The Great Star Wars Watchthrough

[TheSummoner]

Let's look at one example that's constantly fought over, the Holdo Maneuver. Maybe it's because I'm more a Trek fan than a Wars fan, because I refuse to let it bother me. I've seen Transporters do more world-breaking stuff than the Holdo Maneuver. Han's shenanigans in TFA also break most of the established rules for hyperspace travel, so does the jump from within atmosphere in Rogue One, and the beginning of the Rise of Skywalker. But this is the one that gets pages and pages of pearl-clutching, the universe is broken, lions and lambs are sleeping together, lamentations and woe ...

The problem with lightspeed ramming is that it is shown to be so insanely effective that there is no reason you would not see it in every space battle. At the cost of one (admittedly large) ship and one life, that move split Snoke's massive ship in half and took out several star destroyers, killing hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers (not that Disney ever tried making the numbers involved make sense). The value of that trade is insanely good to the point that it rips a plot hole into every battle where it didn't happen. One could try to defend the previous battles by claiming no one had ever tried it before, but that is directly contradicted by the film. The not-empire realize what she is doing before she does it and panic, trying to take out the ship before it can make the jump. They KNEW it was possible and REALIZED she was doing it. Ep 9 tries to justify it by claiming it was a "one in a million shot," but that doesn't hold up to logic and again, is contradicted by the not-empire freaking out when it happened. Something so unlikely to work wouldn't be a reason for that sort of alarm. How is the Death Star any threat? Just aim and make the jump - even if it isn't enough to obliterate it entirely, it's sure to cause catastrophic damage that would stop the thing from being able to fire - and the target is so big that you're sure to hit it. Not willing to give your life? Have a droid pilot it.

Spoiler: Episode 9 spoiler

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Same applies to Palpatine's fleet magic fleet from nowhere. The individual targets aren't anywhere near as large, but they're so densely packed that you're bound to take some of them out.

Tension is all about cause and effect. Knowing that within the universe's rules, certain actions will result in certain outcomes. Certain things are possible and certain things are not. The Disney Trilogy ignores the rules and undoes what should be meaningful consequences for the actions the characters take. There's no stakes in any of these movies. No reason to worry about the heroes. The rules of the universe will bend around them as needed. Their victory is inevitable.

Spoiler: More Ep 9

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The Emperor is dead! Except he survived. Oh no, Rey killed Chewie! Nah, he's fine. C3P0 had his memory wiped and is essentially dead! He got better. The planet that the Muppet who wiped C3P0's memory and the helmet girl were on exploded! Nah, they weren't on the planet at the time. The heroes fell into some quicksand! Sure would be useful if someone had the power to levitate and lift things with her mind... Nah, there's a cave under the loosely packed sand and it just happens to contain the exact item they're looking for. But the last guy who fell down here was trapped and starved to death! Nah, a worm opens up a door for them to just walk out. Kylo's TIE Fighter crashes violently, he's surely dead! Escaped without a scratch. Also, his ship got better.

Here's the thing. It's not something that breaks the science or world of Starwars. This is the type of thing that should happen in a universe with FTL Travel. I'm assuming most people are just wondering why it doesn't happen often.

As a viewer, I can accept that there is some unexplained, in-universe reason why lightspeed ramming isn't viable based on the specific mechanics of how FTL works in Star Wars. I can accept that up until the moment we are shown that it is possible. At that point, you have to deal with the implications it has on the setting.

Well for me the answer is twofold.:
One It's too dangerous and unlikely to work most of the time. To do it you have to remain practically stationary and within close range of the target you're going to do it on, and most likely you're going to just get shot up and disabled, or destroyed before you can do it. You also have comparable mass to the target that you're doing it to as shown in the film. The only things that the Raddius destroyed were ships smaller than itself. The Supremacy was damaged, but not destroyed.

It being dangerous isn't relevant for a suicide attack. It being likely to fail is a valid explanation, but that isn't what the movie shows. Why do you have to be within close range for it to work? It's FTL travel, there's no reason you have to be within effective range of the enemy weapons. Longer distance does make it harder to line up the shot, but it doesn't mean it's impossible.

As for the mass argument, the Supremacy was split in half. It absolutely was destroyed. Damaged beyond repair. It wasn't obliterated, but it was absolutely destroyed.

And two It's just one of the many things that exist in a scifi universe that you've got to accept aren't going to be used as part of a story that often, because that's not what the story is focusing on.

I'll reiterate my initial point - until it's shown to be possible, I can accept there is some unimportant to the actual plot reason that it is not possible.

[Peelee]

One It's too dangerous and unlikely to work most of the time. To do it you have to remain practically stationary and within close range of the target you're going to do it on, and most likely you're going to just get shot up and disabled, or destroyed before you can do it. You also have comparable mass to the target that you're doing it to as shown in the film.

Yeah I'm gonna need a source on... well, all of that.

As far as mass goes, asteroids canonically exist, and if they can hyperdrive something as big as the Death Star's or Starkiller Base, and if they can hyperdrive so ubiquitous ly that all Ties, X-Wings, hell dang near every Rebellion or Resistance fighter, all First Order fighters, and nearly every ship we ever see aside from Imperial TIEs (canonically solely for cost reasons) and Jedi starfighters... Well, seems like it should be pretty easy to hyperdrive up an asteroid, so mass isn't really am issue anymore.

Also, she jumped from out of range of the enemy ships. We know this because the whole movie they're out of range, and she just turns around. So a ship coming from the other direction would start as out of range, and have barely any time to be destroyed before it did the jump attack. Which, again, we know because that's what happened when Holdo did it.

For everything else you said, I am aware of nothing in canon that says any of that. I don't have the visual dictionaries, so I could be wrong, but if I am I want it entered into the record here, because right now it sounds like baseless justifications.

And hey, even if those DO turn out to be the case, we'll, you could just jump an asteroid into viable range, aim, and jump-attack. Also, i should note here that "asteroid" is the basest possible weapon. There's no reason for them to not build masses specifically designed to be fired this way, which would also include shields just in case the enemy could get a shot off that could have a chance of doing damage.

[DataNinja]

Here's the thing. It's not something that breaks the science or world of Starwars. This is the type of thing that should happen in a universe with FTL Travel. I'm assuming most people are just wondering why it doesn't happen often.

It should happen, yes (and I have no problem with that if it's written with that in mind)... but given it doesn't, that tends to mean either A) It's not possible, or B) everyone is an idiot and doesn't think of it. Universes tend to be better with A, so hence why people assumed it.

Well for me the answer is twofold.:
One It's too dangerous and unlikely to work most of the time. To do it you have to remain practically stationary and within close range of the target you're going to do it on, and most likely you're going to just get shot up and disabled, or destroyed before you can do it. You also have comparable mass to the target that you're doing it to as shown in the film. The only things that the Raddius destroyed were ships smaller than itself. The Supremacy was damaged, but not destroyed.

Yet... we have an instance even earlier in the movie where those two things happened. Poe was stationary and within range of the bridge of the giant dreadnought. Even if he couldn't destroy it, welp, that's probably a big massive hole in the ship - and specifically the control area - that we're being informed is the big problem. One person, one ship sacrificed to give everyone time to escape. Instead of all the bombers.

And two It's just one of the many things that exist in a scifi universe that you've got to accept aren't going to be used as part of a story that often, because that's not what the story is focusing on.

The problem here is that this is presented as this big, revolutionary idea... and the idea that in all the years of the civilization that it's not come up, that's jarring.

To me what Han did in Force Awakens is far far more science breaking and worldbreaking. He Jumped inside of shields. That one moment, that one event renders planetary shielding completely irrelivent for the series. Hell it renders shields irrelivant period, because if you know the coordinates of your target you can simply hyperspace your payload directly past the shields and hit the target directly. Shields don't work anymore in Starwars.

Yeah, that one's pretty bad, too. It's not quite as egregious in the grand scheme of the movies themselves, in that the empire didn't have anything that could fit within the shields on Hoth, and only the X-Wings have been shown as hyperspace capable of the fighters attacking the 2nd death star... but, yeah, it ain't great, either.

[Saph]

Let's look at one example that's constantly fought over, the Holdo Maneuver. Maybe it's because I'm more a Trek fan than a Wars fan, because I refuse to let it bother me. I've seen Transporters do more world-breaking stuff than the Holdo Maneuver. Han's shenanigans in TFA also break most of the established rules for hyperspace travel, so does the jump from within atmosphere in Rogue One, and the beginning of the Rise of Skywalker. But this is the one that gets pages and pages of pearl-clutching, the universe is broken, lions and lambs are sleeping together, lamentations and woe ...

The reason the hyperspace ram bothers people who care about Star Wars is that it retroactively makes every character in every previous Star Wars film into a moron.

Ramming is not some unheard-of, genius-level tactic. It's existed since before the concept of sailing ships, much less starships. So as soon as the hyperdrive was invented, EVERY naval officer with more than a double-digit IQ, EVERYWHERE, would have immediately asked "so what happens if there's something in front of the hyperdrive when you turn it on? Would it work as a weapon?" And the pre-Disney Star Wars answer is: no, it doesn't. Which is why Star Wars ships have turbolasers and ion cannons and snubfighters. And everything made sense, more or less.

Until Episode VIII comes along, and it turns out that simply by pointing your ship in the right direction and pressing the hyper button, you can destroy an entire enemy FLEET. If this tactic is valid, and the Star Wars universe is remotely realistic, then this means that all space warfare should now revolve around hyperspace-ramming things. Capital ships and starfighters should carry payloads of long range hyperspace missiles. Lasers become useless except for small-scale police actions where you need to do as little damage as possible. I'm not even going to get into the questions of what it would mean for orbital bombardment. But instead, no-one does any of those things. In Disney Star Wars, hyperspace-ramming was always possible, but it just never occurs to anyone prior to Admiral Holdo to try. Millions upon millions of people have died in space battles that were completely and utterly pointless simply because it never occurred to a single one of those millions of people to use their hyperdrive system, the same one they use every day, as a weapon.

So every previous Star Wars fleet pilot and fleet officer and fleet commander gets retconned to be an idiot, just so that Rian Johnson's purple-haired OC gets to save the day.

This is why you don't hand over control over a major long-running franchise to someone who doesn't care about it.

[Dire_Flumph]

Ok so I have problems with, and confusion about the way the Holdo Manuver is discussed.

Here's the thing. It's not something that breaks the science or world of Starwars. This is the type of thing that should happen in a universe with FTL Travel. I'm assuming most people are just wondering why it doesn't happen often.

That's the problem a lot of Space Opera has, it plays fast and loose with science for the most part, because once you are dealing with ships that can go faster than light, there are a lot of boring, practical ways of taking down a Death Star that don't involve daring adventure and space dogfights. You handwave and make the assumption that you can't just ram things into other things at near c velocities (Like hyperspace is another dimension, you can be torn apart by mass shadows bleeding into hyperspace, but you can't affect anything in the "real" world while you are there)

Which is why it's glaring when a writer suddenly calls attention to the fact that "Hey, why don't we use our faster than light drives to ram things and cause massive damage" like nobody in the galaxy thought about this for the last thousand generations. Now we are wondering why this wasn't in the toolbox from the start. It's one of the problems in The Last Jedi in general, things are introduced for the convenience of what RJ wants his story to do without any thought as to how this impacts the world at large. Honestly it doesn't bother me that much, I don't like it, but I just handwaved it as a combination of skill and an extreme amount of unreproducable luck and moved on.

[Devonix]

Yeah I'm gonna need a source on... well, all of that.

As far as mass goes, asteroids canonically exist, and if they can hyperdrive something as big as the Death Star's or Starkiller Base, and if they can hyperdrive so ubiquitous ly that all Ties, X-Wings, hell dang near every Rebellion or Resistance fighter, all First Order fighters, and nearly every ship we ever see aside from Imperial TIEs (canonically solely for cost reasons) and Jedi starfighters... Well, seems like it should be pretty easy to hyperdrive up an asteroid, so mass isn't really am issue anymore.

Also, she jumped from out of range of the enemy ships. We know this because the whole movie they're out of range, and she just turns around. So a ship coming from the other direction would start as out of range, and have barely any time to be destroyed before it did the jump attack. Which, again, we know because that's what happened when Holdo did it.

For everything else you said, I am aware of nothing in canon that says any of that. I don't have the visual dictionaries, so I could be wrong, but if I am I want it entered into the record here, because right now it sounds like baseless justifications.

And hey, even if those DO turn out to be the case, we'll, you could just jump an asteroid into viable range, aim, and jump-attack. Also, i should note here that "asteroid" is the basest possible weapon. There's no reason for them to not build masses specifically designed to be fired this way, which would also include shields just in case the enemy could get a shot off that could have a chance of doing damage.

Holdo's ship was within weapons range for the entire film. It was just at the bare minimum weapons range so it ment that the weapons were hitting the shields but not doing enough damage to bring them down.

During the chase, what happened was that ships would drop out into closer range so that the shots actually took the ships out. When she prepared to jump she was within full weapons range of the ships, because she stopped forward momentum and had to orient herself to target the pursuing fleet.

They just ignored her to focus on the escape transports, but they could have blown her up if they so chose. And you do need to be within effective range because of the way FTL Works in Starwars. You accelerate to Lightspeed, then jump to hyperspace.

There is only a small window of the increased mass. The point during that acceleration. Once you actually hit hyperspace you would no longer be able to use it to ram someone. You have to exit hyperspace, and once you do, you're no longer at lightspeed.


It works like this:

Normal speed----acceleration and building mass=Hit enemy here-----Lightspeed-Hyperspace jump=At this point you can't attack

[Peelee]

Holdo's ship was within weapons range for the entire film.

LEIA: Full engines ahead. Get out of range of the Star Destroyers and the fighters will fall back.

ACKBAR: All craft, full engines! Concentrate rear shields.

ARMITAGE HUX: Ren, the Resistance have pulled out of reach.

See what a good source can do? Instead of providing sources for your other claims, you've just pulled out more baseless claims which also need sources. Please, give me some sources that corroborate what you're saying.

[Devonix]

See what a good source can do? Instead of providing sources for your other claims, you've just pulled out more baseless claims which also need sources. Please, give me some sources that corroborate what you're saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqRd7s-C6d0

Here in this video we see Holdo's ship sustaining hits from the star destroyers and Snoke's command ship along with the rest of the fleet.

We see a medical frigate that was low on fuel drop back within more effective weapons range and being destroyed.

I didn't feel the need to show this video because everyone here has seen the film and I assumed that they remembered these things. I'm not pulling them out of my ass. These are things that the film explicitly shows us.

[Bobb]

@Pelee, the movie shows us at least two shots of arcing fire from the FO big ships that hit shields ineffectively.

Hux even tells his officers to keep firing even though they are doing zero damage to "remind them we are here."

[Devonix]

@Pelee, the movie shows us at least two shots of arcing fire from the FO big ships that hit shields ineffectively.

Hux even tells his officers to keep firing even though they are doing zero damage to "remind them we are here."

I've gotta say that this is why I hate discussing the last jedi some times. People who dislike it always seem to assume I'm lying when I tell them something happened in the film, or that something is explained unless I actually wave it in front of their face.

Why can't people just assume I'm not going to lie we're all fans of Starwars and of films.

And from the video the Radius takes 15 shots that we see. But since this takes place over hours and hours, we can assume far far more. Hell the entire reason they put they put the rear shields to maximum is that its the only reason they are able to survive the bombardment as long as they do.

[Peelee]

Here in this video we see Holdo's ship sustaining hits from the star destroyers and Snoke's command ship along with the rest of the fleet.

Yes, you have established that lasers keep moving. The movie's dialogue establishes that they are out of range, meaning the lasers keep moving towards them but don't do anything. Want more dialogue?

POE: With our current fuel consumption there is a very limited amount time that we will stay out of range of those Star Destroyers

PEAVEY: The main cruiser's still keeping beyond range.

At some point, with enough people on both sides saying it, you're going to have to accept they were out of range. Or somehow convince me that multiple people in both factions are entirely mistaken, and that the lasers we see hitting the shields do nothing (as well as actually hearing that from yet another character) is somehow incorrect.

If you do wish to argue that, well, I wish you luck.

[Devonix]

Yes, you have established that lasers keep moving. The movie's dialogue establishes that they are out of range, meaning the lasers keep moving towards them but don't do anything. Want more dialogue?




At some point, with enough people on both sides saying it, you're going to have to accept they were out of range. Or somehow convince me that multiple people in both factions are entirely mistaken, and that the lasers we see hitting the shields do nothing (as well as actually hearing that from yet another character) is somehow incorrect.

If you do wish to argue that, well, I wish you luck.

As I said in the post they were within minimum effective range, and. The very second a ship slowed down, as shown in the video multiple times with multiple ships, it was destroyed within moments.

This isn't me arguing. It's right there in the video.

[Peelee]

As I said in the post they were within minimum effective range.

It's not minimummaximum effective range, because that still has "effective." It's out of range. Several characters openly say so, on both sides. If the lasers do not matter, it's out of range. If the lasers have minimal damage, it's minimummaximum effective range. The lasers do nothing. The First Order explicitly tells us they do nothing. That is called "out of range."

But you know what? Let's call it "minimummaximum effective range" for the hell of it. Let's make your argument as strong as it possible can be. A lightspeed ram coming in from the opposite direction is, by definition, coming in from out of range. As it enters minimummaximum effective range of laser weaponry, it is now - by your own argument (which has no sources backing it up) - within range for the lightspeed ram. If such a rammibng device has shields, then it should be able to survive long enough for it to make the ramming maneuver.

But hey, let's make your argument even stronger! Let's say that no, these lasers are so strong they can immediately overpower even the strongest shielding within seconds, and obliterate such a ramming device. Well, then, why have it approach from sublight to begin with? Why not have it approach by dropping out of lightspeed? As we see multiple times in this very movie, ships can come out of lightspeed remarkably close to the enemy ships they wish to engage with. In fact, the First Order jumps in within range, since the Resistance explicitly says they have to get out of range, and the Resistance gets out of range almost immediately. This sounds like they can choose to jump in right in that sweet spot where lightspeed ramming is effective, according to your own argument (which has no sources backing it up). So now we have a ship which has no lasers firing on it from the enemy, just like Holdo's ship, which can complete a turn, just like Holdo's ship (actually, the turn is significantly less in this example, since Holdo had to turn 180º, due to her ship's orientation originally being diametrically opposed to the target ship, but hey, let's say this is somehow the case here, since we want to make your argument as strong as possible).

So now the circumstances are the exact same as Holdo's. Which means that, according to your own argument (which has no sources backing it up), the ramming device can make a lightspeed ram against the target ship. So even with your argument being as strong as we can possibly make it, using the technology we see in this very movie, lightspeed ramming is a viable option for weaponization. But it never has happened before that we know of, and despite being called a "million to one chance" maneuver, both her enemies and her allies know exactly what she is doing, and from context, both expect it to work (Poe is clearly hopeful, and Hux and Peavey are clearly panicked).

That is bad storytelling.

[ImperiousLeader]

I agree with you about all those other things similarly breaking Canon (except maybe Rogue One; it does bother me, but I can reasonably handqave that one as the Death Star blast tweaking with gravity enough to allow the jump).

But this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're willing to give Rogue One credit, willing to do the work, but The Last Jedi doesn't get the same consideration for some reason.

I didn't need The Rise of Skywalker to explain away Holdo's Maneuver, I did the work and had already assumed as much. It took time to line up the shot against a huge target, timing had to be precise, as it had to hit before the jump to hyperspace completed, and well, the universe is still here, and clearly the tactic isn't widely used, so clearly she got lucky. And I don't really consider this a handwave, unlike Rogue One, the movie showed me all of it, I took a step, and to quote Buffy ... "There conclusions were".

Even further, I dislike how they make hyperspace more or less instantaneous. I feel like I've been rather outspoken about those as well, in addition to other issues in the movies. Hell, I even go after Abrams' Star Trek reboot for breaking the universe, since they can now use the transporter at massively larger ranges, and even on ships at warp from a planet. That fundamentally changes an enormous amount of the ST universe but never comes up again, which is bad storytelling, and I'll go after that just as much as the Holdo maneuver, or R2 waking up for no dang reason in TFA, or half the stuff that happens solely because the plot demands it in TROS. Because bad storytelling should be brought to task. The Holdo maneuver gets the attention it does because it's a pivotal moment; the movie makes it a big deal, so the complaint that others make it a big deal doesn't really stand up. The movie opened the door, we're allowed to walk through it. I just happen to note all the other doors as well.

Ships have always traveled at speed of plot, the only thing, in my mind, that TLJ did wrong was be explicit about its ticking clock. ESB would be in just as much trouble if they'd said the Falcon would be out of gas in 18 hours. As it was ... how did they get to Bespin, C-3PO explicitly said "it's impossible to go to lightspeed"? And before the wave of responses come in, I don't actually care about the answer. The point is that everyone here has a headcanon or handwave, to explain something that is not in the movie, and that ESB gets the credit that TLJ doesn't.

And again, you don't get points from me for saying the other things are wrong, but this is beyond the pale. Because I don't agree.

Also, i agree on all the prequel messes. But we're not talking about those, now are we?

No ... we are. Because I have read enough "TLJ is even worse than the prequels", like Saph just did with their rating, and I find that ridiculous. The prequels are barely movies, but they are canon. And if you're going to level an accusation at TLJ and say "That. Is. Not. Star. Wars.", and it's clearly used in the prequels, well ... I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

[The Glyphstone]

I remember being more bothered about the existence of 'space gas' at the time, and the consequences of it running out - even though ships normally maneuver like they're in atmosphere, for some reason it irrationally irritated me to see the Medical Frigate run out of fuel and immediately stop moving, losing all of its forward momentum almost instantly.

[The_Snark]

]Let's look at one example that's constantly fought over, the Holdo Maneuver. Maybe it's because I'm more a Trek fan than a Wars fan, because I refuse to let it bother me. I've seen Transporters do more world-breaking stuff than the Holdo Maneuver. Han's shenanigans in TFA also break most of the established rules for hyperspace travel, so does the jump from within atmosphere in Rogue One, and the beginning of the Rise of Skywalker. But this is the one that gets pages and pages of pearl-clutching, the universe is broken, lions and lambs are sleeping together, lamentations and woe ...

So, I think I can explain this one by framing the complaints a bit differently.

The big problem is not that the Holdo Maneuver breaks the setting's consistency, or makes every other starship officer look like an idiot for not thinking of it before, or whatever. I'm sure the Disney EU writers have come up with technobabble to explain away why this tactic isn't in general use, or why it was a special circumstance that only worked here because the polarity of the neutral shields was blah blah etc. That's fine! This is Star Wars, nothing wrong with some handwave-y technobabble. Everything runs on technobabble here. (Except the Force, which runs on mysticism and Plot). Even in Serious Science Fiction stories that care a lot more about plausibility and the ramifications/societal impact of technology than Star Wars does, there are usually going to be a few unexplained holes and why-didn't-they-X moments.

The problem is that this particular hole is too obvious. This isn't something that only fans debating minutia on the Internet noticed, it's something that casual viewers picked up on in the theater. And then the screenwriters didn't bother to include the technobabble explanation in the movie itself, although frankly I don't think that would have helped much, because the details of the explanation don't matter; what matters is that it pulled viewers out of the story to wonder how this makes sense. That is not something a writer ever wants to do.

The old Star Wars EU had clear rules about how hyperspace worked. The old Star Wars films never mention any of it. I'm not sure if they were written with these limits in mind, or if EU writers came up with them after the fact, or what. The important thing is, the screenwriters avoiding doing anything that made the viewer think about how it worked. You could assume it ran on consistent, sensible rules, even if that wasn't true, and the films wouldn't shake that assumption.

The Disney movies have been poking at that assumptioin. It's not just The Last Jedi isn't alone - as you point out, The Force Awakens has Han exit hyperspace right above a planet's surface. If you take some time to think about the implications, you might start questioning stuff in other films: why did they need a stolen Imperial shuttle and passcode in Return of the Jedi? Couldn't they have just jumped into the atmosphere and landed under tree cover before the enemy saw them? Rogue One has a ship jumping to hyperspace in atmosphere, so why didn't the Rebel ships do that when fleeing Hoth?

(Important note: these are rhetorical questions. I'm sure answers can be found or concocted, but I'm not really interested in them.)

However, none of these things were as jarring as the bit in TLJ. I noticed while watching theaters, because I'm familiar with the old EU stuff and went "hey, they're breaking/changing the rules about how this used to work". But I don't think that would jump out to the average person who's seen the films but never touched the EU. It's classic fridge logic: if you take some time think about it afterwards, you can come up with plot holes, but it isn't likely to break a first-time viewer's immersion. The Holdo Maneuver does. The whole chase sequence has been set up as the Rebels desperately trying to escape from an enemy that's far too strong to defeat; then they pull this tactic out of their pocket and basically do it anyway? (Yes, there's still enough Imperial ships left to threaten them, but the flagship had the tracker that stopped them from just jumping away.) There's no set-up to establish that this is possible, and ~9 previous films implicitly suggesting that it isn't. I am not very critically-minded when in the middle of a movie - I save that for the post-movie analysis - but it felt weird. This tactic worked really well; why did only one character think of it, and then only as a last-minute substitution when her original plan failed catastrophically? You don't have to go back and review other movies(/books/whatever) looking for inconsistencies to notice this; you don't even have to go back to previous scenes in the same movie. It's strange in the context of the scene it happens in.

It made for an amazing visual, and I actually kind of liked the emotional payoff with respect to Holdo and Poe. (Not a lot, but a bit, which is better than a lot of the movie managed.) After TFA and Rogue One, I'd already written off the notion that hyperspace would obey any sort of defined or implicit limits, so this was just more of the same. But I do understand why this one draws more flak than the other examples.

ESB would be in just as much trouble if they'd said the Falcon would be out of gas in 18 hours. As it was ... how did they get to Bespin, C-3PO explicitly said "it's impossible to go to lightspeed"? And before the wave of responses come in, I don't actually care about the answer. The point is that everyone here has a headcanon or handwave, to explain something that is not in the movie, and that ESB gets the credit that TLJ doesn't.

That is a pretty notable plot hole! People are more willing to make allowances for plot holes in a movie they otherwise like than one they dislike. I don't think people hate TLJ because of the hyperspace thing; it had already failed to win them over by the time they reached this point in the movie.

[Peelee]

But this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're willing to give Rogue One credit, willing to do the work, but The Last Jedi doesn't get the same consideration for some reason.

I give Rogue One some leeway because we actually see gravity acting iffy; the ground is literally peeling away. It's not a great explanation, I'll fully admit I don't like it, but it's at least something the movie gives me to grab on to as for why they can jump within a gravity well.

Note that I give no such leeway to TROS, where Poe can lightspeed skip from planet to planet, because the movie offers nothing whatsoever that can be used as justification.

What does The Last Jedi offer to grab on to?

No ... we are. Because I have read enough "TLJ is even worsecthan the prequels", like Saph just did with their rating, and I find that ridiculous. The prequels are barely movies, but they are canon. And if you're going to level an accusation at TLJ and say "That. Is. Not. Star. Wars.", and it's clearly used in the prequels, well ... I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

Please, tell me one time I have said "That. Is. Not. Star. Wars." Also, what is clearly used in the prequels? You've totally lost me there.

[ImperiousLeader]

I remember being more bothered about the existence of 'space gas' at the time, and the consequences of it running out - even though ships normally maneuver like they're in atmosphere, for some reason it irrationally irritated me to see the Medical Frigate run out of fuel and immediately stop moving, losing all of its forward momentum almost instantly.

The keyword here being "irrationally". The WW2 aesthetic is baked into Star Wars DNA, and yet TLJ gets all this hatred for doing more of that. Starships haven't maneuvered like real starships from day 1.

[TheSummoner]

The keyword here being "irrationally". The WW2 aesthetic is baked into Star Wars DNA, and yet TLJ gets all this hatred for doing more of that. Starships haven't maneuvered like real starships from day 1.

TLJ in particular gets flak in that regard because of the bombers. And the bombers were completely idiotic. The things move at a crawl and have defenses so paper thin that a single TIE fighter destroyed three. On accident. By crashing through them after it had already been shot down.

NO ONE would ever use such a worthless ship. It doesn't matter how much firepower they can deliver if they're so incredibly vulnerable that they're more likely to be show down and blow up other ships nearby than actually deliver their payload.

[The Glyphstone]

The keyword here being "irrationally". The WW2 aesthetic is baked into Star Wars DNA, and yet TLJ gets all this hatred for doing more of that. Starships haven't maneuvered like real starships from day 1.

And yet the Holdo Maneuver, at the time, didn't bother me in the slightest. Nor did the fighters maneuvering as if in atmosphere, or really most of the stuff people complained about - my biggest complaint upon exiting was the feeling I had watched three partially written scripts for three vaguely related movies who didn't seem to share a consistent timescale. So I used that keyword to highlight how it stood out as irritating me despite the fact that many other things TLJ, many of which were grievously more setting-breaking or illogical, didn't hit my personal buttons as hard.

EDIT: Oh and the gravity bombers. From the moment they came on screen I was wondering what happened to all the B-wings and Y-wings that would normally do this job, instead of re-inventing B-52s in space.

[Rakaydos]

As of Rogue 1, Vader wasnt particularly worried about being "hyperspace rammed" by accident.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BXTUOxbgpw

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Was that because something fighter or transport sized simply couldnt threaten a battle-ready Star Destroyer, Even WITH a hyperram maneuver? Did Holdo's ship have to be Star Destroyer sized to overload some defensive system on Snoke's ship?

[ImperiousLeader]

I give Rogue One some leeway because we actually see gravity acting iffy; the ground is literally peeling away. It's not a great explanation, I'll fully admit I don't like it, but it's at least something the movie gives me to grab on to as for why they can jump within a gravity well.

Note that I give no such leeway to TROS, where Poe can lightspeed skip from planet to planet, because the movie offers nothing whatsoever that can be used as justification.

What does The Last Jedi offer to grab on to?

Well, the first one is simply it was {scrubbed} awesome. That moment was one of my favourite moments in the movie, so again, I'm willing to give The Last Jedi the benefit of the doubt.

But it had to be a moment of desperation and luck, otherwise, why didn't every other ship try it? Those support ships could've tried the same tactic. The mere fact that it is not a widely used tactic is being used to demonize it, but I find that merely supports that this was a once in a lifetime lucky shot.

Please, tell me one time I have said "That. Is. Not. Star. Wars." Also, what is clearly used in the prequels? You've totally lost me there.

On Comedy:

I don't really care about the Marvel movies, and part of that is the humor seems much too flippant and casual for such high stakes. And that's how I describe a lot of the humor in the entirety of the sequel trilogy - it's Marvel humor.

To which I offered all those prequel examples ... and one from the OT, there's a few burps and farts in ROTJ for comedy, though I think those might be Special Edition add-ons.

[Peelee]

I remember being more bothered about the existence of 'space gas' at the time, and the consequences of it running out - even though ships normally maneuver like they're in atmosphere, for some reason it irrationally irritated me to see the Medical Frigate run out of fuel and immediately stop moving, losing all of its forward momentum almost instantly.

I didn't mind the forward momentum, sin e that actually makes sense; all the other ships have the engines burning at max, so when one of them stops that, it's going to fall behind as if it's motionless. Even in orbital or Newton Ian physics that would hold up, it no longer accelerating makes it look like it's decelerating or stopped.

The sinking downward I thought was silly, but I've thought that was silly across every Star Wars media that pulls it (which is a frighteningly large number) so I never fault TLJ for it, since that actually is consistent with the rest of Star Wars.

ETA:

Well, the first one is simply it was awesome.

Cool. I don't care. I hate when "Rule of Cool" is used as justification, because I consider that bad storytelling, unless appropriate to the setting (eg the Order of the Stick explicitly runs on rules of drama in addition to rules of TTRPG, so it logically makes sense for "Rule of Cool" to apply there).

Also, you said you worked to give The Last Jedi the benefit of the doubt. You put the work in. You asked why I didn't put the work in. The answer is, I shouldn't have to. If I have to put the work in, the movie failed. I have over 130 old EU books, nearly all of the current EU books, and a good number of ancillary books such as visual dictionaries and comics. If something in a movie is explained in one of those, I still consider this a failure on the movie's part because I shouldn't need to have to reference something outside of the movies to make it work.

I give Rogue One credit because they gave me reason to give them credit. I had to put in zero work for it. You yourself said oyu had to put in work to give The Last Jedi Credit. And bully for you, that's wonderful but I don't roll that way.

But it had to be a moment of desperation and luck, otherwise, why didn't every other ship try it? Those support ships could've tried the same tactic. The mere fact that it is not a widely used tactic is being used to demonize it, but I find that merely supports that this was a once in a lifetime lucky shot.

If Rose, in a moment of desperation on Canto Bight, had grabbed some space dice and rolled on the space craps table, would Finn, the police, and the dealer all realize she was about to win while those dice were rolling? Because that's what happened in the Holdo maneuver. Poe realizes she's saving them. Hux and Peavey both realize she's about to hyperspace-ram them. If it's luck, they shouldn't have reason to panic immediately. If anything, they should scoff at such a ridiculous gamble. They don't. They act as if the outcome is guaranteed. The Last Jedi thus not only gives me no reason to give it the benefit of the doubt, it actively undermines it.

On Comedy:

To which I offered all those prequel examples ... and one from the OT, there's a few burps and farts in ROTJ for comedy, though I think those might be Special Edition add-ons.

I said it had Marvel humor. The prequels do not have Marvel humor, they have lowest-common-denominator humor. Which I have railed against, and continue to do so to this day (my most versatile complaint, which fits nicely against the comedy aspects as well, is "George Lucas said, 'I have this franchise about space wizards fighting other space wizards with laser swords while their friends fight each other with spaceships by shooting lasers at each other. Now, how can I make kids like it?'"). If you want to take me to task for not finding numerous issues with the prequels, you'll have a mighty time proving your case.

[The Glyphstone]

I didn't mind the forward momentum, sin e that actually makes sense; all the other ships have the engines burning at max, so when one of them stops that, it's going to fall behind as if it's motionless. Even in orbital or Newton Ian physics that would hold up, it no longer accelerating makes it look like it's decelerating or stopped.

The sinking downward I thought was silly, but I've thought that was silly across every Star Wars media that pulls it (which is a frighteningly large number) so I never fault TLJ for it, since that actually is consistent with the rest of Star Wars.

Newtonian physics would still have a point at which further acceleration ceased to have any benefit, wouldn't it? So if all the ships were already burning at max, the fuel-dry ship would still be moving ballistically at the same speed as the fueled ships - it would just be unable to reverse its acceleration or maneuver in any way.

Which, under a more 'realistic' set of space rules, could still have produced the same outcome admittedly; a vessel that can't maneuver is easier to dial in for long-range fire, and so wouldn't be capable of dodging the FO fleet's chase guns. Maybe it was the sinking that broke my verisimilitude then, I don't remember seeing something like that in any other SW media from my limited experience repertoire.

[Rakaydos]

Newtonian physics would still have a point at which further acceleration ceased to have any benefit, wouldn't it? So if all the ships were already burning at max, the fuel-dry ship would still be moving at the same speed as the fueled ships - it would just be unable to reverse its acceleration or maneuver in any way.

Which, under a more 'realistic' set of space rules, could still have produced the same outcome admittedly; a vessel that can't maneuver is easier to dial in for long-range fire, and so wouldn't be capable of dodging the FO fleet's chase guns. Maybe it was the sinking that broke my verisimilitude then, I don't remember seeing something like that in any other SW media from my limited experience repertoire.

Newtonian physics has no speed limit. Einsteinian physics looks like Newtonian physics from the inside, and only looks like there's a speed limit from the outside, when looked at by someone else who isnt moving. (and since the first order is chasing them, they would also be in the moving frame of reference...)

[Peelee]

Newtonian physics would still have a point at which further acceleration ceased to have any benefit, wouldn't it?

Why?

I realize that question may sound snarky if said by a smart man, but in my case, it is a very, very stupid question. Been a while since I last looked at physics in earnest.

Einsteinian physics looks like Newtonian physics from the inside

...I choose to believe Einsteinian physics is just Newtonian physics in Groucho Glasses.

[The Glyphstone]

Newtonian physics has no speed limit. Einsteinian physics looks like Newtonian physics from the inside, and only looks like there's a speed limit from the outside, when looked at by someone else who isnt moving. (and since the first order is chasing them, they would also be in the moving frame of reference...)

Not a hard speed limit, no. But if fuel is required at all to accelerate/move, Einsteinian physics does mean that continual acceleration requires ever-increasing amounts of energy/fuel consumption, increasing faster than your mass decreases as you consume said fuel. If you can't muster the additional energy necessary to continue accelerating, you have reached your effective maximum speed.

Wait, am I talking myself into the scene being more realistic than I realized? If the frigate cannot keep accelerating and the FO fleet can due to larger fuel reserves, then its flat speed is indeed effectively motionless relative to the pursuers.

[Peelee]

Not a hard speed limit, no. But if fuel is required at all to accelerate/move, Einsteinian physics does mean that continual acceleration requires ever-increasing amounts of energy/fuel consumption, increasing faster than your mass decreases as you consume said fuel.

That would be true, but scientists raised the speed of light in 2208 11ABY. Which, interestingly enough, would account for why hyperspace jumps seem much more instantaneous in Disney movies. Still have to account for Rogue One, of course...

[Rakaydos]

Not a hard speed limit, no. But if fuel is required at all to accelerate/move, Einsteinian physics does mean that continual acceleration requires ever-increasing amounts of energy/fuel consumption, increasing faster than your mass decreases as you consume said fuel. If you can't muster the additional energy necessary to continue accelerating, you have reached your effective maximum speed.

Wait, am I talking myself into the scene being more realistic than I realized? If the frigate cannot keep accelerating and the FO fleet can due to larger fuel reserves, then its flat speed is indeed effectively motionless relative to the pursuers.

Your forgetting that time dilation exactly matches the acceleration loss. Because time moves slower for you, you dont notice they are accelerating less, and things appear to fall behind at the same rate they would standing still.

[Kornaki]

But it never has happened before that we know of, and despite being called a "million to one chance" maneuver, both her enemies and her allies know exactly what she is doing, and from context, both expect it to work (Poe is clearly hopeful, and Hux and Peavey are clearly panicked).

That is bad storytelling.

I think you could think of this as being similar to a trick play in football. The FO's ships were focused on the transports leaving, and after years and years of nobody using a hyperspace ram the military discipline to keep one gun trained on the frigate has evaporated.

When she turns around to ram, that's like the field goal placeholder picking up the ball to pass, and you can see the defense has nobody covering the receiver in the end zone. Yeah, the player hasn't thrown the ball yet, but you can have high confidence at this point that this particular example of a play that only gets run one in one thousand times or something is going to probably succeed.