Hm, we can't be sure but they should have a lot of different weapons that u don't fire the turbolasers at each others direction should be... I mean, it is their job. But OK then again, the whole scene was strange, I mean the whole fight. I am kind of sad that we never saw a real huge ship battle in the trilogy, and the fighter scenes were just of this cut scene stile, not like the "almost, almost...." " turn around" " ahhhh I have someone on mytale" PEWPEW style

4 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Unless it was his force sensitivity that made him overcome his trooper indoctrination.

I am guessing that's what they were implying. Does that mean Lando's daughter is force sensitive also? Her whole regiment or was one force user powerful enough to over come all their indoctrination?

3 hours ago, Varlie said:

Maybe someone can clarify something for me. We see in the early moments of the movie, Kylo discovers the wayfinder and uses it to find Palpatine.
Then Rey does the leaping lightsaber trick to cut the wing from the Tie Fighter. To me, that looked like the same Tie and it ended up in pieces.

Skip ahead to Rey and Kylo's lightsaber fight and she steals his Tie Fighter which happens to have the wayfinder in it. So were these two different Tie Fighters or did Kylo just recover the wayfinder from the crashed Tie before being picked up?

Guessing he didn't have the wayfinder on desert planet, so two different fighters, but apparently the wayfinder is fire proof so could have been recovered easily from the wreckage.

3 hours ago, kaosoe said:

I took this to mean. "Don't use the karkin' death star guns. These ships are too nimble for that sort of thing".

Guessing the new planet killers only accurate on certain silhouette size, planet size. Definitely couldn't hit a fighter. So captain obvious yells, use the small guns.

20 hours ago, Bojanglez said:

So, I got the first time around that it was the medal from BBY but did you see something that specifies it as Han's medal and not the medal thew Chewie never got? I don't have the latest visual dictionary so am not sure if it was cleared up in there.

That was pretty much exactly my take on it.

" In the young adult novel Star Wars: Force Collector, we learn what happened to Luke Skywalker's medal. As it turns out, Luke's medal from the Battle of Yavin was sold by Han Solo to buy booze . Solo gave it to Maz Kanata to pay for a drink. Kanata even called Solo a "bastard" for doing so. Now, we know that this medal that Maz gives to Chewie at the end of The Rise of Skywalker pretty much has to be Luke's, right?"

So if the medal was from Maz, then it was Luke's, if it was from Leia, then it had to be Han's right?

Isn't also canon that Han sold a ton of counterfeit medals? If so, he might have sold Maz a phony.

has anyone else the Feeling that chewie was dead in the original cut and they reedited him in?

5 hours ago, Seguleh said:

has anyone else the Feeling that chewie was dead in the original cut and they reedited him in?

That would have been a looooooot of reshoots.

1 hour ago, DanteRotterdam said:

That would have been a looooooot of reshoots.

Agreed, I think his non-death was planned as a way to push Rey to her breaking point

And his survival would then give the rest of the Falcon crew something to do on Kijimun while Rey went after the dagger.

7 hours ago, Seguleh said:

has anyone else the Feeling that chewie was dead in the original cut and they reedited him in?

Nope.

Maybe in an earlier draft of the script, penned well before filming began, it might have been a thing. But in the final version of the script and the film itself, Chewie was meant to be there for the whole film.

Hmm, it might be the most damning thing of all that I already have lost most interest in discussing the film.

It was exactly what it seemed on the surface, and quality-wise it's.... fine .

And I've pretty much run out of things to say about it after a week.

1 hour ago, Varlie said:

Agreed, I think his (Chewies) non-death was planned as a way to push Rey to her breaking point.

Yeah but 5 fake-out deaths in 1 movie is faaaar to many. None of the deaths could mean anything because I began to suspect that any death was going to be undone 5 min later.

1 hour ago, penpenpen said:

Hmm, it might be the most damning thing of all that I already have lost most interest in discussing the film.

It was exactly what it seemed on the surface, and quality-wise it's.... fine .

And I've pretty much run out of things to say about it after a week.

Yep, movie was alright, it was entertaining... not bad, but not great either... it has some great moments, but it also has the worst... and that's about it.

The feeling I got the most while watching the movie is I felt it was just there to give answers to the complaints some fans had about the sequel trilogy. I feel like it was a long checklist of questions/complaints that JJ had to answer and then tie in together to make a movie. One long Wookipedia article. Just Fan service with no real meaning. A simple blockbuster movie meant to entertain us and that's it.

8 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

Yep, movie was alright, it was entertaining... not bad, but not great either... it has some great moments, but it also has the worst... and that's about it.

The feeling I got the most while watching the movie is I felt it was just there to give answers to the complaints some fans had about the sequel trilogy. I feel like it was a long checklist of questions/complaints that JJ had to answer and then tie in together to make a movie. One long Wookipedia article. Just Fan service with no real meaning. A simple blockbuster movie meant to entertain us and that's it.

My review after finishing it was 'It was as if Twitter made a movie'. Every Twitter post with things like "Why doesn't Chewie get a medal?" and "Why isn't Star Wars more LGTB?" and "Where are the Knight of Ren?" always gets about 40k likes. Well here you go! We gave Chewie a medal in a 5 second shot! We put in a lesbian kiss in a 3 second shot that got removed in a few countries because their governments didn't like it! We gave you the Knights of Ren to follow some people and fight someone, once!

Sigh. It could have been so much better...

1 hour ago, Red Castle said:

A simple blockbuster movie meant to entertain us and that's it.

*gasp* You mean... like every Star Wars movie to date?

2 hours ago, Red Castle said:

Yep, movie was alright, it was entertaining... not bad, but not great either... it has some great moments, but it also has the worst... and that's about it.

The feeling I got the most while watching the movie is I felt it was just there to give answers to the complaints some fans had about the sequel trilogy. I feel like it was a long checklist of questions/complaints that JJ had to answer and then tie in together to make a movie. One long Wookipedia article. Just Fan service with no real meaning. A simple blockbuster movie meant to entertain us and that's it.

Last night at dinner, a friend called it “The JJ Abrams Apology Tour.”

Having seen it twice now, it was...OK. Not my favorite Star Wars movie (by a long shot), not my least favorite, either. I may have mentioned it before, but it just seemed to play things a little too safe. I just don’t feel strongly about it one way or another. Except for the reveal about Rey. That, I despise.

2 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Except for the reveal about Rey. That, I despise.

Agreed. The whole point of the dark pit sequence in Last Jedi was that she was a nobody. Which in the larger context of Force Awakens and Last Jedi meant that everyone could be a hero. Anybody could save the day. By reconning her into having famous parents JJ changed the whole narrative to be "Nope, you can only save the day and be powerful and important if you come from a powerful, famous family".

I think the issue with the Knights of Ren particularly is that they just had *no role or presence* in the story. At all. I would argue Boba Fett is a much more impactful character, both narratively and in terms of threat, compared to them and Captain Phasma combined. They don't do anything to the main characters, not even anything to Ren until the final section of the movie. Thus there was no gravity behind their actions when they inevitably confronted Ren and got Jobbered it was just cool and that was kinda it. Even Boba Fett did a pretty admirable job of showing his capacity as an antagonist as he made his impact early (Leading Vader directly to Solo, then taking him away) so that when he finally joined the fight, we knew the situation had gotten pretty serious and that the heroes had to deal with him there and then to show how far they had come. I never had that same gravity with the Knights or Phasma, which is a pity because the latter actress did an incredible job building this persona, only to get chucked into a garbage shoot, and reheated out of the microwave for less then 5 minutes action in a fairly forgettable story arc. I never felt that the side villains had any agency or posed the same threat that Ben Solo did. Whenever he turned up; we knew something spectacular was going to happen one way or another. Knights of Ren show up? It's fancy dress time.

James Bond, as dated as it is mastered the art of memorable henchmen decades ago by giving them a visual cue (an iconic weapon, a unique fighting style or some other characteristic that marks them being vastly different and/or superior.) and it's villains by giving that character some kind of disability or trait that greatly amplifies that worth. Die Hard the Die Hard Movies had a plot focused around the main villain but the henchmen were around to show how dangerous they were, the fight with the agile mercenary in Die Hard 4 immediately set the stakes as despite the Hero proving Triumphant over the team, the villain displayed his high levels of danger pretty quickly so that when he ultimately faced off against Bruce later on in the movie and started giving the aging action hero a run for his money; the stakes of him being dangerous was already established. Never really got the impression that these dudes were anything more then salad dressing on a well presented salad. That being said; I pretty much felt that anything that didn't rotate around Rey and Kylo throughout the series lacked tension. If Rey didn't succeed in defeating the Empeor, everything everyone has fought hard to accomplish meant less then nothing. A sharp contrast to Luke's personal duel in the Throne room where the outcome didn't affect the battle at all, but we still had stakes in it because the OT was his story. Poe, Finn, Leia, those other folks didn't really matter and I feel the lack of interesting, interactive secondary nemesis characters were integral to that. They spent a lot of time doing stuff that didn't really matter if one or two characters failed in their job.

Probably the best example of this feeling was the battle of Jakku compared to a session I had. We had probably spent about 14 sessions taking part in various battles which basically consisted of various types of stormtroopers. As there wasn't any particularly unique antagonistic force I eventurally became lazy in my way of thinking; I was just bored of effectively fighting and conducting missions against a faceless army, so that when I did finally encounter something unique and interesting in the final arc; well my character ended up getting slaughtered as I was still in curse control from all the mooks we had dealt with before (Four Royal guard. In my mind though those guys didn't stand out as interesting because there was no build up to that confrontation and even in the movies, they weren't impactful at all, which wasn't a problem as they simply weren't an antagonist on the radar in the same way Boba and the like were) as I simply wasn't mentally prepared for a serious fight; it didn't really help that I was late to arrive due to a prior commitment and simply wasn't aware of the level of danger my character was in. So I killed one, did some damage to another and basically got crushed as I simply wasn't bringing my best game to the fight.

In contrast, our first encounter with the Plague Troopers was much better; two of us and Luke Skywalker ended up encountering them after a botched stealth check and Luke, being the super heroic Jedi that he was, surged forward and took the initive in engaging them, needless to say Luke got smashed and dropped before either of our turns. This established two facts pretty quickly; Luke wasn't the super badass master at this point in his career even following Endor; he had simply Triumphed over evil because of his good heart and therefore we were peers in a sense. The second was that it established that whoever these Purge Troopers were (I haven't played that Jedi game and I don't read many book) that they were serious business, these folks could tear a trained Jedi to pieces. That was the right amount of foreshadowing as despite not knowing of these adversaries before this session, I was quickly clued in on how big of a threat they could be if we didn't take them seriously. Ironically, that Random stormtrooper with the spinny baton did a greater job at being a nemesis class character then the knights of Ren themselves. That is a problem with story telling.

Why am I talking about this? Because I'm learning to GM and I want to learn how story telling works so I know how to interact with my players. That includes giving them a villain for them to believe to be a threat and deal with. Players don’t care about the admirals, they want to deal with the folks that embody the big bad presence. I feel we could learn a lot as gm to digest this. I just enjoy musing.

2 hours ago, kaosoe said:

*gasp* You mean... like every Star Wars movie to date?

I get what you mean and at its core, you are right, it's what every Star Wars is about: pure entertainment. And I didn't say it as if it was necessarily a bad thing. When I came out of the theater, I felt like I was entertained, so basic mission of a movie is accomplished.... but I also didn't felt the need to revisit it right away like I usually do with other Star Wars movies. Before watching it, I was already planning to see it again the day after... when I left the theater, I didn't feel like doing so... but still, I'm going to watch it a second time next sunday, because I want to love it and now that I know what to expect, I might enjoy it more. I'm a positive guy, I want to focus on the positive.

It's just that some episodes, from my point of view at least, are more than that. While still being movies meant to entertain, they also have deeper meanings that are worth analysing. After my first viewing, episode 9 just felt... alright, with no real meaning. Just a succession of beautiful scenes that feel like Star Wars. And it's okay, like I said, not necessarily a bad thing. It might just be a movie that I'll revisit less often.

I think this tweet expess what I mean.

1 hour ago, Nytwyng said:

Except for the reveal about Rey. That, I despise.

I would not say that I despise it, it was okay I guess, but I definetly prefered Rey being from 'nobodies'.

But I guess a lot of fans didn't like the idea of Rey being that strong in the Force without any legacy so they had to give it to them... or it was JJ idea from the start and when he saw what Rian did, he had no idea where to go from there so he decided to stuck with his first idea.

It might sound strange, but I feel like the third movie would have been better if it would have been another director. Not that I don't like JJ, Episode 7 is my fourth favorite Star Wars movie, but I feel like a third director would have built more by taking from both movies... like for exemple giving a better role to Rose instead of ignoring her.

3 hours ago, Red Castle said:

Yep, movie was alright, it was entertaining... not bad, but not great either... it has some great moments, but it also has the worst... and that's about it.

The feeling I got the most while watching the movie is I felt it was just there to give answers to the complaints some fans had about the sequel trilogy. I feel like it was a long checklist of questions/complaints that JJ had to answer and then tie in together to make a movie. One long Wookipedia article. Just Fan service with no real meaning. A simple blockbuster movie meant to entertain us and that's it.

I agree with every word except it having some great/worst moments. Rather the opposite.

It has some ups and downs, but stays safely in the middle. Everything is too competently made for there to be any real facepalming moments of stupidity, but also plays it too safe for anything to stand out as amazing.

Say what you like about TLJ, but I think we can all agree that at least it had the balls to risk being dissapointing, rather than obsessively trying to please everyone.

I wonder if I'd preferred it taking more chances and failing. I'd guess I'd be a bit angry, but at least I'd care , you know?

So yes, it's fine. It's ok. Passable. Competent. Now and then it's even good.

BTW, JJ Abrams gets thrown around a lot, and some people even mention Kathleen Kennedy, but no mention of Chris Terrio who seems to have been the main writer. Considering he's also written films like Argo (which I hear is good), Batman v Superman (which is more akin to Granny's peach tea) and Justice League (utterly bland) I figure he'd be more of interest regarding creative input than the producers at least.

8 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

I agree with every word except it having some great/worst moments. Rather the opposite.

It has some ups and downs, but stays safely in the middle. Everything is too competently made for there to be any real facepalming moments of stupidity, but also plays it too safe for anything to stand out as amazing.

A quick words before going back to work.

I think the scene with Han and Ben is one of the best scene in the entire saga... I loved how it mirrored the event in Episode 7. There was a lot of emotion in there that really got me. Just wow, nailed it!

... But a fleet of Star Destroyer that can blow up planets on their own... yeah, not so much...

And by the way, I'm a huge fan of Episode 8, it's actually my favorite episode... and maybe that's part of the problem, maybe I was expecting more of that.

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

BTW, JJ Abrams gets thrown around a lot, and some people even mention Kathleen Kennedy, but no mention of Chris Terrio who seems to have been the main writer. Considering he's also written films like Argo (which I hear is good), Batman v Superman (which is more akin to Granny's peach tea) and Justice League (utterly bland) I figure he'd be more of interest regarding creative input than the producers at least.

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of Terrio’s pedigree. Haven’t seen Argo (not an Affleck fan), and have only managed to suffer through maybe a combined 45 minutes of BvS and JL. So, I suppose I can either say that explains a lot or look at the bright side that I wasn’t completely turned off by a Terrio movie?

5 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of Terrio’s pedigree. Haven’t seen Argo (not an Affleck fan), and have only managed to suffer through maybe a combined 45 minutes of BvS and JL. So, I suppose I can either say that explains a lot or look at the bright side that I wasn’t completely turned off by a Terrio movie?

JL had similar problems of playing it blandly safe, but to put it diplomatically, had somewhat less good stuff to make up for it.