Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Vympel]

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.

I don't think they are fully responsible. However, presenting TFA and TLJ as equally offensive to the alt-right crowd is fallacious. They hate Vice Admiral Holdo with a burning passion because of her dress and her pink hair (which they see as some sort of coded 'social jutice signifier') and they especially hate that Poe Dameron was wrong about her and made everything worse. You'd be surprised at the amount of audience 'reviews' which complain that "all the men in this look stupid and its feminised and I want my screeching on college campuses not my entertainment" and similar nonsense.

There's no doubt this is a divisive movie amongst the fan-base generally, but the fanbase has always have a massively overinflated sense of self-importance, which is why within their echo chamber they think the movie is divisive generally.

[GuppyShark]

So every alt right nerd who hated TFA created three extra accounts in order to tank the rating because of Laura Dern?

I *would* be surprised at how many audience reviews cited feminism as the reason for the poor review, since I don't think RT publishes that data.

[Kane Starkiller]

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?

I think I explained quite clearly that guarding against possible hyperspeed ramming is a matter of basic self preservation when in space once it is established that you can actually ram ships like that. Hux "incompetently" dismissing a turning ships would be like someone dismissing an ignited lightsaber. It's something that can instantly kill you. Is Hux incompetent or medically diagnosed idiot?
And is this supposed to be an excuse for the movie? Oh they intentionally created a drooling moron therefore when he does something idiotic it's him not the film.
What they would destroy the main cruiser before it was even done doing a 180 turn? The rebels couldn't put the pedal to the metal for a few moments, increase the distance and then turn around and start smashing into the main First Order ship?

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?

Yes Rey turned the "force interrogation" back on Kylo after rattling him with a jab that he fears he will never be as cool as DARTH VADER. Which would be like Neo turning the mouth melting onto Smith after taunting him that he will never be as cool as T-1000. That's how fucking stupid that scene was. Now, obviously, Darth Vader is actually a character in the same saga but neither Rey or even Kylo have ever met him and he was dead for 30 years so the name dropping was pretty much as jarring and played as a cringey pop culture reference for the movie audience.
Is Maz allowed to say something about the Force? Sure she is but it's like a fat guy in a gym who squats 30kg sharing wisdom on dieting and proper technique. It doesn't come across as real convincing. Obi Wan demonstrated his skills and then guided Luke until he deflected blaster bolts. At no point does Rey demonstrate ANY skill with the Force before she is captured.

(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.

If the movie got into great pains to explain why Rey defeated Kylo Ren then the fight wouldn't have gone the distance. He would try to swing the lightsaber a few times and then would have lost his breath and fell down because of his injury or something to that effect. Instead they are prancing around in the snow smashing lightsabers at each other. If you tuned in the movie when Rey-Kylo lightsaber duel starts would you be able to guess he was injured? I sure as hell wouldn't.

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?

But Rey DIDN'T show any force powers. By all means show her using the force since the very first scene on Jakku and then have her explain that she could do that since she was a child and it always came naturally to her and she doesn't know why yadda yadda yadda.
Instead she doesn't know what the Force is, she never used the Force she has never seen a lightsaber, has never used a lightsaber, received no training and then starts straight up humiliating the man villain.

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.

The problem is these plot points start compounding on each other: she turns the force against Kylo, she knows about hyperdrive kinks on the Falcon that even Han doesn't know about, she is performing crazy stunts flying through Star Destroyer wreckage, she maneuvers the entire Millenium Falcon so precisely that Finn can shoot down a TIE fighter even with a jammed turret etc.
You can say that mathematically speaking this is no more unlikely than Luke hitting the Death Star exhaust port but narratively it just screams Mary Sue.

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

It's not identical but it's very similar: a neophyte character overtaking experienced ones without prior training.

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?

That was a good scene but it belonged in the previous movie. The equivalent of this would be Yoda teaching Luke about lumionous beings after Luke already went to Bespin and kicked Vaders ass there. What's the point?

[NeoGoomba]

It's been awhile since I saw TFA, but didn't even Finn land a hit or two on Kylo before Rey took up the fight?

[Kojiro]

That's if we ignore the Malevolence *punching through a moon*.

huuuh?

The story team did a post on Twitter I can't find just now, calling back to an episode of Clone Wars called 'Destroy the Malevolence', in which the Malevolence is destroyed by hyperspacing it into a moon. They posted a few pics and a script exert showing a massive impact on the moon surface with the text (paraphrasing) 'The Malevolence explodes in a massive impact with the moon, with fiery fragments flying out the back'. Admittedly the rear debris wasn't visible in the caps, but it was clear that hyperspacing into something caused carnage. This was posted, as a response, to the hyperspace ramming issues/questions. Basically saying 'It's not unprecedented'

[Vympel]

I think I explained quite clearly that guarding against possible hyperspeed ramming is a matter of basic self preservation when in space once it is established that you can actually ram ships like that. Hux "incompetently" dismissing a turning ships would be like someone dismissing an ignited lightsaber. It's something that can instantly kill you. Is Hux incompetent or medically diagnosed idiot?
And is this supposed to be an excuse for the movie? Oh they intentionally created a drooling moron therefore when he does something idiotic it's him not the film.
What they would destroy the main cruiser before it was even done doing a 180 turn? The rebels couldn't put the pedal to the metal for a few moments, increase the distance and then turn around and start smashing into the main First Order ship?

Ah yes, that's a reasonable assumption - when a ship turns around on you, of course it must be about to commit suicide.

As to the cruiser should put "pedal to the metal" for a few moments - because for some reason you don't think it wasn't already travelling at its maximum acceleration?

Yes Rey turned the "force interrogation" back on Kylo after rattling him with a jab that he fears he will never be as cool as DARTH VADER. Which would be like Neo turning the mouth melting onto Smith after taunting him that he will never be as cool as T-1000. That's how fucking stupid that scene was. Now, obviously, Darth Vader is actually a character in the same saga but neither Rey or even Kylo have ever met him and he was dead for 30 years so the name dropping was pretty much as jarring and played as a cringey pop culture reference for the movie audience.

Kylo has never met him? Oh sure, he prays to him in his room and has his melted helmet as a relic, but sure, how stupid, that he's sensitive about his grandfather's legacy.Tell me, did you actually watch this movie?

Is Maz allowed to say something about the Force? Sure she is but it's like a fat guy in a gym who squats 30kg sharing wisdom on dieting and proper technique. It doesn't come across as real convincing. Obi Wan demonstrated his skills and then guided Luke until he deflected blaster bolts. At no point does Rey demonstrate ANY skill with the Force before she is captured.

What special force powers does Obi-Wan Kenobi needed to say "stretch out with your feelings"?

If the movie got into great pains to explain why Rey defeated Kylo Ren then the fight wouldn't have gone the distance. He would try to swing the lightsaber a few times and then would have lost his breath and fell down because of his injury or something to that effect. Instead they are prancing around in the snow smashing lightsabers at each other. If you tuned in the movie when Rey-Kylo lightsaber duel starts would you be able to guess he was injured? I sure as hell wouldn't.

What? Kylo was weakend in terms of his connection to the Force, not his physidcal stamina. When a Force sensitive fights, these are not mere displays of physical skill. This is basic stuff that is in all the movies. From the very first.

The meaning of Snoke saying "it split you in two, you are unbalanced, you lost to a girl who had never before held a lightsaber" should be readily apparent.

But Rey DIDN'T show any force powers. By all means show her using the force since the very first scene on Jakku and then have her explain that she could do that since she was a child and it always came naturally to her and she doesn't know why yadda yadda yadda.
Instead she doesn't know what the Force is, she never used the Force she has never seen a lightsaber, has never used a lightsaber, received no training and then starts straight up humiliating the man villain.

Do you also think Luke being a fantastic pilot has nothing to do with the Force?

The problem is these plot points start compounding on each other: she turns the force against Kylo, she knows about hyperdrive kinks on the Falcon that even Han doesn't know about

Why wouldn't she know about this? The Falcon was stolen from Han years prior and Unkar Plutt made modifications to it of which Han was not aware. You do know that Rey works for Unkar Plutt and displays obvious familiarity with the Falcon's history of ownership (though not its actual identity), right?

she is performing crazy stunts flying through Star Destroyer wreckage, she maneuvers the entire Millenium Falcon so precisely that Finn can shoot down a TIE fighter even with a jammed turret etc.

It's like she's got amazing reflexes. Or something that looks like it.

You can say that mathematically speaking this is no more unlikely than Luke hitting the Death Star exhaust port but narratively it just screams Mary Sue.

Only if you continually don't pay any attention to the script or how we know the Force works.

That was a good scene but it belonged in the previous movie. The equivalent of this would be Yoda teaching Luke about lumionous beings after Luke already went to Bespin and kicked Vaders ass there. What's the point?

Because defeating Kylo Ren was exhaustively justified by both TFA and TLJ and you've totally failed to appreciate what two films now have unambiguously explained.

- The script for TFA specifically says that Kylo Ren is "somehow WEAKENED" (in terms of the Force, not his physical stamina) by his act of killing Han.
- The movie makes this obvious when Kylo fails to stop Chewie's blaster bolt, even though he easily detected and caught Poe's bolt the moment it comes out of the barrel - with his back turned - at the beginning of the movie.
- Kylo is wounded (the script says "Kylo Ren is obviously hampered by his wound")
- We then have Snoke lambasting Kylo Ren when he brags about not hesitating to kill Han Solo, specifically saying that it cleft his spirit in two and left him unbalanced, causing him to lose to Rey.

It's been awhile since I saw TFA, but didn't even Finn land a hit or two on Kylo before Rey took up the fight?

A grazing hit, yeah. It was at that point that Kylo stopped toying with him and ended the fight.

[CaoCao]

Oh this is getting more and more retarded. Since Disney fanboys can't defend a really crappy movie, they have no choice but to create a...gasp... neo nazi strawman and attack anyone that doesn't agree with them.

Star Wars must have been one of the first franchises to have really strong female characters. While most have their princesses scared, waiting for their knights to rescue them, Leia was backtalking facists (Tarkin and Vader), shooting stormtroopers, saving her friends and commanding soldiers. Then we had Mon Mothma being the leader of the Rebellion, and the PT had Padme. Could a SW fan dislike a female lead? Nope, that's ridiculous.

What people is asking for is a decent plot. Not even a perfect one, just consistent with the other movies. Not this 5 years old oriented crap, with Star Trek physics mixed in and a Harry fucking Potter take on the Force.

[Kojiro]

The meaning of Snoke saying "it split you in two, you are unbalanced, you lost to a girl who had never before held a lightsaber" should be readily apparent.

While I did like the explanation here- that an unbalanced force user is greatly weakened- it did raise a question for me. Because there's the thread running through the new films of Ren being torn. Of him 'hearing a call to the Light'. Of him being distraught at killing Han, hesitant to kill Leia. It doesn't really gel with the great, monstrous, unparalleled darkness Luke claims to have sensed. It implies a timeline where Ben Solo is *super* dark- so dark Luke momentarily wants to kill him- but after murdering his fellow students, running with the FO for half a decade, committing himself to the Dark Side and learning under Snoke he's legit struggling. As if his time with the First Order has made him *less* Dark than he was under Luke.

[Kane Starkiller]

Ah yes, that's a reasonable assumption - when a ship turns around on you, of course it must be about to commit suicide.

As to the cruiser should put "pedal to the metal" for a few moments - because for some reason you don't think it wasn't already travelling at its maximum acceleration?

Of course fucking of course as Bricktop would say. All of the weapons and turbolasers are nothing compared to this so yes the first assumption should be it's going to ram us.
I mean if Hux is incompetentTM then he should simply do the most obvious thing that even a complete amateur would do and focus his attention on the biggest target instead of coming up with tortured logic to explain why they should totally ignore the last serious military hardware the Rebels have and instead concentrate on tiny transports that aren't going anywhere.
Wait both fleets have the exact same max acceleration? I thought the rebels were conserving fuel and running their engines just fast enough to maintain separation withe the First Order. My oh my but a lot of things had to come together for that scene to make sense.

Kylo has never met him? Oh sure, he prays to him in his room and has his melted helmet as a relic, but sure, how stupid, that he's sensitive about his grandfather's legacy.Tell me, did you actually watch this movie?

Yes he prays to the pop culture reference. Nothing was done in the two movies to establish why though. What aspect of Darth Vader appeals to him? But I guess that is my personal beef with the scene. It's not really material to my point that Rey immediately countering Kylo's force attack seconds after being first subjected to it is Mary Suish.

What special force powers does Obi-Wan Kenobi needed to say "stretch out with your feelings"?

The special force called Personal ExperienceTM. It tends to lend credibility to mentor figures. Also being shown how their tutelage helps the protagonist expand their power in practical ways instead of blathering vaguely helps.

What? Kylo was weakend in terms of his connection to the Force, not his physidcal stamina. When a Force sensitive fights, these are not mere displays of physical skill. This is basic stuff that is in all the movies. From the very first.

The meaning of Snoke saying "it split you in two, you are unbalanced, you lost to a girl who had never before held a lightsaber" should be readily apparent.

The idea that your power to command the Force is deeply connected to your inner peace or turmoil is one of the best aspects of Star Wars. But that doesn't mean an experienced Force user can lose a fight with a toddler because he is upset.
The opening scenes of the movie juxtapose Kylo stopping blaster bolts in mid air and raiding planets and Rey collecting garbage on a desert planet completely cut of from the events. The intentional contrast between an experienced Force user and a complete untrained beginner couldn't be clearer.
Then, without any training or mentorship, she picks up on the Force on the fly and is immediately able to use it against a much more experienced Force user.
Kylo was distraught, sure, which means he would have easily lost the fight to Obi-Wan Kenobi from TPM not to someone who never held a lightsaber in their entire life.

Do you also think Luke being a fantastic pilot has nothing to do with the Force?

He was established as a good pilot yes. The Force allowed him to go the extra mile and actually score that hit. Whether that's just knowing when to release the bomb or guiding the bomb subconciously or a combination of two is kind of left to our imagination. And he didn't do it alone nor did he perform ridiculous stunts in the air, he was doing pretty much what others were doing when they attacket the Death Star.

The problem is these plot points start compounding on each other: she turns the force against Kylo, she knows about hyperdrive kinks on the Falcon that even Han doesn't know about

Why wouldn't she know about this? The Falcon was stolen from Han years prior and Unkar Plutt made modifications to it of which Han was not aware. You do know that Rey works for Unkar Plutt and displays obvious familiarity with the Falcon's history of ownership (though not its actual identity), right?

she is performing crazy stunts flying through Star Destroyer wreckage, she maneuvers the entire Millenium Falcon so precisely that Finn can shoot down a TIE fighter even with a jammed turret etc.

It's like she's got amazing reflexes. Or something that looks like it.

You can say that mathematically speaking this is no more unlikely than Luke hitting the Death Star exhaust port but narratively it just screams Mary Sue.

Only if you continually don't pay any attention to the script or how we know the Force works.

See? You had to break down my paragraph into individual sentences and justify them one by one. But they work together in a movie and compound on each other as I already said. Luke didn't blow up the Death Star AND defeat Darth Vader in a duel AND user the mind trick better than Obi Wan AND dazzle Han Solo with his knowledge of hyperspace mechanics. If he did guess what we would call his character?
I mean I'm coming across as if I hate Rey but I actually like her despite all the Mary Sue shit. I thought her relation with Kylo was one of the most interesting in all of Star Wars but she does have a lot of Mary Sue in her.

Because defeating Kylo Ren was exhaustively justified by both TFA and TLJ and you've totally failed to appreciate what two films now have unambiguously explained.

- The script for TFA specifically says that Kylo Ren is "somehow WEAKENED" (in terms of the Force, not his physical stamina) by his act of killing Han.
- The movie makes this obvious when Kylo fails to stop Chewie's blaster bolt, even though he easily detected and caught Poe's bolt the moment it comes out of the barrel - with his back turned - at the beginning of the movie.
- Kylo is wounded (the script says "Kylo Ren is obviously hampered by his wound")
- We then have Snoke lambasting Kylo Ren when he brags about not hesitating to kill Han Solo, specifically saying that it cleft his spirit in two and left him unbalanced, causing him to lose to Rey.

OK he is weakened both physically and mentally. He is not at 100%. That means that someone who didn't know what the Force is 5 hours ago can take him on? It's not about him, I'm not one of the people that say "LOL Kylo is a pussy becuz he lost to a grl". Her sudden abilities are jarring here.

[Mange]

The plot in TLJ seems to be based on these elements:
* Contrivances (the whole stupid and inane chase, the cave entrance)
* Conveniences (Finn, the worst main character in SW together with Poe, has mopped the floor of the Supremacy and because of that knows everything there is to know about the hyperspace tracking device)
* Characters being stupid (Poe babbling about the transports which in my eyes nullified any growth the character may have had. He's a moron.)
* Characters don't speaking

And I'm sick and tired of people telling me how different TLJ is compared to the other SW movies. I don't see how it's different. Johnson has taken TESB and ROTJ, deconstructed them, taken scenes, moved them around and made them worse. The confrontation between the Emperor, Luke and Vader in ROTJ was very well done. Snoke, Kylo and Rey on the other hand was just plain silly with Snoke flinging Rey around like a ragdoll (the whole thing felt and looked ridiculous and was tonally wrong).

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

It has since been taken down, but did you actually see what Hidalgo referred to? He referred to the destruction of the Malevolence in TCW and what we saw there can't be compared to what we see happened to that ship. The navicomputer of the Malevolence had been programmed by Anakin for a collision course on the Moon of Antar, but we didn't see the ship jump to hyperspace. What we saw was the ship crashing into the moon. The hyperspace ramming was just another one of the many conveniences.

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)

What does the movie tell us? That she's a scavenger living in an AT-AT on a desert world and who plays with pilot helmets. When the movie does tell us that she's a pilot it's with a throwaway line:

FINN
We need a pilot!

REY
We've got one!

Where did that come from? There was nothing before that suggesting that she was a pilot. And when she does takes off with the Falcon, she nearly crashes it. At least with Luke, his piloting skills were acknowledged by another character (Obi-Wan). However, while I at first regarded the character as a Mary Sue, I've since re-evaluated the character. I like the character of Rey and find Poe Dameron to be more of the Mary (or Gary) Stu. Rey survived on her own on the hostile and uninviting world of Jakku, a feat that required serious skills. However, that doesn't necessarily had to have included piloting skills (and I don't see how it could).

The absolute worst thing about the sequels is how they just mashed a big old reset button to bring back Empire vs. Rebels.

I agree, but it's worse than that. The Rebellion had some "state" support which the Resistance seems to have been lacking. The nEU makes it clear that while the New Republic reduced their navy drastically, it emphasized that the systems should be more responsible for their own defense which is one of the reasons I find it so strange that the Resistance wasn't backed up by individual systems more, even if the Republic as such didn't regard the First Order as a thread despite having broken the various treaties and the Cold War. Perhaps at the beginning of IX, we'll see a large fleet...

[ray245]

It has since been taken down, but did you actually see what Hidalgo referred to? He referred to the destruction of the Malevolence in TCW and what we saw there can't be compared to what we see happened to that ship. The navicomputer of the Malevolence had been programmed by Anakin for a collision course on the Moon of Antar, but we didn't see the ship jump to hyperspace. What we saw was the ship crashing into the moon. The hyperspace ramming was just another one of the many conveniences.

The fact that Rian Johnson himself voiced concerns about the hyperspace jump speaks volume about the scene. It's not just random internet nerds having issues with the implication of the scene, but the movie director himself voiced that concern himself.

I think the story-group is too unwilling to dismiss suggestions from directors since their approach is more based on making up more techno-babble to explain away plot issues.

[The Romulan Republic]

As cinematic entertainment, I liked the hyperspace ramming scene.

I don't know if its consistent with prior canon on hyperspace, however.

It also occurs to me that I'm pretty sure the whole "fleet being tracked, running out of supplies" plot on which most of the movie hinged was pretty much lifted straight from the modern Battlestar Galactic series, though I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[Shroom Man 777]

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.

It could be that it increased, doubled down upon the things the alt-right/fattynerd types hate, adding competent and important and moralizing ASIAN WOMEN and ANTI-WAR PROFITEERING and pro-ANIMAL messages to it. So it increases their spite.

AND for the non-alt-right/fattynerd types, TLJ did the opposite of TFA and turned around a lot of SW conventions instead of re-enacting ANH. So that gets a lot of ire from non-alt-right/fattynerd types just for shitting on nostalgia.

The weird intangible thing is that people who didn't like TFA for its unimaginative borrowing of ANH are incensed by TLJ. I think it's hard to logically quantify "I hope it's not like TFA where it just borrows from a prior movie and is the same old stuff... OMG IT DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT I HATE IT!"

Of course, beyond that there are legit criticisms of the film, which a lot point out. But there are also a lot of legit merits to the film, which a lot point out as well.

Isolating these "legit movie gripes/merits/observations" and just focusing on the irrational fattynerd nonsense and the resurging alt-right bullshit... hmmm... the difficult thing about quantifying these aspects is that these things are utterly irrational anyway!

[Crazedwraith]

It could be that it increased, doubled down upon the things the alt-right/fattynerd types hate, adding competent and important and moralizing ASIAN WOMEN and ANTI-WAR PROFITEERING and pro-ANIMAL messages to it. So it increases their spite.

AND for the non-alt-right/fattynerd types, TLJ did the opposite of TFA and turned around a lot of SW conventions instead of re-enacting ANH. So that gets a lot of ire from non-alt-right/fattynerd types just for shitting on nostalgia.

The weird intangible thing is that people who didn't like TFA for its unimaginative borrowing of ANH are incensed by TLJ. I think it's hard to logically quantify "I hope it's not like TFA where it just borrows from a prior movie and is the same old stuff... OMG IT DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT I HATE IT!"

This is not as much a contradiction as you are implying. Even if they are literally the same people saying both which is not a given.

If people think TFA was a rehash of ANH, then it's perfectly possible to see the scenes are that a rehashes of ESB and TLJ and object to them to such. They even borrowed RotJ nearly line for line at one point. That they don't turn out the same way is a less a point in favour of the movie being clever and more 'oh thank god they didn't rip off RotJ entirely' imho.

The parts that differ most from the old movie are Poe and Finn's arcs and they're not that entertaining but that's not because they're not rehashs of other stuff. It just that it sucks.

[Shroom Man 777]

This is not as much a contradiction as you are implying. Even if they are literally the same people saying both which is not a given.

If people think TFA was a rehash of ANH, then it's perfectly possible to see the scenes are that a rehashes of ESB and TLJ and object to them to such. They even borrowed RotJ nearly line for line at one point. That they don't turn out the same way is a less a point in favour of the movie being clever and more 'oh thank god they didn't rip off RotJ entirely' imho.

The parts that differ most from the old movie are Poe and Finn's arcs and they're not that entertaining but that's not because they're not rehashs of other stuff. It just that it sucks.

I can get that. I'm very underwhelmed by TFA, for example. I guess beyond unreasonable "URGH TUMBLRINA STARSHIP JUNKING WOMAN" nonsense, there IS a reasonable field of as to whether it worked for one or not, whether it clicked or not. It's strange because yeah, you and Moby aren't being stupid fatty nerds, and you've got lots of gripes. On the other hand, a lot of people who treat things really critically really got tickled by the film and love it.

Maybe there are intangible things going on here, meta-level stuff like where one stands with regards to sci-fi or Star Wars in particular.

[The Romulan Republic]

As I said before, TLJ is frustrating because there are elements of it that are awesome, and others that are worse-than-Phantom-Menace wretched. Its like someone took the worst and best of Star Wars films, and awkwardly intercut them.

So I get why people love it. And I get why people hate it. I honestly haven't made up my mind, and could give it a rating of anywhere from two to six or maybe even seven out of ten, depending on my mood and which elements of the film I'm focusing on.

[CaoCao]

It could be that it increased, doubled down upon the things the alt-right/fattynerd types hate, adding competent and important and moralizing ASIAN WOMEN and ANTI-WAR PROFITEERING and pro-ANIMAL messages to it. So it increases their spite.

Shouldn't they be happier with this movie? Disney clearly took a conservative approach. White girl flirts with white boy and the black guy ends up with the asian.

I liked the chemistry between Finn and Rey in TFA, and seemed more natural in that movie than Finn and Rose in TLJ.

AND for the non-alt-right/fattynerd types, TLJ did the opposite of TFA and turned around a lot of SW conventions instead of re-enacting ANH. So that gets a lot of ire from non-alt-right/fattynerd types just for shitting on nostalgia.

The weird intangible thing is that people who didn't like TFA for its unimaginative borrowing of ANH are incensed by TLJ. I think it's hard to logically quantify "I hope it's not like TFA where it just borrows from a prior movie and is the same old stuff... OMG IT DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT I HATE IT!"

Of course, beyond that there are legit criticisms of the film, which a lot point out. But there are also a lot of legit merits to the film, which a lot point out as well.

Isolating these "legit movie gripes/merits/observations" and just focusing on the irrational fattynerd nonsense and the resurging alt-right bullshit... hmmm... the difficult thing about quantifying these aspects is that these things are utterly irrational anyway!

The problem is not doing something different...if it's worse. Unless you consider character growth for Luke, that Aunt Beru served him blue milk in ANH and now he gets it from the source in TLJ.

[Shroom Man 777]

After some time, in hindsight or retrospect, it could either be the new prequels or the new ESB. My goodness.

Shouldn't they be happier with this movie? Disney clearly took a conservative approach. White girl flirts with white boy and the black guy ends up with the asian.

Perhaps the deeper-minded racial theorists of Stormfront et al. might make that connection. My GF lurked at Stormfront and she once read that with Frozen the scumbags there liked it for its presentation of Nordic stuff and their only contention was that Olaf's voice actor was Jewish.

For basic alt-right shticks, they were already bothered with Rey and Jyn in the previous films so another bunch of important ovaries-having people might bother them, along with the points the film was hammering in.

I liked the chemistry between Finn and Rey in TFA, and seemed more natural in that movie than Finn and Rose in TLJ.

Finn and Rey had a natural thing going on, whether it becomes romantic or buddy cop (after all, people were jokingly saying that Finn and Poe would hit it off romantically too ). I agree that Rose's thing was too quick, maybe it's her strange fangirl-ness thing. She WAS crushing on him at the beginning before she tased him... lols (mang, poor Finn, first Rey and now Rose just attacking his ass... RACISTS! )

The problem is not doing something different...if it's worse. Unless you consider character growth for Luke, that Aunt Beru served him blue milk in ANH and now he gets it from the source in TLJ.

IDK, for every legit gripe, there are some who are pretty obtuse or who miss stuff or interpreting moments or parallelisms in a different way. Like you. Or Romulan Republic who didn't notice what was being not-so-subtly implied with those Skywalker-storytelling boom-telekinesis-ing orphans (in that they're mini-Reys, that the Awakening Snoke mentioned previously, and Rey's acts and arc with regards to her vision and the sacred books and the continuation of the Jedi play off these kiddos).

Oh shit, there could be a chance that instead of Ewoks, the third film will have a whole slew of these orphans instead. And they already know how to TK brooms with finesse, despite not doing any Force Rock Lifts to gain EXP. HHHHNNNNGGGGRRRGGGHHHS MARY SUESES!


Oh god. I want the third movie to have EVERYONE somehow tap into the Force and become a plural being, a galactic consciousness. Maybe Rey dies and then everyone says "I AM REY!" and then with their combined galactic TK they reform Alderaan, Force Pushing the scattered debris back to the planet, undoing the evil done in the first SW film, and then imbuing it with utter Life Force to repopulate it with life. THE PLANET OF THE FORCE!

It will be a pure Jodorowsky mindfuck!

[Bob the Gunslinger]

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.

It could be that it increased, doubled down upon the things the alt-right/fattynerd types hate, adding competent and important and moralizing ASIAN WOMEN and ANTI-WAR PROFITEERING and pro-ANIMAL messages to it. So it increases their spite.

AND for the non-alt-right/fattynerd types, TLJ did the opposite of TFA and turned around a lot of SW conventions instead of re-enacting ANH. So that gets a lot of ire from non-alt-right/fattynerd types just for shitting on nostalgia.

The weird intangible thing is that people who didn't like TFA for its unimaginative borrowing of ANH are incensed by TLJ. I think it's hard to logically quantify "I hope it's not like TFA where it just borrows from a prior movie and is the same old stuff... OMG IT DOES SOMETHING DIFFERENT I HATE IT!"

Of course, beyond that there are legit criticisms of the film, which a lot point out. But there are also a lot of legit merits to the film, which a lot point out as well.

Isolating these "legit movie gripes/merits/observations" and just focusing on the irrational fattynerd nonsense and the resurging alt-right bullshit... hmmm... the difficult thing about quantifying these aspects is that these things are utterly irrational anyway!

There are plenty of reasons to hate TFA besides lack of originality. People can legitimately hate both without any kind of hypocrisy.

I also have a hard time believing most of the ire aimed at the film has anything to do with racial or gender politics. Most of my friends and family are Lefty Snowflakeberg-McTriggerseasys, and we all found plenty of problems with the film, including the characters themselves. I personally like Rose's character and her perspective on a conflict between the haves and used-to-haves at the core of Star Wars. But man, I can't defend that kamikaze-against-suicide maneuver. I get why that's stupid. I get why people can dislike characters who bumble around while BB-8 has to do everything himself. I get how people can have issues with Vice admiral "If you only believe in hope when three people per morning aren't attempting to flee at each life pod bay, you'll never get through the 18 hours of constant bombardment" even though I love Laura Dern.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

As I said before, TLJ is frustrating because there are elements of it that are awesome, and others that are worse-than-Phantom-Menace wretched. Its like someone took the worst and best of Star Wars films, and awkwardly intercut them.

So I get why people love it. And I get why people hate it. I honestly haven't made up my mind, and could give it a rating of anywhere from two to six or maybe even seven out of ten, depending on my mood and which elements of the film I'm focusing on.

This is pretty much me, too. Hashtag MeTooStarWarsTLJ. (Hope that isn't misconstrued somehow.)

I love the parts of TLJ that I love. And I really cringe at the rest of it. I've seen the movie three times and enjoyed it more each time. I plan to buy the DVD. But I also tend to side with the haters on nearly every avenue of criticism because they are right.

[ray245]

This is not as much a contradiction as you are implying. Even if they are literally the same people saying both which is not a given.

If people think TFA was a rehash of ANH, then it's perfectly possible to see the scenes are that a rehashes of ESB and TLJ and object to them to such. They even borrowed RotJ nearly line for line at one point. That they don't turn out the same way is a less a point in favour of the movie being clever and more 'oh thank god they didn't rip off RotJ entirely' imho.

The parts that differ most from the old movie are Poe and Finn's arcs and they're not that entertaining but that's not because they're not rehashs of other stuff. It just that it sucks.

I can get that. I'm very underwhelmed by TFA, for example. I guess beyond unreasonable "URGH TUMBLRINA STARSHIP JUNKING WOMAN" nonsense, there IS a reasonable field of as to whether it worked for one or not, whether it clicked or not. It's strange because yeah, you and Moby aren't being stupid fatty nerds, and you've got lots of gripes. On the other hand, a lot of people who treat things really critically really got tickled by the film and love it.

Maybe there are intangible things going on here, meta-level stuff like where one stands with regards to sci-fi or Star Wars in particular.

It depends on how you are enjoying Star Wars, and TLJ in particular. The strength of TLJ is that the scenes they shot are very beautifully done, and individual scenes contain relevant themes the director was trying to address. If you are someone who likes to take scene as they come and go in a movie, you'll find lots of reason to enjoy it.

However, if you are someone who look at Star Wars less as a series of powerful scenes, but how well they connect together as a whole, then it becomes a little jarring.

Take the hyperspace ramming scene. I think most people would all agree it's a very beautifully done scene on its own. If TLJ is it's own movie instead of a SW movie, no one would bat an eyelid about hyperspace ramming. People who don't follow Star Wars too closely might enjoy the scene more and enjoy the emotion of that scene far longer than a Star Wars fan.

There are going to be people who find the scene beautiful but jarring. People who watched more Star Wars movies, and perhaps are less keen on the technology being used as a dues-ex-machina. Because the emotion of the scene would wear off faster on them than others. They'll be the one asking themselves why didn't we see more ramming in all the other Star Wars shows and movies? It's akin to people getting annoyed with the technology of the week we saw in Star Trek series.

Film is very much about an emotional experience. If you get caught up in the emotion of the scene longer than other people, chances are you will like the movie more. And fantasy/sci-fi is very much a kind of story where immersion is seen as paramount to many people. If there is a scene that breaks your immersion of the movie, that reminds you that this is just a work of fiction during the film itself, you'll probably not like it as much.

With TLJ and TFA, I never felt fully immersed in the movies, certainly compared to say Rogue One or any of the older Star Wars movies. When I look at them, all I could think about is what were the directors trying to do with the specific scene and etc. I spend more time analysing the scenes and thinking about them instead of simply enjoying it as a visual medium.

One of the things I've learned is if a play/musical/movie can fully immerse the audience, fewer people will care about plot holes or world-building inconsistency. Even a horrible script can be transformed into something people give 5/5 for if the direction is good.

[Shroom Man 777]

There are plenty of reasons to hate TFA besides lack of originality. People can legitimately hate both without any kind of hypocrisy.

I also said that.

But I just have this vibe that a lot of what's going on (not all of it), whether it's TLJ specifically or even the broader scope of nerd culture beyond the SW films, is because of a lot of demographic shifting that's occurring everywhere - because the audiences and even the creators themselves are changing in character - and I'm seeing a lot of rustled jimmies and gatekeeping on part of a lot of the old nerd subcultures and groups around me, in the internet and in meatspace. Maybe I'm projecting a lot of ire and spilling it all over the place.

On my end, both online and offline, whenever we get sci-fi or whatever that does something different and doesn't feature a squared-jaw white dude McBoyscout Soldier Sam boring ass Space John Cena, I hear a lot of "oh they're appealing to SJWs/Chinese market/minorities hur dur" from people too busy sucking on the teat of same old shit Marvel/DC caped comics crap (otakus and manga and anime too) and escapist retread franchises and I'm in the freaking Philippines lol. Saw that on this board even before, way before TFA was out lol.

Maybe it's the continuation of that shtick I encountered with Avatar, the James Cameron movie. There's legit criticisms of Space Ferngully Dancing With Na'vi White Savior stuff, but there's a lot of milwankering bullcrap coming from the usual crowd of Baen books-fellating stunted Stuart Slade-suckling sort of oorahooah gigajouling VTOL McMarangerine tacticool badassery types lol. We're all here on SDN so we've all seen this. For fucks sake, for years we've had endless "omg stupid sci-fi with robbits with feet not tank treads hhuuurrrggghhh!" nonsense. And we all have noticed that these types tend to lean a certain way outside of fandom/fiction related topics...

Maybe my over-exposure to that sort of nonsense makes me roll my eyes and generalize things. I don't know. But The Last Jedi could've never been made and I would still be having this "spiritual crisis." It's not as if Fatty Nerds (tm) was a term invented just for this occasion, and the dissatisfactions and observations have existed for quite some time and it's not just from me, it didn't even begin with me and a lot of the reasons why I see it is because we all know that it's part of us as well, we've all been there.

[Shroom Man 777]

There are going to be people who find the scene beautiful but jarring. People who watched more Star Wars movies, and perhaps are less keen on the technology being used as a dues-ex-machina. Because the emotion of the scene would wear off faster on them than others. They'll be the one asking themselves why didn't we see more ramming in all the other Star Wars shows and movies? It's akin to people getting annoyed with the technology of the week we saw in Star Trek series.

Film is very much about an emotional experience. If you get caught up in the emotion of the scene longer than other people, chances are you will like the movie more. And fantasy/sci-fi is very much a kind of story where immersion is seen as paramount to many people. If there is a scene that breaks your immersion of the movie, that reminds you that this is just a work of fiction during the film itself, you'll probably not like it as much.

With TLJ and TFA, I never felt fully immersed in the movies, certainly compared to say Rogue One or any of the older Star Wars movies.

As someone who's put a lot of thought into SW technical aspects, same as many of y'all, I do get that. I don't know why, but now I just place more into that emotion and theme, so the hyperspace ramming shtick really doesn't bother me, even though I can spend a lot of time mulling about SW worldbuilding and for example wonder about hyper-mechanics, why Naboo N1 fighters have hyperdrives (we do see them travel interstellar-ly AOTC, presumably unassisted), yet Clone Wars-era Jedi microfighters use hyper-ring assistance, etc.

Maybe there are unmentioned conditions why some things happen only at some times. I mean, shit, we got a load of technical infodumps from the TFA novel with regards to Starkiller Base, yet in the end I don't think knowing all that crap helped improve anything, and the infodump WRT Starkiller Base was pretty shit anyway even in terms of infodumping technical commentaries.

(Shit, look at Vympel over here who's totally into infodumps and has probably swam through more septic tanks worth of dumps than y'all )

(This reminds me of my correspondences and ruminations with Connor, who is one of THE premier cataloguer of infodumps at least WRT 40K.)

IDK. Worldbuilding has lots of issues. As a worldbuilder whose worldbuilt for more than a decade, I say this.

/shrug

[ray245]

As someone who's put a lot of thought into SW technical aspects, same as many of y'all, I do get that. I don't know why, but now I just place more into that emotion and theme, so the hyperspace ramming shtick really doesn't bother me, even though I can spend a lot of time mulling about SW worldbuilding and for example wonder about hyper-mechanics, why Naboo N1 fighters have hyperdrives (we do see them travel interstellar-ly AOTC, presumably unassisted), yet Clone Wars-era Jedi microfighters use hyper-ring assistance, etc.

It's more about how much the set-up of the movie can draw the audience in, to the extent they don't care about/ignore worldbuilding problems. If you are already attracted to the themes presented, you'll probably be less distracted by any world-building stuff. As movie critics, I think they tend to enjoy this sort of approach because they are used to looking at movies in this particular way. So people can be a Themes first, everything else second when it comes to enjoying movie.

There are also others who probably see themes as secondary, while world-building immersion is more important. So if these audience don't find themselves immersed in the movie, they will spend every second of the whole noticing the flaws. Even when the scene has moved on, their minds will still be thinking about the flaws.

Maybe there are unmentioned conditions why some things happen only at some times. I mean, shit, we got a load of technical infodumps from the TFA novel with regards to Starkiller Base, yet in the end I don't think knowing all that crap helped improve anything, and the infodump WRT Starkiller Base was pretty shit anyway even in terms of infodumping technical commentaries.

Whether they are unmentioned or not is not the main point. The point is any scene where people stops and ask questions is a problematic scene. The scene might not be problematic enough to bring down the overall enjoyment of the movie for most people, but some will. I'll use the LOTR eagles scene as an example. Their usage in movies and books are quite jarring to many people, which is why you got people asking why don't they fly to mount doom. I know there is a good explanation for that, but the point is you should avoid scenes where such explanation is necessary in the first place.

Rian Johnson himself was caught in a hard place when he asked the story group whether it's ok to include the hyperspace ramming scene. The question is whether the prize of a really good scene is worth causing future problem in Star Wars movies. If a new director for Ep 13 writes themselves into a situation where all the conditions fit nicely for another hyper-space ramming, they are basically forced to repeat that scene once again.

The way I think about technology/magic in a movie or story is this. Do I want to make repeated use of this particular technology/magic? If a technology or magical use is worth repeating again and again, then there isn't an issue. But if it's meant to be an one-off plot-solving device, I'll try and avoid using them or depicting them in such a manner.

(Shit, look at Vympel over here who's totally into infodumps and has probably swam through more septic tanks worth of dumps than y'all )

Yeah, and that's not the right approach either in my opinion. I don't agree with the current story group method of basically trying to solve any inconsistency with a book explanation. Infodumps should not be used as an escape tool because that's poor world-construction. The stupid can see super laser beam of Starkiller base across the whole Galaxy is dumb, and no amount of infodump can resolve the scene's dumbness. It might make a pretty looking scene, but it brings along more baggage than needed.

(This reminds me of my correspondences and ruminations with Connor, who is one of THE premier cataloguer of infodumps at least WRT 40K.)

IDK. Worldbuilding has lots of issues. As a worldbuilder whose worldbuilt for more than a decade, I say this.

/shrug

Worldbuilding has a lot of issues. What I am hoping for is writers to treat their world-building with more respect. Because making a scifi/fantasy franchise last is somewhat dependent on it. Lucasfilm can make billions and billions of dollars from the Star Wars brand alone because the world-building done by Lucasfilm over the years.

A good scene should not come at the expense of bad world-building.

[Vympel]

Of course fucking of course as Bricktop would say. All of the weapons and turbolasers are nothing compared to this so yes the first assumption should be it's going to ram us.

So expressing incredulity that anyone would be willing to waste a gigantic military asset and commit suicide doesn't even enter into it?

I mean if Hux is incompetentTM then he should simply do the most obvious thing that even a complete amateur would do and focus his attention on the biggest target instead of coming up with tortured logic to explain why they should totally ignore the last serious military hardware the Rebels have and instead concentrate on tiny transports that aren't going anywhere.
Wait both fleets have the exact same max acceleration? I thought the rebels were conserving fuel and running their engines just fast enough to maintain separation withe the First Order. My oh my but a lot of things had to come together for that scene to make sense.

Nobody said they were running their engines 'just fast enough' in the entire film. But as to Hux's priorities, they're obvious - he knows the cruiser is empty and wants to kill the Resistance off. That's not unjustified. In any event 'the villains are incompetent' (i.e. make bad/wrong decisions) as a complaint in Star Wars is baffling to me. This is a common trope.

Yes he prays to the pop culture reference. Nothing was done in the two movies to establish why though. What aspect of Darth Vader appeals to him? But I guess that is my personal beef with the scene. It's not really material to my point that Rey immediately countering Kylo's force attack seconds after being first subjected to it is Mary Suish.

Fair enough.

The special force called Personal ExperienceTM. It tends to lend credibility to mentor figures. Also being shown how their tutelage helps the protagonist expand their power in practical ways instead of blathering vaguely helps.

All Obi-Wan offered is vague encouragement. He didn't actually demonstrate anything for Luke. This is exactly the same as how things are depicted in TESB. Using the Force is always presented as a matter of belief in oneself and being spiritually centered. The specific demonstration of particular 'powers' has simply never been part of Force training, cinematically.

To tie back to TLJ, this approach was also taken with Snoke and Kylo Ren. A lot of people (including me) assumed such training would be "and this is how you do Force lightning". But it wasn't at all - it was Snoke getting Kylo Ren and Rey in the same room and making Kylo kill her.

The idea that your power to command the Force is deeply connected to your inner peace or turmoil is one of the best aspects of Star Wars. But that doesn't mean an experienced Force user can lose a fight with a toddler because he is upset.
The opening scenes of the movie juxtapose Kylo stopping blaster bolts in mid air and raiding planets and Rey collecting garbage on a desert planet completely cut of from the events. The intentional contrast between an experienced Force user and a complete untrained beginner couldn't be clearer.
Then, without any training or mentorship, she picks up on the Force on the fly and is immediately able to use it against a much more experienced Force user.
Kylo was distraught, sure, which means he would have easily lost the fight to Obi-Wan Kenobi from TPM not to someone who never held a lightsaber in their entire life.

And would this logic apply in any other films? For example:



Are we going to pretend Luke defeating Vader in RotJ somehow makes sense given that Vader is a fully-fledged Sith Lord with literally decades of experience and Luke has barely a few days worth of training with Obi-Wan and Yoda?

Narratively, within the logic of Star Wars, of course it makes sense - because Star Wars has never placed that much importance on formal training.

(Frankly, I blame the prequels for distorting this - not expressly, but with their entire vibe)

He was established as a good pilot yes. The Force allowed him to go the extra mile and actually score that hit. Whether that's just knowing when to release the bomb or guiding the bomb subconciously or a combination of two is kind of left to our imagination. And he didn't do it alone nor did he perform ridiculous stunts in the air, he was doing pretty much what others were doing when they attacket the Death Star.

The Force allowed a nine-year-old Anakin to pod race.

See? You had to break down my paragraph into individual sentences and justify them one by one. But they work together in a movie and compound on each other as I already said. Luke didn't blow up the Death Star AND defeat Darth Vader in a duel AND user the mind trick better than Obi Wan AND dazzle Han Solo with his knowledge of hyperspace mechanics. If he did guess what we would call his character?
I mean I'm coming across as if I hate Rey but I actually like her despite all the Mary Sue shit. I thought her relation with Kylo was one of the most interesting in all of Star Wars but she does have a lot of Mary Sue in her.

How is it remotely dispositive that I took apart individual claims in a paragraph to deal with them in turn? Gish Gallopping a bunch of claims together doesn't make them stronger.

OK he is weakened both physically and mentally. He is not at 100%. That means that someone who didn't know what the Force is 5 hours ago can take him on? It's not about him, I'm not one of the people that say "LOL Kylo is a pussy becuz he lost to a grl". Her sudden abilities are jarring here.

And if she were some ordinary Force sensitive without any particularly noteworthy level of power, I could understand that. But this is clearly not the case. TLJ tells us she is a sort of chosen one much as Anakin was.

It has since been taken down, but did you actually see what Hidalgo referred to? He referred to the destruction of the Malevolence in TCW and what we saw there can't be compared to what we see happened to that ship. The navicomputer of the Malevolence had been programmed by Anakin for a collision course on the Moon of Antar, but we didn't see the ship jump to hyperspace. What we saw was the ship crashing into the moon. The hyperspace ramming was just another one of the many conveniences.

It's Malevolence, yes, and it was a hyperspace jump. There's a quote from the script in the tweet confirming it.

What does the movie tell us? That she's a scavenger living in an AT-AT on a desert world and who plays with pilot helmets. When the movie does tell us that she's a pilot it's with a throwaway line:

FINN
We need a pilot!

REY
We've got one!

Where did that come from? There was nothing before that suggesting that she was a pilot. And when she does takes off with the Falcon, she nearly crashes it. At least with Luke, his piloting skills were acknowledged by another character (Obi-Wan). However, while I at first regarded the character as a Mary Sue, I've since re-evaluated the character. I like the character of Rey and find Poe Dameron to be more of the Mary (or Gary) Stu. Rey survived on her own on the hostile and uninviting world of Jakku, a feat that required serious skills. However, that doesn't necessarily had to have included piloting skills (and I don't see how it could).

A character's skills don't need to be acknowledged by another character in order for them to be accepted. But that's not all Rey says.

INT. MILLENNIUM FALCON - CORRIDOR - DAY

Rey races past BB-8, who is RETRACTING his safety restraints.
Finn, adrenalized, climbs from the turret, meets Rey in the
corridor, the LOUNGE in the b.g..

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: REY
FINN Good shooting! Thanks! I--
Now that was some I don't know! -- I've
flying! How did you flown some ships but I've
do that?! No one never left the planet!
trained you? No one? Your last shot was dead
That was amazing! on. You got him with one
(beat) blast!
You set me up for it! (laughs)
(cocky) It was perfect!
That was pretty good.
They're just staring at each other now, seeing something odd
and weird and wonderful -- two people totally inexperienced
in joy and camaraderie.

(it is easy to miss since Finn and Rey are excitedly talking over each other)