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.

The apparent reason that Holdo did not tell Poe about her plan was to create tension between them so that Poe would have a plot arc, essentially breaking the fourth wall. The same applies to the whole casino subplot.

Regarding the FO not having the capacity to jump a short distance ahead, we were literally shown in the film Finn and Rose jumping away and then jumping back.

Because it's a space fantasy reasons can always be contrived why things happens, but it's one of my core complaints about TLJ - things seem to happen specifically to hit certain plot points rather than the plot forming naturally. You can get away with a couple of hard to believe things in a movie but TLJ just overloads on them. It just had too many points where I thought "huh, what? why? that's stupid". The audience shouldn't have to be coming up with the reasons why anything and everything happens the way it does.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Some of the transports don't have hyperdrive.

The purpose of getting into the range of the planet was to allow the transports to get there in sub-light drive.

Which in itself is a bit odd because the Rebels typically aim to have hyperdrives on all their craft. Even their small fighters have hyperdrive (opposed to the Empire who doesn't bother).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It just had too many points where I thought "huh, what? why? that's stupid".

When Holdo told Leia she would go down with the ship, my wife turned to me and asked, "why can't a robot do that?" Good question. We eventually found out, the reason is because a droid probably would not have made the executive decision to turn the ship around and hyperspace into Snoke flying wing.

 Manchu wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It just had too many points where I thought "huh, what? why? that's stupid".

When Holdo told Leia she would go down with the ship, my wife turned to me and asked, "why can't a robot do that?" Good question. We eventually found out, the reason is because a droid probably would not have made the executive decision to turn the ship around and hyperspace into Snoke flying wing.

Though this does go back to the droid missile problem.

"Why can't a robot do that?" is a very good question, especially with hyperspace missiles. I mean, in the lore we've had the CIS exist, which specifically used underhanded tactics and cared so little for its droids that them being smashed apart by their own commanders is routine.

Surely you can bodge together some asteroids with hyperspace engines and zip around piloted by a droid.

Just keep in mind that she didn't stay intending to use the hyperspace missile strategy. (But honestly why wouldn't she have? She has nothing to lose/everything to gain.) It's only later on that she comes up with this plan to distract the baddies from firing on the transports.

Maybe it was only theoretically possible and nobody tried it before because nobody wanted to die? Theoretically, bulletproof vest should work. Who wants to test them personally unless needed? Why not test it on a droid ship? It's expensive? Why are people spending so much time on something they don't like? People have lots of time to do do stuff they don't like doing. Why would people do stuff they don't like doing? People are strange and have personal plot holes

The point is that Star Wars is driven by dramatic and narrative tension rather than documentary logistical considerations.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is that Star Wars is driven by dramatic and narrative tension rather than documentary logistical considerations.

Tension is undermined, and sometimes entirely defeated, by inexplicable plot developments because they distract the audience.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Why are people spending so much time on something they don't like?

Because the particular something is part of a wider something that they do care about. No plot hole there.

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is that Star Wars is driven by dramatic and narrative tension rather than documentary logistical considerations.

Tension is undermined, and sometimes entirely defeated, by inexplicable plot developments because they distract the audience.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Why are people spending so much time on something they don't like?

Because the particular something is part of a wider something that they do care about. No plot hole there.

My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable, do not distract the audience, and do not undermine but actually increase the tension.

This certainly is my subjective experience of watching the film.

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is that Star Wars is driven by dramatic and narrative tension rather than documentary logistical considerations.

Tension is undermined, and sometimes entirely defeated, by inexplicable plot developments because they distract the audience.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Why are people spending so much time on something they don't like?

Because the particular something is part of a wider something that they do care about. No plot hole there.

So your time spent on discussing something with people you don't know for validating the two movies of a cannon of now nine movies was well spent. God I wish I had your time and had nothing better to do with my plot. I need more plot holes in my life. I'm going to start discussing my life in terms of plot from now on. So thanks for that, at least.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable

Why must a human being, as opposed to a robot, remain on the ship when everyone else abandons it?

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So your time spent on discussing something with people you don't know for validating the two movies of a cannon of now nine movies was well spent. God I wish I had your time and had nothing better to do with my plot. I need more plot holes in my life. I'm going to start discussing my life in terms of plot from now on. So thanks for that, at least.

So how I spend my time is, in your view, a waste that you can't afford - and yet you can spare the time to criticize me for how I spend my time. Just noting the irony ... and here we see, again, the dichotomy of discussing the movie versus discussing people who don't like the movie, a.k.a., ad hominem.

 Manchu wrote:
Just keep in mind that she didn't stay intending to use the hyperspace missile strategy. (But honestly why wouldn't she have? She has nothing to lose/everything to gain.) It's only later on that she comes up with this plan to distract the baddies from firing on the transports.

The fact that Holdo intended to stay on the ship before she decided to hyperspace ram Snoke's ship is an extremely idiotic scene. They're in space, the ship is going to continue moving on its present course at its present speed whether there is anyone on board or not. The only reason for Holdo to stay aboard is if she wanted to change the course of the ship she certainly didn't have to stay aboard to keep it on course.

Holdo making her suicide attack on Snoke's ship was terrible for the narrative of the movie. Holdo was introduced seemingly just to become a martyr for the cause. This led to the inartfully contrived love interest with Rose and Finn because Rose has a crush on Finn the hero of the resistance (Finn's a hero because he defected from the FO and lost a lightsaber fight with Kylo Ren and then spent days in a bacta tank). Rose has to stop Finn from martyring himself by smashing his speeder into the battering ram cannon because we can't have the only useful tactic available to the "good guys" to be martyring themselves in suicide attacks. Rose has her dramatic speech before she passes out about how the Resistance shouldn't fight to destroy what they hate but should instead fight to save what they love. So Rose wants Finn to fight to save what he loves from being destroyed by the FO but she doesn't want Finn to fight the FO because he hates them from trying to destroy what he loves. That level of nuance is such a splitting of hairs that it's irrelevant. It's a horrible garbling of Yoda's fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side speech to Luke.

TLJ leaves us with the Resistance being about two dozen devout true believers on the Millennium Falcon who rely on propaganda to win the sympathy of people in the galaxy, their most successful tactic is suicide attacks, and the weapons they buy to use to fight the FO support the vice laden lifestyles of amoral wealthy 1%er arms dealers, and whose calls for aid in their desperate hour of need went unanswered. They are the galaxy's only hope for defeating the FO, the guys that dress up like Nazis, blow up planets for fun and have a seemingly inexhaustible military industrial complex supporting their vast array of warmachines and warships that are incredibly ineffective.

Perhaps I'm setting up another red herring. The issue is actually not whether the question raised by the plot can be answered, or even whether it is not answered, but rather that the plot has raised the question at all. Writers plant seeds and then reap pay off. Plot developments make sense because the how/why of the development was already explained beforehand, when the seed was planted. If the writer doesn't plant the seed explaining the later pay off then the development rings hollow, doesn't make sense, and/or causes the audience to focus about something other than the emotional beat of the scene. In the scene in question, Holdo explains that she has to stay behind. She even says why, but her explanation doesn't make sense in a setting with robots.

My wife is not a Star Wars fan at all but this distracted her enough to lean over to me and ask the genuine question, why can't a robot do it? I am a Star Wars fan and I had no credible answer for her.

@Prestor Jon - you make excellent points there, reminding us that we're not just talking about a confluence of excusable flaws

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable

Why must a human being, as opposed to a robot, remain on the ship when everyone else abandons it?

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So your time spent on discussing something with people you don't know for validating the two movies of a cannon of now nine movies was well spent. God I wish I had your time and had nothing better to do with my plot. I need more plot holes in my life. I'm going to start discussing my life in terms of plot from now on. So thanks for that, at least.

So how I spend my time is, in your view, a waste that you can't afford - and yet you can spare the time to criticize me for how I spend my time. Just noting the irony ... and here we see, again, the dichotomy of discussing the movie versus discussing people who don't like the movie, a.k.a., ad hominem.

ill put it in quotes as it doesn't really advance the discussion at all .

"Why can't a robot do it?"
Because the Empire (FO) doesn't waste fire on escaping vehicles with no life signs. That's why
They might think it just malfunctioned.

This was established in the very first SW movie. Come on guys. I thought you were SW fans!

-

@Gordon

There's a difference between whether one likes a movie and whether a movie is good or bad. I have been solely talking about the latter. Your response has consistently been ad hominem and now you admit as much, seemingly because you don't or can't or won't distinguish between (dis)liking a movie and talking about the merits and flaws of a movie. I suspect that's why you can't understand that critical analysis of film is an end in itself, like any other hobby.

As such, there's no reason for me to care about whether you find my posts insightful.

Moreover, there actually is common ground here. Nobody pretends TLJ is a flawless masterpiece. And pretty much everyone seems to like at least some element in the picture, too, even if it's just a premise that they believe the film ultimately failed to deliver on. As I posted several days ago, what many people seem to be interested in ITT is why someone else couldn't overlook the flaws that they were able to overlook or vice versa.

@Galef

If the FO was scanning the Resistance ship for life signs, they would have noticed that the Resistance abandoned ship.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable

Why must a human being, as opposed to a robot, remain on the ship when everyone else abandons it?

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So your time spent on discussing something with people you don't know for validating the two movies of a cannon of now nine movies was well spent. God I wish I had your time and had nothing better to do with my plot. I need more plot holes in my life. I'm going to start discussing my life in terms of plot from now on. So thanks for that, at least.

So how I spend my time is, in your view, a waste that you can't afford - and yet you can spare the time to criticize me for how I spend my time. Just noting the irony ... and here we see, again, the dichotomy of discussing the movie versus discussing people who don't like the movie, a.k.a., ad hominem.

ill put it in quotes as it doesn't really advance the discussion at all .

Spoiler:

When the hominem is the only reason ("I did or did not like something personally, but meh, you may get something different") to judge, yeah. Gonna go for the hominem. It isn't exactly irony when I spend a grand total of five minutes reading your insights and then realizing you haven't been all that insightful. What insight has your criticism brought to the film? If the film doesn't deserve any of your insight, why keep trying to be insightful about it? If you aren't trying to be insightful, what is your point? It really is no different from the US politics thread at all. The difference is you care about it. That's it. The vile hate and lack of listening (Sebster must think we all just ignore his points) is no different. The lack of listening and thinking and common ground is the same. Sorry about not providing a citation earlier for my claim about you saying critics were paid for their oinions. I looked for about five minutes and only found you talking about how Disney was making some sort of conspiracy to like their movie and demean people who didn't -got a source for that? Other than the standard ad stuff to promote a movie?.

Wow - Have you read Sebsters "how much can I talk down to you" posts. Also he was the one screaming and shouting at people with feth this and feth that, its also sad you that have resorted to a personal attack on the person not the actual content of his arguments - really.sad

Actually I said that the critics must have been paid for the scores they gave to a truely awful film - I could not see any explanation and stand by it now. But then i regard them with contempt anyway..

Why can't a robot do it?"
Because the Empire (FO) doesn't waste fire on escaping vehicles with no life signs. That's why
They might think it just malfunctioned.

This was established in the very first SW movie. Come on guys. I thought you were SW fans!

Er because apparently the FO can not tell the entire ship is empty so how do they know that its a droid???

 Galef wrote:
"Why can't a robot do it?"
Because the Empire (FO) doesn't waste fire on escaping vehicles with no life signs. That's why
They might think it just malfunctioned.

-

If the FO only fires on ships with life signs why can't the FO detect that all the life forms are leaving the ship? Wouldn't they notice the difference between thousands of life signs on the ship and only one?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is that Star Wars is driven by dramatic and narrative tension rather than documentary logistical considerations.

Tension is undermined, and sometimes entirely defeated, by inexplicable plot developments because they distract the audience.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Why are people spending so much time on something they don't like?

Because the particular something is part of a wider something that they do care about. No plot hole there.

My view of it is that the plot developments in the film are not inexplicable, do not distract the audience, and do not undermine but actually increase the tension.

This certainly is my subjective experience of watching the film.

I think the opposite and both are views are equally valid as you say its a art form so completely subjective.

What's the problem in discussing geeky passions?
In the main boards we discuss games with plastic toy soldiers we enjoy.
Is perfectly normal in this context be invested in this geeky medium/genre and discuss the pleasure or disappointment taken from a movie/book/whatever.
Is not that I stop people IRL discussing this. I have to care about money, work, politics and so on.

 Galef wrote:
"Why can't a robot do it?"
Because the Empire (FO) doesn't waste fire on escaping vehicles with no life signs. That's why
They might think it just malfunctioned.

This was established in the very first SW movie. Come on guys. I thought you were SW fans!

Yeah, that was a plot hole from the OT. Bit naff to only destroy escape pods with human life forms in a universe with droids. Because a droid can do most anything a meatbag could do.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Regarding the FO not having the capacity to jump a short distance ahead, we were literally shown in the film Finn and Rose jumping away and then jumping back.

Because it's a space fantasy reasons can always be contrived why things happens, but it's one of my core complaints about TLJ - things seem to happen specifically to hit certain plot points rather than the plot forming naturally. You can get away with a couple of hard to believe things in a movie but TLJ just overloads on them. It just had too many points where I thought "huh, what? why? that's stupid". The audience shouldn't have to be coming up with the reasons why anything and everything happens the way it does.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Some of the transports don't have hyperdrive.

The purpose of getting into the range of the planet was to allow the transports to get there in sub-light drive.

Which in itself is a bit odd because the Rebels typically aim to have hyperdrives on all their craft. Even their small fighters have hyperdrive (opposed to the Empire who doesn't bother).

That is a great point. The resistance was able to do 2 targeted jumps to make it right back to where they started. If they can do it so can the FO.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
What's the problem in discussing geeky passions?
In the main boards we discuss games with plastic toy soldiers we enjoy.
Is perfectly normal in this context be invested in this geeky medium/genre and discuss the pleasure or disappointment taken from a movie/book/whatever.
Is not that I stop people IRL discussing this. I have to care about money, work, politics and so on.

Absolutely nothing. And I have no desire to stop anybody from discussing whatever they want. I just recognize that that some discussions seem to beget the question as to why are people engaging with it? Like, if people really hate GW, fine, they will complain for a bit and then usually disappear from the boards after a bit of time. If people hate a given movie, fine, they will complain and that will be that, and maybe bring up their complaints when the discussion arises again. This discussion (and not just here, but the interwebs at large) seems to be hugely disproportionate to what is being discussed. Lots of people seemed to really dislike the new Blade Runner. They were vociferous and verbose and at times astute. But the discussion about SW seems to have hit a new level of geekdom. Maybe this is what Sebster was (perhaps a bit too aggressively, though I didn't find it offensive) trying to examine. Maybe it is just that SW means so much to people. I don't know what it is, and I am not trying to discount any individual claims or complaints about the movie here (I don't think I have ever stated my personal opinion of the movie here because I don't think anybody would much care, nor should they from some random bloke on the Internet), but make an observation about the larger discussion. It just seems weird people are so invested in hating something so much that they have to make their hate known in every minute way.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
What's the problem in discussing geeky passions?
In the main boards we discuss games with plastic toy soldiers we enjoy.
Is perfectly normal in this context be invested in this geeky medium/genre and discuss the pleasure or disappointment taken from a movie/book/whatever.
Is not that I stop people IRL discussing this. I have to care about money, work, politics and so on.

Absolutely nothing. And I have no desire to stop anybody from discussing whatever they want. I just recognize that that some discussions seem to beget the question as to why are people engaging with it? Like, if people really hate GW, fine, they will complain for a bit and then usually disappear from the boards after a bit of time. If people hate a given movie, fine, they will complain and that will be that, and maybe bring up their complaints when the discussion arises again. This discussion (and not just here, but the interwebs at large) seems to be hugely disproportionate to what is being discussed. Lots of people seemed to really dislike the new Blade Runner. They were vociferous and verbose and at times astute. But the discussion about SW seems to have hit a new level of geekdom. Maybe this is what Sebster was (perhaps a bit too aggressively, though I didn't find it offensive) trying to examine. Maybe it is just that SW means so much to people. I don't know what it is, and I am not trying to discount any individual claims or complaints about the movie here (I don't think I have ever stated my personal opinion of the movie here because I don't think anybody would much care, nor should they from some random bloke on the Internet), but make an observation about the larger discussion. It just seems weird people are so invested in hating something so much that they have to make their hate known in every minute way.

I think there is a certain complexity to this, but it can be ascribed to the whole forum phenomenon in general. Before the movie, one can look for confirmations for his hype.
After a movie like this, belonging to an "historic" geek franchise (if you allow me), ends up being so divisive, I think that people that found it awful need catharsis. In addition, since there is a certain circus already discussed praising the movie, I think they try (it is at least partially valid for myself, so I'd say we try) to find a certain validation. See if someone else feels that all the praise is undeserved, if they are insane for thinking that the movie is bad, if someone else found as well a given element or character inconsistent or obnoxious.
Defenders have probably felt the opposite - for whatever reason (that me, an "hater" to say, does not understand) they had a good time. So they will defend the movie, they will defend the authenticity of what they felt.
So ultimately, we are validating our emotional investment in the franchise.
SW means a lot and part of the emotional investment can be ascribed to that, but I think it can happen even for a one(two now)-hit-wonder movie like Blade Runner. Or for those that watched the first one and do not find the second one fitting*.

*

That is nicely put, thanks, but why this film now? Is it really that much worse than TFA in people's minds or feelings?

 LordofHats wrote:
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.

That's right, but it doesn't mean Holdo was wrong. Holdo held information on their stealth escape to a need to know basis, and then expected lower ranked troops to do their job and obey orders. The mistake was with Poe and company for refusing to follow their orders and do their jobs.

Funny thing is, the plot line of lower ranked troops ignoring direct orders and doing what the know best is a regular cliche in Hollywood. It's just that in all those movies because those lower ranks are the heroes then they're totally right to ignore orders, and everything works out fine and their disobedience saves the day. Here, finally, was a movie that suggested that maybe chains of command and discipline to follow orders is actually an important thing and that just because you're the hero doesn't mean you know everything.

And people are complaining about it. Oh well.

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.

The dialogue could have been a little tighter, I agree. Well, I'd have to see the movie again to know for certain what was said, but my recollection is as you say, that Holdo did nothing to convince people there was a plan, but it was secret right now. It's a bit of the film that could justify a second viewing.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
That is nicely put, thanks, but why this film now? Is it really that much worse than TFA in people's minds or feelings?

Yes, as seen in the lower box office take, lower ranking on rotten tomatoes and our site (51%) which is way down from any other star wars movie. It is objectively a worse movie than TFA, it does nothing for character development, it has no reveals, and no foreshadowing, when the updated list on the preferred viewing order comes out, my money is on people just leaving TLJ off the list with Ep1.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
That is nicely put, thanks, but why this film now? Is it really that much worse than TFA in people's minds or feelings?

For what concerns me, I find an absurdity to hate this movie and like TFA.
TFA is as much as incoherent and illogical. The characters are as much as awful and wasted (but some was spared, Johnson went full auto in TLJ). The worldbuilding as much as bad. Is just build cleverly to be fast and based on nostalgia so the trick works better.
It does to Solo what TLJ did to Luke.
Arguably, Rey is slightly better in TLJ, Kylo too possibly, and Johnson's style, when he does not want to reference the matrix or has other extremely cringe-y ideas for shots, at least has a personality. A crappy personality maybe, or at least schizophrenic, but different from what I feel from J.J. "if stock photos were a movie" Abrams.
TLJ has even worse tone problem IMHO. Also is ESB reversed so is as much as dishonest as TFA.
Now you are the expert here so you will tell me where I am wrong. But this is how I feel. TFA and TLJ are both awful, sometimes for different reasons (opposite, actually) and sometimes for the same ones.

 Mr Morden wrote:
@ Sebster

You really need to take a breath and a long hard look at your posts and realise how condescending they are. You talk about us getting angry - we didn't post this, now did we:

Holy fething gak feth. feth. I said in my first fething post that I thought those patriarchy reasons weren't right. I've corrected people each time they mistakenly assumed that I thought they were. Still people post stuff like that. fething stop it. fething read what I'm actually fething writing.

- change the feth words to what they actually are and thats a explosion of anger and insults. I donlt know why you are so hugely invested n this film or what need you have to justfiy it to yourself and to others but its probably going to give you an ulcer.

You've misread that completely. Like a lot of people, I use the word feth for lots of reasons. Here I was showing exasperation that after putting in my first post that I didn't think much of the patriarchy reason, people still chose to pretend that was my intent, and then they continued to pretend that was the case even as I repeatedly told them otherwise.

 sebster wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
@ Sebster

You really need to take a breath and a long hard look at your posts and realise how condescending they are. You talk about us getting angry - we didn't post this, now did we:

Holy fething gak feth. feth. I said in my first fething post that I thought those patriarchy reasons weren't right. I've corrected people each time they mistakenly assumed that I thought they were. Still people post stuff like that. fething stop it. fething read what I'm actually fething writing.

- change the feth words to what they actually are and thats a explosion of anger and insults. I donlt know why you are so hugely invested n this film or what need you have to justfiy it to yourself and to others but its probably going to give you an ulcer.

You've misread that completely. Like a lot of people, I use the word feth for lots of reasons. Here I was showing exasperation that after putting in my first post that I didn't think much of the patriarchy reason, people still chose to pretend that was my intent, and then they continued to pretend that was the case even as I repeatedly told them otherwise.

So you're upset people aren't blindly taking you at your word?

Interesting.