STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI (HUGE SPOILERS EVERYWHERE)

[CT Phipps]

With that kind of cyclical narrative, I now kinda wish Kreia did succeed in killing the Force in KOTOR 2.

If anything, the Galaxy would have been forced to stop being trapped in a cycle of Light side vs Dark side. Even if everyone else were dead and the OT would have been retconned out of existence....

Eh, the Force controls your actions but it also obeys your command.

 

[Walpknut]

The force is a poorly defined Mcguffin that can let you make your characters flip their personality on a dime and have an excuse.

 

[CerberusGate]

Eh, the Force controls your actions but it also obeys your command.

Though as Kreia's interpretation notes; is it not possible that the Force makes you think it obeys you to better control your actions?

After all, the Dark Side and the Light Side are technically both the Force and the two opposing sides are fighting for the same Force (though this interpretation has been rejected by Lucas since he's too pre-occupied with black and white morality - which EU materials had been ignoring and deconstructing at times).

 

[CT Phipps]

The force is a poorly defined Mcguffin that can let you make your characters flip their personality on a dime and have an excuse.

I liked the prequels put that to lie.

The Force didn't make Anakin a socially maladjusted fascist. He did that all on his own.

Though as Kreia's interpretation notes; is it not possible that the Force makes you think it obeys you to better control your actions?

If that were the case then it could do a much better job. I like the option in that game to point out that she uses the Force a huge amount and that makes her a massive hypocrite. Also, her ideal champion, a Jedi General without the Force who is still a good person can and probably should tell her that they're still following the Force's will.

Because Chris Avellone is a classy act who doesn't force you to follow his worldview even in his games. You can tell Kreia and Ulysses to shove it.

After all, the Dark Side and the Light Side are technically both the Force and the two opposing sides are fighting for the same Force (though this interpretation has been rejected by Lucas since he's too pre-occupied with black and white morality - which EU materials had been ignoring and deconstructing at times).

Eh, gray and gray morality runs into the problem the Empire is a bunch of fascists and plenty of people giving them slack in fiction are jackasses for doing it in RL.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

Eh, gray and gray morality runs into the problem the Empire is a bunch of fascists and plenty of people giving them slack in fiction are jackasses for doing it in RL.

*raises hand* Can you blame me? This is with all the bad guys except for the prequels, the "good guys", I just fail to connect. Their visual design is literally always way cooler abd I just wanna see them swing that super military around!

 

[Atomkilla]

I've caught Rogue One on TV the other day. I'd seen it originally when it came out in cinema.

I've come to the conclusion that Rogue One is the best nu-SW film. Far from perfect, but lemme see:
- conclusive story that ties well with the established lore
- doesn't take a dump on known characters/events
- no plot armor
- characters work well together
- no Mary Sue (check cons tho)
- characters, although mostly bland, each serve a purpose
- few great characters (Donny Yen's character and his bro, the robot)
- the "main villain" is an asshole military dude - and he is a far more compelling and interesting bad guy than Snoke and Ren combined
- fights in space that are awesome and make sense (and no shit like a snailchase in space we get in TLJ)
- no shitty romance subplots...no subplots really
- isn't a remake of previous material - despite containing material taken directly from previous films i.e. Death Star - the overall plot is new
- great ending


As I've said, it's far from perfect.
- weird pacing (first half of the film is kinda jumbled, second half is smooth tho)
- bunch of characters poorly established with potential of doing it better (shame)
- continuing the previous point, Jyn Erso really could have been written better - Jones is good for the role, but some of her lines were awfully jarring and her delivery was kinda off at times
- crude exposition
- obviously, dialogues are a hit and miss, mostly miss - but I'd say better than TLJ - not that it's much of an achievement
- probably some other things - tbh, I didn't pay attention to every detail while watching it



In conclusion of this messy post, R1 is a far better and more compelling SW film than both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi combined - the latter two being excellent examples of how not to write fan fiction, while the former is good fan fiction with room for improvement.

 

[Walpknut]

Holdois set up to teach Poe a lesson on... I don't know, keeping his head down and just follow orders? But the movie shows her plan was a complete failure even with her sacrifice, she wasted time on a plan that lead to nothing and on top of that kept it a secret from everyone until the last minute causing a mutiny instead of organizing the troops for a more successful evacuation. Fin and Rose's plotline failed to have any bearing on the story but if Holdo had organized a better operation, even keeping the evacuation as a contingency plan much more people would've survived. In summary, what a poorly thought out movie.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

Call me picky pants but the supervillain "just shoot her fuck's sake" moment entirely ruins R1 for me. And there's several itinerations of such. It is kind of on me to look for that, but it doesn't mean it's less irking.

Pretty loler to see the pretense of "WE'RE MORE GRIM AND DARK" when the terrible realization is that in wars people with a face and family die

I just want Clone Wars to resurface in some legal streaming service and rewatch it added to all the episodes I missed.

 

[PlanHex]

Holdois set up to teach Poe a lesson on... I don't know, keeping his head down and just follow orders? But the movie shows her plan was a complete failure even with her sacrifice, she wasted time on a plan that lead to nothing and on top of that kept it a secret from everyone until the last minute causing a mutiny instead of organizing the troops for a more successful evacuation. Fin and Rose's plotline failed to have any bearing on the story but if Holdo had organized a better operation, even keeping the evacuation as a contingency plan much more people would've survived. In summary, what a poorly thought out movie.

I don't think that's quite the accurate picture.
The "let's all escape on the small ships they won't notice" plan was actually completely fine and would have worked if they had just told Poe about it rather than refusing to tell the loose cannon what the plan was for no reason, even though they all know he doesn't follow orders and will likely try to do something else.

 

[Walpknut]

So like I said, her plan failed because she didn't inform anyone but her closest and in turn it ended in absolute failure. And in the end the plan was doomed to fail anyway.

Did the Dreadnaught have a gravitational fuield around it? because, not sure if I am remebering this right but the Bombers literally just drop their load on the ship vertically. What is physics?

 

[Deleted member 93956]

So like I said, her plan failed because she didn't inform anyone but her closest and in turn it ended in absolute failure. And in the end the plan was doomed to fail anyway.

Did the Dreadnaught have a gravitational fuield around it? because, not sure if I am remebering this right but the Bombers literally just drop their load on the ship vertically. What is physics?

Assumedly the bombs are magnetic, but it's REALLY odd to see such weapons in Star Wars as kinetic weaponry of all sorts seem to be restricted to very primitive planets, at least relatively so. It still doesn't make sense how shields work, considering they seem to whimsically change from deflecting lasers to absoring physical hits, but mostly so why some ships are straight up deprived of them (because they are very demanding in power?), ranging from fighters to Dreadnoughts.

It's just funny how the Empire/First Order could beat their scrappy flight craft abusing rivals with say... any sort of flak weaponry. They could even have the cheapest form of it, throwing discarded scrap in a wide fan, which added to some impulse and non gravity keeping momentum could shred through anything they could be thrown. If you want to be a fancy pants you could also have other weapons like focus beams, overheat lasers, more ion ('member ion weapons?), or other blast weapons. I don't know, it's picky but it's logical naval development. If the bombers were able to sport shields, they would be some of the most lethal crafts. That is assuming that hull armor is tinfoil like it seems to be.

Also, in a similar vein there's "Cloaking".


It's not a nerdy question; is cloaking a method, a technology, or a dedicated system? Is it cloaking because it's invisible to radar, thermic/life/energy signs, which also seems to be whimsically forgotten when it could be so handy for the bad guys to have; Casino chase by space cops, the empty rebel cruiser. Come on, it's just fucking thermal vision. In ESB they have visors like that! So why do the bad guys never ever use cloaking? Why isn't it used in combat? What difference does it make if seemingly no turrets are automated?

 

[Walpknut]

Thermal vision on a moving spaceship? Wouldn't the entire thing just light up? Machines invariably heat up when working, and thermal vision can't go through walls.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

Obv it could be a more advanced version of such; sensing movement, detecting if the life support status, etc. It'd still apply for the casino cops, even our current version of it. They definitively have that, at some extent. It just applies when they remember to use it, of course.

 

[V.D.D.Williams]

My two Republic Credits on the matter:

TLJ Is a movie that has a few good moments which get buried under all the bad, the meh and the nonsensical moments.

I thought that Mark Hamill did a good job playing his character, despite not liking this version of Luke. I like Luke breaking away from the Jedi Paragon he is always portrayed as and instead going for a more grey-aligned stance. Hes kinda like a Jolee Bindo with less sarcasm, and I like that. I probably would have enjoyed these scenes more if it wasnt for Mary Rey Sue.

Canto Bight was...interesting. Its another one of those gathering places for "the worst scum in the galaxy", but this one at least gathers a different type of scum. The corporate kind. It also tries to introduce some nuance into it with the whole arms merchant bit profiting both from the First Order and the Rebellion. Its not a lot, but it is there. On the other hand, its the most ill-fitting piece in a movie which was already kinda struggling to remain coherent.

Snoke is annoying because he is a waste of time. His only purpose in the story thus far was "he is the reason Kylo Ren fell to the Dark Side", but Kylo could have easily fallen to the Dark Side all by his lonesome, without the need of wasting time with this lame Emperor Vista Version. All of that screentime could have been used for a more worthwhile purpose. Killing him in this movie just shows that no one involved in Nu Star Wars even knows how to construct a story.

Mary Rey Sue is boring, and its to the movies detriment to focus so much on her. If there was any doubt that she is a Mary Sue, Yoda put them to rest with his short appearance () in this movie, which would have been better IMO had they just used the original CG technique. Mary Rey Sue has no motivation, because her only motivation is to be a Jedi and, for all intents and purposes, she already is a Jedi without any effort invested (she definetly didnt train). She cant grow as a Jedi either because she essentially "already knows everything she needs" (paraphrasing Yoda here). The only thing she might have learned was, as the movie puts it, failure. But she doesnt, because she simply doesnt fail, ever. She didnt fail to turn Kylo Ren, Kylo Ren was the one who failed. She didnt fail in her training, it was Luke who failed as a Master.

And then you have the laughably awful bits. A picture says more than a thousand words, so:

Honestly, even if its a bit vague how the force works, I think there were many other ways in which you can do the "Force Ex Machina" thing, where Leia uses the Force instinctively to save herself. They still would have been kinda bullshit, but I dont think it would have looked as awful as this scene did at least.

So like I said, her plan failed because she didn't inform anyone but her closest and in turn it ended in absolute failure. And in the end the plan was doomed to fail anyway.

The way I see it, the plan wasnt doomed to fail anyway, least not in the context of the movie. What actually doomed Holdo's plan was keeping Poe in the dark. She actually could have prevented its failure had she just informed Poe of the plan, then Poe wouldnt have gotten desperate and OK'd the whole "disable the tracker device" plan, which is what took Finn and Rose to Canto Bight to find the decoder (whatever his name is), who in turn is responsible for blowing the lid on the rebels plan by telling them about the stealthed transports. Had she just told Poe, then there is no unauthorized mission, no decoder getting caught and cutting a deal, and then the plan would have worked with the transports managing to slip away undetected.

But, the way in which it was doomed to fail anyway is due to this obsession with "subverting expectations" the movie keeps doing, which got old real fast. Even M. Night Shyamalan was telling them to knock it off.

 

[Walpknut]

TFA comes out:
Me: Wow Rey is such a Mary Sue getting all the powers ever with no effort.
SW fans: It's a set up for a reveal in the sequels! This is the first in a trilogy there is a plan! Her parents!

The Last Jedi comes out:

Me: So she is all powerful for no reason whatsoever after all, huh?
SW fans: Alt right Bot!!!!

 

[Juza The Cloud]

Star wars at its heart is a manichian(sp?) struggle and attempts to subvert that or deconstruct that can fall flat and ring hallow. Clone Wars seires returns Star Wars to its rather formulaic Flash Grodon roots. Serialized space fantasy with some Taoist maxim that frames the particular episode.

 

[CT Phipps]

I've caught Rogue One on TV the other day. I'd seen it originally when it came out in cinema.

I've come to the conclusion that Rogue One is the best nu-SW film. Far from perfect, but lemme see:
- conclusive story that ties well with the established lore
- doesn't take a dump on known characters/events
- no plot armor
- characters work well together
- no Mary Sue (check cons tho)
- characters, although mostly bland, each serve a purpose
- few great characters (Donny Yen's character and his bro, the robot)
- the "main villain" is an asshole military dude - and he is a far more compelling and interesting bad guy than Snoke and Ren combined
- fights in space that are awesome and make sense (and no shit like a snailchase in space we get in TLJ)
- no shitty romance subplots...no subplots really
- isn't a remake of previous material - despite containing material taken directly from previous films i.e. Death Star - the overall plot is new
- great ending


As I've said, it's far from perfect.
- weird pacing (first half of the film is kinda jumbled, second half is smooth tho)
- bunch of characters poorly established with potential of doing it better (shame)
- continuing the previous point, Jyn Erso really could have been written better - Jones is good for the role, but some of her lines were awfully jarring and her delivery was kinda off at times
- crude exposition
- obviously, dialogues are a hit and miss, mostly miss - but I'd say better than TLJ - not that it's much of an achievement
- probably some other things - tbh, I didn't pay attention to every detail while watching it



In conclusion of this messy post, R1 is a far better and more compelling SW film than both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi combined - the latter two being excellent examples of how not to write fan fiction, while the former is good fan fiction with room for improvement.

Rogue One and TLJ are my two least favorite.

In the franchise.

Revenge of the Sith is at the bottom too.

I want 2 things from Star Wars.

1. Heroes who are good and noble

2. Feel good victory over evil.

 

[CT Phipps]

You missed the Joke Yoda said.

Luke asked if Rey needed the scrolls.

Yoda said, "She already has what she needs."

Because she already stole them.

The problem with this scene is they totally should have had Ewan McGreggor do that line as it's true...from a certain point of view.

 

[CerberusGate]

Eh, gray and gray morality runs into the problem the Empire is a bunch of fascists and plenty of people giving them slack in fiction are jackasses for doing it in RL.

Then again when you have guys like Thrawn in the Empire, it makes it easier to see why people think they're cool and why the gray morality argument may work (keyword is may since 99% of the Empire are psychopathic morons).

To be honest, I've no preference on either sides. I just like extremely intelligent and genre savy strategists with hints of pragmatism in sci-fi. Thrawn just happens to meet all those while being on the Empire's side (and the Yuhzan Vong war wound up proving that his goal of unifying the galaxy was justified if only to have a unified front to meet that threat).

 

[CT Phipps]

Then again when you have guys like Thrawn in the Empire, it makes it easier to see why people think they're cool and why the gray morality argument may work (keyword is may since 99% of the Empire are psychopathic morons).

Mind you, that's literally 90% of my problem with Timothy Zahn's writing ever since TTT.

To be honest, I've no preference on either sides. I just like extremely intelligent and genre savy strategists with hints of pragmatism in sci-fi. Thrawn just happens to meet all those while being on the Empire's side (and the Yuhzan Vong war wound up proving that his goal of unifying the galaxy was justified if only to have a unified front to meet that threat).

Basically, this.

"Oh, of course the only way to defeat the Space Huns is with an Evil Empire!"

It seems to warp the narrative of the films.