The Last Jedi - There At First.. wait

[Mightymosy]

What they refer to him in the movie is, if I'm remembering entirely correctly, is that he's one of the wils, a non jedi allowed to live in the temples and take care of them as a custodian. Pass on our knowledge to the actual Jedis. Chirut is just super into it, and his gatling gun toting friend is his bodyguard that stuck around because Chirut stuck around. They're fantastic and I love them because that feels like the proper way to present the Force, to me. As something mystical and religious that you're experiencing, and getting help by when you call on it.

Yep, I wished they did it like that the whole series.
Man, all this talk makes me want to rewatch Rogue One

[Psyren]

I don't have a huge issue with people automatically knowing superpowers in fantasy stories, I just think both Phantom Menace and The Force Awakens could have been better if they showed Anakin and Rey slowly building up their abilities and eventually revealed their full potential.

And that's a discussion worth having - but it wouldn't be the first time in fiction that a young person in a life-threatening situation accessed full-blown powers. Gohan from Dragonball Z saving his father's life. Jean Grey in X-Men (non-possession versions). Harry Potter wreaking havoc on the Dursleys without a wand. Rand al'Thor from Wheel of Time. Pug (later Milamber) from Feist's Magician books. So I'm okay with Rey joining that list.

Pug is a pretty good comparison too. His parents are nobody, he just had great potential. If anything can be like that, it's magic, which the Force functionally is.

You're missing my point, which was that Anakin having naturally heightened reflexes was the only way he was "using" the Force. That much doesn't require training (although learning to let the Force better guide your actions can lead to even better reflexes).

Unless you have a source that states "only reflexes can be used without training" then this objection is meaningless.

Well, you let me know how many children pick up a highly complex and technical skill in even a month after first being introduced to it and we'll have a starting point.

You can't be serious. Blaise Pascal, Amadeus Mozart, Carl Gauss, Ramanujan...

[Dr.Samurai]

I mean I find it interesting. How old is Ben meant to be? Like what, nearly 29ish? Dude doesn't have the life experience and is, as we've seen and talked about repeatedly, incredibly unstable.

Ben is the villain. He is a dark sider. But... you're saying that he can't even draw on the dark side properly. Pain and anger are supposed to make him stronger, a bigger threat, not make him worse. So we've got two movies where he gets either beat by Rey or "beat" by Luke. He can't properly be a dark sider because the stuff that should make him stronger in the Force instead make him weaker.

So, we've got one movie left where he is supposed to what? Master everything? Beat Rey? So the trilogy ends with the good guys losing? Or Kylo will be redeemed and then what? Become a master?

I don't know, the character doesn't interest me. I don't know what to make of him except weak and ineffectual, and I don't like things like that lol.

[Blackhawk748]

I'll certainly watch the movie again to see what it says.

But even if someone in the movie says he is not force sensitive, in my imagination he will always be. I'll just assume whoever says he's not is simply wrong, even if it's himself.
Just doesn't make much sense if he isn't at least a little in tune with the force, with how good he is in fights despite being blind.
Another explanation is that the force "answers" to his chants, like if the force is some kind of "divine force" that listens to prayers.



Bad choreography was on the lesser sins of the movie if you ask me

Are you good at actual sword fighting, like as a sport?

Thats sort of what happens. Chirut has that box that clicks for him and he basically uses a form of echolocation in order to place himself. Interestingly this has been observed in some real life blind people.

Agreed, most of it was fine, that last part though *cringe*. And to answer, no. Im a backyard bottle cutter and a fan of HEMA and otehr historical martial arts, but im exclusively self taught. Thankfully im good at imitation, but it isnt a true substitute for real instruction. However, i know a bad sword swing when i see one. And swinging it like a bat is a bad swing.

What they refer to him in the movie is, if I'm remembering entirely correctly, is that he's one of the wils, a non jedi allowed to live in the temples and take care of them as a custodian. Pass on our knowledge to the actual Jedis. Chirut is just super into it, and his gatling gun toting friend is his bodyguard that stuck around because Chirut stuck around. They're fantastic and I love them because that feels like the proper way to present the Force, to me. As something mystical and religious that you're experiencing, and getting help by when you call on it.

I agree, they where fun, and i could see him getting a bit of a nudge from the Force in that last scene for him.

[Mightymosy]

And that's a discussion worth having - but it wouldn't be the first time in fiction that a young person in a life-threatening situation accessed full-blown powers. Gohan from Dragonball Z saving his father's life. Jean Grey in X-Men (non-possession versions). Harry Potter wreaking havoc on the Dursleys without a wand. Rand al'Thor from Wheel of Time. Pug (later Milamber) from Feist's Magician books. So I'm okay with Rey joining that list.[...]

Yeah, these can be quite impressive moments in fantasy stories, that's why I said I'm fine when authors decide to use that version of superpowers-unfolding.

In general, I prefer the "learn and train" way, and especially in Phantom Menace and The Force Awakenes, after the original trilogy established it that way.

You can't be serious. Blaise Pascal, Amadeus Mozart, Carl Gauss, Ramanujan...

Did they pick up any complex stuff within a month and mastered it?

[...] And to answer, no. Im a backyard bottle cutter and a fan of HEMA and otehr historical martial arts, but im exclusively self taught. Thankfully im good at imitation, but it isnt a true substitute for real instruction. However, i know a bad sword swing when i see one. And swinging it like a bat is a bad swing.

[...].

Man, some movies must be hard for you to watch.
For me, I almost always cringe whenever Hollywood does "hacking" or bascially anything related to DNA or genetics (save Jurassic Park, I'll say).
Medicine in TV series often seemed to be off as well, but they have gotten WAY better with this over the years.

[Blackhawk748]

I got the new thread up guys

[Psyren]

In general, I prefer the "learn and train" way, and especially in Phantom Menace and The Force Awakenes, after the original trilogy established it that way.

So do I but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Did they pick up any complex stuff within a month and mastered it?

What exactly did Rey "master?" She demonstrated her skills on some nameless mooks, and held her own against a skilled guy who had just taken a plasma shot to the chest. And if it's piloting you mean, she's been doing that way longer than a month.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Spoiler: Arguing About Rey's Competence

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Its possible, but its us trying to answer questions that the movie should have answered. This has been an issue with all three of the new movies. Yes i can probably provide an answer for why this is kinda weird, but the movie should be better at explaining this stuff.

There are some things for which this is the case, but "Rey is good at Force stuff" is not one of them. OMG, someone without Skywalker blood is good at the Force? Stop the presses.
The sequel trilogy's characters are defined more by their choices. Finn chose to leave the First Order, Kylo chose to join them, Rey chose to try to save them both (in different movies). Having Rey's power not come from some Chosen One foretold by prophecy emphasizes how unimportant she was before she made that choice. Rey didn't have a destiny given to her by an immaculate conception (or being Force Jesus's kid); Rey's destiny was left lying about, and she happened to be able to take it.

This is why i wanted her to get a Lightsaber Pike, at least then her staff skills would at least carry over to it. Plus its a horribly underutilized weapon for how awesome it is.

I know, right? Or at least stick the lightsaber in the end of her staff. It would match with her scavengingey background, and be a distinct and unique thing that I'm sure Disney could sell a bajillion new toys with.

I'm really not seeing the whole Rey is the most naturally talent force user onscreen bit. Anakin as a pre-teen not only could win a podrace, but he took out the command ship of a blockading fleet only days later, without having any actual fighter pilot training. Luke, as a back woods dirt farmer, took out the first deathstar single handed within hours of having left his home planet for the first time and after only shown piloting a landspeeder. Rey has survived* a lightsaber duel and lightsaber tug'o'war with Darth Emo, and lifted a pile of rocks. Doesn't seem so terribly OP compartively.

At worst, she's differently talented. (She seems to have less sense-ey talent and more telekines-ey talent.) But she's not the Force Jesus Chosen One who we remember with some level of nostalgia goggles, so we find something wrong with it.

[snip]

It's true that metaphorically cutting water bottles will only get her so far with learning how to fight. On the other hand...what did Obi-Wan and Yoda teach Luke? Some generic Force-ey exercises, some physical training, and blocking training drone blasts? At best, that's equivalent to cutting water bottles, though I'd argue that it's probably a bit lower. Yet does that stop Luke from fighting Darth Vader without getting completely destroyed?
Maybe it's the Force guiding their arm, maybe lightsaber dueling comes naturally to the Force-sensitive, maybe it's just bad writing...but it's not particularly worse writing than the original movies.

I contend that you are not actually a space wizard and do not actually know this.

I'm pretty sure Rey is by far the least experienced Jedi to use the Mind Trick. Let's see...Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan in the original trilogy, Luke (with a 50% success rate, after honing his abilities to the point that he could challenge [or at least competently struggle against] Darth Vader himself), maybe Darth Jar-Jar...I think that's it.
It's also odd that Rey doesn't ever duplicate her first real use of the Force. Pretty much everything she does in TLJ is telekinesis or some kind of Force sense. If she's just more talented at that particular application of the Force, that's fine, but why doesn't she use it more often?

Unless you have a source that states "only reflexes can be used without training" then this objection is meaningless.

Depending on how you define "training," that might be entirely accurate. Of course, that might just make it unimportant to this discussion again.

I answered your question with a question. If yours isn't relevant, say so.

By that logic, you could have said "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?" and nullified his argument. Yellow card, please rephrase your objection so that it's logically coherent.

Spoiler: Kylo Ren's Temper

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I mean, using an unstable crystal makes the thing vent too much energy so he put the crossguards on to vent it out and makes use of it as crossguards. That's inherently "built wrong".

I strongly disagree. It's built differently, but it's an entirely valid design. (Though it still bugs me that he never uses the crossguard as a freaking guard.)

Well we know that now, but he sure didnt. Seriously, he's swinging that lightsaber like its a baseball bat or something, he is so many kinds of wide open and he's telegraphing from years ago with those swings! Yes Luke was screwing with him, but Kylo fought like a drunk not someone who just murdilated 3 clearly skilled guards

And yes, you can fight properly if the other dude isnt fighting back, generally that means you kill him, or hes just a slippery sucker. In this case it was the second one, but that doesnt excuse Kylo's absolutely atrocious form.

Nope. But it's far from the worst form I've seen in fictional fights.
It seems to be a thing that fights in fiction exaggerate the effects of emotion on one's ability to fight. From the power of friendship to insult sword fighting to righteous fury, it's just about the only way to link a character's internal struggle with their external struggle. I can't really blame Star Wars for it when hardly anyone has found a better solution.

When Darth Bane gets injured or upset, he is a force of nature in the Dark Side.
When Kylo gets injured or upset, he loses to untrained teens.
What an interesting character...

Joking aside, competence != interesting...ness. Often, it's quite the opposite. A character who never struggles to achieve what they want to do is boring; a character with a major flaw (say, a loose temper) can be interesting.

[The Aboleth]

Of course it is a sound strategy. It's called a "gambit". It's when you accept losing one asset that isn't valuable for your overall strategy, in order to remove a more "powerful" piece that would jeopardize said strategy; thus making yourself coming out in a better position. In real warfare, it means that whatever loses you have, those are acceptable as long as they push you forward in your general strategy. And that's what Holdo did. There was no point in saving a capital ship that was gonna be destroyed/captured and that also carried no troops. So she trade as meaningless asset at that point (the old ship), for basically saving Leia and Poe (and a bunch other "Resistancers") from being cannoned to death.

You're not the only one doing this, so please don't take it personally: It seems that people are missing the fact I am saying that OVERALL, it is not a sound strategy. Yes, in Holdo's specific situation--in which it was employed as a desperation move with a ship that was going to be destroyed anyway--it "worked" (yes, it destroyed the dreadnought, but I continue to disagree that it accomplished much more than that, and continue to believe the dreadnought was largely useless by that point anyway). However, as an OVERALL strategy to be employed as the main tactic for defeating your enemy, it is not a sound strategy because it has a low success rate (again, if we take real-world examples into account, which some don't want to do so whatever). Furthermore, it guarentees that you will lose assets--ships, fuel, hyperdrives, etc.--while only giving you a chance (not a guarantee, just a chance) of doing damage to the enemy.

That is the crux of my argument for any and every ship/pod/whatever being employed in a FTL ballistic strategy--low success rate with a guaranteed loss of resources on your end with only a chance of the enemy losing their resources in the attack. It is among the most risky of strategies, and because of that it is not a sound strategy OVERALL--specific, desperation scenarios aside.

You can redefine the "mission" whatever you like: that doesn't change their only work was taking down those bombers. A thing they had no problem to succeed in. If they failed it was only because they weren't deployed earlier. Blame the command for not preparing their troops sooner; but the fighters did a fine work either way. Even when they "failed" to protect the dreadnought; that wasn't because the Resistance ships were better or because they were fit for the job. Plot-induced stupidity and deus-ex-machinas don't magically make a poor strategy and poor excuse for bomber squad an excellent idea.

I am not "redefining" the mission--the mission is "protect the dreadnought," not "destroy the bombers." Destroying the bombers is what, ideally, will result in the protection of the dreadnought. We are shown that even with the bombers' destruction, though, the dreadnought is still lost--thus, mission failure.

Think of it this way: Do you think any TIE pilot who survived that battle is getting a commendation for a job well done? I definitely don't.

Which is fine. Two problems tho:

1. The fact that the bombers were a waste of resources has nothing to do with FTL ballistics being a good strategy. So, as much as it supports the idea that wasting resources is BAD; it tells nothing about what you were arguing with me (whether FTL ballistics is workable).
2. I was talking about the bombers being unfit for the mission seen on the film. So, we seem to agree there.

The bombers being a waste of resources actually have A LOT to do with my argument that FTL ballistics is a bad strategy, because my argument is that FTL ballistics as your main strategy is a guaranteed lose of resources for an uncertain amount of gain (if any gain is to even be had). Using the bombers as a FTL ballistic guarentees they will be lost, whereas using them in the manner we are shown--with fighter escorts to fight the TIEs--at least gives them a chance to fight another day. Just because no bombers made it out of the battle didn't mean they couldn't have--it just means that the chance they had didn't pan out.

A dying soldier catching a falling remote with uncanny reflexes even when she is unable to stand on her own feet IS luck of the fates. Sending your absurdly numerically superior fleet of fighters to stop the enemy bomb squad TOO LATE (keep in mind that Poe had all the freedom to take down the turrets because there was only a handful of TIEs tailing him) is just lousy strategy, not bad luck. IIRC, the fighters were launched en-masse AFTER the bomber squad was already within range of the dreadnought.

I completely agree that the TIEs should have been scrambled much sooner. So does the First Order officer who says, "We should have launched them 5 minutes ago!" Poe's plan was built around Hux being an idiot who would be caught up in what was essentially a crank phone call while BB-8 used that time to superpower up the engines. Is it a stupidly risky plan? Yes--BB-8 and Leia actually say as much in the movie. But Hux is largely an incompetent buffoon, and Poe knows this well enough to devise a plan with that in mind.

You can call that contrived---and heck, it kind of is!---but pretty much everything in a movie/novel/comic strip is contrived in one form or another because you need characters to do certain things to highlight certain parts of their personality. Poe is a risky flyboy, so he comes up with a risky flyboy plan that others even say is risky; Hux is an idiot who cares less about being a general and more about how being a general makes him feel powerful. When people make Hux feel powerless--as Poe did with his phone call bit--he reacts poorly to the point of neglecting strategy, and that's exactly why that risky plan ends up succeeding.

Potayto, potahto. Your different interpretation simply denies that Holdo accomplished anything, that the bombers were impractical and that FTL ballistics was in effect, successfully used. I repeat: you called up having this discussion, not me. I didn't mean you were wilfully denying reality, just that your opinion diverges severely with that of the people who watched the movie (including those who liked it and those who didn't). I apologize if my comment came out too aggressive, tho.

I never said Holdo didn't accomplish anything--I'm saying what she accomplished (the disabling of the dreadnought) had a minimal impact on the First Order in the ensuing battle. None of the First Order's leadership was killed by the tactic, and the FO was still able to conduct their already-planned ground assault without skipping so much as a beat. Yes, the First Order loses a big ship--but if Luke doesn't show up when he does, then the First Order almost certainly succeeds in the ground assault and completely wipes out the Resistance. The destruction of the dreadnought doesn't really change much of what happens on the Salt Planet when you think about it, and that is what I am trying to get across.

[Mordar]

In fact, bloodlines don't matter as much as you think they do is literally the point of the new trilogy.

There is a formal training regimen for lots of things, including piano. There are also people who don't need it in order to make music. Many of those people were not descended from dynasties of prodigies either.

Well, at least the is the point of Johnson's entry in the trilogy, and it seems potentially at odds with TFA.

It certainly does make it seem as though "random chance" is the stronger power. If the Force is choosing based on merit or potential, it seems fairly strange that it would have chosen to give Ben so much power if he was to be promptly turned Dark and need a new super-powered random person to maybe balance him out. So is the Force all knowing and chose poorly, or random lottery?

Ben is the villain. He is a dark sider. But... you're saying that he can't even draw on the dark side properly. Pain and anger are supposed to make him stronger, a bigger threat, not make him worse. So we've got two movies where he gets either beat by Rey or "beat" by Luke. He can't properly be a dark sider because the stuff that should make him stronger in the Force instead make him weaker.

So, we've got one movie left where he is supposed to what? Master everything? Beat Rey? So the trilogy ends with the good guys losing? Or Kylo will be redeemed and then what? Become a master?

I don't know, the character doesn't interest me. I don't know what to make of him except weak and ineffectual, and I don't like things like that lol.

I think the inability to be more powerful/deadly when angry is an interesting statement about his character if we can actually trust it to be intentional and not just another inconsistency. It might indicate the continued struggle within, or that his Force source is less Dark than we're shown.

Regarding your final line...I refer to my earlier comments about him. He is moderately effective and competent at times. Imagine how dangerous he will be when he has better control. Episode IX can still be "Too bad the good guys didn't stop him when he was a chump".

- M

[Aquillion]

It certainly does make it seem as though "random chance" is the stronger power. If the Force is choosing based on merit or potential, it seems fairly strange that it would have chosen to give Ben so much power if he was to be promptly turned Dark and need a new super-powered random person to maybe balance him out. So is the Force all knowing and chose poorly, or random lottery?

If we assume that the Force is all-knowing, all-powerful (at least in terms of who it gives power to), and benevolent, then we run into theodicy-style problems where the question of "why do evil force-users exist?" becomes hard to answer in general.

I think the idea is that the Force isn't really sentient and naturally favors certain people for a wide variety of reasons; it will automatically empower people to stop powerful dark Force users as a sort of instinctive defense mechanism, but it isn't necessarily fully sentient, and not everyone who is strong with the Force was selected by some sort of cosmic intelligence based on benevolent criteria. So it's still possible to inherit power (eg. the force really likes your bloodline), but it's also possible to be powerful in other ways. And the Force doesn't map out your entire future or anything before empowering you (obviously, or Sith and dark force users wouldn't exist.)

It's probably also possible for dark force users to distort the intentions of the Force as a whole. So Ben might have been empowered for some other reason, but then Snoke came along and made things go off the rails. In other words, it's transcendent and generally benevolent, but not omniscient or omnipotent - it can screw up or be thwarted.

[Mordar]

If we assume that the Force is all-knowing, all-powerful (at least in terms of who it gives power to), and benevolent, then we run into theodicy-style problems where the question of "why do evil force-users exist?" becomes hard to answer in general.

I think the idea is that the Force isn't really sentient and naturally favors certain people for a wide variety of reasons; it will automatically empower people to stop powerful dark Force users as a sort of instinctive defense mechanism, but it isn't necessarily fully sentient, and not everyone who is strong with the Force was selected by some sort of cosmic intelligence based on benevolent criteria. So it's still possible to inherit power (eg. the force really likes your bloodline), but it's also possible to be powerful in other ways. And the Force doesn't map out your entire future or anything before empowering you (obviously, or Sith and dark force users wouldn't exist.)

It's probably also possible for dark force users to distort the intentions of the Force as a whole. So Ben might have been empowered for some other reason, but then Snoke came along and made things go off the rails. In other words, it's transcendent and generally benevolent, but not omniscient or omnipotent - it can screw up or be thwarted.

So do we assume or expect the instinct of the Force to be accurate in the efforts to balance? And is the balance always "create a powerful Light to offset the Dark?"

I think Vader was meant to balance the over-power of the Jedi...either directly or by elevating the Emperor...and then undoing the Emperor in the end. That gave rise to Luke...who then needed to be balanced by Ben...who now needs to be balanced by Rey? And perhaps Ben and Rey are also somewhat internally balanced (Ben favors Dark but clearly isn't complete, Rey favors Light but taps Dark)...so we'll have people are are balanced in the Force in terms of power and side-preference?

- M

[Clertar]

[Moved to the new thread.]