Browman wrote:
Finn's storyline was basically pointless. Rose was annoying and basically made every scene she was in worse.
Rose did two things for Finn: kept him from running away in their first encounter, and later telling him how the underdogs win. He''' be a more effective Resistance fighter for having met her.
Browman wrote:Hux caught the rebellion with their pants down and somehow his grand plan was to make them think they escaped so he could keep chasing them and lose a huge ship in the process.
I believe his plan was to gain information about locations the rebels felt safe running to, and also to consume their fuel supply. The latter very nearly worked.
Browman wrote:Rey's parents being no one was dumb, why did we waste all that time in the force awakens if it is irrelevant.
Rey's parents being no one makes perfect sense. All this mystique has been built up around the "Skywalker bloodline", but think back on the number of Force users we've seen over the course of eight episodes, Jedi, Sith and trainees. Think about how many generations of Force users there have been, throughout the galaxy, even before Episode I. Out of all those thousands, how many were Skywalkers that we know of? Four. So who were the parents of all those others? Nobodies.
Browman wrote:Luke dying made no sense to me, the reveal that he was projecting was one of the best parts of the movie and to me was entirely undone by him dying afterwards.
He'd cut himself off from the Force for years, and shortly after reconnecting he pulls off a tangible mental projections across who knows how many light years? That's got to be taxing, but it's not clear that it killed him. He may have simply decided his purpose was accomplished, and "spread himself upon the wind", like Apollo in the Star Trek episode Who Mourns For Adonis? He had already decided to die, after all.
If they want that to be Finn's arc, then do it a way that isn't terrible and with a really annoying, new character.
Hux has the entire rebellion in one place, why does it matter if he finds out about other places they could hide if they are dead?
Rey's parents being no one may make sense, but it wasn't done in a very good way. This is one of the places where it really showed that no one was planning this trilogy out ahead of time.
That might be a good explanation for why he died, but it was completely unnecessary and far less interesting than Luke still being around for episode IX and confronting Kylo Ren in person.
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Isn't kind of weird that in a story all about metaphorically and literally killing the past, that story is fundamentally once again a conflict centered around an evil empire taking over the universe and bunch of plucky rebels trying to stop them?
I was fine with it in TFA when I thought that the conflict with the First Order was going to be reversal of the original trilogy, with the First Order being underdog terrorists and the Republic being the empire that gets outsmarted constantly, but instead the entire Republic is just gone and the First Order has literally taken over the entire galaxy in a matter of hours after blowing up Hosian Prime.
It really does seem that the new trilogy is overacting to people's boredom with the Senate politics in the prequels and have just completely removed any kind of political context and exposition to help us understand why an entire galactic Republic can just get one-shotted.
Like seriously, besides the Resistance does the Republic have any armed forces? Get that our heroes and the Resistance need to take center-stage but this all seems like ridiculous overkill.
I'm not particularly convinced Snoke was involved in any way. For all that Luke and Leia are on a first(?) name basis with the guy, it's entirely possible than he and Emo Boy first met in a Dark Side bar a couple years after the whole temple fiasco. Between tears and complaining about his mean old uncle, Snoke offered him a job in his super-gigantic fleet of doom, and that was that.
I assume Snoke turning Kylo was something like that. Once you turn to the dark side, you're vulnerable to manipulation by those stronger in the dark in a way that you normally wouldn't be. You've given them a way in that they wouldn't have otherwise.I thought there were at least hints that Snoke was directly involved.
Oh, Luke and Leia claim it on the basis of absolutely nothing, but unless Snoke was parked outside the new Jedi Temple in the SW equivalent of an unmarked white van, there isn't any particular reason for it to be true.
Either Luke didn't know Snoke was up to something, and so.. doesn't know, or he did know, and did nothing about it.
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@Damon Griffin- that's an interesting take on the Finn/Rose segment. I don't really buy it though. Had she NOT prevented him, nothing would have changed*, and mostly what she accomplished towards the end was preventing him from possibly achieving something in his attempt at being a Resistance fighter.
*oh, wait, no. Actually
Disagree on the Skywalker bloodline, too. It was the central focus of the parts of the movie that were coherent.
As for Rey's family thing, I fully expect Abrams to return the favor and ignore Johnson's 'story' prompts in return and go back to whatever his (and/or his writers') original idea was.
He didn't kill all of them. He took some with him, trained them, and they became the Knights of Ren.
The Order of Knights-Not-Appearing-in-These-Films?
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Technically I think the relevant equation in this case would be energy = mass * velocity squared.How about this then, how can a flagship that size or advanced not have shielding that would not obliterate anything the size of the Raddus on impact?You know perfectly well that force = mass * acceleration. Even for small mass relative to the FO ship, the Raddus would have had incredible acceleration -- all ships seem to jump to light speed within a few ship lengths -- and it's hardly surprising that the resulting force would have been more than enough to overcome any shielding.
No no, sorry, this is a Star Wars film. Energy isn't as important as the Force!
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I watched the screen rant spoiler review for this and was struck by their statement that this and TFA are pretty clear evidence that their is not a whole lot of planning out of this trilogy in advance, with each director/screenwriter coming in and developing the plot from scratch.
Rian Johnson clearly didn't like some of the stuff that J.J. threw out. Now that J.J. is coming back, how is he going to respond?
I actually prefer Johnson to J.J. (TFA was too much a rehash of earlier movies for my taste), so I am kind of terrified about what he is going to do with the next movie.
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Throw all of his stuff back in?
Abrams has a habbit of making up cool stuff he can't follow through with because he has no idea where they're going *cough. lost. cough cough* so i'm not surprised if other directors don't follow through with it, but he could get better continuity out of these two movies by writing through magnetic poetry and then borrowing fan theories about what it meant. Its an anime school of not story telling but scene showing and if you've clicked on ANY of the spoilers, you can see I'm not a fan.
It wouldn't surprise me if phasma survives (though at this point i'd be pleasantly surprised if they figured out what to do with her), snoke was an illusion, luke telepported somewhere rather than dying (okay that might be a bit much) . Snoke being a force projection is a definite possibility though: "he's incapable of betraying me"
TFA was too much a rehash of earlier movies for my taste), so I am kind of terrified about what he is going to do with the next movie.
Porgs attack the empire if that level of rehash is met again?
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I totally agree with this analysis. It perfectly lays out my issues.
I think one of the (many) angry rants that came up after the above link summed up the problem i have with the movie for me: its post modern star wars. Its just being artsy and "unexpected" for its own sake without any regard for whether it makes the movie any better.
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It's weird how it's like we've all seen completely different movies. "Artsy?" I don't even know what you're talking about.
About the only think I really found unexpected was the (only partly successful) attempt to reverse the "action hero saves the day with a high-risk crazy plan" trope.
Action hero saves the day: Badly attempted to subvert it (tell, instead of show)
Who is Rey? Is she a long lost skywalker? Nope. A nobody
Who is Snoke? What does he want, how'd he get to be in charge of the first order, how'd he ..NOPE! Dead.
Heroes journey and training from hell? Nope. Rey gets amazing powers not from hard work and training from the old hermit and drinking blue milk but... just because.
Who are my parents? Lots of mirrors. Mirrors are symbolic.
Finn and Roses madcamp adventure to save the fleet... subverted, it doesn't work at all.
Finns heroic self sacrifice:.. nope. That won't happen either. We'll save you , and then somehow not be shot by at at walkers. And let the first order into the base in the process.
It's just one giant set up and nope, without replacing it with anything other than "what a a tweest"
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I am thoroughly amused by Star Wars fan who obsess over everything Star Wars to the point they can’t enjoy Star Wars anymore.
I don't think that's whats happening here. At least not en masse
The force awakens: Critics 93% audience 88%
Rogue 1 Critics 85 Audience 87
Last Jedi Critics 91. Audience....51.
A FOURTY point difference. Its not like internet nerd rage was invented in the last 2 years.
While individual fanboys who will say WHAT!? That light saber is the wrong color. Ruined forever! Or "expanded universe? Give me thrawn or bust!" exist, they don't amount to much more than a few percent. Enough geeks to make a fourty percent difference on rotten tomatoes? No. Thats not fans nerd raging themselves out of enjoying a good movie. That's a movie with serious issues.
Last Jedi is getting panned HARD by fans. It looks great. The acting is great given the material, but fans keep bringing up the same points that I had: enormous plot holes, subverting star wars JUST to subvert it without replacing it with anything else, and not making any internal sense in the process.
When I look at the movie, figure out everything wrong with it, and then see the internet saying the exact same thing, point for point on the big issues I have to say it's NOT me. This is a franchise I love that made a terrible movie that's going to make making movies after it much, much harder.
It's not that fans can't enjoy star wars. It's that this isn't star wars.
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Oh, it's Star Wars... if those godawful prequels were Star Wars, this flick qualifies.
It's actually frustrating... I can't even sit down to totally despise it like I do Phantom Menace, Attack of the What Happened in the First Half of the Movie Again? and The Let's Just Get This Over With of the Sith, because there are bits of total brilliance buried in the mix.
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I am thoroughly amused by Star Wars fan who obsess over everything Star Wars to the point they can’t enjoy Star Wars anymore.I don't think that's whats happening here. At least not en masse
The force awakens: Critics 93% audience 88%
Rogue 1 Critics 85 Audience 87
Last Jedi Critics 91. Audience....51.
A FOURTY point difference. Its not like internet nerd rage was invented in the last 2 years.
While individual fanboys who will say WHAT!? That light saber is the wrong color. Ruined forever! Or "expanded universe? Give me thrawn or bust!" exist, they don't amount to much more than a few percent. Enough geeks to make a fourty percent difference on rotten tomatoes? No. Thats not fans nerd raging themselves out of enjoying a good movie. That's a movie with serious issues.
Last Jedi is getting panned HARD by fans. It looks great. The acting is great given the material, but fans keep bringing up the same points that I had: enormous plot holes, subverting star wars JUST to subvert it without replacing it with anything else, and not making any internal sense in the process.
When I look at the movie, figure out everything wrong with it, and then see the internet saying the exact same thing, point for point on the big issues I have to say it's NOT me. This is a franchise I love that made a terrible movie that's going to make making movies after it much, much harder.
It's not that fans can't enjoy star wars. It's that this isn't star wars.
That 51% RT viewer rating should be taken with a grain of salt, especially since one Alt-right group has taken responsibility for causing that low score by spamming the rating system with negative reviews
Your saying it's getting panned hard by fans, but as a life long fan I loved it, and I know other people did as well. Honestly I would much rather see this than the inferior Force Awakens, which tried to follow formula to the extent of feeling like a rehash of New Hope, and if anything suffers from even more plot holes and problems than this movie. If anything, the biggest weaknesses of this film largely are a result of stuff that was inherited from TFA.
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also worth pointing out: for a movie inspiring so much fan rage, TLJ has managed for the third week in a row to achieve box office supremacy, and is actually on track to have the highest New Years weekend box office EVER.
It's also on track as having the highest box office of ANY domestic release in 2017, extra impressive given today is the final day of that year.
Clearly if fans are being enraged about this movie, it must not be an appreciable cross section of this movie, and word of mouth isn't hurting it (and people are likely seeing it multiple times).
Contrast that with B vs S or Justice League, both of which suffered poor to luke-warm word of mouth, which was evident in subsequent box office sales after the first weekend.
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Your saying it's getting panned hard by fans, but as a life long fan I loved it, and I know other people did as well.
You know that those aren't mutually exclusive statements.
It would be technically true if there were 2 fans bashing it, it's realistically true if a sizable contingent of fans are panning it. Which very much seems to be the case. You can try to chalk it up to an alt right bot program for the rotten tomatoes review but thats MUCH harder for the reviews focusing on the plot holes and pretty impossible for the hours of you tube videos making the same points about the film.
edit: Rotten tomatoes said it hasn't seen any unusual activity. Of course, rotten tomatoes doesn't want to admit they'd been trolled, and trollers want to exagerate their influence.
edit edit: I don't think you have to look much further than this thread to conclude that 50% isn't out of the ballpark.
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It's kinda funny, I have watched the Force Awakens about 10 times, and my reaction is always the same. I love the visuals, enjoyed the rapport between Finn and Poe, laugh that Greg Gunberg is in it..(every time I see him the same line pops into my head..what am I thinking now Parkman?"), somewhat irritated at the close plot match for a new hope but lastly really frustrated at this vague feeling its missing something the original trilogy had.
So for two years I ascribed it to JJ Abrams screwing around with editting, and it would have been a more complete movie with a directors cut etc. Ultimately, I said well, hopefully the Last Jedi is better and feel like this is going to be the case because all the rumour mill stuff pre-release is good, and I disregard Mark Hammil questioning the directors vision, afterall he went along and everyone saying its the best performance Mark has done etc.
And then Ryan gets his 3 film deal and I am thinking awesome, he must have really hit it out of the park.
And then the official critic reviews are glowing. So going into opening weekend saying great, this is going to kick Abrams butt and show what a true star wars film should be.
But then, early audience reviews come out and about 50% hate it. I am saying what the hell? Even my friends are divided. So I go into it forewarned ..
Ultimately, it was fine for a 2.5 hour afternoon space opera flick, but it did not wash away my force awakens distaste. It added to it. I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that there is no clear plan here.
What I feel like here is exactly like watching the hobbit movies..hoping the second or third movies make up for the sub par first but problems persist and amplify. They are pale shadows of the LOTR.
Out of the 3 Disney Star Wars movies, I like Rogue One the best. I really didn't expect that to be the case 3 years ago.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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Your saying it's getting panned hard by fans, but as a life long fan I loved it, and I know other people did as well.You know that those aren't mutually exclusive statements.
It would be technically true if there were 2 fans bashing it, it's realistically true if a sizable contingent of fans are panning it. Which very much seems to be the case. You can try to chalk it up to an alt right bot program for the rotten tomatoes review but thats MUCH harder for the reviews focusing on the plot holes and pretty impossible for the hours of you tube videos making the same points about the film.
edit: Rotten tomatoes said it hasn't seen any unusual activity. Of course, rotten tomatoes doesn't want to admit they'd been trolled, and trollers want to exagerate their influence.
edit edit: I don't think you have to look much further than this thread to conclude that 50% isn't out of the ballpark.
The Rotten Tomatoes fan score is also noticeably lower than other audience ranking sites. IMDb, frex, has it at 7.6/10 (compare with 8.0 for TFA)
Your saying it's getting panned hard by fans, but as a life long fan I loved it, and I know other people did as well.You know that those aren't mutually exclusive statements.
It would be technically true if there were 2 fans bashing it, it's realistically true if a sizable contingent of fans are panning it. Which very much seems to be the case. You can try to chalk it up to an alt right bot program for the rotten tomatoes review but thats MUCH harder for the reviews focusing on the plot holes and pretty impossible for the hours of you tube videos making the same points about the film.
edit: Rotten tomatoes said it hasn't seen any unusual activity. Of course, rotten tomatoes doesn't want to admit they'd been trolled, and trollers want to exagerate their influence.
edit edit: I don't think you have to look much further than this thread to conclude that 50% isn't out of the ballpark.
If 50% of the fans hated it, than I would expect a more significant drop off in domestic sales than what we received. So either the fan rage is being counteracted by increased popularity elsewhere, for instance younger fans (which is who stars is really pitched for), or the internet rage machine has decided to make it their next target, and the hate is just amplified.
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It’s almost like these things were always made up as they went along.
J.J Abrams explicitly doesn’t care about the answers to his mysteries Abrams isn’t a storyteller he’s a marketer. So when Ryan Johnson comes in he is given mysteries with no answers.
So instead of just rehashing the same stories over again he instead provides opportunities for new stories. You don’t need a special legacy to be a Jedi, neutrality in the face of oppression is to side with the oppressor (in case you wondered why Canto Bight was important), we can’t just blow stuff up to save the Galaxy we need to redeem it.
But people get mad about details, they think a movie is a puzzle box to be solved. They see characters fail and think “then why did they even try”. They are explicitly manipulated by the movie to side with Poe so they can learn the same lessons he does.
If 50% of the fans hated it, than I would expect a more significant drop off in domestic sales than what we received. So either the fan rage is being counteracted by increased popularity elsewhere, for instance younger fans (which is who stars is really pitched for), or the internet rage machine has decided to make it their next target, and the hate is just amplified.
Like the fact that it's still a star wars and that carries more weight with the general public than half of nerds not liking it?
Transformers rakes in a lot of money despite getting lambasted. That doesn't mean that the movies are good. (This movie is not transformers level bad. But the bar set for star wars and bar set for what i want in a transformers movie is about as big)
This movie and has severe writing problems that are going to make the trilogy hard not to consign to the prequel "it never happened" bin. It would be nice if the studio could address that going forward instead of "la la la i can't hear you through all this money"
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o instead of just rehashing the same stories over again he instead provides opportunities for new stories
Which is great, IF you provide an actual story.
He doesn't. Its a pistache of cool scenes that aren't coherently strung together. That and a story are different things.
an opportunity for a story because there's no story isn't deep. Subverting expectations with.. nothing isn't cute, clever, innovating, or hard. Its a "painting" of a blank canvas.
They are explicitly manipulated by the movie to side with Poe so they can learn the same lessons he does.
What lesson is that supposed to be exactly?
The alleged lesson being a horrible, muddled, inconsistent mess that is told but not shown is the PROBLEM with this movie, not its saving grace.
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The story was good. It was actually great.
It wasn’t subverted with “nothing”, failure isn’t “nothing”, tragedy isn’t “nothing”. The democratisation of the Force isn’t “nothing”, Luke accepting his failures as a Jedi isn’t “nothing”.
The lesson Poe is supposed to learn is explicitly in the movie (it’s so weird how people cherry pick). Poe is the reason Vice Admiral Holdo’s plan didn’t work. Poe is supposed to learn how to lead. How to operate as a part of a team. He was deliberately positioned to make the audience side with him, but he was wrong. That’s not muddled, that’s not a problem with the movie.
Holdo’s plan: Lead the First Order on a chase because she doesn’t know what is allowing the ship to be tracked. Poe deliberately withheld that information from her because he didn’t trust a Vice Admiral (the hero of Chryon’s Belt no less). He thought he knew better. So, she keeps this plan secret because she doesn’t know if there’s a leak aboard the ship. She doesn’t trust a recently demoted captain to keep his temper, and not try some half-cocked plan.
She needs to preserve the people in the resistance. That means getting them onto cloaked ships near Crait, so that they can get to a position that can be defended from orbital bombardment. The First Order didn’t even suspect cloaking (until Poe messed up and broadcasted it to his friends on the enemy ship). Poe took this for cowardice, and mutinies, because he thinks he should be kept in the loop. As the audience we also believe we should be privie to this information so we agree. BUT IT WAS THE WRONG THING TO DO. If he had gotten into a ship, hey could have hidden long enough for the Rebel cruiser to do one last jump and lead the First Order away.
Poe is making mistakes left and right. If he didn’t take out the ship that makes orbital strikes, the resistance would have been protected on Crait anyway, and had bombers to deal with ground forces to hold out long enough for assistance. At this point nobody knew that no help was to arrive from the outer rim. It was a sound plan.
So it all goes bad, in many ways thanks to Poe. He only learns this when he sees Holdo perform an act of bravery he didn’t believe Vice Admiral Holdo capable of. It’s too late now to make it up to Holdo. So when the First Order arrives with a can opener Poe still hasn’t figured it out. He tries to solve the problem by blowing it up. But he realizes daring-do is no solution here. That you can’t save the galaxy with a brave last stand, you need to keep the spark of rebellion alive. He doesn’t know how yet, but he has faith there is another answer.
It seems all hope is lost.
Luke arrives, not to save the day, but to buy time for the Resistance to get away. Poe realizes this and starts looking beyond violence as the answer to the resistance problem. Crystal Foxes show the way. Leia sees Poe learn what he needs to learn “don’t look at me, follow him”.
Every step is so clear, Poe’s journey is one from fly-boy to leader.
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The lesson Poe is supposed to learn is explicitly in the movie (it’s so weird how people cherry pick).
Yes it is. It's really evident at the end: he learns to waffle. To send people out to die, then reconsider without accomplishing anything.
Leia sees Poe learn what he needs to learn “don’t look at me, follow him”.
Yep. He and the other two named characters just got back alive from doing nothing, but everyone else died. He's certainly proved himself a leader in Leia's eyes. Very muddled.
He was deliberately positioned to make the audience side with him, but he was wrong. That’s not muddled, that’s not a problem with the movie.
Er, no. That's the definition of muddled. If the 'mistake' is presented as the correct choice to the audience, it is entirely a problem with the movie.
Holdo’s plan: <snip> so that they can get to a position that can be defended from orbital bombardment.
And here's where the argument crashes.
A) It isn't particularly protected from orbital bombardment. The FO fleet can pound that mountain for the next week or year if they feel like it. We're told (and not shown in any fashion) that the FO has already won across the galaxy except for this particular band of rebels. In, apparently...a day. Across a galaxy. Less then a day really, since TLJ picks up exactly at the moment TFA leaves off.B) Also the FO can land their gigantic army and go in and kill them, which was what was going to happen. This... is a terrible plan. Fleeing to a dead end is amazingly stupid, and had all those little ships actually landed, they'd be trapped in the cave with them and it would have still ended up with only a small handful escaping on the Falcon... or not at all.
So Holdo's 'plan' carried out successfully would have achieved... exactly the same results.
An actual plan would be to split everyone among the three ships and jumped out in different directions. Sadly, that would have gotten far fewer people killed than either the 'ruined' or 'non-ruined' versions of the plan.
If he didn’t take out the ship that makes orbital strikes, the resistance would have been protected on Crait anyway, and had bombers to deal with ground forces to hold out long enough for assistance.
Nope. If he hadn't sent in the bombers and taken out the dreadnought, the Resisty cruiser would have been blown up at the... 15 or 20 minute mark, whatever it was. The Dreadnought was positioning to fire on the Republic ships, and would have, had it not been blown up.
Of course, with sensible storytelling, the Star Destroyers and their tie swarms would have already blown the Resisty ships up, but whatever. No need to nitpick when the muddles and flaws are so huge.
I'm not sure where the bombers would have been during the long chase anyway, or how'd they be protected, get in or out of the cave or not be instantly shot down by the tie presence without any Resisty aircraft to protect them.
The story was good. It was actually great.
But honestly, this I disagree with the most. There's barely a story here. There are lots of little tales, but they don't do much and largely end up contradicting themselves.
It's all about nobodies, don't sacrifice yourself... but the nobodies die in vast numbers and it comes down to Skywalkers, and the great big hero sacrificing himself.
It's not about lifting rocks and... turns out it is. Over and over again, the random story threads kick up unrelated little morals and then spits on them.
And at the end, the movie finishes back at the _exact_ same position it was in when it started: a small(er) group of the Resisty has to escape from the big bad evil enemies. That a bunch of nameless people died is unrelentingly inconsequential to the story being told- because it isn't about them: it is about Skywalkers and their heirs (blood relations or not). What matters is there is a new supreme evil leader and a new anointed hero after the previous ones died. And new appointed leader and his good buddy.
So in Episode 9, they get to fight and possibly try to re-subvert expectations, since there are pretty much no story threads to hang the next movie off of beyond 'rebels versus evil galactic order' (again). Johnson went out of his way to snip every plot thread handed to him.
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The whole point is that it’s not about Skywalkers. Ren is the villain, the torch has been passed to Rey.
The Rebellion has never been in as dire straits as the Resistance is when the movie ends.
And Holdo’s plan was damn solid, at least until Poe messed it up by not communicating with his superiors in the first place.
The whole point is that it’s not about Skywalkers. Ren is the villain, the torch has been passed to Rey.
The Rebellion has never been in as dire straits as the Resistance is when the movie ends.
And Holdo’s plan was damn solid, at least until Poe messed it up by not communicating with his superiors in the first place.
I seriously hope the Starwalker destiny thing is finally put to rest by this film if nothing else. Kind of disappointed that neither Kylo or Rey lost an arm though.
To be honest, I really didn't feel much for the Resistance's dire straits because I felt them losing throughout the film and the New Republic getting basically written out of the story, to be lame and completely unearned. The galaxy is a big place and you'd think that a galactic government would have a mass military force at its disposal. Then again, if it did the Resistance wouldn't be as important, so of course that gets ignored so our heroes can take center-stage.
Holdo's plan wasn't solid at all and was doomed to failure. Regardless of Poe's dumb mutiny, which only happened because her dumb refusal to share information, their base on the salt planet was going to be cracked up by the First Order's mini Darth Star laser. The Resistance was basically doomed without ghost Luke showing up at the nick of time.
The Last Jedi has great characters, besides the hacker and Captain Disappointment of course, but the plot just fails everyone who doesn't have force powers.
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Not sharing information with a talkative hothead when you think have a mole about is not dumb.
And the whole point of the base was to wait for them to pass by then leave/wit for help, not make it the new command center. There’s sill the Republic out there, they just didn’t bother sending any help when the resistance sent out calls. They probably think they can negotiate with the First Order.
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Not sharing information with a talkative hothead when you think have a mole about is not dumb.
And the whole point of the base was to wait for them to pass by then leave/wit for help, not make it the new command center. There’s sill the Republic out there, they just didn’t bother sending any help when the resistance sent out calls. They probably think they can negotiate with the First Order.
My problem isn't Holdo motivations for withholding that information. It's the fact the entire conflict could be solved if either Poe or Holdo just talked to one another openly. I hate idiot plots like that because they make both characters in the situation incredibly annoying, and sure, I get that's supposed to Poe's arc but couldn't there have been another way to have him grow up that doesn't involve the characters acting like children that refuse to share a secret.
I know that the base was supposed to be a temporary for the Resistance, but Holdo's plan to get them was bound to get a bunch of people killed despite the hacker revealing to the First Order their plan, because they would have still have been shoot at in defenseless transports when they left the command ship. And any survivors would have still been put under siege by the First Order which has a bunch of weapons to destroy that base. Now of course, Holdo didn't know about the mini Death Star cannon to be fair, but her plan is still terrible. Honestly, I think I would have been ok with the entire plot if Poe straight up told Holdo about the tracker, and Holdo straight up told Poe about the crappy plan. If he goes mutineer because he thinks the plan is terrible and his find a hacker in Canto Bint scheme is better than I think the mutiny would have been palatable for me. At least then Holdo doesn't look useless and Poe's mutiny is less defensible.
Why? Why would the New Republic remnants think that the genocidal Space Nazis can be negotiated with? You're just guessing their motivations because the film doesn't give us an answer. If the plot explained the entire New Republic fleetyards were destroyed by Starkiller base than fine that's a reasonable explanation, if still shooty, but they don't even do that. The First Order just suddenly starts taking over the galaxy, with nobody but the Resistance responding. Why are the politics and military logistics of these films so irrelevant?
I should probably stop thinking about these kinds of things shouldn't I? Star Wars isn't A Song of Ice and Fire where the politics of the setting actually matter. Everything is character-focused to the point that plot and setting only exists to serve the characters arc, regardless of whether it actually makes sense. I think that I just have to learn to be fine with that.
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I know that the base was supposed to be a temporary for the Resistance, but Holdo's plan to get them was bound to get a bunch of people killed despite the hacker revealing to the First Order their plan, because they would have still have been shoot at in defenseless transports when they left the command ship.No they wouldn't, because they didn't know about them, and even when they did they couldn't lock on to something that small, they had fire at will to hit anything. They had to fire randomly and that worked because they had a s&#* ton of guns to fire randomly. No hacker revealing fleeing ships, no fleeing ships getting blasted.
Why? Why would the New Republic remnants think that the genocidal Space Nazis can be negotiated with? You're just guessing their motivations because the film doesn't give us an answer.
Which is exactly why I said probably. And I say probably because it's been done before, in fiction and real life.
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Not sharing information with a talkative hothead when you think have a mole about is not dumb.
Not cluing in a valued (even with his many very real and genuine flaws) subordinate when you know he's the kind of idiot to cowboy up and try to fix things on his own in the absence of orders is.... really dirt-poor command doctrine- especially since the "talkative hothead" has not actually been shown to be particularly loose-lipped with information.
Moreover... by not extending him the level of trust he enjoyed- even when being demoted by Leia- you are going to make him suspicious of your motives- to what end, it's hard to say.
Poe actually took his browbeating fairly well, it was getting the mushroom treatment that led to him trying to "fix" things.
Ironically, Leia actually summed it up pretty well, since her condemnation of the bomber run applies equally well to the Resistance's botched retreat- plenty of dead heroes, no leaders.
Not only does Holdo not gain Poe's trust- we're really not shown any indication that she's even trying, which is a massive failing in the script- Holdo needs to be reasonable if we're going to actually buy the argument that she's so much more mature. Leia being in a coma for most of that conflict is all that salvages her own claims to leadership, and she responds quite forcefully to Poe's actions in a wholly appropriate manner. If Holdo wasn't going to clue Poe in, then she needed to step on him even harder than she did- an almost wholly hands-off, "You get nothing" is a disastrous approach to take with a potentially insubordinate junior officer, particularly a charismatic one with a lot of pull in the lower ranks. You need to either bring him in or isolate him immediately.
This all ignores the fact that the Resistance's plan really is incredibly stupid, because, assuming they HAD gotten to their old hold-out world undetected somehow (which entailed losing all of the capital ships) their entire plan was contingent upon getting allies who are apparently not actively in the fight to show up and pull their fat out of the fire- and if THAT'S the plan, and we're talking about multiple potential allies (as the script indicates) then scattering the fleet would have been a much smarter solution, with each larger vessel going to a destination selected from known allies or safe-houses, but not shared among the fleet.
And the whole point of the base was to wait for them to pass by then leave/wit for help, not make it the new command center. There’s sill the Republic out there, they just didn’t bother sending any help when the resistance sent out calls. They probably think they can negotiate with the First Order.
See.... the issue here is, it makes the Republic INCREDIBLY dumb- those guys who just blew up your entire center of government without so much as an ultimatum to surrender have made it plain that they're not all that keen on talking.
Moreover, as I recall, the title crawl pretty much stated that the Republic was gone. Kaput. Finito. I may be in error on this point, but I don;t recall even the barest mention of, "try to link up with what's left of the Republic Navy."
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Him being charismatic and having a lot of pull with the lower ranks is precisely why Holdo didn't come down harder, that would have ended poorly. And true he might have not have gone talking about a mole, but he also might have also gone hunting for one, that also would have ended badly. There's plenty of valid reasons for why she didn't tell him her plan.
I don't see how splitting up there 3? ships would have been viable, since they had the entirety of the First Order after them, especially again when they didn't know how they were tracking them. As for waiting for an evac after it's deemed safe, that's a common strategy.
Yeah, that would be dumb on the Republic's part, didn't mean to imply otherwise, doesn't mean it's outside the realm of possiblity of them trying to do so either.
I am thoroughly amused by Star Wars fan who obsess over everything Star Wars to the point they can’t enjoy Star Wars anymore.I don't think that's whats happening here. At least not en masse
The force awakens: Critics 93% audience 88%
Rogue 1 Critics 85 Audience 87
Last Jedi Critics 91. Audience....51.
A FOURTY point difference. Its not like internet nerd rage was invented in the last 2 years.
While individual fanboys who will say WHAT!? That light saber is the wrong color. Ruined forever! Or "expanded universe? Give me thrawn or bust!" exist, they don't amount to much more than a few percent. Enough geeks to make a fourty percent difference on rotten tomatoes? No. Thats not fans nerd raging themselves out of enjoying a good movie. That's a movie with serious issues.
Last Jedi is getting panned HARD by fans. It looks great. The acting is great given the material, but fans keep bringing up the same points that I had: enormous plot holes, subverting star wars JUST to subvert it without replacing it with anything else, and not making any internal sense in the process.
When I look at the movie, figure out everything wrong with it, and then see the internet saying the exact same thing, point for point on the big issues I have to say it's NOT me. This is a franchise I love that made a terrible movie that's going to make making movies after it much, much harder.
It's not that fans can't enjoy star wars. It's that this isn't star wars.
people said the same thing about jedi and ewoks(original rotj) and issues with changing the ending(new rotj)
We still got star wars stuff.
Can not please everyone.
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It's kinda funny, I have watched the Force Awakens about 10 times, and my reaction is always the same. I love the visuals, enjoyed the rapport between Finn and Poe, laugh that Greg Gunberg is in it..(every time I see him the same line pops into my head..what am I thinking now Parkman?"), somewhat irritated at the close plot match for a new hope but lastly really frustrated at this vague feeling its missing something the original trilogy had.
So for two years I ascribed it to JJ Abrams screwing around with editting, and it would have been a more complete movie with a directors cut etc. Ultimately, I said well, hopefully the Last Jedi is better and feel like this is going to be the case because all the rumour mill stuff pre-release is good, and I disregard Mark Hammil questioning the directors vision, afterall he went along and everyone saying its the best performance Mark has done etc.
And then Ryan gets his 3 film deal and I am thinking awesome, he must have really hit it out of the park.
And then the official critic reviews are glowing. So going into opening weekend saying great, this is going to kick Abrams butt and show what a true star wars film should be.
But then, early audience reviews come out and about 50% hate it. I am saying what the hell? Even my friends are divided. So I go into it forewarned ..
Ultimately, it was fine for a 2.5 hour afternoon space opera flick, but it did not wash away my force awakens distaste. It added to it. I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that there is no clear plan here.
What I feel like here is exactly like watching the hobbit movies..hoping the second or third movies make up for the sub par first but problems persist and amplify. They are pale shadows of the LOTR.
Out of the 3 Disney Star Wars movies, I like Rogue One the best. I really didn't expect that to be the case 3 years ago.
i met grunberg at a convention the year tfa came out. He was an unscheduled guest. I shook his hand and thanked him for his work as parkman. He leaned over to us and said "Im going to be in a movie later on this year. Cant talk about it, but Im sure you'll see it." I thanked him again, and told him I would keep my eyes peeled. I had little faith I would see him, but didnt wish to insult him.
When he came on the screen, I shrieked in the theater- "I MET THAT GUY!"
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i met grunberg at a convention the year tfa came out. He was an unscheduled guest. I shook his hand and thanked him for his work as parkman. He leaned over to us and said "Im going to be in a movie later on this year. Cant talk about it, but Im sure you'll see it." I thanked him again, and told him I would keep my eyes peeled. I had little faith I would see him, but didnt wish to insult him.When he came on the screen, I shrieked in the theater- "I MET THAT GUY!"
Interestingly enough, he's playing a character introduced in the Chuck Wendig series of new canon books Temmin Wexley. The books really aren't all that great imho but they are Star Wars, and they do add a little lore to the new trilogy.
BTW, I've been a SW fanatic (Read just about every EU book, own the WEG SWRPG, own all the d20 SWRPG etc) for as long as I can remember and I loved TLJ. Rotten Tomatoes (and this fairly entitled thread as well) be damned.
There's only one person on this forum who's fanaticism for SW I feel outshines my own and that is our Dear Baron Arem Heshvaun. If it was good enough for him its good enough for me.
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The story was good. It was actually great.
No.
Not my feelings no, not my opinion no. Not no from a certain point of view. As much as anything can be a bad story on an objective level this is a bad story.
It wasn’t subverted with “nothing”, failure isn’t “nothing”, tragedy isn’t “nothing”. The democratisation of the Force isn’t “nothing”, Luke accepting his failures as a Jedi isn’t “nothing”.
Yes. They are nothing.
Telling people the right thing to do should have ended in failure (or a bigger failure when victory is impossible) is silly.
And thats the problem with every single storyline in this movie. The characters actions do not meaningfully contribute or change the outcomes to match the message that the omnicient all powerful story tellers is trying to convey. The omnicient and all powereful narator sets the message that they want to convey.
That isn't their job. The CHARACTERS are supposed to do that.
The lesson Poe is supposed to learn is explicitly in the movie
Thats the PROBLEM. Its explicitly said but never actually shown.
Every lesson explicitly told to a character is completely subverted by the actual events, or only pulled off from a dues ex machina.
Poe: Don't be a hotshot flyboy. Except that being a hotshot flyoboy who disobeys orders WORKED. Spectacularly. He took out the deadnaught. The deadnaught would have been a bigger problem than the Y wings they lost to get it. His pulling his troops back at the end only worked because Luke showed up. Otherwise it would also have gotten people killed.
How they could have made this work: Have the Y wings get flanked by tie fighters hiding under the cruiser and taken out before they can blow up the dreadnaught.
Leia: "I'm in this fancy command center looking at the battle you're in the cockpit looking at a fight i told you to get your *## out of there for a reason"
Salt planet battle: have the fighters keep running into each other. Poe swaps the fighters seat for the admirals chair and coordinates the battle, the troops start doing better. Not neccesarily good enough to win but better.
Luke: I'm just going to change how the force works in my explanation.
How this could have worked. Its time for the jedi to end. Individuals with the force hold too much power, I'm going to go to the first temple and go on a hippy vision quest to free the force. We will all be jedi, or none of us will be.
Fin: Win by saving what you love not killing what you hate. .. as long as you love a main character. They're only saved from a complete slaughter from rose's actions by Luke.
How this could have worked: One of the people you save comes in handy later? Or there's a reasonable level of expectation of the people surviving if you don't win the fight.
(it’s so weird how people cherry pick).
Not remotely whats happening here. Please limit your criticism to my points, the movie,
Poe is the reason Vice Admiral Holdo’s plan didn’t work.
Poe is supposed to learn how to lead. How to operate as a part of a team. He was deliberately positioned to make the audience side with him, but he was wrong. That’s not muddled, that’s not a problem with the movie.
When does poe actually lead anything beyond calling a retreat that would have gotten everyone killed except for luke showing up?
The First Order didn’t even suspect cloaking (until Poe messed up and broadcasted it to his friends on the enemy ship).
And this is where i keep telling you it breaks suspension of disbelief that this was the plan when
The order knows that ship cloaking is a thing.
They explicitly have scans for cloaked ships.
They have tie fighters that can just peek out the window and wave.
Why would the order NOT scan for cloaked ships? Okay, the weasley brother might be an idiot, but snoke isn't.
Because the very fabric of the universe has to try to make poe out to be wrong. And that is bad. Bad writing. It is trying to hard to make your point.
[/spoiler]
But he realizes daring-do is no solution here. That you can’t save the galaxy with a brave last stand, you need to keep the spark of rebellion alive. He doesn’t know how yet, but he has faith there is another answer.
And yet the leadership lesson he was supposed to learn is LESS effective than his flyboy routine. So.... why learn it?
people said the same thing about jedi and ewoks(original rotj) and issues with changing the ending(new rotj)
We still got star wars stuff.
Can not please everyone.
Its not that the movie was so bad it will make making movies harder (its not that bad, and it made money)
its that it took plotlines and crashed them into a wall. THAT will make making movies after this harder. Its a trilogy, its supposed to be building on each other, not one step forward one step back, which is hopefully another step forward.
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Who isn't tied to some famous bloodline. It's not like such characters didn't exist before - practically all the Jedi (or other Force sensitives) we've ever seen outside the Skywalkers don't have special family connections.
So then democratization of the force isn't something the characters are doing, which is one of my points.
The characters are supposed to DO things that move the plot. A shift in narative focus isn't something you watch for its own sake.
The other is that it's disjointed. The kids are not working together to build their sand castle.(and the director tried making three seperate sand castles here to boot) Rey being no one from nowhere would have worked if that's what they'd been going for in the beginning, but they set up too many things in the first movie that hinted at something else for the un reveal to not be jarring. (and the expected "He was lying" or "he didn't know in IX to be a bit zig zaggy)
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Yeah...my OPINION is that TLJ is a good movie. BNW, your OPINION is that it isn't.
Stating an opinion is an OBJECTIVE PROOF, is not how reality works (no matter how much people in 2017 tried to make it that way).
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Story. Not movie. Big difference.
There is an actual disconnect or disassociation between the themes it's trying to show and what actually happens. That is real, it is objective, it doesn't go away because people shout is not.
You can absolutely like or love the movie in spite of that, but it is there.