Anacronian wrote: ↑2019-12-24 04:38pmOf course nothing makes sense about them, They were born out of the sentence - JJ:"I think we need some planet destroying weapons, make star destroyers capable of blowing up planets" and that is all, there is no deeper thought behind it.
True, but I don't blame JJ for the details in the VD. He just wanted some classic star destroyers with planet-killing guns on them.
However, the VD could have explained that they were just old ISD-1s that were funneled to an Imperial skunkworks in the Unknown Regions for some decades-long project refining "Death Star tech" for use on much smaller platforms. I'd have at least suspended my disbelief for that, but not the bullshit that Pablo came up with.
Galvatron wrote: ↑2019-12-24 03:57pm
That's why I liked it. Hux was always a sniveling twat who was only motivated to betray the First Order because he was jealous of Kylo Ren's status and the veteran general didn't fall for his bullshit cover-story at all. His unceremonious death was beautiful.
He was, but at least there was a relationship between him and Kylo Ren as characters that would have made a much better contrast to the whole “we win by sticking together” thing they kept saying. To have the First Order’s internal divisions in command cause its actual downfall.
Well, he accomplished that too since he's the one who let the heroes escape. I was just glad to see him knocked off after he'd served what little purpose he actually had.
But the VD has always been bullshit, It has never really mattered in the movies, The movies just did what looked exiting and then it was the VD's job to explain why shit was happening after the fact, It's the VD's job to come up with bullshit excuses for why a couple of A-wings can disable a super star destroyer and when some nerds ask question about the length of the SSD for a really long time they might alter their measurement if they believe it will sell more books.
It's all fucking bullshit, It has never had any influence on the movies, Does not matter if it's Lucas or Disney the movies just do whatever shit they want, and then they make a minimal effort to make the VD fit, Just enough to make people buy books and that is it.
Homo sapiens! What an inventive, invincible species! It's only been a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. And now, here they are, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable... indomitable. ~ Dr.Who
Galvatron wrote: ↑2019-12-24 03:57pm
That's why I liked it. Hux was always a sniveling twat who was only motivated to betray the First Order because he was jealous of Kylo Ren's status and the veteran general didn't fall for his bullshit cover-story at all. His unceremonious death was beautiful.
I always thought the last movie set up a potentially interesting conflict between people like Hux who had the connections to keep the First Order funded and supplied vs Supreme Leader Kylo Ren who had the personal power to kill basically anyone who was standing near him. But I don't think anyone really wanted to see that in a Star Wars movie. It would be like starting the film talking about the taxation of trade routes.
Bah, what a waste of two films. TFA was dorky but at least fun.
TLJ was too busy subverting everything it didn't notice it subverted itself at the end. TROS was just, a mess. I agree with a lot of what said here. It spent an awful lot of time retconning TLJ. While I hate that TLJ, fixing it in the beginning of TROS wasted a lot of time it could have used to make a good movie. The wife and I also were talking how there were too many plot contrivances, too many Mcguffin's. "Hey, the plot needs you to do X" , "Well, good thing this Y doohickie is here, it'll help us do X".
It's one redeeming quality is the Rey/Ren chemistry. They had multiple moments that really worked and sold me, so cudos to Driver and Ridley. I've always liked Rey, never been keen on the whole 'Mary Sue' thing. If anything, they under used her in the first half of the film. Ren/Ben was waaaaay better in this film too. Really liked the portrayal. I got the character even in TFA. Just an emo kid, really. Not good enough for his parents or those he thought of as his betters. Always trying to prove himself and failing, really more powerful than they, but put down to show him his place. Childish due to his upbringing and his emotional maturity. I got it. I would have hoped he would have gotten some of the character growth he got in TROS in TLJ but he didn't. So it all got squished here. Hell, I thought there for a second, at the end, they were going to redeem him and let her die. I was going to be impressed. But no. They couldn't do it. Like everything else in the movie that gave a sense of tension, it was fake. Main character dies? Nope, it's a fake out. Well, Leia but I'm pretty sure if Fisher hadn't actually died, they wouldn't have killed her either.
While I disagreed with the presentation of Johnston's "Rey is a nobody", it wan't really a bad idea. Making her a 'Palpatine' was a horrible idea. Just out of the blue with no set up or work in it besides some mystery boxes in TFA. Could have just as easily been a 'clone' or something Palpy made to transfer himself into ala Dark Empire (they were totally aping) or clone or even real human slave/minion type he was cultivating that 'escaped' to the same effect. I get the whole theme of "family is who you choose it to be not what is your blood" but it was done horribly.
Finn got some story here, but since he was soooo under used in TLJ, he also felt rushed. Wished the other deserter stromstroopers got TLJ and not TROS. Interesting plot line that could have used more time. Sadly, besides Rose chasing him down to no avail, he chases Rey down to no avail. I chuckled to my wife that Ren is a sparkly Vampire and Finn is a Warewolf. I almost wished, just for shits and giggles, at the end that Finn put his tail between his legs and walked over to Rose.
Also, OT ISD's with huge belly guns? This is why we can't have nice things anymore. I'm not opposed to giant guns but don't fucking ruin my ISD's. They were just fine. You want giant belly guns, make you're own damn ships... oh wait you did. Use them. I feel like they were there just for a ID4 moment to blow them up. And if they are going to rehash Clone War's cartoon plots about fighting on SD hull's in atmosphere, I want it to be better than a cartoon.
I do feel like the film was pandering, but not to OT fans. I'm an OT fan and it sure wasn't pandering to me. I feel like it was more pandering to the lowest common denominator. A 'lets throw shit against the wall to see what sticks' approach. Full of plot devices, twists and turns, ups and downs, that lead to the same place. Yeah, yeah, the Skywalkers are all gone, along with the Palpatine you just brought back to take down again. It's over.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Knife wrote: ↑2019-12-24 08:59pmI do feel like the film was pandering, but not to OT fans. I'm an OT fan and it sure wasn't pandering to me. I feel like it was more pandering to the lowest common denominator. A 'lets throw shit against the wall to see what sticks' approach. Full of plot devices, twists and turns, ups and downs, that lead to the same place.
That is basically a decent summation of the all-too-common screenwriting strategy of "come up with a bunch of cool set pieces, and then write just enough plot to string them together." That's pretty much what this movie was when it wasn't being the cinematic equivalent of a playground scuffle.
You know, a part of me thinks it would be kind of hilarious to see a thing where JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson just keep trading Star Wars movies, just to see how ridiculous it gets over time as each movie they make tries to downplay or negate what the previous one was doing. It'd be like two beefing rappers trading diss tracks, but Star Wars.
Knife wrote: ↑2019-12-24 08:59pm
Also, OT ISD's with huge belly guns? This is why we can't have nice things anymore. I'm not opposed to giant guns but don't fucking ruin my ISD's. They were just fine. You want giant belly guns, make you're own damn ships... oh wait you did. Use them. I feel like they were there just for a ID4 moment to blow them up. And if they are going to rehash Clone War's cartoon plots about fighting on SD hull's in atmosphere, I want it to be better than a cartoon.
While they obviously reused the CG model from Rogue One, the Star Destroyers aren't supposed to be OT ISDs, but a new class of Star Destroyers called Xyston-class. The Xyston-class SDs are larger than ISDs at 2,406 meters in length. While the dorsal side is pretty much the same as the ISD CG model, the ventral side was modified, lacking the large hangar (replaced by the superlaser) and instead had two small hangars.
Yes, it was pretty lazy not designing new ships and it seems rushed.
The models are the same including plenty of closeups of the unaltered command tower with bridge from the outside. We have an interior shot of the bridge with bridge windows included and a human to scale. No change between R1 and TROS presentations.
This is a movie, the visual evidence trumps all else. These are just bog-standard ISD Is with some ventral mods. The VD can say whatever they want, the eyes don't lie.
Knife wrote: ↑2019-12-24 08:59pmI do feel like the film was pandering, but not to OT fans. I'm an OT fan and it sure wasn't pandering to me. I feel like it was more pandering to the lowest common denominator. A 'lets throw shit against the wall to see what sticks' approach. Full of plot devices, twists and turns, ups and downs, that lead to the same place.
That is basically a decent summation of the all-too-common screenwriting strategy of "come up with a bunch of cool set pieces, and then write just enough plot to string them together." That's pretty much what this movie was when it wasn't being the cinematic equivalent of a playground scuffle.
Agreed. Although, to a point I see how anyone would need to 'reset' a few things to continue a plot line from TLJ since Johnson left it a mess, but the spent way too much time tweaking things to the detriment of the actual movie. There were what? 4-5 Resistance Jungle base scenes throughout the movie. Make an effort in them to mention new peeps pouring in after the Stand at Crait. People and ships coming in to fight the First Order, the Resistance growing after Crait and after the capital of the Republic being blown up and it's citizen's being murdered.
People felt shamed for not showing up in time for Crait, but stepping up now to fight. See, easy peesy. 9/10 these guys just need an editor or producer to tell them no.
You know, a part of me thinks it would be kind of hilarious to see a thing where JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson just keep trading Star Wars movies, just to see how ridiculous it gets over time as each movie they make tries to downplay or negate what the previous one was doing. It'd be like two beefing rappers trading diss tracks, but Star Wars.
lol
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Knife wrote: ↑2019-12-24 08:59pm
Also, OT ISD's with huge belly guns? This is why we can't have nice things anymore. I'm not opposed to giant guns but don't fucking ruin my ISD's. They were just fine. You want giant belly guns, make you're own damn ships... oh wait you did. Use them. I feel like they were there just for a ID4 moment to blow them up. And if they are going to rehash Clone War's cartoon plots about fighting on SD hull's in atmosphere, I want it to be better than a cartoon.
While they obviously reused the CG model from Rogue One, the Star Destroyers aren't supposed to be OT ISDs, but a new class of Star Destroyers called Xyston-class. The Xyston-class SDs are larger than ISDs at 2,406 meters in length. While the dorsal side is pretty much the same as the ISD CG model, the ventral side was modified, lacking the large hangar (replaced by the superlaser) and instead had two small hangars.
Yeah, no. They were obviously ISD I's. Pablo sitting on SW.com handwaving shit does not make it true. Some dude making a tie in book handwaving lazy ass VFX does not make it true. It was an ISD with a huge ass belly gun.
Yes, it was pretty lazy not designing new ships and it seems rushed.
Great review!
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Overall I found ROS to be a fun watch that falls apart when you start thinking about it. I've got a few thoughts:
It feels like there was some pressure to keep ramping up the scale of the threat and spectacle. A single planet killing ship would have been just as much of a threat to the rest of the galaxy. Or they could have gone with a large fleet. But no, that's not enough. They had to go with a large fleet of ships that were all capable of blowing up planets because they keep having to ramp up the action. Then give those ships a crippling weakness because that's the only way to defeat them.
It seems that a movie without that secret fleet could have been better. Keep the scale low. The Resistance is small and outgunned, but only making progress because the First Order is fracturing. They could even keep Palpatine, who is a threat not because of any secret weapons he has but because he is someone the First Order would unite behind.
Also, this is the second Disney movie this month that had a scene where a heroine has to cross a raging sea. Frozen 2 did it way better.
That reminds me, Bilateralrope. Shouldn't there be an ISD out there with a planet cracking laser cannon on it? Most of the Sith fleet was on Exegol, but one ship was sent to that one planet to blow it up. One is on the loose.
Also should mention, that I did not put in my first post, most of the action was pretty video game-y. My wife even complained that Jedi should not be able to heal like that and that' it's like a med pack in a game. After Ben healed Rey, at the end, why didn't Rey heal Ben? It gets silly. And as much as the prequels got flak for wirefu jumping around with lightsabers, man the fights in this movie were super bad with that. It show cased battle powers, and platforming skills. I swear I played that training level Rey did on the jungle planet somewhere.
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
That training sequence is probably the easiest to explain example of putting spectacle over thought. Specifically, the log across the canyon. All it does is make the training more dangerous. A log sitting on the ground could be just as effective for training. Maybe more effective as a log sitting on the ground can be allowed to wobble more.
Knife wrote: ↑2019-12-24 11:08pm
That reminds me, Bilateralrope. Shouldn't there be an ISD out there with a planet cracking laser cannon on it? Most of the Sith fleet was on Exegol, but one ship was sent to that one planet to blow it up. One is on the loose.
Beyond which the First Order's ships are still out there, only the Finalizer seemed to go to Exegol, every other Resurgent class is still going.
They were totally aping, right down to a fleet of world destroyers in the form of the World Devastators, but the Dark Empire ones were way more imaginative.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
NecronLord wrote: ↑2019-12-25 01:53amBeyond which the First Order's ships are still out there, only the Finalizer seemed to go to Exegol, every other Resurgent class is still going.
Apparently that wasn't the Finalizer at Exegol either, it was the Steadfast.
We saw other Resurgents going down at Bespin, Endor and Jakku during the victory montage before the heroes returned to the Resistance base.
As with ROTJ, however, we still don't know how many First Order remnants are out there. There could be holdouts for years, but I never got the feeling that they had quite the infrastructure that the Empire did.
How funny would it be if Phasma returns and assumes command?
I will say that I quite liked Alliegant General Pryde, he did serviceable duty as the second tier bad guy.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
They say, "the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots." I suppose it never occurred to them that they are the tyrants, not the patriots. Those weapons are not being used to fight some kind of tyranny; they are bringing them to an event where people are getting together to talk. -Mike Wong
But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
Even Dark Empire (as fucked as it was) was better than this.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Galvatron wrote: ↑2019-12-24 03:57pm
That's why I liked it. Hux was always a sniveling twat who was only motivated to betray the First Order because he was jealous of Kylo Ren's status and the veteran general didn't fall for his bullshit cover-story at all. His unceremonious death was beautiful.
He was, but at least there was a relationship between him and Kylo Ren as characters that would have made a much better contrast to the whole “we win by sticking together” thing they kept saying. To have the First Order’s internal divisions in command cause its actual downfall.
Well, he accomplished that too since he's the one who let the heroes escape. I was just glad to see him knocked off after he'd served what little purpose he actually had.
In both previous movies Hux was clearly in control of the First Order’s military, in this one they magicked up an entire command staff in which he’s a minor player.
If they’d been consistent with the previous presentation of the character they could have played much more heavily on the division between him and Kylo Ren. With him still having the loyalty of most of the military but not being able to directly stand up to Ren, so he gambled on using the remnants of the Resistance to assassinate him.
Because the last two movies basically gave us a situation where the First Order had already won. Nobody was willing to stand up to them and try and fight for the Resistance, and even throughout this film they could operate anywhere and seemed to have authority everywhere.
Having them start off in charge but then falling apart by turning on each other would have been a more compelling arc for the First Order that actually followed on from the previous films.
Whereas what we actually got as stakes didn’t because when you show the villains already having absolute authority everywhere the heroes go it’s hard to fear them having even more of it.
(Also the version of grandpa Sheev in this film is super off, when in any of the other movies was there ever a hint that he cared about the Sith? He cared about power and being in charge, the Jedi were just an obstacle to that he was never on some kind of ancient Force jihad).
Knife wrote: ↑2019-12-24 11:08pm
That reminds me, Bilateralrope. Shouldn't there be an ISD out there with a planet cracking laser cannon on it? Most of the Sith fleet was on Exegol, but one ship was sent to that one planet to blow it up. One is on the loose.
Beyond which the First Order's ships are still out there, only the Finalizer seemed to go to Exegol, every other Resurgent class is still going.
They were totally aping, right down to a fleet of world destroyers in the form of the World Devastators, but the Dark Empire ones were way more imaginative.
They displayed other planets with ships going down at the end, but indeed they omitted the fully functional star destroyer that's basically a smaller death star floating around. That one should have shields up and be much harder to fight as any opposing capital ship could be one shotted.
Maybe they'll tear it apart in some comic with a proper fighter swarm, like they did with the FO dreadnoughts.
Design wise I think the original concept to use would have been the Onager star destroyer but some higher up dimwit decided to go for yet another ISD, just to be safe you know.
I didn't see any Starhawk either, but considered how little fleet action there was at all I'm not even surprised: would have been a waste to model it properly to show in 2-3 panning scenes at most.
Vendetta wrote: ↑2019-12-25 08:42am(Also the version of grandpa Sheev in this film is super off, when in any of the other movies was there ever a hint that he cared about the Sith? He cared about power and being in charge, the Jedi were just an obstacle to that he was never on some kind of ancient Force jihad).
I thought ROTS heavily implied that Palpatine's motivation was the establishment of a Sith dynasty.
Some of the biggest problems in the Sequel Trilogy is the lack of some exposition in the film(s).
JJ Abrams and Kath Kennedy's problem that they refuse to see is this:
While you can get away with some stuff via offloading it to "expanded universe" stuff like Comics, certain questions need to be answered in the film itself...
Case in point, Where the fuck did the First Order, and later the Final Order (lololol at names) come from?
They had a chance with Granpa Sheev monologing like a classic villian to Rey on Not-Byss to throw in a line about "I chose the best, most reliable of my captains to stay here, along with a fleet of select ships..."
I mean, He did it before in ROTJ:
"It was I who allowed the alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops await them. Oh...I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive."
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Vendetta wrote: ↑2019-12-25 08:42am(Also the version of grandpa Sheev in this film is super off, when in any of the other movies was there ever a hint that he cared about the Sith? He cared about power and being in charge, the Jedi were just an obstacle to that he was never on some kind of ancient Force jihad).
I thought ROTS heavily implied that Palpatine's motivation was the establishment of a Sith dynasty.
It seemed to me much more about the establishment of his dynasty. He wanted UNLIMITED POWER for its own sake.
Vendetta wrote: ↑2019-12-25 08:42am(Also the version of grandpa Sheev in this film is super off, when in any of the other movies was there ever a hint that he cared about the Sith? He cared about power and being in charge, the Jedi were just an obstacle to that he was never on some kind of ancient Force jihad).
I thought ROTS heavily implied that Palpatine's motivation was the establishment of a Sith dynasty.
It seemed to me much more about the establishment of his dynasty. He wanted UNLIMITED POWER for its own sake.
Probably they were the same thing in his mind. He was the Sith, and if he couldn't survive forever personally the next best thing was for the Sith to survive him in the form of an apprentice. Bonus points if that apprentice was his own biological descendant, because why the fuck wouldn't he prefer that?
And winning the Sith's Force Jihad in the process just reinforces that along with all the practical benefits of there not being any more Jedi, so...
