yotsuya

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Well, I disagree entirely. First off, it is obvious we are supposed to side with Poe. Holdo is expecting Poe to follow orders. That he doesn’t is not surprising because she doesn’t share what she is doing. And ultimately it is Poe who turns Holdo’s cunning plan into a disaster. Poe sends Finn and Rose off to solve the problem his way. A daring venture full of risks with a possible payoff. But because they do not find the hacker that Maz recommends (probably because he can be trusted) and they end up with DJ and DJ learns of Holdo’s plan, when the mission goes sour he uses that to get himself out of trouble. As a result most of the resistance is destroyed, rather than losing the one ship and hiding out on Crait until someone came to get them. Poe is a hotshot pilot but that is not what makes a leader. Knowing when to not be the hotshot and play it safe is the lesson he needed and he got it the hard way. However the movie makes it very clear that if he hadn’t gone ahead and destroyed the dreadnaught at the beginning, it would have wiped them out later. So his first reckless act that he got demoted for turned out to be the right thing to do at the time, but after the fallout, Poe is making wiser decisions. Not bad for a character Abrams almost killed off.

That story line is full of old war movie tropes. How Holdo treats Poe, how Poe reacts, and how he learns. That may not be your real world experience, but it is many people’s. And Holdo doesn’t seem like she is much of a people person. One of those who rose to command through brilliant tactics. She obviously is a friend of Leia’s. So her tough treatment of Poe makes a lot of sense. Military methods of leadership are not the same as private sector methods. The military needs people who will follow orders without question plus brilliant strategists. So using civilian leadership techniques to critique a military interaction doesn’t work well. The same rules don’t apply. There is a reason why the traditional drill sergeant is tough and gruff. Dressing down a subordinate in a military setting isn’t about their well being, it is about their discipline and willingness to follow orders. In a military setting you need someone who will not panic and will act on their training no matter the price. In a civilian setting an employee’s life is rarely on the line and you rarely need blind obedience. So it is comparing apples to oranges.

So both on the writing side and on the realism side, this part of the story reflects some brilliant writing. I find the entire movie to be brilliant. I love it more the more I watch it. And it is definitely very Star Wars. War movies and samurai movies were very much a part of the original trilogy and Rian Johnson captured that part far better than Abrams did in TFA. I watched Twelve O’Clock High and Three Outlaw Samurai after I heard they, plus To Catch A Thief, were classics Rian Johnson was watching to prepare for this movie. Three brilliant films that definitely had an influence.

Maybe you should read the link I posted from someone with actual military experience, who makes it very clear, that in his military experience Holdo is not a good leader, both from the perspective of how she deals with Poe, and from the perspective of her strategy with regards to the FO. Being in the military is about more than following orders, and being a military leader is about more than forcing your will onto someone, or expecting people to blindly follow orders. The fact is that her leadership resulted in a mutiny, because she didn’t communicate her strategy in a highly tense, and life threatening situation. She has final responsibility, and she failed to communicate her plans even when Poe relieved her of her command at gun point.

Have you seen Twelve O’Clock High? If not then we are coming from different places. I have no personal military experience, only historical research related to WWII, the Indian Wars and the Civil War. Plus a crapload of war and military movies. First off, a superior officer does not have to tell those under them the plans or the reasons for the plans. That isn’t how chain of command works. I did briefly work under a police chief who was a stickler for chain of command and while the police and military do things somewhat differently, certain concepts are identical. One is the chain of command. Twelve O’clock High is directly about a superior officer who must earn the trust of the men under him when he assumes command after a beloved but inept commander has been removed. It has a lot of other things in it. Plus many of the other things are echoes in Three Outlaw Samurai and many other WWII and Saumurai movies. Twelve O’Clock High in particular was made with the full cooperation of the US Military.

And while I know that not everyone still abide by the old strict chain of command structure, that is one thing that drives Twelve O’Clock High. The removed commander doesn’t follow the book and has a horrible unit while the replacement is by the book, makes some enemies, and turns the unit into one of the best - increasing efficiency and reducing casualties. So I think that movie in itself and the wisdom of our military training programs it represents, whether they are currently adhered to or not, is more relevant than what a single person who has served in the modern military has to say. There is a reason why drill sergeant are so hard on people and there is a reason why they are so effective. And there is a reason why movies portray people like that the way they do. So Holdo isn’t doing anything out of typical military practice by not telling Poe what the plan is. Commanders don’t generally do that without good reason. And Poe, because he related that plan to Finn and Rose, is directly responsible for all the ships that are destroyed. So she had good reason not to tell him that is born out by the events in the film. Poe didn’t need to know and had no business telling Finn and Rose. He was acting on his own initiative outside the chain of command. He didn’t trust Holdo. That concept comes directly from Twelve O’Clock High.

And from everything I’ve heard, read, studied, researched about our military training, the reason for the harsh training is to instill in soldiers that they follow orders without question. When their commander says charge, they charge. If a commander can’t trust that those under him follow his orders, then he can’t reasonably hope for any plan go as planned and have a chance at success. It has been the core of our military training since Valley Forge.

Well, I disagree entirely. First off, it is obvious we are supposed to side with Poe. Holdo is expecting Poe to follow orders. That he doesn’t is not surprising because she doesn’t share what she is doing. And ultimately it is Poe who turns Holdo’s cunning plan into a disaster. Poe sends Finn and Rose off to solve the problem his way. A daring venture full of risks with a possible payoff. But because they do not find the hacker that Maz recommends (probably because he can be trusted) and they end up with DJ and DJ learns of Holdo’s plan, when the mission goes sour he uses that to get himself out of trouble. As a result most of the resistance is destroyed, rather than losing the one ship and hiding out on Crait until someone came to get them. Poe is a hotshot pilot but that is not what makes a leader. Knowing when to not be the hotshot and play it safe is the lesson he needed and he got it the hard way. However the movie makes it very clear that if he hadn’t gone ahead and destroyed the dreadnaught at the beginning, it would have wiped them out later. So his first reckless act that he got demoted for turned out to be the right thing to do at the time, but after the fallout, Poe is making wiser decisions. Not bad for a character Abrams almost killed off.

That story line is full of old war movie tropes. How Holdo treats Poe, how Poe reacts, and how he learns. That may not be your real world experience, but it is many people’s. And Holdo doesn’t seem like she is much of a people person. One of those who rose to command through brilliant tactics. She obviously is a friend of Leia’s. So her tough treatment of Poe makes a lot of sense. Military methods of leadership are not the same as private sector methods. The military needs people who will follow orders without question plus brilliant strategists. So using civilian leadership techniques to critique a military interaction doesn’t work well. The same rules don’t apply. There is a reason why the traditional drill sergeant is tough and gruff. Dressing down a subordinate in a military setting isn’t about their well being, it is about their discipline and willingness to follow orders. In a military setting you need someone who will not panic and will act on their training no matter the price. In a civilian setting an employee’s life is rarely on the line and you rarely need blind obedience. So it is comparing apples to oranges.

So both on the writing side and on the realism side, this part of the story reflects some brilliant writing. I find the entire movie to be brilliant. I love it more the more I watch it. And it is definitely very Star Wars. War movies and samurai movies were very much a part of the original trilogy and Rian Johnson captured that part far better than Abrams did in TFA. I watched Twelve O’Clock High and Three Outlaw Samurai after I heard they, plus To Catch A Thief, were classics Rian Johnson was watching to prepare for this movie. Three brilliant films that definitely had an influence.

I think the bad numbers are a combination of bad timing (right on the heels of two big summer blockbusters), bad marketing (shorter period than other SW movies and a trailer that didn’t play up how well the star did in the part), the director controversy, and then a lot of little things. It has good reviews and the people who didn’t like TLJ know this is by a different production team so I don’t think it was protest. I doubt that had anything to do with it. The other aspects seem more likely. If they had moved it out 6 weeks it would have done better. If they’d nailed the trailer it would have done better. They didn’t really have enough time to hype it up properly, to build the expectation. And part of it might just be that while many of us die-hard fans wanted a Solo movie, that the general public didn’t. I don’t think you can read anything into the numbers about Star Wars fandom. I think 9 will do very well at the box office. Probably one reason they went with Abrams again. I just hope he is not the one who came up with the ending. If he did it will suck.

I have finally seen it. I can sum it up with two sentences. Thanks Mr. Howard. You did Ford, Dailey, and Crispin proud.

DrDre said:

SilverWook said:

I’m almost at the point where I will have no use for the community at all. I hope that guy gets paid by the word.

I’m not even sure that guy is part of the community. He seems to be writing about film in general, but I share his view, that Star Wars has become a franchise, that doesn’t go forward, because it’s obsessed with looking in the rearview mirror.

Funny, I thought TLJ moved to new territory and broke the pattern. And Solo should be fun, not epicly serious.

I’m curious if there is any connection between those who like this movie and those who liked the Daley or Crispin novels?

I guess that the complaint that baffles me the most is saying how a new movie ruins the old ones. Each new movie is a new story. The only time that I’ve found it to impact the OT is in the redemption scene in ROTJ and it only made it more powerful for me. But I still get the same feeling from the OT now that I did when there wasn’t even and EU to carry on the story.

Well, I’m looking forward to it. Feloni’s work has been a high point in the post OT world. I just wish he’d gotten to properly finish Clone Wars, but no matter, Rebels ended well.

The entire C-3PO swapping heads with a battldroid. Not only does the CG look terrible, but the sequence is just so nonsensical.

When I watched the movie the colors were all over the place. I can’t help wondering how pink the interior of the star destroyers look. They were pink to begin with and needed every shred of yellow to not look bad. And that wasn’t the only scene like that.

I saw the movie again this evening and I still love it. In fact, I’d say after all the in depth discussions in this topic that I may have even liked it better this time.

NeverarGreat said:

Collipso said:

chyron8472 said:

I saw a Youtube video that posited that Holdo calculated to hit the ships at the moment before the ship entered hyperspace, when the ship was travelling at relativistic speeds, and applies physics to it to explain why it makes sense (and yet sort of doesn’t).

Nerdist: The Physics Behind The Last Jedi’s Coolest Scene! (Because Science w/ Kyle Hill)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1M95njhovw

With regard to how it doesn’t makes sense, he says that if the math works out, her ship hitting the fleet at relativistic speeds should have atomized the entire fleet rather than merely breaking the ships in half.

I guess that the scene established that the GFFA doesn’t obey this specific law of physics, and at the same time it does. I mean, it obeys it, but the result is only a fraction of what the actual result IRL would be. I guess that also means that the power of the impact any Rebel cruiser could create on the Death Star wouldn’t be enough to destroy it?

Anyway, I remember leaving the theater and overhearing a considerable amount of people (even the people who I went to watch it with) asking “why didn’t she simply lightspeed herself into the FO before? Or why have they never done that before? It’s so useful and overpowered…” So even if I don’t have a problem with that I totally understand why some people would.

The way I understand hyperspace working is that it’s a dimension weakly coupled to normal space, so that ships traveling through hyperspace would still need to ‘avoid’ masses but a crash would primarily affect the object in hyperspace. Under this theory, any ship going to Hyperspace would damage that ship far more than the target.

But what if the hyperspace tracking technology used by the Supremacy means that the ship is always partially in Hyperspace? After all, some part of the ship would need to interact with this dimension at all times for it to work. Under this theory, the First Order is undone by its own technology and hubris rather than an overpowered exploit of the ill-defined rules of the universe.

This is my understanding as well.

chyron8472 said:

I saw a Youtube video that posited that Holdo calculated to hit the ships at the moment before the ship entered hyperspace, when the ship was travelling at relativistic speeds, and applies physics to it to explain why it makes sense (and yet sort of doesn’t).

Nerdist: The Physics Behind The Last Jedi’s Coolest Scene! (Because Science w/ Kyle Hill)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1M95njhovw

With regard to how it doesn’t makes sense, he says that if the math works out, her ship hitting the fleet at relativistic speeds should have atomized the entire fleet rather than merely breaking the ships in half.

Hyperspace is another dimension. I think we can safely say that no living physicist can calculate what entry into another dimension would entail. Likely it wasn’t completely annihilated because the ship was only partly in this dimension so the power was reduced. Applying physics to science fiction and FTL is problematic.

A Star Wars movie should be judged on several levels. It is important to judge it with other Star Wars movies. But also other movies of various types. It is part of a series, so comparing it to other series would be interesting. How does it compare to the last Pirates movie, or Logan, or any other later series installment. It’s also worth comparing it to current movies or any slice of the movie industry you care to. Every comparison gives useful data. Critics loved it. It has been very popular in the box office. Some Star Wars fans hate it, done love it. That was very similar to the reaction to TESB in 1980, while today it is considered the best of the saga, a status it didn’t gain until well after ROTJ. So every comparison will tell you something about it as a movie. Only you can say if you liked it or not and your opinion might change based on IX, or something else.

Mrebo said:

yotsuya said:

I think I figured out a retcon to make sense of TESB and TFA. In universe when they refer to a system, they do not mean star system, but a group of worlds or moons as a political body. Otherwise the Falcon in TESB would have spent months or years traveling from Hoth to Bespin. but if Hoth, Anoat, and Bespin are all in one solar system but comprise 3 political bodies, then the Falcon can traverse that distance in days. The same with the people of Takodana seeing the blast that destroys the Hosnian system (which is portrayed as a planet with several moons). I still think Takodana should be further away than that and them seeing was a silly plot point.

How this quite relates to TFA, I’m not sure, but the discussion that was going on made me think about it.

Sounds plausible.

Goes to show that trying to fit Star Wars into a scifi box doesn’t work too well though. Travel times were one area where they really played fast and loose in the OT. After reading your post I had to google and there are similar thoughts to yours. The official explanation was too convoluted: a (slow) backup hyperdrive.

As the stories build on each other, consistency is developed and audience expectations go up. I wonder if as a function of that and audiences being more jaded from decades of movie wizardry, that some of these things become more problematic than they were 1977-1983. I think that is an issue when it comes to TLJ, where new things suddenly seem implausible, inconsistent or plotholey - even when they demonstrably are not.

The slowness of the bombers bugged me, feeling like there was a game mechanic to make them really slow to compensate for their offensive power, because otherwise they would be OP. No great thing and certainly not a reason to hate the movie, but it was there.

Bombers are supposed to be slow, they have a heavy cargo. They aren’t light, nimble fighters. I found them to be done the right way. Also very true to WWII bombers. WWII aircraft are the inspiration for the Star Wars dogfights so why it a bombing run.

Mrebo said:

Matt.F said:

Collipso said:

https://youtu.be/9eJXB0FQPD0 - good analysis on why Snoke in the ST doesn’t work like Palpatine worked in the OT.

Just what we all need, another no-name youtuber giving his reasons why nu star wars sux.

In all honesty the constant comparing is what’s killing any chance of enjoyment for these people. For goodness sake judge the new movies on their own merits without the constant, endless comparisons to a trilogy of films made 40 years ago.

If you want to compare The Last Jedi to other movies then judge it against its 2017 contemporaries… comparable films made with a high budget and targeted at family audiences; such classics as ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’, ‘Kong: Skull Island’, and ‘Justice League’. The bar is set so low and thank goodness that we are still getting films at the high quality level of The Last Jedi - stop whining, get some perspective, and appreciate how rare that is in the family film category.

Who cares if it’s a “no-name youtuber,” an article, a podcast or whatever. You don’t have to click but it can provide insight. The video was a response to those who compare TLJ to the OT; the youtuber explained it is a false comparison. However, I’m not quite sure what your objection is to comparing TLJ to the OT, since you seem focused on quality. Are you saying that TLJ cannot compare favorably in terms of quality to movies made 40 years ago? Must we really compare TLJ to some of the worst recent movies in order to argue it is good? The ultimate point of the youtube video was about storytelling and character development.

I think his point was that YouTube is full of people with opinions and it is rarely worth watching. There are a few gems, but there are a lot of duds and on this topic it is a pretty repetative line that TLJ is bad for this or that reason. After so many they get old, even if they are saying something slightly different.

Hardcore Legend said:

TV’s Frink said:

Hardcore Legend said:

DominicCobb said:

Hardcore Legend said:

TV’s Frink said:

I think he may have read the first sentence. Maybe two?

I didn’t read any of it, actually. I don’t read. I have news explained to me in short presentations so I don’t get bored.

This post is the first you’ve made on this topic that’s made any sense.

That’s a different way of looking at it.

Exactly what I thought of your first post about the article.

You clearly should re-read what I wrote and re-read the article in the first post.

From what he said, it does have meaning. For someone searching for someone to guide her, the vision showed she is her own guide, which is where her story was going. Ultimately she relies on herself and not Luke. She even faced the truth about her parents, with the revelation that they were nobodies coming from her, not Kylo. Though Kylo does take a dig by saying they were dead in the Jakku desert.

I think I figured out a retcon to make sense of TESB and TFA. In universe when they refer to a system, they do not mean star system, but a group of worlds or moons as a political body. Otherwise the Falcon in TESB would have spent months or years traveling from Hoth to Bespin. but if Hoth, Anoat, and Bespin are all in one solar system but comprise 3 political bodies, then the Falcon can traverse that distance in days. The same with the people of Takodana seeing the blast that destroys the Hosnian system (which is portrayed as a planet with several moons). I still think Takodana should be further away than that and them seeing was a silly plot point.

How this quite relates to TFA, I’m not sure, but the discussion that was going on made me think about it.

NeverarGreat said:

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.

Stop and think for a moment. Using up two stars does not mean it had to move. It is possible that they found the ideal system with multiple stars to use with this weapons. They probably destroyed the smallest star first and from a larger one they might get several charges out of it. There is a big difference between Sol and Sirius. A star that might give one charge could be the companion of a star that can give sixty. And I never got the impression that the first star was destroyed as Starkiller base never went dark which it would if the sun was sucked dry. Sometimes science can be the friend of wild SF storytelling.

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.

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.

dahmage said:

DominicCobb said:

By the way, we have no indication that the Starkiller base ever moves. Why would it travel through hyperspace if its beam can instead?

Here’s the other thing about the base, just because it got destroyed doesn’t mean that the First Order is done. In TLJ we see their fleet, why would any of those star destroyers be on the base? Of course they wouldn’t have been destroyed. And we know that Snoke isn’t there, so the information that he has his base of operations on a mega star destroyer isn’t a terrible surprise.

And the thing about the FO in general, is yeah, we don’t have any idea how they became so powerful - in the movies at least. I don’t see that as a problem, it’s not a plot hole, you might wish that they had explained it but it’s not something that’s unexplainable. And there is something of an explanation in the new canon content. As to whether the FO is a “fringe” group, well that depends on your definition of fringe. I don’t think there was any question in TFA that the FO was powerful and resourceful. TLJ doesn’t betray their galactic standing.

not disagreeing with your post, but i do think we know that SKB moves. it has to find new host stars…

If it can destroy planets through hyperspace, why can’t it eat stars through hyperspace?

Mrebo said:

The expectations thing is too often overstated. Of course there were expectations. Who here doesn’t have expectations about Star Wars? If someone didn’t like the movie, saying expectations were not met, well, that should go without saying. Same for those who like the movie, expectations were met. That doesn’t mean the expectations on either side were very specific.

Ah, but expectation are a big thing. It colors peoples views. When a favorite novel is made into a movie, many expect the story they saw in their heads and don’t like it when it comes out different. Expectations are huge. I guess I learned a long time ago to expectations to a minimum. I’ve read a lot of series and it is always best to take each new installment with an open mind and accept what the author has setup for the new story. That’s how I face Star Wars. Each new movie is a new story that will take us in new directions. Expecting something from it besides being true to the Star Wars universe (which to me is very tied to the hero’s journey, golden age science fiction, and samurai cinema) gives the story tellers no room to maneuver. I think that is why the Prequels were received so badly (no, they aren’t as good and ATOC had the lowest points of any Star Wars story, but they were the story GL wanted to tell). I think GL make a lot of mistakes on those, but I don’t think they are as bad as some make them out to be. The same way I found TFA very disappointing. It met the expectations of many, but I found it to be full of lazy storytelling and that he failed to give a solid conclusion to the story. In that way I find it to be the worst of the Star Wars movies. I cringe at C-3PO in the droid factory every time I see AOTC, but that pales in comparison to Finn and Han seeing the beam that destroys the Hosnian system.

Now, I am not impervious to expectations. I have a few for anything, but it is mostly that it stays within a bubble of what has come before in terms of feel and story telling. Star Trek has violated that over the last decade. And when I compare the complaints that Star Wars fans level at the PT or ST to what Star Trek fans are being asked to swallow, it is kind of funny. All the Star Wars movies look and feel like the same universe. The new Star Trek films didn’t even try and setup an alternate timeline and decided that because some effects called for a bigger ship that the so called JJ-prise should be the biggest Enterprise ever (bigger than the two ships Picard captains). And it gets worse. CBS decided that Star Trek Discovery is back to the prime timeline. Except they drastically changed the Klingons, the technology, the uniforms, went against several things that are said to have explicitly never happened, and just dropped the ball on any kind of research what-so-ever. Now, that would be fine for a reboot, but… Well, I’ll just say that in comparison, complains about TLJ are very nitpicking to me. My expectation for Star Trek is that they follow the established timeline and canon and that they keep to the mix of Roddenberry’s vision (a Utopian future where the human race had evolved and handles situations based on higher ideals) with the space action adventure that NBC wanted. Star Trek Discovery violates canon and ignores Roddenberry’s vision to so me that isn’t Star Trek. TLJ is Star Wars. At least to me. At least JJ and Rian are fans and are following canon and making something that looks and feels right, even if the story doesn’t go where you like.

I hope that makes clear where I’m coming from in this discussion.

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.

Well, how did the Empire do it? They built two huge battlestations in secret. The First order built a superweapon on a small planet. Not quite the same level of construction required. the weapon is more powerful, but the setup is not larger. And we see this one fleet. How many fleets does Snoke have? How many fleets did the Empire have? We see and increase in the technology, but we don’t really see a larger force. The Empire had to dominate the galaxy and keep the rebels at bay. The First Order destroyed the Republic capital and fleet (one fleet in one system, but evidently all the Republic thought it needed) so they don’t need the huge resources the Empire had to have the fleet and ships we see. When you move beyond the movies, the Empire was massive and there is no indication the First Order is anywhere near that big.

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

chyron8472 said:

You do not let the movies tell you a story on their own terms. You want it to be on your terms and are angry and frustrated that it doesn’t work that way. If you were willing to let the films tell their own stories and expand your understanding of the universe as you acquire more information about it, you would be able to accept and enjoy it.

I have to agree with your assessment, though I think your last paragraph is a bit off topic. DrDre was expecting ROTJ hero Luke, not old Mentor Luke. Such a fall is a mythic trope. I don’t know what some others were expecting, but whatever they expected they were disappointed.

I think this is inaccurate and an oversimplification. Time and time again we get these arguments, that us critics didn’t like TLJ, because of expectations and what not. It’s not about wanting hero Luke. It’s about what means are used to achieve what ends. The OT is in part about Luke’s growth as a character. In TLJ Luke has regressed to a deplorable state. Is this problematic in of itself? No, not at all. However, the means by which this was achieved, and to what ends, is what makes TLJ a bad Star Wars film in my view. The means, a sixty second flashback, is far too compressed IMO. It makes Luke’s transition from hero and Jedi to curmudgeon, who abandons his family, friends, and the GFAA at large, just not believable to me. This situation is compounded by the ends, which ultimately amount to a big reset in the Star Wars universe, where an even smaller rebel force has to fight another tyrannical regime, while another new hope has to somehow reinvigorate the Jedi.

So, for me personally deconstructing Luke Skywalker, while jarring, might have been worth the journey, if the franchise really went in an interesting new direction, whilst respecting the underlying themes of the overarching saga as set up by Lucas. However, since the ST for me personally amounts to little more than a reboot, whilst undoing almost everything the OT’s heroes achieved on a personal and macroscopic scale, I just disagree with the idea that the ST films tell their own stories and expand our understanding of the universe. It’s story consists of a mishmash of OT story threads, held together by a plot designed to defy expectations, and to avoid the OT’s resolutions. At the same time it provides very little understanding how and why the GFFA regressed back to the OT’s macrostate, because the film is too preoccupied with pulling the rug from under our feet at almost every turn, in my humble opinion of course.

The ST is like a rollercoaster. There’s fun and excitement to be found around every unexpected twist and turn, but ultimately the journey just leads back to the beginning of the ride, which makes it pretty pointless, if like me you wanted to go places.

Yes, that was oversimplified. But it is clear you had expectations and that you didn’t like where things went and that you didn’t really find the film engaging. But the thing I have problems with is because of that you have created a conspiracy theory that this was done deliberately to reboot the series and piss off long-time fans. There is not foundation or evidence for that. Rian Johnson made what he felt was the right middle chapter of the trilogy to grow the characters and set things up for the final episode. He wrote it before TFA came out and before fans spent two years building things up about things he didn’t consider important. And as proof that he did not do what you claim, I, a 1977 fan who saw the original film 10 times before July 1979 and has seen every film in the theaters and bought the home video versions, do find his story to be very well done and to fit perfectly with the OT. Right now I consider TLJ and Rogue One to be tied for fourth place of all time best Star Wars films. I loved it. So, far from disappointing me or pissing me off, he met my expectations, which was to get a good story that furthered the characters and universe. But, regardless of the other aspects of your feelings on TLJ, it is clear you had expectations that colored your interpretation and enjoyment of the film. People are entitled to have expectations and not enjoy films based on that (even a trailer can give people expectations), but I feel that you need to keep expectations to a minimum and just try to enjoy it for what it is. That was my philosophy for the prequels and now the sequels. I has been my philosophy on Star Trek and Doctor Who as well. So far Star Trek is the only one to truly disappoint me.