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 Xenomancers wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Another great character emblematic of starwars - dies off camera.

Uh, what? What exactly made Ackbar a great character or emblematic of Star Wars? He was a minor character who had a single meme-worthy line. He had exactly zero depth or development as a character, and outside of that single line was nothing but a means of delivering the plot information to the audience.

Even distribution would have been reasonable - majority women in military-leadership is a political statement.

Is majority men also a political statement? Because that sure makes the rebellion of the OT a political movie. Are you outraged about ANH being a right-wing misogynist political statement? Or do you selectively focus on political statements that suit your ideological position?

The resistance is a military organization - you would expect more males than females based on that alone.

Why? Star Wars is not the real world. The social factors that make men dominate the military are not necessarily true there. But I suppose you're going to deny that "our current situation is universal truth" is a political statement, because it's an assumption you take for granted.

Holdo is an awful character (not because her hair is pink) - her terrible leadership caused a freaking mutiny - one in which the director actually wants to feel bad about because he make her the hero of the story. Brilliant.

Actually, Poe's insubordination and recklessness caused a mutiny. It's the military, a random fighter pilot isn't owed an explanation of everything just because he's friends with one of the other leaders. And that's especially true with a plan that depends on secrecy and misdirection, against an enemy who might have spies aboard (remember, they don't know how the tracking is being done). Poe has no need to know anything more than what he is told, and has no excuse for disobeying orders or hijacking the ship. And a character doesn't become a poor leader just because they decline to recognize the obvious superiority and importance of the designated main character of the story.

No surprise but I disagree with everything you are saying.

Akbar has 3 MEME worthy lines. "It's a trap" - "We can't repel firepower of that magnitude" and "May the force be with us". He also briefs the Alliance on the death-star 2 attack which is a pretty good scene. He didn't get a lot of screen time but everybody loved him - that's what makes him great.

Mostly men in military leadership is not a political statement. It is the norm. It will continue to be the norm because men are better soldiers (this is a fact) and men want to be lead by men. So unless you are an alien species where psychical and psychological traits are distributed differently between it's sexes - mostly men is what you would expect. It's not a misogynist political statement. It just makes sense.

Social factors aren't the primary reason why men dominate the military. It's genetics.

I suppose their could be spies on board - in which case a plan that relies on misdirection isn't going to work...The spy would just contact the ships once the alliance members began boarding the transports...plan foiled - nice try though. Figuring out how they are being tracked should have been pretty high up on her list of things to do...she did nothing about it and said nothing about it. Poe was right to remove her from command. He's not just some random pilot ether - he likely is one of the highest ranking alliance members at that point - this should put him in the know on it's own.

You do know we are talking about an alien species that evolved long ago in a galaxy far, far away, right?

And really, the easiest explanation is that the FO simply bought the frequency codes to the locator beacons that the Arms Dealers of Endgame Space Capitalism installed on all the ships they sold to the Resistance.


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And Ackbar totally had character. He was the Shaggy to Lando's Fred.


"Zoinks! S-s-star destroyers!"

"Give the plan a chance to work."

"We have to r-r-run away!"

"Or you could move closer to the star destroyers and flush out old man Palpatine's phantom dreadnought."


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And really, for a member of a species with now binocular vision, and thus no depth perception, making the rank of Admiral tells you a lot about Ackbar's dedication and talent.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
People like looking at pretty people, pretty houses, etc etc

Actually, Poe's insubordination and recklessness caused a mutiny. It's the military, a random fighter pilot isn't owed an explanation of everything just because he's friends with one of the other leaders. And that's especially true with a plan that depends on secrecy and misdirection, against an enemy who might have spies aboard (remember, they don't know how the tracking is being done). Poe has no need to know anything more than what he is told, and has no excuse for disobeying orders or hijacking the ship. And a character doesn't become a poor leader just because they decline to recognize the obvious superiority and importance of the designated main character of the story.

Most of that is correct - I had no issue with her slapping the hot shot down as they still seem to be the remnants of actual military at this point and he should have obeyed the chain of command.

That being said the whole sequence was nonsense

We have already dicussed the fighter issues
Auto-pilots are a thing in Star Wars - indeed its a plot point in the first film, so there is no reason for to stay on board.

The fact that you can just ram anything into obvilion - well thats just become the reason that no one uses captial ships.

There are so many bigger issues wth the film in terms of pacing and plot than the amount of women in it.

How expensive are capital ships? What do you do with the crew aboard your capital ship when you decide to use it to perform a lightspeed suicide jump?

Do you need a captial ship or just something that go to lightspeed? Its not clear - except we know it can be done. Indeed why were they worried about the Death Star, Starkiller base etc - just get a few fighters and hyperspace the hell out of it.

Given that the rebels are now short on everything - being able to destroy anything simply by ramming it makes things a lot simpler- you just get some people who are happy to die for the cause and get them to ramming cos you cna do it from ebyond effective range of the weapons on the warships as well.

Surely hyperspace torps would be the logical next step.

Physics doesn't exist in this film. Lasers are arching in space...vaccum of space doesn't even damage leia (she was unconscious and would have stayed that way). For some reason after a giant explosion the debris from the bridge was barely moving and hovering near the ship (just like leia)

As far as psyhics is concerned. Light speed is a barrier that mass can not achieve because you would need infinite energy to get there. Objects moving near light speed would have incredible energy though. You wouldn't need to suicide space cruisers. Something the size a 16 inch battleship shell would probably be able to destroy anything in a single shot that wasn't a planet or a moon.


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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Another great character emblematic of starwars - dies off camera.

Uh, what? What exactly made Ackbar a great character or emblematic of Star Wars? He was a minor character who had a single meme-worthy line. He had exactly zero depth or development as a character, and outside of that single line was nothing but a means of delivering the plot information to the audience.

Even distribution would have been reasonable - majority women in military-leadership is a political statement.

Is majority men also a political statement? Because that sure makes the rebellion of the OT a political movie. Are you outraged about ANH being a right-wing misogynist political statement? Or do you selectively focus on political statements that suit your ideological position?

The resistance is a military organization - you would expect more males than females based on that alone.

Why? Star Wars is not the real world. The social factors that make men dominate the military are not necessarily true there. But I suppose you're going to deny that "our current situation is universal truth" is a political statement, because it's an assumption you take for granted.

Holdo is an awful character (not because her hair is pink) - her terrible leadership caused a freaking mutiny - one in which the director actually wants to feel bad about because he make her the hero of the story. Brilliant.

Actually, Poe's insubordination and recklessness caused a mutiny. It's the military, a random fighter pilot isn't owed an explanation of everything just because he's friends with one of the other leaders. And that's especially true with a plan that depends on secrecy and misdirection, against an enemy who might have spies aboard (remember, they don't know how the tracking is being done). Poe has no need to know anything more than what he is told, and has no excuse for disobeying orders or hijacking the ship. And a character doesn't become a poor leader just because they decline to recognize the obvious superiority and importance of the designated main character of the story.

No surprise but I disagree with everything you are saying.

Akbar has 3 MEME worthy lines. "It's a trap" - "We can't repel firepower of that magnitude" and "May the force be with us". He also briefs the Alliance on the death-star 2 attack which is a pretty good scene. He didn't get a lot of screen time but everybody loved him - that's what makes him great.

Mostly men in military leadership is not a political statement. It is the norm. It will continue to be the norm because men are better soldiers (this is a fact) and men want to be lead by men. So unless you are an alien species where psychical and psychological traits are distributed differently between it's sexes - mostly men is what you would expect. It's not a misogynist political statement. It just makes sense.

Social factors aren't the primary reason why men dominate the military. It's genetics.

I suppose their could be spies on board - in which case a plan that relies on misdirection isn't going to work...The spy would just contact the ships once the alliance members began boarding the transports...plan foiled - nice try though. Figuring out how they are being tracked should have been pretty high up on her list of things to do...she did nothing about it and said nothing about it. Poe was right to remove her from command. He's not just some random pilot ether - he likely is one of the highest ranking alliance members at that point - this should put him in the know on it's own.

You do know we are talking about an alien species that evolved long ago in a galaxy far, far away, right?

And really, the easiest explanation is that the FO simply bought the frequency codes to the locator beacons that the Arms Dealers of Endgame Space Capitalism installed on all the ships they sold to the Resistance.


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And Ackbar totally had character. He was the Shaggy to Lando's Fred.


"Zoinks! S-s-star destroyers!"

"Give the plan a chance to work."

"We have to r-r-run away!"

"Or you could move closer to the star destroyers and flush out old man Palpatine's phantom dreadnought."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And really, for a member of a species with now binocular vision, and thus no depth perception, making the rank of Admiral tells you a lot about Ackbar's dedication and talent.

Moncalamari sense depth differently from us. They use their wiskers.

Lasers are arching in space

Just to point out this is actually explained (in other things, of course) despite being called lasers by most they are more plasma as they use a primary heated energy rich gas converted to a particle beam

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Lasers are arching in space

Just to point out this is actually explained (in other things, of course) despite being called lasers by most they are more plasma as they use a primary heated energy rich gas converted to a particle beam

Yeah, but how does that explain arcing in deep space? Especially when previous films depict them traveling in straight lines* even when close to planetary bodies?


*yes, I am aware of some of the crazy zippy TLs in the OT that resulted from trying to animate a linear path for a laser into a scen shot with a moving camera. They were rare and not really parabolic in the manner of the artillery shell TL's of TLJ.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Mostly men in military leadership is not a political statement. It is the norm. It will continue to be the norm because men are better soldiers (this is a fact) and men want to be lead by men. So unless you are an alien species where psychical and psychological traits are distributed differently between it's sexes - mostly men is what you would expect. It's not a misogynist political statement. It just makes sense.

Social factors aren't the primary reason why men dominate the military. It's genetics.

'Men want to be lead by men' is not genetics. It's a cultural hangup that has resulted from our society insisting for such an awful long time that men are superior. If you have hangups with having a woman in charge, that's entirely on you... please don't try to project your insecurities onto the rest of us.


Having an even mix of genders in the command structure, in a ragtag group of random survivors would have been more artificial than the mostly female mix that we saw, not less.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Social factors aren't the primary reason why men dominate the military. It's genetics.

This is a universe in which there exist species that can rip human arms out of their sockets. The "genetics" argument doesn't work at all.

 dogma wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Social factors aren't the primary reason why men dominate the military. It's genetics.

This is a universe in which there exist species that can rip human arms out of their sockets. The "genetics" argument doesn't work at all.

Still have to lift things/ carry things/ run places / ect. Picking the best tool for the job makes sense everywhere else in reality but when you introduce sex into the equation everyone turns into a complete idiot. It's not about fairness. It's about winning wars and winning battles. My statement isn't insecurity. You could probably look at every military on earth's command structure and not a single one of them will be majority female...a lot of different cultures - but they will all have that in common. You can call it sexism - but there are real practical reasons like the ones I'm talking about that make an entire female military command structure very unbelievable. Which is all my original scrutiny stated. You are really out of touch with reality if you don't believe that.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Physics doesn't exist in this film. Lasers are arching in space...

In the real world light arcs in space, and blasters are very clearly not lasers. Indeed, turbolasers and superlasers are obviously not lasers, lasers basically don't exist in Star Wars.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Still have to lift things/ carry things/ run places / ect.

Then every Star Wars military should be composed entirely of Wookies, regardless of sex or gender. As several people have said you're applying real-world standards to a universe where they don't apply.

 dogma wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Physics doesn't exist in this film. Lasers are arching in space...

In the real world light arcs in space, and blasters are very clearly not lasers. Indeed, turbolasers and superlasers are obviously not lasers, lasers basically don't exist in Star Wars.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Still have to lift things/ carry things/ run places / ect.

Then every Star Wars military should be composed entirely of Wookies, regardless of sex or gender. As several people have said you're applying real-world standards to a universe where they don't apply.

In the real world light can change direction by passing through a medium or in the presense of a very large gravity feild. Nether of these occur in the shots from Snokes ship to the resistance vessel. Even if these things were firing projectiles...they would be going straight - forces have to act on a mass for it to change direction. There are no forces in space...it's a vacuum.

In regards to wookies - lacking the ability to say words might be a big problem for them. Appears to be mostly humans in the resistance anyways.

I just thought of something I had to share:


Finn vs Phasma. Fight!

Finn wins. Floorless victory.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Knight wrote:
Odd that she exclaimed that she was not afraid only few moments before that. Perhaps I was only foolish to believe it to be true?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whistle_in_the_dark

Doesn't work as an explanation. She says she should be afraid, and feel trapped, but she doesn't because she knows it will end.

AIR its also an internal monologue. So yeah.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Akbar has 3 MEME worthy lines. "It's a trap" - "We can't repel firepower of that magnitude" and "May the force be with us". He also briefs the Alliance on the death-star 2 attack which is a pretty good scene. He didn't get a lot of screen time but everybody loved him - that's what makes him great.

"That guy who says 'we can't repel firepower of that magnitude'" is hardly a memorable role. Everyone knows who Luke is. Hardly anyone outside the most dedicated fans knows anything about Ackbar beyond "ITS A TRAP".

But let's move beyond single lines, because the difference between one meme-worthy line and three meme-worthy lines does not make a great character. What exactly do we know about Ackbar as a character? Let's even start with the easy ones. What does he care about? Why is he fighting for the rebellion? How does he grow and develop over the course of the movie? How would the movie be different if Wedge was given that role instead? When you fail to answer those questions you'll see that Ackbar is barely move than a cardboard cutout sitting in the middle of the set, and the only reason to give him a memorable death is that he's an OT character that had screen time in a previous movie.

Mostly men in military leadership is not a political statement. It is the norm. It will continue to be the norm because men are better soldiers (this is a fact) and men want to be lead by men. So unless you are an alien species where psychical and psychological traits are distributed differently between it's sexes - mostly men is what you would expect. It's not a misogynist political statement. It just makes sense.

Yeah, thanks for proving my point there. "The truths of our world are universal, and will still be true even in a world that is entirely different" is a political statement. You just refuse to acknowledge it as one because you believe that your opinions are the norm, and should just be taken for granted.

I suppose their could be spies on board - in which case a plan that relies on misdirection isn't going to work...The spy would just contact the ships once the alliance members began boarding the transports...plan foiled - nice try though.

Assuming that brief window of opportunity is enough time to make contact without getting caught, assuming the resistance knew that merely informing the first order that transports existed at all would be enough to shoot them down (instead of needing updates on their locations, for example), assuming the spy knew anything beyond "we're boarding transports" and could pass on knowledge of their destination, etc. Information security is something you enforce by default, only stupid leaders assume that a spy is an auto-win and therefore there's no need for secrecy.

Figuring out how they are being tracked should have been pretty high up on her list of things to do...she did nothing about it and said nothing about it.

Why do you assume this is true? When a character who has already established that she is not going to tell the main character everything doesn't say anything about trying to figure out the tracking why do you assume that the answer must be that she isn't bothering to do anything about it, rather than that she is working on it but doesn't feel the need to tell the main character about it? And why do you assume that there's anything to figure out? Remember, a random maintenance worker is able to figure out exactly how the tracker works the moment she hears that it's possible. I think it's plausible that the command staff made the same conclusions, realized that the only way to escape would be via the transports, and simply didn't buy into the absurd idea of running off to find a magic plot device hacker and sneak aboard the enemy flagship (a plan which, if you recall, failed utterly).

He's not just some random pilot ether - he likely is one of the highest ranking alliance members at that point - this should put him in the know on it's own.

If he's one of the highest ranking members at that point it's only because there are so few members left that pretty much anyone with a decent rank becomes one of the highest ranking members. Nothing suggests that he's part of the resistance leadership because of formal rank, vs. being Leia's pet project (or, more accurately, being designated the main character of the story).

And besides that, do you know how "need to know" works? It doesn't matter what your rank is, if you don't need to know you don't get to know. Poe is, at best, the fighter commander on a ship that just had all of its fighters destroyed. He has no meaningful part in the escape plan, he has no need to know what it is.


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 Xenomancers wrote:
In regards to wookies - lacking the ability to say words might be a big problem for them.

Not really. They can clearly speak, and their language is common enough that a poor trash scavenger from a middle of nowhere planet knows how to understand it. In fact, you could argue that the human inability to speak wookiee makes them even less suited for military roles, as they would be unable to communicate effectively with the species that makes up the majority of their unit. Humans wouldn't even be justifiable as a minority in the military.

Appears to be mostly humans in the resistance anyways.

And yet you don't object to the realism of this, despite the obvious in-universe superiority of other races as soldiers. Why do you find having lots of women in leadership roles to be implausible, while having lots of humans in combat roles is just fine? Could it possibly have anything to do with your own biases?

 Scrabb wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Knight wrote:
Odd that she exclaimed that she was not afraid only few moments before that. Perhaps I was only foolish to believe it to be true?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whistle_in_the_dark

Doesn't work as an explanation. She says she should be afraid, and feel trapped, but she doesn't because she knows it will end.

AIR its also an internal monologue. So yeah.

You're talking about the Force Cave acid trip sequence, yes?

Its not an internal monologue, she's speaking directly with Kylo Ren.

 insaniak wrote:

Backfire wrote:

It seems to matter to filmmakers, hence it is impossible for me to ignore it.

It's a bit of a cyclical argument, really. It matters to film makers because it matters to audiences. People will still more readily accept men than women in certain roles, or will (as we're seeing here) complain if there are too many women in the room. Once we get to a point where we stop freaking out about a woman being in charge, and where women can be cast based on their suitability for the role instead of how much they look like a 20-year-old covergirl, it will stop being an issue.

This thread would seem to suggest there's still a way to go.

I don't mind diversity or women in leading roles. Hey, I grew up reading Claremont's X-men, where most powerful characters were nearly always women. In Star Wars comics my favourite character was Lando, and I had no idea who was that boring looking white guy who showed up in promo photos in lieu of Lando (I read the comics before I got the chance to see the movies).

I do mind when the moviemakers tout how diverse their cast is, and then limit that diversity only on good guys. All the bad guys are white males. It feels artificial, hypocritical and preachy.

Backfire wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Backfire wrote:

It seems to matter to filmmakers, hence it is impossible for me to ignore it.

It's a bit of a cyclical argument, really. It matters to film makers because it matters to audiences. People will still more readily accept men than women in certain roles, or will (as we're seeing here) complain if there are too many women in the room. Once we get to a point where we stop freaking out about a woman being in charge, and where women can be cast based on their suitability for the role instead of how much they look like a 20-year-old covergirl, it will stop being an issue.

This thread would seem to suggest there's still a way to go.

I don't mind diversity or women in leading roles. Hey, I grew up reading Claremont's X-men, where most powerful characters were nearly always women. In Star Wars comics my favourite character was Lando, and I had no idea who was that boring looking white guy who showed up in promo photos in lieu of Lando (I read the comics before I got the chance to see the movies).

I do mind when the moviemakers tout how diverse their cast is, and then limit that diversity only on good guys. All the bad guys are white males. It feels artificial, hypocritical and preachy.

They're playing it safe. White males are politically acceptable villains.

To be fair though, they did include one white female villain, even if they did hide her face behind a Chrome dome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saw the movie a 2nd time today and I was almost falling asleep through most of it.

Woke myself up for the Reylo Throne Room duel, because thats my favourite part of the movie.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Scrabb wrote:

Doesn't work as an explanation. She says she should be afraid, and feel trapped, but she doesn't because she knows it will end.

AIR its also an internal monologue. So yeah.

You're talking about the Force Cave acid trip sequence, yes?

Its not an internal monologue, she's speaking directly with Kylo Ren.

Thanks for the correction.

 Xenomancers wrote:

In the real world light can change direction by passing through a medium or in the presense of a very large gravity feild. Nether of these occur in the shots from Snokes ship to the resistance vessel. Even if these things were firing projectiles...they would be going straight - forces have to act on a mass for it to change direction. There are no forces in space...it's a vacuum.

Of course there are forces in space. Gravity and electromagnetism carry through a vacuum. Real world physics can cause some very strange things to happen, and there are "physics" in the Star Wars universe. That's why starfighters behave like IRL planes.

 Xenomancers wrote:

In regards to wookies - lacking the ability to say words might be a big problem for them. Appears to be mostly humans in the resistance anyways.

One of the main characters in the whole of the series openly states that he speaks over 6 million languages, including Ewok, the idea of a small translator droid being given out to Wookie soldiers is well within the suspension of disbelief; in fact this actually happens in the EU with Lowbacca and M-TD.

Hell, most of the main characters in the series can understand Chewie anyway.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Backfire wrote:

It seems to matter to filmmakers, hence it is impossible for me to ignore it.

It's a bit of a cyclical argument, really. It matters to film makers because it matters to audiences. People will still more readily accept men than women in certain roles, or will (as we're seeing here) complain if there are too many women in the room. Once we get to a point where we stop freaking out about a woman being in charge, and where women can be cast based on their suitability for the role instead of how much they look like a 20-year-old covergirl, it will stop being an issue.

This thread would seem to suggest there's still a way to go.

I don't mind diversity or women in leading roles. Hey, I grew up reading Claremont's X-men, where most powerful characters were nearly always women. In Star Wars comics my favourite character was Lando, and I had no idea who was that boring looking white guy who showed up in promo photos in lieu of Lando (I read the comics before I got the chance to see the movies).

I do mind when the moviemakers tout how diverse their cast is, and then limit that diversity only on good guys. All the bad guys are white males. It feels artificial, hypocritical and preachy.

They're playing it safe. White males are politically acceptable villains.

To be fair though, they did include one white female villain, even if they did hide her face behind a Chrome dome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saw the movie a 2nd time today and I was almost falling asleep through most of it.

Woke myself up for the Reylo Throne Room duel, because thats my favourite part of the movie.

Phasma was a villain? I thought she was just product placement

M.

Not really good product placement, she didn't appear long in either movie. Was a dirty coward in the first film, and in the second she had less fight time then "TRAITOR".

It's amazing how I'm unsure what the movie wants me to think of Commander Phasma. Is she supposed to be a strong leader that one is supposed to fear in the First Order? Or a dirty coward who can only succeed in having the starting advance in a one on one and even then a bit of distraction and she goes right down.

Which is a general problem in that the movie is trying to make us fear the First Order.. But General Hux has become a joke, Snoke was the only real threat, and Kylo keeps getting undermined by both the narrative and in his own combats.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Not really good product placement, she didn't appear long in either movie. Was a dirty coward in the first film, and in the second she had less fight time then "TRAITOR".

It's amazing how I'm unsure what the movie wants me to think of Commander Phasma. Is she supposed to be a strong leader that one is supposed to fear in the First Order? Or a dirty coward who can only succeed in having the starting advance in a one on one and even then a bit of distraction and she goes right down.

"Can't pause the movie to give exposition or character development," cries the writer/director. Truthfully, Phasma and Holdo should have an afterlife fight over who was handled worse. You can sort of see what was intended for both characters, but they don't have enough lines, screen time or stage presence to really put that intention into the film. Holdo is pretty much undermined by the script (introduced as basically the highest rank insignia still around, and literally everyone in the room is surprised), and while the shiny Stormtrooper armor is neat in concept, the half cloak and dainty weapons make it come across as foppish. Phasma should be intimidating and menacing, not just shiny.

Which is a general problem in that the movie is trying to make us fear the First Order.. But General Hux has become a joke, Snoke was the only real threat, and Kylo keeps getting undermined by both the narrative and in his own combats.

Well... become is a little strong. Hux was always a joke- a teenage Hitler caricature. Johnson just embraced it totally, and made his dismissals part of the slapstick.

Snoke... was a lurking (phantom, if you like) menace when introduced. And pretty much denied fruition in any fashion. His throne room set (particularly the curtains) and power ranger guards don't help him any. It makes him look extra fake and a bad sub-boss on a bottom tier Japanese live action-anime conversion. That he's chewing the scenery, denouncing the possibility of what is obviously going to happen to him while literally describing what is about to happen to him just makes it worse.

Kylo is actually pretty close to undermined by his own flaws, which is almost narratively satisfying.
But the nonsense he's spewing is pretty much undermined by his actions and his central conflict, so... yeah. A young and purposeless 'dark lord'

Well... become is a little strong. Hux was always a joke- a teenage Hitler caricature

Yes but that's what actually made him surprisingly more threatening in the first film. Yes Hux was a loon in the first film, but he was a fanatical loon who in the first film you could feel would do anything that would benefit the First Order to ensure it's success with zeal beyond any other. An undercurrent of "I would murder this star system and everyone in it if their corpses would fuel the rise of the First Order".. It just went from zealous loon to Looney Toons for him in the next film and then as a result it made one of the now key players in the First Order seem less threatening. Which from a narrative standpoint makes the stakes lower given and as a result it feels less like "Heroic odds overcoming the powerful villains" and more "Why is this bad guy threatening again to our heroes?"

Kylo is actually pretty close to undermined by his own flaws, which is almost narratively satisfying.
But the nonsense he's spewing is pretty much undermined by his actions and his central conflict, so... yeah. A young and purposeless 'dark lord'

Which makes us trying to figure out how he's the big bad after offing Snoke a bit of a joke.. Kylo's been undermined as a villain narrative and it's rather hard to understand why we would find him as threatening since he's not had a single win to his name aside from backstabbing Snoke at a critical moment.

I honestly think the Luke Astral Projection thing was the biggest issue, what they should have done was finally have Kylo overcome him in actual physical combat. Give us a final sendoff to Luke if you were going to just kill him off (which given a few things I believe Luke was not intended to die right then and there) and show that Darth Rage could have some measure of capability and respect as a final villain in the movies that he manages to actually overcome Luke Skywalker in a hopefully satisfying battle that would allow us the ability to imagine him as some potential threat to the heroes.

But no, he's not respected by his forces given that they still look to Hux first before him when it came down to things. Hux straight up hates him and wants to kill him off. Phasma is once again AWOL and either dead and if she does somehow come back again narratively speaking she's been a joke. What are the stakes again for our heroes personally when Rey already seems on par with Kylo and Hux is a joke? The movie is trying to ask me to imagine these two as the final villains and I'm not seeing the undercurrent of threat here.

Yet somehow these sad villains have managed to reduce the entire rebellion to however many people can fit into the Millenium Falcon.

Okay yes, I can imagine those two as actual antagonists over the Resistance barring our main heroes due to how ineffectual the Resistance has proven their inability to do much of anything worthwhile and almost seems ready and willing to just go into the slaughter.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Okay yes, I can imagine those two as actual antagonists over the Resistance barring our main heroes due to how ineffectual the Resistance has proven their inability to do much of anything worthwhile and almost seems ready and willing to just go into the slaughter.

yep they also mangaed to not ntoice a gigantic war machine being built that apparently makes the Galatic Empire look weak whilst at the same time allienating any allies apart from 3 slave kids in a stable

The filmakers obviously had their set objectives to achieve:

1) Sell cute animal toys
2) Sell Casino theme for for hotel or whatever
3) Reset the film universe to the start of Star Wars
4) Have a bit of action

By those low standards they did what they needed to do.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote:My 2-year-old daughter Savannah is taking Frozen in a wild new direction. When I told her I didn't think this was what Elsa was about, she told me it was bold, that I was a mouthbreathing fanboy whose vision of Elsa was childish, and that I had to let the past die; killing it if I had to

Probably not relevant at all, right?

 Compel wrote:

Aaron Dembski-Bowden wrote:My 2-year-old daughter Savannah is taking Frozen in a wild new direction. When I told her I didn't think this was what Elsa was about, she told me it was bold, that I was a mouthbreathing fanboy whose vision of Elsa was childish, and that I had to let the past die; killing it if I had to

Probably not relevant at all, right?

Not to me - Otherwise the same argument would apply to the Prequal movies - ie they are actually good movies but people donlt like them because they are different.

I think its a bad movie due to plot and pacing reasons above all else, not because its not matching a different film - and yes I enjoyed R1 and TFA, they had their own faults but were much more enjoyable and coherent.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yet somehow these sad villains have managed to reduce the entire rebellion to however many people can fit into the Millenium Falcon.

That was more of an Own Goal. If the Resistance were Colombian soccer players, they'd all be found dead in a week.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
In regards to wookies - lacking the ability to say words might be a big problem for them.

Not really. They can clearly speak, and their language is common enough that a poor trash scavenger from a middle of nowhere planet knows how to understand it.

I think it's genetic, result of natural selection. People who don't understand what a Wookie is saying tend to have dramatically shortened lifespans.

Honestly Rey is just a weird outlier when it comes to that. She's been abandoned since she was five and her whole life has revolved around hunting and gathering scrap for food tokens but she can perfectly read normal stuff and old potentially flowery Jedi Texts that were around before even Yoda. She can understand Astromech Droids and Wookies, and she doesn't seem to have trouble with any other languages.

At this rate I'm going with "The force wills" to make sense of how someone who has no need for writing, or any other language aside from galactic basic for her day to day survival due to the lack of education given her life.

Is flash learning still canon? It's how they taught the clones how to adult in the prequels, and presumably useful for teaching techies the gobs of technical and geospatial data thaty'd need.

Is it possible Rey found an intact flash learning device and an intact library on one of the crashed Star Destroyers, looked at the rusty brainjack, and though, "Why not?"