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 Galef wrote:
"Why can't a robot do it?"
Because the Empire (FO) doesn't waste fire on escaping vehicles with no life signs. That's why
They might think it just malfunctioned.

This was established in the very first SW movie. Come on guys. I thought you were SW fans!

 Manchu wrote:

@Galef

If the FO was scanning the Resistance ship for life signs, they would have noticed that the Resistance abandoned ship.

Prestor Jon wrote:
If the FO only fires on ships with life signs why can't the FO detect that all the life forms are leaving the ship? Wouldn't they notice the difference between thousands of life signs on the ship and only one?

 Scrabb wrote:
Yeah, that was a plot hole from the OT. Bit naff to only destroy escape pods with human life forms in a universe with droids. Because a droid can do most anything a meatbag could do.

That's kinda the point of the joke. The Empire didn't fire on the pod with Threepio and R2 because it had no life signs. So Holdo "had to stay on the ship" to make sure there was a life sign for the FO to keep firing at.
It's entirely ridiculous in both cases, but 100% Star Wars

-

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Is it really that much worse than TFA in people's minds or feelings?

I'd give TFA a B and TLJ a C-. TFA arguably had a tougher job, what with having to establish new characters and a new scenario. On the latter point, it was pretty weak - just recycling the basic premise of the original trilogy - but there was a promise of something fundamentally entertaining thanks to fresh, likeable characters. I thought TLJ could easily match TFA's entertainment value just by continuing on with the same likeable cast. I never imagined those characters would be split up, juxtaposed against new and unlikeable characters, and made to fail over and over again. Fortunately, TLJ managed to focus on Rey and Kylo and created some interesting moments between these two. However, it's hard to see how the situation has meaningfully developed. Instead of reaching out into a new direction, TLJ reaffirms Disney's extremely conservative strategy from TFA while abandoning the strengths of that approach (good pacing, clear themes).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
It's entirely ridiculous in both cases, but 100% Star Wars

I don't know what this means. Ridiculous = Star Wars?

Holdo actually explains why she has to stay on the ship during her conversation with Leia and it has nothing to do with life signs. I wish I could remember the exact line but she basically says she has to pilot the ship.

Ok, liking TFA and dislike TLJ.

I'll put myself down as one of those people, particularly having recently rewatched TFA (I've posted a bit about that earlier, so I'll try to avoid repeating myself.)

Broadly speaking, TFA I'd rank a 7. TLJ, maybe a 3.5.

In context, RoTJ a 8.5, ANH, 9, Rogue One and ESB a 10. Clones would be a 2, TPM a 1.

I wouldn't say that's a scale compared to every film I've ever seen ever but some sort of relative Star Wars scale or the like.

Anyhow...

I think it does kind of come down to that 'not subverting expectations' thing. TFA really felt, to me, that it had the spark of Star Wars magic to it. Maybe it's a music thing, I dunno. In any case, there's a different feeling to it.

Like, you have "The garbage will do" line and then there's the reveal of the Falcon with the classic motif. "Duh duh dun, duh dun, duh dah dah dah dah dun."

Or you have Han's "it's true, the force, the jedi, the light, the dark all of it is true" speech. There's the magic and wonder there.

Ok, sure, we do see that Han has fallen back to his old ways, but we still learn that he has developed and grown as a character. No more "hokey religion."


Contrast with TLJ. Ok, sure, the tossing the lightsaber away was kind of funny. But it also did something too. It tossed the magic away as well.

For all the talk of embers of hope in TLJ, the whole 'subverting expectations' thing felt like there was a running undercurrent of, "haha nerds, you actually are emotionally invested in this crap. Losers." that seemed to run through it.

And that contributed to some of the certain more traditionally magical scenes, not really ring true to me. - Like I said, I thought Yoda was some sort of Snoke force manipulation thing messing with Luke for ages.

And while the Binary Sunset at the end, with the boy feels like it should be a thing to cause the magical warm and fuzzies. It doesn't quite marry up with the almost sort of nihilistic, "well, this genre is a giant mess of dumb and you're dumb for caring about lots of this' that kind of feels like an undercurrent throughout much of the film.

I think chewing on this is why I end up being more against the film as time goes on.


If it weren't 3am, I'd also want to compare and contrast the "hope" taglines found in TLJ and comparing it to the same in "Rogue One" which, in my view, DOES feel genuine and DOES manage to keep that film holding the 'magic' of Star Wars, despite it being, ultimately, a war film where the bad guys manage to successfully murder the entire cast.

@Manchu: I am making a joke. Obviously it didn't land right.

 sebster wrote:
Holdo held information on their stealth escape to a need to know basis, and then expected lower ranked troops to do their job and obey orders. The mistake was with Poe and company for refusing to follow their orders and do their jobs.

I have a lot of complaints about R1 but one of them is definitely NOT that Jyn Erso and her pals disobeyed orders in order to get the Death Star plans.

To paraphrase Kilkrazy, this isn't a documentary about military hierarchy. The one and only reason Holdo doesn't tell anyone about her plan* or that she even has a plan is to make the audience suspicious of her/supportive of Poe, so that ultimately Poe can be wrong. People in the audience understand that they were tricked and they resent it. Naturally, they look for a way for Poe, a character they like, not to be dumb and wrong/not to have a seemingly unnecessary mutiny/sidequest to Disney World casino planet.

I'm sure Holdo's motive can and will be explained in a novel or a comic book. It doesn't matter because this moment doesn't land in the movie. The risk of pulling a fast one on the audience is that it'll feel like contempt rather than entertainment unless it's actually clever. This wasn't clever, at all.

*Well, I suppose you could also argue she was making a point that a female commander doesn't need to justify herself to male subordinates, but that's just as metatextual and nonsensical from an in-setting perspective.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
You said it yourself: without that background it makes no sense. So why discuss? This means that that information is necessary to attempt maintain a suspension of disbelief. I say attempt because most of this additional material is written by people desperate to make this preposterous stuff work.

You still can't see the distinction. You claimed what happened was impossible, that it couldn't be explained. It was possible, and there was even an explanation given the supporting materials to the film. The existence of that material doesn't invalidate the complaint that it should have been explained in the movie, but it does invalidate the complaint you made, that it couldn't be explained at all.

This is not how world-building works. If there is a discrepancy, is generally acknowledged. Say, two officers discussing it ("boy, we are going all in with the resources for this fleet").

No, world building isn't about setting up expositional dialogue for every bit of detail that may interest a fan. The suggestion you give is horrible writing. I mean, just imagine the rebels explaining their desperate plan to fire a torpedo down the exhaust port of the Death Star, and then they cut to a couple of storm troopers having a quick explanation about why the exhaust port can't be covered with a protective screen.

Also, this is not an answer. If people have problem with scale, pointing out at nonsense, discrepancies and whatnot, you cannot just write it down as a nonsense and call it an argument. If you don't have anything to advance the discussion, do not bother to answer.

That's a dishonest complaint. I didn't just say that's nonsense. I said 'that's nonsense, because', and then explained why it was nonsense.

But will eventually run out of the energy used. Also seeing that during the rebel attack with Poe they have to eat a star, is quite clear they run out of resources very fast.
Sorry, it does not hold water.

I literally just explained to you that Starkiller was mobile, and you ignore that and repeat your complaint. Please read what I actually write.

And again. "This wasn't shown clearly in the movies.". Why you people defend this stuff?

You're confused, again. I am not defending the movie, I am trying to bring some clarity to where the movie's problem lie, so there can be a sensible conversation. This means when you complain about Starkiller being dumb because it was a one-shot weapon, I will reply by pointing out it is nonsense to complain the weapon was a one-shot weapon, when the movie showed it charging for a second shot.

It isn't clear in the movie how it managed to prep for a second shot, which means that is a reasonable complaint.

I have another option: let's stop to use false comparison to defend a poorly written movie and a poorly built setting.

And there it is. You backed youself in to a corner, having originally complained that the FO grew too fast, I pointed out that historical empires did often expand quite rapidly over similar time periods. Not wanting to admit your complaint was false, you instead decided to claim that we can't use historic empires as a reasonableness check. Which led me to ask what we should use instead, real intergalactic empires?

Seeing your complaint disappear in to absolute silliness, instead of doing the honest thing and admit your complaint was poorly thought out, instead you just respond with a content free generalised complaint about the movie.

Are you aware of the scale? Reading the rest of what you wrote I suppose not. You are comparing the arrogance of a single man to the logistic of a galactic republic. You are really fond of comparisons that do not hold water. Also, since this is a republic, is I think less centralised in command so I guess the single guy that realised "uuh, we should probably not put all the eggs in one basket" was not force chocked to shut him up.

No, the idea of writing mistakes deliberately to be big, even foolish, doesn't change if you move from the individual to the organisation. Organisations can be written to be foolish as well. I can't even begin to understand why you'd try to argue otherwise.

And your rebuttal of my example, Palpatine fooling the whole Jedi order is completely incoherent. The Jedi Order isn't a single man.

This is what I answered above. Of course is not deliberate, but is so frequent it looks like it is.

Nope, that's gibberish. If you'd attempted it as a joke, then I could squint and pretend you knew what the word actually meant, and it just turned out as a misfiring joke, but there's no point pretending you were attempting a joke. You thought any pattern could be a leitmotif, because you didn't understand the actual meaning of the word.

And in fact, the Lone Ranger and John Carter got immediately 4 sequels planned each. I find it amusing that you keep bringing argument against your points.

You're confused, again. The idea that sequels are planned and then cancelled due to a poor box office is regular studio operations. Your earlier claim was that the parent company and its investors would notice the slight under-performance of a single film. That's an incredibly silly claim.

Hell, Whedon was canned for going 100m under.

Are you referring to Whedon leaving Marvel? He wasn't fired, your claim is false.

Nope, you are just dishonestly backtracking now.

Nope, it's what I said from the start.

 sebster wrote:

You still can't see the distinction. You claimed what happened was impossible, that it couldn't be explained. It was possible, and there was even an explanation given the supporting materials to the film. The existence of that material doesn't invalidate the complaint that it should have been explained in the movie, but it does invalidate the complaint you made, that it couldn't be explained at all.

If you ask me why lightnighs happen, and I answer "is the sky spirits". This is an explanation, but not a good one. You can cite books or just stuff pulled out your arse but is just incoherent stuff devoided of any logic. The fact that there is one, any explanation does not male the scene or situation worthy of consideration. This is an impressive lack of basic logic.

No, world building isn't about setting up expositional dialogue for every bit of detail that may interest a fan. The suggestion you give is horrible writing. I mean, just imagine the rebels explaining their desperate plan to fire a torpedo down the exhaust port of the Death Star, and then they cut to a couple of storm troopers having a quick explanation about why the exhaust port can't be covered with a protective screen.

World building is about setting up a believable and immersive world and these movies fail miserably at it. World building can happen in a smart way, using cinematic language (say the first shots in mad max fury road about the city, or you know, the first shots of ANH) or more awkwardly with exposition, especially if the writers are at the level of the ones we have to deal with now.
Also, nice strawman. Exposition (if really needed) does not necessarily mean LONG exposition.

That's a dishonest complaint.

So, the arguments are running out. Good.

I literally just explained to you that Starkiller was mobile, and you ignore that and repeat your complaint. Please read what I actually write.

Is mobile? When is said or shown? Has FTL travel? Who knows? I suppose I have to go and read a book.

You're confused, again. I am not defending the movie, I am trying to bring some clarity to where the movie's problem lie, so there can be a sensible conversation. This means when you complain about Starkiller being dumb because it was a one-shot weapon, I will reply by pointing out it is nonsense to complain the weapon was a one-shot weapon, when the movie showed it charging for a second shot.

"you are confused". I find amusing that you keep using condescending expressions, and yet you deny being condescending.
Also, you are being dishonest because the point was not about the single shot, but the limited amount of shots. Even if the SK base can shoot twice instead of once before running out of energy, this does not resolve the fundamental logistic problems pointed out. The shots are limited because during the rebel attack they have to absorb another star. How the planet gets there is swept under the rug. This is your level: you remain attached to pointless details but you are unable to grasp the big picture, while there is a big contradiction on a greater level.

And there it is. You backed youself in to a corner,

You are genuinely delusional.

having originally complained that the FO grew too fast, I pointed out that historical empires did often expand quite rapidly over similar time periods. Not wanting to admit your complaint was false, you instead decided to claim that we can't use historic empires as a reasonableness check. Which led me to ask what we should use instead, real intergalactic empires?

I already told you that you have no sense of scale. I don't care which comparison you want to use to explain this FO nonsense. Just use something else because the scale of the things involved is absolutely different. And even if there IS a plausible answer, this does not excuse this absolute parody of a good storytelling, because the jump between the end of RotJ and what we see shows a reversal of the situation that needs too many gap to be filled in a satisfactory manner and maintain immersion in the setting. So even if you find a comparison less preposterous of "guys, galactic empires and star destroyers work totally like germanic tribes and horses - see how well educated and well versed in history I am!" the story remains garbage.

Seeing your complaint disappear in to absolute silliness, instead of doing the honest thing and admit your complaint was poorly thought out, instead you just respond with a content free generalised complaint about the movie.

I leave this part here just because is perfect by itself - is a shining example of your complete lack of insight, especially in light of the criticism people already moved to you.
Bonus because we have 90 pages of thread in which the movie is picked apart on any level, from character and emotional investment to true nerdy stuff.
Amazing. Amazing.

No, the idea of writing mistakes deliberately to be big, even foolish, doesn't change if you move from the individual to the organisation. Organisations can be written to be foolish as well. I can't even begin to understand why you'd try to argue otherwise.
And your rebuttal of my example, Palpatine fooling the whole Jedi order is completely incoherent. The Jedi Order isn't a single man.

Y..you just used the writing of the prequels to reject my point? Today is not my birthday, man.
"Look, is not written like an incoherent mess! is more like THAT movie" *points at movie that is written like an incoherent mess*
It would be just amusing, but you are so smug about it it becomes kinda sad, to be honest.

Nope, that's gibberish. If you'd attempted it as a joke, then I could squint and pretend you knew what the word actually meant, and it just turned out as a misfiring joke, but there's no point pretending you were attempting a joke. You thought any pattern could be a leitmotif, because you didn't understand the actual meaning of the word.

You can research my posts concerning other matters, or just what I write if I am focused, to understand that is not the first time I used the word. Or that I use similar comparisons, even far-fetched.
Hell, I once compared GW's corporate behaviour to one of a Psychopath. One can disagree but as I said before, you are just not intellectually in the condition to behave in such dismissing way toward anyone involved in the thread.
Also I found at first amusing your determination in this particular, off topic matter. Then I remembered that this is your posting style. You dismiss people, poison the well because your own arguments are devoid of any susbtance. Only to backtrack cowardly when someone points it out.

You're confused, again. The idea that sequels are planned and then cancelled due to a poor box office is regular studio operations. Your earlier claim was that the parent company and its investors would notice the slight under-performance of a single film. That's an incredibly silly claim.

Are you suggesting that anyone with millions in Disney is indifferent to how a supposed cash-cow franchise is going? Are you for real? Not even asking questions to the management?

Are you referring to Whedon leaving Marvel? He wasn't fired, your claim is false.

Whedon butted heads with the execs, the movie got 100 less than estimated. Then he says he's done.
Pure coincidence, of course.

@Sebster

Sorry. I'll make an effort to leave the thread before getting too worked up.




:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Holdo couldn't have known that someone was going to exceed their authority and send someone else off to do a secret mission that was going to go wrong and so on, and so on.

It is only hindsight that tells you it would have been prevented if...

But they did know that people where trying to abandon the ship. She knew morale was low and that Poe was a hothead likely to take rash action, right?


I find it funny that the rebellion against the authoritarian regime has such a strict view on the role of subordinates and the privilege of the elite. Don't ask questions, soldier. Know your place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Overread wrote:
On the "just hyperdrive ahead" is easily explained. Hyperdrives likely can't work on short distances, so the First Order can't just leap ahead because the ship will leap so far ahead that the Rebel ship will run out of fuel before it even catches up. Similarly its space, so the Rebel ship could just take a change its angle; the First Order would have had to have built a net of additional ships ahead in order to block the path of the fleeting rebel ship.

It's a really good thing this is explained in the narrative, so that I have a reason to assume its validity. Instead of assuming it's a random internet-viewer's ass-pull to try to justify the bad writing and gloss over a plot hole larger than the Death Star.

Oh, wait, it is an internet-user's ass-pull to justify bad writing.

Oh. Back to square one.

It isn't explained why they don't just hyperdrive to the obelisk in 2001, so do you have no reason to assume that they are capable of doing so but decide not to? Sometimes the absence of people doing something indicates that such a thing is impossible without it needing to be said.

Nowhere, in any of the films, have we ever been shown a hyperdrive being used for short jumps. Why didn't the Star Destroyers chasing the Millennium Falcon in ESB jump ahead of it? Does ESB now have a huge plot hole? Or is it more likely that the reason they don't do that kind of manoeuvre despite multiple instances of where it would be useful is, despite it not being stated, that such a manoeuvre is impossible?

First of all, they did jump ahead of the Falcon in ESB. Don't you remember the scene where the Falcon makes the one star destroyer collide head on with the other two? That star destroyer was coming from...in front of the Falcon.

Second, in this very movie we see that Finnrose's shuttle is capable of popping out of lightspeed in orbit of Canto Bight. That is precise enough of a jump to plot a course to "ahead of the Raddus". If small jumps aren't kosher, then have the star destroyer jump out of system and then back into system. They had a whole day to work it out, and we know hyperdrives can jump again fairly quickly after a jump.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
That is nicely put, thanks, but why this film now? Is it really that much worse than TFA in people's minds or feelings?

For me, TFA was worse in every way. It broke the setting and characters even more than the prequels. TLJ broke those things, too, but it didn't affect me so much since the setting was already broken.

That star destroyer was not one following behind the falcon which then jumped ahead. In fact we are not shown that one jumping at all. It is part of Vaders squadron and the more likely answer is that it was already in the Hoth system but far enough out it could move to intercept at sublight speed.

Also, how far was Canto from where they initially jumped? Also, jumping to a fixed point in your nav computer (a planet) is different to trying to jump ahead of a fleet of vessels on no fixed course.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is that Star Wars is driven by dramatic and narrative tension rather than documentary logistical considerations.

To me it's the shear volume of plot points that hinged on silliness that was a problem. It was a distraction that occurred far too often through the film. It was just so clunky.

We get caught up arguing individual points where we can invent reasons for why, but arguing the individual points misses the overall complaint that it was jarring to have such a clunky narrative. You can get away with one or two or three things where the audience goes "huh, what? why? how?" but TLJ went too far IMO.

It ends up being like bad fan fiction, where you can see the author wants certain things to happen but can't think up a good logically sound backstory for them so things just happen because they happen and the only explanation for why they happen is because they need to happen for the story to function.

On the other hand a good writer and/or editor will pick up on things that drag the reader/audience out of immersion.

The Dreadnought not having guns to deal with a light fighter. The FO not having fighters scrambled at the same time. The fact the slow chase started at all. Holdo acting like an incompetent leader at a time of low morale. Finn and Rose being able to figure out in 10 seconds the details of the new technology that is allowing them to be tracked. The FO not just jumping ahead. The logical flaw of Rose saving Finn because she loves him after only being with him for a few hours... but dooming a whole bunch of other people at the same time. Finn and Rose somehow traversing the battlefield safely. Rey figuring out how to pick up heavy rocks just at the right time. Rey beating down on Luke, an experienced and trained Jedi master. Luke having a massive unexplained character change. That Luke's neighbours and all the life on his island somehow stayed hidden until the moment they need to be revealed for comic effect. Holdo having to stay on the ship. The hyperdrive jump being a hugely effective weapon for destroying big enemy ships. Rose saying "now it's worth it" or whatever it was after releasing the big horse like thingo.... which will probably be hunted down and killed/recaptured the next day or another one captured to replace it (not to mention she did nothing to save the slave kids). A big chunk of the plot relying on a miscommunication between a commander (Holdo) and a senior officer (Poe). Snoke, who appears to be the most powerful dark side user we've encountered who can apparently read minds and inject thoughts, not seeing his apprentice manipulating the sabre next to him.

And I probably missed some because it's been a few weeks since I saw the film now. Each one individually can be argued but that such a huge list exists in the first place is the problem.

When did Rey beat down on Luke? He beat her when she was using her staff and he was using a stick.

Then she pulled a lightsaber on him and he backed off, for good reason. We don't even know if Luke still has his green lightsaber at this point.

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable

Why must a human being, as opposed to a robot, remain on the ship when everyone else abandons it?

In Star Wars people usually do things because it is more dramatic, and they certaily do all the heroic things, because the audience identifies with people not with robots.

Luke defends the Falcon against with a B17 style set of turret guns, rather than a robot point defence system.
Luke drops un-guided torpedoes into the Death Star's thermal vent, instead of using infra-red homing missiles which would have guided themselves.
Han, and in later films Rey pilots the Falcon through tight, twisty tunnels without the benefit of terrain avoidance radar systems.

When robots do things in Star Wars it is a secondary, supporting role, and often a comedy act of some kind.

C3PO is humanoid, and talks like a prissy valet.
R2D2 saves the party by manipulating computer records, but also manages to electrify himself in a Laurel and Hardy style.
BB8 gets mistaken for a slot machine, and later uses the coins as a non-lethal weapon to save Finn and Rose.

The audience

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable

Why must a human being, as opposed to a robot, remain on the ship when everyone else abandons it?

In Star Wars people usually do things because it is more dramatic, and they certaily do all the heroic things, because the audience identifies with people not with robots.

Luke defends the Falcon against with a B17 style set of turret guns, rather than a robot point defence system.
Luke drops un-guided torpedoes into the Death Star's thermal vent, instead of using infra-red homing missiles which would have guided themselves.
Han, and in later films Rey pilots the Falcon through tight, twisty tunnels without the benefit of terrain avoidance radar systems.

When robots do things in Star Wars it is a secondary, supporting role, and often a comedy act of some kind.

C3PO is humanoid, and talks like a prissy valet.
R2D2 saves the party by manipulating computer records, but also manages to electrify himself in a Laurel and Hardy style.
BB8 gets mistaken for a slot machine, and later uses the coins as a non-lethal weapon to save Finn and Rose.

The audience

And in Rogue One K-2SO was probably the most effective member of the team, had a great character, good lines and "died" heroically.

They wanted the Admiral to sacrifice herself and set up a series of nonsensical situations to enable that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
@ Sebster

You really need to take a breath and a long hard look at your posts and realise how condescending they are. You talk about us getting angry - we didn't post this, now did we:

Holy fething gak feth. feth. I said in my first fething post that I thought those patriarchy reasons weren't right. I've corrected people each time they mistakenly assumed that I thought they were. Still people post stuff like that. fething stop it. fething read what I'm actually fething writing.

- change the feth words to what they actually are and thats a explosion of anger and insults. I donlt know why you are so hugely invested n this film or what need you have to justfiy it to yourself and to others but its probably going to give you an ulcer.

You've misread that completely. Like a lot of people, I use the word feth for lots of reasons. Here I was showing exasperation that after putting in my first post that I didn't think much of the patriarchy reason, people still chose to pretend that was my intent, and then they continued to pretend that was the case even as I repeatedly told them otherwise.

I am sorry but not knowing you or your mind/ intent (and not being rude enough to pretend I do) I saw a series of expletives aimed directly at those you were arguing with - how else was I supposed to read it? Imagine if you had said that to the person in public.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The Dreadnought not having guns to deal with a light fighter.

It's a siege ship. Real life monitors had no lighter guns either, is that bad storytelling too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Clive-class_monitor

The FO not having fighters scrambled at the same time.

They have incompetent, ill-experienced officers thanks to rapid expansion. They are also led by buffoon picked for zeal, not competence. The only good commander they had wanted ships scrambled. How the movie doesn't show you all that?

The fact the slow chase started at all.

I see this complaint all the time and it doesn't make any sense. In all of old SW canon, you needed to detect a star or planet to exit hyperspace with any accuracy. Microjumps are not possible, which is why Rebellion was so shocked when Thrawn started doing them using his Interdictors on battlefield to direct his ships with fake planet-like gravity. He still needed a help of dark jedi master to do it with any accuracy, though. Did any of the complainers ever read any SW books at all?

Holdo acting like an incompetent leader at a time of low morale.

Need to know. She is veteran of old rebellion, when traitors were common, and she suspects they have a traitor aboard right now. Why she should tell a plan to someone who frakking blabbed all their secrets to enemy last movie (and pissed away her bomber wing ignoring orders in this one) when there is zero reason to?

Note that Poe is an idiot who blabbed the evacuation plan to Finn over unsecured channel leading to deaths of all people in shot down transports, and that the other rebels don't act surprised when Holdo orders fueling of the transports - which means this was not in any way secret plan, everyone who needed to know did. Why Holdo needs to tell it to one moron who has nothing to do with it? Because he has 'protagonist' written on his forehead?

Finn and Rose being able to figure out in 10 seconds the details of the new technology that is allowing them to be tracked.

Yeah, rebel technician and someone who actually worked for the other side figuring out stuff they had reasons to know about (unlike other rebels) makes no sense

The FO not just jumping ahead.

See above.

The logical flaw of Rose saving Finn because she loves him after only being with him for a few hours... but dooming a whole bunch of other people at the same time.

So love is logical now? What? If you actually watched this movie, you'd see she was also very socially inept, and Finn was first person who shown real interest in her. How is it so difficult to follow?

Rey figuring out how to pick up heavy rocks just at the right time.

If you ignore whole training she had, yeah, only suddenly figuring out

Rey beating down on Luke, an experienced and trained Jedi master.

He stopped using force. Yet, he was holding his own until she pulled a lightsaber. What?

Luke having a massive unexplained character change.

He literally lost the child of his sister to dark side and saw him murder all the other apprentices. He failed in the same way Obi-Wan did, and it was way worse for him, because it was personal. How it was unexplained?

Snoke, who appears to be the most powerful dark side user we've encountered who can apparently read minds and inject thoughts, not seeing his apprentice manipulating the sabre next to him.

I like how people complain about one of the most beautiful points of the movie. Yes, he can read minds. That's why he failed. Kylo synchronized moving his hand and emotions on both lightsabers, showing Snoke what he wanted to see, then lit the 'wrong' one. In literally every single SW movie, the flaw of the darksiders is overconfidence and being blinded by their own strenght. What, Kylo was supposed to then face audience and run midichlorian-like exposition why his trick worked?

You know, I am reading TLJ criticism and I am more and more puzzled. All the complainers want is actually in the movie, it's just shown, not told in midichlorian-like exposition telling you why Anaking build C-3PO out of junk parts that were scrapped thanks to rise in general poverty due to trade federation tax debacle caused by the deadlock in the senate caused by the Sith, like prequels did, ineptly. All the dots are there, you just need to connect them - and it genuinely seems to me complainers didn't pay attention in the cinema, like, at all. Especially the bits about no awe and wonder. Force is being back to being mystical power like in TOT, instead of midichlorian fodder, Yoda is again trolling, wise jedi master, instead of bad CGI puppet with bad lines, the scenery and direction is breathtaking, places we see feel like genuine alien worlds, not cheap stages, what exactly this movie lacked in the wonder department that literally all other SW movies didn't do worse?

Did the movie needed more exposition? It was pretty long as it is, and I don't think it would have helped any. I actually liked lack of 'as we both know, let me just repeat that bit of data for no reason' scenes. Everything had a purpose, served to grow characters in some way. Poe not getting told stuff and the disasters he caused let him grow better suited to command role he will probably have in next movie. Note how he called off speeder attack when he saw it was useless, when Poe from the start of the movie would have thrown more good money after bad. Rey faced her fears - the scene in the cave was beautiful callback to EP V. Luke saw his greatest fear, Vader. Rey also did, her greatest fear being alone. Not Kylo, she bested him once already. Not Snoke, she didn't know anything about him. Her greatest fear was being orphaned and left alone. Abrams would probably waste the scene on cheap laser sword fight, what this movie did was genius in comparison. Even Finn learned his kamikaze-like determination to strike back on FO might not be a good idea. I have no idea how you can see all the massive amounts of thought that went into all this and rate the film 3 because the writer didn't whack you over the head with script and exposition every 5 minutes. It would made the movie worse, not better. TLJ is easily top 5 SW movie of all time, I'd even possibly rate it higher than TFA or RotJ.

 Irbis wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The Dreadnought not having guns to deal with a light fighter.

It's a siege ship. Real life monitors had no lighter guns either, is that bad storytelling too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Clive-class_monitor

I can't be bothered going through all these points as they've been discussed on the past 80 or so pages already and I don't feel like rehashing them again. The point wasn't the points themselves but that rather they were jarring WTF moments in the story.

But did you look at the dates of the wiki article you linked?

In commission: June 1915 - 1927

Effective fighter and bomber planes has been around how long when that ship was built? I'm not sure effective bombers existed at all when it was built. Starfighters have existed for how many millennia by the time the FO is building the dreadnought?

Also the dreadnought is MASSIVE. It needs to function more like an entire fleet would in the modern world. You can have individual combat ships that don't have light guns if they always sail next to ships that do. That doesn't apply to dreadnoughts that are the size of a small country as it'll be out of the range of support ships.

I can imagine the engineers first meeting.

Intern Engineer: So I designed this MASSIVE ship, look how MASSIVE it is! It's going to take millions of man hours to make and have a crew of thousands!
Senior Engineer: Cool, so what guns does it have?
Intern Engineer: Some really big planet bombardment ones and some to take out enemy destroyers!
Senior Engineer: So where are the light guns?
Intern Engineer: Oh it doesn't need them.
Senior Engineer: Oh ok, so will it be impenetrable to fighter level weaponry?
Intern Engineer: Nope.
Senior Engineer: Ok, I see no problem here. Lets go ahead with the build!

These were all just "wtf, why?" moments for me. As I said, it's like bad fan fiction. They want to do something (heroic fighter pilot taking on a dreadnought!) without thinking through the reasoning.

You can invent reasons to make them work but it's the difference between a well written story and badly written one.

It isn't the difference between a well-written story and a bad one. it is the difference between hard SF and space fantasy.

If those were WTF moments for you, have you enjoyed a single one of the Star Wars films?

They are all like this, full of stuff that doesn't make practical sense but makes visually dramatic and exciting cinema.

I actually was ok with the Dreadnought for reasons I hated much of the nonsense later.

The Dreadnought does have AA guns but these are knocked out by Poe.
The fact that it does not have fighter cover is called out by its commander and also shown to be stupid because the ship is destropyed,
Fighters in Star Wars are devestating against captial ships - confirmed here

However this makes the crap we have on screen later much much worse:

1.The Rebel Ship of Fools is almost destroyed by 3 fighters - it had no fighter cover itself depsite just showing how powerful they are. Two Imperial pilots are killed (good exchange for destroying a hanger bay full of fighters and the command bridge) and the important guy is called back.
2.They Imperials now don't launch any fighters to finish the job because - nope no reason - just a poor director, there is no taunting, no officer saying - should we not finish them Sir, nothing - they just plot along behind the Ship of Fools wake so the Director can indulge in Casino World Aventures and his even more stupid Mutiny plot.
3.The rebels have mutiple ships that are all hyperspace capable, do they consider splitting up - nope the Admiral just smirks a bit and implies she has a plan. Awesome. Some of the crew may be mliatary and used to obeying orders but the whole point is that the reblsl are a rag tag bunch isn;t it some of whom might need hey i donlt know maybe some motivation. But no the Director/ Writters are not that competant.
4. The Bumbling twosome blunder off to Casino world and have an exciting adventure where they manage to release some horses. their "love story" is about as convincing as padme and Ani.
5. The Imperial fleet still trduges behind the Ship of Fools, doesn;t launch fighters, fires their apparently crappy guns occassionally to give the CGI people something to do and play cards or something. This continues until half the audiaence is hopefully dozing so they won't notice how stupid the mutiny plot is
6. The Mutiny plot. Poe does something depserate and arguably stupid, but in keeping with the whole rebel ethos. Gets slapped down but because the Admiral and Leia think he is cute - walks away - I am sorry what?
7. The Ship of Fools crew goes off to the remaing hanger where the crappy, no hyperspace but super stealth transports are located and blast off.
8. The First Order Ships notice nothing - Really!.... The Admiral acting as decoy does not immediately jump away to lure the FO away but instead plods along - because - - nope no reason.
9. The Ship of Fools turns around, no one notices, the ISDs throttle back or something so they can;t get into range.
10.The Fo get told to turn their sensors on - Really!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh look rebels escaping -
11.The Ship fires it super guns (but surprisngly ineffecive against the Ship of Fools) at the transport who fly in a straight line to make the enemy gunnery easier - cos thats how they roll
12. Admiral decides - hey maybe I will just ram the big ship and apparently its the most powerful weapon anyone ever had.

Sheesh

 Mr Morden wrote:
I actually was ok with the Dreadnought for reasons I hated much of the nonsense later.

Yeah and I'm fine that some people were fine with it. I personally wasn't satisfied with the reasons given in the film to explain the lack of light guns capable of taking out a fighter and also not launching fighters immediately. Some things are just a given - like having light guns to deal with light aircraft and launching fighters in a warzone. This is stuff we figured out almost immediately after aircraft became effective war machines and in the Star Wars universe starcraft have been effective war machines for literally thousands of years.

It was one of many "wtf" moments for me which stopped the story from drawing me in.

If that were the ONLY issue I had with the film I would just shrug it off.

I think I have finally worked out why I didnt like this movie....


I was bored, normally I would not get up and go grab a drink or something in a movie, but in this one, I didnt even think twice about it, I remember the little exchange at the start of the film and had a little chuckle, then it dragged on, then we had the bomber scene and I thought meh!, as the film went on I kept thinking "the republic fleet will turn up anytime now!"

Never happened, ok, the film went on and I got more and more bored, even to the point I got out my phone (I was at the back dont worry), glancing up anytime I heard something interesting happening, saw space leia do her thing and thought "WTF is this crap now?" not because of the jedi stuff, but the space stuff, how long was she out there???

movie rolls on and other stuff happens, casino stuff, animal rights stuff, rich people are evil stuff, picked up some fella stuff, heading home stuff, then back to the chase.... that would never end.... space and all that jazz again, Captain Pink hair I immediately hated due to breaking the chain of command in a crisis situation (I work for the military) and she continued to be a horrible character, but I think disney intended that... I hope, I even saw her "sacrifice" as a cowards way out, since she would have been court martialed anyway, but thats here nor there! non with the story!

then we have the hyperspace torpedo moment, it was really pretty, looked cool, then my brain kicked in and went "feth off, do they even know how that would work??"

moving on the the salty planet that is also red! something happens... imperials land, rebels hide in a mountain, they sally out in land speeders, driving right at the gorrila at-ats.... the asian chick falls on love with the black fella somehow ?? but he doesnt look interested, Brutal, um, look turns up, but doesnt ?? when he came on camera I was like "he had a hair cut, dyed his beard and got some new rags, good job, groomed before the battle!"

he walks out and gets shot by lots of big monkey At-ats, walks out, at this point i was "oh feth yes! luke is about to go to town on these bitches!" Kylo drops down after another tantrum, goes to fight luke and i thought "ah, he is gonna let him kill him, ben Kenobi moment" nope, its an illusion, the rebels escape....

movie ends and luke lays down for a nap, some kid gets a broom with the force.

So after all that, Rey.... meh, poe.... meh, Kylo.... I actually didnt mind him in this film oddly, cant even remember the rest of the casts names, and there in lies the problem with this film for me, it was utterly forgettable, it treated me in the same manner and Start trek, it felt like the director was sitting there on my shoulder and calling me a slow over and over again, I felt insulted it was so boring and even now I am struggling to remember a good moment from it.

This is not some SJW crap, this isnt overanalysing the movie, this is just my impression of it, it was just a bad film, I think the thing that is making it worse though is it was a bad film called STAR WARS!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
That star destroyer was not one following behind the falcon which then jumped ahead. In fact we are not shown that one jumping at all. It is part of Vaders squadron and the more likely answer is that it was already in the Hoth system but far enough out it could move to intercept at sublight speed.

Also, how far was Canto from where they initially jumped? Also, jumping to a fixed point in your nav computer (a planet) is different to trying to jump ahead of a fleet of vessels on no fixed course.

Solar systems are huge. A second, wider net of Star Destroyers would have taken a huge number of ships to be worthwhile. It turns out it is actually two star destroyers who show up, and they seem to catch the heroes by surprise. We don't see them jump in, but they are coming towards a fleeing Falcon head on, so they either jumped in or outran the Falcon and turned around. Either way, there is no plot hole there--we see the Empire use its fleet to get ahead of their prey in exactly the manner that the FO DOESN't.

 Formosa wrote:
I think I have finally worked out why I didnt like this movie....


I was bored, normally I would not get up and go grab a drink or something in a movie, but in this one, I didnt even think twice about it, I remember the little exchange at the start of the film and had a little chuckle, then it dragged on, then we had the bomber scene and I thought meh!, as the film went on I kept thinking "the republic fleet will turn up anytime now!"

Never happened, ok, the film went on and I got more and more bored, even to the point I got out my phone (I was at the back dont worry), glancing up anytime I heard something interesting happening, saw space leia do her thing and thought "WTF is this crap now?" not because of the jedi stuff, but the space stuff, how long was she out there???

movie rolls on and other stuff happens, casino stuff, animal rights stuff, rich people are evil stuff, picked up some fella stuff, heading home stuff, then back to the chase.... that would never end.... space and all that jazz again, Captain Pink hair I immediately hated due to breaking the chain of command in a crisis situation (I work for the military) and she continued to be a horrible character, but I think disney intended that... I hope, I even saw her "sacrifice" as a cowards way out, since she would have been court martialed anyway, but thats here nor there! non with the story!

then we have the hyperspace torpedo moment, it was really pretty, looked cool, then my brain kicked in and went "feth off, do they even know how that would work??"

moving on the the salty planet that is also red! something happens... imperials land, rebels hide in a mountain, they sally out in land speeders, driving right at the gorrila at-ats.... the asian chick falls on love with the black fella somehow ?? but he doesnt look interested, Brutal, um, look turns up, but doesnt ?? when he came on camera I was like "he had a hair cut, dyed his beard and got some new rags, good job, groomed before the battle!"

he walks out and gets shot by lots of big monkey At-ats, walks out, at this point i was "oh feth yes! luke is about to go to town on these bitches!" Kylo drops down after another tantrum, goes to fight luke and i thought "ah, he is gonna let him kill him, ben Kenobi moment" nope, its an illusion, the rebels escape....

movie ends and luke lays down for a nap, some kid gets a broom with the force.

So after all that, Rey.... meh, poe.... meh, Kylo.... I actually didnt mind him in this film oddly, cant even remember the rest of the casts names, and there in lies the problem with this film for me, it was utterly forgettable, it treated me in the same manner and Start trek, it felt like the director was sitting there on my shoulder and calling me a slow over and over again, I felt insulted it was so boring and even now I am struggling to remember a good moment from it.

This is not some SJW crap, this isnt overanalysing the movie, this is just my impression of it, it was just a bad film, I think the thing that is making it worse though is it was a bad film called STAR WARS!

Brilliant summary - pretty much my experience especially boredom thoughout the mid section.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It isn't the difference between a well-written story and a bad one. it is the difference between hard SF and space fantasy.

If those were WTF moments for you, have you enjoyed a single one of the Star Wars films?

They are all like this, full of stuff that doesn't make practical sense but makes visually dramatic and exciting cinema.

They are not all like this. Not at all. Only the prequels and sequels are like this, and they are widely disliked. (Well, Jedi also has a lot of issues, but at least wraps up the trilogy.). Do you really believe the original Star Wars and Empire are the same poor quality as the rest?

It would not need to be a huge numbers of ships if said ships are fast enough to effectively adopt intercept courses. Which some Star Destroyers are, such as the one which chased the Millennium Falcon above Tatooine (which was gaining on it prior to the Falcon going to lightspeed). Hence why the Falcon resorts to a 90 degree turn to change the axis of its velocity, making use of its greater manoeuvrability.

And again, there is no evidence they jumped into the system immediately ahead of the Falcon. If they could jump into the system immediately in front of the Falcon, why wouldn't they do that and be immediately in tractor beam range? As opposed to jumping into a fixed point near the Falcons current projected path and then move at sublight velocity back towards them.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It isn't the difference between a well-written story and a bad one. it is the difference between hard SF and space fantasy.

If those were WTF moments for you, have you enjoyed a single one of the Star Wars films?

They are all like this, full of stuff that doesn't make practical sense but makes visually dramatic and exciting cinema.

They are not all like this. Not at all. Only the prequels and sequels are like this, and they are widely disliked. (Well, Jedi also has a lot of issues, but at least wraps up the trilogy.). Do you really believe the original Star Wars and Empire are the same poor quality as the rest?

Why doesn't the Millenium Falcon have robot guns?
Why doesn't the Rebellion attack the thermal exhaust with heat-seeking missiles?
Why do Stormtroopers wear expensive armour that doesn't even stop pistol shots?
Why does Chewbacca carry a blaster that looks like a crossbow?
Why does the Empire use gigantic walking tanks modelled on elephants?
Why does the Rebellion defend its base against them with guns incapable of penetrating their armour?
Why do the Rebel snowspeeders have harpoon guns?

Because of the Rule of Cool. All of the films are like this.

Let's all not forget that SW is NOT Science Fiction, it's Fantasy in space.

 Galef wrote:
Let's all not forget that SW is NOT Science Fiction, it's Fantasy in space.

Yes indeed but my problem was that it was not "Cool" many of the elements were (to me) stupid, lazy, or dull.

I love fantasy films and one of my major gripes with film critics is how much they tear them apart due to plot holes - now when these appear in this film - apparently they are all just part of a glowing glorious vision of perfection.

Really.

The narrative, pacing characters, plot and event the action is far weaker in TLJ than any of the fantasy films I watched and enjoyed this year. Even Geostorm was better than this crap.

 Galef wrote:
Let's all not forget that SW is NOT Science Fiction, it's Fantasy in space.

Its a Fantasy Sci Fi, or sci fi fantasy, the Science Fantasy genre hasnt really been ever clearly defined like Sci Fi and Fantasy has, but people normally go "space ships! Sci Fi!" or "Orcs! Fantasy!"

There is a general recognition of Hard SF, which extrapolates from contemporary knowledge of scientific laws. For example, ships can't move faster than light, but life extension through telomere editing may be possible, or simultaneous interstellar communication using quantum entanglement.

Star Wars doesn't fall into this genre.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It isn't the difference between a well-written story and a bad one. it is the difference between hard SF and space fantasy.

If those were WTF moments for you, have you enjoyed a single one of the Star Wars films?

They are all like this, full of stuff that doesn't make practical sense but makes visually dramatic and exciting cinema.

They are not all like this. Not at all. Only the prequels and sequels are like this, and they are widely disliked. (Well, Jedi also has a lot of issues, but at least wraps up the trilogy.). Do you really believe the original Star Wars and Empire are the same poor quality as the rest?

Why doesn't the Millenium Falcon have robot guns?
Why doesn't the Rebellion attack the thermal exhaust with heat-seeking missiles?
Why do Stormtroopers wear expensive armour that doesn't even stop pistol shots?
Why does Chewbacca carry a blaster that looks like a crossbow?
Why does the Empire use gigantic walking tanks modelled on elephants?
Why does the Rebellion defend its base against them with guns incapable of penetrating their armour?
Why do the Rebel snowspeeders have harpoon guns?

Because of the Rule of Cool. All of the films are like this.

the falcon also forgets where it's guns are, top & bottom in ep 4, in the front for ep 6 with no gunners in the guns han & luke used, then back to top & bottom for ep7

the hoth scene makes sense actually, think back to many of the gun control conversations we've had. if any group actually rebelled against the government, do you think they would have access to weapons to stop a tank? Nope, the underdogs are always under equipped, it makes their win that much more impressive. Plus if you're always on the run the big guns probably get left behind.

the speeders probably had cables to pull the other vehicles out of the snow




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Irbis wrote:


Need to know. She is veteran of old rebellion, when traitors were common, and she suspects they have a traitor aboard right now. Why she should tell a plan to someone who frakking blabbed all their secrets to enemy last movie (and pissed away her bomber wing ignoring orders in this one) when there is zero reason to?

Note that Poe is an idiot who blabbed the evacuation plan to Finn over unsecured channel leading to deaths of all people in shot down transports, and that the other rebels don't act surprised when Holdo orders fueling of the transports - which means this was not in any way secret plan, everyone who needed to know did. Why Holdo needs to tell it to one moron who has nothing to do with it? Because he has 'protagonist' written on his forehead?

But then after Poe mutiney's she decides he's leadership material ???

She doesn't trust him with the escape plan, but trusts that moron to lead the rebellion?

I've stated why she needed to tell him a few times now, and in not doing so makes her the worst admiral in existance. It's hard to inspire confidence in your crew when you treat them like slaves.

sirlynchmob wrote:


the falcon also forgets where it's guns are, top & bottom in ep 4, in the front for ep 6 with no gunners in the guns han & luke used, then back to top & bottom for ep7

Eh, the Falcon is the kind of ship which would have multiple weapon setups, to make it unpredictable. Such as the blaster cannon that drops out the bottom to fire on the Snowtroopers as it is powering up to escape from Echo Base.