1 hour ago, ErikModi said:

I've said it before, but ESB got a lot of the same reception when it was released, and it wasn't until years later, when the whole trilogy could be watched backwards and forwards, that it got its status as the best Star Wars film ever made.

Interestingly, there's a number of films that were panned by fans and critics alike at their release (on top of bombing at the box office) that these days are very fondly looked back upon. Beloved cult classics such as The Princess Bride, Clue, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Heathers, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Iron Giant, just to name a few. Heck, even the prequels got savaged upon their release, but in the span of two decades they're now seen in a much more favorable light.

Given that TLJ's only real crime was shaking up and subverting a great many expectations (especially in light of how by-the-numbers the plot of TFA was), I agree that in the future it'll be hailed as a masterpiece and Rian Johnson given the same degree of admiration that Irvin Kershner is given for ESB. There will of course be those that pan and/or dislike TLJ, just as there are those that still pan and/or dislike ESB for a variety of reasons, but no film can hope to please everybody.

2 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Interestingly, there's a number of films that were panned by fans and critics alike at their release (on top of bombing at the box office) that these days are very fondly looked back upon. Beloved cult classics such as The Princess Bride, Clue, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Heathers, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Iron Giant, just to name a few. Heck, even the prequels got savaged upon their release, but in the span of two decades they're now seen in a much more favorable light.

Given that TLJ's only real crime was shaking up and subverting a great many expectations (especially in light of how by-the-numbers the plot of TFA was), I agree that in the future it'll be hailed as a masterpiece and Rian Johnson given the same degree of admiration that Irvin Kershner is given for ESB. There will of course be those that pan and/or dislike TLJ, just as there are those that still pan and/or dislike ESB for a variety of reasons, but no film can hope to please everybody.

Exactly. Kurt Russel says of The Thing that he thought it was a great movie, he had a great time working on it, and if it took five, ten, or fifteen years to find its audience, that's just fine by him.

And yeah, the comparison between TFA and TLJ always amuses me. "TFA sucks because it's just a remake of ANH!" "TLJ sucks because it's nothing like other Star Wars movies!" While there's certainly a middle ground between "remake" and "too different," I really think both those films are in that butter zone. TFA hits a lot of the same story beats as ANH, but it's different enough and setting up its own story, so I wouldn't write it off as just a remake. TLJ goes in a very different directions, but it raises some excellent questions that have existed within and about Star Wars since the beginning, and I praise it for doing so.

29 minutes ago, ErikModi said:

TLJ goes in a very different directions, but it raises some excellent questions that have existed within and about Star Wars since the beginning, and I praise it for doing so.

Excellent questions like:

• When are these starships going to run out of gas?
• Why did the Jedi undergo formal training for decades when the best results seem to come out of a few weeks of ad hoc training?
• Who needs superweapons when we have hyperdrives?
• Who needs starfighter squadrons when we have one Poe Dameron?
• Why waste space and money fitting space munitions with propulsion systems when you can just drop them as bombs?

7 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Excellent questions like:

• Why did the Jedi undergo formal training for decades when the best results seem to come out of a few weeks of ad hoc training?

You mean like the crash course Luke was given in ESB?

9 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Who needs superweapons when we have hyperdrives?

And yet no mass gnashing of teeth when similar effects of hyperspace collision were shown on Clone Wars.

10 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Who needs starfighter squadrons when we have one Poe Dameron?

So unusual to show a main character in an adventure movie as being hyper-competent and effective.

11 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Why waste space and money fitting space munitions with propulsion systems when you can just drop them as bombs?

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Excellent questions like:

• When are these starships going to run out of gas?
• Why did the Jedi undergo formal training for decades when the best results seem to come out of a few weeks of ad hoc training?
• Who needs superweapons when we have hyperdrives?
• Who needs starfighter squadrons when we have one Poe Dameron?
• Why waste space and money fitting space munitions with propulsion systems when you can just drop them as bombs?

You forgot the most important one.

• If Fynn and Rose could sneak out to a random planet to bring back a Slicer, why couldn't they have just brought back more fuel?

1 hour ago, Nytwyng said:

You mean like the crash course Luke was given in ESB?

And yet no mass gnashing of teeth when similar effects of hyperspace collision were shown on Clone Wars.

So unusual to show a main character in an adventure movie as being hyper-competent and effective.

I agree that the crash training wasn't much different from what Luke got. I had hoped that would be a one-time thing that was an exception because Luke was the son of the Chosen One or something. E7 shows it can work with any Force-sensitive, and I'm not a fan of that.

I don't recall the CW example you're talking about, but if they had the ability to use hyperdrives as WMDs then, I defies belief that the Rebellion didn't use them against the Death Stars or Imperial Fleet.

As for the main characters being hyper-competent, the issue was that the Poe maneuver takes it to an idiotic level. Neither Luke nor Lando flew a solo mission to take out the Death Star. Luke didn't stop the walkers on Hoth in a one-man show of speeder craziness. Han, Chewie, and Leia didn't defeat the bunker on Endor without troops (Rebel Commandos and Ewok warriors). Jedi in the Clone Wars didn't fight full battles without the support of the clones. Unfortunately, Poe seems to be able to decide the outcomes of space battles almost single-handedly in E8. I don't like it, and I will give E7 credit in that he at least had his squadron for support when going in against Starkiller Base.

16 minutes ago, Varlie said:

You forgot the most important one.

• If Fynn and Rose could sneak out to a random planet to bring back a Slicer, why couldn't they have just brought back more fuel?

That's a good question. Although, more fuel would not have done them much good in the long run. The immediate threat was the dreadnought could follow them through hyperspace no matter how much fuel they had. The solution to the immediate problem was disabling their tracking system.

2 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I agree that the crash training wasn't much different from what Luke got. I had hoped that would be a one-time thing that was an exception because Luke was the son of the Chosen One or something. E7 shows it can work with any Force-sensitive, and I'm not a fan of that.

Saying it's a matter of your preference is perfectly fair, and much more accurate than saying that applying a similar element that a previous film used is a problem. Two things I'd point out, though: In 1980, Luke wasn't "the son of the Chosen One," because that concept of the Chosen One wouldn't be introduced to the Star Wars tapestry for another 19 years. The notion of Rey also being more than "any Force-sensitive" was brought up by Snoke's assessment of "dark rising, and light rising to meet it" as well as Luke comparing her raw power to Ben's as something out of the ordinary.

2 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I don't recall the CW example you're talking about, but if they had the ability to use hyperdrives as WMDs then, I defies belief that the Rebellion didn't use them against the Death Stars or Imperial Fleet.

I'd have to try to find it again. Meanwhile, there have been many a discussion here and elsewhere centered around reasons for and against such a tactic. No point in rehashing them here.

2 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

As for the main characters being hyper-competent, the issue was that the Poe maneuver takes it to an idiotic level. Neither Luke nor Lando flew a solo mission to take out the Death Star. Luke didn't stop the walkers on Hoth in a one-man show of speeder craziness. Han, Chewie, and Leia didn't defeat the bunker on Endor without troops (Rebel Commandos and Ewok warriors). Jedi in the Clone Wars didn't fight full battles without the support of the clones. Unfortunately, Poe seems to be able to decide the outcomes of space battles almost single-handedly in E8. I don't like it, and I will give E7 credit in that he at least had his squadron for support when going in against Starkiller Base.

And Poe didn't go on a solo mission, either. He had fighter and bomber support. He succeeded in taking out the dreadnought's guns solo because, as the dreadnought's own commander stated, they should have launched their own fighters earlier. Overall, while the dreadnought was destroyed, the Resistance took heavy losses. So, one Poe Dameron wasn't enough.

Don't get me wrong. If you didn't like it, you didn't like it, and pointing out that some of what you didn't like isn't inconsistent with what's come before isn't likely (nor intended) to make you change your mind. Sometimes, a movie, tv show, even a meal can be assembled with elements that you typically enjoy, but the result just doesn't work for you.

Just to hit on the specifics of Holdo's hyperspace jump, from what we know through canon sources and story group replies:

1. There's a sweet spot during hyperspace jumps that can be extremely dangerous. We also see it in Rebels, as Hera jumps to hyperspace through the hangar of an Imperial construction sphere. Essentially, in order to jump to hyperspace, a ship accelerates to near-lightspeed almost instantaneously. The moment they hit lightspeed, they exit this dimension and enter hyperspace, no longer able to interact with the physical world. This gives an extremely small space in which a ship can utilize a hyperspace ram. Too slow, and relativistic effects won't occur to make the ram truly destructive. Too fast, and you'll enter hyperspace and be unable to successfully pull off the ram. So any attempt at hyperspace ramming has an extremely small window of effectiveness. A hyperspace ram also has to happen from extremely close range, as the distance covered during the acceleration to lightspeed is relatively short when compared to the weaponry we see Star Wars ships normally employ.

2. Due to shielding on ships, the only way a hyperspace ram can be successful is if the shields on the ramming ship are stronger than the shields on the target ship. The Raddus has been repeatedly said to have experimental shields that were extremely strong (hence why the Supremecy couldn't destroy it from range in the movie). Normally in Star Wars, the larger the ship, the stronger the shields. So normally, to employ a hyperspace ram against enemy ships, you would have to sacrifice a larger ship than the one you're trying to take out. The Raddus was a special example due to the unique shielding. If an X-Wing tried to ram the Death Star, as Pablo Hidalgo mentioned on Twitter recently, it would be like a bug splatting on a windshield.

3. Which groups would actually use this maneuver, given the stipulations above? Hyperdrive-capable ships are an expensive resource, as The Phantom Menace shows us. Groups like the Rebellion and Resistance have exponentially fewer resources than their adversaries. In that situation, even a 1 for 1 trade just isn't good enough. For the Empire or First Order, there's even less reason to sacrifice ships, since they already have full military superiority. The Republic and Separatists might have had cause to employ it, I suppose, but there are very few scenarios I can think of where it'd be better to sacrifice one ship to destroy another, when simply having better tactics can yield a much more preferable result.

Another, simpler way to approach the issue would be to ask why ramming techniques weren't commonplace throughout the real-world history of naval combat. A lot of the same details apply. Only a ship of comparable size can take out another ship through ramming, and sacrificing so many resources to simply sink one other ship is almost never worth it. Couple that with the difficulty of actually successfully pulling off a ram against a foe capable of potentially sinking your ship before its ever in range, and who would be actively maneuvering to avoid being rammed, and the usefulness of ramming maneuvers drops to almost nothing. Once in a blue moon, a ram might have occurred that successfully brought down a dangerous ship, but it's more of a fluke than a viable strategy when it happens.

So, I wrote this up with the idea of making a YouTube video about it, but. . . well, here:

Holdo Maneuver Explained

Okay, so, I know I’m a little late to the party on this, but I wanted to address the common complaint about this scene from The Last Jedi. It comes in a lot of forms and variations, but basically boils down to “if this is possible, we should have seen it before, and it breaks how warfare works in Star Wars.” I disagree, and I’d like to explain exactly the various reasons why.

A note on terminology. I’ll be referencing both “Legends” and “Canon” as I talk about this. For the uninitiated, Star Wars has a long, proud history of “Expanded Universe” materials. Books, comics, video and card and tabletop role-playing games. . . basically, any medium you can think of, Star Wars expanded into it. When Disney bought LucasFilm and went forward with a sequel trilogy of movies, the decision was made to take that Expanded Universe material and dub it “Legends,” essentially an alternate universe of Star Wars canon, which the new Canon can draw from, modify, or ignore as new Canon works see fit. This means that there are literally thousands of years of Star Wars history that may or may not still apply. This is what TvTropes calls “Schrodinger’s Canon,” and you can check that out for more information if you like. Try not to get lost. Anyway, I’ll be referencing both Legends and the new Canon as we go forward, and I’ll try to make it clear what’s what, hopefully you can follow me. Ready? Here we go!

So, first, the reason why we haven’t seen a hyperspace ram before is. . . because you can’t actually ram something in hyperspace. Star Wars FTL travel is via hyperspace, which is explicitly an alternate dimension where you can travel faster than the speed of light, which you cannot do in normal, or “realspace.” So, you can’t actually ram an object in realspace while you are in hyperspace. Now, according to Legends, objects in realspace cast “mass shadows” in hyperspace, which you can hit, and hitting a mass shadow in hyperspace is just like hitting the object itself in realspace. . . at a zillion times the speed of light and on another plane of existence. You get smashed into subatomic particles and radiation, and the object in realspace doesn’t even realize you were there. Now, there is at least one Legends source I’ve heard of that claims hitting an object I hyperspace does affect the object in realspace, annihilating it, but I can’t find that particular source and nowhere else in Legends that I am familiar with has this been treated as true.

Except. . . Holdo does exactly that, ram an object in realspace while in hyperspace. Well, I don’t actually think so. You’ve seen it plenty of times, when ships enter or exit hyperspace in Star Wars. What Timothy Zahn calls in his Star Wars novels a “flicker of pseudomotion,” a ship transitioning between realspace and hyperspace or vice versa. It lasts just a second before the ship is gone. I would contend that, during that flicker of pseudomotion, owing to a quirk of Star Wars physics, a ship entering or exiting hyperspace is treated as a relativistic object in realspace, moving at a substantial percentage of the speed of light. As this excellent Because Science video shows, relativistic objects can pack near-infinite amounts of kinetic energy, making them extremely destructive. So, the Holdo Maneuver can be very, very effective, but only within that second while the vessel is straddling hyperspace and realspace. It requires very precise timing to pull off, and you need to be very close to the target, which negates the main advantage of relativistic or faster-than-light ramming attempts. . . by the time you see them coming, it’s too late to do anything about it. You’d have to be close enough that the enemy could potentially shoot you down before you engage your hyperdrive. And as we see in The Last Jedi, the Supremacy could detect that the Raddus was about to enter hyperspace, but blew it off as a distraction. . . until they saw the Raddus had turned to point at them. By the time Hux gave the order to “fire on that cruiser,” it was too late to stop Holdo. Against a more prepared (or more competent?) commander, this window may not have been as large, or existed at all. (Side note. . . I don’t think this was the first ever time a near-hyperspace collision had ever happened in Star Wars, in part because its such a big galaxy with such a long history lots of things must have happened before and will probably happen again, but because Hux loses all his **** as soon as he figures out what Holod’s up to.)

So, you only have a limited window to hit your target while transitioning between realspace and hyperspace, and this requires you to be fairly close to your enemy and engage your hyperdrive at just the right moment to hit them with relativistic power. Already, its limitation as a tactic is becoming apparent, but there’s another drawback: accuracy.

Holdo is pretty clearly aiming for dead-center on the Supremacy. But she hits it. . . here. Fully halfway between the centerline and the tip of the starboard wing. The Supremacy is 60 kilometers wide (the largest ship ever in Star Wars Canon that isn’t a Death Star), which means that if she was aiming for dead-center, she missed her target by a full 15 kilometers. The next biggest ship in Star Wars Canon, Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer Executor, is only 19 kilometers long. If Holdo had been trying to ram that dead-center from the side, that 15km margin of error is the difference between hitting it and missing completely. And again, that’s the largest Star Wars ship known to exist outside of the Supremacy and the Death Stars. So assuming this 15km margin of error is normal, this tactic is basically completely useless against anything that isn’t ridiculously big. Granted, that does make scenes like this (Rebel fleet in Return of the Jedi jumping to hyperspace in tight formation) seem incredibly reckless, but maybe their navicomputers are linked in such a way so that if hyperdrives are off by about 15km per jump, the whole fleet is off by the same 15km. Slave circuits are a thing in Legends, just saying.

That’s two strikes now against this being a viable, common tactic. . . proximity and accuracy. But there’s also damage to consider.

Look at what the ram actually does to the Supremacy. That’s not superweapon levels of damage. The ship itself is still functional, all the major characters on board survive, and enough minor characters and redshirts survive that the First Order can launch a full-scale ground assault on the base on Crait not long after. It’s bit nebulous exactly how long it takes for the ground assault to get going, but I don’t think it was much over half an hour, if that long. Sure, the Supremacy’s support fleet gets destroyed by the relativistic shrapnel, but the Supremacy itself is largely intact, and may even be repairable (expanded material goes back and forth on this, as far as I’m aware). And the Raddus is three kilometers long, bigger than anything the Rebellion had available in the Original Trilogy. Twice as long as an Imperial Star Destroyer. Using something closer to OT-size ships, the damage would be much less, especially to something far more massive than the Supremacy, like a Death Star.

Now, this amazing Because Science video shows that, were the Raddus traveling at something like 99.99% the speed of light, it would have annihilated the Supremacy and its support fleet in a massive nuclear fission explosion. But that’s not what we see happen in the film, so it’s likely the Raddus wasn’t “travelling” that fast, maybe more like seventy or sixty percent the speed of light. I don’t know, somebody way, way smarter than me would have to crunch the numbers. I love science, but I don’t speak its language. Anyway, there’s probably a point during that “flicker of pseudomotion” where hit those really high relativistic speeds, but precisely timing, within the span of that one second, where that point will be and where you need to be to hit your target with that force, is beyond the abilities of everything except, I’d venture, specially programmed flight computers and droids. Because it’s just not a problem most computers and droids would be expected to address. So, damage and precision, two more strikes.

Finally, we come to the main problem I foresee with this: gravity wells. Remember when I talked about mass shadows in hyperspace, and how hitting one would be devastating? Well, because of that, hyperdrives in Legends have safeties that cause them to cut out if the ship is within a gravity well, precisely to try and prevent ships from hitting mass shadows in hyperspace. In a gravity well in realspace? Can’t flip on your hyperdrive, you might crash right into what’s causing the gravity well. In hyperspace and hit a gravity well? The hyperdrive cuts out, dropping you into realspace, hopefully before you crash into the thing that made the gravity well (either in hyperspace or realspace). These safeties aren’t perfect. In the Thrawn Trilogy, Talon Karrde tells a story involving a ship he once served on having a near-miss with a mass shadow that killed several of the crew, blew out the main hyperdrive, and severely damaged the ship, forcing them to limp home on the backup hyperdrive. But they do tend to save you from the worst. . . potentially.

“Now wait a **** minute!” I hear you cry. “That may work in Legends, but obviously not in the new Canon, since Han made a landing approach at lightspeed and Rogue One shows a ship jumping to hyperspace while within Jedha’s gravity well!” Well, I think I can explain both of those.

For Rogue One. . . I’d long maintained that the hyperdrive safeties would be built-in and hardwired, so they couldn’t be bypassed without deactivating the hyperdrive itself. This is because I’ve run many Star Wars role-playing games, and my players are exactly the kind of psychotic morons who’d turn those safeties off and then have the nerve to act surprised when one bad astrogation roll results in the whole campaign being smashed into a cloud of quarks. “Rocks fall, everyone dies” Star Wars style. However, in the new Canon, this may not be the case. The safeties might well be able to be bypassed or turned off, allowing Cassian’s U-Wing to hyperspace while within Jedha’s gravity well. Why would he do this? Well, as shown in the film, being able to jump to hyperspace when you really shouldn’t be able to can be very helpful, letting you escape from otherwise-certain doom. Now, I’m talking more “hot Imperial pursuit” than “planet-destroying superlaser,” but same difference. Also, there are Interdictor cruisers. In Legends, a very popular Imperial ship that projected gravity wells to stop ships from escaping into hyperspace or yank them out if they were on a known course. They’ve been ported to the new Canon by appearing in an episode of Rebels, but they also exist from a more important source:

“We’re not going to attack?” “The Emperor has something special planned for them. We’re only to keep them from escaping.”

In Return of the Jedi, when the Rebellion assaults the second Death Star, the Imperial Starfleet emerges from behind the moon of Endor to catch them in a pincer, preventing their escape and leaving them to be picked off by the unexpectedly-operational Death Star. The only way this is possible is if the Imperials have some means to prevent the Rebel fleet from just jumping back into hyperspace. Yes, Admiral Ackbar starts to order a retreat and Lando talks him out of it, but the Empire couldn’t just sit back and hope the Rebels would be nice enough to decide to stick around once it became clear that—

“IT’S A TRAP!”

Yeah, that. The Empire must have had some means to keep the Rebel Fleet from escape at Endor, and Interdictor Cruisers, or something like them, is that explanation. So, Cassian might have disabled his hyperdrive safeties not only to make unexpected escapes, but so he could thumb his nose at some of the Empire’s most expensive toys. And, let’s be honest. Doesn’t this guy seem just unhinged enough to cut away his safety net because he thinks it’s slowing him down? Sorry, Cassian, I love you bro, but. . . that’s a really dumb move. Please don’t shoot me.

As for Starkiller Base. . . Han seems to take the dangers of hyperspace travel much more seriously than Cassian. Too seriously, as this excellent Because Science video points out. (But, it doesn’t talk about planets, moons, asteroids, black holes, etc., just stars. . . ah, whatever. The Star Wars galaxy is apparently more full of mass shadows than anything we know of in our observable universe, just like their asteroid fields are nothing like asteroid fields we’re familiar with. Just roll with it.) Anyway, it seems highly unlikely Han would disable his hyperdrive safeties, so how does he make his landing approach at lightspeed? Well, the planet Starkiller Base was on was gutted for that gigantic superweapon. Gravity is a function of mass, and the planet’s mass had been substantially reduced, resulting in a smaller gravity well. I posit that Han’s maneuver was probably only possible on Starkiller Base, since the reduced planet mass meant there was enough space between the shield and the gravity well for limited hyperspace travel. He came out well below that, but. . . that flicker of pseudomotion goes both ways.

So, what does this have to do with near-hyperspace rams and Death Stars? Well, the Death Stars are massive, and I mean that technically. They’re huge hunks of metal and have a lot of mass, and thus they would have their own gravity wells. Probably not one full Earth gee, but noticeable, and quite likely enough to trip the safeties on hyperdrives near them. By the very nature of their gigantic design, they may be proof against this attack. Even if they aren’t, in the Battle of Yavin all the Rebellion had left after Scariff was a few snubfighters to throw against the Death Star. Given the limited amount of damage the Raddus was able to do to the Supremacy, and the probably inaccuracy of near-hyperspace ramming in general, those tiny ships wouldn’t have done sufficient damage accurately enough to cripple or destroy the Death Star. And in the Battle of Endor, where the Rebellion had larger ships available, there are the Interdictors to consider. In addition to preventing the Rebels from escaping along their incoming hyperspace lane, they may have been close enough to keep the Rebel ships from entering hyperspace at all. Even if not, the damage and inaccuracy problems remain. And a near-hyperspace ram on the second Death Star really only would have been an option while the Death Star’s shield was up. . . once the shield was down, they could go with the original plan of flying inside and attacking the main reactor directly. Remember what Han said about Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens: “Their shields have a fractional refresh rate, stops anything slower than lightspeed.” If the second Death Star’s shield didn’t have that fractional refresh rate, it would have blocked even lightspeed ramming attempts, and I’d go so far as to say even if it did have a refresh rate, it would still block near-lightspeed ramming attempts (since you’re still slower than light, even if not by much).

So. . . the Holdo Maneuver. Extremely tricky to pull off, unlikely to succeed in a wide variety of situations, and probably not going to pack the bang to make it worth it if you do manage it. Pretty good reasons why it’s not a standard tactic, huh?

Look, I know I’m assuming a lot of facts not in evidence. This is not necessarily how everything works in the new Canon. I might be wrong about most or all of these assumptions. And I’ll be the first to admit that the filmmakers probably weren’t thinking any of this through with this level of detail and just said “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if?” But these facts stand: near-hyperspace ramming is possible in Star Wars, it happened in The Last Jedi. It wasn’t used in any other Star Wars media before, so there have to be reasons why not. I just went looking for some, and found a bunch. Personally, I love it when filmmakers leave some things for the audience to figure out, it engages us and lets us feel more connected to this universe. Being thought-provoking doesn’t have to mean only making you think about philosophy and the nature of good and evil and big, fundamental moral questions. . . it can also be about just making you think about how this universe works, about what rules are in place to allow the cool things we see on screen to occur in this fictional world.

So, have I changed your mind about the Holdo Maneuver? If so, feel free to tell me how. If not, and you still have a beef with it that goes beyond “it’s stupid and the movie still sucks,” bring it up in the comments. Maybe I’ll do another video to address those. Maybe you’ll convince me that it really is stupid.

Thanks for watching, thank you for your time and attention.

On 4/20/2019 at 12:26 AM, ErikModi said:

Holdo Maneuver Explained

Great post! I've been thinking along similar lines, and the only thing I have to add is some speculation if in addition to being a short ranged maneuver, it's a fixed ranged maneuver. What a hyperdrive does is, among other things, accelerate the ship to "lightspeed" (whether this is actual c or a fraction thereof I have no idea), which seems to be needed for the ship to transfer into hyperspace. This means that not only do you need be close, but you can't be too close or you'll splatter like a rebel transport against the Devastator's hull. Too far away, and you'll jump to hyperspace before hitting and most likely pass "right through" your target. To do the maximum amount of damage, you essentially need to time it so you hit your target just a you're about to transition into hyperspace. Hera has shown us in Rebels that jumping into hyperspace may sometimes cause an energy discharge, powerful enough to damage nearby structures. So it might not just be the physical impact, but also that energy discharge, which might need to be carefully timed.

On 4/19/2019 at 9:17 AM, Varlie said:

You forgot the most important one.

• If Fynn and Rose could sneak out to a random planet to bring back a Slicer, why couldn't they have just brought back more fuel?

Because more fuel wouldn't solve the problem of being tracked. They still would've been tailed by the FO fleet, they just would've run out of fuel a few more jumps later.

The Fleet could have jumped to multiple destinations and with enough fuel they could keep jumping while locating the tracking beacon on their ship. If the Empire was tracking the Leia's ship, they could have refueled the support ships and transported the majority of crew over to them and jump out.

Just now, Varlie said:

The Fleet could have jumped to multiple destinations and with enough fuel they could keep jumping while locating the tracking beacon on their ship. If the Empire was tracking the Leia's ship, they could have refueled the support ships and transported the majority of crew over to them and jump out.

All while being under constant bombardment by the FO fleet? Yeah no, that's just too far fetched. Besides, transporting the crew to another ship was exactly what they did.

2 hours ago, Varlie said:

The Fleet could have jumped to multiple destinations and with enough fuel they could keep jumping while locating the tracking beacon on their ship. If the Empire was tracking the Leia's ship, they could have refueled the support ships and transported the majority of crew over to them and jump out.

There was no tracking beacon to find. The dialogue pretty clearly established that the First Order was using a newly-refined technique/technology to track the Resistance fleet through hyperspace. That’s precisely why a slicer was needed: to trick the First Order’s system into thinking it was still tracking the fleet when it wasn’t, allowing the fleet to escape.

They could tear not only the Raddus but the entire fleet apart looking for that non-existent tracking beacon and be no better off than they were before.

Meanwhile, your suggestion of putting everyone into smaller ships and letting the First Order keep following the Raddus? That’s almost exactly what Holdo’s plan was. Except instead of jumping away with fuel they didn’t have, she intended to lay low while the First Order passed them by.

I really don't care one bit, I was just posting random thoughts. I liked the move but it was far from the best Star Wars movie. I've watched it exactly as many times as I have watched The Phantom Menace, twice. I have watched all the others multiple times so if I missed some stupid point on the plot line for the weakest part of the movie (IMO), the Finn/Rose shenanigans I will not lose any sleep over it.

25 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

There was no tracking beacon to find. The dialogue pretty clearly established that the First Order was using a newly-refined technique/technology to track the Resistance fleet through hyperspace. That’s precisely why a slicer was needed: to trick the First Order’s system into thinking it was still tracking the fleet when it wasn’t, allowing the fleet to escape.

They could tear not only the Raddus but the entire fleet apart looking for that non-existent tracking beacon and be no better off than they were before.

Meanwhile, your suggestion of putting everyone into smaller ships and letting the First Order keep following the Raddus? That’s almost exactly what Holdo’s plan was. Except instead of jumping away with fuel they didn’t have, she intended to lay low while the First Order passed them by.

That was actually something I kept scratching my head at, that I didn't think really was explained well in the film. I don't have an issue with the idea of the FO having some new way to track ships in hyperspace, Battlestar Gallactica did that already so it was hardly a weird plot point. No, what confused me was how the Resistance had any idea what that would be, what it would look like, and where it would located on the ship. I remember listening to Rose and Finn quickly rattling off technobabble, and coming up with what was, apparently, a 100% correct theory on how/where the device was, on a ship that I'm pretty sure Finn never cleaned. I remember sitting there and saying outloud "Ok but..how?" to the two of them I still don't think that part was really plotted out very well, but I honestly don't care much. TLJ had some issues, but overall I enjoyed the film. The parts that annoyed me, were few and far between, and mostly fell into the category of Director/Writing problems, not the actors themselves. That bit with the tracking was one of those bits that kept rubbing me the wrong way though. It felt a little too handwaved away when they bothered to explain it.

Back to the actual topic of this thread though, the IX trailer, I thought it was ok. It didn't tickle my Childish Delight button the way the Fallen Order trailer did, but I did enjoy it. I thought the shot of Rey running from the starfighter looked pretty silly. Her adding like a 10mph runspeed wouldn't make much difference when compared to the speed that ship was going at. I thought it would've looked MUCH cooler if she had stood her ground against it, before doing the acrobatic flip to get a surprise attack in.

3 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Back to the actual topic of this thread though, the IX trailer, I thought it was ok. It didn't tickle my Childish Delight button the way the Fallen Order trailer did, but I did enjoy it. I thought the shot of Rey running from the starfighter looked pretty silly. Her adding like a 10mph runspeed wouldn't make much difference when compared to the speed that ship was going at. I thought it would've looked MUCH cooler if she had stood her ground against it, before doing the acrobatic flip to get a surprise attack in.

That’s part of why I’m not so sure it’s an adversarial scene. The fighter doesn’t fire on her, and she moves more like she’s just getting into position to ride it. (I’ve referred to it as “surfing” a few times.) We don’t see any definitively aggressive moves on the part of Rey or the fighter.

Meanwhile a lot of the wind was knocked out of my excitement for Fallen Order upon realizing who’s playing the lead. Try as I might, he’s made such an impression as not one but two NotJokers on Gotham, that I’m having a hard time as seeing him as anything but a pair of particularly annoying characters on a show that my continued viewing is honestly described as “morbid curiosity.”

4 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Great post! I've been thinking along similar lines, and the only thing I have to add is some speculation if in addition to being a short ranged maneuver, it's a fixed ranged maneuver. What a hyperdrive does is, among other things, accelerate the ship to "lightspeed" (whether this is actual c or a fraction thereof I have no idea), which seems to be needed for the ship to transfer into hyperspace. This means that not only do you need be close, but you can't be too close or you'll splatter like a rebel transport against the Devastator's hull. Too far away, and you'll jump to hyperspace before hitting and most likely pass "right through" your target. To do the maximum amount of damage, you essentially need to time it so you hit your target just a you're about to transition into hyperspace. Hera has shown us in Rebels that jumping into hyperspace may sometimes cause an energy discharge, powerful enough to damage nearby structures. So it might not just be the physical impact, but also that energy discharge, which might need to be carefully timed.

Yeah, pretty much what I was thinking. There's a small window to hit with relativistic force, and an even smaller window to hit with really high relativistic force. Beyond that, it's either a standard ram or just being in hyperspace.

17 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

That’s part of why I’m not so sure it’s an adversarial scene. The fighter doesn’t fire on her, and she moves more like she’s just getting into position to ride it. (I’ve referred to it as “surfing” a few times.) We don’t see any definitively aggressive moves on the part of Rey or the fighter.

I dunno, the fact that she ignited her lightsaber, and the fact that the starfighter is very clearly the one that Kylo was flying (or at least it looked an awful lot like it to me), and the fact that it was flying directly at her at top speed....I think it's safe to say it was an adversarial kind of situation. I mean yeah, it could somehow be a trick, and it's actually a super friendly, fast speed hug the pilot is trying to give her with the front of the ship...but I doubt it Everything about the music, the camera angle, and the character behavior, points to a confrontation. The classic standoff against a charging foe trope. Sure, might be something else, but I doubt it. It's JJ, he's not really great at being super subtle these days with his direction.

20 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Meanwhile a lot of the wind was knocked out of my excitement for Fallen Order upon realizing who’s playing the lead. Try as I might, he’s made such an impression as not one but two NotJokers on Gotham, that I’m having a hard time as seeing him as anything but a pair of particularly annoying characters on a show that my continued viewing is honestly described as “morbid curiosity.”

Yeah, I remember you saying you couldn't get passed his performance on Gotham. *shrugs* Can't help you there. That's never been a problem I've had, seeing past the character to the actor. I remember people freaking out when John Lithgow ended up being a character on Dexter, and they were all like "Urmagurd! The funny guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun is a scary serial killer?!?" And I was like "um, yeah? Did none of you see him in Ricochet with Denzel Washington? He was a terrifyingly good villain in that." So, yeah don't know what to tell you on that front. Sorry that is holding you back from enjoying something that looks to be pretty good so far.

28 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

I dunno, the fact that she ignited her lightsaber, and the fact that the starfighter is very clearly the one that Kylo was flying (or at least it looked an awful lot like it to me), and the fact that it was flying directly at her at top speed....I think it's safe to say it was an adversarial kind of situation. I mean yeah, it could somehow be a trick, and it's actually a super friendly, fast speed hug the pilot is trying to give her with the front of the ship...but I doubt it Everything about the music, the camera angle, and the character behavior, points to a confrontation. The classic standoff against a charging foe trope. Sure, might be something else, but I doubt it. It's JJ, he's not really great at being super subtle these days with his direction.

Without any context, it’s hard to tell. But, I’m going on a gut feeling based on what does (and doesn’t) happen in what we see. We don’t see any attacks on either of their parts. We don’t see who’s piloting the ship. We don’t see Rey trying to evade, but what looks to me more like getting into position to get on top of her ride, with saber ignited to head into trouble. (All of That strengthened of they do go for a Kylo Ren redemption arc.) I don’t think it’s so much a matter of subtlety but misdirection due to that lack of context. (Similar to the misdirection in TFA’s ad campaign making it look like Finn would be the Force-related character.)

33 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Yeah, I remember you saying you couldn't get passed his performance on Gotham. *shrugs* Can't help you there. That's never been a problem I've had, seeing past the character to the actor. I remember people freaking out when John Lithgow ended up being a character on Dexter, and they were all like "Urmagurd! The funny guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun is a scary serial killer?!?" And I was like "um, yeah? Did none of you see him in Ricochet with Denzel Washington? He was a terrifyingly good villain in that." So, yeah don't know what to tell you on that front. Sorry that is holding you back from enjoying something that looks to be pretty good so far.

Yeah, it generally only happens to me if someone’s got a performance on their resume that particularly bugs me. It’s not impossible for that perception of them to turn around, but it can be tough. In this case, the show itself didn’t do Monaghan any favors with me, by not only giving us a character that was like nails on a chalk board, but going back to that well over and over again on top of being a show that I honestly don’t know why I kept watching. So, admittedly, part of it’s on me, too. I’m sure I’ll eventually get the game, but knowing I’ll have to make a concerted effort to get past my bias towards the lead performer just has me less enthusiastic than I was.

Meanwhile, though, I’m honest enough to say it’s just a reaction to my opinion of his work, and I’m not making multi-hour YouTube videos and social media rants about the ruination of the entire franchise because I’m not wild about his casting.

56 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

I dunno, the fact that she ignited her lightsaber, and the fact that the starfighter is very clearly the one that Kylo was flying (or at least it looked an awful lot like it to me), and the fact that it was flying directly at her at top speed....I think it's safe to say it was an adversarial kind of situation. I mean yeah, it could somehow be a trick, and it's actually a super friendly, fast speed hug the pilot is trying to give her with the front of the ship...but I doubt it Everything about the music, the camera angle, and the character behavior, points to a confrontation. The classic standoff against a charging foe trope. Sure, might be something else, but I doubt it. It's JJ, he's not really great at being super subtle these days with his direction.

I don't think it's the silencer. It's got the same wings, but it looks more like a First Order Tie Interceptor, than the silencer.

Tie Silencer

better view

Trailer Fighter

Tie Interceptor