Last Jedi: Throne Room Fight Choreography

[Obscuraphile]

Okay, so it might be my interest in actual fighting style and HEMA blah blah blah, but I absolutely hated the throne room fight in Last Jedi. I didn't really care for the movie as a whole but that's really neither here nor there for this issue.

I thought that the weapons and the style of the red guard were badass as all hell, and I really didn't mind that the fight was lacking in flashy force nonsense. But... ugh. The spinning and the three on one lets all attack the same angle and the complete uselessness of any armor apart from that one dude's bracers. Could they not write the fight in a believable way?

I mean the big dramatic moment at the end when its 1v1 Rey and 1v1 Kylo, Rey's opponent actually has his second weapon completely disappear, then she inexplicably slips out of that weird armlock type hold that he has her in (while doing nothing with his other hand) just by dropping her blade, and doesn't get her face sliced, then throws to Kylo whose opponent does nothing to make him miss the catch despite literally having him in a choke hold.

And don't get me started on the death by Cuisinart. :smallannoyed:

If you liked the fight choreography of this scene please tell me why because I just am not seeing it.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Okay, so it might be my interest in actual fighting style and HEMA blah blah blah, but I absolutely hated the throne room fight in Last Jedi. I didn't really care for the movie as a whole but that's really neither here nor there for this issue.

I thought that the weapons and the style of the red guard were badass as all hell, and I really didn't mind that the fight was lacking in flashy force nonsense. But... ugh. The spinning and the three on one lets all attack the same angle and the complete uselessness of any armor apart from that one dude's bracers. Could they not write the fight in a believable way?

I mean the big dramatic moment at the end when its 1v1 Rey and 1v1 Kylo, Rey's opponent actually has his second weapon completely disappear, then she inexplicably slips out of that weird armlock type hold that he has her in (while doing nothing with his other hand) just by dropping her blade, and doesn't get her face sliced, then throws to Kylo whose opponent does nothing to make him miss the catch despite literally having him in a choke hold.

And don't get me started on the death by Cuisinart. :smallannoyed:

If you liked the fight choreography of this scene please tell me why because I just am not seeing it.

A believable fight does not automatically equate to a fun fight. Given the choice between the two of them, I'll take 'fun' over 'realistic/believable' every day of the week.

The Throne Room battle just drips with style and awesome and that's really all I wanted from it!

[Obscuraphile]

It doesn't strike you as hollow in parts?

I'm not saying it has to be super realistic and accurate I'm just asking that we not have a guy stand up 30 seconds into the fight as if he was waiting for the camera to pan over to him. Or if you want to disable a duel-wielder's second weapon, have Rey chop his arm off. That would bolster both characters' badassery. Rey is thinking tactically and able to pull off such a maneuver and her opponent is such a hard motha****a that he can still almost kill her with only one arm.

[Callos_DeTerran]

It doesn't strike you as hollow in parts?

I'm not saying it has to be super realistic and accurate I'm just asking that we not have a guy stand up 30 seconds into the fight as if he was waiting for the camera to pan over to him. Or if you want to disable a duel-wielder's second weapon, have Rey chop his arm off. That would bolster both characters' badassery. Rey is thinking tactically and able to pull off such a maneuver and her opponent is such a hard motha****a that he can still almost kill her with only one arm.

No, not really.

That's never a statement I've understood. How are you supposed to measure if something feels hollow or without passion? What kind of thing do you look for to determine that kind of thing and what distinguishes it from nit-picking and over attention to detail?

As for your specific example though, that would have raised the PG-13 rating of the movie REAL fast to have a recently one-armed man still trying to fight.

...Not to mention it'd be a bit silly that he got over the shock of losing an arm that fast that it would have been extreme tonal whiplash. :smalltongue:

[warty goblin]

No, not really.

That's never a statement I've understood. How are you supposed to measure if something feels hollow or without passion? What kind of thing do you look for to determine that kind of thing and what distinguishes it from nit-picking and over attention to detail?


I mean potentially knowing who the hell the main characters are fighting might help. Some sort of stakes might also go a ways, but it was utterly obvious that Kylo and Rey were going to win because of course they were. They weren't even fighting to overcome some sort of obstacle on the way to a bigger goal where time mattered or somebody else was in danger or anything, they were just fighting it out with the resident mook population because every mainline Star Wars movie is obligated to have at least one lightsaber fight. And because it wasn't even between major heroes and villains, it was basically equivalent to mowing down battle droids in Episode 1. It struck me even while watching it that it was pretty much the definition of a filler fight scene.

[Obscuraphile]

That's never a statement I've understood. How are you supposed to measure if something feels hollow or without passion? What kind of thing do you look for to determine that kind of thing and what distinguishes it from nit-picking and over attention to detail?

It'd be a bit silly that he got over the shock of losing an arm that fast that it would have been extreme tonal whiplash. :smalltongue:

I don't mean did you feel like the producer/director/actors had a passion for the scene. I mean is it not unsatisfactory for you as a viewer to look at a scene and think either "If they had done that a little differently it would have been cool" or "Well that's lame, the guys with greater numbers aren't acting like a team at all."

That's what I mean by a hard motha****a. It wouldn't be: Rey slices off limb, Beat, Beat, Beat, Oh now I'm going to try and kill you again. Instead it would be: Rey slices off limb, instant one handed arm-lock go for the throat slice.

You raise a good point with the rating, but we've seen people lose body parts in Star Wars before. They could have even used the same angle and never have to show the guy's stump. And the arm could have fallen over the edge so it wouldn't be lying on the ground.


I mean potentially knowing who the hell the main characters are fighting might help. Some sort of stakes might also go a ways, but it was utterly obvious that Kylo and Rey were going to win because of course they were. They weren't even fighting to overcome some sort of obstacle on the way to a bigger goal where time mattered or somebody else was in danger or anything, they were just fighting it out with the resident mook population because every mainline Star Wars movie is obligated to have at least one lightsaber fight. And because it wasn't even between major heroes and villains, it was basically equivalent to mowing down battle droids in Episode 1. It struck me even while watching it that it was pretty much the definition of a filler fight scene.

I don't know if that's fair. Like I said my main complaint was the choreography, but Kylo and Rey's motivations are pretty clear in that scene: Survive. And then it was a duel over who could turn who to which side. Kinda dumb in my opinion but clear. And like I said I found the aesthetics of the new Red Guard pretty cool. Did I think the main characters were in mortal danger with 30 minutes of movie and a sequel left to go? No, but that wasn't my main complaint.

[Brother Oni]

A believable fight does not automatically equate to a fun fight. Given the choice between the two of them, I'll take 'fun' over 'realistic/believable' every day of the week.

While I haven't seen the fight in question, but believability doesn't have to be sacrificed for 'fun' - it very much depends on the quality of the choreography, for example this Adorea longsword duel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn36Pb8z3yI).

The John Wick home invasion scene is an excellent example for more modern fighting (not sure I can link that scene on this forum), as suppressors make pistols quieter but not silent, John shoots to the centre of mass first before going for the head shot, John reloads after every engagement (more dedicated people have counted every discharge and no firearm fires more than their allotted rounds per magazine), and when hand to hand techniques don't go according to plan, you end up in basic brawling (the knife kill at the end).

[Peelee]

A believable fight does not automatically equate to a fun fight.
I agree.

The Throne Room battle just drips with style and awesome
I disagree.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I don't mean did you feel like the producer/director/actors had a passion for the scene. I mean is it not unsatisfactory for you as a viewer to look at a scene and think either "If they had done that a little differently it would have been cool" or "Well that's lame, the guys with greater numbers aren't acting like a team at all."

You raise a good point with the rating, but we've seen people lose body parts in Star Wars before. They could have even used the same angle and never have to show the guy's stump. And the arm could have fallen over the edge so it wouldn't be lying on the ground.

No, not really. That's not the type of thing I think about while I'm watching a movie, its the type of thing I muse over after the movie is done and even then it isn't something that bothers me. You can look at almost any action scene and think 'but if they had done this, it would have been cooler!' but it always has the caveat of 'to <i>me</i>'. And entertainment will never be tailor-crafted for specifically you unless you make it yourself. Even the guys with numbers aren't acting like a team bit, It has to come down to the fight itself and make sense. If Snoke's guard acted like a team it could have been cool, sure, but it also would have dragged the fight on past the point it would have still been fun. That wasn't the climatic moment of the movie and the guards being throne into chaos just a bit because Snoke was just assassinated makes plenty of sense.

You're right but ratings don't really mean what they used to mean. And that's a lot of camera tricks and soft 'censorship' for something that is kind of cool but not necessary.


While I haven't seen the fight in question, but believability doesn't have to be sacrificed for 'fun' - it very much depends on the quality of the choreography, for example this Adorea longsword duel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn36Pb8z3yI).

The John Wick home invasion scene is an excellent example for more modern fighting (not sure I can link that scene on this forum), as suppressors make pistols quieter but not silent, John shoots to the centre of mass first before going for the head shot, John reloads after every engagement (more dedicated people have counted every discharge and no firearm fires more than their allotted rounds per magazine), and when hand to hand techniques don't go according to plan, you end up in basic brawling (the knife kill at the end).

This is very true. You don't have to sacrifice believable for fun and the best fight scenes tend to have a healthy mix of the two and that's why they are the so cool.

To take your example, those are all really good details but for the most part they neither add nor detract from the movie as a whole. The never firing more rounds than the gun has for example is really neat...but that's not what I was thinking when I saw that scene and it never even occurred to me until long after when someone else brought it up. When they did all it did was make me think 'huh, that's neat' but it didn't really make the scene better.

You always want substance and style but if it comes down to having to choose between substance or style, I'll take style every day of the week. Barring a situation where everything else is style and thus substance becomes a style all its own, but that's a different conversation.


I disagree.

That's cool.

[Dr.Samurai]

Most of the lightsaber fights in Star Wars are not that great. The problem with this throne room scene as far as choreography goes is that group fights would never go down that way. You can see the guards running off screen only to return in a more convenient formation/tempo for the heroes. In reality, you'd be fighting one or two while the others are lurking near you waiting to strike you when you're open. And you will be open, because you're fighting other people.

A fight like this needs something like the Force as an equalizer, or needs the heroes to be exemplary. I know people say you have to sacrifice believability for entertainment, but I'm not sure that's true. As an example, if Rey and Kylo dispatched the guards with the maneuvers seen in the following video, I think it would be entertaining and would avoid the disappointment that some people (myself included) always seem to have when we see unrealistic fights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsGU5KI1qJA

[NRSASD]

@Obscuraphile- You're not alone. As someone who did martial arts for 8 years (only a little sword work, but a fair number of other weapons) I burst out laughing during that... inspired dance routine.

Was it hilariously unrealistic? Yes.

Did it ruin my enjoyment of the film? Not really.

Especially when you compare it to the other fights that happen in the film, like Rose and Finn surviving to limp back to the Rebel lines, or BB-8 hijacking an AT-ST, or the terribly designed Bombers, the throne room fight doesn't stand out. Star Wars has always had a tenuous grasp on plausibility, and this film actively sabotaged any effort to suspend disbelief (*cough* Leia's "spacewalk" and her subsequent reentry through the door without spacing her friends *cough*).

Would I have appreciated it if they had gone the extra step and made the fight as realistic as Rey vs Kylo's fight in the Force Awakens? Yes! But since everything else was already so goofy, it was par for the course.

[Psyren]

I agree.

I disagree.

And I disagree with you.

But do we really need to rehash this again? The lines have been clearly drawn and nobody is going to change anyone else's mind on this film, ever.

[Devonix]

Re. Leia re entering the ship without spacing everyone. They have established atmospheric shielding that let's people and vehicles through without air escaping.

[Peelee]

And I disagree with you.

But do we really need to rehash this again? The lines have been clearly drawn and nobody is going to change anyone else's mind on this film, ever.

I don't think I attempted to change anyone's mind there. Also, you're right, nobody should complain about the new movies. After all, nothing like these arguments happened when other Star Wars movies came out, I'm sure.

[Psyren]

I don't think I attempted to change anyone's mind there.

So what's the point in beating the dead horse some more?


Also, you're right, nobody should complain about the new movies. After all, nothing like these arguments happened when other Star Wars movies came out, I'm sure.

There was no internet back then, so yeah, they didn't?

Unless you mean the prequels, which were a heck of a lot less controversial due to how widely reviled they were. And also, much less internet. So you're correct again, it was nothing like this.

[Fyraltari]

There was no internet back then, so yeah, they didn't?

Unless you mean the prequels, which were a heck of a lot less controversial due to how widely reviled they were. And also, much less internet. So you're correct again, it was nothing like this.
People never needed the internet to argue. It's just much more common now.
Pretty much every single Star Wars movie has been divisive. Hell, people hated The Empire Strikes Back when it came out.

[Forum Explorer]

I hated/enjoyed the Red Guards designs. It's complicated. See, as actual armor, and as actual weapons? It looks pointless and actively hampering. It looks really cool and impressive, but not at all good for a fight.

And I like that, because I feel like that's Snoke's whole thing. He's a charismatic cult leader who is more concerned about the impression he makes then the tactics he uses. The Red Guard weren't there to protect him, they were obedient and loyal idiots there to make Snoke look even more impressive.

[Sapphire Guard]

Huh. It seems to be 'complain about Star Wars' week.

The thing about this kind of fight is that 8 on 2 fight is always going to end only one way if played realistically. No Star Wars fight is truly realistic. And that's okay. I found the Rogue One Darth Vader hallway scene impossible to take seriously because it felt very staged to me. You may think differently. But what we're really arguing is which ones we like more, not which is more realistic.

I preferred the Throne room fight to the TFA fight, felt it made more sense. You got a sense of each fighter, Kylo is more of a brute force guy while Rey is more slippery. I didn't notice the disappearing knife, but I did notice one kick somehow knocking away three people, but didn't let it bother me. Didn't feel there was much character in the choreography in TFA.

That HEMA fight that was linked is far too long to be realistic, and the first person to fall down should be dead.

[warty goblin]

On a positive note, I actually quite liked the bit with Kylo Force-activating the lightsaber to kill Snoke. It was kinda clever, and I thought a interesting demonstration of the weakness of emotion sensing.

[Psyren]

People never needed the internet to argue. It's just much ore common now.

I never said people needed internet to argue. I said it was nothing like this.



The thing about this kind of fight is that 8 on 2 fight is always going to end only one way if played realistically. No Star Wars fight is truly realistic. And that's okay.

Indeed, Star Wars was hardly the first to invent Conservation of Ninjutsu. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu)

[Peelee]

So what's the point in beating the dead horse some more?

I, too, think people who disagree with me should stop talking.

[Psyren]

I, too, think people who disagree with me should stop talking.

So there is none. That's all I wanted to know, thanks for clearing that up.

[Peelee]

So there is none. That's all I wanted to know, thanks for clearing that up.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'll admit, I wasn't very clear, so I can fix that for you.

You seem disinterested in anything I have to say on it, so I am disinclined to engage you in any discussion about it.

[Jayngfet]

On a positive note, I actually quite liked the bit with Kylo Force-activating the lightsaber to kill Snoke. It was kinda clever, and I thought a interesting demonstration of the weakness of emotion sensing.

I liked the idea of it, I do however think it could have been done more stylishly. The lightsaber itself just kind of moves awkwardly.

Which is the problem of the fight. It's crowded and awkward and not a lot of thought was put into it. Just like the whole rest of the film.

[J-H]

It was bad. The red guards dropping into Ninja Poses! when drawing their weapons was pretty dumb too. There were one or two who went full-on "crouch pose" in the process. It was also boring and none of the combatants felt more than marginally competent to me.

Possibly the worst climatic lightsaber battle in Star Wars history.

Putting Snoke in a silk bathrobe wasn't a great idea either.

[Devonix]

It was bad. The red guards dropping into Ninja Poses! when drawing their weapons was pretty dumb too. There were one or two who went full-on "crouch pose" in the process. It was also boring and none of the combatants felt more than marginally competent to me.

Possibly the worst climatic lightsaber battle in Star Wars history.

Putting Snoke in a silk bathrobe wasn't a great idea either.

The bathrobe fits his whole cult leader mentality though. Because of course he's going to wear jewels with a robe. He's a wealthy manipulator who cares about his own comfort and vices. I'm surprised he didn't have the place set up like Jabba's palace.

[warty goblin]

I liked the idea of it, I do however think it could have been done more stylishly. The lightsaber itself just kind of moves awkwardly.

Which is the problem of the fight. It's crowded and awkward and not a lot of thought was put into it. Just like the whole rest of the film.

I thought that part of it was pretty well paced, and worked quite well. The Force pull fight over the lightsaber at the end was slightly goofy, but basically fine. The fight in the middle was there I guess?

[Rockphed]

(*cough* Leia's "spacewalk" and her subsequent reentry through the door without spacing her friends *cough*).


Re. Leia re entering the ship without spacing everyone. They have established atmospheric shielding that let's people and vehicles through without air escaping.

I swear there was an airlock there and we saw the interior door closing when they started opening the exterior door.

[Devonix]

I swear there was an airlock there and we saw the interior door closing when they started opening the exterior door.

I still don't understand the issue people have with her surviving. She get's blasted out because of the explosion creating a vacume. The entire time between her exiting the ship, and getting back inside is 25 seconds. What was the big deal, 25 seconds in space isn't going to kill anyone. And she instinctivly force pulled herself back in.

The pressure on the ship had stopped sucking things out because when she's flying inside of the ship we see things simply floating there, and they're not being pulled out.

[Obscuraphile]

I swear there was an airlock there and we saw the interior door closing when they started opening the exterior door.

This


I still don't understand the issue people have with her surviving. She get's blasted out because of the explosion creating a vacume. The entire time between her exiting the ship, and getting back inside is 25 seconds. What was the big deal, 25 seconds in space isn't going to kill anyone. And she instinctivly force pulled herself back in.

The pressure on the ship had stopped sucking things out because when she's flying inside of the ship we see things simply floating there, and they're not being pulled out.

Also my main problem with the Leia scene was how a lot of people tried to defend it by claiming she was exerting an equal and opposite force on the ship to reel herself in. I'm perfectly happy (well not not perfectly but much happier) to say that Leia (who has been established in cannon and legends as force sensitive) is exhibiting some previously undisclosed force ability. But don't try to shoehorn the force into physics.

[Kitten Champion]

Few cuts, well lit, and it's intelligible. It's remarkable in terms of modern Hollywood action scenes.

Although it certainly has the feeling of "we need a lightsaber fight in this movie", but on the other hand the whole Snoke throne room felt Lynchian so I have difficulty disliking it in any fashion.

[warty goblin]

I still don't understand the issue people have with her surviving. She get's blasted out because of the explosion creating a vacume. The entire time between her exiting the ship, and getting back inside is 25 seconds. What was the big deal, 25 seconds in space isn't going to kill anyone. And she instinctivly force pulled herself back in.

The pressure on the ship had stopped sucking things out because when she's flying inside of the ship we see things simply floating there, and they're not being pulled out.

I thought the spacewalk thing was sort of goofy, but basically OK. Surviving the missile strike in the first place was a bit over the top in my view, but I'm some sort of weirdo who thinks getting hit by anti-ship missiles should generally be fatal.

[Devonix]

I thought the spacewalk thing was sort of goofy, but basically OK. Surviving the missile strike in the first place was a bit over the top in my view, but I'm some sort of weirdo who thinks getting hit by anti-ship missiles should generally be fatal.

Look at the interior of the ship. There isn't actually much damage, It's not like She got hit by a missile. The ship got hit and she got sucked out.

[Obscuraphile]

Few cuts, well lit, and it's intelligible. It's remarkable in terms of modern Hollywood action scenes.

Although it certainly has the feeling of "we need a lightsaber fight in this movie", but on the other hand the whole Snoke throne room felt Lynchian so I have difficulty disliking it in any fashion.

Intelligible is a low bar. While I agree with the sentiment let us not settle for mediocrity!

[Kitten Champion]

Intelligible is a low bar. While I agree with the sentiment let us not settle for mediocrity!

Everyone's tastes are different, I can only speak to its technical proficiency as an action scene. Which, for a movie which wasn't based around action in most respects, it is surprisingly well done.

[warty goblin]

Look at the interior of the ship. There isn't actually much damage, It's not like She got hit by a missile. The ship got hit and she got sucked out.

I'm just saying, blowing through the hull and somehow not having the shrapnel kill everybody in the compartment behind is a very specific level of explosion.

[Devonix]

I'm just saying, blowing through the hull and somehow not having the shrapnel kill everybody in the compartment behind is a very specific level of explosion.

Ehh Poe survived pretty much the exact same thing just a few seconds earlier, he just wasn't pulled out because the atmospheric shields were still up. He was still in a room blown up by torpedoes. That's just scifi nonsense.

[Obscuraphile]

Ehh Poe survived pretty much the exact same thing just a few seconds earlier, he just wasn't pulled out because the atmospheric shields were still up. He was still in a room blown up by torpedoes. That's just scifi nonsense.

I mean if you want to talk about nonsense, three unescorted fighter craft approached and assaulted 3 ships of at least frigate class and one capital ship before any response wings could be scrambled or even shots fired.

[Delicious Taffy]

That fight bothered me a little bit, mostly because the red guys didn't actually participate. I swear to God, at least one of them did an overly-telegraphed swing, followed by a goofy pirouette out of the shot. I mean, it was a full-on "Okay, this attack bit is over, time to toddle away like a disinterested third grader" scenario.

[Obscuraphile]

It feels like if they had brought the number of guards down to three or four, either to start with or had them dispatched quickly in the first few seconds (due to overconfidence or surprise), it would have been a better scene.

[Brother Oni]

The entire time between her exiting the ship, and getting back inside is 25 seconds. What was the big deal, 25 seconds in space isn't going to kill anyone. And she instinctivly force pulled herself back in.

I think you're overestimating the human body's tolerance to non-standard environmental conditions here. The only filmed time a person was exposed to a near vacuum (0.1 PSI), he was unconscious inside of 15 seconds: Jim Leblanc vacuum chamber accident, 1966 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY).

If you add in the radiation and temperature extremes (the sun side of the ISS hits 121 C while the dark side drops to -157 C), 25 seconds full of body exposure to space is most certainly going to kill someone.

[Forum Explorer]

I think you're overestimating the human body's tolerance to non-standard environmental conditions here. The only filmed time a person was exposed to a near vacuum (0.1 PSI), he was unconscious inside of 15 seconds: Jim Leblanc vacuum chamber accident, 1966 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8L9tKR4CY).

If you add in the radiation and temperature extremes (the sun side of the ISS hits 121 C while the dark side drops to -157 C), 25 seconds full of body exposure to space is most certainly going to kill someone.

Nah, 15 seconds is about right to knock someone out in space, but assuming you breathed out (not in), you'd actually be able to live for several minutes while unconcious. (If you breathed in, your lungs would rupture and you'd die regardless)

In the scene in question, they are in deep space, so there isn't that much stellar radiation to worry about. And the cold doesn't matter as much because you lose heat very slowly in a vacuum. She wouldn't even suffer any frostbite.

So yeah, if she only spent ~25 seconds in space, I'd say it was pretty realistic (I'm willing to give an extra 10 seconds due to force powers).

[Obscuraphile]

In the scene in question, they are in deep space, so there isn't that much stellar radiation to worry about.

They can't be that deep into space, since they travel at sub light speeds for 20 hours and arrive at a planetary body with a sun.

[eggynack]

Was that really supposed to be this super thrilling and climactic fight scene? I've always read it as being intentionally kinda empty. Rey is letting her anger control her in teaming up with Kylo, beating the crap out of a bunch of elite mooks for the sheer silly catharsis of it. Her entire plot is getting closer to this dark side dude whose biggest flaw is that he lets emotions control him, and now it's culminating in them literally on the same side of a conflict. Everything is super flashy and un-tense because Rey's fighting is supposed to be as unjustified feeling as possible. Man, I really liked Last Jedi. The stuff on casino planet or whatever could've been cut, but other than that I've never understood people's issue with it. The Rey/Kylo/Luke stuff, at least, was great.

[Fyraltari]

They can't be that deep into space, since they travel at sub light speeds for 20 hours and arrive at a planetary body with a sun.

In ESB, they go from Hoth to Bespin at "sublight" speed in whatever long it took Luke not to complete his training with Yoda. A couple weeks, at the very most. By that logic, they can go from deep space to planet in 20 hours because why would numbers even mean anything?

[NRSASD]

Regarding Leia's door/airlock: It'd be a bit odd for there to be an airlock between the bridge and the rest of the ship, but there could have been one. I'll admit How It Should Have Ended has biased my memories of that scene, and I'm not invested enough in the film to find out.

Regarding Leia's "Spacewalk": I have no problem with Leia using force powers, it's been hinted she's definitely force capable. There are two three things that bug me about the scene though.

a. She regained consciousness while spaced. Many experiments strongly suggest that a human would be able to survive space exposure for a couple minutes (albeit with permanent damage). The problem is she was unconscious. When humans get knocked out, our subconscious systems like breathing kick in on autopilot. The first thing it tries to do is breathe. This is why you can hold your breath til you pass out and not die. This is also why humans drown. We run out of O2, try to breathe, get water instead, and die.
Unfortunately, there is no air in space, so if you try to breathe in vacuum you won't gather any oxygen and thus won't regain consciousness. Without some kind of O2 mask, she shouldn't have woken up at all.

b. She demonstrates a hitherto unseen force ability. I have no problem with the movie introducing new abilities (like Luke's projection or Snoke's video calls), but all of those come from well established force masters. Of course they have new tricks up their bathrobe sleeves, they've dedicated their whole lives (and afterlives) to this field. Leia, on the other hand, is almost certainly a novice at force use. We've never seen or suspected she might be this powerful before.
Also, this ability is completely new, not an extension of previously established abilities. Force push, jump, and pull are all very similar things. And yeah, her force gliding works just fine as a very powerful force pull. Protecting herself from the vacuum of space using the Force though? That's an entirely new class of abilities. I wouldn't mind if an established master force user does it, but a complete novice? That stretches my already taut suspension of disbelief to the spaghettifacation point of no return.

c. It looks really silly.

[Devonix]

Regarding Leia's door/airlock: It'd be a bit odd for there to be an airlock between the bridge and the rest of the ship, but there could have been one. I'll admit How It Should Have Ended has biased my memories of that scene, and I'm not invested enough in the film to find out.

Regarding Leia's "Spacewalk": I have no problem with Leia using force powers, it's been hinted she's definitely force capable. There are two three things that bug me about the scene though.

a. She regained consciousness while spaced. Many experiments strongly suggest that a human would be able to survive space exposure for a couple minutes (albeit with permanent damage). The problem is she was unconscious. When humans get knocked out, our subconscious systems like breathing kick in on autopilot. The first thing it tries to do is breathe. This is why you can hold your breath til you pass out and not die. This is also why humans drown. We run out of O2, try to breathe, get water instead, and die.
Unfortunately, there is no air in space, so if you try to breathe in vacuum you won't gather any oxygen and thus won't regain consciousness. Without some kind of O2 mask, she shouldn't have woken up at all.

b. She demonstrates a hitherto unseen force ability. I have no problem with the movie introducing new abilities (like Luke's projection or Snoke's video calls), but all of those come from well established force masters. Of course they have new tricks up their bathrobe sleeves, they've dedicated their whole lives (and afterlives) to this field. Leia, on the other hand, is almost certainly a novice at force use. We've never seen or suspected she might be this powerful before.
Also, this ability is completely new, not an extension of previously established abilities. Force push, jump, and pull are all very similar things. And yeah, her force gliding works just fine as a very powerful force pull. Protecting herself from the vacuum of space using the Force though? That's an entirely new class of abilities. I wouldn't mind if an established master force user does it, but a complete novice? That stretches my already taut suspension of disbelief to the spaghettifacation point of no return.

c. It looks really silly.

A. It was just dramatic effect, the eyes snapping open from the force driving her to live.
B. What new force ability. Honestly how is moving an object with the force anything new? She didn't protect herself from the vacume of space, she still suffered serious injury and needed to go into intensive care.
C. Yeah it looked silly.

[Peelee]

What I really don't understand about the Leia scene is, after Carrie Fisher's death, why they didn't take that opportunity to cut the parts after the explosion? They have Leia come back, they out-of-universe say that they'll not use CGI or re-cast it, and so you have a big potential Leia-shaped hole in the how the plot is going to continue in the next movie. It's not vital, but they're going to have to explain why she's gone in-universe somehow, and getting blasted out of a ship might be a bit undignified, it's a warrior's death for a general. It would have been a fine way for Leia to go out, would have weighed on Kylo, would have had emotional impact, would have completely removed all the old guard from the OT onscreen and with reason and emotional involvement... and they chose to go with a silly-looking rescue instead.

I don't get it.

[Devonix]

What I really don't understand about the Leia scene is, after Carrie Fisher's death, why they didn't take that opportunity to cut the parts after the explosion? They have Leia come back, they out-of-universe say that they'll not use CGI or re-cast it, and so you have a big potential Leia-shaped hole in the how the plot is going to continue in the next movie. It's not vital, but they're going to have to explain why she's gone in-universe somehow, and getting blasted out of a ship might be a bit undignified, it's a warrior's death for a general. It would have been a fine way for Leia to go out, would have weighed on Kylo, would have had emotional impact, would have completely removed all the old guard from the OT onscreen and with reason and emotional involvement... and they chose to go with a silly-looking rescue instead.

I don't get it.

Doing that would completely change the film. And to me it would be a bit of a slap in the face to Carrie. You have the character finish their arc if you can. The movie would have to completely shift focus to be about her death if it happened there. and the reaction of the characters to it.

We'd have to deal with Luke, Kylo, and the entire cast reacting to it.

[Peelee]

Doing that would completely change the film. And to me it would be a bit of a slap in the face to Carrie. You have the character finish their arc if you can. The movie would have to completely shift focus to be about her death if it happened there. and the reaction of the characters to it.

We'd have to deal with Luke, Kylo, and the entire cast reacting to it.

How? Leia is out for most of the rest of the film, and the only two parts that really focus on her are Poe's mutiny and Luke's visit and talk. Stifling Poe's mutiny doesn't need Leia, and Luke feeling his sister's death would add more weight to his decision to finally become involved again. The film would hardly be changed at all. As for her character finishing her arc... she doesn't have much of an arc anymore, and by choosing to not recast her or replace her with CGI like they did Tarkin and YoungLeia in Rogue One, whatever arc she had is effectively finished anyway. The movie wouldn't need to shift focus at all to be about her death any more than it did about Akbar. And yes, Leia was a much more central figure than Akbar, but you can't mourn that well in a life-or-death situation. Not to mention that no characters really had a personal connection to Leia except Luke; Rey is out of the picture and wouldn't react, Poe's relationship to her is that she is a military leader he respects, so presumably not very different than his reaction to Akbar's death, Finn has no relationship to her at all... Ben would be a candidate, but that would, if anything, make his arc stronger for it.

[Forum Explorer]

They can't be that deep into space, since they travel at sub light speeds for 20 hours and arrive at a planetary body with a sun.

Let's say they were going half the speed of light, just for sake of argument. So they are 10+ Light Hours out from a sun. That is plenty of distance, since that is about twice as far as Pluto is, and out that far, I think our sun would just look like a particularly bright star. It's certainly not enough to heat anything.


Regarding Leia's door/airlock: It'd be a bit odd for there to be an airlock between the bridge and the rest of the ship, but there could have been one. I'll admit How It Should Have Ended has biased my memories of that scene, and I'm not invested enough in the film to find out.

Regarding Leia's "Spacewalk": I have no problem with Leia using force powers, it's been hinted she's definitely force capable. There are two three things that bug me about the scene though.

a. She regained consciousness while spaced. Many experiments strongly suggest that a human would be able to survive space exposure for a couple minutes (albeit with permanent damage). The problem is she was unconscious. When humans get knocked out, our subconscious systems like breathing kick in on autopilot. The first thing it tries to do is breathe. This is why you can hold your breath til you pass out and not die. This is also why humans drown. We run out of O2, try to breathe, get water instead, and die.
Unfortunately, there is no air in space, so if you try to breathe in vacuum you won't gather any oxygen and thus won't regain consciousness. Without some kind of O2 mask, she shouldn't have woken up at all.

b. She demonstrates a hitherto unseen force ability. I have no problem with the movie introducing new abilities (like Luke's projection or Snoke's video calls), but all of those come from well established force masters. Of course they have new tricks up their bathrobe sleeves, they've dedicated their whole lives (and afterlives) to this field. Leia, on the other hand, is almost certainly a novice at force use. We've never seen or suspected she might be this powerful before.
Also, this ability is completely new, not an extension of previously established abilities. Force push, jump, and pull are all very similar things. And yeah, her force gliding works just fine as a very powerful force pull. Protecting herself from the vacuum of space using the Force though? That's an entirely new class of abilities. I wouldn't mind if an established master force user does it, but a complete novice? That stretches my already taut suspension of disbelief to the spaghettifacation point of no return.

c. It looks really silly.

a) agreed, but let's put that down to force powers

b)Eh, it's just force pull, except on herself. If she was doing it in atmosphere it'd be something new and powerful, but in space that should be pretty easy to do.

c) It did look like something out of Harry Potter.

[Devonix]

How? Leia is out for most of the rest of the film, and the only two parts that really focus on her are Poe's mutiny and Luke's visit and talk. Stifling Poe's mutiny doesn't need Leia, and Luke feeling his sister's death would add more weight to his decision to finally become involved again. The film would hardly be changed at all. As for her character finishing her arc... she doesn't have much of an arc anymore, and by choosing to not recast her or replace her with CGI like they did Tarkin and YoungLeia in Rogue One, whatever arc she had is effectively finished anyway. The movie wouldn't need to shift focus at all to be about her death any more than it did about Akbar. And yes, Leia was a much more central figure than Akbar, but you can't mourn that well in a life-or-death situation. Not to mention that no characters really had a personal connection to Leia except Luke; Rey is out of the picture and wouldn't react, Poe's relationship to her is that she is a military leader he respects, so presumably not very different than his reaction to Akbar's death, Finn has no relationship to her at all... Ben would be a candidate, but that would, if anything, make his arc stronger for it.

Leia's Death rather than a simple injury would add a weight to the movie that is completely different than what was going on. Now Kylo Ren is not just morning the loss of his father, but that of his mother. Even characters that don't know about the death would have their actions colored by it.

A character affects more than simply those who know about the death, it affects the whole of the script.

It seems very much to me that the plan, so far as Starwars has ever had a plan movie to movie. Was for Leia and Chewbacca to be the last vanguards of the old world at the end of the trillogy. I hope that they choose to recast her and finish the story arc.

[NRSASD]

a) agreed, but let's put that down to force powers

b)Eh, it's just force pull, except on herself. If she was doing it in atmosphere it'd be something new and powerful, but in space that should be pretty easy to do.

The "breathe in space" is the new force power I'm referring to. Her "flight" is just a glorified force pull, albeit a new application of it.

[Peelee]

Leia's Death rather than a simple injury would add a weight to the movie that is completely different than what was going on. Now Kylo Ren is not just morning the loss of his father, but that of his mother. Even characters that don't know about the death would have their actions colored by it.

A character affects more than simply those who know about the death, it affects the whole of the script.

It seems very much to me that the plan, so far as Starwars has ever had a plan movie to movie. Was for Leia and Chewbacca to be the last vanguards of the old world at the end of the trillogy. I hope that they choose to recast her and finish the story arc.

Ben isn't exactly mourning Han, and while he couldn't shoot the actual shot that knocked Leia into space, he also didn't shoot down the ship that did, or take any other action against that pilot. Plus, he's still grappling with trying to be evil while not being able to do things like shoot down his mother, even after killing his father. Showing him struggle with that would absolutely add a bit more depth to his character that I think it desperately needs. Also, why would characters that don't know about the death have their actions colored by it? Again, Leia doesn't really do anything after that except stop a mutiny, and anyone could have done that. She just added a bit more drama and humor to it*. Again, her death would not have heavily affected the script at all, and the ways it would have (via Luke and Ben's dealing with it) would have arguably made the movie better.

I agree that it seems like they had a plan. But it looks like that plan is out the window, since by all accounts they're retooling Ep. IX due to Fisher's death. If they do, and if they don't recast her, then again, having her go out and die a warrior's death on-screen would be a perfectly fine way to accomplish removing Leia from the story. I can't say with certainty until it actually comes out, and I do hope they do in a different direction than I'm expecting (imean, I hope that in a much larger sense as well, but still), but I'm not betting on it.

*Also, I still hate the new stun effects. There's no reason at all to have people be flying across the room from a stun other than a cheap laugh, and it's a very cheap laugh.

[Devonix]

The "breathe in space" is the new force power I'm referring to. Her "flight" is just a glorified force pull, albeit a new application of it.

But she's not breathing in space.

[Forum Explorer]

The "breathe in space" is the new force power I'm referring to. Her "flight" is just a glorified force pull, albeit a new application of it.

She isn't breathing in space, she's regaining consciousness, despite that being really unlikely. Considering she immediately lapses back into unconscious afterwards you could argue she's operating purely on subconscious impulses, or in other words, she's subconsciously using the Force to save her life. Just like how a Force Sensitive person might use it to sharpen their reaction times or avoid danger.

[Obscuraphile]

Let's say they were going half the speed of light, just for sake of argument. So they are 10+ Light Hours out from a sun. That is plenty of distance, since that is about twice as far as Pluto is, and out that far, I think our sun would just look like a particularly bright star. It's certainly not enough to heat anything.

My astrophysics are a bit rusty, but isn't it the higher forms of radiation (wavelengths shorter than visible light) that are the dangerous ones? Yeah you might be safe from heat and light at that distance but that doesn't mean you're actually safe without a suit/hull shielding/atmosphere.

[Devonix]

My astrophysics are a bit rusty, but isn't it the higher forms of radiation (wavelengths shorter than visible light) that are the dangerous ones? Yeah you might be safe from heat and light at that distance but that doesn't mean you're actually safe without a suit/hull shielding/atmosphere.

It's not like she suffered no I'll effects though. She had 20-25 seconds of exposure and was immediately hospitalized.

[Forum Explorer]

My astrophysics are a bit rusty, but isn't it the higher forms of radiation (wavelengths shorter than visible light) that are the dangerous ones? Yeah you might be safe from heat and light at that distance but that doesn't mean you're actually safe without a suit/hull shielding/atmosphere.

It wouldn't be enough to immediately kill her though, and Star Wars has much better medical tech. And like Devonix said, she is immediately hospitalized afterwards.

[Devonix]

It wouldn't be enough to immediately kill her though, and Star Wars has much better medical tech. And like Devonix said, she is immediately hospitalized afterwards.

I mean Kanan was out in space for a similar amount of time and didn't even need a bandaid.

[Peelee]

It wouldn't be enough to immediately kill her though, and Star Wars has much better medical tech.

Until Padme died from being sad. Take THAT, prequels!

[Forum Explorer]

Until Padme died from being sad. Take THAT, prequels!

Hey Sucky Acting Disease is really dangerous when left untreated for a whole trilogy. :smallwink:

[warty goblin]

Until Padme died from being sad. Take THAT, prequels!

There seems to be a genuine lack of mental health professionals in Star Wars. I mean Luke alone should be in therapy for years: "And how did you feel when you learned that your father was evil, and also cut off your arm?" To say nothing of Leia: "And how did you feel when your father had you tortured and then stood by while your planet was blown up?"

Series has some daddy issues.

On a somewhat different note, the whole dying of sadness thing never really bugged me. I always understood the prequels as being substantially inspired by Arthurian romance, what with all the knights and princesses and forbidden romance between the two, and princesses drop dead of sadness left right and center in there. It's a goddamn epidemic.

[Sapphire Guard]

Poe's explosion was sillier to be fair. It destroys everything else in the room, including fighter jets and people inside fighter jets, and only Poe and BB8 are just knocked back a bit.

[Devonix]

Poe's explosion was sillier to be fair. It destroys everything else in the room, including fighter jets and people inside fighter jets, and only Poe and BB8 are just knocked back a bit.

Yeah I always wondered why people never mentioned it. All that happened was he got dirty.

[Peelee]

Yeah I always wondered why people never mentioned it. All that happened was he got dirty.

I, for one, wouldn't mind at all if Poe had died then. Of course, I hate Poe, but still.

[Rockphed]

I, for one, wouldn't mind at all if Poe had died then. Of course, I hate Poe, but still.

Of all the goofy things in The Last Jedi the "an enemy fighter can fly into our fighter bay and blow it up without any push-back" is probably the goofiest. And it is the only one I explicitly cringe at every time I watch the movie.

[Devonix]

Of all the goofy things in The Last Jedi the "an enemy fighter can fly into our fighter bay and blow it up without any push-back" is probably the goofiest. And it is the only one I explicitly cringe at every time I watch the movie.

Ehb not the first time it's happened bin Starwars. It happened in phantom menace

[Peelee]

Ehb not the first time it's happened bin Starwars. It happened in phantom menace

You're completely correct, but not really arguing against it being bad. :smallwink:

[Devonix]

You're completely correct, but not really arguing against it being bad. :smallwink:

Oh yeah there should be some protection for the hangars. We have Poe and Finn shoot up the place and fly out in force awakens.

And in all of the battlefront games with space combat you can fly into enemy hangars and fight.

[Jayngfet]

Ehb not the first time it's happened bin Starwars. It happened in phantom menace

I mean to be fair The Phantom Menace isn't really the movie you want comparisons to. What with the cringy child actors at race tracks, the new sidekicks nobody likes, and having a previously liked character crack jokes at inappropriate times.

I mean I like The Phantom Menace, it's probably actually my favorite of the prequels, but I have no illusions of what that film actually is.

[Devonix]

I mean to be fair The Phantom Menace isn't really the movie you want comparisons to. What with the cringy child actors at race tracks, the new sidekicks nobody likes, and having a previously liked character crack jokes at inappropriate times.

I mean I like The Phantom Menace, it's probably actually my favorite of the prequels, but I have no illusions of what that film actually is.

What I mean is that it's established that this is how hangars work in Starwars.

[Rockphed]

What I mean is that it's established that this is how hangars work in Starwars.

I'll grant you that, but I think a way to take the rebel resistance fighters out of the mix without having Kylo do a run through them unopposed would have worked better. Say having him hit the hangar door as it is opening so it jams and fuses in place.

[Devonix]

I'll grant you that, but I think a way to take the rebel resistance fighters out of the mix without having Kylo do a run through them unopposed would have worked better. Say having him hit the hangar door as it is opening so it jams and fuses in place.

I don't think Hangar doors on large ships exist in Starwars. At least I don't ever remember seeing them.

[Lethologica]

Doing that would completely change the film. And to me it would be a bit of a slap in the face to Carrie. You have the character finish their arc if you can. The movie would have to completely shift focus to be about her death if it happened there. and the reaction of the characters to it.

We'd have to deal with Luke, Kylo, and the entire cast reacting to it.
The movie as screened didn't complete Leia's arc either. It was never intended to - Leia's arc was supposed to be completed in Episode IX. This was Luke's film.

That said, Leia dying in that scene would have been perfect if the rest of the movie could have been adjusted to account for it. I was completely prepared to appreciate that death as Carrie Fisher's send-off, and for me personally, that's why Leia's Force-aided survival was so jarring. The plausibility of her Force powers had nothing to do with it - I just felt cheated of my mourning. I don't blame the filmmakers for this. It's just unfortunate.

[Jayngfet]

The movie as screened didn't complete Leia's arc either. It was never intended to - Leia's arc was supposed to be completed in Episode IX. This was Luke's film.

Given what happened to Luke and Han I'm almost terrified to ask what Abrams was probably planning. I mean it'd probably just be killing her off to hype up Kylo Ren too, but there you go.

But yes, I'd have been all for killing her early into 8. People would complain that Luke and Leia never got reunited because Luke was being an ass to everybody, but that's kind of still a major problem with the movie either way. Luke being obstinate even after the hologram was just milking it.

[Obscuraphile]

I don't think Hangar doors on large ships exist in Starwars. At least I don't ever remember seeing them.

Well if you destroy the energy barrier you can trigger a shutter at least (as seen in revenge of the sith).

[warty goblin]

Well if you destroy the energy barrier you can trigger a shutter at least (as seen in revenge of the sith).

And destroying the energy barrier was at least implied to be necessary to landing in the hanger in the first place.

[McStabbington]

Okay, so it might be my interest in actual fighting style and HEMA blah blah blah, but I absolutely hated the throne room fight in Last Jedi. I didn't really care for the movie as a whole but that's really neither here nor there for this issue.]

I thought that the weapons and the style of the red guard were badass as all hell, and I really didn't mind that the fight was lacking in flashy force nonsense. But... ugh. The spinning and the three on one lets all attack the same angle and the complete uselessness of any armor apart from that one dude's bracers. Could they not write the fight in a believable way?



It's what happens when the actors don't know how to fight, when the studio doesn't give the director enough time, and the director doesn't know how to film an action scene. Every Frame a Painting had a really bang-up analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ) of how Jackie Chan films action scenes versus how Hollywood films action scenes, and most of the lessons from that film apply to the technical aspects of the throne room fight scene in TLJ. The goal is to create a dynamic, kinetic action scene. But the actors and the director don't exactly know how to do that, and the studio was, above all else, completely dead-set that the film would arrive in theater on time.

Given those constraints, of course you're going to rely upon the stunt coordinator to shadow-direct the fight scene, and of course it's going to use the same kinds of gimmickry as Walker: Texas Ranger to make the fight with the mooks seem impressive. The goal is just to make the scene hold up if you keep your eyes fixed on the center of the screen, and on the main characters. If you watch the mooks, of course it's going to fall apart. Because you would need someone who really can fight, and who really can shoot, and who really can choreograph a fight scene, and who both has, and is willing to take, the time to get things right like Jackie Chan, to pull it off.

[J-H]

Thank you for that Every Frame link. That was a good video.

[Lethologica]

Thank you for that Every Frame link. That was a good video.
The whole channel is a gem. It's too bad they've moved on (their postmortem is here (https://medium.com/@tonyszhou/postmortem-1b338537fabc)).

[Devonix]

The whole channel is a gem. It's too bad they've moved on (their postmortem is here (https://medium.com/@tonyszhou/postmortem-1b338537fabc)).

Yeah It's one of my favorite channels too.

[Jayngfet]

It's what happens when the actors don't know how to fight, when the studio doesn't give the director enough time, and the director doesn't know how to film an action scene. Every Frame a Painting had a really bang-up analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ) of how Jackie Chan films action scenes versus how Hollywood films action scenes, and most of the lessons from that film apply to the technical aspects of the throne room fight scene in TLJ. The goal is to create a dynamic, kinetic action scene. But the actors and the director don't exactly know how to do that, and the studio was, above all else, completely dead-set that the film would arrive in theater on time.

This sounds all well and good, but like the day before the film came out Lucasfilm was bragging about how great a fighter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-py2awmME8s) Daisy Ridley was in this specific scene.

If you have a director who isn't known for this type of thing and actors who don't have a huge background in it, that's fine. But Lucasfilm tried to sell Daisy Ridley as some kind of Son Goku esque martial arts prodigy while insisting there was enough time but they just didn't need it.

[Lethologica]

This sounds all well and good, but like the day before the film came out Lucasfilm was bragging about how great a fighter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-py2awmME8s) Daisy Ridley was in this specific scene.
Nitpick: They were bragging about a completely different scene.


If you have a director who isn't known for this type of thing and actors who don't have a huge background in it, that's fine. But Lucasfilm tried to sell Daisy Ridley as some kind of Son Goku esque martial arts prodigy while insisting there was enough time but they just didn't need it.
They sold her as...picking up a stunt routine faster than they expected. It wasn't a particularly long or difficult stunt routine - if anything I suspect the stunt guy thought Daisy would be hopeless and was pleasantly surprised by basic competence. An expert picking up a routine like that in an hour and a half wouldn't be impressive; it can only be sold as impressive because she's a beginner. Obviously Lucasfilm is only going to put out positive marketing about their own stunt training; beyond that, I think you're really reaching here.

[Obscuraphile]

Nitpick: They were bragging about a completely different scene.

Double Nitpick: The scene actually in question was kinda **** too. Especially the bit with the lightsaber. She's just swinging wildly. Super telegraphed, slow heavy movements. General bleh.

[Lethologica]

Double Nitpick: The scene actually in question was kinda **** too. Especially the bit with the lightsaber. She's just swinging wildly. Super telegraphed, slow heavy movements. General bleh.
Well, I agree. The choreography of the sequel trilogy has never been impressive to me at the level of actual physical movement. It's decent at conveying texture, but the texture doesn't have a solid foundation in actual action, just like the texture of TFA was never solidly founded in a coherent story.

I just think Jayngfet is affecting marketing expectations that are far too high in order to legitimize his grudge. The choreography video he points to is certainly no reason to expect Son Goku from the movie. Nothing in TFA should have given him super-high expectations. Neither of the previous trilogies were impressive in this regard - the prequels were flashy and insubstantial, the OT was plodding and affected (albeit in the OT the texture was on point). But the more he can sell the thread on Star Wars marketing great choreography, the more bitter he can be about not getting it.

[warty goblin]

I mean the choreography for the throne room fight was certainly better than the stuff from TFA. I was watching that with a friend before TLJ came out, and when we got Rey and Kylo fighting, she actually started laughing, the attacks were so telegraphed.

[Brother Oni]

Until Padme died from being sad. Take THAT, prequels!

More recent research has indicated that this is actually possible (one of it's many names is stress-induced cardiomyopathy or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/conditions/cardiomyopathy/takotsubo-cardiomyopathy)), but I agree that an end-of-the-tech-bell-curve setting like Star Wars should really have better automated medical tech.

[Obscuraphile]

More recent research has indicated that this is actually possible (one of it's many names is stress-induced cardiomyopathy or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/conditions/cardiomyopathy/takotsubo-cardiomyopathy)), but I agree that an end-of-the-tech-bell-curve setting like Star Wars should really have better automated medical tech.

There's also the fact that Padme is not an 80 year old woman...

[Mightymosy]

It's what happens when the actors don't know how to fight, when the studio doesn't give the director enough time, and the director doesn't know how to film an action scene. Every Frame a Painting had a really bang-up analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ) of how Jackie Chan films action scenes versus how Hollywood films action scenes, and most of the lessons from that film apply to the technical aspects of the throne room fight scene in TLJ. The goal is to create a dynamic, kinetic action scene. But the actors and the director don't exactly know how to do that, and the studio was, above all else, completely dead-set that the film would arrive in theater on time.

Given those constraints, of course you're going to rely upon the stunt coordinator to shadow-direct the fight scene, and of course it's going to use the same kinds of gimmickry as Walker: Texas Ranger to make the fight with the mooks seem impressive. The goal is just to make the scene hold up if you keep your eyes fixed on the center of the screen, and on the main characters. If you watch the mooks, of course it's going to fall apart. Because you would need someone who really can fight, and who really can shoot, and who really can choreograph a fight scene, and who both has, and is willing to take, the time to get things right like Jackie Chan, to pull it off.

Thanks for that video and for that explanation.
So many things make sense now :smallsmile:

In that video, they also mention how Jackie Chan usually made a point that the fight was uphill for his character. Either he started with a handicap, and/or he got hit a couple times and showed how that hurt. Come to think of it, I really remember his facial expression when he was hit :smalleek:

This makes him relatable.

I recently remembered and brought up Tomb Raider 1 and 2 in that other thread that was locked.
Now I understand why these never got up to the hype of Indiana Jones: Lara Croft was just getting things done too easily, and she was certainly having too much fun doing all that stuff. Yeah, it's consistent with the video game character, I guess, but I think the Indy movies were better movies because Indy actually got hurt quite a couple of times, and Harrison Ford showed the pain and the struggle.
For example, Lara smiles and is having a nice ride when she escapes from that ice cave in a sled.
When Indy escapes the mines on that cart, there's a lot of yelling and desperate facial expressions. Yeah, it is a good basis for a theme park ride, but in the movie the characters are in mortal danger.

So, Harrison Ford did a better Jackie Chan than Angelina Jolie in their respective adventure archaeologist movies, I guess.

[Lethologica]

Jackie Chan is great, but those creative choices aren't definitive. They're good for the movies he makes - his uphill fights reflect his lovable underdog characters and often-comic mood. Jet Li and Donnie Yen, for example, make different choices that place their fights as more straightforward displays of skill, and that works for the aesthetic they want. So it's hard to apply Jackie's choices to a different batch of movies and say they make one movie better than the other.

[Mightymosy]

Yeah, sure different tasts for different people, I understand.

For me, the whole "hero has to struggle for their victory" does have a huge appeal, though, so for me personally it is a hallmark for good movies.

I'll have to pay attention with the next couple movies I watch, whether they follow that idea or not, and whether I generally like the movie in question or not, to see how it matches up.

Last weekend was Jaws weekend, and I watched parts 1 and 2 with mf gf.

I had never really watched either one completely before, because horror really isn't my taste, and had previously disregarded it as trash.
I was pleasantly surprised! Especially part one is really a good movie! And as far as the theme goes: Yeah, the protagonist has to suffer for his victory.

Back to the TLJ throne room choreography: I think it fits, and I kinda liked it when I watched it. Even though Rey has that Mary Sue thing going on, that fight itself I didn't find as problematic, since she was shown suffering a little, biting her teeth and the like. Yeah, she won a fight she had no business winning logically, but emotionally, the scene was shot alright - she had to fight to survive, she didn't just cruise through it.

I have watched a youtube video complaining about the realism of the fight, and how one guy does a stupid pirouette instead of just hitting Rey, and he's right.
And I understand when people dislike the scene for that reason.
Me? I'm neither a "fights" guy nor a "special effects" guy, nor a "super realism" guy. As long as it fits the established narrative and looks cool, I'm probably happy. Which, honestly, was the case with that scene.
In other words: I see and recognize that there was a flaw in that scene, but it didn't disturb my experience with the movie.

[Reddish Mage]

Back to the TLJ throne room choreography: I think it fits, and I kinda liked it when I watched it. Even though Rey has that Mary Sue thing going on, that fight itself I didn't find as problematic, since she was shown suffering a little, biting her teeth and the like. Yeah, she won a fight she had no business winning logically, but emotionally, the scene was shot alright - she had to fight to survive, she didn't just cruise through it.

I have watched a youtube video complaining about the realism of the fight, and how one guy does a stupid pirouette instead of just hitting Rey, and he's right.
And I understand when people dislike the scene for that reason.

I find the fight scenes quite thin next to the gritty combat of the original or the beautiful movements of the prequels, however I don't see how you can say its about realism. Elaborate stage saber action isn't realistic to begin with, and when you add the spins and flips and whatever these characters add to it you get the fighting version of high fantasy. A dance that may be a lot more violent than ballet (or not...you know what those dancers go through to get their bodies to do that) but no less choreographed.

I find here though that the setup, choreography, editing, ...it all fits in with the overall style of TLJ in not taking the expectations of the Star Wars universe seriously. It somehow subverts our understanding of how one of these fights are supposed to play out, and does so in a way that makes this scene seem stylistically off, like being use to hearing music in 4/4 and suddenly seeing a similar song play out in 3/2.

[Mightymosy]

I find the fight scenes quite thin next to the gritty combat of the original or the beautiful movements of the prequels, however I don't see how you can say its about realism. Elaborate stage saber action isn't realistic to begin with, and when you add the spins and flips and whatever these characters add to it you get the fighting version of high fantasy. A dance that may be a lot more violent than ballet (or not...you know what those dancers go through to get their bodies to do that) but no less choreographed.

I find here though that the setup, choreography, editing, ...it all fits in with the overall style of TLJ in not taking the expectations of the Star Wars universe seriously. It somehow subverts our understanding of how one of these fights are supposed to play out, and does so in a way that makes this scene seem stylistically off, like being use to hearing music in 4/4 and suddenly seeing a similar song play out in 3/2.

Did I say it was realistic?? Weird, don't remember that. What I meant, anyway, was that I found the scene not as disturbing as other people found it, because at least you can see Rey groan and suffer and bite her teeth when she tries to overcome the red guards, and I think Kylo seemed to win a little easier. At one point one of the guards even grabs her around the neck and she has to struggle to escape.

It is a logical problem that she is soo good with the lightsaber without training, but the cinematography and acting were ok in that scene, for me personally.

[Sinewmire]

There's also the fact that Padme is not an 80 year old woman...

From the case files of Dr Ball, MD (the torture droid from A New Hope)

Dr. Ball: "She's lost the will to live?! What is your degree in, poetry?! You sorry bunch of hippies! For God sakes, don't use the billions of dollars of medical equipment around us, why don't we all just get on our knees and pray?

[Saintheart]

One of the biggest problems with the entire throne room fight - leaving aside the choreography, which was abysmal and abysmally shot, I'll come back to that - is that it's utterly pointless in the grand scheme of things.

And it's pointless solely because there is at best arguable or at worst zero reason for the Praetorians to try to slaughter Kylo and Rey now. We haven't been told anything about them, we don't know if they're loyal to Snoke or the First Order or what. We do know that if these guys are capable warriors and in the least educated on the past, they should be reasonably aware that non-Force-sensitive combatants against Force sensitives historically tends to turn out one way:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BitterFlashyFruitbat-max-1mb.gif

http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/yoda-guards-star-wars-prequels-sm-1430729021.gif

Let's leave aside that the guy they are planning to take on has demonstrated pretty plainly that he knows how to do much the same thing:

https://i.redd.it/xyqu13mkt4201.gif

Instead, we have not a second of hesitation from these meat puppets, who charge in to their doom with no human motivation for their actions beyond a very boring "WE IZ PROGRAMMED 2 AVENGE DA BOSS" motive that wouldn't fly in the climactic end of a RPG campaign except for parties wanting to harvest XP after the BBEG goes down unexpectedly fast, but somehow is meant to make sense here.

On top of that, it's a great missed opportunity for Kylo Ren. All Rian Johnson had to do to add considerable gravitas, interest, and maturity to Ren's character - demonstrate he's growing and learning, demonstrate he can have plans of his own - was to be given one line in the wake of offing Snoke. One line, delivered with complete calm and assurance, spoken to the Praetorian Guards around them: "He said I was his successor. You all have a choice now. Die for your past, or live for our future."

That one line would've kept hammering the whole (inept, and distasteful) theme of "Let the past go". It also would have transformed the Praetorian Guard from a small group of warm-meat battle droids into thinking warriors: it would have given them an actual reaction. It would have emphasised the theme we saw with Finn in the first movie that stormtrooper conditioning doesn't preclude a trooper making a considered choice. By the Praetorians' reaction - whether to attack, hesitate, lay down their arms, or swear allegiance to Ren - we would find them to be human beings capable of choice, and not just automatons. The fight would not just be a whizz-bang-boring setpiece out of a Reylo fanfic.

As for the fight itself: I am really a bit puzzled by how underwhelming this fight turned out to be given it wasn't exactly a fool who was the swordmaster for it: C.C. Smiff, who had the same role for TFA (and which did have some semi-brutal lightsaber action) and who has been swordmaster for a good number of Game of Thrones episodes according to IMDB.

Here's my set of suspicions for why it sucked.

Part of it is because of a crucial filmmaking error on Rian Johnson's part. The "money shot" of the fight, where we are supposed to be most excited and impressed, that "Rey and Kylo back to back" shot, is done in one long take and from a pretty wide angle, using lots of opponents. This is Johnson's habit from Looper coming back to betray him: he thinks if you make us watch horrible things happen from a long way back, it'll be more intense.

The problem is, that type of shot is very unforgiving in fight scenes involving a lot of combatants. It gives you, as the viewer, a lot of opportunity to take in the entirety of what's happening - indeed that's the intent of the shot in the first place, the visual cue from that shot is to sit back and be objective about what you're seeing, it's meant to put you in spectator mode. Even Bruce Lee's biggest fights (against whole karate dojos and whatnot) have movement in them to distract the eye, even good as he was they didn't risk people being able to fully absorb what was happening for very long. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai films used the principle of kenjutsu that you kill with one or two blows, so the fights in there look massive because he sends dozens of raiders against the protagonists - all going down in short order.

Added to that, it's harder to use stunt doubles very easily because with this kind of shot the audience has all the time in the world to pick out it's Jimmy Shultz up there rather than Adam Driver. As a result, you can't go harder as you might if it was a trained martial artist, trained acrobat, trained stuntman up there - you have to slow down the moves so everyone's blades get where they need to be and someone doesn't wind up with a fractured skull or a blade raised to block with nothing to actually block.

You also can't get the speed of the routine up as fast if you don't have enough time or talent to do it. Not sure how much truth there is in the story, but for the final duel of ROTS Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christiansen apparently came out several weeks ahead of filming and for long periods per day did nothing but drill, drill, drill the opening sequences of that fight, the one blistering part of that duel where no stuntmen were apparently being used and the footage is not getting undercranked for that dizzying volley of blows. And that was just two of them, guys who'd done this stuff before and with Nick Gillard overseeing it. I strongly doubt Adam Driver or Daisy Ridley or their fellow meatbags were given anywhere near the amount of time necessary to get that fight down to a point where the choreography was faultless.

As a result, it sucked on film, because it looks more like a badly-done fan film fight than a quality film production. And there are fan films out there, cheesy as they may be, that do lightsaber duels as well as or better than the one in this film.

[Mightymosy]

From the case files of Dr Ball, MD (the torture droid from A New Hope)

Dr. Ball: "She's lost the will to live?! What is your degree in, poetry?! You sorry bunch of hippies! For God sakes, don't use the billions of dollars of medical equipment around us, why don't we all just get on our knees and pray?

Yeah, people bring up "broken heart syndrome" all the time, but even as a professional I find Padme's death was a very very very very poor writing decision, the final nail in the coffin for an already absymally weak female "lead" character.


One of the biggest problems with the entire throne room fight - leaving aside the choreography, which was abysmal and abysmally shot, I'll come back to that - is that it's utterly pointless in the grand scheme of things.

And it's pointless solely because there is at best arguable or at worst zero reason for the Praetorians to try to slaughter Kylo and Rey now. We haven't been told anything about them, we don't know if they're loyal to Snoke or the First Order or what. We do know that if these guys are capable warriors and in the least educated on the past, they should be reasonably aware that non-Force-sensitive combatants against Force sensitives historically tends to turn out one way:

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BitterFlashyFruitbat-max-1mb.gif

http://mtv.mtvnimages.com/uri/mgid:file:http:shared:mtv.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/yoda-guards-star-wars-prequels-sm-1430729021.gif

Let's leave aside that the guy they are planning to take on has demonstrated pretty plainly that he knows how to do much the same thing:

https://i.redd.it/xyqu13mkt4201.gif

Instead, we have not a second of hesitation from these meat puppets, who charge in to their doom with no human motivation for their actions beyond a very boring "WE IZ PROGRAMMED 2 AVENGE DA BOSS" motive that wouldn't fly in the climactic end of a RPG campaign except for parties wanting to harvest XP after the BBEG goes down unexpectedly fast, but somehow is meant to make sense here.

On top of that, it's a great missed opportunity for Kylo Ren. All Rian Johnson had to do to add considerable gravitas, interest, and maturity to Ren's character - demonstrate he's growing and learning, demonstrate he can have plans of his own - was to be given one line in the wake of offing Snoke. One line, delivered with complete calm and assurance, spoken to the Praetorian Guards around them: "He said I was his successor. You all have a choice now. Die for your past, or live for our future."

That one line would've kept hammering the whole (inept, and distasteful) theme of "Let the past go". It also would have transformed the Praetorian Guard from a small group of warm-meat battle droids into thinking warriors: it would have given them an actual reaction. It would have emphasised the theme we saw with Finn in the first movie that stormtrooper conditioning doesn't preclude a trooper making a considered choice. By the Praetorians' reaction - whether to attack, hesitate, lay down their arms, or swear allegiance to Ren - we would find them to be human beings capable of choice, and not just automatons. The fight would not just be a whizz-bang-boring setpiece out of a Reylo fanfic.

As for the fight itself: I am really a bit puzzled by how underwhelming this fight turned out to be given it wasn't exactly a fool who was the swordmaster for it: C.C. Smiff, who had the same role for TFA (and which did have some semi-brutal lightsaber action) and who has been swordmaster for a good number of Game of Thrones episodes according to IMDB.

Here's my set of suspicions for why it sucked.

Part of it is because of a crucial filmmaking error on Rian Johnson's part. The "money shot" of the fight, where we are supposed to be most excited and impressed, that "Rey and Kylo back to back" shot, is done in one long take and from a pretty wide angle, using lots of opponents. This is Johnson's habit from Looper coming back to betray him: he thinks if you make us watch horrible things happen from a long way back, it'll be more intense.

The problem is, that type of shot is very unforgiving in fight scenes involving a lot of combatants. It gives you, as the viewer, a lot of opportunity to take in the entirety of what's happening - indeed that's the intent of the shot in the first place, the visual cue from that shot is to sit back and be objective about what you're seeing, it's meant to put you in spectator mode. Even Bruce Lee's biggest fights (against whole karate dojos and whatnot) have movement in them to distract the eye, even good as he was they didn't risk people being able to fully absorb what was happening for very long. Kurosawa's Seven Samurai films used the principle of kenjutsu that you kill with one or two blows, so the fights in there look massive because he sends dozens of raiders against the protagonists - all going down in short order.

Added to that, it's harder to use stunt doubles very easily because with this kind of shot the audience has all the time in the world to pick out it's Jimmy Shultz up there rather than Adam Driver. As a result, you can't go harder as you might if it was a trained martial artist, trained acrobat, trained stuntman up there - you have to slow down the moves so everyone's blades get where they need to be and someone doesn't wind up with a fractured skull or a blade raised to block with nothing to actually block.

You also can't get the speed of the routine up as fast if you don't have enough time or talent to do it. Not sure how much truth there is in the story, but for the final duel of ROTS Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christiansen apparently came out several weeks ahead of filming and for long periods per day did nothing but drill, drill, drill the opening sequences of that fight, the one blistering part of that duel where no stuntmen were apparently being used and the footage is not getting undercranked for that dizzying volley of blows. And that was just two of them, guys who'd done this stuff before and with Nick Gillard overseeing it. I strongly doubt Adam Driver or Daisy Ridley or their fellow meatbags were given anywhere near the amount of time necessary to get that fight down to a point where the choreography was faultless.

As a result, it sucked on film, because it looks more like a badly-done fan film fight than a quality film production. And there are fan films out there, cheesy as they may be, that do lightsaber duels as well as or better than the one in this film.

As I said, I didn't have problems with the choreography per se - simply because that's not my area of expertise at all, so I don't immediately recognize flaws in fighting scenes.

So I can't comment much on the second part of your post.

The first one, though: first class! A++

[Devonix]

I've got no problem with the Guards attacking Ben. Remember this is a cult and they just killed the cult leader. Ben is also explicitly not Snoke's sucessor, or his second in command. Ben was his guard dog.

No one in the first order respects or even like Ben to the point that they'd side with him over anything. Hell most of the actual military follow Hux. It's just that Hux is afraid of Ben or else he'd order everyone to kill him.

As for attacking force sensitives. Yeah it doesn't usually work out well. but 1 These are fanatics, and 2 Jedi and other force sensitives get killed by normal people all the time.

[Mightymosy]

I also had no problems with the guards attacking Ben, honestly.

But reading this post above made me realise that Rian Johnson & Co. had a really awesome potential - and wasted it.

Come to think of it: It is a shame so few movies these days have mooks surrendering after the Bbeg is defeated. I think it makes things more human and less video-gamey, and is a nice touch.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I am fairly certain that had the guards ran, we'd be complaining about how ridiculous it was for them to run from a mere two enemies.

[Fyraltari]

Come to think of it: It is a shame so few movies these days have mooks surrendering after the Bbeg is defeated. I think it makes things more human and less video-gamey, and is a nice touch.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMd4S-LkywI

[Mightymosy]

I am fairly certain that had the guards ran, we'd be complaining about how ridiculous it was for them to run from a mere two enemies.
Some, probably, yes, since there is always someone who complains.
But I think with Kylo maling that speech as suggested, it might have had a chance to be a pretty good scene.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMd4S-LkywI

Thumbs up! Didn't know Batman was so cool. Maybe I have to watch these cartoons one day :smallsmile:

[Devonix]

Perhaps it may have made sense for him to make that speech. I don't really think it would though. But it wouldn't make sense for the guards to follow him or to back down from fighting him.

Remember they're Snoke's guards. Snoke in this series is a religious cult leader who was just killed in front of them. These aren't Sith, this isn't some kind of you kill the boss you are the boss. And Ben was never his second in command. Just someone working for him.

What they're doing is avenging their master. Even if they die, that's not the point. Because getting themselves killed in an unwinnable fight is exactly what we should expect these types of characters to do.

[Mightymosy]

That is the narrative of shoot'em up games.

In real life, people who follow religious leaders still want to save their skins, at least a decent amount of the time.

Like i said, I had no trouble with the red guard attacking Kylo and Rey, but I think the alternative version might have greatly improved that scene.

Hey, why not have some of the guards defect, others run, and still others fight? Just to show that there are human beings behind the masks.

[Devonix]

That is the narrative of shoot'em up games.

In real life, people who follow religious leaders still want to save their skins, at least a decent amount of the time.

Like i said, I had no trouble with the red guard attacking Kylo and Rey, but I think the alternative version might have greatly improved that scene.

Hey, why not have some of the guards defect, others run, and still others fight? Just to show that there are human beings behind the masks.

It's not the narrative of shoot em ups. It's the narrative of fanatical cult members. Our leader is dead. The one who stole the meaning of our life is right here. Lets kill him.

[Obscuraphile]

That is the narrative of shoot'em up games.

In real life, people who follow religious leaders still want to save their skins, at least a decent amount of the time.

Jonestown. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown)

[Saintheart]

Perhaps it may have made sense for him to make that speech. I don't really think it would though. But it wouldn't make sense for the guards to follow him or to back down from fighting him.

Remember they're Snoke's guards. Snoke in this series is a religious cult leader who was just killed in front of them. These aren't Sith, this isn't some kind of you kill the boss you are the boss. And Ben was never his second in command. Just someone working for him.

What they're doing is avenging their master. Even if they die, that's not the point. Because getting themselves killed in an unwinnable fight is exactly what we should expect these types of characters to do.

Should we? That's rather part of the problem with TLJ, because Johnson is obsessed with subverting expectations we really have no idea at that point of the movie what anyone's motivations are. We also don't know whether these guys are cult members, or brainwashed, or just professional mercenaries. Which is why giving them an actual choice would have told us a lot more about them than a bunch of assumptions in a film which took stupid glee in stomping on assumptions everywhere it went.

This is one of the more astute plot reasons for why the Emperor sends his royal guards away when the final confrontation between himself, Vader, and Luke is about to begin in ROTJ. There is no motivation given for why he does so, but TLJ illustrates pretty nicely the problems that the very presence of awesome-looking guards in this sort of situation does to the story.

Narratively, they can really only function as speedbumps who allow the hero to demonstrate his awesomeness ahead of a final, bloody confrontation with the Dragon and/or the Big Bad (consider the last three fights of Christian Bale's Equilibrium). When the nature of the confrontation is far more about the psyche, as ROTJ is, the writer smartly sends the guards away because all they're going to do is make nuisances of themselves. And when the story is ineptly done, as it was here, they function only as fanfiction.

Followers of religious cults have a variety of reactions to the deaths of their cults' leaders. Some leave. Some turn the guy into a god. Some set up clone copies of the cult. Some do indeed try to save their own skins; not everyone killed themselves or hurled themselves at the ATF kamikaze style at Waco. 3 people refused to suicide at Jonestown, too. But as said, we don't even get to know who these guys are at all; writing Rian's script for him in this respect doesn't work.

[Devonix]

Should we? That's rather part of the problem with TLJ, because Johnson is obsessed with subverting expectations we really have no idea at that point of the movie what anyone's motivations are. We also don't know whether these guys are cult members, or brainwashed, or just professional mercenaries. Which is why giving them an actual choice would have told us a lot more about them than a bunch of assumptions in a film which took stupid glee in stomping on assumptions everywhere it went.

This is one of the more astute plot reasons for why the Emperor sends his royal guards away when the final confrontation between himself, Vader, and Luke is about to begin in ROTJ. There is no motivation given for why he does so, but TLJ illustrates pretty nicely the problems that the very presence of awesome-looking guards in this sort of situation does to the story.

Narratively, they can really only function as speedbumps who allow the hero to demonstrate his awesomeness ahead of a final, bloody confrontation with the Dragon and/or the Big Bad (consider the last three fights of Christian Bale's Equilibrium). When the nature of the confrontation is far more about the psyche, as ROTJ is, the writer smartly sends the guards away because all they're going to do is make nuisances of themselves. And when the story is ineptly done, as it was here, they function only as fanfiction.

Ryan Johnson really doesn't subvert expectations very much. I mean he's pretty much playing out the natural extention of Luke's King Arthur style narrative.

[Saintheart]

Ryan Johnson really doesn't subvert expectations very much. I mean he's pretty much playing out the natural extention of Luke's King Arthur style narrative.

Too bad Arthur's fall is because
(1) his own knights betrayed him and betrayed the ideals of the Round Table;
(2) he commits incest with his own sister; and
(3) his wife cheated on him.

Luke is not King Arthur. Let's not stretch the point.

[Devonix]

Too bad Arthur's fall is because
(1) his own knights betrayed him and betrayed the ideals of the Round Table;
(2) he commits incest with his own sister; and
(3) his wife cheated on him.

Luke is not King Arthur. Let's not stretch the point.

Not one to one obviously. Since Luke wasn't one to one in the original trilogy either.

What I'm referring to is how he's a young inheritor of a noble lineage who helped foster peace and prosperity. But through his own hubris he was brought low and his order broken. Ben's the mordred analogue though obviously not through incest.

The point is that these stories never end well for the hero. Arthur, Beowulf ect.

[Mechalich]

Not one to one obviously. Since Luke wasn't one to one in the original trilogy either.

What I'm referring to is how he's a young inheritor of a noble lineage who helped foster peace and prosperity. But through his own hubris he was brought low and his order broken. Ben's the mordred analogue though obviously not through incest.

The point is that these stories never end well for the hero. Arthur, Beowulf ect.

But Luke's not the inheritor of a noble lineage, he's an orphaned farm boy, and virgin birth aside, Anakin is still born into slavery on Tatooine. Star Wars is a popular melodrama, not a classical tragedy (the Prequels, if you wish to argue Obi-Wan is their main character, are closer to the tragic mold).

[Devonix]

But Luke's not the inheritor of a noble lineage, he's an orphaned farm boy, and virgin birth aside, Anakin is still born into slavery on Tatooine. Star Wars is a popular melodrama, not a classical tragedy (the Prequels, if you wish to argue Obi-Wan is their main character, are closer to the tragic mold).

Orphaned Farmboy born into a noble lineage of the Jedi Knights is exactly that. And the son of a slave thing wasn't thought up during his story arc so I don't really see it as fair including it. Perhaps a suplimentary material but not the main thrust of the character. It was something bolted onto his past,not what he was developed with.

[Lethologica]

But Luke's not the inheritor of a noble lineage, he's an orphaned farm boy, and virgin birth aside, Anakin is still born into slavery on Tatooine. Star Wars is a popular melodrama, not a classical tragedy (the Prequels, if you wish to argue Obi-Wan is their main character, are closer to the tragic mold).
You can't just say "virgin birth aside" like it's not a straight line from there to the most significant literary figure of all time. Luke's significance and status is mystical, more than worldly - the same applies to his lineage. And for mystical significance, it's hard to beat virgin-born child-of-prophecy Anakin Skywalker.

[Forum Explorer]

Too bad Arthur's fall is because
(1) his own knights betrayed him and betrayed the ideals of the Round Table;
(2) he commits incest with his own sister; and
(3) his wife cheated on him.

Luke is not King Arthur. Let's not stretch the point.

1) He was betrayed by Ren who betrayed the ideals of the round table
2) Luke did kiss his sister at one point :smalltongue:
3) Alright, you got me there. But 2 out of three isn't bad.

I would say you are being overly specific. Really, in general terms Kylo Ren fits all three of those events.

1) Kylo betrays Luke, the Jedi, and the Republic's ideals (Betrayal)
2) Luke's paranoia drives Kylo away (Wrong doing on the part of the hero)
3) Ren leaves Luke for his greatest enemy (losing a beloved person)

[Jayngfet]

The important thing to recall is that Luke's fall in the story is unsatisfying because none of it is attributed to Luke.

The entire movie tries to say him pulling his weapon on his nephew is just an involuntary thing that got taken out of context but then brushes over how half his students also turned on him for no reason. Ben's whole motivation boils down either brain control waves or his grandpa or that incident and how the latter two fit together his hazy at best. Luke for all intents and purposes is treated as if he did everything right with no flaws, to an extent he didn't even get in the expanded universe where he very clearly makes many wrong choices that endanger his order early on, and then it all comes down while the film wants to treat him as a saint who just blames himself unjustly.

If say, Luke ignored tenants of the jedi code or misunderstood them and that produced the end result, at least there's a point A to point B line you can follow besides "this guy we know nothing about manipulated this one other guy we really don't know much about and that made a bunch of other guys standing nearby turn evil with him". Or if Han's influence on Ben made him unpredictable and fall you could draw an Arthur parallel there. Or Luke himself met a woman and left the jedi path and Ben turned to darkness without guidance that could be a parallel.

The entire thing is incredibly muddied by the way it's told. Luke apparently never checked until that moment to find Ben was apparently already evil. So then he had to fight Ben which turned him double evil. But then that fight somehow got taken out of context and turned a bunch of other guys evil but those guys were somehow stronger than the good ones. So Snoke turned everyone evil so that Luke could turn everyone evil.

Which caused R2 to go into a coma while conveniently having all but one pieces of a map Luke and NotKenobi had. But it turns out that wasn't a map to find Luke and he knew the final piece all along despite it not being in his possession and not uploaded for ...reasons? He also conveniently didn't change his address in like half a decade otherwise the map would be useless.

[Mightymosy]

Jonestown. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown)

Jonestown people fought for their leader till their death? Really?

[Obscuraphile]

Jonestown people fought for their leader till their death? Really?

Which bespeaks a more fanatical devotion: I will fight for you, even after your passing, or say the word and I will take my own life?

[Mightymosy]

Given the concrete examples, I'd say neither.

They can hardly be compared.

Interestingly enough, quite a couple of Jonestown sectists tried to flee. A couple even managed to flee.
The sect leader appearantly was found with a bullet in his head - who shot him? Who knows?

Hardly comparable with TLJ, and STILL you find a couple people who WERE NOT WILLING TO DIE for the religious leader.

In TLJ, the leader is ALREADY dead, and that is extemely important.
Unless we learn that Snoke established and "afterlife" religious belief, we can assume a very simple reason for the red guards to follow Snoke:
Snoke is the strongest guy, he conquers the galaxy, and when we follow we will profit from being on the winning side. If we don't follow, someone with magical superpowers will quickly murder us, possibly in painful ways.
So, greed and fair, like in most realistic depictions of evil organisations.

What happens with these motivations when the leader is suddenly killed of, you have to ask yourself. By someone who you know ALSO has super magical powers that will rain on your parade.

In that light, I think the suggestion is extremely well thought out, and would drastically improve the scene at hand, even though I would never habe though of it myself, and honestly had no problem with the scene when I watched it in cinema - which tells us all more about how spoiled I am from simplicistic popcorn cinema than about the outstanding quality of the movie.

[Fyraltari]

The Praetorian Guards take a good few visual cues from samurai for whom dying trying to avenge your fallen master is a job requirement.

However they also tkae their name from the bodyguard unit with the worst track record in history (especially when it come to loyalty) so go figure.

However their loyalty isn't surprising since they are (presumably) the best of the best of a group who uses children indoctrination. They probably got a double serving of that. Also I think a visual guide or something stated Snoke trained them personally.

[Sapphire Guard]

I don't think we know enough about the Praetorian Guard to say what their appropriate response should be. But if they're still around, then Hux has witnesses to what really happened to Snoke and/or Rey, so they have to be dead before then.

Wish they were called something else, though.

[Jayngfet]

I don't think we know enough about the Praetorian Guard to say what their appropriate response should be.

Really this is a bigger problem than it's made out to be. In the Original Trilogy we don't need to know what the Royal Guard does or doesn't do or what they believe because they don't do anything. Their devotion and training was only explored later when they were used as characters. Likewise Palpatine had a senate guard in the prequels that didn't really do anything so their lack of exploration compared to other characters doesn't matter as much.

But the moment a character takes an action it needs to have some kind of backing to make sense. When we see the Tuscans for like two seconds in A New Hope everything still follows logically for them. They're out raiding, they spot Luke as an easy target, then run when they believe there's a bigger threat. It establishes who they are and how committed they are to any fight they're in.

Likewise we see Stormtroopers fight and win against rebels, but check for their own wounded as Vader comes aboard, so we know that a hit on them isn't necessarily lethal. So it's believable that they basically throw most of their fights on Vader or Tarkins orders since they don't think that'll be lethal, and even if it does what we learn about Tuscans establishes Stormtroopers as being more precise and disciplined and until that moment also selected carefully for physical ability. It also means at the end of the trilogy Leia getting hit and living isn't unbelievable since we have the implication before that point some hits can be survivable.

The Praetorian Guard don't really follow logically because they and Snoke don't chain up to much. Why are they this loyal to Snoke? Nobody knows because nobody knows anything about Snoke. He certainly doesn't inspire respect or admiration in his men. He doesn't use psychological games or basic courtesy like the emperor did. There's no real reason for anyone to be loyal to Snoke established, except raw power. But he's dead so that no longer matters. Them just using whatever weapon they feel like certainly doesn't give the impression of a regimented and disciplined unit that would fight on regardless.

Heck, there's no real reason for Snoke to believe BEN is as loyal as he ultimatley wasn't. He's conditioned, but also loyal via outside events. Snoke doesn't treat him with any real kindness and his station as Kylo Ren affords him no luxuries. He has no family on the inside to be threatened. Ben is expected to be loyal to Snoke ...because he is?

[Rockphed]

Heck, there's no real reason for Snoke to believe BEN is as loyal as he ultimatley wasn't. He's conditioned, but also loyal via outside events. Snoke doesn't treat him with any real kindness and his station as Kylo Ren affords him no luxuries. He has no family on the inside to be threatened. Ben is expected to be loyal to Snoke ...because he is?

Snoke expects Ben to stay Kylo because Snoke is an idiot who doesn't understand how hormonal teenagers work.

This thread has convinced me that the flaws in The Last Jedi aren't story based, but are editorial and directorial based.

[Obscuraphile]

This thread has convinced me that the flaws in The Last Jedi aren't story based, but are editorial and directorial based.

Well they are story based but they stem from editorial and directorial errors.

[Jayngfet]

Snoke expects Ben to stay Kylo because Snoke is an idiot who doesn't understand how hormonal teenagers work.


The thing is this just makes it worse because it makes you question how exactly someone that dumb became supreme leader. You can say Palpatine had no initial explanation but the difference is Palpatine had charisma. He complimented the admiralty when Vader threatened them. He referred to Vader himself as his "friend" and only treated him like dirt when he disobeyed. You can see from the way he talks that he's a manipulator who conditions people and is very good at it..



This thread has convinced me that the flaws in The Last Jedi aren't story based, but are editorial and directorial based.

The thing is there's not much difference because Rian Johnson wrote and directed this story and also bragged in editorial about how he shipped the final edit of the film weeks early.

[Dr.Samurai]

Ryan Johnson really doesn't subvert expectations very much.
Nah, not too much. Let's see:

- The Resistance is on the run, despite having destroyed Starkiller Base while the First Order's army was stationed there.
- The Republic refuses to fight, despite having been directly assaulted by the First Order and losing their capital planet.
- The greatest hero in the galaxy refuses to help, and would rather let his loved ones die than leave his planetoid. Also, he's almost a child killer. Sorry, sleeping child killer.
- The greatest threat to the Resistance is Poe, their greatest hero. Instead of saving the day, he causes the deaths of countless Resistance fighters by either disobeying orders or interfering with missions.
- Rey's parents are nobody, despite everything in the previous movie suggesting otherwise.
- Snoke is meaningless, despite being the impetus behind everything.
- The heroic side quest fails.
- The heroic mutiny fails and backfires.
- Anyone can master the Force without training.
- Heroic sacrifice is pointless.
- Luke's come to save the day. Actually no, he hasn't (a subversion within a subversion, subception).

Otherwise yeah, I agree, not really subverting much... :smallamused:

I mean he's pretty much playing out the natural extention of Luke's King Arthur style narrative.
Oh, duh. Silly us for missing this.

[Mightymosy]

The important thing to recall is that Luke's fall in the story is unsatisfying because none of it is attributed to Luke.

The entire movie tries to say him pulling his weapon on his nephew is just an involuntary thing that got taken out of context but then brushes over how half his students also turned on him for no reason. Ben's whole motivation boils down either brain control waves or his grandpa or that incident and how the latter two fit together his hazy at best. Luke for all intents and purposes is treated as if he did everything right with no flaws, to an extent he didn't even get in the expanded universe where he very clearly makes many wrong choices that endanger his order early on, and then it all comes down while the film wants to treat him as a saint who just blames himself unjustly.

If say, Luke ignored tenants of the jedi code or misunderstood them and that produced the end result, at least there's a point A to point B line you can follow besides "this guy we know nothing about manipulated this one other guy we really don't know much about and that made a bunch of other guys standing nearby turn evil with him". Or if Han's influence on Ben made him unpredictable and fall you could draw an Arthur parallel there. Or Luke himself met a woman and left the jedi path and Ben turned to darkness without guidance that could be a parallel.

The entire thing is incredibly muddied by the way it's told. Luke apparently never checked until that moment to find Ben was apparently already evil. So then he had to fight Ben which turned him double evil. But then that fight somehow got taken out of context and turned a bunch of other guys evil but those guys were somehow stronger than the good ones. So Snoke turned everyone evil so that Luke could turn everyone evil.

Which caused R2 to go into a coma while conveniently having all but one pieces of a map Luke and NotKenobi had. But it turns out that wasn't a map to find Luke and he knew the final piece all along despite it not being in his possession and not uploaded for ...reasons? He also conveniently didn't change his address in like half a decade otherwise the map would be useless.

I think that's how they made that script.

He's evil because he's evil. Done!

Anyone watch the "Pitch Meeting" series on Youtube (by ScreenRant)?

It's hilarious! And often times I think that we all laugh about it, but in actual reality stuff DOES work that way.

Like, when you watch Scrubs and think "Well, of course stuff is different in REAL hospitals, right? They wouldn't DARE to do that in professional setting, riiiight?"
And then you go work at medical care settings......
And watch and laugh about the series for a whole different set of reasons :smallcool:

Check it out, it's hiiiilarious, and at the very least you can laugh off some of the frustration with TLJ and the state of Star Wars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld9Vj9TsFWo&list=PL--PgETgAz5FGoatB9KQzbnpv0bgZqU2l

[Dr.Samurai]

Interesting news (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9r8r_-vOVU) coming out of Pinewood Studios :smallcool:. As Grace says, hold out one more year for the killing blow :smallbiggrin:.

[Devonix]

Interesting news (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9r8r_-vOVU) coming out of Pinewood Studios :smallcool:. As Grace says, hold out one more year for the killing blow :smallbiggrin:.

Oh God not Grace Randolph. There's a reason she has no credibility in the industry.

[AMFV]

It's not the narrative of shoot em ups. It's the narrative of fanatical cult members. Our leader is dead. The one who stole the meaning of our life is right here. Lets kill him.

So when has that actually happened? Cause usually fanatical cult members tend to surrender when their leader dies at least in leader oriented cults.

[Kitten Champion]

So when has that actually happened? Cause usually fanatical cult members tend to surrender when their leader dies at least in leader oriented cults.

I'm not sure what "usually" means here. However, a fairly famous example is the revenge of the forty-seven ronin pf Ako, who were ready and willing to die to fulfill their obligation to avenge the death of their lord. Granted they went about it somewhat more circuitously, but I suppose that's why it's an event of note.

[AMFV]

I'm not sure what "usually" means here. However, a fairly famous example is the revenge of the forty-seven ronin pf Ako, who were ready and willing to die to fulfill their obligation to avenge the death of their lord. Granted they went about it somewhat more circuitously, but I suppose that's why it's an event of note.

That isn't a leader oriented cult though. And that's a pretty unusual and noteworthy occurrence. Normally people falling into a rage where they're willing to just charge a superior opponent is not a very typical outcome of something like seeing your boss get killed, it can be but typically it would require a sort of loyalty that we haven't really seen from the Empire or the first order in Star Wars.

[Dr.Samurai]

Oh God not Grace Randolph. There's a reason she has no credibility in the industry.
I don't know what reason that is, but given that most of her commentary in the video around the alleged secret meeting is perfectly reasonable, I'd say your comment is more a rebuke of "the industry" than of Grace.

So when has that actually happened?
Good question. The largest problem with the guards is that we don't know anything about them and their leader is already dead. So the fight is mostly pointless unless you think Rey or Ren is actually going to die or something.

This claim that this is just what cult people do is hollow because 1. we don't know that they're in a cult and 2. as AMFV suggests, that's not actually what cult people do.

[Devonix]

I don't know what reason that is, but given that most of her commentary in the video around the alleged secret meeting is perfectly reasonable, I'd say your comment is more a rebuke of "the industry" than of Grace.



She has a history of manufacturing stories and giving provably false information. I'm not saying her information is incorrect here. After all even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But I wouldn't buy her " Sources. " Since she's burned so many bridges with her horrible behavior and lies.

She once went on a tirade about some huge conspiracy by Marvel and Disney to fake reviews and pay off critics to give Batman v Superman bad reviews. And one of her examples of someone who was apparently paid off, was one of the strongest DC supporters out there who actually gave the film a good review.

[Sapphire Guard]

I don't know anything about her credibility or lack thereof, but I doubt a Youtuber could get a source into this super secret meeting if it happened.

[Dr.Samurai]

She has a history of manufacturing stories and giving provably false information. I'm not saying her information is incorrect here. After all even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But I wouldn't buy her " Sources. " Since she's burned so many bridges with her horrible behavior and lies.

She once went on a tirade about some huge conspiracy by Marvel and Disney to fake reviews and pay off critics to give Batman v Superman bad reviews. And one of her examples of someone who was apparently paid off, was one of the strongest DC supporters out there who actually gave the film a good review.
Ah.

Then I am considerably less excited than I was some hours ago... :smallannoyed:

[Devonix]

Ah.

Then I am considerably less excited than I was some hours ago... :smallannoyed:

Again, not saying she's right or wrong. But she's not a reliable source. She's just a popular one because she does a lot of clickbait and chases controversy. She deliberately misquotes people and files false stories.

[Xyril]

and the complete uselessness of any armor apart from that one dude's bracers.

In general, I don't find it terribly implausible that in a setting where a wide range of weapons are commonly used, people find it useful to wear armor that isn't entirely effective against a subset of that range of weapons. I--as a civilian--legally own several guns that can easily penetrate the vests used by your average police department. That doesn't make it irrational for them to be wearing them as effective protection against the sort of easily concealed guns your average criminal suspect might be carrying.

Add in the fact that light sabers are probably among the rarer of weapons in the setting, and I'm okay with that particular vulnerability. Now, if we had further scenes showing that the armor offers zero protection against even the lowest power blasters, blades, Ewoks with rocks, and punching Wookies, then I would be a little annoyed that those elite guards are willing to sacrifice peripheral vision solely to look intimidating.



If you liked the fight choreography of this scene please tell me why because I just am not seeing it.

I liked it because it was entertaining and well-executed. I love well-choreographed but realistic fight scenes (the Arthur Dayne fight in Game of Thrones springs to mind), but the part of my brain that appreciates realism isn't loud or annoying enough to override the part of my brain that enjoys flourishes and other impractical embellishments.

[Peelee]

Wookies

Wookiees. 2 E's.

[Xyril]

Wookiees. 2 E's.


Hrm. Apparently I've been spelling it wrong all these years, and Chrome's autocorrect has just been doing a great job quietly sending me to wookieEpedia instead of the wookiepedia I was typing. Can't believe I never noticed that before.

[Peelee]

Hrm. Apparently I've been spelling it wrong all these years, and Chrome's autocorrect has just been doing a great job quietly sending me to wookieEpedia instead of the wookiepedia I was typing. Can't believe I never noticed that before.

It's really, really common to misspell it that way. And after a long enough time of knowing it, without the second E, it just looks unbalanced.

I usually pop that fix in at least once per Star Wars thread.

[Fyraltari]

Likewise we see Stormtroopers fight and win against rebels, but check for their own wounded as Vader comes aboard, so we know that a hit on them isn't necessarily lethal. So it's believable that they basically throw most of their fights on Vader or Tarkins orders since they don't think that'll be lethal, and even if it does what we learn about Tuscans establishes Stormtroopers as being more precise and disciplined and until that moment also selected carefully for physical ability. It also means at the end of the trilogy Leia getting hit and living isn't unbelievable since we have the implication before that point some hits can be survivable.
Uh I never caught that. Good eye. Some of those are definetely dead though.


The Praetorian Guard don't really follow logically because they and Snoke don't chain up to much. Why are they this loyal to Snoke? Nobody knows because nobody knows anything about Snoke.
They are unnamed mooks in a faction that brainwashes childern and spends two movies screaming at a protagonist that he is a "TRAITOR!". Isn't it enough? To quote ERB "We don't need the backstory of every ****ing tree branch".

They are unnamed mooks belonging to a faction that brainwash children, and spends two movies screaming at a protagonist that he's a "TRAITOR!". I don't see why you need any more than that
He certainly doesn't inspire respect or admiration in his men. He doesn't use psychological games or basic courtesy like the emperor did. There's no real reason for anyone to be loyal to Snoke established, except raw power. But he's dead so that no longer matters. Them just using whatever weapon they feel like certainly doesn't give the impression of a regimented and disciplined unit that would fight on regardless.

Heck, there's no real reason for Snoke to believe BEN is as loyal as he ultimatley wasn't. He's conditioned, but also loyal via outside events. Snoke doesn't treat him with any real kindness and his station as Kylo Ren affords him no luxuries. He has no family on the inside to be threatened. Ben is expected to be loyal to Snoke ...because he is?
Concerning the "whatever weapon they want": that's not true. The Guard is clearly made up of four pairs of fighters using identical weapons and weraing identical armor.

Concerning Snoke: Anybody else notice that his character kind of took a U-turn between movies? In TFA he is unfaillingly polite and appears supportive of Kylo Ren. He doesn't even appear to mind the destruction of Starkiller that much and decides to finish Ben's taining. Come TLJ and he is heaping abuse at everybody he interacts with and acts dismissive of Kylo.

EDIT: That fight did serve a narrative purpose by the way: Showing Ben and Rey work as a team thus adding weight to his proposal offer immeadiately after.

[Dr.Samurai]

They are unnamed mooks in a faction that brainwashes childern and spends two movies screaming at a protagonist that he is a "TRAITOR!". Isn't it enough? To quote ERB "We don't need the backstory of every ****ing tree branch".
No, it's not enough.

The brainwashed kids are the soldiers of the First Order. It's not clear that the First Order includes force-sensitive warriors slavishly loyal to Snoke. It seems more like the First Order is made up of Hux's army and Snoke is using this military force to conquer the galaxy. I don't know why we should assume these faceless guards are brainwashed or part of a cult.

The problem is exactly that we have to assume anything about that in the first place. Some interaction before the throne room fight scene would have served to establish what we're seeing. This is another part where Rian subverts things. Instead of fighting the mooks to get to the big bad, he kills the big bad off instantly, and then gives us a fight with mooks that no one knows anything about or cares for in the least.

[Fyraltari]

No, it's not enough.

The brainwashed kids are the soldiers of the First Order. It's not clear that the First Order includes force-sensitive warriors slavishly loyal to Snoke. It seems more like the First Order is made up of Hux's army and Snoke is using this military force to conquer the galaxy. I don't know why we should assume these faceless guards are brainwashed or part of a cult

Who's force-sensitive? The guards?
Why would you assume the bodyguards of the head of state are not part of the army?

[Dr.Samurai]

Who's force-sensitive? The guards?
Good point actually, I just took it for granted that they are force sensitive.

Why would you assume the bodyguards of the head of state are not part of the army?
Doesn't Hux say at one point that the army belongs to him? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I got the impression hat Hux is supplying the army to Snoke.

And it's an easy assumption to make since force-sensitive people can wreck standard troops and contend with other force-sensitive attackers, and they're usually trained by the Sith or Jedi, and not the state.

[Aeson]

Why would you assume the bodyguards of the head of state are not part of the army?
Because, depending on which state you're most familiar with, the bodyguards of the head of state with which you are most familiar may in fact not be part of the army? For example, the US Secret Service is a law enforcement agency which was part of the Department of the Treasury until 2003 and, while now a part of the Department of Homeland Security, still isn't part of the US Army or US Marine Corps.

[Fyraltari]

Good point actually, I just took it for granted that they are force sensitive.
Personally, I ssume no-one is force-sensitive until they do something force related (or are part of an order of force sensitives).


Doesn't Hux say at one point that the army belongs to him? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I got the impression hat Hux is supplying the army to Snoke.
No I think he says the army answers to him rather than Kylo Ren, or something along those lines. The army clearly belongs to Snoke in the same way that the US army belongs to the US president rather than the highest ranking soldier in it. That soldier woud probably take offense to the Vice-president (or whatever is the closest the US has to whatever Kylo Ren's position is) bossing his troops around.


And it's an easy assumption to make since force-sensitive people can wreck standard troops and contend with other force-sensitive attackers, and they're usually trained by the Sith or Jedi, and not the state.
Mandalorians go toe-to-toe with Jedi and Sith, as do some bounty hunters.


Because, depending on which state you're most familiar with, the bodyguards of the head of state with which you are most familiar may in fact not be part of the army? For example, the US Secret Service is a law enforcement agency which was part of the Department of the Treasury until 2003 and, while now a part of the Department of Homeland Security, still isn't part of the US Army or US Marine Corps.
Totalitarian states aren't typically big on police/army separation. Anyway I was challenging Dr. Samurai's asumption that the guard didn't come from the "regular" First Order but was another group of completely wasted force-sensitives, like the Knights of Ren.

[Aeson]

Totalitarian states aren't typically big on police/army separation.
True, but it's not exactly unheard of for a dictator to maintain a separate force whose personnel (are presumed to) have greater personal loyalty to the dictator than do regular army personnel. One such example would be the SS.

[Jayngfet]

Bodyguards are almost never drawn from the military. It's more common for them to either be their own branch or historically mercenaries from abroad only in it for coin(the only one of these left is the Swiss guard but they had contemporaries in many monarchal courts, drawn from a number or nations to a number of others).

[Mechalich]

Anyway I was challenging Dr. Samurai's asumption that the guard didn't come from the "regular" First Order but was another group of completely wasted force-sensitives, like the Knights of Ren.

The Knights of Ren are different from the Red Guards. The Knights of Ren were in TLJ in cut content - I believe they were supposed to fight Rey (and possibly Luke) on Skellig Michael. The unfortunate thing in TLJ is that there's nothing in the film to say that the Red Guards aren't the Knights of Ren, which is a problem. For instance, if the movies had shown the other Knights of Ren, and implied then to be equal in rank to Kylo - such as if Snoke had a short scene dispatching them to kill Luke and Rey - then it would make more sense for the Red Guards to attack, because there would potentially be someone else in the line of succession.

[Jayngfet]

In general this is a big deal because back when the film was new I saw people constantly confuse the two groups. After all they both have nothing about themselves except for being a bunch of spooky masked dudes with individual melee weapons.

Yes, this did happen in the original trilogy since Palpatines advisors and honor guard were assumed to also be force users by some, and some were later written as if they were, but the thing is since neither of those two groups are attributed the story significance either the red guard or knights are the confusion is much more prominent here.

[Fyraltari]

True, but it's not exactly unheard of for a dictator to maintain a separate force whose personnel (are presumed to) have greater personal loyalty to the dictator than do regular army personnel. One such example would be the SS.
Exactly.

Bodyguards are almost never drawn from the military. It's more common for them to either be their own branch or historically mercenaries from abroad only in it for coin(the only one of these left is the Swiss guard but they had contemporaries in many monarchal courts, drawn from a number or nations to a number of others).
True but considering they brainwash their children I don't see them trusting mercenaries around their beloved
Supreme Leader.
Don't forget that if he wants people who are utterly loyal to him he can check their minds and weed out the less-than-fanatically loyal.

In general this is a big deal because back when the film was new I saw people constantly confuse the two groups. After all they both have nothing about themselves except for being a bunch of spooky masked dudes with individual melee weapons.
Yep, the KoR are completely wasted. If they didn't know what to do with them, why introduce them at all?
I can forgive people confusing the two, afyter all we only got to see a split-second of the KoR.


Yes, this did happen in the original trilogy since Palpatines advisors and honor guard were assumed to also be force users by some, and some were later written as if they were.
The Royal Guard were written as having Force Powers? Where?

[Peelee]

Yep, the KoR are completely wasted. If they didn't know what to do with them, why introduce them at all?

Ah, I see you are unfamiliar with JJ Abrams and the mystery box!

[Rockphed]

Ah, I see you are unfamiliar with JJ Abrams and the mystery box!

Whoever wrote the scripts for these movies seems to have taken a plot that would have worked over about 4-5 films, and kept almost random bits.

[Mightymosy]

I don't know if we are allowed talking about the SS here, but since other people mentioned them as an example I think I should mention that I think quite a couple of these did prefer fleeing to Argentina and other places instead of fighting to the death for their dead leader. If I am not mistaken, some may have even left the sinking ship before that..

In fact, one could make the point that this whole story shows how evil regimes work: with fear. Once fear from the top is no longer because someone cut off the head of the snake, you'll have a variety of participants who quickly try to purge themselves from the stain of evil that they swore duty to before.

[Jayngfet]

The Royal Guard were written as having Force Powers? Where?

A bunch of places. In the Expanded Universe I think it was even mentioned that being force sensitive is actually a prerequisite for selection. Only the highest ranking ones actually get taught but there are enough variants n the royal guard outfit worn by enough people who use the dark side to make it pretty clear at least some writers have that assumption.

A generic royal guard isn't actually awakened to the force, I think, but they all can be if the emperor wishes it.

[Peelee]

A bunch of places. In the Expanded Universe I think it was even mentioned that being force sensitive is actually a prerequisite for selection. Only the highest ranking ones actually get taught but there are enough variants n the royal guard outfit worn by enough people who use the dark side to make it pretty clear at least some writers have that assumption.

A generic royal guard isn't actually awakened to the force, I think, but they all can be if the emperor wishes it.

Sources? I remember Tierce, but to the best of my knowledge he wasn't Force-sensitive.

[Dragonexx]

Concerning Snoke: Anybody else notice that his character kind of took a U-turn between movies? In TFA he is unfaillingly polite and appears supportive of Kylo Ren. He doesn't even appear to mind the destruction of Starkiller that much and decides to finish Ben's taining. Come TLJ and he is heaping abuse at everybody he interacts with and acts dismissive of Kylo.

This is the result of having the movies be managed by two different people with no oversight. Abrams had written some material specifying where to go after TFA, but Jhonson just threw it all out and did his own this. Keep in mind this isn't inherant to Jhonson, different creators just have different ways of doing things.

Hence why the oversight is necessary, to make sure everything comes together. Star Wars really needs a Kevin Feige.

[Jayngfet]

Sources? I remember Tierce, but to the best of my knowledge he wasn't Force-sensitive.

Carnor Jax is obviously the big one. According to the wiki there are others and you can see them as nameless NPC's in a lot of games like the Force Unleashed.

[Peelee]

Carnor Jax is obviously the big one. According to the wiki there are others and you can see them as nameless NPC's in a lot of games like the Force Unleashed.

Force Unleashed had the Shadow Guard, not the Royal Guard. Of the named Guardsmen (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor%27s_Royal_Guard/Legends), only Jax was called out as being Force Sensitive from what I can see (I never read the Clone Emperor comics, so I'm pulling this from limited sources. Do let me know if I'm wrong).

[Jayngfet]

Force Unleashed had the Shadow Guard, not the Royal Guard. Of the named Guardsmen (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor%27s_Royal_Guard/Legends), only Jax was called out as being Force Sensitive from what I can see (I never read the Clone Emperor comics, so I'm pulling this from limited sources. Do let me know if I'm wrong).

The Shadow Guard, the Saber Guard, and a bunch of others. They're not explicitly related but given they use similar equipment and weapons it's not exactly much of a stretch. Especially since the force unleashed is also cited as claiming all Royal Guard can use the force, not just some specific individuals or variants. This is also backed up by the databank(which is hard to access but cited on the wiki since even backups are now defunct), so there are two sources for it.

[hamishspence]

The Sovereign Protectors at least, are all Force-sensitive and all recruited from within the Royal Guard. Jax was one, but there would have been others:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Sovereign_Protector

The Shadow Guard are also considered to be "a unit within the Royal Guard"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor's_Shadow_Guard

Presumably, the Force-sensitive regular Royal Guard members tend to be transferred into the other two units once they've been trained enough - and the non-Force-sensitive members tend to remain in the red armour.



In the newcanon at least, there was one Jango clone in the Royal Guard in Lords of the Sith. And Jango has never been portrayed as Force Sensitive.

[Jayngfet]

In the newcanon at least, there was one Jango clone in the Royal Guard in Lords of the Sith. And Jango has never been portrayed as Force Sensitive.

Of course the whole Dorsk line of clones from the original EU shows that while clones aren't intended to be force sensitive, some develop that way otherwise and in fact subsequent uses of that template may also develop the same way.

[hamishspence]

True. I think though, based on slow-growth Kamino cloning, that particular clone was intended to be a TCW veteran rather than a new experiment.

The Force Unleashed Campaign Setting for the Saga Edition game, interestingly, only gives Shadow Guard the Force Sensitivity trait - the sample regular Guard and Sovereign Protectors, don't have it.

(It does say "the numbers are restricted for another reason - these elite individuals they must be able to learn rudimentary Force abilities for use in defending their master")

Which may indicate that even among the Sovereign Protectors, Force Sensitive ones are a minority. Perhaps the sample one has been invited in, but has not yet discovered that he is Sensitive? The feat can be taken after 1st level, after all.

I would speculate that, while the Databank mentions "latent Force-Sensitivity" as one criterion for Guardsman candidate assessment - it's not a vital one - some very weakly sensitive (too weak to take the feat, or the Use the Force skill) can get in if the rest of their assessment parameters are exceptional.

[Peelee]

The Sovereign Protectors at least, are all Force-sensitive and all recruited from within the Royal Guard. Jax was one, but there would have been others:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Sovereign_Protector

The Shadow Guard are also considered to be "a unit within the Royal Guard"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor's_Shadow_Guard

Presumably, the Force-sensitive regular Royal Guard members tend to be transferred into the other two units once they've been trained enough - and the non-Force-sensitive members tend to remain in the red armour.



In the newcanon at least, there was one Jango clone in the Royal Guard in Lords of the Sith. And Jango has never been portrayed as Force Sensitive.
I hated Lord's of the Sith. Don't know why it's so popular.

Of course the whole Dorsk line of clones from the original EU shows that while clones aren't intended to be force sensitive, some develop that way otherwise and in fact subsequent uses of that template may also develop the same way.

True, but baby snd bathwater and all.

[hamishspence]

I hated Lord's of the Sith. Don't know why it's so popular.

"Both sides, Rebels and Empire, do cool things" might be a factor - Vader and the Emperor wading through hordes of Alien-esque monsters, Rebels taking down a Star Destroyer with cunning and traps.

[Peelee]

"Both sides, Rebels and Empire, do cool things" might be a factor - Vader and the Emperor wading through hordes of Alien-esque monsters, Rebels taking down a Star Destroyer with cunning and traps.

For me, it was basically "there no way he can survive this... Oh no, he survived it and now he's angry! Woe to us, he's unstoppable!" Repeated over and over. The bugs were even worse, they just seemed video-gamey. I don't mind knowing the outcome that they'll survive, but at least an enemy with agency would be nice.

Anyway, I shouldn't hijack this with my gripings. I appreciate the answer!