Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Ender]

If we're still on the subject of mysterious black space orb bombs, this is a universe with repulsor technology. It's entirely possible those bombs were self-propelled by reactionless means. You can literally come up with any answer. They don't seem any less self-propelled than 90 degree turning photon torpedos are.

This is of course, correct.

The aesthetic choices made by the content-creators however, are deliberately evocative of free-fall bombs.

This is why it has come up in the conversations about the film that I have seen on this board, on other boards, on chat channels, and in real-life even with nongeeks. Design matters to build suspension of disbelief, a storytelling tool; I find that making things look incongruous makes them look laughable.

I think it's important to strike some balance between harking back to WW2 films and actually taking some physics into account. I'm not sure if the new directors got the memo. I feel like the "rule of cool" has been taken to some extreme by the younger director.

That's true of like every move these days though. CGI let's you do whatever you could imagine so you do the first think you imagine. Add to that the homogenization of CGI techniques meaning they all use more or less the same textures, lighting algorithms, etc so what they are doing looks the same, and on top of that the monopolization of the movie industry means the suits* who sign off/send for changes have more control and pugs things to be the same, you get where all this stuff comes out looking more or less the same visual blah. Using action to tell story instead of just telling plot seems to be very dead these days. Ironically the last example to really use visual CGI action well to tell story and not just plot is Attack of the Clones.


* My phone autocorrected "suits" to "shits", all hail capitalism, sowing it's own unrest

[NecronLord]

Can I just remind everyone that we first saw "freefall" space bombs back in Empire?

This is not really what's being argued. We don't see the mechanism there and I for one have generally assumed there is some kind of launching device in the TIE Bomber's chute; as there presumably is on the rails in the B/SF-16; the anachronistic thing is the look of the bombing apparatus. Nobody is saying it is beyond the technology shown in previous films.

The point is that it is jarringly anachronistic, and has no real in-universe logic behind it. Making it just a strange inclusion.

It's similar to Canto Bight, which is jarringly modern:



This is weird because it's so culturally close to our current time and place. It looks lazy. All the males are wearing black suits and white underlayers because... Beau Brummell's ideas of men's fashion influenced the Star Wars Galaxy? Seriously, not one reveler deviates modern western european ideas of fashion.

Compare to the Opera in Episode III:



Notice the difference? Everyone's wearing formal-wear from their own culture, not ours. There is a sense that these people are from a Galaxy Far Far Away conveyed through their costuming.

Obviously I'm not saying that the GFFA cannot produce white silk shirts and black dinner jackets - their sartorial technology can do that easily - but that it's a sign of laziness in concepting to just take something from recent Earth history and space it up, rather than considering the influences that would have gone into it in its native environment. Costuming is less stereo-typically geeky, but the point is just the same.

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Incidentally should Terralthra want more evidence that the Resistance ships have D'qar behind them and therefore indicating they're accelerating in a steep climb:


There's an orbital ring behind the Dreadnought.

[fractalsponge1]

Too old? ICS gave the ARC-170 five days supplies for a maximum range of five thousand light years. At class 1.5 hyperdrive, mind you. For a space superiority fighter, that's a lot of wasted space if it could only be in hyperspace for an hour or two.

The ARC is a reconnaissance fighter. As such its supplies are probably not for a maximum speed run but for a very long series of jump and patrol type operations.

[KraytKing]

The fact remains, it has a range of five thousand light years. Meaning, five thousand light years no matter how you cut it. It goes three thousand in one jump, two thousand in another, and it is out of fuel. Total time: like an hour. Max, ten, going ass-slow and fighting in between. Still doesn't scratch the 120 hours of rations and air.

And don't give me the shit "it's supposed to sit and look for five days, it's reconnaissance." A purely reconnaissance craft is not named "Aggressive" and is not armed to the teeth.

[Nephtys]

It makes perfect sense for a long range fighter. It can do strategic movement (ie, hyperspace) then loiter around system, gather information, fight anything it needs to fight (including long-range raiding) and go home. Which again, crew of 3 helps with. What kind of recon can something do if it's just in hyperspace, which all of SW has indicated is just blind?

This is not something that's inconsistent at all.

[KraytKing]

Loiter around the system for five days? I agree, it should have range, but the range it is given is not concurrent with its supply given that it takes only hours for hyperspace travel. It made much more sense for it to take days in hyperspace, followed by a few hours of combat and recon, followed by days in hyperspace.


Anyway, my point is that hyperspace travel has not always been so rapid, and I disapprove of this film saying otherwise.

[AniThyng]

Does the concept of middle of nowhere really mean anything anymore? It seems like the way travel is now Hoth and Yavin could have been literally right next to coruscant for all the difference it makes. Granted remoteness is more of a political concept than physical, but still.

The absurdity of the travel times just cheapens the scale in a way the low numbers of ships doesn't imo. Like, with a real world pearl harbor you can appreciate just how far away from home the Japanese fleet was, and what Doolittle had to do to conduct his little raid. This on a planet where even then the trip from Tokyo to Hawaii is measured in weeks for ships. It just wouldn't be the same if the planes could just take off from Tokyo bomb Hawaii and be back by sundown.

[PhoenixKnig]

My personal opinion was that it was a good movie, but a poor sequel to TFA.

Also, I do notice a bit of conflict between two of the main themes of the movie. One is "Let go of the past," while another is "Failure is the best teacher."

I had a similar opinion on the movie but not just TFA but SW as a whole.

On the theme part is that a kind contradiction in itself

[amigocabal]

Can I just remind everyone that we first saw "freefall" space bombs back in Empire?

This is not really what's being argued. We don't see the mechanism there and I for one have generally assumed there is some kind of launching device in the TIE Bomber's chute; as there presumably is on the rails in the B/SF-16; the anachronistic thing is the look of the bombing apparatus. Nobody is saying it is beyond the technology shown in previous films.

The point is that it is jarringly anachronistic, and has no real in-universe logic behind it. Making it just a strange inclusion.

It's similar to Canto Bight, which is jarringly modern:



This is weird because it's so culturally close to our current time and place. It looks lazy. All the males are wearing black suits and white underlayers because... Beau Brummell's ideas of men's fashion influenced the Star Wars Galaxy? Seriously, not one reveler deviates modern western european ideas of fashion.

Compare to the Opera in Episode III:



Notice the difference? Everyone's wearing formal-wear from their own culture, not ours. There is a sense that these people are from a Galaxy Far Far Away conveyed through their costuming.

Obviously I'm not saying that the GFFA cannot produce white silk shirts and black dinner jackets - their sartorial technology can do that easily - but that it's a sign of laziness in concepting to just take something from recent Earth history and space it up, rather than considering the influences that would have gone into it in its native environment. Costuming is less stereo-typically geeky, but the point is just the same.

----

Incidentally should Terralthra want more evidence that the Resistance ships have D'qar behind them and therefore indicating they're accelerating in a steep climb:


There's an orbital ring behind the Dreadnought.

Well, the GFFA is a big place. It is plausible that one or two world's would have "Beau Brummell's ideas of men's fashion".

[CetaMan]

Anyone else watch Rogue One to compare and notice that one of the projects Jyn finds while looking through Scarif's data hub is "Hyperspace Tracking, Navigation Systems"

Guess the First Order found some old data files and put them to use/finished them. Does set an in-universe precedent.

[Guardsman Bass]

Maybe the Empire led to homogenization in elite fashion as part of the cultural transition, and that only sort of weakened after the New Republic was established. Or since Casino Planet is full of war profiteers, maybe they're all "new money" wearing whatever the most expensive fashion is right now rather than anything with culturally significant meaning.

Anyone else watch Rogue One to compare and notice that one of the projects Jyn finds while looking through Scarif's data hub is "Hyperspace Tracking, Navigation Systems"

Good catch! I didn't notice that, but it does seem like a neat tidbit they'd throw in there.

[Terralthra]

That's if the bombers were in orbit, which they aren't. They're over a planet, but they aren't orbiting the planet. The physics of objects released from such a craft are essentially identical to those governing bombs falling out of a bomber at any altitude. All that is necessary is that some of the Resistance bombers' thrust be directed downward to counteract the gravity of the planet. On a B-52, that's the lift from the wing. On a Resistance bomber, it could just be some vectored thrust from the main engines.

Except the ships were boosting up from the planet with it behind them, so their momentum would at the very least keep the bombs traveling upward toward the apogee of their ballistic arc (assuming the ships hadn't achieved an orbital velocity) which would result in the bombs... continuing in roughly the same direction of travel as the ship.

The momentum they'd used to thrust away from D'qar doesn't go away. While yes, the bomber will continue to accelerate after the bombs leave it, they will both be traveling upward relative to D'qar still until the bombs hit the apogee of whatever ballistic arc they're on. They need to be spring-loaded, essentially.

D'qar is behind them, not below them.

It's behind them in that shot, but they appear to have leveled out by the time they're making their run over the dreadnought. Worth noting that as the bombers get destroyed, each starts trailing debris and falling screen-down, confirming that they a) had not achieved orbital velocity and b) were being affected by a gravitational force roughly screen-down.

[Meest]

I would put much stock into the direction ships veer off when getting destroyed, considered running out of fuel makes a ship tumble for some reason.

[NecronLord]

It's behind them in that shot, but they appear to have leveled out by the time they're making their run over the dreadnought. Worth noting that as the bombers get destroyed, each starts trailing debris and falling screen-down, confirming that they a) had not achieved orbital velocity and b) were being affected by a gravitational force roughly screen-down.

D'qar establishing shot (from TFA)

Poe's attack run

A-wing attack

Battle scene, ring still behind and almost perpendicular to, dreadnought.


The Dreadnought doesn't move relative to the rings behind it, therefore not relative to the planet either.

If you desperately want to give the film a hand-job to justify this you can always say they fall 'down' toward the top of the Dredanought because of the artificial gravity of the dreadnought. Hell, you can even say that's what the bomber's designed to do if it makes you happy, though I question the practicality of a bomber that relies on the artificial gravity of the target. But it's aestetically jarring and doesn't make much sense given the position of the planet without assuming invisible gravity (be it repulsors in the bombs or generators in the dreadnought) somewhere.

Things falling in inexplicable ways during battle is practically Star Wars tradition but this scene is just as much of a headscratcher that calls attention to the strangeness of 'gravity' in the films.

[NecronLord]

Maybe the Empire led to homogenization in elite fashion as part of the cultural transition, and that only sort of weakened after the New Republic was established. Or since Casino Planet is full of war profiteers, maybe they're all "new money" wearing whatever the most expensive fashion is right now rather than anything with culturally significant meaning.

As I mentioned, there is nothing that stops them making their fashion look like 1940s Western Europe, but it's a lazy, and SoD-diminishing decision. Just like there's nothing that stops the resistance making their bombers look like 1940s Western Europe, but it's lazy and SoD-diminishing.

Anyway, my point is that hyperspace travel has not always been so rapid, and I disapprove of this film saying otherwise.

I see you're not going to address the canon evidence I've shown for hour-duration travel times?

[Ender]

Loiter around the system for five days? I agree, it should have range, but the range it is given is not concurrent with its supply given that it takes only hours for hyperspace travel. It made much more sense for it to take days in hyperspace, followed by a few hours of combat and recon, followed by days in hyperspace.

Yeah, so weird that a fascist military project is going to be an idiotic boondoggle, not like that is the ideology's entire MO or anything. Next you will tell me the empire committed a massive amount of resources to a pseudo-religious space station when a standard military would have been more useful

Anyway, my point is that hyperspace travel has not always been so rapid, and I disapprove of this film saying otherwise.

Again, your point is wrong, hyperspace was that fast going back to ANH and was even more absurdly fast in RotS.

[KraytKing]

My point is not wrong. For twenty some years, it was canon that ships took weeks in hyperspace. 1987 is a period caught in the time frame "always."


Also, if the Empire designed both ARC and TIE, then it would not follow for there to be any space or weight inefficiencies. The TIE was stripped of everything unimportant to make it light. The ARC should receive the same treatment.

[AniThyng]

My point is not wrong. For twenty some years, it was canon that ships took weeks in hyperspace. 1987 is a period caught in the time frame "always."


Also, if the Empire designed both ARC and TIE, then it would not follow for there to be any space or weight inefficiencies. The TIE was stripped of everything unimportant to make it light. The ARC should receive the same treatment.

The ARC is an Incom (as in X-WIng) designed Old Republic craft though?

That said, the ARC's Imperial counterpart was the SG-1 Star Wing (AKA Assault Gunboat) and it's also not a stripped down craft at all.

Doesn't really follow, in any case, the motives to strip down the TIE are different from the motives that would apply to an ARC or Assault Gunboat.

Though now that people have pointed it out, it does take the Death Star a pretty short time to get from Alderaan to Yavin...

[Ender]

My point is not wrong. For twenty some years, it was canon that ships took weeks in hyperspace. 1987 is a period caught in the time frame "always."

Yes, you are wrong. From the very first movie they could cross half the Galaxy inside a day.

Also, if the Empire designed both ARC and TIE, then it would not follow for there to be any space or weight inefficiencies. The TIE was stripped of everything unimportant to make it light. The ARC should receive the same treatment.

Ok first, that argument doesn't make a damn bit of sense. A mallet is not the same as a hammer, so no shit, they are different.

Second, while I didn't want to get into the tech shit again, your entire argument about supplies and range is idiotic because it ignores differing fuel consumption rates. The ARC is not doing everything at full burn, max power everywhere. None of the ships are - they would all burn through their entire mass in the span of hours. A hyperspace jump is going to be one of the more energy intensive actions it does - go through my post history to about 10 years ago and I did the math to figure out the power consumption rates for it to estimate the range of a number of craft. Meanwhile, most of what the space ships are going into be doing is simple low digit G burns to move around in the system one they are there. The delta V profile is absurdly high that 5 days of supplies is more than reasonable.

So stop pretending that because it isn't what you want it to be it is wrong. More likely you are mistaken, which is the case here.

[Vympel]

The character (and actual) assassination of Luke is something I can never forgive. Luke Skywalker was one of the first heroes I ever had growing up. When they described how he would be a "broken warrior" in this film, I was concerned, but I figured meeting Rey would snap him out of it and he'd go on to produce some sort of lasting legacy or have some lasting accomplishment.

Apparently the powers behind this film wanted otherwise. He barely trains Rey at all, which means if she does re-form the Jedi Order, it'll be with self-taught knowledge from the Jedi books she took with her. In addition to essentially erasing Luke as a lasting part of the story, this also cements Rey as a complete Mary Sue. She is exactly what Kylo said she was when he was trying to corrupt her: A junk rat whose parents sold her for drinking money. She's not important, so why is she the final savior figure of the entire fucking saga? She's bland and uninteresting, and the plot hands her whatever powers she needs to succeed. To erase all meaning from the stories of Luke and Anakin Skywalker and give it to her is an insult to everyone who grew up with those characters.

If you take the Sequel Trilogy as the be-all end-all of Star Wars, this movie works great, but as a part of the greater SW whole, it's absolutely atrocious.

The claim that Luke's character is 'assassinated' in this film is utter bullshit. The entire triumphant climax of the movie is built around Luke Skywalker using the greatest display of Force power ever to save the Resistance and start a new legend to ignite a rebellion. In what manner does ht not have a lasting legacy or accomplishment?

Similarly, your complaint that Rey being "no one" means she can't be the "final savior figure" is gross. Fuck Skywalkers. Enough already with this idea that the fate of the entire galaxy has to constantly be in the hands of this one family, for all eternity. Why shouldn't she be the savior figure? Because of her lack of bloodline? Is this a monarchy now?

For instance: Apparently the heroes SOMEHOW know that the First Order's Star Destroyers can track ships through hyperspace - evidently not even needing to be present when they jump, since Snoke's ship wasn't - which had previously only been achieved through Vader following the Tantive IV using the Force after seeing it escape right in front of him. Yet somehow, they ALSO know that despite every ship in the pursuing armada having this ability, only one of them will be using it at a time. For some inscrutable reason.

The Supremacy isn't the only ship with hyperspace tracking. They simply assume that as the lead ship, its the one doing the tracking at the relevant time.

Then there's the random criminal dude they broke out of prison at the casino (where apparently EVERYONE present was in the arms trade, because as we all know, there are no other ways to make money!). I was kind of on board with that right up until he cut a deal with the First Order. And not because he did that; he's a random criminal dude, who should be expected to do that kind of thing. No, because of Finn's exact question: "With what?" What did he give the First Order to get them to agree to pay him, give him a ship, and let him go? Was it an unexpected yet inevitable betrayal, telling them that the break-in was in progress? No, he turned after being caught. What then? He told them about the Resistance plan to escape their cruiser in cloaked transports ("No ship that small has a cloaking device!"). HOW DID HE KNOW THAT? Finn and Rose didn't know about it; how would he possibly have learned? (And then Hux lets him go before ascertaining the truth of his report. "Will wonders never cease," indeed.)

DJ is seen clearly hearing Poe on the comm telling Finn that they're loading the transports. It cuts to him during the conversation.

Then there's the general lack of military sense displayed by anyone in the movie except for the First Order admiral who dies on the Dreadnought in the beginning. The First Order had many ships. Those ships had hyperdrives, and apparently much larger fuel reserves than the Resistance cruisers. Why not jump out, jump back in ahead of them, and cut them off?

True.

So, the Millennium Falcon can jump out of hyperspace right in front of a Star Destroyer, drop off an object, and jump out... and they just take it on board. If they're that stupid, send them a bomb.

I'm sure they scanned it and found a life form. This is not a big deal.

A real head-banger: They made a big deal about getting to a base facility with enough power to broadcast a distress call, but they can apparently call Maz Kanata right up to quiz her about ways to disable tracking beacons, so apparently they could have just done that from the cruiser. They didn't.

There's probably a difference between making a direct call and sending out a general distress beacon to the whole galaxy though.

[Ender]

The claim that Luke's character is 'assassinated' in this film is utter bullshit. The entire triumphant climax of the movie is built around Luke Skywalker using the greatest display of Force power ever to save the Resistance and start a new legend to ignite a rebellion. In what manner does ht not have a lasting legacy or accomplishment?

Oh come on, Luke's character was absolutely assassinated here, and Hamill is completely right to be pissed about Johnson's choices for the character. It is a complete break from the OT and throws not only Luke's growth out the window, but also annihilates the entire point of the series and it's theme of the lamb's victory.

The question is if the choice works for this film and this trilogy. Which, I think in evaluating the present themes of the new trilogy, it does.

That's the tricky part with this, you need to evaluate TLJ on it's own, as part of a trilogy, and in the larger mythos. And this film in particular is in a hard place on that.

[Civil War Man]

The dice were hanging in the Falcon's cockpit since ANH. They were never pointed out as super important, but they were absolutely there all along.

I stand corrected, though my point actually only changes slightly now that I know it was actually a thing. The dice's symbolic significance was pretty apparent, representing the past in general and the memory of Han in particular. But it took an obscure piece of set dressing, that for the most part only really dedicated fans even saw much less knew their in-universe significance, and repeatedly emphasized it without providing any context as to what they were. Like the old guy in the beginning of TFA, it seems to just assume that you are all caught up with the supplementary material. Not knowing the in-universe significance of the dice diminishes one's ability to appreciate the symbolic significance of the dice, because questions about what the dice are and why we should care distract from it.

All of that could have been fixed with basically a single throw-away line, having an audience surrogate like Rey notice the dice and ask about them, and then Luke or Chewbacca tells her that they're the dice Han used to win the Falcon from Lando.

Also, ITT we learn that hyperdrive is a Discworld technology, because it is exactly as fast or as slow as the narrative requires it to be. The only real ironclad laws of hyperdrive are a) if you are not in the Millennium Falcon, the Millennium Falcon is faster than you, and b) if you are in the Millennium Falcon, the hyperdrive is broken.

[NecronLord]

Hyperdrive has never been slow though. Krayt is talking about old West End Games RPG hyperdrive speeds, which were never what the movies showed.

[Kojiro]

Speaking of the dice, how did Kylo find them? I mean, you'd think Leia would hold onto them right? A last gift from Luke, intimately linked to Han (who only died like, 2-3 days ago)? You'd think she'd hold on to something like that.

[KraytKing]

Alright, I'll cede that most evidence points towards hyperdrive being really fucking fast. Can we at least agree, however, that this level of mobility makes warfare exceedingly difficult on a galactic scale?