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.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

Is she the one who is desperate to make a point? What is the point she is desperate to make?

That the movie is not hot garbage and the praise is appropriate.

Ok, glad she could have that reasonable debate with you. Seriously, if you aren't willing to discuss and perhaps to reflect, what is the point of art criticism in the first place? If that is your perspective, why are you even here if not to just spout off and hope others just agree with you?

Come on Gordon is not me. She has a public and she is in damage control after the general backlash. And her answer is that "we are watching the movie wrong".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
No, but it is still bad form to indulge in amateur psychoanalysis of users based on forum posts rather than talk about the film.

Even if sitting in judgement over other people's unconscious psyche were a desirable thing, it's still ridiculously rude to do it, and ridiculously off topic to boot.

This; is true that human perception is hilarious, we are biased apes. But this element was used to directly and arbitrarily dismiss other people arguments.
In the discussion, it was easy to read this as a suggestions that one does not like a movie because is sexist/has problem with female protagonists.

EDIT: I have seen people moved back to the actual plot, is for the better. Time zones.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Besides, we know Obi Wan was right there and Sidious still managed to turn Anakin, or at least lay the massive majority of the ground work. Jedi have real trouble seeing the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin were busy fighting a war. This is an environment in which a Jedi is more likely to be tempted by the dark side, and another Jedi is less likely to see it happening until it's too late.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Besides, we know Obi Wan was right there and Sidious still managed to turn Anakin, or at least lay the massive majority of the ground work. Jedi have real trouble seeing the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin were busy fighting a war. This is an environment in which a Jedi is more likely to be tempted by the dark side, and another Jedi is less likely to see it happening until it's too late.

Anakin's fall doesn't have anything to do with war. Anakin falls in nice friendly environments- a kitchen/dining room where he decides to murder a village on his mother's behalf, and an opera when he decides to do anything at all to save his wife. In battle he's largely rational and mostly quipping and making jokes. The clone wars cartoon has several Jedi that fall on account of the war. Anakin calmly agrees to a Faustian pact because he's a moron that doesn't recognize self fulfilling prophecies or blatant, obvious manipulation. He doesn't fall so much as shrug and say 'yeah, ok. Dead kids coming right up.'

As to Rey's costume, the grey palette probably is meant to suggest moral ambiguity. But there is no question that, by the end, she's a good guy. There is no indication whatsoever that Rey's extremely fast development of Force abilities is a matter of her falling to the Dark Side.

 Manchu wrote:
As to Rey's costume, the grey palette probably is meant to suggest moral ambiguity. But there is no question that, by the end, she's a good guy. There is no indication whatsoever that Rey's extremely fast development of Force abilities is a matter of her falling to the Dark Side.

We don't see her in any moral situation during the movie to suggest she's either light or dark. Yet another failing in story telling.

We do see her embrace the darkness during her "training" and she also stole the jedi books.

Luke had a hard choice in empire, save his friends or finish his training. Yoda warned him, if he saved his friends he would sacrificed all they had fought for. Yoda obviously saw the rise of the first order and warned luke his training was more important as the rebels victory amounted to nothing in the end.

If he had finished his training he might have ended up a better teacher and not lost ben.




Looking forward to the next movie though, you have to wonder how the rebels will recover from their defeat during the movie. Aside from the upcoming handwaving in a new fleet with no explanations. They lost hard and the rebellion is dead, the first order won. Imagine you're a leader of one of the worlds and leia shows up and asks you to pledge your planet to aid in her cause. She brings nothing to the table to offer, she has no means to offer protection for your planet, she's asking you to commit your world against the first order. It would take many generations to rebuild any kind of resistance and what leader would risk the existence of their world for a lost cause?

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
As to Rey's costume, the grey palette probably is meant to suggest moral ambiguity. But there is no question that, by the end, she's a good guy. There is no indication whatsoever that Rey's extremely fast development of Force abilities is a matter of her falling to the Dark Side.

We don't see her in any moral situation during the movie to suggest she's either light or dark. Yet another failing in story telling.

That's my biggest problem with her. Any temptation, or refusal of temptation, falls flat.

Voss wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Besides, we know Obi Wan was right there and Sidious still managed to turn Anakin, or at least lay the massive majority of the ground work. Jedi have real trouble seeing the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin were busy fighting a war. This is an environment in which a Jedi is more likely to be tempted by the dark side, and another Jedi is less likely to see it happening until it's too late.

Anakin's fall doesn't have anything to do with war. Anakin falls in nice friendly environments- a kitchen/dining room where he decides to murder a village on his mother's behalf, and an opera when he decides to do anything at all to save his wife. In battle he's largely rational and mostly quipping and making jokes. The clone wars cartoon has several Jedi that fall on account of the war. Anakin calmly agrees to a Faustian pact because he's a moron that doesn't recognize self fulfilling prophecies or blatant, obvious manipulation. He doesn't fall so much as shrug and say 'yeah, ok. Dead kids coming right up.'

I've been watching the prequels again recently, my goodness I hate Jar Jar and Anakin.

The prequels had a lot of failings, I think one of the bigger ones was attempting but failing to produce a likeable Anakin. If they'd done that they could have then built on it to make us feel disappointed or sad when he fell to the dark side for whatever reason.

My pet theory with the prequels is that TPM needn't exist, the trilogy can start where it does at the start of AOTC, any small amount (and it really is a small amount) of necessary info from TPM can be integrated through exposition or flashback, and we've got a whole extra movie for a longer and more plausible fall to the DS for Anakin.

Trouble is, had it happened that way we'd have had a whole extra movie's worth of Christensen, so small mercies!

Why I like the casino act.

95% of Star Wars is set in austere environments like desert or ice planets, or in space. It is quite a treat to visit a lush resort on a proper world.

The casino is an counterpoint to the "hives of scum and villainy" cantinas in ANH and TFA, featuring a better class of scum..

It gives Finn an active role. Without this, he would sit out 90% of the film. It also develops Finn's character from half-shirker to committed Resistance fighter.

It introduces a spunky new female character, who ends up providing a new love interest and setting up a possible love triangle with Finn and Rey, complicated by Poe's attentions at the end of the film.

There were some good comedy moments and BB8 had an important part.

The alien horse chase scene was exciting, and emphasises the Resistance's qualities of compassion for the oppressed. (Being really good guys, basically.)

The child slaves introduced here re-appear at the end of the film as the live spirit and future of the Resistance. This scene also validates Luke's self-sacrifice in his one-man stand.

 Azreal13 wrote:
My pet theory with the prequels is that TPM needn't exist, the trilogy can start where it does at the start of AOTC, any small amount (and it really is a small amount) of necessary info from TPM can be integrated through exposition or flashback, and we've got a whole extra movie for a longer and more plausible fall to the DS for Anakin.

Trouble is, had it happened that way we'd have had a whole extra movie's worth of Christensen, so small mercies!

I don't hate TPM as much as most people (other than aforementioned Jar Jar and Anakin) but yeah, it doesn't really add anything much to the saga. Don't some super nerds recommend a viewing order that completely skips TPM for that reason? Watching AotC straight after TPM makes Anakin's advances toward Portman even stranger/creepier.

I don't know whether Christensen is just a bad actor or was badly directed, I haven't seen him in anything else that I can remember. Watching AotC now and my goodness he's terrible, the over acting is insane, he swings from annoyingly angsty, weirdly nice and creepy with his advances toward Portman. Everyone around him acts relatively normally but he just over acts to the max.

I'm left wondering how Vader ended up such a cool and collected villain when Anakin is portrayed as so emotionally wild in the prequels.

It gives Finn an active role. Without this, he would sit out 90% of the film. It also develops Finn's character from half-shirker to committed Resistance fighter.

Couldn't he have also had a part in the film that didn't involve something that proved ultimately pointless in quality and overall feel? If nothing else it could have been written better to tie in given that "The First Order can strike at any time!" He could've had a bigger part overall without needing to be regulated to a pointless side quest.

There were good things about the Finn sidequest. My main gripes were firstly that it was an ultimately pointless side quest the motivation of which was a miscommunication between Holdo and Poe. Secondly the political commentary about the rich scum, poor slaves and animal abuse just felt excessively forced. Thirdly I'm not really a fan of Rose as a character. Fourthly I think Finn could have actually done something useful in this film .

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
My pet theory with the prequels is that TPM needn't exist, the trilogy can start where it does at the start of AOTC, any small amount (and it really is a small amount) of necessary info from TPM can be integrated through exposition or flashback, and we've got a whole extra movie for a longer and more plausible fall to the DS for Anakin.

Trouble is, had it happened that way we'd have had a whole extra movie's worth of Christensen, so small mercies!

I don't hate TPM as much as most people (other than aforementioned Jar Jar and Anakin) but yeah, it doesn't really add anything much to the saga. Don't some super nerds recommend a viewing order that completely skips TPM for that reason? Watching AotC straight after TPM makes Anakin's advances toward Portman even stranger/creepier.

I don't know whether Christensen is just a bad actor or was badly directed, I haven't seen him in anything else that I can remember. Watching AotC now and my goodness he's terrible, the over acting is insane, he swings from annoyingly angsty, weirdly nice and creepy with his advances toward Portman. Everyone around him acts relatively normally but he just over acts to the max.

I'm left wondering how Vader ended up such a cool and collected villain when Anakin is portrayed as so emotionally wild in the prequels.

Yes, the supposed "ideal" viewing order is IV, V, II, III, VI, VII, VIII, IX. However that way means Anakin's fall is spoiled by ESB and ROTS spoils the Luke and Leia sister reveal in ROTJ.

The real ideal viewing order is to watch the original trilogy without interruptions by the prequels as it preserves all the twists of the original films which are, thanks to being in hugely superior films, better than those of the prequels.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
My pet theory with the prequels is that TPM needn't exist, the trilogy can start where it does at the start of AOTC, any small amount (and it really is a small amount) of necessary info from TPM can be integrated through exposition or flashback, and we've got a whole extra movie for a longer and more plausible fall to the DS for Anakin.

Trouble is, had it happened that way we'd have had a whole extra movie's worth of Christensen, so small mercies!

I don't hate TPM as much as most people (other than aforementioned Jar Jar and Anakin) but yeah, it doesn't really add anything much to the saga. Don't some super nerds recommend a viewing order that completely skips TPM for that reason? Watching AotC straight after TPM makes Anakin's advances toward Portman even stranger/creepier.

I don't know whether Christensen is just a bad actor or was badly directed, I haven't seen him in anything else that I can remember. Watching AotC now and my goodness he's terrible, the over acting is insane, he swings from annoyingly angsty, weirdly nice and creepy with his advances toward Portman. Everyone around him acts relatively normally but he just over acts to the max.

I'm left wondering how Vader ended up such a cool and collected villain when Anakin is portrayed as so emotionally wild in the prequels.

Yes, the supposed "ideal" viewing order is IV, V, II, III, VI, VII, VIII, IX. However that way means Anakin's fall is spoiled by ESB and ROTS spoils the Luke and Leia sister reveal in ROTJ.

The real ideal viewing order is to watch the original trilogy without interruptions by the prequels as it preserves all the twists of the original films which are, thanks to being in hugely superior films, better than those of the prequels.

Yeah I'm slowly watching all the films again because it's been so many years since I last saw the original trilogy I'm hoping it'll feel somewhat fresh when I go through them again.

After a while I decided to just watch in numerical order, seeing as I already know all the big twists and didn't want to be going back and forth between the trilogies.

When I put them on for my family, it felt a bit like visiting an old friend I hadn't seen for years.

Why I like the chase act.

This extended slow act refreshes the mind after the intense action sequence at the beginning of the film.

The inexorable advance of Fate upon the Rebels ratchets up the tension through the middle of the film.

It offers a backdrop for the development of various plot lines; the strange behaviour of Admiral Hondo leading to Poe's mutiny, the excursions of Rey, Finn and Rose, and Rey and Kylo's steamy telepathic communications.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
My pet theory with the prequels is that TPM needn't exist, the trilogy can start where it does at the start of AOTC, any small amount (and it really is a small amount) of necessary info from TPM can be integrated through exposition or flashback, and we've got a whole extra movie for a longer and more plausible fall to the DS for Anakin.

Trouble is, had it happened that way we'd have had a whole extra movie's worth of Christensen, so small mercies!

I don't hate TPM as much as most people (other than aforementioned Jar Jar and Anakin) but yeah, it doesn't really add anything much to the saga. Don't some super nerds recommend a viewing order that completely skips TPM for that reason? Watching AotC straight after TPM makes Anakin's advances toward Portman even stranger/creepier.

I don't know whether Christensen is just a bad actor or was badly directed, I haven't seen him in anything else that I can remember. Watching AotC now and my goodness he's terrible, the over acting is insane, he swings from annoyingly angsty, weirdly nice and creepy with his advances toward Portman. Everyone around him acts relatively normally but he just over acts to the max.

I'm left wondering how Vader ended up such a cool and collected villain when Anakin is portrayed as so emotionally wild in the prequels.

Yes, the supposed "ideal" viewing order is IV, V, II, III, VI, VII, VIII, IX. However that way means Anakin's fall is spoiled by ESB and ROTS spoils the Luke and Leia sister reveal in ROTJ.

The real ideal viewing order is to watch the original trilogy without interruptions by the prequels as it preserves all the twists of the original films which are, thanks to being in hugely superior films, better than those of the prequels.

well Vader had a personality chip installed

for the viewing order though, you forgot some:

Rebels, R1, IV, V, II, CW (movie, series for those that liked it), III, VI, VII, IX. (if watched with the kids put on ewok movie to send them off to bed)

VIII ultimately adds nothing to the series so once IX comes out it can easily be skipped. It doesn't answer any questions, there's no twists, and no foreshadowing, no reveals. Just hold up a flash card saying snoke dies, the rebellion is destroyed, then move on to IX. If IX ends up being pointless as well the entire new trilogy can just be left off the list.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Besides, we know Obi Wan was right there and Sidious still managed to turn Anakin, or at least lay the massive majority of the ground work. Jedi have real trouble seeing the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin were busy fighting a war. This is an environment in which a Jedi is more likely to be tempted by the dark side, and another Jedi is less likely to see it happening until it's too late.

Anakin's fall doesn't have anything to do with war. Anakin falls in nice friendly environments- a kitchen/dining room where he decides to murder a village on his mother's behalf, and an opera when he decides to do anything at all to save his wife. In battle he's largely rational and mostly quipping and making jokes. The clone wars cartoon has several Jedi that fall on account of the war. Anakin calmly agrees to a Faustian pact because he's a moron that doesn't recognize self fulfilling prophecies or blatant, obvious manipulation. He doesn't fall so much as shrug and say 'yeah, ok. Dead kids coming right up.'

I've been watching the prequels again recently, my goodness I hate Jar Jar and Anakin.

The prequels had a lot of failings, I think one of the bigger ones was attempting but failing to produce a likeable Anakin. If they'd done that they could have then built on it to make us feel disappointed or sad when he fell to the dark side for whatever reason.

The Clone Wars show does a better job of showing Anakin and his relationship to those around him far better than the prequels. If the devs of that show had ever considered doing a version of the events of Order 66 and Anakin's fall/Obi-Wan's exile, I'd have lapped it up.

Kilkrazy wrote:When I put them on for my family, it felt a bit like visiting an old friend I hadn't seen for years.

Why I like the chase act.

This extended slow act refreshes the mind after the intense action sequence at the beginning of the film.

The inexorable advance of Fate upon the Rebels ratchets up the tension through the middle of the film.

It offers a backdrop for the development of various plot lines; the strange behaviour of Admiral Hondo leading to Poe's mutiny, the excursions of Rey, Finn and Rose, and Rey and Kylo's steamy telepathic communications.

I didn't mind the slowness of the chase. I quite liked it, having an ultimately-doomed threat.

What I don't like is the plot lines you describe, seeing as they all stem from bad writing:

- Holdo's strange behaviour makes no sense. There is no reason for her to not tell Poe, or even broadcast ship-wide what her AND LEIA'S plan was. If Poe knew it was Leia's plan, and with his X-Wing gone, he would have no choice by to follow.

- This stops him mutinying, so cuts that plotline out.

- Finn and Rose have no need to leave and engage in a dull sidequest which takes the action away from the chase.

Rey and Kylo's situation has pretty much nothing to do with the chase scene: it's only until we have the resistance attempting to disable to tracker and on Crait that their paths ever really cross.

Hondo's silence, or rather the lack of an on-screen exposition of her plan, is necessary to keep the audience in suspense, and it was highly effective. I was biting my nails, almost shouting at the screen that there has to be a better plan.

It preserves the tension of the stern chase, and also sets up Hondo's heroic self-sacrifice in the end.

As for the Finn side-quest, my earlier post on that shows I think it also was a really good act. (Of the screenplay.)

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hondo's silence, or rather the lack of an on-screen exposition of her plan, is necessary to keep the audience in suspense, and it was highly effective. I was biting my nails, almost shouting at the screen that there has to be a better plan.

It preserves the tension of the stern chase, and also sets up Hondo's heroic self-sacrifice in the end.

The problem is, whilst it creates good tension the first time you watch it, it makes no logical sense.

I can't personally say my standards are the benchmark, but if spectacle comes before actual character-driven logic, that's poor.

It's not even that there wasn't an on-screen exposition - the audience doesn't necessarily need to know - it's the fact that no-one aside from Holdo it seems was told anything. Why? Why wouldn't she tell the whole ship, let alone Poe, their best pilot?

It's not to say I didn't think the tension was bad. But artificially manufacturing it when that makes no sense in the world is not good writing.

As for the Finn side-quest, my earlier post on that shows I think it also was a really good act. (Of the screenplay.)

I think it could have been handled better.

Taking Finn away from the group removes the "trapped" nature of the fleeing crew (if Finn can leave, why can't they just do multiple trips evacuating? They were going to abandon the MonCal cruiser anyway).
Finn can be given a part in the plot without separating him from the resistance fleet.
Rose isn't amazing - she appears to know WAY too much above what is logically expected of her, the "love" aspect hardly factors in (there's hardly any chemistry between them - why introduce this one when you have a perfectly good Poe/Finn set up ready made?) We already had a love triangle possibility between Rey/Finn/Poe - no need to introduce new characters.
The counterpoint to Mos Eisley and the "desert or ice planets" exists in the prequels, where Obi-Wan is offered deathsticks, and on planets like Coruscant, Bespin, Utapau and Naboo. We didn't need to see this, really.
I didn't really see much comedy in it, but then, it is subjective. YYMV
I disliked the horse chase mostly because of the fact they left the slave children behind, but chose to save the slave horses instead. I know they try and paint that as their "good" deed, but I couldn't shake off them leaving the children.
The children at the end didn't really do anything for me - I think the rest of the film had made me quite bitter. As for how they got the ring confused me, but I didn't mind seeing the child use the force and look at the stars.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Besides, we know Obi Wan was right there and Sidious still managed to turn Anakin, or at least lay the massive majority of the ground work. Jedi have real trouble seeing the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin were busy fighting a war. This is an environment in which a Jedi is more likely to be tempted by the dark side, and another Jedi is less likely to see it happening until it's too late.

Anakin's fall doesn't have anything to do with war. Anakin falls in nice friendly environments- a kitchen/dining room where he decides to murder a village on his mother's behalf, and an opera when he decides to do anything at all to save his wife. In battle he's largely rational and mostly quipping and making jokes. The clone wars cartoon has several Jedi that fall on account of the war. Anakin calmly agrees to a Faustian pact because he's a moron that doesn't recognize self fulfilling prophecies or blatant, obvious manipulation. He doesn't fall so much as shrug and say 'yeah, ok. Dead kids coming right up.'

I've been watching the prequels again recently, my goodness I hate Jar Jar and Anakin.

The prequels had a lot of failings, I think one of the bigger ones was attempting but failing to produce a likeable Anakin. If they'd done that they could have then built on it to make us feel disappointed or sad when he fell to the dark side for whatever reason.

I don't even think it was attempted. Let's look at Annie in AotC.
He complains constantly, to Kenobi, to Padme (about Kenobi), about sand, about whatever.
Tries to talk over and preempt his Master and the woman he's supposed to be protecting (and unconvincingly 'loves')
He just jumps at everything pretty brainlessly, and keeps making the same mistakes over and over again (leading to dropping, losing and finally destroying his lightsaber)
He treats average people like crap ('Jedi Business')
Commits mass murder basically for the lulz, demands ultimate power and frankly tells people (well, mostly Padme) that he'd use it selfishly and unjustly (while admitting to mass murder, which... should be a clue that romance with this dudebro is Bad Idea)

Wherever they thought they were going with this character, Kenobi's wistful regret about his loss in the original film is terribly out of place.
"When I first met your father, he was an annoying little brat, and my exact words were 'pathetic life form.' In training he was a constant headache with few redeeming qualities, and in retrospect it was of no surprise let alone a betrayal, just the obvious conclusion to a man obsessed with his own selfish desires above everything else."

well that might be pretty close to the truth of it all, but ben cared little about the truth, he just needed luke to want to be a jedi and to kill vader.

so when he told luke "Anakin was a great warrior and a skilled pilot" it was certainly true from a certain point of view

Voss wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Voss wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Besides, we know Obi Wan was right there and Sidious still managed to turn Anakin, or at least lay the massive majority of the ground work. Jedi have real trouble seeing the dark side.

Obi-Wan and Anakin were busy fighting a war. This is an environment in which a Jedi is more likely to be tempted by the dark side, and another Jedi is less likely to see it happening until it's too late.

Anakin's fall doesn't have anything to do with war. Anakin falls in nice friendly environments- a kitchen/dining room where he decides to murder a village on his mother's behalf, and an opera when he decides to do anything at all to save his wife. In battle he's largely rational and mostly quipping and making jokes. The clone wars cartoon has several Jedi that fall on account of the war. Anakin calmly agrees to a Faustian pact because he's a moron that doesn't recognize self fulfilling prophecies or blatant, obvious manipulation. He doesn't fall so much as shrug and say 'yeah, ok. Dead kids coming right up.'

I've been watching the prequels again recently, my goodness I hate Jar Jar and Anakin.

The prequels had a lot of failings, I think one of the bigger ones was attempting but failing to produce a likeable Anakin. If they'd done that they could have then built on it to make us feel disappointed or sad when he fell to the dark side for whatever reason.

I don't even think it was attempted. Let's look at Annie in AotC.
He complains constantly, to Kenobi, to Padme (about Kenobi), about sand, about whatever.
Tries to talk over and preempt his Master and the woman he's supposed to be protecting (and unconvincingly 'loves')
He just jumps at everything pretty brainlessly, and keeps making the same mistakes over and over again (leading to dropping, losing and finally destroying his lightsaber)
He treats average people like crap ('Jedi Business')
Commits mass murder basically for the lulz, demands ultimate power and frankly tells people (well, mostly Padme) that he'd use it selfishly and unjustly (while admitting to mass murder, which... should be a clue that romance with this dudebro is Bad Idea)

Wherever they thought they were going with this character, Kenobi's wistful regret about his loss in the original film is terribly out of place.
"When I first met your father, he was an annoying little brat, and my exact words were 'pathetic life form.' In training he was a constant headache with few redeeming qualities, and in retrospect it was of no surprise let alone a betrayal, just the obvious conclusion to a man obsessed with his own selfish desires above everything else."

Yeah looking at AotC by itself it's almost impossible to like Anakin, but from TPM it seems like we were supposed to like him. As annoying as the kid was, he was friendly, idealistic and it seems like they were trying to portray him as wise for his age.

Turn around to AotC and he's almost impossible to like; stupid, impulsive, angsty, creepy, anything wise he might say sounds like it was unconvincingly parroting Obi Wan.

 Manchu wrote:
Every time I come back to this thread, there is one point that needs to made again and again:

- people who didn't like the movie talk about the movie

- people who liked the movie talk about people who didn't like the movie

You posted that while literally two posts above we had a guy saying film critics (who largely liked TLJ) are worthless parasites.

So I think there might be a bit more going on than in your summary.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hondo's silence, or rather the lack of an on-screen exposition of her plan, is necessary to keep the audience in suspense, and it was highly effective. I was biting my nails, almost shouting at the screen that there has to be a better plan.

It preserves the tension of the stern chase, and also sets up Hondo's heroic self-sacrifice in the end.

As for the Finn side-quest, my earlier post on that shows I think it also was a really good act. (Of the screenplay.)

Each to their own Glad you enjoyed it, interesting how different people can enjoy different things.

I sat there thinking through the tedious chase what really - this is so stupid, and dull and slow...... the sheer time wasted on the Ship of Fools meant I could sit there going - why don't they use the various escorts and jump to different locations, why are the Imperials not sending fighter, why are all the rebels such idiots, Why are a couple of people popping out to have an adventure. Personally I felt no tension partly because it was so laughably stupid, and partly because I didn't care about any on one the Ship and had been given no reason to. If they had either had better pacing or had internally coherent reasons then year it would have been good, but that IMO required a much more competent team than worked on this mess - maybe they should watch BSG "33" and learn how to build tension and characters.

Then when the movie finished - turns out my friends thought the same. Then various other people of different ages and genders, most of whom just went to watch a fun action film which is all most of us expect from Star Wars. Only one of us was a big fan and yeah he hated it, but he hated TFA, we didn't.

Most of us did not think it was a bad Star Wars film we thought it was a bad film period. Some fun bits - the first action sequence was cool, Rey and Ben were good all the time they were on screen, I quite liked Angry Luke, Poe was ok I guess, rest was crap - mostly due to lazy, weak writing in my opinion.

But according to some any one who disliked such a film had "hidden reasons" that they keep harping on about, because they know our minds better than us because they are supra genius's or something. Not that they are willing to tell us what those secret reasons were of course.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hondo's silence, or rather the lack of an on-screen exposition of her plan, is necessary to keep the audience in suspense, and it was highly effective. I was biting my nails, almost shouting at the screen that there has to be a better plan.

It preserves the tension of the stern chase, and also sets up Hondo's heroic self-sacrifice in the end.

As for the Finn side-quest, my earlier post on that shows I think it also was a really good act. (Of the screenplay.)

I found the chase to be poorly paced and it ruined the tense nature by having characters just randomly flying off on their own adventure.

Holdo's silence I agree was good at keeping some tension (I'm not sure I'd use the phrase "highly effective") but when the stupidity of it all was revealed I was mostly just face palming at the stupidity and was glad to see the dumbarse Holdo die (other than the further stupidity of the suicide jump being such a highly effective manoeuvre I was left wondering why they didn't just do that earlier).

I remember turning to my friend during some scene on the Rebel ship where everyone was just moping about (presumably shortly after the bridge explosion) and suddenly asking "hang on, aren't they still in a battle"? For me, there was absolutely no tension in the middle of the film, which was why it seemed to drag so much I checked my watch 2 or 3 times to see just how long was left of the movie.

I've spoken to a grand total of two people IRL who said they liked this film, one was very glowing in his review but the other admitted they'd fallen asleep in the middle part...

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hondo's silence, or rather the lack of an on-screen exposition of her plan, is necessary to keep the audience in suspense, and it was highly effective. I was biting my nails, almost shouting at the screen that there has to be a better plan.

It preserves the tension of the stern chase, and also sets up Hondo's heroic self-sacrifice in the end.

The problem is, whilst it creates good tension the first time you watch it, it makes no logical sense.

I can't personally say my standards are the benchmark, but if spectacle comes before actual character-driven logic, that's poor.

It's not even that there wasn't an on-screen exposition - the audience doesn't necessarily need to know - it's the fact that no-one aside from Holdo it seems was told anything. Why? Why wouldn't she tell the whole ship, let alone Poe, their best pilot?

It's not to say I didn't think the tension was bad. But artificially manufacturing it when that makes no sense in the world is not good writing.

Well, they did have me spending a large portion of the movie thinking that Holdo was an Imperial spy. Really should have remembered the ol' saying "Never Attribute to malice what could be attributed to incompetence" before making a bet on the issue.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Hondo's silence, or rather the lack of an on-screen exposition of her plan, is necessary to keep the audience in suspense, and it was highly effective. I was biting my nails, almost shouting at the screen that there has to be a better plan.

It preserves the tension of the stern chase, and also sets up Hondo's heroic self-sacrifice in the end.

The problem is, whilst it creates good tension the first time you watch it, it makes no logical sense.

I can't personally say my standards are the benchmark, but if spectacle comes before actual character-driven logic, that's poor.

It's not even that there wasn't an on-screen exposition - the audience doesn't necessarily need to know - it's the fact that no-one aside from Holdo it seems was told anything. Why? Why wouldn't she tell the whole ship, let alone Poe, their best pilot?

It's not to say I didn't think the tension was bad. But artificially manufacturing it when that makes no sense in the world is not good writing.

Well, they did have me spending a large portion of the movie thinking that Holdo was an Imperial spy. Really should have remembered the ol' saying "Never Attribute to malice what could be attributed to incompetence" before making a bet on the issue.

Its a good point - I did wonder that myself at some points but yeah the Ship of Fools was exactly that.

if this had been a Michael Bay film or similar the critics would have been screaming about implausible the whole plot was, the lack of characterisation in favour of spectacle and the general pacing problems but no apparently it was a cinematic triumph.

On Holdo not revealing her plan: Remember that while Leia is grooming Poe to be a leader, Holdo has no reason to reveal jack $h!+ to a hot-shot fly boy (in her opinion).
Not only did this provide tension from a technical point of view, it also helped develop Poe from a brash impulsive loner to a thoughtful leader.

I still feel like it should have been Ackbar that did the heroic sacrifice, preferably with some dialogue between him and Hux where Hux says something like "We do not accept your surrender" to which Ackbar replies "This is not a surrender General Hux...*activates light speed*....IT'S A TRAP!"
But in general Holdo's actions in the movie did not bother me one bit and I felt she was used effectively.

-

 Galef wrote:
On Holdo not revealing her plan: Remember that while Leia is grooming Poe to be a leader, Holdo has no reason to reveal jack $h!+ to a hot-shot fly boy (in her opinion).
Not only did this provide tension from a technical point of view, it also helped develop Poe from a brash impulsive loner to a thoughtful leader.

But that's backward. The decisions should be logic and in character (unless is in character doing something dumb, but I had the impression the authors wanted to show Holdo as a competent commander).
What they did here is to write down a situation, and tailor the characters around it, regardless of how much sense that would make.
There is no reason, unless is a "meta" reason, to withdraw information. In-universe is a nonsense.

Also, compare with this situation.

Imagine Ackbar and Lando concealing information from each other because there was the suspicion of treason.
What they do instead? Communicate.