2 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

He's right though. So far the fans have been almost impossible to please.

Unless it was directly related to The Original Trilogy.

But we can't sit around that era forever. There's too much else to see.

This. ^

This so much.

4 hours ago, VanderLegion said:

Probably because we've never seen leia use the force or any hint of her having had any training.

She feels Han's death in the previous movie. That's a force-thing.

6 minutes ago, Odanan said:

She feels Han's death in the previous movie. That's a force-thing.

Ehh not really I can think of plenty of non star wars films and books where siblings or lovers feel the death of people they love.

3 minutes ago, Hobojebus said:

Ehh not really I can think of plenty of non star wars films and books where siblings or lovers feel the death of people they love.

The Force is everywhere.

What? Respect my religion.

7 minutes ago, Odanan said:

The Force is everywhere.

What? Respect my religion.

I'm an atheist so I really can't, gotta be consistent you understand.

25 minutes ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Asides from that. I'd take everything form the ICS regarding weapons power and capabilities of ships and technology with a grain of salt as the Author, Curtiss Saxton, is heavily involved in the SW vs ST arguments and uses his position to create canon to let the SW side benefit from it. 200 Gigaton per bolt Turbolasers on the Acclemator...

While I'm not fond of his energies (and his oversized DS2, which was eventually retconned away in both Legends and Newcanon) - most of his other ideas have tended to stick.

Newcanon energies tend to be lower. For comparison, the immense plasma bombs on the TLJ Bunkerbuster Corvette (look like at least 1/10 the length, which makes them over 30m long) are "100 megatons" in TLJ ICS. Comparable to the Tsar Bomba's maximum planned yield in real life.

24 minutes ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Asides from that. I'd take everything form the ICS regarding weapons power and capabilities of ships and technology with a grain of salt as the Author, Curtiss Saxton, is heavily involved in the SW vs ST arguments and uses his position to create canon to let the SW side benefit from it. 200 Gigaton per bolt Turbolasers on the Acclemator...

I think his methods are sound. Not that I could care less about the actual figures

Ok, everybody. After the first shock had passed, I did man up and went to see it a second time the other night, since many critics and fans pointed out that on a second viewing it would get better. But is that really so?

First of all, objectively, the movie itself does not get better, because the flaws are still there. There are some things that just drag the film down quite a bit. The very expendable sidequest, the logic errors, Superleia and the bad humor.

However, I was able to enjoy the good and even great bits a lot more than the first time around. I knew what I was in for. I knew that there were things that would bother me. And therefore, I concentrated on the good stuff.

So, to be completely honest, yes. The experience was a better one the second time. Still, I think that most of the harsh criticism the filmmakers face right now (which comes mostly from long-time fans of the franchise) is justified. Because

a. if you need to watch a movie twice just to be not bothered as much by its flaws, something is definitely wrong.

b. there are scenes that have just no place in a Star Wars movie or in a Galaxy far, far away.

c. some of the character designs were atrocious. appearance- and script-wise

Disliked Rogue One very much (Outside of the Space Battle which is to space battles what Duel of Fates is to lightsaber duels), but this one ... man might be my new #1 star wars movie. Despite its glaring issues, hand waving of technology, predictable "shock" turn of events, etc

It still just felt right, it was not full of garbage nostalgia, it played Luke just right, it was coherent imho, even when the whole tech stuff was stupid, it just clicked with me. Someone called it a deconstruction and he might be right and that is a good thing.

2 hours ago, Ironlord said:

While I'm not fond of his energies (and his oversized DS2, which was eventually retconned away in both Legends and Newcanon) - most of his other ideas have tended to stick.

Newcanon energies tend to be lower. For comparison, the immense plasma bombs on the TLJ Bunkerbuster Corvette (look like at least 1/10 the length, which makes them over 30m long) are "100 megatons" in TLJ ICS. Comparable to the Tsar Bomba's maximum planned yield in real life.

Thats why I said it should be taken with a grain of salt ^^ I like most of his stuff. But for example the CIS ships melting 10000km ice moons with its main guns are a "bit" over the top.

Yep Newcanon is a little bit more conservative with their figures. But there are a lot of other problems with it: The FO Star Destroyers are equal in firepower to the Executor. And then they need a Dreadnought for orbital bombardment which with its two overly large canons created a rather small fireball on the planet.


Regarding Episode VIII:

While I liked it for the characters and most of the art design what let me down the most was how it treats the in-universe technology.

- Disney seems to stick by their "fighters can pass through capital ships shields and then attack them directly" approach. This leads to a few problems in the continuity. We actually see fighters flying meters away from the Mon Cal Cruiser in RO and only damaging its shields. Then: If fighters/massive objects can pass through shields, why does nobody deploy mass accelerator cannons on their capital ships? Or missiles? Also: Why is everybody still using capital ships other then carriers? Fighters are much cheaper to build and maintain...

- Turbolaser Shots arching in space...

- The tendency to use anime-esque wave motion guns with a FIRIN' MA LAZOR! charging period

- Hyperspace ramming could break the setting

- Why does the First Order not jum a few of their SDs in front of the Resitance Cruiser?

- As a Legends fan I'm not quite fond of the hermit-Luke charakter developement. But Mark has played hin so well I could let it pass ^^

- The New Republic loosing all its forces at once -.-

So now to the things I really like:

- The part of Chewie passing through the cave system while the Asteroid Field track played really hit my nostalgia feelings

- The Thorne Room scene with the resulting fight. At first the whole scenery and guards were kind of inspired by Japanese Theatre which is a touch I really enjoyed. The fight choreography was also very good imho. as it lacks the spinning and jumping of the PT and adds a bit of bare brutality

- Kylo shutting down all those Who-are-Reys-parents theories. I'm in an Facebook group where these theories came up almost daily since the release of Ep VII so this was very pleasing

- The Kylo-Rey-Luke story arc

Now a bit on Snokes death (Spoilers for Legends and Disney Novels incoming):

Actually I don't think Snoke is dead.
As far as I heard there are quite a bit of indications in the New EU that Snoke is the Disney version of Abbeloth. Kind of a conscious nexus of the Dark Side. Palpatine sensed this cumulation of Dark Side energy in the unknown regions and send out expitidions.
This could also be the reason Thrawn got send there.
Combine this with the newly introduced force-avatar ability and the could-be sequel hook (now that we know there is an other ST planned) of this young boy at the end and I think this could be were the story is going.

And then we also have the pre Ep VII novel saying something obout an unkown thread attaking FO assets in the Outer Rim.

8 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Disliked Rogue One very much (Outside of the Space Battle which is to space battles what Duel of Fates is to lightsaber duels), but this one ... man might be my new #1 star wars movie. Despite its glaring issues, hand waving of technology, predictable "shock" turn of events, etc

It still just felt right, it was not full of garbage nostalgia, it played Luke just right, it was coherent imho, even when the whole tech stuff was stupid, it just clicked with me. Someone called it a deconstruction and he might be right and that is a good thing.

I must be your polar opposit. Loved RO and think 8 is the worst Star Wars movie ever.

If this is what SW will be going forward i am no longer interested. I already had no real intentions to watch the Solo movie but would have anyway. I will watch 9 to have an end to the Saga and because i trust JJ but i will not watch any more SW from Rian Johnson.

3 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Without Poe in the movie the vast majority of the Resistance would probably have survived.

Without Rey in the movie Luke would still be alive.

God, the new cast just blows!

Luke would still be alive - and hiding away sulking alone.

Luke was such a miserable old waste of space in the whole first half of the movie that, by the end, I didn't even care about his death. This is coming from a lifelong fan since the 70s who saw all the OT on cinema release about ages 5-10.

Luke annoyed me so much in this movie. I mean, your old friend and brother-in-law Han Solo died fighting the First Order - get off your *** and do something!

Seeing it twice today, once in 3d. Never seen a movie in 3d, hope it looks good!

4 minutes ago, Dasharr said:

Luke would still be alive - and hiding away sulking alone.

Luke was such a miserable old waste of space in the whole first half of the movie that, by the end, I didn't even care about his death. This is coming from a lifelong fan since the 70s who saw all the OT on cinema release about ages 5-10.

Luke annoyed me so much in this movie. I mean, your old friend and brother-in-law Han Solo died fighting the First Order - get off your *** and do something!

Let the old man alone.

What did they expect Luke to do? Destroy the First Order armada with the Force?

In fairness, I'll post a few things I did actually like.

Snoke's gambit (Force-linking Rey and Kylo to play them both) was really good - very Palpatine.

I also liked that he got killed off - it was a genuine surprise and a breath of fresh air in a movie otherwise far too full of OT pastiche. It also sets up a more interesting dynamic in the FO leadership - Kylo is in charge now instead of Hux simply because he can kill Hux with his brain, but he's far too unstable to be a good leader and his second-in-command hates him.

7 minutes ago, Odanan said:

Let the old man alone.

What did they expect Luke to do? Destroy the First Order armada with the Force?

Han couldn't destroy the FO armada with the Force either, nor could Leia. But they did what they could - which turned out to be a **** of a lot.

2 hours ago, Estarriol said:

That does presuppose that the dreadnought wouldn’t have just wiped Raddus two minutes in...

Didn't you watch the film? Fighters are more dangerous to capital ships than capital ships!

(seriously, it took the entire First Order fleet half the film to destroy the Medical Frigate. If Poe hadn't engaged the Dreadnought, the fleet could have left before the Supremacy even arrived)

1 hour ago, debiler said:

Ok, everybody. After the first shock had passed, I did man up and went to see it a second time the other night, since many critics and fans pointed out that on a second viewing it would get better. But is that really so?

First of all, objectively, the movie itself does not get better, because the flaws are still there. There are some things that just drag the film down quite a bit. The very expendable sidequest, the logic errors, Superleia and the bad humor.

However, I was able to enjoy the good and even great bits a lot more than the first time around. I knew what I was in for. I knew that there were things that would bother me. And therefore, I concentrated on the good stuff.

So, to be completely honest, yes. The experience was a better one the second time. Still, I think that most of the harsh criticism the filmmakers face right now (which comes mostly from long-time fans of the franchise) is justified. Because

a. if you need to watch a movie twice just to be not bothered as much by its flaws, something is definitely wrong.

b. there are scenes that have just no place in a Star Wars movie or in a Galaxy far, far away.

c. some of the character designs were atrocious. appearance- and script-wise

A: I don’t recommend people see it a second time to ignore the flaws. I say to see it again and question what those “flaws” mean. Often things you see as flaws at first may actually not be at all. As a point you may get stuck on canto night leading nowhere at first viewing but second viewing you will notice how much it actually focuses on the kids and set up the film more thematically

B: see the last comment. Also Star Wars is pretty big just because you wouldn’t see it in the galaxy doesn’t mean it isn’t. Times change and filmmaking changes.

C: which characters do you mean in this because the characters remained fairly consistent in this movie from the last they just emphasized their flaws and had their mistakes drive the plot forward (which i appreciate)

6 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Didn't you watch the film? Fighters are more dangerous to capital ships than capital ships!

Which is effing ridiculous

Oh, one more thought I haven't seen brought up elsewhere in the thread. When the FO are tracking the Resistance fleet, we know that it's supposedly impossible - the fleet's leadership almost burn their fuel reserves on a second jump because the possibility never occurs to them, and Finn only knows because he was one of the FO.

We also know that interstellar locator devices are possible - the camera continually shows Rey and Finn's pair of them.

So it seemed odd to me that when Finn was caught trying to leave the Resistance fleet, Rose's suspicions didn't go from "deserter" to "traitor" when he was holding a blinking locator beacon? That would be the obvious explanation for the fleet being tracked.

4 minutes ago, Tailsgod said:

As a point you may get stuck on canto night leading nowhere at first viewing but second viewing you will notice how much it actually focuses on the kids and set up the film more thematically

The thing is, I don't think these were particularly subtle points to the film. It's not that the ideas aren't cohesive or anything, they were fundamentally not good ideas for a film format (imo, of course).

I think a second viewing will be better*, I just disagree that there's a lot of hidden depth to this film, just small details that you might've missed first time. But the broad stroke issues of storytelling and pacing are still going to be there.

* I'll be seeing it Xmas Eve with the family so can confirm later!

9 minutes ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Which is effing ridiculous

Yes and no.

Throw enough torpedoes at a cap ship it'll die eventually, a full squadron of y-wing bombers firing four pairs of torpedoes at a star destroyer will cripple it.

But one bomber taking out a ship that size is total bs.

Flying into combat without a couple of squadrons already out on patrol is just completely unbelievable.

1 hour ago, RogueLeader42 said:

Yep Newcanon is a little bit more conservative with their figures. But there are a lot of other problems with it: The FO Star Destroyers are equal in firepower to the Executor. And then they need a Dreadnought for orbital bombardment which with its two overly large canons created a rather small fireball on the planet.

They cut the number of guns on the Resurgent from 3000 to 1500 - which includes point defence weaponry. Given that the Executor has over 5000, not including point defence, and given that they might be bigger, it allows for it to significantly outgun the Resurgent.

As for the orbital autocannons, "Small" is a relative thing - it's still visible from space, and pretty hefty at that - may be comparable to 100 megaton plasma bombs.

31 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Didn't you watch the film? Fighters are more dangerous to capital ships than capital ships!

(seriously, it took the entire First Order fleet half the film to destroy the Medical Frigate. If Poe hadn't engaged the Dreadnought, the fleet could have left before the Supremacy even arrived)

To quote Poe “it’s a fleet killer!”. No need to be snarky!

34 minutes ago, Hobojebus said:

Yes and no.

Throw enough torpedoes at a cap ship it'll die eventually, a full squadron of y-wing bombers firing four pairs of torpedoes at a star destroyer will cripple it.

But one bomber taking out a ship that size is total bs.

Flying into combat without a couple of squadrons already out on patrol is just completely unbelievable.

I was only refferencing the extend it had in Ep. VII and VIII.

I fully support the old X-Wing novels in that you need at least 24 Protorps at a very small area to punch throug the shield an armour and deal enough damage.