Darths & Droids VI: Thread title will appear here when received

[Keltest]

Spoiler

Show

You know, if Finn and Rose can get to the Casino planet unnoticed, and they're transferring fuel to smaller ships to escape to the salt planet, why don't they just take the small ships to a bunch of planets over the course of a few hours and leave the First Order chasing the empty cruisers.

Hell, why don't they try jumping the fleet to two separate locations? Or arrange a meeting point and have each ship jump somewhere different. Or take the eagles to Mordor?

In retrospect this film.makes little sense.

Spoiler

Show

IIRC splitting up the fleet was the original plan. They were going to sacrifice the big ships as bait while the transports took the crew down to a planet cloaked. Except Holdo was an absolute idiot and neglected to share any of this with her command staff so nobody had any idea what was going on, or that she even had a plan, so they mutinied, tried to find their own solution, and ended up wrecking the whole thing even further.

[SirKazum]

Spoiler

Show

IIRC splitting up the fleet was the original plan. They were going to sacrifice the big ships as bait while the transports took the crew down to a planet cloaked. Except Holdo was an absolute idiot and neglected to share any of this with her command staff so nobody had any idea what was going on, or that she even had a plan, so they mutinied, tried to find their own solution, and ended up wrecking the whole thing even further.

Spoiler

Show

Ugh, that was so stupid and annoying. Even if you come at it from the hierarchy angle and say that Holdo didn't owe Poe any explanation (a defense I've seen people give back then), it would have been extremely easy and also sensible (since morale is, y'know, a thing, and so is mutiny) for Holdo to just say she had a plan and knew what she was doing, and to trust the plan. Hell, Poe even pleads with her to tell him she had some sort of plan, and she chooses not to for no reason other than being insufferable, and most importantly, creating unnecessary conflict out of nowhere for the sake of movie drama.

[The Glyphstone]

Spoiler

Show

Would Poe being in on the plan have helped at all, in the end? The cloaking gambit failed because the hacker they hired sold them out and told Snoke about the stealth ships. I don't remember if it's explained how he knew though.

[Keltest]

Spoiler

Show

Would Poe being in on the plan have helped at all, in the end? The cloaking gambit failed because the hacker they hired sold them out and told Snoke about the stealth ships. I don't remember if it's explained how he knew though.

Spoiler

Show

Well, he probably wouldnt have sent the others out to try their plan if he was confidant in the existing one.

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler

Show

You know, if Finn and Rose can get to the Casino planet unnoticed, and they're transferring fuel to smaller ships to escape to the salt planet, why don't they just take the small ships to a bunch of planets over the course of a few hours and leave the First Order chasing the empty cruisers.

Hell, why don't they try jumping the fleet to two separate locations? Or arrange a meeting point and have each ship jump somewhere different. Or take the eagles to Mordor?

In retrospect this film.makes little sense.

Spoiler

Show

Splitting the fleet would ahve hardly helped. the FO's fleet would have split up in turn to follow. They have several trackers,, they just can't use two at the same time.

Spoiler

Show

IIRC splitting up the fleet was the original plan. They were going to sacrifice the big ships as bait while the transports took the crew down to a planet cloaked. Except Holdo was an absolute idiot and neglected to share any of this with her command staff so nobody had any idea what was going on, or that she even had a plan, so they mutinied, tried to find their own solution, and ended up wrecking the whole thing even further.

Spoiler

Show

The mutineers were Poe, a bunch of pilots and a communication officers. They took the actual command staff prisoner. It seems to me she did tell her command staff. She just didn't trust Poe since Leia had just demoted him for disobeying a direct order.

Spoiler

Show

Ugh, that was so stupid and annoying. Even if you come at it from the hierarchy angle and say that Holdo didn't owe Poe any explanation (a defense I've seen people give back then), it would have been extremely easy and also sensible (since morale is, y'know, a thing, and so is mutiny) for Holdo to just say she had a plan and knew what she was doing, and to trust the plan. Hell, Poe even pleads with her to tell him she had some sort of plan, and she chooses not to for no reason other than being insufferable, and most importantly, creating unnecessary conflict out of nowhere for the sake of movie drama.

Spoiler

Show

This, however, is completely fair.

Spoiler

Show

Would Poe being in on the plan have helped at all, in the end? The cloaking gambit failed because the hacker they hired sold them out and told Snoke about the stealth ships. I don't remember if it's explained how he knew though.

Spoiler

Show

He overheard Poe tell Finn on the comms that they were loading shuttles.

[Anonymouswizard]

Spoiler

Show

Part of me is hoping that Allan and Poe actually survived, and the next campaign confirms that they really are quadruplets.

[Keltest]

Ahhhh, now I see where this is going. Nevermore.

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler

Show

Part of me is hoping that Allan and Poe actually survived, and the next campaign confirms that they really are quadruplets.

What would be the fourth one's name?

[Anonymouswizard]

What would be the fourth one's name?

Perry (the surname he joined the military under).

[b_jonas]

What would be the fourth one's name?

My guess was Rice then Burroughs for the fourth and fifth twin and then on on some path through the giant field of name dominos. Burroughs is not a dead-end, there are enough famous people with that name. Update: The other most famous one seems to be another writer: William S. Burroughs

[Xihirli]

Spoiler: Force Awakens movie trilogy spoilers

Show

I don't buy it. If it were normal for people to print documentation on something that isn't quite paper but is effectively used as paper (vellum or papyrus or whatever) then R2-D2's original line from #159 saying “Do you see any paper in this universe? Someone has to project this stupid hologram for you!” wouldn't make sense.

Spoiler

Show

Doesn't have to. That comment was probably what gave the GM the idea to make Paper the forbidden substance. There wasn't like, a lore bible everyone was given, and if there were Episode 1 Pete would not have read it.

Spoiler

Show

You know, if Finn and Rose can get to the Casino planet unnoticed, and they're transferring fuel to smaller ships to escape to the salt planet, why don't they just take the small ships to a bunch of planets over the course of a few hours and leave the First Order chasing the empty cruisers.

Hell, why don't they try jumping the fleet to two separate locations? Or arrange a meeting point and have each ship jump somewhere different. Or take the eagles to Mordor?

In retrospect this film.makes little sense.

Spoiler

Show

If I had to guess I'd say they don't know how the First Order is tracking them, whether or not they can track every ship or not, and the First Order has MORE ships than them so there's no reason they couldn't just follow all of them.

Spoiler

Show

IIRC splitting up the fleet was the original plan. They were going to sacrifice the big ships as bait while the transports took the crew down to a planet cloaked. Except Holdo was an absolute idiot and neglected to share any of this with her command staff so nobody had any idea what was going on, or that she even had a plan, so they mutinied, tried to find their own solution, and ended up wrecking the whole thing even further.

Spoiler

Show

"Any of the command staff" here meaning "the captain who had just sacrificed a lot of people to take out a big ship, specifically, was not told about the plan to sacrifice their big ship to save a lot of people." And that plan only failed because Poe found out about the plan and shouted about it on an unsecured line. Definitely the right call not to tell him.
Well, him and yellow shirt girl I suppose. Was she command staff?

[SirKazum]

Spoiler: Episode VIII spoilers

Show

Ooooh boy. This is a time in the movie/comic where the whole "finding people who haven't watched it to react to the comic" thing is priceless. Can't wait to see memnarch's reaction to the next strip, or one of the next couple strips depending on how this plays out. Next update can't come soon enough for me!

[Rodin]

A recurring thing that happens in Sci-Fi movie or TV is the bridge taking a direct hit because it's in an incredibly exposed position.

This always bugs me, because there's no reason to have the bridge on the hull of a starship. Let's set aside the obvious "space is really big, guys" where you wouldn't be able to see anything with the naked eye from the bridge. Events are happening exactly seen as in the show, and the TIE fighter/Klingon warship/Starfury/whatever is really close enough that you could follow it visually without computer assistance.

...It still doesn't make any damn sense! There's no tactical advantage to being able to visually see the ships from a tiny portion of your much larger vessel. The big ships are rarely shown as being any kind of maneuverable, meaning it's not a possibility for you to see an incoming missile and shout out to the helmsman to flip the ship upside down.

So why do it? If you want your characters to stare pensively into space, there's plenty of options. Ten-Forward on the Enterprise, as well as Picard's office. Star Wars had the cast doing so from med bay at the end of Empire if my memory serves.

The bridge itself should be safely tucked away at the center of a vessel. Most of the vessels we see have viewscreens, and those that don't seem to have no trouble navigating on instruments. You can still have the bridge be made of explodium if you like - it's rare we see an enemy fire directly on the bridge anyway.

[KillianHawkeye]

Yet despite that, a starship taking a direct hit to the bridge has only happened on screen a handful of times in all of Star Trek history.

[Gez]

The bridge itself should be safely tucked away at the center of a vessel. Most of the vessels we see have viewscreens, and those that don't seem to have no trouble navigating on instruments. You can still have the bridge be made of explodium if you like - it's rare we see an enemy fire directly on the bridge anyway.

The aesthetic of space combat in Star Wars is "WW2, but in space", so viewscreens are for communication but navigating with instruments is just something you do when you have space fog, otherwise the good ol' eyeball mk. 1 is better.

Like, remember the last combat scene of A New Hope? The entire reason Luke succeeds is because he lets go of the targeting system and fires the torpedo directly. Sure, he's got the Force and all, but Wedge used the targeting system and failed, so...

It's sci-fi, the tech is there to facilitate the plot, and that's the only role it has.

[Morgaln]

A recurring thing that happens in Sci-Fi movie or TV is the bridge taking a direct hit because it's in an incredibly exposed position.

This always bugs me, because there's no reason to have the bridge on the hull of a starship. Let's set aside the obvious "space is really big, guys" where you wouldn't be able to see anything with the naked eye from the bridge. Events are happening exactly seen as in the show, and the TIE fighter/Klingon warship/Starfury/whatever is really close enough that you could follow it visually without computer assistance.

...It still doesn't make any damn sense! There's no tactical advantage to being able to visually see the ships from a tiny portion of your much larger vessel. The big ships are rarely shown as being any kind of maneuverable, meaning it's not a possibility for you to see an incoming missile and shout out to the helmsman to flip the ship upside down.

So why do it? If you want your characters to stare pensively into space, there's plenty of options. Ten-Forward on the Enterprise, as well as Picard's office. Star Wars had the cast doing so from med bay at the end of Empire if my memory serves.

The bridge itself should be safely tucked away at the center of a vessel. Most of the vessels we see have viewscreens, and those that don't seem to have no trouble navigating on instruments. You can still have the bridge be made of explodium if you like - it's rare we see an enemy fire directly on the bridge anyway.

Since you mentioned Starfuries, this got me thinking on B5 ship design and I think most ships in Babylon 5 don't have an obvious bridge visible from the outside (the White Star is a notable exception). I don't think we have deck plans for any of those ships to confirm either way, but most ships might actually follow the sensible "tuck it away inside" route in that universe. For the EarthForce Omega Destroyer at least, we can assume that the bridge is in the central spinning part somewhere, as it obviously has gravity.

[Keltest]

Since you mentioned Starfuries, this got me thinking on B5 ship design and I think most ships in Babylon 5 don't have an obvious bridge visible from the outside (the White Star is a notable exception). I don't think we have deck plans for any of those ships to confirm either way, but most ships might actually follow the sensible "tuck it away inside" route in that universe. For the EarthForce Omega Destroyer at least, we can assume that the bridge is in the central spinning part somewhere, as it obviously has gravity.

Earth ships maintain simulated gravity with rotating sections, as does the station itself. I believe its even mentioned a couple times that the gravity changes when you get near the center. The bridge is unlikely to be in the middle then. Certainly on the station it is exposed and has blast shields to close over the windows in case of assault.

[Rodin]

Earth ships maintain simulated gravity with rotating sections, as does the station itself. I believe its even mentioned a couple times that the gravity changes when you get near the center. The bridge is unlikely to be in the middle then. Certainly on the station it is exposed and has blast shields to close over the windows in case of assault.

The Babylon 5 bridge does have a couple excuses. Despite being run by the military, it isn't a military installation. The defenses are quite light and were originally designed to hold off pirates. The bridge might still have been put near the center...except its located on the end below the docking arms, meaning that they CAN eyeball ships coming in to dock. There's still a bit of a scale issue (the bridge looks a lot further from the docking arms than I would have placed it if you're going to put a window in it) but it's a lot more justifiable than many.

[SirKazum]

Spoiler: Episode VIII spoilers

Show

Mwah hah hah hah, it's coming! Too bad we can't see the commenter's face in these things. Also, looks like they're seeding the possibility of Leia being rescued by some outside force (maybe a tractor beam indeed) rather than flying herself using a completely-unmentioned-before power (I mean, it makes sense that she's Force-sensitive considering her lineage, but still), continuing their tradition of making weird stuff from the movies make more sense.

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler: Episode VIII spoilers

Show

a completely-unmentioned-before power (I mean, it makes sense that she's Force-sensitive considering her lineage, but still)

Spoiler: Star Wars in general but don't look, memnarch, because you would probably guess how the next scene goes from it

Show

People really do forget that Leia telepathically communicates with Luke at the end of ESB and that he promises to teach her in RotJ, huh?

[Rodin]

Spoiler: Star Wars in general but don't look, memnarch, because you would probably guess how the next scene goes from it

Show

People really do forget that Leia telepathically communicates with Luke at the end of ESB and that he promises to teach her in RotJ, huh?

Spoiler

Show

It's one of the most complained about sequences, and I've never understood why. Empire brings up her Force sensitivity as a potential backup for Luke if he fails. Yoda considered her a potential Jedi without ever having met her. Why is it unbelievable that she would have picked up some Jedi tricks in the intervening years?

I was surprised by the scene only because Carrie Fisher had died, and removing the subsequent scene would have made sense from both a meta and narrative standpoint. It solves the problem of removing Leia from the plot on the one hand and drives Ren further into darkness by killing his mother on the other.

[Keltest]

Spoiler

Show

It's one of the most complained about sequences, and I've never understood why. Empire brings up her Force sensitivity as a potential backup for Luke if he fails. Yoda considered her a potential Jedi without ever having met her. Why is it unbelievable that she would have picked up some Jedi tricks in the intervening years?

I was surprised by the scene only because Carrie Fisher had died, and removing the subsequent scene would have made sense from both a meta and narrative standpoint. It solves the problem of removing Leia from the plot on the one hand and drives Ren further into darkness by killing his mother on the other.

Spoiler

Show

Leia comes back and yells at shoots Poe across the room, so that we know he made a mistake and that the admiral was incompetent and not malicious. They could plausibly cut that, but then they would have to take a lot of the stupid unnecessary drama with it, and thats like half the movie.

[Anonymouswizard]

Spoiler: Star Wars in general but don't look, memnarch, because you would probably guess how the next scene goes from it

Show

People really do forget that Leia telepathically communicates with Luke at the end of ESB and that he promises to teach her in RotJ, huh?

Spoiler

Show

IIRC there's no real indication of her using the Force in TFA or earlier TLJ scenes. I think the only real indication is of her sensing Ben, which is pretty far down the power scale whereas Force Propulsion is pretty high. I also believe that her moment of Force usage in ESB is acting as the receptor, intended to be because she was the Designated Love Interest for Luke, so it's possible that sensitivity wasn't required.

I think it's also established that she gave up on her Jedi training pretty early, so we're likely looking at levels equivalent to Luke between Dagobar and Endor. Working on the assumption it took the others a couple of months to a year to reach Bespin by sublight.

Of course all of that doesn't really matter, because as far as I can tell the film was framing her Force usage in that scene as instinctive. Leia to me feels like she'd focus on the subtler but more practical parts of the Force, but got saddled with a bloodline that specialises in the direct physical applications. It's also possible that she's kept up some kind of Force training despite not being a Jedi, but focused more on ESP than anything we'd see on-screen.

[SirKazum]

Spoiler: Continuing the above discussion

Show

Look, I've got no problem with her being Force-sensitive in some way, and yeah I know that's a bit of a plot point in ESB and ROTJ. The thing is, from what I recall, Force telekinesis tends to be portrayed as kind of an advanced power, something that comes with specific training*. Untrained Force ability tends to be shown more along the lines of sensing / precognition. Chirrut from RO is a great example of that. Even trained people such as Jedi get such psychic impressions unprompted for, without willing it, while I don't recall telekinesis ever happening "by accident" (i.e. not as a deliberate effort), which to me sounds like it's less instinctual. Then again, Leia's Force flight happens at a really extreme moment where there is no other possibility of survival so I could indeed picture her pulling from her deepest reserves and doing it as an ultimate act of will. So it's pretty forgivable, and might pass perfectly well in a better movie, but here it just adds to the ridiculousness.

*I'm aware that, at the end of this same movie, a (presumably untrained) kid moves a broom with the Force. Then again, it's the same movie, so it's not really an additional data point.

[InvisibleBison]

Spoiler: Continuing the above discussion

Show

It seems to me that whatever problems people have with Leia's flying back to the ship is entirely self-inflicted. The movies never indicate one way or another what sort of training with the Force she's had in the decades since the original trilogy, so there's no issue with her turning out to be sufficiently well-trained to do this unless you assume that she wasn't.

[Keltest]

Spoiler: Continuing the above discussion

Show

Look, I've got no problem with her being Force-sensitive in some way, and yeah I know that's a bit of a plot point in ESB and ROTJ. The thing is, from what I recall, Force telekinesis tends to be portrayed as kind of an advanced power, something that comes with specific training*. Untrained Force ability tends to be shown more along the lines of sensing / precognition. Chirrut from RO is a great example of that. Even trained people such as Jedi get such psychic impressions unprompted for, without willing it, while I don't recall telekinesis ever happening "by accident" (i.e. not as a deliberate effort), which to me sounds like it's less instinctual. Then again, Leia's Force flight happens at a really extreme moment where there is no other possibility of survival so I could indeed picture her pulling from her deepest reserves and doing it as an ultimate act of will. So it's pretty forgivable, and might pass perfectly well in a better movie, but here it just adds to the ridiculousness.

*I'm aware that, at the end of this same movie, a (presumably untrained) kid moves a broom with the Force. Then again, it's the same movie, so it's not really an additional data point.

Spoiler

Show

Its been however many decades since the end of ROTJ, so we don't have to run with the assumption that she's totally untrained. Her brother did start a Jedi school after all, she could easily have gotten some rudimentary lessons at some point just to help protect her from the Dark Side for example.

[Fyraltari]

Spoiler: Discussion plus episode IX

Show

People we don't have to assume anything, Luke offers to train her in RotJ and in TRoS we get a flashback of him doing just that.

[Pax1138]

Spoiler: More talky talky of previous thingie

Show

While I really don't have any problem with Leia force-flying in TLJ, I'd say standard movie rules would suggest setting up something like that ahead of time in the same movie so that it doesn't seem to come out of nowhere. Being able to logic yourself out of it is one thing, but if a moment feels bad or out of nowhere to the audience, then it doesn't matter what logic you come up with the justify it later. As someone who read a lot of old EU stories back in the day, Leia with Force powers wasn't that odd to me; it was just a case of "Oh yeah, of course she could do that. Awesome," but obviously a lot of other people didn't think of her that way and were confused.

[SirKazum]

Spoiler: More talky talky of previous thingie

Show

While I really don't have any problem with Leia force-flying in TLJ, I'd say standard movie rules would suggest setting up something like that ahead of time in the same movie so that it doesn't seem to come out of nowhere. Being able to logic yourself out of it is one thing, but if a moment feels bad or out of nowhere to the audience, then it doesn't matter what logic you come up with the justify it later. As someone who read a lot of old EU stories back in the day, Leia with Force powers wasn't that odd to me; it was just a case of "Oh yeah, of course she could do that. Awesome," but obviously a lot of other people didn't think of her that way and were confused.

Thank you for expressing it a lot better than I could!

[theangelJean]

There's obviously plenty of other empty huts around that she could have used rather than going to sleep on a rock bench, so there's gotta be a point for this particular spot.

Not spoilering this as I haven't actually seen this movie, or the one after, so I don't know what's happening here.

But given what I've heard about the incoherence of the series as a whole, I'm wondering how much we can actually apply "conservation of detail" here. One of the most fun things about Darths and Droids has been where the comic writers come up with a proper explanation for character actions, which haven't been explained in the films but just glossed over with "it's a Space Adventure! Just go with it". I wonder if this is one of those places.

(Maybe I'm just jaded from reading the QC thread though, where "author didn't think this through, like, at all" has been a running complaint.)