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Why do bombs drop in space? Well, sure they shouldn't. But without having seen a 'technical readout' of the Bomber itself, we don't actually know if it has some kind of grav motor or something to propel the bombs downward.

Everything else? Because Plot. There's lots of stuff in lots of films that happen Because Plot.

Resistance itself was never built up as a major galactic faction though. The Republic was. But the Resistance was pretty much a Black Ops affair, covertly supported by some in the senate.

Aren't people able to comment on a plot they don't enjoy?

Because plot isn't a 'get out of jail free' card.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Why do bombs drop in space? Well, sure they shouldn't. But without having seen a 'technical readout' of the Bomber itself, we don't actually know if it has some kind of grav motor or something to propel the bombs downward.

Everything else? Because Plot. There's lots of stuff in lots of films that happen Because Plot.

Resistance itself was never built up as a major galactic faction though. The Republic was. But the Resistance was pretty much a Black Ops affair, covertly supported by some in the senate.

If the bombs were being guided like missiles then they wouldn't need to fly directly over the target and release them. If it looks like a WW2 bomber then it probably is one. When you just saw how Y Wings work in the last film that is extremely jarring.

Yes, the plot requires a message to get from our surrounded heroes to the wall, to send a raven to Daenerys, so that she can fly with her dragons all the way up across thousands of miles in a few days to rescue our surrounded heroes. Are you saying thats also defensible on the grounds that the plot needed it to happen to enable a big set piece? A lot of people would maintain that is bad writing and the result of people not thinking things through. That can ruin suspension of disbelief.

In TFA Rey is constantly like "oh you're with the Resistance" as if even an uneducated scavenger on a backwater world knows who these people are. Hux and Snoke talk about them as if they are the primary and biggest threat to the First Order. The Republic itself is barely mentioned. If you had missed the blurb you would think the Rebels never won the Galactic Civil War. Indeed in the Last Jedi Holdo talks as if the Republic was never restored. They are depicted as those dudes with the fleet on those worlds and never get brought up again. So I think the focus has very much been on the Resistance as this nemesis to the FO and this credible rebellion.

I mean what gets me is if they really did not want to do anything with the New Republic and wanted essentially a continuation of the Galactic Civil War then why not just do that? Just say Endor wasn't a decisive battle and the Empire retained most of its territory? The war just simply carried on with the Rebel Alliance and a new caste of Imperial leader? This actually wouldn't change any aspect of the plot or themes explored in either film and would have made a lot more sense. They created a ton of plot problems for themselves in stating that the Imperial Fleet was destroyed at Jakku and the New Republic was able to dictate whatever terms it wanted; because it then requires you to explain how the FO came back. Saying the Rebels never won is a lot easier than saying they won and then giving a half-arsed explanation for the current setting.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm really thinking that a large part of the perceived problem is that none of us are kids anymore.

No, it's the opposite problem. There are many people who are children despite being grown adults- "manchild" is the unofficial term -and part of being a manchild is a massive emotional investment as an adult in franchises that one enjoyed as a physical child. An emotional investment so massive that cognitive dissonance utterly prevents them from being able to objectively critique a product on its own merits rather then the nostalgia that's tied within it.

There are a billion and one plotholes, contrivances and character feth-ups in the film. That doesn't mean that an individual can't ENJOY the film (I certainly did, to an extent). But to pretend that the poor writing just isn't there speaks to a pretty huge handwavium bias for a cherished franchise.

It's more people aren't keeping the same standard for the Original Trilogy.

OT? Why not use a Tractor Beam on the Falcon when it's fleeing Tatooine? The Empire had already been tipped off that the Droids they wanted were heading to that Docking Bay, and the Falcon fought it's way out. Would've knacked the whole trilogy, that.

How come The Death Star didn't detect the Falcon approaching and send some Fighters against it?

ESB? Shield Generator is down. Why begin a ground assault when the base is now vulnerable to a serious orbital bombardment? Hit the landing field and you cripple the Rebellion right there, and likely kill or capture it's entire high command.

Where was the ground support for the AT-ATs? That's a tactical blunder right there. We see a single AT-ST, but that's making no effort to engage the Snow Speeders at all.

Tow Cables? Well, isn't that convenient. Combat Airspeeders with a useful tow cable....that's incredibly long.

Luke does a Force Attract on his Lightsaber, but has never seen anyone do that trick before. Indeed, beyond the Jedi Mind trick, I don't recall Obi-Wan or Darth doing much force usage at all?

Cloud City. Soon as it's known the Carbon Freezing is feasible, why not have Leia and the others killed there and then? They were utterly defenceless. Why drag the deadweight along with you?

The Falcon escapes Bespin. How? Where was Vader's Star Destroyer? Why send only two fighters after it?

Why not track the Falcon as they did in A New Hope? It'd lead them this time to Rebel Fleet. Perfect time to give it a good shoeing.

All because plot. You can knock holes in most films if you're hypercritical and looking for flaws.

I agree the space battles (or the ground battle) made little sense, but this is something which is common in nearly all Star Wars movies. Battles of Return of the Jedi (both the space battle, and the Ewok scene) are particularly offensive.
Battles in Star Wars movies are just dressing, and details are designed as required to create tension. This is how it always has been.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It's more people aren't keeping the same standard for the Original Trilogy.

OT? Why not use a Tractor Beam on the Falcon when it's fleeing Tatooine? The Empire had already been tipped off that the Droids they wanted were heading to that Docking Bay, and the Falcon fought it's way out. Would've knacked the whole trilogy, that.

How come The Death Star didn't detect the Falcon approaching and send some Fighters against it?

ESB? Shield Generator is down. Why begin a ground assault when the base is now vulnerable to a serious orbital bombardment? Hit the landing field and you cripple the Rebellion right there, and likely kill or capture it's entire high command.

Where was the ground support for the AT-ATs? That's a tactical blunder right there. We see a single AT-ST, but that's making no effort to engage the Snow Speeders at all.

Tow Cables? Well, isn't that convenient. Combat Airspeeders with a useful tow cable....that's incredibly long.

Luke does a Force Attract on his Lightsaber, but has never seen anyone do that trick before. Indeed, beyond the Jedi Mind trick, I don't recall Obi-Wan or Darth doing much force usage at all?

Cloud City. Soon as it's known the Carbon Freezing is feasible, why not have Leia and the others killed there and then? They were utterly defenceless. Why drag the deadweight along with you?

The Falcon escapes Bespin. How? Where was Vader's Star Destroyer? Why send only two fighters after it?

Why not track the Falcon as they did in A New Hope? It'd lead them this time to Rebel Fleet. Perfect time to give it a good shoeing.

All because plot. You can knock holes in most films if you're hypercritical and looking for flaws.

In the films they don't establish Star Destroyers have tractor beams like they did in EU. Specific to Death Star.

Because they tractor it, assumed it wasn't a threat and wanted to know who knew about their location for information.

Most ships had already escaped by that point. You don't know that they didn't bombard the base; the cave system did seem to be shaking a lot.

They assumed they didn't need it because of Imperial Hubris. Stormtroopers wouldn't have helped with aircraft.

You use a tow cable for towing things. Perhaps they also use the speeders for towing things. Does what it says on the tin.

Because the force guides him to do it and it is more a question of willpower. Namely his determination not to give up and die in this cave. Plus ESB has a time jump so we are given room to infer Luke has done a bit of practice. Unlike Rey we see Luke practice and train in the first two films. Because there was no timeskip in LJ I can't infer "oh I guess Rey practiced swinging that thing around or found the helmet Luke used in Ep4". Its been like a few days since she left Jakku and she kills Snokes Praetorian Guard? Literally, all of the criticism of Rey could be avoided if they simply establish that she does practice and isn't winging it all the time. Little more than a basic formality, lip service, so we can all mentally tick that box in the back of our minds and get on with the business of her being awesome. But apparently it would belittle Rey as a character if she actually had to spend any time training. That's the issue. Its got nothing to do with "oh no powerful woman on screen. Hiss".

Interrogation for information. Trophies for the Emperor. Bait for Skywalker.

They weren't expecting the Falcon to escape and I think you see them pass Vaders Star Destroyer.

Wasn't that with a tracking device?

I was meaning the Falcon during the Death Star attack - I should've been clearer.

But do you see what I'm getting at here?

I've no problem with people being hypercrticial if they want to be - but your response above pretty much match my own when it comes to TLJ. It's off-screen knowledge. It's stuff not expressly shown on-screen in any of the films.

Not tracking the Falcon in ESB is the biggest blunder. We already know they can, and in a way that the crew of the ship can't detect (not this Ship, Sister). And we know they had plenty of time tinkering with the Falcon on Bespin.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Spoiler:

did Luke die a virgin?

No.

Spoiler:

Yoda Force feths him, then blows up the Jedi Temple.

Wrong! Don't you know that "Tashi Station" and "Power Converters" is code?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Not tracking the Falcon in ESB is the biggest blunder.

So you wanted them to disable the hyperdrive and install a tracking device?



In general I do get what you're saying. But what can be done about it? I wasn't born when ANH or ESB came out and I don't remember a time in my life when I hadn't seen them. There's no amount of critical analysis that will be able to override my childhood love of the films (even Jedi as it was the only one I had recorded off the telly so could watch whenever I liked).

Yes, it's unfair on the new Disney films that they don't have that same advantage. It was unfair on the prequels too. But what am I supposed to do about it? I can't just pretend (to myself) that I think they're brilliant and leave it at that. I don't know how to watch a film like I'm 5 years old again so that the more recent films get an even playing field.

Why not have a back up plan? Indeed, disabling the hyperdrive makes absolutely no sense.

Everyone that arrived upon the Falcon was in Imperial hands.

All I'm saying is that those who spend their time being hypercritical need to do the same across the entire saga. It's pointless to rag on the new film whilst ignoring similar oddities in the OT that they're lauding.

You're getting bogged down on minor technical details here.

IMO, the best way to judge a film is how it handles the big issues, the big questions, and Last Jedi failed spectacularly on these.

Snoke, Luke, Rey, Captain Chrome, and the Solo/Leia divorce questions were not answered.

Not sure there was a Han/Leia divorce question?

They were thrown together by War, and in peace time their personalities clashed too much to be together.

Line is something akin to 'we both went back to what we were good at'

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Snoke, Luke, Rey, Captain Chrome, and the Solo/Leia divorce questions were not answered.

While annoying as that may be, good story telling keeps that audience in suspense until the end of the tale. TLJ is the middle part of this particular tale, not the end and thus it has zero obligation to give any of those answers.
I, too, would have liked some clarification of some of the issues left open by TFA, but I cannot fault TLJ for not delivering them as it was not its job to do so.
Its job was to build the suspense to a crescendo and leave the audience wanting more. Clearly it achieved this goal as the movie was not only an edge of your seat entertaining watch, but by not answering those questions as well as raising more clearly leaves the audience wanting more

-

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure there was a Han/Leia divorce question?

How do we know they were married? Maybe they lived in sin for a few years! Maybe they eloped at Space Vegas! WE DON'T EVEN HAVE THAT BACKSTORY!

I mean the thing with Snoke is that they did make a big deal out of him:

* You had his presentation in TFA as the leader of the FO. This is clearly a powerful figure driving events. People will probably be curious about where the FO came from since they are the principal antagonists. Kylo did not found the FO.

* His deformed appearance tells a story and invites questions.

* The Visual Dictionary for the Last Jedi says that Snoke is "the mysterious figure behind the FO rise to power". In fact the word mysterious comes up again and again in descriptions of him made by Disney. You don't say he is mysterious unless you want people to be curious.

* JJ made a whole fuss over how "No Snoke isn't a Sith. Hes pulling Ren deeper into the darkness." Stuff like that will encourage people to look through the lore. That's where the "Oh hes one of the wills" comes from. So this is a question Disney itself posed.

* Andy Serkis and others kept stressing that Snoke was more powerful than Palpatine.

* RJ, I am pretty sure said before the film released that we would learn more about Snoke during the Last Jedi.

So I don't buy the excuse that "Disney never made a big deal out of Snoke.", "He was only ever a superficial character, the fans got worked up over nothing". They were clearly very fully aware that people were genuinely curious about the character and played up to that over the course of two years. At no point did they ever say "oh hes just a cookie cutter dark lord. This is Rens story first and foremost.". Snoke was really prominent in the trailers for the film. The implication being that we would see a lot more of him in this movie. That this would be where he stepped out of the shadows and revealed who he was. Disney and RJ are twisting events to suggest that they did not encourage fans to hype up Snoke.

Plus, think about it. If you know that this villain isn't important. That his backstory is not relevant to the plot and as RJ insists "we didn't have the time". But you do know that fans are very keenly interested. Then why not just write up a bio in TFA or LJ visual dictionary or some other external source before the films release? They were extremely cryptic in all the material released concerning this character. Somebody in the PR department at Disney screwed up. They had plenty of opportunity to just put that information out there and be done with it.

If it really is so irrelevant to the film then why not? So I think RJ and Disney didn't think this was going to really tick people off. They probably assumed this would simply add to speculation that they could maybe exploit with a comic at a later date and that it served getting people into theaters to retain that mystery about Snoke. The fans were basically hyping up the Last Jedi. So they chose to not write up any info about Snoke and that plan seriously backfired.

 kronk wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure there was a Han/Leia divorce question?

How do we know they were married? Maybe they lived in sin for a few years! Maybe they eloped at Space Vegas! WE DON'T EVEN HAVE THAT BACKSTORY!

Nor do we need it. Form the context of the story, we saw the love story of Han & Leia in the OT, we know that produced Ben Solo and that Han and Leia are no longer together, but still amicable.
We really do not need anymore. The only "clue" that they may have been married is Ben having the surname "Solo", which we cannot confirm in the SW continuity if they have the same traditions as us in which the wife takes the husbands last name. At best, all we know that sons take the last name of their fathers in SW

 Galef wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Snoke, Luke, Rey, Captain Chrome, and the Solo/Leia divorce questions were not answered.

While annoying as that may be, good story telling keeps that audience in suspense until the end of the tale. TLJ is the middle part of this particular tale, not the end and thus it has zero obligation to give any of those answers.
I, too, would have liked some clarification of some of the issues left open by TFA, but I cannot fault TLJ for not delivering them as it was not its job to do so.
Its job was to build the suspense to a crescendo and leave the audience wanting more. Clearly it achieved this goal as the movie was not only an edge of your seat entertaining watch, but by not answering those questions as well as raising more clearly leaves the audience wanting more

-

I think it's past the point of no return. I don't think those answers can be answered in IX.

If they turn round and say Rey's parents aren't really no good hustlers, that leaves the audience feeling cheated, because they were expressly told something else.

Rey's Mary Sue persona in TFA and her mastery of The Force, could only have 3 logical outcomes: mind wipe, Luke's daughter, or created by The Force itself.

She had none of those, because the director didn't give a damn

 Galef wrote:


Nor do we need it.

But was Chewie the best man?

Did Luke, being the only living clergyman in the church of Jedi, perform the service? And how did he not predict that they would divorce? Did he "have a bad feeling about this" and still do the service anyway.

Also, awkward as it is, did he also perform the annulment? If not, who else would have authority?

Did they throw space rice as the newly weds raced to the Aluminum Falcon to start their honeymoon at Space Bahamas?

Details, damn it!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure there was a Han/Leia divorce question?

They were thrown together by War, and in peace time their personalities clashed too much to be together.

Line is something akin to 'we both went back to what we were good at'

Total cop out in my book. Two of Star Wars' biggest and most iconic characters, and virtually no explanation on why their happy ending went sour? And having to buy a book or video game doesn't count.

It's script-writing 101, and both directors failed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:

 Galef wrote:


Nor do we need it.

But was Chewie the best man?

Did Luke, being the only living clergyman in the church of Jedi, perform the service? And how did he not predict that they would divorce? Did he "have a bad feeling about this" and still do the service anyway.

Also, awkward as it is, did he also perform the annulment? If not, who else would have authority?

Did they throw space rice as the newly weds raced to the Aluminum Falcon to start their honeymoon at Space Bahamas?

Details, damn it!

That's why last jedi had that Vegas style planet. It was a Vegas wedding

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure there was a Han/Leia divorce question?

They were thrown together by War, and in peace time their personalities clashed too much to be together.

Line is something akin to 'we both went back to what we were good at'

Total cop out in my book. Two of Star Wars' biggest and most iconic characters, and virtually no explanation on why their happy ending went sour? And having to buy a book or video game doesn't count.

It's script-writing 101, and both directors failed.

Having your only son commit multiple homicides will put a strain on your marriage.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm really thinking that a large part of the perceived problem is that none of us are kids anymore.

This is another classic argument of Prequel apologists.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Snoke, Luke, Rey, Captain Chrome, and the Solo/Leia divorce questions were not answered.

While annoying as that may be, good story telling keeps that audience in suspense until the end of the tale. TLJ is the middle part of this particular tale, not the end and thus it has zero obligation to give any of those answers.
I, too, would have liked some clarification of some of the issues left open by TFA, but I cannot fault TLJ for not delivering them as it was not its job to do so.
Its job was to build the suspense to a crescendo and leave the audience wanting more. Clearly it achieved this goal as the movie was not only an edge of your seat entertaining watch, but by not answering those questions as well as raising more clearly leaves the audience wanting more

-

I think it's past the point of no return. I don't think those answers can be answered in IX.

If they turn round and say Rey's parents aren't really no good hustlers, that leaves the audience feeling cheated, because they were expressly told something else.

Rey's Mary Sue persona in TFA and her mastery of The Force, could only have 3 logical outcomes: mind wipe, Luke's daughter, or created by The Force itself.

She had none of those, because the director didn't give a damn

Nonsense. Those are all constraints that you're placing upon the background.

It's shown, multiple times, that a Force user can (and usually is) born to non-sensitive parents. Because without that, the monastic and supposedly celibate Jedi order would've died out centuries ago.

Indeed, so far as I can tell, Luke and Leia are the exception for having an explicitly force sensitive parent.

So why shouldn't Rey be a nobody? Fan theories abounding don't count here, because they're based on wishful thinking rather than actual evidence.

Whether you love hate with The Last Jedi, you all have to admit, it is intriguing. Personally I hate it but several of my long time friends loved it. We were all fans of Star Wars and spent years collection action figures, t-shirts, and developing our own stories with the RPG by West End Games. One of my friends used to be the GM for a lot of our gaming sessions and looking back I can remember that their was a lot of goofing off in his games Silly things would happen a lot, but it didn't matter because we were having fun. Now when I was running the game I would take a more serious approach to the game. A lot of times my friends would do stupid things in the game and I admit sometimes it got me mad. Could this be why we have different opinions about TLJ? The new movie feels like the games one of my friends would run.

I admit after thinking about it, this reasoning makes sense to me. Now for everyone else I have no idea. Of course the sillyness isn't my only reason and anyone who agrees with me knows all of the reasons why (I think angry joe covers them really well).

Anyways I am not giving Disney anymore money but I do enjoy the people who hate the movie that make youtube videos about it. I feel like every video I watch is a little bit of money given to them instead of disney.

 Manchu wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I'm really thinking that a large part of the perceived problem is that none of us are kids anymore.

This is another classic argument of Prequel apologists.

By 'apologist' I assume you mean 'anyone whom I disagree with' yes?

 Galef wrote:
I, too, would have liked some clarification of some of the issues left open by TFA, but I cannot fault TLJ for not delivering them as it was not its job to do so.

Yes, it absolutely was - if for no other reason than because at least some of those issues were crucial to the story that comprised the movie. (Not to mention it is the sequel to TFA!)

It's the middle part of a trilogy.

We didn't know everything about everything by the end of ESB, did we?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By 'apologist' I assume you mean 'anyone whom I disagree with' yes?

No, by Prequel apologist, I mean someone who argues that the Prequels are fine movies because, among other reasons, they are held to unfair standards. In other words, an argument that shifts criticism of the movies to criticism of the audience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It's the middle part of a trilogy.

We didn't know everything about everything by the end of ESB, did we?

Unlike TFA, ANH was not built on a series of purposely unanswered questions. So there wasn't a mystery to solve in ESB.

There was something I forgot to mention in my previous post. I wonder, is it possible to edit the movie to where it is more acceptable? Something like The Phantom Edit of the Prequels, or The Tolkien Edit of the Hobbit Trilogy. Both of those were surprisingly very good. They trimmed both trilogies into a 90 minute Film that was very acceptable.

You could trim out Finn and Rose Completely. Basically never have Finn wake up. You could edit the Poe/Purple Hair scenes to where there is no mutiny and remove purple's hairs snarky comments. Basically you could make the slow death of the resistance look hopeless until Purple Hair sacrifices herself. Maybe even photoshop Ackbar's head on her. Because regardless of the plan or lack of plan the resistance did have a slow agonizing death. Leia would be tricky, perhaps you could cut out her space scene and just show that she survived and was in the medical room.

Leia should have been killed off when she got spaced. Or at least, she should not have woken up from her coma.