General Star Wars Thread

[Some Android]

So I've been thinking about making this thread recently as I just saw The Last Jedi like a week ago. I was thinking about making my own thread to discuss episode VIII, then thought maybe it could go in the Solo thread. Then just thought to make this own thread to talk about any film or piece of media.

So episode VIII...

After watching the film I watched the Red Letter Media review of it and I kind of agree with almost everything they said in it:
"This film is the cinematic equivalent of Homer Simpson's makeup shotgun."*

"It was pretty awesome seeing an actually puppet."**

*I only have comprehend that analogy, but I 100% agree with it.
**...of master Yoda.

To expand on that further...
I have no idea what's happening in episode IX, but I also have no interest in it. I made a gif to represent my thoughts on episode VIII and the franchise as a whole:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ERYE0debot8/W0lPyN08igI/AAAAAAAAA-A/abPwB8jxtvU7UX0KrVsDegeG6PDVp8axwCLcBGAs/s1600/burn.gif

Too mean? Coincidentally ghost Yoda calling down lightning to burn Luke's tree is my favorite part of the film and for all the wrong reasons. I never thought I'd have to type that.

Anyway I just heard Billy Dee Williams is set to be in episode IX as Lando. Thoughts? I imagine...
Lando is gonna die. Han and Luke did so is it to wrong assume a formula?
Don't know what else is gonna happen. Just seems like more fanservice which the latest films have enough of. I mean I like Lando and Billy Dee, but what's he gonna do?
Be old and fail and possibly die? We've seen that twice before in these new films.

One thing I am curious about is with the Solo film it is now possible to make a top ten list of Star Wars films. I'd make mine, but I've yet to see the Solo film so I don't want to make any bold assumptions. Though I think it'd be somewhere below my placing of the Force Awakens but above the prequels.

Your thoughts?

[AMFV]

I don't know, I think they should demote General Star Wars to Colonel Star Wars and get him away from his desk so that he can discover himself.

[Mechalich]

Anyway I just heard Billy Dee Williams is set to be in episode IX as Lando. Thoughts? I imagine...

Billy Dee Williams is 81 years old and has mostly done limited voice work in recent years (often as Lando). His physical capabilities will no doubt be extremely limited, which is perfectly fair. I wouldn't expect him to do any work outside of a studio set or soundstage, not on location, and not an action scene. Most likely his role will be to serve as a high-level recognizable leader in the Republic military - probably overall command of whatever force appears. I'd expect him to have a handful of scenes from a chair on the bridge of a starship in the third act and little more.

Beyond that Episode IX is really an open book, and since JJ Abrams doesn't do endings and Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are apparently planned to be in future films, don't expect much of a conclusion. Honestly, that might be a good thing. TLJ did not leave the franchise in a place for a conclusion in one film. If we end up looking at the story really ending in 'episode' X: project to be named later that might make more sense.

[Chromascope3D]

Beyond that Episode IX is really an open book, and since JJ Abrams doesn't do endings and Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are apparently planned to be in future films, don't expect much of a conclusion. Honestly, that might be a good thing. TLJ did not leave the franchise in a place for a conclusion in one film. If we end up looking at the story really ending in 'episode' X: project to be named later that might make more sense.

I could get behind that. I don't see any reason that all following Star Wars Sagas necessarily have to be trilogies, simply because the previous two were. It'd be a good way to change things up a bit.

[Dargaron]

Unpopular opinion incoming:

I think a lot of the thematic issues w/ The Last Jedi have their origins in The Force Awakens. However, there are some definite improvements.

1: Rey seems much better handled in The Last Jedi than in The Force Awakens. Part of what ground my gears was the fact that she filled so many roles at once (guide to the semi-clueless Finn, mechanic better than Han, force-mystic, Chosen One, etc). Maybe it's my experience getting a party of teenagers to play well together, but it really irks me when Player 1 tries to have his/her character upstage Player 2's character at the thing Player 2's character is supposed to be good at. That's what happened with Rey and Han/Chewie. Having Rey as the resident Force Mystic gives her a role that's almost always useful, but doesn't overlap with the other "party members."

2: I have a serious soft spot for using illusions to their full potential. I had a feeling that Luke was just a hologram, but still, kudos for that.

3: Kylo Ren is...less pointless than he was in The Force Awakens. Admittedly, that's not saying much, and I'm not sure how I feel about sacrificing a potentially interesting villain (Snoke, albeit largely because he was a blank slate) to increase the menace of a villain whose performance so far has been...meh. Plus, the ladies get some eye-candy in a Star Wars movie, and I think the last time that happened was Mark Hamil in a Bacta Tank.

That said, here's my complaints:

1: Poe should be dead. There, I said it. I want the lovable X-Wing pilot dead. He's cannibalizing what really should be Finn's role: rising to a position of leadership in the Rebellion. The whole "hunt down a codebreaker before the clock strikes midnight" plot felt very shoehorned in, and doesn't really help Finn develop as a character. We should be watching Finn, a stormtrooper trained from birth to serve, learning how to lead. Poe fulfilled his role in The Force Awakens the moment he caused Finn, Rey and BB to meet and decide to seek out the Rebellion. After that point, he's about as useful as the guy Vader strangled on the Tantive IV.

2: I know it's a Disney movie, but we really don't need love-at-first-sight played straight, especially after they'd given the concept such a thorough thrashing in Frozen. Use Rose as a way to take the pulse of the ordinary Rebels "in the trenches" as it were, while Finn and Holdo (if she's even still in the movie) clash over leadership priorities. Plus, if they aren't going to use Chewie properly, then Rose can take over the "techie" role.

3: Speaking of which, the resolution of the world's slowest chase scene wasn't particularly exciting. Guest star sacrifices herself to save the main cast? A single hyperdrive can be used in a kamikazi attack that should make Capital Ships a dead concept from the word "go"? *yawn.* To build on the previous point about Finn clashing w/ Holdo, how about he hears rumors (from Rose, obviously) that Holdo had been involved in some "unsavory" business in Leia's service. Have someone mention that Holdo sent out a coded message just before the First Order caught up with the Rebellion, which he eventually learns included the words "repayment," "vulnerable" and "catch them." They do the usual "I don't trust you" maneuvering: Finn considering Holdo part of the unsavory element of the Rebellion for whom the ends justify the means, Holdo suspicious that Finn still has First Order sympathies. Then reveal, at the climactic moment, that the coded message was received: a Hutt warfleet arrives out of hyperspace. Turns out, the "minor" powers don't much like the idea of yet another planet-destroying weapon, and since Starkiller Base was destroyed immediately after being used in a surprise attack, the Hutts were more than willing to lend a hand to their old contact, Holdo. Then we can have a frank discussion of how warfare and diplomacy go hand in hand, strategic vs. tactical concerns, etc, immediately after an exciting space combat scene in which the First Order gives up the chase and back off.

Show the audience that the galaxy is big, even though we're only looking at this little part of it. Demonstrate that actions have consequences, and exactly why the First Order was so eager to hunt down these last few Rebels: because if left unchecked, they can rally support from unexpected quarters. Show just how fragile the First Order's grip is, compared to say, the Empire, and why they have to be dynamic and aggressive in order to compensate.

TLDR: Basically, it felt like they really have no idea where they're taking Finn, besides "angry dude needs to learn to chill." They already played him for laughs in The Force Awakens ("I was in the sanitation staff," getting dragged off by tentacle-monster #3), and now he's just kinda...in the movie, doing zany things that don't actually impinge on the plot. That's sad: there's so much potential to the character, and they're instead spending his screentime making sure that we get a casino scene and the obligatory animal-riding segment.

(Tangent: Isn't it odd that in the second movie of ALL THREE TRILOGIES, the main characters ride some kind of animal? There's the Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, there's that Reek in Attack of the Clones, and now there's those Not!Horses in The Last Jedi)

[Mechalich]

1: Poe should be dead. There, I said it. I want the lovable X-Wing pilot dead. He's cannibalizing what really should be Finn's role: rising to a position of leadership in the Rebellion. The whole "hunt down a codebreaker before the clock strikes midnight" plot felt very shoehorned in, and doesn't really help Finn develop as a character. We should be watching Finn, a stormtrooper trained from birth to serve, learning how to lead. Poe fulfilled his role in The Force Awakens the moment he caused Finn, Rey and BB to meet and decide to seek out the Rebellion. After that point, he's about as useful as the guy Vader strangled on the Tantive IV.


Supposedly Poe was initially slated to die fairly early in TFA, but Oscar Isaac with an assist from Kathleen Kennedy talked JJ into keeping the character alive. Which just goes to show that Kathleen Kennedy cannot ever make a good decision regarding this franchise. I don't blame Oscar Isaac - keeping Poe alive surely meant a fat paycheck for TLJ and subsequently Episode IX and actors should advocate on their own behalf, but it was clearly the wrong play. Not only was it a bad move narratively, it also throws of the cast balance. Oscar Isaac is by far the most famous of the new generation characters. This leads to overshadowing, especially with regard to Finn since the characters play similar roles.

And if they were committed to letting Poe take the lead, then Finn needed to be pushed out of the way. A nice heroic sacrifice would have worked just fine, but no, we can't have nice things.

[Darth Ultron]

It does seem clear that:

1)The people in charge just don't know where to 'go' with the franchise.
2)The people in charge are NOT Star Wars fans
3)The people in charge just want play it safe, and make money

Really, I can't picture ANY ''real'' Star Wars fan giving a green light to The Last Jedi. So many things just stand out as ''wrong''.

Right from the start the bombing run is horrible. Sure it's ''World War Two in Space'', but did no one even ever watch a single World War Two war movie?

And the whole, dumb, ''well we just gotta follow them and shoot for the whole movie'' plot is beyond dumb. Your average 10 year old would say..um, why don't the bad guys just ''hyper jump'' closer?

Chances are Lando, and Chewy, with both die in the next movie....maybe even C3PO and R2, to ''get rid of all the old characters".

[An Enemy Spy]

I love every Star Wars, even the objectively bad ones and I think all four of the new ones are good movies and I don't think I should have to defend my opinion, though I'm sure I'll be lambasted for it here.

[druid91]

SO. The ways in which Disney has ruined Starwars Forever.

But let's add a new way.

Starwars The Last Jedi Ruined Starwars Forever, Because it added Paper in the form of the Jedi Holy Texts. :smalltongue:

[Mechalich]

It does seem clear that:

1)The people in charge just don't know where to 'go' with the franchise.
2)The people in charge are NOT Star Wars fans
3)The people in charge just want play it safe, and make money

I'll grant the first two, but I'm not so sure about the third one. TLJ was most assuredly not playing it safe. Lucasfilm gave a carte blanche to an unproven director to do whatever he wanted and it blew up in their face. Subsequently they refused to throw the director under the bus when they had the opportunity, which would have been the ultimate safe move.

Admittedly, that may be a one-off. Hiring JJ Abrams for TFA certainly qualifies as the safe play. Intervening in the production of Solo to put Ron Howard - a super-safe Hollywood veteran - in charge is the safe move. Dumping Colin Trevorrow after The Book of Henry freaked everyone in the industry out - safe. Hiring Jon Favreau and the Game of Thrones guys to helm future components is safe. So maybe it's just Rian Johnson? If so, did they ever take the risk at the wrong time with the stakes way too high.

[Zalabim]

The Last Jedi is a good movie and a good entry in the Star Wars universe. Most of the plot holes that people complain about are just revealing that those people don't know enough about science and/or fiction to analyze the plot of a science fiction movie. It is a damn shame that Finn (and alien characters like Chewey) didn't have more important roles (or actually important instead of seemingly important) in the film and just provided comic relief, though I wouldn't complain about the relief their comic, and other, moments provided. Luke's dip in the Bacta tank was more dignified than what Finn was treated to.


And the whole, dumb, ''well we just gotta follow them and shoot for the whole movie'' plot is beyond dumb. Your average 10 year old would say..um, why don't the bad guys just ''hyper jump'' closer?
That's because your average 10 year old hasn't seen Spaceballs. Fortunately, 'real' fans know better.

[Kyberwulf]

Sooo,.. I tried watching this movie on Netflix, a couple days ago. I got as far as Hair Dye scolding Not-Han on being whatever. I forgot how stupid that part was. If she was a dude, in any other movie, she would be seen as incompetent leader. She is even as bad a leader as the Weasly guy. Yet, because she is a girl, she is given a pass.

[Mightymosy]

Sooo,.. I tried watching this movie on Netflix, a couple days ago. I got as far as Hair Dye scolding Not-Han on being whatever. I forgot how stupid that part was. If she was a dude, in any other movie, she would be seen as incompetent leader. She is even as bad a leader as the Weasly guy. Yet, because she is a girl, she is given a pass.

If Holdo had been a dude, we would all be calling this scene a "d+ck-measuring contest", I have little doubt.

We have seen this in so many shows, especially police shows or military shows: the young hot shot is taken down by their superior "just because" - and usually, the young hot shot proves themselves in the end, and in some way shape or form overthrows the old crusty hierarchy, or at least manages to establish himself in that hierarchy.

Read the vanityfair articles about TLJ. They praise TLJ for being so subversive, and new, and good for women.
But even they recognise the scene with Holdo and Poe exactly for what it is: sexual tension.

It doesn't make sense in the context of the (military, strategic) framework which the movie provides us. It only makes sense as an instinct driven test of strength between two people. It's not about logic, it is about emotions.

[Fyraltari]

I don't know, I think they should demote General Star Wars to Colonel Star Wars and get him away from his desk so that he can discover himself.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/8770ef5b6a1c4e54ac7d0f19736f927b/tenor.gif?itemid=5516163

Unpopular opinion incoming:

I think a lot of the thematic issues w/ The Last Jedi have their origins in The Force Awakens. However, there are some definite improvements.

1: Rey seems much better handled in The Last Jedi than in The Force Awakens. Part of what ground my gears was the fact that she filled so many roles at once (guide to the semi-clueless Finn, mechanic better than Han, force-mystic, Chosen One, etc). Maybe it's my experience getting a party of teenagers to play well together, but it really irks me when Player 1 tries to have his/her character upstage Player 2's character at the thing Player 2's character is supposed to be good at. That's what happened with Rey and Han/Chewie. Having Rey as the resident Force Mystic gives her a role that's almost always useful, but doesn't overlap with the other "party members."

2: I have a serious soft spot for using illusions to their full potential. I had a feeling that Luke was just a hologram, but still, kudos for that.

3: Kylo Ren is...less pointless than he was in The Force Awakens. Admittedly, that's not saying much, and I'm not sure how I feel about sacrificing a potentially interesting villain (Snoke, albeit largely because he was a blank slate) to increase the menace of a villain whose performance so far has been...meh. Plus, the ladies get some eye-candy in a Star Wars movie, and I think the last time that happened was Mark Hamil in a Bacta Tank.
I agree with all that. Though the ladies have had some eye-candy in star wars in-between.
https://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2005/05/11/4912f730-a642-11e2-a3f0-029118418759/resize/620x465/ffd4373a51f773809d82b0427132a96b/image694436.jpg


That said, here's my complaints:


1: Poe should be dead. There, I said it. I want the lovable X-Wing pilot dead. He's cannibalizing what really should be Finn's role: rising to a position of leadership in the Rebellion. The whole "hunt down a codebreaker before the clock strikes midnight" plot felt very shoehorned in, and doesn't really help Finn develop as a character. We should be watching Finn, a stormtrooper trained from birth to serve, learning how to lead. Poe fulfilled his role in The Force Awakens the moment he caused Finn, Rey and BB to meet and decide to seek out the Rebellion. After that point, he's about as useful as the guy Vader strangled on the Tantive IV.
I agree that Poe's and Finn's arcs were pretty redundant. I think maybe they should have had Poe interact with Rey or something.

2: I know it's a Disney movie, but we really don't need love-at-first-sight played straight, especially after they'd given the concept such a thorough thrashing in Frozen. Use Rose as a way to take the pulse of the ordinary Rebels "in the trenches" as it were, while Finn and Holdo (if she's even still in the movie) clash over leadership priorities. Plus, if they aren't going to use Chewie properly, then Rose can take over the "techie" role.

Yup.

3: Speaking of which, the resolution of the world's slowest chase scene wasn't particularly exciting. Guest star sacrifices herself to save the main cast? A single hyperdrive can be used in a kamikazi attack that should make Capital Ships a dead concept from the word "go"? *yawn.* To build on the previous point about Finn clashing w/ Holdo, how about he hears rumors (from Rose, obviously) that Holdo had been involved in some "unsavory" business in Leia's service. Have someone mention that Holdo sent out a coded message just before the First Order caught up with the Rebellion, which he eventually learns included the words "repayment," "vulnerable" and "catch them." They do the usual "I don't trust you" maneuvering: Finn considering Holdo part of the unsavory element of the Rebellion for whom the ends justify the means, Holdo suspicious that Finn still has First Order sympathies. Then reveal, at the climactic moment, that the coded message was received: a Hutt warfleet arrives out of hyperspace. Turns out, the "minor" powers don't much like the idea of yet another planet-destroying weapon, and since Starkiller Base was destroyed immediately after being used in a surprise attack, the Hutts were more than willing to lend a hand to their old contact, Holdo. Then we can have a frank discussion of how warfare and diplomacy go hand in hand, strategic vs. tactical concerns, etc, immediately after an exciting space combat scene in which the First Order gives up the chase and back off.

Show the audience that the galaxy is big, even though we're only looking at this little part of it. Demonstrate that actions have consequences, and exactly why the First Order was so eager to hunt down these last few Rebels: because if left unchecked, they can rally support from unexpected quarters. Show just how fragile the First Order's grip is, compared to say, the Empire, and why they have to be dynamic and aggressive in order to compensate.
Should they have had someone save them at the last minute it should have been someone introduced before. And not the Hutt. Whoever's left of the Republic, the Mandalorians, the Corellians, I dunno but just mention them early on and do not have the heroes saved by the bad guys of RotJ part 1.

TLDR: Basically, it felt like they really have no idea where they're taking Finn, besides "angry dude needs to learn to chill." They already played him for laughs in The Force Awakens ("I was in the sanitation staff," getting dragged off by tentacle-monster #3), and now he's just kinda...in the movie, doing zany things that don't actually impinge on the plot. That's sad: there's so much potential to the character, and they're instead spending his screentime making sure that we get a casino scene and the obligatory animal-riding segment.

I think they wanted him to go from "I only care about my friends" to "I care about the Galaxy in general". It's there but it's not really well done.

(Tangent: Isn't it odd that in the second movie of ALL THREE TRILOGIES, the main characters ride some kind of animal? There's the Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, there's that Reek in Attack of the Clones, and now there's those Not!Horses in The Last Jedi)
No what's odd is that they didn't have a random monster completely unconnected to the plot to fight this time. What is this, Revenge of the Sith?

I love every Star Wars, even the objectively bad ones and I think all four of the new ones are good movies and I don't think I should have to defend my opinion, though I'm sure I'll be lambasted for it here.
Hear, hear.


Starwars The Last Jedi Ruined Starwars Forever, Because it added Paper in the form of the Jedi Holy Texts. :smalltongue:
Nah, it's to make them look old and ****. What's really ruined Star Wars forever was the Prequels intoducing the wheel. :smalltongue:

If Holdo had been a dude, we would all be calling this scene a "d+ck-measuring contest", I have little doubt.

We have seen this in so many shows, especially police shows or military shows: the young hot shot is taken down by their superior "just because" - and usually, the young hot shot proves themselves in the end, and in some way shape or form overthrows the old crusty hierarchy, or at least manages to establish himself in that hierarchy.
I feel like I was one of the only persons not to be surprised that Poe was in the wrong. In retrospect I think it's because I am so tired of seeing that exact same scenario you described over and over again that I hoped that Holdo would be in the right for a change.


Read the vanityfair articles about TLJ. They praise TLJ for being so subversive, and new, and good for women.
But even they recognise the scene with Holdo and Poe exactly for what it is: sexual tension.
Oh, thank heavens, I was starting to think I xas the only one who read that into that scene, and wether I was (even more of) a weirdo (that I am).


It doesn't make sense in the context of the (military, strategic) framework which the movie provides us. It only makes sense as an instinct driven test of strength between two people. It's not about logic, it is about emotions.
Star Wars, in a nutshell.

[Darth Ultron]

I'll grant the first two, but I'm not so sure about the third one. TLJ was most assuredly not playing it safe.

It is very much a Safe Place movie, and it's made that way: For Kidz and parents. It's a bit of mindless moonbat CGI ''action'' and not much story. Like the 'great' mutiny among the Rebels, it was a very dull couple of minutes....and nothing happened.

And just look at the silly purple general lady, ''a strong female'' to someone.....it takes her forever to do her hyper maneuver. Lots of CGI stuff dies while she just sits around. The pacing is just horrible.

Why not have Vice Admiral Barney immediately turn the ship as soon as the last shuttle leaves and say something like: Who am I? I am Vice Admiral Barney . Daughter of Denver, the last dinosaur and Miss Piggy. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to the Rim, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. The Force sent me, to kill you"

[Yora]

I've already signed out of Disney Star Wars. I don't feel like any of the movies show even a desire to attempt a similar style as the originals. It feels like a new original thing that gives nods to the original movies here and there to get the brand recognition that gets audiences' attention, but with no wish to actually be anything like the already existing works.

[druid91]

My issue with the whole Holdo/Poe conflict.....

Ok. So Holdo's plan is to take the Hyperdrive-less shuttles down to a random planet nearby. Hoping that the First Order doesn't run a scan and detect the little ships. Then, the big ship, as piloted by her, can make a jump to hyperspace and lead the first order off... YAY Day is saved.

Except not thirty minutes before hand, Poe points out every issue WITH that plan. And then everything he says comes true. The shuttles DO in fact get picked off like sitting ducks. The movie tries to play this off as only happening because of the Codebreaker, but in the end, Holdo and Poe had an argument, Poe said this would happen, it did in fact happen. The only part he missed was the planet. And the addition of a lifeless ball of salt to land your hyperdrive lacking shuttles on doesn't actually do much to FIX your plans workability. Especially when your first act when LANDING on that lifeless ball of salt would be to call for help. Which, the first order could you know, detect. Turn around and come back. and then bomb the planet into oblivion.

That's the issue. Poe pointed out logical flaws in her plan. And her response was to brow-beat/flirt with him in some absurd dominance contest because leia demoted him.

The entire thing is a cut and dry, fairly blatant feminine power fantasy. "I'm in charge and brilliant and right, and this hot guy is wrong in such a manner that I can flirtatiously tease him about it, and the old lady authority figure trusts me. Even when I fail I can save the day in a heroic sacrifice."

Which mind you, isn't necessarily a wrong thing to put into the story. This particular example is just very, very, poorly done.

[Malimar]

I went in to The Last Jedi expecting a bad movie, because it's built on the foundation laid by The Force Awakens, which was one of the worst movies I've seen all decade (because JJ Abrams sucks infinitely). And a bad movie is exactly what I got.

First, some actually nice touches:
Luke's X-wing underwater in the loch. Obviously Luke could just pull it back out and get it running again (which is what we're supposed to presume he did in the last act, before we notice that he's using the wrong lightsaber and not leaving footprints and the whole thing is an illusion), but it's still a nice gesture.
Grumpy old Luke who has given up on life is Good, Actually.
"No one's from nowhere. ...Alright, that is pretty much nowhere." got a snort out of me.
Luke's training of Rey is honestly maybe actually better than any previous training sequences.
Andy Serkis's performance is pretty good.
Rose is pretty unobjectionable, I don't get all the hate directed at her.
Salt World was good, nice to have a little variety. (I'd like to see more worlds that aren't the standard desert, ice, city, ocean, or forest. Like Felucia, the weird giant plant world where Aayla Secura was killed by Order 66.)

On the other hand, inexpressibly stupid and terrible (other than all the garbage that's leftover from the inexpressibly stupid and terrible TFA):
BB8... what, trying to keep sparks from coming out of the weapons systems as if they're water? As if "sparks coming out" is the problem and not a symptom?
A single fighter taking out all the turbolasers and a single bomber completely asploding an entire capital ship? A single fighter blowing out the Rebel capital ship's bridge? A single fighter getting into the rebel ship and blowing up the hangar? Did none of them have... y'know, shields?
The only time "surviving in space without a suit" has ever been done non-terribly was in Hitchhiker's Guide, where the whole point was that it was (infinitely?) improbable.
Poe Dameron is a garbage person who sucks. (I'm on Holdo's side here. I do like Laura Dern, though her role should have been performed by Leia or Admiral Ackbar -- Ackbar in particular was extremely poorly-served by this stupid plot, or the kamikaze self-sacrifice could have been an almost half-decent send-off for Leia, but I suppose they didn't expect Fisher to die when she did so they thought they had a whole extra movie to complete the degradation and death of the original main cast.)
Hyperspace ramming. Accelerating an object to relativistic speeds and then hitting a target with it is a time-honored technique in hard sci-fi, but Star Wars is not hard sci-fi, and also if this were possible why isn't every missile equipped with a hyperdrive?
BB-8 -- the comic relief -- being pretty much omnipotent and saving the day repeatedly got very old.
Yoda's characterization seemed way off, like the writer only watched the scenes where he was being tricksy in ep5 and ignored his behavior in his other 4 movies.

All in all, it wasn't half as terrible as the utterly irredeemable The Force Awakens, but it's still the second-worst Star Wars movie I've seen (the only one released to date that I haven't seen is Solo, which could be worse than these two, but I doubt it).

[Kyberwulf]

Vanity fair can say anything they want. It doesn't make them right.

I don't get why people always try to site other people's saying to try prove how they are right. Popularity doesn't equal quality. This isn't new or subversive. It isn't Good for women. It was just outright disrespectful. She comes off as someone who got burned by "flyboys" in the past, and now that she has the "power" she is just misusing it. I didn't get any sense of sexual tension...maybe from the fact that she is jealous of him? Since Leia seems to prefer him over her? Yeah, that's what it comes off as ... Jealousy.

[Velaryon]

I haven't watched TLJ again since I saw it in theaters, and I still have mixed feelings about it.

The things I liked:
-Rey's parents being random nobodies. For my money, making her a Skywalker or a Solo was the absolute worst thing they could have done, and having that turn out not to be the case was the single thing I wanted most from this movie.
-Snoke's surprise bisection. It caught me completely by surprise, and made me feel like Kylo Ren had just leveled up as a villain.
-Rey's Sue-ish tendencies were scaled back quite a bit, to something approaching normal protagonist levels. She was a lot better handled in TLJ.
-Finding out that porgs were created to incorporate all the puffins they couldn't get out of their shooting location.
-Surprise Yoda, especially the slightly crazy, more fun Yoda from ESB.
-That moment when the dust clears after the bombardment, and Luke is standing there completely unharmed.
-The reveal that Luke was never there at all.

The things I didn't like:
-Lando not being in the film.
-How stupidly contrived everything about the bomber scene with Rose's sister felt.
-Leia's Mary Poppins spacewalk.
-Finn's and Rose's entire subplot being filler that didn't matter at all.
-How clumsily handled the whole Poe/Holdo thing was. She had no good reason for withholding the plan from the crew. I'd have mutinied too.
-Hyperspace ramming and all the implications that brings up.
-Luke dying anyway after ending his astral projection.

All in all, it managed to retread the general structure of ESB while not feeling like it was a blatant remake the way TFA did. Some things were good, some were bad. I don't hate it but I also think it wasn't as good of a film as it should have been. Most importantly, I have absolutely no idea what to expect from Episode IX.

[LadyEowyn]

On the whole, I liked the parts of the plot involving Luke and Rey, and strongly disliked most of the rest.

I've heard a lot of people say that the movie was character derailment for Luke, but to me it was pretty much the only thing that could make The Force Awakens make sense. For Luke to run away and disappear for years despite a major threat, the reason would have to be something huge. Guilt over losing the Jedi Academy wasn't enough of a reason. Having screwed up horrible, monumentally, in a way that drove his nephew to the Dark Side? Yes, that would be enough. In addition to that, Yoda was fantastic.

I also really liked the bait-and-switch with Kylo Ren defeating Snoke so he could replace him, not in order to turn back to the light side. They sold the possibility of Rey convincing him just enough that I could buy it and be surprised by the turnaround. There's also the bonus irony of him thinking that he's defying/destroying Sith traditions when he just followed Sith tradition to the letter (apprentice kills and replaces master).

Also, I was fine with Leia using telekinesis in a crisis situation. She's known for the past 20+ years that she had a connection to the Force; it doesn't stretch belief to think she'd have learned something.

What I hated was the utter incompetence of the Resistance and the fact that, in the end, they lost. They went from having a fleet to being a dozen or so people in one small spaceship. That's devastating. It's not a setback like the ending of Empire Strikes Back (where the Rebels still have their fleet and considerable remaining resources); they literally have no remaining capacity to fight the First Order. And it was entirely avoidable, in a wide variety of different ways! Some ways they could have come out of this more intact:

1) Try having one or a few midsize capital ships make jumps away from the fleet, in different directions, to see if they're followed. If they're not, try transferring people from the Raddus onto other ships (rather than leaving them behind to be destroyed in a slow-mo chace), and then do the hyperspace slash - you lose your flagship, but keep most of the rest of the fleet.

2) If you want to send out a distress call to your allies, use the Falcon to do so - it had enough time to leave the fleet, fly somewhere else, spend at least 24 hours somewhere else, and then come back, so it had enough time to go somewhere else untracked and send out a distress call.

In short, the concept of having a drawn-out "chase scene" that allows enough time for a ship to depart from the chace, go somewhere else, have a lengthy adventure, and then come back renders the very existence of the chase nonsensical! On top of that, a slow-motion chase scene that just consists of the protagonists slowly losing really does make them look like they're idiots and/or not even making an effort. The fact that the Resistance are losing to enemies (Hux and Ren) who continuously behave like immature morons only makes the Resistance look more pathetic.

And in a different but related issue, the apparently infinite resources of the First Order - not only did they have a planetary superweapon, but they also have a flagship many times the size of a Star Destroyer! - conflicts with the idea of them as a smallish insurgent organization that the Republic was largely disregarding. It was jarring enough in The Force Awakens, but for them to still have those kind of resources after suffering a major defeat is just preposterous.

[Zevox]

Anyway I just heard Billy Dee Williams is set to be in episode IX as Lando. Thoughts? I imagine...
Lando is gonna die. Han and Luke did so is it to wrong assume a formula?
Don't know what else is gonna happen. Just seems like more fanservice which the latest films have enough of. I mean I like Lando and Billy Dee, but what's he gonna do?
Be old and fail and possibly die? We've seen that twice before in these new films.
Eh, I don't think Lando has to worry about that. He's not a major enough character for them to have the misguided assumption that he needs to be killed off to keep him from hogging the spotlight, and can be easily left in the background if Williams decides he doesn't want to keep playing him (they already managed to never bring him up for two films straight, after all).

Though honestly, I don't much care at this point. Barring Wonder Woman levels of surprisingly positive word-of-mouth around the movie, I'm not bothering with Episode 9. I'll probably read spoilers for it just out of curiosity, but my only real hope for those is that they kill off Kylo Ren so future movies can have a better villain.


One thing I am curious about is with the Solo film it is now possible to make a top ten list of Star Wars films. I'd make mine, but I've yet to see the Solo film so I don't want to make any bold assumptions. Though I think it'd be somewhere below my placing of the Force Awakens but above the prequels.
For me, they can almost be broken down into the four groups that they comprise. Original Trilogy > Anthologies (Rogue One being better than Solo) > Sequel Films (so far) > Prequel Trilogy. With the caveat that maybe Revenge of the Sith is better than The Last Jedi. I don't know, and I don't really want to watch either one of those ever again to decide.

[Dargaron]

I agree with all that. Though the ladies have had some eye-candy in star wars in-between.
*Hayden Christenson's Chest*



Good catch. I'd forgotten that. Probably for the best.



Should they have had someone save them at the last minute it should have been someone introduced before. And not the Hutt. Whoever's left of the Republic, the Mandalorians, the Corellians, I dunno but just mention them early on and do not have the heroes saved by the bad guys of RotJ part 1.



Aww, I like the Hutts. They're one of the few actually alien species that've shown up in the Star Wars films (meaning: not a guy in make-up). Think about it: they're Hermaphroditic, they're non-humanoids, they're long-lived and they've managed to weld and/or bully a surprisingly large collection of species into their service. With Ackbar dead and Chewie being reduced to camping out in the Falcon, the non-human part of the cast keeps getting smaller.



Oh, thank heavens, I was starting to think I xas the only one who read that into that scene, and wether I was (even more of) a weirdo (that I am).


I may have been polluted by OOTS, but I think I had a flashback to Lauren talking to Julio Scoundrel ("I had terrible taste when I was young"). Sort of like when you watch a cartoon from your childhood and wonder "how on earth did I find this amusing back then?"


Eh, I don't think Lando has to worry about that. He's not a major enough character for them to have the misguided assumption that he needs to be killed off to keep him from hogging the spotlight, and can be easily left in the background if Williams decides he doesn't want to keep playing him (they already managed to never bring him up for two films straight, after all).

Tell that to Admiral Ackbar! *sobs into napkin*

[Some Android]

Tell that to Admiral Ackbar! *sobs into napkin*

He died? When was that? During the second climax of Last Jedi sometime around when the mini-Death-Star was charging up? I think by that point I was just so bored of that movie mostly everything is a blur. I remember hologram Luke surviving a million laser blasts and Rey moving rocks to save everyone, but that's about it for the last thirty minutes.

[Dargaron]

Nah, Ackbar was on the bridge of...whatever the main Rebel ship was called when Ren blew it up.

[Mechalich]

Admiral Ackbar should have replaced Holdo entirely. All Holdo-related elements of the plot work better with Ackbar in her place, utilizing Ackbar in a significant role would provide the opportunity to have an alien character do something significant in the ST (which has been, to date, more human centric than even the OT, embarrassing really), and if Ackbar had mumbled something or other involving the word 'trap' at any point prior to sacrificing his life while ramming it would likely have led to a standing ovation in many theaters.

And this is the sort of incident that reveals the complete lack of studio oversight. Of course Rian Johnson (who was writer as well as director) would want to use a character he created - that's what writers do - but Lucasfilm should have looked at the script and said. 'Hey, interesting idea for this Holdo character, but we saw you just killed Admiral Ackbar off-screen one seen prior. We really need you to not do that and Ackbar should be taking on the secondary resistance leader spot.' Not only would this have worked better, but it probably would have saved money too. Tim Rose - the actor who puts on the suit to play Ackbar - surely costs less than Laura Dern.

[Some Android]

Nah, Ackbar was on the bridge of...whatever the main Rebel ship was called when Ren blew it up.

I remember Kylo Ren about to blow up part of that ship, but then he sensed his mother on board and hesitated. Then a moment later like two TIE fighters blew up that part of the ship.

Were those the same part, or did Kylo Ren kill Ackbar moments earlier or later? "How much of that film do I remember?" now that I think about it. It was late when I watched it, but I still think I remember most of it. I remember Poe's prank call at the beginning. I remember the casino place. I remember purple hair lady and her sacrifice to destroy part of the main bad guy ship. I remember Snoke's role being "cut in half.":smallwink:


I don't know, I think they should demote General Star Wars to Colonel Star Wars and get him away from his desk so that he can discover himself.

Hey if Han Solo can be a general I think the rebel alliance pretty much just hands out that position.

[Devonix]

I remember Kylo Ren about to blow up part of that ship, but then he sensed his mother on board and hesitated. Then a moment later like two TIE fighters blew up that part of the ship.

Were those the same part, or did Kylo Ren kill Ackbar moments earlier or later? "How much of that film do I remember?" now that I think about it. It was late when I watched it, but I still think I remember most of it. I remember Poe's prank call at the beginning. I remember the casino place. I remember purple hair lady and her sacrifice to destroy part of the main bad guy ship. I remember Snoke's role being "cut in half.":smallwink:



Hey if Han Solo can be a general I think the rebel alliance pretty much just hands out that position.

you are correct. The other Ties shot the bridge, not Ben. Also for people saying that Akbar should have done the Holdo Manuver. Akbar is important to us. But he's not a character, he's a meme. Akbar in the books is a character, hell his death in the novels surrounded by loved ones, after planning one last amazing battle actually made me cry.

But film Akbar isn't anything special.

[Mightymosy]

[...]

In short, the concept of having a drawn-out "chase scene" that allows enough time for a ship to depart from the chace, go somewhere else, have a lengthy adventure, and then come back renders the very existence of the chase nonsensical! [...]

This is one of the biggest problems with the film, and I haven't yet seen any somewhat reasonable attempt to explain it away.

All these interviews with Rian Johnson and other Lucasfilm people, and no one asks that question.

I want the guy to try to explain how he thinks this is good storytelling :smallmad:

Even if you miracously invent enough "techno-babble" and bend the Sci-Fi-Space-Wizard-Setting enough that the threads of fantasy squeak - even then this will mean that the emotional impact on the viewer is immediately lost!

The emotional basis of a chase scene is that you put yourself in the shoes of the people who run away and pray that they somehow make it to safety.
And then, they find a shortcut way out.
Boom.
Tension blown to the wind.

[Some Android]

Here's a riddle for you:

Since Disney owns both Star Wars and Marvel would doing some kind of official theatrical crossover with both universes...

(a) help Star Wars
(b) hurt the MCU

[Mechalich]

you are correct. The other Ties shot the bridge, not Ben. Also for people saying that Akbar should have done the Holdo Manuver. Akbar is important to us. But he's not a character, he's a meme. Akbar in the books is a character, hell his death in the novels surrounded by loved ones, after planning one last amazing battle actually made me cry.

But film Akbar isn't anything special.

He's a minor movie character in the OT, but that's still doing better than Holdo - who isn't in the OT at all. This is supposed to be a single story told in three acts over nine episodes. Having a pivotal character appear ex nihilo in Episode VIII whose personality and decisions have massive implications for the overall storyline is a vastly inferior solution to utilizing a minor character from act two a second time.

And Ackbar being a meme is actually to his benefit - it makes him recognizable. Ackbar is probably better known among the general public than a much more significant secondary character like Wedge or Mon Mothma. Recognition matters in something like this. When Holdo shows up to give her initial big speech, the audience is wondering who the heck this person is. Poe outright makes this point in character - which is twenty seconds wasted in a movie that's already too long.

[Zevox]

Tell that to Admiral Ackbar! *sobs into napkin*
Fair point. It is really baffling why they decided to just kill him offscreen.


Here's a riddle for you:

Since Disney owns both Star Wars and Marvel would doing some kind of official theatrical crossover with both universes...

(a) help Star Wars
(b) hurt the MCU
I think it would mostly beffudle people. The two series seem too different to coexist and crossover to me. I mean, I like both quite a bit, but I actively wouldn't want to see them crossover - I don't want Star Wars to exist in a universe where Earth also exists, I want it to be its own thing.

[Devonix]

He's a minor movie character in the OT, but that's still doing better than Holdo - who isn't in the OT at all. This is supposed to be a single story told in three acts over nine episodes. Having a pivotal character appear ex nihilo in Episode VIII whose personality and decisions have massive implications for the overall storyline is a vastly inferior solution to utilizing a minor character from act two a second time.

And Ackbar being a meme is actually to his benefit - it makes him recognizable. Ackbar is probably better known among the general public than a much more significant secondary character like Wedge or Mon Mothma. Recognition matters in something like this. When Holdo shows up to give her initial big speech, the audience is wondering who the heck this person is. Poe outright makes this point in character - which is twenty seconds wasted in a movie that's already too long.

But that would work against the point of the story. If it were Akbar then Poe would more than likely just trust him and there would have been no character conflict.

The audience is supposed to feel like Poe, we're supposed to be suspicious of this character we don't know and side with Poe.

[druid91]

But that would work against the point of the story. If it were Akbar then Poe would more than likely just trust him and there would have been no character conflict.

The audience is supposed to feel like Poe, we're supposed to be suspicious of this character we don't know and side with Poe.

Honestly? The movie would have been better for it. Just cut out that ENTIRE ARC of the movie and it's a better movie.

[Devonix]

Honestly? The movie would have been better for it. Just cut out that ENTIRE ARC of the movie and it's a better movie.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm simply stating that plugging Akbar into a role where the point of a character is that the audience mistrusts them as a new character wouldn't work.

[Peelee]

I may have been polluted by OOTS, but I think I had a flashback to Lauren talking to Julio Scoundrel ("I had terrible taste when I was young"). Sort of like when you watch a cartoon from your childhood and wonder "how on earth did I find this amusing back then?"

You hush, El Kabong was brilliant!

[Some Android]

I think it would mostly beffudle people. The two series seem too different to coexist and crossover to me. I mean, I like both quite a bit, but I actively wouldn't want to see them crossover - I don't want Star Wars to exist in a universe where Earth also exists, I want it to be its own thing.

So you don't know about some of the characters appearing in Wreck-It Ralph 2?

[EmperorofMankin]

So you don't know about some of the characters appearing in Wreck-It Ralph 2?

Not the person you're replying to, but I feel that's going to be the go-to example of raising an old IP by burning down a good concept.

[Zevox]

So you don't know about some of the characters appearing in Wreck-It Ralph 2?
I know nothing at all about Wreck-It Ralph 2 at this point, though given how the first movie worked I'd assume that the characters in question are video game representations of the characters you're implying, not the actual characters, in which case that's another thing entirely.

[Darth Ultron]

I think it would mostly beffudle people. The two series seem too different to coexist and crossover to me. I mean, I like both quite a bit, but I actively wouldn't want to see them crossover - I don't want Star Wars to exist in a universe where Earth also exists, I want it to be its own thing.

Star Wars:Earth or Star Wars:The 13th Tribe would be an AWESOME movie.

Like some jawas are happily picking up floating scrap on the Rim....and find and ancient droid: Voyager 1. Voyager 1 was launched from Earth That Was: the original homeworld of the humans. The Republic hires Interplanetary Expeditions to send a ship..out there, beyond the rim....There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria, or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens.....on a lonely quest: a shining planet known as Earth. So Say We All.

[Zevox]

Star Wars:Earth or Star Wars:The 13th Tribe would be an AWESOME movie.

Like some jawas are happily picking up floating scrap on the Rim....and find and ancient droid: Voyager 1. Voyager 1 was launched from Earth That Was: the original homeworld of the humans. The Republic hires Interplanetary Expeditions to send a ship..out there, beyond the rim....There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria, or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens.....on a lonely quest: a shining planet known as Earth. So Say We All.
I... assume that's some kind of reference I'm not getting, probably to something I'm not familiar with. I'll just say that the concept does not sound like something I'd want to see at all though.

[Zalabim]

This is one of the biggest problems with the film, and I haven't yet seen any somewhat reasonable attempt to explain it away.

All these interviews with Rian Johnson and other Lucasfilm people, and no one asks that question.

I want the guy to try to explain how he thinks this is good storytelling :smallmad:
It needs no explanation because it has precedence in real life. No one asks in an interview because they must have a good team of researchers planning these questions in advance.

Fair point. It is really baffling why they decided to just kill him offscreen.
Unfortunately, Erik Bauersfeld died April 3, 2016. He could be recast, but that would have the possibility of being wildly unpopular and anyway, Ackbar wouldn't have the desired effect in the same role. He was never considered but not really an option anyway.

[Cazero]

This is one of the biggest problems with the film, and I haven't yet seen any somewhat reasonable attempt to explain it away.

All these interviews with Rian Johnson and other Lucasfilm people, and no one asks that question.

I want the guy to try to explain how he thinks this is good storytelling :smallmad:

Even if you miracously invent enough "techno-babble" and bend the Sci-Fi-Space-Wizard-Setting enough that the threads of fantasy squeak - even then this will mean that the emotional impact on the viewer is immediately lost!

The emotional basis of a chase scene is that you put yourself in the shoes of the people who run away and pray that they somehow make it to safety.
And then, they find a shortcut way out.
Boom.
Tension blown to the wind.
It's not a chase scene. The attacker has overwhelmingly superior forces but the defender superior grounds cancels that advantage. The limiting factor of the defender is supplies. It's a siege, with spaceships.
Sieges are long, drawn out and boring. Then someone commits heavy resources into an all or nothing action that will end the battle one way or another, and that part is the only one allowed to be interesting.

[Some Android]

Am I still the only one who thinks Kylo Ren's lightsaber is dumb? Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I can't get over the two small guard lasers. They're so small it looks like a parody. I remember laughing my butt off the first time I saw the trailer for the Force Awakens.

Also, I've never sword fought in real life so I have to ask: how difficult would it be to use a sword and NOT have your hand or wrist at some point touch the guard? Just wondering if Kylo Ren would have sliced off his hand at this point.

[Yora]

He died? When was that? During the second climax of Last Jedi sometime around when the mini-Death-Star was charging up? I think by that point I was just so bored of that movie mostly everything is a blur. I remember hologram Luke surviving a million laser blasts and Rey moving rocks to save everyone, but that's about it for the last thirty minutes.

He was in the movies? When?

[Mightymosy]

Siege or no siege, the basic problem for the "good guys" is this:

The FO is on our tail, and we will die if we can't get away.

Alas, we don't have a way to get away! So we will all die!!

The side trip to Casino planet establishes one key fact:

There is a way to get away from the FO (not even a really difficult, or dangerous way).


Using your "siege analogy", how about suddenly the knights in the besieged castle find a very long tunnel through which they can escape to a place far far away from the army that besieges their castle.

All of your explanations neglect the fact that the tension comes from a deadly threat to the protagonists which they cannot flee from, and now suddenly they can.

ETA: I'm glad people mentioned Wreck-it-Ralph! I've only watched part 1 so far, but WHOA! is this a great example of a movie that manages to make cool female characters! Not one, but two! TLJ has 4 chances to do cool female heroes, and they arguably mess up all of them (depending on who you ask).

[Cazero]

I'm not saying the concept was made well. I'm saying that complaints based on chase scene metrics are like saying the romantic interaction between Chewbacca and that one porg lacks chemistry. They require to misread what's being presented.

[Mightymosy]

On the whole, I liked the parts of the plot involving Luke and Rey, and strongly disliked most of the rest.

I've heard a lot of people say that the movie was character derailment for Luke, but to me it was pretty much the only thing that could make The Force Awakens make sense. [...].

I agree that JJ Abrams pretty much wrote Rian Johnson into a corner with the Luke exile setup.
It's a tough setup, but I disagree strongly that the "solution" we have been presented in TLJ is the only way out.

Let's talk about this:

The premise:
(1) Luke went to find the lost Jedi temple.
(2) No one knows where that is.
(3) Luke appearantly found it.
(4) Luke is still there
(5) The place consists of (at least) an island with green vegetation and a vast ocean around that.

As a writer's exercise, let's find explanations for (4)
Preferably we would like explanations that don't butcher Luke's established character, which is:

(6) Luke is very optimistic and went out of his way several times to save his friends, and believed so much in the good in people that he refused to kill the second most evil person in the galaxy when he had the opportunity.

Let's go for an obvious one first:

A) Spaceship problems
Unfortunately, Luke ran out of X-Wing fuel.
Toooooo bad, now he can't go back.
Unfortunately, old Jedi temples don't have gas stations.
Also, as established by TLJ, ship-mounted radio devices are appearantly not good enough to send interstellar signals anymore (that's why they have to wait to arrive at salt planet to send distress calls).

Even if you consider the radio explanation "TLJ BS", and can't warm up to the idea that ships in Star Wars suddenly need fuel:
You don't even need any of that - a simple complete system failure of the decade-old X-Wing can be enough! No mechanics, and most importantly, no spare parts on a distant, forgotten Jedi temple planet.
Heck, before TLJ we wouldn't even know that Ach-To had sentinent beings on it! For all we know it could be completely deserted with only grass, fish, and Porgs on it!

B) Space anomaly
Watch any number of Star Trek episodes, or Interstellar (the movie) - or read Perry Rhodan books.
There are a bazillion ways to strand a character on a planet if you want to.
The place is a focus point of the force, right?
Too bad, because that means it wraps the space-time-continuum in a way that it forms a 5-dimensional bottleneck around the planet, so that it makes it veeeery difficult to find (thus you need the map to even stand a chance). And even if you do find it, it's a one-way-passage getting to the planet. Once you are on it, the space physics - changed by the force - make departure impossible.
You need to truly master the way of the force to shape a wormhole out of the star system - something even Luke found impossible to do.

Luckily, Mary can help, and together they find out how to fly away from Ach-To.

Contrieved?
Remember Rey was a master flyer - set up with her skills in the Millenium Falcon in TFA.
Remember Rey appearantly had so much instinctual force understanding that she could screw up an experienced Sith - also established in TFA.
Maybe you just need two force sensitive people to escape, one isn't enough.

Maybe you need to solve some riddle in the Jedi temple to find out how to do it. A riddle only Rey understood because it is written in the language on her desert planet (again, there are many possibilities, even ones that avoid the Mary Sue issue).

C) Prophecy

The Jedi temple on Ach-To is a key focus point of the force, right?
Luke found out the hard way: When he first meditated in that temple, he recieved an overwhelming force vision:
If ever you return to the galaxy, you will bring death and destruction to the people you love most.
With heavy heart, Luke decided to stay on Ach-To forever.


There. In contrast to the previous examples, this is a solution that includes a voluntary decision to stay, if that is something you need for the rest of the plotline you write for TLJ.

Now you can have Rey convince Luke that prophecies are BS and needs to come back regardless.

You know how they didn't use Han's death at all in TLJ? Luke's best friend?
In my version, Rey could use Han's death as an argument:
"You don't go back because your friends might die? Guess what? Your bestie already did! And now your sis is in mortal danger as well!"

You could then show Luke having a hard time to decide.
And you'd now have a traditional prophecy-based cliffhanger for Episode 9: Will Luke actually make things worse by deciding to return? Did he make a tragical error? Or is it another example of a misread prophecy?

People would now be excited to find out how the prophecy ends up (in regards to Leia, for example).
In contrast, in the movie by TLJ almost everyone is dead in the end, and I simply don't care for Episode 9 anymore.

Prophecies are established material in Star Wars. No sense wasting good plot potential when you have access to it.

D) Luke has already died
But why do we see him in the end of TFA?
Simple! Dead Jedi can return as force ghosts - another established thing from before.

In the Jedi temple (a strong focus of Jedi magic - have I mentioned that?) the force is so strong that it allows dead Jedi to stay materialised. As long as they don't leave!
As long as Luke stays there, as guardian of the temple, he is bound to the material world. And he needs to, because he needs to do the galaxy and its people one final favour: He needs to train its next savior - Rey. Only after he has done that can he go to rest and become one with the force.
(Consider Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade as an example for what I mean with guardian ghost)

This option has several advantages.
You get Luke dead, and make room for other characters (this is apperantly something Disney wants).
You can even do the hologram scene in the end, if you want - by taking all his last power, he can project his ghost to salt planet, before he truly becomes one with the force).
You give Rey the training she needs, but also understand why Luke can't do stuff by himself.

Summary:
I think if you get paid millions to produce a saga, you may well find more options than me on a lazy Sunday morning :smallcool::smallcool:

But I think it is clear that the option RJ chose was not the only possible way. Not at all.

Bonus question:
One premise is unfortunately discarded by RJ, and I really wished someone would put him to the question in an interview, to make him answer why:
(7) Luke left a map with R2-D2 - a map with which someone who was friends with R2-D2 could eventually follow him.

How many of my examples would work with (7)?
Wouldn't you agree that (7) fits much better with my options that the one in the movie? Why would Luke leave a map if he didn't want to be found?



I'm not saying the concept was made well. I'm saying that complaints based on chase scene metrics are like saying the romantic interaction between Chewbacca and that one porg lacks chemistry. They require to misread what's being presented.
Really?

I read that they desperately want to get away from the FO, and then they get away.
Please tell me at which point i'm "misreading" things....

[Devonix]

Siege or no siege, the basic problem for the "good guys" is this:

The FO is on our tail, and we will die if we can't get away.

Alas, we don't have a way to get away! So we will all die!!

The side trip to Casino planet establishes one key fact:

There is a way to get away from the FO (not even a really difficult, or dangerous way).


Using your "siege analogy", how about suddenly the knights in the besieged castle find a very long tunnel through which they can escape to a place far far away from the army that besieges their castle.

All of your explanations neglect the fact that the tension comes from a deadly threat to the protagonists which they cannot flee from, and now suddenly they can.

ETA: I'm glad people mentioned Wreck-it-Ralph! I've only watched part 1 so far, but WHOA! is this a great example of a movie that manages to make cool female characters! Not one, but two! TLJ has 4 chances to do cool female heroes, and they arguably mess up all of them (depending on who you ask).

It was never that no one could get away. Hell Rose was stopping people from sneaking off earlier in the film. It's that they were trying to save everyone. Until Poe screwed it up. They were trying to save the entire resistance. They Using small ships they could only ferry away at most 4 or 5 people leaving everyone else behind.

[Mightymosy]

It was never that no one could get away. Hell Rose was stopping people from sneaking off earlier in the film. It's that they were trying to save everyone. Until Poe screwed it up. They were trying to save the entire resistance. They Using small ships they could only ferry away at most 4 or 5 people leaving everyone else behind.

When do they say that?

[Manga Shoggoth]

Like some jawas are happily picking up floating scrap on the Rim....and find and ancient droid: Voyager 1. Voyager 1 was launched from Earth That Was: the original homeworld of the humans. The Republic hires Interplanetary Expeditions to send a ship..out there, beyond the rim....There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. That they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria, or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens.....on a lonely quest: a shining planet known as Earth. So Say We All.

I... assume that's some kind of reference I'm not getting, probably to something I'm not familiar with. I'll just say that the concept does not sound like something I'd want to see at all though.

It's a reference to the 1970's Battlestar Galactica, a film and TV series that came out about a year after the original Star Wars.The film was quite good for its time (well, I enjoyed it), but wasn't the hit Star Wars was. The TV series was - well - pretty much any '70s TV Sci Fi series. The basis of the series was a fleet of war refugees from twelve planetary colonies trying to locate the mythical lost colony of Earth.

Interestingly, the antagonist from the original Star Trek film was supposed to be one of the Voyager probes, found and rebuilt by an advanced robotic civilization.

[Devonix]

When do they say that?

Beginning of the movie, Rose is trying to stop people from sneaking off the ship and leaving everyone else stranded.

Then they go past a couple of the shuttles that they used to leave. At this point in the movie a lot of the Resistance is still on the other transport ships. And during the film they get ferried from The Medical frigates and other ships to the Raddius carrying fuel and the rest of the troops until they're all in one place to all escape safely.

They can't spare the shuttles or the fuel for them since it's taking everything to get everyone safe together.

[Sapphire Guard]

I agree that JJ Abrams pretty much wrote Rian Johnson into a corner with the Luke exile setup.
It's a tough setup, but I disagree strongly that the "solution" we have been presented in TLJ is the only way out.

Let's talk about this:

The premise:
(1) Luke went to find the lost Jedi temple.
(2) No one knows where that is.
(3) Luke appearantly found it.
(4) Luke is still there
(5) The place consists of (at least) an island with green vegetation and a vast ocean around that.

As a writer's exercise, let's find explanations for (4)
Preferably we would like explanations that don't butcher Luke's established character, which is:

(6) Luke is very optimistic and went out of his way several times to save his friends, and believed so much in the good in people that he refused to kill the second most evil person in the galaxy when he had the opportunity.

Let's go for an obvious one first:

A) Spaceship problems
Unfortunately, Luke ran out of X-Wing fuel.
Toooooo bad, now he can't go back.
Unfortunately, old Jedi temples don't have gas stations.
Also, as established by TLJ, ship-mounted radio devices are appearantly not good enough to send interstellar signals anymore (that's why they have to wait to arrive at salt planet to send distress calls).

Even if you consider the radio explanation "TLJ BS", and can't warm up to the idea that ships in Star Wars suddenly need fuel:
You don't even need any of that - a simple complete system failure of the decade-old X-Wing can be enough! No mechanics, and most importantly, no spare parts on a distant, forgotten Jedi temple planet.
Heck, before TLJ we wouldn't even know that Ach-To had sentinent beings on it! For all we know it could be completely deserted with only grass, fish, and Porgs on it!

B) Space anomaly
Watch any number of Star Trek episodes, or Interstellar (the movie) - or read Perry Rhodan books.
There are a bazillion ways to strand a character on a planet if you want to.
The place is a focus point of the force, right?
Too bad, because that means it wraps the space-time-continuum in a way that it forms a 5-dimensional bottleneck around the planet, so that it makes it veeeery difficult to find (thus you need the map to even stand a chance). And even if you do find it, it's a one-way-passage getting to the planet. Once you are on it, the space physics - changed by the force - make departure impossible.
You need to truly master the way of the force to shape a wormhole out of the star system - something even Luke found impossible to do.

Luckily, Mary can help, and together they find out how to fly away from Ach-To.

Contrieved?
Remember Rey was a master flyer - set up with her skills in the Millenium Falcon in TFA.
Remember Rey appearantly had so much instinctual force understanding that she could screw up an experienced Sith - also established in TFA.
Maybe you just need two force sensitive people to escape, one isn't enough.

Maybe you need to solve some riddle in the Jedi temple to find out how to do it. A riddle only Rey understood because it is written in the language on her desert planet (again, there are many possibilities, even ones that avoid the Mary Sue issue).

C) Prophecy

The Jedi temple on Ach-To is a key focus point of the force, right?
Luke found out the hard way: When he first meditated in that temple, he recieved an overwhelming force vision:
If ever you return to the galaxy, you will bring death and destruction to the people you love most.
With heavy heart, Luke decided to stay on Ach-To forever.


There. In contrast to the previous examples, this is a solution that includes a voluntary decision to stay, if that is something you need for the rest of the plotline you write for TLJ.

Now you can have Rey convince Luke that prophecies are BS and needs to come back regardless.

You know how they didn't use Han's death at all in TLJ? Luke's best friend?
In my version, Rey could use Han's death as an argument:
"You don't go back because your friends might die? Guess what? Your bestie already did! And now your sis is in mortal danger as well!"

You could then show Luke having a hard time to decide.
And you'd now have a traditional prophecy-based cliffhanger for Episode 9: Will Luke actually make things worse by deciding to return? Did he make a tragical error? Or is it another example of a misread prophecy?

People would now be excited to find out how the prophecy ends up (in regards to Leia, for example).
In contrast, in the movie by TLJ almost everyone is dead in the end, and I simply don't care for Episode 9 anymore.

Prophecies are established material in Star Wars. No sense wasting good plot potential when you have access to it.

D) Luke has already died
But why do we see him in the end of TFA?
Simple! Dead Jedi can return as force ghosts - another established thing from before.

In the Jedi temple (a strong focus of Jedi magic - have I mentioned that?) the force is so strong that it allows dead Jedi to stay materialised. As long as they don't leave!
As long as Luke stays there, as guardian of the temple, he is bound to the material world. And he needs to, because he needs to do the galaxy and its people one final favour: He needs to train its next savior - Rey. Only after he has done that can he go to rest and become one with the force.
(Consider Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade as an example for what I mean with guardian ghost)

This option has several advantages.
You get Luke dead, and make room for other characters (this is apperantly something Disney wants).
You can even do the hologram scene in the end, if you want - by taking all his last power, he can project his ghost to salt planet, before he truly becomes one with the force).
You give Rey the training she needs, but also understand why Luke can't do stuff by himself.



How about 'Luke has started a new Jedi temple'. It's obviously super secret because he doesn't want them all slaughtered again, but the new students are all too young and inexperienced to be left alone yet.

Rey: Why didn't you come back?

Luke: Do you know what happened last time the Jedi went to war and left the younglings unprotected? I didn't know about Starkiller until it fired, and the Resistance dealt with that fine, they didn't need me. I'll give you a crash course,l but I'm not leaving students unprotected again.

[Mightymosy]

Beginning of the movie, Rose is trying to stop people from sneaking off the ship and leaving everyone else stranded.

Then they go past a couple of the shuttles that they used to leave. At this point in the movie a lot of the Resistance is still on the other transport ships. And during the film they get ferried from The Medical frigates and other ships to the Raddius carrying fuel and the rest of the troops until they're all in one place to all escape safely.

They can't spare the shuttles or the fuel for them since it's taking everything to get everyone safe together.

Finn & Rose escape on a escape pod that is hyperdrive-equipped, right?

So, are you telling me that they have the "Titanic problem", in other words: less escape pods than people on board?

Also, note how well your "everyone safe together" turns out, in the end. How many of the big dumb no-hyperdrive transport ships are exploding under fire, with how many people onboard?

I'd have taken the hyperdrive escape pod, thanks.

ETA:

E: Secret Jedi School

How about 'Luke has started a new Jedi temple'. It's obviously super secret because he doesn't want them all slaughtered again, but the new students are all too young and inexperienced to be left alone yet.

Rey: Why didn't you come back?

Luke: Do you know what happened last time the Jedi went to war and left the younglings unprotected? I didn't know about Starkiller until it fired, and the Resistance dealt with that fine, they didn't need me. I'll give you a crash course,l but I'm not leaving students unprotected again.

There you go, thank you. Another really good idea for why Luke had not come back yet.

Anything is better than Luke considering to murder a child in his sleep - a child who didn't even do anything wrong yet.

Heck, I'd accept Luke just having gotten Alzheimer's, considering how old he is.

[Devonix]

Finn & Rose escape on a escape pod that is hyperdrive-equipped, right?

So, are you telling me that they have the "Titanic problem", in other words: less escape pods than people on board?

Also, note how well your "everyone safe together" turns out, in the end. How many of the big dumb no-hyperdrive transport ships are exploding under fire, with how many people onboard?

I'd have taken the hyperdrive escape pod, thanks.

ETA:

E: Secret Jedi School


There you go, thank you. Another really good idea for why Luke had not come back yet.

Anything is better than Luke considering to murder a child in his sleep - a child who didn't even do anything wrong yet.

Heck, I'd accept Luke just having gotten Alzheimer's, considering how old he is.

They don't escape on an hyperdrive The escape pods don't have hyperdrive, They leave on a shuttle, Remember the Raddius is a command ship, it's larger than Star Destroyers. They just don't have enough shuttles for everyone obviously. And as for big dumb non hyperdrive equiped shuttles exploading with people onboard. Zero, Zero of those ships expload with people onboard. The entire crews of those ships escape to the raddius. And they would have used the escape pods to get to the planet safely if not for Poe.

[Mightymosy]

Here's the dialogue from the movie:

"You know...
Just this morning, I had to stun...
three people who were trying to jump ship.
In this escape pod."

[Cazero]

Really?

I read that they desperately want to get away from the FO, and then they get away.
Please tell me at which point i'm "misreading" things....
When you conclude it's a chase. Something following something else with ill intent isn't enough to make a chase. You need other things such as dynamic movement, obstacles, daring maneuvers and the risk of catching up at any moment. Those things are lacking, therefore it's not a chase.

Now if it was explicitly presented as a dynamic chase sequence, the utter lack of anything dynamic about it would be a valid complaint. But it isn't. It's just a siege on wheels.

[Mightymosy]

When you conclude it's a chase. Something following something else with ill intent isn't enough to make a chase. You need other things such as dynamic movement, obstacles, daring maneuvers and the risk of catching up at any moment. Those things are lacking, therefore it's not a chase.

Now if it was explicitly presented as a dynamic chase sequence, the utter lack of anything dynamic about it would be a valid complaint. But it isn't. It's just a siege on wheels.

A siege on wheels where the escape pods provide a tunnel to safety, thus nullifying the threat.

[Cazero]

A siege on wheels where the escape pods provide a tunnel to safety, thus nullifying the threat.
Well, yeah. It's still poorly solved by deus ex machina.
I'm just saying it's not a chase.

[Devonix]

Here's the dialogue from the movie:

"You know...
Just this morning, I had to stun...
three people who were trying to jump ship.
In this escape pod."

Check the scene, I'm looking at it right now. She stops him in front of one of the escape pods yes. But that's also not what they leave in, they leave in the shuttles which are in a different area. They pass by those when Rose is dragging him on the gurney.

[Saintheart]

The main problem with The Farce Awakens, indeed the entire Disney run, is that Disney has little to no idea how to pass the torch on - in the sense that it has no sense of how to tell a really generational story, which is, ultimately, what this is. To be fair, not a lot of studios do know how; The Godfather is one of the few that (maybe) passes the test, and James Bond as far as I remember has never overtly said on screen whether "James Bond" is an identity that successive men put on, or whether it's actually the same man in all 5,000-odd films.

But it isn't impossible provided you're prepared to embrace the entire concept and you have some clear vision. Take a look at YouTube Red's Cobra Kai series and tell me that isn't a series with much of the same soul if not the same heart as the first 2 movies. Insofar as it "has" to use the original cast, it's done so in ways that seem to satisfy both audiences who've seen the originals and those who're new to the franchise. It's a fantastic extension of the franchise. And it mostly achieves its plot twists by building on and building out from the original relationship dynamics in the first series - albeit its central device is basically taking Johnny Lawrence from the moment of his defeat in Karate Kid and plomping him down with attitudes basically unaltered in the present day, the "fish out of water" routine massaged into a family drama.

Anyway, back to the series. Somewhat duplicating Mightymosy's analysis, it seems to me that it wasn't unrecoverable even at the end of JJ Abrams' fanfilm of A New Hope. Particularly making it recoverable was that ... fortunately or unfortunately .. Rey's character wasn't cardboard, but plastic wrap: you could wrap her around anything, but you can see right through it and still looks like rubbish.

Luke to the audience (and yes, I know Darth Johnson's arrogant posturing that "We have to think about the story, not the fans." Well, here's what you get when you only think about your own personal story and not how it fits into the wider context.) was at the end of his character arc. He was a Jedi, like his father before him, tremendously strong with the Force, Yoda and Obi-Wan always around to advise him, per ROTJ. He's overcome his personal issues. He is, in a word, a consummate hero, a guy willing to literally risk death for even an unredeemable slime like his father.

(Now, you can always slipslide around and say "Oh, but people change as they get older." Not old guys, not in this series anyway, not one that's built on Campbellian archetypes which always move forward, not back. The examples we are left in-universe for old men and whether they've changed much in their lives are three: Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the Emperor. Not one of these guys shows any marked change across their movie lives: they're basically the same people across the prequel trilogy and into the original trilogy. No sudden rubberbanding back to the beginning of their character arcs, they stay more or less the same. This is even the case for Han Solo in Farce Awakens: he's still an irresponsible, self-centred swindler, just like he was through most of the run of the original series.

Even Darth Vader doesn't change until literally the last moment - and more importantly, once he makes changes in moments of high crisis on screen, he stays changed. He does his flip-flop to the Dark Side in ROTS, and he doesn't flip-flop back until the last minute in ROTJ. Therefore we are entitled to expect much the same from Luke, not because all characters must remain the same, but because if you're going to switch that expectation around on an audience, you need a very strong foundation upon which to do so. You cannot, cannot, get away with a single flashback in which Luke does his best Rodney Dangerfield impression and which is walked back by Luke weakly insisting that it was just a "momentary" temptation, as if the universe rested on the fact a husband took one look at Gigi Hadad's legs in passing.

And no, the "late King Arthur" archetype doesn't fit, either. The best recent retelling of the Arthur myth, Excalibur, portrays Arthur's fall onscreen, before us. It is not told in flashback, and the fatal flaw that leads Arthur into his fall - his adultery with his own sister/cousin - is not one that's planted anywhere in Luke's past during the OT, and insofar as he has a fatal flaw, it is quite convincingly overcome in the climax of ROTJ. That is the entire point of that scene, quite apart from Vader's redemption, no matter what Lucas says twenty years after the fact.)

With that massive digression aside, I think the question to be asked would be: why would such a hero refuse to come back in a scenario where the galaxy clearly needed him?

The only two realistic answers must be: cannot come back, or will not come back. We saw a dreadful example of "will not come back because I iz in Despair" which just regressed Luke's character back to whiny farmboy (right down to drinking alternatively-coloured milk, albeit Luke drinks from the source this time, not just from Aunt Beru's fridge).

"Cannot come back" seems to work best in the scenario where Luke has amnesia. The cause of this can be accidental or deliberate: maybe the First Order fried his brain, maybe he just fell and hit his head on a rock while looking for the first Jedi Temple. Either way, Luke is therefore given a reason to run away screaming when Yoda and/or Ben and/or his father try to appear to him; we're always afraid of ghosts. And then Rey arrives, and that scene of him taking the lightsaber suddenly sparks ... a memory ... You could even repurpose R2-D2's scene showing him Leia's hologram as the final, cathartic moment when he remembers who he is.

That said, I think better narrative choices are: will not come back because he knows the consequences if he does. That is, if you're going to make him a mythical archetype, make him Cassandra, not Arthur. In other words, make him a sort of Dr. Manhattan or a Leto Atreides II. Since one of the core Skywalker traits seems to be seeing things before they happen (something his father had from an early age), take this power up to 11: Luke's power as a Jedi has grown to the point where he's scanned most timelines and concluded, in despair, that the galaxy falls into darkness in any of them when he returns. Ache-Toe is the only place in the galaxy that he sees in the future as one where the galaxy has any hope.

So why is he surprised when Rey turns up? Because you use, for her, another archetype, one that hasn't been seen in the SW universe on screen as yet: make her, in essence, Rogue. An untrained, ignorant Rogue, who unconsciously draws off other Force users for her own latent Force abilities ... and who can amplify other Force users' powers as well. This then explains why she is able to bust into Kylo Ren's mind: because she siphoned his own Force powers and used them against him, albeit unconsciously. She doesn't know how to use this power properly, but one of its side-effects is that it renders her invisible to Force precognition. Don't make it that Luke can't be sensed in the Force, make it that Rey can't be seen with precognition. This changes everything for Luke, because suddenly here is a timeline that he has not already experienced. He finally has the one thing that's been denied him all these years: possibility, and the hope inherent in possibility. She is, for him, quite literally, a new hope.

And frankly they really should've just made Snoke into Darth Plagueis reborn ... except with some different ideas about the Dark Side, seeing it no longer as a force of evil, domination, but rather as a force of outright chaos. For chaos breeds adaptation, and adaptation spurs life; therefore the Dark Side protects life, ergo, absolute chaos is the finest expression of life. Ergo, Plagueis is now interested in absolute chaos, which Rey offers the chance to bring into action, because she can amplify his power.

[Devonix]

Wait? Old guys don't change in Cambellian tales. Old Guys do nothing BUT Change and get jaded in Cambellian tales.

Arthur, Beowulf, Conan. Young heroes, become jaded old kings, or hermits all the time. It's one of the core tenants if you carry the story past a certain point. If you wanna follow the cambellian tone it's inevitable.

[Saintheart]

Wait? Old guys don't change in Cambellian tales. Old Guys do nothing BUT Change and get jaded in Cambellian tales.

Arthur, Beowulf, Conan. Young heroes, become jaded old kings, or hermits all the time. It's one of the core tenants if you carry the story past a certain point. If you wanna follow the cambellian tone it's inevitable.

So as I understand your argument, you're saying that old guys do change in the Campbellian archetype, that this is a core, required element of the story past a certain point.

Whilst I could accept that statement in general, it doesn't remove the observation that in this series we do not expect to see large swings in core character behaviour unless there is a clear, on-screen choice the character makes in present time (as opposed to a flashback) which explains that swing. This is the pattern that we see in the Star Wars series. Leaving aside that Yoda and Obi-Wan's basic views do not appear to change on-screen across the entire PT and OT -- they still regard the Jedi as overall a good thing across both, there is no rejection of Jedi ideals or philosophy -- Yoda and Obi-Wan both make deliberate, on-screen decisions in present time to go into exile or retreat in the PT. Prior to that, in the OT, they were presented to us as hermits from the beginning, and did not radically change that behaviour across the entire series. Neither struck me as jaded, either.

This is why Luke's sudden shift in character in The Last Mudpie was badly done and inconsistent: first, with his own character; second, with the pattern we had been given on virtually all other "mentor" types in the story; third, with sheer dramatic presentation. Nobody bought Luke's flashback explanation because we were not given the opportunity as an audience to follow Luke's leadup to that choice, and it therefore did not convince us. Particularly so when the choice was not even characterised as a permanent change of behaviour, but rather a moment of temptation which was not followed through.

[Kitten Champion]

Wait? Old guys don't change in Cambellian tales. Old Guys do nothing BUT Change and get jaded in Cambellian tales.

Arthur, Beowulf, Conan. Young heroes, become jaded old kings, or hermits all the time. It's one of the core tenants if you carry the story past a certain point. If you wanna follow the cambellian tone it's inevitable.

I was reminded of Dune personally, especially with him figuratively blinding himself by cutting himself off with the Force.

[Devonix]

So as I understand your argument, you're saying that old guys do change in the Campbellian archetype, that this is a core, required element of the story past a certain point.

Whilst I could accept that statement in general, it doesn't remove the observation that in this series we do not expect to see large swings in core character behaviour unless there is a clear, on-screen choice the character makes in present time (as opposed to a flashback) which explains that swing. This is the pattern that we see in the Star Wars series. Leaving aside that Yoda and Obi-Wan's basic views do not appear to change on-screen across the entire PT and OT -- they still regard the Jedi as overall a good thing across both, there is no rejection of Jedi ideals or philosophy -- Yoda and Obi-Wan both make deliberate, on-screen decisions in present time to go into exile or retreat in the PT. Prior to that, in the OT, they were presented to us as hermits from the beginning, and did not radically change that behaviour across the entire series. Neither struck me as jaded, either.

This is why Luke's sudden shift in character in The Last Mudpie was badly done and inconsistent: first, with his own character; second, with the pattern we had been given on virtually all other "mentor" types in the story; third, with sheer dramatic presentation. Nobody bought Luke's flashback explanation because we were not given the opportunity as an audience to follow Luke's leadup to that choice, and it therefore did not convince us. Particularly so when the choice was not even characterised as a permanent change of behaviour, but rather a moment of temptation which was not followed through.

We don't see this with Yoda because we never saw a young Yoda. But This is exactly what Obiwan was before the retcon of him being on Tatooine to protect Luke. Obiwan in A New Hope was an old knight who was running from his past and through the message of Leia and the arrival of the son of his apprentice was inspired to take up the blade one last time.

It's only through later itterations that the motives for his being there were changed.

Also you say you won't buy any changes to his character without leadup. Well sorry the only way to do that would be for us to travel back in time and do about 10-20 films while he's younger and through his middle age.

If the films have to jump forward in time, then the characters have to jump forward in time, which means you have to skip over parts of their life. The only alternative is to have Luke be the exact same person that he was some 40 years ago. And that's not how people work.

[Devonix]

I was reminded of Dune personally, especially with him figuratively blinding himself by cutting himself off with the Force.

Or any gunslinger in a western who lives to an old age.

[Hopeless]

How about 'Luke has started a new Jedi temple'. It's obviously super secret because he doesn't want them all slaughtered again, but the new students are all too young and inexperienced to be left alone yet.

Rey: Why didn't you come back?

Luke: Do you know what happened last time the Jedi went to war and left the younglings unprotected? I didn't know about Starkiller until it fired, and the Resistance dealt with that fine, they didn't need me. I'll give you a crash course,l but I'm not leaving students unprotected again.

THIS so much!😎👍🙌

[Mechalich]

Wait? Old guys don't change in Cambellian tales. Old Guys do nothing BUT Change and get jaded in Cambellian tales.

Arthur, Beowulf, Conan. Young heroes, become jaded old kings, or hermits all the time. It's one of the core tenants if you carry the story past a certain point. If you wanna follow the cambellian tone it's inevitable.

Arthur, Beowulf, and Conan may all become old and/or jaded, but what they don't do is stop being heroes. when push comes to show they put on the armor, strap on the sword, and go out and fight and die like the heroes they are (Conan managed to avoid the dying bit mostly because Howard managed to kick the bucket first). This is also what Obi-Wan does in ANH, with the particular Star Wars twist of becoming a Force Ghost.

That's the part that got left out of TLJ.

[Saintheart]

We don't see this with Yoda because we never saw a young Yoda. But This is exactly what Obiwan was before the retcon of him being on Tatooine to protect Luke. Obiwan in A New Hope was an old knight who was running from his past and through the message of Leia and the arrival of the son of his apprentice was inspired to take up the blade one last time.

It's only through later itterations that the motives for his being there were changed.

(1) So as I understand your argument as to Yoda, you are saying that because we did not see a young Yoda onscreen, we did not see him as a young, arrogant, inspired heroic character. Therefore by the time we first encounter him in the Prequel Trilogy, we are seeing him after he has become old and jaded and is a sort of 'late Arthur' figure. Therefore he fits the Campbellian archetype because he has changed from an idealist into a jaded figure by the time we first meet him.

I must say I have some difficulty agreeing with this proposal. Onscreen, which is the medium that ultimately counts, we meet Yoda in the PT seemingly at the height of his powers: implied as the head of, or the elder statesman of, the Jedi Council, a virtual king -- not a retreating, jaded figure. We only hear of him becoming old, weak, sick, in ROTJ. And given that he does become an exiled figure by the end of the prequel trilogy, I do not see how that supports your argument that Luke is therefore expected to become an old, jaded figure with quite contrary views to the character we had expected at the end of ROTJ. I do not see a scene in which Yoda's views change markedly, and again, it is what the audience expects to see from the film history behind it that would appear relevant.

(2) As to Obi-Wan, I understand your argument to be that Obi-Wan was running from his past, and only through later iterations that his motives changed; that is, that at the time of A New Hope Obi-Wan's motivations were to be a jaded old figure, who again fits the Campbellian archetype in that sense.

I would accept that George Lucas's ideas for the story changed as the series went along, in the same way that Luke and Leia being siblings was something of a retcon, and therefore that -- as a standalone film -- A New Hope does attempt to cleave quite closely to Campbellian archetypes. But to me this still does not deal with the fact that, by the time The Last Mudpie comes along, A New Hope is not the only film audiences had to draw on as a background. Had The Last Mudpie come along as a standalone film, or perhaps as a very late and very distant sequel to A New Hope, I think your argument would be stronger. As it is, by the time we see Rian Johnson's attempt at a story, it is against a mythos which does not hold entirely to Campbellian archetypes, even if that is the general theme. If you are arguing that Luke in The Last Mudpie obeys Campbellian archetypes, perhaps he might, if one squints at him - but that is not the only factor to consider, since the Star Wars mythos is one of its own, and in particular the expectations we have been given as an audience are different as well. Luke in the film fails because he's inconsistent with the entire context of the series, not just because he's a somewhat incompetent attempt at a Campbellian archetype at best.


Also you say you won't buy any changes to his character without leadup. Well sorry the only way to do that would be for us to travel back in time and do about 10-20 films while he's younger and through his middle age.

So as I understand your argument, you seem to be saying that I am requiring that a character remain static unless there are entire films demonstrating how he changed.

With respect, that is not my argument and would appear to be you resorting to hyperbole - leaving aside that George Lucas at least gave us the courtesy of three doing precisely that. I am saying that given the mythos that Rian Johnson had to work with large, about-face turns in character philosophy or outlook are not plausible or dramatically successful unless there is a buildup to the choice and we are permitted to experience that choice in present time along with the character. That is the pattern that seven Star Wars films had set up for audiences before we were subjected to Rian Johnson's ... vision. As I said further above, even Han Solo had not markedly changed between ROTJ and The Farce Awakens; even JJ Abrams was smart enough not to give us a Han Solo who had become a police officer or uptight military man.

I may or may not buy changes to a character without leadup. My point is that large swathes of audiences didn't buy it with Luke Skywalker in the last film, and it's precisely because the changes made didn't fit with how we expect characters to change in a Star Wars film, and the changes that were made were so massive they demanded a better foundation and better treatment than what we got.


If the films have to jump forward in time, then the characters have to jump forward in time, which means you have to skip over parts of their life. The only alternative is to have Luke be the exact same person that he was some 40 years ago. And that's not how people work.

So as I understand the argument here, you are saying that parts of a character's life must be skipped over in order for time to be jumped forward, and that people will change in that time. I agree with that. I disagree on how markedly you can make a change and expect an audience to buy into it without a foundation for doing so. In this case, Johnson erred very horribly as to how much change the audience would take. In the case of Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai, the makers of the series got it dead right. They started with a character fundamentally the same as he'd been in the original movie, but then allowed that character to begin to change in present time, with us there to watch.

It's not the audience's fault if Johnson chooses a method of storytelling that's too jarring to allow suspension of disbelief to remain. Write a different movie. Johnson's problem is quite nicely exemplified in that infamous interview most of us have seen, where Mark Hamill looks like he took a shiv in the soul when he says "I told Rian 'we have to think about the fans' and he replied 'No, we have to think about the story'." What Hamill was really saying was, you have to bear in mind the audience's expectations for the character. Johnson, it seems, did not, which is why Luke doesn't come across as plausible in this film.

[Devonix]

Arthur, Beowulf, and Conan may all become old and/or jaded, but what they don't do is stop being heroes. when push comes to show they put on the armor, strap on the sword, and go out and fight and die like the heroes they are (Conan managed to avoid the dying bit mostly because Howard managed to kick the bucket first). This is also what Obi-Wan does in ANH, with the particular Star Wars twist of becoming a Force Ghost.

That's the part that got left out of TLJ.

This is exactly what Luke does. He becomes old and jaded offscreen like most of these heroes do. Because these things always happen offscreen or during a timeskip. And then when the camera or story pans back to them, just like it does to Luke in this story, they strap on the sword and go out like heroes. Just like Luke does here.

[Saintheart]

This is exactly what Luke does. He becomes old and jaded offscreen like most of these heroes do. Because these things always happen offscreen or during a timeskip. And then when the camera or story pans back to them, just like it does to Luke in this story, they strap on the sword and go out like heroes. Just like Luke does here.

After two hours and approx. twenty minutes of horrifying us with Johnson's lack of grasp on the character.

[Mightymosy]

Check the scene, I'm looking at it right now. She stops him in front of one of the escape pods yes. But that's also not what they leave in, they leave in the shuttles which are in a different area. They pass by those when Rose is dragging him on the gurney.

The point is: Finn could have escaped in an escape pod, so why doesn't everyone else?

[Zevox]

Unfortunately, Erik Bauersfeld died April 3, 2016. He could be recast, but that would have the possibility of being wildly unpopular and anyway, Ackbar wouldn't have the desired effect in the same role. He was never considered but not really an option anyway.
Ackbar in the original films was a minor role and is visually just a costume anyway, I don't think recasting would be any issue. And the possibilities for what to do with him aren't limited to "put him in Holdo's role" or "kill him offscreen," there's also options such as "don't mention him in the film at all," or "use him, but in a minor role again."

It's just strange that they decided to take a character they could potentially have used at some point, that people for various reasons like (either the meme or those of us who were familiar with him in the EU novels), and just offhandedly mention that he died off-screen. It's just a pointless waste of potential. Which, honestly, is a fairly apt description of much of the sequel films in general.


Am I still the only one who thinks Kylo Ren's lightsaber is dumb?
You are definitely not, I've had that same thought from the moment I first saw it.

[druid91]

So why is he surprised when Rey turns up? Because you use, for her, another archetype, one that hasn't been seen in the SW universe on screen as yet: make her, in essence, Rogue. An untrained, ignorant Rogue, who unconsciously draws off other Force users for her own latent Force abilities ... and who can amplify other Force users' powers as well. This then explains why she is able to bust into Kylo Ren's mind: because she siphoned his own Force powers and used them against him, albeit unconsciously. She doesn't know how to use this power properly, but one of its side-effects is that it renders her invisible to Force precognition. Don't make it that Luke can't be sensed in the Force, make it that Rey can't be seen with precognition. This changes everything for Luke, because suddenly here is a timeline that he has not already experienced. He finally has the one thing that's been denied him all these years: possibility, and the hope inherent in possibility. She is, for him, quite literally, a new hope.

And frankly they really should've just made Snoke into Darth Plagueis reborn ... except with some different ideas about the Dark Side, seeing it no longer as a force of evil, domination, but rather as a force of outright chaos. For chaos breeds adaptation, and adaptation spurs life; therefore the Dark Side protects life, ergo, absolute chaos is the finest expression of life. Ergo, Plagueis is now interested in absolute chaos, which Rey offers the chance to bring into action, because she can amplify his power.

So, Basically Make Rey into the Jedi Exile from Kotor 2?

[Darth Ultron]

The main problem with The Farce Awakens, indeed the entire Disney run, is that Disney has little to no idea how to pass the torch on - in the sense that it has no sense of how to tell a really generational story, which is, ultimately, what this is.

They have the huge problems of:

1.Do they make a movie for the old Star Wars fans?
2.Do they make a generic movie to try and make new people fans?

And

1.Do they make a more classic type movie(rated R by today's low standards)
2.Do they make a super safe Kidz Moviez

And
1.If you are making a movie for a Star Wars fan over the age of 18...do you make an Adult Movie? Do you make an Adult Star Wars movie for the fans who are 30+ in age?
2.Do you stick to the Kidz Stuff...Star Wars is for Kidz



With that massive digression aside, I think the question to be asked would be: why would such a hero refuse to come back in a scenario where the galaxy clearly needed him?

I would have gone with: He knew his time was over. He knew his destiny.

The Jedi fall, the Republic falls and the Empire is born, with the Sith in charge....with just a tiny warm coal of the Jedi left, and Hope: Luke and Leia.

Luke and Leia lead the Rebels and destroy the Empire and Sith. Leia then does her main part of her destiny and rebuilds and leads the Republic.

Luke is a bit lost as his most of his destiny was to defeat the Sith. So he does the only obvious thing he can think of to do: rebuild the Jedi. This is NOT his destiny, but he tries to do it anyway. He fails, even as he knew he would. He still has a bit of destiny left, a role to play, but not for a while. So he goes into exile. Until it is time.

[Mechalich]

This is exactly what Luke does. He becomes old and jaded offscreen like most of these heroes do. Because these things always happen offscreen or during a timeskip. And then when the camera or story pans back to them, just like it does to Luke in this story, they strap on the sword and go out like heroes. Just like Luke does here.

Luke's death is not remotely heroic. By the time Luke shows up the battle has been lost. The number of people Luke saves is puny. The damage he does to the first order is entirely limited to psyching-out Kylo Ren. He dies thereafter for no quantifiable reason and undercuts the limited symbolic impact he's had by doing so.

Luke's death in TLJ is meant to appear heroic - but it is not actually heroic. It's one of many cases in the film where things are said or appear in one way but are totally opposed to the actual events that occur.


With that massive digression aside, I think the question to be asked would be: why would such a hero refuse to come back in a scenario where the galaxy clearly needed him?

The viable explanation is that Luke became utterly frustrated when the Republic turned aside from the fight and made peace with evil by allowing the Empire - in the form of the First Order - retain a huge chunk of the galaxy with what appears to be most of the nasty old imperial policies still in place. The worldbuilding isn't actually there in the films, but the new canon supplemental materials apparently imply that following the Battle of Jakku the Republic ceded a huge chunk of the galaxy to Imperial control - leaving quadrillions to linger in tyranny. Luke, in protest, refuses to acknowledge the treaty and remains officially at war with the empire, which causes the Republic to send him into exile and withdraw monetary support. So he goes off to try and re-found the Jedi instead. Only he fails - because Snoke undercuts him somehow and corrupts Kylo and the other Knights of Ren (this scenario makes perfect sense if Snoke is undying mastermind Darth Plagueis, but makes little sense if Snoke is just some random dude) - and he's stuck on Skellig Michael staring at the Jedi Texts trying to figure out what went wrong and how to overcome Snoke.

This two-stage exile scenario makes sense given that an absolutely passive and dysfunctional Republic is necessary to make any part of TLJ make sense. After all, the First Order nuked an entire freaking star system in TFA. Then had the weapon capable of doing this blown to bits. The Republic should be engaged in a massive retaliatory campaign all across the galaxy - but instead there's only a tiny resistance force under Leia's personal command and the Republic is so lacking in effort that they refuse to aid the resistance in their hour of greatest need.

[Darth Ultron]

Luke's death is not remotely heroic. By the time Luke shows up the battle has been lost. The number of people Luke saves is puny. The damage he does to the first order is entirely limited to psyching-out Kylo Ren. He dies thereafter for no quantifiable reason and undercuts the limited symbolic impact he's had by doing so.

Luke's death in TLJ is meant to appear heroic - but it is not actually heroic. It's one of many cases in the film where things are said or appear in one way but are totally opposed to the actual events that occur.

This is exactly the problem with Safe Storytelling: you don't want anything 'bad' to happen. You want everything to be perfectly nice for the Kidz.

To them ''being a distraction'' is like super heroic. Like really, the Iron Giant had a better heroic death.

[Devonix]

Luke's death is not remotely heroic. By the time Luke shows up the battle has been lost. The number of people Luke saves is puny. The damage he does to the first order is entirely limited to psyching-out Kylo Ren. He dies thereafter for no quantifiable reason and undercuts the limited symbolic impact he's had by doing so.

Luke's death in TLJ is meant to appear heroic - but it is not actually heroic. It's one of many cases in the film where things are said or appear in one way but are totally opposed to the actual events that occur.





What does the amount of people saved have to do with how heroic an action is. Sacrificing your life to save a single person is just as heroic as sacrificing your life to save an entire city. To Me it was incredibly heroic. You may not have seen it as heroic but that's something completely subjective.

You can't say it's not heroic, just that it wasn't heroic to you. The action didn't resonate with you but it did with me and many other people.

[Zevox]

Luke's death is not remotely heroic. By the time Luke shows up the battle has been lost. The number of people Luke saves is puny. The damage he does to the first order is entirely limited to psyching-out Kylo Ren. He dies thereafter for no quantifiable reason and undercuts the limited symbolic impact he's had by doing so.

Luke's death in TLJ is meant to appear heroic - but it is not actually heroic. It's one of many cases in the film where things are said or appear in one way but are totally opposed to the actual events that occur.
Eh, I'd say some qualification is needed there. Luke's actions there are certainly heroic - he's finally stepped back up to help those in need, buying the Resistance the time they need to escape. It's a step toward redeeming himself for shutting everyone off and refusing to do anything at all earlier. The problem is that he then dies immediately thereafter for absolutely no apparent reason. While the actions preceding it were heroic, the death itself isn't heroic but rather just pointless.

[Saintheart]

They have the huge problems of:

1.Do they make a movie for the old Star Wars fans?
2.Do they make a generic movie to try and make new people fans?

And

1.Do they make a more classic type movie(rated R by today's low standards)
2.Do they make a super safe Kidz Moviez

And
1.If you are making a movie for a Star Wars fan over the age of 18...do you make an Adult Movie? Do you make an Adult Star Wars movie for the fans who are 30+ in age?
2.Do you stick to the Kidz Stuff...Star Wars is for Kidz

To which I'd reply (to the filmmakers, not to yourself - these are valid concerns): suck it up, princess. They spent the better part of 200 million on this weaponised cowpat, and they couldn't find one single film concept, one single script, out there that hit these needs? How much did Johnson collect for writing this film, as distinct from directing it?

And to which I'd also reply to the filmmakers: your existential angst is compelling, but how ever did Marvel manage to make maybe 15 films or so that are kiddie shows to a large extent but still pull in squillions of dollars, and without causing Grand-Canyon-width splits in the fanbase? Because they had a team that understood the overall context, understood the characters, and wrote accordingly. By the standard of primary-colours popcorn films, Infinity War is about as gripping and compelling a film as you could ask for in the present era, a film that somehow takes an undefined Big Bad whose power set should make him boring as bat dung and makes him sympathetic, makes him almost the protagonist of the film ... while still giving a good 10-20 distinct, named characters something to do and provide a real impact on the film's plot.

And that's in the midst of impaling Tony Stark on bits of metal, torturing Dr Strange, and ripping an axe through Thanos's chest, all of which earned the film a PG-13 rating. I doubt the film's rating would've made that much difference to a Star Wars film. Indeed that's one of the more unintelligent defences made of The Last Mudpie: lots of people turned up, ergo it must have been a success, hurr durr. I say lots of people turned up off the strength of the Star Wars name ... at least on the opening weekend. As the weeks went by? Not so much.


The viable explanation is that Luke became utterly frustrated when the Republic turned aside from the fight and made peace with evil by allowing the Empire - in the form of the First Order - retain a huge chunk of the galaxy with what appears to be most of the nasty old imperial policies still in place. The worldbuilding isn't actually there in the films, but the new canon supplemental materials apparently imply that following the Battle of Jakku the Republic ceded a huge chunk of the galaxy to Imperial control - leaving quadrillions to linger in tyranny. Luke, in protest, refuses to acknowledge the treaty and remains officially at war with the empire, which causes the Republic to send him into exile and withdraw monetary support. So he goes off to try and re-found the Jedi instead. Only he fails - because Snoke undercuts him somehow and corrupts Kylo and the other Knights of Ren (this scenario makes perfect sense if Snoke is undying mastermind Darth Plagueis, but makes little sense if Snoke is just some random dude) - and he's stuck on Skellig Michael staring at the Jedi Texts trying to figure out what went wrong and how to overcome Snoke.

This two-stage exile scenario makes sense given that an absolutely passive and dysfunctional Republic is necessary to make any part of TLJ make sense. After all, the First Order nuked an entire freaking star system in TFA. Then had the weapon capable of doing this blown to bits. The Republic should be engaged in a massive retaliatory campaign all across the galaxy - but instead there's only a tiny resistance force under Leia's personal command and the Republic is so lacking in effort that they refuse to aid the resistance in their hour of greatest need.

Better worldbuilding would certainly have helped. We have to balance that against the fact that the original films also didn't have much in the way of worldbuilding at least to start with, but what they did have was easier to grasp intuitively and was dealt with essentially in two lines of exposition: Obi-Wan talking about the Jedi Knights being the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic before the Dark Times, and Tarkin then indicating that the Senate had been disbanded, and that the regional governors now had direct control of their territories. That gave us enough to go on. But a capable screenwriter could have figured out how to do this in these films as well. One of the biggest problems is that -- as publicly admitted by Disney and the directors themselves -- there was no unified narrative planned between Abrams and Johnson. Indeed they dodged a large plot discontinuity courtesy of Mark Hamill: in JJ's original script, Luke would've been surrounded by floating rocks at the end of Farce Awakens. Johnson began with that scene still intact. It was Hamill who pointed out the problem.

This isn't to say that A New Hope and ESB began with a unified narrative, but at least you had the same guy, George Lucas, intimately involved with both, and therefore a more unified vision could be achieved.


So, Basically Make Rey into the Jedi Exile from Kotor 2?

KOTOR 2 is one game I actually never got the chance to play, and after I learned of how shoddily it had been finished, I never got around to bothering. I didn't deliberately rip off the Jedi Exile storyline proposing that, it was just what occurred to me as making things a bit more interesting ... or at least give Rey something to do of any significance in the story.

[Dragonexx]

This two-stage exile scenario makes sense given that an absolutely passive and dysfunctional Republic is necessary to make any part of TLJ make sense. After all, the First Order nuked an entire freaking star system in TFA. Then had the weapon capable of doing this blown to bits. The Republic should be engaged in a massive retaliatory campaign all across the galaxy - but instead there's only a tiny resistance force under Leia's personal command and the Republic is so lacking in effort that they refuse to aid the resistance in their hour of greatest need.

This is another of the things the bugs me about the film. It seems to think that more time has passed than actually has. The first order seems to have already taken over most of the galaxy, which given that this film picks up right where the previous one ends, makes no sense.

[Reddish Mage]

I thought the New Republic was all centered around that one planet blown up and the fleet was in and around the star systems. But the wikia says otherwise. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/New_Republic) It was a rotating capital among the member planets.

Everyone just capitulated to the First Order after the destruction, which makes no sense since Starkiller base was immediately attacked and destroyed. You'd think the galaxy would have enough backbone not to immediately wilt to a power that shows itself extremely unprincipled at the same time it showed itself as vulnerable.

[Devonix]

Eh, I'd say some qualification is needed there. Luke's actions there are certainly heroic - he's finally stepped back up to help those in need, buying the Resistance the time they need to escape. It's a step toward redeeming himself for shutting everyone off and refusing to do anything at all earlier. The problem is that he then dies immediately thereafter for absolutely no apparent reason. While the actions preceding it were heroic, the death itself isn't heroic but rather just pointless.

He didn't die for no reason. Ben forshadows earlier in the movie that doing something like this should kill the person in the attempt.

Snoke was linking two people together. Luke was projecting his himself all alone across the galaxy.

[Yora]

I thought the New Republic was all centered around that one planet blown up and the fleet was in and around the star systems. But the wikia says otherwise. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/New_Republic) It was a rotating capital among the member planets.

Everyone just capitulated to the First Order after the destruction, which makes no sense since Starkiller base was immediately attacked and destroyed. You'd think the galaxy would have enough backbone not to immediately wilt to a power that shows itself extremely unprincipled at the same time it showed itself as vulnerable.

I didn't get the impression that you're supposed to "think about it". After all, isn't Star Wars supposed to be nothing but explosions and colors and loud noise? What else could audiences possibly want?

[Z3ro]

Luke's death in TLJ is meant to appear heroic - but it is not actually heroic. It's one of many cases in the film where things are said or appear in one way but are totally opposed to the actual events that occur.


So I rewatched the film on Netflix the other day, and I finally figured out what bothered me about it; this right here. Not this specific example, exactly, but the way the film tells us one thing but then shows us another. If you imagine the film as the film-makers intended, it's very different from the one we get.

For example, the whole Finn sacrificing himself thing. The film gives us a very clear message; we have to fight for the right reason. Okay, I could get behind that. But in the context of what just happened, it makes no sense. From their perspective, Rose just doomed the resistance. The base is cracked open, and they're all about to be slaughtered. It's a nice sentiment, but makes no sense given what the movie shows us (and don't get me started on whether Finn was sacrificing himself "correctly").

And the film does this over and over again. If you watch the movie the film-makers told us they were making, it's pretty good! The problem is the movie they made doesn't really sync with the movie they wanted to make. I think some of the people who really like it are seeing more of the movie were told about, rather than the movie that was actually filmed.

[Devonix]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

Same question for those who like the current direction, what would be some good ideas towards those who do not like the direction and help them enjoy without losing what we're loving.

Rogue One is my least favorite of the new films but it seems to be some people's favorite. Perhaps someone can explain why they like that direction. Is it the darker tone?

[Zevox]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.
Well, they could have Grand Admiral Thrawn return from whever the space-whales dragged him off to in the Rebels finale and take over the First Order in a matter of days by easily outwitting their current sad leadership. (Only really sarcastic because I know there's no way they'd actually do that.)

Seriously, that's really hard to say, personally. At this point, I don't know that there's anything they could do with the next movie. Kylo Ren being set up as the main antagonist alone would be a huge detriment to my interest even if the film had other things going for it, and at this point I don't know what it could have going for it in my eyes given it has to build off of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, which don't provide a good foundation from where I'm standing.

After that though? Jump the timeline ahead a ways and do something different. The more they can dissociate things from how badly they messed up Luke's story and this whole sad rehash where the Resistance and First Order are just a repeat of the Rebellion and Empire less than a generation after that conflict happened, the better. And for heaven's sake, get villains that are actually competent and threatening next time.


Rogue One is my least favorite of the new films but it seems to be some people's favorite. Perhaps someone can explain why they like that direction. Is it the darker tone?
Eh, darker or lighter tone doesn't really make a huge difference to me. For me personally, Rogue One is simply the film that fits best into Star Wars as I know it and was the most entertaining to watch. It wasn't flawless, but it was fun and didn't screw up anything too major, and I enjoyed the characters and action. Also, slight bonus points for focusing on a group of people who aren't Jedi, Sith, or (barring perhaps Chirrut) even force-sensitive, which was a nice change of pace.

[Xyril]

What does the amount of people saved have to do with how heroic an action is. Sacrificing your life to save a single person is just as heroic as sacrificing your life to save an entire city. To Me it was incredibly heroic. You may not have seen it as heroic but that's something completely subjective.

You can't say it's not heroic, just that it wasn't heroic to you. The action didn't resonate with you but it did with me and many other people.

Not to mention that--from a logistical and storytelling metric--not all lives are equal in value. Absent any other information, saving thousands of lives is arguably better than saving one. However, saving the last surviving member of a MacGuffin bloodline who needs to live in order to seal the gates of hell is arguably more important and more heroic--under those particular circumstances--than saving a few thousand soldiers who would end up dying anyway (or living under the tyranny of whatever came out of said hell-gates.) Also, if saving that one life is actually substantially harder and more dangerous--i.e., because an adversary also realizes how important our MacGuffin man is and directs his resources accordingly--that also makes things a bit more heroic.

One of the few themes that's managed to remain consistent in the patchwork mess of canon works (even in Rebels) is the power of the spark of a movement. Luke only saved a few rebels, but he saved the last few rebels. It's possible that a new rebellion would have sprung up on its own, but it wouldn't necessarily hold the same values as the current one, which shares history and institutional knowledge not only with the (now gone) New Republic, but also with the original Rebal Alliance, which itself began with leaders of the original Republic. Also, let's not forget that nobody responded when the rebels called for help. Even if they had saved all their ships and crew, they was no uprising waiting to spring up around them--it would have been a very slow fight, as they slowly change hearts and minds every time achieve some small victory and every time they escape annihilation. Having the surviving rebels go to ground and work behind the scenes to convince people that rebellion is possible certainly won't be easier without a military force out there somewhere--especially since the people know exactly how you lost your fleet--but it's not that much harder, either. A fleet certainly has value as a recruiting tool, but not as much value as it has as a military asset, and so its loss is much less catastrophic if a quick military victory was never an option to begin with.

I am assuming that everyone who hasn't already joined the rebellion are too afraid to stand up to the First Order (at least, I'm hoping that this is the case and that they don't simply favor the space Nazis.) Having a rebel fleet operating openly against the First Order and surviving would be a good, narratively satisfying way to show that the First Order isn't all powerful, but it's not the only one. Having the surviving rebels scatter among the populace, reminding people what the Republic stood for, countering the propaganda as the First Order tries to consolidate power... that also has some great possibilities, as does what I'm predicting will happen, which is Rey using the Force to achieve some highly improbable, highly symbolic victory that suddenly makes everyone willing to fight.

[Malimar]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

Same question for those who like the current direction, what would be some good ideas towards those who do not like the direction and help them enjoy without losing what we're loving.

Jettisoning JJ Abrams into the sun and not letting him write or direct any more movies would be a good start.

[Peelee]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

I would love to know how the First Order got to be what it is. Original Star Wars, we're dropped into the middle. All we need to know it's Empire big, Rebels small. There no history there, so it can be whatever. They're established as being in control, so that's fine, because there's nothing contradicting that.

But the First Order? The New Republic rules the galaxy. They don't even know the existence of the FO. NR is the galactic government, they have all the money, all the planets, all the people.

How, then, does the FO have enough money to build a planet-sized superweapon with a barrel the size of the first Death Star? And all the warships? All the weaponry to make filthy rich all those people on Canto Bight? I legit want to know. That build-up sounds interesting.

Why was Finn the only one to rebel? They kidnap children, so why don't the others share the First Order as well? If they're brainwashed, why did it not take with Finn while it did with the others? What makes him so radically different? That also sounds like it could be really interesting.

Basically, they reset the stage but didn't tell us how it got to be that way. I want that story.

[druid91]

I would love to know how the First Order got to be what it is. Original Star Wars, we're dropped into the middle. All we need to know it's Empire big, Rebels small. There no history there, so it can be whatever. They're established as being in control, so that's fine, because there's nothing contradicting that.

But the First Order? The New Republic rules the galaxy. They don't even know the existence of the FO. NR is the galactic government, they have all the money, all the planets, all the people.

How, then, does the FO have enough money to build a planet-sized superweapon with a barrel the size of the first Death Star? And all the warships? All the weaponry to make filthy rich all those people on Canto Bight? I legit want to know. That build-up sounds interesting.

Why was Finn the only one to rebel? They kidnap children, so why don't the others share the First Order as well? If they're brainwashed, why did it not take with Finn while it did with the others? What makes him so radically different? That also sounds like it could be really interesting.

Basically, they reset the stage but didn't tell us how it got to be that way. I want that story.

Apparently this is explained in the books. Also the reason that the Republic isn't based on Coruscant. The Empire actually still exists, and still controls Coruscant and the Galactic Core.

The Republic is more or less entirely in what used to be the Outer Rim Territories, and the First Order is the Remnants of the Imperial Governors, Moffs, and other assorted officials who were either losing power with the ceding of the Outer Rim, or simply didn't like the idea of allowing the Rebels to Win.

It's actually not a half bad setup, TBEH. It's just they entirely throw it away. For no reason.

[Peelee]

Apparently this is explained in the books.

Which ones? Because it's sure not Bloodlines, which is the closest I've gotten to such a story.

[Saintheart]

Apparently this is explained in the books. Also the reason that the Republic isn't based on Coruscant. The Empire actually still exists, and still controls Coruscant and the Galactic Core.

The Republic is more or less entirely in what used to be the Outer Rim Territories, and the First Order is the Remnants of the Imperial Governors, Moffs, and other assorted officials who were either losing power with the ceding of the Outer Rim, or simply didn't like the idea of allowing the Rebels to Win.

It's actually not a half bad setup, TBEH. It's just they entirely throw it away. For no reason.

An aside: a defence of "it's all explained in the books" is about as unconvincing an argument for a film's craft, premise, and outcome as "It'll all be explained in the sequel." (I seem to remember a fair number of defences of Farce Awakens along the latter lines when the movie had come out containing all sorts of jolly silliness like lightsabers now being able to choose their wielders and give them visions and whatnot. Still waiting on an explanation for how Luke's lightsaber wound up in a storage box at Maz Kanata's place.)

"It's all explained in the books" can be described another way, one that is not original to me but which to my mind adequately sums up most of the "defences" for these two deeply unsatisfying films: Stop writing the filmmakers' scripts for them. They got paid many millions of dollars to make the film, it's wrong to have unpaid interns doing their job for them.

[druid91]

Here's the Wookiepedia Article, should have a list of books. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Concordance)

[Peelee]

Here's the Wookiepedia Article, should have a list of books. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Concordance)

A.) Wookiee. 2 E's.

2.) indirect mention, indirect mention, mentioned only, indirect mention, indirect mention, and worst of all, Aftermath. Not much of a resource for finding out about it, I'd say.

[Cikomyr]

If a movie doesnt make sense because.of information not presented in the movie, then the movie fails.

But that is not the case here. The First Order's presence is not what make or break the versimilitude of the new trilogy.

[Devonix]

I 100 percent agree with the whole Explained in the books thing. Explaining it in the books. Or explaining it in the Clone Wars series didn't improve the Prequel movies. And it shouldn't be used as an excuse for issues in the new films. Yes I do want some background on the First order in the next movie.

[Saintheart]

If a movie doesnt make sense because.of information not presented in the movie, then the movie fails.

But that is not the case here. The First Order's presence is not what make or break the versimilitude of the new trilogy.

True. The fact is, the trilogy is broken, regardless of what Episode IX now does. No amount of background on how the First Order came to power is going to excuse or override the fact it's being run by a pair of screaming, unhinged teenagers who connote precisely zero impression that they're capable of running a galaxy-spanning empire. Oh, I know all the counterarguments: "But that'll be charm of the last film! That'll be why they fail, because they're immature and can't keep control of their emotions, while the Rebellion Resistance is all guerrilla and inspiring and stuff!"

Balderdash. If so, that only makes the Rebels even more pathetic than they already were, it makes them even less impressive - because, counter to basically all rules of good storytelling, the Rebels will suddenly have to deal with an antagonist that is less threatening than it once was. The general idea of a story is that the forces against the protagonist increase in complexity, scale, and number, not decrease. Now we've got a First Order that's actually easier to beat, and requires the Rebels to pull out even less effort and resources than they otherwise did. Even in ROTJ, the Rebel Alliance attacking the Death Star wasn't a "symbolic" act or inspiring people to click like buttons on Galactic Facebook posts rebel; the Alliance knew it was done for if it didn't attack, and that it would never get a better opportunity to cut off the head of the snake, i.e. kill the Emperor.

One big reason the Empire came across as mature and inherently threatening and terrifying in the original trilogy was because of great casting choices for the supporting cast, i.e. the higher-ranked Imperial officers: from Peter Cushing to Julian Glover To Kenneth Colley right down to Michael Sheard as fall guy Admiral Ozzel, we were given competent, dignified military characters who served both to exemplify that the Empire was competently in charge and -- by their reserved but terrified interactions with Darth Vader -- enhanced the antagonists' menace when there wasn't a convenient Rebel trooper around to strangle. I'm not going to blame Domnhall Gleeson for what he's done with Hux -- that lies solely on casting and on the director/s -- but you look at these comparators and it's just ludicrous to imagine a guy who still looks like he's got acne as some sort of real, imposing threat.

To rescue this series now would take a scriptwriting and directorial effort that, simply put, JJ Abrams is not good enough to pull off. This is the guy who gave us a retreaded New Hope with no compelling protagonists,* uninspiring antagonists, and now has to somehow produce a movie that manages to please everyone and still has narrative plausibility. Abrams is competent at best, not gifted, not inspired ... and it's going to take something truly inspired to rescue this trainwreck of a series now.



* And of those protagonists, it's only Finn in the first movie who actually goes anywhere near compelling. And that because, unlike all the other protagonists of the movie, he is proactive. He chooses. When confronted with having to murder a bunch of civilians, he refuses to fire, and then acts to rescue Poe. When Rey is on the verge of getting beaten up by the local Jakku folk, he jumps in. When he wants to impress Rey, he makes up that he's a big deal in the Resistance (and it's one of the only moments in the film where Harrison Ford's eyes seem to come to life, one might add.) When they need to get off Jakku, it's Finn who actually suggests the Millennium Falcon. When the plan is being made to blow up the Death Star Starkiller, it's Finn who volunteers to go in, even if his real objective is rescuing Rey. Finn does not just react to everything around him, unlike Rey and the other protagonists. He does things because, in his words, it's the right thing to do, even if he has crises of faith.

[Peelee]

If a movie doesnt make sense because.of information not presented in the movie, then the movie fails.

But that is not the case here. The First Order's presence is not what make or break the versimilitude of the new trilogy.


True. The fact is, the trilogy is broken, regardless of what Episode IX now does. No amount of background on how the First Order came to power is going to excuse or override the fact it's being run by a pair of screaming, unhinged teenagers who connote precisely zero impression that they're capable of running a galaxy-spanning empire.

As the one who instigated this First Order origin thing, let me remind everyone what I was talking about:

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

Rise of the First Order seems ripe for this, IMO.

[Devonix]

As the one who instigated this First Order origin thing, let me remind everyone what I was talking about:


Rise of the First Order seems ripe for this, IMO.

Exactly. A problem we have here is that There are a lot of people who love the direction of these films right now. You can't just up and start changing the ship's course now without driving away a large majority of the current fanbase. But some things do need to be done. That's what I'm looking at now.

[Peelee]

Exactly. A problem we have here is that There are a lot of people who love the direction of these films right now. You can't just up and start changing the ship's course now without driving away a large majority of the current fanbase. But some things do need to be done. That's what I'm looking at now.

I totally agree. I'm not a fan of a lot of the things they're doing, but at the end of the day it's Star Wars, and even the worst Star Wars movie (I'm looking at you, Clone Wars animated movie) I'm going to enjoy more than most things. They've picked a new direction, that's not going to change (at least, not for this trilogy), so I'm the one who has to roll with it. So why not try to find the things I think are interesting in the new direction and look for more of that?

Also, more power to the people who love the direction of the films right now. Just because I'm not huge on it doesn't mean they shouldn't enjoy it.

[Zevox]

True. The fact is, the trilogy is broken, regardless of what Episode IX now does. No amount of background on how the First Order came to power is going to excuse or override the fact it's being run by a pair of screaming, unhinged teenagers who connote precisely zero impression that they're capable of running a galaxy-spanning empire. Oh, I know all the counterarguments: "But that'll be charm of the last film! That'll be why they fail, because they're immature and can't keep control of their emotions, while the Rebellion Resistance is all guerrilla and inspiring and stuff!"

Balderdash. If so, that only makes the Rebels even more pathetic than they already were, it makes them even less impressive - because, counter to basically all rules of good storytelling, the Rebels will suddenly have to deal with an antagonist that is less threatening than it once was. The general idea of a story is that the forces against the protagonist increase in complexity, scale, and number, not decrease. Now we've got a First Order that's actually easier to beat, and requires the Rebels to pull out even less effort and resources than they otherwise did. Even in ROTJ, the Rebel Alliance attacking the Death Star wasn't a "symbolic" act or inspiring people to click like buttons on Galactic Facebook posts rebel; the Alliance knew it was done for if it didn't attack, and that it would never get a better opportunity to cut off the head of the snake, i.e. kill the Emperor.

One big reason the Empire came across as mature and inherently threatening and terrifying in the original trilogy was because of great casting choices for the supporting cast, i.e. the higher-ranked Imperial officers: from Peter Cushing to Julian Glover To Kenneth Colley right down to Michael Sheard as fall guy Admiral Ozzel, we were given competent, dignified military characters who served both to exemplify that the Empire was competently in charge and -- by their reserved but terrified interactions with Darth Vader -- enhanced the antagonists' menace when there wasn't a convenient Rebel trooper around to strangle. I'm not going to blame Domnhall Gleeson for what he's done with Hux -- that lies solely on casting and on the director/s -- but you look at these comparators and it's just ludicrous to imagine a guy who still looks like he's got acne as some sort of real, imposing threat.

To rescue this series now would take a scriptwriting and directorial effort that, simply put, JJ Abrams is not good enough to pull off. This is the guy who gave us a retreaded New Hope with no compelling protagonists,* uninspiring antagonists, and now has to somehow produce a movie that manages to please everyone and still has narrative plausibility. Abrams is competent at best, not gifted, not inspired ... and it's going to take something truly inspired to rescue this trainwreck of a series now.
Thank you for saying that better than I think I've ever managed to. I completely* agree.

*Well, 99%. I'd argue that Hux looking young wouldn't matter if he were actually a competent, skilled military commander, rather than a sad toady for Snoke and Kylo to force-bitch-slap around. In TFA he was mostly just the forgettable generic-seeming officer that Kylo talked to once, not really a big part of the problem with the First Order; it was TLJ putting more spotlight on him while removing every shred of dignity the character could have had that added him to it.

[Darth Ultron]

I think some of the people who really like it are seeing more of the movie were told about, rather than the movie that was actually filmed.

This has always been a problem with movies, but it has gotten really bad recently.

Basically, someone comes up with a story. And for our example, lets just say it's a good story. A story full of 'classic' things that all people like.

But then come in the others. And they think the story is great...the story is Gold....well, except for like the hundred changes that must be made. So changes are made, then some others make more changes and changes are made to the changes. But it's like a tower of blocks, each change removes a block....but you have to put a replacement there...and they don't. Because they don't care about the story (''the tower'') only the changes. And most of the changes make no sense, and just push a wacky extreme politically correct agenda (''like the move must have super strong women characters!").

And this still does not count the people that make the physical look of the movie and read a page that says ''make Space Vegas'' and make some crappy ''1920's version'' of that or the guy that is told to make some ''coolz space bombing stuff'' and that idiot makes ''flying boot boomers'' that ''fly'' over to a ship and ''drop round booms" as he says ''pew pew'' like a thousand times.

And, maybe worst of all, no one decent is in charge. There is no one to say ''wait, that is dumb and makes to sense...fix it" . Some one to say, ''this bombing run is the stupidest thing ever, redo it. To ''bomb'' something in space is dumb. And if you must do World War Two in space...at least update it a tiny bit to make sense. Here, watch the movie Wing Commander. They use space bombers in the movie to destroy a battleship...and by bombers, they mean frigates that launch missiles".

So the end result is you get a mash of of a movie that makes all them ''other people'' happy.

[Mightymosy]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

Same question for those who like the current direction, what would be some good ideas towards those who do not like the direction and help them enjoy without losing what we're loving.

Rogue One is my least favorite of the new films but it seems to be some people's favorite. Perhaps someone can explain why they like that direction. Is it the darker tone?

Make a storyline that
A) maked sense internally
AND
B) fits with what came before it.

Done!

Honestly, that's why I love R1 and hate TLJ.
Tell me what the "direction" you like about the new movies is that you like, and I can surely find a way that gets us there. I think the only part that I would really find hard to get to is Luke as a "almost child-murdering grumpy old man".
We can settle for Luke having died offscreen 10 years prior to 7, if we need to.

What exactly is the "direction" you want?
Tough to find a way without concrete definitions.

[Mechalich]

Rise of the First Order seems ripe for this, IMO.

Supposedly this is what the live action TV series is going to be about - or at least it's going to be set during the appropriate time frame. Jon Favreau is a significantly better director than JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson, so that's a positive, but I'm not sure of his abilities as a world-builder. His most extensive TV series credit is for Revolution which is, um...not exactly a positive example in that department.

[zimmerwald1915]

It's possible that a new rebellion would have sprung up on its own, but it wouldn't necessarily hold the same values as the current one, which shares history and institutional knowledge not only with the (now gone) New Republic, but also with the original Rebal Alliance, which itself began with leaders of the original Republic.
This is a fairy story that dozens of organizations I can't name due to board rules tell themselves. It bears no relationship to reality. Being descended from a great world-historic movement does not grant your little grouplet any legitimacy. The next great world-historic movement will develop, or not, quite independently of whether you preserve some continuity from or lessons of the past or whatever. You will probably fail to recognize it until it is unmistakable and then resent it.

[Saintheart]

Exactly. A problem we have here is that There are a lot of people who love the direction of these films right now. You can't just up and start changing the ship's course now without driving away a large majority of the current fanbase. But some things do need to be done. That's what I'm looking at now.

I think you wanted the word "fraction", not "large majority". I very much doubt the majority of people actually enjoyed The Last Mudpie or the direction the franchise is headed in. And frankly, they already drove away a very large fraction of that fanbase, as is evident from condemnation coming from most quarters of that fanbase of that last film.

I have never seen people saying that they do not want to see another Star Wars film again, not in the numbers I've seen, not even at the lowest ebb of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Clones were those sorts of sentiments expressed. I would have been less worried if people said "Well, let's hope Episode IX is better" -- nope, people are turning off the entire franchise. The fact people are being turned off the entire brand, not just one film, is a major blow to a series that, in essence, has been running off built-in goodwill ever since TFA was released. Solo's dismal performance reflects that.

Hegelian dialectic isn't going to save this series, mainly because people don't actually have to accept the films they are being given. It's just a movie series, and there are plenty of other movies out there which don't involve trashing long-established characters or performing the equivalent of snuff films on 70-ish actors. As Solo demonstrates, Star Wars is not a religion and not a franchise that people will turn up for uncritically and wear it. At some point, someone with an eye to bottom lines and the real profitability of the last two films is going to look at these and say to itself "What's the safer financial bet? Doubling down, or maybe listening to the critics?"

[Jayngfet]

Seconding the comment above mine.

People don't seem to understand how deeply ingrained the dislike for this movie has gotten now. On the night before opening day bad reviews were already up on youtube but I didn't watch them to avoid spoilers. When the credits rolled I was neutral on it but basically the entire audience I was in immediatley complained in disgust. When I went to the biggest channels on youtube, for things totally unrelated to Star Wars, and general social media they were almost universally negative and it was a constant stream of negative from channels of that size. When I turn on local radio in a totally different city in a totally different nation from the one I saw the movie in, the hosts will casually lambast the film. When I go out to the main fandom hubs the core fans hate the thing and the only places not in what's essentially open reovlt are the overly modded places like the official subreddit, and even that took weeks of bans and hard enforcement to get under control.

John Q. Public does not like the direction Lucasfilm is headed. That's why the week to week drop on TLJ was so severe. That's why Solo outright bombed. That's why the narrative shifted, in less than six months, from "Lucasflm can do no wrong, look at all these amazing projects being greenlit" to "Oh my god, this is bad, but Lucasfilm is still nominally producing movies at least".

[Mightymosy]

I think you wanted the word "fraction", not "large majority". I very much doubt the majority of people actually enjoyed The Last Mudpie or the direction the franchise is headed in. And frankly, they already drove away a very large fraction of that fanbase, as is evident from condemnation coming from most quarters of that fanbase of that last film.

I have never seen people saying that they do not want to see another Star Wars film again, not in the numbers I've seen, not even at the lowest ebb of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Clones were those sorts of sentiments expressed. I would have been less worried if people said "Well, let's hope Episode IX is better" -- nope, people are turning off the entire franchise. The fact people are being turned off the entire brand, not just one film, is a major blow to a series that, in essence, has been running off built-in goodwill ever since TFA was released. Solo's dismal performance reflects that.

Hegelian dialectic isn't going to save this series, mainly because people don't actually have to accept the films they are being given. It's just a movie series, and there are plenty of other movies out there which don't involve trashing long-established characters or performing the equivalent of snuff films on 70-ish actors. As Solo demonstrates, Star Wars is not a religion and not a franchise that people will turn up for uncritically and wear it. At some point, someone with an eye to bottom lines and the real profitability of the last two films is going to look at these and say to itself "What's the safer financial bet? Doubling down, or maybe listening to the critics?"
Or, more likely, just abandon the franchise.

I think in their eyes the problem ist not that their product is bad but that the audience is old-fashioned fanboys.
Or something like that.
I simply cannot imagine the producers looking for mistakes in script writing at this point.
Or has anyone a quote that indicates that something might be going on?

My latest information is that RJ still makes a new trilogy (I am not interested to watch), JJ Abrams makes IX (no interest to watch), Boba Fett movie cancelled (little interest to watch anyway - dont like the character, strongly dislike evil protagonists), Obi Wan movie cancelled (really really wanted to watch it).

So as far as I'm concerned, I don't see what I would spend ticket money on in the future.

I will buy the Solo movie on DVD (because I LOVE it) - heck maybe even the Lego Kesselrun falcon, just because (oh and it has a sweet Qui'ra figure for my desk). Maybe a Porg plushie because they're cute.

Other than that? Current Star Wars simply does not spark any interest with me.

As sad as it is: I'm anticipating Infinity War 2 more than Star Wars 9, even though this whole Marvel business did not interest me at all until last year.
I care for Scarlet Witch, Strange, Tony and these guys way more than any of the SW cast.
I HAD interest in Finn, and to lesser extent Poe and Rey in TFA, but TLJ just managed one thing: I just don't care anymore what happens.

[Saintheart]

My latest information is that RJ still makes a new trilogy (I am not interested to watch), JJ Abrams makes IX (no interest to watch), Boba Fett movie cancelled (little interest to watch anyway - dont like the character, strongly dislike evil protagonists), Obi Wan movie cancelled (really really wanted to watch it).

I'm both sad and happy that this particular development has taken place.

Sad, in the sense that I wouldn't have minded seeing Ewan McGregor in the role one last time, especially given he's "aged" such that he could plausibly represent an Obi-Wan Kenobi about halfway through his solitude on Tatooine. To me, whatever else you could say was poor about the prequel trilogy, his performances generally weren't. In ROTS he was channelling Alec Guinness so clearly that in some scenes I shivered. And an Obi-Wan film allows you to do an actually, really different Star Wars film: one whose action presumably happens entirely or nearly-entirely on one planet, one whose action gives the lead character an actual chance to undergo a sort of spiritual growth, come to terms with the slaughter of every person he'd ever known. You could even run the A'Sharad Hett storyline with the serial numbers filed off if you really wanted.

Me, I would've enjoyed an Obi-Wan story where another Jedi comes to Tatooine also to ostensibly hide out from the Empire ... but then sets off to start a slaves's revolt against the Hutts, with some delusions of taking down the Empire off the back of that rebellion. Obi-Wan is forced to choose between staying out of it and risking the Empire being drawn into the conflict, or intervening to stop his old colleague and coming to blows with one of the few Jedi left in the galaxy who isn't corrupted by the Dark Side. You could even have his former companion a female and make her his love interest (or he, hers) for multiple levels of conflict.

But I'm also happy that they've been cancelled, because I very much doubt Disney has the ability, will, or guts to make a good Obi-Wan film.

[Mechalich]

But I'm also happy that they've been cancelled, because I very much doubt Disney has the ability, will, or guts to make a good Obi-Wan film.

I think they could make a decent Obi-Wan film, though probably not a great one. Rogue One was a solid, though certainly not spectacular film and the consensus on solo seems to be that it was at least okay. An Obi-Wan film set entirely on Tatooine would actually have been a good move - since it could be done cheap. No space battles, only one major environment, the chance to put most of your major antagonists in concealing masks - the Obi-Wan novel featured the Tusken Raiders heavily, in a film going a similar route they could be played entirely by stunt teams, and other ways to keep the budget low.

Solo had three problems and Disney needs to fix each of those three problems going forward:
1. The foul stench of The Last Jedi has afflicted the franchise as a whole and until Disney finds a way to counter the poison they have spread among the fandom they go into any new projects facing massive headwinds.
2. Star Wars, as a franchise, has no history of popularity in China and lacks an easy way to pander to the Chinese market in the way Transformers, for example, did by setting huge chunks of films in Chinese cities. This is the second largest film market in the world and on its way to becoming the largest market (2 of this year's current top 10 films Operation Red Sea and Detective Chinatown 2 both made over 500 million dollars but were hardly seen anywhere outside of China) and a modern global franchise must have a piece of the Chinese market or it can't succeed at the highest level.
3. The movie was massively over-budgeted due to a combination of production problems and wildly inflated expectations of the kind of business they would do.

The first problem is probably the hardest to fix. Disney could take a strong first step by serving up the head of Kathleen Kennedy to the angry hordes, but rebuilding trust is going to take time and effort and quality product. The second problem is also going to require long-term effort, and is probably going to take some serious pandering and a massive public relations campaign. Filming a Star Wars film in China might be a good idea - and a movie set primarily on Tatooine or Jakku could easily be filmed in Inner Mongolia. The third problem is the easiest to control. You can still make money if you're more careful about how you spend it. Solo has still managed to gross 385 million at the box office. If it had managed that gross on a ~150 million dollar budget the take home message would be vastly different.

I actually think the move to cancel the side-stories but still advance with big trilogies has the priorities backwards. Episode IX aside (finish the ST and make what you can from the casual fans, that cake's already in the oven), I think they need to scale back so that whatever new leadership they bring in after they get rid of Kathleen Kennedy has time to find their bearings and can earn trust from some smaller more reasonable projects. Heck, do some more animated material and see what people like and then pull popular material from that. This has worked previously - SWTOR just recently released an armor set that mimics the appearance of TCW character Embo (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Embo) and it's everywhere in the game.

[Daimbert]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

This is difficult to do because aside from the already mentioned fact that the those who like the current direction might not be all that large a fraction of the actual potential fan base, it's also difficult to know what they COULD like about the current direction, because one of the main issues is that the current trilogy seems to have NO direction. TFA had lots of idiocy in it and didn't set up very much, but what it DID set up TLJ happily jetisoned, but then it actually contradicted ITSELF for the entire movie, so it's hard to see what "direction" there is to like.

From what I've read, the two big things that people like are the female protagonist, and the more grey morality when it comes to the Force, and perhaps the idea that some people are just evil and can't be converted back to the light. I'm not sure that all of those CAN be preserved while staying in line with the OT, not because those themes aren't valid to explore -- Legends explored all of those -- but because the way the trilogy did it means that it will be hard to do anything in one movie that makes everything make sense.

So, to start, the last movie cannot be "Resistence Triumphant!" like RotJ was. It's going to have to be about rebuilding or reforming the actual Rebellion, and so essentially like the ending of the PT. The First Order is ascendant, but the Rebellion exists to give hope that they can be toppled. Then there should be another set of movies or trilogy to show the progress of the Rebellion. However, don't let Abrams or Johnson anywhere near it. They've burned far too much good will with the OT fan base, at least in part due to their own comments, to be trusted with anything like that again.

Rey needs to lose badly in the last movie. She desperately needs to be humbled, to have doubts introduced, and to see that her approach is a really bad one. This is especially true since right now she constantly acts out of anger, which the other movies have established is a very risky way to use the Force and is not what a Jedi does. TLJ establishes her AS The Last Jedi based on what Yoda says -- and given her reliance on anger and his views on that throughout all of the other movies this is a major contradiction -- and so she had better not simply abandon one of its main tenets. Have her anger cause her to have a serious brush with the Dark Side, and realize that the Dark Side is not neutral (like she did in TLJ, seemingly seeking it out to try to find answers). Have her almost kill Finn in her anger by setting things up so that she thinks he might be a traitor when he isn't, and have that cause her to realize that her anger is driving her to be evil, and so that she has to be humble and actually learn to control them, and that acting out of righteous anger is NOT a good approach, because when she finishes off one enemy her anger drives her to look for another one.

Kylo Ren needs to be made into an actual villain by resolving his conflicted feelings. What I'd do is have him take Snoke's comments the wrong way, and decide that the problem is that he ISN'T really committed to "the mask", and so seal himself entirely into armour -- which allows us to get rid of the mumbling Adam Driver and give Kylo an actual intimidating voice -- and so become completely evil. Have him fall into lava while wearing it, so that he's only kept alive by his armour and his own black will, as Obi-Wan claimed was true of Vader. Thus, his arc is complete: he has become Vader, only this time he's the master, not the apprentice, and he's the one running the Empire.

Give Finn something to do, or else have Rey kill him. In retrospect, Rey actually killing Finn in a rage after her failure, blaming him for it when he didn't have anything to do with it, would be more striking and more humbling for Rey.

Reduce Poe to Wedge status. That's the role he's best suited for anyway, and you can still feature him in supplementary material.

Introduce a new set of leaders, like we had in the OT, with one being political and one being military/fleet, at least.

And as I said, at the end the FO clearly wins, but the Rebellion is reborn with their now humbled Jedi symbol who knows she has a LOT to learn, and the next movies are all about how the Rebellion goes about toppling the First Order.

I suspect that many of the fans you talk about would hate this, especially Rey being humbled, but this is about the best I can do with it to try to add the ambiguity while being consistent with the other trilogies.

[Devonix]

Seconding the comment above mine.

People don't seem to understand how deeply ingrained the dislike for this movie has gotten now. On the night before opening day bad reviews were already up on youtube but I didn't watch them to avoid spoilers. When the credits rolled I was neutral on it but basically the entire audience I was in immediatley complained in disgust. When I went to the biggest channels on youtube, for things totally unrelated to Star Wars, and general social media they were almost universally negative and it was a constant stream of negative from channels of that size. When I turn on local radio in a totally different city in a totally different nation from the one I saw the movie in, the hosts will casually lambast the film. When I go out to the main fandom hubs the core fans hate the thing and the only places not in what's essentially open reovlt are the overly modded places like the official subreddit, and even that took weeks of bans and hard enforcement to get under control.

John Q. Public does not like the direction Lucasfilm is headed. That's why the week to week drop on TLJ was so severe. That's why Solo outright bombed. That's why the narrative shifted, in less than six months, from "Lucasflm can do no wrong, look at all these amazing projects being greenlit" to "Oh my god, this is bad, but Lucasfilm is still nominally producing movies at least".

Why is it the belief that the general public dislikes the direction, when the films are doing better than they have in the past, not worse.

[druid91]

Why is it the belief that the general public dislikes the direction, when the films are doing better than they have in the past, not worse.

Maybe because the latest starwars movie bombed utterly, immediately following The Last Jedi which is still, months later, controversial to the point that people are still raging over it? Where it's still in the news?

[Devonix]

Maybe because the latest starwars movie bombed utterly, immediately following The Last Jedi which is still, months later, controversial to the point that people are still raging over it? Where it's still in the news?

But the thing is that just about no one was interested in the Solo movie. People who liked Last Jedi, People who hated Last Jedi. Not wanting or caring about Solo was pretty much the one thing everyone agreed on. As well as it being a side movie coming on the heels of one of the biggest films of all time Infinity War. Gaguging the direction of the core films by Solo is just as bad as gaguing the core films by Rogue One.

Or gauging The MCU off of the first Antman

[Peelee]

But the thing is that just about no one was interested in the Solo movie. People who liked Last Jedi, People who hated Last Jedi. Not wanting or caring about Solo was pretty much the one thing everyone agreed on.

So you claim. Anecdotal evidence being what its worth and all, but virtually I hang out with was excited for the Solo movie.

[Daimbert]

Why is it the belief that the general public dislikes the direction, when the films are doing better than they have in the past, not worse.

There are a lot of vocal complaints about TLJ, and not a lot of really spirited defenses of it. TLJ also had, from what I've heard, a significantly greater drop off week over week than TFA did. Then Solo, in terms of income, pretty much bombed, doing far, far worse than expected. Given all of this and the fact that TFA had a relatively lukewarm reception by fans, it's reasonable to ask if the fans are getting annoyed by it. The last thing Disney wants is to make the last movie and have the fans just not show up.

[Mightymosy]

Exactly. A problem we have here is that There are a lot of people who love the direction of these films right now. You can't just up and start changing the ship's course now without driving away a large majority of the current fanbase. But some things do need to be done. That's what I'm looking at now.

You made a proposal on the last page.

I am still waiting you you to define what you like about the new "direction".
You name direction, then we can see.
Specific features, concrete points you want from new Star Wars.

Please be specific, otherwise this discussion is going around in circles, with global assertions that don't help either way.

[Kitten Champion]

There are a lot of vocal complaints about TLJ, and not a lot of really spirited defenses of it. TLJ also had, from what I've heard, a significantly greater drop off week over week than TFA did. Then Solo, in terms of income, pretty much bombed, doing far, far worse than expected. Given all of this and the fact that TFA had a relatively lukewarm reception by fans, it's reasonable to ask if the fans are getting annoyed by it. The last thing Disney wants is to make the last movie and have the fans just not show up.

I mostly liked TLJ - it's too long and I question certain choices but I quite liked the Luke/Rey/Ren stuff in particularly and the Holdo ramming scene was the highlight of my week - but defending something with a passionate hatedom from the position of mostly tepid appreciation is like poking a honey badger because you're bored. I can't do what Devonix's is doing, I lack sufficient Vespene Gas.

Also, I'm not a Star Wars fan in general for a variety of reasons, so I have no specific interest in warring opinions with people who are.and generally respect their feelings on what Disney's doing wrong even if I don't share them.

Personally, I'd have liked if Disney focused on either just making prequels or doing their own trilogy. Star Wars doesn't work like comic book movies. The ubiquity waters down the hype, not intensifies it.

[Darth Ultron]

So, to start, the last movie cannot be "Resistence Triumphant!" like RotJ was.

Sadly, I think they will do that though: Steal some plans from Space Vegas, then destroy the New Starkiller Base Two and save the galaxy.




It's going to have to be about rebuilding or reforming the actual Rebellion, and so essentially like the ending of the PT. The First Order is ascendant, but the Rebellion exists to give hope that they can be toppled. Then there should be another set of movies or trilogy to show the progress of the Rebellion.

The problem here is the Rebellion. Star Wars danced around the ''rebellion idea'' by a) Not having the Rebels do anything except B)Fighting the evil empire in pure military battles.

With a rebellion...you have to go dark...way to dark for Disney and most people. Rebels have to do out right evil things. You can't be a Rebel and be pure and good. And you can't do Rebels like silly good guys that like impossibly never hurt people in any way.



Rey needs to lose badly in the last movie.

Good idea....but chances are it won't happen. Likey she will be revealed as the new Chosen One, who as Force Sue is twice as powerful as both Luke and Anaikin combined..because she is a strong powerful woman as per the script.



Kylo Ren needs to be made into an actual villain by resolving his conflicted feelings.

I'm not sure little Benny can be saved......maybe if he like falls in a volcano and becomes a cyborg?




Give Finn something to do, or else have Rey kill him. In retrospect, Rey actually killing Finn in a rage after her failure, blaming him for it when he didn't have anything to do with it, would be more striking and more humbling for Rey.

Reduce Poe to Wedge status. That's the role he's best suited for anyway, and you can still feature him in supplementary material.


Agreed, both characters are just so dull and flat. Finn is their only to show diversity and Poe is there to just be the weak white(ish) guy.




I suspect that many of the fans you talk about would hate this, especially Rey being humbled, but this is about the best I can do with it to try to add the ambiguity while being consistent with the other trilogies.

The trick is...they need to leave the galaxy story ''open'' for books, games and movies. They can't get rid of the evil empire...as there will be no bad guys. They need to end the movie on more of a deadlock:

The new cool Jedi stand ready to face the evil empire anywhere, anytime....two sides, one light and one dark, in never ending batlle for the fate of the galaxy...dumdumdum.

[Saintheart]

Maybe because the latest starwars movie bombed utterly, immediately following The Last Jedi which is still, months later, controversial to the point that people are still raging over it? Where it's still in the news?

I'd also call a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 46%, average rating 2.9 out of 5, after just under 200,000 reviews (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_the_last_jedi/) -- the lowest score in the series bar the cartoon Clone Wars movie, and the lowest of all the live action films, including Attack of the Clones which held the previous low score record -- pretty persuasive evidence that an awful lot of people thought it was rubbish.

Let's remember, when the RT Audience Score started plummeting back about a week or so after release, defenders of The Last Mudpie immediately claimed the score was the result of brigading. (https://screenrant.com/star-wars-8-last-jedi-audience-score-fake/)

The same defenders immediately shut up when RT came out a day or two later and said its scores were legit after they'd gone and reviewed the traffic and the data (https://www.cbr.com/last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-score-defense/). And that was back when the audience score was around the 55% mark, not the less-than-majority 46% it's presently at.

This is not to say that RT is necessarily accurate. Indeed I think they likely overstate the audience score because of fear of corporations cutting them out completely.

Two other notations:

(1) There have been some assertions that RT doesn't record a score unless you give the film at least 1 out of 5 stars. I have not gone to check this assertion personally, but if none of the 0 scores have been included -- and there have been some who claim the score was closer to about 20% less than RT said it was -- then that is a fairly significant skewing of the scale upwards of what the true review was. Lord knows they certainly count all the 5 out of 5s.

(2) Out of a certain perverse interest, I watched the RT scores for Last Mudpie on RT after release, and the film is still dropping in the ratings, albeit somewhat slowly. I didn't make day-by-day notations, but I did make enough data points:

From 15 December 2017 to 8 January 2018, the audience rating dropped from around the 55% mark to 49%. So, 6% in about 2 weeks.
As at 9 January 2018: 49% audience rating, after 171,000 reviews.
As at 29 January 2018: 48% audience rating, after 180,000 reviews.
As said, at today's date, 18 July 2018, the audience rating is 46%, after 199,234 views. This would suggest, since the percentage of likes is still dropping at a constant ratio -- another 1% for every 10,000 reviews -- the distaste for it is still growing. As the pool of reviews gets larger, the pool of pretty teed-off people also increases.

All right, then, waht about IMDB and its supposed "7 out of 10" based on 300,000-odd user reviews? Well, their own website flat-out acknowledges that they do not hold out their user ratings to be accurate, they don't publish the methodology they use for calculating the data, and they freely admit that what is there is a weighted average (the factors by which it is "weighted", of course, being entirely unknown to us). Given the site's self-declared status as "the leading information resource for the entertainment industry", that immediately leaves you with questions over its integrity. Neither point me at Cinemascore: that's the same polling company that gave Solo an A minus, Geostorm a B minus, Armageddon an A minus, and Transformers The Last Knight a B plus.

[Z3ro]

But then come in the others. And they think the story is great...the story is Gold....well, except for like the hundred changes that must be made. So changes are made, then some others make more changes and changes are made to the changes. But it's like a tower of blocks, each change removes a block....but you have to put a replacement there...and they don't. Because they don't care about the story (''the tower'') only the changes. And most of the changes make no sense, and just push a wacky extreme politically correct agenda (''like the move must have super strong women characters!").

So the end result is you get a mash of of a movie that makes all them ''other people'' happy.

What? No, that's not what I was talking about at all. I was talking about basic film-making and storytelling, not agendas.

As a simple example; Holdo is presented as a strong female leader. Great, no problem with the basic character sketch at all. The movie tells us this, but it doesn't show us. What it shows us is Poe convincing several members of the crew to mutiny. You don't mutiny against a leader you think is doing a good job, so clearly these people think she's a bad leader. You're telling us she's a good leader, but showing us she's a bad leader.

If you wanted the strong female leader that's totally fine, but then you need to actually show us that. Just like with Rose's speech to Finn. If you want to have that in the movie that's fine, but you need to set it against a different backdrop. Maybe have it happen earlier, like he's going to kill Phasma but she stops him. That makes sense; here's a character he hates and he's doing something stupid because of it. They just showed us the wrong thing.

Not everything's about an agenda, some things are just basic skill.

[Daimbert]

I mostly liked TLJ - it's too long and I question certain choices but I quite liked the Luke/Rey/Ren stuff in particularly and the Holdo ramming scene was the highlight of my week - but defending something with a passionate hatedom from the position of mostly tepid appreciation is like poking a honey badger because you're bored. I can't do what Devonix's is doing, I lack sufficient Vespene Gas.

To be honest, I just watched TLJ and I like it better than TFA. TFA was, in my opinion, mounds and mounds of stupid around a ripped off plot from ANH that didn't capture any of what made ANH interesting. TLJ, on the other hand, seems more to have tried to rip off RotJ and make a message movie ... and it failed miserably at being a message movie since it kept contradicting its own messages -- the only person who thinks the Jedi failed is a bitter Luke, no one who says Kylo can't be saved is reliable in their assessment, Leia's chiding of Poe for his attack comes across as coming from someone broken by the loss of life, since Leia herself flat-out says it in the movie, Holdo comes across as less a competent leader and so her assessment of Poe is unreliable, etc, etc -- and so you can either invent your own message for those parts or ignore them and "enjoy" the rather tepid action scenes. It's not a GOOD movie, but I actually find it less offensive than TFA, mostly because I can happily ignore anything Johnson said he was trying to do and instead focus on what's actually there. But that -- and even your comments here -- really comes across as damning with faint praise [grin].


Personally, I'd have liked if Disney focused on either just making prequels or doing their own trilogy. Star Wars doesn't work like comic book movies. The ubiquity waters down the hype, not intensifies it.

I think that a structure like that of the New Jedi Order in Legends could work, with separate movies focusing on different parts all inside the narrative of an overarching conflict, feeding back into the "main" movies, like what we saw with, say, Captain America wrt the Avengers movies. That's ... not what they did [grin]


The problem here is the Rebellion. Star Wars danced around the ''rebellion idea'' by a) Not having the Rebels do anything except B)Fighting the evil empire in pure military battles.

With a rebellion...you have to go dark...way to dark for Disney and most people. Rebels have to do out right evil things. You can't be a Rebel and be pure and good. And you can't do Rebels like silly good guys that like impossibly never hurt people in any way.

I disagree. It might not seem "realistic" to have the Rebels be too good -- or, at least, to only SHOW them being that good -- but where are the Star Wars fans who really, really care if it's realistic? Some nods towards those choices like you had with Cassian and either a conversion of them to "better" thinking or with those being presented as side characters who do the dirty work because they are willing to -- a Wolverine or a Boba Fett character aligned with the good guys -- and it would pretty much work, if done well. Sure, they may not know how to DO it well, but ... [grin].


I'm not sure little Benny can be saved......maybe if he like falls in a volcano and becomes a cyborg?

That was indeed pretty much my idea, yeah [grin].


The trick is...they need to leave the galaxy story ''open'' for books, games and movies. They can't get rid of the evil empire...as there will be no bad guys. They need to end the movie on more of a deadlock

Or invent new threats, as Legends did (not always successfully).

[Devonix]

Saintheart using the audience scores for Rotten Tomatoes has always been a terrible idea, for or against a film. Unless you believe that Transformers deserves an 85 percent audience score. For the basic part that general audiences don't write reviews for the site, only the hardcore for or against a movie. You will have people sign up to vent or praise a single movie and then never use the site again. You will have someone who simply enjoyed a movie give it a 10 out of 10 when they should just be giving it a 6 and have someone who only barely disliked a movie give it a 1 when they should just give it a 5 ect.

I've only ever paid attention to the Critical score because they are far more reliable. and if I went by the audience score I'd most likely end up seeing, or missing lots of films I'd enjoy or hate.

As to what I like about the direction. I love what is being done with the First Order. I'd like to know more about their background. But the idea of villain infighting between Hux and Ben. One person controlling the millitary but lacking the experience, and another person overseeing him, and so blinded by hatred and his emotions that he's unpredictable is simply frightening with what they could do.

To me a madman with a nuke is more terrifying than a mastermind with one. Because you never know what the madman will do or who he'll hurt before he goes down. While the mastermind generally has an idea and still wants people alive to rule.

[Jayngfet]

The thing is that 85 for transformers is a good indicator of reliability. John Q Public doesn't care if an adaptation is faithful and he is no stranger to lowbrow humor. An aggregate of thousands of laypeople will show laypeople like movies designed for them and exist outside the spheres of influence hardcore fans exist in.

Which is why we can be confident TLJ really is that unpopular. The John Q Public perfectly at home with giant scrotum jokes and Shia LaBeouf having a career doesn't like this movie. It got a massive opening due to the last one's reputation and a quarter billion dollar ad campaign and dropped off on its own merits afterwards. The reputation it had poisoned the next one less than six months later and turned what was supposed to be a perfectly safe slam dunk with fan favorites in a CGI romp into an embarassing failure.

This failure got cemented when not only did Lucasfilm both as a whole and all individuals associated with it refused to face reality, but associated companies like EA and Disney XD failed to cough up a good looking product after that point since all they had were solo tie-ins and two products with no trailers. The media tried to still run with these things and act like the hype train was still going strong until even that came crashing down messily and the narrative changed and got out of the companies control.

[Darth Ultron]

What? No, that's not what I was talking about at all. I was talking about basic film-making and storytelling, not agendas.

As a simple example; Holdo is presented as a strong female leader. Great, no problem with the basic character sketch at all. The movie tells us this, but it doesn't show us. What it shows us is Poe convincing several members of the crew to mutiny. You don't mutiny against a leader you think is doing a good job, so clearly these people think she's a bad leader. You're telling us she's a good leader, but showing us she's a bad leader.

If you wanted the strong female leader that's totally fine, but then you need to actually show us that. Just like with Rose's speech to Finn. If you want to have that in the movie that's fine, but you need to set it against a different backdrop. Maybe have it happen earlier, like he's going to kill Phasma but she stops him. That makes sense; here's a character he hates and he's doing something stupid because of it. They just showed us the wrong thing.

Not everything's about an agenda, some things are just basic skill.

What I'm talking about IS the problem.

Lets take the Vice Hodo vs Poe. So this was written as a classic commander vs trooper thing, where two MALE characters fight over the leadership. The ''this boss is wrong'' and the ''trooper is wise''...you should not follow someone just as they have 'vice commander' on their shirt. And by fight...they have a real knock down fight..fists blood and all. Until Leia recovers and stuns them both, and make the point that they are both right and wrong and they must learn to compromise.

Now, enter the Agenda People. They slam their fist down and say the movie MUST have FIVE super strong all awesome characters. So they just take five of the male characters in the movie that are new, and make them women. So Vice Commander Jonz Hodo, becomes Vice Commander Jenni Hodo.

Now, once you do that though...you need to change the whole part....you can't have Poe hit and fight a girl. And you can't even have girl hodo fight ''like a guy'', as powerful women, er ''win'' in other non violent feminine ways(you know like she kicks a smoke pipe..so cool!).

So you get what we see in the movie...Girl Vice Commander stands around and does nothing...Poe acts like a cool rebel..and they disagree: but oddly most viewers are on Poes side...as Girl commander is a horrabile character.

So see, that is how an even 'average' thing in a movie is ruined by the Agenda.



I disagree. It might not seem "realistic" to have the Rebels be too good -- or, at least, to only SHOW them being that good -- but where are the Star Wars fans who really, really care if it's realistic? Some nods towards those choices like you had with Cassian and either a conversion of them to "better" thinking or with those being presented as side characters who do the dirty work because they are willing to -- a Wolverine or a Boba Fett character aligned with the good guys -- and it would pretty much work, if done well. Sure, they may not know how to DO it well, but ... [grin].


The problem is you can't show the Rebels being bad, as they are the good guys. So you get a lot of gray.

See it's Ok to show the Rebels killing ''bad guy'' troopers...and well, it's a little gray, but still, ok, to kill the non-combat guys. Stormtroopers can be mindlessly slaughtered..even better as they 'don't look like people'. But to kill the guys who like punch buttons or just do things...gets a little gray. You can sort of not think about it..and..er, say that janitor or tech guy was pure evil, but only if you don't think about it.

Worse...a lot of the people will be civilians, and you can't show Good Rebels hurting or killing civilians.

But it gets beyond cartoon bad if like ''the rebels knock out everyone on a Star Destroyer, take them to a neutral safe place....and then blow up the ship with no loss of life whatsoever. "

And to have the Rebels BE rebels...well, you need to get into more uncomfortable politics...that will go against the Agenda.

[Saintheart]

Saintheart using the audience scores for Rotten Tomatoes has always been a terrible idea, for or against a film. Unless you believe that Transformers deserves an 85 percent audience score. For the basic part that general audiences don't write reviews for the site, only the hardcore for or against a movie. You will have people sign up to vent or praise a single movie and then never use the site again. You will have someone who simply enjoyed a movie give it a 10 out of 10 when they should just be giving it a 6 and have someone who only barely disliked a movie give it a 1 when they should just give it a 5 ect.

You demanded proof that the general public, to use your words, doesn't like the directions of the films. I'd call a sample of 200,000 people, of whom less than half liked the movie, a pretty nice piece of evidence in that direction, unless you're saying not one of them are from the general public. Not to mention that Rotten Tomatoes can certainly be used to demonstrate that the rating of 46% is, if anything, too high. Assuming your proposition that it's only hardcore for or against a movie who provide a review, then the majority of people were hardcore against it. Even more of them were hardcore against it if the proposition is correct that RT doesn't count the 0 scores. Not to mention that hardcore for or against a movie =/= just hardcore franchise consumers; inherent in that score is a contingent of casual audiences so revulsed by the movie they felt impelled to go and post up a review on RT warning people this movie was a piece of rubbish.


I've only ever paid attention to the Critical score because they are far more reliable. and if I went by the audience score I'd most likely end up seeing, or missing lots of films I'd enjoy or hate.

So what you're saying is that you confine yourself to the views of a small sample of journalist reviewers who, as journalists, have a large agency problem: they write mainly to please other journalists, and suffer no adverse consequences for a review that's wrong -- resulting in a monoculture of views. This is precisely why the critical score doesn't match the audience score for TLJ: journalists loved it, which meant other journalists had to love it as well. It's perfectly okay to align yourself with a minority viewpoint, but I wouldn't point at that minority's so-called "reliability" of views as the justification for it.

[Daimbert]

As to what I like about the direction. I love what is being done with the First Order. I'd like to know more about their background. But the idea of villain infighting between Hux and Ben. One person controlling the millitary but lacking the experience, and another person overseeing him, and so blinded by hatred and his emotions that he's unpredictable is simply frightening with what they could do.

To me a madman with a nuke is more terrifying than a mastermind with one. Because you never know what the madman will do or who he'll hurt before he goes down. While the mastermind generally has an idea and still wants people alive to rule.

Note that I am indeed interested in your view over whether my proposal works for keeping the direction you like while keeping things consistent for the fans of the OT, and I haven't seen you address it at all yet ...


But it gets beyond cartoon bad if like ''the rebels knock out everyone on a Star Destroyer, take them to a neutral safe place....and then blow up the ship with no loss of life whatsoever. "

And to have the Rebels BE rebels...well, you need to get into more uncomfortable politics...that will go against the Agenda.

But we saw from the OT and PT that the fans are willing to accept incidental collateral damage when military targets are attacked (the old comment about how many innocents were killed on the Death Star, for example) as long as they aren't directly targeted or shown. So destroying Star Destroyers in combat is not a problem. And we've also seen that fans will accept not showing the Rebels doing real rebellious or terrorist things and still accept that they are fighting back. So not focusing on that doesn't seem to be an issue either. Star Wars fans don't really care that much if Star Wars is that real-world realistic in how it portrays Rebels ... and, to be honest, most of them would probably prefer that they DON'T do that. And if you want to get more grey and darker, you can always use Rebel-aligned bounty hunters and the like to show people who are more willing to get their hands dirty.

As I said, that's the role that Wolverine has always played in the comics. As someone who was willing to do those things, he fits well no matter what you want. If you want to play more to the good side, you have him suggesting the nasty things and the others refusing to do them and finding another way. If you want it darker, you have him doing it on his own initiative and the others remaining above those sorts of things.

Thus, if they want the Rebels to be unrealistically good, the fans will be okay with it. And if they want to make things darker, they have ways to build characters to do that without making the Rebellion itself seem bad. So I don't see it as a problem.

[Mightymosy]

Saintheart using the audience scores for Rotten Tomatoes has always been a terrible idea, for or against a film. Unless you believe that Transformers deserves an 85 percent audience score. For the basic part that general audiences don't write reviews for the site, only the hardcore for or against a movie. You will have people sign up to vent or praise a single movie and then never use the site again. You will have someone who simply enjoyed a movie give it a 10 out of 10 when they should just be giving it a 6 and have someone who only barely disliked a movie give it a 1 when they should just give it a 5 ect.

I've only ever paid attention to the Critical score because they are far more reliable. and if I went by the audience score I'd most likely end up seeing, or missing lots of films I'd enjoy or hate.

As to what I like about the direction. I love what is being done with the First Order. I'd like to know more about their background. But the idea of villain infighting between Hux and Ben. One person controlling the millitary but lacking the experience, and another person overseeing him, and so blinded by hatred and his emotions that he's unpredictable is simply frightening with what they could do.

To me a madman with a nuke is more terrifying than a mastermind with one. Because you never know what the madman will do or who he'll hurt before he goes down. While the mastermind generally has an idea and still wants people alive to rule.

Well, good.

Because what you stated as important for the new Star Wars direction has nothing to do with ANY complaint I had about TLJ.

Basically, you can have your "madman with a bomb", no problem.
This does not require Luke being moronic.
This doesnt require Luke being apathic.
Most importantly, this doesnt require Luke considering to murder an innocent child.
This doesnt require the nonsensical chase scene.
This doesnt require the Holdo-Poe mess.
This doesnt require the Space Leia scene.
This doesnt require Rey being super powerful from the start.
This doesnt require Canto Blight.
This doesnt require Rose electroshocking deserteurs.
This doesnt require blue alien milk (am I the only one liking that scene, by the way?).

Basically, we can fix everything about TLJ as long as we leave Kylo in command?

I am fine with the remnants of the empire being in control of a maniac, if it is reasonably explained.

ETA: In an unrelated context, I watched a video by someone who owns a small Lego shop. He said that the Lego resistance bomber sells surprisingly well with children. Who would have thought?

[Devonix]

Well, good.

Because what you stated as important for the new Star Wars direction has nothing to do with ANY complaint I had about TLJ.

Basically, you can have your "madman with a bomb", no problem.
This does not require Luke being moronic.
This doesnt require Luke being apathic.
Most importantly, this doesnt require Luke considering to murder an innocent child.
This doesnt require the nonsensical chase scene.
This doesnt require the Holdo-Poe mess.
This doesnt require the Space Leia scene.
This doesnt require Rey being super powerful from the start.
This doesnt require Canto Blight.
This doesnt require Rose electroshocking deserteurs.
This doesnt require blue alien milk (am I the only one liking that scene, by the way?).

Basically, we can fix everything about TLJ as long as we leave Kylo in command?

I am fine with the remnants of the empire being in control of a maniac, if it is reasonably explained.

ETA: In an unrelated context, I watched a video by someone who owns a small Lego shop. He said that the Lego resistance bomber sells surprisingly well with children. Who would have thought?

I agree with there being less of a focus on Poe, I feel he was intruding on the plot and isn't all together very likable a character. I disagree with Rey needing to be humbled, because well she hasn't really done anything great yet. I'm still waiting for her to triumph at something on her own before we worry about humbling her.

And I'm more interested in where we go from here. Those movies are done, if you don't like them, it's too late to fix.

[Daimbert]

I agree with there being less of a focus on Poe, I feel he was intruding on the plot and isn't all together very likable a character. I disagree with Rey needing to be humbled, because well she hasn't really done anything great yet. I'm still waiting for her to triumph at something on her own before we worry about humbling her.

And I'm more interested in where we go from here. Those movies are done, if you don't like them, it's too late to fix.

I'm not really sure who you're addressing here, because you mention ideas that I bring up and the quoted commenter doesn't really, but never reference me AND talk about being interested in where we go from here, which is what all of my comment was about.

Also, I'm more interested in if it's acceptable or would be accepted, not about whether you think it is necessary or not, because I gave reasons for why it needed to happen for those who don't like the current direction.

The problem with Rey is that what she has been doing throughout the first two movies is both incompatible with being a Jedi and yet has worked out for her. She is a very angry person, and for the most part she draws on her anger in pretty much any confrontation. So far, this has worked, but it really does leave her both coming across as not being a true Jedi and as being vulnerable to falling to the Dark Side. Thus, she needs to fail and fail miserably doing things the way she does them now so that she can see that she needs to change, to learn, to develop. Without that, what reason does she have to change? At least there was the chance that when she trained with Luke HE'D show her that her approach was flawed, but that ship has sailed. So she needs to fail.

And I and others suspect that those who like the current direction will be upset that the strong female lead fails and argue that doing so is just there to humble a strong female character and that a male character wouldn't have that happen to them ... despite it, in fact, happening to Luke when his character really needed it less than Rey did (although it worked well for him as well).

[zimmerwald1915]

Rebel-aligned bounty hunters
What does that even mean? A bounty hunter is a contractor working for the government.

[Daimbert]

What does that even mean? A bounty hunter is a contractor working for the government.

Not in Star Wars. Bounties can be placed by pretty much anyone with the credits, and whether the law intervenes varies from system to system. After all, Han's bounty was placed by Jabba, who is definitely extra-government. So you can have bounty hunters who take on any bounty they think they can make a profit on, ones who work primarily for the Empire/First Order, and ones who work primarily for the Resistance. Or, in fact, you can even have a bounty hunter simply join up with the Resistance because they dislike the First Order. Either way, bounty hunters work great as people willing to get their hands dirty but who you can disparage for not being properly moral and having to learn that good ends can't be achieved through bad methods.

[Saintheart]

Not in Star Wars. Bounties can be placed by pretty much anyone with the credits, and whether the law intervenes varies from system to system. After all, Han's bounty was placed by Jabba, who is definitely extra-government. So you can have bounty hunters who take on any bounty they think they can make a profit on, ones who work primarily for the Empire/First Order, and ones who work primarily for the Resistance. Or, in fact, you can even have a bounty hunter simply join up with the Resistance because they dislike the First Order. Either way, bounty hunters work great as people willing to get their hands dirty but who you can disparage for not being properly moral and having to learn that good ends can't be achieved through bad methods.

Yup. It doesn't even need to be a new thing, either. Back in the West End Games RPG days, in the rulebook Pirates and Privateers (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pirates_%26_Privateers), there were even rulesets for spacegoing capital ships that made bounties preying on Imperial ships, similar to the old 'letters of marque' concept on Earth where various colonial empires authorised piracy against their enemies. (The Rebellion privateers even had their own variant insignia, based on the Alliance Starbird, the Novahawk (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Novahawk)).

[Devonix]

I'm not really sure who you're addressing here, because you mention ideas that I bring up and the quoted commenter doesn't really, but never reference me AND talk about being interested in where we go from here, which is what all of my comment was about.

Also, I'm more interested in if it's acceptable or would be accepted, not about whether you think it is necessary or not, because I gave reasons for why it needed to happen for those who don't like the current direction.

The problem with Rey is that what she has been doing throughout the first two movies is both incompatible with being a Jedi and yet has worked out for her. She is a very angry person, and for the most part she draws on her anger in pretty much any confrontation. So far, this has worked, but it really does leave her both coming across as not being a true Jedi and as being vulnerable to falling to the Dark Side. Thus, she needs to fail and fail miserably doing things the way she does them now so that she can see that she needs to change, to learn, to develop. Without that, what reason does she have to change? At least there was the chance that when she trained with Luke HE'D show her that her approach was flawed, but that ship has sailed. So she needs to fail.

And I and others suspect that those who like the current direction will be upset that the strong female lead fails and argue that doing so is just there to humble a strong female character and that a male character wouldn't have that happen to them ... despite it, in fact, happening to Luke when his character really needed it less than Rey did (although it worked well for him as well).

I directed the quote there simply because it was the most recent when I was typing, but it's really directed at the whole thread. And I don't really think anyone would care about her failing to use a force power since to them and to me that's not very important. I don't care that she can use the force to do or not do something. But I also don't understand how not being able to lift a rock or force push something would be humbling. What has she done in the story that she needs to be humbled about? That's what I'm confused about.

If you want her failing Well that's exactly what she did in this movie, she failed to turn Ben. She was over confident and used by the enemy to place himself in a position of greater power.

[Daimbert]

I directed the quote there simply because it was the most recent when I was typing, but it's really directed at the whole thread. And I don't really think anyone would care about her failing to use a force power since to them and to me that's not very important. I don't care that she can use the force to do or not do something. But I also don't understand how not being able to lift a rock or force push something would be humbling. What has she done in the story that she needs to be humbled about? That's what I'm confused about.

If you want her failing Well that's exactly what she did in this movie, she failed to turn Ben. She was over confident and used by the enemy to place himself in a position of greater power.

My comment was never about her simply failing to use a Force power, but instead about trying to achieve some kind of goal and failing because her approach doesn't work. For comparison, a failure like Luke had rushing off to save his friends, almost dying, and having to be saved by them. As I said, I really like her failure resulting in her getting angry and killing Finn for being a traitor when he wasn't.

And that's why she needs to fail: she tends to work through channeling her anger, and that's the epitome of what I Jedi SHOULDN'T be. She needs to see that anger will lead her to the Dark Side, not glory.

Her failure with Ben isn't a failure of that sort, because it was a draw: she didn't convert him, he didn't convert her, and it isn't even clear that he won't or can't turn later. And she still came out of the whole incident all right, with no real indication that she's learned that she can't succeed or that her methods aren't the best.

[Devonix]

My comment was never about her simply failing to use a Force power, but instead about trying to achieve some kind of goal and failing because her approach doesn't work. For comparison, a failure like Luke had rushing off to save his friends, almost dying, and having to be saved by them. As I said, I really like her failure resulting in her getting angry and killing Finn for being a traitor when he wasn't.

And that's why she needs to fail: she tends to work through channeling her anger, and that's the epitome of what I Jedi SHOULDN'T be. She needs to see that anger will lead her to the Dark Side, not glory.

Her failure with Ben isn't a failure of that sort, because it was a draw: she didn't convert him, he didn't convert her, and it isn't even clear that he won't or can't turn later. And she still came out of the whole incident all right, with no real indication that she's learned that she can't succeed or that her methods aren't the best.

I have to say that Killing Finn whatever the reason wouldn't be accepted. The idea of one of the heroes of our story killing their best friend. Unless you're trying to make the story about Rey being the real villain and someone else taking over as protagonist would not work in a Starwars story.

[Dr.Samurai]

If Rey had killed Finn I would hate the movie even more than I do now. No one is accomplishing anything in The Last Jedi. It's just one person being a miserable failure after another. Stacking Rey murdering one of the "good guys" on top of that would be awful. Holdo and Poe get nearly the entire Resistance killed through their actions. Luke almost kills his sleeping child nephew. I'm seriously quite done with "heroes" being reckless murderous *******s.

Let's have people be good guys, that beat the bad guys and do good heroic things that don't kill everyone.

[Zevox]

As to what I like about the direction. I love what is being done with the First Order. I'd like to know more about their background. But the idea of villain infighting between Hux and Ben. One person controlling the millitary but lacking the experience, and another person overseeing him, and so blinded by hatred and his emotions that he's unpredictable is simply frightening with what they could do.

To me a madman with a nuke is more terrifying than a mastermind with one. Because you never know what the madman will do or who he'll hurt before he goes down. While the mastermind generally has an idea and still wants people alive to rule.
I wouldn't describe the First Order as madmen, but rather as idiots. But putting that aside, the character that comes to mind when you make a comment like that one is the Joker - seems the archetypal example of that, no? But the thing about him is that he has things going for him that make him an effective villain. He's clever and capable of coming up with complex schemes to achieve whatever his goals are in a given story, and he's also charismatic and the combination of those two things actually make him an effective leader for gangs of lesser criminals, or capable of getting other supervillains to work alongside him. He can be a very credible threat to the heroes he opposes.

The First Order doesn't have anything like that. The most clever thing any of them have ever done is Snoke tricking Rey into coming to him, and he was killed off. Kylo and Hux have just been shown to be bad at what they do. They have an army, but are terrible leaders for it; Kylo has force powers, but we've already seen him lose to Rey when she had no training, had never held a lightsaber before, and had known she was force-sensitive for under a day. They're less a threat than a joke at this point.

On the subject of the original question you asked, I won't presume to speak for everyone critical of TLJ (certainly there's been a fair few criticisms of it voiced here that I don't agree with), but at least for me that's likely an irreconcilable difference. The First Order, and Kylo specifically especially, are my number 1 complaint about the sequel trilogy, the big one that is consistent between both films so far. It's hard for me to imagine how they get me interested in the mainline "Episode X" films again without changing that. I mean, they can't address my second biggest complaint, which is how Luke was handled in TLJ, barring a reboot or retcon that I can't seriously expect anytime soon if ever, and everything after that is a lesser complaint. So if that's what you like about the new films, well, one of us is probably getting alienated no matter what they do.

[Daimbert]

I have to say that Killing Finn whatever the reason wouldn't be accepted. The idea of one of the heroes of our story killing their best friend. Unless you're trying to make the story about Rey being the real villain and someone else taking over as protagonist would not work in a Starwars story.

Well, that one's optional, but the point of that would be making it abundantly clear that anger is of the Dark Side AND get Finn, who has no arc of interest at this point, out of the series in an interesting way. And his being a former storm trooper provides an excellent way to make Rey's suspicion of him valid while still being completely wrong and her reaction being huge overkill. And remember, Luke almost killed Vader out of anger and still came back to the Light, and he had more control than Rey does.


If Rey had killed Finn I would hate the movie even more than I do now. No one is accomplishing anything in The Last Jedi. It's just one person being a miserable failure after another. Stacking Rey murdering one of the "good guys" on top of that would be awful.

I'm not saying it should have been done in TLJ, but that it should be done in the next movie. The reason is that TLJ has essentially given Finn no where to go and Rey has never learned the danger that anger can pose to a Jedi. Having Rey fail, incorrectly believe that Finn was a traitor and responsible for her failure, and kill him in a blind rage kills those two birds with one stone in a very dramatic way, and in a way that will indeed shatter Rey for a time BECAUSE of their relation in the first movie.

But, again, that's optional, but it seems to me that Finn needs to be redone to get some kind of arc, or else killed off. My plan lets him go out as an important part of the plot.

[Z3ro]

I have this feeling like we're not communicating here, and you're not really listening to me. I'm going to try this one more time:


What I'm talking about IS the problem.

Lets take the Vice Hodo vs Poe. So this was written as a classic commander vs trooper thing, where two MALE characters fight over the leadership. The ''this boss is wrong'' and the ''trooper is wise''...you should not follow someone just as they have 'vice commander' on their shirt. And by fight...they have a real knock down fight..fists blood and all. Until Leia recovers and stuns them both, and make the point that they are both right and wrong and they must learn to compromise.

Yeah, but, you don't actually have to have them get into a fist fight. You can show emotion and disagreement without actually throwing punches. But that's not even my point; my point wasn't that they picked the wrong cliche, or that it was ruined by make the vice-admiral a woman. My complaint was that what they told us (Holdo was a good leader) is contradicted by what the film shows us (her people mutiny). This doesn't change if she's a man.




Now, once you do that though...you need to change the whole part....you can't have Poe hit and fight a girl. And you can't even have girl hodo fight ''like a guy'', as powerful women, er ''win'' in other non violent feminine ways(you know like she kicks a smoke pipe..so cool!).

Didn't Rey win a confrontation in a pretty violent matter, just like a guy would? I'm very confused here.



So you get what we see in the movie...Girl Vice Commander stands around and does nothing...Poe acts like a cool rebel..and they disagree: but oddly most viewers are on Poes side...as Girl commander is a horrabile character.

So see, that is how an even 'average' thing in a movie is ruined by the Agenda.


But they're only on Poe's side because they haven't shown us what they told us! That's what I've been saying; it wasn't ruined because Holdo is a woman, it was ruined because it was written and shot poorly.

[Peelee]

I have this feeling like we're not communicating here, and you're not really listening to me. I'm going to try this one more time:
[snip]
This doesn't change if she's a man.
[snip]
Didn't Rey win a confrontation in a pretty violent matter, just like a guy would? I'm very confused here.
[snip]
it wasn't ruined because Holdo is a woman, it was ruined because it was written and shot poorly.

Ahh, I see you're getting the full Darth Ultron experience!

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm not saying it should have been done in TLJ, but that it should be done in the next movie. The reason is that TLJ has essentially given Finn no where to go and Rey has never learned the danger that anger can pose to a Jedi. Having Rey fail, incorrectly believe that Finn was a traitor and responsible for her failure, and kill him in a blind rage kills those two birds with one stone in a very dramatic way, and in a way that will indeed shatter Rey for a time BECAUSE of their relation in the first movie.

But, again, that's optional, but it seems to me that Finn needs to be redone to get some kind of arc, or else killed off. My plan lets him go out as an important part of the plot.
I see what you're saying. I'm not sure though that Rey is supposed to learn that lesson. She doesn't even flinch from the darkness, as the cowering Luke whispers while trembling at her awesome power. There was no lesson taught to her about her anger even though the movie mentions how she doesn't fear the dark side and drives the point home about her abandonment, and Luke directly compares her to Kylo, who does have anger issues and uses the dark side. She just risks her own life to redeem a guy that kidnapped and tortured her once. Oh and that she watched kill his own father in cold blood. So Luke makes us think it's a thing, but she's still just perfectly good and altruistic and doesn't fall to the dark side.

So I'm not sure "beware your aggressive feelings" is a lesson Rey has to learn. In fact, the movie tells us no one needs to teach Rey any lessons because she already has everything she needs.

[Daimbert]

So I'm not sure "beware your aggressive feelings" is a lesson Rey has to learn. In fact, the movie tells us no one needs to teach Rey any lessons because she already has everything she needs.

Yeah, and that's one of the big issues that a large number of fans have with the new direction, so we need some way to restore that. You can patch over the "not raging at Kylo" idea by, well, pretty much how it was presented: she WAS enraged at him, but convinced herself that they had some kind of connection and so she could turn him back to the Light, and so instead focused her rage on Snoke and everyone else she was fighting.

[Xyril]

So see, that is how an even 'average' thing in a movie is ruined by the Agenda.



And to have the Rebels BE rebels...well, you need to get into more uncomfortable politics...that will go against the Agenda.

Okay, before you keep throwing around terms like "the Agenda" like someone might toss around the term "the Jewish menace," you really need to define what "the Agenda" is. As in articulate, specifically, what goals "the Agenda" has (since goals are literally part of the definition of small-a agenda) and precisely how those goals led to specific decisions you dislike. Right now, you don't seem to be making a coherent argument. Instead, it looks rather like you're just complaining about random things like a whiny little and then blaming it on "the Agenda" without rhyme or reason.

In fact, sometimes you seem to be contradicting yourself in your implied assertions about "the Agenda." For example, you claim that "the Agenda" wants to put more women into movies in roles traditionally filled by men--which implies a sort of ultra-feminist, women can do anything men can do attitude. Yet later, you claim that "the Agenda" ruined the scene because they refuse to allow a physical confrontation between Poe and a woman. Not only does that contradict the goals of the other "the Agenda" you were talking about earlier (if your goal is to depict women as doing anything a man can do, then logically you'd want her to be able to take a punch and to punch back) it contradicts [B]what actually happens in the movie. Rey beats up men, and that's depicted as heroic. Finn beats up a woman villain who's depicted as no less terrifying for being a woman, and Finn is depicted as no less heroic for beating up a woman instead of a male villain.

What's most ironic is, I'm fairly sure I remember in your criticism of other movies (one without an admittedly terrible Holdo subplot for you to fixate on), you often fixated on precisely that sort of thing (women being "unrealistically" depicted as being physically on par with men) as another terrible thing that you blamed on "the Agenda." (Although back then you weren't using that term yet, otherwise I absolutely would have mocked you over it.)

[Peelee]

Okay, before you keep throwing around terms like "the Agenda" like someone might toss around the term "the Jewish menace," you really need to define what "the Agenda" is. As in articulate, specifically, what goals "the Agenda" has (since goals are literally part of the definition of small-a agenda) and precisely how those goals led to specific decisions you dislike. Right now, you don't seem to be making a coherent argument. Instead, it looks rather like you're just complaining about random things like a whiny little and then blaming it on "the Agenda" without rhyme or reason.

In fact, sometimes you seem to be contradicting yourself in your implied assertions about "the Agenda." For example, you claim that "the Agenda" wants to put more women into movies in roles traditionally filled by men--which implies a sort of ultra-feminist, women can do anything men can do attitude. Yet later, you claim that "the Agenda" ruined the scene because they refuse to allow a physical confrontation between Poe and a woman. Not only does that contradict the goals of the other "the Agenda" you were talking about earlier (if your goal is to depict women as doing anything a man can do, then logically you'd want her to be able to take a punch and to punch back) it contradicts [B]what actually happens in the movie. Rey beats up men, and that's depicted as heroic. Finn beats up a woman villain who's depicted as no less terrifying for being a woman, and Finn is depicted as no less heroic for beating up a woman instead of a male villain.

What's most ironic is, I'm fairly sure I remember in your criticism of other movies (one without an admittedly terrible Holdo subplot for you to fixate on), you often fixated on precisely that sort of thing (women being "unrealistically" depicted as being physically on par with men) as another terrible thing that you blamed on "the Agenda." (Although back then you weren't using that term yet, otherwise I absolutely would have mocked you over it.)

Clearly anything that contradicts "the Agenda" is tossed in for the "Kidz Stuff."

[Xyril]

As a simple example; Holdo is presented as a strong female leader. Great, no problem with the basic character sketch at all. The movie tells us this, but it doesn't show us. What it shows us is Poe convincing several members of the crew to mutiny. You don't mutiny against a leader you think is doing a good job, so clearly these people think she's a bad leader. You're telling us she's a good leader, but showing us she's a bad leader.


I disagree completely with this. This isn't to say that I thought the Holdo/mutiny subplot wasn't pointless--it really didn't add anything to the movie but minutes. However, I don't think the movie was trying to tell us she was a good leader: It was telling us that, among the leadership of the rebellion, most importantly Leia, Holdo was both trusted and held in high regard, but that this confidence didn't fully reflect how the rank and file felt about them. Even then, let's not forget that the mutiny was a tiny minority of the crew--we don't know that the majority of the rank and file rebels lost faith in Holdo. All we are shown is that, in a particularly bad situation where Holdo is the sole leader for probably the first time, a different charismatic leader is able to play on the doubts of a few people.

Having a general who is much more highly regarded by the civilian leadership than the lower ranks and enlisted men, that's not bad storytelling, that's an accurate reflection of what reality can sometimes be. Having a leader whose reputation far exceeds his ability once he's actually the man in charge, either because he earned that reputation during glory days well behind him or while under the quiet guidance of his superiors? Also not bad storytelling. In fact, that contrast pretty much describes some of my favorite books and movies about some of the most compelling real life figures history has to offer.

My main complaint is that it really doesn't add anything to the movie and doesn't really fit into the themes of the franchise as a whole. The whole "We're all doomed because the new leader is either incompetent or a traitor... yay, she had a secret plan all along" narrative rise and fall is pretty much redundant since we have so many more interesting sources of narrative tension regarding whether or not the rebels flight is doomed to begin with. It could have done something interesting with Poe's character development, but it really doesn't. He's already a Rebel, so it was already obvious that he's fine with rebelling against authority, and he's already shown that he's fine rebelling even against the leadership of the Rebellion when he thought he knew better. Maybe it's supposed to be a lesson about trusting others, but Poe's already shown that he's capable of that when he wants to--after all, he pretty quickly put his trust in a former stormtrooper and another complete stranger. I suppose it's possible that it was meant to be a lesson in his own fallibility--if so, that hasn't been paid off in any way during this movie, and I have nearly zero faith that there's a coherent plan to have it pay off later.

Instead, all it really accomplishes is showing further cracks in the rebellion at a time when it's already the underdog. While the original Rebel Alliance showed pilots following their leaders on suicide runs against Death Stars and rebels fighting last stands against AT-AT walkers, we now have some of the more prominent rebels either deserting or questioning their leadership in the face of real adversity.

[Calemyr]

Yeah, but, you don't actually have to have them get into a fist fight. You can show emotion and disagreement without actually throwing punches. But that's not even my point; my point wasn't that they picked the wrong cliche, or that it was ruined by make the vice-admiral a woman. My complaint was that what they told us (Holdo was a good leader) is contradicted by what the film shows us (her people mutiny). This doesn't change if she's a man.

Heh. That reminds me of the How It Should Have Ended take on the movie. Instead of Holdo, they hand command over to Ackbar, who immediately calls everyone to attention. "First, I want everyone here to know that we do have a plan. I can't get into the details, but we are going to survive this!" This is greeted by palpable relief by everyone.

The movie is a masterpiece of bad decisions, isn't it? It's like they took an iconic blockbuster franchise and tried to turn it into an art house indy flick, breaking every bone in the story to force it into the new mold. Had this actually been an indy flick, divorced from the galaxy far away, it would have probably been very well received. Instead, it feels more like taking the corpse of a revered and respected individual, mounting it on a stick, and using it to perform a bawdy Vaudeville number in place of a eulogy.

[137beth]

This has always been a problem with movies, but it has gotten really bad recently.

Basically, someone comes up with a story. And for our example, lets just say it's a good story. A story full of 'classic' things that all people like.

There are no things in stories that all people like, "classic" or otherwise.

[Z3ro]

However, I don't think the movie was trying to tell us she was a good leader: It was telling us that, among the leadership of the rebellion, most importantly Leia, Holdo was both trusted and held in high regard, but that this confidence didn't fully reflect how the rank and file felt about them.

Is that though? We don't actually get that directly; you're pulling an implication from the events we're shown.


Even then, let's not forget that the mutiny was a tiny minority of the crew--we don't know that the majority of the rank and file rebels lost faith in Holdo. All we are shown is that, in a particularly bad situation where Holdo is the sole leader for probably the first time, a different charismatic leader is able to play on the doubts of a few people.

This is where we have a problem. You're almost certainly correct, that there are lots more people on the ship not mutinying. But the movie doesn't show us that (it doesn't even tell us that). All we get is the few people on the bridge and that's basically it. We don't see numerous people trying to storm the bridge, we don't see them get locked out of systems remotely. Again, the movie needs to show us these things, and the movie didn't.


Having a general who is much more highly regarded by the civilian leadership than the lower ranks and enlisted men, that's not bad storytelling, that's an accurate reflection of what reality can sometimes be. Having a leader whose reputation far exceeds his ability once he's actually the man in charge, either because he earned that reputation during glory days well behind him or while under the quiet guidance of his superiors? Also not bad storytelling. In fact, that contrast pretty much describes some of my favorite books and movies about some of the most compelling real life figures history has to offer.

That would be a valid point, if the movie didn't then have her actually shown to be right. She did have a plan, and it was a good one (only undone by Poe's actions). If she was a bad leader past her glory days, she should be wrong in the end.

[Xyril]

It's like they took an iconic blockbuster franchise and tried to turn it into an art house indy flick, breaking every bone in the story to force it into the new mold.


Wait, what? Can you give an example of an arthouse indy flick you're talking about?


Had this actually been an indy flick, divorced from the galaxy far away, it would have probably been very well received.


No, not really. It was a formulaic action blockbuster done poorly. If it had been divorced from Star Wars, it might have done better with an audience less prone to be critical and less hampered by high expectation, but it would have done better the way Battleship did better: As a fun, mindless action movie that you enjoy but don't care enough about to criticize too deeply.

When I think of "arthouse" movies, I tend to think of movies that completely defy expectations and conventions in order to deliver something new and good. TLJ only did so in the sense that it defied expectations and conventions to many fans who had strong opinions about what defines the franchise. In terms of narrative and movie conventions, TLJ was completely conventional.

As for "indie" movies, I generally associate the term with, well, independent film-making. By which I mean, generally smaller budgets, less adherence to by the numbers executive mandates and focus-group based decision-making, sometimes greater freedom to take risks. When indie movies do well, they tend to do so on the basis of good scripts, good acting, or a novel concept executed well. TLJ doesn't fit the mold of an indie movie because it doesn't follow any of the characteristics: It had a huge budget from a huge studio that clearly wanted certain things in the new trilogy to evoke the best parts of the original (special orphan on a desert world who thinks he/she's destined for a more exciting life? check. rebel last stand on desolate, isolated world? check. sassy droid? check. nobody remotely like Jar-Jar Binks? check.)

Moreover, judged by the metric of good indie films, TLJ would fail even more horribly than it did in front of a general audience. While I can't fault the performances of most of the actors, the script was simply terrible, and there was nothing novel about the movie's premise. People see indie films in order to see things that are uncommon among the blockbusters. They want to hear a voice that isn't heard in Hollywood, they want an unhappy ending that nonetheless leaves them satisfied and happy that they saw the movie. They want to work extra hard following the plot where most movies have them turning off their brains. They want something to challenge their sacred cows and to force them to reconsider how they see the world. They want to see a movie made by someone who clearly listened to everyone who said "Nobody would ever watch a movie where you did this," and then set out to prove them wrong. TLJ didn't do anything like this--it didn't even try to. What it did was try to make a conventional action movie, and did it poorly.

[Darth Ultron]

So not focusing on that doesn't seem to be an issue either.

But this is the problem. How do you show the Rebels doing anything. You put the limits of they can only attack military targets, must never hurt civilians, and must avoid the Dark Politics and ''real world stuff'' at all costs. So, what do the Rebels do? They attack a military base..pew pew...and then nothing.



Thus, if they want the Rebels to be unrealistically good, the fans will be okay with it. And if they want to make things darker, they have ways to build characters to do that without making the Rebellion itself seem bad. So I don't see it as a problem.

This, is exactly why the Rebels are never shown doing anything..except military style combat. We don't even get a hint of the ''dark'' Rebels until Rogue One.


Yeah, but, you don't actually have to have them get into a fist fight. You can show emotion and disagreement without actually throwing punches. But that's not even my point; my point wasn't that they picked the wrong cliche, or that it was ruined by make the vice-admiral a woman. My complaint was that what they told us (Holdo was a good leader) is contradicted by what the film shows us (her people mutiny). This doesn't change if she's a man.

Ok, I will try to make the example more generic:

Day one: A very cool scene is written about the rebel mutiny.
Day two: We are told how cool this will be
Day six: They change three things about the mutiny
Day nine:They change six more things, but change two back
Day twenty: They change eight things
Day thirty: They change four things and change four back
Ect.
Day one hundred: Someone takes the pile of changes and makes whatever they can left out of it. But all the changes were made to fit a wacky agenda, so they don't make sense in any way. The 'scene' is just now a pile of wacky agendas...not even a vague movie scene. But, the Powers That Be, demand it must be this way...so they shoot the scene.



Didn't Rey win a confrontation in a pretty violent matter, just like a guy would? I'm very confused here.

Not if your talking about killing the faceless guards...being 'violent to CGI' does not count. Stormtroopers and the like exist to be killed as they are ''not people''.



But they're only on Poe's side because they haven't shown us what they told us! That's what I've been saying; it wasn't ruined because Holdo is a woman, it was ruined because it was written and shot poorly.

That is my point exactly though. All most no movie ever gets made with zero changes from day one...so you know changes must have been made.

But, when you have an agenda, you have a HUGE list of things you can and can't do.....and that is the types of things that ruin a movie.

Just take for example:

It is super cool and right for Powerful Woman Vice Commander to walk in and stun Poe: white males are acceptable targets and woman power is cool. To show a woman zapping a man is like a ''ha! take that MANkind ahahaha!"

But, at the same time, Poe could not stun Poor Pretty Fragile Flower Girl Commander. That Would Not Be Right! People would cry! To have the pretty commander yell out, and then fall to the floor in her pretty dress and then have Poe, a MAN, stand over her stunned body.....oh, no, that would be SO WRONG.


Okay, before you keep throwing around terms like "the Agenda" like someone might toss around the term "the Jewish menace," you really need to define what "the Agenda" is. As in articulate, specifically, what goals "the Agenda" has (since goals are literally part of the definition of small-a agenda) and precisely how those goals led to specific decisions you dislike. Right now, you don't seem to be making a coherent argument. Instead, it looks rather like you're just complaining about random things like a whiny little and then blaming it on "the Agenda" without rhyme or reason.

The Agenda is a vague term used to identify the people that make movies as part of a plan to shape and alter the world. It's a bit silly, but they believe that whatever they put in a movie will happen in real life. There is some truth to it, but not as much as they think...but still, they will do it.

For the movie, they don't care about the movie, the story, the fans or even the money...they just want to do ''their thing''. No matter what.



In fact, sometimes you seem to be contradicting yourself in your implied assertions about "the Agenda." For example, you claim that "the Agenda" wants to put more women into movies in roles traditionally filled by men--which implies a sort of ultra-feminist, women can do anything men can do attitude. Yet later, you claim that "the Agenda" ruined the scene because they refuse to allow a physical confrontation between Poe and a woman. Not only does that contradict the goals of the other "the Agenda" you were talking about earlier (if your goal is to depict women as doing anything a man can do, then logically you'd want her to be able to take a punch and to punch back) it contradicts [B]what actually happens in the movie. Rey beats up men, and that's depicted as heroic. Finn beats up a woman villain who's depicted as no less terrifying for being a woman, and Finn is depicted as no less heroic for beating up a woman instead of a male villain.

This is my point though: when you have all the Agendas mucking up a movie, it's impossible to make each agenda happy...so what happens is you just get the bland, safe middle. The Agenda people are not happy, but are not sad....so, win win.

And, admitly, the Agenda folks are confused:

Take Amy Schumer(a good standing agenda member who even openly admitted to cutting a gun scene from her new film, “Snatched,” in order to help promote gun control.) In ''Snatched" the movie follows a mother and daughter who are on vacation together as they run into trouble: They’re kidnapped and have to escape together.

And the Agenda folks were swift to attack this movie as being wrong in so many ways: it is populated by “dark-skinned thugs with funny accents” who are killed off just for “laughs.” and is Perfect for Mother’s Day if Mom Hates and Fears Other Countries. The criticism of Schumer is a perfect example of why censorship and political correctness will never be systems that can work or be fully implemented: Neither can ever be truly satisfied.

You see the same types of problems in the newer Star Wars.

[Peelee]

The Agenda is a vague term used to identify the people that make movies as part of a plan to shape and alter the world. It's a bit silly, but they believe that whatever they put in a movie will happen in real life. There is some truth to it, but not as much as they think...but still, they will do it.

"It's a thing I made up so I can complain about it, but they're very bad at it, even though it's apparently wildly successful and everywhere."

Am I doing this right? It seems like I'm doing this right.

[Bobb]

Why does Poe, former commander of fleet action and hero of the resistance, not know about the resistance's new cloaking technology?

It was implemented, presumably, before his demotion, yeah?

He was, at one point, a big deal, yeah? One would think the officer responsible for deploying ships in combat would be made aware of all said ships capabilities.

[Dr.Samurai]

Why does Poe, former commander of fleet action and hero of the resistance, not know about the resistance's new cloaking technology?

It was implemented, presumably, before his demotion, yeah?

He was, at one point, a big deal, yeah? One would think the officer responsible for deploying ships in combat would be made aware of all said ships capabilities.
I think the more important question is... why do you hate people from Guatemala?



Am I doing this right??

[Peelee]

I think the more important question is... why do you hate people from Guatemala?



Am I doing this right??

Almost. Instead of being accurate, you should change that to "white males" and you should be good.:smallwink:

[druid91]

Why does Poe, former commander of fleet action and hero of the resistance, not know about the resistance's new cloaking technology?

It was implemented, presumably, before his demotion, yeah?

He was, at one point, a big deal, yeah? One would think the officer responsible for deploying ships in combat would be made aware of all said ships capabilities.

There wasn't any cloaking technology?

The plan was litterally "They won't look at SMALL things on their scanners!" The fact that it 'almost worked' and the First Order was willing to pay a guy tons of money for the tip says more about the FO's incompetence than it does Holdo's competence.

[Calemyr]

Wait, what? Can you give an example of an arthouse indy flick you're talking about?



No, not really. It was a formulaic action blockbuster done poorly. If it had been divorced from Star Wars, it might have done better with an audience less prone to be critical and less hampered by high expectation, but it would have done better the way Battleship did better: As a fun, mindless action movie that you enjoy but don't care enough about to criticize too deeply.

When I think of "arthouse" movies, I tend to think of movies that completely defy expectations and conventions in order to deliver something new and good. TLJ only did so in the sense that it defied expectations and conventions to many fans who had strong opinions about what defines the franchise. In terms of narrative and movie conventions, TLJ was completely conventional.

As for "indie" movies, I generally associate the term with, well, independent film-making. By which I mean, generally smaller budgets, less adherence to by the numbers executive mandates and focus-group based decision-making, sometimes greater freedom to take risks. When indie movies do well, they tend to do so on the basis of good scripts, good acting, or a novel concept executed well. TLJ doesn't fit the mold of an indie movie because it doesn't follow any of the characteristics: It had a huge budget from a huge studio that clearly wanted certain things in the new trilogy to evoke the best parts of the original (special orphan on a desert world who thinks he/she's destined for a more exciting life? check. rebel last stand on desolate, isolated world? check. sassy droid? check. nobody remotely like Jar-Jar Binks? check.)

Moreover, judged by the metric of good indie films, TLJ would fail even more horribly than it did in front of a general audience. While I can't fault the performances of most of the actors, the script was simply terrible, and there was nothing novel about the movie's premise. People see indie films in order to see things that are uncommon among the blockbusters. They want to hear a voice that isn't heard in Hollywood, they want an unhappy ending that nonetheless leaves them satisfied and happy that they saw the movie. They want to work extra hard following the plot where most movies have them turning off their brains. They want something to challenge their sacred cows and to force them to reconsider how they see the world. They want to see a movie made by someone who clearly listened to everyone who said "Nobody would ever watch a movie where you did this," and then set out to prove them wrong. TLJ didn't do anything like this--it didn't even try to. What it did was try to make a conventional action movie, and did it poorly.

Perhaps I used improper words for the point. The concept I was going for was works that could, because of their genre, budget, or origin, better cope with "artsy", "bold", or "subversive" choices. There are times and places where subversion of expectations is a wonderful thing. I can mention half a dozen video games off the top of my head that show this, but that's because I like video games more than movies. Iconic blockbuster franchises don't work well like that. People go to these movies to see an evolution of what they've already seen, not to see everything they loved get pushed to the side and set on fire to make room for the next big thing.

My suggestion that TLJ could have been a good indy movie is predicated on it being divorced from Star Wars. A lot of what makes the movie so awful is that, in order to do its own thing, it has to break everything that was already there. The movie was hobbled at every turn by having to be the Star Wars movie it never wanted to be. If they didn't have to tell a mainline Star Wars story, if they didn't have to worry about the existing canon and structure, they could have told a good subversive, feminism-oriented story. As it is, it didn't want to do anything with the characters or plot points it was given to work with, so it thrashed them and cast them aside before pursuing its own story. Heck, if this had been a sidestory with a side cast, like Rogue One or Solo, it probably could have gotten by as a largely forgettable sidestory: a little dumb, rather preachy, but largely harmless.

I mean, take the main characters out of this. What we're left with a ragtag remnant of the Resistance struggling to escape a vastly better equipped First Order. The second in command gets uppity due to bad communication and trust issues. Some side characters go off on a side quest that should* add to the plot. It all comes to a head on a backwater planet where the surface composition results in breathtaking visuals when it's kicked up. We still get the majority of this movie without the vast majority of what makes it horrible.

*The Rose sidequest still needs work, however. It needs to productively contribute to the plot, rather than waste time before ultimately working purely against the heroes. Rose and her charming non-Boyega companion fail to find the slicer they want, instead find a more dubious slicer. But said slicer screws up rather than selling them out, forcing the final confrontation. Slicer then comes through in a pinch, allowing them to survive without a double subverted Jedi suicide. Waking up the base's disabled defenses, for example. Cue Rose and her companion in the rubble of their ships and a destroyed laser battering ram, talking about where a hero's emphasis needs to be during a war. A ship lands at the base and Leia and Ackbar walk out, stating that this will be a good outpost for the Resistance and that it's time stop running and start Resisting... Then maybe an after-credits teaser for Star Wars VIII. You know, the movie about what the main characters are doing.

[Xyril]

Is that though? We don't actually get that directly; you're pulling an implication from the events we're shown.


But so are you (or whoever it was that I was responding to), and that's my whole point. Absent the voice of an omniscient narrator, we're not actually "told" anything in the storytelling sense. We're shown characters saying things about Holdo, and those things seem to be at odds with how we're shown Holding acting, and how our heroes respond to her.



This is where we have a problem. You're almost certainly correct, that there are lots more people on the ship not mutinying. But the movie doesn't show us that (it doesn't even tell us that). All we get is the few people on the bridge and that's basically it. We don't see numerous people trying to storm the bridge, we don't see them get locked out of systems remotely. Again, the movie needs to show us these things, and the movie didn't.

Did we really need to see those things, though? It's not a binary choice between "everyone wants to mutiny" and "everyone will risk their lives to rally behind the deposed leader." If you really want to hammer in how wrong Poe is, or how good Holdo is, then that would be useful. But, I really don't know what the point of this whole arc was, so I couldn't say if that would be necessary or helpful. In terms of plausibility, I'm fine with the ambiguity. Having the majority of the crew be loyal, but not necessarily enthusiastic about risking their lives to end the mutiny, is perfectly believable, as is having them be conflicted about who to support. Or, for that matter, having Holdo specifically telling them to stay out of it--the mutiny was a small operation based on the fact that the ship is apparently way too easily controlled from one location, and reversing it required a scalpel, not a ship full of hammers.


She did have a plan, and it was a good one (only undone by Poe's actions). If she was a bad leader past her glory days, she should be wrong in the end.

But she was wrong in the end. Yes, her plan was tactically sound. I know plenty of brilliant tacticians and strategists (well, personally I know the finance and technical equivalent of brilliant tacticians and strategists, but I've certainly heard of the real life military ones) who nonetheless fail as leaders because they don't have the people skills to make it work. Even within a strict military hierarchy, where presumably soft skills are less important, it's nonetheless possibly to screw up to such an extent that your subordinates fail to execute your brilliant orders properly, at which point you're failing as a leader.

Holdo was right in the sense that she had a workable secret plan. Poe was wrong in the sense that he thought she was blindly leading them towards an inevitable death. But as you keep stating, the mutiny happened, and it wouldn't have happened under a good leader. She could have shared the plan, or if secrecy was paramount, taken other steps to retain the faith of the crew. Even if the majority of the crew believed in her, part of her job was to see the possibility of a small mutiny that could, if not succeed, at least derail her secret plan, and taken precautions.

A declining leader doesn't have to fail, in a huge way, in all respects, all at once. A brilliant general who either retains his sharp mind but loses his ability to connect with his men, or retains the fervent loyalty of his men but can come up with nothing but horrible, suicidal battle plans, becomes a liability either way. Or it could simply be, as I alluded to earlier, simply changing circumstances. Historians aren't kind of Winston Churchill in the post-war years, but it would be unfair to say it due to a decline in his abilities--the same traits that made him such an effective leader in a time of war made him less effective in both his post-war and pre-war political career. His main failing was a failure to adapt to changing circumstances--or perhaps a failure to realize that he even needed to adapt. My sense of Holdo is that she didn't necessarily decline in an absolute sense, but rather failed to rise to her new circumstances. Perhaps she's a brilliant tactician who relied on Leia and others to keep the rank and file behind her and her plans. Perhaps she proved herself in the Republic military--where, as I mentioned, people skills might be less vital--and failed to adapt to an organization where buy-in from the lower ranks is vital and harder to achieve. Maybe she's actually great with people in a small team, or commanding a single ship, but can't adapt to lead the entire rebellion, full of the survivors of numerous ship crews and operational teams, none of whom had been under her direct command before.

[Bobb]

There wasn't any cloaking technology?

The plan was litterally "They won't look at SMALL things on their scanners!" The fact that it 'almost worked' and the First Order was willing to pay a guy tons of money for the tip says more about the FO's incompetence than it does Holdo's competence.

Woah. A quick scan of the scenes on netflix and that's exactly the plan. I forgive myself for imagining there was anything more to the plot then..... that.

[Peelee]

Woah. A quick scan of the scenes on netflix and that's exactly the plan. I forgive myself for imagining there was anything more to the plot then..... that.

Hold on, these are the same ships that can detect an incoming X-Wing in the beginning of the movie. Which is smaller than those shuttles. What's up with that?

[Xyril]

Perhaps I used improper words for the point. The concept I was going for was works that could, because of their genre, budget, or origin, better cope with "artsy", "bold", or "subversive" choices.


No, your use or misuse of words really doesn't change anything, unless you're still misusing words in that response. To me, TLJ was neither artsy, nor bold, nor subversive, unless you want to really stretch the definitions of those words to the extent that you can call "midichlorians" an artsy, bold, and subversive choice.



My suggestion that TLJ could have been a good indy movie is predicated on it being divorced from Star Wars. A lot of what makes the movie so awful is that, in order to do its own thing, it has to break everything that was already there. The movie was hobbled at every turn by having to be the Star Wars movie it never wanted to be.

So by "indy movie" you simply mean "a blockbuster, big studio movie that's indypendant of a larger franchise"?


If they didn't have to tell a mainline Star Wars story, if they didn't have to worry about the existing canon and structure, they could have told a good subversive, feminism-oriented story.


Ah, are you and Darth Ultron referring to "the Agenda" here? Well, as I said to him, I think you may need to be a bit more specific in your criticisms for people to evaluate your arguments one way or another. As it stands, you and Darth Ultron keep making broad assertions in very general, even vague terms, that "if not for Holdo having to be a woman, they could have done something better," or "if not for Rey being a woman, they could have done something better," or "if not for having to put in feminist themes, they could have done something better." What you never do, however, is specify something better that was specifically made impossible thanks to "the Agenda."

We're talking about Holdo now, and people have talked condescendingly about how great it would be to have Ackbar instead of "feminist girl General," but nobody specifies how. Darth Ultron said that with a male, Poe could have punched him, but to me, that would have done nothing more than make a narratively pointless subplot into a pointless subplot with fisticuffs.

Also, let's not forget, Finn's entire arc this movie in which decided to backslide with respect to all the balls he grew during the first one--that involved a male. (But he is black, so I suppose there may be valid complaints about a different part of "the Agenda.")



As it is, it didn't want to do anything with the characters or plot points it was given to work with, so it thrashed them and cast them aside before pursuing its own story.


Again, what does that have to do with feminism? I don't disagree that the new director did a terrible job with respect to continuity, but I honestly don't understand how you link that to feminism. The Rey plot was one of the few areas where they tried to build off TFA--it wasn't done great, but at least they tried.

The flaw in your reasoning is that you're not actually explaining your reasoning. Maybe it's obvious to you what the feminist agenda was in this movie (and by that, I mean specifically articulated goals, such as "I want to show a woman deal with, and overcome, sexism" or "I want to show a woman holding her own in a physical confrontation with a man") and that it should go without saying, but for many of us don't, so you need to explain it specifically. Now, once we know what that feminist agenda is, you also seem to think that the links to why the movie is bad is obvious, but again, many of us don't, and we need you to explain it, because right now, I simply don't see it.

In the rare cases where somebody does make a specific assertion, the links seem tenuous at best. For example, Holdo being a woman. Even if "the Agenda" mandated that we have a woman general, there were ways to make her arc suck a lot less. Z3ro, for example, brought up many suggestions that he thought would make it much better from a storytelling perspective, and all of those suggestions were equally applicable regardless of gender. My position, however, is that the mutiny arc was pointless to begin with, in which case we could have inserted a woman general and had her play some other role.

Oh, also, what's her name...

damnit, it's on the tip of my tongue..

Oh, right, LEIA. The tough, no non-sense leader of the current rebellion who strong connections to Star Wars cannon, who proved herself as a bit of an action hero in the first Rebellion and the first trilogy.

If you're going to argue that "the Agenda" ruined TLJ by forcing it to include a strong woman in charge, and you want reasonable people to take your argument seriously, then you're going to have to come up with a compelling explanation for why they would shoe-horn in an awkward, poorly executed arc for a new character by sidelining somebody who is literally the oldest, and most beloved, feminist icon from the entire franchise (not to mention taking time away from the main female lead of the entire new trilogy.)

And no, people won't buy the Darth Ultron argument that "if my assertions about the Agenda sounds irrational and inconsistent, it's because they are irrational and inconsistent, which only proves my point."

[Bobb]

They CAN. And they DID. Detect both x wings and the shuttles.

But they only scanned after being told to by a rogue agent.

So the brilliant plan was to hope the FO do not use their perfectly functional scanners, go to the base and then call for help.

Oh, and Poe is the idiot for wanting to try one more jump or turn and fight instead of going sitting duck style in transports.

[Xyril]

Hold on, these are the same ships that can detect an incoming X-Wing in the beginning of the movie. Which is smaller than those shuttles. What's up with that?

My impression was that it probably had something to do with the main ship physically blocking the line-of-sight between the incoming fleet and the shuttle path to the planet. With real life technologies, at least, having something in the way sometimes matters. Also in real life, confirming the presence of something you know is there is different than routlinely checking everywhere for signs of anything. As an imperfect analogy, you can look around the sky for stars pretty quickly, but using a high powered telescope to search for more distant objects has to be done more slowly, a tiny arc at a time. Of course, even if it is painstaking and resource intensive, if I were in command I would probably have at least a couple of teams checking certain regions of space (i.e., the part in between the last rebel ship and the closest planet.)

I have zero interest in watching any part of that movie again, so I'll trust you guys to let me know if that was an unreasonable assumption to make.

[Darth Ultron]

But so are you (or whoever it was that I was responding to), and that's my whole point. Absent the voice of an omniscient narrator, we're not actually "told" anything in the storytelling sense. We're shown characters saying things about Holdo, and those things seem to be at odds with how we're shown Holding acting, and how our heroes respond to her.

Lets assume the original story was poor Poe is trapped on the ship, er, ''running away'' for the whole middle of the movie(it's already a bad plot, so it's bad on top of bad). Well, this give the poor actor nothing to do...so they need to have him do something. The problem is, they wrote themselves into a corner: there is nothing for Poe to do. So they scramble and come up with an idea...a mutiny, that would be really cool...like Crimson Tide!

Maybe they wrote a first draft, cool mutiny and made changes...or maybe they just wrote it from scratch. But either way that had the Agenda problems:

1.Vice commander Holdo, as the supreme all powerful, strong female MUST be right, and it's just ''the men'' that don't ''get'' her.
2.Poe has to be ''wrong'', as he is the white male...but as a hero/star he can't be ''too wrong''. But he must be ''more wrong then Holdo".
3.There can be no violence at all towards Holdo and not even one tiny strand of purple hair can be touched.

So, you are left with what we get. Poe whines a couple times. Holdo is all ''I am woman, hear me roar" a couple times. Then Poe, um, sort of, arrests her, softly. Holdo escapes and smacks down Poe to the deck, "Rawr!". (er and Leia suddenly comes back at just the right time, wink wink).



Did we really need to see those things, though? It's not a binary choice between "everyone wants to mutiny" and "everyone will risk their lives to rally behind the deposed leader." If you really want to hammer in how wrong Poe is, or how good Holdo is, then that would be useful. But, I really don't know what the point of this whole arc was, so I couldn't say if that would be necessary or helpful.

Well, to fill time and give Poe something to do. The problem is the Agenda, and Woman Holdo. Without the big A, you could of had a great mutiny.

After all, the mutiny is a bit silly as Holdo could have just told Poe the plan...and really just told the whole ship(except Fin and Rose, that was a mistake).

[Bobb]

My impression was that it probably had something to do with the main ship physically blocking the line-of-sight between the incoming fleet and the shuttle path to the planet. I have zero interest in watching any part of that movie again, so I'll trust you guys to let me know if that was an unreasonable assumption to make.

Line of sight (not used as cover) is also line of effect for the weapons used against the shuttles (at least, there's nothing between the FO ships and the shuttles).

So, no. And even if they did, that plan would have necessitated the flagship plotting a course towards the planet and then veering away from said planet as the FO was on their tail.

[Xyril]

Well, to fill time and give Poe something to do. The problem is the Agenda, and Woman Holdo. Without the big A, you could of had a great mutiny.


Here is my objection to your arguments: You're basically saying, "Yes, this fighter jet was horribly designed. A combination helicopter/fighter/bomber/seaplane was never going to do its job well, the vendors cut corners on parts, politics meant that the best company for the job didn't get the contract, we're using last-generation weapon systems out of a misplaced sense of nostalgia, and on top of that the design team never spent a single minute inside the cockpit of a military aircraft. But if it weren't for the Agenda putting that woman pilot in there, we could have had great combat performance."

I don't know if you have any kind of science background, but there's this thing called falsifiability. It refers to the fact that a good hypothesis can be disprove. I don't know whether you're just not great at crafting arguments, or if it's a deliberate, cynical strategy, but I noticed that you love to make assertions that are falsifiable.

If you don't like a movie, and there's a woman, or a minority, somewhere in the movie, you can make a blanket assertion that it's the fault of that woman, or that person of color. (and IIRC your history here, you usually do.) But we can play it both ways. If Anakin weren't a white male, then we could have changed a lot of other things about The Phantom Menace to make it better. That statement is absolutely true about absolutely any movie that leaves room for improvement, and you can't really disprove that statement. The thing is, even if we kept Anakin a white male, we still could have changed a lot of things about TPM to make it better. That statement is also absolutely true about pretty much any movie.

If you want to convince people of your arguments, then you need to make actual, good faith arguments that are themselves subject to criticism and debate. Give us an example of a "great mutiny" involving a male Holdo, and then prove to us that it couldn't also be done with a strong female Holdo.

[Xyril]

Line of sight (not used as cover) is also line of effect for the weapons used against the shuttles (at least, there's nothing between the FO ships and the shuttles).


Ah right, I forgot they were using turbolasers (or whatever they have now) and not torpedoes.

Even without line of sight issues, is it still plausible that focusing a lot of sensor attention on a limited part of space can detect things that the full battlespace scan can't?

[Bobb]

Even without line of sight issues, is it still plausible that focusing a lot of sensor attention on a limited part of space can detect things that the full battlespace scan can't?

I personally have a hard time believing a ship could be inside effective weapons range while at the exact same time being outside battle conditions sensor range.

[Peelee]

They CAN. And they DID. Detect both x wings and the shuttles.

But they only scanned after being told to by a rogue agent.

...yes, that's my point. They scanned the X-Wing in the beginning, but did not scan the shuttles until they were explicitly told to look for them. As stupid as that plan was, it would have worked, and that seems like a discontinuity.

[Bobb]

The idea is the FO decided to stop scanning at some point during the chase.

I suppose.

[Calemyr]

Again, what does that have to do with feminism?

I don't mean to use the word as pejorative. A tale where a female lead endures the hero's journey, faces the pitfalls and trials and failures and ultimately overcomes her opposition as well as her own faults, could be both feminist and awesome. Easily as awesome as any male lead. Take Ahsoka Tano, Samus Aran, or Kathryn Janeway as case studies. But feminism was a focus of the TLJ story. "Women are strong and capable and don't need a man leading them to be badass" was a recurring refrain. I don't think it was well done in this case, largely because they had to diminish everyone else to make the point, but it's a worthy point in and of itself. Unfortunately Rian was so busy stating his claim that he didn't back it up as none of the female characters earned their moments. That I can think of, anyway. Nobody earned their moments, honestly.

Now I'm not saying a trilogy movie can't have feminist undertones. It really, really can. But a trilogy movie shouldn't be used as a soapbox. You want to be subversive? Make Holdo good at her job, and then don't make a fuss about it. Have her walk into the chaotic mess she finds herself in, calm the crew down, direct people coherently, and solve the problem with panache but no braggadocio. It doesn't have to (and shouldn't) solve the whole movie, but give her the tools to do her job well. Instill in the audience through subtle and consistent evidence the concept that genitalia does not define capability. Don't crow from the rooftops that your hero is a girl, just let her be a good one, no big deal. I mean, who are you trying to score points for - your ideal or yourself?

With a sidestory, you'd have more freedom to sacrifice canon for a message without turning off fans. That's all I was really trying to say. And so I keep digging myself deeper...


...yes, that's my point. They scanned the X-Wing in the beginning, but did not scan the shuttles until they were explicitly told to look for them. As stupid as that plan was, it would have worked, and that seems like a discontinuity.

As I understood it, the large ships were easier to track so that's what they were using. The ship flies through a system and a bunch of escape pods launch off at some random planet, those won't be trackable at that distance. The best exploits can be found in oversights made in the name of efficiency. The ship then continues through the system and moves onto the next, leading the FO on a merry goose chase as the pods drift down to their new home in blissful anonymity. The FO ultimately catches up with the ship, and the ship blows up. The FO are standing in the some random system with no clue which of the systems the ship went through was the one they jumped ship at, if they even noticed the lack of escape pods.

It is a really good plan. Too bad Rose and Fin had to foul it up by delivering a traitor to spill the beans. And there wouldn't have been a mutiny if Holdo had simply said there was a plan. She didn't need to go vindicate herself, just assure her understandably anxious crew that they were doing something.

[Xyril]

I personally have a hard time believing a ship could be inside effective weapons range while at the exact same time being outside battle conditions sensor range.

Honestly, I dunno. I know sci-fi tends to hand-wave energy weapons for the sake of drama, but if the starting point is a laser, you basically have a collimated beam travelling on a straight path (well, taking into account gravitational lensing and all that) at the speed of light, able to travel fairly long distances through empty space without losing much power. Same with rail guns and many other weapons in space. Of course, X-wing dog fights at close quarters are much more fun than battle at realistic ranges--even for modern jet fighters--so clearly realism isn't the most important thing. Still, if the reasoning behind why Star Wars fights happen at such close range relates to countermeasures (i.e., torpedoes and turbolasers CAN do damage at must greater distances, but it's all but guaranteed that a ship will be able to avoid or intercept the attack).

Also, remember that neither weapons range nor sensor range are hard and fast things, even in real life. The range at which an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer can reliably detect all large ships entering its perimeter is probably different than the range with respect to detecting a speed boat, or a swimmer. However, if instead the requirement is that they be able to, for example, detect whether or not there's a swimmer within a specific square kilometer, the range is probably a bit longer. Moreover, effective weapons range in modern warfare is inextricably tied to the range at which sensors can provide a firing solution, and from an economic and logistical standpoint. Even if I have the technology to give a missile tremendous range, it probably doesn't make sense to give it enough fuel to travel ten times further than the sensor range of whatever ship will use it.

Oh, and one real life exception there are cruise missiles and other weapons specifically designed to be able to work with outside information. A tomahawk missile has a range of over 1500 miles. Even the less pricey, more conventional anti-ship Harpoon missile has an over the horizon range of 150+ miles. In contrast, civilian navigational radar ("detect everything on the surface" radar) maxes out at maybe 20 or 25 miles. Military navigational radar undoubtedly has superior, probably classified range, but even if it's an order of magnitude better, that's barely exceeding the range of a harpoon, and well within the range of a Tomahawk. You can get more range if, for example, you beam a ton of energy out on a specific bearing over an extended period of time, and if you expect a small craft to be there, you can probably confirm (or disprove) its presence with reasonable reliability well beyond the range of navigational radar, but the point is you can't do that in every direction all the time.

If you're 500 miles away from a U.S. Navy destroyer and they don't know where to look for you, you're probably safe, but if they're told where you'll be, they can easily drop a missile on you.

[Darth Ultron]

" What you never do, however, is specify something better that was specifically made impossible thanks to "the Agenda."

Well, in general, whatever you don't see in an Agenda Movie. Watch some modern Star Wars movie news, and you will see and hear ''strong woman character'' get mentioned, a lot. Over and over and over again.

Some specifically made impossible things:

1)Can't have a strong woman character be wrong. Women are right.
2)Can't have a woman be 'hit' too much(even more so by a man), and never outside of a 'official fight'.
3)Can't have a strong woman character ''act'' like a man, and do anything a ''man'' might do(even if it makes sense)...they must always ''find another way" aka ''the woman way."



Darth Ultron said that with a male, Poe could have punched him, but to me, that would have done nothing more than make a narratively pointless subplot into a pointless subplot with fisticuffs.

Every watch the new Battlestar Galactica? Well, they have a mutiny plot. Now put William Adama in command of the rebels and have Poe whine...you'd get more ''get this fracking hot shot out of here and lock him in a cell, if he resists, shoot him!"

AND you could of had a male Holdo be WRONG...so viewers would take Poes side. Then the male Holdo would make up for it with the big sacrifice (except a guy would have done it in 1.1 seconds and not sat there and watched like 15 shuttles full of people die).



Also, let's not forget, Finn's entire arc this movie in which decided to backslide with respect to all the balls he grew during the first one--that involved a male. (But he is black, so I suppose there may be valid complaints about a different part of "the Agenda.")

True, as Fin is not a white male....and he does represent the more 'squishy' guys. Some guys just smash a spider, even them big inch ones.....some like Fin scream and jump on a chair and beg for help.




Again, what does that have to do with feminism? I don't disagree that the new director did a terrible job with respect to continuity, but I honestly don't understand how you link that to feminism. The Rey plot was one of the few areas where they tried to build off TFA--it wasn't done great, but at least they tried.

The Agenda is about many things, not just one take.



The flaw in your reasoning is that you're not actually explaining your reasoning.

The Basic Flaw: They are first and fore most making an Agenda Movie. Everything else comes way, way, way second...including making a good movie. The Agenda comes first and only.

A normal movie maker will say "How can I make the best movie in every and any way possible".

An Agenda Agent who is in control of a movie is only saying-"We must promote the Agenda!"



Oh, right, LEIA. The tough, no non-sense leader of the current rebellion who strong connections to Star Wars cannon, who proved herself as a bit of an action hero in the first Rebellion and the first trilogy.

To the Agenda, Liea is not a strong, powerful woman: she 1)Acts too much like a man(she for example uses a gun to kill people) and 2)The Poor Weak Princess has to be rescued by a man in every movie.


Here is my objection to your arguments:

The Agenda is not just about women...they have many agendas. The ''bombing run'' is just bad moviemaking all around. The Agenda part comes in when they say ''whatever, open the movie with the silly pew pew for all the boys and man-childs. Just throw some stuff together, so we can get to the strong women parts!"



If you don't like a movie, and there's a woman, or a minority, somewhere in the movie, you can make a blanket assertion that it's the fault of that woman, or that person of color.

It is not the actor, no matter what they are...again, it is the Agenda doing things. As any good (non-agenda) movie will show you, any actor no matter what they are, can do anything.



If you want to convince people of your arguments, then you need to make actual, good faith arguments that are themselves subject to criticism and debate. Give us an example of a "great mutiny" involving a male Holdo, and then prove to us that it couldn't also be done with a strong female Holdo.

Well, male mutinies have commanders that are wrong..or evil, so you side with the 'crew'. Mutiny on the Bounty and Crimson Tide are good examples.

[druid91]

As I understood it, the large ships were easier to track so that's what they were using. The ship flies through a system and a bunch of escape pods launch off at some random planet, those won't be trackable at that distance. The best exploits can be found in oversights made in the name of efficiency. The ship then continues through the system and moves onto the next, leading the FO on a merry goose chase as the pods drift down to their new home in blissful anonymity. The FO ultimately catches up with the ship, and the ship blows up. The FO are standing in the some random system with no clue which of the systems the ship went through was the one they jumped ship at, if they even noticed the lack of escape pods.

It is a really good plan. Too bad Rose and Fin had to foul it up by delivering a traitor to spill the beans. And there wouldn't have been a mutiny if Holdo had simply said there was a plan. She didn't need to go vindicate herself, just assure her understandably anxious crew that they were doing something.

They were TRACKING the large ship. Yes. They could still scan for small ships, and given the Resistance is known for it's daring hotshot snubfighter antics.... well NOT doing so is rather stupid.

Those weren't escape pods. Those were shuttles. The very SAME shuttles the rebels had been using to evacuate their rapidly disintigrating fleet onto the primary ship to start with, and had been doing so for hours right in front of the FO. In fact, if I remember correctly you can SEE a readout on the first order ship showing those same shuttles evacuating from the medical frigate as it gets blown up.

In addition, there's a planet NEARBY, and the ship only had enough fuel for one last jump and... that planet has been left to rust for DECADES. The fact that they found any working communication equipment there is again, nonsensical.

The entire plot relied on contrivance and stupidity.

[Xyril]

I don't mean to use the word as pejorative.


I never implied that you did.


But feminism was a focus of the TLJ story. "Women are strong and capable and don't need a man leading them to be badass" was a recurring refrain.


I don't know how well supported this assertion is, but I thank you for actually making the assertion and leave it at that.



Now I'm not saying a trilogy movie can't have feminist undertones. It really, really can. But a trilogy movie shouldn't be used as a soapbox.

Again, where was the soapbox? Are you referring to the mere fact that there were so many women characters, or are there particular scenes you object to?


You want to be subversive? Make Holdo good at her job, and then don't make a fuss about it.

Actually, I don't want it to be subversive, and I'm not sure you've shown that the producers wanted it to be subversive, because all of the prior assertions about the "subversiveness" of TLJ were so poorly supported and based on a rather loose definition of the term.


Don't crow from the rooftops that your hero is a girl, just let her be a good one, no big deal.


Point well made. Can you point to specific examples in TLJ where this was done to the detriment of the movie? I honestly can't remember any (unless you're arguing that the mere fact that she's a woman asserting her authority is such an example.)

There were a few instances where I thought Holdo was needlessly dismissive of Poe (although he really did need to be reigned in), but that has nothing to do with gender and more to do with the fact that it was a poor way for a leader (male or female) to start a relationship with a new subordinate, even one who keeps being insubordinate.


And there wouldn't have been a mutiny if Holdo had simply said there was a plan. She didn't need to go vindicate herself, just assure her understandably anxious crew that they were doing something.

But again, what does feminism or "the Agenda" have to do with that? Men can be bad leaders, too, and as you just said, if (female) Holdo had simply acted differently, it might have improved the movie ab it.

[druid91]

I never implied that you did.



I don't know how well supported this assertion is, but I thank you for actually making the assertion and leave it at that.



Again, where was the soapbox? Are you referring to the mere fact that there were so many women characters, or are there particular scenes you object to?


Actually, I don't want it to be subversive, and I'm not sure you've shown that the producers wanted it to be subversive, because all of the prior assertions about the "subversiveness" of TLJ were so poorly supported and based on a rather loose definition of the term.



Point well made. Can you point to specific examples in TLJ where this was done to the detriment of the movie? I honestly can't remember any (unless you're arguing that the mere fact that she's a woman asserting her authority is such an example.)

There were a few instances where I thought Holdo was needlessly dismissive of Poe (although he really did need to be reigned in), but that has nothing to do with gender and more to do with the fact that it was a poor way for a leader (male or female) to start a relationship with a new subordinate, even one who keeps being insubordinate.



But again, what does feminism or "the Agenda" have to do with that? Men can be bad leaders, too, and as you just said, if (female) Holdo had simply acted differently, it might have improved the movie ab it.

So, in a vacuum? Yes. You are 100% Right. A Female Holdo could have been played excellently. Sadly, such a Vacuum does not exist.

https://i.redd.it/6aw3vw8uep501.jpg

This right here? This is Kathleen Kennedy (In the black), The woman in charge of Lucasfilm at the moment, and some of her coworkers. She has views she has made somewhat clear, I think, and being concerned about their effect on the movies she's overseen isn't an entirely valueless concern.

So the notion of a Female Authority Figure Character cannot be MADE in such a vacuum, as it will not be purely beholden to the story's needs, but also to the Boss's Views.

Having Strong Female Characters, or Diversity in general is not a problem until it comes to the point where the story itself is hampered due to meta-concerns because of worries over representation. Does this always happen? No. However Holdo's entire portrayal comes across as pulled out of a place where the sun doesn't shine, because she had to be right for out of universe reasons and they never bothered to come up with a compelling reason for that to be so.

[Bobb]

@Xyril, good stuff. Both informative and interesting.

But as presented in the movie I have no idea how they expected to not be spotted. It looked like they might as well have been eyeballed as scanned.

And the shuttles all came from the same cruiser. The FO had to have been paying attention to it at least.

[Mechalich]

Point well made. Can you point to specific examples in TLJ where this was done to the detriment of the movie? I honestly can't remember any (unless you're arguing that the mere fact that she's a woman asserting her authority is such an example.)

Arguably, Holdo's costume. She spends the movie wearing a pseudo-evening dress/gown thing that is about as non-martial as it could possibly be while surrounded by people in actual uniforms. Leia is admittedly an exception, but she's ostensibly outside the chain of command and her outfit is still far more appropriate to the moment. The outfit combined with the purple hair and coiffure makes Holdo look like a dilettante noble playing at war (the purple hair is an issue because no other member of the resistance sports a synthetic hair color, suggesting that Holdo is bucking the appearance code).

Holdo's appearance is such that during her introduction the immediate impression is that she should be taking orders from the staff officer - wearing a uniform - who introduces her.


In addition, there's a planet NEARBY, and the ship only had enough fuel for one last jump and... that planet has been left to rust for DECADES. The fact that they found any working communication equipment there is again, nonsensical.

Star Wars equipment has a long history of being durable over the long term. The Millennium Falcon has been limping along for decades. Rey's entire job was scavenging damaged parts from smashed starships. The idea that equipment in an underground base on a salt planet - like the desert a low-corrosion environment - would endure for decades is actually quite plausible.

[druid91]

Star Wars equipment has a long history of being durable over the long term. The Millennium Falcon has been limping along for decades. Rey's entire job was scavenging damaged parts from smashed starships. The idea that equipment in an underground base on a salt planet - like the desert a low-corrosion environment - would endure for decades is actually quite plausible.

... Does it? The Millenium Falcon has been an actively used and repaired ship for all that time and still frequently fails. And oftentimes such salvage is not for functional parts so much as it is for valuable metals and other materials rather than for parts that can be slapped into an existing machine.

Also what? Salt is EXTREMELY Corrosive, particularly in the presence of water. Which the animals around kind of implied there being water.

[Xyril]

Well, in general, whatever you don't see in an Agenda Movie. Watch some modern Star Wars movie news, and you will see and hear ''strong woman character'' get mentioned, a lot. Over and over and over again.


I'm not asking in general, I'm asking for specifics. If I say, "Darth Ultron is a bigot, here are the specific statements and actions that prove it," I would be doing something that demonstrates what we men call having balls, because I would be making claims that can be criticized and refuted. If I made up evidence, people can check and show that I lied. If I use evidence, but use faulty reasoning to argue that it supports my assertions, I can be criticized for it.

If, on the other hand, I say "Just read anything Darth Ultron writes or watch him in real life, and eventually it'll be obvious that he's a huge bigot," then I would be weaselly. Cowardly even.



1)Can't have a strong woman character be wrong. Women are right.




2)Can't have a woman be 'hit' too much(even more so by a man), and never outside of a 'official fight'.

Why on God's green Earth are you using "hit" in quotations marks?

Also, this is an incredibly weaselly and cowardly statement. If I say "well, Phasma got hit, a lot, by Finn," you'll just say, "Well, I said 'too much.' Phasma got hit, but not 'too much.'" If I say, "Well, I think she actually got hit more than Poe," you'll probably just say "Well, that was 'too much' for him but not 'too much' for her."



3)Can't have a strong woman character ''act'' like a man, and do anything a ''man'' might do(even if it makes sense)...they must always ''find another way" aka ''the woman way."


Phasma's entire leadership style is to intimidate and if necessary execute her subordinates, and to skip to the killing with respect to enemies. That is pretty stereotypically male. Rey's approach to dealing with Kylo Ren is almost exactly what Luke's (who was a male, by the way) was in the original trilogy--first wanting to exact bloody vengeance for the death of a mentor, then trying to redeem him after discovering a possible connection with him. Holdo is basically the same as a ton of bad male leaders in fiction who have the intelligence and the tactical acumen, but expect to get respect from new subordinates far faster than he earned it.



Every watch the new Battlestar Galactica? Well, they have a mutiny plot. Now put William Adama in command of the rebels and have Poe whine...you'd get more ''get this fracking hot shot out of here and lock him in a cell, if he resists, shoot him!"


Do you know why the mutiny plot in BSG worked well? Because it was a well-written arc that paid off things that happened previously in the narrative and contributed to the future narrative and character development. Everything that our plot lacked. Adama was a capable and respected leader who made an incredibly controversial decision. This is why it was plausible that some people remained fiercely loyal to him, while others who practically saw him as a father figure would turn their backs on him. Gaeta in particular has been building up to it. He suffered personally due to the alliance with the Cylons, and even before that you could see the resentment building over the fact that his fellow officers treated him as a pariah for being part of the collaborating New Caprica government and never gave him the respect he felt he was due for actually being the mole helping the resistance. Not only does this make it easier for him to view working with the Cylons as a betrayal by the Colonial leaders, it also makes him sympathetic to Zarek, who also sees himself as a misunderstood patriot, whose past actions meant that people never give him a fair shake. Now, look at Season 1 Gaeta, the ever faithful, almost meek officer. In contrast to Tigh with his demons, Starbuck and her stubbornly insubordinate attitude, or Apollo with his daddy issues and reckless idealism, Gaeta's the last one you expect to mutiny. Yet by season four, we get there in a way that's not only believable, but tremendously satisfying from a narrative perspective.

It also cements the Cylon-Human alliance and sets things up for the finale. The alliance was born out of necessity more than anything else--with a common enemy, they were stronger together than apart, and making peace with the Colonial fleet was the obvious, self-interested thing for the rebel Cylons to do. During the mutiny, however, the Cylon chose to risk their last ship siding with Roslin and Adama, instead of making the safe choice to run away and leave the two Colonial factions and the other Cylons to fight it out amongst themselves. This was really the first time when the majority of the Colonial leaders truly believed that the Sixes were sincere in their belief that Humans and Cylons were meant to form a lasting peace (and that his wasn't just a temporary alliance to get rid of a common foe.)

Oh, and you think the BSG mutiny was better because Adama was a male who could be a ruthless badass? I think you need to rewatch the series. When Adama was sentencing the mutineers, he was resolved but also clearly sad about what happened to his former protege, and during the mutiny he even stopped Tigh from executing a traitor. Meanwhile, Roslin (she's the woman, by the way) basically takes command of the base star and tells the traitors that if they don't hand over Adama, she'll wipe them all out even if it kills her. When they claim Adama's already dead, that's precisely what she starts to do.



AND you could of had a male Holdo be WRONG...so viewers would take Poes side. Then the male Holdo would make up for it with the big sacrifice (except a guy would have done it in 1.1 seconds and not sat there and watched like 15 shuttles full of people die).

You could do the same with a female Holdo.


Well, male mutinies have commanders that are wrong..or evil, so you side with the 'crew'. Mutiny on the Bounty and Crimson Tide are good examples.

Mutiny on the Bounty was based in real life, so casting a woman would be strange, and Crimson Tide came before the Navy was integrated IIRC, but why couldn't you tell very similar stories with a woman in the lead?



(more words)

I'm done. Like I said, your view clearly isn't falsifiable. If a movie is bad and it has anything remotely "Agenda" related, you'll claim it was because an Agent of the Agenda was more interested in "the Agenda" than making a good movie. If a movie has women, and minorities, and turns out to be good, you'll claim that it was a rare example of a case where "the Agents" didn't get involved. And if a movie that obviously caters to conservative white males turns out to also suck, you'll probably just blame the Jews.

[Xyril]

Arguably, Holdo's costume. She spends the movie wearing a pseudo-evening dress/gown thing that is about as non-martial as it could possibly be while surrounded by people in actual uniforms.


...and this "the Agenda" how? Sounds like the main problem is that she's a female Lando.



The outfit combined with the purple hair and coiffure makes Holdo look like a dilettante noble playing at war

So she's A New Hope Leia? Or Return of the Jedi Lando?


(the purple hair is an issue because no other member of the resistance sports a synthetic hair color, suggesting that Holdo is bucking the appearance code).


You mean like Cinnabon hair?



Holdo's appearance is such that during her introduction the immediate impression is that she should be taking orders from the staff officer - wearing a uniform - who introduces her.


Her appearance (and not the fact that she's a woman) is certainly why I thought Poe didn't take her seriously at first.

However--and maybe this is just because I watched and read a lot of Star Wars--my first impression was that she was someone highly ranked precisely because she stood out. To me, a recurring motif in Star Wars is that the leaders stand out, while the mooks are interchangeable. In the prequels and The Clone Wars you have Jedi general in robes and flight suits and random diplomatic clothes leading the identical clone troopers--who themselves are led by clone officers with conspicuously colored pauldrons. You've got the scruffy Han Solo, the nearly naked Chewbacca, and Lando (who in his finery was every bit as fancy and "non-martial" as Holdo) promoted to Generals within the rebellion, leading largely identically clad rebels into battle, while the paramilitary Rebel Alliance as a whole was ultimately led by Leia and Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and other members of a clearly non-uniformed civilian leadership.

In a different franchise--Battlestar Galactica, for example--her lack of uniformity coupled with an ostensibly military position cause me to probably ask the same questions you're asking. In this one, however, I mostly see it as a signal that she's a character, and not an extra.

[druid91]

Or alternatively you could simply look at the movies and note that....

- Heroic Female Characters are portrayed as Competent, even in areas where there is no reason for them to be competent. (Rey living on a desert planet ripping scrap metal out of starships suddenly knows how to fly and repair one despite no demonstrable or stated past with them, Rey's more or less instant mastery of the force after realizing it was a thing that exists, Rose a more or less random mechanic with a shock-prod casually defeating Finn who's meant to be some sort of Storm Trooper Prodigy.)

- Heroic Female Characters are almost always right. No matter how little reason the story presents for the audience to believe them. (Rey believing Kylo could be turned against Snoke, Rose 'Rescueing' Finn from the Battering Ram Cannon, Holdo's plan, The bombing run going wrong as Leia insists it would.)

- If a Heroic Female Character does something, it is portrayed as brilliant and daring, despite what it may seem. (The extended 'kicking the ladder' scene with Roses Sister. Holdo's Plan.)

Compare to the Heroic Male characters, who are berated, made to look foolish, and or beaten outright, repeatedly. (Poe's role in TLJ was to be the angry man who should have sat down and listen to the purple haired woman and his grandmother. Finn getting tazed by a mechanic who didn't have the drop on him despite being raised to be a soldier from childhood, and prior to that getting the snot beaten out of him by Kylo so that Rey could save the day. Ackbar dying off screen while Leia mary poppins her way back to life. Snoke getting unceremoniously killed by Kylo following Rey's redemption gambit, Kylo wasting his chance to 'finish off' the Resistance,' Luke's entire character arc was about him being a failure as a Jedi and how he presumed that because of that the Jedi way must be a failure in and of itself. Finn's initial character arc in TFA where he just wanted to run rather than fight. Again and Again, Both of the main movies push the message that 'Women are Right and powerful, Men are Foolish or outright Wrong.' The only place in which this dynamic is subverted is somewhat with the Villains and Phasma. But Phasma is a VILLAIN which overrules any protection she might have as a woman. She's not a woman people are meant to look up to, and so she isn't protected by representative concerns.)


And connect two and two, with the point that,

- The Head of Lucasfilm is Kathleen Kennedy, who has certain beliefs that aren't hard to dig up.

The idea that there might be an 'Agenda' at work is plausible. Mind you, I doubt I'm using the word in the same sense Darth Ultron is using it, but eh.

[Thrudd]

The dialogue says that the shuttles have some sort of cloaking device engaged. However, they also say that they assume the FO won't be scanning for small ships, and the FO ran a "decloaking scan" after they were tipped off that let them see the shuttles. All around, it was a very iffy plan in the first place, as there was no way to guarantee they wouldn't run such a scan as routine procedure. However, the greatest failure was in lack of communication and trust on all sides of resistance leadership. Holdo was just as wrong as Poe. If they had communicated with each other, they could have risked both plans, with the infiltration giving the possibility of saving the enormous asset of the capital ship. The cloaked shuttle information should have remained unknown to the infiltrating agents, so even if they were captured the escape would not be compromised. Even a failure of the infiltration could have been a benefit to the shuttle plan, because it might mislead the FO into believing they had thwarted all chance at escape.

Poe showed that he is truly an idiot who has no business being anything but a fighter pilot who takes orders - he called his agents, in the middle of an extremely sensitive infiltration mission inside the enemy headquarters, and blurted out on the radio the position and movement of all the resistance forces. Holdo showed she had no business being a military commander, either, as she seemingly failed to inform a lot of the personnel, including some important middle-ranking command, of the plan that was going to require everyone knowing exactly what was going on once they got in the shuttles. If it was just Poe in the dark, nobody would have agreed to mutiny with him. The way a plan works is, you brief everyone on what is going to be expected of them in order to carry out the plan, and then when you give the order to execute the plan everyone knows what to do. She must have had some ego, or else real paranoia about the FO being able to surveil their conversations (which was never mentioned as something anyone suspected), to stay so silent about it. There was no reason at all, when Poe and a good portion of the crew had her at gun point, that she couldn't have revealed that there is, in fact, a decent plan to save everyone.

It would have been realistic for Leia to have reprimanded everyone as soon as she awoke, including and especially Holdo, who was ultimately responsible for everything that happened as the acting Admiral, for showing poor leadership and failing to communicate essential information to the people that needed to know it. Instead, we get this stupid line: "She was more interested in protecting the light than she was... seeming like a hero." Those things aren't mutually exclusive. So she was so determined to NOT seem like a hero that she wouldn't even tell everyone that she had a plan to save them, even when it was her appointed duty to tell them the plan? Because it is better to seem like you're screwing everyone over and being derelict in your duty than it is to let them have the impression that you've got a plan to save them? This movie script makes no sense.

[Xyril]

- Heroic Female Characters are portrayed as Competent, even in areas where there is no reason for them to be competent.

Leia has no reason to be competent?

Also counterpoint: Holdo. She has every reason to be competent (she became a leader in the rebellion, after all.) She is not depicted as such.

And before you object, I remind you that being right about something is not the same as being competent. Holdo had a secret plan and Poe was wrong about not having a secret plan... and that is pretty much the extent to which the movie depicted Holdo positively. As others have pointed out, she dressed in a way that guaranteed that Poe--and probably a lot of other rebels--would have a terrible first impression of her as a serious leader. Maybe she did something to earn the right to do so, but that's irrelevant when being put into a situation with a bunch of new subordinates. If Admiral Badass talks strategy to the parrot on his shoulder like it's no big deal, but is so respected by his crew for his leadership and tactical brilliance that they overlook this eccentricity, that's fine when he's being introduced to new crew joining his command, where literally everybody else will be reassuring the new guy that the unconventional Admiral is actually pretty great. If, however, Admiral Badass is being transferred to command of a new ship with an entirely new crew, he should probably consider saving the parrot for his second day on the job.

Holdo knew Poe was insubordinate, convinced that the leadership had no plan, and pretty much only trusted Leia, and yet she was completely blind to the possibility that Leia's incapacitation might trigger him and the hopeless situation might cause him (or who knows how many others) to take drastic action. Hell, even the remote possibility of a spy on board should have led her to take enough precautions to prevent such a half-assed mutiny.

This is my problem with the criticism of Holdo: People keep arguing, essentially, that Holdo is put out as this great character, and that they're the ones who were clever enough to see that Holdo is actually terrible, and it is this disconnect (with feminist undertones) that makes her terrible. To me, these people aren't as clever as they think. I think any reasonably competent person should realize that Holdo is making some terrible choices, and that this is by design. Remember what I said about guarding against spies? If Holdo had any reason to suspect there were spies, she would take precautions to make sure that no small group could hold the ship hostage from a single place, even one as secure as the bridge. But she didn't, meaning that she's either making poor choices, or she honestly believed that the ship was completely free of spies (which, to be fair, it seemed to be.) If this is the case, why keep the plan a secret?! It should have been obvious that


(Rey living on a desert planet ripping scrap metal out of starships suddenly knows how to fly and repair one despite no demonstrable or stated past with them,


This is more egregious than young Anakin knowing how to fix and pilot starfighters based on less than a decade of tinkering and pod-racing... but not much. That said, what's the basis of your assertion that all she did was rip out scrap metal? As far as I remember, nothing in the move foreclosed the possibility that she might actually know enough about the ships she was salvaging to--for example--identify and extract the the parts that are more valuable than a big hunk of metal. Anakin built droids and vehicles from scrap--other than vague allusions to him being a natural at machines and having nothing else to do as a slaver, we're expected to not only accept that as plausible, but also to extrapolate the ability to fix and fly spacecraft. Out of all the Force users, only Luke was completely plausible to me--having access not only to small craft to practice with but older boys to teach them, the whole "Tatooine produces great fighter pilot" theme that continued in the EU was entirely believable.

Also to be fair, Anakin Sue was something that got some criticism in The Phantom Menace--though I don't recall the Men's Rights Agenda being blamed for it.



Rey's more or less instant mastery of the force after realizing it was a thing that exists,

Here we'll agree. Yeah, this one bothered me a lot, although my first thought wasn't "the Agenda," but rather them writing themselves into a corner with the reluctant hermit Luke arc.


Rose a more or less random mechanic with a shock-prod casually defeating Finn who's meant to be some sort of Storm Trooper Prodigy.)

This didn't really bother me, maybe because I have some experience in martial arts and combat shooting sports and I realize how tenuous an advantage can be. An experienced, conditioned fighter will always dominate a novice in the ring, and a skilled marksman will generally beat an unskilled one in a duel, but if you involve weapons and the element of surprise, you get a lot more randomness. Finn was more worried about Rose alerting other people, probably had no idea that she would actually attack him with a weapon that could do damage, and--to me anyway--doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would, given the chance, hurt her in order to escape. Rose essentially getting lucky and sucker punching him? A bit of a contrivance, sure, but not so beyond the realm of plausibility that the only rational explanation is the Feminist Agenda.



- Heroic Female Characters are almost always right. No matter how little reason the story presents for the audience to believe them. (Rey believing Kylo could be turned against Snoke,

Do you believe that half-truths are no better than complete falsehoods? You're right, Rey believed Kylo Ren could be turned against Snoke, and she was right about that part.

But have you already forgotten that Rey believed that Kylo could be turned against Snoke and the First Order, and the Dark Side in general, and redeemed, and that there was still good in him? At least on the short term, she was horribly wrong about that one.



Rose 'Rescueing' Finn from the Battering Ram Cannon,


Holdo's plan.
As I said

The bombing run going wrong as Leia insists it would.)



- If a Heroic Female Character does something, it is portrayed as brilliant and daring, despite what it may seem. (The extended 'kicking the ladder' scene with Roses Sister.


As opposed to Poe in that first scene in TFA, Finn and Poe's escape in that same movie, Luke pulling one over on Kylo Ren, Chewie and Han stealing the Falcon and rejoining the fight, etc., which were all cowardly and stupid?



Finn getting tazed by a mechanic who didn't have the drop on him despite being raised to be a soldier from childhood,
Damn, that stormtrooper spider-sense fails at the worst moments.


and prior to that getting the snot beaten out of him by Kylo

You mean getting roughed up by a trained Force user, much like dozens of stormtroopers fell to barely trained Force user Luke Skywalker in that first movie? Also, unless I'm forgetting, wasn't Finn very briefly holding his own against trained Force user and dark side apprentice Kylo Ren? How emasculating.



so that Rey could save the day.

That doesn't bother me nearly as much as that time when they wiped out entire fighter squadrons so that Hanna Solo could swoop in and save the rebellion.


Ackbar dying off screen while Leia mary poppins her way back to life.

I really, really did not like the campiness of that scene or Ackbar's unceremonious sendoff. That said, Leia's had twenty or thirty years to learn something or another about the Force from Luke, and I don't think that "gah, evil feminist agenda" and "Leia spends that time knitting and completely ignoring her Force sensitivity" are the only two options.



Snoke getting unceremoniously killed by Kylo following Rey's redemption gambit,


I read this as Snoke successfully tricking Rey into thinking a redemption gambit was possible (a brilliant and daring plan, I might add), with unintended consequences as his apprenticed proved to be more ambitious than previously expected.


Kylo wasting his chance to 'finish off' the Resistance,'
Tricked by a girl, no less. Damn that Lucia Skywalker!



Luke's entire character arc was about him being a failure as a Jedi and how he presumed that because of that the Jedi way must be a failure in and of itself.


So basically men have to be infallible? Luke had three movies to be pretty damn heroic. Do I wish he had a more promising future after that? Absolutely. However, feminism or not, having an older, experienced Luke Skywalker at the head of a resurgent Jedi order would have... well, honestly, it would have made me and other EU fans pretty happy, but I can see why it might have been difficult to reconcile that with a dramatic plot that can fit into three or four movies. More importantly, there's the Agenda.

You see, I actually agree that there was a harmful Agenda at work in the new trilogy, but it's not a feminist Agenda, or an evil Liberal Agenda, or a Jewish Agenda. It's the money-making, playing it safe Agenda. They tried some new stuff with the prequels, and many of them blew up in their faces. From the first ten minutes of TFA, I suspected that they pretty much asked fans about the things that they loved most about the original trilogy, picked out the most important ones, and built the plot around it. So you have desert planets, Force orphans, little furry bastards... but more importantly, you have David and Goliath. They clearly wanted to make sure that the heroes were once against a plucky resistance facing off against impossible odds, building up to a seemingly one-sided showdown, and it seems impossible to engineer that sort of story in a setting that includes a strong, prosperous new Republic, shepherded by a new Jedi order.

Like the first trilogy, this one wants to be the story of how the rebellion comes within a hair's breadth of losing everything. There's only two ways that could work in a setting where Luke is a perfectly well-adjusted Jedi master who didn't sit on his ass for a few decades. One, you spend the first movie wiping out not only the Republic, but also Order 66ing the Jedi. Maybe Luke survives, but you can't have enough surviving Jedi to make victory look achievable. (Also, that raises questions as to how a successful, well-adjusted Luke fails to prevent another Jedi massacre. Two, instead of powering down the good guys, you power up the bad guys, and introduce the Yuuzhan Vong. I would rather see Luke resign in disgrace for not doing enough about the Jedi pedophile scandal than see that happen.



Finn's initial character arc in TFA where he just wanted to run rather than fight.

You mean the part where he broke away from a lifetime of training to turn against an evil female leader? (Something, I should add, your friend Darth Ultron specifically cited as the sort of thing that would never happen if with a female leader thanks to "the Agenda.) Yes, I suppose one could argue that after disobeying, helping a rebel escape, and running off, the fact that he didn't want to keep fighting was an obvious sign of emasculating feminist agenda (sorry, Agenda.) Another interpretation is that it's leaving room for character development. Refusing to be complicit in evil requires courage--actively seeking out and fighting it requires much more. In the beginning of TFA, Finn had enough to do the former, and not the latter. By the end, that changed. (One reason I hate the Finn storyline in TLJ is that it erased that character development, but I digress.) It's the same thing that happens in numerous hero stories. Han Solo (original, not remasters) was a selfish, borderline amoral rogue who became a somewhat fair-weather hero at the end of A New Hope and slowly became a fully committed, do or die sort hero three movies in. Jessica Jones spent most of her first series as a selfish bitch too wrapped up in her own trauma to care about the world (or to be fair, to care enough to act) until circumstances force her to. Those of us who read the comics expect that to change--eventually--but the journey's clearly going to be slow.



Again and Again, Both of the main movies push the message that 'Women are Right and powerful, Men are Foolish or outright Wrong.'




The only place in which this dynamic is subverted is somewhat with the Villains and Phasma. But Phasma is a VILLAIN which overrules any protection she might have as a woman. She's not a woman people are meant to look up to, and so she isn't protected by representative concerns.)

Well, there's nothing I can say to that, is there? I guess so long as there isn't good, token representation, where at least one man gets to be the perfect hero, and one woman is the comic relief--also, she has to be a hero, not a villain or some other sort of character that "doesn't count"--then a movie is clearly biased against men and we should automatically question its motives.

What I do find interesting is that women, and minorities, and gays, and other groups, have been making pretty much the exact same argument as you about the movie industry as a whole for decades. Not only would they criticize specific movies for having almost all white males in the major roles, with white females mostly for T&A and everyone else either unrepresented, or in token roles, they would point to the fact that the vast majority of major movies shared this trait, and allege that it reflects something systemically wrong in Hollywood.




And connect two and two, with the point that,

- The Head of Lucasfilm is Kathleen Kennedy, who has certain beliefs that aren't hard to dig up.

The idea that there might be an 'Agenda' at work is plausible. Mind you, I doubt I'm using the word in the same sense Darth Ultron is using it, but eh.

Well, I really can't argue with that, can I? If a woman is female, and talked about how she wishes there were more women in movies, and managed to climb to a position of power in the industry, then it's certainly plausible that she might let that agenda influence her choices.

Also, I am assuming that for the sake of intellectual honesty, when a movie is produced or written or directed by a white male who--shall we say--might have once made an offhanded comment or joke that could be interpreted as less than politically correct, and a fan takes that comment and uses it--much like you have--to draw a similar connection between the fact that this white male almost exclusively casts white male heroes, and generally relegates women and minorities to less flattering, more two-dimensional roles and a certain Agenda, you always treat that fan's arguments with the same level of respect and consideration you're asking for now?

[Saintheart]

This is more egregious than young Anakin knowing how to fix and pilot starfighters based on less than a decade of tinkering and pod-racing... but not much. That said, what's the basis of your assertion that all she did was rip out scrap metal? As far as I remember, nothing in the move foreclosed the possibility that she might actually know enough about the ships she was salvaging to--for example--identify and extract the the parts that are more valuable than a big hunk of metal. Anakin built droids and vehicles from scrap--other than vague allusions to him being a natural at machines and having nothing else to do as a slaver, we're expected to not only accept that as plausible, but also to extrapolate the ability to fix and fly spacecraft. Out of all the Force users, only Luke was completely plausible to me--having access not only to small craft to practice with but older boys to teach them, the whole "Tatooine produces great fighter pilot" theme that continued in the EU was entirely believable.

Also to be fair, Anakin Sue was something that got some criticism in The Phantom Menace--though I don't recall the Men's Rights Agenda being blamed for it.

Leaving aside Anakin at 9 years old is absurdly overpowered (don't get me started on how the entire PT should've started with Qui-Gon rescuing Anakin when he's a hotheaded teenager who's been abused by his slave masters most of his life) he at least had plot-based-to-the-point-of-flogging-the-point-to-death reasons for being that powerful: higher midichlorian count than Yoda, and later on, he's literally the Chosen One. And on top of that, it had been set up from literally A New Hope that he was both a great pilot and strong enough with the Force to amaze even Obi-Wan, albeit we were probably expecting a fullgrown man, not a child, with that statement.

Rey, when she's asked by Poe how she managed to fly the Millennium Falcon (not to mention get it running when it hadn't flown in years), replies: "I don't know." That's it. All we've seen of her prior to that point is that she's basically a scavenger and maybe knows stuff about ship systems. My car mechanic is not an F1 racing driver.

Well, aside from some entirely new (and inconsistent with the series to date) mumbling by Snoke that apparently dark and light produce champions for the purpose of metaphysical MMA or something.

[Darth Ultron]

So the notion of a Female Authority Figure Character cannot be MADE in such a vacuum, as it will not be purely beholden to the story's needs, but also to the Boss's Views.

Having Strong Female Characters, or Diversity in general is not a problem until it comes to the point where the story itself is hampered due to meta-concerns because of worries over representation. Does this always happen? No. However Holdo's entire portrayal comes across as pulled out of a place where the sun doesn't shine, because she had to be right for out of universe reasons and they never bothered to come up with a compelling reason for that to be so.

Yup, what he said.

Holdo had to be the perfect character in exactly the way they wanted her to be...and they utterly did not care about the story or movie.



Also, this is an incredibly weaselly and cowardly statement. If I say "well, Phasma got hit, a lot, by Finn," you'll just say, "Well, I said 'too much.' Phasma got hit, but not 'too much.'" If I say, "Well, I think she actually got hit more than Poe," you'll probably just say "Well, that was 'too much' for him but not 'too much' for her."

Phasma is a good case in point...as just about the only evil woman combat character...who never takes off her armor. So, it is never overly shown she IS a woman. And the fight is not Fin vs a woman Phasma, it's Fin vs gold armor. And yes, you can hit armored people all you want...it's why Stormtroopers exist and can be killed like flies...it does not ''look'' like a person being hit or killed.



Phasma's entire leadership style is to intimidate and if necessary execute her subordinates, and to skip to the killing with respect to enemies. That is pretty stereotypically male.

Phasma is a decent character...too bad she did not get more screen time and character development or even get to take off her armor...even just her helmet...once.



Rey's approach to dealing with Kylo Ren is almost exactly what Luke's (who was a male, by the way) was in the original trilogy--first wanting to exact bloody vengeance for the death of a mentor, then trying to redeem him after discovering a possible connection with him.

Rea is not such a bad character when she is not ''the most powerful Jedi 4ever, because the Force is Female".



Do you know why the mutiny plot in BSG worked well? Because it was a well-written arc that paid off things that happened previously in the narrative and contributed to the future narrative and character development. Everything that our plot lacked.

Right, everything The Last Jedi lacked. Agreed.




Oh, and you think the BSG mutiny was better because Adama was a male who could be a ruthless badass? I think you need to rewatch the series. When Adama was sentencing the mutineers, he was resolved but also clearly sad about what happened to his former protege, and during the mutiny he even stopped Tigh from executing a traitor. Meanwhile, Roslin (she's the woman, by the way) basically takes command of the base star and tells the traitors that if they don't hand over Adama, she'll wipe them all out even if it kills her. When they claim Adama's already dead, that's precisely what she starts to do.


Right, BSG was well written. Agreed again.
Note President Roslin, and all BSG women are not the ''right kind'' of woman for the Agenda Types.



Mutiny on the Bounty was based in real life, so casting a woman would be strange, and Crimson Tide came before the Navy was integrated IIRC, but why couldn't you tell very similar stories with a woman in the lead?

Nope, sorry, any actor can play any role. It say a role must have a gender is like 19th century thinking.

And you CAN tell any story with a woman in the lead.....BUT you can't do it if your whole movie and worldview is only about promoting an Agenda.



I'm done. Like I said, your view clearly isn't falsifiable. If a movie is bad and it has anything remotely "Agenda" related, you'll claim it was because an Agent of the Agenda was more interested in "the Agenda" than making a good movie. If a movie has women, and minorities, and turns out to be good, you'll claim that it was a rare example of a case where "the Agents" didn't get involved. And if a movie that obviously caters to conservative white males turns out to also suck, you'll probably just blame the Jews.

Well, it's very much a clear fact Star wars has an Agenda: see for example Kathleen Kennedy's quotes about the movie and such.

There are tons of non-agenda movies with all sorts of people in them...lucky the agenda agents only control half of Hollywood. So it's not like such movies are rare...but yes, such movies are not made by the Agenda.




- Heroic Female Characters are portrayed as Competent, even in areas where there is no reason for them to be competent. (Rey living on a desert planet ripping scrap metal out of starships suddenly knows how to fly and repair one despite no demonstrable or stated past with them, Rey's more or less instant mastery of the force after realizing it was a thing that exists, Rose a more or less random mechanic with a shock-prod casually defeating Finn who's meant to be some sort of Storm Trooper Prodigy.)

- Heroic Female Characters are almost always right. No matter how little reason the story presents for the audience to believe them. (Rey believing Kylo could be turned against Snoke, Rose 'Rescueing' Finn from the Battering Ram Cannon, Holdo's plan, The bombing run going wrong as Leia insists it would.)

- If a Heroic Female Character does something, it is portrayed as brilliant and daring, despite what it may seem. (The extended 'kicking the ladder' scene with Roses Sister. Holdo's Plan.)

All good points, and great examples of what the Agenda does to a movie(s).



Compare to the Heroic Male characters, who are berated, made to look foolish, and or beaten outright, repeatedly.


All good points, and great examples of what the Agenda does to a movie(s).




This is my problem with the criticism of Holdo: People keep arguing, essentially, that Holdo is put out as this great character, and that they're the ones who were clever enough to see that Holdo is actually terrible, and it is this disconnect (with feminist undertones) that makes her terrible. To me, these people aren't as clever as they think. I think any reasonably competent person should realize that Holdo is making some terrible choices, and that this is by design.

The movie does a very poor job with the whole mutiny plot, really right from the start. Remember when Leia ORDERED the bombing run be called off? Remember when the whole fighter and bomber wings utterly ignored her direct order ? And the mutiny just goes downhill from there...

Not to mention the whole ''run away'' plot was beyond stupid to even start with..and that takes up like 2/3's of the movie. And the plot of...''ok lets go to the planet and let them kill us" was also very dumb. The very idea of keeping your fleet all together in one easy spot is a bad idea...rebellions work best in cells.

And on top of all that bad plot, they toss in Holdo, to be the conflict for Poe....and it just does not work.




This is more egregious than young Anakin knowing how to fix and pilot starfighters based on less than a decade of tinkering and pod-racing... but not much. That said, what's the basis of your assertion that all she did was rip out scrap metal?

Do we see Anakin fix a starfighter? And much of Anakin's flight in the starfighter is on auto pilot. And about the only 'fancy flying' he does is spinning...oh, and he flies into the hangar bay.




Also to be fair, Anakin Sue was something that got some criticism in The Phantom Menace--though I don't recall the Men's Rights Agenda being blamed for it.

Well, Anakin IS the Chosen One.



I really, really did not like the campiness of that scene or Ackbar's unceremonious sendoff. That said, Leia's had twenty or thirty years to learn something or another about the Force from Luke, and I don't think that "gah, evil feminist agenda" and "Leia spends that time knitting and completely ignoring her Force sensitivity" are the only two options.

Really, this was such a missed opportunity. NOT that Leia should have ever become a Jedi, but I would have loved to see her as a new role, like Force Matron or such. And it would have fit perfect as she ''touches both the Force and the Dark Side, but is not with either." But, they did not go that route.



What I do find interesting is that women, and minorities, and gays, and other groups, have been making pretty much the exact same argument as you about the movie industry as a whole for decades. Not only would they criticize specific movies for having almost all white males in the major roles, with white females mostly for T&A and everyone else either unrepresented, or in token roles, they would point to the fact that the vast majority of major movies shared this trait, and allege that it reflects something systemically wrong in Hollywood.

Well, a lot of this has to do with the Agenda can never be happy....the Agenda is all they have. So even If they go everything they say they want...they won't be happy and will still complain.

Plus it's amazing how they DO have the support of at least half of Hollywood...and they still do nothing? Weird.

For a some other examples:

*The movie makes a vague point that arms dealers are bad...even if they sell stuff to the good guys? But then just drops that thread as it would be to risky to go any further and the movie wants to play it self.

*The little kids in Space Vegas are slaves, right? The movie does not say...but that monster alien did raise his whip to one. And, ok, sure slaves exist in the Empire, maybe? We know they were around in the Republic 'Outer Rim'. But again the movie just drops this...

*So where the indestructible horse goat things intelligent or just animals? Is the movie saying all animal racing is bad? Or is this just more slavery is bad?

All of the above are just hinted at in the movie and tossed aside. Mostly here for the politically correct Agenda.

[druid91]

Also counterpoint: Holdo. She has every reason to be competent (she became a leader in the rebellion, after all.) She is not depicted as such.

And before you object, I remind you that being right about something is not the same as being competent. Holdo had a secret plan and Poe was wrong about not having a secret plan... and that is pretty much the extent to which the movie depicted Holdo positively. As others have pointed out, she dressed in a way that guaranteed that Poe--and probably a lot of other rebels--would have a terrible first impression of her as a serious leader. Maybe she did something to earn the right to do so, but that's irrelevant when being put into a situation with a bunch of new subordinates. If Admiral Badass talks strategy to the parrot on his shoulder like it's no big deal, but is so respected by his crew for his leadership and tactical brilliance that they overlook this eccentricity, that's fine when he's being introduced to new crew joining his command, where literally everybody else will be reassuring the new guy that the unconventional Admiral is actually pretty great. If, however, Admiral Badass is being transferred to command of a new ship with an entirely new crew, he should probably consider saving the parrot for his second day on the job.

Holdo knew Poe was insubordinate, convinced that the leadership had no plan, and pretty much only trusted Leia, and yet she was completely blind to the possibility that Leia's incapacitation might trigger him and the hopeless situation might cause him (or who knows how many others) to take drastic action. Hell, even the remote possibility of a spy on board should have led her to take enough precautions to prevent such a half-assed mutiny.

This is my problem with the criticism of Holdo: People keep arguing, essentially, that Holdo is put out as this great character, and that they're the ones who were clever enough to see that Holdo is actually terrible, and it is this disconnect (with feminist undertones) that makes her terrible. To me, these people aren't as clever as they think. I think any reasonably competent person should realize that Holdo is making some terrible choices, and that this is by design. Remember what I said about guarding against spies? If Holdo had any reason to suspect there were spies, she would take precautions to make sure that no small group could hold the ship hostage from a single place, even one as secure as the bridge. But she didn't, meaning that she's either making poor choices, or she honestly believed that the ship was completely free of spies (which, to be fair, it seemed to be.) If this is the case, why keep the plan a secret?! It should have been obvious that

The issue with this, is it's a BAD portrayal of Competence but nonetheless, we're meant to come away with the message that 'Holdo was really brilliant all along.' As evidenced by Poe's reaction to the plan after he's on the ship and Leia's bit about 'protecting the light, not seeming a hero.'

We, as an audience can go "Well that doesn't quite make sense movie?" And that's fair, but that's not what the movie is telling us. The movie is telling us that Holdo was brilliant and that Poe mucked it up.




This is more egregious than young Anakin knowing how to fix and pilot starfighters based on less than a decade of tinkering and pod-racing... but not much. That said, what's the basis of your assertion that all she did was rip out scrap metal? As far as I remember, nothing in the move foreclosed the possibility that she might actually know enough about the ships she was salvaging to--for example--identify and extract the the parts that are more valuable than a big hunk of metal. Anakin built droids and vehicles from scrap--other than vague allusions to him being a natural at machines and having nothing else to do as a slaver, we're expected to not only accept that as plausible, but also to extrapolate the ability to fix and fly spacecraft. Out of all the Force users, only Luke was completely plausible to me--having access not only to small craft to practice with but older boys to teach them, the whole "Tatooine produces great fighter pilot" theme that continued in the EU was entirely believable.

Also to be fair, Anakin Sue was something that got some criticism in The Phantom Menace--though I don't recall the Men's Rights Agenda being blamed for it.

Indeed, there have been other cases of this sort of nonsense before yes. Anakin being the Jedi Chosen One was kind of.... off as well. Especially considering who he was meant to become. But it was never gendered the way it is in the new series.



This didn't really bother me, maybe because I have some experience in martial arts and combat shooting sports and I realize how tenuous an advantage can be. An experienced, conditioned fighter will always dominate a novice in the ring, and a skilled marksman will generally beat an unskilled one in a duel, but if you involve weapons and the element of surprise, you get a lot more randomness. Finn was more worried about Rose alerting other people, probably had no idea that she would actually attack him with a weapon that could do damage, and--to me anyway--doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would, given the chance, hurt her in order to escape. Rose essentially getting lucky and sucker punching him? A bit of a contrivance, sure, but not so beyond the realm of plausibility that the only rational explanation is the Feminist Agenda.

Maybe, but it does fall into just 'one more tick point' You asked for points, and so I thought and picked a few out.


Do you believe that half-truths are no better than complete falsehoods? You're right, Rey believed Kylo Ren could be turned against Snoke, and she was right about that part.

But have you already forgotten that Rey believed that Kylo could be turned against Snoke and the First Order, and the Dark Side in general, and redeemed, and that there was still good in him? At least on the short term, she was horribly wrong about that one.

And yet, what exactly are the consequences of this for her? What DISASTROUS HARDSHIP did this mistake cause? The 'I can't believe he's not the Emperor' is dead. And the new Emperor is her rival, who's an emotionally disturbed young adult with little to no tactical or strategic sense. Noone she loved died because of it. She didn't lose anything important. Heck she wasn't even seriously injured and being there meant she was close enough to be able to rescue the remains of the resistance.

Rey's mistakes always seem to somehow... not only NOT cause consequences to her, but either make her stronger or just have no effect whatsoever.


As opposed to Poe in that first scene in TFA, Finn and Poe's escape in that same movie, Luke pulling one over on Kylo Ren, Chewie and Han stealing the Falcon and rejoining the fight, etc., which were all cowardly and stupid?

Are they always cowardly and stupid? No. However they Often Are. Whereas... as mentioned above, Women never are. Though oftentimes if you look at the bigger context? Poe gets captured in that first scene in TFA, Finn and Poe forget to unlock the fuel line. during their escape attempt almost spoiling it, Luke Pulls one over on Kylo Ren, saving a handful of people, and then DIES after willfully ignoring the problem for what appears to be a decade or more, Chewie and Hand Stealing the Falcon, only to get immediately boarded by not one but TWO crime syndicates that they somehow didn't notice sneaking up on them.

Mens successes in these movies are almost always counterbalanced with some manner of failure. Amusing or not, and they generally face some manner of CONSEQUENCES when they fail. The same cannot be said of (Heroic) Women.



You mean getting roughed up by a trained Force user, much like dozens of stormtroopers fell to barely trained Force user Luke Skywalker in that first movie? Also, unless I'm forgetting, wasn't Finn very briefly holding his own against trained Force user and dark side apprentice Kylo Ren? How emasculating.

A fair point, but again, let's compare to Rey's "Getting Roughed up by Kylo" scene. She gets captured. He uses the force on her to try and interrogate her and she turns it around and learns how to use the force, before promptly escaping on her own without outside help, and then saving Finns Life by beating Kylo. That is not a consequence. And if somehow your failures end up being successes, they stop being failures. Jar Jar tripping around in that battle and destroying hundreds of battle droids isn't him losing.



I really, really did not like the campiness of that scene or Ackbar's unceremonious sendoff. That said, Leia's had twenty or thirty years to learn something or another about the Force from Luke, and I don't think that "gah, evil feminist agenda" and "Leia spends that time knitting and completely ignoring her Force sensitivity" are the only two options.

They aren't. Again, I don't even think the Agenda is evil. It's just 'an Agenda'. It's not some evil conspiracy to kill starwars. She wants good representatives for women in the movies. Not a bad goal, but it is bad when it leads to all women on the side of good being infallible mary sues. The Men are quite frankly, just about where I want them in terms of 'Successful vs Failure Prone' Flawed but competent.

Now could we please have Leia make a wrong call? Or Rey slip up and get seriously injured and not somehow become godlike and powerful because of it?

IF I want to make some tea sweet, and I accidentally add salt. The goal of 'Sweeter Tea' isn't wrong. But the execution of 'Added Salt' IS.


I read this as Snoke successfully tricking Rey into thinking a redemption gambit was possible (a brilliant and daring plan, I might add), with unintended consequences as his apprenticed proved to be more ambitious than previously expected.


Tricked by a girl, no less. Damn that Lucia Skywalker!

I mean, that's exactly what happened. He did something that was 'brilliant and daring' and his reward was getting summarily bisected. He was a 'Flawed but Effective' Villain for as long as he was there.

Meanwhile, Holdo does something stupid, gets lauded as a Hero, too humble to call herself that, and has her Heroic Sacrifice decimate the FO's fleet, allowing the remaining Resistance fighters to go to ground. Now if only Poe hadn't ruined her plan....


So basically men have to be infallible? Luke had three movies to be pretty damn heroic. Do I wish he had a more promising future after that? Absolutely. However, feminism or not, having an older, experienced Luke Skywalker at the head of a resurgent Jedi order would have... well, honestly, it would have made me and other EU fans pretty happy, but I can see why it might have been difficult to reconcile that with a dramatic plot that can fit into three or four movies. More importantly, there's the Agenda.

The Opposite, Make Women Fallible. REALLY Fallible, as opposed to "Oh she made a mistake and somehow became a Space Wizard because of it." "Woops she made a mistake and killed off all the Space Mafia." (Though Anakin had plenty of these 'Mistakes' as well to be fair. Like the time he 'accidentally' hid in a fighter that ended up going into orbit and 'accidentally' flew into the hangar and 'accidentally' blew up the reactor.)


You see, I actually agree that there was a harmful Agenda at work in the new trilogy, but it's not a feminist Agenda, or an evil Liberal Agenda, or a Jewish Agenda. It's the money-making, playing it safe Agenda. They tried some new stuff with the prequels, and many of them blew up in their faces. From the first ten minutes of TFA, I suspected that they pretty much asked fans about the things that they loved most about the original trilogy, picked out the most important ones, and built the plot around it. So you have desert planets, Force orphans, little furry bastards... but more importantly, you have David and Goliath. They clearly wanted to make sure that the heroes were once against a plucky resistance facing off against impossible odds, building up to a seemingly one-sided showdown, and it seems impossible to engineer that sort of story in a setting that includes a strong, prosperous new Republic, shepherded by a new Jedi order.

Like the first trilogy, this one wants to be the story of how the rebellion comes within a hair's breadth of losing everything. There's only two ways that could work in a setting where Luke is a perfectly well-adjusted Jedi master who didn't sit on his ass for a few decades. One, you spend the first movie wiping out not only the Republic, but also Order 66ing the Jedi. Maybe Luke survives, but you can't have enough surviving Jedi to make victory look achievable. (Also, that raises questions as to how a successful, well-adjusted Luke fails to prevent another Jedi massacre. Two, instead of powering down the good guys, you power up the bad guys, and introduce the Yuuzhan Vong. I would rather see Luke resign in disgrace for not doing enough about the Jedi pedophile scandal than see that happen.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Again, I'm not saying this is some evil cult "Mwahaha, Starwars is in our grasp now and we shall make it ALL ABOUT THE WOMEN! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" That'd be ridiculous. What I'm saying is that Female characters are handled noticeably differently from male characters in a manner that detracts from the overall story.

Leia never makes mistakes. (Except of course, trusting Poe and Han. But again, that's THEIR fault.)

Holdo is portrayed as having made no mistakes and it was all Poe's fault.

Rey's 'Mistakes' inevitably turn out better for the good guys as a whole rather than actively harming anything whatsoever. (Considering the results of her mistakes have been 'Becomes a Force User' and 'Kills the Supreme Leader of the First Order')



You mean the part where he broke away from a lifetime of training to turn against an evil female leader? (Something, I should add, your friend Darth Ultron specifically cited as the sort of thing that would never happen if with a female leader thanks to "the Agenda.) Yes, I suppose one could argue that after disobeying, helping a rebel escape, and running off, the fact that he didn't want to keep fighting was an obvious sign of emasculating feminist agenda (sorry, Agenda.) Another interpretation is that it's leaving room for character development. Refusing to be complicit in evil requires courage--actively seeking out and fighting it requires much more. In the beginning of TFA, Finn had enough to do the former, and not the latter. By the end, that changed. (One reason I hate the Finn storyline in TLJ is that it erased that character development, but I digress.) It's the same thing that happens in numerous hero stories. Han Solo (original, not remasters) was a selfish, borderline amoral rogue who became a somewhat fair-weather hero at the end of A New Hope and slowly became a fully committed, do or die sort hero three movies in. Jessica Jones spent most of her first series as a selfish bitch too wrapped up in her own trauma to care about the world (or to be fair, to care enough to act) until circumstances force her to. Those of us who read the comics expect that to change--eventually--but the journey's clearly going to be slow.

Indeed, the part where he broke away from a lifetime of training to escape, and then required Rey's goading and eventual capture to actually do anything about. Is it a BAD story? Not at all, it's a good one. I actually LIKE Finn's story.

But do you know what you get when you take a good story with a character with room for growth and then set it alongside a mysteriously omnicompetent character who's somehow perfectly infallible?

It comes across looking somewhat foolish.


Well, there's nothing I can say to that, is there? I guess so long as there isn't good, token representation, where at least one man gets to be the perfect hero, and one woman is the comic relief--also, she has to be a hero, not a villain or some other sort of character that "doesn't count"--then a movie is clearly biased against men and we should automatically question its motives.

What I do find interesting is that women, and minorities, and gays, and other groups, have been making pretty much the exact same argument as you about the movie industry as a whole for decades. Not only would they criticize specific movies for having almost all white males in the major roles, with white females mostly for T&A and everyone else either unrepresented, or in token roles, they would point to the fact that the vast majority of major movies shared this trait, and allege that it reflects something systemically wrong in Hollywood.

OR perhaps if a series of movies presents Heroic men in one way (As Flawed but Effective Hero's.) But then repeatedly portrays Heroic women in another (As Infallible Hero's) then we can make the inference that perhaps there is an agenda at play?



Well, I really can't argue with that, can I? If a woman is female, and talked about how she wishes there were more women in movies, and managed to climb to a position of power in the industry, then it's certainly plausible that she might let that agenda influence her choices.

Also, I am assuming that for the sake of intellectual honesty, when a movie is produced or written or directed by a white male who--shall we say--might have once made an offhanded comment or joke that could be interpreted as less than politically correct, and a fan takes that comment and uses it--much like you have--to draw a similar connection between the fact that this white male almost exclusively casts white male heroes, and generally relegates women and minorities to less flattering, more two-dimensional roles and a certain Agenda, you always treat that fan's arguments with the same level of respect and consideration you're asking for now?

Considering you're treating me with the respect and consideration of barely restrained disdain (Not that I expected much different. It's a touchy subject.) Yes. I never said it was WRONG to have her agenda. I just said she has one, it has a noticeable deleterious effect on the movies, and that scaling it back a bit would be nice.

Rey doesn't need to be a man. Holdo doesn't need to be a man. And it would be really strange if Leia was a man.

They just need to have their flaws show. Their mistakes bite them.

Unfortunately, I would be surprised if such a thing would happen under Kathleen Kennedy's leadership. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised nonetheless.

[Peelee]

Rey doesn't need to be a man. Holdo doesn't need to be a man. And it would be really strange if Leia was a man.

They just need to have their flaws show. Their mistakes bite them.

Under their command, the Resistance has gone from an unsanctioned New Republic military force to maybe a dozen people. What more do you want? Poe to turn to the camera and say "IT IS OK MEN ARE HERE NOW"?

Honestly, this whole men's rights bull**** is ridiculous.

[druid91]

Under their command, the Resistance has gone from an unsanctioned New Republic military force to maybe a dozen people. What more do you want? Poe to turn to the camera and say "IT IS OK MEN ARE HERE NOW"?

Honestly, this whole men's rights bull**** is ridiculous.

It's gone from an Unsanctioned New Republic Military Force to maybe a dozen people and the movie very clearly places the blame with Poe for messing up Holdo's plan, complete with Leia Grandma lecture about how he did wrong but it's ok, he learned his lesson.

WE can place the blame wherever we want. I can blame Luke for Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's death, but the movie says it's the Empires fault.

And TLJ very clearly says that it's Poe's fault everyone is dead.

[Peelee]

It's gone from an Unsanctioned New Republic Military Force to maybe a dozen people and the movie very clearly places the blame with Poe for messing up Holdo's plan, complete with Leia Grandma lecture about how he did wrong but it's ok, he learned his lesson.

WE can place the blame wherever we want. I can blame Luke for Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's death, but the movie says it's the Empires fault.

And TLJ very clearly says that it's Poe's fault everyone is dead.

Poe ordered the Dreadnought to be destroyed. The Dreadnought had a long-range gun that could obliterate capital ships. Non-destroyed Dreadnought = destroyed Resistance fleet.

Oh look in TLJ Poe's direct actions literally saved the whole Resistance from being destroyed.

You can claim the movie says whatever you want, the actual events of the movie don't support it.

[Mechalich]

Poe ordered the Dreadnought to be destroyed. The Dreadnought had a long-range gun that could obliterate capital ships. Non-destroyed Dreadnought = destroyed Resistance fleet.

Oh look in TLJ Poe's direct actions literally saved the whole Resistance from being destroyed.

You can claim the movie says whatever you want, the actual events of the movie don't support it.

And yet Leia immediately demoted him afterward, and not for disobedience, but because she claimed the cost of his actions were too high. You are quite correct that the actual facts of the engagement fly in the face of this, but that does not match with what the various characters say and do. This is a consistent problem throughout TLJ and one of the central reasons why the movie does not work. Time and time again something will happen and subsequent to those events - or even during them such as during Luke's final speech - characters will cast them in a completely false reference frame.

Rian Johnson is not interested in the actual events portrayed. He's only interested in how those events impact characters. It's a major feature of his other films - Looper has a specific scene where Bruce Willis says 'F the mechanics of time travel,' even though time travel is the movie's central device. In the context of a movie like Looper - a quirky indie sci-fi character study - this works, verisimilitude bar is not set very high. In the context of Star Wars - a massive blockbuster fantasy epic supported by forty years of production - it fails miserably because the verisimilitude demand is about as high as it can possibly be.

[Saintheart]

And yet Leia immediately demoted him afterward, and not for disobedience, but because she claimed the cost of his actions were too high. You are quite correct that the actual facts of the engagement fly in the face of this, but that does not match with what the various characters say and do. This is a consistent problem throughout TLJ and one of the central reasons why the movie does not work. Time and time again something will happen and subsequent to those events - or even during them such as during Luke's final speech - characters will cast them in a completely false reference frame.

e.g. and possibly the most obvious example of this: Rose knocks Finn out of the path of the mini-Death-Star laser, and says something about how victory will come by saving what we love, not destroying what we hate. Lolwut? Finn was about to sacrifice himself in order to save the entirety of what's left of the Resistance, which Rose stopped him doing. Never mind that Rose's very decision also results directly in the death of Luke Skywalker, since the only reason Luke does his heart-attack-inducing-magic-hologram thing is because the Resistance needs time to clear out the back door.

As far as Holdo/Poe/Leia and gender wars and whatnot, I will just make one notation which might illustrate some of the irk that comes out of that scene: reverse the sexes of these three characters and play all their scenes out again together, line by line, same actions by all the same principals, just with males in place of females and vice versa. Tell me whether anybody would've bought those scenes or whether there wouldn't have been screeching from one end of the Internet to the other. And if you don't buy it with a male Holdo and a male Leia upbraiding a female Poe for going out and stopping a Dreadnought blowing the entire Resistance away, if you don't buy a male Holdo's absolutely ludicrous plan -- then why does it fly with the ladies in charge?

[Delicious Taffy]

Has anyone else here read those Young Obi-Wan novels? I remember checking one or two of them out when I was a kid, but I can't remember if they were any good. All I remember from one of them was an alien who couldn't eat salt, something about Hutts, and I think there was a part where Obi-Wan and some buddies dress up like space hipsters to spy on someone.

[Mightymosy]

If Rey had killed Finn I would hate the movie even more than I do now. No one is accomplishing anything in The Last Jedi. It's just one person being a miserable failure after another. Stacking Rey murdering one of the "good guys" on top of that would be awful. Holdo and Poe get nearly the entire Resistance killed through their actions. Luke almost kills his sleeping child nephew. I'm seriously quite done with "heroes" being reckless murderous *******s.

Let's have people be good guys, that beat the bad guys and do good heroic things that don't kill everyone.

I'd sign this not only for Star Wars but in general.
DONE with the "anti-heroes"!

Interstingly, the public might agree with me for once: The most successful movie franchise right now is Marvel I think. It has beaten Star Wars (shocking, I think).
And you know what? Marvel heroes are for the most part heroes.
Unlike the "resistance", I WANT the avengers to win when I watch them. (disclaimer: I'm only just getting started with Marvel, have only watched 7 or 8 movies or so).

[137beth]

Well, in general, whatever you don't see in an Agenda Movie. Watch some modern Star Wars movie news, and you will see and hear ''strong woman character'' get mentioned, a lot. Over and over and over again.

Some specifically made impossible things:

1)Can't have a strong woman character be wrong. Women are right.
2)Can't have a woman be 'hit' too much(even more so by a man), and never outside of a 'official fight'.
3)Can't have a strong woman character ''act'' like a man, and do anything a ''man'' might do(even if it makes sense)...they must always ''find another way" aka ''the woman way."



Every watch the new Battlestar Galactica? Well, they have a mutiny plot. Now put William Adama in command of the rebels and have Poe whine...you'd get more ''get this fracking hot shot out of here and lock him in a cell, if he resists, shoot him!"

AND you could of had a male Holdo be WRONG...so viewers would take Poes side. Then the male Holdo would make up for it with the big sacrifice (except a guy would have done it in 1.1 seconds and not sat there and watched like 15 shuttles full of people die).



True, as Fin is not a white male....and he does represent the more 'squishy' guys. Some guys just smash a spider, even them big inch ones.....some like Fin scream and jump on a chair and beg for help.



The Agenda is about many things, not just one take.



The Basic Flaw: They are first and fore most making an Agenda Movie. Everything else comes way, way, way second...including making a good movie. The Agenda comes first and only.

A normal movie maker will say "How can I make the best movie in every and any way possible".

An Agenda Agent who is in control of a movie is only saying-"We must promote the Agenda!"



To the Agenda, Liea is not a strong, powerful woman: she 1)Acts too much like a man(she for example uses a gun to kill people) and 2)The Poor Weak Princess has to be rescued by a man in every movie.



The Agenda is not just about women...they have many agendas. The ''bombing run'' is just bad moviemaking all around. The Agenda part comes in when they say ''whatever, open the movie with the silly pew pew for all the boys and man-childs. Just throw some stuff together, so we can get to the strong women parts!"



It is not the actor, no matter what they are...again, it is the Agenda doing things. As any good (non-agenda) movie will show you, any actor no matter what they are, can do anything.



Well, male mutinies have commanders that are wrong..or evil, so you side with the 'crew'. Mutiny on the Bounty and Crimson Tide are good examples.



Okay, let's see if I understand this correctly:

A New Hope is by far the worst movie in the Star Wars franchise, and one of the worst movies of all time. It has the most simplistic and trite plot of any Star Wars movie. Every character, every event, will seem utterly banal and predictable to anyone with even a passing familiarity with classic literature and mythology. Of course, a story with a simplistic and trite plot can still be good if it is well-written (just look at Empire Strikes Back for an example of such a film). Unfortunately, ANH is not well written. As Harrison Ford said himself on set, the dialogue is horrendous. The pacing is terrible. A 5-year-old could have written sentences that sounded less awkward.
Everything about the way it is written is bad. The only reason anyone ever gave Episode IV the time of day is because the special effects looked good for 1977, and people who saw it when they were kids are completely controlled by nonstalgia for how they remember it looking back then.

But the reason A New Hope was so bad is because Luke is a white male. If Luke wasn't a white man, then George Lucas could have hired a half-way decent script-writer and the dialogue wouldn't be so awful. But because Luke was white and male, The Agenda dictated that he must speak in a really clumsy manner. Moreover, because Luke is "normal," everything he does is required to be completely cliche and boring by The Agenda People, hence the dumb plot of ANH. If Luke had not been a white man, then he might have been allowed to do something "exotic," and so there could have been a half-way original story. Thus, everything wrong with A New Hope, everything that makes it the worst movie of all time, can be blamed entirely on The Agenda making Luke a white man.


Did I do that right?

[Mightymosy]

There wasn't any cloaking technology?

The plan was litterally "They won't look at SMALL things on their scanners!" The fact that it 'almost worked' and the First Order was willing to pay a guy tons of money for the tip says more about the FO's incompetence than it does Holdo's competence.

Wait, what?????

Can anyone please check the German version? I was pretty sure they mentioned "cloaking" somewhere.
Or did my mind make that up so the Holdo plan made at least a tiny amount of sense??

Can we summarise the Holdo plan?

1. Fly to Crait with the FO directly behind.
2. Get everyon except Holdo onboard the shuttles
3. Turn Raddus around and smash the FO main ship with a hyperspace jump that has so far been impossible.
4. The shuttles fly to Crait
5. The FO forgets to scan for them.
6. The FO forgets to search for survivors on the suspiciously close planet - a planet the Raddus hat set course to, for the last 18 hours or so.
7. The people use the Crait antennae to send a distress call.
8. The FO doesnt recieve that distress call, or if it does, doesnt track it to Crait.


And that plan is better than:
A1. Everyone get into hyperdrive capabale escape pods and/or shuttles and SCATTER TO THE WINDS
A2. Hope as many as possible survive

Both plans hinge on the FO not looking too closely at small objects, but the second one sounds way more reasonable to me.

[Daimbert]

Can we summarise the Holdo plan?

1. Fly to Crait with the FO directly behind.
2. Get everyon except Holdo onboard the shuttles
3. Turn Raddus around and smash the FO main ship with a hyperspace jump that has so far been impossible.
4. The shuttles fly to Crait
5. The FO forgets to scan for them.
6. The FO forgets to search for survivors on the suspiciously close planet - a planet the Raddus hat set course to, for the last 18 hours or so.
7. The people use the Crait antennae to send a distress call.
8. The FO doesnt recieve that distress call, or if it does, doesnt track it to Crait.

From my understanding, the plan was actually:

1) Have the remnants of the Resistance land on Crait.
2) Have the flagship then jump away.
3) The FO will track it and thus jump away after them.
4) The remaining forces will call for their allies to rescue them.

Holdo only jumps at the Dreadnought because it was destroying the shuttles and she needed to stop that so that at least SOME would survive to land on the planet and cower under their shield.


I'd sign this not only for Star Wars but in general.
DONE with the "anti-heroes"!

In my own defense, the point is not to make Rey an anti-hero, but to turn her AWAY from being an anti-hero like she is now by instead making her "The Atoner".


Did I do that right?

Unlikely, since I have NO idea what your sarcasm is supposed to be referring to or what point it's supposed to be making ... which is a common flaw of heavy snark and sarcasm.


Under their command, the Resistance has gone from an unsanctioned New Republic military force to maybe a dozen people. What more do you want? Poe to turn to the camera and say "IT IS OK MEN ARE HERE NOW"?

Honestly, this whole men's rights bull**** is ridiculous.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that the movie tries to blame that all on Poe, it's ALSO not portrayed as being Leia's fault either. Their initial losses are pretty much portrayed as the same sort of thing the Rebellion went through before Empire: overwhelming force from the Empire who is now paying a lot of attention to them. And it is indeed portrayed in the movie that the failure of the Crait plan is Poe's fault, which is what reduces them to the final state of only a dozen people. So despite the fact that if you look at what actually happened in the movie the big mistakes here are Holdo's and Leia's, the movie is trying to sell the idea that they were the competent ones and not responsible for this nonetheless.

The only thing that makes this not really a problem for me is the fact that the movie can't sell ANY of its messages consistently, so while there does seem to be an intended message that would fit with "The Agenda" -- meaning the thrust to have more diverse characters in movies and portray them positively, which is not something I oppose as long as it doesn't get in the way of the movie itself -- that message doesn't really come through in the movie as filmed.

But, yes, it does get in the way of the movie. The typical and standard way to do this sort of arc would be to introduce the new leader and have them be wrong in the end, cost the lives of lots of people, and have Poe save the remainder with the plan they should have gone with in the first place. This is because Poe is a main character and Holdo is a new character and, as demonstrated, is a one-shot character. Having them go out with a heroic sacrifice to implement Poe's plan once they come around to understanding that it was the right move is an optional dramatic redemption arc: we see them as someone with good intentions who was just plain wrong. The OTHER way to do it is to build them up as someone everyone dislikes and thinks is just plain wrong, but have them turn out to be right, and then to join with the main group as a proven leader. But you only do that one if you want to keep the character around, because you end up downgrading your main character if you do that so it has to pay off somehow. NEITHER of these were done, and it does seem reasonable that the reason it wasn't played that way was because they didn't want to risk introducing a female character into a leadership position and then have her obviously fail at leadership. And the sad thing is that they did that ANYWAY but keep trying to deny it in the movie.

So, let's turn to a comparison:


...and this "the Agenda" how? Sounds like the main problem is that she's a female Lando.

Except that she isn't. For one, Lando is wearing a military uniform in RotJ. The only addition is that he adds a cape. Second, we've already had him introduced as a character and, through the rescue of Han, have him inducted into the main cast. Third, he's already been shown to be at least somewhat competent and to have leadership abilities (from his leadership on Bespin). Fourth, even with that, we STILL have a conversation between him and Han -- a character that we can trust -- about his abilities, where Lando points out one of his own accomplishments, Han acknowledges it, and then reveals that the Rebellion command structure ASKED him about Lando, likely both how skilled he was and if he could be trusted.

So, for Lando, we have Lando as a main character volunteering to lead the assault as part of his redemption arc and the Rebellion command structure checking him out and deciding that of their options he's the best qualified. In terms of the structure of the movie, the reasons for doing this are obvious: all of the other main characters will be occupied elsewhere, and Lando is the most prominent character and most prominent actor left standing, and it dramatically completes his redemption arc.

Compare that to Holdo. Where Lando's competence was talked about in an understated manner -- Han says that he only told them that Lando was a "fair" pilot -- Holdo is presented as an exceptionally competent and heroic figure that ... we've never heard of. We have seen her do nothing before this and her actions don't present her as a great leader in any way, despite her build-up. There is no arc for her, she's not a main character, and she doesn't become one like Lando did after Empire. Her outfit COULD reflect her being a noble playing at war but the movie does nothing to establish that and in fact contradicts it in what it says. Moreover, attention is DRAWN to her appearance suggesting that we're supposed to be surprised by something whereas for Lando NO ONE comments that he looks like he's playing at war.

And to me the clearest indication of "the Agenda" is that comment that Holdo was not what Poe was expecting, because that line baffled me when I watched the movie. What are we supposed to be surprised about? I mean, I noticed the lack of uniform, but as people have pointed out Leia doesn't wear one either. And given the alien cultures, the hair's not all that much of a surprise. So, what is it? It could be that "Holdo" was a woman, which then would be a shot at the "Men's Rights bull****" ... but most Star Wars fan would NOT be surprised at a female war hero, so that only works if you buy into the crap thrown around about Star Wars fans and nerd culture in general, which then reveals that they are working from the mindset of "The Agenda" and not from the mindset of reality.

If that isn't it, then I have no clue what that was supposed to mean and the movie clearly thinks it should be obvious what that means since they never mention it. That's why I think it is indeed intended at being a shot about a woman being in that role, as that would be obvious enough that everyone would note it and fits in with an idea that such things shock male audiences.

So, no, Holdo is NOT a female Lando, and the differences show just why the structure failed, and it seems like the structure failed because they COULDN'T use the standard approach there because it would mean introducing a female leader who was incompetent at leadership, which isn't a positive portrayal of women and so would defeat the purpose of making her female in the first place.

[Calemyr]

On the tracking: I thought the point of the tracking element was that it was supposed to be impossible but the First Order figured out how to do it. The FO ships are not close enough for typical scanning tech to be useful, they're watching and following the Resistance from further away than should technically be possible. So, no, they could easily not be able to see anything but their largest ships from that distance, or at least that tracking smaller ships is an exponentially greater challenge and deemed unnecessary as long as they can track the big ones.

On Agenda: Everyone has an agenda. Well, most people, anyway. Mine tends to be to find logical solutions to problems I see in a narrative. Agendas on their own aren't bad. But tactless people often pursue their agenda in tactless ways. Often, the easiest way to hold up one group of people is to diminish another group - either make them blindly mean, arrogantly stupid, or unreasoning zealots. Arrogant stupidity is the most popular path, in my experience. Men are treated as mentally deficient man-children who cannot function without a woman cleaning up after them, often just assuming they're in charge because they're men. TLJ renders all the males in the story into losers in their own ways. The big bad trio are a blindly arrogant bad boss with no situational awareness despite the fact that situational awareness is a cornerstone of force abilities, an emotionally stunted man-child prone to violent temper tantrums, and an overwound fool who should be competent at his job but is instead dismissed as the butt of various jokes. Finn plays second fiddle to a new character on an irrelevant and wholly detrimental side story, Poe is summarily dismissed as a hot-headed flyboy and given no consideration for his contributions to the effort, Luke is transformed from the hero who insisted there was good even in a seemingly wholly evil war criminal into a guy who would attempt to murder his own nephew out of fear and then just give up on the galaxy when that unsurprisingly goes wrong, and Ackbar is present just so there's a recognizable face to kill off in a space battle. The women are presented as superior, but not given much sensible evidence to prove it.

"The Agenda" isn't a bad thing, in itself. A character should never be lesser because it is female. How you pursue an agenda, however, is paramount. It can be done with cunning and grace or with blatant ham-fisted force. And TLJ pursued it poorly, both in the movie and in the aftermath of it.

On Episode IV: Calling the original Star Wars cliche and uninspired is kinda funny, because what makes it cliche and uninspired is that others have stolen so mercilessly from it since then that its uniqueness has been tarnished after the fact. It's kind of like calling Aragorn a "generic ranger" despite the fact that Lord of the Rings came before D&D and Aragorn was the inspiration for that class.

[Daimbert]

On the tracking: I thought the point of the tracking element was that it was supposed to be impossible but the First Order figured out how to do it. The FO ships are not close enough for typical scanning tech to be useful, they're watching and following the Resistance from further away than should technically be possible. So, no, they could easily not be able to see anything but their largest ships from that distance, or at least that tracking smaller ships is an exponentially greater challenge and deemed unnecessary as long as they can track the big ones.

The tracking element was that they had a way to track them through hyperspace, and so even if they jumped away the FO would follow them there. And since they only had enough fuel for one more jump, that would drain them of fuel and the FO would wipe them out, hence their staying JUST far enough ahead of them that they couldn't be wiped out by the FO's firepower but couldn't get out of range of the tracking. Which is indeed a very specific level of speed differential (which is also nonsensical if you think about it).

[Darth Ultron]

Okay, let's see if I understand this correctly:

A New Hope is by far the worst movie in the Star Wars franchise, and one of the worst movies of all time. It has the most simplistic and trite plot of any Star Wars movie. Every character, every event, will seem utterly banal and predictable to anyone with even a passing familiarity with classic literature and mythology. Of course, a story with a simplistic and trite plot can still be good if it is well-written (just look at Empire Strikes Back for an example of such a film).

Defiantly not the worst movie of the franchise: See The Phantom Menace or The Last Jedi.



Unfortunately, ANH is not well written. As Harrison Ford said himself on set, the dialogue is horrendous. The pacing is terrible. A 5-year-old could have written sentences that sounded less awkward.
Everything about the way it is written is bad. The only reason anyone ever gave Episode IV the time of day is because the special effects looked good for 1977, and people who saw it when they were kids are completely controlled by nonstalgia for how they remember it looking back then.

This is true. Lucas is a good moviemaker, but not the best writer.



But the reason A New Hope was so bad is because Luke is a white male. If Luke wasn't a white man, then George Lucas could have hired a half-way decent script-writer and the dialogue wouldn't be so awful. But because Luke was white and male, The Agenda dictated that he must speak in a really clumsy manner. Moreover, because Luke is "normal," everything he does is required to be completely cliche and boring by The Agenda People, hence the dumb plot of ANH. If Luke had not been a white man, then he might have been allowed to do something "exotic," and so there could have been a half-way original story. Thus, everything wrong with A New Hope, everything that makes it the worst movie of all time, can be blamed entirely on The Agenda making Luke a white man.


Well, luckily, the Agenda was not around in force back in the 70's. Even more so, in England.

The point would be more that Lucas just wanted to make a good movie and money. The 70's Lucas did not have an 'agenda'. He was not thinking about politics, brainwashing or any of that other stuff. Just make a good movie and make money.

Compare to The Last Jedi. Kennedy is all and only about her wacky agenda. She cares nothing about anything else, least of all Star Wars, the movies, or the franchise. She does not even 'care' about the money: she knows she could put random blobs on a screen, put Star Wars on it, and it will make a ton of money.


From my understanding, the plan was actually:

1) Have the remnants of the Resistance land on Crait.
2) Have the flagship then jump away.
3) The FO will track it and thus jump away after them.
4) The remaining forces will call for their allies to rescue them.

This was the 'plan'...if you can call this a plan.



And to me the clearest indication of "the Agenda" is that comment that Holdo was not what Poe was expecting, because that line baffled me when I watched the movie. What are we supposed to be surprised about? I mean, I noticed the lack of uniform, but as people have pointed out Leia doesn't wear one either. And given the alien cultures, the hair's not all that much of a surprise. So, what is it? It could be that "Holdo" was a woman, which then would be a shot at the "Men's Rights bull****" ... but most Star Wars fan would NOT be surprised at a female war hero, so that only works if you buy into the crap thrown around about Star Wars fans and nerd culture in general, which then reveals that they are working from the mindset of "The Agenda" and not from the mindset of reality.

Yes, all of this exactly. The Agenda really goes over backward to point out the ''look women can be leaders too!", when it makes no sense. After all Leia has been a leader of the Rebels from the start, along with Mon Mothra.

[Xyril]

The issue with this, is it's a BAD portrayal of Competence but nonetheless, we're meant to come away with the message that 'Holdo was really brilliant all along.'


First, why do you keep capitalizing things? Are there specific articles for Heroic Female, Competence, Stealing, etc. that you're referencing that I should be reading so that we get on the same page.



As evidenced by Poe's reaction to the plan after he's on the ship and Leia's bit about 'protecting the light, not seeming a hero.'


Leia's not wrong about that being Poe's major character flaw, and that being one of Holdo's redeeming virtue. That said, I thought it was a terrible scene because it glosses over all of Holdo's terrible choices.

That being said, I've seen dozens of works where some guy is basically terrible (incompetent, *******, or incompetent *******), but he makes up for it with a heroic sacrifice, and then everyone just whitewashes over how terrible he is. It's bad writing then, just like it's bad writing now. The only difference is that in the past, I've never seen it called out as anything other than bad writing. Apparently, every time a woman does it (I was just talking about Star Wars, but I noticed you keep referencing movies with female heroes as a whole), it's an Agenda thing.



We, as an audience can go "Well that doesn't quite make sense movie?" And that's fair, but that's not what the movie is telling us. The movie is telling us that Holdo was brilliant and that Poe mucked it up.


Except it's not. Leia is. Actually no, Leia's not exactly saying that either. She's saying



And yet, what exactly are the consequences of this for her? What DISASTROUS HARDSHIP did this mistake cause? The 'I can't believe he's not the Emperor' is dead. And the new Emperor is her rival, who's an emotionally disturbed young adult with little to no tactical or strategic sense.


You mention my "barely restrained disdain" later on. Have you read your own writing at all?

Anyway, that's fair. As I'll explain later on, I don't think this was the unqualified success you make it out to be, but it certainly wasn't as bad as getting run through by your son for essentially making the same mistake (thinking there's still good in him.)



Rey's mistakes always seem to somehow... not only NOT cause consequences to her, but either make her stronger or just have no effect whatsoever.



Are they always cowardly and stupid? No. However they Often Are. Whereas... as mentioned above, Women never are. Though oftentimes if you look at the bigger context? Poe gets captured in that first scene in TFA, Finn and Poe forget to unlock the fuel line. during their escape attempt almost spoiling it,


In the bigger context, if Poe and Finn were female characters, would you be citing how they forget to unlock the fuel line and escape anyway as an example of how they made a mistake that had no real negative consequences?


Luke Pulls one over on Kylo Ren, saving a handful of people, and then DIES after willfully ignoring the problem for what appears to be a decade or more,


You mean like Holdo had to sacrifice herself to save everybody from the blunder she caused after willfully ignoring the problem that the entire rebellion thought they were doomed because the leadership had no plans for bailing them out, and she decided it was important to keep that plan secret for... reasons?



Chewie and Hand Stealing the Falcon, only to get immediately boarded by not one but TWO crime syndicates that they somehow didn't notice sneaking up on them.

You mean the crime syndicates they were able to quickly neutralize and escape (though to be fair, with a bit of help from Rey, Agent of the Agenda, and Finn, Agent of the Other Agenda)? So you could say that Han and Chewie made an incredibly stupid mistake (let's be honest, mostly likely Han made an incredibly stupid mistake and probably dismissed Chewie's concerns when he thought they should check their rear-view space-mirrors) and then suffered no negative consequences for those mistakes.



Mens successes in these movies are almost always counterbalanced with some manner of failure.
Amusing or not, and they generally face some manner of CONSEQUENCES when they fail. The same cannot be said of (Heroic) Women.

Actually, the same can be said of Heroic Women. You simply choose not to. When a man succeeds in a manner that's marred by small failures, you characterize it as "Mens successes in these movies are almost always counterbalanced with some manner of failure." When a woman succeeds in the same manner, you call it "Rey's mistakes always seem to somehow... not only NOT cause consequences to her, but either make her stronger or just have no effect whatsoever." Take Snoke's gambit for example. If you treated Rey the same way you treated Finn and Poe, you'd be saying something like this:

Yes, Rey ultimately succeeded in killing Snoke and causing substantial damage to the First Order, but this was counterbalanced by her mistakes and failures. She lets Snoke get into her mind, tricking her into thinking she has a link with Kylo Ren, to the extent that she basically allows herself to be captured in order to try to redeem him (this, even after witnessing first hand that he killed his own father who was attempting to do the same.) It's only through dumb luck and the intervention of a Male that her blunder wasn't a complete disaster. Rey bet everything on her belief that Kylo Ren wasn't an irredeemably evil murderous snot, and she would have lost everything if he hadn't turned out to be an irredeemably evil murderous snot... who had it in for his evil master.




A fair point, but again, let's compare to Rey's "Getting Roughed up by Kylo" scene. She gets captured. He uses the force on her to try and interrogate her and she turns it around and learns how to use the force, before promptly escaping on her own without outside help, and then saving Finns Life by beating Kylo. That is not a consequence. And if somehow your failures end up being successes, they stop being failures.


So like Poe and Finn escaping despite blundering?


Jar Jar tripping around in that battle and destroying hundreds of battle droids isn't him losing.

No, but is it Heroic? Is it portraying him as infallible? In the greater context, does it somehow advance the Agenda of alien superiority over the white man? To me, it doesn't. Yes, Qui-Gon lost, and died. By your metric, that makes him an emasculated failure compared to mighty Heroic Jar Jar. To me, Qui-Gon earned every bit of his power and he fought a strong opponent for a good reason despite knowing he might lose, so the fact that the last of many opponents he fought was able to best him once doesn't make him any less heroic.

You know, around the 80's and 90's, there was a bit of a recurring trope where the ditzy, hot female protagonist was promoted from passive, damsel-in-distress eye-candy, to accidentally-heroic comic relief sidekick. Pamela Anderson had a surprisingly self-aware show (V.I.P.) that lampshaded the whole thing. These weren't Angelina Jolie, Michelle Rodriguez type competent action girls who kicked ass because they could--these girls succeeded because they were flirty, bad guys underestimated, and through enthusiasm and dumb luck they actually managed help--rather than hinder--the competent male heroes. Now, I wasn't on the internet much back then, but I strongly suspect there were a lot of women watching Pamela trip down the stairs and save a guy from a sniper and thinking, "Now there's the feminist icon we've been waiting for."



Now could we please have Leia make a wrong call?

Honestly, that's probably not going to happen now that Carrie Fisher's died. Really though, how wrong would she have to be for you to count it? In my mind, she made a couple of bad calls. First, her part in handling Poe: No, she wasn't wrong to discipline him, but clearly the way she handled the situation--or more accurately, demoted him and then refused to handle the situation beyond that clearly didn't work. Also, while I wouldn't say that their personal relationship was the only thing tying Poe to the resistance, it was clearly one of the few things tying him to anything resembling military discipline.

Also, going along with the whole plan. It's unclear to what extent Holdo actually came up with the idea, or she was executing one that the leaders came up with together, but either way, Leia looked at that whole eggs in one rickety basket plan and signed off on it. You keep blaming Poe for messing it up, but even if the plan had worked perfectly and they secretly escaped to the old rebel base, eventually the First Order would realize that the resistance had survived and was broadcasting to the galaxy, and somebody who was in pursuing First Order fleet will remember that nearby planet. A planet they'd be stranded on without enough long range ships, because Leia was gambling that the galaxy would rise up if she broadcasts a decent speech. And she was horribly wrong. Nobody lifted a finger to help, and the resistance was so screwed that it took both Luke's heroic sacrifice and the Falcon's timely arrival to save them from being trapped and slaughtered.

And before you tell me that, "once again, the Female Hero's mistake has no meaningful consequences," I should point out that Luke is Leia's brother and next to Chewie is probably one of her last surviving comrades from the first Rebel Alliance.



Meanwhile, Holdo does something stupid, gets lauded as a Hero, too humble to call herself that, and has her Heroic Sacrifice decimate the FO's fleet, allowing the remaining Resistance fighters to go to ground. Now if only Poe hadn't ruined her plan....


Meanwhile, when Luke does something stupid (going into exile, ignoring galaxy's problems for decades), you focus on that part and cite it as an example of males being treated as deeply flawed. When Luke's heroic sacrifice saves the day, you focus on how his success is counterbalanced by that aforementioned failure. Wouldn't it be a tad more... evenhanded to say:
Luke does something stupid, gets lauded as a Hero and the resistance's last hope, too humble to call himself a hero or to even see the Jedi as a positive influence, and has his Heroic Sacrifice prevent the First Order from achieving a final victory against the Resistance.



The Opposite, Make Women Fallible. REALLY Fallible, as opposed to "Oh she made a mistake and somehow became a Space Wizard because of it." "Woops she made a mistake and killed off all the Space Mafia." (Though Anakin had plenty of these 'Mistakes' as well to be fair. Like the time he 'accidentally' hid in a fighter that ended up going into orbit and 'accidentally' flew into the hangar and 'accidentally' blew up the reactor.)


And at the time, did you criticize those mistakes and try to link them to a sinister Agenda? Did you speculate that if Anakin had been a black guy, those mistakes wouldn't have been made? Or did you simply chalk it up to bad writing because sometimes even professionals mess up?



What I'm saying is that Female characters are handled noticeably differently from male characters in a manner that detracts from the overall story.

And that would be a more compelling argument if it weren't predicated on so many exceptions and so much rationalization. For example:

This. As I've repeated numerous times, the only thing Holdo gets right is that she actually had a plan. The only thing. A leader isn't just The Decider, and any leader who sees that as her only job requirement will invariably be a horrible leader. A leader also leads. Holdo does a terrible job at that.

I've asked this a few times, and thus far nobody has answered me: How is it that "They tell us Holdo is a great leader, but they show us Holdo is a terrible one"? Because to me, her deficiencies are pretty obvious: She's has zero people skills. She doesn't realize or doesn't care how people react to her when they see her, and doesn't do enough to change those perceptions. To be fair, Poe was a bit out of line, but the job of any competent CO is to either deal with insubordinate subordinates so that they'll be assets, or to get rid of them so they can't do any harm. Poe was at discrete about the actual mutiny, but before that he made no efforts to hide that he was a festering wound of resentment and doubt.


But do you know what you get when you take a good story with a character with room for growth and then set it alongside a mysteriously omnicompetent character who's somehow perfectly infallible?

Golden Age Superman?



OR perhaps if a series of movies presents Heroic men in one way (As Flawed but Effective Hero's.) But then repeatedly portrays Heroic women in another (As Infallible Hero's) then we can make the inference that perhaps there is an agenda at play?


You make a good point. So what you're arguing is that you've inferred that there's a deliberately anti-male, anti-minority, anti-gay Agenda that is at play in movies and has been since the beginning of the industry? That's a damn shame, because I'm a huge James Bond fan, but if you look at the disparity between how the white male Hero is portrayed, versus the vacuous eye candy Bond girls and the two-dimensional ethnic mooks, the disparity is even more stark than in Star Wars.

Holy crap, look at Star Wars! Not a single prominent female besides Leia, and even she had to wear a skimpy outfit later on. You must have grave concerns about Lucas and his Agenda.



Considering you're treating me with the respect and consideration of barely restrained disdain (Not that I expected much different. It's a touchy subject.) Yes. I never said it was WRONG to have her agenda. I just said she has one, it has a noticeable deleterious effect on the movies, and that scaling it back a bit would be nice.


Hey, at least it's restrained! But you make a fair point. I responded to Darth Ultron with the same tone he directs at the world, but it wasn't entirely fair for me do the same to you simply because you're echoing his arguments.

I would like to point out, however, that I'm showing you the respect of actually considering your arguments and addressing them point by point. Of not actually dismissing them out of hand with vague generalizations, or by intimating that your judgment and your honesty should be questioned because you're a secret racist, or a liberal snowflake, or an SJW. Because that's the honest question I'm posing to you: When other folks have basically argued your position, from another side, did you take them seriously? How did you respond to them? And now that the roles are reversed, is that how you'd want me to respond to you?

You see, that's the sort of respect I'm asking about: The kind of respect where you can be someone who isn't the implied "default normal" in a given society, you can make mistakes, and the first assumption isn't, "Well, she made this mistake because she belongs to group X and she's too busy pushing group X's agenda." It's something certain groups enjoy: If The Phantom Menace was bad, people aren't automatically looking at George Lucas and his whiteness (or maleness) as their first guess regarding why the movie sucked. And on the rare occasions where somebody does, there will quickly be a mob rising up to defend Mr. Lucas and to attack the critic for being part of "the Agenda."

Meanwhile, you have groups of people explicitly stating that they'll tank a movie's ratings without even watching it specifically because they don't like the all black cast, and the response from the Darth Ultrons is, "Well, as it turned out A Stitch in Time was pretty disappointing..."

Respect means that if you're putting the burden of proof on Star Wars to justify putting all those women in, then you should also be putting the burden of proof on Ghost in the Shell to explain why they recast everyone with white actors.



Rey doesn't need to be a man. Holdo doesn't need to be a man. And it would be really strange if Leia was a man.

They just need to have their flaws show. Their mistakes bite them.


While I agree that Rey is a bit too perfect (though from where I'm standing, no less so than Luke in the first trilogy), I should point out that not only does she have one mistake that bites her in the ass in a huge way, that mistake is arguably based on the stereotypical failings of women: She let empathy and emotions get in the way of sound judgment. Through that link with Kylo Ren, she saw a tiny bit of doubt on his part (and honestly, most of that seemed less "my conscience is telling me that this dark side thing isn't working out" and more "is it really fair that I completely sacrificed my family and personal life for the First Order), but mostly evil bad guy posturing, and somehow her take away was "Hey, we have a connection, deep down inside he must be a good guy after all?"

And based on that doubt, she gambled everything on Kylo Ren's redemption, and while she was half-right in the sense that he helped get rid of Snoke, I don't think we can really say that's a victory. We don't know much about Snoke for sure, but we can infer that he had years more knowledge and training, which the First Order lost. However, that doesn't mean that Kylo Ren will be any less ruthless, any less capable, or any less powerful in the Force. In fact, if you're an EU/Legends fan, you pretty much get beat over the head about how singularly powerful the Skywalker line is in the Force. With the exception of Leia and Ben, every descendant of Vader had a major impact on the galaxy predicated primarily on their Force abilities. We don't have to speculate entirely on the state of the First Order--it's cannon that, at least short term, Kylo Ren was able to consolidate power. It's possible that long term, his mutiny sowed the cracks that would ultimately doom the new Empire, but it seems more likely that without the continued distraction of the power games between Snoke and Ren, the First Order will be more dangerous, not less.

It's understandable that you don't count Rey's empathy as a flaw--not because it's evidence refuting your argument, but because you're probably a fan, and in A New Hope, Luke arguably made the same mistake. Darth Vader did not waver, but despite seeing zero doubt, zero conscience, and zero empirical evidence that there was a shred of good left in him, Luke gambled everything on a tenuous biological link and nearly blind optimism (and I suppose a Force vision warning him about the dangers of running Darth Vader through), and that gamble paid off in a big way. So for the genre savvy fan, Rey made the only correct choice. Taken on their own, however, it was a huge mistake that everybody paid the price for.

[Xyril]

And to me the clearest indication of "the Agenda" is that comment that Holdo was not what Poe was expecting, because that line baffled me when I watched the movie. What are we supposed to be surprised about? I mean, I noticed the lack of uniform, but as people have pointed out Leia doesn't wear one either. And given the alien cultures, the hair's not all that much of a surprise.


You make a good point about how Lando's slight embellishments to his uniform is not a close comparison to Holdo's wildly flamboyant appearance... and now, just a few paragraphs later, you seem to be deliberately ignoring the very point you made so that you can make an inference about The Agenda.

The uniform notwithstanding, if I had walked in to the Millenium Falcon, and someone pointed to Lando with his cape and hair and general playboy swagger and said, "That's General Calrissian, you'll be taking your orders from him from now on," I would have the same reaction Poe did. You're right, he didn't have the same implied reputation that Holdo did going in to that scene, but nonetheless, if someone tells me that there's a guy with the ostensible rank of a flag officer who will be leading me into battle, there's a certain expectation that Lando simply doesn't fit.

The fact that Holdo apparently has a great reputation makes things worse, but let's pretend that she didn't. Poe's being introduced to a new leader, who beyond the lack of a uniform, clearly stands out in terms of appearance. The disparity between Holdo and the grimy rank and file is obvious, but even compared to the rest of the higher ranks (and possibly quasi-civilian leadership), she stands out as flamboyant. You rationalize about the hair (given alien cultures, yadda yadda), but given the evidence before our eyes, Holdo is likely human or near-human, and pretty much everyone in the resistance who looks near-human has pretty much the real-life human range of hair colors. (In fact, I'm not sure I recall even an obvious bottle blonde in the mix.)

If I were part of a rag-tag resistance group, I'd be a little put off if someone told me that my new commander was a dude who clearly had time to frost his tips and touch up his roots.



If that isn't it, then I have no clue what that was supposed to mean and the movie clearly thinks it should be obvious what that means since they never mention it. That's why I think it is indeed intended at being a shot about a woman being in that role, as that would be obvious enough that everyone would note it and fits in with an idea that such things shock male audiences.

This illustrates my criticism of Holdo logic in general: It's predicated on a lot of assumptions, most tenuously the assumptions you make about how the producers must have made certain assumptions about how the audience would react, but that we can't really support with evidence because the producers made the wrong assumptions, and that the Star Wars audience is much smarter than the stupid audience they assumed would watch, and so we can only speculate based on how we assume said stupid audience would react.

Sometimes, we have to speculate, but we should keep in mind that the more we build speculation on more speculation, the more questionable our conclusions. When throw out an obvious, if unsatisfying explanation (Poe was shocked by her apparently high maintenance, flamboyant appearance), and you can't think of a single other possible reason until you presume a partisan scriptwriter and a dumb chauvinist audience, maybe you should give that first explanation another look.

[Mightymosy]

From my understanding, the plan was actually:

1) Have the remnants of the Resistance land on Crait.
2) Have the flagship then jump away.
3) The FO will track it and thus jump away after them.
4) The remaining forces will call for their allies to rescue them.



So, from the FO's point of view:

1. Resistance drives full speed to a planet
(lets not look for small ships because who cares)
2. Resistance main ship hyperdrive jumps to somewhere else.
(lets not look for small ship because who cares.
lets also not look at what there is on that planet in front of us)
3. Resistance main ship waits like a sitting duck and lets itself be destroyed like a sitting duck.
(lets not check back on that planet we just were, because nothing is fishy here at all.
lets also not hear that galaxy wide distress call, or if we hear, let us NOT track that back to where it comes from)

And have we found out whether the ships were cloaked or not?

Lets do the "everyone scatter in all directions in escape pods and shuttles NOW" plan, and let the FO fire at the Raddus for 18 hours, while they clearly dont see or dont follow small ships that jump away from our fleet

Tell me what you want, I like that plan better.

It also works way better when you have a force beacon (Leia) on your ship who can be sensed by her son, thus ruining all stealth considerations - oh wait, he doesnt do that later on for some reason, never mind.

[Peelee]

One thing that's always bothered me I've never see anyone else mention is why the Resistance waited to close the doors to the base. They were being fired on by the First Order, so it's not like they didn't know the FO was coming for them. They waited until they saw a couple of ships, one of which slipped through; if it wasn't Finn, that could have potentially ended the whole damn thing right there. And they certainly didn't keep it open so Finn could get back, because they didn't know it was Finn in there, as evidenced by them shooting the ever-loving crap out of the ship after it crashes in the base.

So, they know the enemy is coming for them, don't bother closing the doors, and let in a potential enemy ship for no reason whatsoever. The Resistance is stupid.

[druid91]

First, why do you keep capitalizing things? Are there specific articles for Heroic Female, Competence, Stealing, etc. that you're referencing that I should be reading so that we get on the same page.

Nope. I capitalize random things that my brain decides needs emphasis for no reason.




Leia's not wrong about that being Poe's major character flaw, and that being one of Holdo's redeeming virtue. That said, I thought it was a terrible scene because it glosses over all of Holdo's terrible choices.

That being said, I've seen dozens of works where some guy is basically terrible (incompetent, *******, or incompetent *******), but he makes up for it with a heroic sacrifice, and then everyone just whitewashes over how terrible he is. It's bad writing then, just like it's bad writing now. The only difference is that in the past, I've never seen it called out as anything other than bad writing. Apparently, every time a woman does it (I was just talking about Star Wars, but I noticed you keep referencing movies with female heroes as a whole), it's an Agenda thing.

I'm specifically talking about Starwars, and in more specifically, The main New Trilogy. I actually thought Rogue One was more or less Perfect, and even if I don't particularly like the New Trilogy, I'll consider getting Rogue One out of the deal a fair trade.

That's, kind of a thing but the issue is not so much that she heroically sacrificed herself and so is forgiven, or people don't want to speak ill of her. But that the movie goes out of it's way to say she was never wrong to start with. And yes, that is Poe's major character flaw.


Except it's not. Leia is. Actually no, Leia's not exactly saying that either. She's saying

Not sure if you got cut off here or what?


You mention my "barely restrained disdain" later on. Have you read your own writing at all?

Point, my apologies.


Anyway, that's fair. As I'll explain later on, I don't think this was the unqualified success you make it out to be, but it certainly wasn't as bad as getting run through by your son for essentially making the same mistake (thinking there's still good in him.)

I was more comparing to the similar arc in the sister movie of Empire Strikes Back. Luke goes to Confront Vader and rescue his friends, and not only does he fail to rescue his friends, but also gets his hand cut off and his faith in his original mentor who set him against Vader in the first place shattered.

Compare to Rey, who goes to confront Kylo, the two kill Snoke and his guards, then she flees to rescue her friends, all limbs intact and stronger in the force than ever thanks to the stolen Jedi Texts. (Still annoyed that there are paper books rather than Holocrons, but I fully admit that's a curmudgeon thing rather than a legitimate complaint.)




In the bigger context, if Poe and Finn were female characters, would you be citing how they forget to unlock the fuel line and escape anyway as an example of how they made a mistake that had no real negative consequences?

Also a fair point. I in fact, probably would. Though I would also note that they make other mistakes WITH consequences that are clearly on them. Finn leaving and Rey getting captured because of it. Poe's getting captured and requiring Finn's help.


You mean like Holdo had to sacrifice herself to save everybody from the blunder she caused after willfully ignoring the problem that the entire rebellion thought they were doomed because the leadership had no plans for bailing them out, and she decided it was important to keep that plan secret for... reasons?

Except the only commentary we get on that is not "The Rebels were right to feel concerned." but instead "Holdo was secretly right all along, and the Rebels were being foolish." Which yes, is a slightly nonsensical opinion, but that was the takeaway I got from Leia, who shot Poe after all. Not Holdo.


You mean the crime syndicates they were able to quickly neutralize and escape (though to be fair, with a bit of help from Rey, Agent of the Agenda, and Finn, Agent of the Other Agenda)? So you could say that Han and Chewie made an incredibly stupid mistake (let's be honest, mostly likely Han made an incredibly stupid mistake and probably dismissed Chewie's concerns when he thought they should check their rear-view space-mirrors) and then suffered no negative consequences for those mistakes.

I recall them running away and Rey and Finn being the main solvers of that problem, but it's been a while since I've seen TFA.


Actually, the same can be said of Heroic Women. You simply choose not to. When a man succeeds in a manner that's marred by small failures, you characterize it as "Mens successes in these movies are almost always counterbalanced with some manner of failure." When a woman succeeds in the same manner, you call it "Rey's mistakes always seem to somehow... not only NOT cause consequences to her, but either make her stronger or just have no effect whatsoever." Take Snoke's gambit for example. If you treated Rey the same way you treated Finn and Poe, you'd be saying something like this:

Yes, Rey ultimately succeeded in killing Snoke and causing substantial damage to the First Order, but this was counterbalanced by her mistakes and failures. She lets Snoke get into her mind, tricking her into thinking she has a link with Kylo Ren, to the extent that she basicaally allows herself to be captured in order to try to redeem him (this, even after witnessing first hand that he killed his own father who was attempting to do the same.) It's only through dumb luck and the intervention of a Male that her blunder wasn't a complete disaster. Rey bet everything on her belief that Kylo Ren wasn't an irredeemably evil murderous snot, and she would have lost everything if he hadn't turned out to be an irredeemably evil murderous snot... who had it in for his evil master.

My issue with this line of logic is that 'Not Succeeding as Well as you could have' is not 'Failure' She went there hoping to turn Kylo. And to a certain degree she did. If she had lost a hand or something in the ensuing fight? That'd be one thing. But she loses what.... a lightsaber? That we know is going to be rebuilt into some sort of bad*** lightsaber Staff Lance thing. (And I will be severely disappointed if it isn't.)




So like Poe and Finn escaping despite blundering?

This would be equivalent if that TIE they stole was the star wars equivalent to the jet from the old Swat Kats cartoon, and became a plot point for the rest of the series. Instead they crash it into the desert and it's never heard from again.




No, but is it Heroic? Is it portraying him as infallible? In the greater context, does it somehow advance the Agenda of alien superiority over the white man? To me, it doesn't. Yes, Qui-Gon lost, and died. By your metric, that makes him an emasculated failure compared to mighty Heroic Jar Jar. To me, Qui-Gon earned every bit of his power and he fought a strong opponent for a good reason despite knowing he might lose, so the fact that the last of many opponents he fought was able to best him once doesn't make him any less heroic.

You know, around the 80's and 90's, there was a bit of a recurring trope where the ditzy, hot female protagonist was promoted from passive, damsel-in-distress eye-candy, to accidentally-heroic comic relief sidekick. Pamela Anderson had a surprisingly self-aware show (V.I.P.) that lampshaded the whole thing. These weren't Angelina Jolie, Michelle Rodriguez type competent action girls who kicked ass because they could--these girls succeeded because they were flirty, bad guys underestimated, and through enthusiasm and dumb luck they actually managed help--rather than hinder--the competent male heroes. Now, I wasn't on the internet much back then, but I strongly suspect there were a lot of women watching Pamela trip down the stairs and save a guy from a sniper and thinking, "Now there's the feminist icon we've been waiting for."

No it's not, you mistake my point. My point isn't that Jar Jar is 'Infallible' because there are a multitude of times where his comic bit does mess him up. But him getting his leg tangled in a battle droids guts and killing a Droideka isn't one of them, despite being a 'mistake'

You're extrapolating from that onto the greater argument, and it's not applicable. It's merely stating my qualifications for a 'true mistake', as being one that has real negative consequences as opposed to consequences that amount to victories.


Honestly, that's probably not going to happen now that Carrie Fisher's died. Really though, how wrong would she have to be for you to count it? In my mind, she made a couple of bad calls. First, her part in handling Poe: No, she wasn't wrong to discipline him, but clearly the way she handled the situation--or more accurately, demoted him and then refused to handle the situation beyond that clearly didn't work. Also, while I wouldn't say that their personal relationship was the only thing tying Poe to the resistance, it was clearly one of the few things tying him to anything resembling military discipline.

Also, going along with the whole plan. It's unclear to what extent Holdo actually came up with the idea, or she was executing one that the leaders came up with together, but either way, Leia looked at that whole eggs in one rickety basket plan and signed off on it. You keep blaming Poe for messing it up, but even if the plan had worked perfectly and they secretly escaped to the old rebel base, eventually the First Order would realize that the resistance had survived and was broadcasting to the galaxy, and somebody who was in pursuing First Order fleet will remember that nearby planet. A planet they'd be stranded on without enough long range ships, because Leia was gambling that the galaxy would rise up if she broadcasts a decent speech. And she was horribly wrong. Nobody lifted a finger to help, and the resistance was so screwed that it took both Luke's heroic sacrifice and the Falcon's timely arrival to save them from being trapped and slaughtered.

And before you tell me that, "once again, the Female Hero's mistake has no meaningful consequences," I should point out that Luke is Leia's brother and next to Chewie is probably one of her last surviving comrades from the first Rebel Alliance.

These would be fair points. If the movie made them. The movie doesn't. The movie tells the story that Leia did NOT make a mistake in her handling of Poe, but that Poe was the one out of line. Again, The point is not that we can make that point. We can make whatever point we want. The movie lays the fault on Poe, and noone else. Especially given the subtext where it's very clear Poe isn't used to being treated the way Holdo treats him, because Leia is far more familiar with him.

The story arc is basically.
Poe is a Hotshot pilot who doesn't quite play by the rules, his commander, Leia, permits this because he usually gets results. He leads a disastrous mission, defying her orders in the process, and is demoted. Before he can settle into his new position in the hierarchy, Leia is injured and taken out of commission, and the new commander, Holdo, treats him as though he were of the Position he was assigned before Leia's injury rather than with the Familiarity of Leia, or the Respect of his previous position.

In Anger at his treatment and Holdo's apparent foolishness, Poe goes off and concocts a plan of his own. Draining valuable hyperfuel and wasting one of their ships to send a pair of agents to Cantobight where they proceed to get distracted saving space horses for ten minutes and recruiting the least trustworthy codebreaker imaginable rather than the one they were sent to get. And to top it all off, he then tells the entire away team about key parts of Holdo's secret plan. Despite it not being particularly secret. When captured, aforementioned codebreaker turns, and Holdo's Secret plan, that Poe is now mysteriously okay with despite almost nothing of substance changing about it just because Leia said it was ok, is ruined and Poe has to watch as his folly murders dozens upon dozens of his comrades in arms. Holdo then sacrifices herself to clean up the mess that made saving everyone.

They weren't expecting to be immediately followed. Again, their entire plan was destroyed by Poe's rogue command actions.




Meanwhile, when Luke does something stupid (going into exile, ignoring galaxy's problems for decades), you focus on that part and cite it as an example of males being treated as deeply flawed. When Luke's heroic sacrifice saves the day, you focus on how his success is counterbalanced by that aforementioned failure. Wouldn't it be a tad more... evenhanded to say:
Luke does something stupid, gets lauded as a Hero and the resistance's last hope, too humble to call himself a hero or to even see the Jedi as a positive influence, and has his Heroic Sacrifice prevent the First Order from achieving a final victory against the Resistance.

That's sort of my point. Male hero's are flawed but still hero's. I'm not trying to say they're ONLY there to fumble over each other and do Bro Claps or something. They're decent characters as they are. No competence upgrade needed. If female characters were set to the same competence and accountability level, I would be happy with the result.

I actually LIKED bitter sarcastic old man Luke.


And at the time, did you criticize those mistakes and try to link them to a sinister Agenda? Did you speculate that if Anakin had been a black guy, those mistakes wouldn't have been made? Or did you simply chalk it up to bad writing because sometimes even professionals mess up?

I'm not linking them to a 'sinister' agenda here. I'm just linking them to 'An Agenda'. There is a very large difference between "Jim likes Tigers, so all his books have Tiger Motifs." and "All of Jim's Books have Tiger Motifs, he must secretly be part of an Agenda to Replace Mankind with and Army of Sentient Tigers."

Also at the time I was Eight and thought it was the coolest thing ever and would rewind the VHS tape to watch that part over and over because I had poor taste as a child.




And that would be a more compelling argument if it weren't predicated on so many exceptions and so much rationalization. For example:

This. As I've repeated numerous times, the only thing Holdo gets right is that she actually had a plan. The only thing. A leader isn't just The Decider, and any leader who sees that as her only job requirement will invariably be a horrible leader. A leader also leads. Holdo does a terrible job at that.

I've asked this a few times, and thus far nobody has answered me: How is it that "They tell us Holdo is a great leader, but they show us Holdo is a terrible one"? Because to me, her deficiencies are pretty obvious: She's has zero people skills. She doesn't realize or doesn't care how people react to her when they see her, and doesn't do enough to change those perceptions. To be fair, Poe was a bit out of line, but the job of any competent CO is to either deal with insubordinate subordinates so that they'll be assets, or to get rid of them so they can't do any harm. Poe was at discrete about the actual mutiny, but before that he made no efforts to hide that he was a festering wound of resentment and doubt.

The issue is noone in the movie acts like she was a horrible leader. The only exception being Poe and his friends. Who are shot by Leia and made to be in the wrong by the narrative. Leia or no Leia, if the full crew of not one but THREE Rebel Starships that are crammed onto that cruiser had sided with Poe, Poe would have succeeded in his Mutiny and Leia would have had to talk to him rather than exploding a door off the hinges and shooting him.



Golden Age Superman?

Never Read it, but I hear it was a wacky time.



You make a good point. So what you're arguing is that you've inferred that there's a deliberately anti-male, anti-minority, anti-gay Agenda that is at play in movies and has been since the beginning of the industry? That's a damn shame, because I'm a huge James Bond fan, but if you look at the disparity between how the white male Hero is portrayed, versus the vacuous eye candy Bond girls and the two-dimensional ethnic mooks, the disparity is even more stark than in Star Wars.

Holy crap, look at Star Wars! Not a single prominent female besides Leia, and even she had to wear a skimpy outfit later on. You must have grave concerns about Lucas and his Agenda.

Sarcastically made, but not an unfair point. Though if you'll note, my problem isn't with the existence of her Agenda. But with the manner in which she executes it.




Hey, at least it's restrained! But you make a fair point. I responded to Darth Ultron with the same tone he directs at the world, but it wasn't entirely fair for me do the same to you simply because you're echoing his arguments.

I would like to point out, however, that I'm showing you the respect of actually considering your arguments and addressing them point by point. Of not actually dismissing them out of hand with vague generalizations, or by intimating that your judgment and your honesty should be questioned because you're a secret racist, or a liberal snowflake, or an SJW. Because that's the honest question I'm posing to you: When other folks have basically argued your position, from another side, did you take them seriously? How did you respond to them? And now that the roles are reversed, is that how you'd want me to respond to you?

You see, that's the sort of respect I'm asking about: The kind of respect where you can be someone who isn't the implied "default normal" in a given society, you can make mistakes, and the first assumption isn't, "Well, she made this mistake because she belongs to group X and she's too busy pushing group X's agenda." It's something certain groups enjoy: If The Phantom Menace was bad, people aren't automatically looking at George Lucas and his whiteness (or maleness) as their first guess regarding why the movie sucked. And on the rare occasions where somebody does, there will quickly be a mob rising up to defend Mr. Lucas and to attack the critic for being part of "the Agenda."

Meanwhile, you have groups of people explicitly stating that they'll tank a movie's ratings without even watching it specifically because they don't like the all black cast, and the response from the Darth Ultrons is, "Well, as it turned out A Stitch in Time was pretty disappointing..."

Respect means that if you're putting the burden of proof on Star Wars to justify putting all those women in, then you should also be putting the burden of proof on Ghost in the Shell to explain why they recast everyone with white actors.

I'm actually not asking them to justify putting those women in. I honestly like most of them. I'm wondering if perhaps flaws in their portrayal are due to an outside agenda due to the head of Lucasfilm publically supporting that agenda rather than just bog standard poor writing. And mind you, you're quite right that there are people who would take the same position for intellectually dishonest reasons, but I disagree in allowing such things to control the discourse around subjects.

Though as a total side rant. I love Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex. And I was actually severely annoyed by all the changes they made to the movie. Cutting out the fictional philosophical and political commentary, cutting out the American Empire's meddling self. Cutting out most of the cast of Section 9. Changing the rest. The movie was more or less a generic summer blockbuster with a 'ghost in the shell' paint thrown over it.



While I agree that Rey is a bit too perfect (though from where I'm standing, no less so than Luke in the first trilogy), I should point out that not only does she have one mistake that bites her in the ass in a huge way, that mistake is arguably based on the stereotypical failings of women: She let empathy and emotions get in the way of sound judgment. Through that link with Kylo Ren, she saw a tiny bit of doubt on his part (and honestly, most of that seemed less "my conscience is telling me that this dark side thing isn't working out" and more "is it really fair that I completely sacrificed my family and personal life for the First Order), but mostly evil bad guy posturing, and somehow her take away was "Hey, we have a connection, deep down inside he must be a good guy after all?"

And based on that doubt, she gambled everything on Kylo Ren's redemption, and while she was half-right in the sense that he helped get rid of Snoke, I don't think we can really say that's a victory. We don't know much about Snoke for sure, but we can infer that he had years more knowledge and training, which the First Order lost. However, that doesn't mean that Kylo Ren will be any less ruthless, any less capable, or any less powerful in the Force. In fact, if you're an EU/Legends fan, you pretty much get beat over the head about how singularly powerful the Skywalker line is in the Force. With the exception of Leia and Ben, every descendant of Vader had a major impact on the galaxy predicated primarily on their Force abilities. We don't have to speculate entirely on the state of the First Order--it's cannon that, at least short term, Kylo Ren was able to consolidate power. It's possible that long term, his mutiny sowed the cracks that would ultimately doom the new Empire, but it seems more likely that without the continued distraction of the power games between Snoke and Ren, the First Order will be more dangerous, not less.

It's understandable that you don't count Rey's empathy as a flaw--not because it's evidence refuting your argument, but because you're probably a fan, and in A New Hope, Luke arguably made the same mistake. Darth Vader did not waver, but despite seeing zero doubt, zero conscience, and zero empirical evidence that there was a shred of good left in him, Luke gambled everything on a tenuous biological link and nearly blind optimism (and I suppose a Force vision warning him about the dangers of running Darth Vader through), and that gamble paid off in a big way. So for the genre savvy fan, Rey made the only correct choice. Taken on their own, however, it was a huge mistake that everybody paid the price for.

Honestly? I didn't really mind Rey in TFA. In fact, many of the examples I gave of her shenanigans from TFA I was more or less willing to accept in stride as part of her being 'The New Luke' of the new Trilogy even if Lukes flying prowess was better explained. And even with all the examples I've given here, I still think what I call the 'Force User Arc' of TLJ was decent. Not the BEST it could be, but then no big blockbuster is.

And in the end, I don't discount her empathy and willingness to try to turn Kylo as a flaw, because it's not. It was both the right choice in the original trilogy, and it was the right choice here.

As for Kylo becoming a more effective villain than Snoke? Snoke, playing Kylo and Hux off each other had the Resistance on the run and very nearly destroyed.

Kylo, with the Resistance Cornered on a planet with no means of escaping, but with allies in system with a ship. Stops the assault and orders everyone to shoot at a single man. And continue shooting for several minutes of increasingly ridiculous overkill. And then when that DOESN'T work. Stops the assault again so he can personally go out, walk over there, and engage him in a laser sword duel. Allowing the rebels to escape on said Ship he knew about.

He might be more powerful, he might be able to unite the First Order beneath him via brute force. But he has all the common sense of a rock.

The series is ALREADY portraying him as an incompetent leader. And we haven't even seen the third movie yet.

[Daimbert]

You make a good point about how Lando's slight embellishments to his uniform is not a close comparison to Holdo's wildly flamboyant appearance... and now, just a few paragraphs later, you seem to be deliberately ignoring the very point you made so that you can make an inference about The Agenda.

The problem here is that you are mistaking YOUR argument for mine [grin]. While I noticed the difference in uniform, it not only wasn't followed up on, it has been pointed out that Leia herself doesn't wear a proper uniform, so it's not really an indication of anything about Holdo herself that we are at least obviously supposed to read out. However, if one is going to make that a point of comparison, Lando still looks more military than Holdo did. I guess my point here is that I don't believe and see no reason to believe that the filmmakers intentionally crafted Holdo's appearance to scream "Dilletante!", especially since her appearance or even those traits are never made an issue AND Leia, the one character that we are inclined to trust because of her appearances in the OT and TFA seems to side with Holdo. And, of course, that Poe sides with her when he finds out what the actual plan is.

Also, you need to recognize that I always put "The Agenda" in quotes, which means that I'm not taking it as some kind of organized thing, even on the level of patriarchy. I see these issues coming up due to some goals that I don't disagree with -- diversifying roles -- that are implemented really, really badly.


The uniform notwithstanding, if I had walked in to the Millenium Falcon, and someone pointed to Lando with his cape and hair and general playboy swagger and said, "That's General Calrissian, you'll be taking your orders from him from now on," I would have the same reaction Poe did. You're right, he didn't have the same implied reputation that Holdo did going in to that scene, but nonetheless, if someone tells me that there's a guy with the ostensible rank of a flag officer who will be leading me into battle, there's a certain expectation that Lando simply doesn't fit.

The thing is that it's never mentioned, and so in general the movie doesn't make a big deal out of it. For Holdo, the only thing we have is what seems to be a throwaway line that is never mentioned again. Since that isn't brought up, we would at least have to question whether our assessment of it being that extraordinary is out of line. So, at best, for Holdo it's a POSSIBLE interpretation, but not the only one and not necessarily the best one. Which ties into one of the problems that I think we can both agree exists in TLJ: the movie doesn't really bother to properly develop its points, and so it is really left up to individual interpretation over what the heck is actually happening there, which from what I've heard Johnson saying is not the intent. To be honest, that's one of the main reasons I actually PREFER TLJ to TFA: its inconsistent implementation means that you can pretty much take the movie however you want. For example, if you really do think that Poe was right and Leia and Holdo were wrong there's LOTS of evidence in the movie to suggest that Leia's objection was just her being broken by the various tragedies and deaths and being unable to stomach any more deaths, and that Holdo caused the mutiny by not bothering to actually give the people hope when having hope was promoted as being so important elsewhere. You can see the idea that Ben simply cannot be turned and that there should be no more Jedi as the rantings of a despondent Luke. You can see Rose's comment about not sacrificing to kill what you hate but to save what you love as her justifying her romantic notions, which are hinted at at the beginning with her hero worship. I can't say that's what they intended, but what they ended up with was a movie so ambiguous that whatever meaning you want to take from it can be justified by the movie.

But here we're trying to get at the ACTUAL intent, which is a Herculean task.


The fact that Holdo apparently has a great reputation makes things worse, but let's pretend that she didn't. Poe's being introduced to a new leader, who beyond the lack of a uniform, clearly stands out in terms of appearance. The disparity between Holdo and the grimy rank and file is obvious, but even compared to the rest of the higher ranks (and possibly quasi-civilian leadership), she stands out as flamboyant. You rationalize about the hair (given alien cultures, yadda yadda), but given the evidence before our eyes, Holdo is likely human or near-human, and pretty much everyone in the resistance who looks near-human has pretty much the real-life human range of hair colors. (In fact, I'm not sure I recall even an obvious bottle blonde in the mix.)

If I were part of a rag-tag resistance group, I'd be a little put off if someone told me that my new commander was a dude who clearly had time to frost his tips and touch up his roots.

Well, I'm not rationalizing it, but simply reporting my ACTUAL REACTION. I noted the uniform but it never came up again, and differing hair colours pale as something odd given the wide variety of aliens and styles, so I'm not convinced that that was the reaction they wanted us to have. But I think we can both agree that the issue here is that the movie does not really do anything to show us how we are supposed to view Holdo. And to continue the comparison to Lando, if they had put RotJ Lando in that position things really would have worked out better, because we'd at least be conflicted since WE know that both Lando and Poe are competent, and Lando is quite likely to be running a scam that he doesn't really want to tell anyone about until the last minute, since he is clearly willing to deceive people and of course often makes up things as he goes along. But Holdo is, at best, a standard officer, and so we have no idea why she'd do what she did, but at the end of the day it is clear that we are supposed to think that her idea was a good one, since BOTH Leia and Poe claim it is.


This illustrates my criticism of Holdo logic in general: It's predicated on a lot of assumptions, most tenuously the assumptions you make about how the producers must have made certain assumptions about how the audience would react, but that we can't really support with evidence because the producers made the wrong assumptions, and that the Star Wars audience is much smarter than the stupid audience they assumed would watch, and so we can only speculate based on how we assume said stupid audience would react.

Of course, the same thing applies to your defenses of Holdo as well, because the movie doesn't really properly develop the arc so that we can be sure what they intended. But things are not as speculative as you think they are ...


Sometimes, we have to speculate, but we should keep in mind that the more we build speculation on more speculation, the more questionable our conclusions. When throw out an obvious, if unsatisfying explanation (Poe was shocked by her apparently high maintenance, flamboyant appearance), and you can't think of a single other possible reason until you presume a partisan scriptwriter and a dumb chauvinist audience, maybe you should give that first explanation another look.

Except that I don't really have to presume that, as it is clear that not only that scriptwriter but the Star Wars upper brass in general are looking to add more diversity to Star Wars, and the various "Gates" that have spawned that and are the context for this whole debate have explicitly stated on multiple occasions that criticism of their diverse characters is driven by an inability to tolerate people other than white males in major and leadership roles. So my assumptions are pretty reasonable given the context. Yours, on the other hand, have to presume that we are meant to see her as incompetent despite the fact that the movie not only doesn't actually and directly present her that way, but also directly argues against that. For example, you said this above:


You mean like Holdo had to sacrifice herself to save everybody from the blunder she caused after willfully ignoring the problem that the entire rebellion thought they were doomed because the leadership had no plans for bailing them out, and she decided it was important to keep that plan secret for... reasons?

But the issue is that she DIDN'T sacrifice herself to save everyone from her blunder. The only reason the FO attacked the shuttles was because the slicer that was brought in for Poe's plan sold them out, and the only reason Holdo sacrificed herself there was to stop the attack so that some of them could escape. Holdo WOULD have sacrificed herself in the fleeing flagship, but that would have been her sacrificing herself to fulfill her own plan, and was set up to be utterly heroic. So the movie doesn't, in fact, present her as incompetent, even though we can all see huge flaws in her plan that should have doomed it except for the utter stupidity of the FO.

And to continue:


That being said, I've seen dozens of works where some guy is basically terrible (incompetent, *******, or incompetent *******), but he makes up for it with a heroic sacrifice, and then everyone just whitewashes over how terrible he is. It's bad writing then, just like it's bad writing now. The only difference is that in the past, I've never seen it called out as anything other than bad writing. Apparently, every time a woman does it (I was just talking about Star Wars, but I noticed you keep referencing movies with female heroes as a whole), it's an Agenda thing.

Except that in those cases the leader is called out directly on their idiocy, and after perhaps attempting to justify it eventually come to the realization that they screwed up -- usually with a "What have I done?!?" moment --- and explicitly set out to atone for their mistake, showing that their hearts were in the right place but they really shouldn't have been in command. This has parallels in real-life, with a number of incompetent generals who fought bravely -- if often futilely -- to correct their errors. None of this happens for Holdo. The people who get "What have I done?!?" moments are Finn, Rose and Poe. Holdo never admits she made a mistake, directly or indirectly. So it's hard to believe that they were aiming at that trope since they left out all the markers that could lead us to see that it is that trope.

For RotJ, Lando should not be leading the attack. It should clearly be Wedge doing that. But we can see the external film reasons for making it Lando -- the need for a main character and he's the most main character and the biggest name character available -- and so can forgive the movie for bending reality a bit to make it fit. I just don't see any clear reason to portray Holdo as they do beyond the indirect ones I've cited, and don't find yours convincing since it seems to ignore that any incompetence on her part is only inferences from what WE think of given her actions, while what the movie directly tells us contradicts that. It'd be like insisting that the rest of the Rebels considered Lando a dandy for his cape despite the movie not only not mentioning it but in fact contradicting it (Ackbar listening to Lando's advice twice, for example).


Sarcastically made, but not an unfair point. Though if you'll note, my problem isn't with the existence of her Agenda. But with the manner in which she executes it.

Same here. I wrote a post a while ago on how I'd redo TFA, and I ended up adding two additional female characters (admittedly, borrowed from Legends): replacing Poe with Syal Antilles, since what he did is what Wedge would typically do, and since he didn't want to come back it would give a nice link back to the OT, and replacing Snoke with Mara Jade, and having her be killed by Rey to spur on Kylo. I think most people don't mind diverse characters, they just dislike them being written poorly because of the fear of unfortunate implications.

[Zevox]

So, since this is a "General Star Wars" thread and not just an "argue about The Last Jedi/post-Disney Star Wars films" thread: news!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is returning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI7WyhWZkzk). It seems to be set in between the ending of the original show and the events of Revenge of the Sith, and all of the major protagonists are accounted for in the trailer, including Ahsoka (who now looks more like she did in Rebels).

Have to say, I did not see that coming. I thought I'd heard the next project for the team that did The Clone Wars and Rebels was going to be set in the sequel era and focus on the Resistance. Definitely happier to see this, and am cautiously optimistic. While both are flawed to varying degrees, I overall enjoyed both The Clone Wars and Rebels, and would welcome more of Rex, Ahsoka, and the rest.

[Mechalich]

So, since this is a "General Star Wars" thread and not just an "argue about The Last Jedi/post-Disney Star Wars films" thread: news!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is returning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI7WyhWZkzk). It seems to be set in between the ending of the original show and the events of Revenge of the Sith, and all of the major protagonists are accounted for in the trailer, including Ahsoka (who now looks more like she did in Rebels).

Have to say, I did not see that coming. I thought I'd heard the next project for the team that did The Clone Wars and Rebels was going to be set in the sequel era and focus on the Resistance. Definitely happier to see this, and am cautiously optimistic. While both are flawed to varying degrees, I overall enjoyed both The Clone Wars and Rebels, and would welcome more of Rex, Ahsoka, and the rest.

Is this them just finally making the previously canceled final season material? That's what it seems like. That's nice - even though we already know what happens since that material was placed in books and comics instead - but it's not a completely new series or anything.

[Zevox]

Is this them just finally making the previously canceled final season material? That's what it seems like. That's nice - even though we already know what happens since that material was placed in books and comics instead - but it's not a completely new series or anything.
Couldn't say, all I know is what's in the trailer, and I'm not familiar with the previously-canceled season you're referring to. I just watched the show on Netflix, I don't know much about the making of it.

[hamishspence]

Is this them just finally making the previously canceled final season material? That's what it seems like. That's nice - even though we already know what happens since that material was placed in books and comics instead - but it's not a completely new series or anything.

Season 7 material (The Bad Batch, Crystal Crisis on Utapau) has been released in "incomplete form" as animation, and some more of it was released as comics and novels (Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple)

but Ahsoka wasn't in any of those. Her presence in the trailer suggests that what's being covered is the one major Season 7 arc that hasn't come out before - the "Siege of Mandalore" arc.


The Ahsoka novel showed the very end of that arc - Anakin leaving Mandalore and Ahsoka, to rescue the Supreme Chancellor from Grievous - but the main part - Ahsoka battling Maul on Mandalore - this appears to be what the upcoming series will show us - with Anakin asking her to go to Mandalore and deal with Maul, being what the trailer's alluding to.

[Xyril]

That's, kind of a thing but the issue is not so much that she heroically sacrificed herself and so is forgiven, or people don't want to speak ill of her. But that the movie goes out of it's way to say she was never wrong to start with. And yes, that is Poe's major character flaw.


I guess that's a distinction I don't see. Or maybe a distinction you don't see. To me, TLJ doesn't "go out of its way" to say she was never wrong to begin with any more than numerous other movies who do the white washing. The one point where I see TLJ going slightly beyond is Leia stating that Poe was wrong to mutiny to begin with, which I suppose if you read into it, might also imply that Holdo was right in how she handled things. The thing is, it's not an either or thing for me. If Holdo had ordered everyone to murder a bunch of younglings, then yes, mutiny is absolutely right, and Holdo absolutely wrong. If Holdo had been a perfect commander, and Poe mutinies, then he'd be absolutely right, she'd be absolutely wrong. But what actually happened? I've already stated my criticisms of Holdo's leadership style, so clearly I felt she was wrong, and to me that's perfectly compatible with Poe being absolutely wrong as well, at least with respect to the mutiny. He was right to take issue with how Holdo was acting as a commander, right to question her choices... and maybe right to do so to her face, in front of the rank and file, like he did. But by the time he escalated to mutiny, he was absolutely wrong.



Not sure if you got cut off here or what?

I was trying to cut and consolidate some stuff we keep repeating, and apparently made a mess of things, sorry. I'm not actually sure

Also, how do you feel about Rey's parents? Granted, I thought it was poorly written. Clever writing of Snoke's dialogue would imply something special about her parents at first, while in hindsight could also look like he was commenting on their ordinariness; instead, it felt like Snoke was blatantly and pointlessly lying to the fourth wall. Still, its in there, and we're stuck with it. Doesn't this count as some sort of emotional cost? Granted, it's not as serious as "Obi-Won lied to me" or "my mom got killed by Tusken raiders," but it seemed like the faint sense that her parents were somehow noteworthy and connected her to the wider galaxy was important to Rey's sense of self, and the end result of her adventure is that she lost that.


I was more comparing to the similar arc in the sister movie of Empire Strikes Back. Luke goes to Confront Vader and rescue his friends, and not only does he fail to rescue his friends, but also gets his hand cut off and his faith in his original mentor who set him against Vader in the first place shattered.


True, and I liked how thirty years later it fed into the recurring motif tying amputations to this sort of reckless conduct. I agree that I wish her journey would have mirrored Luke's more--that said, if they had done it (hand at all), I probably would have been even more critical of the new trilogy for clumsily aping the cool parts of the first one.



Compare to Rey, who goes to confront Kylo, the two kill Snoke and his guards, then she flees to rescue her friends, all limbs intact and stronger in the force than ever thanks to the stolen Jedi Texts. (Still annoyed that there are paper books rather than Holocrons, but I fully admit that's a curmudgeon thing rather than a legitimate complaint.)





Also a fair point. I in fact, probably would. Though I would also note that they make other mistakes WITH consequences that are clearly on them. Finn leaving and Rey getting captured because of it. Poe's getting captured and requiring Finn's help.




Except the only commentary we get on that is not "The Rebels were right to feel concerned." but instead "Holdo was secretly right all along, and the Rebels were being foolish." Which yes, is a slightly nonsensical opinion, but that was the takeaway I got from Leia, who shot Poe after all. Not Holdo.

True, but shooting Holdo probably wouldn't have accomplished anything. "See Poe, I'm on your side, you can stand down now. Yes, Holdo was terrible--clearly everybody dying put her in a position she was unqualified to handle--but she actually did have a plan, and I guess I'll need you to help execute it while we wait for her to wake up."



My issue with this line of logic is that 'Not Succeeding as Well as you could have' is not 'Failure' She went there hoping to turn Kylo. And to a certain degree she did. If she had lost a hand or something in the ensuing fight? That'd be one thing. But she loses what.... a lightsaber? That we know is going to be rebuilt into some sort of bad*** lightsaber Staff Lance thing. (And I will be severely disappointed if it isn't.)

Fair enough, but a lot of your examples of failures could arguably be cast as "not succeeding as well as you could have" based on whether or not you lump them together a related goal, and whether you're willing to take into account an even worse failure condition that didn't happen. Poe's mutiny was pretty worse case scenario, but for most everything else, you can broadly put it into the category of not succeeding as well as you could have.



This would be equivalent if that TIE they stole was the star wars equivalent to the jet from the old Swat Kats cartoon, and became a plot point for the rest of the series. Instead they crash it into the desert and it's never heard from again.

Fair enough, but my point was that their mistakes weren't a meaningful failure--it was just an entertaining speed bump on the same road to success they would be on absent their mistakes. Ultimately, no negative consequences, beyond looking bad to the audience for the mistakes themselves.



These would be fair points. If the movie made them. The movie doesn't. The movie tells the story that Leia did NOT make a mistake in her handling of Poe, but that Poe was the one out of line. Again, The point is not that we can make that point. We can make whatever point we want. The movie lays the fault on Poe, and noone else. Especially given the subtext where it's very clear Poe isn't used to being treated the way Holdo treats him, because Leia is far more familiar with him.


I guess we disagree in where we draw the line as to what point the movie wants us to infer, and what point we're making in spite of the movie.


The story arc is basically.

Pretty apt summary. I will say that there are plenty of movies (and EU stories) where the protagonist was basically Poe (right down to petty motives and selfish and reckless execution) and turned out to be right all along (or at least got positive results), and I suppose we're supposed to be rooting for him. In fact, that's pretty much where I saw the movie going. I suppose that since the plucky rogue is often male, one could argue that this was a deliberate subversion for Agenda reasons.



That's sort of my point. Male hero's are flawed but still hero's. I'm not trying to say they're ONLY there to fumble over each other and do Bro Claps or something. They're decent characters as they are. No competence upgrade needed. If female characters were set to the same competence and accountability level, I would be happy with the result.


I mainly disagree here in that by "female characters," I only really think of Rey. The most objectionable thing about Rose is that she managed to stun Finn--and if you've ever had to deal with a situation where you were struggling to figure how not to hurt somebody you could easily bring down, that one seems a bit contrived, but far from implausible. Looking at it one way, stopping Finn from taking out the big gun because you want him to live is stupid and selfish. On the other hand, nobody could know how much time his sacrifice would have bought the rebels, and her actions allowed him to demonstrate character growth (well, regrowth) without actually having to sacrifice himself--in that sense, her character was taking a hit in service to his arc.




I actually LIKED bitter sarcastic old man Luke.

Me too, which is why I'm fairly happy with his story, failures and all. I knew it would be hard doing something decent with him, and that's one of the things the movie did alright on. Even the fight. Luke truly fighting and losing to Kylo Ren would have been a good "beating up Worf" moment, but wouldn't really sit right with me. Luke throwing in the towel and letting Kylo strike him down would have been too slavishly aping A New Hope, plus it would have been hard to engineer a similar situation where it would actually make sense. In Obi-Wan's case, if he had kept fighting long enough to win (or to escape), Luke and the others probably would have been captured while waiting for him. Otherwise, there is zero reason why guiding Luke as a Force ghost would be preferable to guiding him as a crotchety old man. Luke winning would have short-circuited the whole plot of the younger rebels beating the First Order (I assume that's where we're going anyway.)

Instead, he demonstrates that his abilities haven't been stagnant since Empire Strikes Back, shows his old student the weakness of giving in to your darker emotions, shows everyone else that a victory condition doesn't necessarily mean slaying the bad guys, and then dies to make room--not because Kylo Ren or anyone else beat him, but because the bill finally came due for him waiting for literally the last minute before deciding to get involved.


The issue is noone in the movie acts like she was a horrible leader. The only exception being Poe and his friends. Who are shot by Leia and made to be in the wrong by the narrative. Leia or no Leia, if the full crew of not one but THREE Rebel Starships that are crammed onto that cruiser had sided with Poe, Poe would have succeeded in his Mutiny and Leia would have had to talk to him rather than exploding a door off the hinges and shooting him.

Well, if the implied lack of widespread mutiny is the movie telling us she's a good leader, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Also, I've already said that I think Poe was wrong to mutiny, in spite of Holdo being a bad leader, so I don't see how that would imply that the whole crew would want to make the same wrong choice. I only take issue with the assertions that "the movie tells us Holdo was completely right" or "the movie tells us Holdo made no mistakes/has no flaws." To me, all "the movie" did was tell us that Poe was more wrong than everyone else, and that he screwed things up. The fact that Leia didn't decide to comment on Holdo's shortcomings while she was sacrificing herself doesn't necessarily mean that "the movie" thinks we never saw those shortcomings, or that it's telling us to ignore any conclusions we drew. I suppose it's a fine point in the grand scheme of things, no big deal that we disagree on it.


I'm actually not asking them to justify putting those women in. I honestly like most of them. I'm wondering if perhaps flaws in their portrayal are due to an outside agenda due to the head of Lucasfilm publically supporting that agenda rather than just bog standard poor writing. And mind you, you're quite right that there are people who would take the same position for intellectually dishonest reasons, but I disagree in allowing such things to control the discourse around subjects.

And you're absolutely right to wonder, especially if outside sources would support the speculation. My issue is that for many people, their choice of words tend to indicate less "I wonder if this is why" and more "clearly this is why, and I hate it." I apologize for unfairly lumping you in with the latter category.



Though as a total side rant. I love Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex. And I was actually severely annoyed by all the changes they made to the movie. Cutting out the fictional philosophical and political commentary, cutting out the American Empire's meddling self. Cutting out most of the cast of Section 9. Changing the rest. The movie was more or less a generic summer blockbuster with a 'ghost in the shell' paint thrown over it.

Agreed. I think the whitewashing thing was noteworthy and debateworthy, but it pretty much eclipsed the fact that they took good source material and rammed it straight into the heart of mediocrity.



And in the end, I don't discount her empathy and willingness to try to turn Kylo as a flaw, because it's not. It was both the right choice in the original trilogy, and it was the right choice here.


I don't either, but I think the extent to which she allowed it to override prudence was a flaw. Of course, part of it relates to the fair criticism that the new series makes Rey far too central to the conflict. When Luke went aboard the second Death Star, there was a plan to save the rebellion that didn't involve him at all.



As for Kylo becoming a more effective villain than Snoke? Snoke, playing Kylo and Hux off each other had the Resistance on the run and very nearly destroyed.

Kylo, with the Resistance Cornered on a planet with no means of escaping, but with allies in system with a ship. Stops the assault and orders everyone to shoot at a single man. And continue shooting for several minutes of increasingly ridiculous overkill. And then when that DOESN'T work. Stops the assault again so he can personally go out, walk over there, and engage him in a laser sword duel. Allowing the rebels to escape on said Ship he knew about.

He might be more powerful, he might be able to unite the First Order beneath him via brute force. But he has all the common sense of a rock.


All fair points. Maybe I'm giving too much credence to the idea of natural Force affinity being the thing that trumps everything else. I'm sure a lot of it was picked up from the EU, which of course isn't cannon anymore. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I am hoping that Luke's victory is the catalyst that drives Kylo Ren to grow up a bit and get his rage under control, and that this bit of character development makes him a more effective villain.

[Sapphire Guard]

I have something I'd like to propose.

Those who do not like the current direction of Starwars. What do you feel would be a good series of changes or proposed ideas going forward, that would not simply make the films better for you. What would be something that you would like. But not alienate those of us who like the current direction.

Same question for those who like the current direction, what would be some good ideas towards those who do not like the direction and help them enjoy without losing what we're loving.

Rogue One is my least favorite of the new films but it seems to be some people's favorite. Perhaps someone can explain why they like that direction. Is it the darker tone?

Good proposition.

I think I'd just have more arguments rather than lectures. Statements like 'the legacy of the Jedi is failure' shouldn't go unchallenged in universe.

Also minor detail, more creativity in design. If you look at, say, the nightclub in Ep 2, or the tanks in Ep 1, while they're close enough that you an understand what they are they're not just earth designs with minor changes. In Rogue One the tank just looks like a tank. In Solo the speeder just looks like a car with no wheels. In TLJ the casino just looks like a casino, there are blackjack tables, slot machines, horse races...there are no weird alien games we don't understand.Makes the galaxy feel smaller.

[Yora]

That was my main problem with the Casino planet, and the one thing that I disliked immediately when I saw it. All the other things only felt bad once you start to think about them, but that place was so obviously Monte Carlo with rubber masks.

[Peelee]

Good proposition.

I think I'd just have more arguments rather than lectures. Statements like 'the legacy of the Jedi is failure' shouldn't go unchallenged in universe.

Also minor detail, more creativity in design. If you look at, say, the nightclub in Ep 2, or the tanks in Ep 1, while they're close enough that you an understand what they are they're not just earth designs with minor changes. In Rogue One the tank just looks like a tank. In Solo the speeder just looks like a car with no wheels. In TLJ the casino just looks like a casino, there are blackjack tables, slot machines, horse races...there are no weird alien games we don't understand.Makes the galaxy feel smaller.

I'm really glad I wasn't the only one who liked that proposal and took it up. But yeah, as much as I dislike what Lucas did with the Prequels (and make no mistake, I'm still glad it's out of his hands now), dude was absolutely wonderful at creative worldbuilding and design.

[Devonix]

Good proposition.

I think I'd just have more arguments rather than lectures. Statements like 'the legacy of the Jedi is failure' shouldn't go unchallenged in universe.

Also minor detail, more creativity in design. If you look at, say, the nightclub in Ep 2, or the tanks in Ep 1, while they're close enough that you an understand what they are they're not just earth designs with minor changes. In Rogue One the tank just looks like a tank. In Solo the speeder just looks like a car with no wheels. In TLJ the casino just looks like a casino, there are blackjack tables, slot machines, horse races...there are no weird alien games we don't understand.Makes the galaxy feel smaller.

Starwars has always had a bit of an issue with making their worlds seem sufficiently " Alien " to me. The 1950s dinner just sitting in the middle of Coruscant in Episode 2. being the biggest offender to me.

Space Monticarlo I didn't see it as a big deal but can understand it taking someone out of the story.

But one thing I don't quite get is the Legacy of the Jedi is Failure not going unchallenged. We're not supposed to accept it as fact, this was just Luke being mopey. And as far as equipment design, , I love weird scifi tech so I'm right there with you on changing things up.

[Saintheart]

But one thing I don't quite get is the Legacy of the Jedi is Failure not going unchallenged. We're not supposed to accept it as fact, this was just Luke being mopey.

But how does Rey have any real idea that this is the case? How is she supposed to know what the truth of the matter is? Especially given it's coming from the guy who's promised to give her a listicle of three reasons not to become a Jedi and who does have the runs on the board in the sense that he can apparently use the Force and can train people in how to use it?

Literally the only sliver of a reason she might have to disbelieve Luke is Han's exposition supposition back about, what, five days beforehand that Luke blamed himself for the destruction of the Jedi Order after a student of his failed. Then she gets to Ache-Toe and gets browbeaten by Luke that he failed as a Jedi because the Jedi inherently sucked as an idea right from the start, to such a point that they deserved to die out completely, which he now proposes to do. The problem is that she has no other source for a counterargument to this old legend's statement of how things "really were," and she never challenges Luke on this. Therefore as an audience we're basically left to write Darth Johnson's script for him, once again: somehow assume that she figured out Luke wasn't telling the truth about the past and therefore decided to act as she did (i.e. somehow reason that Luke was going to have a good old Third Reich bookburning in his front yard and steal the texts ahead of time, though this too was apparently pointless because Yoda says she already knows everything in them ... sigh ...)

I mean, good grief, Luke's statement that the Jedi apparently allowed Darth Sidious to rise and wipe them out. As an audience we know that it didn't turn out anything like that - Sidious was the result of a good thousand years or so of deliberate concealment of their activities from the Jedi, and the guy was powerful enough that even with half the Jedi Council sitting right in front of him they couldn't detect him. But Rey has no way to know the truth of the matter for herself, and yet behaves for the purposes of the story as though she does. By which I mean she magically intuits that Luke's going to burn up the entire Jedi library and so steals it for safekeeping. She has no magic source of knowledge, no Force spirit whispering in her ear that "Actually, this old guy is just a cranky old stick-in-the-mud, the Jedi were actually pretty effective peacekeepers such that it took 1,000 years of covert planning and slow, unrelated societal decline to wipe them out".

This rubbish cannot be meta-explained by "Oh, the Force told her what the right thing was to do when you look at how things turned out in the end." The issue is not that we as an audience have a reason to think Luke is not telling the truth, the problem is that Rey doesn't.

[druid91]

Alternatively, Skywalker wasn't the best teacher, and didn't approve of her running off, and so likely wouldn't teach her again.

So she goes and steals all his special Jedi books so she has SOMETHING to go off of.

Also, Yoda's comment was that 'The Library does not contain anything she does not already possess' Meaning, he was telling Luke in his backhanded cryptic way about Rey stealing the books.

[Dargaron]

But one thing I don't quite get is the Legacy of the Jedi is Failure not going unchallenged. We're not supposed to accept it as fact, this was just Luke being mopey. And as far as equipment design, , I love weird scifi tech so I'm right there with you on changing things up.


Wait, wasn't the crowning moment of Luke's "Kylo, you suck" speech him saying that the Jedi would continue (implicitly) in Rey? It's in the part where he did his whole, "Wow, everything you just said is wrong" act from the beginning, and he says that he won't be the last Jedi.

Not going to touch Darth Ultron's Agenda with a ten-foot pole. I personally think that a lot of the failings of The Force Awakens can be laid at the feet of general incompetence (A lot of the things that irked me about The Force Awakens reminded me of the things I disliked about Abram's other Sci-fi reboot, and Star Trek 2009 wasn't exactly brimming w/ female characters and/or empowerment). Also, I was surprised to see that most folks seem to think that Poe is "white male." Maybe I'm bad at racial identification, but I thought he was supposed to be Latino? Does that not count anymore? I'm so confused these days (on a job application last year, they specifically counted North African as White, for example).

Going back to Devonix's request for constructive criticism, I think the best positive change that they could've made when concepting the new trilogy is to get a better handle on our villains. For all its sins, the Prequel Trilogy made sure that our new set of heroes were facing a different kind of menace than in the original trilogy. The OT (except for Empire) features our plucky Rebel Alliance (outnumbered and outgunned, of course) against the massive yet slow-moving Empire, visually represented in their Death Stars: massive superweapons that must be overcome through individual heroism.

The Prequel Trilogy shifted focus (and some might argue, genres) into a political drama, set against the backdrop of a large, conventional military confrontation. The Separatists were not the Empire: I would be tempted to argue that they were the exact opposite, representing the Evils of Big Business as opposed to Big Government of the OT. The goal wasn't to overcome some seemingly-unstoppable bad guy, but to navigate between two roughly-comparable armies and (eventually) to discover that the same puppet master was behind both of them.

The Sequel Trilogy should have had their own take on the villains, and unfortunately (in my opinion), "The Empire, but utterly incompetent" doesn't exactly cut it. "We" (or at least our heroes) beat those guys over thirty years ago, back when they weren't confused by the space equivalent of a prank phone call. (I'm looking at you, Hux!)

If I had to give a direction for the First Order, it's be to make them pragmatic, aggressive and vehemently not the Empire. When we're given that (very atmospheric) storm trooper landing scene on Jakku at the beginning of TFA, we should've had a voice-over from Captain Phasma (you know, given how much they hyped up the character in the trailer), about how this should be a routine mission, by the book, etc, that they're under the direct supervision of Kylo Ren (so don't make us look bad) and that she doesn't want any casualties. Have the shuttle land, the door starts to open...

...And then cut to a POV shot of one of the rebels outside the craft as a wave of flashbangs are launched out the boarding ramp. The ramp fully opens, and storm troopers w/ high-tech riot shields swarm out, firing stun pistols at close range to stun the already-incapacitated rebels, and take down any that managed to evade the flashbangs. Show us the kind of well-oiled combat teams we expected when Obi-Wan said "Only Imperial storm troopers are this precise." Make this battle a complete and utter wipe for the defenders, even while the Storm Troopers were fighting to disable rather than kill.

Then, once the battle's over, you can still have Finn doing his Heroic BSOD over his dead friend: let's say one of the rebels got a lucky shot and he's down. Phasma can explain (to the grief-stricken Finn) that it's almost always better to take rebels alive: the intel and codes they get from these rebels might save the lives of five other storm troopers someday, not to mention "civilian casualties" if they stop, say, a bombing.

Then (after Poe does his attempted sneak attack on Kylo), have Kylo do his standard "I'm evil: murder them all!" thing. Phasma protests (from a purely pragmatic standpoint), but Kylo gives the order and pulls rank.

Boom: we now have a demonstration that at least the military portion of the New Order is very different from the Empire we saw previously: they're ruthlessly pragmatic (to the extent that they'll honestly show mercy if it benefits them), the officers obviously care about the men and women under them, and they were able to totally wreck the less well-equipped/trained defenders of the village, using some "modern" military hardware (read: something we've had since the Cold War). We also have the seeds for conflict between Kylo "angsty edgelord teenager" Ren, and the professional branch of the First Order military: he has rank, she has brains. We also sow the seeds for potential Finn/Phasma interactions: she understands exactly why he'd be discontent over Ren's unnecessary cruelty, and he realizes that, given her way, she'd have gone with the more pragmatic option. The difference of opinion would be whether the "good" of the First Order (stable leadership under Snoke, a strong military to put down piracy, chances for competent individuals to raise their station via service) is worth the negatives (putting up with pointless and wasteful Sith B.S., the political repression, anti-alien sentiments, etc.)

[Darth Ultron]

That was my main problem with the Casino planet, and the one thing that I disliked immediately when I saw it. All the other things only felt bad once you start to think about them, but that place was so obviously Monte Carlo with rubber masks.

This is a problem not just in star wars, but all science fiction and fantasy: things need to look contemporary for most people to get it. This is even more true as Star Wars wants to attract the 'normal folks', that are not Star Wars fans and don't want to 'think too hard' when watching a movie.

To make a very alien casino type place would just turn too many waters off and they would not get it.

[Sapphire Guard]

Well. My effort to be uncontroversial didn't go well.


But one thing I don't quite get is the Legacy of the Jedi is Failure not going unchallenged. We're not supposed to accept it as fact, this was just Luke being mopey. And as far as equipment design, , I love weird scifi tech so I'm right there with you on changing things up.

No one argues it in story. Yoda's talk basically acknowledges the failures, he just says that Luke has to make up for them. There's nothing to indicate that 'the legacy of the Jedi is failure' wasn't actually true.




I unironically like the prequels, but I doubt Lucas personally designed everything himself. But somehow the Disney era designs lost something.

[Zevox]

Going back to Devonix's request for constructive criticism, I think the best positive change that they could've made when concepting the new trilogy is to get a better handle on our villains. For all its sins, the Prequel Trilogy made sure that our new set of heroes were facing a different kind of menace than in the original trilogy. The OT (except for Empire) features our plucky Rebel Alliance (outnumbered and outgunned, of course) against the massive yet slow-moving Empire, visually represented in their Death Stars: massive superweapons that must be overcome through individual heroism.

The Prequel Trilogy shifted focus (and some might argue, genres) into a political drama, set against the backdrop of a large, conventional military confrontation. The Separatists were not the Empire: I would be tempted to argue that they were the exact opposite, representing the Evils of Big Business as opposed to Big Government of the OT. The goal wasn't to overcome some seemingly-unstoppable bad guy, but to navigate between two roughly-comparable armies and (eventually) to discover that the same puppet master was behind both of them.

The Sequel Trilogy should have had their own take on the villains, and unfortunately (in my opinion), "The Empire, but utterly incompetent" doesn't exactly cut it. "We" (or at least our heroes) beat those guys over thirty years ago, back when they weren't confused by the space equivalent of a prank phone call. (I'm looking at you, Hux!)

If I had to give a direction for the First Order, it's be to make them pragmatic, aggressive and vehemently not the Empire. When we're given that (very atmospheric) storm trooper landing scene on Jakku at the beginning of TFA, we should've had a voice-over from Captain Phasma (you know, given how much they hyped up the character in the trailer), about how this should be a routine mission, by the book, etc, that they're under the direct supervision of Kylo Ren (so don't make us look bad) and that she doesn't want any casualties. Have the shuttle land, the door starts to open...

...And then cut to a POV shot of one of the rebels outside the craft as a wave of flashbangs are launched out the boarding ramp. The ramp fully opens, and storm troopers w/ high-tech riot shields swarm out, firing stun pistols at close range to stun the already-incapacitated rebels, and take down any that managed to evade the flashbangs. Show us the kind of well-oiled combat teams we expected when Obi-Wan said "Only Imperial storm troopers are this precise." Make this battle a complete and utter wipe for the defenders, even while the Storm Troopers were fighting to disable rather than kill.

Then, once the battle's over, you can still have Finn doing his Heroic BSOD over his dead friend: let's say one of the rebels got a lucky shot and he's down. Phasma can explain (to the grief-stricken Finn) that it's almost always better to take rebels alive: the intel and codes they get from these rebels might save the lives of five other storm troopers someday, not to mention "civilian casualties" if they stop, say, a bombing.

Then (after Poe does his attempted sneak attack on Kylo), have Kylo do his standard "I'm evil: murder them all!" thing. Phasma protests (from a purely pragmatic standpoint), but Kylo gives the order and pulls rank.

Boom: we now have a demonstration that at least the military portion of the New Order is very different from the Empire we saw previously: they're ruthlessly pragmatic (to the extent that they'll honestly show mercy if it benefits them), the officers obviously care about the men and women under them, and they were able to totally wreck the less well-equipped/trained defenders of the village, using some "modern" military hardware (read: something we've had since the Cold War). We also have the seeds for conflict between Kylo "angsty edgelord teenager" Ren, and the professional branch of the First Order military: he has rank, she has brains. We also sow the seeds for potential Finn/Phasma interactions: she understands exactly why he'd be discontent over Ren's unnecessary cruelty, and he realizes that, given her way, she'd have gone with the more pragmatic option. The difference of opinion would be whether the "good" of the First Order (stable leadership under Snoke, a strong military to put down piracy, chances for competent individuals to raise their station via service) is worth the negatives (putting up with pointless and wasteful Sith B.S., the political repression, anti-alien sentiments, etc.)
That would be a significant improvement, for sure. I still wouldn't be thrilled with "angsty edgelord teenager" Kylo, but that would be a hell of a lot better groundwork for the First Order as a whole, if not Kylo personally, to be effective and interesting villains for the new films, and have Phasma at least be a more interesting character.

[Dargaron]

Well. My effort to be uncontroversial didn't go well.



Your name makes that comment unintentionally hilarious, given how controversial the in-comic Sapphire Guard are in the OOTS subforum. Unless it was deliberate, in which case it's deliberately hilarious.

More brainstorming about what to do w/ Finn while Rey is training with Old!Luke.

Spoilered because it's kinda huge.

Here's another "fix."

Now, we knew from the get-go that Rey was going to Achoo in order to learn from Luke: it's basically a given that she's going to be separated from the other characters for most of the movie, a la Dagobah. However, that doesn't mean Finn's plot has to be directly related to the Resistance: the evacuation of...whatever planet they were on could've happened off-screen, and there's one plot thread that I'm surprised didn't come up, given how important Rey's family (or lack thereof) was to the movie:

Finn's parents.

Sure, he was raised from early childhood, but the First Order could very well go after his family, either as sheer retribution (since, presumably, the rest of the Resistance already took precautions on that front) or in order to potentially influence him. Have him do some digging on the Space!Internet to find out who his parents were, and have him plus a rebel handler (read: Rose and/or Poe) go to find them and send them into hiding.

Except here's the catch: Finn gets home easily enough, and finds that he's been home this whole time. Because he's a clone.

Now, you might be snorting at the whole "Finn's a clone!" twist, but what put it into my head was that scene with the tentacle-ball-creatures in Han's freighter. They devoured the generic bad guys immediately, but when one grabbed Finn, it basically dragged him around long enough for Rey to sever the tendril.

While out-of-character, we know it's because of Character Shields, in-character, what if it didn't eat Finn...because these creatures specifically don't eat cloned meat? Han made a comment about the tentacle-monsters being dangerous where he said "have you heard of the massacre on Planet X?" I was waiting for someone to ask how we knew what happened if the creatures killed everyone, and for Han to comment that they don't eat cloned meat: a clone had witnessed the events and reported them later.

Here's the overall plot: when the First Order was being put together from the ashes of the post-Palpatine Empire, Emperor Snoke issued a decree that HIS Empire would be defended by the very best: the next generation of Storm Troopers would be trained from early childhood to protect from the vicious, bloodthirsty Rebels.

Most would (ostensibly) come from orphanages, but all loyal citizens were expected to submit their young children to a series of non-invasive tests, in order to see if their child was suitable for the service e.g. do they have ANY genetic defects or developmental issues whatsoever. The First Order collected a large number of children across a number of planets, did their genetic sampling...then sent ALL of them back with a very official letter saying,

"We are sorry, but your child does not meet our criteria for Storm Trooper training. Due to the proprietary nature of our tests, we cannot tell you exactly what disqualified him or her. If [childname] wishes to serve the First Order when he/she comes of age, we would be happy to offer him/her a seat at our civil service exam."

They banked on the fact that no one would do a systematic accounting and figure out that NONE of the children passed the "tests." The assumption was always supposed to be that the storm troopers were taken, but from "somewhere else."

What actually happened was: the children's' genetic material was taken, scanned for deficiencies, and the ones who fit the First Order's recruitment standards were cloned and the clones were surreptitiously enrolled into the First Order's Storm Trooper training program.

The whole project was the brainchild of a geneticist (not sure if he should be an old Kaminoan or just human), who proposed the idea to Snoke: droids are vulnerable to reprogramming, genetically-identical clones are vulnerable to tailored bioweapons and/or diseases, and a draft is unpopular. However, an army of clones made from a variety of genetic templates would sidestep all of these issues.

Most of Finn's plot would be uncovering this scheme (who knows, it could even involve an Alien Casino on Canto Blight!), and eventually confronting the man behind it, who reveals the intent: Finn and his like are only the First Generation. The goal is to create soldiers who are, strictly speaking, expendable. When they die, they don't leave behind grieving orphans, widows, parents etc.

The problem with Finn's generation is that they are still identifiable as "son/daughter of X and Y." The second generation (who are only now being put into service) will consist of synthetically-produced humans assembled from the enormous database that Finn and his like came from, randomized and put through several algorithms in order to produce randomly-generated soldiers that fit within certain criteria. This second generation has no family to mourn them, and no connection to a past that could be used to turn them against the First Order.

However, the Second Generation would still form attachments among themselves (as Finn did with that other Storm Trooper in The Force Awakens). While the Second Generation are synthetic humans, they're not fundamentally different from naturally-occurring humans. The Third Generation, however, has been specifically designed not to feel loss on the death of a comrade. They've been conditioned to understand that "Death is the natural end of life," and to feel no sadness when one of them dies.

The overall theme of the scene should be the Doctor being off-balance: he thinks that he's a good person, and he feels "sorry" for the First and Second Generation clones (since he views himself as their only family). So when Finn shows up, visibly angry, he doesn't have a particularly good response, because he knows that he made a conscious decision to harm Finn and his fellow Storm Troopers in place of non-clones who otherwise would've been storm troopers. He's subconsciously aware that by doing that, he's basically declaring Finn and his fellows to be "disposable people," as Star Trek's Measure of a Man put it.

Obviously, this is reprehensible (bluntly "using" sentient beings as a means to an end, particularly if you created them specifically for that purpose, is fairly deep on the "Evil" side of the alignment spectrum). Finn defiantly tells off Cloner-dude, possibly shoots him, and the party sabotages the facility's databanks on their way out to make sure that no one can continue Cloner-dude's work.

Everyone gets 100 XP and 3d8 Gold Pieces for completing that subplot, then they get a call on an emergency channel: the Rebellion leadership, who had evacuated to one of their bolt holes in the Outer Rim (read: the Salt Planet) was tracked by the First Order. Someone dashing and heroic needs to run the blockade, get Leia and the others out of their bunker, and escape the planet before Snoke arrives personally to finish them off. Spoiler: Snoke shows up immediately after our intrepid heroes land on the planet, so that the Ren/Rey Lightsaber duel can take place largely unchanged (while our heroes on the surface frantically try to get an ancient Planetary Defense Cannon online). Ren does his coup, lands with the ground forces to seal his victory (presumably, the Planetary Defense Cannon gets off one decent shot that disables key systems on Snoke's Ship), and Luke does his Force Illusion to save the day.

EDIT: Also, it's a slim chance, but I'm imagining Cloner-dude as played by Aidan Gillen. Not sure why.

[druid91]

Quite honestly? I'm hoping for an Imperial Comeback....

Only as 'the good guys.' The 'Less Evil Guys?'

Imagine it, Kylo is in charge now, he hits everything like a blunt object, the Empire in the Inner Systems is used to doing things it's own way and has, with the senate been more or less endemically incompetent, been able to do whatever it wants so long as it keeps up a facade of peace.

Kylo and the First order are mucking that up. And worse, now they expect the Imperial Inner Systems to fall in line behind a 'Supreme Leader' who acts like a spoiled teenager.

Cue the Rich Nobility of the Imperial Inner systems un-mothballing the old star destroyers, calling up new storm trooper legions, and giving the 'Resistance' a call.

Sadly, not likely to happen. But would be cool.

[Dargaron]

Quite honestly? I'm hoping for an Imperial Comeback....

Only as 'the good guys.' The 'Less Evil Guys?'

Imagine it, Kylo is in charge now, he hits everything like a blunt object, the Empire in the Inner Systems is used to doing things it's own way and has, with the senate been more or less endemically incompetent, been able to do whatever it wants so long as it keeps up a facade of peace.

Kylo and the First order are mucking that up. And worse, now they expect the Imperial Inner Systems to fall in line behind a 'Supreme Leader' who acts like a spoiled teenager.

Cue the Rich Nobility of the Imperial Inner systems un-mothballing the old star destroyers, calling up new storm trooper legions, and giving the 'Resistance' a call.

Sadly, not likely to happen. But would be cool.

That sounds very cool indeed. Reminds me of one of my favorite bits of Legends lore:

Apparently in the middle of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, they attacked a mining colony called Mantessa that had uncovered one of the old Separatist weapons caches from the Clone Wars, and re-purposed the Super Battle Droids as their planetary defense force. You had Battle Droids some forty+ years behind the times being brought out of mothballs to fight the "new" enemy. I would pay movie theatre prices to watch a war movie about out-of-date Battle Droids (presumably having developed personalities during that time) protecting a colony from the latest up-and-coming villain.

[Zevox]

Quite honestly? I'm hoping for an Imperial Comeback....

Only as 'the good guys.' The 'Less Evil Guys?'

Imagine it, Kylo is in charge now, he hits everything like a blunt object, the Empire in the Inner Systems is used to doing things it's own way and has, with the senate been more or less endemically incompetent, been able to do whatever it wants so long as it keeps up a facade of peace.

Kylo and the First order are mucking that up. And worse, now they expect the Imperial Inner Systems to fall in line behind a 'Supreme Leader' who acts like a spoiled teenager.

Cue the Rich Nobility of the Imperial Inner systems un-mothballing the old star destroyers, calling up new storm trooper legions, and giving the 'Resistance' a call.

Sadly, not likely to happen. But would be cool.
Wait, what? The Empire is still around? I thought the First Order was the remnants of it just re-branded because... well, because the writers of TFA and/or Abrams felt like it?

[Foeofthelance]

Wait, what? The Empire is still around? I thought the First Order was the remnants of it just re-branded because... well, because the writers of TFA and/or Abrams felt like it?

I think its supposed to be less, "The First Order should turn good" and more, "All those Imperials who were actually governing rather than running around committing massacres should say, "The hell with this nonsense, we're going back to running things, only without the megalomaniac leadership this time." Something closer to what Pelleon ended up with by the time the Legends version of the EU wrapped, only instead of existing side by side with the Republic just replacing it again. Which, admittedly, I'd be all for.

I'd also be interested in seeing who and what else has been using the Force this entire time. I get the whole Jedi/Sith thing dominated the Republic and therefore the Empire, but you've now had some 50 to 60 years since the fall of the Jedi, and 40 years or so where the Empire wasn't running around exterminating people. What's been happening with all those other force users who were born during this time? The ones Luke never found or existed in the fringe worlds unclaimed by the First Order and the Republic?

[druid91]

Wait, what? The Empire is still around? I thought the First Order was the remnants of it just re-branded because... well, because the writers of TFA and/or Abrams felt like it?

Yes. The Inner Systems like Corellia and Kuat are still under Imperial control. As in the original Empire. They have a treaty with the New Republic that forbids them from forming Stormtrooper Legions or developing new Capital Ships, or torturing people, but they're still a completely independent group who govern themselves.

The First Order is the parts of the Empire who didn't like bowing to the New Republic's demands, ran off to the unknown regions, built their OWN empire, made stormtroopers, tortured people, and built star destroyers and their new death star.

One side of the split got all the rich and grumpy nobility. The other side got all the Megalomania and Space Magic.

[Devonix]

I think its supposed to be less, "The First Order should turn good" and more, "All those Imperials who were actually governing rather than running around committing massacres should say, "The hell with this nonsense, we're going back to running things, only without the megalomaniac leadership this time." Something closer to what Pelleon ended up with by the time the Legends version of the EU wrapped, only instead of existing side by side with the Republic just replacing it again. Which, admittedly, I'd be all for.

I'd also be interested in seeing who and what else has been using the Force this entire time. I get the whole Jedi/Sith thing dominated the Republic and therefore the Empire, but you've now had some 50 to 60 years since the fall of the Jedi, and 40 years or so where the Empire wasn't running around exterminating people. What's been happening with all those other force users who were born during this time? The ones Luke never found or existed in the fringe worlds unclaimed by the First Order and the Republic?


This has kinda been shown in the new trillogy. They're just kinda there. No one's going around and scouping them up for training. So most of them have just been going through their lives without realizing they've got force powers, or using them in ways that they don't notice.

[Peelee]

I unironically like the prequels, but I doubt Lucas personally designed everything himself. But somehow the Disney era designs lost something.

Yeah, it probably wasn't all him all the time, but I think he definitely brought a lot to the table, and that loss was a huge blow.

[Foeofthelance]

This has kinda been shown in the new trillogy. They're just kinda there. No one's going around and scouping them up for training. So most of them have just been going through their lives without realizing they've got force powers, or using them in ways that they don't notice.

That's sort of my point. We've gotten Rey and the kid at the end of the Last Jedi. In the Legends EU, there were multiple groups running around that used the Force, even if they weren't Galactic players. Groups like the Witches on Dathomir. But with the two largest - or at least most active - factions out of the picture, why not have someone step up and start filling in the gaps? Someone who discovered their powers, went a-searching, and found their own version of Temple of the Whills or a lost Jedi stronghold such as Ahch-To and made it into a starting point of their own organization? The entire point is the Force is omnipresent. Make it bigger than the Jedi and Sith.

[Zevox]

Yes. The Inner Systems like Corellia and Kuat are still under Imperial control. As in the original Empire. They have a treaty with the New Republic that forbids them from forming Stormtrooper Legions or developing new Capital Ships, or torturing people, but they're still a completely independent group who govern themselves.

The First Order is the parts of the Empire who didn't like bowing to the New Republic's demands, ran off to the unknown regions, built their OWN empire, made stormtroopers, tortured people, and built star destroyers and their new death star.

One side of the split got all the rich and grumpy nobility. The other side got all the Megalomania and Space Magic.
And two movies into the sequel trilogy they've never thought to mention this? Wow. Just goes to show you how truly awful the sequels have been at setting up the actual status of the galaxy following the big time-jump. I mean, I already thought it was bad that they never bothered to even hint at what the balance of power between the New Republic and the First Order was before the use of Starkiller Base, or explain why the Resistance is something separate from the New Republic, but there's a whole third major power in the galaxy, and it's the original Empire we already know from the original films? Good grief. I see it's not just the characters in the films that are stunningly incompetent.

I'm not even entirely sure how to feel about that news, honestly. I mean, it would be great if the Empire could take over villain duties, but obviously that's not happening. The Resistance and Empire working together in the way the New Republic and Imperial Remnant did in the old EU could be an interesting turn to take... but at the same time wouldn't fix the existing problems with the sequels. Blech.


That's sort of my point. We've gotten Rey and the kid at the end of the Last Jedi. In the Legends EU, there were multiple groups running around that used the Force, even if they weren't Galactic players. Groups like the Witches on Dathomir. But with the two largest - or at least most active - factions out of the picture, why not have someone step up and start filling in the gaps? Someone who discovered their powers, went a-searching, and found their own version of Temple of the Whills or a lost Jedi stronghold such as Ahch-To and made it into a starting point of their own organization? The entire point is the Force is omnipresent. Make it bigger than the Jedi and Sith.
The Witches of Dathomir - or at least the Nightsisters - are actually still in canon, since they were part of the Clone Wars cartoon. Although they're a tad different than they were in The Courtship of Princess Leia, and not exactly something I'd be eager to see brought to the big screen, personally.

Aside from that though, I can agree with the general sentiment. Falls into the category of "do something different instead of retreading ground the OT covered" that was a major criticism of TFA.

[Saintheart]

Alternatively, Skywalker wasn't the best teacher, and didn't approve of her running off, and so likely wouldn't teach her again.

So she goes and steals all his special Jedi books so she has SOMETHING to go off of.

The problem being that, again, she has no reason to do this to start with, and then no reason to do it once she comes back hilariously unscathed from her bad first date with Emo Ren.

She's been told the Jedi books are worthless basically because the Jedi failed as a concept from the beginning. This, combined with the general thrust she's been getting across the series that you basically don't need to be a Jedi to use the Force, means the only reasonable implication she can draw from that is that the Jedi library's contents are not going to be of any help to her. Rey is not exactly a contrarian character (insofar as she has a character at all - plastic wrap, as I've said) so I'd regard that as still a jarringly bad motivation ... not that we ever get even any hint of her motivations for grabbing the books, which is half the problem.

She also has less reason to disbelieve Luke's views on life, the universe, and everything after she confronts Kylo. Luke has been telling her the confrontation isn't going to go the way she thinks, i.e. that Kylo is not redeemable. And this turns out to be precisely correct. If there's any implication to be had from that, it can only be that Luke's new dark-and-cranky view of Jedi ideas is correct - that the Jedi way is flawed as a concept, because having had the experience of failure, he literally knows better than she does (after all, failure is the greatest teacher something something...). Had Rey gone and burned the Jedi texts herself in a fit of despair, I would certainly have bought that at that point. Instead, we've got the reverse - that somehow she's taken that experience and concluded that the Jedi way is correct and worth following after all. Luke even says that he won't be the last Jedi, the implication being that Rey apparently is one.


Also, Yoda's comment was that 'The Library does not contain anything she does not already possess' Meaning, he was telling Luke in his backhanded cryptic way about Rey stealing the books.

Except if we are meant to take that implication from the line, it then makes Yoda's Quickened Call Lightning on an unsuspecting tree entirely pointless. But that's only one of the horrible, horrible elements of that scene, which I will not get into here because I prefer my blood pressure at a slightly elevated reading rather than catastrophic.

[Jayngfet]

You make a good point about how Lando's slight embellishments to his uniform is not a close comparison to Holdo's wildly flamboyant appearance... and now, just a few paragraphs later, you seem to be deliberately ignoring the very point you made so that you can make an inference about The Agenda.

The uniform notwithstanding, if I had walked in to the Millenium Falcon, and someone pointed to Lando with his cape and hair and general playboy swagger and said, "That's General Calrissian, you'll be taking your orders from him from now on," I would have the same reaction Poe did. You're right, he didn't have the same implied reputation that Holdo did going in to that scene, but nonetheless, if someone tells me that there's a guy with the ostensible rank of a flag officer who will be leading me into battle, there's a certain expectation that Lando simply doesn't fit.

The fact that Holdo apparently has a great reputation makes things worse, but let's pretend that she didn't. Poe's being introduced to a new leader, who beyond the lack of a uniform, clearly stands out in terms of appearance. The disparity between Holdo and the grimy rank and file is obvious, but even compared to the rest of the higher ranks (and possibly quasi-civilian leadership), she stands out as flamboyant. You rationalize about the hair (given alien cultures, yadda yadda), but given the evidence before our eyes, Holdo is likely human or near-human, and pretty much everyone in the resistance who looks near-human has pretty much the real-life human range of hair colors. (In fact, I'm not sure I recall even an obvious bottle blonde in the mix.)

If I were part of a rag-tag resistance group, I'd be a little put off if someone told me that my new commander was a dude who clearly had time to frost his tips and touch up his roots.

Cloaks were actually something you could add on to a military uniform until very recently as a U.S. naval officer, provided you were a commissioned officer. They've fallen out of fashion in recent decades but were entirely legal and acceptable in the era's the original trilogy was both shot in and takes influence from. You can argue that Lando plays fast and loose with his hair but having longer hair as a rebel is something that was established from day one. Luke never got a haircut and Han didn't have to either, and he'd been a general since at least Hoth. Long hair and Mustaches are very obviously acceptable for the rebel alliance.

Lando's reputation is also at least equal to Holdo's. They're both noted in their own sequences to have performed well in at least one previous battle. The main difference is that one is clearly making more effort to fall into line than the other.

Lando may have added an extra accessory, but he is wearing the same uniform as the other officers and the accessory fits with his uniform enough that it can conceivably be a variation on regulation gear. The rebellion's Commander in Chief wears white robes and it's leading Admiral has a white suit, so there's very obviously variation allowed in the ranks. Han Solo has been a general for a while at that point and isn't even bothering to wear the uniform.

Holdo meanwhile doesn't bother to wear any variation on a resistance uniform. She has no signifiers of rank and has a title lower than the other rule breakers since she's only a vice admiral, wheras Mon Mothma is equivalent to a U.S. president and Ackbar a four star Admiral. The resistance itself also has far more attachment to uniform given even Admiral Ackbar went from his custom suit to the same uniform all the others are wearing. So instead of being a minor variant on a uniform taken loosely she's the only outlier on an organization that's visibly more stringent on who can wear what.

[Devonix]

For Holdo I simply assumed that the attire Holdo was wearing served two purposes.

1: To help separate Holdo's appearance from the military to make it harder to trust her and put us more in the mindset of Poe. Since he's the point of view character

2: A visual callback to Mon Mothma since her dress looks very very similar to Mon Mothma's other than the color.

[druid91]

The problem being that, again, she has no reason to do this to start with, and then no reason to do it once she comes back hilariously unscathed from her bad first date with Emo Ren.

She's been told the Jedi books are worthless basically because the Jedi failed as a concept from the beginning. This, combined with the general thrust she's been getting across the series that you basically don't need to be a Jedi to use the Force, means the only reasonable implication she can draw from that is that the Jedi library's contents are not going to be of any help to her. Rey is not exactly a contrarian character (insofar as she has a character at all - plastic wrap, as I've said) so I'd regard that as still a jarringly bad motivation ... not that we ever get even any hint of her motivations for grabbing the books, which is half the problem.

She also has less reason to disbelieve Luke's views on life, the universe, and everything after she confronts Kylo. Luke has been telling her the confrontation isn't going to go the way she thinks, i.e. that Kylo is not redeemable. And this turns out to be precisely correct. If there's any implication to be had from that, it can only be that Luke's new dark-and-cranky view of Jedi ideas is correct - that the Jedi way is flawed as a concept, because having had the experience of failure, he literally knows better than she does (after all, failure is the greatest teacher something something...). Had Rey gone and burned the Jedi texts herself in a fit of despair, I would certainly have bought that at that point. Instead, we've got the reverse - that somehow she's taken that experience and concluded that the Jedi way is correct and worth following after all. Luke even says that he won't be the last Jedi, the implication being that Rey apparently is one.



Except if we are meant to take that implication from the line, it then makes Yoda's Quickened Call Lightning on an unsuspecting tree entirely pointless. But that's only one of the horrible, horrible elements of that scene, which I will not get into here because I prefer my blood pressure at a slightly elevated reading rather than catastrophic.

This is a woman who completed a star chart to the legendary luke skywalker, then flew halfway across the galaxy to find him, and then pounded on his door for days to try and get him to train her....

And you think that just because Luke says "The Jedi suck, go away." she should just go "Right, well then I guess that's that." and go away? She very clearly has a pre-existing attachment to Luke and the Jedi. It's clear from the start of the movie.

And by the time we find out how the attempt to redeem Kylo goes, Rey has already stolen the books and rescued her friends with Jedi powers.

The point of the lightning was to call Luke's bluff. Luke said he was going to burn down the tree containing the sacred jedi texts, but he was just being whiny. So Yoda set the tree on fire to prove that Luke really was still attached to the Jedi and their texts and wouldn't want them burned down. Yoda knew nothing of value would be lost, because Rey already stole the books. So why not?

[Devonix]

This is a woman who completed a star chart to the legendary luke skywalker, then flew halfway across the galaxy to find him, and then pounded on his door for days to try and get him to train her....

And you think that just because Luke says "The Jedi suck, go away." she should just go "Right, well then I guess that's that." and go away? She very clearly has a pre-existing attachment to Luke and the Jedi. It's clear from the start of the movie.

And by the time we find out how the attempt to redeem Kylo goes, Rey has already stolen the books and rescued her friends with Jedi powers.

The point of the lightning was to call Luke's bluff. Luke said he was going to burn down the tree containing the sacred jedi texts, but he was just being whiny. So Yoda set the tree on fire to prove that Luke really was still attached to the Jedi and their texts and wouldn't want them burned down. Yoda knew nothing of value would be lost, because Rey already stole the books. So why not?

For some reason people didn't get that Yoda was calling Luke's bluff. If Luke thought that the jedi should die for real then he would have gotten rid of the books decades ago. He was so wrapped up in his depression that he couldn't go forward. but also so holding onto his mistakes instead of learning from them. He was stuck.

[Saintheart]

The point of the lightning was to call Luke's bluff. Luke said he was going to burn down the tree containing the sacred jedi texts, but he was just being whiny. So Yoda set the tree on fire to prove that Luke really was still attached to the Jedi and their texts and wouldn't want them burned down. Yoda knew nothing of value would be lost, because Rey already stole the books. So why not?

What, aside from also exploding roughly 30-odd years of canon and immediately inviting people to ask why the great Galactic Civil War wasn't over with a bolt from the heavens five seconds after Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi carked it? Introducing wild inconsistencies about the level of influence netherworld spirits have on Force-sensitives? All [Evocation] school spells are Maximised provided [Transmutation] spells of the communication type are locked out?

Personally, I didn't read Luke as being whiny. I read him as being entirely serious because he'd been thrown into even deeper despair by Rey's departure to what he believed was likely to be her doom, and therefore reacted by taking his nihilism up to 11. He even had a damn flaming torch in hand, for crying out loud.

[Devonix]

What, aside from also exploding roughly 30-odd years of canon and immediately inviting people to ask why the great Galactic Civil War wasn't over with a bolt from the heavens five seconds after Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi carked it? Introducing wild inconsistencies about the level of influence netherworld spirits have on Force-sensitives? All [Evocation] school spells are Maximised provided [Transmutation] spells of the communication type are locked out?

Personally, I didn't read Luke as being whiny. I read him as being entirely serious because he'd been thrown into even deeper despair by Rey's departure to what he believed was likely to be her doom, and therefore reacted by taking his nihilism up to 11. He even had a damn flaming torch in hand, for crying out loud.

If the lightning was called down by Yoda, or if it was simply him being there as the lightning came naturally, or if the force did it and Yoda was a conduit. it's all up for interpretation. But yeah this was supposed to be whiny Luke.

" I'm gonna do it this time, I'm really gonna do it, I'm gonna burn the text don't you stop me"

Notice how the second the place actually caught fire he rushed out to stop it.

[Dr.Samurai]

For some reason people didn't get that Yoda was calling Luke's bluff.
The most hopeful and optimistic hero of the galaxy almost murdered his sleeping nephew, has resigned himself to a distant planet, doesn't care that his best friend was murdered or that his sister is in grave danger. Yoda returns as a force ghost that can actually manipulate the world and call down lightning and blast stuff. One is talking about destroying the last remnants of the Jedi order, and the other one actually does.

Why are you confused that "for some reason" people didn't get it? By the third act I didn't know what to expect, didn't care what to expect, and I just wanted the movie to be over.

[Devonix]

The most hopeful and optimistic hero of the galaxy almost murdered his sleeping nephew, has resigned himself to a distant planet, doesn't care that his best friend was murdered or that his sister is in grave danger. Yoda returns as a force ghost that can actually manipulate the world and call down lightning and blast stuff. One is talking about destroying the last remnants of the Jedi order, and the other one actually does.

Why are you confused that "for some reason" people didn't get it? By the third act I didn't know what to expect, didn't care what to expect, and I just wanted the movie to be over.

But Yoda didn't do it, didn't destroy anything. Because actually destroying the knowledge of the past would go against the themes of the film.

[Devonix]

That's sort of my point. We've gotten Rey and the kid at the end of the Last Jedi. In the Legends EU, there were multiple groups running around that used the Force, even if they weren't Galactic players. Groups like the Witches on Dathomir. But with the two largest - or at least most active - factions out of the picture, why not have someone step up and start filling in the gaps? Someone who discovered their powers, went a-searching, and found their own version of Temple of the Whills or a lost Jedi stronghold such as Ahch-To and made it into a starting point of their own organization? The entire point is the Force is omnipresent. Make it bigger than the Jedi and Sith.

Well we have Snoke and what he did with the Knights of Ren. That was them adding a new Force organization seperate from the Jedi and Sith.

[Peelee]

Well we have Snoke and what he did with the Knights of Ren. That was them adding a new Force organization seperate from the Jedi and Sith.

Who is Snoke, and what did he do with the Knights of Ren?

[Foeofthelance]

Who is Snoke, and what did he do with the Knights of Ren?

That's sort of the question, isn't it? We could have had something delving more into that in TLJ, but instead they just offed Snoke and never bring up the Knights. There'x X number of Luke's apprentices who are running around the galaxy, either under Snoke's command or under Kylo's command as Snoke's puppet, but outside of the mention of them leaving when Kylo did they seemed to have vanished. And what about Luke's other apprentices? Are we supposed to assume that Kylo woke up, saw look standing there, and had the immediate second thought of, "Whelp, Uncle gone's crazy and I need to run for my life, but first, let me murder all my friends and classmates who won't run with me!" Or have they spent the last some odd years searching for the Force, looking for something else to help them with their powers?

[Zevox]

And what about Luke's other apprentices? Are we supposed to assume that Kylo woke up, saw look standing there, and had the immediate second thought of, "Whelp, Uncle gone's crazy and I need to run for my life, but first, let me murder all my friends and classmates who won't run with me!"
Considering they explicitly claimed in TFA that Kylo had killed the rest of Luke's students, yep, that's what we're supposed to think alright. Which, to be fair, for someone who was actually deep in the dark side already, wouldn't be much of a stretch - it's the way TLJ sets it up as occurring at the same time as the incident that lead to his fall that makes it a head-scratcher.

[Thrudd]

And two movies into the sequel trilogy they've never thought to mention this? Wow. Just goes to show you how truly awful the sequels have been at setting up the actual status of the galaxy following the big time-jump. I mean, I already thought it was bad that they never bothered to even hint at what the balance of power between the New Republic and the First Order was before the use of Starkiller Base, or explain why the Resistance is something separate from the New Republic, but there's a whole third major power in the galaxy, and it's the original Empire we already know from the original films? Good grief. I see it's not just the characters in the films that are stunningly incompetent.

Exactly. This sums up the first failure on the part of the writers, which forms a foundation of failure for the other elements of the films. When I read the opening crawl for Force Awakens, I was already underwhelmed and disappointed. The rest of the film likewise failed to explain or even hint at anything that had happened since Return of the Jedi, except for Han running away from Leia and Luke going missing/hiding. The films make it look like the status quo from the OT had not changed in the intervening 30 years, The factions just changed their names for some reason and a new sith master took over to replace the emperor.

They leave it to the novels to preserve any kind of continuity -I feel like I can hear Abrams, Johnson and Disney - "We're gonna make a spectacle with spaceships and lightsabers, and call it new Star Wars. Leave it to the book nerds to figure out how it fits with those other movies."

I think the sequels are an insult to everyone who remembers the original movies, and show an utter lack of creativity - whether that is the fault of the corporate prerogative to avoid risk of any sort or the fault of content creators who actually lacked imagination and/or respect for the franchise, I don't know.


RE: Snoke and Kylo, the only way it makes sense is if Snoke had already been in communication with Ben and some of Luke's other students, maybe with his interstellar mind link power like we saw in TLJ. That means Ben and some other students had already been turned and were loyal to Snoke, which is what Luke sensed. When Luke went to confront Ben/Kylo, he was not mistaken, he should have trusted his feelings because Kylo likely was already planning to murder him and all the other students soon. It just happened that night instead of the next day or a week from then, because Luke was obviously on to him. Of course, the movies don't explain any of that and I don't doubt it is just another oversight and failure of basic logic consistent with how the sequels have played out so far.

My impression is, JJ Abrams didn't really have anything planned. Just like "Lost", he throws stuff in that he thinks is cool, and leaves it open ended to figure out later. That half the stuff he puts in makes no logical sense doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if some or all of the things he puts in never gets explained in any satsifactory way.

[Dargaron]

Exactly. This sums up the first failure on the part of the writers, which forms a foundation of failure for the other elements of the films. When I read the opening crawl for Force Awakens, I was already underwhelmed and disappointed. The rest of the film likewise failed to explain or even hint at anything that had happened since Return of the Jedi, except for Han running away from Leia and Luke going missing/hiding. The films make it look like the status quo from the OT had not changed in the intervening 30 years, The factions just changed their names for some reason and a new sith master took over to replace the emperor.

They leave it to the novels to preserve any kind of continuity -I feel like I can hear Abrams, Johnson and Disney - "We're gonna make a spectacle with spaceships and lightsabers, and call it new Star Wars. Leave it to the book nerds to figure out how it fits with those other movies."

I think the sequels are an insult to everyone who remembers the original movies, and show an utter lack of creativity - whether that is the fault of the corporate prerogative to avoid risk of any sort or the fault of content creators who actually lacked imagination and/or respect for the franchise, I don't know.

To be entirely too fair to the Sequel Trilogy, the OT also barely mentioned the political situation in the galaxy. We knew that there was an Imperial senate for, like, five minutes into A New Hope until it got dissolved (but we didn't know what they did, whether they were a rubber stamp or a serious check on the Empire, whom they represented, etc). We didn't even get confirmation that Coruscant was the capital world (or even that the Empire had a capital world at all) until the Prequels. We had no idea about, say, Hutt Space, how the Empire was governed, what the heck a "Grand Moff" was, etc. I don't think there was anyone who, after watching Empire Strikes Back, predicted "You know what, the next movie will start with everyone pulling off an Oceans 11-style infiltration of a crime lord's compound back on Tatooine. Oh, and that crime lord is also one of the five rulers of a sovereign state." All we knew about Jabba at that point was that he was a slug alien/crime lord who Han owed money, and that he was active on Tatooine.

That said, the Sequel Trilogy is basically replacing 30-some years of EU material which formed a reasonably-consistent body of material that explained the Star Wars galaxy's political history. So they do have a lot more 'splaining to do than the OT did, and they largely don't deliver. But that doesn't mean the OT did a particularly good job clarifying the actual situation.

[Peelee]

To be entirely too fair to the Sequel Trilogy, the OT also barely mentioned the political situation in the galaxy. We knew that there was an Imperial senate for, like, five minutes into A New Hope until it got dissolved (but we didn't know what they did, whether they were a rubber stamp or a serious check on the Empire, whom they represented, etc). We didn't even get confirmation that Coruscant was the capital world (or even that the Empire had a capital world at all) until the Prequels. We had no idea about, say, Hutt Space, how the Empire was governed, what the heck a "Grand Moff" was, etc.

Yeah, that's an advantage a standalone movie has over its many sequels. It can throw you into the middle and only explain what it needs to for the plot. Once you're ten movies in, though, pulling out "oh theres a new ruler who came out of nowhere with powers and also some other guys who also have powers but we'll only mention them once and ignore the connotations for two more movies" is poor writing.

[Zevox]

To be entirely too fair to the Sequel Trilogy, the OT also barely mentioned the political situation in the galaxy. We knew that there was an Imperial senate for, like, five minutes into A New Hope until it got dissolved (but we didn't know what they did, whether they were a rubber stamp or a serious check on the Empire, whom they represented, etc). We didn't even get confirmation that Coruscant was the capital world (or even that the Empire had a capital world at all) until the Prequels. We had no idea about, say, Hutt Space, how the Empire was governed, what the heck a "Grand Moff" was, etc. I don't think there was anyone who, after watching Empire Strikes Back, predicted "You know what, the next movie will start with everyone pulling off an Oceans 11-style infiltration of a crime lord's compound back on Tatooine. Oh, and that crime lord is also one of the five rulers of a sovereign state." All we knew about Jabba at that point was that he was a slug alien/crime lord who Han owed money, and that he was active on Tatooine.
Right, but the original trilogy was just introducing a new setting, and the basics were simple enough - the Empire controlled essentially everything, the Rebels were, well, exactly what the name would make you think, and that's basically all that mattered. Jabba being a crime boss that Han owed money to was all that mattered about him. Hutt space being one of the few, small exceptions to Imperial rule was ultimately irrelevant.

By contrast, since the sequels are picking up after the original trilogy, there's a built-in interest in what's happened to the galaxy since the end of those. What did the Rebels build in the meantime, and what became of the Empire after Palpatine's death? The films appear to tell us that the Empire just became the First Order, but evidently that's misleading, it instead split into two parts, and the real Empire is still out there as one of the major powers of the galaxy in addition to the First Order. It would be fine that it didn't get a ton of focus given it doesn't do anything during the films, but it's the sort of thing that should at least be mentioned in the opening text crawl or the like.

That is, assuming that it's a decision that was made when the films were being made. If not, and the novel writers were just allowed to write that in... well, damn, that's a failure on someone's part. I don't really want to say the novel writers, since it does make the sequel-era setting more interesting than if the First Order was fully just the Empire rebranded, but the editors or whoever was charged with making sure the novels fit with the films sure dropped the ball on keeping things consistent.

[Foeofthelance]

Considering they explicitly claimed in TFA that Kylo had killed the rest of Luke's students, yep, that's what we're supposed to think alright. Which, to be fair, for someone who was actually deep in the dark side already, wouldn't be much of a stretch - it's the way TLJ sets it up as occurring at the same time as the incident that lead to his fall that makes it a head-scratcher.

Ah, I missed that. All I remember was Han or someone saying that Kylo had destroyed the school, not that he'd actually murdered everyone.



My impression is, JJ Abrams didn't really have anything planned. Just like "Lost", he throws stuff in that he thinks is cool, and leaves it open ended to figure out later. That half the stuff he puts in makes no logical sense doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if some or all of the things he puts in never gets explained in any satsifactory way.

To be fair to Abrams, he didn't get to direct the TLJ and Rian Johnson basically decided to go off and do his own thing with Disney's blessing. I don't think Abrams has ever come out and explained what he had originally intended for things like Snoke or Rey's parents, but its kind of hard to blame him for not following through when the powers that be didn't care enough to either A) let him or B) force the guy who was replacing him to work from the same set of notes.