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The Last Jedi: Official Review and Opinions Thread ** SPOILERS ** — Page 206

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DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

Well if SKB eats a sun then right after the sun is eaten theoretically everyone should die.

I feel like that the idea for the Starkiller weapon was originally conceived as “this laser destroys suns in remote systems, thus killing those planets too,” but this was probably changed as it’s a lot less straightforward.

I don’t really have a problem with that, though. I don’t mind inconsistencies with the physics in Star Wars, even though sometimes it does get a bit absurd, like everyone seeing the Republic being destroyed from another star system in TFA. But I didn’t really care about that either, so there’s that.

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 (Edited)

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

So I just watched The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises back to back, and I think that if TLJ treated Luke the same way TDKR treats Batman, TLJ Luke would be much more acceptable to me.

For example, at the end of both TLJ and TDKR, the older hero passes on the torch to the pupil, but while in TDKR Batman wins the war and finally provides peace a second time, Luke… just passes on the torch and says “hey boyos, now that I’ve given you guys hope please clean it up!!”

No.

I actually really liked the idea. Too bad you didn’t. Care to explain?

By the way, I know it’s extremely different because Batman is the protagonist of TDKR while Luke isn’t the protagonist of TLJ, but I think that approach was still viable if they wanted to.

The other big obvious difference is that we’re talking about a part 3 vs. a part 2.

Most importantly, though, Batman doesn’t “win the war” and “finally provide peace.” He just defeated this specific threat (with the help of others). There’s no suggestion whatsoever that there will be peace in Gotham from here on out. In fact, it’s made quite clear there won’t be, otherwise what’s the point of him passing the torch to JGL?

What I mean is, Luke could’ve done something more concrete as opposed to just giving hope. For him to have a great and ultimate concrete victory would not only give his death scene a lot more weight when it came (and I’m not saying to change that, it could stay just the same in the exact same spot in the film), but it could make the FO the guys on the run instead of the Resistance in IX, shaking things up a bit, and it would’ve been really cool too.

The comparison between TDKR and TLJ was drawn because I remembered Bruce coming out of the pit after failing miserably and winning a battle while sacrificing himself without sacrificing himself, as opposed to Luke doing the exact same thing except he doesn’t concretely win the battle. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Luke did everything Batman did, but he didn’t win. He still went out as a loser. Sure it was an amazing scene where he beat Kylo mentally in one of the most extraordinary and beautiful moments of the saga, and he might have philosophically won, but it’d be like if at the end of TDKR, even though Batman sacrificed himself and saved Gotham, Bane just came back and continued being the overwhelming powerful force that controls the city. So what Batman did technically didn’t affect anything, but it shook everyone’s spirit.

But yeah, I guess it’d impossible. Glad I’m not a screenwriter for Lucasfilm I suppose.

Luke did win the battle though, he finally allowed the Resistance to escape which was literally the whole goal of the Resistance for the entire film.

And with saying Bane comes back, again this is where the fact that we’re talking about a part 3 vs part 2 is important. And Catwoman was the one who took out Bane anyway.

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Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

Well if SKB eats a sun then right after the sun is eaten theoretically everyone should die.

I feel like that the idea for the Starkiller weapon was originally conceived as “this laser destroys suns in remote systems, thus killing those planets too,” but this was probably changed as it’s a lot less straightforward.

I don’t really have a problem with that, though. I don’t mind inconsistencies with the physics in Star Wars, even though sometimes it does get a bit absurd, like everyone seeing the Republic being destroyed from another star system in TFA. But I didn’t really care about that either, so there’s that.

I honestly don’t care either, even the “why does everyone see the laser in the sky” thing is something I can’t be bothered by, no matter how much I try.

The one thing that bothers me is that they decide to explain that it uses the power of the sun, which then only invites you to question which sun they used for the first attack.

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 (Edited)

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Collipso said:

So I just watched The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises back to back, and I think that if TLJ treated Luke the same way TDKR treats Batman, TLJ Luke would be much more acceptable to me.

For example, at the end of both TLJ and TDKR, the older hero passes on the torch to the pupil, but while in TDKR Batman wins the war and finally provides peace a second time, Luke… just passes on the torch and says “hey boyos, now that I’ve given you guys hope please clean it up!!”

No.

I actually really liked the idea. Too bad you didn’t. Care to explain?

By the way, I know it’s extremely different because Batman is the protagonist of TDKR while Luke isn’t the protagonist of TLJ, but I think that approach was still viable if they wanted to.

The other big obvious difference is that we’re talking about a part 3 vs. a part 2.

Most importantly, though, Batman doesn’t “win the war” and “finally provide peace.” He just defeated this specific threat (with the help of others). There’s no suggestion whatsoever that there will be peace in Gotham from here on out. In fact, it’s made quite clear there won’t be, otherwise what’s the point of him passing the torch to JGL?

What I mean is, Luke could’ve done something more concrete as opposed to just giving hope. For him to have a great and ultimate concrete victory would not only give his death scene a lot more weight when it came (and I’m not saying to change that, it could stay just the same in the exact same spot in the film), but it could make the FO the guys on the run instead of the Resistance in IX, shaking things up a bit, and it would’ve been really cool too.

The comparison between TDKR and TLJ was drawn because I remembered Bruce coming out of the pit after failing miserably and winning a battle while sacrificing himself without sacrificing himself, as opposed to Luke doing the exact same thing except he doesn’t concretely win the battle. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Luke did everything Batman did, but he didn’t win. He still went out as a loser. Sure it was an amazing scene where he beat Kylo mentally in one of the most extraordinary and beautiful moments of the saga, and he might have philosophically won, but it’d be like if at the end of TDKR, even though Batman sacrificed himself and saved Gotham, Bane just came back and continued being the overwhelming powerful force that controls the city. So what Batman did technically didn’t affect anything, but it shook everyone’s spirit.

But yeah, I guess it’d impossible. Glad I’m not a screenwriter for Lucasfilm I suppose.

And with saying Bane comes back, again this is where the fact that we’re talking about a part 3 vs part 2 is important. And Catwoman was the one who took out Bane anyway.

I agree with this.

Luke did win the battle though, he finally allowed the Resistance to escape which was literally the whole goal of the Resistance for the entire film.

But I think that what Luke did was more Batman saving Gotham than actually winning the fight. But then it goes back to not being Luke’s story anymore and that the grand battle should be in the next movie, not on this one. (Part 2 vs Part 3)

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oojason said:

Creox said:

yhwx said:

A thing on timelines here: The two main storylines in TLJ start at different times. The escape storyline starts a week after the events of TFA; the Ach-To storyline happens immediately after the events of TFA.

The bomber: People complained about how the bomber thing was unrealistic because there’s no gravity in space. That pedantry is inaccurate. The bombs fell due to the gravitational force of the Star Destroyer underneath the bomber. This is the same reason that Star Destroyer falls into the Death Star in ROTJ.

I read in the visual dictionary that the bombs used magnetic tech as well.

I think it may be this one?:-


 

huh, a bit of a feeling of deva vu there.

That’s the one…thanks for posting.

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Mrebo said:

Funny how we went from the DS obviously had to have hyperdrive to the DSK didn’t move. Goes to illustrate how different perceptions can be. Seemed obvious that DSK moved. And based on previous DS discussion zoomed through hyperspace?

#SAVETHEPIGMEN

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TV’s Frink said:

Mrebo said:

Funny how we went from the DS obviously had to have hyperdrive to the DSK didn’t move. Goes to illustrate how different perceptions can be. Seemed obvious that DSK moved. And based on previous DS discussion zoomed through hyperspace?

#SAVETHEPIGMEN

🤘

The blue elephant in the room.

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 (Edited)

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

Matt.F said:

NeverarGreat said:

chyron8472 said:

Mrebo said:

tere are good explanations for most of them anyway.

There are explanations now that we’ve had ages to ponder them. Conversely, the novelization for TLJ isn’t even out yet.

The TFA novel straight up explains how the Starkiller beam could destroy a planet on the other side of the galaxy from where the base itself is located. It just depends on it you want to accept that explanation.

That is to say, you like the movie or you don’t, and that’s your choice. But holding ST and OT up to different yard sticks isn’t exactly fair.

We shouldn’t need novelizations to justify the events of a movie.

But as for different yardsticks, the Death Star was a moon sized space station with essentially a big version of a blaster that could blow up rocky planets. It required the resources of a galaxy-spanning empire to build.

Starkiller Base is a piece of construction many times larger than the Death Star, with a primary weapon requiring seemingly universe-breaking technology that has never been previously hinted at or explained, built by an organization that by all indications is a fraction the size of the Empire.

These are not two yardsticks.

Iteration is your answer.

The German Empire was defeated in WWI, the Nazi’s “rose from the ashes” and 20 years later the Third Reich invaded Poland and WWII began.

The engineering iteration upon the previous weapons, saw the war machine now employ cannon that could span the English channel, unmanned V2 bombs, U boats, and any number of other more advanced hardware (including ultimately nuclear weapons).

Pretty obvious that the First Order is based upon the hardware of the Empire (TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers, Stormtrooper armour, Starkiller Base, etc), and so iteration is your answer to why they are more advanced.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of why they were able to build a far more ambitious project with far less resources. If we saw that they used a robotic workforce and had a lot of automation for their fleet it would make sense, but we get no indication that it’s different from the Empire in this regard. Hux even says that it’s a machine ‘that you have built’. Yet another missed opportunity if you ask me.

Why do we need to see the First Order’s means of production? The only time we saw that before in Star Wars was in one of its most infamous scenes (“Shut me down, machines making machines”). We have no idea how they or the Empire did it so why should it matter?

In the OT trilogy there was no issue showing means of production, since the largest structure we saw was a part of the story’s table setting exposition and they never made anything more impressive than that.

For the prequels, we got a lengthy scene showing the creation of the Clone army, a scene of the droid factory (which was largely unnecessary since the droid army was also established at the beginning of the prequels), and in just GL’s prequels we got an explanation for how the Death Star was designed and saw it being constructed 20 years before it would be finished.

Say what you will about the prequels, it’s undeniable that they have enough rock salt.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

Matt.F said:

NeverarGreat said:

chyron8472 said:

Mrebo said:

tere are good explanations for most of them anyway.

There are explanations now that we’ve had ages to ponder them. Conversely, the novelization for TLJ isn’t even out yet.

The TFA novel straight up explains how the Starkiller beam could destroy a planet on the other side of the galaxy from where the base itself is located. It just depends on it you want to accept that explanation.

That is to say, you like the movie or you don’t, and that’s your choice. But holding ST and OT up to different yard sticks isn’t exactly fair.

We shouldn’t need novelizations to justify the events of a movie.

But as for different yardsticks, the Death Star was a moon sized space station with essentially a big version of a blaster that could blow up rocky planets. It required the resources of a galaxy-spanning empire to build.

Starkiller Base is a piece of construction many times larger than the Death Star, with a primary weapon requiring seemingly universe-breaking technology that has never been previously hinted at or explained, built by an organization that by all indications is a fraction the size of the Empire.

These are not two yardsticks.

Iteration is your answer.

The German Empire was defeated in WWI, the Nazi’s “rose from the ashes” and 20 years later the Third Reich invaded Poland and WWII began.

The engineering iteration upon the previous weapons, saw the war machine now employ cannon that could span the English channel, unmanned V2 bombs, U boats, and any number of other more advanced hardware (including ultimately nuclear weapons).

Pretty obvious that the First Order is based upon the hardware of the Empire (TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers, Stormtrooper armour, Starkiller Base, etc), and so iteration is your answer to why they are more advanced.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of why they were able to build a far more ambitious project with far less resources. If we saw that they used a robotic workforce and had a lot of automation for their fleet it would make sense, but we get no indication that it’s different from the Empire in this regard. Hux even says that it’s a machine ‘that you have built’. Yet another missed opportunity if you ask me.

Why do we need to see the First Order’s means of production? The only time we saw that before in Star Wars was in one of its most infamous scenes (“Shut me down, machines making machines”). We have no idea how they or the Empire did it so why should it matter?

In the OT trilogy there was no issue showing means of production, since the largest structure we saw was a part of the story’s table setting exposition and they never made anything more impressive than that.

For the prequels, we got a lengthy scene showing the creation of the Clone army, a scene of the droid factory (which was largely unnecessary since the droid army was also established at the beginning of the prequels), and in just GL’s prequels we got an explanation for how the Death Star was designed and saw it being constructed 20 years before it would be finished.

Say what you will about the prequels, it’s undeniable that they have enough rock salt.

That’s what the prequels did, explain things. Didn’t make the movies any better.

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Thing is, in the OT they had just started to tell the story, so no backstory is needed. When you’re listening to someone telling a fairy tale, and they start saying: “Once upon a time there was an empire…” you don’t immediately ask where did the Empire come from, because it’s a given now. You know it’s there, it’s part of the story.

Now, if in that story, at the end of it the Empire is destroyed, and then a couple of years later someone decides to tell you a sequel to that story and start by saying: “once upon a time there was an empire…” again, it’ll leave you wondering: “wait a sec, wasn’t the Empire destroyed?? How did this happen???” And if the person telling the story doesn’t give you an explanation I think it’d be reasonable to think it’s some sort of plot hole in the story.

The prequel trilogy wasn’t needed because it’s a prequel. But if the OT had been released after having 3 movies set before the PT where a bad Empire was destroyed, and you basically have another bad Empire without explanation, people would be upset, and the PT would be necessary.

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No, the start of TFA is “once upon a time there was a young replubic that was faced with a dire enemy” During they story they destory the Republic - the equivalent in a fairy tale of destroying the new ruler’s castle and laveing the kingdom open to invasion by the bad guy. In TLJ, the last army of the Kingdom is tryng to get to safety and find allies and in they end they get away after a brave knight saves the day. It is the middle chapter. It is supposed to be dark.

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In any case, I thought of something significant. While Leia demotes Poe for wasting their resources in destroying the dreadnought after they jump to hyperspace, in the end, his actions proved to be something that kept them from total destruction because that dreadnought’s weapons could probably have destroyed the fleet through their shields. So Poe saved the day at the beginning of the story and Rose’s sister did not die in vain and at the end of the day, Luke and Rey save the last survivors to fight another day. So the movie is not as dark as it could have been. But even so, Poe learns a valuable lesson about command and when to take risks and that it needs to be more calculated and less reckless.

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Sir Ridley said:

Dr. Krogshöj said:

Creox said:

yhwx said:

A thing on timelines here: The two main storylines in TLJ start at different times. The escape storyline starts a week after the events of TFA; the Ach-To storyline happens immediately after the events of TFA.

The bomber: People complained about how the bomber thing was unrealistic because there’s no gravity in space. That pedantry is inaccurate. The bombs fell due to the gravitational force of the Star Destroyer underneath the bomber. This is the same reason that Star Destroyer falls into the Death Star in ROTJ.

I read in the visual dictionary that the bombs used magnetic tech as well.

Yes, and that is unnecessary. The artificial gravity within the bomber is enough to give the bombs an initial velocity once they are released to propel them towards the target, as Mrebo already pointed it out.

That’s how real space works, but Star Wars space is special. Star Wars spaceships apparently need to keep their engines/boosters on at all times just like airplanes. If “initial velocity” was a thing in Star Wars then spaceships would only need engines for accelerating and turning. Maybe there’s some kind of air in Star Wars space that creates resistance. The force is supposedly all around, so maybe even the vacuum of space is filled with midichlorians, eh? 😉

And we have to assume that initial velocity isn’t a thing or some plot holes would pop up. If the bombs didn’t use magnetism and could rely on initial velocity then the bombers could be much further away to reduce risk of being attacked. And ships wouldn’t have to worry as much about fuel which is a big plot point in TLJ. In a space chase in zero gravity and zero resistance it would still be beneficial to keep the engines running, but this would lead to constantly increasing speeds which doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.

Midichlorian “air” resistance is going to be my head canon now (“that’s not how the force works!”), but it’s probably best to not worry too much about Star Wars physics.

It’s true, but then again, I originally came up with the initial velocity defense to defend the film when arguing with colleagues who nitpicked the whole bombing scene. I didn’t really think through the ramifications it would have. Anyway, the midichlorian space resistance theory is really elegant one. 😃

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 (Edited)

I sense a presence… a present I haven’t felt since… Frink’s sock?

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Collipso said:

I sense a presence… a present I haven’t felt since… Frink’s sock?

Yeah his feet really smell all the time.

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yotsuya said:

In any case, I thought of something significant. While Leia demotes Poe for wasting their resources in destroying the dreadnought after they jump to hyperspace, in the end, his actions proved to be something that kept them from total destruction because that dreadnought’s weapons could probably have destroyed the fleet through their shields. So Poe saved the day at the beginning of the story and Rose’s sister did not die in vain and at the end of the day, Luke and Rey save the last survivors to fight another day. So the movie is not as dark as it could have been. But even so, Poe learns a valuable lesson about command and when to take risks and that it needs to be more calculated and less reckless.

I’m not sure if it was intentional or not that Poe’s action was ultimately a good decision. It was possibly not thought out that way by RJ. Or, as I mused previously, RJ was focusing on the ethics of decisions, rather than whether the result is good or moral.

Under that theory, it didn’t matter if attacking the Dreadnaught was strategically sound or ultimately a good thing, Poe had to learn to not act for the wrong reasons. I’m not sure how convincing that is - even if my theory is true - because we can believe Poe was operating under a calculated strategy and ended up being right about it. And it enhances the feeling that Leia and Holdo were thinking too short term and treating “hope” with too much reverence.

The blue elephant in the room.

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 (Edited)

yhwx said:

Collipso said:

I sense a presence… a present I haven’t felt since… Frink’s sock?

Yeah his feet really smell all the time.

Someone might’ve said something only Master Ric himself would say, that’s all.

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 (Edited)

Mrebo said:

yotsuya said:

In any case, I thought of something significant. While Leia demotes Poe for wasting their resources in destroying the dreadnought after they jump to hyperspace, in the end, his actions proved to be something that kept them from total destruction because that dreadnought’s weapons could probably have destroyed the fleet through their shields. So Poe saved the day at the beginning of the story and Rose’s sister did not die in vain and at the end of the day, Luke and Rey save the last survivors to fight another day. So the movie is not as dark as it could have been. But even so, Poe learns a valuable lesson about command and when to take risks and that it needs to be more calculated and less reckless.

I’m not sure if it was intentional or not that Poe’s action was ultimately a good decision. It was possibly not thought out that way by RJ. Or, as I mused previously, RJ was focusing on the ethics of decisions, rather than whether the result is good or moral.

Under that theory, it didn’t matter if attacking the Dreadnaught was strategically sound or ultimately a good thing, Poe had to learn to not act for the wrong reasons. I’m not sure how convincing that is - even if my theory is true - because we can believe Poe was operating under a calculated strategy and ended up being right about it. And it enhances the feeling that Leia and Holdo were thinking too short term and treating “hope” with too much reverence.

If Poe was right, he was right by accident. The only reason the Resistance came under attic after they escaped was because of tech believed to be “impossible.” It’s an important lesson either way.

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DominicCobb said:

Mrebo said:

yotsuya said:

In any case, I thought of something significant. While Leia demotes Poe for wasting their resources in destroying the dreadnought after they jump to hyperspace, in the end, his actions proved to be something that kept them from total destruction because that dreadnought’s weapons could probably have destroyed the fleet through their shields. So Poe saved the day at the beginning of the story and Rose’s sister did not die in vain and at the end of the day, Luke and Rey save the last survivors to fight another day. So the movie is not as dark as it could have been. But even so, Poe learns a valuable lesson about command and when to take risks and that it needs to be more calculated and less reckless.

I’m not sure if it was intentional or not that Poe’s action was ultimately a good decision. It was possibly not thought out that way by RJ. Or, as I mused previously, RJ was focusing on the ethics of decisions, rather than whether the result is good or moral.

Under that theory, it didn’t matter if attacking the Dreadnaught was strategically sound or ultimately a good thing, Poe had to learn to not act for the wrong reasons. I’m not sure how convincing that is - even if my theory is true - because we can believe Poe was operating under a calculated strategy and ended up being right about it. And it enhances the feeling that Leia and Holdo were thinking too short term and treating “hope” with too much reverence.

If Poe was right, he was right by accident. The only reason the Resistance came under attic after they escaped was because of tech believed to be “impossible.” It’s an important lesson either way.

Nonetheless, I think the Resistance should be glad he disobeyed that order.

I do wonder things like why the ships didn’t split up (or why the escape ships weren’t used). Maybe Holdo still didn’t have any idea how the tracking system worked. Or maybe the lead ship could track various ships and relay coordinates to Star Destroyers to go after them.

A question I just heard raised which I hadn’t considered was why Luke didn’t talk about any kind of plan with Leia when he popped in. Did he just hope there was a way out? Or did he know? He delayed the First Order a few minutes, but what was the expectation? I have considered whether it was Luke who lifted the rocks rather than Rey, but that’s probably overthinking it.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

DominicCobb said:

Mrebo said:

yotsuya said:

In any case, I thought of something significant. While Leia demotes Poe for wasting their resources in destroying the dreadnought after they jump to hyperspace, in the end, his actions proved to be something that kept them from total destruction because that dreadnought’s weapons could probably have destroyed the fleet through their shields. So Poe saved the day at the beginning of the story and Rose’s sister did not die in vain and at the end of the day, Luke and Rey save the last survivors to fight another day. So the movie is not as dark as it could have been. But even so, Poe learns a valuable lesson about command and when to take risks and that it needs to be more calculated and less reckless.

I’m not sure if it was intentional or not that Poe’s action was ultimately a good decision. It was possibly not thought out that way by RJ. Or, as I mused previously, RJ was focusing on the ethics of decisions, rather than whether the result is good or moral.

Under that theory, it didn’t matter if attacking the Dreadnaught was strategically sound or ultimately a good thing, Poe had to learn to not act for the wrong reasons. I’m not sure how convincing that is - even if my theory is true - because we can believe Poe was operating under a calculated strategy and ended up being right about it. And it enhances the feeling that Leia and Holdo were thinking too short term and treating “hope” with too much reverence.

If Poe was right, he was right by accident. The only reason the Resistance came under attic after they escaped was because of tech believed to be “impossible.” It’s an important lesson either way.

Nonetheless, I think the Resistance should be glad he disobeyed that order.

I do wonder things like why the ships didn’t split up (or why the escape ships weren’t used). Maybe Holdo still didn’t have any idea how the tracking system worked. Or maybe the lead ship could track various ships and relay coordinates to Star Destroyers to go after them.

A question I just heard raised which I hadn’t considered was why Luke didn’t talk about any kind of plan with Leia when he popped in. Did he just hope there was a way out? Or did he know? He delayed the First Order a few minutes, but what was the expectation? I have considered whether it was Luke who lifted the rocks rather than Rey, but that’s probably overthinking it.

I’m glad we didn’t have another scene where a character overexplains something. Less is more in this case.

Interesting idea that Luke might have given Rey an assist with those rocks. I hadn’t considered the possibility after 2 viewings.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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DominicCobb said:

On the one hand, maybe it drains remote suns just like how it destroys remote planets. But in that case, why does it drain its own sun? On the other hand, maybe it does move around to new suns, but in that case why doesn’t it completely drain the first sun it orbits like it does the second (Hux’s speech is in daylight)? To me it doesn’t matter much either way.

I honestly never thought it was two different stars. I just figured the star that they drained to destroy the Hosnian system was large enough that they were able to get two charges out of it.

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DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

DominicCobb said:

NeverarGreat said:

Matt.F said:

NeverarGreat said:

chyron8472 said:

Mrebo said:

tere are good explanations for most of them anyway.

There are explanations now that we’ve had ages to ponder them. Conversely, the novelization for TLJ isn’t even out yet.

The TFA novel straight up explains how the Starkiller beam could destroy a planet on the other side of the galaxy from where the base itself is located. It just depends on it you want to accept that explanation.

That is to say, you like the movie or you don’t, and that’s your choice. But holding ST and OT up to different yard sticks isn’t exactly fair.

We shouldn’t need novelizations to justify the events of a movie.

But as for different yardsticks, the Death Star was a moon sized space station with essentially a big version of a blaster that could blow up rocky planets. It required the resources of a galaxy-spanning empire to build.

Starkiller Base is a piece of construction many times larger than the Death Star, with a primary weapon requiring seemingly universe-breaking technology that has never been previously hinted at or explained, built by an organization that by all indications is a fraction the size of the Empire.

These are not two yardsticks.

Iteration is your answer.

The German Empire was defeated in WWI, the Nazi’s “rose from the ashes” and 20 years later the Third Reich invaded Poland and WWII began.

The engineering iteration upon the previous weapons, saw the war machine now employ cannon that could span the English channel, unmanned V2 bombs, U boats, and any number of other more advanced hardware (including ultimately nuclear weapons).

Pretty obvious that the First Order is based upon the hardware of the Empire (TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers, Stormtrooper armour, Starkiller Base, etc), and so iteration is your answer to why they are more advanced.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of why they were able to build a far more ambitious project with far less resources. If we saw that they used a robotic workforce and had a lot of automation for their fleet it would make sense, but we get no indication that it’s different from the Empire in this regard. Hux even says that it’s a machine ‘that you have built’. Yet another missed opportunity if you ask me.

Why do we need to see the First Order’s means of production? The only time we saw that before in Star Wars was in one of its most infamous scenes (“Shut me down, machines making machines”). We have no idea how they or the Empire did it so why should it matter?

In the OT trilogy there was no issue showing means of production, since the largest structure we saw was a part of the story’s table setting exposition and they never made anything more impressive than that.

For the prequels, we got a lengthy scene showing the creation of the Clone army, a scene of the droid factory (which was largely unnecessary since the droid army was also established at the beginning of the prequels), and in just GL’s prequels we got an explanation for how the Death Star was designed and saw it being constructed 20 years before it would be finished.

Say what you will about the prequels, it’s undeniable that they have enough rock salt.

That’s what the prequels did, explain things. Didn’t make the movies any better.

They’re not what made the movies bad and without them the movies would have been much worse again. That’s pretty erroneous to suggest having credible in movie explanations were somehow supposed to make up for completely unrelated issues that were the actual cause of the prequel failings.

Val

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Midichlorians. 'nuff said. 😛

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Where were you in '77?

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joefavs said:

DominicCobb said:

On the one hand, maybe it drains remote suns just like how it destroys remote planets. But in that case, why does it drain its own sun? On the other hand, maybe it does move around to new suns, but in that case why doesn’t it completely drain the first sun it orbits like it does the second (Hux’s speech is in daylight)? To me it doesn’t matter much either way.

I honestly never thought it was two different stars. I just figured the star that they drained to destroy the Hosnian system was large enough that they were able to get two charges out of it.

But Finn claims that the weapon draws power from the sun until it disappears, implying that once the draining starts, it will not stop until the star is destroyed. Poe repeats this during their attack.

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Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Dr. Krogshöj said:

Sir Ridley said:

Dr. Krogshöj said:

Creox said:

yhwx said:

A thing on timelines here: The two main storylines in TLJ start at different times. The escape storyline starts a week after the events of TFA; the Ach-To storyline happens immediately after the events of TFA.

The bomber: People complained about how the bomber thing was unrealistic because there’s no gravity in space. That pedantry is inaccurate. The bombs fell due to the gravitational force of the Star Destroyer underneath the bomber. This is the same reason that Star Destroyer falls into the Death Star in ROTJ.

I read in the visual dictionary that the bombs used magnetic tech as well.

Yes, and that is unnecessary. The artificial gravity within the bomber is enough to give the bombs an initial velocity once they are released to propel them towards the target, as Mrebo already pointed it out.

That’s how real space works, but Star Wars space is special. Star Wars spaceships apparently need to keep their engines/boosters on at all times just like airplanes. If “initial velocity” was a thing in Star Wars then spaceships would only need engines for accelerating and turning. Maybe there’s some kind of air in Star Wars space that creates resistance. The force is supposedly all around, so maybe even the vacuum of space is filled with midichlorians, eh? 😉

And we have to assume that initial velocity isn’t a thing or some plot holes would pop up. If the bombs didn’t use magnetism and could rely on initial velocity then the bombers could be much further away to reduce risk of being attacked. And ships wouldn’t have to worry as much about fuel which is a big plot point in TLJ. In a space chase in zero gravity and zero resistance it would still be beneficial to keep the engines running, but this would lead to constantly increasing speeds which doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.

Midichlorian “air” resistance is going to be my head canon now (“that’s not how the force works!”), but it’s probably best to not worry too much about Star Wars physics.

It’s true, but then again, I originally came up with the initial velocity defense to defend the film when arguing with colleagues who nitpicked the whole bombing scene. I didn’t really think through the ramifications it would have. Anyway, the midichlorian space resistance theory is really elegant one. 😃

Haha, it’s something, at least. That would make the midichlorians a useful idea. Or perhaps it’s the force energy field that somehow affects everything.