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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
The ability to become a Force Ghost is a trained ability requiring plenty of preparation assuming you quite rightly ignore that crap image of Anakin becoming one as that clearly should have been an illusion designed to help Luke get over the loss of his Father and not the complete mess that altered scene in the special edition highlighted!
Spoiler
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If Luke expended all of his force with that stunt then he wouldn't be able to become a force ghost now if they revealed he had died prior to this effort they could at least demonstrate he has already become a force ghost but as described that doesn't seem to be the case!
Been talking to some people who have watched it and their advise is that I go watch it so I can get a more accurate view on this.
If I get the chance I'll certainly try I just wish they tried to make a better movie than TFA rather than what sounds more and more like someone trying to make their place by literally messing up what came before because they didn't have any idea how to improve on the previous movie which is very odd considering they sacked the Han Solo Directors and I'm not seeing how their attempt to make a funny Han Solo movie which sounded like a Star Wars Leverage stand along movie is worse than what's been spoken about here?
Anyway wish me luck maybe I'll see it before the new year!
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Hopeless
Spoiler
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If Luke expended all of his force with that stunt then he wouldn't be able to become a force ghost now if they revealed he had died prior to this effort they could at least demonstrate he has already become a force ghost but as described that doesn't seem to be the case!
I'm not going to spoiler this since it's actually been official stance for years but the force is not a superpower. It's not a random meter you fill that gives you specific powers. This isn't new to the film, it's just a thing it reiterated. You don't run out of force.
Given the reviews and the dropoff I expect by sunday or next week, I guarantee J.J. will reverse what happened to Luke. The most consistent thing the storm of bad reviews from viewers have been saying is that they HATE what Luke did, became, and acted like. There are other big flaws in the movie but that's the most consistent element.
It's also something Mark himself indicated months ago. He confronted Rian about this and said they had fundamental disagreements, but that he let it slide on faith because Rian is good to work with and has some experience. But the audience's gut reaction is closer to Mark's than Rian's.
This wasn't just mild discomfort either. Half my audience on opening night had loud, audible disgust at Luke(up to someone literally shouting "that's disgusting!" somewhere behind me amid the vocal reactions). My dad was with me, and he's a simple guy who likes space battles and cheesy romances, and even he just sighed and was able to break down everything wrong with the movie in terms of story, pacing, and acting with exacting precision the moment the credits rolled, and he's a guy that likes Michael Bay's transformers so he's not hard to please.
I was personally willing to overlook a lot of that, but I think that's because contrary to Stereotypes, a lot of Star Wars fans will justify anything and desperately want to like something they otherwise wouldn't.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Me, I liked what they did with Luke, though it made me joke how all old Jedi Masters go through "Yodafication" if they live long enough.
At the very least, Mark's acting was superb, even if we argue about Luke's character arc.
Spoiler: Re: Force Ghosts
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In the movies, it's just a thing you become when you die while sufficiently one with the Force. The amount of training it takes is not really relevant to my point. We've known and been shown from the original Star Wars that Jedi Masters can communicate from beyond the grave, with relatively untrained people. That's all it takes to explain Rey's abilities. Her abilities and skills come from the Force, from the consciousness of all the Jedi who ever were part of the Force.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
I went this morning to see it, but :smalleek::smallfrown:I don't know what to make of it... I'm not cool with spoilers because I agree it may ruin this story...
my fav reviewer gave it high marks even though he saw a lot (but not all) of the flaws I did...
I don't understand why some movies get a 'free pass' from critics and others don't?? I'm going to go to work, then sleep on it and come back tomorrow to say my thoughts.
https://youtu.be/JSxb29_7Ioo
https://youtu.be/JSxb29_7Ioo
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
I also like what they did with Luke.
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I got the impression that he's too stuck in the past, and Kylo is too focused on the future, while Rey has to let go of some aspects of the past (her parents) while still retaining others (her friends, the Jedi teachings). Luke has such problems with the near past that he becomes convinced that the distant past is just as bad, if not worse.
To me that's why Yoda destroyed the original Jedi temple (although I suspect he only did so as he knew the books were safe), to try and get Luke to realise that it's not as important as he's being assuming. Yes, keep the past and learn from your mistakes, but don't let the past consume you or you'll never have successes.
It's when Luke learns not to let the mistakes of the past be the only thing that defines him that he learns to surpass the Jedi of the Old Republic. Yes, he made a mistake and created Kylo Ren, but that doesn't mean he can't help the remnants of the Resistance escape from Ben. That he can give the Jedi Order what it needs to start anew, that he doesn't have to live in shame. Despite being unable to leave the planet Luke does exactly what Rey wanted him to do, go to the Resistance and give them hope.
Sure, it's not Luke as we might have liked him to be, but I thought it was an interesting version. This isn't the Luke who rebuilt the Jedi Order, this is the Luke that tried to, failed, and then responded by cutting himself off from the Force and blaming somebody else (not entirely unfairly, but he does seem to not want to remember his part).
I can see why people might dislike it, but my response to them is 'alright, fair enough, agree to disagree'.
I'll say that if the film had focused on the Luke arc more, I'd have enjoyed it more. It seemed to skip over a lot of what it could have gone into.
EDIT: as for why some films get a free pass, in this case I think it's a mixture of not wanting to piss off the media megacorp that is Disney, and the fact that many people desperately want this trilogy to be better than the Prequels (which both my partner and I actually rather like, she rates them all above the ST, I rate Attack of the Clones as the worst of all but TPM is my #3 and RotS my favourite). Note that the Prequels actually seem to be getting a bit more respect these days, with a kind of 'at least they went for a different feel' acknowledgement.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Frozen_Feet
Oh man are you getting it backwards.
Nope:
Spoiler: On the Past AND Rey
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No the movie pretty much revels in forgetting the past. You can't say how positive and not about forgetting the movie is when they literally ask you to forget the past.
The ST are all about the present.
Who the **** is snoke?
**** you unimportant.
Why is Ray so powerful?
**** you unimportant
Why did even ANY of this happen?
**** you unimportant
All that stuff IS important. Its all very important. But its DISMISSIVE of it. And it finds apeal in other people who don't care about why things happen and just like seeing things happen.
This movie can't have its cake and eat it. It can't try to blur out the past and never explain it, swat it away as unimportant. And then totally say you are not dismissive of it.
Edit: Simply put, whilst the puppets piss me off im primarily pissed off at the puppeteer. The Puppeteer preaches one thing and does another. With his puppets.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Difficult film to rate.
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Adam Driver did good work. In general, the stuff with the Rey/Kylo was good, even the parts I didn't personally like, but the Resistance in space part was less interesting.
Is it just me, or could they totally have avoided most of their problems by splitting the fleet? Only one ship can track them at a time, so splitting the fleet would force the FO to pick one target to follow. Even if all ships can do the tracking when they're separated, it seemed like the Resistance fleet had more small ships than the FO had SDs, so a lot of them could've been saved by splitting up the gang.
Did the Admiral's trick just invalidate every other space battle in the franchise? Every 'big, dangerous ship' can just be dealt with by ramming it with a heavy cruiser at lightspeed.
The arms dealing thing is an interesting point, but not remotely equivalent. The New Republic actively demilitarised itself and the Resistance is not that well armed.
So... there are Force sensitive kids in the galaxy now? Wasn't that always the case anyway?
I'm kind of bugged by the lack of importance of training in all this, that was always how the Force worked before. Leia's not weaker in the Force, she's just untrained. Rey got no training here, but she's Kylo's equivalent anyway. In every other film, training was always super important, trying to take on someone better trained usually resulted in a hard beating no matter how powerful you were in terms of pure strength. That doesn't seem to apply anymore?
I'm confused, mostly...
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
I find it curious you blame JJ Abrams for Rian Johnson destroying all his mystery boxes. But then I remember Lost and it sort of makes sense.
Spoiler: Episode IX
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So where do they go from now? All dozen or so members of the rebellion escaped so all is good.
Really we are left with that Rey is awesome and Hux and Kylo are pathetic. Now that Poe and Finn have learnt restraint a Return of the Jedi style all-in attack makes a poor follow up. There’s no obvious way to bring the trilogy to a satisfying end, or even link back to the themes of the prior two movies.
Obviously, the prediction is for Rey to defeat Kylo (I suppose she can convince him to turn but that seems like a horse**** ending), and the rest of the team to be instrumental in destroying the First Order. Without something more to it though, this trilogy is set for A Matrix level decline.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Reddish Mage
I find it curious you blame JJ Abrams for Rian Johnson destroying all his mystery boxes. But then I remember Lost and it sort of makes sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpjVgF5JDq8
Watch the Mans Ted Talks.
As much as the man Glorifies Mystery Boxes, he admits to them being hollow.
Mystery feels GREAT. But you know what else does as well?
Empty promises. Thats what a mystery is. Its a promise. In a nutshell. A literary mystery is a literary promise.
And JJ is a master of two things:
Polish, and Promise. But ANYTHING ELSE? No hes a fraud.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
Spoiler: On the Past AND Rey
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] ST are all about the present.
Who the **** is snoke?
**** you unimportant.
All that stuff IS important. Its all very important.
Spoiler: Why?
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in RotJ, who the Emperor was wasn't important. All that was important was that he was the Emperor, head of the Empire, and very powerful. Nobody cared how he was so powerful. Nobody cared where he had come from our who he was. Why does it matter with Snoke? He's the Supreme Leader, head of the First Order, and very powerful. What more needed to be known? Not what more people wanted to know, what did people need to know?
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Peelee
What did people need to know?
ROTJ was also a setup movie. We did not know what happened before because we COULDN'T. Nothing before it EXISTED.
You gotta pick and choose what you set up with a film. But that's not what a sequel is. A sequel BUILDS on the past. Like how in Lord of the Rings they establish Sauron but not his boss or how he came to be on the planet.
Imagine if ESB we saw Luke back in a Cantina with an adopted family moping about wanting to join the Imperial Academy. And then the whole story just repeats near point for point ROTJ.
You would be confused. You would also get bored because the repition and the lack of continuity means that there is no point. Whatever Luke does its reset in the next movie. The Empire just busts out more deathstars, Jedi is pushed back, Luke gets trained again and then suddenly its all back to 0.
This movie wants to have its cake, and eat it too. Wants the freedom to BANK on older characters and imagery, on the audiences collective investment and hard work done by the past, but also just reset them forever and use them however it sees fit without paying the bill.
Disney Wants Star Wars to be like Marvel. Just a series of self contained enemies defeated movie to movie with the same sort of impressive climax with the illusion of continuity or at least just the bare bones impression of it.
But Star wars whilst taking inspiration from pulp ELEVATED it by not becoming that and making every instance important by not implying that it will just loop around forever.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
@Scowling Dragon:
Of the three questions you claim are portrayed as unimportant, you only have a leg to stand on for the first. The last two are explored in depth and are big plot points in the movie.
Spoiler: Like, come on
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Both Snoke and Kylo Ren are motivated by the reason of why Rey is so powerfull: she is Kylo Ren's counterpart in the Force. Her parents turn out to not be an explanation for that, but her refusal to admit that to herself is one of the two prime reasons why she parts with Luke. So, moving on from the Past is definitely a theme here... once you know and accept it, that is, and Rey refusing to do that almost drives her into the villains' lap.
As for "why is any of this happening?", gee, what about Luke's betrayal of Kylo Ren? You know, one of the major revelations of the movie and the other prime reason why Rey splits with Luke. I'd say knowledge of the Past is pretty damn important theme there.
Now, Snoke... I agree with you that they underutilize him. After TFA credits rolled, I was like, "who is this Snoke guy?" After Last Jedi credits rolled, I was like, "who was this Snoke guy?" But while we don't get to know lot of his personal past, we do get to know his key motivations and relationship to Kylo Ren. Snoke sought him out because of his lineage. Because he wanted another Darth Vader. This explains both Kylo Ren's Vader worship in TFA and why he is so keen to "let the past die" and why he comes to consider Snoke his greatest enemy.
And that is who Snoke is: a malicious, abusive, overbearing parent figure who forces Kylo Ren to live in the shadow of his grandfather's achievements. It's not a complete answer, but it is sufficient for what the movie is actually about.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Frozen_Feet
@Scowling Dragon:
Of the three questions you claim are portrayed as unimportant, you only have a leg to stand on for the first.
No I could go more in depth but just the nature of internet argumentation over the years means Im unlikely to make any headway so over the years I learned to relax about that sort of thing. Its just a pure Psychological thing. This applies to everything. I try not to write massive posts anymore and argue for hours because that never goes anywhere on the internet so Il make basic summations:
Spoiler: Summations of my Legs
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Kylo is Rens Counterpart!
Raises much more issues and makes the world of star wars even more unintentionally fatalistic.
Things happen because FORCE makes Darth Traya absolutely and utterly correct.
Taking individual effort and will out of the equation and making the whole thing into "The force provides" makes the whole battle pointless.
And if that is Disneys point thats very convenient that that is the one that allows for allot lasier writing and continous movies.
Why is any of this happening?
No I meant how the hell did the empire bounce back stronger then ever in less time and with less effort. With no explanation it again makes the whole universe deeply black.
Is the idea that all it takes is one scorned child to create an evil that will destroy Planets?
Snoke will just have to do
This ties into the above. He can just make do but this makes me deeply not give a **** about the conflict.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
"How and why is First Order a thing?" is indeed a good question, but giving adequate answer to that was TFA's place and TFA's place to fail. In this movie, I already who they are and why they have the upper hand.
As much as TFA could've done a better job on this, using the Last Jedi to patch over its flaws would've not lead to a better movie and I don't fault them for not trying.
Spoiler: As for the rest
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I have zero idea of who Darth Traya is and why proving them right or wrong would affect a movie's quality in any shape or form.
As for fatalism, the movie, with Rey's mouth, no less, tells what's wrong with that. How was it again? "[Luke] made a mistake because [Luke] thought [Kylo Ren's] moment of choice had already passed, when it hadn't!" All of Luke, Snoke, Kylo Ren and Rey commit errors in the movie because they believe that their knowledge of fate is most correct. Yoda, a ghost who is one with the Force, tells Luke they can't afford to lose Rey, very much implying that individual actions, thoughts and feelings do matter.
If you disagree with that, okay. Nothing in this movie gives me more to say about the issue.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Horrible movie, as bad as the Hobbit movies.
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My biggest gripes with it come from it subverting or rejecting canon to be more appealing.
Yoda in the original tells Luke that being emotionally immature and impulsive will destroy him.
Yoda tells Luke here that Rey being emotionally immature and impulsive in the exact same ways is wise beyond the need for training.
In the originals destroying planetary bases and space stations is all but impossible due to stationaty shielding.
In the new movies they could have destroyed the Death Star by simply ramming it at light speed with a carrier in between shield refreshes.
Also the Death Star is worthless as you can accomplish the same basic effect by ramming a planet at light speed.
Also all ship battles are worthless, as you can more cheaply have droids pilot suicide ships into each other at light speed.
Finally the movie was so afraid of the audience getting bored that no scene is allowed to last more then a few seconds, and something new and exciting has to be inserted constantly. Contrast with Empire where long, developed pauses and silences allowed a sci fi movie to feel adult without mindless grimdark.
Honestly this was the worst of the main line star wars movies.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Frozen_Feet
As for the rest
Spoiler: For the rest
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Actions speak louder then Words. Darth Treya was a Sith in the Old Republic that seeked to destroy the force because she believed it drove fatalism in all their actions.
Not sure what your point is really. The movie creates a messiah out of nothing and expects me to think its important that this messiah does not die....also because the force says so.
Once you use "The force wills it" as a universal plot solver its like turtles. Its turtles all the way down.
You can't fix a quicksand problem with more quicksand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tvtyrant
Horrible movie, as bad as the Hobbit movies.
Spoiler
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My biggest gripes with it come from it subverting or rejecting canon to be more appealing.
Yoda in the original tells Luke that being emotionally immature and impulsive will destroy him.
Yoda tells Luke here that Rey being emotionally immature and impulsive in the exact same ways is wise beyond the need for training.
In the originals destroying planetary bases and space stations is all but impossible due to stationaty shielding.
In the new movies they could have destroyed the Death Star by simply ramming it at light speed with a carrier in between shield refreshes.
Also the Death Star is worthless as you can accomplish the same basic effect by ramming a planet at light speed.
Also all ship battles are worthless, as you can more cheaply have droids pilot suicide ships into each other at light speed.
Finally the movie was so afraid of the audience getting bored that no scene is allowed to last more then a few seconds, and something new and exciting has to be inserted constantly. Contrast with Empire where long, developed pauses and silences allowed a sci fi movie to feel adult without mindless grimdark.
Honestly this was the worst of the main line star wars movies.
Another really good point. Subverting the past for easy cred in the present.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
But Star wars whilst taking inspiration from pulp ELEVATED it by not becoming that and making every instance important by not implying that it will just loop around forever.
I have to heavily disagree with this.
Lensman was pulp, and the idea that there's no end to the continuous wars against yet another shell of the evil empire is brought up, but it makes it clear to the reader that there is an end goal for the good guys and that the entire series has been about reaching it (also the revised version of Triplanetary makes it clear who the masters of the evil empire are and the protagonists do end up fighting them directly).
Foundation was pulp. You know, that series that was essentially 'the idea that heroes matter more than statistics is misguided'. The Seldon plan, the thing set up in the first book that essentially drives the plot, fails more due to freak chance than the actions of anybody, and then the assumptions it's based on basically have to be forced back into place. Each story feeds into the next by changing the position of the galaxy and the leanings of the Foundation itself.
The first Star Wars trilogy is essentially a pulp story. This is fine, there's nothing wrong with pulp. Sure, I might have a preference for modern/New Space Opera but I still enjoy a good pulp story. It's probably not as deep as some of the books I've read, but then again neither was the Commonwealth Saga.
Saying Star Wars took inspiration from pulp but elevated it is like saying Star Wars took inspiration from space opera but elevated it. It's based on the implicit assumption that pulp and space opera is inherently bad, or at least shallow, which isn't true. Heck I see modern Star Wars as disappointing on the Space Opera scale, it's sharing the same genre as Revelation Space but comes off as incredibly shallow in comparison.
EDIT:
Spoiler: Commonwealth Saga spoilers
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I just remembered what the 'light speed missile ship' scene reminded me of! The ending of Pandora's Star, where Douvoir and his crew modify their ship so they can leave FTL at 20% of the speed of light, which is devastating to the enemy forces and is literally the basis for a missile developed at the beginning of the next book in a sort of 'well the flung ship was the most effective weapon' sort of way.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Anonymouswizard
I have to heavily disagree with this.
I didn't mean to say that Pulp is bad. I like pulp. Star wars is still Pulp. I meant more something like Flash Gordon (Which I personally really love).
Maybe Pulp serial? But I also Like serials...
Maybe its just that Star Wars was not made as a serial but as a sendoff to them. So it has this sense of conclusiveness that those stories tended not to have.
Yeah good catch on your end. Best I not insult a genre I really like. Thank you. :smallsmile:
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
I saw the movie and thought it was good. Not the greatest Star Wars movie ever, but lots better then the Force Awakens.
I see a lot of complaints that the movie as ''too much humor'' and is ''like a Marvel movie", but that seems like an odd complaint. Star Wars has all ways had comedy and humor. C-3PO and R2-D2 are literally the Laurel and Hardy of the galaxy. And the rest of the galaxy is also full of comedy and humor.
Spoiler: Episode IX
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*The movie opens with a battle! This is good, it is called Star Wars for a reason.
*On the other hand, the battle is not all that great. They could have done much better to show the desperate fight vs the first order.
*Bombers? In Space? To bomb a space ship? How did this ever sound like a good idea? Did someone watch a WW2 movie and say ''wow, we should do that, In Space!"
*The sudden Light Speed Tracker is a bit odd. It can track a ship from across the galaxy? That seems like a bit much.
*Admiral Akbar gets a ''blink and he is gone death'', and it's kind of sad. I would have written a death more like: Akbar pilots a cruiser and fakes engine damage so the First Order Thugs catch up to it and board the ship, find it's undamaged and Commander Kill is like ''why did you let yourself get captured?".......and Akbar says ''It's a Trap!" and pushes the Red Button and blows up both ships!
*I liked Leia using the Force. She has used it before, of course. And it does make sense that the near death experience triggers it.
*The whole Chase in Slow Motion just makes no sense. No reason is given as to why the First Order could not call in another ship, or just Jump closer to the Resistance ships.
*It is also odd for the first time in a Star Wars movie to see the shields, as that is more of a Star Trek thing.
*It is also odd to hear Star Wars folks talking about ''fuel''.
*Amilyn Holdo is a horrible character. I guess they wanted a super strong and powerful woman character that did not act like a man, or something like that. And they have ''not like a man'', being ''a big dumb jerk''.
*The Poe and Rose sub pot is a bit of a waste of time as it does not mean anything to the main plot.
*The Alien Casino is Star Wars enough...but there is no reason for them to go there, so that takes away a lot of it. And why does the casino have the 1920's Earth look and feel?
*DJ is another bad character....I guess he is a villain? But it is a bit pointless for him to be there. He breaks the shield code and betrays the heroes....ok?
*Phasma is another waste of a bad character, and is pointless. Hope she is dead forever.
*I'm glad Snoke is gone, I never liked him. Like, sigh, another ugly evil dude.
*And the not escape in shuttles is even worse then the not escape in the cruisers. And is there some reason all the shuttles are super useless. Like if they had even one TY-300 freighter (aka like the Falcon), they could have just gotten away.
*The Light Speed Ram was really nice....but does leave the question of why the bad guys just did not do that to catch up to the good guys.
*The whole speeder bit was pointless.
*The Millennium Falcon shows up in time to distract all the tie fighters....too bad they did not blast the big grand cannon tank too.
*When they call for help....I think it would have been better for some more help to show up. Even just a couple folks that get blown away....
*Luke doing Force Projection was really nice. I thought he was going to show up in his ancient x-wing myself...
*Luke brushing off the At-At blasts was the best part of the movie. And it was just a projection they were blasting...but in what way did Kylo think Luke avoided all the blasts?
*Broom Boy has the force....horray!
*We get to see Fin, Poe and Rose all grow as characters...so that is nice.
*The message of ''we can all use the Force'' or ''all be heroes'' is nice....but it is not new.
*The movie is full of new merchandise. Yes. But like it or not, this IS Star Wars. Even as far back as the movie Star Wars there was merchandise. As a kid of the '80's I can tell you I had a Ton of Star Wars stuff: Death Star, Cantata, X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE fighter, light saber, remote controlled R2-D2, and on and on.
*Forgetting History......I think this is forgetting ''bad'' history or at least making something new not tied to the past.
Both the Sith and the Jedi have tried their hands at ruling the Galaxy....and both have failed. The galaxy needs something new.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
The new star wars movies, as well as the prequels reminds me that as much as I hate Legend of Korra, at least Legend of Korra is good (even if its not great.)
The same [it being good] can't be said for Star Wars. And I used to be such a big Star Wars Fanboy during my childhood and teen years.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Darth Ultron
I see a lot of complaints that the movie as ''too much humor'' and is ''like a Marvel movie", but that seems like an odd complaint. Star Wars has all ways had comedy and humor.
And Star Wars also had Jar Jar. What they meant is the humor is inorganic and mainly comes from very modern types of beats akin to those found in a star wars film.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Darth Ultron
Spoiler
Show
*Bombers? In Space? To bomb a space ship? How did this ever sound like a good idea? Did someone watch a WW2 movie and say ''wow, we should do that, In Space!"
Spoiler
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I believe you have literally described the Trench Run from the first Star Wars film, which if memory serves was inspired by The Dam Busters. However that was a very well done example, as the bombs were exchanged for weapons that could propel themselves down the target and the stage was set for exactly the sort of sequence Lucas wanted.
I should mention that the idea of space bombers isn't completely stupid, especially if you have artifical gravity that allows you to angle 'back' to be towards the engines as Star Wars does, but they'd be more anti-planet weapons you use when you have orbital superiority rather than anti-capital ship weapons. Even then they're not worth it unless you're trying for a lot of big booms spread across the planet, ship-mounted beam weapons are generally better for precision targets (such as cities and particularly large mountains).
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
So the amount of bad reviews on Metacritic has now eclipsed the number of good reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes score is somewhere around a 57 percent, but based on it's star system it's ranking somewhere just under three stars out of five. Reddit is basically in civil war as people argue and harangue each other over who is and isn't a real fan for liking or not liking this movie. All of the big SW specific youtubers are giving mixed reviews with some of them saying they considered quitting what they do because of this film. Angry Joe, with nearly three million subscribers, has utterly trashed the movie and made entire extra videos to point out everything wrong with this film. Pablo Hidalgo, who's one of the Lucasfilm's most public figures, has essentially pitched a fit and tried to "agree to disagree" and then drop the issue.
The actual contents of the film aside I would absolutley not like to be a Lucasfilm executive right now. Battlefront 2's DLC didn't save the game since it ends on another cliffhanger trying to tie into a movie that's getting trashed left right and center and the next film on the slate is the one that the consensus even among fans has defaulted to "doesn't need to exist", and that's on the fan pages I follow and social media groups I'm on, not me BSing anyone. I'm just kind of assuming Abrams and company are furiously rewriting IX now.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Here's another hard-hitting question. Who the hell made Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic the CEOs of public opinion?
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Future Sword
Here's another hard-hitting question. Who the hell made Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic the CEOs of public opinion?
No they are just a forum for it. In a pure economic sense this lowers longterm cash inflow.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
No they are just a forum for it. In a pure economic sense this lowers longterm cash inflow.
Oh, are they forums? I always thought they were like GameInformer or IGN.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Future Sword
Oh, are they forums? I always thought they were like GameInformer or IGN.
Nope, they're consumer aggregates. Those mediocre reviews are an average from across tens of thousands of moviegoers(Over a hundred thousand between the two and counting).
Which is the thing. They're consistent enough to be used in marketing and trustworthy enough to be used by reputable sites, production offices, and firms across the world. They aren't random forums, they're one of the most accurate ways to gauge consumer reaction.
Which is where things are worrying for Lucasfilms producers and executives. For the situation to get this bad on opening night means that their record breaking opening may be followed by a record breaking dropoff and give them far less profit than they expected. Because a film can tank a bad critic score, but a bad score directly from the people who spend the money can be far worse. It's not a guaranteed death knell, four of the five live action transformer movies scored in this range, but it's never been a good sign and it's certainly not a headache Lucasfilm wants to deal with while still handling EA's shenanigans.
For a film this divisive with stats like this that means that before the opening weekend is over, a hundred thousand people are saying this movie was terrible. Since I believe in being thorough I've been asking around myself. Of the people who've seen it that I know, not a single person has actually liked it out of anyone I spoke to one on one. Not in real life, not in chat rooms, not on social media. At best it's a "mixed" reaction and not an outright endorsement.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
I just came back from family Christmas and 4 of my relatives have seen it. All of them said it was straight up worse than TFA and that the movie has no actual payoff. One described it as a more or less flat movie.
Im gonna see it tomorrow with my sister and a kid she helps take care of so i'll have my own opinions up then, but it doesnt look great.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
And Star Wars also had Jar Jar. What they meant is the humor is inorganic and mainly comes from very modern types of beats akin to those found in a star wars film.
There is a big difference between a Super Stupid Utter Waste of a Character that is there to do Dumb Things to make Kidz laugh, and humor in a movie.
Spoiler: Space Bombers
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Was that meant to be a call back to the trench run or even Dam Busters? I was thinking any WW2 movie that had bombers attacking an aircraft carrier.
Still though....to fly over another space ship, and then drop bombs on it...is a bit of silly space science. How do you 'drop' bombs in space? And why must they be dropped from only above the ship. It makes me think of that Star Blazers episode where the bad guys had a Space Submarine and the Yamato could not shoot it as it stayed ''under'' the ship and all the guns were on ''top'' of the ship.
I think guided missile cruiser would have made a bit more sense. Something more like ''space tomahawks'' then just dropping bombs. Like some good Macross Missie Spam.
After the three latest Star Wars films, it is clear the fan base is mixed.
I hated the Force Awakens: Poe was annoying, Rae a Mary Sue, Fin was just there and the whole copy of Star Wars. But plenty of people loved the movie.
Rogue One was good enough for a 'dark' Star Wars story. I think it came too close to the Force Awakens with the ''women rule the Star Wars galaxy now''. And I wish Jin had been a better character...closer to the teaser trailer Jin. But again, many hated the movie.
Now we get the Last Jedi, that I liked....and many hated.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
It is genuinely strange to be reading the response here and elsewhere and to have so many people taking issue with the things I find most artistically relevant and fun about the movie. :|
Curious though, for other people who have seen it:
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How do people feel about the explicit condemnation of The Jedi as both a philosophical school and an organisation? I know they pull that punch really hard but that's something a lot of people seem to love and I'm not sure how people feel about it.
Also: Is anybody else as glad as I am to see the "Rey is a Mary Sue" people be textually called out?
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Originally Posted by
Tyndmyr
That's fair.
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Captain Phasma is still a named character for no real plot purpose I can see. If she were replaced by literally any other stormtrooper, I dunno what would be different.
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She's a face to put on the feelings of generic Stormtroopers and a representation of The Empire that Finn is able to hit with a stick. The fact that she is replaceable within the text of the movie is actually a thematic strength, as far as I'm concerned, because despite being all shiny and important looking, she still has all sense of identity stripped away. Something that Finn has been overcoming and is core to how Stormtroopers are used as objectified people.
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Originally Posted by
pendell
If anyone's interested , the
Rotten Tomatoes reviews are incoming. Strangely, there is a great discrepancy between the professional reviewers and the audience. The professional reviewers give it a 93% rating -- the audience, only 62%.
From what I've heard: There is a bunch of people throwing tantrums about all the usual stuff and they're all independently doing what they think is an effective counterattack: Putting up one star reviews wherever they feel they have a voice.
At least there doesn't seem to be a dedicated harassment campaign yet. (Yes: There is some other different criticism going on that is also shouty and loud but coming from a place that is a lot more reasonable. They started a hashtag for it over on twitter and I actually did miss some of the issues they're bringing up. Mostly how the arcs for the POC mains more directly involve a explicit form of dis-empowerment and coded violence. Fair criticism as far as I'm concerned.)
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Originally Posted by
Blackhawk748
I no longer find that strange. Im more and more convinced that "Professional" reviewers are just paid off by the large Studios to give them good ratings. Then the fans go and say "Wow, that was nowhere near as good as i was led to believe". This makes it all the worse when a legitimately good movie comes out, it can easily get brushed aside as "Corporate Hype"
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Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
They don't get paid off but Marketting revenue comes from them.
You say bad things about Disney so don't expect to get a new screening or preferential treatment no more.
This is conspiratorial nonsense and both of you must be smarter than this.
Screeners are almost always handled by the local cinema. You might be getting that impression from video game things where "product" is sent directly to review and journalism outlets. There CAN be blacklists or exceptions made for certain critics but, AFAIK, that isn't an issue in American cinema space because it only happens at the outlet level: There are ant-monopoly laws in place (From back in the golden age, IIRC?) preventing film production firms from having that kind of administrative control over cinemas.
And yes: Studios commission work from outlets all the time and it's often part of a very controlled marketing narrative. But that only has percentage when the outlet is getting some kind of first shot or exclusivity deal from it and basically NONE of that applies to post release review stuff. (For example: Basically any costume/ mid-shoot stuff that is released is done via an exclusivity deal. That is STILL pounced on and reproduced by every other outlet within their normal production cycle. Its often a difference of hours at best.)
Is there any outlet that covers films, anywhere, who didn't have an opening weekend review of any given blockbuster for the last thirty years?
This is where the distinction between "outlet" and "critic" is important.
I mean: Think about it. Even if a studio was approaching a small number of key critics for something as small as say, $10,000 a pop in order to help produce positive buzz for the opening weekend? Is there any individual who would be approached for that where their expected return on investment would be higher than just buying another thirty seconds of prime time ad space?
Critics just don't have the kind of reach that makes that sort of special exception worthwhile.
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Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
I will say one thing that really bothered me.
Spoiler: Forgetting the past
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I will NEVER see that as a positive. Outside the fact that the Movie wants it both ways (Forget the past but buy our action figures, forget the past but preserve the scrolls)
Forgetting the past is a fantastic way to repeat it. The movie extolling IGNORANCE as a virtue was dowrnight DISGUSTING.
Yoda was just a petty **** the way he acted to luke. The guy is ****ing miserable and too old for being ****ed with, and Yoda blowing up the Jedi scrolls instead of saying "Rey has them, help them out!" made him needlessly cruel in my mind.
The OT was literally all about how these people are obsessed with the now and only caring about whats directly in front of them.. Forget the past, focus on the now and just getting buy. The empire sees the Force as a Joke, and that nothing can challenge their supramacy with the Deathstar, so don't even bother.
People live their lives not realising that the government really IS ruled by an evil cult of mages that manipulate the very fates themselves, because they FORGET THE PAST.
But Disney is all about buy our toys, and forget the past because if you don't you will realise what kind of disservice we did to the franchise and how lazy, recycled, and stale our ideas are. Don't tell me to forget the past Disney when your movies are all about Nostalgia pandering and hollow without it.
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I suspect that I enjoyed the movie a lot more than you :smalltongue: but I feel that there's a more coherent interpretation of what Yoda did: He's doing the exact same thing that Luke's teachers have always done with him. Tell convenient lies to get him to get off his ass and do what is to Yoda, the right thing.
Yoda's choice of words "Rey has all she needs from that place" while she has the books stored away on the Falcon. Mirrors Kenobi's choice of words that "Vader did kill your father, from a certain point of view." when he's actually talking about a change in personal perception and identity.
Because Luke doesn't actually say that he's changed his mind or anything like that: It would be a reasonable expectation of his behaviour that, if he's no longer risking propagating an ideology that he believes is toxic and dangerous, so he can then go buy the Rebellion time.
I also think there's an important distinction between "Lets forget these things exist" and "Lets stop treating the source of some of these problems as an inherent part of reality and see if we can restructure the world in a better way." You also don't need an extra judicial religious order of space police ("Renewing the Jedi") in order to have people who are still aware as to the risks inherent with certain forms of structural power.
Fair cop though: movie is still Pro-Force in general and I'm mostly talking theme here. I could be very, very off with the actual moment to moment text of the movie.
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If you want a kind of outrageous, thematic cul de sac to be angry about; How about that the balancing of the force apparently requires equivalent strength between light and dark side users now?
Rey's power rising in tandem with Ben getting deeper into the dark side and throwing away chances for redemption. Where self improvement and the commitment towards "good" for the heroes directly empowers the people who are evil, petty and cruel.
Because that's some ugly stuff.
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Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
No they are just a forum for it. In a pure economic sense this lowers longterm cash inflow.
I would love to see a source on that or a justification as to why you would care if Disney (Edit: Or any other given large company) drops a couple of hundred bucks off a billion dollar payday.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
There is a bunch of people throwing tantrums about all the usual stuff and they're all independently doing what they think is an effective counterattack: Putting up one star reviews wherever they feel they have a voice.
Yes, by all means let us imagine a horrible movie is being panned due to racism and trollish behavior and not issues with characterization, insulting the existing characters, and bad writing.
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Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
This is conspiratorial nonsense.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Too Smart for me Sam! Too Smart! I was just about to unleash my racist apocalypse on all those FILTHY minorities and XX Chromosome Havers because Im just too intimidated by their free spirits and pro-active movie actions.
Curses Foiled Again!
Tvtyrant Do something!
:smallfurious:
I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those clever souls standing up for those poor innocent multi million dollar overpaid movie stars!
And thier mangy dog!
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
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How do people feel about the explicit condemnation of The Jedi as both a philosophical school and an organisation? I know they pull that punch really hard but that's something a lot of people seem to love and I'm not sure how people feel about it.
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Luke's condemnation of the Jedi Order comes from his extreme depression. When Rey finds him, he isn't capable of remembering the good that the Jedi can do--it's a dangerous and absolutely terrifying mental state to be in--and thus closely associates his own personal failure regarding his nephew with the failure of his mentors and the Order as a whole regarding Palpatine and Darth Vader.
When Yoda calls down the lightning to burn the tree, Luke recoils in shock and his body language reveals that he probably doesn't even really believe what he told Rey: his instinct is still to save the very books he was about to burn down himself (although he wasn't aware at the time that Rey absconded with them when she ran off to try to turn Kylo Ren).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
Spoiler
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I suspect that I enjoyed the movie a lot more than you :smalltongue: but I feel that there's a more coherent interpretation of what Yoda did: He's doing the exact same thing that Luke's teachers have always done with him. Tell convenient lies to get him to get off his ass and do what is to Yoda, the right thing.
Yoda's choice of words "Rey has all she needs from that place" while she has the books stored away on the Falcon. Mirrors Kenobi's choice of words that "Vader did kill your father, from a certain point of view." when he's actually talking about a change in personal perception and identity.
Because Luke doesn't actually say that he's changed his mind or anything like that: It would be a reasonable expectation of his behaviour that, if he's no longer risking propagating an ideology that he believes is toxic and dangerous, so he can then go buy the Rebellion time.
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Actually, Luke's last words do reflect a change of heart regarding the Jedi: while taunting his nephew that everything Kylo Ren had just said was wrong, he ended with "...and I won't be The Last Jedi." He accepts that Rey will become a Jedi (and that he will join Yoda and Obi-Wan in the Force to guide her), and he'll buy her and the rest of the surviving Resistance time to escape, by using the Force in the most Jedi way possible: "Only for defense, never for attack."
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
The funny thing is that I'd been worried that I was approaching conversations here in TGITP with too much tact and unnecessary qualifications that I'm not attacking people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
Too Smart for me Sam! Too Smart! I was just about to unleash my racist apocalypse on all those FILTHY minorities and XX Chromosome Havers because Im just too intimidated by their free spirits and pro-active movie actions.
Curses Foiled Again!
Tvtyrant Do something!
:smallfurious:
I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those clever souls standing up for those poor innocent multi million dollar overpaid movie stars!
And thier mangy dog!
Okay: First up: I'm sorry I wrote stuff addressing you three times. I wasn't intending to call you out specifically or anything like that, I was skimming the thread and mostly just replying to things that I find interesting.
And I also don't think I implied I thought you were one of the "Racist Reactionary Bad Men(TM)" or anything like that and I'm also sorry if it seemed that way.
If I can elaborate on the intent behind what I said to you?
I offered an alternate explanation as to what the character motivation for one scene could be and mentioned another element of the movie as something that we might be able to agree was kind of morally ugly.
"Companies are paying for good reviews of stuff I don't like" is a straight up conspiracy theory in some circles that just... Kinda gets on my goat because I feel that it's one of those conspiracy theories that overwhelm discourse on the same subject in a way that isn't really helpful. (Marketing in the form of content and art as product).
If I misread you and you were using it as a joke or something so I overreacted: I apologise.
Same with the "people shove trolling reviews into places in order to hit companies in the wallet" thing.
And I think that I've some proof that I wasn't aware that you were the same person all three times: I presumed you were on either side of the same issue in both the second and the third time I replied. :smalltongue:
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Originally Posted by
Tvtyrant
Yes, by all means let us imagine a horrible movie is being panned due to racism and trollish behavior and not issues with characterization, insulting the existing characters, and bad writing.
Well. "Racist Reactionary Bad Men(TM)" are probably part of the group that I was talking about (They are around the place all the time, sadly.) but I don't think I said that was the entirety of "The Usuals."
I specifically mentioned that some of them are doing the #starwarshatespoc thing.
And honestly? I think that large group responses to media seems to come from tangible details. Mostly because I'm ripping off Film Crit Hulk's theory of inarticulate emotional responses. It's interesting but there's a lot of it spread across two essays. I would have no issue if you just called me a prick again and rolled on.
I mean look at this There's some racism and sexism and stuff in there, sure, as well as the people taking issue with the film for its progressive shortcomings. (Which I remind you: I also mentioned as a thing that is happening.)
But what seems to be the issue people are actually citing most commonly is the perception they have that the film is too funny or that the characters aren't being treated with an appropriate reverence or that it's undercutting the drama in some way.
To me that reads as a symptom as to how their emotional investment in the storytelling tropes of the previous Star Wars isn't being met by the movie. (And it's fine if you disagree.) but it's an entirely different kind of weird+ valid emotional response than the "Racist Reactionary Bad Men(TM)" are having. And it's different again to my own weird+ valid emotional response that I had.
I'm sorry I failed to express that with "The Usual" the first time. We cool?
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
There is way too much negativity in this thread. I enjoyed the movie. It was a good movie. There's certainly some things that could have been done better or differently, but it wasn't bad. I'm certain it wasn't terrible. This is probably all I can say about the movie here.
Spoiler: First
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Leia. Kylo gets a lock on the bridge, and he knows Leia's there, but he doesn't fire. His wingmen do though. Kylo must think his mother is dead. The movie never really addresses this. I don't think he ever learns she's not dead, either, other than the vague "I'd know" sense the force gives. I was expecting it to come up one way or another, but it never did. Not when they're shooting down the transports. Not when Luke faced Kylo Ren on the planet's surface. It's not wrong, I don't think, but just not what I was expecting. Maybe something was planned for part IX, but reality has interfered. Now, I don't know. Oh, and Force OP, plz nerf.
Spoiler: Second
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Luke. I enjoyed him a lot. Loved it. I knew he was projecting at the end. I just didn't get the kind of emotional response from his death that I think I should have. I was just confused. Too many cuts and jumps to reactions at the same time, maybe. Still, he did exactly what he said he would and died on that island. He also did and did not do what he said was impossible. He went out to face down the army of the First Order with nothing but a laser sword, but also didn't really. And it worked. His final showdown goes down in legends. I liked it.
Spoiler: Third
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Finn. And Rose by association, but Finn's the returning character so he gets the title spot here. I liked his "rebel scum" moment (and I added "there goes Boba Fett" when Phasma fell into the fire), but that's a shallow victory amidst so much not-victory. I get that he's learned an important lesson through his failures (oh so many failures) and it's a lesson that flows from his heroic act in TFA that could have killed him too, and the movie does talk about failure being the best teacher, but I still feel bad for him. The movie is very rough with Finn. He doesn't just not succeed. He never gets to make things better, and does end up making things worse. It doesn't help that I thought that sounded like a terrible plan, even before they needed to recruit some codebreaker from some hive of scum and villainy to pull it off. Also, I think Luke's bacta tank was kinder to his dignity than whatever Finn woke up wearing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
Spoiler
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If you want a kind of outrageous, thematic cul de sac to be angry about; How about that the balancing of the force apparently requires equivalent strength between light and dark side users now?
Rey's power rising in tandem with Ben getting deeper into the dark side and throwing away chances for redemption. Where self improvement and the commitment towards "good" for the heroes directly empowers the people who are evil, petty and cruel.
Because that's some ugly stuff.
Spoiler: Ugly
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Sure, but that's about-to-die Snoke and depressed-Luke talking. It's not really true. Luke doesn't believe that when he declares he won't be the last Jedi. Rey rising to meet Ren's challenge at the end of the Force Awakens wasn't an upwelling of the Light Side meeting the Dark Side either. It was Rey tapping into a lot of hate and anger and beating down a wounded and conflicted boy who'd just killed his own father. When they're first forced to see each other again, she's still got all that anger, all that dark raging power, right there on the surface, plain to see: she hates him. She's drawn to that dark pit of the island as she searches for her parents. There's plenty of darkness in this person who's supposed to be the opposite of Kylo Ren. As she comes to understand Ben, she gets that serene, peaceful Jedi hope that he can be saved and when she goes before Snoke she's basically powerless in front of the master. They're counterparts, narratively, but not counterweights, metaphysically.
There's a balance or cycle of life and death, of protection and destruction, of light and dark, but not of good and evil. That's the choices that people can make, and are always able to make. It wasn't the balance of the force that was saving (or destroying) the Resistance. It was the people who survived, the choices they made, and the lessons they'd learned that made that possible.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jayngfet
Nope, they're consumer aggregates. Those mediocre reviews are an average from across tens of thousands of moviegoers(Over a hundred thousand between the two and counting).
Which is the thing. They're consistent enough to be used in marketing and trustworthy enough to be used by reputable sites, production offices, and firms across the world. They aren't random forums, they're one of the most accurate ways to gauge consumer reaction.
Which is where things are worrying for Lucasfilms producers and executives. For the situation to get this bad on opening night means that their record breaking opening may be followed by a record breaking dropoff and give them far less profit than they expected. Because a film can tank a bad critic score, but a bad score directly from the people who spend the money can be far worse. It's not a guaranteed death knell, four of the five live action transformer movies scored in this range, but it's never been a good sign and it's certainly not a headache Lucasfilm wants to deal with while still handling EA's shenanigans.
For a film this divisive with stats like this that means that before the opening weekend is over, a hundred thousand people are saying this movie was terrible. Since I believe in being thorough I've been asking around myself. Of the people who've seen it that I know, not a single person has actually liked it out of anyone I spoke to one on one. Not in real life, not in chat rooms, not on social media. At best it's a "mixed" reaction and not an outright endorsement.
I saw it Friday morning. Friday evening I was talking with 3 friends before friday game night as they had seen Thurs evening.
All 5 of us loved it.
Another friend arrived. Not as much discussion as we wanted to fit in the RPG we were doing, but he liked it as well.
In case demographics matter, 3 male, 2 female, ages 30-35, 80% married, 1 kid, they had not at that time seen it with the kid.
Edit: changed some math around because I forgot to count myself in the demographics...but only sometimes)
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
huttj509
I saw it Friday morning. Friday evening I was talking with 3 friends before friday game night as they had seen Thurs evening.
All 5 of us loved it.
Another friend arrived. Not as much discussion as we wanted to fit in the RPG we were doing, but he liked it as well.
In case demographics matter, 3 male, 2 female, ages 30-35, 80% married, 1 kid, they had not at that time seen it with the kid.
Edit: changed some math around because I forgot to count myself in the demographics...but only sometimes)
Yeah, but that's JUST your personal anecdote, which compared to a series of aggregates that represent about a million dollars of the ticket buying audience isn't really saying much. Even counting personal anecdotes only that only represents the data properly, in that there were slightly more people who hated it than liked it and there's only a little bit of inbetween.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jayngfet
Yeah, but that's JUST your personal anecdote, which compared to a series of aggregates that represent about a million dollars of the ticket buying audience isn't really saying much. Even counting personal anecdotes only that only represents the data properly, in that there were slightly more people who hated it than liked it and there's only a little bit of inbetween.
You ended your post with a personal anecdote, drawing attention to how literally nobody you had talked to had liked it.
I replied with an anecdote of my own, providing you with more data points to your possible one on one interaction file.
I'm possibly reacting poorly because I walked out of the theatre having really liked the movie. I chatted about it with friends in person, and we all really liked the movie. I read MovieBob's review to get his thoughts. He liked it. I look forward to his non-spoiler-free review for details. I read film critic Hulk's review. He really liked it, with more details about what he liked.
I swung over to the forum to talk about some stuff I really liked (the triple flashback with more information each time swinging views of an event, the First Order getting some classically "hero" ship maneuvers, crashing to take out a bomber and protect their compatriots, a dramatic run down a narrow channel to take out the enemy flagship), and find that apparently "literally nobody" liked the movie.
I liked it. I am not ashamed of liking it. Let those who are feeling similarly discouraged by the omnipresent wave of vitriol take solace in the knowledge that they are not alone in their enjoyment of the movie.
For I liked it.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Spoiler: Thoughts about a small element of a good movie
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It really is nice to see people in universe say that the Jedi were bad but...
Without having to get into the Fashy stuff: the Jedi were inadequate caregivers for their students that makes falling to the dark side more likely. Particularly how they're approaching raising/ creating emotionally healthy people. Curtailing emotional connections between people isolates them and makes them more likely to imprint and rely more heavily on people who are providing emotional support to them. (Snoake and Padme in this situation.)
And yes: There are diagetic reasons for the failures of the Jedi that do not come down to the social systems they're using. I feel that Anakin and Ben maybe being too old ornot fully integrating into the Jedi Order and all that exacerbated existing issues with the Jedi as an institution.
There's a bunch of cases like that for people raised in cult situations where they're only getting succor from certain people (Like an all encompassing master/ student relationship) or from the survivors of childhood abuse. It's very complex and frankly: I am not well enough informed to talk about it in detail but when they start being socialised in other contexts; they frequently find themselves back into inequal and damaging relationships because their expectations of reasonable behaviour are skewed.
Luke didn't just fail as a philosophical teacher because The Dark Side is bad: He failed to connect with his nephew in a fundamental way because of his adherence to a parenting style that is inadequate and allowed Ben to establish a relationship with a "bad influence." One that I do read as paternal and abusive. (Particularly how Snoake polices Ben's coping mechanisms and signifiers of his identity.)
Don't get me wrong: If a system has created three galactic scale space tyrants within about 40 years of each other, that's a MASSIVE criticism of the system but it's ignoring a more mundane form of harm that is not shown to be resolved when The Jedi are affirmed at the end of the movie.
Just that Luke wasn't enough.
Not sure how I feel about that.
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Originally Posted by
Mando Knight
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Luke's condemnation of the Jedi Order comes from his extreme depression. When Rey finds him, he isn't capable of remembering the good that the Jedi can do--it's a dangerous and absolutely terrifying mental state to be in--and thus closely associates his own personal failure regarding his nephew with the failure of his mentors and the Order as a whole regarding Palpatine and Darth Vader.
When Yoda calls down the lightning to burn the tree, Luke recoils in shock and his body language reveals that he probably doesn't even really believe what he told Rey: his instinct is still to save the very books he was about to burn down himself (although he wasn't aware at the time that Rey absconded with them when she ran off to try to turn Kylo Ren).
Spoiler
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Actually, Luke's last words do reflect a change of heart regarding the Jedi: while taunting his nephew that everything Kylo Ren had just said was wrong, he ended with "...and I won't be The Last Jedi." He accepts that Rey will become a Jedi (and that he will join Yoda and Obi-Wan in the Force to guide her), and he'll buy her and the rest of the surviving Resistance time to escape, by using the Force in the most Jedi way possible: "Only for defense, never for attack."
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Not saying you're wrong: I just want to know you're opinion before replying in full: Do you think Luke was aware that Rey had the books when he said that he would not be the last Jedi?
Because I feel that's a very important distinction between him using the term "Jedi" to refer to "People who are able to use the force well" and the term Jedi to refer to "Something similar to the institution that he has been railing against" so "The Jedi Order."
I'm leaning very strongly towards the former.
Your avatar is dope, BTW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zalabim
There is way too much negativity in this thread. I enjoyed the movie. It was a good movie. There's certainly some things that could have been done better or differently, but it wasn't bad. I'm certain it wasn't terrible. This is probably all I can say about the movie here.
You know what, yeah: That's actually fair and I haven't said anything unreservedly positive about the movie yet and I loved it.
Spoiler: Somethings that are beautiful
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Kylo remains one of the best examples of a sympathetic, utterly irredeemable bastard I have ever seen. I really cannot emphasise that enough, his ongoing self destruction and the wilful degradation of everything he loves has been heartbreaking and strikes an emotional chord that you normally need to build an entire story around (Byron style) in order to sink in as well as these last two movies have done it.
And I feel like that ties into a failing of Star Wars as a whole that the new movies have been increasingly good at correcting: Valorizing evil.
There is a narrative that we as a culture construct around certain character archetypes:
The unrepentant, the unfettered and the triumphant in particular. That the traits that make them good bad guys, people worth opposing, are traits worth emulating in general. That the person who is willing to benefit from harm is somehow distinct or better in the same way a heroic character is from the bulk of humanity.
"The Mundanity of Evil" or some kind of inherent lack of virtue is often used as a counter to Valorizing Evil but it's almost always used to comfort or to in some way excuse poor behaviour. But here? They've taken somebody who is Valorized in that way but who's arc is built around trying and failing to fix himself.
(They did something similar and also good with Hux's buffoonery and the very charismatic Hacker Dude.)
Kylo knows he's a monster and he's not okay with that. But what kills him, what makes it unbearable: He can't be alone anymore.
Maybe I'm an easy mark for this stuff but it's a very strange combination of emotions; catharsis, validation and pure asthetic joy to see the cast, particularly Leia, turn away from him.
Other great things:
-The acknowledgement of profiteering and class struggle as a core issue that nobody in the cast is equipped to solve or even adequately address. (For people who are saying that the time spent on The Casino Planet with Finn and Rose was useless: Fite me.)
-Rose is adorable and should wear nothing but the cutest hats and should marry Finn and eat strawberry lunches with Kaylee and get everything she wants in life while fighting the power and gulaging people who hit her Giraffe-Greyhound friends.
-The cast is uniformly great. Oh my gosh. Seriously: There's been kind of an issue for a while where ongoing franchises are emphasising characters as a core appeal to cover for having a weak plot. Even if the cast here was half as good, I would love to see a wide release movie do that
I love, love, love how they invest so much into subverting genera expectations in the Poe subplot that I can't elaborate on because I've written too goshdarn much but it is a really solid little piece of writing.
Oh. And it's just normally beautiful too. It's hard to separate stuff like set design and cinematography and lighting but the technical production here is as good as I have ever seen.
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Sure, but that's about-to-die Snoke and depressed-Luke talking. It's not really true. Luke doesn't believe that when he declares he won't be the last Jedi. Rey rising to meet Ren's challenge at the end of the Force Awakens wasn't an upwelling of the Light Side meeting the Dark Side either. It was Rey tapping into a lot of hate and anger and beating down a wounded and conflicted boy who'd just killed his own father. When they're first forced to see each other again, she's still got all that anger, all that dark raging power, right there on the surface, plain to see: she hates him. She's drawn to that dark pit of the island as she searches for her parents. There's plenty of darkness in this person who's supposed to be the opposite of Kylo Ren. As she comes to understand Ben, she gets that serene, peaceful Jedi hope that he can be saved and when she goes before Snoke she's basically powerless in front of the master. They're counterparts, narratively, but not counterweights, metaphysically.
There's a balance or cycle of life and death, of protection and destruction, of light and dark, but not of good and evil. That's the choices that people can make, and are always able to make. It wasn't the balance of the force that was saving (or destroying) the Resistance. It was the people who survived, the choices they made, and the lessons they'd learned that made that possible.
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I'm not sure you can draw a clear distinction between "Internal logic as how the characters understand it" and "Internal logic as how it is best understood" but I do see both parts of your point: We are limited through both potential lenses as to how the internal mechanics of the universe works.
And even if you are a dirty thought criminal who seems like a genuinely lovely person, I can't refute you here.
Part of me just sees the interpretation that I've lamented as a logical extension as to how they've codified "The Dark Side" and "The Light Side".
If I'm wrong, please correct me: The Force is thematically rooted in Daoism but Yin and Yang (Light and Dark) are not equal opposites. There is "The way things should be" and there is "This is out of balance and wrong." So there is not a distinction between "Creation and Destruction" the impermanence of existence and rebirth is a part of reality as it should be and is not associated with being out of balance.
(And I should add: The people who think that The Force isn't tied in with Daoism or who came away from the Rige Trige thinking as light and dark as equal opposites aren't wrong at all. If your movie requires an understanding of philosophical school from an entirely different culture in order to get a kick from it: You have failed as a storyteller and are probably a ****.)
So to my understanding, There was not a distinction between "The Light" and "The Dark." There was a distinction between "The Pure Force the Way it Should Be" and "The Corruption."
And I don't know how to refute characters in universe who say "This temple is a light side thing so there is the dark side thing below it. Balance." or how Ben isn't speaking to the fundamental nature of Space Magic when he says that the light side is calling him.
Particularly given that Rey being a Paragon of Light as Kylo is a Paragon of Dark (and so they empower each other) has relevance to the films dieresis. It gives context to why Rey is apparently a monstrously strong force user without training. It ties into the thematic point that bloodline is not important when given access to Unlimited Power. (Though tying it to destiny instead still feels iffy.)
But to reiterate: I think that you're right as to what it means within the diegesis of the films proper. In light of what you've said; I would be surprised if Rey didn't end up as some kind of Grey Jedi, superior to the way the old system was and a more complete person because of it.
It's just... I don't know. Part of me doesn't like even an implicit "Evil is necessary" narrative device, you know? And I will bet anything you like that Dark Side=Evil is a thing for a very, very long time.
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Originally Posted by
Jayngfet
Yeah, but that's JUST your personal anecdote, which compared to a series of aggregates that represent about a million dollars of the ticket buying audience isn't really saying much. Even counting personal anecdotes only that only represents the data properly, in that there were slightly more people who hated it than liked it and there's only a little bit of inbetween.
The "objective" metrics you may be using to gauge audience response are heavily biased towards negative responses. Aggregate sites (and nerd forums) gravitate towards extremes conversations and audience reactions and both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes use formulae that weights towards the very high and very low end of the scale to increase engagement.
And that's before you go towards a self selection process that people throwing tantrums are much more likely to throw very negative reviews up into a shared space. (And of course: That nerd forum people and the friends of nerd forum people are predisposed to tantrums, bad feelings for perceived slights and are much, much more likely to throw a review up online.)
My understanding is that the all of audience consensus is moderate to good but the best metric, as far as I'm aware, is going to be box office. At least wait until second weekend finishes before you declare the consensus based on any potential metric anyway.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Not going to engage with the larger discussion as a whole, but there is something funny that I think is worth pointing out about the dissonance between critic reviews and audience reviews.
For as much as The Last Jedi tries not to retread ESB like TFA did ANH, it did in one very pointed method.
When Empire Strikes Back came out, critics loved it but audiences hated it too. Now, after time has passed and many people place ESB as on of, if not the, favorite Star Wars movie on their list. And it wasn't until later when they watched the movie without expectations they had going in when they first watched it that changed their minds.
So there is that.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
I'll be honest, the more I think about TLJ, the more I move into the 'actively dislike' camp. What was fun was the opening space battle, even if it got ridiculous, and the scenes with Luke. The rest was boring, or too fast to actually work out what was happening.
Sure, you can like it. But here's the thing, it committed the mortal sin of the prequel trilogy by not relying on action to keep my attention. It should have explained why the triumphant ending of TFA was now a case of 'The Resistance is horrifically outgunned', especially as TFA had implied that the FO was not the supreme military power like the Empire was (which was something I liked about TFA), now the only difference between the Empire and FO is how Nazi the uniforms are. In the process of something different we were essentially handed 'the Rebellion and Empire as they were before A New Hope', as a minor detail that they felt that they didn't have to explain.
Heck, it explains less than the PT. Why are the Separatists more dangerous than the Trade Federation was? Because they had ten years to build their armies without being discovered (helped by their leader being a high ranking official).
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The First Order? Stole resources from poor miners and then bought some Star Destroyers. It doesn't really feel like a good explanation, for an army of their size it would make sense that the FO would have significant industrial capacity so they're not continually leaking money, but this is ignored.
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The one very good thing I can say is that at least the mystery introduced, what do the Jedi texts say, is one that can be easily answered because everybody has a decent idea. Throw in a couple of twists to show that the Jedi had lost their way and it could be a great plot element in Episode IX.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
"Companies are paying for good reviews of stuff I don't like"
Except there is literal precedent for this.
I don't say things that I don't have prededent for.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Overall, I really really enjoyed it.
There is one thought that's nagging at me, though.
When the cruiser rams Snoke's ship at hyperspeed.
That's a Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle, but even more so, because it's actually moving FASTER than the speed of light. The force of that kind of impact would have caused the atoms of the two vehicles to undergo cold fusion and create a truly spectacular explosion. If anything, that impact should have been even MORE devastating that it was.
But here's my question: Why aren't there hyperdrive missiles that do that? Like, I know hyperdrives are probably expensive, but you can fit one on an x-wing, so they're not huge, and you can afford a bunch of them. Why wouldn't you just make a stripped-down x-wing that's basically just a navigation system and a hyperdrive and just have them punch it toward key points on enemy capital ships?
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
No-one knows, as Star Wars technology is not thought out to such depth.
Possibly, only a cruiser this big could punch through the shields of a capital ship, or the mass of large vehicles would make smaller vehicles drop out of hyperspace too soon, or they cannot automate such devices, meaning that you'd need a kamikaze pilot for each one. The last one is supported by widespread use of manned fighter craft, with fully automated fighter drones being an anomaly.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Admiral Squish
Overall, I really really enjoyed it.
There is one thought that's nagging at me, though.
When the cruiser rams Snoke's ship at hyperspeed.
That's a Relativistic Kinetic Kill Vehicle, but even more so, because it's actually moving FASTER than the speed of light. The force of that kind of impact would have caused the atoms of the two vehicles to undergo cold fusion and create a truly spectacular explosion. If anything, that impact should have been even MORE devastating that it was.
But here's my question: Why aren't there hyperdrive missiles that do that? Like, I know hyperdrives are probably expensive, but you can fit one on an x-wing, so they're not huge, and you can afford a bunch of them. Why wouldn't you just make a stripped-down x-wing that's basically just a navigation system and a hyperdrive and just have them punch it toward key points on enemy capital ships?
Because up until this point it was impossible as Hyperdrives and shields didnt work that way. Mostly because Hyperdrives pull you into an alternate dimension where you can travel FTL but cannot interact with anything in this dimension. Gravity is the only thing that will affect you, thus why Hyperspace routes exist.
However theres a super weapon called the Galaxy Gun that has Hyperdrive equipped missiles, but thats so you can shoot them at anything from your position. They have to come out of Hyperspace in order to kill things.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Frozen_Feet
No-one knows, as Star Wars technology is not thought out to such depth.
Possibly, only a cruiser this big could punch through the shields of a capital ship, or the mass of large vehicles would make smaller vehicles drop out of hyperspace too soon, or they cannot automate such devices, meaning that you'd need a kamikaze pilot for each one. The last one is supported by widespread use of manned fighter craft, with fully automated fighter drones being an anomaly.
As I noted originally though, this would still be much cheaper then the casualties lost from fighter swarm engagements. Basically this movie breaks Star Wars.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Tvtyrant
As I noted originally though, this would still be much cheaper then the casualties lost from fighter swarm engagements. Basically this movie breaks Star Wars.
I thought they were just following up on Han Solo's hyperdrive shenanigans. If you can hyperdrive past shields, why not use it as a weapon? I was confused as to if it counts as a missile, or just two ships in the same spot, which causes heavy damage.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Admiral Squish
But here's my question: Why aren't there hyperdrive missiles that do that? Like, I know hyperdrives are probably expensive, but you can fit one on an x-wing, so they're not huge, and you can afford a bunch of them. Why wouldn't you just make a stripped-down x-wing that's basically just a navigation system and a hyperdrive and just have them punch it toward key points on enemy capital ships?
Well, no one really thought of it....and, of course, ''warp missiles'' are too Star Trek.
Star Wars, specifically in the films, has always presented a very low technology society. Star Wars does not even have simple 20th century technology. And Star Wars military tech is some of the worst: dumb weapons, fire and forget weapons, everything targeted by people and so forth. And on top of that the ''Space is a World War Two Ocean Battle''.
So sure, driod hyper kaitens make a lot of sense. But they would also ruin the swashbuckling fun of Star Wars. Once you got past WW2 tech wise, you can't have a good pulp swashbuckling story.
Just to point out Star Wars as an example. When the couple of rebel fighters approached the Death Star it should have gone like this : ''Plot a firing solution into the computer to destroy all the rebel fighters", then someone would push a button and bam, all the ships would be gone. Also the Death Star would have had a CAP (combat air patrol), and this is right out of WW2. Not to mention the Death Star would have had a support fleet, again, right out of WW2. Literally even one Star Destroyer could have stopped that attack, and again that is exactly what real destroyers in WW2 did.
And this does not even mention why the Death Star ''comes out of hyperspace'' on the other side of the gas giant Yavan or why they don't just blow up Yavan.
But, of course, if any of the above was done....it would ruin the movie.
Though, yes, it is possible to ''think on the next level'', but not everyone can do that.
Spoiler: The Last Jedi: Jedi Order and Rae
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I'm glad a move called out how wrong the Jedi Order was....I always thought so myself.
And Rae is much better in this movie and not all Mary Sue ''saving the galaxy JUST because she is a woman."
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
HMS Invincible
I thought they were just following up on Han Solo's hyperdrive shenanigans. If you can hyperdrive past shields
It wasn't the shields but the DOOR. If anything it goes against what happened. Before it was Hyperdrive through solid matter (A Teleport). Now its just fast acceleration.
Man I even have to give TFA credit in comparison.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
S_A_M I AM
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Not saying you're wrong: I just want to know you're opinion before replying in full: Do you think Luke was aware that Rey had the books when he said that he would not be the last Jedi?
Because I feel that's a very important distinction between him using the term "Jedi" to refer to "People who are able to use the force well" and the term Jedi to refer to "Something similar to the institution that he has been railing against" so "The Jedi Order."
I'm leaning very strongly towards the former.
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"Jedi" is a very specific term, particularly for Luke. If you have someone talking the whole time about how it's time for there to be no more Snickers bars, how this is the last Snickers bar, how Snickers bars are failures, and then he turns around at the end and confidently (defiantly!) says "and this will not be the last Snickers bar" to someone else who
despises Snickers bars, he's not talking about a stash of Milky Way bars or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
In the films, the Jedi never refer to generic Force adepts as Jedi any more than
Velcro's legal department refers to other hook-and-loop fasteners as Velcro.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
It wasn't the shields but the DOOR. If anything it goes against what happened. Before it was Hyperdrive through solid matter (A Teleport). Now its just fast acceleration.
Man I even have to give TFA credit in comparison.
Exactly. Hyperdrive is not Warp Drive. You leave real space and enter another dimension, so you can't "ram" anything with Hyperdrive.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Tvtyrant
As I noted originally though, this would still be much cheaper then the casualties lost from fighter swarm engagements. Basically this movie breaks Star Wars.
And theoretically tactical use of ABC weapons in real life would be cheaper than casualties of infantry warfare, but that's not considered kosher in real life.
Again, though: it's not thought out to sufficient depth to answer the question. Barring new supplemental material solving this issue, at best we can throw around ideas.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Frozen_Feet
And theoretically tactical use of ABC weapons in real life would be cheaper than casualties of infantry warfare, but that's not considered kosher in real life.
Again, though: it's not thought out to sufficient depth to answer the question. Barring new supplemental material solving this issue, at best we can throw around ideas.
Trying to justify the lack of WND usage in a setting where the bad guys are blowing up planets? Even if the good guys were squeemish, the bad guys clearly aren't.
The problem is that Star Wars justified its conflicts by specific issues. Planets and bases have big shields that can't be easily penetrated, so ground forces have to land outside the shields and advance under them.
Ships can't jump close in or out of gravity wells, so the rebels can't be straight up jumped and have time to prepare.
The last three movies have undermined the rules for the entire setting, so now the action has no logic.
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I would like to point out a lot of my rage is because the first half of this movie is legit great. Everything before Rey confronts Luke after the cave is fantastic, with good motifs and sharp action. Then it falls apart hard and left me cold and bitter because of it.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Scowling Dragon
This only shows that Disney decided to punish the LA Times for what it says is biased coverage of its political dealing with a California city by barring that paper from pre-screening.
What you are suggesting, however, is that Disney is somehow pressuring the community of critics as a whole, including the newspapers of record, to get universal exhuburent coverage of a disappointing movie.
I can do one better. I recall that pre-screening itself is a sort of a bribe. The producers control who gets to receive an invite and traditionally served food and gift baskets to the critiques that come. I remember a reading that major newspapers critiques didn’t use to go to these.
Even so, its one thing to know Disney has pre-screening as a carrot and occasionally uses it as a stick, for matters not having to do with the content of reviews, and its quite another to extrapolate that they are successfully herding an entire community of critiques to praise a movie to the high heavens that they all know isn’t really good.
Is Disney really not going to invite the NYT critique to a movie showing after he gives a bad review? And if Disney did things as obvious as that, would not the NYT complain about it and then would anyone trust the critics on the Disney movies?
You are reading too much into a story that is not about Disney manipulating the contents of their film criticism. If Disney does these things, the internet is big and people tend to talk, you could find a story that cuts much closer to the heart of the matter.
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Originally Posted by
Blackhawk748
Exactly. Hyperdrive is not Warp Drive. You leave real space and enter another dimension, so you can't "ram" anything with Hyperdrive.
No. I recall as early as the Star Wars d6 that hyperdrive leaves a “shadow” in the physical world that means that ships are going FTL need a clear path at all time, or they will collide, fall out of hyperspace, and probably explode.
Lucas is the one that envisioned hyperdrive as working in this way, and is the reason Star Wars ships use fixed hyperdrive lanes and don’t just go wherever whenever. Only crazy adventurers do blind jumping to establish new hyperspace routes, and smugglers like Han use less established path called “runs” as in “the Kessel run” to avoid the main lanes (and the authorities) and cut travel time by cutting distance (hence making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs since Han is willing to cut things very close to hyperspace hazards like black holes).
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by TVTyrant
Trying to justify the lack of WND usage in a setting where the bad guys are blowing up planets? Even if the good guys were squeemish, the bad guys clearly aren't.
In real life, Nazi Germany withheld from using BC weapons on the battlefield during the second World War, despite obvious access to them. The horrors of first World War were simply too clear in memory and the fear of retaliation too great.
This didn't stop them from committing all manners of other atrocities or trying to create an atomic weapon.
The lesson here is that warfare is more an art than science, and it is actually quite common for even the unscrupulous "bad guys" to act in ways that seem strange in retrospect, for reasons which may be considered emotional, irrational or hypocritical by a neutral observer.
In the movie, Kylo Ren is a prime example.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Reddish Mage
No. I recall as early as the Star Wars d6 that hyperdrive leaves a “shadow” in the physical world that means that ships are going FTL need a clear path at all time, or they will collide, fall out of hyperspace, and probably explode.
Lucas is the one that envisioned hyperdrive as working in this way, and is the reason Star Wars ships use fixed hyperdrive lanes and don’t just go wherever whenever. Only crazy adventurers do blind jumping to establish new hyperspace routes, and smugglers like Han use less established path called “runs” as in “the Kessel run” to avoid the main lanes (and the authorities) and cut travel time by cutting distance (hence making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs since Han is willing to cut things very close to hyperspace hazards like black holes).
The only thing that can affect a ship in Hyperspace is a massive gravitational force, like a planet or an Interdictor cruiser, its been that way for a very long time now. Maybe originally it had this "shadow" thing, but all of the RPG material after no longer has it.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
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Originally Posted by
Frozen_Feet
In real life, Nazi Germany withheld from using BC weapons on the battlefield during the second World War, despite obvious access to them. The horrors of first World War were simply too clear in memory and the fear of retaliation too great.
This didn't stop them from committing all manners of other atrocities or trying to create an atomic weapon.
The lesson here is that warfare is more an art than science, and it is actually quite common for even the unscrupulous "bad guys" to act in ways that seem strange in retrospect, for reasons which may be considered emotional, irrational or hypocritical by a neutral observer.
In the movie, Kylo Ren is a prime example.
Rogue One had both a fleet or rebels and bands of terrorists get stuck on the planetary shields and mass destruction issue with no discussion of refresh rates or ramming a ship into things.
If it had been brought up at some point and dismissed maybe, but it hasn't and it contradicts things that have been blatantly announced in other films.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
It's also possible that only the jump to hyperspace is destructive, not being in hyperspace itself.
In the film itself ships entering hyperspace have a 'turn into a glowly line' effect, while ships leaving hyperspace appear with a noise. Maybe it's something to do with that 'line' that causes the damage?
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Every main line star wars movie has expanded on the force in some way, and in my opinion this is the first time it's expanded on in a positive way since Return of the Jedi. Not only does it add to the magic of the force but also it is entirely justified if you compare it with the original trilogy.
What I think a lot of people have issues with is stems from the fact that The Phantom Menace, Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith gameified the force, it was quantifiable and not mysterious and that's how we liked it. But that was poison to the franchise, it's the opposite of how it was portrayed in the original. The Last Jedi sucked the last drop of that poison out and spit it out.
Good.
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Re: The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait
Possible justifications for the hyperspace ram and other "new-canon is changing everything about hyperdrives!"
- "Why couldn't people jump directly into/out of systems before, since they could do it in Rogue One and The Force Awakens?" Those are portrayed as being extremely risky maneuvers. Han didn't want Finn to tell Leia what he was planning on doing because he knew that it's crazy and the Falcon had a huge chance of ending up as a smear of mass-energy on Starkiller Base's shields or a crater on its surface. Poe's X-Wing squadrons can follow up (after the shields are down) in something of a starfighter/hyperspace equivalent of a HALO jump by using the Falcon's success as a reference for the jump calculation. In Rogue One, jumping directly out of the gravity well isn't something that's normally attempted, but it's literally the only option the U-Wing's occupants have to even have a chance at escape. They just have to hope that a relatively blind jump doesn't put them through an object large enough to kill them.
- "How does the hyperspace ram tactic work if hyperspace isn't realspace?" There's references to objects casting "mass shadows" into hyperspace, it's possible this is two-way (the hyperspace tracking system that the First Order had apparently perfected needs to work off of some realspace-hyperspace interaction, after all), and/or the jump isn't instantaneous. If the jumping ship's interaction with realspace is non-negligible for even the first light-second or two, then it would act as a mutually-destructive lance against vessels in the way.
- "But wait, if it works, why don't they do it all the time? A giant cruiser-killer hyperdrive-missile should be easier to make than the cruisers it kills!" It's inefficient as a kill vehicle, judging by the actual results of the attack. The cruiser rams the Supremacy, but its escorts are only hit by the resulting explosions, and only because a super-dreadnought like the Supremacy is what was rammed... and the last-ditch effort didn't even actually destroy its intended target. It's a mission-kill, sure, but the flagship is definitely salvageable. Hitting a smaller Star Destroyer might not generate enough debris at high enough energy to destroy other (non-shuttle/starfighter) vessels (coring an Executor-class might, but probably not an Imperial or Resurgent-class), particularly at typical Imperial/FO fleet formation distances. Given that one bomber can carry enough munitions to annihilate a Dreadnought and the delivery system is reusable (as long as it isn't destroyed by enemy fire), a carrier-battleship is more attractive to a fleet strapped for resources than automated cruisers turned into hyperspace missiles.