Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Knife]

Yeah, cuz Vader v Luke doesn't have any other issue going on besides Force training...

Oh wait, they do. Luke thinks Vader killed his father (thanks Obi Wan). Vader know's Luke is his kid, knows he is powerful, knows Palpatine wants him bad. Luke was specifically told Vader was evil and specifically told Jedi don't use the force to attack but to defend, but we also know Luke is young and reckless.

And Rey and Kylo are......

This is getting ridiculous. You don't seem to think they need any explanation about why they do the things they do. There are no great themes in the movie(s) to fill in the blanks. Sure they hit you with themes, but then counter act them in other themes or in dialogue. At some point you have to have a clear idea of what and why the characters are doing things. When they don't do it for good reasons, or as part of a series they suddenly do something they wouldn't last movie, it's bad.

[Shroom Man 777]

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.

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.

I didn't mean to say that Vympel's right in finding infodump reasons to justify a scene or that infodumps justify it. I'm saying that your dichotomy isn't absolute, there are worldbuilding and infodump-loving people who nonetheless can recognize themes and such and appreciate them and even end up valuing them over the initial worldbuilding and infodumping.

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.

I don't think they should be totally forbidden just because they're scenes of utter perplexity. I mean, in real life there are people who fell great distances from planes and somehow survived despite how most often that results in total death. But yeah, I agree that one-off freak happenstances that can occur and be treated with great impact shouldn't be trivialized and repeated for-forever. The fact that, reality or not, there are contrived reasons that enable these to happen should be a way to prevent 'em from being over-used. Ideally. Unless their re-using becomes a plot point that's described, but again it should be worked properly.

Anyway, in-universe and in-character, characters would totally be sanest if they themselves consciously avoid getting into unsolvable binds and obstacles and near-death situations that require said near-miraculous happenstances (hence people are like "we gotta run and not get killed by orcs" instead of "it's OK Gandalf will save us with eagles again!").

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.

The crazy thing is that I bet you Lucas' amount of worldbuilding-focus when it comes to tech, rather than mythos, nowhere comes close to the amount of worldbuilding-fixation or focus here. I don't think worldbuilding was "disrespected" here.

[Shroom Man 777]

IMO, injured Kylo could be given a hard time or even trounced by non-Jedi non-Force-sensitive Praetorians (they aren't Force sensitive, right?), or well-trained badass-enough normies like killfuck-happy Tuskens, Trandoshans with battlehs, or say orphan girls used to scavenging in death worlds and fending off who-knows-what with stick.

[Civil War Man]

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'm totally in the Finn/Poe camp. Seriously, man, Poe gave Finn his jacket. When have you ever seen a movie character give another movie character their jacket as a gift and have them not end up as a love interest?

[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.

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.

Not all of them, in my opinion. I don't think, for example, that this film undermines TFA quite as much as some seem to think.

I think about 70% of the problems with it can be summed up thusly: it feels like the filmmakers couldn't make up their minds weather they were making an homage to Star Wars, a parody of Star Wars, or a deconstruction of Star Wars, and failed to integrate those elements into a cohesive whole.

The remaining 30% of its problems, in my opinion, can mostly be summed up as "Stupid Shipping Shit".

[Kojiro]

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.

Regarding gatekeeping, I think it's important to differentiate between people not wanting to admit new members and people not wanting the property changed to suit new members.

For example, I write a lot of my own settings for gaming, and I'll often ask people for input on them. They'll give suggestions, mostly based on what they think would be cool. Indeed it seems some people can almost *only* suggest ways they think existing thing would be cooler, and I have to say no because I've already established how it works in a way that fits the setting. The response I get is often 'You're not really open to new ideas' which isn't the case- they just have to work within the larger framework that *everything else* fits into. For an idea to upset the entire ecosystem I've created it's got to be more than just cool looking- it's got to do it better or it's just creating problems (and any setting creator can tell you you'll have plenty of those anyway).

That's kinda where I see the gatekeeping issue you're talking about. It's often framed as not wanting certain people involved (such as women) but I honestly don't think that's common. I think it's far more about preserving a setting, or preserving the would be gatekeepers interpretation of it. In this capacity, many settings are the products of male brains and women might well 'challenge' them, which could have some correlation, but I'd resist what I perceive as unwarranted (never mind setting breaking) change no matter who suggests it. I've never in my experience seen someone rejected who loved the thing a group loved.

I'm one of those people who think for example that Rey is a Sue- she's too good without *earning* it, all coming by convenience or contrivance. Nothing is hard for her or stops her for more than a few moments. Thus far the only time we've seen Rey thwarted was when first encountering Kylo, but all that does is serve as a vehicle to showcase her awesomeness. She goes from frozen to dominating Kylo's mind and mind tricking a stormtrooper and eluding capture. Imagine she was never caught, and just went with Han and Finn to sabotage the base. Nothing much changes in the story except we've now got vastly less reason to call her a Sue. As is, she breaks my concept of how things should work. And that's true even if I can't articulate it (though I think I can). And to me, if you're a fan of something, you're not looking to turn it on it's head

TL;DR I think there's a difference between the gatekeeping of 'no girls allowed' and 'I like this as is'.

[jollyreaper]

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.

I had mixed feelings about this scene. Yeah, it's breaking all prior lore. Even if we ignore all EU and games content, just stick with the movies, it's one of those things "If they could always do this, why didn't they before?"

So, putting all that aside and pretending this isn't Star Wars...

I think the visuals they had there were just short of good. They had a great shot but ruined it in the edit. They cut it too fast.

My assumption is that people spend so much time working on the shots that they're trying to trim them for brevity and impact but their over familiarity with the material makes them the wrong person to consider it when presenting to a new audience for the first time. There was a comparison made between Into Darkness and Wrath of Khan that showed the older film held cuts for 2 to 3 times longer, especially in action scenes. For the panning of establishing shots they held the camera longer on average. I think we're all familiar with modern meth editing, exemplified by that fence jump in Taken, 15 cuts in 6 seconds.

The cutting of sound is a real anime thing and gets your attention because it's not something done in Star Wars. But I think if each cut was held just a little longer it would have been more impactful. (ba-dum-tsh.)

As a PS given that it's a starship making a jump to lightspeed, I'd imagine it would have torn a bigger hole through the target. The analogy wouldn't be slow-mo bullet through apple, it wouldn't even be like anti-satellite weapon hitting target from a retrograde orbit. It would be ridiculously beyond comprehension.

[The Romulan Republic]

Rey "Mary Sue" stuff

I would say Rey fails or otherwise suffers setbacks on numerous points, actually:

Backstory:

If Kylo is to believed, spent most of her life deluding herself into pining for idealized parents who never existed. Which is more tragic than a personal failing, given that she was abandoned as a small child, but still hardly a case of her always easily succeeding.

Alternately, if this gets retconned-duped by Kylo Ren in TLJ.

TFA:

-Panics and runs off after getting her first Force vision, with the result that she gets captured by Kylo Ren.
-Loses her first potential surrogate father-figure (Han). Again, not her fault, but also hardly qualifies as everything easily going her way.

TLJ:

-Tempted by the Dark Side, fools herself (with help from Snoke) into believing she can redeem Kylo Ren.
-Wastes half the movie failing to convince Luke to help- mostly just convinces him that she can't be trusted (until the very end, and the credit for that arguably goes more to Yoda).
-Utterly outmatched by Snoke, fails to either redeem or kill Kylo Ren.
-Loses her second surrogate father-figure (Luke).

If that's Rey succeeding too easily, what do you want? Two hours of her failing at everything she does? Then people would just say she's a sucky incompetent protagonist.

The reason I tend to suspect her critics of sexism is not merely because they are criticizing a female character, but because they tend to exaggerate or fabricate criticisms, or hold Rey to a standard to which they seem not to hold other (male) characters.

Though it could also be just (non-gender-based) character favoritism, or any of the thousand other reasons fandoms find to give them an ax to grind.

Though I think its also a case of people confusing the ease with which she learns Force powers and such with the ease of her journey as a character. She faces very few challenges in learning how to use the Force. However, that's arguably about the least meaningful form of obstacle the film could throw in her path. Challenges and difficulties in terms of character development and the personal losses she faces are far more meaningful to me.

Now, if you said she was underdeveloped in TFA, I'd agree. And if you said her development in TLJ was handled in a somewhat ham-fisted and awkward manner, I'd agree.

But I disagree with "TEH MARY SUE BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS EASY FOR HER". Because its simply not true, and, to my mind, based on a superficial equation of the relative lack of difficulties with which she masters the Force with lack of difficulties faced as a character.

Personally, I've long since concluded that (at least for a high-end Force user like Luke or Anakin), learning to use the Force is not hard, nor does it take a lot of time, especially if you have the right mindset. A bit part of that being self-confidence in one's ability, and aside from her initial panic after connecting with the Force, Rey generally seems to have that.

Its also notable that the one time Kylo seriously challenges her one-on-one is when she probably doesn't have that- after she's been casually toyed with by Snoke, saved by Kylo, failed to redeem him, and then had her self-delusions about her parentage destroyed by him. Compare how she easily pulled the lightsaber to her and away from him in TFA, vs. their evenly-matched contest after all that in TLJ, despite Rey having more training and experience in TLJ. Some of that can be put down to Kylo not being badly injured the second time around, but a lot, I suspect, can be put down to confidence in their abilities. The first time around, Kylo was conflicted, and Rey was not. The second time around, Kylo had just successfully bested his master and embraced the Dark Side, and Rey had likely had her confidence shaken.

So yeah, I think that generally, learning how to perform different techniques isn't the hard part. Learning how to develop the right mindset if you don't have, and especially learning how to use it responsibly, is what takes the decade or two of training.

[jollyreaper]

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.

While I like the idea of a dark sider being lured to the light as a reversal of the usual light side called to darkness, it does raise some actual psychological questions. Puts me to thinking about reformed nazis and other people who have done heinous stuff.

I completely understand those who were forced into doing awful things upon pain of death. You're some dumb kid conscript in the army and your squad has found some women in the city you attacked and there's a gang rape going on. Peer pressure can be immense and you take part and the memory of this destroys you. I understand it. Or your CO says you have to get in a firing squad and kill the civilians. Again, disobeying orders means you get shot. You comply out of fear. This is never something you would have initiated on your own. It goes against your own instincts and it destroys you.

What is harder to imagine is the sort of person who initiates this kind of thing. Like the soldier who has a captive and then gets the idea of going Abu Ghriab on them. There's a malicious inventiveness and perverted delight involved. It's hard to imagine someone capable of that then having a genuine epiphany and realizing they were being a naughty boy. It strikes me sort of like the Hitler wasn't so bad argument. He killed all the Jews. Yes, but he liked dogs! Ok, yes, I'll give him Blondie. But that hardly makes him a good person. Luke would reach out to him with the Force and say "I sense that you like puppies... and blintzes. So there's a little bit of good in you. But then there's this whole matter of the Holocaust."

I can understand an SS officer who has a wife he loves, children he dotes on and can operate like a human being to people he feels are in his in-group. They're the humans. And he can happily go to work at the concentration camp because the victims there aren't really people according to his world view. It's compartmentalization. But you could hardly define that as having good in him. It's just an example of the horrifying duality humans are capable of.

So I could see Kylo conflicted if he's doing things he thinks are hard but necessary for the greater good and then having doubt as to whether he's serving that good or is just rationalizing evil. But it's harder to see it that way when he's embracing decisions that are pretty hard to see in any fashion other than mustache-twirling evil. As I've said before, it's like with Anakin: it's a pretty big leap to go from having bad feelings about the Jedi approach to things and then suddenly chopping up a bunch of kids with your lightsaber. I can't even begin to explain how that could be rationalized for the greater good and that was Anakin's rationalization, not evil lulz.

[Kojiro]

If Kylo is to believed, spent most of her life deluding herself into pining for idealized parents who never existed. Which is more tragic than a personal failing, given that she was abandoned as a small child, but still hardly a case of her always easily succeeding.

I'll point out that it's Rey that says her parents were nobodies, not Kylo. We're believing Rey, not him. But that aside, it is a tragic backstory sure... but it doesn't appear to have hindered her. She's not scarred from all the fighting she's done, not leather faced from the desert life, has had no problem learning droid, wookie, whatever that alien spoke, flying or engineering. Not only that but she remains idealistic, unjaded, willing to risk herself for a droid she's never met and even more willing to turn down a hefty payday for it. So yeah, it's 'tragic' but there doesn't appear to be much in the way of consequences.

-Panics and runs off after getting her first Force vision, with the result that she gets captured by Kylo Ren.

Which as I said, seems to serve little narrative purpose other than showing she can reverse a mind probe, pull a mind trick and then go ninja stealth. Again, there's no consequence whatsoever to her. The one who pays from all that is Kylo who is humiliated.

-Loses her first potential surrogate father-figure (Han). Again, not her fault, but also hardly qualifies as everything easily going her way.

And Leia loses her husband, Luke and Chewie their friend... undoubtedly a bigger loss to them than her. And again, the real loser here is Kylo as this proves to be the source of HER second victory over him. It's Kylo that's all distraught from Han's death- not her.

-Tempted by the Dark Side, fools herself (with help from Snoke) into believing she can redeem Kylo Ren.

Again, to what consequence? Snoke is killed! Kylo is again left humiliated and she waltzes out of of the Supremacy so trivially it's not even depicted! No guard raises an alarm and nobody bothers to check on the Supreme Leader - or inform him his fleet has been decimated. Kylo is rendered unconscious by the saber split while she just gathers the bits and walks out. If, and this is a big if, she is forced into a fight in the next movie *before* she's had a chance to repair or build a new saber there will be an actual cost. But we'll have to wait for that.

-Wastes half the movie failing to convince Luke to help- mostly just convinces him that she can't be trusted (until the very end, and the credit for that arguably goes more to Yoda).

Doesn't cost her anything and yeah- Yoda validates her in the end.

-Utterly outmatched by Snoke, fails to either redeem or kill Kylo Ren.

Sure, excepting that a) Snoke doesn't survive the encounter and b) Ren is spared by her. NOTHING prevented her taking his saber or one of he guard weapons and finishing him off while unconscious (a state that she managed to avoid somehow). She didn't fail, she chose not to.

-Loses her second surrogate father-figure (Luke).

Again, this loss is far greater to others. But that's also ignoring the almost 100% chance of him returning as a ghost.

If that's Rey succeeding too easily, what do you want? Two hours of her failing at everything she does? Then people would just say she's a sucky incompetent protagonist.

I want to see her fail in a way that doesn't ultimately benefit her. I want to see her fail in ways that actually cost her. Like Poe, for all the success of his dreadnought run, has to live with people dying. Rey has no such burdens- nothing she has done is keeping her up at night with the thought 'I shouldn't have done that'. Certainly not EVERYTHING has to go against her but something should.

The reason I tend to suspect her critics of sexism is not merely because they are criticizing a female character, but because they tend to exaggerate or fabricate criticisms, or hold Rey to a standard to which they seem not to hold other (male) characters.

For me it's more the accumulated feats of Rey are the issue. In ANH Luke is a good pilot because of his latent Force powers, but he needs Obi Wan to protect him in the cantina and against the Tuskans. Conversely is a fantastic pilot and doesn't need help even when ambushed and outnumbered. Luke isn't the one to pull the mind trick on the stormtrooper, but Rey is- she literally takes the role of Obi Wan in a film that is clearly paralleling ANH.

Though it could also be just (non-gender-based) character favoritism, or any of the thousand other reasons fandoms find to give them an ax to grind.

For me it's got nothing to do with her gender. I love awesome female characters (Aeryn Sun is probably my favorite).

But I disagree with "TEH MARY SUE BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS EASY FOR HER". Because its simply not true, and, to my mind, based on a superficial equation of the relative lack of difficulties with which she masters the Force with lack of difficulties faced as a character.

Not just easy, but even when she appears to fail it seems to work out for the best anyway. The story seems to bend over backwards to accommodate her- such as having her held (on a planet sized base no less) within walking distance of the shield controls. Or having her stumble upon Luke's saber. Or just walking out of Snoke's throne room. The 'difficulties' she faces are unconvincing and ultimately revealed to be vehicles of success for her.

Personally, I've long since concluded that (at least for a high-end Force user like Luke or Anakin), learning to use the Force is not hard, nor does it take a lot of time, especially if you have the right mindset. A bit part of that being self-confidence in one's ability, and aside from her initial panic after connecting with the Force, Rey generally seems to have that.

And this is where I'd say you're not applying standards equally to her. In her battle with Kylo Ren for example, he's weakened by his emotional turmoil. But what about hers? She's been forced off Jakku, away from her supposedly important family trauma, she's been shot at, nearly blown up, eaten and pursued. She's just watched her father figure slaughtered brutally, been captured and mind raped. Then she sees Kylo waiting in the forest. The last time she tried to fight him he casually froze her, then knocker her out *with a wave of his hand*. This time he casually throws her 20ft in the air into a tree, knocking her out. When she comes to, it's just in time to see her only friend sliced viciously down the back and likely killed.

It's all good and fine to say Kylo was emotionally distraught but fuck, she should be an emotional mess. But she's not. When she uses the Force, she bitch slaps Kylo senseless.

Its also notable that the one time Kylo seriously challenges her one-on-one is when she probably doesn't have that- after she's been casually toyed with by Snoke, saved by Kylo, failed to redeem him, and then had her self-delusions about her parentage destroyed by him. Compare how she easily pulled the lightsaber to her and away from him in TFA, vs. their evenly-matched contest after all that in TLJ, despite Rey having more training and experience in TLJ. Some of that can be put down to Kylo not being badly injured the second time around, but a lot, I suspect, can be put down to confidence in their abilities. The first time around, Kylo was conflicted, and Rey was not. The second time around, Kylo had just successfully bested his master and embraced the Dark Side, and Rey had likely had her confidence shaken.

And yet he doesn't win! Despite being vastly more trained, despite no longer being conflicted and despite her turmoil, it's a *draw*. And he's the one left lying unconscious while she wanders out from what must be the most secure area of the ship.

As I said, the only 'cost' to her so far is the saber being broken, and we'll have to wait and see if that actually comes back to haunt her (given she's an engineer and will likely have Luke to guide her I doubt it). As is she basically walks in (no one bothers to tractor beam the Falcon or use that fancy new hyperspace tracking on it) and walks out with Snoke dead, making it back in time to blow up some TIEs and then rescue the survivors. The ESB parallel is Luke goes to see Vader, in which of course Luke is soundly beaten, loses a hand and the very same saber, escaping through a somewhat contrived means, but nothing like wandering out the throne room. At least when Luke wandered out with Vader in RotJ he was helping him, which at least projects one black dressed Imperial helping another.

I could buy Rey a whole lot more with a few tweaks. For example, have her simply find BB8 rather than challenge another scavenger (who instilled this sense of droid rights in her anyway?) We drop a language from her impressive set and we don't have to wonder why she's willing to get into it with this guy over what appears to be salvage. She's just a smidge less perfect. Luke, for example, didn't really care about R2, he was more worried about getting in trouble, but Rey comes pre packaged with droid empathy we're shown. Even though she's supposed to be toughened up and fight savvy from her years living in such conditions with no protector or parents. I can believe she's a street smart loner scavenger OR she's a idealistic naive youth but I have trouble accepting her as both simultaneously.

And I think part of it is that I really wanted to like the new trilogy. I really, really did. So fucking much. And friends say 'turn your brain off' but I can't. Don't work like that. I would fucking love to see Rey as awesome but I'm just constantly pulled out of the setting. I think partly that didn't happen with the OT because I was a child (I'm old enough to have seen Empire and Jedi in cinemas) and I'm just too critical now. Like a child with religion, it just makes sense as a kid that you can't seem to excuse as an adult. It's also interesting that I really like Rogue One and Jyn Erso, which shouldn't be the case if my complaints are based on gender.

[Kojiro]

If Kylo is to believed, spent most of her life deluding herself into pining for idealized parents who never existed. Which is more tragic than a personal failing, given that she was abandoned as a small child, but still hardly a case of her always easily succeeding.

I'll point out that it's Rey that says her parents were nobodies, not Kylo. We're believing Rey, not him. But that aside, it is a tragic backstory sure... but it doesn't appear to have hindered her. She's not scarred from all the fighting she's done, not leather faced from the desert life, has had no problem learning droid, wookie, whatever that alien spoke, flying or engineering. Not only that but she remains idealistic, unjaded, willing to risk herself for a droid she's never met and even more willing to turn down a hefty payday for it. So yeah, it's 'tragic' but there doesn't appear to be much in the way of consequences.

-Panics and runs off after getting her first Force vision, with the result that she gets captured by Kylo Ren.

Which as I said, seems to serve little narrative purpose other than showing she can reverse a mind probe, pull a mind trick and then go ninja stealth. Again, there's no consequence whatsoever to her. The one who pays from all that is Kylo who is humiliated.

-Loses her first potential surrogate father-figure (Han). Again, not her fault, but also hardly qualifies as everything easily going her way.

And Leia loses her husband, Luke and Chewie their friend... undoubtedly a bigger loss to them than her. And again, the real loser here is Kylo as this proves to be the source of HER second victory over him. It's Kylo that's all distraught from Han's death- not her.

-Tempted by the Dark Side, fools herself (with help from Snoke) into believing she can redeem Kylo Ren.

Again, to what consequence? Snoke is killed! Kylo is again left humiliated and she waltzes out of of the Supremacy so trivially it's not even depicted! No guard raises an alarm and nobody bothers to check on the Supreme Leader - or inform him his fleet has been decimated. Kylo is rendered unconscious by the saber split while she just gathers the bits and walks out. If, and this is a big if, she is forced into a fight in the next movie *before* she's had a chance to repair or build a new saber there will be an actual cost. But we'll have to wait for that.

-Wastes half the movie failing to convince Luke to help- mostly just convinces him that she can't be trusted (until the very end, and the credit for that arguably goes more to Yoda).

Doesn't cost her anything and yeah- Yoda validates her in the end.

-Utterly outmatched by Snoke, fails to either redeem or kill Kylo Ren.

Sure, excepting that a) Snoke doesn't survive the encounter and b) Ren is spared by her. NOTHING prevented her taking his saber or one of he guard weapons and finishing him off while unconscious (a state that she managed to avoid somehow). She didn't fail, she chose not to.

-Loses her second surrogate father-figure (Luke).

Again, this loss is far greater to others. But that's also ignoring the almost 100% chance of him returning as a ghost.

If that's Rey succeeding too easily, what do you want? Two hours of her failing at everything she does? Then people would just say she's a sucky incompetent protagonist.

I want to see her fail in a way that doesn't ultimately benefit her. I want to see her fail in ways that actually cost her. Like Poe, for all the success of his dreadnought run, has to live with people dying. Rey has no such burdens- nothing she has done is keeping her up at night with the thought 'I shouldn't have done that'. Certainly not EVERYTHING has to go against her but something should.

The reason I tend to suspect her critics of sexism is not merely because they are criticizing a female character, but because they tend to exaggerate or fabricate criticisms, or hold Rey to a standard to which they seem not to hold other (male) characters.

For me it's more the accumulated feats of Rey are the issue. In ANH Luke is a good pilot because of his latent Force powers, but he needs Obi Wan to protect him in the cantina and against the Tuskans. Conversely is a fantastic pilot and doesn't need help even when ambushed and outnumbered. Luke isn't the one to pull the mind trick on the stormtrooper, but Rey is- she literally takes the role of Obi Wan in a film that is clearly paralleling ANH.

Though it could also be just (non-gender-based) character favoritism, or any of the thousand other reasons fandoms find to give them an ax to grind.

For me it's got nothing to do with her gender. I love awesome female characters (Aeryn Sun is probably my favorite).

But I disagree with "TEH MARY SUE BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS EASY FOR HER". Because its simply not true, and, to my mind, based on a superficial equation of the relative lack of difficulties with which she masters the Force with lack of difficulties faced as a character.

Not just easy, but even when she appears to fail it seems to work out for the best anyway. The story seems to bend over backwards to accommodate her- such as having her held (on a planet sized base no less) within walking distance of the shield controls. Or having her stumble upon Luke's saber. Or just walking out of Snoke's throne room. The 'difficulties' she faces are unconvincing and ultimately revealed to be vehicles of success for her.

Personally, I've long since concluded that (at least for a high-end Force user like Luke or Anakin), learning to use the Force is not hard, nor does it take a lot of time, especially if you have the right mindset. A bit part of that being self-confidence in one's ability, and aside from her initial panic after connecting with the Force, Rey generally seems to have that.

And this is where I'd say you're not applying standards equally to her. In her battle with Kylo Ren for example, he's weakened by his emotional turmoil. But what about hers? She's been forced off Jakku, away from her supposedly important family trauma, she's been shot at, nearly blown up, eaten and pursued. She's just watched her father figure slaughtered brutally, been captured and mind raped. Then she sees Kylo waiting in the forest. The last time she tried to fight him he casually froze her, then knocker her out *with a wave of his hand*. This time he casually throws her 20ft in the air into a tree, knocking her out. When she comes to, it's just in time to see her only friend sliced viciously down the back and likely killed.

It's all good and fine to say Kylo was emotionally distraught but fuck, she should be an emotional mess. But she's not. When she uses the Force, she bitch slaps Kylo senseless.

Its also notable that the one time Kylo seriously challenges her one-on-one is when she probably doesn't have that- after she's been casually toyed with by Snoke, saved by Kylo, failed to redeem him, and then had her self-delusions about her parentage destroyed by him. Compare how she easily pulled the lightsaber to her and away from him in TFA, vs. their evenly-matched contest after all that in TLJ, despite Rey having more training and experience in TLJ. Some of that can be put down to Kylo not being badly injured the second time around, but a lot, I suspect, can be put down to confidence in their abilities. The first time around, Kylo was conflicted, and Rey was not. The second time around, Kylo had just successfully bested his master and embraced the Dark Side, and Rey had likely had her confidence shaken.

And yet he doesn't win! Despite being vastly more trained, despite no longer being conflicted and despite her turmoil, it's a *draw*. And he's the one left lying unconscious while she wanders out from what must be the most secure area of the ship.

As I said, the only 'cost' to her so far is the saber being broken, and we'll have to wait and see if that actually comes back to haunt her (given she's an engineer and will likely have Luke to guide her I doubt it). As is she basically walks in (no one bothers to tractor beam the Falcon or use that fancy new hyperspace tracking on it) and walks out with Snoke dead, making it back in time to blow up some TIEs and then rescue the survivors. The ESB parallel is Luke goes to see Vader, in which of course Luke is soundly beaten, loses a hand and the very same saber, escaping through a somewhat contrived means, but nothing like wandering out the throne room. At least when Luke wandered out with Vader in RotJ he was helping him, which at least projects one black dressed Imperial helping another.

I could buy Rey a whole lot more with a few tweaks. For example, have her simply find BB8 rather than challenge another scavenger (who instilled this sense of droid rights in her anyway?) We drop a language from her impressive set and we don't have to wonder why she's willing to get into it with this guy over what appears to be salvage. She's just a smidge less perfect. Luke, for example, didn't really care about R2, he was more worried about getting in trouble, but Rey comes pre packaged with droid empathy we're shown. Even though she's supposed to be toughened up and fight savvy from her years living in such conditions with no protector or parents. I can believe she's a street smart loner scavenger OR she's a idealistic naive youth but I have trouble accepting her as both simultaneously.

And I think part of it is that I really wanted to like the new trilogy. I really, really did. So fucking much. And friends say 'turn your brain off' but I can't. Don't work like that. I would fucking love to see Rey as awesome but I'm just constantly pulled out of the setting. I think partly that didn't happen with the OT because I was a child (I'm old enough to have seen Empire and Jedi in cinemas) and I'm just too critical now. Like a child with religion, it just makes sense as a kid that you can't seem to excuse as an adult. It's also interesting that I really like Rogue One and Jyn Erso, which shouldn't be the case if my complaints are based on gender.

[Vympel]

I'll point out that it's Rey that says her parents were nobodies, not Kylo. We're believing Rey, not him. But that aside, it is a tragic backstory sure... but it doesn't appear to have hindered her. She's not scarred from all the fighting she's done, not leather faced from the desert life, has had no problem learning droid, wookie, whatever that alien spoke, flying or engineering. Not only that but she remains idealistic, unjaded, willing to risk herself for a droid she's never met and even more willing to turn down a hefty payday for it. So yeah, it's 'tragic' but there doesn't appear to be much in the way of consequences.

The point of the scene is to serve as a parallel to Vader's reveal to Luke as his father in TESB. It's the worst possible thing to acknowledge at that very moment - a test of her character. Exactly like Luke, she refuses to give in to the easy path and resists.

Again, to what consequence? Snoke is killed! Kylo is again left humiliated and she waltzes out of of the Supremacy so trivially it's not even depicted! No guard raises an alarm and nobody bothers to check on the Supreme Leader - or inform him his fleet has been decimated. Kylo is rendered unconscious by the saber split while she just gathers the bits and walks out. If, and this is a big if, she is forced into a fight in the next movie *before* she's had a chance to repair or build a new saber there will be an actual cost. But we'll have to wait for that.

Given that simultaneous with the saber splitting the Supremacy suffered a catastrophic hull breach, I really don't see this is a big deal. The ship would have been in chaos. I just don't see what is gained by showing her leave the throne room - since she left with Snoke's personal escape craft, it's probably in the very next room. And the Praetorians are his guards. It seems pretty clear that if there are any other guards, they'd be at the foot of the lift that they got on to get to his throne room in the first place.

As to Kylo being 'humiliated' - how? They're evenly matched. Is he to be held responsible for how hard he hit the ground when the saber basically detonated? How is that a reflection on him?

And this is where I'd say you're not applying standards equally to her. In her battle with Kylo Ren for example, he's weakened by his emotional turmoil. But what about hers? She's been forced off Jakku, away from her supposedly important family trauma, she's been shot at, nearly blown up, eaten and pursued. She's just watched her father figure slaughtered brutally, been captured and mind raped. Then she sees Kylo waiting in the forest. The last time she tried to fight him he casually froze her, then knocker her out *with a wave of his hand*. This time he casually throws her 20ft in the air into a tree, knocking her out. When she comes to, it's just in time to see her only friend sliced viciously down the back and likely killed.

It's all good and fine to say Kylo was emotionally distraught but fuck, she should be an emotional mess. But she's not. When she uses the Force, she bitch slaps Kylo senseless.

Kylo drives her back basically the entire fight until the very end. At no point is she actually winning until she actually opens herself to the Force - something which Kylo is clearly failing to do effectively himself. As to emotional turmoil, Rey isn't carrying around the guilt of murdering her own father - passively watching someone get murdered, going through a gamut of stressful situations (through which she had a significant lull at multiple points in the movie) - its not the same. Rey is not like Ben. She's not carrying around an inner conflict between the dark side and the light side. None of the things that happened to Rey would 'split her spirit in two'.

[Crazedwraith]

Random thought: Would it have been better or worse if Luke's mistake had been the opposite of what is was in canon? Instead of having a moment of weakness and being tempted to strike Ben down when he sensed the darkness, if he'd resisted and tried too long and too hard to redeem/pull a Vader on him?

[APlayerHater]

Rey "Mary Sue" stuff

The reason I tend to suspect her critics of sexism is not merely because they are criticizing a female character, but because they tend to exaggerate or fabricate criticisms, or hold Rey to a standard to which they seem not to hold other (male) characters.

That is completely unfair. There have always been plenty of female protagonists in Scifi and nobody complains about them. Sarah Conner and Ellen Ripley are the main characters in 2 of the most successful and influential Scifi series of all time. You also have Furiosa from MadMax; who is basically who Rey should be; broken down emotionally and mentally from her years of slavery in a desert, desperately trying to find her parents and her way home in order to find this idealized fantasy version of what her home was like, only to be shattered emotionally when she finds out the place she dreamed of no longer exists. Rey kind of wants to find her parents, but all it really amounts to is wanting to go back to Jakku and trying to see her parents in the Mirror of Erised-- Er, I mean... In the Mirror of Erised, we are ripping off Harry Potter. Rey's vision in the cave is stupid and just "trippy for the sake of trippy" rather than meaning anything, because this series is creatively bankrupt.

It's been repeatedly pointed out to you that Rey is a much more capable character than Luke with no explanation. She's also a "better person" because she believes in droid rights, can speak wookiee for some reason and doesn't question the presence of chewbacca, etc. She's "woke" so to speak and so cannot have any flawed beliefs. She's apparently the only one in the SW universe who thinks droids are their own beings worthy of having any rights. She goes so far as to having learned their language, which no character in SW has ever done (outside of stupid CG cartoons). (Don't say Luke and the gang can understand R2, they can't and they never could have, watch the movies.)

Basically she goes through every situation that Luke does in ANH, but on her own with no help from any friends. When she needs Luke's piloting skills she has them, when she needs Han's/Chewbacca's mechanic skills she has it, when she needs Obi's force powers she has that, she's an instant crack shot with a blaster despite seemingly never having held one before, she can pull off impossible insane stunts like shooting a TIE fighter with a fixed-place gun on the other side of her ship while doing a backflip. We know this is her first time shooting a gun or driving the MC, and her only explanation is "I don't know lol"

You say people don't want a main character who fails all the time, but Luke fails all the time constantly through those movies; Luke, Han and Leia, and even R2 and 3PO have to constantly save his ass and they barely muddle through the Death Star escape by the skin of their teeth, and that's even with Vader letting them escape. Luke destroys the death star at the end, but doesn't show much more competence with flying than anybody else did, and only succeeds because Obi Wan was helping him. Some guy even pulled off the DS trench run before him; the only reason the other guy failed was because the targeting computer messed up. --Because they literally needed a miracle shot to pull that off, it's just Obi/Luke using the force to bend the rules a tiny, tiny amount to make that possible, not Rey casually mind controlling people and defeating the movie's Darth Vader using a weapon she has literally never held before.

Also, Rey can just casually sneak around Starkiller Base without a disguise. Apparently there aren't security cameras in star wars anymore. You know, like the ones the characters had to shoot in ANH? Or the ones all over Han Solo's ship so we can watch the Rathtars eat people? Yeah, no more security cameras apparently. Rey can also casually walk out of a first order Starship no problem after killing their leader; you'd think in a crisis the first thing they would do would be to try to get to their leader to check to see if he was okay.

Basically, we're criticizing Rey because we're holding her to the same standard as Luke, which is completely fair because this is one in a series of movies which Disney bought and paid for and new what they were signing up for when they started making sequels. Everything in these movies is so ridiculously heightened for no reason that makes any sense just for the sake of power creep to give the illusion that something exciting is happening while completely throwing the established setting in the garbage.

[APlayerHater]

((whoop repost))

[Kojiro]

The point of the scene is to serve as a parallel to Vader's reveal to Luke as his father in TESB. It's the worst possible thing to acknowledge at that very moment - a test of her character. Exactly like Luke, she refuses to give in to the easy path and resists.

She sure does, which is kinda my point. The tragic backstory TRR mentions is more or less overcome in a few moments. It doesn't seem to unbalance her at all.

Given that simultaneous with the saber splitting the Supremacy suffered a catastrophic hull breach, I really don't see this is a big deal. The ship would have been in chaos. I just don't see what is gained by showing her leave the throne room - since she left with Snoke's personal escape craft, it's probably in the very next room. And the Praetorians are his guards. It seems pretty clear that if there are any other guards, they'd be at the foot of the lift that they got on to get to his throne room in the first place.

Come on man, that's weak. First, it's certainly a nasty hit, but it's also a good 10km from where they are. Now where Finn and Rose were- that place is chaos. Flames, collapsing structure, all that. And this is a military vessel, not some civilian catastrophe, there's every reason to expect discipline 10km or so from the site of an attack. Secondly, there's every reason to have someone come inform Snoke that something terrible just happened to his ship and fleet. It's also entirely reasonable that his guards might raise some sort of alarm or shit, maybe someone wants to make sure the Supreme Leader is ok? Lastly that even should put *everyone* on high alert. They've been boarded and now it seems they've suffered some terrible strike. That should make moving around- looking like Rey does- fucking difficult. That's before we even consider she found/got to the craft, was able to hotwire it and it has no tracking beacon built in. Nor did anyone think to track it with that new hyperspace tracking.

As to Kylo being 'humiliated' - how? They're evenly matched. Is he to be held responsible for how hard he hit the ground when the saber basically detonated? How is that a reflection on him?

It's a reflection on him that the trained, no longer unbalanced experienced force user couldn't best an untrained novice who had is watching her friends die and just come to terms with her 'tragic backstory'. Every reason he lost the first fight is reversed here and she still ties- with faster recovery. Now Kylo is left to explain how Rey bested him again, along with the death of the Supreme Leader, and her subsequent escape. That's embarrassing by any standard.

Kylo drives her back basically the entire fight until the very end. At no point is she actually winning until she actually opens herself to the Force - something which Kylo is clearly failing to do effectively himself. As to emotional turmoil, Rey isn't carrying around the guilt of murdering her own father - passively watching someone get murdered, going through a gamut of stressful situations (through which she had a significant lull at multiple points in the movie) - its not the same. Rey is not like Ben. She's not carrying around an inner conflict between the dark side and the light side. None of the things that happened to Rey would 'split her spirit in two'.

I don't mind her beating Ren under that paradigm, but it has to work both ways. Rey was, as Luke says, 'Going straight to the Dark' and indeed, given the chance, she goes straight there. And her experience is odd, but hardly terrifying. And she's supposed to be conflicted over Kylo- literally crying 'Don't do this' as he offers her a chance to join him. Yet even a focused Kylo cannot best her even as we're supposed to believe she is conflicted. But she's better than all that. No fear or hatred for her despite the frankly shocking couple of days she's had or the fact her friends are being killed, if not already dead. Yet she retains her pure connection to the Force and we're back to 'nothing has any consequence for her'.

I will say there's a glitch here in the film too. When Kylo tells her to 'let the past die' he has not yet retrieved his saber and it's still lying on the ground some distance away. When Rey pulls Luke's to her, it magically reappears on his belt. This, I think, is particularly harmful to the scene. Because if Kylo is otherwise unarmed, he's got no choice but to get into a pulling contest with her (remember they start really close to each other). But if he's armed, and his right hand is free (as it is) the obvious action for him is to simply grab his saber and cut her down. Near as I can tell that's just a cinematic error though.

EDIT: Fixed quote box

[Galvatron]

Forgive me for not posting a wall of text, but I just stumbled across this and thought it would be salient...

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-8-last ... n-johnson/

I'm not sure whether to be angry or relieved.

[Civil War Man]

Random thought: Would it have been better or worse if Luke's mistake had been the opposite of what is was in canon? Instead of having a moment of weakness and being tempted to strike Ben down when he sensed the darkness, if he'd resisted and tried too long and too hard to redeem/pull a Vader on him?

I think it would have been truer to Luke's character, so it at least has the potential to have been better. Kylo Ren's characterization could potentially suffer as a result, though, if the new reason for his fall, and the reason for him not being redeemable like Vader, is mishandled, so it could also end up being worse.

So, on the "Is Rey a Mary Sue?" debate, I wouldn't necessarily say that she is one, since many of the arguments in favor can also be applied to at least some degree to characters like Luke. However, my impression is that she is at least a bit closer to being one in TLJ than she is in TFA. Even then, it's not so much what she does as it is the speed with which she seems to do it. It's difficult to say exactly how long Luke and Rey underwent formal training, since the timeline for how long they were on Dagobah and Ahch-To, respectively, is a bit wonky. Still, if we assume that Rey spent a few days on Ahch-to and Luke spent several days or even a few weeks on Dagobah, then neither of them received all that much in the way of formal training and are mostly self-taught.

For me, the real discrepancy is between Luke facing the Emperor in ROTJ and Rey facing Snoke in TLJ. The two events are obviously meant to parallel each other, with Johnson's twist being that even though the Vader-analogue turns on his master, he rejects redemption. Both events also represent the protagonist coming into their own as a Jedi, even if they take place in different parts of the character's arcs (Luke's showdown with Palpatine is the culmination of his journey, while Rey's showdown with Snoke happens somewhere in the middle). There's no real problem with that, since Luke and Rey shouldn't have the exact same arc. In-universe, though, Rey's arc is way more rushed. Even if we acknowledge that neither Luke nor Rey had a significant amount of formal training, Luke's actualization as a Jedi, as opposed to merely a Force sensitive individual, came years after his introduction to the Force, while Rey reached essentially the same point in a matter of, at most, days.

[Kojiro]

It's difficult to say exactly how long Luke and Rey underwent formal training, since the timeline for how long they were on Dagobah and Ahch-To, respectively, is a bit wonky. Still, if we assume that Rey spent a few days on Ahch-to and Luke spent several days or even a few weeks on Dagobah, then neither of them received all that much in the way of formal training and are mostly self-taught.

We know exactly how long Rey was there. She spent a day more or less being ignored by Luke, who then began her 'training' that morning. She had her time sitting on the rock, then Luke walked away, properly scared this time. Then she goes down to the cave, has her force vision with Ren, confronts Luke and leaves. Her time there is in parallel with the pursuit, which we know lasted no more than 18 hours based on fuel (not counting what fueled the shuttles or was burned in the hyperspace jump). Either way, 18 hours max on Ahch-To. Very, very little time with Luke or training though. An hour might well be overstating it.

Even if we acknowledge that neither Luke nor Rey had a significant amount of formal training, Luke's actualization as a Jedi, as opposed to merely a Force sensitive individual, came years after his introduction to the Force, while Rey reached essentially the same point in a matter of, at most, days.

This is the problem I have too. Day 1, Rey finds BB8. Day 2, Rey meets everyone. She gets told by Han that that Force is real, meets Maz, finds the lightsaber and is captured by Kylo. Let's be generous and say on Day 3 she escapes using the mind trick after learning mind probing/defense and a few hours later confronts Kylo Ren. By Day 4 she's at Ahch-To and leaves by Day 5, where she holds her own against Snokes guards, defeats Kylo and then comes in to save the Resistance. All in all, she's had a very busy week and it's not even the weekend yet. To say her progress is rushed would be extremely generous.

[Shroom Man 777]

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.

Regarding gatekeeping, I think it's important to differentiate between people not wanting to admit new members and people not wanting the property changed to suit new members.

For example, I write a lot of my own settings for gaming, and I'll often ask people for input on them. They'll give suggestions, mostly based on what they think would be cool. Indeed it seems some people can almost *only* suggest ways they think existing thing would be cooler, and I have to say no because I've already established how it works in a way that fits the setting. The response I get is often 'You're not really open to new ideas' which isn't the case- they just have to work within the larger framework that *everything else* fits into. For an idea to upset the entire ecosystem I've created it's got to be more than just cool looking- it's got to do it better or it's just creating problems (and any setting creator can tell you you'll have plenty of those anyway).

That's kinda where I see the gatekeeping issue you're talking about. It's often framed as not wanting certain people involved (such as women) but I honestly don't think that's common. I think it's far more about preserving a setting, or preserving the would be gatekeepers interpretation of it. In this capacity, many settings are the products of male brains and women might well 'challenge' them, which could have some correlation, but I'd resist what I perceive as unwarranted (never mind setting breaking) change no matter who suggests it. I've never in my experience seen someone rejected who loved the thing a group loved.

It really depends, I mean I get what you're saying and there are properties where changes worldbuilding-wise may not really be that necessary...

On the other hand, there are a LOT of people who, even when it doesn't involve any profound tweaking of their settings, already get butthurt and say shit like "women swinging swords in the front lines and racial minorities in old fantasy settings full of dragons and magic and wizards are unrealistic." That's where the bother is from.

Your Rey example, your objections in terms of the implementation of characterization isn't gatekeeping IMO. It's fine, I DO think Rey and even Jyn's characterization/s could've been better handled. With Jyn, I think they should've shaved off the Vader fanservice almost entirely and just give a few more minutes to her characterization and angst so there'll be a better progression of neutral rogue don't give a fuck tough badass and into the whole "make instipirational speech in front of Mon Mothra" and go on risky suicide mission with inspired badasses.

On the other hand, people who go "ugh it's Disney just to get more wimmimz with Rey and now Jyn! And Chirrut and Baze for the CHINESE MARKET rawr yuck!" DO exist in certain numbers - I live in Asia and I know Asians with internalized wannabe model minority hangups who complain about increased minority representation, because I dunno they like to imagine they're white people or because western-centric white culture means that ironically they're more comfortable with totally white bread settings? Guh.

TL;DR I think there's a difference between the gatekeeping of 'no girls allowed' and 'I like this as is'.

"I like this as is" can very easily lead to the former of "no ____ allowed" when you go beyond "in-universe" and tackle things like the representation and participation of people in the community, on both the creators and consumers' ends.

If your RP material is egalitarian on-paper, in-content, yet the makers and participants are all sausage fests and they get queasy when gurls and others join in, it DOES add to it. People bitched about how Rick and Morty would be ruined because the production team was getting a better, fairer proportion of women. People go on about "guh you're not a TRUE FAN you gurl just wanna be POPULAR cuz you dunno all the minutia of the setting never saw the Inspector Spacetime rare episodes." Or whatever.

These do exist. I mean, even without the gender and racial issues with regards to certain "new markets," even just general "new folks IN GENERAL getting acquainted to the setting," we have oldies who get bothered. Whether it's how SW is doing it, with characters literally saying let go of the past and embrace change, or new updated editions of tabletop games that try to decrease assbackwards numbercrunching nonsense in order to accomodate people who haven't spent endless hours familiarizing themselves with the most obscure random editions' supplemental addendum erratums of the fluff and mechanics of the Mage Sorceror's Level 2342XY35 Witchalock Blades that creates Wolfoids from the dark shadows of the Shadowdark in the First Age of the Second Age past the dangerous zones of the Danger Zones.

[Vendetta]

Random thought: Would it have been better or worse if Luke's mistake had been the opposite of what is was in canon? Instead of having a moment of weakness and being tempted to strike Ben down when he sensed the darkness, if he'd resisted and tried too long and too hard to redeem/pull a Vader on him?

I think it would have been truer to Luke's character, so it at least has the potential to have been better. Kylo Ren's characterization could potentially suffer as a result, though, if the new reason for his fall, and the reason for him not being redeemable like Vader, is mishandled, so it could also end up being worse.

I think the central idea of TLJ is that the Force is deontological not consequential. It isn’t that Ben Solo is irredeemable but that Rey failed to redeem him because her motivation was selfish. She’s set out to redeem Kylo Ren because that would fulfill the Big Important Destiny she imagined for herself.

Luke succeeded because he sought to redeem Vader for the sake of Anakin Skywalker, Rey failed to redeem Kylo Ren because she did it for the sake of Rey Nobody.

(I mean they made it explicit that was the theme of the film with Rose why are you even confused?)

[ray245]

I didn't mean to say that Vympel's right in finding infodump reasons to justify a scene or that infodumps justify it. I'm saying that your dichotomy isn't absolute, there are worldbuilding and infodump-loving people who nonetheless can recognize themes and such and appreciate them and even end up valuing them over the initial worldbuilding and infodumping.

Of course there can be. The point is finding a nice balance between good world-building and creating a powerful theme for the story. I think the OT did that well, with the prequels doing it decently, but with flaws in its execution.

I think the new directors and storygroup are valuing themes( or powerful imagery) at the expense of world-building.

I don't think they should be totally forbidden just because they're scenes of utter perplexity. I mean, in real life there are people who fell great distances from planes and somehow survived despite how most often that results in total death. But yeah, I agree that one-off freak happenstances that can occur and be treated with great impact shouldn't be trivialized and repeated for-forever. The fact that, reality or not, there are contrived reasons that enable these to happen should be a way to prevent 'em from being over-used. Ideally. Unless their re-using becomes a plot point that's described, but again it should be worked properly.

I think it will be better if filmmakers of sci-fi or fantasy can treat these fictional worlds in the same realm they treat modern day earth. Filmmakers, for example, would avoid scenes of people surviving from a great distance of fall from a plane because such scenes would have distracted the audience. You'll end up either ignoring the need to explain the physics of things, or you actually explain it and ruin the pacing.

You need to communicate the implict assumption about what is possible in the fictional world and what's it's limits are. Sci-fi is a great medium to tell stories set around the limitation of technology. In fact, I'll argue the limitation fo technology within sci-fi is the main driving force of drama. Because by limiting the abilites of a technology, characters have to rely on good old skill and thinking to get themselves out of trouble. Ingenious thinking, by working around the limitation of the technology is what makes certain scenes fun and rewarding for the audience.

Like imagine if Holdo came up with a brilliant strategy that doesn't rely on hyperspace ramming to save the Rebels. Imagine if this is a solution most people didn't even think of but isn't just a deus-ex-machina? It would have solidifed her reputation at the very start of TLJ, where people were impressed that Holdo is on the ship. It would have helped to pay off her character arc.

Instead, what we got is an emotionally powerful scene, but creates all sort of question in the mind of the audience. People are spending more time thinking about the technology instead of the character. And that to me is bad sci-fi writing, where technology overshadows the character.

Anyway, in-universe and in-character, characters would totally be sanest if they themselves consciously avoid getting into unsolvable binds and obstacles and near-death situations that require said near-miraculous happenstances (hence people are like "we gotta run and not get killed by orcs" instead of "it's OK Gandalf will save us with eagles again!").

It's seeing how characters get themselves out of the binds without relying on magic or technology that makes such stories rewarding. It's about characters getting into what we as the audience assume tobe unsolvable binds, but having the character solving in a way unexpected that makes those stories fun. Leia in ANH blasting the door and asking them to jump into a garbage bin does not involve any magic solution. It's about characters solving things somewhat practically.

The crazy thing is that I bet you Lucas' amount of worldbuilding-focus when it comes to tech, rather than mythos, nowhere comes close to the amount of worldbuilding-fixation or focus here. I don't think worldbuilding was "disrespected" here.

Lucas in general, manage to avoid the pitfalls of other sci-fi shows like Star Trek. He has never really use technobabble as a solution to get his characters out of trouble in the films. Yes, the characters do make use of technology, but they don't really use some out-of-nowhere technology to achieve their goals.

Even the force is properly set-up in the movies. The lead up to the trench run is constantly about Obi-Wan and Vader emphasising how powerful the force can be. Vader outright states that the Death Star is insignificant next to the power of the force. And we get to see why when Luke destroys the death star. The force guided him to do a near-impossible task. It's not like the force suddenly appears out of nowhere in the film.

In TFA, we have an annoying technobabble solution to get past the shields. Whereas in ROTJ, the Rebels have to find a way to sneak past the shield by capturing an imperial shuttle. The later creates far more drama than the former. In ESB, Han and Co have to find an area where they can hide from Imperial sensors to get out of Vader's attention. That's an ingenious solution that pays off for the audience.

Technobabble, and having magic/technical solutions out of nowhere is not really present in Lucas's movies. The new movies are more like Star Trek in that regards.

[Shroom Man 777]

I do prefer the OT's explanations-less way of doing things. But for me, while the shield shtick and Starkiller stuff in TFA was grating, I think the minutia of hyperspace mechanics is sufficiently esoteric and ambiguous that I actually don't mind what was done. It's not yet Star Trek-level so yeah, on my end and on a lot of people's ends, eh. Mileage varies, yeah, but I think to some degree the perspectives of folks like us may be a bit skewered - I mean, you've got people who are pissed because the narrative discounts certain aspects of galactic warfare and sensible orders of battle for galactic governments/militaries.

Honestly, compared to TFA's technobabble shield-bypassing and Starkiller sun-sucking, IMO The Last Jedi is freaking The Expanse lol.

[ray245]

I do prefer the OT's explanations-less way of doing things. But for me, while the shield shtick and Starkiller stuff in TFA was grating, I think the minutia of hyperspace mechanics is sufficiently esoteric and ambiguous that I actually don't mind what was done. It's not yet Star Trek-level so yeah, on my end and on a lot of people's ends, eh. Mileage varies, yeah, but I think to some degree the perspectives of folks like us may be a bit skewered - I mean, you've got people who are pissed because the narrative discounts certain aspects of galactic warfare and sensible orders of battle for galactic governments/militaries.

Yet even Rian Johnson himself, as a casual Star Wars fan is asking such questions and doubting himself. Maybe not enough to affect their overall enjoyment of the scene, but that question is something people would ask about in their head. And they aren't the kind of people interested in reading up tech-books to explain to them why this doesn't break the setting and etc.

The question will remain stuck in people's mind when the are watching the next Star Wars movie. Which means you need to avoid a scenario where a rebellion ship is:
1. Close enough to an imperial ship
2. Have similar size difference between the new SW scenario and the one in TLJ
3. Be desperate enough to do so.

People will ask such question when they see such scenario play out again in their head, And the new SW director will be forced to either do another hyperspace ramming or use a technobabble explanation to why this isn't possible.

Honestly, compared to TFA's technobabble shield-bypassing and Starkiller sun-sucking, IMO The Last Jedi is freaking The Expanse lol.

I agree TLJ is better than TFA. My issue is both of them are still way too reliant on technology as a get-out tool for characters. It feels too reminsicent of Star Trek than Star Wars.

The world in the OT and prequels feels more "naturalistic" and comfortable with technology as a part of everyday life than the new movies. I mean ESB is all about the Falcon's hyperdrive constantly breaking down. We saw the limitation of SW technology, and that itself gives us powerful drama and tension.

I don't think we have anything like that in any of the new films so far.

[Vympel]

She sure does, which is kinda my point. The tragic backstory TRR mentions is more or less overcome in a few moments. It doesn't seem to unbalance her at all.

Well, she seemed pretty upset to me.

Come on man, that's weak. First, it's certainly a nasty hit, but it's also a good 10km from where they are. Now where Finn and Rose were- that place is chaos. Flames, collapsing structure, all that. And this is a military vessel, not some civilian catastrophe, there's every reason to expect discipline 10km or so from the site of an attack. Secondly, there's every reason to have someone come inform Snoke that something terrible just happened to his ship and fleet. It's also entirely reasonable that his guards might raise some sort of alarm or shit, maybe someone wants to make sure the Supreme Leader is ok? Lastly that even should put *everyone* on high alert. They've been boarded and now it seems they've suffered some terrible strike. That should make moving around- looking like Rey does- fucking difficult. That's before we even consider she found/got to the craft, was able to hotwire it and it has no tracking beacon built in. Nor did anyone think to track it with that new hyperspace tracking.

The attack might have been 10km away but the entire ship would've been shaken like a mother fucker from one of its wings basically breaking off. There was also the huge explosion after the silent cut (i.e. the moment the sound comes back).

But more importantly, showing Rey having difficulty getting off the Supremacy - from a movie making / script perspective, its a total waste of time. She's just had an epic duel in the throne room against the Praetorians and a Force tug-of-war with Ben. There's nothing to dramatically mined by watching her dodge random mooks or spacecraft. It's narratively irrelevant.

It's a reflection on him that the trained, no longer unbalanced experienced force user couldn't best an untrained novice who had is watching her friends die and just come to terms with her 'tragic backstory'. Every reason he lost the first fight is reversed here and she still ties- with faster recovery. Now Kylo is left to explain how Rey bested him again, along with the death of the Supreme Leader, and her subsequent escape. That's embarrassing by any standard.

I just don't see how both of them pulling on a lightsaber so hard that the metal failed before either of them did is some sort of poor 'showing'. In so far as the duel went, Kylo Ren took out three Praetorians alone while Rey was engaged with one (and got wounded).

I don't mind her beating Ren under that paradigm, but it has to work both ways. Rey was, as Luke says, 'Going straight to the Dark' and indeed, given the chance, she goes straight there. And her experience is odd, but hardly terrifying. And she's supposed to be conflicted over Kylo- literally crying 'Don't do this' as he offers her a chance to join him. Yet even a focused Kylo cannot best her even as we're supposed to believe she is conflicted. But she's better than all that. No fear or hatred for her despite the frankly shocking couple of days she's had or the fact her friends are being killed, if not already dead. Yet she retains her pure connection to the Force and we're back to 'nothing has any consequence for her'.

Kylo's more focused than he was, but he's hardly stoic. He holds out his hand and begs Rey to join him, and rails at her when she hesitates.

I will say there's a glitch here in the film too. When Kylo tells her to 'let the past die' he has not yet retrieved his saber and it's still lying on the ground some distance away. When Rey pulls Luke's to her, it magically reappears on his belt. This, I think, is particularly harmful to the scene. Because if Kylo is otherwise unarmed, he's got no choice but to get into a pulling contest with her (remember they start really close to each other). But if he's armed, and his right hand is free (as it is) the obvious action for him is to simply grab his saber and cut her down. Near as I can tell that's just a cinematic error though.

I don't think Kylo having his saber enters into it - he doesn't want to kill her. He didn't even want to kill her on Starkiller Base.