Solo: I've got a pretty good feeling about this!

[Mightymosy]

It's a filmmaker's jonb to make a movie that sells.

That sort of requires people to like your movie.

[Mechalich]

It's not a filmaker's job to molify fans. It's a filmaker's job to make a movie. They can hope that the audience likes what they do. Hell it's how they get hired to make more. But if you make any art, for the express purpose of figuring out what's going on in the head of your audience and what will tickle them. I've got a word to describe what you're doing. And it rhymes with Andering.

There is no such thing as a 'filmaker.' Films are not made by one person. You can argue that a director should be true to their particular vision for a production, since they have the largest single amount of input, and that's fair. However, Star Wars is a franchise, no single work exists in isolation, and therefore it's relationship with other works has to be managed - at the production level.

This is what Marvel does - Kevin Feige has control over the studio and he and his people have the authority to mandate that certain things happen or don't happen in the various Marvel films in order to hold the greater MCU franchise together. Many directors hate this, since it takes a lot of the control away from them - that's why Joss Whedon quit after Ultron - but it is absolutely necessary to keep the pieces in place from movie to movie. Since its acquisition by Disney, Lucasfilm has completely failed to do this in an effective way. There have been all sorts of messy production issues and a huge lack of oversight. This is part of Kathleen Kennedy's purview and that's why many of the failures of the new canon can be laid at her feet.

Admittedly this is a hard and thoroughly thankless job. I suspect a lot of Kevin Feige's job involves telling highly creative people 'no I don't care how cool that would be, you can't do that,' which must be a miserable experience in Hollywood. DC's messed this process up too, so Lucasfilm's not alone.

[Fyraltari]

Well I had assumed this thread was dying and content to let it do so, but if it's going to keep popping back up, why let the others have all the fun?

Is the Rose action figure holding the electro shocker she punishes and shocks people with who are running for their lives?

I'm sorry, I have never been the sort of guy who roots for the empire, so I'll pass.

I am genuinely curious, did you feel the same way when Cassian shot that one informant in the back to make his escape easier?

The really bizarre issue surrounding desertion from the Raddus is why anyone expects it to accomplish anything. Escape pods are not, traditionally, hyperspace capable. They're designed to carry survivors of accidents to the nearest planet. In the context of TLJ, this would actually be Crait anyway, it would just take longer. More importantly, we know that a pursuing fleet can easily target and destroy escape pods launched from a ship because it's part of the opening sequence of A New Hope.The First Order had all sorts of surplus Star Destroyers during the pursuit, they could have easily tasked one with scooping up any escape pods jettisoned during the chase. In order to actually escape from the Raddus you don't need an escape pod, you need a hyperdrive equipped shuttle - like the one Finn and Rose apparently successfully absconded with in order to reach Canto Bight. The whole scenario, like so many in TLJ, doesn't hold together with any examination of how Star Wars technology is supposed to work.

Watching that scene, I had assumed the desrters were surrendering to the First Order (well, trying to). But it's true that since they have hyperspace-capable pods then there is some weirdness going on there.

To be fair, that's basically how Yoda went out. I'm not saying that Luke's death made sense (it didn't) I'm saying that this part you've mentioned here isn't what's wrong with it. The problem is exclusively to do with the fact that, as ypu mentioned elsewhere, it comes out of nowhere. It's diabolus ex machina, which is an ongoing problem in the Disney movies (Rogue One was practically all diabolus ex machina, especially the ending where the heroes die as a side-effect of Tarkin whimsically deciding to slaughter his own men with weapons of mass destruction)

As much as Luke's death was a diabolus ex machina, Tarkin's firing on Scariff wasn't in any way. Both the destructive power of the Death Star, the Empire casual disregard for their own troops' survival and Tarkin's overconfidence in the Death Star are well documented. (Wait how do you say botht when there are more than two items ?).
Besides, if anything, it helps the heroes since Rogue One (the ship) was destroyed (so no rebels would get out of there), plenty of Imperial die and a lot of information (including hyperspace tracking and above all else knowledge of the Death Star's weak spot) is lost.

Exactly this. Toys R Us didn't die it was murdered.

I know what you meant, but being murdered generally includes dying.

I don't see how she does any of that, honestly. The main criticism I'd give is that they're not putting much effort into making her progression into her force powers make sense - first with reading Kylo's thoughts in TFA, then with gaining a fair amount of power with very minimal training from the super-reluctant-to-do-anything Luke in TLJ. But that's a far cry from her being a Mary Sue, it just comes across as the writers not wanting to linger on her needing to learn force powers and just get to her being able to actually do things with them. In which case I'd say they should have written such that she'd already had some training or at least self-training and experimenting with them prior to TFA, but I suppose that's neither here nor there at this point.

In TFA she only mimics powers Kylo Ren used in front of her, plus how much knowledge of the force do you think she got when she was in his head?

Yeah, I don't see any of that. Frankly, losing that fight to Rey automatically disqualifies him as a threat on personal power merits. Anyone with the training to let the force guide their blows with a lightsaber should be able to beat anyone without it in a lightsaber fight hands-down, injury or no. One combatant literally has supernatural aide that should let him find weaknesses in his opponent's defense, of which there should be plenty when that opponent has no idea what they're doing, while the other is swinging wildly and praying. If he had any credibility as a threat, he would have walked all over her there - instead, he failed to do what should have been the simplest thing in the world if he had any ability at what he's supposed to.

First, I love how casually you dismiss injury as limiters of one's skills.
His opponent had the same supernatural aid and has been shown to have close combat experience.

He's a fool that Snoke has used as a battering ram because any force-ability beats non-force-users who aren't trained in ways to deal with it, essentially. Against anyone with even the slimmest ability to handle it, he's nothing, just a pitiful child in a wannabe Vader suit.

There is no "being trained in fighting force users" beyond being a good fighters, because they are never shown to fight differently than anybody else with the same type of weapons, just better on average.

I would have been content with Luke ambushing them from the side or rear and taking them out 1 at a time with various methods while they panicked and tried to figure out what was going on. There are many and varied ways you could do that.

i.e. Have Luke use a Force Mind Trick at the start convincing one of the gunners another walker had been compromised and he fires on them, the other walkers turn around and kill HIM, then Luke uses the Force to open a hatch and levitates a grenade into a vital point on another Walker (just like in ESB if you want the callback), then he jumps on the top of another Walker, kills the guys in the cockpit so it crashes, and as he jumps to another Walker is finally called out from the remaining couple as the target, and in trying to shoot him off they kill another couple themselves. I forget the exact count in the battle but I think that leaves only 1. THAT'S when you pull out Luke walking menacingly towards it, casually deflecting fire from the last one with either Force or Lightsaber as it frantically tries to bring him down before finally being destroyed.

Then have Kylo confront him and kill him. But not have him win the fight. Luke talks to him and then refuses to defend himself, allowing Kylo to kill him because he believes that Ben can still be redeemed.

That would have been a pretty good scene.

So, you wanted Luke to behave like a horror movie villain and then make an exception for his nephew?
I mean forcing people to kill their comrades, toying with them, making them fear him before killing them, that's the Dark Side that's what Vader would do.
Luke used his mastery of the subtler parts of the Force to make his ennemy literally stab in the wind while the Resistance flew away. He protected those he loved rather than destroying those he hates. Looks fine to me.

As I said, the first movie IMPLIED with the flashbacks and whatnot that she had actually been a young student of Luke's (or his daughter - which would be stupid but at least makes some sense) and that she'd already had some level of training that she'd forgotten/suppressed.

But now - nope. She's a nobody from nowhere with no training or even any EXPOSURE to the Force, who's Instant Expert because plot.

Ignoring the "instant expert" part, I keep hearing about people saying that TFA signalled she was trained by Luke or that her family was important somehow, and I just cannot see it. Maz Kanata directly states her roots aren't important, that's the exact opposing, where are those implications?

I don't think we have the same ideas of Luke, but I posted like a dozen pages or so in the TLJ thread about that, so I don't feel like rethreading this particular discussion right now, sorry.

Wait this isn't the TLJ thread? Sure does look like it is.

But I am happy we seem to agree about so many points. Yay for discussions on the Internet! Who said that nothing good ever came from those?


PS: You don't to apologize for being flippant - my post was written badly and could easily have been read as insulting.

I'll stop apologizing when you stop apologizing!

Yeah the whole thing about the new trilogy is it's built on the notion of the weakest possible skywalker relationships. Ben's arc is based not on his father or mother, or any siblings, but on an uncle and a grandfather he never met. One's grandparents can be important but people generally don't associate stunning grandparental revelations with major life decisions. Especially if you aren't really learning much about them, just one piece of trivia and actively refusing to delve any deeper into who they were as people.

Luke and Vader had a relationship because fathers and sons are implicitly expected to have a strong bond. He's the man who should have raised Luke, while Luke was miserable on the Lars homestead. He should have implicitly been an active example in Luke's life, and you feel that bitterness as he says Obi-Wan lied to them. You feel his weary resignation and intense sadness when he says it's too late for him in the VI, before betraying his sons trust, because he has the kind of truest a son places in their father, for the first time, and is too broken to live up to it. You feel Luke's emotion when he does turn on Vader because Vader threatens a sibling, the only relationship that can arguably stronger than a parents within a family, and a twin, which is taken as essentially being the closest relationship you can have. This is a relationship Luke just discovered he even had, and desperately doesn't want to lose.

Grandparents and Uncles have none of that because your average audience, particularly a western audience with a specific idea of a family unit as mom and dad plus 2.5 kids and maybe visiting the others occasionally, doesn't put that kind of emphasis on those relationships. Luke barely relates to Ben as family in even a nominal sense through The Last Jedi. Ben relates to Vader as some kind of weird heir to a position that was never hereditary in an organization he explicitly isn't a part of. He has no apparent interest in Anakin Skywalker's actual life or even his role in the empire. He relates to dear old grandpa because he, too, was a dude who had a black cape and fancy helmet.

Family history is important to a lot of people and it doesn't stop at parents. Vader was more than a rank in a long gone state, he was a legend, a man who terrorized a Galaxy, who shaped it, that's the legacy Kylo Ren feels he has. Kylo Ren wants to be Vader to surpass him, because he feels that, as his grandson's, as the last in the Skywalker-Solo line he is owed as much, rather than being a self-sacrificing monk. That he doesn't know Vader or Anakin on anything more than a surface level, makes that works better, because that means he can idealize Vader, he can see him without the "flaws" he sees in his actual family. You can't compete with somebody's idea of somebody else.

[Zevox]

In TFA she only mimics powers Kylo Ren used in front of her, plus how much knowledge of the force do you think she got when she was in his head?

None. Why on earth would I assume that she got any more than the movie shows her getting? It's silly enough that she's able to do it at all when until that moment she wasn't even aware that she was force-sensitive.

First, I love how casually you dismiss injury as limiters of one's skills.

When the disparity between the two combatants is as great as it should be in that fight, I feel it is wholly justified to do so.

His opponent had the same supernatural aid and has been shown to have close combat experience.

No, she didn't, because she was barely aware that she was theoretically capable of achieving that. She should not be able to compare in any way at that point to someone with the training to actually use the force effectively.

There is no "being trained in fighting force users" beyond being a good fighters, because they are never shown to fight differently than anybody else with the same type of weapons, just better on average.

There is very much so training that helps in fighting force users, in other pieces of Star Wars media. Selecting the right weapons to get around their lightsabers, setting up effective ambushes to minimize the advantage of their force-enhanced reflexes, training your mind to be difficult to read, etc.

[zimmerwald1915]

(Wait how do you say botht when there are more than two items ?).

"All of" or "each and every one of," depending on taste.

[Mightymosy]

[...]

I am genuinely curious, did you feel the same way when Cassin shot that one informant in the back to make his escape easier?
[...]

Are you asking whether I liked Cassin or Rogue one or Cassin action figures?

Action figures: Don't really care much for, really. Have a plushie Yoda which I got as a surprise present, but that's it, I think.

I think I might put a Qu'ira Lego on my desk, though, if they sell one. Love that character, played lots of Lego as a child.....I might just do it ;-)


Cassin I hated from minute one from Rogue One, and I still dislike him enough to never want an action figure - I don't like "anti-heroes" much, and I think they're so much overdone at this point. But that is personal taste - from a movie making standpoint, I think Cassin was a pretty good character. The movie made it pretty clear that he was doing bad stuff, and he had a redemption arc. He acklowledged that what he did was bad, and he sort of redeemed himself in the end by sacrificing himself for the mission, for the rebellion.


And that's what I vastly prefer in Rogue One over TLJ: Rogue One showed that the rebels had evil people in them, but it did not water down the borders of good and evil itself.
When Rose electroshocks people fleeing for their lives (quite possibly on Leia's command - it's her ship, after all), there is no indication that we are supposed to think that this is evil. After all, she is the character who is later set up to be some sort of moral compass for Finn - and this is also why this relationship fails so big time for me.

I would have no problem if Rose - similar to Cassin - underwent a character arc where she learnt that shocking people in the name of the rebellion was in fact betrayal to the cause of the rebellion (freedom!) - but that'S not where the movie goes.
Or, alternatively, if she went the opposite way of Cassin and fell downwards into even more fanatism, so that in the end you'd recognise that the worst of the rebellion isn't at all different than the empire.

What disturbs me is that we are presented a character who does ****ty stuff and then the director expects us to swallow moral messages from that character's mouth - well, no thanks


Consider TLJ alone, for a moment: Which side are the good guys, and which side are the bad guys, and why?

What does the First Order do to deserve being called evil, and what does the Resistance do to deserve being called good?

Even the diversity thing: I think the FO is just as diverse as the resistance - I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure I saw a couple asian female officers on the Star Destroyer's bridge. Oh, and of course they have Phasma (who doesn't do much, but that's a different story).
They even have an alien leader (take that, Empire xenophobism!)! Unlike the resistance, who dispatch their one iconic alien admiral off-screen......

[Fyraltari]

None. Why on earth would I assume that she got any more than the movie shows her getting? It's silly enough that she's able to do it at all when until that moment she wasn't even aware that she was force-sensitive.

She managed to pry into is mind is why
I don't see why that should be a problemm.

When the disparity between the two combatants is as great as it should be in that fight, I feel it is wholly justified to do so.

Have you ever tried to do something when injured at the hip? I am impressed he can even stand after that.

No, she didn't, because she was barely aware that she was theoretically capable of achieving that. She should not be able to compare in any way at that point to someone with the training to actually use the force effectively.

The precognition => reflex thing was first mentionned about Anakin, a child who had no reason either to know he was Force-sensitive. Also all Force training seems to consist of his how to control or use your emotions, no-one ever said you needed training to use Force powers.

There is very much so training that helps in fighting force users, in other pieces of Star Wars media. Selecting the right weapons to get around their lightsabers, setting up effective ambushes to minimize the advantage of their force-enhanced reflexes, training your mind to be difficult to read, etc.

With the exception of the last one (who the film already established wasn't a problem anymore) none of that is training. Rey has a weapon suited to fight a ligthsaber, she is force sensitive too so the precognitions basically cancel each-other out and ambushes are a good strategy against anyone. The movies always portray the Force-wielders as fighting like everybody else and once in a blue moon remembering they can throw stuff at people and jump twice their height. You need suitable training to fight left-handed people, taller people, lighter people, etc because their blow would come at different angles/speed/whatever than you are used to but I don't see what's so special about fighting a Force Sensitive that would require special training, especially for another Force sensitive.

"All of" or "each and every one of," depending on taste.

Oh, I thought there was a word. Thank you.

Are you asking whether I liked Cassin or Rogue one or Cassin action figures?

His name is Cassian, my bad. Well I don't care for what you buy, so more Cassian in particular and RO in general.

Cassin I hated from minute one from Rogue One, and I still dislike him enough to never want an action figure - I don't like "anti-heroes" much, and I think they're so much overdone at this point. But that is personal taste - from a movie making standpoint, I think Cassin was a pretty good character. The movie made it pretty clear that he was doing bad stuff, and he had a redemption arc. He acklowledged that what he did was bad, and he sort of redeemed himself in the end by sacrificing himself for the mission, for the rebellion.

Okay, that's consistent.

And that's what I vastly prefer in Rogue One over TLJ: Rogue One showed that the rebels had evil people in them,

Evil is too strong a word, in my opinion, even Saw Guerrera is more "I wouldn't save an innocent if it meant risking the mission" than "lets bomb this civilian factory that produces the stormtroopers meals".

but it did not water down the borders of good and evil itself.
When Rose electroshocks people fleeing for their lives (quite possibly on Leia's command - it's her ship, after all), there is no indication that we are supposed to think that this is evil. After all, she is the character who is later set up to be some sort of moral compass for Finn - and this is also why this relationship fails so big time for me.
I would have no problem if Rose - similar to Cassin - underwent a character arc where she learnt that shocking people in the name of the rebellion was in fact betrayal to the cause of the rebellion (freedom!) - but that'S not where the movie goes.

Well it isn't? It's not like she kills them, and they can't just allow people to flee, that would be the end of the Resistance and if they didn't evacuate properly they wouldn't be enough pods for everyone (those things aren't monoplace).

Besides the superposition of her crying over her medaillion, indicated, at least to me, I agree it isn't spelled out, that she was hard on others because she was pissed at them abandonnning the cause her sister died for. You'll notice that as a tech, discipline isn't even her job.

Or, alternatively, if she went the opposite way of Cassin and fell downwards into even more fanatism, so that in the end you'd recognise that the worst of the rebellion isn't at all different than the empire.

Wouldn't that contradict your complaints about the Resistance not being better than the FO?
Also, yeah this kind of arc is what I had hoped they would do with Saw (I mean dude got kicked out of the Alliance for extremism, come on!), but they didn't.

Consider TLJ alone, for a moment: Which side are the good guys, and which side are the bad guys, and why?
What does the First Order do to deserve being called evil, and what does the Resistance do to deserve being called good?

The FO is the bad guys because their troops wear face-concealing helmets, they're the one actively trying to kill people, they stripped a planet of its resources (including children) and then used it as bombing practice, they paid a guy to betray his associates and they intend to torture two people to death for treason.

Also the people on Canto bight are the bad guys because they throw people in jail for parking violation, are war profiteers and practice (child) slavery and animal abuse.

The Resistance is the heroes because, errr, they oppose the FO and talk about hope a lot I guess.

Plus there's all the coding.

Even the diversity thing: I think the FO is just as diverse as the resistance - I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure I saw a couple asian female officers on the Star Destroyer's bridge.

Really where? I was actually a bit dissapointed by the lack of female villains in this.
She is the only visible female FO I can find and I absolutely don't remeber her.

Oh, and of course they have Phasma (who doesn't do much, but that's a different story).
They even have an alien leader (take that, Empire xenophobism!)! Unlike the resistance, who dispatch their one iconic alien admiral off-screen......

Well the aline leader is dead, so their number of alien by the end is zero. aLso considering how powerful the guy is I don't think any of the First Order founders had a choice when he rolled around.
Opposite to that the Resistance has numerous several alien members three of which make it to the end (on about a dozen people).

[Zevox]

She managed to pry into is mind is why
I don't see why that should be a problemm.

Because the movie gives no indication that what you're arguing for happened and what it already shows happening is a stretch to begin with. The whole thing is inherently problematic even without Rey somehow acquiring knowledge of how to use force powers from his mind.

Have you ever tried to do something when injured at the hip? I am impressed he can even stand after that.

No, but nor have I ever been able to call upon a supernatural power that can enhance my strength and endurance, speed the healing of wounds, or provide precognitive guidance to my movements. The latter difference between Kylo and Rey there strikes me as rather more important than the former.

The precognition => reflex thing was first mentionned about Anakin, a child who had no reason either to know he was Force-sensitive. Also all Force training seems to consist of his how to control or use your emotions, no-one ever said you needed training to use Force powers.

Except for, you know, the entire original trilogy depiction of Luke learning to use the force. That showed from the outset that it's not something you can just do without any clue what you're doing, it takes time, effort, and ideally a teacher that knows how.

With the exception of the last one (who the film already established wasn't a problem anymore) none of that is training. Rey has a weapon suited to fight a ligthsaber, she is force sensitive too so the precognitions basically cancel each-other out and ambushes are a good strategy against anyone. The movies always portray the Force-wielders as fighting like everybody else and once in a blue moon remembering they can throw stuff at people and jump twice their height. You need suitable training to fight left-handed people, taller people, lighter people, etc because their blow would come at different angles/speed/whatever than you are used to but I don't see what's so special about fighting a Force Sensitive that would require special training, especially for another Force sensitive.

They are things that a non-force-user would be trained to do if they want to take down a force user. My whole point there was about the notion that Kylo only succeeds because he doesn't face people who can deal with his advantages, since that is what the comment you were responding to was about (the "Snoke uses him because any force-powers beat anyone without them who isn't trained to deal with someone who has them" one). It had nothing to do with Rey.

[Mightymosy]

[...]


Okay, that's consistent.

Thank you. I always try to be consistent - or at least point out when an opinion is expressing personal taste and thus subjective.

Evil is too strong a word, in my opinion, even Saw Guerrera is more "I wouldn't save an innocent if it meant risking the mission" than "lets bomb this civilian factory that produces the stormtroopers meals".

I think what Cassian did in the beginning was evil.

Saw Guerrera was a camoe character who originated from other stories, right? Because I can't comment much on him, then, because I haven't read/saw them.

Well it isn't? It's not like she kills them, and they can't just allow people to flee, that would be the end of the Resistance and if they didn't evacuate properly they wouldn't be enough pods for everyone (those things aren't monoplace).

Do you think the Raddus is like the Titanic, in not having enough pods for everyone?
Because that would mean that the resistance works with leaders who:
- keep critical information from their soliders when these fear for their lives
- don't manage to bring enough fuel
- don't have enough lifeboats for everybody
- electroshock deserteurs.
The resistance stinks more and more for me, if you ask me.

Also the "that would be the end of the resistance" sounds like "mission is more important than people". If that's what you meant, yeah, I oppose that, principally (even though heroes may decide to die for the cause, as an exception). Leaders requiring people to stay and die, no matter what? Sounds like the Empire to me.

Besides the superposition of her crying over her medaillion, indicated, at least to me, I agree it isn't spelled out, that she was hard on others because she was pissed at them abandonnning the cause her sister died for. You'll notice that as a tech, discipline isn't even her job.

I think the story arc had much potential if they actually had gone that way. Rose electroshocking deserteurs because of what happened to her sister would be interesting. But then the movie should have worked that arc out.
But it seems that the higher-ups (Leia?) ordered it and this is why I have troubles with it.

If Rose did it on her own, and then it was up for ethical discussion between the characters, that might have been interesting.

Wouldn't that contradict your complaints about the Resistance not being better than the FO?
Also, yeah this kind of arc is what I had hoped they would do with Saw (I mean dude got kicked out of the Alliance for extremism, come on!), but they didn't.

I prefer Star Wars when it is a simple fairytale with clear black/white moral.

That being said, Rogue One is my second favourite of them all, even though it has a lot of grey moral in there.

The important point for me is that Rogue One may have evil rebels, but they are clearly depicted as evil. It does not try to sell me evil behavior is good behavior. It does not try to sell me the idea that in actuality both sides are equally evil, or even worse, that good and evil are just nonsense concepts to believe in.

I don't need all rebels to be good and all empire people to be bad.
For example,

Spoiler: Solo SPOILER!

Show

I liked how the lower empire officials were depicted in Solo: the lady who Han and Qui'ra bribed, and the guy Han signed up for the empire at: they were just humans. Not particularily great, but not particularily evil either. Just looking out for themselves.

Or, alternatively, I can imagine a pretty cool Episode 7 through 9 that shows how the power vacuum after the empire collapses causes all sort of chaos on worlds where the empire acutally had brought order.
Think the Roman Empire of our world, for example. There is no doubt they were evil invaders from the point of view of the tribes that were overrun by its army.
But that doesn't mean every ancient Roman was evil.

I think you can make interesting stories about good and evil even in Star Wars, but you have to make them in a good way, a way that still leaves the ideas of good and evil intact.

If people want to explore "alternative concepts" of these ethics, I wish they chose different movies to do so, not Episode 8 of an ongoing saga...

The FO is the bad guys because their troops wear face-concealing helmets, they're the one actively trying to kill people, they stripped a planet of its resources (including children) and then used it as bombing practice, they paid a guy to betray his associates and they intend to torture two people to death for treason.

Face.concealing helmets are a fine visual clue, but to me not automaticall evil people.

Which planet do you mean?

I think the rebels would just as much pay a FO soldier to betray the FO if they found one who is willing. Don't know why that is so evil.

Killing people: The movie starts with the resistance killing everyone on a dreadnaught starship. At this point it is a war between two sides - only the context of TFA tells us that one side is supposed to be in the right, and the other in the wrong - or am I missing something?

Torturing people: Well, Rose is electroshocking Finn (and others before him, no?), so torture is on the menu, appearantly.

If deserting gets you electoshocked, I don't want to know that actual betrayal will get you.
Keep in mind Phasma is ordering Finn to be tortured and killed - an enemy she knows has caused the deaths of thousands of "her" people.
We'd need an example of how the resistance treats a captive of that importance, to compare.

I mean we can all imagine the FO being way worse than the resistance, but in my opinion that is mostly because of TFA, and TLJ only does a little to support it.

Maybe I am a bit underselling the FO's evilness in TLJ at this point (especially its leaders are way more evil than the ones in the resistance) - I'll admit. It's just that that scene really stirred my stomach.

Also the people on Canto bight are the bad guys because they throw people in jail for parking violation, are war profiteers and practice (child) slavery and animal abuse.

The Resistance is the heroes because, errr, they oppose the FO and talk about hope a lot I guess.

Plus there's all the coding.

Canto Blight: Alright, didn't think of these. I was about comparing FO to the resistance. The Canto Blight people are clearly the stereotypical "dark dark grey capitalist" type of evil.

Really where? I was actually a bit dissapointed by the lack of female villains in this.
She is the only visible female FO I can find and I absolutely don't remeber her.

Of course they could do better.

But most of them wear faece-concealing helmets, right?
We have Phasma, indicating that females may be under the masks.
And we have that lady you linked to, showing that females are part of the team, even on the command bridge.
That means to me that there might just be as many females there as in the resistance....

Well the aline leader is dead, so their number of alien by the end is zero. aLso considering how powerful the guy is I don't think any of the First Order founders had a choice when he rolled around.
Opposite to that the Resistance has numerous several alien members three of which make it to the end (on about a dozen people).

Well, both have had 1 alien leader and now 0 alien leaders - but the one in the FO got to speak a sentence or two.
You're right that they don't have many alien foot soldiers, though. Which is curious. Why is Snoke the only Alien?
Unfortunately, we may never get to know, quite possibly because we, unlike JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson, cared to ask that question to ourselves.

[Fyraltari]

Because the movie gives no indication that what you're arguing for happened and what it already shows happening is a stretch to begin with.

It shows Rey getting information from his mind. What you wanted a list?

No, but nor have I ever been able to call upon a supernatural power that can enhance my strength and endurance, speed the healing of wounds, or provide precognitive guidance to my movements. The latter difference between Kylo and Rey there strikes me as rather more important than the former.

Rey has the same ability. Indeed she is largely dominated until she calls consciously to the Force.

The whole thing is inherently problematic even without Rey somehow acquiring knowledge of how to use force powers from his mind.

Except for, you know, the entire original trilogy depiction of Luke learning to use the force. That showed from the outset that it's not something you can just do without any clue what you're doing, it takes time, effort, and ideally a teacher that knows how.

No. What the OT establishes is that the only thing holding him back is hiw own beliefs in the impossibility of what he his asked to do, what with Obi-Wan telling him to let go, Yoda explicitly telling him this is why he fails and that he must unlearn what he had learned.

It is never shown that there is a trick to use the Force beyond "trust your feelings and focus" even the gestures they do seem mostly for the benefit of the audience.

If using the Force required some kind of course:
1) Qui-Gon wouldn't have brought up Anakin's precognition in a way that suggests it is typical of future Jedi (ie without needing tosee it in action)
2) All the Force users would need to be (former) memberes of the Jedi Order or an order historically linked to it (like the Sith), this is not the case.

They are things that a non-force-user would be trained to do if they want to take down a force user. My whole point there was about the notion that Kylo only succeeds because he doesn't face people who can deal with his advantages, since that is what the comment you were responding to was about (the "Snoke uses him because any force-powers beat anyone without them who isn't trained to deal with someone who has them" one). It had nothing to do with Rey.

THen that's not true either. Kylo Ren destroyed the New Jedi Order remember?

[Fyraltari]

Thank you. I always try to be consistent - or at least point out when an opinion is expressing personal taste and thus subjective.

That's better than most people on the internet.

I think what Cassian did in the beginning was evil.

That doesn't make Cassian himself evil. (Not that I believe real people can be called "evil" or "good" but that'a discussion for another place and Cassian isn't real anyway).

Saw Guerrera was a camoe character who originated from other stories, right? Because I can't comment much on him, then, because I haven't read/saw them.

Apprently his inclusion in the movie happened like so:
"We need a new character for this part, a rebel who's too extreme for the Alliance.
-We've got one character like that already, from The Clone Wars.
-Let's use him then."

Do you think the Raddus is like the Titanic, in not having enough pods for everyone?

No, I think those pods are not single-seaters (my apologies, I thought monoplace was an english word too). If they can board, say ten people, Finn leaving in one would've taken nine potential lives with him. And the three people Rose tazered between 7 and 27. And that's if they are ten-seaters and no fifty-seaters.

Because that would mean that the resistance works with leaders who:
- keep critical information from their soliders when these fear for their lives

Standard operationnal behaiour. A soldier fearing for his life is a soldier doing is job. But they should have let it known there was a plan if not what plan, at least to the officers.

- don't manage to bring enough fuel

NOt enough fuel for what? They can't have infinite fuel , they're bound to run out at some point.

electroshock deserteurs.
The resistance stinks more and more for me, if you ask me.

Would you rather they shoot them or use lassos?

Also the "that would be the end of the resistance" sounds like "mission is more important than people". If that's what you meant, yeah, I oppose that, principally (even though heroes may decide to die for the cause, as an exception). Leaders requiring people to stay and die, no matter what? Sounds like the Empire to me.

It was supposed to mean "...and fight another day". Which they can't do if everybody goes in a different direction.

I think the story arc had much potential if they actually had gone that way. Rose electroshocking deserteurs because of what happened to her sister would be interesting. But then the movie should have worked that arc out.

If Rose did it on her own, and then it was up for ethical discussion between the characters, that might have been interesting.

Yeah overall, Rose's charcater arc was nonexistant.

But it seems that the higher-ups (Leia?) ordered it and this is why I have troubles with it.

Frankly considering they aren't shot on the spot for deserting in the middle of a military operation, that's pretty merciful, if you ask me.

I prefer Star Wars when it is a simple fairytale with clear black/white moral.

Stay out of the Expanded Universe then (which apart from the Anthology films you seem to already be doing)

That being said, Rogue One is my second favourite of them all, even though it has a lot of grey moral in there.

The important point for me is that Rogue One may have evil rebels, but they are clearly depicted as evil. It does not try to sell me evil behavior is good behavior. It does not try to sell me the idea that in actuality both sides are equally evil, or even worse, that good and evil are just nonsense concepts to believe in.

Neither does TLJ, even though it deconstructs the fairy-tale elements of Star Wars.
I don't need all rebels to be good and all empire people to be bad.

For example,

Spoiler: Solo SPOILER!

Show

I liked how the lower empire officials were depicted in Solo: the lady who Han and Qui'ra bribed, and the guy Han signed up for the empire at: they were just humans. Not particularily great, but not particularily evil either. Just looking out for themselves.

Anyone who's gone through 16 pages of a (theoritically) Solo thread without seeing it doesn't cre about spoilers, especially not minor ones like these.
On that note, I find Captain Needa of ESB almost heroic.

Or, alternatively, I can imagine a pretty cool Episode 7 through 9 that shows how the power vacuum after the empire collapses causes all sort of chaos on worlds where the empire acutally had brought order.

I think there's some of that in the Aftermath books but I gave up after the first one so I don't know.

Think the Roman Empire of our world, for example. There is no doubt they were evil invaders from the point of view of the tribes that were overrun by its army.

Arguable.

But that doesn't mean every ancient Roman was evil.

[Inserts logorrhea on how nonsensical it is to call real people, especially historic ones evil here]

I think you can make interesting stories about good and evil even in Star Wars, but you have to make them in a good way, a way that still leaves the ideas of good and evil intact.

Are you talking about D.J. because his talk of how "it's all a machine, don't join" is treated by the movie as him being villainous. Yes it not as simple as Finn thought and the "good guys" sometimes have to compromise a bit on their principles but they have principles and will follow them through as opposed to the First Order and D.J.

If people want to explore "alternative concepts" of these ethics, I wish they chose different movies to do so, not Episode 8 of an ongoing saga...

Touché.

Face.concealing helmets are a fine visual clue, but to me not automaticall evil people.

First you'd be surprised what people do under the veil of aninomity.
Second, it's a way to erase individuality, to dehumanize. Uniforms are already partially there, but having a visible face goes a long way thwarting that. That's why Finn taking off his helmet was big deal in the Force Awakens trailers and in the movie itself.

Also since they call him by his matricule. Giving people matricules instead of names as part of a dehumanization process.

Which planet do you mean?

The Ticos'. That's Rose's backstory, she talks about it on Canto Bight.

I think the rebels would just as much pay a FO soldier to betray the FO if they found one who is willing. Don't know why that is so evil.

Touché. Though it looks like D.J. volunteered that info so more points for D.J. being evil?

Killing people: The movie starts with the resistance killing everyone on a dreadnaught starship. At this point it is a war between two sides - only the context of TFA tells us that one side is supposed to be in the right, and the other in the wrong - or am I missing something?

The opening scrolls?
Also unless those canons had people in them (possible) The first people getting killed are on the base (assuming there are still people there I'm not sure) not on the dreadnought.
But really one group of people is chasing the other all gun blazing while the other is shooting at pursuers. That's not equivalent. Also when the First Order infights, it kills, when the Resistance infights, it stuns.

Torturing people: Well, Rose is electroshocking Finn (and others before him, no?), so torture is on the menu, appearantly.

That's not torture. The point is to subdue without (lasting) harm, the point of turture is cause pain, you wouldn't consider a punch to the face torture would you?

If deserting gets you electoshocked, I don't want to know that actual betrayal will get you.

I'm gonna guess a firing squad?

Keep in mind Phasma is ordering Finn to be tortured and killed - an enemy she knows has caused the deaths of thousands of "her" people.

Spoiler: Deleted scene showing how much Phasma cares for "her" people

Show

We'd need an example of how the resistance treats a captive of that importance, to compare.

I really don't think that's necessary.

I mean we can all imagine the FO being way worse than the resistance, but in my opinion that is mostly because of TFA, and TLJ only does a little to support it.

Maybe I am a bit underselling the FO's evilness in TLJ at this point (especially its leaders are way more evil than the ones in the resistance) - I'll admit.

Yeah I think you are.

It's just that that scene really stirred my stomach.

Ah so you were shoc... [BAM]

Of course they could do better.

But most of them wear faece-concealing helmets, right?
We have Phasma, indicating that females may be under the masks.
And we have that lady you linked to, showing that females are part of the team, even on the command bridge.
That means to me that there might just be as many females there as in the resistance....

Those wearing helmets don't have an identity, soooo.
Besides when it comes to representation, it's not what might be that's important, it's what is. But Disney canon portrays the Empire as non-sexist and non-homophobic so I expect the same is true of the FO. The movies do a poor job of showing that though. Couldn't captain Canidy (the lettkiller's captain) have been a woman for example?

Well, both have had 1 alien leader and now 0 alien leaders - but the one in the FO got to speak a sentence or two.

Having your voice actor alive helps in that domain.

You're right that they don't have many alien foot soldiers, though. Which is curious. Why is Snoke the only Alien?
Unfortunately, we may never get to know, quite possibly because we, unlike JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson, cared to ask that question to ourselves.

The First Order is supposed to be Even WorseTM than the Empire (who had an alien Grand Vizier) on that front. SO I am pretty sure Snoke strong-armed his way into the position. So that makes the FO hypocrites. Seems fitting.
ANnways you shuld not ask for consitency in prejudice, because there never is (kind of hard to be consistent about a belief that's nonsensical). Every group that had a communautarist agenda (especially when it rised to national power) made "exceptions" for certain people too usefu (or too well connected) to give up on, often to the point of having "undesirables" as high-ranking members.

Because when it comes to these kind of people, their principles (even the worst one) are more a matter of propaganda than policies. And that's all I will say on the subject.

On that note, the Canto Bight arms dealers didn't look very human to me either and that apprently doesn't stop their business.

[Peelee]

a (theoritically) Solo thread

Ok, I laughed. I think it's done pretty well for a Star Wars thread. Now, to not talk about Solo!

What the hell Canto Bight? "Only one business in the galaxy gets you this rich." Ok then, where the hell did the First Order get their money from to pay them? The FO exists in a vacuum, and how they got to be where they are is infinitely more interesting than the schlock they're putting out as the Sequel Trilogy.

[Zevox]

It shows Rey getting information from his mind. What you wanted a list?

If you want me to believe that she got any specific information from him, it absolutely needs to be mentioned, yes. I'm not going to just assume that she got his whole life story and everything he's ever learned - especially when it's already stretching credulity that she could not only resist his mind-reading but do it right back to him when she literally didn't know she was force-sensitive at all until that moment.

Rey has the same ability.

She has never so much as held a lightsaber before and has barely learned that she's force-sensitive. She should under no circumstances be able to compare to a trained force-user.

No. What the OT establishes is that the only thing holding him back is hiw own beliefs in the impossibility of what he his asked to do, what with Obi-Wan telling him to let go, Yoda explicitly telling him this is why he fails and that he must unlearn what he had learned.

It is never shown that there is a trick to use the Force beyond "trust your feelings and focus" even the gestures they do seem mostly for the benefit of the audience.

If that was all there was to it, it wouldn't take so long for for force-users to learn. Any cocksure kid with force sensitivity would be a match for a Jedi Master or Sith Lord. Learning not to be held back by your own beliefs and senses may have been the particular part that Luke needed most, but that doesn't mean that's all there is to it.

If using the Force required some kind of course:
1) Qui-Gon wouldn't have brought up Anakin's precognition in a way that suggests it is typical of future Jedi (ie without needing tosee it in action)
2) All the Force users would need to be (former) memberes of the Jedi Order or an order historically linked to it (like the Sith), this is not the case.

I don't deny that being self-taught is a possibility for force users. But you're not going to teach yourself enough skill at using the force less than a day after learning you can do it to overcome someone with years of training - that's an absurdity.

THen that's not true either. Kylo Ren destroyed the New Jedi Order remember?

Which is precisely what makes his failure against Rey such a huge storytelling failure. They literally set him up as being skilled enough to defeat other trained force-users, and then showed him getting beaten by someone with no idea what she was doing. That's a contradiction within the narrative itself - telling us one thing, and showing another.

That's no small part of why that moment is the biggest thing that I have a problem with in TFA, and why TLJ continuing to show Kylo being such an incompetent failure shaped my opinion of him to be so low.

[Fyraltari]

If you want me to believe that she got any specific information from him, it absolutely needs to be mentioned, yes. I'm not going to just assume that she got his whole life story and everything he's ever learned - especially when it's already stretching credulity that she could not only resist his mind-reading but do it right back to him when she literally didn't know she was force-sensitive at all until that moment.


She has never so much as held a lightsaber before and has barely learned that she's force-sensitive. She should under no circumstances be able to compare to a trained force-user.


If that was all there was to it, it wouldn't take so long for for force-users to learn. Any cocksure kid with force sensitivity would be a match for a Jedi Master or Sith Lord. Learning not to be held back by your own beliefs and senses may have been the particular part that Luke needed most, but that doesn't mean that's all there is to it.



I don't deny that being self-taught is a possibility for force users. But you're not going to teach yourself enough skill at using the force less than a day after learning you can do it to overcome someone with years of training - that's an absurdity.


Which is precisely what makes his failure against Rey such a huge storytelling failure. They literally set him up as being skilled enough to defeat other trained force-users, and then showed him getting beaten by someone with no idea what she was doing. That's a contradiction within the narrative itself - telling us one thing, and showing another.

So your arguments that using the Force has to be learnt is that it has to? I'm not exactly convinced.
Becoming a Jedi Knight and Then Master is not about being good at using the Force, it's about controlling youyr emotions until other Jedi are sure enough that you won't fall to the Dark Side to first let you do your own thing without a Master and second give you kids to mentor.
Becoming a Sith Master is about proving you are a better bastard than your master, again nothing to do with how trained you are.

"Any cocksure kid with force sensitivity would be a match for a [...] Sith Lord"
As demonstrated by Luke beating Vader, yeah.

Here are two things that are relevant to Force-Wielders duelling
How powerful they are in the Force and
How good fighters they are

Not how trained they are in the Force.

[Peelee]

Becoming a Jedi Knight and Then Master is not about being good at using the Force, it's about controlling youyr emotions until other Jedi are sure enough that you won't fall to the Dark Side to first let you do your own thing without a Master and second give you kids to mentor.

This alone should clue people in to the idea that training is, if not required, then at the very least has a ridiculously influential effect on a persons ability to use the Force. Because people are, in general, emotional. There are a lot of terrible people out there, and the lack of untrained Force-powered mini-despots running around should be pretty notable evidence heavily in favor of "you need training to wield this power effectively."

"Any cocksure kid with force sensitivity would be a match for a [...] Sith Lord"
As demonstrated by Luke beating Vader, yeah.

Not in the first movie. Not in the second movie. The third movie, sure, after he had two Jedi help him out and lost his entire cocksure attitude.

So not demonstrated by Luke at all, really.

[Fyraltari]

This alone should clue people in to the idea that training is, if not required, then at the very least has a ridiculously influential effect on a persons ability to use the Force. Because people are, in general, emotional. There are a lot of terrible people out there, and the lack of untrained Force-powered mini-despots running around should be pretty notable evidence heavily in favor of "you need training to wield this power effectively."

1) I'm pretty sure that "emotions = Dark Side" is something the Jedi arew rong about, (and that is supported by the movies, see everytime someone has a strong emotionnal response to something and doesn't fall to the Dark µSide and Vader's entire character).
Second the most powerful people would get recruited by the Orders or stoned to death as witches as children (this is kind of Desann's backstory in Jedi Outcast).
The others would probably be a lot more like Chirrut (or maybe Maz Kanata) than Vader or Luke, they can do stuff that others can't but it's not enough to get them to conquer stuff.

Not in the first movie. Not in the second movie. The third movie, sure, after he had two Jedi help him out and lost his entire cocksure attitude.

So not demonstrated by Luke at all, really.

He doesn't fight Vader in the first movie (unless you count staying out of Vader's sight in the trench a fight) and receives no additional training between the second and the third. So maybe the "cocksure" part was a problem but it's not training that helped him get rid of it, it's taking a beating. So no I still don't see "training is important to use the Force".

[Zevox]

So your arguments that using the Force has to be learnt is that it has to? I'm not exactly convinced.

And yours is equally unconvincing to me. It's nonsense on its face that anyone with no experience with it could use the force as well as someone with training and experience, just as it would be for literally anything else. Plus, if training weren't necessary, training of Jedi (and Sith) wouldn't be such a prominent feature in everything that they appear in, and their entire Orders wouldn't be structured around it.

"Any cocksure kid with force sensitivity would be a match for a [...] Sith Lord"
As demonstrated by Luke beating Vader, yeah.

Right, after three films during which he was tutored by two different Jedi Masters, and fought Vader once before and lost soundly at that point. Not helping your case.

[Fyraltari]

And yours is equally unconvincing to me. It's nonsense on its face that anyone with no experience with it could use the force as well as someone with training and experience, just as it would be for literally anything else. Plus, if training weren't necessary, training of Jedi (and Sith) wouldn't be such a prominent feature in everything that they appear in, and their entire Orders wouldn't be structured around it.

THe Force is magic (or god depending on how you look at it). It's not a tool and it is not something that where you have to judge by size, where your eyes won't deceive you and where you have to use you previous knowledge of the world (which is what you are doing with your "litterally anything else"). You can't apply conventionnal, empiric, materialistic logic to something that is supernatural, spiritual, miraculous in nature. That is what the entire OT is saying about it.

Again, Jedi/SIth training is not about how to use the Force, they are about how to live with it. How to avoid/embrace the Dark/Light Side and all that.

Right, after three films during which he was tutored by two different Jedi Masters, and fought Vader once before and lost soundly at that point. Not helping your case.

Said tutoring consisted entirely in "trust your feelings", "focus on the present" and pushups. We are never shown any mantra, special gestures, or anything needed to tap into the Force. Nor are we ever shown lightsaber lesson.

Are you saying that getting beat is supposed to have somehow make him better understand the intricacies of using the Force?

[Peelee]

1) I'm pretty sure that "emotions = Dark Side" is something the Jedi arew rong about, (and that is supported by the movies, see everytime someone has a strong emotionnal response to something and doesn't fall to the Dark µSide and Vader's entire character).
Second the most powerful people would get recruited by the Orders

Not saying that Emotions = Dark Side, but both sides readily admit that emotions = easy power accessibility. And the Sith were thought to be extinct for a thousand years will only ever had two members at once, while the Jedi wanted to reject a ten-year-old for being too old. So, again, where are all the Force-Sensitive people who were not caught up by the Jedi? Why was Anakin, Space Jesus, not able to do anything that react slightly faster for podracing? In literally billions of planets, for a thousand years of only one game in town and exclusionary as hell at that, nobody slips through the rather large cracks?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. I'll still watch em and grudgingly like em in the end and buy their stuff and dress up as em...

I think I lost my point somewhere at the end there.

[Zevox]

Yeah, we're very much going in circles at this point Fyraltari. It's pretty obvious that neither one of us thinks that the other's argument holds any water, and that's not changing. We'll just have to agree to disagree. Which is fine, I've never really expected to convince anyone else in an internet argument. Hopefully I've at least managed to make clear where I'm coming from on the matter.

[Devonix]

Not saying that Emotions = Dark Side, but both sides readily admit that emotions = easy power accessibility. And the Sith were thought to be extinct for a thousand years will only ever had two members at once, while the Jedi wanted to reject a ten-year-old for being too old. So, again, where are all the Force-Sensitive people who were not caught up by the Jedi? Why was Anakin, Space Jesus, not able to do anything that react slightly faster for podracing? In literally billions of planets, for a thousand years of only one game in town and exclusionary as hell at that, nobody slips through the rather large cracks?

Sorry, I'm not buying it. I'll still watch em and grudgingly like em in the end and buy their stuff and dress up as em...

I think I lost my point somewhere at the end there.

Well it's canon that there are many other force religions out there other than the Jedi and Sith. The Jedi is just the largest.

And there are lots of non Jedi trained force sensitives out there. The Jedi just snatch up the ones that get brought to their attention. Some people go their entire lives using the force without knowing it. Making themselves better pilots, or sometimes just really good at cards.

[Peelee]

Well it's canon that there are many other force religions out there other than the Jedi and Sith. The Jedi is just the largest.

And there are lots of non Jedi trained force sensitives out there. The Jedi just snatch up the ones that get brought to their attention. Some people go their entire lives using the force without knowing it. Making themselves better pilots, or sometimes just really good at cards.

Do the other Force religions canonically have their practitioners use the Force without training? Other Force sensitives that don't know they use it, do they ever use the Force to telekinetically move things without them or anyone else noticing it? Solo thinks it's bunk. Even Rey has to be told it's real. There are few indications that those strong in the Force can manage more than slight, subtle effects without help.

[Devonix]

Do the other Force religions canonically have their practitioners use the Force without training? Other Force sensitives that don't know they use it, do they ever use the Force to telekinetically move things without them or anyone else noticing it? Solo thinks it's bunk. Even Rey has to be told it's real. There are few indications that those strong in the Force can manage more than slight, subtle effects without help.

Things like the Mind trick. and other forms of mental manipulation are seen as the most common things people do untrained. A lot of the force sensitives being taken in by the jedi or other force religions get found because of doing the big things.

As for training. The other force religions train, but it's a completely different kind of training.

[Peelee]

Things like the Mind trick. and other forms of mental manipulation are seen as the most common things people do untrained. A lot of the force sensitives being taken in by the jedi or other force religions get found because of doing the big things.

As for training. The other force religions train, but it's a completely different kind of training.

Mind trick/mental manipulation on the level of "convince someone to my position," or on the level of "convince an enemy soldier that has me captive to release me and give me his weapon?" Again, slight subtle things I have no problem with.

As for training, hey, different strokes for different folks. But they still train. No Force religion, to the best of my knowledge, has untrained practitioners who just perform similar feats to the trained ones. Nor should they; Star Wars is a story. A person who can just manifest powers once they say to themself "oh well let me try this then" isn't a compelling character, they're a plot device.*

*Unless, of course, the point of the story is the person learning to do that, like The Matrix. Dunno if that's the best example, just the first one I could think of. Anyway, the second one sucked so bad I never saw the third, which probably goes to say something about continuing a story like that.

[Wardog]

Do you think the Raddus is like the Titanic, in not having enough pods for everyone?
Because that would mean that the resistance works with leaders who:
- keep critical information from their soliders when these fear for their lives
- don't manage to bring enough fuel
- don't have enough lifeboats for everybody
- electroshock deserteurs.
The resistance stinks more and more for me, if you ask me.

Or they were evacuating at short notice and under heavy attack, and so may have had to make do with loading more people or fewer lifepods than the ship was designed for.

Also the "that would be the end of the resistance" sounds like "mission is more important than people". If that's what you meant, yeah, I oppose that, principally (even though heroes may decide to die for the cause, as an exception). Leaders requiring people to stay and die, no matter what? Sounds like the Empire to me.

That sounds like every military ever. The original trilogy Rebellion sent people on certain-death missions in order to ensure the survival of the Rebellion. The attack on the first Death Star. The infantry with a little light artillery holding the line against AT-ATs while the rest of the Rebellion evacuated. Encouraging stone-age teddy bears to attack a legion of the Emperor's best troops.

Besides, afaik everyone in the Resistance is a volunteer. If they weren't prepared to stand by their comrades and risk death for the cause, they should have quit before the fighting actually started.

[Mightymosy]

Or they were evacuating at short notice and under heavy attack, and so may have had to make do with loading more people or fewer lifepods than the ship was designed for.


That sounds like every military ever. The original trilogy Rebellion sent people on certain-death missions in order to ensure the survival of the Rebellion. The attack on the first Death Star. The infantry with a little light artillery holding the line against AT-ATs while the rest of the Rebellion evacuated. Encouraging stone-age teddy bears to attack a legion of the Emperor's best troops.

Besides, afaik everyone in the Resistance is a volunteer. If they weren't prepared to stand by their comrades and risk death for the cause, they should have quit before the fighting actually started.

Sounds like every "real life" military ever.

If I wanted that I'd watch Private Ryan, or any other movie with the premise of reflecting reality precisely.

Which i dont. It's enough seeing **** in the news.

I buy tickets for Star Wars to dive into a world where a farm boy - or scrapper girl, for that matter - can believe in the good cause and succeed. A story where the good guys are the good guys, and don't electroshock deserteurs. At the very least, people who do evil things are portrayed that way (Cassian in R1 is a good example).

I wonder: are the people who defend Rey being proficient with the force on herself, without training, the same who think deserteurs need to be shocked (or worse), because we desperately need realism?

[Daimbert]

He doesn't fight Vader in the first movie (unless you count staying out of Vader's sight in the trench a fight) and receives no additional training between the second and the third. So maybe the "cocksure" part was a problem but it's not training that helped him get rid of it, it's taking a beating. So no I still don't see "training is important to use the Force".

In the first movie, Obi-Wan trains him specifically in Force and lightsaber use, with the remote. In the second, he spends a lot of time learning to use the Force to do specific things, mostly in the context of learning how to use it in general (like the handstand/rock-lifting scene). It is strongly implied that the reason he fails to defeat Vader is because he didn't complete his training. And he clearly does extra study and training in between the second and the third because he constructs his own lightsaber, and Vader comments that doing so indicates that Luke has completed his training. All of the indications from the OT are that training is pretty important to being able to use the Force effectively, and this is even true of the PT, or else there wouldn't have been so much concern to get Anakin trained, and Yoda wouldn't have thought that training Anakin was more dangerous than NOT training him.

What specific training is important is a bit vague, but it seems clear that to be an effective Force User you need to be trained. Unless you're Rey.

[Mightymosy]

I myself also think that a force user needs training.

But there is no doubt that a good case can be made that simply believing in "I CAN DO IT" can be the key to achieve almost everything.

Consider Luke's shot in the trench run, and Yoda's famous "there is no try".
Both can easily be read as "the belief is what counts - not hours of trying to lift rocks"

The problem with Rey is not so much that it is logically impossible for her to be so strong with the force.
The problem is that it makes for a poor narrative. She lacks the hero arc we expect from such a story. She lacks obstacles to overcome, and a meaningful goal.

In TLJ it sometimes seems the thing she is most worried about is who her parents are...which feels rather boring considering the galaxy is in flames right now, and people are about to die in one of the the most boring chase scenes.

Also, didnt she wave her parents goodbye in TFA when they dropped her ? So she should know their names? Or am I mixing this up right now?

[Peelee]

Bytheway, about this whole training thing...

A NEW HOPE

You must learn the ways of the Force if you're to come with me to Alderaan.

I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.

When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me.

Ready, are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi.

Control, control, you must learn control!

Luke! You must complete the training.

Stopped they must be. On this all depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor.

You have only begun to discover your power. Join me and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy.

RETURN OF THE JEDI

But I need your help. I've come back to complete the training.

Unfortunate that you rushed to face him... that incomplete was your training.

When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.

THE PHANTOM MENACE

You have been well trained my young apprentice. They will be no match for you.

Anakin, training to be a Jedi will not be an easy challenge.

I don't know... but he was well trained in the Jedi arts.

He will not be trained.

He is the chosen one. He will bring balance. Train him.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

Master Windu, how pleasant of you to join us. You're just in time for the moment of truth. I would think these two new boys of yours could use a little more training.

REVENGE OF THE SITH

I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku

Is it possible to learn this power?

He knows the ways of the Force.

The movies really make it sound like it's difficult to learn how to reliably use and control the Force, and the techniques and powers must be learned.

[Fyraltari]

Not saying that Emotions = Dark Side, but both sides readily admit that emotions = easy power accessibility. And the Sith were thought to be extinct for a thousand years will only ever had two members at once, while the Jedi wanted to reject a ten-year-old for being too old. So, again, where are all the Force-Sensitive people who were not caught up by the Jedi?
Why was Anakin, Space Jesus, not able to do anything that react slightly faster for podracing? In literally billions of planets, for a thousand years of only one game in town and exclusionary as hell at that, nobody slips through the rather large cracks?

Nitpick, The Sith atttract Dark SIders like Ventress or the Inquisitors with the promise of becoming Sith Lords later on so it's more like half a dozen people.
For the others though? The Jedi rejects likely become Guardians of the Wills like Baze and Chirrut and those who actually slip below the Order's radar never realize they have untapped potential to begin with and go with their lives like Luke did with 20-years never believing they could lift rocks withtheir minds and therefore cannot.
Also the "millions of planet things" The Force has a will. People may get sensitive at least partially genetically but at the end of the end they are Force sensitive if the Force wills it so. Maybe the people in the places the Jedi don't go to are not Force sensitive because the Force arranges matters so they go where there are people it wants them to find?
That's a handwave of course but that's bound to happen whenever you have God or Fate as an active part of your story.

Yeah, we're very much going in circles at this point Fyraltari. It's pretty obvious that neither one of us thinks that the other's argument holds any water, and that's not changing. We'll just have to agree to disagree. Which is fine, I've never really expected to convince anyone else in an internet argument. Hopefully I've at least managed to make clear where I'm coming from on the matter.

Agreed. And sorry about the Grievous GIF earlier, the thing just cracks me up so I tend to use it even when the person I'm talking to is not really annoying.
And I just figured out how to use GIF on this site.

Do the other Force religions canonically have their practitioners use the Force without training? Other Force sensitives that don't know they use it, do they ever use the Force to telekinetically move things without them or anyone else noticing it? Solo thinks it's bunk. Even Rey has to be told it's real. There are few indications that those strong in the Force can manage more than slight, subtle effects without help.

Deine training. Again Jedi training looks more like "how to live" than "how to use the Force".
Though the Nightsisters' magic and Sith Sorcery sounds like they require actual rituals and stuff, maybe they're just window dressing maybe they're actually needed but those uses are not what we are discussing here and never show up in the movies anyway.

And yeah Rey has to be told it's real but she still grew up literally living inside the tales of the Rebellion and the Jedi once Han confirmed that yes it is 100% real and Kylo Ren gets in her mind and she repells him (instictively I'm guessing) she believe in it utterly unlikely Luke who still had doubts by the time he went to Bespin.

I wonder: are the people who defend Rey being proficient with the force on herself, without training, the same who think deserteurs need to be shocked (or worse), because we desperately need realism?

The Force is magic and god all rolled into one (like many real belief systems actually).
The Resistance/Alliance/Empire/First Order/Republic/Separatists are mundane. One can get a serving of realism, the other should not. Care to guess which?

In the first movie, Obi-Wan trains him specifically in Force and lightsaber use, with the remote.

He trains him to sense things through the Force. By saying "stretch out with your feelings", "let go of your conscious self" and "your eyes can deceive you". Which is to mean "trust in the Force" not instructions you would get when training into a skill that takes actual practice to master like "it's leviosa not leviosa [with a precise hand movement]".

In the second, he spends a lot of time learning to use the Force to do specific things, mostly in the context of learning how to use it in general (like the handstand/rock-lifting scene).

More of the same. Hell Yoda explictly states he fails because he doesn't believe it's possible.

It is strongly implied that the reason he fails to defeat Vader is because he didn't complete his training.

I don't see that only that the Jedi were afraid he'd fall to the Dark Side. And considering he passes a perfectly good shot to run off the fight and elects to pursue Vader rather than the friends he still thinks are captured I think their concerns are justified.

And he clearly does extra study and training in between the second and the third because he constructs his own lightsaber, and Vader comments that doing so indicates that Luke has completed his training.

NO he says his "skills are complete". And considering he didn't ask Yoda about his father in-between movies and is surprised by how bad he has aged in those six months I am pretty sure he did not receive additionnal training during that period.

All of the indications from the OT are that training is pretty important to being able to use the Force effectively, and this is even true of the PT, or else there wouldn't have been so much concern to get Anakin trained, and Yoda wouldn't have thought that training Anakin was more dangerous than NOT training him.

That's actually a good point. Then again it could be that Yoda had a premonition that Anakin was dangerous for the Order.

What specific training is important is a bit vague

NO it's pretty clearly "trust the Force/yourself", "use your feelings and instinct rather than reason and senses" and "focus on the now".

but it seems clear that to be an effective Force User you need to be trained. Unless you're Rey.

Or greatest-pilot-in-the-galaxy-at-the-age-of-nine Anakin. Or Luke.

EDIT: Peelee, I am not disputing that there are learning and training happening, just that these are about how to lift rocks and read minds rather than how to control oneself or not.