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

[Hopeless]

I'm very confused. Is this, like. your fan fiction "what you would have done" for episode 8?

Its more a continuing effort to exorcise those demons that rise when being reminded about episode 8.
Apologies for the long winded prose its just my way of getting THAT off my chest so I can go back to ignoring just how bad the ST is.

[Hopeless]

Whilst this wouldn't apply until the prequels were released it could be said Obi-Wan was trying to contact Chewbacca as they knew about each other and that's why he wasn't bothered about Han's boasts.


With Chewie as his co-pilot Obi-Wan knew they could be trusted.

[Sapphire Guard]

And they were fortunate enough to crash-land significantly near the Lars instead of literally anywhere else on the planet.

Or R2 steered it to land in the general area of the person he was sent to find?

In A Certain point of View he talks the red unit into damaging itself.

Interestingly, DJ didn't actually betray them until they were already caught. If BB8 had a better disguise, things might have worked out fine.

I see we're following the standard trajectory of GITP Star Wars threads.

[Blackhawk748]

Very insightful analysis. I note that DJ is another indicator of how unconcerned Rian Johnson is with world building and his place in the greater trilogy and the franchise. However, DJ (and many of the other moments) show a lack of concern even of plot continuity within the movie itself.

DJ's appearance, ultimately has no point, as does Finnrose's story. There is definitely an eagerness, if not outright glee, in the way the movie zags and turns while avoiding giving things a fine point.

It's almost like the man subverted everything just for the sake of subverting everything.

[Peelee]

In A Certain point of View he talks the red unit into damaging itself.

IIRC, A Certain point of View is non-canon

It's almost like the man subverted everything just for the sake of subverting everything.

He definitely subverted my expectations of seeing a good movie. Heyo!

For reals, though, I'm still excited for Ep. IX. Call me an eternal optimist.

[Saintheart]

You're an eternal optimist.

[Devonix]

We're all going to have to realize there's going to be no real way to unite the fanbase with a film. because we've all got very different ideas as to what constitutes good Starwars now. Except for Solo, we can all agree Solo sucked.

[Narkis]

People keep saying there was no point in DJ and the casino interlude, but there was. It was intended to reinforce the central point of the movie, what our heroes are supposed to learn from their arcs: That heroics don't work.

Poe tries to be a hero and blow up the fleet-killer star destroyer, and he ends up losing their bombers and getting berated and demoted. He is never portrayed as having made the right call, even if the bombers would have been destroyed anyway when the First Order blows up their hanger, even if the fleet killer would have killed their fleet in short order after catching up with them. He then tries to save the Rebellion from his superior's incompetence, and again ends up getting berated after a failed plan and a failed mutiny.

Finn and Rose try to be heroes with a classic get-help-infiltrate-the-bad-guys-save-the-good-guys plan. It's a plan that should have worked, a plan that would have worked if this were any other Star Wars film, a plan that's intentionally very much alike all the similar infiltrations in all the older Star Wars film. But what used to work and save the day, very explicitly doesn't. They mess up every single thing that could be messed up. And in the end, not only do they fail and get captured, their plan spells doom for the stealthy evacuation of the Rebels. If they hadn't gone to the casino world, they wouldn't have brought DJ to the First Order, he wouldn't have revealed the cloaked ships, and Holdo's plan would have been 100% successful. And so Holdo has to sacrifice herself to bail them out.

Which brings us to the second battle of Hoth. Poe, Finn and Rose sally forth to fix their heroic mistakes with more heroics. In the middle of the battle Poe realises that heroics don't work, and is now fit to lead the Rebellion after calling off the desperate assault to save them all. But Finn has to be rammed and reminded that you should "save the ones you love, not kill the ones they hate". (As the mini Death Star laser of the ones they hate fires in the background and breaks the final stronghold of the ones they love.) And so Luke has to sacrifice himself to bail them out.

So, there you have it. Playing the hero will get the people you care about killed. You should shut up and do as you're told, or the true, gritty, non-heroic adults will have to step in to fix your mess. This is an unbelievably stupid moral for a heroic sci-fi film, executed in an unbelievably stupid way, but you can't deny it's there.

Gods, I hate Rian Johnson and the nihilistic faux intellectualism he represents so very much.

For reals, though, I'm still excited for Ep. IX. Call me an eternal optimist.

HOW???

[Devonix]

No No No Johnson is in no way saying that heroics don't work. He's saying heroics work, they're important but you have to be smart, have to pick your battles.

You especially need to know the difference between Blind sacrifice because you wanna be a hero, and be important. And calculated sacrifice to achieve a goal.

There is a difference between Sacrifice, and Throwing your life away.

With Ramming the laser I will put this on Johnson not explaining it properly, but ramming the thing was a stupid idea that wasn't going to work, It would be throwing your life away in a gesture of defiance, and not actually protecting anyone.

[Peelee]

HOW???

To paraphrase Saintheart:

He's an eternal optimist.

No No No Johnson is in no way saying that heroics don't work. He's saying heroics work, they're important but you have to be smart, have to pick your battles.

You especially need to know the difference between Blind sacrifice because you wanna be a hero, and be important. And calculated sacrifice to achieve a goal.

There is a difference between Sacrifice, and Throwing your life away.

It seems like saying that with "let me ram this ship that is so frail that we can literally kick through the hull, surely neither I nor the other pilot will die doing it, while we're a quarter mile or more from safety and in front of a line of heavily armed walking fortresses who are explicitly trying to kill every single one of us" is a giant neon flashing light of "NOT THE RIGHT ****ING BATTLE TO PICK HERE."

But I dunno, maybe that's just me.

[Devonix]

To paraphrase Saintheart:




It seems like saying that with "let me ram this ship that is so frail that we can literally kick through the hull, surely neither I nor the other pilot will die doing it, while we're a quarter mile or more from safety and in front of a line of heavily armed walking fortresses who are explicitly trying to kill every single one of us" is a giant neon flashing light of "NOT THE RIGHT ****ING BATTLE TO PICK HERE."

But I dunno, maybe that's just me.

Starwars is an action film. In an action film if two heroes have their cars ram into each other they're both gonna be fine, at most one of them is gonna get knocked out. It's pretty much excepted film language. For the same reason that a hero clonking someone on the head to knock them out is the "Safe and humane hero action", that will just give someone a quick 5 minute nap. And not something that could end up giving someone permanent brain damage.

[Peelee]

Starwars is an action film. In an action film if two heroes have their cars ram into each other they're both gonna be fine, at most one of them is gonna get knocked out. It's pretty much excepted film language. For the same reason that a hero clonking someone on the head to knock them out is the "Safe and humane hero action", that will just give someone a quick 5 minute nap. And not something that could end up giving someone permanent brain damage.

Adventure film, not action film. Also, they do it pretty close to a bunch of walkers, Finn has to drag an unconscious Rose back to the base on a cover-less plain, and the FO was given orders to take no prisoners. So the fact that they manage to live seems... well, about as ridiculous as the fact that Finn and Rose were able to get into the base before that all started to begin with, actually. That base seems remarkably easy to get into, I have to say.

[Leewei]

Except for Solo, we can all agree Solo sucked.

Sorry, we can't even agree on that.

I still love Star Wars movies. I really do! Even Solo, even episode 8, even the prequels with its Jar Jar and its midichlorians. Star Wars sets are gorgeous. The music is incredible. The practical effects are cutting edge and age very well.

The acting is even mostly good.

The writing is often marginal, but this is true even in the original trilogy. Boba Fett getting turned into a burp joke, the Wilhelm Scream being used for comedic effect, Luke's incessant whine - all present in the originals. We just overlook them because the experience was so incredible when we were kids, and we continue to love the movies enough to overlook this stuff.

Star Wars continues to make incredible vehicles and incredible weapons. The movies make my inner child want to grab a model of one of the space ships and make "pew! pew!" noises. This is the same wild glee I see on my nephew as he swings his toy lightsaber like he's trying to bust a pinata.

The kids watching these now - the age we were when we first saw them - are having a blast. If we no longer enjoy them, the fault lies in us.

[Peelee]

We just overlook them because the experience was so incredible when we were kids, and we continue to love the movies enough to overlook this stuff.

The original was loved by adults, nominated for Oscars for Best Picture and Best Writing, and is still one of the most loved movies of all time. You'll forgive me if I dismiss "it was cool when we were kids so we give it a pass" since a whole lot of people who saw it when it first dropped and made it into a cultural milestone were not kids.

[Friv]

To paraphrase Saintheart:

It seems like saying that with "let me ram this ship that is so frail that we can literally kick through the hull, surely neither I nor the other pilot will die doing it, while we're a quarter mile or more from safety and in front of a line of heavily armed walking fortresses who are explicitly trying to kill every single one of us" is a giant neon flashing light of "NOT THE RIGHT ****ING BATTLE TO PICK HERE."

But I dunno, maybe that's just me.

I'm with you on this one.

I honestly often find myself in a weird place with TLJ, because I think it was very clumsy plot-wise and far from the best Star Wars, but I also think that it holds together thematically and character-wise. Left to my own devices, I would give it 3/5 stars. But then I find myself defending it against people screaming that it's the death of the franchise and the reason that Solo failed, and then I feel like I'm defending a movie that I don't actually care enough about to defend, just because I've been forced into a coalition with the people who loved it because they're marginally less annoying than the people who hated it.

I also think the big problem with Star Wars in the hands of Disney is one that most fans aren't going to be thrilled with - Star Wars was never as big as Disney wanted it to be.

The first Star Wars succeeded largely because it completely revolutionized special effects. The next two succeeded mainly on showmanship, and then the trilogy was over. Since then, Star Wars has been precisely big enough to support a big trilogy every 10-15 years, and a TV show at any given time.

But because each of those tentpole trilogies came so long after the previous ones, expectations were huge, they made a ton of money, and Disney thought "this is the next MCU, we can put out 1-2 movies a year forever and make a Star Wars-specific section of our park and have three Star Wars shows going at once on our new channel", and people just aren't that into Star Wars.

[Peelee]

I honestly often find myself in a weird place with TLJ, because I think it was very clumsy plot-wise and far from the best Star Wars, but I also think that it holds together thematically and character-wise. Left to my own devices, I would give it 3/5 stars. But then I find myself defending it against people screaming that it's the death of the franchise and the reason that Solo failed, and then I feel like I'm defending a movie that I don't actually care enough about to defend, just because I've been forced into a coalition with the people who loved it because they're marginally less annoying than the people who hated it.

I'm not as favorable towards TLJ as you, it seems, but other than that I agree with almost everything you wrote there.

[Aeson]

It seems like saying that with "let me ram this ship that is so frail that we can literally kick through the hull, surely neither I nor the other pilot will die doing it, while we're a quarter mile or more from safety and in front of a line of heavily armed walking fortresses who are explicitly trying to kill every single one of us" is a giant neon flashing light of "NOT THE RIGHT ****ING BATTLE TO PICK HERE."

But I dunno, maybe that's just me.

It may have been better for the Resistance to allow the gate to be breached and instead concentrate on holding out deeper in the caves, where the First Order's walkers and air cover would probably be largely negated and their infantry's presumable numerical advantage would be limited, but if attacking the siege cannon had a reasonable chance of preventing the gate from being breached - as appears to be the case in the movie - and would not cost the Resistance so heavily as to prevent them from holding out after a failed attempt when they could have held out had they simply not attacked the gun - as seems likely since there does not appear to be a meaningful difference in the number of available personnel to defend the caves before and after the attempt on the gun - then making the attempt was not wrong, and it's certainly better than sitting on your thumbs doing nothing while waiting for the end to come.

If they really wanted to show that the attack was a futile, wasteful gesture, then it would have been better to show the attack on the gun failing despite being carried out successfully - the Resistance forces successfully reach the gun and do whatever it is that they were supposed to do, and yet despite that the First Order still breaches the gate without suffering any meaningful delay either because the Resistance forces cannot meaningfully damage the gun with the tools and time available or because the First Order doesn't actually need the siege gun to breach the gate - or to make it unambiguously clear that the attack had no even vaguely plausible chance of succeeding - e.g. the sci-fi snowsaltmobiles are virtually all destroyed almost before they're out of the gate by the walker firing line. Maybe also clearly show the attempt costing the Resistance forces too much to have any vaguely-plausible chance of holding out afterwards. Instead, the movie shows the attack failing because the attack leader called it off and the one guy who refused to acknowledge the recall order got attacked by one of his wingmen just when it looked like he'd accomplish the mission objective despite everything else. This is more like "you'll fail if you give up and then stab your friends in the back" than "heroic sacrifices are stupid, wasteful gestures which are doomed to failure."

[Dienekes]

I'm with you on this one.

I honestly often find myself in a weird place with TLJ, because I think it was very clumsy plot-wise and far from the best Star Wars, but I also think that it holds together thematically and character-wise. Left to my own devices, I would give it 3/5 stars. But then I find myself defending it against people screaming that it's the death of the franchise and the reason that Solo failed, and then I feel like I'm defending a movie that I don't actually care enough about to defend, just because I've been forced into a coalition with the people who loved it because they're marginally less annoying than the people who hated it.

Couldn’t agree more. Even going back to my old posts about TLJ and I trepidatiously enjoyed it. More than TFA anyway. But even then I saw problems. And putting in effort to defend it just doesn’t seem worth it.

I actually left TLJ more excited to see what comes next than I was after TFA. Having the whiny petulant child in charge of the empire seemed interesting in a “Joffrey with superpowers” way. Which I thought was way more interesting than another vague ancient magic evil a la the Emperor (at least as he was depicted in then OT).

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Star Wars continues to make incredible vehicles and incredible weapons.

Does it, though? Among my many (many, many, many...) complaints about the sequel trilogy is the fact that they really didn't do anything new in the way of vehicles or weapons.

In TFA, we see Star Destroyers, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, speeder bikes, AT-PTs assault walkers, and Kylo Ren's shuttle, which are all just very minor variations on what came before; Rey's speeder and the First Order troop carrier, both of which are much more visually distinct but are still basic variations on the landspeeder and Sienar troop transport; and the Rebel Resistance transport that Leia arrived in, whose only innovation was looking like it was flying sideways. Not only did they not use any of the many vehicles introduced in ESB or RotJ (A-Wings, B-Wings, TIE Bombers, TIE Interceptors....), but they didn't even use minorly-updated versions like they did with the other fighters, and there wasn't a single original vehicle involved.

Same in TLJ. Super Star Destroyer variants (with literally the same name of Star Dreadnaught), Corellian Corvette variants, AT variant, Mon Cal cruiser variants, A-Wing 2.0, TIE Interceptor 2.0, and so on; makes sense that they'd fold in the ESB and RotJ ships now that TLJ is copying those movies, but again, nothing substantially different...with the exception of the Resistance bombers, which stand out primarily for how slow and clunky they are compared to the archaic B-Wing and the already-archaic-at-the-time-of-ANH Y-Wing.

Every other Star Wars movie--and pretty much every Star Wars video game, TV show, comic, etc.--introduced multiple new ships that were substantially different from what came before. Say what you will about Episode I, but STAPs, MTTs, C-9979s, Naboo starfighters, Gungan subs, and pretty much all the other vehicles were new and different, with unique designs and cool things they could do, and the same pattern continued in the rest of the prequels (Coruscant speeders, LAAT/c's, Republic artillery, hailfire droids, the various droid fighters, and so on). You know, the kind of noticeable difference you'd expect when movies take place 30 in-setting years apart.


Same with weapons. Death Star 3, proton torpedoes to take out the Death Star 3, concussion missiles, blasters, lightsabers, same ol' same ol'. (Granted, TFA did do something different here with TR-8R's electrostaff; sure, it's another derivative weapon, but at least it's borrowed from RotS instead of ANH.) TLJ has a few cool-looking vibroweapons for Snoke's guards, and the..."Death Star tech" ground cannon, but that's about it.

Where are the ion cannons, E-WEBs, smartwhips, jet packs, thermal detonators, personal shields, saber staffs, flamethrowers, seismic charges, sonic blasters and cannons, composite beam projectors, and other fun stuff like that? TFA gets minor props for the claymore saber, but TLJ doesn't have a single other variant we've seen before--saber staff, dual- and quad-sabers, even just one with a curved hilt--and certainly nothing from the EU or entirely original, and one of the two lightsabers in the ST we do see is literally the same lightsaber from the PT and OT.


And other tech is in a similar boat. BB-8 is a completely novel droid design, full credit for that, but otherwise there's no new droids, no cool cyborg stuff, no set-piece technology like a carbon freezing chamber or the Mustafar facility, nada.

Rogue One is slightly better than the ST in both respects (TIE Striker, K-2SO, Imperial datacard retrieval claw thingy, etc.), but by its nature as an immediate prequel to ANH it can't do anything too novel, and Solo...the less said about that the better.

So on the whole, Disney Star Wars is entirely underwhelming on the "cool toys" front. There's really no excuse for that, given that they had all of the EU to copy ships and gear from the way they borrowed large portions of the ST's plot from the EU as well, and I don't see anything in Episode IX--or, heck, even The Mandalorian--that looks like it's going to give us anything approaching "new and different" any time soon.

[Leewei]

The original was loved by adults, nominated for Oscars for Best Picture and Best Writing, and is still one of the most loved movies of all time. You'll forgive me if I dismiss "it was cool when we were kids so we give it a pass" since a whole lot of people who saw it when it first dropped and made it into a cultural milestone were not kids.

The original movie, sure. You are neglecting my examples from Return of the Jedi. The original trilogy has uneven writing. The first was great! The other two were kind of meh if you think about them the way people are inclined to mull over episodes 7 and 8.

Does it, though?

Kylo's lightsaber. Rey's staff. The ski speeders used in the Battle of Crait. Rey's lightstaff in the episode 9 preview. Williams' score throughout all the movies. It'd be great to see more of this stuff, but it's definitely still there.

[Bobb]

Kylo's lightsaber. Rey's staff. The ski speeders used in the Battle of Crait. Rey's lightstaff in the episode 9 preview. Williams' score throughout all the movies. It'd be great to see more of this stuff, but it's definitely still there.

Truly, there is no greater weapon than Williams' score.

[Aeson]

Kylo's lightsaber. Rey's staff. The ski speeders used in the Battle of Crait. Rey's lightstaff in the episode 9 preview. Williams' score throughout all the movies. It'd be great to see more of this stuff, but it's definitely still there.

And by comparison to even the individual films of the Prequel Trilogy, that's virtually nothing.

[Peelee]

The original movie, sure. You are neglecting my examples from Return of the Jedi. The original trilogy has uneven writing. The first was great! The other two were kind of meh if you think about them the way people are inclined to mull over episodes 7 and 8.

True. Interesting how I don't jump to their defense nearly as much, ain't it?

[Leewei]

True. Interesting how I don't jump to their defense nearly as much, ain't it?

I get your point. Would you agree that the latter part of the original trilogy is held to a different standard than the newer movies?

And by comparison to even the individual films of the Prequel Trilogy, that's virtually nothing.

My list wasn't exhaustive. The battle with the praetorian guards had some incredibly cool weapons, for instance.

[Peelee]

I get your point. Would you agree that the latter part of the original trilogy is held to a different standard than the newer movies?

Oh, definitely. Plus, the internet only makes it worse; small communities with unpopular or downright loathsome opinions can get their voices amplified orders of magnitude more than they used to, which only adds to toxicity.

[Sapphire Guard]

Trivia question cause you guys usually know: Who is the sequels equivalent of Nick Gillard and Bob Andersen? I've never heard any name.

[Reddish Mage]

It's almost like the man subverted everything just for the sake of subverting everything.

I think Looper shows that this is the Director's specific gimmick and that is what he was going for. Why Disney decided they needed that in Star Wars, while simultaneously remixing the old plot-lines in the same movie, is beyond me.

Oh, definitely. Plus, the internet only makes it worse; small communities with unpopular or downright loathsome opinions can get their voices amplified orders of magnitude more than they used to, which only adds to toxicity.

That element was supercharged for specifically The Last Jedi. I think you can legitimately critique the vision of the movie as out of step with the franchise (or with very concept of franchising, world-building, and maybe telling a coherent story) but some of the angles try to turn the movie into some sort of grand sociological experiment.

I see that the director certainly likes to play with and undermine expectations and throw up variations on the story beats. What he did he did well. I'm not sure I liked what he did, I certainly think it screws with the established franchise lore and the characters, but what he was doing was for art and entertainment.

[Aeson]

My list wasn't exhaustive. The battle with the praetorian guards had some incredibly cool weapons, for instance.

And yet even one movie in the Prequel Trilogy has about as large an array of 'cool' (more-or-less-)new things for the Star Wars universe as both extant movies of the Sequel Trilogy put together.

Just off the top of my head:
The Phantom Menace has something like a dozen different visually-distinctive pod racers, pit droids, B1 battle droids, vulture droids, droidekas, the DRK-1 Dark Eye probe droid, Darth Maul's speeder bike, the Consular-class corvette, the Lucrehulk-class 'battleships,' C-9979 landing ships, Queen Amidala's royal yacht, Darth Maul's Scimitar, Darth Maul's lightsaber, AATs, MTTs, STAPs, N-1 starfighters, the bongo, the Gungan Army's array of medievalesque high-tech weaponry, the chrome-plated hold-out pistol(s?) that Padme had, and the Flash and Gian speeders.

Attack of the Clones has homing and dwarf spider droids, Hailfire self-propelled missile artillery droids, AT-TEs, SPHA-Ts, Hardcell-class transports, LAATs, Nantex-class starfighters, Dooku's yacht, Acclamator-class assault ships, Obi-Wan's Delta-7 Aethersprite interceptor with hyperdrive ring, B2 'super' battle droids, Dooku's lightsaber with its curved hilt, the AA-9 freighter that took Anakin and Padme from Coruscant to Naboo, Senator Amidala's two yachts, the chariot used in the Geonosian arena, the Geonosian 'sonic blasters' and 'sonic cannon,' the open-top airspeeder stolen by Anakin to pursue Zam Wessel, Zam Wessel's airspeeder, Zam Wessel's sniper rifle, Zam Wessel's ASN courier droid, and the waitress droid in Dex's Diner.

Revenge of the Sith has droid tri-fighters, Eta-2 Actis interceptors, ARC-170 starfighters, V-Wing starfighters, Palpatine's Theta-class shuttle, Juggernauts (first time on film, but previously existed in the EU), AT-RTs, the Wookiee helicopter-like vehicles, tank droids, Invisible Hand, the Recusant-class light cruiser, the Munificent-class frigate, the Venator-class Star Destroyer, buzz droids, IG-100 magna guards and their magna staffs/staves, General Grievous, General Grievous's monowheel, the Utapauan P-38 starfighter used by Obi-Wan to flee Utapau, and the unscientifically-minded medical droid that delivered Padme's children.

The Force Awakens has the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, the Upsilon-class shuttle, the AAL 1971/9.1 landing craft, Rey's speederbike, the Quadjumper that Rey wanted to take from Jakku, Han's Baleen-class heavy freighter, the Resistance transport, BB-8, recolored two-man TIE fighters, slightly-modified X-Wings, Kylo Ren's lightsaber, Starkiller Base, and the stun baton used by TR-8R; The Last Jedi adds the ski speeders, Resistance MG-100 StarFortress SF-17 (B/SF-17) bombers, the First Order's siege cannon, the Supremacy, the 'fleet-killer' dreadnought, Xi-class shuttle used by Rose and Finn to escape the Supremacy, the shuttle Rose and Finn used to go to Canto Bight, the shuttle that DJ used to rescue Rose and Finn and get them onto the Supremacy, the shuttles used by the Resistance to get to Crait, and slightly-modified AT-AT walkers.

Trivia question cause you guys usually know: Who is the sequels equivalent of Nick Gillard and Bob Andersen? I've never heard any name.

Gyula Toth would seem to be an equivalent to Bob Andersen.

[LaZodiac]

One of the biggest complaints I saw levied at the prequels back in the day was that the ships looked too pristine and clean, that nothing looked like it could eventually become what we know in the OT. Now everyone is saying that the gradual evolution of technology appeal isn't what you want. So which is it?

Like in an actual, genuinely phrased way: which do you prefer? Do you prefer vastly different looking technology based on the era, or that gradual shift of something old, but modified over time? Because both have their merits and are interesting.

[Sapphire Guard]

A mix generally works. Our leads in the PT are Jedi and royalty, they're rich and powerful enough to have new ships, which makes sense.

There is no equivalent in the PT of an old, beat up freighter like the Millenium Falcon, because the people we meet have the privilege of using new ships. But we do see proto X Wings in the opening of ROTS, and proto ISDs in the Venators, and proto- TIEs. As well as a bunch of other designs.