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.

Toofast wrote:
"SOMEHOW Palpatine returned" (because we couldn't think of anything else, so don't think about it too hard)

Yeah, let's use one of the plot points from 1992's Star Wars: Dark Empire comic series instead of something original...

At least its better than using a Red Nose Day comedy special as the next major plot arc for an entire season or more

Toofast wrote:
"SOMEHOW Palpatine returned" (because we couldn't think of anything else, so don't think about it too hard)

While that line is certainly meme worthy, its not like his return isn't adequately explained over the course of the film. Cheap shots like that really aren't necessary when the film has substantially greater problems in its story and structure. Like that's not even in the top 10.

I will always have a soft spot for lines like that, especially if done knowingly by a film to skip a tedious scene and get right to the good stuff.

My favorite example is Godzilla Final Wars, when the good guys are pinned down by the bad guys. Suddenly, shots ring out, killing the adversaries—it’s the Secretary General of the UN…with a gun. He explains “I escaped somehow.” Then shoots some more aliens. “They called me ‘Deadeye’ in college.”

*chef’s kiss*

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I will always have a soft spot for lines like that, especially if done knowingly by a film to skip a tedious scene and get right to the good stuff.

Except in Episode IX we never even got close to the good stuff. :(

Episode 9 was like rage porn. If you were watching it for enjoyment, you were missing out.

I saw that film the day after I saw Cats. Episode 9 was worse. And Cats was an abomination.

After the crap fest that was Episode VIII I'd declared that the only way I'd see IX was if:
1) I pirated it,
2) I saw it eventually on D+ (wich I was planning on having for the coming Marvel stuff),
3) or if someone else bought my ticket.

Well, friends insisted that I come with them when it came out.
They bought the ticket, I bought the popcorn.
(I'd have bought the popcorn no matter what we'd seen)

Honestly I was only expecting it to be a bit worse than 7, but a step up from 8.
Those hopes were dashed by the opening crawl.
And the longer it went, the worse it got....

ccs wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I will always have a soft spot for lines like that, especially if done knowingly by a film to skip a tedious scene and get right to the good stuff.

Except in Episode IX we never even got close to the good stuff. :(

Hard to get to the good stuff in the third act when the second act kills off every plot thread from the first act.


All these young adult book series that are remade into movies. The books at least has the merit of getting kids to READ; the movies lack even that much.

The Hobbit trilogy. Doing it in ONE movie might have been overly-long, but there was no need to add in tons of extraneous material and turn it into three.

Heh… could the Hobbit be the only film where a “directors cut” makes it shorter?

The Hobbit has three directors cuts, and they make the films longer.

To be honest, I liked the Hobbit films better than the book, but the book wasn't very good and would likely be forgotten forever were it not dubiously tied to Lord of the Rings.


It strikes me as absurd how people can think that Disney ruined Star Wars. Seriously, there are only two possibilities:

1- Star Wars was ruined well before Disney made any films.

Or

2- Star Wars was always this way.


Way too many people are willing themselves to overlook the stupidness in The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, the Holiday Special, Caravan of Courage, Battle for Endor, Return of the Jedi and everything Extended Universe

 odinsgrandson wrote:
the book wasn't very good and would likely be forgotten forever were it not dubiously tied to Lord of the Rings.

Which is a really interesting assessment, considering most people consider The Hobbit to be better written in terms of flow of the story and pacing. Lord of the Rings is more of an epic poem/history/lore in some respects compared to The Hobbit, which was very much intended to be a story.

If it weren't for the success of The Hobbit and his publisher requesting a sequel, The Lord of the Rings may have never existed.

 Overread wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
the book wasn't very good and would likely be forgotten forever were it not dubiously tied to Lord of the Rings.

Which is a really interesting assessment, considering most people consider The Hobbit to be better written in terms of flow of the story and pacing. Lord of the Rings is more of an epic poem/history/lore in some respects compared to The Hobbit, which was very much intended to be a story.

Flow of the story and pacing? Seriously? That's one of the most absurd things I have ever heard.

The book is a jarring trip from one random encounter to the next with13 identical characters falling into one trap after another and needing to be rescued by Gandalf (whose powers are all hand waved) and later Bilbo. Every encounter along the way is incidental to the actual plot of the book (ie- none are even a little bit related to their quest to defeat Smaug) and many are absurd (like how the dwarves split into small groups so that they can feed themselves to the trolls).

The hero who kills the dragon is introduced ON THE PAGE WHERE HE KILLS THE DRAGON. And after that we have a big climactic battle that IS PRESENTED IN QUICK SUMMARY because the protagonist was unconscious for it.

On top of that, The Hobbit contains very little world building, and some of what is there is inconsistent with Middle Earth (talking animals, Troll named Robert and William, etc). And world building is why Lord of the Rings has impacted literature. Mind, Lord of the Rings has its flaws- the largest is that Tolkien was far too interested in describing the terrain.

Oh wait, do you mean that people at the time were okay with The Hobbit because fantasy fiction was meant to be kind of bad because it was all for kids?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ghaz wrote:
If it weren't for the success of The Hobbit and his publisher requesting a sequel, The Lord of the Rings may have never existed.

This is something I agree with. And ultimately if Tolkien had continued to refuse to write a sequel, The Hobbit would be some quirky old fairy story for kids like so many others that were hits at the time and are not revered now.

I have no problem saying that it is good for The Hobbit to exist to pave the way for the next publication the considerable influence it exerted. Lord of the Rings revolutionized fantasy fiction in some really impressive ways. The Hobbit did not.


What I feel The Hobbit has going for it is some nice, comfortable prose and two memorable characters (Gandalf and Bilbo). Lord of the Rings gives us quite a lot more interesting characters and quite a lot more interesting situations throughout.

 odinsgrandson wrote:
The Hobbit has three directors cuts, and they make the films longer.

To be honest, I liked the Hobbit films better than the book, but the book wasn't very good and would likely be forgotten forever were it not dubiously tied to Lord of the Rings.


It strikes me as absurd how people can think that Disney ruined Star Wars. Seriously, there are only two possibilities:

1- Star Wars was ruined well before Disney made any films.

Or

2- Star Wars was always this way.


Way too many people are willing themselves to overlook the stupidness in The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, the Holiday Special, Caravan of Courage, Battle for Endor, Return of the Jedi and everything Extended Universe

Tell me, what in all of that equals the Holdo Maneuver? If this is even remotely possible, then the Death Star is POINTLESS. Load up a bulk freighter with useless asteroids and slam it into the planet at lightspeed, problem solved for WAY less than a superlaser. Use a probe droid to pilot it - the probe droid is not just capable of hyperspace navigation, but also is fanatical enough to self destruct under the right circumstances. Should be child's play to alter the programming into an AI kamikaze.

And before you start in on gravity wells, that already got busted in TFA, when Han flies the Falcon through hyperspace not just into Starkiller Base's gravity well, not just under it's planetary shields, but clear into it's ATMOSPHERE.

And don't give me any 'one in a million' BS either. Sure, a HUMAN might have issues with timing the jump just perfectly. A navicomp should be able to do it just fine, or failing that an astromech droid. Programming a droid brain to do it should again be child's play.

Add in the new novels making hyperspace accidents creating planetary devastation in the era of the High Republic, and all the pieces are in place for the Empire to weaponize the Holdo Maneuver as an alternative to the large, expensive, and vulnerable Death Star.

Which means the entire first movie is POINTLESS. The Death Star is never built, Leia is never on her desperate mission to get the plans to the Rebels, Luke and Ben stay on Tatooine, and Leia dies when a bulk freighter smashes into Alderaan and sterilizes the planet. Emperor wins. Or at least that's what SHOULD have happened.

So... what in the material you mentioned comes even close?

 Vulcan wrote:
Tell me, what in all of that equals the Holdo Maneuver? If this is even remotely possible, then the Death Star is POINTLESS. Load up a bulk freighter with useless asteroids and slam it into the planet at lightspeed, problem solved for WAY less than a superlaser. Use a probe droid to pilot it - the probe droid is not just capable of hyperspace navigation, but also is fanatical enough to self destruct under the right circumstances. Should be child's play to alter the programming into an AI kamikaze.

This argument to me is bafflingly stupid. Yes, there is this thing called "innovation" it's when people improve on existing methods or technology or develop entire new technology or method altogether. The "Holdo maneuver" is an innovation. While some might have theorized it, she was the first to apply to this scale and successfully. It seems and is even mentioned and shown very clearly in the movie that hyperspace technology has improved significantly between the 30 years that separate Luke's and Rey's adventures. Yes, the "Holdo maneuver" might dramatically change the face of Star Wars battle tactics in the future and make obsolete the Death Star or, using technology like hyperspace jammers like those developed by the Empire in Star Wars Rebels, you could make the "Holdo maneuver" impossible and useless.

The Holdo Maneuver broke the setting. So did the Solo Maneuver. Hyper-skipping or whatever broke the setting. Torturing logic to justify any of those doesn’t just break the setting but breaks the fandom. If you don’t have a problem with broken settings, just admit that it’s not a dealbreaker for you and move on rather than trying to defend the franchise’s virtue.


As for the Hobbit, it’s fine if you don’t like it. Weird, but fine. But arguing that up is down or black is white in regards to it being less readable than LoTR? That’s disturbing.

epronovost wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Tell me, what in all of that equals the Holdo Maneuver? If this is even remotely possible, then the Death Star is POINTLESS. Load up a bulk freighter with useless asteroids and slam it into the planet at lightspeed, problem solved for WAY less than a superlaser. Use a probe droid to pilot it - the probe droid is not just capable of hyperspace navigation, but also is fanatical enough to self destruct under the right circumstances. Should be child's play to alter the programming into an AI kamikaze.

This argument to me is bafflingly stupid. Yes, there is this thing called "innovation" it's when people improve on existing methods or technology or develop entire new technology or method altogether. The "Holdo maneuver" is an innovation. While some might have theorized it, she was the first to apply to this scale and successfully. It seems and is even mentioned and shown very clearly in the movie that hyperspace technology has improved significantly between the 30 years that separate Luke's and Rey's adventures. Yes, the "Holdo maneuver" might dramatically change the face of Star Wars battle tactics in the future and make obsolete the Death Star or, using technology like hyperspace jammers like those developed by the Empire in Star Wars Rebels, you could make the "Holdo maneuver" impossible and useless.

Canonically, The Raddus had improved shielding, which combined with jumping to Hyperspace effectively turned the ship into a lightsaber type strike.

People really, really need to untwist their knickers over it.

epronovost wrote:
This argument to me is bafflingly stupid. Yes, there is this thing called "innovation" it's when people improve on existing methods or technology or develop entire new technology or method altogether. The "Holdo maneuver" is an innovation. While some might have theorized it, she was the first to apply to this scale and successfully. It seems and is even mentioned and shown very clearly in the movie that hyperspace technology has improved significantly between the 30 years that separate Luke's and Rey's adventures. Yes, the "Holdo maneuver" might dramatically change the face of Star Wars battle tactics in the future and make obsolete the Death Star or, using technology like hyperspace jammers like those developed by the Empire in Star Wars Rebels, you could make the "Holdo maneuver" impossible and useless.

Sorry, but the "innovation" argument doesn't work, for several reasons:

1) In every setting with FTL fans inevitably look at the massive kinetic energy of relativistic objects and ask "why don't they ram stuff". If random fans can think of it there's no way a universe full of hyperspace scientists and engineers never thought about it. The only plausible answer was that it simply wasn't possible to do it, with the popular explanation being that objects in hyperspace don't interact with objects in normal space so the collision wouldn't work.

2) Holdo expects it to work. She could martyr herself by turning the ship towards the fleet and engaging to draw their fire. Even if she can't operate the guns solo she could still threaten a normal space ramming attack and force them to waste shots on her instead of the transports. But instead she goes for the hyperspace ram, knowing that if she fails she's at best stranded in the middle of nowhere in a useless ship with no fuel left.

3) The other characters immediately recognize what she's doing. Poe knows she's going for martyrdom, not cowardice, and appears to expect her to succeed in her sacrifice. And even if he theoretically knew something about new technology the first order officer who had a nice brown pants moment didn't. But as soon as her hyperspace vector starts to align with the fleet he immediately recognizes that not only is she attempting to ram them, they're all about to die.

4) The "innovation" is promptly forgotten. Our heroes are facing a massive enemy fleet plus a surprise bonus enemy fleet and what do they do? Grab some freighters and start sending ramming missiles at the target? Hyperspace ram the planet with the sith temple? Nah, load up the space horses and make a god damn cavalry charge against a star destroyer.

There's no way around this, it's a beautiful shot but it's stupid on every possible level.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Canonically, The Raddus had improved shielding, which combined with jumping to Hyperspace effectively turned the ship into a lightsaber type strike.

So how did the first order officer know it was going to work?

Aecus Decimus wrote:
1) In every setting with FTL fans inevitably look at the massive kinetic energy of relativistic objects and ask "why don't they ram stuff". If random fans can think of it there's no way a universe full of hyperspace scientists and engineers never thought about it. The only plausible answer was that it simply wasn't possible to do it, with the popular explanation being that objects in hyperspace don't interact with objects in normal space so the collision wouldn't work.

Which is the case in Star Wars where you later see the Falcon going through a planet while going hyperspace which leads us to think that ship that goes hyperspace can pass through things (though some phenomenon might still affect it), but can still hit things at tremendous speed while accelerating toward hyperspace which is exactly what the Holdo maneuvre is. Hitting the bad guy by going hyperspace very close to the enemy and hit them during the top of the acceleration period right before the ship leaves realspace. The maneuvre itself is probably impractical in most setting since if your enemy is a little too far away you simply pass through him harmlessly, too close and its basically just ramming. You got to be positioned perfectly. The Holdo maneuvre is an innovation and a very niche tactic that works specifically in that situation but is unlikely to succeed in most others. You got to have the perfect mixture of distance, fuel and gravitational strength to make it work. That's why everybody recognise what Holdo is about to do and how it's likely to succeed because they all recognize that she's in the perfect spot for hyperspace ramming and the First Order officer realize too late that he basically moved his ship right into that trap that he didn't thought about probably because the maneuvre itself is so niche. Why don't they use it all the time? Because it was very niche in its application and that was the time where it specifically worked.

Are you actually suggesting that measuring distance and doing math around velocity and acceleration is an almost impossibly hard problem to overcome in a setting with thousands of years of commercial space travel?

Episode 9 was so difficult to watch. I really had to try and not laugh in the cinema (which I failed at multiple times) on a Christmas eve family outing, which then started a cascade of arguments that ruined Christmas that year.
Rise of Skywalker literally ruined Christmas for me in 2019.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
Tell me, what in all of that equals the Holdo Maneuver? If this is even remotely possible, then the Death Star is POINTLESS. Load up a bulk freighter with useless asteroids and slam it into the planet at lightspeed, problem solved for WAY less than a superlaser. Use a probe droid to pilot it - the probe droid is not just capable of hyperspace navigation, but also is fanatical enough to self destruct under the right circumstances. Should be child's play to alter the programming into an AI kamikaze.

This argument to me is bafflingly stupid. Yes, there is this thing called "innovation" it's when people improve on existing methods or technology or develop entire new technology or method altogether. The "Holdo maneuver" is an innovation. While some might have theorized it, she was the first to apply to this scale and successfully. It seems and is even mentioned and shown very clearly in the movie that hyperspace technology has improved significantly between the 30 years that separate Luke's and Rey's adventures. Yes, the "Holdo maneuver" might dramatically change the face of Star Wars battle tactics in the future and make obsolete the Death Star or, using technology like hyperspace jammers like those developed by the Empire in Star Wars Rebels, you could make the "Holdo maneuver" impossible and useless.

Canonically, The Raddus had improved shielding, which combined with jumping to Hyperspace effectively turned the ship into a lightsaber type strike.

People really, really need to untwist their knickers over it.

It’s not stated in the movie, and printed canon isn’t worth squat these days.

Perhaps you should stop worrying about the mite in other people’s knickers when there’s a beam in your own.

Er, wait. Forget that last bit.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

It’s not stated in the movie, and printed canon isn’t worth squat these days.

Perhaps you should stop worrying about the mite in other people’s knickers when there’s a beam in your own.

Er, wait. Forget that last bit.

This stuff is almost never stated in the movies. Star Wars has always been a series of incredibly light sci-fi elements that people go out of their minds trying to harden after the fact with material that gets created later.

Most modern american movies aren't actually movies, they're collages of algorithm generated scenes held together by the bare minimum of plot required to set a chronological order, sometimes not even that. Cause-effect is not even a consideration.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 odinsgrandson wrote:
the book wasn't very good and would likely be forgotten forever were it not dubiously tied to Lord of the Rings.

Which is a really interesting assessment, considering most people consider The Hobbit to be better written in terms of flow of the story and pacing. Lord of the Rings is more of an epic poem/history/lore in some respects compared to The Hobbit, which was very much intended to be a story.

Flow of the story and pacing? Seriously? That's one of the most absurd things I have ever heard.

The book is a jarring trip from one random encounter to the next with13 identical characters falling into one trap after another and needing to be rescued by Gandalf (whose powers are all hand waved) and later Bilbo. Every encounter along the way is incidental to the actual plot of the book (ie- none are even a little bit related to their quest to defeat Smaug) and many are absurd (like how the dwarves split into small groups so that they can feed themselves to the trolls).

The hero who kills the dragon is introduced ON THE PAGE WHERE HE KILLS THE DRAGON. And after that we have a big climactic battle that IS PRESENTED IN QUICK SUMMARY because the protagonist was unconscious for it.

On top of that, The Hobbit contains very little world building, and some of what is there is inconsistent with Middle Earth (talking animals, Troll named Robert and William, etc). And world building is why Lord of the Rings has impacted literature. Mind, Lord of the Rings has its flaws- the largest is that Tolkien was far too interested in describing the terrain.

Oh wait, do you mean that people at the time were okay with The Hobbit because fantasy fiction was meant to be kind of bad because it was all for kids?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ghaz wrote:
If it weren't for the success of The Hobbit and his publisher requesting a sequel, The Lord of the Rings may have never existed.

This is something I agree with. And ultimately if Tolkien had continued to refuse to write a sequel, The Hobbit would be some quirky old fairy story for kids like so many others that were hits at the time and are not revered now.

I have no problem saying that it is good for The Hobbit to exist to pave the way for the next publication the considerable influence it exerted. Lord of the Rings revolutionized fantasy fiction in some really impressive ways. The Hobbit did not.


What I feel The Hobbit has going for it is some nice, comfortable prose and two memorable characters (Gandalf and Bilbo). Lord of the Rings gives us quite a lot more interesting characters and quite a lot more interesting situations throughout.

I'm reading through the books with my daughter right now and the funny thing is most criticisms of the Hobbit apply almost exactly to Fellowship. It's a very similar string of fairly inconsequential encounters all the way to Bree. The two are a lot more similar than I remember from last time I read them and ultimately I do think I prefer the Hobbit over Book 1 of Fellowship. Most of the random encounters in the Hobbit have a bit of a pebble rolling downhill effect to them and I kind of like that Smaug isn't really the end (though I do wish Bilbo had an encounter with Bard prior to feed into that aspect of the finale). There's even more ties to the Hobbit than I remember, though I think they're easy to handwave because Fellowship is so bloated with names of places and people that get handwaved along with it. It's just kind of the nature of the story.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Most modern american movies aren't actually movies, they're collages of algorithm generated scenes held together by the bare minimum of plot required to set a chronological order, sometimes not even that. Cause-effect is not even a consideration.

This isn't limited to modern movies, or american movies, or even movies for that matter. Very few stories have well thought out histories for its world and characters. That's what makes the ones that do exceptional.

 Geifer wrote:
Are you actually suggesting that measuring distance and doing math around velocity and acceleration is an almost impossibly hard problem to overcome in a setting with thousands of years of commercial space travel?

Absolutely not, but since it's simple, so can the enemy and not give you the opportunity to make such a maneuvre effectively. The counter is easy, just keep the distance between you and a still mobile ship greater or shorter than the very short distance where hyperspeed ramming is possible. If they see you prepping for the maneuvre they can accelerate towards you and just get rammed in a more traditional way or move backward and keep their distance to avoid being hit by it. The only reason the Holdo maneuvre worked so well was because Snoke's ship was basically moving towards Holdo's ship thinking it was either going to run off or basically surrender. They realised their mistake too late and Snoke's ship was too big to get out of the way in time. A predictable ''finicky'' move with little margin for success is usable only in a very limited way which is useful as a desperate ''dirty trick'', but not useful at all as a basic strategy or even something upon which to build an entire combat doctrine. It's basically the ''viffing'' of space warfare (viffing is a desperate maneuvre some aircrafts like the Harrier could use to stall and dodge to force an enemy fighter to overshoot, but it's very risky and doesn't work all that well).

The Executor was also brought down by the impact of an A-Wing to the bridge, so.... yeah...

I find the idea exceptionally humorous that a capital ship could possibly hope to maneuver to block more numerous and massively cheaper, expendable small vessels aiming their hyperspace ram at critical parts like the reactor to inflict catastrophic damage. Not to mention that space stations and planets don't dodge oncoming ships so well. But hey. Agree to disagree, I guess.

 Geifer wrote:
I find the idea exceptionally humorous that a capital ship could possibly hope to maneuver to block more numerous and massively cheaper, expendable small vessels aiming their hyperspace ram at critical parts like the reactor to inflict catastrophic damage. Not to mention that space stations and planets don't dodge oncoming ships so well. But hey. Agree to disagree, I guess.

I agree.

The recent Sta Wars movies have done more to damage the IP and it’s canon lore for me than bring cool stuff. For every cool Darth Vader trying to get to the stolen plans scenes we have far too non-sensical former child soldier Stormtrooper deserters doing cavalry chargers, Holdo/Solo maneuvers, hyperspace trackers, ever increasing planetary destruction methods, children escaping Imperial installations hidden under a coat, broken Jedi master blue milk drinking self loathing… on and on ad nauseum.

This whole discussion about the Holdo maneuver sums up one of the core problems. Many people want something that looks cool and do not care about any kind of bigger lore considerations that may impact world building and suspension of disbelief… because for them it does not damage their suspension of disbelief.

And you know, at my age the thing is I can relate to the Luke (and to a lesser degree Obi-Wan) we were given lately because he reminds me of who I am… but I would rather see who I want to be on the screen rather than who I feel like all too often these days, a bitter, cynical man who has given up on the galaxy. I think that is why I had watery eyes when I saw the Luke of my youth in the Mandalorian.

 LunarSol wrote:
This stuff is almost never stated in the movies. Star Wars has always been a series of incredibly light sci-fi elements that people go out of their minds trying to harden after the fact with material that gets created later.

In previous movies it didn't matter because you didn't have plot elements defined by the technobabble nonsense. Who cares why an x-wing banks into a turn like a WWII fighter, there's never a point in the movie where you ask "WTF, why didn't they just turn flat and auto-win". Hyperspace ramming is stupid because its existence immediately requires you to answer the question of why it isn't used all the time, including in later movies where all the characters are aware of how to do it. You have an awkward contradiction between the existence of a trivially easy way of obliterating entire fleets with a (relatively) cheap ramming ship and the following movie ending with a desperate losing battle against an overwhelming enemy fleet where the heroes get on their space horses and execute a cavalry charge against a star destroyer rather than ram a freighter through the star destroyer fleet and call it a day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epronovost wrote:
The counter is easy, just keep the distance between you and a still mobile ship greater or shorter than the very short distance where hyperspeed ramming is possible.

Except we see in the following movie that you can enter hyperspace within seconds as Poe does his stupid "hyperspace through all the obstacles" thing far faster than a capital ship could react. All you'd have to do is keep the ram ships out of gun range and wait for the enemy fleet to try to close into range, at which point you press the "kill fleet" button.