TLJ throne room fight scene

[ray245]

Just saw a video about a professional stuntman reacting and commenting some of the problems in the fight scene in TLJ.



I think his comments about the lack of using force abilities in the fight scene is a really valid point, as it could have made the fight scene more engaging.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just saw a video about a professional stuntman reacting and commenting some of the problems in the fight scene in TLJ.



I think his comments about the lack of using force abilities in the fight scene is a really valid point, as it could have made the fight scene more engaging.

And triggered all the little incels who already think Rey is an overpowered "Mary Sue" (ie woman who's powers threaten their fragile sense of manhood).

Oh hell, that's reason enough to do it. I'd give Rey all the powers of Superman just to stick it to those assholes.

I would like to see Kylo use that Force immobilization trick again.

[ray245]

And triggered all the little incels who already think Rey is an overpowered "Mary Sue" (ie woman who's powers threaten their fragile sense of manhood).

Oh hell, that's reason enough to do it. I'd give Rey all the powers of Superman just to stick it to those assholes.

I would like to see Kylo use that Force immobilization trick again.

Wait what? Rey being overpowered or not has nothing to do with the fight choreography in the scene. Kylo Ren is making the same mistakes as well.

[Solauren]

So, the fact that those guards just fucking SUCKED had nothing to to with them losing to two punk kids?

[Esquire]

And triggered all the little incels who already think Rey is an overpowered "Mary Sue" (ie woman who's powers threaten their fragile sense of manhood).

Oh hell, that's reason enough to do it. I'd give Rey all the powers of Superman just to stick it to those assholes.

I would like to see Kylo use that Force immobilization trick again.

What if, just for the novelty value, we had a thread where you didn't derail everything by shouting at nebulous other corners of the internet?

[FaxModem1]

I think a great idea for that throne room fight scene would be to have Rey use one of their staff weapons in the fight, as that's clearly a fighting style the actress and character is more used to, and having Rey shown as adapting to the fight like that should have been neat.

[KraytKing]

I wouldn't have minded seeing some Force powers used, to help keep the pausing down. More acrobatics, at least for Kylo, would also have been appreciated. Like the Jackie Chan thing in the video, deliver a kick to one guard's face while slashing another.

He does raise a good point about the level of preparedness. These guards know EXACTLY who Kylo is. I would guess that their primary purpose is to kill him should the need arise. Given that, we see some pretty poor performance. It can't really be avoided in this movie, given the structure of the film, TFA, and the fact that there's another one, but at some point I would have liked to see non Force-users kicking Jedi ass. If I were to rewrite the attempted Jedi arrest of Palpatine, for instance, I would never have had Palpatine draw a blade. His Red Guards would have dispatched the Jedi while Palpatine watched and used the Force to keep the Jedi from using telekinesis.

[Gandalf]

Or the guards were more ceremonial in nature. Snoke being a guy prone to hubris and thinking himself untouchable, just picked some loyal guys who were good but not great.

[The Romulan Republic]

And triggered all the little incels who already think Rey is an overpowered "Mary Sue" (ie woman who's powers threaten their fragile sense of manhood).

Oh hell, that's reason enough to do it. I'd give Rey all the powers of Superman just to stick it to those assholes.

I would like to see Kylo use that Force immobilization trick again.

Wait what? Rey being overpowered or not has nothing to do with the fight choreography in the scene. Kylo Ren is making the same mistakes as well.

I was snarkily pointing out that if you had Rey perform a bunch of Force powers during the fight like you suggested she and Kylo should have done, it would have been used as more "proof" that she's a "Mary Sue". And I think the fact that my pointing out this very obvious fact immediately triggered multiple hostile or defensive replies underscores my point quite well.

I don't disagree that the fight choreography in the ST (and in Star Wars in general) could stand some improvement, but I would point out that light sabers are unlike any real world weapon, Force users are unlike any real world combatant, and presumably light saber combat would therefore function differently. And I think we can make some allowances for artistic license. So a more meaningful criticism to me than whether "mistakes" were made is whether it looked good (which is somewhat subjective) and whether it is stylistically/thematically consistent. Personally, I rather like the ST's saber choreography- its not as needlessly flashy and over-the-top as the PT's, but still slicker and less clunky than the OT's. It feels like a good hybrid, between the two, taking advantage of more modern effects while still feeling more in line with the OT, and with what we'd expect from less than fully trained (or crippled) duelists (contrast to Luke's fight, where he pulls Neo-In-The-Matrix style moves on Kylo, though that could just be possible because its an illusion).

And triggered all the little incels who already think Rey is an overpowered "Mary Sue" (ie woman who's powers threaten their fragile sense of manhood).

Oh hell, that's reason enough to do it. I'd give Rey all the powers of Superman just to stick it to those assholes.

I would like to see Kylo use that Force immobilization trick again.

What if, just for the novelty value, we had a thread where you didn't derail everything by shouting at nebulous other corners of the internet?

How about, just for the novelty value, you and everyone else on this board who isn't a mod stop trying to act like my personal hall monitor? You know perfectly well that I'm right about how many people (and absolutely yes that includes some people on this board) would have reacted to Rey using more Force powers in the fight, and while it wasn't directed at you, if my pointing it out makes you offended or uncomfortable, maybe that says something about you.

[KraytKing]

Look, there's a difference between labeling Rey a Mary Sue because you're a Nazi and labeling her a Mary Sue because she has abilities far beyond what we're comfortable with someone having after a few weeks practice. I call the sequel trilogy bad because it's bad, not because it serves my agenda. I call Rey bad because she's bad, not because it serves my agenda. You seem to be combining people who dislike the movie and character for artistic reasons and people who dislike it for other reasons.

Or maybe you aren't. I just wish you would give it a rest for a minute. At the very least, can we accept that SOMETIMES people dislike this movie because it is a shit movie?


Anyway, I agree that Force powers would have made the fight better, but I also think that Rey should not be capable of Force powers. I would have been annoyed to see her using combat telekinesis. I was annoyed to see her have anything more than rudimentary skill with a blade. Kylo, on the other hand, should be fully capable of combat telekinesis and a skilled duelist, able to pick up the slack for Rey. That fixes it from a narrative standpoint, but then we still have the trouble of the guards being pointless if they're so obviously optimized for combatting opponents with blades and fail to do so when pressed.

[The Romulan Republic]

Look, there's a difference between labeling Rey a Mary Sue because you're a Nazi and labeling her a Mary Sue because she has abilities far beyond what we're comfortable with someone having after a few weeks practice.

Obviously, but I regard the term itself as somewhat tainted, because it has become a common way for misogynists to attack female characters, and because its definition has been broadened to the point where its largely lost its original meaning.

To my knowledge, the original meaning was (generally idealized/implausibly successful) "author self-insert". Rey is many things, but to my knowledge no one ever made a convincing case that she's an author self-insert.

I call the sequel trilogy bad because it's bad, not because it serves my agenda. I call Rey bad because she's bad, not because it serves my agenda. You seem to be combining people who dislike the movie and character for artistic reasons and people who dislike it for other reasons.

Or maybe you aren't. I just wish you would give it a rest for a minute. At the very least, can we accept that SOMETIMES people dislike this movie because it is a shit movie?

I'd probably give it a rest if the films' critics would, but they won't, and they're generally louder on the internet (including, yes, on this board), so I feel its only fair to try to offer some balance to the conversation.

I am well aware that people may personally dislike the film for entirely innocent and innocuous reasons, and believe it or not, I don't have a problem with that. It might surprise you to know that my initial feelings on TLJ were very, very mixed, and it took a second viewing before I was able to come down on the side of "I like this film". I even posted in the original TLJ release thread to the effect that "I can see why people would love this movie, and I can see why they would hate it". But I am not going to concede that all the objections dislikes are objectively correct (or that its "a shitty movie"), because I don't feel that that's the case.

I'd respect the ST (and PT) haters a lot more if more of them would just say "I personally don't like this movie, because its not the movie I wanted/expected", rather than trying to insist that the movies are objectively horrible and that everyone else should agree that they are. That irritated me long before Star Wars films became a battle ground in the fight between Alt. Reichists and progressives.

Anyway, I agree that Force powers would have made the fight better, but I also think that Rey should not be capable of Force powers. I would have been annoyed to see her using combat telekinesis. I was annoyed to see her have anything more than rudimentary skill with a blade.

I agree that Rey should not be using combat telekinesis yet, at least not to the point that she could rely on it in combat, because that is an ability in the films that is pretty consistently reserved for only Force users who are both powerful and experienced, to the point that I use it as a bench mark for high end combative Force abilities.

However, to insist that Rey should not be able to use any Force powers at all, and that she should only be capable of "rudimentary" saber skills, despite Luke and Anakin both actively using the Force in their first film without significant training and Rey clearly being proficient in hand-to-hand combat with other weapons before learning about the Force, is a ridiculous double-standard.

Kylo, on the other hand, should be fully capable of combat telekinesis and a skilled duelist, able to pick up the slack for Rey. That fixes it from a narrative standpoint, but then we still have the trouble of the guards being pointless if they're so obviously optimized for combatting opponents with blades and fail to do so when pressed.

I'm sure the guards would be very effective against (most) mundane assassins. Powerful Force users are kind of in a league of their own.

Its also likely, as noted above, that their role is somewhat ceremonial, at least in part. Snoke would be quite capable of defending himself against most threats, and those he couldn't would generally be beings who could go through mundane guards like a hot knife through butter.

[The Romulan Republic]

Edit: I'll add that Kylo has his own weaknesses which inhibit his fighting abilities despite his power and greater experience. He's very psychologically weak, conflicted, unsure of himself. And that's an important part of his character. I wouldn't want to see him turned into another "powerful bad ass" Dark Lord. That's not who he is- he's a deconstruction of that sort of character, and in my opinion, a good one.

[KraytKing]

Anyway, I agree that Force powers would have made the fight better, but I also think that Rey should not be capable of Force powers. I would have been annoyed to see her using combat telekinesis. I was annoyed to see her have anything more than rudimentary skill with a blade.

I agree that Rey should not be using combat telekinesis yet, at least not to the point that she could rely on it in combat, because that is an ability in the films that is pretty consistently reserved for only Force users who are both powerful and experienced, to the point that I use it as a bench mark for high end combative Force abilities.

However, to insist that Rey should not be able to use any Force powers at all, and that she should only be capable of "rudimentary" saber skills, despite Luke and Anakin both actively using the Force in their first film without significant training and Rey clearly being proficient in hand-to-hand combat with other weapons before learning about the Force, is a ridiculous double-standard.

Well I thought it was stupid that Anakin was able to use the Force as he did in TPM. AotC gets a pass because he's been training for ten years, and he STILL gets his ass kicked the first time he goes against a real duelist. Ten years of training is a lot of training. Rey has a few weeks? She should be doing like Luke in ANH when he keeps getting zapped by a remote. And then doesn't use a lightsaber for most of the film, because he's been using a blaster for his whole life.

In fact, Luke only uses his blade when pressed in ESB, and then loses. His attempt at telekinesis is pretty poor, too, before training with Yoda. This is after a couple years to get used to things. I stand by my position. Rey should not be able to use a lightsaber, or the Force.

Kylo, on the other hand, should be fully capable of combat telekinesis and a skilled duelist, able to pick up the slack for Rey. That fixes it from a narrative standpoint, but then we still have the trouble of the guards being pointless if they're so obviously optimized for combatting opponents with blades and fail to do so when pressed.

I'm sure the guards would be very effective against (most) mundane assassins. Powerful Force users are kind of in a league of their own.

Its also likely, as noted above, that their role is somewhat ceremonial, at least in part. Snoke would be quite capable of defending himself against most threats, and those he couldn't would generally be beings who could go through mundane guards like a hot knife through butter.

Maybe I have too much faith in modern cinema. Here's my assumption:

The guards exist to kill Kylo because for Snoke to do it manually would devalue him as a character. Just like the Emperor, he derives his menace from doing nothing and being confident in it, and winning anyway. In the throne room fight scene in ROTJ, Palpatine says he doesn't carry a lightsaber, and when Luke swings at him, he does nothing. Because, from a cinematic perspective, he's so evil he doesn't even need to fight to defeat the heroes. You know he has power not because he does a screaming 720 across a room and cuts down his foes with contemptuous ease, but because he doesn't even need to. So I assumed Snoke would simply sit and cackle while the traitorous Kylo Ren reveals his true colors and is struck down by Snoke's bodyguards.

Stormtroopers deal with regular assassins. The guards are Jedi killers. Because Snoke can't be bothered to lift a finger.

[KraytKing]

Addendum: I would really, really like to see a fight between a skilled Force user and a non Force user and have the latter win in the canon. Mandalorian bounty hunter versus purge survivor, or clone trooper versus general during the purge, or Red Guards against anyone, just for some ideas. Or a stormtrooper versus a castaway.

My dream scenario would be the Jedi losing to someone who isn't a fucking ninja. Show how raw power and intense training can overcome the Force and martial arts skill. Two clone troopers close to brawling distance so the Jedi can't deflect blaster bolts, and work in perfect concert. One punches the Jedi straight into a second punch by the other, because they've been training for this with each other for their whole lives. Just some thoughts.

Of course, it is vanishingly unlikely this dream will ever come true, except in fan film. Maybe in the new TV show, though.

[Gandalf]

Stormtroopers deal with regular assassins. The guards are Jedi killers. Because Snoke can't be bothered to lift a finger.

Or the guards are more for show, designed to resemble Palpatine's guards and give a visual continuity between regimes.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah. And we've seen how useful Palpatine's guards are against Force users, when Yoda knocked out two with one Force push, and when Palpatine didn't even think it worthwhile to keep them in the room while trying to turn Luke.

Anyway, I agree that Force powers would have made the fight better, but I also think that Rey should not be capable of Force powers. I would have been annoyed to see her using combat telekinesis. I was annoyed to see her have anything more than rudimentary skill with a blade.

I agree that Rey should not be using combat telekinesis yet, at least not to the point that she could rely on it in combat, because that is an ability in the films that is pretty consistently reserved for only Force users who are both powerful and experienced, to the point that I use it as a bench mark for high end combative Force abilities.

However, to insist that Rey should not be able to use any Force powers at all, and that she should only be capable of "rudimentary" saber skills, despite Luke and Anakin both actively using the Force in their first film without significant training and Rey clearly being proficient in hand-to-hand combat with other weapons before learning about the Force, is a ridiculous double-standard.

Well I thought it was stupid that Anakin was able to use the Force as he did in TPM.

Fair enough, but the point is, there's precedent. Rey isn't out of the blue, presuming that she is in the same league as the Skywalker family (either because she's a member, or because she's another variation on the Chosen One, or whatever). In fact, one could argue that a 20-or-so year old being able to do what she does is a lot less stupid than a nine year old being able to do what nine year old Anakin does.

I do think Rey makes a lot more sense if you start from the presumption that she is a reincarnation of the Chosen One.

AotC gets a pass because he's been training for ten years, and he STILL gets his ass kicked the first time he goes against a real duelist.

There is a big gap between "not able to beat Count Dooku, literally one of the best duelists and most powerful Force users in the galaxy", and "not able to beat any duelist or use the Force in combat or effectively use a light saber". So "Anakin couldn't beat Dooku" is hardly evidence that Rey should be completely helpless. In fact, the two situations are just so different in so many ways that comparing them like this is questionable, in my opinion.

Ten years of training is a lot of training. Rey has a few weeks? She should be doing like Luke in ANH when he keeps getting zapped by a remote. And then doesn't use a lightsaber for most of the film, because he's been using a blaster for his whole life.

Well, there's a difference here, in that Rey is explicitly shown to have hand-to-hand combat skills in TFA, prior to learning anything about the Force (though perhaps subtly augmented by latent Force ability, the way Luke and Anakin's and Rey's piloting and mechanical skills were implied to be). Obviously a light saber isn't a staff, but at least some skills ought to be somewhat transferable.

In any case, Luke consciously used the Force in A New Hope, after at most a few hours' training, and knowing about the Force for a few days. Not for telekinesis, but to make the Death Star shot.

In fact, Luke only uses his blade when pressed in ESB, and then loses. His attempt at telekinesis is pretty poor, too, before training with Yoda. This is after a couple years to get used to things. I stand by my position. Rey should not be able to use a lightsaber, or the Force.

Luke used his saber almost exclusively in the final duel against Vader, and actually manages to land a glancing hit on him. Its a moot point in any case, because he had more training and experience than Rey at that point, and we don't know what his abilities (or Anakin's) with a saber were when he was at the same point as her, what their respective midichlorian counts were, or if their strengths lay in the same exact areas or if their abilities progressed at the same rates between films (it is highly unlikely, to say the least, that all Force users learn the same things at the same rates). Again, you're comparing apples and oranges.

Also, as I previously noted both in this post and my last one, Luke consciously uses the Force in A New Hope (training with Obi-wan, destroying the Death Star), and I'm pretty sure that Anakin does so in Phantom Menace (piloting). So to insist that Rey should not be able to use the Force at all without extensive training and experience is preposterous, and a blatant double-standard, which amounts to saying "She's a Mary Sue and a bad character if she isn't noticeably more helpless than her male counterparts, one of them nine, were with the same level of experience and training."

Maybe I have too much faith in modern cinema. Here's my assumption:

The guards exist to kill Kylo because for Snoke to do it manually would devalue him as a character. Just like the Emperor, he derives his menace from doing nothing and being confident in it, and winning anyway. In the throne room fight scene in ROTJ, Palpatine says he doesn't carry a light saber, and when Luke swings at him, he does nothing. Because, from a cinematic perspective, he's so evil he doesn't even need to fight to defeat the heroes. You know he has power not because he does a screaming 720 across a room and cuts down his foes with contemptuous ease, but because he doesn't even need to. So I assumed Snoke would simply sit and cackle while the traitorous Kylo Ren reveals his true colors and is struck down by Snoke's bodyguards.

Well, see, that's my point: you had a whole scenario worked out in your mind of how it was supposed to go, and when it didn't, you decided "that means its a bad movie", despite the fact that your scenario had no real basis in prior canon.

I'm pretty sure I never thought, going into that scene the first time, that those guards were going to kill Kylo, or even that they were specifically intended to kill Kylo. I probably did have a moment or two where I thought maybe they were the Knights of Ren/Force users, but when they turned out not to be, I more or less shrugged and moved on, because it really wasn't that important.

A lot of my issues with the PT and ST haters would be resolved if more of you could just accept that "It didn't follow my personal fanfic" is not the same as "Its an objectively bad movie".

Stormtroopers deal with regular assassins. The guards are Jedi killers. Because Snoke can't be bothered to lift a finger.

Possibly, but there's no actual evidence to my knowledge that they're meant to be Jedi-killers specifically. And it would be especially odd given that there is a lack of actual Jedi in this era to worry about- the only possible threats of that sort that we know of in this era, before Rey came along, would have been Kylo/possibly the Knights of Ren, Leia, or Luke. Leia probably isn't sufficiently trained to directly threaten Snoke, and seems to prefer a more behind-the-lines leadership role in any case. Luke would presumably mop the floor with those guards, or any mundane or low-level Force using guards, if he chose to do so. And as for Kylo, it seems odd to have an entire elite unit to guard against betrayal by one person.

Addendum: I would really, really like to see a fight between a skilled Force user and a non Force user and have the latter win in the canon. Mandalorian bounty hunter versus purge survivor, or clone trooper versus general during the purge, or Red Guards against anyone, just for some ideas. Or a stormtrooper versus a castaway.

My dream scenario would be the Jedi losing to someone who isn't a fucking ninja. Show how raw power and intense training can overcome the Force and martial arts skill. Two clone troopers close to brawling distance so the Jedi can't deflect blaster bolts, and work in perfect concert. One punches the Jedi straight into a second punch by the other, because they've been training for this with each other for their whole lives. Just some thoughts.

Of course, it is vanishingly unlikely this dream will ever come true, except in fan film. Maybe in the new TV show, though.

It has happened, and in film-level canon no less, if you accept examples where the mundane fighter had specialized weaponry (defeating a prepared, armed Force user in a punch-out would be pure wank, in my opinion). Grievous is established as a Jedi-killer. Jango shoots a Jedi down in close quarters at Geonosis with nothing but a little blaster pistol, and escapes someone as skilled as Kenobi before that.

I'd actually thought of one very simple way a mundane fighter could kill a (mediocre) Force user: a specialized blaster with three separate barrels firing simultaneously. Whatever angle they held their saber at, they could at most block two shots. However, a top tier one could probably survive the first hit or two and then reply with TK, or simply dodge or deflect with the Force.

Edit: the very last thing a non-Force user would want to do against a Jedi is get into saber range, I'd think, which is another strike against Snoke's guards being effective Jedi killers. If I were going to be fighting a Force user, I'd want to do it from range, with area effect weaponry, and blaster resistant armor. They might have the armor (I honestly don't know), but their weaponry (an odd assortment of melee weapons that are generally inferior to a light saber) is all wrong for the job.

[FaxModem1]

The interesting thing about lightsabers, as shown in Star Wars Rebels, is that they have to connect with the blade in order to use them. If you're emotionally conflicted, untrained, and not disciplined, you won't be as good with them as you will with non-lightsaber weapons, as Sabine Wren, a freaking Mandalorian, showed us with her training of the lightsaber. Letting go of your burdens also helps, as you're able to move better and fight better.



Also, regarding the force user vs non-force user fights, "History lesson, the Jedi won against Mandalore. These tricks will amount to something. Maybe even save you from time to time. Only training and discipline will do that."



The force is a game changer, and you have to outclass Jedi or Sith with raw numbers or weapons to stand a chance against them. Mostly because they've been training for most of their lives, and are tapping into forces that make them beyond regular people. This is why Rey's skills as a martial artist are helpful, but she also needs to have enough training and discipline with a lightsaber and with use of the force. This is why I'm really hoping for Rey meditation and studying the Jedi books scenes, to show that she is channeling such things. But we'll have to wait and see.

[Esquire]

How about, just for the novelty value, you and everyone else on this board who isn't a mod stop trying to act like my personal hall monitor? You know perfectly well that I'm right about how many people (and absolutely yes that includes some people on this board) would have reacted to Rey using more Force powers in the fight, and while it wasn't directed at you, if my pointing it out makes you offended or uncomfortable, maybe that says something about you.

Look. I don't deny that there's probably somebody somewhere who'd react the way you're describing, but it has precisely zero relevance to the discussion that was going on. You can tell, because nobody in this thread said anything along those lines. The antics of various subreddits are not germaine to this discussion. Your insinuation that I'm some kind of crypto-Nazi simply because I'd love to be able to read a thread without having to see you shouting into the void is noticed, but not at all appreciated. I'm aware from previous discussions that you think everything is politics, but be aware that approximately everybody disagrees. PSW is not the place for it, viz. your own awareness that lots of the board doesn't enjoy when you do this, regardless of IRL political affiliation.

[The Romulan Republic]

How about, just for the novelty value, you and everyone else on this board who isn't a mod stop trying to act like my personal hall monitor? You know perfectly well that I'm right about how many people (and absolutely yes that includes some people on this board) would have reacted to Rey using more Force powers in the fight, and while it wasn't directed at you, if my pointing it out makes you offended or uncomfortable, maybe that says something about you.

Look. I don't deny that there's probably somebody somewhere who'd react the way you're describing, but it has precisely zero relevance to the discussion that was going on. You can tell, because nobody in this thread said anything along those lines. The antics of various subreddits are not germaine to this discussion. Your insinuation that I'm some kind of crypto-Nazi simply because I'd love to be able to read a thread without having to see you shouting into the void is noticed, but not at all appreciated. I'm aware from previous discussions that you think everything is politics, but be aware that approximately everybody disagrees. PSW is not the place for it, viz. your own awareness that lots of the board doesn't enjoy when you do this, regardless of IRL political affiliation.

1. Its relevant insofar as this is a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of a specific scene in the Sequel Trilogy, and it absolutely is something that would have come up if the scene were shot in the way the OP suggests. And political subtext or implications is as much a valid subject of discussion when talking about a creative work as act, plot structure, themes, etc.

2. The only reason that this conversation is ongoing is because three separate posters felt the need to take me to task and engage in a lengthy argument over a single snarky comment I made at the expense of people who supposedly have nothing to do with this thread. Which to me does beg the question: why are you all so angry and defensive over my criticizing sexism towards Rey, if it has no application to this thread or anyone posting in it? Because it seems like every time I call out sexism against Rey, a bunch of people take personal offense, while adamantly insisting that it has no relevance to anyone on this board.

3. I did not call you a Nazi, and I apologize if you took it that way. You can be sexist, however, or threatened by discussion of sexism, without being a Nazi. If sexism (conscious or unconscious) were limited to Nazis, this would be a much happier world.

I think a great idea for that throne room fight scene would be to have Rey use one of their staff weapons in the fight, as that's clearly a fighting style the actress and character is more used to, and having Rey shown as adapting to the fight like that should have been neat.

Indeed.

One thing I'm already disappointed about in RoS is that they have Rey using Luke's style of saber (because God forbid we ever change the status quo), rather than having her build herself a staff saber. I so wanted Rey with a staff saber.

[FaxModem1]

I think a great idea for that throne room fight scene would be to have Rey use one of their staff weapons in the fight, as that's clearly a fighting style the actress and character is more used to, and having Rey shown as adapting to the fight like that should have been neat.

Indeed.

One thing I'm already disappointed about in RoS is that they have Rey using Luke's style of saber (because God forbid we ever change the status quo), rather than having her build herself a staff saber. I so wanted Rey with a staff saber.

If I were to guess, it's because for the Joe Six-packs, the last time we saw a force user who used a staff weapon in the films, it was a demon looking guy and that person killed the Jesus Hippie looking dude who is able to kill anyone who steals his daughter. Any sort of conflation with that will make her look evil by association. This is probably why we also haven't had any fencer style Jedi since Dooku as well, since it'd bring up the same imagery as Count Saruman the vampire guy who fought Gandalf.

Sidenote and personal anecdote: After I first saw The Phantom menace, on the drive home, my parents and I were discussing the movie. When talking about the climax, my VERY Christian mother thought the scene where Qui Gon was meditating while Maul roared himself up into a fury, IE, channeling their respective sides of the force, that Qui Gon was surrendering to him because he was on his knees. We had to explain to her that Qui Gon was resting, and that he wasn't capitulating to someone who looked like the devil, thereby giving himself over to evil.

Imagine that as the potential audience members the studio wants to spend their money on watching the movies, and that's why Hollywood cares about branding. Because sometimes, a simple idea such as getting on your knees to rest and channel energy is so foreign to American audiences that they have to such things spelled out for them. And a double bladed lightsaber, or one that seems like it, such as a staff, might be considered too close to the bad guys.

But, I hope we see a moment wherein Rey builds her own weapon, maybe under Maz's guidance or something, showing that she is becoming a fully fledged Jedi. But it will depend on what the studio thinks the audience is capable of understanding, and what they actually want to film.

[Esquire]

1. Its relevant insofar as this is a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of a specific scene in the Sequel Trilogy, and it absolutely is something that would have come up if the scene were shot in the way the OP suggests. And political subtext or implications is as much a valid subject of discussion when talking about a creative work as act, plot structure, themes, etc.

That's probably fair; I apologize for being overly snappy.

2. The only reason that this conversation is ongoing is because three separate posters felt the need to take me to task and engage in a lengthy argument over a single snarky comment I made at the expense of people who supposedly have nothing to do with this thread. Which to me does beg the question: why are you all so angry and defensive over my criticizing sexism towards Rey, if it has no application to this thread or anyone posting in it? Because it seems like every time I call out sexism against Rey, a bunch of people take personal offense, while adamantly insisting that it has no relevance to anyone on this board.

Have you considered that large chunks of the board being willing to jump down your throat on admittedly shallow grounds might suggest that you're going about things in a counterproductive way? The objection is generally that nobody who's actually here said anything like what you're objecting to. Whatever the rest of the internet gets up to is not relevant to the board; if you inserted even an obvious figleaf like 'I saw [x] on [website], isn't that a textbook example of [bad thing]' I think it would go a long way towards pacifying people.

3. I did not call you a Nazi, and I apologize if you took it that way. You can be sexist, however, or threatened by discussion of sexism, without being a Nazi. If sexism (conscious or unconscious) were limited to Nazis, this would be a much happier world.

I may possibly have been too sensitive to implications here. You may, similarly, have been too free with accusations in the past - this is a two-way street. Let's both of us not ascribe motives where it's not necessary to do so.

[KraytKing]

Yeah. And we've seen how useful Palpatine's guards are against Force users, when Yoda knocked out two with one Force push, and when Palpatine didn't even think it worthwhile to keep them in the room while trying to turn Luke.

Yeah that was stupid. Yoda doesn't use the Force for combat. When he was a puppet they understood that. CGI proved too tempting to keep from making him ridiculous. And in the throne room, Palpatine didn't need them because he had Vader and he was overconfident in Vader's loyalty.

I agree that Rey should not be using combat telekinesis yet, at least not to the point that she could rely on it in combat, because that is an ability in the films that is pretty consistently reserved for only Force users who are both powerful and experienced, to the point that I use it as a bench mark for high end combative Force abilities.

However, to insist that Rey should not be able to use any Force powers at all, and that she should only be capable of "rudimentary" saber skills, despite Luke and Anakin both actively using the Force in their first film without significant training and Rey clearly being proficient in hand-to-hand combat with other weapons before learning about the Force, is a ridiculous double-standard.

Well I thought it was stupid that Anakin was able to use the Force as he did in TPM.

Fair enough, but the point is, there's precedent. Rey isn't out of the blue, presuming that she is in the same league as the Skywalker family (either because she's a member, or because she's another variation on the Chosen One, or whatever). In fact, one could argue that a 20-or-so year old being able to do what she does is a lot less stupid than a nine year old being able to do what nine year old Anakin does.

I do think Rey makes a lot more sense if you start from the presumption that she is a reincarnation of the Chosen One.

My point is it's a stupid precedent. I'm telling you it's a stupid movie, and you're using another stupid movie to defend it.

In fact, the one thing Abrams could do to make this worse is explain away Rey's skill by making her daughter of God as well. The Chosen One bullshit was stupid when it first showed up, and it's stupid now.

AotC gets a pass because he's been training for ten years, and he STILL gets his ass kicked the first time he goes against a real duelist.

There is a big gap between "not able to beat Count Dooku, literally one of the best duelists and most powerful Force users in the galaxy", and "not able to beat any duelist or use the Force in combat or effectively use a light saber". So "Anakin couldn't beat Dooku" is hardly evidence that Rey should be completely helpless. In fact, the two situations are just so different in so many ways that comparing them like this is questionable, in my opinion.

Seriously? You missed my whole point. He had ten years. Ten years and he got his ass kicked anyway. Rey had a couple weeks, and sure, she was fighting a much less skilled duelist, but it is still notable. The difference is one of multiple orders of magnitude.

Ten years of training is a lot of training. Rey has a few weeks? She should be doing like Luke in ANH when he keeps getting zapped by a remote. And then doesn't use a lightsaber for most of the film, because he's been using a blaster for his whole life.

Well, there's a difference here, in that Rey is explicitly shown to have hand-to-hand combat skills in TFA, prior to learning anything about the Force (though perhaps subtly augmented by latent Force ability, the way Luke and Anakin's and Rey's piloting and mechanical skills were implied to be). Obviously a light saber isn't a staff, but at least some skills ought to be somewhat transferable.

In any case, Luke consciously used the Force in A New Hope, after at most a few hours' training, and knowing about the Force for a few days. Not for telekinesis, but to make the Death Star shot.

It is far from canon, but we don't have anything explicitly stating that Luke didn't also subconsciously use the Force for his twenty or so years of being alive. Actually, neither is it stated that Rey does that. So I find it just as believable that Luke was subconsciously using the Force to nail womp rats as Rey was using it to fly speeder bikes harder or whatever.

He uses the Force to do what he's been doing for years: fly down a narrow trench and hit a two-meter target. And Force augmenting a shot like that is very different from using the Force to beat trained duelists and use telekinesis and all the other shit Rey does/should do.

In fact, Luke only uses his blade when pressed in ESB, and then loses. His attempt at telekinesis is pretty poor, too, before training with Yoda. This is after a couple years to get used to things. I stand by my position. Rey should not be able to use a lightsaber, or the Force.

Luke used his saber almost exclusively in the final duel against Vader, and actually manages to land a glancing hit on him. Its a moot point in any case, because he had more training and experience than Rey at that point, and we don't know what his abilities (or Anakin's) with a saber were when he was at the same point as her, what their respective midichlorian counts were, or if their strengths lay in the same exact areas or if their abilities progressed at the same rates between films (it is highly unlikely, to say the least, that all Force users learn the same things at the same rates). Again, you're comparing apples and oranges.

Not sure I get your point here. Luke has more training than Rey and so should therefore be able to do better. Luke has two years to dick around with a lightsaber and figures out how to give Vader a few minutes challenge. Rey has a few hours and fights wounded Kylo to a standstill, then a few more weeks and fights proficiently. That is my problem. She is doing better in weeks than Luke did in years, because the script requires it.

Also, as I previously noted both in this post and my last one, Luke consciously uses the Force in A New Hope (training with Obi-wan, destroying the Death Star), and I'm pretty sure that Anakin does so in Phantom Menace (piloting). So to insist that Rey should not be able to use the Force at all without extensive training and experience is preposterous, and a blatant double-standard, which amounts to saying "She's a Mary Sue and a bad character if she isn't noticeably more helpless than her male counterparts, one of them nine, were with the same level of experience and training."

Let's do this again.

Luke uses the Force, as he may have been for years, to adjust his aim. Not telekinesis, but enhancing his focus to aim better. Anakin doing that bullshit in TPM is exactly that, bullshit.

To be clear, when I say she shouldn't be able to use the Force, I mean in hand-to-hand combat or as telekinesis. Accessing the Force to focus herself for a shot, to find where Luke is hiding, to meditate, et cetera, that's fine. When she can fight through a room full of guards that are shown to pose some sort of difficulty for Kylo and fight Kylo himself to a standstill (yes he's wounded but he still beat Finn easily, and Finn had more training), that's when I take offense.

Maybe I have too much faith in modern cinema. Here's my assumption:

The guards exist to kill Kylo because for Snoke to do it manually would devalue him as a character. Just like the Emperor, he derives his menace from doing nothing and being confident in it, and winning anyway. In the throne room fight scene in ROTJ, Palpatine says he doesn't carry a light saber, and when Luke swings at him, he does nothing. Because, from a cinematic perspective, he's so evil he doesn't even need to fight to defeat the heroes. You know he has power not because he does a screaming 720 across a room and cuts down his foes with contemptuous ease, but because he doesn't even need to. So I assumed Snoke would simply sit and cackle while the traitorous Kylo Ren reveals his true colors and is struck down by Snoke's bodyguards.

Well, see, that's my point: you had a whole scenario worked out in your mind of how it was supposed to go, and when it didn't, you decided "that means its a bad movie", despite the fact that your scenario had no real basis in prior canon.

I'm pretty sure I never thought, going into that scene the first time, that those guards were going to kill Kylo, or even that they were specifically intended to kill Kylo. I probably did have a moment or two where I thought maybe they were the Knights of Ren/Force users, but when they turned out not to be, I more or less shrugged and moved on, because it really wasn't that important.

A lot of my issues with the PT and ST haters would be resolved if more of you could just accept that "It didn't follow my personal fanfic" is not the same as "Its an objectively bad movie".

Let me rephrase: I expected it to be like ROTJ, where Palpatine didn't feel any need to defend himself against Luke. If I remember correctly, which is far from guaranteed with that dumpster fire of a movie, Snoke was pretty suspicious of Kylo already. So from a cinematic perspective, he should have had someone there to deal with Kylo so he didn't have to lower himself to the level of personal combat.

The cinematic decision would have the guards as Jedi killers because it maintains the threatening aura of Snoke.

Stormtroopers deal with regular assassins. The guards are Jedi killers. Because Snoke can't be bothered to lift a finger.

Possibly, but there's no actual evidence to my knowledge that they're meant to be Jedi-killers specifically. And it would be especially odd given that there is a lack of actual Jedi in this era to worry about- the only possible threats of that sort that we know of in this era, before Rey came along, would have been Kylo/possibly the Knights of Ren, Leia, or Luke. Leia probably isn't sufficiently trained to directly threaten Snoke, and seems to prefer a more behind-the-lines leadership role in any case. Luke would presumably mop the floor with those guards, or any mundane or low-level Force using guards, if he chose to do so. And as for Kylo, it seems odd to have an entire elite unit to guard against betrayal by one person.

Entire elite unit for betrayal by a very important, very powerful person. Doesn't seem too far fetched to me. Especially if Snoke is a cripple, unable to match Kylo in acrobatics, as he seems to be.

Addendum: I would really, really like to see a fight between a skilled Force user and a non Force user and have the latter win in the canon. Mandalorian bounty hunter versus purge survivor, or clone trooper versus general during the purge, or Red Guards against anyone, just for some ideas. Or a stormtrooper versus a castaway.

My dream scenario would be the Jedi losing to someone who isn't a fucking ninja. Show how raw power and intense training can overcome the Force and martial arts skill. Two clone troopers close to brawling distance so the Jedi can't deflect blaster bolts, and work in perfect concert. One punches the Jedi straight into a second punch by the other, because they've been training for this with each other for their whole lives. Just some thoughts.

Of course, it is vanishingly unlikely this dream will ever come true, except in fan film. Maybe in the new TV show, though.

It has happened, and in film-level canon no less, if you accept examples where the mundane fighter had specialized weaponry (defeating a prepared, armed Force user in a punch-out would be pure wank, in my opinion). Grievous is established as a Jedi-killer. Jango shoots a Jedi down in close quarters at Geonosis with nothing but a little blaster pistol, and escapes someone as skilled as Kenobi before that.

I'd actually thought of one very simple way a mundane fighter could kill a (mediocre) Force user: a specialized blaster with three separate barrels firing simultaneously. Whatever angle they held their saber at, they could at most block two shots. However, a top tier one could probably survive the first hit or two and then reply with TK, or simply dodge or deflect with the Force.

Edit: the very last thing a non-Force user would want to do against a Jedi is get into saber range, I'd think, which is another strike against Snoke's guards being effective Jedi killers. If I were going to be fighting a Force user, I'd want to do it from range, with area effect weaponry, and blaster resistant armor. They might have the armor (I honestly don't know), but their weaponry (an odd assortment of melee weapons that are generally inferior to a light saber) is all wrong for the job.

We never see Grievous fight impressively except in the now non-canon cartoon. He only gets beaten time and again, except against no-names. The Jango example I hadn't thought of, but it isn't very impressive in film: a quick shot and the Jedi goes down. Then he fights another Jedi and dies (a powerful one, but the effect is the same: we perceive Jango as unimpressive in Jedi-killing ability).

That's an interesting idea, but they do have three dimensions: block the first two bolts a meter from your body, then turn your blade and deflect the third half a meter from your body. But that's rather ridiculous, I must admit, akin to some of the Legends stuff.

Snoke's guards have the right armor. One of them catches Kylo's blade on his gauntlets. Anyway, I don't see what's so wanky about a Jedi being beaten hand-to-hand. Jedi have trained for a long time in hand to hand combat, that's why they're good. Also the Force, but they're just good at that because they've trained with that for a long time, too. Take a clone trooper. Trained in war from a much younger age, and with no code of ethics or need for quality of life to get in the way. So the training is much harder. Why couldn't we see one of these death machines fight a Jedi to a standstill? The other bonus Jedi have is their lightsaber, but there is both canon and Legends evidence of lightsaber-proof gauntlets.

[The Romulan Republic]

1. Its relevant insofar as this is a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of a specific scene in the Sequel Trilogy, and it absolutely is something that would have come up if the scene were shot in the way the OP suggests. And political subtext or implications is as much a valid subject of discussion when talking about a creative work as act, plot structure, themes, etc.

That's probably fair; I apologize for being overly snappy.

2. The only reason that this conversation is ongoing is because three separate posters felt the need to take me to task and engage in a lengthy argument over a single snarky comment I made at the expense of people who supposedly have nothing to do with this thread. Which to me does beg the question: why are you all so angry and defensive over my criticizing sexism towards Rey, if it has no application to this thread or anyone posting in it? Because it seems like every time I call out sexism against Rey, a bunch of people take personal offense, while adamantly insisting that it has no relevance to anyone on this board.

Have you considered that large chunks of the board being willing to jump down your throat on admittedly shallow grounds might suggest that you're going about things in a counterproductive way? The objection is generally that nobody who's actually here said anything like what you're objecting to. Whatever the rest of the internet gets up to is not relevant to the board; if you inserted even an obvious figleaf like 'I saw [x] on [website], isn't that a textbook example of [bad thing]' I think it would go a long way towards pacifying people.

3. I did not call you a Nazi, and I apologize if you took it that way. You can be sexist, however, or threatened by discussion of sexism, without being a Nazi. If sexism (conscious or unconscious) were limited to Nazis, this would be a much happier world.

I may possibly have been too sensitive to implications here. You may, similarly, have been too free with accusations in the past - this is a two-way street. Let's both of us not ascribe motives where it's not necessary to do so.

I mean, people post about stuff that didn't happen on this board all the time. And for that matter, I have seen some comments on this board regarding Rey and the Sequels (not naming names, because what good could possibly come of it?) that I consider sexist. But just to be clear: if I'm calling out someone on this board, I'll say so. If I make a general comment, without naming names or addressing it to a specific person, then it should be regarded as general commentary, and not an attack on anyone here.

As for the rest, fair enough. I'll own to being too trigger-happy on this topic sometimes.

I think a great idea for that throne room fight scene would be to have Rey use one of their staff weapons in the fight, as that's clearly a fighting style the actress and character is more used to, and having Rey shown as adapting to the fight like that should have been neat.

Indeed.

One thing I'm already disappointed about in RoS is that they have Rey using Luke's style of saber (because God forbid we ever change the status quo), rather than having her build herself a staff saber. I so wanted Rey with a staff saber.

If I were to guess, it's because for the Joe Six-packs, the last time we saw a force user who used a staff weapon in the films, it was a demon looking guy and that person killed the Jesus Hippie looking dude who is able to kill anyone who steals his daughter. Any sort of conflation with that will make her look evil by association. This is probably why we also haven't had any fencer style Jedi since Dooku as well, since it'd bring up the same imagery as Count Saruman the vampire guy who fought Gandalf.

Sidenote and personal anecdote: After I first saw The Phantom menace, on the drive home, my parents and I were discussing the movie. When talking about the climax, my VERY Christian mother thought the scene where Qui Gon was meditating while Maul roared himself up into a fury, IE, channeling their respective sides of the force, that Qui Gon was surrendering to him because he was on his knees. We had to explain to her that Qui Gon was resting, and that he wasn't capitulating to someone who looked like the devil, thereby giving himself over to evil.

Imagine that as the potential audience members the studio wants to spend their money on watching the movies, and that's why Hollywood cares about branding. Because sometimes, a simple idea such as getting on your knees to rest and channel energy is so foreign to American audiences that they have to such things spelled out for them. And a double bladed lightsaber, or one that seems like it, such as a staff, might be considered too close to the bad guys.

But, I hope we see a moment wherein Rey builds her own weapon, maybe under Maz's guidance or something, showing that she is becoming a fully fledged Jedi. But it will depend on what the studio thinks the audience is capable of understanding, and what they actually want to film.

While there are undoubtably going to be people in every audience who just don't get it, I also think that by and large, US media companies are too quick to underestimate the intelligence of their viewers. A good writer or director can convey new concepts in a way that most people will understand.

Yeah that was stupid. Yoda doesn't use the Force for combat. When he was a puppet they understood that. CGI proved too tempting to keep from making him ridiculous. And in the throne room, Palpatine didn't need them because he had Vader and he was overconfident in Vader's loyalty.

We had no idea what Yoda did or didn't do in combat prior to his duel with Dooku in Attack of the Clones. This isn't a contradiction of the OT- its something the OT just didn't cover, because it didn't fit the plot/circumstances of that story to do so. AotC/RotS Yoda is Yoda in his prime, leading the Jedi at the height of the Clone Wars. Why should he not do things that we hadn't previously seen? What this amounts to is you taking your personal headcanon, treating it as canon, and then criticizing the Prequels for not conforming to it.

Yoda's telekinetic abilities also work for me, because the ability to rely on the Force entirely to defend oneself, without needing to resort to a weapon like a light saber, is to me a mark of true mastery, and that canon is fairly consistent on that point.

As to Palpatine not thinking he needed guards because he was confident of Vader's loyalty, the exact same could be said of Snoke and Kylo.

My point is it's a stupid precedent. I'm telling you it's a stupid movie, and you're using another stupid movie to defend it.

In fact, the one thing Abrams could do to make this worse is explain away Rey's skill by making her daughter of God as well. The Chosen One bullshit was stupid when it first showed up, and it's stupid now.

My point is that whether you like it or not, its canon, and that Rey is not a "Mary Sue" for doing things that fit with the established rules of the setting.

Seriously? You missed my whole point. He had ten years. Ten years and he got his ass kicked anyway. Rey had a couple weeks, and sure, she was fighting a much less skilled duelist, but it is still notable. The difference is one of multiple orders of magnitude.

No, I get the point. Its just that the circumstances are so different that I don't think the two are really a valid comparison. Moreover, as I noted before, Force users don't necessarily all learn at the same rate (or at the same rate at all levels of training and experience), or excel in the same areas.

I personally hold very strongly to the view that learning how to use the Force in a technical sense is something that those with a strong connection to it and the right mindset can pick up quite quickly, and there are examples from all three trilogies and the Legends EU I can use to back up that conclusion. What takes time is learning why to use the Force, and how to use it responsibly, as well as developing the experience and focus to use specific techniques (ie combat telekinesis) that require particular concentration of finesse.

So I don't think that we can presume a steady incline where each week/month/year of training equals this level of power and skill.

It is far from canon, but we don't have anything explicitly stating that Luke didn't also subconsciously use the Force for his twenty or so years of being alive. Actually, neither is it stated that Rey does that. So I find it just as believable that Luke was subconsciously using the Force to nail womp rats as Rey was using it to fly speeder bikes harder or whatever.

Absolutely. They both could have been making use of the Force subconsciously for years, and probably were, and thus were both able to do things that might otherwise seem implausible.

And just because Luke didn't demonstrably use it for hand-to-hand doesn't mean Rey can't. Different Force users might use those latent sense and reflexes in different ways. Why is it more implausible to use them for hand-to-hand (something Rey, again, clearly has prior experience in, unlike Luke) as well as piloting?

He uses the Force to do what he's been doing for years: fly down a narrow trench and hit a two-meter target. And Force augmenting a shot like that is very different from using the Force to beat trained duelists and use telekinesis and all the other shit Rey does/should do.

Rey uses it to do what she's probably done for years- fight off attackers in hand-to-hand.

Not sure I get your point here. Luke has more training than Rey and so should therefore be able to do better. Luke has two years to dick around with a lightsaber and figures out how to give Vader a few minutes challenge. Rey has a few hours and fights wounded Kylo to a standstill, then a few more weeks and fights proficiently. That is my problem. She is doing better in weeks than Luke did in years, because the script requires it.

My point is that you're underselling Luke's saber proficiency to make Rey's seem more ridiculous, and, again, comparing incomparable situations in an over-simplistic manner. I am not at all sure that killing a few of Snoke's guards and beating a wounded Kylo Ren is "doing better" than lasting several minutes against, and landing a hit on, Darth Fucking Vader.

Let's do this again.

Luke uses the Force, as he may have been for years, to adjust his aim. Not telekinesis, but enhancing his focus to aim better. Anakin doing that bullshit in TPM is exactly that, bullshit.

To be clear, when I say she shouldn't be able to use the Force, I mean in hand-to-hand combat or as telekinesis. Accessing the Force to focus herself for a shot, to find where Luke is hiding, to meditate, et cetera, that's fine. When she can fight through a room full of guards that are shown to pose some sort of difficulty for Kylo and fight Kylo himself to a standstill (yes he's wounded but he still beat Finn easily, and Finn had more training), that's when I take offense.

Thank you for clarifying what you mean by Rey not being able to use the Force. I'll repeat that I agree she should not be able to use combat telekinesis, but I have no problem with her using latent Force senses to enhance her hand-to-hand (I don't see why that's any more implausible than Luke doing it in ANH to enhance his piloting and targeting skills). Her telekinetics is iffy- its unprecedented to my knowledge for someone with that level of experience, but certain Force users have a natural affinity for certain abilities (battle meditation, visions, healing, etc.), and it may be that Rey has a natural affinity for telekinetics. I'll note that she has never yet performed TK under the stress and distraction of combat- she has never done it while under direct attack herself, or having to focus on anything else at the same time, which is the mark of a true master of Force combat.

I see Rey vs. Kylo in TFA as one of those things that may seem silly at a glance, but makes a hell of a lot of sense if you think about it. Kylo is bleeding from a gut wound from a weapon that tosses around armored storm troopers like rag dolls. Its amazing he's even standing, frankly, and he's only going to get weaker with each passing second. Fighting Finn first probably cost him strength he could not afford. And Rey plays that fight very smart, constantly giving ground, fighting defensively, as he wears himself out, and only then going on the offensive, slowly wearing him down. Which makes sense because, again, Rey is new to the Force, but she is not new to hand-to-hand fighting, if what we see of her life on Jakku is any indication. There's also Rey's state of mind vs Kylo's, which is riddled with self-doubt (a crippling condition for a Force user, possibly even more so than a blaster wound to the gut).

Both of these things are less of a factor in TLJ in the throne room- Kylo is not seriously injured, and he seems more together, more focused mentally (enough to dupe Snoke). And lo and behold, he is now almost an exactly even match for Rey, where before he was clearly losing, despite the fact that she now has more training and experience.

Let me rephrase: I expected it to be like ROTJ, where Palpatine didn't feel any need to defend himself against Luke. If I remember correctly, which is far from guaranteed with that dumpster fire of a movie, Snoke was pretty suspicious of Kylo already. So from a cinematic perspective, he should have had someone there to deal with Kylo so he didn't have to lower himself to the level of personal combat.

The cinematic decision would have the guards as Jedi killers because it maintains the threatening aura of Snoke.

That's one possible way to do it. I don't regard it as the only valid way. I don't think new films have to follow all the steps of the OT to succeed. If anything, they try to too much (or at least TFA did).

And, let's be fair, if it had been those guards against Kylo alone, they would have won. He and Rey both saved each other's asses in that fight.

Entire elite unit for betrayal by a very important, very powerful person. Doesn't seem too far fetched to me. Especially if Snoke is a cripple, unable to match Kylo in acrobatics, as he seems to be.

Maybe, but he seems very confident of his control over Kylo, and his proficiency with TK and lightning suggests he probably doesn't need acrobatics to defend himself quite well.

We never see Grievous fight impressively except in the now non-canon cartoon. He only gets beaten time and again, except against no-names. The Jango example I hadn't thought of, but it isn't very impressive in film: a quick shot and the Jedi goes down. Then he fights another Jedi and dies (a powerful one, but the effect is the same: we perceive Jango as unimpressive in Jedi-killing ability).

I disagree. Grievous in canon doesn't have as much physical prowess, but he makes up for it with some nasty tactical cunning. The stand-out example, and one which I don't think gets nearly enough recognition, is how he handles the situation on the bridge of the Invisible Hand in RotS.

Here's the situation: Grievous is trapped on the bridge of a crippled, crashing ship. He's cornered by two Jedi, either one of which is probably a match for him one-on-one. His crew is dead or in flight. So what does he do?

He blows out the fucking bridge window, sucking himself into space (which he can survive due to his cybernetic parts). Then, just in case that fails to kill his opponents, he climbs over the hull to reach the escape pods and launches every pod, simultaneously providing cover for his own escape and trapping his opponents on a doomed ship.

If it had been any lesser pilot than Anakin Skywalker at the helm, Grievous would have killed two Jedi generals (one a Council member) and the Chancellor/Sith Lord, and altered the entire course of the war and galactic history. I wish we'd seen more of that Grievous, the one with the brain of a ruthless master tactician.

That's an interesting idea, but they do have three dimensions: block the first two bolts a meter from your body, then turn your blade and deflect the third half a meter from your body. But that's rather ridiculous, I must admit, akin to some of the Legends stuff.

Maybe TLJ Luke could, if he can pull those slick Matrix moves in real life, and not just in an illusion.

A duel-blade wielder such as Ventress could as well, of course.

Snoke's guards have the right armor. One of them catches Kylo's blade on his gauntlets. Anyway, I don't see what's so wanky about a Jedi being beaten hand-to-hand. Jedi have trained for a long time in hand to hand combat, that's why they're good. Also the Force, but they're just good at that because they've trained with that for a long time, too. Take a clone trooper. Trained in war from a much younger age, and with no code of ethics or need for quality of life to get in the way. So the training is much harder. Why couldn't we see one of these death machines fight a Jedi to a standstill? The other bonus Jedi have is their lightsaber, but there is both canon and Legends evidence of lightsaber-proof gauntlets.

Well, I suppose a very, very skilled and well-equipped individual might be able to challenge a top-tier Force user in hand-to-hand (takes shameless advantage of any excuse to link to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3tC8TPh9oQ )

[Coop D'etat]

Or the guards were more ceremonial in nature. Snoke being a guy prone to hubris and thinking himself untouchable, just picked some loyal guys who were good but not great.

He also considers hiring losers to key positions so he can easily emotionally manipulate them a keystone of his HR strategy, so its not like that would be out of character.

[The Romulan Republic]

Or the guards were more ceremonial in nature. Snoke being a guy prone to hubris and thinking himself untouchable, just picked some loyal guys who were good but not great.

He also considers hiring losers to key positions so he can easily emotionally manipulate them a keystone of his HR strategy, so its not like that would be out of character.

Yup.

I think a lot of the First Order's failures in leadership can be explained by the fact that Snoke, rather than seeking out and promoting the best talent he can find, surrounds himself with inferiors he can easily control.