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Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).
And that's ok, I suppose. It just seems odd to me when I heard comments like "Worst movie ever", "Boring" "No interest at all" or "Gak story".
That does not describe the movie I watched at all.

Maybe for the sake of my own enjoyment of RoS (and Star Wars as a whole) I just need to stop reading this thread?
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

-

 Galef wrote:


Maybe for the sake of my own enjoyment of RoS (and Star Wars as a whole) I just need to stop reading this thread?
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

-

That's been my opinion of Dakka for a while now. I sometimes read the last comment in a thread to see if its worth my time at all, but following the discussion is just misery.

FWIW, I found the movie okay. My least favorite of the new trilogy but enjoyable none the less. I'd put it a bit above Revenge of the Sith overall.

 Galef wrote:
Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).
And that's ok, I suppose. It just seems odd to me when I heard comments like "Worst movie ever", "Boring" "No interest at all" or "Gak story".
That does not describe the movie I watched at all.

Maybe for the sake of my own enjoyment of RoS (and Star Wars as a whole) I just need to stop reading this thread?
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

-

That's fair. After all, the recent movies have made me feel quite sad to be a Star Was fan.

 Galef wrote:
Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).
And that's ok, I suppose. It just seems odd to me when I heard comments like "Worst movie ever", "Boring" "No interest at all" or "Gak story".
That does not describe the movie I watched at all.

Maybe for the sake of my own enjoyment of RoS (and Star Wars as a whole) I just need to stop reading this thread?
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

-

If it sounds strange to you that people don't love the same movies you do, maybe instead of tacitly suggesting they didn't watch the same film, you could just stop guzzling the kool aid? Shocking as it may seem, there really are legit issues with this movie. No, I'm not joking.

Removed - Rule #1

 Galef wrote:
Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).
And that's ok, I suppose. It just seems odd to me when I heard comments like "Worst movie ever", "Boring" "No interest at all" or "Gak story".
That does not describe the movie I watched at all.

Maybe for the sake of my own enjoyment of RoS (and Star Wars as a whole) I just need to stop reading this thread?
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

-

Yeah, I mean I think two of the movies are fantastic, one is pretty good and the rest are average or bad. I would not say I am a fan. But that is okay, right? Don't hate the new trilogy, they are just okay. The first one was quite good and the second flawed but interesting. This latest one I would rank above any of the prequels, which are very bad and not entertaining at all.

But I am interested in it because it is the biggest Sci Fi property in the world, and I like sci fi. Like the charge of the ex-troopers across the top of the star destroyer is the most 40K thing I am gonna see in a cinema for years, and scenes like that are worth going to see the films for. I am just baffled that with so much creative talent on the visual design side, and a fairly talented cast of actors, that they messed up the writing with what seem like rushed scripts 2 out of 3 times for the newer films.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
... you could just stop guzzling the kool aid? Shocking as it may seem, there really are legit issues with this movie. No, I'm not joking.

As someone else in this thread wrote, regardless of the legit issues, you can choose to like it or not.
Granted a perfectly crafted adventure story will certainly make that choice easier to like than a boring slog-fest spectacle movie, but what I am arguing it that the sequel trilogy is "good enough" to not merit some of the negativity, IMO.
It seems like some of the opinions here are that if they aren't as good or better than the Orig Trig, then by default, they must be gak. THAT is the mentality that I don't get.

They are fun movies with a coherent story. Even the Orig Trig had some head-scratching moments, but most of us forgive those because of nostalgia. But since the sequel and prequel trilogies are newer, and many of us are older, we critique them far more harshly than the originals.
I personally don't think that's fair. And if I'm honest, it seems to reek of a "I'm too old for Star Wars now" mentality, whether that is what is intended or not.

I hope I'm never "too old" to enjoy Star Wars. In fact, having kids of my own has reinforced that for me. I feel young and therefore I can watch these movies, flaws and all, and still be incredibly entertained and inspired.
I CHOOSE to continue to like Star Wars even if the quality is SLIGHTLY less than the originals. Maybe that's why I liked the ending of RoS so much, as the "moral" of the story was they you can choose who you want to be, regardless of your origin.

The reason I am "sad" is because I feel sorry for those of you that do not feel the same enjoyment that I do and I wish you could all feel it too.

-

It seems like some of the opinions here are that if they aren't as good or better than the Orig Trig, then by default, they must be gak. THAT is the mentality that I don't get

Problem is, that's a strawman, or at least I haven't seen anyone actually advocating that position.

Personally its more that, at least personally I find that this:

They are fun movies with a coherent story.

Isn't true. They aren't particularly fun. They're mostly a slog. And they definitely don't strike me as coherent, and become even less so when put together.

It isn't about nostalgia. It isn't about ''too old' to enjoy star wars' (whatever that is supposed to mean).
Its that these movies are just... fairly bad, with characters that don't accomplish anything, and muddy, incoherent plots that don't go anywhere. (literally so with TLJ, as the end state of the film is the same as the starting state: desperate rebels must escape the first order)

At their best, they manage rise from bad to indifferent, and 'feeling sorry' for people because they don't share your opinions is fairly insulting. It not only denies their opinions, it tells them they don't have the agency to have opinions of their own.

 Galef wrote:
Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).
---
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

The Star Wars fandom is highly diverse, and we all get what we can out of it. I'm very happy that, in recent years, we've had Rebels, Rogue One, the new Thrawn books, and now the Mandalorian. Each of these is something I enjoy far more than anything that came out of the prequel era. So, despite there not being a 'saga' film I consider worthy of the name, we're still doing pretty okay right now. I've been a fan for as long as I can remember, I was hugely excited as a young child when I opened a huge boxed Millennium Falcon for Christmas in the early 80s. As a high schooler I discovered the new EU novels and devoured them, rekindling my love of the galaxy. I bought RPG sourcebooks before I even knew what an RPG was, because I wanted to know more about the Alliance and the Empire. Eventually I ended up running campaigns etc. I think I've always been a few levels above 'barely ever' liking Star Wars.

And yet (and believe me when I say I'm not trying to be insulting to you personally) when I see people dressing up as Jedi to go see the movies, that's when I feel sad to be a Star Wars fan. I remember seeing footage of the Phantom Menace opening night, hordes of cloaked folk waving lightsabers around in a movie theatre. For all the years I've lived and breathed the Star Wars galaxy, that's when I mutter 'nerds' under my breath (ironically!).

Voss wrote:
Personally its more that, at least personally I find that this:

They are fun movies with a coherent story.

Isn't true. They aren't particularly fun. They're mostly a slog.

I'll crush your well-reasoned, objective argument there by saying they are indeed fun and fast-paced.

It not only denies their opinions, it tells them they don't have the agency to have opinions of their own.

That's a howler coming on the heels of what you said above. Right?

Voss wrote:
(literally so with TLJ, as the end state of the film is the same as the starting state: desperate rebels must escape the first order).

It's also the case with the Empire Strikes Back. It pretty much starts with the Rebel Alliance must find a new base of operation and ends with...the Rebel Alliance must find a new base of operation. Stuff, even important stuff, did happen in both movies, but they do end up pretty much at the same spot. It's actually even more true for the Empire Strikes Back than for the Last Jedi. It's a common issue with movie 2 of trilogies. They have a tendency of ending pretty much where they began and be the place where a lot of subplots are created and will only find their ending early into the third instalment.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

If it sounds strange to you that people don't love the same movies you do, maybe instead of tacitly suggesting they didn't watch the same film, you could just stop guzzling the kool aid? Shocking as it may seem, there really are legit issues with this movie. No, I'm not joking.

It's just frustrating when all you hear from "Star Wars fans" is how much they hate Star Wars. It just leads to the conclusion that...well, most people just Like Space magic, Laser Swords and Space Ships. Not the Star Wars universe per-se.

I can freely admit when it comes to the medium of Cinema, the Prequels and the Sequels are all poorly done based on the criteria of how movies are general made/critiqued. Buts that's a Cinema critique, not a Star Wars critique. I can separate the two and one does not effect the other.

epronovost wrote:

It's also the case with the Empire Strikes Back. It pretty much starts with the Rebel Alliance must find a new base of operation and ends with...the Rebel Alliance must find a new base of operation. Stuff, even important stuff, did happen in both movies, but they do end up pretty much at the same spot. It's actually even more true for the Empire Strikes Back than for the Last Jedi. It's a common issue with movie 2 of trilogies. They have a tendency of ending pretty much where they began and be the place where a lot of subplots are created and will only find their ending early into the third instalment.

Yup! Empire Strikes back is a very good movie for a film where nothing really happens.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Yup! Empire Strikes back is a very good movie for a film where nothing really happens.

In my opinion the Empire Strikes Back did the two important thing for a movie number 2, have a spectacular openning and a big ending, if possible with a major plot twist that will make the overall plot more "touchy". The battle on Hoth and the duel on Bespin perfectly fit the bill. The rest of the movie is actually a lot of filler and disjointed. The Last Jedi had an excellent openning and ending though they lacked a twist that would make the main plot more "touchy" and had a really bad subquest. Small mistake in the execution of it all made a big difference between a famous and beloved movie and a divisive and overall fairly average movie.

Really enjoyed the movie overall, it was fun, fast paced, and had some of the best acting I think I have seen in a SW movie. Ridley and Driver in particular were fantastic. I would give the movie a solid 7.5/10

Pros:

Zombie Palps
Rey doing the lightning, probably the scene that stuck with me the most.
Luke character was fixed from TLJ (and in fact TLJ was all but retconned)
Chase through hyperspace was great
Kylo's redemption, while predictable was really well done
Hux being super slimy and betraying the FO just to get back at Kylo

Cons:

Not too impressed with the soundtrack, I'll have to give it a listen but I didn't notice anything too new. I love the music so I was sad to hear nothing but rehashed old themes.
Sad that C3P0 didn't get all his memories restored ie.clone wars stuff. Seems like a missed opportunity for an emotional moment.
Lazy design on the Star Destroyers, they literally took the same model they made from Rogue 1 and made it bigger+a gun.
Final battle between Rey and Palpatine was a bit of an anti climax, he fell for the old reflect the lightning trick again? Where were my army of force ghost Jedi??

epronovost wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
Yup! Empire Strikes back is a very good movie for a film where nothing really happens.

In my opinion the Empire Strikes Back did the two important thing for a movie number 2, have a spectacular openning and a big ending, if possible with a major plot twist that will make the overall plot more "touchy". The battle on Hoth and the duel on Bespin perfectly fit the bill. The rest of the movie is actually a lot of filler and disjointed. The Last Jedi had an excellent openning and ending though they lacked a twist that would make the main plot more "touchy" and had a really bad subquest. Small mistake in the execution of it all made a big difference between a famous and beloved movie and a divisive and overall fairly average movie.

Yup! Exactly. Then, since all the plot points from TFA were dropped in TLJ they had to spend the first part of Rise of Skywalker basically doing what the last movie failed to do and setup the grand conclusion. So much so that the whole movie suffered for it.

But, again, that's a movie writing/production issue. Not Star wars problem.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

It's just frustrating when all you hear from "Star Wars fans" is how much they hate Star Wars. It just leads to the conclusion that...well, most people just Like Space magic, Laser Swords and Space Ships. Not the Star Wars universe per-se.

I think you're misconstruing the argument a little here. I think most people are arguing that the sequel trilogy is bad, not Star Wars as a whole.

I'm a Star Wars fan myself, I enjoy consuming all sorts of content, from the original trilogy and sequels, to EU books and all the Old Republic era stuff (KOTOR, TOR), and I really enjoyed the Mandalorian and Rogue One (which proves good Star Wars content can be made).

But this new trilogy just leaves me feeling hollow. It just seems like Disney is trying to cash in on the hype by making sci-fi movies masquerading as Star Wars, instead of... actual Star Wars movies.

I'll always be fan of the universe, that will never change regardless of the gak they put out. I will just choose to not subject myself to this trilogy again. I don't begrudge anyone who likes it, I am simply not one of them.

 Orodhen wrote:

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

It's just frustrating when all you hear from "Star Wars fans" is how much they hate Star Wars. It just leads to the conclusion that...well, most people just Like Space magic, Laser Swords and Space Ships. Not the Star Wars universe per-se.

I think you're misconstruing the argument a little here. I think most people are arguing that the sequel trilogy is bad, not Star Wars as a whole.

I'm a Star Wars fan myself, I enjoy consuming all sorts of content, from the original trilogy and sequels, to EU books and all the Old Republic era stuff (KOTOR, TOR), and I really enjoyed the Mandalorian and Rogue One (which proves good Star Wars content can be made).

But this new trilogy just leaves me feeling hollow. It just seems like Disney is trying to cash in on the hype by making sci-fi movies masquerading as Star Wars, instead of... actual Star Wars movies.

I'll always be fan of the universe, that will never change regardless of the gak they put out. I will just choose to not subject myself to this trilogy again. I don't begrudge anyone who likes it, I am simply not one of them.

Well yes and no. I personally don't find the Sequel Trilogy bad, just like I dont find the Prequel trilogy bad. All the issues with them are mostly production/writing issues. The stories in each trilogy are fine but they were so poorly done that it leaves to harsh criticisms that ultimately lead to a type of Gatekeeping I loathe (Example being people who praise Empire Strike Back as THE BEST! and everything after that has sucked. Especially when I already mentioned that not a lot happens in that film and its mostly people flying away from each other for 2 hours.)

I lived and breathed the old EU. What choice did I have? There was, like, no Star Wars when I was a kid but the Ewok Movies. As a Canadian those films were shown in theatre and I saw both of them in the Cinema and I will defend them to the death...To the death I say!!. Were all the stories in the EU good? No...the Crystal Star is a good Star Trek story but not a Star Wars one (Vonda McIntyre is a Star Trek writer after all and is the one who gave Sulu his first name). Children of the Jedi was boring as hell and there was no reason the Black Fleet Crisis had to be a trilogy when it could have been told in one book...maybe two.

And don't get me started on the timeline stuff. Your telling me the Thrawn trilogy happens 5 years after Endor, followed immediately by the Dark Empire story, and then the Jedi Academy Trilogy happens right after that? All within one year? Come on.

I just think that the Star Wars being produced right now is not for me. Its for my kid or my nephew. Its hard to accept that but in 10 years the Sequel memes will be absolute fire. I guarantee it.


(and while I do enjoy the Mandalorian...lets be real. It's at best Season 2 Farscape good...so lets not go to crazy here people.)

 Commander Cain wrote:

Luke character was fixed from TLJ

This one leaves me scratching my head every time I see it. Did people walk out of TLJ or something? The whole point in TLJ was that Luke's character was fixed IN the movie. The Luke we see in RoS is very much the same one we see in TLJ after his pep talk from Yoda.

 Galef wrote:
Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).
And that's ok, I suppose. It just seems odd to me when I heard comments like "Worst movie ever", "Boring" "No interest at all" or "Gak story".
That does not describe the movie I watched at all.

Maybe for the sake of my own enjoyment of RoS (and Star Wars as a whole) I just need to stop reading this thread?
Some of the comments here make me feel sad to be a Star Wars fan.

-

I posted many pages ago - I love Star Wars I-VI and I've watched each one of them 10-20 times each.... but man this movie killed the entire franchise for me. I'm sick of it, the director drama, the new characters, everything. They killed a part of my childhood and I wish I could redact it and never have watched Rise of Skywalker.

Mando has been a great show and it's sad to see what could have been and this feeling might be temporay. Rise of Skywalker made... everything feel cheap and worthless. It's had to explain how disconnected seeing that movie made me feel. This does feel like Star Wars. Maybe I can't accept the evolution of the series but this is a cheap grab for cash from Disney.

Maybe if I smoked a joint, had a better attitude, and went for a rewatch by myself - it would have a great action film. I went with a group of friends who loved it and I wanted to leave the theatre the entire time. Man that killed any desire I had to touch Legion/the tabletop and I recently sold my Xwing stuff.

 Galef wrote:
As someone else in this thread wrote, regardless of the legit issues, you can choose to like it or not.
Granted a perfectly crafted adventure story will certainly make that choice easier to like than a boring slog-fest spectacle movie, but what I am arguing it that the sequel trilogy is "good enough" to not merit some of the negativity, IMO.

Totally disagree. In fact, I actually feel like most people are far too easy on the sequel trilogy.

It seems like some of the opinions here are that if they aren't as good or better than the Orig Trig, then by default, they must be gak. THAT is the mentality that I don't get.

Who said that? When?

They are fun movies with a coherent story. Even the Orig Trig had some head-scratching moments, but most of us forgive those because of nostalgia. But since the sequel and prequel trilogies are newer, and many of us are older, we critique them far more harshly than the originals.
I personally don't think that's fair. And if I'm honest, it seems to reek of a "I'm too old for Star Wars now" mentality, whether that is what is intended or not.

That's cool that you find them fun. I find them fun too, in a 'so bad it's good' sort of way. They're a lot funnier than most of what's meant to be deliberately funny nowadays. I also take great issue with the idea that nostalgia is why the flaws with the OT are overlooked. I think they're overlooked because the OT films were actually good, which makes the issues easier to forgive.

The reason I am "sad" is because I feel sorry for those of you that do not feel the same enjoyment that I do and I wish you could all feel it too.

That's cute. I feel sorry for kool aid guzzlers like yourself that will eat up anything with the Star Wars label on it.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:

That's cute. I feel sorry for kool aid guzzlers like yourself that will eat up anything with the Star Wars label on it.

Why would you feel sorry for people enjoying what they like?

Here's the thing - I'm a massive Star Wars fan. I have been since I first saw ANH way back before home VHS was even a thing yet. I can choose to by critical of all of the movies' flaws, at which point there will be, I dunno, probably two of them that are actually 'good' - (although, ironically, those are the two that I'm currently least likely to rewatch when I'm just looking for something to throw on). Instead, I choose to accept that at the end of the day, they're visual spectacles full of mythical archetypes, playing out battles between good and evil accompanied by laser swords and spaceships, with a bit of magic and amusing one-liners thrown in for fun, ignore the flaws as irrelevant to enjoying the spectacle, and have 11 (so far) movies that I enjoy watching over and over again.

Meanwhile, you're on the internet complaining about the 'worst movie ever'...

 Galef wrote:
Man, people's taste are all over the board. I get the feeling that some of you just flat out do not like Star Wars anymore (and barely ever did).-

I don't think you should be trying to cred-check people for not liking one component of a fictional universe that's been around since before most people on this page were born. You're entitled to agree or disagree, but you're gatekeeping when you try and claim they never liked Star Wars.

I liked the classic trilogy, and a bit of the Expanded Universe. A lot of the video games I still play to this day, still subbed to the MMORPG I have figure collections, miniatures, the D20 RPG, and all manner of Star Wars merch and I love the Mandalorian.

Now I'm not sure what part of this needs to be lazily red-lettered, and it's quite obvious that "Rule #1" isn't being applied universally, but hey-

I'm glad you liked the movies, and didn't feel you wasted your money. Liking or disliking the movie won't make you stupid, but wasting your money will... so you aren't stupid, apparently.

I just happen to think Disney had no idea what the hell they were doing, made this trilogy up on the fly, and we ended up with a mess.

Voss wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Scrabb wrote:
"Your Snoke theory sucks"-Rian Johnosn.

Yeah, I'm only imagining RJ's disdain. Drink that green titty milk Luke!

Johnson was right, though. When I watched TFA, I did not find Snoke particularly gripping villain. He came out cookiecutter and boring,

He was, and I'd be surprised if you found a brief hologram aping the Emperor's hologram in Empire Strikes Back anything but cookiecutter and boring.

But that doesn't make Johnson 'right' in any way. He had free reign to develop the character in any direction he chose, and opted to kill him off and NOT set up something better. Just did nothing instead. The wheels just kept spinning through TLJ so Abrams stuffed more nonsense into the RoS hamster cage, because Johnson left Episode 8 in exactly the same situation that it started out in: rebels need to escape the first order to go do... something. The fact that the number of rebels is smaller isn't important, because the listed actors for the next film are still around.

No disagreement, this was one of my main criticism of TLJ: Johnson did not leave enough for next director to work with - especially given the short time to develope next movie. I think his idea was that next guy would make Kylo Ren a main villain and build some sort of scenario where he could be partly redeemed. But this was not a good concept since TLJ had already estabilished that First Order was now Kylo Ren: Snoke was dead, Hux was a joke and Knights of Ren never made an appearence. The error was not killing Snoke (a right call, especially within the context of a single movie) but not following it up with something which could be used as a hook for next movie.

JJ then went cheap route, ripped off every crappy fan theory and old EU storyline and decided that Palpatine was alive, created Snoke as a puppet, and Rey was his granddaughter. I was literally yawning my way through these 'shocking' revelations which made everything which had happened before to seem less interesting and meaningful.

But the main blame is laid not on JJA, not on Johnson, but Kennedy who apparently had no oversight whatsoever for the project.

Before I saw ROS I saw a few articles saying that the movie was a fan pleaser...Kind of like that would have been a bad thing. Then I saw the movie and like - what the heck? How could this possibly be a fan pleaser? The plot was utterly terrible IMO.

Like...this whole time palpatine has been hiding in a secrete system building 500 star destroyers with planet destroying lasers? Like...that should have been the original plan right? 500 deathstars is a lot better than 1. Never mind the fact how the heck do you even man 500 star destroyers in without anyone knowing about it? Etherway this makes the entire story a complete waste of time. Starkillerbase? Nah...500 planet killing star destroyers.

Jezz...It wasn't TLJ bad but it had other faults of it's own. TLJ at least looked amazing I just don't care too much about that. This film though looked really Janky at times...especially the strobe effects on palpatine. Also Palpatine looked pretty terrible. Plus what the heck kind of idea is it to fight on foot on top of a star destroyer...couldn't they just turn ever so slightly to knock all the people off? It just bites man. The whole homing beacon thing was also really stupid...ESP the part when the SD command ship becomes the beacon....They literally are like...we will just guide them out! But...I thought the idea was none of these ships can tell which way is up? LOL.

Just friggen terrible. Also the utter waste of the opportunity to make kylo do something interesting...and they just knock him out of the scene....AHHHHHHH. So bad!

 Xenomancers wrote:

Like...this whole time palpatine has been hiding in a secrete system building 500 star destroyers with planet destroying lasers? Like...that should have been the original plan right?

And likely would have been, if Palpatine had known where Rey was. Instead, he sent Snoke out to keep the galaxy destabilised until he was ready to reveal himself.

It's not like we haven't been shown Palpatine playing the long game in the past.


And, really, the existence of the Sith fleet doesn't make Starkiller base a waste of time, any more than the second Death Star did for the first, despite being bigger and more powerful. Or maybe it does, and Starkiller base was never intended to be particularly successful, instead just being a giant distraction to keep the Resistance and/or New Republic busy.

Because, as we saw, that giant fleet was still vulnerable to a concerted resistance from the galaxy at large.

Plus what the heck kind of idea is it to fight on foot on top of a star destroyer...

Not a good one, but the best they could do when the changing situation required the plan to be adapted?

...couldn't they just turn ever so slightly to knock all the people off?

Evidently not, given that they didn't.

 insaniak wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Like...this whole time palpatine has been hiding in a secrete system building 500 star destroyers with planet destroying lasers? Like...that should have been the original plan right?

And likely would have been, if Palpatine had known where Rey was. Instead, he sent Snoke out to keep the galaxy destabilised until he was ready to reveal himself.

What was the threat to his return anyway though? The New Republic practically demilitarised and was unwilling to go after the First Order*, seemingly out of pacifism. Luke had been long gone, and unless the scant years between the First Order's arrival and his revealing himself was when he built all of those ships, there really wasn't a reason to not strike.

*Speaking of, did we get an explanation for Starkiller Base? If Palpatine/the First Order built it, why? Surely if they were building a fleet of Death Stars, the Starkiller Base was redundant?

It's not like we haven't been shown Palpatine playing the long game in the past.

During the Clone Wars, which have explicit reasons for drawing out the conflict:
To foster ideas of "decisive" government control
To weaken the control/illusion of control the Senate held
To cause people to question the morals of the Jedi Order (in that they took up the mantle of generals instead of peacebrokers)
To put an army of his own control in position to remove Jedi not slain by the war, emboldened by people wanting a swift resolution to the war
Basically, slowly eroding the people's faith in anything but himself.

On the flip side, he seems to be playing the long game here so that the Good Guys can rush in and save the day!

And, really, the existence of the Sith fleet doesn't make Starkiller base a waste of time, any more than the second Death Star did for the first, despite being bigger and more powerful.

But the second was built as a reaction to the first being destroyed, and them being able to build it makes sense because the Empire have demonstrated that their economy allows and supports the construction of such things.

The Sith Fleet makes less sense, because it's orders of magnitude bigger (well, in terms of how many Death Star cannons they have), and was constructed without the resources of the Empire.

If the Second Death Star had been destroyed, but somehow Palpatine was still in control of the galaxy (or, if we retcon that Palpatine made a Second Death Star, and made his Sith Fleet instead), that would make far more sense, because he's still Emperor, he still has those resources to draw from. But for this, he just seems to materialise stuff better than he ever had before, with no explanation.

Or maybe it does, and Starkiller base was never intended to be particularly successful, instead just being a giant distraction to keep the Resistance and/or New Republic busy.

Starkiller Base, if I recall correctly, was never even a blip on the radar of either the Resistance or the New Republic (who were, again, completely unwilling to fight the First Order anyway, hence why the Resistance was named such) until it fired, achieving... something?

What would have been more sensible was if Palpatine had literally done *nothing*, and waited the few years or so between Starkiller firing and his "reveal", then just deployed a Star Destroyer from hyperspace above every New Republic planet, demand fealty, or destroy the planet with Death Star rays. As the New Republic demonstrated, they weren't exactly a military force to be feared, or even concerned about.

...couldn't they just turn ever so slightly to knock all the people off?

Evidently not, given that they didn't.

Yeah, that works for me. I don't actually have any flack with the idea of them fighting on a hull of a ship, actually, I liked the idea. My actual issue was "why did they have the cavalry on hand to deploy them anyway if they weren't expecting to make a cavalry charge?"
I think I might have suggested a quick fix to that, but in case I didn't, it was basically an addition to the whole "gearing up to fight Palp" scene. You'd see the ex-Stormtroopers leading their cavalry on board a ship, and Finn running up saying something along the lines of "you're leaving us?" "No, of course not - we're coming with you to fight." "Why are you taking those? They won't be much good in a fleet battle." "Perhaps not, but we're not leaving them behind - they're our lucky mascots, and I think we need all the luck we can get."

Or something to that extent. Hell, perhaps even reshoot the actual hull fight where the infantry (plus Finn) deploy first, but get pinned down badly by Stormtroopers. Then, we see Stormtroopers getting flung aside and start firing away from the infantry, and a massed cavalry charge from the ex-Stromtroopers saves the infantry temporarily.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
My actual issue was "why did they have the cavalry on hand to deploy them anyway if they weren't expecting to make a cavalry charge?".

They were originally supposed to deploy on the ground.



For the rest of it, it is what it is. I'm done trying to discuss this all with people who are determined to dislike the movie. You can choose to poke holes in it and demand answers, or you can do what we all did back when we were kids, and fill in the blanks yourself.

 insaniak wrote:
For the rest of it, it is what it is. I'm done trying to discuss this all with people who are determined to dislike the movie. You can choose to poke holes in it and demand answers, or you can do what we all did back when we were kids, and fill in the blanks yourself.

Star Wars is my favorite saga for kids that has a bunch of kids getting killed.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Like...this whole time palpatine has been hiding in a secrete system building 500 star destroyers with planet destroying lasers? Like...that should have been the original plan right? 500 deathstars is a lot better than 1. Never mind the fact how the heck do you even man 500 star destroyers in without anyone knowing about it? Etherway this makes the entire story a complete waste of time. Starkillerbase? Nah...500 planet killing star destroyers.

Planet killer trope has really got tired in Star Wars and sequels make it even worse to the point of self-parody. It is now like LEXX where the crew eventually began to blow up planets just to amuse themselves.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Jezz...It wasn't TLJ bad but it had other faults of it's own. TLJ at least looked amazing I just don't care too much about that. This film though looked really Janky at times...especially the strobe effects on palpatine. Also Palpatine looked pretty terrible.

Well with (un)life history of his, understandable he wouldn't be a looker.

My problem was that he SOUNDED terrible. Palpatine was always awesome speaker. Even in the prequels where everyone else sounded like a robot, he had always great lines and good delivery. But here, he was just banal, like they brought Dr Evil as a serious villain for James Bond movie.

After watching it again last night (I know I said I wouldn't but the ticket was 6 bucks and a friend asked me to go). I gotta say the story flowed better but, again, it still suffers from the fact there was really no flow or overall story in the "Trilogy". Like, Prequels are about the fall of Anakin Skywalker. The OT are about the redemption of Anakin Skywalker and the Sequels should be about the Legacy of Anakin Skywalker (Which, I guess it was kinda in a roundabout way)

Instead of having that play out through 3 films they speed ran it through the last movie. I had hoped that Big Poppa Palpatine would have been the big bad ultimately but the fact there were no hints of it in the earlier films shows they really, really should of had this all planned out from the get go. Instead of have a rough outline that each director were allowed to "tweek".

Instead we got was, essentially, a really weird retelling of Dark Empire. Which of all the EU stories is one of the last ones I would do on the big screen.

That being said my final verdict is 7.8 /10. Good, but not great. Now I'm going to go back and watch Revenge of the Sith again so I can enjoy Ian McDiarmid chewing the scenery again.