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Post #1226296

Author
Jay
Parent topic
Has Star Wars finally "jumped the shark"?
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1226296/action/topic#1226296
Date created
17-Jul-2018, 12:17 AM

SilverWook said:

I was speaking more towards the people who think the human body blows up like a water balloon in space.

In a movie universe where spaceships and explosions can be heard in a vacuum, and often defy physics, giant slugs live inside an apparently airless asteroid, people with magical powers formally fight with improbable laser swords when a blaster would end things quicker, (see Obi-Wan vs. Grevious) and overgrown teddy bears kicked Imperial ass, Leia in space was the one bridge too far? I give up.

That’s what happens when you establish rules and then break them. “Reality” in the context of fiction has more to do with the guidelines you create that actual reality.

I think the main problem with the scene is that it’s the audience’s introduction to Leia’s first external use of her latent Force powers. Of course, we don’t know what happened in the decades between Episode VI and Episode VII, so maybe she did some training, who knows. But on screen, it seems to come out of nowhere. We didn’t even get a hint of external Force powers in TFA to set it up.

Secondly, nowhere in any Star Wars movie is it made clear that humans can survive in open space. Sure, the films obviously dispense with most real-world physics as they pertain to technology (laser swords, space dogfights, etc.), but for the most part, humans in Star Wars are still subject to the same physical laws they are in the real world. They’re subject to gravity, they can’t breathe underwater, they can freeze to death, they can’t venture outside a ship without a breathing apparatus, etc. Point taken about the giant space worm, but it’s not human.

When Leia uses Force powers we’ve never seen before to defy certain death, that sets something off in the viewer’s mind because it doesn’t align with what they’ve been taught previously. Suspension of disbelief goes up in a puff of smoke and the viewer is left thinking what they just saw was silly.

Regardless, my hypothesis was only based on my personal conversations with casual fans and entirely anecdotal. I think DominicCobb is partially right when he suggests Star Wars lost its way a long time ago, but the box office numbers for TFA suggest that everyone was totally willing to give it another shot. Unfortunately, I think TLJ squandered some of that goodwill.