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Author Topic: Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi  (Read 248164 times)
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Reply #280 on: December 20, 2017, 06:30:18 AM

Well now you tolerated plot holes in the first trilogy. so my glaring death star sized plot holes and cannon disrespect are ok guys, fake criticism. Only type of people who make those analogies are presidents we dont like and fanboys. I can list flaws from plot progression, character motives, behavior, character arc. I can list the number of time our movie director forgot how space fucking works. I thought we stopped doing that in 2017. But its a master piece because it subverted expectations!! Yes so is eating french fries with left out mayo.
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Reply #281 on: December 20, 2017, 07:10:45 AM

Tell me, how does space fucking work? Protip hint: hyperdrive isn't real.
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Reply #282 on: December 20, 2017, 07:19:52 AM

Or that accepting things uncritically is somehow better than acknowledging flaws and problems even in things that we do like. I enjoyed the film but it was not a good movie.

It was an entertaining movie to watch but unless the movie just blows me away on some level, there's rarely a movie that I can watch without analyzing and critiquing it. As a writer, I cannot turn that part of my brain off and I don't want to. That's part of my enjoyment of watching film, or reading books, is to see how it was done and how I might do it differently. I'm perfectly capable of enjoying shitty shit movies, and getting enjoyment out of watching and critiquing them (see my reviews on Uwe Boll movies). I can watch the D&D movie for example, which is literally cinematic bubonic plague, and still enjoy it. That doesn't make it a good movie nor does it make me liking it somehow a bad thing.

If you (not IainC but the thread in general) like TLJ, great for you. I enjoyed watching the movie but unlike other movies I've enjoyed watching, I couldn't help dissecting it while watching the movie. It's flaws were that apparent. I don't fault them for trying some different things. I fault their execution of those attempts, because the execution was really messy.

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Reply #283 on: December 20, 2017, 07:42:51 AM

Tell me, how does space fucking work? Protip hint: hyperdrive isn't real.

Also:Laser swords.

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Reply #284 on: December 20, 2017, 07:55:24 AM

Look, I normally dissect stuff too. And I dissected this as it went along in the same fashion. I really felt there was only one thing not working for me, and that was the clumsiness of how it moved Finn and Rose to where they needed to be. The chase could have been handled somewhat better in terms of establishing the basic dilemma--they were basically ripping off "33" from Battlestar Galactica and as long as they were going to do that, they could have stuck closer to the beats of that plot--something where the Resistance fleet can only get away for a short while and they've seemingly got nowhere to hide and no real hope of assistance. That might have solved the clumsiness of the casino plot--Holdo keeps the idea of misdirecting the First Order pursuers while going to ground hidden from Poe and everyone else because they're not sure if the way they're being followed is via a hidden traitor or something else, so it's need-to-know, and Poe decides to quietly send six or seven mission teams on a variety of desperate hail-mary things, including breaking into First Order code security on board the flagship to see how the tracking is being done. That could mount the tension as news of the missions failing or turning up nothing come in, until Poe hears from Rose and Finn that they've got a slicer and tells them to get on board the flagship.

But the basic thing worked beautifully, I thought: it kept you guessing throughout, it kept subverting your expectations, it had some beautiful set-pieces, and maybe the best acting in a Star Wars film since Alec Guinness. Hamill gave a fantastic performance, maybe partly because of his discomfort with what Johnson wanted from him. I genuinely *enjoyed* the film as well as admired the tactical moves it made within the overall IP.
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Reply #285 on: December 20, 2017, 08:15:34 AM

But the basic thing worked beautifully, I thought: it kept you guessing throughout, it kept subverting your expectations, it had some beautiful set-pieces, and maybe the best acting in a Star Wars film since Alec Guinness. Hamill gave a fantastic performance, maybe partly because of his discomfort with what Johnson wanted from him. I genuinely *enjoyed* the film as well as admired the tactical moves it made within the overall IP.

I felt like it consisted of a ton of scenes and set pieces that were fantastic, but didn't hang together as well as they could as a movie.

But it also didn't just retread a previous movie, putting it way ahead of TFA.

I loved that they just nuked the JJA "mystery boxes" of Rey's parentage (yay she's just somebody strong in the force, not yet another special skywalker) or Snope's background (who cares, he's toast now).

Hamill gave us a fantastic grouchy hermit Luke and some quality badassery in the confrontation with Kylo. 

Strong agreement with your assessment that they should have borrowed from "33".  If it the Empire could track them, but it took a bit of time, it would make the side-quest stuff with Luke & Rey and Rose & Finn fit together much better time-wise.  Instead we spend the movie intercutting between "the death star will be within firing range..." and two other plots that are operating on completely different timescales.
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Reply #286 on: December 20, 2017, 08:25:53 AM

But the basic thing worked beautifully, I thought: it kept you guessing throughout, it kept subverting your expectations, it had some beautiful set-pieces, and maybe the best acting in a Star Wars film since Alec Guinness. Hamill gave a fantastic performance, maybe partly because of his discomfort with what Johnson wanted from him. I genuinely *enjoyed* the film as well as admired the tactical moves it made within the overall IP.

SPOILERS! Fuck the tags, it's spoiler time and I'm lazy.

But it DIDN'T work beautifully, IMO, it fell apart in fact. Keeping you guessing and subverting expectations - yeah it did that. However, most of the time it felt like they subverted expectations not because it made sense within the story but simply BECAUSE you (or the fans) had a specific expectation. Killing Snoke so quickly? DIDN'T EXPECT THAT! (I actually did not mind that, I just wanted to know more about Snoke before he got kacked). Rey's parents are nobody? DIDN'T EXPECT THAT!!! (I also thought that was great - if she'd been a Skywalker, then all we have is a galaxy-wide, generations-long family feud and it's a really boring story to tell). The kid with a broom is a Jedi. DIDN'T EXPECT THAT!! (Wasn't surprised by that at all, in fact. It was a little ham-fisted and telegraphed the minute those kids were shown but I didn't really have any issues with it).

Luke tried to kill Ben? Again, I don't have a problem with it but from what the audience is shown (as in don't expect me to have read some prequel backstory novel, SHOW ME ON SCREEN, DON'T JUST HAVE THE CHARACTERS TELL ME), that's the entire reason for Ben's betrayal. We are told that Snoke had already gotten to him but we have no actual onscreen evidence of that. We are just told that Snoke is the powerful leader of the First Order but not why or how and based on his pretty predictable death, it feels odd. And again, Snoke is a compelling villain to me with real menace displayed in that one scene with Rey, more so than anything Kylo Ren has displayed since he force stopped the blaster bolt at the beginning of TFA.

Maybe there are things that the 3rd movie will reveal that will help mitigate the problems I had with this one - I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that. But since I haven't seen that movie yet, I can only go with what's on screen.

The entire Resistance plot from the minute Poe Dameron gets demoted feels forced and tired. The casino is only a part of it. The deadly dangerous cruiser chase got drained of every ounce of tension the minute Rose and Finn were just able to jet away without anyone giving a shit. The mutiny by Poe and the reactions of Holdo all felt really forced without any hint of tension, mostly because they went on too long and involved way expecting the audience to take way too many leaps of faith based on characters we've barely met (i.e. Poe, Rose and Holdo - by the time we see both in this movie, Poe had almost no screen time in TFA so his character was still a blank).

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Reply #287 on: December 20, 2017, 09:18:34 AM

Poe is an utterly familiar archetype, though (Leia even calls him out for BEING that archetype) and the trope of "I have to commit mutiny on behalf of my desperate plan to save us all because the horrible bureaucratic unimaginative leader who has no plan is going to get us killed" is equally familiar--and almost never subverted this way. I'm not sure you need to know more about him until we get to the very very end and discover that Leia's faith in him is justified--that he has the potential to grow beyond being an impulsive "heroic" type. Now he's got an arc, he's not just a squished together version of Wedge Antilles and Han Solo.

But then, this is Star Wars, where some fans think that a character who got two meme-worthy lines and zero character development in films made over three decades ago somehow needs to be given an elaborately staged death scene.
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Reply #288 on: December 20, 2017, 10:02:39 AM

Or that accepting things uncritically is somehow better than acknowledging flaws and problems even in things that we do like. I enjoyed the film but it was not a good movie.

This is where I am.  I really enjoyed the character arcs and themes, and had fun during the set pieces, but I can see that there is no level of the film, from the small details to the overarching plot that isn't deeply flawed.  I might even call it a good movie based on what it delivered, but as a Star Wars movie it was at least as poor as TFA.

And by flawed I mean stupid.
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Reply #289 on: December 20, 2017, 10:12:55 AM

Tell me, how does space fucking work? Protip hint: hyperdrive isn't real.

No, but the rules governing it have been broadly outlined.  If hyperspace ramming was an effective tactic, we would have seen it used before.  If you could jump inside someone's shields with precision, we would have seen it before.

By forgoing following all the rules of the setting, the new movie sacrifices any future attempts to build drama based on any established constraints, since we know they can be dropped for flexible reality as soon as it's convenient. 

What would you think of Murder on the Orient express if the solution to the murder involved a US Marine with a cloaking device?  That's totally not how the rules of a mystery work, right?  So why is it okay to pull unworkable solutions out in an established setting and claim that this time they work because drama?
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Reply #290 on: December 20, 2017, 10:43:18 AM

Star Wars isn't quite as casual as Star Trek about introducing technical principles in one episode that it will completely forget in the next episode, but on the other hand, one of the things we've seen about Star Wars is that this galaxy is actually quite technologically stagnant. Granted that KOTOR isn't canon now, it nevertheless showed a galaxy that was a long time ago before the present long time ago where almost all the major technologies of space travel, warfare and so on were nearly the same. In fact, I think it's pretty fair to say at this point that the SW galaxy is trapped in a series of recursive cycles that include its technology. When they build new ships, they just build bigger versions of the old ships, typically. This kind of suggests that people are pretty unimaginative in terms of battle tactics as they relate to the technology. This even includes building giant planet-killing weapons; the old EU suggested that this was something that just happened over and over again. Even in the new canon, the First Order continues to refuse to build adequate defenses against small fighters despite being undone by them repeatedly in fleet engagements for the last seven decades.

The hyperspace tracker might be the first thing we've seen in any space battle in Star Wars where the participants regard it as a new and unsettling technology that completely disrupts their usual tactics. I could imagine that in that kind of fictional universe, other tactics that are technologically plausible have just never been tried because everyone has a static view of technology. The only other people we've seen getting even a bit tricky with stuff are smugglers like Han Solo--the Empire and Rebellion just seem ponderous and conservative in these terms.

So maybe Holdo decides to do something that honestly hasn't occurred to others. The real trick is whether the next movie remembers that change in the status quo. It might be that the ship size required to do it in a damaging way is so large that the Resistance will never have more than one or two capable vessels, unlike the First Order.

(I'd really like the series to start taking seriously the question of how the Empire/First Order can make such large numbers of very very large fleet vessels, though--the fact that the Rebels/Resistance have so few is a pretty good indicator that they don't grow on trees.)
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Reply #291 on: December 20, 2017, 10:51:49 AM

So it's not that Star Wars is stupid, but that everyone in Star Wars is stupid?
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Reply #292 on: December 20, 2017, 10:54:05 AM

The empire built the second Death Star in what, three years?  There's no way a dedicated shipyard with existing plans would have trouble churning out a small fleet of ships.

The problem with the fleet sizes we see on screen is, again, stupid.
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Reply #293 on: December 20, 2017, 10:57:58 AM

So it's not that Star Wars is stupid, but that everyone in Star Wars is stupid?

I wouldn't say stupid. Star Wars in some ways reminds me of the tabletop game Battletech. If you've never played, this is a universe that is in a technological dark age. They've lost the ability to make a lot of new things and just keep repairing and reusing old things. Another good example is Warhammer 40k where no one understands their technology and the techpriests more or less pray to it to get it working. (in some versions of the universe at least.)

Star Wars has been stagnant for centuries as far as tech goes. You see small iterations in the tech but nothing massive. Like...hyperdrives might get a bit faster but no entirely new means of space travel is invented. Fighters might get a little better, capital ships have a few more guns and get bigger, etc.

"We live in a country, where John Lennon takes six bullets in the chest, Yoko Ono was standing right next to him and not one fucking bullet! Explain that to me! Explain that to me, God! Explain it to me, God!" - Denis Leary summing up my feelings about the nature of the universe.
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Reply #294 on: December 20, 2017, 10:59:12 AM

(I'd really like the series to start taking seriously the question of how the Empire/First Order can make such large numbers of very very large fleet vessels, though--the fact that the Rebels/Resistance have so few is a pretty good indicator that they don't grow on trees.)

Well, we've seen the rich people who sell them the weapons (both sides) but we have no actual evidence that the Resistance, or the Republic, or the First Order actually has a working economy of any kind. All we have seen of the First Order in particular is that they controlled one planet that they turned into a planet killer and that they somehow have a military that can invade a small bar in a backwater, but we don't even know if they have a "home planet" or headquarters since Snoke was apparently based on a ship himself.

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Reply #295 on: December 20, 2017, 11:22:41 AM

So it's not that Star Wars is stupid, but that everyone in Star Wars is stupid?

I wouldn't say stupid. Star Wars in some ways reminds me of the tabletop game Battletech. If you've never played, this is a universe that is in a technological dark age. They've lost the ability to make a lot of new things and just keep repairing and reusing old things. Another good example is Warhammer 40k where no one understands their technology and the techpriests more or less pray to it to get it working. (in some versions of the universe at least.)

Star Wars has been stagnant for centuries as far as tech goes. You see small iterations in the tech but nothing massive. Like...hyperdrives might get a bit faster but no entirely new means of space travel is invented. Fighters might get a little better, capital ships have a few more guns and get bigger, etc.

I'm not talking about technological stagnation.  There are dozens of plausible reasons for that that don't require stupidity.   I'm talking about no one thinking of using fast mode to smash big thing into bigger thing.  No one building more AA or sending fighter screens against small one man ships that always ruin our best shit.  Not splitting up the fleet knowing only one ship can be tracked, or sending off larger numbers of side quest dudes to evacuate the ship, grab fuel, whatever.  The film is filled with stupid moments that exist so that the director can have his good moments without apparently thinking too hard.


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Reply #296 on: December 20, 2017, 11:26:38 AM

So it's not that Star Wars is stupid, but that everyone in Star Wars is stupid?

It's both, but motherfuckers put goddamn critical thought on hold when it comes to this garbage property because Leia wore a bikini when they were fucking 11 or something and all they want is a light saber forever and ever.
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Reply #297 on: December 20, 2017, 03:35:45 PM

So it's not that Star Wars is stupid, but that everyone in Star Wars is stupid?

I wouldn't say stupid. Star Wars in some ways reminds me of the tabletop game Battletech. If you've never played, this is a universe that is in a technological dark age. They've lost the ability to make a lot of new things and just keep repairing and reusing old things. Another good example is Warhammer 40k where no one understands their technology and the techpriests more or less pray to it to get it working. (in some versions of the universe at least.)

Star Wars has been stagnant for centuries as far as tech goes. You see small iterations in the tech but nothing massive. Like...hyperdrives might get a bit faster but no entirely new means of space travel is invented. Fighters might get a little better, capital ships have a few more guns and get bigger, etc.

I'm not talking about technological stagnation.  There are dozens of plausible reasons for that that don't require stupidity.   I'm talking about no one thinking of using fast mode to smash big thing into bigger thing.  No one building more AA or sending fighter screens against small one man ships that always ruin our best shit.  Not splitting up the fleet knowing only one ship can be tracked, or sending off larger numbers of side quest dudes to evacuate the ship, grab fuel, whatever.  The film is filled with stupid moments that exist so that the director can have his good moments without apparently thinking too hard.




People almost certainly thought about it but it’s expensive and hard to pull off. You have to get a big ship close enough to target an enemy while not getting destroyed. If your ship is strong enough to withstand the barrage from the enemy then why suicide it? Might as well use it as intended. If your ship is not then you get pasted trying the maneuver

Why didn’t the cruiser get pasted you say? well they explained this in the movie. It didn’t get pasted because of a tactical error from the first order. They chose to shoot the ships that had combatants on them thinking that the cruiser was going to warp out as a decoy. It is even forshadowed earlier in the movie because Hux is shown to be manipulatable when he ignores the snub fighter and does not launch fighters, letting Poe clear the surface cannons.

It’s all in the movie for you to see and hear. And maybe you don’t like it, fine, but it’s not lazy or inconsistent.
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Reply #298 on: December 20, 2017, 04:10:26 PM

People almost certainly thought about it but it’s expensive and hard to pull off. You have to get a big ship close enough to target an enemy while not getting destroyed. If your ship is strong enough to withstand the barrage from the enemy then why suicide it? Might as well use it as intended. If your ship is not then you get pasted trying the maneuver
Space is full of rocks. Put a hyperdrive on something with a bit of mass and go capital ship bowling.

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Reply #299 on: December 20, 2017, 04:28:21 PM

Look at it this way. You could have flown a plane into a skyscraper on purpose almost any time after 1965 and done a lot of fucking damage. It's now emerged that the PLO actually had a discussion about whether to do it, and they chose not to specifically because they thought it wouldn't accomplish anything except making people furious. It took thirty-five years for someone to decide that it was an asymmetrical tactic worth trying.

Any power on Earth could build a bunch of relatively disposable aircraft and put pilots on board them and plow them into military assets of an enemy country. They mostly don't because mostly there are better ways to use the human and industrial assets required. Japan did it because they were running out of munitions, they were desperate, they had a kind of cultural concept that made it ideologically plausible. You could ask, "Why doesn't the United States just have human pilots crash heavily fueled obsolete jetliners into terrorists rather than drones? It would work!" only you'd be all kinds of stupid if you did.

The capital ship used in this case was the only ship like that left to the Resistance. Even at the Rebellion's height, it only had a few ships of that size and power. No other power in the galaxy during the entire duration of Star Wars has really had capital ships of that size--the closest besides the Old Republic and the Empire was the Trade Federation. The only power we've seen that might say, "Fuck it, use our huge capital ships on suicide hyperspace runs" would be the Empire/First Order, and they have a giant ideological bias against doing that kind of thing. Plus, we've seen that their engines are comparatively slow, so maybe they might not even be able to.

I can see thinking the basic chase sequence itself is flawed in plot-mechanical terms, but not Holdo's hyperspace kamikaze. That makes perfect sense in-universe both as a tactic and as something people would not previously have done.
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Reply #300 on: December 20, 2017, 05:12:58 PM

No one had thought of the Picard Maneuver until he did it.  awesome, for real

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Reply #301 on: December 20, 2017, 05:30:11 PM


Hamill gave a fantastic performance, maybe partly because of his discomfort with what Johnson wanted from him. I genuinely *enjoyed* the film as well as admired the tactical moves it made within the overall IP.

Ok, while I love Mark Hamill, he isn't really a good actor.  He never has been and that didn't change here.  He wasn't Hayden Christianson/Jake Lloyd awful but his performance was anything but fantastic.
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Reply #302 on: December 20, 2017, 05:39:46 PM

With all the crabbing about tech and tactics, I'm surprised no one has complained about WWII style belly-drop bombers..... in 0 G (of if they did I missed it).

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

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Reply #303 on: December 20, 2017, 06:04:45 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIY-PsHrj9A

Some people are propping this up as validation for Luke criticisms of the movie but to me it's the opposite.  Hamill spent three+ decades being worshiped and idolized by fans and he thinks Luke should be flawless? "Jedi never quit." I mean, except obi-wan...or yoda...or the dude in rebels who quit for a while. 

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Reply #304 on: December 20, 2017, 06:49:46 PM

Their attempts to "grey everything up" might have worked in a different series or if the writing was actually good enough for that to work, but neither is this a different series, nor are the writers good enough to pull it off.

Pretty much encapsulates my thoughts on it as well.  The problem with this new series is there is no plan other than to recreate a lesser reimagined original.   Plot lines are largely the same, the themes don't respect its own lore and what is worse they jettisoned the EU so that they could respect their own lore.  Its almost like they are wanting to rehash the old story in a new telling.   So after they destroy the "Deathstar pt 2" they have the empire reeling right?  No the Empire... first order now controls almost everything and the republic...err rebels are a small under funded rag tag group again.  Almost every story line rehashed over and over again, only this time done much worse.

They don't respect the original, trillogy or what was gained by that war and now they don't respect even their own retelling of the original trilogy.  Where are these knights of ren?  Why did Luke leave the bread crumb trail in the first movie when in the second movie he clearly doesn't want to be found.  It just seems like its bad writing and what is worse aimless writing.  Another thing that seemed really strange, the entire movie was a lets deceive the viewer movie.  It rarely advanced the narrative and seemed to want to play gotcha over and over again in a way that even cheapened itself.   An example was when Luke is about to burn the "Jedi Tree" and the writings within.   So who does it, Yoda?  WTF?   Oh wait fast forward to the end of the movie and.... Gotcha!   Rey now has the books so they didn't burn up in the "Jedi tree" fire!  This is one of about what 20 examples of the "gotcha" writing.

Another problem, the entire writing staff had no idea how to incoporate the greatest iconic hero of the past four decades in a manner that was both respectful to its roots and compelling to advancing a narrative.  This is not Luke Skywalker.  Sorry but there is no way Luke would try to kill his nephew, son of his twin sister and greatest friend.   The guy who didn't want to kill wampas after they nearly ate him, wouldn't have tried to murder his nephew.  Skywalker the guy who tried to redeem his cybernetic, murderous father wouldn't have just tossed the lightsaber behind his back like it was nothing more than an inconvenience.   Hamill did a great job, but he was right this is not Luke.  This was a Rian Johnson pissing on the memory of the original trilogy, the fans, and the lore.   The whole damn writing in this series is:   Aimless.  Incompentent.   Disasterous.   That is the only way to describe both the writing and the execution of The Last Jedi.  J. J. Abrams has his work cut out for him because what should have been a home run and a victory lap is now a dumpster fire and I really have no idea how they are going to come back from what I just watched.  Whats even worse I really don't think that I care enough to find out.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2017, 07:09:49 PM by MournelitheCalix »

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Reply #305 on: December 20, 2017, 07:15:19 PM

With all the crabbing about tech and tactics, I'm surprised no one has complained about WWII style belly-drop bombers..... in 0 G (of if they did I missed it).

This movie has so many stupid moments or ideas or conceits that even something as eye rolling as that doesn't make it into the top 20.
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Reply #306 on: December 20, 2017, 08:19:29 PM

The bombs themselves could be magnetic, or heat sensing, or have their own guidance system and propulsion that doesn't require there to be gravity for them to work. I was not bothered by the bombers at all. As for the light speed ramming, I don't even care if it's not something that's been seen before - it looked goddamn incredible and was one of the truly surprising and entertaining parts of the movie. I'll let "rule of cool" excuse that one. Same goes for Luke getting bombarded by AT-AT's Mk 2.0. It did look cool.

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Reply #307 on: December 20, 2017, 09:44:35 PM

Saw this tonight and I agree with Khaldun's points mostly. I loved this movie, but I'm still processing it.

Did anyone else see the Jedi books in a drawer in the falcon? Thought I saw something.

Also my only big question for th future right now is that the Empire is being run by a whiney brat and a ginger who gets publically mocked. The next movie will probably skip years ahead. Will we see kylo grow up and become a more grown up and secure bad guy?
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Reply #308 on: December 20, 2017, 10:48:29 PM

Ya I thought I saw those books too but wasn't sure since it flashed by so fast.
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Reply #309 on: December 20, 2017, 11:42:36 PM

I just saw it.  I have not read the last X number of pages nor did I to the run up.  Was unspoiled.

Felt very uneven.  Some big unnecessary diversions.  It was “fine “ in only how a SW film can disappoint you.  A lot of missed chances.

Best parts:
Not a rehash of Empire.
Some OK humor.
Mark Hamill.
Javier Bardem.
Luke’s finale.

Worst parts:
Unnecessary meandering narratives.
Laura Dern. Should’ve been an alien.
Magic Leia
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Horse Kid Disney scene as end
Rose.  I’m sorry but if Disney said we needed more plus sized Asian actresses that’s fine.  But THAT actress was not impressive.  And I’m sorry but my God she is uncharismatic.  Could they not have found anyone better?

So yeah.  A typical SW film filled with some gems and some disappointments.
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Reply #310 on: December 21, 2017, 12:31:44 AM

Loved every minute of it. Great show. Sorry you lot can't enjoy things, I sure don't envy you.

Fuck off with that. I haven't even watched this yet but don't act like it's somebody else's problem that they don't like what you like.

You wouldn't like it. You shouldn't waste your money.

At the very least you could ask for some pictures of my movie collection or request a top 50 list from me or something before trying to determine that.

I actually watched it earlier today since I had the opportunity to take my Dad to see it. I'm not a huge fan of it overall but I don't find it offensively bad. There are moments I liked, I think most of the performances are pretty good, and there's some cool cinematography and imagery as well.

While there are some bits that just didn't work for me, my overall issues with the movie were more in regards to the narrative structure and pacing (although I don't want to rehash comments others have made about the Casino stuff here). Now I recognize that all the SW movies have a habit of meandering about quite a bit so I'm not suggesting that it's a problem unique to this one, but it felt uneven enough to be really noticeable here.

A large part of the plot is "First Order pursues Resistance in slow speed chase waiting for them to run out of gas". It's a very odd plot device to build the tension around because the ticking time bomb here is depicted in the visual of the Resistance ships slowly moving across screen getting pelted by energy. It didn't feel particularly dramatic to me any time we'd get a reading of the current amount of fuel left, and for the middle of the movie made the potential total annihilation of the Resistance feel like such a small scale thing that could be depicted in a single wide-shot if the First Order caught up to them. This isn't helped by Snoke's ship being present due mostly to geographic convenience so every character could end up in the same part of the galaxy for the second half of the movie. Gone is any sense of a galactic-scale war going on which also makes Poe's willingness to sacrifice so many people at the start all the more baffling. If they want to do a story about the Resistance being on the verge of collapse that's fine but it felt like they skipped over a bunch of chapters to get there.

Also I was waiting for that kid at the end to ask someone to tell him another story about The Shepard.
eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11839


Reply #311 on: December 21, 2017, 12:35:03 AM

Question for people who hate that the evil mastermind in a trilogy of films is never fleshed out beyond 'I'm an evil guy in a robe who appears in one film in a single scene as a hologram, and in just two scenes in the only other film I appear in'. Also for people who really hate trilogys where we don't see how the evil mastermind turned his right hand  man to evil...

Why is all of this OK for you in the OT?


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Goumindong
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Reply #312 on: December 21, 2017, 12:39:15 AM

People almost certainly thought about it but it’s expensive and hard to pull off. You have to get a big ship close enough to target an enemy while not getting destroyed. If your ship is strong enough to withstand the barrage from the enemy then why suicide it? Might as well use it as intended. If your ship is not then you get pasted trying the maneuver
Space is full of rocks. Put a hyperdrive on something with a bit of mass and go capital ship bowling.

How do you get the rocks close enough to shoot?
IainC
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Reply #313 on: December 21, 2017, 01:03:02 AM

The bombs themselves could be magnetic, or heat sensing, or have their own guidance system and propulsion that doesn't require there to be gravity for them to work. I was not bothered by the bombers at all. As for the light speed ramming, I don't even care if it's not something that's been seen before - it looked goddamn incredible and was one of the truly surprising and entertaining parts of the movie. I'll let "rule of cool" excuse that one. Same goes for Luke getting bombarded by AT-AT's Mk 2.0. It did look cool.
If they had some kind of guidance or whatever, they wouldn't need to be deployed from something that flies very slowly directly over the target. You cold launch them from anywhere and watch them fly to their target without exposing a crewed ship to unecessary danger. Gravity bombs are more or less obsolete even with 21st century Earth tech.

<Stuff about using capital ships as hyperspace bombs>


Which is why you don't use a ship. You just put a hyperdrive unit on a rock with a remote control system. You're right that we don't go and crash F-22s into Hi-Luxes full of guys with AK47s, but we do fly unmanned aircraft into them. Those aircraft are built specifically to fly exactly once so they don't need all the complexity that a reusable vehicle with a human pilot needs. If aerodynamics aren't an issue, then it doesn't matter what shape the vehicle is, only the mass and its structural integrity, just use a chunk of space rock and go wild.


Goumindong:
You can tow it behind the controlling vessel or, y'know it has a hyperdrive, so just jump it close with the rest of the fleet and then warp it in from there.


Eldaec:
In the OT, we don't need to know where Palpatine came from. It's part of the initial setup that we are given. There's an evil Empire, thus an evil Emperor. At the end of the OT, we see Vader and Palpatine die, and the story strongly suggests that there are no more significant Force users any more except for Luke. So, when in TFA, we get this new super Force user who has somehow inherited the remnants of the former Empire, it's a jarring discontinuity with no context. I don't need to see 20 minutes of Snoke growing up, but some references to why he's the guy in charge and where he came from would help a lot. If they'd gone with a regular military commander instead, nobody would care why he was in charge, it would be unexceptional. If it was me writing the First Order leadership, I'd have had a regular Staff Officer running the show. Maybe he's some Grand Moff who carved out a chunk of territory during the fall of the Empire and has been soaking up whatever remnants of the former Imperial military ever since. The first time that any subordinate refers to him as Grand Moff or whatever, we have all the context we need for his leadership. No backstory scenes are required. Then there's Kylo Ren. As the grandson of Vader, he has a strong symbolic value to the First Order even outside of his abilities as a Force user. He's a link between the new regime and an incredibly powerful icon of the Empire. So yeah, give him a leadership role in the First Order outside of the normal hierarchy - like Vader. Then have Snoke be someone from outside the First Order, he's a shadowy figure who corrupted Ren but we don't need to know how or when. The Sith/apprentice dynamic is already well established, there's no need to go too far into that. If we see Ren communing with Snoke in private and keeping it a secret from the First Order, we understand what is going on. Again no explanation needed. In TLJ, when Luke is dropping some backstory to Rey, just have him say something like 'I thought I was training him but I discovered that he had a different Master' and again, we don't need any more context. Instead though, we get something that ought to be explained but isn't. It's like reading a history of the US and all of a sudden there's a reference to the Chief Pope of America and you're like 'wait, what?'

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Velorath
Contributor
Posts: 8980


Reply #314 on: December 21, 2017, 01:05:16 AM

Question for people who hate that the evil mastermind in a trilogy of films is never fleshed out beyond 'I'm an evil guy in a robe who appears in one film in a single scene as a hologram, and in just two scenes in the only other film I appear in'. Also for people who really hate trilogys where we don't see how the evil mastermind turned his right hand  man to evil...

Why is all of this OK for you in the OT?



I realize that you're asking specifically about the lack of backstory, but I do feel like pointing out the fact that he's just bad CGI Palpatine (with less fun dialogue) maybe gives a hint of why people aren't so enamored of the character. Darth Maul had one line in Episode 1 and some people still point to him as one of the better bits of the prequels because of the character design and fighting skills. More people probably would have forgiven the fact that Snoke is barely a character if he didn't look like the result of Lucas and Peter Jackson fucking on top of a CGI animator's computer.
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