The Last Jedi 2: The Next Last Jedi

[Blackhawk748]

I always hated Force as Genetics. Its terrible that this problem has been even more amplified now.

It only ever sorta was. I mean, Ben Skywalker certainly wasnt as powerful as his dad or his mom (im not positive on this, but im pretty sure Mara Jade was more powerful than him). Hell, Kyp Durron is a rando from frelling Kessel and hes one of the most powerful Jedi in the NJO era.

Really all it meant was if you had Force Sensitive parents, you'd be Force Sensitive, which is still true. The Skywalkers are just an anomaly because of Anakin. Once you remove a few generations (apparently it only takes one) and things get back to normal levels.

[Aeson]

Star Wars rankings have always gone Lt. -> Captain -> Commander -> Major/Colonel -> Admiral/General. Lt. Commander existing somewhere between the first two. You can see this in the Rogue Squadron stuff a lot.

Personally, I always viewed that more as the two officers being in parallel rank systems - e.g. Wedge Antilles is a Navy Commander (O5) while Tycho Celchu is an Army/Marines/Air Force Captain (O3) rather than a Navy Captain (O6). That's still force structure weirdness because they're apparently more or less permanently assigned to the same unit despite being in different branches, of course, but it's not entirely unheard of, at least on a temporary basis, in the real world, whereas no real world English-language rank system that I know of has Commanders outranking Captains.

[Mechalich]

Personally, I always viewed that more as the two officers being in parallel rank systems - e.g. Wedge Antilles is a Navy Commander (O5) while Tycho Celchu is an Army/Marines/Air Force Captain (O3) rather than a Navy Captain (O6). That's still force structure weirdness because they're apparently more or less permanently assigned to the same unit despite being in different branches, of course, but it's not entirely unheard of, at least on a temporary basis, in the real world, whereas no real world English-language rank system that I know of has Commanders outranking Captains.

Star Wars ranking systems are a mess - in part because the OT really didn't have a fine eye for detail on this and created a huge mishmash between stated ranks and insignias and everything else and people struggled for decades to try and sort out the rank conventions into something reasonable (there's a table in Essential Guide to Warfare that stresses just how messy this was).

In the context of the TLJ Poe is clearly high-ranking. Appearances indicate he is the highest ranking Starfighter Officer in the Fleet. There is apparently a division - just as there was in the OT and in the EU - between officers in the Starfighter Corps and the Fleet. This is analogous to the parallel command structure you would have been an aircraft carrier group and the naval aircraft assigned to it. We can see a similar situation at the Battle of Endor - Lando is Gold Leader and is the General in charge of the entire starfighter complement while Admiral Ackbar has overall command of the fleet. As a result, Lando can, and does, suggest strategy to Ackbar, but he can't give Ackbar orders.

One critical piece about ranks in TLJ is that, when Leia demotes Poe, he is not superseded. There's no one else in Starfighter command who outranks him to take over his command role. This means that there are no other commanders and if there are any other captains Poe has seniority over them. Now this may be a consequence of a huge portion of the Raddus' starfighter complement having been killed both attacking the dreadnaught and when the hangar got hit.

It is fairly strongly implied that, once Leia is out-of-commission Poe is the highest ranking officer who survives from among the Raddus' crew. Poe doesn't recognize Holdo when she is introduced - a circumstance that is unlikely given how puny the Resistance fleet actually is - which means she was the CO of one of the other ships, not the Raddus. Ackbar was presumably the flag officer. This actually makes Holdo's failure to explain all the more egregious. You took over someone else's command and expect blind obedience purely on rank? Are you kidding? Holdo might be technically in the right on protocol, but it's a blatantly obvious failure of leadership to not reassure surviving senior officers of the command you have inherited.

And, of course, all points regarding obedience are undercut by how Poe faces no consequences post mutiny. Here's what happens to people who mutiny is pretty much every naval service that has ever existed: they get executed. Even Guardians 2 understood this: Kraglin doesn't initially expect Yondu to forgive him even after he apologies and rescues Yondu from imprisonment, and that movie is so not serious it has a prolonged joke about tape during the climax. In Battlestar Galactica (the recent one) there's a mutiny late in the run, and even though the mutineers have a measure of justification and they represent irreplaceable skilled crew the admiral still executes them all when he regains power.

TLJ expects us to root for Poe post-mutiny. He leads the (pointless) skimmer attack and Leia tells the survivors to follow him. The audience buys this because the movie has set it up so that you don't blame Poe for the mutiny because Holdo is clearly in the wrong. So he was wrong to mutiny, but also he wasn't? That doesn't work. As usual the movie refuses to stick to a message.

[Psyren]

Let's assume Poe was indeed an officer before getting demoted. That still doesn't invalidate the first point. Some unknown is giving away their position to the enemy, so the head being cagey about their next move is still a justifiable step, even if it has the potential to cause greater trouble down the line.

Which again, I think it was the opposite - Finn and Rose's errand was a big deal, and that ending scene was meant to support that.

Yeah, congrats. You didn't have to before either...

The movies did a poor job of showing that. Even after TFA, everyone was immediately coming up with theories about Rey's bloodline to explain her strength, instead of her just... being strong, without needing some kind of super-special pedigree, because we too had been conditioned to see the Force as hereditary by Lucas.

If you're going to throw out everything established about a setting when you're supposedly expanding that setting, then your story isn't actually part of that setting. Your story is part of a new setting which you for some reason (marketing, probably) have chosen to call by the same name as the old setting.

For starters, this is beyond melodramatic; they've hardly "thrown out everything." Many aspects of the Force remain unchanged.

But even if your statement were accurate, well - if that's the mental jump you need to rationalize what they've done, then fine, feel free to tell yourself that. The reality though is that it's their setting, not yours, and they can change it however they feel they need to, in both subtle and drastic ways. If you really see the changes as large enough to make this not be Star Wars anymore, your only remaining choice is to vote with your wallet, or not.

I always hated Force as Genetics. Its terrible that this problem has been even more amplified now.

I cannot fathom how your second sentence follows from the first (which I agree with.)

[Jayngfet]

One critical piece about ranks in TLJ is that, when Leia demotes Poe, he is not superseded. There's no one else in Starfighter command who outranks him to take over his command role. This means that there are no other commanders and if there are any other captains Poe has seniority over them. Now this may be a consequence of a huge portion of the Raddus' starfighter complement having been killed both attacking the dreadnaught and when the hangar got hit.

It is fairly strongly implied that, once Leia is out-of-commission Poe is the highest ranking officer who survives from among the Raddus' crew. Poe doesn't recognize Holdo when she is introduced - a circumstance that is unlikely given how puny the Resistance fleet actually is - which means she was the CO of one of the other ships, not the Raddus. Ackbar was presumably the flag officer. This actually makes Holdo's failure to explain all the more egregious. You took over someone else's command and expect blind obedience purely on rank? Are you kidding? Holdo might be technically in the right on protocol, but it's a blatantly obvious failure of leadership to not reassure surviving senior officers of the command you have inherited.

The visual dictionary confirms what you're saying. Not only is Holdo an officer who lost her ship, her entire command crew is also foreign to the Raddus. Nobody else recognizes them because they just waltzed in and expected blind obedience despite refusing to go by protocol, wear the uniform, or give a basic amount of consideration to morale.

[Scowling Dragon]

It only ever sorta was. I mean, Ben Skywalker certainly wasnt as powerful as his dad or his mom (im not positive on this, but im pretty sure Mara Jade was more powerful than him). Hell, Kyp Durron is a rando from frelling Kessel and hes one of the most powerful Jedi in the NJO era.

Really all it meant was if you had Force Sensitive parents, you'd be Force Sensitive, which is still true. The Skywalkers are just an anomaly because of Anakin. Once you remove a few generations (apparently it only takes one) and things get back to normal levels.

No I meant Force sensitivity. I disliked that. I just wish it was a skill like any other.

"But why isn't everybody a jedi!"

Why isn't everybody a master at Yoga or Statistics? Some people just have the desire for it and others don't. Maybe some genetic desposition exists (Fragile bones for instance) but generally anybody can do it and beat the odds.

However it wasn't "That" bad before. Its certainly WORSE now.

I cannot fathom how your second sentence follows from the first (which I agree with.)

Because by focusing on the force as something that "Randomly Awakens" its even moreso some random trait at BIRTH.

By removing Training as a Requirement and focusing even MORESO on the force as just birthright, Random chance at birth determines force merit in star wars now because sloppy sloppy lazy Rian.

[Psyren]

Because by focusing on the force as something that "Randomly Awakens" its even moreso some random trait at BIRTH.

By removing Training as a Requirement and focusing even MORESO on the force as just birthright, Random chance at birth determines force merit in star wars now because sloppy sloppy lazy Rian.

You're leaping to conclusions here; I've seen nothing to indicate that someone who isn't born with Rey's starting talent can't eventually be her equal through a longer time spent training (or a particularly gifted teacher.) All they've done here was decouple protagonist-level Force sensitivity from bloodline - nothing more and nothing less.

In fact, we may very well see exactly this scenario happen with Finn, if indeed he has Force potential at all.

[Mechalich]

The movies did a poor job of showing that. Even after TFA, everyone was immediately coming up with theories about Rey's bloodline to explain her strength, instead of her just... being strong, without needing some kind of super-special pedigree, because we too had been conditioned to see the Force as hereditary by Lucas.

Everyone was coming up with bloodline theories because that was a means to justify Rey's strength. A justification was needed because she was bizarrely capable at Force use without any known reason.

There were basically two options with the lore available:
1. She's strong because of her bloodline.
2. She's strong because she's an arbitrary 'chosen one' picked by the Force.

Yes, option #1 isn't especially good, breeding the Force and bloodline nepotism were huge problems in the Legends EU. That's all true. But, option #2 is Anakin Skywalker 2.0. That's what Rey is, she's chosen by the Force, her powers aren't the result of anything special about her, anything about her character or personality, she was just chosen by random lottery - or, actually, she's chosen because she's the person who just happened to find BB-8 at a critical crux point in the galaxy. That's so much worse.

JJ Abrams set up Rian Johnson for the fall with regards to Rey. Rey was made too good, too fast - you can agree or disagree as to whether or not she's a Mary Sue in TFA but it is clearly a valid discussion to have - and there was really no good answer to offer without having it overwhelm the story as a whole or denigrating those works that came before.

Now, I think Rian Johnson chose the wrong answer - by making Rey and Kylo paired chosen ones he introduced unnecessary completely, renewed the stupid fight about 'balance' in the Force, and denied Rey personal agency by making her power not her own - but I feel it's a lesser mistake compared to many in TLJ. At least he offered an answer. Would I have preferred 'granddaughter of Obi-Wan and Duchess Satine' sure, in part because everyone could simply say 'that's awesome' or 'that's dumb' make their judgments and we could all move on. Instead there's a whole new messy tangle of metaphysics to parse.

[Psyren]

A justification was needed because she was bizarrely capable at Force use without any known reason.

But it wasn't needed. That's the whole point I'm making. We were only conditioned to think it was by the Skywalker dynasty, which was drummed into us not just by the movies, but over subsequent decades by the EU too (Mara Jade, Jacen, etc etc ad nauseam.)

[Scowling Dragon]

You're leaping to conclusions here; I've seen nothing to indicate that someone who isn't born with Rey's starting talent can't eventually be her equal through a longer time spent training

Of course nothing indicates that Rey won't get incrimentally stronger over the same period as well.
She Kicked the asses of people who spend WAY more time training then her.
The movie took the Bloodline problem AND MADE IT WORSE.

Both Starting a new "Chosen One" trend as well as amplifying the power of a chosen one. Even Obi Wan Was able to beat Anakin. But Little miss Ultra Chosen defeats everybody in her path despite their decades of training over her.

Stop selectively remembering and forgetting things.

[Mechalich]

But it wasn't needed. That's the whole point I'm making. We were only conditioned to think it was by the Skywalker dynasty, which was drummed into us not just by the movies, but over subsequent decades by the EU too (Mara Jade, Jacen, etc etc ad nauseam.)

No - you don't get to just be more powerful than everyone else around you who have more training and more experience than you just because. You are arguing for cheerleading the Mary Sue.

If Rey's just a prodigy at Force use the way some people are prodigy's at piano or something, that would a partial explanation, but here's the thing, she's not the first prodigy in history. The Old Republic Jedi order had prodigies too - the Legends EU strongly implied that Mace Windu, among others, was one - but Rey learns faster and does better than any character previously encountered. You cannot just introduce a character in episode 7 out of 9 and have her be naturally better than everyone who has come before. And anyway, Rey's not just a natural prodigy, she's a chosen one.

A lot of people saw TFA and all the things Rey did in that film and asked the very natural question 'how was she able to do all that?' They looked at the film and saw that it teased her parentage really hard and naturally latched onto that as a probable explanation; one that the OT had made a known possibility by having a Skywalker dynasty.

Rian Johnson clearly had issues with that - which I've noted is quite fair. Abrams did the deed and left him to clean up the body here. He went with Rey being chosen by the Force. To which a great many people reacted with 'ugh, really?' That's still better than the Snoke case, in which the body is still lying there dispersing a massive funk all over the ST.

This whole issue could have been mitigated if there was a timeskip between the films and it was established that prior to Rey leaving Ach-To she spent months training with Luke to master her skills just like he did. Then the moments in TFA could be referenced as some kind of fluke beginner's luck.

[Aeson]

The movies did a poor job of showing that. Even after TFA, everyone was immediately coming up with theories about Rey's bloodline to explain her strength, instead of her just... being strong, without needing some kind of super-special pedigree, because we too had been conditioned to see the Force as hereditary by Lucas.

The reason why "everyone" was making theories about Rey's ancestry after The Force Awakens is that the film makers decided to make a big deal out of her ancestry - or rather, they decided to treat it as some important mystery. If the movie had ignored the question of Rey's parentage entirely rather than treating it as something important and dropping heavy-handed hints that she's in some way connected to the Original Trilogy characters (she resembles Leia and Padme, Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber "calls" to her, Maz expects Han to be able to tell her about Rey's background, Rey has a vision or flashback of child-Rey in Jedi clothing confronted by, presumably, Kylo Ren and his Knights with what might be a burning Jedi Temple in the background, etc), I don't think that most people would have cared what her ancestry was and the "Rey is the daughter of Luke and ?" or "Rey is the daughter of Han and Leia" or other such theories wouldn't have been so widespread.

For starters, this is beyond melodramatic; they've hardly "thrown out everything." Many aspects of the Force remain unchanged.

But even if your statement were accurate, well - if that's the mental jump you need to rationalize what they've done, then fine, feel free to tell yourself that. The reality though is that it's their setting, not yours, and they can change it however they feel they need to, in both subtle and drastic ways. If you really see the changes as large enough to make this not be Star Wars anymore, your only remaining choice is to vote with your wallet, or not.

Perhaps I should have quoted pendell instead, since upon re-reading your post my post was more directly a response to this:

They wanted a clean slate not only to tell new stories, but to rewrite the very physics of the GFFA to support those new stories.

which was in the pendell quote you had in the post of yours that I quoted. If wiping the EU was to allow them to rewrite everything (what I take "the physics" to mean in pendell's statement) about the Star Wars setting, then they may as well have just made a new setting and been done with it.

Here's what happens to people who mutiny is pretty much every naval service that has ever existed: they get executed.

Ringleaders of mutinies get executed (though not always), and in the modern world they tend to get trials first. The rest of the mutineers tend to get away with black marks on their records, being drummed out of the service, or being imprisoned.

Also, I'd note that the Resistance didn't really have time to make an example out of Poe between when his mutiny was suppressed and when they discovered they had bigger problems - like being reduced to all of about ten people - than punishing mutineers, and for some unexplained reason they'd chosen to capture rather than kill him in suppressing the mutiny.

But it wasn't needed. That's the whole point I'm making. We were only conditioned to think it was by the Skywalker dynasty, which was drummed into us not just by the movies, but over subsequent decades by the EU too (Mara Jade, Jacen, etc etc ad nauseam.)

I mostly agree. There was no particular need for an explanation of why Rey is unusually powerful. Unfortunately, The Force Awakens made a big deal out of the mystery of her parentage and The Last Jedi gave us some chosen one sans prophecy nonsense.

I would nevertheless have liked some explanation for why she's capable of manifesting powers that we had previously only seen out of trained Force adepts, beyond or preferably without the chosen one sans prophecy nonsence which sounded a lot like it's headed towards Law of Conservation of Evil and Misery territory. E.g. the vision/flashback sequence in The Force Awakens being confirmed as a flashback/suppressed memory of her time as young Jedi trainee.

[Psyren]

Of course nothing indicates that Rey won't get incrimentally stronger over the same period as well.

Sure but there's a ceiling to that, unless you expect her to become a deity or something. And so long as others can reach that same ceiling, your objection is unfounded.

Stop selectively remembering and forgetting things.

Stop overreacting and assuming you know everything that will happen.

No - you don't get to just be more powerful than everyone else around you who have more training and more experience than you just because.

Why not? That's how it happens in our world. When Mozart learned piano at age 5, was that fair to all the people who had to wait until they were in their 20s or more? But that didn't make him the only person ever able to master piano either, did it?

[Scowling Dragon]

Sure but there's a ceiling to that, unless you expect her to become a deity or something. And so long as others can reach that same ceiling, your objection is unfounded.

My objections are already CONFIRMED. Your argument against power creep is at the best case scenario that there is XP scaling to compensate despite no evidence to say so.

This is such...Cyclical deflection.

I say:

Chosen One Stuff in star wars is bad
You agree
I say Rey does it and makes it even worse
You say that no it doesn't count because people can reach her despite there being no evidence to the contrary and if anything she defeats way more trained people then her because of some cap that you only base off of Guesstimated out of Character movie expectations (Whilst not wanting people to have out of movie expectations themselves)

So either be OK with the Bloodline stuff or Rey is indulging in the same terrible aspects.

You constantly shift the goalposts in a loop over and over in your argumentation, retreating in a circle.

Why not? That's how it happens in our world. When Mozart learned piano at age 5

But a movie about Mozart wouldn't be him beating a bunch of people not as good at him in Piano as everybody gawks and stares and calls him awesome, and says to burn the past musical texts because nobody in the past was blessed enough to be Born as good as Mozart.

Also The Force has no Theoretical Cap like Music does. There is no CAP as to how powerful ray will become because they already tossed the books into the fire and called it good.

[Bobb]

Leia and Holdo have a conversation about how much they like Poe as he's being carried on board a transport unconscious. Leia has no objection to Poe leading the last hurrah of the Resistance with the cropduster ship things before he shows he's learned not to be a hero or make sacrifices without his commanders permission. Poe faced literally zero repercussions for staging a mutiny after a stun bolt to the face.



So no matter how you view Poe's actions--Literally no matter how you view Poe: stupid, brave, worthy of execution, misguided, did nothing wrong, communication skills need work, etc-- both Leia and Holdo are freaking idiots.

[Mechalich]

Why not? That's how it happens in our world. When Mozart learned piano at age 5, was that fair to all the people who had to wait until they were in their 20s or more? But that didn't make him the only person ever able to master piano either, did it?

No, that's not how it works. Mozart learned piano at age five sure. He wasn't the best pianist in the world at age five. He had to practice and train like crazy to become the master he was and even as an adult he was only marginally better than the best of his contemporaries. That's enough to go down in history, but you don't get there without a massive amount of effort. We see the same thing in modern sports. LeBron James was a basketball prodigy by any measure and has innate gifts, but not only does he continually train at a relentless level it took some time - several whole seasons of play - before he was able to claim the title of best in the NBA.

The Old Republic Jedi order was full of prodigies. It was super strict and regularly failed out anyone who couldn't keep up with ridiculously high expectations. Anakin Skywalker was a prodigy among prodigies and he was still anything but invincible compared to his contemporaries. Dooku beat him straight up, so did Obi-Wan. And the Clone Wars TV series (which is at the same level of canon as the films) is full of examples of people fighting him evenly at various points.

If the explanation for Rey's talent is 'she's just that good' you're talking about a prodigy orders of magnitude more potent than even the legendary Chosen One of the past. That's dumb and it invalidates all six previous films.

[Psyren]

I say:

Chosen One Stuff in star wars is bad
You agree
I say Rey does it and makes it even worse
You say that no it doesn't count because people can reach her despite there being no evidence to the contrary and if anything she defeats way more trained people then her because of some cap that you only base off of Guesstimated out of Character movie expectations (Whilst not wanting people to have out of movie expectations themselves)

No - I'm saying that one talented person does not mean that (a) there cannot be other talented people, or (b) that training no longer matters. We have not seen Rey's ceiling, nor Kylo's, nor Finn's, nor broom boy, nor that of any other force sensitive under the new paradigm. Until we do, you're being premature, full stop.

I have not moved any goalposts from this position. Rey has a high floor (like any prodigy), but you are trying to argue the ceiling with no basis.

But a movie about Mozart wouldn't be him beating a bunch of people not as good at him in Piano as everybody gawks and stares and calls him awesome, and says to burn the past musical texts because nobody in the past was blessed enough to be Born as good as Mozart.

Also The Force has no Theoretical Cap like Music does. There is no CAP as to how powerful ray will become because they already tossed the books into the fire and called it good.

I assure you that Mozart movies are very much about Mozart being awesome. There is still conflict of course; again, being a prodigy does not mean everything works out perfectly for you.

"No theoretical cap" does not mean Rey specifically will never be on par with anyone else ever.

No, that's not how it works. Mozart learned piano at age five sure. He wasn't the best pianist in the world at age five. He had to practice and train like crazy to become the master he was and even as an adult he was only marginally better than the best of his contemporaries.

Right, and Rey isn't the best force-user. Again, Snoke wrecked her pretty easily, as did full-HP Kylo in TFA.

[Scowling Dragon]

I have not moved any goalposts from this position. Rey has a high floor (like any prodigy), but you are trying to argue the ceiling with no basis.

OK Im done with you.

You brought up the nonsense ceiling. You keep shifting and shifting and shifting the goalposts and evading demands or misconstruing them or if I say most kindly: Keep misunderstanding.

So under that good faith, Il assume Im incapable of making you understand that Rey and Anakin share the exact same orgine type and origin type is generally bad writing. Rey is an equivalent to a bloodline, andyou personally said that Bloodlines are bad.

And Just like with the Mozart comparison you keep moving the goalposts in circles and misunderstanding VERY basic points.

So Il just say that this has been a complete communications failure on my part.

[Jayngfet]

The obvious problem is that even in the new canon we have like a half a dozen other force users. Of them we already have one or two other prodigies who pick up powers with noted speed but that speed is also vastly slower than Rey. Ezra Bridger got to roughly where Luke Skywalker was as a knight in about half the time but it still took him many years and many more attempts to get there, and he had to make sacrifices to do it.

Rey isn't Mozart. Mozart had struggles. His works at age five and six are simplistic and his tours were mostly novelty gigs. He didn't immediately trounce every other master of his day You can see the same thing with modern artists like say, Michael Jackson, who was a child star but only became famous as an adult because he worked until his feet bled to get good and had a large number of tragedies along the way.

Rey is essentially a random homeless person who wanders into a concert hall, finds the Maestro's piano, and plays the way Mozart did in his twenties after about thirty seconds plinking at keys.

[Psyren]

OK Im done with you.

The feeling is quite mutual

Rey isn't Mozart. Mozart had struggles.

So Rey didn't lose to unwounded Kylo, or get manhandled by Snoke? Did those things not happen?

[Metahuman1]

The obvious problem is that even in the new canon we have like a half a dozen other force users. Of them we already have one or two other prodigies who pick up powers with noted speed but that speed is also vastly slower than Rey. Ezra Bridger got to roughly where Luke Skywalker was as a knight in about half the time but it still took him many years and many more attempts to get there, and he had to make sacrifices to do it.

Rey isn't Mozart. Mozart had struggles. His works at age five and six are simplistic and his tours were mostly novelty gigs. He didn't immediately trounce every other master of his day You can see the same thing with modern artists like say, Michael Jackson, who was a child star but only became famous as an adult because he worked until his feet bled to get good and had a large number of tragedies along the way.

Rey is essentially a random homeless person who wanders into a concert hall, finds the Maestro's piano, and plays the way Mozart did in his twenties after about thirty seconds plinking at keys.

Like I said, Abysmally written Shonen Fighting Anime. Like, worse then Fairy Tail or Dragonball GT at least.






As for Psyren, look dude, I have watch him now literally sit there and argue one point from 1 position and then a couple of posts later argue the exact opposite point form the exact opposite position and try to claim it's consistent entirely and everyone else is the one falling short or merely offering opinions.

And that is an observable, demonstrable fact for anyone who cares to just go to the start of the thread and start reading.






As for Vice Admiral what's her name: On top of all of that, I seem to recall the bit with the first order being that they had simply detected the ships, and that being told about it was merely extra confirmation that it wasn't a ruse.

Let's look at how the first order handled things up to that point, and imagine that the Mercenary didn't tell them anything. (Bad business to get a reputation for being bought out once an agreement is made while the other side are keeping up there half of the terms of said agreement, so, not impossible.)

What happens in this slight change? The first order dectects the transports, and opts to shoot them because they'll figure it's an escape attempt.



So no, her plan never had a chance of doing anything different than what we saw.





Now let's look t Poe's plan.

If they'd shown up with more money on hand, or something smallish and valuable they could offer as collateral to make sure he had more of his money up front and more reason to think they could get him the rest after the job was done, what happens?

Maybe he still double crosses him. Maybe he's loyal. If the former the plan fails, if the latter, the plan succeeds. 50/50 shot at success.

That's a HELL of a lot better odds then the 0 Vice Admiral what's her face is offering with her plan unless I completely miss heard the entire bit of dialog in the movie at that point.



So, Poe's Plan has a 50% chance, Vice Admiral's Plan has 0% chance, but Vice Admiral won't even consider Poe's plan because it's Poe's Plan, even though strictly speaking in any real military organization she frankly has no business giving orders at that point, or a tenuous one at best, and she breaks every rule in The Art Of War about how a commander should behave toward there own troops over her knee and then sets it on fire.



I submit: She's grossly incompetent and nearly get's the Resistance wiped out in that incompetence, but the movie does want us to treat her as credible anyway.











Also, moving on, can we talk about what a total waste of time Phasma was?

[Jayngfet]

Or maybe, and I'm going to just throw it out there...

...Finn and Rose use an actual parking lot, don't get thrown into a maximum security jail cell for a traffic ticket, get the actual guy they came there to get, he actually does the job properly, and they all win and go home for space waffles.

Like they are explicitly told it's Maz and one other guy who can do it. Then they go in anyway with the first guy they meet even though he constantly throws up red flags. Then it's meant to be some kind of shocking betrayal that this random man off the street fails to do the thing the story already said he wouldn't be able to do and sells them out the way he'd been claiming he would the entire time.

The story assumes he's another scoundrel like Han Solo, without establishing him having Han's hidden depths or heart of gold outside of literal minutes before his betrayal. Or else it assumes he's another guy like Lando who's shady but has a reason to be trusted, even though unlike Lando he doesn't have an "in" in the form of an existing friendship. He's just some dude who happened to be there.

They never even learned the guys name. The audience didn't really have any reason to trust him beyond him just kind of being on the screen.

[Scowling Dragon]

Also, moving on, can we talk about what a total waste of time Phasma was?

Chalk it up to Marketing. From what I understand they hyped her up by accident.

[Jayngfet]

Chalk it up to Marketing. From what I understand they hyped her up by accident.

Phasma's existence as a unique character was a bit much as is. They have this whole faction of dark side guys with no screen time but they go for chrome lady Fett.

[Metahuman1]

Or maybe, and I'm going to just throw it out there...

...Finn and Rose use an actual parking lot, don't get thrown into a maximum security jail cell for a traffic ticket, get the actual guy they came there to get, he actually does the job properly, and they all win and go home for space waffles.

Like they are explicitly told it's Maz and one other guy who can do it. Then they go in anyway with the first guy they meet even though he constantly throws up red flags. Then it's meant to be some kind of shocking betrayal that this random man off the street fails to do the thing the story already said he wouldn't be able to do and sells them out the way he'd been claiming he would the entire time.

The story assumes he's another scoundrel like Han Solo, without establishing him having Han's hidden depths or heart of gold outside of literal minutes before his betrayal. Or else it assumes he's another guy like Lando who's shady but has a reason to be trusted, even though unlike Lando he doesn't have an "in" in the form of an existing friendship. He's just some dude who happened to be there.

They never even learned the guys name. The audience didn't really have any reason to trust him beyond him just kind of being on the screen.

Why not both?


No, seriously, Maz is someone who apparently knows basically everyone, why doesn't Vice Admiral what's her face know and Trust Maz, and decide "Ok, go, will try it and keep mine as a back up plan." We cut that section of the movie down to a fraction of what we spent on it and have time to show Rey actually training and Luke telling her "You didn't realize it at the time but The Living Force walked you through most of that, and you got Lucky that Ren was in awful shape and taken off guard by you tapping the force like you did because that trick you lucked into, that you're having a hard time reproducing, normally requires a lot of training. If he had been in better shape at the time he would have rallied faster.

If you hadn't taken him by surprise, he'd have still overwhelmed you. The Force was with you, and that's the only reason your here right now to learn how to handle yourself enough that next time you have a fighting chance of walking away on your own merit."

Maybe even a bit more dialog to explain that the rules are changing because now the Force IS balanced.



You fix most of the biggest flaws with the movie right there. Not all, but most.





Edit: Yeah, but it fit there inclusivity goals, and if they'd dug in a bit more with her, we could have had something. Hell, you know what?

Picture at the end of The Force Awakens. We know The first Order have melee weapons that can stand up to a Lightsaber for there troops now. What if Ren was just flat knocked out by the bow caster, Snoke orders What's His Face military guy to get Ren off the base and he does.

When Rey and Finn are in the forest, it's Phasma with a melee weapon and armor that can stand up to a Lightsaber they have to fight as this Juggernaut. (I seem to recall the actress towering over both of them so she could be very imposing in that context.) She got out of the compactor. Have the fight be against her. Rey tapping the Force Under pressure is more convincing as a thing she shouldn't see coming that tips the fight in Rey's favor enough for them to get away, but Finn getting smacked down remains convincing. And when she shows back up in this movie she even has room to taunt Finn that his friends can't rescue him this time only for them to do so.

Heck, there's even room for Finn to finish it solo with her in the next movie and have grown, and show that he's grown and can now stand on his own enough to handle his problems himself. Including Phasma.



Complete waste of an Actress.

[Mechalich]

It's not clear at all how 1. Phasma survived Starkiller Base getting blown up in TFA. and 2. Why Snoke/Hux/Kylo didn't kill her for failing to take a bolt on the Order's behalf rather than sabotaging the planet-sized battlestation and leading to the destruction of a critical superweapon and the deaths of presumably tens of thousands of troops at minimum.

I mean, honestly, considering how little they brought her back to do I would have rather had some nameless First Order officer put the execution weapon into Benico Del Toro's hands and have him scamper away afterwards to set up something for Episode IX. Especially since giving Phasma's chrome armor blaster-proofing makes it rather unclear how Finn took her hostage by putting a blaster against her helmet in TFA (just noticed that plot hole now).

But whatever, I assume Gendoline Christie got a nice paycheck for a role that it probably took longer to get fitted for the armor to do than any actual acting. So good for her.

[Metahuman1]

Escaping Starkiller base would have worked better if we had the above. "I got out of the trash compactor cause you missed that the armor gives me several minutes of life support. Enough that I was able to swim to an extraction segment. You know, for in case someone falls in, we have them as a safety feature you idiot!"


And like I said, gave them room to use her more in this movie and in the next.


As to being held hostage, when you have a Wookie who's muscles weigh more than 2 times your body weight easy restraining you, it's easy to think even if Finn's incompetent, that Han could while Chewie was holding her slip her helmet off and shoot her point blank in the face. It's actually one of the tactics used when an armored opponent wouldn't surrender. Get them restrained and get there face exposed and insert your dagger into it business end first.

I'd even have it be a thing that Snoke was just too preoccupied with Ren to pay attention to her the whole time they were on the base, meaning all he'll hear about is "Oh, I was trying to double around to cut them off. Almost had them but the place was blowing up and we got split off and they'd damaged my jetpack in the fighting." She'd still be pissed as heck at them but it would explain why she wasn't executed.

Why she gave up the info would remain a plot hole, but you'd be down to 1 plot hole instead of several and that's an improvement.

[Mightymosy]

The force has always been that it spontaneously manifests in some and not in others, and it also could be inherited. Original movies had Yoda and Obi Wan who had no special parents, the prequels hat hundreds of Jedi from all over the place.

Nothing regarding force heritage has changed whatsoever.

What has changed is that now you don't need as much training.
Which fits modern spirit in that no you are entitled to anything without working for it.

"Prodigies" all practice f*cking hard. Why do people forget that all the time?

It's not clear at all how 1. Phasma survived Starkiller Base getting blown up in TFA. and 2. Why Snoke/Hux/Kylo didn't kill her for failing to take a bolt on the Order's behalf rather than sabotaging the planet-sized battlestation and leading to the destruction of a critical superweapon and the deaths of presumably tens of thousands of troops at minimum.

I mean, honestly, considering how little they brought her back to do I would have rather had some nameless First Order officer put the execution weapon into Benico Del Toro's hands and have him scamper away afterwards to set up something for Episode IX. Especially since giving Phasma's chrome armor blaster-proofing makes it rather unclear how Finn took her hostage by putting a blaster against her helmet in TFA (just noticed that plot hole now).

But whatever, I assume Gendoline Christie got a nice paycheck for a role that it probably took longer to get fitted for the armor to do than any actual acting. So good for her.

There is a book in the old EU about Boba Fett, which says that his armor is actually protecting against blaster shots, just not perfectly. Meaning it will protect against shots from small weapons from a bigger distance, but it won't help him if he is being shot at very small distance.
I found it a neat explanation of why all the Stormtroopers wear armor even thought it doesn't help against blast shots - but then again, they should then have showed in the movies that the armor helps a bit with surviving blaster shots

[Psyren]

As for Psyren, look dude, I have watch him now literally sit there and argue one point from 1 position and then a couple of posts later argue the exact opposite point form the exact opposite position and try to claim it's consistent entirely and everyone else is the one falling short or merely offering opinions.

And that is an observable, demonstrable fact for anyone who cares to just go to the start of the thread and start reading.

I'd be interested to read how my posts are coming out on your screen if that's really what you think.

My position is clear - I'm happy with the changes they've made to the Force, the direction they're taking the franchise as a whole., and Rey as a character specifically. Do I think they are perfect, absolutely not, but the flaws that exist are either incidental, or gaps they can still fill in future material.

Also, moving on, can we talk about what a total waste of time Phasma was?

At last something we can agree on. Phasma has been wasted in both films thus far.

[LaZodiac]

At last something we can agree on. Phasma has been wasted in both films thus far.

Still got a better deal than Boba Fett.