Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Honestly it'd be so much easier if it was re-made but i think 'How it Should Have Ended' hit the nail on the head for just about every fix that needed to happen.

 Manchu wrote:
The action scenes in TLJ are pretty weak overall. The Rey + Kylo teamup fight is really good because (a) it is a great emotional pay off the film has spent a lot of time setting up and it feels very earned and (b) the other action sequences are not as visually interesting and/or emotionally engaging.

Agreed completely. For an action movie the action feels almost non-existent.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Honestly it'd be so much easier if it was re-made but i think 'How it Should Have Ended' hit the nail on the head for just about every fix that needed to happen.

I had more fun watching that than I did the whole of TLJ.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Honestly it'd be so much easier if it was re-made but i think 'How it Should Have Ended' hit the nail on the head for just about every fix that needed to happen.

I had more fun watching that than I did the whole of TLJ.

I know right? Honestly i think it was far more entertaining too.

I'm also not sure why there's a Doctor Who cameo. Wouldn't it be more fun to have Q in the casino, if you're going down that route?

Ryan Johnson's previous space based writings include a few Doctor Who episodes, and the TLJ Casino and its inhabitants looked very much like the luxury cruiser/casinos from Doctor Who.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Honestly it'd be so much easier if it was re-made but i think 'How it Should Have Ended' hit the nail on the head for just about every fix that needed to happen.

Good fun and so much more thought and care went into it than the actual film

 Manchu wrote:
Watching TLJ last night, I can say with absolute confidence that it is a better made film than either TPM or AotC. It's one thing to dislike TLJ but saying it is worse than those movies is really beyond credible. I could understand, however, someone liking the themes of those movies better than that of TLJ. I am not totally sure what the theme of TLJ even is. If you try to be a hero you deserve to fail?

Yeah, the one thing prequels have over Disney sequels is that they introduce new settings and themes for the Star Wars universe. Lucas rightly criticized Disney for having too many derivative visuals in the sequels, pointing out how they tried to make new ships, weapons, sets and aliens and whatnot for the prequels (even though he also recycled too much from the originals). Disney sequels, while much better done in terms of dialogue, directing and cinematography than Lucas' prequels, are nevertheless boring in this respect because they are mostly remakes of the originals with few new ideas or character concepts of their own.

This is what I liked in 'Solo' as it really showed us new places and sides of the Star Wars universe instead of doing same damn Deathstar run over and over again.

I have found a headcannon justification for The Holdo Manoever!

Namely that there is no such thing. Holdo wasn't deliberately trying to wipe out The Snokemobile.

She was trying to cause a distraction, screw up the FO fleet. Remember RotJ? Remember Arvel Crynyd? A-wing pilot. Doomed. Threw the dice and wiped out a Super Star Destroyer.

Crynyd wasn't trying to wipe out the SSD, and possibly didn't even know the bridge shields were down. Crashed into the bridge in a last act of defiance. Admiral Piett realised the danger before he hit as he knew that the SSD design was daft and that a direct bridge hit would fatally damage the ship.

Likewise Holdo. She was trying to do SOMETHING, and certainly realised it was going to get her killed, but what happened suceeded beyond any expecation.
Maybe she thought the fleet would chase her in hyperspace. Maybe she thought she'd pop out of hyperspace immediately in front of the Snokemobile and crash at sublight, which we've seen happen plenty of times between Star Destroyers.
The Snokemobile is BIG. Big enough to have a gravity well to some extent. We know that in Star Wars, a big enough well causes you to drop out of hyperspace and that you could "fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick"
But it's not THAT big. So you don't drop out of light speed any particular distance from it, as you would a planet or Death Star. You drop out while you're inside it. Once again, the Empire/First Order has built a really impressive looking superweapon with a massive design flaw.
And Hux and Eddie know about this flaw. They see it coming. Holdo probably doesn't. She rolls the dice and... boom. If it had been bigger, she'd have dropped out at a distance. Smaller and she'd have jumped straight though.

Also, puts the "suicide attack" thing a bit into context:

Rose's sister - Last roll of the dice. Crynyd.
Holdo - Crynyd.
Finn - still has options, no Crynyd. Therefore saved from killing himself.

Star Wars is, after all, a universe where 1/1,000,000 chances come off. Never tell me the odds. It's also why it isn't a standard tactic.

My main problem with the film is how easily the Republic seem to win. Sounds idiotic and I could probably phrase it better, but compared to the original trilogy, it was either sheer luck, or sheer incompetence on the FO part

- 1 Starfighter takes out all the AA defences of a Dreadnought, with weapons that seem to just blitz through hardened defences like tissue paper? Said Dreadnought can't seem to take down a single craft yet is adept at destroying everything else?

- A single bomber can take down the Dreadnought?

- Despite the fact they're riding huge kangaroo/ostrich creatures larger than a horse, the police/security drones can't actually take them down?

- Rey and Ren, albeit the latter being more significantly trained, are able to take down at least 1/2 a dozen of Snoke's bodyguards? In 40k terms this sounds like a couple of Marines eliminating a whole squad of Custodians; it shouldn't happen for any reason.

- Snoke's battleship, apparently the most powerful and most feared starship so far encountered, can't keep up with a Republic ship, but travels *just* fast enough it can fire the occasional shot to remind them "we're still here by the way". That whole bit annoyed the hell out of me: "We'll run out of fuel and then they'll catch up with us", that's not how space works! Granted it's a universe with glowing light-swords and dogs apparently made out of crystals (another nice marketing ploy), but it's one of the most basic principles of physics.

- A group of battered, poorly-maintained speeders somehow keep an invasion force at bay.

- "Oh yeah I'm just a cleaner on this huge billion-ton starship, but I also happen to know exactly where the hyperspace starship tracking device is, how to access it, and how to acquire uniforms so we can effortlessly sneak onboard, no-one will question how out of place our appearence is, I'm that good of a cleaner".


It's just how the Republic in the original trilogy seemed like a genuine guerilla force that took significant losses and hardship to attain their goals, while the New Republic is full of people who are apparently either the greatest warriors in the galaxy or lucky beyond measure. That's why I liked Rogue One; they killed off characters, there was a general feel that being in the Republic is a dirty, dangerous position that will eventually kill you, but you can be a hero while you die.

With that in mind here's what I'd do to fix it. Bear in mind I'm not a huge SW fan but I'll give it a go

- Leia dies. End of. She's blasted out into the void and finished with.

- Replace the final scene, new environment instead of a Hoth lookalike (Even had to acknowledge it by stating it's salt instead of snow).

- Get rid of the casino planet plot entirely.

- The whole spy motif mentioned earlier in the thread is a good idea. Holdo however was an annoying character that (from what I've experienced) only seems to serve as a "strong female lead" but ends up being a whiny hopeless mare with no real character development.

My thoughts:

- 1 Starfighter takes out all the AA defences of a Dreadnought, with weapons that seem to just blitz through hardened defences like tissue paper? Said Dreadnought can't seem to take down a single craft yet is adept at destroying everything else?

Not so unhappy with that - the Dreadnought captain does call out he should have fighter cover and its one of the very few Star Wars (or indeed exciting) moments in this POS film

- A single bomber can take down the Dreadnought?

Small craft usually take out big ships in Star Wars - the bombers are a stupid concept given the fact that X Wings and Y Wings exist.

- Despite the fact they're riding huge kangaroo/ostrich creatures larger than a horse, the police/security drones can't actually take them down?

Stupid scene in a stupid part of the film is stupid

- Rey and Ren, albeit the latter being more significantly trained, are able to take down at least 1/2 a dozen of Snoke's bodyguards? In 40k terms this sounds like a couple of Marines eliminating a whole squad of Custodians; it shouldn't happen for any reason.

Maybe - difficult to know how good the guards are as we never see them do anything - they may be ceremonial.

- Snoke's battleship, apparently the most powerful and most feared starship so far encountered, can't keep up with a Republic ship, but travels *just* fast enough it can fire the occasional shot to remind them "we're still here by the way". That whole bit annoyed the hell out of me: "We'll run out of fuel and then they'll catch up with us", that's not how space works! Granted it's a universe with glowing light-swords and dogs apparently made out of crystals (another nice marketing ploy), but it's one of the most basic principles of physics.

Blame the Director for this gak - its a truely awful part of the film that only exists becuase he apparently can't be bothered to write a decent plot and wnats to waste time - maybe he was paid by the minute as there is little other reason for this tedium. Or he just lkes boring the audience.

- A group of battered, poorly-maintained speeders somehow keep an invasion force at bay.

Actually they don't do anything - like most eople in the film - they wonder around abit and then crash or return - oh and the one that might have done something gets rammed by a lovesick idiot.

- "Oh yeah I'm just a cleaner on this huge billion-ton starship, but I also happen to know exactly where the hyperspace starship tracking device is, how to access it, and how to acquire uniforms so we can effortlessly sneak onboard, no-one will question how out of place our appearence is, I'm that good of a cleaner".

Lazy crap writing and direction - thats what this film is about.

It's just how the Republic in the original trilogy seemed like a genuine guerilla force that took significant losses and hardship to attain their goals, while the New Republic is full of people who are apparently either the greatest warriors in the galaxy or lucky beyond measure. That's why I liked Rogue One; they killed off characters, there was a general feel that being in the Republic is a dirty, dangerous position that will eventually kill you, but you can be a hero while you die.

Ohhh But its sooo subversive. They did kill of the majority of the idiots on the Ship of Fools whilst they sat around and played poker or something. Blame the Director - he made this gak.

Given the way Snoke's guards fight, it's pretty clear that fighting ability was not what they were hired for. There are at least two moments in the fight where Rey is DEAD as her attacker has a clear shot at her back and Kylo Ren is not close enough to save her. One of those comes when a guard with two daggers grabs her and holds her with his right arm... and his left arm is free and clear to stab her in the kidneys at least four times before Ren interferes.

That's three times more than is needed to be lethal, by the by.

But let's face it, bad fighting techniques is endemic not just to Star Wars, but Hollywood. This is just one of the worst examples of it IN Star Wars.

(But nothing will ever beat Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar, spinning their meter-long lightsabers around themselves and each other... while standing less than half that distance apart. Ugh!)

 Vulcan wrote:
.

(But nothing will ever beat Anakin and Obi-Wan on Mustafar, spinning their meter-long lightsabers around themselves and each other... while standing less than half that distance apart. Ugh!)

That is my most despised scene in the whole prequel trilogy. Not only are they twirling for no reason, but their stance is completely flat footed and off balance whilst they do so. Obi Wan just needed to give Anakin a little shove and then finish it with a coup de grace.

The OT duels may not have been twirly and flashy but at least the people involved know how to adopt a fighting stance with a stable centre of gravity. I am glad that the new trilogy lightsaber duels have gone back to that style.

I still contend the Vader/Luke duel in ESB was the best and most epically cool, especially around the corbonite freezer.