Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

[zimmerwald1915]

That's a question that Ol' Miss can help with.

So mostly government work, then?

[Fyraltari]

This is a single movie right? No 2 part milking it?

Of course not, this is Star Wars. They milk in bulk.

[Daimbert]

Daimbert, I apologize if what I wrote under this comes across as demeaning, I often let my words become harsher than they should, but your "die-hard fans" and "[grin]" get on my nerves. Also Notre-Dame de Paris is on fire right now so I'm not really in a good mood, tonight.

I'm not sure how to take this, but I think I'll take it as you re-reading what you said later and deciding that you might have been too harsh in places. In that light, I'll try to avoid being too harsh back, although it might be a bit difficult in places [grin].

I will explain the "[grin]", though. It came from when smileys first came out. I hated smileys and found them problematic, but understood the need in text to identify when your tone was humorous at times because tone doesn't come through that well. So I spelled it out, but found "[smile]" to be too formal, so translated it to "[grin]". I have had people complain about it, but in general those were people who were already mad at me, and so recognize it as the same as my problem with smileys, meaning that for me smileys were my problem, not theirs and so "[grin]" is their problem, not mine.

Spoiler

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Why wouldn't there be? A vast portion of your complaints rest almost untirely on the notion that there will be no time-skip so why make that assumption?

Not really. As I've said a number of times, if they use a timeskip like the one between TESB and RotJ, or even between ANH and TESB, then that's not really long enough for them to build up enough of a fleet to take on the FO at the level that RotJ did, which is what I think they'll probably be going for. But if they take longer, then they'll be leaving out a lot of things that we might want to see and certainly will need to know about to understand RoS. Either one is going to result in, as I said, hearing the gears grind between TLJ and RoS because of the sudden shift.

My argument -- it's not a complaint in the common sense of the word -- is that it would have been better for them to not try to resolve the entire trilogy in one movie given where TLJ left them because as far as I can see there is NO way to reasonably resolve the entire trilogy starting from that point. All of the options that you've listed I have for the most part considered both prior to this and as they came up, but feel they run into the same problem: the new movie has to change too much too fast to make it work.

That has nothing to do with a retcon.

What part of "(whether or not it really counts as a retcon)" in the part you QUOTED escaped you? Let's just refer to it this way: we will hear the gears grind when moving between TLJ and RoS when watching the entire trilogy because of how much has to shift to accommodate finishing everything in RoS. That would include simple shifts in tone, changes of expectations, and outright retcons.

("I am your father" was a retcon, for example).

Note, though, that a later movie adding things in or mentioning things to explain it doesn't eliminate it being a retcon. After all, that one was specifically explained in most cases, even explaining why Obi-Wan told him that his father was dead (although I think that that explanation works best less as Obi-Wan inventing something to excuse his lie from Luke and more as a lie that Obi-Wan told himself so that he could bear it). So even this movie explaining things or using tricks to get around it wouldn't mean it's not a retcon. But as I've already said a few times it's probably best to accept my calling it a retcon as a mistake on my part and not focus on that.

Your only points about retcons are 2 and 4 and we've been discussing that a lot.

I was going to react to you not reading what you quoted again, but did you make a mistake and mean 1 and 4 here?

Yeah, it does. She's wearing white, signifying her firm transition to the light side just like Luke's and Anakin's clothes did way back when (Anakin always wearing ddarker browns than the other Jedi and full-on black for the last film, while Luke transitionning from white to grey to black but with an inside lining of white, etc). She's calm and in control, using a reforged lightsaber: again, coming of age is done time for the heroics, and as the narration (who until then had been reinforcing the whole "you're a jedi now") mentions her fight Kylo comes in into his TIE to fight. So yeah, that's what the movie is about : the protagonists, finished their journey : Rey is a Jedi, Finn a Rebel scum and Poe a leader and it is time to take the fight to the bad guys.

1) As you pointed out, no one else switched to white when they became a Jedi, so that costume change is not going to be an obvious indication that she has done so. This is also problematic because as I pointed out one of the only interesting character points Rey has left after TLJ is her flirtation with the Dark Side, and so this interpretation would eliminate that. I also think it's Poe who also now has a white shirt in the last scene, which makes it even less reasonable that that's intended.

2) Rey in general was in command of her Force powers, so all that shows is that she learned Force abilities. The voiceover already established that, so that scene wasn't necessary.

3) Poe is in the background, which is no indication that he's any more of a leader than Wedge was, which also happens to be what his role was in TFA.

So I don't see these things as being as clearly established as you do, nor do I think them worth the prominence the teaser places on that scene (more on that in a minute ... heh, no pun intended [grin]).

And yes, one minute is ashort scene. That's what most teasers are: narration and a short scene to set the tone and flashes. Take the endgame teaser for exemple: Iron Man recording a message took most of it. Just having flashes would be weird.

A minute for one scene is half the teaser. And they had the voiceover to cover that off anyway. So this is a scene that does nothing more than show Rey doing something "cool". If you think it cool and think Rey is cool, you'll like it. Anyone else -- except for Rey haters, obviously -- will find it underwhelming. Especially since, as others have pointed out, it's kinda ridiculous and really only works as a training scene rather than the actual combat that it hints at.

I don't even. So you are not complaining about what you can guess the movie will be about from the teaser, you are complaining about how they made the teaser to represent a movie you haven't seen. What?

My comment was that based on the teaser they think that Rey is more liked by fans than she is, because most fans won't go to see the movie just to see her and see her do cool things but half the teaser focusing on that suggests that they think that that scene will most excite the audience and is what they most want to see. That's a minor mistake on their part, and anyone that chafes at Rey doing cool things in any degree will find it an ominous omen for the movie.

For me, it's a "Meh", because I don't hate Rey but don't like her either. My biggest comment on her when I talked about TLJ on my blog was that I liked her hairstyle change.

But there is nothing to adress. You said she isn't an interesting character, but you didn't give any argument for that, I'm not interested (and I don't think anyone here is) in going "Nuh-hu! -Yeah-hu) for fifty pages. If you want to make a case that she is objectively not interesting then make it, if not then accept that your opinion isn't more valid than anybody else's.

This would be a more fair criticism if people's response to it had been, in general, anything more than "Nuh-hu!". You've even quoted at least part of my actual arguments for it which are more than "Yeah-Hu". The "die-hard fan" comment was essentially my explanation that I think that only people who love Rey and for whom her being in the movie is a main draw will be excited by the Interceptor scene. You'd think that claims that there's nothing to address would have at least addressed THAT.

Again, that's weird. How long do you think is short enough? 40s? 30s? 20s?

You're thinking in terms of time, I'm thinking in terms of proportion. I think it could have been reduced to a third or a quarter of the teaser and more time spent on flashes or even longer scenes with the others. For starters. Finn and Poe could have done something other than stand around, for example.

People "see it as a negative" because it is an insult:

Again, what part of " (although, to be fair, there's enough people who use it as a negative that I probably should have stuck with my original comment that didn't mention "die-hard")" in the part you quoted escaped you? Chasing the definition of "die-hard" isn't really meaningful at this point. But to clarify, I used it in the sense of "If you're a die-hard action movie fan, this movie will appeal to you, but if you aren't then it's not a movie for you" which is a standard usage. I think a lot of the reaction is coming from people using the all-too-common context around Rey and these movies and thinking "It's another Rey-hater bashing her!" when that wasn't my intent at all.

I'm going to make a wild prediction: "people who don't like the protagonist, won't like the film".

Are you aiming at Rey-haters here? I don't hate Rey, but don't like her enough that a movie where the main appeal is her is going to make me excited to see the movie.

Ah, so do you have an objective reason to present? Because until you do, there won't be a discussion. I mean, you just say "she isn't interesting" as if it was a self-evident truth, but it isn't, so yo have to make a case before people can discuss it.

The argument is that that strong a focus on Rey with that long and drawn out scene that really just has her do cool things will only appeal to people who really just want to see Rey do cool things. The objective reason is most fans neither like -- nor hate -- Rey to that degree. At least acknowledging what the argument actually is would go a long way towards settling things, and accusing me of simply declaring it when the responses have been nothing more than that AND I've given both the "percentage of fans" argument AND an assessment of her character is, well, a bit unfair, don't you think?

"Pick them up" is weird way to phrase "rescue from the pople with the planet killing weapons"

My impression was that they were for the most part asking them to come and retrieve them from that planet, as that was the plan. There's no real indication that their allies were unable to do so or did so out of reasonable fear. They didn't want to stand up to the FO in what was believed by the Resistance to be a situation where it was reasonable for them to do so, hence their disappointment and distress when they didn't. So it seems to me to be closer to "pick them up" than "oppose the entire FO".

If TLJ wanted us to believe that they were still afraid of the system-destroying weapon, as I said it should have mentioned that explicitly. As it stands, we in the audience are left with the impression that the Resistance asked them for some minor help and they refused to give it, which makes using them to rebuild a dicey prospect.

Yeah, and at the end of ANH, there was a lot of work to do to rebuild the Rebellion. That work "miraculously" happened by the time of ESB.

TESB opening crawl:

It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.
Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.

The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space….

There was a three year timeskip, but the crawl establishes that things have not been going well for the Rebellion. That's why their fleet is outside of the galaxy in the first place. If they had to build their fleet during that time as well, then that's not very reasonable.

Again, no. The end of TLJ was hopeful, it was saying that vilains failed to destroy the heroes when they had the chance and so the Heroes will fight them next time. Just like ESB.

The end of TESB is not that hopeful. The Rebellion has suffered a devastating setback but didn't lose as much as they could have or could have been expected. And they end TESB with a fleet and the Rebellion leadership mostly intact. TLJ ends with the entirety of the Resistance able to fit in the Falcon, no other capital ships, and their big hope spot being a child playing Jedi which a) sets up hope that change will come in a generation or so and b) with the Force sensitivity seems more like it's setting up hope that the Jedi can be reborn rather than that the Resistance will win out in a short amount of time. That's no where near as hopeful as TESB and TESB wasn't all that hopeful to begin with.

Basically you seem to want a movie that, unlike any other Star Wars movie, is about the logistics of building an army and gathering allies rather than the personal journeys and mythical clash of good and evil. You are setting yourself up for disappointment.

As I said later: "You can put that in supplemental material on the argument that Star Wars movie fans are less interesting in those sorts of things, but that still leaves you needing to explain how it happened. None of that was necessary for the build-up between Star Wars and RotJ." So, no, I recognize that in general the Star Wars movies haven't actually shown that, but they could, it would be interesting, and even if they don't do that they still have to find a way to get across to the viewer what happened. And again, not just that "time passed" but the process for moving from where they are with no fleet and their leadership decimated to being in a position to challenge a power as strong as the FO is supposed to be.

And you know what ther was at the end of RotS? I'll give you a clue, it starts with "t" and rhymes with "ime skip". In all seriousness now, the Resistance managed two serious blows to the FO, their high command was halved with the survivors hating each other's guts and they have the support of no-one but themselves. That's a very different situation than where the Empire was at the end in RotS.

True, but the Resistance is all but crushed. They're no better than they were at the beginning of ANH and I think a case ca be made that they're worse off, because these battles don't really count as "victories" considering the cost and the fact that the FO likely still has a powerful fleet out there, or at least is implied to have one.

As for the timeskip here, it was much longer than the one between ANH and TESB and, more importantly, it set up an entire separate trilogy to resolve the situation. And that's what I'm saying would have worked better: use this movie to get them to the point where ANH started and use a new trilogy to resolve it.

I still really don't see what would be so unbelievable in them ahving gathered a an arlyin three years or however long.
I mean, the Rebellion only having thirty fighters and some bombers to its name is what is implied by ANH and the idea that the Rebellion had bigger ships but sent them away is never presented in the movies, so that would be some manner of retcon. Not really a retcon, but "they totally had a fleet, it was just off-screen and never brought up, the entire movie" feels retconnier than "they didn't have a fleet but this is three years later and now they do"

The ANH opening crawl:

Episode IV, A NEW HOPE It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy….

From the movie itself, it implies that they had more spaceships than those fighters and won a battle with them. Rogue One is the only thing that implies otherwise, and that is one of the problems I have with it. If you fight a battle, destroy or drive off the army, and then their reinforcements show up and annihilate your army, that's not usually considered a victory, and it's certainly not an impressive one. The only thing in ANH that works against that is the question of why the capital ships didn't participate in the Battle of Yavin, which Rogue One might have been trying to answer. However, there were no Imperial capital ships at Yavin and capital ships were useless against the Death Star, so simply sending them away is an entirely consistent and more sensible answer to that question. From just the OT, the Rebel Alliance still having some capital ships from the battle at the start of ANH is perfectly reasonable, and as I said even more in line with the fact that the Rebels haven't been doing that well since the Battle of Yavin.

He's telling him that the book aren't as important as a teacher's fallings. It isn't a binary between "the books are the most important things ever" and "the books are completely unimportant".

We agree on this: the point of the conversation is to teach Luke that the books and accumulated wisdom are not as important as Luke thinks they are, so that their loss -- which is what Luke thinks happened -- doesn't mean that it's the end of the Jedi.

Wrong. Play, the bloody video. He says "that library contains nothing that the girl Rey does not already posess" Becuase the books aren't in the library anymore, she posesses them.

I had, actually, so this is uncalled for. I admit that I somehow got the mistaken impression that Yoda HAD said "inside her", but again the entire conversation, as we agreed, is to show Luke that the books and their loss are not as important as Luke thinks they are. If his comment about what "she already possesses" is meant to refer to the books themselves, then he's flat-out lying by omission to Luke by deliberately letting him believe that it's okay that Rey no longer has access to that wisdom because she doesn't have the books. That's not good for Yoda. Thus, to be honest at all, Yoda has to be implying what the conversation is about: the books were useful, sure, but without them Rey still would have what she needed to become a Jedi, which is what convinces Luke to go out and do what he does.

The voiceover doesn't mention the books once. Luke says they've passed on all they know, and Yoda did tell him to pass on "all he knows" : strength, weakness, mastery, folly and failuer and he did. Just like Yoda and Obi-Wan passed on that to him.

It says that a thousand generations live in her now after saying that they taught her everything they know. That's what the books represented. That we know she has them is certainly going to make that the reasonable interpretation of what he's referring to. There could be other interpretations, but that one should be the obvious one.

Which is it? Is it bad to "retcon" TLJ or is it bad to acknowledge what did and did not happen in it?

I've never said that it would be bad to "retcon" TLJ. My first post notes what it looks like they're doing, but doesn't say it's bad, and I've been consistent in replying to anyone who says that they had no choice that they're right. Again, the overall point is that trying to end things in RoS will result in having to do that TOO QUICKLY to make the trilogy work. TLJ took what Abrams wanted to do off the rails, and Abrams is trying to shove things back onto it in RoS from what I can see.

So what? You were saying that the FO was too strong to be beaten, and you dismiss internal struggles because the bad guys wouldn't join the good guys? What are you trying to say here? Nobody has suggested that the Resistance would try to recruit Hux, or some such.

I pointed out the exact narrative that would actually work to end it in just one movie: a Resistance-friendly faction arises and they join together to topple presumably Ren, which allows the Resistance to do things while building up their resources extremely quickly. But they have no character that they can do that with, so the movie would have to introduce that character and then the actual internal struggle, which they won't be able to do properly without it feeling contrived. An alternative one would be the Resistance taking advantage of the struggle to overwhelm Ren, but at the end of TLJ they don't have any credible forces that could do that. Yes, yes, I know, timeskip but that still leaves RoS having to EXPLAIN how they got that, which again takes time that they don't have if they want to resolve all of it.

There are ways that could work, certainly. None of them, as far as I can see, can do so to start from the end of TLJ and end it in one movie. Which is why I said that a new trilogy would work better.

What first battle? ANH makes no mention of a battle being won. The Tantive IV intercepted a transmission and was fleeing the Devastator.

No it doesn't, all it says is that the Empire is trying to find their secret base.

I've already quoted both crawls, which should address this.

Why? They've managed to destroy Starkiller and escape the fleet after them, they did loose their fleet but they took out the Supremacy and the entire (much larger than theirs) fleet that accompanied it. They have Leai Organa, Chewbacca and Nien Nubbs, famous heroes of the First Galactic Civil War, they have Poe Dameron, ace pilot, Finn the stormtrooper that escaped his conditionning and infitrated Starkiller base and Rey who is a Jedi Knight. Why would they not have supoort or a leadership position? Hell, them not having a fleet guarantees neutrality vis-à-vis the different factions they'd gather.

Because the other planets would be providing the bulk of the resources, and people in that position tend to want control of the resources when they do that. Some of them will worry that their resources will get sacrificed or squandered at the hands of more "popular" factions and so want to make sure they have a strong say in avoiding that. More ambitious ones will want to take charge to get the credit. At the end of TLJ, the Resistance itself has no real resources to offer. They need the help of their allies more than their allies need the Resistance. Even the people you mentioned work best as figureheads rather than being the ones in charge. To its credit, the EU got this when doing at least one of their Rogue One demonstrations where bringing them together ran into problems for just this reason.

Let me put it this way: if there are clashes of personalities or strategy, and one or more allies says that things have to go their way or they'll leave and take their forces with them, what does the Resistance do? At this point, there are no Resistance-loyal forces; they'd be relying entirely on the ones given them by others that are at this point completely owned by the allies. This isn't like the Rebels because they were recruiting forces and had some of their own already; they weren't planetary-aligned first. They got resources from planets and systems and others, but were recruiting and had their own forces first. The "allies" plan relies on them having forces already and loaning them to the cause, which is a different situation.

Again, there are ways to fix it, but not in the short time of one movie, even with a timeskip.

Again, going from dark but hopeful for the future to winning the future isn't a gear-shift. Also they are laready planning another trilogy, you know? It's supposed to be inna completely different time and without Skywalkers though.

Sure, but I think it would have been more sensible to take that one over to tell the end of this story than do that.

There's Lando, Kylo Ren reforging his helmet, the wreckage of the Death Star, Ghost Luke, Carrie bloody Fisher and Sidious. Again, it seems like you would have wished for this tesaer to be only flashes which is just weird.

Sigh. I mentioned all of those except for Ren and Carrie Fisher, and I deliberately left Ren out because the consensus clearly seems to be that with him there's not much of interest left.

I'm still amazed that people thought she would be related to the main characters in any way. none of those theories made sense (I mean a Kenob would have been weird and unnecessary, a Palapatine would have just been stuoid, and A Skywalker or a Solo, that would have been some character assassination). And people complained that TLJ saying Star Wars wasn't about lines (like in the line of my fathers, is that the right word?) of people was unnecessary. Especially weird was that TFA had already bluntly said her parents weren't coming back and she had to move on from that.

The point was this was a big mystery in TFA that could have generated interest, but they resolved it in very boring way with limited implications in TLJ. Comparing it to Luke, revealing Vader as his father set things up for RotJ with Luke having to face Vader again and so was there to play a major role, but there seems to be nothing like that available for Rey in RoS. So one thing that was interesting about her was killed in TLJ.

The relationship with Ren, for example.

TLJ killed that as she rejects joining with him and he seems uninterested in returning to the light, so there's nothing there of interest without major contrivances.

And also having the mission of rebuilding the Order. Again.

Which won't meaningfully advance in RoS just like it didn't in RotJ, mostly because there's no time to do it with her having to defeat Kylo Ren and the FO. She has to win the battle first before she can settle in to actually rebuild the Jedi, although she will likely have a revelation to set the tone for what that will be. What that will be I can't imagine, though. Luke had the redemption of Vader arc to work with, but what does she have?

Seeing her transition from refusing to accept her parents aren't coming back to Jedi and and struggling with the Dark Side was plenty interesting.

That you said "was" here gives it away: she seemingly settled that in TLJ. So there doesn't seem to be any necessary transition here.

So, again, no remaining interesting character points, as far as I can see, because TLJ killed them all in generally stupid ways. And interestingly, I like TLJ BETTER than TFA [grin].

[Peelee]

So mostly government work, then?

Yeah, but also with other governments. That's the fun of half-century old international treaties meeting a sudden surge of new governmental and private industry expansion along with potential new and developing technologies allowing possibilities that simply didn't exist back when everything was written to begin with. It sounds really interesting, TBH, and I've been saying for years that the demand for that field is going to go up going into the next decade.

[The New Bruceski]

This is a single movie right? No 2 part milking it?

It's Star Wars. Milking it would be Part Blue.

[Blackhawk748]

I lean to the view that the official number of guns for the Resurgent, includes many tiny point defense turbolasers. Wookieepedia does appear to include point defence lasers in its count of "1500 turbolasers, ion cannons, point defence lasers"

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Res...Star_Destroyer

A better gauge of its capabilities might be to look at the number of big gun turrets on the ship - and compare to the ISD's.

You would be correct if it wasn't for this one annoying line inside the article itself.

Featuring over 1,500 turbolasers and ion cannons,

That quote right there messes up the entire theory, which would otherwise deal with the problem nicely. However, it doesn't, so we're stuck with the thing have 1500+ Turbolaser and Heavy Ion cannons, which are specifically not for point defense. On top of this its taken directly from Incredible Cross-Sections, which has the final say on what armamanet the thing has. It's insane.

It's a bit bigger than that. Hosnian Prime, capital of the New Republic, is in the Core. And during the Aftermath trilogy, we see the Empire's surrender - Mas Amedda hands over Coruscant to the New Republic, and is permitted to remain in charge of Coruscant - albeit with New Republic minders to keep him in line.

In the Bloodline novel (not to be confused with Bloodlines, which was Legends) the Coruscant Senator is part of the New Republic Senate - so it's clear that it's fully New Republic.

It honestly doesn't matter because that little fact (which I wasn't aware of) makes their insane demilitirization even more pants on head insane. Seriously, you control like 20-30% of the galaxy and you just think its ok to castrate your military? You know what, you deserved to get obliterated for that level of incompetence.

The New Republic (and peace with what was left of the Empire) was established faster in newcanon than in Legends, at least. And 20-odd years of peace before the First Order revealed itself is nothing to sniff at.

Sure, it was faster, but in Legends, while it took like 20 years, it also lasted over a hundred, possibly even two hundred. Legacy is a bit vague on dates. I know which one I'd take given the choice.

I generally dislike hyperbole on how Disney is handling the new trilogy and audience reaction, but that would be the best way to piss off just everybody.

100% agree. I don't think there would be anything they could do to piss me off more.

[Malifice]

What does a space lawyer do in her practice?

Mos Eisley legal aid.

I'm never short of work.

[Peelee]

Mos Eisley legal aid.

I'm never short of work.

Surprised you're still alive, frankly. Especially with Hutts as the magistrates.

[Malifice]

Surprised you're still alive, frankly. Especially with Hutts as the magistrates.

I bounty hunt in my spare time.

[The New Bruceski]

No disintegrations, no problems.

[HolyDraconus]

Saw the teaser. Was really hoping for Finn or Poe to be more the focus, hell, even Ren, but nope. More adventures of boring Rey.

[hamishspence]

That quote right there messes up the entire theory, which would otherwise deal with the problem nicely. However, it doesn't, so we're stuck with the thing have 1500+ Turbolaser and Heavy Ion cannons, which are specifically not for point defense.

Maybe the smallest turbolasers are point defence weaponry? Turbolasers vary enormously in size, after all.

The "60 XX-9 turbolasers" on an ISD-I aren't the same as the six Heavy turrets - and based on how small they are in video games that represent them on the ISD-I - I think they're the equivalent of the Death Star's trench turrets.

The Resurgent may have something similar - small turbolaser towers.

It's still a very large number, even if it includes very small "barely bigger than a regular laser cannon" turbolasers - but it could be worse. I think in the first iteration of IC: TFA it was 3000, but they revised it downward for later printings.

[Sapphire Guard]

So what were those guns Poe shot out in TFA? There sure wasn't 1500 of them.

[Peelee]

So what were those guns Poe shot out in TFA? There sure wasn't 1500 of them.

Those were Explodomatic-9000s. Guaranteed to go up in flames at the drop of a hat.

[hamishspence]

Weren't those missile turrets?

[Aeson]

Weren't those missile turrets?

Visual effects suggest turbolasers to me.

Anyways, it hardly matters; they're apparently the only guns on the dorsal surface of the dread-me-not suitable for engaging things the size of the Resistance's lumbering bombers and there's only something like two dozen of them on its dorsal surface. Light anti-fighter weaponry ought to be the easiest type of weaponry to supply power for and fit onto the ship, it already has the ridiculously-large cannons on its ventral surface to deal with capital ships (presumably, anyways, since I don't recall anything else on the ship that seemed particularly out of the ordinary for a Star Destroyer-type vessel which might justify describing it as a 'fleet killer'), and if standard tactics have it operating with a couple of Star Destroyers as escorts - as might be presumed since the three Star Destroyers with it didn't seem to have any purpose in being present aside from defending it - I don't really see why it'd need medium-caliber weaponry for dealing with intermediate-scale targets.

[Blackhawk748]

Maybe the smallest turbolasers are point defence weaponry? Turbolasers vary enormously in size, after all.

The "60 XX-9 turbolasers" on an ISD-I aren't the same as the six Heavy turrets - and based on how small they are in video games that represent them on the ISD-I - I think they're the equivalent of the Death Star's trench turrets.

The Resurgent may have something similar - small turbolaser towers.

It's still a very large number, even if it includes very small "barely bigger than a regular laser cannon" turbolasers - but it could be worse. I think in the first iteration of IC: TFA it was 3000, but they revised it downward for later printings.

Ok, let's set aside the fact that I've never even heard of a Turbolaser being used for point defense and go with your point. That means the thing still has 1500 guns capable of engaging larger ships as well as now being able to ward off snubfighters, unlike its Imperial II predecessor. And you know? I could live with the thing having triple the firepower of an Imp II while only doubling in size if the thing seemd to have given up something, because as it stands the ship doesn't actually have an exploitable weakness, meaning that you have to engage with a comparable ship.

So what were those guns Poe shot out in TFA? There sure wasn't 1500 of them.

Those were the point defence guns of the Mandator IV Siege Dreadnaught, and there were 26 of them apparently. Which I don't think is anywhere near enough to cover a 7.7 km long ship.

Edit: thought that said TLJ for a sec. In TFA that was a missile turret, which I pressume is part of their Point Defense systems. Seriously, that ship just does everything.

Visual effects suggest turbolasers to me.

Anyways, it hardly matters; they're apparently the only guns on the dorsal surface of the dread-me-not suitable for engaging things the size of the Resistance's lumbering bombers and there's only something like two dozen of them on its dorsal surface. Light anti-fighter weaponry ought to be the easiest type of weaponry to supply power for and fit onto the ship, it already has the ridiculously-large cannons on its ventral surface to deal with capital ships (presumably, anyways, since I don't recall anything else on the ship that seemed particularly out of the ordinary for a Star Destroyer-type vessel which might justify describing it as a 'fleet killer'), and if standard tactics have it operating with a couple of Star Destroyers as escorts - as might be presumed since the three Star Destroyers with it didn't seem to have any purpose in being present aside from defending it - I don't really see why it'd need medium-caliber weaponry for dealing with intermediate-scale targets.

Its a planetary bombardment ship that appears capable of turning its guns on capital ships and reducing them to slag. And if that battle wasn't in the running for Most Contrived Thing in the Nu-Series it would have done a great job. It'd have a fighter screen out front to defend it, the escort ships would have launched theirs to boost it and it would have started by firing on the fleet, destroying it.

Oh, and Poe's X-Wing wouldn't randomly have a SLAM system on it. Seriously, how the hell did they fit that on there?

[Psyren]

Skimmed the rest but this part stood out:

TLJ killed that as she rejects joining with him and he seems uninterested in returning to the light, so there's nothing there of interest without major contrivances.

Even in a universe as black-and-white as Star Wars, its possible for there to be more nuance/options than this; Kylo's choices are not necessarily "be a Light Side Jedi, or the next Darth Vader."

As we saw, despite still following the Dark Side, he murdered Snoke and saved Rey. He did this to seduce her to his side, which is not necessarily "The Dark Side", at least not the same one we've known. Rather, he wants to do away with every tradition on both sides. As he says in the throne room:

"It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels, let it all die. I want you to join me."

He might still get his wish in the end, i.e. creating something new that isn't beholden to the old. Certainly I can imagine that Disney wants there to be more options than space fascism and space buddhism.

[Blackhawk748]

Even in a universe as black-and-white as Star Wars, its possible for there to be more nuance/options than this; Kylo's choices are not necessarily "be a Light Side Jedi, or the next Darth Vader."

As we saw, despite still following the Dark Side, he murdered Snoke and saved Rey. He did this to seduce her to his side, which is not necessarily "The Dark Side", at least not the same one we've known. Rather, he wants to do away with every tradition on both sides. As he says in the throne room:

"It's time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels, let it all die. I want you to join me."

He might still get his wish in the end, i.e. creating something new that isn't beholden to the old. Certainly I can imagine that Disney wants there to be more options than space fascism and space buddhism.

Except... thats still the Dark Side, it's just not the way of the Sith which he wasn't even following anyway. Hell, Luke wasn't even following the Old Jedi code anymore either, so both have passed on, in a way.

And if they wanted it, it was there in the EU, all over the place. There was at least a dozen different Force Traditions that were fleshed out wonderfully for them to take advantage of, but they didn't. Which doesn't really seem to indicate the care, as they've mined the EU for ideas before.

[Peelee]

Oh, and Poe's X-Wing wouldn't randomly have a SLAM system on it. Seriously, how the hell did they fit that on there?

Hux's mom did it. Works as well as any other explanation, and fits in with their ridiculous attempts at humor there.

[Blackhawk748]

Hux's mom did it. Works as well as any other explanation, and fits in with their ridiculous attempts at humor there.

The sad part is, is that you're completely right. God, I hate that entire battle.

[Aeson]

Edit: thought that said TLJ for a sec. In TFA that was a missile turret, which I pressume is part of their Point Defense systems. Seriously, that ship just does everything.

Poe didn't shoot any Star Destroyer turrets out - missile or otherwise - in The Force Awakens, at least not that I can remember; Finn appears to have been the only one with control over the stolen TIE fighter's weapons during the escape sequence. The cannons destroyed during the escape sequence are visually consistent with the other cannons shown firing what appear to be turbolaser blasts, dialogue shortly after the cannons are destroyed includes the line "they have taken out our turbolasers," and the missile turret only appears later and is visually distinct from the emplacement destroyed while the fighter was flying along the Star Destroyer's hull.

TFA escape sequence.

The sad part is, is that you're completely right. God, I hate that entire battle.

I envy you if that battle is the only part of the movie that you hate.

[Blackhawk748]

Poe didn't shoot any Star Destroyer turrets out - missile or otherwise - in The Force Awakens, at least not that I can remember; Finn appears to have been the only one with control over the stolen TIE fighter's weapons during the escape sequence. The cannons destroyed during the escape sequence are visually consistent with the other cannons shown firing what appear to be turbolaser blasts, dialogue shortly after the cannons are destroyed includes the line "they have taken out our turbolasers," and the missile turret only appears later and is visually distinct from the emplacement destroyed while the fighter was flying along the Star Destroyer's hull.

TFA escape sequence.

Ah, ok. I was remembering the missiles from later, but ya, those are totally lasers that got wrecked.

I envy you if that battle is the only part of the movie that you hate.

No, I hate most of that movie. I have a particular hate for that entire battle that is only beaten out by my hatred for the chase sequence.

[Psyren]

Except... thats still the Dark Side, it's just not the way of the Sith which he wasn't even following anyway. Hell, Luke wasn't even following the Old Jedi code anymore either, so both have passed on, in a way.

And if they wanted it, it was there in the EU, all over the place. There was at least a dozen different Force Traditions that were fleshed out wonderfully for them to take advantage of, but they didn't. Which doesn't really seem to indicate the care, as they've mined the EU for ideas before.

Of course it's still "Dark Side" - he needs something to rise from after all, unless the title means another Skywalker.

But you're being a bit premature here. Declaring the EU to be non-canon doesn't mean they can't still mine it for choice bits. It just means they don't have to worry about choking on a continuity snarl if they do find something cool. They own all of it now, they can pick and choose.

In other words, we might get Kylo doing a new "Force Tradition" on the big screen that may have been portrayed before in a novel somewhere; my main point is that he doesn't have to go all the way to "Light Side" as we know it in order to have an arc. He doesn't need to be Anakin 2.0.

[Malifice]

In other words, we might get Kylo doing a new "Force Tradition" on the big screen that may have been portrayed before in a novel somewhere

I'm hearing solid but unconfirmed rumors that 'Skywalker' is that new force tradition.

[The Jack]

I'm hearing solid but unconfirmed rumors that 'Skywalker' is that new force tradition.

That's really, really stupid.
But it's JJ
It might just be the right kind of stupid.

[Daimbert]

As we saw, despite still following the Dark Side, he murdered Snoke and saved Rey. He did this to seduce her to his side, which is not necessarily "The Dark Side", at least not the same one we've known.

Really? Because that's pretty much standard Sith policy: find an apprentice, take down the Master above you, become the Master. It was pretty much Vader's entire plan in TESB and RotJ, which the scene in TLJ strongly echoes. And TLJ does strongly hint that killing Snoke was his plan the entire time, and not done to save Rey (at least not solely).

He might still get his wish in the end, i.e. creating something new that isn't beholden to the old. Certainly I can imagine that Disney wants there to be more options than space fascism and space buddhism.

I'm not sure that Disney, originally known for fairy tales, really wants to introduce shades of grey here [grin].

The thing is that something like that COULD be done, but it would be hard to do it in one movie where that's not the only thing going on. Ren has presented his case to Rey, and she's rejected it. She's presented her view to Ren, and he rejected THAT. In order for them to come together, something has to change so that they can a) find a different view that both can agree on and b) both of them come to accept that. That requires some work that the movie will not have the time to do. And on top of that they would at LEAST have to get the Resistance to accept it and Ren, which is not something that will be easy, unless Rey wants to betray them to side with Ren, which won't work.

Let me put it this way: in TESB, Vader tries to convert Luke but Luke doesn't try to convert Vader. Thus, there is room for Luke's idea of trying to find the good in Vader and thus converting him to work. And the Emperor and Vader try to use despair to convert Luke, first over the defeat of his friends and second with the knowledge that if he dies there without killing Vader and the Emperor Leia herself might be converted. But what was new was Leia, while the father relationship was the key revelation in TESB, and the new thing -- Leia -- was something that we could easily understand and so didn't need much development. A potentially new Jedi tradition and a conversion of Ren when there's no reason to think there's good in him requires more explanation.

Again, a trilogy could probably do that, but the biggest weakness here is that Ren hasn't been developed enough to give us an idea of what he wants so that they can leverage that to make something credible. Considering that the lack of development has made him boring to a lot of fans, trying to do that now is probably going to be more annoying than appreciated.

[Sholos]

I really, really hope they don't go the route of having Rey form a whole new tradition of Force users that's better in every way from the Jedi.

[Psyren]

Really? Because that's pretty much standard Sith policy: find an apprentice, take down the Master above you, become the Master. It was pretty much Vader's entire plan in TESB and RotJ, which the scene in TLJ strongly echoes. And TLJ does strongly hint that killing Snoke was his plan the entire time, and not done to save Rey (at least not solely).

That's indeed the irony of his methods, but I do think his motives are nonstandard.

I'm not sure that Disney, originally known for fairy tales, really wants to introduce shades of grey here [grin].

You mean fairy tales like Frozen and Moana that have shades of grey? Zootopia much?

The thing is that something like that COULD be done, but it would be hard to do it in one movie where that's not the only thing going on.

Maybe - execution is everything after all. But I'll wait to judge the finished product.

Of course Luke tries to convert Vader, just as Rey tried to convert Kylo. "There is good in him" - pretty clear echo there. And as far as "development" - Kylo has gotten far more than Vader did at the time. He even has a backstory, unlike Vader who barely got one until (shudder) the prequels.

I really, really hope they don't go the route of having Rey form a whole new tradition of Force users that's better in every way from the Jedi.

I genuinely think it's more likely Kylo will be the one to do that - and that his tradition won't be better, just different. He is the iconoclast that hates the status quo above all else, while she is the outsider longing to belong within established institutions and frameworks.

[Malifice]

I really, really hope they don't go the route of having Rey form a whole new tradition of Force users that's better in every way from the Jedi.

Apparently they'll be using katanas.

;)