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.

Saw the movie yesterday. Definitely had likes and dislikes about it. Overall was pretty happy with it.

Didn't like the Poe and Holdo thing because in general I dislike it when huge plot points just come down to an odd lack of communication.

Luke just seemed odd to me, it's been a while since I last saw the original trilogy but he just didn't seem like a realistic portrayal of an older version of that character. I dunno, haven't put a lot of thought in to it I guess it just sort of threw me while watching it.

Rey, eh, I don't hate her as a character but I'm also not sure why I'm supposed to like her and she still feels a bit shallow.

There were other niggles here and there but for the most part I liked it.

 Manchu wrote:
Unfortunately, one of those questions was Why should the audience care about the protagonist?

What answer do you need beyond 'They're likeable/relateable/kickass and I want to see how things work out for them?'

Backstory is nice, but in no way essential to caring about the protagonist.


Obviously, if you don't like the protagonist, or relate to them, or are inspired by them, then that's not likely to result in an enjoyable movie experience for you... But in that case, I'm not sure that the movie making sure you know where they buy their shoes is necessarily going to fix that.

Have seen it twice now, was unsure at first but loved it all the more after the second viewing mainly because the Canto Bight section seems to go a lot quicker (Is Nick Frost of Spaced, Sean of The Dead, Sean Peggy friend etc one of the guards?).

The only thing that truly jars me is the scene just after Rey and Kylo have their first Force Connection and she blows a hole in the hut. Luke's "what is that?" line and the jump cut to 4/5 fish caretakers seems like the stuff of acid flashbacks.

 Peregrine wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
I'm pretty sure the vast majority of negative opinions are from people that read the EU. I doubt it could be proven either way, but that's my gut feeling.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of positive opinions are also from people that read the EU. This is a geek forum, most people here have probably read at least some of the EU.

But for the general population I suspect it's also true. Most of the people who haven't read any of the EU haven't done so because they're casual fans, or even people who don't consider themselves fans at all and just went to see the movie because it's the big one for the weekend. They're unlikely to have negative opinions because they're unlikely to care at all. Rey's origin doesn't make sense? Who cares, did you see how awesome that fight scene looked? Meanwhile the people who know enough about the IP to talk about things like story themes have probably been invested enough to read some EU stuff.

Not read anything of the EU so my dislike of the film had nothing to do with - more the terrible pacing and story.

I liked Rey and Ben, liked the pilot guy and Leia and Luke were good, I didn't even mnd the red headed minon commander - he was quite fun.

The rest was either forgettable or tediously lenghened or completely stupid - lets go to Casino world for instance or the pointless star destroyers, the lack of fighters doing anything after the first action scene and Ben had proved that the Rebel ships were vulnerable to them. It was just lazy writing.

 Mr Morden wrote:
the lack of fighters doing anything after the first action scene and Ben had proved that the Rebel ships were vulnerable to them.

This was specifically explained. The imperial officer says "fall back, we can't cover you from here" as the rebel ships pull away, and Kylo's wingmen immediately get shot down. The fighters are obviously depending on some kind of suppressing fire effect from the capital ships keeping the AA guns from wiping them out, launching a mass fighter attack would just be throwing away fighters on a suicide run.

That bit does rank pretty highly in the 'list of poorly written plot contrivances' actually. I can see why Hux would want to protect Kylo but not being willing to sacrifce even a hundred minionish TIE pilots to knock out the cruiser's engines thereby ending the entire Resistance there and then is both poor military judgement and not only goes against the very doctrines of the Galactic Empire but also the entire philosophy of cartoonish movie villainy.

But hey, we needed that slow-paced space chase taking up an hour of the running time!

Odd though, does Hux truly want to protect Kylo? I think time and again the friction between the two has been made obvious. I love the scene in Snoke's room when he nearly pulls his blaster on Ren.

 Riquende wrote:
That bit does rank pretty highly in the 'list of poorly written plot contrivances' actually. I can see why Hux would want to protect Kylo but not being willing to sacrifce even a hundred minionish TIE pilots to knock out the cruiser's engines thereby ending the entire Resistance there and then is both poor military judgement and not only goes against the very doctrines of the Galactic Empire but also the entire philosophy of cartoonish movie villainy.

But hey, we needed that slow-paced space chase taking up an hour of the running time!

But could they actually have done it? Remember, the cruiser's shields were focused aft to protect against the capital ships, presumably leaving the front poorly defended at best and possibly not shielded at all. And they're targeting an exposed hangar bay and an exposed window, not armored hull like it has around the engines. Sacrificing some fighters to win the fight is an acceptable trade perhaps, if you aren't confident in the inevitability of your victory. Sacrificing some fighters to inflict more superficial damage while failing to accomplish any greater goal is pointless.

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:
Odd though, does Hux truly want to protect Kylo? I think time and again the friction between the two has been made obvious. I love the scene in Snoke's room when he nearly pulls his blaster on Ren.

Snoke is still about at that point isn't he? Even if he personally doesn't care too much for him he'd know he'd be blamed if he didn't take steps to at least warn Kylo that he's exposed.

And yes, the swiftly hidden blaster part was excellent, although quite we we didn't have any time for a 'Rey dramatically escaping though a collapsing ship to safety' sequence at that point is a question... oh wait, it's because we filled up the running time on all that slowly flying through space stuff and you can't cut that. Best just have her suddenly back on the Falcon 20 minutes later gunning stuff down and whooping excitedly. Almost as if her immedately previous encounter had no effect on her whatsoever.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
the lack of fighters doing anything after the first action scene and Ben had proved that the Rebel ships were vulnerable to them.

This was specifically explained. The imperial officer says "fall back, we can't cover you from here" as the rebel ships pull away, and Kylo's wingmen immediately get shot down. The fighters are obviously depending on some kind of suppressing fire effect from the capital ships keeping the AA guns from wiping them out, launching a mass fighter attack would just be throwing away fighters on a suicide run.

I understood that bit as "I don't want Kylo killed (or steeling all the glory on his own))"- there was no sign of any suppressive fire - the big ships fired its big guns every so often and the Star destoryers just bumbled aliong doing sweet FA.

Neither the First Order or the Imperials before would have cared about loosing a few dozen fighters.

If they had blasted loads of them in the massively successfulfirst attack run that Kylo and his wingman made then fine but they can;t be bothered to show anyting like that. It was not even if Kylo who caused the damage to the bridge it was his wingman.

They even made sure that the Rebels had no fighters of their own - rather having anything actually dramatic like a continual desperate fight as the rebels try to flee - might have had some actual tension in the Chase scenes rather than just looking stupid.

 Riquende wrote:

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:
Odd though, does Hux truly want to protect Kylo? I think time and again the friction between the two has been made obvious. I love the scene in Snoke's room when he nearly pulls his blaster on Ren.

Snoke is still about at that point isn't he? Even if he personally doesn't care too much for him he'd know he'd be blamed if he didn't take steps to at least warn Kylo that he's exposed.

And yes, the swiftly hidden blaster part was excellent, although quite we we didn't have any time for a 'Rey dramatically escaping though a collapsing ship to safety' sequence at that point is a question... oh wait, it's because we filled up the running time on all that slowly flying through space stuff and you can't cut that. Best just have her suddenly back on the Falcon 20 minutes later gunning stuff down and whooping excitedly. Almost as if her immedately previous encounter had no effect on her whatsoever.

Too true - Hux was great fun -

Yeah gotta keep having the tedious repeated shots of the two fleets moving oh so slowly through space. Like I said - terrible pacing and plot

I did find it a bit odd in the beginning when Poe's lone fighter could take down the guns on the dreadnought. There's really no surface guns capable of taking down a lone fighter, but at the same time the rebel ships do have such capability so that the first order has to pull their fighters back? Not to mention the lack of a combat air/space patrol in an active combat area?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I did find it a bit odd in the beginning when Poe's lone fighter could take down the guns on the dreadnought. There's really no surface guns capable of taking down a lone fighter, but at the same time the rebel ships do have such capability so that the first order has to pull their fighters back? Not to mention the lack of a combat air/space patrol in an active combat area?

I think its so the directors film critic mates can orgasm over the repeated shots of the space ships moving oh so slowly in space - oh look pretty pictures mentaltiy.

Star Wars has already had "snub fighters" being incredably powerful compared to big ships - They take out Star Destroyer's whereas neither sides main line of battle warships ever do anything to each other.

There were ways of making it make narrative sense - the director could not be bothered.

 Mr Morden wrote:
there was no sign of any suppressive fire - the big ships fired its big guns every so often and the Star destoryers just bumbled aliong doing sweet FA.

The probable explanation here is that the cruiser had to divert power to shields just to stay alive, but once it pulled out of effective range of the capital ships and reduced the threat of incoming fire it could fire its AA guns again. That's why nothing happens to the fighters while they're wrecking stuff, but as soon as Kylo gets the "fall back, you're too far away for us to cover you" order both of his wingmen are blown away by AA fire from the cruiser.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
there was no sign of any suppressive fire - the big ships fired its big guns every so often and the Star destoryers just bumbled aliong doing sweet FA.

The probable explanation here is that the cruiser had to divert power to shields just to stay alive, but once it pulled out of effective range of the capital ships and reduced the threat of incoming fire it could fire its AA guns again. That's why nothing happens to the fighters while they're wrecking stuff, but as soon as Kylo gets the "fall back, you're too far away for us to cover you" order both of his wingmen are blown away by AA fire from the cruiser.

If that works for you I guess - But again the fall back is addressed to Kylo and with a giant super ship and 4-5 star Destroyers full of fighters - they attack with what 3 of them? AA devenses may be good but we know from al the films that wieght of numbers would have swamped them and that fighters are massively effective against big ships.

 Mr Morden wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I did find it a bit odd in the beginning when Poe's lone fighter could take down the guns on the dreadnought. There's really no surface guns capable of taking down a lone fighter, but at the same time the rebel ships do have such capability so that the first order has to pull their fighters back? Not to mention the lack of a combat air/space patrol in an active combat area?

I think its so the directors film critic mates can orgasm over the repeated shots of the space ships moving oh so slowly in space - oh look pretty pictures mentaltiy.

Star Wars has already had "snub fighters" being incredably powerful compared to big ships - They take out Star Destroyer's whereas neither sides main line of battle warships ever do anything to each other.

There were ways of making it make narrative sense - the director could not be bothered.

Fighters get within the shields of the ships and fire at close range. The shields are projected around the ship at a distance, fighters can get within that distance whereas capital ships cannot.

As for the Dreadnought lacking guns capable of shooting down a small fighter, it doesn't need them when it has a massive contingent of tie fighters to serve as fighter defence. The only reason Poe was able to take out the guns was due to complacency on Hux's part and the element of surprise.

The resistance cruiser and frigates lack such large fleets of fighters to defend them and so need anti-fighter defence guns to support their fighters.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
there was no sign of any suppressive fire - the big ships fired its big guns every so often and the Star destoryers just bumbled aliong doing sweet FA.

The probable explanation here is that the cruiser had to divert power to shields just to stay alive, but once it pulled out of effective range of the capital ships and reduced the threat of incoming fire it could fire its AA guns again. That's why nothing happens to the fighters while they're wrecking stuff, but as soon as Kylo gets the "fall back, you're too far away for us to cover you" order both of his wingmen are blown away by AA fire from the cruiser.

If that works for you I guess - But again the fall back is addressed to Kylo and with a giant super ship and 4-5 star Destroyers full of fighters - they attack with what 3 of them? AA devenses may be good but we know from al the films that wieght of numbers would have swamped them and that fighters are massively effective against big ships.

Thing is though, why would the FO waste the fighters at that point? They know the Resistance Fleet is going to slowly run out of fuel and they can then pick them off at their leisure with the long guns. Yes, a few hundred TIEs could probably take out at least a chunk of the Resistance Fleet, but as far as they're concerned, wherever they flee the FO can follow moments later, and the Resistance (so far as they know) have nowhere safe to run.

And then there's just the rest of SW to consider. The only times we've ever seen an appropriate amount of fighters launched from a Bad Guy fleet are Endor, Coruscant and Scarif (and a few battles in Clone Wars). The First Death Star should have just launched a few hundred more fighters, the blockade over Hoth should have been more than a couple of Star Destroyers, so on and so forth. But that's the trade-off for actually interested scenes rather than a few hundred TIEs annihilating everything the Empire fight.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
there was no sign of any suppressive fire - the big ships fired its big guns every so often and the Star destoryers just bumbled aliong doing sweet FA.

The probable explanation here is that the cruiser had to divert power to shields just to stay alive, but once it pulled out of effective range of the capital ships and reduced the threat of incoming fire it could fire its AA guns again. That's why nothing happens to the fighters while they're wrecking stuff, but as soon as Kylo gets the "fall back, you're too far away for us to cover you" order both of his wingmen are blown away by AA fire from the cruiser.

That doesn't really make sense either because they were in range of the big guns, just not so close that the big guns could penetrate the shields, so they had to divert power to the rear shields to actually survive (I'm sure I heard a line to that effect in the movie).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
As for the Dreadnought lacking guns capable of shooting down a small fighter, it doesn't need them when it has a massive contingent of tie fighters to serve as fighter defence. The only reason Poe was able to take out the guns was due to complacency on Hux's part and the element of surprise.

But that's the bit that doesn't make sense. If the dreadnought lacked guns capable of taking out fighters then it'd be standard operating procedures to have a combat patrol of fighters at all times.

Maybe I've just seen too much Battlestar Galactica but it wouldn't be a case of Hux being cocky there'd be dozens of people along the chain of command that would KNOW they need fighters patrolling if the craft lacked the weaponry to deal with enemy fighters.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
hat doesn't really make sense either because they were in range of the big guns, just not so close that the big guns could penetrate the shields, so they had to divert power to the rear shields to actually survive (I'm sure I heard a line to that effect in the movie).

Presumably as the range opened up the guns would continue to get less effective. And AA guns don't need as much power as anti-capital guns. So when the cruiser goes from "rear shields only, throw everything we've got into shields or we die" to "rear shields only, throw 95% of everything we've got into shields or we die" that means they can bring some AA guns back online. And again, as soon as Hux gives the recall order we see both of Kylo's wingmen blown away by AA fire. Obviously something has changed to make life a lot more difficult for fighters.

But that's the bit that doesn't make sense. If the dreadnought lacked guns capable of taking out fighters then it'd be standard operating procedures to have a combat patrol of fighters at all times.

Maybe I've just seen too much Battlestar Galactica (which itself has lots of realism issues ) but it wouldn't be a case of Hux being cocky there'd be dozens of people along the chain of command that would KNOW they need fighters patrolling if the craft lacked the weaponry to deal with enemy fighters.

Sure, and that's why the dreadnought's captain yells "WTF IS THIS I WANT OUR FIGHTERS LAUNCHED FIVE MINUTES AGO". There probably would have been some words with Hux if he hadn't died soon after.

I think the Hux being cocky there is a viable explanation.

The dreadnought commander himself does specifically say, "Fighters should have been launched 5 minutes ago."

I'm inclined to give that aspect of the film a pass.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
there was no sign of any suppressive fire - the big ships fired its big guns every so often and the Star destoryers just bumbled aliong doing sweet FA.

The probable explanation here is that the cruiser had to divert power to shields just to stay alive, but once it pulled out of effective range of the capital ships and reduced the threat of incoming fire it could fire its AA guns again. That's why nothing happens to the fighters while they're wrecking stuff, but as soon as Kylo gets the "fall back, you're too far away for us to cover you" order both of his wingmen are blown away by AA fire from the cruiser.

If that works for you I guess - But again the fall back is addressed to Kylo and with a giant super ship and 4-5 star Destroyers full of fighters - they attack with what 3 of them? AA devenses may be good but we know from al the films that wieght of numbers would have swamped them and that fighters are massively effective against big ships.

Thing is though, why would the FO waste the fighters at that point? They know the Resistance Fleet is going to slowly run out of fuel and they can then pick them off at their leisure with the long guns. Yes, a few hundred TIEs could probably take out at least a chunk of the Resistance Fleet, but as far as they're concerned, wherever they flee the FO can follow moments later, and the Resistance (so far as they know) have nowhere safe to run.

And then there's just the rest of SW to consider. The only times we've ever seen an appropriate amount of fighters launched from a Bad Guy fleet are Endor, Coruscant and Scarif (and a few battles in Clone Wars). The First Death Star should have just launched a few hundred more fighters, the blockade over Hoth should have been more than a couple of Star Destroyers, so on and so forth. But that's the trade-off for actually interested scenes rather than a few hundred TIEs annihilating everything the Empire fight.

We get narrative explanations for the first Death Star - tarkins arrogance
Endor we had swarms of fighters -

So long repeated shots of the same few ships crawling across space with an occassional couple of shots from the super giant ship is interesting than a series of desperate dogfights? Really? - hmm ok.

Compare the first scene with the destruction of the dreadnought to the Tedious chase that only serves as an excuse to have an equally tedious trip to Casino world.

I think the Hux being cocky there is a viable explanation.

The dreadnought commander himself does specifically say, "Fighters should have been launched 5 minutes ago."

I'm inclined to give that aspect of the film a pass.

No problem at all with that bit - it helps set up Hux as a arrogant and not very effective commander. If they had spent a minute or two with him saying no - I want to savour the pursuit or something than that would have been a bit better. Maybe he got dumped by a fighter pilot or something...

One possible point in defense of the lack of fighters: TIE fighters, at least in the old canon, don't have a hyperdrive. If you launch TIEs you're committing to either abandoning your fighter screen in space as soon as you have to jump, or being tied down to one location while you wait to recover them. Does the hyperspace tracking thing work if the tracking ship doesn't pursue immediately? If so it makes sense to only launch fighters once you know they're needed and avoid getting baited into leaving them all behind and getting your capital ships killed by a fighter attack you can no longer defend against.

 Peregrine wrote:

But that's the bit that doesn't make sense. If the dreadnought lacked guns capable of taking out fighters then it'd be standard operating procedures to have a combat patrol of fighters at all times.

Maybe I've just seen too much Battlestar Galactica (which itself has lots of realism issues ) but it wouldn't be a case of Hux being cocky there'd be dozens of people along the chain of command that would KNOW they need fighters patrolling if the craft lacked the weaponry to deal with enemy fighters.

Sure, and that's why the dreadnought's captain yells "WTF IS THIS I WANT OUR FIGHTERS LAUNCHED FIVE MINUTES AGO". There probably would have been some words with Hux if he hadn't died soon after.

It still just seems stupid to me. As I said, it would be standard operating procedure to have defensive fighters patrolling. It's odd that Hux would even be part of making that decision because it'd just be something that'd be done automatically if the ship lacked defensive capabilities. It'd be one of those things the engineer wrote in the manual "oh by the way, we forgot to put any light AAA on this thing so it needs constant fighter support" and would be known by everyone from the pilots to the hangar crews up the chain of command to the captain.

There's hubris then there's "wait, is every single person on the chain of command a complete fething idiot?"

 Mr Morden wrote:
So long repeated shots of the same few ships crawling across space with an occassional couple of shots from the super giant ship is interesting than a series of desperate dogfights? Really? - hmm ok.

Every part of the movie doesn't have to be interesting desperate action. In fact, that's a huge problem with a lot of modern movies, they assume the audience has zero attention span if there isn't a CGI spectacle happening at all times. Adding more dogfight scenes would be pointless filler content, the ship-in-space scenes do a perfectly good job of establishing the context of what is going on while giving a bit of downtime between the action scenes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It'd be one of those things the engineer wrote in the manual "oh by the way, we forgot to put any light AAA on this thing so it needs constant fighter support" and would be known by everyone from the pilots to the hangar crews up the chain of command to the captain.

Except that isn't the case. It's explicitly stated that it does have AA defenses, defenses that would slaughter the attack force if Poe doesn't succeed in clearing them. Its defenses only fail because Poe has character shields and isn't a normal fighter threat.

 Peregrine wrote:
One possible point in defense of the lack of fighters: TIE fighters, at least in the old canon, don't have a hyperdrive. If you launch TIEs you're committing to either abandoning your fighter screen in space as soon as you have to jump, or being tied down to one location while you wait to recover them. Does the hyperspace tracking thing work if the tracking ship doesn't pursue immediately? If so it makes sense to only launch fighters once you know they're needed and avoid getting baited into leaving them all behind and getting your capital ships killed by a fighter attack you can no longer defend against.

Yeah but if we are applying logic - then you have a basic fighter screen up at all times, you have a few fighters keep up with the rebels and watch them just out of AA range, and you use your own bombers.

They had five star destroyers - you have half launch, half hold back. That's not even counting the giant super ship of doom - whose guns are pretty crap for a giant super ship of doom.

 Mr Morden wrote:
They had five star destroyers - you have half launch, half hold back. That's not even counting the giant super ship of doom - whose guns are pretty crap for a giant super ship of doom.

And then the rebels jump, and half your fighters are gone without the rebels firing a single shot. Remember, they knew it was an evacuation with the rebels preparing to jump as soon as possible. Throwing away half their fighters on the chance that a single x-wing is piloted by the god of fighter combat instead of a mortal being is bad strategy.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It'd be one of those things the engineer wrote in the manual "oh by the way, we forgot to put any light AAA on this thing so it needs constant fighter support" and would be known by everyone from the pilots to the hangar crews up the chain of command to the captain.

Except that isn't the case. It's explicitly stated that it does have AA defenses, defenses that would slaughter the attack force if Poe doesn't succeed in clearing them. Its defenses only fail because Poe has character shields and isn't a normal fighter threat.

In which case it's just lazy writing. But I'm pretty sure there was a line somewhere that the captain said the AA wasn't designed for small aircraft, which is why I edited my specified light AA (which is also something I found odd because weren't the Death Star towers at least somewhat effective against fighters?).

I mean, yeah, of course, you can hand wave away certain aspects to make the story function, but that's the whole thing about lazy writing, you have to hand wave instead of just having a story that makes sense.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
They had five star destroyers - you have half launch, half hold back. That's not even counting the giant super ship of doom - whose guns are pretty crap for a giant super ship of doom.

And then the rebels jump, and half your fighters are gone without the rebels firing a single shot. Remember, they knew it was an evacuation with the rebels preparing to jump as soon as possible. Throwing away half their fighters on the chance that a single x-wing is piloted by the god of fighter combat instead of a mortal being is bad strategy.

No - half the fleet goes with the giant ship, half the fleet recovers its fighters and follows the fleet a few minutes later - they have intersteller coms given that the rebels were happily chatting to people vast distances away with no problem so they can be beack with them in minutes.

They can detect how much "fuel" the rebels have so they know one jump left.

Having 5 battleship/aircraft carriers and a super giant battleship aricraft carrier means you have some flexibility in your fleet! More than the rebels who you know have no fighters as your best pilot just blew their hanger up with two other fighters.

Its a narrative choice to have the Imperial fighters do nothing, IMO a very poor one given the tedium it replaces the potentia action with.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It'd be one of those things the engineer wrote in the manual "oh by the way, we forgot to put any light AAA on this thing so it needs constant fighter support" and would be known by everyone from the pilots to the hangar crews up the chain of command to the captain.

Except that isn't the case. It's explicitly stated that it does have AA defenses, defenses that would slaughter the attack force if Poe doesn't succeed in clearing them. Its defenses only fail because Poe has character shields and isn't a normal fighter threat.

In which case it's just lazy writing. But I'm pretty sure there was a line somewhere that the captain said the AA wasn't designed for small aircraft, which is why I edited my specified light AA (which is also something I found odd because weren't the Death Star towers at least somewhat effective against fighters?).

I mean, yeah, of course, you can hand wave away certain aspects to make the story function, but that's the whole thing about lazy writing, you have to hand wave instead of just having a story that makes sense.

The Death Star towers didn't shoot down a single fighter in A New Hope. Also, the manoeuvres that Poe was performing whilst he was taking out the guns were phenomenal, involving extremely fast switching between maximum velocity (plus extra momentum provided by that booster) and combat formation.

It was, quite frankly, the best display of flying ever shown in Star Wars.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The Death Star towers didn't shoot down a single fighter in A New Hope. Also, the manoeuvres that Poe was performing whilst he was taking out the guns were phenomenal, involving extremely fast switching between maximum velocity (plus extra momentum provided by that booster) and combat formation.

It was, quite frankly, the best display of flying ever shown in Star Wars.

Right, because Poe is a main character and god of starfighter combat, not a mortal pilot. It's explicitly stated that if he fails to take out the guns, all of the guns, the bomber attack is doomed. If leaving a single gun intact means the rest of the attack has no hope of success then it's safe to say that the guns are effective, it's just that Poe is a main character and wins because plot.

PS: poor, neglected Porkins. First he's the subject of every fat meme, now we've forgotten his sacrifice entirely.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
They had five star destroyers - you have half launch, half hold back. That's not even counting the giant super ship of doom - whose guns are pretty crap for a giant super ship of doom.

And then the rebels jump, and half your fighters are gone without the rebels firing a single shot. Remember, they knew it was an evacuation with the rebels preparing to jump as soon as possible. Throwing away half their fighters on the chance that a single x-wing is piloted by the god of fighter combat instead of a mortal being is bad strategy.

No - half the fleet goes with the giant ship, half the fleet recovers its fighters and follows the fleet a few minutes later - they have intersteller coms given that the rebels were happily chatting to people vast distances away with no problem so they can be beack with them in minutes.

Minutes is enough time to make a second jump. The Imperial fleet was estimating the fuel reserves of the resistance fleet, all it would need would be for the resistance to have a secret reserve fuel supply they didn't factor in for the fleet to end up strung out.