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 Manchu wrote:
There were clear good guys and clear bad guys. Benito was never a good guy or a "grey guy" - he was just a villain biding his time. (The opposite of ANH Han Solo.)

In that thread for awesome Star Wars moments there were a lot of little scenes in TLJ that I really did like, but on the whole I thought the movie was pretty eh at best. That being said, my wife and I were super excited when Benicio Del Toro showed up, and then he just... kinda sucked. It wasn't that he turned out to be a villain so much as he turned out to be uninteresting. I guess we'll have to wait for Soldado.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Which didn't happen. The ownership of the Falcon is not addressed on screen. For all we know Chewie is charging the Resistance UBER fees to drive everybody around.

You'd think chewie would just take the ship and go home. The resistance is dead, Han is dead, He can finally go home and spend his days with his family, now that he no longer has a life debt to repay.


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 Crimson Devil wrote:
So you're upset Holdo didn't share her plans with a reckless pilot recently demoted by Holdo's superior officer? If it had been anyone other than Leia, Poe would've been in the brig or out the airlock.

Leia would have shared the plan, she was good at briefing the troops. Holdo not telling the crew her plan makes her the worst admiral in history, and if she had lived, Leia would have shoved her out an airlock.

Holdo's failure can easily be seen by asking the question: If she doesn't trust Poe, why does she feel he's the best choice for leading the rebellion? Apparently you have to mutiny to earn her trust.

Chewie might want to repay the SOB that killed Han.

Leia and Poe have a relationship. Holdo and Poe don't. It's not like Poe told Holdo about the tracking device. No trust there.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
So you're upset Holdo didn't share her plans with a reckless pilot recently demoted by Holdo's superior officer? If it had been anyone other than Leia, Poe would've been in the brig or out the airlock.

And if not for a Deus Ex Machina, she would have been mutinied. Fortunately, plot armor protected her and Leia woke up just in time with a pistol. (More of that stellar writing there)

But hey, it's not like being a military leader requires you to communicate your intent and plans with your subordinate officers and personnel. They just always do that "I'm gonna keep it a secret to be a cowboy and keep my reputation as an edgy awesome person, leave my guys in the dark." Winning strategy.

@ Vulcan

In this case I’m happy to be proved wrong.

Leia picked Holdo's side and plan over Poe's. We see Holdo start to secure the flight deck with a distraction so she didn't need a Deus ex machina. You're delusionall if you think Leia would have shoved her out of an airlock.

Holdo's plan would have succeeded if it didn't leek to the first order. The transports were cloacked. And untill DJ told the first order to run a scan they didn't.

Holdo's sacrifice had a purpose. It prevented the Raddus's long range guns from continuing to fire on the resistance transports. Rey's fight in the throne room was not involved.

If you wanna critice the movie fine. But don't ignore parts of it to do so.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Leia and Poe have a relationship. Holdo and Poe don't. It's not like Poe told Holdo about the tracking device. No trust there.

Actually, I believe they did tell her about the FO having a ship tracking them in hyperspace but that was largely considered impossible for most of SW existence and even Rose stated that that was some bleeding edge tech in the movie. Chances are, if I was Holdo, I would be working under the suspicion that a spy had planted a tracking device on the flag ship, like Vader had put on the Falcon to find Yavin, because a traitor is the simplest of the options and should be ruled out first. The funny thing is, even with the FO actively tracking them, if not for Finn and Rose the plan with the cloaked transports might have worked.

Also, I'm pretty sure most COs don't like having to explain themselves in combat operations to their underlings. I'm pretty sure that has been used in other media to create tension between characters. The thing to remember about Holdo is that at least it wasn't Admiral Akbar whose rep was ruined in the movie by being in command of this.

Poe saw part of Holdo's plan while on the bridge and denounced her for cowardice. Later Poe told her his plan and she dismissed it as crap. Poe then committed mutiny to give Finn and Rose time. They have a great relationship.


So I was watching Empire tonight and decided to give it the TLJ critical viewing.

The dialogue in the sick bay is horrible.

Why didn't Luke stay in the shelter of the Wampa cave? It's not like he couldn't kill it and he had plenty of Tauntaun available to eat.

Why is an AT-AT's armor able to repel snow speeder blaster while it's on all fours, but it can't as soon as it face plants?

If the armor on top is weaker, why did the rebels not use their X-Wings?

What's the tensile strength of those grapples anyway? What exactly are they normally used for?

Why is it the Empire can't pilot their capital ships without running into each other? It happens in ESB and ROTJ?

I stopped there, otherwise I was in for a miserable experience.

 Earth127 wrote:
Leia picked Holdo's side and plan over Poe's. We see Holdo start to secure the flight deck with a distraction so she didn't need a Deus ex machina. You're delusionall if you think Leia would have shoved her out of an airlock.

Holdo's plan would have succeeded if it didn't leek to the first order. The transports were cloacked. And untill DJ told the first order to run a scan they didn't.

Which also has the bad writing of why does it take the criminal to ask the Military Fleet looking for someone to start their scanners.

 Earth127 wrote:
Leia picked Holdo's side and plan over Poe's. We see Holdo start to secure the flight deck with a distraction so she didn't need a Deus ex machina. You're delusionall if you think Leia would have shoved her out of an airlock.

Holdo's plan would have succeeded if it didn't leek to the first order. The transports were cloacked. And untill DJ told the first order to run a scan they didn't.

Holdo's sacrifice had a purpose. It prevented the Raddus's long range guns from continuing to fire on the resistance transports. Rey's fight in the throne room was not involved.

If you wanna critice the movie fine. But don't ignore parts of it to do so.

Poor writing and directing is still poor writing/directing - I know the critics love to blame the audience for the failings of film they like or have been convinced to like but its still true

Holdos plan - fly towards the planet you hope to escape on and then when the destination is obvious to all but the most stupid - so pretty much everyone in the film, then wonder towards it in flimsy transports that have lost their hyperdrives somewhere- knowing that the FO has sensors that can track them through hyperspace never mind normal space. Don't for instance use the various hyperspace capable ships that they start the Chase of Tedium with to all go in different directions - nah just let them get blown up.

A good or at least competent director might have tried to make the narrative contrivances at least a little hidden, but nah he didn't care - everything happens as it does because t has to for his silly little scenarios to play out - decent films might make you think "hmm why did they do that" but they shouldn't every five mins and through the actual screening. But this is not a decent film.

Its just one contrivance piled high on another - such terrible lazy writing: "Ohhs no they blew up our bridge and fighter bay with 3 fighters - hope they don't send anymore." (Oh that's lucky - their commanders are as piss poor as ours"

Nope - the entire FO fleet apparently either has a grand total of three fighters or the rest are just playing cards of something. Again its just their to make the "Chase of Tedium" more tedious - nope no constant fighter duelling as the plucky rebels try to protect their ships - nope lets have a couple of blobs crawling across the screen- again and again occasionally firing its gun - wow way to go director - such tension.

Holdo's sacrifice - If she had gone straight to hypesapce to draw off the FO fleet - that would have made sense but no she just wonders along

Then forgets that there was an autopilot and that apparently the FO fleet can't detect that there is only one life form on board - its simply there just so that the Director could have a flashy effects sequence - nothing more. Its then stated by another pointless character that "Sacrifice is bad m'kay" - or not , maybe - the director does not care enough to decide.

So watched it with my niece last night, she is 16, mixed race, a army cadet and gay, she wanted to know who the useless purple haired feminazi was..... she also said it’s the most boring care chase she has ever seen and kept asking me why they went to the horse races.... well, she is the target demographic and she hated it, I asked her what she thought and she said “Uncle ....I thought it was stupid and pointless, the story made no sense and why was the old man so angry”

Words failed me, she now thinks Star Wars is “SJW crap” which disappoints me no end as we have always been close and we watched Star Wars when she was growing up, it’s something we’ve always had in common, I turned her into a nerd from a young age, these new movies have threatened that, not happy, at least we have the old ones.

 Formosa wrote:
So watched it with my niece last night, she is 16, mixed race, a army cadet and gay, she wanted to know who the useless purple haired feminazi was..... she also said it’s the most boring care chase she has ever seen and kept asking me why they went to the horse races.... well, she is the target demographic and she hated it, I asked her what she thought and she said “Uncle ....I thought it was stupid and pointless, the story made no sense and why was the old man so angry”

Words failed me, she now thinks Star Wars is “SJW crap” which disappoints me no end as we have always been close and we watched Star Wars when she was growing up, it’s something we’ve always had in common, I turned her into a nerd from a young age, these new movies have threatened that, not happy, at least we have the old ones.

She obviously just hates women (but secretly in fact so secretly even she does not know) -

but otherwise sad to hear :( Again if the film was about empowering women - - which is fine and most recent action movies actually do so - why are the female characters so awful - badly drawn, poorly written, often pointless?

Skaorn wrote:
Also, I'm pretty sure most COs don't like having to explain themselves in combat operations to their underlings.

Uh, yeah. They kinda do. The Commander declares his intent and his desired end state. This is a fundamental principle of leadership. Your commander has to direct you, and in a combat situation you're expected to be able to think. If his end state is communicated clearly, you're able to visualize how to get there and you're prepared for any unexpected events that hinder the plan. A stupid commander wouldn't make that clear, and if he's relying on simple 'obey orders as I say' as a leadership style without keeping his staff and troops informed- things will go badly, and his career will come to an abrupt halt (one way or another).

 Mr Morden wrote:
but otherwise sad to hear :( Again if the film was about empowering women - - which is fine and most recent action movies actually do so - why are the female characters so awful - badly drawn, poorly written, often pointless?

Not for nothing, but this isn't really new. For about a decade we had a disturbing amount of movies that were basically "hot chick in black bodysuit with two pistols". Not that I hate hot chicks in black bodysuits, but they were pretty much eye-candy in both 'hot chick' sense and stupid gunplay/gun-fu garbage.

But the 'new' Female Heroes seem to be less about writing a good character and they're almost deliberately Mary Sues for shallow audiences to self-project onto. It's insulting, I'm sure.

There is nothing as stupid miliary wise as the opening fight.

I get Poe had to be knocked down a peg but good god. He's having a stupid of with hux and whoever designed his bombers.

It's not a war documentary, it's a space fantasy action film.

The Expanse is supposed to be good for realistic space warfare.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
Poe saw part of Holdo's plan while on the bridge and denounced her for cowardice. Later Poe told her his plan and she dismissed it as crap. Poe then committed mutiny to give Finn and Rose time. They have a great relationship.


So I was watching Empire tonight and decided to give it the TLJ critical viewing.

The dialogue in the sick bay is horrible.

Why didn't Luke stay in the shelter of the Wampa cave? It's not like he couldn't kill it and he had plenty of Tauntaun available to eat.

Why is an AT-AT's armor able to repel snow speeder blaster while it's on all fours, but it can't as soon as it face plants?

If the armor on top is weaker, why did the rebels not use their X-Wings?

What's the tensile strength of those grapples anyway? What exactly are they normally used for?

Why is it the Empire can't pilot their capital ships without running into each other? It happens in ESB and ROTJ?

I stopped there, otherwise I was in for a miserable experience.

And that’s a large part of the problem. They’re movies for 12 year olds. George Lucas said it himself. However, we look at them now with our adult mentality and we can pick all kinds of holes in all them them, but with our nostalgia glasses on, we give the silliness a get out of jail card.

People of my generation, who saw the originals as kids in the 70s and 80s, often think the prequels were garbage.

It seems people who were kids when the prequels came out often love them. Many of them loved Jar Jar. Now they’re probably filling the internet with how Rian Johnson killed Star Wars. Just like my generation did with the prequels.

There’s probably 12 year olds out there who think Rey and Finn are awesome.

I think the issue with Star Wars is they’re kids movies that don’t actually appeal to adults, unless those adults watched them as kids and are filled with nostalgic feelings for them. I know of at least 2 friends who fell through the gaps. Their childhood coincided with the years between trilogies, they only watched Star Wars films as adults. Their reaction can be best summed up as, not being able to see what all the fuss is about.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's not a war documentary, it's a space fantasy action film.

The Expanse is supposed to be good for realistic space warfare.

Good thing too, because purple hair (can never remember her name) would be arrested and end up in front of a firing squad.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's not a war documentary, it's a space fantasy action film.

The Expanse is supposed to be good for realistic space warfare.

I thought it was supposed to be a "intelligent subversion of the genre" - or some other nonsense - in that case would not a more realistic military be a new idea in Star Wars?

Anyway its not that its not remotely realistic in TLJ ( it never is in Star Wars) - its just constantly stupid people doing stupid things on both sides for no reason other than to set up the next dull scene or ultra tedious chase - there is suspension of disbelief in order to make the narrative work and the director not bothering to even try to make anything make sense.

And that’s a large part of the problem. They’re movies for 12 year olds. George Lucas said it himself. However, we look at them now with our adult mentality and we can pick all kinds of holes in all them them, but with our nostalgia glasses on, we give the silliness a get out of jail card

.

Except that not what those paid critics say - "no no no, its a visionary subversion of the universe" - not its a fun flick for kids - there are plenty of those - few get held up some sort of cinematic gem with the plot, pacing and character problems that this pile of gak is rife with.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Except that not what those paid critics say - "no no no, its a visionary subversion of the universe" - not its a fun flick for kids - there are plenty of those - few get held up some sort of cinematic gem with the plot, pacing and character problems that this pile of gak is rife with.

That's the issue I have.

For some reason, this Star Wars movie is being treated like it's a cinematic masterpiece the likes of which we've never seen. And if you see problems with it, you're stupid. Or a bigot. It's on par with "Black Panther is the greatest superhero movie ever made!". Might as well be screaming "Caitlyn Jenner is a beautiful and heroic woman!" It's a disingenuous assessment that pretty much amounts to cred-checking someone's ethics and pouncing on them if they disagree.

This isn't a good movie. At all. If it didn't have the name 'Star Wars' slapped on it, it'd have been a Syfy original picture on a Monday afternoon.

Skaorn wrote:


Also, I'm pretty sure most COs don't like having to explain themselves in combat operations to their underlings. I'm pretty sure that has been used in other media to create tension between characters. The thing to remember about Holdo is that at least it wasn't Admiral Akbar whose rep was ruined in the movie by being in command of this.

This is where you're wrong, it's exactly what CO's do. The CO briefs his department heads who brief their underlings. Akbar was good at briefings as well, in ROTJ everyone knew the plan, everyone knew what their jobs were. One of the many jobs I a mere underling had was to brief the CO before entering and leaving ports. The briefings go both ways, someone would have had to tell holdo where the landing pads where, and how to get to them, what beacons to follow, and any mines or hazards to avoid.

Especially when you plan to abandon ship, you have to let everyone know, they all have jobs to do, and they all have to assemble at their liferafts/escape pods. You especailly need to brief the pilots so they know where to fly the shuttles to a job left to the senior pilot who's still Poe. And everyone should be told their destination in case anyone gets separated, everyone should know the weather on the planet, life forms on the planet, and cords of the base their heading to.

If you don't let everyone know on a ship that size, you're going to leave people behind, holdo wasn't the only person on that ship. In Holdos 1/2 witted plan and because she didn't brief anyone, people got left onboard.

One of the more important jobs is to have the techs going around destroying the sensitive information so the enemy doesn't get ahold of it, not guarding escape pods. If the first order had instead just waited for it to run out of fuel, go dark, captured it, they could have gathered all the information the rebellion had. Which would have revealed the locations of every base they know about and all their operatives and missions.

Holdo's plan was just a work of failure across the board, showing total incompetence at leadership, thus deserving a walk to retirement through an airlock. Great leaders trust their troops. If she had briefed the troops, her plan would have worked slightly better, but she was still risking the fate of the entire rebellion with that horrible idea to just drive til we run out of fuel, let everyone leave so the ships undefended, and hope it gets blown up instead of captured.

Another thing that bothers me about this heap is how Luke and Yoda are written so that they're super keen on shutting this whole Jedi thing down. Not changing things, not trying to adapt their philosophy. Just quitting it.

Kinda stupid, considering that Snoke apparently manifested out of nowhere and took over the remnants of the Empire. Sith aren't going to suddenly stop playing because the Jedi decided to throw in the towel. How many more are out there?

But yeah, that's brilliant: "Well despite saving the galaxy multiple times from all manner of threats, we made a couple of screwups so we need to shut down."

Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That's the most idiotic thing I can imagine.

Heard that a couple of firefighters did something dumb, better abolish the entire concept.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
And if you see problems with it, you're stupid. Or a bigot.

People like you keep saying this, but honestly the majority of "if you see problems with it you're a bigot" mentions have come from the anti-SJW crowd complaining about "some people" saying it. Many people have accurately pointed out that there has been sexist/racist/etc criticism of the movie, but I haven't seen anyone argue that criticizing it for, say, having poor pacing or plot holes means that you're stupid or a bigot.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
And if you see problems with it, you're stupid. Or a bigot.

People like you keep saying this, but honestly the majority of "if you see problems with it you're a bigot" mentions have come from the anti-SJW crowd complaining about "some people" saying it. Many people have accurately pointed out that there has been sexist/racist/etc criticism of the movie, but I haven't seen anyone argue that criticizing it for, say, having poor pacing or plot holes means that you're stupid or a bigot.

Guess you missed that tweet by JJ Abrams.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
But yeah, that's brilliant: "Well despite saving the galaxy multiple times from all manner of threats, we made a couple of screwups so we need to shut down."

Let's be honest here, the jedi haven't really done much saving. Look at it movie by movie:

TPM: irrelevant trade dispute on an irrelevant planet. I suppose the jedi contribute here, but the galaxy was never at stake. Oh, and they bring Vader out into the world instead of letting him spend the rest of his life safely tinkering with droids in the middle of nowhere.

AOTC: jedi do nothing. Their only meaningful galaxy-scale action is to act as puppets for the Emperor in arranging a battle in his fake war.

ROTS: jedi do nothing. They continue to act as puppets in the fake war, and are destroyed.

R1: no jedi present.

ANH: jedi contribute, but don't do much with the force. Most of their actions are probably duplicated by the rebellion's conventional forces and/or happen only because the main character has to be the hero. Because let's be honest here, in a more realistic movie the veteran bomber pilots do their job as bombers, remember that their turret guns can point backwards to defend against enemy fighters, and destroy the death star while Luke is still trying to figure out which button to press to arm his guns.

ESB: jedi do nothing. Luke spends the first third of the movie as a common soldier, and his duel with Vader has no galaxy-scale significance.

ROTJ: jedi do essentially nothing. The rebellion's conventional forces win the battle of Endor, and likely win even more easily without Luke giving away their presence. The sole jedi contribution is a single magic trick to impress the teddy bears and convince them to help, after which Luke disappears to go have his irrelevant confrontation with Vader and the Emperor (both of whom die anyway when Wedge and Lando blow up the death star). At best the jedi contribution is to keep Vader and the Emperor obsessed with their silly space wizard conflict instead of the battle outside and ensure that neither of them think about heading for an escape ship once the shield goes down.

TFA/TLJ: no jedi exist anymore. I'd say they "contribute" by creating the next Vader, but let's be honest here, if you remove him from the movies entirely things probably happen the same way.

So yeah, that's a whole lot of nothing done by the jedi. They don't save the galaxy, and they're barely more than figureheads. Meanwhile fallen jedi sure do a lot of damage.


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 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Guess you missed that tweet by JJ Abrams.

Link?

 Mr Morden wrote:

And that’s a large part of the problem. They’re movies for 12 year olds. George Lucas said it himself. However, we look at them now with our adult mentality and we can pick all kinds of holes in all them them, but with our nostalgia glasses on, we give the silliness a get out of jail card

.

Except that not what those paid critics say - "no no no, its a visionary subversion of the universe" - not its a fun flick for kids - there are plenty of those - few get held up some sort of cinematic gem with the plot, pacing and character problems that this pile of gak is rife with.

That’s a pretty strong accusation. Find me one critic who said “it’s a visionary subversion of the universe” and then give me proof they were paid by Lucasfilm to say it.

I certainly wouldn’t say TLJ was a “pile of gak”. As films for 12 year olds go, I quite enjoyed it. But then I, like everyone else who says they enjoyed it, was bribed by Disney to say that.

 Peregrine wrote:


So yeah, that's a whole lot of nothing done by the jedi. They don't save the galaxy, and they're barely more than figureheads. Meanwhile fallen jedi sure do a lot of damage.

They certainly would be handy when the next Sith Lord pops up. As we've seen these happen whether the Jedi are around or not.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Guess you missed that tweet by JJ Abrams.

Link?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
And if you see problems with it, you're stupid. Or a bigot.

People like you keep saying this, but honestly the majority of "if you see problems with it you're a bigot" mentions have come from the anti-SJW crowd complaining about "some people" saying it. Many people have accurately pointed out that there has been sexist/racist/etc criticism of the movie, but I haven't seen anyone argue that criticizing it for, say, having poor pacing or plot holes means that you're stupid or a bigot.

Did you read the last thread? sebs whole "those are the reason you claim for not liking the movie, but those are not your real reasons" comes to mind. I was also told that I hate the actress who plays rose because I didn't like the casino scene.

speaking of links needed, show any sexist or racist criticism of the movie. There was none, the people "pointing it out" are saying those that didn't like it are bigots.

sirlynchmob wrote:

speaking of links needed, show any sexist or racist criticism of the movie. There was none, the people "pointing it out" are saying those that didn't like it are bigots.

SHILLS: "Beat Star Wars move EVER! Look at this approval! Anyone who hates this obviously has a problem with diversity. You wouldn't want to hate DIVERSITY, would you?"

CPT OBVIOUS: "Weird, your site is owned by Disney or you got an advanced viewing and perks. Says here that most people didn't like it, according to that same approval system for unpaid critics and regular people. They can't all be racist."

SHILLS: "The site was hacked by the 4chan Nazis!"

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
They certainly would be handy when the next Sith Lord pops up. As we've seen these happen whether the Jedi are around or not.

Why? The previous sith lord was killed by a rebel commando force destroying the shield generator while a rebel navy fleet dealt with the imperial fleet and a rebel fighter squadron flew in and blew up the death star. It sure seems like conventional military forces are capable of beating the evil empire without needing other space wizards to do the job.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.indiewire.com/2018/02/jj-abrams-star-wars-last-jedi-women-1201929593/amp/#ampshare=http://www.indiewire.com/2018/02/jj-abrams-star-wars-last-jedi-women-1201929593/

That does not match what you claimed, at all.

 Peregrine wrote:

That does not match what you claimed, at all.

Careful, you'll get sand in your nose if you bury your head that deep.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Careful, you'll get sand in your nose if you bury your head that deep.

So, straw man followed by condescending denial and refusal to acknowledge that you misrepresented your own link. You're certainly off to a good start here. Did you think I wouldn't actually read it and would just trust you that JJ Abrams said what you claimed?