On 12/15/2017 at 2:06 AM, Azrapse said:

This sentence has so much juice that I need to quote it twice!

So if I you go to watch a new The Lords of the Rings movie and in it there comes this stuff:

• Everone uses magic, even hobbits.
• Sauron is actually nobody. After 5 hours of story, Saruman kills him in the middle of a sentence.
• The One Ring is full of power and evil? Bah. There is also The Another Ring that is full of power and good that counters it. Frodo has it and Gollum has the other one.
• There is a 2 hours subplot of Gimli, Pippin and Bilbo travelling to the Far Harad. They achieve nothing and come back empty handed.
• The big battle consists on the good guys Sunday walking away from the bad guys. The bad guys used cavalry and flying monsters before in the movie. But they don't consider using them again for some reason.
• At the end of the movie Gandalfs says "Ni!", and Saruman and all the orcs explode. Because, you know, it was always known that Saruman and the orcs are killed by saying "Ni!" to them. But nobody thought on doing it before.

Then you will come out of the theater praising it because it is such a "subversion of expectation". And all the Tolkien fans that are traumatized by how bad and disrespectful the movie is to the lore, you will call them haters. That will teach them!

Well, considering a new LOTR movie would already be considered a sacrilege...

About the only piece of lore that this movies destroys is the obsession with "The Chosen One". Something kind of stupid when Lucas introduced, but fans were way too eager to put that mantle onto Luke. And why there was obsession with Rey's parents. Because she was central to the story, she had to have a larger connection to the heroes we knew. I know, because I was part of that thinking. Frankly, I fail to see how this is any different than Rogue One's introduction of the grey morality, when Star Wars has been at its core, a simple fantasy of good vs evil.

On another note, I am real glad that Billie Lourd got a bigger part. Even some scenes with her mom.

10 minutes ago, Animewarsdude said:

That is one of my big issues with the First Order, I just don't know how big they are supposed to be based off what we've seen. Before this film they were shown to be a relatively small force, obviously smaller than the Empire but after TLJ they are apparently the most competent force ever. Just think about it TLJ takes place at most days after TFA and the First Order has taken over all the major systems in that time and after what a days or two's time they end up destroying the Resistance to the point where it is apparently small enough to fit onto the Falcon all by itself. Sure the First Order had its losses but it still was somehow able to probably conquer the galaxy apparently faster than the Empire did somehow...

Also, is the Empire supposed to be still around at this point? The films don't give much sense on that with the whole treaty between the New Republic and Empire, so I kind of got the feeling that the Empire was still there but just based around Coruscant and the like whereas the New Republic was doing their thing.

Bloodline by Claudia Gray sets this up pretty well. Essentially, half of the politicians in the New Republic are New Order sympathizers, thus their worlds were just looking for the right excuse to join up.

1 hour ago, Punning Pundit said:

Yes. That is the exact point of the movie, and it's freaking _wonderful_.

And the people who don't like the movie seem upset that the movie is telling them there is so much more to the story than legends.

Yeah the second time I watch the film I’m watching it with this in mind.

To be honest this isn’t my problem with the film, but not being ready for it may have made the other parts seem long, drawn out and pointless.

Fresh eyes 2nd watch.

12 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Resistance is also either incompetent or chronically under funded if they didnt have their ships fully fueled and didn't have anywhere they could refuel. Its somewhat difficult the believe the First Order could rebuild to such a degree and with such open funding that then republic didn't notice or care. You don't build what they have without somebody noticing and caring.

Chronically underfunded. They're a private- illegal- military group that gets its funding by going around begging for donations. There have been a couple issues of the Poe comic where they've been 1 day's worth of fuel away from having to fold.

The first order was able to rebuild because they're a separate nation, and the Republic really, _really_ wanted to believe that they could live in peace. The problem with Nazis is that they don't believe in peace, only in power through constant struggle.

The Resistance had been trying to alert the Senate to the fact that the First Order had been planning to attack, but were unable to do so in time.

This is all kind of hinted at in the opening crawl of The Force Awakens. But it's not really well developed or talked about.

1 hour ago, BadMotivator said:

Pretty sure I saw Jess Pava in the hanger right before Kylo launched his torpedoes.

The actress has said she wasn’t in the film.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

actually, if you had an infinitely long table, that's exactly how it'd go down in Armada

the tiny res ship with enough distance would just outpace a ship's commanded squadrons, because the commanded squadrons have to activate before the FO ships move

Yeah, not AS surprising that this needs to be posted over on the X-Wing forums, but I confess I am a bit annoyed I have to post it so often over on the Armada forums.

I mean, seriously, has nobody over there bothered to think about how that battle would play out in Armada? Floating map? Unlimited time (because neither side has major reinforcements that will arrive beyond the forces at hand?)

It would be Exactly. Like. That. In detail and precision, and every way. Which is almost astonishing, actually, that it would be so PRECISELY like that. One wonders if a producer or something hasn't played Armada (or, yeah, the 'why not send fighters ahead?' thing might make sense - but at that distance? In Armada? Yeah, no. Well beyond activation range of the ships, so the squadrons only move in the squadron phase, which means every other turn they can choose between moving or firing...)

3 hours ago, markcsoul said:

Someone, maybe Poe, said something about the fact the FO couldn't send fighters out if they were far enough ahead of their fleet. I'm guessing trying to go back to the ANH line of ties being "short range fighters". We now know that means they don't have hyperdrives, but RJ might have taken it to mean they literally can't go that far on their own.

Maybe a better explanation would be that the resistance capital ships would be able to use all their guns on the enemy fighters since they don't have any capital ships to engage, so might lose more FO fighters than it's worth to just wait until the resistance ships run out of fuel.

IIRC the comment was that the capital ships wouldn't be able to support the fighters that far out. They shoulnd't need the support. The first thing we saw in the movie was a demonstration that a single fighter can take out all the guns on a massive enemy ship by itself.

Alas, I did not feel it was a great movie.

As with VII, Kylo Ren is genuinely interesting, and this time he draws Rey and Luke along with him. That storyline was pretty good; it is recycled, but Kylo's motivations put an interesting twist on it -- and the redemption story archetype is so compelling that it just works. I liked the telecommunication scenes. The scene with Luke and R2-D2 was excellent and for me the highlight of the film. Some of Luke's about-faces were a bit abrupt, which is typical for film, and the execution of his final confrontation and death I felt fell flat.

The military aspects of this film make very little sense. I think filmmakers would be well-advised to hire a consultant no matter how fantastical their setting is.

The rest of the film and the other plotlines felt very, well, stock. I admit that I was a dumb viewer and didn't understand what the filmmakers were doing with Finn or Poe until reading this thread. Having been clued in, I unfortunately still don't feel too gripped by those arcs; they're very conventional. The scenario with the fleet and having to board the enemy ship also felt very run-of-the-mill.

I would have preferred the dialogue to be much more serious and lofty.

I appreciate that this movie broke away from the previous films in its twists and turns, unlike Episode VII (I don't feel that it was an Episode V rehash, though the most important story ideas are similar). However, I did feel that the movie contained a lot of elements I had seen before (in film and television generally) bundled together -- not in a way that felt fresh, but one that felt rote. While I think it's true that art, especially storytelling, is always recombinatory, and that Joseph Campbell was right and there are in a sense no new stories, I think it's possible to present those stories in a much fresher form than this -- with the exception of the central Skywalker storyline, which was interesting and fairly well-executed. Slower pacing, a tighter storyline more focused on the Skywalkers, a more serious, realistic, and mythological tone, and matching dialogue in my opinion would have also contributed to a more successful film.

The Original Trilogy felt a little like Dune with a heaping portion of frenetic action-adventure. Episode VIII to me felt a lot like fairly stock action-adventure with a pinch of the old magic -- but just a pinch. I could have done with less of the one and a lot more of the latter.

All that said, though the film was not to my taste, I bear no animus against those who enjoyed for it. You will have a film to savour many times. In that, the filmmakers have succeeded.

8 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

I'm just back from my second time seeing the movie. Wow, this time it was amazing!

I still dislike the spacewalk, BB8, and the lack of backstory for Snoke. But the rest? Great!

There are many things I did not realize on the first viewing, like Rey storing the books, or Luke not leaving marks in the salt. I did notice the hair and the wrong lightsaber the first time already, but now I noticed that Leia is literally telling us to look at the hair. She says: "I know what you want to say. I changed my hair!". And we laugh about it, completely forgetting that we as audience wanted to say that to Luke!

One thing that stood way more out is how incredibly often the movie is directly addressing us, the audience:

• "Let the past die, kill it if you have to"
• Teach about failure (maybe together with Maz joking about trade disputes)
• "I know what you want to say. I changed my hair"
• Snoke mocking Kylo for losing against Rey, directly repeating a wide spread criticism
• Kylo to Rey: "You know who your parents were. Say it". Rey: "Nobody"

And many, many more. And the sad thing is, all these are still missed by the audience! I know I missed some at the first time, and this thread is full of misunderstandings.

Edit: more examples, I'll keep adding if I remember more

• Rey asking Luke to come and fight the FO, and Luke literally says: "What do you expect to happen?! That I take a laser sword and singlehandedly defeat the First Order?!" Directly addressing us and our inflated expectations as to what he'll be able to do
• Leia: „Why are you looking at me?! Follow him!“

I think it is this lack of subtlety that really got on my nerves. So many scenes with characters telling each others what they/we should feel and learn. Make a solid movie and you don't have to tell me so bluntly. Look a kid and shooting star, do you get the deep metafor...

1 hour ago, VanderLegion said:

IIRC the comment was that the capital ships wouldn't be able to support the fighters that far out. They shoulnd't need the support. The first thing we saw in the movie was a demonstration that a single fighter can take out all the guns on a massive enemy ship by itself.

But the Raddus still had their accompanying corvettes, which shot down 3 TIE sf in a short time span.

the rebels dont have these massive ships, and they also don‘t have the disadvantages of these massive ships

34 minutes ago, Dwing said:

I think it is this lack of subtlety that really got on my nerves. So many scenes with characters telling each others what they/we should feel and learn. Make a solid movie and you don't have to tell me so bluntly. Look a kid and shooting star, do you get the deep metafor...

And yet you have countless posters in this thread that still did not get it. Damned if they do, damned if they don‘t

4 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Pretty sure I saw Jess Pava in the hanger right before Kylo launched his torpedoes.

I think that was Tallie

Which was a shame, I liked her from what VERY little we saw. I mean, she flies an A-Wing, she's cool in my books.

1 hour ago, Dwing said:

I think it is this lack of subtlety that really got on my nerves. So many scenes with characters telling each others what they/we should feel and learn. Make a solid movie and you don't have to tell me so bluntly. Look a kid and shooting star, do you get the deep metafor...

Alas, that takes time. If this was a Netflix show I imagine that this film would've been about 4 episodes long and you might be able to do that. Trying to cram it into 2-3 hours will do that to a story.

Sorry, this is gonna be long and it has Spoilers - as this thread states at the start.

And, is just my opinion. So...

On the scale of 1 to epic bullshizzle we have so many annoying things:

Leia. Massively the main issue survivability in absolute zero vacuums – I thought everyone knew force users were impervious to hard vacuum – I'll be honest. When Leia coma-floated her *** back into the bridge and everyone knew so came to save her... I very nearly walked out of the cinema… I genuinely had to force myself to continue. This was a ridiculously wasted opportunity. Back in February, reportedly, all Leia’s scenes were shot. That means that the director and writers had about eight or nine months to realise that they had a death scene and that they could leave her dead. It would make so much more sense.

Come on, Disney. If you can kill Bambi’s mum, you can kill Ben’s mum. Now, instead of Leia being able to remain in the background you have killed sufficient numbers of rebels to make the Resistance about 15 people. That forces her to remain a pivotal character. Idiocy.

Regenerating villains: How quickly can the First Order construct super star destroyers and massive flat star destroyers? Given the shambles that are shipyards producing aircraft carriers – five to ten years per ship? – how long does it take to build a starship? Especially pertinent if you are going to destroy it in seconds.

For some reason the collective Tie-Fighter contingent appears to be about 20. Maybe I exaggerate, but considerably less than the traditional complement of a single star destroyer.

The A-Wings may have accompanied the bombers as escorts but were pretty pitiful. Plus, given their capability outstrips an X-Wing, being at the very least smaller, faster and more manoeuvreable, way more appropriate for clearing out the turrets. But it’s Poe, right?

I appreciate his obvious concern for the ultra-slow bombers tooling slowly towards their targets. Considerably larger and slower than the more capable Y-Wings. These are flying in a straight line towards three star destroyers and whatever the **** Snoke’s monstrosity was. Then, apparently they are going to “drop” bombs or mines. Not launch them, but drop them. Into a Zero-G vacuum. All dependent on a remote control that could just as easily be launched by a button in the cockpit and aimed using the parking camera. ****, the bombers were going so slowly the crew may as well have thrown the bombs. They probably should have done because the bomb bay is exposed to deep space – see hard vacuum – and the star destroyers apparently have no shields.

I really am not interested in this being reminiscent of how bombers and fighters interacted in WW2 because this isn’t Dunkirk or Saving Private Ryan. The Empire’s ship defences are not restricted by ballistic trajectory, gravity, in-atmospheric manoeuvre dynamics, etc. If you can see it you can shoot it. If you can’t see it, don’t worry, your lasers/ion cannons/ordnance will continue ad infinitum in a straight line until it hits something.

And on that note… Admiral Holdo taking out fleet was ridiculous. (Loved her, loved her character, btw.) If hyperspace did as much damage as Holdo’s cruiser, then a single X-Wing could have destroyed the Deathstar. You wouldn’t even necessarily need a pilot but remote it into the vicinity. Plus, it is a Rebel transport. How could you not destroy it before it turned around veeeery slowly?

Opening scene comedy seemed badly misjudged. I didn't enjoy the Spaceballs'esque comedy at the beginning. Ade Edmunson definitely gave it a "Bottom" feel. It's not that I'm a sensible humour vacuum,it just seemed very childish and at odds with your archetypal evil villain. Kinda set the tone for me.

Heroes are badly conceived. Finn really annoys me; a sanitation worker, ninja fighter and expert on flying - he is almost as big a BS artist as Rey. I thought they would make more of the cowardice storyline. Then remembered this was Disney. At least Rey was (slightly) less BS than before. Slightly. Rose also knew too much – Escape pod security guard come bad guy weakness analyser come pilot come ground-attack salt-skimmer flying ace. Sigh.

The menage a cinq that will ensue between Poe, Finn, Rose, Rey and Rey will be interesting. Plus Disney bottled the dead girlfriend story and made Rose into the least convincing sister in history. Rose and un-named bomber pilot may be sisters but they sure as schiesse didn’t look like sisters and frankly, I couldn’t give a **** either way. I suspect that they were actually initially meant to be girlfriends and Disney bottled it.

Plus, Poe must be irritated that Finn hugged Rey first. Rey must be in love with Rey. God knows how this will be resolved but luckily I don’t care. I would have been way more engaged if Rey and Kylo had kissed. At least Poe got slapped down a lot by everyone, including Leia. I’d have been tempted to see how long Poe survived in a hard vacuum, but I am a loyal servant of the Imperium.

Once again, the heroes were saved by children. If it isn’t children, it’s teddy bears.

Snoke's guards - awesome. But really, I thought Snoke had no back story so was ambivalent about his death. Happy to see him go. Meh.

Perspective and timelines and droid capabilities and whatever else was irritating:

Finn and Rose were about to be beheaded when the hangar exploded. Everyone in armour died and the two unarmoured prisoners survived. Almost immediately, Phasma and a formation of troopers that were previously three feet away ended up marching in from 200yds away.

Aaaand BB-8 saved the day (about 5 times in the film by my count). BB8 was able to do just TOO much shizzle. Again, daft. It reminded me of a flying R2-D2 and no-one wants to be reminded of that! From memory, BB-8 saves the day in the T70, in the casino prison, in the AT-ST(DP?), in the Falcon(?), in the rebel transport. Have I forgotten something? How did BB8 board the AT-DP? How did he fire it? Is the chassis of the AT-DP not welded or riveted to the undercarriage? Why not?

Aargh. BB-8:

Why are there more coins around BB8 on the prison corridor floor than could fit in the droid? I am now assuming that spherical droids have no internal gubbins. Why did BB-8 stick around long enough to allow the alien to feed it with coins? What was the alien expecting to happen after the first few coins? Was BB8 expecting to go to a bank and deposit it all? Why is there a galactic credit firing dispenser in BB8? What other purpose than firing a coin hard enough to knock out armoured security guards could BB8 possibly have for that device?

The mining planet has pre-prepared trench defences and turrets and a massive hanger bay door. That’s lucky. What if the nearest planet had been uninhabitable or an Empire stronghold or any number of other issues?

Equally lucky that the crystal dogs aren’t dangerous. Or rabid. Or stupid.

Almost as lucky that the massive, slow, bunker buster laser is set to low power. Apparently, it is based on the same technology that destroys planets. And yet…

So, I nearly left out my Yoda rant. It is now possible for force ghosts to conduct (among other things) pyro-kenesis and otherwise affect the material world!? I would be vaguely ok with that if I thought Yoda was a particularly good judge of character. But he has repeatedly fallen down on the task when he was alive. Moreover, Luke clearly isn't the last Jedi but now you have two dangerously unstable, force-capable teenagers who could probably do with some guidance from the now incinerated Jedi texts. Thanks, Yoda. Thanks for nothing. Furthermore, if Yoda can appear and affect the material world, why not Palpatine, or Plagueis or Vader or Snoke, etc? Another mistake, Disney. Thanks.

Hold on, I liked this film more than the Force Awakens, right? Well, I will summarise what I liked.

The action. Poe’s antics in Black One were awesome. And Ren in the Tie Silencer (although why it isn’t called the Tie Advanced Interceptor?) was equally good. The battles were pretty good all round. The ease with which the star destroyers were taking out escaping transports is rather how I would expect them to deal with the inbound bombers.

The antics on the island with Luke – very well-judged. I will even accept the Porgs, but only because they are less irritating than Jar Jar. However, even my boss is less irritating than Jar Jar, so the bar was low.

Kylo Ren is less emo teen-and growing towards a slightly unhinged adult. In fact, General Hux, who clearly has some connections to be a General at the age of 21, is rapidly becoming more irksome. With luck, Hux won’t survive the next film.

The graphics were excellent and the plot better than TFA. (Not hard.)

I seem to be in a minority but I liked Benicio Del Toro’s character (and ship) and am hoping he escaped so that we can see him again. With the exception of the silly stutter, he seemed to be a newer, bad-*** version of Lando Calrissian. (Whatever happened to Lando? Did he go back to running Bespin?) Either way, he seemed an interesting addition to the canon.

Thoughts?

31 minutes ago, Green Squadron Pilot said:

Moreover, Luke clearly isn't the last Jedi but now you have two dangerously unstable, force-capable teenagers who could probably do with some guidance from the now incinerated Jedi texts. Thanks, Yoda. Thanks for nothing.

We see the books in the falcon at the end. It's possible Yoda Force-Lightnings (!) the tree when he sees Luke isn't going to burn it so he doesn't realise Rey's stolen them.

Much of the rest I agree with.

6 hours ago, Thrawn8 said:

Actually it was his voice actor that died.

Voice nowadays can be replicated with software if there is enough archive material of that voice actor

4 hours ago, Punning Pundit said:

Chronically underfunded. They're a private- illegal- military group that gets its funding by going around begging for donations. There have been a couple issues of the Poe comic where they've been 1 day's worth of fuel away from having to fold.

The first order was able to rebuild because they're a separate nation, and the Republic really, _really_ wanted to believe that they could live in peace. The problem with Nazis is that they don't believe in peace, only in power through constant struggle.

The Resistance had been trying to alert the Senate to the fact that the First Order had been planning to attack, but were unable to do so in time.

This is all kind of hinted at in the opening crawl of The Force Awakens. But it's not really well developed or talked about.

See this is where it falls down the films are badly failing to create a universe its all far to compact I'm not watching a war its a skirmish between two groups of punks.

Hope did so well establishing how big the empire was with a few lines of exposition, we've had two new films and I have no clue how big the fo is, still really unclear why they call themselves the resistance etc.

No film should ever require you to read other materials to understand what's going on, it should be self contained enough that it all makes sense.

Its how the matrix sequels failed so badly if you haven't watched the anime played the GameCube game and read the comic your going to be lost.

This isn't to point fingers at you personally, Green Squadron Pilot, but your comment about Rose being a speeder pilot reminded me of an idea I've been rolling around in my head.

A substantial amount of the population can drive. Not everyone, and some people choose not too, but it's a skill a huge proportion of the population learn.

Now, there is no doubt that flying is exponentially harder, but it is something that even an amateur can learn. (Heck, Harrison Ford flies for fun. And only occasionally crashes.)

Given that atmospheric craft and ships are SO prevalent in Star Wars, I don't personally think it's a massive stretch that most people in the SW Universe can at least operate a ship or a speeder, much like your average person can drive.

Also, there has probably been substantial development in making spacecraft easier for amateurs to fly. Kind of like how we've, over time, added things like ABS to cars. We also know from extended lore that even on a backwater planet like Jakku Rey had access to a flight simulator.

I think also the fact Rose seems to be an engineer accounts for a lot of her expertise in other areas.

1 hour ago, Dwing said:

I think it is this lack of subtlety that really got on my nerves.

And now read @Green Squadron Pilot's rant and how much stuff they missed, including the books which are slapped into our face three times. Or the "random mining planet", which mentioned several times as former rebel hideout. It's not by chance that there's a "big *** door" as Poe calls it, that was designed and built by Rebels some 30 years ago. They completely misunderstood so much more that it becomes very frustrating. Time to abandon thread again!

It occurs to me that, if Rey's parents are indeed no-one and she's aware of this, then she's constructed in her head a very elaborate fiction to justify it to herself and repress the memory. I'd assume from the massive trauma of just being abandoned by her parents. Given the film does seem to have a theme about how we construct stories to make us feel better (the stories about Luke, the stories about the Jedi, arguably Kylo has created an internal narrative that he simply is just 'doomed' to be a monster for all time), that's a really interesting thing.

That's actually a really weighty idea for the film to tackle.

Again, I don't want to act like the film has no flaws. It has them. It also has a tremendous amount of depth beneath the laser swords and explosions.

1 hour ago, Ktan said:

I think that was Tallie

Which was a shame, I liked her from what VERY little we saw. I mean, she flies an A-Wing, she's cool in my books.

She is cute (and she flies an A-Wing), but she does nothing the whole space battle. :/

The way Poe was talking to her seemed to flag her up as someone worth noting, but you are right.

(I contend, however, that being cute and flying an A-Wing are weighty contributions to the cause)

2 minutes ago, Odanan said:

She is cute (and she flies an A-Wing), but she does nothing the whole space battle. :/

That's not true, she dies.

1 minute ago, Hobojebus said:

That's not true, she dies.

She dies in the hangar.

10 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

They certainly weren't fast. They were moving at a fraction of the speed pretty much every other transport we've seen in the movies moves - the Falcon, the Lamdda, Rogue One... they were being plinked out of the air for upwards of 20 (interminable) minutes of screen time.

Of course the entire Death Caravan was pretty much done in slow motion...

Especially as one of these transporters was able to outrun the fireball created by the siege Dreadnought at the beginnen...