12 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Also TLJ confirmed: R2 is salty as **** and has a potty mouth.

Didn't C-3PO actually give him a 'you watch your language' in Ep 4?

9 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

a missing beginning itself should not be a problem,

It is - if there are no known Hyperspace lanes leading to Ahch-To anymore. The planet has been forgotten for thousands of years. Hyperspace lanes are not static, they change - that's why Astrogational data has to be updated regularly. So, the route to Ahch-To has probably broken a long time ago and had to be plotted anew. So, the beginning is worthless without the starting point.

8 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

considering that R2 has,to my knowledge, never had a memory wipe,

Anakin declined wiping R2s memory as he wanted 'his personality to develop'. But I don't think C3-PO had one either - as we see in the Poe Dameron comics, there's even a backup-copy of his primary memory chip at D'Quar.

1 hour ago, Sunrider said:

It is - if there are no known Hyperspace lanes leading to Ahch-To anymore. The planet has been forgotten for thousands of years. Hyperspace lanes are not static, they change - that's why Astrogational data has to be updated regularly. So, the route to Ahch-To has probably broken a long time ago and had to be plotted anew. So, the beginning is worthless without the starting point.

Anakin declined wiping R2s memory as he wanted 'his personality to develop'. But I don't think C3-PO had one either - as we see in the Poe Dameron comics, there's even a backup-copy of his primary memory chip at D'Quar.

CP3O was memory wiped at the end of episode 3. Bail Ogarma expressively stated to wipe their memories and pass them on to his service.

Admittedly I can't remember whether it was just CP3O or whether that included R2; I imagine part of it was to ensure the droid didn't recognise the Jedi, while the audience couldn't understand R2 so it was less important. While the golden toaster was probably the kind of droid who would spill his theoretical guts at the slightest interrogation.

38 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

CP3O was memory wiped at the end of episode 3. Bail Ogarma expressively stated to wipe their memories and pass them on to his service.

That is an assumption. His order may or may not have been executed. It a reasonable assumption in context of C3POs behavior, but not necessarily true.

12 hours ago, Vorzakk said:

Didn't C-3PO actually give him a 'you watch your language' in Ep 4?

Yeah, but that could have been a case of Threepio being overly sensitive. But now we get Luke - a much more down home sort of guy telling him to watch the potty mouth. That only confirms what I thought all along.

On 1/10/2018 at 1:04 AM, Degenerate Mind said:

Yes, and she should be ashamed of herself for being so bigoted. Someone ought to teach her how to respec wamen.

To quote the most insincere character in the MarcyVerse: 'Boo hoo, Marcy did a Bad Thing!' (and this is someone who burns down orphanages; I don't think I'm actually that bad...)

Can I even be bigoted against my own gender? I thought it came with my membership package that I could diss my own gender. I'll have to check the small print.

Anyway, I can respec characters (if I'm in a generous mood), but I've never tried to respec wamen. Is that like ramen?

<smartass mode off>

Okay, srsly, I'm sorry if I ruffled any feathers with that. I honestly thought that scene was silly. (And I love Carrie to bits, I pretty much owe my sexuality to her back in 1984).

I mean, if they just wanted her taken out of action for Poe to do some Mansplaining Mutiny, they could have done it another way.

Why now, after five movies, is Leia suddenly a Force Wizard? I can only assume (with her brother gone) she was intended to be a mentor for Rey in the next film. That might have been cool, but that plot obviously was rendered moot when we lost Carrie

13 minutes ago, Maelora said:

Why now, after five movies, is Leia suddenly a Force Wizard? I can only assume (with her brother gone) she was intended to be a mentor for Rey in the next film. That might have been cool, but that plot obviously was rendered moot when we lost Carrie

Yeah, that seems the intent was for Episode 9 to be Leia's movie in regards to which of the Original Trilogy leads got the focal point (Han in 7, Luke in 8), but the too soon passing of the actress rendered that kaput. Yeah, it's possible they could have edited the final cut to simply have her die in the bridge explosion, but I think that would have been a disservice to the actress and robbed the audiences of a chance to see Luke and Leia reconnect one final time before he went out to become Luke Skywalker the Legendary Jedi one last time.

I suspect her "burst of Force prowess" was akin to those stories you hear about ordinary humans displaying sudden bursts of superhuman strength in life-or-death situations (classic example is the mother lifting a truck by herself to save her infant child from being crushed). Plus, she's a Skywalker, and we've had several movies demonstrating that Skywalkers are incredibly powerful Force users, starting with Anakin, picking up with Luke (whose biggest hurdle was opening his mind to the possibilities of what he could accomplish with the Force), and continuing with Ben Solo/Kylo Ren (who is likely to be the last member of that particular legacy at the rate things are going). Granted the cinematography for Leia's sudden flight was sadly on the goofy side, but considering she was mostly frozen and only able to move an arm... maybe it might have helped if she wasn't in a dress and was instead in her battle fatigues that we first saw her wearing in Episode 7.

It was likely just another case of "darned if you do, darned if you don't" that Rian Johnson would have had to deal with, so he opted to go with the choice that let him pay respects to our princess.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

It was likely just another case of "darned if you do, darned if you don't" that Rian Johnson would have had to deal with, so he opted to go with the choice that let him pay respects to our princess.

Well said. I saw it again last week (alone, and sober this time) and had a new perspective on it. I originally thought it took few risks, but second time around I can see they made a lot of bold decisions (Dayum, Rian Johnson almost MarcyVersed it, no wonder so many people were upset with him!)

I'm glad they killed Snoke early on. Like Palpatine, he only exists to lead a major character astray. Now he's done that, let's get rid of yet another one-note expy with little ceremony.

Rey is humanised a bit, but she needs more. Kathleen Kennedy needs to let go of her being a self-insert I think. Real heroines fall sometimes, then they dust themselves down and do it better. I have the feeling Leia would have been her mentor in the next film, and she'd have smoothed Rey's rough edges a bit. It would have been a nice 'passing the torch' moment I think.

Still didn't like the Mind-Skype. Why waste a cool concept on what sounded like a posh gap-year student having a tiff with her edgelord boyfriend?

I was fine with Grumpy Old Man Luke. Mark Hamill's become a fine actor and he portrays him well even though he personally questioned the direction his character was going in. He fits the theme of 'moving on' and making something new out of the past. He goes out in a fitting way and gets one last scene where he's totally badass and saves the day. I think his only mistake with Kylo was not putting him down when he had the chance, but I get that mercy is absolutely a part of his character.

The Canto Bight sequence still seems unnecessary. And I'm centre-left, but it still felt a bit heavy-handed and out of place in a SW movie. It reminded me to keep my in-game politics broad and not modern. 'Droid/clone rights' are fine - Donald Trump expys are not.

I was okay with Poe and Admiral Dangerhair, although I think the whole sequence lacked the drama of previous films. At this point I just want Star Wars to get over 'plucky rebels vs evil empire'. Remind me why the protagonists fought in 'Return of the Jedi' again if this is where we ended up?

I'm really loving 'Rey is a nobody' and Broom Kid. After seven movies telling us the Force is just the personal playground of a special-snowflake dynasty, now anyone can be a hero. I'm absolutely fine that Rey doesn't have special parents and was just born awesome. That's very much a MarcyVerse thing. However, after the fan backlash, I'm afraid this won't stick in the next film. In fact, I'd expect Abrams to massively retcon the 'RianVerse'.

Final point I noticed 2nd time around - I didn't especially like Rose, but her inclusion absolutely kills Finn's character. I like John Boyega as an actor, his role as former Imperial has plenty of promise... but he seems a character in search of a meaningful plot. In the first film, he's mostly there just to make Rey look good. This time around, he's saddled with a sidequest that almost everyone thinks was unnecessary.

Also, Rose acts more like his keeper than his friend or lover. The poor guy has NO agency at all. He begins trying to run away (so he won't bring trouble on his friends or something). So Rose zaps him with a cattle-prod and drags him to Admiral Dangerhair, who assigns him a pointless mission:

"Oh, we've run out of gas. Can you go to a casino somewhere across the galaxy and find some guy who will do some thing? And can you get that done in, say, thirty minutes? KThanksBye."

Then they arrive and Finn raves about the place, but luckily his handler Rose is on hand to tell him what to think:

Finn: "This place is great!"

Finn Handler: 'No, rich white people are always evil!'

Finn: "Yeah, you're right! Let's run them over with Space Donkeys!"

Then there's a non-fight with Phasma, who seems to exist merely to make poor old Finn look competent compared to someone in the galaxy. Then there's SaltHoth where Finn's utility gets upstaged by foxes made out of icicles. The poor guy actually tries to make a noble sacrifice to take Grond out of commission so his pals can escape. But Rose is there to foil even this, because apparently Star Wars isn't about bold sacrifices anymore? Honestly, if either of them had died during this sequence I think it would have carried much more weight. I mean, if Astral Projection Luke hadn't turned up, they'd have been screwed without Finn's sacrifice.

And again, the poor guy has absolutely no agency, no way to act on his own. I hope this changes in the last film, as he's looking like a very extraneous character right now. He actually has chemistry with Daisy Ridley in the interviews, but this doesn't happen onscreen, mostly because Finn has to act as Rey's straight man. He actually had chemistry with Oscar Isaacs, so I really hope they pal-up again and actually get some buddy-movie time in the last one. We know the Star Wars ladies are awesome, but these two actors and characters need to do the Hero stuff too.

1 hour ago, Maelora said:

Why now, after five movies, is Leia suddenly a Force Wizard? I can only assume (with her brother gone) she was intended to be a mentor for Rey in the next film. That might have been cool, but that plot obviously was rendered moot when we lost Carrie

Define "suddenly"? Because in her second movie, there's the whole "I know where Luke is" scene, in her third, "there is another" (aka another Skywalker that Yoda and Darth Vader think might be powerful enough to merit training or turning) and in her fourth, she feels Han's death. The only thing that's new about this is that in a life-or-death situation she developed one power beyond Sense - and it's pretty much the same power that Luke developed second about 30 years ago: Force Move, with which he grabbed his lightsaber to avoid becoming wampa food.

1 hour ago, Maelora said:

Finn Handler: 'No, rich white people are always evil!'

Well... We usually are.

However there were hardly any rich white man in the scene...

22 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Wel, considering that R2 has,to my knowledge, never had a memory wipe, who knows how much information and knowledge he has gathered over the decades since the events of TPM?

R2 had at least one memory wipe in the Clone Wars series. The episode that R2 and 3PO got droid-napped by some bounty hunters ended with their memories being wiped and them being tossed out on the streets of Coruscant.

I do agree with Finn's character; he is literally the character who can't do anything of his own free will. Which is a shame considering I feel he is a good actor, but is essentially stuck with the role of being the steriotypical clueless guy that makes quips about being a Janitor; he is a trained stormtrooper, why can't that show through more often? Why does he have to be everyones sidekick?

Besides Finn's adventure accomplished one thing; it actually gave perspective to the republic's stance on the new order and ironically, there seems to be a gross indifference toward the new order by the corporate elite, bordering on full on supporting the new establishment. That there actually seems to be elements of the shattered republic that have (had?) strongly supported the new order both financially and with equipment. Furthermore the lack of response to a distress call was very telling; no one was interested in helping the resistance at that point.

It seems that the best way of saving the Republic is doing away with the republic entirely as it seems a lot of members of the republic are actively collaborating with the empire, if Leia's book and the indications in episode 8 were anything to go by.. One of my characters plot points is that, having at this point fought the empire and the s for 3 years, has become steadfast in that the only good empire is no Empire, and thus the Republics settling for soft peace after it's key members have achieved their own small agenda's is an abomination for him. I can see him being a blight on the republican peace treaty for a long time after that.

Too political? Star Wars has a trend of making observations on the war's such as in return of the Jedi paralleling Vietnam. If people were as passionate about it's politics as their hobbies, the world would be quite a interesting place. I cannot stand the political environment of today and I think very strong revisions must be made if society is to advance forward into a true space age.

16 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

That is an assumption. His order may or may not have been executed. It a reasonable assumption in context of C3POs behavior, but not necessarily true.

Why is it an assumption? Senator Orgama said that their memories would be wiped and no evidence suggests otherwise. As en-cumbersome as Lucas can be, it's not like him to include something without intent to further his narrative. In CP30's case, his memory of Padme and Tatooine would be a liability given how vocal he is.

12 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

Why is it an assumption? Senator Orgama said that their memories would be wiped and no evidence suggests otherwise. As en-cumbersome as Lucas can be, it's not like him to include something without intent to further his narrative. In CP30's case, his memory of Padme and Tatooine would be a liability given how vocal he is.

Just a point of clarification: there's no "their" there. Bail specifically stated to "...have the protocol droid's mind wiped."

Wonderful, I just couldn't remember whether it was CP3O or both. I appreciate the reminder. ^^

8 hours ago, LordBritish said:

That there actually seems to be elements of the shattered republic that have (had?) strongly supported the new order both financially and with equipment.

I love it when the movies branch out from the fairy tale simplicity and remind you that most people are just out to make some money, right or wrong be damned. For 99% of the galaxy it's not a mythic struggle of good vs evil, it's just another day on the job.

2 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

I love it when the movies branch out from the fairy tale simplicity and remind you that most people are just out to make some money, right or wrong be damned. For 99% of the galaxy it's not a mythic struggle of good vs evil, it's just another day on the job.

I guess what I disliked here was that the point was raised and then promptly forgotten about. Nobody raised it with anyone like Leia or Hondo and they just all went back to 'fairytale simplicity'.

That's especially sad for Finn, seeing as how he's an ex-Imperial. His entire arc should be about thinking for himself and questioning power structures as a newly-free man.

Instead, he essentially just traded Phasma for Rose

Heh, this was a plot point between two of our PCs, an idealistic Jedi and a crippled, cynical Alliance pilot:

1 hour ago, Maelora said:

I guess what I disliked here was that the point was raised and then promptly forgotten about. Nobody raised it with anyone like Leia or Hondo and they just all went back to 'fairytale simplicity'.

It's not forgotten, it informs everything that comes before and after. A theme doesn't just disappear because it's not overly referenced again. Not everything needs to be explicitly handled in dialogue.

1 hour ago, Maelora said:

That's especially sad for Finn, seeing as how he's an ex-Imperial. His entire arc should be about thinking for himself and questioning power structures as a newly-free man.

That's what he does on Canto Bight. But I disagree that this is what his arc SHOULD be about. Or, more accurately, I disagree with the implication that there is only one particular story to tell with his character.

18 hours ago, Maelora said:

Well said. I saw it again last week (alone, and sober this time) and had a new perspective on it. I originally thought it took few risks, but second time around I can see they made a lot of bold decisions (Dayum, Rian Johnson almost MarcyVersed it, no wonder so many people were upset with him!)

That seems to be the running trend, that it takes a second viewing to really appreciate what Rian Johnson did.

That's not saying the film is without flaws (I agree with Canto Bight and felt it could have been trimmed down substantially), but majority of folks that are willing to give the flick a second viewing come to find that it's not nearly as bad as the internet trolls would have one believe.

My own take on this is that a lot of folks went into TLJ with expectations they built up, knowingly or not, over the two year period between TFA and TLJ. And when a lot of those expectations were dashed (no big reveal on Snoke, Rey not having a super-special legacy, the Resistance getting its hindquarters kicked, Luke no longer being the all-loving ideal Jesus allegory he was in the original trilogy), that lead to a bad first impression.

Myself, I generally deep-six any expectations I might have of a film and can accept that the film I'm watching is the director's film, not mine. So that's probably while I had issues with TLJ, none of it marred my enjoyment of the movie on the first viewing.

1 hour ago, Maelora said:

His entire arc should be about thinking for himself and questioning power structures as a newly-free man.

Why?

He was raised to follow orders. His whole life was built upon following orders. The thing is: He never saw combat. He's not ready for the reality of warfare - he doesn't hold his fire on Jakku out of some instinct for the right thing. He just freezes up. And he helps Poe not because it's the right thing to do, as Poe immediatly sees - he just needs a pilot.

This whole Resistance-thing is not his business. He wants to get to Rey, that's why he tries to get into the escape pod (says the Visual Dictionary). So, Finn is just a coward in love, basically.

Finn is not a leader. He's comfortable with following someone. His freedom is to chose who to follow.

I wouldn't call Finn a coward. He does risk his life for Rey when he goes to Spaceplanet Murderball in Force Awakens, for example.

But other than that I pretty much agree. Not everyone is a leader - and that's absolutely okay.

On 1/4/2018 at 8:06 PM, splad said:

Been thinking more about this complaint, which is the most serious criticism of the movie's portrayal of Luke. There is something to the criticism, for sure, but I think you can connect the dots and make sense of Luke's behavior if you keep in mind the power of the dark side.

I think that's working far too hard when the answer is much easier.

Luke has demonstrated a history of acting on impulse. In the final confrontation with Vader, he hammered away at him for a few minutes, then regained control. Then, 20-something years later, he had a momentary lapse regarding Ben, but regained control. Unfortunately, it was just a moment too late, as Ben - tainted by the dark side - woke up and saw him, then pulled the hut down on them both before Luke could do or say anything.

3 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Luke has demonstrated a history of acting on impulse. In the final confrontation with Vader, he hammered away at him for a few minutes, then regained control.

I absolutely agree, I just think the explanation for his impulsiveness is the temptation of the dark side. He was giving in to his fear and aggression in that scene. Palpatine says as much, and it's strongly indicated as well by the shot where Luke stares at his hand and then at Vader's stump. Those are the moments when he risks going down the dark path and becoming like Vader.

Impulsiveness by itself might explain his drawing on Ben, but it isn't going to explain why he spent years in exile when he could've been helping his friends save the galaxy. That wasn't an impulsive decision, it was a committed life choice. And the best way to justify it is if he was afraid that any other path might lead to his fall.

4 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

it isn't going to explain why he spent years in exile when he could've been helping his friends save the galaxy.

Because he felt ashamed and bitter. Seems perfectly plausible to me.

11 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Impulsiveness by itself might explain his drawing on Ben, but it isn't going to explain why he spent years in exile when he could've been helping his friends save the galaxy. That wasn't an impulsive decision, it was a committed life choice. And the best way to justify it is if he was afraid that any other path might lead to his fall.

He felt that he'd completely failed. His sister and best friend entrusted him with their son, who'd gone dark and literally burned Luke's attempts to restart the Jedi to the ground. Shame at it all drove him away.