StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Galvatron wrote:It's possible that the Guardians of the Whills are Force-sensitive, but not enough to qualify for Jedi training so those who desire to serve the Order have a chance to do so in other ways.

Well put, m'lord. (To avoid any confusion, I have long lobbied to cement my Deception identity here as G1 Sunbow Cyclonus. When I've the time, I will push for it again; frankly, I think I have at long last earned that distinction .)

But apart from ass-kissing, non-Jedi who swear by the Force are hardly unique, even in the "new canon": Max Von's character in TFA made that incredibly clear. Actual Fort-proficient folk might lay low or otherwise be in short supply, but they must still be around. I mean, hell, Jyn seemed somewhat Force-gifted in a way, no?

I never understood where the notion that Force sensitivity was a binary state came form (except the obvious checkbox in the WEG RPG).

When Darth Vader is about to shoot down Skywalker's X-wing in ANH, he comments "the Force is strong in this one" and then fires. That's all it's worth to him. He doesn't seem surprised or annoyed to have missed a Jedi in his purge. He may even have been inferring it from Luke's intuitive precog jukes, not a Force sense itself, he didn't notice Luke when they were near each other on the Death Star.

So I have no problem whatsoever with random people having a reasonably strong connection to the Force and have always assumed it for the main cast just to explain their luck.

Yeah force sensitivity being binary doesn't really make much sense.

I would see more like the sensitivity to sound more specifically ability hear and indentify different tones, some people are utterly tone deaf, while others can pick up in minute variations in tones and there's those who are somewhere between those extremes. By the same token there would people whose utterly numb to the Force and those who can feel even minor variances and disturbances in the Force and the bulk of people who are somewhere between those extremes.

Ender wrote:Plus you need to give it to Leia to courier over anyways as Kenobi downs have a holoc transmitter in his hovel, and you need to get word to the space wizard so he can hit that one in a million shot to blow the damn thing up (implied to be their plan)

Just to clarify, Obi-wan was sent for (well decided to be sent for) before they even got a look at the plans. There's no way they could possibly know that a jedi was required for the shot. More over, there's no way Erso would know the Rebellion had access to a hidden jedi somewhere. If he designed a flaw into the system to be exploited, reason suggests that it was not the 'one in a million' difficulty suggested. Certainly other pilots on the trench run didn't believe it impossible. Everyone on Yavin who didn't evacuate certainly thought it was plausible. And it makes no sense to design a flaw so difficult to exploit.

GuppyShark wrote:So I have no problem whatsoever with random people having a reasonably strong connection to the Force and have always assumed it for the main cast just to explain their luck.

See I always took it in a similar light. That everyone had some connection, even if it was nothing more than the occasional sense about something, a dream that was eerily correct or an exceptional bit of reflexive work. But because of people like Luke and Leia- who are clearly from a force sensitive family- it wasn't something that ever developed beyond those vague instances without help. As if had Luke never met Obi-Wan he was never going to work out, on his own, that he could levitate stuff. And that in a galaxy like SW potential jedi must be born all the time and still others are left to live out their lives never realising (certainly that seemed to be what Yoda intended for Anakin). Someone has a particularly blessed life, or is really good at sports? Maybe if they were discovered young enough they'd be a jedi. But without the lessons from a master, they'll never make much progress beyond simple, intuitive stuff they don't even realize they're doing.

Kojiro wrote:

Captain Seafort wrote:That's not the impression I got, as point of the rebels' little game of ISD-snooker was to destroy the shield gate in order to open the shield and allow the plans to be transmitted.

I'm certainly not a fan of the idea that a crashing ISD overloaded the shield, but what I saw was barriers retracting (and X-wings smooshing). I fully admit I don't know the mechanics for reopening the hole, but it seems closing it is as simple as removing the blockage. After all if destroying the gate was the key, you'd think we'd have heard something to that effect or it coming under fire from the cap ships. I could be wrong though, perhaps the barriers are made of some stupidly dense material or something that allows them to super slowly penetrate the shield.

MKSheppard wrote:As someone who's worked in a semi controlled industry for several years running; you know people by sight through their distinctive tics and mannerisms.

A friend pointed out to me that every Imperial is a clean looking white guy. Cassian wandering around a secret Imperial base would have been like a scruffy looking Latino wandering around a secret Nazi base- he'd stick out like a sore thumb.

Galan also was an imperial, and he had long hair as well. many seem to. they definitely do not have the short hair standards of modern Earth Armed forces.

Himser wrote:Galan also was an imperial, and he had long hair as well. many seem to. they definitely do not have the short hair standards of modern Earth Armed forces.

I was more of the problem:

1.) CLEAN SHAVEN Imperial officer with the LANDING GEAR BATON GUY walks onto shuttle.

2.) SCRUFFY-THREE DAY BEARD GROWTH IMPERIAL OFFICER with LANDING GEAR BATON GUY steps off shuttle.

Wouldn't that cause some "huh", with the rest of the landing platform work team who is used to seeing CLEAN SHAVEN GUY all the time?

In the "canon" SW novels; Imperial Databases are so detailed that Wilhuff Tarkin on a remote base, after viewing a remote holonet transmission by a supposed Imperial Officer, can ask his battle staff to run it through Imperial Databases on the base, and within about 30 seconds get a 99.99% facial match to a specific officer serving on a specific Star Destroyer halfway across the Empire.

Link that to the canon SW novels, code cylinders do what they did before; act as rank symbols and also carry personnel's login credentials.

See the problems here for plucky rebel SpecForce infiltrators, particularly with the possibilities of RFID-like remote pinging of code cylinders?

I was more of the problem:

1.) CLEAN SHAVEN Imperial officer with the LANDING GEAR BATON GUY walks onto shuttle.

2.) SCRUFFY-THREE DAY BEARD GROWTH IMPERIAL OFFICER with LANDING GEAR BATON GUY steps off shuttle.

Wouldn't that cause some "huh", with the rest of the landing platform work team who is used to seeing CLEAN SHAVEN GUY all the time?

True, but it could also be easily explainable that he is a different officer that arrived on the shuttle with his K2-SO droid (which is also new) and the original officer happens to still be onboard,

to me its still a breach is security, but a heck of a lot less of an issue then what you cited.

Not to mention that the only reason it worked is because of the simultaneous attack outside. K2 noted that the stormtroopers between them and their objective would undoubtedly stop them otherwise, claiming that they would only make it 33% of the way there before being caught.

In any case, the Empire has always been portrayed as varying degrees of incompetent, with the exceptions of those like Thrawn and Vader who are competent enough to be in charge. It was especially notable in Rogue One in which Krennic had to order both bases he was at to respond to the Rebel attacks.

Ender wrote:BTW, I did notice an easter egg in the space battle. No, not the Ghost - the mystery endor corvette shows up again!

https://s12.postimg.org/l48idi9n1/ghost.jpg

bottom right

Identified as a Dornean gunship years ago though ...

Kojiro wrote:

Ender wrote:Plus you need to give it to Leia to courier over anyways as Kenobi downs have a holoc transmitter in his hovel, and you need to get word to the space wizard so he can hit that one in a million shot to blow the damn thing up (implied to be their plan)

Just to clarify, Obi-wan was sent for (well decided to be sent for) before they even got a look at the plans. There's no way they could possibly know that a jedi was required for the shot. More over, there's no way Erso would know the Rebellion had access to a hidden jedi somewhere. If he designed a flaw into the system to be exploited, reason suggests that it was not the 'one in a million' difficulty suggested. Certainly other pilots on the trench run didn't believe it impossible. Everyone on Yavin who didn't evacuate certainly thought it was plausible. And it makes no sense to design a flaw so difficult to exploit.

It's clear from the briefing that shot will be very hard but not impossible of a non-Jedi pilot, or at least the rebel commanders think so. We got to remember that we rebels don't know that Luke has jedi training (well what little Kenobi was able teach during the trip to Alderaan), only that he's a good pilot and related to a clone wars jedi-general, so for their calculations Luke is just a normal pilot like rest of red squad.

In fact luke is the back up to the back up when it comes to the attack run. Gold Leader was the primary pilot for the attack run but when he was shot down it fell to Red leader to take the shot, only after Red leader failed did Luke attempt the attack run and that was essentially because Luke, Wedge and Biggs were the pretty much all that was left of the rebel attack force.

Saw it today. Bunch of lame. The entire first act is one giant plot hole of nobody notices the death star...in orbit of a planet with rebel activity, and the rest of the movie is super slow moving action that was amazing bad. And that's not even touching on the space battle where apparently everyones plan was just not to open fire. And how the shit to AT-AT walkers sneak up on people in broad daylight.

My step sister fell asleep during it. The robot and vader were good, but that's about 10 minutes of movie. I can't imagine watching this again anytime soon. That said, it did build up the universe in non useless ways, though it also doubled down on the Empire must be 1 billion percent inept at everything crap.

Also I feel vindicated on having argued before that the DS1 flaw only make sense if it was deliberate.

The Death Star wasn't in orbit of Jedha until right before they went nukey nukey.

Well that didn't feel clear at all, and I already had asked someone in person if I missed someone and they thought the same thing.

My opinion has softened a little after a day, but not a lot, I'm not a big fan of the kid friendly war movie vibe, and it just felt like every moment was being dragged out.

I just assumed it was clear since Jyn and Andor didn't notice the gigantic murderstation on their way to the planet.

And like Krennic and others who went to the Death Star did so while they were... from places other than Jedha. I presume.

And the khyber crystals were taken to another planet for processing.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Saw it today. Bunch of lame. The entire first act is one giant plot hole of nobody notices the death star...in orbit of a planet with rebel activity,

Tarkin ordered the Jedah target in response to that jumpy defector Imperial pilot.

The Death Star was originally 'parts unknown'

and the rest of the movie is super slow moving action that was amazing bad.

The first act was clunky as Hell, it picked up momentum and by the halfway point was quite good...the ending was awesome.

And that's not even touching on the space battle where apparently everyones plan was just not to open fire.

Too much of the space battle was offscreen, I agree. They focused on the fighters and never showed the ISD's and MonCal slugging it out. If they had it'd give better context for why Raddus decided to have a Hammerhead play Jem'Hadar

And how the shit to AT-AT walkers sneak up on people in broad daylight.

That's actually possible. in the old canon AT-AT's were said to be deceptively fast. It's a psychological thing, their massive size makes one perceive they are slow and lumbering....the walkers can actually haul ass.

Throw in that, their launch point was probably nearby, and the beach soil not carrying their 'thud' until they were very close

That said, it did build up the universe in non useless ways, though it also doubled down on the Empire must be 1 billion percent inept at everything crap.

[/quote]

SKariff is the only part to clearly indicate that perspective.

Only counters are that...
1: most of the spacebattle was offscreen
2. No one was expecting a raid on the planet
3. Because of no one expecting them, Rogue One was able to make their plucky little band look like an Army (blowing up stuff across the whole complex, sending false radio reports, etc.)

Less Imperial slapstick, more like 'Space Pearl Harbor'


As far as Krennic being ignorant of Galen's subterfuge, internal corruption. Tarkin had all the information but chose not to share and instead keep Krennic in the dark...until it benefited Tarkin.

I don't see how the hammerhead was "playing jemhadar", it wasn't a suicide ram, it was a deliberate attempt to push.

Finally saw this.

Whatever - this kicked ass.

But it kicked ass in a way I can admit is probably a bit too uniquely geared towards a die-hard Star Wars fan. The main flaw in this movie, which is probably less of a flaw for someone who posts on this board, is that this movie is only awesome because Star Wars is already such a huge phenomenon. Darth Vader briskly walking down a hallway slaughtering people is amazing because .... it's fucking Darth Vader!

But unlike TFA, this movie had no real new characters to connect with - nothing like Finn and Rey. The characters were mostly throwaway characters, so it wasn't particularly sad when they all died (except for K2 who was obviously awesome.)

But it didn't matter, because AT-ATs and Vader!!!

The beginning was also very choppy - with too much planet hopping and not enough character development. It reminded me of some kind of modern political thriller where we cut to a scene in Pakistan and then back to Washington D.C. or whatever. Very un-Star Warsy.

Also, what the fuck was with that weird mind-reading squid? It had like no purpose whatsoever. Apparently it causes permanent brain damage, but then the defecting Imperial pilot seemed fine later on, so what the hell was that?

Channel72 wrote:But unlike TFA, this movie had no real new characters to connect with - nothing like Finn and Rey.

People connected with Finn and Rey? Their characters were basically "guy randomly stumbles between scenes and is important because reasons" and "Mary Sue who can mind-control Stormtroopers and fight a Dark Jedi because reasons".

I was going to mention the mind squid. It seemed completely pointless and is obviously the result of changes to the script that happened partway through production. It was said to do two things: Find the truth and cause brain damage.

It didn't find the truth, since Saw(?) still didn't think the pilot was telling the truth and that it was a trap.
It didn't cause (lasting) brain damage as the pilot ended up being one of the heroes of the film.

They should have cut the whole thing.

GuppyShark wrote:I was going to mention the mind squid. It seemed completely pointless and is obviously the result of changes to the script that happened partway through production. It was said to do two things: Find the truth and cause brain damage.

It didn't find the truth, since Saw(?) still didn't think the pilot was telling the truth and that it was a trap.
It didn't cause (lasting) brain damage as the pilot ended up being one of the heroes of the film.

They should have cut the whole thing.

It was meant as a moment of characterization for Saw (to show how ruthless he is) and for Cheerut & Blase (their compassion to Bodhi and their respective reactions to each other about his situation)

That could have been done with thumbscrews.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:That could have been done with thumbscrews.

To riff on the old Heinlein line, doors could swing on hinges. That they don't do t the normal way is how you establish separation from the mundane and portray it as SF

He could use an older and less optimized torturebot, like something akin to a Super Battle Droid combined with a medical droid or just a rusty medical droid, to parallel Vader's acts in ANH though using a crummier machine than the elegant floating menace-sphere Vader used (why didn't he use his Force powers? I guess in his case, his RAAAGGGEEEE is too much for delicate information extraction, he might kill his subject outright...). But then again, Rogue One being days before ANH and as something to be seen immediately before ANH would thus make the parallels too repetitive. The use of a horrific eldritch xenosquid works as a biological, organic counterpart to what Vader used in ANH... I guess Saw Gerrera's line of permanent brain damage could have been omitted... or Bodhi could have had a partner-defector who got messed up while he somehow fared better? Or something.

We forget that in ANH, right before Leia was sprung out and right before she was shitting on Han, she DID undergo enhanced interrogation by that orb of menace Vader unleashed upon her. Man, Leia. Hard af.

Vympel wrote:

Ender wrote:BTW, I did notice an easter egg in the space battle. No, not the Ghost - the mystery endor corvette shows up again!

https://s12.postimg.org/l48idi9n1/ghost.jpg

bottom right

Identified as a Dornean gunship years ago though ...

Does this mean it was piloted by the Sand Snakes?

Sea Skimmer wrote:That said, it did build up the universe in non useless ways, though it also doubled down on the Empire must be 1 billion percent inept at everything crap.

Also I feel vindicated on having argued before that the DS1 flaw only make sense if it was deliberate.

The novelization of Star Wars uses terms like "disappeared" (as a noun referring to those tortured and killed) and others that were starting to be used commonly back in the 70s to describe fascist juntas like the ones in Argentina and Chile, among other places. Now most of those mini-Reichs had impressive-looking militaries, complete with field grey uniforms, polished knee-high boots, lots of shiny new hardware and so on but their track record of fighting wars was pretty bad. Yes, they could massacre unarmed serfs, rape women with live rats and throw crippled people out of helicopters into the sea (wheelchair and all) but the few times they took on anyone who could fight back...

Nothing to write home about.