21 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

You clearly haven't read my Rey / GhostYoda fanfic yet.

Is it as good at the Luke/Yoda fanfic?

"What you feel, hmmmmh? My walking stick, it is not."

4 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

You clearly haven't read my Rey / GhostYoda fanfic yet.

this is good. They definitely have a spark!

4 hours ago, Sithborg said:

How, how does it take away from the OT story?

Because the new trilogy spits all over the existing canon, actively unraveling the mythos and the world-building that had been done over 40 years in hundreds of properties.

The big take away message from TLJ is the futility of struggle in the Star Wars universe. Luke's final lesson on the Force is that the Force actively balances the Light and the Dark, thus rendering all struggles between Good and Evil pointless, because no matter who wins the Force will just create deus ex machina some new Mary Sue to counterbalance the winner. Like, the explanation for Rey's raw mastery of the Force with no training and no Hero's journey is that the Force is catapulting her in power to balance and rival Kylo.

Jedi vs Sith? Pointless. Good vs Evil? Pointless. Because the Force will always just tip the scale for the losers. This complete and utter nihilism does take away from the OT Story, because (if true, and TLJ presents it as though it is) it means that ALL OF STAR WARS is utterly f*#$(ing pointless, now, because there can be no victory over the other side because everything will reset. So ... like why bother caring about any particular struggle in the universe?

Similarly, the entire Galactic Civil War (the PT+OT) was rendered utterly pointless, because even though the Empire and Palpatine were ultimately defeated, within a generation a more powerful dark master rises up from nothing, builds a more powerful Death Star from nothing, builds bigger and badder warships and walkers from nothing, and just reclaims control of the Galaxy overnight from nothing. So, the entire 60-ish years portrayed in the PT+OT were rendered utterly moot and pointless.... hey just like RJ's basic Star Wars nihilism as described above!!!



At its core, The Last Jedi is making PT+OT worse, and that was RJ's whole smug "subversiveness" point. It's whole premise is that all struggle in Star Wars is pointless and futile, and it makes this nihilistic point while ignoring just about every rule of the Star Wars universe it can (turbolasers arc in space; a fully shielded warship can have its entire hanger and bridge destroyed by a single snubfighter; hyperspace can be weaponized... but for some reason no one has done so before...; cloaking is ubiquitous but also easily 'hacked' as long as the opponent looks for it; fuel concerns are real concerns; an entire Galactic-wide Resistance is <400 ppl, despite the fact that a single Nebulon-B used to have a crew larger than that and that a single modern day Aircraft Carrier (1/6 the size of the Raddus alone) has a crew of >6,000; Force Ghosts can interact with the physical world, like by shooting lightning, yet never use this interactive ability to help conflicts they are heavily vested in; etc. etc. etc. .... ).

6 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

Is it as good at the Luke/Yoda fanfic?

"What you feel, hmmmmh? My walking stick, it is not."

Stop it. I can't breathe from laughing so hard.

1 hour ago, Scopes said:

Stop it. I can't breathe from laughing so hard.

I saw this for the first time and was thoroughly disappointed in the human race. Close to as disappointed as I was when Ackbar didn't get to crash the Raddus screaming "IT'S A TRAP!!!!" at the top of his lungs and flailing his fish arms.

I think you focused on the wrong things, if what you take from TLJ is nihlism.

I'm finding it hard to connect with any of the new trilogy characters. I liked Poe and thought he was awesome in TFA but in the last Jedi he lost his mojo.

Yes daisy, let us "cat" out of the bag.

The only question is "what is catting?" Also, how do we get to do it?

15 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

There were plenty of ways to set up conflict in a new trilogy of films without resorting to "everything the protagnists of the original films achieved doen't matter because FIRST ORDER OUT OF NOWHERE".

You want to pass the torch to a new generation of characters? Fine - great, even! But don't try to make them look like big heroes by making the original characters look like massive failures. that's how the WWE tries to build up new characters, and it doesn't work there either.

Bits of the Poe Dameron comics and similar stories are really interesting, showing the 'cold war' buildup between the republic and the first order.

It was originally planned to show some of this in TFA, supposedly - to the point that you actually know who scared-woman-on-the-balcony-when-hosnian-prime is and give a drat about her dying, why the resistance =/= the republic, and so on.

But it got cut because one lesson that the production team took away from the prequels (correctly or not) was "dear god don't include any politics or philosophy in it people can't cope".

Which is not true. Just because bits of the political storyline was ****** (for example; the trade federation basically had a monopoly on interstellar shipping. So who the heck were they blockading Naboo from?) didn't mean other bits of it weren't some of the best scenes in the trilogy ("Not from a Jedi.")

Don't get me wrong. I get that TFA has to be essentially 'episode 1' in that it'll be a generation's first exposure to star wars. That's why it has X-wings and TIE fighters in shiny new colours rather than weird and wonderful new variants, for example, and a very simple plot.

But the very act of throwing the story in in the beginning of the action and never getting a feel for what the galaxy now looks like loses the feel of the world built by the OT characters being lost. They did win, even if not completely, and not forever.

I would compare with the pilot and early series of Battlestar Galactica; the fact that you see Caprica at peace through the character's eyes, and the fact that you see the infiltration and looming shadow of what's about to happen that the character's don't see coming rather than the story beginning with a one-liner "when suddenly hundreds of star destroyers conquer the galaxy" (even though that's essentially what's happened by the end of the pilot!) means you understand what was fought for, and lost, and why an armistice was agreed to end the previous war, and whilst you feel a certain degree of pity for Adama and Tigh when it all happens again, your first reaction isn't to think of them as failures.

27 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Bits of the Poe Dameron comics and similar stories are really interesting, showing the 'cold war' buildup between the republic and the first order.

It was originally planned to show some of this in TFA, supposedly - to the point that you actually know who scared-woman-on-the-balcony-when-hosnian-prime is and give a drat about her dying, why the resistance =/= the republic, and so on.

But it got cut because one lesson that the production team took away from the prequels (correctly or not) was "dear god don't include any politics or philosophy in it people can't cope".

Which is not true. Just because bits of the political storyline was ****** (for example; the trade federation basically had a monopoly on interstellar shipping. So who the heck were they blockading Naboo from?) didn't mean other bits of it weren't some of the best scenes in the trilogy ("Not from a Jedi.")

Don't get me wrong. I get that TFA has to be essentially 'episode 1' in that it'll be a generation's first exposure to star wars. That's why it has X-wings and TIE fighters in shiny new colours rather than weird and wonderful new variants, for example, and a very simple plot.

But the very act of throwing the story in in the beginning of the action and never getting a feel for what the galaxy now looks like loses the feel of the world built by the OT characters being lost. They did win, even if not completely, and not forever.

I would compare with the pilot and early series of Battlestar Galactica; the fact that you see Caprica at peace through the character's eyes, and the fact that you see the infiltration and looming shadow of what's about to happen that the character's don't see coming rather than the story beginning with a one-liner "when suddenly hundreds of star destroyers conquer the galaxy" (even though that's essentially what's happened by the end of the pilot!) means you understand what was fought for, and lost, and why an armistice was agreed to end the previous war, and whilst you feel a certain degree of pity for Adama and Tigh when it all happens again, your first reaction isn't to think of them as failures.

I agree with a lot of this. They rushed into the new conflict in The Force Awakens - the First Order comes out of nowhere and is presented as a galaxy-spanning threat immediately. The destruction of Hosnian Prime meant pretty much nothing, because we were shown nothing. The destruction of Alderaan meant so much more because it was where Luke and Ben were trying to get to, and we saw how much it meant to Leia. Hosnian Prime... we barely get a mention of the name in The Force Awakens.

There should have been a slower build to the inevitable conflict. Everything about the sequels so far has felt rushed.

24 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

There should have been a slower build to the inevitable conflict. Everything about the sequels so far has felt rushed.

I think that may be my main complaint, as well.

Everything from the hyperspace journeys to the "and suddenly, there's this thing!" with starkiller base, to the 'lead-up' to the battle of crait.

The Death Star may not have been seen, but you know it's a thing from the opening crawl. Even the external shot of it not doing anything prior to Tarkin's briefing gives you a feel for the scale of the thing. It's not pulled out from behind the curtain the first time it fires.

The rebels spend a long time 'digging in' to hoth base; them setting up the base is the core of the starting scenes. The 'bad guys turn up, decide they need to land ground troops, ground battle' sequence is about the same length, but even though hoth occurs far earlier in their respective films than crait does, it feels like there's a longer run up to it, and the results feel more real.

The empire is presented as a threat because it's the galactic empire and you're the people rebelling against it. By definition you're the underdog. But the Resistance grows out of the people who won the war, and the first order out of the people who lost, so the people want to know how the scales are reversed - but within the films themselves, you're not told.

I have issues with quite a few editing and post-production choices in the new film.

Cutting out the Hosnian Prime storyline removes your chance to understand the background to the conflict. It might, for example, help me give far more of a darn about the rich guys on Canto Blight, because they're not just corrupt 'because the plot exposition says so'.

Random riot-armed stormtrooper amongst the rest of the army with rifles misses a perfect opportunity to make 'chief henchman' villain Phasma actually seem threatening by battering down Finn, stormtrooper armour actually do something by letting her survive (whilst being injured by) a bowcaster shot, and essentially going down like a punk when tackled on starkiller because she'd still be injured then.

Putting in seeing the starkiller base shot from takodana adds nothing to the storyline and makes no sense, even in the universes' casual acquaintance with physics.

Apparently there was a scene written, or maybe even filmed and cut out, where Finn and Phasma face off after he's captured where he tells the surrounding guards who dropped the shields on starkiller base and phasma responds by calmly executing the troopers who heard him say it. That, to me, would be an awesome scene - it helps underline phasma's character, helps explain why she's still in a first order command position, and ties in perfectly with just tamely handing over the shield codes because her primary motivation is her own survival.

4 hours ago, fistfulofforce said:

I'm finding it hard to connect with any of the new trilogy characters. I liked Poe and thought he was awesome in TFA but in the last Jedi he lost his mojo.

Rey is a bland marry sue, poe is a bastard mix of leia and wedge, Finn is just a watered down Han with none of fords charm.

They Arnt their own characters mearly copies of what we've already had before, but much like photocopies they lack the quality of the original.

Ironically the only one getting real development is the antagonist kylo.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The rebels spend a long time 'digging in' to hoth base; them setting up the base is the core of the starting scenes. The 'bad guys turn up, decide they need to land ground troops, ground battle' sequence is about the same length, but even though hoth occurs far earlier in their respective films than crait does, it feels like there's a longer run up to it, and the results feel more real.

God, yeah - you just can't compare the sequences on Hoth and Crait . The visual similarities are there, sure - white ground, hidden base, walkers - but Hoth was a world, created, developed and inhabited, where the Rebels hid and the story progressed. We see Luke and Han having grown and risen through the ranks to become important members - and leaders - of the Alliance. We see the friendship between Han and Luke there, the developing feelings between Han and Leia, and Leia showing her leadership qualities. We see how the Rebellion has become part of Han's life, and yet how he still needs to leave - not just to save his own skin this time, but to help protect his new friends.

Crait - the Resistance shows up, the First Order shows up, the Resistance leaves. That's pretty much it. The "Battle" on Crait isn't even a battle. The First Order lands and advances on the base, the Resistance comes out to meet them, then turns tail and runs. It's a hamfisted and shoehorned attempt at showing how much Poe has learned, but in the most ridiculous way imaginable. At the start of the film, Poe is reprimanded for taking the fight to the First Order and destroying the Dreadnaught because it was unneccesary and cost the Resistance too many lives and ships. But now, on Crait, the defense of the base is completely necessary, and yet Poe abandons it... but only AFTER it has cost the Resistance too many lives and ships! Seriously, what was the point? At least in the opening battle they succeeded in taking down the Dreadnaught, on Crait Poe's squad didn't cause a single First Order casualty.

Gah.

A good word that describes a lot of the events in TFA is "unearned."

The beginning of TFA was very, very good, all the way up until they left Jakku. Then they stamped on the accelerator: Han finding the kids, his lame exposition, the guys who are after him, the hentai monsters--none of it mattered to the audience, and the rules of lightspeed hadn't been well-established, so what could have been a fantastic moment (the insane hyper-escape) felt rushed and unearned and had little impact. And it just continued from there. Everything after they left Jakku was a rushed mess, and every event that advanced the plot--especially everything to do with Starkiller Base--felt totally unearned. The total cop-out on "how did you even get this lightsaber" was probably the worst offender; if you don't have an answer to a question, movie-writers, then don't even bring it up!

Some of TLJ felt rushed and/or unearned as well, but that wasn't the real weakness of the movie. For me the worst parts were the parts that didn't even feel like Star Wars. The prequelly stuff was cringeworthy, but I could forgive the tone, even if it was so poorly written and executed that I was snapped out of the story, because at least cringey prequels are an established part of Star Wars (siiigh). But there were bits that felt like they belonged to Mel Brooks, or Battlestar Galactica, and those were the parts that were the most jarring. I would have considered it a solid movie despite the PrequelCringe(tm) sequences if A) those sequences had mattered at all to the plot and B) there hadn't been other parts of the movie that felt completely out of place.

So even though there's a ton of stuff I liked about TLJ, I can't bring myself to think of it as a good movie, or even a better movie than TFA. There's just too much bad movie mixed in with the good. TFA wasn't a terrific movie, but (again, IMO) the first act was excellent and the rest was an OK generic popcorn flick. TLJ felt like two different movies, one great and one awful, were taken and smashed headlong into one another.

8 minutes ago, nexttwelveexits said:

A good word that describes a lot of the events in TFA is "unearned."

Agree with a lot of what you've said there, but the "unearned"point really stands out for me. And reminds me of the comment from Bob Ducsay re. Admiral Ackbar's ignominious fate:

"It’s interesting that you mentioned it,” he said, “because I watched the film last night and I thought, hmmm, maybe that’s too incidental. It’s a very funny thing about that because what happens ... I don’t typically watch movies that I work on much afterwards, because you’re so familiar with it. But this movie I’ve seen now a couple times with an audience. And it occurred to me last night that what does happen when I watch movies ... is I generally find things that are like, hmmm, I wonder if I should do that differently. Which is some really horrible form of personal criticism because there’s really nothing to be done.”

“That’s how it was designed,” he concluded. “That’s how it was intended. But it is slightly incidental, isn’t it?”

You were the editor, Bob!

You had one job!

7 hours ago, fistfulofforce said:

I'm finding it hard to connect with any of the new trilogy characters. I liked Poe and thought he was awesome in TFA but in the last Jedi he lost his mojo.

The plot isn't being driven by the actions of the characters. The characters are being driven by the plot. For example only reason a suddenly thrust into charge new commander wouldn't tell a senior officer on the ship she's taking over the plan is so he would be driven to mutiny and could send a character that they desperately needed to find something to do on an errand that he fails at.

Now we can't care about the commander, we can't care about Poe because he's just been berated for not following orders so then continues to not follow orders by putting his faith in the wrong people. Finn is jettisoning his entire arc from the prior film and running away (in a lifeboat? Where's he going to go in a lifeboat?) and then not getting the job done.

Why should you give a toss about any of those losers?

8 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Agree with a lot of what you've said there, but the "unearned"point really stands out for me. And reminds me of the comment from Bob Ducsay re. Admiral Ackbar's ignominious fate:

"It’s interesting that you mentioned it,” he said, “because I watched the film last night and I thought, hmmm, maybe that’s too incidental. It’s a very funny thing about that because what happens ... I don’t typically watch movies that I work on much afterwards, because you’re so familiar with it. But this movie I’ve seen now a couple times with an audience. And it occurred to me last night that what does happen when I watch movies ... is I generally find things that are like, hmmm, I wonder if I should do that differently. Which is some really horrible form of personal criticism because there’s really nothing to be done.”

“That’s how it was designed,” he concluded. “That’s how it was intended. But it is slightly incidental, isn’t it?”

You were the editor, Bob!

I know what you mean. ...

Now don't get me wrong: I get the fact that the N+1th time you read a document it essentially just becomes Ink & White Space, so I understand that watching a film over and over again makes it hard to critique it dispassionately, because -for example - you know exactly who someone is from stage notes and scenes later in the film, even if the current scene that's supposed to introduce them doesn't do a good job of it.

Being able to do this properly makes editing and reviewing a genuine skill.

But....when you're being paid quite a lot of tens of thousands of dollars to do this, is it unreasonable to expect?

At the same time, I understand why you might not want to watch a film after the close of post-production. Because watching it and going "oh, bugger, I should have [done that]" after it's set in stone forever (barring director's final extended cut), is painful and doesn't achieve anything.

But yes, it does feel incidental. Killing characters off-screen is bad enough, but (in TFA) would have been understandable - even mandatory in the case of characters whose actors have sadly passed on. But killing off a fan-favourite character off-screen when the event that kills him is on-screen is just daft.

It needn't have been much. He doesn't have much on-screen time in the OT. Heck; it could even have helped explain what happened if the audience doesn't follow - the Raddus has thrown it's shields full aft to ward off the supremacy's fire, when suddenly the fighters come in and hit it. Having Akbar yell something like "transfer power back to the forward shields!" with a note of desperation would be a big signpost explaining what's going on to anyone who missed it.

2 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

The plot isn't being driven by the actions of the characters. The characters are being driven by the plot. For example only reason a suddenly thrust into charge new commander wouldn't tell a senior officer on the ship she's taking over the plan is so he would be driven to mutiny and could send a character that they desperately needed to find something to do on an errand that he fails at.

The use of Holdo completely mystified me.

I had no problem with Ruin plucking a new commander for the remaining Resistance fleet out of his backside thin air, but why? why was she necessary? At all?

When she was introduced my immediate thought was "long term replacement for Leia, new head of the Resistance for future movies". Then they teased her being a villain, then they wrote her out with a "heroic sacrifice". We were given no reason to care about her sacrifice. She had been at odds with Poe throughout the film and treated as an object of suspicion! Then they 180'd and we're supposed to feel something? Come on, seriously? You cast Laura Dern in the role for that?

Leia dying during the First Order attack would have made all kinds of sense to the story. Kylo hesistates when he senses her presence, Quickdraw takes the shot instead, Kylo becomes conflicted as he realises he couldn't pull the trigger and filled with rage at both the Resistance AND the First Order. Character progression!

Or we could have had Leia be the one to make the suicide run instead of Holdo. If it had been Leia sacrifcing herself to save the remnants of the Resistance it would have been such an incredibly powerful moment. And - much like Leia sensing Han's death in The Force Awakens, Luke could have sensed Leia's death and it could have been the catalyst for him finally returning to the fight.

Or we could have had Ackbar make the suicide run. If they were commited to everyone's favourite Mon Calamari being written out of the series, let him go down with his ship in a blaze of glory. Let him spring his own trap on the First Order.

But no. Hi Holdo / bye Holdo. We barely knew you. And that was the problem.

3 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

But no. Hi Holdo / bye Holdo. We barely knew you. And that was the problem

It's much the same with the Bombardier and A-wing pilot. Obviously Paige Tico gets a call-back in that Rose explains who the heck she was, but Tallie is....who? Especially since Poe's X-wing group is one of the areas actually fairly well fleshed out with named characters - between survivors of the starkiller attack and names fleshed out in the Black Squadron comic.

I also assumed she was going to be 'new leia', and - especially given that Carrie had to be written out of the story - it would have been a very dramatic and emotive end. I must admit to being 'wait, what?' with the 'Carrie Poppins' moment.

17 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I must admit to being 'wait, what?' with the 'Carrie Poppins' moment.

Same here. It was so drawn out as well. When the missile hit and we saw the bridge crew blasted out into space, and we knew that it wasn't Kylo who had pulled the trigger and that Carrie was gone I found myself accepting it. It was sad. It was emotional. It served the story. And then it became A MASSIVE RUGPULL and was rendered almost completely redundant. Another classic Ruin Johnson "GOTCHA!" moment.

I was pretty angry. I actually felt like walking out (if it wasn't the midnight showing and I'd been on my own I might have done). There were groans in the audience. The lad I went with said "WTF?!" then started laughing. That's not the kind of send-off Carrie deserved.

There were at least two other rugpulls in the movie that had me feeling the same way (although not as much as that scene). The others were Finn's abortive sacrifice and Luke's mother-of-all-mind tricks. I accepted Finn's suicide run, only for Rose to do the rugpull. Then I thought Luke pulling a fast one from Ach-To was a clever move - only to be immediately undercut by him apparently dying anyway.

On ‎5‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 9:35 PM, FTS Gecko said:

Is it as good at the Luke/Yoda fanfic?

"What you feel, hmmmmh? My walking stick, it is not."

He's not called "master" Yoda for nothing.

On 3/6/2018 at 3:18 AM, Sekac said:

Yes daisy, let us "cat" out of the bag.

The only question is "what is catting?" Also, how do we get to do it?

To properly cat, one must sleep about nineteen hours a day, scoff at the people who pay for your food, cut people at random times, be more annoying and self-centered than one has any right to be, and be inexplicably loved for it. So, basically act like a teenager and somehow make people like it.

I don't know how to do all that in a bag, though. That doesn't make any sense.

1 minute ago, TopHatGorilla said:

To properly cat, one must sleep around nineteen hours a day, scoff at the people who pay for your food, cut people at random times, be more annoying and self-centered than one has any right to be, and be inexplicably loved for it. So, basically act like a teenager and somehow make people like it.

Gotcha.

So connecting the dots, this thread is a plea to have Daisy Ridley allow us to act like inexplicably loved teenagers?

I'm on board!

On 3/6/2018 at 9:38 AM, FTS Gecko said:

The use of Holdo completely mystified me.

I had no problem with Ruin plucking a new commander for the remaining Resistance fleet out of his backside thin air, but why? why was she necessary? At all?

RJ was hellbent on including a mutiny subplot, probably to further emulate BSG meets Star Wars. He knew Poe wouldn't mutiny from someone trusted and beloved by fans (like Leia and Ackbar), so he had to get them out of the way and introduce a new nobody to make the mutiny plot plausible.

I mean, what would have been far more interesting (and plausible) would have been if Ackbar was elsewhere in the Resistance (though this would have required RJ to not explicitly state that the ENTIRE galaxy-wide Resistance was <400 people and present in this one fleet... ugh) and could have then indisposed Leia in some way, such that the Resistance was left without any clear leader. Perhaps Poe and some other officer were tied in rank before Leia's demotion to Poe, and half the fleet wants Poe in charge but the other half wants the new guy/gal in charge, who technically now just barely outranks Poe.

I'm not mad that Ackbar died, and characters in Star Wars need to die (even unexpectedly and pointlessly) to maintain the mortal risk of the conflict. BUT, I really disliked the way in which Ackbar died, because it (1) didn't acknowledge the moment and (2) it made absolutely no logical sense, given how Star Wars works.

(1) Ackbar was given no attention, even in death. Neither the audience nor the characters can acknowledge or process his death the way it was presented in TLJ -- the characters don't care at all and the audience doesn't even know for sure that it's Ackbar himself who died until a brief exposition mentions it a few scenes later.

(2) Not only that, but it's like RJ had to rush killing him off so went with some completely nonsensical way of doing it. Starfighters in Star Wars cannot destroy the hangers or bridges of fully shielded warships, because we never see them do it in 40 years of material. But, EVEN IF we grant RJ some hand-wavey reason why these three TIEs could do that, then you have to wonder why the **** didn't those three TIEs continue their assault and destroy more of the Raddus, like its engines? If these TIEs were so effective, why only scramble three in pursuit of the Rebel fleet? Why not scramble like 500? You've got a half dozen of the biggest ships ever built assembled, surely they could boast more than three TIEs. But, LOGIC and REASON have no place in this travesty of a "story," so for no reason whatsoever the three TIEs are "recalled" to the FO fleet (because the First Order fleet can't protect them at range... what do they need protection from..!?!?!) rather than letting them spend another few minutes entirely dismantling the Raddus. Even if the TIEs were at risk, since when would BLINDLY FANATICAL Hux, HELLBENT ON DESTROYING THE RESISTANCE, care if three TIEs had to take on a little risk to continue ruining his enemy? Heck, Hux doesn't even like Ren, so Ren getting killed on that assault only benefits Hux, even.

=(