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 Lance845 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
How exactly is ESB inconsistent with ANH?

Spoiler:

Ep.4



Ep.5

Thank you for elaborating. Now, if I may show how those don't really show inconsistencies:
In ANH, the lightsaber is established primarily as being able to cut through, well, anything, but especially limbs and people. It just so happens that in this case, there was something that "looked" like blood. Was it? Maybe. Because he's an alien, maybe it's alien blood, that works in a different way and didn't cauterise. The main point is that "lightsabers cut through limbs".

In the Wampa Cave, it is consistent that a lightsaber cuts through limbs and body parts. However, no blood - why is this? Well, the Wampa is still an alien. Maybe it just bleeds out slower. Maybe, because of the freezing conditions, it's not going to be pumping out blood. But at the very least, there's clearly a different context - new species, new planet. The context has changed.

In the last example, the ability of lightsabers to cut through limbs is still present. We don't see Luke bleed - why? Maybe because only the alien in the first film bleeds, or that wasn't even blood to start with! Luke also gets to clutching his hand away VERY quickly, and so we're not exactly treated to examining his blood flow.

As I see it, these don't contradict eachother at all, and neither are exactly important to the plot if they bleed or not.

But when plot problems that would be crippling for one trilogy would be totally circumvented by solutions only shown in another, that creates problems.
Why would the Trade Federation blockade Naboo if the Naboo could just hyperspace skip?
Why would the Rebels try to fire torpedos down the Death Star shaft, when they could just ram X-Wings in at lightspeed?
Why wouldn't Vader just Force Heal his own crippling injuries, or Palpatine heal himself after Mace Windu nearly defeats him?

Because the plot didn’t need it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should again clarify that I don’t think that many of the complaints are inaccurate, it’s just that they’ve always been the same issue and expecting them to change now seems strange.

 d-usa wrote:
Your father is dead and killed by Vader vs Your father is Vader.

Which is explained. Hence my whole point of "explain things that don't make sense". If JJ had explained WHY the Holdo Maneuver was "one in a million", then I wouldn't be complaining about why nobody else uses it.

It's why I'm not really complaining about Snoke any more - because we see who Snoke was (generally speaking).

Darth Vader is an underling to a Moff vs Darth Vader is 2nd in command of the Empire.

*Grand* Moff, who dies before the second film. And I didn't exactly get the impression that Vader was an underling to Tarkin, rather that Vader was outside the chain of command, and acted as an enforcer.

Did blowing up Alderan actually accomplish anything?

Yes - to demonstrate to Leia (and the audience) the power of the Death Star.

Is it ever mentioned again at any point?

I believe it is, when Leia reaches Yavin IV. As for after ANH, I believe it *might* be mentioned in RotJ. However, as the primary narrative importance of Alderaan is essentially as a redshirt for the Death Star to kill off, I think it serves it's purpose alone in ANH.

When did Darth Vader find time between the two movies to train in sword fighting?

The entire time between the two movies? And I didn't get the impression that he was untrained to begin with.

The easy things that come to mind.

Not really. None of them pose as an inconsistency to me.
Palpatine's face, that's one, but because it's importance to the plot is negligible, it's not a massive plot point (unlike "we destroyed the enemy fleet by lightspeed ramming them!")

Voss wrote:

Because if it works reliably it entirely breaks the space combat in half. Capital ships are worthless, you just deadfire the smallest possible vehicle you can strap a hyperspace engine to, and win, every time. Computing is advanced enough that you don't even have to use people, its simple vector intersection. The only effective ships become small ships and fighters that are fast enough that they can't be targeted reliably in that fashion. Everything else is just a target that hasn't been blown up yet.

And given how long hyperspace travel has been around in the setting (there are thousands of years of history, basically using the same ships, and a lot of space battles), the idea that no one had done it before is pants on head stupid and unlikely. In a universe where the Holdo Maneuver works, star destroyers and deaths stars would never be considered viable, and never would have been built,

So, by introducing the 'Holdo Maneuver,' Johnson basically destroyed how space combat in the SW setting works. The 'one in a million' is Abrams tossing out an easy dialogue fix to a Johnson problem so he doesn't have to deal with it.

And in addition to that, it also makes the death star and it's successors completely pointless. Just strap a hyperdrive onto a decent sized asteroid and away you go. Sure, the planetary mass will still be there... completely molten, all the way through. Sterilized and stripped of it's volatile compounds like air and water. It's for certain nothing survives. And it not only solves the problem of what to do with rebellious planets, but leaves the planetary mineral resources right there, easily found.

Not to mention being scads cheaper...

 d-usa wrote:
Because the plot didn’t need it.

Then the plots should be more consistent.

There was nothing about any of the sequels that "forced"* them into making the inconsistencies they did.
I'll go over a few:
TFA - "We can't just land, there's an energy field over the planet that stops us getting in! We'll need to use lightspeed to end up inside the field, even though doing lightspeed in orbit isn't a thing!"
Correction - "There's a massive battery of defence guns, that would prevent any massed fleet getting near. We'll need to send in a single craft, maybe with a cloaking device, and slip past them to disable the guns!" OR "There's massive battery of guns, but we have a rebel Stormtrooper and a captured First Order ship (perhaps from the Takodana battle) who can fly us in unnoticed, just like we were one of them!"

TLJ - "The only way to save the escape pods is to hyperspace ram!"
Correction - "I could shield the escape pods with the bulk of my ship, even though such an action will kill me!" or even simpler "I'll just drive at full speed (sub light) into the distracted First Order flagship, and, through luck and their own distractedness with the escape craft, ram into them at sub-light speed (like we see many ships in Star Wars do).

RoS - "We need to lose these TIE fighters by hyperspace skipping!"
Correction - "Let's just lose them in an asteroid field with some impressive flying skills!"

Small things, that add up to the same result, without the inconsistencies.

You now, outside of the movies, making an argument that that aliens blood doesn't cauterize is just that. You, now, coming up with an excuse to explain it away. It's not explained in the movie. We see one thing the first time it's used. And we see something different every time after that. There is no in universe explanation. It's just George deciding that he wanted to market more towards kids and blood was probably a bad choice.

None of your TFA solutions require the “best pilot and best ship” to participate in the mission though. They build Han and the Falcon up to such a mythological status that they needed a stupid hard mission to justify using them rather than Expandable Rebel Pilot Extra #3.

As far as Alderan, it didn’t even accomplish getting Leia to spill the beans. So it didn’t actually do anything.

So my thoughts.

Overall, this movie made me sad. It made me sad because it was actually a good movie, that had been preceded by two movies with completely inconsistent plots and non-existent character development.

If the prior two movies had done a decent job of setting up the plot, this movie would actually have been, well, amazing. It was a grand finale in desperate need of some foreshadowing and setup.


The whole Palpatine angle would have worked amazingly, if they had actually set it up in the previous two movies. If Rey had had related visions of Palpatine, her being on the throne of the Sith, etc... If maybe we had seen Palpatine's mysterious transmission on-screen.


Stupid things in the movie.

Hux being the Resistance informant and getting unceremoniously killed off. I mean, 1) It is completely out of his established character. He literally gave us a Star Wars Nuremberg Rally speech, but now he's working with the good guys? Yeah, he hates Kylo, but he would never stoop to working with the enemy. 2) This story arc served no purpose other than some mcguffin for them to escape being captured, which could have been done in many other ways.

Kylo/Ben Solo dying. I confess I was a Reylo fan. But him dying was unnecessary and sort of robbed us of a happy ending. We got a bittersweet and unsatisfying ending, but I'm not sure I was expecting anything more.

 Lance845 wrote:
SW has weird technology. There is computing but it's all done manually and analog instead of digital. A droid can calculate a hyperspace jump, but it has to touch controls to input the data the pull a lever to do it.

Despite being able to build droids, ships don't have AI's.

And worse, SW tech is more or less stagnant until someone wants to build a ever bigger gun.

Thats the world that SW started with. It's how it is in the old republic, the new republic, the empire, and that SW comic where it's like 20 generations later and lukes descendant is a thief and a pirate or some crap.

You can't argue things like "Why don't they just put a hyperdrive into what amounts to a bullet with a droid brain programmed to fire at targets". Because nobody ever has so nobody ever will. Thats Starwars. It's dumb.

Which does explain why the Empire went to such great lengths to get Galen Erso to work on the Death Star. Apparently people who could genuinely innovate are vanishingly rare in the SW galaxy.

There's one minute thing that impressed me in the most recent movie. Despite being played by many different actors and voice actors Palpatine always seems to sound exactly the same. He has the same ham, the same tone, the same volume. It amazes me that this character always feel and sound the same no matter who is playing him.

Does a lightsaber wound bleed?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. What’s the implication on the setting? Nothing whatsoever.

Can a starship jumping to hyperspace be used as a superweapon?

Well, what would the implication be? Uh, it would dramatically affect the balance of power in the galaxy to say nothing of fundamentally disrupting the specific plot of the previous movies.

If this distinction is lost on you, you are likely to be a fan of anything Disney expects you to buy.

@d-usa, based on your proffered examples, I don’t think we share the same concept of inconsistency.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epronovost wrote:
There's one minute thing that impressed me in the most recent movie. Despite being played by many different actors and voice actors Palpatine always seems to sound exactly the same. He has the same ham, the same tone, the same volume. It amazes me that this character always feel and sound the same no matter who is playing him.

Palpatine was played by Ian McDairmid in the special edition of ESB, in RotJ, in TPM, AotC, RotS, and now also TROS.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
seeing that suicide droids aren't really a thing

Except they are. For example, the Imperial Probe Droid on Hoth. Once you have that, having one programmed to do a hyperdrive ram isn't any harder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
None of your TFA solutions require the “best pilot and best ship” to participate in the mission though. They build Han and the Falcon up to such a mythological status that they needed a stupid hard mission to justify using them rather than Expandable Rebel Pilot Extra #3.

As far as Alderan, it didn’t even accomplish getting Leia to spill the beans. So it didn’t actually do anything.

It did plenty. Among other things, it established that Grand Moff Tarkin and the Empire would do literally anything to rule the galaxy, including killing millions of people and destroying all the resources of a planet. It shows the Empire is capital E.V.I.L. on a scale even 1930s Germany would be intimidated by.

It also gets the Death Star, and Princess Leia, to Alderaan so the heroes en route to Alderaan can rescue her and learn where to go next. If the Empire doesn't blow up Alderaan, the princess dies in captivity and the Death Star plans never make it to the Rebellion in Yavin IV.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
SW has weird technology. There is computing but it's all done manually and analog instead of digital. A droid can calculate a hyperspace jump, but it has to touch controls to input the data the pull a lever to do it.

Despite being able to build droids, ships don't have AI's.

And worse, SW tech is more or less stagnant until someone wants to build a ever bigger gun.

Thats the world that SW started with. It's how it is in the old republic, the new republic, the empire, and that SW comic where it's like 20 generations later and lukes descendant is a thief and a pirate or some crap.

You can't argue things like "Why don't they just put a hyperdrive into what amounts to a bullet with a droid brain programmed to fire at targets". Because nobody ever has so nobody ever will. Thats Starwars. It's dumb.

Which does explain why the Empire went to such great lengths to get Galen Erso to work on the Death Star. Apparently people who could genuinely innovate are vanishingly rare in the SW galaxy.

Its like elves in fantasy. They live for 800 years but in 4 life times nobody has figured out firearms? Its still just the same level of tech as everyone else? Yup. In 10,000 years sw tech is the same it always was.

The Star Wars universe is kinda meant to be incredibly old. In terms of its society. There has been a more or less continuous galactic civilization for untold aeons. There may not be complete recorded history, and much of it has become legend, but all of the galaxy's spacefaring civilizations have had constant contact with each other unbroken for tens of thousands of years. So much so that many species don't even remember what their homeworld was.

Presumably this melting pot of millions of different species has mostly exhausted the limits of their technology. Their existing technology also sees to all of their needs just fine. Meaning there is little incentive for innovation as its all been done and what more could you need? You can make robot servants to cater to your every whim, advanced enough that they can achieve sentience. Most of their technology is bordering on the miraculous in terms of what it actually does, but its also worn and stretched thin. Everything is used and battered. The only innovation that exists is trying to find some lost technology from a great civilization of the past and harness it in a new and clever way, usually by making it into a ridiculously huge gun.

Even the Death Star is not really any new technology. At its core its really just using the same technology as a lightsaber, and that tech predates most of the histories of the Star Wars universe.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
...

Small things, that add up to the same result, without the inconsistencies.

The inconsistencies also go away if you ignore the EU, as the movies are doing, and as Lucas did whenever it suited him to do things differently.

The idea that gravity wells pulled ships out of hyperspace was from the EU, and never made much sense given Han's comment in ANH about flying through a star making for an unpleasant experience. It was one of the bigger errors introduced by the EU, up there with putting a space station in Han (it's too big to be a space station) Solo's home system that was even bigger than the Death Star.

Lance845 wrote:You now, outside of the movies, making an argument that that aliens blood doesn't cauterize is just that. You, now, coming up with an excuse to explain it away. It's not explained in the movie. We see one thing the first time it's used. And we see something different every time after that. There is no in universe explanation. It's just George deciding that he wanted to market more towards kids and blood was probably a bad choice.

Yep, there's no explanation, it just is, and we're told to just accept that. And for something as utterly forgettable and unimportant to the plot, I don't think that's hard to ask.

But when certain key events happen that call into question the very fundamental aspects of some key parts of the setting, those aren't so easy to ignore.
"That lightsaber didn't cause a fountain of blood!" is a very weak criticism compared to "If the Resistance can solve their problems using lightspeed ramming, why doesn't everyone?" It's pandora's box - the moment something like that is added, it retroactively calls every prior film into question, and without addressing why it was only done in that unique moment, it sticks out.

Unless you can't tell the difference between a bit of set dressing and a key part of a story's plot, a bit of blood and hyperspace ramming are very much different concerns.

d-usa wrote:None of your TFA solutions require the “best pilot and best ship” to participate in the mission though. They build Han and the Falcon up to such a mythological status that they needed a stupid hard mission to justify using them rather than Expandable Rebel Pilot Extra #3.

No, but Han still has personal stakes to go, and as a hero of the Resistance (he is a war hero, and more than likely very experienced). In my revision, he insists on going, saying that if they want the best chance of it succeeding, they'd send him, the person with the most experience sneaking into places than anyone else, and Leia, knowing that Han also intends to "save" Kylo, agrees.

As far as Alderan, it didn’t even accomplish getting Leia to spill the beans. So it didn’t actually do anything.

In universe, it works to essentially prove to Leia that they believe they're in control, and to demoralise her. Out of universe, it works to show us the Empire are DEFINITELY bad, and what the Death Star does.

Grey Templar wrote:Hux being the Resistance informant and getting unceremoniously killed off. I mean, 1) It is completely out of his established character. He literally gave us a Star Wars Nuremberg Rally speech, but now he's working with the good guys? Yeah, he hates Kylo, but he would never stoop to working with the enemy. 2) This story arc served no purpose other than some mcguffin for them to escape being captured, which could have been done in many other ways.

Pryde should almost certainly have been replaced by Hux. Get rid of the spy, or just have it be another rogue Stormtrooper, who might have been in Finn's unit, but keep Hux as the Tarkin-esque leader of the First Order.

I mostly attribute TLJ making his character lean too much on the comedic side and played for laughs ("Hugs?" This is Hux!") which would have made him suddenly going back to being how he was in TFA feel very jarring. As a result, they needed to bring in another "evil admiral" figure.

Manchu wrote:Does a lightsaber wound bleed?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. What’s the implication on the setting? Nothing whatsoever.

Can a starship jumping to hyperspace be used as a superweapon?

Well, what would the implication be? Uh, it would dramatically affect the balance of power in the galaxy to say nothing of fundamentally disrupting the specific plot of the previous movies.

If this distinction is lost on you, you are likely to be a fan of anything Disney expects you to buy.

Exactly. A lightsaber wound bleeding has a negligible impact on the plot. The rules and limitations of lightspeed changing without a shift in technological innovation does, because the plots of many films could have changed drastically with access to hyperspace rams and being able to ignore blockades and energy fields.

epronovost wrote:
There's one minute thing that impressed me in the most recent movie. Despite being played by many different actors and voice actors Palpatine always seems to sound exactly the same. He has the same ham, the same tone, the same volume. It amazes me that this character always feel and sound the same no matter who is playing him.

Palpatine was played by Ian McDairmid in the special edition of ESB, in RotJ, in TPM, AotC, RotS, and now also TROS.

He even reprises the role in Rebels. He *might* be in some episodes of Clone Wars, but I think someone else does the majority of his lines there.

Vulcan wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
seeing that suicide droids aren't really a thing

Except they are. For example, the Imperial Probe Droid on Hoth. Once you have that, having one programmed to do a hyperdrive ram isn't any harder.

Ah, my mistake. Although giving probe droid lightspeed tech might not be possible for whatever reason, they are apparently capable to self-destruction.

insaniak wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
...

Small things, that add up to the same result, without the inconsistencies.

The inconsistencies also go away if you ignore the EU, as the movies are doing, and as Lucas did whenever it suited him to do things differently.

The idea that gravity wells pulled ships out of hyperspace was from the EU, and never made much sense given Han's comment in ANH about flying through a star making for an unpleasant experience. It was one of the bigger errors introduced by the EU, up there with putting a space station in Han (it's too big to be a space station) Solo's home system that was even bigger than the Death Star.

I never really read the EU - my understanding was completely based on the films and TV shows. I just accepted that, because we didn't see any ships doing lightspeed skipping or Holdo Maneuvers, that such things were not possible.

Them being introduced now, EU or no EU, retroactively makes other films weaker.

If nothing could happen that hasn't been previously shown, all of the movies after the first one would have been considerably duller...

 insaniak wrote:
If nothing could happen that hasn't been previously shown, all of the movies after the first one would have been considerably duller...

That's not what I mean - new things are great, until they start rewriting what can and cannot be done with key plot points.

For example, in the prequels, we see double ended lightsabers. That's cool, but not everyone has them, even in the prequels, and Maul having a double-ended lightsaber is never plot critical, so it doesn't negatively affect continuity.

I might add, the prequels definitely do cause continuity problems in places, but they never feel as egregious as the ones in the sequels IMO.

The thing is, the hyperspace ram and the jump into the planet's atmosphere are, once you discount the EU, only continuity errors if you choose to make them such.

We're told that jumping so close to a planet is a bad idea, and then that bad idea plays out on screen. There's your explanation right there for why he hasn't performed that maneouvre before...

Likewise, we've now been told that the Holdo Maneouvre was a one in a million chance. So that's why it hasn't been a common tactic...and while it would be nice to have an 'official' explanation as to why, it doesn't take a heck of a lot of imagination to come up with a headcannon reason - I assumed from the start that it was just a particularly lucky congruence of placement and ship mass that would be difficult to replicate, and moved on.

We're also shown why Hyperspace Skipping is a bad idea... Illustrated with a ship that's on fire. So, again, not something that is generally done, and Han gave us the reason way back in the first movie... Not that it was impossible, just that it wasn't a good idea.


At the end of the day, when something doesn't seem to quite fit, I'd rather assume there's an explanation that we just haven't been given yet and get on with enjoying the movie than to fixate on the details. YMMV, obviously.

So having seen it now (yes, I commented before I saw it!)
-Actors, artists and designers did an amazing job on this film and deserve praise.
- Specific parts were well directed as well, so Abrams is not a total waste of space.
- Man, the plot and script were terrible!
- Weirdly petty toward TLJ, which strikes me as unprofessional. Would have thought the Mouse would have prevented that sort of nonsense.

The film is structurally a mess. Individual scenes are well done, but the premise and overall execution is terrible.

My favourite part was the McGuffin chase, the ending was really pretty bad.

And CGI Carrie Fisher is about as good at acting as IRL Carrie Fisher.

 Da Boss wrote:

- Weirdly petty toward TLJ.. .

How so?

Really? I would have thought this was obvious!Well, they pretty much went out of their way to undo everything from that movie in a really blatant way. Rose was sidelined, they reversed the throwing the lightsaber away scene, they undid the Rey is no one scene and so on. I felt it was quite obviously a bit of a slap down to Rian Johnson, and okay I suppose, Rian Johnsons movie was basically saying "All these mystery box things are stupid, lets resolve them!", leaving Abrams in a difficult position.

I am just surprised that Disney, of all corporations, let two creatives get into a pissing contest in a multibillion dollar franchise like this. Seems really really badly organised from an outsiders point of view, I would have thought they would have had a broad strokes plan sketched out from the start, particularly if the idea was to have each film directed and written by a different person.

I think you're reading far more animosity into it than was actually present.

The Lightsaber scene was a throwaway line for a quick laugh. Rey's parents were still nobody - we're not even told their names. And Rose... Well, she's still there, but there were a lot of characters to keep track of as it was, so not too surprising that she didn't have much to do in this one.


For what it's worth, I agree that it's mind-boggling that Disney didn't insist on the trilogy being properly mapped out from the start and the directors directly collaborating to get it where it needed to go. And JJ certainly had to bend some bits a little to make them fit where he wanted them to go... But I think it's reaching to suggest that there was anything malicious about it.

I admit, like Da Boss, when I saw Luke catch the light sabre and say "a jedi's weapon deserves more respect" or whatever it was, it did feel like JJ was pissing on Rian a bit there, but one person's "pissing on" is another's "joking" I guess.

In addition to the Rey parents thing and Rose being ignored (they even added Monaghan's character who basically could have just been Rose), you also had Kylo's mask being remade, bringing back the Knights of Ren that TLJ completely ignored and it seemed like Rian might have been going somewhere with the force sensitive kid at the end of TLJ (though maybe he wasn't).

The three movies all feel quite disconnected, with TLJ feeling like an interruption to the TFA and TROS movies.

Maybe if I didn't know they were different directors, I might not have noticed though, but then the reason I know they were different directors was because of how jarring TLJ was, I possibly never would have found out if it was more consistent in the first place.

they undid the Rey is no one scene

TBF I reckoned this was always something of a planned change/reveal -- much like how Luke and Vader's relationship was altered in the original trilogy.

 insaniak wrote:
Likewise, we've now been told that the Holdo Maneouvre was a one in a million chance.

Again, we’re told it’s one-in-a-million then shown that it happens again in the same movie.

 Manchu wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Likewise, we've now been told that the Holdo Maneouvre was a one in a million chance.

Again, we’re told it’s one-in-a-million then shown that it happens again in the same movie.

I'd have to go back and watch it again but I got the feeling that ships were just going down all across the galaxy. Outside of the slight whiteness that all of them had I didnt see any relation to the holdo results. Could be wrong I guess.

Yeah you are incorrect. The Star Destroyer over Endor was destroyed via Holdo Maneuver according to official material.

 Da Boss wrote:

I am just surprised that Disney, of all corporations, let two creatives get into a pissing contest in a multibillion dollar franchise like this. Seems really really badly organised from an outsiders point of view, I would have thought they would have had a broad strokes plan sketched out from the start, particularly if the idea was to have each film directed and written by a different person.

The lack of a plan, or a willingness to chuck it in the bin at a moments notice, is a surprise to me in many big film and computer game series!
I can understand when it's like Pirates of the Carribean, where metro-sexual zombie pirates were a surprise hit and they had to spin it out into another 4 films, but I guess maybe I'm underestimating how many edits/ reshoots are caused by focus groups, exectutives, fan feedback, prevailing market trends etc.

Even Georgie Porgie at the peak of his creative freedom was forced to write Jar Jar out of the prequels.
He was clearly a big fan of the character and Jar Jar got a huge push in terms of marketting and merchendising when The Phantom Menace released.
When the man holding the purse strings gets worried, you have to bend the knee no matter how it impacts your artistic vision.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah you are incorrect. The Star Destroyer over Endor was destroyed via Holdo Maneuver according to official material.

What official material? Genuinely curious.