The Five Most Annoying Aspects of Star Wars

[Jay R]

5. Whiny Annakin: Why did this fun, interesting kid become a brooding, whiny teenager? Yes, that happens to teenagers a lot. And it’s annoying then, too.

4. Useless Lucas re-edits. Han shot first – that’s the kind of guy he was. It was supposed to establish the sort of selfish, amoral pilot you might find hanging out in a hive of scum and villainy. Then, over the course of the movie, he found redemption and a cause. Change him at the beginning of the movie, and you make many of his scenes seem wrong, for no good purpose.

3. Cee Threepio: The fact that we’ve grown accustomed to his annoying personality doesn’t make it any less annoying.

2. Jar-Jar Binks.

And the most annoying aspect of Star Wars is:

1. Star Wars fans constantly finding faults in a franchise they supposedly love.

[Rynjin]

As an outsider to Star Wars as a franchise (I do not consider myself a fan, but I don't really hate it or anything; they're okay movies. Better games.) the most annoying thing about the franchise to me is the over-focus on Jedi.

Jedi are a nearly extinct breed of backwater hicks with outmoded and unsustainable philosophical beliefs which are demonstrably unhealthy to the human mind and soul. As the expanded universe shows, they aren't even objectively correct about their view of the world; there are plenty of other races and places that have never heard of a Jedi and use the Force and whatnot just fine without falling into the Jedi's farcical notion that just because some people who have emotions are bad (the Sith) that emotionless = good.

They are a demonstrably failed experiment in the grand scheme of the universe. They never even lived up to their own ideal and failed miserably to accomplish much of worth in spreading their philosophy in the thousands of years of their existence.

They are also a really a small thing in general with the absolute VASTNESS of the Star Wars universe. There is so much untapped potential this franchise could mine.

But they don't.

Every movie is about Jedi. Every game is about Jedi. Every book is about Jedi. If a Jedi is not the main character, there is at least a prominent secondary character who is, or they're an antagonist (if it's a book about Sith; I think the Sith are also overplayed). And if there's a secondary character who's a Jedi there's a solid chance they'll convert the main character somehow over the course of it.

Enough with the frickin' Jedi already. They were cool when there were only two of them in the entire universe left. They were immediately lame when there was a council of do-nothing hypocrites introduced. Lightsabers are exponentially less cool the more there are in a single scene too.

Gimme something else.

[Peelee]

Every movie is about Jedi.
Rogue One. Solo.

Every game is about Jedi.
Tie Fighter. X-Wing. Episode I: Racer. Battlefront. Shadows of the Empire. Rogue Squadron.

Every book is about Jedi.
Lost Stars. Catalyst. Aftermath. Tarkin. Last Shot. Bloodlines.

Lists are not exhaustive.

1. Star Wars fans constantly finding faults in a franchise they supposedly love.
Bang on the money. Nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans.:smallwink:

[Rynjin]

Rogue One. Solo.

Tie Fighter. X-Wing. Episode I: Racer. Battlefront. Shadows of the Empire. Rogue Squadron.

Lost Stars. Catalyst. Aftermath. Tarkin. Last Shot. Bloodlines.

Lists are not exhaustive.

Sure, but I think you get what I was going for. The stuff not about Jedi is a tiny fraction of the franchise, which seems disproportionate for an organization that is defunct in the "present day" of the series. Hell, the only two movies that don't have a Jedi in them are the ones where there are literally two left in the entire universe and they're hiding out.

[Peelee]

Sure, but I think you get what I was going for. The stuff not about Jedi is a tiny fraction of the franchise, which seems disproportionate for an organization that is defunct in the "present day" of the series. Hell, the only two movies that don't have a Jedi in them are the ones where there are literally two left in the entire universe and they're hiding out.

Yeah, I do absolutely get what you mean, and I agree (especially on the games front, that galaxy is ripe for shooters, RPGs, platformers, and other games, and while it had the biggest list, it was still small). I'm not going to pretend I wasn't sitting here going "tee hee" as I wrote out multiple responses for each category, but at least part of my reason was to give an actual, workable list if you were looking for some.

On a related note, I would love a good remake of Shadows of the Empire, and I'm still salty about 1313 getting the axe.

[Sapphire Guard]

The one thing the fanbase agrees on is that they don't like the fanbase.

The thing about the Jedi is, they're the most unique thing about the series. It's not difficult to find spaceship battles, bounty hunting shows, or gritty war stories, whatever it is you want to find, in any other franchise. But there's not too many Jedi in everything else.

[Mechalich]

1. Star Wars fans constantly finding faults in a franchise they supposedly love.

Love and hatred are tied together in fandom. The more people care, the more they grow angry when the thing they care about is changed or they feel betrayed by it. The fanbase of Star Wars is extremely passionate and that's reflected in the strong opinions. In the absence of passion you get indifference. The fact that bad Star Wars makes people furious is a testament to its power as a franchise.


The thing about the Jedi is, they're the most unique thing about the series. It's not difficult to find spaceship battles, bounty hunting shows, or gritty war stories, whatever it is you want to find, in any other franchise. But there's not too many Jedi in everything else.

Pretty much, especially the whole moral and philosophical element. Mass Effect, for example, is Star Wars with a new skin (exhibit A: Drew Karpyshyn wrote for both franchises), but while biotics provide almost the exact same suite of powers as Jedi possess, they have none of the dramatic potential that the Force does. Somehow the hokey vaguely-Taoist mishmash Lucas slammed into the monomyth structure proved to be extremely compelling as a storytelling mechanic and it's an element that many other space fantasy franchises just don't have.

[Rynjin]

Thing is, the Expanded Universe stuff touched on various other traditions that keep that same basic idea, but are DIFFERENT.

There are myriad and varied religious and spiritual interpretations of the Force in the series that are hinted at, sometimes briefly touched upon, but never actually explored.

Any or all of those could be just as unique as Jedi.

[Telonius]

Love and hatred are tied together in fandom. The more people care, the more they grow angry when the thing they care about is changed or they feel betrayed by it.

Makes me want to facepalm when I see it in the Star Wars fandom, since that pretty much sums up how Anakin turned into Vader. :smallbiggrin:

[Lvl 2 Expert]

And the most annoying aspect of Star Wars is:

1. Star Wars fans constantly finding faults in a franchise they supposedly love.

And posting top 5's about it on forums?

[Kitten Champion]

As an outsider to Star Wars as a franchise (I do not consider myself a fan, but I don't really hate it or anything; they're okay movies. Better games.) the most annoying thing about the franchise to me is the over-focus on Jedi.

Jedi are a nearly extinct breed of backwater hicks with outmoded and unsustainable philosophical beliefs which are demonstrably unhealthy to the human mind and soul. As the expanded universe shows, they aren't even objectively correct about their view of the world; there are plenty of other races and places that have never heard of a Jedi and use the Force and whatnot just fine without falling into the Jedi's farcical notion that just because some people who have emotions are bad (the Sith) that emotionless = good.

They are a demonstrably failed experiment in the grand scheme of the universe. They never even lived up to their own ideal and failed miserably to accomplish much of worth in spreading their philosophy in the thousands of years of their existence.

They are also a really a small thing in general with the absolute VASTNESS of the Star Wars universe. There is so much untapped potential this franchise could mine.

But they don't.

Every movie is about Jedi. Every game is about Jedi. Every book is about Jedi. If a Jedi is not the main character, there is at least a prominent secondary character who is, or they're an antagonist (if it's a book about Sith; I think the Sith are also overplayed). And if there's a secondary character who's a Jedi there's a solid chance they'll convert the main character somehow over the course of it.

Enough with the frickin' Jedi already. They were cool when there were only two of them in the entire universe left. They were immediately lame when there was a council of do-nothing hypocrites introduced. Lightsabers are exponentially less cool the more there are in a single scene too.

Gimme something else.

This is among my main issues too, but it's less that they're ubiquitous (though, yes, I agree) and more that I find most of aspects of the universe beyond Space Wizards much more interesting and feel kind of vexed that the universe itself ultimately revolves around them.

The ages-old SF aesthetic to the universe, the variety of non-human aliens, the Space Western feel to the edges of space civilization. It has a lot of the elements I find I loved in Firefly and Farscape, but then you get this mystical battle between the Light and Darkness couched in the eternal repetition of this Jedi/Republican/Rebels versus Sith/Imperials meta-story and it loses most of its depth or complexity as well as feeling like everything is kind of futile in a Warhammer 40K way. The Sith/Imperials are apparently always going to rise again because that conflict defines Star Wars.

[Yora]

As an outsider to Star Wars as a franchise (I do not consider myself a fan, but I don't really hate it or anything; they're okay movies. Better games.) the most annoying thing about the franchise to me is the over-focus on Jedi.

As a hardcore Star Wars fan, I totally agree. Everything went downhill after the Jedi Council was introduced in Episode 1. The Jedi Knights games get away with it because there are so very few Jedi in them. (Really just 4.) I am okay with KotOR because that series is specifically about the Jedi and set at a time when the Jedi were at their prime.

But Star Wars is not about Jedi. It's about rebels and scoundrels, with the occasional Jedi crossing their path,

[Mightymosy]

1. The
2. Last
3. Jedi

I can't think of anything clever for 4 and 5, so this will have to suffice. I can't think of anything Star Wars that even comes close to this "story".

[Mechalich]

But Star Wars is not about Jedi. It's about rebels and scoundrels, with the occasional Jedi crossing their path,

That's way too broad. There is a Jedi character playing a significant role in all three OT movies and Luke's heroes journey to become a Jedi is at the heart of those films. Star Wars is absolutely about the Jedi. It's just not only about the Jedi. Exactly where the balance point lands varies. There are good Star Wars stories that are pretty much entirely about the Jedi, and there are good Star Wars stories that don't involve Jedi at all. TCW manages to have arcs on both ends of that spectrum within what is nominally the same show.

Did the Prequels focus too much on the Jedi? Maybe, certainly it would have been nice to pay more attention to the Republic Senate (several scenes got cut that would have been nice to have). Has the Disney Trilogy focused too much on the Jedi? Perhaps, though it's such a mess that describing it as 'focusing' on anything seems like a reach.

But what about the rest of the media currently out there? The various Disney EU materials aren't about the Jedi. Resistance isn't about the Jedi. The Mandalorian isn't about the Jedi. SWTOR (which technically still produces new content occasionally) has a heavy Jedi presence to be sure but also had a very large Force using faction that wasn't Jedi or Sith in the Knights of Zakuul and only half the classes are force users.


Makes me want to facepalm when I see it in the Star Wars fandom, since that pretty much sums up how Anakin turned into Vader.

Ordinary people aren't monastic space Shaolin with a mystical energy field whispering in their ears all the time. A large number of people cared very deeply about Star Wars for a very long time, and while there were plenty of ups and downs between 1983 and 2013, because the franchise was ultimately overseen by a single individual, it allowed for a level of consistency and commitment within the fandom that simply wasn't possible with other franchises of such scope. Comics can't do it because they change writers so often, and single author franchises simply can't match the output (though the series that comes closest, Harry Potter is in the process of developing the exact same issues as late-period Lucas Star Wars for almost exactly the same reasons). Star Trek, though it's a very different thing from Star Wars, has also seen similar feelings of betrayal and anger among its fans.

And in any case its very difficult for fans to let go in response to shifts in quality. If you learn to love something during a period when its genuinely great, and then is gradually drops in quality over time, the impulse is to keep hoping and hoping that the ship will right itself somehow. The anger doesn't emerge until after something so awful has occurred that it breaks through this sunk cost based hesitancy, and because it is a sunk cost the natural result is fury that 'you stole X years of my life!' This isn't even unique to nerd culture, it's all over sports fandom and probably dates back to the Romans. Star Wars might be particularly acute because it has managed to right itself as a franchise in the past. Revenge of the Sith is by no means a great film, but is markedly better than TPM or AotC, and began a path to redeeming the Prequel Era that TCW would later largely finish. The fans know that fixes are possible - even now The Mandalorian exists as a rebuke to the failures of the ST - and so they scream all the louder to try and make them happen.

[JadedDM]

Love and hatred are tied together in fandom. The more people care, the more they grow angry when the thing they care about is changed or they feel betrayed by it.

Nah, in my mind, that's not love. It's possession. It's like getting angry at your girlfriend/boyfriend for having friends outside of you, or angry at your kids for not having the same interests as you.

To avoid becoming stagnant, Star Wars needs to change, to grow, to adapt. There will always be disagreements on which way it should change, but if the very idea of it changing makes one furious or feel 'betrayed,' then I'd argue that person doesn't love Star Wars. They want to own it.

[TeChameleon]

Honestly, I'd put something else at number one- the pervasive uselessness of anyone over the age of about twenty-five.

If you're over thirty, then you have one function, and one function only: to instruct the new protagonist, then die in a heroically useless fashion so that they're 'inspired' to go on with whatever the fight of the moment happens to be. Oh- whilst also paying lip-service to whatever ancient wisdom (nearly forty years old! :smallannoyed:) was imparted to them.

If you think about it, that makes Palpatine's takeover doubly impressive- he not only conquered the galaxy, he did it while everyone else in his generation was dead of stupidity twenty years previously.

However annoying Jar-Jar might be, he at least didn't embody the frustrating ageist thing that means that mentors have to die instantly and horribly the second the hero can sorta-kinda function on their own. Binks was more as if Lou Costello wandered into the Star Wars universe and got given a vaguely racist minstrel-act voice, then let loose to gain victory through... well, let's be generous and call it 'broad physical comedy', which is weirdly out of place in Star Wars.

Actually, while I'm ranting... Admiral Pinky (don't remember what her name was, don't care). Why did you introduce her as a hero of the Rebellion, yadda yadda yadda... in a movie where Admiral Ackbar was right there? She did nothing that wouldn't have been done just as easily by Ackbar, and without needing to shoehorn her into the narrative whilst pointlessly chucking Ackbar into deep space. "Hey look, it's a beloved character you remember fondly, and, whoops, he's dead for no reason!"

And speaking of whiny teenagers... Anakin was a putz, for sure, but Kylo Ren? Eeeeesh. Anakin's dialogue was bad, but at least it didn't leave you fervently wishing someone would punch him in the throat until the noise stopped :smallyuk:

[Raimun]

As an outsider to Star Wars as a franchise (I do not consider myself a fan, but I don't really hate it or anything; they're okay movies. Better games.) the most annoying thing about the franchise to me is the over-focus on Jedi.

Jedi are a nearly extinct breed of backwater hicks with outmoded and unsustainable philosophical beliefs which are demonstrably unhealthy to the human mind and soul. As the expanded universe shows, they aren't even objectively correct about their view of the world; there are plenty of other races and places that have never heard of a Jedi and use the Force and whatnot just fine without falling into the Jedi's farcical notion that just because some people who have emotions are bad (the Sith) that emotionless = good.


I'm sorry but that is a rather common misunderstanding. Being a jedi not about being emotionless. It's about being calm, collected and in control of your emotions. This is the responsible thing to do and maintain on a grand scale when there are people with powerful "supernatural" abilities popping up all over the galaxy. And the jedi try to teach this responsibility to all force sensitive people in the galaxy.

Otherwise, many people with these powers who don't exercise such restraint might try to exploit them for selfish reasons and... I don't know, opress other people and blow up their planets? Right, this actually happened. Sure, the jedi were not able to stop the rise of Palpatine but it's unreasonable to blame them for trying. Opposing people like Palpatine and the sith is the right, moral thing to do, no matter if you win or lose.

And.... it's simply not true that all those force user-traditions, who haven't heard of the jedi or the sith are automatically "just fine". If there's power, there's a temptation to abuse it and it applies to them too.
Of course, the jedi aren't the only tradition that tries to use the Force responsibly but it's still a balancing act, whoever you are. There are no force sensitive people who don't have the risk of falling to the darkside.
And the sith aren't the only darkside force users in the galaxy: there are other traditions who use the darkside as well and individuals too.



They are a demonstrably failed experiment in the grand scheme of the universe. They never even lived up to their own ideal and failed miserably to accomplish much of worth in spreading their philosophy in the thousands of years of their existence.



The jedi philosophy is a mean of controlling all that raw power they possess. Thus, it's mostly applicable to the Force sensitive people. Sure, if other people are inspired by them to do good, great but it's not like "normal" people need to practice the jedi teachings... even though it wouldn't hurt here and there, during some key decision making moments.

And the jedi certainly lived up to their own ideals. Sure, some of them abused their position of power but the jedi were a self correcting order and dealt with the few bad apples accordingly (or died trying). As a whole, you really can't blame the jedi order and their teachings. They came up with reasonable rules of conduct for themselves (and other people with mystical super powers) and it's not their fault if some of them (like Dooku and Anakin) were not able to live by them. Claiming otherwise would be the equal of claiming that harmful criminal behavior (like supporting tyranny and killing younglings) by an individual is the fault of the legislation that prohibits such activity and the people who enforce these laws.

Also, the jedi maintained the peace in the galaxy for literally a thousand years. This peace was broken by the sith and if anyone is to blame for two galaxy wide conflicts, all that tyranny and blowing up planets, it's the sith... because, quite simply, they started all that.




They are also a really a small thing in general with the absolute VASTNESS of the Star Wars universe. There is so much untapped potential this franchise could mine.

But they don't.

Every movie is about Jedi. Every game is about Jedi. Every book is about Jedi. If a Jedi is not the main character, there is at least a prominent secondary character who is, or they're an antagonist (if it's a book about Sith; I think the Sith are also overplayed). And if there's a secondary character who's a Jedi there's a solid chance they'll convert the main character somehow over the course of it.

Enough with the frickin' Jedi already. They were cool when there were only two of them in the entire universe left. They were immediately lame when there was a council of do-nothing hypocrites introduced. Lightsabers are exponentially less cool the more there are in a single scene too.

Gimme something else.

Sorry but I've never understood that sentiment.

That's like reading Harry Potter and demanding that the series was about "muggles" instead of wizards. Or reading Marvel comics and wishing that the series would be about average New Yorkers instead of superheroes. Or watching Seinfeld and complaining that there's not enough samurai-action and they should just ditch those sarcastic average New Yorkers. Or watching Star Trek and wanting the story to ditch all those outer space explorers and focus on people living back on planet Earth.

Star Wars is ultimately a story about the jedi, the Force and the lightsabers. It always has been, since 1977 and onwards. The original trilogy followed a farmboy who trained to be a jedi. The main villains of that story were force users too and they fought with lightsabers and force powers. The whole conflict of the story ultimately involved the Force and the people who use it for good or evil causes. It's pretty well established. It's only natural to continue these stories by focusing on the jedi.

Besides, it's not like Star Wars doesn't also have many stories where the force doesn't play such big a part.



Ordinary people aren't monastic space Shaolin with a mystical energy field whispering in their ears all the time. A large number of people cared very deeply about Star Wars for a very long time, and while there were plenty of ups and downs between 1983 and 2013, because the franchise was ultimately overseen by a single individual, it allowed for a level of consistency and commitment within the fandom that simply wasn't possible with other franchises of such scope. Comics can't do it because they change writers so often, and single author franchises simply can't match the output (though the series that comes closest, Harry Potter is in the process of developing the exact same issues as late-period Lucas Star Wars for almost exactly the same reasons). Star Trek, though it's a very different thing from Star Wars, has also seen similar feelings of betrayal and anger among its fans.

And in any case its very difficult for fans to let go in response to shifts in quality. If you learn to love something during a period when its genuinely great, and then is gradually drops in quality over time, the impulse is to keep hoping and hoping that the ship will right itself somehow. The anger doesn't emerge until after something so awful has occurred that it breaks through this sunk cost based hesitancy, and because it is a sunk cost the natural result is fury that 'you stole X years of my life!' This isn't even unique to nerd culture, it's all over sports fandom and probably dates back to the Romans. Star Wars might be particularly acute because it has managed to right itself as a franchise in the past. Revenge of the Sith is by no means a great film, but is markedly better than TPM or AotC, and began a path to redeeming the Prequel Era that TCW would later largely finish. The fans know that fixes are possible - even now The Mandalorian exists as a rebuke to the failures of the ST - and so they scream all the louder to try and make them happen.

Well said. You articulated this very well.

I were not super happy when they stopped making EU but I still gave Disney-Star Wars a chance and went to see three of the movies: Force Awakens, Rogue One and... The Last Jedi.

Suffice to say, after that last one, I lost all interest to Disney-Star Wars and now I won't watch those movies or read their books, comics or whatever. Unless they raise the overall quality of their writing and by a massive margin. Of course, even then I wouldn't give any praise to the Sequel Trilogy.

However, it's not like all of EU has suddenly disappeared and there's still plenty of that stuff that would be new experiences to me.

[Jay R]

And posting top 5's about it on forums?

Oh, yeah, that’s the worst!

[Rynjin]

I'm sorry but that is a rather common misunderstanding. Being a jedi not about being emotionless. It's about being calm, collected and in control of your emotions. This is the responsible thing to do and maintain on a grand scale when there are people with powerful "supernatural" abilities popping up all over the galaxy. And the jedi try to teach this responsibility to all force sensitive people in the galaxy.

Otherwise, many people with these powers who don't exercise such restraint might try to exploit them for selfish reasons and... I don't know, opress other people and blow up their planets? Right, this actually happened. Sure, the jedi were not able to stop the rise of Palpatine but it's unreasonable to blame them for trying. Opposing people like Palpatine and the sith is the right, moral thing to do, no matter if you win or lose.

That is not at all how it's described, though. It is a complete rejection of all material attachments.


And.... it's simply not true that all those force user-traditions, who haven't heard of the jedi or the sith are automatically "just fine". If there's power, there's a temptation to abuse it and it applies to them too.
Of course, the jedi aren't the only tradition that tries to use the Force responsibly but it's still a balancing act, whoever you are. There are no force sensitive people who don't have the risk of falling to the darkside.
And the sith aren't the only darkside force users in the galaxy: there are other traditions who use the darkside as well and individuals too.

Exactly. Which means the Jedi way is not the only way to be a "good" Force user, and the Sith are not the only "Evil" Force users. The rejection of mortal attachments is not the only (or, potentially, even the most viable) method of controlling the Force.






And the jedi certainly lived up to their own ideals. Sure, some of them abused their position of power but the jedi were a self correcting order and dealt with the few bad apples accordingly (or died trying). As a whole, you really can't blame the jedi order and their teachings. They came up with reasonable rules of conduct for themselves (and other people with mystical super powers) and it's not their fault if some of them (like Dooku and Anakin) were not able to live by them. Claiming otherwise would be the equal of claiming that harmful criminal behavior (like supporting tyranny and killing younglings) by an individual is the fault of the legislation that prohibits such activity and the people who enforce these laws.

It's not even the "bad apples". Every single one of the Jedi that has ever appeared on screen has been ruled by their emotions. Luke and his desire for justice, Obi-Wan and his desire for vengeance, the entire Council and their emotional attachment to the "old ways", etc.


Sorry but I've never understood that sentiment.

That's like reading Harry Potter and demanding that the series was about "muggles" instead of wizards. Or reading Marvel comics and wishing that the series would be about average New Yorkers instead of superheroes. Or watching Seinfeld and complaining that there's not enough samurai-action and they should just ditch those sarcastic average New Yorkers. Or watching Star Trek and wanting the story to ditch all those outer space explorers and focus on people living back on planet Earth.

Star Wars is ultimately a story about the jedi, the Force and the lightsabers. It always has been, since 1977 and onwards. The original trilogy followed a farmboy who trained to be a jedi. The main villains of that story were force users too and they fought with lightsabers and force powers. The whole conflict of the story ultimately involved the Force and the people who use it for good or evil causes. It's pretty well established. It's only natural to continue these stories by focusing on the jedi.

Besides, it's not like Star Wars doesn't also have many stories where the force doesn't play such big a part.

I disagree with that assessment. None of the original movies were about the Jedi. They were about Luke. Luke was A Jedi, and the story was about him and his rise to become a hero, but the story was not about THE Jedi. There were more important non-Jedi characters than Jedi ones, which is demonstrably not the case starting with the prequel trilogy.

Star Wars is at its least interesting when it stops being its own universe and own story and becomes "An Abridged History of Ye Esteemed Jedi Order", which unfortunately it has been for quite a while now.

[Aotrs Commander]

Star Wars is ultimately a story about the jedi, the Force and the lightsabers. It always has been, since 1977 and onwards. The original trilogy followed a farmboy who trained to be a jedi. The main villains of that story were force users too and they fought with lightsabers and force powers. The whole conflict of the story ultimately involved the Force and the people who use it for good or evil causes. It's pretty well established. It's only natural to continue these stories by focusing on the jedi.

Very much disagree.




It's not difficult to find spaceship battles

Where?

No, really, I want to know, because in my estimation, competantly executed starship battles have been rarer than roc's teeth for over two decades.



Fricking SHADOW RAIDERS is still holding the crown for mass fighter combat (a CGI show from the late 90s) and despite a few attempts by SG-1 (of very mixed success) and one notable solid effort from season two of Orville, Babylon 5 still hasn't been topped in capital ship combat since the same time-period.

Clone Wars series? The only fracking thing that has made something of a passable attempt.

(NuBSG couldn't even hold the fricking camera still and the less said about nuTrek (on either big or small screen) the better.)

[Kyberwulf]

The thing about Star Wars, is that it's basically a pretty generic setting without the Jedi.

[Strigon]

I really hate these debates about jedi philosophy.
The thing is, while calm detatchment is a fairly ubiquitous part of the jedi code, the idea that you must reject any and all emotion really isn't. What you see in the prequels is a very small section of the jedi. Mostly, you're seeing the jedi masters - the ones who have most wholeheartedly devoted themseves to being jedi - and at the very end of a very, very long reign. It's basically the most extreme example of jedi you could possiby find. People then use that to argue that the jedi are fundamentally a terrible idea. Even within the prequels, though, look at Obi-Wan; he's the jedi master we see the most, and he seems like a genuinely great guy. A bit overbearing to have as a mentor, but I'd happily spend a day with him just to chew the fat.

The idea that jedi as a whole are entirely isolationist monks who stamp out any sign of individuality or emotion just isn't supported by a broader look at the universe.

As for why every story seems to be about jedi? Well, it's a combination of three things.
First, Star Wars is a universe of great scale. There are smaller stories to be told, but the franchise is known for kilometers-long warships, weapons large enough to destroy planets, and conflicts spanning the galaxy. Heck, it's baked into the name: Star Wars.
Second, the Star Wars universe has an... entity... keeping balance. There's something holding the universe together, actively keeping things in check.
Third, jedi are the most well-known force users.
So, we have grand conflicts affecting trillions. That means the "referee" for the universe - The Force - steps in. The main instrument the force uses is Jedi. Jedi are always at the centre of important events because that's where the universe puts them.
Now, I enjoy the non-jedi stories - in fact, I'd say that, on average, they're better than the ones that focus on jedi - but the reason why they're always involved is pretty well established, and sort of hard to ignore at this point.

[Reddish Mage]

I think the the thing that bothers forum fans about the Jedi is that the OT and beyond suggest there is only a handful of these types left in the entire galaxy. However, it seems to be obligatory that specifically Jedi or closely-Jedi related characters accompany every new story regardless of whether its a video game, novel, comic or board game.


The result is simply an ever expanding cast of powerful Force-sensitives. I don't really see the problem with that. However, I see that this limits the universe of story telling greatly when it becomes obligatory to include a space wizard (or at least space apprentice) in the party. Also, really none of these stories can break much ground when it comes to truly understanding what the Force is, what it wants, what it does, who it chooses and how it shapes the lives of Force-users and the history of the entire galaxy.

I think the combination of seeing Star Wars stories saturated with Jedi, and the lack of any real earth-shaking revelations about the Force, may frustrate a certain kind of fandom that is hungry for explanation, and dislikes seeing things that don't jive with the way we are told the universe is set up.

Finally, maybe some people just don't get why space wizards with laser swords are so fascinating they need to be everywhere. I get that such people exist.

[Mechalich]

Third, jedi are the most well-known force users.

Its worth noting that, during the period when Lucas controlled the franchise, they were also the one's who were 'right.' Word of God from Lucas was that the Jedi understood the Force the best, were the most in tune with it and had a more complete moral philosophy than any other faction. The laws of the universe were simply on the side of the Jedi and if an author created another Force tradition they had to be in some way 'wrong.' From a religious perspective the Jedi had the one true path and everyone else, however well meaning, was a heretic.

Now, with the exception of Troy Denning (and his abuse of the first Solo child to fall to the dark side), most of the authors shied away from this, and as a result largely avoided getting into detail with other Force traditions at all save as mostly one-off villains. And the best-defined of the non-Jedi force traditions, the Nightsisters of Dathomir, strongly reinforces this point. The Nightsisters, for all that they can do some awesome things, clearly have an unrefined understanding of the Force compared to the Jedi.

And then there's a the aesthetic perspective. In terms of visual iconography the Jedi/Sith have a monopoly of lightsabers, to the point that when any character picks one up you think they're going to be a Jedi (TFA pulled this trick with Finn). Or even if they're not, they'll get treated like a Jedi. Technically neither of these characters are Jedi or Sith (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/5/5d/Senya_Tirall_6.png/revision/latest?cb=20180113094945), but I doubt someone who'd never played SWTOR would guess that. Likewise lightsabers, because they can detect blaster bolts, allow the Jedi to function as melee combatants in a ranged universe, something that others can't do - watch the slaughter of the Nightsisters in TCW for an example - but at the same time a force user who fights with blasters looks like anyone else, especially because Star Wars is loose enough with its gunplay that John Wick style gun-fu would barely stand out.
Rise of Skywalker actually proves this point. The Knights of Ren have ordinary melee weapons and are completely forgettable, they're less interesting visually than the red guards in TLJ. Kylo Ren pulls off a few bits of gun-fu and it doesn't look like anything Finn or Poe didn't do in the star destroyed hallway fight earlier.

[ImperiousLeader]

In no particular order:


Ticking Clocks are BS Seriously, every time someone starts a countdown, you know some BS is gonna pop up. Whether it's the original Death Star run having numbers onscreen not matching the dialogue, how long until the fleet runs out of fuel in TLJ, how long until Starkiller base will charge it's weapon ... all these countdowns are annoying and BS.
So, are Droids sentient? Are they slaves? The status and implications of droids is one of those logs on the forest floor that if you turn it over, bugs go everywhere. That's one of the reasons I dislike Solo, they turn over that log with L3-37, and then just play it off for cheap laughs.
The OT is treated as untouchable It's just kinda assumed that nothing will match the OT in terms of quality, and I'm not sure that's true. The Last Jedi can make a strong case for being a superior movie, and I'm really fond of Rogue 1, despite it's flaws. I get it, nostalgia is a heady drug, but still ...
Power ranking the movies is also BS I, like most fans, tend to put ESB at the top of the list. And it probably is the best qualitatively. But, well, see previous point. And, also ... if you were to say to me, "let's sit down and watch one of the movies, doesn't matter which" ... I'd probably pick RotJ. Cause, while it's silly, it has the best ending battle, the ending is pretty satisfying, it's one of the ones Lucas monkeyed with the least ... though I miss the Yub Yub song.
Toxicity in fandom This is a big one. I always feel hyperbolic and prone to error if I try to rank fandoms from most to least toxic, but I do often feel like this is one of the more toxic. Especially after the whole fiasco involving Kelly Marie Tran. Not to mention Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd.

[TripleD]

Fricking SHADOW RAIDERS is still holding the crown for mass fighter combat (a CGI show from the late 90s)

Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Was also amused that that it was one of the few series where the space-insects were the most “refined” and sociable species.


it's one of the ones Lucas monkeyed with the least ... though I miss the Yub Yub song.


Gotta disagree. There are a lot of things Lucas should not have messed with, but “Victory Celebration” fits the mood way better than “Yub Nub”.

[Anonymouswizard]

I am okay with KotOR because that series is specifically about the Jedi and set at a time when the Jedi were at their prime.

KotOR works because it's at the same time exploring the Jedi and using an ever so slightly different version than the one from the prequel and original trilogies. Notably the rules on emotional attachments may be different.

But the first game feels like an attempt to explore the duality of the Light and Dark and the space in between. To me the most interesting character in it is Revan, who it seems was more of a 'Grey Sith' than anything else.

The second game is more commentary on the Force itself, and questioning if there even is a right side to the conflict. The Jedi and Light Side are certainly framed as better, but the conflict itself has been going on for thousands of years, will likely go on for thousands more years, and are the Jedi worth the conflict? It's actually an interesting question, one the game really can't answer itself, and doesn't care if the Jedi are right about the Force.

I really like KotOR, I think the two game are the best exploration of the Force, the Jedi, and the Sith in the entire franchise, and I hope at some point we get a proper sequel to the second game.

[Hopeless]

1) The story
I understand the feelings about episode 1 but it was perfectly fine with a bit of world building that really doesn't make sense if you try to look at the large picture.

For example the Republic and the Jedi had resulted in a peace lasting a thousand years however despite their supposed vigilance the Sith an opposing faith to the Jedi pogram still exists.

KOTOR makes it clear how could there be a peace if both sides were as bad as each other?

Ideally they should have revealed a Jedi lineage families with many force using members who allied with the Republic kept the peace as best as they could.

Jedi like Yoda would have been better served as members of a monastic order that stayed out of the politics thereby we get the reinforced impression he DOES know better but by isolating himself he can't keep abreast of current events which is how the Sith blindside him yet still fail to either capture or kill him.

Sorry if I'm going off topic but for me the story matters a hell of a lot more than cgi or trite attempts at romance that don't work without good writing or a plot.

2)Episode 7
By itself the Force Awakens is ok not great but okay the reason I mark it as the 2nd annoyance is because thanks to episode 8 it made this really terrible through some idiot deciding they could rain hell on what was already a shaky premise.
I think Rian thought he was going to making both episode 8 AND 9 which would explain this utter disaster.

This is the first movie throughout the franchise where I could poke holes in the story, not even the prequels managed that!

It was fine until they separated Finn & Poe that was the first mistake.
Keep them together reveal Poe's a great pilot but lousy survivalist whilst Finn is a heck of a trooper but no pilot but put him in charge of a squad and he'll demonstrate just how good he is!
Rey is a scavenger just reveal she was raised by a force user on Jakku who mind whammied her to keep her safely hidden much like Yoda was on Dagobah.
So she's a fully trained padawan just unable to remember that until Finn returns for her which ends the mind whammy but the returning memories take time to return but Kylo Ren a force prodigy whose strictly a newbie with the saber there you go that's why he lost he was badly hurt and couldn't fight Rey under those circumstances especially after almost breaking the mind whammy she was under the real reason she turned the table on him in that interrogation.

The Force Awakens could have been so much better but it was still fine as a start it just annoys me how badly they messed up afterwards!

3) Rogue One & Solo
The only mistakes in Rogue One was killing off the group when you could have spared a couple for a sequel and having the Tantive IV at Scariff when it shouldn't have been there!
As for Solo all they needed was a scene where we see them rescue a few of those wookies from Kessel they help repair the Falcon so Lando can take off with a scene of the wookies talking to Nests crew and there we go resolve the mess they caused by having Next ask Han for help!
God that annoyed me!

4) Holiday Special
Is it really that bad any more?
Seriously could you ask Lucas if he could rerelease that just to demonstrate the contempt he must have for what Disney has done?

5) The Mandalorian

Seriously wtf were you doing to release something THIS good and still screw up the ST?!

Finally thank you ever so much for this thread!
It was nice to be able to try and unload all those misgivings I had and I hope they were clear enough for you.

I still have no problems with the cast its just the script and world building (what there was of it which was mostly Lucas who at least tried!) I have problems with!

Is it bad I wanted Holdo to be a New Republic Admiral and not Resistance so there was a fcuking reason why she didn't trust anyone?!!

Or reveal that ice mining obscenity Rose & Paige flew on were civilian craft and not military explaining why they were piss poor bombers!!!

And reveal Holdo recruited Finn for the mission to Canto Blight which was intended that he help a New Republic Special forces team infiltrate the Supremacy to delete their records because Snoke conned the New Republic into tagging ALL of their ships with modified Imperial technology (Star Wars Rebels the Inquisitor used a missile version to tag the Phantom) so they could prevent a Rebel Alliance being founded against them?!

Leia suspected the truth and Han returned to smuggling to supply them with untagged ships allowing them to avoid First Order detection but as a result the New Republic coerced by Snoke assumed the worst and THATS why they were so poorly funded they were trying to counter efforts by BOTH the First Order AND the New Republic to thwart them despite the fact the New Republic knew Leia & Han were trying to find their son!

I'd have gone further and reveal the New Republic bombed Luke's temple and not Ben going ape**** that was just the Senate trying to cover up how badly they had been played by Snoke!

So there was so many ways the ST should have been better now if you'll excuse me I need to watch some Log Horizon to get THAT out of my system...

I do have a copy of Shadow Raiders actually, I should go back and watch that again, cheers!

[GrayDeath]

KotOR works because it's at the same time exploring the Jedi and using an ever so slightly different version than the one from the prequel and original trilogies. Notably the rules on emotional attachments may be different.

But the first game feels like an attempt to explore the duality of the Light and Dark and the space in between. To me the most interesting character in it is Revan, who it seems was more of a 'Grey Sith' than anything else.

The second game is more commentary on the Force itself, and questioning if there even is a right side to the conflict. The Jedi and Light Side are certainly framed as better, but the conflict itself has been going on for thousands of years, will likely go on for thousands more years, and are the Jedi worth the conflict? It's actually an interesting question, one the game really can't answer itself, and doesn't care if the Jedi are right about the Force.

I really like KotOR, I think the two game are the best exploration of the Force, the Jedi, and the Sith in the entire franchise, and I hope at some point we get a proper sequel to the second game.



I couldnt agree more.

Which is why I was so disappyointed by the Revan Novel.


As for what was said before: No, the jedi code(s) dont actually make one remove oneself totally from Emotions.
But the Jedi Traditions and Teachings shown in the Prequel Trilogy and cohorts (CLone wars, Books from that time) do.
Now one has to understand that the fossilized state of the jedi in that time was supported by Sith working in the Background, but still, people as old as Yoda or one of the other multy Century masters should ahve understood that "One set of rules for all" in an order made up from hundreds of races and dozens of Steps of mastery in the force simply CANNOT work.

Ah well, an old beef with me. I`ll be quiet. ^^

[Yora]

Revan is the overhyped. Which is perhaps the real problem with the Jedi. It's been some 15-20 years now, but I remember how every Jedi ever was called the most powerful of all time.

Luke was the most powerful ever. Vader was the most powerful ever. Yoda was the most powerful ever. The Emperor was the most powerful ever. Mace Windu was the most powerful ever. Revan was the most powerful ever. I'm sure Darth Bane and Obi-Wan also were called the most powerful ever. Based on not actually anything. So annoying.

There was a great article years ago on a site that no longer exists, but I had the foresight to keep a copy. It was written the week after Episode 3 premiered:


By: Adam Summers 5/23/05

My girlfriend doesn’t understand what I see in Star Wars. We’ve had several soul-crushing arguments about what exactly makes this series so important to me, and every time I have found it more and more difficult to argue my case. As the maddening years have wound on, I think I finally understand the reason for this crippling handicap.

There is a diabolical twist to Star Wars fandom, you see, that defies comprehension, and yet is the life-blood of all Star Wars fans. It is this:

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

The primary fulcrum for the Star Wars fan’s hate (including my own) is George Lucas, creator of Star Wars. Unlike Trekkies/Trekkers who adore Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Star Wars fans hate the father of their obsession. We hate the fact that George Lucas got it wrong from the beginning, creating incest between Luke and Leia. We hate the fact that he wrenched Return of the Jedi off of Kashyyyk and set it on Endor with those tiny, furry Hobbit bitches he called “Ewoks”, which is a syllabic anagram of Wookiee if you’re obsessed enough. We despise the entire existence of literally half of the Star Wars movies, blaming George Lucas’ greed and flawed ‘vision’ for everything.

We believe George Lucas’ ideal death time was 2:07am, 14 November, 1990.

Star Wars fans also hate the original Star Wars trilogy. We think Mark Hamill’s acting was whiny, the pacing was flawed, and Empire was better than Jedi, making the end of the series a let-down. We hate the way Boba Fett died, and we hate the cantankerous, arthritic duel between Vader and Obi-wan. We don’t understand why the storm-troopers can’t shoot worth a damn, and we don’t get why “an entire legion of [the Emperor’s] best troops”(ROTJ, Palpatine) can be overpowered by a tribal society of midget teddy-bears armed largely with rocks and twigs. Star Wars fans hate omnipotent war-machines that get their legs tangled in strings, or slip on logs. They hate Darth Vader’s face and that stupid harmonica thing he was playing. Star Wars fans hate the original Star Wars trilogy.

There is also, as you probably know, a series of Special Editions that have replaced the original Star Wars trilogy, and these are also hated by Star Wars fans with an even more scorching fervor. Star Wars fans hate the glaring CG changes made to scenes we already hated to begin with. We hate that Han Solo now killed Greedo in self-defense, and then stepped on Jabba the Hutt’s tail (which we liken to Carrot Top stepping on Fidel Castro’s tail). We hate the fact that the ghost of Alec Guinness (whose name is an anagram of Genuine Class, by the way) now stands next to Hayden Christensen (whose name I tried to re-arrange into a flattering anagram myself, but only came up with “Nn…Dense Chest Hair”). Star Wars fans are unsure if Fidel Castro has a tail or not, but we hate the Special Editions of the trilogy just the same.

There is of course also a prequel trilogy to Star Wars. It is newer, more epic, more expensive, and more visually stunning than the original trilogy. Star Wars fans know this, and so we hate it even more. We hate it with the burning passion of a setting pair of twin suns. Jar Jar Binks, Midichlorians, technology that is blatantly more sophisticated than the “later” original trilogy…we despise all of it. There’s nothing a Star Wars fan hates more than a Star Wars prequel. They demystified Boba Fett, contradicted countless lines in the original trilogy (Obi-Wan: “He was our only hope.” Yoda: “No…there is another.” Obi-Wan (not in script): “Oh, right, I f*cking held both of these kids as they were born in Episode 3. Sorry Yoda, I just plumb forgot!”)

Star Wars fans think Mark Ha…uh…Hayden Christensen’s acting was whiny. And the pacing was flawed.

Beyond the movies, there are also various television-related Star Wars endeavors which Star Wars fans despise. Starting with that abysmal “Holiday Special” in which Carrie Fisher appeared drunk and tried to celebrate Christmas through song in a Jesus-less galaxy, Star Wars fans have watched and hated everything. We think Droids was a waste of time, Ewok Adventures was an extension of everything we hated about Return of the Jedi, and we’ve seen both seasons of Clone Wars which we hate because we believe them to be immensely inconsistent with the prequels we also hate.

Star Wars fans think the Star Wars comic-books are a stockpile of contrivance written for marketing purposes by people who know nothing about Star Wars. Every gimmick imaginable to bring back super-weapons long destroyed and token bad-guys long-beaten is spewed forth from these comic books, and Star Wars fans want nothing to do with it. Star Wars fans have read the one in which Han Solo works in tandem with a giant rabbit and we are not impressed.

Then, naturally, there are the videogames. Star Wars fans hate LucasArts, and the opportunist drivel that comprises most of the gameplay-less apertures known as Star Wars games that they vomit up every fiscal quarter. Star Wars fans know that there is no such thing as a good Star Wars strategy game, we yelled at our PS1 when Masters of Teras-Kasi came out, and we kind-of liked the Jedi Knight series, but not at first and definitely not towards the end. Star Wars fans did not like Knights of the Old Republic, unless they were RPG fans. This does not count. Star Wars fans hate Star Wars videogames.

The final main elixir of Star Wars folklore is the ever-growing library of Star Wars books. These have managed to make a complex main character our of practically every background alien seen in the movies, and expanded the universe into a colossal, self-contradictory maze. Star Wars fans hate this. We hate how trite and tired the books were getting before the New Jedi Order series, and we hate the New Jedi Order series for being so radically different, and not nearly trite or tired enough. Star Wars fans hate it when previously-deceased characters are brought back to life, but we also hate Timothy Zahn for not bringing his characters back to life. Star Wars fans did not hate Grand Admiral Thrawn, but we do now, because he is always dead. The Star Wars movies also contradict and completely ignore droves of information within the Star Wars books. Star Wars fans now know that George Lucas has no idea who Jaster Mareel is, and it makes us very angry. Star Wars fans hate Star Wars books.

Now that I have covered all of this, you can finally begin to compute why I can never prove to Emily that Star Wars is a monumental event worth devoting one’s life to. The very nature of the argument means I have to defend Star Wars, and since I am a Star Wars fan, I don’t actually understand how to do that.

Maybe I’ll put it like this. To be a Star Wars fan, one must possess the ability to see a million different failures and downfalls, and then somehow assemble them into a greater picture of perfection. Every true Star Wars fan is a Luke Skywalker, looking at his twisted, evil father, and somehow seeing good.

My earlier statement needs slight revision. We hate everything about Star Wars.

But the idea of Star Wars…the idea we love.

[Anonymouswizard]

I couldnt agree more.

Which is why I was so disappyointed by the Revan Novel.


As for what was said before: No, the jedi code(s) dont actually make one remove oneself totally from Emotions.
But the Jedi Traditions and Teachings shown in the Prequel Trilogy and cohorts (CLone wars, Books from that time) do.
Now one has to understand that the fossilized state of the jedi in that time was supported by Sith working in the Background, but still, people as old as Yoda or one of the other multy Century masters should ahve understood that "One set of rules for all" in an order made up from hundreds of races and dozens of Steps of mastery in the force simply CANNOT work.

Ah well, an old beef with me. I`ll be quiet. ^^

Never read the Revan book, so can't really compare.

I think a big proven with the PT Jedi is brunt too connected to galactic affairs and having their judgement clouded. The Jedi Order noticeably seems to be most healthy when it's not involved in politics.


Revan is the overhyped. Which is perhaps the real problem with the Jedi. It's been some 15-20 years now, but I remember how every Jedi ever was called the most powerful of all time.

Luke was the most powerful ever. Vader was the most powerful ever. Yoda was the most powerful ever. The Emperor was the most powerful ever. Mace Windu was the most powerful ever. Revan was the most powerful ever. I'm sure Darth Bane and Obi-Wan also were called the most powerful ever. Based on not actually anything. So annoying.

There was a great article years ago on a site that no longer exists, but I had the foresight to keep a copy. It was written the week after Episode 3 premiered:

The thing about Revan though is that she's not interesting for his power, in fact the implication I get is that during her time as a Sith Lord she wasn't actually that strong in the Force, upper 50% of Jedi but nowhere near Anakin levels. Remember she was mainly a greater danger to the Republic than Malak because she was a better general. And honestly, if you're playing the game as intended? Revan doesn't end the genre as that powerful a Jedi, only 13 or 14 levels in their chosen Jedi class. Yes that's a lot of power incredibly quickly, but probably not more than their had pre-brain wipe.

As an aside, the Exile is incredibly powerful, but also incredibly weird by the time the game happens.

Anyway, back to Revan. She's interesting for her morality, for seemingly perverting a light side cause and becoming dark side, abs the stage and events that led to that.

[Ramza00]

Actually, while I'm ranting... Admiral Pinky (don't remember what her name was, don't care). Why did you introduce her as a hero of the Rebellion, yadda yadda yadda... in a movie where Admiral Ackbar was right there? She did nothing that wouldn't have been done just as easily by Ackbar, and without needing to shoehorn her into the narrative whilst pointlessly chucking Ackbar into deep space. "Hey look, it's a beloved character you remember fondly, and, whoops, he's dead for no reason!"


Sign you misunderstand the point of Admiral Pinky from a narrative standpoint. Vice Admiral Holdo (Aka the actress Laura Dern famous from the first Jurassic Park movie in the 90s) plays the role of the gatekeeper in myth, aka the knight who tests the protagonist asking are you worthy. It could never have been Admiral Ackbar for we the audience already sympathize with Ackbar and we already sympathize with Poe. It had to be someone opposite of Poe in every way aesthetically thus a woman, with colored hair, who had authority but did not look like a tough or gruff woman for we need aesthetic contrast with Poe a character we have less than an hour sympathizing with before we are introduced Vice Admiral Holdo. If Poe is the cocky flyboy pilot we need to create the illusion of an indifferent bureaucrat who may outrank Poe but is different than Poe in everything.

Vice Admiral Holdo exists as a test for Poe.

——-

Much the same thing happened with Empire with Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan (Student, Teacher, and Sponsor aka Poe, Holdo, and Leia.)

When Luke appears on Dagobah in empire he says he is seeking a great Jedi Master, a warrior. Thus Luke ignores the gremlin puppet who annoys him, is small, and plays the archetypal trickster full of jokes, riddles, and pranks like Yoda is from a fairy tale as the mischievous fae.

The point of the midpoint of the story if you are going the Hero’s Journey format, aka a grail quest, is the protagonist needs to fail. He may be worthy in many things, but he is incomplete. When Yoda calls Luke “You are reckless”, and Holdo calls Poe "I've dealt with plenty of trigger happy flyboys like you” they are saying the same thing. Poe keeps on saying through his actions I am not afraid, just like a Luke, and both Holdo and Yoda keeps on responding with their actions the right amount of fear is healthy. Noble courage is a point between the excess of rashness and the deficiency of being a coward, Noble courage is the excellent point between those two extremes that leads to different kinds of failure.

——-

The point of the sponsor is to see the raw potential in the student and tell the teacher to train the student anyway. Leia exists to give Poe a second chance after the mutiny. Force Ghost Obi Wan exists to tell Yoda that Luke is not ready yet but he will be if we have faith during these dark times.

Some people are okay with a puppet rebuking and “humiliating” the protagonist, yet they are not okay with “a female human with colored hair” doing the same thing in a military organization. They do not see the point of “testing” the hero as part of the story, the need for drama, and they wish for a noble military organization in a way that they feel comfortable with. They want Camelot full of many knights and Admiral Ackbar the greatest of the knights in order to lead them.

But if Poe is not challenged he will be a cardboard cutout protagonist that did not earn his place in the story. He would be an object not a subject.

[Peelee]

we already sympathize with Poe.

You assume too much! #****Poe :smalltongue:

[Ramza00]

You assume too much! #****Poe :smalltongue:

So am I wearing the black robes and the funny hat 🎩
or am I wearing the clothes fit for a queen 👸 in this exchange of words plus blaster fire? :smallbiggrin:

[Hopeless]

Still would have worked better if she was a New Republic Admiral than a member of the Resistance.

Couldn't trust anyone of the Resistance to understand keeping her plan a secret was a freaking mistake enough that it caused Poe to try and establish one of his own.

The opening battle made it clear Poe is actually very competent and not the incompetent Rian tried to portray.

Using existing canon to explain how the First Order can track the New Republic and then reveal the Resistance had found a way to bypass that tracking makes more sense than the Last Jedi ever did.

Have her assign Finn to accompany a New Republic team to Canto Blight which eventually reveals how they're being tracked emphasising how badly the New Republic messed up along with the kind of world building the ST desperately needed and never got.

Of course its a trap set so Snoke can use Finn to draw Rey before she completes her training mirroring what Vader did in a way that actually makes sense plus using the force vision from TFA with Kylo saving her thereby making use of that too!

Now imagine if they revealed the map to Luke that was so important in TFA was a ruse intended to reveal how badly Snoke had infiltrated the New Republic something emphasised by the destruction of Hosnian Prime eventually revealing those Senators loyal to Snoke wasn't present allowing the First Order to move in and take over before anyone recognised their treachery thus explaining how they took over so fast!

My god imagine if they had instead let someone like Filoni let alone Favreau handle the ST?

It wouldn't have been the mess Rian left it in after JJ thought he could get away with a single movie and not oversee the rest like GL did!

[Yora]

The Resistance makes no sense. And I think in The Last Jedi they are suddenly called the Rebellion again.
The First Order also makes no sense.

[Hopeless]

The Resistance makes no sense. And I think in The Last Jedi they are suddenly called the Rebellion again.
The First Order also makes no sense.

Initially I suspect Leia founded her group as an advance recon I wonder when she discovered her son Ben was now calling himself Kylo Ren?

In TFA what exactly were they resisting?

I agree with your sentiment about their name, the First Order might have worked better as the New Order or the New Empire given their actual background.

As for the Last Jedi well that's Rian for you he pretty much messed up everything from TFA including the above name unfortunately he wasn't interested in something better only what he could get away with if he actually thought he would be making both episode 8 AND 9 which would explain the Last Jedi better.

[Peelee]

In TFA what exactly were they resisting?

The First Order. It was a known entity, even if the sheer scope of the First Order was not.

[Sapphire Guard]

Where?

No, really, I want to know, because in my estimation, competantly executed starship battles have been rarer than roc's teeth for over two decades.

Mass Effect? Halo? David Weber books? Anyone want to help me out?

The Jedi are perpetually going extinct. There's a general push towards 'the Jedi way is bad'recently, but they never move beyond that into forming a coherent 'right' way, because that's too difficult to write. It's much easier to complain about the Jedi than write a coherent new philosophy, so we get stuff like the Bendu and Ahsoka 'I am no Jedi, I just look and act exactly like one'.

Anakin's never called out on having emotions or attachments, just on letting his emotions control him. He does stupid dangerous things acting on impulse that get him in trouble, because he can't make decisions calmly when Padme is involved, and that's why he's not supposed to be attached.

Obi Wan loves Anakin deeply and makes no secret of it whatsoever. He never gets in trouble. He's friends with Dex, and never gets in trouble. In TCW, he has someone he's in love with, which is also not a secret. He doesn't get in trouble, because he doesn't let these things drive him over the edge into going Dark. That's what's important, not ridding yourself of all emotions or attachments, and the Jedi Council seem to recognise that, otherwise Obi would be considered far too attached for a seat on the Jedi Council.

The thing about the Jedi not being involved in politics is, Palpatine doesn't care. If they're not part of the Senate, he just ignites the Clone Wars anyway and uses it as an excuse to start an anti Jedi pogrom. It doesn't really help.

[Rogar Demonblud]

It probably says something unkind that the list of best starship battles include the Klingons getting stomped attacking DS9.

[Rodin]

Mass Effect? Halo? David Weber books? Anyone want to help me out?


There are plenty of space battles in novels, where budgetary constraints aren't a thing. Spaceship battles in other media are thin on the ground.

Mass Effect only rarely has the sort of "fleet on fleet" battles that Aotrs is talking about. We get a small amount of it in the 1st game with the attack on the Citadel, and then another small bit for the final confrontation in the 3rd game.

Never played Halo, so can't comment.

Still, there are some videogames that do spaceship battles. You can even go back to the original Homeworld to get some pretty cool ones. Games that have a story-based space battle are considerably rarer.

The problem is film and TV, where Babylon 5 with its "first Sci-Fi show to heavily use CGI" aesthetic continues to have the best space battle. That show is from 1996. The second best is from Serenity, circa 2005.

"Rare" is an understatement.

[Ramza00]

Not the word used in Star Wars, and the Jedi are not perfect Buddhist analogues, but the thing that supposedly Jedi are not supposed to do is ”cling”, you are not supposed to cling to your emotions, not supposed to cling to your attachments. To recognize everything is impermanent in the great span of time, simultaneously there is temporary permanence that it is our duty to cultivate, but no matter how we cultivate everything perspires and a new generation is born.

The metaphor in Buddhism is breath, breath is not just taking in air it is also releasing it, which allows you to take in a new breath. Trying to save your favorite air and not releasing it is disordered and not the natural way of things.

——

Thus it is important to feel emotions but to let not one single emotion control you, that is a form of clinging. Everything has its own time and place and it is important to not do things outside there time. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest.

——

Note I say all this and I want to underline that the Jedi are hypocrites and did not live up to their ideals. Failure is part of the story of Star Wars, the cycle of failure and rising again to meet a new chance full of hope. To internalize this cycle within the great flow inside of you in a healthy and balanced way.

[Mightymosy]

Sign you misunderstand the point of Admiral Pinky from a narrative standpoint. Vice Admiral Holdo (Aka the actress Laura Dern famous from the first Jurassic Park movie in the 90s) plays the role of the gatekeeper in myth, aka the knight who tests the protagonist asking are you worthy. It could never have been Admiral Ackbar for we the audience already sympathize with Ackbar and we already sympathize with Poe. It had to be someone opposite of Poe in every way aesthetically thus a woman, with colored hair, who had authority but did not look like a tough or gruff woman for we need aesthetic contrast with Poe a character we have less than an hour sympathizing with before we are introduced Vice Admiral Holdo. If Poe is the cocky flyboy pilot we need to create the illusion of an indifferent bureaucrat who may outrank Poe but is different than Poe in everything.

Vice Admiral Holdo exists as a test for Poe.

——-

Much the same thing happened with Empire with Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan (Student, Teacher, and Sponsor aka Poe, Holdo, and Leia.)

When Luke appears on Dagobah in empire he says he is seeking a great Jedi Master, a warrior. Thus Luke ignores the gremlin puppet who annoys him, is small, and plays the archetypal trickster full of jokes, riddles, and pranks like Yoda is from a fairy tale as the mischievous fae.

The point of the midpoint of the story if you are going the Hero’s Journey format, aka a grail quest, is the protagonist needs to fail. He may be worthy in many things, but he is incomplete. When Yoda calls Luke “You are reckless”, and Holdo calls Poe "I've dealt with plenty of trigger happy flyboys like you” they are saying the same thing. Poe keeps on saying through his actions I am not afraid, just like a Luke, and both Holdo and Yoda keeps on responding with their actions the right amount of fear is healthy. Noble courage is a point between the excess of rashness and the deficiency of being a coward, Noble courage is the excellent point between those two extremes that leads to different kinds of failure.

——-

The point of the sponsor is to see the raw potential in the student and tell the teacher to train the student anyway. Leia exists to give Poe a second chance after the mutiny. Force Ghost Obi Wan exists to tell Yoda that Luke is not ready yet but he will be if we have faith during these dark times.

Some people are okay with a puppet rebuking and “humiliating” the protagonist, yet they are not okay with “a female human with colored hair” doing the same thing in a military organization. They do not see the point of “testing” the hero as part of the story, the need for drama, and they wish for a noble military organization in a way that they feel comfortable with. They want Camelot full of many knights and Admiral Ackbar the greatest of the knights in order to lead them.

But if Poe is not challenged he will be a cardboard cutout protagonist that did not earn his place in the story. He would be an object not a subject.

The problem is that even if one buys into your concept (which doesn't sound tooooo bad), it still has to work on a more mundane level. It has to work within the storyline. One cannot simply press such a concept onto a story and have it work automatically.
If what characters do doesn't make sense within the story, then it is of no value that their actions fit some underlying "greater vision" their author had.
It simply is bad writing, doing it the way RJ did.

Holdo is one of the worst character concepts in all of Star Wars. And I LIKE chicks with authority. And purple hair.
But not if their story doesn't add up.

You CANNOT just say the hero needs an obstacle so here is a chase scene that doesn't work within the logic, but I will it into the minds of my viewers anyway.
Well, you CAN, but it is crappy writing. Really crappy.
TLJ is almost parody level writing, just without the laughs.


The Resistance makes no sense. And I think in The Last Jedi they are suddenly called the Rebellion again.
The First Order also makes no sense.

That is hilarious.

[Ramza00]

The problem is that even if one buys into your concept (which doesn't sound tooooo bad), it still has to work on a more mundane level. It has to work within the storyline. One cannot simply press such a concept onto a story and have it work automatically.
If what characters do doesn't make sense within the story, then it is of no value that their actions fit some underlying "greater vision" their author had.
It simply is bad writing, doing it the way RJ did.

Holdo is one of the worst character concepts in all of Star Wars. And I LIKE chicks with authority. And purple hair.
But not if their story doesn't add up.

You CANNOT just say the hero needs an obstacle so here is a chase scene that doesn't work within the logic, but I will it into the minds of my viewers anyway.
Well, you CAN, but it is crappy writing. Really crappy.
TLJ is almost parody level writing, just without the laughs.

I agree. I explained the point of the character from a narrative and theme standpoint, explaining why Admiral Ackbar could not serve the same role. This is because TeChameleon was complaining why the Laura Dern character existed at all.

But even if the idea is good the details being implemented matter. The execution matters. Certain aspects of both The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi suffer poor execution, even if other aspects of the movies perform very well. (Note where TFA and TLJ suffer poor execution is different.)

[Bohandas]

You left out the Ewoks,

...and the unexplained changes in hyperdrives and bad casino scene in The Force Awakens,

...and all the characters in Rogue One being bizarrely killed off like the cast of a bad Final Destination sequel as well as the film's alteration of the timeline and general lack of actual heisting. EDIT: and that extremist revolutionary who didn't do anything. and the slow leisurely pace at which the blast from the death star consumed jheda city

[Mechalich]

I agree. I explained the point of the character from a narrative and theme standpoint, explaining why Admiral Ackbar could not serve the same role. This is because TeChameleon was complaining why the Laura Dern character existed at all.

But even if the idea is good the details being implemented matter. The execution matters. Certain aspects of both The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi suffer poor execution, even if other aspects of the movies perform very well. (Note where TFA and TLJ suffer poor execution is different.)

In that specific case there's also a significant question as to whether or not that role is even necessary. TLJ makes a decision to focus heavily on the development of Poe, but there's no particularly larger storytelling reason why this should be so. It's not important to the overall story for the Fleet Commander to undergo a heroes journey. That role can easily begin with a fully developed already established character, which the insertion of Holdo actually illustrates. The character who needed the big hero's journey with a training sequence and character development in TLJ was Rey, and she didn't really get one.

This links to a broader issue with Star Wars materials in that the universe accreted into such a huge thing that author's inevitably latched onto only certain parts of it that they wanted to explore, and this often meant inserting personal predilections into stories where it was not appropriate. The Legends EU had numerous examples of this problem - perhaps most famously Karen Traviss writing hundreds of pages about Boba Fett and his Mandalorian pals in the Legacy of the Force novels that were mostly tangential to the plot at best, but even highly skilled authors like Timothy Zhan got awfully indulgent at points with characters like Thrawn in later stages of the EU. This impulse, which is natural (I've written Star Wars fanfiction, and I've indulged in some awfully obscure stuff over time that doesn't mix well with other material), makes appropriate compartmentalization of works and the central planning of multi-author productions incredibly important but various versions of control have failed to keep a handle on this. Early management of the EU under Bantam-Spectra and Dark Horse was extremely chaotic, but Disney's operations have been no better and the multimedia nature of the marketplace has only sprawled over time.

[Ramza00]

Mechalich and this is why J.J. Abrams should not have been the person to do the Star Wars movies without a plan and at least a rough draft for the 3 movie trilogy. Google Abrams Ted Speech on Mystery Boxes. Abrams creates ideas without knowing where they are going instead thriving as a writer and the audience on the suspense of the Mystery Box. To Abrams the mystery box is still empty he does not know where he is going with the story.

Now lots of TFA is brilliant with how it is filmed, but Disney should have had a rough draft for those 3 movies before hiring Abrams or they should have give J.J. Star Wars spin off movies and not the main event. J.J. has a lot of talent with how you film the scene but he does have some weak points to compliment his talents.

[Mechalich]

Mechalich and this is why J.J. Abrams should not have been the person to do the Star Wars movies without a plan and at least a rough draft for the 3 movie trilogy. Google Abrams Ted Speech on Mystery Boxes. Abrams creates ideas without knowing where they are going instead thriving as a writer and the audience on the suspense of the Mystery Box. To Abrams the mystery box is still empty he does not know where he is going with the story.

Now lots of TFA is brilliant with how it is filmed, but Disney should have had a rough draft for those 3 movies before hiring Abrams or they should have give J.J. Star Wars spin off movies and not the main event. J.J. has a lot of talent with how you film the scene but he does have some weak points to compliment his talents.

Oh, I'm fully aware of Abrams' limitations. I place the balance on the blame for the failures of the ST on Kathleen Kennedy and her management team. This was a massive failure from the highest levels that simply rolled downhill. Everyone knew Abrams' weaknesses, they're extremely obvious in the Star Trek movies he made. Abrams is a perfectly fine hired-gun director - if you give him a finalized script and say 'turn this into a movie' he can turn out quality material - but he's a miserable writer. Even then, the ST would still have been better if they'd either had Abrams do all three films (and he was only originally scheduled to do the first one after all) rather than hand Rian Johnson a blank slate to do whatever he wanted with Episode VIII. I can't imagine doing that with anyone for part 8 out of 9. You wouldn't give Steven Spielberg that kind of freedom, much less a relatively inexperienced director like Johnson. And it's the same issue it's not like Rian Johnson is a terrible writer-director. He's made quality, thought-provoking films, but he's very clearly uninterested in playing by the conventions of franchise filmmaking, and this was obvious from his already pre-existing material. Rian Johnson absolutely could produce an awesome and very weird Star Wars film - an adaptation of the weird time-jumping Vector comics plot maybe - but letting him do whatever he wanted with the middle of a trilogy was ridiculous.

The part that disappoints me the most is that immediately prior to the Disney acquisitive the Star Wars EU undertook a massive experiment in rotating multiple authors through large productions in order to increase the publication schedule. The produced two 9-novel series that way, and the fans hated it and sales dropped considerably over time. It was a giant flashing 'don't do this sign' from within the franchise itself, and Disney ignored it completely. This, by the way, is one of the reasons the fans of Star Wars have such issues with the franchise's management - because the reality is that many of the committed fans really do have a better grasp of what is happening in the franchise than the high-level corporate managers for whom this is just one project and often even some of the direct creators (you could always tell, with regard to the novels, which authors were extensive read in the EU and which ones were not). Contrast that with Marvel, where I am sure Kevin Feige monitors the franchise with a positively clinical level of obsession.

[Chromascope3D]

IAs for the Last Jedi well that's Rian for you he pretty much messed up everything from TFA including the above name unfortunately he wasn't interested in something better only what he could get away with if he actually thought he would be making both episode 8 AND 9 which would explain the Last Jedi better.

Well, if this report from September of 2017 (https://deadline.com/2017/09/jj-abrams-star-wars-episode-9-director-colin-trevorrow-lucasfilm-disney-1202167681/) is to be believed (and I see no reason why it shouldn't be), Johnson was the one who turned down the offer to write and direct Episode 9, so idk, make of that what you will. If you want to accuse him of smashing up the toybox and leaving it for someone else to clean up, then, yeah, sure, fine, whatever, but the idea that he'd really wanted to do both but was denied is incorrect.

That being said, he was only offered the position after Colin Trevorrow, who was originally slated to write and direct the finale, departed the project earlier that year. Trevorrow was offered the position and signed on after the success of Jurassic World in 2015 and the critical darling Safety Not Guaranteed in 2012, but then in 2017 he released Book of Henry which was... uh... decidedly less than stellar. :smalltongue:

[Devonix]

Initially I suspect Leia founded her group as an advance recon I wonder when she discovered her son Ben was now calling himself Kylo Ren?

In TFA what exactly were they resisting?

I agree with your sentiment about their name, the First Order might have worked better as the New Order or the New Empire given their actual background.

As for the Last Jedi well that's Rian for you he pretty much messed up everything from TFA including the above name unfortunately he wasn't interested in something better only what he could get away with if he actually thought he would be making both episode 8 AND 9 which would explain the Last Jedi better.

The Resistance is resisting the Rise of the First Order. Trying to prevent it from coming into true power. And the reason they're called the First Order and not the New Order or some other such name is because of what they represent and how they function. They're not a New Order, what they are, what they believe themselves to be is a return to form. A Resurgence of the natural order on the Galaxy. The Empire is legitimate, it is truth and the proper form of governance. And what they are doing is Returning it to that. To the First Order.

And this other part isn't directed at you, but people keep saying that Holdo was keeping the plan secret from everyone. She wasn't. This wasn't even her plan alone. The entire command staff was aware of what was going on. Not just the command staff on her ship either, the commanders of the entire fleet. Poe would have been aware of this as well had Leia not demoted him. The decision not to inform Poe was a collective decision, Holdo was in charge however and was probably the person most responsible for not telling him.

[TeChameleon]

The other point that could be taken from my irritated ranting would be that Admiral Ackbar was a pointless cameo and only raised narrative problems. I still don't like Vice Admiral Holdo, but that's because she was poorly written and served very little function other than padding and yet another round of Star Wars' usual Eldercide.

And isn't being hunted down by well-armed and -organized murderers present enough of a challenge for Poe without him needing to be blindsided by his own people as well? Really, all the Rebellion/Resistance/Revamp leaders needed to do to forestall the entire problem, or at least make it so that the viewers were marginally less inclined to scream at the screen, would be to announce 'yes, we do have a plan, but we're concerned about leaks, so it's not going to be announced until it's time'. Done deal, and if Poe wants to go off half-cocked, then that's his lookout. Or maybe he'd get some information that the higher-ups wouldn't believe coming from him, and be forced to try and implement his own plan. Whatever *shrug*

I'd tend to agree that the more recent movies have suffered, and suffered badly, from inconsistent pacing, tone, writing, and directing. Whatever Lucas' many, many faults, he at least made an attempt for a consistent body of work.

[Forum Explorer]

Mass Effect? Halo? David Weber books? Anyone want to help me out?



Mass Effect has almost no space battles. They have a lot of lore about how space battles work, but you get something like one per game, and it's a pretty short cut scene at that. I don't think Halo is any better.

If you are willing to look at anime though, you can find plenty of space battles there. Though the only one I'm actually familiar with is the Gundam Seed series.

[Rynjin]

Mass Effect has almost no space battles. They have a lot of lore about how space battles work, but you get something like one per game, and it's a pretty short cut scene at that. I don't think Halo is any better.

If you are willing to look at anime though, you can find plenty of space battles there. Though the only one I'm actually familiar with is the Gundam Seed series.

Space battles are pretty much the claim to fame for the Macross franchise.

[Mightymosy]

I think Poe even says that. Doesn't he scream at her to tell everyone that she HAS a plan, and NOT what the details of the plan are?
Sorry if this is wrong, I am trying hard to forget that "movie" 😄

[Bohandas]

I think Poe even says that. Doesn't he scream at her to tell everyone that she HAS a plan, and NOT what the details of the plan are?
Sorry if this is wrong, I am trying hard to forget that "movie" 😄

It's still better than Rogue One. At least they didn;t kill off the entire cast of characters in increasingly contrived ways. At least it didn't screw up the timeline of the original trilogy the way Rogue One did (the New Hope title crawl begins by saying that the rebels "have won their first victory against the evil galactic empire" - past tense - but the way Rogue One re-frames it the opening scene is part of that same battle, still going on, ultimate outcome still undetermined). At least when Kylo Ren turned against Snoke it had consequences, unlike Tarkin blithely murdering fellow officers and destroying imperial assets without so much as a slap on the wrist.


Mass Effect? Halo? David Weber books? Anyone want to help me out?

The climax of the first Futurama movie. The beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. The Wing Commander games. The Star Fox games

[Rodin]

...and all the characters in Rogue One being bizarrely killed off like the cast of a bad Final Destination sequel as well as the film's alteration of the timeline and general lack of actual heisting. EDIT: and that extremist revolutionary who didn't do anything. and the slow leisurely pace at which the blast from the death star consumed jheda city

This needs to be addressed in particular.

The trench run from A New Hope was directly inspired by movies like 633 Squadron and Dambusters - World War II fighter planes forced into a narrow canyon where they must fly directly into anti-aircraft fire and then drop a bomb with impossible precision.

Rogue One is carrying that inspiration further. It's based on "impossible infiltration" movies like The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone. What do these movies have in common?

Most of the cast die. The tension is seeing our heroes die one by one as the situation grows more dire, and the increasing risk that they will not accomplish their mission.

Rogue One had plenty of problems, but it pulled off the actual mission quite well.

I'll grant that the movies I've listed have some of the cast survive. But consider the movie's place in Star Wars canon - it's an interquel set between the Prequel Trilogy and the OT. These characters do not appear in either. Nor do they appear in The Force Awakens, the next most logical place for them to show up.

The shock would have been if these characters lived. At best Jyn and Kassian might have survived, but given the way the movie was set up (only Leia's ship escapes) that would have been one hell of a stretch.

[Anonymouswizard]

If you are willing to look at anime though, you can find plenty of space battles there. Though the only one I'm actually familiar with is the Gundam Seed series.

My personal problem is that anime space battles tend to use mecha, whereas I want ships. But that's just a personal taste thing.


It's still better than Rogue One. At least they didn;t kill off the entire cast of characters in increasingly contrived ways. At least it didn't screw up the timeline of the original trilogy the way Rogue One did (the New Hope title crawl begins by saying that the rebels "have won their first victory against the evil galactic empire" - past tense - but the way Rogue One re-frames it the opening scene is part of that same battle, still going on, ultimate outcome still undetermined). At least when Kylo Ren turned against Snoke it had consequences, unlike Tarkin blithely murdering fellow officers and destroying imperial assets without so much as a slap on the wrist.

At least, unlike Rogue One, they didn't explain an element that didn't need explaining (the exhaust vent works as a thing that just ended up being necessary, especially as the movie later on presents it as actually quite hard to reach and attack. Getting the Peace Moon plans should be MacGuffin enough, then the rebels go over them and find that even their best angle of attack is a bit of a long shot).

[Mechalich]

My personal problem is that anime space battles tend to use mecha, whereas I want ships. But that's just a personal taste thing.

Eh, there are lots of space fantasy anime where the mecha are just ships with legs attached for some reason. Knights of Sidonia, which actually has really good CGI space battles (also, same animation studio as TCW), uses its mecha in that way. It's primarily a money thing, since mecha sell extremely profitable model kits and starfights don't in Japan.

[Droid Tony]

5.The no sense of scale, time or space. When you start to talk about a GALAXY that numbers of things will be huge. Yet, in Star Wars the numbers of anything are super tiny. The story takes place across a galaxy that people can cross in like a couple minutes. Troops are given in numbers that sound great for maybe a single country on a single planet...but not like a troop full planet.

4.Have and eat cake. The galaxy is super huge so place X is ''far away backwater"...and yet anyone can go there in like a minute. So no place is really ''that far" away...yet people pretend like it is? Not to mention...you can bump into people you know if you all live in the same city....but to bump into a person you know on the other side of the galaxy on another planet? Impossible. The bad guys control stuff...and yet everyone is heavely armed and armored.

3.It's made for Kids. Right from the start, the heart of Star Wars has always been for kids. Everything is ''oh no the bad guys are doing bad stuff" and the ''good guys" must stop them. It's all action and adventure, with no serious adult anything. Even things like death are the kids lame ''oh he just fell down to take a nap" type deaths.

2.It's bland humans in space. Zero effort is made to have a galaxy of ALIEN life. It's just all humans. They can't even have a non human main character. Even Chewy is a secondary character. Why or why do we NEVER see any groups of alien Rebels? Would it REALLY be so hard to have the Wild Wing X-wing squad that was made of ALL Wokkies?

1.Woke Disney. :(

[Bohandas]

This needs to be addressed in particular.

The trench run from A New Hope was directly inspired by movies like 633 Squadron and Dambusters - World War II fighter planes forced into a narrow canyon where they must fly directly into anti-aircraft fire and then drop a bomb with impossible precision.

Rogue One is carrying that inspiration further. It's based on "impossible infiltration" movies like The Dirty Dozen and The Guns of Navarone. What do these movies have in common?

Most of the cast die. The tension is seeing our heroes die one by one as the situation grows more dire, and the increasing risk that they will not accomplish their mission.

Really? I always thought that, if anything, it was based on The Final Destination

[Peelee]

5.The no sense of scale, time or space. When you start to talk about a GALAXY that numbers of things will be huge. Yet, in Star Wars the numbers of anything are super tiny. The story takes place across a galaxy that people can cross in like a couple minutes. Troops are given in numbers that sound great for maybe a single country on a single planet...but not like a troop full planet.

4.Have and eat cake. The galaxy is super huge so place X is ''far away backwater"...and yet anyone can go there in like a minute. So no place is really ''that far" away...yet people pretend like it is? Not to mention...you can bump into people you know if you all live in the same city....but to bump into a person you know on the other side of the galaxy on another planet? Impossible. The bad guys control stuff...and yet everyone is heavely armed and armored.

3.It's made for Kids. Right from the start, the heart of Star Wars has always been for kids. Everything is ''oh no the bad guys are doing bad stuff" and the ''good guys" must stop them. It's all action and adventure, with no serious adult anything. Even things like death are the kids lame ''oh he just fell down to take a nap" type deaths.

2.It's bland humans in space. Zero effort is made to have a galaxy of ALIEN life. It's just all humans. They can't even have a non human main character. Even Chewy is a secondary character. Why or why do we NEVER see any groups of alien Rebels? Would it REALLY be so hard to have the Wild Wing X-wing squad that was made of ALL Wokkies?

1.Woke Disney. :(

...uh, I'd recommend checking out A New Hope, which more or less takes on every point you make (except alien rebels, but hey, 70's budget and effects constraints).

[Fyraltari]

Why did you introduce her as a hero of the Rebellion, yadda yadda yadda... in a movie where Admiral Ackbar was right there? She did nothing that wouldn't have been done just as easily by Ackbar, and without needing to shoehorn her into the narrative whilst pointlessly chucking Ackbar into deep space. "Hey look, it's a beloved character you remember fondly, and, whoops, he's dead for no reason!"

I feel like the death of Ackbar's voice actor between TFA and trhe production of TLJ had a part in that decision.

[Rodin]

Really? I always thought that, if anything, it was based on The Final Destination

I assume you're referring to the "Rube Goldberg death" horror film? Because I'm not aware of any other film by that name. If that is the one, I can't say I see any resemblance whatsoever.

No, Rogue One is definitely "Star Wars does a commando film" in the same way that Ant-Man is a heist movie with superheroes. You're getting upset that the equivalent of Porkins and Red Leader died because we happened to spend a bit more screen time with them.

I went into the movie with around 95% certainty that the entire cast would be dead by the end. It did not disappoint.

[Fyraltari]

The only thing that surprised me about the deaths in Rogue One was that Vader did not kill anyone with a name.

[Strigon]

5.The no sense of scale, time or space. When you start to talk about a GALAXY that numbers of things will be huge. Yet, in Star Wars the numbers of anything are super tiny. The story takes place across a galaxy that people can cross in like a couple minutes. Troops are given in numbers that sound great for maybe a single country on a single planet...but not like a troop full planet.

4.Have and eat cake. The galaxy is super huge so place X is ''far away backwater"...and yet anyone can go there in like a minute. So no place is really ''that far" away...yet people pretend like it is? Not to mention...you can bump into people you know if you all live in the same city....but to bump into a person you know on the other side of the galaxy on another planet? Impossible. The bad guys control stuff...and yet everyone is heavely armed and armored.

3.It's made for Kids. Right from the start, the heart of Star Wars has always been for kids. Everything is ''oh no the bad guys are doing bad stuff" and the ''good guys" must stop them. It's all action and adventure, with no serious adult anything. Even things like death are the kids lame ''oh he just fell down to take a nap" type deaths.

2.It's bland humans in space. Zero effort is made to have a galaxy of ALIEN life. It's just all humans. They can't even have a non human main character. Even Chewy is a secondary character. Why or why do we NEVER see any groups of alien Rebels? Would it REALLY be so hard to have the Wild Wing X-wing squad that was made of ALL Wokkies?

1.Woke Disney. :(

5. Uhh... what? People can't cross the galaxy in a couple minutes. That's made very clear. They edit the waiting out, you know; it's not as though the trip to Mordor on foot only took the 12 hours the movies give us. A single Imperial Star Destroyer has over 37,000 crew, and the empire had 25,000 of them at one point. That's a billion people. And the ISD was their capital ship; they had relatively few of them. Talking about smaller patrol vessels and ground forces will drastically raise that number. Plus, not all of the galaxy is explored, and much of what has been explored still isn't inhabited - or not enough to be worth the resources. Yes, a galaxy is big, but it's also quite barren. Most governments only care about major industrial worlds, which makes the number of planets quite a lot smaller.
Now, the figures given for the starting point of the clone army are kind of ridiculous, but other than that it holds up fairly well.
4. Again, that's movie magic. Editing. I really don't know what you mean about bumping into people you know, but even if I could think of examples, that's excusable because the main characters are important people heading to important places. The admiral of a fleet of 150,000 men only has so many places worth his time. Not everyone is heavily armed and armoured, just the people we watch. You know, the main characters? Even then, most of them are armed with a pistol. Even the rebel alliance - entire worlds devoted to resisting the empire - don't have the means to effectively engage Imperial walkers in a stand-up fight. So I'm kind of wondering what you think "heavily armed and armoured" means. Because you seem to think it means "able to kill a person without armoured support," which means I'm heavily armed with a kitchen knife.
3. Yeah, except for Qui-Gon, Darth Maul, most of the clones in Clone Wars (the most kid-friendly Star Wars media out there,) everyone executed in Order 66, Anakin's "death", Greedo, Boba Fett, Jabba, Sidious, Vader, Han Solo...
2. It's mostly humans, sure, but to say that the galaxy isn't obviously teeming with aliens is... basically to admit you've never seen any of the movies.
1. Meh. Can't particularly argue.

[Devonix]

5. Uhh... what? People can't cross the galaxy in a couple minutes. That's made very clear. They edit the waiting out, you know; it's not as though the trip to Mordor on foot only took the 12 hours the movies give us. A single Imperial Star Destroyer has over 37,000 crew, and the empire had 25,000 of them at one point. That's a billion people. And the ISD was their capital ship; they had relatively few of them. Talking about smaller patrol vessels and ground forces will drastically raise that number. Plus, not all of the galaxy is explored, and much of what has been explored still isn't inhabited - or not enough to be worth the resources. Yes, a galaxy is big, but it's also quite barren. Most governments only care about major industrial worlds, which makes the number of planets quite a lot smaller.
Now, the figures given for the starting point of the clone army are kind of ridiculous, but other than that it holds up fairly well.
4. Again, that's movie magic. Editing. I really don't know what you mean about bumping into people you know, but even if I could think of examples, that's excusable because the main characters are important people heading to important places. The admiral of a fleet of 150,000 men only has so many places worth his time. Not everyone is heavily armed and armoured, just the people we watch. You know, the main characters? Even then, most of them are armed with a pistol. Even the rebel alliance - entire worlds devoted to resisting the empire - don't have the means to effectively engage Imperial walkers in a stand-up fight. So I'm kind of wondering what you think "heavily armed and armoured" means. Because you seem to think it means "able to kill a person without armoured support," which means I'm heavily armed with a kitchen knife.
3. Yeah, except for Qui-Gon, Darth Maul, most of the clones in Clone Wars (the most kid-friendly Star Wars media out there,) everyone executed in Order 66, Anakin's "death", Greedo, Boba Fett, Jabba, Sidious, Vader, Han Solo...
2. It's mostly humans, sure, but to say that the galaxy isn't obviously teeming with aliens is... basically to admit you've never seen any of the movies.
1. Meh. Can't particularly argue.


A couple of minutes is an eggageration but we all know what he means. Starwars is a franchise where people go to multiple planets across the galaxy within hours. Phantom Menace has travel from the Outer Rim, to The Galactic Core in about a day or two at most. Hell the flight from Tattooine to Alderan took a few hours. Travel distance in Starwars is basically meaningless.

And I think he's talking about how everyone in Starwars pretty much knows each other and people keep meeting long lost friends or running into Cameo aliens all of the time.

[Fyraltari]

The bad guys control stuff...and yet everyone is heavely armed and armored.
Well yeah, if the bad guys weren't powerful, the Galaxy far far away wouldn't be so dangerous and people wouldn't need to be armed (though most people we follow are fighters one way or the other, the Lars didn't seem to have much firepower).


Woke Disney. :(

I'm going to regret this, but... Can you develop what you mean exactly?

[Forum Explorer]

My personal problem is that anime space battles tend to use mecha, whereas I want ships. But that's just a personal taste thing.


True, but at least the capital ships aren't mecha.


I assume you're referring to the "Rube Goldberg death" horror film? Because I'm not aware of any other film by that name. If that is the one, I can't say I see any resemblance whatsoever.

No, Rogue One is definitely "Star Wars does a commando film" in the same way that Ant-Man is a heist movie with superheroes. You're getting upset that the equivalent of Porkins and Red Leader died because we happened to spend a bit more screen time with them.

I went into the movie with around 95% certainty that the entire cast would be dead by the end. It did not disappoint.

Ditto. There was nothing wrong with Rogue One and the deaths were...normal. Honestly, the only death I thought was BS was using the Death Star laser to kill off the last two. I would've preferred them just getting swarmed by hundreds of storm trooper reinforcements arriving.

[Peelee]

I'm going to regret this, but... Can you develop what you mean exactly?

Hell, I'm already regretting it on your behalf!:smallwink:

[Fyraltari]

Hell, I'm already regretting it on your behalf!:smallwink:

... Was half-expecting red-text.

[The Glyphstone]

I winced a bit as well.:smallsigh:

[Droid Tony]

5. Uhh... what?

If you say it's editing, it's the worst editing ever. Sure you don't want to watch 12 hours of people traveling, but doing the 'push a button, oh look we are here' bit is even worse. You could write the script to say things like ''oh that was a long trip'' or even acknowladge the fact that distance exists.





4. Again, that's movie magic. Editing..

It is dumb movie magic, when you are talking about a galaxy. If you know a person on planet x, 100,000 light years away, that lives in city x....what are the chances that if you ''suddenly zip across the galaxy in seconds'' and land at a random spot on planet x that you will bump into your best buddy? Zero...you know, unless you land in their back yard.



3. Yeah, except for Qui-Gon, Darth Maul, most of the clones in Clone Wars (the most kid-friendly Star Wars media out there,) everyone executed in Order 66, Anakin's "death", Greedo, Boba Fett, Jabba, Sidious, Vader, Han Solo...

Yes, all kid friendly, Disney death. Exactly my point. People 'get hit' and then 'fall down to take a nap'. The silly heist movie even has all the main characters die in kid friendly explosions.



2. It's mostly humans, sure, but to say that the galaxy isn't obviously teeming with aliens is... basically to admit you've never seen any of the movies.

Teeming with aliens....in the far background. So...why not even one main character alien? Why only one alien side kick(Chwey)? Why don't we see more Rebel Aliens?

Sure ''budget'', but they still had make up....and Chwey is just a guy in a suit. And there are plenty of ways to do near human aliens, you know like Vulcans from Star Trek. Though there is no excuise for any of the recent movies.



1. Meh. Can't particularly argue.

Yea, just look at the Skywalker Saga mess...

[Peelee]

Yes, all kid friendly, Disney death. Exactly my point. People 'get hit' and then 'fall down to take a nap'.
https://futureofstarwars.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/uncleowen-auntberu-epivscene.jpg
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/60/Qui-Gon's_death.png
https://media1.fdncms.com/riverfronttimes/imager/u/slideshow/31773679/star_wars_02.jpg

[Forum Explorer]

Yes, all kid friendly, Disney death. Exactly my point. People 'get hit' and then 'fall down to take a nap'. The silly heist movie even has all the main characters die in kid friendly explosions.


I remember Vader's death in the OT to actually be pretty effective at showing well, death. It was very much 'this is what death looks like' sort of moment.

Then there was the Ewok crying over its slain friend, and stuff like Luke getting his arm chopped off or tortured by lightning. Even little things like the guy doing a kamikaze run on the SSD, or even stuff like Porkin's getting gunned down in the trench run. None of it was gory, but it was still pretty clearly people dying and suffering. I never felt like it held back in that regard.

Mind you, the Ewoks killing the stormtroopers was very much the 'get hit and fall down to take a nap' sort of thing. Really, I think that applies to pretty much all stormtrooper deaths. Which I think was part of the dehumanizing the movies did to them. The stormtroopers don't suffer, so it's okay to kill them en mass sort of thing.

The PT is awful for that though. I mean, on one side you have droids, who are very much played for comedy, and on the other side you have clones, literally copies of each other so you don't really get attached to any of them. All the really traumatic stuff happens at a distance or is skipped over like Anakin killing the younglings or Order 66 where the Jedi are quickly gunned down. The closest I can think of is Anakin executing Count Deku or Qui-Gon dying.

The ST has so far been the absolute best for this. I haven't seen Rise yet, but the first two have been pretty good about characters actually mourning each other, showing the brutality of combat, all the way down to Finn panicking in the first battle.

[Fyraltari]

https://futureofstarwars.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/uncleowen-auntberu-epivscene.jpg
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/60/Qui-Gon's_death.png
https://media1.fdncms.com/riverfronttimes/imager/u/slideshow/31773679/star_wars_02.jpg

https://starwarsblog.starwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Ponda-Baba-Bloody-Arm-Cantina-A-New_hope-1024x430.jpg

[Peelee]

https://starwarsblog.starwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Ponda-Baba-Bloody-Arm-Cantina-A-New_hope-1024x430.jpg

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9366ed39f9d048f4f4c593ae5e00b76f.webp

[Fyraltari]

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9366ed39f9d048f4f4c593ae5e00b76f.webp

https://s2.qwant.com/thumbr/0x380/4/b/3a15063fcbfe3c7468f653f962d0ada0705754863a3f5c828b 2d25a0ac8ae4/killing-jabba.jpg?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdorksideoftheforce.com%2 Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F319%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F10%2Fki lling-jabba.jpg&q=0&b=1&p=0&a=1

[Delicious Taffy]

I agree, Grievous burning up and exploding from the inside was way too kid-friendly. And Count Dooku getting decapitated was nothing but fun for the whole family. Remember when Darth Maul only got cut in half? I can't believe they pulled that punch so severely. Blue Jedi Woman getting gunned down by basically a firing squad was also very tame.

"Kid-friendly explosions" is the funniest thing in this thread. Yeah, don't worry about him, Billy. He only got roasted alive and blown into a chunky mist. So long as you don't think about the fact that a character was just messily erased from life, it's totally fine.

[Peelee]

"Kid-friendly explosions" is the funniest thing in this thread.

Agreed. I almost commented on how the opening scene is nothing but people getting kid-friendly shot.

[Yora]

Sure ''budget'', but they still had make up....and Chwey is just a guy in a suit. And there are plenty of ways to do near human aliens, you know like Vulcans from Star Trek. Though there is no excuise for any of the recent movies.
Deep Space Nine was regularly full of Cardassians, Ferengi, and Klingons and that was a TV show. An Arkanian or Zeltron really would be zero effort. A Zabrak or Ubese also wouldn't be much more difficult. It doesn't need to be a Verpine or Ithorian doing acrobatics.

[Delicious Taffy]

A Zabrak or Ubese also wouldn't be much more difficult.

More Zabraks in general would be sweet. Those are the Maul aliens, right?

[Peelee]

More Zabraks in general would be sweet. Those are the Maul aliens, right?

Yes. Also called Iridonians (though not all Zabraks are Iridonians).

[Rodin]

Ditto. There was nothing wrong with Rogue One and the deaths were...normal. Honestly, the only death I thought was BS was using the Death Star laser to kill off the last two. I would've preferred them just getting swarmed by hundreds of storm trooper reinforcements arriving.

Hmmm, depends. Peter Jackson style, with them each taking a dozen blaster shots over the course of a 10 minute slow motion battle? No thanks.

A brief scene of them in the elevator down, then showing the legion of Stormtroopers waiting outside, followed by a fade to black over massed blaster fire? Worked for Butch and Sundance, would have worked fine here.

Getting nuked was an acceptable way for me - it could have been worse. Which is kind of my mantra for the modern films anyway.

[Mechalich]

Deep Space Nine was regularly full of Cardassians, Ferengi, and Klingons and that was a TV show. An Arkanian or Zeltron really would be zero effort. A Zabrak or Ubese also wouldn't be much more difficult. It doesn't need to be a Verpine or Ithorian doing acrobatics.

The Mandalorian has made a point of using a number of humanoid aliens and though there are some restrictions - ex. it looked like they staged a certain fight scene with a Twi'lek character in a specific way to avoid having to use a stunt double - it's certainly possible even on a TV budget. The Disney films, even Rogue One, have just largely shied away from using such characters for some reason. It's a frustrating design choice that's been remarked upon as far back as The Force Awakens.

The most popular alien species in Star Wars is Twi'leks, by a huge margin (http://eleven-thirtyeight.com/2013/08/go-figure-basic-species-demographics/#more-686) and the fact that the ST doesn't include a Twi'lek character in a significant role is an embarrassment.


More Zabraks in general would be sweet. Those are the Maul aliens, right?

Technically Darth Maul is a Dathomirian. Dathomirians are a species born of hybridization between humans and Zabraks that display significant sexual dimorphism. The males almost complete resemble ordinary Zabraks, but the females resemble gray or white-skinned humans. Asajj Ventress is an example of a female Dathomirian. This was all covered in the extensive Asajj Ventress storyline in TCW.

[Keltest]

Technically Darth Maul is a Dathomirian. Dathomirians are a species born of hybridization between humans and Zabraks that display significant sexual dimorphism. The males almost complete resemble ordinary Zabraks, but the females resemble gray or white-skinned humans. Asajj Ventress is an example of a female Dathomirian. This was all covered in the extensive Asajj Ventress storyline in TCW.

This, I think, is probably the dumbest retcon from the entire Maul arc, including Maul still being alive. He's the original example of his species, just let him be one, for crying out loud. Its not like theres actually any real reason to make them related instead of just having a zabrak colony there.

[Peelee]

If we're getting into technicalities, Dathomirian is a subspecies of Zabrak; he's still a Zabrak.

[Mechalich]

If we're getting into technicalities, Dathomirian is a subspecies of Zabrak; he's still a Zabrak.

No, it's not, that's not how the biology works. Dathomirians are a hybrid species, a new true-breeding population created from a mixture of two existing populations, in this case Zabraks and Humans, but they are not a sub-species of either. This is a real evolutionary process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_speciation).

[Forum Explorer]

Getting nuked was an acceptable way for me - it could have been worse. Which is kind of my mantra for the modern films anyway.

I agree it could've been way worse. And the only reason I dislike the scene is because they are blowing up a massive Imperial facility, sacrificing thousands of their own personal for no good reason.

[Zevox]

I agree it could've been way worse. And the only reason I dislike the scene is because they are blowing up a massive Imperial facility, sacrificing thousands of their own personal for no good reason.
I will say, while I like Rogue One quite a bit on the whole, I definitely agree with that criticism. That was a strange, nonsensical move on Tarkin's part.

[Peelee]

No, it's not, that's not how the biology works.
It is in Star Wars (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Dathomirian).

Physics (like orbital mechanics, among other things) also works differently in that galaxy, so quibbling about biology seems needless.


BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

DESIGNATION Sentient[1]

CLASSIFICATION Zabrak[1]

Dathomirians, also known as Dathomirian Zabraks and Dathomiri, were a subspecies of Zabrak native to the planet Dathomir.

[Keltest]

I will say, while I like Rogue One quite a bit on the whole, I definitely agree with that criticism. That was a strange, nonsensical move on Tarkin's part.

Strange, nonsensical power flexes seem to be his MO.

[Mechalich]

It is in Star Wars (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Dathomirian).

Physics (like orbital mechanics, among other things) also works differently in that galaxy, so quibbling about biology seems needless.

Wookieepedia is a wiki, it contains errors. Note that if you tab over to the Legends version of the Dathomirians page, which relies on mostly the same material since this is a TCW based species, they use the appropriate hybrid definition.

[ImperiousLeader]

I agree it could've been way worse. And the only reason I dislike the scene is because they are blowing up a massive Imperial facility, sacrificing thousands of their own personal for no good reason.

How many underlings does Vader choke ... it's actually Imperial policy, since the base allowed the Rebels access and get that close to succeeding, the Imperials there were too incompetent to let them live. Tongue is slightly in cheek here. I imagine Tarkin was high on the power of the Death Star and thinking about omelettes and eggs, at least this cleans out any Rebels that might be left on Scarif.

[Peelee]

Wookieepedia is a wiki, it contains errors.

Ya know, I thought "maybe they'll argue that it's a wiki. No, surely not after linking to a wiki themselves first.":smallamused:

Regardless. See orbital physics. Your assumptions that their science works like our science is faulty to begin with.

ETA: You would prefer another target, a military target link, then how's about starwars.com (https://www.starwars.com/databank/dathomirian)?

DATHOMIRIAN

Inhabitants of the planet Dathomir. The Dathomirian Zabrak

[Mechalich]

Ya know, I thought "maybe they'll argue that it's a wiki. No, surely not after linking to a wiki themselves first.":smallamused:

Dude, I've edited errors in Wookieepedia myself. It's a good source, probably the best available, but it's not even close to infallible.


Regardless. See orbital physics. Your assumptions that their science works like our science is faulty to begin with.

Just because one thing is different does not mean other things are. Generally, the operational assumption runs the other way, assume similarity until difference is specified.


ETA: You would prefer another target, a military target link, then how's about starwars.com (https://www.starwars.com/databank/dathomirian)?

I don't think that reference implies what you think it does. In any case, the fact that the Dathomirians are hybrids of humans and zabraks is clearly explained in the canon, if people in-universe are using incorrect labelling, that's their prerogative (actually, giving Imperial speciesism that actually makes sense), but a Dathomirian has just as much human genetic material as they do zabrak. Asajj Ventress and Talia are just as Dathomirian as Darth Maul and Savage Opress, even though they have no outwardly Zabrak features.

[Peelee]

Dude, I've edited errors in Wookieepedia myself. It's a good source, probably the best available, but it's not even close to infallible.
I'm well aware. Which is why I'm amused when people use a wiki link, then object to being responded to with a wiki link.

Just because one thing is different does not mean other things are. Generally, the operational assumption runs the other way, assume similarity until difference is specified.
Indeed. If only I provided a link from a reputable source saying they are Zabraks.

I don't think that reference implies what you think it does.
You don't think the reference that says "these are Zabraks" means these are Zabraks? That's certainly a bold assertion, I'll give you that.

[Mechalich]

You don't think the reference that says "these are Zabraks" means these are Zabraks? That's certainly a bold assertion, I'll give you that.

I think they're referring to Zabraks culturally, not biologically, as an act of prejudice in order to try and define out the human half, at least that's the only plausible explanation that makes any sense.

Dathomirians started out with humans and zabraks breeding together. They're hyrbids. Calling the hybrid offspring of zabraks and humans zabraks is the same thing as calling mules horses. It's just wrong. And even if its stated in the official sources that way, it's still wrong. Hey, since this thread is about annoying aspects of Star Wars, here's annoying aspect worth highlighting: sometimes people officially commissioned to write about the lore pull BS out of their butts rather than be accurate and often times those facts have to get changed later - like how the Death Star II's size underwent several alterations because Curtis Saxton was obsessed with defending an incorrect and utterly absurd position.

Dathomirians are hybrids. The source material is extremely clear on this point, and in fact the hybridization was the entire purpose of the concept since the creation of the Dathomirians was a convoluted storytelling device to link together otherwise separate plots involving Asajj Ventress and Darth Maul (to great effect IMO). Someone subsequently chose to call them Zabraks because the males look like Zabraks, that's a mistake of labelling, it doesn't change what the Dathomirians are. It doesn't magically vanish the human genetic material from their tissues. Personally, in a scenario like this I'll take the source material first, especially considering how the post-hoc label is ridiculous.

[Peelee]

I think they're referring to Zabraks culturally, not biologically, as an act of prejudice in order to try and define out the human half, at least that's the only plausible explanation that makes any sense.

OR they don't know/care about how things biologically work in the real world and just said "they're Zabraks but that just works differently on Dathomir." The cultural/biological thing is already kind of wonked up since they're also called Iridonians, which already suggests a cultural/biological divide, where Iridonian is the cultural name and Zabrak is the biological name. Really, the whole thing is only a problem if you specifically think too much into it.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

There are plenty of space battles in novels, where budgetary constraints aren't a thing. Spaceship battles in other media are thin on the ground.

Mass Effect only rarely has the sort of "fleet on fleet" battles that Aotrs is talking about. We get a small amount of it in the 1st game with the attack on the Citadel, and then another small bit for the final confrontation in the 3rd game.

Never played Halo, so can't comment.

Still, there are some videogames that do spaceship battles. You can even go back to the original Homeworld to get some pretty cool ones. Games that have a story-based space battle are considerably rarer.

The problem is film and TV, where Babylon 5 with its "first Sci-Fi show to heavily use CGI" aesthetic continues to have the best space battle. That show is from 1996. The second best is from Serenity, circa 2005.

"Rare" is an understatement.

That 2004ish Battlestar series had some excellent space battles. Then there are fillers about their religion or infighting and there are plenty of episodes which left me feeling like an episode of This Is Us or a movie like Marley and Me or the Notebook did also.

But when they did a battle I REALLY liked it.

[gomipile]

My personal problem is that anime space battles tend to use mecha, whereas I want ships. But that's just a personal taste thing.


Crest of the Stars and Legend of the Galactic Heroes come to mind. It's a bit of an exception proving the rule situation, but they do exist, at least. Oh, there was some small scale space combat in Cowboy Bebop as well.

[hamishspence]

like how the Death Star II's size underwent several alterations because Curtis Saxton was obsessed with defending an incorrect and utterly absurd position.

To be fair, while he lost the DS2 size debate with respect to both Legends and Newcanon (it was retconned back to 160km late in Legends, and is 200 km in Newcanon, rather than his 900km figure) he won virtually every other size debate.

DS1? 160km in newcanon (the figure he preferred). AT-AT? 22m late in Legends, carried over to Newcanon, rather than 15m. Executor? 19km.

Even the RZ-1 A-wing was very recently retconned from 9.6m to 6.9m, which is most consistent with his estimates of the prop's scale.

[Mechalich]

Crest of the Stars and Legend of the Galactic Heroes come to mind. It's a bit of an exception proving the rule situation, but they do exist, at least. Oh, there was some small scale space combat in Cowboy Bebop as well.

Crest of the Stars does not have well-animated space battles though, it has weird flat symbol fights because the people making it had no money (they were quite open about this actually).


To be fair, while he lost the DS2 size debate with respect to both Legends and Newcanon (it was retconned back to 160km late in Legends, and is 200 km in Newcanon, rather than his 900km figure) he won virtually every other size debate.

True, but none of his other figures were anywhere near as ridiculous.

[Yora]

What really needs correction are the deoid control ships from Episode 1. Based on the windows on the outside and the hangar, they are nowhere near twice the size of Star Destroyers. I think they are always listed as 4000m, but 800m seems much more accurate.

[hamishspence]

I think they are always listed as 4000m, but 800m seems much more accurate.


Closer to 3000m than 4000.

Whether or not this is correct for the TPM one, all sources since then have tended to depict them as much bigger than the ROTS Star Destroyers.




True, but none of his other figures were anywhere near as ridiculous.

Indeed. And it's pretty clear that, in the newcanon, the Forest Moon has taken minimal damage, counter to his Endor Holocaust theory - 30 years after ROTJ, there are still forests and Ewoks on Endor.

[Strigon]

To be fair, while he lost the DS2 size debate with respect to both Legends and Newcanon (it was retconned back to 160km late in Legends, and is 200 km in Newcanon, rather than his 900km figure) he won virtually every other size debate.

DS1? 160km in newcanon (the figure he preferred). AT-AT? 22m late in Legends, carried over to Newcanon, rather than 15m. Executor? 19km.

Even the RZ-1 A-wing was very recently retconned from 9.6m to 6.9m, which is most consistent with his estimates of the prop's scale.

Wait, so DS2 isn't several times larger than the original? It's only 25% greater in diameter?
This surprises me.

[Fyraltari]

Wait, so DS2 isn't several times larger than the original? It's only 25% greater in diameter?
This surprises me.

That's almost twice the volume.

[Strigon]

That's almost twice the volume.

Yes, but it isn't that much bigger to the eye. I always thought the second looked much larger.

[Bohandas]

I agree it could've been way worse. And the only reason I dislike the scene is because they are blowing up a massive Imperial facility, sacrificing thousands of their own personal for no good reason.

Yes, so it comes off as diabolus ex machina. The scene comes out of nowhere for no purpose other than to badly contrive the deaths of the main characters.

To a lesser extent the same can be said of the scene where that monk guy's powers just randomly stop working

[Fyraltari]

Yes, so it comes off as diabolus ex machina. The scene comes out of nowhere for no purpose other than to badly contrive the deaths of the main characters.
I really don’t think ‘the bad guys use a weapon we know they have to kill the good guys’, however contrived you think it was can be considered a diabolus ex machina since that’s about something coming completely out of left field.
Besides, the Imperial’s general willingness to sacrifice their own men and infrastructure, as well as Tarkin’s belief that the Death Star is all the Empire will ever need are both well documented.


To a lesser extent the same can be said of the scene where that monk guy's powers just randomly stop working
He did what the Force wanted him to do. After which the Force stopped protecting him.

[Bohandas]

I think it strains suspension of disbelief that Tarkin could do that without being court-martialed.

On a related note Rogue One also seems to change Tarkin's characterization. In New Hope he was 'merely' a cruel and ruthless military leader who was willing to resort to mass murder to achieve his ends. In Rogue One however he almost seems to view murder as an end in and of itself. And not even in the manner of a serial killer who will kill people just to watch them die, Tarkin seems to view the murder even of people who he can't see, has nothing to do with - and who are not Krennec or Vader - as an end unto itself

[Rogar Demonblud]

Well, if Tarkin hadn't died a few days later who's to say he wouldn't have been 'court-martialed' by the Emperor?

[Fyraltari]

I think it strains suspension of disbelief that Tarkin could do that without being court-martialed.
I don’t think the Empire has anything resembling a court. Tarkin answers directly to the Emperor and the Emperor wouldn’t particularly care.
Mas Amedda is the only Imp high-ranking enough and opposed to Tarkin that I could see trying to use that against him but The Emperor would overrule him.

On a related note Rogue One also seems to change Tarkin's characterization. In New Hope he was 'merely' a cruel and ruthless military leader who was willing to resort to mass murder to achieve his ends. In Rogue One however he almost seems to view murder as an end in and of itself. And not even in the manner of a serial killer who will kill people just to watch them die, Tarkin seems to view the murder even of people who he can't see, has nothing to do with - and who are not Krennec or Vader - as an end unto itself

Jedha was a test run of his new weapon. The companion novel Catalyst (and possibly Tarkin I’m not sure) establish a long-held rivalry and hatred between Tarkin and Krennic so it seems like firing on the facility was more of a way for him to dispose of Krennic under the pretense of collateral damage.

[Sapphire Guard]

Scarriff I can buy, it's tactically sound if super wasteful.

Jedha, though? They act as though they don't want news of this to get out disguising it as a 'mining accident', even though the way to do that is to just not blow it up in the first place.

[Forum Explorer]

Yes, so it comes off as diabolus ex machina. The scene comes out of nowhere for no purpose other than to badly contrive the deaths of the main characters.

To a lesser extent the same can be said of the scene where that monk guy's powers just randomly stop working

Not really. I mean, I had no expectations that the main characters would live. It just seemed like overkill and extremely wasteful.


The monk guy didn't have any powers. Him pulling off that walk in the first place was a Deus Ex Machina. Don't get me wrong, it was incredibly cool and badass, and I absolutely loved the scene. But it was a miracle that he did it in the first place, and his luck (or the protection of the Force, whatever) ran out.

[Fyraltari]

The monk guy didn't have any powers.

Yeah he did.

Could spot Jyn in a crowd, could tell Cassian was going to do some murdering, can beat a quad of stormtroopers with a staff by his lonesome, can shoot down a TIE-fighter in flight in one shot.

While being blind!

[Forum Explorer]

Yeah he did.

Could spot Jyn in a crowd, could tell Cassian was going to do some murdering, can beat a quad of stormtroopers with a staff by his lonesome, can shoot down a TIE-fighter in flight in one shot.

While being blind!

Yeah, but he just did those things. He didn't use any powers to do that. Or in other words, he was Hollywood Blind where all blind people are somehow Daredevil.

[Fyraltari]

Yeah, but he just did those things. He didn't use any powers to do that.
How are those not powers? The dude spends the whole movie connected to the Force.

[Forum Explorer]

How are those not powers? The dude spends the whole movie connected to the Force.

Because he's explicitly not a Jedi. He has no special connection to the Force. He might have a connection, but it's one through training and meditation that theoretically anyone could achieve. So it's like how Poe has no powers even though he's an ace pilot.

[Rynjin]

Because he's explicitly not a Jedi. He has no special connection to the Force. He might have a connection, but it's one through training and meditation that theoretically anyone could achieve. So it's like how Poe has no powers even though he's an ace pilot.

But Jedi aren't the only people that have a special connection to the Force.

[Devonix]

Because he's explicitly not a Jedi. He has no special connection to the Force. He might have a connection, but it's one through training and meditation that theoretically anyone could achieve. So it's like how Poe has no powers even though he's an ace pilot.

He's basically using the Force in the way I always wanted Jedi to use it. Not super powers, just letting go and allowing it to guide you. It's basically Luke with the Death Star. Surrendering to the Force.

[Forum Explorer]

He's basically using the Force in the way I always wanted Jedi to use it. Not super powers, just letting go and allowing it to guide you. It's basically Luke with the Death Star. Surrendering to the Force.

As awesome as that is, it's also not really how it is used.


But Jedi aren't the only people that have a special connection to the Force.

I'm really struggling to think of an example that is still canon that didn't end up being a force sensitive individual. Can you think of one? I think canon these days is just the movies + the cartoons.

But the point is that he didn't have any special sensitivity to the Force. Nothing that wasn't trained anyways.

[Rogar Demonblud]

In newcanon, the only people who can use the Force are Jedi and Sith. Ergo, the monk cannot use the Force. If he was a Jedi or a Sith, he'd have a lightsaber after all.

[Devonix]

The force is life. It's the connection between all things. Force Users just attune themselves to that connection allowing them to do super power stuff. But Everything you do, every action that's the force and you leave ripples in it.

Force sensitives are just aware of these actions, but everyone does them.

[Forum Explorer]

The force is life. It's the connection between all things. Force Users just attune themselves to that connection allowing them to do super power stuff. But Everything you do, every action that's the force and you leave ripples in it.

Force sensitives are just aware of these actions, but everyone does them.

Sure. And in this case, the monk isn't aware of any of the actions or have any particular awareness of the Force. The Force might guide him into taking actions, but he has no ability to command the Force. Just faith that by entrusting himself to the Force things will turn out alright for him.

And as I was saying, it's a trained skill that theoretically anyone could do.

[Mechalich]

In newcanon, the only people who can use the Force are Jedi and Sith. Ergo, the monk cannot use the Force. If he was a Jedi or a Sith, he'd have a lightsaber after all.

This is not true. While many Legends-era force traditions were excluded from the new canon, the Nightsisters of Dathomir were very explicitly included, and several others have gradually crept back in over time. For instance, Luke's Force Projection at the end of TLJ gave Pablo Hidalgo an excuse to resurrect the Fallanassi in supplemental material.

[DataNinja]

In newcanon, the only people who can use the Force are Jedi and Sith. Ergo, the monk cannot use the Force. If he was a Jedi or a Sith, he'd have a lightsaber after all.

That logic feels flawed. One does not develop force sensitivity because of gaining a lightsaber. Even in canon, Anakin was still using the force to Podrace before becoming a Jedi - I would imagine that the monkish tranquility is simply one way that things could be expressed if one went the untrained route. Potential, but it's simply... a sensitivity. (Though, I do believe it's been canonically stated that Chirrut isn't force sensitive. I could be wrong, though.)

[Mechalich]

(Though, I do believe it's been canonically stated that Chirrut isn't force sensitive. I could be wrong, though.)

It was. Background material made up a biofeedback-incorporating martial art called Zama-shiwo to explain all the stuff Chirrut was able to do by virtue of the character trait 'played by Donnie Yen.'

[Mightymosy]

Then the movie itself was more clever than the background explanation.

He did things one can do only with help of the force.
He was connected to the Jedi.
He prays to the force.
The best explanation is that he was guided by the force, even though he was not a trained Jedi. Maybe all people could connect like this to the force if meditating right, maybe Chirrut was special in being very slightly force sensitive but not sensitive enough to become a real Jedi.

Really, any explanation that excludes the force is doing disservice to the (awesome) movie.
Especially if it comes from creators of the movie. Wouldn't be the last time people were misguided about their own creative work either. People create awesome creative stuff by accident, sometimes, without ever realising what in particular made their work awesome. Or dislike parts of their work people like. Heck, look at OotS! The hotel arc gets a bad rep from the author, yet I think it is the actual best arc in the entire story so far.

[Hopeless]

Chirrut was force sensitive I don't care if the creators think otherwise.

I'm more inclined to believe the Force believes in Chirrut!:smallcool:

[Kitten Champion]

He's basically using the Force in the way I always wanted Jedi to use it. Not super powers, just letting go and allowing it to guide you. It's basically Luke with the Death Star. Surrendering to the Force.

I would love it if the Force were that in-universe. I mean, as an actual faith with some ambiguity to its existence and its practice that people can devote themselves to.

Rather than Lensmen-esque supermen psychic powers + free ticket for any and all plot contrivance.

[Mightymosy]

Let's just say that Rogue One didn't have a Jedi, and yet portrayed the Force and how it works better than the entire new trilogy.

[Forum Explorer]

Let's just say that Rogue One didn't have a Jedi, and yet portrayed the Force and how it should works better than the entire new trilogy.

Fixed that for you. Because as much as I wish that's how it worked, the prequel trilogy, and even the OT simply doesn't have it work like that. Really, the ST is actually much closer to that portrayal of the Force than the other Star Wars movies.

[Mightymosy]

Fixed that for you. Because as much as I wish that's how it worked, the prequel trilogy, and even the OT simply doesn't have it work like that. Really, the ST is actually much closer to that portrayal of the Force than the other Star Wars movies.

Ultimately this comes down to opinion, but here is my reasoning:

Consider the deciding force moment in ANH:

Luke heart's Obi's voice. From the movie we don't even know whether that is a genuine force ghost or Luke remembering Obi Wan from before. It could be either way. Luke then let's go and *trusts* in himself and *trusts* in the Force to guide him.

If you ask me, Chirrut's heroic sacrifice resembles that scene better than any other force usage in any movie.

And like this subtle force usage, especially for the light side, really a lot.

[Yora]

In A New Hope, Obi-Wan manipulates syormtroopers twice to ignore him, and senses a great disturbance in the Force. Vader senses his presence and does a Force Choke. Luke blocks a shot without seeing it and makes a hard shot with his torpedoes.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke pulls his lightsaber a distance of half a meter and levitates some rocks. Obi-Wan appears to talk to Luke briefly. Yoda lifts the X-Wing from the water, slowly and with great concentration. Vader does two more Force Chokes and throws some things at Luke. Luke calls out to Leia to save him and has a few words with Vader who is close by.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke does a Force Choke and a few cool jumps. Vader listens to Luke's thoughts and the Emperor zaps Luke.

Unless I am mistaken, The Phantom Menace did not add anything to that.

Can't think of anything too spectacular in Attack of the Clones either. Doku makes the roof break and Yoda has to use all his strength and concentration to keep the pieces from crushing the others and Dooku can make his escape.

I think it's Revenge of the Sith where things get crazy. Everything that Palpatine does is crazy. Yoda is jumping around like a bouncing ball. Dooku casually rips a bridge off a wall.

[Kitten Champion]

Unless I am mistaken, The Phantom Menace did not add anything to that.

Force Super-Speed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY4tXUtu9_I&ab_channel=WookieeF1). Force prophecies and the idea that Force clairvoyance can be blocked by Dark Side powers somehow - when the plot needs it to - not to mention Force immaculate conception.

... and tangential to the idea of Force powers but super-important in their portrayal, Midi-chlorians. I can't think of anything further from the mystical and religious nature of the Force than being able to do a quick blood check to discover your Force Saviour. Like one of those trashy 90's American talk shows where they test some schmucks paternity to see if they are, in fact, the baby daddy.

[Yora]

So my mind was really effective at supressing my memories of that movie. :smalltongue:

[Rodin]

Yoda spinning like a top in the air like a video game character was introduced in Clones. It's part of his ludicrous fight against Dooku.

Palpatine throwing the senate at Yoda after that was just kinda par for the course.

[Forum Explorer]

In A New Hope, Obi-Wan manipulates syormtroopers twice to ignore him, and senses a great disturbance in the Force. Vader senses his presence and does a Force Choke. Luke blocks a shot without seeing it and makes a hard shot with his torpedoes.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke pulls his lightsaber a distance of half a meter and levitates some rocks. Obi-Wan appears to talk to Luke briefly. Yoda lifts the X-Wing from the water, slowly and with great concentration. Vader does two more Force Chokes and throws some things at Luke. Luke calls out to Leia to save him and has a few words with Vader who is close by.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke does a Force Choke and a few cool jumps. Vader listens to Luke's thoughts and the Emperor zaps Luke.

Unless I am mistaken, The Phantom Menace did not add anything to that.

Can't think of anything too spectacular in Attack of the Clones either. Doku makes the roof break and Yoda has to use all his strength and concentration to keep the pieces from crushing the others and Dooku can make his escape.

I think it's Revenge of the Sith where things get crazy. Everything that Palpatine does is crazy. Yoda is jumping around like a bouncing ball. Dooku casually rips a bridge off a wall.

New Hope: Yup that's how I remember it.

Empire Strikes Back: You missed the vision quest Luke went on, and Luke hearing his friends being tortured through the Force. Also Luke starts doing the cool jumps here.

Return of the Jedi: Luke senses Vader and vice versa. He also mind whammies Jabba's valet. Oh, and lifts C-3PO up to pretend he's a god.


You know, thinking about it, when did Jedi start deflecting mass amounts of laser fire? I mean, New Hope, Luke deflects a small training laser. And that's it. Empire Strikes Back, Vader just tanks a couple of laser shots, I don't remember Luke deflecting any shots. Did Luke deflect a bunch of shots in Return of the Jedi? I can't remember. Cause the whole, stand in place and deflect shot after shot might be a PT thing.

[hamishspence]

Did Luke deflect a bunch of shots in Return of the Jedi? I can't remember. Cause the whole, stand in place and deflect shot after shot might be a PT thing.

I think he may have deflected some on the Sail Barge. As to when it became prominent, as I recall, it was a big thing in the Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight game before the PT came out. The novels and comics may also have emphasised it.

[Mechalich]

A lot of force powers gradually expanded greatly in scope over time. For example, Vader blocks Han's shots on Bespin in ESB, and from that incident a huge range or force abilities to block, absorb, or otherwise mitigate incoming damage were developed. Telekinesis gradually got more and more potent over time, both in the movies and expanded universe, so did Force Lightning.

Of course, it should be noted that anti-personnel weapons technologies also grew in variety and potency over time. In ANH everybody's just running around with fairly basic blasters, while there's all sorts of weapons tech in AotC and Revenge of the Sith. Even relatively restrained properties like Rogue One (Baze Malbus' heavy repeater cannon) and The Mandalorian (he's got those 'whistling birds' tracking darts and a pulse rifle that straight up disintegrates people) have upped the ante.

Franchise power creep is universal.

[Kitten Champion]

So my mind was really effective at supressing my memories of that movie. :smalltongue:

In retrospect, the Force Super-Speed is probably one of the worst of examples of its kind in media outside of silver age Superman and Star Trek Voyager. It was completely superfluous to that scene - they could have just run away at normal human speeds and no one would've cared - and I don't believe it's ever used again when it would be potentially enormously useful. Like, say, the Darth Maul fight with the oscillating force fields, or basically the whole third act on Geonosis for Attack of the Clones, just for two examples.

[Yora]

I think he may have deflected some on the Sail Barge.
He deflected some. And then got shot in his artificial hand holding the lightsaber, remindig us that deflecting isn't perfect.

When he levitated C3PO, he had to carefully concentrate and made him slowly hover a meter above the ground. This still makes Vader's ability to rip a pipe off the wall and throw it at him look really powerful.

I forgot about the Clone Wars cartoon that was done before Revenge of the Sith. I wonder how much that influenced the Lightsaber fights in that movie. But I think at that time the Jedi Knight games and KotOR had already been out for a while. They might also have had a bad influence on Force Powers.

[Rogar Demonblud]

He deflected some. And then got shot in his artificial hand holding the lightsaber, reminding us that deflecting isn't perfect.

He also deflected blaster cannon fire while dealing with the speeder bike scout on Endor.

[Mightymosy]

He also deflected blaster cannon fire while dealing with the speeder bike scout on Endor.

Yeah, that is the one I remembered :-)

[hamishspence]

I would agree that perfectly reflected blaster bolts, that fly straight back at the shooter, was more of an EU thing than a movie thing.

[Mightymosy]

In the Jedi Knight game you sometimes reflected them perfectly, sometimes deflected them, and sometimes they still hit you for some damage.
I think the chances varied whether you moved forwards, backwards, or stood still or even crouched, but I don't really know, just my observations.

[Bohandas]

Happy Life Day

[Saintheart]

He also deflected blaster cannon fire while dealing with the speeder bike scout on Endor.

Nobody remembers him deflecting bolts from the training remote on the Falcon in ANH, and that while he was blindfolded to boot...

[Rodin]

Nobody remembers him deflecting bolts from the training remote on the Falcon in ANH, and that while he was blindfolded to boot...

That was literally the first example of blaster deflection Yora cited. :smallconfused:

[Bohandas]

Regarding The Mandalorian, why did Disney feel the need to create knockoffs of their own characters?

(and wherein them being knockoffs is not a gag, (unlike the case of Mortimer Mouse in the Mickey Mouse cartoons, or Ted, Pinky, and Vacuum Head in Winnie the Pooh))

[Tyndmyr]

And the most annoying aspect of Star Wars is:

1. Star Wars fans constantly finding faults in a franchise they supposedly love.

There's an easy fix to that. Just stop being a fan. Why bother with something you're not going to enjoy. I'm not bothering to see this "last" star wars film. There's plenty of other films to watch, after all. I don't owe the mouse some kind of eternal loyalty.

I only have any sort of mixed feelings now, because I was talked into watching The Mandalorian, which...is genuinely good. But I can like that and not like the Christmas Special or Solo or whatever other half baked thing that gets popped out with the same branding.

Maybe there ought to be more attention given to just leaving fandoms. Go, find something new to love. The Expanse is pretty great.

[Peelee]

Regarding The Mandalorian, why did Disney feel the need to create knockoffs of their own characters?

Because using the same characters over and over makes for a smaller galaxy, not a bigger one. Mandalorian armor isn't worn by just two people in the galaxy. An entire species is not one person.

The entire show was deli erately designed to have new characters. Knock-offs? IG-88 stands there for twenty seconds. IG-11 actually has an active role in the series. Knock-offs my butt, they are fantastic new characters that happen to live in the Star Wars universe. That's like calling any other ship you see in the series a knock-off of the Millennium Falcon because it's a light freighter with a hyperdrive.

[Azuresun]

There's an easy fix to that. Just stop being a fan. Why bother with something you're not going to enjoy. I'm not bothering to see this "last" star wars film. There's plenty of other films to watch, after all. I don't owe the mouse some kind of eternal loyalty.

I only have any sort of mixed feelings now, because I was talked into watching The Mandalorian, which...is genuinely good. But I can like that and not like the Christmas Special or Solo or whatever other half baked thing that gets popped out with the same branding.

Maybe there ought to be more attention given to just leaving fandoms. Go, find something new to love. The Expanse is pretty great.

And the thing is, sometimes it's not a series that changes, it's you. There are a lot of things I loved when I was younger that I've just...drifted away from. And if I revisit them, I find that I don't enjoy them as much, or not in the same way. Not because the work itself changed, but because I've changed. I try to just move on when something I'm following starts to lose me, because I don't want to become one of those bittervets you see on the forums of long-running video games or some 40K forums, where they hate everything about the thing they're spending their time on....but this somehow makes them not just a fan, but a superior breed of fan. It's a perverse standard where the fewer things you like about something, the more of a fan this makes you.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
--Anais Nin


Edit: And to answer the OP, that guy from the EU with lightsabers in his knees. :smallwink:

[Tyndmyr]

Sign you misunderstand the point of Admiral Pinky from a narrative standpoint. Vice Admiral Holdo (Aka the actress Laura Dern famous from the first Jurassic Park movie in the 90s) plays the role of the gatekeeper in myth, aka the knight who tests the protagonist asking are you worthy. It could never have been Admiral Ackbar for we the audience already sympathize with Ackbar and we already sympathize with Poe.

The big problem with this, is that we have very little reason to believe anything Holdo is saying. We don't see any good reason for her to keep her plan a secret. Likewise, Poe does not actually appear to have acted wrongly. He...killed a fleet killer. The rebellion is in a fleet. That seems generally good. Oh, sure, while doing so, he lost some light craft. Her plan was to drive the ships until they ran out of gas anyways, so the ship carrying the light craft is lost regardless. Okay. He didn't apparently endanger her plan at all, and he accomplished something of value.

I agree that, generally, focusing on Rey as the hero, and having the military battles make more sense would have helped more to develop the world.

It almost feels as if the movie is chiding the audience for wanting a daring hero to save the day. That's just frustrating. Look, ya'll know what you're making and advertising, don't bash me for wanting it.


There are plenty of space battles in novels, where budgetary constraints aren't a thing. Spaceship battles in other media are thin on the ground.

For all that some aspects of it hold up poorly now, new BSG at least had some space battles with some epic scale. Smaller scale, Serenity has at last some brief sweet shots. The Expanse has a fun take on space battles. They don't show up often, but they are pretty cool.

But yeah, I do think there's something to people just wanting to see epic space battles, and most films not delivering that. It makes sense. CGI is expensive, and doing that with models is a pain in a different way. I would *love* to see the Honorverse translated to film properly.



Mechalich and this is why J.J. Abrams should not have been the person to do the Star Wars movies without a plan and at least a rough draft for the 3 movie trilogy. Google Abrams Ted Speech on Mystery Boxes. Abrams creates ideas without knowing where they are going instead thriving as a writer and the audience on the suspense of the Mystery Box. To Abrams the mystery box is still empty he does not know where he is going with the story.

The mystery box thing is fascinating. It's...definitely a useful technique, but it's certainly not sufficient. Buildup has to lead to payoff or disappointment. You don't necessarily have to have a plan for everything you write, but it helps. Otherwise, you gotta think something up later. Or bungle it all. Personally, I love films where I can see they planned every detail, with thematic resonance, and they play fair with their mysteries, yet still make them interesting.


I don't want to become one of those bittervets you see on the forums of long-running video games or some 40K forums, where they hate everything about the thing they're spending their time on....but this somehow makes them not just a fan, but a superior breed of fan. It's a perverse standard where the fewer things you like about something, the more of a fan this makes you.


Mmm, yeah, 40k is another one I fell out of. Games Workshop is gonna pump that for cash for forever. Sometimes you gotta let go of something, because the alternative is just tedious. Sure, you can hate GW, hate the rules, hate most of the lore, but that all sounds like work. I can just....not.

[GloatingSwine]

He...killed a fleet killer. The rebellion is in a fleet. That seems generally good.


He killed a fleet killer of a type the First Order had more of, which could not currently threaten the Resistance fleet because it was tasked to destroy their base and they were ready to escape. That's why Leia called the abort on the strike, because the Resistance no longer needed to kill that ship and would gain no profit by doing so.

(Guerilla forces win when they preserve their own strength not when they reduce the enemy's, study the campaigns of George Washington for an excellent example).

[Ramza00]

The mystery box thing is fascinating. It's...definitely a useful technique, but it's certainly not sufficient. Buildup has to lead to payoff or disappointment. You don't necessarily have to have a plan for everything you write, but it helps. Otherwise, you gotta think something up later. Or bungle it all. Personally, I love films where I can see they planned every detail, with thematic resonance, and they play fair with their mysteries, yet still make them interesting.


I am a golden mean kind of guy with art where there is no rules where you NEVER do this but instead you are balancing many general principles, finding the Goldilocks zone. Only to create a sense of expectations and flow, only to reverse the flow from time to time to create surprise and jar ones attention out of the flow in a pleasing manner.

For example the original trilogy did the mystery box 📦 thing as well. For example were Luke and Leia originally twins in Empire and ROTJ rough drafts? Or Luke seeing the ghost of Anakin the Jedi in a vision in an Empire rough draft?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/luke-and-leia-kiss_b_8817166

Lucas may have a rough idea of the parts of his trilogy but he and others were continuously rewriting details and playing with their own mystery boxes 📦 .

———

So in my opinion Mystery Boxes 📦 are not bad but you need accountability people outside the dreaming author to make sure things payoff. A second person (or more) to provide feedback before the final edit is a very good thing that helps to get a Goldilocks zone.

Likewise hard deadlines of every 2 years and the scripts are not even done I think is a very bad thing for often it leads to rush jobs and being sloppy. I would have been so much happier with this new trilogy if the movies were not 2015 / 17 / 19 for Disney acquired Lucasfilm in Oct 12. Better to have taken an extra year to figure out the scripts prior to filming, or to take 3 years and not 2 years between the 3 movies much like the original trilogy of 1977 / 80 / 83 or the prequel trilogy of 1999 / 02 / 05.

Generally I am fine with most of the themes of the new trilogy it is just the details and world building I think the new trilogy got sloppy with. Much of the new trilogy did right but **some** of it is pure painful cringe that given more time that some would have been much smaller.

[Tyndmyr]

He killed a fleet killer of a type the First Order had more of, which could not currently threaten the Resistance fleet because it was tasked to destroy their base and they were ready to escape. That's why Leia called the abort on the strike, because the Resistance no longer needed to kill that ship and would gain no profit by doing so.

(Guerilla forces win when they preserve their own strength not when they reduce the enemy's, study the campaigns of George Washington for an excellent example).

In which case, Holdo's plan effectively doomed the resistance. She blew all of their fleet assets, a hidden fortress they had, most of their people...at the end of the film, the remaining resistance fits into a single shuttle, yes? Even if you do not value what Poe accomplished, having Holdo be the voice of reason, while also having that plan, makes no sense.

One can make a cautionary tale work, but this particular example is very strange.

And in any case, even if it doesn't help at that exact moment, the first order having one fewer fleet killer is a good thing. Poe destroying that is still good in any objective sense. Blowing up the big enemy starship for only a loss of ships that would have been lost anyways is a net gain for no net cost. He did not set back Holdo's plan at all. It doesn't even make sense for anyone to object to what he did.

[Forum Explorer]

In which case, Holdo's plan effectively doomed the resistance. She blew all of their fleet assets, a hidden fortress they had, most of their people...at the end of the film, the remaining resistance fits into a single shuttle, yes? Even if you do not value what Poe accomplished, having Holdo be the voice of reason, while also having that plan, makes no sense.

One can make a cautionary tale work, but this particular example is very strange.

And in any case, even if it doesn't help at that exact moment, the first order having one fewer fleet killer is a good thing. Poe destroying that is still good in any objective sense. Blowing up the big enemy starship for only a loss of ships that would have been lost anyways is a net gain for no net cost. He did not set back Holdo's plan at all. It doesn't even make sense for anyone to object to what he did.

Her plan failed, it's worth remembering. It was to sacrifice their ships (but very few lives) to go to a hidden fortress where they could regroup. Mind you, her plan would've worked if Finn hadn't gotten himself captured.

I think the argument was that they could no longer turn and fight the pursuing ships because they didn't have the bombers that Poe sacrificed to kill the ships chasing them. Or at least Sooke's flagship.

But the real plot hole is this: Why did Ren only do one attack run? If the bombers and other Tie fighters can reach the Resistance fleet, why didn't they just take them down with mass amounts of snub fighters?

[GloatingSwine]

For example the original trilogy did the mystery box 📦 thing as well. For example were Luke and Leia originally twins in Empire and ROTJ rough drafts? Or Luke seeing the ghost of Anakin the Jedi in a vision in an Empire rough draft?


Those aren't mystery boxes in the JJ Abrams sense. It's not a mystery box just because the audience doesn't know the answer yet but you have a plan for the answer and when the audience will know it (even if you change that plan later, as Lucas did often), it's a mystery box when the audience is never supposed to know the answer because there isn't a "the answer".

The audience is supposed to be engaged with the mystery and talk about it in public (or at least on the internet) and if you give them an answer they have to stop doing that.

The problem with JJ Abrams is that there's nothing in the boxes.

[Rynjin]

Those aren't mystery boxes in the JJ Abrams sense. It's not a mystery box just because the audience doesn't know the answer yet but you have a plan for the answer and when the audience will know it (even if you change that plan later, as Lucas did often), it's a mystery box when the audience is never supposed to know the answer because there isn't a "the answer".

The audience is supposed to be engaged with the mystery and talk about it in public (or at least on the internet) and if you give them an answer they have to stop doing that.

The problem with JJ Abrams is that there's nothing in the boxes.

Maybe this is a distressing character trait common to all people named "JJ" because James Jacobs is the same way when it comes to the question of what happened to Aroden.

[Mightymosy]

Her plan failed, it's worth remembering. It was to sacrifice their ships (but very few lives) to go to a hidden fortress where they could regroup. Mind you, her plan would've worked if Finn hadn't gotten himself captured.

I think the argument was that they could no longer turn and fight the pursuing ships because they didn't have the bombers that Poe sacrificed to kill the ships chasing them. Or at least Sooke's flagship.

But the real plot hole is this: Why did Ren only do one attack run? If the bombers and other Tie fighters can reach the Resistance fleet, why didn't they just take them down with mass amounts of snub fighters?

I ask again: why do you assume Holdo's plan would have worked?

The First Order has the method to scan for cloaked ships.

What are these people supposed to be doing, at any point in the whole chase?

Seriously, tell me.
You are Commander Hux or Kylo, and your officers want to know.
You are flying max speed, the only ship you can see is the Raddus.
The planet Hoth (sorry, Crait) is directly on the course of the Raddus.
Your super death star planet has just now been exploded by an APPEARANTLY inexplicably small number of enemy ships.
Your big doom fleet killer ship has also JUST now been exploded, also by what SEEMED to be only a handful ships.
Now you are chasing the last big ship of the enemy YOU ABSOLUTELY want dead to the last rebel.
You don't want any single one to escape nor do you want any sudden unexpected counterattack against any of your ships. Heck, how about counterattack against the ship you are sitting on just now?


Again, you HAVE soldiers at your command which CAN operate a radar that detects cloaked ships.

What are your orders, Sir or Madam?

[GloatingSwine]

I ask again: why do you assume Holdo's plan would have worked?

The First Order has the method to scan for cloaked ships.

But we don't know the opportunity cost involved in doing so or the limitations of doing it. If you're not just determined from the beginning of the conversation that there can be no possible answer, it's easy to logically deduce that because running decloaking scans is not standard practice (the First Order don't do it until they suspect there is a reason to) there is a reason for that.

[Forum Explorer]

I ask again: why do you assume Holdo's plan would have worked?

The First Order has the method to scan for cloaked ships.

What are these people supposed to be doing, at any point in the whole chase?

Seriously, tell me.
You are Commander Hux or Kylo, and your officers want to know.
You are flying max speed, the only ship you can see is the Raddus.
The planet Hoth (sorry, Crait) is directly on the course of the Raddus.
Your super death star planet has just now been exploded by an APPEARANTLY inexplicably small number of enemy ships.
Your big doom fleet killer ship has also JUST now been exploded, also by what SEEMED to be only a handful ships.
Now you are chasing the last big ship of the enemy YOU ABSOLUTELY want dead to the last rebel.
You don't want any single one to escape nor do you want any sudden unexpected counterattack against any of your ships. Heck, how about counterattack against the ship you are sitting on just now?


Again, you HAVE soldiers at your command which CAN operate a radar that detects cloaked ships.

What are your orders, Sir or Madam?

Because if they were scanning for cloaked ships all the time, then they would've been doing that already. It was only when they were prompted to by that hacker that they bothered to. Is that stupid? Maybe. After all, their may have been an opportunity cost to the scan like Gloating Swine said.

But even if it is stupid, it's worth remembering that Hux is a very stupid man. I mean Poe's plan at the beginning involved a prank call, which worked.

[Dienekes]

I ask again: why do you assume Holdo's plan would have worked?

The First Order has the method to scan for cloaked ships.

Because the narrative is structured around Holdo's plan working until the heroes inadvertently reveal the plan.

Now you may claim this is circular logic. And you know what? That's probably fair. But the thing is, Star Wars fighting has always run like this.

Why doesn't the Death Star go out of hyperspeed on the other side of the planet and just blow up the rebel base instantaneously after coming out of hyperspace? No answer is ever given in the movie. But we the audience are expected to accept that there is some weird reason for it. Now I'm certain that some fan writer somewhere made up a reason for why. But in truth, that's a heaping load of hand waving to explain the Imperials being idiots if one were to take the rules of the universe as presented in the film at face value. Which isn't even close the the stupidity of Princess Leia who straight up tells the audience that they're being tracked and then doesn't even change ships! Directly and knowingly leading the Death Star to the rebels before R2's data has even been looked over to find the weak point! She is at best an idiot, at worst on the side of the Empire!

Let's continue. In Hoth, Vader chokes out Ozzel for coming in too close to the rebel base. Why? Getting your vastly superior ambushing forces as close as possible to those you're ambushing directly decreases their time and ability to respond to your advance. He did the right thing. But we are met to take it at face value that Ozzel is "as clumsy as he is stupid." We're not supposed to question the tactics. And don't even get me started on the AT-ATs what is that? Who designed that? What's wrong with you?

Or we get to Return of the Jedi. And holy crap man. I don't even know how to start going by how the Imperials seem to disregard ever rule of safety and basic survival instinct to lead to Endor. They didn't even clear out their field of vision on their military outposts! That's the most basic freaking thing. Holy crap. And the Imperials legitimately have the entire vastly inferior Rebel fleet surrounded and pinned in by the Death Star. Even if it blows up, so what? Shoot them! They're sitting ducks! Why did the imperial blockade disappear after the Emperor died? What is going on?

And again. I'm sure, somewhere some author in the copious backlog of Star Wars material has come up with explanations for all this crap. But you know what? It doesn't count. That is an outside source trying to furiously make sense of the nonsensical.

My point being. Star Wars has always played fast and loose with military engagements. We are expected to take the information provided and accept it at face value so the story can focus on character development and melodrama. Occasionally, they will dabble a toe into territory criticizing political process and war, mostly in the prequels. But the focus is always the melodrama.

It'd be another thing entirely, if the story had a strong focus on taking the science and military seriously and having it be an integral part of the plot. If I can switch gears for a moment. Part of why the last couple seasons of Game of Thrones were so reviled was because the first few seasons took the strategy, tactics, and world deadly seriously. How to cross a bridge was a huge plot point that ended up toppling a king. And all of it was mostly hand waved in the last couple seasons and people noticed.

But Star Wars wasn't like that. At least not in the movies. Timothy Zahn tried to take it a bit more seriously in his books, and honestly that's part of why I like them better than any of the movies. But, I digress.

The real main difference between accepting the copious amount of handwaving for the plot and world to make sense in the OT and the copious amount of handwaving for the plot and world to make sense in the ST is basically determined by how much fun you're having watching the melodrama. From what I've seen, anyway. If you are annoyed with the ST and are looking for flaws to pick at with the military doctrine of the ST. You will find them. I won't argue with you that it's kinda dumb that the Imperials weren't actively looking for cloaked ships. Once you get it in your head that this level of stupidity is too dumb for you, I don't think that line can ever be uncrossed. No amount of backpedaling or reasoning will get you to accept that Holdo's plan makes sense.

Just like I can't think of a reason why Leia wouldn't fly to some nearby planet and swap ships before deliberately drawing the Imperials directly to the Rebel base. I just accept both of those breaches of stupidity because I was thoroughly engrossed with both A New Hope and The Last Jedi when I watched it.

[Devonix]

Because the narrative is structured around Holdo's plan working until the heroes inadvertently reveal the plan.

Now you may claim this is circular logic. And you know what? That's probably fair. But the thing is, Star Wars fighting has always run like this.



Or we get to Return of the Jedi. And holy crap man. I don't even know how to start going by how the Imperials seem to disregard ever rule of safety and basic survival instinct to lead to Endor. They didn't even clear out their field of vision on their military outposts! That's the most basic freaking thing. Holy crap. And the Imperials legitimately have the entire vastly inferior Rebel fleet surrounded and pinned in by the Death Star. Even if it blows up, so what? Shoot them! They're sitting ducks! Why did the imperial blockade disappear after the Emperor died? What is going on?

And again. I'm sure, somewhere some author in the copious backlog of Star Wars material has come up with explanations for all this crap. But you know what? It doesn't count. That is an outside source trying to furiously make sense of the nonsensical.



Just like I can't think of a reason why Leia wouldn't fly to some nearby planet and swap ships before deliberately drawing the Imperials directly to the Rebel base. I just accept both of those breaches of stupidity because I was thoroughly engrossed with both A New Hope and The Last Jedi when I watched it.

The books actually did try to explain this as Palpatine using Battle Meditation to control and guide the fleet during the battle, and that when he died, everything and everyone went into disaray without him controlling them, so they lost. Yes It's that stupid. This is what happens when you try to explain away things in the films. This is the type of thing I'd Expect JJ to try.

[Rogar Demonblud]

There's a very simple reason why Leia didn't change ships. It wasn't her ship, she wasn't flying it, she isn't a pilot and the captain made it very clear that she was cargo. She objected, he ignored her. A better question is why she didn't call ahead with a coded message that said "Escaped, on route with plans, have 15,000 credits in small, unmarked bills in a briefcase ready for my arrival." Also, why do you assume the tracker is on the Falcon and not just something injected into the Princess during one of the torture sessions?

As for the Death Star thing, it was actually in the worldbuilding notes that didn't need to be filmed. A hyperdrive doesn't work when you get to close to a large mass, which is why Han had to fly away from Tatooine instead of just warping out from the docking bay. This also means if you get too close to a star (or gas giant), you get pulled out of hyperspace (hence Interdictor cruisers). And since the DS was jumping blind, well, at least they were close to the base.

[Bohandas]

The books actually did try to explain this as Palpatine using Battle Meditation to control and guide the fleet during the battle, and that when he died, everything and everyone went into disaray without him controlling them, so they lost.

Wasn't that also the premise of Ender's Game?

[Devonix]

There's a very simple reason why Leia didn't change ships. It wasn't her ship, she wasn't flying it, she isn't a pilot and the captain made it very clear that she was cargo. She objected, he ignored her. A better question is why she didn't call ahead with a coded message that said "Escaped, on route with plans, have 15,000 credits in small, unmarked bills in a briefcase ready for my arrival." Also, why do you assume the tracker is on the Falcon and not just something injected into the Princess during one of the torture sessions?

As for the Death Star thing, it was actually in the worldbuilding notes that didn't need to be filmed. A hyperdrive doesn't work when you get to close to a large mass, which is why Han had to fly away from Tatooine instead of just warping out from the docking bay. This also means if you get too close to a star (or gas giant), you get pulled out of hyperspace (hence Interdictor cruisers). And since the DS was jumping blind, well, at least they were close to the base.

We don't assume that the tracker is on the falcon. Tarkin's exact words are. " You're sure the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship? " Remember the entire escape from the Death Star was staged. They wanted them to rescue Leia, and while they were doing that, they were planting the tracking device on the falcon.

[Devonix]

Wasn't that also the premise of Ender's Game?

The difference being that he wasn't issuing orders. It's just him being around made everyone more effective just by his presence.

[Dienekes]

The books actually did try to explain this as Palpatine using Battle Meditation to control and guide the fleet during the battle, and that when he died, everything and everyone went into disaray without him controlling them, so they lost. Yes It's that stupid. This is what happens when you try to explain away things in the films. This is the type of thing I'd Expect JJ to try.

That description was actually in the Thrawn trilogy. It’s a dumb reason agreed, but that’s what Zhan has to come up with because without that reason it makes the Imps completely incompetent. And the rest of the book kind of requires the Imps to at least be able to tie their shoes.


There's a very simple reason why Leia didn't change ships. It wasn't her ship, she wasn't flying it, she isn't a pilot and the captain made it very clear that she was cargo. She objected, he ignored her. A better question is why she didn't call ahead with a coded message that said "Escaped, on route with plans, have 15,000 credits in small, unmarked bills in a briefcase ready for my arrival." Also, why do you assume the tracker is on the Falcon and not just something injected into the Princess during one of the torture sessions?

As for the Death Star thing, it was actually in the worldbuilding notes that didn't need to be filmed. A hyperdrive doesn't work when you get to close to a large mass, which is why Han had to fly away from Tatooine instead of just warping out from the docking bay. This also means if you get too close to a star (or gas giant), you get pulled out of hyperspace (hence Interdictor cruisers). And since the DS was jumping blind, well, at least they were close to the base.

Han doesn’t know where to go without Leia telling him. He can’t take her anywhere unless she agrees to it.

That description of the hyperdrive does not make sense. They were out of orbit first before coming in, they can jump behind it again right away. Because they are at the furthest point by definition.

So again. These reasons are silly and furthermore don’t really count. They’re not in the text. They are other people going over the text and patching the holes to make the ludicrous stuff work.

[Bohandas]

A hyperdrive doesn't work when you get to close to a large mass, which is why Han had to fly away from Tatooine instead of just warping out from the docking bay. This also means if you get too close to a star (or gas giant), you get pulled out of hyperspace (hence Interdictor cruisers). And since the DS was jumping blind, well, at least they were close to the base.

You know, I think that actually explains the hyper-ram thing in Last Jedi. IIRC that's the only battle we've seen that was actually in deep space; that's why it wasn't done in other battles.

[Ramza00]

Let's continue. In Hoth, Vader chokes out Ozzel for coming in too close to the rebel base. Why? Getting your vastly superior ambushing forces as close as possible to those you're ambushing directly decreases their time and ability to respond to your advance. He did the right thing. But we are met to take it at face value that Ozzel is "as clumsy as he is stupid." We're not supposed to question the tactics. And don't even get me started on the AT-ATs what is that? Who designed that? What's wrong with you?


I agree with this main thread but this paragraph is half covered in the Empire movie and fully covered in the book novelization of the movie. The hoth system had a lot of asteroid and meteorite activity making it hard to track new objects appearing slowly such as a certain style of imperial attack.

Vader wanted Ozzel to move the Star destroyers out of easy visual range. Go stealth mode with various electronics and slowly drift to Hoth. Ozzel did not want to wait for he was a glory hound and thus his foolhardiness revealed the fleet to early and thus Vader on a whim killed him.

[Rogar Demonblud]

For all HHGTG plays fast and loose with everything, Doug did get one thing very right. Space is REALLY big. You aren't going to find someone unless they're right next to a navigation point like a planet.

[DataNinja]

You know, I think that actually explains the hyper-ram thing in Last Jedi. IIRC that's the only battle we've seen that was actually in deep space; that's why it wasn't done in other battles.

And yet... to add to the everything else, the Falcon was able to jump through hyperspace right onto Starkiller. So... unfortunately, that as evidence means it could work anywhere.

I'll be honest, while the hyperspace ram was a cool scene, visually stunning, all that... it's what broke my disbelief. It shattered internal consistency for me.

Though, it's funny. When Poe was doing his distraction talk in the beginning... I genuinely thought he was going to hyperspace-ram into the capital ship to take it down. Which is what made it so jarring later. And... I don't mind FTL being weaponized. I read a book series where the culmination of the second book was basically the series' FTL being weaponized and used to destroy a megaship in a way that had been built up the entire book. But the important thing was, that sort of stuff had been built up throughout... it was something that explicitly would only work in that one scenario, there were reasons it wasn't just a casual thing. But in Star Wars, like... there's really no point in capital ships when you just make droid-piloted chunks of metal and explosives with engines if this is possible.

[Devonix]

You know, I think that actually explains the hyper-ram thing in Last Jedi. IIRC that's the only battle we've seen that was actually in deep space; that's why it wasn't done in other battles.

The other thing about Hyperspace Ramming is that it can only work if you're right next to your enemy. People kept saying things like Jump from several light years away and just point yourself at the enemy.

In Starwars You Accelerate a short distance really fast, and then you Jump. During that short distance you're increasing speed and mass, but after that you jump and you might as well not be there.

You have to be close enough to the enemy that they're in that small window between the acceleration and the Jump. IE you already need to be within weapon range of the enemy. It's why the crew on Snoke's ship was telling Hux something was up with the ship, the could have blown her up if they weren't ignoring her to focus on the escaping Resistance.

[Devonix]

And yet... to add to the everything else, the Falcon was able to jump through hyperspace right onto Starkiller. So... unfortunately, that as evidence means it could work anywhere.

I'll be honest, while the hyperspace ram was a cool scene, visually stunning, all that... it's what broke my disbelief. It shattered internal consistency for me.

Though, it's funny. When Poe was doing his distraction talk in the beginning... I genuinely thought he was going to hyperspace-ram into the capital ship to take it down. Which is what made it so jarring later. And... I don't mind FTL being weaponized. I read a book series where the culmination of the second book was basically the series' FTL being weaponized and used to destroy a megaship in a way that had been built up the entire book. But the important thing was, that sort of stuff had been built up throughout... it was something that explicitly would only work in that one scenario, there were reasons it wasn't just a casual thing. But in Star Wars, like... there's really no point in capital ships when you just make droid-piloted chunks of metal and explosives with engines if this is possible.

When Han arrived at Starkiller, he was letting the planet pull him out of hyperspace. He wasn't moving at Lightspeed anymore. Even though it makes no sense, The only FTL in Starwars is Hyperspace travel, Being pulled out of hyperspace immediatly makes you stop moving at lightspeed.

[Bohandas]

The books actually did try to explain this as Palpatine using Battle Meditation to control and guide the fleet during the battle, and that when he died, everything and everyone went into disaray without him controlling them, so they lost.
Wasn't that also the premise of Ender's Game?The difference being that he wasn't issuing orders. It's just him being around made everyone more effective just by his presence.

No, I mean that the key to the strategy they used to attack the aliens; they took out the telepathic controllers and that crippled the rest of the alien fleet.

edit:

oops. I think I misread the post I just responded to

[Mechalich]

When Han arrived at Starkiller, he was letting the planet pull him out of hyperspace. He wasn't moving at Lightspeed anymore. Even though it makes no sense, The only FTL in Starwars is Hyperspace travel, Being pulled out of hyperspace immediatly makes you stop moving at lightspeed.

'Lightspeed' is a colloquialism. Hyperspace travel means going into another dimension where physics works differently. Ships going into hyperspace don't actually accelerate at all, they simply appear to accelerate - this is referred to as 'pseudomotion' - because the hyperdrive is performing a bunch of handwavium distortions to space time. When you come out of hyperspace you're moving at whatever speed you had going in. The problem with coming out too close to a gravity well is that suddenly gravity applies to your ship again and you might end up pulling 1000s of gs which is bad, or suddenly crash into actual matter, from the atmospheric halo or even solar wind or whatever you're near, inside your shields at full space speeds and that's worse.

At least that's how it used to work. The ST totally ruins how hyperspace is supposed to function in Star Wars. All three movies do it.


That description was actually in the Thrawn trilogy. It’s a dumb reason agreed, but that’s what Zhan has to come up with because without that reason it makes the Imps completely incompetent. And the rest of the book kind of requires the Imps to at least be able to tie their shoes.

The Thrawn Trilogy doesn't actually use the Battle Meditation explanation - since Battle Meditation hadn't been invented yet - Thrawn gives a somewhat more complicated and subtle explanation that the Emperor had used the force over a prolonged period of time to sort of subliminally influence his entire officer corps in order to make them absolutely loyal but at the cost of their creativity and initiative, so that when the command structure collapsed they were unable to formulate anything but the most rote reactions. Later Legends works reinforced the idea by having all of the officers with any level of free will break away from the Empire post-Palpatine and function as independent warlords and also stressing that the Empire spent a lot of time promoting people out of ideological purity, nepotism, and other corrupt impulses (Vader was an exception, because he could tell the ISB and COMPNOR to pound sand, which is why aspiring officers wanted to work under him and the destruction of the Executor took many of the elite mid-level officers with it).

Thrawn made a point of reintroducing meritocracy to the Imperial military, a process that the Legends EU completed by both killing off the remaining ideological loyalists on Byss in Dark Empire and then by having Daala (sigh), finalize reform of the late-stage empire.

[Bohandas]

The other thing about Hyperspace Ramming is that it can only work if you're right next to your enemy. People kept saying things like Jump from several light years away and just point yourself at the enemy.

In Starwars You Accelerate a short distance really fast, and then you Jump. During that short distance you're increasing speed and mass, but after that you jump and you might as well not be there.

You have to be close enough to the enemy that they're in that small window between the acceleration and the Jump. IE you already need to be within weapon range of the enemy. It's why the crew on Snoke's ship was telling Hux something was up with the ship, the could have blown her up if they weren't ignoring her to focus on the escaping Resistance.

The impression I got was that she came out of hyperspace inside the flagship

[Mightymosy]

Because if they were scanning for cloaked ships all the time, then they would've been doing that already. It was only when they were prompted to by that hacker that they bothered to. Is that stupid? Maybe. After all, their may have been an opportunity cost to the scan like Gloating Swine said.

But even if it is stupid, it's worth remembering that Hux is a very stupid man. I mean Poe's plan at the beginning involved a prank call, which worked.

It is not just stupid. It is inexplicably stupid.

That's why I keep asking (without ever getting an answer from the TLJ defenders, for good reason!) : "What would your orders be?"

If invisible ships exist AND you have the ability to detect them, NO ONE would ever NOT use that method.

It simply defies common sense that hard that it simply is bad writing, stupid villain or not.

(Because even stupid villains open their eyes to see who attacks them, it's that simple.)

And I should mention that the movie does not mention ANY opportunity cost, whatever ominous that may be.
Sure, the writers COULD have said "Yeah, the FO can scan for cloaked ships, but they need to sacrifice a virgin for every minute they want to scan, and since they only had one virgin among their 100000 soldiers, they saved that scan until they knew they needed it....."
But they didn't.

They used backwards logic and unfortunately that didn't work out.

As a later poster said: the writers WANTED Holdo to be right. But unfortunately that doesn't MAKE her right. The writing doesn't provide the necessary logic to feed the message. Thus, the message itself is not believable.

And that's the core problem of the movie, not just with this detail. "Wanting" something is just not the same as "taking time to make sure to get things right".

[Forum Explorer]

It is not just stupid. It is inexplicably stupid.

That's why I keep asking (without ever getting an answer from the TLJ defenders, for good reason!) : "What would your orders be?"

If invisible ships exist AND you have the ability to detect them, NO ONE would ever NOT use that method.

It simply defies common sense that hard that it simply is bad writing, stupid villain or not.

(Because even stupid villains open their eyes to see who attacks them, it's that simple.)

And I should mention that the movie does not mention ANY opportunity cost, whatever ominous that may be.
Sure, the writers COULD have said "Yeah, the FO can scan for cloaked ships, but they need to sacrifice a virgin for every minute they want to scan, and since they only had one virgin among their 100000 soldiers, they saved that scan until they knew they needed it....."
But they didn't.

They used backwards logic and unfortunately that didn't work out.

As a later poster said: the writers WANTED Holdo to be right. But unfortunately that doesn't MAKE her right. The writing doesn't provide the necessary logic to feed the message. Thus, the message itself is not believable.

And that's the core problem of the movie, not just with this detail. "Wanting" something is just not the same as "taking time to make sure to get things right".

As Dienekes said, it may be stupid, but it's no more stupid than the main stuff in the OT. In fact, I'd say the OT is even worse, as it's pretty easy to come up for an explanation on why the cloaking would work, while stuff like Leia knowing they were being tracked and still directing them to the Rebel base is much harder to explain.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

He killed a fleet killer of a type the First Order had more of, which could not currently threaten the Resistance fleet because it was tasked to destroy their base and they were ready to escape. That's why Leia called the abort on the strike, because the Resistance no longer needed to kill that ship and would gain no profit by doing so.

(Guerilla forces win when they preserve their own strength not when they reduce the enemy's, study the campaigns of George Washington for an excellent example).

Star Wars forces win when they Pew Pew wheeeeeeeeee! KABOOM! ratatatatataI can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I aaaaaaaam!

I don't care which of the characters was technically right, one way or the other. I would probably have cared if this was Star Trek or pretty much any other franchise. I would have debated it to to the death. But this is Star Wars. If I watch Star Wars, I just want two hours of adventure in a setting that sort of looks like space. That bombing run was very Star Wars, the later scene with the unipod ekranoplans would have been very Star Wars too, if 1 the mood hadn't been totally spoiled by then and 2 the focus of the scene wasn't on why you should always kill your own people by suicide ramming them to prevent them from accomplishing something (even if they were trying to accomplish something by doing some suicide ramming themselves, which was already bad enough). A full hour of ships sloooooooowly following each other around, not Star Wars. I don't care how cool the ships look, still not Star Wars. The worst part to me might be that that movie had a runtime of two and a half hours. You could cut out the entire chase and half of the speeches about how you should never be Star Wars and you would actually have a pretty decent 1.5 hour Star Wars movie left. It would be a short movie by Star Wars standards, but that's no crime. There's the initial attack, the bombing run, an infiltration scene, the assault on the base, the unipod ekranoplans, holographic Luke, jedi powers, alien animals doing... something. There is quite a bit of Star Wars there, but it needs to be framed differently.

Yes, Star Wars is unrealistic, and yes the real world is depressing sometimes, but how about they make Star Wars movies that focus on anything but the exact combination of those two facts?

This rant brought to you by warblgarblgarbl.

[Mightymosy]

As Dienekes said, it may be stupid, but it's no more stupid than the main stuff in the OT. In fact, I'd say the OT is even worse, as it's pretty easy to come up for an explanation on why the cloaking would work, while stuff like Leia knowing they were being tracked and still directing them to the Rebel base is much harder to explain.

Are we comparing the actions of
3 desperate individuals who JUST BARELY escaped certain death on board ONE lightweight freighter with shabby looks (the princess has just been tortured, even. WITH DRUGS)
VS
A military of several 1000 soldiers (where one of the first orders (pun intended) include discipline and duty to the end, with about 30+ ships with the highest amount of tech available, who, AS SHOWN IN THE Movie, have enough time and resources available to sit on their thumbs and ask each other "Isn't there Anything else we can do to ensure our victory other than slowly chasing after their last ship?"


Again, it isn't so difficult.

Incidently, I remember that I was swarmed by a certain type of people, during the whole Andi VS Bandana debate. People who" instructed" me about military modus operandi (when discussing life on a fantasy air pirate vessel, but that's another story).

Maybe one of these people* can stick to their guns here, and shortly explain the military modus operandi of radar and sonar stations.
Tell us, at times of war, in an actual ongoing conflict, at what times is the radar station or the sonar station sitting idle?


*I know you are here. I feel your presence

[Mechalich]

As Dienekes said, it may be stupid, but it's no more stupid than the main stuff in the OT. In fact, I'd say the OT is even worse, as it's pretty easy to come up for an explanation on why the cloaking would work, while stuff like Leia knowing they were being tracked and still directing them to the Rebel base is much harder to explain.

Actually there's a simply explanation: Leia wanted Tarkin to follow them. She knows Tarkin's a massive egotist. He absolutely wants to blow up the Rebel Base with the Death Star's superlaser. This is completely unnecessary - the Empire has any number of fleets available - but it's totally in character. Therefore he'll follow them directly with the Death Star without escorts. Leia's fully aware that the Empire will run it's own analysis once the plans get out (which of course, happens in the film), and if there is a vulnerability they'll protect against it. The Rebellion only gets their shot if Tarkin pursues, which of course Tarkin announces himself in order to make quite clear "I'm taking an awful risk Vader."

The OT actually does a pretty good job of having characters - especially Imperial military personnel - give brief lines explaining what they are doing and why they're doing it. The whole Piett-Ozzel-Vader exchange is a good one. It's all technobabble - the EU explained it after the fact - but the overarching meaning is clear. Vader wanted thing X to happen, Ozzel did thing Y instead, thing Y alerted the Rebels against Vader's wishes, so now Ozzel gets the Force Choke. The internal logic is quite clear.

The ST lacks those moments for the most part. We don't get to see any sort of meeting of the First Order leadership until RoS, by which time it's way too late. Or when we do get them the references are either bad or make no sense in context, like the suitably much-maligned 'they fly now' bit in RoS that serves to prove only that the people writing the movie have no knowledge of the lore, since rocket pack troops date back to the Clone Wars at least and have appeared in canon sources.

Maybe there was an opportunity cost to run a de-cloaking scan. Hypothetically that sort of scan might have massive power requirements forcing them to divert power from the engines which would have allowed the Resistance to gain some distance. Or maybe while they're doing the scan they can't use the hyperspace tracker because it blocks the relevant frequency. Hey look, I just came up with those two things completely off the top of my head and they could have been explained by a single line of dialogue and then the problem vanishes, but no such line is actually in the movie.

[Peelee]

As Dienekes said, it may be stupid, but it's no more stupid than the main stuff in the OT. In fact, I'd say the OT is even worse, as it's pretty easy to come up for an explanation on why the cloaking would work, while stuff like Leia knowing they were being tracked and still directing them to the Rebel base is much harder to explain.

Explanation for Leias decision: anywhere they jump to, the Death Star may blow up out of spite, since they already blew up one planet out of spite. Ergo, only choice is the place that has the best chance of destroying it.

[Devonix]

Explanation for Leias decision: anywhere they jump to, the Death Star may blow up out of spite, since they already blew up one planet out of spite. Ergo, only choice is the place that has the best chance of destroying it.

But Leia doesn't know that they're being tracked. She's got a bad feeling about them getting away so easily. But she doesn't think that the Death Star is just going to show up at the rebel base. It's a surprise.

[hamishspence]

She states outright "They're tracking us".

[Keltest]

She states outright "They're tracking us".

Indeed. Theres no way to frame this as anything other than Leia ignoring her better judgment here. Fortunately, that's really all the explanation needed. She wasn't the pilot, as was mentioned earlier, and it isn't her ship, so her options are basically to yell fruitlessly at the criminal and the wookiee until they get frustrated with her and boot her from the ship, or to hope that theyre right and that the Falcon's anti-tracking measures are up to snuff.

[Devonix]

Indeed. Theres no way to frame this as anything other than Leia ignoring her better judgment here. Fortunately, that's really all the explanation needed. She wasn't the pilot, as was mentioned earlier, and it isn't her ship, so her options are basically to yell fruitlessly at the criminal and the wookiee until they get frustrated with her and boot her from the ship, or to hope that theyre right and that the Falcon's anti-tracking measures are up to snuff.

Yes She believes something's up, she's relying on Han's word, alone that they aren't being tracked. Realistically they should have gone elsewhere and transmitted the plans from there. But then we wouldn't have a movie. We have to accept things like this in a film. Though that's gotten harder for some people in the internet age of people analyzing story details more than story themes.

[Peelee]

Indeed. Theres no way to frame this as anything other than Leia ignoring her better judgment here.
Ummmmm....

anywhere they jump to, the Death Star may blow up out of spite, since they already blew up one planet out of spite. Ergo, only choice is the place that has the best chance of destroying it.

[Keltest]

Ummmmm....

If the Death Star kills them all before they can figure out a weakness and formulate a plan of attack, its all for nothing. That would be a heck of a risk to take without consulting anybody and acting on uncertain information. Besides which, im calling Occam's Razor here. Its a far simpler explanation that she just went along with it due to lack of options than that she spoke up about being tracked as a warning when she secretly wanted to be followed to lure it into a trap, then never mentioned it to anybody at any point.

[Strigon]

It's also possible she's trying to force a confrontation.
Think about it; the Death Star is supposed to be the ultimate superweapon. She absolutelly cannot allow the empire to have it. On the other hand, it's capable of destroying a planet, is hundreds of kilometers across, and can survive just about anything any military force can throw at it. It's possible she knew that it had to be destroyed, but nobody in their right mind would go up against it unless forced to. So she forced them to by bringing it to their doorstep.

Also remember that we're discussing the logic of a young woman who has just been tortured for weeks(?) on end, culminating in the destruction of her entire home planet. As well as she seems to be holding up under the circumstances, does that really sound like a recipe for clear and rational thinking?

[Peelee]

If the Death Star kills them all before they can figure out a weakness and formulate a plan of attack, its all for nothing. That would be a heck of a risk to take without consulting anybody and acting on uncertain information. Besides which, im calling Occam's Razor here. Its a far simpler explanation that she just went along with it due to lack of options than that she spoke up about being tracked as a warning when she secretly wanted to be followed to lure it into a trap, then never mentioned it to anybody at any point.

They are jumping out from the Alderaan system to the Yavin system. Both are known to her, presumably she knows how long it takes to get there and thus knows its long enough for them to analyze the plans.

It's also not a trap. The Empire knows they have the plans and knows they are jumping to their hidden base. It's not secretly wanting to be tracked, it's making the best of a bad situation.

[Keltest]

It's also possible she's trying to force a confrontation.
Think about it; the Death Star is supposed to be the ultimate superweapon. She absolutelly cannot allow the empire to have it. On the other hand, it's capable of destroying a planet, is hundreds of kilometers across, and can survive just about anything any military force can throw at it. It's possible she knew that it had to be destroyed, but nobody in their right mind would go up against it unless forced to. So she forced them to by bringing it to their doorstep.

Also remember that we're discussing the logic of a young woman who has just been tortured for weeks(?) on end, culminating in the destruction of her entire home planet. As well as she seems to be holding up under the circumstances, does that really sound like a recipe for clear and rational thinking?

If you want to argue that she's crazy and her plans don't have to make sense, fair enough I guess, but without that caveat, forcing a confrontation at that point is, well, dumb. They have no plan of attack, and they haven't looked at the technical readout yet to figure one out. Its one thing to force a desperate gamble when you have a plan and little time to make it happen, but otherwise this is just self-sabotage for no benefit.


They are jumping out from the Alderaan system to the Yavin system. Both are known to her, presumably she knows how long it takes to get there and thus knows its long enough for them to analyze the plans.

It's also not a trap. The Empire knows they have the plans and knows they are jumping to their hidden base. It's not secretly wanyi g to be tracked, it's making the best of a bad situation.

I think youre giving her more agency in that scene than she actually has. At that point, she's a bystander.

[Peelee]

I think youre giving her more agency in that scene than she actually has. At that point, she's a bystander.

Who happens to be the only person who knows the location of the hidden Rebel base. They don't go there unless she lets them.

[Keltest]

Who happens to be the only person who knows the location of the hidden Rebel base. They don't go there unless she lets them.

Sure, but that's not a strong bargaining position. She's the one in trouble, not Han, who has made it very clear that he isn't in it for the revolution. Han would be perfectly happy to boot her on some backwater planet and leave her to fend for herself if she doesn't cooperate.

[Lurkmoar]

Sure, but that's not a strong bargaining position. She's the one in trouble, not Han, who has made it very clear that he isn't in it for the revolution. Han would be perfectly happy to boot her on some backwater planet and leave her to fend for herself if she doesn't cooperate.

But then Han wouldn't get paid. Hardly idea postioning, but Leia could provide Han with something. The old guy that funded the first half of the trip is toast, and Han still needs more money to keep Jabba from icing him. Heck right after the Rebel briefing, Han was bugging out with the money when Luke guilt trips him. Leia held up her end of the bargain, so she got the plans where it could be studied.

The whole thing was off the rails after the destruction of Aldeeran anyway. Obi-wan and Luke didn't go out into space to save Leia, though if they thought they could have, they would have. They wanted to give the plans to the rebels, but they didn't know where they were beyond Leia's homeworld.

[Peelee]

Sure, but that's not a strong bargaining position. She's the one in trouble, not Han, who has made it very clear that he isn't in it for the revolution. Han would be perfectly happy to boot her on some backwater planet and leave her to fend for herself if she doesn't cooperate.

Han needs the money, she's got the money. If he boots her out, he's got to answer to Jabba.

[Keltest]

But then Han wouldn't get paid. Hardly idea postioningl, but Leia could provide Han with something. The old guy that funded the first half of the trip is toast, and Han still needs more money to keep Jabba from icing him. Heck right after the Rebel briefing, Han was bugging out with the money when Luke guilt trips him. Leia held up her end of the bargain, so she got the plans where it could be studied.

The whole thing was off the rails after the destruction of Aldeeran anyway. Obi-wan and Luke didn't go out into space to save Leia, though if they thought they could have, they would have. They wanted to give the plans to the rebels, but they didn't know where they were beyond Leia's homeworld.

"No reward's worth this!"
-Han.

There is clearly a limit to his patience. Even if he was exaggerating at the time, the money card will only get her so far. Furthermore, though she doesn't necessarily know this, Han is under a time crunch himself. The more hoops he has to jump through to get paid, the more likely he is to just bail entirely and find a more reliable source of income to get Jabba off his back.

[Peelee]

"No reward's worth this!"
-Han.
[continues to do everything needed for the reward] - Han.

Also, he said that to her insulting them. Not exactly a definitive statement there.

[Keltest]

[continues to do everything needed for the reward] - Han.

Also, he said that to her insulting them. Not exactly a definitive statement there.

Well I mean yeah, whats he going to do, not escape from the Death Star?

The point is, Han's already about ready to just drop everything and leave. If Leia starts trying to withhold the money, what he's almost certainly going to hear is "you aren't getting paid for this" and just kick her out entirely. He already stuck his neck out for her just getting her out of the Death Star. He isn't going to let her string him along indefinitely.

[Peelee]

Well I mean yeah, whats he going to do, not escape from the Death Star?

The point is, Han's already about ready to just drop everything and leave.

Not really? He rescued the princess, has her on his ship, all the hard parts are done. This is the easy part, the "where to?" part. She tells him where to go. Why would he say, "I just stormed an Imperial space station, committing a litany of crimes, and gotten back out all unscathed, but if you say we need to go to two planets instead of one that's a bridge too far!"?

[Keltest]

Not really? He rescued the princess, has her on his ship, all the hard parts are done. This is the easy part, the "where to?" part. She tells him where to go. Why would he say, "I just stormed an Imperial space station, committing a litany of crimes, and gotten back out all unscathed, but if you say we need to go to two planets instead of one that's a bridge too far!"?

Because its not just going to two planets instead of one, they would either need to scour the ship for a tracking device that Han doesn't believe exists or get a new ship entirely, which strongly risks cutting him out of the deal.

She could maybe, MAYBE convince him on the former, but definitely not the latter, and spending the time searching for a tracker runs the risk of the empire catching up to them and recapturing her, as well as the blueprints, even if they aren't being tracked.

[Peelee]

Because its not just going to two planets instead of one, they would either need to scour the ship for a tracking device that Han doesn't believe exists or get a new ship entirely, which strongly risks cutting him out of the deal.

So either he can go to wherever Leia says and have her settle the account. Seems pretty simple. He doesn't want the ship searched? "Trips done, pay up." They want to change ships? "Fine by me, pay up." No matter what she tells him to do, he still wants the money from it. She can tell him to go wherever. That she decides on Yavin is irrelevant, because he still goes where she tells him to.

[Yora]

It is simply a plot hole. Letting them escape the Death Star and tracking them was a last minute change during pickup shots. Originally they did not plan for the Death Star to come to Yavin. Which is why you never see the huge giant red planet that is right next to the Death Star at any point during the actual battle. And why the timer on the Death Star always shows the same numbers that don't match the remaining time that is being said.
Leia leading the Death Star to Yavin makes no sense. But inn turn you get much more tension during the final fight by giving the fighters a time limit and bigger stakes if their attack fails. There is no logical in-universe explanation to this. You just have to ignore it and move on.

[Peelee]

Originally they did not plan for the Death Star to come to Yavin. Which is why you never see the huge giant red planet that is right next to the Death Star at any point during the actual battle.

I'd have thought ease of production would have been a good enough reason to not show the planet during a battle that largely does not involve the planet.

[Keltest]

So either he can go to wherever Leia says and have her settle the account. Seems pretty simple. He doesn't want the ship searched? "Trips done, pay up." They want to change ships? "Fine by me, pay up." No matter what she tells him to do, he still wants the money from it. She can tell him to go wherever. That she decides on Yavin is irrelevant, because he still goes where she tells him to.

Youre absolutely correct, but she doesn't actually have crates full of imperial credits on hand at dozens of different rebel drop-off points, and her bank account was just terminated along with the rest of her planet.

[Peelee]

Youre absolutely correct, but she doesn't actually have crates full of imperial credits on hand at dozens of different rebel drop-off points, and her bank account was just terminated along with the rest of her planet.

True. She only needs crates full of Imperial credits at one other drop-off point, though.

[Keltest]

True. She only needs crates full of Imperial credits at one other drop-off point, though.

Unless ive been wildly misremembering, the Rebels at this point only have one major operations center that they relocate every so often. While its not entirely implausible that they have caches of money and resources for their agents to use, the state of the rebellion in ANH strongly suggests that they are not floating so much wealth that they can afford to leave tens of thousands of credits being unused.

[Peelee]

Unless ive been wildly misremembering, the Rebels at this point only have one major operations center that they relocate every so often. While its not entirely implausible that they have caches of money and resources for their agents to use, the state of the rebellion in ANH strongly suggests that they are not floating so much wealth that they can afford to leave tens of thousands of credits being unused.

They have the one hidden base, yes, but there are also numerous rebel cells, with a decent assortment of high-level allies. Heck, she could take to Chandrila and have Mon Mothma cover the debt, just as an off-the-cuff example.

[Keltest]

They have the one hidden base, yes, but there are also numerous rebel cells, with a decent assortment of high-level allies. Heck, she could take to Chandrila and have Mon Mothma cover the debt, just as an off-the-cuff example.

Wasn't Mon Mothma on Yavin though?

[Peelee]

Wasn't Mon Mothma on Yavin though?

Not until Rogue One came out.

For reals, though, they're both Imperial Senators, I doubt her offices would block Leia out, and a quick holo-call would be all that's needed.

[Keltest]

Not until Rogue One came out.

For reals, though, they're both Imperial Senators, I doubt her offices would block Leia out, and a quick holo-call would be all that's needed.

Well, they actually just got fired a couple days ago. But more seriously, the Empire is apparently aware enough of the membership of the Rebellion to be able to identify Leia as a key leader without actually catching her at it. It strikes me as unlikely that they wouldn't be watching her official communications, especially in light of the fact that the Senate was just dissolved.

[Devonix]

I'd have thought ease of production would have been a good enough reason to not show the planet during a battle that largely does not involve the planet.

No he's right. The planet isn't there in the scene. Because the Death Star in the original version of the film wasn't anywhere neat Yavin. All of that was done with fancy editing and ADR to change the scene and add tension.

I'm surprised that none of the Special Editions added the planet into the background.

[Peelee]

Well, they actually just got fired a couple days ago. But more seriously, the Empire is apparently aware enough of the membership of the Rebellion to be able to identify Leia as a key leader without actually catching her at it.

Now now, you pulled the other movies into it, so it's more of a "Vader saw her ship as part of the Rebel fleet during a battle over a secret Imperial installation.":smalltongue:

Anyway, the point remains that she has access to other support structures.

[Rogar Demonblud]

It's also possible that Leia was planning on switching ships at Yavin. As we saw in Empire, the standard Rebel response when discovered is to drop everything and run for it. If the Rebel brain trust hadn't found that flaw in the plans, quite likely the base would've been empty before the Death Star arrived.

Oh, and in answer to an earlier question, if the radar and sonar stations aren't in use there's a couple likely explanations. You don't want to give enemy ELINT stations a chance to read your frequencies. You don't want to advertise your location so you're under EMCON. You're in a place where they aren't much use (shallow waters, obstructed terrain, etc). Or they're just broken. The first and last are probably the only ones applicable in the given situation.

[Keltest]

Now now, you pulled the other movies into it, so it's more of a "Vader saw her ship as part of the Rebel fleet during a battle over a secret Imperial installation.":smalltongue:

Anyway, the point remains that she has access to other support structures.

Sure, its not literally impossible she has the money somewhere, but between the Rebellion being strapped for resources, all of her spheres of influence (Alderann and the senate) being destroyed, and her being captured as a rebel spy, her immediately available options to placate Han are pretty slim.

[Mightymosy]

It's also possible that Leia was planning on switching ships at Yavin. As we saw in Empire, the standard Rebel response when discovered is to drop everything and run for it. If the Rebel brain trust hadn't found that flaw in the plans, quite likely the base would've been empty before the Death Star arrived.

Oh, and in answer to an earlier question, if the radar and sonar stations aren't in use there's a couple likely explanations. You don't want to give enemy ELINT stations a chance to read your frequencies. You don't want to advertise your location so you're under EMCON. You're in a place where they aren't much use (shallow waters, obstructed terrain, etc). Or they're just broken. The first and last are probably the only ones applicable in the given situation.

Now at least an attempt.....

So number 4?
They are ALL BROKEN ON ALL 30+ SHIPS?
And then, miraculously work just quickly after the stupid rebel escapees spoil their plan? Really?
Rrm.....

1. I like this one better. It is not mentioned in the movie, but it could make sense at least theoretically.
Still.
Your base and your fleet killer super ship have just been blown up by suspiciously few enemy ships, as it seems.
The one remaining big ship of the enemy is suspiciously doing nothing but flying close to some planet called Craig.
Have one of your ships activate deckoak sonar or not?

@Devonix: Details matter. The logic of the story has to hold up, or it's message has no meaning. As I put it earlier towards Psyren. FLUFF AND CRUNCH need each other.

[Sapphire Guard]

Arguing Star Wars tech is pretty futile as none of us have degrees in Interstellar Engineering from the University of Coruscant.

I could buy a situation where the decloaking scan is a grid square by gridsquare deal that's limited in use, and has to be done by the same people that are already doing a bunch of other scans, because Snoke being Snoke, the scanning dept took a budget cut in favour of the 'giant superweapon' department.

Where I fall down is that the information 'They're sending them out in transports!' is like saying 'the sinking ship is using its lifeboats'. There's nothing in that information that should make anyone turn on the decloaking scan if they weren't using it already.

We don't know much about the hyperspace tracking thing. Finn and Rose make assumptions about it based on the FO procedural manual and strategic sweeping.

The thought process they use goes something like this:

Premise: The FO have hyperspace tracking.

Finn: According to The FO operating manual section 357C, important tracking systems operate from the lead ship when engaged in a chase. In the event of losing this ship, the ship next in line has a duplicate system ready to go, but they don't turn it on while the other one is operating in case the signals interfere with each other.

Rose: Okay, Something that important is an A Class Process, which requires a dedicated breaker room, because they want it to keep running even if the ship temporarily loses other systems. So if we find that breaker room, it should take 6 minutes for the onboard diagnostics to realise it. We know where the breaker room is?

Finn: For some reason I've swept it, yes.

They're making assumptions based on FO SOP, they don't actually know how it works.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Social engineering is often more important than physical engineering.

[Peelee]

Arguing Star Wars tech is pretty futile as none of us have degrees in Interstellar Engineering from the University of Coruscant.

I have a liberal arts degree from the College At Tatooine, but I don't think it's accredited. Yes, a cat joke was the best I could come up with. I am shamed. But kitty!

Social engineering is often more important than physical engineering.
Aye. Also, ironically, I think most people would call shenanigans if a movie had someone call a company claiming to be Bob Hackerman, the county password inspector, when that's so much more realistic than two people typing on a keyboard to out-hack the hacker who's hacking into the mainframe.

[Tyndmyr]

Her plan failed, it's worth remembering. It was to sacrifice their ships (but very few lives) to go to a hidden fortress where they could regroup. Mind you, her plan would've worked if Finn hadn't gotten himself captured.

I think the argument was that they could no longer turn and fight the pursuing ships because they didn't have the bombers that Poe sacrificed to kill the ships chasing them. Or at least Sooke's flagship.

But the real plot hole is this: Why did Ren only do one attack run? If the bombers and other Tie fighters can reach the Resistance fleet, why didn't they just take them down with mass amounts of snub fighters?

Well, the bombers all get to the most dramatic point, and then all explode, while managing to also bravely take out the fleet killer. It...doesn't make a lot of sense.

But it doesn't seem as if a better trade of ships could have been arranged once the chase had been started.

Well, ignoring the lightspeed collision thing. That has a LOT of potential for profitable ship trades, but thinking about that too much just makes every battle in Star Wars cease to make sense.

In any case, the chase does not seem desirable. It's unclear what Holdo is attempting to accomplish. If it's getting people to escape, well, hey, apparently folks can just take a break to visit the casino world. That seems to be far less obvious than driving to a planet and taking shuttles down to it. But that is bad, somehow. She definitely isn't killing the first order fleet. She isn't preserving the new republic starships. Her plan seems to be spending all of their assets for no actual gain.



Or we get to Return of the Jedi. And holy crap man. I don't even know how to start going by how the Imperials seem to disregard ever rule of safety and basic survival instinct to lead to Endor. They didn't even clear out their field of vision on their military outposts! That's the most basic freaking thing. Holy crap.

I mean, the fandom has kind of mocked Stormtroopers for decades as a result of losing the battle to teddybears. It does indeed paint the imperials as remarkably stupid.

If you believe fans consider the original trilogy perfect films, you have an overly optimistic opinion of the fandom. They had flaws too, for sure.



Maybe one of these people* can stick to their guns here, and shortly explain the military modus operandi of radar and sonar stations.
Tell us, at times of war, in an actual ongoing conflict, at what times is the radar station or the sonar station sitting idle?


*I know you are here. I feel your presence

I've been in the military. The radar operators are, yknow, operating the radar. It's what they do, aside from, in Star Wars, wearing large helmets. There isn't any obvious reason why they should be doing anything else. It's a longass chase. One would think that yes, of course you would scan. That is literally the entire function of having them. There isn't normally any sort of opportunity cost here.

And it's not as if shuttles or lifeboats are strange. If ships are getting blown up, escaping on the lifeboats is fairly obvious. This is something the Imperials scanned for back in the original trilogy.

It also isn't obvious why you would only have one ship at a time use its scanner if they can all scan.

[Mightymosy]

Well, the bombers all get to the most dramatic point, and then all explode, while managing to also bravely take out the fleet killer. It...doesn't make a lot of sense.

But it doesn't seem as if a better trade of ships could have been arranged once the chase had been started.

Well, ignoring the lightspeed collision thing. That has a LOT of potential for profitable ship trades, but thinking about that too much just makes every battle in Star Wars cease to make sense.

In any case, the chase does not seem desirable. It's unclear what Holdo is attempting to accomplish. If it's getting people to escape, well, hey, apparently folks can just take a break to visit the casino world. That seems to be far less obvious than driving to a planet and taking shuttles down to it. But that is bad, somehow. She definitely isn't killing the first order fleet. She isn't preserving the new republic starships. Her plan seems to be spending all of their assets for no actual gain.



I mean, the fandom has kind of mocked Stormtroopers for decades as a result of losing the battle to teddybears. It does indeed paint the imperials as remarkably stupid.

If you believe fans consider the original trilogy perfect films, you have an overly optimistic opinion of the fandom. They had flaws too, for sure.



I've been in the military. The radar operators are, yknow, operating the radar. It's what they do, aside from, in Star Wars, wearing large helmets. There isn't any obvious reason why they should be doing anything else. It's a longass chase. One would think that yes, of course you would scan. That is literally the entire function of having them. There isn't normally any sort of opportunity cost here.

And it's not as if shuttles or lifeboats are strange. If ships are getting blown up, escaping on the lifeboats is fairly obvious. This is something the Imperials scanned for back in the original trilogy.

It also isn't obvious why you would only have one ship at a time use its scanner if they can all scan.

Thank you!
Very much!

I actually had a different person in mind who used to argue against me on the military side, but appearantly this doesn't fit their argumentation. :-)


See, I have NOT been in the military. And to me, them Not scanning until prompted doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. Like you said. Operating the radar is what they do. Because they don't want to get blindsided. Because No ONE does. Same in fantasy as in SciFi as in real life. If your enemy has a way to be invisible, and you have a way to spot them anyway, you USE that way, because otherwise invisibility WILL spoil whatever plans you have.

[Forum Explorer]

Well, the bombers all get to the most dramatic point, and then all explode, while managing to also bravely take out the fleet killer. It...doesn't make a lot of sense.

But it doesn't seem as if a better trade of ships could have been arranged once the chase had been started.

Well, ignoring the lightspeed collision thing. That has a LOT of potential for profitable ship trades, but thinking about that too much just makes every battle in Star Wars cease to make sense.

In any case, the chase does not seem desirable. It's unclear what Holdo is attempting to accomplish. If it's getting people to escape, well, hey, apparently folks can just take a break to visit the casino world. That seems to be far less obvious than driving to a planet and taking shuttles down to it. But that is bad, somehow. She definitely isn't killing the first order fleet. She isn't preserving the new republic starships. Her plan seems to be spending all of their assets for no actual gain.


I think the idea is that they could've traded the bombers for Snoke's flagship and thus escaped. Also ignoring the lightspeed collision thing because they could've just done that and immediately left.

The chase isn't desirable, but it's the best of the bad options. Theoretically. I mean, why they didn't just have each ship go to Hyperspace in a different direction isn't really addressed. That'd give you a good idea if they are tracking one ship, or every ship. And then have each ship have all of it's escape pods and hyperspace capable ships fly off and all go to different planets as well.

Really, the chase is poorly written as there are so many plot holes involving it. In fact, I think pretty much all the plot holes in the movie revolve around the chase.

[Tyndmyr]

Thank you!
Very much!

I actually had a different person in mind who used to argue against me on the military side, but appearantly this doesn't fit their argumentation. :-)


See, I have NOT been in the military. And to me, them Not scanning until prompted doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. Like you said. Operating the radar is what they do. Because they don't want to get blindsided. Because No ONE does. Same in fantasy as in SciFi as in real life. If your enemy has a way to be invisible, and you have a way to spot them anyway, you USE that way, because otherwise invisibility WILL spoil whatever plans you have.

Star Wars is sort of based on WW2 combat. Kind of. With spaceships being a rough analogy of warships. So, generally, you've got the guy sitting at his duty station, be it a command area or a radar screen or what have you. Think of every submarine movie or what not, everyone's got their role. This is largely accurate, and space combat is almost universally portrayed this way, especially at large scale. If it's a small crew with everyone filling many roles, it's easier to justify a distraction or something, but in fleet engagements, there just is no meaningful tradeoff in that way.


I think the idea is that they could've traded the bombers for Snoke's flagship and thus escaped. Also ignoring the lightspeed collision thing because they could've just done that and immediately left.

The chase isn't desirable, but it's the best of the bad options. Theoretically. I mean, why they didn't just have each ship go to Hyperspace in a different direction isn't really addressed. That'd give you a good idea if they are tracking one ship, or every ship. And then have each ship have all of it's escape pods and hyperspace capable ships fly off and all go to different planets as well.

Really, the chase is poorly written as there are so many plot holes involving it. In fact, I think pretty much all the plot holes in the movie revolve around the chase.

The "we split up" also occurred to me while watching it. Yeah, maybe you don't save every ship, but it's a way better idea to get help/save as many as you can. The chase is, overall, very contrived.

The film feels almost as if someone watched Mad Max: Fury Road, and drew exactly the wrong conclusions about why it was good.

[jayem]

Thank you!
Very much!

I actually had a different person in mind who used to argue against me on the military side, but appearantly this doesn't fit their argumentation. :-)


See, I have NOT been in the military. And to me, them Not scanning until prompted doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me. Like you said. Operating the radar is what they do. Because they don't want to get blindsided. Because No ONE does. Same in fantasy as in SciFi as in real life. If your enemy has a way to be invisible, and you have a way to spot them anyway, you USE that way, because otherwise invisibility WILL spoil whatever plans you have.

The obvious exception would be if you are trying to be stealthy yourself (which likely isn't the case this time, although it could be that it enables you to be targeted twice as accurately, and hence from further than you can shoot back...).

After that I think it's got to be price, again, it's the neo-imperial fleet,

And finally, opportunity costs. If you effectively have to set the search point and distance, you might use all your time doing a defensive circle(sphere) scan, which to do a scan somewhere else then would potentially expose you to attack, even if you had the theoretical capabilities. Alternatively it may conflict with long-range lighter scanning. Again an option that I think has some play.

[Forum Explorer]

The "we split up" also occurred to me while watching it. Yeah, maybe you don't save every ship, but it's a way better idea to get help/save as many as you can. The chase is, overall, very contrived.

The film feels almost as if someone watched Mad Max: Fury Road, and drew exactly the wrong conclusions about why it was good.

The annoying thing is, they could have the split up strategy, and change almost nothing about the movie. Like, they save the other ships, but they are still in pursuit of Leia and the rest of high command. So Poe contacts Finn and Rose to go to the Casino to try and pull off the hacking strategy, and so on and so forth.

[Rodin]

The annoying thing is, they could have the split up strategy, and change almost nothing about the movie. Like, they save the other ships, but they are still in pursuit of Leia and the rest of high command. So Poe contacts Finn and Rose to go to the Casino to try and pull off the hacking strategy, and so on and so forth.

That loses the "oh noes, the entire Resistance is in one place and about to get wiped out!" angle.

Which is no less dumb, but it does raise the tension more than "99% of the Resistance got away, but the few characters we care about are in trouble!"

Of course, the whole thing could have been avoided if the Republic hadn't kept their entire fleet stationed in position to get wiped out by a single Death Star shot.

[Peelee]

Of course, the whole thing could have been avoided if the Republic hadn't kept their entire fleet stationed in position to get wiped out by a single Death Star shot.

They weren't. They were stationed in position to get wiped out by a single Starkiller Base shot, which they didn't know existed, and which was significantly more powerful than the Death Star.

[Fyraltari]

Did the FO even know escape pods could be cloaked? Back in ESB the Falcon was too small for stealth technology so that might be new.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Star Wars is sort of based on WW2 combat. Kind of. With spaceships being a rough analogy of warships.

And I just lightbulbed about what the scene in question is supposed to be. Torpedo 8 at Midway.

[Forum Explorer]

That loses the "oh noes, the entire Resistance is in one place and about to get wiped out!" angle.

Which is no less dumb, but it does raise the tension more than "99% of the Resistance got away, but the few characters we care about are in trouble!"

Of course, the whole thing could have been avoided if the Republic hadn't kept their entire fleet stationed in position to get wiped out by a single Death Star shot.

Considering instead we got "99% of the Resistance was wiped out, but a single ship's worth of people got away", I think the opposite would be much better. You could even make a theme in the movie around the concept about how the Resistance is more than just one person (IE Leia) and so is the FO (Snooke for them). In fact, that'd work really well for a speech from Luke. How just walking in wielding a lightsaber isn't going to solve anything. He killed the Emperor but that didn't fix much of anything because the Empire isn't one person, and killing the leader doesn't end the whole Empire because someone just rises up and replaces him. Which would be some nice foreshadowing for Ren rising up to take over the First Order once Snooke is dead.

[Mightymosy]

Did the FO even know escape pods could be cloaked? Back in ESB the Falcon was too small for stealth technology so that might be new.

Is that even important?

The radar exists. What would your command to the ones sitting in front of it be?

Shut if off because up to now escape pods were too small to be cloaked, so don't bother?

Anyway, didn't they escape in sort of bigger ships? I thought Finn and Ross used an escape pod, and later, to Crait, they used bigger transports, but I might be mistaken.

[hamishspence]

Shut if off because up to now escape pods were too small to be cloaked, so don't bother?

What Rose had invented for the Resistance, was bafflers to hide engine emissions:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Baffler

rather than a full "disappear completely from visual" cloak like we see in TCW.

[Mightymosy]

What Rose had invented for the Resistance, was bafflers to hide engine emissions:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Baffler

rather than a full "disappear completely from visual" cloak like we see in TCW.

So these things made *BOMBERS* invisible?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Better not switch on the radar then, right?
Would be a shame detecting some bombers before they reached another one of our capital ships, wouldn't it?

TLJ makes less sense the more one thinks about it.

[hamishspence]

I'm guessing they had enough bafflers to fit some to the evacuation craft as well. Bafflers are good at fooling sensors in general, but they're not quite as good as a true cloak.

[Mightymosy]

Wait a second: the cloaking devices were made by Rose, yet she didn't even know Holdo's super plan?
How convenient.

[hamishspence]

To be fair, it's tie-in material (the Cobalt Squadron novel) that paints Rose as this kind of innovative technician. The movie writers may not have known or cared much about what the tie-in material has done.

[Keltest]

To be fair, it's tie-in material (the Cobalt Squadron novel) that paints Rose as this kind of innovative technician. The movie writers may not have known or cared much about what the tie-in material has done.

The other writers not knowing or caring about what other materials are doing is something of a persistent problem throughout the sequel trilogy.

[Bohandas]

So then was it therefore some kind of awe for the technology that made her so intent on saving that imperial superweapon in episode 8

[Peelee]

To be fair, it's tie-in material (the Cobalt Squadron novel) that paints Rose as this kind of innovative technician. The movie writers may not have known or cared much about what the tie-in material has done.

The entire point of having franchise coordination and continuity management positions seems like it should be to inform the movie writers of these things, is the thing

[Mightymosy]

I would have never guessed I would say this 10 years ago, but here we are: This is why Marvel superhero movies are today a much better franchise than Star Wars if you care about stories that build on each other.

Sure, Marvel has plot holes in the 20 something movies. But they TRY to be consistent.
It is almost as if Star Wars dipped too deep into their own mantra "There is no try", and decided that there just no point in trying to build a continuous story.

It is amazing that Marvel's 20 something movies have a better continuity than Star Wars 3 (or 9, for that matter).

It is sad, really. Especially since you would think that maybe Star Wars would be supposed to be a little more for the mature audience than superhero stuff. But maybe not. And anyway, kids deserve stories that makes sense as well.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Add to that Marvel is doing 2-4 movies a year and Star Wars is just producing one in the main storyline every other year.

[Rodin]

It is sad, really. Especially since you would think that maybe Star Wars would be supposed to be a little more for the mature audience than superhero stuff. But maybe not. And anyway, kids deserve stories that makes sense as well.

This sentiment at least partially explains why older fans are so disappointed in everything after the OT. They're expecting something that the OT never was.

The OT was young adult fair, just like the Marvel movies. It's aimed at teenagers with extra stuff thrown in to appeal to younger kids. It follows the format as a superhero movie - normal person gains superpowers and uses them to fight evil. Power of friendship and love defeats the evil villain. The first movie's resolution is basically "believe in yourself".

If anything, Star Wars' faults have been caused by them NOT aiming at the same demographic. Phantom Menace simultaneously aimed too young and too old, by focusing on Jar-Jar and Anakin while still trying to build a complex political situation. Clone Wars and Revenge ditched the kiddie stuff to focus too much on the politics while forgetting to actually have a hero for us to care about. Force Awakens is the best of the non-OT movies because it does at least try to hit the same story beats, but it tried too hard to replicate everything about A New Hope. And then Last Jedi abandons the idea again to take potshots at the older fanbase. Haven't seen Rise yet (so no spoilers please) but from what I've heard they tried to go for nostalgia again.

Ultimately, the Star Wars movies can't decide what demographic they should be writing for. And that is why they fail.

[Tyndmyr]

The OT was young adult fair, just like the Marvel movies. It's aimed at teenagers with extra stuff thrown in to appeal to younger kids.

Ah yes, genocide, maiming, family burning, and other such children's topics. Where one of the protagonists notably shoots a guy on screen by shooting first in the first handful of minutes. And Lucas specified that he was not in the business of making "a silly child's film" so, no, it wasn't intended as that. The Campbellian formula was purported to be for epics, not for YA fare.

This idea of "star wars was always for the youth" is ahistorical.

[Peelee]

Where one of the protagonists notably shoots a guy on screen by shooting first in the first handful of minutes.

Shoots a guy who has a gun trained on him, who is making clear death threats, and who just finished saying "I've been waiting for this for a long time."

[Forum Explorer]

Ah yes, genocide, maiming, family burning, and other such children's topics. Where one of the protagonists notably shoots a guy on screen by shooting first in the first handful of minutes. And Lucas specified that he was not in the business of making "a silly child's film" so, no, it wasn't intended as that. The Campbellian formula was purported to be for epics, not for YA fare.

This idea of "star wars was always for the youth" is ahistorical.

Young Adult is stuff like Hunger Games where people are subjugated and forced to send their children into horrific death matches for the entertainment of the general public. Or Animorphs which is just...wow in it's brutality. Like holy crap, that series pulled no punches.

Point is, none of that is the children's stuff. That would be stuff like the Ewoks, C3P0, and the pretty lightsaber colors.

[Peelee]

Young Adult is stuff like Hunger Games where people are subjugated and forced to send their children into horrific death matches for the entertainment of the general public. Or Animorphs which is just...wow in it's brutality. Like holy crap, that series pulled no punches.

Point is, none of that is the children's stuff. That would be stuff like the Ewoks, C3P0, and the pretty lightsaber colors.

Ever since Episode 1, I have had this exact complaint about George Lucas: he basically said, "well, I have this movie series about space wizards fighting each other with laser swords while their friends fly in spaceships shooting at other spaceships with lasers. Now, how can we make kids like it?"

[Rakaydos]

A bit late, but Leia couldn't have hopped over to Chandrilla to get Mon Mothma to pay Han, because Rebels established Mon Mothma to be in hiding with the rebellion for at least a year prior.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Mightymosy
It is amazing that Marvel's 20 something movies have a better continuity than Star Wars 3 (or 9, for that matter).

True, but Marvel planned their movies meticulously, well in advance and within a relatively short timeframe.

The Star Wars movies sort of happened, to paraphrase Mark Twain, over a forty-year period, through a whole series of cultural and technological paradigm shifts. I’m certainly not claiming that the Star Wars movies have any kind of continuity, but it’s not a fair match to compare them with the MCU.


Originally Posted by Rodin
And then Last Jedi abandons the idea again to take potshots at the older fanbase.

Out of curiosity, what were the potshots it aimed at the older fanbase?