Hope its not as much of a rehash as the last but it looks like we are going to get some new toys for each of FFGs games. That Silencer looks really good!
Okay, the teaser was good and all, but NOW I'm officially pumped! This looks to be a lot better than TFA was, which is nice. Not that I think TFA was bad, per se, just too much the same as ANH for my tastes. Of course, my tastes may be a bit off as I actually like the prequels despite a certain Gungan who shall not be named...
-laugh 6 months ago after the last trailer about the shameless ESB "parallels" present in the footage shown, nerds on Dakka get butthurt and say "y-you can't tell from just a teaser!"
-fast forward and everything was true
Anyway, it's amazing how little they've managed to hype up Luke. I wonder what the 4th quarter ESB twist is gonna be for this film.
Destiny, check
Soopa-Powered Chosen One, check
New cutesy animal companion, check.
Overly symbolic crystal planet spewing red gunk everywhere, weird, but check.
Sailor Moon Live Action Movie?
I wonder what the 4th quarter ESB twist is gonna be for this film.
Are you? From this it looks like a totally deceptive 'she's going turn to the Dark Side and take Darth Emo's hand' but it's totally going to be the heel-face turn that redeems him instead. (though not 'til the next movie, because it has to parallel the narrative structure of the original so it has to end on a down note).
"Join me and we'll rule the galaxy as 'Mary Sue and house-husband!'"
shameless ESB "parallels" present in the footage shown
Hey now, the 'tie-fighters chase the Falcon through the crystal caverns' scene is totally from Return (it's set up almost exactly like the death star interior, with lots of protrusions and nonsense to dodge, but in red rather than grey), not ESB, same with the Republic fleet getting savaged.
BlaxicanX wrote: -laugh 6 months ago after the last trailer about the shameless ESB "parallels" present in the footage shown, nerds on Dakka get butthurt and say "y-you can't tell from just a teaser!"
-fast forward and everything was true
Anyway, it's amazing how little they've managed to hype up Luke. I wonder what the 4th quarter ESB twist is gonna be for this film.
Like now the trailers for TFA clearly showed Finn to be the main hero, wielding Luke's Lightsaber! Or how it was Leia, not Rey, that Maz handed it on to? Etc etc.
Anyway, it's amazing how little they've managed to hype up Luke. I wonder what the 4th quarter ESB twist is gonna be for this film.
I think the obvious problem, of course, is that we all expect a "twist". And it is equally obvious that we're supposed to expect it to be related to Rey's parentage.
I really, really hope the space scene in the trailer is not alluding to how they are going to kill off Leia to get around Carrie Fisher not being around for the third movie.
My only huge gripe was Luke's horrible prosthetic hand. It looked like Transformer tech, with 8 billion tiny moving parts and gears.
I'll watch, hopeful that I'm not going to predict every plot element like in TFA.
I definitely think there is some misdirection in the editing of the trailer. It even could be that everything that appears to be going on actually is, but because we've come to be skeptical of it, the editors didn't bother misleading us.
At this point, we have to just enjoy the visuals and not take the speculation too seriously (even though it's fun to do so)
My theories: -Kylo has been working against Snoke the whole time. Had to kill Han and maybe even Leia to "prove" his allegiance. In Harry Potter terms, he is Snape (even looks like him) -Luke has discovered some long buried truth about the Jedi that he does not like (this may be the big reveal) -Rey literally has to bring balance to the force by neither choosing the light nor dark side, but by using both in harmony. -Snoke is an ancient force entity that drains force users to live forever. He wants to drain Luke, which is why he went into hiding (not because of some guilt or lost hope).
Looks decent to me, not seeing what all the nerd-ranting is about. To anyone gaking on TFA and the trailer for TLJ, go back and watch the absolute messes that are episodes 1-3.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: To anyone gaking on TFA and the trailer for TLJ, go back and watch the absolute messes that are episodes 1-3.
Or the gak show that is R1 - a dumb movie that had a sublime trailer.
Galef wrote: Snoke is an ancient force entity that drains force users to live forever.
That's pretty good, actually. Segues in nicely to Palpatine's ambitions for immortality plus the new canon factoid of him believing his power flowed from the darkness beyond the Outer Rim (i.e., out where Snoke was hiding).
Got a few tingles watching it but looks a bit samey/formulaic.
I know SW has always been that way but would like for them to push the boat out somewhat.....
Galef wrote: Rey literally has to bring balance to the force by neither choosing the light nor dark side, but by using both in harmony.
Things do seem headed this way.
And although I'm sure we'll hear calls of 'ruined childhoods' from certain fans, I think it makes sense. The Jedi and Sith always seemed to be at the extreme, cartoonish ends of the light/dark spectrum. In the real world, it's possible to have emotion and passion alongside selflessness and a level of control. Seems like that should also have been possible a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
gorgon wrote: In the real world, it's possible to have emotion and passion alongside selflessness and a level of control.
Well sure, Luke Skywalker did exactly that. But look, this dichotomy between passion and control ... this is prequel garbage. The whole Jedi/Sith thing is EU garbage, no better than needing Decepticons for the Autobots to fight (a.k.a., Pepsi versus Coke). In the OT, Vader was the Dark Lord of the Sith and what that meant was entirely mysterious. Jedi, however, were an on-screen thing. There was no Jedi v. Sith dimension to Star Wars* until Lucas inflicted the Phantom Menace on an unsuspecting (but perhaps not undeserving) public. The real tension at work in the OT was the dogmatic and myopic view of older characters like Obi-Wan and Yoda versus the naive, idealistic outlook of Luke. Luke refused to kill his own father and instead redeemed him.
It's really a shame that we are talking about this "balance of the Force" nonsense. It is just as terrible - and comes from exactly the same place as - midichlorians. Of course, I am also pretty nervous that Rey - like Anakin - will turn out to be a vergence in the Force.
(Yes, let's ignore the EU for the purposes of this discussion. )
Now that you mention it, it's easy to forget how little we knew of even the Jedi after the original trilogy. TESB established things about their philosophy and ways. But it was in the prequels where our knowledge was filled out, and where the Jedi became more cartoonishly earnest, emotionless, and chaste. I *think* the prequels tried to suggest that the Jedi had lost their way somewhat, but it was undermined by portraying Anakin as a impetulant, whiny brat rather than a regular guy chafing against oppressive, silly rules for legit reasons.
The Sith were almost a completely blank slate. Sure, Vader and Palpatine were bad guys, and the Dark Side was presented as something negative, but I don't think it meant that all the Sith were necessarily mustache-twirling villains.
Perhaps this film is about resetting our understanding, and using some narrative jiu-jitsu to show that the silly stuff we saw about the Jedi and Sith in the prequels represented two organizations that had become extremist and forgetful of important truths. Luke would be the perfect person to navigate this. In fact, it seems almost obvious once you think about it.
If Rey is an immaculate birth, reincarnation, or some other contrived new "chosen one", I am not going to be happy. That would put this new trilogy lower than the prequels in my mind.
Rey needs to be Luke's daughter, preferably also Obi-Wan's granddaughter too (see his relationship with Satine from the clone wars, old Ben totally could have had a daughter that grows up to be Luke's wife) Come to think of it, this could be the AMAZABALLZ reveal for the movie, because it requires a bit of elaboration for movie goers that are not familiar with the (canon) Clone Wars. It would also explain why Rey is so darn good. She has a distilled force heritage.
Really hoping Phasma isn't as much of a pushover in this one as she was in the last one. This series ain't going to continue the long tradition of great B villains without some help
@Gorgon - solid points, keep in mind we didn't even know Palpatine had anything to do with the Sith until TPM (it didn't seem to be the case in the early Darkhorse comics, such as Dark Empire)
@LoH - well she's about as effective in TFA as Boba Fett is in RotJ
Could Rey's parents be gamblers that lost her to Unkar Plut? Gives a whole new inflection to his 'that's mine' declaration when they nick off in the Falcon?
Automatically Appended Next Post: It'd also add some serious angst to her character, giving her more of a key to the dark side?
Manchu wrote: It'll probably come down to her being Darth Vader reincarnated.
I hope that isn't the case, but I'm somewhat afraid that it is. It'd be a way of making her a Skywalker (which she has to be, because that saber represents the Skywalker clan, not the Kenobis or whomever), but present it as a "twist" that avoids the obvious scenario.
I say just make it the obvious scenario. There's nothing wrong with stories about parents and children.
Let's not forget that lightsaber spent over 18 years in Obi-wans possession. Longer than Anakin's and Luke's combined.
Even though it wasn't Obi-wan's light saber, we shouldn't use that to discount it "calling" to Rey
Rey needs to be Luke's daughter, preferably also Obi-Wan's granddaughter too (see his relationship with Satine from the clone wars, old Ben totally could have had a daughter that grows up to be Luke's wife)
-
If Obi-Wan had a child with Satine, and I think its likely, then more than likely it would be Satine's 'Nephew' Korkie. Firstly he's of the right age, a problem with her and he having a daughter Luke would marry unless he was into much older women. Secondly he has some elements of how he looks in common with Obi. And most importantly, there is no 3rd Kryze child that we see. There is Satine and there is Bo-Katan. Bo-Katan, being the right hand woman of Pre Viszla's Death Watch I doubt would be willing to leave her son in the hands of the apparent minority Pacifist group. Maybe the general populace, ie people like the Protectors just surviving, or she would have taken him with her to the Death Watch. Satine wouldn't have kept him and claimed him to be her illegitimate love child with a Jedi Knight, because well... It would be an illegitimate love child with a Jedi Knight. It would be something that would ruin Obi-Wan's career and stain her position with quite the scandal. But claiming its her nephew? Im sure they could fudge some records.
But, that doesn't discount Rey from being Obi-Wan's Great-granddaughter, the daughter of his illegitimate son. Why is she not on Mandalore or with the Clans? Maybe after the Death of his Aunt he fled, or left at some point between Episode 3 and 4.
I really hope this film repairs the hack job the first film did with the characters. Rey was terrible in the first film by suddenly being able to do things without proper explanation like prior protagonists (there was a reason for the Skywalkers doing the things they did, even if it was so simple as a line being dropped), and either rebuilding Kylo Ren as a villain or perhaps making them switch. Rey falls to the Dark Side and Ren turns to the light, which IMO would be a good development. Finn also could really use anything at this point. I like Boyega as an actor but he's just not given anything to work with in TFA and hopefully that changes with the ESB writer coming back.
Manchu wrote: @Gorgon - solid points, keep in mind we didn't even know Palpatine had anything to do with the Sith until TPM (it didn't seem to be the case in the early Darkhorse comics, such as Dark Empire)
@LoH - well she's about as effective in TFA as Boba Fett is in RotJ
Nah. Boba Fett knew how to get invited to exclusive parties with high profile gangsters. Phasma can't even get into the office Christmas party without everyone rolling their eyes.
gorgon wrote: (Yes, let's ignore the EU for the purposes of this discussion. )
Now that you mention it, it's easy to forget how little we knew of even the Jedi after the original trilogy. TESB established things about their philosophy and ways. But it was in the prequels where our knowledge was filled out, and where the Jedi became more cartoonishly earnest, emotionless, and chaste. I *think* the prequels tried to suggest that the Jedi had lost their way somewhat, but it was undermined by portraying Anakin as a impetulant, whiny brat rather than a regular guy chafing against oppressive, silly rules for legit reasons.
The Sith were almost a completely blank slate. Sure, Vader and Palpatine were bad guys, and the Dark Side was presented as something negative, but I don't think it meant that all the Sith were necessarily mustache-twirling villains.
Perhaps this film is about resetting our understanding, and using some narrative jiu-jitsu to show that the silly stuff we saw about the Jedi and Sith in the prequels represented two organizations that had become extremist and forgetful of important truths. Luke would be the perfect person to navigate this. In fact, it seems almost obvious once you think about it.
Regarding the underlined, someone (I don't remember who) put it this way in a previous Star Wars thread we had: The problem with the idea of balance in the Force is that, while the Sith are Evil, the Jedi are not actually Good. The Jedi were more about maintaining balance in the Force. It's hard to maintain balance on a seesaw when one person sits on one end (the Sith), and the other person only sits in the middle (the Jedi).
The problem with the idea of balance in the Force is that, while the Sith are Evil, the Jedi are not actually Good. The Jedi were more about maintaining balance in the Force. It's hard to maintain balance on a seesaw when one person sits on one end (the Sith), and the other person only sits in the middle (the Jedi).
As I might point out the idea that the Jedi are about "balance" is this really cheesy shoe horn George Lucas kept trying to shove into the franchise in his last few years, and that anyone with a moral compass more complex than an eight-year-old is capable of picking to pieces.
It's one of the reasons why Star Wars internal ideology is actually completely bonkers. The Sith are evil because they're encouraged to be selfish, power hungry, and abuse the force*. The Jedi are balanced because they're encouraged to be selfless, not pursue personal power, and respect the force as some kind of god entity that guides them. Wait what? All of those seem like unquestionably good things. How is that "balanced" on a scale of black and white morality? I mean sure maybe they're more balanced personality wise but any attempt to proclaim the Jedi as "not paragons of goodness" falls on deaf ears the first chance the Jedi get to go out of their way and rescue someone just cause. And that's really just if you buy into the Jedi as serious about all that. If you instead turn it around and frame the Jedi as massive hypocrites, then both the Sith and the Jedi are different brands of evil and the rest of the galaxy is held helplessly hostage in a millennia long civil war between evil space wizards, with the Jedi simply being preferable because their brand of tyranny doesn't involve mass murder and slavery (except when it does).
There's been a bit of back petal on this in recent Star Wars material, most notably the character of Bendu in Star Wars: Rebels. The writers seemed to realize how much Lucas was butchering the concept of Dharma and no one was buying into it either because it was too confusing or too transparently false. Now the Jedi are the Good, the Sith are the Bad, and the middle is occupied by some lone alien on a deserted planet who likes playing mind games. Of course they still managed to feth that up because despite Bendu constant protestations about how he was "the one in the middle" he pretty much always sided with the good guys when it counted and only ever uttered his middleness as an excuse to do nothing which makes him more morally hypocritical than enlightened.
But this is Star Wars, and it always worked best when operating on a more black and white scale of idealism, so maybe people should stop trying to randomly shoehorn in the gray when none of the plots or story lines of the franchise outside Drew Karpyshyn are really built for it.
And this is why the internal ideology of Star Wars is bonkers, and people really shouldn't put that much thought into it
*I want a cross over of Code Geass and Star War by the way. Lelouch would have some harsh words for the rhetoric this universe runs on
Galef wrote: If Rey is an immaculate birth, reincarnation, or some other contrived new "chosen one", I am not going to be happy.
That would put this new trilogy lower than the prequels in my mind.
But... its pretty clear she IS a Chosen One. Complete with nonsense orphan origin.
So far with TFA, she's a trope, not a character.
Rey needs to be Luke's daughter, preferably also Obi-Wan's granddaughter too (see his relationship with Satine from the clone wars, old Ben totally could have had a daughter that grows up to be Luke's wife)
Come to think of it, this could be the AMAZABALLZ reveal for the movie, because it requires a bit of elaboration for movie goers that are not familiar with the (canon) Clone Wars.
It would also explain why Rey is so darn good. She has a distilled force heritage.
This would be fairly ridiculous nonsense. It pretty much doubles down on ridiculous nonsense. Not only does it invent a plot-central character out of thin air for a trope-filled 'reveal,' it also reinforces the idea that the sum total of the OT's characters is to be terrible parents who abandon or give up on their children. And since Joss Whedon isn't involved, that seems unlikely.
As far as the audience goes, it would just be a confusion point. It wouldn't require elaboration, it would require the entire story from ground zero. Why Ben was randomly bonking people (and apparently, also abandoned his daughter), why she was a secret, why Luke would have met and married her, why they both abandoned Chosen Girl and so on and so on. As for distilled force heritage, it would also have to explain (and justify) that. It's too much, and too darn silly.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I prefer Rey's parents to be nobodies. That she's just a naturally powerful Force user - and they didn't know how to handle her, so ditched her.
Ditto. It's a midichlorian situation- it doesn't need explanation beyond 'natural talent,' and an explanation would likely anger the die hards and lose the casuals.
This trailer didn't really get me much more excited than I was with the first. It's like my excitement for these movies has kind of leveled off. It looks like it could be good, but i'm really hoping this feels like it's own movie instead of a rehash of previous ideas for a younger generation like the last two. The last two movies succeeded pretty well in reeling in a new fresh generation of youth. But I feel like those movies safe and lacking in atmosphere and rogue one had incredibly weak characters.
gorgon wrote: (Yes, let's ignore the EU for the purposes of this discussion. )
Now that you mention it, it's easy to forget how little we knew of even the Jedi after the original trilogy. TESB established things about their philosophy and ways. But it was in the prequels where our knowledge was filled out, and where the Jedi became more cartoonishly earnest, emotionless, and chaste. I *think* the prequels tried to suggest that the Jedi had lost their way somewhat, but it was undermined by portraying Anakin as a impetulant, whiny brat rather than a regular guy chafing against oppressive, silly rules for legit reasons.
The Sith were almost a completely blank slate. Sure, Vader and Palpatine were bad guys, and the Dark Side was presented as something negative, but I don't think it meant that all the Sith were necessarily mustache-twirling villains.
Perhaps this film is about resetting our understanding, and using some narrative jiu-jitsu to show that the silly stuff we saw about the Jedi and Sith in the prequels represented two organizations that had become extremist and forgetful of important truths. Luke would be the perfect person to navigate this. In fact, it seems almost obvious once you think about it.
Regarding the underlined, someone (I don't remember who) put it this way in a previous Star Wars thread we had: The problem with the idea of balance in the Force is that, while the Sith are Evil, the Jedi are not actually Good. The Jedi were more about maintaining balance in the Force. It's hard to maintain balance on a seesaw when one person sits on one end (the Sith), and the other person only sits in the middle (the Jedi).
In the prequels the Jedi were about control. No real difference to the sith.
The problem with the idea of balance in the Force is that, while the Sith are Evil, the Jedi are not actually Good. The Jedi were more about maintaining balance in the Force. It's hard to maintain balance on a seesaw when one person sits on one end (the Sith), and the other person only sits in the middle (the Jedi).
As I might point out the idea that the Jedi are about "balance" is this really cheesy shoe horn George Lucas kept trying to shove into the franchise in his last few years, and that anyone with a moral compass more complex than an eight-year-old is capable of picking to pieces.
It's one of the reasons why Star Wars internal ideology is actually completely bonkers. The Sith are evil because they're encouraged to be selfish, power hungry, and abuse the force*. The Jedi are balanced because they're encouraged to be selfless, not pursue personal power, and respect the force as some kind of god entity that guides them. Wait what? All of those seem like unquestionably good things. How is that "balanced" on a scale of black and white morality? I mean sure maybe they're more balanced personality wise but any attempt to proclaim the Jedi as "not paragons of goodness" falls on deaf ears the first chance the Jedi get to go out of their way and rescue someone just cause. And that's really just if you buy into the Jedi as serious about all that. If you instead turn it around and frame the Jedi as massive hypocrites, then both the Sith and the Jedi are different brands of evil and the rest of the galaxy is held helplessly hostage in a millennia long civil war between evil space wizards, with the Jedi simply being preferable because their brand of tyranny doesn't involve mass murder and slavery (except when it does).
There's been a bit of back petal on this in recent Star Wars material, most notably the character of Bendu in Star Wars: Rebels. The writers seemed to realize how much Lucas was butchering the concept of Dharma and no one was buying into it either because it was too confusing or too transparently false. Now the Jedi are the Good, the Sith are the Bad, and the middle is occupied by some lone alien on a deserted planet who likes playing mind games. Of course they still managed to feth that up because despite Bendu constant protestations about how he was "the one in the middle" he pretty much always sided with the good guys when it counted and only ever uttered his middleness as an excuse to do nothing which makes him more morally hypocritical than enlightened.
But this is Star Wars, and it always worked best when operating on a more black and white scale of idealism, so maybe people should stop trying to randomly shoehorn in the gray when none of the plots or story lines of the franchise outside Drew Karpyshyn are really built for it.
And this is why the internal ideology of Star Wars is bonkers, and people really shouldn't put that much thought into it
*I want a cross over of Code Geass and Star War by the way. Lelouch would have some harsh words for the rhetoric this universe runs on
Uh, you are aware right that balance is actually total removal of the Sith right? According to George Lucas himself the Sith and the Dark Side is a tumor. It isn't supposed to exist. "Balance" is the Sith being completely wiped out and only the light side, which is the true force, reigning. Anakin Skywalker wasn't supposed to butcher the Jedi Order to bring balance to the Force, just killing Palpatine, Maul, and Dooku would have done that.
Uh, you are aware right that balance is actually total removal of the Sith right? According to George Lucas himself the Sith and the Dark Side is a tumor. It isn't supposed to exist. "Balance" is the Sith being completely wiped out and only the light side, which is the true force, reigning.
I'm aware that's what George Lucas said.
I'm also aware that cutting off the right leg so you can just stand on your left is a balls to the walls insane idea of what "balance" looks like.
Lucas managed to make it even more complicated by throwing in a "super good" to offset the Dark Side in his quest to make the Jedi the moral middle, and that super good displayed it's overt and inherent destructive super goodness by choosing to do nothing to prevent evil from taking over the galaxy until Obi-Wan convinced it to stop sitting on its butt, while correspondingly linking the Jedi to some "wise" old fart who's idea of balance was doing nothing to prevent imbalance at all. And to top it off, this highly "moral" tale concluded with the super good being the only one among the three who could be called heroic, while the other two just constituted mustache twirling and the enlightened high ground of "my one kid is clearly evil but if I stop him my one kid who is clearly good will take over and the universe will become overbearingly selfless and peaceful" (because that somehow constitutes a negative thing in George Lucas' mind... being selfless and peaceful... like all the heroes in this story happen to kind of be).
EDIT EDIT: Oh and that's without even touching the inanely disturbing evil of "the light side is the only true force, all other philosophies must be PURGED and then all will be right with the force." Yeah that sounds balanced
And that nonsensical ham stab at philosophy is still canon
Like a Disney exec making a movie, I'm going to continue ignoring EU "canon."
To me, the Force is just the Force. People can tap into it with good or bad intentions. Those intentions aren't present in the Force itself.
"Jedi" doesn't describe anything about the Force. Rather, that's a school of thought about the Force. Same goes for the Sith. Bringing balance to the Force wouldn't have anything to do with killing X Jedi knights or Y Sith lords.
Lucas is the one who tried to enforce the inane idea of the force being morally absolutist, and indeed Disney has been backpedaling on that to go back to something a bit less ham-handed. The EU more often than not treated the Force as a force, with the Jedi and Sith (among others) being philosophical approaches to how to handle it. EDIT: Especially in the later years when Star Wars fic started becoming slightly post-modernist in tone. Lucas for whatever reason got super bitter about that, among other things, and spent most of his final years trying to ham hand the Force into being morally absolutist, and generally botching it up by displaying a remarkable lack of capacity for philosophy beyond "evil is evil because it is evil and good is good because it is good."
I remember Lucas saying, maybe in a director's commentary, that 'balance' didn't mean parity or equality, it meant something more like clarity. Making the good clearly distinct from the bad. The problem for the Jedi was they had lost clarity, and couldn't
see the Sith Lord working his way up through the Senate.
I can kind of see what Lucas is saying here, but ultimately as an explanation it sucks pretty bad. If you can only make sense of something by saying a word means something totally different to what everyone took that word to mean, you have a problem.
Personally, to me it's just another chosen one prophecy, and so I'm gonna try and ignore it as best I can like I do almost all prophecy. In fact, prophecy is another thing I should put in that thread about things we hate about movies.
LordofHats wrote: I'm also aware that cutting off the right leg so you can just stand on your left is a balls to the walls insane idea of what "balance" looks like.
Balls to the walls? Multiple walls? Either you're standing in a corner when you achieve that feat, or you sir belong in all the record books.
Retrogamer0001 wrote: Looks decent to me, not seeing what all the nerd-ranting is about. To anyone gaking on TFA and the trailer for TLJ, go back and watch the absolute messes that are episodes 1-3.
Why? In what possible way does the abortion that are the prequel movies justify the abortion that was TFA? It doesn't, your argument is apologist nonsense.
Besides, even despite how terrible the prequels are, you can at least appreciate on some level that they were an original concept created with the intention of telling a specific story- George's story, for better or worse. The prequels for all their faults (of which they are legion) weren't designed-by-committee sterile trash that was created from a series of check-lists to be as safe and generic as humanly possible. There was more thought put into creating the universe then "will this cash in on the nostalgia from the first set of films"?
I think the obvious problem, of course, is that we all expect a "twist". And it is equally obvious that we're supposed to expect it to be related to Rey's parentage.
Yes, because that's what the Disney MO has conditioned us to believe with their behavior thus far. There will be a twist because the writers lack the creativity to diverge from the OT that much. As far as what it'll be... any man's guess. I wouldn't be surprised if the twist was about Kylo specifically more then Rey.
What I see definitely not happening is the teased Rey/Kylo team up. It's obvious that the two of them weren't even in the same room when the trailer showed them talking at the end. It's a red herring for sure.
Uh, you are aware right that balance is actually total removal of the Sith right? According to George Lucas himself the Sith and the Dark Side is a tumor. It isn't supposed to exist. "Balance" is the Sith being completely wiped out and only the light side, which is the true force, reigning.
I'm aware that's what George Lucas said.
I'm also aware that cutting off the right leg so you can just stand on your left is a balls to the walls insane idea of what "balance" looks like.
Lucas managed to make it even more complicated by throwing in a "super good" to offset the Dark Side in his quest to make the Jedi the moral middle, and that super good displayed it's overt and inherent destructive super goodness by choosing to do nothing to prevent evil from taking over the galaxy until Obi-Wan convinced it to stop sitting on its butt, while correspondingly linking the Jedi to some "wise" old fart who's idea of balance was doing nothing to prevent imbalance at all. And to top it off, this highly "moral" tale concluded with the super good being the only one among the three who could be called heroic, while the other two just constituted mustache twirling and the enlightened high ground of "my one kid is clearly evil but if I stop him my one kid who is clearly good will take over and the universe will become overbearingly selfless and peaceful" (because that somehow constitutes a negative thing in George Lucas' mind... being selfless and peaceful... like all the heroes in this story happen to kind of be).
EDIT EDIT: Oh and that's without even touching the inanely disturbing evil of "the light side is the only true force, all other philosophies must be PURGED and then all will be right with the force." Yeah that sounds balanced
And that nonsensical ham stab at philosophy is still canon
It's not really Lucas' fault that the only way you can think of "balance" is in the form of a scale, when there are more ways then that.
LordofHats wrote: Unfortunately that's what balance is, and he made it a matter of scale by his own hand so...
The Force is Zoroastrianism. All you need to know is that the other side is evil and that the natural state of the world means that it doesn't exist. The two sides are mostly equal however and thus the struggle to quash the other will be great, but it will eventually be accomplished.
...And then that all got gakked up by TFA Having the Sith pop back.
LordofHats wrote: Really hoping Phasma isn't as much of a pushover in this one as she was in the last one. This series ain't going to continue the long tradition of great B villains without some help
She's got her comic series running right now that picks up where she gets out of the garbage while the base is starting to explode. She went back to the computer to delete the logs of her lowering the shields, found out someone already accessed them, and is trying to hunt him down before he can tell anyone. Shenanigans ensue.
That's not how Zorastrianism works. Beating Angra Mainyu (worldly evil) doesn't end the existence of Druhj (deceit, cosmic evil more or less) and Zorastrianism posits that a return to the perfect order of the first plant from which the universe derived is impossible even after Angra Maiyu is defeated. Ahura Mazda isn't all powerful and is incapable of restoring things completely to their full unity as they were in the beginning, and even after Angra Mainyu's defeat Druhj would still exist in the universe. EDIT: Eh "could" still exist. These particular sections of Zorastrian scripture are either fragmented or exceptionally confusing because the theological conceptions of Zorastrianism rely on massive amounts of word play from long dead languages and pieces that gak together is stuff people have spent their lives failing to do. And that's all kind of beside the point anyway cause Asha isn't "good" in Zorastrianism and Druhj isn't really evil in the way we think about it. There's no moral battle in the religion, just an existential conflict between primordial order and entropy.
Which is oddly fitting for this conversation
...And then that all got gakked up by TFA Having the Sith pop back.
I don't think TFA really gakked it up because functionally Kylo Ren isn't Sith (not like Vader anyway...) and even if he was it wouldn't really invalidate the duality version of the force as depicting a grand battle between cosmic good and cosmic evil. Either way, the duality version is better than the messed up trinity Lucas tried generating in Clone Wars so more power to the TFA from me.
BlaxicanX wrote: It doesn't, your argument is apologist nonsense.
You accused someone of being an apologist. For a movie.
Besides, even despite how terrible the prequels are, you can at least appreciate on some level that they were an original concept created with the intention of telling a specific story- George's story, for better or worse. The prequels for all their faults (of which they are legion) weren't designed-by-committee sterile trash that was created from a series of check-lists to be as safe and generic as humanly possible. There was more thought put into creating the universe then "will this cash in on the nostalgia from the first set of films"?
From what I saw when they set out to make TFA they focused on two things, making the world feel real again by returning to physical effects and grounded locations, and to make the characters entertaining and fun. Whatever plot that happened around them wasn't so important.
As to whether that approach worked... well opinions differ. I mean the yeah, the story is just a weak retread of the original, and is nothing interesting in itself, but it does a great job of getting out of the way and putting the new (and old) characters front and centre. All I can say is that TFA was the first time in 30 years I was sitting in a theater watching Star Wars and having fun.
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LordofHats wrote: It's nonsensical, like George Lucas' constant attempts to make Star Wars a deep philosophical commentary
BlaxicanX wrote: The prequels for all their faults (of which they are legion) weren't designed-by-committee sterile trash that was created from a series of check-lists to be as safe and generic as humanly possible.
To be honest, I would love it if this criticism was more true. But there are two huge counterpoints. First, many of George's ideas seem to have the same goal as Disney; i.e., making those dollars. It's just that Disney's approach is data-driven while George's was anecdotal and instinctual. For example, Anakin is probably a little kid in TMP because that's the target demographic for 95% of the licensed products. Second, even if we assume George's ideas are less generic than Disney's (which is so debatable it probably qualifies as the third counterpoint) George's movies still aren't better than Disney's. This is true even if you don't like Disney's movies. I don't like R1 and it is still a lot better than any of the prequels or all of them together.
Like I said, I am sympathetic with your point. Disney's SW films are the definition of coloring inside the lines, and yes it is very much to their detriment in a number of ways. My hope is, they will be comfortable taking some risks with Ep VIII.
I don't see Disney taking risks with the prime product. The side movies (turning R1 into a war film) potentially, but not the core. Thus us their version of the marvel universe we are talking about.
Frazzled wrote: I don't see Disney taking risks with the prime product.
I dunno. I think about what I liked most about TFA, it's hands down Kylo Ren. They made the main villain a loser. It reads like a commentary on SW fans. It reads like a commentary on Anakin, and by extension the prequels. It feels pretty risky to have a bad guy who is so unstable and, deep down, pathetic.
My German is getting rusty - the German title for RotJ confused me, because it uses der Jedi Ritter - but I thought genitive case means die becomes der. Or is "der Jedi Ritter" also plural?
Manchu wrote: Like a Disney exec making a movie, I'm going to continue ignoring EU "canon."
To me, the Force is just the Force. People can tap into it with good or bad intentions. Those intentions aren't present in the Force itself.
"Jedi" doesn't describe anything about the Force. Rather, that's a school of thought about the Force. Same goes for the Sith. Bringing balance to the Force wouldn't have anything to do with killing X Jedi knights or Y Sith lords.
Most of the EU Canon presented so far in the thread has been from TCW and Rebels so far, which according to Disney Execs isn't EU Canon, its just canon. Everything released since the new movies (except in TCW which was released before) is the canon like it or not.
Manchu wrote: My German is getting rusty - the German title for RotJ confused me, because it uses der Jedi Ritter - but I thought genitive case means die becomes der. Or is "der Jedi Ritter" also plural?
Yes, also plural.
It's confusing, I know Singular: der Ritter
Plural: die Ritter
But genitive!!!
Singular: des Ritters
Plural: der Ritter
Yes, using the word canon was probably a mistake. What I meant was, there's a distinction between what's in the movies and what's not. I realize that theoretically, Disney is not drawing that distinction. But IME film productions do what they want and comic books and novels and video games have to adapt to that, not the other way around.
Regarding Jedi plural or singular: Rian Johnson already confirmed it was singular. Also Yoda calls Luke the "Last of the Jedi" in RotJ, as does the crawl for Force Awakens. It literally says "Skywalker, the last jedi,...."
Luke is the Last Jedi. Translations into other languages can easily be misinterpretations of the original English. i.e. the Translator considered "jedi" to be plural, with no true direction from the movie makers
Galef wrote: Regarding Jedi plural or singular:
Rian Johnson already confirmed it was singular. Also Yoda calls Luke the "Last of the Jedi" in RotJ, as does the crawl for Force Awakens. It literally says "Skywalker, the last jedi,...."
Luke is the Last Jedi.
Translations into other languages can easily be misinterpretations of the original English. i.e. the Translator considered "jedi" to be plural, with no true direction from the movie makers
-
Huh, that would be a pretty great screw up on Disney's marketing front (or disagreement with the director), because apparently French, Italian and Spanish versions are also plural.
Yeah, I don't think they really analyzed it that much. The department that handles foreign language translation probably isn't "in the know" on the finer plot points of the movie. They were handed the title, which contained an quantitatively ambiguous word and in most languages, the default is to use the plural in that case. So they used the plural form, even though it could mean singular.
I am not saying this is definitely how it is, I am merely pointing out the flaw in saying "X language title used plural, so it MUST be plural". It could be, but doesn't have to be.
But I really do think it means the actual last Jedi, because Rey needs to be the first of something new. The Jedi have served their purpose in the galaxy, and have been found wanting. Even Luke, the literal last jedi, doesn't abide by the strictest tenants of the jedi code/faith. His willingness to "think outside the box" saved the galaxy. That may have turned out differently if he hadn't tried to save Anakin.
Side note on Luke's line from the trailer: "It didn't scare me enough then, It does now". I keep seeing people throw out Vader, Kylo, Snoke, or even Palpetine for the potential person he is talking about. But isn't he talking about himself? In ESB, He says to Yoda: "I'm not afraid" to which Yoda replies "You will be, you will be"
So is this Yoda's words coming full circle? We'll see in December
Eh I think he makes an interesting point. I kinda recall old canon speculation that Palpatine knew Vader was more powerful than himself but of course Vader also got mangled pretty bad in that dust up with Obi-Wan and that Luke would be a great replacement for Vader in that regard.
Agreed. but Speculation is fun and nods to original movies are very common now-a-days.
My fingers are crossed for Luke's ghost council (Anakin, Obi-wan & Yoda) to make it into the movie. Those characters HAVE to exist in the galaxy, unless being "one with the force" only gives you a limited time to be a force ghost and this particular caveat has yet to be revealed in canon.
OH WAIT! What if Rey is the amalgamation of Anakin, Obi-wan and Yoda reincarnated? Like they chose to merge and reincarnate into the same being (think 40K shaman becoming the Emperor of Mankind). That would be both cool and somehow lame at the same time.
Agreed. but Speculation is fun and nods to original movies are very common now-a-days.
My fingers are crossed for Luke's ghost council (Anakin, Obi-wan & Yoda) to make it into the movie. Those characters HAVE to exist in the galaxy, unless being "one with the force" only gives you a limited time to be a force ghost and this particular caveat has yet to be revealed in canon.
OH WAIT! What if Rey is the amalgamation of Anakin, Obi-wan and Yoda reincarnated? Like they chose to merge and reincarnate into the same being (think 40K shaman becoming the Emperor of Mankind). That would be both cool and somehow lame at the same time.
I could only dream that episodes 8 and 9 dovetail into a Horus Heresy movie series. Mostly because the utter shock, confusing, and fan rage would be made of tears
Maybe because of the Balance, Rey and Kylo come together to be the first of the Imperial Knights from the Legacy era, who use both sides of the Force (and guns!). That would be kinda cool.
My real problem with the theory with Kylo and Rey switching sides is that Rey needs some sort of reason to go bad (at least in good writing, anyway-unfortunately this is Hollywood and Disney)
I do like the scene showing what I assume is Luke climbing from the burning rubble of his academy, which at least explains why he became a damaged hermit better than just 'walking away' because Ren went bad.
I still don't think we've seen anything of the plot so far.
TFA trailer? Lied. Big time. Heck, they even omitted Rey from much of the merchandise to keep stuff a surprise.
Rogue One trailer? Maybe not such outright lies (making out Finn was the Jedi in waiting) but definitely and deliberately obscured a lot of stuff in the film.
The approach worked well for those two, and I'm sure we're seeing it adopted again.
LordofHats wrote: At least Boba Fett went down fighting. He didn't squeal like a piggy and then let the heroes throw him down a trash compactor without a fight.
Yeah, that was dumb. There was a lot of things that irritated me in TFA, and the order's overall incompetence is one of them. I mean, Phasma is supposed to be a high ranking commander, and all it takes is a question at gunpoint to make her fold? Pathetic.
The problem with the idea of balance in the Force is that, while the Sith are Evil, the Jedi are not actually Good. The Jedi were more about maintaining balance in the Force. It's hard to maintain balance on a seesaw when one person sits on one end (the Sith), and the other person only sits in the middle (the Jedi).
As I might point out the idea that the Jedi are about "balance" is this really cheesy shoe horn George Lucas kept trying to shove into the franchise in his last few years, and that anyone with a moral compass more complex than an eight-year-old is capable of picking to pieces.
It's one of the reasons why Star Wars internal ideology is actually completely bonkers. The Sith are evil because they're encouraged to be selfish, power hungry, and abuse the force*. The Jedi are balanced because they're encouraged to be selfless, not pursue personal power, and respect the force as some kind of god entity that guides them. Wait what? All of those seem like unquestionably good things. How is that "balanced" on a scale of black and white morality? I mean sure maybe they're more balanced personality wise but any attempt to proclaim the Jedi as "not paragons of goodness" falls on deaf ears the first chance the Jedi get to go out of their way and rescue someone just cause. And that's really just if you buy into the Jedi as serious about all that. If you instead turn it around and frame the Jedi as massive hypocrites, then both the Sith and the Jedi are different brands of evil and the rest of the galaxy is held helplessly hostage in a millennia long civil war between evil space wizards, with the Jedi simply being preferable because their brand of tyranny doesn't involve mass murder and slavery (except when it does).
There's been a bit of back petal on this in recent Star Wars material, most notably the character of Bendu in Star Wars: Rebels. The writers seemed to realize how much Lucas was butchering the concept of Dharma and no one was buying into it either because it was too confusing or too transparently false. Now the Jedi are the Good, the Sith are the Bad, and the middle is occupied by some lone alien on a deserted planet who likes playing mind games. Of course they still managed to feth that up because despite Bendu constant protestations about how he was "the one in the middle" he pretty much always sided with the good guys when it counted and only ever uttered his middleness as an excuse to do nothing which makes him more morally hypocritical than enlightened.
But this is Star Wars, and it always worked best when operating on a more black and white scale of idealism, so maybe people should stop trying to randomly shoehorn in the gray when none of the plots or story lines of the franchise outside Drew Karpyshyn are really built for it.
And this is why the internal ideology of Star Wars is bonkers, and people really shouldn't put that much thought into it
*I want a cross over of Code Geass and Star War by the way. Lelouch would have some harsh words for the rhetoric this universe runs on
Uh, you are aware right that balance is actually total removal of the Sith right? According to George Lucas himself the Sith and the Dark Side is a tumor. It isn't supposed to exist. "Balance" is the Sith being completely wiped out and only the light side, which is the true force, reigning. Anakin Skywalker wasn't supposed to butcher the Jedi Order to bring balance to the Force, just killing Palpatine, Maul, and Dooku would have done that.
Except that's still not balance. Balance implies negative and positive in equal quantities so that they cancel each other out. If you wipe out the sith, that would leave the Jedi order unopposed, pushing their doctrine and effectively monopolizing the force. That's not good. No group should have that much power and influence. Especially when you consider that the Jedi have a history of wiping out entire societies they don't like (see : mandalorians) Jedi are Lawful and Sith are chaotic. Either one in excess will lead to ruin.
My real problem with the theory with Kylo and Rey switching sides is that Rey needs some sort of reason to go bad (at least in good writing, anyway-unfortunately this is Hollywood and Disney)
I think the most obvious one is Luke pushing her away after she places her hopes and trust in him, Luke's bitterness could easily reflect itself in Rey. Meanwhile, I think Kylo will move more towards the Light and him and Rey will end up on their own in the middle. I'm confident that Kylo won't pull the trigger on Leia's ship as the trailer implies, realising at the last minute that if killing Han didn't erase his doubts and complete his fall to the Dark Side then neither would that. Some other FO pilot takes down the flagship and Kylo turns on Snoke and the FO as a result.
Cue Rey and Ren both cut off from their respective masters, and forming an alliance that ultimately represents more of a Balance in the Force than the Jedi or the Sith in opposition ever did; not equal but opposing forces, but rather both sides of the Force being used in unison to achieve true balance.
I think the perfect ending to TLJ would be bringing Rey and Kylo together, setting them up to wage their own war against Snoke and the First Order in episode IX. Hopefully somewhere along the way, something (maybe Leia's death) shakes Luke out of his bitterness and brokenness and sets him up again as a proper hero to lead the Resistance from the front.
Isn't the new canon that the Force was discovered by a brother and sister around a Force tree? That the brother grew strong in the DS while the sister turned to the LS? Then they came into conflict and she was killed...I think.
A Ben/Rey alliance would bring that story back around and heal the ancient breach. It's especially symbolic if they're also related.
I think there were also people speculating that Snoke is the brother in the story.
gorgon wrote: Isn't the new canon that the Force was discovered by a brother and sister around a Force tree? That the brother grew strong in the DS while the sister turned to the LS? Then they came into conflict and she was killed...I think.
A Ben/Rey alliance would bring that story back around and heal the ancient breach. It's especially symbolic if they're also related.
I think there were also people speculating that Snoke is the brother in the story.
This would be interesting. It would also give a good opportunity to bring Anakin back as a facilitator of this balance. TFA did give us the impression that Kylo has been speaking to old papa Vader in some capacity, after all.
Maybe destroying the Sith (and Jedi) was only the first part of the prophecy for Anakin to fulfill.
gorgon wrote: Isn't the new canon that the Force was discovered by a brother and sister around a Force tree? That the brother grew strong in the DS while the sister turned to the LS? Then they came into conflict and she was killed...I think.
A Ben/Rey alliance would bring that story back around and heal the ancient breach. It's especially symbolic if they're also related.
I think there were also people speculating that Snoke is the brother in the story.
The current canon (as detailed in "brief" here) is rather sparse and a little bit contradictory because the current work by Disney is back stepping away from some of things Lucas threw in in his last few years. Some elements of the old EU like The Hundred Year Darkness have been recanonized since Disney took over but none of that history has been given much detail. Disney seems to favor the duality of the force as Light and Dark, but even then they still threw in Bendu in Star Wars: Rebels who proclaimed himself as neither light or dark, just "the one in the middle."
You're thinking of the old EU where the origins of the Force and the Jedi/Sith were awesome, and got a pretty decent comic series dedicated to the period (Star Wars: Force Wars by Dark Horse) and that narrative did become part of the canon in the form of The Son and The Daughter who appeared in Clone Wars (the Mortis Trilogy Season 3, available on Netflix), but managed to be a thousand times stupider because Lucas seems incapable of describing how "balance" and "ultimate overwhelming goodness" are any different from each other while continually insisting the later is just as bad as the mustache twirling villainy that passes for ultimate evil in Star Wars.
LordofHats wrote: At least Boba Fett went down fighting. He didn't squeal like a piggy and then let the heroes throw him down a trash compactor without a fight.
Yeah, that was dumb. There was a lot of things that irritated me in TFA, and the order's overall incompetence is one of them. I mean, Phasma is supposed to be a high ranking commander, and all it takes is a question at gunpoint to make her fold? Pathetic.
The problem with the idea of balance in the Force is that, while the Sith are Evil, the Jedi are not actually Good. The Jedi were more about maintaining balance in the Force. It's hard to maintain balance on a seesaw when one person sits on one end (the Sith), and the other person only sits in the middle (the Jedi).
As I might point out the idea that the Jedi are about "balance" is this really cheesy shoe horn George Lucas kept trying to shove into the franchise in his last few years, and that anyone with a moral compass more complex than an eight-year-old is capable of picking to pieces.
It's one of the reasons why Star Wars internal ideology is actually completely bonkers. The Sith are evil because they're encouraged to be selfish, power hungry, and abuse the force*. The Jedi are balanced because they're encouraged to be selfless, not pursue personal power, and respect the force as some kind of god entity that guides them. Wait what? All of those seem like unquestionably good things. How is that "balanced" on a scale of black and white morality? I mean sure maybe they're more balanced personality wise but any attempt to proclaim the Jedi as "not paragons of goodness" falls on deaf ears the first chance the Jedi get to go out of their way and rescue someone just cause. And that's really just if you buy into the Jedi as serious about all that. If you instead turn it around and frame the Jedi as massive hypocrites, then both the Sith and the Jedi are different brands of evil and the rest of the galaxy is held helplessly hostage in a millennia long civil war between evil space wizards, with the Jedi simply being preferable because their brand of tyranny doesn't involve mass murder and slavery (except when it does).
There's been a bit of back petal on this in recent Star Wars material, most notably the character of Bendu in Star Wars: Rebels. The writers seemed to realize how much Lucas was butchering the concept of Dharma and no one was buying into it either because it was too confusing or too transparently false. Now the Jedi are the Good, the Sith are the Bad, and the middle is occupied by some lone alien on a deserted planet who likes playing mind games. Of course they still managed to feth that up because despite Bendu constant protestations about how he was "the one in the middle" he pretty much always sided with the good guys when it counted and only ever uttered his middleness as an excuse to do nothing which makes him more morally hypocritical than enlightened.
But this is Star Wars, and it always worked best when operating on a more black and white scale of idealism, so maybe people should stop trying to randomly shoehorn in the gray when none of the plots or story lines of the franchise outside Drew Karpyshyn are really built for it.
And this is why the internal ideology of Star Wars is bonkers, and people really shouldn't put that much thought into it
*I want a cross over of Code Geass and Star War by the way. Lelouch would have some harsh words for the rhetoric this universe runs on
Uh, you are aware right that balance is actually total removal of the Sith right? According to George Lucas himself the Sith and the Dark Side is a tumor. It isn't supposed to exist. "Balance" is the Sith being completely wiped out and only the light side, which is the true force, reigning. Anakin Skywalker wasn't supposed to butcher the Jedi Order to bring balance to the Force, just killing Palpatine, Maul, and Dooku would have done that.
Except that's still not balance. Balance implies negative and positive in equal quantities so that they cancel each other out. If you wipe out the sith, that would leave the Jedi order unopposed, pushing their doctrine and effectively monopolizing the force. That's not good. No group should have that much power and influence. Especially when you consider that the Jedi have a history of wiping out entire societies they don't like (see : mandalorians)
Jedi are Lawful and Sith are chaotic. Either one in excess will lead to ruin.
Except that's not canon. Star Wars is black and white morality, barely any grey exists. The Mandalorians in both continuities got assaulted and broken by the Jedi Order because they aligned themselves with the Dark Side, which is an aberration. To put it in D&D terms if you were cast detect evil, Sith and their supporters would light up like the sun. Balance is in fact the total annihilation of the Sith and the Dark Side in general. The idea that the Jedi were bamboozled by the prophecy and them getting wiped out was part of it is total fan fiction.
Except that's not canon. Star Wars is black and white morality, barely any grey exists. The Mandalorians in both continuities got assaulted and broken by the Jedi Order because they aligned themselves with the Dark Side, which is an aberration. To put it in D&D terms if you were cast detect evil, Sith and their supporters would light up like the sun. Balance is in fact the total annihilation of the Sith and the Dark Side in general. The idea that the Jedi were bamboozled by the prophecy and them getting wiped out was part of it is total fan fiction.
I feel like it's been mentioned numerous times, and you're still for some reason not understanding.
It is canon, because the TV series are still canon and the first one, Clone Wars, has a three parter that Lucas specifically had made to explain the nature of the force, and that nature was bonkers, especially in how it tried to show the dark side as having redeeming value* and the light side as having negative aspects. Someone better probably could have pulled it off honestly cause it's was done well in the EU a few times, but the way it played out in Mortis was confusing and backwards.
*and as much as I hated the whole "what do mean being overwhelmingly selfless and full of love is bad" bit that was going on I think this was easily the most botched part of the episodes. Trying to portray The Son with sympathetic aspects kind of went rapidly down the tube when they made him come of as even more of a sociopath than he already seemed to be XD
You can keep arguing the semantics of "balance" (poorly) but that's just missing the point. And I wouldn't really say that it was fan fiction that the Jedi were "bamboozled". Its a fan theory sure but death of the author and all that (not to mention it made sense at the time on the heels of the rather lackluster and unconvincing performance of Hayden Christiansen making the whole thing really look like fate demanded it). How were fans supposed to know that Lucas would rapidly develop a raging hate boner for them and dedicated his last couple years to crucifying his own work to spite them?
Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.
If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.
Who knows what the original teachings were? If I might risk a flame war, consider the pure teachings of Christ, and those who completely laughably call themselves Christian today (NOT ALL CHRISTIANS. Just the ones that don't seem to get it, at all).
LordofHats wrote: The current canon (as detailed in "brief" here) is rather sparse and a little bit contradictory because the current work by Disney is back stepping away from some of things Lucas threw in in his last few years. Some elements of the old EU like The Hundred Year Darkness have been recanonized since Disney took over but none of that history has been given much detail. Disney seems to favor the duality of the force as Light and Dark, but even then they still threw in Bendu in Star Wars: Rebels who proclaimed himself as neither light or dark, just "the one in the middle."
You're thinking of the old EU where the origins of the Force and the Jedi/Sith were awesome, and got a pretty decent comic series dedicated to the period (Star Wars: Force Wars by Dark Horse) and that narrative did become part of the canon in the form of The Son and The Daughter who appeared in Clone Wars (the Mortis Trilogy Season 3, available on Netflix), but managed to be a thousand times stupider because Lucas seems incapable of describing how "balance" and "ultimate overwhelming goodness" are any different from each other while continually insisting the later is just as bad as the mustache twirling villainy that passes for ultimate evil in Star Wars.
Mmm, but the Jedi were never about "ultimate overwhelming goodness" or compassion. They're trained almost from birth to completely suppress all emotion and work within the rules/laws of their order. Or else. I mean, they kicked Ahsoka out for not lying down and accepting a false accusation.
Individual Jedi could be compassionate and generally nice people, but the Order as a whole was not about either. Just like it's possible some Sith aren't power-hungry evil monsters (like Maul's brother, I suppose), although the nature of chaos is stacked against that.
The Jedi/Sith conflict is more about Lawful vs Chaotic than good vs evil. At least in modern SW. (The original trilogy was more "farmboy coming of age against the backdrop of an Evil Empire with Evil Magic Space Wizards ruling it).
I have no problem with there being other flavours of Force users than eunuched Jedi or powerhungry monster Sith, like Bendu claiming allegiance to neither side, and Ahsoka's new white lightsabers. I believe Ventress was headed that way as well after being abandoned by Dooku.
I think a major point that might be explored is that without the Jedi or Sith to gravitate towards, new force users have to find their own way.
I kinda think this is the "truth" Luke has come across. The Jedi were too strict in their views and thus blinded to the Dark side.
I really hope we get "grey jedi" in the saga films, but without "jedi" in their name.
Paradigm wrote: Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.
If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.
So what you're talking about are opposing parties who at one time were perhaps less extreme and more willing to accept the other as an important part of the balance in the system, but now have become narrow-minded zealots that spend their time demonizing and denying the other's right to exist?
Bran Dawri wrote: Mmm, but the Jedi were never about "ultimate overwhelming goodness" or compassion. They're trained almost from birth to completely suppress all emotion and work within the rules/laws of their order. Or else. I mean, they kicked Ahsoka out for not lying down and accepting a false accusation.
I agree which is why I find the forced distinction stupid, and the honest truth is that there doesn't seem to be much of one in the episode(s) that forced it. The Mortis trilogy kept insisting on this stuff in dialog, but the actual plot of the episodes didn't remotely mesh with what was being said.
That's why I keep calling it bonkers.
like Bendu claiming allegiance to neither side
See I didn't like Bendu that much either, because he was almost as dysfunctional as The Father was. He claimed to be in the middle but whenever he had to choose he always chose to help the good guys, and only ever invoked his middleness as an excuse to do nothing. And that last bit was always a contrived convenience for the plot because if Bendu sided with the good guys every time then there wouldn't be much of a plot.
Spoiler:
WI mean he could have just warned Kanan about a few things instead of playing mind games, but that would have ruined the plot so he didn't. he could have helped Ezra and Kanan fight off Maul, but that would have ruined the plot so he didn't. Then comes the Season 3 finally, where Kana said "help up you lazy gakker" and he was like "feth no" and then he did help them because if he didn't it would have ruined the plot. So yeah, the character of Bendu was kind of all over the place for supposedly being in the middle.
Who knows what the original teachings were?
In the Old EU (where this stuff was generally awesome in terms of story telling), the Jed'aii Order began on Tython and actually was all about balance. Anyone who was out of balance earned themselves a lovely field trip to one of the planet's moons (Ashla and Bogan, aka Light and Dark) until they got themselves back into balance. The emergence of modern Jedi and the Sith philosophies owed itself to the Force Wars and the Hundred Year Darkness, where the rising power and aggression of dedicated Dark Side acolytes gradually polarized the order and broke it into the Light dedicated Jedi and the Dark dedicated Sith.
The Jedi insistence on destroying the Sith to cause balance, could just be a side effect of their clouding (and perhaps slow corruption) by a Sith shrine their Temple is built over.
From a few comments from Rian Johnson and Daisy Ridley, it looks like the movie will deal with ruined expectations, which could be quite meta. Rey is disappointed at Luke, Kylo's light side pull didn't go away after killing Han, etc. The audience let down because this new trilogy is too similar or too different, take your pick, than what we want from Star Wars
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: The Jedi insistence on destroying the Sith to cause balance, could just be a side effect of their clouding (and perhaps slow corruption) by a Sith shrine their Temple is built over.
Honestly I just consider that one of the last things done the flip the bird to the fans in the end. Disney published but Clone Wars was already in the process of setting up that reveal when it got canceled.
My biggest issue with the entire prequel timeline is that it presented the Jedi as too dumb to live.
hey guys lets build our galactic headquarters on top of a shrine seething in evil energy. That will never backfire on us. Oh look some Jedi went rogue and ordered a Clone army with money, even though we're all not supposed to have any money, and it's ready at just the time we need it, and we found it because the Chancellor gave us a mission that put is on a collision course with the guy who is the template for said army, which was made on a planet deleted from our records somehow. I see nothing suspicious here. This isn't screaming "plot to destroy the Jedi" from the get go. Lets just use this army of slaves to fight our war, and continue to ask no question about how insanely convenient all of this is even after we learn the Count Dooku was the one who really set the whole thing up. Come on guys lets go arrest the chancellor a couple years later cause now we're suspicious.
Honestly, the prequel era turned the Jedi into outright idiots, and it didn't help that the films themselves made no attempt to twist the plot or even hide the blatantly obvious outcomes of every event cause that just made the Jedi look even dumber. Everything was so obvious at any given moment, it's no wonder the fanbase embraced a theory that the Jedi were corrupt (cause you're either this damn stupid, or so damn arrogant you might as well be that damn stupid) themselves and the Force planned to wipe them all along. Que George Lucas stepping in to provide an explanation for events that manages to make it all even dumber.
I get the feeling that the little furry creature is part of a new and growing trope in movies. It's just a 'baby groot' character stuck in their to be cute and sell tickets.
To be fair, though, the Porgs were an accident. Skelig Micheal Island (spelling) has Puffins on it, so they kept getting into the shots on Ahch-to. So someone had the idea to turn them into creatures that exist on the island.
It's no different than Dagobah being infested with snakes and lizards. Worlds with lots of Force energy tend to have lots of life forms. It's just a happy coincidence that the creatures are highly marketable.
LordofHats wrote: Really hoping Phasma isn't as much of a pushover in this one as she was in the last one. This series ain't going to continue the long tradition of great B villains without some help
Dude she's the boba fett of the new trilogy. Get used to it.
@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA. In fact the characters seemed much more enjoyable than TFA and i'd have much preferred them to live over the new trilogy's new characters. TFA has mary-sue (rei), mostly useless love interest (finn), emo disney princess (kylo renn), the new female boba fett (phasma), a mary sue that has actual experience (poe) and basically constant nostalgia moments from the original trilogy. I mean i hate the prequels and all but at least they told us a fairly different story even if it was a dumb story. The comparisons to the original trilogy are just too much. This new series really needs to stand on its own merit rather than star wars and the original trilogy's. Trust me years after all 3 movies come out people will complain just like they did with the prequels. Hardcore fans can never be satisfied though.
Paradigm wrote: Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.
If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.
So what you're talking about are opposing parties who at one time were perhaps less extreme and more willing to accept the other as an important part of the balance in the system, but now have become narrow-minded zealots that spend their time demonizing and denying the other's right to exist?
Could that even happen in real life?
Have an exalt my dude.
Well paradigm not sure if this is what you mean but there are things that could be wrong that were taught for thousands of years. It's called religion. Course that's what jedi and sith kinda boil down to.
LordofHats wrote: Really hoping Phasma isn't as much of a pushover in this one as she was in the last one. This series ain't going to continue the long tradition of great B villains without some help
Dude she's the boba fett of the new trilogy. Get used to it.
@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA. In fact the characters seemed much more enjoyable than TFA and i'd have much preferred them to live over the new trilogy's new characters. TFA has mary-sue (rei), mostly useless love interest (finn), emo disney princess (kylo renn), the new female boba fett (phasma), a mary sue that has actual experience (poe) and basically constant nostalgia moments from the original trilogy. I mean i hate the prequels and all but at least they told us a fairly different story even if it was a dumb story. The comparisons to the original trilogy are just too much. This new series really needs to stand on its own merit rather than star wars and the original trilogy's. Trust me years after all 3 movies come out people will complain just like they did with the prequels. Hardcore fans can never be satisfied though.
Paradigm wrote: Of course, the easy way to reconcile the two versions of Balance, the whole 'Dark Side is an aberration in the Force' thing and a more logical position where Balance is Light and Dark in harmony is to just say that the former is simply how the Jedi have come to see it, and doesn't actually reflect any real 'truth' about the Force. The Jedi are known to have been easily led astray and often short-sighted in their beliefs, especially at the end, so you simply state that the reason they believe the Dark Side to be an abnormality that has to be destroyed it because that's more palatable to them than accepting that what they've preached for a few thousand years might in fact be totally wrong.
If, for example, Yoda came to this realisation, would he say 'Ok, we're now doing Dark Side classes with the Younglings every other Friday', or would he do any amount of mental gymnastics to justify teaching that Balance= Overwhelming presence of the Light Side'? The Jedi ideology is known to be flawed on so many levels that this would be an easy thing to explain away.
So what you're talking about are opposing parties who at one time were perhaps less extreme and more willing to accept the other as an important part of the balance in the system, but now have become narrow-minded zealots that spend their time demonizing and denying the other's right to exist?
Could that even happen in real life?
Have an exalt my dude.
Well paradigm not sure if this is what you mean but there are things that could be wrong that were taught for thousands of years. It's called religion. Course that's what jedi and sith kinda boil down to.
Mr Nobody wrote: I get the feeling that the little furry creature is part of a new and growing trope in movies. It's just a 'baby groot' character stuck in their to be cute and sell tickets.
And don't forget the Christmas toy to have. This is my perception as well, but this is Disney so it's not like we should expect much different!
On the matter of Porgs and Ewoks, allow me to offer an arguably more cynical view than 'they're just there to sell toys'.
See, I feel the inclusion of such species help to make the Star Wars films feel 'real'. They give the impression of a proper Galaxy, replete with more than just humanoid forms.
Going right back to A New Hope, we got slapped in the face with that as soon as we entered Chalmun's Cantina. Think back to how mind blowing that was. Different shapes and sizes, none of whom had anything to do with the plot.
Prior to that, I don't think there was anything like it (I may be wrong, feel free to suitably educate me). Star Trek had aliens, yes. But due to budgetary restraints, they were largely 'bloke with slightly different ridges A, B and C', or shapeless blobs. The only real variety we got on TV or movies was when it was a central beastie. They just didn't have the time or the money to do that with background characters.
And that's something that continued throughout the original trilogy, including silly little cutaways, like that frog thing outside Jabba's Palace. They ultimately serve little plot purpose, if any at all. But they show a Galaxy full of diverse life forms.
Ewoks? There's a definite 'they'll sell toys and spinoffs' from them, but I've never felt they were out of place. Now that may be because of my age. I'm 37, so grew up with Ewoks in my life. By the time I was old enough to actually pay attention, the toy shelves were predominantly RotJ ranges, and so Ewoks have just always been there. I certainly don't really remember Star Wars without the furry little blighters. Those older no doubt have very different recollections, and fair enough.
Porgs? They're cute, they're franky adawbs cute. But they still, at the moment, from what little I've seen, feel out of place. They're just the next Salacious Crumb, a little something added in which in its own way enriches the setting. Of course, they may turn out to be as utterly unsufferable as J** J** B***s, but time will tell.
@Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA. In fact the characters seemed much more enjoyable than TFA and i'd have much preferred them to live over the new trilogy's new characters. TFA has mary-sue (rei), mostly useless love interest (finn), emo disney princess (kylo renn), the new female boba fett (phasma), a mary sue that has actual experience (poe) and basically constant nostalgia moments from the original trilogy. I mean i hate the prequels and all but at least they told us a fairly different story even if it was a dumb story. The comparisons to the original trilogy are just too much. This new series really needs to stand on its own merit rather than star wars and the original trilogy's. Trust me years after all 3 movies come out people will complain just like they did with the prequels. Hardcore fans can never be satisfied though.
Its all subjective but:
Rogue One had an awful start and only passable first half - the second half was fantastic - can't fault it.
TFA was more consistent but never quite reached the heights that R1 did in the second half. Never thought Bobba Fett was that interesting in the main trilogy - he's hardly in it!
Both are a thousand times better than the Prequel drek.
I thought R1 was a bit better than TFA, but it dragged on for too long, it had bad pacing, the acting wasn't amazing and they brought in a bunch of characters just to die heroic deaths. The plot also runs on idiocy; a lot of what happens in the movie is only possible because Imperial security sucks. The first 30 minutes or so felt fine but it eventually felt like a slog to watch. I liked how the rebels weren't the obvious good guys in R1, at least at first; they showed the rebels doing some pretty questionable stuff, which was a departure from the usual Star Wars dualism.
flamingkillamajig wrote: @Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA.
TFA was the better movie for a very simple reason: it has interesting characters and R1 doesn't. And TFA has better acting. And R1's soundtrack is absolute gak. In all other respects, TFA and R1 are pretty much evenly mediocre. Well, I think TFA does have the better action shots. I have nothing against Edwards but there wasn't a shot in R1 that really stood out like the Falcon flip shot in TFA or the X-Wings swooping over the ruins of Maz's cantina. There certainly wasn't anything as emotionally interesting in R1 as Rey facing Kylo in the dark, snowy forest.
Rey is not a Mary Sue. Rey is not even that overpowered, considering this is a SW movie. There is a problem with Rey, however: Kathleen Kennedy refused to allow TFA to tell us anything about her. She seems too powerful because there is no explanation of why she is powerful. Disney did this because they are building a "cinematic universe" and that means creating mysteries to be solved by future films. Rey's power level in TFA will ultimately not seem so strange once subsequent episodes explain it. But yeah it frustrates the crap out of me.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I liked how the rebels weren't the obvious good guys in R1, at least at first; they showed the rebels doing some pretty questionable stuff, which was a departure from the usual Star Wars dualism.
Then again, so what? When Cpt Moustache murders the Rebel informant at the beginning, I was like "oh gak this is going to be really interesting." But that was both the beginning and the end of the morally questionable good guys. Later on, Moustache is going to kill Jyn's dad except no, he isn't, because Jyn's dad is clearly not a bad guy and Moustache is a good guy. And that's pretty much it, period, the end, no more shades of gray in R1. Also, at no point was the Empire shown to be anything but evil ... well other than massively incompetent. Like so incompetent that one wonders why there even needs to be a Rebellion. Anyhow, point is, R1 promises to be a lot of things: gritty, morally complicated, comparatively realistic but it all ends up as mere pretension.
flamingkillamajig wrote: @Manchu (on first page): What?! Wtf was wrong with Rogue One? It was leagues better than TFA.
TFA was the better movie for a very simple reason: it has interesting characters and R1 doesn't. And TFA has better acting. And R1's soundtrack is absolute gak. In all other respects, TFA and R1 are pretty much evenly mediocre. Well, I think TFA does have the better action shots. I have nothing against Edwards but there wasn't a shot in R1 that really stood out like the Falcon flip shot in TFA or the X-Wings swooping over the ruins of Maz's cantina.
Rey is not a Mary Sue. Rey is not even that overpowered, considering this is a SW movie. There is a problem with Rey, however: Kathleen Kennedy refused to allow TFA to tell us anything about her. She seems too powerful because there is no explanation of why she is powerful. Disney did this because they are building a "cinematic universe" and that means creating mysteries to be solved by future films. Rey's power level in TFA will ultimately not seem so strange once subsequent episodes explain it.
I agree that Rey is not a Mary Sue but she's still the biggest problem in TFA. My issue with TFA is that it took the merry band of characters from ANH and replaced them with a solo act. TFA focuses on Rey to such an extent that it harms the movie. Nothing happens unless Rey is in the scene. There aren't enough new characters, there's Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren and the scenes and Finn and Ren need Rey in the scene to have their most interesting and insightful scenes. The original trilogy was centered on Luke but the movies didn't need to put Luke in every scene in order to showcase the EU or advance the plot. In ANH the audience is introduced to Leia before Luke and the audience is introduced to Han before Luke meets him. In TFA, we see the Millennium Falcon when Rey does, we meet Han and Chewie when Rey does, we see Leia again when Rey does, it feels like the whole movie is waiting on Rey to show up to do the scene. It messes up the pacing of the movie and makes the setting/story feel small.
I think Saw Gerrera is a more interesting character than anyone new we meet in TFA. Saw starts a rebellion against the Empire because he believes the Empire is too big and tyrannical he has no knowledge of the Sith or that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, etc. and he keeps fighting an unwinnable fight against a galaxy spanning superpower even as the fighting literally kills him one piece at a time and frays his sanity. In TFA we get Po who is just Wedge Antilles 2.0 and cameos from old characters. R1 had disposable characters yes, but that was a theme in the movie, that fighting the Galactic Empire was a fight you'd lose, it would grind you down, use you up and kill you. R1 also had a much better villain than TFA and villains do more to determine a good story than protagonists. The Galactic Empire is far more intimidating and powerful in R1 and the original trilogy than the First Order is in TFA. The First Order feels small, it's like ISIS, sure they're bad guys that want to do bad things but ISIS isn't going to take over Earth anymore than the First Order was going to take over the galaxy. Star Killer base was an impressive (if ridiculously implausible) weapon but nothing conveyed to the audience a belief that the First Order would bounce back from its destruction. ANH set up the Galactic Empire as being a galaxy spanning superpower that builds DeathStars, is run by an evil Emperor and his cyborg hatchet man with superpowers, they have fleets and armies and losing the DeathStar wasn't going to defeat them, they were going to strike back and punish the rebellion. What's the First Order? A splinter military faction from the Galactic Empire, it's defining characteristic is being a lesser version of the powerful villain of the original trilogy.
I think Saw Gerrera is a more interesting character than anyone new we meet in TFA. Saw starts a rebellion against the Empire because he believes the Empire is too big and tyrannical he has no knowledge of the Sith or that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, etc. and he keeps fighting an unwinnable fight against a galaxy spanning superpower even as the fighting literally kills him one piece at a time and frays his sanity
I thought he was one of the poorer parts of the film that could have been easily cut to reduce run time.
Prestor Jon wrote: In ANH the audience is introduced to Leia before Luke and the audience is introduced to Han before Luke meets him. In TFA, we see the Millennium Falcon when Rey does, we meet Han and Chewie when Rey does, we see Leia again when Rey does, it feels like the whole movie is waiting on Rey to show up to do the scene. It messes up the pacing of the movie and makes the setting/story feel small.
I feel like that's kind of a trivial line to draw, and fallacious. Rey is the last of the main four new characters we meet. Poe is the first, then Kylo, and Finn pulls off his helmet not much later. Sure Rey commands most of the attention once she shows up, but so did Luke. Outside of Obi-Wan, no one in ANH does much of anything of consequence without Luke on, or just off camera. Kylo got about the same screen time as Vader (though Vader was terrifying, and Kylo was just... angsty).
I think Saw Gerrera is a more interesting character than anyone new we meet in TFA.
They wasted a perfectly good character imo. Really kind of Episode 1 onwards issues. Maul. Dooku. Greivous. Gerrera. There's probably more, but those four stand out to me as characters who show up, make an cool or exciting first impression, and then just die or otherwise get taken out before getting to really entertain. Krenick for a one off villain indeed was much more interesting and engaging as an antagonist, and he was easily the most mundane of the lot which really highlights how rapidly these films waste their villains in my book. Greivous though I have a particular anger for cause he made huge and kick ass splash when he first appeared in the 2003 Clone Wars series. He was scary, competent, and basically the complete and utter opposite of the mustache twirling card board cut out he ended up as after Episode III. Maul, Dooku, and Gerrera were merely wasted as characters. Greivous was actively ruined.
What's the First Order? A splinter military faction from the Galactic Empire, it's defining characteristic is being a lesser version of the powerful villain of the original trilogy.
This I agree with though. I generally see most criticism of TFA as sour grapes, but the one thing I think the film really needed to do and didn't do well is explain the state of the galaxy 20 years after RotJ. I mean sure. There's a new Republic, and there's the First Order, and there's a Resistance but the situation these powers are in and what they're up to and why we should give a damn about any of it was never clear and left as kind of a jumbled mess. The New Republic basically makes a cameo appearance to die, the Resistance is just the Rebel Alliance under a new name, and the First Order is so ill defined as an organization. We don't know their scope, greater goals, or how significant a power they are in the grand scheme of things. Come on this is Star Wars. Everyone builds super weapons in this universe. It's the bread and butter. Being able to throw one together is a cheap way at this point of telling me someone is important.
Saw Guerrera is the morally ambiguous aspect of rebellion that Mon Mothma and her crew can no longer be part of, but are constantly toying with. On again, off again relationship to casual violence.
Easy E wrote: On again, off again relationship to casual violence.
Honestly I feel like this could be a tag line for the entire series.
Remember kids. War, violence, and oppression are bad! Except when the war is against tyrannical governments, the violence is inflicted on faceless enemies you can dehumanize (unless they're Sand People, in which case YOU MUST CARE), and when you have to force some planets back into line because self-determination isn't recognized in this corrupt political system and anyone who wants to separate from something called "the Republic" must be a faceless off screen villain worth none of your time or effort
All the stuff Pretsor Jon explained about Saw Gerrara may be true (I honestly don't know) but that stuff certainly isn't in R1. In R1, he is an incoherent tertiary element; maybe the remains of an earlier, better script. The most interesting character in R1 is either Jyn's dad or Krennic. Neither are as interesting as Kylo Ren.
Yes, another problem with TFA is WTF is going on in this setting? No one bothers to explain it in the film because I am expected to read a coffee table book or a graphic novel. My impression was, we just needed our good guys to fight storm troopers and TIE fighters. Laaaaame.
Manchu wrote: All the stuff Pretsor Jon explained about Saw Gerrara may be true (I honestly don't know) but that stuff certainly isn't in R1. In R1, he is an incoherent tertiary element; maybe the remains of an earlier, better script.
Not an earlier script I think. Just a tie in to the rest of the post Disney canon. Saw is a character who first appeared as a rebel on Onderon being trained in insurgency tactics by Ashoka Tano during the the Clone Wars (Season 5 of the tv series). He was a teenager in that series, and notably more aggressive and gung-ho than his fellows, and becomes more so following the end of the episode(s) on Onderon. Presumably he went on to have a very prolific career as a rebel, first against the Confederacy and then against the Galactic Empire. By the time he reappears in the third season of Star Wars: Rebels, he is already seen as too extreme by Mon Motha and Bail Organa, and earns the ire of the main characters of the series for his merrily violent approach.
Saw is a throw away side character in Clone Wars, but interesting enough. R1 then killed him off, and in Rebels he's just the darker and edgier version of the good guys who is so over the top violent he is very dull.
Cameo appearance in season 3, and more to come in season 4.
He's a necessary backdrop to show the origins of the Rebellion. Rather than a single glorious morality, it's instead fragmented and only loosely aligned at first. Individual cells doing what they can, rather than something properly organised.
I figured he was coming back, but honestly his character is the kind that Star Wars continually gets wrong. Star Wars keeps trying to insert morally grey elements into its story but is either unwilling or written by people incapable of actually pulling it off. A moral gray when not effectively distinguished is just another shade of black/white. When he appeared in a two parter in Rebels he was just another mustache twirling douche doing stuff "fur the goodz (aka evilz)" and to provide a pointless and cartoony contrast to the main characters who are otherwise completely okay with terrorism and casual violence except when the plot demands that they oppose terrorism and casual violence to make some obscure moral statement to the audience that will quickly be forgotten and likely never brought up again and sure enough the two episodes later we have an arc filled with casual violence and overthrowing the evil government by force so...
FWIW it was pretty ballsy that Mon Mothma insisted on (largely) disarming the New Republic. However, I get the impression this had more to do with the need for the First Order to be a threat.
That doesn't make sense though. Wouldn't the Rebel Alliance become the New Republic after their victory, and as such provide most of the military? That's how revolutions work. You don't stay a rebel after overthrowing the government, you become the government.
Technically the first order are the rebels.
That's why I find it stupid that the Resistance is called the Resistance. What are they resisting exactly? The First Order? Imperial Remnant groups? Okay so they aren't part of the New Republic officially I can buy into that, but wouldn't that just make them like the French Foreign Legion or something? It was weird that they carried over all the trappings of the rebellion into the new series, when presumably they weren't rebelling against anyone but engaging in open military action against another non-state actor.
And yes. I find Mon Motha disarming the new republic to be a really forced aspect of the plot. Mon Motha was peaceful, and desired no violence but she wasn't a damn idiot. Anyone with a brain could have pointed out that defeating the Empire at Jakku would never be the end of it. Of course that's all kind of paltry since this is Star Wars and the winners are the ones with super weapons/force (plot) armor.
The New Republic disclaims any connection to the Resistance because it would violate the treaty with the Empire. The First Order believes that the New Republic secretly funds the Resistance to basically continue the war under the cover of magnanimity. In reality, certain Rebel hardliners could not let go of the war and formed an illegal paramilitary organization to continue it. The rationalization was, the Empire will always be a threat. That doesn't seem to be true, however. The Empire is not the First Order. The First Order is perforce as much at war with the Empire as it is with the New Republic. From its POV, there is no distinction between the NR and the Resistance.
Mon Mothma made a point of disarming, lest the New Republic be seen as The Empire in all but name.
They retained a smaller, but still powerful Navy. Enough to put-muscle a given system's defences, but not large enough to impose rule. Not far off the division of Legions into Chapters in 40k.
You guys should read Aftermath and Bloodline. Shines a serious light on the political situation.
Nope. Movies should include the details necessary to understand them. SW has always done this "open the book to the middle" in media res trick but TFA is doing a different schtick, much more like arc-driven TV where important information is deliberately left out so that you get trapped in an investment sink.
Am I alone in thinking Kylo is an incredibly lame character. Also with a lot of really inconsistent power levels?
First Scene of TFA he literally stops a blaster shot and holds it in place like Neo from the matrix(something weve never seen a force user do...not yoda...not wendu...not obiwan) - then later in the movie he gets beat by a girl with no force training. Supposedly this guy killed all of Lukes trainies or whatever you call them. Plus his scar looks freaking terrible - I have no idea how this makes it to the screen with such a huge budget. In any case - Kylo sucks IMO.
It's also really sad that we already know everything that's going to happen. Kylo is going to kill leia. Hes going to kill luke. Rey fights Kylo to a draw...again. About the only element of mystery and literally the only thing was interested in...Snoke. Who and what is he. Is he Plaugis? I sure hope so.
Kylo is certainly lame. But he is not a lame character, if you see what I mean. In other words, he is not just a one dimensional bad guy like ANH Vader. He wants to be that kind of guy but he just isn't, precisely because he is a three-dimensional person with conflicting values and feelings. If you take a closer look at TFA, you'll notice he is pretty powerful until/unless he sort of realizes he's not the guy he wishes he was. BTW, this isn't even subtext. Rey explicitly spells this out in her interrogation scene, when overpowering his mind probe.
I think the only issue with Kylo is that he is played by a gangly looking guy with long black hair. He just comes off as something of a stereotype when you look at him, and it distracts from the underlying dimensions of his character. I think he would have screened better with a slightly more muscular build (you know, as if he were well trained and conditioned physically) and a shorter haircut.
Kylo Ren is a great metaphor for (post-) modern consumption. He is what a powerless person thinks a powerful person is.
He is essentially always trying to live his facebook persona and garner as many likes as he can. However, he can't pull it off 24/7 and he can't handle the fact that is Social Media persona and his real persona are not the same. When you get to meet his real persona people are much less impressed.
Manchu wrote: Kylo is certainly lame. But he is not a lame character, if you see what I mean. In other words, he is not just a one dimensional bad guy like ANH Vader. He wants to be that kind of guy but he just isn't, precisely because he is a three-dimensional person with conflicting values and feelings. If you take a closer look at TFA, you'll notice he is pretty powerful until/unless he sort of realizes he's not the guy he wishes he was. BTW, this isn't even subtext. Rey explicitly spells this out in her interrogation scene, when overpowering his mind probe.
That scene where she just magically became a great jedi with no practice pissed me off to no end.
"Oh i'm just going to use jedi mind trick now. A power btw which took luke 3 films to finally accomplish and obi wan kenobi years to do. However because i'm rei (a mary sue with no experience) i get it done within a minute. I didn't even know mind trick was a thing before i did it."
Did you guys see the same movies I did? Both TFA and R1 are pretty good. They have some flaws, but so does the original trilogy.
And BTW, Rey didn't beat Kylo. The near fatal blow from Chewie's bowcaster beat Kylo. Finn and Rey just got lucky. Also, Kylo likely knows who Rey is and (just like Vader in ESB) wasn't actually trying to kill his opponent.
Also, Kylo only has the lineage of 1 Jedi, but has been diluted not once (Padme), but twice (Han) by non-force users. Rey might have the lineage of 2 Jedi. She could be Luke's daughter AND Obi-wan's granddaughter, and be a reincarnation of some ancient force user. So, yeah, as Mary Sue as you can get, but her power makes sense in the context of that heritage. If that is who she is, anyway (fingers crossed)
Manchu wrote: FWIW it was pretty ballsy that Mon Mothma insisted on (largely) disarming the New Republic. However, I get the impression this had more to do with the need for the First Order to be a threat.
The First Order are clearly a threat even if the NR didn't disarm. The standard ship in their fleet has the truly obscene (combined officer/enilsted) crew requirement of of 74,000. They expect us to believe that a "Remnants Group" considered a joke by the Republic can field mulitple of those ships, plus bog standard Imperial SDs, escorts and 60km Wide Star Destroyer, plus Star Killer Base and who knows how many Stormtroopers that arent Clones. Seriously? New Republic got what it deserved when SKB took out their capital if they are dumb enough to think these people aren't a threat.
Manchu wrote: FWIW it was pretty ballsy that Mon Mothma insisted on (largely) disarming the New Republic. However, I get the impression this had more to do with the need for the First Order to be a threat.
The First Order are clearly a threat even if the NR didn't disarm. The standard ship in their fleet has the truly obscene (combined officer/enilsted) crew requirement of of 74,000. They expect us to believe that a "Remnants Group" considered a joke by the Republic can field mulitple of those ships, plus bog standard Imperial SDs, escorts and 60km Wide Star Destroyer, plus Star Killer Base and who knows how many Stormtroopers that arent Clones. Seriously? New Republic got what it deserved when SKB took out their capital if they are dumb enough to think these people aren't a threat.
Well, to be fair, in a galaxy of planets 74,000 people is like the head of a pin.
Manchu wrote: FWIW it was pretty ballsy that Mon Mothma insisted on (largely) disarming the New Republic. However, I get the impression this had more to do with the need for the First Order to be a threat.
The First Order are clearly a threat even if the NR didn't disarm. The standard ship in their fleet has the truly obscene (combined officer/enilsted) crew requirement of of 74,000. They expect us to believe that a "Remnants Group" considered a joke by the Republic can field mulitple of those ships, plus bog standard Imperial SDs, escorts and 60km Wide Star Destroyer, plus Star Killer Base and who knows how many Stormtroopers that arent Clones. Seriously? New Republic got what it deserved when SKB took out their capital if they are dumb enough to think these people aren't a threat.
Well, to be fair, in a galaxy of planets 74,000 people is like the head of a pin.
Yeah, but if a Miltiary group starts putting 74,000 people at a time into its Navy you think someone somewhere would notice. There are Three known Resurgent-Class Star Destroyers, the Absolution, the Finalizer, and the Subjugator. Plus we could make the assumption that they have a lead ship of the class, the Resurgent. That's almost Three hundred thousand servicemen in four ships, plus a further Thirty-two thousand in their Stormtrooper complement. Four ships in their whole navy have roughly under a third of the initial size of the Grand Army of the Republic! Then there's all the other ships they have, and I can tell you now that Mega-Class Super Star Destroyer will have a truly massive number of crew and stormtroopers. Plus how many Stormtrooper units not on ships? How many TIE Squadrons not on ships? That kind of build up should not have been missed by the Republic, unless they were willfully stupid.
Manchu wrote: FWIW it was pretty ballsy that Mon Mothma insisted on (largely) disarming the New Republic. However, I get the impression this had more to do with the need for the First Order to be a threat.
The First Order are clearly a threat even if the NR didn't disarm. The standard ship in their fleet has the truly obscene (combined officer/enilsted) crew requirement of of 74,000. They expect us to believe that a "Remnants Group" considered a joke by the Republic can field mulitple of those ships, plus bog standard Imperial SDs, escorts and 60km Wide Star Destroyer, plus Star Killer Base and who knows how many Stormtroopers that arent Clones. Seriously? New Republic got what it deserved when SKB took out their capital if they are dumb enough to think these people aren't a threat.
Well, to be fair, in a galaxy of planets 74,000 people is like the head of a pin.
Yeah, but if a Miltiary group starts putting 74,000 people at a time into its Navy you think someone somewhere would notice. There are Three known Resurgent-Class Star Destroyers, the Absolution, the Finalizer, and the Subjugator. Plus we could make the assumption that they have a lead ship of the class, the Resurgent. That's almost Three hundred thousand servicemen in four ships, plus a further Thirty-two thousand in their Stormtrooper complement. Four ships in their whole navy have roughly a quarter of the initial size of the Grand Army of the Republic! Then there's all the other ships they have, and I can tell you now that Mega-Class Super Star Destroyer will have a truly massive number of crew and stormtroopers. Plus how many Stormtrooper units not on ships? How many TIE Squadrons not on ships? That kind of build up should not have been missed by the Republic, unless they were willfully stupid.
You would scarcely notice that number of people missing from Earth never mind a galaxy spanning empire. How many planets is the Empire / republic supposed to consist of (as opposed to the half dozen we keep seeing on screen?) I assume its a lot.
I think what he is saying is that these are massive ships, requiring vast resources to build, resources even the Empire did not employ.
Its part of the problem. These guys appear from nowhere. On the flipside, if they can hide out and build such things under the radar, couldn't the Galactic Republic also quickly build a substantial fleet and blow them off the map? After all, this is equivalent to the Nazis re-appearing in 1965. Wouldn't the rest of Europe (Galaxy) realize the threat (after the attack) and unleash wholesale ass kicking?
Manchu wrote: FWIW it was pretty ballsy that Mon Mothma insisted on (largely) disarming the New Republic. However, I get the impression this had more to do with the need for the First Order to be a threat.
The First Order are clearly a threat even if the NR didn't disarm. The standard ship in their fleet has the truly obscene (combined officer/enilsted) crew requirement of of 74,000. They expect us to believe that a "Remnants Group" considered a joke by the Republic can field mulitple of those ships, plus bog standard Imperial SDs, escorts and 60km Wide Star Destroyer, plus Star Killer Base and who knows how many Stormtroopers that arent Clones. Seriously? New Republic got what it deserved when SKB took out their capital if they are dumb enough to think these people aren't a threat.
Well, to be fair, in a galaxy of planets 74,000 people is like the head of a pin.
Yeah, but if a Miltiary group starts putting 74,000 people at a time into its Navy you think someone somewhere would notice. There are Three known Resurgent-Class Star Destroyers, the Absolution, the Finalizer, and the Subjugator. Plus we could make the assumption that they have a lead ship of the class, the Resurgent. That's almost Three hundred thousand servicemen in four ships, plus a further Thirty-two thousand in their Stormtrooper complement. Four ships in their whole navy have roughly a quarter of the initial size of the Grand Army of the Republic! Then there's all the other ships they have, and I can tell you now that Mega-Class Super Star Destroyer will have a truly massive number of crew and stormtroopers. Plus how many Stormtrooper units not on ships? How many TIE Squadrons not on ships? That kind of build up should not have been missed by the Republic, unless they were willfully stupid.
You would scarcely notice that number of people missing from Earth never mind a galaxy spanning empire. How many planets is the Empire / republic supposed to consist of (as opposed to the half dozen we keep seeing on screen?) I assume its a lot.
Sounds like SW has the same scale issues as GW
You'd notice it, if you were watching for military build ups, which you think they would be. 328,000 men alone for those ships, might slip through, but it still takes effort move those people even in SW. Even then you'd still have Star Killer Base (assuming it wasnt built way earlier) and the Mega-Class thats not something that would be easy to miss if you were looking. And as I said the entire rest of the FO Military, you know an organization sane people would keep a close eye on.
But yes, SW numbers have always irked me. Particularly in crew sizes.
ANH opens with tiny ship versus giant ship. Later on, people working on licensed products made up numbers of crewmen for those vessels. Frankly, those numbers just don't matter. What matters is, the bad guys have overwhelming power relative to the good guys.
Granted, in their hamfisted attempt to remake ANH, Disney fails to adequately explain why the bad guys - despite having been defeated in the past - still have overwhelming(ish) power relative to the good guys.* To figure it out, we have to look to licensed products, such as DK visual dictionaries and novels. It's at that point that we start dealing with fan-fiction-esque figures and stats, which is where SW tends to unravel.
So the real question is, what does the FO represent thematically? It's not really important to the story of the movie that the FO is some kind of obscure splinter faction. What does matter is, the FO is made up of zealous hardliners trying to recover the glory of the Empire we saw in the OT. And the movie effectively conveys that.
TFA also effectively conveys that the Resistance is a tiny group committed to thwarting the FO despite the larger indifference of galactic society. (OK ... well that last part is irritatingly hazy.) "Why doesn't the New Republic do something?" is an interesting question but the answer is not necessary to understand TFA.
*Note - we never ask why the Empire is so powerful to begin with to understand ANH.
ANH opens with tiny ship versus giant ship. Later on, people working on licensed products made up numbers of crewmen for those vessels. Frankly, those numbers just don't matter. What matters is, the bad guys have overwhelming power relative to the good guys.
Granted, in their hamfisted attempt to remake ANH, Disney fails to adequately explain why the bad guys - despite having been defeated in the past - still have overwhelming(ish) power relative to the good guys.* To figure it out, we have to look to licensed products, such as DK visual dictionaries and novels. It's at that point that we start dealing with fan-fiction-esque figures and stats, which is where SW tends to unravel.
So the real question is, what does the FO represent thematically? It's not really important to the story of the movie that the FO is some kind of obscure splinter faction. What does matter is, the FO is made up of zealous hardliners trying to recover the glory of the Empire we saw in the OT. And the movie effectively conveys that.
TFA also effectively conveys that the Resistance is a tiny group committed to thwarting the FO despite the larger indifference of galactic society. (OK ... well that last part is irritatingly hazy.) "Why doesn't the New Republic do something?" is an interesting question but the answer is not necessary to understand TFA.
*Note - we never ask why the Empire is so powerful to begin with to understand ANH.
I never asked why they were more powerful because they adequately imply why with the simple fact its called The Galactic Empire and they are fighting a group called The Rebel Alliance.
For the First Order and Resistance, its different. The Rebels won, we saw that, and we are told that. We are also told Leia leads a Resistance, for some reason, against this First Order. All we know about the First Order is apparently they come from the Ashes of the Empire and want to kill Luke.Sure, From the Ashes, could mean they are a big group. So I guess they could from the implications of just the films be rather large.
It doesn't, if i remember right, explain why they need a "Resistance" against the dudes just sitting out there. You won, what are you a Resistance against? Why aren't you some kind of Peace Keeping Force? You know some official group. I guess they really just needed more parallels to Episode IV.
I don't think the storyline makes any sense. They blow up the New Republic Leadership and part of its fleet. Why is nobody except the Resistance fighting the First Order? Surely everyone in the Galaxy should be setting a new government and mobilising to fight the First Order? If they aren't, well, that's a major plot point that needs to be addressed. Currently I would be forgiven for thinking the rebellion never won the Galactic Civil War. They control all of the former territory of the Galactic Empire, including the Core Worlds and big ship yards like Mon Calamari. All the alien races and all the former rebels WILL oppose the return of the Empire. Why is are the only people fighting the First Order limited to a handful of ships with Leia? To me this just seems like a half baked plot to force the story to regress back into the conflict of the original trilogy, only without bothering to explain that the First Order, apparently magically conquered the whole galaxy and exterminated every alien race and former rebel in it without anyone noticing...
ANH opens with tiny ship versus giant ship. Later on, people working on licensed products made up numbers of crewmen for those vessels. Frankly, those numbers just don't matter. What matters is, the bad guys have overwhelming power relative to the good guys.
Granted, in their hamfisted attempt to remake ANH, Disney fails to adequately explain why the bad guys - despite having been defeated in the past - still have overwhelming(ish) power relative to the good guys.* To figure it out, we have to look to licensed products, such as DK visual dictionaries and novels. It's at that point that we start dealing with fan-fiction-esque figures and stats, which is where SW tends to unravel.
So the real question is, what does the FO represent thematically? It's not really important to the story of the movie that the FO is some kind of obscure splinter faction. What does matter is, the FO is made up of zealous hardliners trying to recover the glory of the Empire we saw in the OT. And the movie effectively conveys that.
TFA also effectively conveys that the Resistance is a tiny group committed to thwarting the FO despite the larger indifference of galactic society. (OK ... well that last part is irritatingly hazy.) "Why doesn't the New Republic do something?" is an interesting question but the answer is not necessary to understand TFA.
*Note - we never ask why the Empire is so powerful to begin with to understand ANH.
I never asked why they were more powerful because they adequately imply why with the simple fact its called The Galactic Empire and they are fighting a group called The Rebel Alliance.
For the First Order and Resistance, its different. The Rebels won, we saw that, and we are told that. We are also told Leia leads a Resistance, for some reason, against this First Order. All we know about the First Order is apparently they come from the Ashes of the Empire and want to kill Luke.Sure, From the Ashes, could mean they are a big group. So I guess they could from the implications of just the films be rather large.
It doesn't, if i remember right, explain why they need a "Resistance" against the dudes just sitting out there. You won, what are you a Resistance against? Why aren't you some kind of Peace Keeping Force? You know some official group. I guess they really just needed more parallels to Episode IV.
You're absolutely right. The name makes no sense. In WW2 you had the "French Resistance" but this referred to partisan guerrillas and it was what the allies called a broad swathe of Communist and Democratic groups with their own names. Plus, France fell. In Star Wars we are told the government and fleet gets blown up. But, who cares? Just get more senators from the millions of worlds in the galaxy that are part of the republic, meet, start churning out ships and conscripting trillions of soldiers. In the EU, when they lose half the galaxy and lose Coruscant...a far more horrific blow than what the Frist Order inflicts with Star Killer Base, the government simply reforms as the Galactic Alliance. Really, that is what should logically happen. Either another Senate of the New Republic is formed or a Galactic Alliance set up to oppose the First Order. They should not be calling themselves the resistance unless the government has fallen.
Even then the analogy falls flat because the Rebels had a senate; we see them in Rogue One. The rebels full title was "The Rebel Alliance for the Restoration of the Republic". In other words the rebels had a government and were in effect the Republic; they only declared themselves to be the legitimate government after Endor but this was basically a formality. So really the Resistence should have its own Senate, like the one we see in Rogue One and they should be aiming to restore the New Republic. But then if they have an exile government and still control most of the galaxy...why would you stop calling yourselves the New Republic? Doesn't that concede that you are no longer the legitimate government?
Basically its JJ Abrams being a terrible story teller. He has clearly given absolutely no thought to this beyond, "lets give the rebels a new name" and completely ignored the implications of the ending of Return of the Jedi and wondered about how events would play out. He wants the small band of fighters and the huge Empire; problems like ignoring the rebel victory in Return of the Jedi get in the way of that. He was a terrible choice of director. Visually he is great. But the man is a terrible story teller and world builder. I mean he introduces the New Republic and blows it up in the space of five minutes. I mean the whole state of the galaxy, what is supposed to be at stake in a STAR WARS film, is completely confusing and poorly explained. You would be forgiven for thinking the rebels had never won until Hux gives his speech.
Easy E wrote: Kylo Ren is a great metaphor for (post-) modern consumption. He is what a powerless person thinks a powerful person is.
He is essentially always trying to live his facebook persona and garner as many likes as he can. However, he can't pull it off 24/7 and he can't handle the fact that is Social Media persona and his real persona are not the same. When you get to meet his real persona people are much less impressed.
I think you're thinking too hard about it. He's a bratty kid, and that's all.
There isn't any real indication of a persona (or, sadly, a personality) or wanting to be 'liked.' He's just a bad kid with a crappy teacher (well, a crappy teacher and a shadowy figure who is a malevolent teacher, presumably) and crappy parents (who apparently shuffled him off to his uncle/teacher and declined to do anything about his attitude problems because The Force isn't their business).
Totalwar1402 wrote:Visually he is great.
Visually, he's a muppet, with no understanding of simple concepts like 'time' and 'distance.' Which is how we end up watching characters see a planet explode inside another star system as it happens (with an interstellar cannon which somehow eats a sun as ammo), and why galaxy wide communications are suddenly instantaneous.
And he simply copies scenes nonsensically, which is why the asteroid chase scene from Empire is a stupid CGI fest inside a star destroyer on not!Tatooine.
I think Easy E is spot-on. Kylo wishes he was Darth Vader. This is not just some personal theory. Rey figures this out in the movie and brings it up to him.
Yeah, just like that Uwe Boll guy. Man, everyone's so unfair to those two just because they don't know what they are doing, put out mediocre films in franchises tha deserve better, and get paid obscene amounts of money for doing it. What a bum rap.
Manchu wrote: I think Easy E is spot-on. Kylo wishes he was Darth Vader. This is not just some personal theory. Rey figures this out in the movie and brings it up to him.
To be fair, though, she says that he doesn't think he'll ever be as strong as Darth Vader. This does not have to mean as powerful in the Dark Side Rey could have only seen a glimpse of what is going on in Kylo's mind.
Speculation time: What if Kylo is trying to "Snape" Snoke? Meaning that he only killed Han to gain Snoke's full trust. Like Snape killed Dumbledore to gain Voldemort's trust. If this is true, and Kylo is secretly working against Snoke, he could be afraid that he won't be strong enough to turn back to the light, as Vader did.
My point is that we only have what the filmmakers want to know and thus they can direct us to think A, when really B is happening If Kylo just turns out to be a Vader wan-obi, I would be quite disappointed as that is just too one-dimensional.
JJ sure is an easy and convenient punching bag, isn't he?
Well, he is a hack I find him to be all style and no substance, and his style is the safe, polished variety that hollywood likes. I'm not really a fan. I mean, he's not a terrible director. If he displayed Ed Wood levels of incompetence then at least that would be memorable. I find him worse than terrible, I find him bland. I have trouble remembering his work, other than a sense of boredom.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Yeah, just like that Uwe Boll guy. Man, everyone's so unfair to those two just because they don't know what they are doing, put out mediocre films in franchises tha deserve better, and get paid obscene amounts of money for doing it. What a bum rap.
Ridiculous comparison alert!!!
Set Hyperbole to Maximum!!!!1`~!!1!!
Uwe Boll to JJA?
I mean, I know part of your shtick is to be ridiculous, but really, tone it down a bit!
Galef, your points remind me that, we're talking about stories that haven't been told yet. It's not like the whole thing is already laid out, despite what the producers might want us to imagine. All of this is subject to change, for all kinds of reasons. And the changes that have yet to be made now, once they make it to the screen, might well also change the way we think about what we've already seen. It could go all sorts of ways, for better or worse. But just looking at TFA, the way Kylo is characterized in that picture, he has a deep and obvious yearning to be like Darth Vader. And he also, just as obviously, has trouble living up to that image.
JJ sure is an easy and convenient punching bag, isn't he?
STRETCH OUT WITH YOUR UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS...
IMO, there's no director alive capable of pleasing everyone (meaning both highly discrete audience segments AND the studio) with these films. Consider the wide age range involved, and the different interests of the obsessive superfans compared to more numerous casual SW fans.
Lucas' prequel movies were highly original, but child-oriented by his own admission. Abrams' movie was nostalgia-fueled and aimed at casual adult fans of the original trilogy with kids. Both efforts ended up being divisive to a degree, especially among superfans. And I'm sure TLJ will alienate some group.
There are reasons why the hottest names in Hollywood aren't signing on for these things. There's a lot to triangulate and (importantly) not the greatest degree of creative freedom with which to do it. Oh yeah, meanwhile each film has billion-dollar box office expectations.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Yeah, just like that Uwe Boll guy. Man, everyone's so unfair to those two just because they don't know what they are doing, put out mediocre films in franchises tha deserve better, and get paid obscene amounts of money for doing it. What a bum rap.
Ridiculous comparison alert!!!
Set Hyperbole to Maximum!!!!1`~!!1!!
Uwe Boll to JJA?
I mean, I know part of your shtick is to be ridiculous, but really, tone it down a bit!
Eh. I was going to go with Zach Snyder, but didn't want to get into it with Gorgon. And I honestly think Zach Snyder has more creativity and vision than JJ, even if it results in films every bit as mediocre. At least we can all agree on Uwe Boll.
While I am using hyperbole, it's not as much as you might think. I really can't understand how people watch STID, ST, TFA, or even Super 8 and see anything other than the film equivalent of an 8 year old trying to draw Garfield and pass it off in an art gallery. It's so glaring. When these threads go round, I feel like I'm trying to explain what's wrong with 70's interior decorating to a colorblind man.
STRETCH OUT WITH YOUR UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS...
IMO, there's no director alive capable of pleasing everyone (meaning both highly discrete audience segments AND the studio) with these films. Consider the wide age range involved, and the different interests of the obsessive superfans compared to more numerous casual SW fans.
Lucas' prequel movies were highly original, but child-oriented by his own admission.
Eh? No they weren't. He claimed they were child-oriented only after they were scorned for being childish and having infantile (and profoundly unsuccessful) attempts at depicting complex political chicanery and some abomination he laughingly thought was 'romance.' He even widened that claim to the original trilogy too. You know, because of the child oriented appeal of incest, genocide and dismemberment.
No idea why you'd think they were even vaguely original, let alone highly. Even ignoring all the better films he blatantly ripped scenes and concepts from (samurai dramas, westerns and Ben Hur chariot race included), he goes on at length in 'making of' bits about how the prequels constantly deliberately echo the originals.
Eh? No they weren't. He claimed they were child-oriented only after they were scorned for being childish and having infantile (and profoundly unsuccessful) attempts at depicting complex political chicanery and some abomination he laughingly thought was 'romance.' He even widened that claim to the original trilogy too. You know, because of the child oriented appeal of incest, genocide and dismemberment.
This. Lucas struggles to understand the distinction between mature and juvenile (a trait I find very common among Star Wars fans, unironically). I don't think he ever intended the prequels to be kiddie films. Family oriented yes, but not kiddie. He only brought that up later after Episode II came out in a really vein and transparent attempt to hand wave away the problems in Episode I.
This is a guy who kept reediting his hit films for asinine and stupid reasons. I don't know why anyone actually puts much stock in what he himself says, given that for every explanation he gives, there's a contradictory one lying around somewhere XD
Super eight was good for the first half, when it was just about kids making a movie. Everything with the alien was terrible. You can't have ET and Jaws be the same creature. The kids wouldn't have an Iron Giant ending with something they earlier saw snacking on their neighbors. And it's not like the psychic alien didn't know any better.
Kylo cannot be playing Snoke for a long con- that is far, far beyond being too intellectual for the modern incarnation of this franchise, which if it were a book, Episode 7 might easily have been written off as one of the more fanboy-esque parts of the EU that people demonize.
The best we can hope for is a Kylo/Rey role reversal, as a emotionally lost Rey gets tortured/turned by Snoke (seemingly evidenced by the trailer) and Kylo is faced with the reality and horror of his psychosis and finally gets snapped out of it, possibly by Leia's death right in front of him. I'm not sure a teamup will happen between the two meeting in the middle, but I guess that's possible.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Yeah, just like that Uwe Boll guy. Man, everyone's so unfair to those two just because they don't know what they are doing, put out mediocre films in franchises tha deserve better, and get paid obscene amounts of money for doing it. What a bum rap.
Ridiculous comparison alert!!!
Set Hyperbole to Maximum!!!!1`~!!1!!
Uwe Boll to JJA?
I mean, I know part of your shtick is to be ridiculous, but really, tone it down a bit!
Eh. I was going to go with Zach Snyder, but didn't want to get into it with Gorgon. And I honestly think Zach Snyder has more creativity and vision than JJ, even if it results in films every bit as mediocre. At least we can all agree on Uwe Boll.
I guess it's too late if you're going to troll me like that? If you read my last post on the subject and genuinely came away with that opinion, it's only because you're hating on the man so much that everyone with a more moderate view than yours looks the same.
Regarding JJA, it's probably important to mention that the 'much-hated' TFA scored an 'A' Cinemascore, was widely acclaimed by critics, and absolutely crushed it at the box office.
So I can guarantee you that the professionals who work in the industry look at him as a good and highly successful director, no matter what some SW dorks think.
And you're right, I shouldn't have tagged you. Snyder has strengths that Abrams lacks, so again, that's why I went with someone else.
TFA is experiencing the STID effect right now. Huge box office, decent reviews, and then a year or two later people forget why they loved the film. Time to think is JJ Abrams' greatest enemy.
Do you honestly think he did the franchise a favor with his New Order/Galactic Republic/Resistance shuffle that eroded the legacy of the original series, undermined the stakes of the new trilogy, and left future directors to pick up the pieces?
Automatically Appended Next Post: PS, I haven't been a SW dork since the prequels.
TBH I don't think he chose those background elements. My impression is, the director is only one and not even the most important member of the executive team on these films.
I'm calling it now: One or even both of the following shots in the trailer are "dream" sequences:
-When Snoke is torturing Rey
-When Kylo extends his hand to (possibly) Rey
I really think these are in the trailer to mislead up into thinking tons of different outcomes when really all that is going on is Rey having dreams/nightmares/visions like the force-flashback of TFA.
Manchu wrote: TBH I don't think he chose those background elements. My impression is, the director is only one and not even the most important member of the executive team on these films.
I was under the impression that JJ had the script reworked until he was satisfied with it. Besides, the errors in scale, dismissal of consequences, and all that, can be found in his ST films, so they weren't exactly forced on him. They are his hallmarks. Still, I would have expected someone at Disney to have the vision and authority to prevent such missteps. Say what you will about Marvel movies, but I can't imagine Feige ever allowing one of their directors (or production teams) to mishandle the long term concerns of the franchise so much. Well, at least not after the housecleaning following the mess that was Age of Ultron.
I was under the impression that JJ had the script reworked until he was satisfied with it. Besides, the errors in scale, dismissal of consequences, and all that, can be found in his ST films, so they weren't exactly forced on him. They are his hallmarks.
Honestly, and I've said this before, those aren't hallmarks of JJ's work but of modern film (and television for that matter) in general. Hell they're hallmarks of Star Trek and Star Wars going back to the beginning.
Anyone else remember when the Grand Army of the Republic was only 2 million strong? 2 million clone bros defending the whole galaxy And how bout that time the solution to the Enterprises weekly crisis was turning the computer off and on again, a solution no on ever seemed to consider ever again
Alpharius wrote: And is anyone at Disney upset over how TFA and R1 performed?
Doubt it. Gorgon I think it was nailed it earlier. There's nothing really wrong with the direction of the franchise financially or conceptually. It was doomed to upset some large chunk of fans no matter what direction was chosen, but I don't think the people upset with how the films are going are indicative of a general audience (they're still making Transformers movies holy gak...) or even of a more critical one given both films did well among people who were paid to watch them and write about it.
LordofHats wrote: those aren't hallmarks of JJ's work but of modern film (and television for that matter) in general
Very insightful point.
Also I don't think the movie really suffers from the lack of clarity around the background politics. Weirdly enough, exactly what the Resistance and First Order are and want don't figure heavily into the plot. Good guys fight bad guys. TFA is exciting but it isn't complicated. The SW IP, however, is often (needlessly) complicated. I suspect those IP level decisions ("what is the philosophy of Supreme Leader Snoke?") are out of the director's hands completely.
Alpharius wrote: And is anyone at Disney upset over how TFA and R1 performed?
If that's what matters, then I am sure you will enjoy Pirates and Transformers quality Star Wars films. Rest assured, when there is nothing left to hope for from this franchise, I'll stop agitating for it to try to improve.
I was under the impression that JJ had the script reworked until he was satisfied with it. Besides, the errors in scale, dismissal of consequences, and all that, can be found in his ST films, so they weren't exactly forced on him. They are his hallmarks.
Honestly, and I've said this before, those aren't hallmarks of JJ's work but of modern film (and television for that matter) in general. Hell they're hallmarks of Star Trek and Star Wars going back to the beginning.
Anyone else remember when the Grand Army of the Republic was only 2 million strong? 2 million clone bros defending the whole galaxy And how bout that time the solution to the Enterprises weekly crisis was turning the computer off and on again, a solution no on ever seemed to consider ever again
Going go back to the beginning is going to the original trilogy. If you can't tell the difference in quality between the first two (and parts of three...) and all the stuff that's come later, then there's no point in worrying what anyone else has to say. You'll be satisfied with what you get.
If you think there wasn't a huge issue with the million clones crap at the time, you weren't paying attention. Karen Traviss blogged about strangling people over it and everything. I mean, are you seriously arguing TFA being stupid is okay because the most hated prequels of all time were stupid?
Alpharius wrote: And is anyone at Disney upset over how TFA and R1 performed?
If that's what matters, then I am sure you will enjoy Pirates and Transformers quality Star Wars films. Rest assured, when there is nothing left to hope for from this franchise, I'll stop agitating for it to try to improve.
I don't think I said that is "all that matters", but if it is OK with "Them" then you're probably agitating in the wrong areas, and might need to take your Teacup Tempest directly to the source!
Yeah - Disney is definitely aiming at a broad audience but also wants to impress the narrower, more vocal audience that cares about stuff like characterization and plot.
Are they better than the Prequels? Yes. Absolutely they are. Rogue One is a prequel done right.
Can they possibly compete with my love for the original trilogy? Of course not. I'm 37 now, and was 35 and 36 when I saw TFA and Rogue One respectively. I'm not a young, impressionable kid being taken on his first sci--fi flight of heroism and fancy.
The same goes for any remake of anything that formed a pillar of my childhood. He-Man, Transformers, Thundercars, M.A.S.K. All firm favourites. But guess what? When I go back and watch them now, they're surprisingly rubbish. Especially .M.A.S.K. Because I'm not a kid anymore. My tastes have developed.
Still love those shows, but can't defend them as actually being objectively good or well made.
To the Sad Old Git Society (Soggy Soggy Soggy, Oi Oi Oi!), ANH, ESB and ROTJ will always be better than anything that follows, because we grew up with them. They shaped us and even our own morality.
TFA can't do that for us. Because we're the SOGS. Doesn't mean it can't mean to kids what the originals meant to us.
I think TFA > ROTJ. I don't think it's even close.
ROTJ has the bad script, performances, and gratuitous nods to merchandising that would come to define the prequel trilogy. Which isn't a surprise given that the buzz was that Lucas was the 'shadow director' for ROTJ after it became clear that Marquand was out of his depth.
TFA, while derivative and not up to the level of ANH or TESB, feels to me more like those first two films in its tone and performances. *shrug*
To be honest, I don't see why you have to compare them. Both films exist, and on their own merits, both are great as far as I'm concerned. I genuinely consider ANH one of the finest films ever made, a true masterpiece of cinema (much to the chagrin of many film critics, I imagine), but I also consider TFA to be one of my favourites. When there's a new Star Wars, who cares if it's as good as ANH or ESB? For most, that's always going to be an unfair comparison; unless you're of the generation where TFA is your first Star Wars, the others are going to have years of nostalgia behind them skewing things in their favour on a subconscious level. It might be 35 years for the people who saw them when they were released, it might be 15 years for people like me in Generation Prequel who grew up living and breathing Star Wars... in any case, it's not a fair fight. And I'd bet that, in 20 years time, there'll be a Star Wars coming out and the next generation will be grumbling on the internet about how it's not as good as 7/8/9, their 'original' trilogy.
What matters is whether on its own merits, it's a good film, and both TFA and R1 have more than succeeded there as far as I'm concerned. Walking out of TFA for the first time (after the audience gave the movie a standing ovation, something I've never seen before or since in a cinema) I was euphoric, walking out of R1 I was in awe. Both films kept me gripped and entertained for their whole run time, and thus, they've done their job perfectly. I could put either one on now and they'd still thoroughly satisfy me.
You can grumble about inconsistencies in scale, or whether they're homages to earlier stuff or just copying it, or whether there's any great depth to them (there probably isn't, but there never has been; Star Wars has always been joyously 'simple' in that regard, it's what makes it so timeless). Ultimately, the only thing that matters is, did the film entertain its audience? It's become the 'cool' thing to do to bash TFA/Abrams especially online, but look back to when it was released; the praise was near universal across kids and adults, critics and the audiences, online and in person... any assertion that TFA didn't do its job in entertaining the vast, vast majority of those millions of people who saw it is demonstrably untrue.
ESB is not just a good SW movie. It's one of the great films among films, period. I have no delusions about Disney calculating how to bottle that lightning; no one should expect that quality again. So we get TFA, which is obviously the product of calculation - but hey the number crunchers managed not to get in the way of some breathless fun. Then you have R1, where bean counting ruined the picture. Between TFA and R1, that's where I expect Disney's SW to play out ... everything is glossy and, at its best, there are some characters I can care about.
At least when I walked out of R!, I felt like I had seen somethign different int eh Star Wars universe that I had not seen before.
TFA I did not feel that way at all. The only part that really felt like a glimpse at something "new" was when the gangsters tried to steal the Falcon (IIRC) in the middle section.
Like many, my carbonite hard love to Star Wars died as soon as liitle orphan Anakin uttered the word "Mitochloridian"
On a semi-related point, the Solo movie drama has been interesting to watch.
I get why people are worried about studio meddling by the Mouse. But am I the only one to think there's a good chance the studio was right to can Lord and Miller? Obviously it was Disney's mistake in the first place if they hired them. But a free-wheeling, improvisational, jokey style doesn't obviously fit a Han Solo story. In fact, it has disaster potential. Ron Howard will probably give a very professional, by-the-numbers effort that won't inspire, but won't be a dumpster fire either.
As I remarked in an earlier post, it's probably impossible to make a SW film that hits all the marks and makes almost everyone happy.
gorgon wrote: On a semi-related point, the Solo movie drama has been interesting to watch.
I get why people are worried about studio meddling by the Mouse. But am I the only one to think there's a good chance the studio was right to can Lord and Miller? Obviously it was Disney's mistake in the first place if they hired them. But a free-wheeling, improvisational, jokey style doesn't obviously fit a Han Solo story. In fact, it has disaster potential. Ron Howard will probably give a very professional, by-the-numbers effort that won't inspire, but won't be a dumpster fire either.
As I remarked in an earlier post, it's probably impossible to make a SW film that hits all the marks and makes almost everyone happy.
I'm actually betting the han solo story vs TLJ will be like rogue one vs TFA. The han solo story will be a legit great story and TLJ will be more nostalgia, more characters we hate and in general a re-hash of ESB. I believe it will show a great character and shows us how he developed and he isn't an OP jedi. The only iffy part is it will deal with a much beloved character so the fans will complain regardless. Also the Han Solo story will have Lando in it i'm betting so we'll have more of an idea what their friendship was like.
But what was new in R1, really? I think Edwards tried pulling it in that direction but his effort was clearly neutered by executives worried about how it would impact the overarching IP. R1 ended up being a total nostalgia fest, with the main goal of syncing right up to ANH.
Definitely agree that a Ghostbusters 2016 style take on SW via the Han Solo stand-alone film would have been terrible. Disney execs are not wrong to be cautious. TFA and R1 are not the products of baseless studio concerns.
I assumed Rey was a youngling that got hidden away on Jakku because Reasons, and had her memories hidden by Luke using the force. after the attack on the Academy and Luke peaced out. Dont know if the timeline works for that, so I could be mistaken. It would explain why she simply knew how to do some things. Kinda dumb and convoluted, but if she knew she was a Jedi in training it would draw attention.
I also assumed Luke killed all of the Knights Of Ren (other than Ben) during the attack on the academy, since familial connections.
TFA was great because it got all the nostalgia out of the way, reintroduced what Star Wars is supposed to be and refreshed it for everyone who already knew.
People give TFA a lot of gak for being a "remake" of ANH, but what they do not seem to realize is that it is actually a remake of the entire OT.
Think about it: The first half of the movie is ANH complete with desert loner encountering a droid with special info that needs to be taken to the good guys. But the later half is more ESB and RotJ. Rey gets taken by the bad guys just like Han was in ESB, they have to take down a shield generator to blow up the big bad space fort, We find out that the masked bad guy has a father/son relationship with one of the good guys. The final battle is way more RotJ too because we have a space battle, ground force trying to take down the shield and a lightsaber battle going on simultaneously.
So in the end TFA was not only a fun watch, but it served a purpose. I appreciate that. Now we can move on with new ideas.
R1 also changed the tone in a new and interesting way, adding a layer of moral ambiguity to the Rebellion, as well as adding a level of 'competence" to the Empire. Making the flaw in the Death Star be a purposely engineered trap makes the Empire not look so dumb for having that flaw for the last 40yrs.
I look forward to what new things the Last Jedi has in store for us. I just hope that Luke is the Lasting Jedi, because I want to see him in Ep9 and not as a force ghost.
If the Death Star blowing up a city counts as "new" then so does Starkiller Bass simultaneously blowing up several systems. These are a matter of degree rather than kind. The same is true of several other examples. As to the Rebellion being morally complex - yes, this was the big promise of R1 ... that was ultimatley unfulfilled. Hence why I said Edwards was pulling one way and Disney the other (with Disney winning).
Galef, I get why you're arguing R1 rehabilitates Imperial competence vis-a-vis the Death Star. But that was never actually an issue. ANH presents the plan to torpedo the exhaust port as a Hail Mary. The experienced pilots don't think it's possible and, in practice, they are correct. Fortunately, they brought a rookie with space magic to make the impossible shot.
R1 actually makes the Empire dumber than ever. Krennic never realizes the dude whose wife he shot might want revenge. Storm Troopers with guns stand around while Rebels effortlessly engage them piecemeal in H2H combat. Other times, they fail to engage at all. The Rebel fleet jumps into a system guarded by two ISDs, which don't seem to attack and are deployed so poorly that in space the Rebels can push one into another. TIE fighters launch well after the battle begins, mirroring the gawping, cataonic ground officers Krennic is screaming at below.
Good point that TFA recalls beats from all the OT films, not just ANH. TLJ will probably do the same, I guess.
For the first act, yes, but it quickly went back to the status quo.
Everyone dying actually works against the film, as they introduced all of these characters and killed them off before really doing anything without, thus killing (heh) any dramatic impact their deaths was supposed to have. No different from bad horror movie deaths, really.
Well, I was just trying to be an umbrella, but some people just want the rain on their parade.
I can't get enough Star Wars and I'd rather try to have an overly extensive suspension of disbelieve rather than let some things "ruin" a Star Wars movie for me. For example, I'd rather believe that the Empire was over confident and thus slow to react on Scarif. It's believable enough for me, even if you'd expect the largest military force in the galaxy to act like it.
That's not to say there aren't any clear weak spots in the movies, I just don't let them ruin the whole experience for me. And if it's canon, it's canon.
For the first act, yes, but it quickly went back to the status quo.
Everyone dying actually works against the film, as they introduced all of these characters and killed them off before really doing anything without, thus killing (heh) any dramatic impact their deaths was supposed to have. No different from bad horror movie deaths, really.
But exactly in line with most war movies of the Dirty Dozen/Magnificent Seven variety.
R1 actually makes the Empire dumber than ever. Krennic never realizes the dude whose wife he shot might want revenge. Storm Troopers with guns stand around while Rebels effortlessly engage them piecemeal in H2H combat. Other times, they fail to engage at all. The Rebel fleet jumps into a system guarded by two ISDs, which don't seem to attack and are deployed so poorly that in space the Rebels can push one into another. TIE fighters launch well after the battle begins, mirroring the gawping, cataonic ground officers Krennic is screaming at below.
Yeah, that's another gripe I have about R1; the plot requires idiocy to work. I find it hard to get invested in the protagonist's struggle if their enemies are making blatant mistakes that would normally result in a swift court marshall in the real world. Vader was too lenient with Krennic; the Vader from the old trilogy probably wouldn't stop choking him.
For the first act, yes, but it quickly went back to the status quo.
Everyone dying actually works against the film, as they introduced all of these characters and killed them off before really doing anything without, thus killing (heh) any dramatic impact their deaths was supposed to have. No different from bad horror movie deaths, really.
But exactly in line with most war movies of the Dirty Dozen/Magnificent Seven variety.
Still more character development in those movies though. In R1 they showed the monk for like 3 scenes, just to do a cool action thing or exposition, and then killed him off. I don't even remember the monk or the heavy weapons guy's name. The rest of the fodder had like 1 scene, and I don't think they were even given names.
R1 actually makes the Empire dumber than ever. Krennic never realizes the dude whose wife he shot might want revenge. Storm Troopers with guns stand around while Rebels effortlessly engage them piecemeal in H2H combat. Other times, they fail to engage at all. The Rebel fleet jumps into a system guarded by two ISDs, which don't seem to attack and are deployed so poorly that in space the Rebels can push one into another. TIE fighters launch well after the battle begins, mirroring the gawping, cataonic ground officers Krennic is screaming at below.
Yeah, that's another gripe I have about R1; the plot requires idiocy to work. I find it hard to get invested in the protagonist's struggle if their enemies are making blatant mistakes that would normally result in a swift court marshall in the real world. Vader was to lenient with Krennic; the Vader from the old trilogy probably wouldn't stop choking him.
All of Star Wars basically runs on idiocy.
I mean let's talk about Palpatine's little scheme; the guy has complete control of the Republic, basically able to manipulate politics and courts to get his desired outcome at whim, plays the Jedi Order like a fiddle, and is somehow able to completely hide that he's doing any of it simply by throwing on a hood and using a name derived from the word insidious, and he throws away all of that absolute power so that he can what... Reveal himself as an evil overlord to the galaxy? A smart man would never have revealed himself and simply continued running things from the shadows, as absurd as Palpatines ability to manipulate the galaxy became in the prequels.
The Empire as a generic evil empire has always been dumb. Really dumb. I mean the Rebels managed to escape with a single gun that could disable the one and only Star Destroyer positioned to actually stop them from leaving Hoth. Apparently the Empire doesn't know how a blockade works (and forgot that they have Interdictors). Then there was that time the Death Star charged the rebel base, alone and with no fleet support which is really kind of stupid no matter how powerful the Empire thinks their new weapon is. Then there's the whole bit on Endor where Storm Troopers get sent through the ringer by teddie bares with pointy sticks and rocks.
And of course I've pointed out in this thread and elsewhere that the Jedi were really dumb (like super dumb...), and really this universe is less a contest of wills but more a contest of whose plot armor is more secure, and the mechanism for throwing characters out windows by and large is the shadow idiot ball. This strikes me as another case of rose tinted glasses convincing people that something was a lot deeper than it ever really was.
R1 actually makes the Empire dumber than ever. Krennic never realizes the dude whose wife he shot might want revenge. Storm Troopers with guns stand around while Rebels effortlessly engage them piecemeal in H2H combat. Other times, they fail to engage at all. The Rebel fleet jumps into a system guarded by two ISDs, which don't seem to attack and are deployed so poorly that in space the Rebels can push one into another. TIE fighters launch well after the battle begins, mirroring the gawping, cataonic ground officers Krennic is screaming at below.
Yeah, that's another gripe I have about R1; the plot requires idiocy to work. I find it hard to get invested in the protagonist's struggle if their enemies are making blatant mistakes that would normally result in a swift court marshall in the real world. Vader was to lenient with Krennic; the Vader from the old trilogy probably wouldn't stop choking him.
All of Star Wars basically runs on idiocy.
I mean let's talk about Palpatine's little scheme; the guy has complete control of the Republic, basically able to manipulate politics and courts to get his desired outcome at whim, plays the Jedi Order like a fiddle, and is somehow able to completely hide that he's doing any of it simply by throwing on a hood and using a name derived from the word insidious, and he throws away all of that absolute power so that he can what... Reveal himself as an evil overlord to the galaxy? A smart man would never have revealed himself and simply continued running things from the shadows, as absurd as Palpatines ability to manipulate the galaxy became in the prequels.
The Empire as a generic evil empire has always been dumb. Really dumb. I mean the Rebels managed to escape with a single gun that could disable the one and only Star Destroyer positioned to actually stop them from leaving Hoth. Apparently the Empire doesn't know how a blockade works (and forgot that they have Interdictors). Then there was that time the Death Star charged the rebel base, alone and with no fleet support which is really kind of stupid no matter how powerful the Empire thinks their new weapon is. Then there's the whole bit on Endor where Storm Troopers get sent through the ringer by teddie bares with pointy sticks and rocks.
And of course I've pointed out in this thread and elsewhere that the Jedi were really dumb (like super dumb...), and really this universe is less a contest of wills but more a contest of whose plot armor is more secure, and the mechanism for throwing characters out windows by and large is the shadow idiot ball. This strikes me as another case of rose tinted glasses convincing people that something was a lot deeper than it ever really was.
Fair enough, but back then it was manageable levels of stupid. R1 had blatant levels of stupidity. They were just too damn high. Like, holy gak, Imperial Security sucks. I bet they use Guest for all of their passwords.
I’m watching the World Series and walked away during a commercial. Came back just in time to see Rey seemingly standing over Luke with Saber drawn, and Snoke in his throne room talking to some henchmen. Said something about “ Darkness rises, and light comes to meet it” or something to that effect.
@CthuluIsSpy: I'd have to watch Rogue One again honestly but i enjoyed it. I still felt it was far superior to TFA. Everybody felt useful and decent as a character.
I'll admit i found it a bit weird the main baddie in R1 should've killed the main female protagonist's dad maybe but it seemed like he needed that guy at least to benefit off that man's successes and take credit for them and couldn't anybody see that perhaps he may have been incredibly arrogant on the grand scheme of things. Perhaps he didn't care too much about the rebellion except how it could advance his position with the imperials. The imperials under-estimating the rebels isn't a new thing in the series after all and it's not without reason. Of course maybe i'm adding more depth than there was.
Easy E wrote: At least when I walked out of R!, I felt like I had seen somethign different int eh Star Wars universe that I had not seen before.
TFA I did not feel that way at all. The only part that really felt like a glimpse at something "new" was when the gangsters tried to steal the Falcon (IIRC) in the middle section.
Like many, my carbonite hard love to Star Wars died as soon as liitle orphan Anakin uttered the word "Mitochloridian"
Interesting, because for me I couldn't really care less about seeing something new. Star Wars isn't about new stuff, to me anyway. I mean its fun to have all kinds of crazy peripheral stuff, but in the movies themselves I never got any joy because I was seeing something new. The fun comes from engaging, lovable characters who are caught up in adventures way over their heads. TFA worked because even though the story was an inferior version of ANH, it gave us really fun new characters and some time with the old ones. R1 failed because while the idea of making a WWII resistance type story in the Star Wars world was good, the characters were really, really bad and completely uninteresting, except the reprogrammed Imperial droid.
None of the main characters were Jedi. We haven't seen that since..... ESB?
Force sensitive.... sure. Jedi? No.
Plus, we saw the Rebellion actual doing stuff without Han, Luke, and Leia doing it for them. That's pretty new in SW.
Except they also showed the rebellion as complete idiots. I get that after the plans were uncovered they were trying to give the female lead some time as an inspirational character, but to do that they presented the resistance as idiots who first didn't believe that the superweapon they were asked to uncover actually existed, and then as really weird cowards who wanted to give up instead of face the superweapon they didn't believe existed.
I would have liked to have seen a movie that showed the resistance doing actual stuff with Luke & friends. But instead Luke & friends were replaced by new bunch of heroes who did all the work. And at least in the OT there was something of a feeling that the resistance was doing useful stuff off screen, here they were shown to be hopeless idiots.
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Manchu wrote: If the Death Star blowing up a city counts as "new" then so does Starkiller Bass simultaneously blowing up several systems. These are a matter of degree rather than kind. The same is true of several other examples. As to the Rebellion being morally complex - yes, this was the big promise of R1 ... that was ultimatley unfulfilled. Hence why I said Edwards was pulling one way and Disney the other (with Disney winning).
I'm not sure it was a result of Edwards and Disney battling over the content. Afterall they left in plenty of violence in, including a main character murdering a minor, innocent character. I think the issue was more that they had big ideas for that part of the film and for Forest Whitaker's character, but they just couldn't spend that much time in the city. It felt like a lot got cut in editing, or maybe out of the original draft of the script as they hammered out a story that flowed. I think a steadier hand, either from the director or in overall production, would have seen the problem sooner and found a way to include those elements, probably by cutting out a lot of the more setup.
I agree with your points on the Empire being made more incompetent than ever. As well as the points you make I was surprised at the sheer number of storm troopers that got wasted. There was a couple of scenes where dozens of the hopeless idiots were wiped in mere seconds. As well turning storm trooper incompetence levels up to being almost parody, it just didn't feel very Star Wars at all.
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Frazzled wrote: But exactly in line with most war movies of the Dirty Dozen/Magnificent Seven variety.
Sure. The challenge is to get the audience to love the characters so their deaths mean something. R1 really dropped the ball there.
Manchu wrote: But what was new in R1, really? I think Edwards tried pulling it in that direction but his effort was clearly neutered by executives worried about how it would impact the overarching IP. R1 ended up being a total nostalgia fest, with the main goal of syncing right up to ANH.
The story was new, with a look at elements of the universe and general world-building that hadn't been there before. Several of the places (especially the space station and the plateau city) were interesting in their own right, as was the Rebellion as something other than a picture perfect paragon of nobility and right. That it synced up to the beginning of Star Wars was largely irrelevant (and a bit forced- the end being the weakest part of the film).
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TFA was just boring, uninteresting characters with no backstory doing laps in a kiddie pool. (Huzzah, a...janitor in a stormtrooper suit finds he's not a very good mass murderer! The pathos! The orphan suddenly finds she's a Mary Sue rather than crippled by a childhood of malnutrition and dangerous scavenging! The ace pilot survives for no apparent reason, and half the audience doesn't even realize it's the same guy! Mopey kid whines and rages! Is it an Oedipus complex? No one knows why!) There was nothing new, revelatory or even vaguely interesting. Rebels kept on resisting against no one, and a bunch of kids were cosplaying in empire gear they found lying around somewhere. That they happened to meet up and fight a bit was something of a coincidence, and that millions of people died in a background shot by a Macguffin was completely irrelevant with a complete lack of emotional impact.
Plus the 'quest' was laughable. The map fragment they had showed dozens of systems- that's more than enough information to pinpoint a system. It might take a computer a couple weeks to do the processing, but getting the 'other half' was completely pointless.
The standard of novelty by which you guys are praising R1 is pretty generous. I mean, if you apply the same standard to The Phantom Menace, uh well, that film also showed us new things and also called into question a previously unproblematic institution (the Jedi). Now, I'm not saying TPM is better than R1 (feth no!) - just that the standard you're using to praise R1 results in giving as much praise to TPM. So you can tell by that, there's something wrong with your standard.
Sebster above makes the most important point of all. TFA had engaging characters, R1 did not. And even if we could hem and haw on everything else, this gap trumps. Maybe the twist is, characterization in TFA really leans on the charismatic performances of the actors. But however a film gets there, it has to do it - and R1 didn't, for a variety of reasons.
I do think Edwards and Kennedy had a little tug of war; or rather, towards release, Kennedy came to the conclusion that her people should have been exerting more control throughout. I am not in the camp, however, that imagines some pre-reshoot masterpiece ruined by Disney.
Manchu wrote: The standard of novelty by which you guys are praising R1 is pretty generous. I mean, if you apply the same standard to The Phantom Menace, uh well, that film also showed us new things and also called into question a previously unproblematic institution (the Jedi). Now, I'm not saying TPM is better than R1 (feth no!) - just that the standard you're using to praise R1 results in giving as much praise to TPM. So you can tell by that, there's something wrong with your standard.
Sebster above makes the most important point of all. TFA had engaging characters, R1 did not. And even if we could hem and haw on everything else, this gap trumps. Maybe the twist is, characterization in TFA really leans on the charismatic performances of the actors. But however a film gets there, it has to do it - and R1 didn't, for a variety of reasons.
I do think Edwards and Kennedy had a little tug of war; or rather, towards release, Kennedy came to the conclusion that her people should have been exerting more control throughout. I am not in the camp, however, that imagines some pre-reshoot masterpiece ruined by Disney.
Sebster's is one opinion. I found the R1 characters more appealing and human. The new TFA characters, particularly the bad guy's, were a snore. Who thought making your bad guy just be an emotional jerk is a good idea? I had enough of that with Anakin "need some cheese with your whine?" Skywalker.
Manchu wrote: Funny you draw that comparison - I thought about it more as a contrast: I think Kylo Ren is Anakin done right.
I totally agree. It's also going to interesting to see what's really been going on.
Adam Driver was quoted in a GQ interview and said that both Kylo and Rey are pretending to be something they are not. Putting on a mask if you will, quite literally for Kylo
I look forward to seeing what is revealed in the Last Jedi as I truly believe there is way more going on that what we were lead to believe in TFA.
Manchu wrote: The standard of novelty by which you guys are praising R1 is pretty generous. I mean, if you apply the same standard to The Phantom Menace, uh well, that film also showed us new things and also called into question a previously unproblematic institution (the Jedi). Now, I'm not saying TPM is better than R1 (feth no!) - just that the standard you're using to praise R1 results in giving as much praise to TPM. So you can tell by that, there's something wrong with your standard.
Or your understanding of it. It's not just new, but that it offers a compelling look into the setting- people trying to get on with their lives with stormtroopers on patrol, what the rebellion cells are willing to do or sacrifice.
TPM has emotionless drones having boring conversations out of sync with the immediate background or pacing of the film. TFA had similar problems, though in the opposite direction- everything was in a rush, regardless of the situation, and everything was obviously supposed to be an 'even more epic' version of the exact same scene from another movie. Whether the characters were present or not never mattered because they were lost in the scramble to get to the next scene that has to amp up the stakes in some fashion- without actually mattering.
Had whats-her-name just taken the Falcon to Luke after leaving not!Tatooine in a calm and collected fashion, demanded to be a student and been told the story of Luke's failures as a teacher and uncle, I would have been just as impressed with the film. (Which is to say, not at all). But it would have been equal to the shallow and meaningless copypasta that was presented as a finished film.
Sebster above makes the most important point of all. TFA had engaging characters, R1 did not. And even if we could hem and haw on everything else, this gap trumps. Maybe the twist is, characterization in TFA really leans on the charismatic performances of the actors. But however a film gets there, it has to do it - and R1 didn't, for a variety of reasons.
Only if you accept his premise as true, which I don't. No one in TFA was engaging. Even Ford was sighing through his role, and whoever those kids were, they were blanks. The main cast for R1 was driven by understandable motivations, and as a bonus, those motivations were even present in the film.
What motivated Jyn Erso? To begin with, she was shanghaied. Without any plot development to account for why, she suddenly becomes a more righteous true believer than the very leadership of the Rebellion. What motivated Captain Moustache? To begin with, he was willing to ruthlessly kill. Then, for no reason, he is not. What is Blind Not-Jedi's motivation? Something about the Force? Or something? How about Mr Big Gun? I guess he came along as a package deal. And the droid works out to some kind of slave so free pass, I guess. The pilot had some kind of commitment to Jyn's dad, but that was completely off-screen.
Krennic had the only clear motivation: he wanted credit for his work.
But this isn't just a matter of motivation, as you suggest. The R1 crew is not only poorly characterized; they are just dull. I don't mean as concepts; I mean as personalities, as people I am supposed to care about. Felicity Jones is about as engaging as a moist towel. Her supporting cast is earnest as a substitute for being interesting.
Again, Krennic is the only character with sufficient dimension to merit any reflection: What kind of man works for the Empire? what kind of man builds a Death Star? Mendesohn plays him with a mix of high cunning and low emotional IQ that is fascinating.
Meanwhile, TFA is a fairy tale with likable kids having fun on a soaring adventure. Yep, that's Star Wars. No question about it. I just wish Disney had more faith in that feel and shape of the story, rather than explicit references again and again and again to the OT. Even so, Daisey Ridley and John Boyega give breathless, exhilarating performances that more than made up for the weaknesses of the script. Driver nails it with Kylo Ren. A given audience member may not like these characters' arcs - but at least they have arcs.
But did Kylo throw legit tantrums? Or was it all a show/way to keep himself angry because he is playing the long con on Snoke?
This would make Kylo's character very interesting
I think it is pretty clear in TFA that Kylo works himself up because, as we well know, anger = power for Darksiders. This is part of his training; we just have to keep in mind that his training is, as of TFA, incomplete.
Kyla was powered by his insecurities. He could never win.
Other than him, I thought TFA had very charismatic actors...portraying very bland characters. R1, pretty much the same, but that sassy droid!! And Donnie Yen!! (And I thought Krennic had his own interesting angle.). Therefore R1 had better 'characters.'
Plus, did we really need to see that old Han Solo had lost all his character growth as well as the confidence and competence that made him so compelling a scoundrel? No. Not I, anyway.
Galef wrote: But did Kylo throw legit tantrums? Or was it all a show/way to keep himself angry because he is playing the long con on Snoke?
This would make Kylo's character very interesting
That's can't be what's going on.
Killing your Dad as part of a 'long con' would be...reprehensible and irredeemable.
And Han is definitely dead - he was stabbed, fell into a 'bottomless pit' and then got blown up.
Alpharius wrote: Killing your Dad as part of a 'long con' would be...reprehensible and irredeemable.
And Han is definitely dead - he was stabbed, fell into a 'bottomless pit' and then got blown up.
Unless Han knew that is exactly what Kylo needed to do to win Snoke's full trust. (just like Snape and Dumbledore) Kylo may have turned on the lightsaber, but Han is the one who pointed at himself. This is also why Kylo says "thank you" as he did it, because he didn't have the strength to go all the way by himself. This was possibly the most noble sacrifice Han could make: sacrificing himself for his son's safety.
Harrison didn't just want Han killed off, he wanted him to be nobly sacrificed and has said so in many interviews.
Even if I am wrong, it is clear by Kylo's hesitation in TLJ trailer that killing Han didn't ease his turmoil between the light and dark. If this sets off a chain of events that eventually turns Kylo back to the light, than Han's sacrifice would indeed have "brought their son home" like Leia asked.
As much as people dump on the Pequels, I at least felt like they were trying to do something new and not just re-hash the originals. I'm not even that into Originality in movies, but I just felt like TFA was too much of a retread.
Jyn Erso makes sense as a character as she WAS shang-haied, until she got the message from her Dad and then urgently wanted to prove that he was not really a bad man. The only way that could happen is if she could prove that there really was a flaw in the Death Star! I think her chrarcterization is pretty straight forward.
Same with Capt. Moustache. He starts off as a pretty cynical and hardened operative. However, as he sees more of Jyn and her need to prove her Father is not a baddie, he starts to get swept up into it because he needs to believe that what he is doing is the "right" thing even when it is morally grey. He can't shoot Jyn's Dad, because he no longer believes it is the right thing because Jyn is so convinced her dad is not the baddie. That means he can no longer justify the brutality to himself and the right thing is to help her, not hinder her.
Now, Donnie Yen and his pal are just extra fodder and not true characters. However, most supporting characters do not get fully developed. They are there to support and not drive the plot. Wedge or Chewbacca are no different.
I really do not know how you can call the R1 character's boring. Their stories and motivations are pretty clear. I have only seen R1 once, but I recall their motivations way better than the characters in TFA which I also only saw once. Kylo Ren was the only one of interest in TFA and he was the baddie.
But Jyn never believed her dad was bad. So the hologram moment changed nothing. Being abandoned by Forrest Whittaker would seem to have greater bearing on her attitude toward the Rebellion. But this is not explored at all.
Moustache has been fighting in the Rebellion since he was a kid, according to his lines. Has he really never considered the morality of his actions until meeting Jyn Erso - a character that at the outset seems to be politically indifferent?
This is all boring because I can tell what the script wants to accomplish but I can also tell it isn't getting accomplished. I am supposed to think Jyn starts deeply caring about the Rebellion. But the only proof I have is her speech that she cares - no explanation of why or development of her character. The characters are whoever the script needs them to be at a given moment. Moustache kills this dude (a Rebel!) - whoa he is ruthless! Oh but then, no, in another scene for no discernible reason he refuses to do something similar (to an Imperial scientist! despite his orders!). The key difference is, the guy he killed was nobody; the guy he didn't kill had a connection to the main character. This is textbook gak writing and gak writing is boring.
Han died nobly because he was trying to redeem his son. I don't think he had a sudden moment of clarity about Ben playing a double cross on Snoke. But like I have said before, when it comes to what we don't know yet, anything is possible. This is because we're talking about fiction, not because TFA presents a solid case that, for example, Han wanted Ben to kill him so that Snoke would not suspect that Ben plans to betray Snoke.
I don't get the problem with Cassian. What's wrong with a person not wanting to be ruthless and kill anymore. Jyn doesn't even make him question things, it's killing his friend while looking him right in the face.
He's the good old stereotype of the hero that loses his edge and has a crisis of faith until someone leads him toma better way to be a hero. Cassian was probably the most developed character of the whole movie, much more so than any Force Awakens character.
The problem is, he is introduced as a guy willing to do bad things for a good cause who even gives a whole speech defending this position. But then he changes his mind and there is nothing meaningful between those two points.
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Frazzled wrote: R1 had Vader as a fully operational battle station.
TFA had an emotional boy band reject.
I would argue Jyn Erso never actually cared about the rebellion. She cared about proving that her Dad was not a monster that designed a super weapon that the Empire was going to use to do bad things.
Before she knew from that video, she didn't know what to think about her Dad being an Imperial. Her time with Saw probably distracted her from the fact that she had a mixed relationship on her Father and what he was.
Prove to who? If she doesn't care about the Rebellion, why's it matter what they think? Actually, they don't even know who he is. Neither does the galaxy at large. There is no line connecting Jyn's feelings about her dad to participating in the Rebellion. At a stretch, she wants to blow up the Death Star because her dad made the Death Star blow-up-able. Weeeeaaaak. But again, this isn't even a movie about blowing up the Death Star. It's a didn't-need-to-be-made movie about a minor, completely incidental aspect of a different movie that's actually entertaining .
Saw and Jyn's dad were at least co-conspirators against the Empire if not also actual friends. I have a really tough time believing Jyn grew up thinking her dad was a bad guy. And even if she did, the movie should establish that ... which it didn't.
I think, going form hazy memory, there is a scene where Jyn recalls her Father and Krennic working togethr at an Imperial base. Mads Mikkelson is in a green Imperial outfit and celebrating with Krennic. she also was there when Krennic came for him at his Moisture Farm. However, I do not recall if she saw everything that happened or only we as the audience did?
I think the movie established that she wasn't sure what to think of her Dad pretty clearly, as it isn;t until she sees the hologram and he explains his motivations to her that she seems to care too much about him.
What a movie about stealing the Death Star plans doesn't need: - an undeveloped father/daughter subplot - a Jedi or Jedi-equivalent character - CGI Leia - an exploration of the moral ambiguity of the Rebellion, half-hearted or otherwise
What such a movie does need: - a charismatic lead actor - common Rebel grunts (rather than fairytale super heroes like Luke, Rey, or Blind Not-Jedi) - arguably Darth Vader (Kennedy was right on that one, even if the execution was dumb and condescending)
@Easy E - at one point, her dad worked with Krennic ... but she knew he got fed up and ran away ... she also knew this cost her mother her life (saw her die) and her father's freedom
Manchu wrote: What motivated Jyn Erso? To begin with, she was shanghaied. Without any plot development to account for why, she suddenly becomes a more righteous true believer than the very leadership of the Rebellion. What motivated Captain Moustache? To begin with, he was willing to ruthlessly kill. Then, for no reason, he is not.
She was shanghaied, but no, she gave a rousing speech, but not so much a true believer. Everything for her revolved around her father. Proving to herself that he's not a monster, despite working on this super weapon for the Empire like these people are claiming.
As for Cassian, he was quite willing to ruthlessly kill. He was just questioning the target (and the motivations attached to that target being unofficially assigned), that maybe he could do more for the galaxy than kill a disgraced scientist.
Meanwhile, TFA is a fairy tale with likable kids having fun on a soaring adventure. Yep, that's Star Wars. No question about it. I just wish Disney had more faith in that feel and shape of the story, rather than explicit references again and again and again to the OT. Even so, Daisey Ridley and John Boyega give breathless, exhilarating performances that more than made up for the weaknesses of the script. Driver nails it with Kylo Ren. A given audience member may not like these characters' arcs - but at least they have arcs.
Are you... are you reading from a press release?
Can you at least demonstrate where these character arcs are hiding (or that the kids are likeable or even that there is an adventure going on) and what's exhilarating about two characters babbling around engineering hole? Rey's character arc is to stay a self sufficient golden child, her entire scope of change is to reluctantly agree not to go back to the planet she was abandoned on, and maybe sort of admit she was abandoned. And go visit Luke at the very end, when his family and friends are apparently too ashamed to do so?
Janitor man wanted out from his first scene. He got out. The end. He also maybe vaguely wanted to win the girl, but got a coma instead. With the sheer shallowness of the acting (and the writing), I couldn't actually tell if they were going for romance, friendship, adventuring buddies or 'don't touch me.' Partly at times because they literally cycled through 'don't touch me' and several others in under 60 seconds. Yay, characterization.
What is Driver nailing? How to flail about with a glowstick? Kylo was a very convincing twelve year old with a deadly weapon. There wasn't anything else to his character.
Manchu wrote: What a movie about stealing the Death Star plans doesn't need:
- an undeveloped father/daughter subplot
- a Jedi or Jedi-equivalent character
- CGI Leia
- an exploration of the moral ambiguity of the Rebellion, half-hearted or otherwise
What such a movie does need:
- a charismatic lead actor
- common Rebel grunts (rather than fairytale super heroes like Luke, Rey, or Blind Not-Jedi)
- arguably Darth Vader (Kennedy was right on that one, even if the execution was dumb and condescending)
@Easy E - at one point, her dad worked with Krennic ... but she knew he got fed up and ran away ... she also knew this cost her mother her life (saw her die) and her father's freedom
- Undeveloped Father- Daughter Subplot- Except every character needs a motivation.
- Jedi like character- Agreed
- CGI Leia- Agreed
- Moral ambiguity of the Rebellion- I actually thought this was more about Cassian than the Rebellion. It was an attempt to portray him as a grey-hat.
Does Need:
- Charismatic Lead Actor- Agreed that this could have been a bit better, but to claim John Bodega's former Stormtrooper or Rey as powerful Orphan is better is.... debatable at best.
- Common rebel grunts- The movie had plenty of those
- Darth Vadar- He was there, and he was a mean muther-trucker
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@manchu- This is fun! Thanks for the discussion.
I personally love to hate on The Dark Knight and most Zach Snyder movies. We all have that movie that we love to dump on. I can see how Rogue One could easily be one of those movies, and I appreciate discussing why. Not many people actually want to engage on the merits of a pop culture movie anymore. Thank you.
Rey: begins movie as a good-natured person who doesn't want to get involved ... goes on adventure, gets captured by bad guys, the only friend she ever made comes to save her ... ends movie believing she should "do the right thing" and get involved
Finn: begins movie just wanting to run away from evil First Order ... goes on adventure, makes friends, inspired by people fighting First Order ... ends movie making self-sacrifice to stand up to First Order and defend his friends
Kylo: begins movie as bad guy without regrets ... meets protagonist who identifies his insecurity about living up to that image, confronts that insecurity by killing his own dad but actually this just makes him more conflicted ... ends movie sparing someone he would have killed without a second thought when the movie started
they're called arcs: character begins one way, changes by the end - and this change is supported by plot developments in the middle
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Easy E
I agree every character needs motivation. But the "so my dad built the Death Star" thing is needlessly melodramatic and complicated. Why not just have a character who is motivated to steal the plans because they believe a super weapon is terribe?
Heck why not even have that character start as an Imperial? You know ... and have them rebel ...
Rey is defo a weak character (her background is a fething secret, how irritating). That's why it's that much more important that Daisey Ridely be really good. And she was. Felicity Jones ... not so much ...
R1 has plenty of Rebel grunts but none of them were the actual characters of the movie. Whoops! Moustache was the closest and I wish the story had been about him commanding a squad rather than a superhero team-up.
Vader was misued as a one-off set piece. He should have been relentlessly chasing down our good guys as they escaped with the plans. Instead he kills nobodies and accomplished nothing but hey people like it because it looked neat.
The moral ambiguity thing was definitely about more than Moustache - remember the Rebel general who commanded him to kill Jyn's dad? Or his speech about how all the Rebel volunteers have done terrible things?
Yes, I agree it's a fun discussion.
R1 is not a terrible movie, like TPM. But it's problems are so much more severe than TFA's.
I think you hit on it. R1 and TFA are not terrible movies. They are reasonably solid, craftsman like work. The problem is, that isn't good enough for a Star Wars Blockbuster... and possibly not even good enough for a summer blockbuster anymore.
I recently watched the Back to the Future trilogy, and boy do those movies hold up well. Sure, some of the predicitions for the future are ridiculous, but the story beats, dialogue, and characters are all there.
Now, we expect that level of skill in almsot all of our summer blockbusters, and OK just doesn't cut it anymore. There are way too many entertainment choices. Plus, once you layer in nostalgia expectations and craftsman-like is way, way too short of the mark.
The going consensus with my friends is that R1 was probably the best star-wars film ever made and TFA was probably the worst. So Disney is all over the place. The problem is they have picked such a terrible villain for the last 3 movies. Kylo is a terrible character - they even cast the wrong actor for it too. Why the heck doesn't he wear the mask more? Really all the characters in the new era are crap. Rei is okay...I guess.
Overall though. The most disappointing thing to me is how the story between 6 and 7 developed. The alliance isn't supposed to be this weak. It's supposed to be more on even footing and instead of a new kind of starwars we get the same thing. The rebels always fighting a losing battle and their heros save the day. Honestly I am tired of that now. I kind of want these weak rebels to lose now. Because they are just so damn weak.
Manchu wrote: The problem is, he is introduced as a guy willing to do bad things for a good cause who even gives a whole speech defending this position. But then he changes his mind and there is nothing meaningful between those two points.
I think this is a continual crux in how Star Wars presents morality honestly, not really an issue for R1 insofar as it only stands out because R1 called attention to it.
Not in the least surprised by this move from these money grabbers.
Disney have released 2 Star Wars films, and they have been nothing more than bloated, plot hole ridden, buckets of horsegak of movies.
Sure, it's a drop in the ocean, but they won't be getting another penny from me
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As much as people dump on the Pequels, I at least felt like they were trying to do something new and not just re-hash the originals. I'm not even that into Originality in movies, but I just felt like TFA was too much of a retread.
For the local Cineworld? Not a problem. but if you're running a small cinema in a small town, you're not going to want to hand over a third of your usual take (see the previous discussion about making the money on snacks), and if everyone in your local area will have seen the film in a fortnight, then having to keep it on for another two weeks is likely to result in an empty cinema once the novelty has worn off. Even if you're only replacing it with some low-budget horror film or a re-run of It's a Wonderful Life, that may well draw in higher audiences.
AndrewGPaul wrote: For the local Cineworld? Not a problem. but if you're running a small cinema in a small town, you're not going to want to hand over a third of your usual take (see the previous discussion about making the money on snacks), and if everyone in your local area will have seen the film in a fortnight, then having to keep it on for another two weeks is likely to result in an empty cinema once the novelty has worn off. Even if you're only replacing it with some low-budget horror film or a re-run of It's a Wonderful Life, that may well draw in higher audiences.
Holy crap! Someone needs to make a low budget horror version of It's a Wonderful Life, stat!
Frazzled, why? It's just Clue on a Train. ...okay, now I get it.
I'm pretty sure I know the end of MotOE, but it looks like the enjoyment comes from watching the performances, not just from trying to beat Branagh's moustache to guessing who did it.
AndrewGPaul wrote: I'm pretty sure I know the end of MotOE, but it looks like the enjoyment comes from watching the performances, not just from trying to beat Branagh's moustache to guessing who did it.
A... 1% increase over what they agreed to for the last one, and agreeing to show star wars for 4 weeks in the dead zone of movie releases. How onerous indeed.
They probably should but the truth is they could put a clause in saying employees aren't allowed to wear pants and audiences would still go in droves because Star Wars.
AndrewGPaul wrote: For the local Cineworld? Not a problem. but if you're running a small cinema in a small town, you're not going to want to hand over a third of your usual take (see the previous discussion about making the money on snacks), and if everyone in your local area will have seen the film in a fortnight, then having to keep it on for another two weeks is likely to result in an empty cinema once the novelty has worn off. Even if you're only replacing it with some low-budget horror film or a re-run of It's a Wonderful Life, that may well draw in higher audiences.
Which is why your popcorn and drink, which cost wholesale pennies, sell for ridiculous amount. That’s how cinema’s make their profit.
Star Wars is a popular film with most demographics. Parents are happy enough to go see it, because at least it’s not a seizure inducing flicker fest animation. Kids want to see it because the films are fun. The more people you get in, the more people buy your confectionary etc.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just been thinking (yes, you can smell burning).
Episodes VII and IX have a very important job to do, other than bring their respective arcs to a full narrative completion.
See, once upon a time there was the Expanded Universe. Sadly, it quickly lost its way and got very crap very quickly. But as well as continuing the saga, it also did an awful lot of back filling.
The earliest stuff of course is now regarded as The Old Republic. Strictly speaking, those tales are now of uncertain canon. Yes, Disney has wiped that slate clean (and not unfairly so in many instance). But until something is put in to officially replace it, it’s still possible to regard it as canon without running into too many continuity issues from Disney’s Stable.
Already we’ve seen some firm favourites return. Of particular note is Grand Admiral Thrawn, who’s shown up in a refreshed and revised version in the frankly superb Star Wars Rebels.
His tale has changed somewhat, but the character hasn’t. He’s still a patron of the arts, still regarding understanding art as the best way to understand your enemy (though I suspect the contents of the Tate Moden might give him an embolism). He’s just ‘happening’ at an earlier stage.
And that to me is what Episdoes VIII and IX need to leave us with at their legacy. New and interesting plot seeds. Hints at what came before Episode I.
Stuff like ‘why are the Jedi and Sith order so split?’ How did The Republic come to be? What was their before The Republic? How did the Jedi come to claim their position as ultimate arbiters of Justice?
Just a tease. A glimpse. Something to suggest that that history can be codified, if one was to filter out fact from legend.
We’ve seen the merest sliver of a hint in the trailers - Luke’s books. The ones in that tree. We’re also lead to believe that Ach’To was the first Jedi temple.
So clearly, there’s breadcrumbs to be followed after the fall of The Empire.
If Disney are to pump out films for at east the next 10 years, they need to be sowing the seeds now. They pulled off Rogue One nicely, and I’ve got hope for Solo. But they can’t stay in that time period forever.
Voss wrote: TFA was just boring, uninteresting characters with no backstory doing laps in a kiddie pool. (Huzzah, a...janitor in a stormtrooper suit finds he's not a very good mass murderer!)
You are welcome to like and dislike whatever you want, but when you twist facts in order to score points it's a pretty good sign you should stop. Finn wasn't a janitor. He was a stormtrooper who commanded the sanitation section.
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Manchu wrote: Sebster above makes the most important point of all. TFA had engaging characters, R1 did not. And even if we could hem and haw on everything else, this gap trumps. Maybe the twist is, characterization in TFA really leans on the charismatic performances of the actors. But however a film gets there, it has to do it - and R1 didn't, for a variety of reasons.
And that's a really good point that a lot of the appeal of the central characters in TFA awakens comes from the performances rather than the script.
I do think Edwards and Kennedy had a little tug of war; or rather, towards release, Kennedy came to the conclusion that her people should have been exerting more control throughout. I am not in the camp, however, that imagines some pre-reshoot masterpiece ruined by Disney.
Yeah, cool. I didn't mean to suggest there was no control issues or that they didn't have some impact. I think there were basic issues in the bones of the movie.
I found the R1 characters more appealing and human.
Thing is, people will talk about Finn and Rey, and even Poe. The R1 characters are referred to as 'the R1 characters'.
People say they like the R1 characters more, and that's perfectly fine as an opinion, but let's be honest about what people are saying when they claim that - they mean 'I didn't like TFA characters'. Which again is also fine, but what they most definitely do not mean is 'I liked the R1 characters and think about them and remember their names' because that is not a thing.
sebster wrote: [
Thing is, people will talk about Finn and Rey, and even Poe. The R1 characters are referred to as 'the R1 characters'.
People say they like the R1 characters more, and that's perfectly fine as an opinion, but let's be honest about what people are saying when they claim that - they mean 'I didn't like TFA characters'. Which again is also fine, but what they most definitely do not mean is 'I liked the R1 characters and think about them and remember their names' because that is not a thing.
TBH, I found the TFA characters just as one-dimensional and forgettable as the R1 ones. If you hadn't mentioned their names right here I wouldn't have been able to name them, whereas storywise I preferred R1 to TFA, as it wasn't just a rehash of ANH with lesser versions of the original characters.
Well, R1 was a one-n-done movie, while TFA is clearly part of a bigger narrative.
Therefore
A) you do not get enough time to develop so many characters in R1 because its story needs to come to a complete close and
B) TFA has nothing to do but develop characters and setup open-ended arcs.
Disagree. TFA may be part of a larger saga but, like R1 (or any movie) it had to present the audience with a complete plot, which it did. Furthermore, assuming your point is valid for the sake of argument, if a movie like R1 doesn't have time to develop its characters properly then clearly it should not load up on so many characters. So it comes out to, R1 did have time for characterization and failed at it or R1 didn't have time for characterization but nonetheless insisted on a big cast and therefore failed.
Manchu wrote: Disagree. TFA may be part of a larger saga but, like R1 (or any movie) it had to present the audience with a complete plot, which it did. Furthermore, assuming your point is valid for the sake of argument, if a movie like R1 doesn't have time to develop its characters properly then clearly it should not load up on so many characters. So it comes out to, R1 did have time for characterization and failed at it or R1 didn't have time for characterization but nonetheless insisted on a big cast and therefore failed.
I think we are misunderstanding each other. I was arguing that R1 put less focus on the characters due to the story (i.e it didn't NEED complex characters*...at all), while TFA put more focus on the characters because it can spend 3 movies developing its story and the arcs of its characters. At no point am I suggesting either movie "failed". IMO, both movies succeeded in their respective aim and I enjoy both of them for it.
*R1 didn't need complex characters because its story is meant to show how a diverse group can come together to defeat a larger evil, even if that defeat has a high cost.
At the end of the day, though, this all comes down to whether you are trying to find flaws with the movie. Some are, and thus they WILL find them. Others, like myself, aren't looking for the flaws and are willing to suspend disbelief when the flaws become known. Sometimes those flaws actually make it more believable since life itself sometimes doesn't make sense either.
See above, where I argued that R1 didn't need a half-hearted daddy/daughter subplot. And yet they included one all the same!
You don't have to hunt for the flaws of R1. They are right up front in the audiences' faces. I think you are talking about suspension of critical thought, not suspension of disbelief.
Manchu wrote: See above, where I argued that R1 didn't need a half-hearted daddy/daughter subplot. And yet they included one all the same!
You don't have to hunt for the flaws of R1. They are right up front in the audiences' faces. I think you are talking about suspension of critical thought, not suspension of disbelief.
Maybe its just me, but I am starting to get a sense you're not a fan of R1.
Inversely while I'm not a super fan of Rey for Mary Sueism, the only one I didn't like was-well all the lame bad guys.
Which is really funny, considering one of the biggest complaints of TFA is that this scene SHOULD have been with Phasma instead.
A fact that Lucasfilm has clearly taken notice of since we know Fin and Phasma go head-to-head in TLJ.
@Manchu: Not every story has to be concise. R1 can have a weak subplot just to add a bit a flavor. The main thing we as the audience are supposed to take from it are that these are real people with real backgrounds, even if we don't get the whole picture.
At any rate, I don't think you and I will even agree. I like Star Wars movies and can get over the flaws therefore, I have bias. You are clearly more critical of them (R1 in particular)
All I know is that my wife isn't a Star Wars fan, but she''' watch R1 over and over. That has to say something about the movie's "success" (or my wife's taste).
I still find it quite interesting that these movies (R1 & TFA particularly) are so incredibly polarizing.
There are people who love both, people who hate both and people who love one, but hate the other.
It's really fascinating.
Galef wrote: I still find it quite interesting that these movies (R1 & TFA particularly) are so incredibly polarizing.
There are people who love both, people who hate both and people who love one, but hate the other.
It's really fascinating.
-
I like both, but prefer R1. TFW only really gave me new Stormtroopers that I liked. As to the earlier mentioned stuppidity of the Empire in R1, for what ever reason I am more able to accept that the Empire has idiots like that than I am able to accept that a Remnants Group like the Order is able to produce, and maintain that level of equipment and use those sort of numbers. Even with the books to 'explain' that it was because a bunch of worlds and companies support the Empire more than the New Republic its still not any better.
Again, I don't think R1 is a terrible movie. Just like there are "good bad movies" - movies that you can enjoy despite their poor production values, terrible acting, cheesy plots and dialog, dimestore special effects, etc. - there are also "bad good movies." R1 is a bad good movie. In contrast to bad movies, R1 is a beautiful looking picture - the photography and production design are truly wonderful. The score is absolutely mediocre but does its job. The dialog is fine, sometimes even witty. But the plot is needlessly convoluted and the characters are barely sketched, which sucks because the story counts on the audience caring about them. Furthermore, the tone was all over the place. Spoof Troopers that fall like flies don't belong in a gritty movie about underdogs taking on the man.
Voss wrote: TFA was just boring, uninteresting characters with no backstory doing laps in a kiddie pool. (Huzzah, a...janitor in a stormtrooper suit finds he's not a very good mass murderer!)
You are welcome to like and dislike whatever you want, but when you twist facts in order to score points it's a pretty good sign you should stop. Finn wasn't a janitor. He was a stormtrooper who commanded the sanitation section.
That is simply not what is presented in the film. He very shamefully admits to Han that he's not a soldier, that he just works sanitation.
And the Order bigwigs talk about their brainwashing not holding. It seems pretty clear from what is presented in the film that he's a janitor, one of the civilians they've done mind jobs on to fill stormtrooper suits.
Manchu wrote: Again, I don't think R1 is a terrible movie. Just like there are "good bad movies" - movies that you can enjoy despite their poor production values, terrible acting, cheesy plots and dialog, dimestore special effects, etc. - there are also "bad good movies." R1 is a bad good movie. In contrast to bad movies, R1 is a beautiful looking picture - the photography and production design are truly wonderful. The score is absolutely mediocre but does its job. The dialog is fine, sometimes even witty. But the plot is needlessly convoluted and the characters are barely sketched, which sucks because the story counts on the audience caring about them. Furthermore, the tone was all over the place. Spoof Troopers that fall like flies don't belong in a gritty movie about underdogs taking on the man.
Except the spoof troopers killed everyone but the two heroes, despite getting air support.
How is that different then the Dirty Dozen, the Guns of Navarone, or Where Eagles Dare? The BGs actually could shoot
Manchu wrote: Again, I don't think R1 is a terrible movie. Just like there are "good bad movies" - movies that you can enjoy despite their poor production values, terrible acting, cheesy plots and dialog, dimestore special effects, etc. - there are also "bad good movies." R1 is a bad good movie. In contrast to bad movies, R1 is a beautiful looking picture - the photography and production design are truly wonderful. The score is absolutely mediocre but does its job. The dialog is fine, sometimes even witty. But the plot is needlessly convoluted and the characters are barely sketched, which sucks because the story counts on the audience caring about them. Furthermore, the tone was all over the place. Spoof Troopers that fall like flies don't belong in a gritty movie about underdogs taking on the man.
It's funny because I agree with all of those points, as well as having issues with how R1 handled Vader and Leia, and yet thought it was a far superior film and cinematic experience to TFA.
kronk wrote: Spoof Troopers = Storm Troopers that can't shoot past Plot Armor, I take it?
Soldiers that seem genuinely incompetent. ie Any Stormtrooper in ANH after the boarding of the Tantive IV, Any Trooper in ESB after the Battle of Hoth, and well any Trooper that is in RoTJ. Arguably any Stormtrooper in R1 that isnt a Death Trooper (though they hold the idiot stick enough) or the one Shore Trooper Captain that kills Bhodi.
Frazzled, spoof troopers killed nobody until the script was done with each one of them. When the script was done with them, the spoof trooper laser guns worked on them - but not before. Also Jyn and Moustache were killed by the Death Star. Mr Big Gun and Pilot were killed by stray grenades. Robot died because he had been shot 4,852 times while being attacked by an entire division of spoof troopers, who yes finally killed him after losing an entire regiment ... but not before Robot had accomplished everything the script required of him.
Victor, Elite Black Spoof Troopers are still Spoof Troopers. They couldn't hit a blind man slowly walking in the open. That's not just an insult. It actually happened in the movie!
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Voss wrote: He very shamefully admits to Han that he's not a soldier, that he just works sanitation.
Do you remember the movie you are talking about? We are introduced to Finn when his storm trooper unit is deployed to Jakku. He didn't sneak on board for fun, dressed in somebody else's uniform. As a FO trooper, he was in charge of sanitation at Starkiller Base.
Victor, Elite Black Spoof Troopers are still Spoof Troopers. They couldn't hit a blind man slowly walking in the open. That's not just an insult. It actually happened in the movie!
I know, I just chose to chalk that up to the Force.
Manchu wrote: Frazzled, spoof troopers killed nobody until the script was done with each one of them. When the script was done with them, the spoof trooper laser guns worked on them - but not before. Also Jyn and Moustache were killed by the Death Star. Mr Big Gun and Pilot were killed by stray grenades. Robot died because he had been shot 4,852 times while being attacked by an entire division of spoof troopers, who yes finally killed him after losing an entire regiment ... but not before Robot had accomplished everything the script required of him.
Victor, Elite Black Spoof Troopers are still Spoof Troopers. They couldn't hit a blind man slowly walking in the open. That's not just an insult. It actually happened in the movie!
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Voss wrote: He very shamefully admits to Han that he's not a soldier, that he just works sanitation.
Do you remember the movie you are talking about? We are introduced to Finn when his storm trooper unit is deployed to Jakku. He didn't sneak on board for fun, dressed in somebody else's uniform. As a FO trooper, he was in charge of sanitation at Starkiller Base.
Is this not how all movies are though? Ever seen dances with wolves?
No, that's not how all movies are. We don't have to look far for a counter example. In TFA, FO troopers are shown being reasonably effective throughout the movie.
Victor, Elite Black Spoof Troopers are still Spoof Troopers. They couldn't hit a blind man slowly walking in the open. That's not just an insult. It actually happened in the movie!
I know, I just chose to chalk that up to the Force.
Exactly. Everything that seems dumb in Star Wars can be hand waved away....quite literally hand waved...like a Jedi. You are either protected by the Force, or the Spoof Troopers aren't actually trying to kill you. Like in ANH where they were specifically trying NOT to harm anyone so they could escape and be tracked. Leia even says as much in the scene after their escape. And just so the audience knows for sure, Tarkin says the same thing a scene after that.
Although I do agree, FO Troopers do seem a bit more competent. Phasma shutting down the shields was supposed to signal a division to storm the room where they were, that's the reason she did it, afterall (that and chewie almost crushed her arm inside its armour)
Manchu wrote: Frazzled, spoof troopers killed nobody until the script was done with each one of them.
And, that is different then any movie ever, how?
When the script was done with them, the spoof trooper laser guns worked on them - but not before.
Just like in Saving Private Ryan, the Longest Day, and Julius Caesar.
Also Jyn and Moustache were killed by the Death Star.
Thats what I said. Everyone else got killed by the Good Guys (TM).
Mr Big Gun and Pilot were killed by stray grenades
. Well if you can't shoot 'em, grenade 'em. The Bridges at Toko Ri did it better I will admit. Man that movie was boss. Someone snuck in an antiwar film in the mid 1950s!
Robot died because he had been shot 4,852 times while being attacked by an entire division of spoof troopers, who yes finally killed him after losing an entire regiment ... but not before Robot had accomplished everything the script required of him.
Kind of like those Spartans guys at the hot gates, Steve McQueen in Sand Pebbles, or Chuck Norris.
Victor, Elite Black Spoof Troopers are still Spoof Troopers. They couldn't hit a blind man slowly walking in the open.
Manchu wrote: Spoof Troopers that fall like flies don't belong in a gritty movie about underdogs taking on the man.
Disagree. The Empire troopers in R1 aren't terrible. They get knocked off balance by a surprise attack on a world they thought was safe from such an attack. Once they recover, their superior numbers (a garrison on a supposedly unassailable planet has no need for hardbitten veterans) still quickly make short work of the rebels present. Just not quite quickly enough.
Manchu wrote: No, that's not how all movies are. We don't have to look far for a counter example. In TFA, FO troopers are shown being reasonably effective throughout the movie.
I remember they shoot up a village of civilians at the beginning of the movie. I wouldn't call that competence though. I do reemember some pretty narrow escapes too. Like a stolen tie fighter flying away from a star destroyer with a pilot that never flown a tie fighter (the shots just kept missing). A girl whos never flown a space craft flying the millennium falcon away from tie fighters and making them look like idiots. I also recall a terrible character called kylo ren who supposedly slayed all of lukes Jedi warriors and beat off luke himself BUT he got beat by a girl who had never held a lightsabre ever before and also has no training - this of course was right after he faught to a draw with a storm trooper deserter who specializes in trash management. I'm not exactly seeing the competence from the empire hear.
Sure Frazzled, I agree that R1 is not the first dumb film ever made.
Xenomancers -
TFA opens with successful FO trooper operation and capture Poe. Later on, FO troopers successfully storm Maz's castle. At that battle, a FO trooper beats down one of the main characters in H2H.
Kylo Ren effortlessly fells Finn. He hesitates while fighting Rey; she doesn't.
Manchu wrote: No, that's not how all movies are. We don't have to look far for a counter example. In TFA, FO troopers are shown being reasonably effective throughout the movie.
I remember they shoot up a village of civilians at the beginning of the movie. I wouldn't call that competence though. I do reemember some pretty narrow escapes too. Like a stolen tie fighter flying away from a star destroyer with a pilot that never flown a tie fighter (the shots just kept missing). A girl whos never flown a space craft flying the millennium falcon away from tie fighters and making them look like idiots. I also recall a terrible character called kylo ren who supposedly slayed all of lukes Jedi warriors and beat off luke himself BUT he got beat by a girl who had never held a lightsabre ever before and also has no training - this of course was right after he faught to a draw with a storm trooper deserter who specializes in trash management. I'm not exactly seeing the competence from the empire hear.
I think the moral of story is that, if you want some real badasses, grab up all the trash collectors and give them light sabers.
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Manchu wrote: Sure Frazzled, I agree that R1 is not the first dumb film ever made.
Xenomancers -
TFA opens with successful FO trooper operation and capture Poe. Later on, FO troopers successfully storm Maz's castle. At that battle, a FO trooper beats down one of the main characters in H2H.
Kylo Ren effortlessly fells Finn. He hesitates while fighting Rey; she doesn't.
I thought Maz had a bar?
I am actually down with the FO troopers in TFA. They were the highlight of the bad guys. Like the British army, its the officer bad guys that were pathetic and lame. Well that and, as noted, Rey is an unkillable machine with plot armor the size of a planet, which makes her scenes almost boring.
Something I just realized. Technically Kylo Ren has more force training than Anakin (pre-Vader) or RotJ Luke COMBINED.
Think about it. Anakin was trained from age 9-23 before falling to the dark-side. That's 14yrs.
Luke only trained from ANH to RotJ, so about 4 yrs.
Assuming Ben Solo was trained from childhood to the present, he clearly has more than 18 years of experience using the force and training.
So it would make sense for him to have at least as much power now (at his peak) as either Anakin or Luke at their peaks.
Voss wrote: That is simply not what is presented in the film. He very shamefully admits to Han that he's not a soldier, that he just works sanitation. And the Order bigwigs talk about their brainwashing not holding. It seems pretty clear from what is presented in the film that he's a janitor, one of the civilians they've done mind jobs on to fill stormtrooper suits.
What movie did you watch? "Shamefully" admitting?
FINN The flooding tunnels are over that ridge. We'll get in that way. HAN What was your job when you were based here? FINN Sanitation. HAN Sanitation? Then how do you know how to disable the shields? FINN I don't. I'm just here to get Rey. HAN People are counting on us! The galaxy is counting on us--! FINN Solo, we'll figure it out! We'll use the Force! HAN That's not how the Force works--!
And when you say that he was a janitor they did mind tricks on to fill stormtrooper suits... you are simply wrong. FINN I'm not Resistance. I'm not a hero. I'm a Stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know. And raised to do one thing.
So was it a family of travelling, amnesiac janitors he was taken from?
Anyhow, that line did come along pretty fast in the movie, amidst a lot of other exposition, so while you were wrong that's no biggie, it would have been easy to miss. But lacking that info, you instead made up your own explanation, that he was a janitor that got nabbed and press in to service, and then you complained about that explanation. Why would anyone do that? Why would someone work to invent background details, and then blame the movie when they found those invented background details unconvincing?
I mean, I get people making up their own background detail, I do that all the time. But why making up background detail, not liking it, and then blaming the movie for that? What is that?
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Frazzled wrote: Just like in Saving Private Ryan, the Longest Day, and Julius Caesar.
The challenge is in doing it so it isn't obvious. You can do this by giving the good guys extra abilities that they use to gain advantage, like making them Jedi, or showing them using cover and outflanking the enemy or using other effective tactics. Or if that's too hard, you can just have bad guys that keep missing with no explanation while good guys spray masses of accurate fire while barely aiming, to which the villains don't even bother to take cover.
The more a movie relies on the latter, the sillier the movie is. There isn't anything automatically wrong with that, the Hong Kong action movies of the 80s and 90s reveled in this nonsense and some of those are great fun. But it is a problem when you're aiming for a tone other than 'mindless carnage'. Star Wars was never mindless carnage, and its efforts to explain how the good guys won, or at least how they escaped is kind of mixed, even within individual scenes.. The retreat from Cloud City for instance, actually has Chewie, Leia and Lando fight a pretty convincing bounding retreat... until they reach the Millenium Falcon and stand about having half a conversation in little cover while stormtroopers fire in their general direction
R1 takes that problem and turns it up to 11. Suddenly blasters are replaced by magic explosions that only ever have blast radius to kill all the stormtroopers and no-one else. One of the good guys is given a bullet hose mega weapon that kills dozens of stormtroopers a second - forget the death star, why did no-one get the plans to that mega weapon? The result is a film with action scenes that just do not feel like Star Wars. Though it's interesting to note a lot of people in this thread don't seem to have had that problem.
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Xenomancers wrote: I remember they shoot up a village of civilians at the beginning of the movie. I wouldn't call that competence though. I do reemember some pretty narrow escapes too. Like a stolen tie fighter flying away from a star destroyer with a pilot that never flown a tie fighter (the shots just kept missing). A girl whos never flown a space craft flying the millennium falcon away from tie fighters and making them look like idiots. I also recall a terrible character called kylo ren who supposedly slayed all of lukes Jedi warriors and beat off luke himself BUT he got beat by a girl who had never held a lightsabre ever before and also has no training - this of course was right after he faught to a draw with a storm trooper deserter who specializes in trash management. I'm not exactly seeing the competence from the empire hear.
I'll grant you Finn and Poe escaping in a tie fighter, though that's worth a half mark really, because they don't escape but are shot down, and Star Wars is pretty consistent in pilots being able to pilot any craft without prior experience. In the first film Luke jumped right in to that X-Wing...
The other stuff though... that wasn't the Empire being idiots, that was the film making the clear point that Rey was a uniquely talented force user that could do many incredible things naturally. It is reasonable to complain that they made this point too obviously, and that they stretched her competence too far. But using it as evidence that the Empire was incompetent seems to be missing the point of the movie entirely.
sebster wrote: I mean, I get people making up their own background detail, I do that all the time. But why making up background detail, not liking it, and then blaming the movie for that? What is that?
Voss wrote: That is simply not what is presented in the film. He very shamefully admits to Han that he's not a soldier, that he just works sanitation.
And the Order bigwigs talk about their brainwashing not holding. It seems pretty clear from what is presented in the film that he's a janitor, one of the civilians they've done mind jobs on to fill stormtrooper suits.
What movie did you watch? "Shamefully" admitting?
FINN The flooding tunnels are over that ridge. We'll get in that way.
HAN What was your job when you were based here?
FINN Sanitation.
HAN Sanitation? Then how do you know how to disable the shields?
FINN I don't. I'm just here to get Rey.
HAN People are counting on us! The galaxy is counting on us--!
FINN Solo, we'll figure it out! We'll use the Force!
HAN That's not how the Force works--!
And when you say that he was a janitor they did mind tricks on to fill stormtrooper suits... you are simply wrong.
FINN I'm not Resistance. I'm not a hero. I'm a Stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know. And raised to do one thing.
So was it a family of travelling, amnesiac janitors he was taken from?
Anyhow, that line did come along pretty fast in the movie, amidst a lot of other exposition, so while you were wrong that's no biggie, it would have been easy to miss. But lacking that info, you instead made up your own explanation, that he was a janitor that got nabbed and press in to service, and then you complained about that explanation. Why would anyone do that? Why would someone work to invent background details, and then blame the movie when they found those invented background details unconvincing?
I mean, I get people making up their own background detail, I do that all the time. But why making up background detail, not liking it, and then blaming the movie for that? What is that?
The sanitation bit strikes me as very strange though. Beyond the fact that stormtroopers also have other responsibilities, I can accept that, why does he get sent along in the first place at the start of the movie. The fact that Kylo goes means its an important mission, but its not important enough to send along a crack squad of commandos? Aren't there stormtroopers better trained/more experienced than Finn? Are there no stormtroopers that don't have other responsibilities beyond fighting? They even openly.question his conduct. Why even take the new guy who isn't even only a soldier on such a mission. Its one part I never understand.
The sanitation bit strikes me as very strange though. Beyond the fact that stormtroopers also have other responsibilities, I can accept that, why does he get sent along in the first place at the start of the movie. The fact that Kylo goes means its an important mission, but its not important enough to send along a crack squad of commandos? Aren't there stormtroopers better trained/more experienced than Finn? Are there no stormtroopers that don't have other responsibilities beyond fighting? They even openly.question his conduct. Why even take the new guy who isn't even only a soldier on such a mission. Its one part I never understand.
I haven't read the accompanying background novels yet, but I took it as being that sanitation was just where he was assigned when he was on the Starkiller base. His posting on Ren's ship is presumably a different role.
As for who to take on the mission - presumably they thought that a couple of squads of regular Stormtroopers would be sufficient to subdue a few poorly-equipped villagers... Which would seem to be a reasonable assessment, based on how it played out.
The sanitation bit strikes me as very strange though. Beyond the fact that stormtroopers also have other responsibilities, I can accept that, why does he get sent along in the first place at the start of the movie. The fact that Kylo goes means its an important mission, but its not important enough to send along a crack squad of commandos? Aren't there stormtroopers better trained/more experienced than Finn? Are there no stormtroopers that don't have other responsibilities beyond fighting? They even openly.question his conduct. Why even take the new guy who isn't even only a soldier on such a mission. Its one part I never understand.
I haven't read the accompanying background novels yet, but I took it as being that sanitation was just where he was assigned when he was on the Starkiller base. His posting on Ren's ship is presumably a different role.
As for who to take on the mission - presumably they thought that a couple of squads of regular Stormtroopers would be sufficient to subdue a few poorly-equipped villagers... Which would seem to be a reasonable assessment, based on how it played out.
True for the sanitation bit. But the mission part still bothers me. Kylo himself goes because it's that important, but then they throw in a couple of rookie squads? Why? Budget cuts on troops? Are the better ones busy elsewhere? And for stormtroopers being brainwashed from an early age and it being the baptism of fire so to speak, wouldn't Finn not shooting civilians when ordered throw up massive red flags to those in command? But not only do they not react beyond some 'harsh' words, he also has enough clearance as a seemingly low level and young stormtrooper to be able to access an important prisoner? TFA is enjoyable enough, but the start of the movie with Finn just leaves so many unanswered questions.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Kylo himself goes because it's that important, but then they throw in a couple of rookie squads?
Did they?
I don't recall any indication in the movie that the squads were all rookies, just that it was Finn's first firefight.
Granted, only Finn might have been new, but then it still leaves me to wonder why they were just regulars with Kylo there.
... wouldn't Finn not shooting civilians when ordered throw up massive red flags to those in command?
Yes. Which is why Phasma ordered him to report to her section on their return to the ship.
Yeah, that's the part I consider 'harsh' words. For an organization trying to exude evil I would think ignoring a command would be treated a bit more harshly than just saying "come see me". At what point is hesitation like that a liability? If these people were trained and brainwashed since they were kids ignoring orders comes across as pretty serious. But not only is he then still given free reign, he can easily get to Poe. The more I thought about it the less sense it seemed to make.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Kylo himself goes because it's that important, but then they throw in a couple of rookie squads?
Did they?
I don't recall any indication in the movie that the squads were all rookies, just that it was Finn's first firefight.
Granted, only Finn might have been new, but then it still leaves me to wonder why they were just regulars with Kylo there.
Stormtroopers aren't 'just regulars'. They're elite shock troops. They're not often portrayed that way, but it's what they're meant to be.
It depends though doesn't it? The clones of the prequels certainly were meant to be. But I thought the Empire also conscripted people to serve as stormtroopers (considered worse than the clones), with Vader for example having an elite regiment. But for the FO there is little background beyond trained since childhood on screen to show the 'elite' nature. Finn certainly seems to destroy the 'since childhood' image pretty fast when it comes to training and indoctrination. Plus like you mention, their portrayel is really iffy, being used as grunts to be murdered by robots, rebels and teddy bears. And I would assume if 'regular' stormtroopers had other tasks, that there might exist a more elite unit that only focussed on fighting/special operations, which might be more of a suitable unit to send along.
Voss wrote: That is simply not what is presented in the film. He very shamefully admits to Han that he's not a soldier, that he just works sanitation.
And the Order bigwigs talk about their brainwashing not holding. It seems pretty clear from what is presented in the film that he's a janitor, one of the civilians they've done mind jobs on to fill stormtrooper suits.
What movie did you watch? "Shamefully" admitting?
<snip>
Facial expressions and reactions are a thing. They're kind of important to acting, in fact.
A few lines from a script captures very little of a film, unless it's a very terrible film indeed.
And when you say that he was a janitor they did mind tricks on to fill stormtrooper suits... you are simply wrong.
FINN I'm not Resistance. I'm not a hero. I'm a Stormtrooper. Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know. And raised to do one thing.
So was it a family of travelling, amnesiac janitors he was taken from?
Anyhow, that line did come along pretty fast in the movie, amidst a lot of other exposition, so while you were wrong that's no biggie, it would have been easy to miss. But lacking that info, you instead made up your own explanation, that he was a janitor that got nabbed and press in to service, and then you complained about that explanation. Why would anyone do that? Why would someone work to invent background details, and then blame the movie when they found those invented background details unconvincing?
I mean, I get people making up their own background detail, I do that all the time. But why making up background detail, not liking it, and then blaming the movie for that? What is that?
I like the irony. No, he was taken as a child -what his family was doesn't matter, so why are you inventing background details?
But as you admit, he himself claims to work sanitation. Nothing is made up. Here, I'll remind you:
HAN What was your job when you were based here?
FINN: Sanitation.
He worked sanitation. Hence: janitor.
If he said he taught children, I'd call him a teacher. Associating a job title with a work description isn't a stretch.
That they also use poor indoctrination to make him a poor stormtrooper is also pretty obvious as he's introduced in a stormtrooper suit, and the officer when he returns talks about problems with the indoctrination. It is all exactly what the movie presents.
Stormtroopers aren't 'just regulars'. They're elite shock troops. They're not often portrayed that way, but it's what they're meant to be.
Eh. They're useless mooks, there to be beaten up.
But even given their incompetence is their only trait, for them to be 'elite shock troops,' there have to be some regulars somewhere. Where are those?
Disciple of Fate wrote: The sanitation bit strikes me as very strange though. Beyond the fact that stormtroopers also have other responsibilities, I can accept that, why does he get sent along in the first place at the start of the movie. The fact that Kylo goes means its an important mission, but its not important enough to send along a crack squad of commandos? Aren't there stormtroopers better trained/more experienced than Finn? Are there no stormtroopers that don't have other responsibilities beyond fighting? They even openly.question his conduct. Why even take the new guy who isn't even only a soldier on such a mission. Its one part I never understand.
His role there could have been security, part of the team that patrolled the system's sewers etc. And beyond that, it's a military order. Management positions are going to be given to military. Having 'loyal' soldiers overseeing civilian workers would seem pretty expected for an organisation like the First Order.
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Disciple of Fate wrote: True for the sanitation bit. But the mission part still bothers me. Kylo himself goes because it's that important, but then they throw in a couple of rookie squads? Why? Budget cuts on troops? Are the better ones busy elsewhere? And for stormtroopers being brainwashed from an early age and it being the baptism of fire so to speak, wouldn't Finn not shooting civilians when ordered throw up massive red flags to those in command? But not only do they not react beyond some 'harsh' words, he also has enough clearance as a seemingly low level and young stormtrooper to be able to access an important prisoner? TFA is enjoyable enough, but the start of the movie with Finn just leaves so many unanswered questions.
I agree there's a bunch of stuff in TFA that goes unanswered (the film did nothing to explain why the Resistance is, and why it and its handful of fighters seems to be the only force in the whole of the Republic that can retalitate against the First Order). But Finn rejecting his brainwashing was pretty well handled, I think.
CAPTAIN PHASMA FN-2187 reported to my division, was evaluated and sent to Reconditioning.
GENERAL HUX No prior signs of non-conformity?
CAPTAIN PHASMA This was his first offense.
(later scene)
KYLO REN How capable are your soldiers, General?
GENERAL HUX I won't have you question my methods.
KYLO REN They're obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army.
So in that two brief scenes we see that soldiers do break their conditioning, enough that reconditioning is a familiar process, but not so common that senior officers don't notice it happening. We then see Ren use it to doubt the overall program and threaten the senior officer in command.
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Voss wrote: He worked sanitation. Hence: janitor.
If he said he taught children, I'd call him a teacher. Associating a job title with a work description isn't a stretch.
If he says he taught children, then you assume he's a teacher. If he says he worked at a school, then it'd be an assumption that he was a teacher, because he could well be an administrator, receptionist, security, or a whole bunch of other jobs, even the school janitor. Finn said he worked sanitation. It was your assumption that that meant he must have been a janitor. And so the question is whether that's a sensible assumption.
And to answer that question, let's go back to your example of a person saying they worked at a school. Let's say the person who says they work at a school happened to have a pistol and a uniform that said 'security'. It'd be a pretty stupid assumption to think that person was teaching at the school, and not you know, working in security at the school.
So then we get back to Finn. Who we saw outfitted as a stormtrooper, carrying a blaster, going on combat missions as a stormtrooper. And you heard him say he was assigned to sanitation, and you concluded he must have been the janitor. Yeah.
Disciple of Fate wrote: The sanitation bit strikes me as very strange though. Beyond the fact that stormtroopers also have other responsibilities, I can accept that, why does he get sent along in the first place at the start of the movie. The fact that Kylo goes means its an important mission, but its not important enough to send along a crack squad of commandos? Aren't there stormtroopers better trained/more experienced than Finn? Are there no stormtroopers that don't have other responsibilities beyond fighting? They even openly.question his conduct. Why even take the new guy who isn't even only a soldier on such a mission. Its one part I never understand.
His role there could have been security, part of the team that patrolled the system's sewers etc. And beyond that, it's a military order. Management positions are going to be given to military. Having 'loyal' soldiers overseeing civilian workers would seem pretty expected for an organisation like the First Order.
Yeah I pegged it as perhaps a military engineer type of role. But it still leaves me wondering why they would send an untested engineer and not some specialist on such a sensitive mission. I would assume with some logic that you wouldn't send your logistic personnel out into the desert to kill random civilians in the first place. His age might be important in this, but I don't think its mentioned in TFA?
Disciple of Fate wrote: True for the sanitation bit. But the mission part still bothers me. Kylo himself goes because it's that important, but then they throw in a couple of rookie squads? Why? Budget cuts on troops? Are the better ones busy elsewhere? And for stormtroopers being brainwashed from an early age and it being the baptism of fire so to speak, wouldn't Finn not shooting civilians when ordered throw up massive red flags to those in command? But not only do they not react beyond some 'harsh' words, he also has enough clearance as a seemingly low level and young stormtrooper to be able to access an important prisoner? TFA is enjoyable enough, but the start of the movie with Finn just leaves so many unanswered questions.
I agree there's a bunch of stuff in TFA that goes unanswered (the film did nothing to explain why the Resistance is, and why it and its handful of fighters seems to be the only force in the whole of the Republic that can retalitate against the First Order). But Finn rejecting his brainwashing was pretty well handled, I think.
CAPTAIN PHASMA FN-2187 reported to my division, was evaluated and sent to Reconditioning.
GENERAL HUX No prior signs of non-conformity?
CAPTAIN PHASMA This was his first offense.
(later scene)
KYLO REN How capable are your soldiers, General?
GENERAL HUX I won't have you question my methods.
KYLO REN They're obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army.
So in that two brief scenes we see that soldiers do break their conditioning, enough that reconditioning is a familiar process, but not so common that senior officers don't notice it happening. We then see Ren use it to doubt the overall program and threaten the senior officer in command.
My problem with that part is that he was sent there and not escorted. This type of behaviour seems pretty much critical to avoid in childhood indoctrinated troops, yet they handle it like a slap on the wrist of what we see on screen. No escort, no restraining etc. I would assume they would have no problems disposing of people who keep disobeying. Yet Finn gets the tough love approach. At what point does a evil murderous organization turn on its own? How hard up are they for people that they don't just throw Finn in prison untill he is re-brainwashed (which incidentally might be a better way to get him in contact with Poe, using his experience in sanitation/systems to escape?).
So then we get back to Finn. Who we saw outfitted as a stormtrooper, carrying a blaster, going on combat missions as a stormtrooper. And you heard him say he was assigned to sanitation, and you concluded he must have been the janitor. Yeah.
Yep. Going on what was apparently his first combat mission as a stormtrooper, complete with the greenhorn shakes.
He seems fine when strapped into a seat firing a gun (like a simulator), and has no qualms with shooting loads of people (ones he knew and worked with no less) in that situation, but out in the field he's routinely useless and making obvious mistakes. Exactly what you'd expect from a poorly trained part timer.
We've then got him lying to everyone he meets, talking himself up.
Finally at the end, he admits the truth: sanitation.
I love that you're trying to make this a significant issue, but it isn't. Semi-competent sidekick worked sanitation, so I call him a janitor.
Galef wrote: Something I just realized. Technically Kylo Ren has more force training than Anakin (pre-Vader) or RotJ Luke COMBINED.
Think about it. Anakin was trained from age 9-23 before falling to the dark-side. That's 14yrs.
Luke only trained from ANH to RotJ, so about 4 yrs.
Assuming Ben Solo was trained from childhood to the present, he clearly has more than 18 years of experience using the force and training.
So it would make sense for him to have at least as much power now (at his peak) as either Anakin or Luke at their peaks.
Just some food for thought.
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His abilities are well on display in the story. He catches a blaster shot mid air and freezes it in place. This is probably the greatest example of power ive seen in starwars. Then he loses to a trash boy and a girl with no training. It's a huge plot hole and it kills the story for me. I mean it absolutely kills it for me. I don't care how strong they want you to believe Rei is. Luke - the man who defeated vader - still got beat by Vader royally the first time they fought. Anakien lost to Duku after being trained by the greatest Jedis. This is just to stupid to even consider it starwars cannon IMO.
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PURGED 
