On 3/9/2017 at 1:25 AM, SEApocalypse said:

Can agree on general TFA issue, can't agree on Poe, he is just an ace, doing what Wedge and other alliance top aces could do. Though the TIEs pilots might have been especially green, which again fits the first order theme.

Saw this and just couldn't resist getting embroiled in this particular internet debate...

Hugely disagree on this point. Wedge and Poe are portrayed very differently. Throughout 4, 5, and 6, Wedge was never made out to be some kind of super-ace -- it was never pointed out, rubbed in our faces, or otherwise declared . Wedge gained that reputation purely through his actions and survival throughout the trilogy. In 4, he's just a rando Red Squadron pilot who helps his squadronmate (Luke) out of a bind when Luke's wingman (Biggs) isn't available, and he then manages to survive getting shot by Vader -- thus making this rando Red Squadron pilot now a combat veteran. In 5, he again picks up the slack when Rogue Squadron is getting trashed by AT-ATs, with he and his gunner scoring a tow cable kill on one of the AT-ATs -- just a veteran pilot pulling his weight, nothing more. By 6 he's moved up the ranks to be Red Leader, clearly an elite pilot by this point. Other than the distinction of generally being competent during the battle and helping Lando knock out the Death Star's reactor, nothing really exceptional goes on with Wedge. He's just a competent, veteran pilot who's there .

Compare to Poe, whom we are immediately informed is THE BEST PILOT EVER. I have no real objection to the TIE escape sequence, but then we are later treated to a completely gratuitous shot of him annihilating the entire First Order Starfighter Corps to Finn's jubilant cries of "OH EM GEE BEST PILOT EVER." Cinematically, it's a pretty shot (though not as nice as Rogue One's T-65 action, IMO), but in terms of story and character it's wretched. I can forgive the weird, blatant re-write that brought Poe back to life out of nowhere, but the overblown, gratuitously-ridiculous character abilities are not at all comparable to the OT's, and certainly not Wedge's.

In other words, Wedge earned his reputation as an ace. Poe was handed his.

10 hours ago, BCGaius said:

Saw this and just couldn't resist getting embroiled in this particular internet debate...

Hugely disagree on this point. Wedge and Poe are portrayed very differently. Throughout 4, 5, and 6, Wedge was never made out to be some kind of super-ace -- it was never pointed out, rubbed in our faces, or otherwise declared . Wedge gained that reputation purely through his actions and survival throughout the trilogy. In 4, he's just a rando Red Squadron pilot who helps his squadronmate (Luke) out of a bind when Luke's wingman (Biggs) isn't available, and he then manages to survive getting shot by Vader -- thus making this rando Red Squadron pilot now a combat veteran. In 5, he again picks up the slack when Rogue Squadron is getting trashed by AT-ATs, with he and his gunner scoring a tow cable kill on one of the AT-ATs -- just a veteran pilot pulling his weight, nothing more. By 6 he's moved up the ranks to be Red Leader, clearly an elite pilot by this point. Other than the distinction of generally being competent during the battle and helping Lando knock out the Death Star's reactor, nothing really exceptional goes on with Wedge. He's just a competent, veteran pilot who's there .

Compare to Poe, whom we are immediately informed is THE BEST PILOT EVER. I have no real objection to the TIE escape sequence, but then we are later treated to a completely gratuitous shot of him annihilating the entire First Order Starfighter Corps to Finn's jubilant cries of "OH EM GEE BEST PILOT EVER." Cinematically, it's a pretty shot (though not as nice as Rogue One's T-65 action, IMO), but in terms of story and character it's wretched. I can forgive the weird, blatant re-write that brought Poe back to life out of nowhere, but the overblown, gratuitously-ridiculous character abilities are not at all comparable to the OT's, and certainly not Wedge's.

In other words, Wedge earned his reputation as an ace. Poe was handed his.

It's not that Poe was "handed" his rep so much as it was earned before the movie began. Poe is established as an experienced veteran , much like Han was in the OT, and who was himself descended from veteran Rebel fighter pilots. Also, he wasn't described as the "best pilot ever", just the best within the Resistance, which, as you know was pretty hard up for ships and pilots. Not only that, but he is shown to be that good in the battle of Takodona. Therefore, it's definitely an earned reputation.

Gotta agree with Tramp here. Poe was ridiculously good at piloting, which proved the line of him being the best pilot in the Resistance. There was a lot of stuff in TFA that was specifically "x character is above average at y thing." Rey is a really good melee combatant. Finn is a crackshot. Poe is an amazing pilot. Kylo Ren is good at restricting another's movement. Han is great at everything but lying. Leia is good at getting Han killed. Luke is great with the silent treatment. Hux is a great nazi public speaker.

Wedge is great at surviving. He basically abandoned Luke in the trench instead of staying and blocking any shots from Vader. In Empire, once again, he was great at not dying. In Return of the Jedi, well, he didn't die.

Let's also not forget that Wedge was supposed to be in the role Poe took in the film. Wedge was supposed to come in, get captured, save Finn and then die but the actor didn't want a small part in the film, he wanted to be a larger part of it or none of it at all. So they created Poe instead, still with the idea that he was going to die until they changed their minds later because why the heck not. That also means the battle of Takodana was changed and probably the trench run at the end as well, since that was all Poe.

1 hour ago, GroggyGolem said:

Wedge is great at surviving. He basically abandoned Luke in the trench instead of staying and blocking any shots from Vader. In Empire, once again, he was great at not dying. In Return of the Jedi, well, he didn't die.

Funny thing is, this was pretty much his portrayal in Legends. I don't remember who said it or when, but somewhere in the X-Wing or Wraith series, people started discussing who was the best pilot in the Alliance. It went aomething along the lines of "Well, it's it's sheer flying ability, it's probably Luke. If you're talking about most kills, maybe Janson or Tycho. If you're talking about the most major battles survived while getting a crapton of commendations through all of them? Yeah, that's Wedge."

My only regret with the Takodana shot is that they didn't give Finn a chance to take out a tail on Poe with a missile tube or something. It would have made the scene perfect.

I would put it down to a difference in media. A new hope was a really slow movie in it's opening half, something that would have a movie torn to pieces these days. The Force Awakens is cators to an audience that is assumed to have ADHD, something awesome is happening every 5 minutes and everything is dialed up to 11. "This pilot is awesome, he not only survives the battles but he SLAUGHTERS in them! RULES OF NATURE" kinda way, despite Poe's relative importance being relatively zero throughout large chunks of the movie, aside from "he was the guy with the plans/Lukes superawesome hideout" and "He's so good he doesn't need a squad. Hold my drink fella's I'm going in." Wedge always struck me as the more ordinary perspective that just couldn't die.

It's also worth mentioning that Wedge is only really referenced as an absolute Legend in books and Legends Eu, you could basically go throughout the original movies without knowing his name and we really wouldn't be missing anything. While the original movies were fairly bold and brash, it was a fair bit more balanced against pushing a slow but steady narrative.

The original movies don't overstate anything to the point that the extended universe does.

I mean, lightsabers in the original movies are never stated to be these infinitely destructive wonder weapons that are powered by magic crystals that call to the wielder. It's just an archaic weapon from a "more civilized era" that Jedi can still get away with using because without the force you'd simply get gunned down if you try to use a sword. Palpatine thinks lightsabers are silly in Episode 6. Then the extended universe happens, that filters back into the prequels and now lightsabers are easily the most scary weapons in the universe in terms of size vs. destructive potential , and the reason only Jedi bother with them is that they are built with force sensitive crystals nobody else can use.

6 hours ago, Aetrion said:

The original movies don't overstate anything to the point that the extended universe does.

I mean, lightsabers in the original movies are never stated to be these infinitely destructive wonder weapons that are powered by magic crystals that call to the wielder. It's just an archaic weapon from a "more civilized era" that Jedi can still get away with using because without the force you'd simply get gunned down if you try to use a sword. Palpatine thinks lightsabers are silly in Episode 6. Then the extended universe happens, that filters back into the prequels and now lightsabers are easily the most scary weapons in the universe in terms of size vs. destructive potential , and the reason only Jedi bother with them is that they are built with force sensitive crystals nobody else can use.

Sabine/Finn/Pre Vizsla/Han Solo/Chewbacca/the leader of SCAR Squad used them just fine in canon. None of those characters are "Force Sensitive".

49 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Sabine/Finn/Pre Vizsla/Han Solo/Chewbacca/the leader of SCAR Squad used them just fine in canon. None of those characters are "Force Sensitive".

Yes, but it's also canonically established through Rebels that the weight of a lightsaber depends on well you're attuned with it, meaning even a non force sensitive character who uses one on some level has to make a connection with the weapon for it to reach its full potential.

Also the question isn't so much whether you need to be force sensitive to pick up a lightsaber, but whether or not you need to be force sensitive to build one. I don't think there are any canonical examples of someone building a lightsaber without being force sensitive. Even the Darksaber which is most prominently wielded by non Force users was built by a Mandalorian Jedi originally.

And lastly, I don't think any of those characters use a lightsaber as their primary weapon. They use it in close combat because it's extremely effective, but they don't wade into blaster fire with one secure in the knowledge that they can reflect everything.

All valid points.

We don't know if non-force sensitives can build them in the canon but it's likely they either cannot or nobody has the knowledge of how.

Pre Vizsla used the Dark Saber as his primary weapon it seemed but he's the exception to the rule I think.

1 hour ago, Aetrion said:

And lastly, I don't think any of those characters use a lightsaber as their primary weapon.

Grievous did.

Grievous also had his entire body replaced to attain the speed and precision necessary to do so. I mean, when you're talking about extreme exceptions, Jedi are like one in 10 billion, Grievous was one in the entire galaxy.

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Sabine/Finn/Pre Vizsla/Han Solo/Chewbacca/the leader of SCAR Squad used them just fine in canon. None of those characters are "Force Sensitive".

I would also say in regards to Finn particularly the main movie reason that he wielded it so much was because the movies wanted to trick the audience into thinking he was force sensitive. I think the main reason that people don't regularly use them is that they are inconvenient compared to a blaster. Pre Vizla is the closest one out of that list that seemed the most proficient with light sabers, but he had a lot of other options. Finn meanwhile doesn't have a lot of combat shots in the movie; he literally shoots 3 times and kills 3 people. Finn is literally a red herring designed to trick the audience.

Grevious also did, but he is a weird one. He is very exactly an anti-Jedi cyborg and has a wide range of enhancements to use them efficiently. I imagine him to be the absolute pinca cal of what a non-force sensitive could achieve, mainly because he was had super human strength and durability that meant his inability to deflect a blaster blot wasn't that huge a deal. That and he was a general first and foremost and that wielding lightsabers was much a propaganda tool (look at how many I killed personally) as a weapon.

To be fair I think that building lightsabers is largely restricted to the Jedi and sith, not for mystical reasons particularly but they were the only ones that knew how to. Carrying a lightsaber is a symbol of office and I imagine the great many people would rather avoid punishment by "Impersonating government officials."

6 hours ago, Aetrion said:

Grievous also had his entire body replaced to attain the speed and precision necessary to do so. I mean, when you're talking about extreme exceptions, Jedi are like one in 10 billion, Grievous was one in the entire galaxy.

So at their height in the prequels there was 10,000 Jedi Knights.

The essential atlas claims that the population of known space is around 100 quadrillion.

So if my math is correct, Jedi's are one in every ten trillion people.

40 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

So at their height in the prequels there was 10,000 Jedi Knights.

The essential atlas claims that the population of known space is around 100 quadrillion.

So if my math is correct, Jedi's are one in every ten trillion people.

Yea, but there are planets and races that must have a MUCH higher occurrence of force sensitives for those kinds of numbers to hold up. For example, on Tython there were entire force wars in the planet's antiquity, which couldn't have happened because you'd have to literally build a dyson sphere to house enough people to have a reasonable chance for two Jedi to exist in the same generation if it's genuinely one in ten trillion. Twi'lek Jedi were also fairly common, but Twi'leks live on a barren desert world that would likely not be able to sustain a population of 10 billion even. Are there literally hundreds of trillions of Twi'lek slaves? That would beg the question why anyone actually buys slaves on Ryloth, when only 0.0001% of Twi'leks live there, tops. Ithorians have herd ships that only house a couple million people that are each led by a group of force sensitive priests. There must be a lot of species out there that aren't force sensitive at all, or that have an extremely low occurrence of it.

Maybe there are a lot more washouts from Jedi training than is generally assumed? I doubt a lot of people are built to be special ops sword-monks.

12 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Maybe there are a lot more washouts from Jedi training than is generally assumed? I doubt a lot of people are built to be special ops sword-monks.

The thing is that the number is so high. Even if only one in ten Force Sensitive qualifies to be a bare bones, killed-in-the-background-to-show-a-bad-situation Jedi, that's still one Jedi per 1,000,000,000,000 people.

Granted, given that the Force seems to follow at least partially along family bloodlines, it's not entirely unreasonable that some planets have a huge rate of Sensitivity (Dathomir, Tython, Corellia) while the majority just have zip.

On 4/2/2017 at 8:28 PM, GroggyGolem said:

Wedge is great at surviving. He basically abandoned Luke in the trench instead of staying and blocking any shots from Vader. In Empire, once again, he was great at not dying. In Return of the Jedi, well, he didn't die.

I think it bares mentioning that simply surviving multiple combat encounters is in itself a testament to skill. Real world military don't really count kills (at least not much anymore), but they do count how many tours of duty someone has under their belt, and how many engagements someone survived. To say that "hey, he only survived 3 massive, armada scale military engagements" is ludicrous in real military circles. He would be awarded medals signifying that he survived those battles, compared to all those who didn't survive, or didn't fight at all. He would be given respect and deference when it came to military discussions, because he's a veteran, and knows his s**t. Nobody, except maybe the greenest rookie, would dare to say something like "yeah? well how many kills do you have man? You're not really good unless you can match *insert famous pilot of your choice*" That person would get their head slapped by those who actually know what they are doing, and he would likely be given s**t detail for several weeks for his arrogance. I work with Veterans Affairs, and when military members get together, if both are combat veterans, at most, they will ask "How many tours did you serve?" At which point they will say, and the rest is understood. You don't survive stuff like that over long periods of time without knowing what you are doing. And it's pretty excepted by fans, that there were other military battles going on, other than the ones we see in the OT. So the fact that you don't SEE Wedge kill hundreds of TIEs doesn't mean he isn't a skilled pilot. Simply surviving an ongoing war against a galactic empire for several years is testament to his ability.

On 4/2/2017 at 2:56 AM, BCGaius said:

Compare to Poe, whom we are immediately informed is THE BEST PILOT EVER. I have no real objection to the TIE escape sequence, but then we are later treated to a completely gratuitous shot of him annihilating the entire First Order Starfighter Corps to Finn's jubilant cries of "OH EM GEE BEST PILOT EVER." Cinematically, it's a pretty shot (though not as nice as Rogue One's T-65 action, IMO), but in terms of story and character it's wretched. I can forgive the weird, blatant re-write that brought Poe back to life out of nowhere, but the overblown, gratuitously-ridiculous character abilities are not at all comparable to the OT's, and certainly not Wedge's.

In other words, Wedge earned his reputation as an ace. Poe was handed his.

Eh, while I agree that the way they had Finn say "Now that's a great pilot!" was lame, it would've been better if they just had him yell support. The actions of Poe by itself, without the insanely obvious commentary by Finn would've been enough to say he's a good pilot. But, sometimes directors feel you have to hold the hand of your audience, or they get confused.

Now, about Poe being handed his reputation, compared to Wedge...sorry but based on the movies alone (I'm not counting any outside material, as many fans, myself included, don't read that stuff), Wedge is just as much an unknown. I didn't even really KNOW that Wedge in Return was Wedge when I was younger, until someone pointed it out. His involvement in the stories were minuscule at best. We hear, via the fighter comms in New Hope, that he takes out what, one TIE to help Luke? And then he gets shot and has to disengage (per Luke's instruction I might add, he didn't abandon him, despite what another poster said). I don't recall him doing anything in Empire of great note, in fact I barely recall seeing anyone in that sequence other than Luke and his copilot. And in Return, he again only had small scenes where he would make comments here and there about the ongoing fight. We don't SEE him be a famous, awesome pilot. That's just fan inference after the fact, just like how Boba Fett is apparently a bada**, even though he never actually did anything of great note in the films. Fans back-filled their stories to make them match up to the level of fan-love they created for them.

So I don't really see there being much difference in Wedge and Poe honestly, in fact, as far as on screen evidence for their piloting skills, Poe has more concrete evidence, compared to Wedge. Most of Wedge's is inferred, or fluffed out in other media forms. So yeah, I think the comparison of them being comparable pilots is fair.

I didn't say that "he only survived 3 large scale battles and an entire 5 year war", I just stated what the movies showed he was good at doing, which is survival. That's his strength. Sure it's made up of other things, like his ability to navigated & dodge incoming shots, probably even his marksmanship as well. What we are shown in the OT, though, is mostly that he's just good at staying alive and helping other, more prominent characters out. He's not really a main character, so they don't let him outshine them with him gunning down all his enemies like they did with Poe. That was what was highlighted in his skillset. TFA highlighted a lot of things about the main characters skillsets, but specifically, Poe is amazing at piloting, Finn is probably as gifted as Han with shooting, Rey is really good at beating the crap out of people and is also strong in the Force, etc...

1 hour ago, Benjan Meruna said:

The thing is that the number is so high. Even if only one in ten Force Sensitive qualifies to be a bare bones, killed-in-the-background-to-show-a-bad-situation Jedi, that's still one Jedi per 1,000,000,000,000 people.

Granted, given that the Force seems to follow at least partially along family bloodlines, it's not entirely unreasonable that some planets have a huge rate of Sensitivity (Dathomir, Tython, Corellia) while the majority just have zip.

Yeah, I don't think there is a good reason to assume an essentially even, random distribution of Force-sensitives across the galaxy. Or that the majority of them gets noticed, even in the Republic.

On 4/3/2017 at 6:53 PM, LordBritish said:

I would also say in regards to Finn particularly the main movie reason that he wielded it so much was because the movies wanted to trick the audience into thinking he was force sensitive. I think the main reason that people don't regularly use them is that they are inconvenient compared to a blaster. Pre Vizla is the closest one out of that list that seemed the most proficient with light sabers, but he had a lot of other options. Finn meanwhile doesn't have a lot of combat shots in the movie; he literally shoots 3 times and kills 3 people. Finn is literally a red herring designed to trick the audience.

Grevious also did, but he is a weird one. He is very exactly an anti-Jedi cyborg and has a wide range of enhancements to use them efficiently. I imagine him to be the absolute pinca cal of what a non-force sensitive could achieve, mainly because he was had super human strength and durability that meant his inability to deflect a blaster blot wasn't that huge a deal. That and he was a general first and foremost and that wielding lightsabers was much a propaganda tool (look at how many I killed personally) as a weapon.

To be fair I think that building lightsabers is largely restricted to the Jedi and sith, not for mystical reasons particularly but they were the only ones that knew how to. Carrying a lightsaber is a symbol of office and I imagine the great many people would rather avoid punishment by "Impersonating government officials."

Actually, there is a very high probability that Fin is Force Sensitive. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he is, and not because of his using the lightsaber. Remember when Hosnian Prime was destroyed? Finn heard the screams from Hosnian Prime .

6 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Actually, there is a very high probability that Fin is Force Sensitive. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he is, and not because of his using the lightsaber. Remember when Hosnian Prime was destroyed? Finn heard the screams from Hosnian Prime .

Hmmm I can't remember that, though then again I saw the film once and haven't since. Interesting.

Just now, LordBritish said:

Hmmm I can't remember that, though then again I saw the film once and haven't since. Interesting.

Watch the movie again. As Finn is climinb up the ramp to leave Takodona with those two pirates/smugglers, he (and he alone) hears screeams. the scene then swiitches to Hosnian Prime as the blast from Starkiller Base streaks towards the planet, and you hear the same exact screams coming from the New Republic Senate ans the blast comes towards them. Here's is the sequence in question .

4 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Watch the movie again. As Finn is climinb up the ramp to leave Takodona with those two pirates/smugglers, he (and he alone) hears screeams. the scene then swiitches to Hosnian Prime as the blast from Starkiller Base streaks towards the planet, and you hear the same exact screams coming from the New Republic Senate ans the blast comes towards them. Here's is the sequence in question .

Hmmm. While I think Finn might be Force sensitive, I'm not sure that scene is an indicator. The screams aren't echoing, like you'd expect from sounds Finn isn't hearing with his ears. It sounds like other people around him on Takodona, who can see the same beam he can. The screams on Hosnian prime don't sound exactly alike to me.

4 minutes ago, Benjan Meruna said:

Hmmm. While I think Finn might be Force sensitive, I'm not sure that scene is an indicator. The screams aren't echoing, like you'd expect from sounds Finn isn't hearing with his ears. It sounds like other people around him on Takodona, who can see the same beam he can. The screams on Hosnian prime don't sound exactly alike to me.

They don't see it until after he does, and if you watch the scene, none of them are screaming. And yes, it is the same set of screams. The only difference between them is the Finn is getting a "snippet" of them; the "very last" screams just before the blast hits. As for the screams Finn hearing not echoing, I never expected anything of the sort. That may be something you may have "expected", but that's not really a trope we've seen in Star Wars .

Just now, Tramp Graphics said:

none of them are screaming.

How can you tell? Only Finn is in the shot. The other people around him on the planet aren't shown, but there's no reason to think that he's the only one to notice, or that they wouldn't scream in panic as well.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

And yes, it is the same set of screams.

Doesn't sound that way to me. If you can give times when the same loop starts though, we can play the video at those times to hear if it matchs up.