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.

 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.

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.-

Hmm not sure his leadership skills are tremendously impressive after he has been humiliated for no reason - true the writers could not be bothered to generate some narrative, use the fact that they were supposed to be in a life or death situation - although most of the time it looked like a pleasure cruise, or anything. If they had had a Imperial spy plot or something to build up suspicion amongst the remaining members of the Ship of Fools. Something to make it more interesting, actually build tension etc.

So Poe: Ok - then he and his pilots jump on skimmers for a obviously suicide mission, except he gives up halfway through. So what has he learnt? What is demonstrable thoughtful about his later actions here I am missing?
One of them carries on to try and save them but hey wait a idiot knocks him of course because "love" and he wasn't committing suicide in the right way - stupid Finn.

Urggh its all so very poor. Also is everyone given really short names for marketing or just cos its easier for the writers.

 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.

-

Holdo with holding her plans from the crew shows her utter failure at leadership. He's not just a pilot, he's the senior pilot, the CAG even, who would be briefing the transport pilots on the mission and where they were going to and where to land at.

In todays navy once the thought of abandoning ship happens, the entire crew is briefed on nearest land, who controls the land (friend/foe) and direction towards nearest friendlies. Holdo with holding that puts the lives of everyone at risk. Then the select few goes around and starts destroying all sensitive information.

Then her plan just to drive off til she runs out of fuel and hopes the first order blows up the ship is ill concieved, at some point Hux would have realized (he had plenty of time to think of plans) that after the ship is out of fuel just take control of it and raid it for all the rebellions secrets. codes, base locations, fleet compositions.

her plan just seemed designed to end the resistance, not save it. She needs to be stripped of command and put behind a desk where she can't endanger anyone.

 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.

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.

-

She didn't have a reason? How about three people trying to flee that very morning because morale was so low? How about Poe, a charismatic figure in the Rebellionsistance begging for her to give him hope? How about, a significant portion of the crew were ready to mutiny because she was such a poor leader? How about because two others absconded with the only hyperdrive capable shuttle in the resistance and the resistance's most valuable military asset (BB-8 is the John Matrix of droids) because they thought Holdo had no plan?

If a movie wants to keep the audience in suspense about a character's plan without making he character come across as a sociopath, the typical trope is "Okay. Here's my plan...[cut away]"

 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.

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.

-

Great minds think alike:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/747023.page#9754691

Found an interesting bit from Mcstabbington on GitP forums:

I think the biggest problem is simply that the writers assume our empathy. They assume that if put a character on screen, we the audience will simply automatically empathize with them because, after all, they are on-screen and we did already decide to see the film. This allows them to skip storytelling steps and "get to the good parts" more quickly, but it doesn't work in the long run because it doesn't actually mesh well with human nature. As much as I might want to like a character from the Star Wars franchise, I'm a human before I'm a Star Wars fan, and as a human, I kind of need a reason why I should invest myself in the fate of this character. And if you don't give me that reason, I'm simply not going to care.

This is one of the reasons, maybe the reason why the best film maker of the last two generations is Steven Spielberg. Spielberg always takes time to establish his characters with scenes that don't just say "this is a swell guy", but tell us important things about them that always tie back into the larger plot conflict. I mean, just think about Jurassic Park for a moment. The first scene with Alan Grant actually doesn't get us to like him much at all, as he spends the most memorable part of it scaring the bejeezus out of a little kid. But by the end of five minutes with him, we know that he's very good at a very painstaking, very technical profession, we know what he likes (digging up dinosaurs), we know what he doesn't like (children), we know he's in low-key conflict with Ellie about the possibility of having children, we know he's always scrounging for funds, which makes offers like Hammond's impossible to pass up. And every one of these pieces of information comes in handy over the course of the film, and his earlier, somewhat minor flaws make his character all the stronger later when he steps up and refuses to abandon the kids to the T-Rex like the bloodsucking lawyer.

And it's also precisely why moments like The Brachiosaur Reveal work so well: because it's not about introducing the brachiosaur. It's about introducing Alan Grant to the brachiosaur. This is why we spend about 40 seconds of screen time just watching Alan Grant and Ellie react to the brachiosaur before we ever see it, and then we spend about 2 1/2 minutes more of screen time just watching them be gobsmacked by what they're looking at. Absent that emotional connection, and learning what the characters feel about what they're seeing, it's just CGI. And I don't care about just CGI. There's a reason why that moment sticks out as one of the best scenes I've ever seen in theaters, whereas so many CGI spectacles like it have gone in one eye and out the other, and that reason is because the emotional connection I've built with the characters root me to the moment.

And I'm willing to bet that even though very few of us have seen Jurassic in the last decade, all of us remember, scene for scene, exactly what I'm talking about, and exactly what we all felt.

The reason why I bring Jurassic Park up is precisely because I don't think The Force Awakens did a similarly good job establishing any of the characters, and The Last Jedi, no matter what you think about the plot, simply had too much plot to even consider re-establishing characters. And that's why we all think "Gosh, this is well-acted, but I'm not sure I really get why anyone is doing anything." Basically, what Jurassic Park did that this trilogy does not is set up character details that are then relevant to the conflicts that the characters later have to struggle with. Alan Grant starts off not liking kids because they get in the way of his painstaking work. And that changes over time as he's lost in a park with real-live dinosaurs, and has two children literally depending on him for their lives. Character and conflict match plot.

By contrast to Alan Grant, what do we really know about Rey that we can then tie back into the plot later on? In her introduction on Jakku, she's alone, and she's extremely poor, and she seems likable enough, and she doesn't sell off BB-8, which is very nice of her. Okay, but now the necessary follow-up question is "Does any of this tie into the plot later?" And we have to note that no, it really doesn't. Circumstance throws her in with potential comrades, but she never really accepts those people as comrades. She spends all her time with Han and Finn telling them why she shouldn't team up with them, until she's captured, and she only links up with them at the very, very end, and then she runs off to meet someone else in the next film that she doesn't know. So being alone doesn't seem like a conflict that the plot resolves. She never wants for food or money, so being poor isn't resolved, and indeed, doesn't even really seem to bother her all that much. "Likable" isn't a plot point. And the last time she really interacted with BB-8 was halfway through the first film.

That, I think, is why the films seem so disjointed, as if they were assemblages of parts that work piece by piece, but never cohere into whole films: because there really isn't an overarching plot that ties directly to the character conflicts. The closest we come to a genuine conflict for Rey is that she doesn't know her parents. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with dismissing the ridiculous savior with the storied genetic line trope. It's just that, what do we have to work with without that? We're left with the fact that Rey seems likable, and if this were a Straight Guys Talkin' 'Bout Star Wars segment, I'd mention that I personally find Daisy Ridley very adorable. But there's absolutely no there there for us to invest ourselves in the character. Certainly nothing that ties into the larger conflicts of the story like we get with Alan Grant. And because of that, I neither know nor care about what she does with the frankly ridiculous amount of power she's been handed. To be honest, I don't even see any real sign, other than the films telling us over and over, that's she's actually a good guy at all. Certainly she's not outright villainous like Kylo Ren, but you don't become a hero by simply opposing the villain, and aside from kinda/sorta opposing Kylo, sometimes, we haven't actually seen her do anything for explicitly heroic reasons. Even "saving" Finn seems more accidental than anything, as she doesn't even speak with him until the end of the next film.

And that's a flaw that repeats itself with character after character. Finn just wants to flee the First Order, which, hey, understandable. But then he's all about saving someone that, from the way its presented on screen, he couldn't have known for more than three or four days. And I don't care how scary those giant living boogers were or how cute Daisy Ridley is, 3 or 4 days is not enough time for anyone I know to believably come around from "protecting my own life" to "risking my life for them". Same with Rose Tico. Her intro through her sister is definitely strong, but then goes from outright tazering Finn to abandoning ship with him in minutes because of . . . um, technobabble? And then she comes to love Finn over . . . 18 hours?(!!!) And she fell in love with Finn because, um, they saved some mutant mules together. Because animal cruelty is bad and definitely ties in with Rose's introduction, I guess. Same still with Poe. Granted, he's more of a plot device in the first movie. But when they give him a plot in the second movie, it's how he literally gets hundreds of people killed because he has no faith in the chain of command. Literally, if Poe doesn't send Finn and Rose off, Holdo's plan goes off without a hitch, and hundreds of lives are saved. And yet in Holdo and Leia's last scene, the discussion is about how Poe is so gosh darn likable, rather than what would be the most fitting method of executing him for disobeying a superior officer and mutiny in time of war.

That's really the problem with this trilogy: name a character, and then name a relationship or conflict that was a) given enough time to breathe, and b) emerges organically from the introduction of the character. It's really hard to do with these films. Which is a problem because, while I cited Jurassic Park as an example of how it's supposed to work, most of us learned these very storytelling rules from the Original Trilogy. And we also know when these storytelling rules are not followed, precisely because the prequels were much poorer films for not following those rules.

I've gone on too long, but I will say this. As much as I believe J.J. Abrams sincerely wants to avoid making the prequels, I also believe he sincerely doesn't understand, or is being paid too much to keep the movies on a timetable to want to understand, what broke the prequels. He seems to be on the impression that so long as he avoids stuff like intergalactic politics, he's avoiding the mistakes of the prequels. And he doesn't seem to get that we only noticed that the politics were slow and didn't make sense because we were bored out of our skulls and didn't care about any of the characters in the prequels. And everything else, including the dramatically increased pace of the films, is just window-dressing so we don't notice it until we're well out of the theater.

That is an extremely insightful, intelligent, and well articulated post.

Have to say, that post was bang on. Basically sums up the lack of investment for viewers in the new series and why the characters seem so one-note for the most part. The closest the new trilogy has to a relatively coherent character is Kylo Ren.

Yeah that post sums up how I feel more or less. I'm ready for this trilogy to end, its over halfway done with and i'm not invested at all. The sooner it's over the sooner things can move on and they can try to do better next time. I still feel TLJ is a contender for the worst SW film to date. I think it's funny Hamill went back on a lot of what he said, almost as if Disney gave him a firm tap on the shoulder.

Pretty long post to essentially sum up what everyone has been saying for 86 pages. Bad character development. Can't care about characters you don't know. Can't like a movie when you don't care about anyone in it.

The difference between this and the prequels (which aren't nearly as bad as TFA and TLJ) is they get a bit of borrowed development from OT. We know who Obi and Anakin become - hence we already have an attachment to the characters.

Sigh...as much as I actually enjoyed TLJ, I can agree with all the above. I've got plenty of head canon to "explain away" most of it though, whether it's true or not.

I am still holding out that IX reveals some deeper meaning/truth/something that retro-actively strengthens VII & VIII, while at the same time ties everything together with the prequels.
JJ has his work ahead of him for sure.

-

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pretty long post to essentially sum up what everyone has been saying for 86 pages.

You see a guy named William Shakesman once said “Brevity is the soul of wit”.

I think it just goes to show that Star Wars films are far more tell than show.


It's hard to have empathy for a character you've only just met and have no reason to like. I didn't care about Anakin's fall, because he spent the majority of the first 3 films being an unlikable bellend.

Holdo not revealing the plan was necessary for the suspense of the plot, but if you need a character to behave in an idiotic way to maintain suspense there's something wrong with the plot.

This is my single main issue with the film because it's so stupid. What practical reason was there for Holdo to withhold her plan? Was she afraid it would leak? Cause a panic? That no one would go along with running away? IDK the film never explains. She just bad mouths Poe for being a war movie cliche and tells him to feth off, which is all well and good until not knowing there is a plan has Poe go and take a course of action that ultimately to ruins the plan. If Poe had known there was a plan he wouldn't have sent two people off on Finn and Rose's Excellent Adventure and they never would have been captured and the Codebreaker would never have revealed the plan to the Empire.

Even worse, after Poe feths everything up and stages a mutiny, everyone just forgives him cause "I like him" and "he'll be a great leader" even though his leadership so far has been really gak. Being a great pilot it turns out doesn't translate to being any good at planning. Honestly all the people complaining that Rey is a Mary Sue seem to have completely overlooked Poe at this point. Rey makes mistakes and gets called on them. Does things she knows are stupid. Poe makes hordes of mistakes, does stupid stuff, never really seems to feel bad about it, and everyone loves him regardless no matter how badly he feths up.

Poe was supposed to die in TFA. He should have stayed that way.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pretty long post to essentially sum up what everyone has been saying for 86 pages.

You see a guy named William Shakesman once said “Brevity is the soul of wit”.

I've always thought so.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Pretty long post to essentially sum up what everyone has been saying for 86 pages.

You see a guy named William Shakesman once said “Brevity is the soul of wit”.

I've always thought so.

It's a pity Shakespeare couldn't take his own advice.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I question how you can make an assessment of myself or anyone else on this thread via our responses in a forum, you do not know me (us), you do not know what feel, what my life expereinces are or what i felt about this film ther than what I have expressed on this limited format.

You seem to be assuming I am trying specifically to determine your specific reasons for liking or disliking this film. I'm not. I'll be blunt. I really don't care about what you personally think at all. I am looking at a general level at the overall response, and trying to look past the surface level complaints and conclusions, and trying to see what is driving the overall reaction from a lot of fans. The idea that I have to know you personally is silly.

The last Jedi is not a dark film because there is vritaully nothing to take seriously - its Space Opera - in this case poor Space Opera but its nothing more.

And here you're trying to argue that a film can't be dark because it is in a highly romantic genre like space opera. That is complete nonsense. Simply because a film is fantastical doesn't mean the emotions it is primarily aiming to hit can't be negative emotions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sirlynchmob wrote:
LOL, you're a riot, I'll say I'm not calling you a liar, then go and call 1/2 of you liars.

I'm not calling anyone a liar. I'll explain again, through a different example than last time, maybe I'll have better luck with this one.

Consider you're at a game with a friend, and the ref makes a tight call against your friend's team. Your friend explodes, just starts screaming obscenities at the ref. Your friend sits down and you ask him why that call made him so mad, and your friend says the ref is a filthy cheat. You've been to many games with your friend and he's never blown up like this before, and never before mentioned that he thought any ref was trying to cheat. Nor was the call that bad, it was tight and could have gone either way, but you didn't think it was inherently the wrong call. Considering that maybe something else that a genuine conviction that the ref is actually a cheat caused your friend's reaction doesn't mean you think your friend is a liar who is hiding his real reason. It just means knowing that we are emotional creatures who aren't always aware of the emotions driving our thoughts, and so often give logical sounding answers to explain underlying emotional reactions. So maybe your friend reacted out of pent up frustration, either at his team performing worse than expected, or pressures at home or at work, or maybe he just got caught up with the emotion of the rest of the crowd, who do regularly attack the ref. It could be lots of things, and everyone understands that thinking it isn't that your friend actually literally believes the ref is a cheat doesn't mean thinking your friend is a liar.

I'm not trying to poop on your parade here, but you need to understand how your coming across. and understand some people get defensive and hostile when called liars.

You should understand when I keep saying that I'm not calling anyone a liar, and am looking at something that has nothing to do with lying, and you keep complaining about being called a liar, it makes this whole thing pretty ridiculous.

 Luciferian wrote:
Alright, alright. If we want to keep discussing the movie here, we better get to it.

sirlynchmob wrote:
I paraphrased, but that is the gist of what his point is. He's calling everyone who doesn't like the movie liars, not in that exact word, but the meaning is clearly there.

seb 'You didn't like the movie, it couldn't possible because of the valid reasons you've listed, you made that up to cover for some other nefarious reason.'

No, that isn't what I said. It isn't what I meant. And I've stated that many times. And here it is, I'll say it again. I don't think anyone is lying about anything they say about this movie.

But I do believe that many people don't have perfect insight in to exactly why they react against a movie (or react in favour of it, for that matter). Often a reaction to a movie is on a subconscious level - if a movie isn't causing some kind of subconscious reaction its probably failing entirely. But we aren't generally consciously aware of that subconscious reaction. Very few viewers would be aware when watching Dunkirk that an auditory trick was being used through the movie, cycling a fading base sound with a rising treble sound to give the listener the feel of a constantly rising pitch, but they would have felt the tension. So if a viewer comes out of the film saying 'that film had lots of tension' that's a genuine reaction. If they said it was because the story of Dunkirk was such a great story, they're not lying, but that probably isn't what caused a lot of their engagement in the story. That music, as well as some extraordinary editing and a whole lot of other technical achievements produced a lot of the reaction on a subconscious level.

Now, not all subconscious effects are a result of that kind of film trickery. Plenty of subconscious affects are more around the story, how we buy in to the story of the movie, or in some cases how we might react against the story. Easy E has done a great job explaining why he thinks he might have reacted against TLJ on a more subconscious level.

Thing is, people don't have to spend a second of their time considering those reactions if they don't want to. But instead of just not engaging in that part of the conversation, instead people have been incredibly hostile to the idea of anyone suggesting that we react to films in ways that aren't immediately known. So hostile in fact they've claimed that just saying there might be subconscious reactions to a movie the viewer isn't immediately aware of means saying the viewer is a liar. That's really quite an incredible thing. It's really taken me by surprise, to be honest. I assumed most people knew there was a lot of subconscious stuff going on in their mind, that they aren't always aware of. But it seems lots of people are actually really hostile to that idea, angrily so.

If that is a concept people really are this hostile towards in general, it actually helps explain a lot. And not just about TLJ.

 Easy E wrote:
Sebs, like all analysts is trying to get to the "root" of the issue. Many times, people tell you symptoms and not the root. As he says, this is basic human brain interaction. Your frontal brain is focused on the "What", while your deep brain (limbic maybe?) is focused on the why. The deep brain does nto control language and therefore makes it hard to express deep felt feeling in language. This is nuero-science, and not up for debate. Getting all bent out of shape because Sebs is trying to understand the "Why" that your brain has a hard time expressing is not going to help anyone.

Thanks. That explained everything really well.

Now, after great thought, I can see why some would like this movie. The same way I see how many would love other movies. However, the need to subvert expectation and the (un)intended context that created in the subtext of the film made me react negatively to it. The subtext I took away from it goes against my own personal ethos and what I thought I had understood about the ethos of Star Wars. That was my reaction deep brain reasoning. When it came to the "what" I really struggle to explain what exactly made me feel this way.

Now, intellectually I understand why they made the choices they did and what they were trying to accomplish. However, my heart (Deep brain) rejects those choices based on my feelings.

Thanks. I will say it wasn't just a need to subvert expectation, although that played a big part is exacerbating the issue. I think the primary issue is that in order to set up meaningful stakes in this movie the achievements of past films had to be undone. This is a problem for any unplanned sequel. The Matrix ended with Neo shown with absolute power within the Matrix, and leaving the machines with an ultimatum. The sequels pick up by narrowing Neo's powers down to literally just those seen, and then have another two movies just to reach that same point of deal making. So I just accepted that the price of having more stories in the same setting, they have to undo the happy ending. Its like reading comics, part of wanting more stories about Batman fighting the Joker means accepting that Batman's win is only passing because the Joker is just gonna break out of Arkham again.

But just because I was resigned to this, doesn't mean everyone else has to be, or should be. The end result is ultimately, as you said, nihilist, which the original Star Wars never was. And it certainly didn't help that the films actually drew attention to this with Snoke's speech about good and evil always rising to fight, a scene that was all the more problematic because it will probably be completely forgotten about, never mentioned again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
I don't care. Not in the movie; not in the discussion. Is that simple.

You're not following. The film can be criticised for not including necessary background information. It can be said, quite reasonably, that the background makes little sense without that information.

But you can't complain that the events are impossible or can't happen, when there is detail showing how what happened could quite plausibly happen within the Star Wars universe.

But they don't want to commit. You just self defeated your point. The FO has to build super-dreadnought, destroyers and whantot. It just does not hold water. Is too much stuff to build for a lesser organisation.

Again, you're not following. The Empire built ships and military weapons up to a certain scale. The FO built bigger. Calling that a fairly boring approach from the creators of the new trilogy is a legitimate complaint. But saying it is impossible within the setting because the FO is a smaller empire is a nonsense complaint, because making that assessment means knowing whether how much of its total production the Empire chose to put towards military assets, which is something we do not know.

This is not an answer or an argument and I don't understand why is here.

It's there because its an obvious answer explaining why FO tech was advanced from Empire tech. Because tech advances. The second time you do something, you do it better than the first effort.

No FTL travel implied. Consumes suns. What do you think?

Starkiller was mobile. This wasn't shown clearly in the movies. But what was shown clearly in the movies is that having fired once, the weapon was loading up to fire a second time. Which makes your complaint that it was a one shot weapon plainly false.

You cannot us the conquering with horses, footsoldiers and iron of a part of europe space battles. And even in this case, the position the Republic was in is not equivalent.
Just stop. It makes no sense and derails the discussion.

Given we don't have any real world examples of galactic empires, we use the examples we have. If you don't think those examples can be used, then we have no basis for comparison and no means to determine whether the rate of expansion shown was fast enough. So there are two options - we use the historic examples we have, in which case we have seen empires expand at a rate equal to or faster than the FO. Or we don't accept that historic empires can be used to estimate how fast galactic empires might expand, in which case we have no frame of reference and no means of saying whether the FO was too fast.

So either way your complaint is nonsense.

Well written movies have the villain out-wit the good guys, not people get the idiot ball for plot convenience. Is contrived, and put you out of the movie.

That's not how all movies work. Not every film is meant to be a battle of wits between very smart characters. Very often stories will show fatal mistakes as terrible, even foolish, to make a point about the flaws of the good guys. I mean for God's sake, Palpatine being right under the noses of the Jedi Order wasn't a flaw because it made the Jedi mistake so terrible, it was a deliberate bit of writing to say something about the Jedi order.

A leitmotif is something that recurs (originally, in a musical sense). Is usually used for thematic reasons, here I used it as if something bigger. Is a recurring occurrence that these people write crap. It was not intended to be used to describe the themes of the movie (because if it has themes, it contradicts them one scene later).

No, you misused the word because you don't understand. A leitmotif is part of a deliberate pattern, a writer will deliberately use a melody or a variation on that melody each time a character appears, for instance. But instead you used it to describe regular instances of what you thought was bad writing. That's not what the words means, there are other words tha can be used to describe that pattern, such as say... pattern. Dropping in lietmotif is trying to impress with knowledge you don't have.

Nope. Posters have been implied being X and Y and to have "hidden reasons" that they "cannot understand" to dislike the movie.
All written with a badly dissimulated contempt. So is not "in our head".

You posted this immediately after complaining that I was trying to poison the well. What the hell is going on here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Some people in this thread have stated that they don't feel the setting is important. That's fine. Viva la difference. But at the same time, would they have had a lesser experience if the new film had made the effort to stay consistent with the setting? It's not like the Star Wars universe is just one tossed out background out of hundreds--it's literally the most valuable sci fi setting ever created.

I believe that's a reference to my post to you, and note I never said settings didn't matter. I said I wasn't that fussed about keeping them sacred. The difference there is huge. I go to these movies in large because of the settings, they're settings I've watched and played in through the WEG rpg for literal decades. But I'm not going in bothered by any changes made to advance that setting. That's all I'm saying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Yeah of course they will make money, especially playing this dirty, but investors will notice the drop from the previous movie.

Disney is a $50 billion organisation. Investors barely noticed The Lone Ranger and John Carter of Mars suffering horrifc tanks. The idea that investors will be shouting angry questions at the AGM because TLJ dropped from TFA is a bit silly. Investors will likely be very pleased with all three Disney Star Wars movies cracking a billion in box office takes, because that will mean god knows how much in related merchandise sales.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:
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.

There's no judgement. I've said repeatedly that I am not for one second saying anyone's reaction to the movie was wrong. Quite the opposite, it is because I accept the reaction as genuine, I want to figure out the cause.

I have said this so many times. It is increasingly looking like you are deliberately ignoring my actual posts so you can enjoy being offended.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Does this also mean that the people who enjoyed the movie are also fooling themselves? They didn't like it because it was good, but because it stoked some weakness in them or their understand of art?

No-one is being fooled. Not being aware of why you reacted for or against a certain piece of art doesn't mean you are fooling yourself with your opinion. It certainly doesn't mean your opinion is wrong. I've said this so many times.

The reaction a person has to TLJ or any other story or any other piece of art is genuine. That they might not be entirely across why they reacted as they did, either favourably or negatively, doesn't mean their reaction is any less genuine. But other people are allowed to try and look a little deeper, accept that people don't always know exactly why they reacted as they did, either positively or negatively, and maybe get a better understanding of the movie and the audience reaction.

And yes, that works for anyone. If you want to go back to my original review in this thread, read that and think I didn't get to the real core of my reaction in favour of the movie, you are not only allowed to do that, an assumption that I didn't do a good job of really explaining or understanding my reaction would probably be accurate. And I only say probably because I can't remember what I wrote.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don't.

Are you actually saying that you don't believe people have subconscious, emotional reactions that they aren't always aware of?

I also don't subscribe to Sebsters' incredibly condescending posts being what they say they are instead of being motivated by disdain he has but doesn't consciously know he has for people with different opinions.

Please stop doing that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
- 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.

But senior command doesn't tell junior officers what the big plan is. You don't tell your whole ship about your secret stealth get away because if someone gets captured, then the enemy will find out. Instead you tell people what they need to know to perform their part of the plan. This is a movie where we actually got some level of operational security. Typically in movies the heroes will butt heads with command, go off and do their own thing and be proven right because they're the heroes and so they're always right and command are just idiots. In this movie the heroes were actually wrong, they should have accepted there was a plan they couldn't be told about yet.

The film subverted a major Hollywood cliche, I thought that part was great.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
There is no reason, unless is a "meta" reason, to withdraw information. In-universe is a nonsense.

There's no reason not to tell everyone? In a war. About a stealth operation to sneak away from the enemy pursuers.

No reason at all. Because if there's one thing we know about military life, it is that they always make sure to tell absolutely everyone about every detail of what command is planning.

@sebster,

What about the bit where after the mutiny command geeked out about how much they liked Poe, gave him command of their last defensive action, and gave zero repercussions for inciting a mutiny?

Did those parts subvert your expectations?

 LordofHats wrote:
This is my single main issue with the film because it's so stupid. What practical reason was there for Holdo to withhold her plan? Was she afraid it would leak? Cause a panic? That no one would go along with running away?

Seriously, if the film had spent ten seconds to explain that command doesn't actually explain their plans to junior officers I would have thought that incredibly patronising. I really thought command making sure plans are on a need to know basis was something that most people knew about. Especially when the plan is built around stealth and deception.

I mean, there's plenty of holes in the plot. But Holdo keeping the escape plan secret wasn't one. It's actually one of the more sensible bits of bits of plotting you'll see in a Star Wars movie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Scrabb wrote:
@sebster,

What about the bit where after the mutiny command geeked out about how much they liked Poe, gave him command of their last defensive action, and gave zero repercussions for inciting a mutiny?

Did those parts subvert your expectations?

That was a massive plot hole. Mindbendingly stupid, to be honest

 sebster wrote:


Seriously, if the film had spent ten seconds to explain that command doesn't actually explain their plans to junior officers I would have thought that incredibly patronising. I really thought command making sure plans are on a need to know basis was something that most people knew about. Especially when the plan is built around stealth and deception.

I mean, there's plenty of holes in the plot. But Holdo keeping the escape plan secret wasn't one. It's actually one of the more sensible bits of bits of plotting you'll see in a Star Wars movie.

Holdo didn't have to literally tell people her plan. But she went off and acted like she didn't even have one. She blew Poe off when he asked, despite there being fundamentally nothing about her plan that necessitated withholding it from him (and he even liked it once he understood it). Her shrugging things off and leaving massive uncertainty about what was going to happen is the only reason it didn't work in the first place. Holdo is initially presented as a good leader, but she spends most of the movie coming off as needlessly confrontational with her subordinates which isn't something I'd associate with a good leader (in fact it's a great sign of a horrible leader). She recognizes that Poe is hot headed and reckless, but apparently completely misses that he's popular among the troops and she chooses to agitate him rather than assuage his uncertainty, which anyone with any sense could see was not just his.

I have an issue with the whole thing on a plot level. It comes off as a contrived conflict necessary for the plot to function, but that in its own singular existence makes no sense. It's forced. It's especially weird given Holdo later statement that she liked Poe, turning the whole thing on its head cause she could have just pulled him aside, told him the plan, and asked for his support in keeping everyone on board and maybe not mutinying?

That was a massive plot hole. Mindbendingly stupid, to be honest

I think it could have been overlooked as a "we need your stubborn daring do right now" kind of thing if not for the to the side conversation between Leia and Holdo where both massively overlook that he staged a mutiny and decide they like his attitude... for staging a mutiny... At that point it's just mind bending and compacts with the earlier problem that the conflict between Poe and Holdo hinges on a really forced decision making process.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/01/15/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rian-johnson-talks-reys-parents-and-more/

 LordofHats wrote:
Holdo didn't have to literally tell people her plan. But she went off and acted like she didn't even have one. She blew Poe off when he asked, despite there being fundamentally nothing about her plan that necessitated withholding it from him (and he even liked it once he understood it).

The plan was to use stealth to sneak away from pursuing FO. If the FO uncovered the plan they would have been able to look for the transports and pick them off. Which actually did happen. So trying to keep that from junior officers, keeping to a need to know basis just makes sense.

I agree that Holdo could have communicated that there was a plan, instead of just seeming evasive. But honestly that seems like a nitpick. I mean this is a film with some pretty loose justification going on (exactly how did 'stealth' hide the transports, and then stop working when the FO was told to look in that direction?), so when the complaint boils down to Holdo kept the plan secret as she should, but doing so in a way that seems like she has no plan at all, I don't think this rates as an issue.

It's especially weird given Holdo later statement that she liked Poe, turning the whole thing on its head cause she could have just pulled him aside, told him the plan, and asked for his support in keeping everyone on board and maybe not mutinying?

Telling specific members of the crew a plan, not because they have a sufficient rank, not because they need to know to perform part of the mission, but just because they're a troublemaker and might help keep other disaffected crew onside? That's a terrible idea.

I think it could have been overlooked as a "we need your stubborn daring do right now" kind of thing if not for the to the side conversation between Leia and Holdo where both massively overlook that he staged a mutiny and decide they like his attitude... for staging a mutiny... At that point it's just mind bending and compacts with the earlier problem that the conflict between Poe and Holdo hinges on a really forced decision making process.

It can be seen as needing just anyone at all in order to man the ships and attempt some kind of defense. The situation was desperate enough that putting Poe in a ship was probably justified, but giving him command was ridiculous. Hell, if the mutiny resulted in him being busted down to just the rank of pilot, but then he still took command when everyone of a rank was dead, then it would have been a stretch but acceptable. But I guess that would have necessitated another character as the commander that would have been introduced and then killed a few minutes later, in a film already stuffed with extraneous bits. So I don't know... meh.

Starting from the point that Holdo did actually have a plan, because she executed it.

Once the Rebellion understood about the tracking gizmo, it was the only plan that had a chance of working; creep near to a sanctuary at sub-light, then disperse the transports in a dandelion manoeuvre screened by a suicide attack on the enemy fleet.

As said above, it is not customary for military commanders to share the details of their plans with all and sundry. Who knows whether there might be a spy on board, or someone might escape in a pod and get captured, or the Empire might simply intercept the communications between the different ships.

I think if Hondo had got everyone together and told them she had a great plan to save the Rebellion, but no-one was to know what it was, this would have made a ludicrous scene.

The action that played out was in my view dramatically very effective, because the audience did not know about the plan. Any kind of exposition of a plan would have compromised this aspect.

Kilkrazy thing is that the characters we follow are shown to associate strongly with the leaders of the Rebellion. Ergo we are used to them having some idea of what the grand plan is, furthermore the briefing scene basically ends with "Ok we don't have a plan, there is no plan, now all go do your jobs". Now granted they likely did all have jobs to do, but the audience is left with a "we don't have a plan" view.

Whilst that works it also starts to break apart when the team leave to the casino - wait why isn't everyone doing that - for what reason are they not smuggling their leaders out - why are they all staying there in the creeping forward ship etc....


I said it earlier, but I think they should have made more noise - even just 5 second talking scene - to expose that they thought there was a spy on board hence the secrecy with the plan. From that we can more logically see why the early part of the escape works as it does; then we can see the rising tension as the fear of the potential spy is crippling the upper ranks into a lack of any action (there is no plan) until the mutiny and then revelation that there IS a plan; with the potential spy part being left unresolved (its served its purpose by then and not finding the spy even leaves it there as a potential plot hook for the next film - and even if they never find a spy the idea that there are spies makes logical sense in a wartime situation).

That's a case where I have to disagree.
To the extent there is any leadership left, it consists of more junior military commanders (the other ship captains) or civilian political personnel.

Rey is on a side quest.
Leia and Finn are in hospital.
Poe is in some disgrace for getting the bombing wing wiped out.
The high command like Admiral Akbar are dead.

For me, the whole sequence worked very well without exposition of a spy or other reasoning. It puts the audience in the same position as the crew, wondering what is going on and why.

 sebster wrote:
If the FO uncovered the plan they would have been able to look for the transports and pick them off. Which actually did happen. So trying to keep that from junior officers, keeping to a need to know basis just makes sense.

That's the thing though. If Holdo had told Poe the plan he liked earlier he wouldn't have sent Rose and Finn off to find the Codebreaker. If Rose and Finn never left to find the Codebreaker then they'd have never tried to disable the tracker, never gotten caught, and the Codebreaker wouldn't have revealed the plan.

The act of not telling Poe even the most basic aspects of how there was a plan is what ruined the plan.

I mean this is a film with some pretty loose justification going on (exactly how did 'stealth' hide the transports, and then stop working when the FO was told to look in that direction?), so when the complaint boils down to Holdo kept the plan secret as she should, but doing so in a way that seems like she has no plan at all, I don't think this rates as an issue.

I agree its a nitpick, and one that probably would be overlooked, or viewed as a sort of irony given how trying to hold out on vital information is what caused vital information to be exposed, but there's just so much to nitpick about everything going on in Poe's story. I especially like it's premise and it's easily the most full of potential of the three main plots of the movie imo, but they just ruined it with so many little things that just keep building over its course I can't overlook tiny stuff that in a more well executed plot line I'd probably be willing to overlook.

Telling specific members of the crew a plan, not because they have a sufficient rank, not because they need to know to perform part of the mission, but just because they're a troublemaker and might help keep other disaffected crew onside? That's a terrible idea.

Withholding that you have any plan at all, and then allowing rumor to spread that your plan is simply "abandon ship and take our chances in unarmed tiny shuttles" is an even more terrible idea. This imo only became an issue because of an offhand conversation consisting of about four lines where Holdo admits to liking Poe after he staged a mutiny that could have potentially killed everyone on board after his super risky plan failed. That one line throws the entire series of her interactions with him into question. Either she likes him and thinks he's capable of being a good leader when the time to bat comes up, or she thinks he's reckless and can't be trusted and should be kept far away from anything of importance. That pendulum just doesn't swing both ways, and sure as hell not after a mutiny is staged.

I can understand not telling every single person about the plan, but Poe was still a high ranking pilot. It made it even more silly when Holdo told Poe she knows how to deal with hot shots like him (can't remember the exact wording) because it's what ultimately lead to them being whittled down to almost nothing.

As for telling the rest of the people on board, I can understand wanting to keep it quiet, but it's also equally stupid to come across like you're not doing anything. With what I assumed was probably hundreds or thousands of people on board, if they all believe they're just floating slowly to their death some of them are going to end up making trouble, whether it's mutiny or defection or taking matters in to their own hands.

What the command needed to do was think up something that at least made it look like they were trying (I dunno, like sending ships off to try and contact potential allies) to keep spirits up then when the secret rebel base pops up go "haha, this was our plan all along".

I think it's worth pointing out that even with his demotion, Poe was still probably in a top 5 list for ranking personnel if only because so many people after the initial attack were dead or incapacitated. There's basically Holdo, the ship captains, that one lady, and we don't really see anyone else seemingly in any position of authority. Sticking to the guns of a "you need to learn a lesson about responsibility" demotion in the middle of a crisis seems a little petty, especially if we're to believe Holdo deep down thought he was capable of filling big shoes.