Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Sky Captain]

I watched it few days ago, felt kind of mediocre movie, visuals were good, but that's it.

Right in the begining when First Order attacked why shoot the base first? shoot the ships, they can escape, that base is going nowhere evacuated or not. The chase scene seemed to be too long just to keep up some tension. First Order had ten or more destroyers escorting flagship. Microjump five in front of the fleeing cruiser and blaze away at it with everything. Or send fighters to damage engines. FIrst Order fleet should have had thousands of fighters to use. Problem solved in few minutes at most.

Shields seemed to work only against energy weapons fired from range, fighters and bombers could attack without shield getting in a way. If physical stuff can get through shield why bother with energy weapons at all, just shoot missiles and be done. First Order dreadnought was the most defenceless ship in entire Star Wars, crippled by fighter and later destroyed by bomber. If small craft are such a deadly threat then capital ships should be covered with thousands of point defense turrets otherwise they are just big targets.

FTL jump ramming if so effective we should see missiles designed around hyperdrive just for that purpose.

[Vendetta]

I watched it few days ago, felt kind of mediocre movie, visuals were good, but that's it.

Right in the begining when First Order attacked why shoot the base first?

Hux is in his position for ideological correctness and the ease with which Snoke can manipulate him. Not competence of command.

It's a common failure mode for totalitarian regimes based on extreme ideologies.

Also: Military incompetence is pretty much a fixed point of the Star Wars movies. The Rebels persisted in centralising in "secret bases" despite being a small organisation that couldn't afford single points of failure (Yavin, Hoth), failed to effectively defend their bases from heavy armour they should have known their enemy would bring (Hoth), up to and including mounting an air assault which approached the enemy from literally the only direction they were capable of shooting from (Hoth again), failed to effectively plan and equip raids on enemy installations (Scarif). The Trade Federation invaded a planet by landing on the opposite side of it from the one strategic location they needed to capture, allowing the one HVT they needed to capture to escape and failed to secure that HVT with anything more than normal security when they voluntarily reappeared. The Galactic Empire executed commanders who showed a hint of initiative and threatened to execute any who showed even the slightest ideological deviation, which led to them being excessively risk averse and stultified in command (any time Darth Vader interacts with his commands staff), deployed ungainly armoured vehicles in dense jungle (Endor), and take no steps to secure mission critical facilities from native interference or pacify said natives (Endor again).

[Lord Insanity]

So I finally watched The Last Jedi.

For a basis of comparison, when I first saw TFA I thought it was a solid "Meh." Repeat viewing of TFA have pushed it down to dead last behind TPM. (Yes, I would rather watch Ep.I than Ep.VII) On the other hand, repeat viewings of Rogue One have cemented it as one of my favorite almost as good as ESB.

The Last Jedi was no where near as good as Rogue One but I thought it was better than The Force Awakens. TLJ has plot holes you can fly a starship through but at least it has a solid narrative flow unlike TFA. That narrative is stupid beyond belief but at least it is there.

To me the most interesting part of the TFA was the 10 minutes of setup for TLJ. I wanted to know what Luke was doing and the movie gave me no reason to care about anyone else. In TLJ I hate where they went with Luke's character. That said, what they did with that setup I thought was very well done. His whole sacrifice and becoming one with the force was extremely well shot and portrayed. This is despite the setup for those sequences being on par with one of the worst books the old EU had to offer The Crystal Star.

I thought the force ghost "crazy Yoda" was awesome. As soon as he torched the tree and told Luke that Rey already has what she needs I told my wife "Bet you Rey took the books and Yoda covered it up." Sure enough Yoda played Luke like a fiddle just like he did in ESB. (Goes back to I hated the character setup for Hermit Luke but what they did with it was really good.)

It was rather funny that Snoke for all practical purposes states Rey is the new chosen one of the force. It's a total cop out for why she is so awesome at everything she does but at least it is an established in universe explanation.

On the stupidest space battle in all of Star Wars, I really liked the competent First Order officer who clearly should have been commanding the fleet. The only redeeming part of having idiots in charge is Snoke flat out stating he values loyalty over competence.

Apparently Snoke's flagship's Captain followed Captain Needa's school of combat chase with your main shields down. Unlike Captain Needa (who immediately orders shields up when the Falcon turned around to face the Star Destroyer) Captain "Boomerang" merely watched dumbfounded as the Rebel (or Resistance whatever) cruiser turned and hyper-jumped into him. Now we know the main shields had to have been down because we just saw in Rogue One similar relatively sized vessels (small into big) hyper-jumping into a shielded ship and doing nothing. Then again maybe the Boomerang's shields just suck relative to its size. That would fit with most of the First Order tech seemingly being Imperial reject equipment that underperforms compared to its Imperial counterparts. (Like TFA's stormtroopers that can be stopped by poison gas. In every other era the stormtrooper/clonetrooper armor could be sealed against hard vacuum let alone mere poison gas.)

Oh no the First Order can track the Rebels through hyperspace!
- Like the Imperials did to the Falcon in ANH but he out ran them (in hyperspace).
- Like in ESB when Captain Needa is informed the ship no longer appears on our scopes and he states "They must've gone to lightspeed." Oh wait no he stated "Impossible, no ship that small has a cloaking device." Only after an extensive search (where no one looked out the back window) do they speculate "If the Millennium Falcon had gone to lightspeed it would be halfway across the galaxy by now."
- Like in ROTJ when Leia looks at the comscan screen in the shield generator bunker and sees on the display the Rebel fleet approaching while still in hyperspace and states "Hurry the fleet will be here any moment."

I'm sorry but any franchise even remotely the size of Star Wars, should have someone with editorial control that knows the franchise inside and out. I'd settle for someone that actually watched the original movies.

The very last bit in the movie with the kid dreaming about the legend of Luke Skywalker (which taken by itself I really liked) just drives home one very important point. The sequel era movies would make ten times more sense being set "the next generation" later rather than a direct sequel. That it would only take a few minutes of minor edits to accomplish that is rather absurd for what was advertised as a direct sequel.

The absolute worst thing about the sequels is how they just mashed a big old reset button to bring back Empire vs. Rebels. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic, that Rogue One and the cartoon Rebels are actually set in the classic era and feel more new and fresh than the actual sequel era movies.

[Vympel]

Random comments:

5.) Cloaking devices. This a very subversive technology in a SW setting. The EU has been explicit for decades that this is a holy grail of tech achievement and we see it only in a very small number of places. Now its everywhere, people just throw it together at will from spare parts. Whenever sensors would be an issue, the writers shoehorn in a clocking device. Same with dropping the command ships shields. A lot of people have said in this thread that all this techno stuff is irrelevant, its there to serve the plot. I agree with to an extent, however if thats the case you don't need to invent a techno contrivance solution to your techno prop plot corner you have written yourself into. You need a new setting. The ships and other techno bits in an established IP with lots of world building are themselves characters. Having star destroyers destroyed inexplicably at will is no different than having a human protagonist all of a sudden display abilities or flaws there is no reason for the audience to accept.

The EU is not canon (and good riddance), and therefore totally irrelevant. Even if it was canon, the tail doesn't wag the dog, and never has. Also, its been 30 years since TESB. Things change.

9.) So you have a cloaking device. Great. YOU ARE IN FUCKING VISUAL RANGE!!!!!!!!!! However the cloaks work and whatever scifi sensors they mask against they quite obviously don't interfere with electromagnetic radiation in visible spectrion of the MkI ModI human eyeball. The people we see over and over again staring out of the Supremecy's bridge windows can physically see the transports leaving the cruiser. They can certainly see DJ's ship approaching. Shall we just assume the super high tech SW universe doesn't include IR sensors on their warships?

The transports are tiny, the claim that they'd be visible just from the Mk 1 eyeball at that distance is unjustified. As for DJ's ship - they came in from the underside of the ship. It doesn't stretch plausibility to think that someone wasn't looking out a window at the exact moment he arrived from that position. The same way the Falcon somehow got on the back of the Avenger without anyone on the Star Destroyer seeing it do so by looking out a window.

10.) Poe and Finn are communicating effortlessly between the Supremacy and the rebel cruiser. Who is setting this up? How does this work? They didn't even know were the other ones were until they started talking. ST has their communicators, but they have fucking communicators to make that work. This is not an established SW thing. For instance, Obi Wan has to go back to his ship and establish a comm link to report back from Kamino. There is no casual handheld interplanetary comms in any of the OT films. This is LAZINESS on the part of the writers.

How is the distance between the cruiser and Supremacy 'inter-planetary'? Obi-Wan went back to his ship because he was trying to communicate between Geonosis and Coruscant. And it turned out he didn't have enough power to do so (due to damage) and relayed it to Anakin and Tatooine first.

11.) But even though Poe and Finn have this magitek comms capability, why can't they call reinforcements now? Why can the call googly-eyed alien bar keep but not for help but nobody else? I have heard people say they couldn't call all of them at once because of power. This is not established in the film but okay, don't call them all at once then. Is the entire resistance is on this base evacuation mission? Every fucking one of them? This a galaxy wide resistance movement and you don't have cells, outposts, patrols, sympathizers, ambassadors, liaison officers, people on medical leave, ANYONE not on your only cruiser you can reach back to via comms who is a trusted agent to rally allies? Fuck you.

It is established in the film, they said Crait was useful because it had enough power to get a message out.

And no one said it was a galaxy wide resistance movement, ever.

12.) This is a 2 and a half hour movie. Thirty odd minutes of it is wasted on the stupid, contrived, and completely pointless to any outcome of the movie Finn/Rose subplot. Oh, you have to give Finn something to do you say? If Finn has nothing to do, then kill him which is exactly what you should have done.

Story and plot aren't the same. The Finn/Rose plot is not "pointless" at all, its an axis of the film and serves Finn's character arc. Further, the events of the climax couldn't happen without it.

13.) Everything about SaltyHoth. First of all its Hoth. I don't give a shit that some redshirt spends two seconds to tell us its salt. Second, this movie is two and a half hours long, it doesn't need a second ending tacked onto the end. If you couldn't end the chase in a creative and intelligent way (they didn't), then you shouldn't have written your movie around it. A fucking dedicated battering ram weapon? Seriously. Thats a pretty specific weapon to have a round... But good thing you had to penetrate that door which was, well, no thicker than any other door we have seen in SW. What is this armored base armored in? Mithral? Valarian Steel? Also, whats the point in building an armored base on a world undermined in shafts you can fly the MF through? Also, they walked out of the place through a cave, and it was made clear as day that it wasn't designed with a exit but rather they were using natural shafts so that "heavily armored" but was BS. There was an open rock entrance into there, which means the FO could easily have bombarded them to death.

The base was shielded, so orbital bombardment was out of the question. Poe says this. There's no evidence to suggest the crystal shafts in the area compromised the base's security. And yes, they walked out of the dilapdiated 30-year old base through a cave. Through an opening which didn't exist before Rey made it, and of which no one was aware.

16.) Finn is ramming the battering ram. Despite this being a perfect way to kill/dispose of him and remove a useless character who accomplished exactly nothing for the entire film, how does this work? We see the beam is already causing damage to the door. We see the beam is melting pieces off of his craft. Finn is staring directly at this destructive power with shielded face and eyeballs IN AN OPEN COCKPIT. Why is he not burned, why is he not blind, how is not not dead!

Characters do not need to 'accomplish' anything to grow.

19.) So much about the kamikaze cruiser ploy makes no sense. First off, it breaks SW ship combat outright. There is zero way to reconcile how this is notthe sole way warfare is waged in this universe. In the movie itself, why did they not try that with each smaller ship as they began to run out of fuel? Why was that not Pink's original plan when they dispatched the transports? Why did it destroy the other SDs that were not in the line of her path?

Sure there's a way to reconcile it. Does it have a minimum effective range? What's the mass threshold for it to work?

Why did they not try it with each smaller ship? Because from a nitpicky plot perspective, the only reason the cruiser pulled it off is because Hux deliberately declined an opportunity to shift fire on her as she turned (the act of which would have necessarily closed the distance and rendered it vulnerable). Given how easily those ships were destroyed, there is no reason to assume they'd pull off a jump before they were blown up.

From a story telling perspective, because its stupid to show your hand early and compromise one of your moments by doing it twice prior.

21.) Thats a neat Astral Projection trick Luke. It would have been super useful in petty much ever situation we have ever seen Jedi masters on screen but whatever. It also would have been more impressive if you hadn't immediately died anyway, removing all utility of not exposing yourself to danger through astral projection. From a simple story telling perspective having Luke be there in person and sacrifice himself there would have been better story writing. As it is how does anyone know Luke sacrificed himself at all?

Seriously? Luke Skywalker displayed a new Force power to demonstrate his mastery in a way that epitomises Yoda's admonition that a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence, and never for attack. Heaven forbid the movies ever show us any new force powers. History must have stopped in 1983.

As for "removing all utility" - yeah, ok - he single-handedly saved the lives of everyone in the Resistance. How is Luke being there and dying as opposed to not being there and dying is at all different from a story-telling perspective? Either way, he sacrified his life. The only difference is that the movie's way of doing it is something only a competent writer who understands the source material could come up with, as opposed to some bullshit involving Electric Judgment or whatever other nonsense a SW fan writing this would default to.

How does anyone know Luke sacrified himself? Because Rey and Leia felt it.

22.) Rey and Chewie see some random animals on SaltyHoth. They immediately think this means something VERY specific, even though they had never seen these animals before and nor had any reason to think they were at all associated with the rebel base.

Given Rey has a tracking beacon, they can make a reasoanble guess.

23.) I think you some of you are jumping the gun on the timeline. Its true the last image from Rey we see in TFA picks up immediately in TLJ, it should be remember the end of TFA was a montage so there is no reason to assume that there wasn't an unspecified time between what we see in the montage and the linear portions of that film. There could be a lot of time in between the films, and it really only makes sense if there is. That said, if there is not there is a pretty big increase in Rey's lighsaber skills if there was zero training between the fights we see. For those of you defend Mary Rey as not being THAT good a lightsaber fighter in TFA, about that...

The end of TFA was not a montage. It's literally - the Resistance Base, then off to D'Qar.

24.) So it was Snoke who connected Rey and Kylo. So Snoke knows where Luke is. Yet usn't blasting that planet from orbit for some reason...

Why are you assuming it works like that? The movie made it pretty obvious that they didn't know where the other was because they could only see each other, and not their surroundings.

32.) Poe's arc makes no sense, because Finn was going to destroy the battering ram, and Rose's bullshit makes no sense because killing himself to do so was the only useful thing Finn would have accomplished in this movie. Instead he accomplished nothing.

There is zero reason to think that Finn was going to succeed in destroying the battering ram. Also, refer above. Movies don't need their characters to 'accomplish' plot points in order to grow. Luke miserably failed to accomplish anything when he fought Vader on Bespin - except his character grew regardless.

[Q99]

Btw, did anyone else like the FO captain at the beginning? He seemed older and more competent than Hux, and I'm guessing mildly resentful of having to work for him. He complains about orders going slow, and when he sees he's going to die, just gives one last sneer.

Like he's probably an old-school Imperial I'm guessing.


Oh, and another way to reconcile the Kamikaze cruiser- TFA established that shields on super large things don't work on FTL incoming ships, and even so, it was inaccurate enough that it didn't even hit the Supremacy very centered. If the method has a 10+ kilometer error bars and only some shield types don't help, that does limit it's use.

[Patroklos]

Great, so now the Death Stars were completely unneeded for cracking planetary shields. You can just bombard them with R-bombs at will. The mere existence of shielding on these objects disproves the hypothesis, because if it was this effortless to defeat there is no reason to include it at all.

Or are we supposed to believe Pink was so brilliant she is the first person to think of this amazing tactical move? Except, well Han used a similar tactic just one freaking movie ago. Repetition, the heart of narrative suspense! I AM SO IMPRESSED! She and Han came up with something so unique my entire theatre was murmuring in confusion at the screen the second it happened because it is so obvious to try if it worked to be setting breaking. People outright guffawed.

Again, they just compromise the setting on a whim because they are shitty writers why can't be creative inside the universe. Its that simple. They didn't write it that way because they think that makes sense, they wrote it that way because they don't care it doesn't make sense.

[Imperial528]

Oh, and another way to reconcile the Kamikaze cruiser- TFA established that shields on super large things don't work on FTL incoming ships, and even so, it was inaccurate enough that it didn't even hit the Supremacy very centered. If the method has a 10+ kilometer error bars and only some shield types don't help, that does limit it's use.

Except it didn't establish that as universal at all. Why didn't the rebels just jump behind the Endor shield if this was typical of all large shields? Why didn't they just ram either Death Star with a frigate or cruiser?

All it establishes is that the people involved in writing these films don't understand the setting, they only know how to dress a film in the trappings of Star Wars with none of the substance behind it.

Settings have rules they work by, and so far the only new Star Wars film to follow any of them earnestly was Rogue One.

[Vympel]

Except it didn't establish that as universal at all. Why didn't the rebels just jump behind the Endor shield if this was typical of all large shields? Why didn't they just ram either Death Star with a frigate or cruiser?

Why does it need to be typical of all "large" shields? The shield protecting Starkiller Base is far larger than that protecting the Death Star.

All it establishes is that the people involved in writing these films don't understand the setting, they only know how to dress a film in the trappings of Star Wars with none of the substance behind it.

The Story Group considered the hyerspace ram and allowed it. I'm sure you feel that it breaks the setting, but ... its not true.

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status ... 3404133376

Settings have rules they work by, and so far the only new Star Wars film to follow any of them earnestly was Rogue One.

Funny, I could've sworn no end of howling at the U-Wing going to hyperspace from within a planetary atmosphere in Rogue One.

The setting is secondary to the story. If the story requires your assumptions about the setting to change, then the story wins.

Great, so now the Death Stars were completely unneeded for cracking planetary shields. You can just bombard them with R-bombs at will. The mere existence of shielding on these objects disproves the hypothesis, because if it was this effortless to defeat there is no reason to include it at all.

That's a made-up reason for the Death Star that nobody ever mentions in the films so ... who cares?

Or are we supposed to believe Pink was so brilliant she is the first person to think of this amazing tactical move? Except, well Han used a similar tactic just one freaking movie ago. Repetition, the heart of narrative suspense! I AM SO IMPRESSED! She and Han came up with something so unique my entire theatre was murmuring in confusion at the screen the second it happened because it is so obvious to try if it worked to be setting breaking. People outright guffawed.

We can assume that Holdo wasn't the first to think it up. Which is another reason to rationalise it.

Again, they just compromise the setting on a whim because they are shitty writers why can't be creative inside the universe. Its that simple. They didn't write it that way because they think that makes sense, they wrote it that way because they don't care it doesn't make sense.

Can someone explain to me why it "doesn't make sense"? The way people whining about hyperspace rams tell it, The Last Jedi is the first time in science fiction history that a ship has rammed another ship and done seemingly way more damage than its entire complement of weaponry put together. Except this is the most common trope in science fiction.

(Heck, its also a core part of the Battle of Scarif's resolution, but somehow no one complained then)

[Imperial528]

Why does it need to be typical of all "large" shields? The shield protecting Starkiller Base is far larger than that protecting the Death Star.

Oh, and another way to reconcile the Kamikaze cruiser- TFA established that shields on super large things don't work on FTL incoming ships, and even so, it was inaccurate enough that it didn't even hit the Supremacy very centered. If the method has a 10+ kilometer error bars and only some shield types don't help, that does limit it's use.

Emphasis mine. The Death Star and Death Star II were significantly larger than the Supremacy, and the Endor shield covered a volume greater than either. Q99 asserts that TFA established shields on large objects, which he considers ranging from the Supremacy to Starkiller base, can be bypassed in hyperspace. He did not say the Starkiller shield, he did not say some shields. He said, specifically, "shields on super large things."

Is it a vague statement? Yes. It's also a very generalizing statement. So either he means it in general, or meant it for a select set of "large things" without saying what that set is.

The Story Group considered the hyerspace ram and allowed it. I'm sure you feel that it breaks the setting, but ... its not true.

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status ... 3404133376

The Story Group did not create the setting. They manage it now, but I find their management to be lacking, because their work is inconsistent with the definitive works of the setting, the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

Funny, I could've sworn no end of howling at the U-Wing going to hyperspace from within a planetary atmosphere in Rogue One.

The handful of breaks in Rogue One isn't bad when you compare it to the dozens in the sequel trilogy. Rogue One made an effort in earnest, and I accept that break for the sake of the story. TFA and TLJ didn't, and I don't consider their numerous breaks from the OT's established rules to be essential to their stories at all. If anything, I think the worst offenders among them (primarily their treatment of the force and straight up continuity holes such as the presence of Luke's first lightsaber, which fell into a damn gas giant) detract from their story.

[Imperial528]

Ghetto edit: I don't see how what happened with the Malevolence changes anything with the hyperspace ram. In ANH Han implies that collisions are possible with celestial objects while in hyperspace.

What we don't see at all in the OT or the PT is any evidence that hyperspace ramming is useful in combat. Again, if it was at all as powerful as it was in TLJ, it doesn't make sense why the Rebellion didn't use that tactic against the Death Stars. Especially since they would've known about it from at least one previous example of a ship colliding with a moon sized object.

Now the obvious response is "The Death Stars had shielding that protected them from objects moving through hyperspace." To which I ask: why doesn't the First Order? They can build a weapon of unprecedented power and scale (not only does it destroy planets, it consumes stars just to fuel itself) but can't even put adequate shielding on their flagship or their star destroyers?

[Vympel]

Emphasis mine. The Death Star and Death Star II were significantly larger than the Supremacy, and the Endor shield covered a volume greater than either. Q99 asserts that TFA established shields on large objects, which he considers ranging from the Supremacy to Starkiller base, can be bypassed in hyperspace. He did not say the Starkiller shield, he did not say some shields. He said, specifically, "shields on super large things."

Is it a vague statement? Yes. It's also a very generalizing statement. So either he means it in general, or meant it for a select set of "large things" without saying what that set is.

I don't personally think whatever applied to Starkiller Base would apply to Supremacy. The difference in size is massive.

The Story Group did not create the setting. They manage it now, but I find their management to be lacking, because their work is inconsistent with the definitive works of the setting, the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

A lot of people think that their unexamined assumptions about the setting are reflected in the films, and they very often are not. Case in point:

The handful of breaks in Rogue One isn't bad when you compare it to the dozens in the sequel trilogy. Rogue One made an effort in earnest, and I accept that break for the sake of the story. TFA and TLJ didn't, and I don't consider their numerous breaks from the OT's established rules to be essential to their stories at all. If anything, I think the worst offenders among them (primarily their treatment of the force and straight up continuity holes such as the presence of Luke's first lightsaber, which fell into a damn gas giant) detract from their story.

The treatment of the Force in TFA and TLJ is exactly in line with the OT. The only people who don't think so are those who completely misunderstood the point and emphasis of Ben and Yoda's training of Luke - cultivating this absurd belief that Luke was working out at some sort of Force gym and flexing his Force muscles, as opposed to learning how to unlock the strength he always had.

As for Luke's lightsaber, no, there's no evidence it fell into a gas giant. What's commonly assumed to be his lightsaber is just a piece of unidentifiable trash - a blob, no matter how high the resolution is cranked. Nothing - not the movie or the script, identify it.

I don't see how what happened with the Malevolence changes anything with the hyperspace ram. In ANH Han implies that collisions are possible with celestial objects while in hyperspace.

It proves its massively destructive.

What we don't see at all in the OT or the PT is any evidence that hyperspace ramming is useful in combat. Again, if it was at all as powerful as it was in TLJ, it doesn't make sense why the Rebellion didn't use that tactic against the Death Stars. Especially since they would've known about it from at least one previous example of a ship colliding with a moon sized object.

Fill in the blanks yourself. We know Interdictor cruisers gravity well generators are canon, for example. This stuff does not need to be explained in the movie.

Now the obvious response is "The Death Stars had shielding that protected them from objects moving through hyperspace." To which I ask: why doesn't the First Order? They can build a weapon of unprecedented power and scale (not only does it destroy planets, it consumes stars just to fuel itself) but can't even put adequate shielding on their flagship or their star destroyers?

Why should we assume the Supremacy's shields were somehow ignored? Why can't they just be too weak to stop an object that large moving that fast? The idea that the 'setting' somehow says this should be the case is just nonsense. There is simply no evidence, anywhere in the previous films, that should tell us that a ship of that size would be immune to that attack.

The only retort is the "but why hasn't anyone done this before" - which is laughably weak, and assumes that this attack could be pulled off in any circumstances.

[Patroklos]

Funny, I could've sworn no end of howling at the U-Wing going to hyperspace from within a planetary atmosphere in Rogue One.

Because criticism is due where criticism is due. Just because Rogue One wasn't as bad as the other recent entries doesn't mean it didn't make similar transgressions. The OT made similar transgressions and rightly gets knocked for them. Only in your sycophantic world is anything and everything excusable.

The setting is secondary to the story. If the story requires your assumptions about the setting to change, then the story wins.

1.) Who says the setting is secondary to the story? It wasn't the story of TFA or TLJ Disney spent its billions on...

2.) The setting is the story, and visa versa. I am equally critical when they introduce a setting feature that retroactively hamstrings or makes impossible previous major story arcs. The criticisms are generally one and the same. As was just mentioned the least issue with the shields not working in TLJ as expected is not that it impact this shitty film and its crap characters, its that it immediately cheapens the actions of characters in the OT and beyond because now they are either unnecessary/impossible, the characters were incompetent for not knowing basic features of their setting, or all of the above. All in service to writing out of a shitty plot.

3.) ISDs/AT-ATs/X-wings are characters in their own right at this point, and often are more compelling than the human characters the movie is many times erroneously prioritizing. As was mentioned Finn was useless to the plot. It doesn't matter what growth he has because he is utterly irrelevant to anything that happens in the movie. Who has more gravitas, impact on audience emotion, personality, screen presence, history with the viewer, and impact on the imagination: Finn bumbling through a cartoon casino to no purpose, or the Devastator showing up out of hyperspace and hanging menacingly in space? What sells more toys? What's the name of this site again?

An inanimate object just existing upstages this movies human headliners, this should tell you something about where the priorities should be. This is not a SW restricted thing either. Who do you care about more in the Alien franchise most of the time: the cavalcade of irrelevant and nobody humans from the last half dozen films in the franchise whose actors headline, or the Alien itself and its trappings? Sure the alien isn't inanimate but is just a force of nature, and we don't have half a movie wasted on its irrelevant casino chase and love interest either, and it STILL upstages everyone outside Ripley. Ripley is from the first movie, and like SW despite even more entries no writer or director has been able to produce anything approaching these artifacts of the original entry. The trend continues, no character from the third movie on approaches what was produced in the second. There is nobody worth even remembering at all after the third. The fact is that in a long standing franchise the world steadily becomes more important than any person in it. The setting persists. The setting is the value.

Great, so now the Death Stars were completely unneeded for cracking planetary shields. You can just bombard them with R-bombs at will. The mere existence of shielding on these objects disproves the hypothesis, because if it was this effortless to defeat there is no reason to include it at all.

Still cannon. Or do you only care about that if its convenient for you?

Here is the big difference here. The Death Stars were written when there was no other canon. They had no reference to ignore, so there is no irreverence for the earliest franchise entries to worry about for the most part. Whatever they say or did was the only reference point. Its an inherent benefit of being their first, and its not one the writers and directors of these new movies have. On the one hand they can't be entirely free to do whatever they want because they are standing on the shoulders of giants, but on the other hand they get the chance to boost themselves to new heights they never could have reached because they are incapable of the work and imagination to create such an IP in the first place. Which of course is why they paid for the IP in the first place.

If they wanted a free hand to prioritize your limited designation of characters over setting they wouldn't have played in someone else's sandbox, and paid for the privilege. Note the word PRIVLAGE. Its a privilege vise just a right via purchase because that sandbox comes with fans, and those fans are not obligated by contract to be perpetually linked to them no matter what they do with SW. And its the fans that give that IP most of its value, and the bulk of that value is not the films themselves. The fans of this particular franchise are invested in the setting, more so in my opinion that other fans and franchise settings, and that's a fact they are going to have to accept if they wan the commercial and critical success of the original product.

We can assume that Holdo wasn't the first to think it up. Which is another reason to rationalise it.

Then do so, but they didn't. And due to their lack of creativity to come up with a in universe working plot device they have made people like you have to torture the setting to do so (and fail). There is no need to do this to fans. There is nothing in this story that was so set in stone they had to do it the way they did. They could have done anything else, but they chose to do this.

Can someone explain to me why it "doesn't make sense"? The way people whining about hyperspace rams tell it, The Last Jedi is the first time in science fiction history that a ship has rammed another ship and done seemingly way more damage than its entire complement of weaponry put together. Except this is the most common trope in science fiction

Who gives a shit if it happens in other scifi. If it happened there, it succeeded or failed inside its own context. You having to leave the SW context just shows how weak the setup was in this movie.

I agree that it is a trope, which just goes to show how untalented the writers are for relying on it. But I haven't criticized them for using the trope, but rather because the trope in this instance, via this specific execution, in this particular context, doesn't work.

(Heck, its also a core part of the Battle of Scarif's resolution, but somehow no one complained then)

Did nobody complain? I sure as hell did. But again you are being dishonest, because as much as I think that was a cheap, contrived, and ultimately setting degrading solution to a problem that didn't have to exist IT WAS CLEARLY SETUP IN THE MOVIE. Over several scenes. Laboriously setup actually. So obviously and clumsily that you could spend minutes moaning and eye-rolling yourself to death during the slow motion train wreck they telegraphed. It was weak writing. It was just stupid. But it made sense.

If we got a line that said "General Hux, the rebels dropped our shields via LEET HAXORs (again), we are defensless!" before Pink joy rode through them it would not be any less stupid that Rogue One, but it would be a context justified event like Rogue One as well.

What we saw in this film is the equivalent of deleting the explosion of the Executor's shield dome (if you believe that's what it was), removing all the dialogue about the bridge deflector shield, and just kept the A-wing kamikaze sequence all by itself. Even with all of that people still have problems with that scene (justifiably so) but not because they can't understand what happened based on what we know about SW. We know there are shields, we know they should stop star fighters ramming things, so they addressed that. And the movie is better for it.

[Vympel]

Because criticism is due where criticism is due. Just because Rogue One wasn't as bad as the other recent entries doesn't mean it didn't make similar transgressions. The OT made similar transgressions and rightly gets knocked for them. Only in your sycophantic world is anything and everything excusable.

How could the OT make "transgressions"?

1.) Who says the setting is secondary to the story? It wasn't the story of TFA or TLJ Disney spent its billions on...

What does this even mean? Are you suggesting buying an IP means they're not allowed to do as they will with it?

2.) The setting is the story, and visa versa.

No, the setting is just the setting. The story is the core of any movie, and the story is all about the characters who inhabit the setting.

I am equally critical when they introduce a setting feature that retroactively hamstrings or makes impossible previous major story arcs. The criticisms are generally one and the same. As was just mentioned the least issue with the shields not working in TLJ as expected is not that it impact this shitty film and its crap characters, its that it immediately cheapens the actions of characters in the OT and beyond because now they are either unnecessary/impossible, the characters were incompetent for not knowing basic features of their setting, or all of the above. All in service to writing out of a shitty plot.

Actually, if you knew as much about 'the setting' as you purport to, you'd know that shields have always operated as convenient for the plot. It's why Brian Young has an entire video series on shield permeability in Star Wars. Its the best way to explain the utility of fighters.

3.) ISDs/AT-ATs/X-wings are characters in their own right at this point, and often are more compelling than the human characters the movie is many times erroneously prioritizing.

Are you deliberately parodying fanatical fans or something? There's no way what you're saying is real. The actors ("human characters", lol, unlike the far more important story arc of super-important character, Big Ship #1) and the characters they are depicting are the essential core of any good film, including Star Wars.

As was mentioned Finn was useless to the plot. It doesn't matter what growth he has because he is utterly irrelevant to anything that happens in the movie. Who has more gravitas, impact on audience emotion, personality, screen presence, history with the viewer, and impact on the imagination: Finn bumbling through a cartoon casino to no purpose, or the Devastator showing up out of hyperspace and hanging menacingly in space? What sells more toys? What's the name of this site again?

Still can't tell the difference between story and plot, can you? It's pretty clear at this stage you think films should just be a series of mil-sci-fi space war porn between wedge shaped warships or some such awful shit, but since that has literally never been what these movies are actually about, it can safely be ignored.

And yes, please appeal to the name of an ultra-niche site full of nerds who obsessing over sci-fi movies as part of your argument that the way these movies are being made is wrong. We're such a big demographic.

An inanimate object just existing upstages this movies human headliners, this should tell you something about where the priorities should be. This is not a SW restricted thing either. Who do you care about more in the Alien franchise most of the time: the cavalcade of irrelevant and nobody humans from the last half dozen films in the franchise whose actors headline, or the Alien itself and its trappings? Sure the alien isn't inanimate but is just a force of nature, and we don't have half a movie wasted on its irrelevant casino chase and love interest either, and it STILL upstages everyone outside Ripley. Ripley is from the first movie, and like SW despite even more entries no writer or director has been able to produce anything approaching these artifacts of the original entry. The trend continues, no character from the third movie on approaches what was produced in the second. There is nobody worth even remembering at all after the third. The fact is that in a long standing franchise the world steadily becomes more important than any person in it. The setting persists. The setting is the value.

Literally no one in the universe excepts you thinks "ooooh, let's drool over this scale model of a warship" is some sort of valuable use of a film's time.

Still cannon. Or do you only care about that if its convenient for you?

What's still canon?

Here is the big difference here. The Death Stars were written when there was no other canon. They had no reference to ignore, so there is no irreverence for the earliest franchise entries to worry about for the most part. Whatever they say or did was the only reference point. Its an inherent benefit of being their first, and its not one the writers and directors of these new movies have. On the one hand they can't be entirely free to do whatever they want because they are standing on the shoulders of giants, but on the other hand they get the chance to boost themselves to new heights they never could have reached because they are incapable of the work and imagination to create such an IP in the first place. Which of course is why they paid for the IP in the first place.

If they wanted a free hand to prioritize your limited designation of characters over setting they wouldn't have played in someone else's sandbox, and paid for the privilege. Note the word PRIVLAGE. Its a privilege vise just a right via purchase because that sandbox comes with fans, and those fans are not obligated by contract to be perpetually linked to them no matter what they do with SW. And its the fans that give that IP most of its value, and the bulk of that value is not the films themselves. The fans of this particular franchise are invested in the setting, more so in my opinion that other fans and franchise settings, and that's a fact they are going to have to accept if they wan the commercial and critical success of the original product.

This should be like the constitution for unearned, downright toxic fandom entitlement. I know you've got some earlier screed where you tell yourself that people such as yourself have some outsize importance to Disney's bottom line or whatever, but its unfoudned and quite frankly delusional. Star Wars has always existed for a mass market audience. If you don't like it, tough. The prerogatives of the creators writing isn't subordinate to nitpicky bullshit assumptions about how ficitional technology works from the tiny minority within the fandom who think their unfounded assumptions about the setting constitute unbreakable laws. It's just amazingly petty, and no one has ever given a shit. That includes George Lucas.

Then do so, but they didn't.

Because this is a fucking movie and it'd be stupid as fuck to stop the movie to explain some technobabble bullshit like Brent Spiner playing Data just walked on the set. Jesus Christ.

And due to their lack of creativity to come up with a in universe working plot device they have made people like you have to torture the setting to do so (and fail). There is no need to do this to fans. There is nothing in this story that was so set in stone they had to do it the way they did. They could have done anything else, but they chose to do this.

Lol, "and fail"? How have I failed, exactly?

Who gives a shit if it happens in other scifi.

Um - I do? Since it doesn't "zomg muh setting" in those settings either.

If it happened there, it succeeded or failed inside its own context. You having to leave the SW context just shows how weak the setup was in this movie.

Yeah ok, I need "setup" to know that a massive object travelling at near superluminal velocities impacting another object is unlikely to be healthy?

Did nobody complain? I sure as hell did. But again you are being dishonest, because as much as I think that was a cheap, contrived, and ultimately setting degrading solution to a problem that didn't have to exist IT WAS CLEARLY SETUP IN THE MOVIE. Over several scenes. Laboriously setup actually. So obviously and clumsily that you could spend minutes moaning and eye-rolling yourself to death during the slow motion train wreck they telegraphed. It was weak writing. It was just stupid. But it made sense.

If we got a line that said "General Hux, the rebels dropped our shields via LEET HAXORs (again), we are defensless!" before Pink joy rode through them it would not be any less stupid that Rogue One, but it would be a context justified event like Rogue One as well.

What we saw in this film is the equivalent of deleting the explosion of the Executor's shield dome (if you believe that's what it was), removing all the dialogue about the bridge deflector shield, and just kept the A-wing kamikaze sequence all by itself. Even with all of that people still have problems with that scene (justifiably so) but not because they can't understand what happened based on what we know about SW. We know there are shields, we know they should stop star fighters ramming things, so they addressed that. And the movie is better for it.

It's totally hilarious that you think that they need to expalin away Supremacy's shields in order for a 3km long cruiser impacting her at superluminal velocities wrecking her to make sense.

Let me guess, you're now going to tell me 'the setting' means the Supremacy's shields can magic away an arbitrary amount of energy, even though this is total bullshit?

[NecronLord]

The Story Group considered the hyerspace ram and allowed it. I'm sure you feel that it breaks the setting, but ... its not true.

https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status ... 3404133376

The Story Group did not create the setting. They manage it now, but I find their management to be lacking, because their work is inconsistent with the definitive works of the setting, the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

Is this film also inconsistant with the original trilogy?

"Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy, without precise calculations we'll fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick."

I can't help but notice you don't say how it's inconsistent.

[Kane Starkiller]

The idea that an object colliding with another at superluminal speeds won't be healthy for either ship certainly has a "common sense" ring to it and I definitely don't agree that a movie needs to specifically set it up if the writers decide that that is how hyperdrive works.
The problem I have with it is that it immediately creates narrative problems in the universe.

Why didn't Snoke order everyone out of one of the star destroyers pursuing the Rebel cruiser and then used his "Force-through-the-hologram" ability to flip the hyperdrive switch and ram it into the rebel ship? Or do it even whithout evacuation.

[Crazedwraith]

The idea that an object colliding with another at superluminal speeds won't be healthy for either ship certainly has a "common sense" ring to it and I definitely don't agree that a movie needs to specifically set it up if the writers decide that that is how hyperdrive works.
The problem I have with it is that it immediately creates narrative problems in the universe.

Why didn't Snoke order everyone out of one of the star destroyers pursuing the Rebel cruiser and then used his "Force-through-the-hologram" ability to flip the hyperdrive switch and ram it into the rebel ship? Or do it even whithout evacuation.

Why would he? When he can just wait a few hours and kill 'em all without sacrificing a ship.

[Vendetta]

Why didn't Snoke order everyone out of one of the star destroyers pursuing the Rebel cruiser and then used his "Force-through-the-hologram" ability to flip the hyperdrive switch and ram it into the rebel ship? Or do it even whithout evacuation.

Because he doesn't need to?

The Imperial fleet know the Resistance must have limited fuel, they know they can track them through hyperspace, and they know they themselves can call for resupply. As far as they know the Resistance has no way to escape and all running is going to achieve is that they'll die tired.

[NecronLord]

What makes you think Mr Mysteriouso Snoke has the knowledge to do such a thing? Nothing about the films requires that guy to be good at space combat.

The film even takes pains to highlight that General Hux is not a competent commander.

[Kane Starkiller]

Why would he? When he can just wait a few hours and kill 'em all without sacrificing a ship.

Because it's extremely risky. At any moment fleeing ships could turn around and obliterate his ship and him on it. Either break of this extremely risky pursuit or take them out before they take you out.
But of course we all know that moviemakers were presenting this as thinking out of the box genius move that no one on the pursuing ships ever expected. Will this example of military genius change the tactics in Episode IX? Somehow I doubt it.

[NecronLord]

Because it's extremely risky. At any moment fleeing ships could turn around and obliterate his ship and him on it. Either break of this extremely risky pursuit or take them out before they take you out.

It is absolutely explicit that a competent commander would have wrapped the Resistance up easily. If Captain Canady had been in operational command initially, not one bomber would have got through, and he would have been able to destroy the Raddus with ease. The First Order's incompetence is a plot point, not a plot hole.

It is also traditional for the weakness of the villains to be overconfidence. Tarkin could have escaped the Death Star, and the Emperor could easily have ordered Vader to imprison Luke until after the battle of Endor, if he had wished. He also forced Piett to fight that battle with one hand behind his back. Even in the less beloved prequels, 'I will deal with this jedi slime myself' springs to mind, as does Dooku deciding to confront two jedi alone rather than bringing grievous with him when he was on the same ship. Overconfidence is a Star Wars villain's stock in trade. The lasting victory of the Dark Side in Revenge of the Sith comes only when the jedi shared the crime of overconfidence with their enemies.

[Kane Starkiller]

It is absolutely explicit that a competent commander would have wrapped the Resistance up easily. If Captain Canady had been in operational command initially, not one bomber would have got through, and he would have been able to destroy the Raddus with ease. The First Order's incompetence is a plot point, not a plot hole.

It is also traditional for the weakness of the villains to be overconfidence. Tarkin could have escaped the Death Star, and the Emperor could easily have ordered Vader to imprison Luke until after the battle of Endor, if he had wished. He also forced Piett to fight that battle with one hand behind his back. Even in the less beloved prequels, 'I will deal with this jedi slime myself' springs to mind, as does Dooku deciding to confront two jedi alone rather than bringing grievous with him when he was on the same ship. Overconfidence is a Star Wars villain's stock in trade.

I love how Canady is competent because two seconds before he got blown up he said "dang I guess we should have launched fighters". Um yes, yes you should have.
Seriously put the engineers in charge of the SW militaries. They designed and produced all the tools needed: TIE fighters to screen against bombing runs, droids that can pilot ships so you can hyperdrive them into enemy ships etc. but the idiot military commanders just refuse to use them.
Are they all overconfident? In every battle in every movie?
Of course OT has flaws starting with why the Death Star was screened by 5 TIE fighters but that is not an excuse to keep coming up with the same nonsense movie after movie after movie.

[AniThyng]

Judging by how terrible Hollywood screws up even real militaries for the sake of plot drama...

I mean sure, I guess an American carrier in a time of high tension in the Norwegian sea would allow some backfires to get in firing range and only defend themselves with CIWS...

[NecronLord]

I love how Canady is competent because two seconds before he got blown up he said "dang I guess we should have launched fighters". Um yes, yes you should have.

Um, you may not have been paying attention, but Canady wanted to launch the fighters before Poe even started his run. It cuts to him asking what Hux is waiting for and why he isn't opening fire when Poe's making the cringey yo-mamma joke at Hux before his attack.

It's an intentional part of his character. Take a look at his visual dictionary page - talking about him being much older than the rest of the First Order crew he's got and dismayed at their youth, etc. Wonder what they're trying to evoke with that character.

Seriously put the engineers in charge of the SW militaries. They designed and produced all the tools needed: TIE fighters to screen against bombing runs, droids that can pilot ships so you can hyperdrive them into enemy ships etc. but the idiot military commanders just refuse to use them.
Are they all overconfident? In every battle in every movie?
Of course OT has flaws starting with why the Death Star was screened by 5 TIE fighters but that is not an excuse to keep coming up with the same nonsense movie after movie after movie.

Again, it's an intentional theme. If you want to sit there and stroke to the idea that fascist militaries are competent, these aren't the films for you. The Empire, the Confederacy, the First Order they're all militarily inept by design.

[Vympel]

Because it's extremely risky. At any moment fleeing ships could turn around and obliterate his ship and him on it. Either break of this extremely risky pursuit or take them out before they take you out.

The only reason that was a risk within the film's narrative was because Hux was offered the opportunity to shift fire to Raddus as she changed course (which necessarily would've closed the distance to where her shields wouldn't protect her) and declined, thinking she was just making a course change to distract them.

As we saw when Supremacy destroyed the Vigil (that one almost immediately after they pounced) Anodyne and Ninka, if any of those ships had turned around earlier they would've been obliterated in a few shots well before they executed a jump.

If Hux had fired on Raddus the moment he had the chance as opposed to when it was obviously too late, things would have turned out differently.

But of course we all know that moviemakers were presenting this as thinking out of the box genius move that no one on the pursuing ships ever expected. Will this example of military genius change the tactics in Episode IX? Somehow I doubt it.

It really shouldn't - that would serve to cement it as some sort of new tactic, which I think they should avoid. Heck, if the First Order had the equivalent of interdictor cruisers the entire plot of the movie would be different.

[Galvatron]

I've only seen TLJ once, but is there any evidence that the Supremacy was running with its shields up when it got hit? In TESB, Captain Needa didn't give the order to raise the Avenger's shields until Han turned the Falcon around and was already within spitting distance.