STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI'S 6 BIGGEST WTF QUESTIONS

Quote:

So a big part of The Last Jedi is based on this idea that General Hux and his Star Destroyers have to chase General Leia and the escaping Resistance fleet for hours. It’s the slowest chase scene ever in a Star Wars movie, as the bad guys actually just wait for the good guys to run out of gas while firing at them every once in awhile. Hux has squadrons of starfighters, massive battle cruisers brimming with laser canons, and other untold weaponry… and yet they follow behind the Resistance almost dutifully, only pinging them with one laser blast at a time. Can’t they at least send some ships at light speed to head off Leia’s ships from the other direction? Come on, Hux!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First Order Navy

According to the Disney Cannon, the First Order navy has frigates, cruisers and corvettes (which I would wager have faster in system speeds than Star Destroyers) yet they deployed none of them to hunt down the Resistance fleet in that slow, slow, OMG slow "chase them until they run out of gas" scene in the new movie. They also have starfighters that could have overwhelmed the enemies remaining fighter screens and disabled the engines on the resistance ships. Why where none of these assets deployed?

What am I missing and/or not understanding here?

It was stated in the movies that the FO didn’t want their fighters traveling out past the maximum effective range of their weapons. Thus, once the Resistance fleet was effectively out of range of the capital ships, the fighters pulled back.

I agree with this criticism of the movie, but that doesn't make me dislike the movie. You just have to assume that the First Order screwed up due to arrogance--just like the Empire did when they sent the Death Star to Yavin 4 without a huge escort of star destroyers and fighters big enough to eliminate Rebel attackers before they got close to the station. It's just one of those Star Wars plot holes that don't really matter to how good the movie is as an epic action/adventure.

Also the First Order =/= The Empire.

Its stated at the beginning of the film they are consolidating power after destroying the New Republic. Since we know from the canon novels that many sectors will have their own fleets and military the majority of the First Orders navy could well be tied up elsewhere.

With Hux expectant of an easy, if delayed, victory why move forces from elsewhere.

Actually

1. Are Rey’s Parents Actually Nobodies? Way too much importance is attached to this. For the most part I love that she’s not a legacy character.
2. Why Didn’t the First Order Fleet Destroy the Resistance Ships Immediately? See above answer for easily justifiable reason.
3. Why Didn't Vice Admiral Holdo Just Let Poe in on Her Plan from the Beginning? Why would she? It’s been said before but it bears repeating but who’s Poe that a ranking officer needs to justify anything to him?
4. Why Do Poe and Finn Go to Maz Kanata of All People for Help? Why not? How many underworld figures do you think they know.
5. Did Luke Really Have to Die? No, not if Lucas had made the sequel trilogy 20-30 years ago. This is a new generation of heroes however and you either remove him or render him inert so they not he can shine.
6. Who Is Snoke? Not really important, he served his story function as Kylo Ren’s mentor.

Honestly all six are fairly naff questions, really feels like IGN just wanted to jump on the bash it bandwagon.

I thought once they wasn't able to escape they were more interested with dealing with Luke & Rey so if they did rejoin the Resistance Fleet then they could risk jumping in reinforcements to wipe them out.

As it was I assumed Hux was obeying Snoke's orders didn't stop him blowing up any ship that fell into range until he received new orders such as information DJ passed on.

14 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It was stated in the movies that the FO didn’t want their fighters traveling out past the maximum effective range of their weapons. Thus, once the Resistance fleet was effectively out of range of the capital ships, the fighters pulled back.

It's was a rubbish reason given that the resistance fleet was in range of the FO guns the whole time. The resistance fighter bay was taken out, launching more fighters would have been the best option (or launching more fighters in the first place). How were they still in range, if the resistance fleet was faster then the gap between the fleets should have continued to grow (even when a ship ran out of fuel).

Why didn't the FO jump a few ships ahead? The fleet went to a planet at sublight speed, it's possible to jump to a planet.

Why didn't The resistance fleet split, especially after they discovered only one FO ship was tracking them?

Why wait until there was only one ship left before crashing into Snoke? They passed up two opportunities to take him out.

Couldnt one of the resistance shuttles have jumped to Crait and sent the distress signal days ago, or did Finn steal the only ship with a hyperdrive?

So a big part of The Last Jedi is based on this idea that General Hux and his Star Destroyers have to chase General Leia and the escaping Resistance fleet for hours. It’s the slowest chase scene ever in a Star Wars movie, as the bad guys actually just wait for the good guys to run out of gas while firing at them every once in awhile. Hux has squadrons of starfighters, massive battle cruisers brimming with laser canons, and other untold weaponry… and yet they follow behind the Resistance almost dutifully, only pinging them with one laser blast at a time. Can’t they at least send some ships at light speed to head off Leia’s ships from the other direction? Come on, Hux!

Umm...if they're going to criticise it, they should at least make an attempt to listen to the dialogue where all of these questions were answered.

It was explicitly stated that the FO fleet could not cover the fighters at that range, which is why Ren withdrew after blowing the bridge on the Raddus . They can only "ping" them because at that range (which is maintained because, as the FO commander stated, the Resistance ships are faster) the FO weapons are ineffective against the Resistance ships' shields.

Finally, the Resistance ships couldn't just jump ahead. Even a microjump would have put the FO ships light hours ahead of the Resistance fleet, and it's in space - they're not traveling on a highway. The Resistance ships weren't just traveling in a straight line, they were manouvering - that's why the shots from the FO ships seemed to arc.

Quote

It's was a rubbish reason given that the resistance fleet was in range of the FO guns the whole time. The resistance fighter bay was taken out, launching more fighters would have been the best option (or launching more fighters in the first place).

Nope. All the fighters except Ren's were destroyed because, as the FO commander specifically said, they couldn't cover the fighters at that extreme range. That's why they were ordered back.

Quote

How were they still in range, if the resistance fleet was faster then the gap between the fleets should have continued to grow (even when a ship ran out of fuel).

The Resistance ships got ahead initially because they could accelerate faster than the FO ships. By the time the FO ships were up to the same acceleration, the Resistance fleet was right on the edge of their maximum range, such that the shields were stopping effective fire. When the ships ran out of fuel, they could no longer keep accelerating, and the FO ships caught up with them. There was also manouvering going on, as we can see that the FO ships were altering course and "leading" the Resistance ships with their shots, which gave the illusion of the shots arcing through space.

Quote

Why didn't the FO jump a few ships ahead? The fleet went to a planet at sublight speed, it's possible to jump to a planet.

The Resistance had (from memory) about 16 hours of fuel. That's sixteen hours at sublight, which is within a solar system. Jumping ahead - even assuming one could plot a hyperspace jump that precisely - would have put them...where? Somewhere ahead? Space is big, and the Resistance ships weren't traveling on a highway.

Quote

Why didn't The resistance fleet split, especially after they discovered only one FO ship was tracking them?

I thought it was Finn and Rose that figured that out? Did Holdo ever even know that it was only Snoke's ship that could track them?

That aside, there is no reason to think that it couldn't track multiple ships and just send the others after them. Three ships jump in three different directions; the FO flagship just tracks all three and sends a star destroyer after each one.

Quote

Why wait until there was only one ship left before crashing into Snoke? They passed up two opportunities to take him out.

Holdo's plan was never originally to crash into the FO ships. She stayed on the Raddus to act as a decoy so that the shuttles (which were cloaked, remember) could escape. It was only after DJ betrayed them and the FO was able to detect the Resistance shuttles and began destroying them that Holdo turned the Raddus around and jumped into Snoke's ship.

Quote

Couldnt one of the resistance shuttles have jumped to Crait and sent the distress signal days ago, or did Finn steal the only ship with a hyperdrive?

There are two possibilities:

1) The plan was never originally to go to Crait. It was only after Poe got their fighter and bomber wing decimated and then they were tracked through hyperspace that they found themselves low on fuel, largely defenceless, and unable to go back to hyperspace. That was when they settled on Crait (presumably, Holdo and Leia determined this off-screen before Leia was blown out into space).

2) Even if the original plan was to go to Crait, it wouldn't have necessitated an early trip there, because the Resistance fleet would have made an untrackable (so they thought) hyperspace jump to there, where they could have settled down and called for help at their leisure. What screwed them was, again, the unforeseen ability of the FO to track them through hyperspace.

The first order eventually destroyed two of the three ships and were about to destroy the third. The Holdo maneuver was unexpected and they would have taken out that ship in any other situation.

There was absolutely no reason for them to deploy other ships when their strategy was working successfully.

One might even argue that the Holdo maneuver didn’t even matter seeing how the Resistance is now a small group of people in a light freighter and the First Order destroyed absolutely everything else. In what war on Earth would a camper van of left over enemies not constitute a solid victory?

BTW. if you jump ahead of a ship which has been accelerating for hours on sublight engines you will not achieve much, because those ships would fly past your range in an instant, while you just have reseted your sublight speed to close to zero and would never be able to catch up again.

1 hour ago, Daronil said:

The Resistance had (from memory) about 16 hours of fuel. That's sixteen hours at sublight, which is within a solar system. Jumping ahead - even assuming one could plot a hyperspace jump that precisely - would have put them...where? Somewhere ahead? Space is big, and the Resistance ships weren't traveling on a highway.

Making jumps within a system is part of star wars lore, and I don't mean an obscure EU part I mean well established, so is making accurate jumps. Like Han jumping inside a planetary shield, Ray arriving at Snoke's ship, Finn returning to the fleet. In battlefront 2 the training mission ends with a character blowing herself out of an airlock and a ship doing an in-system jump close enough to catch her in an open airlock.

There is no star warsy reason for the chase to have gone on that long, it's the same kind of stupidity as not launching fighters and not bombarding the enemy because you've been out on hold.

How many planets would there be within range of 16 hours of sublight? What about half way through the chase when there was only 8 hours remaining? Or 4 hours of even 2. There would be a point early in the chase when crait would have been the only possible sublight destination and the FO could have jumped a ship there first.

1 hour ago, Daronil said:

The Resistance ships got ahead initially because they could accelerate faster than the FO ships. By the time the FO ships were up to the same acceleration, the Resistance fleet was right on the edge of their maximum range, such that the shields were stopping effective fire. When the ships ran out of fuel, they could no longer keep accelerating, and the FO ships caught up with them.

I think you're confusing speed and acceleration. The FO acceleration would not increase unless their engines became more powerful over time (meaning they deliberately went slower at the beginning) but their speed would increase over time. The resistance fleet has stronger acceleration and gains speed faster, once speed has been gained you would have to use reverse thrust (brake) to lose it because there is to atmosphere in space to slow the ship down (though the lack of atmosphere was forgotten in a few other places as well).

The only way both fleets would remain at the edge of the firing range for 16 hours is it one of the fleets chose to maintain that range but could have chosen to close/increase the range at will.

7 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

BTW. if you jump ahead of a ship which has been accelerating for hours on sublight engines you will not achieve much, because those ships would fly past your range in an instant, while you just have reseted your sublight speed to close to zero and would never be able to catch up again.

Zero speed relative to what?

Planets move through space at immense speed and a jump to a planet will match that speed.

Fleets do not wait around at zero speed yet hyperspace rendezvous work.

When Finn and Rey returned to the fleet it had been under constant acceleration for over 10 hours yet they managed to catch up and dock.

The physics are not the problem.

The First Order was winning. So there was no need to go about ot that way.

The Warmaster's post really covers it well. Good job with that.

Re: Rey's parents - I expect that they will change this for the next movie (unreliable narrator and all), but I'll regret it if they do. It's a big universe, and not all Jedi have to be Skywalkers. I'd prefer that you not have to be from the right lineage to be a big **** hero.

Re: Snoke - I'm firmly in the who cares category. He's served his purpose, and besides I suspect he'll be covered more in novelization.

Re: Poe - there is a great post about this movie and "deserve" on the Order 66 podcast forum. It's really worth a read. http://www.d20radio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=166&t=14774&sid=f60e147ff6773edcb1dad366ef221c69

17 hours ago, HorusArisen said:

Actually

1. Are Rey’s Parents Actually Nobodies? Way too much importance is attached to this. For the most part I love that she’s not a legacy character.
2. Why Didn’t the First Order Fleet Destroy the Resistance Ships Immediately? See above answer for easily justifiable reason.
3. Why Didn't Vice Admiral Holdo Just Let Poe in on Her Plan from the Beginning? Why would she? It’s been said before but it bears repeating but who’s Poe that a ranking officer needs to justify anything to him?
4. Why Do Poe and Finn Go to Maz Kanata of All People for Help? Why not? How many underworld figures do you think they know.
5. Did Luke Really Have to Die? No, not if Lucas had made the sequel trilogy 20-30 years ago. This is a new generation of heroes however and you either remove him or render him inert so they not he can shine.
6. Who Is Snoke? Not really important, he served his story function as Kylo Ren’s mentor.

Honestly all six are fairly naff questions, really feels like IGN just wanted to jump on the bash it bandwagon.

Yeah, they're pretty dump nitpicky questions if you put them in perspective to the unanswered questions of the OT.

I mean, how much did we know about the Emperor after the OT?
Not much.

There's plenty of other stuff that would have been questioned if the movies were released now, but that we've just taken for granted.

1 hour ago, DanteRotterdam said:

The physics are not the problem.

The First Order was winning. So there was no need to go about ot that way.

So the first order had a choice to wipe out the resistance today or tomorrow and they chose tomorrow. It makes no sense, especially after hux was almost killed for delaying the end the resistance for a few minutes.

I think this is one of the reasons why the critic's score is so different than the viewers score. A film critic doesn't usually have to wonder about physics or the in-universe technology and can miss plot holes and errors that are obvious to some star wars fans. A SW fan can watch the same film and be left wondering why are they dropping bombs in space, Why doesn't the FO make a jump or what happened to all the OT alien races

3 hours ago, mulletcheese said:

Zero speed relative to what?

Planets move through space at immense speed and a jump to a planet will match that speed.

Fleets do not wait around at zero speed yet hyperspace rendezvous work.

When Finn and Rey returned to the fleet it had been under constant acceleration for over 10 hours yet they managed to catch up and dock.

Zero speed relative to the planets speed. When you come out of hyperspace you are not faster than escape velocity of your destinations local gravity well. That is consistent with all movies. Meanwhile the fleets in TLJ were accelerating way beyond escape velocity, most likely reaching relativistic speeds actually. I doubt that the script considered for that, because Finn and Rey should not have been able to dock again with the fleet … that actually IS a problem in the script.

1) Luke throws lightsaber away, Rey jumps to recover it.

Chewie pops up asking why Luke did that given Rey comes from a desert world and probably doesn't know how to swim!

Luke realising his mistake jumps in after her thereby resolving his arc of being closed off from the force learning Leia needs his help with her son the renegade apprentice who wiped out his academy after Luke discovered he'd gone dark.

2) The whole track them through hyperspace is a ruse to hide the fact Snoke's New Republic allies tagged all the ships supplied to Leia's Resistance.

Holdo was sent by the Senate to bring Leia so they could officially dissolve her Resistance group, had Snoke waited he could have won completely but instead the FO were pursuing her not Leia.

3) Holdo was therefore right to suspect a spy was present the plan to infiltrate the Supremacy to delete the files they have on the Resistance was set up to capture Finn so Snoke the Vader fan could imitate his "hero" drawing Rey out of hiding before she completed her training or persuaded Luke to return with her.

Finn was sent along as an adviser to the team Holdo sends, Poe contacts Max who arranged a friend to contact them rather than rely on just a Republic contact.

4) Rey was raised by a Jedi survivor but had no idea about it explaining her prodigious skills.

Kylo was trained by his mother NOT Luke unlike her he perused the books gave her leading to him being contacted and taught by Snoke.

Neither Snoke nor Leia taught Kylo how to wield nor craft his own lightsaber that's why it was a mess and why Finn managed to hit him and Rey beat him.

What am I doing?!

The film's out it can't be changed I need to let it go!

Seriously Splad another reminder of that meme please if you don't mind!?

3 hours ago, mulletcheese said:

So the first order had a choice to wipe out the resistance today or tomorrow and they chose tomorrow. It makes no sense, especially after hux was almost killed for delaying the end the resistance for a few minutes.

I think this is one of the reasons why the critic's score is so different than the viewers score. A film critic doesn't usually have to wonder about physics or the in-universe technology and can miss plot holes and errors that are obvious to some star wars fans. A SW fan can watch the same film and be left wondering why are they dropping bombs in space, Why doesn't the FO make a jump or what happened to all the OT alien races

The fact that, against all indication, a few got away is what the film is about.

The First Order was following a reasonable protocol in just continuing onward on their chosen path. No one said they “chose to do it tomorrow”.

OT aliens is not something that worries me. The OT itself hardly had any return aliens over its three films.

As IGN and other similar sites have "evolved" (a term I apply VERY loosely) in recent years, they've become more about creating clickbait than interesting articles. They, and sites like them, within the space of hours will post a story singing the praises of (Property X) to the heavens, then another about the "plot holes" or "outrage over" (Property X) and then just continue that cycle. Oh...and lists...lots and lots of lists.

After years of enjoying the content on Comic Book Resources, I had to finally pull the trigger and unfollow their Facebook page on December 16, when - in the title of an article - they casually spoiled Yoda's appearance. (And, considering there's a bit "SPOILERS" tag in this thread's title, I figure it's OK to mention it here. )

18 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

As IGN and other similar sites have "evolved" (a term I apply VERY loosely) in recent years, they've become more about creating clickbait than interesting articles. They, and sites like them, within the space of hours will post a story singing the praises of (Property X) to the heavens, then another about the "plot holes" or "outrage over" (Property X) and then just continue that cycle. Oh...and lists...lots and lots of lists.

After years of enjoying the content on Comic Book Resources, I had to finally pull the trigger and unfollow their Facebook page on December 16, when - in the title of an article - they casually spoiled Yoda's appearance. (And, considering there's a bit "SPOILERS" tag in this thread's title, I figure it's OK to mention it here. )

I unfollowed them earlier when the act of trying to play to both sides of a made up controversy just became to blatant trolling for clicks.

I do miss CBR's "Comics Should Be Good" sub-site. I need to get in the habit of checking in on that via the web periodically, if only for their "TV/Movie Legends Revealed" and "Comics Legends Revealed" regular features.

Quote

Making jumps within a system is part of star wars lore, and I don't mean an obscure EU part I mean well established, so is making accurate jumps. Like Han jumping inside a planetary shield, Ray arriving at Snoke's ship, Finn returning to the fleet.

Hang on. Exactly none of those jumps were intra-system jumps. Their exit point may have been accurately pinpointed (and in the Han Solo one...well, it was Han Solo !), but all of them came from outside the system.

That said, I don't have a problem with intra-system jumps, per se . My point isn't that the FO couldn't have made a microjump, but rather 1) why would they bother? If you have your fish on a hook and are reeling it in you don't get your buddy to dive in the water to grab it, and 2) they might have been able to jump a few light-hours ahead of the Resistance fleet, but...well...so what? There's half a solar system to cover. Sure, do it enough times, with enough ships, and you might be able to checkmate the Resistance ships, but why bother? You're on their backside, it's only a matter of a few hours and they're out of fuel.

Quote

[In battlefront 2 the training mission ends with a character blowing herself out of an airlock and a ship doing an in-system jump close enough to catch her in an open airlock.

Well, two points. 1) I haven't played Battlefront II and have no intention of doing so, and 2) it's a game.

Quote

There is no star warsy reason for the chase to have gone on that long, it's the same kind of stupidity as not launching fighters and not bombarding the enemy because you've been out on hold.

While the "Hux on Hold" scene was played for laughs, it wasn't entirely unreasonable. Hux knew that Leia was aboard, and Poe specifically says there's a message coming through from "General Organa" (or words to that effect). Is it absurd to think Hux wouldn't pause for ten seconds to possibly get the surrender of the Resistance leader, for all he knew? We know Hux is incompetent and vainglorious; he wanted to strut, he wanted to monologue, and he had (he thought) the chance to capture the most dangerous Rebel in the galaxy. I don't think it's absurd at all.

Quote

How many planets would there be within range of 16 hours of sublight? What about half way through the chase when there was only 8 hours remaining? Or 4 hours of even 2. There would be a point early in the chase when crait would have been the only possible sublight destination and the FO could have jumped a ship there first.

Well, let's use our solar system as an example for possible destinations. And bearing in mind that the FO didn't know they were heading for a planet. They had no idea if the Resistance fleet was going to jump back into hyperspace (which they did, in fact, anticipate - that was the whole point of their tracking technology)

16 light hours out: still at triple the orbital distance of Pluto, so every planet, dwarf planet and asteroid

8 light hours out: still almost twice the orbital distance of Pluto, so every planet, dwarf planet and asteroid

4 light hours out: all planets except Pluto, most of the dwarf planets, and all the asteroids

2 light hours out: now we're inside Uranus's orbit, so we've got Saturn (and its moons), Jupiter (and its moons), the asteroids, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury that could be possible destinations (and they're not strung in a straight line like beads on a string, remember).

1 light hour out: same as above, but subtract Saturn.

I think I've made my point. Space is big. Really big. And the FO didn't even know they were heading for a planet in the Crait system, let alone which one. They were out of effective weapons range while still in visual range . It would have been completely, utterly impossible for them to figure out where the fleet would be heading and jump to there.

"Admiral, three First Order star destroyers have jumped to hyperspace!"

"Understood. Helm, alter course five degrees starboard, mark eight degrees. We'll let trigonometry win for us today..."

Quote

I think you're confusing speed and acceleration.

On the contrary, my argument relies on the difference between them.

Quote

The FO acceleration would not increase unless their engines became more powerful over time (meaning they deliberately went slower at the beginning) but their speed would increase over time.

Quote

Why would they have to "deliberately" r.etard (I can't believe the filter killed that) their acceleration at the beginning? It is specifically stated that the Resistance ships are lighter and more manouverable. Both ships accelerate, but the larger one takes longer to hit the <insert arbitrary G-value here> maximum because it is much more massive. In that time, the Resistance ship opens up a lead. By the time the FO ship is up to full acceleration, there is a gap (which exceeds their effective weapons range). Now both ships are on the move and no longer "winding up" their engines. They're both accelerating at (say) 10-G. One of the Resistance ships runs out of fuel and can no longer accelerate, so it appears to drop back, relative to all the ships that are still accelerating.

Quote

The resistance fleet has stronger acceleration and gains speed faster, once speed has been gained you would have to use reverse thrust (brake) to lose it because there is to atmosphere in space to slow the ship down (though the lack of atmosphere was forgotten in a few other places as well).

Well, I would guess (bearing in mind this is "Star Wars" physics) that the small transport shuttles would have been the ones to decelerate. That would certainly have been one of the reasons for Holdo to stay aboard the Raddus - to keep accelerating to draw away the FO fleet for as long as possible.

Quote

The only way both fleets would remain at the edge of the firing range for 16 hours is it one of the fleets chose to maintain that range but could have chosen to close/increase the range at will.

Or they can both only accelerate at a particular G-value (perhaps the limit of inertial dampers?) but the Resistance ships got to that acceleration point first because they were lighter and more manouverable, which was enough to open the range to just outside weapons range and then maintain it by continuing to accelerate (if they weren't continuing to accelerate, why would they have been using fuel?).

All the 'Why weren't the First Order efficient and rational in their pursuit of the rebels?' questions seem to miss the point that they're the First Order. If they were sane and sensible they wouldn't have intercepted with the Supremacy. They wouldn't have made the Supremacy. Or Starkiller Base. They wanted a grand gesture where the resistance made a futile struggle before losing hope and being defeated by Snoke's flagship, so (as a dark-sider and evil overlord) he could revel in the fear and despair he was causing.