Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[Darth Yoshi]

Would that matter? We already know from the last movie that hyperdrives ignore shields.

[Vympel]

Would that matter? We already know from the last movie that hyperdrives ignore shields.

Only Starkiller Base's shield - well, the TFA novelization attributes the fractional refresh to planetary shields alone, as a power saving measure.

[Patroklos]

I missed this, so I am doubling back.

The EU is not canon (and good riddance), and therefore totally irrelevant. Even if it was canon, the tail doesn't wag the dog, and never has. Also, its been 30 years since TESB. Things change.

A good portion is not canon, but some of it still is. And there is all sorts of new stuff now. But most importantly the old stuff is canon usually until it is directly contradicted by new stuff. In this case they didn't say cloaking devices were common or easy, only that two characters were able to pull them out of their ass instantly when a plot demanded it. Two characters, independently, in unrelated events, suddenly have cloaking devices. Not only that, they can be defeated just by knowing someone is using them. Since you can bash them together in mere hours, why do all ships not have them?

So you have a problem. Either this extremely useful technology is common but somehow doesn't exist anywhere normally where expected and is still a surprise when encountered, or its super rare but suddenly anyone who needs it has it for no good reason. What great writing!

All your quibbling is doing is exposing how contrived and stupid this all is.

The transports are tiny, the claim that they'd be visible just from the Mk 1 eyeball at that distance is unjustified. As for DJ's ship - they came in from the underside of the ship. It doesn't stretch plausibility to think that someone wasn't looking out a window at the exact moment he arrived from that position. The same way the Falcon somehow got on the back of the Avenger without anyone on the Star Destroyer seeing it do so by looking out a window.

They were too far away? No, and I challenge you do prove that. But even if I gave you the hulls themselves were too far away (they weren't) then they were leaving a site the enemy was fixated on and they were engine burning directly away from Supremacy sooooo.....

Shall I link you to Atomic Rockets to educate you on how easy it is to see engine burns from across a solar system?

The simple fact is the cloak does not mask electromagnetic radiation, as observed directly in the film, so there is no good reason for it to work at all, let alone when we are see the damn Supremacy stretched across the screen behind them.

How is the distance between the cruiser and Supremacy 'inter-planetary'? Obi-Wan went back to his ship because he was trying to communicate between Geonosis and Coruscant. And it turned out he didn't have enough power to do so (due to damage) and relayed it to Anakin and Tatooine first.

You miss understand. The distance of the communications is only one issue. The Raddus to Supremacy thing is how stupid it is that you can communicate form the hearts of two enemy warships without 1.) it not being detected and 2.) It not being jammed and 3.) It not being traced.

A similar thing has only happened once before, when C3PO and Luke were communicating on the DS1. And guess what, it was explicitly told to us why that worked and it involved. Because you know, story telling.

It is established in the film, they said Crait was useful because it had enough power to get a message out.

1.) They called Maz, so they already got the message out, they just decided to send a different message.

2.) You are just explaining how clueless they writers are that they went to a planet to get the message out, after showing us they got a message out...

And no one said it was a galaxy wide resistance movement, ever.

Ummmm, who do you think they were sending the message too? Or are you going to quibble that people who will jump into an active battle with the FO to help imperiled Rebels are not Rebels?

Story and plot aren't the same. The Finn/Rose plot is not "pointless" at all, its an axis of the film and serves Finn's character arc. Further, the events of the climax couldn't happen without it.

How odd to describe something with not impact on the films plot is somehow an "axis." The word you are looking for is "filler." Turgid, self indulgent filler. If you have a character you have to make up busy work for, you have a character you don't need.

There is nothing in the climax they need Finn for. Maybe if he had actually stopped the battering ram that could have impacted something, but Rose stopped that. Please, what even it is predicated on any action taken on his part?

The base was shielded, so orbital bombardment was out of the question. Poe says this. There's no evidence to suggest the crystal shafts in the area compromised the base's security. And yes, they walked out of the dilapdiated 30-year old base through a cave. Through an opening which didn't exist before Rey made it, and of which no one was aware.

Shielded is not the same thing as armored. I am sure you will quibble about it again, but we were told "armored" so they could have their stupid little OMG DEATH STAR TECH!!!! "battering ram" scene.

Also a feature that compromises the bases security....proves a feature compromises the bases security. As we are shown, whatever "armor" there was clearly doesn't cut off these tunnels as they used one to get out of the base.

Also we are clearly told that the droids checked for exists and there were none. They start looking for one because they see Luke, but then Luke didn't need an entrance did he? But maybe they realized that in editing so they through in the crystal dogs, but then that contradicts what the droids just told us?

WHAT A TWIST!!!

Characters do not need to 'accomplish' anything to grow.

We have zero reason to think he wouldn't have stopped the battering ram, and thanks to Rose we will never know.

Who gives a shit if Finn grows when he is useless? So we wasted 20-25% of the movie to watch an unimportant non-dovetailing B-plot character grow? And be grow you mean get physically restrained from what he wanted to do by no choice of his own? ENTHRALLING!

Sure there's a way to reconcile it. Does it have a minimum effective range? What's the mass threshold for it to work?

Is there any reason a weapon couldn't address any of those things? You need mass? I'll just fill a freighter with blocks of durasteel. You need a minimum range? There were ALOT of mon-calls much closer to the Executor at Endor. Ships that were making a suicide run as it was. It would have been REALLY useful to trade a cruiser for a dreadnaught, and the mass ration was much further in the MonCal's favor there.

This is the problem with messing with the setting, because it doesn't just apply forward, it applies backwards.

Why did they not try it with each smaller ship? Because from a nitpicky plot perspective, the only reason the cruiser pulled it off is because Hux deliberately declined an opportunity to shift fire on her as she turned (the act of which would have necessarily closed the distance and rendered it vulnerable). Given how easily those ships were destroyed, there is no reason to assume they'd pull off a jump before they were blown up.

Except the Raddus wasn't insta-hulled when she was in range of the Supremacy's destructive fire the first time. The issue wasn't ever that she would be one shotted, we saw her not be. The issue was that she wouldn't survive in the end. And of course there were multiple rebel ships, so if multiple of them charged at once there is every expectation that one would survive, or they would have all died in the first place.

This all of course brings up the ridiculous lack of firepower of the FO in the first place, with at least four Resurgents and the Supremacy being unable to utterly dominate 1000 times less warship tonnage off the bat.

So this means whenever we see a warship getting bested in combat, whenever the result is inevitable, all of them (Rebel, Imperial, FO, whatever) should make their last act a hyper jump at the enemy, yet this has never been observed (and we did see an ISD decide to just blow up instead of do this in RotJ). Including the dreadnaught after the CO knew what the rebels were going to do and that it would succeed.

Speaking of which, all that dreadnaught need to do was roll or pitch a degree and Poe or all the bombers would just be gnats smeared across his grill.

From a story telling perspective, because its stupid to show your hand early and compromise one of your moments by doing it twice prior.

Yeah, that would be stupid, and since its the same mechanism Han used to defeat the SKBs shields, they did this exact stupid thing...

And while the word stupid does apply here, the one you are really looking for is OBVIOUS. Because as much as you fain cluelessness on this point, we all know you asked the exact same "why didn't they do that before" question as soon as you saw this scene. Along with the rest of your audience, including the ten year olds.

21.)
Seriously? Luke Skywalker displayed a new Force power to demonstrate his mastery in a way that epitomises Yoda's admonition that a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence, and never for attack. Heaven forbid the movies ever show us any new force powers. History must have stopped in 1983.

Maybe you missed the whole temple burning down around his head sequence, but the whole point is that Luke isn't as powerful or capable as he thought he was, and was arrogant for thing he was. Given the old Jedi Masters successful raised thousands of generations of Jedi over millennia and for most of that time didn't produce very many Sith or their like its pretty obvious Like is not the BEST JEDI EVAR!!!

There is no reason to believe Luke is the first person to come up with that, he doesn't say he is, and the film doesn't insinuate it either. Unless we should have thought Vader was the only one to use telekinesis because he is the only one we saw use it for a whole movie. Also this force power has existed in several video games at least, maybe still canon ones. Not sure.

Its just a force power used by a powerful but not uniquely so Jedi, so the real question is why didn't Yoda, Windu, etc. ever use it when it would have been convenient. Shit, maybe we saw Palpantine use it, it would far better explain how he was personally meeting with conspirators in AotC without getting caught. Prove me wrong.

As for "removing all utility" - yeah, ok - he single-handedly saved the lives of everyone in the Resistance. How is Luke being there and dying as opposed to not being there and dying is at all different from a story-telling perspective? Either way, he sacrified his life. The only difference is that the movie's way of doing it is something only a competent writer who understands the source material could come up with, as opposed to some bullshit involving Electric Judgment or whatever other nonsense a SW fan writing this would default to.

Nobody knows Luke sacrificed himself. A few thousand FO soldiers saw that he DIDN'T sacrifice himself, including one main character we can safety assume will still be alive in IX. In fact a far more likely a story to be shared than the one we see the little kids talking about is how Kylo Ren was made to look like a fool when Luke didn't die because he was never there. Kylo even walks up and makes this obvious, instead of Luke just winking out like Obi Wan did. Nobody watching will be unaware that it was a trick and Luke did not die at that moment, at that location. Its probably recorded.

When they go back to his island they won't find a body or any evidence that he did what he did.

Also since what was going on was instantly given away the second he showed up without a ship into an active battle zone (I am sure you have no issue with that), and if you are particularly slow when they stopped firing on him the big revel was spoiled up front anyway. Granted I figured a hologram or something, but it was obvious he was not going to actually be present through some contrivance.

The big point, however, is that the benefit of astral projection is that you can be somewhere without having to be there. In a world with hour long trans galactic travel the novelty of instant presence is irrelevant, but the novelty of being out of harms way is not. This was negated when he immediately dies anyway. And did he delay the FO so the Rebels could escape? Sure. Could he have done that in person? Sure, if there were creative or competent writers to do so, and there wouldn't have been a twist to fail and hide in the process.

The astral projection was cool. It was just executed poorly. Also since we know he can interact with physical things while doing this. An hour early he could have projected himself into the Supremacy reactor room and switched off all the safeties. Or a thousand other places infinitely more practical and useful to what he was trying to do, if less faux cinematic. But again, when you don't care about the consequences of your plot decisions...

How does anyone know Luke scarified himself? Because Rey and Leia felt it.

As we learned, the galaxy gives no fucks about what Leia thinks, and if they don't care about Leia who the fuck is Rey?

Given Rey has a tracking beacon, they can make a reasoanble guess.

That a random heard animals must be coming out of a secret entrance? You are easy to please.

The end of TFA was not a montage. It's literally - the Resistance Base, then off to D'Qar.

It was montage, unless you think Rey instantaneously materialized in front of Luke out of thin air. It was a hard cut.

Not only that, the opening crawl pretty explicitly describes some major moves by the FO in the space between the films, then we find out they will control all the major systems in weeks.

Why are you assuming it works like that? The movie made it pretty obvious that they didn't know where the other was because they could only see each other, and not their surroundings.

You are talking about Ren and Rey, I am talking about Snoke. Of course Ren and Rey don't know where each other are because they didn't make the call. But Snoke obviously know where Rey was to make the link.

There is zero reason to think that Finn was going to succeed in destroying the battering ram. Also, refer above. Movies don't need their characters to 'accomplish' plot points in order to grow. Luke miserably failed to accomplish anything when he fought Vader on Bespin - except his character grew regardless.

Except that he obviously was. He was right in front of it, like hundreds of meters max, when Rose rams him, and the beam doesn't fire until quite a bit after that, easily more than enough time for even his slagged fighter to impact it.

Yeah, did you forget about that whole "Luke I am your father" thing? There was a bit more going on with Luke then his own personal growth. You know, like the motivation of the two main villain through the next film...

Or are you going to tell me the 100% unsubstantiated love between Finn and Rose is the basis for the succeeding film? Yeah, I thought not. Finn has essentially been written out of the story. C3PO was more relevant than he is right now. He just Jar Jar in his second film appearance, still stalking around irrelevantly showcasing shitty CGI only wasting far more screen time.

[Kojiro]

The lack of a fighter screen is even more annoying given the (in my opinion terribly forced) creation of TIEs *with* hyperdrives. Jump in with a wing of TIE/sf already out there FFS, I mean, this is *the* moment of triumph, the moment of killing the Resistance. Use your fucking assets with at least the competence of the Rebellion 30 years earlier.

As for the hyperspace ram, the larger context is what matters. It's basically about how much you want to spend on missiles. Missiles that would appear to do phenomenal damage. And bypass shields, even planetary ones. Sure the Resistance may not be able to do it but people like the Trade Federation with droid armies? Or the First Order with their god only knows how many resources?

Yeah, I know the FO are incompetent, but to me that just makes it not worth while. Heroes are, it's often said, only as good as their villains and the FO are terrible villains. Just terrible. The FO are more efficient at saving Resistance lives than any Resistance member by far. At every step they fail through their own sheer stupidity and it lessens the Resistance inherently because of it. Making an error, or making a judgement call based on limited information would be forgivable but over and over? This does not interest me.

[quote="Galvatron"I've only seen TLJ once, but is there any evidence that the Supremacy was running with its shields up when it got hit? In TESB, Captain Needa didn't give the order to raise the Avenger's shields until Han turned the Falcon around and was already within spitting distance.[/quote]
We do see DJ temporarily drop a section of the shields so they can board. The technician notices, taps the screen, then it comes back up. So yeah, they do have them up. And for some reason the 'I plugged in a console and hit buttons now we're stealth lol' yacht they come in on needs them lowered to pass through. Which would be a super handy feature on the Raddus hangar.

[Patroklos]

What makes you think Mr Mysteriouso Snoke has the knowledge to do such a thing? Nothing about the films requires that guy to be good at space combat.

The film even takes pains to highlight that General Hux is not a competent commander.

What an amazingly menacing and intimidating enemy that totally justifies all the supposed problems the Rebels have with defeating them. What heroes Poe and Rey are, kicking over tamper tantrum throwing children the some apparently want the movie to deliver as our primarily obstacle to overcome.

Some of you seem to think that you can preserve this POS as a good move by excusing away its lack of attention to detail and continuity and setting by just undermine the villains to the point that they are Saturday Morning cartoon fodder.

You are just trading equal quantities of piss and shit to dribble over your ice cream Sunday.

[Galvatron]

Would that matter? We already know from the last movie that hyperdrives ignore shields.

Only Starkiller Base's shield - well, the TFA novelization attributes the fractional refresh to planetary shields alone, as a power saving measure.

"Power saving measure" may be the key here. Like the Avenger, First Order warships may run with their shields down until circumstances dictate otherwise. Such circumstances would, of course, be at the commanding officer's discretion.

Similarly, larger targets like the Starkiller (or Death Star) may run their shields at all times, but at a lower strength unless threatened by enemy forces formidable enough to necessitate diverting even more power to them. This may even include the Supremacy.

[Crazedwraith]

Wasn't Supremacy was running with shields up when Rose/Finn arrived? The hacker character had to hack a segment of it down. It was the opposite side from the Raddus' impact though iirc.

[Kojiro]

"Power saving measure" may be the key here. Like the Avenger, First Order warships may run with their shields down until circumstances dictate otherwise. Such circumstances would, of course, be at the commanding officer's discretion.

Similarly, larger targets like the Starkiller (or Death Star) may run their shields at all times, but at a lower strength unless threatened by enemy forces formidable enough to necessitate diverting even more power to them. This may even include the Supremacy.

I think that's vastly more likely for ships. The Death Star after all could generate staggering power and Starkiller... well that had a star captured inside it. Power should not be an issue.

[Galvatron]

Either way, Star Wars shields apparently have variable power levels that can be altered at will. I think the trick is catching an enemy by surprise while their shields are completely down or at a reduced power setting.

[Patroklos]

I think it doesn't matter, because not since Endor have we ever had a protagonist character encounter a shield and actually have it impact their plans. The solutions are instant, readily available, easily implemented, and always successful.

Just turn them off, they will never save you when you need them to. Save the power and space for the a hot tub.

[Galvatron]

I could have sworn that the planetary shield over Scarif presented quite an obstacle to the rebels in Rogue One.

[Patroklos]

It took them 15 minutes to figure a way through. That's after the conveniently produced another shield defeating weapon never before seen, never seen again, and conveniently just what the doctor ordered. Oh yeah, plus a whole class of ship that just so happens to be purpose built to exploit a rather specific situation. Not a specific as a laser battering ram mind you.

Rogue One was a figurative Matryoshka doll off convenient shield defeating shenanigans.

Again, just because its better, doesn't mean is flawless. Or even good.

[Galvatron]

So? Endor was a trap and the rebels still brought that shield down.

[Patroklos]

I said since Endor, and I was talking about the Rebel fleet having to turn around. Note they didn't instantly go "Well On leave on Sabadaba I watched the OOruvian basket weavers use the over the shoulder half stitch, just like the field lines of an Imperial Mk234 shield Generator so... WAIT, I know what you are going to say, its just like the Kuat pod-race transserverator!" and push a few buttons and magincally the obstacle was removed inside the same scene. The real shield shenanigan at Endor, and really the first one, was the Executor's bridge shield going down as it did which I already criticized in this thread. I don't hold any of these movies as flawless.

As for the DS shield, they didn't do it by defeating the shield through off the cuff technobabble. They just blew up the generator, which I hope we can all agree is a pretty normal, straightforward and in universe way to try and drop a shield. Just like on Hoth. And they went through a lot of work, sometimes half the damn movie, to pull it off. See the difference?

Ironically the best in theory plot of this movie is the tracker. Yes it is stupid they know about how to defeat it the way they did, and HACKZORs is lazy, but they identified a major obstacle and then worked through multiple reversals and challenges over time to defeat it, attesting to the obstacles challenge and threat in the first place and our hero's ingenuity and perseverance to tackle those challenges. The execution was shoddy and they pulled the rug out from under Finn and Rose making it all meaningless in the end, but THAT is how you write movies.

[Vympel]

A good portion is not canon, but some of it still is. And there is all sorts of new stuff now. But most importantly the old stuff is canon usually until it is directly contradicted by new stuff. In this case they didn't say cloaking devices were common or easy, only that two characters were able to pull them out of their ass instantly when a plot demanded it. Two characters, independently, in unrelated events, suddenly have cloaking devices. Not only that, they can be defeated just by knowing someone is using them. Since you can bash them together in mere hours, why do all ships not have them?

So you have a problem. Either this extremely useful technology is common but somehow doesn't exist anywhere normally where expected and is still a surprise when encountered, or its super rare but suddenly anyone who needs it has it for no good reason. What great writing!

All your quibbling is doing is exposing how contrived and stupid this all is.

No, none of the EU is canon. At all. Ever. It's all Legends. Maybe keep up on current events. Or events from threee years ago, I dunno.

So again, what is the problem with the Resistance having cloaking devices that shield them from sensors? It's unclear. You seem to just be whining that they shouldn't have them for reasons you can't explain. For some reason you think the existence of cloaking devices is implausible.

They were too far away? No, and I challenge you do prove that. But even if I gave you the hulls themselves were too far away (they weren't) then they were leaving a site the enemy was fixated on and they were engine burning directly away from Supremacy sooooo.....

Shall I link you to Atomic Rockets to educate you on how easy it is to see engine burns from across a solar system?

The simple fact is the cloak does not mask electromagnetic radiation, as observed directly in the film, so there is no good reason for it to work at all, let alone when we are see the damn Supremacy stretched across the screen behind them.

The Supremacy is 60km wide and is obviously hundreds of kilometres away from the transports. Why would a human eyeball pick that up?

But ok sure dude, Atomic Rockets. Sorry that Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars by refusing to pay attention to Atomic Rockets, which Star Wars has followed so faithfully until now.

You miss understand. The distance of the communications is only one issue. The Raddus to Supremacy thing is how stupid it is that you can communicate form the hearts of two enemy warships without 1.) it not being detected and 2.) It not being jammed and 3.) It not being traced.

Please tell me when in a Star Wars movie such a thing has come up before. When was the last time a communications signal was detected and traced?

A similar thing has only happened once before, when C3PO and Luke were communicating on the DS1. And guess what, it was explicitly told to us why that worked and it involved. Because you know, story telling.

Erm, no they didn't. They had two commlinks and they talked with them. It wasn't hard. No one in ANH ever explained 'how it worked' or 'what it involved' because that was totally unnecessary. They're Space Walkie Talkies.

1.) They called Maz, so they already got the message out, they just decided to send a different message.

Maz obviously isn't an ally in the Outer Rim, then.

2.) You are just explaining how clueless they writers are that they went to a planet to get the message out, after showing us they got a message out...

Or, you're wilfully ignoring the movie's actual dialog.

Ummmm, who do you think they were sending the message too? Or are you going to quibble that people who will jump into an active battle with the FO to help imperiled Rebels are not Rebels?

Their allies in the Outer Rim. You do realise that the Resistance having unspecified allies doesn't make those allies part of the Resistance, right?

How odd to describe something with not impact on the films plot is somehow an "axis." The word you are looking for is "filler." Turgid, self indulgent filler. If you have a character you have to make up busy work for, you have a character you don't need.

You keep advertising over and over again that you don't know the difference between plot and story. So let's try this again - movies are not just plot-delivery vehicles. By focusing only whether a character 'accomplishes' somthing for the plot, you are ignoring everything else that goes into telling an actual story - which is the actual point of a film. Any film. Finn's plot is "Finn goes on a mission to save the Resistance fleet." The story is what happens to Finn (and Rose) during that mission.

There is nothing in the climax they need Finn for. Maybe if he had actually stopped the battering ram that could have impacted something, but Rose stopped that. Please, what even it is predicated on any action taken on his part?

His getting captured on the Supremacy with Rose and DJ, leading to the compromise of the Resistance plan when DJ sold them out, directly leading to the chain of events that disabled Supremacy and got Rey off the ship.

Shielded is not the same thing as armored. I am sure you will quibble about it again, but we were told "armored" so they could have their stupid little OMG DEATH STAR TECH!!!! "battering ram" scene.

No, I'm not talking about the base being armored. Poe specifically says the base is shielded so they won't be able to bombard them from orbit. You missed the line.

Also a feature that compromises the bases security....proves a feature compromises the bases security. As we are shown, whatever "armor" there was clearly doesn't cut off these tunnels as they used one to get out of the base.

Which is totally irrelevant to the orbital bombardment point, because... the base has a shield.

Also we are clearly told that the droids checked for exists and there were none. They start looking for one because they see Luke, but then Luke didn't need an entrance did he? But maybe they realized that in editing so they through in the crystal dogs, but then that contradicts what the droids just told us?

WHAT A TWIST!!!

God you're obtuse. The droids didn't go around physically looking for an exit, they checked the fucking plans. It's hilarious how your spittle-flecked rants about the writing are so often predicated on not paying attention to any of the writing.

We have zero reason to think he wouldn't have stopped the battering ram, and thanks to Rose we will never know.

Yeah dude, that's why his ship was crumpling like tissue-paper under the tracer-beam and Poe called it a pointless suicide mission. Because the movie wants us to think he would've succeeded.

Who gives a shit if Finn grows when he is useless? So we wasted 20-25% of the movie to watch an unimportant non-dovetailing B-plot character grow? And be grow you mean get physically restrained from what he wanted to do by no choice of his own? ENTHRALLING!

So sorry you don't like the character.

Is there any reason a weapon couldn't address any of those things?

Yes, because this is a fucking movie not an article on Wookiepedia, and no one would give a fuck to hear it.

You need mass? I'll just fill a freighter with blocks of durasteel. You need a minimum range? There were ALOT of mon-calls much closer to the Executor at Endor. Ships that were making a suicide run as it was. It would have been REALLY useful to trade a cruiser for a dreadnaught, and the mass ration was much further in the MonCal's favor there.

This is the problem with messing with the setting, because it doesn't just apply forward, it applies backwards.

I'm sure the Rebellion is super-stoked to sacrifice the lives of thousands of men in suicide attacks with their handful of fleet assets!

Except the Raddus wasn't insta-hulled when she was in range of the Supremacy's destructive fire the first time. The issue wasn't ever that she would be one shotted, we saw her not be. The issue was that she wouldn't survive in the end. And of course there were multiple rebel ships, so if multiple of them charged at once there is every expectation that one would survive, or they would have all died in the first place.

She doesn't need to be insta-hulled. Supremacy had ample opportunity to fire on her and didn't.

This all of course brings up the ridiculous lack of firepower of the FO in the first place, with at least four Resurgents and the Supremacy being unable to utterly dominate 1000 times less warship tonnage off the bat.

Hey, remember how the Executor could've destroyed the entire Rebel fleet at Endor by itself, but didn't? Good times.

OH NO, THE SETTING WAS BROKEN IN 1983.

So this means whenever we see a warship getting bested in combat, whenever the result is inevitable, all of them (Rebel, Imperial, FO, whatever) should make their last act a hyper jump at the enemy, yet this has never been observed (and we did see an ISD decide to just blow up instead of do this in RotJ). Including the dreadnaught after the CO knew what the rebels were going to do and that it would succeed.

I love this fantasy world you inhabit where people willingly commit suicide en masse on behalf of thousands of people.

Speaking of which, all that dreadnaught need to do was roll or pitch a degree and Poe or all the bombers would just be gnats smeared across his grill.

Like the Executor.

Yeah, that would be stupid, and since its the same mechanism Han used to defeat the SKBs shields, they did this exact stupid thing...

Um ... did the Millennium Falcon ram Starkiller Base?

And while the word stupid does apply here, the one you are really looking for is OBVIOUS. Because as much as you fain cluelessness on this point, we all know you asked the exact same "why didn't they do that before" question as soon as you saw this scene. Along with the rest of your audience, including the ten year olds.

I really didn't. It's a silly question, asked by people who have way too much trouble engaging with really simple fiction.

Maybe you missed the whole temple burning down around his head sequence, but the whole point is that Luke isn't as powerful or capable as he thought he was, and was arrogant for thing he was. Given the old Jedi Masters successful raised thousands of generations of Jedi over millennia and for most of that time didn't produce very many Sith or their like its pretty obvious Like is not the BEST JEDI EVAR!!!

Luke failing Ben has nothing to do with his 'power'. What a stupid assertion.

There is no reason to believe Luke is the first person to come up with that, he doesn't say he is, and the film doesn't insinuate it either. Unless we should have thought Vader was the only one to use telekinesis because he is the only one we saw use it for a whole movie. Also this force power has existed in several video games at least, maybe still canon ones. Not sure.

So what's your point? First you're bitching that he shouldn't have this power, and now you're complaining that its supposedly been seen before, which is it?

Its just a force power used by a powerful but not uniquely so Jedi, so the real question is why didn't Yoda, Windu, etc. ever use it when it would have been convenient. Shit, maybe we saw Palpantine use it, it would far better explain how he was personally meeting with conspirators in AotC without getting caught. Prove me wrong.

Yes, that's "the real question" raised by the climax of the film. Why you didn't see some other Jedi use it before in circumstances you don't specify. The technique which was so taxing it killed Luke. What a conundrum! Heaven forbid that Luke use a technique that other Jedi haven't used. The audacity of allowing Luke to save the Resistance with a Force power that embodies the lessons he received from Yoda.

Nobody knows Luke sacrificed himself. A few thousand FO soldiers saw that he DIDN'T sacrifice himself, including one main character we can safety assume will still be alive in IX. In fact a far more likely a story to be shared than the one we see the little kids talking about is how Kylo Ren was made to look like a fool when Luke didn't die because he was never there. Kylo even walks up and makes this obvious, instead of Luke just winking out like Obi Wan did. Nobody watching will be unaware that it was a trick and Luke did not die at that moment, at that location. Its probably recorded.

Rey and Leia know. That's all that's required. Ben would likely feel his death as well.

When they go back to his island they won't find a body or any evidence that he did what he did.

Also since what was going on was instantly given away the second he showed up without a ship into an active battle zone (I am sure you have no issue with that)

Of course not? Why would I? Since he wasn't really there?

The big point, however, is that the benefit of astral projection is that you can be somewhere without having to be there. In a world with hour long trans galactic travel the novelty of instant presence is irrelevant, but the novelty of being out of harms way is not. This was negated when he immediately dies anyway. And did he delay the FO so the Rebels could escape? Sure. Could he have done that in person? Sure, if there were creative or competent writers to do so, and there wouldn't have been a twist to fail and hide in the process.

It's pretty amazing that you think the obvious thing to do - Luke shows up and dies in person - is what a 'competent' writer would do. Let me guess, Luke whips out his green lightsaber and goes out in a blaze of glory, right? Ugh.

But sure dude, astral projection is clearly pointless because Luke died doing it from across the galaxy. It obviously serves no useful function. Clearly they should delete it from the Jedi Spell Book Which Doesn't Actually Exist.

The astral projection was cool. It was just executed poorly. Also since we know he can interact with physical things while doing this. An hour early he could have projected himself into the Supremacy reactor room and switched off all the safeties. Or a thousand other places infinitely more practical and useful to what he was trying to do, if less faux cinematic. But again, when you don't care about the consequences of your plot decisions...

Ummmm - no he can't? I like it how you brag about all the ways the movie's plot "can't fool me man" but missed obvious give-aways like the fact that he wasn't making any footprints on the salt.

As we learned, the galaxy gives no fucks about what Leia thinks, and if they don't care about Leia who the fuck is Rey?

Erm, yes they do. That's why the kids were re-enacting Luke's standoff at the end of the movie with makeshift toys. Legends get sprung from improbable events like the Resistance escaping from the First Order when they were doomed, who knew.

That a random heard animals must be coming out of a secret entrance? You are easy to please.

If the tracking beacon indicates they're near Leia, it's not remotely a stretch.

It was montage, unless you think Rey instantaneously materialized in front of Luke out of thin air. It was a hard cut.

Please learn what a montage is. Or do you think Rey was in the Falcon for weeks?

Not only that, the opening crawl pretty explicitly describes some major moves by the FO in the space between the films, then we find out they will control all the major systems in weeks.

None of which is at all inconsistent with no appreciable amount of time passing.

You are talking about Ren and Rey, I am talking about Snoke. Of course Ren and Rey don't know where each other are because they didn't make the call. But Snoke obviously know where Rey was to make the link.

Who says? Since when is the Force a locator beacon?

Except that he obviously was. He was right in front of it, like hundreds of meters max, when Rose rams him, and the beam doesn't fire until quite a bit after that, easily more than enough time for even his slagged fighter to impact it.

And your belief that this would actually destroy the ram is based on...? That the walkers wouldn't have shot him down before he finished comes from?

Yeah, did you forget about that whole "Luke I am your father" thing? There was a bit more going on with Luke then his own personal growth. You know, like the motivation of the two main villain through the next film...

Jesus Christ - that entire scene is Luke's personal growth. He's presented with the absolute worst possible news he could get and doesn't succumb to despair.

Or are you going to tell me the 100% unsubstantiated love between Finn and Rose is the basis for the succeeding film? Yeah, I thought not. Finn has essentially been written out of the story. C3PO was more relevant than he is right now. He just Jar Jar in his second film appearance, still stalking around irrelevantly showcasing shitty CGI only wasting far more screen time.

Again, I'm sorry you don't like the character. Next time they make a movie they should be sure to delete all characters who don't succeed at everything at all times. In a movie where learning from failure is a major theme.

[Gandalf]

Source for what? Was what done?

Very well, let's treat it like the papers I mark.

I would like to see a breakdown of the profitability of these different types of fans. People often derisively talk down to the hyper-detail oriented fans and hold up the casual general audience fan as the target audience money wise, but is that true?

A casual fan will pay for a ticket, but usually just one. Maybe they buy a t-shirt at some point. They probably recognize it as cool for kids and buy the odd SW toy for them every other Christmas. [1]

A hardcore detail fan like myself who is in love with the world more that any specific character or movie? I have a whole wall full of literally hundreds of SW books. Novels, tech manuals, game guides, picture books. I have a hard drive(s) choke full of SW games. I have miniatures, models, lego sets (the expensive ones), probably a functional stand alone wardrobe of SW clothing (I kid, but its a lot) and I have filled my child's room with the same. From a money perspective, I am probably worth a thousand casual SW fans at least. [2] Granted much of that money went to third parties, but those third parties pays to license that material. And I also bought the same movie tickets, maybe multiple times.

The point is in the grand scheme of things the movies the are just marketing for the follow on products. If we are talking about the decisions of Disney being all dollars and cents, the detail fans are their bread and butter. [3] And we are the ones that can be lost, because while you can guarantee SW fans will go and see the movies by and large no matter how shitty the past one was and no matter how shitty they think the next one will be and hate themselves for it, those people won't buy the merchandise for those shitty movies. Case in point, I have watched every single SW movie in the theatre where I was alive to be able to do despite being very sour going in for II, III, and VIII. I still buy OT stuff regularly, but there is not a speck of prequel of nuWars crap in my home. It would be if they had paid attention to the details.

The bits into which I put notation, namely ones dealing with the valuation of casual fans relative to the OMG HARDCORE ones are the ones I found contentious, namely because this is the only line you seem to draw.

[Vendetta]

What makes you think Mr Mysteriouso Snoke has the knowledge to do such a thing? Nothing about the films requires that guy to be good at space combat.

The film even takes pains to highlight that General Hux is not a competent commander.

What an amazingly menacing and intimidating enemy that totally justifies all the supposed problems the Rebels have with defeating them. What heroes Poe and Rey are, kicking over tamper tantrum throwing children the some apparently want the movie to deliver as our primarily obstacle to overcome.

Some of you seem to think that you can preserve this POS as a good move by excusing away its lack of attention to detail and continuity and setting by just undermine the villains to the point that they are Saturday Morning cartoon fodder.

You are just trading equal quantities of piss and shit to dribble over your ice cream Sunday.

Mang, you must hate Star Wars.

There isn't a single military engagement in the OT that doesn't feature brain melting incompetence on the part of someone, usually the Empire.

Battle of Yavin

Who was incompetent: Grand Moff Tarkin.

Why: Didn't launch fighters. Even though the previous scenes at Alderaan had shown that Combat Space Patrol was actually part of offensive Death Star operations he declines to launch fighters which could have assisted his primary asset in blockading and preventing escape.

Consequences: Loss of primary asset, escape of Rebel assets.

Defence of Echo Base

Who was incompetent: General Riekaan, Luke Skywalker.

Why: Design of Echo Base featured no defences against heavy armour, despite approach only being possible from one angle and Rebel intelligence being familiar with Imperial heavy armour (previously encountered in the raid on Scarif, successor to equipment used in the Clone Wars). Despite having heavy surface-to-space ordnance and military shield generators, no relevant surface defences are present. Light field artillery is incapable of penetrating Imperial heavy armour and is even incapable of elevating to hit the body of the armoured vehicle (despite having precision to hit the knee joints at considerable range which would have allowed fire at exposed cockpits and weapons systems for likely greater effect. No relevant fortifications like buried AT-AT ditches or nuclear landmines were emplaced despite being less evident signs of rebel presence than the exposed surface to space weapon and shield generator (even if it is posited that an AT-AT could survive a several kiloton incident at close range something that top heavy and ill supported would fall over, and subsidence and cratering from detonations would render terrain difficult for subsequent transports).

Commander Skywalker's air assualt on Imperial armour approaches over friendly forces for no reason, approaches on the only vector the enemy can fire back, and repeatedly crosses the enemy's only line of fire for no effect. As with the light field artillery no shots are attempted to disable exposed weapons systems.

Consequences: Echo Base is overrun for minimal Imperial losses, much of Rogue Squadron is killed for minmal effect.


Blockade of Hoth

Who was incompetent: Admiral Needa.

Why: No Fighters deployed. Despite the fact that the Rebel Alliance clearly expected to meet and give battle to a fighter blockade, as evidenced by escort starfighters leaving with transports, the Imperials do not deploy them in a timely manner, rendering the blockade vulnerable to Rebel surface to space weapons. TIE Fighters and Bombers would have been able to intercept and damage, disable or destroy Rebel transports which otherwise escaped.

Consequences: Rebel personnel and equipment escaped Echo Base.


Defence of Death Star Shield

Who was incompetent: Unnamed Imperial Field/Staff Officers.

Why: Insufficient patrols, failure of discipline in defence during battle. During the surface battle of Endor many Stormtroopers and light armoured vehicles are defeated by traps which would have required considerable effort for the Ewok irregulars to emplace. Teams of dozens of Ewoks would have been required to lift and move the heavy logs used, and adequate patrols would have been able to detect and counter these efforts. Notwithstanding the patrols a disciplined defence of the primary asset until the overall mission was accomplished would have denied access to it to the Rebel and Ewok forces, however Imperial forces were allowed to break discipline and unnecessarily pursue the Ewok irregulars into hostile territory wherein traps had been emplaced.

Consequence: Primary surface asset is destroyed, Primary space asset placed at risk.


Endor Orbital Engagement

Who was incompetent: Admiral Piett.

Why: Failure of discipline in defence during battle. Despite the fact that the Rebel fleet chooses to close to and engage his position distant from the primary asset, Piett allows his fleet to be drawn towards the asset causing his flagship to be within range to collide with it during a momentary loss of control after destruction of the primary command bridge. Combat close to the primary asset allows Rebel forces to make an opportunistic attack on it when the surface objective is failed. Failure to disperse his forces also reduces the effectiveness of the primary asset's weapon.

Consequence: Loss of Imperial flagship, Primary asset damaged, placed at risk.



Every battle in almost every Star Wars movie goes the way it does because of catastrophic military incompetence, often on both sides.

[Patroklos]

No, none of the EU is canon. At all. Ever. It's all Legends. Maybe keep up on current events. Or events from threee years ago, I dunno.

So again, what is the problem with the Resistance having cloaking devices that shield them from sensors? It's unclear. You seem to just be whining that they shouldn't have them for reasons you can't explain. For some reason you think the existence of cloaking devices is implausible.

Because they don't shield them from sensors like eyeballs, and you flailing about to avoid addressing that is hilarious. And that this is a massively useful tool, that is apparently so easy to just make out of thin air TWO different independent character accomplish it directly on plot command.

That's what we call a contrivance, things intelligent people (not you) don't like in their movies.

The Supremacy is 60km wide and is obviously hundreds of kilometres away from the transports. Why would a human eyeball pick that up?

I don't have the camera angle they used in the film, but since we have its width and the degrees of the sky it takes up we can get an exact distance from the camera. We can settle this one day, but something 80 kilometers wide and as big as it is in multiple scenes is not hundreds of kilometers away.

But ok sure dude, Atomic Rockets. Sorry that Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars by refusing to pay attention to Atomic Rockets, which Star Wars has followed so faithfully until now.

Your graceless concession is noted.

Please tell me when in a Star Wars movie such a thing has come up before. When was the last time a communications signal was detected and traced?

That's the point. It hasn't. This amazingly effective capability has never been exercised before.

Erm, no they didn't. They had two commlinks and they talked with them. It wasn't hard. No one in ANH ever explained 'how it worked' or 'what it involved' because that was totally unnecessary. They're Space Walkie Talkies

Yeah, they clearly tell us R2 has hacked the DS computer system and get those communicators from the control room. The Imperial control room, on an Imperial facility. Does it surprise you that using two communicators from the facility you are in to communicate in that same facility, when your agent was shown and explained to have access to the computers of said facility is different that just picking up a random device and talking directly through space and hulls to unknown receivers?

Supper convenient for Poe and Finn, but yeah obviously it never would have been useful anywhere else. Good observation.

Maz obviously isn't an ally in the Outer Rim, then.

Yet she is in the outer Rim...

Does Maz and the Rebels both use Sprint and everyone else Verizon? I get that same service free calling is super money saving but perhaps it was a good time to take the out of network call charge.

Or, you're wilfully ignoring the movie's actual dialog.

No, quite the opposite. I am noting that they say one thing, then do the opposite. You are choosing the ignore the other so you can fanboi your way out of a hard discontinuity.

Their allies in the Outer Rim. You do realise that the Resistance having unspecified allies doesn't make those allies part of the Resistance, right?

Which parties who fought for WWII German do we not call "The Axis." How about the groups who fought against them that are not lumpted in with "The Allies"?

You keep advertising over and over again that you don't know the difference between plot and story. So let's try this again - movies are not just plot-delivery vehicles. By focusing only whether a character 'accomplishes' somthing for the plot, you are ignoring everything else that goes into telling an actual story - which is the actual point of a film. Any film. Finn's plot is "Finn goes on a mission to save the Resistance fleet." The story is what happens to Finn (and Rose) during that mission.

You are an idiot, there is nothing in literature that makes any of the distinctions you are inventing here. Not only that your distictions are irrelevant to my ciritisism, that whatever story Finn and Rose have is superfluous and irrelevant to the rest of the movie. If you like their story I hope you get your own stand alone Finn and Rosa spin off, but it was a completely payoffless distraction from the an already under supported primary plot.

His getting captured on the Supremacy with Rose and DJ, leading to the compromise of the Resistance plan when DJ sold them out, directly leading to the chain of events that disabled Supremacy and got Rey off the ship

So two minutes after inventing these ridiculous cloaking devices from nowhere for the transports, we are supposed to congratulate the writers for wasting 20% of the movie coming up with a way to instantly make accepting that original contrivance irrelevant? So why the fuck do it at all?

I take it back, Finn and Rose do contribute to the plot, and nail the coffin in just how stupid the whole damn thing is. Congratulations?

And of course all of this rests on Rosa and Finn, from the onset, having no way to get onto Supremacy in the first place as a known fatal flaw.

No, I'm not talking about the base being armored. Poe specifically says the base is shielded so they won't be able to bombard them from orbit. You missed the line.

The shielding has nothing to do with what I am saying, which is why I specifically said armored. They additionally say armored so those of us why saw Hoth know there will not be an instant FO ground blitz. Yet we know, and given TIE fighters find them easily enough, and we are later shown they DO compromise the base armor whatever it is, that the base can be easily entered with just a cursor survey of the era.

Which is totally irrelevant to the orbital bombardment point, because... the base has a shield.

I said nothing about orbital bombardment. Shielding and armor were specifically differentiated.

God you're obtuse. The droids didn't go around physically looking for an exit, they checked the fucking plans. It's hilarious how your spittle-flecked rants about the writing are so often predicated on not paying attention to any of the writing.

Actually Pink told us before they ever got there it was nigh impregnable for an extended period of time. The Droids confirmed that. Just for both to be directly contradicted because the plot now demanded it. Or rather the writers got stuck.

Yeah dude, that's why his ship was crumpling like tissue-paper under the tracer-beam and Poe called it a pointless suicide mission. Because the movie wants us to think he would've succeeded.

Yet his face wasn't melting off in his open cockpit...

Yes, this is the movie you like so much. I am so sorry...

So sorry you don't like the character.

He has a character?

Yes, because this is a fucking movie not an article on Wookiepedia, and no one would give a fuck to hear it.

It seems most are asking these questions and they did it instantly upon viewing it. You are the one denying basic reality, basic SW continuity, do defend this POS.

I'm sure the Rebellion is super-stoked to sacrifice the lives of thousands of men in suicide attacks with their handful of fleet assets!

Yeah, who said they need to crew those ships? They didn't in this movie you love so much. And if you are are about to die anyway, are you saying Rebels or FO fanatics wouldn't want to go out with a bang?

Oh, you missed that "die anyway" part.

She doesn't need to be insta-hulled. Supremacy had ample opportunity to fire on her and didn't.

But she did, all throughout the pre chase sequence, and Raddus didn't just instantly die. No, she was able to take several minutes of pounding, so there is no reason to think that had Supremecy focused on Raddus pre jump she could have insta-killed her before she made it.

When this first thing happened, they could have evacuated to the frigates, or just to the transports they did and tack a few casualties, and done exactly what they did.

You seem surprises that a rag tag group of rebels, under direct military control, would sacrifice a couple hundred to kill the enemy flagship, maybe millions of its crew, plus maybe a half dozen other capital ships. I don't think there are many commanders in history that wouldn't take that trade.

Hey, remember how the Executor could've destroyed the entire Rebel fleet at Endor by itself, but didn't? Good times.

OH NO, THE SETTING WAS BROKEN IN 1983.

Remember how there was a well justified reason why they didn't. See once again in your fanboi rage you miss the mark. We are expected as an audience to know that the Executor and attendant ISDs would wipe the floor with the Rebel fleet at Endor. The Emperor tells us this. The Executor bridge officers basically say it, and Ackbar himself actually says it.

We the audience are never forced to parse why when when the Executor explicity tries to go full bore, the main characters don't die. This is because competent story writers didn't put us in that position.

In this movie, the enemy never gets any rational limit to its power. In fact, we are repeatedly told they are trying their damn best to kill everything. But for unexplained reasons, even though the 80km Supremacy is supposedly unleashing all of its power, it spends ten minutes taking out simple transports, and though it has the rebel fleet under its guns for quite a bit before the chase, can't do it. which leaves us with

We are told First Order is upper powerful and threatening + But they always fail, despite what we are told = The villains are no threat and there is no tension = The heros are pussies who really aren't doing anything special when the beat the FO.

I love this fantasy world you inhabit where people willingly commit suicide en masse on behalf of thousands of people.

People who are about to die anyway aren't really committing suicide, they are picking the manor of their death. I think the issue you are having trouble with is people in the organizations of the type we are talking about, doing the deeds we are talking about, generally are not cowards in the face of death.

But shall we catalogue the plot points of SWs that rely on characters facing certain death, often realizing it? Rogue One really upped the numbers...

Like the Executor.

Yup. Remember, you are the only fanboi who can't accept criticism. You won't hurt my feelings pointing out legitimate criticisms of the OT.

Um ... did the Millennium Falcon ram Starkiller Base?

It actually did, but I am referring to bypassing the shields, which as was earlier noted DJ proved were in fact up.

If you want put forward the position that it didn't bypass the shields, but instead tanked the shields and the ships as a kinetic impactor, fuck you had SW more than I thought...

I really didn't. It's a silly question, asked by people who have way too much trouble engaging with really simple fiction.

Simpletons are satisfied with the simple.

Luke failing Ben has nothing to do with his 'power'. What a stupid assertion.

Powerful AND capable. Would you like the tell us now that combination of the two are not relevant to being a good teacher? That a non force user can train Jedi? That an incapable force user can train Jedi.

The fact is Luke failed where countless Jedi succeeded, showing a clear area where he is outclassed.

So what's your point? First you're bitching that he shouldn't have this power, and now you're complaining that its supposedly been seen before, which is it?

I didn't claim it had been seen before, I am claiming it SHOULD have been seen before. Just like so much that suddenly is plausible in TLJ that never was before, despite it being readily attainable and immensely useful. You want us to believe people just chose not to do these useful things, or were not smart enough to realize these obvious things.

Yes, that's "the real question" raised by the climax of the film. Why you didn't see some other Jedi use it before in circumstances you don't specify. The technique which was so taxing it killed Luke. What a conundrum! Heaven forbid that Luke use a technique that other Jedi haven't used. The audacity of allowing Luke to save the Resistance with a Force power that embodies the lessons he received from Yoda.

What exact lesson from Yoda = astral projection? You realize we had an Emperor who was able to influence his entire Empire through intergalactic space, and you think this astral projection is impressive? Interesting...

Rey and Leia know. That's all that's required. Ben would likely feel his death as well.

That's nice. So its three versus the an entire FO army. Plus a living main character (Hux).Yeah, I am sure the word won't get out Luke was never there.

And again, Leia was just shown to have exactly zero influence.

Of course not? Why would I? Since he wasn't really there?

Yeah, but you weren't supposed to know that yet. So if you did know he wasn't there at that point you are agreeing with me that the writers fucked up the revel.

It's pretty amazing that you think the obvious thing to do - Luke shows up and dies in person - is what a 'competent' writer would do. Let me guess, Luke whips out his green lightsaber and goes out in a blaze of glory, right? Ugh.

That's about the level of imagination I assume you have. I see you have the same lack of confidence in the writers I do, even though you are busy shoveling their shit into your mouth and thanking them for the meal.

But sure dude, astral projection is clearly pointless because Luke died doing it from across the galaxy. It obviously serves no useful function. Clearly they should delete it from the Jedi Spell Book Which Doesn't Actually Exist.

Its kinda a waste when it accomplished nothing different than he could have done being there in person. The question is what did he accomplish through astral projection that he couldn't have reasonably of done without it. Had he not died, I'd have said not expose himself to risk. But since you just told us we should assume this power = death its no benefit in this regard.

You again miss the point. I said IF HE WAS GOING TO DIE DUE TO WRITTER DESIRE, it made more sense to do it in person because astral projection, if that's his predestined fate due to Disney money generation algorithms (the director didn't get to decide that), its a waste. Its just a gratuitious tongue and cheek wink-wink to the audience (well, not you, since you maybe were to slow to get in on the joke).

If they were going to use astral projection, they should have made the whole dame sequence different. Either accomplish something impossible to do in physical form, or just have him benefit from its primary benefit of escaping danger.

Ummmm - no he can't? I like it how you brag about all the ways the movie's plot "can't fool me man" but missed obvious give-aways like the fact that he wasn't making any footprints on the salt.

Again, simple people understand only simple things. Han physically interacted with Leia, including kissing her and giving her astral projection dice, which she could physically touch.

Now lets be real, this is just sloppy film making, you don't need to do your usual on this one, they probably never realized the mistake they made here.

Erm, yes they do. That's why the kids were re-enacting Luke's standoff at the end of the movie with makeshift toys. Legends get sprung from improbable events like the Resistance escaping from the First Order when they were doomed, who knew.

Writers fiat and all, you are just substantiating exactly what I am saying, that none of this makes sense. Guess who never say the events we see the kids playing regarding the light saber duel? All the rebel survivors, who were all exiting a plot hole to safety at the time.

The only accounts of the end of that fight are the FO. It has nothing to do with Rey or Leia. What a kick in the balls.

If the tracking beacon indicates they're near Leia, it's not remotely a stretch.

Roger, lets go look for mine collapse victims by observing local deer populations. Makes total sense. You will do a lot of people a lot of good out there!

Please learn what a montage is. Or do you think Rey was in the Falcon for weeks?

Who knows. Oh, you think Rey just hopped right in the falcon and went right there? Again, a simple person, a simple understanding.

None of which is at all inconsistent with no appreciable amount of time passing.

Conquer the galaxy in weeks. thousands and thousands of worlds. Trillions and trillions of beings. Totally makes sense bro.

Who says? Since when is the Force a locator beacon?

Do you know how information works?

And your belief that this would actually destroy the ram is based on...? That the walkers wouldn't have shot him down before he finished comes from?

All the characters who participated. Poe didn't call it off because it wouldn't work, just like Leia didn't want Poe to call off the dreadnaught run because it wouldn't work. He did it because it wasn't work sacrificing lives to accomplish. Did you understand anything about this movie?

And while you WOULD have a point about the AT-AT, well Rose sort of blows that out of the water given the ease she impossible turns around again, catches up with him, then turns ahead of him enough to T-bone him, all without being observed in any of the shots immediately prior.

Jesus Christ - that entire scene is Luke's personal growth. He's presented with the absolute worst possible news he could get and doesn't succumb to despair

You seem to think contributing to the main plot and personnel growth are mutually exclusive. That scene was as much about Vader as it was about Luke. And that dynamic ends up being the primary plot OF THE ENTIRE FUCKING TRILOGY!

Again, I'm sorry you don't like the character. Next time they make a movie they should be sure to delete all characters who don't succeed at everything at all times. In a movie where learning from failure is a major theme.

You think failure was a theme of this movie? Which part? The one where the two mega ships shown are destroyed? The one where the heretofore primary villain is killed? The part where the Rebels escape not in a devastating defeat, but for all we know kill every enemy in site except a few walkers worth of troops?

Holy shit, you don't know do you?

[Vympel]

Because they don't shield them from sensors like eyeballs, and you flailing about to avoid addressing that is hilarious. And that this is a massively useful tool, that is apparently so easy to just make out of thin air TWO different independent character accomplish it directly on plot command.

I like it how you keep asserting that they're 'made out of thin air', like they were just invented during the movie. We saw them inventing it in the MacGuyver Room. Heaven forbid that they just have that technology - no, it has to be 'made up out of thin air', because prejudicial language to explain a really mundane plot point makes your argument stronger

That's what we call a contrivance, things intelligent people (not you) don't like in their movies.

Yes, yes, you're so intelligent. You saw cloaking devices and instead of just going "oh ok, they have those now", you had an aneurysm because in your made-up head space you think it's impossible for something to exist unless you had seen it before you walked into the film.

I don't have the camera angle they used in the film, but since we have its width and the degrees of the sky it takes up we can get an exact distance from the camera. We can settle this one day, but something 80 kilometers wide and as big as it is in multiple scenes is not hundreds of kilometers away.

Fine.

Your graceless concession is noted.

It's not a concession at all. You're appealing to Atomic Rockets, as if anything at all in Star Wars has ever obeyed those sorts of sci-fi considerations. There's nothing in the actual movies to support you.

That's the point. It hasn't. This amazingly effective capability has never been exercised before.

Oh no! Clearly that must mean it cannot exist. No movie can actually add anything, no matter how inconsequential or tangential - ever - it always has to be something that's happened before, or else its prima facie invalid.

Yeah, they clearly tell us R2 has hacked the DS computer system and get those communicators from the control room. The Imperial control room, on an Imperial facility. Does it surprise you that using two communicators from the facility you are in to communicate in that same facility, when your agent was shown and explained to have access to the computers of said facility is different that just picking up a random device and talking directly through space and hulls to unknown receivers?

What the fuck are you talking about? You are just flat out making shit up:

THREEPIO
We found the computer outlet, sir.

Ben feeds some information into the computer and a map of
the city appears on the monitor. He begins to inspect it
carefully. Threepio and Artoo look over the control panel.
Artoo finds something that makes him whistle wildly.

BEN
Plug in. He should be able to
interpret the entire Imperial computer
network.

Artoo punches his claw arm into the computer socket and the
vast Imperial brain network comes to life, feeding information
to the little robot. After a few moments, he beeps something.

THREEPIO
He says he's found the main computer
to power the tractor beam that's
holding the ship here. He'll try to
make the precise location appear on
the monitor.

The computer monitor flashes readouts.

THREEPIO
The tractor beam is coupled to the
main reactor in seven locations. A
power loss at one of the terminals
will allow the ship to leave.

I don't see jack shit about communicators there, or anywhere else in the script. Please, quote the part from the script which says any of this utter bullshit you're spewing. No one ever says "oh the communicators worked because the hacked DS control room argle bargle". It's a fantasy you invented in your head. Nothing ever seen in Star Wars remotely precludes the use of a fucking space radio between ships.

Yet she is in the outer Rim...

Who says? You? Prove it.

Does Maz and the Rebels both use Sprint and everyone else Verizon? I get that same service free calling is super money saving but perhaps it was a good time to take the out of network call charge.

I'm not even sure what this means. Do we have some reason to assume Maz has access to the kind of powerful communications facility Crait has, and which they need? You seem to think so, but you're not explaining why.

No, quite the opposite. I am noting that they say one thing, then do the opposite. You are choosing the ignore the other so you can fanboi your way out of a hard discontinuity.

It's not a "discontinuity" at all, you're just being a bloody-minded a moron who refuses to listen to the film's dialog.

Which parties who fought for WWII German do we not call "The Axis." How about the groups who fought against them that are not lumpted in with "The Allies"?

Ah yes, because "allies" in this context clearly must mean treaty allies engaged in active hostilities, as opposed to say, friends who can provide them with material aid.

You are an idiot, there is nothing in literature that makes any of the distinctions you are inventing here. Not only that your distictions are irrelevant to my ciritisism, that whatever story Finn and Rose have is superfluous and irrelevant to the rest of the movie. If you like their story I hope you get your own stand alone Finn and Rosa spin off, but it was a completely payoffless distraction from the an already under supported primary plot.

https://nofilmschool.com/2014/07/martin ... story-plot

But sure, Martin Scorcese, film director, doesn't know what he's talking about.

Or to quote the article:

...takeaway is that, while a (narrative) film's plot is composed of events that happen, one after the other after the other, leading to a climax, its story is the essence, the lighthouse, if you will, that a writer and filmmaker can use to guide their ship safely through the choppy waters (I'm going to run with this nautical metaphor) of cause and effect.

By knowing the story, the writer will know how to write the film on a granular level, not just the events, but the mood, the tone, and in the macro sense, the theme. They're both equally important, and like peanut butter and jelly, or love and marriage, you can't have one without the other.

Also "film" is not generally considered "literature". Just a note.

So two minutes after inventing these ridiculous cloaking devices from nowhere for the transports, we are supposed to congratulate the writers for wasting 20% of the movie coming up with a way to instantly make accepting that original contrivance irrelevant? So why the fuck do it at all?

To tell the story they wanted to tell.

The shielding has nothing to do with what I am saying, which is why I specifically said armored. They additionally say armored so those of us why saw Hoth know there will not be an instant FO ground blitz. Yet we know, and given TIE fighters find them easily enough, and we are later shown they DO compromise the base armor whatever it is, that the base can be easily entered with just a cursor survey of the era.

What the fuck does "TIE Fighters find them easily enough" (are you suggesting that 'armored' means 'hidden' too?) have to do with the price of tea in China? It's not even clear what your complaint is anymore. That the plot is somehow flawed because the First Order didn't send out surveyors to find a tunnel through which they could enter the base without a frontal assault? Oh no!

I said nothing about orbital bombardment. Shielding and armor were specifically differentiated.

Didn't you? "There was an open rock entrance into there, which means the FO could easily have bombarded them to death."

Actually Pink told us before they ever got there it was nigh impregnable for an extended period of time. The Droids confirmed that. Just for both to be directly contradicted because the plot now demanded it. Or rather the writers got stuck.

ZOMG, you mean that Admiral Holdo trusted the plans of a 30 year old base which she had never fucking seen as opposed to the extensive survey of potential tunnels? What a dumb plot!

Yet his face wasn't melting off in his open cockpit...

Yes, this is the movie you like so much. I am so sorry...

Why would his face melt off? What, you didn't notice the windshield?

He has a character?

Yes, he does. He goes from a cowardly defector doing anything he can to run from the First Order to being deeply loyal to his friends (chiefly, Rey). In TLJ he goes from just caring about his immediate circle of friends (hence his attempt to abandon the Raddus) to accepting his identity as a rebel.

It seems most are asking these questions and they did it instantly upon viewing it. You are the one denying basic reality, basic SW continuity, do defend this POS.

"Most". Most what? A handful of delusionals who think movies are wikipedia articles, and everything needs to stop so some character can explain shit to the audience?

Yeah, who said they need to crew those ships? They didn't in this movie you love so much. And if you are are about to die anyway, are you saying Rebels or FO fanatics wouldn't want to go out with a bang?

Oh I see, so your argument is that the Rebels should have pre-emptively arrived at the Battle of Endor with uncrewed ships so they could suicide them, because they have a TARDIS and can see the future! Heaven forbid that mass suicide might not be high on their list of priorities and they may prefer to, you know, live to fight another day. Everyone in fiction is a Japanese kamikaze pilot now.

But she did, all throughout the pre chase sequence, and Raddus didn't just instantly die. No, she was able to take several minutes of pounding, so there is no reason to think that had Supremecy focused on Raddus pre jump she could have insta-killed her before she made it.

When this first thing happened, they could have evacuated to the frigates, or just to the transports they did and tack a few casualties, and done exactly what they did.

You seem surprises that a rag tag group of rebels, under direct military control, would sacrifice a couple hundred to kill the enemy flagship, maybe millions of its crew, plus maybe a half dozen other capital ships. I don't think there are many commanders in history that wouldn't take that trade.

No, she didn't take 'several minutes' of pounding at all. The Rebel's cargo frigate was destroyed first, and Raddus was briefly under fire while Kylo Ren tore her up in his starfighter. Again, you have fuck all idea about story-telling. You see Hux ignore the cruiser and think "hur durr, I guess this scene doesn't matter".

Remember how there was a well justified reason why they didn't. See once again in your fanboi rage you miss the mark. We are expected as an audience to know that the Executor and attendant ISDs would wipe the floor with the Rebel fleet at Endor. The Emperor tells us this. The Executor bridge officers basically say it, and Ackbar himself actually says it.

We the audience are never forced to parse why when when the Executor explicity tries to go full bore, the main characters don't die. This is because competent story writers didn't put us in that position.

In this movie, the enemy never gets any rational limit to its power. In fact, we are repeatedly told they are trying their damn best to kill everything. But for unexplained reasons, even though the 80km Supremacy is supposedly unleashing all of its power, it spends ten minutes taking out simple transports, and though it has the rebel fleet under its guns for quite a bit before the chase, can't do it. which leaves us with

We are told First Order is upper powerful and threatening + But they always fail, despite what we are told = The villains are no threat and there is no tension = The heros are pussies who really aren't doing anything special when the beat the FO.

The only person displaying 'fanboy rage' here is you. You're the one having a big sooky cry about how you're so much more valuable than casual fans after all, in probably one of the most absurdly entitled displays I've ever seen.

But no, your argument is a big load of bullshit. The "Imperial fleet was ordered not to attack" excuse only goes so far as to the moment the Rebel fleet engaged the Imperial fleet. At that point, the Executor - employing your logic - should have been capable of wiping out the Rebel fleet all by itself. This never happened. Or is your brilliant argument going to be "the Imperial fleet never went full bore during the whole battle because they're retarded but this is better than the First Order because ... hey look over there, a giraffe!"

People who are about to die anyway aren't really committing suicide, they are picking the manor of their death. I think the issue you are having trouble with is people in the organizations of the type we are talking about, doing the deeds we are talking about, generally are not cowards in the face of death.

But shall we catalogue the plot points of SWs that rely on characters facing certain death, often realizing it? Rogue One really upped the numbers...

Yes, heroic figures often engage in suicidal attacks. That's why they're heroic figures. They also don't make that choice for subordinates.

Yup. Remember, you are the only fanboi who can't accept criticism. You won't hurt my feelings pointing out legitimate criticisms of the OT.

It's not about "criticisms of the OT", its pointing out your bullshit about "the setting" is just that. It's a fantasy you've concocted in your head. It doesn't match any fucking movie.

It actually did, but I am referring to bypassing the shields, which as was earlier noted DJ proved were in fact up.

If you want put forward the position that it didn't bypass the shields, but instead tanked the shields and the ships as a kinetic impactor, fuck you had SW more than I thought...

Wait, what are you even talking about now? Of course the Raddus smashed through the shields. Why would admitting that blindingly obvious fact mean I "hate" (presumably) Star Wars?

Powerful AND capable. Would you like the tell us now that combination of the two are not relevant to being a good teacher? That a non force user can train Jedi? That an incapable force user can train Jedi.

The fact is Luke failed where countless Jedi succeeded, showing a clear area where he is outclassed.

Luke's 'power' has no bearing on whether he'd be a good teacher. These two things are not related at all.

I didn't claim it had been seen before, I am claiming it SHOULD have been seen before. Just like so much that suddenly is plausible in TLJ that never was before, despite it being readily attainable and immensely useful. You want us to believe people just chose not to do these useful things, or were not smart enough to realize these obvious things.

Yes yes, this is rapidly becoming a theme now. Movies aren't allowed to do anything new, ever. If it wasn't in the previous movies, even though you've offered not a single good reason in what circumstances it'd be remotely essential, it must be criticised.

What exact lesson from Yoda = astral projection? You realize we had an Emperor who was able to influence his entire Empire through intergalactic space, and you think this astral projection is impressive? Interesting...

Good god you're obtuse. You think the Force is a bunch of magic fucking spells, not a basically mystical philosophy.

You, an idiot: "Yoda didn't teach Luke anything about astral projection!"

Empire Strikes Back:

"YODA
You will know. When you are calm,
at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses
the Force for knowledge and
defense, never for attack.

Oh hey, I wonder if Luke projecting his image to distract Kylo Ren without ever once attacking him fits that bill!

That's nice. So its three versus the an entire FO army. Plus a living main character (Hux).Yeah, I am sure the word won't get out Luke was never there.

And again, Leia was just shown to have exactly zero influence.

I believe I already pointed out that's obviously false, since, you know, things change following actual events, but hey, you do you.

Yeah, but you weren't supposed to know that yet. So if you did know he wasn't there at that point you are agreeing with me that the writers fucked up the revel.

They didn't do any such thing. That he's not really there is deliberately telegraphed for an attentive viewer from the moment he appears. He looks different, and younger. He has the saber that was broken. His feet aren't making prints in the salt. This is deliberate. It's not a mistake.

That's about the level of imagination I assume you have. I see you have the same lack of confidence in the writers I do, even though you are busy shoveling their shit into your mouth and thanking them for the meal.

Yes, I'm sure you could write a better Star Wars movie, you, the dumbass who thinks Yoda's lessons to Luke involved teaching him fucking magic spells.

Its kinda a waste when it accomplished nothing different than he could have done being there in person. The question is what did he accomplish through astral projection that he couldn't have reasonably of done without it. Had he not died, I'd have said not expose himself to risk. But since you just told us we should assume this power = death its no benefit in this regard.

You again miss the point. I said IF HE WAS GOING TO DIE DUE TO WRITTER DESIRE, it made more sense to do it in person because astral projection, if that's his predestined fate due to Disney money generation algorithms (the director didn't get to decide that), its a waste. Its just a gratuitious tongue and cheek wink-wink to the audience (well, not you, since you maybe were to slow to get in on the joke).

If they were going to use astral projection, they should have made the whole dame sequence different. Either accomplish something impossible to do in physical form, or just have him benefit from its primary benefit of escaping danger.

This is just incoherent, nonsensical ranting at this point. It's not making any sort of actually intelligible point. There's nothing 'wasteful' about his manner of death at all. He goes out in a display of massive Force power that's exactly in tune with the idealised vision of what Jedi are supposed to be. That's all there is to it.

Again, simple people understand only simple things. Han physically interacted with Leia, including kissing her and giving her astral projection dice, which she could physically touch.

So what? Luke's also holding a lightsaber that isn't actually there. There's no reason to assume Leia can actually 'feel' him in a real way.

Writers fiat and all, you are just substantiating exactly what I am saying, that none of this makes sense. Guess who never say the events we see the kids playing regarding the light saber duel? All the rebel survivors, who were all exiting a plot hole to safety at the time.

The only accounts of the end of that fight are the FO. It has nothing to do with Rey or Leia. What a kick in the balls.

I don't know what version of the movie you watched, but I saw multiple Resistance fighters watching Luke stand out there in front of the First Order units before they left.

Roger, lets go look for mine collapse victims by observing local deer populations. Makes total sense. You will do a lot of people a lot of good out there!

Are deer subteranean creatures now?

Who knows. Oh, you think Rey just hopped right in the falcon and went right there? Again, a simple person, a simple understanding.

Given that hyperspace travel has never taken weeks, I can only assume this is yet another made up thing that exists in your head which you think consitutes "the setting".

Conquer the galaxy in weeks. thousands and thousands of worlds. Trillions and trillions of beings. Totally makes sense bro.

"All the major systems" = the galaxy now?

Do you know how information works?

I repeat my question. Feel free to answer it.

All the characters who participated. Poe didn't call it off because it wouldn't work, just like Leia didn't want Poe to call off the dreadnaught run because it wouldn't work. He did it because it wasn't work sacrificing lives to accomplish. Did you understand anything about this movie?

No, that's exactly why Poe called it off. Because it wouldn't work. Sorry - he literally says this.

And while you WOULD have a point about the AT-AT, well Rose sort of blows that out of the water given the ease she impossible turns around again, catches up with him, then turns ahead of him enough to T-bone him, all without being observed in any of the shots immediately prior.

Given her course was taking her perpendicular to the target the walkers were protecting, I can see walker pilots wondering just what the hell she was doing.

You seem to think contributing to the main plot and personnel growth are mutually exclusive. That scene was as much about Vader as it was about Luke. And that dynamic ends up being the primary plot OF THE ENTIRE FUCKING TRILOGY!

Vader isn't plot, dingus, he's story too. The plot serves the story.

This is not to say plot does not matter, but like most annoying people on the internet who don't know anything about what actually makes a movie, you think useful criticism of film constitues nothing but nitpicking the plot to demonstrate how you're smarter than the writer. It's laughable.

You think failure was a theme of this movie? Which part? The one where the two mega ships shown are destroyed? The one where the heretofore primary villain is killed? The part where the Rebels escape not in a devastating defeat, but for all we know kill every enemy in site except a few walkers worth of troops?

Holy shit, you don't know do you?

Wow, you're so goddamn stupid.

1. Luke's entire arc is based around his failure as a master. I know it was hard to see what with Yoda giving him a big lecture about failure, but there it is.
2. Poe sends Finn and Rose go on a mission to disable the Supremacy's hyperspace tracker, and this completely fails. The result is the compromise of the Resistance plan and the slaughter of hundreds of Resistance fighters.
3. Rey goes to save Ben, and completely fails. Ben refuses to turn and instead seizes power for himself.

But sure: "but they kerploded big ships! No failure! Weeeee pew pew pew what is story. Also I think Snoke is the main villain and his death is a victory". That works too.

[Vendetta]

It's a fantasy you invented in your head. Nothing ever seen in Star Wars remotely precludes the use of a fucking space radio between ships.

No look when Admiral Ackbar wanted all his ships to shoot at the Executor he had to have his order relayed to them by space pigeon because radios don't work in space. (I mean this is the universe where someone thought "little robits with saws" was a sensible anti-spaceship warhead for a missile to have...)

[jollyreaper]

Can someone explain to me why it "doesn't make sense"? The way people whining about hyperspace rams tell it, The Last Jedi is the first time in science fiction history that a ship has rammed another ship and done seemingly way more damage than its entire complement of weaponry put together. Except this is the most common trope in science fiction

Here's an example. Rogue One and the hammerhead shove. We have never seen anything like this before. However, it made sense in the context of what has come before. The ISD is crippled. The smaller ship has a big set of drives. Collisions in space would be devastating. We could argue structural integrity and possible delta-v applied over how many seconds and whether the other ISD should have been cut through or bounced but nothing in the visuals stuck out as inauthentic. And it doesn't break prior films. They couldn't have done the sfx for this but you could imagine it happening.

The primary objection for the ram is like R2's rockets. It raises too many questions. Has he always had them? Were they removed? Why didn't he used them here? The ram changes the face of space war tactics. Why didn't they use it here and there and everywhere? Kirk using the command code shield hack in TWOK was explained away as the sort of thing only one senior officer could do to another and you can imagine security was beefed up after he made his incident report. Doesn't break the setting.

[NecronLord]

What an amazingly menacing and intimidating enemy that totally justifies all the supposed problems the Rebels have with defeating them. What heroes Poe and Rey are, kicking over tamper tantrum throwing children the some apparently want the movie to deliver as our primarily obstacle to overcome.

Some of you seem to think that you can preserve this POS as a good move by excusing away its lack of attention to detail and continuity and setting by just undermine the villains to the point that they are Saturday Morning cartoon fodder.

Some of you seem to think I liked this film? It's not a good movie, it's not even as good as Jumanji.

But if you want to talk about the setting created by the movie, the First Order being incompetent is just a fact.

plus a whole class of ship that just so happens to be purpose built to exploit a rather specific situation. Not a specific as a laser battering ram mind you.

It's purpouse built for that situation. sure, hammerheads didn't exist in previous Star Wars lore for non-ramming related tasks...

So you have a problem. Either this extremely useful technology is common but somehow doesn't exist anywhere normally where expected and is still a surprise when encountered, or its super rare but suddenly anyone who needs it has it for no good reason. What great writing!

Admiral Trench pretty much obsoleted cloaking devices in the Clone Wars, at least for military use against a prepared opponent.

Blockade of Hoth

Who was incompetent: Admiral Needa.

Why: No Fighters deployed. Despite the fact that the Rebel Alliance clearly expected to meet and give battle to a fighter blockade, as evidenced by escort starfighters leaving with transports, the Imperials do not deploy them in a timely manner, rendering the blockade vulnerable to Rebel surface to space weapons. TIE Fighters and Bombers would have been able to intercept and damage, disable or destroy Rebel transports which otherwise escaped.

Consequences: Rebel personnel and equipment escaped Echo Base.

Admiral Piett. And in fairness to them, we see TIE fighters around the ships at various points before and after the battle, just not defending Captain Lennox's Tyrant.

[Imperial528]

I don't personally think whatever applied to Starkiller Base would apply to Supremacy. The difference in size is massive.

That's all fine and dandy. I was responding to Q99, who did imply that the shield systems of the Supremacy and Starkiller Base were similar.

The treatment of the Force in TFA and TLJ is exactly in line with the OT. The only people who don't think so are those who completely misunderstood the point and emphasis of Ben and Yoda's training of Luke - cultivating this absurd belief that Luke was working out at some sort of Force gym and flexing his Force muscles, as opposed to learning how to unlock the strength he always had.

It took Luke years to realize his potential. It took Anakin years to realize his, despite being a literal chosen one.

There is essentially no human skill (barring some exception with savants) where potential obsoletes the need to train, or to work to undo one's own flawed intuitions, as Luke had to do in the OT.

TFA gives us Rey being able to use Jedi mind tricks within days of her even being told the Force is real, and which she only realizes she can utilize after trying on a whim. I'll be generous here though and accept the further set up of this in TLJ, even allow that perhaps contact with Luke's lightsaber really did "unlock" something in her, simplistic as it is.

But then TLJ features a child, possibly younger than Anakin was in TPM, able to use the Force to move objects. This boy is so young that he probably only ever heard legends or stories of Jedi, and is no where near the age where he could reasonably understand the meaning of the Force.

Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I remember in the prequels we don't even see Jedi younglings using the Force. The OT shows that realizing your potential in the Force can only be done by realizing who you are at a deep level, deconstructing what you thought was possible, what you thought you were capable of, to realize your true inner strength.

People don't do that in a matter of days. Children don't manage it at all, not in a lasting sense, as they are still growing and changing. Yoda's comments about Luke being too old show that the Jedi, with their millenia of experience, believe that the vast majority of people must grow up in such an open environment, before their minds have become closed off. Obi-wan had to convince Yoda that Luke would be different. They even believed Anakin to be too young, and only accepted him because of Qui-gon's insistence.

And yet, here we have a child who can readily move objects with his mind.

As for Luke's lightsaber, no, there's no evidence it fell into a gas giant. What's commonly assumed to be his lightsaber is just a piece of unidentifiable trash - a blob, no matter how high the resolution is cranked. Nothing - not the movie or the script, identify it.

I didn't even remember the trash until I rewatched the scene. We do see Luke's lightsaber fall into an apparently bottomless pit. I always assumed that the pit eventually led out the bottom of Cloud City, or was so deep that the saber was destroyed on impact at the bottom of the shaft. I suppose it is possible it was also sucked into one of the ventilation tunnels the way Luke was, but I find it improbable given the small size of the saber.

It proves its massively destructive.

That's all well and good. That is not what I am in contention with.

Fill in the blanks yourself. We know Interdictor cruisers gravity well generators are canon, for example. This stuff does not need to be explained in the movie.

I haven't watched Clone Wars or Rebels, so I assumed things like Interdictors got thrown out with the rest of the EU, because I am trying to not let exposure to the old EU get in the way. I've said before in this thread that it is rather hard to avoid working from the old EU assumptions given that it seems much of Lucasfilm is doing the same.

Why should we assume the Supremacy's shields were somehow ignored? Why can't they just be too weak to stop an object that large moving that fast? The idea that the 'setting' somehow says this should be the case is just nonsense. There is simply no evidence, anywhere in the previous films, that should tell us that a ship of that size would be immune to that attack.?

Because if it's vulnerable to it, I'd expect it to have been done before. As far as I remember from the film, these circumstances aren't that unique.

The only retort is the "but why hasn't anyone done this before" - which is laughably weak, and assumes that this attack could be pulled off in any circumstances.

Why is this a weak argument? What answer do you have to the question? It's a simple one, and it's an obvious one, and that's the whole damn problem. Audiences make assumptions, and this can't be avoided. You can say the question is wrong, you can say that you didn't ask it of the film, but it doesn't change the fact that the question was asked by many and the film presents no answer. So far, you haven't answered it either.

What circumstance would prevent the Rebellion from rigging a cruiser up like this to use against the first Death Star, or the second, where they had an entire fleet at hand? I can think of one for at least the first: the Death Star's guns may have destroyed it before it got in range. But then, the Raddus did it while inside the Supremacy's range. Which goes back to my contention: either this tactic is unbelievably useful, to the tune of calling many prior actions into question, or the First Order is so incompetent that they can't defend against a tactic the Empire did.


And for those speaking of the Empire's incompetence, consider the following:

We see Imperial overconfidence at the cusp of their victory. Up to that point the Empire seems rather competent, especially in ANH. However Tarkin's overconfidence is foreshadowed significantly in the film, and more importantly, there are officers and commanders involved who genuinely act competently, and it is the failing of their commanding officer that leads them to failure at the end, despite their protests to his hubris. Additionally, the main villain of the Original Trilogy, Darth Vader, is the competent one acting when the overconfident believe they don't have to. It's believable that the Empire is as dominating as it is because we do see Imperial commanders that, if put in Tarkin's position, would have launched the fighters.

The First Order seems to be so hamstrung by incompetence throughout so much of its chain of command that I cannot comprehend how it managed to get anything done, and unlike the Empire, it doesn't have an entire galaxy to fall back on to make up for it. I would expect a relative newcomer such as the First Order to be more competent than the Empire was, to be able to have led the New Republic on as masterfully as it is implied they did, and then sweep across the galaxy. Yet we see no sign of that in the highest echelons of their command structure.

Is this film also inconsistant with the original trilogy?

"Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy, without precise calculations we'll fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick."

I can't help but notice you don't say how it's inconsistent.

Ghetto edit: I don't see how what happened with the Malevolence changes anything with the hyperspace ram. In ANH Han implies that collisions are possible with celestial objects while in hyperspace.

I consider inconsistent because it begs the question "Why hasn't this been done before when it would have been far more useful in the past?" and from what I recall the film does not answer that question nor justify why this circumstance is unique.

Wasn't Supremacy was running with shields up when Rose/Finn arrived? The hacker character had to hack a segment of it down. It was the opposite side from the Raddus' impact though iirc.

I recall that as well, but one thing I thought was curious about the scene is that the impact with Supremacy is neatly contained in a single plane across the ship, and its shield segments are aligned much the same way. If the Raddus hit the section with the sabotaged shield then I have no issue with it. I can't remember exactly if the sabotaged segment was on the same side though.

If anyone plans on seeing the film again please do look for that.

[NecronLord]

I haven't watched Clone Wars or Rebels, so I assumed things like Interdictors got thrown out with the rest of the EU, because I am trying to not let exposure to the old EU get in the way. I've said before in this thread that it is rather hard to avoid working from the old EU assumptions given that it seems much of Lucasfilm is doing the same.

Interdictors and TIE Defenders, among other EU things, appear in Rebels.

[Imperial528]

That's very interesting.

Would be interesting to see them in the new films as well. Possibly in the off-sequence ones (spin-off-esque films like Rogue one)?

Does kind of muddle the waters for how much of the old EU was carried over versus how much is straight gone or is present but in a different way.