So, there's a new Star Wars trailer...

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Originally Posted by Millstone85

The First Order is unstoppable:

• While running on the Empire's scraps, the First Order built a weapon that dwarfed the Death Star.
• After that weapon was destroyed, the First Order nevertheless reclaimed the Empire's territory.
• The First Order now possesses world-killing ships and other "miniaturized Death Star technology".
• The Supreme Leader is dead, long live the Supreme Leader.
• The entire Resistance now fits within a ship. One. Single. Ship. And it is not even a big one.

It will take the most ridiculous deus ex machina to give the sequel trilogy a happy ending.

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Eh, over thirty years I could see the first order sneaking the resources to build a fleet and one massive weapon, especially if they grab some resource rich systems and the New Republic is as divided add the old Republic was (and the Empire was really, IIRC the Senate was originally untouched bit the Emperor positron gave de facto absolute power, with the military becoming ascendant later).

It's the second superweapon and sudden hyperspace tracking (which can't track the Falcon?) which turned me of from the First Order. They're not supposed to have the resources abs influence of the Empire, but when the creators want to sell new toysgive them something new their suddenly have resources exceeding the Empire and none of the Empire's logistical problems.

Plus, you know, the First Order hasn't given us any higher ups who come off as legitimately dangerous. Snoke did, but they killed him off, and we have no Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader, or Emperor Palpatine to carry them. General Hux feels more competent than Kylo's Ren, but Ren's distinguishing feature seems to be utterly failing at anything that isn't Force-related. So they essentially have to develop one of them into a capable leader figure, my bet is a reveal that Snoke intentionally didn't have a competent head of his military because he was essentially micromanaging the FO, but with Ren forced into a more hands off position Hux will be shown developing into a competent tactician and leader, becoming the villain for Finn and that pilot I don't care about, while Ren is the philosophical villain that Rey must defeat in order to begin restoring the Jedi.

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Originally Posted by Kantaki

I dunno, I like the Hinge-Saber.
Way cooler than Kylo's... thing.
If only by association with Darth Maul.

And would fit Rey better than a regular lightsaber.
Though I still think a pike/lance variant would be great for her.

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I actually like the Claymore-Saber, it feels like something that could give an advantage while not being something everybody can use safely and effectively. I like saberstaffs for similar reasons.

I don't like the flipsaberstaff. I jessy don't see the point of it over a regular saberstaff.


Anyway, I should probably work on my GURPS Space setting.

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Originally Posted by HMS Invincible

How do you nerds not recognize Katana fleet?* The ships are an older design, and the lights are all off, and they are in a secluded looking location in a strange formation.

Final fleet made for the republic/empire designed with slave circuits to minimize crew size. Fleet disappeared when the fleet crew got sick/crazy and they hyper jumped together to unknown space.
The story hook is tempting if they go with it, an instant fleet ready to swing the balance against the bad guys if only they get to it first.

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The Katana fleet was Dreadnaughts, not Imperial Star Destroyers. You're off by several years, if not decades.

The First Order hasn't shown anything that looks like a second Super Weapon yet. And as for the Hyperspace tracking. It's just an advance in technology something that should be expected to happen some day.

soooo........meh?

first trying to get me emotionally invested by showing me the movies I liked and grew up with is not good. It just me remember how much of let down the later movies have been.

Really we are gonna bring up Vader's mask of plot cul de sac number #87 of that movie?

telling me the story is at an end is pure codswallop...there is another movie set for release in three years....which is the same gap the OT had between movies ('77,'80,'83)...

So now I just feel that the movie is trying to manipulate me and doing it really badly. So badly is just awkward and slightly sad...

nothing nothing
caravan/market/festival/music event/town in a beige rock prolly desert site....not really awe inspiring.

Red Eyed C-3PO...okay evil C-3PO? possible but not really interesting...different unit from the same line of droids (who all look just the same except colour...even the one made via scraps...apparently no upgrades in the decades since...planned obsolescence is obviously not part of that Droid company's corporate development plan) ... but with the whole red arm thing in TFA...probably C-3PO just cannibalizing parts from some "Hanger Queen" droid put in ignominious storage somewhere in a Rebel/Resistance back closet while his gold eye backlights are on order.

Red beam blast into ice like material....that shot could be any scale...closeup of a lightsaber hitting the ground? beam from space with Mini-deathstar tech not shooting green again carving a mountain....or is actually thawing out a drink in a joke crossing Alien Resurrection's whiskey blocks with the landing ship/ironing droid from the Last Jedi.

Oh look...I guess that whole "No Allies" thing that General/Princess Organa said in the Last Jedi was ... bunk. Though honestly it just looks like the lead up to an action scene now. It could just be lead in cut scene to the new X-Wing starfighter video game mission 14 and I wouldn't be shocked.

Why are the star destroyers set up that way? It looks stupid....Why was the best use of 3D movement (and showing the Capital ships as fast and mobile) in ANH's escape from Tatooine scene? They look significantly less threatening in that set up and with all the issues of pretending space was in earth's atmosphere in the Last Jedi you really should be trying to avoid that...also just makes me think of the 2D thinking issues that Khan had in Star Trek 2. . . dang it now Star Wars is making me think of Star Trek and coming off worse to boot. Dang and Blast.

I'm sorry is Kylo supposed to be threat? That just is kinda funny now. I mean Rey beat him in TFA and she has only gotten better and better in the last 2 days after that movie...and then outclassed him in that painfully bad throne room Last Jedi fight. I mean I never took him seriously once he killed the guy that passed Poe the map. Just couldn't. I really did expect him to be considered weak but with potential on the evil side and we were going to watch him grow into a decent villain....They just wasted Han Death on this guy...so when I see him swinging his light saber on some mechanical object (Ruin/crashed ship/dock/lock gate whatever) Its just kinda whatever....

And Dark Rey...Sorry don't buy into giving a damn...Vision actual "character development" whatever. You failed to make me care...heck may she could be somewhat interesting this way but...I doubt it. the ST's and "coulda been interesting but wasn't" are close pals. Also this shot really makes me want to feed her a sandwich...

Switchblade Lightsaber...Okay that is just so stupid looking. That is laughable....first viewing I LOL'ed. It is so awkward...basically near impossible to use only one blade with the weight like that...and with two the forces and balance are just silly....And the are trying to sell it as "cool" probably because Phantom Menace made something similar look cool. It's just all kinds of nope.

Lots of "Spectacle!"^TM baiting here...and frankly the OT had spectacle but had more than that and this teases none of that to me.

So nah...I'll just catch this on rental some day when I want to punish myself unless I hear REALLY good things from people who felt similarly to me leaving TFA and TLJ.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

And as for the Hyperspace tracking. It's just an advance in technology something that should be expected to happen some day.

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That the entire high command in the Resistance failed to recognize the possibility of, but a plumber and former child soldier figured out (amd figure out how it works) with absolute certainty.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

That the entire high command in the Resistance failed to recognize the possibility of, but a plumber and former child soldier figured out (amd figure out how it works) with absolute certainty.

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Engineer/mechanic not plumber, as well as a former soldier who reguardless of his posting went through full training. Also they recognized the possibility because it was the only logical course. If they keep showing up, they must be tracking us, if they're tracking us they must have figured out a way to do so.

Once you've exhausted the impossible, whatever remains however implausible must be the truth.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

Engineer/mechanic not plumber, as well as a former soldier who reguardless of his posting went through full training. Also they recognized the possibility because it was the only logical course. If they keep showing up, they must be tracking us, if they're tracking us they must have figured out a way to do so.

Once you've exhausted the impossible, whatever remains however implausible must be the truth.

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Don't know how many engineers are called "maintenance workers."

Also, a spy was a logical course. That's what Holdo thought. Or a tracker - those have existed since literally the first movie. Computer program acting as a mole sending the navigation data, that's certainly possible. After the First Order showed up all of once. Point is, nothing was exhausted. They just to the first thing they could think of, which is also the biggest stretch, immediately committed everything to it, and lucked out in being right. That's ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

Don't know how many engineers are called "maintenance workers."

Also, a spy was a logical course. That's what Holdo thought. Or a tracker - those have existed since literally the first movie. Computer program acting as a mole sending the navigation data, that's certainly possible. After the First Order showed up all of once. Point is, nothing was exhausted. They just to the first thing they could think of, which is also the biggest stretch, immediately committed everything to it, and lucked out in being right. That's ridiculous.

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I sure do. You have someone who works maintinence on a space ship, and they're a mechanical engineer. Or what would you call Han Solo?

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Originally Posted by Devonix

I sure do. You have someone who works maintinence on a space ship, and they're a mechanical engineer. Or what would you call Han Solo?

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A poor handyman, given how unreliable the Falcon is.

So you concede all the other points?

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Originally Posted by Peelee

A poor handyman, given how unreliable the Falcon is.

So you concede all the other points?

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I will conceed that going with their plan was ill advised, I was saying that it was stupid of them to run off since the day the film came out. However you must conceed, that neither Finn or Rose were just a Janotor and a plumber. and that they were both speaking from points of knowledge. Finn from an understanding of the First order and how they are organized based off of his training and experience, and Rose from her understanding, and education on ships.

These are well documented things. Finn's called a janitor but it's not what he was, and Rose was never a plumber. Even the link you sent speaks about her studying far beyond what was expected of a ship mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

I will conceed that going with their plan was ill advised, I was saying that it was stupid of them to run off since the day the film came out. However you must conceed, that neither Finn or Rose were just a Janotor and a plumber. and that they were both speaking from points of knowledge. Finn from an understanding of the First order and how they are organized based off of his training and experience, and Rose from her understanding, and education on ships.

These are well documented things. Finn's called a janitor but it's not what he was, and Rose was never a plumber. Even the link you sent speaks about her studying far beyond what was expected of a ship mechanic.

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Rose being able to maintain existing systems has no bearing on her being able to figure out if new technology is being used (and Finn explicitly was called out as being assigned janitorial duties often in TFA, as well as being a low-level grunt, so no, I'm not going to accept that he has working knowledge of high-level surveillance protocol).

Not to mention it's also ridiculous that the entire Resistance Command structure didn't seem to even Co spider it a possibility. If they did, we're certainly never given any indication. Which makes their behavior all the worse.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

Rose being able to maintain existing systems has no bearing on her being able to figure out if new technology is being used (and Finn explicitly was called out as being assigned janitorial duties often in TFA, as well as being a low-level grunt, so no, I'm not going to accept that he has working knowledge of high-level surveillance protocol).

Not to mention it's also ridiculous that the entire Resistance Command structure didn't seem to even Co spider it a possibility. If they did, we're certainly never given any indication. Which makes their behavior all the worse.

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Finn was stationed in sanitation departments as a punishment yes, he was also placed in the direct command unit under Kylo Ren. If we describe a character based soley on their lowest appointment, not the whole history of a character then you you're not giving a character their full due.

And regardless of what you think a character should know or think, The character does know and think it. Rose does have the knowledge to come up with the idea, otherwise she wouldn't. You can complain that they didn't adequately set it up for you that these characters have the knowledge, but that's a different argument than the one you're making and it's a subjective one.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

Finn was stationed in sanitation departments as a punishment yes, he was also placed in the direct command unit under Kylo Ren. If we describe a character based soley on their lowest appointment, not the whole history of a character then you you're not giving a character their full due.

And regardless of what you think a character should know or think, The character does know and think it. Rose does have the knowledge to come up with the idea, otherwise she wouldn't. You can complain that they didn't adequately set it up for you that these characters have the knowledge, but that's a different argument than the one you're making and it's a subjective one.

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I'll cop to that and admit my mistake. I'm going with "they did not adequately set up that Rose should be able to figure that out, as well as exclude any other possibility that could also explain it."

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Originally Posted by Peelee

I'll cop to that and admit my mistake. I'm going with "they did not adequately set up that Rose should be able to figure that out, as well as exclude any other possibility that could also explain it."

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That's something I can understand and deal with. For me, if a character says that they're smart enough to do something I take it at face value unless something in the story contradicts it. She this is a series where piloting a state of the art FTL spacecraft is treated the same was as hopping behind the wheel of a regular earth car. Where breaking into a computer operated security door for a military base is treated as hotwiring a car.

Science exists in Starwars, but it's basically something anyone with any mechanical know how can work with.

And with Finn as much as I usually hate using Non film stuff, the background for Finn is something that is hard canon, and in that he was at the top of his class in marks and was actually on track for officer duty. He's someone who has history, and knowledge of the First Order was stationed at their top bases and ships. He's afraid of the First order in Force Awakens, because he's seen first hand how dangerous they are.

Finn's supposed to be the best of the best, and my biggest issue is that he's being used far too much for comedy, even though I do find Boyega as someone with good comedic timing.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

And as for the Hyperspace tracking. It's just an advance in technology something that should be expected to happen some day.

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The ability to track ships through hyperspace without planting a tracking device, inserting a tracking program into the ship's systems, or having a spy on the ship was fairly strongly implied to exist in A New Hope during the escape from Tatooine sequence - Han claims that his ship can outrun the Imperial ships but does not seem to have meant at sublight speeds given the lead-up to the jump to hyperspace from Tatooine, his announcement during Luke's lightsaber training session against the remote implies both that the Star Destroyers at Tatooine probably followed the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace and that the Millennium Falcon has some ability to monitor their pursuit, and Luke's idea that the TIE Fighter that met the Millennium Falcon in the Alderaan debris field is dismissed not because following a ship through hyperspace is impossible but rather because the fighter lacks the range to do so.

The First Order's ability to track the Resistance "fleet" through hyperspace should not have been treated as an entirely new capability; at most it ought to be an advance on an existing capability.

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And with Finn as much as I usually hate using Non film stuff, the background for Finn is something that is hard canon, and in that he was at the top of his class in marks and was actually on track for officer duty.

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It's not in the films.

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He's someone who has history, and knowledge of the First Order was stationed at their top bases and ships. He's afraid of the First order in Force Awakens, because he's seen first hand how dangerous they are.

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Then they did a terrible job of showing it, because Finn's presented as a brainwashed kid with no obvious reason to have any rational understanding of the First Order's real capabilities.

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Originally Posted by Aeson

The ability to track ships through hyperspace without planting a tracking device, inserting a tracking program into the ship's systems, or having a spy on the ship was fairly strongly implied to exist in A New Hope during the escape from Tatooine sequence - Han claims that his ship can outrun the Imperial ships but does not seem to have meant at sublight speeds given the lead-up to the jump to hyperspace from Tatooine, his announcement during Luke's lightsaber training session against the remote implies both that the Star Destroyers at Tatooine probably followed the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace and that the Millennium Falcon has some ability to monitor their pursuit, and Luke's idea that the TIE Fighter that met the Millennium Falcon in the Alderaan debris field is dismissed not because following a ship through hyperspace is impossible but rather because the fighter lacks the range to do so.

The First Order's ability to track the Resistance "fleet" through hyperspace should not have been treated as an entirely new capability; at most it ought to be an advance on an existing capability.


It's not in the films.


Then they did a terrible job of showing it, because Finn's presented as a brainwashed kid with no obvious reason to have any rational understanding of the First Order's real capabilities.

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I agree with you on all counts here. He does have the knowledge because he's talked about these things, but he's not presented or directed in either film as someone who's an experienced soldier well on his way to being an Officer. The films wanted a slightly comedic fish out of water character, but that doesn't match the backstory they've given him.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

That's something I can understand and deal with. For me, if a character says that they're smart enough to do something I take it at face value unless something in the story contradicts it.

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I normally agree with that but circumstance and context in movies can cast doubt. For instance, Rose is delegated as guard duty to stop people from jumping ship; not something you'd put your best people on, and if she's not among the top maintenance crew, the Resistance should be on top of the whole tracking thing. Also, in the same movie, we're told that breaking into the ship requires an elite specialist, literally called a "master code breaker," but some rando they meet in jail can apparently perform the same feat, which implies that it is nowhere near the complexity or rarity previously proclaimed. It might well be, but what we see severely undercuts it.

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Originally Posted by Aeson

The ability to track ships through hyperspace without planting a tracking device, inserting a tracking program into the ship's systems, or having a spy on the ship was fairly strongly implied to exist in A New Hope during the escape from Tatooine sequence - Han claims that his ship can outrun the Imperial ships but does not seem to have meant at sublight speeds given the lead-up to the jump to hyperspace from Tatooine, his announcement during Luke's lightsaber training session against the remote implies both that the Star Destroyers at Tatooine probably followed the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace and that the Millennium Falcon has some ability to monitor their pursuit, and Luke's idea that the TIE Fighter that met the Millennium Falcon in the Alderaan debris field is dismissed not because following a ship through hyperspace is impossible but rather because the fighter lacks the range to do so.

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Hyperspace is funny, and the explanation for how this actually works out is more complicated than is easily shown in the films. The key point is that ships move through hyperspace on preset routes, generally from one star system to the next. Hyperspace isn't a vast sea, it's more like a system of roadways, complete with star systems in place of towns. You can go 'off-road' and plot a route through the void, but doing so is likely to destroy your ship or leave you stuck somewhere you can't get back from. The tricky part is that while you're, in hyperspace or 'on the road' you're untouchable (unless your opponent has an Interdictor, which is rather like putting a roadblock in place).

As a result, speed in hyperspace matters because ships can match each other's trajectories and take the same routes, allowing a pursuing vessel to actually reach a destination ahead of their target if they're faster through hyperspace. Even if that isn't possible, information can be passed along from a network of pursuers that continually alerts new assets to maintain pursuit, in the same fashion as a high speed chase conducted by a State Highway Department. If you're slower than you're pursuers it's much more difficult to escape the net. When Han ditches pursuit in ANH, that's what's he's done. He managed to successfully evade the Imperial response across the galaxy, through a combination of speed and cunning course corrections.

The hyperspace tracker in TLJ is a major shift from the ability to predict where a ship will probably go to actively tracking where a ship is going in real time. That latter should allow the pursuit vessels to come out of hyperspace directly on top of their quarry, even when they choose to emerge in uncharted deep space. In TLJ the Resistance presumably intended to head for Crait from the start, but dropped out early in hopes of shaking pursuit, only to discover they were somehow being tracked and that would no longer work. That Hux chooses to emerge outside of effective fire range is pure incompetence. As is his failure to divide his fleet, jump his escorts ahead, and enclose the Raddus in a globe.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

I normally agree with that but circumstance and context in movies can cast doubt. For instance, Rose is delegated as guard duty to stop people from jumping ship; not something you'd put your best people on, and if she's not among the top maintenance crew, the Resistance should be on top of the whole tracking thing. Also, in the same movie, we're told that breaking into the ship requires an elite specialist, literally called a "master code breaker," but some rando they meet in jail can apparently perform the same feat, which implies that it is nowhere near the complexity or rarity previously proclaimed. It might well be, but what we see severely undercuts it.

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DJ as a character isn't supposed to be taken by the audience as some Rando. He basically serves the same purpose as Han. just a subversion of the trope.

What are the chances that on some dive bar on some backwater planet our main characters will find the best pilot in the entire galaxy.

What are the chances that in some jailhouse our characters will find locked up a master code breaker just like the one they were unable to find.

Han turns out to be a scoundrel with a heart of gold who when the chips are down you can count on.

DJ meanwhile ends up being exactly the type of person you'd expect, in the end he's not a bad guy, but he did exactly what he said he'd do, he places his own safety above other people's even though he feels bad about it.

DJ is what Han could have been, and that's the point of the character.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

DJ as a character isn't supposed to be taken by the audience as some Rando. He basically serves the same purpose as Han. just a subversion of the trope.

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They don't meet Han by accident while looking for someone else, they're actually looking for a pilot in a place known for pilots. Their requirement is "fast ship," not" master pilot." Meeting a person by pure luck who happens to have the incredibly elite skill of a" master code breaker" is not a subversion of Han, it's meeting a rando who can solve the supposedly incredibly difficult problem. If it was supposed to be an inversion, then it was so poorly done so poorly that not only did it fail, it didn't even register to me that it was supposed to be that.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

They don't meet Han by accident while looking for someone else, they're actually looking for a pilot in a place known for pilots. Their requirement is "fast ship," not" master pilot." Meeting a person by pure luck who happens to have the incredibly elite skill of a" master code breaker" is not a subversion of Han, it's meeting a rando who can solve the supposedly incredibly difficult problem. If it was supposed to be an inversion, then it was so poorly done so poorly that not only did it fail, it didn't even register to me that it was supposed to be that.

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They went looking for a pilot, any pilot with a good ship, what they ended up finding was pretty much the best guy in the galaxy, as opposed to some rando.

Finn and Rose also find one of the best code crackers in the galaxy while locked up. The subversion isn't that they find him, it's expected that our heroes will luck into finding the exact person they need. The subversion is that rather than being a smugler with a heart of gold, they end up with just a smugler. just a scoundrel without the gold part.

To be honest I skipped right past the OT and PT bits. Just no point to looking at them. That's all a parallel pocket universe now, held in a stasis cube by the Doctor; hope, but nothing else.

X-Wings and one transport coming out of hyperspace? Big deal.
Star Destroyers in close formation in another goddamn thunderstorm? Style over substance.
C-3P0 with red eyes? Who cares, it'll just be another red arm joke.
Leia? Post death cash grab. Disgusting.
Finn and possible Lando's daughter love interest? Too late for real character development and introducing new bods.
The Party crests a hill and finds the Burning Man festival? No spectacle, no imagination.
Flylow Ren turns on his saber? We've seen that for two movies, and he still looks like a dill when he does it.
Rey and Flylow Ren fighting on a sinking ship? We saw this in The Farce Awakens.
Rey training with a remote, missing, and retrieving her saber? Should've showed me that at least one movie ago.
Giggling Emperor? I've got six other movies to watch Ian McDiarmid in.
Swiss Knife Double Saber? Obvious dream sequence fake-out or clone. And ridiculous construction. Sorry, Ray Park could pull that off because he was a trained stunt performer and knew how to sell fights and that he was carrying a weapon. Daisy Ridley, not so much.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

That the entire high command in the Resistance failed to recognize the possibility of, but a plumber and former child soldier figured out (amd figure out how it works) with absolute certainty.

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Spoiler: Finn Speculation

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They've been hinting since VII that Finn is force sensitive. It isn't subtle either. Finn has a moral awakening and is recognized by Kylo Ren and singled out (in the novel Kylo Ren comes across Finn before the mission and takes a good long look at him too). The fact that Finn defected is also extremely unusual behavior for a stormtrooper.

Finn also finds himself wielding a lightsaber, something we've only seen force-sensitives do.

When Snoke talks of an "awakening" of the Force he seems to mean Rey, but Finn works as well, and his awakening is by far the most dramatic and almost the first thing we see in the movie.

This sort of behavior continues with TLJ. Finn acts in ways that don't make sense for a Stormtrooper or former Stormtrooper. He also acts with an intuition and emotion intensity that doesn't fit 99% of human beings.

Its possible many ordinary Star Wars characters possess some degree of force-sensitivity...Han showed he could hit a stormtrooper from behind with his gun without turning...but Finn is something else.

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Originally Posted by Peelee

Meeting a person by pure luck who happens to have the incredibly elite skill of a" master code breaker" is not a subversion of Han, it's meeting a rando who can solve the supposedly incredibly difficult problem. If it was supposed to be an inversion, then it was so poorly done so poorly that not only did it fail, it didn't even register to me that it was supposed to be that.

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Plot subversion, this is what Rian Johnson was known for heavily relying on this trick in his previous big movie, Looper.

When it comes down to it, almost everything in Episode XIII follows a subversive model. The "cliche's" from Episode V and VI are being invoked, as are fan expectations or desires such as seeing Luke at last arrive heroically on the scene.

Let's go over just some of the main ones more or less in order:

Poe's brash heroism is a very bad thing and everything bad in the movie arguably would have been avoided had he had just shut up and followed orders (I believe they call this "learning leadership").

Luke turns out to be a bitter old man not even connected to the force. He claims he went to the first Jedi Temple simply to get lost. The breadcrumbs of Episode VII (which the entire episode revolved around) turned out to be entirely accidental...you know incomplete map that R2-D2 just happened to have the missing piece and activate the moment the old robot heard.

Heroic Finn wakes up and he's like a crazy person walking around in the water suit. His mission is interrupted by a heavy-set and rather ordinary resistance member, Rose. By the end, there is some heavy shipping going on and Finnrose appears to have eclipsed Finnrey (and let's remember, Finn/Rey's connection was something VII quite heavily invested in).

Leia, who has no history of Force abilities, appears to die from exposure to the vacuum of space, when she suddenly wakes up, flies to the ship, and let's herself in from the outside.

The supposedly uniquely special codebreaker the two left to get was a red herring, they get some guy that happened to be in the prison cell with them. Also that guy turned out to simply be a scoundrel who betrayed the rebellion at first opportunity, not the cliche sort with a heart of gold or anything (you know like Han and Lando).

Snoke, the emperor surrogate, gets KILLED in the MIDDLE of the movie. All that build up about this guy...gone like that.

Rey turns out to be...just some nobody. That's Kylo's big revelation about Rey. Her parent's are nobodies. She has no heritage. She "has no place in the story." She's just a girl. Just a girl with abilities with the force like you've never seen before!

Luke tries to burn the first Jedi Temple, deciding that the teachings are dangerous. Yoda then appears to him and disagrees. Then Yoda destroys the temple himself! There doesn't appear to be any particular reason for this but Yoda is not all that impressed with the writings or the first Jedi. Also, Yoda says that Rey has learned all she needs.

So apparently, the wisest Jedi are all about destroying the past sacred teachings for no particular reason now, and actually having knowledge of the past appears to be highly overrated.

Finn nearly sacrifices himself in a stupidly brave and near impossible move where he tries to charge the mini-deathstar-tech cannon. Then Rose comes out of nowhere at the last second with her own saltfighter and prevents it, declaring an invalidation of the principle of sacrifice (also how the two survived that scene uninjured is nothing short of a miracle).

Luke shows up just when needed in front of all the rebels, gives Leia a set of apparently physical dice from the Falcon and goes and confronts Kylo...only to prove he's a projection...but he dies anyway.

That's just a gloss of the major moments, I think you could find plenty of elements placed throughout the movie that don't quite fit Star Wars and does not messes tonally if not explicitly with what Abrams was building in Episode VII. The movie also spends quite a bit of time setting things up just to subvert them later. In fact, the title "The Last Jedi" is itself subverted, as it turns out there is no "Last Jedi," the final point of the movie is that the legacy Jedi will continue.

Just going to leave this here...

Spoiler

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Originally Posted by Dexam

Just going to leave this here...

Spoiler

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You! I like that:smallbiggrin:

I keep having a thought- C-3PO is arguably Anakin Skywalker's 'firstborn' son. Built and designed by him from scrap to conform to the protocol droid chassis. Not sure if that's relevant for a movie called 'the rise of skywalker' when all the skywalkers are, in order of birth, dead, dead, robot, dead, missing presumed dead, and swole moody boy.

(Arguably C-3PO is Kylo Ren's uncle. This amuses me too much.)

Also, I've heard a lot of people hoping this will copy the Dark Empire run where the Emperor tries to posess Leia's child with evil versions of Force Ghosting to ensure immortality. I sincerely doubt Disney would do that, but I will say that it's a very decent storyline for them to draw from.

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Originally Posted by Reddish Mage

Also, Yoda says that Rey has learned all she needs.

So apparently, the wisest Jedi are all about destroying the past sacred teachings for no particular reason now, and actually having knowledge of the past appears to be highly overrated.

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Yoda is a massive troll to Luke though.

He burnt down the library, not the books of teachings- Rey had already nicked the books and you see a shot of her packing away in the next scene she's in.

Luke's whole thing in the movie is that he's allowed fear of failure to keep him frozen in place.
:He's not going backwards, by burying himself in the search for answers in old books
:He's not going forward by burning the books and moving on.
:He's just stuck, not going anywhere not doing anything, it's a very realistic problem.

Yoda " Burns " the library to get him to snap out of it. The scene came across like something Luke's played out before. I can imagine him walking up that hill saying, this is the day I'm gonna burn those books, then coming up with some excuse and going back down the hill to sulk many times already.

It's this scene only with Yoda actually getting Luke to pull the trigger and move on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbv1DE0-JBE

But it's all symbolic and for Luke, since Yoda doesn't actually want the text burned, Rey's already gotten them safely away.

The lesson here is that Knowledge that is horded is knowledge wasted, If Luke wasn't going to DO anything with the books other than let apathy and time destroy them, he might as well get rid of them now.

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Originally Posted by Millstone85

That was a thing? TLJ sure didn't do much to acknowledge it, then.

At the end of TESB, the Rebellion wasn't "banished" out of the galaxy. The fleet just retreated there, and that scene reminded us that there was indeed a whole fleet.

That's how you end your mid-trilogy movie on a hopeful note, not with a little slave child who can levitate a broom. Eh, the way things are going, we might be looking at the next Vader.

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It was a thing, but it came out after TLJ.

And, yes, that was the point. You can read it that way, in the same way you can read it as the entire resistance can fit on the Falcon, but it isn't the case.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

The First Order hasn't shown anything that looks like a second Super Weapon yet. And as for the Hyperspace tracking. It's just an advance in technology something that should be expected to happen some day.

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If we're going to start talking about that, great. It wasn't an advance in technology, since they could do it in the first Star Wars movie. They tracked Leia and caught up with her over Tatooine. I know about the short story trying to say it was because the ship was damaged, but that's a retcon to try and cover for how bad the plot to the Last Jedi is.

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Originally Posted by Devonix

They went looking for a pilot, any pilot with a good ship, what they ended up finding was pretty much the best guy in the galaxy, as opposed to some rando.

Finn and Rose also find one of the best code crackers in the galaxy while locked up. The subversion isn't that they find him, it's expected that our heroes will luck into finding the exact person they need. The subversion is that rather than being a smugler with a heart of gold, they end up with just a smugler. just a scoundrel without the gold part.

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They go looking for any pilot with a fast ship. They happen to find a pilot with a fast ship (in the movie, nothing whatsoever shows that he is the best, or even in the top 10; Kenobi clearly doesn't believe he's boasting, and most of his value comes from the ship being fast, not his own abilities). They find this pilot with a fast ship while specifically looking for any pilot with a fast ship in a place known for having pilots and asking around. We even see another person refer Kenobi to Chewbacca.

Finn and Rose are looking for one specific person who is called out as one of the few people having the skill to do this requirement, in a place where that specific person happens to be and has no indication of being a hangout for master codebreakers, in jail that they did not mean to be in, fortunately in the same cell, and while the person had not yet escaped for unknown reasons despite being able to escape at any time. Literally every single part of that was luck. They were lucky to be on the same planet as DJ, they were lucky to be thrown in the jail DJ was in, they were lucky to be in the same cell, they were lucky to be there before he escaped... if DJ had not been there, they would have failed. If Han had not been in the cantina, they would have found another pilot with a fast ship who may or may not have still been able to help escape the Death Star.

It's not expected that the heroes luck into finding the person they need. If you expect that, you're expecting bad writing. If Johnson wanted to subvert the expectation of bad writing, I would have welcomed that. He did not.

I want to see what happens when the caretakers find out that their most sacred shrine has been looted and burned. They most likely assume it was Rey, if she ever goes back to Atch-To she'll be torn to pieces.

Re Finn, his knowledge seems to come from a mixture of strategic mopping and an encyclopaedic knowledge of FO protocols. Like, he's read all the giant handbooks and concludes that due to regulation 357B (C) (iii) if hyperspace tracking exists, FO protocols require a dedicated breaker room at a location G, because that's what the rules say must be done with any A Class process tracking systems. It actually works, although his tendency to mop so many plot relevant strategic locations is... well, a stretch.