Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the 7 Basic Questions of Narrative Drama [Archive]

Mightymosy

2018-05-31, 10:34 AM

Oh my dear, not that again :smallbiggrin:

I have just watched a Star Wars movie I liked and we're back to TLJ :smalleek:

This Youtube video is, I'm afraid, entirely unconvincing.

First, this guy leaves out quite a couple of characters to make its point (how about asking these supposedly magical questions about Luke, for example? Or Leia, for that matter?).

Second, and this is the more important issue, this video keeps on telling us superficial platitudes, and hopes that the (admittedly solid) imagery convinces us that its statements are true.
Hey, he even tries to circumvent criticism by showing us the Simpsons intermezzos, so that WE feel silly when we criticize TLJ.
Which, I have to admit, is how you make solid propaganda, I have to give him that.

But in reality, this guy just thinks he's find the holy grail by showing us superficial schemes, when in reality these schemes just didn't work out.

Let's take the easiest example (like the video did): Poe.

Yes, on paper it looks convincing that Poe was reckless and needed to learn to be a leader. And one might be convinced that Lei and Holdo were two polar opposites that shaped that conflict. If you look closer, the example begins to fall apart here and then, which the movie tries to just brush aside as unimportant - in fact, BOTH Leia and Holdo scolded him for what he did, but hey, arguments sound a lot more convincing when you present pretty pictures, and people LOVE polar opposites! The Illuminati would be proud.

The damning part of TLJ is not that the idea that Poe needed to learn to become a leader was bad in and of itself. The problem was the EXECUTION!

In the story of this movie, the arc of Poe did not make a smidgeon of sense, because the details just didn't work to tell that story.

The movie shows the scene "Why didn't f*cking Holdo tell him?", but completely fails this "WHY", just as the movie did.
As numerous people on this forum pointed out, IF Holdo viewed Poe as the loose, irresponsible cannon, NOT telling him the plan made things worse. Hell, even pointing out that there WAS a plan might have helped, and she didn't even do that.

For this Youtube video: unimportant.
For people who dislike TLJ because of how stupid it was: important.

IF Poe was to learn ANYTHING from Holdo, it would be:
If you're leader, make sure to inform your people about your plans, otherwise loose cannons might make stuff worse!

Bottom line: Yes, there might be some superficial scheme, and that's nice, but that doesn't help a movie when the logical structure doesn't uphold this scheme.

It's like if I wanted to sell you a car: It has four wheels and a motor, like cars should, but I made it so that the fron wheels and the back wheels rotate into OPPOSITE directions, just so that my car DEFIES EXPECTATIONS! MUAHAHA!

Wanna buy? 20 000 imperial credits.
Order now for a free helping of banta sh*t.

Bottom bottom line:

7 Basic Questions of Narrative Drama.
How about we add the following:

The Number One Golden Rule of Storytelling:
The Story has to make sense!

Free bonus content:
Want good stuff about TLJ?
Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCB8DUGpYQQ

Devonix

2018-05-31, 10:45 AM

I completely understand your point of view. the video was not about the quality of the film simply showing the themes of it and trying to explain to people who didn't see them. Not people who understood the themes and simply didn't like them.

As for linking to HISHE Sure. they're always funny, but they're not an analysis or critical review site, they're a comedy channel that doesn't delve into what makes something good or bad.

Kyberwulf

2018-05-31, 10:53 AM

The Fury

2018-06-01, 05:15 PM

It's like if I wanted to sell you a car: It has four wheels and a motor, like cars should, but I made it so that the fron wheels and the back wheels rotate into OPPOSITE directions, just so that my car DEFIES EXPECTATIONS! MUAHAHA!

While it's true that I definitely don't want that car, I'd also be really interested in how you got it do something so weird.

I think this video goes to show the quality of the movie. I mean, if you can see the themes of the film and have to be shown them. That speaks to the quality of the film. Also, if you have to stretch and contort parts of the narrative to make a different narrative, I think that destroys any attempts at themes that you are trying to tell someone.

I don't know if I agree. There are thematic elements in good movies that I don't notice on the first or even the first few viewings. Though in the case of good movies, I keep wanting to rewatch them because I like them, and sometimes I can pick up on those themes after repeat viewings.

The Last Jedi on the other hand, I really would need to have the themes pointed out to me because I didn't enjoy it and don't think I'd enjoy a rewatch. Though I also thought that The Last Jedi had a messy story structure, so even if I were motivated to rewatch it I still might not have been able to pick out coherent themes.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 06:09 AM

While it's true that I definitely don't want that car, I'd also be really interested in how you got it do something so weird.

Ever played with Lego Technic?
The cogwheel setup for a two axes of wheels that turn into opposite directions is surprisingly easy to build :smallbiggrin:
Now, of course the car won't move in any direction, really.
Wait, did I just describe TLJ? :smallsmile:

I don't know if I agree. There are thematic elements in good movies that I don't notice on the first or even the first few viewings. Though in the case of good movies, I keep wanting to rewatch them because I like them, and sometimes I can pick up on those themes after repeat viewings.

The Last Jedi on the other hand, I really would need to have the themes pointed out to me because I didn't enjoy it and don't think I'd enjoy a rewatch. Though I also thought that The Last Jedi had a messy story structure, so even if I were motivated to rewatch it I still might not have been able to pick out coherent themes.
The only coherent thing about TLJ is that it wanted to defy coherency. And yes, this doesn't make sense....

I think this video goes to show the quality of the movie. I mean, if you can see the themes of the film and have to be shown them. That speaks to the quality of the film. Also, if you have to stretch and contort parts of the narrative to make a different narrative, I think that destroys any attempts at themes that you are trying to tell someone.

The movie wanted to show that we need to break with the past - but utterly failed to show why.
Again, Poe is the best example: we are supposed to learn the same lesson as Poe:
"Blasting stuff with Lasers ain't solve problems."

Yet, the movie shows us exactly that: Poe having blown up the super "fleet killer" military ship enables the whole rebel fleet to survive the chase, and survive long enough in the bunker.

Lesson: NO SENSE.

Apart from that, TLJ doesn't offer anything new to replace the antics it wishes to discard.

It dismounts Luke. But doesn't deliver a new character we can follow on an interesting heroe's journey.

TLJ wants to be a destructive movie. But if you are destructive, destructive to something people like - something people wanted to see and PAID money to see - you at least need to have the decency to make it RIGHT. Make it make sense.

Want to show how one person, no matter how powerful a Jedi they are, can't save the galaxy alone? Fine, show us how Luke fails to build a Jedi order after RotJ. Show what goes wrong. Show how his naive beliefs ("everyone can be turned to the light side") fails because some people are more evil than Darth Vader and can't be turned.

Show us actual reasons why the stuff we believed in is stupid.

But making fun of us while getting everything wrong is stupid, and frankly offending.

Rian Johnson seems like a stupid and arrogant teenager who wants to get praise because he found out how Pythagoras was all wrong about geometry, even though he doesn't even know how many sides a triangle has.
Because, hey, I'm much cooler and smarter than you are because SURPRISE!

Devonix

2018-06-02, 08:15 AM

Blowing up the Dreadnaut does not enable the fleet to survive the chase. That's the point. Staying to fight the Fleet killer is what causes them to get chased. If they left when they were supposed to. Then the entire fleet would have escaped safely. It was a waste of life that cost the enemy nothing more than embarrassment and cost the heroes nearly everything.

The Leia tells us the fighting the " Fleet Killer " was a pointless and wasteful choice. The theming of the movie tells us it's a pointless and wasteful choice. The only issue I see is that it seems like it didn't do a good enough job to make every one in the audience understand it as well.

What poe did was basically bloody someone in the nose during a fight he could have left and ended up getting put in traction.

The Resistance is fighting a battle against a foe with superior numbers, and resources. You don't waste everything you have on an unimportant fight. You look to see if this fight is worth losing before you see if it's worth winning.

And no one is saying the stuff we believed in was stupid. The movie loves Luke. In fact Rey's whole point on the planet is to get Luke to love himself again. He lost his way in the 30+ years since we saw him. It's a basic plot that's been done a million times, but it's one that works. Old knight who was once a great hero but has through tragedy forgotten. And plucky young warrior trying to bring him back for one last ride.

The only difference is in those stories our point of view character is someone that the audience has more experience than the old hero. Luke's the drunk old gunslinger that's hanging in the bar. That we know is great, but needs to be reminded of it.

The Fury

2018-06-02, 09:38 AM

Ever played with Lego Technic?
The cogwheel setup for a two axes of wheels that turn into opposite directions is surprisingly easy to build :smallbiggrin:
Now, of course the car won't move in any direction, really.
Wait, did I just describe TLJ? :smallsmile:

Yes, that's true. Though successfully pulling that off on a real car would be a lot more difficult. I'm not sure if it would be appropriate for me to go into detail on why, after all this is a Star Wars thread, not a cars or mechanical engineering discussion. But the TL:DR version is basically that you would take a lot of effort to change how the drivetrain functions and install parts incorrectly enough to make that happen.

Blowing up the Dreadnaut does not enable the fleet to survive the chase. That's the point. Staying to fight the Fleet killer is what causes them to get chased. If they left when they were supposed to. Then the entire fleet would have escaped safely. It was a waste of life that cost the enemy nothing more than embarrassment and cost the heroes nearly everything.

The Leia tells us the fighting the " Fleet Killer " was a pointless and wasteful choice. The theming of the movie tells us it's a pointless and wasteful choice. The only issue I see is that it seems like it didn't do a good enough job to make every one in the audience understand it as well.

What poe did was basically bloody someone in the nose during a fight he could have left and ended up getting put in traction.

The Resistance is fighting a battle against a foe with superior numbers, and resources. You don't waste everything you have on an unimportant fight. You look to see if this fight is worth losing before you see if it's worth winning.

Though if the movie is trying to make that point, it's sort of undermined by later scenes. The aftermath really does treat it like going after the Dreadnought was an avoidable fistfight rather than a strategic blunder that cost way too many lives. There's even Poe's sarcastic quip, "Permission to get in an X-wing and blow things up?" that even suggests Poe might have been in the right.

Then there's the stuff with What-her-name... Holdo. Who by all appearances was making another tragic blunder that was going to cost more lives and maybe even end the Resistance. If I'm generous and assume that Poe learned from his experience with the Dreadnought, it makes sense that he'd try to stop someone else from making some horrible mistake even if he has to mutiny to do it. ...Only, she had a plan all along! Silly Poe!

It's for reasons like this that I could help but think that The Last Jedi's plot just felt messy. The closest I could get to a coherent theme I could get from Poe's arc was "Always do what the boss says! They know what's best!" Which seems waaay too cynical for me to believe that's what they were going for.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 10:03 AM

I think this video goes to show the quality of the movie. I mean, if you can see the themes of the film and have to be shown them. That speaks to the quality of the film. Also, if you have to stretch and contort parts of the narrative to make a different narrative, I think that destroys any attempts at themes that you are trying to tell someone.

Blowing up the Dreadnaut does not enable the fleet to survive the chase. That's the point. Staying to fight the Fleet killer is what causes them to get chased. If they left when they were supposed to. Then the entire fleet would have escaped safely. It was a waste of life that cost the enemy nothing more than embarrassment and cost the heroes nearly everything.

The Leia tells us the fighting the " Fleet Killer " was a pointless and wasteful choice. The theming of the movie tells us it's a pointless and wasteful choice. The only issue I see is that it seems like it didn't do a good enough job to make every one in the audience understand it as well.

What poe did was basically bloody someone in the nose during a fight he could have left and ended up getting put in traction.

The Resistance is fighting a battle against a foe with superior numbers, and resources. You don't waste everything you have on an unimportant fight. You look to see if this fight is worth losing before you see if it's worth winning. [...]

Leia is not ultimate authority, even less when her character just says what the script tells her to say.

In other words, please explain how leaving earlier would have been better.

They were tracked immediately after they left, after they destroyed the fleetkiller.

What convinces you that they wouldn't have been tracked if they had NOT destroyed the fleetkiller?

Maybe I'm missing something from the movie, but it REALLY doesn't seem obvious to me why the fleetkiller should not have been destroyed.

Even it it was futile, the movie should have explained that.

Especially, when in the end, the rebels were hiding in a bunker which was safe - for a time - because NO fleetkiller was orbiting the planet and making short work of it.

Yes, that's true. Though successfully pulling that off on a real car would be a lot more difficult. I'm not sure if it would be appropriate for me to go into detail on why, after all this is a Star Wars thread, not a cars or mechanical engineering discussion. But the TL:DR version is basically that you would take a lot of effort to change how the drivetrain functions and install parts incorrectly enough to make that happen.

Though if the movie is trying to make that point, it's sort of undermined by later scenes. The aftermath really does treat it like going after the Dreadnought was an avoidable fistfight rather than a strategic blunder that cost way too many lives. There's even Poe's sarcastic quip, "Permission to get in an X-wing and blow things up?" that even suggests Poe might have been in the right.

Then there's the stuff with What-her-name... Holdo. Who by all appearances was making another tragic blunder that was going to cost more lives and maybe even end the Resistance. If I'm generous and assume that Poe learned from his experience with the Dreadnought, it makes sense that he'd try to stop someone else from making some horrible mistake even if he has to mutiny to do it. ...Only, she had a plan all along! Silly Poe!

It's for reasons like this that I could help but think that The Last Jedi's plot just felt messy. The closest I could get to a coherent theme I could get from Poe's arc was "Always do what the boss says! They know what's best!" Which seems waaay too cynical for me to believe that's what they were going for.

I really don't get it.

Put yurself in Poe's position for a moment.

What's your lesson?

Mine would be one of the following:
- Hey, I was right! We WOULD be in even deeper **** if I hadn't blown up the fleetkiller now.
- Hey, if I ever become leader, I better don't keep my most important captains in the dark like that stupid Holdo admiral.
- Hey, blowing up giant enemy spaceships with suicide attacks IS a good thing after all! But you better aim for the biggest ship, and you better sacrifice yourself in the run, or it appearantly doesn't count! Bombing the enemy's capital ship AND returning will earn a slap in the face.
- Hey, when I order my team to retreat from a suicide mission that's necessary to save us all, the enemy will MIRACOUSLY stop firing at my team and then some random Jedi hero will pop out of nowhere and save us all! (Really, this is ELAN logic for crying out loud!)

IF the movie wants to make the lesson "Blindly trust authority", well that's the most stupid lesson I can think of. Unfortunately, forum rules forbid examples for why.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 10:03 AM

Yes, that's true. Though successfully pulling that off on a real car would be a lot more difficult. I'm not sure if it would be appropriate for me to go into detail on why, after all this is a Star Wars thread, not a cars or mechanical engineering discussion. But the TL:DR version is basically that you would take a lot of effort to change how the drivetrain functions and install parts incorrectly enough to make that happen.

Though if the movie is trying to make that point, it's sort of undermined by later scenes. The aftermath really does treat it like going after the Dreadnought was an avoidable fistfight rather than a strategic blunder that cost way too many lives. There's even Poe's sarcastic quip, "Permission to get in an X-wing and blow things up?" that even suggests Poe might have been in the right.

Then there's the stuff with What-her-name... Holdo. Who by all appearances was making another tragic blunder that was going to cost more lives and maybe even end the Resistance. If I'm generous and assume that Poe learned from his experience with the Dreadnought, it makes sense that he'd try to stop someone else from making some horrible mistake even if he has to mutiny to do it. ...Only, she had a plan all along! Silly Poe!

It's for reasons like this that I could help but think that The Last Jedi's plot just felt messy. The closest I could get to a coherent theme I could get from Poe's arc was "Always do what the boss says! They know what's best!" Which seems waaay too cynical for me to believe that's what they were going for.

I didn't see that as always do what the boss says. More. " There's always something bigger going on, stop and look for it. " And with Poe going to get in an X-wing and blow stuff up." He hadn't learned his lesson yet, but there was also no other alternative.

Avoid a fight when you can, but when backed into a corner, fight with everything you have.

As for Holdo, Yeah she didn't tell him the plan. But she did tell all of the other fleet commanders what was up. Why didn't he wonder why they were following he? He had other options. It seems like she didn't tell anyone because she didn't tell one of our point of view characters. But she did tell everyone in the command structure what was going on.

Mokèlé-mbèmbé

2018-06-02, 10:17 AM

Disclaimer before I begin that I haven't seen The Last Jedi nor do I ever intend to.

But I've never seen a film that people were so doggedly committed to disliking. In spite of my indifference to the subject YouTube's algorithm is of the mind that I want to see many video essays on the subject, and I see these essays posted in communities I frequent ad nauseum. It's one of the widest mobilisations I've seen to the end of calling something out as "overrated". Obviously, Star Wars is a pop culture cornerstone and it matters. But it's just impressive the scale of people's dislike.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 10:18 AM

I didn't see that as always do what the boss says. More. " There's always something bigger going on, stop and look for it. " And with Poe going to get in an X-wing and blow stuff up." He hadn't learned his lesson yet, but there was also no other alternative.

Avoid a fight when you can, but when backed into a corner, fight with everything you have.

As for Holdo, Yeah she didn't tell him the plan. But she did tell all of the other fleet commanders what was up. Why didn't he wonder why they were following he? He had other options. It seems like she didn't tell anyone because she didn't tell one of our point of view characters. But she did tell everyone in the command structure what was going on.

Sorry, I'm still missing the explanation of why fleeing earlier would have helped....

Also, Poe IS part of the command structure.

Disclaimer before I begin that I haven't seen The Last Jedi nor do I ever intend to.

But I've never seen a film that people were so doggedly committed to disliking. In spite of my indifference to the subject YouTube's algorithm is of the mind that I want to see many video essays on the subject, and I see these essays posted in communities I frequent ad nauseum. It's one of the widest mobilisations I've seen to the end of calling something out as "overrated". Obviously, Star Wars is a pop culture cornerstone and it matters. But it's just impressive the scale of people's dislike.

You'll understand once you've seen it.

Advice: don't pay money for it if you can avoid it.

ETA: Maybe I should explain better why I am so "committed" to hating it.

Well, I LOVE stories. If a story is good, I want to know more. I want to know what happens to the characters. I want to know how it ends.
Star Wars is one of my most favourite childhood stories. Not the best, but one of the most famous ones.

I had considered it finished, but then we got prequles. Which were good, and I liked them, although they weren't perfect.

Then the sequels were announced, and I was stoked. Because THE STORY would go on. I would see MORE of my favourite characters!

And TLJ, frankly, just takes that away, sh'ts on it and gives it the finger.

Not because it doesn't go the way I had hoped.
Because it just isn't a story any longer, because it is inconsistent, makes no sense, AND sh'ts on the beloved characters from the original.
The only good thing left is great cinematics. Great. Don't care for pretty pictures in 2017. Any movie has decent cgi these days.

Just a simple, solid plot would have sufficed. But no, Rian Johnson had to defy expectations. Mosi importantly, the expectation that we would get a story that made sense. Logically and emotionally.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 10:18 AM

Leia is not ultimate authority, even less when her character just says what the script tells her to say.

In other words, please explain how leaving earlier would have been better.

They were tracked immediately after they left, after they destroyed the fleetkiller.

What convinces you that they wouldn't have been tracked if they had NOT destroyed the fleetkiller?

Maybe I'm missing something from the movie, but it REALLY doesn't seem obvious to me why the fleetkiller should not have been destroyed.

Even it it was futile, the movie should have explained that.

Especially, when in the end, the rebels were hiding in a bunker which was safe - for a time - because NO fleetkiller was orbiting the planet and making short work of it.

I really don't get it.

Put yurself in Poe's position for a moment.

What's your lesson?

Mine would be one of the following:
- Hey, I was right! We WOULD be in even deeper **** if I hadn't blown up the fleetkiller now.
- Hey, if I ever become leader, I better don't keep my most important captains in the dark like that stupid Holdo admiral.
- Hey, blowing up giant enemy spaceships with suicide attacks IS a good thing after all! But you better aim for the biggest ship, and you better sacrifice yourself in the run, or it appearantly doesn't count! Bombing the enemy's capital ship AND returning will earn a slap in the face.
- Hey, when I order my team to retreat from a suicide mission that's necessary to save us all, the enemy will MIRACOUSLY stop firing at my team and then some random Jedi hero will pop out of nowhere and save us all! (Really, this is ELAN logic for crying out loud!)

IF the movie wants to make the lesson "Blindly trust authority", well that's the most stupid lesson I can think of. Unfortunately, forum rules forbid examples for why.

They weren't tracked until the Supremacy showed up. That's the entire reason that they needed to get onto the Supremacy and hack it. If they had left when they were supposed to. IE Before the Supremacy appeared, then the entire fleet would have gotten away safely to fight another day at a battleground of their choosing, not a battleground of the enemies choosing.

As for the importance of the " Fleet Killer. " When your enemy already has you outgunned, you don't sacrifice all of your soldiers to take out one of their reproducible weapons. You pick your battles. It would be like getting rid of half your fleet to take out a couple of Star Destroyers.

As for comparing what Poe did to what Holdo did. There is a world of difference between risking your entire fleet to take out one enemy target. And risking yourself to take out the enemy, and allow the remainder of your forces to escape.

Poe Risked much and gained little, Holdo Risked little and gained much.

And Poe Was part of the command structure. Leia demoted him so that he wasn't anymore.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 10:22 AM

As for just Leia saying what the script says. That actually makes her the ultimate authority. Her purpose in the film is to let the audience know what lessons are supposed to be conveyed to the character. She's the mouthpiece for the author which makes her the ultimate authority.

Mokèlé-mbèmbé

2018-06-02, 10:22 AM

You'll understand once you've seen it.

Disclaimer before I begin that I haven't seen The Last Jedi nor do I ever intend to.

The neutrality of my position was rather integral to the point.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 10:27 AM

The neutrality of my position was rather integral to the point.

Oops, my bad.

Good for you, though ;-)

Mokèlé-mbèmbé

2018-06-02, 10:29 AM

Though I should say I'm not actually complaining. In fact I'm quite pleased to see the video essay format supplanting the "angry screamy comedy critic" format.

It's not perfect but it's a step up.

Scowling Dragon

2018-06-02, 10:36 AM

Themes don't excuse **** execution and half-baked storytelling.
And don't tell me to forget the past and then tell me to praise it and buy your merchandise 6 months later.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 10:36 AM

They weren't tracked until the Supremacy showed up. That's the entire reason that they needed to get onto the Supremacy and hack it. If they had left when they were supposed to. IE Before the Supremacy appeared, then the entire fleet would have gotten away safely to fight another day at a battleground of their choosing, not a battleground of the enemies choosing.

As for the importance of the " Fleet Killer. " When your enemy already has you outgunned, you don't sacrifice all of your soldiers to take out one of their reproducible weapons. You pick your battles. It would be like getting rid of half your fleet to take out a couple of Star Destroyers.

As for comparing what Poe did to what Holdo did. There is a world of difference between risking your entire fleet to take out one enemy target. And risking yourself to take out the enemy, and allow the remainder of your forces to escape.

Poe Risked much and gained little, Holdo Risked little and gained much.

And Poe Was part of the command structure. Leia demoted him so that he wasn't anymore.

Really? So what was he? Foot soldier at the bottom of command line?
Then how does he command the other rebels on the salt planet?

As for just Leia saying what the script says. That actually makes her the ultimate authority. Her purpose in the film is to let the audience know what lessons are supposed to be conveyed to the character. She's the mouthpiece for the author which makes her the ultimate authority.

Disagree strongly. Because no author is ultimate authority. TLJ shows why.

Author can say "apples are blue in my story". But when apple is orange later on without explanation, author is doing bad job. (example my be a bit too simplicistic, but I hope you get what I mean. The author has freedom, but he needs to follow logic, and what he set up beforehand)

Devonix

2018-06-02, 10:54 AM

Really? So what was he? Foot soldier at the bottom of command line?
Then how does he command the other rebels on the salt planet?

Disagree strongly. Because no author is ultimate authority. TLJ shows why.

Author can say "apples are blue in my story". But when apple is orange later on without explanation, author is doing bad job. (example my be a bit too simplicistic, but I hope you get what I mean. The author has freedom, but he needs to follow logic, and what he set up beforehand)

He was demoted to just being a pilot. Not even a squad commander. He gets reinstated by Leia after pretty much everyone else gets killed. I really don't understand your question.

The Fury

2018-06-02, 10:54 AM

I didn't see that as always do what the boss says. More. " There's always something bigger going on, stop and look for it. " And with Poe going to get in an X-wing and blow stuff up." He hadn't learned his lesson yet, but there was also no other alternative.

Avoid a fight when you can, but when backed into a corner, fight with everything you have.

As for Holdo, Yeah she didn't tell him the plan. But she did tell all of the other fleet commanders what was up. Why didn't he wonder why they were following he? He had other options. It seems like she didn't tell anyone because she didn't tell one of our point of view characters. But she did tell everyone in the command structure what was going on.

If I really wanted to pick at my own conclusion and thought process, I could probably dismantle the "lesson" of "Boss knows best!" Like I mentioned, I'm positive that was not the message the writers were going for at all, though all my investment in that particular arc had already gone out the window by then.

Disclaimer before I begin that I haven't seen The Last Jedi nor do I ever intend to.

But I've never seen a film that people were so doggedly committed to disliking. In spite of my indifference to the subject YouTube's algorithm is of the mind that I want to see many video essays on the subject, and I see these essays posted in communities I frequent ad nauseum. It's one of the widest mobilisations I've seen to the end of calling something out as "overrated". Obviously, Star Wars is a pop culture cornerstone and it matters. But it's just impressive the scale of people's dislike.

Cards on the table, there's actually parts of The Last Jedi in particular and the new films in general that I though were good. Things like giving dramatic weight to Resistance bomber pilots and First Order stormtroopers. I like that because it emphasizes that these are people, they're scared and they don't want to die. It also lends a certain gravitas to what would be an otherwise forgettable scene.

I also liked Kylo Ren revealing that Rey's backstory is... that she's basically a nobody. No heroic bloodline, no prophecy, no destiny, no nothing. Just some random kid that got ditched by her nobody parents on some backwater planet.

I like this because it feels consistent with The Empire Strikes Back's explanation of how the Force works. As Yoda describes the Force to Luke, he makes it seem like it's more a matter of willpower, mental discipline and enlightenment that allows people to use the Force. Not bloodlines or destiny as later films seem to suggest. I always preferred how it was explained in Empire because it seems to imply that anyone who works hard enough can be a Jedi. Rey's seeming nobody status combined with her lifelong admiration of the Jedi ways is feels like a confirmation of that, and one of the few genuinely optimistic points of the movie.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 10:57 AM

Themes don't excuse **** execution and half-baked storytelling.
And don't tell me to forget the past and then tell me to praise it and buy your merchandise 6 months later.

The only person telling you to forget the past " Is the Villain of the Movie. " The person that the audience is not supposed to agree with.

The actual heroes are saying Remember the past, but learn from it. It's not perfect, but it's lessons are important.

Rey's parents are nobodies who left her behind and didn't care about her. Kylo would say ignore them, they're the past and not important.

The lesson of the movie is. Yes they didn't care about her, and that's bad. But running away from it, seeking authority figures to fill that hole is just as bad. You need to accept and embrace the past flaws and all, if you can move to the future.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 11:08 AM

He was demoted to just being a pilot. Not even a squad commander. He gets reinstated by Leia after pretty much everyone else gets killed. I really don't understand your question.

I question Holdo not informing him (and everyone else present whenever Holdo and Poe argue) about her secret plan, not even the EXISTENCE of ANY plan. That's what I question, and I haven't read any good answer for that other than "Holdo made a stupid mistake" -which would be ok, honestly, if the movie treated it as such.

If I really wanted to pick at my own conclusion and thought process, I could probably dismantle the "lesson" of "Boss knows best!" Like I mentioned, I'm positive that was not the message the writers were going for at all, though all my investment in that particular arc had already gone out the window by then.

Cards on the table, there's actually parts of The Last Jedi in particular and the new films in general that I though were good. Things like giving dramatic weight to Resistance bomber pilots and First Order stormtroopers. I like that because it emphasizes that these are people, they're scared and they don't want to die. It also lends a certain gravitas to what would be an otherwise forgettable scene.

I also liked Kylo Ren revealing that Rey's backstory is... that she's basically a nobody. No heroic bloodline, no prophecy, no destiny, no nothing. Just some random kid that got ditched by her nobody parents on some backwater planet.

I like this because it feels consistent with The Empire Strikes Back's explanation of how the Force works. As Yoda describes the Force to Luke, he makes it seem like it's more a matter of willpower, mental discipline and enlightenment that allows people to use the Force. Not bloodlines or destiny as later films seem to suggest. I always preferred how it was explained in Empire because it seems to imply that anyone who works hard enough can be a Jedi. Rey's seeming nobody status combined with her lifelong admiration of the Jedi ways is feels like a confirmation of that, and one of the few genuinely optimistic points of the movie.

Me too! Acutally, my favourite new character is Finn, basically for the reasons you stated. Unfortunately, he is a other good character butchered by TLJ.

Rose's message (save the ones you love, don't kill the ones you hate) is a pretty good message, one I can really agree with.

The movie just doesn't deliver it well at all.

1. When she stops Finn, that's EXACTLY what he's doing! He doesn't care about killing the stormtroopers, he wants to destroy the cannon to SAVE HIS FRIENDS.
2. Once Rose stops Finn, they are right in front of the stormtroopers, and yet survive. I don't think super-realism is super-necessary in a fantasy movie, but this stuck out like a sore thumb.....they still are RIGHT in front of the enemies who shot at them all the time, and now they can wander back to base unharmed?
3. Compare again to Holdo: In both situations, the heroes are with their back to the walls, and sacrifice what they have left to let others escape. Only in one situation it's good, and in the other one it's bad.
Why? Because in one situation, Deus Ex shows up, and in the other one doesn't (Luke's hologramm, then later Rey).

Yet again, the whole part about needing the salt planet outpost to send a SOS message: WTF????

- The infamous Holdo cruiser: no Skype onboard????
- the journey to Casino planet: no phone houses there either??
- again, the Holdo crusier: if Finn & Rose could fly away to Casino, couldn't Holdo have sent other small ships to call for help, if for some dumb reason the giant rebel crusier doesn't have interstellar communication?

If you want to send a message to the audience, get the basics right.

If you tell someone to stop at red lights, and they ask why, you tell them that the grass on the moon is always yellow. Which isn't true, and has nothing to do with your message. Thus, it won't work, unless they blindly accept your authority anyway (because you are the author or whatever), but then you really don't need an explanation in the first place, do you?

A perfectly good message, gone to waste by bad execution.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 11:12 AM

The Fury

2018-06-02, 11:14 AM

Haldir

2018-06-02, 11:26 AM

Devonix

2018-06-02, 11:49 AM

That's a good point and a fine lesson, though it's muddied a little...

When Yoda's Force Ghost burns down the sacred tree and the Jedi Texts with them, explaining that they were artifacts of the past and no longer relevant going forward. Besides, Luke evidently never read them!

It's stuff like this that can make The Last Jedi a really frustrating watch. Occasionally it will offer up something good, but do something in another scene that makes it feel pointless.

Luke did read them. That was the joke about how dry they were. And today didn't burn the text. The line she has everything she needs is referring to her already having loaded them onto the falcon. She is carrying the torch of the past but trying not to be bound by it.

Bobb

2018-06-02, 12:02 PM

Blowing up the Dreadnaut does not enable the fleet to survive the chase. That's the point. Staying to fight the Fleet killer is what causes them to get chased. If they left when they were supposed to. Then the entire fleet would have escaped safely. It was a waste of life that cost the enemy nothing more than embarrassment and cost the heroes nearly everything.

BS.

1. The FO can reestablish their hyperspace tracker instantly. In the escape plan between Poe, Rose and Finn they have five minutes to disable and jump because the FO checks their connection every five minutes.

Sooo.... they've well and proper tracked, flee dreadnaught or not. No happy fleet escape in any event.

2. The FO lacks any guns that can penetrate the Cruiser's shields at their distance. Dreadnaught is stated to be a fleet killer and can, presumably, damage the Resistance's vessels. If it had been deployed in the chase it would have battered the good guy fleet to smithereens.

Disclaimer before I begin that I haven't seen The Last Jedi nor do I ever intend to.

But I've never seen a film that people were so doggedly committed to disliking......
.....Obviously, Star Wars is a pop culture cornerstone and it matters. But it's just impressive the scale of people's dislike.

Quite a film that then, aye? I wanted to like it, enjoyed the spectacle, and decided I did in fact enjoy it on balance.... for the first hour after watching it.

Watched it a second time. Did not like. It's soured on me ever since.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 12:23 PM

Kitten Champion

2018-06-02, 02:28 PM

Luke did read them. That was the joke about how dry they were. And today didn't burn the text. The line she has everything she needs is referring to her already having loaded them onto the falcon. She is carrying the torch of the past but trying not to be bound by it.

I missed that when I watched it in theatres, that they were on the Falcon at the end.

It was amusing wordplay in retrospect.

Scowling Dragon

2018-06-02, 02:34 PM

The only person telling you to forget the past " Is the Villain of the Movie. " The person that the audience is not supposed to agree with.

Agreed. The problem is that the villian is the director because thats what HE said the point of the movie was in an interview.

Also Yoda I guess, but considering how much of a psycho he became in death perhaps hes a villian now as well.

Kitten Champion

2018-06-02, 02:43 PM

Agreed. The problem is that the villian is the director because thats what HE said the point of the movie was in an interview.

Also Yoda I guess, but considering how much of a psycho he became in death perhaps hes a villian now as well.

Really? Because a simple Google search displays an interview (https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/936303/Star-Wars-8-Last-Jedi-Rian-Johnson-sequel-trilogy-fan-backlash-dvd-blu-ray-digital)where he states otherwise.

Johnson said: "It (the movie) is also about the things we keep from the past. I feel like the quote 'Let the past die’ gets latched on to because it’s the big sexy quote of the movie, but the truth is if you really watch the movie that’s not where the movie ends up landing."

Scowling Dragon

2018-06-02, 03:02 PM

Really?

Yes Rian Jonson believes that freeing some animals to be recaptured later and 20 ****ers escaping after hundreds are slaughtered is a sign of hope for the entire galaxy. The man has the writing skills of a child.

The man just wants things to happen however he wants. He plays loose with narrative and events and only cares about satisfying himself.

Sapphire Guard

2018-06-02, 04:24 PM

The only person telling you to forget the past " Is the Villain of the Movie. " The person that the audience is not supposed to agree with.

The actual heroes are saying Remember the past, but learn from it. It's not perfect, but it's lessons are important.

Rey's parents are nobodies who left her behind and didn't care about her. Kylo would say ignore them, they're the past and not important.

The lesson of the movie is. Yes they didn't care about her, and that's bad. But running away from it, seeking authority figures to fill that hole is just as bad. You need to accept and embrace the past flaws and all, if you can move to the future.

I agree that's the intent, but the execution is so shaky that it doesn't work.

Rey doesn't learn anything much from Luke, anything she takes from him is ripped unwilling, she is convinced to abandon him and then when he returns he apologises for his failures. Everything she got on the island was in spite of his efforts.

When the failings of the Jedi are talked about, it's a lecture, not an argument. Nobody, not even Yoda, brings up the successes of the Jedi as counterpoint. Luke believes that the Jedi texts are burned, and is told that they don't matter, that Rey has everything she needs without the influence of the Jedi. Yoda's lying, but the belief Luke is operating under is that Rey has left without the influence of the Jedi, and thus 'Lose Rey we must not'.

Our video says she wants external validation, to be important. But go back to TFA, which wasn't very long ago in universe. She's offered a position on the Falcon. She's offered a lightsabre. She refuses them both to go back to Jakku. If validation was her thing back then, she'd have absolutely jumped at the chance to co-pilot the Falcon or be part of the Jedi Legacy. But she valued her 'nobody' parents over all of it. So that thematic thread is hard to credit.

Poe's theme of responsibility is rendered shaky by the fact that he's not actually blood or glory hungry. His motivation is 'I don't want us all to die', his goals are centred on escape, not destroying his enemies.

Finn's theme is rendered shaky by the fact that he is trying to save people through the whole film. He's not blood hungry or glory hungry either, his focus is saving, not destroying.

So everyone at the end is telling stories of Luke's last stand, right? But they don't know he's dead. So the whole 'inspiring the galaxy' part at the end means that the Rebellion is going to get a
ton of recruits going "Wow, Luke's back! I can't wait to meet him!" and are going to be completely crushed when they find out the truth.

All that said, I don't like to blame Rian alone a lot of the seeds were planted in TFA and it's really hard in movie production to say who is responsible for what.

Narkis

2018-06-02, 05:28 PM

It's amazing. I watched the original video to its entirety, and I think that just about every word he said was wrong. Luckily others have already addressed most points, so I don't have to. What I do want to address is this:

They are arguments for it being competent, for it having a rock-solid dramatic foundation that I think you have to aknowledge even if the movie made you angry. The Last Jedi should be applauded for resisting the temptation to indulge its audience with fanservice callbacks and references, for telling a real story that questions the themes and ideas of the previous films instead of just pandering to us. The Last Jedi may not be the film you wanted but it is the movie this franchise and its audience needed.

Why? Why should a film, the 9th in a cinematic universe, be applauded for not giving the fans what they wanted? And why should I, the fan, not complain when I get something that's the opposite of what I expected? When I go to McDonalds, I want a burger. And no one would blame me for being pissed if the server, after taking my money, gave me salad and tried to convince me that I was unreasonable for expecting a burger and that I should accept the healthier choice. I'm an adult, I know what I want.

When buy a ticket to see Star Wars, I want to be panderd to. I want to see Star Wars. Which, for me at least, means the archetypal battle of good and evil, mythical heroes who rise to the occasion and through sacrifice, bravery and determination overcome their own shortcomings and the overwhelming power of the bad guys to save the day. I don't want to be lectured about war profiteering, the oppressed underclass, the importance of following orders and that you should NOT sacrifice for the greater good. There are countless other movies for each of those points, profound and well-crafted that get their point across far, far more competently. But there used to be only one Star Wars, and it was butchered for that hackneyed morality play.

Mightymosy

2018-06-02, 05:58 PM

Also this whole "not the X you wanted but the Y you needed" spiel is sooooooomewhat overdone at this point :smallsigh:

Bobb

2018-06-02, 06:00 PM

Wait a second: I thought that any enemy ship can take over the tracking, no need for the supremacy. Don't they discuss this when they talk about tracking, and about getting the hacker?

Yes, yes and yes. As I recall events:

The resistance jumps out.
Snoke jumps in.
Snoke trashes Hux for losing the resistance.
Hux tells Snoke they have them tracked.
Hux is proven correct when they track them.

And any old ship can do the tracking. The FO is just two lazy to have two ships running the scanner or whatever. Just like they're too lazy to bother using any of their scanner equipment on the resistance until hacker guy tells them to.

Narkis

2018-06-02, 06:21 PM

The FO is just two lazy to have two ships running the scanner or whatever.

Hey, there's plenty of things to criticise about the movie, but that's not one of them. Someone in the film, probably Rose, says that these new trackers are very sensitive, interfere with each other and can only be used from the largest ship in a fleet. That's how they know that there's only one and on which ship it can be found.

Contrived, yes, but if that plan had worked instead of being a colossal waste of time and lives, I'd have nothing to complain about the tracker.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 06:33 PM

Narkis your analogy is more like someone who walks into a restaurant and asks the chef to make them something but doesn't like what the chef prepared.

Olinser

2018-06-02, 08:18 PM

Narkis your analogy is more like someone who walks into a restaurant and asks the chef to make them something but doesn't like what the chef prepared.

Wrong, he's walked into a Mexican restaurant and asked the chef to make him something and gotten mad when the chef made him a plate of Indian curry.

Devonix

2018-06-02, 08:37 PM

Wrong, he's walked into a Mexican restaurant and asked the chef to make him something and gotten mad when the chef made him a plate of Indian curry.

You know what I really think we're both wrong. It's more that a Mexican resteraunt opened up and was serving food. We walked in, and paid, and were given a plate of Indian curry. We didn't actually order anything, because ordering something means that you make some choice in what you're given.

The food's already prepared and you don't get input in it. It's just weather or not you like it.

Mightymosy

2018-06-03, 04:10 AM

errr....ok, so we are talkin about food now?

So, it rather goes like this:

He ate three pizzas and really liked them.

Years later, he went back to the same restaurant, ate three pizzas and they were kinda ok.

Again years later, he heard the restaurant was sold to someone else, but there will pizzas again.

He ate the first, which was a little awkward, but kinda ok.

Then he ate the second. Instead of round it was squared (ok, I guess), instead of tomatos it had marmelade (SURPRISE), instead of cheese it had nutella (SURPRISE EXPECTATIONS!!!), and instead of mushrooms it had poisoned fish on it (because that's SUBVERSIVE!). It's not the pizza he wanted (clearly), but it's the pizza he needed (because he grew so fat from the other 7 pizzas).

Folks, this is not someone who walked into a Mexican restaurant and complained he didn't get a pizza.

He walked into a movie called Star Wars 8, and complained that it didn't fit to Star Wars 1-7.
He wanted what the label promised, nothing more, nothing less.

Yora

2018-06-03, 04:33 AM

Of all the bad things that can be said about the movie, this is the one I see as the most undeserved. It's terrible in so many ways, but the one thing they got right is to finally make a movie that aesthetically and thematically fits with the classic ones after 30 years. It's the only one since Return of the Jedi that succeeds at properly feeling like Star Wars.
Too bad the plot and character arcs make no sense.

Mightymosy

2018-06-03, 04:48 AM

Devonix

2018-06-03, 07:43 AM

Since this is a thread about a TLJ review video on YT, let's have another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc3H9hYh6KQ
This one is done by a lovely lady who has slightly different focus than I have been talking about - it's more emotionally and less technical.
Enjoy :smallsmile:

All I can say is that I didn't feel the same way as her. wasn't dissapointed or offended. but when you're talking about how a movie makes someone feel... there's not much you can say. People can feel however they want

The video is mostly about what she wanted in the movie, not to me about the actual quality of the film. And you can want whatever you want. But a filmmaker is under no obligation to give it to you. A filmmaker is under the obligation to give you what they want, and hope that you like it.

Mightymosy

2018-06-03, 09:23 AM

Talking about obligations is weird. In the end the only obligation they really have is to do what they signed in their contract.

But I think the point here is that no one can expect a specific plotline or something, but a movie named Star Wars 8 should be a logical sequel to Star Wars 7, and many people think it lacks in important aspects, and give reasons for it.

You are right that feelings are subjective.

Here's another video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc3H9hYh6KQ

This chick has a channel on youtube with various other videos I encourage you people to check out.

The interesting part is that she actually enjoyed the Last Jedi, yet I still find her videos convincing for the most part.
She is a voice of reason I can relate to.

A very interesting entry into the discussion, I think.

I think she is up to something when she compared Star Wars, DC and Marvel. I am not a fan of either comic movie universe, because it's just not my kind of movie, but in comparison I like the Marvel ones way better than the DC ones. When she said that Marvel was all run by some guy who really likes it and is determined to care for overall consistency, while DC is not, it really clicked with me. Also, she assumes that Kathleen Keneddy really does not like Star Wars very much, and again, it clicks. No matter how bad some Marvel movies are, or how bad you think the Star Wars prequels were, I think one thing remains in common with all of them: you notice that someone was in charge who actually liked and cared for them, and at least try to have grand vision, a story that unites the different entries, even if they failed with some entries, or some parts of their respective franchises. The movies that suck seem to be made by people who were just out to do a job, without the spirit to try and do it right - or, worse, in Rian Johnson's and Kathleen Keneddy's case, deliberately try to change the whole franchise into something else they liked, because they were not fans of the originals stuff. Maybe they say otherwise, but Grace makes some excellent points for that being the case. For example, the lack of lightsabre battles.

What do you people think?

Narkis

2018-06-03, 09:23 AM

The Last Jedi should be applauded for resisting the temptation to indulge its audience with fanservice callbacks and references, for telling a real story that questions the themes and ideas of the previous films instead of just pandering to us. The Last Jedi may not be the film you wanted but it is the movie this franchise and its audience needed.

The video is mostly about what she wanted in the movie, not to me about the actual quality of the film. And you can want whatever you want. But a filmmaker is under no obligation to give it to you. A filmmaker is under the obligation to give you what they want, and hope that you like it.

I'm annoyed when I see this argument. You cannot applaud a filmmaker for subverting fan expectations and at the same time dismiss fan complaints that these expectations were not met. Either Rian Johnson went against the grain and it is justified to either praise or vilify him, or he did nothing extraordinary and it is unreasonable to react either positively or negatively to that. You cannot have it both ways.

edit:

What do you people think?

I think this hits the nail on the head. TLJ is what those who didn't like Star Wars wish it were (Or at least it tries).

Devonix

2018-06-03, 09:33 AM

I think this hits the nail on the head. TLJ is what those who didn't like Star Wars wish it were (Or at least it tries).

I think that this line of thinking is incredibly dangerous and disingenuous. It's the same kind of gatekeeping that infects a lot of fandoms. Saying that TLJ is what people who don't like starwars wish it were. Is the same as calling anyone who likes it " Not a Real Fan. "

I'm a real fan and have been so for longer than a lot of people seeing the film have been alive. And I loved the movie. To me it's everything I was looking for in another Starwars movie.

Saying that it was only for people who didn't like starwars is another way of trying to brush aside those people's opinions.

Yora

2018-06-03, 09:40 AM

Nah, I love Star Wars as much as humanly possible before it becomes embarassing and I think the creative choices of Last Jedi are exactly what is needed to get back to the original themes and tone. The plot just makes no sense. Actually, I think the plot is the only part of the movie that really doesn't work. But the script is credited entirely to Johnson, so he's still the one responsible for the mess. (Together with the people who signed of the script.)

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-03, 10:01 AM

Devonix

2018-06-03, 10:04 AM

All the video in the OP demonstrated is that the rubric he uses in no way guarantees a good movie even when all parameters are met.

Are all seven questions answered? Yes.

Is the movie still awful? Yes.

Great, did we learn anything? No, not really. Except this guy thinks we should applaud the movie for that or something. No thanks.

The video wasn't about enjoyment. Yes he enjoyed it, yes I enjoyed it. But the video was about the construction of the film, and the narrative focus. I generally don't go to videos about someone saying a movie was good or bad because of liking it. Because that doesn't ever really give me a good idea of if I'll like it.

Tell me a movie's well put together with coherent themes and then I'll be interested.

Mightymosy

2018-06-03, 10:26 AM

The thing about the 7 questions is that it may good for movies to happen to answer them, but it is not enough to guarantee that the movie is good. Imagine a movie that perfectly answers all 7 questions, but the audio and visuals are so bad that you can't understand anything any character says. Clearly that movie would be crap.

So, in other words, these 7 questions are just sooooome metric for character development/storyline, and not the end of all metrics. And in my opinion, they don't even do a sufficient job at covering basic storyline.

As I said, above the 7 questions, there would need to be one golden question:
Does the storyline make sense?
With sequels, add the following:Is the script coherent with the universe it's set in, are the characters consistent with how we last saw them, is the story a logical progression to what happened last?

If you only take the 7 questions, you have basic "checkbox checking" storytelling, which is simply not enough.
Compare to sailing: you can check off a sail, a rudder, a compass, etc etc. But this won't make for a safe journey. You need to connect the pieces decently, map a way to where you want to go, and then use the pieces in competent manner.

You cannot simply state "Leia and Holdo are the polar opposites in Poe's character arc". If you believe that having Leia and Holdo as polar opposites in Poe's arc is a recipe for succes of your movie (and I doubt that this simple recipe that reeks of symbolism and not much more), then you have to establish Leia and Holdo as polar opposites - you have to tell that story.

ETA: I think the 7 questions are somewhat useful if you want to detect stuff that is WRONG about a movie, but not so much to prove that a movie is GOOD.

Compare to one of my favourites, the Bechtel test: It will immediately give an indication that females are underrepresented in a movie, so you can take care to improve. But if your movie passes the test, does this mean your movie is great and you can stop working on it? Hell no!

Ramza00

2018-06-03, 10:51 AM

So I saw this video 48 hours ago, prior to your post so kind of ... forcey :smallwink:

But I loved The Last Jedi for its themes, and effectively the 7 things the video mentioned. Now the application of those themes with a storytelling device The Last Jedi has serious problems with. The underlying narrative is sound, but the "face paint" is all wrong.

And the small details can "take people out of the narrative.." Lets use a metaphor. Practical Effects are often still seen as some of the best form Special Effects, for they feel real, they feel solid / with form / weight and gravity. Practical Effects can seem more real and lifelike than the best form of 3D even though we can do such amazing thigns with 3D

But sometimes the Practical Effects just do not work, the details are all wrong and it takes people out of the narrative. For example the Lak Sivrak character in Mos Eisley.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/f/ff/LakSivrak.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080318173153

Mos Eisley is a superb scene but this specific character just seems not alien, and it looks like someone is just wearing a werewolf mask. Now Lak Sivrak could have worked but you needed to fine tune the details to make this practical effects work. The Character of Lak Sivrak is later replaced in the 1990s Special Edition and the 2010s Special Edition for the werewolf man just doesn't work.

----

So bring back the metaphor to the discussion. Last Jedi is a superb narrative with great themes. The application of the narrative and the application of the themes, flatly SUCK.

And I say this as a person who loves The Last Jedi for it got everything right with Rey, Luke, Yoda, Kylo, etc. This is the same themes of Empire Strikes Back and the Original Trilogy but also it is not just rehashing A New Hope in the same way The Force Awakens did. It is the exploration of the same themes for sometimes you fail, you make mistakes, things do not go according to plan, and how you rise above them is the important part of being a Jedi (well what the Jedi are supposed to represent, the Jedi make lots of mistakes after all :smallwink: )

Mightymosy

2018-06-03, 12:47 PM

Here's another nice video from Grace Randolph (who enjoyed TLJ but still acknlowledged its faults):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nQ1ro6Y3UE

She agains compares to DC, and makes the interesting observation that in both cases directors were more competent/put more focus on perfect visuals than on character developemt/story structure.

To me, this means two things.
1) This explains why some people are perfectly content with either movie and some people hate it (I am a story person = I hate TLJ with a passion more than most movies; my sister is a visual person and she was mostly ok with TLJ, although not on love either)
2) Maybe it's time to separate two jobs: director and story (script) writer. One person responsible for visuals and one person responsible for what makes sense storywise.
Because visually? TLJ was GREAT! I can really see Rian Johnson did a great job with how the movie looked. Absolutely no complaint about that. It was gorgeous. So give him the proper job (checking visuals) and give someone competent with storytelling (think Rich Burlew) the job to write what happens. Have them cooperate to make sure the movie works both technically and from a story perspective, and there you get your next blockbuster.

Have people work at jobs they're good at (to be fair, I think a lot of bosses are bad at delegating people to the job they're best at).

Narkis

2018-06-03, 01:45 PM

I think that this line of thinking is incredibly dangerous and disingenuous. It's the same kind of gatekeeping that infects a lot of fandoms. Saying that TLJ is what people who don't like starwars wish it were. Is the same as calling anyone who likes it " Not a Real Fan. "

I'm a real fan and have been so for longer than a lot of people seeing the film have been alive. And I loved the movie. To me it's everything I was looking for in another Starwars movie.

Saying that it was only for people who didn't like starwars is another way of trying to brush aside those people's opinions.

And so are accusations of gatekeeping, nothing but a handy way to dismiss criticism. I'm glad both of us used to like Star Wars, and I don't begrudge you for liking TLJ. I don't want to have a fan measuring contest, and I never accused anyone of not being a true fan. I wish more people would like the things I like and we could geek out together over our shared fandom. And I wish that when those things change, people would aknowledge my frustration and not tell me I should praise the filmmaker who gave me "the movie I wanted, but not the one I needed".

Discussion after TLJ has been split into those who say "I don't like this new Star Wars" and those who say "Good riddance." And that's a bummer.

Ramza00

2018-06-03, 01:57 PM

Pointing this out for the rest of the forum. Lindsay Ellis, today, has posted a new video and it is about Star Wars and whether the Ideas / Ideology of the First Order and the Villains of the First Order are internally consistent or not. I am not posting the video here though just pointing out the video does exist for posting it would violate the rules of this forum involving talking about history, politics, etc. In other words use your Google for the video is good, but if you want to talk about this Lindsay Ellis video we must be mindful of this forum's rules and not talk about real world history or politics.

At the end of the video Lindsay Ellis, says no the ideas of The First Order are not really internally consistent, this applies to this fictional goverment but also towards the lack of consistency wit the villians. And Lindsay Ellis says that is okay in a story, that this is fine.

he story of the villains of thew most recent Trilogy of Star Wars is about the personal struggles of these people and how they think they are the heroes and they create artificial situations where they get to be "the heroes" in their own mind, and it is all about the use of violence for they think violence means respect.

I will argue this is true to Human Nature as well. We as humans want to have these internally consistent "artifices" to say this is me and this is what I believe and here are the reasons I believe this. Creating some form of "structure" in the external world which is supposed to mirror our internal world. We feel if we can bridge and create these "art forms" in the external world than our life has meaning and we should be valued by other people. We want to be recongized by others, and we feel creating these "artifices" will somehow make other people "love us."

But what happens when we as humans are not good at making art, or telling stories? What happens when our internal world is COMPLICATED and thus the art we make either does not reflect our internal world or it is complicated in turn?

Can we be heroes in such a state? Can we be heroes when we ourselves killed the previous hero which we used to worship in our mind?

...What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become [word deleted] simply to appear worthy of it?

Something to ponder and reflect on. :smallsigh:

Bobb

2018-06-03, 09:50 PM

Hey, there's plenty of things to criticise about the movie, but that's not one of them. Someone in the film, probably Rose, says that these new trackers are very sensitive, interfere with each other and can only be used from the largest ship in a fleet. That's how they know that there's only one and on which ship it can be found.

Contrived, yes, but if that plan had worked instead of being a colossal waste of time and lives, I'd have nothing to complain about the tracker.

I'll take that correction, thanks. My bad. :smallsmile:

Amazon

2018-06-05, 11:07 AM

Devonix

2018-06-05, 12:11 PM

Congratulations for the Star wars "fans"for beign actual cancer and bullying the actress who played Rose to the point where she had to delete everything on her instagram. Good job guys keep up the cancerous misogyny and racism.

This fanbase has always had a very vocal toxic element. Not majority. But still more than a little and very loud. Just ask Jake Loyd.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-05, 12:27 PM

The hatred against Jake Lloyd by Star Wars fans will go down as one of the worst cases of cancerous misogyny and racism in the history of fandoms.

Ramza00

2018-06-05, 01:20 PM

The hatred against Jake Lloyd by Star Wars fans will go down as one of the worst cases of cancerous misogyny and racism in the history of fandoms.

The great thing about humanity is we always seek to surpass our previous accomplishments. In some future fandom there will be something far worse than Star War toxic fans and Jake Lloyd. Something far worse! Is this GREAT isn't this GRAND? :smallsigh:

Of course the opposite is also true, where we will surpass our greatest kindness and generosities. Humanity is both complicated and absurd / out of tune / inharmonious / dissonant.

Amazon

2018-06-05, 01:56 PM

The great thing about humanity is we always seek to surpass our previous accomplishments. In some future fandom there will be something far worse than Star War toxic fans and Jake Lloyd. Something far worse! Is this GREAT isn't this GRAND? :smallsigh:

Of course the opposite is also true, where we will surpass our greatest kindness and generosities. Humanity is both complicated and absurd / out of tune / inharmonious / dissonant.

But do we need to? Why can't people just stop hating stuff? Why spill hate and offenses? Why not just live in peace? I don't get it.

Jayngfet

2018-06-05, 03:01 PM

The hatred against Jake Lloyd by Star Wars fans will go down as one of the worst cases of cancerous misogyny and racism in the history of fandoms.

Him, or Christensen. Heck Natalie Portman also had some issues and has caught flak.

Ultimately I can't put blame on any of the above or Tran for their performances because getting the best performance possible is literally Job One of a director. Giving them good roles is the job of him and the writer, who in 8's case are the same person.

A good actor can only be as good as the part they're given and the direction that goes with it. A great actor can overcome this -If the director listens to them- and do great anyway. Mark Hamills best moments in this film were his ad libs. Mark Hamill also had several explosive arguments about the rest of the film though and can't be blamed for Luke Skywalker's writing. He wasn't even told Luke had died.

Dienekes

2018-06-05, 03:11 PM

But do we need to? Why can't people justs top hating stuff? Why spill hate and offenses? Why not just live in peace? I don't get it.

People are naturally highly competitive violent apes set up to struggle against the dangers of an uncaring world. In a land where aggression at the right time can mean the difference between life and death.

But now we sit on our asses and watch movies. So we get competitive, violent, and stupid about the things we watch.

Ramza00

2018-06-05, 03:24 PM

But do we need to? Why can't people justs top hating stuff? Why spill hate and offenses? Why not just live in peace? I don't get it.

When your life is not going the way you want your body has instinctual things such as trying to **externalize** the problem or **internalize** the problem. Well externalizing and internalizing does not always work.

With externalizing sometimes this solves the problem, but sometimes you displace the real cause of your problems onto something else. You displace these feelings and create a scapegoat. All the feelings you can't resolve and are making you feel like life is not going your way, very uncomfortable feelings such as anger, frustration, envy, and guilt are displaced and projected onto another. Sometimes the other is the cause of the problem, sometimes you found a scapegoat that has no control over the situation and sometimes it is a more vulnerable, person or group that has nothing to do with it.

Now when you externalize, many people (but not all) feel better temporarily even if this does not solve the problem and the cause of the complaints. Venting the feelings of anger, frustration, envy, guilt, and many others onto something that is not connected to the source of these feelings can feel good even though all you are doing is creating more negativity in the external world and the internal world of others, but in your personal internal world you feel better for a short time.

Yes this is messed up on so many levels. This is absurd / out of tune / inharmonious / dissonant! But humanity was not built the way that would have prevented this absurdity.

Sapphire Guard

2018-06-05, 04:06 PM

Certainly the most depressing thing about this fanbase.

Narkis

2018-06-05, 04:33 PM

Damn, some people suck. But it's not a problem unique to Star Wars. I'm sure we've all heard of very similar incidents that had nothing to do with Star Wars and would probably go against the board rules to mention with more detail. I blame the anonymity of the internet, and its unique ability to amplify a tiny minority's **** flinging, while shielding them from repercussions.

Also,

The hatred against Jake Lloyd by Star Wars fans will go down as one of the worst cases of cancerous misogyny and racism in the history of fandoms.

What? Last I checked Jake Lloyd is a white man. What he endured was toxic for sure and he did nothing to deserve it, but misogyny and racism? How?

Mightymosy

2018-06-05, 04:35 PM

The sad thing is that this poor actress is attacked, and now feels bad, and Rian Johnson supposedly walks away unscathed.

Sure, he gets tons of hate on the Internet, but I doubt his career will suffer as much as Rose's, and that's unfair. The actress did the best she could with a shoddy script.

I totally disagree with hating her, but it doesn't surprise me that her character is the aim of so much hate.

Finn is for many people - including me - the favourite character from TFA.
And Rose electrocutes him while he wants to get away. WTF???? That's something the empire a.k.a. the evil guys would do.

And even after they befriend each other, her character is written in a way to dress Finn down. He looks awfully pale in that movie.
And in the end, she even ruins his character's heroic moment - I'm glad he survived, but that scene and the message it was supposed to carry made no sense, not with what she said afterwards.

Plus her arc is assoicated with the most unfitting sidequest in any major Star Wars movie.

Summa summarum you get a character that a lot of people dislike.

I feel very sorry for the actress.
I'm sure she didn't have much of a choice.

Hell, the only one who could have stepped up to this sh*t was Mark Hamil. I assume that he has enough money that he could have threatened to quit the shooting in order to force a change, if he really wanted. But then again, maybe it was not bad enough for him.
(Probably because he didn't even know the whole story - someone said he didn't even know Luke died! NOT INFORMING people seems to be not only Holdo's modus operandi, but also Rian Johnson's).

Fyraltari

2018-06-05, 05:04 PM

He wasn't even told Luke had died.

(Probably because he didn't even know the whole story - someone said he didn't even know Luke died! NOT INFORMING people seems to be not only Holdo's modus operandi, but also Rian Johnson's).

This is not true:

Mark Hamill laughs it off here (http://comicbook.com/starwars/2017/12/30/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rumor-ending-changed-mark-hamill/) and remember arguing against it with Johnson here (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/mark-hamill-interview-star-wars-last-jedi-luke-skywalker-leaving-a8292541.html).

Kyberwulf

2018-06-05, 05:17 PM

Yeah, isn't the fact Jake Lyod a white male that was crucified a good thing? Isn't that a HUGE WIN for feminism? I mean, he is the embodiment of everything they are fighting against?

Ramza00

2018-06-05, 05:39 PM

Yeah, isn't the fact Jake Lloyd a white male that was crucified a good thing? Isn't that a HUGE WIN for feminism? I mean, he is the embodiment of everything they are fighting against?

If I understand Narkis point, 1) he was saying the treatment of Jake Lloyd was awful...

2) but Misogyny means the hatred / prejudice of women

3) racism is the prejudice against another person due to their race.

4) peopled hated Jake Lloyd but they hated him and gave him hate for other reasons than being male and his race.

I think that is Narkis's point, but I am not sure and I am just following my understanding.

Dr.Samurai who made the original comment of Jake Lyold and he got a lot of suffering, but Rose / Kelly Marie Tran got a lot of suffering and attacks and it was a specific style of attacks that were based off her being a women and her race. Jake Lyold got lots of other attacks but it was different.

-----

I would not want to be in Jake Lyold's shoes. He was Anakin when he was 8 years old, and when the movies came out he was 10. So for the first half of his career he was doing all these "press interviews of 60 times per day" and his job was to be a puppet and he had to "perform" in a way that was not conducive to an elementary school child developing a sense of self.

Only for later on when he was 10 to be completely mocked by a new pear group, while at the same time being roasted online and in the press for he was not good enough and people did not find him satisfying. It was a no win scenario.

Yes we will always have child actors but the idea of doing press tours and so much press attention for we fetish Star Wars is not healthy for ANY elementary school student. Now a teenager is different it would be unhealthy for SOME teens but different for OTHER teens. There is so much mental differences in the sense of self and social relationships between someone who is 8 and someone who is 13 and even more differences between an 8 year old and a 15 year old.

Kyberwulf

2018-06-05, 05:50 PM

It doesn't matter to people, if you are a straight white male. It makes you bad. Therefor.. what he got.. was good for him -_-

Narkis

2018-06-05, 06:07 PM

If I understand Narkis point, 1) he was saying the treatment of Jake Lloyd was awful...

2) but Misogyny means the hatred / prejudice of women

3) racism is the prejudice against another person due to their race.

4) peopled hated Jake Lloyd but they hated him and gave him hate for other reasons than being male and his race.

I think that is Narkis's point, but I am not sure and I am just following my understanding.

Dr.Samurai who made the original comment of Jake Lyold and he got a lot of suffering, but Rose / Kelly Marie Tran got a lot of suffering and attacks and it was a specific style of attacks that were based off her being a women and her race. Jake Lyold got lots of other attacks but it was different.

That's my point exactly. Words have meaning, and you shouldn't use them to describe something where they obviously don't apply. Such overuse makes it all too easy to dismiss criticism against the real thing, which is still depressingly common.

It doesn't matter to people, if you are a straight white male. It makes you bad. Therefor.. what he got.. was good for him -_-

Are you trolling? If so, it's in poor taste.

Ramza00

2018-06-05, 06:32 PM

It doesn't matter to people, if you are a straight white male. It makes you bad. Therefor.. what he got.. was good for him -_-

https://pics.me.me/you-are-a-sad-strange-little-man-and-you-have-30765536.png

Devonix

2018-06-05, 07:59 PM

It doesn't matter to people, if you are a straight white male. It makes you bad. Therefor.. what he got.. was good for him -_-

You must have been talking to some strange people if you've heard this.

Amazon

2018-06-05, 08:07 PM

The sad part is that she was so excited about being part of the star wars saga, not only her role was subpar she got all this hate from dumb fanboys who have nothing better to do with their sad lives but hate and complain.

It doesn't matter to people, if you are a straight white male. It makes you bad. Therefor.. what he got.. was good for him -_-

Case in point, not even this forum is free from these kind of cancerous lifeforms.

Bobb

2018-06-05, 08:21 PM

Amazon

2018-06-05, 08:55 PM

You're uh, really spreading the peace around there Amazon.

Got to hand it to you there.. :smallfrown:

reply to Amazon motivated purely by their lamentations on how it seems to be hard for people to just get along while simultaneously stirring the pot

That's the paradox of intolerance. (http://wy3mg1xgify37n21x223cw7xl1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/HcuZIT5w8xJLMXoISDexG1GNz5Dj7xHO_QGeueMtdPU.jpg)

druid91

2018-06-05, 09:11 PM

To steer the conversation away from that river...

Ms Tran just had the misfortune of being cast into a terrible role, that primarily had it's parts in the worst bits of TLJ. She had none of the redeeming scenes to really call on. Nothing to save her character from the pit of horror and despair that is Johnson trying to make a suspenseful story.

I'll admit, I actually LOVED Old Man Luke and Rey's interactions. Everything to do with Rey and Luke was pretty awesome. Finn and Rose tried.... but that plot was on a Railroad to the Anvil Factory.

I just wish the rest of the movie had been just as good as the good parts.

Dragonexx

2018-06-05, 09:39 PM

It doesn't matter to people, if you are a straight white male. It makes you bad. Therefor.. what he got.. was good for him -_-

What do you even know about feminism?

Dienekes

2018-06-05, 09:59 PM

That's the paradox of intolerance. (http://wy3mg1xgify37n21x223cw7xl1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/HcuZIT5w8xJLMXoISDexG1GNz5Dj7xHO_QGeueMtdPU.jpg)

Now we get to the fun part of the debate. Because anyone can point to the rise of Nazi Germany, or fascist Italy or Spain and say that it's an example of why intolerant people should not be tolerated. And not taking aggressive action against them is what leads to intolerant states. As good old Popper pointed out.

However, I can point to modern day intolerant subcultures and their pervasiveness and even growth in certain areas. And the aggressive response of the tolerant cultures do not change the opinions of the members. On the contrary, calling them scum or cancer or whatever else cements their world view and feeds them the victimized narrative that their views really on.

The most successful means of actually convincing people to change that I've seen has been such figures as Daryl Davis. Proving their views wrong through friendliness and removing the victim complex, rather than feeding into it.

Unfortunately, it is much, much easier for people to just call their opposition monsters and feel like they're actually accomplishing something.

To steer the conversation away from that river...

Ms Tran just had the misfortune of being cast into a terrible role, that primarily had it's parts in the worst bits of TLJ. She had none of the redeeming scenes to really call on. Nothing to save her character from the pit of horror and despair that is Johnson trying to make a suspenseful story.

I'll admit, I actually LOVED Old Man Luke and Rey's interactions. Everything to do with Rey and Luke was pretty awesome. Finn and Rose tried.... but that plot was on a Railroad to the Anvil Factory.

I just wish the rest of the movie had been just as good as the good parts.

Yeah, that was basically my friends and my take away. Except for the one who loves all things Star Wars.

There was a great movie buried in there. But there was a lot of chaff that needed to be cut or rewritten.

druid91

2018-06-05, 10:24 PM

I just, personally, can't stand the entire chase scene. Prior to that, it was a decent set up. But it just causes too many questions as to WHY people behaved in the manner they did.

- Why does Holdo Withhold information from the majority of the Crew? To the point that the entire bridge crew, more or less, is complicit in an attempted mutiny? Twice.

- Why do they go off to a Casino Planet to FIND A CODEBREAKER so they can COME BACK. And then launch their daring assault on Snokes flagship? Does the Alliance somehow lack Codebreakers?

- For that matter, where did all these capital ships and bombers come from? They made it a serious plot point in the last movie that the Resistance/Alliance had a handful of X-wings and that's it.

- You can't really travel sublight and get anywhere fast. Even with a big ship like the ship they were in. So it would be a pretty terrible shuttle that didn't have them in range of the salt planet. So why didn't they just immediately launch the shuttles if that was the plan?

- Why do turbolasers suddenly Arc just in time for it to be a stupid plot point?

- Why are they going off to a Casino planet to find someone and bring them back to their CHASE SCENE. Why does a CHASE SCENE have a side quest?

- Why does Holdo act in such a bizarre and unprofessional manner throughout the ENTIRE MOVIE?

- Why don't the 'support ships' since they're going to die anyway, pull the 'Holdo Sacrifice Lightspeed Jump' Even if it doesn't work out AS destructively... well it should still do SOME damage and throw the FO off balance. Even if they trade a support ship for one of the lesser destroyers, as it is, Holdo's entire plan was 'Let's sacrifice the entire fleet, taking massive losses while inflicting none on the enemy, so we can take a bunch of short range shuttles down to an abandoned and inhospitable planet and then hope that someone comes to pick us up before we all starve to death.'

The goal is stupid. The Execution, is stupid. The whole plan is ridiculous. And yet it's treated as genius. Because Johnson wanted Holdo to be right.

Mightymosy

2018-06-06, 01:13 AM

Zalabim

2018-06-06, 03:40 AM

I question Holdo not informing him (and everyone else present whenever Holdo and Poe argue) about her secret plan, not even the EXISTENCE of ANY plan. That's what I question, and I haven't read any good answer for that other than "Holdo made a stupid mistake" -which would be ok, honestly, if the movie treated it as such.
We aren't made privy to Holdo's thoughts, but my first thought was that they had an information leak, or a mole, which allowed the FO to follow them, so top secrecy and need to know behavior made a reasonable amount of sense. The people who come up with the alternative, and apparently actual, way that the FO followed them very clearly state that they are not informing Holdo, so I've no reason to expect anything other than my first impression solution to the first impression situation.

Me too! Acutally, my favourite new character is Finn, basically for the reasons you stated. Unfortunately, he is a other good character butchered by TLJ.

Rose's message (save the ones you love, don't kill the ones you hate) is a pretty good message, one I can really agree with.

The movie just doesn't deliver it well at all.

1. When she stops Finn, that's EXACTLY what he's doing! He doesn't care about killing the stormtroopers, he wants to destroy the cannon to SAVE HIS FRIENDS.
I'm certain I've pointed this out before, but Rose's message isn't a lesson to Finn, it's a lesson to herself. She understands now what motivated Finn's heroic stand on Starkiller Base, and how he can be a hero there and also want to run away when the Resistance seems doomed. It helps that I could tell Finn's sacrifice wouldn't have done any good anyway. The laser cannon could have swallowed up that whole junker without even a hiccup. I'm already used to stories where ramming neither never works nor always works. Like Star Wars, I guess.

2. Once Rose stops Finn, they are right in front of the stormtroopers, and yet survive. I don't think super-realism is super-necessary in a fantasy movie, but this stuck out like a sore thumb.....they still are RIGHT in front of the enemies who shot at them all the time, and now they can wander back to base unharmed?
There's a lot of time that gets compressed at certain points in the film. It isn't always immediately obvious. I'm assuming it's a combination of sand dunes and the simple courtesy of not shooting at unarmed, fleeing, doomed people - AKA future prisoners.

Yet again, the whole part about needing the salt planet outpost to send a SOS message: WTF????

- The infamous Holdo cruiser: no Skype onboard????
- the journey to Casino planet: no phone houses there either??
- again, the Holdo crusier: if Finn & Rose could fly away to Casino, couldn't Holdo have sent other small ships to call for help, if for some dumb reason the giant rebel crusier doesn't have interstellar communication?

If you want to send a message to the audience, get the basics right.

If you tell someone to stop at red lights, and they ask why, you tell them that the grass on the moon is always yellow. Which isn't true, and has nothing to do with your message. Thus, it won't work, unless they blindly accept your authority anyway (because you are the author or whatever), but then you really don't need an explanation in the first place, do you?

A perfectly good message, gone to waste by bad execution.
They can send a message, but the base can send a message farther. There's also a huge difference in the kind of message and response you get when you're in the middle of the chase for your life instead of not in immediate danger. This was clear and obvious.

I think Rian Johnson suffered from "early Rich Burlew". That is, a compulsion to never ever ever ever ever be guessed. Surprise and subversion at any cost, basically. Just that Burlew did a better job at it, but also he had it easier, because Star Wars has way more fans, so there are a lot more fan theories.
At some point, you have to realise that someboy in millions will guess your story - and focus on making the best story, not the most surprising subversion.
Sometimes it's the right move giving people what they expect.
The movie went pretty much exactly how I expected it to go with most of the things in the movie. Everything flowed naturally and logically. The story was good and satisfying, not really subversive at all.

I just, personally, can't stand the entire chase scene. Prior to that, it was a decent set up. But it just causes too many questions as to WHY people behaved in the manner they did.

- Why does Holdo Withhold information from the majority of the Crew? To the point that the entire bridge crew, more or less, is complicit in an attempted mutiny? Twice.
Securing information because they don't know how the FO followed them and she's covering all possibilities.

- Why do they go off to a Casino Planet to FIND A CODEBREAKER so they can COME BACK. And then launch their daring assault on Snokes flagship? Does the Alliance somehow lack Codebreakers?
I don't know. It seemed like a terrible idea at the time.

- For that matter, where did all these capital ships and bombers come from? They made it a serious plot point in the last movie that the Resistance/Alliance had a handful of X-wings and that's it.
Maybe just the X-wings would be ready in time, and maybe this was covered in a book I didn't read. I can't say.

- You can't really travel sublight and get anywhere fast. Even with a big ship like the ship they were in. So it would be a pretty terrible shuttle that didn't have them in range of the salt planet. So why didn't they just immediately launch the shuttles if that was the plan?
I really have no idea how fast the sublight speed is on Star Wars ships. They didn't launch the shuttles immediately because it takes time to get them ready and they're trying to be quiet and subtle with their departure. Assuming the Raddus has the fastest or most efficient engine they can use, it also makes sense to delay departure as long as possible.

- Why do turbolasers suddenly Arc just in time for it to be a stupid plot point?
Why do they arc: visual effect. I could explain how the physics works to give that visual effect, but it doesn't matter, since it only arcs for visual effect. It wasn't a plot point though. That weapons have Effective Ranges is just a fact of life, not really something that warrants an explanation.

- Why are they going off to a Casino planet to find someone and bring them back to their CHASE SCENE. Why does a CHASE SCENE have a side quest?
It's a stern chase. They're slow like that. People get restless, and then they start thinking even a terrible idea is better than doing nothing.

- Why does Holdo act in such a bizarre and unprofessional manner throughout the ENTIRE MOVIE?
I don't follow. I think it's something to do with certain parts of the audience liking romantic plot teases, but I am not that audience.

- Why don't the 'support ships' since they're going to die anyway, pull the 'Holdo Sacrifice Lightspeed Jump' Even if it doesn't work out AS destructively... well it should still do SOME damage and throw the FO off balance. Even if they trade a support ship for one of the lesser destroyers, as it is, Holdo's entire plan was 'Let's sacrifice the entire fleet, taking massive losses while inflicting none on the enemy, so we can take a bunch of short range shuttles down to an abandoned and inhospitable planet and then hope that someone comes to pick us up before we all starve to death.'
It would not work out at all. They would not just do less damage. They would do no damage. If the ships stop running away, the ships get blown up, as we saw when they stopped running away and got blown up. They would only have been wasting HYPERFUEL (thanks, Solo).

The goal is stupid. The Execution, is stupid. The whole plan is ridiculous. And yet it's treated as genius. Because Johnson wanted Holdo to be right.It's treated as the longshot it is, and it doesn't exactly work as planned and the way things actually work out may actually be the best way they could work out compared to some alternatives, like Rey joining Kylo (because their conversation isn't while the Resistance ships are being shot down), and no one answering the Resistance's call (which happened), and no one standing up to the FO (since they wouldn't be there), so they all starve on some barren salt planet and there is no light of hope in the galaxy (with the Supremacy still out there and fully operational).

Cikomyr

2018-06-06, 10:04 AM

I think conversation about TLJ will be toxic for a long while. People decided they hated it since they saw the first trailers ("It'll be just like Empire!!"), And they just have never wanted to be wrong about their initial decisions.

I think people will be in a position to properly discuss this movie in 10 years.

Amazon

2018-06-06, 11:06 AM

Now we get to the fun part of the debate. Because anyone can point to the rise of Nazi Germany, or fascist Italy or Spain and say that it's an example of why intolerant people should not be tolerated. And not taking aggressive action against them is what leads to intolerant states. As good old Popper pointed out.

However, I can point to modern day intolerant subcultures and their pervasiveness and even growth in certain areas. And the aggressive response of the tolerant cultures do not change the opinions of the members. On the contrary, calling them scum or cancer or whatever else cements their world view and feeds them the victimized narrative that their views really on.

Ok, that does sounds reasonable.

The most successful means of actually convincing people to change that I've seen has been such figures as Daryl Davis. Proving their views wrong through friendliness and removing the victim complex, rather than feeding into it.

Unfortunately, it is much, much easier for people to just call their opposition monsters and feel like they're actually accomplishing something.

But this is just ludicrous, no rigth has been granted by talking, being sweet and calm, to get rigths minorities needed sweat, blood and figths, that's sad but it's just how it is.

What would Lbgt rigths be today without Stonewall riots? What would women's rigths be today if it wans't for all the violent deaths of women who fougth for justice?

I'm not familiar with Daryl Davis work, I bet he did something very noble, but overall he only played a minor role in the great arc of figthign againts discrimination, laws, bans and legislation ended the KKK not his actions..

Devonix

2018-06-06, 11:53 AM

The reason turbolaser fire arcs is because star wars capital ship battle has always been in the theme of old naval battles and it's set to remind you of cannonballs .

But again why did Lukes torpedo arc down. Simply a visual effect. It doesn't need being delved into.

Dienekes

2018-06-06, 12:22 PM

But this is just ludicrous, no rigth has been granted by talking, being sweet and calm, to get rigths minorities needed sweat, blood and figths, that's sad but it's just how it is.

What would Lbgt rigths be today without Stonewall riots? What would women's rigths be today if it wans't for all the violent deaths of women who fougth for justice?

I'm not familiar with Daryl Davis work, I bet he did something very noble, but overall he only played a minor role in the great arc of figthign againts discrimination, laws, bans and legislation ended the KKK not his actions..

Well one, I wasn't talking about the actual creation of rights and laws, I was discussing the conversion of people on the individual basis.

But, here's the thing, the violent deaths of women who fought for justice. They gave themselves the stance of martyr and showing themselves to be the actual victim.

Humans are remarkably predictable in groups. Let's say you have three groups of people, one who is repressed under the current system. One who is dedicated to try and keep them that way. And a third group who pretty much doesn't know or care about the repression.

Now, in a happy golden world of peace. The repressed people will make a claim that they deserve rights, and being convinced through logical arguments the third group will take their side, and together form a coalition to remove the repression.

That's not how people actually work. Now maybe an individual person can be convinced in that way. But usually not. People root for underdogs, martyrs, and victims. People hear a sad story and they will start edging closer to rooting for that side. Now some people saying "hey this is unfair" may get some to think that they're the victims. But that's nebulous. Now, having people die for the cause is a great motivator.

However, having people kill for the cause makes the killers look the monster, unless the murdered get tied to rape, murder, or actual physical slavery. Then the killers usually can find some supporters for their actions. But on the whole, the more actively violent your repressed culture is, the more excuses the block of neutrals give themselves to not get involved.

Now that's a way to shape masses of people. But it doesn't actually change the opinions of that second block, the people who actively wish to keep the repressed in their place. As a whole, this block is harder to move. But on an individual basis, it's really as simple as everything else.

People are stupid. People will completely fail to realize the inconsistencies in their own world views. People dislike being called names. People will go through amazing displays of mental gymnastics to excuse people they're close to from their own morality. People like to think that they are struggling against some great opposition.

And all that's the key really. Don't feed into their own victim mentality. Do not call them names. Be friendly and prove them wrong with your actions. As far as I know, there is not a single example of a person abandoning their racist or sexist worldview because people online called them cancer. Instead that just enforces their warped idea of their own oppression. But putting them in situations where their mentality breaks against reality. Where they have to recognize that the group of people they want to oppress is just like them in so many ways. Maybe even a friend. That causes change.

Sure, you can outlaw the KKK. But laws don't change people's opinions. That member of the KKK hasn't changed just because of the law. He probably now feels stronger about it, because it has that extra little flavor of oppressed rebelliousness to it.

Which isn't to say the law in itself is bad. But that's a first step, and if you actually want to convince people about what's right and what's wrong it is nowhere close to the last.

Now there's the unfortunate part of this. Most people don't want to befriend the opposition, most people just want to declare their world views, and point out how everyone who disagrees is wrong and bad and evil. And their opinion doesn't matter and so we should treat them like they're bad and evil. That's a natural thing to do. I do it. But that's not helping.

zimmerwald1915

2018-06-06, 12:28 PM

This fanbase has always had a very vocal toxic element. Not majority. But still more than a little and very loud. Just ask Jake Loyd.
Literally no one has surveyed Star Wars or any fans to see whether this claim about fandoms' general innocuousness is true.

How useful is majority/minority anyway? Shouldn't we be asking who is representative? In two senses: who the broader public sees as representative, and who the fans tacitly or affirmatively permit to speak for them.

Fyraltari

2018-06-06, 12:48 PM

Literally no one has surveyed Star Wars or any fans to see whether this claim about fandoms' general innocuousness is true.

How useful is majority/minority anyway? Shouldn't we be asking who is representative? In two senses: who the broader public sees as representative, and who the fans tacitly or affirmatively permit to speak for them.

If I know anything about fans, it's that they don't wait for anyone's permission to speak their mind, nor do they give anybody permission to speak for themselves.

And really how could they?

If you or anyone else is going to say or do stuff I don't agree with about Star Wars, as long as it remains within the confines of hte law I am powerless to stopyou no matter how disgusted I may be. And if it is out of those boundaries, the fandom aspect becomes completely irrelevant.

Zurvan

2018-06-06, 01:02 PM

Didn't star wars fans toxic elements caused Han Solo to become a grumpy bitter old man?

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-06, 01:15 PM

That's my point exactly. Words have meaning, and you shouldn't use them to describe something where they obviously don't apply. Such overuse makes it all too easy to dismiss criticism against the real thing, which is still depressingly common.
But... that was my point, lol. Jake Lloyd was destroyed online. So was Hayden Christensen. Daisy Ridley also deleted her social media accounts after The Force Awakens, due to online abuse. People aren't targeting Kelly Tran because she's a woman of Vietnamese decent, so to call it misogyny and racism is imprecise.

Shouldn't we be asking who is representative? In two senses: who the broader public sees as representative, and who the fans tacitly or affirmatively permit to speak for them.
Eh what?

Hey Star Wars fans, can I get all of you to reply to this with the people you've given permission to speak on your behalf? I'll wait, lol.

warty goblin

2018-06-06, 01:27 PM

But... that was my point, lol. Jake Lloyd was destroyed online. So was Hayden Christensen. Daisy Ridley also deleted her social media accounts after The Force Awakens, due to online abuse. People aren't targeting Kelly Tran because she's a woman of Vietnamese decent, so to call it misogyny and racism is imprecise.

That may not be why people are targeting her - an incredibly imprecise statement because different people will have different reasons - but the attacks can still be carried out using racist and misogynist language. And I'm not sure how there's a particularly important distinction between "I am going to call this person a racist/sexist slur because I hate people like that and she's in this movie I'm overly attached to about space wizards" and "I am going to call this person a racist/sexist slur because I didn't like her character in this movie I'm overly attached to about space wizards."

Daimbert

2018-06-06, 04:20 PM

Hey Star Wars fans, can I get all of you to reply to this with the people you've given permission to speak on your behalf? I'll wait, lol.

Okay, here's the list:

Daimbert

That is all [grin].

That may not be why people are targeting her - an incredibly imprecise statement because different people will have different reasons - but the attacks can still be carried out using racist and misogynist language. And I'm not sure how there's a particularly important distinction between "I am going to call this person a racist/sexist slur because I hate people like that and she's in this movie I'm overly attached to about space wizards" and "I am going to call this person a racist/sexist slur because I didn't like her character in this movie I'm overly attached to about space wizards."

Well, since the trolls are using language specifically to anger their targets, the difference is that in that case they are using those slurs because they know it really angers them, not because of any actual belief (necessarily). And understanding that is important so that people don't go overboard blaming the reaction ON sexism/racism as opposed to it being an actual reaction to the work itself, and also don't overextend that to "And see Star Wars fans who dislike the character are all misogynist racists!"

Ramza00

2018-06-06, 04:29 PM

But... that was my point, lol. Jake Lloyd was destroyed online. So was Hayden Christensen. Daisy Ridley also deleted her social media accounts after The Force Awakens, due to online abuse. People aren't targeting Kelly Tran because she's a woman of Vietnamese decent, so to call it misogyny and racism is imprecise.

Bullies will find whatever is appropriate to the target they are bullying and especially the things that will most hurt. Bullies will not call a person who does not wear glasses four eyes, instead they will find another form of insult.

So why label this racism and misogyny? Because these types of bullying are not just about the target who is being bullied but it is also trying to control the social behavior of other people of that race or other people of that sex. Put another way it is a form of social manipulation, some say the word terrorism for not all terrorisms involve bombs or guns.

warty goblin

2018-06-06, 04:47 PM

Well, since the trolls are using language specifically to anger their targets, the difference is that in that case they are using those slurs because they know it really angers them, not because of any actual belief (necessarily). And understanding that is important so that people don't go overboard blaming the reaction ON sexism/racism as opposed to it being an actual reaction to the work itself, and also don't overextend that to "And see Star Wars fans who dislike the character are all misogynist racists!"

Frankly this strikes me as a pretty purposeless distinction. If you're attacking somebody using racist/sexist language because you want to upset somebody, that is in fact a racist/sexist thing to do, pretty much full stop. Somebody protesting that they don't actually hate women or Asian people, but she deserves it because she played a character they don't like in their space wizard movie is again racist/sexist because that person is attacking somebody based on their race/gender. If you don't want to be labeled as racist/sexist, don't do that. This isn't like being unaware of a microaggression or something, this is pretty much just straightforwards and purposeful aggression.

I don't think anybody has said that everybody who dislikes the movie is a misogynist or racist. I am pretty comfortable saying that people who attack the movie's performers based on their race or sex are, in fact, being racist/sexist. This is not exactly a super-complex distinction. Frankly hounding somebody for playing a part one doesn't like in a goddamn magic space wizard movie, regardless of whether one is racist or sexist about it, is pretty pathetic in the first place..

Narkis

2018-06-06, 05:17 PM

Frankly this strikes me as a pretty purposeless distinction. If you're attacking somebody using racist/sexist language because you want to upset somebody, that is in fact a racist/sexist thing to do, pretty much full stop. Somebody protesting that they don't actually hate women or Asian people, but she deserves it because she played a character they don't like in their space wizard movie is again racist/sexist because that person is attacking somebody based on their race/gender. If you don't want to be labeled as racist/sexist, don't do that. This isn't like being unaware of a microaggression or something, this is pretty much just straightforwards and purposeful aggression.

+1. Way I see it, it doesn't matter if you're really a racist/sexist, or just pretending in order to get a rise out of someone. The result is the same.

I don't think anybody has said that everybody who dislikes the movie is a misogynist or racist. I am pretty comfortable saying that people who attack the movie's performers based on their race or sex are, in fact, being racist/sexist. This is not exactly a super-complex distinction. Frankly hounding somebody for playing a part one doesn't like in a goddamn magic space wizard movie, regardless of whether one is racist or sexist about it, is pretty pathetic in the first place..

Unfortunately, I've seen people say the widespread dislike of the movie is based on covert or overt misogyny and racism. I don't think anyone has done it here, but I've definitely seen it on other forums and quite a few articles.

Daimbert

2018-06-07, 07:18 AM

Frankly this strikes me as a pretty purposeless distinction. If you're attacking somebody using racist/sexist language because you want to upset somebody, that is in fact a racist/sexist thing to do, pretty much full stop.

I've been trying to come up with a good way to approach this topic, and I think I'll start by using a Star Wars quote: I think it depends a great deal on your point of view. Or, rather, that whether the distinction matters or not depends on what part of the debate you're in.

Because in a sense I think you're absolutely right -- and forgive me for possibly putting words in your mouth -- that whether the racist and sexist comments are driven by the person really holding those beliefs and trying to express them or are driven by the person simply knowing that saying those things to them because it will upset them at the end of the day the targeted person will feel the same sorts of emotions, the same sort of feeling that they are being targeted or shamed or excluded based on those traits, and the societal implications for others who have those traits will be the same. So, yeah, at that level clearly the distinction doesn't matter all that much.

However, while you haven't seen it, I HAVE seen a lot of cases -- not in this thread -- where people are claiming that, at least, the primary motivation for the dislike of and negative reaction to those characters and those movies is, in fact, sexism and racism. That white men are complaining about them because for once Hollywood has decided to put minorities front and centre instead of having them all be white men. And they point to those reactions as evidence for that conclusion, that they only or at least primarily don't like them because they aren't white men, and that if the characters WERE white men the reaction wouldn't be as strong. This then carries over -- across multiple media -- to comments that the particular fanbases are PARTICULARLY racist and sexist and that the fanbases as a whole have to change to be more "inclusive". And then, as you've seen in this thread, when people point out that the reactions to Jake Lloyd or Hayden Christensen were the same, that's when the comparison is opposed by "Well, that's different, because this one includes racism and sexism!". But that's where the distinction matters: if those comments are primarily made to hurt the people involved but aren't reflecting the underlying reason the characters or movies are hated, saying that it's still racist and sexist in that sense does blur the key distinction that is being argued over: is it the case that the primary reason the characters are getting a strong negative reaction because of the race and gender of the character, or because the character itself is bad and some morons like to use racist and sexist insults to hurt the people involved because they know it does, and the only reason Lloyd and Christensen didn't get those sorts of comments was because they couldn't find one that would offend them?

And either could be right. As someone who hates TFA and who had his long-term love of the franchise pretty much killed by it, I believe that for the most part the negative reaction comes from all sorts of things in the new movies being handled very, very badly, including inclusion. But for some, sexism and racism might be the driving factor.

Frankly hounding somebody for playing a part one doesn't like in a goddamn magic space wizard movie, regardless of whether one is racist or sexist about it, is pretty pathetic in the first place..

I totally agree. But note that most of the complaints ARE about the racism and sexism, even in this thread, and not about how mean Star Wars fandom can be in general. Which, of course, would still be unfair since most of the Star Wars fandom can hate movies and characters without being excessively mean about it [grin].

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-07, 09:25 AM

That may not be why people are targeting her - an incredibly imprecise statement because different people will have different reasons...
Oh? Interesting. So if it's called misogyny and racism, it's precise. But if I say it's not, now it's incredibly imprecise because how can we know what is really motivating them?

If we don't know why they're doing it, how can we label it? That's my point.

Except that I think we have a pretty good idea of why they're doing it, because they've done it before. Because every online community has trolls in its midst.

...but the attacks can still be carried out using racist and misogynist language.
No doubt. And they were. They also attacked her on her weight, and I'm curious what other conclusions you've come to based on that bit of information as well.

And I'm not sure how there's a particularly important distinction between "I am going to call this person a racist/sexist slur because I hate people like that and she's in this movie I'm overly attached to about space wizards" and "I am going to call this person a racist/sexist slur because I didn't like her character in this movie I'm overly attached to about space wizards."
I know you're not sure, that's why I made my comment, because people are careless with these distinctions. The claim was made that star wars fans are "keep up the cancerous misogyny and racism". I think that's an inaccurate claim.

Well, since the trolls are using language specifically to anger their targets, the difference is that in that case they are using those slurs because they know it really angers them, not because of any actual belief (necessarily).

Bullies will find whatever is appropriate to the target they are bullying and especially the things that will most hurt. Bullies will not call a person who does not wear glasses four eyes, instead they will find another form of insult.
Exactly right. This isn't difficult to understand.

I'm speculating at this point but, I'd hazard to guess that the reason her race and gender were brought up in the abuse is because her race and gender were brought up as part of Disney's efforts to "diversify" Star Wars. We all know that there are people out there rather quite salty about what's perceived to be an agenda to subvert the franchise and diversify it. So she's the first woman of color in a Star Wars film. Ok. And also, her character happens to be awful and annoying. Ok. So cue online bashing and abuse for the character (par for the course), and mix in anger and resentment at the perceived agenda (also par for the course all over the internet in different communities), and you get what we got.

So why label this racism and misogyny? Because these types of bullying are not just about the target who is being bullied but it is also trying to control the social behavior of other people of that race or other people of that sex.
I agree with you that these word games are an attempt at manipulation and control. I think we'll disagree on whether they are appropriate or not.

Frankly this strikes me as a pretty purposeless distinction.
It's not, because as Daimbert points out, people will (and are/have) walk away with the conclusion that the movie is divisive because of racism and misogyny. And they'll point to this online Twitter abuse (or Instagram or whatever) and use it as evidence.

If you're attacking somebody using racist/sexist language because you want to upset somebody, that is in fact a racist/sexist thing to do, pretty much full stop.
Is it full stop? Or [I]pretty much full stop? Do you even fully believe what you're saying? So if you're angry at someone over cutting you off in traffic, and to rile them up you use a racial slur, you're a racist? What if they're overweight and you call them a fat f*ck? Are you... fat-phobic? What about four-eyes, to draw on Ramza's example? Do you hate people suffering from myopia in that case?

GloatingSwine

2018-06-07, 10:06 AM

So if you're angry at someone over cutting you off in traffic, and to rile them up you use a racial slur, you're a racist?

If that's what your mind goes to easily enough that it happens when you aren't thinking about it, yes.

You might not like that about yourself, but what comes out when you aren't guarded and paying attention is also you.

Amazon

2018-06-07, 10:14 AM

Didn't Jake Lloyd got bullied by other kids rather than internet cry babies? (http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/star-wars/18828/star-wars%E2%80%99-jake-lloyd-on-how-the-phantom-menace-ended-his-acting-career)

Kids were cruel and mean to him and he was too young to process all that fame, hardly the same, both vile and repulsive but hardly the same.

Devonix

2018-06-07, 10:31 AM

Devonix

2018-06-07, 10:33 AM

If that's what your mind goes to easily enough that it happens when you aren't thinking about it, yes.

You might not like that about yourself, but what comes out when you aren't guarded and paying attention is also you.

We are who we are on our worst day.

AMFV

2018-06-07, 10:57 AM

We are who we are on our worst day.

Then we are all racist and sexist. Because everyone has at least had thoughts

Devonix

2018-06-07, 11:00 AM

Then we are all racist and sexist. Because everyone has at least had thoughts

Actions over thoughts. Anger can make you think horrible things. But you don't act on them unless it was already a part of you.

zimmerwald1915

2018-06-07, 11:02 AM

Then we are all racist and sexist.
Yeah, pretty much.

warty goblin

2018-06-07, 11:09 AM

Oh? Interesting. So if it's called misogyny and racism, it's precise. But if I say it's not, now it's incredibly imprecise because how can we know what is really motivating them?

If we don't know why they're doing it, how can we label it? That's my point.

I can't know if a person uses racist or sexist language to attack somebody because they are deeply committed to white supremacy or male domination of women, or it's a convenient way to cause pain to somebody they don't like because I'm not privy to their internal thought processes. And since this is something almost certainly being done by multiple people, there are probably multiple motivations, so it's imprecise to speak of 'why people do this' as if there's a single reason. There are almost certainly multiple reasons. I also don't care all that much, because they're doing a racist/sexist thing to cause pain to somebody for playing a role in a movie.

It's not, because as Daimbert points out, people will (and are/have) walk away with the conclusion that the movie is divisive because of racism and misogyny. And they'll point to this online Twitter abuse (or Instagram or whatever) and use it as evidence.
So because I've watched a few videos on YouTube about TLJ, the all-stupid YouTube algorithm has decided to bombard me with videos about TLJ. A lot of which seem to be pretty racist/sexist. It's not like this isn't an element of why people dislike the movie. Which means it's one reason why the movie is controversial. The only reason? Probably not, I am privy to my own thought processes and I'm pretty sure my complaints with the movie aren't motivated by racism or sexism. It's not exactly difficult to voice these complaints without using racist or sexist language though. And if one couches one's complaints about the movie in these terms, one is in fact being racist/sexist, regardless of the narrative in one's head. This is not exactly rocket science folks; you are responsible for the readily predictable consequences and perceptions of your actions.

It's not exactly hard to complain about TLJ without doing so in sexist or racist terms.

Is it full stop? Or pretty much full stop? Do you even fully believe what you're saying? So if you're angry at someone over cutting you off in traffic, and to rile them up you use a racial slur, you're a racist? What if they're overweight and you call them a fat f*ck? Are you... fat-phobic? What about four-eyes, to draw on Ramza's example? Do you hate people suffering from myopia in that case?
Let me use an example from my own life. I wear my hair long; so, predictably, every now and again a bunch of college guys will call me a 'pretty girl' or something like that. I've also been catcalled, and had trash thrown at me from passing cars. This is almost always done by a group of men, which suggests to me that it is primarily done to show status to the in-group by denigrating the out-group. Also that, because I am a male of at least average size, they are unwilling to risk a physical confrontation on anything like equal terms*.

Now do I particularly care if any rando group of loudmouthed freshman boys hate gender nonconforming men or just want to score quick points with their buddies by acting like they do? Not really; whatever their motivation they felt the need and the right to interject themselves into my life for the express purpose of making it worse so they could feel a bit better about themselves, and used that language to do it. This is an intolerant and generally jerk move. Sexist as well, since my apparent femininity was being used to imply that I was lesser.

*My favorite example of this was walking past a house party to go to the hardware store. On the way to my car, I was called a number of impolite things. On the way back, not only did nobody call me names, but they didn't block the sidewalk and force me to go around. The only difference was that on the return trip I was carrying a five foot iron-socketed shovel handle.

Fyraltari

2018-06-07, 11:11 AM

We are who we are on our worst day.

We are who we are on all of our days.

warty goblin

2018-06-07, 11:20 AM

We are who we are on all of our days.

I prefer to think of myself as the Lebesque integral of my days.

Ramza00

2018-06-07, 11:41 AM

I prefer to think of myself as the Lebesque integral of my days.

If we are going to go derivative, then I recommend you google "American Chopper Argument - Newton VS Leibniz"

Unfortunately I can't post it here without Captain America popping up on his motorbike saying Language :smallcool:

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-07, 11:42 AM

If that's what your mind goes to easily enough that it happens when you aren't thinking about it, yes.
This is a nice metric you have invented.

You might not like that about yourself, but what comes out when you aren't guarded and paying attention is also you.
Yeah, sure. Still doesn't mean "you" is racist and misogynist.

We are who we are on our worst day.
And all the other days too...

I also don't care all that much, because they're doing a racist/sexist thing to cause pain to somebody for playing a role in a movie.
That's fair enough warty goblin. I don't mind that you don't care. It just seems weird to me that you admit we can't know why they're doing it, and yet you're still okay with calling them out as racists and misogynists. And if I push back, that's when the imprecision matters.

I guess the real disagreement is what it means to be racist. If you use a racial slur, are you a racist necessarily? You say yes, I say no.

Let me use an example from my own life.
I'll do the same. I grew up in a predominantly white town. I was called the n-word a lot growing up, as well as spic and *******, etc, and beat up for being hispanic, so I was pretty familiar with being angry and scared when called one of these slurs.

So one day I get beat up by a couple of guys. Both black (surprise twist!). They beat me up pretty good and strip me of my clothes and throw my clothes around the playground. They stand there and watch laughing as I have to go around collecting my clothes and putting them on. They were bigger than me, but I was fast. And as much as I was afraid, I had already gotten the beat down and the humiliation so I was just angry (I was also notorious for talking **** even as I was getting my ass kicked, so even if they caught me it wouldn't have mattered). So what did I do? When I had all of my clothes back on, I looked at them both and called them the n-word and ran. They, predictably, were upset and gave chase cursing the whole way. But I outran them to my house. It was what little satisfaction I could get from the whole ordeal that I struck a nerve and angered them to action.

Would I do that now, as an adult? No. In fact, when I told my mother what happened, we went to their house and she got into an argument with the kids' parents. They told her I called them the n-word. The whole conversation changed and she made me apologize. At home, mom whipped my ass and taught me a lesson. It doesn't matter what other people say or do, we hold ourselves to a higher standard and I don't use that kind of language. It was a good lesson to learn (though I was upset that the beat down got lost in the teachable moment lol).

But even still, I wouldn't consider myself a racist at the time for using a racial slur, and using a racial slur specifically to anger or hurt someone. It's just sloppy and deceptive. Those trolls that did that to Kelly Tran are *******s. They're some of the worst of what the internet has to offer. But there is no need to make them worse than what they are, which is what people seem to reflexively do these days. You don't know what their beliefs on women or people of color are. You think you do, and it fits a nice story you might like to tell yourself about the state of our world right now, but you don't know. There's more reason to believe that they're trolling or lashing out at Disney than to think that these are actual racists and misogynists targeting Ms. Tran because she's a woman of Vietnamese decent.

NRSASD

2018-06-07, 12:14 PM

@Dr. Samurai- Just out of curiosity, why do you think everyone came down so hard on you in your example?

Did you get a beating because you surrendered the moral high ground, that you didn't hold yourself to a higher standard despite the trying circumstances?

Or because racism is so morally repugnant that even an understandable slip up like your example warranted an extremely harsh response?

I'm not saying you were a racist in that moment, but that your response was racist (no matter how justified you felt it was). And your mom was trying to head that particular problem off.

I obviously can't speak to what actually was intended (I wasn't there and I know neither you nor your mother), but I received a similar punishment for similar reasons, and that's the lesson I got from it.

Devonix

2018-06-07, 01:50 PM

Alright everyone I think this has all started being about a bit more than a video discussing the narrative structure of a Starwars movie. I contributed to it but maybe we should discuss something else.

Jayngfet

2018-06-07, 02:22 PM

To loop this back to the actual movie we're discussing, we're judged on our best and our worst days. Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader, yes, but he was also that hopeful little kid who got a parade and he was also the awkward teen who managed to somehow get the girl anyway.

In the same sense, Luke is still Luke from the original trilogy. He is however also now the Luke from The Last Jedi. To me this retroactivley changes ROTJ, which was my favorite of them all, because suddenly Luke is wildly out of character before the war ever began or anything of substance even happens.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-07, 03:38 PM

I put this in spoilers to let the thread get back on topic.

@Dr. Samurai- Just out of curiosity, why do you think everyone came down so hard on you in your example?

Did you get a beating because you surrendered the moral high ground, that you didn't hold yourself to a higher standard despite the trying circumstances?

Or because racism is so morally repugnant that even an understandable slip up like your example warranted an extremely harsh response?
Despite all of the difficulties my mother faced with her mental illness, and the complications involved in being raised by someone that suffers from paranoid delusions, I can say that my mother never failed to be an upstanding moral person. When my friends and family remark on my own character, I always redirect the credit to her, because she was always trying to teach me to be a good person, even while she was struggling under tremendous pressures as a single mother raising three kids with an (unknown) mental illness.

So, I think she came down on me because she didn't want me to think it was ever okay to use that language. It's like, people can justify their actions in any way, so I think she was letting me know that despite the way they were treating me, it still wasn't okay to use that term. And I don't think it had anything to do with how the two guys might have felt, or with being "racist". I think it was just a "you don't cross those lines for any reasons" type of thing. My mom is crass and loves off-color humor. She'd probably make many of the regulars on this forum shrivel up and wither into dust with the jokes that she finds amusing (before they call her a nazi or something). But it was about justifying the bad action to yourself and thinking that you were entitled to use a word that is inappropriate and used to harm others.

Talking about this reminded me of another time I did something wrong and she called me out on it and taught me another lesson. We were poor, and so I didn't have toys growing up. The neighbor kid always had cool toys. So, I find a toy velociraptor in the yard (it was a shared yard between two houses). It was a cool flexible dinosaur that you could pose and it was awesome. So... I know who it belongs to, but I take it anyway and bring it into the house. Mine now :smallamused:. Well, days later mom finds it while she's cleaning and asks me where I got it from, she knows she didn't buy it. I say I found it. Where? In the yard. So who does it belong to? I don't know. Wrong answer, who does it belong to? I don't know, it was just in the grass. And so on and so forth until she got me to admit that it belonged to our neighbor Ernie. She made me return it to him in person and apologize for taking it, and the lesson there was not to confuse being able to get away with something, with it being okay to do. Always act as if others are aware of your actions. Maintain your integrity even when others aren't around and you're only accountable to yourself.

I'm not saying you were a racist in that moment, but that your response was racist (no matter how justified you felt it was). And your mom was trying to head that particular problem off.
I don't think it was racist, and I don't think my mom thought it was racist either. It can be wrong without being racist. As an example, I mentioned earlier that I grew up being the target of racial slurs. Some of those people were racist, if I had to guess. The kids my age that were calling me names to bully me or make fun of me? I wouldn't readily slap them with that label. Even as we got older. A$$hole? Yeah, absolutely. Racist? Uh... I don't know. Probably not. In all those years I had a couple of incidents with skinheads. And it wasn't namecalling so much. It was different. It was very menacing and very scary and more than simply making fun of me or bullying me. I would guess that those guys were racist.

Devonix

2018-06-07, 03:54 PM

Lethologica

2018-06-07, 04:35 PM

I'm speculating at this point but, I'd hazard to guess that the reason her race and gender were brought up in the abuse is because her race and gender were brought up as part of Disney's efforts to "diversify" Star Wars. We all know that there are people out there rather quite salty about what's perceived to be an agenda to subvert the franchise and diversify it. So she's the first woman of color in a Star Wars film. Ok. And also, her character happens to be awful and annoying. Ok. So cue online bashing and abuse for the character (par for the course), and mix in anger and resentment at the perceived agenda (also par for the course all over the internet in different communities), and you get what we got.
Wait, hold up. So now the argument is literally that these people are hostile to Kelly Marie-Tran because she's the perceived standard-bearer of a race and gender diversity initiative, and yet somehow this isn't about racism or sexism?

EDIT: Wait, don't tell me, I've got this....the answer is that Disney were the real racists/sexists all along.

Mightymosy

2018-06-07, 05:14 PM

Devonix

2018-06-07, 05:20 PM

Go ahead, suggest something :-)

Points that the thread title. I already did.

Amazon

2018-06-07, 07:11 PM

druid91

2018-06-07, 11:11 PM

Wait, hold up. So now the argument is literally that these people are hostile to Kelly Marie-Tran because she's the perceived standard-bearer of a race and gender diversity initiative, and yet somehow this isn't about racism or sexism?

EDIT: Wait, don't tell me, I've got this....the answer is that Disney were the real racists/sexists all along.

While I'm not going to touch the REST of that particular argument with a ten foot pole.... Yes. One can totally object to a cause of action that is presented as a 'race and gender diversity initiative' without actually being racist or sexist.

Because quite frankly, all too often the people RUNNING these 'Race and Gender Diversity Initiatives' don't actually care about the movie. So long as it has the right percentage of representatives, they're happy. The people PUSHING these things don't often really even LIKE the things they're pushing them on. When Diversity comes at the cost of the quality of the entertainment? People are certainly going to get upset, and it isn't Racist or Sexist for them to do so. They got jipped so that someone can feel good about how inclusive their movie was.

Mind you Star Wars has done better than most on both upholding Diversity, and making good movies/comics/whathaveyou more often than not. And I hope more creators will continue in that vein of providing both diversity, and quality entertainment so the whole 'Diversity ruins stuff' zeitgeist will pass. But until that happens... Well... Not much to be done.

Also keep in mind, I'm not saying that's the case for THESE PARTICULAR people who are harassing her. Just that the logic of 'They oppose a particular diversity initiative, therefor they must be against Diversity in theory. Rather than just being against this particular initiative in practice.' is kind of faulty.

I can like the idea of hanging out with David Tennant in theory. But if, in practice, the hanging out involved him using a power drill to nail me to a wall.... I think I'd be quite opposed to it. Regardless of my feelings on hanging out as a general idea. Same thing applies here.

Lethologica

2018-06-08, 12:43 AM

While I'm not going to touch the REST of that particular argument with a ten foot pole.... Yes. One can totally object to a cause of action that is presented as a 'race and gender diversity initiative' without actually being racist or sexist.

Because quite frankly, all too often the people RUNNING these 'Race and Gender Diversity Initiatives' don't actually care about the movie. So long as it has the right percentage of representatives, they're happy. The people PUSHING these things don't often really even LIKE the things they're pushing them on. When Diversity comes at the cost of the quality of the entertainment? People are certainly going to get upset, and it isn't Racist or Sexist for them to do so. They got jipped so that someone can feel good about how inclusive their movie was.
Yeah, yeah, SJWs ruined Star Wars for the sake of shoving women and minorities in our faces, I know the script. Of course, nobody ever bothered to prove that the diversity and the storytelling were in opposition. They just assumed it because the diversity initiative was on the other side of their culture war, and that assumption colored everything they consumed about TLJ. Diversity initiatives ruin stories until proven otherwise, is the attitude.

So when Thor: Ragnarok is great, only a modest amount of racist backlash gets directed at Tessa Thompson ('modest amount' is not 'none', by the way, and plenty of it came even before the movie came out), and with Black Panther you mostly just get the tools talking about how racist it is to have a black cast and production team, and the wannabe cynics talking about how it's only as acclaimed as it is because of virtue signaling, and so on. But hoo boy, as soon as a movie's bad, mediocre, or just flawed - as soon as there's an excuse - the knives come out for anyone associated with diversity in any way.

Racism and sexism isn't the ultimate root of the behavior. The root is that a lotta fans are basically irrationally hostile to anything that might change their beloved property. But when that hostility is aligned along race and gender lines (E: and is expressed as abuse of women and minorities for being women and minorities), it becomes racism and sexism. It doesn't get a pass just because it's contingent on other sentiments.

Mightymosy

2018-06-08, 01:14 AM

Points that the thread title. I already did.

So,another YT movie about TLJ you want to discuss? Or what do you mean?
Or you want to discuss the 7 basic questions some more?

If so, pick one you like to talk about. Or one character. It's a fun topic.

lord_khaine

2018-06-08, 04:08 AM

While I'm not going to touch the REST of that particular argument with a ten foot pole.... Yes. One can totally object to a cause of action that is presented as a 'race and gender diversity initiative' without actually being racist or sexist.

Yeah.. i think that argument is really, really dumb myself. You can easily object to change mainly due to just wanting things to stay the same. Look at 2nd ed, 3.5, 4th ed and 5th ed for an example of that.

This time i do think the movie were bad though. I would say objectively. But apperently some people dislike it.
I hated it for what it did to Luke Skywalker. Even if his ending was badass.
And i dislike Rei for alwasy being right.

Lastly i dislike the movie for trying to show Poe being in the wrong. When he was trying to save everyone from what seemed like clueless leadership.
As such i do think he was in the right with his choice. They were fighting a war. People die. And exchanging a handful of bombers to remove a dreadnough class ship is worth the trade. If you cant make those choices then you have no buisness leading an army.

kevindean

2018-06-08, 07:04 AM

I hated this movie so much! The way they portrayed Luke was awful. Loved the scene with Admiral's suicide and that's it.

Devonix

2018-06-08, 07:18 AM

I watch a lot of westerns so I'm used to the whole. Guy who used to be this great hero, but is now hanging out in a bar. Where the plucky newcomer comes in to snap him out of his funk.

Cikomyr

2018-06-08, 07:43 AM

I hated this movie so much! The way they portrayed Luke was awful. Loved the scene with Admiral's suicide and that's it.

I absolutely loved how they portrayed Luke. It was a courageous decision meant to promote a stronger story.

warty goblin

2018-06-08, 08:13 AM

Lastly i dislike the movie for trying to show Poe being in the wrong. When he was trying to save everyone from what seemed like clueless leadership.
As such i do think he was in the right with his choice. They were fighting a war. People die. And exchanging a handful of bombers to remove a dreadnough class ship is worth the trade. If you cant make those choices then you have no buisness leading an army.

I actually really liked the squabbling Resistance members when I was watching the movie. Watching things come apart in hideous slow motion and how people reacted to that was a very different, and interesting place for a Star Wars movie to go, and a pretty sensible thing to have happen to an irregular warfare outfit that's terminally out of options.

Then it pretty much undid all that by having it be a lesson for Poe and how everybody was on the same side and actually super-cool the whole time, nevermind that between them the Resistance's leadership had displayed the strategic and tactical acumen of a wet noodle and gotten 90% or more of their soldiers killed. One guy learned something valuable, and there's like 10 people left alive, so happy ending!

Devonix

2018-06-08, 08:54 AM

I actually really liked the squabbling Resistance members when I was watching the movie. Watching things come apart in hideous slow motion and how people reacted to that was a very different, and interesting place for a Star Wars movie to go, and a pretty sensible thing to have happen to an irregular warfare outfit that's terminally out of options.

Then it pretty much undid all that by having it be a lesson for Poe and how everybody was on the same side and actually super-cool the whole time, nevermind that between them the Resistance's leadership had displayed the strategic and tactical acumen of a wet noodle and gotten 90% or more of their soldiers killed. One guy learned something valuable, and there's like 10 people left alive, so happy ending!

If you're saying what I think you're saying I kind of agree. Poe should have died for getting just about everyone killed.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-08, 09:04 AM

Wait, hold up. So now the argument is literally that these people are hostile to Kelly Marie-Tran because she's the perceived standard-bearer of a race and gender diversity initiative, and yet somehow this isn't about racism or sexism?
I never said any of this. Amazon called it misogyny and racism, implying the reason they were hostile to her was her race and sex. I said that wasn't the case. I literally said the opposite of what you're accusing me of.

I speculated about the reasons race and sex were used as points of attack, but I never said that's the reason they were hostile to her or that she was the standard-bearer of an initiative, or that "this isn't about racism or sexism".

EDIT: Wait, don't tell me, I've got this....the answer is that Disney were the real racists/sexists all along.
Don't know and don't care because I didn't imply this either. I'm explaining why this probably isn't coming from a hatred of women and Vietnamese people, and I can do that without justifying it or demonizing Disney.

Of course, nobody ever bothered to prove that the diversity and the storytelling were in opposition.
They don't have to prove anything. It's trivial to track the problems with TLJ to the statements and ideologies espoused by the creators, if you want to see it that way.

It doesn't mean the trolls are right. It doesn't mean they are justified. But it can explain why they do what they do in the way that they do it.

warty goblin

2018-06-08, 11:08 AM

If you're saying what I think you're saying I kind of agree. Poe should have died for getting just about everyone killed.

It's not just Poe though. I mean he should definitely be court martialed for refusing a direct order in combat and leading a mutiny, but it's not like the rest of the leadership was doing much better. Somehow or another they seemingly had no clue that the First Order was working on Starkiller Base, which must be literally the largest military project in history, until it blew up their sponsors. If their head of intelligence didn't get killed, they should certainly be replaced because that's a really stunning level of failure. The actual leadership they provided after that was seriously terrible. Holdo's plan required a very specific level of stupidity from the First Order (our ships will be hidden unless the enemy looks for them? Really?), and she more or less completely failed to provide any genuine inspiration or leadership to the Resistance. Given that most of their upper command staff just got spaced, and it looks like the lot of them are about to get killed, that seems like a good time for some sort of leadership. Poe's plan was just flat out idiotic - fly to a planet, coerce a random guy to help you, fly back, infiltrate the enemy ship, disable a piece of top-secret and likely well guarded technology - absolutely nothing can go wrong there. And the best operatives he can find are an enemy deserter and a mechanic? Who then promptly get jailed over a parking ticket and decide that their new number one priority is rescuing space race horses?

Suppose I'm a rebellious sort of person who wants to fight the First Order. Does this seem like a group that will either do a good job keeping me alive, or else at least spend my life in an effective and meaningful way? Think about the Resistance casualties in TLJ. The attack on the dreadnaught was wiped out because the enemy took the radical and utterly unpredictable step of launching fighters and because the strike leader refused a direct order. And those were the only people who actually died having a noticeable impact on anything. Literally everybody else gets killed pointlessly and often completely helplessly.

What I'm getting at is that these people suck at their jobs. All of them.

Devonix

2018-06-08, 11:17 AM

Fyraltari

2018-06-08, 01:00 PM

What I'm getting at is that these people suck at their jobs. All of them.

And they are not the only ones.

One of my main problems with the Sequel Trilogy (The other being the apprent complete lack of planning ahead. Seriously, you know you will make three movies, prepare the larger story first so you gt a coherent whole, dammit!) is that in order to recreate the feel of the OT they had to make the New Republic into an utter failure and so make the accomplishments of the original heroes amouint to pretty much nothing on a general level as well as personnal.

The New Reoublic knew the First Order existed, they knew they were breaking every treaty by re-arming and they did precisely squat. They had only a token navy, leaving the actual job of thwarting the FO to the Resistance, ie a militia!

Bloodlines isone of my favorite of the new books (second to Thrawn) and it establishes that the New Republic Senate is ridiculously inneficient (bar Leia and Casterfo), really get a hold of this:
One half is secretly First Order supporters and the other is so afraid of the idea of a federal goverment that when their candidate is elected head of state (First Senator) he decides he is purposefully going to do jack with the position!

And of course, to explain that situation, this kind of idiocy is transmitted to the founders of the New Republic, that is the Alliance, with Mon Mothma having created that system so it would be exactly this way.

Those details may not be very important to the movie themselves, but they are the backbone of the EU (and as such the franchise at large) and makes it very hard for me to care for anything Post-Endor.

I know, the movie you get will never be as good as the movie you havee in your head and this is all just my personnal oppinion, but I can't help feeling that if:

the Original Trilogy was the story of how the Galaxy was saved and
the Original Trilogy was the story of how the Galaxy was lost, then
the Sequel Trilogy should have been the story of how the Galaxy was protected.

This stems mostly from TFA but TLJ could have rectified it and it didn't.

Edit because I forgot:
It doesn't help that in Legends, post-Endor the various new Empires were more successful than the Republic (Tarkin's lover as head of state, really?!) which lead to some accusatios of Star Wars being somewhat antidemocratic, something I had hoped would not be repeated in NewCanon.

warty goblin

2018-06-08, 01:26 PM

Both sides have always been kinda bad in Starwars. But yeah I agree with most of your points there.

A New Hope: Instead of scrambling fighters you have someone in the command structure with his two buddies handle everything personally.

Empire strikes back: an admiral trying for glory screws up the whole plan

Jedi: both sides screw up left and right.
Yeah, the series has never exactly been full of Hannibals and Scipios in the OT. For some reason this irritates me a bit less, possibly because nobody's ever quite so gratingly sanctimonious about it, and the movies at least sort of pretend that there's a chain of command that matters. At no point is somebody's entire command getting killed played as being basically ok because character growth.

I donno, maybe it's that I prefer my movies to act like non-protagonist people matter to some degree. It's one of the things that I rather liked about Wonder Woman for instance, that it spent a bit of time focusing on how much this situation sucked for non-hero people in a way that didn't just reduce them to a backdrop and opportunity for pithy lines or hero sads.

Tarkin's lover as head of state, really?!
That was not a visual I needed.

Lethologica

2018-06-08, 03:38 PM

I never said any of this. Amazon called it misogyny and racism, implying the reason they were hostile to her was her race and sex. I said that wasn't the case. I literally said the opposite of what you're accusing me of.

I speculated about the reasons race and sex were used as points of attack, but I never said that's the reason they were hostile to her or that she was the standard-bearer of an initiative, or that "this isn't about racism or sexism".

Don't know and don't care because I didn't imply this either. I'm explaining why this probably isn't coming from a hatred of women and Vietnamese people, and I can do that without justifying it or demonizing Disney.
Ah. You're right that I was mistaken about your position. With clarification, I do think your position is less of a nonsense.

I still think it's wrong, though. The reason Kelly Marie-Tran's race and gender were brought up in the abuse is because she's a woman and a racial minority, not because Disney bothered to mention that she is those things, assuming they did. And her race and gender were an instigating factor in the abuse, not just in the form it took, because her identity associated her with ongoing nerd culture wars while her role linked her with the problems with TLJ, and outraged fanatics linked the two on the flimsiest pretext.

And I agree with warty goblin that the action is racist and sexist even if we eventually settle on race and sex having nothing to do with the intent to abuse. Tactical prejudice is still prejudice; trolls who will take on any prejudice at a moment's notice to suit their goal of maximally abusive hostility are expressing many prejudices, not none.

They don't have to prove anything. It's trivial to track the problems with TLJ to the statements and ideologies espoused by the creators, if you want to see it that way.
Funny, I remember last time we brought up statements made by the creators, I showed that those statements had been completely misread by the people who were using them to attack the creators. People dug until they found a statement they could interpret in a way that suited their prejudices.

Jayngfet

2018-06-08, 04:05 PM

As far as Poe and Holdo go I think things would be much better executed if Holdo and Leia didn't gossip like old ladies during a serious scenario and say stuff like "I like him." As if he's some daytime soap hunk or a cute boy down the way. God damn you two just shot the guy and the entire rest of the crew around you is fearing for their lives thanks to a situation you engineered.

If Holdo is meant to be a failure who redeems herself via Kamikaze, and that's an acceptable move for a principal character, that's one thing. If Poe needs to learn to blindly trust leadership because they have experience he doesn't that's another. But you can't play it both ways.

Olinser

2018-06-08, 04:45 PM

Both sides have always been kinda bad in Starwars. But yeah I agree with most of your points there.

A New Hope: Instead of scrambling fighters you have someone in the command structure with his two buddies handle everything personally.

Empire strikes back: an admiral trying for glory screws up the whole plan

Jedi: both sides screw up left and right.

A New Hope - are you talking about the Death Star fight? Because that's just a lie. The Empire already HAD scrambled fighters. Which was shown on screen. The TIE fighters that they'd sent out were just losing (badly). So Vader took his personal escort pilots and went out himself to clean them up. Vader was just more effective.

Empire Strikes Back - so? In real historical warfare the amount of battles lost by overconfident glory seeking commanders is actually hilarious. Entire wars have been won and lost because of it. Especially in armies where countries required that their officers be landowning nobles rather than have any actual experience in warfare. In this case its more a subversion because the Admiral gets executed immediately after failure.

Jedi - sure they're screwing up, but most of the Empire screwups were because the Emperor wanted a big show of having the Death Star blast the fleet instead of just being tactically safe and having them wiped out with the Imperial fleet. So the Rebels had time to regroup and react. The Rebels didn't really make any big tactical blunders in the actual fight, their big failure was intelligence.

Lethologica

2018-06-08, 06:07 PM

For blundering incompetence, no plan executed by any side in any trilogy will ever top Luke's 'plan' to rescue Han from Jabba.

Devonix

2018-06-08, 06:12 PM

A New Hope - are you talking about the Death Star fight? Because that's just a lie. The Empire already HAD scrambled fighters. Which was shown on screen. The TIE fighters that they'd sent out were just losing (badly). So Vader took his personal escort pilots and went out himself to clean them up. Vader was just more effective.

Empire Strikes Back - so? In real historical warfare the amount of battles lost by overconfident glory seeking commanders is actually hilarious. Entire wars have been won and lost because of it. Especially in armies where countries required that their officers be landowning nobles rather than have any actual experience in warfare. In this case its more a subversion because the Admiral gets executed immediately after failure.

Jedi - sure they're screwing up, but most of the Empire screwups were because the Emperor wanted a big show of having the Death Star blast the fleet instead of just being tactically safe and having them wiped out with the Imperial fleet. So the Rebels had time to regroup and react. The Rebels didn't really make any big tactical blunders in the actual fight, their big failure was intelligence.

I think you misspelled mistake and typed lie instead. I'll just assume that's what you ment. Especially since the scene has the Death star send out 6 fighters, and only two get blown up hardly loosing badly. Vader goes out when some of the X wings break off from the group to join them.

But since only a minute and a half takes place between Vader ordering the fighters out and him going with them I assumed it all happened together.

Jayngfet

2018-06-08, 06:36 PM

For blundering incompetence, no plan executed by any side in any trilogy will ever top Luke's 'plan' to rescue Han from Jabba.

I dunno, it's a solid plan. Infiltrate Jabba's inner circle and his security forces. Spring Han when everyone else is asleep and get out. If things go wrong you have a Jedi Knight as your ace in the hole and he has his weapon already on site so it can't be confiscated.

Luke lacked key intel, that Jabba wouldn't fall for a mind trick, but that's basically it.

Lethologica

2018-06-08, 06:54 PM

I dunno, it's a solid plan. Infiltrate Jabba's inner circle and his security forces. Spring Han when everyone else is asleep and get out. If things go wrong you have a Jedi Knight as your ace in the hole and he has his weapon already on site so it can't be confiscated.

Luke lacked key intel, that Jabba wouldn't fall for a mind trick, but that's basically it.
Lando had already infiltrated before the movie started. What were the droids doing? What was Leia doing? If Luke thought he could mind-trick Jabba into letting Han go, why send anyone else in? Why hide his lightsaber with R2-D2 when he had no trouble bringing in other weapons? Everything we see on screen is a totally unnecessary elaboration that only serves to get more people captured. If someone in the sequel trilogy had come up with this plan, you'd be ripping it to shreds right now.

Devonix

2018-06-08, 07:06 PM

Lando had already infiltrated before the movie started. What were the droids doing? What was Leia doing? If Luke thought he could mind-trick Jabba into letting Han go, why send anyone else in? Why hide his lightsaber with R2-D2 when he had no trouble bringing in other weapons? Everything we see on screen is a totally unnecessary elaboration that only serves to get more people captured. If someone in the sequel trilogy had come up with this plan, you'd be ripping it to shreds right now.

Backup plan. Simple as that. First plan was Leia to sneak in and just pull Han out. If she did, then everyone else would leave without a fight. Second Luke comes in and tries to bargain. Third, if all else fails, they fight their way out with the hidden light saber and Lando infiltrating the security.

Lethologica

2018-06-08, 10:55 PM

Backup plan. Simple as that. First plan was Leia to sneak in and just pull Han out. If she did, then everyone else would leave without a fight. Second Luke comes in and tries to bargain. Third, if all else fails, they fight their way out with the hidden light saber and Lando infiltrating the security.
Lando's already in. He should be sneaking Han out. Leia doesn't need to sneak in. Chewie doesn't need to be handed over. The droids don't need to be handed over. Everything between Lando infiltrating and Luke showing up is completely pointless.

Worse than pointless, in fact. If Plan A had succeeded with no hitches, now they'd have to spring Chewbacca! Assuming Luke cares about the droids, they need to be sprung too; even if he doesn't, the Rebellion doesn't need to leave intelligence troves like that lying around. This is not just unnecessary complication, it's actively worse than having Lando sneak Han out.

Then the lightsaber. Only useful if Luke plans to be captured; otherwise it's just better to hang on to it himself and fight it out right there. Planning to be captured is asinine. It's only by Jabba's arrogance that Luke isn't killed out of hand.

Come on. There's no reason for the plan to be this way. It's driven only by cinematic logic, because it makes no sense in-universe.

Kyberwulf

2018-06-09, 12:06 AM

Diversity initiatives ruin stories until proven otherwise is the attitude because it's true. It's like doing dental work with a combat boot. Sure it gets the teeth out...It's hardly constructive though.

People have to prove their ideas, is a two way street. You haven't really proven their agenda isn't a motivating factor either. You haven't proven that the actors are chosen for their skill and talent rather then any other reasons.

Jayngfet

2018-06-09, 12:36 AM

Lando is in ...with no backup. If things go wrong at this point Lando has no chance to actually do anything because he's one man against a dozen and unlike Luke, he isn't a Jedi.

Luke fought basically all of Jabba's best men more or less alone and got one graze on his hand. He isn't actually worried about the consequences of fighting Jabba's men.

Lethologica

2018-06-09, 02:11 AM

Diversity initiatives ruin stories until proven otherwise is the attitude because it's true. It's like doing dental work with a combat boot. Sure it gets the teeth out...It's hardly constructive though.
You're only willing to say this because you're talking about a movie with both quality issues and diversity. I note you're completely silent on my citations of diversity in good movies, including at least one where all that librul agenda stuff is plainly on display.

Diversity is largely orthogonal to the storytelling. Your analogy is terrible because diversity is not being used as the primary storytelling tool the way you suggest a combat boot is being used as the primary dental tool.

People have to prove their ideas, is a two way street. You haven't really proven their agenda isn't a motivating factor either. You haven't proven that the actors are chosen for their skill and talent rather then any other reasons.
You're asking me to prove a negative with regards to the agenda. No one can prove the agenda isn't a motivating factor. All I can do is point to the lack of evidence that it is a motivating factor.

And I have to ask - motivating factor in what? Please don't leave your arguments half-finished and expect me to fill in the blanks - clearly I'm just going to misinterpret whatever someone else says if given half a chance, so don't give me that chance. And I'm having trouble finishing that sentence in a way that doesn't raise new questions. Like, if "the agenda is a motivating factor " is what you meant, then I have to ask why you think the goal is to make a bad movie, such that a diversity agenda could be a motivating factor thereof. That seems like a claim requiring prior argument.

With regards to the skill of the actors, I've actually never heard anyone say the actors did a bad job, just that they had bad lines and bad characters. Are you telling me casting a different actress as Rose would have fixed Canto Bight, or made it okay when she stopped Finn from sacrificing himself? If you want to bring up a [I]de novo objection to the skill of the actors and then make the case that it's diversity's fault, I'm all ears. Until then, I'm not going to bother making a case against that.

Lando is in ...with no backup. If things go wrong at this point Lando has no chance to actually do anything because he's one man against a dozen and unlike Luke, he isn't a Jedi.

Luke fought basically all of Jabba's best men more or less alone and got one graze on his hand. He isn't actually worried about the consequences of fighting Jabba's men.
What was Leia's backup that Lando didn't have? Three extra prisoners and the guy who should be doing the job in the first place? And what did that accomplish? Did it add any pieces to her bikini? A fat lot of good the 'backup' did Leia. In practice the backup for Lando would have been the same as for Leia: Luke riding in to save the day.

Even if you eventually somehow manage to reach the conclusion that Leia's position was marginally better than Lando's after the unnecessary elaboration of installing her, that marginal benefit is completely outweighed by the additional sacrifices and risks that were inherent to her installation.

One more point I didn't think of previously: Jabba was waiting for 'Boushh' to rescue Han. Leia's infiltration was completely unsuccessful at failing to arouse suspicion - and this is frankly predictable after such a brash, attention-grabbing entrance. There's little reason to think Jabba would have been waiting for Lando - and if he had been, Lando was certainly much better-placed to find out about it than Leia ever was. That fact alone makes Lando's position decisively better than Leia's, backup or no. Not that Lando's position needed to be outright better, because again, the Lando plan doesn't get Chewie and the droids captured as a necessary prerequisite.

Now, I don't buy that Luke isn't worried about fighting - just because it turns out okay for our heroes doesn't mean the enemies were never a threat - but if that is the case, then Luke should do the infiltration. Or, he should walk in there and negotiate from that position of strength, instead of handicapping himself and putting himself in Jabba's power. Either is a plainly superior plan. Your own defense of the plan he went with only reveals new failings.

Oh, and - thank you! I was just wondering how to address the objection that Han wouldn't trust Lando. I think it's easy enough to say that Han wouldn't have a choice, but "Han would trust Luke" is much better.

Look, this is not going to turn around and become a secretly brilliant stratagem. It's a simple plan (though not simple enough), with simple failings. The failings are not justifiable by in-universe logic (short of, perhaps, a new EU fanfiction novel on the subject). They are justified by the cinematic need to make Han's rescue dramatic and perilous and filled with daring protagonist action.

Fyraltari

2018-06-09, 03:16 AM

What was Leia's backup that Lando didn't have? Three extra prisoners and the guy who should be doing the job in the first place? And what did that accomplish? Did it add any pieces to her bikini? A fat lot of good the 'backup' did Leia. In practice the backup for Lando would have been the same as for Leia: Luke riding in to save the day.

Even if you eventually somehow manage to reach the conclusion that Leia's position was marginally better than Lando's after the unnecessary elaboration of installing her, that marginal benefit is completely outweighed by the additional sacrifices and risks that were inherent to her installation.

One more point I didn't think of previously: Jabba was waiting for 'Boushh' to rescue Han. Leia's infiltration was completely unsuccessful at failing to arouse suspicion - and this is frankly predictable after such a brash, attention-grabbing entrance. There's little reason to think Jabba would have been waiting for Lando - and if he had been, Lando was certainly much better-placed to find out about it than Leia ever was. That fact alone makes Lando's position decisively better than Leia's, backup or no. Not that Lando's position needed to be outright better, because again, the Lando plan doesn't get Chewie and the droids captured as a necessary prerequisite.

Now, I don't buy that Luke isn't worried about fighting - just because it turns out okay for our heroes doesn't mean the enemies were never a threat - but if that is the case, then Luke should do the infiltration. Or, he should walk in there and negotiate from that position of strength, instead of handicapping himself and putting himself in Jabba's power. Either is a plainly superior plan. Your own defense of the plan he went with only reveals new failings.

Oh, and - thank you! I was just wondering how to address the objection that Han wouldn't trust Lando. I think it's easy enough to say that Han wouldn't have a choice, but "Han would trust Luke" is much better.

Look, this is not going to turn around and become a secretly brilliant stratagem. It's a simple plan (though not simple enough), with simple failings. The failings are not justifiable by in-universe logic (short of, perhaps, a new EU fanfiction novel on the subject). They are justified by the cinematic need to make Han's rescue dramatic and perilous and filled with daring protagonist action.
Frankly the only way that I can begin to make sense of this plan is by proposing that Leia, Lando and Chewie were acting independently to Luke and R2 (not counting 3P0, since you know he wasn't told what the plan even was) and that doesn't make any sense either.
Of course the movie doesn't give any evidence towards that so whatever.

By the way, I like to think that Lando's infiltration of Jabba's palace consisted of him walking inasking for a job, after all he recently lost his entire operation and doesn't have a ship to his name anymore. Considering this is mostly Han's fault and Bobba can vouch for that and for Lando betraying Han it would work.

zimmerwald1915

2018-06-09, 10:52 AM

Oh, and - thank you! I was just wondering how to address the objection that Han wouldn't trust Lando. I think it's easy enough to say that Han wouldn't have a choice, but "Han would trust Luke" is much better.
Well, he'd trust Luke's goodwill anyway. He'd still be of the opinion that "Luke's crazy! He can't even look after himself, much less rescue anybody."

Mightymosy

2018-06-09, 11:33 AM

Frankly the only way that I can begin to make sense of this plan is by proposing that Leia, Lando and Chewie were acting independently to Luke and R2 (not counting 3P0, since you know he wasn't told what the plan even was) and that doesn't make any sense either.
Of course the movie doesn't give any evidence towards that so whatever.

By the way, I like to think that Lando's infiltration of Jabba's palace consisted of him walking inasking for a job, after all he recently lost his entire operation and doesn't have a ship to his name anymore. Considering this is mostly Han's fault and Bobba can vouch for that and for Lando betraying Han it would work.

In really like your explanation for Lando, and it would make perfect sense. The one thing against it, though, is that I think Lando wore a helmet with a vizier that disguised his face, so I think the idea was to show that he was going undercover as well. If I'm not mistaken.

lord_khaine

2018-06-09, 12:16 PM

I really did not think the plan to save Han were bad. It had several layers of backup.
First Lando infiltrate as a guard.
Then the droids are send in as well, being there to provide even more backup, with R2D2 being able to both hack anything, and also carrying a hidden weapon.

Lei are then the first attempt to actually resque Han. She already have support in place. And if everything had gone as planned then she and chewbacca could likely have stolen away with the sick Han on a speeder of some sort.
Lando would then have no trouble extracting himself, and stealing a couple droids in the process.

Unfortunately that plan fails. So Luke is the brute force solution. Not actual brute force of course. That cant really be used when they have Han as hostage.
But force persuasion works wonders on weak minds. And everyone who reads Space-Batman knows criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot. So this should be easy, right?
So easy it should have been done from the start. If not because someones evil dad makes them want to keep as low a profile as possible.

Lethologica

2018-06-09, 03:30 PM

I really did not think the plan to save Han were bad. It had several layers of backup.
That's not how backup works. Backup is supposed to make the job safer and easier, not harder and more dangerous.

First Lando infiltrate as a guard.
Then the droids are send in as well, being there to provide even more backup, with R2D2 being able to both hack anything, and also carrying a hidden weapon.
R2 couldn't hack his way out of a Jawa dump truck. He's good at some things, but he's not able to 'hack anything'. And what was he going to do about the simple expedient of a padlocked cell door? Or a wheel lock? Or being held upside down like that other droid? (Wait, don't tell me, he had some tool we never saw in the OT that would take care of it. Right. That inspires confidence.)

If he did hack his way out, which he couldn't, how was he going to help? His hidden weapon is a bloody lightsaber. If it was intended as backup for anyone but Luke, it should have been a blaster. Not that we ever saw anyone who infiltrated have trouble bringing weapons in their own damn selves, from blasters to outright bombs. And it's not like Jabba's palace is a maze of technological marvels that requires R2's hacking expertise, even the overstated version of it you presented.

So we've established that nothing the droids do could possibly constitute useful backup - except, wait. Nobody has even bothered to suggest that C-3PO could have been useful, because of course he's only good for a joke, right? But he's the one who actually did something for the plan in the movie, enabling Leia's disguise by translating her Ubese for Jabba. That's right, C-3PO is the only reason this isn't a total write-off. It's only 90% of one.

Meanwhile, Lando is theoretically okay backup, even if he never actually does anything in that role until the last possible moment. But there's no good reason to make his position backup instead of the first resort.

Lei are then the first attempt to actually resque Han. She already have support in place. And if everything had gone as planned then she and chewbacca could likely have stolen away with the sick Han on a speeder of some sort.
Lando would then have no trouble extracting himself, and stealing a couple droids in the process.
Okay, so there's not even an attempt to present Chewie as possible backup, even though he's the most likely candidate out of all three newly introduced prisoners if fighting is anticipated (and I must assume that it is, because of R2's hidden lightsaber). Duly noted.

Nor is there any attempt to defend the plan from the criticisms I had already made. There's just the statement that if everything works out perfectly, the plan works. Of course that's the case. That's the bare minimum to even call it a plan. But this plan is made as fragile and complicated as possible for no good reason whatsoever. Every time someone says "backup", they seem to be talking about introducing a problem that the plan now needs to fix if everything goes right, which is the opposite of what backup is supposed to do. Leia's 'backup' is that C-3PO and R2 and Chewie now need rescuing. And Luke's 'backup' is that now he has to get his lightsaber from R2 when he can't predict that R2 will be present. Do you see how at each step the plan is digging its own grave?

This is continued, of course, by Leia's role in the plan, which is to make as big a ruckus as possible, drawing all eyes to her, and bringing in Chewbacca, drawing a straight-line connection to Han, so that she can...sneak in to rescue Han that very night? I will give her credit for her disguise, but that is the only good thing about her part in the plan. In every other way, Lando is better-positioned to do what Leia is trying to do. Sure, he doesn't have 'backup' the way Leia does, but that is a manufactured need invented by the people trying to defend the plan. The only backup that works never infiltrated Jabba's base to begin with, he just walked in and started making demands.

Unfortunately that plan fails. So Luke is the brute force solution. Not actual brute force of course. That cant really be used when they have Han as hostage.
But force persuasion works wonders on weak minds. And everyone who reads Space-Batman knows criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot. So this should be easy, right?
So easy it should have been done from the start. If not because someones evil dad makes them want to keep as low a profile as possible.
Luke was trying so hard to keep the lowest possible profile that literally the first thing that we see at Jabba's palace is Luke sending envoys to announce himself by name and title and appearance. Come on.

Sapphire Guard

2018-06-09, 04:17 PM

They don't have a solid plan, because it's impossible until they know what is in the palace. It's 'get everyone in and work with what you have.' What happens isn't plan A, it's plan C or D.

Possible Plan A: Leia grabs Han and gets out. He's the most vulnerable prisoner, as he's in carbonite/blind. So priority 1.

Luke comes in, asks for his droids and/or Chewbacca back, mindtricks, threatens, bargains, or uses lightsabre to get out. If that doesn't work, Lando's there to help depending on what is needed. He stays in cover for the first two plans in case something goes wrong.

Leia is rumbled, which ends Plan A.

Luke wasn't expecting a Rancor, which scuppers Plan B.

No need to smuggle in blasters you can just walk in wearing one. A lightsabre, not so much.

Chewbacca captive is a step up from Han captive, as he's not frozen in carbonite and can assist in any escape. He can't be disguised, so goes in under his own identity.
,

Fyraltari

2018-06-09, 04:20 PM

In really like your explanation for Lando, and it would make perfect sense. The one thing against it, though, is that I think Lando wore a helmet with a vizier that disguised his face, so I think the idea was to show that he was going undercover as well. If I'm not mistaken.

I mean yeah that is what is implied but as Lethologica pointed out, nothing makes sense here.

Besides Bobba wears an even more face-concealing helmet and he isn't undercover. Actually I think concealing your face is kind of a trend in the Galaxy far, far away.

Kyberwulf

2018-06-09, 05:36 PM

I must have missed the part where you told us the name of good movies that push agendas on us.

Amazon

2018-06-09, 05:43 PM

@Kyberwulf.

For years we had male dominated movies, main leads and characters that glorified war and all types of certain ideals.

They didn't have to prove anything did they?

But if you have strong women in your story you have to prove your worth? You are pushing a conspiracy or some dumb crap? Grow up.

Devonix

2018-06-09, 05:44 PM

Also all movies push agendas. Its the point of art.

Lethologica

2018-06-09, 05:50 PM

Kyberwulf seems to have posted in the wrong thread. So he's not in the thread where people are generally talking about movies pushing agendas on people, nor is he in the thread where I was arguing about agenda-pushing as a subtopic and cited multiple examples of good movies with agendas. It's kind of funny, really.

They don't have a solid plan, because it's impossible until they know what is in the palace. It's 'get everyone in and work with what you have.' What happens isn't plan A, it's plan C or D.
They put. A guy. In the palace. That was literally the first thing that happened in the plan. Why is the second thing in the plan "rush a bunch more of our people into servitude/imprisonment because we don't have a solid plan," instead of, I dunno, finding out what's in the palace and planning from there? I mean, if each plan is basically "Person X runs in and rescues everyone themselves," why isn't Plan A 'Lando runs in and rescues Han himself," instead of "Lando runs in and waits until we have to rescue Han and R2 and C-3PO and Chewie...and then waits for Leia to run in and rescue everyone"?

Possible Plan A: Leia grabs Han and gets out. He's the most vulnerable prisoner, as he's in carbonite/blind. So priority 1.

Luke comes in, asks for his droids and/or Chewbacca back, mindtricks, threatens, bargains, or uses lightsabre to get out. If that doesn't work, Lando's there to help depending on what is needed. He stays in cover for the first two plans in case something goes wrong.
Note that you have to specify Han's prisoner status now, because there are more prisoners, because we went with the "rush a bunch of people into prison because we don't have a plan" plan.

But somehow it's critically important to this not-a-plan that Lando not take part. We don't have a plan except to get everyone in by whatever means, but the guy who's in, you are backup to everyone else, so don't do anything. If you do, by God, it could scuttle the plan! You might even be taken prisoner!

And it's not like Lando was even any use as backup when the first thing went wrong, or the second, or the third...he actually becomes yet another person who needs to be rescued during the Sarlacc fight.

Fine, so we've given away the droids and Lando isn't doing anything.

I don't get why people are just describing the plan at me as if that's a defense of the plan. Yes, I know what the plan is. That doesn't make it a good plan, or even a mediocre plan.

Leia is rumbled, which ends Plan A.

Luke wasn't expecting a Rancor, which scuppers Plan B.

No need to smuggle in blasters you can just walk in wearing one. A lightsabre, not so much.
Why not? What is wrong with walking in wearing his lightsaber? Is it going to give away that he's a Jedi? He already announced that! Is it going to be taken away from him if he gets captured? Well, gosh, seems like he could use it to not be captured! Is he going to fight Jabba's guards? Why wait?

Chewbacca captive is a step up from Han captive, as he's not frozen in carbonite and can assist in any escape. He can't be disguised, so goes in under his own identity.
,
but why tho

Honestly I feel like there isn't much point writing all this until the people who are defending the plan puts each of their own comments past the "but why tho" test. I've made my point. I'm gonna leave it here unless someone has something really interesting to say about it.

Kitten Champion

2018-06-09, 09:35 PM

Lethologica

2018-06-09, 09:41 PM

Ya'know, I genuinely never considered the Han rescue plan in any serious way.

They wanted Luke in the pit to fight the monster and Leia in the bikini - because Flash Gordon - and that's about it.

It was genuinely the best part of that movie, mostly because it was the most focused and it was neat seeing Luke as a confident adult.
Oh, for sure. The simple effective plan would have been so boring on screen. People were just cataloguing dumb Star Wars plans, so I had to stick my oar in.

Dienekes

2018-06-10, 12:22 AM

So there is a way to rationalize the "plan"

I'm 100% certain that is actually not what any of the writers actually thought and were just running on rule of cool.

Step 1: Infiltration: Lando is sent in early as a means of reconnaissance and to free Han if the opportunity presents itself. He determines that it is not going to work and sends what info he can to the others.

Step 2: Bargaining: Luke sends the two droids hoping that Jabba will take the trade. If he took the trade, great. Then, since he is most certainly going to be less watchful over a few droids, when Lando saw the time was right he'd sneak them out.

Step 3: Enter the Jedi: If Jabba didn't take the trade, Luke was going to go in himself. He thought he'd be disarmed before he entered so he placed his lightsaber in R2. Thinking himself mighty clever when he did it.

Step 4: Fight: Luke plans to go in and mind trick Jabba into just doing what he wants. If that doesn't work he has R2 and Lando in position on the inside, and Leia and Chewbacca running support. It'd be dangerous and there's no guarantee they'd all make it out alive, but they were out of options.

But like any decent heist story something goes a bit wrong. Lando couldn't get to Han from within the guards. The droids couldn't be bartered for him. And Luke's last step in the plan seemed almost suicidally insane to them. There's no way, even with his newfound powers they could ever fight through all of Jabba's palace. So the two characters the most impatient to see a freed Han (and the two who act mostly on their instincts), Chewy and Leia, decide to take matters into their own hand.

Maybe Leia can pretend to be a bounty hunter and deliver Chewy. He wasn't as wanted as Han, but definitely he was on the list. This could bring her into Jabba's good graces, just like Boba Fett once he brought in Han. Plus there's likely to be a celebration at the capture. A party. If they get everyone drunk/high then during the night Leia can break free Han, and Lando could free Chewy and the droids. Best part? No going in guns blazing against the entirety of Jabba's palace. Just sneaking around at night and not waking up a bunch of folks in a drunken stupor.

And it would have worked too... except Jabba didn't believe Leia's acting. And it failed.

So now Luke goes in. He actually had a few more steps he wanted to complete, they were in no way ready for operation bust Han out. His desire to delay is part of why Leia and Chewy went in alone in the first place. And now they've just wrecked his plan and he's going in alone. But now everyone is basically captured and he's worried what will happen to Leia and Chewy, so he basically shows up as early as he can. Hoping the Force will guide him, because nothing else will.

So he walks through the front door, and expects to be frisked. And these goofy looking pig faced goobers don't even touch him. And he's thinking "Jeez... I could have just worn my damn lightsaber. This crime lord's security is frankly ridiculously lax. Maybe the mind trick plan will work?

The mind trick plan does not work.

Well ****. Operation Bust Out My Sweet Lightsaber Moves is go! And he's just about to call his lightsaber to his side, when the trap door opens up beneath him and he's facing the rancor. So he beats the thing off without his weapon and gets forced into prison besides Han.

The rest is basically just everyone scrambling and making stuff up as they go. Because basically everything else has failed.

That's really the best I can come up with as a narrative that makes sense. And you can see how much mental gymnastics I had to do to get there. Basically I agree that the plan doesn't actually make sense in the movie.

So, since we're now just discussing Star Wars topics, can I just point out my biggest problem with the new series. And no it isn't Rey being a Sue (she kinda is, but it's not too terribly blatant), or Rose being horrible (meh, she was fine her plot line was boring though), or Luke being a crotchety old loser (loved it), or how Snoke doesn't have a backstory (neither did the Emperor... originally), or how Kylo Ren is the way he is (Real Nazis replaced by whiny young Neo-Nazi loser with no actual political philosophy fueled more by rage over his own inadequacies and disappointment in life, and worshiping the fictionalization of a violent warrior past. That makes total sense to me.), or even how boring as hell the casino planet is (no real counter-argument here this part sucked).

I think Finn is the worst written character in Star Wars, and I'm including the prequels.

His entire narrative and character is a muddled mess, and has been since the first few minutes of TFA. He is this giant ball of wasted potential and it's sad, because he could have easily been the most interesting Star Wars protagonist in any movie so far. But he is just so much less than his concept.

Alright, so, I'm going to go through his arc in the two movies thus far.

He starts off as a nameless stormtrooper. A child soldier, who was enslaved and forced to become a faceless murder machine. He then sees a fellow trooper die and realizing how little their lives mean to the First Order. So he breaks from the First Order and frees the rebel pilot that can get him away from all this.
So far, so good. It's actually the most unique thing added to the Star Wars mythos in the new series. We are forced to look at the faceless soldiers of the empire, not as mooks, but as people. Slaves, basically forced to serve an uncaring evil government. It casts the villains in a new more complicated and more interesting light.

But then the awfulness begins. So this broken child soldier whose entire reason for running away is over the deaths of his fellow troopers. As soon as he joins the "good" side he starts murdering his fellow troopers and cracks jokes the entire time!
Then Poe "dies" and he shows more sadness over the guy he knew for all of 5 minutes than those he served with for decades.
He then finds Rey, and the first thing he does is immediately start flirting with her, and asking her questions about whether or not she has a boyfriend. And it's like someone who wrote the movie watched The Guardians of the Galaxy and thought "Hey Starlord's pretty popular, can we add that kind of humor into this movie, too?" And he's written as this over-enthusiastic punchline, without any of the depth that made Peter Quill interesting (and the jokes weren't as good either). Is this a child soldier? Is this a man who was brainwashed by neo-fascists his entire life? Does he show any regret that he is forced to kill basically his brothers and sisters for his own freedom? Hell does he even show an iota of military discipline in his mannerisms?

No. He's just this big wasted ball of potential.

We find out that Finn was a garbage man on the Starkiller Base, and it's sort of implied that SKB is the reason why he's rebelling, not the dead trooper. Also it makes me wonder why the garbage man trooper was apparently a part of Kylo Ren's personal assault force in the beginning of the movie. You'd think he'd have his own version of the 501st Legion, but that's a relatively minor thing.

Then, climax of the film time. And he is placed face to face with the very symbol of his oppression: Phasma. And what happens? "I'm in charge now Phasma. I'm in charge!" Even this momentous part of his life is played for a joke. And it's not even a good joke!

So the movie wraps up and he gets wounded. And on to the next movie.

Finn wakes up and we realize something about the character. All last movie wasn't about him joining the rebellion, it was about him growing close with Rey. Sure, I can see the train of logic that leads to that. After all he never actually has a moment where he joins. He's clearly just trying to run from the First Order and it take Rey being captured for him to take part on the assault of the base.

You know, that's fine. What's not fine is that his arc is the dumbest part of the movie. We see him going through the exact same motions that we saw in the last movie. He whines about how dangerous the First Order is. Tries to run away from them, until he meets a woman who drags him into thinking about something other than himself. On the plus side, Rose actually handles this better than Rey. Rose keeps him in line by literally knocking him out as a deserter and arguing passionately about the destruction of the First Order and how they need to be stopped. While Finn followed Rey because... she's pretty. I think.

Sadly, the full arc of gambling planet was the biggest drain on the movie. The cops come after Rose and Finn because they parked on the beach! They parked out in the open in a no parking zone! That's it. That was their problem, they parked poorly. The entire set up could have been solved by just parking in a parking space like a normal person. Or somewhere remote. Not on a damn beach where everyone can see!

So, Finn takes part in more murdering of his brothers. And he again faces the symbol of his oppression. She fares no better this time. And Finn makes even worse jokes while he beats her. Calling her chrome dome and himself "rebel scum." Nothing carries weight, nothing feels like it makes sense for the character's backstory.

Though he does actually show some character growth. From the whiny coward of the first two movies, he takes it upon himself to sacrifice his ship to save the Rebellion. Groovy. Only he is stopped by Rose, who then announces that she loves him. It's awkward, the two had no romantic chemistry the whole movie. And it seems thrown in just to make a stupid love rhombus next movie between Rey-Fin-Rose-Ben.

I also think they're setting him up to be some beacon of resistance for the stormtroopers to rally behind next movie. One of their own that broke free and can now show them they do not need to serve the Kylo. Only, at this point, the other trooper's response should be. "Why should we listen to you, *******. You don't care about us either. You've killed more of us than Kylo ever did."

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 01:00 AM

Dienekes

2018-06-10, 01:37 AM

I'm ending with a question: Which - if any - character do you think Rian Johnson wanted us to like?

That's pretty easy, Rey, Finn, Rose, and Poe are all meant to be likable. Even Luke is supposed to give us a feeling of awe when he comes around to be the hero we all want him to be. Now, you can argue that they weren't actually likable for whatever reason. But I don't think that changes the writer's intention.

It's amusing, for an obvious deconstruction a whole lot of the movie also offers a reconstruction as well. Poe gets slammed for being a hotheaded violence obsessed pilot. But by the end he's still considered a natural and skilled leader, who just needs to slow down and think of the big picture as well. Rose could be seen as a naive idealist who's view of the world as black and white is fundamentally wrong with the reveal that the same folks were backing the rebels and the empire. But the end re-affirms that perfect or not, the cause is still worth fighting for. Rey challenges the guiding power of the Force and it's opposite the "Dark Side" showing that the Jedi Order is ultimately just half the answer, yet she still chooses good in the objective sense even when temptation was right in front of her. And Luke clearly deconstructs the heroes journey and the very concept of hero worship, that he is as flawed a man as any. And yet at the end, he embraces his symbolism and still inspires the next generation of rebels in the galaxy. Then there's Finn... Finn sucks. But he's clearly supposed to be likable. That's why they gave him all those joke-y jokes.

Really the only character designed to be completely unlikable is Ben. Who's a whiny nihilistic turd who screams about how the past needs to die, but is more obsessed with that past than anyone. The mere hint of it is enough to make him turn into a short-sighted blubbering lunatic.

Devonix

2018-06-10, 06:19 AM

That's pretty easy, Rey, Finn, Rose, and Poe are all meant to be likable. Even Luke is supposed to give us a feeling of awe when he comes around to be the hero we all want him to be. Now, you can argue that they weren't actually likable for whatever reason. But I don't think that changes the writer's intention.

It's amusing, for an obvious deconstruction a whole lot of the movie also offers a reconstruction as well. Poe gets slammed for being a hotheaded violence obsessed pilot. But by the end he's still considered a natural and skilled leader, who just needs to slow down and think of the big picture as well. Rose could be seen as a naive idealist who's view of the world as black and white is fundamentally wrong with the reveal that the same folks were backing the rebels and the empire. But the end re-affirms that perfect or not, the cause is still worth fighting for. Rey challenges the guiding power of the Force and it's opposite the "Dark Side" showing that the Jedi Order is ultimately just half the answer, yet she still chooses good in the objective sense even when temptation was right in front of her. And Luke clearly deconstructs the heroes journey and the very concept of hero worship, that he is as flawed a man as any. And yet at the end, he embraces his symbolism and still inspires the next generation of rebels in the galaxy. Then there's Finn... Finn sucks. But he's clearly supposed to be likable. That's why they gave him all those joke-y jokes.

Really the only character designed to be completely unlikable is Ben. Who's a whiny nihilistic turd who screams about how the past needs to die, but is more obsessed with that past than anyone. The mere hint of it is enough to make him turn into a short-sighted blubbering lunatic.

Ben is so obsessed with not the past but " HIS " view of the past that he latches onto a memory of something that didn't really happen, and never tries to think about it differently.

When Ben talks about that night with Luke, he imagines Luke standing over him with hatred in his eyes, and swinging a lightsaber at him. Those things never happened but because that's his view of the past he never looks past it. He holds onto it tight and it influences his actions forward.

Yora

2018-06-10, 07:11 AM

Rose could be seen as a naive idealist who's view of the world as black and white is fundamentally wrong with the reveal that the same folks were backing the rebels and the empire. But the end re-affirms that perfect or not, the cause is still worth fighting for.

I think actually the opposite, which made it the one thing about the movie I really quite liked. She is introduced as a normal person who is pretty much lost among the great heroes and doesn't have the ability to fight. She's just some insignificant technician while even her redshirt sister was a bombardier on a heavy bomber and doesn't have any apparent skill to actively fight the empire.
But then she comes along on an adventure with Fin, who supposedly is this big hero of the rebellion, and it immediately becomes clear that he doesn't have the slightest clue about what the whole conflict is actually about, while she completely understands what's really going on. She knew exactly what they would find on Casino Planet and wasn't in any way surprised by thief guy's reveal to Fin. And when he wants that valuable metal thingy as payment, Fin starts protesting because of sentimental values and unacceptible demands, but Rose doesn't bat an eye and gives it to him. She is trying to save hundreds of people from being killed. Giving up that thingy that only has sentimental value to her is not even a question.

It's not really to put any blame on Fin, but it reveals that his story arc in the movie, and that of the other main characters as well, is really a wish fulfilment story about being a famous hero and being noble that completely ignores the actual realities of the people and soldiers in a civil war. It's actually Fin who is "a naive idealist who's view of the world as black and white is fundamentally wrong with the reveal that the same folks were backing the rebels and the empire." With Rose, suddenly reality kicks in.

And then of course the movie makes the entire point moot some scenes later, like it does with every single point it tries to make.

Lethologica

2018-06-10, 11:42 AM

Finn's ignorant, for sure, but he's no idealist. The key point of conflict between him and Rose is precisely that Rose believes in the greater cause of saving the Rebellion, whereas Finn only believes in what's best for himself and the people he personally cares about. What immediately becomes clear to Rose when she meets Finn is he's only interested in saving himself (and Rey). What Finn is protesting when DJ demand's Rose's necklace is that it's her memory of someone she cares about, which to him would be of paramount value; he lacks perspective not because of his ideals, but because he lacks ideals. DJ is what Finn will become if he continues down that path. Instead, he tries to learn from Rose.

And yeah, that arc is mucked up at the end by trying to rush in another lesson about hate vs. love

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 01:01 PM

Dienekes

2018-06-10, 01:38 PM

I don't know about you people complaining about Finn having no ideals.

I want to see you growing up as brainwashed stormtroopers, almost die in a war you don't want to participate in, and when you narrowly escape the evil army that wants to kill you for deserting, you do:return back to their headquarters and help nuke it, again escaping only very narrowingly, getting your spine cut and almost die!

Then after you miracously survive that wound that should have at least crippled you, you wake up on a cruiser that's fallen into a trap and is now hunted down by VASTLY superior forces. The commander you knew is dead or in coma, and a purple haired replacement "leader" tells your friend to shut the f*ck up and doesn't give any hint of an escape plan, not even that there IS a plan.

Then you try to at least save that other person in the galaxy that means something to you - Rey - and you get ELECTROSHOCKED by the "new military" group that is supposed to be the good guys.

You people call it lack of idealism - I call it idealism at the brink of suicidal stupidity.

Idealism is not based around actions but about motivations. You can topple a government for many reasons, it can be a blatant power grab, or it can be because you believe the old government is corrupt. Both happen in the Star Wars movies.

On the same token, you can try to storm a super weapon for several reasons. It can be because you actively wholeheartedly believe in the cause that the super weapon will destroy (Wedge Antilles in the Original Star Wars fits this model perfectly, Luke as well though it's also tied in a bit with revenge and wanting to save the personal relationships he made over the course of the movie). Or it can be entirely selfish, something you want is on that super weapon and you're going to go get it (Finn wanted to save Rey, Rey is on the Starkiller Base so he went to go save Rey. On the same token, Han going back to save Luke is a lesser example as well. He may have had a whiff of the Rebellion's ideals about him, but he likely would not have gone back if his buddy Luke wasn't involved). That's not idealism, that's just being tied to personal relationships. Now that doesn't make it bad. Finn is not a lesser character because he isn't an idealist. In the same way Han is not a lesser character than Leia in the first Star Wars. They were both great in different ways.

Hell it doesn't even really make Finn morally bad. He is trying to save his friend in the second movie. That's admirable, regardless of idealism. But he is not a full blown rebel himself until after the arc on the casino planet and turning off the thingamabob on the ship. Where he learns he both cares for and agrees with the rebel movement and makes attempts to protect people even outside of his circle of friends.

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 01:43 PM

Quitting the stormtroopers because killing innocents is bad is very idealistic in my book. Feel free to disagree.

Dienekes

2018-06-10, 01:47 PM

Quitting the stormtroopers because killing innocents is bad is very idealistic in my book. Feel free to disagree.

That was not the motivation given for his initial quitting of the troopers. He ran away when his friend died, then used a hokey line about morality to get Poe to side with him (only for Poe to call him out on his more selfish motivations "You need a pilot").

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 01:53 PM

From the TFA script on imdb

CAPTAIN PHASMA
Sir, the villagers.

KYLO REN
Kill them all.
Phasma nods, steps forward:

CAPTAIN PHASMA
On my command!
The Troopers, including OURS, aim at the Villagers.

CAPTAIN PHASMA (CONT'D)
Fire!
Poe is roughly PULLED into a transport ship, the ramp LIFTS.
All around our Trooper BLASTERFIRE ERUPTS -- but we're WIDE
ENOUGH to see he ISN'T FIRING. PUSH IN until the FIRING
STOPS. All the Stormtroopers SPREAD OUT TO SEARCH -- except
ours.

I think "OURS" refers to Finn, but obviously I might be mistaken. I thought it was meant to be Finn reaslising how f*cked up this murdering innocents business is, at that point, and decides to NOT participate any longer and look for an exit plan.

Dienekes

2018-06-10, 01:56 PM

Yora

2018-06-10, 02:00 PM

I still can't accept that "janitor with no combat experience" is interchangeable with "stormtrooper".

But then, the special commander with unique armor is also a joke.

Someone made the very accurate observation that these movies are trying to make an underdog story in which the supposed underdogs are total badass killing machines that completely outclass their opponents in every conceivable way.

Fyraltari

2018-06-10, 02:03 PM

I still can't accept that "janitor with no combat experience" is interchangeable with "stormtrooper".

You can't accept that military training would include mopping the base?

EDIT: Finn was abducted so young that he doesn't even remember the name his parents gave him, sanitation may very well be mandatory for every child under the First Order loving care, teach them discipline and such.

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 02:06 PM

Ok, so then why do YOU think he quit?

Sapphire Guard

2018-06-10, 02:17 PM

They put. A guy. In the palace. That was literally the first thing that happened in the plan. Why is the second thing in the plan "rush a bunch more of our people into servitude/imprisonment because we don't have a solid plan," instead of, I dunno, finding out what's in the palace and planning from there? I mean, if each plan is basically "Person X runs in and rescues everyone themselves," why isn't Plan A 'Lando runs in and rescues Han himself," instead of "Lando runs in and waits until we have to rescue Han and R2 and C-3PO and Chewie...and then waits for Leia to run in and rescue everyone"?

If he gets caught, then they're all in trouble and now the palace in alerted, which is why you put everyoner in place beforehand. Maybe he can't freely contact out.

hy not? What is wrong with walking in wearing his lightsaber? Is it going to give away that he's a Jedi? He already announced that! Is it going to be taken away from him if he gets captured? Well, gosh, seems like he could use it to not be captured! Is he going to fight Jabba's guards? Why wait?

What if mindtricking his way to Jabba doesn't work? Suppose Jabba will only talk if he lets himself be searched by security first? It's fairly routine practice to not allow the people negotiating directly with the boss to be armed at the time. If he introduces himself as a Jedi, 'we're not letting you into the same room as the boss armed' is a real possibility.

He wants to talk first, but be ready to fight if things go wrong. Possibility his sabre will be taken away before he gets to talk. Solution: Have a hidden weapon nearby but not on him, so he can pass a search.

My default assumption for things like this is that the people to whom these decisions are life and death know more about their universe than I do (exception if its taking shots at something else). We see that anyone coming into the palace has to bring something to trade to the table. Han is very difficult to escape with, he's unconscious and/or blind. Chewbacca is much easier, he just has to be let out of his cell.

Dienekes

2018-06-10, 03:15 PM

Ok, so then why do YOU think he quit?

The loss of a friend, plus the psychological shock of a real battle where people are dying nearly at random. This brings about the realization that despite the New Orders rhetoric of their own importance and superiority the troopers lives don’t matter.

At least that was how I viewed the scene when I saw it (shaped a bit by information witnessed further along, we can’t know that Finn is breaking through First Order rhetoric until we actually see first order rhetoric spewed forth from Commander Weasley).

Now maybe we were meant to realize that Finn had the epiphany all killing is bad. But that is negated by Finn mowing down his brothers a scene and a half later. Or perhaps we were supposed to see that Finn realized murdering innocents is specifically bad. But that runs in conflict with his actually touching mourning scene with Blood-fingers who was in the process of murdering innocents right there.

I’d also question just how strong his ideals were when this supposed champion of innocent knows about the super weapon set to commit several genocides and actively argues against finding ways to save people until one of his core friends is captured and the genocide has already happened.

Fear, shock, self preservation, and a dash of guilt seem the most accurate description of his motivations.

Ultimately the only two people who knows the full motivation are the writer and the actor and often they don’t even agree.

Lethologica

2018-06-10, 04:02 PM

I said I was only going back to that conversation if someone added something interesting, SG. As such...

Ok, so then why do YOU think he quit?
He answers that. He decided he wasn't going to kill for the First Order. So he ran. Those are indeed remarkable ethics for someone in his position, but it's not really the same as being an idealist.

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 04:32 PM

Lethologica

2018-06-10, 05:31 PM

Ok, so he did leave because he thought murdering innocent people is bad.

But that doesn't make him an idealist. Ok. So how do you define an idealist?
I would say an idealist is someone who believes in some abstract scheme which he or she thinks the world should be like. And then acts to make that real (more or less, to the capabilities of that character).
Or how would you define the term?
I would add a dimension to that definition, which is where the person falls on the spectrum of acting on ideals vs. on practical or emotional considerations, and I do think Finn tends towards the latter. There's all the lying, for example, which he does for practical and emotional reasons, not because lying is the right thing to do in those situations. The line Dienekes cited earlier - "It's the right thing to do"/"You need a pilot"/"I need a pilot" - is also telling. But that's only part of my opinion about Finn with respect to idealism.

I don't think Finn really has strong beliefs about how the world should be, not in TFA and not at the beginning of TLJ. I think he has strong beliefs about what he does or doesn't want to do, and who he does and doesn't care about. And yes, those beliefs can have ethical grounds, but their scope is narrow. He's not thinking about whether he's capable of effecting change on a broader scale - he isn't interested in effecting broad change in the first place. He wants to be safe, and he wants the people he cares about to be safe. And that's fine - he was never in a position to learn about the broader world, much less have strong beliefs about how it should be, except for whatever the First Order fed him, which didn't take. But it does mean that "someone who believes in abstract principles about how the world should be and then acts to make the world that way" doesn't really fit.

I won't say that Finn is wrong to take the escape pod. But when he goes to the escape pod, he's not acting idealistically - neither expressing nor acting on some abstract principle of right and wrong or how the world should be, how anything should be in a context broader than his immediate experience. He has a friend he cares about, and they'll both be safe if he leaves. That's what he's thinking.

Mightymosy

2018-06-10, 05:43 PM

But isn't said friend also very important for the rebels to succeed?
Thus, isn't he helping the greater good here also?

What do you think has changed in Finn?
The impression I got from watching him while he aimed the speeder at the "death star cannon" was that he was so fed up with everything that he just wanted to go out with a bang, so that the suffering would finally be over at least - but I'm fully aware that I might project something here. As I was sitting in the theatre at that point, I was checking my watch and waiting for the movie to end. If my friends hadn't been there with me, I might have exited earlier, but then again morbid curiosity would have kept me in anyway. So maybe I am projecting my feelings at that point into his character....

But back to Finn.
In TFA he was ready to risk his life for his new found friends, in TLJ he is willing to risk his life for his new found friends. In the very end, he is ready to give his life for his new found friends - that might sound slightly different, and it is, but keep in mind that this is in a situation where everything is lost anyway.
If he doesn't ram the death star cannon, everyone will die very soon - including he himself. So he might as well go out with a bang, and if the stars all align right, maybe his friends will live for one more hour, and who knows? A miracle might happen. (as it does)

What I just don't see is how he turned from non-idealistic to idealistic. Did I miss important lines?
When he makes his sacrifice, he is likely dead anyway, and he has a chance to save Poe - the guy who saved him before. If trying to save Rey was not idealistic, then I can't understand why trying to save Poe and the rest suddenly is idealistic.

Lethologica

2018-06-10, 06:44 PM

But isn't said friend also very important for the rebels to succeed?
Thus, isn't he helping the greater good here also?
Maybe she is. Doesn't matter, because that's not what Finn's thinking about.

What do you think has changed in Finn?
The impression I got from watching him while he aimed the speeder at the "death star cannon" was that he was so fed up with everything that he just wanted to go out with a bang, so that the suffering would finally be over at least - but I'm fully aware that I might project something here. As I was sitting in the theatre at that point, I was checking my watch and waiting for the movie to end. If my friends hadn't been there with me, I might have exited earlier, but then again morbid curiosity would have kept me in anyway. So maybe I am projecting my feelings at that point into his character....

But back to Finn.
In TFA he was ready to risk his life for his new found friends, in TLJ he is willing to risk his life for his new found friends. In the very end, he is ready to give his life for his new found friends - that might sound slightly different, and it is, but keep in mind that this is in a situation where everything is lost anyway.
If he doesn't ram the death star cannon, everyone will die very soon - including he himself. So he might as well go out with a bang, and if the stars all align right, maybe his friends will live for one more hour, and who knows? A miracle might happen. (as it does)

What I just don't see is how he turned from non-idealistic to idealistic. Did I miss important lines?
When he makes his sacrifice, he is likely dead anyway, and he has a chance to save Poe - the guy who saved him before. If trying to save Rey was not idealistic, then I can't understand why trying to save Poe and the rest suddenly is idealistic.
Well, like I said, I think they mucked up the ending by trying to shoehorn in another lesson. See, the point of that scene was for Rose to deliver the line about hate and love, and that was never an issue for Finn - he wasn't really into fighting what he hated, and he did try to save what he loved. In fact, that was exactly the issue that got him in conflict with Rose to begin with - running rather than fighting, to save someone he loved. No, that lesson is what Poe was supposed to learn - you know, sacrificing a bunch of Resistance fighters to take out a dreadnought is Bad, calling off the attack on the laser rather than sacrificing more people is Good, because it's not about "fighting what we hate, but saving what we love." Now, that arc is a mess and that's a whole other issue, but the salient point here is that the creators did a number on Finn's arc on Crait in order to explain Poe's arc.

Mightymosy

2018-06-11, 01:52 PM

Everyone's so quiet....tired of the Last Jedi discussions?

I'll throw a bone: I think the shirtless Ben Kylo was one of the good ideas this movie had. Discuss :smallsmile:

Z3ro

2018-06-11, 02:00 PM

I think there's an important lesson with that whole Jabba's palace arc.

Couple people pointed out a couple flaws with that, but in general, people didn't give that much movie as much crap as they give TLJ now.

And I think there is a very simple reason:
RotJ wanted us to enjoy the movie. It wanted us to sit back, eart popcorn and enjoy the cinema.
It portrayed all the protagonists as cool heroes who go about their business.

That's why most people do exactly that: Enjoy the movie and root for the protagonists, eat their popcorn and enjoy the fireworks, even though it might not be completely logical at every step.

TLJ, on the other hand, wants to be subversive. It wants to shake things up. And it wants us to question our beloved heroes from the OT. It doesn't simply give us more awesome scenes with them, it deconstructs them and the universe around them.
This, of course, immediately evokes a reaction on your part: Because as we are forced to question what we had liked in the first place, we are in "questioning mode" and look closer at the movie that tries to teach us a lesson. And sure enough, that one is really really flawed, logically.

Thank you.

TLJ has bothered me in a way most movies don't and I couldn't figure out why. I'm not hard to please when it comes to movies. I like a lot of movies people hate; I like the Star Wars prequels, I liked Spiderman 3, I liked X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And the reason I'm so easy to please is I usually do exactly what you say; turn my brain off and enjoy the popcorn. Something blows up nice and pretty and I'm entertained.

But I couldn't do that for TLJ. I couldn't just enjoy the explosions and the lightsabers and all that, and later I couldn't figure out why. But I think you nailed it; the movie didn't want me to. The movie wanted me to think about its message and its context and everything. Best example: the hyperspeed ramming. Normally I just would have watched that and been delighted by the stunning visuals. But this time, after being properly stunned, I immediately thought "why haven't they done that in any of the other movies"? Now I'm not trying to start a debate on if that was possible or practical, but the point is that shouldn't be the first thing I think when something momentous happens. And the movie primed us for deep introspection, but then didn't follow that up with anything worth thinking about.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-11, 02:10 PM

@Mightymosy: I'm away for weekends and didn't keep up with the conversation.

But as far as Finn being an idealist, I didn't really get that vibe from him. That said... we can consider why he would risk his life for Rey when he did in TFA. I think you can argue that it's in part to do with hormones and the fact that she's the first girl he's been exposed to since being an indoctrinated soldier. So there's probably some over-attachment there.

But also, Finn knows personally the horrors of the First Order. I think that's what inspires the reaction we see, where he's chasing after the ship screaming her name. He knows what's in store for her, the same things he's running away from.

So I guess you can look at Finn's decision to risk his life and to save Rey as a choice that he won't let anyone suffer under the First Order as he did, even at risk to his own life.

But TLJ undermines that by having him attempt to abandon the Resistance again right at the start of the movie. So it really wasn't an idealistic decision to keep people from harm under the First Order. He was just saving his friend, which is hammered home in TLJ.

Also, I heard there are rumors Kathleen Kennedy will step down/be replaced. Anyone have any insight?

Fyraltari

2018-06-11, 04:05 PM

Also, I heard there are rumors Kathleen Kennedy will step down/be replaced. Anyone have any insight?

Apparently this stems from a newsletter by something called the Ankler. Since I've never heard of them before, I cannot venture a guess on how reliable they are.

Devonix

2018-06-11, 04:27 PM

Apparently this stems from a newsletter by something called the Ankler. Since I've never heard of them before, I cannot venture a guess on how reliable they are.

Its incredibly unlikely. She's made them a crap ton of money with onlyvone financial slip up. As much as I disliked rebels and rogue one. They made money. As much as some people disliked last Jedi it made a crap ton.

Her job is safe.

Jayngfet

2018-06-11, 04:58 PM

Its incredibly unlikely. She's made them a crap ton of money with onlyvone financial slip up. As much as I disliked rebels and rogue one. They made money. As much as some people disliked last Jedi it made a crap ton.

Her job is safe.

Rebels is on extended cable and had decreasing ratings even there. Going by the way Filoni talked about the ending when he announced the last season I'm actually willing to bet that him even getting an ending was a compromise. Resistance has like one image and a tagline for the teaser and nothing else, and unlike other XD shows like Star vs. is still mostly an extended cable thing so don't expect much. But then Disney as a whole has way too many channels to manage(Disney Channel, Disney XD, ABC Spark, ect.) that are all chasing overlapping demographics. But that's Bob Iger's roblem

It's also not just Solo that's the problem. TLJ is selling half what TFA did on home video. This means that the people who saw the movie in theaters haven't really got as much interest in actually owning a copy(the numbers aren't bad compared to other films, they're just low by the metrics of a movie on this level). So rather than this being a one off it's showing interest in the brand as a whole is waning.

EA's only real SW offering at E3 was their least popular game getting DLC based on the least popular movie. EA cancelled basically every other SW game and the whole Fallen Order thing is something they didn't have any art or trailers or even just promo material for. I know some ex EA employees and did some digging besides that and from what I gather they won't be putting out anything of substance soon for basically the same reason so many of their products have been sub par over the last decade or so(Bad management, low employee retention, issues with the frostbite engine). This isn't even really big news since if you go to various studio pages major studios like Bioware and Visceral had or still have been without major positions like Lead Animators for multiple years and the issues with management and game engine have been common rumors anyway.

On top of that you have Toy's R' Us closing after basically going all in on Star Wars toys. There's no shortage of youtubers who specialize in toy or retail showing that Star Wars toys have actually been selling very badly even at steep discounts or during liquidation sales. You can't give away a toy skywalker saber for like a dollar these days, let alone those giant expensive toys or obscure character figures being pumped out. This is true across multiple retailers and locations too so it's not just a couple of anecdotes.

Then to really seal the deal Lucasfilm decided not to have a Celebration this year. So their own convention to build hype was cancelled right as the news started to turn bad because they expected everything to be so unambiguously good they didn't need to promote non-film material.

TL;DR this isn't a single one off failure. It's that we've basically gotten news of like half a dozen failures in rapid succession.

Zalabim

2018-06-12, 01:34 AM

Well, like I said, I think they mucked up the ending by trying to shoehorn in another lesson. See, the point of that scene was for Rose to deliver the line about hate and love, and that was never an issue for Finn - he wasn't really into fighting what he hated, and he did try to save what he loved. In fact, that was exactly the issue that got him in conflict with Rose to begin with - running rather than fighting, to save someone he loved. No, that lesson is what Poe was supposed to learn
That's an interesting conclusion. I didn't think about it since Poe isn't in the scene. I took it as a lesson that Rose was supposed to learn. Her sister died a hero while destroying the dreadnought. Next Rose is standing guard making sure no one runs away from the fight against the First Order. Then she gives up her pendant to secure DJ's help. Finally she hops into a rusty, old speeder facing down a fancy, new superlaser. It seems like she'll sacrifice everything to beat the First Order and she has a taser for any soldier who wouldn't do the same. That scene and that line at the end is her change from her character arc. If there's anyone who acts like they hate the First Order, and like their actions have stemmed from that hatred, it's Rose.

Jayngfet

2018-06-12, 03:22 AM

I never really got a strong hate from Rose. Outside of that one exchange she never really shows any strong feelings for the war itself. You'd think she'd have a problem going off with the only defector or not firing the weapons herself or whatever if it was about her personal hate. But then that would give her a discernable motivation and personality and we can't have that.

Really though that exchange just makes me question how the resistance expected to fight the war without casualties. I can't even say that Poe was wrong given his failure relies on the idea that Rose doesn't know what a parking lot is, and not expecting the police of space Vegas to be willing and able to track down the owner of a secret military vehicle to cuff them over a parking vehicle.

Hell, it makes even less sense when you realize they never actually towed or moved the ship to begin with it was right there until they blew it up and scattered junk all over this spot putting things in was a capital offense.

Lethologica

2018-06-12, 04:32 AM

That's an interesting conclusion. I didn't think about it since Poe isn't in the scene. I took it as a lesson that Rose was supposed to learn. Her sister died a hero while destroying the dreadnought. Next Rose is standing guard making sure no one runs away from the fight against the First Order. Then she gives up her pendant to secure DJ's help. Finally she hops into a rusty, old speeder facing down a fancy, new superlaser. It seems like she'll sacrifice everything to beat the First Order and she has a taser for any soldier who wouldn't do the same. That scene and that line at the end is her change from her character arc. If there's anyone who acts like they hate the First Order, and like their actions have stemmed from that hatred, it's Rose.
It's sooooort of arguable that Rose has a character arc like that, with stunning deserters being her way of fighting what she hated. But at the very least, her arc has to include "Now it's worth it" on Canto Bight - it's not worth it to tear down the rich a-holes, it's worth it to free the animals. Hate, love. Which means the pendant decision doesn't fit the timeline - and I don't think that decision was cast as something Rose needed to evolve past, anyway.

And that, writ large, is what makes me question the argument that Rose has an arc with that line at its conclusion. When does the movie challenge Rose, not just to overcome obstacles in the plot, but to evolve as a character? Not every difference of sentiment between the beginning and end of a movie is an arc. What are the elements that challenge Rose's worldview? When does she realize that she was wrong about something, or in the wrong about something? How does that realization cause her to go from stunning deserters to delivering the line about hate and love? Answer those questions and there's an arc. But I felt that Rose was so busy enabling Finn's arc that she didn't get much play for an arc of her own.

Meanwhile, the love-hate line is a perfect distillation of what Poe is supposed to have learned. Sure, Poe's not there, but the audience is. And Rose is carrying out Poe's orders (which are based on that lesson) by stopping Finn from sacrificing himself.

Mightymosy

2018-06-12, 11:53 AM

[...]
Really though that exchange just makes me question how the resistance expected to fight the war without casualties. [...].

Answer this the movie does:
With hope.

On a completely remoted topic, does anyone know if the OotS forum has a "bang head against wallin frustration" smilie?

Devonix

2018-06-12, 11:54 AM

I'm pretty certain that the lesson that the film expects Rose to learn isn't about hate. She already knows that. Her lesson is about how. Not everyone involved in a cause has the same reason for being there.

She's mostly there as a teacher not a student.

Fyraltari

2018-06-12, 12:04 PM

Really though that exchange just makes me question how the resistance expected to fight the war without casualties.
That's really not what this was about. This was saying that to quote Roy "Stupid sacrifices are just that, stupid".

What was Finn going to accomplish there? Assuming he managed to destroy the cannon (and that'sa big assumption) the resistance is trapped in an exitless hole with no one (except Luke but they didn't know that) coming to the rescue.

Lethologica is right, this was about Poe rather than Finn, they wanted to showcase Poe's better understanding of command by contrasting him with someone doing the same mistake but at the same time thay wanted to show Finn having becomed a hero that would die to protect not only his friends but for his cause too (despite his defiant "Rebel scum" already stating that). Hence the cognitive dissonance: the movie is trying to say two conflicting things at the same time.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-12, 12:20 PM

What was Finn going to accomplish there? Assuming he managed to destroy the cannon (and that'sa big assumption) the resistance is trapped in an exitless hole with no one (except Luke but they didn't know that) coming to the rescue.
Finn would accomplish allowing the Resistance to be trapped in an exit-less hole without a giant cannon ready to blow down the gates. A siege instead of a massacre. I don't think that Finn knew at the time that no one was answering the call. But even if he did, he can prevent the gate from being destroyed, which is a huge deal for the fate of the Resistance. It gives them time. Time to do what? I don't know. But the point is that Finn didn't run off and leave the Resistance to die so that he can save Rey. He decided to give his own life instead for the fate of the galaxy.

Mightymosy

2018-06-12, 01:55 PM

Since this a thread about movies about movies, here's one more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9SK0Jhk7Pw

It is about Marvel and DC, and why one has more success than the other recently.
It's not about Star Wars - but after you watch it, you can think on which part of the spectrum current Star Wars falls, and what that means about TLJ. I think it is quite convincing.

For people who don't want to watch the video:
If you create a franchise with stories building up one on another, you need your characters to be recognizable and consistent. They should have character arcs, but these need to be logical and, well, in character. That's how you earn people's trust and make them come back for more. Change a character out of the blue (Luke, cough, cough), and people lose that trust. Why buy a ticket to the next installment when any character could be anything, without rhyme and reason?
Marvel takes pretty good care to ensure that you get what you liked in the first place. Like Rocket Racoon in Guardians 1? Good news, you will get the same Rocket Racoon in Guardians 2 and Infinity War. And, unless they fire the producer, you'll likely get the same Rocket Racoon in Guardians 3 and Infinity War 2 or whatever comes next. He might mourn for his losses, and he might grow to be a better person, but I am very sure that it will feel natural. Because, unlike Star Wars, Marvel understands their characters and understands that they are important.

Sapphire Guard

2018-06-12, 06:17 PM

Finn's assessment of all FO tech has been completely accurate so far,and he assesses the armour as too strong but going down the throat as effective. I could see that working, as DS tech tends to be explody, and if the blast explodes inside or close to the machine that's likely to do damage.

Fun thing is, from the beginning Finn and Poe are fighting to save. The plan is escape, not destruction. It's not until the end of the movie that Poe starts talking about burning the First Order down.

Devonix

2018-06-12, 08:11 PM

Mightymosy

2018-06-13, 01:08 AM

Not really, Fighting the Dreadnaught wasn't fighting to save. He wanted to hurt the First Order by breaking one of their big toys. It was an unessesary fight.

Here's the dialogue in question:
Leia: The last transport is in the air,
the evacuation is complete.
You did it, Poe.
Now get your squad back here
so we can get out of this place.
Poe: No, General...
We can do this. We have...
a chance to take down a dreadnought.
These things are fleet killers.
We can't let it get away.
Leia: Disengage now...

From:
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi (i added the names)

The reason he states is that is a fleet killer.

Translation: something that kills fleets. Our fleets.
Translation: taking it out now (while we can) saves our fleet from destruction the next time the "fleet killer" is close to our fleet, our allies' fleet, or one of our bases (like the one it just wrecked).

Which is exactly what would have happened, if they hadn't destroyed it. Like about 5 minutes later, they can't escape the Empire fleet, but AT LEAST there is no "fleet killer" in the Empire fleet that has soooo strong lasers that it can shoot and destroy them from a distance.

Holdo implies that she thinks Poe just wants to blow stuff up, but the actual words he says in the dialogue before he does blow sh*t up tell a different story.

Devonix

2018-06-13, 07:51 AM

Here's the dialogue in question:
Leia: The last transport is in the air,
the evacuation is complete.
You did it, Poe.
Now get your squad back here
so we can get out of this place.
Poe: No, General...
We can do this. We have...
a chance to take down a dreadnought.
These things are fleet killers.
We can't let it get away.
Leia: Disengage now...

From:
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi (i added the names)

The reason he states is that is a fleet killer.

Translation: something that kills fleets. Our fleets.
Translation: taking it out now (while we can) saves our fleet from destruction the next time the "fleet killer" is close to our fleet, our allies' fleet, or one of our bases (like the one it just wrecked).

Which is exactly what would have happened, if they hadn't destroyed it. Like about 5 minutes later, they can't escape the Empire fleet, but AT LEAST there is no "fleet killer" in the Empire fleet that has soooo strong lasers that it can shoot and destroy them from a distance.

Holdo implies that she thinks Poe just wants to blow stuff up, but the actual words he says in the dialogue before he does blow sh*t up tell a different story.

The film is telling us that it is a battle that shouldn't be fought. That the people who died there should have been alive for something else. The text of the film is about how this battle wasn't needed and Poe should feel bad about launching it.

Those ships should have been alive to be used to attack at a time and place of their choosing. It's the reason for the demotion. Perhaps the film did a poor job in explaining its ideas, and that's highly possible since we have so many people disagreeing with it.

But the movie wants us to think that fighting the dreadnaught was good, against what everyone is telling us and the message of the film. Perhaps it would have been better if they had more clearly outlined to the audience why it was bad.

Remember the plot of a movie should always be in service to the movies message and ideas. The actual events taking place are secondary.

Mightymosy

2018-06-13, 11:34 AM

So this is what you wrote:

Not really, Fighting the Dreadnaught wasn't fighting to save. He wanted to hurt the First Order by breaking one of their big toys. It was an unessesary fight.

To which gave an explanation - a direct quote from the movie's dialogue, how Poe's reason was what I had said earlier.
To which you responded.

The film is telling us that it is a battle that shouldn't be fought. That the people who died there should have been alive for something else. The text of the film is about how this battle wasn't needed and Poe should feel bad about launching it.

Those ships should have been alive to be used to attack at a time and place of their choosing. It's the reason for the demotion. Perhaps the film did a poor job in explaining its ideas, and that's highly possible since we have so many people disagreeing with it.

But the movie wants us to think that fighting the dreadnaught was good, against what everyone is telling us and the message of the film. Perhaps it would have been better if they had more clearly outlined to the audience why it was bad.

Remember the plot of a movie should always be in service to the movies message and ideas. The actual events taking place are secondary.

Now, do you agree that my reading of Poe's motivation was right or not?

I mean, let's settle one point, before bring up another one, agreed?

Lethologica

2018-06-13, 01:54 PM

Here's the dialogue in question:
Leia: The last transport is in the air,
the evacuation is complete.
You did it, Poe.
Now get your squad back here
so we can get out of this place.
Poe: No, General...
We can do this. We have...
a chance to take down a dreadnought.
These things are fleet killers.
We can't let it get away.
Leia: Disengage now...

From:
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi (i added the names)

The reason he states is that is a fleet killer.

Translation: something that kills fleets. Our fleets.
Translation: taking it out now (while we can) saves our fleet from destruction the next time the "fleet killer" is close to our fleet, our allies' fleet, or one of our bases (like the one it just wrecked).

Which is exactly what would have happened, if they hadn't destroyed it. Like about 5 minutes later, they can't escape the Empire fleet, but AT LEAST there is no "fleet killer" in the Empire fleet that has soooo strong lasers that it can shoot and destroy them from a distance.

Holdo implies that she thinks Poe just wants to blow stuff up, but the actual words he says in the dialogue before he does blow sh*t up tell a different story.
You mean the hokey message is in conflict with grim military reality? Gosh, that never happens. (It happens all the time.)

The choice of "keep everyone alive and evacuate" vs. "sacrifice some of our guys to maybe take down a dreadnought" is pretty clear. Yes, the dreadnought's capabilities mean it could be threatening to some future Resistance fleet if they don't get another chance to deal with it before then, but that's not enough to say that Poe's centering his thinking on saving what he loves. After all, fundamentally, what he sees is "a chance to take down a dreadnought," not a chance to successfully evacuate everyone.

Is the hokey message a silly way to judge Poe's actions from a grim military standpoint? Well, yes. Reality is that fighting what we hate and saving what we love often blur together in practice. Thing is, though, if we go by grim military reality, it's piss-easy to justify Poe's demotion anyway. A subordinate disregards mission parameters and gets a massive portion of his command killed attacking a tangential target of opportunity? From that perspective, Poe got off easy. So it comes out the same either way.

Nobody knows the First Order can track ships through hyperspace until after Poe's demotion, so that can't be factored in. Yes, it's dumb that the movie makes Poe's "wrong" choice keep the fleet alive with no acknowledgment of that fact, but that's a separate issue.

Jayngfet

2018-06-13, 02:11 PM

Lethologica

2018-06-13, 02:15 PM

Of course Leia saying those ships shouldn't have died there is useless in the long run. That's just be a few more pilots for Ben to blow up later. There isn't really a moment where it all comes together to show those sacrifices were actually useless.
Well, as I said:

Nobody knows the First Order can track ships through hyperspace until after Poe's demotion, so that can't be factored in. Yes, it's dumb that the movie makes Poe's "wrong" choice keep the fleet alive with no acknowledgment of that fact, but that's a separate issue.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-13, 02:18 PM

Agreed. Very poorly done. Poe is wrong, but his actions literally saves the Resistance later on. Holdo is right, but the movie portrays the mutiny as reasonable and justified.

Darth Credence

2018-06-13, 02:30 PM

Fyraltari

2018-06-13, 03:08 PM

On the Jabba's palace plan - am I really the only one who took it for granted that Luke had some visions, and the outcome that got everyone out safe was the one they took? Kind of like how Dr. Strange said he looked at all the futures, and there is only one path that works, so he gave up the time stone?
The final battle had R2 in the right place to give Luke the lightsaber, Luke in the right place to use it, Leia in the right place to take out Jabba, Lando in the right place to free up Han and Chewie. That's either one heck of a coincidence, or the Force. In the Star Wars universe, it's the Force. We already know from the previous movie that Luke can see the future through the force, so when events unfold such that the most logical explanation for everything coming together is a vision of the future, why would it even be a question as to whether or not that happened?
There were no other plans. Heck, Chewie even tells Han that this is all part of Luke's plan when he meets Han in the prison, although Han doesn't believe it.
1) That would be the only time a Force vision is actually helpful in the Star Wars universe.
2) That would be the only time a Force vision is that precise.
3) Luke definitely didn't plan for the Rancor. nor for Leia to be turned into a sex-symbol by space-slug-yet-somewhat-less-depraved Baron Harkonnen.
4) That would mean Luke, despite royally screwing up last movie because of a Force vision, decided to gamble everybody's lives on a Force vision.
5) That would mean Luke convinced everybody to gamble their lives ona Force vision (remeber Lando knows Jack about Force powers).
6) That doesn't explain why 3PO isn't told the goddamn plan.
7) Luke is never portraying as having this kind of omniscience anywhere else. Hell, the second part of the movie plays out like it does because Luke apparently forgot people could sense stuff through the Force until he sensed Vader aboard the Executor.

Yes, the Force expalins away all coincidences, but that's because the Force is a god. It doesn't need Force-wielders to have very intricate plans based on visions to make things happen the way it wants them to.

Mightymosy

2018-06-13, 03:13 PM

You mean the hokey message is in conflict with grim military reality? Gosh, that never happens. (It happens all the time.)

The choice of "keep everyone alive and evacuate" vs. "sacrifice some of our guys to maybe take down a dreadnought" is pretty clear. Yes, the dreadnought's capabilities mean it could be threatening to some future Resistance fleet if they don't get another chance to deal with it before then, but that's not enough to say that Poe's centering his thinking on saving what he loves. After all, fundamentally, what he sees is "a chance to take down a dreadnought," not a chance to successfully evacuate everyone.

Is the hokey message a silly way to judge Poe's actions from a grim military standpoint? Well, yes. Reality is that fighting what we hate and saving what we love often blur together in practice. Thing is, though, if we go by grim military reality, it's piss-easy to justify Poe's demotion anyway. A subordinate disregards mission parameters and gets a massive portion of his command killed attacking a tangential target of opportunity? From that perspective, Poe got off easy. So it comes out the same either way.

Nobody knows the First Order can track ships through hyperspace until after Poe's demotion, so that can't be factored in. Yes, it's dumb that the movie makes Poe's "wrong" choice keep the fleet alive with no acknowledgment of that fact, but that's a separate issue.

We were talking about the motivation of why Poe opted to disobey Leia's order.

Someone made the point that Poe just wanted to blow stuff up, when in reality the dialogue points to a very specific military strategic reason: he needs to take down the fleetkiller NOW when they have a good chance, otherwise it will very likely kill a lot of fleet at a later point.

I really don't get why there is so much confusion about such a simple statement. Do people think Poe lied??

Now, there is the discussion whether his strategical estimation of the situation was right, or at least understandable with what information he had at that moment.

And this is where the movie completely falls apart because, as a couple of you pointed out, it simply doesn't send a clear message.

So, IF the original plan was that the rebel fleet got away and HAD a good hiding place that no one else knew, AND the fleet killer would not - for some reason - roam around the last remaining allies in the outer rims and decimated those to send a message that allying with the rebels is BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH, AND no one knew hyperspace tracking was possible, yes, maybe it could have worked. BUT EVEN THEN, this would have to be shown, and spelled out concretely, so that viewers would get it.

Additionally, it would need to make sense in POE's point of view.
Picture him after being slapped by Leia, when their small fleet tries to outrun the huge Empire fleet.
What do you think runs through POE's head -REGARDLESS of whether Leia slapping him was right or not?
I tell you:
"GOOD THING AT LEAST I NUKED THAT FLEET KILLER, OTHERWISE WE WOULD BE DEAD BY NOW BECAUSE THAT BIG ASS MEGA LASER CANNON WE WERE SHOWN 5 MINUTES AGO WOULD HAVE BLASTED US!"

In other words, you have to sell a very distinct, and complex message, one that most people don't get in real life, in all sorts of situations.
That message is:
You did something wrong, but things luckily turned out right BECAUSE you did something wrong - but that still means you were WRONG and shouldn't act like that again.

That's what it boils down to, and this would need to be made crystal clear.
Instead, the whole conflict is being treated as an EMOTIONAL contest, first between Leia and Poe (you made me cry about the people I lost), and then between Holdo and Poe (there is sexual tension between us and I need to show I have the bigger d*, excuse me, vag*ina).

This is a military scene, but the dialogue is not about military matters. So it completely fails to explain the message, it fails to explain why Poe was in the wrong.

Even if you wanted to make it more simple, but still clear, you could have had General Leia say something like:
"You are a soldier, you need to follow orders. We had tactical intel that was too complicated to quickly explain, but it clearly told us we needed to disengage. By disobeying, you risked the lives of all of us, even if it somehow turned out we can be lucky that the Fleet Killer is gone."

Original Leia was a military leader. When she complained about sh*t (and this started right when Luke and Han freed her), her complaints were always about tactical considerations, and they made sense. Plus she proactively found solutions to get her and the boys out of trouble, because they didn't have much of a plan besides "Hey, let's try rescue the princess."
This is what made the OT good. Everyone had their role, and Leia's was the leader, and the movie convinced us by giving her lines that made tactical sense. She was the one thinking ahead.

But she doesn't behave like a General in that scene. She behaves like a Grandma, or a Mum, who is disappointed with her child's action and gives him a slap. A slap that was thematically trying to rehash her slapping Han, but it didn't make sense in that military situation much.
People root for Leia and Holdo so much, but since when has slapping subordinates become en-vogue in the good camp again?!?

Old Leia would have laid out how and WHY this was a bad tactical and strategical decision.
Instead we get this (the slap isn't described in this script, unfortunately - someone knows of one that has actions as well as dialogue?)

Leia: You're demoted.
Poe: What? Wait! We took down a dreadnought.
Leia: At what cost?
Poe: If you start an attack, you follow through.
Leia: Poe, get your head out of your cockpit. There are things you can not solve...By jumping into an X-wing and blowing something up!
I need you to learn that. There were heroes on that mission. Dead heroes, No leaders.
(https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi, names added by me)

This is some broad, almost philosophical lesson she gives him. It would work nice at an evening dinner, or while training on an island. Certainly doesn't contain any concrete strategical or tactical information of why this was bad, does it?

Oh, wait, it does:
"There were heroes on that mission. Dead heroes, No leaders."

You know, except the leaders are still there: Poe survived, Leia, Holdo and Ackbar were on the cruiser.
And how many leaders of the rebels were in these bombers??
How much use would they have been if the Fleet Killer just nuked the fleet? They would be the very same "dead leaders", just 5 minutes later.

EXCEPT if you take the movie by its words and deduct that HOLDO, for example, is NOT a hero, NOT a leader. It certainly would explain the utter incompetence. That's not the vibe I got from the movie, and certainly not an angle I have ever heard or read by anyone defending TLJ. But if it had been done that way, it might have worked. It might even have given Holdo a character arc.
If she was meant to be that uppity, yet unsecure leader who barked commands at her people because she just doesn't know better how to handle people, and in the end redeemed herself by saving anyone by kamikaze? Yeah, that would have been a good character arc, but it would need that redemption scene. We would need to see her brooding over the stupid mistakes she made as an interim-leader, see how it costs her army, and see how she finally finds a way to repair some of what she destroyed.
But with all the woman empowerment stuff Johnson/Kennedy SAY they were doing, they didn't dare to do that - instead she remains a clunky plot device that exists so we can see Poe learn a lesson - a lesson that doesn't work.

Anyway, if you think stuff through some more, you find out how Finn and Rose know quite some sh*t about that supposedly super-secret tracking device that surprises the Rebel's high command chain.

So, Stormtrooper Space Janitor knows super secret high tech stuff, stuff that is VERY important to know in space combat, and neither does he tell the Rebels, nor do the rebels care to ASK him, a deserteur of their sworn enemy, about crucial information?

Then you have Rose: Who is so dedicated to the Rebels' cause that she is willing to electroshock people who would rather live than die without their leader showing any hint of a plan they could use to survive.

So when she learns crucial tactical information that could help the command she is so dedicated to, why doesn#t she go tell Holdo? Why immediately side with the guy you just electroshocked for wanting to flee?

And I reiterate (and sadly I seem to be the only person who is disturbed by this): Why are the good people now electroshocking people who just wish to live instead dying for a lost cause?

Later, Poe asks one last time whether Holdo HAS a plan. But she rather gets herself captured than try to de-escalate the situation. Because she KNEW Leia would wake up in timely fashion to right things?
How convenient. If not for Leia, and her simply telling Poe the Plan, to which he immediately agreed, then Holdo would have indirectly killed the whole Rebel Alliance, because Poe's master plan would have failed as stupid as it was, and Holdo wouldn't be able to do her master plan.

We end again and again at the same problem points of the movie. And I want to adress one sentence that just feeds into the problems of the movie (maybe it's Rian Johnson's belief?):

"Remember the plot of a movie should always be in service to the movies message and ideas. The actual events taking place are secondary."

Taken literally, it's not a wrong statement. Yeah, if you WANT to send a message, you need your plot do work for that message and these ideas. That's true. The problem with TLJ is that the plot does this so poorly.

Why is that?
Because the actual events, taken at face value and how they are presented, either make no logical sense, or, if taken how they are presented, undermine or contradict the message.
Even if you consider the actual events secondary, they are the foundation on which you build your message. In other words, if the events don't connect well, the plot gets shaky and the holy message falls down from above.

At any rate, what message wanted the movie to send? I'm still not clear there is a consistent one.

lord_khaine

2018-06-13, 03:33 PM

But she doesn't behave like a General in that scene. She behaves like a Grandma, or a Mum, who is disappointed with her child's action and gives him a slap. A slap that was thematically trying to rehash her slapping Han, but it didn't make sense in that military situation much.
People root for Leia and Holdo so much, but since when has slapping subordinates become en-vogue in the good camp again?!?

This times in amazingly well with that youtube video someone linked a few posts earlier. Why marvel is ruling the movie universe.
They let their characters personalities take precedence over plot.
This meanwhile is just about the opposite.

Here its the opposite. Some murky plot takes precedence over earlier established character. We no longer have General Organo Solo. We got Grandma Lei.
Who by the way no longer is toggether with Han.
We dont have the Jedi knight or hopefully Master Luke Skywalker. We got grumphy old Luke.

No wonder a massive amount of fans were upset with this. They were not given what they wanted or expected.
Meanwhile Marvel have done so for i dont know how many movies running.

Mightymosy

2018-06-13, 03:59 PM

Aeah, I posted that video. Things make so much sense when you think about it that way.

And it's just basic story writing - basic 101 lessons that cost millions of dollars.

Lethologica

2018-06-13, 04:23 PM

We were talking about the motivation of why Poe opted to disobey Leia's order.

Someone made the point that Poe just wanted to blow stuff up, when in reality the dialogue points to a very specific military strategic reason: he needs to take down the fleetkiller NOW when they have a good chance, otherwise it will very likely kill a lot of fleet at a later point.

I really don't get why there is so much confusion about such a simple statement. Do people think Poe lied??
That wasn't the conversation, though. Devonix made the claim that Poe was fighting to hurt the First Order, not to save the Resistance. The conversation was where Poe's motives stood with regard to the hokey message, not military strategy.

The hokey message and the military strategy don't line up, because in an existential fight against the First Order, hurting the First Order's capabilities comes out the same as saving Resistance lives down the line - which is why we can read that implication into Poe's words. But that doesn't make it central to Poe's stated motive. So no, I don't think Poe is lying, I just think you're putting way too much emphasis on one implication of a couple of his words, at the expense of his other words. He repeatedly emphasizes taking down the dreadnought as an end in itself and dismisses the cost in Resistance lives with a philosophical generalization, in lines you yourself quote. That's stronger support for Devonix's claim than "these things are fleet-killers" is for yours.

If we want to talk military strategy...Poe says "these things." Oh, you took down one fleet-killer. It only cost us most of our fleet - so in taking down the fleet-killer, you let it fulfill its function of killing our fleet now, instead of in some uncertain future. And they have more fleet-killers. Who exactly are you saving? Is the hypothetical future Resistance fleet (it must be hypothetical, given you just wasted our existing one) gonna care that they were killed by fleet-killer B instead of fleet-killer A?

When you're massively outmatched, fighting a straight-up war of attrition (fighting to hurt the First Order) is a loss, even if you trade efficiently (take out a fleet-killer by sacrificing a smaller fleet than it might otherwise have killed). Avoiding the trade and preserving as much of the Resistance as possible (fighting to save the Resistance) is strategically preferable. So maybe the hokey message and the military strategy aren't so out of line after all.

Of course, then Poe's action turns out to be the only reason anyone lives, which is never brought up, and no other fleet-killers actually show up (I guess they were on holiday), so message and strategy are both blown sky-high...*shrug*

I agree with much of the rest of your post. The stun gun thing is out of character for the heroes. Going to Poe is out of character for Rose, even if Finn would suggest it. And way too much of TLJ tries to justify plot with message, instead of justifying message with plot.

ETA: I just noticed that the Supremacy is listed as a dreadnought-class warship. Sooo...maybe it isn't the case that Poe's action is the only reason anyone lives, or that no other fleet-killers actually show up, because another one did.

Darth Credence

2018-06-13, 04:31 PM

1) That would be the only time a Force vision is actually helpful in the Star Wars universe.
2) That would be the only time a Force vision is that precise.
3) Luke definitely didn't plan for the Rancor. nor for Leia to be turned into a sex-symbol by space-slug-yet-somewhat-less-depraved Baron Harkonnen.
4) That would mean Luke, despite royally screwing up last movie because of a Force vision, decided to gamble everybody's lives on a Force vision.
5) That would mean Luke convinced everybody to gamble their lives ona Force vision (remeber Lando knows Jack about Force powers).
6) That doesn't explain why 3PO isn't told the goddamn plan.
7) Luke is never portraying as having this kind of omniscience anywhere else. Hell, the second part of the movie plays out like it does because Luke apparently forgot people could sense stuff through the Force until he sensed Vader aboard the Executor.

Yes, the Force expalins away all coincidences, but that's because the Force is a god. It doesn't need Force-wielders to have very intricate plans based on visions to make things happen the way it wants them to.

1) Palpatine's visions help him out for decades, until they finally fail at the end.
2) Palpatine's visions are precise - "Everything is unfolding as I have forseen."
3) Not planning for the Rancor doesn't change this - he was able to defeat the Rancor. If his vision was of the people in the group leaving on their individual errands, and everyone flying away from Tatooine together, that is enough to form the plan. But I had assumed he saw enough of the battle by the Sarlaac to know that part of it. I see no reason to discount him seeing Leia in that outfit in the vision, because even though it might be humiliating, being humiliated while getting everyone out alive is better than not getting everyone but keeping dignity in tact.
4) Luke has become much more assured of himself and his relationship to the Force since the last movie. In addition, his vision told him to go to Bespin, where he got out with important information and everyone survived. Why would he think that was a failure? Because Yoda told him he should stay and let them die? Yoda's major concern was that Luke would fall to the dark side if he went, and he didn't. Luke could then conclude that he was right in following the vision before.
5) It would mean that Luke convinced everyone that he had a plan that would work. Leia and Chewie know that as an untrained person, he blew up a Death Star, he has had more training since, and he followed a vision to find them on Bespin. He also evaded the trap set by another force user in the process. Lando would know that Leia could find him through the force, and the people he was still trying to make up to agreed with the plan.
6) Threepio doesn't need to know the plan, and would not be good at keeping the plan secret if he did know. He does his part because his part is to just be himself.
7) He didn't forget that people could sense through the force, he didn't expect Vader to be close enough to do it at that point. But at what other point would it even be possible for him to show such abilities? This is the first time he is mature in the force, and he is going up against people who are not force trained. Palpatine is clearly shown having such omniscience, until he ends up going against Luke.

As to your final comment, that is pretty much Palpatine's entire shtick. He makes plans based on visions, and those visions got him running the galaxy until he ran into a force user whose mind he couldn't cloud.

More evidence that the whole thing was planned and worked out how it was supposed to - "Just stick close to Chewie and Lando. I've taken care of everything." He did, and everything worked out fine.

Lethologica

2018-06-13, 04:36 PM

I mean, it's clear that Luke had planned everything, and Force visions are a plausible mechanism for it...and my reaction is just that it's good to know what to blame for the appallingly stupid plan. At least Dr. Strange was dealing with an overwhelming and quite possibly unbeatable imminent threat, so paradoxical actions can be justified by the desperation of the situation. Luke, or the Force, created the desperate situation just to have something to get out of.

Fyraltari

2018-06-13, 05:44 PM

1) Palpatine's visions help him out for decades, until they finally fail at the end.
2) Palpatine's visions are precise - "Everything is unfolding as I have forseen."
Palpatine's success was just as much improvisation (he didn't expect Padmée to reach Coruscant or Vader being mutilated for starters) than planning. Also the Jedi are dumb. That statement is far too vague to be conclusive especially coming from someone as overconfident as Sidious. I find Yoda's "always in motion, the future is" much more convincing especially since it is backed by the abysmal success rate of people working from prophecies.

3) Not planning for the Rancor doesn't change this - he was able to defeat the Rancor. If his vision was of the people in the group leaving on their individual errands, and everyone flying away from Tatooine together, that is enough to form the plan. But I had assumed he saw enough of the battle by the Sarlaac to know that part of it. I see no reason to discount him seeing Leia in that outfit in the vision, because even though it might be humiliating, being humiliated while getting everyone out alive is better than not getting everyone but keeping dignity in tact.
I give you the first point but really Leia risked losing much more than dignity for easily discernable advantage.

4) Luke has become much more assured of himself and his relationship to the Force since the last movie. In addition, his vision told him to go to Bespin, where he got out with important information and everyone survived. Why would he think that was a failure? Because Yoda told him he should stay and let them die? Yoda's major concern was that Luke would fall to the dark side if he went, and he didn't. Luke could then conclude that he was right in following the vision before.
Luke went there to rescue his friends. They rescued themselves without his input. And then they rescued him after he lost a hand and his weapon. That's a complete failure.

5) It would mean that Luke convinced everyone that he had a plan that would work. Leia and Chewie know that as an untrained person, he blew up a Death Star, he has had more training since, and he followed a vision to find them on Bespin. He also evaded the trap set by another force user in the process. Lando would know that Leia could find him through the force, and the people he was still trying to make up to agreed with the plan.
Being a great pilot doesn't correlate with making good plans, Luke "evaded" Vader's trap by attempting suicide. Or are you going to tell me he knew he would be redirected to safety and Vader didn't?

Really though "telepathy => prescience" is a leap of logic. We knwo the Force can do both but no-one except Luke (and maybe Chewbacca but only by hearsay) in the party ought to know that.

6) Threepio doesn't need to know the plan, and would not be good at keeping the plan secret if he did know. He does his part because his part is to just be himself.
What makes you think 3PO wouldn't be good a t keeping the plan secret? When do we ever see 3PO blurting out something he shouldn't tell? Looks to me like he is a decent liar (https://youtu.be/7U3Oti2L8S4?t=231). Can't read that pokerface!

7) He didn't forget that people could sense through the force, he didn't expect Vader to be close enough to do it at that point.
I give you that point, I thought the Rebels knew Vader would be with the Emperor but they didn't.

But at what other point would it even be possible for him to show such abilities? This is the first time he is mature in the force, and he is going up against people who are not force trained.
How about the rest of the movie? Or any post-ROTJ material published in both canons?

Palpatine is clearly shown having such omniscience, until he ends up going against Luke. As to your final comment, that is pretty much Palpatine's entire shtick. He makes plans based on visions, and those visions got him running the galaxy
Yes, as is clearly seen by him disolving the Imperial Senate because the Death Star makes it obsolete and losing the Death Star immediately after that. Or him losing Darth Maul to a Padawan. Or not actually killing all of the Jedi. Or all the mistakes that lead to the creation of a unified armed revolt against his rule.

until he ran into a force user whose mind he couldn't cloud.
What has this to do with visions?

More evidence that the whole thing was planned and worked out how it was supposed to - "Just stick close to Chewie and Lando. I've taken care of everything." He did, and everything worked out fine.

Oh, no-one is suggested the thing wasn't planned in-universe, we are just pointing out that the plan seems to aim at creating ever-increasing danger to the heroes rather than the opposite, as if it was made to create suspense for some kind of peripheral audience by movie authors instead of being made to rescue a prisoner by a group of Rebels.

Zalabim

2018-06-14, 01:29 AM

Remember the plot of a movie should always be in service to the movies message and ideas. The actual events taking place are secondary.
That sounds like a recipe for making bad movies, unless you want every movie to be "a very special movie."

"Remember the plot of a movie should always be in service to the movies message and ideas. The actual events taking place are secondary."

Taken literally, it's not a wrong statement. Yeah, if you WANT to send a message, you need your plot do work for that message and these ideas. That's true. The problem with TLJ is that the plot does this so poorly.

Why is that?
At any rate, what message wanted the movie to send? I'm still not clear there is a consistent one.
Maybe there isn't a consistent message because the movie isn't trying to send a message. There's a broad theme of dealing with failure, disappointment, mistakes, and the past, but theme is distinguishable from message. It sounds a lot like people trying to force the movie to be something it isn't.

druid91

2018-06-14, 08:58 AM

You're only willing to say this because you're talking about a movie with both quality issues and diversity. I note you're completely silent on my citations of diversity in good movies, including at least one where all that librul agenda stuff is plainly on display.

Diversity is largely orthogonal to the storytelling. Your analogy is terrible because diversity is not being used as the primary storytelling tool the way you suggest a combat boot is being used as the primary dental tool.

That.... Is precisely the point?

Diversity doesn't always ruin movies. However, the pursuit of Diversity CAN and HAS ruined movies.

You are right, it's not like doing dentistry with a combat boot. It's like selecting a dentist based on their skills as an interior designer. Sure it's nice that they can put a room together... But maybe you should take a look at their skills in the area you're recruiting them for a bit more?

And, because you seem to have ignored it, again I'm gonna say that the issues with TLJ had absolutely nothing to do with Diversity, and everything to do with the plot.... Just making no sense.

Devonix

2018-06-14, 09:06 AM

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-14, 10:17 AM

I totally forgot about this exchange but druid91's post reminded me of it. Sorry for late reply.

Ah. You're right that I was mistaken about your position. With clarification, I do think your position is less of a nonsense.
Oh how charitable of you :smallwink:.

I still think it's wrong, though. The reason Kelly Marie-Tran's race and gender were brought up in the abuse is because she's a woman and a racial minority, not because Disney bothered to mention that she is those things, assuming they did.
I don't know why they came up, but I'm speculating that it wasn't because of an actual hatred of women or people of color. I think it's a reaction to a perceived agenda. And I think making the claim that these people are perpetuating some ongoing systemic oppression of women and people of color because of this trolling is absolute nonsense and simply a throwaway line to reinforce the victim/oppressor narrative. It's simple to attribute to people less than savory motivations.

And I agree with warty goblin that the action is racist and sexist even if we eventually settle on race and sex having nothing to do with the intent to abuse. Tactical prejudice is still prejudice; trolls who will take on any prejudice at a moment's notice to suit their goal of maximally abusive hostility are expressing many prejudices, not none.
I searched for the tweets. I'm sure I didn't find all, but I found several. I'm not seeing prejudice. I'm seeing people caricaturing her name, making fun of her weight, saying she did an all around terrible job and her character ruined the movie, etc. Not prejudice, not racism. If someone calls me a spic, that is not prejudice. If they say "Hey, what's your name? Jose? Juan Carlos? Come here Pepe!", that is not prejudice. If someone says to me "you are lazy because you're a spic" that is prejudice. If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you just because you're a woman of color" that's not racism. If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you because people of color aren't worthy of acting in blockbuster movies" that is racism.

Let's stop blowing things out of proportion. I love that we've all learned big words. We don't need to use them all the time though *because they're not always applicable*.

Funny, I remember last time we brought up statements made by the creators, I showed that those statements had been completely misread by the people who were using them to attack the creators. People dug until they found a statement they could interpret in a way that suited their prejudices.
I can't believe that you're arguing this point when people on your side trip over themselves writing article after article about all the people of color in the new Star Wars and all the feminism in the new Star Wars and quotes from directors about diversity, etc.

Let's not pretend that it's simply *some* disgruntled fans pushing the idea about a diversity agenda forward. This isn't a fiction that people created as an excuse to be upset. This is something one side is proud of and talks about constantly, and *some* people on the other side blame for the **** quality of the new films.

lord_khaine

2018-06-14, 10:25 AM

But the point its. That the ideas, the message usually comes first and then the plot is created to convey the message to the audience.

And when old, extremely well loved and established characters are then warped around to fit that message, then of course all the original fans begin to look for their pitchforks.

Im just honestly shocked that this came of any sort of surprise.

Then it seems like it has largely been blamed on people opposed to diversity. And of course that angers the fans even more.

Darth Credence

2018-06-14, 10:39 AM

Palpatine's success was just as much improvisation (he didn't expect Padmée to reach Coruscant or Vader being mutilated for starters) than planning. Also the Jedi are dumb. That statement is far too vague to be conclusive especially coming from someone as overconfident as Sidious. I find Yoda's "always in motion, the future is" much more convincing especially since it is backed by the abysmal success rate of people working from prophecies.
Palpatine attributed his success to seeing the future. I quoted that. From the movies, it looks like the success rate of listening to prophecies is pretty good, as it led to Palpatine ruling.

I give you the first point but really Leia risked losing much more than dignity for easily discernable advantage.
She wasn't risking anything other than dignity if Luke foresaw what would happen. And how else do you get next to Jabba with something that can kill him?

Luke went there to rescue his friends. They rescued themselves without his input. And then they rescued him after he lost a hand and his weapon. That's a complete failure.
Would they have gotten out without Luke showing up? If he had never shown up, why wouldn't Vader have taken them to his ship? Vader sent them off with Lando because Vader was going to go deal with Luke. Without Luke coming, odds are they remain in the hands of Vader.
From Luke's POV, they all survived, and he didn't fall. Yoda's major concern was that Luke would fall. He didn't, so Yoda's concerns were wrong.
Those together means it is far from a complete failure.

Being a great pilot doesn't correlate with making good plans, Luke "evaded" Vader's trap by attempting suicide. Or are you going to tell me he knew he would be redirected to safety and Vader didn't?

Really though "telepathy => prescience" is a leap of logic. We knwo the Force can do both but no-one except Luke (and maybe Chewbacca but only by hearsay) in the party ought to know that.

But making that shot was attributed to the force, and Leia and Chewie absolutely agreed with that. They weren't trusting a great pilot, they were trusting their friend, the budding Jedi with clear force powers. And since the point of Vader's trap was to get Luke to turn, throwing himself down the shaft whether he thought he would live or not is evading that trap.

What makes you think 3PO wouldn't be good a t keeping the plan secret? When do we ever see 3PO blurting out something he shouldn't tell? Looks to me like he is a decent liar (https://youtu.be/7U3Oti2L8S4?t=231). Can't read that pokerface!

Same reason Bail Organa didn't think he could keep a secret.

I give you that point, I thought the Rebels knew Vader would be with the Emperor but they didn't.

How about the rest of the movie? Or any post-ROTJ material published in both canons?
The rest of the movie he was facing off against other powerful force users. If both are seeing the future, both are going to be adjusting to it. Neither sees it correctly at that point.
And most people haven't explored the EU, so it doesn't matter. The writing of most of it is pretty inconsistent, with maybe 1 in 5 books being worthwhile and actually doing the characters correctly. So the next opportunity would be the Last Jedi. He clearly saw enough in that to figure out what needed to be done to save the Resistance.

Yes, as is clearly seen by him disolving the Imperial Senate because the Death Star makes it obsolete and losing the Death Star immediately after that. Or him losing Darth Maul to a Padawan. Or not actually killing all of the Jedi. Or all the mistakes that lead to the creation of a unified armed revolt against his rule.

He wanted the Senate dissolved regardless of the Death Star. he was older and cocky. Darth Maul wasn't his end game for an apprentice, Vader was. As far as we know, losing Darth Maul was absolutely part of the plan, because what good would Darth Maul be in AotC? He certainly couldn't have run the Seperatists, so Palpatine had to ditch him and get Dooku at some point.
Why do you think mistakes led to the creation of a Rebellion? Seems more like he didn't care about a Rebellion, because what could he have done to avert it? Not been the Emperor?
Killing the last of the Jedi was Vader's job, not his.

What has this to do with visions?

If your mind is clouded, you can't see the future properly yourself, so Palpatine can make sure the correct path to get to his visions are taken.

Oh, no-one is suggested the thing wasn't planned in-universe, we are just pointing out that the plan seems to aim at creating ever-increasing danger to the heroes rather than the opposite, as if it was made to create suspense for some kind of peripheral audience by movie authors instead of being made to rescue a prisoner by a group of Rebels.

This is the only reason I commented in the first place. A bunch of people have been saying it wasn't the plan, or that it was like plan D. No, there was never a thought that Lando could rescue Han, then when that didn't work they would negotiate, and when that didn't work maybe Leia could bust them out, then it finally falls on Luke. What happens was the plan from the beginning, and every other bit of it was to get people in position.

Mightymosy

2018-06-14, 11:01 AM

Zalabim That's how most movies, and fiction in general are made. Science fiction in particular. A writer asks a question, and has a message that they want to tell. Sometimes the message is about how Consumerism and product works to replace people. like in robocop.

Sometimes it's a message about how death and age affect people, with the the mistakes of life coming back to bite us. like in Wrath of Khan. And yes I'm simplifying the message.

But the point its. That the ideas, the message usually comes first and then the plot is created to convey the message to the audience.

Actually, you seem to mix two things into one, when they're two things:

Thing 1: What you said before: the writer thinks of a message, and wants to get that across. Thus, the plot and the events are orchestrated in order to tell that message.

Thing 2: A writer asks a question. A "What if...?" question - which is, as you mentioned, the basis of Science Fiction.
"What if we were all replaced by robots?"
"What if we could inhabit Mars next decade?"
"What if we could live forever?"

A competent writer will then explore these "What if" scenarios with an open mind, considering the ramifications of the setup they chose as the premise, and then develope the story LOGICALLY.

"What if we were all replaced by robots?"
-> We would not need to eat
-> Farm business would decline
-> Battery business would rise

That's how Science Fiction, at its core, works.

The two "things" can intermingle, sure, but they are very different things in the first place.

Sidenote: That's also why quite a couple of "Science Fiction" stories, especially movies, plainly suck (or at least suck at being "Science Fiction". They use method 1 and try to teach us a moral lesson, with a contrieved path that tries to lead us to that conclusion.

Examples? Pretty much any Blockbuster involving genetic tech.
These almost always start with the message "Gen Tech is BAD AND EV0L!!!"
And then the author tries to construct a scenario that hamfistedly beats that message into the audience's mind, all the while ignoring anything and everything we know about genetic engineering.

Lethologica

2018-06-14, 12:01 PM

That.... Is precisely the point?

Diversity doesn't always ruin movies. However, the pursuit of Diversity CAN and HAS ruined movies.

You are right, it's not like doing dentistry with a combat boot. It's like selecting a dentist based on their skills as an interior designer. Sure it's nice that they can put a room together... But maybe you should take a look at their skills in the area you're recruiting them for a bit more?

And, because you seem to have ignored it, again I'm gonna say that the issues with TLJ had absolutely nothing to do with Diversity, and everything to do with the plot.... Just making no sense.
Movies can and have been ruined by just about every reason under the sun. That's not a reason for default hostility to a diversity agenda in particular.

As for the dentistry analogy, have you looked at casting calls? This selectivity on orthogonal issues is not new. They didn't invent it for diversity. Having the right 'look' for the part has always been specific as all get out. Diversity just means the right 'look' has changed for some of the parts. And who said anything about not looking at their skills in the area they're being recruited for? Is the director leaving the room when casting happens?

I'll concede that you are not saying the issues with TLJ have to do with diversity. However, you aren't the only person in the conversation. And your arguments in that direction are still faulty, both in general and for this movie in particular.

I don't know why they came up, but I'm speculating that it wasn't because of an actual hatred of women or people of color. I think it's a reaction to a perceived agenda. And I think making the claim that these people are perpetuating some ongoing systemic oppression of women and people of color because of this trolling is absolute nonsense and simply a throwaway line to reinforce the victim/oppressor narrative. It's simple to attribute to people less than savory motivations.

I searched for the tweets. I'm sure I didn't find all, but I found several. I'm not seeing prejudice. I'm seeing people caricaturing her name, making fun of her weight, saying she did an all around terrible job and her character ruined the movie, etc. Not prejudice, not racism. If someone calls me a spic, that is not prejudice. If they say "Hey, what's your name? Jose? Juan Carlos? Come here Pepe!", that is not prejudice. If someone says to me "you are lazy because you're a spic" that is prejudice. If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you just because you're a woman of color" that's not racism. If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you because people of color aren't worthy of acting in blockbuster movies" that is racism.
Nothing we argue here is going to make the victim/oppressor narrative go away. The base facts of the situation are that some people are being flooded with a torrent of vile sh*t by internet a**holes. That narrative is bloody well set.

And the gap between "the perceived existence of an agenda" and "the agenda actually ruining the movie" is precisely the failure of reason and experience that is bridged by prejudice. If people abuse your race and gender, based merely on the existence of an initiative to cast people like you in the movie, plus a baseless assumption that trying to cast people like you is why the movie failed, it's prejudice.

(And again, have you looked at casting calls? "Cast because you're a <gender> and <race>" is not new. All that's new is the assumption that whoever won the part must have no talent aside from their gender and race fulfilling some diversity initiative.)

I can't believe that you're arguing this point when people on your side trip over themselves writing article after article about all the people of color in the new Star Wars and all the feminism in the new Star Wars and quotes from directors about diversity, etc.

Let's not pretend that it's simply *some* disgruntled fans pushing the idea about a diversity agenda forward. This isn't a fiction that people created as an excuse to be upset. This is something one side is proud of and talks about constantly, and *some* people on the other side blame for the **** quality of the new films.
I didn't say the quotes were misread as construing a diversity agenda where none existed, because unlike you, I don't take the existence of a diversity agenda as a negative that needs denying. It's the, how did you put it, tracking of the problems with TLJ to those statements and that agenda that was, and is, completely baseless.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-14, 01:27 PM

Nothing we argue here is going to make the victim/oppressor narrative go away.
Not the point.

The base facts of the situation are that some people are being flooded with a torrent of vile sh*t by internet a**holes. That narrative is bloody well set.

Completely agree.

And the gap between "the perceived existence of an agenda" and "the agenda actually ruining the movie" is precisely the failure of reason and experience that is bridged by prejudice.
That's not necessarily true though, and I don't think anyone here has demonstrated that outside of baseless accusations that the reason people are giving for the movie being ruined is that it contains women and people of color. And even if you were to quote someone on the internet saying that, you'd then have to link them to the abuse Kelly received on Twitter. Things aren't true just because they are spoken out loud.

If people abuse your race and gender, based merely on the existence of an initiative to cast people like you in the movie, plus a baseless assumption that trying to cast people like you is why the movie failed, it's prejudice.
No it's not. It's not because people are casting you, and I think you know that. It's more like... people are more interested in casting the right people and sending the right message, that they fail to develop a proper story and plot, and the movie fails because of it. There's a suspicion of priorities and an expectation of sacrifice in quality for "the greater good" agenda.

(And again, have you looked at casting calls? "Cast because you're a <gender> and <race>" is not new. All that's new is the assumption that whoever won the part must have no talent aside from their gender and race fulfilling some diversity initiative.)
Now you're kind of getting it. Except to be clear, the assumption isn't because of race or gender, it's because of the agenda. The perception that these people have is that the agenda is priority and thus not only will other parts suffer for it, but the people creating it can ride off the coattails of the agenda even if the movie isn't that good; the movie doesn't have to be good, but people will like it anyways because it's "diverse".

TO BE CLEAR I'm not agreeing with any of this. But it's plain to see how someone that thinks these things could see confirmation in all the hype around this movie, all the backlash against the fans, how terrible the movie was, all the spin after the fact, etc.

I didn't say the quotes were misread as construing a diversity agenda where none existed, because unlike you, I don't take the existence of a diversity agenda as a negative that needs denying. It's the, how did you put it, tracking of the problems with TLJ to those statements and that agenda that was, and is, completely baseless.
The quotes don't matter in this context, I'm speaking to your greater skepticism here. That said, maybe I can be clearer.

It's trivial to see how someone concerned that an agenda is taking over the new Star Wars franchise, can blame said agenda for bad movies, given what we've seen in the media surrounding the movies themselves, the quotes from various people involved at high levels, and the actual movies themselves. They lack confidence in the ability of these people to make a good movie because they think they're priorities are elsewhere. And when you get things like all the men being failures, Holdo, distracting side quests about war profiteering and animal cruelty, and the plot and characters seemingly warped to fit this stuff in, it's plain as day how these people might think the agenda is the problem.

It's like you want to simultaneously demonize these people while giving them more credit than they deserve. These people are going to notice that Finn gets laid out by Rey, Poe gets laid out by Leia, Finn gets laid out by Rose, Luke gets laid out by Rey, etc. This is confirmation for them. Poe is getting cut down by a purple haired woman for being a cool action guy? Confirmation. The Force is Female? Confirmation. Headlines like "Racists hate the new Star Wars"? Confirmation. And so on and so forth.

Where are we missing each other here?

Fyraltari

2018-06-14, 01:55 PM

Palpatine attributed his success to seeing the future. I quoted that. From the movies, it looks like the success rate of listening to prophecies is pretty good, as it led to Palpatine ruling.
Again that quate is way too vague to be conclusive. You don't need mystical powers to "foresee" stuff, you just need to know what make people tick and how to exploit a situation to your advantage.
Take Thrawn for example, he is always foreseeing what his ennemies are about to do. Force powers? Nil.

She wasn't risking anything other than dignity if Luke foresaw what would happen.
Yes, because people are never mislead by propheies. That's why Anakin is a happy father of two living on Naboo with is wife after quitting the Order. :smallannoyed:

And how else do you get next to Jabba with something that can kill him?
Luke jumping onto the barge with his lightsaber comes to mind, as do Lando as an infiltrated guard.

Would they have gotten out without Luke showing up? If he had never shown up, why wouldn't Vader have taken them to his ship? Vader sent them off with Lando because Vader was going to go deal with Luke. Without Luke coming, odds are they remain in the hands of Vader.
From Luke's POV, they all survived, and he didn't fall. Yoda's major concern was that Luke would fall. He didn't, so Yoda's concerns were wrong.
Those together means it is far from a complete failure.

Vader wasn't guarding them in person, Lando could have broken them out the smae way he did in the movie.
None of that was Luke's doing.

By the way Vader's trap, another great example of Force visions screwing you over.

But making that shot was attributed to the force, and Leia and Chewie absolutely agreed with that.
And? That the Force allow you to make great shots does not

They weren't trusting a great pilot, they were trusting their friend, the budding Jedi with clear force powers.
Again that the force gave him uncanny flying ability doesn't mean that he gives him perfect foresight. Especially since anyone with the slightest understanding of Galactic History would know that the Jedi can definitely be taken by surprise on account on them being pretty much all dead.

And since the point of Vader's trap was to get Luke to turn, throwing himself down the shaft whether he thought he would live or not is evading that trap.
No, he is trading one terrible outcome for a slighly better outcome. That is death rather than conversion. You know how else he could have avoided that trap? By not springing it in the first place.

Same reason Bail Organa didn't think he could keep a secret.
No reason, then? Bail did not know 3PO in the slightest.
What was even 3PO's part in the plan anyway? He didn't contribute to anything.

The rest of the movie he was facing off against other powerful force users. If both are seeing the future, both are going to be adjusting to it. Neither sees it correctly at that point.
No, see; either you are seeing the future or you are seeing a possibility. The future is always the same whatever you do. Every single vision and prediction in SW has come to pass because they show the future, ie "what will happen" not "what may happen". (Well except for those that show the past or the present, but you get my meaning)
Also visions in SW are contextless flashes (Padmée's death, Vader torturing Han) not detailed description of everything that is going to happen.

And most people haven't explored the EU, so it doesn't matter. The writing of most of it is pretty inconsistent, with maybe 1 in 5 books being worthwhile and actually doing the characters correctly. So the next opportunity would be the Last Jedi. He clearly saw enough in that to figure out what needed to be done to save the Resistance.
That was a fairly straightorward situation, all the Resistance needed and no-one needs Force Powers to guess how Ben would react to seeing him.
Notice how that plans didn't involve multiple people putting themselves at risk for no clear advantage and doesn't require him to know exactly what everybody will be doing at any given moment?

He wanted the Senate dissolved regardless of the Death Star. he was older and cocky.
Yet he waited (23 years) for the Death Star's completion and Tarkin explicitly linked it to the dissolution.

Darth Maul wasn't his end game for an apprentice, Vader was. He certainly couldn't have run the Seperatists, so Palpatine had to ditch him and get Dooku at some point.
Which means that Maul should have been killed by either Sidious or Dooku. That's the entire point of the Rule of Two: one Sith proving their superiority over their predecessor. Like It went for Sidous himself (murdering Plagueis) as well as Vader (beating Dooku) and was supposed to go for Luke (beating Vader).

As far as we know, losing Darth Maul was absolutely part of the plan, because what good would Darth Maul be in AotC?
What would be the point of the Jedi killing him? And by your logic how could Sidious have foreseen it but not Maul or Qui-Gon? What is the point of the Jedi being informed of the Sith's continued existence ten years before his armies were ready?

Why do you think mistakes led to the creation of a Rebellion? Seems more like he didn't care about a Rebellion
He cared so little about rebellions that he ordered a planet overkilling weapon to nip them in the bud?
The entire point of being a dictator is forcing people to obey you. Of course he cares about rebellions.

because what could he have done to avert it? Not been the Emperor?
Have Mon Mothma and the Organas shot. Order the Death Star's exhaust port to be proton torpedo-proofed. In Legends not actually orchestrating the foundation the Alliance.
You know things that someone who can see the future he great details could do.

Killing the last of the Jedi was Vader's job, not his.
Are you serious? He has been wanting to have the Jedi killed since before Vader was even born, they are a threat to his rule, they are the perennial ennemy of his Order. He is the one who engineered the destruction of the order.

This is the only reason I commented in the first place. A bunch of people have been saying it wasn't the plan, or that it was like plan D. No, there was never a thought that Lando could rescue Han, then when that didn't work they would negotiate, and when that didn't work maybe Leia could bust them out, then it finally falls on Luke. What happens was the plan from the beginning, and every other bit of it was to get people in position.
So you agree that the plan was stupid, you just try to justify it by claiming Luke has the most Over-Powered ability ever? ...
Or do you not see how a plan to rescue one person that starts with having three others captured is fundamentally flawed?

A competent writer will then explore these "What if" scenarios with an open mind, considering the ramifications of the setup they chose as the premise, and then develope the story LOGICALLY.

That's how Science Fiction, at its core, works.
No, that's how some SF works.
War of the Worlds is not about "what would be like to fight aliens" it's about "What imperialism is like from the point of view of the natives", 1984,Farenheit 451 and Brave New World are not about how different inventions might affect the world they are about totalitarianism, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus isnot about creating life it is about a deadbeat father, and so on and so forth.

Not prejudice, not racism. If someone calls me a spic, that is not prejudice. If they say "Hey, what's your name? Jose? Juan Carlos? Come here Pepe!", that is not prejudice. If someone says to me "you are lazy because you're a spic" that is prejudice. If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you just because you're a woman of color" that's not racism. If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you because people of color aren't worthy of acting in blockbuster movies" that is racism.
Yes it is, on all three acounts:
"If someone calls me a spic" not sure what a spic even is but by the context it looks like a nickname for an ethnic background. Equating people with their ethnic background is inherently bigoted. That's why racial slurs are not tolerated anymore.
"If they say "Hey, what's your name? Jose? Juan Carlos? Come here Pepe!", that is not prejudice." Yes it is. becausethat implies that all spanish names are interchangeable. And thus denigrates the culture. It isn't as bad as manyof the expressions of bigotry, but it remains an exemple of ordinary racism, and as such should be fought.
"If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you just because you're a woman of color" that's not racism."
However that statement simply isn't true. That have to make you think, why are people thinking that she wasn't cast for her acting abilities when there are clearly many other women of color and she played the character extremely well (independently of how poorly it was written) and most importantly, why are people bothered that a franchise that has been almost completely dominated by white men is now taking steps towards greater inclusion?

Tell me, do you think the people who decided to nickname vice-admiral Holdo "Admiral Gender Studies" based on her dyed hair are not bigoted?

Mightymosy

2018-06-14, 02:10 PM

It really bothers me that admitting mistakes has so hugely fallen out of flavour, especially at higher positions.

I blame the development of "corporate speak" for this one, really.

When I grew up, my grandma told me to admit mistakes, to stand up for what I did.
And when other people do this? I usually am much more sympathetic towards them.
Don't tell the people who work under my command, but saying "Sorry boss, I know I screwed up. I'll do better next time" will let people get away with most stuff without serious consequences.

But this is not the way most people work these days, and it drives me nuts, actually.

If Disney/Johnson/Kennedy took the time and said -ONE TIME- "Hey, sorry, we know some stuff about the movie was not optimal, but we tried really hard, and are there not also a lot of cool stuff you can enjoy? Look, the visuals, the music, all is very fine. Maybe we made a couple logical errors, and maybe the continuity wasn't alright in all cases, and maybe we should have treated Luke nicer in hindsight, but the important thing to remember is: it seemed like a great idea at the time! And look, at least we did something BETTER than the original movies and the prequels: we at least managed to hand a lightsaber to a woman, and doesn't she look cool wielding it?"

We would be having A MUCH DIFFERENT discussion, at least as far as I am concerned.

Instead, we get "This movie is perfect. Anything who feels otherwise is a racist bigot at worst and a backwards fanboy at best." (paraphrased)

Or did I miss something? Did Johnson admit even one flaw with the movie?

ETA:
People, better not talk about racism or gender agendas!
The mods already shut down that other thread I had started to specifically talk about that topic!

Darth Credence

2018-06-14, 02:35 PM

So you agree that the plan was stupid, you just try to justify it by claiming Luke has the most Over-Powered ability ever? ...
Or do you not see how a plan to rescue one person that starts with having three others captured is fundamentally flawed?

I think that we are not communicating here. I never said it was a good plan. I was arguing with the people who claimed that what happened was actually the back up to the back up. Someone called it plan D, where plan A was Lando, plan B was negotiating, plan C was Leia breaking them out. My point was that the entire plan was always to move people into position for the battle we actually saw. If I had written the movie, I certainly wouldn't have written it that way. And I'm pretty confidant that that was Lucas' intention in the movie, too.

Dr.Samurai

2018-06-14, 02:39 PM

Yes it is, on all three acounts:
No it isn't.

"If someone calls me a spic" not sure what a spic even is but by the context it looks like a nickname for an ethnic background. Equating people with their ethnic background is inherently bigoted. That's why racial slurs are not tolerated anymore.
Where is the prejudice? Please demonstrate to me the prejudice.

"If they say "Hey, what's your name? Jose? Juan Carlos? Come here Pepe!", that is not prejudice." Yes it is. becausethat implies that all spanish names are interchangeable.
No it doesn't. It's a guess at the name due to ethnicity/culture. Where is the prejudice? Explain the actual prejudice to me.

And thus denigrates the culture.
Making a guess at someone's name based on the common names in their culture is not denigrating the culture. You can be unpleasant or mean or ill-spirited without being racist and prejudiced.

"If someone says "they shouldn't have cast you just because you're a woman of color" that's not racism."
However that statement simply isn't true.
The claim doesn't need to be true. I'm showing the difference between an actual racist comment and a comment that you don't agree with that mentions race but isn't actually racist.

That have to make you think, why are people thinking that she wasn't cast for her acting abilities when there are clearly many other women of color and she played the character extremely well (independently of how poorly it was written) and most importantly, why are people bothered that a franchise that has been almost completely dominated by white men is now taking steps towards greater inclusion?

Because look at the movies we're getting. You see... they worry that the diversity agenda will spoil the movie, because the people behind it have little restraint or tact. And they are validated when we get something like TLJ. There is a fear or anxiety ahead of the movie, that is confirmed when the movie comes out and it's terrible.

Tell me, do you think the people who decided to nickname vice-admiral Holdo "Admiral Gender Studies" based on her dyed hair are not bigoted?
I don't know if they are or aren't (and neither do you), but I can see why she would get that nickname. The stereotype of women with dyed hair is pretty obvious, and Holdo is there to tear down our hot headed male action hero. The plots are confused, I think we can all agree. Poe's actions seem sensible and justified as they happen, but later we're told that they weren't and he is punished for acting like a hero. And he's punished by a purple-haired woman that doesn't want to let him speak. Was this done purposely to send a message or rile people up? Probably not. But if you're already on the lookout for stuff like this, how much clearer of an example do you need to confirm your fears??

Fyraltari

2018-06-14, 02:47 PM

The quotes don't matter in this context, I'm speaking to your greater skepticism here. That said, maybe I can be clearer.

It's trivial to see how someone concerned that an agenda is taking over the new Star Wars franchise, can blame said agenda for bad movies, given what we've seen in the media surrounding the movies themselves, the quotes from various people involved at high levels, and the actual movies themselves. They lack confidence in the ability of these people to make a good movie because they think they're priorities are elsewhere. And when you get things like all the men being failures, Holdo, distracting side quests about war profiteering and animal cruelty, and the plot and characters seemingly warped to fit this stuff in, it's plain as day how these people might think the agenda is the problem.

It's like you want to simultaneously demonize these people while giving them more credit than they deserve. These people are going to notice that Finn gets laid out by Rey, Poe gets laid out by Leia, Finn gets laid out by Rose, Luke gets laid out by Rey, etc. This is confirmation for them. Poe is getting cut down by a purple haired woman for being a cool action guy? Confirmation. The Force is Female? Confirmation. Headlines like "Racists hate the new Star Wars"? Confirmation. And so on and so forth.

Where are we missing each other here?
Okay,I get your point.
The thing is, it looks like people are criticizing the movie for giving women a larger role before they even see the movie. It happened to TFA, RO and TLJ butit goes beyond Star Wars, it happened/is happening to Ghostbuste, Mad Max: Fury Road, Ocean's 8 and Doctor Who.

There is, right now, a real current of antifeminism and queerphobia over many parts of the internet (which is where most of geek pop culture is happening) and it doesn't help that geek culture has long been (and in many ways still is) a "no girls allowed" thing. Is the SW fandom worse in that regard than other fandoms. Hell no, but it is much larger and has existed for much longer therefore is much more visible (and weirdly polarizing). So when trolls and bigots start using it for their abuse it irks many people off.

Anyway, really, the question of wether or not the people hurling abuse at Kelly Mary Tran arebigots or trolls is sort of besides the point. You can never know what a person feels deep down, but even if they are not racists/misogynist, by using bigoted attacks they normalize them and as such empower that kind of discourse.

Beides they are hurling abuse at a person. That is really what's important there, everything else is secondary.

Also
The Force is Female
Okay, that looks like a dumb fashion ad campaign. I've seen worse.

It really bothers me that admitting mistakes has so hugely fallen out of flavour, especially at higher positions.

I blame the development of "corporate speak" for this one, really.
What, studios where more upfront about their failures before?
:smallconfused:

Fyraltari

2018-06-14, 03:12 PM

No it isn't.

Where is the prejudice? Please demonstrate to me the prejudice.
Equating people with their background is denying them their individuality. It implies that their ethnicity is the only (or at least main) important thing about them. People have names. Use them.

No it doesn't. It's a guess at the name due to ethnicity/culture. Where is the prejudice? Explain the actual prejudice to me.
I mean the excalamtion mark at the end makes it look like the speaker settles with a name rather than actually ask. But really "guessing" someone's name based on their ethnecity only makes sense if
1) You think pretty much all member of that ethnicity are called Pepe. Which would indicate that you think of them as interchangeable. Or simply really have never cared enough about that culture to realize what should be blindingly obvious: it has many more names than you can list.
2) You simply don't have enough respect for the person to ask them what their own bloody name is. Else why would you not ask?

Making a guess at someone's name based on the common names in their culture is not denigrating the culture. You can be unpleasant or mean or ill-spirited without being racist and prejudiced.
And you can be racist and prejudiced without being mean or ill-spirited. You can even be a racist while being very nice. That's called ordinary racism and it still is wrong.

The claim doesn't need to be true. I'm showing the difference between an actual racist comment and a comment that you don't agree with that mentions race but isn't actually racist.
But why do you think they are reaching that conclusion?

Because look at the movies we're getting. You see... they worry that the diversity agenda will spoil the movie, because the people behind it have little restraint or tact. And they are validated when we get something like TLJ. There is a fear or anxiety ahead of the movie, that is confirmed when the movie comes out and it's terrible.
Yes, let's look at the movies we get: Mad Max: Fury Road? Amazing, TFA/TLJ? mediocre at worst, Wonder Woman? Great. Rogue One? Excellent. And that's only focusing on the women representation issue, rather than on the non-white representation (and limiting one-self tolive-action movies). Most movies today still have white male leads and most of the movies that don't are actually good.
I am far more worried about the navel-gazing nostalgia and increasing monopoly in the industry today than the increased representation.

I don't know if they are or aren't (and neither do you), but I can see why she would get that nickname. The stereotype of women with dyed hair is pretty obvious, and Holdo is there to tear down our hot headed male action hero. The plots are confused, I think we can all agree. Poe's actions seem sensible and justified as they happen, but later we're told that they weren't and he is punished for acting like a hero. And he's punished by a purple-haired woman that doesn't want to let him speak. Was this done purposely to send a message or rile people up? Probably not. But if you're already on the lookout for stuff like this, how much clearer of an example do you need to confirm your fears??
So maybe the correct attitude here is don't be "on the look-out for stuff like this"?
If they'd nicknamed her "Admiral Dumbass" I wouldn't have a problem with it. But they chose to use a stereotype that attack people that don't conform to the norm. Why? Not my problem, but they are still perpetuating a stereotype that attacks people for the crime of *shock* dying their hair *shock* (and that's the lenient interpretation). That is a troublesome issue.

lord_khaine

2018-06-14, 06:04 PM

Well.. making a ****ty movie does not really excuse any sort of abuse except perhaps calling the director a ****ty director.

But finding a few trolls does not sweep away all the legit criticism countless people are directing towards the movies.
I also think the more they try to absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming everything on people opposing change, the more they damage the Star Wars Brand.

Lethologica

2018-06-14, 06:23 PM

That's not necessarily true though, and I don't think anyone here has demonstrated that outside of baseless accusations that the reason people are giving for the movie being ruined is that it contains women and people of color. And even if you were to quote someone on the internet saying that, you'd then have to link them to the abuse Kelly received on Twitter. Things aren't true just because they are spoken out loud.

No it's not. It's not because people are casting you, and I think you know that. It's more like... people are more interested in casting the right people and sending the right message, that they fail to develop a proper story and plot, and the movie fails because of it. There's a suspicion of priorities and an expectation of sacrifice in quality for "the greater good" agenda.

Now you're kind of getting it. Except to be clear, the assumption isn't because of race or gender, it's because of the agenda. The perception that these people have is that the agenda is priority and thus not only will other parts suffer for it, but the people creating it can ride off the coattails of the agenda even if the movie isn't that good; the movie doesn't have to be good, but people will like it anyways because it's "diverse".

TO BE CLEAR I'm not agreeing with any of this. But it's plain to see how someone that thinks these things could see confirmation in all the hype around this movie, all the backlash against the fans, how terrible the movie was, all the spin after the fact, etc.
The agenda to cast the 'right look' and market the movie by featuring the 'right look' and ride the coattails of the 'right look' existed for every damn movie "these people" ever watched, including every terrible movie they ever watched. The 'right look' is no more making other parts of the movie suffer in this case than with any other movie. The only thing that's different is that more movies think the 'right look' involves a female or minority on the cover, and this has been so uncommon up to now that people have the gall to be excited about it. And that's also when the knives come out for this agenda--by sheer coincidence, I guess.

The quotes don't matter in this context, I'm speaking to your greater skepticism here. That said, maybe I can be clearer.

It's trivial to see how someone concerned that an agenda is taking over the new Star Wars franchise, can blame said agenda for bad movies, given what we've seen in the media surrounding the movies themselves, the quotes from various people involved at high levels, and the actual movies themselves. They lack confidence in the ability of these people to make a good movie because they think they're priorities are elsewhere. And when you get things like all the men being failures, Holdo, distracting side quests about war profiteering and animal cruelty, and the plot and characters seemingly warped to fit this stuff in, it's plain as day how these people might think the agenda is the problem.

It's like you want to simultaneously demonize these people while giving them more credit than they deserve. These people are going to notice that Finn gets laid out by Rey, Poe gets laid out by Leia, Finn gets laid out by Rose, Luke gets laid out by Rey, etc. This is confirmation for them. Poe is getting cut down by a purple haired woman for being a cool action guy? Confirmation. The Force is Female? Confirmation. Headlines like "Racists hate the new Star Wars"? Confirmation. And so on and so forth.

Where are we missing each other here?
Uh, yeah, I'm under no illusions that people will confirm their prejudices at every opportunity. And maybe they're seeing headlines like "Racists hate the new Star Wars" because of all the race- and gender-based abuse being hurled at the actors. The abuse precedes the headlines about the abuse, you know. Hell, a fair fraction of the abuse precedes the movie's release. Imitate racism and sexism anonymously, act shocked when it's treated as racism and sexism - what a conundrum!

Mechalich

2018-06-14, 06:46 PM

If Disney/Johnson/Kennedy took the time and said -ONE TIME- "Hey, sorry, we know some stuff about the movie was not optimal, but we tried really hard, and are there not also a lot of cool stuff you can enjoy? Look, the visuals, the music, all is very fine. Maybe we made a couple logical errors, and maybe the continuity wasn't alright in all cases, and maybe we should have treated Luke nicer in hindsight, but the important thing to remember is: it seemed like a great idea at the time! And look, at least we did something BETTER than the original movies and the prequels: we at least managed to hand a lightsaber to a woman, and doesn't she look cool wielding it?"

We would be having A MUCH DIFFERENT discussion, at least as far as I am concerned.

Instead, we get "This movie is perfect. Anything who feels otherwise is a racist bigot at worst and a backwards fanboy at best." (paraphrased)

Or did I miss something? Did Johnson admit even one flaw with the movie?

Disney/Lucasfilm has handled their relations with the collective Star Wars fandom very badly more or less from day one. Example: from literally the minute Disney's purchase and intent to produce new films was announced the question that rocketed around the fandom was 'what does this mean for the EU?' It was a blatantly obvious question that had huge significance to tens or hundreds of thousands of the most devoted fans of the franchise. No answer came out for months. Even now, Lucasfilm continues to play coy about the canonicity of SWTOR (which exists before and after the 'produced by' date they ultimately imposed as a cutoff between Legends and new canon material) even though it is responsible for millions in revenue each year.

When the backlash to TLJ emerged, Disney completely failed to address it or get ahead of it in any way. Instead they allowed various persons and groups on the internet to color the backlash with a highly political and extremely divisive gloss. Even if the official response didn't encourage the 'all the haters are racist and sexist' and 'it's become a SJW project' camps they completely failed to mitigate it and allowed the fandom to fracture across the more bitter and anger inducing issue on the entire internet. The level of public relations idiocy involved in allowing that to happen - especially when whatever a person thinks of the identity politics issues surrounding TLJ the primary problem clearly comes down to simple character and storytelling principles - is staggering.

It's strange to me that a company with so much experience in management of fandom - Marvel, Disney Princesses, Pixar, etc. - should so completely fail to understand how Star Wars fans understood their franchise. The fact that Kathleen Kennedy and the other managers would replace the directors for Solo most of the way through production and yank Colin Trevorow from Episode IX simply because Book of Henry was some kind of abomination but completely failed to understand how allowing Rian Johnson to produce a full bore deconstruction of the themes and characters of a franchise that many fans have carried with them their entire lives would blow up in their face is simply incomprehensible to me.

Mightymosy

2018-06-15, 01:13 AM

[...]
No, that's how some SF works.
War of the Worlds is not about "what would be like to fight aliens" it's about "What imperialism is like from the point of view of the natives", 1984,Farenheit 451 and Brave New World are not about how different inventions might affect the world they are about totalitarianism, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus isnot about creating life it is about a deadbeat father, and so on and so forth.
[...]

Which is a good argument against calling these "Science Fiction".

Sciene Fiction means "fiction that explores the possibities, opportunities and dangers that new science revelations open up".

I don't remember War of the Worlds do that (although you may know more, I only watched the movie)
What was the new science invention in Fahrenheit? I only remember there being a facist society burning all books, so maybe give me a refresher what science played a role?

A Brave New World, though, is right Science Fiction: What happens if we can breed humans from eggs and plan what abilities they have.
And guess what? That book is way less rigorous about sending some moral message. Many consider it dystopia, and it certainly has dystopic elements in it - scenes and arcs that show the dangers of the science explored - but it is not only that. It let's things play out naturally, and as logically as the author managed to think about stuff. As a result, I really didn't feel force-feed some stupid moral message when I read it. There were certainly some high points, and in the end I questioned myself about said technic, and weighed the pros and cons - because the author took the time to actually show benefits as well.

Lethologica

2018-06-15, 02:20 AM

Zalabim

2018-06-15, 03:06 AM

Mechalich

2018-06-15, 05:49 AM

Star Wars is not speculative. It's a classical epic that happens to be set in a fantastical space setting. Its story is so blatantly archetypal Lucas got away with just using the archetypes straight up as names. The Rebellion. The Empire. The Chosen One. Luke Skywalker's character follows the beats of the hero's journey so blatantly that they put pictures of Mark Hamill on certain editions of The Hero with a Thousand Faces (seriously (https://web.archive.org/web/20080908075820/http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/234.html)), and Lucas has been extremely open about Campbell's influence on the franchise from the very beginning.

Star Wars is not working in the tradition of speculative science fiction to examine ideas, or the possibilities of technological change, or any features typical of the genre. It is a fantasy epic that has more in common with Beowulf than it does Frankenstein or Brave New World. It relies on tropes and themes that are as old as storytelling itself. 'A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away' doesn't bracket the opening for no reason.

The Last Jedi, for what its worth, recognizes this fully. It's not a deconstruction of a piece of speculative fiction, it's a deconstruction of the heroic epic. That's why is emphasizes failure, punishes confidence, refuses to differentiate between good and evil, and rejects sacrifice - though it completely fails to manage any consistency on that last front (a movie that has an explicitly anti-sacrifice speech contains no less than three heroic sacrifices, by Holdo, Luke, and Rose's sister). This lack of consistency is not surprising, since you can't actually make a story out of nothing but rejection of what that story actually is, and being as it was Episode 8, there was no way to build the actual story around something else like you would in a proper subversion of the epic. Also, you can't just deconstruct a story in the starting in part 8 out of 9. That's like taking a TV series, running it straight for seven episodes, and then showing in a parody episode with no explanation in the eighth week. And Lucasfilm compounded the issue by refusing to explain themselves afterwards.

Mightymosy

2018-06-15, 06:13 AM

Thats my main gripe.

Call it "Battle of the Suns" and it is an okay deconstruction.

But it just is not EPISODE 8, only in name.

Maybe guy is good at directing one-shot subversion movies, or radically new visions and ideas.
But he lacks the decency (or humility? tough to say) to JUST WRITE A SEQUEL. A sequel requires consistency with what was before.

Devonix

2018-06-15, 07:49 AM

Man, whatever point you're trying to make, it's severely undermined by all these semantic games about whether Frankenstein of all novels counts as science fiction, or whether Brave New World of all novels is thoroughly dystopian. I don't think those are winnable arguments, but regardless, they're overwhelming distractions from the original point, which seemed to be something about the ubiquity of messaging in literature.

Also, frankly, I think some science fiction readers treat the methodology of speculation much more religiously and exclusively than any science fiction writer does.

Wait Wait Wait. You're Questioning if Frankenstein is a Science Fiction Novel? FRANKENSTIEN IS THE SCIFI NOVEL.

As in Frankenstein is considered the book that created the genre called Scifi.

Re-read the post and sorry, It's Mytymosity saying that it might not be Scifi. I saw that and my mind flipped, up was down, left was right.

As for the discussion about Seeing the Future and the Force.

We can't assume that all characters with the force are getting visions about it all the time and using it in all of their plans. If so, then none of the characters would be making any actual decisions.

Mightymosy

2018-06-15, 08:25 AM

Before things get out of control: I was not talking about Frankenstein. I didn't read that one, so not qualified and no interest in discussing whether SciFi or not.

I was responding to the statement that some books don't meet the definition I gave for SciFi, to which my response was that this would be a good argument for these books in fact not being ScFi.

(Although, to be fair, books can be many things at once. Sometimes the lines blur)

But lets get back to the actual topic, as someone suggested earlier

Saintheart

2018-06-15, 09:25 AM

Well, on that note, here's my couple of cents worth:

Disney picked a writer and director who simply had not mastered the form of the standard three-act structure. This was their first and biggest mistake. Rian Johnson served as both writer and director, and for all the way the PR speak claim him as "visionary" and "the guy who brought us Looper", when you review his film history he is a 50/50 for outright financial film failures. I'm not talking "brought in two dollars to every one spent versus the industry standard of three to one to break even", I'm talking half his films didn't even make back what they spent on the budget. And those that did in part because the budgets were literally less than a million dollars in each case, which says more about mendacious production values than it does efficient filmmaking. And even then he still had failures. May? $150 grand box office take, cost $500 grand to make. Brick? $450 grand to make again, took $3.9 million. Brothers Bloom? $20 million budget, made $5.5 million at the box office. Looper? $150 million on a $30 million budget, although I looked at that film and immediately thought "Oh, so he's plagiarising M. Night Shylaman's fixed camera positions and long takes in which horrible things happen. No wonder Bruce Willis starred in this one."

I query whether it was terribly wise to pick a director and writer who, based on his history, had literally a 50/50 chance of abject financial failure. You can razz Ridley Scott all you like for his more recent output, but I think he said to Vulture what a lot of directors and people around Hollywood were thinking at the time Johnson was given TLJ: what the hell are you doing? Okay, film has been decimated such that we either make tiny, crappy movies on a shoestring budget or we make tentpole primary-colours stuff like Avengers with no budgets in between on which newbie directors can become journeymen, but in what world is it smart to take a guy who's never had to handle a budget bigger than $30 million and give him almost ten times that amount to handle, finance, and utilise?

Johnson gives me the distinct impression he was overwhelmed with the scale of the project, that he really couldn't hear the rhythm for the drums. In one interview he said Kelly Tran (who played the forgettable token Asian character) actually spent more time than Johnson did looking into and understanding pretty much every department in the production. That's a bad, bad sign to me, one that tells me the guy didn't have a full handle on the production. If you go by Hollywood's popular suggestions, a director is meant to be in control of everything on a film. That's why his name is on it. It doesn't mean he has to go into every department every day, but if one of your near-extra actors on the film has been in more production departments than you, there is something seriously wrong.

We know from the interviews afterward the Johnson said his original concept, this concept, was the one that was pitched to Kennedy and the rest of the empty suits and which was accepted with arms wide open. He indicates in one interview (the one in which the egregious "We have to think of the fans? No, we have to think of the story" remark is made, the one where Mark Hamill looks like he's taken a shiv to the soul) that most of his first draft was accepted and run with. Also a bad sign. Show me someone who claims they're great in first draft and I'll show you someone who has a good shredder hidden in his back room. You can stone-soup a script out of existence, sure (witness the power and singular vision of Spielberg's Jaws against the committee-written and committee-driven, and excremental, Jaws 2) but this says to me that nobody with sufficient power was inclined to even say something like "...alien breast milk scene? Really?"

As for the script itself:

As a foreword, I look at it through the Robert McKee lens, which is to say, TLJ fails monumentally because it doesn't represent how conflict works in film and to some extent in our daily lives. The general, simplest building block of plot in film is a character taking an action with the intent of solving a problem, followed by a reaction from the world which the character did not expect, which prompts the character to devote more resources to solving the problem, which triggers an even greater and reaction the hero does not expect from the world, and so forth until we reach the climax of the film and its denouement. Added to that is that in general, people do not take more than the most conservative action as it appears to them at that time to solve a problem they are confronted with - and character development comes from the fact that, as the world of the story responds and the forces against him grow in magnitude and number, the character's most conservative action as it appears to them changes and grows in energies committed. Plot twists draw their power not from the fact they turn the previous story on its head, they draw from the fact they are transformative of all that has already gone before.

For example, perhaps the most powerful plot twist that Star Wars has ever been able to come up with, the one twist that assured the series' continuation: the revelation that Vader is Luke's father. The scene goes:

[Darth Vader has just cut off Luke's right hand, which has his lightsaber]
Vader: There is no escape! Don't make me destroy you. Luke, you do not yet realize your importance. You've only begun to discover your power! Join me, and I will complete your training! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy.
Luke: [angrily] I'll never join you!
Vader: If only you knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Vader: No. I am your father.
Luke: [shocked] No. No! That's not true! That's impossible!
Vader: Search your feelings; you know it to be true!
Luke: NOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOO!!!
Vader: Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny! Join me, and together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son! Come with me. It is the only way. [Luke lets go of the projection and falls into the shaft]

When you analyse how this scene goes for both characters -- how they seek to achieve something, encounter resistance they didn't expect, and respond by committing more resources to it -- we can see this pattern of action and unexpected response from the world. And we need not focus on Luke's actions and reactions here, focus on Vader's instead: Vader right before this moment has been nicked by Luke, and snarls in anger, batting Luke's saber aside and cutting his hand off. In this, Vader has behaved in a way he (Vader) didn't expect (it is possible for a character to react to his own actions, after all). So his first line is to query why Luke goes on fighting like this, begs him not to make him hurt him more, and then tries to help him. Luke is not tempted by this offer, which surprises Vader because it's the sort of offer that he responded to, and Luke is his son. Vader then desperately tries to convince Luke of the power of the Dark Side, and then guesses that Luke was never told anything about his father. Luke says something Vader doesn't expect: that Obi-Wan claimed Vader killed Luke's father. Vader then - in surprise as much as an attempt to bring him over - reveals he's Luke's father. And the rest of the scene plays out as it does.

On Luke's side, of course, the revelation that Vader is his father is transformative - to him, and to the audience. All those hints from earlier in the film now serve double duty: the glimpse of Vader without his helmet by Admiral Piett is not just for a cheap bit of body horror, it was to show us that there's a mortal man, a father, inside the suit. And the revelation transforms every scene across two films - between Vader and Obi-Wan, and Luke and Obi-Wan. But where the plot twist draws its power from is from the gap between what a character expects the world's response to be and what the world's response actually is. This reflects our experience in life because often when we apply energy to a problem, it doesn't solve the problem, and often makes things worse (witness most of my attempts to fix my own car, for example).

I go through all of that because when you look at a lot of the interactions between characters in TLJ, it seems to be that Johnson doesn't quite get this dynamic. The simplest way this manifests is the most common complaint on TLJ, which is that it throws plot twists in for the hell of it, it subverts expectations to no purpose. This is part of why it feels like a stranger in the wider saga - because its plot twists do not fully acknowledge or contemplate the reaction of the world to a particular character's action. To wit: characters behave in a manner that seems wholly out of character because the writer does not understand what that character's minimum conservative action in those circumstances is ... partially because Johnson started writing TLJ before TFA was finished. Johnson doesn't seem to understand the characters as we do because - in a real sense - he doesn't. We saw them on screen, we were given a picture of how they were going to behave in any situation by JJ Abrams (albeit, not a great picture, but that's another story.)

But the deeper manifestation of this problem can be seen in some of the interactions between some of the characters. If the character is not Poe, Finn, or Rey, the people they interact with are more like passive combination locks, with no agenda of their own, in that they don't seem to react to all of Poe, Finn, or Rey's actions in their own ways. Holdo (and DJ) are more like the mythical sphinx to whom the correct answer must be given to their riddle or else the hero just doesn't move forward.

Again, the most potent manifestation of this problem lies in one of the most obvious plot holes of the story: why Holdo just didn't take Poe to one side and tell him "Because I have another plan in mind" when he begged her to tell him what the reason was for her stupid-looking decisions. Poe, by the fact he's asking the same things we're asking, is meant to represent the rest of the crew. Was that the minimum-effort thing for Holdo to do at that moment? Maybe, but because her character has not been adroitly revealed to us, we have no idea what her reaction is likely to be. And therefore she comes across as the one-note, incompetent commander stereotype that Johnson wants to (and fails to) subvert later on when a massive, Kudzu plot to save the Resistance is revealed. Literally one line and the entire attempted mutiny, the entire Rose and Finn subplot, is averted. And "for want of a nail" as an argument is kind of cute and all, but in this context, it doesn't work because we don't see how Holdo's action is what she views as the minimum-effort choice under those circumstances. She is just intended as a sort of Scheherezade "Just trust me and I'll tell you how it's going to turn out later", but the attempt is not competently done ... because Johnson knows how to draw graffiti all over plot, but he doesn't have an actual sense of how it works.