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.

Who says he transported them anywhere? Was the planet barren before he started?

Although there's also the possibility that at least some of them were Imperial Star Destroyers that were stashed away much earlier and just retrofitted with the new guns.



I'm sure I remember a time when it was ok for movies to not give us all of the answers, because it was fun to speculate. Remember that movie where some evil guy in a black robe took over the galaxy, and after 9 movies we still didn't know why he actually did that? What were those movies called?

 Manchu wrote:
Then he transported them all to a barren planet to store them until a completely arbitrary point?

There’s no saving this crap.

Transported and buried them. Mustn't forget that the best place to store your fully crewed space fleet (which can't fly up without a navigational beacon to guide them) is underground!

Pretty sure he just planted a billion space-hydra teeth and then shouted, “Rise, my Star Destroyers! RIIIISE!”

At least it wasn't ANOTHER Death Star.

-

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Pretty sure he just planted a billion space-hydra teeth and then shouted, “Rise, my Star Destroyers! RIIIISE!”

I find this reference bizarrely amusing XD

 Manchu wrote:
Then he transported them all to a barren planet to store them until a completely arbitrary point?

There’s no saving this crap.

I get where Insaniak is coming from. Certain people.....just can't relax and watch a movie. They are filled with a need for something to be messed up so they can save us by pointing out how smart they are by pointing out "flaws".

If you left the Mon Calamari or Corellia alone for 20 years I'm pretty sure you could build a heck of a fleet (given I'm pretty sure it's still cannon that both of those are major shipyard worlds). Add in obvious cloning technology and the possibility of stashing equipement and resources away in an area of space apparently only available to access thru a spacial anomoly (my biggest issue with it honestly) and you've got all the handwaving you need. Especially since it's start wars. I mean, they must be able to build large starships in job lots and fast if Clone Wars is anything to go by. They lose at least 2 capital ships or more per episode in just 2 seasons that focus on just 2 jedi for the most part. I've never seen anyone knocking the cartoon for poor logistics.

This isn't a novel. It's a movie. Did terminator 2 tell you all about how skynet got all the resources to build all the robots and go into detail about how time travel worked? Nope. And it's considered an excellent film. It might just be good because the internet wasn't in full swing for cutting down instead of building up. If you hate this stuff so much just. don't. watch. it.....

You kind of disproved your own point, though. Terminator 2 ruins the continuity and rules of time travel from Terminator 1, that has been recognized since it came out, but people are willing to overlook it because the movie is so good. Audiences tend to notice and care about these kinds of issues when the movie is already bad. If TROS has excellent plot structure, characters, themes and dialogue in a well-paced, well-edited film, people would be happier to overlook Hyperspace Skipping. (After all, Star Tours already established it in canon along with the third Death Star.)

“Explain nothing” is not a valid approach to writing a story. At the very least, concepts key to the plot need to be set up.

It’s really strange to try to cite the original movies as lacking exposition. Exposition is something ANH is especially famous for getting right.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
At least it wasn't ANOTHER Death Star.

It was a whole fleet of thousands of Death Stars.

 Hulksmash wrote:
If you left the Mon Calamari or Corellia alone for 20 years I'm pretty sure you could build a heck of a fleet (given I'm pretty sure it's still cannon that both of those are major shipyard worlds). Add in obvious cloning technology and the possibility of stashing equipement and resources away in an area of space apparently only available to access thru a spacial anomoly (my biggest issue with it honestly) and you've got all the handwaving you need. Especially since it's start wars. I mean, they must be able to build large starships in job lots and fast if Clone Wars is anything to go by. They lose at least 2 capital ships or more per episode in just 2 seasons that focus on just 2 jedi for the most part. I've never seen anyone knocking the cartoon for poor logistics.

But why didn't Palp make these BEFORE he was overthrown (literally)?

And if he did, why did he need to hide for 30 years, after burying these ships with planet killing weaponry?

This isn't a novel. It's a movie. Did terminator 2 tell you all about how skynet got all the resources to build all the robots and go into detail about how time travel worked?

Because the main characters in the first film don't succeed in blowing up all of Skynet, and then it all gets not only replaced but upgraded in the next.

We're told in the first film that Skynet simply *did* succeed, and that they *have* time travel. That's enough, because it's the first film of the franchise, and that's what we're working with. In the sequel, nothing about that changes.

A more adequate example would be in the first film, the heroes destroy all of Skynet's production facilities AND their time travel capabilities, and those things coming back in the sequel.
It also helps that any inconsistencies within it are so trivial and so inoffensive to the plot that no-one cares, unlike in ROS. I can't tell you *how* the ones in ROS are more egregious, but my rule of plot holes tends to be "if I didn't notice it, it's not a problem".

Entertain me (and believe me, I wanted to like ROS), and I'll be entertained.

If you hate this stuff so much just. don't. watch. it.....

Because if I knew it had that stuff, I wouldn't have watched it? Simple as that.

And regardless, if the ending to a story you genuinely cared about sucked in your opinion, can you honestly say you wouldn't be the slightest bit annoyed that what you liked got a bad treatment from the people who made it?

It's not a case that people were begging to dislike this movie and actively seek out reasons - it's that the direction on these films, from an overarching standpoint, has been rather lacklustre, and the audience has every right to criticise it if they feel appropriate, like any piece of media.

You guys are giving too much credit when you call the Sith fleet a fleet of “Death Stars”. This is JJ Abrams we’re talking about. His Enterprise was twice as long as the original Enterprise. His Star destroyers were twice as long as the OT Star destroyers. His Death Star has a diameter many times the original Death Star’s.

In The Last Jedi, RJ gave us the dreadnought with a big bombardment cannon underneath it that could destroy any planetary base. No ship is allowed to be better hung than JJ’s!

The Sith were building a fleet of Feth You Rian Johnson.

 gorgon wrote:
You can say RJ shouldn't have signed on, but I'd lay money that he expected to be handed something closer to ANH...

???

How could he expect to be handed something closer to ANH? ANH and TFA were essentially THE SAME MOVIE!

I liked the Force Awakens and thought the Last Jedi was good but flawed. So I do like these films. I would rank them:
1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
3. Force Awakens
4. Return of the Jedi
5. The Last Jedi
6. Solo
7. Rogue One
8. Rise of Skywalker
9. Revenge of the Sith
10. Phantom Menace
11. Attack of the Clones.

So with regard to the sequels, I had had a good experience with the first one and I liked the second even though it was flawed. I was hoping the final installment would be good, which was why I went to see it. The only outright bad Star Wars movies in my opinion are the prequels, the rest are mediocre to good.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
We could argue that RJ was handed something he didn't want, but it's just crazy he, I dunno, didn't get on the phone to JJ and ask where he was going with some of his threads.

I don't know how involved RJ was in the writing anyway. Really, there should be writers that handle all the various story arcs and ensure certain points are hit through the series, we shouldn't have these 3 movies that seemingly ignore large chunks of the other movies in the series.

It's absurd that the Knights of Ren just go on a holiday for a whole movie with no explanation. It seems like they could have had a cool story fleshed out through the 3 films, concluding in the scene in TROS where Kylo fights them all, it could have made that scene so much cooler and deeper if we'd actually been following and learning about the Knights throughout the series.

I don't think JJ really knew where he was going with all his puzzle boxes. RoS doesn't exactly make it seem like he did. And again, if he had intended one specific answer for Rey's parents, or exactly why Luke exiled himself but not really, or a host of other things...then that's kind of a jagoff move if he really never intended to direct another one. It's just not how you would pass something to a fellow creative.

RJ wrote and directed TLJ.

And you really think there was time to flesh out the backstories to the Knights of Ren? Or that it would lend anything to the central story and conflict? Again, I think that's a prime example of RJ showing some good judgement. They're a faceless throw-in that don't matter.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
You can say RJ shouldn't have signed on, but I'd lay money that he expected to be handed something closer to ANH...

???

How could he expect to be handed something closer to ANH? ANH and TFA were essentially THE SAME MOVIE!

Going to keep this really simple for you. Consider how ANH wraps up compared to how TFA wraps up. World of difference.

 Da Boss wrote:
Well, I hope people are equally disturbed by the setting being broken by Palpatine being able to make a fleet of sixty squillion star destroyers with death star guns on them. (God damnit that was baaaaad).

Not just building them, but also finding 30,000 trained crewpeople for each of them.

And yet somehow NOT providing a navigator for any of them...

Voss wrote:
Yeah. That's my point. With proper oversight and direction, its easy. Letting each director do things independently is an obviously stupid decision, yet that's what they did. That there wasn't an overall trilogy story bible from the start of the project is just baffling, that they didn't keep either of these two idiots in check equally so.

Studio oversight is a solution. Another is just having each director play nice and collaborate. You can create things such that you tee it up for the next person without dictating to them. JJ could have been better there with TFA, and also could have rolled with the events in TLJ instead of saying "I'M PUTTING KYLO REN BACK IN THE RIDICULOUS HELMET, DAGUMMIT!" RJ probably could have done without the (apparent) underlying WTF! commentary in TLJ about TFA.

I know I'm sounding too JJ vs. RJ, and that's not exactly my point. It's not the specific personalities involved, but the positions they were put/placing each other in. It needed to be a collaborative effort, and the whole thing just wasn't.

 gorgon wrote:

Going to keep this really simple for you. Consider how ANH wraps up compared to how TFA wraps up. World of difference.

Ah... ANH: Death star blew up. TFA: Death star planet blew up.

Yeah. Huge difference.

 Vulcan wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

Going to keep this really simple for you. Consider how ANH wraps up compared to how TFA wraps up. World of difference.

Ah... ANH: Death star blew up. TFA: Death star planet blew up.

Yeah. Huge difference.

Are you for real?


I mean, are you also a fan of Star Wars: Krull? It ends with them blowing up the Death Star castle. Same thing, right?

I think what Gorgon means by referencing the end of ANH is, a more or less self-contained story as opposed to ending with a cliffhanger.

Doesn’t strike me as a particularly realistic expectation. Lucas thought he would be lucky to get one made. Disney expected to make them forever. JJ was likely hired specifically to set up a bunch of “ooh what will happen next?” excitement for the product line.

By willfully smacking all of that down, Rian Johnson created a catastrophe and more or less nothing could repair the trilogy — which I don’t mean as an excuse for the ridiculous mess that is TROS.

I’m not impossible to please. I don’t have impossibly high standards. I am not asking for another ESB. I am on record here since 2015 consistently praising TFA while acknowledging its flaws. TFA was not a deeply meaningful movie but it was fun and it managed to give us likeable characters; something Lucas utterly failed to do with the Prequels.

Rian Johnson followed up a fun movie with a deliberately un-fun movie. TLJ goes out of its way to make sure no fun occurs. New unlikeable characters were even invented to demean the likeable characters from TFA. TLJ is such an obvious fething disaster; it’s truly astounding what a failure it is as a sequel.

And following this purposely mean-spirited piece of gak we have TROS which is just stuff stuff and more stuff thrown in with no meaning, consequence, or purpose. Sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s just a monument to narrative indifference.

Don’t tell me to relax and enjoy these pieces of gak. And don’t pretend like me accurately describing them as total failures means there is no possibility of pleasing me. All I wanted was the B-/C+ effort of TFA. It’s absolutely shocking that with so many talented actors and artists and technical people they couldn’t even get to B-/C+.

I was pretty indifferent to this move the first time, but got to see it a second time with my Dad and felt much better about it. Feels on par with the first of the trilogy to me now. So, just putting that out there - might be worth a second viewing if you can risk it

Would've been way better if J.J.Abrams had done the whole trilogy, obviously, and not been forced to try to undo some of what was done in the second installment... but he did try, at least!

 Manchu wrote:

I’m not impossible to please. I don’t have impossibly high standards. I am not asking for another ESB. I am on record here since 2015 consistently praising TFA while acknowledging its flaws. TFA was not a deeply meaningful movie but it was fun and it managed to give us likeable characters; something Lucas utterly failed to do with the Prequels.

Rian Johnson followed up a fun movie with a deliberately un-fun movie. TLJ goes out of its way to make sure no fun occurs. New unlikeable characters were even invented to demean the likeable characters from TFA. TLJ is such an obvious fething disaster; it’s truly astounding what a failure it is as a sequel.

What I find interesting about this perception is that, for me, TLJ is the movie that feels the most like ESB. ESB wasn't a 'fun' movie. It was much darker than ANH or RotJ, and overall was pretty serious, with the mood only being lightened occasionally by the usual smattering of Star Wars-ish one-liners.

TLJ was the same (as was, to a slightly lesser extent, Rogue One). It had plenty of the same sort of 'fun' as ESB, from the moment Luke tosses his saber over his shoulder and stalks off onwards. I suspect that the real issue is simply that the humour that was there fell flat for you because you didn't like the characters.

And following this purposely mean-spirited piece of gak ...

And this perception is what finishes it off. You've taken Johnson's attempt to give his audience actual surprises as a middle finger to fandom, which is never how it was intended.

And don’t pretend like me accurately describing them as total failures...

If 'total failure' was an accurate description, there wouldn't be people here pointing out that they liked them...






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RiTides wrote:

Would've been way better if J.J.Abrams had done the whole trilogy, obviously, and not been forced to try to undo some of what was done in the second installment...

He didn't undo anything, though. He took what had been set up, and moved forward with it. Some of that resulted in characters acting differently to TLJ, yes... that's part of character advancement.

 gorgon wrote:
It's just not how you would pass something to a fellow creative.

RJ wrote and directed TLJ.

If that's the case then I definitely blame RJ. To not have continuity of writers through a series is crazy. Even TV series have writing teams that flesh out the broader stories of the main writers and also help ensure some level of internal consistency.

And you really think there was time to flesh out the backstories to the Knights of Ren?

You really think there wasn't?

A large chunk of TLJ was a side quest that could be removed and not affect the story one bit. It only existed to make a couple of throw away points (oh noes, some people make money of war!) and develop the characters of Rose and Finn to culminate in the stupid speeder scene, characters who in turn did almost nothing in the TROS.

A large chunk of TROS was fetch quests that didn't need to take as long as they did (the whole C3PO fetch quest could have not existed and the outcome of the movie would not have changed).

Or that it would lend anything to the central story and conflict?

Potentially, yes, maybe no, but at the moment what we have feels like 3 movies that exist separately from each other (or 2 movies that are a continuation of each other with one in the middle that is just a speed bump on the road of the other two).

Again, I think that's a prime example of RJ showing some good judgement. They're a faceless throw-in that don't matter.

That's my point, they're a faceless throw-in that doesn't matter. The absurdity is that they exist in movie 1, don't exist in movie 2, and exist again in movie 3. They clearly have a story, they're all uniquely dressed and armed and they're related to Kylo's back story. Why not flesh that out some? Or just don't have them there at all.

After thinking about the Rise of Skywalker I think I can make a ranking of the various Star Wars movies.

The following are the truly good movies of the Star Wars franchise.

1) A New Hope
2) The Empire Strikes Back
3) Rogue One

The following are the average, fun, but not great movies

4) Rise of Skywalker
5) The Last Jedi
6) The Return of the Jedi
7) The Force Awakens
8) Solo

The following are the bad Star Wars movies that are still somewhat fun on a rainy Sunday.

9) The Clone Wars
10) Revenge of the Sith

The following are the truly bad Star Wars that require courage to pass through once you have passed the age of 14.

11) Attack of the Clones
12) The Phantom Menace


Overall, I found it interesting to notice that Star Wars is a fairly average film franchise in general, yet one that made a very strong impression on me. When I think of the series though be they Rebels, Clone Wars or the Mandalorian (I haven't watched Resistence yet), these are all quite good, in general much better than the movies. Maybe the future of Star Wars lies there. Series allows for more world building and more "meaty" character development. Then again, TV has surpassed often movies in the last decades when it comes to story telling.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You kind of disproved your own point, though. Terminator 2 ruins the continuity and rules of time travel from Terminator 1, that has been recognized since it came out, but people are willing to overlook it because the movie is so good. Audiences tend to notice and care about these kinds of issues when the movie is already bad. If TROS has excellent plot structure, characters, themes and dialogue in a well-paced, well-edited film, people would be happier to overlook Hyperspace Skipping. (After all, Star Tours already established it in canon along with the third Death Star.)

This is pretty much what I think. I have no problem with any of the decisions or TechnoMagick(TM) introduced as part of the Star Wars canon in RoS. My main issue is that the movie had absolutely terrible writing and pacing. When the first half is a difficult to follow confused mess with ideas poorly introduced and never fully given time to be absorbed, it’s just a bad movie. Even in the end random things are introduced fast.

And to the point about Rian Johnson being the cause of the ruination of the series, I don’t think he came in to troll the new series. He made a pretty earnest attempt. You might not like it, and that’s fine, I respect your opinion. That said, J.J. Abrams didn’t even try to work with TLJ. There are a lot of ways Episode 9 could’ve mostly followed the same plot beats and actually have built off of TLJ. That’s also on J.J. Abrams. Not Rian Johnson.

But even leaving that aside, it was structurally a poorly made movie. That’s all on J.J. Abrams, not Rian Johnson.

That said, it is shocking that Disney had zero clue where the trilogy was gonna end up. How the hell did they end up going that way?

 insaniak wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

Would've been way better if J.J.Abrams had done the whole trilogy, obviously, and not been forced to try to undo some of what was done in the second installment...

He didn't undo anything, though. He took what had been set up, and moved forward with it. Some of that resulted in characters acting differently to TLJ, yes... that's part of character advancement.

Just to be clear, I'm not on the hate train for the second movie . But I do think, given the trilogy that we now have, it stands out as a bit odd/different compared to the other two. If Disney had a crystal ball and could go back in time, they almost certainly wouldn't have had a different director advance the characters a certain way, then bring back the first director to "unadvance" them as it were.

I actually like a LOT of things about the second movie, it just doesn't seem continuous with the others. I was reading back up in the thread, and actually missed when watching the third movie the "one in a million" line regarding the lightspeed ramming. But I'm really glad they did that! It's almost certainly a retcon, though, because it wasn't presented that way at all in the second movie.

So, all I'm saying is that it's clear J.J. Abrams tried to get things back on track to what his vision of the trilogy would have been - and that was different than Rian Johnson's. I think it would've benefited from a single vision throughout... but the end result was as good as they could've managed it with where things ended up after the second movie, imo.

 insaniak wrote:
What I find interesting about this perception is that, for me, TLJ is the movie that feels the most like ESB.

This is kind of a red herring argument. As I understand it, what you’re really saying here is, ESB was dark so why should TLJ be fun? After all, they’re both the middle installments of their respective trilogies. But what a middle installment actually needs to do is develop characters and their relationships as well set up the major conflict to be resolved in the final act. Instead of this, TLJ breaks all of its characters apart from each other, pairs them up with brand new characters who themselves are not developed and undermines them. And as far as the major conflict moving forward, TLJ is rather aimed backwards, attacking the premises of TFA rather than pointing the way toward Episode IX. TLJ did not need to be darker than TFA (a movie where Han Solo is murdered by his son). Nor is it actually darker; it’s just anti-TFA.

insaniak wrote:I suspect that the real issue is simply that the humour that was there fell flat for you because you didn't like the characters.

Which characters? If you mean, Admiral Holdo, Rose Tico, DJ, and the character Johnson called Luke, then yup I don’t like them. I don’t like them because I like Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren. Johnson wrote the new characters (including “Luke”) to undermine the new main characters from TFA. The “TLJ characters” constantly (sometimes literally) slap down the TFA characters. Johnson’s film isn’t just an explicit rebuke to people who like the Original Trilogy; it’s also rebuking audience members for liking TFA characters.

insaniak wrote:You've taken Johnson's attempt to give his audience actual surprises as a middle finger to fandom, which is never how it was intended.

Yeah, in a very significant sense, that was exactly what the intention was. In fact, critics picked up on this and praised the film for it.

insaniak wrote:If 'total failure' was an accurate description, there wouldn't be people here pointing out that they liked them...

People can like bad movies. Liking a movie doesn’t make it good.

 Manchu wrote:
Yeah, in a very significant sense, that was exactly what the intention was.

And so long as you continue to believe this, any actual discussion of the movie is pointless, so I think I'm done tilting at this particular windmill.

It’s not my idiosyncratic opinion, it’s the actual impact of TLJ. TFA had detractors but there was a general sense of unity among fans. TLJ quite explicitly made fun of a substantial portion of its audience. Whether you want to cll it what it is or use marketing euphemisms (“subverting expectations”), the result is the same: a huge mess.

The fact that people are still in denial about this is astonishing. The reason Disney is backing off Star Wars is obviously not because things are going too well.

Even people who didn’t dislike TLJ can see how this movie disrupted the new trilogy. Whether JJ would have made something worthwhile had his vision been borne out in Episode VIII is highly debatable but TLJ being a huge mistake is beyond question.

Usenet, circa 1983/84/85

Jesus Christ that last image.


If anyone wants to know why we shouldn't assume the fans know best, that's why!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Jesus Christ that last image.


If anyone wants to know why we shouldn't assume the fans know best, that's why!

No should ever assume that.
Fans, like customers, tend to be clueless jerks.