Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Me2005]

- Is Snoke dead? HE CAN'T BE DEAD. I've seen a few theories that he's still alive, that his dead body was a projection and that Rey/Kylo are still linked, so Snoke should still be alive. You CANT continue the story with brat teenger Kylo Loser as the main villain. Why wasn't Snoke backstory explained?!! And if Snoke and Luke is dead, WHO THE FUCK DO WE HAVE LEFT? One loser teenager emo loser, and one untrained chick. Fuck this shit man!!!!
- Ditto for Rey. Isn't she Luke's daughter? Her parents are not some no-named junkers, it has to be a feint. If her parents are really nobody, i.e. not from the Solo/Skywalker/Kenobi lineage (which is all major theories), someone has to lose his/her head for this.

I mean, they go to some lengths to make it pretty clear that yes, Snoke is dead. They show his carcass cut in two numerous times, and do at least one close up (possibly more) on his dead-face with his tongue hanging out and his eyes glazed over. IMO they wouldn't do that if he weren't really dead.

To cop your phrase, ditto for Rey. It's possible they could worm out of that (as in ESB, "Vader killed your father/No, I AM your father"), but they seemed to make it pretty clear. Ren's understanding of the situation could be wrong.

I think they did both to shoot the setup from TFA in the foot. I kind of appreciate that, since I didn't like TFA especially either, but they still kept Rey and Ren, and then introduced a whole cast of other problems.

[Kane Starkiller]

How could the fimmakers create such a compelling and interesting relationship between Rey and Kylo and fail so miserably with Poe and Finn? I mean on one hand you have this intense connection between Kylo and Rey and the clever way he kills Snoke and on the other side it's the fucking Jumanji animal rampage through the casino and tryhard fancy flying coupled with "yo mama" jokes. (Poe even does spinning to take out several TIE fighers. That's a good trick!)

Here is hoping that the first "unexpected" twist in Episode IX will be Finn and Poe falling into the Sarlacc pit.

[KraytKing]

I personally think it would have been more interesting if Rey joined Kylo after Snoke died and the transport with all of the heroes on it had been blown to pieces. That would have changed things. Instead, we get the same old story with some new bullshit physics and logic.

[The Romulan Republic]

I personally think it would have been more interesting if Rey joined Kylo after Snoke died and the transport with all of the heroes on it had been blown to pieces. That would have changed things. Instead, we get the same old story with some new bullshit physics and logic.

To me, that sounds like "grimdark for the sake of grimdark".

Again, I haven't seen the film yet (but if its good spoilers won't hurt it much, and if it sucks it doesn't matter anyway). But taking bits and pieces of various fan theories, and my own musings, I think I would have done something like this:

Snoke is a nobody- that is, he's not secretly any prior character, or some mysterious super powerful thing from the past. Just some random Force-sensitive alien who saw a power vacume, and an opportunity for him to fill it, and knew what to say to get angry, powerful young men to kill for him.

Rey is Luke's daughter and/or a reincarnation of the Chosen One.

Final battle: Rey ends up trapped by Snoke and Kylo. Luke goes to bail her out. Luke is dueling Snoke, and winning, when Kylo stabs him in the back. Rey kills (or maims, if they want to keep him around for later) Kylo in a rage, and falls. She becomes Snoke's apprentice.

Finn lives. Film IX is about Finn trying to turn Rey back to the Light Side. If Kylo survives, possible twist where Kylo and Finn team up (not necessarily with Kylo now a good guy- just wanting to either remove a rival apprentice, or take out Snoke for turning on him).

I'm iffy on the Rey falls arc because it feels like undercutting the franchise's first female protagonist, but other than that (which might depend on the presentation), this feels like the best course.

Leia lives out the film, just because I don't want it to seem like she was killed off obligatorily because of Carrie Fisher's death. If need be, she dies off-screen or during the opening of the next film, and the next film opens with the reprecussions of her death.

So those are my thoughts, but I'm open to alternative takes. I'm going to try to see the film with an open mind, rather than drawing conclusions from partial reports/rumors.

[KraytKing]

I didn't mean for Rey to fall to the Dark Side. I thought it would be cool if she and Kylo came up with some sort of fusion, taking the best parts of the Empire and the best of the Republic and melding them into one. An Empire, but a good one.

Also, I hate all of the other characters. Even, sadly, Leia. She isn't the same anymore.

[Alyrium Denryle]

F.U.C.K. Last Jedi. Seriously, who wrote this fuck? That dick should be force choked and skewered with a lightsaber!!!

Random shit off the top of my head that pisses me off, will collect my thoughts at a later post:
- Ackbar died without saying "it's a trap": come on how hard is that to write that in the scene?

...Seriously? You're pissed off about that?

- Hyperspace tracking. Was never explained.

And if they did explain it, you'd be complaining about an infodump.

- The initial space battle. Who the fuck designed those bombers? They move SLOW LIKE FUCK. Seriously, who the fuck designed it? And how does ONE fucking bomber destroy AN ENTIRE dreadnaught? Do they not have shields?

That is why fighters exist, you shitgibbon. They are able to bypass shields and get close to the ship. Close enough to drop proton bombs. As for the bombers, I agree, the design was crap. I actually think that with their resource base completely fucked, the Resistance resorted to using dedicated ground attack bombers.

- Superwomen Leia flies through space. SERIOUSLY WTF. Leia doesn't have Jedi training right? Can Jedi even fly through space????

Why not? They can move objects far bigger than themselves using the force, why not themselves? Hell, it doesn't even take that much because inertia is a thing.

Leia may not have had Jedi training, but there are plenty of non-jedi force traditions, she's strong in the force, and has had thirty years to develop her abilities in her own way.

- The chase scene. This is like the BIGGEST FUCKING DICKHOLE. Does the First Order not have more ships to surround the Mon Cal cruiser? Can you not sent a few ships to micro-jump ahead and trap them? Why the fuck can Mon Cal cruisers outrun everything the First Order have? Why did they need to pull back their fighters when most of the Mon Cal's fighters were blown up? And what's with the hyperspace manveuer that the end that blew up Snoke's flagship? Why didn't they do this with the other 3 smaller frigates?

They probably can't do a microjump that small. The First Order fleet isn't actually that large potentially, and is likely engaging in mop up actions against a decapitated new republic. They are, afterall, an imperial rump state. Why can't a mon cal cruiser outrun star destroyers?

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

- The entire side-trip to the casino really was pointless.

Except for, you know, character development and setting up the future of the universe.

- The ending was really bad. The rebels are fucked. Where are their allies? Is everyone on the Falcon it? Are we expecting a 10-year time jump for episode 9? Seriously, WHO THE FUCK is left in the entire galaxy? Did Starkiller base wipe out the entire New Republic? It's like Washington DC got nuked and suddenly, all of American military power vanishes. Now replace Washington DC gets nuked with the capital worlds of New Republic gets blown up... so where are the other republic forces?? Unless you are telling me they cluster ALL their forces on the capital planets???????

They talked about this in TFA. The NR DID cluster most of it's fleet assets around five planets after largely demilitarizing post galactic civil war. The remainder is probably in the middle of being mopped up. This movie took place a few days after TFA. The NR fleet is in chaos and the heroes are not omniscient.

- Is Snoke dead? HE CAN'T BE DEAD. I've seen a few theories that he's still alive, that his dead body was a projection and that Rey/Kylo are still linked, so Snoke should still be alive. You CANT continue the story with brat teenger Kylo Loser as the main villain.

Why not?

Why wasn't Snoke backstory explained?!! And if Snoke and Luke is dead, WHO THE FUCK DO WE HAVE LEFT? One loser teenager emo loser, and one untrained chick. Fuck this shit man!!!!

Wow. I don't even know where to start with this... so I'll just let your rancidity speak for itself.

- Ditto for Rey. Isn't she Luke's daughter? Her parents are not some no-named junkers, it has to be a feint. If her parents are really nobody, i.e. not from the Solo/Skywalker/Kenobi lineage (which is all major theories), someone has to lose his/her head for this.

What are you, some kind of toxic monarchist? Why cant some rando be strong in the force?

[Ubiquitous]

They lost me at the start when the Dreadnought (or other TFO capital ship?) was bombarding the planet with 500lb JDAM's. What happened to multi-GT TL's?

[Alyrium Denryle]

They lost me at the start when the Dreadnought (or other TFO capital ship?) was bombarding the planet with 500lb JDAM's. What happened to multi-GT TL's?

Seeing as the explosions rather large from orbit, looked about right for 50km radius fireball.

[KraytKing]

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

The rest I either have no quarrel with or can't be bothered to write about. But this stands out.

Why would you think starfighters can't take down capital ships? In the opening scenes, two or three squadrons of Rebel ships take down the second largest warship in the film, in minutes. Why can't twenty times as many First Order fighters kill a vastly weaker enemy? Even within the battle, we see Kylo and his wingmen cause considerable damage to the Raddus, killing the entire command crew. Nothing suggests starfighters are incapable of killing large warships. There aren't even any enemy fighters to tussle with, and we know from the Dreadnought that anti-fighter weapons are marginally effective.

[Ubiquitous]

They lost me at the start when the Dreadnought (or other TFO capital ship?) was bombarding the planet with 500lb JDAM's. What happened to multi-GT TL's?

Seeing as the explosions rather large from orbit, looked about right for 50km radius fireball.

From what I can recall from my single viewing, people were running away from small explosions in the background?

I could be wrong, because i'll never be going back to rewatch this film to find out.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

The rest I either have no quarrel with or can't be bothered to write about. But this stands out.

Why would you think starfighters can't take down capital ships? In the opening scenes, two or three squadrons of Rebel ships take down the second largest warship in the film, in minutes. Why can't twenty times as many First Order fighters kill a vastly weaker enemy? Even within the battle, we see Kylo and his wingmen cause considerable damage to the Raddus, killing the entire command crew. Nothing suggests starfighters are incapable of killing large warships. There aren't even any enemy fighters to tussle with, and we know from the Dreadnought that anti-fighter weapons are marginally effective.

Not sure what order I ought address this in. I'll go with fighter effectiveness first.

We only ever really see fighters taking out surface targets. They take out turrets and the like to clear the way for heavy bombers. The CIC has always been a vulnerability in star wars ships, so it makes sense that a fighter might be able to knock out the command structure for a few minutes (why no one fixes that, I have no idea, but it is persistent so maybe there is a reason why they don't?). But they can't take out the ship. We always see bombers having to be used for that. The First Order did not bring bombers to that fight. Maybe they don't have them due to fleet doctrine differences or whathaveyou, I don't know.

Either way, the frigates have anti-fighter guns even if they stripped the Raddus, and said fighters were going after the Raddus, leaving themselves vulnerable to the frigates. Unsupported by capital ships, eventually they'd get cut to pieces.

[Alyrium Denryle]

They lost me at the start when the Dreadnought (or other TFO capital ship?) was bombarding the planet with 500lb JDAM's. What happened to multi-GT TL's?

Seeing as the explosions rather large from orbit, looked about right for 50km radius fireball.

From what I can recall from my single viewing, people were running away from small explosions in the background?

I could be wrong, because i'll never be going back to rewatch this film to find out.

Leaving aside the stupidity of hating a movie because the weapon firepower isn't what you wanted it to be...

You are incorrect. People were caught in the middle of that explosion while trying to evacuate.

[The Romulan Republic]

I didn't mean for Rey to fall to the Dark Side. I thought it would be cool if she and Kylo came up with some sort of fusion, taking the best parts of the Empire and the best of the Republic and melding them into one. An Empire, but a good one.

Ugg. No. Fuck no.

The Empire was an utterly bankrupt institution. It was an authoritarian regime who's top leadership personally engaged in and ordered torture and murder and genocide, a regime which was founded on treason, war crimes, and genocide, and a regime which practiced slavery and turned strategic weapons on its own civilian populace. If it were a real government, that had actually existed, sympathizing with it would put you on the moral level of a Neo-Nazi, at best. And no one (intelligent, rational, and not an extremist) would say "A Nazi Germany, but a good one." with a straight face.

I am sick of fans trying to find ways to make the Empire good, or sympathetic, as if the despotism and murder were bugs, rather than features. I was sick of it a long time ago. But I am especially sick of it now, when there is a not insignificant chance that the United States of America, my country, is in the process of turning into an authoritarian dictatorship sympathetic to Neo-Nazism, where the President says that some of the Neo-Nazis are good people, and the very last thing we need is a movie which tells American audiences "Let's try to come together and find the good in fascism."

Also, I hate all of the other characters. Even, sadly, Leia. She isn't the same anymore.

Is this just over the new film? Because I honestly liked pretty much every major character in TFA. The worst you could say is that they were sometimes undeveloped (cough-Phasma and Snoke-cough). TFA had its problems, but they were largely in plot development, not characterization.

[Galvatron]

They lost me at the start when the Dreadnought (or other TFO capital ship?) was bombarding the planet with 500lb JDAM's. What happened to multi-GT TL's?

I daresay the versus debates grossly overestimated the firepower of such weapons, at least with regard to how effective they are against planetary surfaces under an atmosphere.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

The rest I either have no quarrel with or can't be bothered to write about. But this stands out.

Why would you think starfighters can't take down capital ships? In the opening scenes, two or three squadrons of Rebel ships take down the second largest warship in the film, in minutes. Why can't twenty times as many First Order fighters kill a vastly weaker enemy? Even within the battle, we see Kylo and his wingmen cause considerable damage to the Raddus, killing the entire command crew. Nothing suggests starfighters are incapable of killing large warships. There aren't even any enemy fighters to tussle with, and we know from the Dreadnought that anti-fighter weapons are marginally effective.

Not sure what order I ought address this in. I'll go with fighter effectiveness first.

We only ever really see fighters taking out surface targets. They take out turrets and the like to clear the way for heavy bombers. The CIC has always been a vulnerability in star wars ships, so it makes sense that a fighter might be able to knock out the command structure for a few minutes (why no one fixes that, I have no idea, but it is persistent so maybe there is a reason why they don't?). But they can't take out the ship. We always see bombers having to be used for that. The First Order did not bring bombers to that fight. Maybe they don't have them due to fleet doctrine differences or whathaveyou, I don't know.

Either way, the frigates have anti-fighter guns even if they stripped the Raddus, and said fighters were going after the Raddus, leaving themselves vulnerable to the frigates. Unsupported by capital ships, eventually they'd get cut to pieces.

To expand on this, when Poe is shooting up the dreadnought's AA turrets, the XO (I think he is, a bridge officer anyways) questions what Poe is doing and outright says "he can't penetrate our armour." Going after vulnerable surface turrets, which by necessity can't be as well-protected, to clear the way for bombers carrying proper anti-ship weapons is fine.

Kylo and Co's attack on the Raddus? Did not do significant damage. Two or four missiles hit the bridge and solely managed to blow in the windows and wreck the room. It wasn't even immediately fatal to someone barely twenty feet from the point of impact! That does not, in any stretch of the imagination, constitute doing "serious damage" to the ship! That's like saying you could have done serious damage to a WW1 dreadnought by scoring a chance hit with a 5" secondary gun on the conning tower. The ship can still move and fight just fine.

The third strike hit fully fuelled and armed planes in the hanger bay. No shit that's going to do disproportionate damage. See what happened to (IIRC) Kaga at Midway, she took one bomb hit that detonated in the hanger deck and went down. Even then, the internal bulkheads held and Poe survived despite being in the corridor right outside the hanger and in direct line of sight.

So, lucky hits that in the bridge case were only serious because of who happened to be there. No serious impairment of the ship's fighting ability, and there is a backup bridge available as well.

I'm really not buying the whole "capital ships are useless against fighters" narrative here.

[Nephtys]

That's a good point: What did we actually know of the Emperor in the OT?
TESB: He's a weird ghostly hologram, that Vader takes orders from directly, and wants Skywalker.
ROTJ: He seems to know what a 'jedi weapon' is, and knows what the force is. We don't know how he became Emperor, or whatnot aside that he is.

Sith is never mentioned as a word.

So really, Snoke has exactly as much information about him as Palps. He's a weirdo force user, who is trying to gather powerful force users to serve him, wants to destroy Skywalker, and is leader of an empire.

--
Again, the other point is: Rey's parents being nobody is a big deal. The force isn't 'owned' by the Skywalkers. Because she happens to, by stroke of fate, be a person with a destiny... it doesn't mean her family's part of that. It in fact goes and is vital character development for her, that despite her obvious unnaturally strong superpowers (and thus very dangerous ones), it's not because that's what Skywalkers get when the hit 16th level and get to pick epic feats.

[Me2005]

- Superwomen Leia flies through space. SERIOUSLY WTF. Leia doesn't have Jedi training right? Can Jedi even fly through space????

Leia may not have had Jedi training, but there are plenty of non-jedi force traditions, she's strong in the force, and has had thirty years to develop her abilities in her own way.

I'm not a huge fan of the Leia flying thing either; the force should have been more subtle with her since we've never seen her do force stuff ever prior to this. Even granting 30 years interim, we should have seen more minor force powers from her before to make this less uncanny. She definitely has premonitions & etc in the OT, so having her leave the bridge for some reason right before impact would have been much more in-character IMO.

Can you not sent a few ships to micro-jump ahead and trap them? Why the fuck can Mon Cal cruisers outrun everything the First Order have? Why did they need to pull back their fighters when most of the Mon Cal's fighters were blown up? And what's with the hyperspace manveuer that the end that blew up Snoke's flagship? Why didn't they do this with the other 3 smaller frigates?

They probably can't do a microjump that small. The First Order fleet isn't actually that large potentially, and is likely engaging in mop up actions against a decapitated new republic. They are, afterall, an imperial rump state. Why can't a mon cal cruiser outrun star destroyers?

But later, the rebels have no trouble micro-jumping right through the FO ships. If an act of plot is needed to save the day, at least it shouldn't be obvious that that should have happened ealier or could have been attempted by the other party. Same effect could have been her just regular ramming the FO fleet, and it wouldn't have left us all head-scratching. Could have also had the FO arrive between the rebels and their intended destination.

- Ditto for Rey. Isn't she Luke's daughter? Her parents are not some no-named junkers, it has to be a feint. If her parents are really nobody, i.e. not from the Solo/Skywalker/Kenobi lineage (which is all major theories), someone has to lose his/her head for this.

What are you, some kind of toxic monarchist? Why cant some rando be strong in the force?

I'm fine with Rey being strong in the force, but annoyed that she is apparently better in the use of the force than many of the OT/PT characters were ever shown to be. And that she's got essentially no training.

If she's a freakishly powerful force user, fine, but at least show her struggling to maintain control of power she doesn't understand or something to make her seem less plot-armored. She just gets it and uses it like nothing, when she started out barely scraping by on a backwater nothing planet.

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

Kylo and Co's attack on the Raddus? Did not do significant damage. Two or four missiles hit the bridge and solely managed to blow in the windows and wreck the room. It wasn't even immediately fatal to someone barely twenty feet from the point of impact! That does not, in any stretch of the imagination, constitute doing "serious damage" to the ship! ...
So, lucky hits that in the bridge case were only serious because of who happened to be there. No serious impairment of the ship's fighting ability, and there is a backup bridge available as well.

I'm really not buying the whole "capital ships are useless against fighters" narrative here.

What I don't get is why they pulled back when they were having success, had suffered no losses, and could/should have launched additional fighters we know they have because we see them attack the rebels later on. If the FO motherships can't micro-jump to catch them, call in reinforcements, or do damage from the range they are at; why would they care about a few fighters when their ultimate goal is exterminating the fleeing target that only their fighters can catch? I'd understand calling just Kylo back, but the rest of the scene doesn't make much sense. Especially considering the rebels only had, what, 400 people total remaining? The FO must have had that many fighters available, we see dozens just exploding in hangers.

[Alyrium Denryle]

- Superwomen Leia flies through space. SERIOUSLY WTF. Leia doesn't have Jedi training right? Can Jedi even fly through space????

Leia may not have had Jedi training, but there are plenty of non-jedi force traditions, she's strong in the force, and has had thirty years to develop her abilities in her own way.

I'm not a huge fan of the Leia flying thing either; the force should have been more subtle with her since we've never seen her do force stuff ever prior to this. Even granting 30 years interim, we should have seen more minor force powers from her before to make this less uncanny. She definitely has premonitions & etc in the OT, so having her leave the bridge for some reason right before impact would have been much more in-character IMO.

So... in the all-non-combat screen time she had prior to that, she had no need to move things with her mind, therefore it is out of character when she does?

That makes no sense.

Luke got practically zero training in using the force between ANH and TESB, beyond IIRC picking up Obi Wan's journal. And there he is, using the force to move his lightsaber in the Wampa cave, despite what turns out to be massive conceptual problems and internally-generated limits. He didn't grow up with Jedi as legendary figures the way Rey did. He bound up what the force could do in his own expectations for how the world worked and was limited thereby. Leia, by the time she knows she has that power, has no such problems and she's had thirty years.

Can you not sent a few ships to micro-jump ahead and trap them? Why the fuck can Mon Cal cruisers outrun everything the First Order have? Why did they need to pull back their fighters when most of the Mon Cal's fighters were blown up? And what's with the hyperspace manveuer that the end that blew up Snoke's flagship? Why didn't they do this with the other 3 smaller frigates?

They probably can't do a microjump that small. The First Order fleet isn't actually that large potentially, and is likely engaging in mop up actions against a decapitated new republic. They are, afterall, an imperial rump state. Why can't a mon cal cruiser outrun star destroyers?

But later, the rebels have no trouble micro-jumping right through the FO ships. If an act of plot is needed to save the day, at least it shouldn't be obvious that that should have happened ealier or could have been attempted by the other party. Same effect could have been her just regular ramming the FO fleet, and it wouldn't have left us all head-scratching. Could have also had the FO arrive between the rebels and their intended destination.

That wasn't a microjump. She just jumped, and during the run-up hit the FO flagship at a significant fraction of C with a ship the size of a small town.

As far as I know, we have zero evidence of microjumps in the revised cannon.

- Ditto for Rey. Isn't she Luke's daughter? Her parents are not some no-named junkers, it has to be a feint. If her parents are really nobody, i.e. not from the Solo/Skywalker/Kenobi lineage (which is all major theories), someone has to lose his/her head for this.

What are you, some kind of toxic monarchist? Why cant some rando be strong in the force?

I'm fine with Rey being strong in the force, but annoyed that she is apparently better in the use of the force than many of the OT/PT characters were ever shown to be. And that she's got essentially no training.

If she's a freakishly powerful force user, fine, but at least show her struggling to maintain control of power she doesn't understand or something to make her seem less plot-armored. She just gets it and uses it like nothing, when she started out barely scraping by on a backwater nothing planet.

The Force isn't dark sorcery. It partially guides one's actions. Like that kid we see at the end, she's likely been using the force without knowing she's doing it for her entire life. She then eases in, gets *some* training with Luke (which we don't see all of) as well as some practice and oh look, she can move shit with her mind and doesn't seem to have the hangups about size and number that Luke did.

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

Kylo and Co's attack on the Raddus? Did not do significant damage. Two or four missiles hit the bridge and solely managed to blow in the windows and wreck the room. It wasn't even immediately fatal to someone barely twenty feet from the point of impact! That does not, in any stretch of the imagination, constitute doing "serious damage" to the ship! ...
So, lucky hits that in the bridge case were only serious because of who happened to be there. No serious impairment of the ship's fighting ability, and there is a backup bridge available as well.

I'm really not buying the whole "capital ships are useless against fighters" narrative here.

What I don't get is why they pulled back when they were having success, had suffered no losses, and could/should have launched additional fighters we know they have because we see them attack the rebels later on. If the FO motherships can't micro-jump to catch them, call in reinforcements, or do damage from the range they are at; why would they care about a few fighters when their ultimate goal is exterminating the fleeing target that only their fighters can catch? I'd understand calling just Kylo back, but the rest of the scene doesn't make much sense. Especially considering the rebels only had, what, 400 people total remaining? The FO must have had that many fighters available, we see dozens just exploding in hangers.

What do you expect? An "as you know..." exposition dump about tactics that everyone in the room understands?

[AniThyng]

Maybe that's why Lando, I think, found it odd that the Star Destroyers at Endor were holding back and not more aggressively supporting thier fighters, which they would have been doing if thier goal was a proper fleet engagement and not a holding action to let the DS2 show off.

Or maybe that never actually happened, but it makes sense that a Star Destroyers combat doctrine is to use its TIE wing as a integral part of its combat capacity, while a Rebel Cruisers Fighter wing is a more independent entity that just happens to be based on the cruiser.

[Ender]

the best parts of the Empire and the best of the Republic and melding them into one. An Empire, but a good one.

There are no "best parts" of the Empire, it is a fucking empire. By definition they are evil as fuck, and only appear good if you are on the side of them. If you are part of the people's being held in imperium, life is at best, oppressive.


Christ, how old are you? Because setting aide the history and political economies of empire, the Galactic Empire s explicitly a fascist oppressive monarchy that in the canon is getting more reactionary and repressive as time goes on. It's a complete blundering clusterfuck of egos, insecurities, and sexual pathologies making idiotic decisions. What are the possible "best parts" of that? Which part of the explicit Space Nazis do you want to emulate?

[Elfdart]

I see Rian Johnson is going to make a Bond movie where 007 becomes a pacifist teetotaler who drives a Camry, no longer gambles and has no interest whatsoever in stopping bad guys or banging hot chicks.

aka the Timothy Dalton Bond movies

The disclaimer at the end of Licence To Kill ("Smoking is bad for your health") turned me off to Bond movies until Casino Royale, 17 years later. The Dalton Bond movies (for which Timothy Dalton is unfairly blamed) were bad because they chucked or greatly reduced the things that made the previous ones so much fun, while trying too hard to ape the current trends in movies (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Miami Vice). Having lame villains made it that much worse. The movies still did well with critics and made tons of money but Bond had become a joke.

Star Wars is following that same pattern, especially with the weaksauce villains. Kylo Ren is a brooding twat prone to throwing angry fits. Kinda like Anakin in AOTC, except Anakin was a teenager played by a teenager, so it made sense since teenagers are often brooding twats. Kylo Ren is not a teenager, nor is the actor playing him. His fits didn't inspire fear or pity or even annoyance. They made me laugh because they reminded me of Nomi Malone's tantrum in a diner in Showgirls -which is objectively a much better movie made by a master of camp. The other villains didn't do much for me though I did laugh when I saw Adrian Edmondson ( The Red Baron in Blackadder and Vyvian in The Young Ones) as a bad guy officer. Snoke? Rhymes with Joke. The redheaded officer? Who gives a shit?

So out of three Disney Star Wars movies, the only one that didn't take a big country shit on the galaxy far far away was Rogue One, which was co-written by a douchebag who was open in his hatred and contempt for the worlds, characters and stories created by George Lucas, and the old man himself.

Disney Star Wars is the Asia with John Payne of Star Wars.

[Ender]

F.U.C.K. Last Jedi. Seriously, who wrote this fuck? That dick should be force choked and skewered with a lightsaber!!!

Random shit off the top of my head that pisses me off, will collect my thoughts at a later post:
- Ackbar died without saying "it's a trap": come on how hard is that to write that in the scene?
- Hyperspace tracking. Was never explained.
- The initial space battle. Who the fuck designed those bombers? They move SLOW LIKE FUCK. Seriously, who the fuck designed it? And how does ONE fucking bomber destroy AN ENTIRE dreadnaught? Do they not have shields?
- Superwomen Leia flies through space. SERIOUSLY WTF. Leia doesn't have Jedi training right? Can Jedi even fly through space????
- The chase scene. This is like the BIGGEST FUCKING DICKHOLE. Does the First Order not have more ships to surround the Mon Cal cruiser? Can you not sent a few ships to micro-jump ahead and trap them? Why the fuck can Mon Cal cruisers outrun everything the First Order have? Why did they need to pull back their fighters when most of the Mon Cal's fighters were blown up? And what's with the hyperspace manveuer that the end that blew up Snoke's flagship? Why didn't they do this with the other 3 smaller frigates?
- The entire side-trip to the casino really was pointless.
- The ending was really bad. The rebels are fucked. Where are their allies? Is everyone on the Falcon it? Are we expecting a 10-year time jump for episode 9? Seriously, WHO THE FUCK is left in the entire galaxy? Did Starkiller base wipe out the entire New Republic? It's like Washington DC got nuked and suddenly, all of American military power vanishes. Now replace Washington DC gets nuked with the capital worlds of New Republic gets blown up... so where are the other republic forces?? Unless you are telling me they cluster ALL their forces on the capital planets???????
- Is Snoke dead? HE CAN'T BE DEAD. I've seen a few theories that he's still alive, that his dead body was a projection and that Rey/Kylo are still linked, so Snoke should still be alive. You CANT continue the story with brat teenger Kylo Loser as the main villain. Why wasn't Snoke backstory explained?!! And if Snoke and Luke is dead, WHO THE FUCK DO WE HAVE LEFT? One loser teenager emo loser, and one untrained chick. Fuck this shit man!!!!
- Ditto for Rey. Isn't she Luke's daughter? Her parents are not some no-named junkers, it has to be a feint. If her parents are really nobody, i.e. not from the Solo/Skywalker/Kenobi lineage (which is all major theories), someone has to lose his/her head for this.

This fucking star wars sequel trilogy is going the way of Andromeda (Season 3-4) right now.

Seriously the ONLY redeeming quality about this movie are the Porgs. WTF.

Fuck Rian Johnson. I hope you get mugged on the streets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You sound dumb

[Elfdart]

I don't think where he got the ships is at all relevant to the story. It's implicit in what we see of the First Order that they have a capable military industrial complex and significant manpower - why does it need to be justified?

Because it's stupid. When I watched TFA (I haven't seen TLJ yet) I found it to be akin to Nazi escapees to Argentina using local scientists to build a hydrogen bomb, using the local resources to build a massive fleet and airforce and using local recruits to man them. Then plan on invading the United States that, despite intelligence and knowing there's a build-up, sits on its hands doing nothing. It breaks suspension of disbelief.

I'm sorry to see that it seems as if TFA's poor worldbuilding was carried over to TLJ.

I pointed out before just how fucktarded the milieu created by Abrams & Co is. It's like The Sum of All Fears, only the neo-Nazis didn't just nuke Baltimore, but they wiped out the entire US military in the blast, save a handful of volunteers. Oh, and those neo-Nazis have more and better weapons now than anyone else in the world and have taken over almost the entire planet. By TLJ, the Good Guys are reduced to a single cruiser, a few smaller ships and...

In other words, under the leadership of General Leia the Good guys are in worse shape than the Rebellion was EVER in during the darkest days of the Galactic Empire, which had almost the entire galaxy's resources at its disposal! I wonder if the people responsible for this movie realize that they made a case for the notion that the Alliance shouldn't have bothered fighting the Emperor and simply let him win and rule the galaxy with an iron fist. All that fighting, all those deaths, all that destruction was for nothing.

Disney Star Wars is like watching an old pet die.

[Ender]

I see Rian Johnson is going to make a Bond movie where 007 becomes a pacifist teetotaler who drives a Camry, no longer gambles and has no interest whatsoever in stopping bad guys or banging hot chicks.

aka the Timothy Dalton Bond movies

The disclaimer at the end of Licence To Kill ("Smoking is bad for your health") turned me off to Bond movies until Casino Royale, 17 years later. The Dalton Bond movies (for which Timothy Dalton is unfairly blamed) were bad because they chucked or greatly reduced the things that made the previous ones so much fun, while trying too hard to ape the current trends in movies (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Miami Vice). Having lame villains made it that much worse. The movies still did well with critics and made tons of money but Bond had become a joke.

And Dalton more than redeemed himself in Hot Fuzz

Star Wars is following that same pattern, especially with the weaksauce villains. Kylo Ren is a brooding twat prone to throwing angry fits. Kinda like Anakin in AOTC, except Anakin was a teenager played by a teenager, so it made sense since teenagers are often brooding twats. Kylo Ren is not a teenager, nor is the actor playing him. His fits didn't inspire fear or pity or even annoyance. They made me laugh because they reminded me of Nomi Malone's tantrum in a diner in Showgirls -which is objectively a much better movie made by a master of camp. The other villains didn't do much for me though I did laugh when I saw Adrian Edmondson ( The Red Baron in Blackadder and Vyvian in The Young Ones) as a bad guy officer. Snoke? Rhymes with Joke. The redheaded officer? Who gives a shit?

I actually like that they have made Kylo and the Space Nazis such unfuckable rage babies. With Kylo it is an elegant solution to a thorny problem - if your villain is going to be compared to Vader and nearly certainly fall short,why not make them a wanna he who falls short? And anything that points out the infantile absurdity of Nazi wannabes plays to me as the target audience. I live in the state that is patient zero for those fucks, anything that makes it clear they are pathetic failures grabbing at symbols they think the are entitled to and fucking it up meets with my approval

So out of three Disney Star Wars movies, the only one that didn't take a big country shit on the galaxy far far away was Rogue One, which was co-written by a douchebag who was open in his hatred and contempt for the worlds, characters and stories created by George Lucas, and the old man himself.

Disney Star Wars is the Asia with John Payne of Star Wars.

And notably Rogue One is the worst film - everyone loves the third act, and in particular the closing 5 minutes, but the first two acts are a mess - and that's being charitable. You could have dropped them entirely and I don't think most folks would have cared.

[Me2005]

So... in the all-non-combat screen time she had prior to that, she had no need to move things with her mind, therefore it is out of character when she does?

It's fine to have trained her, but show us that she's been trained with some subtle use before going full-superhuman.

Luke got practically zero training in using the force between ANH and TESB, beyond IIRC picking up Obi Wan's journal. And there he is, using the force to move his lightsaber in the Wampa cave, despite what turns out to be massive conceptual problems and internally-generated limits. He didn't grow up with Jedi as legendary figures the way Rey did. He bound up what the force could do in his own expectations for how the world worked and was limited thereby. Leia, by the time she knows she has that power, has no such problems and she's had thirty years.

That's a much more minor feat IMO. Obi-wan and Vader (known force-users in ANH & TESB) do similar-scale force tricks, and we know Obi-wan was training Luke prior to his fall. We see it. So his learning to force-grab isn't such a leap as Leia's going from zero force use to able to survive vacuum, like no Jedi or Sith ever before.

It's entirely a scale problem for me. If they showed her force grabbing something or any other force trick we'd seen before and she'd be established as having trained as a Jedi and it'd be fine.

They probably can't do a microjump that small. The First Order fleet isn't actually that large potentially, and is likely engaging in mop up actions against a decapitated new republic. They are, afterall, an imperial rump state. Why can't a mon cal cruiser outrun star destroyers?

But later, the rebels have no trouble micro-jumping right through the FO ships. If an act of plot is needed to save the day, at least it shouldn't be obvious that that should have happened ealier or could have been attempted by the other party. Same effect could have been her just regular ramming the FO fleet, and it wouldn't have left us all head-scratching. Could have also had the FO arrive between the rebels and their intended destination.

That wasn't a microjump. She just jumped, and during the run-up hit the FO flagship at a significant fraction of C with a ship the size of a small town.

As far as I know, we have zero evidence of microjumps in the revised cannon.

I'm... not so sure. I immediately interpreted that as a jump into the FO flagship (as we are shown, jumping through shields is possible for other ships in TFA and TLJ), not just the spool-up to it. Otherwise what good are shields?

It still stands, why didn't the smaller ships do the same thing, and why don't other ships try this trick in times of desperation? Shoot, why didn't the FO throw one of their many ships into the remnant of the fleeing resistance if this is a thing that ships can do?

What are you, some kind of toxic monarchist? Why cant some rando be strong in the force?

I'm fine with Rey being strong in the force, but annoyed that she is apparently better in the use of the force than many of the OT/PT characters were ever shown to be. And that she's got essentially no training.

If she's a freakishly powerful force user, fine, but at least show her struggling to maintain control of power she doesn't understand or something to make her seem less plot-armored. She just gets it and uses it like nothing, when she started out barely scraping by on a backwater nothing planet.

The Force isn't dark sorcery. It partially guides one's actions. Like that kid we see at the end, she's likely been using the force without knowing she's doing it for her entire life. She then eases in, gets *some* training with Luke (which we don't see all of) as well as some practice and oh look, she can move shit with her mind and doesn't seem to have the hangups about size and number that Luke did.

It's a scale disconnect for me; as I said before - and probably a theme throughout the new series as specified by the directors wanting everything bigger and superhero-y. I don't need things bigger and more superhero-y. Rey doesn't need to lift more boulders than even Yoda to be a hero as cool - in fact, it clearly cheapens her as so many other posters feel she's a Mary Sue. She could do something more subtle - more the way the force works in the OT and PT (bigger stuff sure, but not beyond belief bigger when there are Jedi everywhere) - and be cool in her own way.

Fighters probably had to pull back because without the capital ships being in effective range, they'd be unsupported against a mon cal and several frigates with formidable anti-fighter armament, and only capable of doing superficial damage.

Kylo and Co's attack on the Raddus? Did not do significant damage. Two or four missiles hit the bridge and solely managed to blow in the windows and wreck the room. It wasn't even immediately fatal to someone barely twenty feet from the point of impact! That does not, in any stretch of the imagination, constitute doing "serious damage" to the ship! ...
So, lucky hits that in the bridge case were only serious because of who happened to be there. No serious impairment of the ship's fighting ability, and there is a backup bridge available as well.

I'm really not buying the whole "capital ships are useless against fighters" narrative here.

What I don't get is why they pulled back when they were having success, had suffered no losses, and could/should have launched additional fighters we know they have because we see them attack the rebels later on. If the FO motherships can't micro-jump to catch them, call in reinforcements, or do damage from the range they are at; why would they care about a few fighters when their ultimate goal is exterminating the fleeing target that only their fighters can catch? I'd understand calling just Kylo back, but the rest of the scene doesn't make much sense. Especially considering the rebels only had, what, 400 people total remaining? The FO must have had that many fighters available, we see dozens just exploding in hangers.

What do you expect? An "as you know..." exposition dump about tactics that everyone in the room understands?

No, I expect a better thought out chase scene than the "uh oh, almost out of fuel and they found us! Well, better use our other engines that are also low on fuel (but a different kind, so we'll still be able to jump if we have to) to just barely stay out of range for a limited amount of time!". Let them jump, then jump again to loose the fighters; don't mention how low the fuel is and don't just hand the resistance the answer to how the FO is finding them so quickly.

Especially when the way the FO is finding them is really game-changing - how will the MF hide & escape now? If every ship in the FO fleet has hyperspace tracking, the MF can't hide once the FO knows to look for it.

And while we're fixing world building problems, give the resistance a real fleet and if the goal of the story is for them to get whittled down to ~30 people, whittle them down over the drawn-out chase and find; building the FO forces up with reinforcements while the chase goes on. That'd help with the "wait, what happened to the New Republic, exactly?" question. Maybe dreadnoughts could have been shown leveling more NR planets on the way, and Finn & co could be dropped off in a less-jarring manner.