Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[tezunegari]

Phasma is dead but you kept Hux? Really?

We never saw her dead body so they can give a half-assed excuse of her getting badly burned and fused to her suit.

And with Luke Force projecting himself to the other side of the galaxy they might even bring back Snoke.
I actually liked him... but I am a fan of Andy Serkis and his work with CGI characters since Gollum.

I also just realised that the slicer Maz knows in Canto Baight... his outfit and the red rose are an easteregg to Temple of Dooms Indiana Jones Outfit in at the start of the movie.

[Imperial528]

I don't think Phasma is dead, the star wars wiki just states she "fell into a fire" which leads me to believe that the script doesn't say if she dies.

But whether she is dead or not, she has been a wasted opportunity from the start. Even if she comes back in Ep 9, for this to follow a trilogy format she'll probably die for good there, and she'll have basically spent the previous two movies with almost no character.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd probably have Phasma be disgraced and kicked out/on the run from the First Order. The fanatical loyalist who now has no place in the system to which she dedicated her loyalty. Arguably, this should have been her arc in TLJ.

You could go with either a redemption arc, in keeping with the redemption themes of the OT (especially since TLJ has largely closed the door on that option for Kylo Ren), or have her hunting Finn for revenge.

Alternately, have her team up with Hux (a fellow fanatic) to coup Kylo Ren as unworthy to be Supreme Leader.

Phasma is dead but you kept Hux? Really?

We never saw her dead body so they can give a half-assed excuse of her getting badly burned and fused to her suit.

And with Luke Force projecting himself to the other side of the galaxy they might even bring back Snoke.
I actually liked him... but I am a fan of Andy Serkis and his work with CGI characters since Gollum.

Yeah, you can retcon almost anything if he try hard enough, especially when it involves a film like TLJ which seems to go out of its way to be ambiguous about a lot of things. Which is part of why I doubt that this film has done much irreparable harm to the franchise.

Weather its worth the effort to do so, and weather the audience will accept it, are other questions. Personally, I think that its generally unprofessional for one director to piss on another's work in all but the most extreme cases, though some clearly feel that that's what Rian Johnson did to Abrams in The Last Jedi, in which case, perhaps turnabout is fair play.

But I don't know what conversations went on behind the scenes, and how much influence Abrams as a producer was exercising.

I also just realised that the slicer Maz knows in Canto Baight... his outfit and the red rose are an easteregg to Temple of Dooms Indiana Jones Outfit in at the start of the movie.

Huh. Didn't know that.

But, for another missed opportunity:

As a Lando fan, I had a brief bit of hope, when they went to the casino planet, that they were going there to meet Lando. I was disappointed that this was not the case.

I mean, they've brought back every other notable living character from the OT, and one or two dead ones. Do they have some sort of grudge against Lando for some reason, or is Billy Dee Williams just not interested (I doubt it, since he came back to do voice work for Rebels), or what?

[tezunegari]

I'd probably have Phasma be disgraced and kicked out/on the run from the First Order. The fanatical loyalist who now has no place in the system to which she dedicated her loyalty. Arguably, this should have been her arc in TLJ.

You could go with either a redemption arc, in keeping with the redemption themes of the OT (especially since TLJ has largely closed the door on that option for Kylo Ren), or have her hunting Finn for revenge.

Phasma is actually neither that fanatic nor loyal. She is an opportunist. (Hinted at in TFA by her deactivating the shields and directly depicted in her comic book)

[The Romulan Republic]

I'd probably have Phasma be disgraced and kicked out/on the run from the First Order. The fanatical loyalist who now has no place in the system to which she dedicated her loyalty. Arguably, this should have been her arc in TLJ.

You could go with either a redemption arc, in keeping with the redemption themes of the OT (especially since TLJ has largely closed the door on that option for Kylo Ren), or have her hunting Finn for revenge.

Phasma is actually neither that fanatic nor loyal. She is an opportunist. (Hinted at in TFA by her deactivating the shields and directly depicted in her comic book)

Hmm. I was going off how she seemed to be presented in TLJ, but you're right, TFA paints a different picture.

In that case, you need another explanation for why she seems to take Finn's betrayal so personally. Maybe because it reflects poorly on her? Or maybe she's playing the hard-line loyalist to throw suspicion off herself for her past failures?

Or, hell, maybe she's secretly in love with Finn, since TLJ decided to embrace Stupid Shipping Shit.

[Shroom Man 777]

Rey and those kids were all having spontaneous visions relating to Luke Skywalker, so in the sense that by being the Last Jedi, and then ensuring that he won't be the Last Jedi, Luke really WAS all of their father. And all of them his children. In the non-genetic, non-muhduhchlowrian, and more luminous beings are we fashion.

Huh. I didn't take the closing scene as the children having visions of Luke, so much as of just the story of Luke's last stand spreading rapidly.

But yeah, that's one way to look at it, I suppose.

Did some First Order Stormtrooper or Resistance salt-licking shmuck take a holo and uploaded it to HuttTube?

How did those kids learn of Luke's acts so vividly and so excitedly speak of them and reenact them with scraps repurposed into toys before heading off into the night, as one of them somehow grasped a broom from a distance with just a gesture of a hand?

And then holding said poltergeist-grabbed broom suggestively, evocatively reminiscent of certain sabers of lights and posing in front of a sky-vista reminiscent of naive adventure-longing farm boys?

After we get a dialog that another person, a protagonist, was a similarly orphaned nobody who somehow developed abilities spontaneously and had visions and connections and draw, during a time when some kind of awakening was uttered reverentially. Perhaps there's some parallels to these abandoned nobodies akin to another nobody slave child attaining a messianic state previously in the lore.

hint hint

(Or I guess instead of evocations someone should just said MIDICHLORIANS HAVE MUTATED TO BECOME AIRBORNE SO MANY KIDS CAN GET THEM OK? THERE, THEY HAVE TOTALLY HIGH MIDICHLORIAN LEVELS! Yes, there should've been a Youtube-style caption or annotation or infographic beside those kids! Stats and EXPs like in those things Vympel posted!)

One of my thoughts on Starkiller's shield is that it needs so much power just to charge up that it can't run its shield at full strength during the procedure or while charged. It sucks down an entire star for ammunition, but you need to spend energy to keep something like that contained actively, and I'm pretty damn sure there are no passive ways to keep an entire star inside a planetary volume barring collapsing it into a neutron star. IIRC from the film it sucked down a Sol-like main sequence star, which do not naturally achieve the mass or makeup to collapse into a neutron star.

True, and also how does one keep up a planetary shield while spontaneously sucking sun-matter through the entire planet/station's core?

OH HO HO HO!

[The Romulan Republic]

Open a localized hole in the shield (Rogue One confirmed that's possible) to let through the star-matter?

Its not like anyone's going to fly through that hole while its sucking star-matter in. Because of, you know, the instant fiery death.

[Shroom Man 777]

Open a localized hole in the shield (Rogue One confirmed that's possible) to let through the star-matter?

Its not like anyone's going to fly through that hole while its sucking star-matter in. Because of, you know, the instant fiery death.

It's not a Lambda going through a forest moon's shields, its a thick beam of sun-matter bound for a huge gaping space gun barrel that covers a huge portion of the planet-station's surface area... while at the same time the rest of the sun-matter, as you say, has to be prevented from spilling over and frying everyone (are the shields themselves doing the containment? Or something else tied into the sun-sucking and sun-shooting hyperwave tractory mechanism?)?

I'm just suggesting that the aberrations in Starkiller might be due to the aberrations of its operation.

BUT THEN AGAIN Han had no idea how Starkiller worked and he said what he said as referring to it as generic, normal shield ops. Oh well. Point dropped.

[tezunegari]

I'd probably have Phasma be disgraced and kicked out/on the run from the First Order. The fanatical loyalist who now has no place in the system to which she dedicated her loyalty. Arguably, this should have been her arc in TLJ.

You could go with either a redemption arc, in keeping with the redemption themes of the OT (especially since TLJ has largely closed the door on that option for Kylo Ren), or have her hunting Finn for revenge.

Phasma is actually neither that fanatic nor loyal. She is an opportunist. (Hinted at in TFA by her deactivating the shields and directly depicted in her comic book)

Hmm. I was going off how she seemed to be presented in TLJ, but you're right, TFA paints a different picture.

In that case, you need another explanation for why she seems to take Finn's betrayal so personally. Maybe because it reflects poorly on her? Or maybe she's playing the hard-line loyalist to throw suspicion off herself for her past failures?

Or, hell, maybe she's secretly in love with Finn, since TLJ decided to embrace Stupid Shipping Shit.

She saw something in him in the prequel-novel Before the Awakening.
But now she's trying to hide her failures, especially to report an earlier failure to follow orders by Finn.
Finn failed to follow a command to "pacify" some miners directly before Jakku and she choose to let him face battle to make him a hardened Stormtrooper.
Then there is the fact that Finn forced her to deactivate the shields of Starkiller base which she actively tried to hide by killing everyone who might have found out.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, that gives plenty to work with.

The trick is conveying it to audience members who don't read all the books.

[Khaat]

The trick is conveying it to audience members who don't read all the books.

That's the tagline for the entire ST.

[Shroom Man 777]

Bullshit. Whether or not her cowardice in TFA was discovered, Finn pwned her and so now she survives and has a raging hate-boner for him and wants him dead. He's a symbol of Stormtrooper defiance for merely existing and, whether this is known to the public or not, he also pwned her. There are two things on-screen that spell out obviously why she wants him dead, publicly executed and such.

Jesus Christ. Maybe Curtis wasn't making shit up about the density of neutronium-ingrained armoring

Christ, does she need her own song and dance number to explain why she's pissed off by what Finn did?

My god. Maybe they should bring Curtis back and have him write INCREDIBLE CHARACTERIZATION SECTIONS

[The Romulan Republic]

I've got to say, though, Luke's stand against Kylo was pure awesomeness. Not merely for the power that it displayed, but for the intelligence of it. Luke utterly outmaneuvered Ren, with an illusion. And it was beautiful. And I like that they didn't have Luke kill Kylo, or try to kill him. To me, that would have been the final betrayal of the Luke from RotJ- the one who could not bring himself to kill Vader without falling, and by throwing away his lightsaber, defeated the Sith.

I'm not sure how well it fits with prior depictions of the Force. This level of power could be inferred from "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.", as well as "Size matters not." But that would also seem to contradict the effort killing Luke. Still, that's all explicable without too much effort, and I'll give them credit for subtle foreshadowing (when Kylo tells Rey that if she was the one communicating with him, it would kill her) . And while Luke's decision not to try to redeem Kylo Ren might seem at odds with the conclusion of the OT, its an understandable one. You can't save everyone.

I only wish they'd let Luke survive it. But they gave him a reasonably dignified death, at least.

I do worry a bit about power creep in the franchise, and that in a few more films we'll have Jedi and Sith casually throwing planets around like bowling balls, especially considering the feats we see from a novice (Rey) and Snoke (who casually manipulates people with telekinesis in a way even Palpatine never did). So maybe having the effort be a fatal one was necessary to curb that.

I think that this should represent a high-end, not something to be one-upped in subsequent films. A brief glimpse of the Force at its peak. Of what Anakin would have been, had he never fallen.

[Elfdart]

Defence of Echo Base

Who was incompetent: General Riekaan, Luke Skywalker.

Why: Design of Echo Base featured no defences against heavy armour, despite approach only being possible from one angle and Rebel intelligence being familiar with Imperial heavy armour (previously encountered in the raid on Scarif, successor to equipment used in the Clone Wars). Despite having heavy surface-to-space ordnance and military shield generators, no relevant surface defences are present. Light field artillery is incapable of penetrating Imperial heavy armour and is even incapable of elevating to hit the body of the armoured vehicle (despite having precision to hit the knee joints at considerable range which would have allowed fire at exposed cockpits and weapons systems for likely greater effect. No relevant fortifications like buried AT-AT ditches or nuclear landmines were emplaced despite being less evident signs of rebel presence than the exposed surface to space weapon and shield generator (even if it is posited that an AT-AT could survive a several kiloton incident at close range something that top heavy and ill supported would fall over, and subsidence and cratering from detonations would render terrain difficult for subsequent transports).

Commander Skywalker's air assualt on Imperial armour approaches over friendly forces for no reason, approaches on the only vector the enemy can fire back, and repeatedly crosses the enemy's only line of fire for no effect. As with the light field artillery no shots are attempted to disable exposed weapons systems.

Consequences: Echo Base is overrun for minimal Imperial losses, much of Rogue Squadron is killed for minmal effect.

You're dumb.

The whole point of a hidden base is to remain hidden. Digging a bunch of anti-tank ditches would have given the rebels away. Apparently the weapons they did deploy outside were nothing special since the admiral thought of smugglers or squatters rather than the Rebels.

Blockade of Hoth

Who was incompetent: Admiral Needa.

Why: No Fighters deployed. Despite the fact that the Rebel Alliance clearly expected to meet and give battle to a fighter blockade, as evidenced by escort starfighters leaving with transports, the Imperials do not deploy them in a timely manner, rendering the blockade vulnerable to Rebel surface to space weapons. TIE Fighters and Bombers would have been able to intercept and damage, disable or destroy Rebel transports which otherwise escaped.

Consequences: Rebel personnel and equipment escaped Echo Base.

You must have missed this scene:



I count four fighters chasing one small freighter.

[Elfdart]

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.

Which makes his crushing of the resistance such a farce. It's like getting crushed by the Cleveland Browns.

[Elfdart]

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.

This. This. A thousand times THIS!

The fucking Holiday Special was truer to the characters and setting*. The only part of the sequels that I liked so far was when they freed the racing animals. I'd watch a whole movie about that, with or without lightsabres.

* I hear Episode IX will show that Starkiller Base didn't really blow anything up but was in fact an enormous bong used to disperse psychedelic vapors throughout the galaxy to make people hallucinate that those planets were destroyed. Oh, and C-3PO will be depicted as a serial rapist.

[Elfdart]

"Neo-nazis"? While it's undoubtedly true that cesspools like RT's audience reviews are lousy with one or two sentence 1/2 star reviews sprinkled with rhetoric about "SJWs" and "political agendas" and "feminisation" that does't run the full gamut of uglyness. In any event, pointing out that some dislike for the movie comes from an ugly place is legitimate - why should you be defensive about that? I was talking to Nephtys in general terms, not accusing anyone.

I know critics and apologists for Disney Star Wars have gotten their panties in a twist because the audience score is much lower than the score they gave the movie. Trying to blame this on a neo-Nazi conspiracy is pathetic, given that the critic and audience scores are very close for TFA, and Gamergaters, neo-Nazis, MRAs and other lowlifes were in full bloom when that movie came out too. So unless you'd like to present some kind of evidence that racists and misogynists didn't have access to the internet two years ago, you're talking a lot of paranoid horseshit, and it's despicable.

It's also retarded, seeing as how there are major discrepancies (double digit ones at that) between critic and audience ratings for a number of Lucasfilm productions. For example, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has a 77 from critics and a 53 from the audience which is apparently made up of neo-Nazis. The latter-day admirers of Adolf Hitler must have also turned out in force to pan Revenge of the Sith, since that movie only got a 65 from the mob of brownshirts while the all-knowing critics gave it a 79. Willow, on the other hand, was well-liked by Goering's fanboys since they gave it a 79 when the oh-so-wise critics only gave it a 52.

If the notion that those who pan a Star Wars movie must have sinister motives is true, what does that say about those who bashed the Prequels, usually in much more hysterical terms? Especially when the haters and their insane bullshit gained traction to the point where professional critics started changing their reviews to appease the Stoklassholes, and "professional" journalists regurgitate the same talking points to this day.

[Vympel]

I know critics and apologists for Disney Star Wars have gotten their panties in a twist because the audience score is much lower than the score they gave the movie. Trying to blame this on a neo-Nazi conspiracy is pathetic, given that the critic and audience scores are very close for TFA, and Gamergaters, neo-Nazis, MRAs and other lowlifes were in full bloom when that movie came out too. So unless you'd like to present some kind of evidence that racists and misogynists didn't have access to the internet two years ago, you're talking a lot of paranoid horseshit, and it's despicable.

I'm not blaming anything on a 'neo-Nazi conspiracy'. That's something you made up. But yeah, go look at RT's audience reviews. A model of self-selection bias, with 1/2 star review after 1/2 star review (the bare minimum score possible) for pages going on about shit like "feminisation" and "political agendas" and "race mixing", "SJWs" and what not.

Or did you not know you can actually - you know - read audience reviews? If you think this doesn't reflect ugly right-wing animus because they don't like Laura Dern's pink hair and other stuff stemming from their tiny-little balls, you're delusional.

Generally, the evidence that Last Jedi's audience score is the subject of review bombing / brigading is compelling:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/12/20/ ... ence-score

Said brigading is the only thing people who are really upset TLJ got good reviews and Cinemscore cling to in an effort to prove that the movie is actually unpopular (because they can't stand the thought that this isn't the majority view), and its pure horseshit.

The films' narative was that ramming another ship using hyperspeed was some new genius move on the part of the rebel admiral not that Hux specifically is dumb. Even Poe needs a few beats to realize the genius of the act. Of course the moment you establish that it is indeed possible to hurt a ship with hyperspeed ramming it becomes the most obvious thing in the world. It is such a devastating and obvious tactic that it should be the primary concern of every single space soldier to the point that they should be waking up in cold sweat thinking about it. I mean even the escorting star destroyers were cut into ribbons by the debris resulting from the impact.

It would be like chasing an elderly woman in a wheelchair and a guy with a lightsaber and then the guy with a lightsaber ignites it and starts turning towards you but you start punching the elderly woman in a wheelchair because you are "incompetent". Huh? I mean do First Order dudes have any instinctive self preservation skills?

Leaving aside the colorful analogy, how does this answer anything of what I said about what the film shows us about Hux's decision making and how quickly the other rebel ships were destroyed when they fell behind?

A sneaky strawman that is yess yess hehehehe.
This is not about wanting to see Rey have a 20 minute Rocky Balboa training montage nor are most people that say she's a Mary Sue saying that Luke's 2 day journey from "want to go to Toshi station to get some power converters" to "yes that was me blowing up the death star" was more realistic in mathematical terms but people still expect certain internal consistency and narrative logic.
All we needed in the original Star Wars was a short scene on board the Millenium Falcon where Obi Wan introduces Luke to the Force. Where is that scene in the Force Awakens? Imagine if Obi Wan and Luke drove into Mos Eisly and it's Luke that says "these aren't the droids you're looking for" while Obi Wan gazes at him with a bewildered expression. Would that make any fucking sense?

This isn't what happened in The Force Awakens. Rey used a mind trick on the stormtrooper after Kylo Ren tried to read her mind, succeeded for a time, and then she pushed back. This isn't a lack of internal consistence and narrative logic, its Rey learning to use powers that have been displayed on her. Also, you're totally forgetting her conversation with Maz. Or is only a Jedi able to say what Obi-Wan said?

The belonging you seek is not behind
you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi,
but I know the Force. It moves
through and surrounds every living
thing. Close your eyes. Feel it.

(Closing her eyes and feeling it is exactly what she does at the turnaroudn point in her duel with Kylo).

And even so, she didn't do anything like freeze anyone in place, resist Kylo Ren's force push that sent her into a tree, freeze blaster bolts, or anything else like that.

The movie goes to great pains to explain Rey defeating Kylo Ren. Not only is it blindingly obvious in the script that Kylo was weakened by killing Han, not strengthened, but it's illustrated for us when he fails to stop Chewie's blaster bolt when we saw him stop Poe's earlier in the film. Then the movie injures him.

In TLJ this is made explicit when Snoke outright says this is what happened.

But no, Rey is a Mary Sue. Nobody is allowed to display Force powers or any inherent aptitude whatsoever unless they have training, even though this was never an aspect of any of Luke's training in ANH or TESB. Remember when Obi-Wan taught Luke how to force pull a lightsaber? No? But he did it in TESB, didn't he? Remember how Darth Plagueis' ghost or some stupid shit mind-controlled Anakin to be able to see into the future while he was podcracing? Remember how Obi-Wan taught luke how to make a 1 out of 1,000,000 proton torpedo shot?

This is like when Mary Sue whiners complain that Rey is able to fly the Falcon (she's a pilot, the movie establishes this, but the Mary Sue brigade refuse to take the movie at its word) - they have endless bullshit apologetics for how Luke being able to fly an X-Wing in space combat makes any sense at all without the Force, all of which is based on stuff that isn't in the movie: "well T-16 canyon womp rats controls like an X-Wing argle bargle". It's all a load of crap.

No one (Well I'm sure there is always someone out there...) had the slightest problem with Trinity from Matrix being a badass from the very first scene of the movie. No one said "durrr how come she beat up cop but Neo can't beat up cop and can't jump over building durrr Mary Sue feminizm". The movie establishes that the run in with the cops wasn't the first tango for her and that she's experienced while Neo is a complete fish out of water neopyhte. Therefore it makes sense that Trinity is a battle hardened combat expert and Neo doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Woman or man don't enter into it.
The scene where Rey turns the force on Kylo during interrogation would be like Neo sewing Agent Smith's mouth shut during the interrogation scene from the first Matrix movie.

It's not even remotely the same situation, as set out above.

Even in the Last Jedi it's not her that has an arc on the training island it's Luke. She has no change in perspective and no new understanding of the Force whereas Luke is the one that actually has to learn what he learned and lived 30 years ago. What the fuck?
She's a Mary Sue. It's that simple.

That's crap. Did you forget that Luke asks her what the Force is and she gives a horseshit ignorant answer? Luke then explains to her what it actually is, she learns, and then displays her raw potential when she notices the darkness?

[GuppyShark]

I'm not blaming anything on a 'neo-Nazi conspiracy'. That's something you made up. But yeah, go look at RT's audience reviews. A model of self-selection bias, with 1/2 star review after 1/2 star review (the bare minimum score possible) for pages going on about shit like "feminisation" and "political agendas" and "race mixing", "SJWs" and what not.

Or did you not know you can actually - you know - read audience reviews? If you think this doesn't reflect ugly right-wing animus because they don't like Laura Dern's pink hair and other stuff stemming from their tiny-little balls, you're delusional.

Generally, the evidence that Last Jedi's audience score is the subject of review bombing / brigading is compelling:

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2017/12/20/ ... ence-score

Said brigading is the only thing people who are really upset TLJ got good reviews and Cinemscore cling to in an effort to prove that the movie is actually unpopular (because they can't stand the thought that this isn't the majority view), and its pure horseshit.

Yet Force Awakens has an 88% Audience score with the same diversity in casting, do you have a theory as to why only TLJ was the victim of a right-wing animus? I read the article and it barely mentions TFA, I was hoping that contrast would come up there.

[Vympel]

Yet Force Awakens has an 88% Audience score with the same diversity in casting, do you have a theory as to why only TLJ was the victim of a right-wing animus? I read the article and it barely mentions TFA, I was hoping that contrast would come up there.

It's not all animus, like I said earlier, some of the reasons for disliking the film are ugly. Not all of them. It's a lot of different things. There's a huge contingent who think that Luke was done a disservice, there's the usual (IMO often exhausting and hypocritical) nerd criticisms, some people found it boring, others didn't like the humor - it runs the gamut.

Also, its important to remember that Force Awakens audience score doesn't truly reflect the audience reception to the film either. No audience score does. It's just a level of inconsistency picked up on to create a 'dissatisfaction' narrative.

[tezunegari]

Part of the first draft of the Episode 9 script has been leaked...

[Vympel]

Part of the first draft of the Episode 9 script has been leaked...

Amazing.

[jollyreaper]

Without some amount of consistent internal logic, Star Wars as a secondary world falls apart for people.

Take this from Tolkien in why consistency is important in a fantasy( but can also apply to science fiction):
Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories, 12 wrote:

Disbelief must be suspended, not hanged by the neck until dead.

[J Ryan]

Stolen from Reddit but some people have managed to get hold of a HD version of the ramming scene.

https://imgur.com/lMNLmTB

Not sure if it's possible to scale how far away the Raddus is to see what kind of run up is required for this.

Also worth noting for all the hate thrown at Hux, as soon as he sees the Rebel Cruiser moving towards them he realises what a threat it poses, so the lightspeed ramming technique isn't a complete ass pull from the Rebel's. In my head Hux is someone who has risen through the ranks in more of an R&D capacity as the technology stuff is where he shines, but has been thrust into a battlefield command role by Snoke due to loyalty rather than any apparent aptitude in Tactics or Strategy.

[GuppyShark]

It's not all animus, like I said earlier, some of the reasons for disliking the film are ugly. Not all of them. It's a lot of different things. There's a huge contingent who think that Luke was done a disservice, there's the usual (IMO often exhausting and hypocritical) nerd criticisms, some people found it boring, others didn't like the humor - it runs the gamut.

Also, its important to remember that Force Awakens audience score doesn't truly reflect the audience reception to the film either. No audience score does. It's just a level of inconsistency picked up on to create a 'dissatisfaction' narrative.

My argument here is that the appeal to politics ("It's the alt-right/fattynerds who hate this movie") argument doesn't actually address why this film is experiencing the backlash it is. Especially since those same people already hated and brigaded the previous movies, yet the audience scores have changed drastically.

If the Bad Guys hated having a woman and black guy in the leading roles in TFA, and the audience score was 88%, how can they be responsible for the 49% audience score of TLJ? We just established the upper limit of their influence as 12%, and the linked article states that they have implemented anti-brigading measures in the interim, which makes this disparity even more damning.