start.
Leia: That scene was dumb. as. shit. I have no qualms with Leia being force-sensitive with the potential to be Luke-level powerful, that makes perfect sense within the logic of the universe. But... UGH, first of all the whole way she like wakes back up and flies through space to look like a Disney princess is just fucking bullshit. I mean, seriously? It was so saccharine and campy, if she IS so powerful as to fucking protect herself from space AND force-pull herself back to the ship, why didn't she just stop the missiles from impacting? Easy stuff in comparison. Why didn't she sense Kylo? So many things that should have happened first, didn't. And y'know what, frankly, if you wanna bypass all that stuff so you can have the bullshit Disney moment, at least back it up with logic that we can see. TELL US OUTRIGHT why didn't these obvious things happen.
As far as "rebuilding what it means to be a jedi"... just, no man. No. I'm pretty sure the whole point of the movie is the opposite. The whole theme is that both Jedi and Sith are outmoded and overly extremist, that the whole good vs evil thing is bullshit. Rey ISN'T a Jedi and Kylo ISN'T a Sith--that's like pretty heavily present in just about every scene. It's called "The Last Jedi" for a reason. Rey's arc, and EVERYONE'S for that matter... are bad because they're all things that the characters WERE in the last film.
Rey = selfless, helping the ones you love (uh, decides to blow up Starkiller Base????) Also her parents being no one is such a bullshit thing. If you gonna build up the whole "who are her parents" thing and then RUIN IT for us, give us a more interesting scene then her just fucking looking into a cool mirror. What a lame way to end that plot line. I mean Kylo brings it up again, but he was just being a meanie weenie. There's basically no emotional realization for Rey.
Finn = not being a fucking coward (UH, ALSO decides to GO BACK to FO territory to blow up Starkiller Base?????)
Poe = not being the worst wing commander to have ever made the fleet (He just isn't. I don't know what to say. He does what he does because he has to. And now he does it because he has brain damage.)
Kylo = actually pretty good character development, goes from trying to decide between dark and light and realizing it's all bullshit and they're just two sides that don't correlate to right and wrong. The only character which I actually think has gotten a lot better.
... and because it has to be said, I know she wasn't in TFA:
Rose = "Delete this." SELF-INSERT FAN FICTION. Fuck off Rian.
The Luke v Kylo fight: DAMN MAN. Worst fight in all nine movies. Hands down. What the fuck was that? I get WHAT Luke's doing, but just the choice for him to astral project instead of actually show up is terrible filmmaking. *sigh* There is so much fucking wrong with this sequence. The goofy-ass, dog-looking new AT-ATs (apparently some Disney exec has a hardon for making things bigger, which makes them look badder) volleying Luke, Luke just dodging Kylo's swings for all of 5 seconds, the fact that THAT kills him. [angery noises] And listen dude, you are going to tell me straight-faced, without laughing that Luke NOT being involved is somehow better for the galaxy??? Oh shit, let's just let these force-sensitives figure it out on their own! My god. His whole plot arc is about getting back up on the horse and overcoming his failures and he just... poofs!? Are you fucking serious!? Luke Skywalker. The guy. The dude. The man. Just fucking poofs? The worst plot arc in history. Killing him without basically passing on any of his wisdom is tantamount to resetting the whole Jedi v Sith thing back to the Old Republic era! So much progress lost!
And ooooh boy, Rey saving the day makes her super duper good and right! No! How could you think that??? She went to figure her own shit out first and only happened to arrive on time via chance. Rey literally acted selfishly this whole movie. Her mission is to get Luke to help, fails. Then she decides oh, I have to turn Kylo--fuck this mission. Fails, also fucking delivers herself into FO custody which via plot-armor is somehow a good thing. Oh, NOW I'll go save the rebellion--yay me, I'm the best!
No one acts intelligently. No one makes any sort of real discovery. No one does anything meaningful. And on top of it all, what good there is in the movie (see: Kylo being a good character) is shit on by how bad the filmmaking and directorial decisions are. Even if the movie was better in both creative vision and actual screenwriting, it is positively ruined by the off-time comedy, persistent plot-armor, characters acting out of character. This might as well been the last film. Or the first film. It really doesn't matter as it really doesn't connect to anything else done by any SW movie ever.
PART 2:
Damn. I thought I didn't know where to begin before. Holy shit, lol. Alright, just... one paragraph at a time I guess, so we can both know to what I'm responding.
Paragraph #1: I actually kind of agree with this. I think you're extrapolating with the pitying, but generally ya.
Paragraph #2: Kylo trying and failing to be Vader is part of a great plot arc. Empire? That image is definitely not destroyed, if the dialogue is be believed they once again control most of the galaxy as the First Order. Bad writing. Kylo taking control is interesting though--kinda. Because now he's the big bad, when he could have had a much more interesting arc. So that's disappointing.
Paragraph #3: So many mixed emotions. One, no. What was started in TFA is not at all finished--and if it is, it was hacked down by a bad director. Two, what if I told you that Episode 8 is just a bad movie. Yes, a bad Star Wars movie, but just a bad movie. If this movie wasn't a Star Wars movie you'd just be like, damn, that was a bad movie. It certainly DOES NOT extract what the core of Star Wars is. IMO, the core of Star Wars is this: Secret Missions. Exotic Landscapes. The Force. And above all: A sense of wonder. Episode 8 has all of these things... but executes them poorly, and in my book is perhaps only slightly better than Episode 2, that one being the worse if I'm being objective. Worse than that though, you are right in Star Wars being Americana, it's a cultural artifact. Ep4 is in the Library of Congress ffs. Episode 8 fucking destroys that. I mean... damn. How can you not see that Disney is just going to mass produce these movies, IS mass-producing these movies? The light has gone out from the vision that is Star Wars. Hell the originals are not perfect, and frankly the prequels are a rushed mass of ideas and references, but goddamn there is a golden string of inspiration that runs through every one of those movies. TFA, Rogue One, and TLJ all lack it. The Fifth Element is a better Star Wars movie than Episode 8. There is a movie that LOOKS like Star Wars, but does not FEEL like Star Wars. I mean, shit TLJ is just flat out bad from a non-fan perspective, but the same applies to TFA and to a lesser extent Rogue One which are much better movies. TFA is has the makings of a Star Wars film and comes pretty close, but is really just emulating the originals without the style that Lucas had. Rogue One actually hits DAMN CLOSE to home. I would say that the director actually succeeded in making a Star Wars movie. It feels right. The story is just a little lame to be truly great. Forgettable main characters. Everyone dies when they don't really need to. TLJ is the death knell. The final stroke that kills Lucas' creative influence. In a few short years, the series that he created will be dead and gone. It will, as I have said and will continue to say, be Marvelized. We'll get larger and larger casts. Mediocre movies. Comic-book-esque cinematography. And big name actors. Bad stories. Bad dialogue. Obviously, Star Wars had to move on from Lucas at some point if it was to continue being a PROFITABLE franchise, but IMO this was the worst possible way to do it.
Paragraph #4: Welp. Let's just agree to disagree. Just imagine that I inserted what you typed, but every sentence was in the negative--that would pretty much sum up my feelings on TLJ.
Paragraph #5: I think you're absolutely right in your predictions. 100%. However, fuck Rian Johnson--as far I am concerned, he's destroyed something I loved. The fact that he gets free reign over the next trilogy makes me sick--there is a 0% chance he doesn't fuck it up. Here's my own prediction: We will never see another good Star Wars movie.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 03, 2018, 02:56:07 pm
Its just odd to me that people could be so far apart on this. Like I think a movie's good, someone else thinks its bad, that's normal. Me thinking its better than the worst of the OT, while someone else thinking its worse than the prequels? That's not normal. Even for something polarizing like, say, the Watchmen movie, which had Alan Moore put a hex on it in a more extreme version of Mark Hamill stating misgivings. Even hardcore comics fans on the internet who don't like the Watchmen movie still had good things to say about it. I didn't like the Watchmen movie but I still acknowledge its craft was at least well executed. Just like how, in my opinion (and we both wrote a page of text we don't need to keep talking about this unless we want to) the craft in this movie was solid. The cinematography was well done, the fight scenes had clear blocking and establishment of stakes, the writing was good. Its kind of like... OK, I hated Skyfall. I think I'm mostly alone in this. But even tho I hated Skyfall, I acknowledge that the craft that went into it was solid. Likewise, a lot of people who defend movies generally accepted to be bad will acknowledge that some aspect of the craft that went into them is bad. So I think movie responses should always be closer than they are here.
This especially since all the movie reporting cites like Box Office Mojo agree that exit polls for the movie were top notch. Also that its box office returns match the previous patterns that both the OT and prequels had (a steady drop of a third between each sequel, presumably because no one wants to start the series partway through). And all I can think is that this movie worked for the general audiences that have always been SW core fandom. SW has never been a geek thing. What I see here is an *extremely* motivated minority flocking to every avenue they have to bad mouth the movie on the internet. Text written in RT audience reviews is essentially never read by anyone. The culture on RT is to not write a review or to write a one paragraph one. So there's a very low barrier of entry to tanking the RT audience reviews. Meanwhile the RT critic reviews are gated, thus representing, not a general audience really, but not that motivated minority. IMDB on the other hand, is a cinephile's playground. Every single movie, even the schlockiest B movie, gets essay length reviews on IMDB. On top of that they just care more than the RT audience review crowd. So that small minority gets more drowned out, because in IMDB you're kind of expected to take the time to write a review, and there's already a big crowd of film nerds that were *going* to watch this and review it but aren't hardcore SW fans. Now a couple weeks in, when all the cinephiles have already seen the movie over Christmas break but the hatedom is still chugging along strongly, its easier to begin slowly dragging the IMDB reviews into the ground.
I just don't see where the hate is in general audiences. And as I've already explained, the hatedom is so far from my perspective it boggles the mind. Like, the box office return is there. The exit polls are there. The critic response is there. Its just online reviews and forums that are against the movie.
I absolutely don't think that 99.999% of audiences went even a third in the depth I did in their analysis of this movie. I'm an English major but I went to a film school and I have a lot of film major friends. I have strong feelings about this. But one of my core beliefs about art is that audience won't don't do the analysis but they still *notice* the little details. Like how my film nerd friends went berserk when they watched Fury Road because they know what cgi looks like* and they understood that the cars were real. Most people didn't know that. But they loved Fury Road and praised the special effects and the worldbuilding. Because even tho they didn't know why, the little details still effected them. In the same way, I think people could tell that this movie was destroying SW symbols and norms. I don't think everyone explicitly caught on to the movie's many red herrings (there are actually dozens, many nothing more than implications), but I think they could tell that many scenes went differently than what they expected. In my opinion, SW's core demographic caught onto this and was game, while the geek demographic caught onto this and was furious because this isn't a SW movie as they would define a SW movie.
To go into a little more detail on what I mean by this: SW has been choked by its own canon. George Lucas' faith that his project could succeed was what allowed SW to exist. Doesn't change that he's a shit writer and director. His wife edited the movies and Carrie Fisher script doctored them, without that it would have been horrible. Rocket Punch did a good video on this if you're interested, "how SW was saved in the edit." He divorced his wife after V and was so rich he didn't have to take his actors' advice anymore. Sry Harrison Ford, cursing at the director will no longer result in script changes. So what we got in VI, is a movie that's essentially a rehash of IV and V. Literally the only new setting we get is a forest world, which is the most obvious setting in which to set SW's WW2 inspired combat. Remember, those guns the storm troopers had? People who were alive at the time VI came out had literally fired those weapons (British SMGs that resembled German ones) in the forests of Western Europe. It was a cultural reference so clear as to be almost on-the-nose. The only new thing about Endor was the Ewoks, and they succccckkkkkkeeedddd. So we've got one movie that's a rehash. Then the prequels practically worship Darth Vader and make everything that defines the OT pre-destined to happen despite there being no implication of that in the OT. So that's four movies that are rehashes. Then VII is basically a New Hope+, and Rogue One is not meant to be a mainline film but still ends with a nostalgic little love letter to a New Hope. So that's SIX MOVIES that have been living in the shadow of those two original SW movies. That's what geeks define SW as. What its been, essentially. But general audiences haven't been endlessly rewatching the old 6 movies, nor have they been reading the supplemental materials. To them SW is that fun movie about laser battles in space. So... well, they don't care where the Y-wings are. Going back to how the average person doesn't analyze but they still understand, the scene in the body of the bombers was fundamentally similar to the cockpit/droid repair/Millenium Falcon turret shots from A New Hope. Even the little rattling motion inside the bomb bay was similar to a lot of "hallway of ship under fire" shots. So to someone who has fond memories of A New Hope, but hasn't been reading starship top speeds and blast yields on Wookiepedia, that opening scene was what they were looking for in a SW film.
*cgi can't do weight and gravity. People who went to film school can tell without knowing in advance, its weird. If something is flighty its cgi. Remember those shots in all the transformers trailers where Bumblebee or whoever would transform while rolling and they would practically fly off the ground as if they weighed nothing? Weakness of cgi. That bit in the Pacific Rim cockpits where they would push the gauntlets forward and there's clearly physical resistance and then click when the gauntlets snap into place? They could do that because the cockpit was a set and the pilot rigging was heavy in real life
Post by: Putnam on January 03, 2018, 03:16:49 pm
Or maybe I'm just wrong at what I think and I see Star Wars movies as... just movies. Not sure. Probably the latter, considering how I actually thought.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 03, 2018, 03:29:06 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 03, 2018, 03:48:56 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 03, 2018, 04:07:30 pm
But I want to point out, as a film major, that... the fundamentals are NOT there. Like... nothing about this movie is how a movie should be made? That is what confuses me. I DO hate it because I think it's ruined the franchise, but it is also a bad movie--craft-wise.
The plot structure is quite bad when examined, it invalidates most of what actually occurs in the first sixty minutes. There's really no satisfactory pay-off. In the end, nothing is accomplished, and no one is really changed. NEED I go into more depth than that? I can. Screenwriting is what I do, and this script is... yikes.
The comedy is just off. It felt so out of place.
The character development is nil or backwards. Except for Kylo--who's rocking.
The cinematography is also "off" I don't want to say it is bad, as every shot taken by itself is on-the-whole, quite beautiful, but the decisions are wrong. The shots are boring or way over the top in a way that jumps the shark. Bigger =/= badder.
The editing is actually bad. Sequences don't always come together in ways that they should, there are no less than three times where cuts were noticeably too quick (and I'm no editor), and transitions were used inappropriately. Star Wars is famous for its wipes, but they didn't flow well or get used properly here.
I've seen how Star Wars was saved in the edit. Excellent piece. However, you're analysis of George is a little off. Shit writer, yes. Shit director? No. Great director man. Listen, he's shit at writing dialogue, but trust me Star Wars wouldn't have been saved at all if he didn't have plenty of gold in there. His vision was fairly complete--especially compared to most modern film-makers--so y'know I don't get when people lambaste him for making GREAT movies. Let's not forget he has other wildly successful movies.
As far as defining what a Star Wars movie is, I mean, there IS a certain way to make a Star Wars film! Like, that's just how it is. You can't slap the Star Wars label on anything and call it Star Wars... I also do not get that. There ARE certain expectations for a Star Wars film, sure you can defy those and if it's a good movie it's fine, but as I have previously pointed out, Ep8 is NOT a good movie. There is nothing good about it. On a fundamental level, this movie fails. If I was a Disney Script Reader I would be APPALLED that this script was submitted to me.
Honestly, you are in equal parts just accepting this movie because lots of people like it and saying that some older stuff sucked because it didn't live up to YOUR expectations. Why is THAT okay? Listen, I'm not some super fan here dude. No one I have talked to is a super fan either. We've seen the movies, watched some of the TV shows, and read a book or two. We're not memorizing stats on wookiepedia. (Although, as far as wikias go--it's a good one) But I'm not going to go easy on it because it's a blockbuster. It sucked. Most people just don't care. A lot of people just view this type of film as escapism and not a serious attempt at art, which is what I assume everything is.
Also, again, as a film major--I really don't have any problem with the CGI it was quite good for the most part--if far too ridiculous in some scenes.
Why I keep responding and keep saying what's wrong with it is because I honestly do not understand WHAT people see in this film. For me? Top 3 worst films ever made. I truly, truly hated it. Even when people, such as yourself, have explained their positions pretty fully, I just don't see WHY you like what you like? No one has to justify that of course, but it also boggles my mind that reviews are so far apart. I mean damn, things people say are good, or well-executed about this film are things that I think are extremely poorly done. It goes against everything I have ever learned about making films and my own personal style.
Like I said, I can disagree with people on this. Nothing morally wrong with disliking (or hating, or liking, or whatever) this movie. I'm just analytical in general, I basically write an essay in my head about every movie I watch.
Same.
Post by: Antioch on January 03, 2018, 05:38:59 pm
Post by: Kot on January 03, 2018, 05:41:55 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on January 03, 2018, 05:53:59 pm
Post by: hops on January 03, 2018, 07:20:19 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 03, 2018, 07:44:07 pm
Post by: Putnam on January 04, 2018, 03:31:31 am
The plot structure is quite bad when examined, it invalidates most of what actually occurs in the first sixty minutes. There's really no satisfactory pay-off. In the end, nothing is accomplished, and no one is really changed. NEED I go into more depth than that? I can. Screenwriting is what I do, and this script is... yikes.
The character development is nil or backwards. Except for Kylo--who's rocking.
These two statements are contradictory.
Post by: wobbly on January 04, 2018, 03:54:30 am
I'm not surprised so many people are of opposite opinions on the movie. I went in with no particular expectations & taken as just a sci-fi action movie it's pretty watchable as long as you're prepared to ignore the flaws. Where as if you start looking for flaws there's plenty of them: the plots paper thin, the comedy scenes try to hard, the bombers look designed to be as slow & vulnerable as possible etc.
As far as people saying it's ruined the whole franchise I'd say there are already more bad or average star wars movies then great ones. Pretty sure it'll survive this one.
Post by: Reelya on January 04, 2018, 08:19:17 am
The plot structure is quite bad when examined, it invalidates most of what actually occurs in the first sixty minutes. There's really no satisfactory pay-off. In the end, nothing is accomplished, and no one is really changed. NEED I go into more depth than that? I can. Screenwriting is what I do, and this script is... yikes.
The character development is nil or backwards. Except for Kylo--who's rocking.
These two statements are contradictory.
A single rocking villain doesn't necessarily mean good character development.
One thing I have strong suspicion of is that Rian Johnson was given a very specific brief: "this is how it starts, this is how it ends, feel free to fill in the middle however you want (btw Snoke wasn't popular so he dies, and Luke dies)".
That's why all the new characters are conveniently killed off (EDIT or otherwise leave the plot), and the core team conveniently, and very improbably, all come back together to pile into the Millienium Falcon and fly into the sunset. (sitcom "team back together" style). Rian Johnson didn't have the authority to craft any new plots that are going to continue on in Episode 9, so he created a bunch of things that just happen in between, with the "off into the sunset" ending pre-ordained.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 04, 2018, 03:50:10 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 04, 2018, 03:56:20 pm
When main characters are in a personal fight on the other hand, you can see that they're placed center while the camera orbits around them to show the many enemies surrounding them. It allows them to keep up that Michael Bay/prequels sense of dynamic camera movement and different foreground/background movement speeds to create a sense of motion. While at the same time, main character becomes an anchor to orient the rest of the fight around. Thus you get that over-edited sense of modern cgi action without getting that shakey-cam incomprehensibility that usually comes with that. You can most easily see this in the throne battle and the Finn + Rose blaster fight in the flagship hanger bay. But it also applies to other fight scenes. In the Luke + Kylo flashback for example, the camera begins facing Kylo, then rotates to show Kylo's lightsaber, then flips to show the house collapsing and in the final flashback the Luke gets out of the rubble, the camera moves with him as he walks then turns to reveal the burning temple. Throughout the whole thing Luke is a fixed point, always center of the camera; even when Kylo is the point of focus, the back of Luke's head is visible in the foreground.
Moving away from comprehensibility and into theme, you can also see very effective use of high and low angles. During the ski speeder fight scene when we see things from the rebel's POV the camera is basically "craning its neck" to look up in the sky at the AT-ATs and the tie fighters. When Finn is charging the battering ram cannon, the cannon is shown with a slightly low angle while Finn is shown with a neutral/slightly high angle. This to aid with the visual implication that if Finn jumps down the cannon's throat when its already powered up, he might just be vaporized uselessly. Meanwhile, when the imperials look down at the rebels, we see from inside the AT AT cockpits that the little red plumes look practically like ants, and the AT AT operators are like giants looking down at them. The clearly falling apart and obsolete skid bikes add to this effect. When Luke emerges, he's portrayed in a low angle walking out of the base. When the AT ATs start firing suddenly we're looking at them from a neutral angle, and instead of looking at the console most of the interior shots of Kylo's command vehicle are looking inwards at him and Raeh, with again neutral angles. When Kylo does his final little "I cut you in half" anime dash, conventionally the camera would swipe along the movement of the cut to emphasize its power. But here we see the camera pan from Kylo's head down towards the line his feet cut in the salt. This serves as a final little fake out (as the skid lines resemble nothing if not streaks of blood, implying Luke is going to collapse Darth Maul style). But it also serves as a quiet visual indicator of Kylo's defeat, as the neutral to high camera angle shift strips his power away from him. The last shot we see of him is a high angle of him dropping Han's fuzzy dice while the camera draws back, making him look ever smaller.
Spoiler: digression + fan theory (click to show/hide)
In the open scenes we see the rebel base during their hurried retreat. This scene takes up very little time and was pretty optional to the overall plot, but it allowed one shot in particular, which is the base commander looking up from the planet at the star destroyers above. Again, low angle. We later the reverse of that shot where we look "over the shoulder" of the dreadnought's canon as its gazing down at the tiny rebel base from orbit. When Kylo makes his attack run on Leia we see the cruiser from a very high angle and we cut back to the three advancing Tie Fighters (if you correct me to Tie Interceptor I will smack you) from a low angle. Then when Kylo gives up (and I believe murders both of his wingmen in revenge for his mother, although that happened too quick for me to be sure), we switch back to neutral angles.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 04, 2018, 07:47:55 pm
Post by: McTraveller on January 04, 2018, 08:02:35 pm
Post by: smjjames on January 04, 2018, 08:08:49 pm
Yeah, argue what you will about the plot/characters, The Last Jedi has some awesome cinematography (except for Snoke...just stop trying to do that kind of CGI please! And the couple green-screen snafus.)
What green-screen snafus?
Post by: McTraveller on January 04, 2018, 08:44:42 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 04, 2018, 10:11:14 pm
However, that Michael Bay style is trash. Like, it's just far too much. It really hits you over the head when it just shouldn't--one of those things that makes Star Wars what it is and part of why the prequels are ill regarded (not really the same, but the ADHD in the filmmaking and focus on just having the biggest explosions.) Perfect examples of scenes which are way over the top: Finn v Phasma in the hanger, Leia getting sucked out into space, AT-ATs blasting Luke. There's just no reason to do it this way.
Quick segue, because when I say the cinematography is bad, I'm not talking about the framing or the camera movement or even the blocking. It's fine. I'm taking specifically about the mis en scene and the Bay-esque way in which it is overcomplicated. Coupled with with bad visual design--I.E. interior of casino, casino patron outfits, new AT-ATs (too much like big doggos, not scary tanks--they fucking recoil, what? Lame.), the dreadnought--it is a visual departure from the older films for a style that really doesn't lend any weight to personal interaction or symbolism. I bring this up because as I said, shot for shot, TLJ is obviously well done--though no more so than any Marvel movie IMO--and I'm not really trying to nitpick the small details.
I don't really want to go into why the cinematography and editing fail in these sequences, because frankly I'm tired af and have a flight in the AM, but honestly, my gripes with it pale in comparison to what I think of the story. Which, honestly, is where every movie begins and ends, and no amount of flashy shots will fix giant (see: fucking gaping) problems with the structure and character writing.
Post by: Reelya on January 04, 2018, 10:11:55 pm
Noticeable green screen failure in a feature film is really dropping the ball, considering that weekly TV shows do it fairly seamlessly all the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k
Post by: smjjames on January 04, 2018, 10:40:07 pm
You should watch those green-screen showreels they make (for industry clients really, you've probably never heard of the companies that make the showreels). It's amazing just how many regular "drama" type shows use digital backlots now. I'd say the vast majority of American TV shows green-screen almost everything that you wouldn't think need to be green-screened. It lets them film the backdrop on location just once, no matter how many takes are needed in the studio to get the foreground action correct (with motion tracking on the cameras to ensure they line up perfectly), which saves a lot of money considering that shooting on location is expensive and has to be completed in very limited timeframes.
Noticeable green screen failure in a feature film is really dropping the ball, considering that weekly TV shows do it fairly seamlessly all the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clnozSXyF4k
Not to mention safer sometimes, like the shot while scaling a tower in that vid.
Speaking of bad cinematography, etc, was anybody else bothered by the loud WHOOM sound the star destroyers made when they hyperspaced in? Laser noises and explosions in space, fine, that's expected of Hollywood, but the sound of the star destroyers hyperspacing in seemed jarring. Would have been more ominous if they hyperspaced in silently than with what amounted to a sonic boom in space.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 04, 2018, 10:44:59 pm
Post by: Antioch on January 05, 2018, 06:41:11 am
Re: the bay-esque complicated fight scenes. They seem to want to take some of the prequel's ideas into the new trilogy and execute them better. A friend pointed out (prior to the release of TLJ) that Rey and Kylo Ren are collectively prequels Anakin. Rey being kid Anakin, and Kylo being teen Anakin.
I am glad they do, since Anakin's character development was extremely weak in the prequals.
It went: Mary Sue kid -> cocky asshole -> irrational cocky asshole.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 05, 2018, 07:10:29 am
Wherras in TLJ Rey is the MS kid and K Ren is directly a cocky irrational assholeRe: the bay-esque complicated fight scenes. They seem to want to take some of the prequel's ideas into the new trilogy and execute them better. A friend pointed out (prior to the release of TLJ) that Rey and Kylo Ren are collectively prequels Anakin. Rey being kid Anakin, and Kylo being teen Anakin.
I am glad they do, since Anakin's character development was extremely weak in the prequals.
It went: Mary Sue kid -> cocky asshole -> irrational cocky asshole.
Post by: Reelya on January 05, 2018, 10:06:59 am
There's also another important thing for female viewers. One noted difference in male vs female psychology is that girls believe more in talent whereas boys believe more in effort, and this is shown in psychology and reflected in media that's created by/aimed at male and female viewers. An over focus on "natural talent" is a female trait, but it's also said to be harmful, since if you believe failure is inevitable because of "talent" you give up on trying things more quickly:
http://theconversation.com/our-obsession-with-natural-talent-is-harming-students-11549
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Holding a fixed mindset about any ability comes with many disadvantages. People may decide ahead of time that they do not have the “right stuff” and never make an effort at all. Girls who believe that they “can’t do” maths because of their gender and avoid its study are a case in point.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-success/201101/the-trouble-bright-girls
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bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.
And another citation:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=OJNWDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT162&lpg=PT162&dq=girls+believe+in+set+talent&source=bl&ots=2F0HlnfmZE&sig=1TQRneZULAy_dpHdrQ_Zcj3UF0w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjUju_zj8HYAhVGU7wKHa8bBi4Q6AEIPjAG#v=onepage&q=girls%20believe%20in%20set%20talent&f=false
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Dweck's research has found that girls, more so than boys, tend to believe that the abilities one has are fixed: people are born with certain abilities or they're not. As a result, girls have shown a greater tendency to give up when they face challenges with a particular task or subject
https://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/women-in-science/growth-mindsets-benefit-girls-and-women-in-19959513
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Interestingly, in cultures that produce a large number of math and science graduates - especially women - including South and East Asian cultures, the basis of success is generally attributed less to inherent ability and more to effort.
The more girls and women believe that they can develop the skills they need to be successful in STEM fields (as opposed to being "gifted"), the more likely they are to actually be successful in STEM fields. Dr. Dweck's work demonstrates that girls benefit greatly from shifting their view of mathematics ability from "gift" to "learned skill."
This difference also turns up in male vs female oriented fiction from around the world. In shonen anime (aimed at 12 y/o boys) they have arcs "weak -> get beaten -> train -> get beaten again > train more -> WIN!!" while in girls anime such as Sailor Moon, they don't do any training. They either can or cannot beat the Big Bad, and need to get some instant magical upgrade (such as a magic ring, or instantly unlocking some inherited power) or combine with other girls for the "power of friendship" type thing. So, girls anime is also biased towards "innate" ability rather than incremental effort.
Luke, for example, takes three movies to get where he's going, starting as a naive farmboy who can barely swing a sword. He doesn't have a real light-saber battle until 1.5 movies into the entire franchise, which makes it meaningful. That's fucking character development. He basically starts with nothing but potential and works hard at turning that into skill. This is a message boys soak up: you get better through effort, and cognitive researchers have proven boys think like that much more than girls.
Rei is awful character development, and in fact she's harmful to correcting this known cognitive bias in girls where you "can do it or you can't" right from the start. It's not an improvement that the importance of Rei's parents is diminished. That's not the big issue here! The issue is that Rei is purely defined by innate talent and girls are inundated with media that already reinforces their belief that abilities are innate. Basically the creators think it's "empowering" that she is this perfect being who can do anything, anytime. However, they have this backwards because they're either not cognizant of developmental psychology, or they simply don't care and are using the "female empowerment" thing as pure marketing. What would be really empowering is an initially powerless girl shown growing in ability over several movies. This is the type of media boys already get.
While ... they sorta did the whole "everyone has the force" thing in Jedi, it was more an anti-classist thing than an anti-innate thing. You're either born with "it" or you're not. Doesn't matter who your parents are. It's not really an improvement where it matters. If non-force people could cultivate the force then that would in fact be better for girls. Show a non-force girl who through training can use the force. Don't show a magical force princess who's just naturally kickass. You can't become a magical force princess, you're born like that, which is the actual problem in girls media to start with.
(see, the problem is characters such as James Bond or Superman aren't empowerment stories, they are escapist stories. Notice that both Superman and James Bond lack "heroes journey" type story arcs, both are just magical beings, with fairly static sets of powers, who live in a magical world you can never live in, but you can visit it vicariously through their eyes. Rei and Wonder Woman are unfortunately heroes more in their vein than they are like Luke, who is a fully fleshed-out hero according to the traditional mythological formulas, which are in fact just codified accounts of the story of human life).
Post by: Mephansteras on January 05, 2018, 01:04:23 pm
Kylo of course got the most. He went from Vader-wannabe to taking control of the First Order from Snoke. It's the most striking development, because he goes from worshiping the past to tossing it aside.
Poe goes from being cocky fighter-pilot who happens to lead others to an actual leader of the resistance. It shows him focusing most on finding the most effective combat solution (regardless of losses), to him learning that a real leader focuses on the war and not a single battle. And that he has to worry about the lives of those under him.
Finn goes from someone who is really just trying to get himself and his friends somewhere safe to accepting that he really is part of the resistance. And that the resistance is more than just about destroying the First Order.
Rose goes from the quiet back-scene maintenance worker to a real agent of the resistance who goes out and does things, even brave things.
Rye gets the least, but it does show her going from 'girl who learns she's a force-user' to full 'I am a Jedi and I will fight against the Dark Side'. She didn't know her place, and through the course of the movie she learns it. She is a Jedi. And she's less obsessed with her own past and more concerned with her future for once.
The problem isn't that there wasn't character development, it's that most of it is just exactly what we expected. Rey's development is actually fairly significant, but it's exactly what we all expected (she's a Jedi, obviously). All the protagonists are just doing what we want them to do, so them doing it isn't all that noteworthy.
Kylo Ren pulled a pretty strong change from what we expected. Vader was, after all, simply the emperor's right-hand man. Kylo goes way beyond that, and kills Snoke not for redemption but simply as the next step in his own path. It wasn't what everyone assumed he'd do in the movie so it stands out the most.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 05, 2018, 02:15:15 pm
Spoiler: digression about Wonder Woman (click to show/hide)
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on January 05, 2018, 02:38:35 pm
The Grand List of Rey's Failures and Personal Flaws
- Spent most of her life living in utter poverty, only managing to not starve.
- Extreme naivete towards the Jedi and the Republic.
- Delusional belief that her family is coming back for her.
- Almost immediately captured by Han and Chewbacca after stealing the Millennium Falcon.
- Does not convince Finn to continue the fight.
- So vulnerable to the call of the Dark Side even the residual amounts on Anakin's lightsaber enrapture her.
- Captured by Kylo Ren.
- Doesn't really contribute at all to the attack on the Starkiller, barely defeats Kylo Ren in a 2-on-1 fight.
- Delusional belief Luke can turn the war around somehow and wanted to be found.
- Only convinces Luke to help her out of persistent annoyance and him wanting her to see how screwed she is.
- Unhesitatingly draws deep power from the Dark Side such that Luke, who nearly turned once himself, flips out at how recklessly idiotic she is.
- Doesn't question her mental link to the man who tried to kill her not too long ago and is actively trying to kill all her friends, quickly becomes sympathetic to him.
- Despite chastisement by recently-idolized Luke Skywalker, decides to just delve straight into the heart of darkness to fulfill her selfish desires.
- Selfish desires are so delusional in nature that even the heart of darkness is like "idk, man".
- Goes kind of crazy and narrowly avoids murdering, again, recently-idolized Luke Skywalker for lying to her in the sense he didn't tell her every detail about how Kylo went bad.
- Delusional belief Kylo "Murder the Past" Ren has good in him and can be saved, aping the Luke-Anakin legend she believes in.
- Stupidly delivers herself into Kylo's clutches to be given to Snoke, again aping the old legend.
- Success at getting Kylo to rebel tempered by fact he did it for completely different reasons than she thought.
- Doesn't accept obvious truth about her parentage until loverboy Kylo Ren reads her mind and spells it out for her.
- Fails to redeem Kylo "Han-Kebab" Ren, doesn't join him in awesome galaxy murder quest either.
- Accidentally destroys Anakin's lightsaber that they're both obsessed with.
- Doesn't kill Kylo "Space Neo-Nazi Kickflip Into Space Antichrist" Ren even though she regains consciousness long before he does.
- Can't hinder First Order assault on Crait.
- Steals founding Jedi texts, proving she didn't learn anything from recently-idolized Luke Skywalker and is probably still streaking headlong into zealotry and the Dark Side.
Now with all of that suckage and failure, there's no need to continue on such a silly idea, which was taken grognar complaints about everything non-masturbatory in new Star Wars media anyway.
Post by: smjjames on January 05, 2018, 03:12:00 pm
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- Accidentally destroys Anakin's lightsaber that they're both obsessed with.
To be honest, it was either that or let Kylo have it. Although, since Kylo activated it through the force not five minutes earlier, she could have let go before the breaking point and at the same tijme turned the lightsabre on, effectively throwing the lightsabre at Kylo
Quote
- Can't hinder First Order assault on Crait.
What exactly could the Millenium Falcon have done?
She did go to the dark mirror thing (whatever it was) and pulled back when it didn't give her the answers she was looking for.
I guess the point being made is that there is supposed to be a balance between the light and dark and you have to straddle between the two.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 05, 2018, 03:38:10 pm
there is supposed to be a balance between the light and dark and you have to straddle between the two.
Get your mind out of the gutter! Not everything is about sex
Post by: smjjames on January 05, 2018, 03:43:49 pm
there is supposed to be a balance between the light and dark and you have to straddle between the two.
Get your mind out of the gutter! Not everything is about sex
That was completely unintentional, I swear. Not sure how you'd interpret it as sex, but yeah, completely unintentional.
lol
Post by: McTraveller on January 05, 2018, 04:28:15 pm
- Selfish desires are so delusional in nature that even the heart of darkness is like "idk, man".
This made me laugh hard for some reason.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 05, 2018, 05:02:30 pm
doesn't join him in awesome galaxy murder quest either.Biggest problem with the movie right here.
I want my order of true neutral force users. ;_;
Post by: NRDL on January 05, 2018, 06:06:09 pm
The whole Bendu thing from Star Wars Rebels I feel is just a way to show how boring and isolationist an actual true neutral force user would be.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 05, 2018, 06:29:21 pm
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on January 05, 2018, 09:25:41 pm
This is why the dark is "easier but not stronger". You can only consume as much of the force as you personally are able to tear free (though this can get extreme, see Darth Nihlus), which is lesser than if the currents of the whole force turn against something on their own. This is why I support the "immune system" interpretation of the balance of the force, it lifts up light siders whenever there's an "infection" of dark siders disrupting it.
And this is also why it's basically impossible to be a stable light sider and not end up stagnant like the Old Republic Jedi. Their commitment to purity in the force disallows them from doing anything that wasn't going to happen already. All the functional "light siders" are more like what we'd think of grey jedi anyway. Luke and Rey are both at their most effective when they're flirting with the dark and acting selfishly, Anakin basically never reaches this stage because he has personal beliefs about right and wrong, and the only Jedi who had a realistic chance of stopping Palpatine is the one who delved so heavily into darkness that he had to stop taking padawans because they all kept going crazy just from learning his techniques.
Post by: scriver on January 06, 2018, 12:15:01 am
Since the "Rey is a Mary Sue" meme persists on even in this thread, I present to you:
The Grand List of Rey's Failures and Personal Flaws
- Spent most of her life living in utter poverty, only managing to not starve.
- Extreme naivete towards the Jedi and the Republic.
- Delusional belief that her family is coming back for her.
- Almost immediately captured by Han and Chewbacca after stealing the Millennium Falcon.
- Does not convince Finn to continue the fight.
- So vulnerable to the call of the Dark Side even the residual amounts on Anakin's lightsaber enrapture her.
- Captured by Kylo Ren.
- Doesn't really contribute at all to the attack on the Starkiller, barely defeats Kylo Ren in a 2-on-1 fight.
- Delusional belief Luke can turn the war around somehow and wanted to be found.
- Only convinces Luke to help her out of persistent annoyance and him wanting her to see how screwed she is.
- Unhesitatingly draws deep power from the Dark Side such that Luke, who nearly turned once himself, flips out at how recklessly idiotic she is.
- Doesn't question her mental link to the man who tried to kill her not too long ago and is actively trying to kill all her friends, quickly becomes sympathetic to him.
- Despite chastisement by recently-idolized Luke Skywalker, decides to just delve straight into the heart of darkness to fulfill her selfish desires.
- Selfish desires are so delusional in nature that even the heart of darkness is like "idk, man".
- Goes kind of crazy and narrowly avoids murdering, again, recently-idolized Luke Skywalker for lying to her in the sense he didn't tell her every detail about how Kylo went bad.
- Delusional belief Kylo "Murder the Past" Ren has good in him and can be saved, aping the Luke-Anakin legend she believes in.
- Stupidly delivers herself into Kylo's clutches to be given to Snoke, again aping the old legend.
- Success at getting Kylo to rebel tempered by fact he did it for completely different reasons than she thought.
- Doesn't accept obvious truth about her parentage until loverboy Kylo Ren reads her mind and spells it out for her.
- Fails to redeem Kylo "Han-Kebab" Ren, doesn't join him in awesome galaxy murder quest either.
- Accidentally destroys Anakin's lightsaber that they're both obsessed with.
- Doesn't kill Kylo "Space Neo-Nazi Kickflip Into Space Antichrist" Ren even though she regains consciousness long before he does.
- Can't hinder First Order assault on Crait.
- Steals founding Jedi texts, proving she didn't learn anything from recently-idolized Luke Skywalker and is probably still streaking headlong into zealotry and the Dark Side.
Now with all of that suckage and failure, there's no need to continue on such a silly idea, which was taken grognar complaints about everything non-masturbatory in new Star Wars media anyway.
I'm not sure why you're listing all these Mary sue traits as if they weren't examples of Mary-Sueishness.
Post by: NRDL on January 06, 2018, 02:56:49 am
Mine is a character who is so ridiculously perfect that they suck the enjoyment and conflict out a story by being the correct answer to every problem in said story. I don't believe Rey is one, hell I can't think of any Mary Sue of the top of my head in general.
Post by: scriver on January 06, 2018, 03:01:43 am
Post by: NRDL on January 06, 2018, 03:24:28 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 06, 2018, 03:26:00 am
Maybe she's not a Sue but a poorly explained character. Little of what she does is meaningful, for all her unearned skill.. she just moves arounddoing pointless shit. Maybe it's a metaphor for the human condition, what do I know, lol.
Post by: Reelya on January 06, 2018, 10:16:39 am
Since the "Rey is a Mary Sue" meme persists on even in this thread, I present to you:
The Grand List of Rey's Failures and Personal Flaws
- Spent most of her life living in utter poverty, only managing to not starve.
Maybe you haven't really looked into what typical "Mary Sue" traits are considered to be. Having an exceptionally tear-jerky backstory is one of the biggest ones. An impoverished childhood and nearly starving is core "Mary Sue" type stuff.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CommonMarySueTraits
Quote from: TvTropes
She speaks several languages fluently.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rey
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Rey also had a computer display from an old BTL-A4 Y-wing assault starfighter/bomber that she used to learn alien languages
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Most Sues have an unusually Dark and Troubled Past. It's often used to create a Sympathetic Sue, but any type of Sue can have one. Such backstories never actually factor into the story; they're just casually dropped into the narrative to draw attention to the character and let her Wangst (usually out of proportion to how bad it really is). Most authors tend not to research such tragedies and their effects, which breaks the reader's Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
Relatedly, she will often have a tragic family life. This could involve Parental Abandonment or orphanhood, and whichever parental figures she has are often abusive, putting her squarely into Cinderella Circumstances. Darker fics will often have Rape as Backstory. She might be the Black Sheep who's so smart and talented that the rest of her family fears and abuses her — or she might be the White Sheep who's the only redeemable member of her otherwise evil family. Regardless, this backstory will never actually hold Mary Sue back from anything she wants to accomplish.
Quote from: TvTropes
She will always be better than the canon characters, regardless of what canon has established they can do or whether it makes any sense. ... Her skills will often be unrealistic within the story's setting. She can be a master of a martial art that she should have no way of learningThis doesn't need elaboration
Typical Mary Sue storytelling is about how everything was against you, yet you won because you had the "special stuff" that nobody else had. Them hammering how terribly poor "nothings" her parents in the current movie increases her Mary Sue level. What would be less Mary Sue is if her parents turned out to be completely average suburban types who didn't live a horrid life and abandon her as an orphan. This is actually what makes Luke less of a Mary Sue, and more relatably human. He had a fairly uneventful normal farm-boy existence, with they typical teenage gripes and complaints - but then tragedy strikes, throwing him out of his normal life. It's relatable, because losing your parents is a relatable thing. Rey's upbringing - abandoned as a tiny kid (she had to have been about 6 years old, going off everything she learnt before she was 10 years old according to the Wookiepedia entry) in a galacitic rubbish dump and surviving by scavenging while somehow miraculously bootstrapping yourself into learning every skill better than anyone else does - is not believable, it's farcical.
Another key Mary Sue trait is hob-knobbing with all the "canon" characters, no matter how implausible that is. Her ending up meeting Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia is the type of thing bad fanfic writers doing self-insert fiction (which was the original Mary Sue critique) would do.
The rest of the original Mary Sue traits mainly involve breaking previous canon with the types of abilities the character has. She flies the falcon better than Han Solo, masters the "jedi mind trick" instantly, and can hold her own as a rookie against trained Jedi masters, while also basically doing the force levitation trick when needed, at a level Luke wasn't even able to get to until his third movie.
Also, Mary Sue characters often develop some sort of deep emotional bond with more "canon" characters despite they themselves being self-inserts shoe-horned in. Rey, being a character completely unrelated to the-canon, but having a deep connection with Han and Leia's son who's the "troubled dark emo type", while basically inheriting the Millennium Falcon from Han Solo, and being the sole heir to the Jedi legacy via training with Luke - that's all by the book Mary Sueism.
What makes her a Mary Sue is the fact that other that her basically none of the other characters have really developed much of any sort of relationship with any of the canon characters, while she has with all of them. The only one is Poe, and Poe's connection with Leia is more or less her telling him off for failing (e.g. the opposite of being a 'Sue).
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 06, 2018, 04:07:19 pm
*Good at a wide variety of skills, including ones they shouldn't logically have. Cold environment survival anyone?
*Effortlessly better at things than people who have spent a long time practicing them: fighter pilot, gunfighter, leader, arguably out-wisdoms Obiwan and Yoda.
*Has too many epic destinies and special snowflake traits (last jedi, guy who's about to get his Space Driver's License, sure. Darth Vader's son tho?)
*Literally a self insert by George Lucas (Mark Hamill gave a glorious interview on this topic)
*Notices things seemingly for the first time that other characters should have been able to see pretty easily. Weakness of AT ATs, seemingly the only one in the universe to "socialize with the help" in regards to droids, that the clearly maneuverable torpedos can be used for precision targeting, that wizards powered by positive emotion should probably have friends and loved ones.
*Does shit that will obviously result in his own immediate death and it somehow works out every time (this is more of a Japanese media Mary Sue trope, but SW was inspired by Japanese media so it counts).
*Lacks any obvious weakness, except for good or endearing qualities. Kind of an uninformed dope, but that gives him optimism and creativity more experienced characters lack. Cares too much about his friends. That's his two weaknesses.
That's not even getting into the ridiculousness that prequels Anakin is (and how he makes Darth Vader's characterization worse by association).
Now, I don't have a problem with OT Luke, I like the guy. But then, I don't consider Rey a Mary Sue. If Rey is our bar for Mary Sue, then clearly Luke is one too.
Post by: smjjames on January 06, 2018, 04:21:38 pm
Okay, just putting this out there: why is Rey a Mary Sue but Luke isn't? There are certain tropes that every single writer uses when they invent a main character for their first long form story, and Luke fits every one of them:
*Good at a wide variety of skills, including ones they shouldn't logically have. Cold environment survival anyone?
Where did you get that one from, DarthsandDroids? I'm sure he had some basic lessions when he got to Hoth, but staying in the wampa cave would have been better than going out in that storm (he can kill the wampa if he had to). Going out into that blizzard doesn't exactly scream cold survival skills to me.
Even Han Solo displayed better cold survival skills than Luke, or at least better judgement.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 06, 2018, 04:29:56 pm
Anyway, it didn't hurt my enjoyment of the movie and I don't think Luke is a Mary Sue. His whole thing is noticing things that other people don't and failing to notice the obvious. Which isn't a bad schtick, but its also a pretty common Mary Sue/first time writer schtick.
Post by: smjjames on January 06, 2018, 04:34:56 pm
I get your point about uncommon widsom and general acclimation though.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 06, 2018, 04:35:58 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 06, 2018, 05:32:03 pm
Post by: smjjames on January 06, 2018, 05:51:31 pm
Anyways, weaknesses..... naivete? Though that'd be expected of a farm boy.
Leia didn't really have any sort of weaknesses (besides being portrayed with the usual female weaknesses that are typical of films of the 60's and 70's, even though it was a bit progressive for the era) either.
Han Solo? I guess you could call being brash and somewhat cocky a weakness.
Okay, you've got me, aside from what Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Palpatine would regard as weaknesses, I can't think of any that would be physical or skill related.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 06, 2018, 06:27:13 pm
Okay then, how about this. Obviously for an untrained farmboy Luke did well at everything he tried to do. Mostly justified in universe by the force or luck, since the odds were always heavily stacked against the good guys. So what weakness did Luke have that weren't a good or endearing quality? And what would you entire list of OT Luke's weakness be? My list as I gave on the last page is only two long. Caring about his friends too much isn't really a weakness and aside from his hand its never done anything bad for him. Its mostly a thing that Yoda and Palpatine call a weakness. Being inexperienced is arguably also not a weakness so much as a thing anyone in his situation would have. His practice to be a pilot makes him a lot less inexperienced than the average farmboy could be, and he picks up new information quickly. So I wouldn't say that his weakness is inexperience so much as his strength is quick learning.
Pisses off the guy at the Cantina.
Jumps into the garbage chute.
Loses to Vader, gets hand chopped off.
Not very gifted with (hand-held) blasters.
Gets surprised by Wampa.
Can't survive in the cold without Han's help.
Get's shot down on Hoth despite being a good pilot.
Captured by Jabba after killing the Rancor.
A lot of shit goes wrong for Luke...
EDIT: I don't really think Rey is a Mary Sue either, just the lack of strong external forces makes her seem extra dumb sometimes--which can be frustrating when it miraculously works out for her. At least with Luke, we he HAS to nail the Hail Mary or the Death Star/Vader/Emperor scores the game winning touchdown.
Post by: smjjames on January 06, 2018, 06:40:52 pm
Okay then, how about this. Obviously for an untrained farmboy Luke did well at everything he tried to do. Mostly justified in universe by the force or luck, since the odds were always heavily stacked against the good guys. So what weakness did Luke have that weren't a good or endearing quality? And what would you entire list of OT Luke's weakness be? My list as I gave on the last page is only two long. Caring about his friends too much isn't really a weakness and aside from his hand its never done anything bad for him. Its mostly a thing that Yoda and Palpatine call a weakness. Being inexperienced is arguably also not a weakness so much as a thing anyone in his situation would have. His practice to be a pilot makes him a lot less inexperienced than the average farmboy could be, and he picks up new information quickly. So I wouldn't say that his weakness is inexperience so much as his strength is quick learning.
Pisses off the guy at the Cantina.
naivete
Quote
Jumps into the garbage chute.
Did you see any other escape routes?
Quote
Loses to Vader, gets hand chopped off.
True.
Quote
Not very gifted with (hand-held) blasters.
Better than the stormtroopers, heh.
Quote
Gets surprised by Wampa.
Camoflauged predator and unfamiliarity with local wildlife.
Quote
Captured by Jabba after killing the Rancor.
If I recall, he didn't have a weapon with him.
Quote
A lot of shit goes wrong for Luke...
'shit going wrong' isn't a weakness.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 06, 2018, 06:58:39 pm
He ISN'T good with a blaster. For a MAIN CHARACTER, he is not good at shooting the pew pews.
Loses to Vader as I said, he's not the world's greatest saber fighter.
He still gets surprised by the Wampa, he's force sensitive, he should probably know it's coming. Not super aware, and it's true, he just isn't very aware. It's shown time and time again as he is guided by Ben or one of the other characters--culminating with basically everyone dying at Yavin and him doing his hero thing and then again when he leaves the fighting to the fighters so he can just confront the Emperor.
Lack of leadership and diplomatic skills. Seriously, he's not very good at getting people to do what he wants in the movie.
Regardless of having a weapon or note, he got captured. Like, ??? IT HAPPENED, lol. I don't think it's exactly planned out that way from the start.
But see, here's a key difference. Shit going wrong is important, because it means Lukes FAILS. And most of the time he doesn't get himself into bad situations. When he does, it's to save Han and distract the Emperor. When Rey fails it's either because she's too stupid or unlucky to avoid overwhelming force, or going to face down Kylo and Snoke for a selfish reason that really doesn't help the situation at hand.
EDIT: In addition, sometimes Rey and other new character fail because there literally is not enough time in the movie to have them succeed. Which is stupid.
EDIT2: Also sorry for so many grammar mistakes.
Post by: Akura on January 06, 2018, 08:21:24 pm
Captured by Jabba after killing the Rancor.
Wasn't that intentional? He didn't know exactly where Han, Chewbacca, and Leia were held, and killing Rancor meant that none of his friends could be killed that way. Both Lando and Leia(and possibly R2-D2) could have easily called Luke up that Jabba had one, either one or both could easily have been in the room when Jabba feeds that slave girl to it. Also, by royally pissing off Jabba, Luke ensured Jabba would want to kill them all at once using the slowest and most painful way possible. The reason he gave the droids to Jabba was to smuggle his lightsaber in, otherwise Jabba's guards would certainly make sure that would have been confiscated.
Post by: smjjames on January 06, 2018, 08:34:45 pm
He ISN'T good with a blaster. For a MAIN CHARACTER, he is not good at shooting the pew pews.
Compared to Han Solo, he doesn't look highly skilled, true.
Captured by Jabba after killing the Rancor.
Wasn't that intentional? He didn't know exactly where Han, Chewbacca, and Leia were held, and killing Rancor meant that none of his friends could be killed that way. Both Lando and Leia(and possibly R2-D2) could have easily called Luke up that Jabba had one, either one or both could easily have been in the room when Jabba feeds that slave girl to it. Also, by royally pissing off Jabba, Luke ensured Jabba would want to kill them all at once using the slowest and most painful way possible. The reason he gave the droids to Jabba was to smuggle his lightsaber in, otherwise Jabba's guards would certainly make sure that would have been confiscated.
Exactly, that operation had to have been planned for months with Lando going undercover and being there for long enough time to not arouse suspicions too much if he tried to place himself on Jabbas sail barge.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 06, 2018, 08:46:55 pm
I'd like to point out that Enigmatic Hat didn't actually list weaknesses either. All he said was that he lacks weaknesses--and also listed some things which are blatantly false. Five of his points are either abstractions or generalizations.
He ISN'T good with a blaster. For a MAIN CHARACTER, he is not good at shooting the pew pews.
Loses to Vader as I said, he's not the world's greatest saber fighter.
He still gets surprised by the Wampa, he's force sensitive, he should probably know it's coming. Not super aware, and it's true, he just isn't very aware. It's shown time and time again as he is guided by Ben or one of the other characters--culminating with basically everyone dying at Yavin and him doing his hero thing and then again when he leaves the fighting to the fighters so he can just confront the Emperor.
Lack of leadership and diplomatic skills. Seriously, he's not very good at getting people to do what he wants in the movie.
Regardless of having a weapon or note, he got captured. Like, ??? IT HAPPENED, lol. I don't think it's exactly planned out that way from the start.
But see, here's a key difference. Shit going wrong is important, because it means Lukes FAILS. And most of the time he doesn't get himself into bad situations. When he does, it's to save Han and distract the Emperor. When Rey fails it's either because she's too stupid or unlucky to avoid overwhelming force, or going to face down Kylo and Snoke for a selfish reason that really doesn't help the situation at hand.
EDIT: In addition, sometimes Rey and other new character fail because there literally is not enough time in the movie to have them succeed. Which is stupid.
EDIT2: Also sorry for so many grammar mistakes.
you know you're basically providing excuses in a pretty basic way, that you would jump up and down on if the people who like Rey tried to offer.
"Its okay that luke is the most skilled person in a squadron of fighter pilots, he used to fly a cessna while waiting to join the air force!"
is a perfectly valid justification, while
"Rey learned some non-Standard languages while growing up after finding a multi-language display out scavenging"
is proof she's a total mary sue.
(Personally I dont like Rey, because i feel that she's just written to be Luke Skywalker But One Upping Him in many ways. Her background is thematically similar But Slightly More, instead of being nonsensically good at flying space fighter jets, she's nonsensically good at flying Everyone's Favorite Spaceship, and so on. Yes those are suish traits, she is a bit of a sue and anyone who says she isnt at least slightly is deluding themselves, but most movie protagonists exhibit suish traits. They're movie protagonists. )
Post by: smjjames on January 06, 2018, 08:57:50 pm
Seems like a character being a mary sue depends mostly on perception unless they're a blatant mary sue.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 06, 2018, 10:07:59 pm
I am fine with both Luke and Rey being good pilots, it seems to be a thing that force-sensitives are good at.
and if you think my excuses are no good, then jump up and down on them. Rey never really get's beaten. Luke does.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 06, 2018, 10:11:11 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 07, 2018, 01:17:21 am
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rey
Quote
Rey was a human female Jedi and scavenger who discovered her latent Force-sensitivity while on a journey to find the legendary Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and bring a new hope to a galaxy on the brink of war. Rey grew up alone in the desert wastes of Jakku, longing for her family to return, until she met BB-8, who carried information about Skywalker's whereabouts. Together with Finn, a First Order defector, and BB-8—and with the help of Han Solo and Chewbacca—she journeyed to deliver the map to Skywalker to General Leia Organa and the Resistance. Along the way, she discovered Skywalker's lightsaber and awakened her Force powers before being captured by Kylo Ren, whom she dueled into defeat on Starkiller Base just before the Resistance destroyed the First Order superweapon. After traveling to the Resistance base, Organa tasked her with finding Skywalker and presenting him with his old lightsaber as a symbol of the only hope the galaxy had left: the return of the Jedi.
The constant name-dropping of famous canon characters, the especially unlucky childhood that was thereafter followed by extremely good luck and unlikely meetings with established canon characters who all cross paths with Rey, tasking her to help them with their problems and "get the team back together" and save the galaxy (again, after it was already saved) reads like teen fanfic level self-insert. Making it out that here parents aren't anyone special isn't making her that much less "mary sue"-ish. Since now she's just some random person thrown into the canon with zero connection with anything, yet she tick every box (force powers, getting luke's blue lightsaber that should have been destroyed at Cloud City) and meets every character who's canon.
Also, main characters can still be author's stand-ins, or meant to be audience stand-in's (e.g. appealing to the boy or girl demographic with a character they're meant to relate to), so many of the factors that create fan-fic mary sues are in fact relevant issues for non-fanfic works, too. Just as a "power fantasy" for the author can lead to "mary-sue" traits, creating an "empowerment" character can do the same thing. Note that "power fantasy" and "empowerment" are effectively saying the exact same thing, except media has branded "power fantasy" as being bad and "empowerment" as good. It's just new marketing for the same schlock.
Sure, some of the factors that are recognizable in fan-fic mary sues are harder to spot, e.g. if the main character has some special power, is that plot-relevant good writing, or is it a power fantasy that harms the overall fiction? While it's more apparent in mary-sue fan fiction (because there's an objective baseline of what's normal for a main character in that canon), it is in fact a type of poorly written plot that can affect any fiction: e.g. a protagonist who's abilities, backstory and luckiness are just out of whack with everything else in the universe building can kind of stink as unbelievable.
"inexplicably well-liked" can apply to canon characters too, not just fanfic characters.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 07, 2018, 07:16:40 am
Also urist i appear to have replied to you instead of reelya oops
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 07, 2018, 07:26:05 am
It seems disingenuous to say "she just happens to cross paths with all these famous characters", its like saying that its hack writing that when jimmy met the star pitcher of the Somewhere Baseball team, he also met the rest of them. They're a group of characters whose fates are intrinsically wound up in each others, it would be more fanfictiony if meeting one didnt lead to the other (Quite a few fanfictions like to sideline characters the authors arent so fond of, even if the ones the story is focusing on have many reasons to interact with them)And yet Jimmy did not meat the rest of the baseball team. Rey met all the famous canon characters, and yet all the canon characters didn't even meet up with one another. They all died alone lmao, no on-screen chemistry, unless you want to count Justin Biebar and Will i am on holograms fam
Also urist i appear to have replied to you instead of reelya oops
Post by: Reelya on January 07, 2018, 08:01:05 am
It seems disingenuous to say "she just happens to cross paths with all these famous characters",
No, it's quite non-disingenuous since she happens to just cross paths with stuff related to all those characters, even though none of them have crossed paths with each other in a long, long time. It's not the same as meeting a whole baseball team at once, it's more like if you were on a random journey across the entire nation, and you just happened to cross paths with every member of the 1983 Los Angeles Dodgers team, except in Rey's case, she's not traversing a nation of 300 million people, but a galaxy of countless billions of people, yet happens to run into just the right people.
Remember, she happens to come across clues to lukes whereabouts, then happens to come across the Millenium Falcon, then she happens to cross paths with Han and Chewie, then she happens to be given Luke's original light saber, by another person she meets at random, and then she meets Leia (which at least makes sense, as she was looking for the rebels), who happens to task her with finding Luke, for no particular reason that she got personally tasked with that, though I guess you can rationalize it as Leia being aware that Rey is "strong with the force". But still ... to be personally tasked what is supposed to be the most important task in the galaxy after just turning up out of nowhere with no credentials is pretty convenient.
Notice that people didn't give luke special treatment. He gets help and stuff from Obi Wan Kenobi, however that's perfectly reasonable, because Obi Wan was tasked with watching over Luke and views him like a son, and mainly gives him stuff that's his inheritance. Everyone else treats Luke as lower than shit for the first movie. Luke for example was only "Red Five" in the Battle of Yavin. Having found the message, rescued Leia etc, didn't actually mean he was automatically given command of a squadron or anything - he had to prove himself in the actual battle before being trusted with more authority. Whereas Rey basically pulls the same thing and is immediately given the task of commanding the Millennium Falcon to fly to the edge of inhabited space, find Luke Skywalker and convince him to help the rebellion again.
^ This is an example of "mary sue" storytelling. Luke wasn't given the benefit of the doubt: he was allowed to pilot a fighter because they needed every pilot they could get, but wasn't given any special rank or anything until he'd repeatedly proven his worth - but also note that most of the top rebel fighter pilots died at the Battle of Yavin. Luke being a squadron leader at the Battle of Hoth would be perfectly reasonable even if he didn't personally destroy the Death Star. Merely being a survivor of the Battle of Yavin would have given him seniority.
Rey was singled out for her "specialness" over and over again, such as being personally charged with caring for luke's lightsaber by it's keeper, and personally given the special mission to find Luke by Leia. So we're expected to think that across the entire Rebel movement, there's no one person that Leia would trust with looking for Luke, other than some random unknown person she's never met before?
Post by: Lovechild on January 07, 2018, 11:01:34 am
Post by: Reelya on January 07, 2018, 11:18:35 am
We need to be careful that we're not confusing audience knowledge of how awesome a character is with in-character knowledge of a character's achievements. Generally, if you come back with your team in tatters that in itself should be plot-worthy. People get killed and injured rescuing Rey after she's captured, nobody bats an eyelid, they just heap more responsibility her way.
This was not what happened with Poe. And the bomber deaths were not Poe's fault. Poe wasn't the commanding officer, the actual commanding officer failed to countermand Poe's call to bomb the ships. Then, Poe gets all the blame when things go pear shaped. That's another way to read it, but Leia Organa deserves the blame since she was actually in command as far as I can tell. If you read it as reality, it's more like she scapegoated him for her own failure to issue appropriate orders.
Post by: Lovechild on January 07, 2018, 12:01:27 pm
And she has the Force
And she found Luke's lightsaber and got crazy visions from it
And she herself wanted to go meet Luke
Really there is no one better suited for the mission.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 07, 2018, 12:03:26 pm
Really there is no one better suited for the mission.
And that is bad writing. Let me ask you, what is more interesting? The person who can easily accomplish something accomplishing that thing, or the person who can't easily accomplish the thing who must struggle to accomplish it anyways?
Post by: NRDL on January 07, 2018, 12:04:09 pm
This was not what happened with Poe. And the bomber deaths were not Poe's fault. Poe wasn't the commanding officer, the actual commanding officer failed to countermand Poe's call to bomb the ships. Then, Poe gets all the blame when things go pear shaped. That's another way to read it, but Leia Organa deserves the blame since she was actually in command as far as I can tell. If you read it as reality, it's more like she scapegoated him for her own failure to issue appropriate orders.
How was "Pull back, Poe" not the appropriate order at the time?
Post by: Reelya on January 07, 2018, 12:10:11 pm
Poe wasn't actually the commanding officer, Leia was. Leia failed to give the appropriate orders to pull the bombers back, then Poe gets all the blame when everything goes wrong, despite the fact that the commanding officer basically let it happen when she could have stopped it.
This was just bad writing: if they wanted to make it clearly Poe's fault, then they should have had Leia's shuttle out of communication, thus making Poe the actually officer with command. If a captain wants to lead a charge, and the general can stop it, but doesn't act to do so, then it's the general's fault, not the captain. The general should be demoted, along with the captain.
Post by: Lovechild on January 07, 2018, 12:10:36 pm
Let me ask you, what is more interesting? The person who can easily accomplish something accomplishing that thing, or the person who can't easily accomplish the thing who must struggle to accomplish it anyways?Both are interesting, if it's a good story of course. Examples: Conan the Barbarian for the first case, Rey's struggle to recruit Luke in the Last Jedi for the second case.
Post by: smjjames on January 07, 2018, 12:15:27 pm
And she escaped from imprisonment on her own
And she has the Force
And she found Luke's lightsaber and got crazy visions from it
And she herself wanted to go meet Luke
Really there is no one better suited for the mission.
How the heck did she find his lightsabre? It was supposedly lost on Bespin Cloud City, I know that, but theres no story AFAIK that says it got picked up and exchanged hands over the years.
I'll go look at wookiepedia though.
edit: EU to the rescue! http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Anakin_Skywalker%27s_second_lightsaber
Post by: NRDL on January 07, 2018, 12:18:55 pm
The fact that Leia said "pull back Poe" is actually more damning to her failure of leadership. It clearly shows that she had the authority to whether things went ahead or not and was completely cognizant of what was going on.
Poe wasn't actually the commanding officer, Leia was. Leia failed to give the appropriate orders to pull the bombers back, then Poe gets all the blame when everything goes wrong, despite the fact that the commanding officer basically let it happen when she could have stopped it.
This was just bad writing: if they wanted to make it clearly Poe's fault, then they should have had Leia's shuttle out of communication, thus making Poe the actually officer with command. If a captain wants to lead a charge, and the general can stop it, but doesn't act to do so, then it's the general's fault, not the captain. The general should be demoted, along with the captain.
I'm not entirely sure how Leia was meant to stop the bombing run when Poe clearly cut off communications from her, gave the signal to the bombers himself, who were clearly loyal to their immediate officer in the field. Even if Leia would have been able to directly contact the bombers, the likelihood of them still going ahead with it because Poe decided they should would have been really damn high, considering how easily Poe was able to set up a mutiny later on, composed primarily of people who work with and trust him over the actual command structure.
Post by: Lovechild on January 07, 2018, 12:21:11 pm
edit: EU to the rescue! http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Anakin_Skywalker%27s_second_lightsaber"Six years later, the mad Jedi clone Joruus C'baoth ordered that a clone of Luke be produced from the appendage, and that he be armed with Anakin's old weapon."
Old EU sure was crazy
Post by: smjjames on January 07, 2018, 12:30:23 pm
Theres certainly a lot of room for New Canon or New EU to spin some sort of connection.
Post by: Jopax on January 07, 2018, 12:41:14 pm
Post by: smjjames on January 07, 2018, 12:53:09 pm
I'd imagine the same rule applies to space combat if the mega destroyer or star destroyer could still spit out fighters. Of course though, they were being desperate.
And also, complete breakage of physics since the bombs wouldn't just drop as if they were in atmosphere.
Post by: Jopax on January 07, 2018, 01:01:51 pm
Post by: smjjames on January 07, 2018, 01:06:33 pm
Until moviegoers demand realistic space physics, they're going to keep doing that.
Post by: Reelya on January 07, 2018, 01:10:13 pm
So not only are they silly, it's like they deliberately decided to manufacture these ridiculous weapons that we never see used before, then they give the people in the field shit for using them in the only effective way that makes sense. The bombers have to get so ridiculously close and correctly aligned with the enemy ship that it's crazy to think you'd build a fleet of them, then complain when they get blown up doing their job. Any ship that's big enough that you need the bombers is guaranteed to have on-board fighter fleets and the like.
Post by: Harry Baldman on January 07, 2018, 01:35:55 pm
Speaking of the bomber wings, whatever happened to the accompanying fighter wing? People learned pretty quick that you either need to accompany bombers with fighters or fly at night if you don't have absolute or near absolute air superiority.
I'd imagine the same rule applies to space combat if the mega destroyer or star destroyer could still spit out fighters. Of course though, they were being desperate.
And also, complete breakage of physics since the bombs wouldn't just drop as if they were in atmosphere.
What about those X-wings that were actually deployed with them (you know, all those guys that took out the turrets and such, Poe's crew)? The problem was that they kind of got blown up for the most part by the ship's defenses.
As for the bombs, doesn't seem like that much of a physical stretch that they'd drop out of a ship, considering the ship has artificial gravity to give them a slight amount delta-v and nothing to really decelerate them between there and the target. It's not really clear how the artificial gravity works, mind you, or how exactly it plays with something falling out of a ship, but it checks out from an internal consistency standpoint at a glance.
That said, it'd be way cooler if they were, I dunno, a giant plasma thing instead. Like a capital ship cannon with a ship built around it, kind of like this thing (http://www.star-control.com/sc2/ships/druuge.png).
Post by: Akura on January 07, 2018, 02:03:22 pm
I mean, when in the last 7 movies do you see explosive projectile weapons used?
At least once a movie?
Ep1: Anakin uses proton torpedoes on the TF battleship's reactor.
Ep2: Jango Fett uses missiles and seismic(in space?) charges on Obi-Wan. Missile weapons were also used in the Geonosis ground battle.
Ep3: Those buzz droid missiles in the beginning. Not a great example, but there wasn't much space combat in Ep3. Missiles were also used in various ground battles by both sides.
Ep4: The proton torpedoes, explicitly called for in the briefing, used to destroy the Death Star.
Ep5: TIE bombers drop bombs on asteroids they suspected the Millennium Falcon to be hiding on.
Ep6: A proton torpedo hits the shield generator for the Executor's bridge, allowing a damaged Rebel fighter to crash through it, killing the Imperial fleet's commanders and sending the Executor crashing into the Death Star II.
I haven't seen Ep7 or 8 yet.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 07, 2018, 02:30:45 pm
Gravity weapons are still stupid in space, but its not like they wouldnt work next to a planet... low orbit isnt a magical pixieland where gravity goes away, its just that in real life the only way things get to stay in it is by orbiting (which is why it's called orbit, ugh).
Post by: Reelya on January 07, 2018, 02:43:14 pm
Post by: smjjames on January 07, 2018, 03:12:34 pm
It's also possible that there wouldn't have been much to look at. Millenium Falcon had the entire cockpit window, showing the DS in hyperspace would have just been a scene showing it going through hyperspace before going to the next scene.
edit: You know, we never see the Millenium Falcon inside hyperspace either, as we did in TLJ for that shuttle craft. Just it entering hyperspace.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 07, 2018, 03:18:35 pm
Course, if fighters moved as fast as they should it would look stupid and be impossible to follow.
The truth is that if the Death Star was moving as fast as it logically must, would be a pretty funny sight. Like a giant bowling ball coming to score a strike on Aldaraan.
Post by: smjjames on January 07, 2018, 03:36:36 pm
Post by: Akura on January 08, 2018, 08:34:29 am
The truth is that if the Death Star was moving as fast as it logically must, would be a pretty funny sight. Like a giant bowling ball coming to score a strike on Aldaraan.That reminds me, I was playing The Force Unleashed II yesterday, and I threw a piece of furniture at a squad of Stormtroopers. I swear, I heard the sound of bowling pins being knocked over by a bowling ball after it took out the whole group.
Yeah, the Death Star according to wookiepedia says that it's 120km in diameter, though further down it claims that it's actually 160 and it says that the scale model shows that it was intended to be 210km, but it seemed like it was supposed to be much larger than that.The Death Star was supposed to be large enough to be mistaken for a small moon. Earth's Moon is ~3475km in diameter, but that's an exceptionally large moon. Most natural satellites have a mean diameter of <250km, so the Death Star really was the size of a small moon.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on January 08, 2018, 11:39:09 am
They tried to take the old formula and subvert it in order to give it a new feel, but they subverted it poorly so it lost what made the older movies good. Seriously, several plot lines just... dead ended? Many of those tropes exist for a reason. Examples:
"Whoops we failed to disable the tracking device, and in fact we failed in every single way possible and got a fuck ton of people killed because we are terrible at intrigue"
"Okay time to get trained! Oh wait nevermind"
"Mysterious dark hole! Spooky mystery, battle within yourself, What will come of it! NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"
"Alright everyone in the trenches here for this climactic battle and wait nevermind lets all retreat without firing a SINGLE SHOT"
"WHO ARE YOUR PARENTS wait lol it doesn't matter"
"Mysterious big bad guy! Where did he come from? What's his story? How will this play out oh wait he's dead"
Like seriously about half the movie could have not happened and the plot would be the same. Not joking. This is subversion done wrong. To subvert something well, it should bring something to the table. Like, if you subvert something, it shouldn't just have the plotline end, it should amp it up. Make more MORE exciting, not less. Bring a twist that brings new conflict, not anti-climatically ends the whole plot line.
The space battles bothered me a lot as well. Mostly because of how inconsistent they are with the older movies. The laser projectiles curve now? What? Also, FLT can now destroy ships, why not just make missiles that use warp speed? I mean, really, it would have been better to just have a regular kamikaze run while sad music plays and the ship is blown to pieces as it approaches, somehow staying together long enough to smash into the enemy ship and causing massive damage. Or even activating warp speed after ramming the other ship, or something. Because it makes you ask why they didn't just use warp speed suicide runs the whole time. Bit of a plot hole.
Also, not communicating properly was a plot device. I HATE that plot device. "Oh so the plan is to use the ship as a decoy to allow the transports to go to that planet right over there that has an old base in secret" "Oh okay that sounds reasonable" FUCKING TEN SECONDS BUT NO, THE EXPERIENCED COMMANDER DECIDED TO GO IDIOTIC AND NOT COMMUNICATE
Post by: scriver on January 08, 2018, 12:06:27 pm
Also, not communicating properly was a plot device. I HATE that plot device. "Oh so the plan is to use the ship as a decoy to allow the transports to go to that planet right over there that has an old base in secret" "Oh okay that sounds reasonable" FUCKING TEN SECONDS BUT NO, THE EXPERIENCED COMMANDER DECIDED TO GO IDIOTIC AND NOT COMMUNICATE
The best part is that when she decides to communicate he goes "Oh yeah let's do that".
Quote
warp speed
HOW DARE YOU
Post by: Mephansteras on January 08, 2018, 12:11:05 pm
Any student of military history knows that military commanders have made much worse decisions for worse reasons in real life.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on January 08, 2018, 12:21:34 pm
Also, not communicating properly was a plot device. I HATE that plot device. "Oh so the plan is to use the ship as a decoy to allow the transports to go to that planet right over there that has an old base in secret" "Oh okay that sounds reasonable" FUCKING TEN SECONDS BUT NO, THE EXPERIENCED COMMANDER DECIDED TO GO IDIOTIC AND NOT COMMUNICATE
The best part is that when she decides to communicate he goes "Oh yeah let's do that".Quotewarp speed
HOW DARE YOU
Light speed, warp speed, potato potahto. ;D
To be fair to the commander, when your whole plan revolves around your enemy not realizing they should look for small ships and you are being tracked via methods you are not 100% sure of, keeping silent out of fear of spies is a believable move. Not a good move, maybe, but very believable.
Any student of military history knows that military commanders have made much worse decisions for worse reasons in real life.
But yeah it was believable, and if that was the only sin of the movie it would have been fine. I mean, Poe just got a bunch of people killed so there is that. That being said, that particular story trope just bothers me a lot.
Post by: McTraveller on January 08, 2018, 12:31:17 pm
It's actually kind of refreshing from the "every single small moment in the story is successful and/or has an awesome purpose and/or we succeeded despite terrible odds." I mean, I thought it was actually nice that they failed to disable the tracking device - it was a million-to-one mission, and it actually failed!
Something I've just realized about this thread and most of the discussion on this movie though - it's lots of what people don't like - but very little of discussion what people were expecting. I feel like most of the disappointment and dislike is due to unmet expectations. But what expectations were there? Stuff like that...
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 12:43:33 pm
Compare to Empire Strikes Back, there was stuff that monumentally went wrong, but it also mattered and had consequences going beyond that movie. e.g. what's the equivalent to luke getting his hand cut off, or han getting frozen in carbonite? Killing un-named rebels en masse isn't a meaningful plot, nor is bringing in a new character deliberately for them to be killed off in the same episode. That's sitcom type writing.
They act like the idea of ups and downs is "new" to the franchise. It's just not. Tons of things go wrong for everyone in the prequels, Empire Strikes Back is full of things going wrong for the good guys. This current movie just wasn't well done. There were no specific expectations because every preceding Star Wars movie has in fact been pretty different in it's character outcomes. I mean, in the prequels where exactly is the "everything worked out for the band of heroes" narrative. It isn't there. Both good guys and bad guys get killed all the time.
The point is, too many plot threads were started, and then just abort without any real pay-off for the audience, either negative or positive. For example, for the failed hacking mission, they fail, however they're saved at the last moment by a Deus Ex Machina. That's ... not any better, nor is it new to the series. It's no different to R2 getting them out of the trash compactor. Except the trash compactor scene was actually cool.
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on January 08, 2018, 12:50:09 pm
I don't know why all the complaint about stuff in the movie that "didn't have a result." It's much more like real life that way - "we tried this, and it failed! It was pointless! It was a wrong turn! It didn't turn out the way I expected!"
Not having a result doesn't mean failure. Failure is a result that can lead to interesting scenarios and plot development. Not having a result means that you can cut out a section of the movie and miss absolutely nothing. Not disabling the tracking device is pointless because it has the same result as if they never tried in the first place. The resistance still would have escaped to the secret base. So the entire section with finding the code breaker and sneaking onto the ship is pointless. It has no payoff, positive or negative. It basically wastes your entire time watching it. I know that that kind of stuff happens all the time in real life but movies are not real life. If a section of the movie makes the watcher think 'I could have slept through that and missed nothing' then it's a bad section of the movie. That's the problem with The Last Jedi. Everything that does not involve Kylo Ren, Rey or Luke (and even some sections that do) is just pointless. You could have just cut to the rebels reaching the salt planet and missed nothing of importance or interest.
Something I've just realized about this thread and most of the discussion on this movie though - it's lots of what people don't like - but very little of discussion what people were expecting. I feel like most of the disappointment and dislike is due to unmet expectations. But what expectations were there? Stuff like that...
My disappointment had nothing to do with unmet expectations and everything to do with sections of the movie being entirely pointless to sit through. The Last Jedi did not capture my attention because of that which significantly lowered my enjoyment of it. The Force Awakens had its flaws but I enjoyed watching it. I didn't sit through it and wonder to myself 'When is this going to get to something more interesting?' like I did with The Last Jedi. I don't think that 'being an enjoyable movie' should be an expectation that one should list or analyze. Every movie should be enjoyable to watch, or at least big, blockbuster ones like the Star Wars series.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on January 08, 2018, 12:50:57 pm
Ah, but none of that really matters, does it? Because random smuggler Han Solo is so vitally important that him getting frozen has larger consequences, or something. Oh, does it matter on the character level? But the movie just ended with him frozen, so it doesn't ever go anywhere, he's basically dead.
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 12:57:48 pm
The specific fleets in question only existed during this movie, they were destroyed. But they were also concocted for this specific movie. It's symbolized by Holdo's death. She was concocted for this movie, is synonymous with the fleet, and dies along with it. Since she had no history at all, trying to wring some emotion out of her death is like trying to wring blood from a stone. Han being frozen mattered because he was an established, core character. The core characters are what actually matters, not some bullshit about the First Order. What irreversible thing happened to Finn, for example? Did Finn even need to be in this movie? The outcome of the movie would have been the same if Finn happened to be off on a Rebel holiday cruise somewhere and met Rose there, and comes back at the end going "did I miss anything?"
Rian Johnson was clearly given some specific directions. Get rid of snoke, and the whole team needs to be together at the end to fly off into the sunset for the next movie. That's it, that's the entire relevance of this plot to the next movie, more or less, though they'll stretch out some of the dialogue to band-aid over any seams.
Post by: Puzzlemaker on January 08, 2018, 12:59:43 pm
Rather than failed outcomes, the problem was that none of the stuff really mattered.
Compare to Empire Strikes Back, there was stuff that monumentally went wrong, but it also mattered and had consequences going beyond that movie. e.g. what's the equivalent to luke getting his hand cut off, or han getting frozen in carbonite? Killing un-named rebels en masse isn't a meaningful plot, nor is bringing in a new character deliberately for them to be killed off in the same episode. That's sitcom type writing.
They act like the idea of ups and downs is "new" to the franchise. It's just not. Tons of things go wrong for everyone in the prequels, Empire Strikes Back is full of things going wrong for the good guys. This current movie just wasn't well done. There were no specific expectations because every preceding Star Wars movie has in fact been pretty different in it's character outcomes. I mean, in the prequels where exactly is the "everything worked out for the band of heroes" narrative. It isn't there. Both good guys and bad guys get killed all the time.
The point is, too many plot threads were started, and then just abort without any real pay-off for the audience, either negative or positive. For example, for the failed hacking mission, they fail, however they're saved at the last moment by a Deus Ex Machina. That's ... not any better, nor is it new to the series. It's no different to R2 getting them out of the trash compactor. Except the trash compactor scene was actually cool.
Yeah, this. Many of the plot threads could have just not happened, and it wouldn't change anything. That's the problem I had. Failed plans should still move the plot forward.
Post by: Kot on January 08, 2018, 01:02:07 pm
But yeah it was believable, and if that was the only sin of the movie it would have been fine. I mean, Poe just got a bunch of people killed so there is that. That being said, that particular story trope just bothers me a lot.Except she didin't tell it to not only Poe. She told literally noone, so noone had any fucking idea she has a plan, and when noone knows if the commander can be trusted during an desperate situation, then people start a mutiny, which is exactly what happened. I could have accepted it, because you know, it is somewhat reasonable to have happened, but it utterly aggravates me that in the end she is portrayed as being right and Poe being wrong, when it's literally the other way around.
But hey, gotta have some strong female characters. Ackbar died for this.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on January 08, 2018, 01:03:25 pm
No, they basically reset everything that happened in this movie, you really didn't pick that up.Uh-huh. All an artless conspiracy, I'm sure.
The specific fleets in question only existed during this movie, they were destroyed. But they were also concocted for this specific movie. It's symbolized by Holdo's death. She was concocted for this movie, is synonymous with the fleet, and dies along with it. Since she had no history at all, trying to wring some emotion out of her death is like trying to wring blood from a stone. Han being frozen mattered because he was an established, core character. The care characters are what actually matters, not some bullshit about the First Order.
Rian Johnson was clearly given some specific directions. Get rid of snoke, and the whole team needs to be together at the end to fly off into the sunset for the next movie. That's it, that's the entire relevance of this plot to the next movie, more or less, though they'll stretch out some of the dialogue to band-aid over any seams.
There's no point to this. Star Wars has a lot of potential as a franchise, but it falls to the old curse perhaps more strongly than any other major media series. Can't do anything new without pissing off Special Edition boxset owners, can't do anything old without facing the reality that you can't make the same novelty happen twice.
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 01:05:46 pm
There are a ton of low-budget sci-fi movies I like more than these, and they're not heroic adventures, they're just better movies. And I'm not expecting a masterpiece from a star wars movie, just one that would stand up against some no-name movie as being passable.
TLJ was just dreary. The entire "space chase" that the core narrative was built around was just excruciatingly boring and drawn out. It just has a very dull plot structure, with bells tacked on. Basically they attached the pointless side plots because of how boring the main storyline actually was, and it's structured in a way that everything hangs off the "space chase". Also, if they're going for the tension from the space chase thing, it was a monumental mistake to insert the whole comedic casino adventure in the middle of that. Being able to divert to a casino adventure in the middle of a tense chase and still catch back up with the chasers is one of the most idiotic plotlines in all the SW films.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on January 08, 2018, 01:12:05 pm
They're all pretty strongly woven together, some more antagonistically than others. They only really come together as a story at all on the franchise level. Nothing is resolved in Empire Strikes Back. The rebels get fucked, Luke abandons his training pretty much immediately, Han and Leia don't fuck, Luke is subjected to a stupid unchoreographed plot twist, they all lose to the Empire and fuck off on the Millennium Falcon. As a standalone it accomplishes nothing and doesn't resolve the plot in any way.
How very...familiar. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 01:15:34 pm
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on January 08, 2018, 01:18:55 pm
"What if Star Wars wasn't Star Wars and nobody watched it but it was the same, would it still be good?" Who gives a shit? That isn't what happened!
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 08, 2018, 03:04:04 pm
The new bridge crew took her side. Which would seem to imply that all surviving high ranking officers knew.But yeah it was believable, and if that was the only sin of the movie it would have been fine. I mean, Poe just got a bunch of people killed so there is that. That being said, that particular story trope just bothers me a lot.Except she didin't tell it to not only Poe. She told literally noone, so noone had any fucking idea she has a plan, and when noone knows if the commander can be trusted during an desperate situation, then people start a mutiny, which is exactly what happened. I could have accepted it, because you know, it is somewhat reasonable to have happened, but it utterly aggravates me that in the end she is portrayed as being right and Poe being wrong, when it's literally the other way around.
But hey, gotta have some strong female characters. Ackbar died for this.
Poe fails information compartmentalization forever. He found out about the transports IIRC because he's because he's friends with all the pilots, who did need to know the transports were going to launch. And to them it probably made sense to tell Poe that. Then he preceded to tell that information to two people who had no reason to know. If he had been like Holdo, what he would have told them is "get the tracker down in the next 60 seconds or we're fucked." Without telling them why.
The plotline is about Poe learning from Holdo and Leia. Its part of the movie's larger theme about failure and what you do afterwards. The thing about the Poe + Finn thread of the story that a lot of people seem to be grappling with is that everyone's actions made sense to them. Out of Holdo, Leia, Poe, Finn and Rose, no one is villainous or particularly foolish. Poe's a hotheaded idiot but he's a hotheaded idiot in a way that usually works out for the rebels and Leia recognizes that. I've personally always thought that out of the original trio Poe most resembles Leia herself when she was younger.
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 03:15:16 pm
I think you're the one who's missing the point. Your judgement of this movie is silly counterfactual. Movies that aren't standalone exist in context with other members of the series, and so are rightfully considered in that context.
"What if Star Wars wasn't Star Wars and nobody watched it but it was the same, would it still be good?" Who gives a shit? That isn't what happened!
Quote
Your judgement of this movie is silly
Hmm, it seems to be that you're saying that me having an opinion of the movie that is different from your opinion is invalid.
Quote
Who gives a shit?
Well, clearly, you do, if you're so upset that someone has a different opinion than you do. You know, it's ok to go "well that's your opinion, and that's ok". Saying that because someone did or didn't like the thing their opinion "silly and counterfactual" and "who gives a shit" when people respond to your earlier criticisms of their other points, is in fact counterfactual to having an actual discussion on how people feel about the movie. If you "don't give a shit" about what someone has to say in response, don't comment on the original point in the first place.
I basically stand by my "who gives a shit" opinion about movies. A movie in a series should stand up by itself as an "ok movie" even if you didn't see the previous ones. It doesn't have to be great, just a passable 90 minutes on it's own merits. My opinion is that TLJ doesn't manage that. Hell, TV shows can get away with more here, but even a TV show's episodes should stand up as episodes in their own right, even if you didn't see any other episodes. It's just basic storycraft.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on January 08, 2018, 03:39:32 pm
The new bridge crew took her side. Which would seem to imply that all surviving high ranking officers knew.But yeah it was believable, and if that was the only sin of the movie it would have been fine. I mean, Poe just got a bunch of people killed so there is that. That being said, that particular story trope just bothers me a lot.Except she didin't tell it to not only Poe. She told literally noone, so noone had any fucking idea she has a plan, and when noone knows if the commander can be trusted during an desperate situation, then people start a mutiny, which is exactly what happened. I could have accepted it, because you know, it is somewhat reasonable to have happened, but it utterly aggravates me that in the end she is portrayed as being right and Poe being wrong, when it's literally the other way around.
But hey, gotta have some strong female characters. Ackbar died for this.
Poe fails information compartmentalization forever. He found out about the transports IIRC because he's because he's friends with all the pilots, who did need to know the transports were going to launch. And to them it probably made sense to tell Poe that. Then he preceded to tell that information to two people who had no reason to know. If he had been like Holdo, what he would have told them is "get the tracker down in the next 60 seconds or we're fucked." Without telling them why.
The plotline is about Poe learning from Holdo and Leia. Its part of the movie's larger theme about failure and what you do afterwards. The thing about the Poe + Finn thread of the story that a lot of people seem to be grappling with is that everyone's actions made sense to them. Out of Holdo, Leia, Poe, Finn and Rose, no one is villainous or particularly foolish. Poe's a hotheaded idiot but he's a hotheaded idiot in a way that usually works out for the rebels and Leia recognizes that. I've personally always thought that out of the original trio Poe most resembles Leia herself when she was younger.
One of the new bridge crew covered for his plan by hiding the ship Finn and Rose were on when Holdo asked what had just left, and Poe found out about the transports not from fellow pilots but when he saw a display of the transports being fueled up.
Post by: scriver on January 08, 2018, 03:46:52 pm
Everything that does not involve Kylo Ren, Rey or Luke (and even some sections that do) is just pointless.
Rey and Kylo Ren are both crazy now, the latter having assumed control of the First Order. The galaxy is now presumably in chaos, having collapsed the New Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order leaving lesser forces to splinter or begin mercenary activities.
Ah, but none of that really matters, does it? Because random smuggler Han Solo is so vitally important that him getting frozen has larger consequences, or something. Oh, does it matter on the character level? But the movie just ended with him frozen, so it doesn't ever go anywhere, he's basically dead.
Everything that does not involve Kylo Ren, Rey
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 08, 2018, 03:53:32 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 08, 2018, 07:36:03 pm
I don't know why all the complaint about stuff in the movie that "didn't have a result." It's much more like real life that way - "we tried this, and it failed! It was pointless! It was a wrong turn! It didn't turn out the way I expected!"
It's actually kind of refreshing from the "every single small moment in the story is successful and/or has an awesome purpose and/or we succeeded despite terrible odds." I mean, I thought it was actually nice that they failed to disable the tracking device - it was a million-to-one mission, and it actually failed!
Something I've just realized about this thread and most of the discussion on this movie though - it's lots of what people don't like - but very little of discussion what people were expecting. I feel like most of the disappointment and dislike is due to unmet expectations. But what expectations were there? Stuff like that...
Stories are not real life. They are not about being realistic or emulating reality. They're about exploring very certain aspects of humanity, and frankly, I would say the more "realistic" and down to earth it is, the worse a story it is. I hate, HATE, when people say this... there's a whole pseudo-genre of work for you, pal: Literary Fiction. Eat it up, thousands upon thousands of short stories and novels and unfinished works on boring, mundane real-life, slice-of-life bullshit. Who, in their right minds, wants to hear about the trials and tribulations of the average? How lame. How presumptuous to assume that any given person wants to hear about a life they are already living as if it is something they have yet to grasp the beauty in. Boo to you sir, I say Boo.
A story is a story, and how dare you defend both failure and a lack of imagination. Realism is overrated. Of course, this movie isn't realistic at all, but if you want to say that story is much more like real life than it has been before--well let me tell you it is one of the technically worst stories I've ever seen. The first two thirds of the movie are entirely invalidated by Finn and Rose's failures, and has to be MANUALLY reignited by the Codebreaker because Johnson clearly wrote himself into a corner--which he continually does, leading to my next point. Aggressive amounts of Deus Ex Machina. There is no truly overarching problem or villain. Rey has almost no interaction with the other characters, and SERENDIPITOUSLY saves them all at the end of the day. Luke changes his mind about helping out for almost no reason. Snoke is a macguffin. The entire scenario of running down the rebels simply because the FO can is ridiculous given the character Snoke and Kylo were set up to be. My god man, it's truly awful--and that is without considering it in the frame of being a sequel to TFA. Add incredible gaps in character personalities from TFA, an inability to show characters bonding emotionally, several story lines just fucking stopping or not developing, constant plot armor, and accompanying consistently bad decision making from most characters and you have... well, one incredibly shitty script.
And speaking of expectations, we were all expecting a Star Wars movie. This was not it. Everyone here is talking about expectations like they don't matter. They fucking do. It's so frustrating. Their are high expectations for Star Wars. Secret Missions. The Force. New and Wonderous Planets. Aliens. Blasters. Big Battles. Lightsaber Duels. AND a general sense of wonder and scale. This movie KNOWS it needs these things and tries and fails at making them tangible. And you know what? You can break, SMASH every single expectation you want, but the movie has to be GOOD for you to do it, and the writing alone was movie-ruining.
Post by: McTraveller on January 08, 2018, 09:26:43 pm
I seriously think people need to watch more MST3K or something to really understand what an awful movie is. The Last Jedi may not be 'great' but it isn't 'terrible'. Basically - I think there's a massive projection of "I didn't like it" into "this movie is bad".
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 09:37:51 pm
"Below average" in movie terms. Not up to snuff. Pick any science fiction movie you know nothing about that's airing at the cinema, and more likely than not, it will be a better movie that The Last Jedi. None of these things equate to "worst movie of all time". The things is, independent stuff gets a free pass on a lot of things, however, major franchises which have massive budgets, they don't in fact need or warrant a free pass on any flaws: if any, those movies should be held to a higher standard than normal, the same as you would an AAA game vs an indie game.
Nobody who didn't like the movie is going around accusing it's fans of calling it "the best movie of all time".
Post by: McTraveller on January 08, 2018, 10:08:52 pm
I was going to say some other stuff, but Ispil basically ninja'd me.
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 10:11:49 pm
But like I said, the reason for slamming it was first impressions: I hoped for more than The Force Awakens, but got a lot less. Less than I enjoy any old sci-fi movie in general. Hell I rewatched all the OG Star Trek movies recently and even enjoyed the Shatner directed Star Trek V: The Final Frontier more than I enjoyed TLJ.
Post by: Kot on January 08, 2018, 10:14:24 pm
That seems to be catastrophizing a bit. Basically anyone who doesn't have a positive view of the movie on balance is accused of "calling it the worst movie of all time". Nobody is even calling it the worst Star Wars movie of all time.You realize including the Holiday Special is a bit of cheating, is it not?
Literally nobody has done anything like that, we've just said it was a boring movie with a substandard plot structure. "Below average" in movie terms. Not up to snuff. Pick any science fiction movie you know nothing about that's airing at the cinema, and more likely than not, it will be a better movie that The Last Jedi. None of these things equate to "worst movie of all time".It's... a mater of scale, and perhaps indeed expectations. When you go to see Star Wars, or even any "loud" movie that is popular, you kind of expect it to carry a certain quality behind it, even having no idea about it beforehand. It doesn't have to be amazing, but at least solid in overwhelming majority, and when it's not, you understandably feel that something has gone terribly wrong and the movie is popular for no particular reason. Meanwhile The Last Jedi is... not solid at all. There are gaping internal (setting aside the problems with the rest of universe as a whole) plotholes, characters that for some reason are supposed to be important, but really don't feel like they are, and so on, the list has been already repeated many times in this thread. It would have been fine if it was random movie that nobody really cared for in mass popular culture, but since it's Star Wars, it's so popular and since people (critics, apparently) DO actually call it the best Star Wars movie, it does tend to ring a bell in your head questioning wether you and the people who love it have saw the same movie.
Nobody who didn't like the movie is going around accusing it's fans of calling it "the best movie of all time".
Post by: Egan_BW on January 08, 2018, 10:14:41 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 08, 2018, 10:15:05 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on January 08, 2018, 10:17:44 pm
Oh yeah, it had those space seismic charges. Makes no sense, but looks cool as fuck.
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 10:21:38 pm
You've forgotten the Ewok Adventures, Ispil. And the Holiday Special. If someone was saying it's the worst Star Wars movie of all time then those would come up.Read the quotes above. One of them, word for word, contains the phase "worst Star Wars movie ever made."
If one person said it, once, then it is a plain exaggeration to say "it seems like everyone on the other side is constantly saying ..." which is pretty much what was claimed. Also the original claim was "worse movie of all time". "Worst Star Wars movie" isn't really in the same category. There are hundreds of thousands of movies, almost all of which have lower imdb scores that the lowest-rated of the main Star Wars movies. There are 7 other Star Wars movies, and the lowest has a 6.5 on imdb. "Worst Star Wars movie" is in fact a pretty mild claim.
Post by: smjjames on January 08, 2018, 10:27:28 pm
I wonder if Jar Jar would have been a more popular character if he was a more serious character rather than the goofy and clumsy one he was?...
/musing
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 10:30:04 pm
Also, nowhere did I say that I thought it was worse than e.g. phatom menace, I just said I'm willing to give the prequels as a whole more benefit of the doubt now that these other new movies are out. If you want to nitpick specific semantics, I didn't actually make the specific claim you're saying.
Post by: Reelya on January 08, 2018, 10:38:25 pm
I said the one person who accused anyone who didn't like the movie of "acting like it's the worst movie ever" was exaggerating.
I gave detailed descriptions of what I didn't like, and why. So it's not like i was just mouthing off with no basis or thought about it.
For example, the speeder vs walkers scene is there to showcase how plans don't always work out. But hey, if you're going to show that, why not make an entirely new set piece instead of "Hoth Battle lite"?
That's one thing that even Phantom Menace has going for it: it has tons of great set pieces with original tech in them. Darth Maul, plenty of light saber combat, the death on Qui Jon, the pod race, underwater scenes, full-scale planetary invasions. The Phantom Menaces' plot structure also packs a lot more movement and action into it than TLJ, which is 2 hours of "space chase".
Post by: Reelya on January 09, 2018, 01:32:19 am
One interesting thing I started looking at what the gender breakdown of scores for SW movies on imdb. Women, especially young women are super-positive about TLJ. So that could be a thing related to guys have a negative reaction to the "progressivism" in the movies (a common claim).
However, on that note, I looked up the stats on the other movies, and there's a noticeable gender divide of opinion on the prequels, especially with the youngest demographic.
For example, Attack of the Clones scored 5.8 from young males, 7.3 from young females, and Phantom Menace scored 5.9 from young males, 7.1 from young females. Even "revenge of the Sith" has 0.5 higher ratings from young women vs young men. These differences are greater than the gender difference in approval for the new movie. The interesting fact is that *none* of the Star Wars movies since 1983 actually scored higher among young men vs young women. The prequels have the most massive pro-female bias in scoring, funnily enough, while the "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" are more equal, but even for those two movies, teenage girls gave the highest average scores. Ironically, it's not the movies with female leads which have the biggest pro-female gender divide: it's the ones with cute boy Anakin. Basically he's the Justin Bieber of Star Wars fandom.
Even "Return of the Jedi" has higher scores with teenage girls than boys. You need to go back to 1980 to find a Star Wars movie with higher average ratings from boys than girls.
Which suggests a lot of the cliches about who the "core" fans actually are for this material might be mistaken. No demographic scored even one of the 1983-2017 movies higher than teenage girls did. So casting a female lead in both Force Awakens and Rogue One might have very little to do with "feminism" at all (though anyone casting a woman is clearly going to cash in on that), and everything to do with the fact that they realize their core demographic has changed.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 09, 2018, 01:14:12 pm
Also, creepy and dumb as it is, Episodes 2 and 3 have that Twilight/Fifty Shades of Gray thing going on with the Anakin/Padme plotline. You know, romanticized creepiness that blossoms into romanticized abuse. Back in the early 2000s that shit did pretty well with young women. Granted even by the standards of Twilight* that plotline is abysmally written but then... so are the prequels in general so not much new there. I guess what I'm saying is I could see how eps 2 and 3 could resonate with females and not males, since they have elements of a story female viewers would find familiar and male viewers would find both unfamiliar and offputting.
*I maintain that Twilight at least has genuinely romantic elements amongst the mess. I... struggle to see what's romantic about Anakin and Padme. The actors don't even try to give the characters chemistry and in the reunion scene Padme's actor clearly has "that's creepy also weren't you like 9 yesterday" written on her face.
Post by: Kot on January 09, 2018, 01:34:42 pm
I... struggle to see what's romantic about Anakin and Padme.I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 09, 2018, 01:40:18 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 09, 2018, 01:48:41 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 09, 2018, 03:38:18 pm
Okay, you can look at that as bad dialogue. Or you can look at it as jedi wisdom about why you should never have sex on a beach.Prequel Jedis were celibate (just like sequel Jedis if Luke's smelly old hobo attire is representative of anything). This means that they are inexperienced in pickup lines.
Or maybe they are trained like that so that they stay celibate, what do I know
Post by: Kot on January 09, 2018, 06:47:19 pm
Or maybe they are trained like that so that they stay celibate, what do I knowIf Sequel Jedis are representative of anything, they are. (https://img00.deviantart.net/e0b1/i/2016/041/1/a/reylo___my_heart_will_go_on_by_liberlibelula-d9r85l4.jpg)
Post by: Xantalos on January 09, 2018, 07:10:03 pm
So yeah, I can't really get mad at it, but I can't really bring myself to particularly care either. It's just kinda there.
So, eh. It looked pretty good though.
Post by: SalmonGod on January 15, 2018, 04:21:22 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 15, 2018, 09:18:22 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 15, 2018, 09:21:38 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 15, 2018, 11:22:10 pm
Is Rey's nobodyness cause for scorn? Imo the move away from midochlorian lineages and into the force being mystical bullshit that more reflects a person's personality than their CK2 dynasty as per the original trilogy is gud. Helps promote developing an actual personality for the character if the writers stop drinking detergent
The "everyone's a force user" thing is also pretty convenient if you want to make endless sequels and side-stories. Then, you can have budding Jedi popping up wherever and whenever you like, without having to work out how they fit into some larger scheme of things. Perfect for a studio like Disney who'd like to spin off 100 Star Wars related series in all directions.
I don't think this by itself actually makes the writing any better or worse. However, sometimes having constraints on the origin of a character can make you get more creative. "Write whatever you like" sounds liberating, however, things flow better if you have constraints, and constraints cause you to think of ideas that you'd never come up with if you're given carte blank to write "whatever".
e.g. would Kylo Ren be a more developed and interesting character if his parents had also been "nobody"? Or would they have just concocted some hokey backstory that's emotionally unrelated to anything else in the series like they did for Rey? Or Anakin Skywalker for that matter. His story is pretty dark for a main character in any movie series, and it's written like that because of the constraints of who he is and how he fits into a larger narrative that's not his own. If he'd been written "from scratch" and not been woven into the bigger narrative of his family, it's certain that he'd end up as a more traditional hero type character: the story constraints forced the writers to write him as an anti-hero, in a movie series that's all about plain old regular heroes.
Another real risk, is that the Star Wars saga was always about family. If they take it in a new direction where family doesn't really matter, which is where the new movies are going, then they lose that aspect of talking to the whole "human condition". With the high attrition rate of any old characters (either original movies old, or anyone significant who's old in the new movies), the last movie looks likely to be just about a bunch of late teens aged kids battling it out for the fate of the universe.
e.g. Finn, Poe and Rey: none of them have parents or siblings who are really part of the main narrative at all (poe's parents being in a comic don't count. They're not characters referenced in the movies). Notice however, that all three main human characters in the original trilogy turn out to be, or end up being, connected by family bonds.
Post by: SalmonGod on January 15, 2018, 11:48:58 pm
Star Wars has some awesome characters, but the basis of the phenomenon is the setting. Most of what makes those characters memorable are features imparted on them by the setting. But when they make every story about how this handful of people are so naturally goddamn amazing and there's nobody else like them out of trillions of creatures in an entire galaxy, to the point that their conflicts control the fates of all... it's like the writing is trying reeeaalllly hard to convince itself that it's the characters making the setting awesome instead, which just isn't true. It's painful and I don't understand it.
People don't need this contrived bullshit to be awesome. Tell interesting stories about characters to build up the setting. Let them come and go naturally. Stop with the crap about how nobody's allowed to be cool unless they're somehow related to the very first characters in the franchise to be established as cool. And the ultimate balance of power in the entire galaxy doesn't have to hinge on every single story. There's countless other ways to make a story interesting besides the fate of the galaxy. Make a million spin offs. Clinging to Skywalker Wars forever does nothing to help tell good stories, so explore Star Wars instead.
And the same general sentiment goes for every other setting of the sort. Superhero universes and what have you. Jessica Jones was one of the best stories to come out of the Marvel Universe, and it's because (the comic not the show) departed completely from your typical comic book material to see what tools the super hero setting could offer them to tell a mature story about emotional abuse, and they created a fresh unknown character with no connections to anyone else in the setting besides some momentary interactions, so it was self-contained and not bogged down with any cosmic destiny bullshit. Why can't we have more things like this.
Post by: Reelya on January 15, 2018, 11:53:14 pm
e.g. Rey was a rebel fighter pilot who crashes on Jakku after befriending the First Order defector pilot Poe, then she teams up with orphaned Junker Finn. Rey then discovers she has latent force powers. You could have written it like that with fairly minimal changes to dialogue and plot. Try doing something like that with Han, Luke and Leia.
Post by: RedKing on January 16, 2018, 12:10:45 am
Poe is a fighter pilot of the Resistance, derived from the New Republic, born of the Rebel Alliance. He's flying essentially the same fighter that heroes like Luke and Wedge flew.
Finn is a Stormtrooper, part of a lineage that goes back even further, to the Clone Wars.
Rey has an even older lineage, becoming apprentice to Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, disciple of Obi-Wan Kenobi, disciple of Qui-Gonn Jinn, disciple of Dooku, disciple of Yoda.
Who were Obi-wan's parents? Han Solo's? Yoda's? Chewbacca's? Literally the only characters you ever find anything out about their families are the Skywalkers.
Post by: smjjames on January 16, 2018, 01:01:58 am
Post by: scriver on January 16, 2018, 02:39:39 am
The reason the internet was overflowing with ridiculous theories about Rey's parentage wasn't that there is this supposed Law of Lineage but because tFA set up a situation where her parentage was unknown and then stressed that it mattered. This is a fault of the new movies, not the old ones. It's like if TFA set up a table for a table cloth pull away trick, but then tLJ shows up and pulls down your pants instead - sure, it's a twist, but it's a bad twist, an unreveal instead of a reveal when the only reason you thought there was going to be a reveal was because they set it up. And then they play up the "DESTROY THE PAST" aspect but it doesn't actually feel like they're breaking any sort of Holy Star Wars Constitution, rather all they're breaking is the set up of the previous, new movie. Besides that it's just a return to the status quo, to what "the Past" actually was.
And that's the thing. I feel that is something tLJ does constantly, over and over again. It keeps repeating "DESTROY THE PAST" but it doesn't actually offer anything new, it's just as much a rehash of tESB as tFA was of aNH. The one opportunity for something it brings to the table, Rey joining Kylo (and what is probably my favourite non-visual part of the movie), they're to cowardly to actually pursue, immediately turning it down in favour of the status quo, the good VS evil, Jedi vs Sith, the Very Much The Same As The Past They Say They Are Destroying mentality. When the movie makes a point out of saying something like DESTROY THE PAST but then just delivers the Same Old, all I'm hearing is "destroy the past, so that we can sell it to you again, and again and again!" It's like the remaking trend and creativity death of the last 20 years actually came alive and spoke to you through the script. It's Consumerism of the highest degree applied to creative arts. "You need this phone!" says Apple, and you buy it. Two years later they go "Destroy the Past! Buy this new phone!" and when you ask why, what does the new phone add, they repeat "Destroy the Past!" on a higher volume. That is the message of tLJ in a nutshell.
Post by: SalmonGod on January 16, 2018, 03:47:21 am
The prequel trilogy totally re-framed everything with Anakin being the chosen one. Naturally having power that overshadows all but the most masterful force users, which they reveal to literally be a matter of bloodline. Operating like a one-man army. Killing off almost all other force users. They make it out to be that the Skywalker bloodline is so overwhelmingly powerful that it engulfs almost everything else, and re-brands Luke and Leia going into EPs 4-6 as precious seeds of hope that the whole galaxy depends on to fulfill their destinies granted by parentage. With the force being a much more conscious seeming entity that selects certain people to be important and fuck everyone else.
And the new trilogy is just building on that trend with the whole galaxy pinning all their hope on the return of Luke Skywalker, and Kylo having scary levels of power attributed to his bloodline. But at least Rey being an outspokenly glaring exception to that whole thing seems to be a self-aware attempt to break away at the same time, and all the little implications that the force is returning to being something that random people can pick up a knack for. They seem to make a point that the Skywalker bloodline isn't holding a near monopoly anymore, even while they reinforce the point made by the prequel trilogy that yes - the life energy consciousness of the universe really didn't give a fuck about anyone but Skywalkers for a while there. My statement was only that I hope they do really get away from it.
Expand the universe. Tell more modest stories about a wider variety of characters. Get away from the rebel vs empire thing, even. Maybe give me a Cowboy Bebop style thing about a random group of space adventurers who just try and feed themselves while dealing with personal baggage, and have nothing to do with the force. I like the setting itself, so give me a different vehicle for exploring it.
This isn't a complaint aimed exclusively at Star Wars, either. It's something most major modern fiction franchises frustrate me with. The whole idea that as the property matures, it has to be revealed that every major character has some super hidden secret past connection to every other character which gets revealed eventually, like all of reality bends around this handful of people. No one can be allowed to be just people who happened to come and go from each other's lives and did something meaningful along the way like real life. And cool settings don't get what they deserve, because writers have to be pushed to always one-up whatever the last thing was, meaning increasingly shocking (increasingly hard to do without being increasingly contrived) revelations and levels of conflict that overwhelm the stage.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 16, 2018, 03:57:45 am
Post by: Taricus on January 16, 2018, 04:10:15 am
Post by: scriver on January 16, 2018, 05:23:20 am
Expand the universe. Tell more modest stories about a wider variety of characters. Get away from the rebel vs empire thing, even. Maybe give me a Cowboy Bebop style thing about a random group of space adventurers who just try and feed themselves while dealing with personal baggage, and have nothing to do with the force. I like the setting itself, so give me a different vehicle for exploring it.
Yeah, I would like that too. But what does tLJ do to make that more possible than it was possible before? Absolutely nothing. The movie most like that, R1, could just as well been released between Episode I, II, or III as between VII and VIII. TLJ is still completely trapped in the realm of epic destinies, climactic charges in the finale, Super Good vs Duper Evil, while fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance. And that's when we get to
Quote
This isn't a complaint aimed exclusively at Star Wars, either. It's something most major modern fiction franchises frustrate me with. The whole idea that as the property matures, it has to be revealed that every major character has some super hidden secret past connection to every other character which gets revealed eventually, like all of reality bends around this handful of people. No one can be allowed to be just people who happened to come and go from each other's lives and did something meaningful along the way like real life. And cool settings don't get what they deserve, because writers have to be pushed to always one-up whatever the last thing was, meaning increasingly shocking (increasingly hard to do without being increasingly contrived) revelations and levels of conflict that overwhelm the stage.
And how can't you see that this is exactly what they've been doing in the new trilogy so far? Now they have AN EVEN BIGGER DEATH
What you want from Star Wars is in the complete opposite direction of what we're actually shown it's going. The corporate narrative is that it's different, but what we get is the same old. It's exactly like my Apple example above. Kill the Past so we can sell it to you over and over again. Just look at the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to see where Star Wars is going.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 16, 2018, 08:09:38 am
The reason the internet was overflowing with ridiculous theories about Rey's parentage wasn't that there is this supposed Law of Lineage but because tFA set up a situation where her parentage was unknown and then stressed that it mattered. This is a fault of the new movies, not the old ones. It's like if TFA set up a table for a table cloth pull away trick, but then tLJ shows up and pulls down your pants instead - sure, it's a twist, but it's a bad twist, an unreveal instead of a reveal when the only reason you thought there was going to be a reveal was because they set it up. And then they play up the "DESTROY THE PAST" aspect but it doesn't actually feel like they're breaking any sort of Holy Star Wars Constitution, rather all they're breaking is the set up of the previous, new movie. Besides that it's just a return to the status quo, to what "the Past" actually was.
And that's the thing. I feel that is something tLJ does constantly, over and over again. It keeps repeating "DESTROY THE PAST" but it doesn't actually offer anything new, it's just as much a rehash of tESB as tFA was of aNH. The one opportunity for something it brings to the table, Rey joining Kylo (and what is probably my favourite non-visual part of the movie), they're to cowardly to actually pursue, immediately turning it down in favour of the status quo, the good VS evil, Jedi vs Sith, the Very Much The Same As The Past They Say They Are Destroying mentality. When the movie makes a point out of saying something like DESTROY THE PAST but then just delivers the Same Old, all I'm hearing is "destroy the past, so that we can sell it to you again, and again and again!" It's like the remaking trend and creativity death of the last 20 years actually came alive and spoke to you through the script. It's Consumerism of the highest degree applied to creative arts. "You need this phone!" says Apple, and you buy it. Two years later they go "Destroy the Past! Buy this new phone!" and when you ask why, what does the new phone add, they repeat "Destroy the Past!" on a higher volume. That is the message of tLJ in a nutshell.
Old Wars: "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack"
Nu Wars: "Jedi uses force to attack knowledge"
When you can't create something better than the original, destroy the original lmao
This isn't a complaint aimed exclusively at Star Wars, either. It's something most major modern fiction franchises frustrate me with. The whole idea that as the property matures, it has to be revealed that every major character has some super hidden secret past connection to every other character which gets revealed eventually, like all of reality bends around this handful of people. No one can be allowed to be just people who happened to come and go from each other's lives and did something meaningful along the way like real life. And cool settings don't get what they deserve, because writers have to be pushed to always one-up whatever the last thing was, meaning increasingly shocking (increasingly hard to do without being increasingly contrived) revelations and levels of conflict that overwhelm the stage.Bethesda syndrome. Where no main characters are allowed to be dudes who experience a rich and unique setting, they have to be the messiah returning to alter the course of every civilization, present in every defining event
Post by: scriver on January 16, 2018, 08:14:58 am
Post by: Egan_BW on January 16, 2018, 08:18:19 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 16, 2018, 08:18:39 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 16, 2018, 08:48:57 am
I think it's a ridiculous point to make because I don't think it was a point that needed to be made in the first place - I have never felt "only family blood matters super duper ever" was a Star Wars law that somehow had to be followed. The series is full of characters whose lineages doesn't matter. Sure, "Vader is Luke's father" is the twist in one of the movies, and Luke's family ties to Vader is the means by which he gets through to him in RotJ, but that never meant there was some set in stone law that every character, or even every main character, had to be related to someone important. If anything, that the original trilogy revealed Vader, Luke, and Leia were family was a thing people made jokes about, that people knew were a bit ridiculous and embarrassing.Quoted for truth
The reason the internet was overflowing with ridiculous theories about Rey's parentage wasn't that there is this supposed Law of Lineage but because tFA set up a situation where her parentage was unknown and then stressed that it mattered. This is a fault of the new movies, not the old ones. It's like if TFA set up a table for a table cloth pull away trick, but then tLJ shows up and pulls down your pants instead - sure, it's a twist, but it's a bad twist, an unreveal instead of a reveal when the only reason you thought there was going to be a reveal was because they set it up. And then they play up the "DESTROY THE PAST" aspect but it doesn't actually feel like they're breaking any sort of Holy Star Wars Constitution, rather all they're breaking is the set up of the previous, new movie. Besides that it's just a return to the status quo, to what "the Past" actually was.
And that's the thing. I feel that is something tLJ does constantly, over and over again. It keeps repeating "DESTROY THE PAST" but it doesn't actually offer anything new, it's just as much a rehash of tESB as tFA was of aNH. The one opportunity for something it brings to the table, Rey joining Kylo (and what is probably my favourite non-visual part of the movie), they're to cowardly to actually pursue, immediately turning it down in favour of the status quo, the good VS evil, Jedi vs Sith, the Very Much The Same As The Past They Say They Are Destroying mentality. When the movie makes a point out of saying something like DESTROY THE PAST but then just delivers the Same Old, all I'm hearing is "destroy the past, so that we can sell it to you again, and again and again!" It's like the remaking trend and creativity death of the last 20 years actually came alive and spoke to you through the script. It's Consumerism of the highest degree applied to creative arts. "You need this phone!" says Apple, and you buy it. Two years later they go "Destroy the Past! Buy this new phone!" and when you ask why, what does the new phone add, they repeat "Destroy the Past!" on a higher volume. That is the message of tLJ in a nutshell.
Might I say that
Quote
all I'm hearing is "destroy the past, so that we can sell it to you again, and again and again!"This is delightfully Orwellian?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Starver on January 21, 2018, 06:45:50 pm
Speaking of the bomber wings, whatever happened to the accompanying fighter wing? People learned pretty quick that you either need to accompany bombers with fighters or fly at night if you don't have absolute or near absolute air superiority.It's always night in space! All space combat is night combat!
I'd imagine the same rule applies to space combat if the mega destroyer or star destroyer could still spit out fighters. Of course though, they were being desperate.
Quote
And also, complete breakage of physics since the bombs wouldn't just drop as if they were in atmosphere.Internal gravity field 'launches' the bombs. Saves on anything more complex than (the ubiquitous!) artificial gravity, and therefore proof against all anti-energy shielding methods if you're 'dropping' dumb-bombs in freefall.
(Yeah, loads of problems, but it stupidly answers the kind of silly questions raised. And I've been sitting on this whilst trying to remember to catch up enough with the thread before Christmas. Nearly read all the thread. Nearly there!)
Post by: SalmonGod on January 21, 2018, 07:00:15 pm
Quote from: SalmonGodThis isn't a complaint aimed exclusively at Star Wars, either. It's something most major modern fiction franchises frustrate me with. The whole idea that as the property matures, it has to be revealed that every major character has some super hidden secret past connection to every other character which gets revealed eventually, like all of reality bends around this handful of people. No one can be allowed to be just people who happened to come and go from each other's lives and did something meaningful along the way like real life. And cool settings don't get what they deserve, because writers have to be pushed to always one-up whatever the last thing was, meaning increasingly shocking (increasingly hard to do without being increasingly contrived) revelations and levels of conflict that overwhelm the stage.
And how can't you see that this is exactly what they've been doing in the new trilogy so far? Now they have AN EVEN BIGGER DEATHSTARPLANET! Bigger Star Destroyer! Bigger Lasers! Leia can suddenly use the Force too! Luke can now project himself throughout the universe! Kylo is stronger than anyone before! Rey is more powerful than anyone before! Our ships now crash ibto each other at light speed for spectacular sights! The rebel forces are smaller and weaker than any time before! The odds are higher! Stakes are greater! EVERYTHING IS MORE THAN IT EVER WAS! We shot the Past with our giantpeniseslaser cannons and the Past went down like a little bitch (it didn't even have planetary system destroying guns to defend itself with)!
What you want from Star Wars is in the complete opposite direction of what we're actually shown it's going. The corporate narrative is that it's different, but what we get is the same old. It's exactly like my Apple example above. Kill the Past so we can sell it to you over and over again. Just look at the Pirates of the Caribbean movies to see where Star Wars is going.
For sure the ridiculous escalation is one of my primary gripes with the new trilogy. Your quote is from a post where I was talking about how the new trilogy does this.
But the stuff I was originally saying was aimed at Reelya's earlier post.
Is Rey's nobodyness cause for scorn? Imo the move away from midochlorian lineages and into the force being mystical bullshit that more reflects a person's personality than their CK2 dynasty as per the original trilogy is gud. Helps promote developing an actual personality for the character if the writers stop drinking detergent
The "everyone's a force user" thing is also pretty convenient if you want to make endless sequels and side-stories. Then, you can have budding Jedi popping up wherever and whenever you like, without having to work out how they fit into some larger scheme of things. Perfect for a studio like Disney who'd like to spin off 100 Star Wars related series in all directions.
I don't think this by itself actually makes the writing any better or worse. However, sometimes having constraints on the origin of a character can make you get more creative. "Write whatever you like" sounds liberating, however, things flow better if you have constraints, and constraints cause you to think of ideas that you'd never come up with if you're given carte blank to write "whatever".
e.g. would Kylo Ren be a more developed and interesting character if his parents had also been "nobody"? Or would they have just concocted some hokey backstory that's emotionally unrelated to anything else in the series like they did for Rey? Or Anakin Skywalker for that matter. His story is pretty dark for a main character in any movie series, and it's written like that because of the constraints of who he is and how he fits into a larger narrative that's not his own. If he'd been written "from scratch" and not been woven into the bigger narrative of his family, it's certain that he'd end up as a more traditional hero type character: the story constraints forced the writers to write him as an anti-hero, in a movie series that's all about plain old regular heroes.
Another real risk, is that the Star Wars saga was always about family. If they take it in a new direction where family doesn't really matter, which is where the new movies are going, then they lose that aspect of talking to the whole "human condition". With the high attrition rate of any old characters (either original movies old, or anyone significant who's old in the new movies), the last movie looks likely to be just about a bunch of late teens aged kids battling it out for the fate of the universe.
e.g. Finn, Poe and Rey: none of them have parents or siblings who are really part of the main narrative at all (poe's parents being in a comic don't count. They're not characters referenced in the movies). Notice however, that all three main human characters in the original trilogy turn out to be, or end up being, connected by family bonds.
Now at least they have Rey being a random person who just showed up and became important. Just because of herself. Not because she has some hidden past that connects her to everything. Until they double-back in the next movie and ruin it, anyway.
And they had the kid who force pulled the broom to him at the end. And i feel like there were other similar little bits in there that I can't specifically recall right now.
They may be fucking up the pacing and escalation as per most modern movies, but I hope at least they really do kill the past and follow this foreshadowing that they'll stop writing stories about how there are only a handful of people in the universe who are important and anybody else who happens to ever do anything of consequence is only by gift of proximity to the chosen ones.
Post by: Starver on January 21, 2018, 07:06:10 pm
2rogue2oneTwo rogues one
edit: In-film 'revelation' be damned. Rey does have significant parentage, it was(/continues to be) just Snoke's (literal) mind-games that say otherwise.
Post by: hector13 on January 22, 2018, 12:28:06 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 22, 2018, 08:19:30 am
TBH I think its bad writing either way
Post by: Kot on January 22, 2018, 09:15:01 am
Leia was into some kinky stuff.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 22, 2018, 12:12:53 pm
Snoke was really Kylo's father.Older scarred bald men?
Leia was into some kinky stuff.
Wow, Leia sure had daddy issues
Post by: Kot on January 22, 2018, 12:23:34 pm
Post by: Sheb on January 22, 2018, 12:32:13 pm
Post by: Starver on January 22, 2018, 12:38:08 pm
Not older scarred bald men specifically, but... (http://i.imgur.com/QtrAXS3.gif)Aieeee! The CLE-004 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/CLE-004_window_cleaning_droid/Legends), it does nothing!
Post by: Akura on January 22, 2018, 01:19:32 pm
Snoke was really Kylo's father.Older scarred bald men?
Leia was into some kinky stuff.
Wow, Leia sure had daddy issues
I always figured it was family issues. I mean, how many times did she kiss Luke and then later claimed she always knew he was her twin brother?
Post by: Reelya on January 22, 2018, 01:36:28 pm
Post by: Jopax on January 22, 2018, 01:39:55 pm
Post by: scriver on January 22, 2018, 01:40:13 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 22, 2018, 01:53:28 pm
Post by: scriver on January 22, 2018, 03:00:13 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 22, 2018, 03:30:07 pm
The cheek kisses don't count. Families do that. I forgot about the one time he was unconscious. That makes Leia an incestuous rapist. Mouth kissing someone who's incapacitated? That's problematic.She's neither because
If you were just complaining about Leia's behavior I would be with you. But when you use phrases like "incestous rape" and "problematic" it comes across like you're trying to insult female victims rather than empower male ones. Victimhood isn't a contest.
Also, was that in every version of the OT? Cause I grew up on a box set that was sold some time before the prequels, don't know which version it was but it did feature Han shooting first. I remember her kissing Han when he was conscious but so disoriented he might as well have been asleep for consent purposes. Don't remember her kissing an unconscious Luke.
Post by: Jopax on January 22, 2018, 03:40:11 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 22, 2018, 03:45:04 pm
Quote
"problematic" it comes across like you're trying to insult female victims
Parodying the term "problematic" isn't insulting anything-victims, because the term is specifically splashed around against things that are pretty innocuous. e.g. pink girls toys are problematic. How women are protrayed in food advertising (https://chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/womens-problematic-portrayal-in-chocolate-advertisements/) is called problematic. Nothing isn't problematic, as evidenced by Laci Green's statement "everything is problematic" (except Laci Green that is).
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 22, 2018, 03:53:57 pm
Pretty sure Reelya was being extremely sarcastic there :DYeah, that's my complaint. If he had just said what he meant in a straightforward manner I would have been fine with it. Kissing unconscious people isn't OK.
I mean, if his sarcasm was meant to indicate that kissing someone who's asleep on the lips IS totally okay and his point was to make fun of anyone who had a problem with that... would that make it better?
Okay, how about this. What is the joke here and who is the butt of the joke?Quote"problematic" it comes across like you're trying to insult female victims
Parodying the term "problematic" isn't insulting anything-victims, because the term is specifically splashed around against things that are pretty innocuous. e.g. pink girls toys are problematic.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 22, 2018, 04:17:45 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 22, 2018, 05:06:57 pm
There was an image meme on one of the SW subreddits that perfectly encapsulates why I'm complaining here, but I couldn't find it and was hesitating to use it because it went further than Reelya did. It was a picture of Rose kissing Finn with the caption "RAPE". The top comment under it was basically "I know its annoying that some people have implied we don't like the TLJ because we're sexist, but rape is a serious issue and that's not a good take on it."
And like, let's break down why that's a bad take. What's the joke? The joke is that its calling something rape when it clearly isn't. So, who's the butt of the joke? If we want to pretend the internet is in a vacuum, the butt of the joke is people who make accusations of rape or sexual assault. Cause the implication is that people call rape at the drop of a hat. Regardless of that its also insulting, for the same reason that edgelord "let's make fun of the holocaust" humor is obnoxious; it treats lightly what should not be treated lightly.
But the internet doesn't exist in a vacuum, so. Its a SJW meme. We all know it is. So the implication is that feminists, and thus specifically women, call rape or sexual assault at the drop of a hat.
Okay, now back to Reelya. Reelya's post talks about a female raping a male. It then immediately criticizes SJWs. I made my first post pretending the internet was a vacuum, so I'll drop the pretense here. If you use female on male rape to give yourself identity politics cred to call out feminists, you're walking like an MRA. If you hide behind humor and ambiguous irony, you're talking like an MRA. So if you walk the walk, and you talk the talk, well... I dunno, I'm not going to tell Reelya what he is. I was just responding to his post and trying to politely point out that his wording could be taken badly. And I mean if Reelya were hypothetically an MRA, that's not against the forum rules or whatever. I suspect however that Reelya does not think of himself as an MRA and would be annoyed if I lumped him in with one.
Post by: scriver on January 22, 2018, 05:39:39 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 22, 2018, 07:58:45 pm
I liked Rose well enough until she literally destroys the last hope of the Rebel Alliance by stopping Finn from taking out the siege cannon. Without Luke-ex-Machina every last rebel would have died. That is not "how we win". Alone and mortally injured on a salt flat with no supplies, support or shelter and a great view of the death of everyone you know are some very specific losing conditions, Rose.
That's like if I went into a restaurant and took a long whiz on the grill then dramatically proclaimed "This is how you cook".
I enjoyed her character as the idealistic peppy rebel because we need those and I like that. I didn't even mind the saving the space horseys bit, superfluous as it all was. Why'd they have to make her do this. Why u do this Rose.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 22, 2018, 08:09:58 pm
Post by: smjjames on January 23, 2018, 12:34:51 pm
or a "surprise, Snoke is alive" move. Many people actually seem to be considering this. Im this scenario, Fake Luke would be foreshadowing.
TBH I think its bad writing either way
The director of the movie said that Snoke is dead dead, he's not bringing him back or anything.
As for Rose, not sure what the point was of showing her sister who had the counterpart to her amulet without going much into the connection. I don't think she ever talks about her sister even once in the movie.
Also, the amulet which she inexplictibly trades away (she does get it back later) just happening to be the most awesomest conductor material seems a little too convenient.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 23, 2018, 01:36:18 pm
Totally dead? You mean like Jon Snow?
The director of the movie said that Snoke is dead dead, he's not bringing him back or anything.
Anyway, BOTH would be poor writing :p
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 23, 2018, 01:36:50 pm
Rose was a very poorly written character with little legitimate background or personality. Sure, she says things that are relevant to who she is when it is conveniently related to the task at hand, but she has no real character spine, flip flopping between becoming a hero, falling in love with Finn, and uh... being actual self-insert Rian Johnson fan fiction.Is that the character who stopped Finn from saving all of his friends and then lectured him about how he ought to fight to defend his friends?
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 23, 2018, 01:40:42 pm
Rose was a very poorly written character with little legitimate background or personality. Sure, she says things that are relevant to who she is when it is conveniently related to the task at hand, but she has no real character spine, flip flopping between becoming a hero, falling in love with Finn, and uh... being actual self-insert Rian Johnson fan fiction.Is that the character who stopped Finn from saving all of his friends and then lectured him about how he ought to fight to defend his friends?
Enjoy-joy your slow, wasting death on these burning salt flats. That feeling? It's is all the moisture in your body evacuating. Feels like winning.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 23, 2018, 03:38:20 pm
Now that we've got that out of the way, this video about the shirtless scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn6azlyHzuU) is hilarious.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 23, 2018, 03:51:33 pm
So disclaimer, I don't think Kylo Ren's actor looks particularly odd and the shirtless scene meant nothing to me except a chuckle.
Now that we've got that out of the way, this video about the shirtless scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn6azlyHzuU) is hilarious.
Why did people have a problem with that. I didn't even think about it until i read about people not liking it on the internet.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 23, 2018, 03:52:34 pm
Post by: Starver on January 23, 2018, 03:53:09 pm
Also, the amulet which she inexplictibly trades away (she does get it back later) just happening to be the most awesomest conductor material seems a little too convenient.Basically it was a "give up your most precious relic (just because some dude asked you for it, without explanation) and not only will it turn out to be a worthy sacrifice for the cause but you'll also get it back anyway" faith/morality thing.
Maybe it was another "trust the unspoken plans of other people" thing, except of course that the person involved was of notably fungible trustworthiness, somewhat revoking the "angels with dirty faces" lesson that we thought we were learning.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 23, 2018, 04:00:50 pm
It's not that bad, he's just a strong dude. The weird part is him being shirtless, not the fact that he could fight a bear.
But why is even that weird? RotJ had metal bikini time, not to mention an actual exotic dancer that got eaten by the Rancor. That sort of thing is fairly normal in the Star Wars universe.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 23, 2018, 04:21:21 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
He's not "wide" at all. Its those high waisted, flat as a board pants. Like seriously, they're past the bellybutton. It creates the illusion that he's way shorter than he actually is, thus making him look wide. The pants combined with those abs make him look a bit like a pancake.
Again, none of this bothers me and I think he looks fine in the movie. Star Wars characters have always had fashion sense that is more "interesting" than strictly "good."
Or are you talking about shirtless Kylo in general? I don't think it bothered most people but you know. There's always the "being straight means I should never look at attractive men" crowd. Its like the Joker said in The Dark Knight. "You put a couple green alien strippers on the screen and nobody bats an eye. But you show one angsty teen badboy, and everyone loses their minds!" Also ever since that ridiculous moment where Kylo took off his helmet and his poofy hair came out, he's been a meme. Although that group is, I suspect, not bothered so much as entertained.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 23, 2018, 04:27:11 pm
It's not that bad, he's just a strong dude. The weird part is him being shirtless, not the fact that he could fight a bear.
But why is even that weird? RotJ had metal bikini time, not to mention an actual exotic dancer that got eaten by the Rancor. That sort of thing is fairly normal in the Star Wars universe.
Ya, but there was logic behind it. You're just observing the end effect without taking into account everything behind it. A.) You can cross exotic dancer off that list because that's common to many movies to establish a seedy setting. B.) Bikini Leia is most definitely fan-service, but at least it makes sense because Jabba is a pig and he's made her a slave, most SW women aren't wandering around shirtless. Shirtless Kylo is just chilling without so much as an inkling of why.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 23, 2018, 04:29:26 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 23, 2018, 04:33:27 pm
Post by: Taricus on January 23, 2018, 04:35:04 pm
Shirtless Kylo is just chilling without so much as an inkling of why.Hey, he's got to do the laundry sometime. :P
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 23, 2018, 04:39:44 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 23, 2018, 04:47:06 pm
Edit: Also, just to be clear. A person at a random moment in their lives being shirtless and glistening breaks immersion. A slugman being specifically attracted to human(esque) females despite having a very non-human bodytype, a criminal overlord wanting to humiliate a minor enemy* more than he wants massive ransom, and yet just giving Luke the normal run of the mill punishment... none of that broke your immersion?
*Remember, Jabba wanted Han as a trophy because Han broke an agreement with him. Leia and Luke didn't do anything to warrant a special form of hatred. And as a trophy, you want to tell me the princess of a dead world is worth especially more than (one of) the last jedi? I feel like both of those would be rare things for the people collection.
Post by: NRDL on January 23, 2018, 04:58:01 pm
Isn't he like sweaty too though? Was he just jacking off when the mental link randomly activated?
He most likely just stepped out of the shower.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 23, 2018, 05:37:57 pm
Edit: Also, just to be clear. A person at a random moment in their lives being shirtless and glistening breaks immersion. A slugman being specifically attracted to human(esque) females despite having a very non-human bodytype, a criminal overlord wanting to humiliate a minor enemy* more than he wants massive ransom, and yet just giving Luke the normal run of the mill punishment... none of that broke your immersion?HUMAN FURRIES. SLUG HUMANIES. MONSTER GIRL WAIFUS. JABBA THE SLUT WANTS MONSTER GIRL WAIFUS.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 23, 2018, 06:15:28 pm
Isn't he like sweaty too though? Was he just jacking off when the mental link randomly activated?
He most likely just stepped out of the shower.
I wear pants in the shower all the time.
Post by: Sensei on January 24, 2018, 10:34:57 am
Post by: LoSboccacc on January 25, 2018, 03:27:12 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Putnam on January 25, 2018, 03:57:08 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Starver on January 25, 2018, 05:18:09 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 25, 2018, 06:00:13 pm
It's all just poorly constructed. Pretty much every possible scenario is gonna be an aha! gotcha moment.
Post by: Jopax on January 25, 2018, 06:37:12 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 25, 2018, 07:28:43 pm
Or at least that's what Rian Johnson was going to do. I have no idea about JJ Abrams. I wish we were getting 3 different directors like the original plan.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 25, 2018, 07:51:10 pm
Post by: Starver on January 25, 2018, 08:47:14 pm
Post by: Lovechild on January 26, 2018, 03:34:21 am
If he just plugged a Force cord in there's no reason it couldn't stay plugged in even if he died
Post by: scriver on January 26, 2018, 07:48:35 am
Well why couldn't the connection stay after Snoke died?
If he just plugged a Force cord in there's no reason it couldn't stay plugged in even if he died
Yeah I was just going to say. If he made a force bond between them there's no reason it couldn't persist beyond his death.
The bigger issue I think is how did he manage to create such a bond in the first case.
Star Wars Ep 8 == Highlander 2 ??
Lol no. Don't be ridiculous.
Although Highlander 2 is a great example of why Destroy the Past is a stupid motto.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 26, 2018, 02:14:21 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 26, 2018, 03:19:22 pm
What if he wasn't really shirtless? What if Snoke, as the facilitator of the connection, made him look shirtless to create confusion?!?! That's why it looked so unnatural.
The Dark Side is all about passion, right?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 26, 2018, 04:02:35 pm
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rotten-tomatoes-last-jedi-ratings-bots_us_5a38cb78e4b0860bf4aab5b1 (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rotten-tomatoes-last-jedi-ratings-bots_us_5a38cb78e4b0860bf4aab5b1)
http://www.newsweek.com/did-alt-right-tank-star-wars-last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-score-trump-fan-unhappy-754901 (http://www.newsweek.com/did-alt-right-tank-star-wars-last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-score-trump-fan-unhappy-754901)
https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/18/16792184/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-review-bomb (https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/18/16792184/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-review-bomb)
To summarize the general points, no one has reached any hard conclusions. On the "it was not review bombed" side, Rotten Tomatoes claims it can prevent bots from posting reviews, 4chan posters seem to most believe it wasn't them (although some claim it was), and there definitely are a good chunk of real people who dislike the movie. On the other hand some people from the alt-right have come out claiming to have launched bot attacks, the negative RT reviews seem to come from a more alt-right perspective (AKA calling out "SJWs") than the movie's critics on the rest of the internet which would seem to agree with that. To quote one person who claimed to have used bots to post reviews on RT, "I'm sick of men being portrayed as idiots. There was a time when we ruled society and I'd like to see us restored to that position." Yeah I... don't think that's what most people's takeaway from the TLJ was, even the people who disliked it. A bunch of self-similar negative reviews for SW were left on the The Shape of Water, which while we can all agree that that would be a terrible SW movie does seem a bit suspicious (although RT offered their own explanation). Rotten Tomatoes PR staff has put forward that whenever something strange happens someone will always retroactively take credit for it, which seems plausible to me.
The thing that has everyone most scratching their heads is that people who use statistical methods to conduct exit reviews of people leaving the theatre, which is usually an accurate predictor of audience response, gave TLJ high ratings. Cinemascore for example gave the movie an A using methods similar to exit polls in US elections.
Post by: Starver on January 26, 2018, 04:09:00 pm
Reskinning an image should be trivial (FCVOTrivial) especiqlly if it truly is someone else's link to create. Also possible, though less simple, is doing a full Man In The Middle reworking of the conversation so that each side of the abetted conversation actually gets a different understanding about the focus of the apparently-direct conversation, getting different 'feelings' from the interaction (at the pleasure of Force-Eve - or, rather, Mallory).
By the way, Luke's own actions show that Snoke could as easily have entirely faked his Throne Room presence. Either knowing/hoping how it would go down, or just rolling with the scenario as it progressed. Kylo didn't detect the subterfuge later (until it was obvious, and emphasised by one large and one personal attack 'failing') so he and Rey might well have missed a less obvious prior version, that was flavoured by the appearwnce of an attack' succeeding'.
(Not in reply to the message just above, where I just had to mentally adjust "RT" to Rotten Tomatoes rather than Russia Today, in my head, when reading the post posted while composing this unrelated reply.)
Post by: NJW2000 on January 26, 2018, 04:22:47 pm
no, rhythm.What if he wasn't really shirtless? What if Snoke, as the facilitator of the connection, made him look shirtless to create confusion?!?! That's why it looked so unnatural.
The Dark Side is all about passion, right?
Post by: Angle on January 26, 2018, 06:20:46 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 26, 2018, 06:25:34 pm
On the other page I linked a few articles about this.
Post by: Jopax on January 27, 2018, 05:52:52 am
Post by: Starver on January 27, 2018, 07:17:40 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 27, 2018, 12:10:00 pm
Still fun to watch.
I think that sums it up.
Post by: scriver on January 27, 2018, 12:24:09 pm
Post by: Putnam on January 27, 2018, 11:10:12 pm
the entire series was a big solid hunk of cheese before then, not much changed, except maybe that the movie was longer than it needed to be, which... yeah, the other example is episode 2, which is hot garbage, so that's fair
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 27, 2018, 11:27:41 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on January 27, 2018, 11:45:57 pm
Post by: hector13 on January 28, 2018, 12:09:51 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 28, 2018, 04:14:00 am
Well, killing off all the characters would certainly bring an end to things very quickly.
Aside from one cheesy moment and characters with unrealized potential, R1 was pretty damn good.
Post by: SalmonGod on January 28, 2018, 04:37:23 am
Well, killing off all the characters would certainly bring an end to things very quickly.
Aside from one cheesy moment and characters with unrealized potential, R1 was pretty damn good.
And some silly stuff like a super important security controls panel being out in some random open area. Plenty of things to criticize about it, but I loved the spirit and concept of the film.
Post by: Putnam on January 28, 2018, 06:48:34 am
Post by: scriver on January 28, 2018, 07:22:53 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 28, 2018, 02:24:35 pm
yeah, my point being that rogue 1 is surprisingly uncontroversially the best star wars movie of the last 30 years but is not particularly characteristic of star warsI think part of what made it different for people was how it was sold. Rogue One advertised in advance that it was going to cut straight into the action with no text crawl.
A lot of what made Rogue One "not" a Star Wars movie was the main characters. There's no jedi, the male lead is introduced by (spoilers?) killing a civilian, the comic relief droid can talk mostly like a normal person and fights alongside the rest of the team. Oh and they all die. But it treated the villains (arguably the most enduring icons in SW) with a sort of reverence. In particular giving Tarkin a huge role that doesn't make much sense structurally. Since he isn't a true antagonist to the heroes his main function is to make the primary antagonist more pathetic. But Tarkin is one of the big touchstones in regards to the Death Star, and Rogue One loves using the Death Star to evoke nostalgia.
This compared to TLJ. Based on the trailers I expected about what we got. But I can see why other people wouldn't see it that way. It was following up The Force Awakens, which was basically a whole plot clone of A New Hope, with most of the "new" stuff simply coming from other OT/prequel movies. The Force Awakens is the most "Star Wars" movie that has ever existed, arguably moreso than the *actual* original trilogy movies which are full of a lot of... odd moments that have mostly been forgotten. So then you follow it up with The Last Jedi, which visually resembles the OT more but is the least "Star Wars" movie out of the 8 mainline ones to date. And so people approach the movie with a different mindset than they would Rogue One.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 28, 2018, 02:58:33 pm
yeah, my point being that rogue 1 is surprisingly uncontroversially the best star wars movie of the last 30 years but is not particularly characteristic of star wars
-snip-
I would disagree with you guys. Rogue One has been the MOST Star Wars-y movie since the originals. Though Hat here cites the R1 characters are not like the other main characters, that's actually one of the weakest points of the movie. The two actual real main characters are terribly forgettable. As for the rest of the cast? You got ya comic relief droids, you got ya space wizard, you got ya strong man (who is a samurai with a large gun instead of a bear-man), etc. etc. (Tarkin and Krennic standing in for the Emperor and Vader respectively even though Vader does make an appearance.)
Everyone dying is neither here nor there and honestly while it's executed pretty well, it just feels like more of the "I'm not in the originals; guess I'll die" maxim. Pretty sure Tarkin would be like hey let's NOT obliterate this incredibly important Imperial record keeping facility after we've already failed to stop the message.
This compared to TLJ. Based on the trailers I expected about what we got. But I can see why other people wouldn't see it that way. It was following up The Force Awakens, which was basically a whole plot clone of A New Hope, with most of the "new" stuff simply coming from other OT/prequel movies. The Force Awakens is the most "Star Wars" movie that has ever existed, arguably moreso than the *actual* original trilogy movies which are full of a lot of... odd moments that have mostly been forgotten. So then you follow it up with The Last Jedi, which visually resembles the OT more but is the least "Star Wars" movie out of the 8 mainline ones to date. And so people approach the movie with a different mindset than they would Rogue One.
What? The opposite to all of those sentences is true. TFA is good, but missing the spark of inspiration and wonder that really runs through Ep4 (carries pretty well in the beginning and end, but is hopelessly lost in the middle after finding Han and going to Cantina 2: Electric Boogaloo.) Odd moments? Like what? The new trilogy def has more. And then, TLJ does NOT. AT. ALL. Resemble the OT? Dude. On this particular point I have to call bullshit. TLJ is a vast departure from the artistic style of the OT. TLJ kept to it much better, and Rogue One marvelously so, but TLJ is the peak of bullshit visual design that has very little thought put into it outside of bigger=badder.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 28, 2018, 03:52:31 pm
Its a lot of off-tone or off-pace moments. It throws the audience off balance and its what can keep up some of that wonder, but from Episode 6 onward it was mostly gone. If you look at the prequels, the animated shows, the video games and the extended universe, they've kept the big memorable stuff but they've mostly forgotten the oddness.
JJ Abrams is a SW fan and he "got" a lot of what made the originals tick, but he still made a very modern Michael Bay-esque action movie. The result was a "cleaned up" version of A New Hope movie. It was too... fast, for lack of a more precise word, to match the OT's style. Too tight. Its the OT as people remember it, not as it was.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 28, 2018, 04:17:01 pm
Post by: NRDL on January 28, 2018, 04:39:56 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 28, 2018, 05:20:17 pm
Elephant's gonna press charges the way it's getting felt up by us blind men.
What's the Elephant in the room here? I literally am unable to rebuttal because every argument I make goes back fundamentally to what good film and storytelling is which is kinda hard to articulate when people are just like, nah its the opposite of what you are saying, you specifically don't have control over what makes a Star Wars movies, or they state that most people liked it therefore it's good.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 28, 2018, 05:23:19 pm
So I guess "art is subjective" or "y'all are only seeing different parts of the big picture" would be the moral here.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 28, 2018, 05:27:34 pm
Post by: SalmonGod on January 28, 2018, 05:39:41 pm
Post by: scriver on January 28, 2018, 05:51:52 pm
The Force Awakens is the most "Star Wars" movie that has ever existed, arguably moreso than the *actual* original trilogy movies
I not 100% certain that is what you are saying, but I get the feeling that what you're saying means that you would consider Eragon the most Star Wars story ever told.
Post by: Reelya on January 28, 2018, 07:19:22 pm
Quote
the plethora of minor characters that never did jack shit. Like the scene with Darth Vader and the bounty hunters, where most of them never come back.
I disagree that these are odd or unexplained moments. They're things that actually make the world more alive. Side characters in a film that aren't important to the plot are necessary in the same sense that people have said it's tiring if they have to shoe-horn every character into the Skywalker family. It's what TV and film directors do to give you a sense of a "living world": a world that's bigger than the story.
If Vader only directed one bounty hunter, and exactly one bounty hunter found the Falcon and came back, then that would be neater but it'd be less realistic: if Vader knew ahead of time who would succeed, he probably wouldn't need to hire anyone: Vader hires multiple trackers for the reason that Vader lacks the information. It's actually a well-thought-out scene. In real life, many unimportant characters do come and go from the shot. It makes sense that Vader paid a bunch of bounty hunters to go and find the Falcon, but only one of them found it and reported back, it also makes sense from a movie-making perspective that whatever happened to those other bounty hunters isn't important enough to be on-screen: it happened somewhere in the galaxy, and each bounty hunter has their own story, but none of the events that transpired as a result had any relevance to the main plot: the camera follows Boba Fett, because Boba Fett got it right.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 28, 2018, 08:26:14 pm
:P
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 28, 2018, 08:50:16 pm
I think I was making a small point and I worded it too strongly lol. I get the comparison between Eragon and SW but I always went to LoTR.The Force Awakens is the most "Star Wars" movie that has ever existed, arguably moreso than the *actual* original trilogy movies
I not 100% certain that is what you are saying, but I get the feeling that what you're saying means that you would consider Eragon the most Star Wars story ever told.
Let’s just focus on the main thrust of what I was saying with that sentence. We went from TFA which is clearly trying to fit the OT formula and TLJ which isn’t. Rogue One also broke the formula but it wasn’t mainline. So people had differing expectations with TLJ.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 28, 2018, 08:50:40 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 29, 2018, 01:58:51 pm
Luke started out as a whiny bitch and ended up defying the emperor and saving his father. He lost his parental guardians, his hand, fought in an actual war, etc. Rey started out as an incredible badass and ended up as an even more incredible badass with no sacrifice or training, and then the writers/directors get confused as to why people don't like it. It's like that friend who has God Mode on from start to finish and then brags about how good he is at the game.
Like, the movies are fun to watch, but the characters lack any and all substance and show no indication of ever being anything but shallow. People tolerated the copy-paste story from TFA because they were clearly setting up a new story and universe with new characters. TLJ was the one where everyone openly expected characters to deepen and become more interesting, and then they outright avoided it entirely (Except for Kylo Ren, he's developing right along).
Anyway that's the root cause of the hateboner everyone seems to have for it, from what I can tell. I still enjoyed it.
Post by: Starver on January 29, 2018, 03:27:30 pm
Luke was (apart from youthful restlessness) the consummate son-of-a-dew-farmer, unsatisfied but knew his way around the environment (not so much the Mos Eisley environs, but that's his Uncle Lars). Rey knows her way around her patch of desert, 'farming' the wrecks, and also deals with the town trader (not a patch on his ME counterparts) and seems to have done all the growing up portion of her life already (what Luke had been largely insulated from, either just because of his edge-of-mappiness or additionally because Owen was asked to keep him away from potential trouble) and so we don't need to see so much of Rey's learning experience. She's well beyond the Yippeee!!! stage of excitable child-Annikin, both having tinkered with repulsorcraft but Rey having got past the reckless stage, while Luke probably knows how to mod a stock speeder/change its sand filters (through necessity, having doubtless had to tinker after a Womp Rat run ended up with a face-plant into a dune) and has the innate Star Wars universe knowledge of how to effect basic droid maintenance.
Basically, Rey got over her whiny-bitchiness, off-camera and pre-starscroll. She grew up quickly. Annikin grew up quicker, probably (and had to deal with life as slave-offspring), but the action focussed in him also much earlier. Side-by-side, Rey (as we see her) is far more mature than Equivalent-Age-Luke, whilst EAAnnikin has had several years more under his belt, since adventure found him. (In fact, I think, probably post-Mustafar and having experienced many bad things including widowerhood, though I ought to check the likes of Wookipedia to confirm my idea of the timings.)
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 29, 2018, 04:16:30 pm
Things like the space worm and trash compactor serve to add unknown elements into the universe. Makes it seem like a larger and more rich setting.I'm trying to explain to you guys that most people don't have a hate boner for the movie, its just a crowd that heavily intersects with bay12...
Luke started out as a whiny bitch and ended up defying the emperor and saving his father. He lost his parental guardians, his hand, fought in an actual war, etc. Rey started out as an incredible badass and ended up as an even more incredible badass with no sacrifice or training, and then the writers/directors get confused as to why people don't like it. It's like that friend who has God Mode on from start to finish and then brags about how good he is at the game.
Like, the movies are fun to watch, but the characters lack any and all substance and show no indication of ever being anything but shallow. People tolerated the copy-paste story from TFA because they were clearly setting up a new story and universe with new characters. TLJ was the one where everyone openly expected characters to deepen and become more interesting, and then they outright avoided it entirely (Except for Kylo Ren, he's developing right along).
Anyway that's the root cause of the hateboner everyone seems to have for it, from what I can tell. I still enjoyed it.
To be clear, I *like* the odd bits in the OT. But they're from a different era. Around... I'd say, somewhere in the 90s... American action movies gained a prominent feature of American culture, which is the fear of silence. Modern American action movies have no wasted time, no stationary camera, no silent moments. The exception being imported foreign movies (like Snowpiercer) and "retro" directors like Tarantino. Not sure which category Fury Road goes in but it counts. The point is, could you imagine a modern action movie having 10 minutes of R2D2 wandering the desert and getting captured, with no audible dialogue? Or the whole Mos Eisley/Cantina extended scene? That shit would scare Michael Bay. He'd want to get rid of it.
Oldstyle American action emphasized physicality over the spoken word. When we lost that our action movies didn't work any more, which is why in the modern day successful Hollywood action movies tend to be genre fusions. JJ Abrams is a Star Wars fan and he *got* Star Wars, but. He's a modern director. TFA is a dense, no down time movie (with the exception of one scene). The movie is so breathlessly fast and tight that it wants to shove the space battles, ground battles and exposition all into the same scenes. It runs a modified version of the Death Star plotline, combined with the climaxes of both Ep. 5 and 6, in about a third the time that the death star plotline was given in A New Hope.
Its like, imagine with Fury Road what we got was a movie by George Miller that had all the ridiculous BDSM outfits and post-apocalyptic desert with the same general plot structure of Max learning to care about a group of ragtag survivors. But, instead of Fury Road's style we got a modern hollywood action movie. It would have been Max Max cleaned up, Mad Max as people remembered it.
TLJ on the other hand is willing to sit around showing us where the blue milk comes from. Its not a retro style movie fully, because its "quiet" moments often have bright lights or loud sounds. But that movement is usually an illusion. Example, Kylo Ren beating the crap out of his helmet or Luke getting shot a billion times. Yeah there's stuff moving on the screen, but its none-the-less a "still" beat because nothing is happening and the camera is relatively still. I think most directors would dislike the way that scene was edited. They would want to cut to different angles, get the camera panning around so we could get those differing foreground/background movement speeds. But that would de-emphasize the action that's happening. We don't need the camera and music to make us afraid for Luke. That can be left as an implication. What we're watching is a bunch of giant weapons being shot at one person and we're allowed to just watch that happen for a bit. Because that its the physical action, rather than the emotional stakes, that is emphasized in the camera work.
So anyway, that's what I mean by TFA being a cleaned up OT. People have forgotten that sometimes Star Wars means sometimes you're going to spend a few seconds watching a bug headed alien play the trombone, with nothing else explicitly happening. What people remember is light sabres and Darth Vader and the space battles. TFA provides a straight shot to the artery of concentrated Star Wars icons. But to me its not the full Star Wars experience. Look at the way Max Kanata was shot between the two different movies. I think JJ Abrams thought he was shooting a quiet exposition scene, but he really wasn't. It was full of tense musical cues, multiple plotlines going on at once, frequent cuts (including to things that weren't even present at the moment, like the spaceship from Rey's memory) and then the whole thing culminates in a giant fight scene. IIRC they even had cuts to the First Order's parade grounds and firing the starkiller laser. It was supposed to be Obi Wan sitting Luke down in his house, but it wasn't that at all. By contrast the way Max Kanata is used in TLJ *resembles* a needlessly action packed blend of exposition, movement and noise. But the camera is stationary, the scene sticks on one minor point of the plot, we never actually see any of the fight, and the ultimate payoff of the scene is jetpack Max Kanata which was awesome and meaningless. That's Star Wars as it was, given a new shiny new coat of paint to fit in with all the other Disney fare.
Spoiler: digression (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 29, 2018, 05:38:13 pm
The power of the juxtaposition in TLJ is not really in question I think, rather that the individual sequences specifically are either OCD or boring. If you want to talk about editing, and cinematographic decisions, it's just crazy how badly paced the movie is and all the plot holes and questions that arise from that.
Let's dissect the beginning. Warning: This may be a little rough because it's been a while now since I saw the movie.
|<-------------The Dreadnought arrives?------------>|
Title crawl -> Rebels Evacuating -> Imperials arrive -> Poe goes to stop them -> Prank phone call -> Poe starts blowing up turrets and then the bombers arrive intercut with Leia acquiescing to Poe's terrible plan -> The Dreadnought blows up the now-deserted Rebel base -> Bombers getting picked off -> The Dreadnought refocuses on the Rebel cruiser -> Slow-mo bomber suicide -> Poe is recalled and the Rebel fleet flees.
So, in the opening sequence, we're launched into a compelling situation. The rebels are evacuating, but once again, the Imperials arrive just in time to fuck with them. They plan to fire on the base and then the ship. TENSION... and then Poe decides to cut that build up in half by pranking General Honk. Really? I mean, what the fuck. Already, right off the bat Rian writes himself into a corner that he shouldn't be in.
*Not to mention, A.) They could have just fired on the Rebel cruiser FIRST and not had this situation occur and B.) Not only is the visual design of the Dreadnought disgustingly awful, I guess the First Order is even building its main-line battleships with glaring weak spots now?
Moving on. We insert some clever Deus Ex Machina, via the incredibly SLOW MOVING bombers which just seem to appear in front of the dreadnought at a moment's notice to get Poe out of the situation he's in. Fighter's scramble on both sides, the fight is on.
*Oh wait, not only are being constantly taken out of the sequence by Leia impotently shaking her fists and Poe and then switching sides, but why the fuck do we have these bombers? Just give us the fucking Y-wings. We all know they exist.
Despite their best efforts, the dreadnought demolishes the Rebels' planetary base and dramatically realigns its cannons with the Rebel cruiser. Oh no. BUT WAIT, after having meticulously picked apart both the X-Wing escort and all but one of the bombers, it appears the the TIE pilots go on their court-mandated lunch break while Asian McSlowlyDying manages to get a finger on the bomb release button after her bomber miraculously drifts over the Dreadnought's literally massive weak spot. Woohoo.
Leia finally works up the nerve to reign in Poe and get him back aboard for a timely escape.
Jesus Christ, that is bad. And that is first sequence of the movie. I mean, hell, there's such a massive skip in everything between films--why is Poe is retarded? How do the FO have a crazy fleet again? Why are there literally NO Rebel ships? I mean... It's wild, right off the bat, the movie engenders questions that the audience shouldn't have. You can take some liberties in divulging from a previous film directed by someone else, but Rian Johnson did not give a single FUCK about where TFA was going.
I'm waiting for the action movie that's about a former criminal fighting his old gang while trying to reconnect with his family, and at no point in the movie is his family actually threatened. With the conflict being that he's clearly still the person that his family turned away from and he needs to learn how to change over the course of the movie or its obvious to the audience that he will ultimately fail. Something like that. A more "pure" newschool action movie.
I mean that basically just sounds like Film Noir. And if the conflict is him reconnecting with his family, why is it an action film? That's Die Hard basically, but you want the physical and emotional plot lines separate and more emphasis on John McClane having deep conversations with his estranged wife than shooting bad guys? Why--it is an ACTION movie? Am I incorrect? You want action movie with less action?
John Wick is the gold standard for modern action films. Simple, but grabbing plot line. Visual action. Not cutting between every punch thrown and step taken, but actual continuous shots on long periods of movement.
That's an action film. The plot serves the action. If you want a drama film or an epic or something that is more about the emotional journey then the action has to serve the plot and characters. IMO, it doesn't really do that in TLJ or almost all Marvel movies for that matter.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 29, 2018, 05:58:03 pm
Nobody minds the side bits with the silly aliens or even plot holes brought on by space wizards and nonsensical space battle tactics. It's when you get scenes that make no sense in-universe or even in the context of its own movie that it bothers me.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 29, 2018, 06:02:29 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 29, 2018, 06:09:36 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 29, 2018, 06:20:09 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 29, 2018, 06:49:42 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 29, 2018, 07:18:43 pm
I feel like you guys think I'm hating on the OT. I'm not. I'm saying if you held the OT to the same standard you're holding TLJ, it would not hold up even slightly. I mean could you imagine if the same people arguing Leia's force powers are OP could have seen the Sarlacc Pit scene with the same eyes they're turning on the TLJ? Leia strangles Jabba with his own chain, Han beats up an armored bounty hunter with a stick, and then Luke shoots the barge with its own lasers.
This to say nothing of the fact that Rey doesn't need to be a powerful force user for the plot of TLJ to work, not until the very end. Most of her scenes that involve things actually happening are shared (arguably outright stolen) by Kylo. In TFA on the other hand she doesn't even know she's a jedi until she's bolted to a table in the middle of the neo-Death Star, in the presence of a powerful dark side user and an army of storm troopers that are on high alert but not distracted by anything. Yet she effortlessly climbs all over the starkiller base and runs circles around the First Order with no help at all.
And like I'm not criticizing it, Obi-wan did about the same in A New Hope and he was up against Darth Vader. But its just weird to me that all the Mary Sue criticisms are emerging now and not before. Likewise, why are people complaining about fuel and shields and such now and not before? The previous movie had someone hyperdrive through a shield. Hell it started with someone freezing a blaster bolt and a person they weren't aware of in mid air using the force. But why is everyone analyzing the logic of it all now.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 29, 2018, 07:35:19 pm
If this was the second Star Wars movie to ever exist after TFA it'd probably regard it as well as The Avengers (which isn't that well, but whatever.) The mistakes of the OT are essentially not comparable to the mistakes of the new trilogy. Entirely different fuck ups.
First of all, I'd hardly call Old Ben slicing a thug's arm off as a "fight" and that's definitely one of the best scenes in Ep4, when are seedy establishments out of the norm? Even all that stuff you mention about the first part of Ep6 is way less ridiculous than what I mentioned. Partly BECAUSE the OT is more visually stylized than TLJ, and partly because that stuff is a lot smaller in scale.
Then to address your next point, Kylo "sharing" or "stealing" scenes is not a good thing. Kylo may be becoming a great character, but it's not worth it at the cost of losing Rey as at least a servicable character. And after that you seem to just be proving my point? Rey just becomes awesome with no prompting? How is that NOT a way bigger plot hole than Leia strangling a giant, aging slug? That is literally repeated in TLJ expect this time she gets literally one second of training in the force.
Finally, no one complains about that stuff before because they're not at the forefront of the action. Hyperdriving PAST the shield while it was down for a split second makes sense within the universe. Fuel is never really brought up before and we just accept it BECAUSE there aren't any crazy holes where that would be a problem. And finally, freezing a blaster bolt is not a huge leap in force powers to show that Kylo is fairly powerful--it's not like it's the easiest thing ever--he's cool under pressure, but it clearly takes effort.
But man, people are ALWAYS analyzing the logic of it. We're all willing to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but the new trilogy just shoves all of it's difficult-to-answer technical questions up front for the sake of (more) constant action and doesn't try to assuage or disguise them at all.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 29, 2018, 07:38:57 pm
And no its cool just sort of.... disagreeing with u on this point is all :<
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Yet she effortlessly climbs all over the Starkiller base and runs circles around the First Order with no help at all.
People DID have problems with this sort of thing in TFA, but just sort of let it go because TLJ was what all this was leading into. People said "well this had problems, but they are trying to set things up for the REAL story". Then it was more of that.
None of the things described from the original (choking jabba, dumb luck is literally Han's superpower) are out of character for what are at that point an experienced team of resistance fighters. There are even time skips implied to make up for sudden increases in skill between movies. The force is literally a physics-ignoring all-encompassing superpower is why people don't have a problem with it. It's more that every single other character (all of them) have to train for years to have any ability whatsoever, unless you are Rey then you can duel trained sith in like a month.
It's not the logic of it, it's the blatant disregard for it's own universe's rules to try and get you to like their new characters. Building a universe takes effort, hitting God Mode for the good guys and bragging about it is way easier.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 29, 2018, 08:38:12 pm
I just keep seeing a double standard here. They said outright in TFA that the republic fleet was destroyed. Which is different from the resistance fleet as the two are officially unrelated entities. It would make no sense for the Resistance to have Y Wings or additional X wings, because otherwise they should have showed up to the battle at Starkiller base. The new bombers fit better into the version of events presented in TFA, because it makes sense those wouldn't have come along to the Starkiller base fight. Presumably the reason the rebels would use a more awkward bomber craft is because it has such a ludicrous payload, supported by the idea that the FO is deploying more heavily armored ships. As for the dreadnaught having a glaring weak point... it had extra armor in that area. We already know from the Death Star that at least one Imperial craft is powered by a spherical reactor. The raised bit on the dreadnaught corresponds to a lowered bit on the underside, implying that there's something vulnerable inside that's too large to fit into the hull. And vaguely sphere shaped. And later on we're told that the FO has been repurposing the death star's technology.
Did it not break your immersion that star destroyers have shield generators held up by a thin metal frame like what a radar dish has? Or that the power lines connecting them to the rest of the ship clearly could have been armored way better? Or that their bridge extends far beyond the hull despite the fact that we see in Ep. 6 several capital ship designs all without such a glaring weakness?
I mean really, a dreadnaught with a different armor and turret configuration is stupid but a super star destroyer isn't? "Destroyer" is a ship class. Either the lynchpin of the Empire's navy was named on a pun, or George Lucas is an idiot. This isn't even getting into the fact that a hit to the bridge causes the super star destroyer to crash, which would imply that it has no auxiliary bridge or secondary command staff.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 29, 2018, 08:58:26 pm
2.) Ya, but TFA's major plot hole is the republic having a weak military and it's fleet being destroyed instantaneously. Y and X wings are incredibly common though (have to be for post-rebellion nation who is RELIANT ON THEM AS A SUPERIOR DESIGN), why would they not have them, even mothballed ones somewhere? These are way worse macguffins than anything in the OT!!! If there really WAS extra armor there, I doubt some low-tech dumb bombs would be able to penetrate it. Besides, if you look at the pictures there's CLEARLY a big ass hole there that could have just been covered up. It's obvious, glaringly obvious.
3.) Again, like I said, we are all willing to suspend our disbelief to a point, we don't even know any of that at the start of the OT, TLJ gives it away up front.
4.) Nope. George Lucas is just an idiot AND he named them on a pun. And like I said, suspension of disbelief--that doesn't happen until Ep6, where it IS kind of wonky, but fairly inconsequential if you can believe it.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 29, 2018, 09:22:54 pm
Fake technology can function how it pleases. Shield generators can be wherever/however they want. Lightsabers can ignore physics. Starkiller bases work because space science. Transporters can beam people in star trek. Thor can fly through space on rainbows. It's easy to ignore that because it's established as working that way in-universe. That's like saying "did you notice how Harry Potter uses wands and does MAGIC? That's not real". Note that he didn't wear a giant oversized wand on a lanyard with a huge obvious target for slow moving wizards to shoot and blow up his dreadnought. I got those mixed up but the point is there.
The death star didn't have a reactor that was so large it stuck partially out of the hull and needed to be covered with a giant obvious bubble that could be shot like a flashing weak spot because if it did it wouldn't be worth building.
The standard, which is not double, is that things that are established in-universe as functional rules must not be ignored. Nobody is talking about immersion, it's the idea that Poe can be directly responsible for the actual apparent destruction of the rebels through his sheer blind arrogance and willful ignorance, and the response of the grieving leadership is "i like him, he's got spirit". In Rogue One (the most perfect movie ever, apparently) they were afraid of a weapon that they outright didn't believe existed so that there could be a protagonist speech.
Their approach to these things is to think of cool, deep scenes then try to paste story in around them, which actually makes them flat, shallow scenes that don't connect well with the rest of the movie. They want to create THE COOLEST MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER THAT'S BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE and not to tell a story or enrich their universe, and it shows when their story falls flat and their universe is dry.
TLDR: If Han had launched a plan that ruined the chance to destroy the death star which had a 5-mile wide protruding weak spot and caused the destruction of the rebel base on Yavin with only a few scant survivors and then everyone still liked him "because that's how we win, Luke" people would call the same bullshit.
Post by: Reelya on January 29, 2018, 09:35:58 pm
Basically, it's a huge plot convenience so they can tell the same story over again, no matter how little sense it makes. It would be like making a sequel to LOTR, where you have it that some orc managed to grab the One Ring before it fell into the lava and turned into Sauron II, and somehow all the politics of the factions reset to from before the War - including that Aragorn's become senile and brutal to replace Denethor. And then you have a new group of hobbits who are tasked with "finding Frodo" and new ring-wraiths turn up in the shire to stop them (for no apparent reason), and then they somehow get the ring again purely by chance, and have to go to mount Doom again, guided by a new elf wizard we never heard of before, and a mysterious ranger (who's not anyone important, but is like Aragorn x 10 in power), along with the arrogant Aragorn Junior (to replace Boromir). But you "mix it up" by changing the order of events (no matter how little geographic sense this makes: you have the characters backtracking and taking huge detours in the middle of other scenes to make it all fit), and throwing in a few scenes out of the Hobbit too, e.g. they fight "Smaug Junior" in Moria instead of the Balrog.
Post by: scriver on January 30, 2018, 12:54:02 am
But its just weird to me that all the Mary Sue criticisms are emerging now and not before.
What are you on about, there were lots of Mary Sue accusation after tFA.
Post by: Reelya on January 30, 2018, 01:32:20 am
It's worth noting Luke vs Rey because one of the counters is "but Luke was a Mary Sue too!". Which is not the case. Luke needs Han to save his ass, and Obi Wan to remind him to use the force, when attacking the Death Star. Needing assistance is "anti-sue" writing. Other points I've read are that Luke wanted to storm off after meeting Han/Chewie, but Obi Wan puts a firm hand on his shoulder and pushes him back into the seat. Obi Wan saves his ass multiple times (e.g. the sand raiders totally had Luke's number). So Luke starts as an unwise, impetuous, naive farmboy with delusions of grandeur, but has to mature through the guidance and assistance of others. This is why he's not a Mary Sue: his flaws do get him into trouble, other people have to save him, he learns from the experiences. Also note that first movie Luke has zero hand-to-hand combat ability. He only really pulls out the saber stuff in the second movie, after he's spent years practicing, and still gets beat, even after training with two top masters. Rey however, pulls out tricky light saber moves right from the start, never having even laid eyes on a Jedi.
Additionally, Luke is shown being trained in blind-fighting by Obi Wan (remember the helmet and the flying remote laser droid), so the movie even covers how he was trained to pull off the feat that he did at the end: Luke didn't just pull "special moves" out of his ass: he remembered what he'd been trained in earlier in the movie and utilized that to pull off the Death Star shot. And it only amounts to getting the timing right on pushing a firing button. He didn't warp reality or anything the way Rey constantly does. The ANH movie also makes sure to point out multiple times that Luke owned a speeder (which would have been paid for by his family), used it for target practice, and dreamed of becoming a pilot, so even the "he's a good pilot" parts are completely foreshadowed and believable, unlike Rey, who's some junkyard orphan who can somehow fly anything better than anyone else, despite the fact that it's not believable in the slightest that she'd be able to get flight training. Sure they "explain" it in the supplementary material, but it's one of those completely bullshit "explanations" that only makes her more of a Mary Sue*.
*note, if you need convoluted backstory that's not in the movie to explain away why someone is otherwise inexplicably overpowered, they're a Mary Sue. That's what Mary Sues do: they have convoluted unlikely backstories to explain away how awesome they are at everything. Luke's backstory is much more sedate and believable than Rey's, even given that Rey didn't have "special" parents. Luke's dad was Anakin: that's neither here nor there, parentage alone doesn't make you a Mary Sue. After all, Anakin is someone they made up for the story, and everyone has a father. Luke loved piloting. Again, believable, as e.g. separated twins sometimes have the same hobbies: it's believable that Luke would aspire to be a pilot, even not knowing that his real father was one. Luke has latent force powers. Again, that could make you a Mary Sue, however, Luke is shown constantly struggling to manifest those powers in a meaningful way.
By the second movie, Luke is shown to be able to retrieve his lightsaber using the Force, but watch how he needs to go all meditative and concentrate before he can pull it off. Several years had passed between the first and second movies, and Luke had been diligently training his Force skills based on what he learned from Obi Wan the whole time. The scene in the ice cave is therefore well-written because of what it says without any words: Luke's entire attitude displays that of someone trying to manifest a skill they've spent a long time trying to master.
Luke fails e.g. when he's unable to raise the X-Wing on Dagobah. Yoda has to save his ass: and Luke isn't ever shown actually pulling that trick off: the scene doesn't exist to showcase how awesome Luke is, but to underline how far he still has to go. That makes it all the more empowering when the competent and mature third movie Luke does his stuff. Lucas planned for the long haul. Rey on the other hand succeeds wherever Luke failed, either soon after seeing a trick done, or even before she knows the trick should exist.
Post by: Starver on January 30, 2018, 05:32:50 am
Han beats up an armored bounty hunter with a stick,As a side-comment, with a sort of movie-time-twisted prescience involved, clearly there's something of Chirrut in him. Innate latent abilities, as often argued, and by this point he'd started to Believe as well. Thus he overcomes his current disability (but clumsily).
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Yet she effortlessly climbs all over the starkiller base and runs circles around the First Order with no help at all.She starts the movie climbing around an Imperial ship, you know. Might be relevent that she has the basic idea, only now slightly complicated by a full crew to hide from (one assumes that she had other Tomb Raiders to hide from at times, at times off-screen, so not a stretch).
Post by: scriver on January 30, 2018, 05:44:43 am
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 30, 2018, 11:00:34 am
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Some of the TFA Mary Sue accusations were countered with "yeah, but I'm sure they'll cover that point in Episode 8"....and now people are saying that episode 9 will be the one to clear this mess.
Seems we've shifted the onus of fixing the franchise to one movie in the future... permanently
Post by: hector13 on January 30, 2018, 03:06:10 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 30, 2018, 03:20:54 pm
"I'm sure they'll explain everything by the end of the third movie" is positively crazy to actually believe. Since when did any movie actually ever do that? It's not how movie making works, it's not what movies are for. Movies are to tell the story of the current movie, not to act as addendum for people confused by the last several movies.
The "ignore the plot holes completely" tactic is the superior one, so almost all movie franchises stick with that. Basically it's gaslighting: if a series goes on long enough, and every character in the movies acts like the plot-hole never happened, then you start to doubt it yourself. More pronounced with TV series, and example being Happy Days with Richie Cunningham's older brother. He goes upstairs in one episode, is never seen again, and is never spoken of again. So there's a glaring plot hole right there, but because it's never actually referenced in-universe then you start to doubt whether it's even a thing.
So no, the plot holes are not going to be addressed, because addressing plot problems shines a light on them. At best, you're going to get "lampshade hanging", but that needs to be done at the moment when the event happens. e.g. if the heroes get out of a scrape by some extremely unlikely tactic have someone say "I can't believe that that worked". Those lines are in there because a decent writer knows that the audience won't believe it either. By making the character self-aware of the implausibility, it papers-over the crack that threatens the audience's suspension of disbelief.
Post by: hector13 on January 30, 2018, 03:27:37 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 30, 2018, 03:29:56 pm
it works forwards, not backwards. If a significant amount of effort is spent smoothing-over cracks in the other movies then that seriously impinges the ability to tell a forward-looking story:
The next movie will, if anything, set up plot threads for additional trilogies and spin-offs. They'll have convenient amnesia about anything that happened before, unless it's specifically relevant to where they want to go next. e.g. "Holdo" will never ever be mentioned again in-universe, nor will Leia's Marry Poppins impersonation. If you e.g. think there were plot holes surrounding Holdo's backstory, what happened to Ackbar or the hyperspace torpedo thing, and expect them to "address" those in the next movie, you're fucking kidding yourself.
They can assume that if you're seeing episode 9 you've already seen episode 8, so "fixing" issues with 8 during 9 isn't going to sell any more tickets.
EDIT: there's also this: if you "explain" something later, then you paint yourself into a corner because that's now the canon explanation. However, if you leave things unexplained, people fill in the blanks with their imagination, but you're free to contradict yourself later if needed as a plot convenience, since you never laid down any rules. e.g. Calvin and Hobbes "noodle incident". The writer is able to elaborate on the noodle incident at will, because he never actually state what the "noodle incident" involves. So he can make jokes about the fallout of the noodle incident without ever contradicting himself.
Post by: hector13 on January 30, 2018, 03:47:35 pm
The movies have all had their own stories to tell, for better or worse, but there's been the thread of stuff happening that has been shared through both movies so far that need to be tied off (or at least give the audience a pay off) in the 9th. Most of that is centred around Kylo Ren and
Those are the issues I have. I can separate my distaste for the smaller aspects (why the fleet in the very first scene followed Poe in when he was told by a superior officer to back off, for example, or what the point of the entire sequence on the planet with the casino was.) from my curiosity at how the story ends.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 30, 2018, 03:49:23 pm
Post by: Reelya on January 30, 2018, 05:48:01 pm
Those are the issues I have. I can separate my distaste for the smaller aspects (why the fleet in the very first scene followed Poe in when he was told by a superior officer to back off, for example, or what the point of the entire sequence on the planet with the casino was.) from my curiosity at how the story ends.
My real problem is that I don't think they've set up character threads interesting enough to actually give a shit how it ends, now. It could end any fucking way you like, and because of that, it means whatever they do will probably feel pretty arbitrary. I'd argue that there were more plot threads that needed to be resolved from ESB to ROJ, but they were more meaningful: Han needed to be rescued (not because of some arbitrary scenario, but because of a plot thread which started literally when Han was first introduced), so they could elaborate that whole thing as a huge set-piece adventure, which causes the movies to flow together, but also gives the audience breathing space to get ready for the main mission. the real meat here was that Luke x Vader x Emperor all had their own agendas in ESB, which needed to be resolved in ROJ. Luke wanted to defeat the emperor, and free his father, Vader wanted Luke to help him kill the emperor and rule the galaxy, while the emperor wanted luke to kill Vader and serve him in his place. Meanwhile, Han and Leia had a growing relationship, while Han was nervous that Luke and Leia would end up together. It's an intricate set of relationships that's worth having a whole movie to resolve it. Any equivalent in the current movies is only a shallow imitation of the set of relationships building up in ANH -> ESB -> ROJ.
Poe's a dead duck: went from happy-go-lucky ace pilot, messed up, now he's going to be triumphant hero dude in the finale. Who cares what shit Poe does next? He doesn't have any depth or elements to him.
Finn: had the most interesting backstory, completely squandered as he's running around just reacting to events and not really going anywhere. Shoe-horn in a fake love interest out of nowhere. Also, to be "inclusive" he's got an Asian girl now, but notice how they pair the minorities together, so that's actually a regressive step. For all the talk of "inclusion" this Star Wars is still pretty "white", and segregates off it's non-white characters together. And anyway, Finn has basically zero personality or quirks. His being a stormtrooper is moot. Let's say he's the story equivalent of Han Solo from ANH. Han Solo's background mattered to how he acted, and ultimately, to his big life-changing events. So far, Finn having been a stormtrooper hasn't really affected the plot at all. You could change just a few scenes in the first movie, and exactly 1 line of dialogue in TLJ, and have him as a moisture farmer on Jakku who just happened to fall in with Rey.
Rey, while she could have been interesting, is basically a non-starter too. Nice that she has a "twilight-esque" entanglement with the
* luke going crazy and sucking milk from alien cow nipples doesn't count as main-story character development: that's a cameo.
Post by: Putnam on February 02, 2018, 12:38:27 am
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 12:44:36 am
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So that giant asteroid worm can breathe in space? It should’ve died in seconds.
Who said giant space worms even "breathe"? Maybe they just don't, being native to space and all. Leia was human however. Humans breathe. And this is why the "giant space worm" isn't ridiculous but "flying Space Leia" is.
It seems to be a pattern here, where counter-critics pick apart any criticism by finding superficial similarities with the other movies. And those comparisons manage to completely miss the core of the criticism.
e.g. comparing all the sight gags in TLJ to the character-based humor of Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, there's always been humor in Star Wars, but it was always character-based humor, and not deliberately set up ridiculous sight gags.
e.g. the "space iron" scene was funny the first time I saw it, but only for a second, then I was rolling my eyes at how dumb the thing was, and wishing it just didn't exist. It also breaks the fourth wall - since it's a reference to docking scenes in other Star Wars movies, which it deliberate sets you up to think it is, then shows you a mundane item from the real world instead - a regular 20th century iron, identical to normal irons in Earth houses. So, rather than following the story my thought process was "oh a ship is docking, but it looks like an iron - Oh it is an Iron - what the fuck is an iron doing in Star Wars". It breaks the 4th wall by setting up a familiar trope then breaking that trope in a way that references a real-world thing that really shouldn't exist in Star Wars at all - thus it reminds you that it's just a movie: you lose your suspension of disbelief from this sort of humor.
Meanwhile, character-based humor actually gets funnier the more you know the characters, and pulls you in, not out of the story. Which is why e.g. C3PO obliviously breaking up a romantic moment between Han and Leia is good comedy: it's good because it's dealing with real human emotions.
The other humor example is Poe prank calling Hux. This is also something that's amusing on first listen, but it's just too lame to enjoy on repeat viewings: it just makes the villains seem pathetic. Which is the worst sin you can do if you want tension. It resembles the humor from Star Wars parodies such as Chad Vader, or Space Balls or something. e.g. the bad guys in Space Balls were in fact scarier than the First Order.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 02, 2018, 01:00:17 am
i'm posting this because i feel like it's relevant but i'm not sure i agree (https://twitter.com/patrickhwillems/status/959204374047350789)
The difference is timing and pacing, IMO. Additionally, the whole movie is campy, action, love, and humor. There's a bit of a tonal disconnect in TLJ (TFA is pretty straight-laced in comparison, but has its own cheesy moments with feel out of place too.)
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 01:19:55 am
That's because the scene is referential, but it's a reference to how Star Wars movies are edited, rather than to things that the characters could be aware of. Basically, it's referencing/reminding you of the fourth wall, which is why it breaks the fourth wall. It sets up a familar scene, then subverts it. So the joke is the subversion itself, which makes you think "oh haha I thought I was watching a docking scene but it was subverted", which is almost like actually writing on the screen "btw this is just a movie, don't get too absorbed in the story, now". But then to top it off, it shoe-horns in a mundane Earth item as the punchline to the gag. So now you're reminded that this is just a movie and you're wondering "do they have irons in Star Wars?" which also breaks immersion.
And because it was so visually in-your-face and broke the fourth wall, i recall them breaking the fourth wall much better than I recall what happened immediately before and after it.
Post by: Egan_BW on February 02, 2018, 01:55:51 am
Also, as my last post mentions (in an edit) jokes like the "space iron" break the fourth wall and pull you out of the story.
That's because the scene is referential, but it's a reference to how Star Wars movies are edited, rather than to things that the characters could be aware of. Basically, it's referencing/reminding you of the fourth wall, which is why it breaks the fourth wall. It sets up a familar scene, then subverts it. So the joke is the subversion itself, which makes you think "oh haha I thought I was watching a docking scene but it was subverted", which is almost like actually writing on the screen "btw this is just a movie, don't get too absorbed in the story, now". But then to top it off, it shoe-horns in a mundane Earth item as the punchline to the gag. So now you're reminded that this is just a movie and you're wondering "do they have irons in Star Wars?" which also breaks immersion.
And because it was so visually in-your-face and broke the fourth wall, i recall them breaking the fourth wall much better than I recall what happened immediately before and after it.
I didn't interpret that as a joke or anything when I saw it. I was like "oh hey that's a robot ironing some clothes. This makes sense because even in space clothes need washing and ironing." The fact that the movie is reminding me that mundane things happen in this universe helped increase my immersion, because I wasn't looking for a joke there.
And why wouldn't they have irons in Starwars? They have things like swords and pens and goggles and earthen building, and not really that many things that I find totally alien. If something exists in real life, I assume something similar exists in Starwars.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 02, 2018, 01:57:38 am
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 01:58:23 am
The real problem was that the shape of the iron was identical to mid-20th century iron designs.
Post by: Egan_BW on February 02, 2018, 01:59:15 am
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 01:59:53 am
but also, in a galaxy far, far away, long, long ago, they just shouldn't have design templates that are identical to just stuff we made in the last 100 years. It would be the same as making someone who drives a hover-car but it's clearly a Volkswagen Beetle. It would not be an appropriate design.
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 02:05:07 am
I'm not saying Star Wars shouldn't have irons, but they just shouldn't have specific designs that mirror our own design history. I mean, we don't even know what an iron might look like in 100 years, let alone to believe that our old designs are somehow a universal thing that all cultures must eventually develop.
We also have to believe that the entire imperial military never developed a fabric that doesn't get all wrinkly.
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 02:15:34 am
Humor is all well and good but this is sort of poking fun at the medium itself, which is not necessarily bad, but it definitely breaks you out of the story, and that's not necessarily a good writing decision for a narrative-driven series. In-character humor is a completely different thing, because it operates within the setting.
Post by: scriver on February 02, 2018, 03:14:24 am
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 03:44:57 am
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/177764/was-this-scene-in-the-last-jedi-an-homage-to-hardware-wars
Post by: Starver on February 02, 2018, 12:46:25 pm
Sure, you could use an automated cupboard (https://www.tersasteam.com) or something that forces crumples out in other ways (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2433038/Hate-laundry-Worlds-HANDS-FREE-iron-make-thing-past--youre-willing-shell-850.html) (but doesn't then put creases in), the application of a flat, hot piece of metal, ported for application of steam, given an acute point to get into corners, etc, isn't really too much of a stretch as an in dependent development in Steam-Age-And-Above cultures (we really only had the one of those arising, here on Earth, kick-starting the wholr planet) and the better-than-Steam-Age age (in this particular field) hasn't really happened yet, so it's hard to predict (without nventing it) the form of clothes-care-tech that the repulsor-and-laser-sword-Age civilisation would develop. Maybe, indeed, repulsor-emmitor and micro-volume laser-plasma exhaust, but I'm not quite sure that would work brilliantly,
So I'm happy to find "looks like a Steam Iron, works like a Steam Iron, used by a Droid in the service rooms of a military space-ship", and that's not a big complaint. If it broke immersion needlessy..? Can't remember much, except that I spontaneously chuckled at just-before-the-reveal, without quite realising why, giving me an "I knew it!" groan, a moment later.
(That it was so quick that some people missed it, makes me think it was about on notch. Either that or it annoyed some people for being too obvious and later (if ever) annoyed people for being so obscure that it needed explaining to them that it had happened. The wrong type of "between the overlap", and I just happened to me tuned correctly take it in...)
Post by: Reelya on February 02, 2018, 12:51:04 pm
Having it be a mundane modern-Earth item was just an additional thing that pulls you out of the fiction. e.g. the scene is designed so that the shot looks like a "Star Warsy" ship, but then it's reframed to be a mundane item from your everyday experience. The joke here is that the viewers expectations were betrayed. Which can be funny, but definitely gets you thinking on a "meta" level, which pulls your attention out of the story and reminds you that you're just watching a movie, which is a fundamental flaw in film-making for anything that's meant to be dramatic, and not a straight-up comedy/satire/farce.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 02, 2018, 01:24:54 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on February 02, 2018, 02:27:42 pm
Remember, I said the main reason it broke immersion was because they turned it into a gag about how camera shots in Star Wars work. It's a meta-gag, so it pulls you out of the story.I didn't get the reference and I thought it was funny.
Having it be a mundane modern-Earth item was just an additional thing that pulls you out of the fiction. e.g. the scene is designed so that the shot looks like a "Star Warsy" ship, but then it's reframed to be a mundane item from your everyday experience. The joke here is that the viewers expectations were betrayed. Which can be funny, but definitely gets you thinking on a "meta" level, which pulls your attention out of the story and reminds you that you're just watching a movie, which is a fundamental flaw in film-making for anything that's meant to be dramatic, and not a straight-up comedy/satire/farce.
I'll give you that it doesn't fit, but it wasn't an important moment and I personally forgot about it quickly. This movie needs its laughs where it can get them because otherwise its darkness on darkness like Ep. 3 was (except not QUITE that bad, but with no humor at all I'd put it as the 2nd darkest SW movie).
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 05, 2018, 02:12:45 am
Post by: SalmonGod on February 05, 2018, 02:34:06 am
Also discovered an Ant Man + Wasp trailer came out with the Super Bowl. Best Super Bowl trailer, IMO. That one should be a lot of fun.
Post by: Reelya on February 07, 2018, 04:45:53 am
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/upcoming-movies/game-of-thrones-creators-join-star-wars-universe/news-story/1b5c61c7d55c54d03f0663b1b43a3b48
Post by: NRDL on February 07, 2018, 06:01:02 am
Post by: scriver on February 07, 2018, 06:46:27 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 07, 2018, 12:20:10 pm
So the two men who did absolutely nothing to make GoT a good show but took all the credit, and who has sequently made GoT a less good show the more they interfered with it themselves, is getting to work on Star Wars. I am not over noted.
Better than Rain Johnson, IMO--wish they could just replace him. How the fuck did he get his own trilogy?
Post by: Reelya on February 07, 2018, 12:33:10 pm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Notice that the film's average score (7.4), the massive split in viewer reactions, and the tone of the reviews are all basically identical to TLJ. And this is for his acclaimed original work before he was ever connected to Star Wars. So, the flaws in TLJ seem like the exact same things people were complaining about with Looper, which can't be explained away as angry fanboys.
Post by: Sensei on February 07, 2018, 01:00:14 pm
What I'm getting at is, I'm hopeful that the next movie will be a lot more cohesive because Rian Johnson is writing it from start to finish instead of spending most of the movie trying to resolve a bunch of plot threads started by other people.
Post by: Reelya on February 07, 2018, 01:07:51 pm
he could easily have let the whole "who are Rey's parents" thing slide onto the next director, if he didn't want to touch that. But Johnson chose to address it, and shut down any possible backstory expansion for Rey, basically. So, he didn't want to do anything with it, but rather than ignore it, he's made sure nobody can do anything with it now. Johnson actively decided "Rey has no backstory" more or less: she just comes out of nothing, super-ninja-jedi-pilot-engineer-language girl who pulled herself up by her bootstraps, including making her own boots for the purpose. Basically, the mystery about her parents was the only really interesting thing about Rey, but Johnson didn't want it, so he broke it and threw it away, so nobody gets to play with it.
He's not making the next movie btw, he's making his own trilogy. Which i probably won't be going to the cinema to see. I'll see episode 9 in the cinema just because, but not any of the spin-offs. e.g. I'm not planning on seeing Solo in the cinema either and I didn't go see Rogue One either. If they make "Episode 10" and further, I'll sit those out. I did similar with the Prequels: only saw Phantom Menace in the cinema, decided "nah", then decided to skip the others.
Here's a good laugh for you
https://movieweb.com/star-wars-9-crawl-fake-fixes-last-jedi-problems/
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 07, 2018, 05:54:39 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 07, 2018, 06:36:08 pm
Your loss for not seeing Rogue 1, it's easily the best film since Return in my opinion
Rogue One was quite good.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on February 07, 2018, 06:59:46 pm
Your loss for not seeing Rogue 1, it's easily the best film since Return in my opinion
Rogue One was quite good.
Rogue one is life.
Join ussss
Post by: Reelya on February 07, 2018, 11:42:18 pm
Your loss for not seeing Rogue 1, it's easily the best film since Return in my opinion
No, I saw Rogue One, I just didn't see it in the cinema. I'm going to wait for reviews from now on for the others.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on February 08, 2018, 08:53:07 am
Post by: smjjames on February 08, 2018, 09:17:10 am
Post by: Reelya on February 08, 2018, 09:25:46 am
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/177764/was-this-scene-in-the-last-jedi-an-homage-to-hardware-wars
Apparently in interviews, Johnson verified that it's a reference to the "Hardware Wars" Star Wars spoof.
Post by: Hanslanda on March 27, 2018, 08:16:53 am
Yeah but it was pretty awesome when they fired at Luke and he just brushed his shoulder, like, "Anything else?".
Right? I thought the movie was great.
Post by: scriver on March 27, 2018, 08:23:05 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on March 27, 2018, 09:27:56 am
*Reads the massive and well thought out, complex discussion of filmographic differences, artistic styles, and plot devices*
Yeah but it was pretty awesome when they fired at Luke and he just brushed his shoulder, like, "Anything else?".
Right? I thought the movie was great.
Bro, I hated this scene (but will not say more as it will quickly turn nasty.)
Post by: Egan_BW on March 27, 2018, 09:42:57 am
*Reads the massive and well thought out, complex discussion of filmographic differences, artistic styles, and plot devices*Aw yeah man. *highfive*
Yeah but it was pretty awesome when they fired at Luke and he just brushed his shoulder, like, "Anything else?".
Right? I thought the movie was great.
Post by: hector13 on March 27, 2018, 11:50:45 am
*fist bump for weirdness**Reads the massive and well thought out, complex discussion of filmographic differences, artistic styles, and plot devices*Aw yeah man. *highfive*
Yeah but it was pretty awesome when they fired at Luke and he just brushed his shoulder, like, "Anything else?".
Right? I thought the movie was great.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 27, 2018, 12:07:17 pm
No*fist bump for weirdness**Reads the massive and well thought out, complex discussion of filmographic differences, artistic styles, and plot devices*Aw yeah man. *highfive*
Yeah but it was pretty awesome when they fired at Luke and he just brushed his shoulder, like, "Anything else?".
Right? I thought the movie was great.
Nooo
Nooooooo
Nooooooooooooooo
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fc/17/94/fc17947dc0d4a9bf4938aef99ac12eae.jpg)
Post by: Dunamisdeos on March 27, 2018, 12:10:20 pm
Also, I enjoyed the parts of the movie that weren't plot related.
Post by: Hanslanda on March 27, 2018, 04:03:12 pm
*Reads the massive and well thought out, complex discussion of filmographic differences, artistic styles, and plot devices*
Yeah but it was pretty awesome when they fired at Luke and he just brushed his shoulder, like, "Anything else?".
Right? I thought the movie was great.
Bro, I hated this scene (but will not say more as it will quickly turn nasty.)
I'm not saying it was unassailably good or anything mate. The first half of the movie had pacing issues for me amongst other quibbles.
I just thought "Ah shit son, dope ass Jedi Motherfucking Master Skywalker about to drop some ass kicking on these First Order posers." That's all.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on March 27, 2018, 04:21:30 pm
Post by: Starver on March 27, 2018, 04:38:26 pm
I may well base my enjoyment of the movie on how well they do that. (Not intentionally, but inevitably. And it could undyly uptick as well as unfairly downmark the full product, as well.)
Post by: Harry Baldman on March 27, 2018, 06:10:27 pm
Post by: NJW2000 on March 28, 2018, 03:03:36 am
It was the best of films, it was the worst of films.Far more mediocre than this.
Post by: scriver on March 28, 2018, 06:17:44 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on March 28, 2018, 01:18:12 pm
It was the most mediocre, it was the least mediocre.
Somewhere in the middle
Post by: scriver on March 28, 2018, 02:22:07 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on March 28, 2018, 02:31:35 pm
Post by: Sirus on May 13, 2018, 07:24:09 pm
I geeked out a little upon seeing Yoda though. He moved and looked a hell of a lot like the original puppet. I hope it was.
Post by: Kagus on May 14, 2018, 04:04:20 am
Still, if you can turn your brain off enough there are a fair few flashing lights and zip-zap noises to keep things entertaining... But yeah, I preferred the previous one. And I don't even like Jar-Jar Abrams.
Rogue One is still the best Star Wars film though, definitely. Well, that and Turkish Star Wars (https://youtu.be/saOSPjm8cX0).
(Yes, that's a real movie. Yes, that's the Indiana Jones theme. Yes, he's kicking rocks so hard that they explode)
Post by: Hanslanda on May 14, 2018, 10:30:46 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 14, 2018, 12:39:18 pm
Also, Rogue One is just overall great to me. Easily the best of the new universe stuff.
Post by: Sirus on May 14, 2018, 03:51:42 pm
I guess my biggest gripes aren't with the story or the pacing (though both certainly could use improvement) as much as they are with lore. Whaddya mean, "it's impossible to track a ship through hyperspace"? They had tracking beacons back in ANH! Leia has a tracking beacon with her so that Rey can track her! At any number of points in the EU do they talk about tracking hyperspace vectors or what-not!
Why on earth do the guns on Snoke's flagship fire in an arc? Even with Star Wars' rather flexible space physics, energy weapons travel in straight lines and do not arc even in a gravity well (which they were not in, they were in deep space). I have a similar issue with the payload from the bombers (now those were some hot garbage) but I can at least imagine the bomber's artificial gravity doing a thing in that instance, maybe accelerating them out the open hatch.
Post by: Kagus on May 14, 2018, 05:05:41 pm
One such question was: "Does the Dark Side have any redeeming features?", and the answer was "No. No it fucking does not". The Dark Side even physically manifested as a person at one point (somewhat debatable. As with everything else, It Is A Mystery), and that person was Asshole McMurderboner II, who plotted to murder his own family because they were holding him back from murdering every living thing in the universe.
There's a holocron of "the One Noble Sith", the one dude who apparently lived in a Dark Side nexus (speaking of, why the fuck did Luke decide to 'hide' on an island with a Dark nexus on it? Sith are drawn to those things like flies) without going on a death-and-torture rampage against everything within reach. He only ever played any part in any story because he mastered an otherwise unknown dark art which was later uncovered by a couple more murderbone-prone sith.
What is this art that the Noble Sith perfected and that he performed regularly? The summoning of Dark Wraiths. What are Dark Wraiths? Oh, they're just quasi-physical manifestations of pure fucking hatred, and they're conjured via the lifeforce of someone else so if you slap one enough that it goes away, some random innocent person on the other side of the galaxy will just up and fucking die. Sounds Morally Defensible™ to me!
Yeah. That's legitimately the most stand-up guy they can show off. There's another "WooOOoo Mysterious Gray-Zone Balanced Sensei" character that shows up and says "Maybe there's a way of using the Dark Side while also not being an asshole", but the most she has to show for her ethics is to point to the aforementioned Noble Sith as a positive role model and then induct her first student by torturing him for a few days.
Also, Dooku was criminally underrepresented in the films, despite his dork-ass name. Dude invented a lightsaber form for fuck's sake.
Post by: Sensei on May 14, 2018, 05:10:29 pm
Honestly I see nothing wrong with the bombers. If they have gravity inside, it doesn't seem the least bit strange that they would be accelerated by gravity. Since the series already draws on WWII style fighter combat as a visual shorthand for the audience to understand what's going on, extending that to a crewed bomber makes plenty of sense. The only bad thing about it is that it does draw some attention to the gravity on these craft enough to make you think "How DOES that work?" which is unwise. But really it makes plenty enough sense and is, most of all, consistent with how space combat has already been depicted, if not 'realistic'.
The arcing plasma whatever-they-are cannons though, those just throw me for a loop.
It does bother me in general that it all doesn't feel very lore-friendly. If you're supposed to be invested in the Star Wars continuity (and presumably you are, since they're marketing this as a Star Wars movie to people who want to see it because they liked the other movies) then little stuff like inconsistent technology (see: tracking) is annoying, especially since they could easily have come up with some other excuse ('they have a doohickey that stops us from tracking them!') but moreover the entire premise is frustrating. Jumping from the Empire being crushed and peoples of the galaxy united to some other, new organization that's basically the empire and controls the whole galaxy to the point where the rebellions are right back to being scrappy underdogs again is just jarring and begs for an explanation. I mean we know WHY they did it: They figured it was a safe bet to just tell the same story over again. It just doesn't make you feel rewarded for paying attention at all, and it doesn't really feel like a good payoff if you're invested in the old characters either.
Post by: Reelya on May 14, 2018, 05:17:07 pm
Except ... it just feels completely incongruous for the actual setting in question. The Empire/First Order are just straight up literal Space Nazis with the Rebels/Resistance being literal WWII resistance fighters. That's like asking "who are the real villains of WWII - the Nazis or the French Resistance?" - to which the only people applauding the asking of the question should be actual Neo-Nazis.
Sure, the thing about arms-trading is a good real-world point to make, except it's complete nonsense in the Star Wars setting. The idea that the Empire had their Tie Fighters made by the same companies that produced X-Wing fighters is completely idiotic. The WWII equivalent would be discovering that the same company made Shermans as made Panzers and T34s. Sometimes there's a situation where one country is supplying both sides with weapons, but it's generally on the fringes of some larger-scale conflict such as the Cold War. e.g. there's no company in existence making both M16s and AK47s and supplying them to different sides of the same conflict. e.g. the set-up is incongruous to the Star Wars setting but it also fails to make a coherent point about real-world arms dealing. Lockheed aren't in the business of making MiGs and selling them to post-communist nations, it just doesn't make sense. We just don't see the same company making cold-war-era US gear to sell to US client states and the same company making soviet-style gear to sell to Russian client states. Maybe there's a point in there that "selling arms is bad" but its buried by how unrealistic the whole thing is.
Post by: Sirus on May 14, 2018, 05:29:30 pm
-snip-I can't answer the rest of that, but the EU provided a hypothesis on why Luke might have chosen to live near such a strong Dark Side nexus. In the Thrawn trilogy, Luke posits that Yoda may have chosen to exile himself to Dagobah because of the dark side cave located there (where Luke fought his dream battle against Vader/himself). The idea is that having two strong, opposing Force presences so near each other makes them difficult if not impossible to sense from a distance. They basically cancel each other out.
There's a holocron of "the One Noble Sith", the one dude who apparently lived in a Dark Side nexus (speaking of, why the fuck did Luke decide to 'hide' on an island with a Dark nexus on it? Sith are drawn to those things like flies) without going on a death-and-torture rampage against everything within reach. He only ever played any part in any story because he mastered an otherwise unknown dark art which was later uncovered by a couple more murderbone-prone sith.
-snip-
It doesn't quite fit what we hear and see in TLJ, but it's certainly what came to my mind while watching.
Post by: scriver on May 14, 2018, 05:35:29 pm
Post by: hector13 on May 14, 2018, 05:36:55 pm
This totally means they can’t pull ideas from it, the charlatans.
Post by: Kagus on May 14, 2018, 05:54:44 pm
And if that's not the official explanation, maybe Luke just wanted to be like his ol' master and sit in some shit while yelling at the seagulls.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 14, 2018, 05:55:58 pm
The more I consider, the more TLJ seems like an attempt to pander to people's feelings on real-world issues without regard to the actual series, or really the actual issues themselves. It feels.... I don't know, wrong, like a cheap attempt to monetize on those things. Then they are prepared to turn around and say hey, if you don't like it, you must not care about these issues, because obviously we care and that's why we did it, don't you care? You have to like this in order to care, what's wrong with you?
Like someone figured out they don't need to make a Star Wars movie to get people to watch it, they just need to check what social issues young people are sending memes about on Facebook this year and add some Star Wars characters into a string of scenes based around them. So you get a 30-m long sequence about space animal cruelty, and the entire movie theme is about how all the old white people ruined everything off screen (ergo before the woke young people got to take a crack at it) and need to atone by just going away already, and if we just believe that our group is right we will definitely BE right, you guys etc etc.
It's like FACEBOOK BUBBLES, THE SPACE MOVIE and also we added MARK HAMILL to it. It's not that those issues are non-existent or unimportant, it's that they want to exploit them for a paycheck and also muck with a famous sci-fi universe for it.
Post by: Starver on May 14, 2018, 06:16:14 pm
He's the salesman who acts as middleman in dealings with both Incom Corp and Sienar Fleet Systems (or officially/unofficially licensed generic-copy producers, via whatever shell-company arrangements could be contrived) on one side and the respective users on the other side (or with further proxies upstream/downstream in the supply process, quite likely, especially if they needed credible doubt that whoever-was-out-of-power-at-the-time was actively supporting the Opposition).
There seems to be a total galactic trade in similar intermediate dealmongers sufficient to generate a whole-world-industry (at least oneą) around keeping such figures entertained with the finest of decadent distractions, although others at the party may merely have plied Hutt against Hutt, or worked with Devoranians, Guavians and the Kanjiklub.
Not that I'm entirely sure about canon lore on this. Or that canon should necessarily be respected if its just a big Creator Cockup anyway.
ą And likely more than enough, dotted around the galaxy to discourage anyone (like a disgruntled customer, concerned about certain other people being considered also worthy of being a customer) attacking/sieging/blockading any such hub without suffering ramifications from those reps and whotnot not now under their thumb or otherwise.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 14, 2018, 06:32:46 pm
TIE: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sienar_Fleet_Systems/Legends (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sienar_Fleet_Systems/Legends)
X-WING: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Incom_Corporation (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Incom_Corporation)
Unless they changed some more random things for their movie, the only way the same people were selling them is if some wahoo bought them from these two very large and famous manufacturing firms and resold them under false pretenses to both sides, and then neither side thought to look into why Blork the used TIE salesman looks just like Flork, the used X-wing merchant but with glasses.
Post by: Kagus on May 14, 2018, 06:37:42 pm
Post by: Reelya on May 14, 2018, 08:17:43 pm
@Reelya
The more I consider, the more TLJ seems like an attempt to pander to people's feelings on real-world issues without regard to the actual series, or really the actual issues themselves. It feels.... I don't know, wrong, like a cheap attempt to monetize on those things. Then they are prepared to turn around and say hey, if you don't like it, you must not care about these issues, because obviously we care and that's why we did it, don't you care? You have to like this in order to care, what's wrong with you?
Like someone figured out they don't need to make a Star Wars movie to get people to watch it, they just need to check what social issues young people are sending memes about on Facebook this year and add some Star Wars characters into a string of scenes based around them. So you get a 30-m long sequence about space animal cruelty, and the entire movie theme is about how all the old white people ruined everything off screen (ergo before the woke young people got to take a crack at it) and need to atone by just going away already, and if we just believe that our group is right we will definitely BE right, you guys etc etc.
It's like FACEBOOK BUBBLES, THE SPACE MOVIE and also we added MARK HAMILL to it. It's not that those issues are non-existent or unimportant, it's that they want to exploit them for a paycheck and also muck with a famous sci-fi universe for it.
I just had a worrying thought. The narrative that there are these shadowy billionaires behind everything could probably play into the hands of the right-wing. e.g. clearly the person pulling the strings of both sides in the Space War is Space George Soros, e.g. the Space Jews. And the fact that they have this filthy rich little enclave-planet that's not part of either major coalition and is benefiting from both sides fighting - clearly that's Space Israel. googling "jews casinos" I found rightwing articles saying that e.g. Jews were the masterminds behind Indian casinos and the like, so naturally, someone with that background is going to read TLJ's casino overlords as being a lot like they'd view "Space Jews".
This is the danger of presenting shadowy overlord figures but not making them actually part of either coalition. That makes them the "other" and "puppet masters" e.g. how anti-semitic conspiracy theorists view the Jewish "other". It's actually a dangerous model to present because it doesn't reflect reality very well, and instead it presents both sides as being played by some greedy third-party masterminds who have no affiliation or loyalties. An area ripe for applying antisemitic conspiracy theories. There's also the problem that it's clearly a done plot-line that's never going to be touched on again, so viewers are clear to draw any interpretations that they like.
Post by: scriver on May 15, 2018, 04:26:30 am
You know, come to think of it, I can't remember ever seeing Flork in the same room as Blork... I mean, he'd often talked about his evil identical twin brother, but maybe he was hiding something?
I'm sorry, that's just how Swedish sounds to foreigners
Post by: Putnam on May 15, 2018, 05:52:40 am
Post by: Egan_BW on May 15, 2018, 06:10:38 am
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on May 15, 2018, 09:45:15 am
bombs in star wars battlefront 2 (2005) fell in an arbitrary "down" direction in space battles such that if you flip your Y-wing over and lay a bomb it'll fall up relative to your cockpit
For some reason this didn't strike me as stupid when I was playing Battlefront 2. Probably because it wasn't a plot important fact shoved in your face which made you consider the full implications of it.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 15, 2018, 01:06:49 pm
bombs in star wars battlefront 2 (2005) fell in an arbitrary "down" direction in space battles such that if you flip your Y-wing over and lay a bomb it'll fall up relative to your cockpit
For some reason this didn't strike me as stupid when I was playing Battlefront 2. Probably because it wasn't a plot important fact shoved in your face which made you consider the full implications of it.
In the next Star Wars movie of video game logic applied to movie narratives, Poe Dameron dies in a horrific crash, only to inexplicably respawn at base.
hey wait
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 15, 2018, 01:48:12 pm
bombs in star wars battlefront 2 (2005) fell in an arbitrary "down" direction in space battles such that if you flip your Y-wing over and lay a bomb it'll fall up relative to your cockpit
For some reason this didn't strike me as stupid when I was playing Battlefront 2. Probably because it wasn't a plot important fact shoved in your face which made you consider the full implications of it.
In the next Star Wars movie of video game logic applied to movie narratives, Poe Dameron dies in a horrific crash, only to inexplicably respawn at base.
hey wait
"I got better!"
Post by: Dorsidwarf on May 15, 2018, 07:00:40 pm
Post by: Sirus on May 15, 2018, 07:20:07 pm
Post by: Starver on May 15, 2018, 07:35:51 pm
I think they probably do tend to avoid the confusion of possible orbits (or pseudo-orbiting powered circuits of the planet) just to ensure that the multitude of potentially conflicting and intersecting loops don't happen, instead using practically unlimited thrust-control and grav/anti-grav effects to "hang in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't" (to steal from H2G2), as we also saw in Rogue One, well within the atmosphere.
There's probably some convention/best-practices to adhere to (see also agreement over which direction is up, for entirely differently-commanded fleets even in space sufficiently far away from anywhere interesting) but within the presence of a planet you probably just have your nav-computers calculate a 'shell' of a convenient altitude above the planet and 'sit' you on it (probably on the equator, or above the surface feature of most interest) keel-to-planet so long as you've got no other good reason to maneuver or otherwise rotate yourself further.
There's a long history of spacefaring. People (and droid-brains) probably do these things without thinking, because they usually aren't needing to do anything cleverer.
(Even with the TLJ opening bomb-run, by being 'stationary' above the planet they not only had a constant firing solution to their target with their Dreadnought-thing guns (rather than only.a fraction of their orbit time being usefully 'on-station'), but attackers couldn't just launch a reverse-orbit attack on them and automatically double the closing speed. Though nothing quite explains how they managed to sneak the Space-B52s up there, even under the chaos of Po's prank-call/peddle-to-metal attack. Without scanner-jamming, as exhibited later, at least. Maybe it's consistent, in itself, then.)
PPE:
I mean, if they're going to be hanging out in one location for a while they'll usually orbit to save on energy. Not to mention that some ships are just too big to enter an atmosphere.Rogue One (un)addresses both of these issues! I don't think we've seen any 'orbit' in use except for Yavin 4's natural orbit around Yavin Prime bringing it into view of where the DS1 had initially arrived in the system, or maybe the DS1 was sublighting itself round YP to see Y4. Or both. Not sure it's properly established, any which way.
Post by: smjjames on May 15, 2018, 07:47:46 pm
Alternatively they could have done a fast orbit close to YP.
In any case, having it be in range within many hours or a few days wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic as ‘OMGWTFBBQ 30 MINUTES! *FLAILS*’
Post by: hector13 on May 15, 2018, 08:01:09 pm
Though I haven’t seen the movie for a while...
Post by: Egan_BW on May 15, 2018, 08:35:39 pm
Post by: Reelya on May 15, 2018, 08:52:24 pm
Presumably, it takes a while to recharge the giant cannon so they'd want to be sure to take it out in one shot, e.g. to make sure the least amount of rebels escape. The Imperials didn't believe the Rebels could harm the Death Star so for them the main time-pressure was to take out as many rebels as possible in that one shot as they could. Hitting the planet and not the moon could give the rebels evacuation time.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 20, 2018, 02:56:48 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on May 20, 2018, 08:20:12 pm
Honestly it seems like one of those scenes where its better to just hand wave it. "The atmosphere on that planet was especially thin" or something and then never talk about it again.
Post by: Egan_BW on May 20, 2018, 08:35:05 pm
What kinds of things do we see stormtroopers doing in the OT? Boarding a ship with the goal of capturing information and people intact, policing Tatooine, guarding their OWN battlestation, storming the entrenched base on Hoth before the rebels can escape from the the slow AT-AT walkers, strongarming the owner of a floating city, scouting a forest, and again defending their own installation. All of these have fairly plausible reasons to not just want to blow everything up.
In addition keeping a star destroyer hovering close to the ground probably uses a lot more fuel than having them in space, so simple expense can be an issue as well. For the less important places, it might not be worth paying the logistics cost of absurdly heavily armored overwatch, but it would be cost-effective to have a few stormtroopers keeping watch.
This would mean that the fact that there's one hovering over that city in much the same way that bricks don't implies that that city is a valuable asset to the imperials that they don't want to lose, which I personally think is exactly the impression that the movie made.
TL;DR: economics, not physics.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on May 21, 2018, 09:54:15 am
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 21, 2018, 03:32:05 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on May 21, 2018, 04:52:47 pm
Same reason you still need infantry even if you have total air superiority in real life. Because hovering over everyone's head and shooting at them is great and all, but sometimes you need to do things other than shooting.Okay but if they had just hovered over Mos Eisley with a star destroyer for two days they would have won the entire war with ease. The only reason the Falcon could escape is because the at least two star destroyers they had were staying in orbit.
What kinds of things do we see stormtroopers doing in the OT? Boarding a ship with the goal of capturing information and people intact, policing Tatooine, guarding their OWN battlestation, storming the entrenched base on Hoth before the rebels can escape from the the slow AT-AT walkers, strongarming the owner of a floating city, scouting a forest, and again defending their own installation. All of these have fairly plausible reasons to not just want to blow everything up.
In addition keeping a star destroyer hovering close to the ground probably uses a lot more fuel than having them in space, so simple expense can be an issue as well. For the less important places, it might not be worth paying the logistics cost of absurdly heavily armored overwatch, but it would be cost-effective to have a few stormtroopers keeping watch.
This would mean that the fact that there's one hovering over that city in much the same way that bricks don't implies that that city is a valuable asset to the imperials that they don't want to lose, which I personally think is exactly the impression that the movie made.
TL;DR: economics, not physics.
Star destroyers being able to enter atmosphere also pretty much trashes the entire first season of Rebels, if anyone cares. I mean its a children's show but I thought it was pretty good...
was that a Hitchhiker's Guide reference?
Post by: Reelya on May 21, 2018, 05:23:39 pm
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/147527/how-could-a-star-destroyer-hover-over-a-city-in-rogue-one
Also several points:
- Vader is shown as having to go meet the Death Star, and must have traveled there in his star destroyer, thus it wasn't at Tatooine anymore. He gives his men orders to find the plans, then rushes off for his important meeting.
- It's been a while but I don't recall Vader having an additional star destroyer at Tatooine in the first movie, unless Lucas decided to retcon one in for the Special Edition movies, and in that case it would have been to explain how the remaining storm troopers planned to get home after Vader's star destroyer already left, so they're still left with one ship, not two.
- Tatooine is a planet with apparent Earth gravity thus it's likely to be Earth-sized. Originally, the ground troops only suspect the plans may be in the escape pod, until one of the stormtroopers reveals droid parts. They then track the movement of the droids on the planet, and eventually this takes them to Mos Eisley. But they can't know ahead of time whether the droids are together or separate, which droid has the plans or that the droids met someone who even wanted to take them off the planet. There's too much viewer knowledge in all that.
- also, what if the droids met someone with an X-Wing fighter? Small, hyperspace capable ships are shown to exist and be capable of taking off from just about anywhere, not just spaceports. The imperials can't have known ahead of time that the droids must be headed to the spaceport, and we're not told that the planet has only one spaceport.
- Even if the star destroyer can enter atmosphere and knows for sure that it's going to be from Mos Eisley, they can't hyperspace from inside atmosphere, and small ships have been shown to be capable of out-maneuvering things as large as a Star Destroyer. Being in atmosphere might not be the cleverest tactic in a chase situation.
Post by: Egan_BW on May 21, 2018, 05:53:28 pm
But yes, if the Imperials had perfect intel and always knew where something important was going to happen so they could hover a few starships over the problem they'd have won the war easily. Before the events of the movie.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on May 21, 2018, 06:05:04 pm
Rebels apparently has no problem showing star destroyers in atmosphere. Disclaimer: I haven't seen Rebels, just came across this in an answer to this post:Lol, egg on my face.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/147527/how-could-a-star-destroyer-hover-over-a-city-in-rogue-one
Post by: Reelya on May 21, 2018, 06:16:42 pm
I recall the falcon dodging multiple star destroyers before jumping into hyperspace in IV. Must be a special edition thing...
Nah, my bad I went and checked it out, and there was a bit of a chase scene as they hit orbit.
The other points still stand however: the ground troops were the ones who tracked the droids to Mos Eisley, a busy spaceport, and not even Luke and Obi Wan knew which ship they'd be traveling on before they got to the city. e.g. any imperial ship would have to have been informed by the ground troops to know when, where and which ship to target.
Post by: hector13 on May 21, 2018, 09:08:51 pm
Tatooine may not have been imperial space, but that doesn’t mean they have no sway there. Especially when the big scary man in the black armour is kicking about too. Hutts aren’t stupid.
Post by: Reelya on May 21, 2018, 09:34:50 pm
e.g. we see stormtroopers roughing people up, and a local spy they enlisted, but we don't see anything such as "port officials" or anyone else in uniform. e.g. the only way they could stop ships taking off would be to just shoot them down.
Sure, Hutt gangsters might have helped out if there was a profit in that, but they probably stayed under the radar by not trying to enforce themselves as some sort of actual government.
Post by: hector13 on May 21, 2018, 09:42:11 pm
Could’ve had some warnings broadcast on all frequencies for a while, to let people know not to interfere and such. Tatooine being a planet in which lots of criminals congregate thoigh, might’ve been some issues, seeing as nobody would know quite why the imperials are present.
Post by: Reelya on May 21, 2018, 09:50:37 pm
As well as the possibility that the many smugglers etc would want to get the hell out of there on hearing that imperials are blockading the planet. After all, the three (?) destroyers in orbit were incapable of properly intercepting even one Correlian freighter, so presumably, other criminal ships know the odds, too. e.g. Han Solo isn't really freaking the hell out when cornered by three destroyers. Everyone has a hyperdrive after all. e.g. if the imperials started broadcasting threatening orders around at people on the entire planet then they might have sparked a mass exodus, then not known which of the ships was the one they're after, if any.
e.g. seeing as the Empire's ships had a limited ability to intercept ships leaving the surface, their best strategy was in fact to minimize the amount of disruption and use their ground troops to investigate.
Post by: Sirus on May 22, 2018, 06:32:06 pm
As for Vader getting to the Death Star...guys, shuttlecraft exist. So does Vader's personal, hyper-capable TIE. He wouldn't need to pull his SD off of planetary blockade duty in order to check in on how Tarkin was doing when any number of smaller ships could get him there just as quickly.
Post by: smjjames on May 22, 2018, 06:37:38 pm
TBH I sorta doubt that the Imperials actually "tracked" the droids to Mos Eisley. More likely, they put down a small garrison at each of the planet's major settlements, or perhaps concentrated on Mos Eisley due to its proximity to the Jawas and Luke's home. Considering how barren Tatooine is, there probably aren't many such settlements, and Star Destroyers can carry a lot of soldiers.
As for Vader getting to the Death Star...guys, shuttlecraft exist. So does Vader's personal, hyper-capable TIE. He wouldn't need to pull his SD off of planetary blockade duty in order to check in on how Tarkin was doing when any number of smaller ships could get him there just as quickly.
There’s even a scene of Vader getting welcomed as he exits the shuttle in one of the Death Stars many hangar bays.
Dunno where Vader getting to the Death Star came up though...
Post by: Reelya on May 22, 2018, 09:04:11 pm
The point I made was that Vader would want to travel in his flagship, all else being equal. So that would mean the ship wasn't available to blockade Tatooine. However, I could be wrong about that, there is a scene of him giving orders to a subordinate, so that could be because he needed to go to the Death Star. However that implies that every single ship was critical at Tatooine, e.g. disproves the "overwhelming blockade" idea.
e.g. he brings Leia to the Death Star. She's a critically important prisoner, and all that he has to show for his little mission, having failed to retrieve the plans. Traveling in a defenseless shuttle with Leia would be an unnecessary risk. Plus, he left the Death Star in his main ship, so returning to the Death Star in a shuttle would seem to show a sign of weakness.
Post by: smjjames on May 22, 2018, 09:31:34 pm
Post by: Reelya on May 22, 2018, 09:34:40 pm
My assumption was that he traveled there in his ship, which would mean that his personal star destroyer wasn't on blockade duty at Tatooine at the moment the Falcon takes off.
Where Rogue Ones comes in, is that Rogue One ends at the literal start of A New Hope. Not to give too much away.
Post by: Starver on May 22, 2018, 09:39:43 pm
TBH I sorta doubt that the Imperials actually "tracked" the droids to Mos Eisley. More likely, they put down a small garrison at each of the planet's major settlements, or perhaps concentrated on Mos Eisley due to its proximity to the Jawas and Luke's home. Considering how barren Tatooine is, there probably aren't many such settlements, and Star Destroyers can carry a lot of soldiers.It seems (from memory, maybe adulterated by the transition from the original version into later 'scene enhanced' versions) that having initially had gunners decide not to destroy an escape-capsule with no life on boardą, they then are bothered enough to investigate where it landed in the global desert.
They pick up signs of droids and think it worthwhile enough to track those to where they get picked up by the Jawas, and track them to the rendezvous with Lars, in both cases (and, in at least the latter, without any significant reistance being possible so going in all needlessly gung-ho) they obliterate their used-up leads after maybe having gathered intelligence.
Technically, the trail from the homestead is cold (assuming they can't track the onward progress of R2, nor the sandspeeder that Luke goes out in in his own tracking mission) and whether they encounter the Tusken Raiders or find Ben's sanctuary is unknown, but the sandtroopers cannot be attacking every isolated settlement or technonomadic crawler on the planet.
The troopers present at Mos Eisley are probably not as authorised to use Extreme Prejudice on initially tenuous links, maybe mirrored by similar detachments sent (or already present as a garrison force, before the space-ambush and co-opted into the search once the fleet arrives and needs knowledgable feet-on-ground) to the various other Moses on the planet, though the logic by which Ben goes to ME to get off-world would perhaps also figure in the military thinking to specifically patrol ME looking to identify the next node in the droids' onward journey (and/or that of anyone the baton would be passed on to).
Some illogicality there, though clearly signposted by the needs of the plot if you give it just enough slack.
One wonders what would have happened (given the doomed status of the blockade runner and her crew, diplomatic mission or otherwise) had a version of the plans or a hint of their pre-deletion existence been left in the ship (somehow avoiding the automagical knowledge of whether the data had been copied, as it ought to have been, perhaps by copying from a prior system, re-copying to the droid, then destroying the journalised original system to obliterate signs of the second copy of data) to make everyone think that the data had been mysteriously caught prior to further propogation. The big answer to that is that if it were to have been found then Alderan would havd been implicated for sure and possibly been retaliated against by force. (Good job that didn't happen then, eh?) Maybe we can allow for Leia and anyone else in on the scheme wishing to maintain that sliver of Plausible Deniability, then. At least it left her alive long enough to be rescued.
ą Particularly strange, they weren't holding back from obliterating lifepods with life in them, forgoing the possibility of tracking to landing then capturing someone they could extort useful information from, yet they also forgo the possibility of shooting a pod no less likely to have data stored aboard (at the very least in floppy disk/USB drive/isolinear chip/whatever the SW universe uses, when asking a droid to remember the information and act as a sneakernet conduit is just too awkward) when it could at the very least have been opportunity for impromptu gunnery training without expending any significant amount of military materielle in taking the shot. They should maybe have tried the whole "shielded from sensors" thing, as per TLJ or some of the tricks OT Han had may have installed in the Falcon. Also, why not just tractor-beam every capsule back into the hanger?
Post by: Reelya on May 22, 2018, 09:59:26 pm
The rebels wanted the plans, while Vader wanted there to be no plans. e.g. blowing up anything that could have the plans makes sense, along with interrogating Leia with "what the hell happened to the plans?" just to cover their asses.
However, remember that Tarkin wasn't concerned about the plans, and apparently let the heroes escape so that they'd head to the rebel base. Tarkin probably could have ordered his men to nab the droids, but he didn't. Because the droids had the plans on them, and if the rebels lost the plans they might not head directly to rebel base. e.g. Darth Vader is all about "get me those plans, or destroy them" while Tarkin was more willing to risk the plans falling into rebel hands, if that could be used as bait.
Post by: smjjames on May 22, 2018, 11:14:48 pm
I'm actually talking about how Vader is at Tatooine in the original movie, then he's at the death star conference, but the heroes haven't actually left Tatooine at that point in the story.
My assumption was that he traveled there in his ship, which would mean that his personal star destroyer wasn't on blockade duty at Tatooine at the moment the Falcon takes off.
Where Rogue Ones comes in, is that Rogue One ends at the literal start of A New Hope. Not to give too much away.
I don’t remember at what point in the movie he showed up at the conference, but there’s at least a day, at minimum, of C3PO and R2D2 wandering around before getting captured by the jawas, an unknown amount of time riding the sandcrawler, and from there, at least two days before getting to Mos Eisley. So, with hyperdrive, plenty of time for him to get to the meeting. Doesn’t seem like any complex contortion needed to explain it away. Heck, a couple hours might be enough.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 22, 2018, 11:16:48 pm
Destroying any escape pods can be understood because the goals of the rebels and empire weren't symmetric.
The rebels wanted the plans, while Vader wanted there to be no plans. e.g. blowing up anything that could have the plans makes sense, along with interrogating Leia with "what the hell happened to the plans?" just to cover their asses.
However, remember that Tarkin wasn't concerned about the plans, and apparently let the heroes escape so that they'd head to the rebel base. Tarkin probably could have ordered his men to nab the droids, but he didn't. Because the droids had the plans on them, and if the rebels lost the plans they might not head directly to rebel base. e.g. Darth Vader is all about "get me those plans, or destroy them" while Tarkin was more willing to risk the plans falling into rebel hands, if that could be used as bait.
Tarkin: Master Baiter
Post by: Reelya on May 22, 2018, 11:21:55 pm
I don’t remember at what point in the movie he showed up at the conference, but there’s at least a day, at minimum, of C3PO and R2D2 wandering around before getting captured by the jawas, an unknown amount of time riding the sandcrawler, and from there, at least two days before getting to Mos Eisley. So, with hyperdrive, plenty of time for him to get to the meeting. Doesn’t seem like any complex contortion needed to explain it away. Heck, a couple hours might be enough.
That wasn't the point, the original question was whether he traveled in his star destroyer, or took a shuttle service.
But remember details such as: Luke and Obi-Wan have their "we have to get to Alderan" moment in Obi Wan's house, right before they cut to Tarkin ordering the Death Star to travel to Alderan. So Leia and Vader were already on the Death Star well before the heroes went to Mos Eisley.
EDIT:
I went and checked it out, there is an actual shot of a Star Destroyer approaching the Death Star, just after Obi Wan gives Luke the light saber. After that, Vader is on the Death Star. So I was correct, Vader did in fact travel to the Death Star in his Star Destroyer which was shown at the start of the movie, just to clear up that particular debate.
So a rough time line is that Vader captures Leia, can't find the plans, orders a ground troop detachment, then we see a shot of Vader's Star Destroyer moving away from the planet. The next time we see it, it's approaching the Death Star. So what this suggests is that Vader immediately left for the Death Star after ordering a ground troop detatchment to secure the contents of the escape pod. But remember, at that point in time, Vader only said the plans are in the pod. e.g. they had no reason to have a blockade, yet.
But hey, two nights are shown to pass between Vader leaving orbit around Tatooine and getting to the Death Star. And one night is shown passing between him ordering the pod retrieval and the troops finding droid parts. if additional Star Destroyers were ordered to Tatooine* to support the ground troops after the droid parts were found, they might have gotten there not long before the Falcon even took off. So there could definitely be a big gap in their air superiority coverage, going off what's shown in the film.
This is precluding two possibilities: (1) that there was a permanent detachment of Star Destroyers at Tatooine, which I find unlikely given Obi Wan's decision to choose that as a hiding spot, or (2) that there are additional, unseen, Star Destroyers traveling with Vader during his chase with Leia, and that he left three of them to merely pick up ground troops who'd been sent to secure the contents of any empty escape pod.
Post by: scriver on May 23, 2018, 04:09:45 am
Post by: Reelya on May 23, 2018, 05:10:59 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 23, 2018, 12:26:21 pm
The rebel intelligence network has been shown to be quite effective.
Post by: Madman198237 on May 23, 2018, 12:28:33 pm
One could also leave extra star destroyers in case the rebels showed up with a fleet after hearing that princess leia had been captured and/or the plans were not found with her.
The rebel intelligence network has been shown to be quite effective.
Well, when you have enough sacrificial Bothans, many things can be accomplished that some would consider unnatural.
Post by: Kagus on May 23, 2018, 01:55:06 pm
One could also leave extra star destroyers in case the rebels showed up with a fleet after hearing that princess leia had been captured and/or the plans were not found with her.
The rebel intelligence network has been shown to be quite effective.
Well, when you have enough sacrificial Bothans, many things can be accomplished that some would consider unnatural.
Indeed, the only reason the Bothan race still exists at all is because of a massive dark ritual that spilled catastrophic amounts of Bothan blood, but secured the survival of their species for eternity.
The cost, well... They became a race of sacrificial lambs, doomed to serve as offerings for the rest of time.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 23, 2018, 02:04:00 pm
One could also leave extra star destroyers in case the rebels showed up with a fleet after hearing that princess leia had been captured and/or the plans were not found with her.
The rebel intelligence network has been shown to be quite effective.
Well, when you have enough sacrificial Bothans, many things can be accomplished that some would consider unnatural.
Indeed, the only reason the Bothan race still exists at all is because of a massive dark ritual that spilled catastrophic amounts of Bothan blood, but secured the survival of their species for eternity.
The cost, well... They became a race of sacrificial lambs, doomed to serve as offerings for the rest of time.
(https://i.imgur.com/vJ5cjNS.jpg)
Post by: Reelya on May 23, 2018, 07:20:48 pm
One could also leave extra star destroyers in case the rebels showed up with a fleet after hearing that princess leia had been captured and/or the plans were not found with her.
Yeah, but Vader was only shown pursuing Leia with a single ship the whole time, across both movies where it's relevant. So, point being he's not shown to, nor is their dialogue suggesting, that he has extra ships that he's ordered to remain at Tatooine. All Vader says is "send a ground troop detachment to secure the pod" before his one ship scoots out of orbit.
While some other ships could have gotten there later, clearly they weren't there when Vader captured Leia. His ship was chasing hers, thus no time to travel in formation or anything. Her ship did manage to stay ahead of his for the entire trip from Scariff to Tatooine after all, meaning both ships were hitting the accelerator hard.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 25, 2018, 01:22:56 pm
EDIT:
Just spitballin', there's no scene to support. Just sayin' I think we can logic our way around it I think.
Post by: Starver on May 25, 2018, 03:11:21 pm
That "door in the planetary shield" thing (totally stolen from Spaceballs!) seems to indicate zero practical movement w.r.t. the planetary surface (and looks too close to be a FOOsynchronous point, but does somewhat depending on Planet FOO's own spin and day-length)....etc, I just saw this (https://youtu.be/VT8Lvzfz7iw) and pretty much think that it copies all my thoughts on the above subject, and the whole Space Bomber thing.
Post by: Reelya on May 27, 2018, 10:28:07 pm
The budget for Solo was $250 million and it pulled only $65 million in world-wide box office over the opening weekend. Compare that to TLJ which say a $220 million opening weekend, against a $217 million budget. Given the budget boost then this can't be hand-waved off as an off-season release.
According to a bunch of news articles:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/solo-star-wars-hero-feminist-gender-new-film-a8365446.html
Quote from: The Independent
Solo: A Star Wars Story shows us the hero all feminist men have been waiting for
Sounds great, all 4% of men in the UK who-self identify with the feminist label (from actual surveys) will be sure to see this movie. Nothing wrong with being feminist or self-identifying as that, but if only 4% of guys do then it seems kinda dumb that you market a $250 million dollar movie at specifically that segment. And that's not being judgemental. e.g. if only 4% like giant robot anime, then if you want to make a $250 million giant robot movie you need to add things that appeal to someone else rather than just giant robot anime nerds like me. This is the problem when any world view claims to be ascendent whether left or right. Culturally dominant ideologies (which means, people who work in the media all agree that it's the thing, while Average Joe might disagree) have a habit of deluding themselves that everyone is going along with the ideology. Which makes you do silly things such as spending $250 million on a movie and filling it with things that only appeal to a tiny sliver of latte-drinking bohemian "cool people" who have high-paying jobs in cosmopolitan inner city areas.
However, note that the articles about Solo's box office take (http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/box-office/star-wars-spinoff-solo-a-star-wars-story-sputters-on-takeoff-in-us/news-story/955a7bd7c43ede2eb6f5265085f75077), merely put the abysmal opening weekend down to "Star Wars Fatigue" as if three Star Wars movies was just too much for a publc who's lapped up like 20 Marvel movies over the past few years. e.g. nobody in the mainstream press is willing to suggest that the drop in ticket sales is due to people who didn't like the last movie sitting this one out.
Post by: smjjames on May 27, 2018, 10:52:09 pm
Post by: Reelya on May 27, 2018, 11:00:08 pm
e.g. the dominant media narrative is that everyone loved TLJ except for a tiny sliver of neo-fascist haters. e.g. if the "male feminist" Solo thing is real (and it seems real given how the article is saying it's a good thing), then this movie was their chance to prove that the haters really are just a tiny, loud and non-representative group. Obviously, if that was true then overtly doubling-down on feminist stuff in the movie shouldn't tank the box-office take, since there shouldn't be enough "haters" out there to tank the sales. But of course, if you were already wedded to the narrative that sidelined the haters as a tiny irrelevant minority, then you'd always find another reason to explain away why Solo ticket sales collapsed (confirmation bias, circular logic, etc).
Personally, my view is that people much easier get "issue fatigue" than franchise fatique. e.g. sure, I strongly support gay rights, but if every movie contained an overt sub-plot about gay oppression, no matter if it's a western, fantasy or sci-fi setting, even gay people would get sick of it, very quickly. e.g. just make an "issues movie" that's actually about that issue as the main plot, and leave "entertainment movies" alone. Don't try and force people to care about "issues" by shoe-horning issue sub-plots into each and every "entertainment movie". nobody wants that, even people who care strongly about those issues.
e.g. some creators see their movie-creating position as a pulpit to promote whatever specific pet issues the creators have. It doesn't matter how noble-minded your pulpit is, injecting moralizing into an unrelated work makes for poor entertainment, especially when it gets repetitive, and if you're part of a blanket movement to inject the same issues into every movie regardless of genre and setting, then people are just going to start tuning out those sources of entertainment completely. e.g. mass media is over. The people not going to see TLJ or Solo can in fact just play the new Doom game or some other non-"social issues" media. There are alternatives available when people decide that some franchise is just going to annoy the hell out of them rather than be a good time.
Post by: Harry Baldman on May 28, 2018, 12:03:04 am
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 01:08:48 am
Might also be because Solo's not very good. I've heard it compared to prequel movie from 2005 in overall quality? As fun as it is to blame feminism for literally everything, it wasn't what turned people off from TLJ and it's probably not what's happening here.
I'm not saying "feminism" is what actually turned people off either. e.g. Rogue One should have fallen under that, but did not.
my main point was that people who didn't like TLJ, for all reasons, are less likely to be going to see Solo. Because a lot of people do in fact feel like we're being told "if you didn't like TLJ you're a just a bad person, a far-right fascist or 'more accurately' a Neo Nazi". And why would I feel like I'm being told that? Because of actual wide-spread articles making that claim. Well, fuck you, media, if you're calling me a Nazi for not liking some particular corporate product that I spent money on why on Earth would I go buy more of that product? Why? So you can call me a Nazi again if it so happens that the new version of the product is still not to my liking? I have the cash here that I could use to go see Solo, and if it weren't for how offended I felt by not being "allowed" to dislike the last movie, I'd probably go give this one the benefit of the doubt.
However, articles like the Independent lauding Solo as a "male feminist" movie don't help. Those ones are actually buying into the "feminist Star Wars" thing. Because like I said "male feminist" is 4% of the male population of the UK, so it's not exactly promising that someone said that was the "selling point" for this movie. It's akin to saying something is a "Christian values" movie. Sure, many movies are compatible with "Christian values" but actually labeling it as such or making a movie that's overtly that are going to put off many prospective viewers. And that doesn't mean those people are "evil" or against Christian values or any of that. Pushing something as "Feminist Sci-Fi" is going to have similar effects to telling people it has "Christian Values". it's the perception that you're about to get preached at.
However, TLJ had the whole PETA/animal rights thing - e.g. they let specially-bred racing animals loose - which would be highly irresponsible / criminal stuff to do in real life. And it had the whole "occupy wall street" sort of thing in the casino arc. So it's definitely not a given that Solo won't cram in a whole #MeToo related subplot or something else similarly jarring and topical.
Post by: Jopax on May 28, 2018, 03:01:08 am
TLJ on the other hand was so hamfisted and dumb about pushing these issues that it was offputting. You could have an animal rights talk in a SW setting (because it's so large and diverse that there's plenty of places/races/plots to pick and choose from) and it could be a good movie that doesn't piss people off. Or you could cram in a pointless 30 minute segment about it with zero consequence or relevance to the rest of the movie and just have a character explain the stance the movie has about it in the dumbest and laziest way possible. And this was true for almost every other issue the movie had opinions about.
As Reelya put it, people usually dislike getting ideology pushed at them so blatantly, even if they might support it to a certain extent themselves something like that can just drive them away, especially if there's a media frenzy about it afterwards that calls them bad people.
As for Solo, it could be a brilliant movie, I have no diea, but TLJ killed any and all interest I had in future SW anything, it was that offputting and irritating that I just don't want to bother with SW anymore, don't think that's ever happened to me before when it comes to a franchise, so it has that going for it atleast :V
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 28, 2018, 04:18:35 am
But some comments:
- movies have always pandered to fashionable issues.
- big authors/franchises always get better critics all things being the same. I think it's a form of nostalgia.
- movie directors have always made all sort of excuses to justify their flops
What is kind of new (but not absolutely new. Makers of Christian movies have been using this excuse for a while: see Kevin Sorbo) is actually blaming it on the audience's politics. "My movie didnt fail because it's a flop! It failed because it's actually about -X- and it makes the audience uncomfortable!" Is the new "People are not ready for my art!".
I think it probably does not have a direct impact on movie attendance. I may or may not go watch Solo (being in exile makes going to the cinema less likely by default. I dont really know anyone and I dont like going to the cinema alone). I will probably watch Star wars 9, despite the lameness of star wars 8, if only to see how they attempt to solve the plot
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 04:22:23 am
There was a lot of hype for how well it would do, but one youtube video points out that many news articles were saying that the movie's predicted performance compared positively to pre-release polling figures for a number of other popular movies, but 100% of the cited comparison films were also Disney movies, suggesting that it's Disney themselves provided the polling figures and planting the stories throughout the media.
Current figures are that Solo made $148 million in the weekend, with $84 million of that being domestic and $65 million rest international. However, compare to TLJ, which made $230 million domestically, and $712 million internationally. e.g. it's about 1/3rd as popular with Americans as TLJ, but only 1/11th as popular with international audiences. There's the real kicker: it's broken the general trend of worldwide take being greater than US take, with international audiences falling off 4 times faster than domestic ones compared to the last Star Wars movie.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 28, 2018, 06:13:27 am
Or it might just be that the whole movie has been a trainwreck from beginning to end. Sometimes it happens. Waterworld was nowhere as bad as it was made out to be (Push comes to shove it was a mad max clone of average quality) but it wrecked
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 06:24:38 am
English-language news and delays are unlikely to be causing that, since foreign markets, especially China, can't really be explained since they're much less likely to follow the details of pre-production. Basically, only a relatively small fragment of total nerds even track these things in pre-production. I certainly didn't follow any of the Solo-related pre-production news and I'm fairly nerdy myself. I mean, which sites even give you news about that stuff? And how many people actually read those sites to know or care? Mabe Kotaku readers or some other fringe minority knew about the delays, but certainly not the general public.
So I really think that can't explain this. Most people don't care, don't know, until the movie is out. The proportion who actually give a shit about pre-prod details is a miniscule proportion of the market for these things.
Post by: Kagus on May 28, 2018, 06:34:23 am
I mean, I love griping about neofems as much as anyone else, but I think things get blown out of proportion a lot as well.
Hell, I legitimately didn't notice anything disjointed about TLJ's dances-with-kangarabbits segment, despite that apparently being a major point of contention. Then again, my brain had mostly turned itself off by that point anyways, so maybe not the best metric...
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 06:36:54 am
Quote
neofems
Who even mentioned that? What I said, personally, was that the TLJ shit caused people to stay away from the new one. You have the example of me and of Jopax as two people who say that's the specific reason we aren't going to see this new movie. That's a minimum of two guaranteed tickets sales they lost, for that single stated reason, out of a sample size of just people who've read this thread in the last day.
What's in the new movie is entirely irrelevant to that.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 28, 2018, 07:00:41 am
But did the movie get as much international support (language/advertising/distribution) as TLJ? I think it pretty much just flew under the radar for a lot of people.I didn´t know it was out. I don´t know if at this point I rate as "international" given that for the most part I work (albeit in a fairly private manner) in a (mostly) English speaking country. But I came home for the weekend and I hadn´t heard anything about Solo here either. Whereas during TLJ in both Ireland and Spain you could see merchandising and adverts in media, supermarkets, and social networks.
Post by: Jopax on May 28, 2018, 07:16:04 am
Also, another thing to consider here is the competition. TLJ came out around christmas time and iirc the only kinda big movie that would be comparable was Jumanji 2? (great fun that one, a positive suprise when it comes to reboots). While right now you have both the Avengers and Deadpool 2, each kicking ass and taking names both critically and financially, and personally I'd rather go rewatch either of those than go see Solo, because I know I'll enjoy them just as much as the first time, whereas Solo might turn out to be a slog and a waste of both time and money.
Post by: scriver on May 28, 2018, 10:26:11 am
Only adds I've seen for it is a lacklustre tv commercial. And by lacklustre I mean "this is not a good trailer".
I have also not felt a single bit of excitement on the internet for a movie about Han Solo. Most of any excitement has been for Community-guy playing Lando. I think the studio gravely overestimated the amount of want there was for a movie about Han.
Post by: Kagus on May 28, 2018, 10:44:17 am
I think the studio gravely overestimated the amount of want there was for a movie about Han.This is probably the major thing... The whole movie stinks of cash-in from a mile off, and I think even the hardest-dying fans picked up on that. This wasn't "Disney does Rogue One", this was "Horse (deceased) viciously assaulted by studio executives".
Who even mentioned that?I thought you did?
e.g. the dominant media narrative is that everyone loved TLJ except for a tiny sliver of neo-fascist haters. e.g. if the "male feminist" Solo thing is real (and it seems real given how the article is saying it's a good thing), then this movie was their chance to prove that the haters really are just a tiny, loud and non-representative group. Obviously, if that was true then overtly doubling-down on feminist stuff in the movie shouldn't tank the box-office take, since there shouldn't be enough "haters" out there to tank the sales. But of course, if you were already wedded to the narrative that sidelined the haters as a tiny irrelevant minority, then you'd always find another reason to explain away why Solo ticket sales collapsed (confirmation bias, circular logic, etc).Unless you're just saying that neofeminists aren't to blame for anything, but that (as an aside) they would probably interpret this and this as such and such and react accordingly. Just as a fun fact, since it doesn't tie in to responsibility for either the film's make or its reception.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on May 28, 2018, 10:50:10 am
Solo didn't get seen because it's a disastrously produced, horribly advertised, inexplicably cast Extruded Star Wars Product that nobody asked for, just like The Force Awakens was. Big scary feminism has no relation.
Post by: Wolfhunter107 on May 28, 2018, 11:00:31 am
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 11:02:21 am
e.g. if you dismiss the backlash as just a tiny minority then you won't do anything to win back that audience segment, because you consider them too minor to matter. e.g. labeling those who dislike the movies as mere "Nazis" and "Trolls" absolves you of working out whether their criticism are relevant, and you then look at the praise for whichever themes the non-haters liked best. e.g. if you convince yourself that those with criticisms don't matter, focus on only the people who liked it then ask "what did you like most about it?" you're inclined to double-down on whatever that was, despite it being far from certain that this will net you more viewers or make things more "inclusive". e.g. only adding more of the things liked by those who like something most tends to make things more niche not have broader appeal. It's a type of confirmation bias. e.g. it's a way of only pandering to the current hardcore fans, whoever they might be.
And I was basing the rest, e.g. assumptions about what the new movie has in it, on stuff like this:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/solo-star-wars-hero-feminist-gender-new-film-a8365446.html
Quote
Solo: A Star Wars Story shows us the hero all feminist men have been waiting for
...
Were Kylo Ren real and alive today, you strongly suspect he would be one of those enraged, hysterical followers of Jordan Peterson's morose YouTube ramblings
e.g. it's not us making the broader Star Wars narrative to be all about SJW stuff. e.g. making out that anyone not 100% on board with sjws are the "evil" side from Star Wars. And clearly, this guy is also implying that anyone not on board with the movie is in league with that same "dark side".
And then you have stuff like this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/the-soul-of-solo-is-a-droid/560969/
Quote
L3-37, voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is no go-along, get-along machine. She’s a robot revolutionary, demanding equal rights and sowing dissent among servants. You might call her Star Wars’ first woke bot.
Yay, fembot liberation. I mean, i assume the movie itself isn't really all about that, but these sorts of articles are trying to pitch the movie as being exactly that: social justice "brand" sci-fi, and making out that if you're not down with their politics, they don't want you watching the movie with them. Even if the creators weren't buying into it, these sorts of voices are definitely trying to steer the series to conform with their own personal politics, saying you're evil/twisted if you don't go along with it.
Post by: Frumple on May 28, 2018, 11:09:09 am
Solo didn't get seen because it's a disastrously produced, horribly advertised, inexplicably cast Extruded Star Wars Product that nobody asked for, just like The Force Awakens was.Y'know, I haven't really felt like checking, but is this solo thing actually related in any way to the EU pre-movies solo trilogy books? Lando had something similar, and I vaguely remember one or both being kinda' neat.
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 11:14:10 am
Post by: Mephansteras on May 28, 2018, 11:30:01 am
Maybe that's a lot of it. 'Young [character]' movies/tv series just have never interested me at all. Just something about most attempts to go 'This is totally like that same actor playing this character, we swear! ' that turns me off.
Though the guy they have playing Lando does sell it, at least in the trailers. I might have been hyped to see a 'Lando' movie, but that's hard to know for sure.
But I'm open to watching Solo if it turns out that is is good.
Post by: Sirus on May 28, 2018, 12:00:55 pm
Probably doesn't help that I've seen all of a single trailer for it. I didn't even know it had been released until this thread started going crazy.
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 12:05:04 pm
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on May 28, 2018, 12:08:01 pm
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 12:10:37 pm
Have a Young Leia movie and an Obi Wan movie to tide you over. Hell, let's pick some anti-heroes and they get their own movies. The Boba Fett movie.
Post by: Harry Baldman on May 28, 2018, 12:14:10 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on May 28, 2018, 12:17:29 pm
Here's what they'll do: Episode IX will end with the baddies winning and creating the New Empire. Stay tuned for episodes X - XII to see what happens next, kids.You 're wrong. They are going for some lame gray jedi and gray shit thing in order to provide a setting for a future MMORPG
Have a Young Leia movie and an Obi Wan movie to tide you over. Hell, let's pick some anti-heroes and they get their own movies. The Boba Fett movie.
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 12:19:43 pm
Make a Sand People-centric film where one of them finds that Sith Holocron mentioned previously and starts a glorious rebellion to overthrow the colonizers who came down from the sky. Get wild with it!
Dialogue
"Oor Oor Oor"
"Oor Oor Oor, Ooooor!"
Post by: Reelya on May 28, 2018, 12:26:10 pm
Here's what they'll do: Episode IX will end with the baddies winning and creating the New Empire. Stay tuned for episodes X - XII to see what happens next, kids.You 're wrong. They are going for some lame gray jedi and gray shit thing in order to provide a setting for a future MMORPG
Have a Young Leia movie and an Obi Wan movie to tide you over. Hell, let's pick some anti-heroes and they get their own movies. The Boba Fett movie.
If they go for "Grey Jedi" then it's kinda obvious then that it will be Rei and Kylo then "going grey", at a guess. And if you're right about an MMO then takes the place of the strictly "movie" set of sequels I was thinking of. I guess the reason they like that is that an MMO can milk you for money constantly instead of once per year.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 28, 2018, 12:29:03 pm
Make a Sand People-centric film where one of them finds that Sith Holocron mentioned previously and starts a glorious rebellion to overthrow the colonizers who came down from the sky. Get wild with it!
Dialogue
"Oor Oor Oor"
"Oor Oor Oor, Ooooor!"
"Lord Sandybottom, can you hear me"
"Ooor Oor Oor Oooor?"
"It seems in your anger, you killed her"
"OOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"
(https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Darth-Vader-Revenge-of-the-Sith-Featured-06082017.jpg)
Post by: Criptfeind on May 28, 2018, 12:42:20 pm
"Set in the X universe". Yeah, i'm not really convinced that it's necessary, and that's not a Star Wars specific thing. Just make a new setting for something like that, unless the story concept is something that absolutely can't be done without attaching it to the franchise. e.g. the more stuff that could be standalone that actually is standalone, the more things have to stand on their own two legs rather than be an extra "thing" you need to see just because it's attached to a specific franchise. There's too much out there already without them attaching extraneous story stuff to everything else.
I actually kinda disagree. If you're making a story set in a sorta generic setting I think it's more valuable to put it in an already established setting where you can get past all the not really important explanations right away. So long as the setting works with what you want to happen at least. I don't think there's value in reinventing the basics that settings have over and over again unless you're going to put the effort in to make those basics different and interesting, which I don't think every story needs to do to be a good story. Putting your story in starwars lets you get right past all the tedious questions/answers like "oh, so they have drones and wookies and mandalorians".
I also think the end result of this type of adding of stories is eventually a richer more interesting world that's actually interesting rather then a hundred different forgettable generic settings. The lots of little interesting bits from each individual story add up to a setting with a whole that's greater then it's parts. Although I could see someone not caring about that sorta thing, if they aren't the person to be interested in settings.
Post by: Bumber on May 28, 2018, 12:48:55 pm
50 Shades of Grey JediHere's what they'll do: Episode IX will end with the baddies winning and creating the New Empire. Stay tuned for episodes X - XII to see what happens next, kids.You 're wrong. They are going for some lame gray jedi and gray shit thing in order to provide a setting for a future MMORPG
Have a Young Leia movie and an Obi Wan movie to tide you over. Hell, let's pick some anti-heroes and they get their own movies. The Boba Fett movie.
If they go for "Grey Jedi" then it's kinda obvious then that it will be Rei and Kylo then "going grey", at a guess. And if you're right about an MMO then takes the place of the strictly "movie" set of sequels I was thinking of. I guess the reason they like that is that an MMO can milk you for money constantly instead of once per year.
Post by: Harry Baldman on May 28, 2018, 12:54:06 pm
Dialogue
"Oor Oor Oor"
"Oor Oor Oor, Ooooor!"
No, no, the Sand People sound fine in this hypothetical film and are perfectly understandable. It's the humans in Mos Eisley or whatever who communicate in unintelligible roaring instead while putting on bewildering expressions.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 28, 2018, 01:05:22 pm
Dialogue
"Oor Oor Oor"
"Oor Oor Oor, Ooooor!"
No, no, the Sand People sound fine in this hypothetical film and are perfectly understandable. It's the humans in Mos Eisley or whatever who communicate in unintelligible roaring instead while putting on bewildering expressions.
That's actually way better.
Be sure to give the Sand People posh accents and perfect enunciation.
Post by: hector13 on May 28, 2018, 01:41:08 pm
I know nothing about it, except (probable) “Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs” clarification, Woody Harrelson is in it, Emelia Clark is in it, and people seemed upset about Donald Glover, maybe?
I expect to be fed afterward.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 28, 2018, 01:47:23 pm
I read the old Han Solo prequel book trilogy wayyyyyy back when, and I enjoyed that, and I don't want to be able to make any comparisons because it was so long ago that I forget most of it.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 28, 2018, 02:04:24 pm
Post by: hector13 on May 28, 2018, 02:49:23 pm
Probably a different book.
Maybe it resolves what he did to Lando to make him upset at him in Empire.
Post by: scriver on May 28, 2018, 03:25:25 pm
and people seemed upset about Donald Glover, maybe?
What? I've seen nothing but praise over the casting of him as Lando.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on May 28, 2018, 03:29:40 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on May 28, 2018, 04:11:43 pm
It resolves what he meant by "under 12 parsecs", unless that's a different book.Pretty sure it's stated in Empire that Lando is pissed because Han stole his ship.
Probably a different book.
Maybe it resolves what he did to Lando to make him upset at him in Empire.
Post by: scriver on May 28, 2018, 04:23:50 pm
Post by: hector13 on May 28, 2018, 08:31:27 pm
Also, not entirely sure how it’s a feminist movie.
Donald Glover’s Billy Dee Williams impression drops off a few times.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 28, 2018, 08:40:02 pm
Post by: IcyTea31 on May 29, 2018, 01:03:53 am
I saw it. It was alright. --Pretty much my thoughts. The storyline with L3 and her droid liberation was pretty much pointless pandering, but luckily didn't get in the way of the actually pretty decent and intriguing heist storyline. It wasn't a great movie, but it was alright and had some nice action.
Also, not entirely sure how it’s a feminist movie.
Post by: Reelya on May 29, 2018, 02:17:43 am
The main problem with throwaway "justice" side-plots or adding things like that in a prequel is that you're constrained by the fact that it's never again referenced in the main story. e.g. if there's some "droid liberation" class warfare thing in Solo, then it's pretty clear that it failed to grain traction due to not being a thing in any of episodes IV to VIII. So while that one movie might have that narrative, the implications are that it's going exactly nowhere and was ultimately futile. There's also the problem that droids are tools created used and owned by people. If sentient droids have equal rights, people stop buying sentient droids at all, meaning no more droids at all. Imagine if refrigerators became sentient then demand equal rights to the humans in the house.
Also, the "letting the racing animals run free" thing is a token gesture at best, since the high-tech owners will chased down and perhaps shoot the poor animals now. e.g. it's like busting open a racing stable and giving the horses a whack so they run out, and saying "you're free! you're free!" then getting the hell out of there and going on with your life, after high-fiving your accomplices. feral race horses aren't native to the environment and will bust up the soil with their heavy hooves, while living short disease-ridden lives.
Post by: Putnam on May 29, 2018, 03:34:13 am
Post by: Reelya on May 29, 2018, 03:36:44 am
It's not like TLJ came out then I suddenly *decided* to look for feminist star wars articles, because that wouldn't have occurred to me as a thing to even think about, before it happened. I noticed, basically because when TLJ came out the story was everywhere, complete media saturation. And I'm not someone who actually reads that many "geek" journals or anything. Just news.com.au for mainstream news and slashdot to skim over some tech news, that's basically it. So it's not like I delved deep looking for SJW - Star Wars related links, myself. Basically all the links I provided were a couple of basic google searches then picking from at most the first 2-3 links on the first page of results. e.g. if you google "alt right star wars" there are countless pages of articles across both mainstream newspapers and online journals all saying the exact same thing. Of course, if the fans of the movie are portraying haters as all alt-right neo-nazis then the assumption has to be made that haters are all against specific things in the movie e.g. it's too "progressive" or some bullshit like that, rather than focusing on what actual criticisms exist. Point is: the movie isn't really all that "progressive" anyway, but the media wanted to make it out that that was the sticking point, as a means of defaming the haters and sidelining legitimate criticism.
The point being, a lot of people out there were trying to drag politics into the discussion surrounding the movie. It seemed to be legit to bring that up as a discussion point, here, because that's an important part of how the fandom itself is going to be shaped in the future. The point of noting mainstream sources trying to do the same labeling with Solo is that they're doing it as an echo of the social commentary that surrounded TLJ, basically trying to glue their politics to the franchise (with some pretty tenuous logic), but they're also trying to shape the discussion into one about who's "worthy" to be a fan. e.g. note how they guy in the UK paper The Independent (a mainsteam publication, which makes it more relevant) tries to suggest that non-sjws are in fact Sith.
Post by: Madman198237 on May 29, 2018, 02:39:48 pm
The parsec is a unit of astronomical distance (several light-years long, in fact), and Han took a bunch of risks and close shaves with stars and the Maw (a giant cluster of black holes) to make it happen, compared to the safer routes that are longer (and thus slower).
And no matter what Disney says in Solo (I'll see it soon, probably), that is the story, and I'm sticking to it :P
Post by: Egan_BW on May 29, 2018, 02:42:10 pm
Post by: Madman198237 on May 29, 2018, 02:43:16 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on May 29, 2018, 02:44:35 pm
I mean, I'm sure he didn't, but the story explained in some of the EU books is actually fairly reasonable and interesting, hence why I'm sticking with it.
+1
Post by: Egan_BW on May 29, 2018, 02:45:55 pm
Post by: Madman198237 on May 29, 2018, 02:48:09 pm
Post by: Max™ on May 30, 2018, 12:34:45 am
Mario Van Peebles is the man goddammit!
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on May 30, 2018, 11:20:48 pm
The real story is that Lukas doesn't understand parsecs, but okay.
Nah, in the script it was originally noted that Han was trying to test to see how much he could con them, and Alec Guinness was supposed to give a tell that he knew it was false information. That proved to not be obvious enough, and it was taken literally.
Post by: Reelya on May 30, 2018, 11:52:34 pm
However, the first published script for the movie, from 1979 says "parsecs" but immediately says "Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation". There's some dispute about whether that was actually in the shooting scripts, which have leaked since, dated 1976, however the original scripts were heavily marked with penciled-in direction and stuff since they were constantly being rejiggered and stuff, so it's perfectly possible some additional direction was penciled-into the early typed scripts, and only for the relevant person, Alec Guinness. Remember this was before word processing was a thing, so you just manually penciled notes in.
However, you can check for yourself with the actual footage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjYuw6zWk_Y) showing Obi-Wans reaction to the claim. It's about 15-20 second in here, so just go from the top. Notice that after Solo's claim, Obi Wans eyes widen for a split second then he does a little sudden squint, like he's mulled over what was said and immediately going "hang on, wtf does that even mean?"
However, this is still compatible with the later "parsecs measures how short the run was" idea, though Obi Wan's doubting reaction can still work with that. Han could have meant that he shaved distance off the route, meaning he's a good pilot who'll get you there quicker, while Obi Wan didn't know what he meant, so is like "is this guy for real?" The fact that Obi Wan still went with Han Solo however, even with the possibly false bragging, is that he could sense Han Solo was a good guy.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 01, 2018, 10:10:17 am
More notes:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Reelya on June 01, 2018, 10:13:14 am
Saw Solo last night. *AGH* Mixed feelings ahoy. Y'all overreacting on the liberation "subplot", subplot is a pretty gratuitous label for it. I was cringing because I was expecting something more, but honestly, it was all fairly inconsequential.
To put it in perspective, I haven't seen the movie either. I'm not talking about the movie, I was talking about the media narrative about the movie, and that's the one thing I saw mentioned the most. What's actually in the movie isn't relevant: the media spin is it's own story. The point is that you were "expecting something more" and that that was what affected how you approached the work.
e.g. from all that I know, and i've skipped reading most of your post to avoid spoilers since I might watch it on TV one day, is that it's all about sexy black pansexual dudes, and feminist liberation class warfare bots.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 01, 2018, 10:15:47 am
lol, did anyone even mention that in this thread??? Or am I just going crazy? Maybe I'm getting the streams crossed with the Westworld discussion thread.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 01, 2018, 10:20:57 am
e.g. from all that I know, and i've skipped reading most of your post to avoid spoilers since I might watch it on TV one day, is that it's all about sexy black pansexual dudes, and feminist liberation class warfare bots.
Um ya, the whole "Lando is pan" comment is a bit overblown. It's just kind of a comedic romance. Feminist liberation class warfare bot pretty perfectly describes L3, she's also a pretty good pilot and nav computer. I don't think I really spoiled anything??? I will recheck what I wrote.
EDIT: will spoil for posterity.
Post by: Kagus on June 01, 2018, 11:12:21 am
And Paul Bettany is always underutilized.
Um ya, the whole "Lando is pan" comment is a bit overblown.
They should've gone for Solo being pan... Then they could've had a little Hanky Panky.
Post by: Reelya on June 01, 2018, 11:19:47 am
Post by: Reelya on June 02, 2018, 08:59:37 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS8qZkhOAoY
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 09, 2018, 06:24:26 pm
So this happened. *sigh* Honestly, it's pretty terrible, and the second(?) time after Daisy Ridley's harassment. Unfortunately, in addition to being well, abusive, the abuse has apparently been both sexist and racist. Amongst people I normally talk with, this has pretty much precluded any criticism of Rose and TLJ in general. But now that this has happened, I think it's time more than ever to unpack Rose.
Personally, I've always just thought she was Rian Johnson's self-insert fan fiction. Small impact on 99% of the story. Blatant hero worship of Finn. Really all-over-the-place personality, going from about to tase Finn for deserting to freeing a bunch of space horses mid-mission because that's the "real victory"tm. And finally, she gets to save Finn's life by... fucking up his whole mission in a really pointless and overdramatic way?
Am I wrong? These are quantifiable problems with Rose, the character, even outside of the general malaise that is TLJ. What's worse is that, now that Marvel and Star Wars have a TON of films, it's pretty obvious that Disney just inserts a throwaway minority and/or LGBT character in each movie to appeal to the masses. Which would be fine if those characters were at least nominally important to the movie. But they're just that, single shot throwaway characters that have no character development and don't actually have any non-reactionary involvement in the plot.
IDK. What do you guys think?
Post by: Dunamisdeos on June 09, 2018, 06:37:24 pm
I disliked almost every single scene they wrote her into. Not because of her performance, but because of... all the reasons you listed, actually.
Quote
And finally, she gets to save Finn's life by... fucking up his whole mission in a really pointless and overdramatic way?This was the only time in my life I almost impulsively yelled at a movie screen in a theater filled with people.
Post by: Reelya on June 09, 2018, 06:39:46 pm
It's really sucky that idiots use social media in that way to target the people just trying to do their job and get a start in the industry. If they have to mouth off, go bombard the executives over at Disney, and the ones Disney imposed on Lucasfilm, and the director of the movie. Don't attack a small cog in the machine.
Personally, I think they introduced her too late into the movie, then she was heavily associated with the awful atrocity which was Canto Bight. So it felt like she was just being shoehorned in for no real reason. Compare to Lando, another late-introduced minority character in Empire. Him appearing when he did made sense, since Han was going to the place he was. Rose just sort of gets thrust into the story from nowhere, with what is effectively nothing but a massive coincidence.
Another part of the problem is that she just gets glomped on Finn, and Finn has the weakest arc of any of the three main characters in the movie, then Rose just gets shoved in for no real reason so he can have a sidekick. It's really pushing the limits of disbelief the way they somehow survive being on the ship that gets hyperspace-rammed by Purple Hair lady and manage to get back to the Rebel ship.
Her being Finn's last-minute secret friend who just happens to turn up when he's about to go off on a secret mission is way too ridiculous and convenient. She would have been better off if she'd been introduced as a ship technician early in the movie who knew Poe, and perhaps could have been introduced working on Poe's fighter. Since we knew fuck-all about Poe, him knowing some more people and having introduced Finn to Rose would have made more sense for how Rose and Finn met.
Post by: Egan_BW on June 09, 2018, 06:54:17 pm
...Lots of old revered RPG computer games I've never played. Oh well~
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on June 09, 2018, 06:59:32 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 09, 2018, 07:07:57 pm
@Ispil, y'know... that might be a real good baseline from which most of TLJ's problem flow.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on June 09, 2018, 07:08:33 pm
Also, some of the explanations are really jarring. Eg: I was told at one point (when I remarked that neither Kylo Ren nor the other guy are credible villains) that I was not "getting it" because they're supposed to be "like children! They are maturing and learning!" (... to be... galactic warlords ??? ). I don't get how this fix things. Part of the reason they lack credibility is precisely that they behave like spoiled rebellious teens. Telling me it was delliberate makes it worse, if anything.
And mind you, I find the lack of a credible villain far more jarring that Rey's marysueness (which isn't all that evident because none of the characters are particularily well written, IMO)
The overall impression is that the old stars show up almost as "stretch goal easter eggs" and disappear just as quickly... and that the new characters overall are not particularily well written. There is some attempt to address issues, but at times it sacrifices story for the sake of preaching, and other times you don't actually get even what they're trying to get at (arms dealer scene anyone?)
Post by: Egan_BW on June 09, 2018, 07:26:19 pm
You can say it's not well done, you can say it's done in a way that makes no sense, you can even say that it's done with the purpose of cynical mass-appeal, but it's not "fake" subversive.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on June 09, 2018, 07:39:17 pm
It's like with ASOIF and GRRM's supposed willingness to kill main characters, when in actuality he's fairly tame: he kills off one or two main ones early, and spends the rest of the novels living off that early reputation. I think fake deaths and resurrections outnumber real main character deaths by now.
Post by: hector13 on June 09, 2018, 07:49:43 pm
Finn and Rose are both entirely pointless characters. I share Dunamisdeos' reaction to Rose saving Finn, because it took away the logical end to Finn's story because he doesn't actually do anything in TLJ, just kinda... mills about. First going after Rey because he can't do anything on his own, then with Rose and Poe trying to figure out how to save the fleet. Equally so, the whole Phasma side thing fell completely flat because there was no real build-up between she and Finn for the whole "brainwashed soldier overcoming former master" nonsense, nor was it a particularly interesting fight scene.
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on June 09, 2018, 08:25:34 pm
The reason the Sith are such bitches is that their ideology is as self-defeating as that of the Republic-era Jedi. The Rule of Two was meant to bring the Sith stability, but in the end it just limited their ability to grow and inevitably dead-ended in the Rule of One, which is why there are no more Sith except for p-zombie holocrons buried around the galaxy. Ultimately, the problem is that it doesn't really make any sense to use the Force to fulfill your desires. The dark side corrupts you so thoroughly you can't fulfill whatever it is you wanted in the first place, and you sit around waiting to be overthrown, just like the fucking Jedi. Going dark for something is always pointless. What Kylo Ren succeeds at in spite of everything else (and there is a lot of else about Space Nazi Boyfriend) is choosing the dark for the dark's own sake. He doesn't want to rule an empire. He doesn't want to save some girl. He's just doing what comes, and in that anti-enlightenment cannot be nullified like Sith are. The heart of darkness says kill, he kills. He meets Rey, she seems interesting, fuck it, he'll kill Snoke and roll with her. Except she doesn't want to, so fuck her too, he'll kill them all. He spends exactly zero time caring that the First Order just lost a spaceship the size of Rhode Island, kill the fucking rebels already Hux.
Kylo Ren is the inverse character of Luke. Where Luke found the way to volition within the stagnating influence of the light side that consumed the Jedi, he found the way to employ the dark by wanting for nothing and so being immune to the obsessions the dark side provokes. It's great.
And all Disney has to do is not fuck it up, which they will.
As for Rose keeping Finn from sweet death, I think what they were trying to go for was "lives aren't currency to be traded in war, that's how you become as bad as the Empire/Order, only the idealistic virtues of the rebellion set us apart" and just did a bunch of ketamine while writing that part of the story.
Post by: Egan_BW on June 09, 2018, 08:54:33 pm
He meets Rey, she seems interesting, fuck it,Dark side's all 'bout passion, so yes that might have had something to do with it.
Post by: hector13 on June 09, 2018, 09:01:27 pm
Perhaps that’s the point though, though I’m a bit too distracted to analyze this properly. Basically my thought is the whole subversion thing they’re doing is to set itself apart from the old movies, it just kinda hasn’t worked yet because there isn’t the third movie to go “aha, see! Told you we’re different!” to show that.
Or they just took it too far and forgot they had a movie to end so ended the middle movie the same way Empire ended with a cliffhanger.
Or subverted so hard they subverted their own “call you need is hope” message by ending in an apparently hopeless situation.
Post by: Reelya on June 10, 2018, 06:43:51 am
What I mean with "fake subversive" is that I didn't really find it to be subversive at all. There's this atmosphere about how it breaks with the mold, and tradition, and all that... when it's actually pretty tame and you can see most things coming from a mile away.
I agree here.
Consider another term "inclusive". Saying that anything that attempts to be subversive must be subversive because it "subverts" is not far off saying that the one token female or black character in the team is "inclusive", because it "includes".
Things can "include" in ways that are cynical with paper-thin rationales that backfire and fail to be "inclusive". And I'm thinking similarly shoddy subversion could work the same way.
EDIT: Also a complete aside I note articles saying Ocean's 8 is a hit where Solo was a flop, except the only way that works is that Ocean's 8 was much cheaper to make. Many more people went to see Solo. Ocean's 8 opening weekend was even less than the much-derided Ghostbusters reboot ... but since it is a lot cheaper it will make more profit. Articles are saying Hollywood is getting the message that female-lead reboots work, except the actual message here is that lower budget female-led reboots are working (in the sense of not losing money), as long as you have the entire thing revolve around New York high fashion and girl's talk. In other words, if you turn everything into Sex And The City then budgets are nice and low and women go and see it. This ... isn't exactly a revelation, and it's not the feminist statement they're looking for.
Post by: Cthulhu on June 10, 2018, 12:28:14 pm
I haven't seen the last jedi or rogue one, but rogue one looked terrible and I find it weird that people think of it as a side story when the only reason it works as a movie at all is the ties to star wars. Like Solo would've worked as a non-star wars movie, just a sci-fi heist movie, but without star wars rogue one is just a generic action movie where everybody dies to get some plans(?!) for some thing.
Post by: Jopax on June 10, 2018, 01:37:23 pm
Both films lean heavily on the franchise to be interesting and workable in large part, which is kind of the whole point of having a franchise, that it does a lot of heavy lifting and worldbuilding for you once you have it in place. The thing with Rogue One is that it's a pretty fun and overall decent action movie without much fucking about with messages and plot twists and forced social issues. And I'm not saying that a SW movie can't have all that fucking about, but so far, they've had a rather shit track record when it came to it.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on June 11, 2018, 08:51:38 am
What I mean with "fake subversive" is that I didn't really find it to be subversive at all. There's this atmosphere about how it breaks with the mold, and tradition, and all that... when it's actually pretty tame and you can see most things coming from a mile away.
I agree here.
Consider another term "inclusive". Saying that anything that attempts to be subversive must be subversive because it "subverts" is not far off saying that the one token female or black character in the team is "inclusive", because it "includes".
Things can "include" in ways that are cynical with paper-thin rationales that backfire and fail to be "inclusive". And I'm thinking similarly shoddy subversion could work the same way.
Im pretty sure TLJ just failed at its genuine attempt to subvert expectations because it was too telegraphed, everyone is overthinking it in my opinions
Post by: Dunamisdeos on June 11, 2018, 02:35:43 pm
I think I can sum up my own dislikes with TLJ with it's overall message that the end results don't matter so long as you serve your own feeling of self-righteousness. You can sacrifice or trample down anything whatsoever, including others' lifelong causes, their sincere beliefs, their actual life, anything so long as it makes you feel right. If you see someone who is following this way of thinking, it is your responsibility to make sacrifices so that they succeed, because they are heroes.
Poe was literally responsible for scores, maybe hundreds of utterly needless deaths during that movie, but he was doing things his way (he's so bold and fearless, you guys) and that means there shouldn't be consequences. His sole reaction to realizing he's killed piles of his friends is a resounding oops face. Rose knowingly and purposefully sacrifices the entirety of the remaining rebellion and therefore the actual freedom of the entire galaxy for the foreseeable future for a chance to snog with Finn. Even more people die because Rose takes extra time to save space horses, but nobody mentions that because it was a chance to feel righteous again, and it's important to take every possible opportunity for that. All of this is treated not as flaws or mistakes, but as heroic actions that are unrelated to the horrific consequences that follow.
Then Luke takes the time to talk about how ALL OF THIS EXACT BEHAVIOR IS TERRIBLE AND WRONG WHEN THE JEDI PUT THEMSELVES AND THEIR PHILOSOPHIES OVER OTHERS' WELL-BEING, AND THE JEDI ARE SO ARROGANT FOR THIS AND SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO EXIST AGAIN, but then I guess the Jedi weren't written by a hip cool director guy with such subversive vision, so they suck. Then Yoda shows up and says yeah Luke, you had it right, the Jedi were flawed and wrong for all of those reasons, and THEN LUKE SACRIFICES HIS LIFE FOR THESE PEOPLE.
I'm also annoyed that they wasted Gwendolyn Christie in two movies and then she does nothing in both and dies, of all people. Why was she even there. You could have put me in that suit and had the same impact with that character.
Spoiler: Response to Metal's Jedi musings (click to show/hide)
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on June 11, 2018, 02:56:43 pm
Destroying priceless records of galactic history was annoying to me.
If I remember correctly, a quick shot in the Falcon shows that Rei stole those books from the library before leaving. It was after rescuing the remaining rebels, where Poe pulled open a drawer or something and saw them in there. So they were definitely saved but given how the new trilogy is going I wouldn't be surprised if the next movie ignored their presence entirely or tried to retcon things.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on June 11, 2018, 03:02:50 pm
I did enjoy Yoda's remark about how they were not exactly riveting reading.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 11, 2018, 03:20:39 pm
Oh! I missed that entirely. Thank you.
I did enjoy Yoda's remark about how they were not exactly riveting reading.
Yoda was about the only part TLJ got right.
Post by: Enemy post on June 11, 2018, 03:26:33 pm
After all, "from a certain point of view" has been previously established as a Jedi favorite.
Post by: Egan_BW on June 11, 2018, 03:32:40 pm
Post by: Kagus on June 11, 2018, 03:36:23 pm
I did enjoy Yoda's remark about how they were not exactly riveting reading."Bitch, I'm 900 years old and I ain't got time to read that shit"
Post by: scriver on June 11, 2018, 03:50:33 pm
BObviously the Jedi are in the right, becuase the Sith are evil, and the force will simply retroactively justify any measure the Jedi take to destroy them.
Only the Sith deals in absolutes!
I'm pretty sure Yoda knew Rey had already taken the books, too. After destroying the tree, he tells Luke: "Wisdom they held, but that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess."
This. I was going to point it out myself, because it was just brought to my attention the other day when I watched the CinemaSins take on the movie and the line came up. Very clever, I think.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on June 11, 2018, 06:38:07 pm
Quote
Only the Sith deals in absolutes!
If you are a super star wars nerd and read the EU and history of the galaxy and whatnot extensively, this line was actually genius.
Unintentional genius to be sure.
Also I highly recommend the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, it turns all the messy parts of the movie into a coherent, involved story.
Post by: Rolan7 on June 14, 2018, 01:29:17 am
Well, to be fair falling down a large hole is basically a death sentence thanks to gravity. Jedi/Sith are powerful, but they aren't invincible :PMeanwhile my group has a running gag that falling off a cliff, *especially* in Star Wars, is a surefire way to survive an otherwise lethal situation.
Sherlock Holmes, Boba Fett, Luke, Lupin the Third, Darth Maul... Heck, maybe Snope WAS Mace Windu (for all the new movies tell us!)
I don't have a strong opinion on the new movies, really. I enjoyed them, but they sure do have... glaring potential issues. It's nice seeing people arguing these points, sometimes quite vehemently, yet with the Bay12 enforced respect. Hate the idea, not the thinker.
The discussion so quickly goes ad hominem, elsewhere...
I have literally never heard of any of those... people? Despite my brother being EU-obsessed. While I enjoyed much of the EU, secondhand, the movies should be judged on their own merits. Especially now that the EU is literally mere fanon, despite their attempts to couch that lazy decision. Even if they hadn't done that, the movies should at least basically work on their own.The problem is he is powerful force entity and it's hard to think that nobody fucking heard of him before, really.
Have you heard of the Father, Son, Daughter, Bendu, various other powerful force entities which rarely come up and nobody's heard of? This is also a star wars staple in canon.
Which is why I insist that Boba Fett is a poorly executed character. His appearance on Bespin makes no sense unless you figure out that he placed a tracker on the Millenium Falcon. We're supposed to figure that out from a scene of him watching the Falcon escape the Star Destroyer. That scene supposedly means that that Han's clever "pretend to be trash" plan, a nice case of his smuggler skills paying off, was actually all according to the keikaku of this faceless asshole we saw in a lineup once.
But his action figure was popular, so the early EU books made him an actual character, and then the prequels literally multiplied him by a fricken million and gadfkja
Sorry, my brother would never shut up about this guy. Who got Darth Maul'd straight out of his originally incidental death.
PTW, eventually.
Post by: scriver on June 14, 2018, 06:39:48 am
I'm working through the first pages from months ago. So much I'd love to respond to, and maybe will eventually. Or not.Well, to be fair falling down a large hole is basically a death sentence thanks to gravity. Jedi/Sith are powerful, but they aren't invincible :PMeanwhile my group has a running gag that falling off a cliff, *especially* in Star Wars, is a surefire way to survive an otherwise lethal situation.
Sherlock Holmes, Boba Fett, Luke, Lupin the Third, Darth Maul...
...Luke's right hand...
Post by: EnigmaticHat on June 14, 2018, 01:49:29 pm
Basically the studio really liked the script but the people they got to direct was two directors who directed one of the lego movies. These guys proceeded to shoot very inefficiently, taking a lot of time and also making actors improv lines. They wasted a lot of money by coming late to shoots and then taking longer than expected to shoot. Additionally since Lucasarts/Disney was making the movie on the strength of the script they really did not like changes to it, or the tone the two new directors were going for. They kept making it funny, going for a Guardians of the Galaxy tone (which I love in those movies, but more on that in a sec).
When they were 70% done (directors get union protections at 90%, including being credited) the two directors were fired and a veteran director brought on. The new guy said that a lot of the footage from the old guys was usable, but only about 30% of the movie ended up being that footage. The rest was reshot, in a style that was pretty much the exact opposite. Stuck to the script, finished early, used the smallest crew (and portion of the set) possible. If you hated all the closeup shots in this film, well. That's why. The reshoots are also why Solo is a box office flop. Basically it cost 250k and made 330k. The common industry estimate for when a movie is considered successful is bare minimum 2x the budget due to marketing costs, the (tiny) cut taken by theatres, and the fact that a movie is a risky investment. The common estimate I've heard for the original budget is 125k-150k. So without the drama it would have been a solid, but not impressive, success.
Anyway, I've liked the humor the MCU has been injecting into action movies but its a terrible match for this movie. The movie features elements from real crime/old gangster films and it also shows how Solo became the cynic we all know and love. I think the movie was already inherently funny in a subtle and appropriate way due to how it relates to the OT. From young Solo being a wide eyed idealist, to his completely unearned cockiness, to the in jokes ("I hate you"; "I know") I think the movie was light enough to not be depressing. There was no need to directly make jokes.
I have some guesses as to which scenes were kept from the original shoot; I think the trademark isn't just jokes but scenes that went too easily. For example when Han bet an expensive ship he didn't have to Lando and lost; that debt was never brought back and it bothered me the whole time. I think that was improv, I mean why wouldn't Lando attempt a "so now we're even" at the end? Let's see, "you're holding a rock and making clicking noises with your mouth" not only was out of tone but also nonsense; he was under time pressure and he could have just thrown the rock. The war scene was also just way too easy and lacked internal logic. The storm trooper impersonators were too obvious, we never saw who the enemy was, and things just went... too quickly and easily is the only way I can put it. Also, "we're on their planet so technically we're the hostiles," there's no way in hell that line was in the original script and I'm willing to bet that poor actor was forced to improv against his will. Cringey as fuck. I think anything involving L-3 was improv. I can see why they kept those scenes; they weren't *good* but they were something resembling decent and hammy as fuck. L-3 was basically a D&D player enthusiastic about RP but bad at min-maxing and I'm OK with that. It makes sense those would be the most decent jokes too, considering the original directors were used to working with voice actors and that was the only voice acted character AFAIK. Still if L-3 is representative of what all the characters were like in first round of shooting then thank god they did reshoots.
Oh and Han Solo shot first, fuck yeah and I loved what they did there.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on June 14, 2018, 02:04:48 pm
I think where it really lost me was when it kind of went from "big city crime" to "generic western". Which muddies further for me because they actually did the "Star Wars' are just space westerns with more drama" bit REALLY well. Idk, it had a lot of good ideas, but just executed poorly. To reiterate what I've told other people, this may be the only time when I actually wish Solo was like 3 separate movies.
Big City Crime Planet -> Black Ops Smugglers & The Kessel Run -> Outlaw Space Western
It just isn't suave enough to juggle all three things at once. It did most of it right though--oh how I wish Disney would just immediately remake this movie, but three parts. Alden Ehrenreich actually did a pretty good job and I wouldn't mind seeing him again as Han.
In terms of actual low points of the film... they really just messed up the Kessel Run. It was so... unoriginal, especially when compared to the original idea of what the Kessel Run and The Maw is. They also needed bigger, badder, and meanerr gangs. The plot was... stock? Not terrible, but poorly paced and a little too simple. Probably a symptom of all the stuff I just talked about, including how Solo really should be separate movies.
Post by: Egan_BW on June 14, 2018, 02:42:00 pm
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on June 14, 2018, 03:07:52 pm
So I didn't see anyone bringing it up in this thread so I think its worth discussing. Solo had some production drama and was essentially shot twice. Spoilers ahead.
This explains so much. I remember watching the movie and thinking that the quality bounced about afterwards. Getting in another director partway through would certainly explain all of that.
I have some guesses as to which scenes were kept from the original shoot; I think the trademark isn't just jokes but scenes that went too easily. For example when Han bet an expensive ship he didn't have to Lando and lost; that debt was never brought back and it bothered me the whole time.
I assumed it was because Lando was bluffing about having his expensive ship as well. He obviously knew that the Millennium Falcon was impounded and didn't have the contacts/skills/whatever to free it. So was there really a debt if both of them were betting something they didn't have?
Post by: Reelya on October 03, 2018, 07:07:42 am
https://screenrant.com/last-jedi-backlash-trolls-rian-johnson/
Quote
Research Finds 50% of Last Jedi Backlash Was Political Trolling
First up is how they define "backlash". It turns out that the study only covers tweets made directly at Rian Johnson. The problem is in trying to jump from "trolls trolled Rian Johnson" to "the negativity to the film was all part of a political conspiracy". The central conclusion of the piece: that Neo Nazis and Russians are trying to undermine American society by making people not like Star Wars is fucking retarded.
Trolls are not representative by their very nature. Sure, assholes trolled Rian Johnson, but that doesn't mean that the trolls were the cause of the backlash, they could just have easily been capitalizing on a backlash that already existed to the film. People with legitimate criticisms are just far, far less likely to want to go and send hatemail to people than dumb idiots are.
How about a hypothetical: a black woman made a movie, and it wasn't a very good movie. It got bad word of mouth reviews. Then a bunch of people started tweeting at her about how much her movie sucks, and half those tweets are clearly racist bullshit. Would this be good evidence that there was a "racist agenda" behind not liking the movie? no, it would not. The movie was a stinker and that became the impetus by which racists opportunistically attacked the actress.
The hypocrisy is that the author of this paper discounts all other possibilities in favor of "evil alt-right russians politicized the film" when the author himself is so reductive that he himself is equally guilty of politicizing this thing, by himself making broad reductive arguments about why people didn't like the film.
Overall, the scholarship on the paper is very poor because he draws way too much in terms of conclusions compared to the amount of evidence that he actually has.
~~~
As another similar incident, you have Battlefield V. People criticized the tone-shift of the series to a cartoonish and colorful cyberpunkish looking thing (clearly the devs trying to capitalize on the Fortnite craze). Then, every criticism was reduced to "angry white men just don't want girls in their game" which is bullshit. However ... the head of development has since resigned and the game's launch has been delayed in favor of a redesign to increase "authenticity". This is in response to a plummet in pre-orders.
Clearly, the devs always knew what the actual criticisms were and they're moving to address those actual criticisms. They just tried to brush off the disquiet by labeling the skeptics as bigots, and it backfired big time. The real story is that the devs never gave a single thought to "social justice". They tried to rebrand the product to appeal to a different and younger demographic they thought would make more money - Fortnite players, and when the existing fanbase for Battlefield complained, they called them bigots and told them not to buy it. The reason they thought this made sense to blast their customers like that, is that the goal was never to be more "inclusive" in the first place: it was in fact a profit-driven move to try and change the target demographic completely. So they assumed that the fans they pissed off weren't relevant anyway since they were no longer in the target demographic.
"buy our trendy shovelware or you're a bigot and you can GTFO" didn't go down too well when the "bigots" were effectively most of your existing customers. Note, that to appease the fans that boycotted the game, they're not having to promise not to put female characters in the game, and that clearly indicates that the presence of female characters had literally nothing to do with the backlash.
A similar boycott may have happened with Solo: A Star Wars Story. If TLJ had been really good, I definitely would have gone to see Solo. Solo stars a "white male" BTW. I still decided not to go because of TLJ, and so did a lot of people. If they consistently made good movies, I'd go see a Princess Leia movie, an Obi Wan movie, a Boba Fett movie. But now it looks like a lot of those movie ideas are canned. If everyone liked TLJ as much as they say then where were the crowds for Solo?
Post by: Telgin on October 03, 2018, 10:15:42 am
Anyway, Solo had some other issues going against it. For one thing, it felt like Disney didn't spend much on advertising. I barely saw anything related to it and honestly forgot it even existed until some friends mentioned it to me after it came out in theaters. By that time I could look at reviews, and people weren't saying great things about it, so... I skipped it.
Which was a disappointment because I really liked Rogue One and was hoping that the side stories would continue to be like it.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 03, 2018, 12:44:48 pm
But, turns out if you deliberately alienate your fanbase then ceaselessly mock them for having a problem with it, it makes things worse. The backlash was relatively minor* until Disney started aggressively pushing the idea that the movie has zero flaws and the people giving them money were at fault. Now you have people who are more angry because of the intelligence-insulting PR campaign than anything about the movies.
Disney basically dared it's fanbase to stop giving them money here. Shockingly, Solo failed immediately after.
*I don't count the sexist rage shit as valid movie feedback.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 03, 2018, 01:30:28 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 03, 2018, 01:35:34 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 03, 2018, 01:51:52 pm
I heard there are a number of wrongthinkers here who are still not one in Pathos but fear not. Our scientists are working on it. Soon we shall have full synchronicity https://bgr.com/2018/10/02/brainnet-tetris-game-experiment-study/
Post by: Reelya on October 03, 2018, 02:40:41 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ8mRS5zAro
This one claims it would take 830,000 years at current rates of steel production to make enough for a death star, then you'd have to blast it all into space on rockets, thus leaving the Earth's atmosphere uninhabitable. So, no Death Star. Uh, really, that's a terrible argument. Common sense would suggest that you'd use material in the asteroid belt to make it, and once you have space industry kickstarted, then you'd clearly expect capacity to grow exponentially. Assuming that steel production capacity never increases from right now is plainly idiotic. How could anyone think that such a line of "logical" argument made any sense at all?
also this one:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/the-math-of-why-its-so-hard-to-build-a-spherical-death-star-in-space/
Quote
a sphere is the maximally symmetric shape. But it's hell on the aerodynamics, since how much force an object experiences from air molecules as it travels through an atmosphere
...
As Grand Moff Tarkin points out, unlike the sensibly designed Star Destroyers, where air molecules mostly glance off the sides as the spacecraft travel through the atmosphere
What "air molecules"? It's in space, dickhead. For a physicist you're really good at the math calculations but obviously not so great at common sense.
Quote
That brings up another issue. The Death Star was constructed in space, a realm where massive things (moons, planets) tend to take on a spherical shape due to gravity. But when Orlin did the calculations, he found that the size at which objects take on the shape of a sphere is about 400 kilometers in diameter, which is significantly larger than the ~160km Death Star.
What sort of retarded point is this? Can you see the labored train of logic that lead to this brain-melting point. Massive things don't form into spheres due to gravity until 400km diameter. The Death Star is less than 400km diameter, therefore it cannot be a sphere. Checkmate, atheists.
Post by: Putnam on October 03, 2018, 02:47:54 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 03, 2018, 02:50:03 pm
Quote from: ACCORDING TO WOOKIEPEDIA
The Galactic Empire's territory at its peak consisted of some one and a half million member and conquered worlds
Yeah youtube guy, all those worlds had the combined steel output of one IRL Earth in the year 2018. Sure.
Post by: Egan_BW on October 03, 2018, 03:05:19 pm
Post by: scriver on October 03, 2018, 03:07:47 pm
Therefore, one can conclude that "a long time ago", steel production wouldn't just be less than on earth in 2018, but perhaps even negative.
Chess tape, magnetits
Post by: Rolan7 on October 03, 2018, 03:20:38 pm
Heh, while we're on the Star Wars topic for a while, I saw some "physics-based" critique of the Death Star's design on youtube which didn't make a single lick of sense. The main criticisms were these:Haha, wow. I guess the argument is that it's "unnatural" to make spheres that small, because they don't appear naturally. There's probably a name for that fallacy, at least I hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ8mRS5zAro
This one claims it would take 830,000 years at current rates of steel production to make enough for a death star, then you'd have to blast it all into space on rockets, thus leaving the Earth's atmosphere uninhabitable. So, no Death Star. Uh, really, that's a terrible argument. Common sense would suggest that you'd use material in the asteroid belt to make it, and once you have space industry kickstarted, then you'd clearly expect capacity to grow exponentially. Assuming that steel production capacity never increases from right now is plainly idiotic. How could anyone think that such a line of "logical" argument made any sense at all?
also this one:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/the-math-of-why-its-so-hard-to-build-a-spherical-death-star-in-space/Quotea sphere is the maximally symmetric shape. But it's hell on the aerodynamics, since how much force an object experiences from air molecules as it travels through an atmosphere
...
As Grand Moff Tarkin points out, unlike the sensibly designed Star Destroyers, where air molecules mostly glance off the sides as the spacecraft travel through the atmosphere
What "air molecules"? It's in space, dickhead. For a physicist you're really good at the math calculations but obviously not so great at common sense.QuoteThat brings up another issue. The Death Star was constructed in space, a realm where massive things (moons, planets) tend to take on a spherical shape due to gravity. But when Orlin did the calculations, he found that the size at which objects take on the shape of a sphere is about 400 kilometers in diameter, which is significantly larger than the ~160km Death Star.
What sort of retarded point is this? Can you see the labored train of logic that lead to this brain-melting point. Massive things don't form into spheres due to gravity until 400km diameter. The Death Star is less than 400km diameter, therefore it cannot be a sphere. Checkmate, atheists.
The sphere shape is surprisingly sci-fi for Star Wars, since it reduces vulnerable surface area. The Death Star was presumably only so large in order to support its unique feature, the planet-destroying cannon. Return of the Jedi showed that it was deadly in fleet combat, but surely cost-ineffective compared to the standard star destroyers. That might explain the shape. Star destroyers had vast surface areas covered in hardpoints, much like contemporary battleships (No coincidence, the first episode was inspired by WW2 naval-aerial combat). Individually vulnerable, but part of a fleet where tactics should keep its flanks covered. A sphere is much more defensive, even paranoid. Ironically, designed for a situation where enemies slipped past the main fleet to try and take it out - no clear weaknesses, covered in point defense.
Bah, Lucas probably just thought an artificial moon was awe-inspiring. Which it was, even though it was a lot smaller than a typical moon (https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/66fkb5/death_star_size_comparison/).
I should see Solo sometime. I also enjoyed Rogue One, though I agree with a lot of the criticism of it. It was a pretty mindless action flick that felt true to the setting, like one of the fun EU novels. The characterization was lacking and a lot of things didn't make sense, but it was fun.
TLJ was like that except not fun, to me. I just found it more frustrating, maybe because it was using existing characters (heck, I was offput by Vader in Rogue One as well. Seemed silly.)
Jaded Luke was alright I suppose. His end was so random I could believe it ("He fake sacrificed himself... but then he actually sacrificed himself... somehow??). It was a bizarre opposite of Leia. Gets a good death, but then magics out of it, only to spend most of the movie in a coma, then finally come back to try and prop up Holdo's condescending authoritarianism against the plucky pilot. In Star Wars.
I would have been much more interested if Rey and Kylo had teamed up, but the ending we got instead was just confusing. It kept contradicting its own messages, much less those of Force Awakens.
Bah I say, bah.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 03, 2018, 03:21:44 pm
If you look at the history of the universe, you can see that the steel production has increased significantly over time.No sir, I challenge your logic. What we can infer is that since the production of all metallic substances was obviously much higher a long long time ago, that steel production on a cosmic scale has in fact DECREASED at a worrying overall rate, and that by this logic within the next 100 years we may find that we can no longer produce it.
Therefore, one can conclude that "a long time ago", steel production wouldn't just be less than on earth in 2018, but perhaps even negative.
Chess tape, magnetits
Time is the only thing that can melt steel beams.
Post by: Sirus on October 03, 2018, 08:38:48 pm
Heh, while we're on the Star Wars topic for a while, I saw some "physics-based" critique of the Death Star's design on youtube which didn't make a single lick of sense. The main criticisms were these:It's as if a million nerds and physicists cried out in agony...I fear we have witnessed terrible idiocy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ8mRS5zAro
This one claims it would take 830,000 years at current rates of steel production to make enough for a death star, then you'd have to blast it all into space on rockets, thus leaving the Earth's atmosphere uninhabitable. So, no Death Star. Uh, really, that's a terrible argument. Common sense would suggest that you'd use material in the asteroid belt to make it, and once you have space industry kickstarted, then you'd clearly expect capacity to grow exponentially. Assuming that steel production capacity never increases from right now is plainly idiotic. How could anyone think that such a line of "logical" argument made any sense at all?
also this one:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/the-math-of-why-its-so-hard-to-build-a-spherical-death-star-in-space/Quotea sphere is the maximally symmetric shape. But it's hell on the aerodynamics, since how much force an object experiences from air molecules as it travels through an atmosphere
...
As Grand Moff Tarkin points out, unlike the sensibly designed Star Destroyers, where air molecules mostly glance off the sides as the spacecraft travel through the atmosphere
What "air molecules"? It's in space, dickhead. For a physicist you're really good at the math calculations but obviously not so great at common sense.QuoteThat brings up another issue. The Death Star was constructed in space, a realm where massive things (moons, planets) tend to take on a spherical shape due to gravity. But when Orlin did the calculations, he found that the size at which objects take on the shape of a sphere is about 400 kilometers in diameter, which is significantly larger than the ~160km Death Star.
What sort of retarded point is this? Can you see the labored train of logic that lead to this brain-melting point. Massive things don't form into spheres due to gravity until 400km diameter. The Death Star is less than 400km diameter, therefore it cannot be a sphere. Checkmate, atheists.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 03, 2018, 08:44:08 pm
Post by: scriver on October 04, 2018, 06:06:10 am
If you look at the history of the universe, you can see that the steel production has increased significantly over time.No sir, I challenge your logic. What we can infer is that since the production of all metallic substances was obviously much higher a long long time ago, that steel production on a cosmic scale has in fact DECREASED at a worrying overall rate, and that by this logic within the next 100 years we may find that we can no longer produce it.
Therefore, one can conclude that "a long time ago", steel production wouldn't just be less than on earth in 2018, but perhaps even negative.
Chess tape, magnetits
Time is the only thing that can melt steel beams.
Oh no
Time to buy steel I guess!
Post by: Enemy post on October 04, 2018, 11:51:25 pm
Post by: Egan_BW on October 05, 2018, 12:39:28 am
Post by: Reelya on October 05, 2018, 12:49:36 am
Too bad they completely wasted Gewndolyn Christie in the main series, or they could have used her in this.
Post by: Kagus on October 05, 2018, 06:16:05 am
Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: Nelson
Post by: Reelya on October 05, 2018, 06:33:37 am
Quote
You Don't Deserve A Female James Bond Or A Lady Indiana Jones
Which sounds harsh, but the article's point is that literally none of these people crying out for "lady Bond" or "lady Indiana Jones" got out to see the new Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie, female-led action spy thriller Atomic Blonde, or female-led action spy thriller Red Sparrow. All got enough decent reviews, but all bombed at the box office. Ladies wanna see more action ladies? Go support original ideas starring women and not just gender-flipped rehashes or old IP that's been dredged up. And one perspective on this gender-flipping is that it kind of sends the message that if women want to be taken seriously they have to play "dress-ups" as a previously male-identified character, rather than have a unique character built around a female identity from the ground up. Gender-flipping an entire existing character is almost like a reverse-drag cosplay rather than an actress making the character her own. Imagine a male Tomb Raider movie with "Larry Croft" doing an imitation of Lara's defining characteristics. It's not going to ring true.
If people want "lady bond" and "lady indiana jones" but they constantly turn their noses up at original adventure and spy movies featuring female lead characters, what exact message is this sending to Hollywood? It's not that audiences want more original works with women in, the actual message is then that you play it safe by having original works with male lead, exhaust the possibilities of that with a trilogy or two, then gender-flip it purely to get publicity and squeeze some life out of a dying franchise, and these gender-flip movies then acts as "proof" that the studio is committed to "diversity", thus absolving them of the onus to make more female-lead originals.
At this stage it's not just Star Wars, I'm at the point that I'm saying "you know what? I'm done with franchises and Hollywood".
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 05, 2018, 09:20:50 am
Post by: scriver on October 05, 2018, 10:17:32 am
Then again I often say that the best of the new Star Wars movies was the trailer for Force Awakens. That trailer was a fucking masterpiece. Had me so hyped.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 05, 2018, 01:03:50 pm
Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: NelsonMandelaMandala
Played by Will Smith
Post by: Rolan7 on October 05, 2018, 02:01:56 pm
Thinking about gender in films made me think of this article (https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/05/15/you-dont-deserve-a-female-james-bond-or-a-lady-indiana-jones/#475c2027169a), which is relevant to current direction in Star Wars:Before I try to critique the film industry, I should say that I've long been at the point you reach at the end. I am way out of touch with cinema, particularly recent stuff. Case in point, I assumed that Tomb Raider was referring to the 2001 film, and hadn't heard of the new one. I just don't pay attention.QuoteYou Don't Deserve A Female James Bond Or A Lady Indiana Jones
Which sounds harsh, but the article's point is that literally none of these people crying out for "lady Bond" or "lady Indiana Jones" got out to see the new Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie, female-led action spy thriller Atomic Blonde, or female-led action spy thriller Red Sparrow. All got enough decent reviews, but all bombed at the box office. Ladies wanna see more action ladies? Go support original ideas starring women and not just gender-flipped rehashes or old IP that's been dredged up. And one perspective on this gender-flipping is that it kind of sends the message that if women want to be taken seriously they have to play "dress-ups" as a previously male-identified character, rather than have a unique character built around a female identity from the ground up. Gender-flipping an entire existing character is almost like a reverse-drag cosplay rather than an actress making the character her own. Imagine a male Tomb Raider movie with "Larry Croft" doing an imitation of Lara's defining characteristics. It's not going to ring true.
If people want "lady bond" and "lady indiana jones" but they constantly turn their noses up at original adventure and spy movies featuring female lead characters, what exact message is this sending to Hollywood? It's not that audiences want more original works with women in, the actual message is then that you play it safe by having original works with male lead, exhaust the possibilities of that with a trilogy or two, then gender-flip it purely to get publicity and squeeze some life out of a dying franchise, and these gender-flip movies then acts as "proof" that the studio is committed to "diversity", thus absolving them of the onus to make more female-lead originals.
At this stage it's not just Star Wars, I'm at the point that I'm saying "you know what? I'm done with franchises and Hollywood".
...Like, holy crap, the Angelina Jolie movie was in 2001? Wow, I was going to base my argument on it, but nevermind.
Anyway to say that we don't deserve female imitations (like the dozens of male imitations) of James Bond and Indiana Jones IS harsh. They're making it sound like Lara Croft is a female Indiana Jones, and that we've already got what we asked for. But that's ignoring that Lara Croft carries immense baggage, having been THE postergirl for videogame sexualization until, like, Bayonetta.
Bizarrely, both characters have *really strong* games and stories. There's nothing at all wrong with liking the games. It's just that to the general public, the characters are merely pinups for those weird video gamers. Because that's how they were advertised, for years.
I think Tomb Raider 2013 (Named "Tomb Raider", because of course) may have shifted this perception in a strange way. She's certainly less sexualized and more human. But at the same time she went from badass to vulnerable... rather infamously vulnerable. The general public doesn't get that the final act has her smashing through an entire terra-cotta army, just that there are a dozen grisly scenes of her gasping to death on environmental hazards. I'm pretty curious about the 2018 game.
I'm rambling. I'd counter their argument with The Force Awakens and The Hunger Games, which did amazing with new characters who were treated with respect from the beginning. Audiences did respond to strong female characters. Lara Croft is not a good example, and certainly isn't Indiana Jones But Female.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 05, 2018, 02:59:29 pm
I got them on sale, and to me nothing else has ever done that whole... Indiana-Jones-esque thing where a hard-proof field scientist goes up against possibly supernatural forces thing quite as well. I'm bad at describing it, but it really, really nails that whole feel. The old Lucasarts adventure games had the same feel this does to me. I think she does Indiana Jones better than Indiana Jones.
She also starts out as a goddam archaeologist. Not like, ha ha I'm an archaeologist with a gun and a whip and 16 contacts in Mumbai, but like a "I've literally never fired a gun before" kind of person. Her transition from that to survivalist is rad as hell. At no point did I get a Mary Sue vibe from this game. Even at the end of the game I felt barely prepared to handle what was happening, but in a good way.
Also doggo is fukkin' terrifying. I admit there is a truly exorbitant number of environmental death scenes. Also, her bones must be made of adamantium with the amount of punishment she takes from various cutscenes/set pieces.
Post by: scriver on October 05, 2018, 04:04:52 pm
Post by: Rolan7 on October 05, 2018, 04:17:11 pm
QuoteYou Don't Deserve A Female James Bond Or A Lady Indiana Jones
Also I also enjoyed Tomb Raider (2013) (the game), I think it got a lot of undeserved criticism as "violence porn" and such. Like I pointed out, she does become a legendary badass by the end. However, I also understand people being leery of the series. "She's not just big boobs like we've always advertised her as - now she's a mousy survivor who gets stabbed a lot! Like, in amazing detail, also we're really proud of her ponytail physics!"
Unfortunate optics for an actually laudable attempt to bring the series into Current Year...
Post by: scriver on October 05, 2018, 04:32:18 pm
So I see, but I was arguing more against the article:QuoteYou Don't Deserve A Female James Bond Or A Lady Indiana Jones
Also I also enjoyed Tomb Raider (2013) (the game), I think it got a lot of undeserved criticism as "violence porn" and such. Like I pointed out, she does become a legendary badass by the end. However, I also understand people being leery of the series. "She's not just big boobs like we've always advertised her as - now she's a mousy survivor who gets stabbed a lot! Like, in amazing detail, also we're really proud of her ponytail physics!"
Unfortunate optics for an actually laudable attempt to bring the series into Current Year...
Yes, but the article isn't arguing that we don't deserve Lara Croft, it's saying we don't deserve a gender swapped Indiana Jones if we don't put up the money for Tomb Raiders and others like it that already feature original characters.
Quote
If you’re going to ignore the new Lara Croft movie, then you don’t deserve a female Indiana Jones flick. And if you turned your nose at Red Sparrow and Atomic Blonde, then you haven't really earned or justified a female James Bond franchise, either.
Post by: hector13 on October 05, 2018, 06:32:54 pm
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on October 05, 2018, 07:45:06 pm
Not sure if I am in the majority here, but the vidja game reboot of Tomb Raider might be my favorite modern game/series now.
I got them on sale, and to me nothing else has ever done that whole... Indiana-Jones-esque thing where a hard-proof field scientist goes up against possibly supernatural forces thing quite as well. I'm bad at describing it, but it really, really nails that whole feel. The old Lucasarts adventure games had the same feel this does to me. I think she does Indiana Jones better than Indiana Jones.
She also starts out as a goddam archaeologist. Not like, ha ha I'm an archaeologist with a gun and a whip and 16 contacts in Mumbai, but like a "I've literally never fired a gun before" kind of person. Her transition from that to survivalist is rad as hell. At no point did I get a Mary Sue vibe from this game. Even at the end of the game I felt barely prepared to handle what was happening, but in a good way.
Also doggo is fukkin' terrifying. I admit there is a truly exorbitant number of environmental death scenes. Also, her bones must be made of adamantium with the amount of punishment she takes from various cutscenes/set pieces.
I will freely admit the first game of the newest series of the game was wonderful. I cannot comment on the third, but they lost in the second completely as they had undone over 80% of her development in order to just merely redo it. And they did it far, far worse, leaving her with less than half the development of the first game alone.
And how they treated the late Lord Croft. Jesus christ. You may not have seen the man in the first game, but just from how characters regarded him you could tell he was a dependable, loyal, good man. Flashbacks of the second game? An anger-ridden, pathetic man who did not care in the slightest about his daughter.
To use something somewhat related to the thread topic:
(https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/385/241/6ab.jpeg)
But, they fucked it up, and lost me.
-----------------------------------------
Anyway, I get the feeling we should move this derail to another thread. There could be a fair amount of discussion stemming from this, and from what I can tell there is no Tomb Raider thread in other games...
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 05, 2018, 08:08:15 pm
Spoiler: TOMB RAIDER TOMB RAIDER TOMB RAIDER (click to show/hide)
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on October 05, 2018, 08:47:01 pm
Spoiler: TOMB RAIDER TOMB RAIDER TOMB RAIDER (click to show/hide)
Mate, I don't care. With the sheer amount of media being released and the amount of history that exists in all mediums combined with behavior companies have explicitly shown to display, I have a simple ruleset I have developed. Can even relate it to Disney Star Wars, at that. If you want a name for it, I've nicknamed it the 'corporate greed test'.
1) If the first attempt is a complete shitshow, I will not even take a glance at the franchise.
----Logic: Isn't worth my time or money in the first place.
2) If the first attempt is good to spectacular, but the second attempt is horribly done, they have lost a customer for their tenure and nothing will win me back.
----Logic: The first attempt was merely a gamble. The second tends to be far more guaranteed, and thereby demonstrates how much they truly care.
3) If the first attempt is good to spectacular, and the second attempt is just as good if not better, it is only times where I have little money to spare where I can't buy the thing or they consistently start doing bad enough that it finally shakes me off that I will not be supporting the thing. Even then, I may be taken back in.
----Logic: With the second, they have demonstrated that they truly care about the product they are creating.
Sure, there is the chance I will miss out on some good things, but an absolute vast majority of the time, I will have ended up making the right decision. And I will note, when there's a switch in what company is in charge, the rating is not preserved.
Post by: Kagus on October 06, 2018, 05:56:47 am
Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: NelsonMandelaMandala
Played by Will Smith
Will Smith, who is in turn played by Samuel L. Jackson
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 06, 2018, 06:01:19 am
Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: NelsonMandelaMandala
Played by Will Smith
Will Smith, who is in turn played by Samuel L. Jackson
(https://i.gifer.com/95Lj.gif)
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 06, 2018, 10:27:44 am
Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: NelsonMandelaMandala
Played by Will Smith
Will Smith, who is in turn played by Samuel L. Jackson
Dubbed over by Morgan Freeman
Post by: hector13 on October 06, 2018, 02:33:20 pm
Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: NelsonMandelaMandala
Played by Will Smith
Will Smith, who is in turn played by Samuel L. Jackson
Dubbed over by Morgan Freeman
The DVD extras include commentary by Laurence Fishburne.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 08, 2018, 05:13:27 pm
Post by: Telgin on October 08, 2018, 09:08:15 pm
Post by: RedKing on October 08, 2018, 09:53:36 pm
And yeah, Donald Glover as Lando was fantastic. As was Han's halting attempts at Wookiee (and now we know why he doesn't ever try to speak it in any other movies).
Introduced by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who in turn is introduced by Chadwick Boseman.Dude? It's probably a girl Mandalorian. At this stage they're in balls-deep and if they introduce a white male main character that's not going to end well for them. The ideal choice would be a pacific islander / maori-looking person but realistically they'd probably pick between a black male or white female.Then they remove the helmet and reveal: NelsonMandelaMandala
Played by Will Smith
Will Smith, who is in turn played by Samuel L. Jackson
Dubbed over by Morgan Freeman
The DVD extras include commentary by Laurence Fishburne.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 08, 2018, 11:08:07 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 09, 2018, 12:43:20 pm
Spoiler: Solo spoiler opinions (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sirus on October 09, 2018, 08:49:44 pm
Spoiler: Small response to the above (click to show/hide)
Post by: hector13 on October 09, 2018, 09:26:57 pm
Was awesome.
Post by: RedKing on October 09, 2018, 11:58:48 pm
Spoiler: Solo spoiler opinions (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dunamisdeos on October 10, 2018, 03:10:52 pm
Spoiler: Solo spoiler opinions (click to show/hide)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: more spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sirus on October 10, 2018, 03:57:30 pm
Spoiler: Solo spoiler opinions (click to show/hide)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Still spoilers (click to show/hide)
Post by: McTraveller on December 23, 2018, 03:25:18 pm
I guess I don't get as bent out of shape about all the minutiae...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Teneb on December 23, 2018, 03:38:13 pm
I just saw Solo last night... I don't understand all the hate for it. It wasn't a fantastic movie, but by no means was it terrible. It was fun enough - which is really all I was expecting.
I guess I don't get as bent out of shape about all the minutiae...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Anyway, I think the hate has to do with it being part of the Dinsey Star Wars as well as "SJW" scaremongering because of course.
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on December 23, 2018, 06:02:37 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 23, 2018, 08:27:44 pm
Post by: Reelya on December 23, 2018, 08:43:18 pm
The main justice thing was the "save the space ponies" plot arc in the middle of the movie. But the main criticism was that it felt out of place, not that animals were being saved. It was like adding in the entire movie of Free Willy into the middle of an action-adventure film. You can think that was a ham-fisted idea without necessarily being against animal rights.
I mean, if you look at criticisms of Rey's arc in TLJ, by far the most common one is that her character was under-developed compared to Luke's training arc from the original films. "More training needed scenes for Rey" is the main complaint, plus "cut Finn's casino arc right out". The needed cuts would increase the proportion of time for the female lead (who is in fact the least annoying main character) vs the male leads.
Post by: hector13 on December 23, 2018, 08:49:05 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 23, 2018, 08:51:39 pm
Just seems like a lot of confusing and ill-advised creative decisions.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 23, 2018, 08:54:05 pm
I thought it was silly, but that whole side thing with Finn was pretty pointless. Like, Finn is a more pointless character than Jar-Jar at this point.
Really its cause they solved his character arc twice. He bested his chrome commander in single combat in each movie now, and they never really established much else for him as a character, goal wise.
Post by: Reelya on December 23, 2018, 08:55:00 pm
Post by: Persus13 on December 23, 2018, 09:01:52 pm
It gave me a John Powell Star Wars score out of it, so I'm happy though.
TLJ is a movie I still don't know what to think of.
I got another John Williams Star Wars score out of it, so I'm happy though.
Post by: Teneb on December 23, 2018, 09:37:16 pm
I feel like Rose was put in because despite the pretty huge gay subtext between Poe and Finn, Disney cannot have any non-hetero romance in their stuff.
There really wasn't even much of any SJW-related stuff in The Last Jedi, most of the discussion on that was pretty meta. "Didn't like the movie for <vast amount of legit reasons>? You must be a Trump-voting Nazi Russian Bot!".The presence of actual SJW content in something is not necessary for certain groups to blame everything on those dreaded three letters though. You'd think that by the volume of accusations that SJWs are a huge and influential group, but we both know it's not the case. Hell, I think I've only ever met (physically) one person that actually qualifies for the label.
Solo was fine. I want more spin-offs because it's not yet another movie about good space wizards facing off against evil space wizards. I really liked Rogue One.
Post by: Reelya on December 23, 2018, 10:07:11 pm
Additionally, cultural influence has very little to do with raw numbers of people. Polling people on the street then deciding that because such-and-such a view is common / not-common, therefore it must have social power / lack social power isn't a valid deduction. Very small numbers of people holding specific views can in fact have a much larger influence on the culture as a whole than raw numbers of man-on-the-street thinking.
The type of people who hold SJW views are heavily dominant in pretty much every faculty of American universities except for STEM and business / finance, and certain schools such as "dentistry". There aren't many social justice people trying to kick the doors down to be dentists.
Jonothan Haidt mentions that only 20 years ago, American university faculties were split 3-to-1 liberal vs conservatives. So, conservatives were a minority, but there were still enough of them that you could have a debate about stuff and have different viewpoints covered. Now, it's 15-to-1 liberal-to-conservative. But, that's still factoring in a ton of fields where political affiliation isn't an issue. Factor those non-left fields out, and the fields which deal with culture and communication are something like 60 liberal lecturers per 1 conservative lecturer in the USA - and those lone university lecturers have learned to keep their mouths shut about any conservative viewpoints they might hold, since that's a surefire way to have students attack you with Title IX complaints. So, USA college's humanities fields have an overwhelming amount of orthodoxy, and there are tribunal systems for punishing lecturers who even so much as hint at some non-PC viewpoint. It only takes one student in the class who is an SJW to drag a lecturer through a months-long investigation into something everyone involved can clearly see is bullshit. This actually happened to Jonothan Haidt personally btw. Lots of other American lecturers are purging their courses of anything remotely challenging to students because they're all scared that some material they present could be viewed as having racist/classist/ableist/sexist connotations. So say bye bye to students learning the classics, or most philosophers unless they're squeaky-clean SJW-approved philosophers. The state of modern American colleges vis-a-vis SJWs is part Lord of the Flies, another part The Crucible.
So, yeah, go on the street and poll people and you won't meet many avowed SJWs, but go to American universities and poll the humanities professors and students, those people who are going to be framing the next era of culture, and you're basically not going to find anyone from the conservative half of the population whatsoever, and a good chunk of the most prominent ones will be full-blown SJW.
Post by: Persus13 on December 24, 2018, 09:02:26 am
So, yeah, go on the street and poll people and you won't meet many avowed SJWs, but go to American universities and poll the humanities professors and students, those people who are going to be framing the next era of culture, and you're basically not going to find anyone from the conservative half of the population whatsoever, and a good chunk of the most prominent ones will be full-blown SJW.Being politically Liberal =/= being an SJW. As a American, and someone who has been to university there, I haven't met any SJWs, and I've been more far more inconvenienced by people being "anti-SJW" or rebelling against "PC culture" than anything done by the supposed SJWs.
I think the last thing I saw about SJWs and Star Wars was folks claiming that Solo's box office was a victory against new Star Wars and the "SJWs" running it. Considering Solo is the first new Star Wars film to have a white male lead, I find that kindof amusing.
Post by: Putnam on December 24, 2018, 11:25:27 am
Post by: Egan_BW on December 24, 2018, 11:27:28 am
oh here we go again
kek
Post by: Putnam on December 24, 2018, 11:29:05 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 24, 2018, 01:28:04 pm
Also, Finn/Poe were utterly useless in TLJ. They did nothing that any other rando rebel couldn't have done, aside from making things worse at every opportunity without personal consequence, I guess. Rose is somehow even more pointless. Rose is the worst Star Wars character. All three of them basically got assigned important tasks, failed miserably at every turn, then came through by sheer plot convenience each time. Even Rey learned absolutely nothing and then just sort of winged her way through winning at everything.
It had fun parts, sure, but it was objectively bad. Disney's plan seems to be to deny any problem whatsoever forevermore, which will only result in fanning the hate flames forevermore.
Post by: Teneb on December 24, 2018, 01:35:17 pm
It had fun parts, sure, but it was objectively bad. Disney's plan seems to be to deny any problem whatsoever forevermore, which will only result in fanning the hate flames forevermore.Quoth the raven: Forevermore.
Hopefuly J.J. Abrams will have learned from the mistakes of Rian Johnson... but we'll see next year, won't we?
Post by: scriver on December 24, 2018, 01:45:42 pm
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
Post by: Putnam on December 24, 2018, 01:57:49 pm
it was way too damn long, finn part was worthless throughout (felt like a filler episode of a TV show) and that's easily the biggest sin, i can't remember a damn lick of the movie besides one or two Big Moments, which is a pretty huge indictment
Post by: Teneb on December 24, 2018, 02:11:31 pm
Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...You mean a retread like the Battle of Dry Hoth?
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 24, 2018, 02:23:52 pm
Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
While I enjoyed TFA, it was almost a carbon-copy of A New Hope. I was ok with it because it felt like a lead-in to a new Star-Wars universe and since they'd cut out the EU it was like, ok, so you're acknowledging the previous stuff (from a certain point of view ha ha oh me), ok cool let's go forward from here.
I hope we do not get another retread. Salty Hoth was less than inspired.
Post by: Teneb on December 24, 2018, 02:51:38 pm
I imagine this has been discussed to death but... I really wish they went with a "Old EU is still canon as long as it doesn't conflict with new stuff" instead of just throwing it all out.Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
While I enjoyed TFA, it was almost a carbon-copy of A New Hope. I was ok with it because it felt like a lead-in to a new Star-Wars universe and since they'd cut out the EU it was like, ok, so you're acknowledging the previous stuff (from a certain point of view ha ha oh me), ok cool let's go forward from here.
I hope we do not get another retread. Salty Hoth was less than inspired.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 24, 2018, 02:58:30 pm
I imagine this has been discussed to death but... I really wish they went with a "Old EU is still canon as long as it doesn't conflict with new stuff" instead of just throwing it all out.Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
While I enjoyed TFA, it was almost a carbon-copy of A New Hope. I was ok with it because it felt like a lead-in to a new Star-Wars universe and since they'd cut out the EU it was like, ok, so you're acknowledging the previous stuff (from a certain point of view ha ha oh me), ok cool let's go forward from here.
I hope we do not get another retread. Salty Hoth was less than inspired.
Agreed, but it does at least seem that they are just sort of finding things in the EU and presenting it as original canon.
Wait No. No, that's worse.
Specifically, they've been talking recently about their totally original idea that Anakin was created via Darth Plagueis' technique of manipulating the force to create life, which they outright lifted from the Plagueis EU novel.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 24, 2018, 03:08:34 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 24, 2018, 03:10:06 pm
That's not from the novel. That was totally implicit in Episode III. Have you never heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
I mean that was an implication, but then in that book they were like hey yeah this happened, donezo.
Post by: hector13 on December 24, 2018, 03:11:43 pm
That's not from the novel. That was totally implicit in Episode III. Have you never heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?
I mean that was an implication, but then in that book they were like hey yeah this happened, donezo.
I don’t think it did, but it was a while ago I read the book and I was stupendously disappointed with the manner that Plagueis died.
Post by: scriver on December 24, 2018, 03:12:18 pm
Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...You mean a retread like the Battle of Dry Hoth?
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
Don't presume my opinions on the matter, they are conserved in this very thread (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=post;quote=7669094;topic=168745.350)
While I enjoyed TFA, it was almost a carbon-copy of A New Hope. I was ok with it because it felt like a lead-in to a new Star-Wars universe and since they'd cut out the EU it was like, ok, so you're acknowledging the previous stuff (from a certain point of view ha ha oh me), ok cool let's go forward from here.
I also enjoyed it, but I think less and less good of it in hindsight because of this. The whole "it's the Death Star again but BIGGER AND BADDER it's now A PLANET!!!!! LOOK IT JUST OBLITERATED ENTIRE STAR SYSTEMS IN MINUTES ISN'T THIS AWESOME" inflation/upping the antes too far is what does it the most.
And I say this as somebody who still think a planet terraformed into a giant battle station (Space Switzerland anybody? Or Space North Korea since they're the bad guys) is a really cool idea.
Anyway, Abrams is probably gonna fail hard. He lacks the creative sense to view a movie or work as a whole. All he can envision is a handful of separate cool scenes and then he forces them together with the mallet he calls editing without regard how it all comes together. I mean I'm not fond of TLJ but you can still feel the haphazardly "this was envisioned as separate and then forced together" feel of Abrams producing touch on it.
Post by: Persus13 on December 24, 2018, 03:23:50 pm
oh here we go againSorry, had to put in my two cents there when I see a wall of text.
Personally, the final third of TLJ was the one thing I enjoyed. If you replaced the first two thirds of the movie with something else until you hit the hyperdive sequence, I wouldn't mind seeing that movie again. That would probably require chanign what happened in TFA, but I'd be okay with that too.Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...You mean a retread like the Battle of Dry Hoth?
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
Post by: Teneb on December 24, 2018, 03:27:18 pm
Don't get me wrong Red Salt Hoth was pretty good in general barring a few things here and there. But come on directors, give us a new setpiece battle.oh here we go againSorry, had to put in my two cents there when I see a wall of text.Personally, the final third of TLJ was the one thing I enjoyed. If you replaced the first two thirds of the movie with something else until you hit the hyperdive sequence, I wouldn't mind seeing that movie again. That would probably require chanign what happened in TFA, but I'd be okay with that too.Then handed it back to Abrams? Fuck, prepare for yet another retread...You mean a retread like the Battle of Dry Hoth?
What's worse than a Death Star Planet? A Death Star Star! The released race horses from TLJ returns to wage guerrilla war against it. A new Emperor guy will appear out of nowhere too.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 25, 2018, 01:55:54 pm
I mean... maybe they approached it from the angle of a soft reboot, but we got a lot of visual redesigns that just felt out-of-universe. The Dreadnought, the new AT-ATs, a lot of the interiors to ships felt over-designed--like I get it, we have better technology now, but so many of the backgrounds (specifically during the Finn-Phasma fight) were just cluttered messes. It really bordered a "this doesn't feel like Star Wars any more" line.
Most of the best storylines of yore were not the ones that were carbon-copied or seen to their appropriate conclusions. Luke's influence was negligible to say the least, and Rey's whole time with him was a complete joke (where she LITERALLY discovered nothing about herself). The aggressively quick collapse of the New Republic was disappointing (especially considering all the politicking storytelling potential there). As many have said before, I think we were all willing to give TFA a free-pass on the originality as it felt like it was just drawing us back in to Star Wars. The decision to even SELECT Rian Johnson is... weird, imo. He doesn't really have a lot of experience with the kind of film that Star Wars is. Regardless, if TLJ was... just not a Star Wars film... IDK, I might be able to get excited about it, but at the end of the day it wasn't made in a creative vacuum, and Johnson not only obviously doesn't understand the Star Wars secret sauce, he was pretty explicit about not caring about even trying to make "A Star Wars film".
*Honorable mentions: Phasma going nowhere. Rey's parents going nowhere. Rose (Poor Kelly Marie Tran, she didn't deserve the hate). Han's descent into decided uncoolness. Snoke going nowhere. Et al. Poe suddenly becoming braindead. The regression of all prior character arcs in TLJ.
Honestly the best part of the new trilogy thus far has been the characters/acting--IMO, that's usually a bad sign in terms of quality. Despite TFA's generic-ness JJ actually did a pretty good job of setting up Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo--Johnson managed to butcher all but Kylo (who, despite initially being a flimsy character in TFA, ended up being the only saving grace of TLJ--weirdly along with Benicio Del Toro).
A general inconsistency in the feel of it all, small stuff like the space bombers and the hyperspace suicide--say what you want about shitty ole George Lucas, but never once in the original or prequel trilogy did you see something like that feel out of place.
[insert continued endless list of problems with the new movies]
TO BE FAIR,
It's not all bad. Kylo is great and Adam Driver is carrying the whole biz on his fucking BACK. Rogue One proved that there are still people out there who can make a movie that FEELS like Star Wars. Solo had a lot of good ideas, even if Ron Howard didn't bring his A game, and I can't blame him, the circumstances of his ascension to director made it difficult for him to really max out the film's potential. Despite TLJ's extreme awfulness (at least in the context of the series) Johnson is still a good director and gets some of the small moments right--Yoda, Luke's initial character (terrible development, backstory reveal, and conclusion though), Kylo just being a weirdo the whole movie lol. TFA gave us the best, in my opinion, lightsaber fight outside 2003 Clone Wars. Going forward, we've still got a pretty talented cast of actors.
BUT IN CONCLUSION,
Disney doesn't know what the hell they're doing. They saw an opportunity to pounce on some good IP, as is their modus operandi, but were not at all creatively prepared for it. They made the decision to "marvelize" Star Wars, but just didn't really understand the fan base. Obviously, it's also always the right decision to try and appeal to a new generation of fans (as Star Trek and other Sci-fi franchises have successfully done), but they did it in such a shallow and pandering way that pretty much blew up in their faces (in a lot of ways). Honestly, they are at least competent enough to hire GOOD directors, but they're so commercialized, so done-by-committee-d, that they just can't hire the RIGHT directors--even when the winning combos are right in front of them.
A lot of the problems, creatively, just kind of stem from modern American cinema in general--Star Wars is a surprisingly SLOW series--because even though it's a "Space Opera" it's really a "Roman Western" (that combines a lot of elements of almost spaghetti westerns and that trademark decline-of-society present in sword-and-sandal movies). That's not the direction our filmmaking is heading towards though, it's so aggressively quick that until Disney realizes that Star Wars only works when you get REALLY close up with the personal moments and REALLY far out with the epic battles and politicking and subterfuge stuff, it's just not going to work. That said, I doubt Disney is going to change their way of doing things/
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2018, 02:23:17 pm
Presumably because there was no Wookiee counterpart to make him “know what he’s doing.”
Post by: smjjames on December 25, 2018, 04:31:36 pm
@dunamis: TFA? I think you meant TLJ? And the Darth Plagueis using the force to create life to create Anakin sounds dumb and has a bunch of plot holes that it would have to resolve like, why did Qui Gon have to enhance Anakins midichlorians in the first place, wouldn’t Darth Plagueis have infused the life with it in the first place, and there may be timeline issues, gonna go look up Darth Plagueis real quick though.
@scriver: what even are you talking about? There wasn’t a Death Star planet in TLJ. Nothing stopping them from digging into a planet and creating the giant laser there, but they’d have to use some sort of wormhole tech like what the long-guns in the Shlock Mercenary universe use. Otherwise you get into absurdities like how do you move the planet around and give it angular velocity so that it doesn’t fall into the star.
I know from reading Star Wars stuff that there’s this living planet (in the sense of being sapient) which involves the Yuuzhan Vong which later hyperspaces itself somewhere, but that’s really the exception.
Post by: Teneb on December 25, 2018, 04:37:13 pm
@dunamis: TFA? I think you meant TLJ? And the Darth Plagueis using the force to create life to create Anakin sounds dumb and has a bunch of plot holes that it would have to resolve like, why did Qui Gon have to enhance Anakins midichlorians in the first place, wouldn’t Darth Plagueis have infused the life with it in the first place, and there may be timeline issues, gonna go look up Darth Plagueis real quick though.Pretty sure Qui-gon only measured Anakin's chlorines.midi
@scriver: what even are you talking about? There wasn’t a Death Star planet in TLJ. Nothing stopping them from digging into a planet and creating the giant laser there, but they’d have to use some sort of wormhole tech like what the long-guns in the Shlock Mercenary universe use. Otherwise you get into absurdities like how do you move the planet around and give it angular velocity so that it doesn’t fall into the star.Are you ok? The whole plot of Ep.7 was centred around Starkiller, which was literally a planet converted into Death Star on steroids.
Post by: smjjames on December 25, 2018, 04:43:40 pm
@dunamis: TFA? I think you meant TLJ? And the Darth Plagueis using the force to create life to create Anakin sounds dumb and has a bunch of plot holes that it would have to resolve like, why did Qui Gon have to enhance Anakins midichlorians in the first place, wouldn’t Darth Plagueis have infused the life with it in the first place, and there may be timeline issues, gonna go look up Darth Plagueis real quick though.Pretty sure Qui-gon only measured Anakin's chlorines.midi@scriver: what even are you talking about? There wasn’t a Death Star planet in TLJ. Nothing stopping them from digging into a planet and creating the giant laser there, but they’d have to use some sort of wormhole tech like what the long-guns in the Shlock Mercenary universe use. Otherwise you get into absurdities like how do you move the planet around and give it angular velocity so that it doesn’t fall into the star.Are you ok? The whole plot of Ep.7 was centred around Starkiller, which was literally a planet converted into Death Star on stroids.
I didn’t see that one, so, no, I didn’t know what you were talking about. And I think i’m Misremembering it because of a Darth and Droids comic strip
Also, I looked at wookiepedia and it sounds more like the midichlorians did it themselves in response to Darth Plagueis’s attempts rather than the other way around.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 25, 2018, 05:08:51 pm
You sound... slightly confused? ???
Post by: scriver on December 25, 2018, 05:15:55 pm
@scriver: what even are you talking about? There wasn’t a Death Star planet in TLJ. Nothing stopping them from digging into a planet and creating the giant laser there, but they’d have to use some sort of wormhole tech like what the long-guns in the Shlock Mercenary universe use. Otherwise you get into absurdities like how do you move the planet around and give it angular velocity so that it doesn’t fall into the star.
As Teneb already said, that was referring to The Force Awakens, where that happens.
Post by: smjjames on December 25, 2018, 06:14:57 pm
No, it was hinted in the past and it was recently revealed that it was done by Palpatine directly. Regardless of other Force sheanigans.
You sound... slightly confused? ???
Well, the legends page for Darth Plagueis probably needs to be updated a little, and I’m not familiar with that particular string of lore.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 25, 2018, 06:44:00 pm
Legends is toast. This was in the new continuity. Which... borrows frequently from Legends, anyway...No, it was hinted in the past and it was recently revealed that it was done by Palpatine directly. Regardless of other Force sheanigans.
You sound... slightly confused? ???
Well, the legends page for Darth Plagueis probably needs to be updated a little, and I’m not familiar with that particular string of lore.
Post by: smjjames on December 25, 2018, 09:50:45 pm
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2018, 10:13:26 pm
Though it would make sense for Vader to
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoilered ‘cause you never know if someone’s been hiding under a rock for almost 40 years.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 26, 2018, 02:33:18 pm
Plagueis tries to create life as did the ancient Sith, the Forceinated Chloridian response to this failure is the creation of Anakin, Plagueis and Palpatine learn of his existence after he is born and Plagueis is like, oh shit, this is a result of what we did. It's in the EU book. My point isn't that it's stupid that Palpatine did it, that's fine. It's just 100% not original in any way, but Disney is happy to pretend they invented the concept.
It's like if they brought Wedge Antilles up and were like oh he flies a Y-Wing now and leads Brogue Squadron, this is original content now.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 26, 2018, 02:34:44 pm
It's like if they brought Wedge Antilles up and were like oh he flies a Y-Wing now and leads Brogue Squadron, this is original content now.
Don't encourage them lol, that is exactly something Disney would do.
Post by: Rolan7 on December 26, 2018, 02:36:36 pm
Post by: Teneb on December 26, 2018, 03:42:12 pm
Fortunately Wedge is still canon and mostly his old self thanks to Rebels.It's like if they brought Wedge Antilles up and were like oh he flies a Y-Wing now and leads Brogue Squadron, this is original content now.
Don't encourage them lol, that is exactly something Disney would do.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 26, 2018, 03:50:10 pm
So, what’s the new line of lore? Probably not that Palpatine secretly had sex with Anakins mother."Official" Vader comic book. He has a Force vision
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: scriver on December 26, 2018, 04:04:52 pm
Post by: Kagus on December 26, 2018, 04:12:08 pm
Post by: Teneb on December 26, 2018, 04:19:28 pm
Dunno, isn't Plagueis' head more bean-shaped?Yeah, that's Palpatine.
It's a vision though, so it doesn't need to be 100% accurate.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 26, 2018, 04:21:07 pm
Dunno, isn't Plagueis' head more bean-shaped?that's legends tho. New continuity plagueis might beanyone
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 26, 2018, 04:45:59 pm
Dunno, isn't Plagueis' head more bean-shaped?that's legends tho. New continuity plagueis might beanyone
Palpatine was involved in the whole force ritual thing in the book, who knows.
It's Star Wars, you can always "A certain point of view" it later.
Post by: Teneb on December 26, 2018, 05:07:55 pm
Dunno, isn't Plagueis' head more bean-shaped?that's legends tho. New continuity plagueis might beanyone
Palpatine was involved in the whole force ritual thing in the book, who knows.
It's Star Wars, you can always "A certain point of view" it later.
Palpatine is clearly the midwife then.
Post by: Kagus on December 27, 2018, 09:16:59 am
Dunno, isn't Plagueis' head more bean-shaped?that's legends tho. New continuity plagueis might beanyone
Palpatine was involved in the whole force ritual thing in the book, who knows.
It's Star Wars, you can always "A certain point of view" it later.
Palpatine is clearly the midwife then.
Only a Sith deals with epidurals.
Post by: McTraveller on December 27, 2018, 05:49:38 pm
Rebels?
Clone Wars?
I didn't / don't have the cable channels necessary for that nonsense.
Post by: Teneb on December 27, 2018, 06:16:32 pm
I'm still annoyed by things that are 'canon' in Star Wars that weren't on the silver screen.Such things are not too much of a deterrent to a determined person.
Rebels?
Clone Wars?
I didn't / don't have the cable channels necessary for that nonsense.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 27, 2018, 06:43:43 pm
Aye aye captain! Avast ye, laddies! Me heartie here knows what he be talking about!I'm still annoyed by things that are 'canon' in Star Wars that weren't on the silver screen.Such things are not too much of a deterrent to a determined person.
Rebels?
Clone Wars?
I didn't / don't have the cable channels necessary for that nonsense.
Post by: hector13 on December 27, 2018, 10:02:39 pm
Avast means stop though.Aye aye captain! Avast ye, laddies! Me heartie here knows what he be talking about!I'm still annoyed by things that are 'canon' in Star Wars that weren't on the silver screen.Such things are not too much of a deterrent to a determined person.
Rebels?
Clone Wars?
I didn't / don't have the cable channels necessary for that nonsense.
Shiver me timbers.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 27, 2018, 10:50:39 pm
Post by: Teneb on December 28, 2018, 07:27:48 am
yo ho ho and a bucket of spagettiRavioli, Ravioli, seize the propertoli
Post by: Cthulhu on December 28, 2018, 11:59:26 pm
I mean, folks, look, in the Plagueis book it outright says that Anakin was created by the chlorinated midis as a response to his fuckery with the Force.
Plagueis tries to create life as did the ancient Sith, the Forceinated Chloridian response to this failure is the creation of Anakin, Plagueis and Palpatine learn of his existence after he is born and Plagueis is like, oh shit, this is a result of what we did. It's in the EU book. My point isn't that it's stupid that Palpatine did it, that's fine. It's just 100% not original in any way, but Disney is happy to pretend they invented the concept.
It's like if they brought Wedge Antilles up and were like oh he flies a Y-Wing now and leads Brogue Squadron, this is original content now.
It's such a terrible, terrible, awful, horrible, stupid thing that I'd prefer literally anything else, including (maybe especially) darth vader just being a regular bad guy with no dumb prophecy at all. Literally every single thing in the prequels is horrible and I would've preferred they stay miles away from it in every aspect.
If I'd done it I would've had Anakin being an idealistic big damn hero type being trained secretly by Obi-Wan, who has strong opinions about the way things should be (admirable ones, mind you, no crime or suffering, etc.). And the jedi and republic, representing freedom and the risk that comes with it, don't have the will to do what he thinks is necessary to save the galaxy, which is how he turns to the dark side. Just a jedi who was seduced by the dark side and had his ideals turned against him, instead of Space Jesus.
Post by: scriver on December 29, 2018, 08:29:46 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 29, 2018, 10:59:18 am
(fight me, you purist nerds)
Episodes 2 and 3 are all kinds of terrible obvo.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 29, 2018, 11:18:04 am
Episodes 2 and 3 are all kinds of terrible obvo.
But what about the droid attack on the wookies?
Post by: Cthulhu on December 29, 2018, 11:18:57 am
Post by: Teneb on December 29, 2018, 11:20:47 am
TBH, The Phantom Menace is baller. [sans Jar-Jar ofc]To be fair, 3 is fine outside Anakin's insane leaps of "logic".
(fight me, you purist nerds)
Episodes 2 and 3 are all kinds of terrible obvo.
And Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan redeems the movies forevermore.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 29, 2018, 11:21:54 am
Are you saying that because you actually think it's good, or because there's a guy with a double-bladed lightsaber in it?
I dunno about you, but I'm saying its good because it made for one of the best N64 games.
Post by: scriver on December 29, 2018, 01:30:46 pm
It's still the movie I'd least like to see out of the three prequels.
Post by: Egan_BW on December 29, 2018, 02:11:55 pm
Just two spaceswordmonks and their sassy beeping robot, murdering loads and loads of robots. Then they fight the big bad robot and crash land a battleship. It's great.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 29, 2018, 02:21:32 pm
I think Lucas tried to do something different and interesting with the prequel trilogy but the actual implementation was unforgivably clumsy. There is a core of what could have been a good trilogy there. It's just that there are a number of corny elements, poor writing and lousy acting that drastically lower the average quality.
By contrast I think TFA is derivative (which I was willing to forgive) and TLJ is both clumsy AND derivative
I still think that the opening space battle and following ship boarding part of episode 3 was pretty brilliant. I might be susceptible to getting distracted by shiny lights though.There were some very good things in the trilogy. Its the dead wood that makes it poor.
Just two spaceswordmonks and their sassy beeping robot, murdering loads and loads of robots. Then they fight the big bad robot and crash land a battleship. It's great.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 29, 2018, 05:51:16 pm
Are you saying that because you actually think it's good, or because there's a guy with a double-bladed lightsaber in it?
Episode One is actually pretty good. I know a lot of people do NOT feel that way, but listen, it's got: two Jedi essentially working free of the council, pod racing, as close to "the old republic" in terms of feel and visual style as we get in any movie, a couple of really good battles, my fav lightsaber duel in the series (2003 Clone Wars not withstanding), and yes a pretty good bad guy with a double-bladed lightsaber (with Palpatine in the background, as he should be).
I know it's got shitty parts, Jar-jar, midichlorians, et al. but it's a much smaller story than Episodes 2 and 3 and it really balances the super-close-in personal moments and the wide-out sweeping action and political maneuvering. War is a theme that is part of ALL Star Wars stories, but in the rest of the prequel trilogy (not gonna talk about sequels here) they focus a bit too much on it.
EDIT: Also to comment on Eps 2 and 3 here as I have read in the past few comments, Kamino and the opening Coruscant section were pretty good in 2, and the opening sequence in 3 is also pretty lit. Ep 3 is actually like... 85% right, but the writing is just SO bad... I didn't think Ole Georgie could get WORSE at dialogue, but he really just drops the ball. The plot is... serviceable in the grand sense--the structure is solid--but Anakin's fall to the dark side is just poorly executed.
Post by: Egan_BW on December 29, 2018, 06:09:13 pm
my fav lightsaber duel in the series (2003 Clone Wars not withstanding)
How DARE you imply that Clone Wars 2003 wasn't the objectively best star wars content in every single way! How dare you sir!
Post by: hector13 on December 29, 2018, 07:01:55 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 29, 2018, 07:07:50 pm
I think you’ll find, sir, Star Wars: Rebellion was the pinnacle of the media.Oh sir! If I may suggest, applying a pineapple to thine rectum might provide thee with solace! The lowest villain in the realm knows that game was an inferior product from a less civilized time
Post by: hector13 on December 29, 2018, 07:56:24 pm
I think you’ll find, sir, Star Wars: Rebellion was the pinnacle of the media.Oh sir! If I may suggest, applying a pineapple to thine rectum might provide thee with solace! The lowest villain in the realm knows that game was an inferior product from a less civilized time
I will oblige thee only if thou pull thine bottom lip over thy head and swallow!
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 29, 2018, 07:57:53 pm
my fav lightsaber duel in the series (2003 Clone Wars not withstanding)
How DARE you imply that Clone Wars 2003 wasn't the objectively best star wars content in every single way! How dare you sir!
The opposite was implied lol, 2003 Clone Wars is pretty much the best non-videogame bit of SW media.
EDIT: Also Star Wars: Rebellion--the board game--is pretty awesome.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on December 30, 2018, 11:50:18 am
Counterpoint: every scene is a bunch of people standing on the exact same concrete square, exchanging wooden dialogue. All the fancy CGI exists only in the mysterious land beyond the square shaped concrete floor. Landing pad on city planet? Concrete square. Magic bubble Atlantis? Concrete square. Somehow even pod racing manages to partially follow this formula. If you include "that flat open grass square in the middle of a forest" every single fight scene follows the formula. Two of the space battles take place on a concrete square, the submarine fight scene as well, and the final space battle both begins and ends on a concrete square.Are you saying that because you actually think it's good, or because there's a guy with a double-bladed lightsaber in it?
Episode One is actually pretty good. I know a lot of people do NOT feel that way, but listen, it's got: two Jedi essentially working free of the council, pod racing, as close to "the old republic" in terms of feel and visual style as we get in any movie, a couple of really good battles, my fav lightsaber duel in the series (2003 Clone Wars not withstanding), and yes a pretty good bad guy with a double-bladed lightsaber (with Palpatine in the background, as he should be).
I know it's got shitty parts, Jar-jar, midichlorians, et al. but it's a much smaller story than Episodes 2 and 3 and it really balances the super-close-in personal moments and the wide-out sweeping action and political maneuvering. War is a theme that is part of ALL Star Wars stories, but in the rest of the prequel trilogy (not gonna talk about sequels here) they focus a bit too much on it.
EDIT: Also to comment on Eps 2 and 3 here as I have read in the past few comments, Kamino and the opening Coruscant section were pretty good in 2, and the opening sequence in 3 is also pretty lit. Ep 3 is actually like... 85% right, but the writing is just SO bad... I didn't think Ole Georgie could get WORSE at dialogue, but he really just drops the ball. The plot is... serviceable in the grand sense--the structure is solid--but Anakin's fall to the dark side is just poorly executed.
Also you know... kid anakin + pedo romance setup, galaxy's drunkest jedi (back at the temple we used to call him Qui Gon Gin n' Tonic), the most Willy Wonka star federation ever ("the blockade is legal"). Literally the only good thing about the movie is sassy Obi Wan, but he's back in better form in the other 2 movies so that's still not redeeming.
Spoiler: digression (click to show/hide)
Post by: Teneb on December 30, 2018, 11:59:06 am
Obi Wan also gets a mild lovecraft moment in the 2d animated Clone Wars cartoon, where a seperatist commander looks like he's just a large humanoid alien and then the armor comes off and... well, watch it yourself, I believe its the second short that Obi Wan is in.[/spoiler]His battle agaisnt Durge I believe. And even before the bounty hunter goes full lovecraft, Obi-wan leads a group of clones on speeder bikes against a group of droids on speeder bikes... while everyone has lances. So it's a jousting battle.
EDIT: I am now wondering if there is some video of Episodes 2 and 3 where only obi-wan scenes are included.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 30, 2018, 04:02:56 pm
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 08, 2019, 12:53:49 pm
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 08, 2019, 12:58:26 pm
Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 08, 2019, 01:05:05 pm
The Prequels are what happens when you give a chief editor the director's chair (stilted acting, generic 'they fight' scenes), the Sequels are what happens when you put a director in the chief editor's chair (unnecessary lines (3P0 red arm) and scenes (Casino)), and the original trilogy is directors and chief editor each working both in their proper positions and together.George Lucas isn't an editor tho. He's a businessman. See: the "younglings". Either a director or an editor would have seen how incredibly tone deaf their inclusion was. However, George Lucas has always viewed Star Wars as being marketed primarily at children, so he included child characters for marketing purposes. George Lucas' greatest achievement was financial instead of artistic; which is keeping the merchandising rights to Star Wars.
Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.Yeah, I've never had any issue with anyone involved with the prequels aside from George Lucas. Its clear a bunch of graphic artists poured their hearts out for some of those scenes and it was all held back by the actual plot of the movie. Digression, but I have a similar complaint with Jupiter Ascending, its like a weird camp meme movie but some poor CGI artists did a damn good job on the special effects.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 08, 2019, 01:55:53 pm
Post by: Teneb on January 08, 2019, 02:17:10 pm
Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
You are right. It is a system we cannot afford to lose.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 08, 2019, 02:27:35 pm
What about SAND?Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
You are right. It is a system we cannot afford to lose.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 08, 2019, 02:29:44 pm
What about SAND?Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
You are right. It is a system we cannot afford to lose.
What ABOUT sand???
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 08, 2019, 02:31:38 pm
It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smoothWhat about SAND?Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
You are right. It is a system we cannot afford to lose.
What ABOUT sand???
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 08, 2019, 02:39:57 pm
It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smoothWhat about SAND?Episode 3 always felt like a terrible film polished and performed to perfection to me. IMO every aspect of it is great except the writing, which is apocalyptically bad.
What about the droid attack on the wookies?
You are right. It is a system we cannot afford to lose.
What ABOUT sand???
WHO'S THAT POKEMON.
(https://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/3/32/770Palossand.png/1200px-770Palossand.png)(https://media.tenor.com/images/57e1eaab7b893394e91083de6fa6d28f/tenor.gif)
Post by: scriver on January 08, 2019, 04:30:29 pm
Is this what pokemon has become
Post by: Telgin on January 08, 2019, 04:32:56 pm
Post by: Max™ on January 08, 2019, 05:36:23 pm
Spoiler: Normal sized magic garbage bag, I just squish them in there real good! (click to show/hide)
The prequels were way better when I was so baked the kids from Dazed and Confused were like "whoa man, chill, slow down a little" at one point, and yeah, most of that is down to Obi Wan McGregor being awesome, though rebels gets bonus points for finishing the grudge match in a stylish fashion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no4SxdIIDBE
Post by: Sirus on January 08, 2019, 07:28:24 pm
Is that a fucking sand castle pokemonYou're right, let's go back to the days when we had the pokeball pokemon and the upside-down pokeball pokemon. Not to mention the literal piles of sludge. Or the pokemon that evolved into triplets of themselves!
Is this what pokemon has become
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 08, 2019, 07:36:54 pm
Is that a fucking sand castle pokemonYou're right, let's go back to the days when we had the pokeball pokemon and the upside-down pokeball pokemon. Not to mention the literal piles of sludge. Or the pokemon that evolved into triplets of themselves!
Is this what pokemon has become
All of those make more sense than sandcastle pokemon, or garbage bag pokemon, or ice cream cone pokemon. Oh, or comically-racist-caricature pokemon, there's multiple of those.
This pokemon derail is fun.
Post by: Kagus on January 08, 2019, 07:48:56 pm
Oh, or comically-racist-caricature pokemon, there's multiple of those.Jynx? Tangela? Mr. Mime?
This pokemon derail is fun.
What bothers me is stuff like the Magikarp/Dragonite vs. Dratini/Dragonair/Gyarados weirdness... And Togepi. Togepi can eat a bag of egg dicks.
Never got into any gens beyond 1st, so it's still just 151 pokes for me. I don't care about your Dead-Child-O-Lantern or however many increasingly edgelord eeveelutions get added.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 08, 2019, 07:53:03 pm
Oh, or comically-racist-caricature pokemon, there's multiple of those.Jynx? Tangela? Mr. Mime?
This pokemon derail is fun.
What bothers me is stuff like the Magikarp/Dragonite vs. Dratini/Dragonair/Gyarados weirdness... And Togepi. Togepi can eat a bag of egg dicks.
Never got into any gens beyond 1st, so it's still just 151 pokes for me. I don't care about your Dead-Child-O-Lantern or however many increasingly edgelord eeveelutions get added.
Behold the final form of racist pokemon. (https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ludicolo_(Pok%C3%A9mon))
(https://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/8/8b/271Lombre.png/250px-271Lombre.png)(https://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/f/ff/272Ludicolo.png)
Post by: Sirus on January 08, 2019, 09:42:01 pm
Of all the things you just said that makes no sense, this makes the most non-sense. Eeveelutions hit their edgiest with Umbreon (which isn't saying much) and have only gotten less edgy since then. Just look up Sylveon sometime.Oh, or comically-racist-caricature pokemon, there's multiple of those.Jynx? Tangela? Mr. Mime?
This pokemon derail is fun.
What bothers me is stuff like the Magikarp/Dragonite vs. Dratini/Dragonair/Gyarados weirdness... And Togepi. Togepi can eat a bag of egg dicks.
Never got into any gens beyond 1st, so it's still just 151 pokes for me. I don't care about your Dead-Child-O-Lantern or however many increasingly edgelord eeveelutions get added.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 08, 2019, 11:14:11 pm
Charizard isn't dragon tho and that's kinda lame.
Post by: Telgin on January 09, 2019, 09:56:54 am
Anyway, to say something vaguely on topic, I feel like I'm in a minority of people who liked each prequel less than the ones that came before it. Jar Jar was annoying in Episode I, but I can barely even remember what happened in Episode II and outright dislike Episode III for the pacing and terrible handling of Anakin's switch to Darth Vader.
"We're here to arrest you!"
Palpatine kills all the people.
"Okay, I'll do whatever you say now," spoken out of acceptance, not fear.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 09, 2019, 01:22:58 pm
Post by: Max™ on January 09, 2019, 01:43:32 pm
Post by: Teneb on January 09, 2019, 03:45:10 pm
Like, outside of Padme being all spunky and cute and kicking butt, 2 was a complete waste, but somehow Anakin didn't reach peak cringe until part way through 3, which is just painful to realize.Seriously? "I hate sand" wasn't the apex of
You saw no edits. Go home and rethink your life.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 09, 2019, 04:01:41 pm
Like, outside of Padme being all spunky and cute and kicking butt, 2 was a complete waste, but somehow Anakin didn't reach peak cringe until part way through 3, which is just painful to realize.Seriously? "I hate sand" wasn't the apex of Anaking cringe for you?
*Anakringe
...Continue.
Post by: Rolan7 on January 09, 2019, 04:20:42 pm
sand IS awful
Episode 2 is pretty weird. My most recent watching was probably improved by watching with a die-hard fan who pointed out a lot of plot points which the movie... more references than shows. The political intrigue which follows from the first movie and builds up to the third movie.
The movie fails to deliver it properly, and should be judged for that. Much like Boba Fett in 4-6: He's narratively crucial, basically the reason the Empire is able to track the Falcon, but in his actual *appearances* just stands around and eventually falls into a big mouth.
Movies are supposed to hold the audience's hand to some extent, or at least eventually a clear explanation which reveals the earlier mystery points. The Prequels technically foreshadow Anakin's fall, but it's usually... kinda like dogwhistles. Signals that most people won't pick up on, unless you already *way* understand the lore. So to a normal viewer, it looks like he goes straight from "I had a bad dream" to "Kill all the younglings" to "Oh no I'm evil".
Post by: Telgin on January 09, 2019, 04:39:58 pm
The pacing of all three prequels feels terrible in that sense. They really needed three movies with Anakin as an adult and working through all of his problems to get to that point. Spending one on him as a kid didn't set them up to succeed on that front, and I don't even remember what Anakin did in Episode II other than get his hand cut off. At least I think that was in Episode II.
Post by: Teneb on January 09, 2019, 05:40:54 pm
I meanSome cut scenes also would've helped, like Anakin outright murdering another child in Ep1.
sand IS awful
Episode 2 is pretty weird. My most recent watching was probably improved by watching with a die-hard fan who pointed out a lot of plot points which the movie... more references than shows. The political intrigue which follows from the first movie and builds up to the third movie.
The movie fails to deliver it properly, and should be judged for that. Much like Boba Fett in 4-6: He's narratively crucial, basically the reason the Empire is able to track the Falcon, but in his actual *appearances* just stands around and eventually falls into a big mouth.
Movies are supposed to hold the audience's hand to some extent, or at least eventually a clear explanation which reveals the earlier mystery points. The Prequels technically foreshadow Anakin's fall, but it's usually... kinda like dogwhistles. Signals that most people won't pick up on, unless you already *way* understand the lore. So to a normal viewer, it looks like he goes straight from "I had a bad dream" to "Kill all the younglings" to "Oh no I'm evil".
That movie probably would've worked better if Anakin started as a teenager, and would make the Anakin-Padmé romance less... problematic, since both would've been around the same age.
I don't even remember what Anakin did in Episode II other than get his hand cut off. At least I think that was in Episode II.It was.
Post by: Persus13 on January 09, 2019, 06:04:20 pm
Does reading Darths & Droids (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/) count?
Post by: Egan_BW on January 09, 2019, 06:06:30 pm
Whole prequel trilogy shoulda been like that TBH~
Post by: Teneb on January 09, 2019, 06:14:23 pm
Post by: Rolan7 on January 09, 2019, 06:17:47 pm
The other Clone Wars also has a pretty decent Anakin.Quoted for truth. I'm pretty sure I've talked about that before, but the Clone Wars series was *exactly* the content which the Prequels needed between dramatic moments (and... filler hijinks).
Obviously the Clone Wars has filler/action content too, but as a TV show it was able to actually build the characters. Show their humanity, their virtues, and also their weaknesses. If a remake can "ruin" childhoods, this is an addition which redeemed the Prequels.
almost as much as darth darth binks would have but waaa
Post by: Egan_BW on January 09, 2019, 06:22:13 pm
Post by: Grim Portent on January 09, 2019, 08:49:53 pm
I've never watched that one, no doubt partially due to a distaste for 3D animation. Like, gross.
Main highlights: Padme does more stuff to try and stall the inevitable rise of the Empire and broker peace with the CIS. Anakin gets an actual gradual decline from hotheaded hero to being pretty ruthless. Obi-Wan is a sarcastic quiplord with a more fleshed out personality and a tragic character arc. Darth Maul comes back and is pretty cool though rather OTT at times. Sadistic Palpatine comes out to play a few times. The Confederacy is fleshed out so it's not entirely maniacal idiots, though it is still run largely by maniacal idiots. The conflict within the Republic about the war is explored a bit, as well as anti-Jedi sentiment. Clones with actual distinct personalities and emotional moments. Star Wars Vietnam was a thing.
C3-P0 gets tortured. :D
Bad stuff: Jar Jar is still in it, and he looks even more terrible than normal. Droid humour usually falls flat. Lots of jumping the shark moments. Names are often very silly, but hey, that's Star Wars for you. It's rare for a battle to hold tension unless it involves one of the few characters you know can actually die before the Empire rises, which basically means clones and non-movie Jedi. Grievous is horribly incompetent compared to most depictions, including the movie version.
The entire first season. :(
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 09, 2019, 08:53:04 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 09, 2019, 08:59:41 pm
"It's Heroin."
EDIT: Conversely, the Ep.2 version of these is my favorite.
EDIT2: More NSFW audio than I recall lol.
Post by: Teneb on January 09, 2019, 09:17:06 pm
snipHey now, you take the Jar Jar stuff back. He's actually pretty damn good in the series. Trolls a lot, too.
Post by: Grim Portent on January 09, 2019, 09:21:56 pm
snipHey now, you take the Jar Jar stuff back. He's actually pretty damn good in the series. Trolls a lot, too.
I will admit he's more useful than in the movies. Still looks atrocious in the style.
Post by: Teneb on January 09, 2019, 09:24:54 pm
snipHey now, you take the Jar Jar stuff back. He's actually pretty damn good in the series. Trolls a lot, too.
I will admit he's more useful than in the movies. Still looks atrocious in the style.
That's because all gungans have stupid design.
Post by: Max™ on January 09, 2019, 10:36:52 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 21, 2019, 01:34:03 pm
I enjoyed the Clone Wars cartoon but at some point I had to stop watching it because I knew the end and it made it really hard to care about anything. What's really frustrating to me about the Clone Wars story as a whole is that the ending has almost nothing to do with the war or the actions of the characters. The droids don't matter because they're soulless*, the clones aren't soulless but IIRC because of genetic engineering they're basically predestined to die young and childless**, so within a decade or two there will be no evidence that they ever existed. The overarching plot of the prequels seems to be that Palpatine set himself up to be in charge of both sides so that whichever one wins, he ends up ruling the galaxy. We know nearly all the Jedi die. Its like... it doesn't matter who lives or dies, it doesn't matter who wins. Its such a shame because the show is well made but the inevitable ending sapped away all my enthusiasm.I've never watched that one, no doubt partially due to a distaste for 3D animation. Like, gross.
Main highlights: Padme does more stuff to try and stall the inevitable rise of the Empire and broker peace with the CIS. Anakin gets an actual gradual decline from hotheaded hero to being pretty ruthless. Obi-Wan is a sarcastic quiplord with a more fleshed out personality and a tragic character arc. Darth Maul comes back and is pretty cool though rather OTT at times. Sadistic Palpatine comes out to play a few times. The Confederacy is fleshed out so it's not entirely maniacal idiots, though it is still run largely by maniacal idiots. The conflict within the Republic about the war is explored a bit, as well as anti-Jedi sentiment. Clones with actual distinct personalities and emotional moments. Star Wars Vietnam was a thing.
C3-P0 gets tortured. :D
Bad stuff: Jar Jar is still in it, and he looks even more terrible than normal. Droid humour usually falls flat. Lots of jumping the shark moments. Names are often very silly, but hey, that's Star Wars for you. It's rare for a battle to hold tension unless it involves one of the few characters you know can actually die before the Empire rises, which basically means clones and non-movie Jedi. Grievous is horribly incompetent compared to most depictions, including the movie version.
The entire first season. :(
*the first movie seemed to imply that they weren't droids as previously defined in the Star Wars universe, more like really violent RC cars
**episode 2 implied the reason Jango agreed to the cloning was because he was infertile
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 21, 2019, 01:39:18 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 21, 2019, 02:09:14 pm
It says to me that their goal is to simply stir people up into enough of a froth that they make money on opening week. That way they don't have to create anything of substance, and they already have your money.
Post by: Enemy post on January 21, 2019, 02:20:19 pm
I dont remember aything about Jango being infertile
There's also a clone who has biological children in Clone Wars.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 12, 2019, 03:24:23 pm
Link: https://youtu.be/adzYW5DZoWs (https://youtu.be/adzYW5DZoWs)
Discuss.
Before I get negative on it though, Lando is back, and Billy Dee is playing him. Woop woop!!!
EDIT: To be clear, the teaser has the following things tha I find (hilariously?) awesome.
Spoiler: Actual spoilers (click to show/hide)
Post by: Egan_BW on April 12, 2019, 03:38:25 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 12, 2019, 03:39:48 pm
Also I made like 50 sudden edits after posting and I'm sorry for being a terrible human being.
Post by: Egan_BW on April 12, 2019, 03:48:21 pm
Post by: Teneb on April 12, 2019, 04:42:10 pm
Spoiler: Here's a very big hint as to what its about (click to show/hide)
Post by: McTraveller on April 12, 2019, 06:06:03 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 12, 2019, 06:21:05 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 12, 2019, 06:33:53 pm
He's dead. Like, super dead. The stories in the EU where he returns via any method whatsoever are considered to be... well, sort of terrible. Like the Star Trek Insurrection of the EU. Don't get me wrong he's basically my favorite, but I feel like this could be very easily mishandled, or just a ploy to increase FAN SERVICE REVENUE RATING.
Also at what point do we start talking openly about it XD
Post by: Teneb on April 12, 2019, 06:47:51 pm
I'm actually not sure how I feel about "The sound at the end".
He's dead. Like, super dead. The stories in the EU where he returns via any method whatsoever are considered to be... well, sort of terrible. Like the Star Trek Insurrection of the EU. Don't get me wrong he's basically my favorite, but I feel like this could be very easily mishandled, or just a ploy to increase FAN SERVICE REVENUE RATING.
Also at what point do we start talking openly about it XD
Spoiler: I dunno about talking about it openly, but... (click to show/hide)
Post by: Persus13 on April 12, 2019, 06:52:26 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 12, 2019, 07:04:27 pm
I'm actually not sure how I feel about "The sound at the end".
He's dead. Like, super dead. The stories in the EU where he returns via any method whatsoever are considered to be... well, sort of terrible. Like the Star Trek Insurrection of the EU. Don't get me wrong he's basically my favorite, but I feel like this could be very easily mishandled, or just a ploy to increase FAN SERVICE REVENUE RATING.
Also at what point do we start talking openly about it XDSpoiler: I dunno about talking about it openly, but... (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Ok I'm talking about it openly now, watch the trailer before you read this. (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sirus on April 12, 2019, 07:06:54 pm
EDIT: To be clear, the teaser has the following things tha I find (hilariously?) awesome.Spoiler: Actual spoilers (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Spoiler responses after seeing the trailer (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: As for the other spoiler... (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 12, 2019, 07:12:08 pm
Spoiler: @Sirus, spoilers within (click to show/hide)
OH GEEZ I fixed my spoiler tag lol.
I am looking forward to this though, a lot that could go right.
Post by: Teneb on April 12, 2019, 09:47:18 pm
Spoiler: New Headcanon (click to show/hide)
Post by: Telgin on April 12, 2019, 10:08:01 pm
I'm also kind of surprised that they're explicitly labeling this as the end of the saga. I know they'll probably continue to make side story movies afterward, but I'm surprised they weren't leaving themselves open to the possibility of Episodes 10-12.
Post by: Teneb on April 12, 2019, 10:51:23 pm
This trailer definitely has my attention, but I also agree with Dunamisdeos' earlier assertion that this could very easily be mishandled.I'm glad they are calling it the end. Even if the movies were perfect in every way, there's only so far you can take one particular story. Star Wars is a big universe, and having everything be about Skywalker is a waste.
I'm also kind of surprised that they're explicitly labeling this as the end of the saga. I know they'll probably continue to make side story movies afterward, but I'm surprised they weren't leaving themselves open to the possibility of Episodes 10-12.
Post by: Madman198237 on April 12, 2019, 11:36:29 pm
Spoiler: on a more trailer-centric note (click to show/hide)
Post by: Egan_BW on April 13, 2019, 12:38:26 am
Post by: Reelya on April 13, 2019, 12:49:09 am
Before I get negative on it though, Lando is back, and Billy Dee is playing him. Woop woop!!!
I was pretty grumped out at Disney Star Warstm and was on the fence about seeing it, but bringing Lando back tips it over into the gonna-see category.
Post by: Kagus on April 13, 2019, 04:11:37 am
I mean, it looks like some ruins and relics are involved, so it's not entirely impossible that they're going to pull a holocron out of the galaxy's ass, and that it's just the imprint of Sidious laughing.
And yeah, Sidious was an ambitious little cunt, and he did say that he learned everything Plagueis had to teach... Could very well be that he decided to try his own hand at immaculate conception. Even though that kinda went against his philosophy, if I'm remembering correctly.
And I know it was a joke, but Snoke wasn't nearly paranoid enough to be Plagueis. Plagueis was a twitchy fucker before getting assassinated by his own pupil, I doubt the experience would have made him any more trusting.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on April 13, 2019, 04:56:28 am
He already did. A (canonical) SW comic unveiled that it was him that got Vader's mother pregnant in the first place.
And yeah, Sidious was an ambitious little cunt, and he did say that he learned everything Plagueis had to teach... Could very well be that he decided to try his own hand at immaculate conception.
On the other hand I dont think he really learned all of Plagueis' secrets, not least because after the fight with Windu he actually tells Vader that although only Plagueis knew the secrets of life and death, he was sure that between the two of them they could figure it out. AKA: the claims during "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis" about his apprentice AKA him learning all of DP's secrets are basically a sales pitch, because when push comes to shove he admits that he wasn't the phenomenal student that he claimed to be and that he killed his master before he could figure out how to cast "raise dead".
Post by: Rolan7 on April 13, 2019, 08:55:36 am
I would hesitate to want the people who have done this trilogy to do anything more with Star Wars, abysmally handled as it has been.Spoiler: on a more trailer-centric note (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Teneb on April 13, 2019, 09:04:14 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on April 13, 2019, 10:10:55 am
(https://i.redd.it/hssjl3xrs1001.jpg)
Its so frustrating to see the direction the franchise has headed in. It's not even "playing it safe" bad, it's just bad bad.
Post by: Kagus on April 13, 2019, 10:14:50 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 13, 2019, 10:24:30 am
Anyway there are lots of examples of Dark-side force ghosts in various side media. SW: The Old Republic, the MMO, has a plethora of them (though they are supposed to be comparatively rare to light-side ones).
Holocron is a distinct possibility. Probably as likely as a force ghost, really.
Post by: Hanslanda on April 13, 2019, 11:17:45 am
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 13, 2019, 11:21:52 am
Post by: Madman198237 on April 13, 2019, 11:22:39 am
I'm on the fence about seeing it in theaters or seeing it on Netflix.
You forget that a couple months before then Disney is going to release their own streaming service, it will probably never get released on Netflix since that'd cut into the oh-so-important profits of Disney.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 13, 2019, 11:28:35 am
I'm on the fence about seeing it in theaters or seeing it on Netflix.
You forget that a couple months before then Disney is going to release their own streaming service, it will probably never get released on Netflix since that'd cut into the oh-so-important profits of Disney.
Yeah you know, the Netflix Bay. Yarrr.
(I probably know someone with that streaming service and can just watch it there, really)
Post by: Kagus on April 13, 2019, 11:30:57 am
Post by: Enemy post on April 13, 2019, 01:52:46 pm
Post by: Kagus on April 13, 2019, 03:37:50 pm
That leaping lightsaber backflip to attack the fighter zooming at her? That's obviously the work of Sheev "Old Man Corkscrew" Palpatine!
Post by: Dunamisdeos on April 13, 2019, 04:15:43 pm
Wait a minute... Yes, yes! Sidious did create Rey! It's all so clear now!
That leaping lightsaber backflip to attack the fighter zooming at her? That's obviously the work of Sheev "Old Man Corkscrew" Palpatine!
Accepting this explanation immediately. Learning lightsaber techniques by tangential proxy is now canon.
IN OTHER NEWS:
EA is making another Star Wars game (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/jedi-fallen-order-has-no-microtransactions-or-mult/1100-6466229/), it has, reportedly, no multiplayer or microtransactions. Absolutely cannot wait to see how they utterly ruin the public image of this.
Post by: McTraveller on August 26, 2019, 07:42:07 pm
Post by: Madman198237 on August 26, 2019, 07:58:58 pm
D23 not-quite trailer thing - huh.
It's either a deep space storage/bunch of mothballed ISDs, an Imperial Remnant sort of plot.....or they're grabbing an EU trick and it's actually Palpatine's clone and a fleet from the Inner Core.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on August 27, 2019, 01:20:59 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: scriver on August 27, 2019, 05:31:38 am
Post by: Jopax on August 27, 2019, 06:33:15 am
Post by: scriver on August 27, 2019, 07:20:51 am
D23?
Ah, It's another convention.
Anyway, I looked at what I think was the trailer you're talking about. It looks like it's aimed at people who was upset with tLJ. But I don't think they got what people was upset of that movie about.
To me, it looks like another trite retreat, just like the other two movies (giving back JJ Abrams complete control was only going to end in disaster, the man really is a complete hack). And then we're going to get three movies from D&D, guilty of what is likely the worst producing of a major tv series in the 2010's. Ouff, my poor Star Wars.
Post by: sluissa on August 27, 2019, 09:00:20 am
No feelings at all... none... I swear... no heartbreak here, just last night's burger coming back for revenge... that must be it... no other explanation.
Post by: scriver on December 18, 2019, 10:04:02 am
Also new Star Wars reviews are coming out of the woodwork...and it’s not looking so good.
Grab the popcorn, because that means INTERNET DRAMA!
Can't say I'm super surprised, but I'll withhold judgment until I actually watch the movie. Supposedly they had to reshoot one of the scenes near the end of the movie because the prescreen audience started laughing at the fight with Palpatine or something. That's not a good indicator.
Post by: Kot on December 18, 2019, 11:51:27 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 18, 2019, 01:24:21 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: IcyTea31 on December 18, 2019, 01:50:26 pm
Post by: Iduno on December 18, 2019, 02:40:14 pm
Post by: Max™ on December 20, 2019, 10:11:47 am
Just wikitrolls, yeah?
...no?
Well shit, I suppose going from The Memberberries Awaken to The Last Jedi...OR IS IT BECAUSE ACTUALLY SUBVERSION! and trying to wrap things back up neatly wasn't going to be a simple task, not even sure Hickman would be able to work that one out without accidentally making Dr. Doom reveal himself as a direct ancestor of both Kylo and Rey in order to get Dr. Manhattan to summon Superman to put an end to their incestuousness by rubbing a lamp he got from a rather unlucky Major.
Spoiler: But seriously though... (click to show/hide)
Post by: nogoodnames on December 20, 2019, 11:19:34 am
But also,
Spoiler: If you thought the hyperspace ram was bad... (click to show/hide)
Post by: Iduno on December 20, 2019, 12:33:54 pm
I'm going to agree with IcyTea here. The first half was a complete mess, where everything and everyone felt like they were rushing to get on to the next scene as fast as possible. Why does every big movie these days seem to completely suck at editing and pacing?
Read up on Marcia Lucas, and how trash George's dumbass ideas (https://mashable.com/2018/06/13/lucas-sequel-star-wars-plan/) for Star Wars were. You want to know why he went back and changed the films so Greedo shot first (and other brilliant edits)? He thought they were good ideas. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMyMxMYDNk)
Edit: He did end up with a good film, for a guy who didn't understand the writing, pacing, and directing portions of his job.
Post by: George_Chickens on December 20, 2019, 01:13:12 pm
I'm glad I gave up on Star Wars so that I couldn't be heartbroken by what they're doing to it.Don't ask questions. Just consume product and then get excited for next product.
No feelings at all... none... I swear... no heartbreak here, just last night's burger coming back for revenge... that must be it... no other explanation.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 20, 2019, 01:15:57 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 20, 2019, 02:40:30 pm
Post by: Iduno on December 20, 2019, 03:21:51 pm
I feel like I should see it for how bad it is... but it will A.) make me irrationally angry, and B.) I don't want to support Disney's shitty choices and weak effort.
I assume the lack of quality in media today is to fight piracy. It's been years since I've seen advertisements for a game/movie that looked like it was worth the effort to steal.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 20, 2019, 03:53:07 pm
I feel like I should see it for how bad it is... but it will A.) make me irrationally angry, and B.) I don't want to support Disney's shitty choices and weak effort.
B) for me.
Disney has all the same capacity for originality as a stale rice cake. If it doesn't confirm to the simplest and most digestible of marketing formulas, they have no idea what to do with it. They wanted Star Wars to be their next "we can spend 10 minutes writing whatever the hell we want and slap a famous character's face on it and rake in money" franchise like they did with Pirates of the Caribbean, and the second that failed with TLJ that was it. No ability whatsoever to recover.
They have people there who know how to do it, just look at Rogue One. It's just not what Disney is about.
Post by: TamerVirus on December 20, 2019, 06:31:42 pm
2)have the second movie throw out everything the first movie set
3)call all the people who didn’t like what you did entitled or something
4)Panic!
5)????
6)Profit! (Still)
Post by: Mephansteras on December 20, 2019, 08:00:37 pm
Post by: Reelya on December 20, 2019, 10:09:23 pm
If the JJ Abrams movies all suffer from any specific problem too much, it's that there's way to much "we gotta go to place X to find the MacGuffin Z" plots. In RPG terms, consider if you crossed out all the JJ Abrams "side quests" where the only reward was some MacGuffin, or finding some person who could unlock the locked MacGuffin, as optional and boiled it down to the main story, how much would be left?
Consider that there were plenty of side stories and set pieces in the original movies and even the prequels, but they weren't quite as stuffed to the gills with MacGuffin Plots. By that I mean, in the Lucas films, they're going to places because of other reasons, and plot happens along the way, setting up the set pieces, whereas in these films there's way too much of "only on Planet X is there a person who has thing Y / can fix thing Z" etc, and the plot consists of stringing these units together.
(Minorly spoilerly from here on) Consider that "C3PO brain fart" plot-point. It only exists so they can string another "MacGuffin Quest" onto the string, and have yet another set-piece location. If they were running too long, the entire "plot unit" could be excised without any real change to the rest of the movie. The problem here is that the resultant movie can be filled to the gills with action, yet you're still bored, because there's no real reason that the action is happening in that place vs any other place. Like when the heroes all went to that planet where they're having a festival. They're only there to find a MacGuffin, so the entire backdrop is meaningless in the big picture. It also leads to plot holes, since the supposedly genocidal First Order couldn't shoot up the civilians in that scene, because the heroes were only there because of the MacGuffin, so if the civilians all got killed it would be the heroes fault for hanging around. So, because of the constraints of the narrative, nothing of actual substance can happen to anyone else when the heroes just turn up looking for the MacGuffins. In The Force Awakens, it was almost all about a Big MacGuffin: finding the lost bit that has the coordinates of Luke's planet. I thought it was just that Movie, except in the latest movie it's also almost all about finding a Big MacGuffin about finding the lost bit that has the coordinates of someone else's planet.
Post by: IcyTea31 on December 21, 2019, 06:06:54 am
If we compare screenwriting to cooking, modular scenes are salt. Too little and the meat will be bland (a "talking heads" movie) to many tastes, too many or unevenly loaded, it becomes unenjoyable.
And yes, for this one they frontloaded several modular scenes in a row and glued them together in a contrived manner, creating a clumsy first act.
Post by: hector13 on December 21, 2019, 11:41:20 pm
Finn remains as pointless as ever; he should’ve been a side character in the first movie and then killed off. I was sad to see no Poe-Finn gayness despite this.
It was very clunky at the start, and I probably agree with Reelya about some of the things that happened merely to be reasons for the characters to go places and do things.
Spoiler: mostly minor but one huge spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Rolan7 on December 22, 2019, 10:59:13 am
Finn remains as pointless as ever; he should’ve been a side character in the first movie and then killed off. I was sad to see no Poe-Finn gayness despite this.Legit aww :(
Post by: Reelya on December 22, 2019, 12:04:27 pm
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 22, 2019, 02:22:11 pm
Spoiler: just the eye rolling parts, massive spoilers (click to show/hide)
anyway if I had to pick one thing to criticize it lacked a larger finale a la episode three, with the impact on the galaxy as whole more evident
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 22, 2019, 02:23:53 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 22, 2019, 03:34:59 pm
What you're describing is called modular scenes. That is, scenes and plot points that can be added or removed freely to pad or shorten the runtime, as they are not essential to the main plot.
If we compare screenwriting to cooking, modular scenes are salt. Too little and the meat will be bland (a "talking heads" movie) to many tastes, too many or unevenly loaded, it becomes unenjoyable.
And yes, for this one they frontloaded several modular scenes in a row and glued them together in a contrived manner, creating a clumsy first act.
That just sounds like bad writing. Scenes should always be necessary, and if theyre not, actually provided interesting additional details about the world, the characters, and insights on the plot of the movie.
EDIT: I haven't even seen this movie and the rhetoric and explanations popping up around it are already making me hate it.
Post by: itisnotlogical on December 23, 2019, 02:26:36 am
About IX specifically, Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter is a bigger ass pull than even Palpy himself. It's "btw Dumbledore's gay" but for Star Wars.
However dumb the prequels were, they had an internal logic where you could draw lines from a character's prequel appearance to where they are when A New Hope starts. Prequel-exclusive characters either die off or are unimportant to the OT story, and the majority of OT characters have plausible reasons for their role in the prequels.
How is it even remotely possible to guess that Palps started a family? We see him in the prequels as a politician who never leaves Coruscant, doing evil Sith things in various spinoffs, or as the Emperor. Somewhere in the middle of all that, he found a nice non-evil wife to start a family with? Then his son fucks off and starts his own family outside of Palps' purview??
For what it's worth, I fucking loved Rogue One and Solo. So just like it was with the prequels and the years following ROTS, all the good shit's gonna be in spinoffs and other low-profile stuff.
Don't ask questions. Just consume product and then get excited for next product.
Oh give me a break. Star Wars has always been a money-grubbing merch-driven commercial juggernaut. The only difference is that Marvel's made film-a-year cinematic universes not only a thing, but an expectation for anything even remotely popular.
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 23, 2019, 02:40:40 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: DemonOfWrath on December 23, 2019, 02:48:39 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: NRDL on December 23, 2019, 08:08:06 am
Post by: hector13 on December 23, 2019, 09:21:09 am
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 23, 2019, 10:00:28 am
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 23, 2019, 10:09:33 am
Post by: Max™ on December 23, 2019, 11:36:21 am
Several of them were short haired in the trailers I've seen, could you see their buttholes?
It appeared some of the cats wear fur which resembles their own fur, are those siblings or parents?
Why do the female cats only have 2 breasts, instead of 5 to 10--yes I meant 5, sometimes there will be a single one in the mix--like a normal cat?
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 23, 2019, 11:53:27 am
The female cats had CGI breast reduction after the trailers came out and now appear androgynous, confirming the movie does not occur during a heat cycle.
Post by: TamerVirus on December 23, 2019, 11:57:12 am
Did the male cats have barbed penises?They were a couple of articles (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jason-derulo-cats-penis-928006/) saying that Jason Derulo was most displeased that they airbrushed out his OwO what's this?
Post by: Iduno on December 23, 2019, 12:47:02 pm
Did the male cats have barbed penises?
Several of them were short haired in the trailers I've seen, could you see their buttholes?
It appeared some of the cats wear fur which resembles their own fur, are those siblings or parents?
Why do the female cats only have 2 breasts, instead of 5 to 10--yes I meant 5, sometimes there will be a single one in the mix--like a normal cat?
I'd say "keep your barbed dicks out of my Star War", but this is better.
Post by: Sanctume on December 23, 2019, 01:56:44 pm
They must have have some power quantum CPU to calculate those in quick successions.
And can lasers gain velocity at the end of FTL skip?
I took the fam first showing Saturday morning, no line, no hype.
Post by: Max™ on December 23, 2019, 03:14:31 pm
I mean, he's cute, not really my type, too much of a babyface, but hey, I paid for the ticket, I expect terrifying spiked penises, yanno?Did the male cats have barbed penises?They were a couple of articles (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jason-derulo-cats-penis-928006/) saying that Jason Derulo was most displeased that they airbrushed out his OwO what's this?
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 23, 2019, 03:20:51 pm
I mean, he's cute, not really my type, too much of a babyface, but hey, I paid for the ticket, I expect terrifying spiked penises, yanno?Did the male cats have barbed penises?They were a couple of articles (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jason-derulo-cats-penis-928006/) saying that Jason Derulo was most displeased that they airbrushed out his OwO what's this?
Jason Derulo checks in for cosmetic penis surgery in wake of failing movie (https://bit.ly/2PQcmfd)
Post by: Max™ on December 23, 2019, 03:24:15 pm
Lemme know what's up with that guy who played Killmonger and we'll talk, he's foiiiine.
Post by: nenjin on December 23, 2019, 04:05:30 pm
Someone thinks magic can solve all problems, including the need for a plot.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 23, 2019, 04:13:29 pm
Post by: Iduno on December 23, 2019, 04:14:50 pm
So chewbacca has a spiked...?
Nope. All wookies are women.
Post by: IcyTea31 on December 24, 2019, 02:18:05 am
The prequels at least have the redeeming feature of fantastic lightsaber duels to go back and re-watch. The sequel trilogy doesn't have a single good lightsaber fight (the throne room battle in 8 falls to pieces once you see a few hideous flaws, and the duel in 9 was just dull).I thought the spoilered was pretty good in its subtext, actually. It shows that Rey doesn't know how to properly control the Force and herself, and is thus at risk of turning to the dark side until the turnabout happens. The action wasn't great, but in carrying meaning it definitely beat the prequels' "they fight" duels.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Edit: actually, did you notice that after that fight,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sanctume on December 24, 2019, 04:05:29 am
Post by: DemonOfWrath on December 24, 2019, 08:12:13 am
The prequels at least have the redeeming feature of fantastic lightsaber duels to go back and re-watch. The sequel trilogy doesn't have a single good lightsaber fight (the throne room battle in 8 falls to pieces once you see a few hideous flaws, and the duel in 9 was just dull).I thought the spoilered was pretty good in its subtext, actually. It shows that Rey doesn't know how to properly control the Force and herself, and is thus at risk of turning to the dark side until the turnabout happens. The action wasn't great, but in carrying meaning it definitely beat the prequels' "they fight" duels.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Edit: actually, did you notice that after that fight,Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I mean sure, but it's still disappointing that in 3 movies they couldn't deliver one good saber duel.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Cthulhu on December 24, 2019, 10:58:00 am
Meanwhile when Obi Wan is enraged at Darth Maul it looks exactly like the rest of the fight, highly choreographed glowstick ballet.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I can't imagine anything worse than this, but then again it would've made the movie schlockier so I wish they did it. The movie was bad. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but bad. The first half kind of felt like I was inside a running clothesdryer, and the second half gave me a headache. They undid everything from TLJ so they had to stuff two movies worth of plot into one. It's also full of seams and obvious patches where they had to go back through in editing and try to hot-glue the movie together.
The movie's held together with duct tape and moves so fast it hopes you won't notice. I liked the characters, especially Kylo/Rey and Finn/Poe, but they're in service of this incomprehensible nightmare, and that makes it frustrating. Finn and Poe and basically everyone else, especially the OT characters, have nothing to do. There's a trilogy worth of C3PO jokes in this movie, and none of them are funny, characters' entire arcs are resolved in like thirty seconds, there's a bunch of weird shit that makes no sense and I assume they just hit pencils down and couldn't edit around them, since the movie was still in editing up to like a week ago. It's still unbelievable to me that Disney spent 4 billion dollars on this franchise to just immediately slam on the gas with no plan whatsoever. Considering how carefully they built up the Marvel universe, I can't believe they flubbed Star Wars this badly. Force Awakens was okay but they left no guidance on where the story was going, gave it to a different director and he fucked it up, then gave it back to JJ Abrams to try to course correct, and he drove it right off a cliff.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: itisnotlogical on December 24, 2019, 11:38:23 am
What was Finn gonna say to Rey? I have heard JJ Abrams said he was gonna say he was force sensitive, and he obviously is in this movie, but I don't buy that cause why would he be cagey about that?
Hell, I thought he was Force sensitive at the end of TFA, given he takes Rey's lightsaber and does a bunch of Jedi shit for the finale. Nope, just one of many dropped threads.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 24, 2019, 11:59:51 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 24, 2019, 12:00:39 pm
I thought Rey and Kylo's thing was a reference to Kreia and Exile's relationship in KOTOR 2, but I suppose in hindsight that's giving this movie far, far too much credit, even if it were a good movie to begin with. They failed to fill even the tiniest of plot holes, how would they be clever enough to reference a 15-year-old game that hardly anybody liked?Strike thy tongue from thy mouth, blasphemer!
Post by: itisnotlogical on December 24, 2019, 12:25:05 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 24, 2019, 01:39:03 pm
I thought Rey and Kylo's thing was a reference to Kreia and Exile's relationship in KOTOR 2, but I suppose in hindsight that's giving this movie far, far too much credit, even if it were a good movie to begin with. They failed to fill even the tiniest of plot holes, how would they be clever enough to reference a 15-year-old game that hardly anybody liked?Strike thy tongue from thy mouth, blasphemer!
Hey, I loved KOTOR 2, but my understanding is that it didn't sell well and not a lot of people remember it.
Spoiler: I understand and respect your feelings. (click to show/hide)
Post by: Cthulhu on December 24, 2019, 02:03:52 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Egan_BW on December 24, 2019, 02:05:15 pm
Post by: Max™ on December 24, 2019, 06:31:22 pm
Also: My Old Fashioned Fuckstick==Moff!
Regarding less sillyflippyspinny battles: Obi Wan vs Maul from Rebels. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeG215-yu-k)
Even though the one with Palpatine vs Maul+Savage had a lot of the glowstick stuff it is still a cool fight and easier to figure out what is happening than the prequel ones where it runs into the same problem the bayformer movies did: looking like you threw a bunch of toys at each other and recorded them colliding and bouncing around.
The tracer afterimage helps amazingly there to convey both speed and trajectory clearly. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7hBZNsPnyg) Love the little flourish at the start where he's just slicing up the floor because fuck you.
Post by: Reelya on December 24, 2019, 08:11:56 pm
Hey, I loved KOTOR 2, but my understanding is that it didn't sell well and not a lot of people remember it.
It's the semantic difference: "hardly anyone played" would have been less ambiguous.
"Hardly anyone liked" makes it sounds like a lot of people played it, but didn't like it.
Post by: Cthulhu on December 24, 2019, 10:44:39 pm
Star Wars is just shackled to the OT, to weird inferences and conclusions drawn from random lines in the OT. Darth Vader is a bad guy with a red lightsaber but people thought he was cool so now he's Space Jesus and all sith are named Darth with a red lightsaber (even though in one of the original cuts Obi-Wan calls him "Darth" as a first name). All jedi have lightsabers, even yoda, whose entire point as a character was that being a jedi is about more than being a badass warrior.
It can't go anywhere new or interesting, even the best of the EU stuff is just remixing ideas from the OT. It's a zombie franchise, just endlessly going through the motions. I kind of hate it, honestly.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 25, 2019, 06:36:59 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2019, 08:10:03 am
Post by: Reelya on December 25, 2019, 09:09:17 am
It can't go anywhere new or interesting, even the best of the EU stuff is just remixing ideas from the OT. It's a zombie franchise, just endlessly going through the motions. I kind of hate it, honestly.
One example of the OT stuff having paper-thin veneer papering over the lack of believable world-building is the clever "Evil McEvilface" type naming scheme for the Sith that runs out of options after exactly two examples. Darth (in)Vader then Darth (in)Sidious, but after exactly those two examples they ran out of ominious sounding "in" words.
Post by: Rolan7 on December 25, 2019, 09:32:52 am
Post by: Cthulhu on December 25, 2019, 10:48:59 am
It can't go anywhere new or interesting, even the best of the EU stuff is just remixing ideas from the OT. It's a zombie franchise, just endlessly going through the motions. I kind of hate it, honestly.
One example of the OT stuff having paper-thin veneer papering over the lack of believable world-building is the clever "Evil McEvilface" type naming scheme for the Sith that runs out of options after exactly two examples. Darth (in)Vader then Darth (in)Sidious, but after exactly those two examples they ran out of ominious sounding "in" words.
That reminds me, for The Force Unleashed they wanted darth vader's apprentice to be a darth and asked George Lucas for suggestions, he gave them Darth Icky and Darth Insanious, and never discussed it again. Everyone complains about Disney trashing the EU, but Lucas hated the EU and didn't bother to disguise his contempt for it.
The first order is another good example of the complete void of creativity that Star Wars is. The empire is defeated and the republic is restored. A new imperial remnant is trying to restore the old order. They have an interstellar superweapon and giant spaceships and the people fighting them are the "resistance." Why? Why is the republic still "resisting?" They're the status quo now! This should've been a reversal of the old formula, where the first order is small and weak, maybe one of many imperial remnant organizations that the republic is slowly taking out with their superior forces, and maybe they pull some clever coup (clever meaning not an insterstellar superweapon to just automatically win) to put the republic on the defensive.
Instead it's just the same shit as before. It's always the same shit. It will never be anything different. Star Wars has nothing new or interesting to say. The OT was a fluke, mostly carried by Empire, and with a few rare exceptions (also flukes) the rest is just endlessly remixing the OT's ideas without the soul that made it work.
So like any proper star wars fans, we all hate star wars, and like any proper star wars fans, we have ideas for how we would've done the prequels/sequels. So what are they, show your cards.
If Disney held a gun to my head and told me to outline a reboot of the sequel trilogy, I'd do the above. There's dozens of remnant forces, planetary governors and admirals with a few ships and a couple planets still holding out, and the Republic is slowly clearing them out. They've got a new giant ship, equivalent to the giant ship in TLJ, which they keep in orbit around the Republic homeworld and they're always arguing over whether or not they need it. Leia is chancellor. The first order, under the cover of insignificance, has been using Snoke and Kylo to unite the remnant forces, and they infiltrate the Republic military, seizing control of the Big Ship and invading the republic homeworld in one big coup. The B-story is the republic forces suddenly thrown into this brutal urban war for survival.
Meanwhile in the A-story, Rey is an orphan on a backwater planet, working as a thief and intuitively using the force. She meets Luke who's passing through on a mysterious errand, and manages to steal his lightsaber. When she goes to fence it, remnant agents in the criminal underworld recognize it and send word back to the First Order, who's looking for Luke. They also try to capture Rey, who uses the force to escape. Kylo and the Knights of Ren go to find her and the lightsaber. Finn learns about this plan and steals the transmission, using it as a bargaining chip to defect, for the same reason he defected in the original. Poe doesn't trust him, Leia has the force and knows he's trustworthy/force sensitive himself, and she sends Poe and Finn together, along with a small crew, to find Rey before the Kylo gets to her. They kind of hate each other at force, but Finn uses his stormtrooper credentials and knowledge of how they operate, Poe uses his piloting skills, they learn to trust each other, become friends, maybe fall in love (maybe that's why Leia made them go together), make Disney put their progressive money where their progressive mouth is and stop tiptoeing around it.
So plots converge there, Han also shows up and meets Luke for the last time, the scene we didn't get in the original, Kylo kills him and they go on a race to find Luke.
Turns out! Luke has become disillusioned with the force, and in an echo of Darth Vader's "bring order to the galaxy," has decided if people can't use the force for good, no one can have it anymore. He wants to sever the galaxy's connection to the force, somehow. Maybe merge with the lingering remnant of palpatine, the feedback shattering the force, maybe find some force nexus on Korriban or some similar planet, who knows. Second movie something happens. Kylo fights Luke, gets his ass whooped, but Luke refuses to kill him. They learn Luke's evil plan. Rey redeems Kylo in the third movie and he use his super TIE fighter to do the Holdo move on the Big Republic Ship, killing Snoke and giving the republic the opportunity to turn the fight around. Rey, along with Kylo's sacrifice, restores Luke's faith in the force, but he dies. Rey and maybe Finn take up his mantle to start a new jedi order. Then darth maul shows up with robot legs.
Post by: Egan_BW on December 25, 2019, 02:22:07 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 25, 2019, 02:36:56 pm
Quote
The first order is another good example of the complete void of creativity that Star Wars is. The empire is defeated and the republic is restored. A new imperial remnant is trying to restore the old order. They have an interstellar superweapon and giant spaceships and the people fighting them are the "resistance." Why? Why is the republic still "resisting?" They're the status quo now! This should've been a reversal of the old formula, where the first order is small and weak, maybe one of many imperial remnant organizations that the republic is slowly taking out with their superior forces, and maybe they pull some clever coup (clever meaning not an insterstellar superweapon to just automatically win) to put the republic on the defensive.Now that you mention it: the EU started like that, before it got silly (which
.. kind of happened right after those three books, IMO). The Thrawn trilogy was exactly like that. And it was actually good. I liked EU Thrawn precisedly because of that: he was a reflection of the Rebel Alliance, a sort of Hannibal if you like. Disneywars Thrawn lacks that feature, unfortunately.
Post by: Max™ on December 25, 2019, 03:00:18 pm
*head explodes like it got hit by a hyperjumping ship*
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on December 25, 2019, 06:31:52 pm
1) Poe should not have been disappeared on Jakku, and instead have piloted the Falcon off Jakku. What Rey could have done during that scene would be something like fixing various mechanical problems that just kept cropping up, and you could instantly get a team dynamic from the group by having the TIE that Poe and Finn escaped on having gone down due to a mechanical problem neither knew how to fix. As a bonus, you get the whole crew together pretty early in the first movie rather than having to wait until the near-credits of the second for two of them to even meet.
2) Based on how the introduction scenes went, Rey seems more fitting to be the successor of Han Solo, and Finn would have been the more fitting successor to Luke, especially with a tiny tweak of the mission at the start of the movie having been the most recent of many rather than his first. Seems like leagues more fertile ground for motivation by having Finn as the Jedi to stand against the First Order after all the horrors he witnessed and after growing out of his fear, and having Rey grow from someone wanting to stay on a rough planet waiting and in relative safety into an gambling explorer who's familiar with the shadier side of the law.
Post by: Kot on December 25, 2019, 08:27:50 pm
Finn as the Jedi to stand against the First Order after all the horrors he witnessed and after growing out of his fear, and having Rey grow from someone wanting to stay on a rough planet waiting and in relative safety into an gambling explorer who's familiar with the shadier side of the law.Both were impossible because Force is female, duh.
Post by: Jopax on December 25, 2019, 08:39:55 pm
Like, the third episode, him infiltrating the compound crawling with storm troopers is supposed to be this tense series of scenes, but then as usual, all the storm troopers are a goofy and ineffectual joke and it takes all the goddamn wind out of the scene. Tho I guess that's kind of to be expected when you try and make a grim and gritty take on something essentially made for kids.
Post by: Reelya on December 25, 2019, 08:41:54 pm
2) Based on how the introduction scenes went, Rey seems more fitting to be the successor of Han Solo
The real problem with Rey is that she's Han, Luke and Leia rolled into one, with all their good points and none of their bad points. The sole problem she has is the "what is this darkness inside me?" thing, which is a common Mary Sue trope, too.
They were so keen to make sure "she don't need no man" that when she got captured, she escaped before the team could rescue her. So she can do anything, doesn't need anyone. Great basis for an ensemble movie. I'm just surprised she can't also speak 6 million dialects and has a built-in hacking probe, so she can one-up the droids in every scene they're in.
Post by: Cthulhu on December 25, 2019, 09:43:38 pm
Post by: hector13 on December 25, 2019, 10:12:26 pm
Post by: Reelya on December 25, 2019, 11:28:13 pm
Also, remember the Battle of Hoth was the main stormtrooper engagement in the second film. The heroes had to run away. The problem here is that the movies aren't quite as wall-to-wall shootouts with stormtroopers as we're making out. There are probably more minutes of that in the Death Star scene in A New Hope than all stormtrooper battles in the other two OT movies together.
EDIT: however a huge plot hole in Empire is why Darth Vader only disabled the hyper-drive on the Millennium Falcon at Bespin rather than just stealing it. But he did have a tractor beam ready, so he apparently planned for them to pilot it straight up to him. So the theory that he wanted them alive could go for all three movies actually.
Post by: Iduno on December 26, 2019, 09:10:26 am
I don't like Palpatine having a lightsaber. He didn't have one in the OT and he obviously thinks little of them, he calls it a "jedi weapon." Darth Vader has a lightsaber cause he's a fallen jedi, but then they made every sith just an evil jedi with a red lightsaber.
Right, like they're just going to know about previous movies before writing a new one.
All of these plotholes could have been avoided if they put in the slightest amount of effort or hired one of their insane fans to check canon. But Disney brought in Abrams because they don't care about canon. They came out and said that when they bought the properties.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 27, 2019, 12:58:31 am
Having seen all three movies now, I'm confident enough to say there WAS a really good trilogy in there, but it got absolutely fucked by Disney's oppressive creative guidance. That and Rian Johnson's very real incompetence. Honestly, you could make a solid SW movie just by recutting different sequences from TFA and TRS.
There are too many fine details for me to nitpick in The Rise of Skywalker rn tho.
Dewit.
Post by: Madman198237 on December 27, 2019, 04:12:21 pm
Now, for a lengthy probably hyperspace-focused rant about this movie and probably also a couple others and what they've done to established facts about Star Wars.
).Post by: McTraveller on December 28, 2019, 08:29:01 am
For the movie itself, some minor quibbles really - like why do you have to crash your ship that clearly has hovering capability (ref. landing in Cloud City) just because the landing gear is out?
I did see a distinct lack of JJ Lens FlairTM - someone must've given him a stern talking to.
Overall though - there just wasn't enough weight to things - the victory didn't feel like it cost enough:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Even the supposed struggle with "are we all alone" was not heavy enough - it was inevitable that everyone would rally together.
I think I also echo the previous comments that it felt like they were trying to manage too many character arcs, so there wasn't enough time to really get invested in any single character. The OT was basically focused on Luke, with a couple other side stories like the Han & Leia romance. Prequels were split a bit too, but not as heavy - just between Anakin and Obi Wan (maybe Padme counts). But the new ones we had Rey, Poe, Finn, Kylo, too much backstory with Luke and Leia, too many weird side stories and new short-lived characters (Phasma, Poe's ex, Maz, the new general, even the Knights of Ren felt like they were just thrown in there). It felt like they were trying to tell a story that is too big to fit in three films to be honest - which really does reek of Disney trying to set up "here's the Poe & his ex spinoff series" kind of stuff.
However, at the end of the day, it was entertaining enough, and I don't mind having watched it.
Post by: scriver on December 28, 2019, 09:21:53 am
So I agree with a lot that's already been said in this thread. I had been spoilered by the rumours of Palpatine returning so yeah, I was expecting that. It's still awful, but I was expecting it to be worse.
Still suffers extremely bad from JJ Abrams syndrome with the "modular scenes" as you call it. First half was very bad with it. At least I can't say I was bored. I guess that's the only upside of the practice. But it has absolutely no impact.
Abrams also seems to have learned a lot of lessons from the fab outrage against TLJ (and I insist, by the way, that it was Abrams that was the main culprit behind a lot of what went wrong with it -- sure, I too was upset by Rian's demeaning attitude (I have a good rant or two in this thread about it) but I do feel that the movie was being anchored a lot by Abrams and what comes off as an insipid compulsion of his to not have a plot or a running thread and need to remake the OT nearly scene by scene), so yeah a lot of lessons learned. Unfortunately, the majority of them seem to have been the wrong lessons. I think there was a lot of dumb in the TLJ. What we got now what a lot of overcompensation for the criticism against it. And I really don't think this is what people wanted when they got angry at TLJ. I think what people want is something new that builds on the old as opposed to tearing at it, not just mindless nostalgia. I feel that a lot of TLJ was a result from not understanding the reception of Episode7 (ie fans love to hypothesize and fantasize about the story because they love hypothesizing and fantasizing in itself and they build upon what was left open by the movies because that is what hey have to go by: fans got hung up on Rey's parentage because it was an open plot hook, not because of a need to have her be the child of a known character) and now we have a third movie build largely around a complete misunderstanding about the reception of Episode 8. Overall, so many good plot points thrown out and wasted over all three movies.
And yeah, the characters. They still don't matter, do they? Captain guy still meanders around and is completely pointless (I hate that stupid beautiful face of his and is not in the least jealous of his jawline). Finn gets no character development this time either and his past as a storm trooper still dangles like a giant potential storyline behind him but nope no emotional content there. At least they acknowledged it this time with that group of other deserters. I did like the line about how somebody who's not force-sensitive might experience the force, though. But I don't like the way they talk about the Force as having a will and a purpose and like it has an active will and an agenda. But I guess that's just a philosophical/metaphysical difference of opinion between me and pretty much everyone who has ever had any say on a Star Wars production it seems.
Kylo and Rei, despite the heavy plot focus, also feels like they get very little emotional focus. Kylo gets his redemptional revaluation with his father, at least, but it feels cheap. However, despite not feeling for them during much of the movie, I did feel like they mattered to me at the end, so the movie did sneak that up on me. I liked the force bond stuff. I think it's the only plot point from Episode 8 that they actually kept and did something with. The force transporting thing they had going was also neat, probably the only Chekhov's Gun the movie ever bothers firing after establishing it. And it makes use of it several times! It's almost like Abrams deep down knows how yo structure a fictional work after all.
Something that ties in with this that I liked was that the Ren-Knights didn't have lightsabers. Which makes sense, seeming as not even Kylo managed to build a functioning one. I don't know if it's a conscious design but I liked it nonetheless.
So yeah. I've got a lot to say about this and I don't think I will be able to structure my rant properly, so let's just end on that positive note.
Post by: Max™ on December 28, 2019, 11:19:23 am
Post by: dractionjack77 on December 28, 2019, 12:15:26 pm
Post by: Cthulhu on December 28, 2019, 02:16:27 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 28, 2019, 02:28:52 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Madman198237 on December 28, 2019, 02:35:17 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It means "you know how you Jedi get Force Ghosts? Well, WE get Force Ghosts too, so, HAH!"
Or at least that every new Sith Lord must apparently go to hidden-secret-planet-place and, like, get the power (and apparently goals and such) of all the previous Sith? And that sometimes a freaking SITH LORD will voluntarily get murdered by their apprentice and hand over their power so the Sith will survive, which is absolute garbage and contrary to everything we know of the Sith (incredibly self-centered and driven usually by desires for *personal* power and control or whatever).
Oh well. At least they managed to feed all the shippers? And the memes?
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 28, 2019, 02:50:23 pm
They also make some comparisons with that as to why Palpatine is able to defeat Yoda, even though Yoda is shown to be technically more powerful. Palpatine and the Sith have spent the last thousand years specifically training themselves to wipe out the Jedi, and have evolved over time to that end. The Rule of Two ensures that only knowledge that lends itself to that specific goal is honed and passed on. The Jedi have simply stagnated. Yoda even says that the Jedi did not change because he did not let them.
The prequel novelizations are way better than the movies.
Post by: Jopax on December 28, 2019, 06:04:42 pm
That way it all ties together.
You know, like poetry.
Post by: Il Palazzo on December 28, 2019, 06:29:10 pm
In a something of a wtf moment, I've read an article in a local press discussing how the new Disney-managed SW is shit, while unironically presenting the prequels as a high point. E.g. the dialogue was shit on purpose, you see, because it was evocative of the wooden lines in silent movies. Same with direction and plot.
It was all according to the auteur's vision, and it was good. Great, even. But the Disney snake was the cleverest of animals and it tempted the George into taking a bite from the Tree of Even More Money, and this corrupted his fruits. That's why we have Kylo Ren, who is not as great an antagonist as Anakin (I shit you not).
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 28, 2019, 06:39:36 pm
Ep.3 Anakin was in fact better than all of Kylo Ren, if you ask me. Adam Driver is great and all, but not Kylo Ren.
Still tho, Anakin from Ep.1-2 more than makes up negatively for anything cool he does in 3.
Post by: Cthulhu on December 28, 2019, 06:45:26 pm
Good
Empire
New Hope
Return of the Jedi
Okay I guess
Force Awakens
Solo
Bad
Rogue One
Real bad
Rise of The Skywalkers
Revenge of the Sith
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
The prequels are all about equally awful, including revenge of the sith, but I think clones is slightly worse than the phantom menace. I never actually saw the last jedi so not ranking it.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 28, 2019, 06:48:05 pm
What was it about that one? I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Post by: Cthulhu on December 28, 2019, 06:54:12 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 28, 2019, 07:21:05 pm
Well there was Jyn Urso, the heroine. And then the sarcastic robot. Oh and the guy who owned the robot. And Donnie Yen and his machinegun-attached-to-a-human friend... Discount Tarkin who built the death star... hmm. Oh! What's his name! Forest Whitaker. He's in the new EA game too. Saw Breathmask or what have you.
And CGI abomination Actual Tarkin and Leia. See that's three and a half whole character names.
Great movie. I remember enjoying it immensely.
Post by: Cthulhu on December 28, 2019, 07:34:34 pm
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 28, 2019, 07:42:09 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 28, 2019, 07:49:05 pm
Oh yeah, I remember when forrest whitaker decided he was done running and died for no reason. He wasn't injured was he? He wasn't slowing them down. He was just like "whatever, I'm gonna die now cause that's what happens in war movies"
Well he was on some kind of life support. I also recall him shuffle-limping around. But yes, he could likely have made it.
I kinda dug that dude who was a vague force priest.
Yeah, Donnie Yen. He was rad as hell.
Post by: itisnotlogical on December 28, 2019, 07:55:10 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 28, 2019, 08:00:21 pm
Wait, that was Donnie Yen, as in Ip Man? That's awesome! I didn't know he acted in American stuff.
Yeah man. Go watch that scene again and partake in the joy that is Ip Man beating the shit out of some stormtroopers.
Post by: Max™ on January 08, 2020, 12:47:19 am
The Last Jedi: Maybe she's born with it?
The Rise of Skywalker: Maybe it's Palpatine?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 08, 2020, 04:48:08 am
Shamelessly stolen from twitter:
The Last Jedi: Maybe she's born with it?
The Rise of Skywalker: Maybe it's Palpatine?
Rey's power comes from deep within the Emperor's swarthy balls
I think it was totes fanservice. Rey Palpatine was a popular fan theort back with TFA, and since SW is in a bit of a crisis, they went with "rule of popularity"
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 09, 2020, 11:13:06 am
Post by: Rolan7 on January 09, 2020, 11:17:28 am
Post by: Grim Portent on January 09, 2020, 11:20:17 am
Post by: wierd on January 09, 2020, 11:23:06 am
Who also decided that exile and a life of grueling hardship was better than corrective surgery.
Post by: scriver on January 09, 2020, 11:24:30 am
Spoiler: Episode X: Shoulderpads Strikes Back (click to show/hide)
Post by: Kagus on January 09, 2020, 12:26:07 pm
Episodes 10 to 12 will be about who palp banged to get rey.
Considering what a sociopathic fuckwad Sheev Palpatine was, I still prefer the concept of him just finally getting the hang of his master Plagueis's ultimate technique, rather than him actually having a child in any fashion that would include a real role in its life and development.
Post by: nenjin on January 09, 2020, 12:37:24 pm
Shamelessly stolen from twitter:
The Last Jedi: Maybe she's born with it?
The Rise of Skywalker: Maybe it's Palpatine?
Fans: Maybe it's Maybelline.
Post by: Grim Portent on January 09, 2020, 07:21:53 pm
And, clearly, equally unoriginal parents.
Who also decided that exile and a life of grueling hardship was better than corrective surgery.
It's kind of dumber than that.
Triclops was made a slave because Palpatine viewed him as a failure and the Imperial leadership thought he was insane. He was unstable mind you, but not insane. His mother died in childbirth, so she couldn't do anything about it.
Trioculous was made in experiments on Force based creation run by Triclops' mother on the orders of Palpatine. He was the closest the project ever came to succeeding and the whole thing got scrapped and his biological mother and him were shipped off to the same slave mines as Triclops in a craaazy coincidence. ::)
There he managed to get adopted by an Imperial because he was a brown nosing snitch on the other slaves and eventually became overseer, and delighted in torturing Triclops because he was actually Palpatine's kid while Trioculous was a failed lab experiment of his.
Part of the Imperial Remnant considered making Triclops the new Emperor, dismissed him as unsuitable and propped Trioculous up as a figurehead to take advantage of the rumours about Papa Palpatine having a three eyed mutant kid.
Triclops had a child with a 'jedi princess' or some such nonsense, they went on a few adventures and then disappeared to never darken the EU with their weird ass concept again.
Post by: Telgin on January 09, 2020, 11:05:39 pm
Post by: Madman198237 on January 10, 2020, 12:06:45 am
One really has to wonder how ideas like that make it past enough people that they're not only approved but approved for money to be spent on them.A sequence, I can only assume, of people going "this is stupid, I should reject this...but wait, it's got this far, I wonder how far it would go if I said 'sure'?"
Post by: Kagus on January 11, 2020, 06:58:16 am
Spoiler: *Snort* (click to show/hide)
What even was the explanation behind that thing, anyways?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 11, 2020, 09:50:33 am
So all we need to do is figure out what an urine-yellow lightsaber means.
Post by: Kagus on January 11, 2020, 10:01:34 am
Still doesn't explain where the fuck it came from though.
Post by: Madman198237 on January 11, 2020, 10:04:08 am
Anyway, Ahsoka's lightsaber is now silver/grey as I recall, so...make of this as you will?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 11, 2020, 10:20:06 am
Didn't the totally-doesn't-exist-anymore-because-EU-and-Disnexit-but-totally-might-reexist-as-an-entirely-original-idea Gray Jedi historically use yellow sabers? I remember there being plenty of fan theories about our heroine putting the Rey inVery unique conflict... except for Anakin and Luke, and if you press me, Kylo and Ezra, before her?GrayGrey Jedi, considering her very unique conflict between the two sides of the force and being drawn towards a middle ground that no one else has done before.
Still doesn't explain where the fuck it came from though.
I think *foo struggles between the light and the dark* is kind of standard for main-character force-sensitives in the franchise
Post by: Kagus on January 11, 2020, 10:23:30 am
Post by: scriver on January 11, 2020, 01:17:06 pm
From Wookiepedia (didn't wookiepedia use to be in their url?): (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jedi_Sentinel)
Spoiler: Sentinel stuff (click to show/hide)
Still doesn't explain where the fuck it came from though.
A Jedi has to construct their own lightsabre to become a Jedi. It's part of the whole samurai/knight romance aspect.
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 11, 2020, 01:23:23 pm
Post by: Grim Portent on January 11, 2020, 03:37:30 pm
For Rey? Who knows? Not like many of the long term star wars people seemed to have much decision making involvement in the movies.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 11, 2020, 03:39:08 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 11, 2020, 04:54:07 pm
If you play the games you can make it whatever color you want as long as it matches your outfit.
Post by: itisnotlogical on January 11, 2020, 05:25:07 pm
Canon is almost entirely up to the era, the realities of the given medium, the writer, and however much policing George Lucas/Lucasfilm felt like doing at that moment. Juhani couldn't be lesbian in KOTOR but now some gay extras in EP 9 are okay. Hyperspace mechanics are basically plot magic that puts characters wherever they need to be. The Force can do whatever the writer says, which has ended up being anything and everything including ghosts, lightning, healing, weather, moving rocks, ships and planets, vampirism, zombies, electricity, resurrection, astral projection, miraculous conception, and more that I can't recall at the moment. Are there Mandalorians left or are they extinct, and are they a race, religion, ethnic group or nation? Why can lightsabers be blocked by mere metal in books and games, but never ever in the films? Do blasters require ammo or not? Is the Force just a natural phenomena, or does it have a personality and will similar to a god? Are the Sith a necessary part of balancing the Force, or is one side supposed to wipe out the other?
Pretending canon ever mattered, or even existed, for something as minor as lightsaber color is just wankery.
Besides, all the Jedi (that anybody cared about) are dead and all the Jedi books are toast, so there's simply nobody left to tell Rey she can't have a yellow lightsaber.
Post by: Mephansteras on January 13, 2020, 08:57:28 pm
Post by: Enemy post on January 13, 2020, 09:08:04 pm
Why can lightsabers be blocked by mere metal in books and games, but never ever in the films?
Lucas forgot this himself on occasion, but Vader's armor and Grevious's bodyguards' weapons are both shown blocking lightsabers in the movies.
Post by: Il Palazzo on January 13, 2020, 09:18:08 pm
The Jedi books aren't toast, Rey has them. You see them in a drawer at the end of TLJ and she reads them in RoS.How do you know these were Jedi books and not some random Gungan smut, though?
Post by: Kagus on January 14, 2020, 04:22:06 am
"The Lusty Gungan Maid Vol. III"The Jedi books aren't toast, Rey has them. You see them in a drawer at the end of TLJ and she reads them in RoS.How do you know these were Jedi books and not some random Gungan smut, though?
Post by: Telgin on January 14, 2020, 09:06:31 am
Why can lightsabers be blocked by mere metal in books and games, but never ever in the films?
Lucas forgot this himself on occasion, but Vader's armor and Grevious's bodyguards' weapons are both shown blocking lightsabers in the movies.
Yeah, there are a few lightsaber resistant materials in the Legends canon that probably survived the transition to Disney. Why everyone and their mama seems to have a weapon made out of it is a different matter since they were all supposed to be rare and nobody expects to face a Jedi.
For Vader and Grievous's bodyguards at least it makes sense. I've read that canonically this is how Vader also blocked Han's blaster bolts in Empire Strikes back, but I always preferred the idea that he just did that through the Force.
Small grumbling aside, but if Jedi: Fallen Order is any indication, half of the wildlife in Star Wars has a lightsaber resistant hide...
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 14, 2020, 10:20:08 am
Post by: Eschar on January 14, 2020, 11:03:12 pm
I subscribe to using the force to stop them too. It fits with what he was doing (he takes han's blaster with the force afterwards), he does it again in rogue one, and it fits well with the global theme of Force users looking down on blasters -not so much about a pacifist ethos as about how using them near them is pointless because they have so many ways to address the problem (precognition + reflexes, lightsaber or even force deflection if they are good enough),
Vice versa as well? See Han's comment about "hokey religions are no match for a good blaster" (paraphrase.)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 15, 2020, 03:57:44 am
Btw in my headcannon he's totally untrained-but-sensitive. Hence the good and bad feelings.
Post by: Kot on January 15, 2020, 08:55:05 am
using them near them is pointless because they have so many ways to address the problem (precognition + reflexes, lightsaber or even force deflection if they are good enough),Tell that to all those Jedi during Order 66.
Post by: Telgin on January 15, 2020, 10:26:12 am
Btw in my headcannon he's totally untrained-but-sensitive. Hence the good and bad feelings.
This wouldn't be unreasonable for the setting, though I'd prefer if it weren't true. Star Wars already has a bit too much of the Force sensitive = you win problem in my opinion.
Post by: Iduno on January 15, 2020, 10:32:38 am
using them near them is pointless because they have so many ways to address the problem (precognition + reflexes, lightsaber or even force deflection if they are good enough),Tell that to all those Jedi during Order 66.
It's literal plot armor. When you can't keep up with the internal consistency of Star Trek (which is not a high bar to clear), just say a space wizard did it.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 15, 2020, 01:26:46 pm
using them near them is pointless because they have so many ways to address the problem (precognition + reflexes, lightsaber or even force deflection if they are good enough),Tell that to all those Jedi during Order 66.
It's literal plot armor. When you can't keep up with the internal consistency of Star Trek (which is not a high bar to clear), just say a space wizard did it.
o/ the novel explains it that clones have no negative emotions tied to the act of following orders, regardless of what those orders are. Therefore the Jedi didn't detect any ill will from them before they pulled the trigger. Because there wasn't any to sense.
Some especially sensitive Jedi, like Yoda, noticed anyway. But most of em got taken by surprise.
Post by: Madman198237 on January 15, 2020, 01:31:22 pm
In short, space magic, explained after the fact, as is usual with the prequels and sequels, and to a lesser extent the OT as well.
Post by: Rolan7 on January 15, 2020, 01:40:19 pm
These were gene soldiers performing ambushes, not some pilot with a pistol trying to gank space-Jesus.
Post by: scriver on January 15, 2020, 02:13:29 pm
Post by: Grim Portent on January 15, 2020, 02:18:08 pm
Post by: Kagus on January 15, 2020, 02:29:04 pm
I suppose a direct contradiction makes as much sense as anything else in space-bibleland
Post by: Egan_BW on January 15, 2020, 02:40:10 pm
Post by: Grim Portent on January 15, 2020, 02:52:08 pm
No negative emotions tied to following orders? But... Didn't Clone Wars give the clones personality? And have some of them feel really bad about 66?
I suppose a direct contradiction makes as much sense as anything else in space-bibleland
It also made Order 66 an inbuilt personality override function. The clone gets basically hypnotised into carrying out the order so none of their normal emotions are there.
Post by: Madman198237 on January 15, 2020, 03:18:52 pm
Jedi precog generally gets overstated anyway, it's enough to survive a stand up fight against a few assailants at a time in favourable conditions and see basic ideas of short term danger or veeery vague long term stuff. It is not enough to magically dodge or deflect masses of blaster fire for any real length of time or predict future events down to the day.
Well, sufficiently powerful Jedi/other Force users really can just go fight through entire armies. I refer you to the closing scene of Rogue One, one of the best Star Wars scenes of all time in my opinion, where Darth Vader just carves up a dozen or so Rebel troopers who are waiting for him, in a narrow corridor, ready to shoot, without breaking a sweat (the issue of him not just pulling a HISHE and grabbing the data card with the Force notwithstanding).
I mean, not that Darth Vader can sweat, but you get the idea.
Post by: Egan_BW on January 15, 2020, 04:27:27 pm
That scene is way more anime than starwars usually gets and I love it.
Post by: Teneb on January 15, 2020, 05:19:40 pm
Also Mace fighting an entire army of heavy combat droids, while disarmed, in the open, in clone wars 2006. :vI absolutely love that scene.
That scene is way more anime than starwars usually gets and I love it.
Speaking of, I have unwisely decided that since I am now graduated and unemployed I will read/watch nearly every single new canon piece of media. Why, you ask? Out of sheer bloody spite for how much I disliked Rise of Skywalker.
I've actually made some pretty good progress so far.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on February 03, 2020, 03:46:37 pm
Enjoyed it much more than I expected, even though it is comically disjointed.
Post by: Telgin on February 03, 2020, 04:06:38 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on February 03, 2020, 05:35:50 pm
I enjoyed it regardless, much more than Last Jedi. I even laughed outright at a couple scenes.
Post by: Iduno on February 03, 2020, 06:54:45 pm
Yeah it's basically just a series of Deus Ex Machina events conjoined by tangential non sequitur scenes.
I enjoyed it regardless, much more than Last Jedi. I even laughed outright at a couple scenes.
That's not quite true. It's also about pissing on the original movies and whatever the previous one was.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on February 03, 2020, 07:40:16 pm
Yeah it's basically just a series of Deus Ex Machina events conjoined by tangential non sequitur scenes.
I enjoyed it regardless, much more than Last Jedi. I even laughed outright at a couple scenes.
That's not quite true. It's also about pissing on the original movies and whatever the previous one was.
True. It goes out of it's way to (extremely specifically) invalidate TLJ.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 03, 2020, 10:10:01 pm
Post by: Il Palazzo on February 04, 2020, 03:08:19 am
Yea, its an awful movie, just mildly enjoyable regardless!Star Wars is a metaphor for life.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 04, 2020, 05:40:33 am
Post by: Kagus on February 04, 2020, 08:17:14 am
It's better than the other Disquels, but don't try to think on it too hard. The lasers go "pew" and the force goes "vwoom" and that's all you really need to do it, do it.
Post by: scriver on February 04, 2020, 08:21:45 am
Post by: Reelya on February 04, 2020, 10:54:07 am
A lot of their grievances revolve around the sidelining of Rose Tico in the latest movie, and they were talking about all the things she represents: race, gender, progressive politics, and saying she was the best thing in The Last Jedi, and claiming that sidelining her was Abrams throwing a bone to the Neo-Nazis basically.
It occurred to me that nowhere in the defense of Rose Tico did they really talk about her having delivered a great performance or having a scintillating on screen persona. I found her just plain boring and wooden and not a very good actress. I mean, the most stand out bit is the bit where she kisses Finn and it's pretty much the lamest kiss in screen history. This is probably why JJ sidelined here: he has an unfavorable view of the actor's ability. If he thought he could do anything with her he would have worked something out.
Maybe she'd be good in some drama film set in the present day but if you picture pretty much anyone else playing that same character you'd just imagine it being cooler, even if the same lines were delivered. Imagine if Lucy Liu was Rose Tico instead. So, bullshit on it being about her being female or asian, there are even other female asian actors who the fans would totally lap it up if they'd be cast instead of whats-her-face.
Post by: Telgin on February 04, 2020, 10:58:48 am
It feels like they squandered a lot of potential with all of these characters.
Post by: Reelya on February 04, 2020, 11:03:00 am
Also if she's meant to be a role model for girls, it's an extremely flawed one.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/29/opinion/dweck-simmons-girls-confidence-failure/index.html
Basically, there are issues with how we socialize girls. Kids who are told they are great all the time tend to develop what's called a "fixed mindset": attributing success to talent more than effort, and also falling apart at the first sign of failure. This is also an aspect of girls vs boys media that we produce: boys series are full of "training arcs" where the hero starts weak but eventually, through hard work, becomes competent and able to stand against villains he couldn't face before. This much more rarely happens with girls media, where the girl hero is usually kick-ass from day one with her skills already developed due to "talent". Rey, going head to head with trained Sith Lords from the first time she ever picked up a light saber is almost the definition of a talent-based fixed-mindset type character.
What would be more healthy for girls is to have more boy-type heroines. Start with a pretty much useless female heroine who can't even swing a stick and have her saving the day by the end. Like Luke, basically. But I think The Mary Sue would throw a fit over the first movie. They'd be upset that a "man had to save her" from being beaten up by the Sand Raiders. They miss the point however. See the article above where girls main stress is because they feel the pressure to be perfect. Role models like Rey aren't helping.
Post by: Kagus on February 04, 2020, 11:10:39 am
The first name that comes to mind for me is actually Awkwafina, despite only having seen her in the latest Jumanji flick... But damn if she didn't do a great job there!
Post by: Reelya on February 04, 2020, 11:30:12 am
Lucy Liu? I... Honestly, I've never really seen her in anything where I was particularly impressed with her acting chops. Pretty, definitely, but not my first pick for "gooder at actoring". Maybe I just missed whatever it was where she actually has, y'know... Facial expressions.
i wasn't saying she's some favorite, just better, and well known. Remember I said "if you picture pretty much anyone else playing that same character" it would be better. I just pulled Lucy's name out of the air as "well known asian female who's in a lot of genre flicks". If they'd stuck Lucy Liu in that role basically everyone would have gone "oh ok" and there wouldn't have been any "we hate Rose Tico" thing going.
EDIT: also another idea here.
Instead of Rey developing close connections with Luke, Han and Leia, while basically Poe and Finn never develop a close relationship with any of them, maybe it would have made more sense if each of the three new characters developed a mentor bond with one of the old characters. For example, Han could have met Poe, Luke trained Rey and Leia been like the mother he never knew to Finn. Or something along those lines. It might have meant they got more character development. However they'd need to come up with some reason for Finn to be hanging around. He's just absolutely useless. Poe's not much better either.
Post by: Kagus on February 04, 2020, 11:48:55 am
Post by: Madman198237 on February 04, 2020, 11:50:30 am
Instead of Rey developing close connections with Luke, Han and Leia, while basically Poe and Finn never develop a close relationship with any of them, maybe it would have made more sense if each of the three new characters developed a mentor bond with one of the old characters. For example, Han could have met Poe, Luke trained Rey and Leia been like the mother he never knew to Finn. Or something along those lines. It might have meant they got more character development. However they'd need to come up with some reason for Finn to be hanging around. He's just absolutely useless. Poe's not much better either.
I really like this idea, and a simple way to make Finn actually useful would just be to have the other cast members not be as good at shooting things. Like, literally, he's an ex-stormtrooper, how hard would it be to make him the best shooter/infantryman in general in the group? Or maybe he's got some medical skill or whatever from his time as a trooper, or they come up with some actually reasonable reason to have them infiltrating a F.O. base in which case he'd suddenly become REALLY useful (if they ditch the "I was the janitor" joke line, anyway).
Of course, that edges into my dislike of the idea that the Resistance is for any reason separate from the Republic and everything they did to make it yet another tiny group instead of, say, pulling a trick out of the various stories in the EU where it's just some of the Republic's stretched and limited resources fighting a single warlord with, like, one powerful ship because the rest of the Republic Navy is urgently needed everywhere else, etc.
Then Poe could just be a hotshot pilot, Rey could just be the up-and-coming Force user, etc. And if you throw in the mentor characters, not only would it make a lot of sense but it'd also be a really cool touchstone to the older movies, and if they avoid the kill-the-mentor tropes better we wouldn't even have to watch most of our favorite characters unreasonably die for really poorly constructed reasons!
Post by: Kagus on February 04, 2020, 12:00:28 pm
Post by: Reelya on February 04, 2020, 12:10:23 pm
I really like this idea, and a simple way to make Finn actually useful would just be to have the other cast members not be as good at shooting things. Like, literally, he's an ex-stormtrooper, how hard would it be to make him the best shooter/infantryman in general in the group? Or maybe he's got some medical skill or whatever from his time as a trooper, or they come up with some actually reasonable reason to have them infiltrating a F.O. base in which case he'd suddenly become REALLY useful (if they ditch the "I was the janitor" joke line, anyway).
Actually that got me thinking. With Finn's military background, they could have said he was engineer grade. So he wouldn't have to be a crack shot or pilot then, but they could have him be the explosives guy and him jury-rigging stuff up Mr-T / MacGuyver style could be a running joke but actually with plot relevance.
BTW here's another thought about Abrams killing of Rose Tico:
Rian Johnson killed off Abram's character Captain Phasma, giving Gwendolyn Christie almost zero airtime in that movie. Then, Abrams does the same to Rose Tico in the next movie. Haha, payback maybe?
Post by: Madman198237 on February 04, 2020, 12:15:10 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 04, 2020, 12:37:22 pm
Was reading some stuff on TheMarySue, who hate the recent Star Wars and love The Last Jedi (in fact, loving the last movie was mandatory according to them).
A lot of their grievances revolve around the sidelining of Rose Tico in the latest movie, and they were talking about all the things she represents: race, gender, progressive politics, and saying she was the best thing in The Last Jedi, and claiming that sidelining her was Abrams throwing a bone to the Neo-Nazis basically.
It occurred to me that nowhere in the defense of Rose Tico did they really talk about her having delivered a great performance or having a scintillating on screen persona. I found her just plain boring and wooden and not a very good actress. I mean, the most stand out bit is the bit where she kisses Finn and it's pretty much the lamest kiss in screen history. This is probably why JJ sidelined here: he has an unfavorable view of the actor's ability. If he thought he could do anything with her he would have worked something out.
Maybe she'd be good in some drama film set in the present day but if you picture pretty much anyone else playing that same character you'd just imagine it being cooler, even if the same lines were delivered. Imagine if Lucy Liu was Rose Tico instead. So, bullshit on it being about her being female or asian, there are even other female asian actors who the fans would totally lap it up if they'd be cast instead of whats-her-face.
Rose was a bad character. There ISN'T enough representation in the new Star Wars movies, every POC got sidelined, and latent sexuality is either quickly brushed over or pushed back beneath the tide of terrible storytelling. BUT, Disney is so fucking awful for pandering. If you shove characters into a plotline just to virtue signal, you're gonna have a bad time.
Is there a universe where the Rose - Finn spinoff is fucking amazing? Hell yea there is. Is it produced by Disney? No way.
In terms of the technical details of the representation of the universe, and the story organization (and the choices behind the story) there are literally infinite criticisms. It's all just... so bad. I mean, I really do believe TLJ and ROS are two of the worst movies ever made--conceptually, methodically, and creatively bankrupt.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on February 04, 2020, 01:55:48 pm
Almost everything they had her character do was basically drawn from an adolescent's understanding of virtue signaling. It was cringeworthy every time.
But yeah I enjoyed many moments of cinematography in RoS, Abrams at least knows how to nail that.
Post by: itisnotlogical on February 04, 2020, 02:51:10 pm
Remember that part where Finn was about to ditch the Resistance? Would have been interesting to see another Han Solo-esque character trying to put their own interests first. Instead we got Brave Hero Man #3.
Still on Finn, remember when he did a bunch of Jedi shit at the end of TFA? How bonkers would it be if Rey was a normal person, and Finn--sensitive to emotional trauma and a talented amateur with lightsabers--is a Jedi instead?
I think a more personal conflict between Rey and Kylo would have been perfectly fine for Rise of Skywalker. Snoke really could have really been an unimportant decoy for the much more interesting conflict between Rey and Kylo set up throughout TLJ. But no, have to stay on brand, so we get another Jedi messiah beating the Emperor and losing their evil counterpart in a final act of redemption.
Most of what I dislike about the Disney trilogy is how little confidence it has in its own ideas, paltry as they are. It backpedals all over itself constantly, trying to make OT 2.0 instead of telling its own story. I'm surprised R2 didn't kill BB-8 and push the remains off a cliff, then draw a limited edition "R2 kills BB-8" Funko Pop from a hidden compartment.
Post by: Iduno on February 04, 2020, 03:36:21 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 04, 2020, 03:40:58 pm
I realized today how surprised I am that somehow, George Lucas isn't the Brian Herbert of the Star Wars.
Well he's the Frank Herbert of Star Wars, so.
EDIT: @itsnotlogical, I was actually hoping beyond hope that Kylo would actually succeed in his quest to sever all ties to the past and kind of force the galaxy down the road to a more EU-friendly timeline with something like a resurgent Fel Empire, New Republic, and various baddies like the Hutts, Killiks, and Yuuzhan Vong trying to muscle their way onto the local galactic stage.
Post by: itisnotlogical on February 04, 2020, 04:05:37 pm
Post by: Iduno on February 04, 2020, 04:06:55 pm
I realized today how surprised I am that somehow, George Lucas isn't the Brian Herbert of the Star Wars.
Well he's the Frank Herbert of Star Wars, so.
Fair, Herbert's editors did make him change the story so it wasn't just about the ecologist character.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 04, 2020, 04:08:32 pm
Don't worry, I'm sure 10 thru 12 will have some newcomers! Perhaps an empire of soldiers in white armor, with a Sith leader with a mask and deep voice, that has a planet-destroying weapon, and is backed by a scarred old man in a robe. Then the Contras or the Insurgency or the Counterculture or something will form a scrappy band of unlikely heroes to take them on.
As long as Rian Johnson doesn't get to direct it. He is... a woeful incompetent in terms of creating anything that doesn't "break the rules".
Post by: Teneb on February 04, 2020, 04:45:38 pm
Ain't Knives Out, by Rian Johnson, considered to be a pretty good movie?Don't worry, I'm sure 10 thru 12 will have some newcomers! Perhaps an empire of soldiers in white armor, with a Sith leader with a mask and deep voice, that has a planet-destroying weapon, and is backed by a scarred old man in a robe. Then the Contras or the Insurgency or the Counterculture or something will form a scrappy band of unlikely heroes to take them on.
As long as Rian Johnson doesn't get to direct it. He is... a woeful incompetent in terms of creating anything that doesn't "break the rules".
Post by: Kagus on February 04, 2020, 05:24:07 pm
Does that not break his own rule of woeful incompetence?Ain't Knives Out, by Rian Johnson, considered to be a pretty good movie?Don't worry, I'm sure 10 thru 12 will have some newcomers! Perhaps an empire of soldiers in white armor, with a Sith leader with a mask and deep voice, that has a planet-destroying weapon, and is backed by a scarred old man in a robe. Then the Contras or the Insurgency or the Counterculture or something will form a scrappy band of unlikely heroes to take them on.
As long as Rian Johnson doesn't get to direct it. He is... a woeful incompetent in terms of creating anything that doesn't "break the rules".
(I honestly don't have much of an opinion on RJ, can't recall what he's done)
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on February 04, 2020, 06:15:22 pm
Post by: Reelya on February 05, 2020, 08:56:40 am
Maybe they should have had that guy who made Ghostbusters 2016 make some Star Wars movies? If y'all are gonna trainwreck it, at least trainwreck in style.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 05, 2020, 01:32:23 pm
And other than the aforementioned Looper, I haven't really seen the films he's made. (Brick, The Brothers Bloom, and Knives Out). Though his Breaking Bad stuff is p good.
The decision to make him director in the first place, regardless of my opinion of him, is kind of weird considering his lack of experience (especially with the kind of sci-fi [or science fantasy if you prefer] that is Star Wars). I don't actually disagree with him wanting to do something different with the universe--the body of work that is the films themselves before the new trilogy is pretty cut and dry. HOWEVER. The execution is laughably bad, and while Disney made a decision to axe most of the EU, the fact there are extant blueprints of Star Wars stories done RIGHT and that are different from the Lucas' approach out there in the world that WEREN'T TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF is just bad research/design/whatever. People have written books/designed games/animated cartoons about Star Wars that do something different and are a legitimate part of the "Star Wars Fan Canon"tm.
To be fair to Rian Johnson, it just seems like from a creative perspective, the elements of Star Wars are things you either GET or DON'T, and many people just DON'T. EDIT: Hell, even Ron Howard doesn't--and he's Lucas' long time friend and sounding board.
Post by: Kagus on February 05, 2020, 01:40:59 pm
Post by: Iduno on February 05, 2020, 01:46:51 pm
The decision to make him director in the first place, regardless of my opinion of him, is kind of weird considering his lack of experience (especially with the kind of sci-fi [or science fantasy if you prefer] that is Star Wars). I don't actually disagree with him wanting to do something different with the universe--the body of work that is the films themselves before the new trilogy is pretty cut and dry. HOWEVER. The execution is laughably bad, and while Disney made a decision to axe most of the EU, the fact there are extant blueprints of Star Wars stories done RIGHT and that are different from the Lucas' approach out there in the world that WEREN'T TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF is just bad research/design/whatever. People have written books/designed games/animated cartoons about Star Wars that do something different and are a legitimate part of the "Star Wars Fan Canon"tm.
They were part of Canon. Disney removed them from Canon when they bought out the property. It is literally just what you are seeing now. Enjoy.
Edit: (https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/62c38062d6fc6166197f021bc9453632328b757d7cac685931e17773e5717a2b.png)
Post by: Iduno on March 05, 2020, 12:12:41 pm
Post by: Kagus on March 05, 2020, 12:17:36 pm
Edit: (https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/62c38062d6fc6166197f021bc9453632328b757d7cac685931e17773e5717a2b.png)This... Makes that one interview even funnier.
Post by: Teneb on March 05, 2020, 12:20:27 pm
TROS Palaptine is confirmed via tweet to be a clone... and so is Rey's father.
Wow, am I glad that was totally explained in the movie, right?
Post by: scriver on March 05, 2020, 01:30:52 pm
MFer just said Sheev.
What does this mean?
Post by: Iduno on March 05, 2020, 01:55:06 pm
MFer just said Sheev.
What does this mean?
When they announced everyone in the star war is a clone now, they said Rey was Sheev Palatine's granddaughter. So not only did they decide the empror needs a name, but also it needs to be the dumbest name ever.
Post by: Madman198237 on March 05, 2020, 02:00:37 pm
And it's been "Sheev" the entire time.
Post by: Kagus on March 05, 2020, 02:02:20 pm
Get your lore straight, NERD!
Post by: scriver on March 05, 2020, 02:04:11 pm
My standard for Star Wars names is firmly "Is it worse than Saváge O'ppress?"
Because that is the stupidest name ever.
Post by: Telgin on March 05, 2020, 02:32:53 pm
At least that is no longer canon.
Post by: Iduno on March 05, 2020, 02:34:42 pm
I think Triclops might be worse than that, but it's a bit iffy.
At least that is no longer canon.
They changed the He-man guy's name?
Oh don't worry, Palpatine has had a first name for a LONG time.
And it's been "Sheev" the entire time.
I've only watched 3.5 of those movies, plus the ewok thing. I don't know any Darth other than Vader.
Yah, exactly
My standard for Star Wars names is firmly "Is it worse than Saváge O'ppress?"
Because that is the stupidest name ever.
Jack Villain. It's pronounced Vill-ayyyn.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on March 05, 2020, 03:56:31 pm
Yah, exactly
My standard for Star Wars names is firmly "Is it worse than Saváge O'ppress?"
Because that is the stupidest name ever.
I can't get over Mance Rayder over in Game of Thrones.
Post by: scriver on March 05, 2020, 04:24:46 pm
Post by: Rolan7 on March 05, 2020, 08:42:52 pm
Yah, exactlyI *love* the Clone Wars for giving the Prequels the time they needed to tell an actual story, plus add a lot of solid characters...
My standard for Star Wars names is firmly "Is it worse than Saváge O'ppress?"
Because that is the stupidest name ever.
one of which bears that name
y-yeah
But hey, Star Wars names are *all* either extremely descriptive or complete nonsense. Vader, remember :P
Post by: MrRoboto75 on March 05, 2020, 08:49:14 pm
...Because rayder sounds like raider, or am I missing something about Mance?
A) "Mance" is a word for a big house, probably the ancestor to the word Mansion.
B) "Mance Rayder" could totally be a star wars character.
Post by: Il Palazzo on March 05, 2020, 08:57:38 pm
Darth Vader = dark father
Luke Skywalker = George Lucas is awesome
Han Solo = hammy yolo
Mace Windu = ?? is his mace windy or something?
Post by: Bumber on March 05, 2020, 09:09:03 pm
Mace Windu = ?? is his mace windy or something?He sprays mace into the wind, which gets into everyone's eyes.
Post by: Rolan7 on March 05, 2020, 09:13:12 pm
And presumably somehow died from falling. I'm not aware of even EU content resurrecting him like Palpatine or Maul.
Undeath by falling is a bit of a meme even outside of Star Wars. I honestly can't remember any other characters who *actually* died by falling, in any work. It's always a fake out.
Post by: Madman198237 on March 05, 2020, 09:25:53 pm
Does Marvel count, though? They did kind-of-sort-of kill somebody with falling, they just duplicated them a little later...
Post by: Reelya on March 06, 2020, 03:08:25 am
...Because rayder sounds like raider, or am I missing something about Mance?
It's probably the sound of Mance in English. It sounds very "fruity". Like if you met a guy called Mance at a club, you'd have a hard time taking him seriously.
I'm going to make my own Sci Fi series, and they'll have better names than Star Wars. The rogueish side-kick will be called Colt Blastwagon. Son of Arthur and Edna Blastwagon, who run a bed and breakfast getaway for the well-to-do alien gentry.
Post by: scriver on March 06, 2020, 07:21:15 am
Post by: IcyTea31 on March 08, 2020, 09:19:13 am
I honestly can't remember any other characters who *actually* died by falling, in any work.Clayton in Disney's Tarzan (1999). That's the only one I can think of where it was specifically the fall that did the killing and not whatever was down there.
Post by: Reelya on March 08, 2020, 09:49:02 am
I honestly can't remember any other characters who *actually* died by falling, in any work.Clayton in Disney's Tarzan (1999). That's the only one I can think of where it was specifically the fall that did the killing and not whatever was down there.
Really obvious one here: Die Hard. Another one comes to mind, the original (UK) House of Cards.
Falling deaths are more common than you're making out, unless you mean hitting "the ground" as "whatever was down there" doesn't count as falling being the cause of death.
We've all probably seen more of those deaths than we recall. Consider this scene: person falls off building, hits roof of car, denting that and shattering the glass: car alarm blaring as camera pans over the wreckage, making it clear that they're dead. Don't tell me you haven't seen this shot, probably over and over in movies.
There's a watchmojo top 10 video about movie falling deaths, but I hate that content mill Watchmojo and you should too.
Post by: Teneb on March 08, 2020, 11:54:03 am
Reelya, they're obviously referring to scenes where a character falls down a pit or whatever but we never see them hitting the ground or something else. Just falls down pit and then cut.I honestly can't remember any other characters who *actually* died by falling, in any work.Clayton in Disney's Tarzan (1999). That's the only one I can think of where it was specifically the fall that did the killing and not whatever was down there.
Really obvious one here: Die Hard. Another one comes to mind, the original (UK) House of Cards.
Falling deaths are more common than you're making out, unless you mean hitting "the ground" as "whatever was down there" doesn't count as falling being the cause of death.
We've all probably seen more of those deaths than we recall. Consider this scene: person falls off building, hits roof of car, denting that and shattering the glass: car alarm blaring as camera pans over the wreckage, making it clear that they're dead. Don't tell me you haven't seen this shot, probably over and over in movies.
There's a watchmojo top 10 video about movie falling deaths, but I hate that content mill Watchmojo and you should too.
Post by: hector13 on March 08, 2020, 11:55:50 am
Post by: Iduno on March 08, 2020, 11:57:32 am
Post by: Reelya on March 08, 2020, 12:08:15 pm
Reelya, they're obviously referring to scenes where a character falls down a pit or whatever but we never see them hitting the ground or something else. Just falls down pit and then cut.I honestly can't remember any other characters who *actually* died by falling, in any work.Clayton in Disney's Tarzan (1999). That's the only one I can think of where it was specifically the fall that did the killing and not whatever was down there.
Really obvious one here: Die Hard. Another one comes to mind, the original (UK) House of Cards.
Falling deaths are more common than you're making out, unless you mean hitting "the ground" as "whatever was down there" doesn't count as falling being the cause of death.
We've all probably seen more of those deaths than we recall. Consider this scene: person falls off building, hits roof of car, denting that and shattering the glass: car alarm blaring as camera pans over the wreckage, making it clear that they're dead. Don't tell me you haven't seen this shot, probably over and over in movies.
There's a watchmojo top 10 video about movie falling deaths, but I hate that content mill Watchmojo and you should too.
But what they said was they can't recall any character who ever died by falling. If you exclude all falling deaths where they are shown to be dead afterwards, then conclude falling deaths are always a fake-out, then that's entirely circular.
Or, it's a very pointless tautology: characters who aren't actually shown to die usually aren't dead.
Post by: Rolan7 on March 08, 2020, 12:50:55 pm
Post by: Kagus on March 08, 2020, 12:54:58 pm
Post by: scriver on March 08, 2020, 01:26:36 pm
The reason he survived the fall was that he was already dead from getting cut in half, so the fall couldn't kill him
He was able to glitch out the star wars universe, that's how he lived
Post by: itisnotlogical on March 08, 2020, 03:34:44 pm
Post by: Eschar on March 23, 2020, 03:54:41 pm
I honestly can't remember any other characters who *actually* died by falling, in any work.Clayton in Disney's Tarzan (1999). That's the only one I can think of where it was specifically the fall that did the killing and not whatever was down there.
The Man in Black from S6 of Lost
The wife in Vertigo
Post by: Enemy post on October 30, 2020, 02:26:33 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 30, 2020, 02:38:13 pm
Post by: RedKing on October 30, 2020, 03:54:06 pm
Post by: Enemy post on October 30, 2020, 03:57:24 pm
Spoiler: Spoilers (click to show/hide)
Post by: scriver on October 30, 2020, 04:27:52 pm
Just finished it. The krayt dragon fanservice was *air kiss of perfection*.
kreyt snek boobs?
Post by: Rolan7 on October 30, 2020, 04:58:00 pm
My brother's an even bigger Star Wars fan (particularly Mandelorians, and The Mandelorian) so I'll just make sure he knows too~
Post by: Mephansteras on October 31, 2020, 01:06:41 pm
Post by: Rolan7 on November 27, 2020, 12:26:22 am
Somehow it got to the point that I screamed for the first time in over a year, just, absolutely screaming at full volume into my laptop. Since my housemates are away.
It's fine. We uh, talked it out.
Damn it felt good, though.
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 02:08:48 am
Spoiler: Spoilers (click to show/hide)
I bought KOTOR series on sale for like $10 based on the consistancy of positive opinion among those who played it and because it's pre-Disney.
I passed on that new Star Wars Squadrons or whatnot because I'm still nerdmad at Disneyverse. That is sad because it's like three things I like in one package and I would have reviewed it for sure on it's free weekend if not for my opinion on EU vs Disneyverse.
I will say by bringing Revan and Kotor stuff back it's a workable compromise for many of the fans Disney disgruntled, as much as it pains me to say it as someone who read almost every EU book.
I still think the best solution is to branch off the old EU and the Disneyverse and see which one is more popular in theaters. At the very least nerds like me wouldn't hate and compare the glorious E Unitiverse to *grunts in distaste* the Disneyverse and actually help you sell tickets.
I liked Rogue One a great deal, and Solo was the other movie I liked. I saw the first new Episode in theater, the second Disney episode on a TV channel I already had, and haven't even looked for the third one.
Holdo Maneuvor *barf*
Why the F didn't they just strap Jar Jar to a hyperdrive and launch him at that big dumb ship chasing them? He would have accidently blown it up even though he'd screw it up completely by surviving.
The Mandalorian sounds pretty good though, I'ma check that out once it's free to decide.
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 02:14:22 am
* Let me note that X-wings really shouldn't have a hyperdrive, but it was needed for plot purposes so that Luke could go to Dagobah. So they just hand-wave how he got there, but you have to assume he must have had a hyperdrive.
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 02:16:02 am
Yeah, Holdo really ruins the tech. An X-Wing has a goddamn hyperdrive, so why aren't they launching hyperdrive torpedos all the time?
YES SO MUCH
That is literally what I thought during that scene. This dumb, why don't they just make a torpedo that does that?
EDIT: What reason for the X-Wing not having hyperdrive? In the EU lore the Rebel Alliance specifically chose the X-Wing because it had shields, hyperdrive and other goodies. It was ideal for pilot preservation, whereas the unshielded TIE Fighter was faster and more maneuvorable outside of atmosphere at the cost of low pilot survival rate. The TIE series were also much cheaper and designed for mass production. The TIE Interceptor (what Vader is piloting in the very first movie made, though his is tricked out with shields and hyperdrive) is even faster but also does not have shields. The TIE Defender and beyond start mounting shields and whatnot, because by that time the Imperial Remnant values pilot survivability more due to their position almost having swapped with the Rebel Alliance.
It makes sense if it was added so he could go to Dagobah but still pretty well explained in the lore. I can't remember if Z-95 Headhunters had hyperdrive but that was Intek's predecessor the X-Wing irc. I think the Rebel Alliance/New Republic even put a hyperdrive on the A-Wing and that was their budget starfighter up until maybe the Z-wing which was fairly late in the EU, around the time of the yuuzhon Vong.
Speaking of the yuuzhon Vong, initially I didn't like them. However later I picked up the EU books I hadn't read and while initially in my earlier opinion I thought the Vong were dumb, as I finished that period of the timeline and moved on I found I had misjudged it and it's effect on the main characters (notably Jacen Solo) which led to the Galactic Alliance period or what-not in which some excellent authors wrote. I think my initial distaste was because the first time I read that period I only finished up to the point
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then the storyline with Jacen. The EU ended on a bright note at least, with the potential if not liklihood for a bright future. Would have liked to read more about Luke's son hooking up with his girlfriend/antagonist Sith lady, but thems the breaks (in contiunuuity)
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 02:25:32 am
Also, Jedi Books, paper ones bound with leather. Rian Johnson just doesn't get it.
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 02:38:07 am
It's especially stupid when you consider the weapon they have at the start of that movie: space bombs. How does space bombs even work? There's no up and down in space. Person releases the space bombs and they fall out. Anyone else notice a problem here. They have gravity-driven space bombs but no missiles.
Also, Jedi Books, paper ones bound with leather. Rian Johnson just doesn't get it.
Good catch. I didn't notice that about books but yeah I mean holograms. In the EU Luke finds tech devices storing ancient knowledge because hey the ancient jedi still had spaceships right? Probably had SD card equivalents.
EDIT: Moved edits to new post as I was responding to later posts in this one.
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 02:40:25 am
It's also the bit where Rose's sister gets it. She's the space bomb head honcho. Here's a bit to refresh how they work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_hXw6DtmIs
There were "Tie Bombers" in Empire Strikes Back, but I think they fired a glowing kind of thing so you could imagine they were powered weapons. But these Rian Johnson ones literally just poop out, and it assumes space is a flat plane.
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 02:41:39 am
It's the scene where Poe is taunting the imperials ("first order").
It's also the bit where Rose's sister gets it. She's the space bomb head honcho.
I can't promise to look it up but if I see it again I'll say hey I remember someone told me about that
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 02:44:55 am
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 02:48:28 am
I don't remember that scene about space bombs but I completely believe you that in Disneyverse it makes sense to toss space bombs out the window. Did they at least do like a dive bomb thing where it inherits inertia? Or just drop them out the bottom and they 'fall'?
EDIT: reread that you said it fell out. Agreed, if it can seek like that why not strap a rocket to it? IRC TIE Bombers used some kind of bomb or missile launcher
Looked it up https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/TIE/sa_bomber
The ordnance bay was divided into two sections. The forward ordnance bay carried either eight concussion missiles or four proton torpedoes. The main ordnance bay carried either four proton torpedoes and eight concussion missiles, or eight proton bombs and sixty-four thermal detonators, or six orbital mines, or even stormtroopers. Located underneath the ordnance pod was a bomb chute connected to the ship's targeting systems, a T-s7b targeting computer and a 398X bomb sight. The pod also featured a missile port that allowed for front-launching and torpedoes.[2] The ordnance bay could also be swapped for a passenger cabin with room for six.[5]
So I guess there were bombs? Huh. I guess usually the good guys blow them up in the books before they actually do much... I remembered the torpedoes or missiles but not much in the way of bombing other space ships.
The article also pointed out when the Falcon was hidden in an asteroid in the first movie that TIE Bombers were bombing it and I recall that vaguely.
I wouldn't be surprised it the TIE Bombs are glowy, proton Torpedos are.
Maybe they mean bomb as in guided munition rather than unguided sense. Thanks for finding the scene with sister of Rose but I haven't checked it out so can't comment, sounds unguided though unless they mention some kind of tracking or some such in that scene
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 03:00:02 am
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 03:06:18 am
Youtube doesn't like my browser
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 03:12:15 am
To add insult to injury, the bombers had a hyperdrive, and are quite large, so if even one of them did the Holdo manouver they could have destroyed the enemy ship instead of everyone dying. So that's how shit these "bombers" are - they could do more damage by merely ramming the enemy. But the movie would have been much shorter as they'd have obliterated the enemy flagship.
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 03:26:37 am
I just had a conversation with my brother about the obvious fact that the Empire is species-ist.
Somehow it got to the point that I screamed for the first time in over a year, just, absolutely screaming at full volume into my laptop. Since my housemates are away.
It's fine. We uh, talked it out.
Damn it felt good, though.
This guy used to be the example for the Imperials being speciesist.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mitth%27raw%27nuruodo
I looked at the article to find if it pointed him out as the only non-human of significant rank in the Empire, which was the case in the EU.
Instead I am greatly impressed by how much the Disneyverse has been fleshed out by non-movie works, judging from that article alone. Perhaps I have been wrong to judge the whole Disney canon by the episodes; I suppose it would be only fair to at least check out the non-movie materials (for free from a library or something) before I complain about the whole new canon.
I also agree with this, because Zahn's Thrawn series were the first EU books I read:
Grand Admiral Thrawn was created by author Timothy Zahn as an antagonist in the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, the first installment of Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy.[38] IGN has asserted that the character "essentially kicked off the wave of Expanded Universe novels,"[39] while Empire Online credited Thrawn with doing "much to revitalize and legitmise [sic] Star Wars fiction… at a time when the franchise was in danger of dying."[40] He remained popular for years, and in 2016, Zahn described it as "highly gratifying" that Thrawn "captured the imaginations of so many people over the past quarter century."[41]
Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post edit:
Well to summarize,
I agree with your summary except that Rose Tico doesn't seem like a particularly Japanese sounding name to me but I'm no expert. I just played Shadowrun: Hong Kong and I would say it would fit HK maybe? I learned English names are somewhat common in HK accompanying a Chinese (Cantonese? Unsure what is appropriate distinction) family name, though Tico doesn't jump out to me as any suggestion towards any ethnicity in particular; I would guess Finnish or a latin root language if I absolutely had to. Wouldn't make sense for the Kamikaze analogue but I feel that aspect might have been reading too much into it. The rest though I agree with you sounds poorly visualized and nonsensical.
EDIT: Good guess
Costa Ricans
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"Ticos" and "Tico" redirect here.
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 05:28:22 am
I agree with your summary except that Rose Tico doesn't seem like a particularly Japanese sounding name to me but I'm no expert. I just played Shadowrun: Hong Kong and I would say it would fit HK maybe? I learned English names are somewhat common in HK accompanying a Chinese (Cantonese? Unsure what is appropriate distinction) family name, though Tico doesn't jump out to me as any suggestion towards any ethnicity in particular; I would guess Finnish or a latin root language if I absolutely had to. Wouldn't make sense for the Kamikaze analogue but I feel that aspect might have been reading too much into it. The rest though I agree with you sounds poorly visualized and nonsensical.
It's the consonant-vowel repeated pattern that resembles Japanese. Japanese is a syllabary, so it's always made up of consonant-vowel sections (other than n, which can float at the end). "ko" is a very common name-ending in Japanese, examples including (https://adoption.com/baby-names/origin/japanese) Aiko, Akako, Akiko, or this one girl from an anime (https://amanchu.fandom.com/wiki/Futaba_Ooki), nicknamed "Teko". Th point is, it's very close to the Japanese word structure, especially with a "ko" sound at the end, more than any other east Asian language, which she clearly resembles. There's also the fact that the bomber flown in the movie is directly based off a WWII bomber, even the name is near identical. So the director has an Asian person with an off-brand Japanese sounding last name commit a kamikaze attack in a bomber named after a real one from WWII. It's either deliberately what he had in mind, or he's dense as fuck. Just think - (1) Asian person (2) WWII Bomber (3) Suicide mission. You don't even need the name for this to already be sketchy.
As for the first names of her and her sister, Rose and Paige, are Rian Johnson's choices, basically because he is terrible at names. These do not fit the theme of the setting at all. Nobody in Star Wars should have names that reference things that exist on Earth. Why is she called Rose? Do they have roses in this galaxy?
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 05:44:19 am
Good point about Rose, I was going to point out Luke and Han being real world names but she's named after a flower. I mean though technically they are speaking Galactic Basic?
Idea strikes
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rose_(flower)
Rose (flower)
Share
This article is about the type of flower. You may be looking for Rose Tico, a member of the Resistance.
The rose was a type of flower. It was occasionally used in wedding bouquets.[1]
Types of roses included:
Ithorian rose[2]
Jade rose[3]
Malreaux rose[4]
A type of purple rose native to Endor[1]\
I'm defending a Disney episode here! Auugh I'm bailing out!
*crashes trench run*
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 05:48:58 am
Han was used because that's not a familiar name to Americans, it's alien but not too hard. Leia isn't a common name either.
But my point was that Rose is a thing - people called Rose are named after the flower. It's not that it's a Earth Name, it's referencing a thing on Earth.
EDIT: those rose references don't hold, they're EU, which doesn't include TLJ the movie. And, just calling a flower a Rose in Star Wars looks like lazy writing on behalf of some of those novels or whatever. Quality control is weak in the borderlands, but there's no reason for something like that in the main movies.
It really makes no sense, why would you have a flower called an "Ithorian rose" from a specific planet, if you didn't also have one just called a "rose". This is sloppy writing, that's all.
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 06:03:55 am
EDIT: Dang I want to use the saying about a Rose by any other name because it would be PERFECT if I had the right context to drop such a sick pun
but this is about Disney *intense nerdface*
Post by: Reelya on November 27, 2020, 06:12:32 am
Post by: Duuvian on November 27, 2020, 06:36:49 am
though not obvious at first
has now been explained
quick how many syllables is stereotype
I do still think it's reading too much into it past maybe they could have named her better I guess. I don't like Disney's Star Wars episodes at all but I don't think it was INTENDED as a sort of open secret racism. Though yes I agree that since it can be viewed as such, a suicide run in a bomber is a DUMB PLACE for an actor or actress of East-Asian descent to be put in a Star Wars movie.
EDIT: Took out a joke that sounded snarky without intending it to
Post by: Starver on November 27, 2020, 10:27:17 am
- There exists artificial gravity in (virtually?[1]) all craft.
- This pervades the whole 'shell' of the craft, by design, including any bays with atmospheric force-field separating the insides from space[2].
- The 'bomber' uses this effect to 'gravitationally eject' its bomb-load 'passively' without the use of active projectile/missile propulsion that (maybe?) is more detectable or counterable[3] under *hand-wavy* in-universe technical limitations.
An alternate explanation is that only these bombers, with their 'cartridge' bomb-rack units, have a good enough carrying capacity vs size to be considered able to accomplish the mission (amongst all vessels available at that time).
Plus, the concept of 'orbits' is fairly unknown to 'Wars. It's arguable even if that's the real reason for the slow approach of the DS around Yavin to target Y4 (*hand-wavy limitations about reliably hyperspacing directly to accurate points within a gravitational system*[4] ) and not just a sublight movement from an obscured position to a firing one. The 'shield gate' above Scarif (Rogue One - and I'm sure they pinched that idea from Spaceballs: The Movie...) seems to be 'geo'stationary, but not (making assumptions about planetary rotation speed) actually at geosynchronous orbital height. Ships and stations seem to have a habit of ignoring orbits[5] or gravity almost at will, and planetary gravity without centripetal orbital out-fling in exact opposition would give further (reduced, compared to surface-level) gravity to further accelerate the bombs once released.
...but that's just my head-canon as to why these tactics apply in these circumstances (and not some of the more obvious ones, like as mentioned or alluded to in the footnotes bow, especially). I agree it's quite silly 'IRL', but republics and empires and confederations and the rest alike, that long ago and that far away, seem to mostly stick to paradigms where Hodor Manoeuvers are the almost unknown exception and far from the rule, and battle each other on the almost blinded assumption that their opponent is using the exact same philosophy, give or take a Super/Megaweapon or thres...
[1] No reason to believe it doesn't exist in single-seat fighter cockpits, like Ties or *-Wings. Unless any EU material ever depicts floating things/bodily fluids, and even then that could be an AG failure, not the total lack of it. It's probably even adjusting (or automatically self-consistent, regardless of the external forces) to allow those high-G, negative-G and torsioning yawing and rolling manouevers to be undertaken by pilots, much the same as the Inertial Dampeners in the 'Trek universe. The skill to flying might be more about how to 'feel' your movement properly and fly by the seat of your pants when you have no direct personal inertial cues (apart from momentarily undampened vibrations from micrometeorite impacts or atmospheric turbulence, whenever they happen).
[2] Must check footage of (say) un-forced docking of ships in Death Star-like landing bays to see if they assume the ship is weightless to space, but then has to 'hover down' onto its landing gear once inside, and how they transition (a firm limit boundary passing across their body as they pass through the air-bulkhead, or a gradient, or a lobe extended) but this might be complicated by tractor-beam technology automagically helping the 'raw' transition.
[3] Ship propulsion, and in-ship inertial/gravitational fields are somehow less un-stealthy than projectile or missile launchers. Because. (The 'submarine scene' with the Falcon gone to ground in the asteroid 'cave that isn't a cave' comes to mind as a time when they even hushed their voices, at least temporarily, but that could be more psychological (in-universe, as well as filmically) than practical.)
[4] Or possible tactical reasons in case the planet-killing not-a-moon should be sufficiently wary of not-a-moon-killing weapons possibly fired directly from the moon-planet, even for the highly over-engineered defences of the DS. Before it is more locally scanned and deemed militarily safe according to standard Imperial military doctrine.
[5] There is no sign (that I am aware of) that any sneak attack upon an 'orbital' installation was ever made by taking heavy/explosive projectiles to the antipodal point from the target and boosting them away over any/all possible intersecting orbits. And near-intersections, to catch any attempt to move the target out of the way of any detected incoming threats, perhaps even deliberately made detectable and set to 'herd' the installation into the zone the true destruction will rain upon. And setting a small but deliberately 'stealthed' (painted and/or shielded) asteroid in counter-orbital collision to a target might be a very good stood-off attack vector, compared with sending a crewed vessel in at virtually 'docking speed' in a near-suicidal deliver-then-depart bombing run.
Post by: scriver on November 27, 2020, 11:17:26 am
It's been a while since I saw the movie, but the bomb thing is by far not one of the things I remember as most bad about it. In fact, I don't remember if I thought anything at all about it at the time. So I'm gonna say it gets a pass from here.
There are far worse things to dislike in that sequence alone. Such as Pilot-guy's suicidal attack and success, forced just to heavy-handedly set up for point prove in what is essentially a huge strawman narrative -- a "strawman construction" rather than a trope deconstruction. Or the awful dialogue between pilot-guy and Imperial Over-Admiral guy that just serves to undermine the villains and make them seem blundering and incapable in a story which hinges on the villains being capable and threatening and literally looming over the main characters.
Complaining about Rose being a name is also meaningless and dumb. Star Wars is not hard with linguistics. There's absolutely no reason Rose couldn't be a name. Paige, yeah ok, less fitting -- on the level of naming a character Kyle or something similarly stupid ( ;) ). But Rose, being a direct object-name in English, is just fine.
Trying to say that rose shouldn't be a word because the Galaxy Far Far Away isn't Earth and thus wouldn't have roses is nonsensical. They also shouldn't have ships and sabres and anything that's a word in English. But being that anal about things are not good world-building. It's unnecessarily convoluted world-building. Far-Far-Away-Land has roses because we have roses. It has dragons because we have dragons. It has knights and cantinas and ratsbecause we have knights and cantinas and rats. Because we need to use our words for our things to establish understanding of what their things are.
Post by: Telgin on November 27, 2020, 12:34:09 pm
It makes sense if it was added so he could go to Dagobah but still pretty well explained in the lore. I can't remember if Z-95 Headhunters had hyperdrive but that was Intek's predecessor the X-Wing irc. I think the Rebel Alliance/New Republic even put a hyperdrive on the A-Wing and that was their budget starfighter up until maybe the Z-wing which was fairly late in the EU, around the time of the yuuzhon Vong.
Z-95s had hyperdrives in the X-Wing games series at least, in so far as that can be considered canon. They were essentially prototype / old x-wings. All the same features, just not as good.
It does make sense for the more sophisticated starfighters to have hyperdrives based on how things have been explained in the expanded universe and kept by Disney canon, but I can easily see it being one of those things that was just shoved in after George Lucas realized that Luke had to have one to make it between star systems in his x-wing.
It could be a reasonable technological advancement. In the prequel trilogy it appears that some single-man starships require the booster rings to enter hyperspace.
Actually, I hope that if Disney does anything with the canon, they'll get rid of the bizarre thousands of years of technological stagnation that apparently plagues the Star Wars universe. Supposedly astromech droids have been around that long based on some old canon, probably among many other things like it.
Post by: Starver on November 27, 2020, 12:43:39 pm
This is a lot of energy spent on something as minor as the bomb thing. Nit-Picking (and Re-nit-picking!).The thinking energy was minimal (just too obviously follows from Known Facts™) but then I had to coalesce it into sufficient words to tie up the package so that it arrived in other minds without too much loss of supporting evidence. ;)
Rose's name? Well "Ben" Kenobi isn't using our familiar contraction of the biblical name, but some sort of derivation of "Obi Wan", and "Luke" probably has as little connection as Sheev/Padmé - before or after the translator-microbes allowed us to understand most of this historic documentary series without subtitles.
It's a name (coloured by a side-form of onomatopoeia and/or reversed nominative-determinism[1]) and a 'better' name than something like "Bannakaffalatta". If it had been spelt "Rhôz", would it have been better? Worse?
[1] Which we can perhaps blame on the microbes being overtly kind to us in conveying her name-nature. Maybe if we'd used them at full-strength with the Greek myths we'd have been directly talking about how Swollen-Foot had killed his father and married his mother, etc.
Post by: scriver on November 27, 2020, 01:01:35 pm
This is a lot of energy spent on something as minor as the bomb thing. Nit-Picking (and Re-nit-picking!).The thinking energy was minimal (just too obviously follows from Known Facts™) but then I had to coalesce it into sufficient words to tie up the package so that it arrived in other minds without too much loss of supporting evidence. ;)
I wasn't responding just to you but also Reelya and Duuvian by the way.
Post by: Rolan7 on November 27, 2020, 01:23:49 pm
It worked because it was a heroic sacrifice. The setting serves the narrative - even in the EU, which is different canon from the movies, the Force almost explicitly changes reality to serve destiny.
The bombers worked because Star Wars is WW2 dogfighting in space, and yeah - artificial gravity is a thing. That movie didn't invent bombers in Star Wars, jeez. The movie has plenty of issues without nitpicking that stuff.
I just had a conversation with my brother about the obvious fact that the Empire is species-ist.Okay but seriously - his argument was that the Empire only recruits humans, and only of the exact correct height and shape, so they can mass-produce one identical model of stormtrooper armor.
I lost my shit when I pointed out how many aliens have the same general profile as humans, and would fit in the armor. Not to mention that it's downright silly to limit recruiting to such an extent. It's so dumb. They're obviously speciesist, they're literally space nazis, why the hell does he insist on defending the fucking Empire?? fuck.
Post by: scriver on November 27, 2020, 01:42:31 pm
Post by: Telgin on November 27, 2020, 01:48:20 pm
It kind of works, even if it really doesn't make a ton of sense for Palpatine to make the empire so speciest. That doesn't make the Empire stronger or give him more power, though maybe having hatred for non humans gives him something to channel for the dark side. The empire doesn't seem to really ham up internal division and paint aliens as some "other" to give its citizens a designated target, since the Rebellion already fills that role anyway, and aliens are definitely citizens of the Empire.
Post by: Rolan7 on November 27, 2020, 01:51:31 pm
That is indeed a nonsensical argument, though I could see an argument that they're more like oppressive imperialist/"keep all other species third class citizens" kind of imperialists rather than the "exterminate all other species" kind of imperialist.Oh for sure. I even kinda headcanon that many stormtroopers are nonhuman, yet the officers are all human as we see in the movies. Even in the EU, which he loves to cite, alien officers are rare exceptions and subject to a lot of bias. How the heck does he love Thrawn so much yet come away with the idea that the Empire is egalitarian, ugh. (Starting to think he was just screwing with me)
There's really no logistical reason for the Empire to only use humans in its military, agreed. The explanation that I've heard was that it was just easier and cheaper to film everything that way in a New Hope, so they stuck with it and later on came up with the emperor being speciest as an explanation.The Empire does seem to overtax the less-human border worlds and use them as an excuse for their war machine, I think.
It kind of works, even if it really doesn't make a ton of sense for Palpatine to make the empire so speciest. That doesn't make the Empire stronger or give him more power, though maybe having hatred for non humans gives him something to channel for the dark side. The empire doesn't seem to really ham up internal division and paint aliens as some "other" to give its citizens a designated target, since the Rebellion already fills that role anyway, and aliens are definitely citizens of the Empire.
Post by: Grim Portent on November 27, 2020, 02:17:04 pm
Coruscant had segregation, aliens were not usually permitted into the upper areas of the city-planet. Part of Leia's backstory involves her intervening with an incident of police brutality on a wealthy alien (I think a Quarren, but I might be misremembering) trying to go to the upper levels of Coruscant. Many alien races were enslaved in large quantities by the empire, while humans were usually only enslaved if they came from the empire's outskirts or were criminals.
The seeds for this were set in the Clone Wars, much of the leadership of the CIS were aliens. The Trade Federation, the Techno-Union, the Geonosians, so on and so forth, were all alien dominated groups or governments*. This made it easy to drum up anti-alien bigotry at the same time as anti-droid bigotry, both of which served Palpatine's purposes of consolidating power into the wealthy human dominated core worlds.
Many races that were pro-jedi and anti-Palpatine found themselves discredited, politically marginalised and oppressed. The Wookies are a prime example, with the empire enslaving them en masse and promoting a stereotype of them as brutish primitives.
Palpatine himself probably wasn't speciest, he had friends and advisors who were aliens, but he used speciesm as a tool to help shape the narrative of the empire and cement his position.
*There were human dominated planets in the CIS, but they, along with most of the CIS's actual planetary governments were kept in the dark and sidelined by the Confederate war council which was almost entirely aliens lead by Dooku.
Post by: scriver on November 27, 2020, 02:20:25 pm
That is indeed a nonsensical argument, though I could see an argument that they're more like oppressive imperialist/"keep all other species third class citizens" kind of imperialists rather than the "exterminate all other species" kind of imperialist.Oh for sure. I even kinda headcanon that many stormtroopers are nonhuman, yet the officers are all human as we see in the movies. Even in the EU, which he loves to cite, alien officers are rare exceptions and subject to a lot of bias. How the heck does he love Thrawn so much yet come away with the idea that the Empire is egalitarian, ugh. (Starting to think he was just screwing with me)
Kinda like the British empire and colonial troops -- I like that idea. Don't ask don't tell what's behind the helmet ;)
Also yeah for Thrawn isn't that pretty much the entire main dramatic thing about the character?
Post by: Dunamisdeos on November 27, 2020, 02:24:01 pm
IIRC there were a minority example of non-human recruits. Consider Thrawn, as mentioned. The Empire was so human-supremacist that these recruits/officers would have been at an understandable minimum.
The Empire is merit-based for it's first class citizens. It is not an egalitarian society, it is a society that uses slavery and a military-enforced class system to provide it's first class citizens with egalitarian opportunities. It's like saying apartheid was egalitarian because all the white people were equal and happy. That's not how that works.
Also, it does make a kind of sense for Palpatine as a Sith to be speciest. The Sith Empire was often portrayed as specist. He would probably want to perpetuate this in his own empire. Racism isn't a logical or practical position in real life. It's all about control and ego, and that fits Palpatine well.
Post by: Starver on November 27, 2020, 02:55:03 pm
- It is reactive armour, and
- It has inadvertently been mass-produced inside-out.
Proof: Blaster hits a rebel character clad in no more armour thwlan a leather jerkin, they get a bad burn/scorch, often survivable even if it knocks them down. Similar type of blaster hits a Stormtrooper, it explodes and he's as dead as a beamed-down Redshirt.
(You'd think they'd catch that in QC.)
Post by: Egan_BW on November 27, 2020, 02:59:40 pm
Post by: Grim Portent on November 27, 2020, 03:21:43 pm
It was kind of stupid considering there were armours that made characters basically immune to blasters, but a lot of Star Wars was/is pretty stupid a lot of the time anyway.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on November 27, 2020, 03:34:12 pm
In one they get stuck in an active biological waste incinerator and then shot, and they survive that. Also the horse guy (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hohass_Ekwesh) falcon-punches a guy into a wall so hard his neck explodes.
Post by: scriver on November 27, 2020, 05:50:02 pm
Maybe it's just plastic or whatever's absolutely cheapest for the sake of them all looking uniform. When a plasma bolt strikes it, it just shatters and sends superheated shrapnel into the trooper's body. The empire knows this and uses it anyways, for aforementioned reasons of everybody looking uniform.
The empire was secretly controlled by movie producers!
Post by: ChairmanPoo on November 27, 2020, 06:23:44 pm
https://youtu.be/PW4OIHDsWsM
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 27, 2020, 07:05:04 pm
Yeah in the EU everyone has functionally-immune-to-blaster armor by like.... I dunno, the 5th book chronologically?
In one they get stuck in an active biological waste incinerator and then shot, and they survive that. Also the horse guy (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Hohass_Ekwesh) falcon-punches a guy into a wall so hard his neck explodes.
Lol, I forgot that guy existed. What a King.
Post by: Putnam on November 28, 2020, 10:14:27 pm
Post by: Teneb on November 28, 2020, 10:38:38 pm
why do people always go on about space bombs like those weren't in pre-disney darling battlefront 2, among other things, not to mention that star wars space fighting physics have literally always been completely wackyBecause new thing bad, old thing good!
I have a big beef with the very last movie, but it sure ain't cuz it's new. (I don't want to start some flame war by saying why, so keeping it vague.)
Star Wars is dumb and that is why I love it, tbf.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on November 28, 2020, 10:45:27 pm
Post by: Teneb on November 28, 2020, 10:49:49 pm
TBH the space! battles in battlefront 2 were a neat gimmick but I didn't play them all that much. Seemed like boarding the enemy ship was the most effective yet boring tactic.As someone who speedruns the game because I clearly am made of good decisions, it is considered by the community (tiny as it is) the worst part of the game.
It's neat, but it's even more unfair than the rest of an already unfair game.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on November 28, 2020, 10:50:50 pm
It's neat, but it's even more unfair than the rest of an already unfair game.
Just like the simulations
Post by: scriver on November 29, 2020, 03:44:45 am
why do people always go on about space bombs like those weren't in pre-disney darling battlefront 2, among other things, not to mention that star wars space fighting physics have literally always been completely wacky
One is a franchised out video game and one is a mainline movie. Hardly comparable.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 29, 2020, 11:10:13 am
The bombs in TLJ are just magnetic dummy bombs, which is kind of stupid considering A.) better technology exists, and B.) literally everyone possesses that better technology. The only reason they did that was because "Star Wars space combat emulates WW2 air combat", but they took it too far when really Lucas just cut together some dogfighting b-rolls back in the day to inspire the special effects crew. There were always different rules for how heavy ordnance and capital ships worked. And yknow... bomber mechanics were already established... in the movies. So yea, it was dumb.
Post by: Teneb on November 29, 2020, 12:13:56 pm
Post by: Starver on November 29, 2020, 02:05:36 pm
"When Oi left you, I was but a littl' bleeder."
"Oi am altering the deal, me ole mucker..."
Post by: Putnam on November 30, 2020, 09:15:14 am
About space bombs: the "bombs" from the tie bombers (and other faction equivalents in Battlefront) are proton torpedos, which move slowly to penetrate shields (thats a thing in Star Wars, move slow enough and you can get through *most* but not all shields). You can even see in the asteroids scene in A New Hope that they travel in a linear fashion like they are "launched" or self-propelled.
Well, yeah, but BF2 had proton torpedoes and proton bombs (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Proton_bomb/Legends) as separate things. X-wings got proton torpedoes, Y-wings got the bombs, for example. The bombs followed a nice parabolic path "downward", even in space battles, where *bafflingly* they would always accelerate in the same direction, so I would e.g. flip so that the star destroyer I'm bombing is "down" then find that, whoops, turns out the shield generator I'm trying to bomb is still "up" somehow, even though I'm in space.
Of course, do note that the appearances list is almost entirely video games. Both the legends and canon articles claims that they showed up in Empire, but I can't damn well remember what that might be referring to.
Post by: Teneb on November 30, 2020, 10:24:22 am
Post by: Starver on November 30, 2020, 10:31:45 am
(It could charitably be said that the kinds of things often given as an excuse for non-spherical explosions, like the way something critically escapes whatever confinement field it escapes, could be deliberately invoked for a smart weapon that would like not to dissipate by the full inverse-square law if it can help it. Though the better design - if you have that capability and a good idea of where it should aim itself, would probably be to explode out of thr 'poles' rather than the equator, with energy squeezed into two opposing jets. One aimed at whatever you're attacking, the other not pointing at anything you overly care about if you can help it. But you're likely not laying/firing your space-mines on a direct track between you and the target, always a bit to the side just because of general manouvering, so that's not an immediate concern - or a good way for a wise enemy to exploit your weapons' own 'smarts' by trying to run straight over them, and then a smarter-yet user of the weapons to draw the 'smart enemy' into dumbly going through a bit of space you actually want them to...)
Post by: Egan_BW on November 30, 2020, 04:11:09 pm
Also would like to point out the sonic bomb in space from Episode II (space battle between Jango and Obi-Wan). Makes even less sense than a space bomb going "down", yet it was really cool.
Best thing about the movie by far. :P
bomb goes THOOOOOOOOOOOM
Post by: Teneb on November 30, 2020, 06:29:31 pm
The scene is just great. There's no music in it either, it's just the sound of the guns and bombs.Also would like to point out the sonic bomb in space from Episode II (space battle between Jango and Obi-Wan). Makes even less sense than a space bomb going "down", yet it was really cool.
Best thing about the movie by far. :P
bomb goes THOOOOOOOOOOOM
Post by: LoSboccacc on December 01, 2020, 04:12:10 am
Also would like to point out the sonic bomb in space from Episode II (space battle between Jango and Obi-Wan). Makes even less sense than a space bomb going "down", yet it was really cool.
Best thing about the movie by far. :P
bomb goes THOOOOOOOOOOOM
the goddamn missile slowing down like it was a loony tunes cartoon tho.
Post by: Jopax on December 01, 2020, 08:48:58 am
Post by: Teneb on December 01, 2020, 08:59:50 am
Y'know the bombs can easily be explained away by falling into the artificial gravity fields of the ships they're being fired at, tho I'm not sure the exact mechanics of how their artificial gravity systems were ever technobabbled away/me waves hand
It just works.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 01, 2020, 12:48:53 pm
Y'know the bombs can easily be explained away by falling into the artificial gravity fields of the ships they're being fired at, tho I'm not sure the exact mechanics of how their artificial gravity systems were ever technobabbled away
yea I think shipwide gravity fields have always been handwaved, they don't even extend to the outer hull of the ship though (as seen in various Star Wars media).
Post by: scriver on December 01, 2020, 01:05:15 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 01, 2020, 01:15:50 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: scriver on December 01, 2020, 02:10:18 pm
Post by: Duuvian on December 02, 2020, 04:42:20 am
Spoiler: Long quote (click to show/hide)
1: In the EU, fighters and larger ships use thingys called "Inertial Dampeners" that can be dialed back to preference to provide g-force feedback for pilot feedback while limiting it to 99.9% or whatever the pilot prefers of it's natural effects. It's basically the explanation how pilots aren't flattened by inertia at such high speeds, and a way to cripple a small space craft. A pilot in one of Allston's X-wing series died due to g-force unconciousness when it was damaged.
As for how they do gravity, I forget. However by the time of the Empire repulsor technology was very advanced. In the EU craft could fly on repulsors up to a certain distance from another object, and they were used for landing and low speed VTOL stuff.
The EU had an ancient and massivve space station in the Correllian system named Centrepoint that
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In the X-Wing series the cockpits did not have gravity in a few scenes, though that scene it may have been damaged or unpowered in space as blood droplets were floating before the pilot engaged some kind of magnetic bubble seal in the orange jumpsuit good for a few minutes of cold vacuum exposure and was tractored into a corvette for treatment.
As to why the DS had to make that cumbersome approach in the first one I dunno. I guess maybe they were overconfident and were worried the Rebels might have some sort of STO weaponry to plink them with as they moved into range? I wouldn't want to tell Vader I scratched the paint on his new ride...
My favorite Star Wars character ever:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wedge_Antilles/Legends
I think Wraith Squadron would make for good movies; Allston was good at adding a dash of comedy to dark situations in a way that parallels moments in the Disney episodes such as BB8 or whatnot flying around due to not being strapped down. I describe the new episodes to myself as more Pirates of the Carribean Star Wars rather than the more consistantly serious pre-Disney episodes (though those had their comedic moments too, it didn't seem a core aspect and Jar Jar wasn't beloved..) I think in comparison to the Rogue Squadron books as they are comparable with different writers, Wraith Squadron would make for a better Disney produced movie as Pirates moments have a better place in a story about competent misfits. Also Captain Darillion.
I think Karen Traviss's books set in the Old Republic about Stormtroopers was the best EU explanation for Stormtroopers. Unfortunately I wasn't able to read the full series, essentially the initial batch of clones from the Kaminoans or whatnot are drastically superior to later Stormtrooper generations engineered by Palpatine, as somehow they were flawed to the point that the original stormtroopers are shocked at their inaccuracy. While I can't cite this as I didn't finish the Traviss series, later EU books suggest Palpatine gave up on cloning eventually or at least minimized it's use and turned to normal recruitment at some point. The original clones had a drastically shortened lifespan but I think were still fertile; some possibly managed to pressure surviving Kaminoan scientists to correct their quickened aging and became part of the Mandalorian culture but I didn't have that book.
Also the first generation had better Stormtrooper armor; and the elite unit that are main characters in the Traviss series had further armor improvements based on Mandalorian beskar metal (since they were raised and trained by Mandalorian mercenaries, they adopted equipment and traditions. Beskar also happens to resist lightsabres...). It's been a while since I read it, but I'm somewhat confident it describes the devolution of standard equipment due to costs as well over the course of the Clone Wars in a way that made enough sense at the time.
EDIT: By the time of Palpatine I don't think Sith are speciesist personally, but Palpatine utilized it. The Sith in the very early EU were an actual species who were red skinned and had tentacles around their mouth. They were inherantly force sensitive as a species, however their first contact with force users came in the form of fleeing Dark Jedi who had lost a space war against the light side Jedi. As the Sith were universally force sensitive, they quickly dominated the Dark Jedi. Oddly, it seems they could crossbreed with the Dark Jedi whether naturally or not, and over the course of conflicts with the light side Jedi eventually the Sith weren't the species Sith but rather humans (and maybe other species too) following the Sith philosophy into the Old Republic era, where both sides and their governments rise and fall until the rule of 2 goes into effects and the focus isn't on open warfare, which drives the rule of 2 into hiding until Palpatine does his thing.
In the late EU,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: scriver on December 02, 2020, 06:50:04 am
The Sith in the very early EU were an actual species who were red skinned and had tentacles around their mouth.
Why not Zoidberg?
Post by: Duuvian on December 02, 2020, 07:13:31 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Dark Lord Zoidberg has a ring to it
I'm looking at the wiki and the EU extended farther than I thought; I only read up to Allston's final Star Wars book and final Wraith Squadron book, Mercy Kill I think it was; I got to the point where Han had backtracked the Falcon's history with his grandaughter; and Luke and Ben had discovered and confronted the big bad force monster in the post Caedus series. I guess it was fleshed out in other mediums? Here's one, appears to be a comic:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Legacy
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 02, 2020, 03:48:02 pm
Post by: Dunamisdeos on December 02, 2020, 03:49:30 pm
Post by: Duuvian on January 14, 2021, 09:33:59 am
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-rogue-squadron-pilots-we-want-in-patty-jenkins-star-1846003856
https://nypost.com/2020/12/11/patty-jenkins-lands-new-star-wars-movie-rogue-squadron/
That's pretty awesome. I don't know who Patty Jenkins is but
Wow a Rogue Squadron movie. I thought I'd never see that. I'm hoping it's the same characters as the Rogue Squadron legends books; I don't mind if the missions are different, though I did like the books such as the taking of Coruscant. If they do bring the full squadron in, along with Wedge there is other character potential, Hobbie Klivan is already a lesser meme as a mournful pessimist (he had a line in the original movies acting as such); Tycho got a nice storyline as a suspected brainwashee, and Corran Horn is pretty cool too. He was a former Corellian sector space police officer fighter pilot who IRC left because of dissatisfaction with corruption. After his career in Rogue Squadron, he becomes a Jedi later in his own book series. I want to say I, Jedi was one of those but I could be wrong. His lightsaber was special; he could turn the handle and it extended further and narrowed; he also had a rare force ability inherited from his Jedi ancestor (grandfather? forgot) to absorb and then release amplified energy at the cost of being really bad at telekinesis in normal conditions and using the ability is generally really bad for him. For example, he is stabbed by a lightsaber in one of the books, but absorbs it's energy and it flickers out while he does a telekinesis supermove. He was one of the Jedi who survive all the way though the EU to the end of the books, and was a full Master in Luke's order.
Post by: Dunamisdeos on January 16, 2021, 05:29:34 pm
I am excited AF tho.
Post by: Duuvian on April 01, 2021, 01:48:45 am
If not, Rob Riggle for Wes Janson? Thoughts? I don't know who's going to be in it. I thought of that and liked it enough to write it down.
Post by: Starver on April 01, 2021, 02:29:08 am
For me, I'd say why not? With his military aviation background, he might even be an obvious choice for a Poe-like pilot role.
But, if he's as prolific and famous as it appears he is, maybe that's a downvote element. In general, Star Wars seems to not like using people made ultra-famous prior to Star Wars (you can maybe think of exceptions, as I can, but I think it's moreso under the Mouse). As I'm aware a lot of these past vehicles are well-known, but not to what degree, I'm not sure if this would be like Tina Turner in Mad Max or just an "oh, it's that guy from wotsit... I think... must remember to Wiki that later" thing.
[1] I have to admit I haven't seen anything that features in his filmography, except maybe as trailers/clips. I also wouldn't recognise him as a major character/cast-member in any small-screen live-action and without hearing him I can't immediately bring his voice(s) to mind for his small-screen animation work (some of which I might be marginally more aware of).
[2] IMDB being nowhere near as user-friendly as it used to be, due to excessive layout/scripting/commercialisation issues, compared to its golden age, I opted for the other one...
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on April 01, 2021, 11:43:32 pm
EDIT: Because TLJ, NOT because of Benicio.
Post by: Duuvian on April 04, 2021, 12:34:37 am
He was also a Daily Show correspondant in the John Stewart era of centralized comedic television.
I thought he would be good as Wes Janson because that character is described as more light heartedly comedic than other pilots in Rogue Squadron (he fit well in the Wraith squadron books due to this as well as personal history with another pilot there that showed him as a lighthearted character making a terrible choice early in his career and dealing with the unforseen consequences later)
Post by: Starver on April 04, 2021, 10:26:16 am
his thing was standing in the background in camoflauge and then walking out, making the audience realize there was a person there the whole time.Reminds me a lot of Patrick (LL Cool J) in Toys (Robin Williams, early '90s). Or whatever Sherlock Holmes it was in whichever pseudo-Sherlock film it was in, more recently.
(Improbably Crazy-Prepared Camouflage, of course.)
Post by: Duuvian on April 05, 2021, 12:47:38 am
Those Sherlock Holmes were surprisngly good too by the way. I'd enjoy futher Sherlock Holmes in the same vein as those.
Post by: Starver on April 05, 2021, 06:20:59 am
As a pale and palid on-topicality to justify the above comment I've been pondering (inhibited by my not having actually sought access to Disney+ stuff, legitimately or otherwise, so no Mandalorian for me, yet) where the SW vehicle is going to go next.
Probably no more direct trilogy-of-trilogy movies (except in the Douglas Adams sense?), so they'll be infill movies (Rogue One/Solo) and spin-offs/-arounds (like aforementioned Mandalorian, various clones/rebels/ewoks in animations) as DTV/series format. But any particular elements, restamped from EU/ripped straighter from current-canon?
It ideally should be a sufficiently plot-sized hole that they might care to write for. I'd quite like to see more (obv. prequel) Chirrut tales, but fear it'd be very much just a Kung Fu (Carradine) rehash, plus now being prequel spin-off of prequelly in-fill material, so they probably shouldn't listen to me...
Post by: Duuvian on December 11, 2023, 01:03:10 am
'Wokeness killed Han Solo': Adam driver hosts SNL
https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2023/12/10/snl-adam-driver-recap-monologue-baby-plane-julia-stiles-save-the-last-dance-mgw-orig.cnn
Spoiler: My opinion on the matter with offtopic Star Trek and Star Wars as example (click to show/hide)
Also, whattup with Adam Driver? Usually it's overreacting jerkwads to be generous saying this kind of thing. TBH considering the venue I'm the overreacting jerkwad, and I didn't watch the video (and after this much effort into this post, I hope the headline was a straight-up take on the joke itself, having not actually watched the video), but there also does seem to be what could be a (failing) coordinated campaign to try to push this kind of viewpoint on the Steam discussion forums for various games, which is annoying but I imagine it's downright pesky for people who make the game when it also piggybacks off weightier concerns such as a bad release or bugs in the game and just generally tries to exacerbate outrage.
More pressingly, while I have no doubt Bob Iger will be unswayed from his unswerving devotion to wokeness and utterly reject the siren's call of corporatocratic illiberalism such jokes as not-Jacen has made might encourage the continued production of relatively bad Star Wars movies as a compromise instead of the fixing of problems actually related to the production of moving pictures.
EDIT: Was too mean to Bob Iger EDIT2: clarified I only see the oddly similar posts on Steam discussion forums since I don't use any other large platforms. Also there is a weird thing steam users do that has evolved from being able to award points to a poster. One of the defaults is a Clown emotejicon-thing used to mark goofball posts. Since this gives points, people will make weird or mean troll posts trying to farm them. Eventually it evolves into appreciation of ability to create a troll thread and further awards are bestowed, exacerbating the problem. This is ridiculous but effective in garnering the Steam points I myself barely use despite being heavily invested into somehow. I wonder if there's a cool black market for these somewhere.
Post by: Starver on December 11, 2023, 04:28:15 am
Spoiler: Spoilered for both Trekish Spoilers and Warsish off-topicality (click to show/hide)
What this means for "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" is uncertain. There's no(t much?) frequently used time-travel trope, but there was the junking of the previously canon EU as various prequels sequels and tweenquels to the core movies ran roughshod over at least some of the spread of stories that had previously been treated as continuity or reporting past/future extensions to the story.
(I don't visit URLs with "media" in them whilst I'm travelling, so nothing much to say about that. Whatever it should be telling me. I can only guess, and I might be completely off the mark
Post by: Duuvian on December 11, 2023, 04:43:30 am
Post by: scriver on December 11, 2023, 06:29:02 am
Post by: Starver on December 11, 2023, 08:21:38 am
and because otherwise I would have no explicable starting point for my disjointed rambling....and mine! ;)
(Yeah, my guesses purely on the URL were clearly coming to no useful outcome. And here's that extra end-sentence and close-paren that I owe you all from the last message.).)
Post by: McTraveller on December 11, 2023, 08:29:42 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 11, 2023, 09:13:35 am
Eh, Disney's problem isn't "going woke"; you could take all that stuff out of the movies and they'd still be bad. Disney's (and others') problem is the stories just aren't that good.Yea. Lots of the new stuff just kinda... Whiffs. They exist. Truly the most movie of all time. Definitely are films
Post by: Frumple on December 11, 2023, 10:08:28 am
See the same thing in gaming, really. Folks kvetching about new stuff being mediocre has forgotten the face of their father('s demo disk full of hundreds of games no one remembers anymore), heh.
Books, too, plays, all of it. Sturgeon's revelation didn't spawn ex nihilo in the 50s and then see its shadow and go back into hibernation for an indefinite amount of weeks.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 11, 2023, 12:58:47 pm
Which, in fairness, that's not a new stuff thing. Lots of movies all throughout movie history just kinda' wiffed. It's remarkable how much was so mediocre all record of it's been lost because it wasn't even bad enough to preserve to boggle at. Just forgotten outside of second or third party reference because no one could be arsed to care about it, positive or negative.The big difference is media consolidation
Before there were many people trying new shit in mass media. But all the companies are consolidating into fewer and fewer companies with tighter controls on mass media publishing and so if Disney alone decides to whiff all their shows, they have a way disproportionate impact on how droll and mediocre mass media as a whole is. Even funnier when you consider that Disney when it was a smol(ler) company was synonymous with high quality
Post by: Kagus on December 11, 2023, 01:05:29 pm
Media's going wild running the isolated clip, because they know it'll get action bubbling. That's pretty much it. Driver's own views aren't readily discernible from the skit, at least not for me.
Post by: McTraveller on December 11, 2023, 01:12:13 pm
Also I think the new leadership at Disney has indeed lost Walt's vision - his goal was to put some "magic" in people's lives, and wow look you can make some money doing that. But I think his goal was to give people that magic, not just make as much money as possible.
Disney's not alone these days... so many companies have lost their original vision, and instead are just trying to make money. It shows.
Post by: MorleyDev on December 11, 2023, 01:31:37 pm
Got a bunch of answers about giving value to clients and whatnot, and said "No, we are in this business to make money, and decided this is the best way we can do so. If it was more profitable to move cow dung, you'd be handed your shovel tomorrow."
That's basically the attitude of most businessmen.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 13, 2023, 08:52:03 am
An event for the business I work at once had a speaker, who asked the crowd: "Why are we in this business?"Funnily enough you also see this in criminals-turned-businessmen. Stuff like south american drug cartels turning to avocados or italian mafia turning to mozarella because it makes more money than drugs
Got a bunch of answers about giving value to clients and whatnot, and said "No, we are in this business to make money, and decided this is the best way we can do so. If it was more profitable to move cow dung, you'd be handed your shovel tomorrow."
That's basically the attitude of most businessmen.
Yeah consolidation hurts - entertainment/art to make money, is different from making money to support making entertainment/art.Yeah. You can definitely see how it's hurt mass media the fewer and fewer publishers are, since a single CEO can just merk an entire broad industry. You'll still get indie movies and indie games, but the "mass" part of mass media suffers. It is noticeable how in movies, games, TV shows, original releases used to be the norm but are now the exception in a sea of remakes and sequels
Also I think the new leadership at Disney has indeed lost Walt's vision - his goal was to put some "magic" in people's lives, and wow look you can make some money doing that. But I think his goal was to give people that magic, not just make as much money as possible.
Disney's not alone these days... so many companies have lost their original vision, and instead are just trying to make money. It shows.
Post by: scriver on December 24, 2023, 07:06:19 am
An event for the business I work at once had a speaker, who asked the crowd: "Why are we in this business?"Funnily enough you also see this in criminals-turned-businessmen. Stuff like south american drug cartels turning to avocados or italian mafia turning to mozarella because it makes more money than drugs
Got a bunch of answers about giving value to clients and whatnot, and said "No, we are in this business to make money, and decided this is the best way we can do so. If it was more profitable to move cow dung, you'd be handed your shovel tomorrow."
That's basically the attitude of most businessmen.
Somewhere out there there's a stubborn artisan drug dealer refusing to give in to the market economy and go legit
Post by: Strongpoint on December 24, 2023, 10:21:20 am
Eh, Disney's problem isn't "going woke"; you could take all that stuff out of the movies and they'd still be bad. Disney's (and others') problem is the stories just aren't that good.
Except it is impossible with the sequel trilogy
The story of the sequel trilogy is bad because of the chosen political theme. If the original trilogy was about fighting against quasi Nazis, there was a very clear choice of basing the sequel trilogy on fighting against quasi neo-nazis
Problem is... there must be some element of coolness in the villain. No one loves to hate neo-nazies. Especially if you try hard to mock them like The Last Jedi did. If you kill one villain in a lame way, turn another into an incompetent comic relief, and turn the third one into a whiny teenager who can't control his temper, people won't be invested. And it was because of politically motivated writing. They wanted to mock neo-nazis more than they wanted to... write a story.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 24, 2023, 08:04:42 pm
Somewhere out there there's a stubborn artisan drug dealer refusing to give in to the market economy and go legitI think that's a common theme of a lot of recent crime dramas like McMafia or the Wire. Savvy criminals trying to steer their organisations in the directions of becoming a franchise business whilst hot blooded young ones or status-oriented old ones can't get out of the crime mindset long after they've made their riches
Post by: Starver on December 25, 2023, 09:24:58 am
a) Big Boss had realised that the 'laundering businesses' were actually being more profitable (than the criminal enterprises that they were supposed to be filtering the ill-gotten gains for), but various lieutenants could not appreciate this, or,
b) One or more lieutenants realised this, but others (especially Big Boss) did not.
...what happened then was generally down to the tone of the series/show itself, I think. From fully retired-from-crime 'gangland chums' living it up at the (largely) legit end of the transformation to a comedy of errors where the house of cards comes tumbling down (much misunderstanding and unwarranted internecine conflict later) except perhaps for some lucky but oblivious stooge sub-manager of an 'outlet' finding themselves elevated lzto the level of (effectively) CEO for the now fully independent commercial operation (somehow untouched by the events surrounding the 'dropping like flies' obliteration of the mob-partnership, a la "The Ladykillers" or similar).
Hard to dredge up actual named references without trawing through loads plot summaries for old programmes like Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) - though fairly sure that one didn't feature it - or one-off dramas/comedies/thrillers/comedy-drama-thrillers.
(Although I could see it happening in the Star Wars universe.... Loads of new Pizza Hutt franchises next to Boba-Gump Klatooine Paddy Frog Co., as you order a new datapad from Black Amazun and fend off Elan Sleazebaggano trying to hawk you Not-Quite-So-Deathy Vapes.)
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 27, 2023, 07:48:49 pm
Post by: scriver on December 28, 2023, 06:11:42 am