OOTS #1222 - The Discussion Thread

[Cazero]

I would argue no to the latter. The ships were snails. Less than snails. They needed all the guns on whatever they were attacking to be demolished before they move in. That's not hyperbole, that's what actually happened and is said in the movie. Once they do move in, we see they are made of papier-mâché - bits and pieces of an already exploded TIE completely disintegrate the bombers.

It can be rationalised away if they're civilian cargo ships loaded with a truckloads of bombs. But still.
It was always a point that the rebellion material was outdated and kinda improvised, but this was just excessive.

edit : wait, I googled sf-17. Those **** are officialy military? Not refurbished civilian? WTF, writers?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Maybe, but that raises other questions and issues. Like... why would the resistance get a butt load of anti-land carpet bombers?

Canonically, the Rebels use whatever they can find, beg, borrow or steal. So all they'd need is to find a stash somewhere and say "Yes Please".

[Dion]

Canonically, the Rebels use whatever they can find, beg, borrow or steal. So all they'd need is to find a stash somewhere and say "Yes Please".

I don’t intend this as an attack on your position (because I agree with you).

But what do we call it when we start out with an opinion (like “The world in The Last Jedi made sense”) and then work backwards from the opinion to find support for that opinion (like “sure, they rebels would have a bunch of ships built for dubious purposes because... eh, they probably found them parked in a military surplus warehouse on Bespin or something.”)

I just see it happening a lot: someone takes a position, then constructs elaborate justifications for that opinion, and the result looks like a valid argument to the person who holds the opinion. And I don’t know what to call it, or how to recognize it. Anyone have a name for it?

[Goblin_Priest]

It can be rationalised away if they're civilian cargo ships loaded with a truckloads of bombs. But still.
It was always a point that the rebellion material was outdated and kinda improvised, but this was just excessive.

edit : wait, I googled sf-17. Those **** are officialy military? Not refurbished civilian? WTF, writers?

Yea, I googled them for some basic info, and was pretty surprised by the official canon too.

Canonically, the Rebels use whatever they can find, beg, borrow or steal. So all they'd need is to find a stash somewhere and say "Yes Please".

The movie doesn't really say that, though, nor is it canon. The wookiepedia says "The MG-100 StarFortress SF-17, also known as the B/SF-17 heavy bomber, was a model of heavy bomber manufactured by Slayn & Korpil for use by the New Republic during the late stages of the Galactic Civil War."

I mean, sure, the Resistance probably wouldn't say "no" to anything they can get their hands on... but... that just shifts the question to the previous owners, the New Republic. Why would they buy a bunch of that?

The ships are so vulnerable, you'd wonder why any pilot would accept to fly one. B-wings and Y-wings might not be the fastest and move maneuverable ships out there, but they are still far superior in survivability than these powder kegs.

And any question of why the Resistance has what it has just brings us back to the original sin, anyways, which is /what/ is the New Republic, in what state is it, what are its capacities, and why the hell aren't they doing anything. The First Order is blowing planets up. These guys defeated the Empire, yet in TLJ, nobody shows up to Crait. Like, really? Why? Why on earth would everyone just give up, seemingly without a fight. They didn't stop after Alderaan. They didn't stop when the learned that the Empire made a Death Star for the first time, nor when they learned it made a second. A bunch of neo-space-nazis are out blowing up worlds, and the central government can't be bothered to do anything about it? Leaving a tiny and miserable paramilitary cell to deal with a faction that, despite never really having much revealed about it, seemingly has multi-planetary strength?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Yeah. Even without the politics ban, I'm not sure I can find a parallel.

As for the verdammt bombers, I still hold they were written in solely to replay Torpedo 8 at Midway and thus were never intended to make sense.

[facw]

which is /what/ is the New Republic, in what state is it, what are its capacities, and why the hell aren't they doing anything. The First Order is blowing planets up. These guys defeated the Empire, yet in TLJ, nobody shows up to Crait. Like, really? Why? Why on earth would everyone just give up, seemingly without a fight. They didn't stop after Alderaan. They didn't stop when the learned that the Empire made a Death Star for the first time, nor when they learned it made a second. A bunch of neo-space-nazis are out blowing up worlds, and the central government can't be bothered to do anything about it? Leaving a tiny and miserable paramilitary cell to deal with a faction that, despite never really having much revealed about it, seemingly has multi-planetary strength?

Indeed. I mean if I'm remembering The Force Awakens correctly, a significant portion of their fleet was orbiting the planet hosting the Senate, and was destroyed there, but even if the New Republic considered the First Order beyond their reach before, that attack should have pushed them to full mobilization, and what little sense a tiny rag-tag resistance made before should have gone out of the window in favor of total war against an enemy who had demonstrated the capability and desire to unleash such an attack (while having conventional capabilities that seem quite paltry compared to forces martialed by any power in the first two trilogies) so victory in such a war seems far from hopeless.

[KorvinStarmast]

Maybe it's flying way over my head, but I have a hard time understanding what exactly Luke's story is in this movie.

Fan service, I guess.

It's not as bad as Poe being DIRECTLY and personally responsible for the death of like 95%+ of the Resistance and no one caring and him mutinying because his superior (unlike him) understands the words NEED TO KNOW and OPSEC, and those words or something equivalent are pretty fundamental to military operations.

I can only nod my head in agreement.

That is not Star Wars. That is ****ing ridiculous.

Well, to be fair, a lot of what is in Star Wars is ridiculous. Dare I say that vile word: Jar Jar. And the other vile word: Ewok. No, I dare not.

After all, "you don't win by destroying what you hate, but by saving what you love". Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.

Somewhere in there is some kind of "intentions matter" but as you say, the message is a bit mixed and messy.

And any question of why the Resistance has what it has just brings us back to the original sin, anyways, which is /what/ is the New Republic, in what state is it, what are its capacities, and why the hell aren't they doing anything. The First Order is blowing planets up. These guys defeated the Empire, yet in TLJ, nobody shows up to Crait. Like, really? Why?

I am guessing "budget cuts" or "guns and butter trade off, went for butter" but I have no idea if Disney's official canon supports that thought.

As for the verdammt bombers, I still hold they were written in solely to replay Torpedo 8 at Midway and thus were never intended to make sense.

Fits well enough.

[Goblin_Priest]

Yeah. Even without the politics ban, I'm not sure I can find a parallel.

As for the verdammt bombers, I still hold they were written in solely to replay Torpedo 8 at Midway and thus were never intended to make sense.

"VT-8's first and best-known combat mission came during the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942. Flying obsolete Douglas TBD Devastators, all of Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron's fifteen planes were shot down during their unescorted torpedo attack on Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers. The squadron failed to damage any Japanese carriers or destroy enemy aircraft."

But these bombers aren't supposed to be old and obsolete, they are meant to be new tech.

Indeed. I mean if I'm remembering The Force Awakens correctly, a significant portion of their fleet was orbiting the planet hosting the Senate, and was destroyed there, but even if the New Republic considered the First Order beyond their reach before, that attack should have pushed them to full mobilization, and what little sense a tiny rag-tag resistance made before should have gone out of the window in favor of total war against an enemy who had demonstrated the capability and desire to unleash such an attack (while having conventional capabilities that seem quite paltry compared to forces martialed by any power in the first two trilogies) so victory in such a war seems far from hopeless.

Even if they had decommissioned and repurposed a ton of ships following the civil war, the galaxy, if not necessarily the republic on its own, should have enough ships and capacity to build up a defense. Why did the Mon Calamari just peace out? The Wookies? Even Naboo had a small fleet of starfighters in peace time, and presumably pretty much every planet should have one.

And that every ship would happen to just be on the planets that got blown up is inane.

How did the First Order even manage to build Starkiller base in secret? The Death Star I got leaked before it was operational. The Death Star II got leaked (albeit intentionally) far before it was completed. And those were government-sponsored projects, led by entities with massive resources. How the hell did the First Order get its hands on the labor and resources required to mine a planet out and turn it into a weapon like that? A MUCH bigger project than the Empire ever attempted. And without being noticed, and riling up thousands of systems into a pre-emptive strike? Why does every planet feel like just rolling over and letting the First Order rule them? Especially the aliens, given how the First Order doesn't seem to employ any non-humans as far as I've noticed.

It's all so convoluted...

[hamishspence]

How the hell did the First Order get its hands on the labor and resources required to mine a planet out and turn it into a weapon like that? A MUCH bigger project than the Empire ever attempted.

Most of the work on Starkiller Base had actually been done by the Empire.

Star Wars Jedi : Fallen Order is set in 14 BBY, the protagonist travels to Ilum, and by that point, the huge equatorial trench is already present.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sta...allen_Order-13

[WanderingMist]

Maybe it's flying way over my head, but I have a hard time understanding what exactly Luke's story is in this movie.

He starts bitter, he ends... honestly I'm not sure in what state of mind he ends with, there's so many mixed messages going on. Rey says "at peace" or something along these lines, but at peace with what? He turned his nephew into a genocidal maniac, and then projected himself, and died, only to nag him for a minute or two? I mean, what's the big picture, here? To leave the burden upon the resistance? Because he leaves them in tatters and leaves the villain still quite intact and in command of an unknowingly powerful force (god I hate the sequels world building).

I get that some people desperatly wanted to see Luke and were just happy for him to be there and get a final snub, but... it's pretty ridiculous and contrived in my eyes. Before that, he was milking aliens and snubbing Rey, and overall not doing or saying anything particularly cool or constructive. Him tricking Kylo feels completely hollow, given how contrived the whole situation is. The two minutes he distracted him for should not have been enough to make any difference, if that's what his glory is meant to be. His giving up on Kylo is a betrayal of what the character was built up to be in the original trilogy. He never gave up on Vader despite nobody ever saying there was any good in him, and yet now he gives up on Kylo, which he trained himself, and which a bunch of people confirm how conflicted he is? I mean, he barely says anything when he meets him, and basically just nags him.

I have a hard time seeing what's to love from him in TLJ, other than just the nostalgia factor for seeing him on screen once more?

I'd still take The Last Jedi over Rise of Skywalker. The whole thing with Rey's heritage in, uhh, how am I supposed to abbreviate this, it's got the same initials as Revenge, anyway, the whole thing in Skywalker with

Spoiler:

Show

being Palpatine's granddaughter

had zero buildup, especially since TLJ specifically went out of its way to have her parents NOT be anyone special.

Since this thread has been thoroughly derailed, can we at least talk about science fiction other than Star Wars? Especially since Star Wars is less sci-fi and more fantasy in space.

So, I'm just gonna go off on a tangent on how iRobot is a great book but the movie is a terrible adaptation of it and really was only given the name for marketing purposes. However, the movie does have one great exchange that is not in the book: "Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a blank canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?" "Can you?"

[Dion]

"Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a blank canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?" "Can you?"

Or as one (non-AI) computer eloquently said in Neuromancer: “But I ain't likely to write you no poem, if you follow me. Your AI, it just might. But it ain't no way human.”

[Goblin_Priest]

Most of the work on Starkiller Base had actually been done by the Empire.

Star Wars Jedi : Fallen Order is set in 14 BBY, the protagonist travels to Ilum, and by that point, the huge equatorial trench is already present.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sta...allen_Order-13

Another issue with the sequels is that the answers typically just beg bigger questions than the ones they were meant to address.

[BarakDeathBlade]

I believe there is/was a card game called Paranoia, basically a Cyberpunk version of "Rocks fall, everybody dies..." where the goal isn't to win, it's to see how long it takes to lose.

A motto is, probably not a direct quote: "The AI does not love you. The AI does not hate you. However, you are made of atoms, which the AI can use for other purposes..."

Only played it once or twice. Greyview would approve.

Edit, meant for Dion, two posts up.

[Peelee]

The First Order is blowing planets up. These guys defeated the Empire, yet in TLJ, nobody shows up to Crait. Like, really? Why?

Because they have to show up in the third movie. And by "they", I mean "apparently every ship in the galaxy" .

Well, to be fair, a lot of what is in Star Wars is ridiculous.

I seem to recall those two being poorly received. In fact, the more ridiculous, the less well-received, as a general rule of thumb. Star Wars is mostly well-received, so we can safely say it's probably mostly not ridiculous.

The whole thing with Rey's heritage in, uhh, how am I supposed to abbreviate this, it's got the same initials as Revenge

TROS. As opposed to ROTS. ESB is the only one that really eliminated the T in "The" - TPM, AOTC, ROTS, TFA, TLJ... Empire is an outlier.

[Rogar Demonblud]

"VT-8's first and best-known combat mission came during the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942. Flying obsolete Douglas TBD Devastators, all of Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron's fifteen planes were shot down during their unescorted torpedo attack on Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers. The squadron failed to damage any Japanese carriers or destroy enemy aircraft."

But these bombers aren't supposed to be old and obsolete, they are meant to be new tech.

First, the TBDs were obsolescent, not obsolete (which would be the stringbags Swordfish). The torpedoes, yeah, those were pretty much obsolete when they came off the drawing board.* But the planes themselves weren't there yet and in fact continued to serve through much of the war. The problem was tactics. The standard carrier strike is dive bombers up top, torpedo planes on the deck and fighters in the mix to protect everybody else. That didn't happen, so all defenses could focus on one attack vector.

And new tech didn't fare any better. A half squadron of the new Avengers was also savaged, with only one plane making it back to Midway.**

Which maybe hints that the attack in the movie should have had proper support with more airframes. Like, oh, attacking the Death Star with a mix of attack bombers and space superiority starfighters.

I am again regretting I ever watched the movie.

*Interesting trivia bit: All post-war American torpedoes were based on the pre-war Japanese Long Lance, which outclassed even the late war electrics.

**Random trivia: when they lined up the five surviving Devastators at Ford Island after the battle, it was noted that the number 7 plane from each squadron had survived. Lucky Seven?

[TheBumbo]

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[Domino Quartz]

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[Shirow]

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[danielxcutter]

I feel I'm missing a reference here...

[hamishspence]

I feel I'm missing a reference here...

It's a reference to the Fight Club movie.

“The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.”
“The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!”

[Shirow]

It's a reference to the Fight Club movie.

“The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.”
“The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!”

Aye.
(TW: violence, looots of violence.)

[Ruck]

I feel I'm missing a reference here...

It's a reference to the Fight Club movie.

But also to the actual rule here.

("Now, go out and have a good time. Oh... And don't forget to break some rules! But don't break any rules.")

[skim172]

“The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.”

Well, that's clearly not true.

“The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club!”

Ah, see - now you're stuck in a recursive loop.



Hypothesis: Brad Pitt was fundamentally a programming error and the real moral of Fight Club was about the dangers of self-referential logic.

[Goblin_Priest]

Because they have to show up in the third movie. And by "they", I mean "apparently every ship in the galaxy" .

I seem to recall those two being poorly received. In fact, the more ridiculous, the less well-received, as a general rule of thumb. Star Wars is mostly well-received, so we can safely say it's probably mostly not ridiculous.


TROS. As opposed to ROTS. ESB is the only one that really eliminated the T in "The" - TPM, AOTC, ROTS, TFA, TLJ... Empire is an outlier.

I was going to mention that, but then forgot as I was off rambling my rants.

Everyone showing up in TRoS just makes TLJ even dumber.

Actually, scratch that, everything from TRoS just makes everything else before it dumber.

What a mess.

[Martijn]

Maybe it's flying way over my head, but I have a hard time understanding what exactly Luke's story is in this movie.

He starts bitter, he ends... honestly I'm not sure in what state of mind he ends with, there's so many mixed messages going on. Rey says "at peace" or something along these lines, but at peace with what? He turned his nephew into a genocidal maniac, and then projected himself, and died, only to nag him for a minute or two? I mean, what's the big picture, here? To leave the burden upon the resistance? Because he leaves them in tatters and leaves the villain still quite intact and in command of an unknowingly powerful force (god I hate the sequels world building).

I get that some people desperatly wanted to see Luke and were just happy for him to be there and get a final snub, but... it's pretty ridiculous and contrived in my eyes. Before that, he was milking aliens and snubbing Rey, and overall not doing or saying anything particularly cool or constructive. Him tricking Kylo feels completely hollow, given how contrived the whole situation is. The two minutes he distracted him for should not have been enough to make any difference, if that's what his glory is meant to be. His giving up on Kylo is a betrayal of what the character was built up to be in the original trilogy. He never gave up on Vader despite nobody ever saying there was any good in him, and yet now he gives up on Kylo, which he trained himself, and which a bunch of people confirm how conflicted he is? I mean, he barely says anything when he meets him, and basically just nags him.

I have a hard time seeing what's to love from him in TLJ, other than just the nostalgia factor for seeing him on screen once more?

He starts holding a grudge against himself, moping about his failure, as a legend and as a hero.

He ends accepting of his role as a legend, reclaiming his role as a hero, and accepting that one can have those things despite failures you make along the way. That culminates in accepting his own failure to keep Ren on the light side, and moving past that.

For me, completing that arc from his naive start through self-doubting stardom and eventually, acceptance in what is and isn't within reach, making the best of it as long as you're honest with yourself makes TLJ the best Star Wars movie since ANH.

[Goblin_Priest]

He starts holding a grudge against himself, moping about his failure, as a legend and as a hero.

He ends accepting of his role as a legend, reclaiming his role as a hero, and accepting that one can have those things despite failures you make along the way. That culminates in accepting his own failure to keep Ren on the light side, and moving past that.

For me, completing that arc from his naive start through self-doubting stardom and eventually, acceptance in what is and isn't within reach, making the best of it as long as you're honest with yourself makes TLJ the best Star Wars movie since ANH.

Feels to me like a lot of TLJ fans are just projecting a whole bunch and seeing in the movie what they want to see, and not what they are actually being shown.

Luke's character growth basically all happens off-screen. In RotJ, he's optimistic, hopeful, forgiving, brave, selfless. Next movie he shows up in, he's pessimistic, cowardly, self-loathing. No evolution is shown, we are simply told, later in the movie, that he "failed" Ben. So he just gave up. After everything he endured before, we must now accept he just gave up. And decided to go live as a hermit in shame, and not actually try to fix his mess. "I made a monster, ok, cool, I'll just let others suffer for it." But, tack on "I'll leave a convoluted map hidden somewhere, so that someone under impossible circumstances could still come and disturb me, so that I may tell them to bugger off when they do somehow manage to find me". He gives up on Ben, despite that his defining character traits from all other movies is that he never gives up on saving people, even people otherwise portrayed as being irredeemably evil. Darth Vader killed a ton of kids and co-ruled as a space nazi, but, that was chill, "there's good in him". Ben, on the other hand, is constantly depicted as being conflicted, in both TFA and TLJ. Every time we see him, he's conflicted. But, nah fam, Luke just gives up, there's no saving him. Even when it was obvious to other characters, such as Rey, that he was conflicted and could be saved. Even if it was painfully obvious to the viewer that Kylo would have a redemption arc and "redemption equals death" at the end, from day one.

Luke doesn't complete any character arc. It's not character growth that we see, it's character substitution. He doesn't evolve organically, he's basically just completely replaced by a new character by the film according to what the author wants him to be at any given time.

I'm sorry since you'll probably feel offended by what I said, but it is what it is. Your claim is utter rubbish, "acceptance in what is and isn't within reach" is completely contradicted by the movies themselves, since Kylo Ren was not canonically out of reach of redemption, being redeemed in the end, and the trilogy basically clubbing us with ridiculously overt hints that Kylo was not only redeemable, but that he indeed *would be* redeemed.

To quote your beloved movie, "Amazing, every word of what you just said was wrong". I also love that you love this movie for a message that is basically "it's okay to just give up when it's hard, just let other people fix your problems". Accepting one's (situational) impotence and giving up are not the same thing. I'm also pretty lost on how you drive a parallel with ANH to put them on similar standing, given how antagonistic the two movies fundamentally are, be it in terms of character arcs, themes, messages, etc.

[danielxcutter]

Wow, those are pretty strong words. You sure this isn't a Star Wars forum?

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm also pretty lost on how you drive a parallel with ANH to put them on similar standing, given how antagonistic the two movies fundamentally are, be it in terms of character arcs, themes, messages, etc.

One way to try to make this fit is that Luke went into spiritual/emotional free fall toward a very dark place after the end of Return of the Jedi. The reveal of Leia as his sibling burned him because he realizes that he's hot for his sister {and he's not a Targaryan nor a Lannister, sorry, had to go there}. Han remains Leia's love interest. Eventually they marry and have a child. Uncle Luke can't get over his desire for Leia, nor the jealousy of Han, so he becomes a hermit - kinda like Yoda did but for different reasons. On a day to day basis Luke can't deal with how much he grosses himself out every time he thinks of Leia.

OK, that's one explanation (possibly a bit too icky and maybe a bit Freudian) for why Luke went off the grid and became a hermit. But it took a lot of work and yukkiness to get there.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Wow, those are pretty strong words. You sure this isn't a Star Wars forum?

Every forum Peelee's on is a Star Wars forum by default.

[Schroeswald]

Now I like the first two sequel movies but luckily you can pretend I hate them for the purpose of this post and it’s probably better if you do.

To me most of the biggest problems of the sequel trilogy all lead right back to the very dumb decision to just copy A New Hope for The Phantom Menace. There is a lot of potential to try new things, go new directions and make a really necessary sequel trilogy. This potential was basically gone the moment they decided that we needed a new rebellion was needed. If you look at the prequels it’s clear that the Old Jedi and Old Republic weren’t very good, but the assumed ending of the original trilogy is that we get a New Jedi Order and a New Republic. If you want to progress these ideas what you do is not just skip them falling and send us back to Square OT, you write them in death throes again and fix it with real changes to the status quo (presumably with like, good dialogue and acting). I think all the characters (except maybe Poe) do still work if you bring them into this setting, but seeing Kylo fall would make him better, putting Rey into a story that isn’t a modified version of Luke’s allows her to develop in interesting ways, and maybe they can actually do stuff with Finn as like, someone indoctrinated into the rising First Order and stuff instead of making his story lead nowhere. While obviously the execution of this depends on quality of writing and directing it would at least probably make the trilogy more interesting.