Poe's entire character arc was a deconstruction of the "hot headed fly boy who is technically a grunt solider but becuase he's cool he gets to yell at his bosses, defy orders, and swoop in to save the day" Rian took that character and said "what would really happen would be a ton of casualties and a boss that didn't trust him."
I liked both TFA and TLJ, but RJ's takedown of so many parts of TFA will always bother me a little bit and I'm really interested in how it all works together when the third movie is finished.
I usually like to keep my science out of my Star Wars, but I don't think that really answers that. If the ships are at their "top" speed, they don't need any more fuel to keep going straight in space at that top speed indefinitely. There's no air/atmospheric friction to slow them down, so they maintain their speed until something stops them, even if their engines are dead. The only way the running out of fuel problems exists is if they are continually speeding up and need the fuel to add on to their speed to stay ahead of the speeding up First Order ships or if they're trying to slow down/stop or change directions. All that said, anyone looking for accurate physics in a Star Wars movie are looking in the wrong place.
Poe is a hero you're building a plot around. It's one thing to teach him the first lesson at the beginning of the movie. I liked that part and thought it was interesting. It's another to make that character look like an idiot and an asshole. IMO, the Holdo/Poe stuff made Poe look like an idiot and an asshole. I don't believe they needed to do that in order to get him where they wanted him to go. We can disagree on that. My response in the previous post was more about the idea that there's no reason to take issue with that story.
What takedown though? JJ set up a good reboot movie with TFA. On the surface it was a good movie, but it was hollow. None of the characters had any depth at all. Rey's an orphan scavenger, Poe is an ace pilot, Finn is an ex-stormtrooper, the FO looks like the Empire, but without any of the goals or structure, the Resistance is, well, wtf is the Resistance? In the last two years, we as fans have tried to theorize things to fill in the hollow backgrounds. Rian came in sideways on most of those theories. He didn't take down anything, he actually gave depth to a lot of it.
Oh I didn't realize you were talking about infinite momentum in space. Yeah that's a thing that's unrealistic in any 99% sci-fi and space-fantasy movies. Can't do anything about it there
it's not necessarily a bad thing in the long run. like I said I'm interested to see how the entire story fits together, but you have to see how the two movies are almost in conflict with one another rather than a single story told in three parts. maybe the characters JJ created were hollow and they needed more depth, but the depth RJ gave them in some cases seemed opposite to the direction JJ had them going. just a few examples - Snoke is set up to be the big bad - RJ kills him without much drama Kylo is obsessed with Vader - RJ makes fun of it and then literally has Kylo smash the helmet and leave it behind Poe is the ace pilot who always finds a way to get the job done - RJ has him fail pretty miserably and get put in check
I think this could have been explained away somehow... Say, the fuel is needed for full shields or something. The ships are out of harm's way at their current distance assuming full power to shields; once those go down, the ships are vulnerable to ranged fire. Something like that. Instead, it's just a bit of a stretch to have them just lose momentum, even in a Star Wars movie.
This is the ninth Star Wars movie. Other than the Death Star, I don't ever recall seeing a spacecraft in motion without lit engines. This is one of the things where you should just deal with it (and I say this as, I believe, the first objector ITT to the premise of the Bronco chase).
In reverse order: 3. Gonna take major issue with your third point. Poe is still an ace pilot. He showed it in the opening of the movie. Rian just took his strength away when Kylo personally blew up his ship. He forced Poe to operate outside his comfort zone. 2. Kylo growing from obsessed with Vader to trying to be his own man is good character development. In fact... 1. ...in becoming his own man Kylo does what Vader couldn't. He kills his master and takes his place as ruler. I don't know how you can say it was "without drama" when the whole point of Snoke getting offed was that KYLO did it, not Rey (the hero). The bad guy killed the other bad guy so he could grow into an even bigger bad guy. That IS drama.
I never said he didn't develop the characters. I said he took them in a direction opposite of where JJ seemed to be going.
you said Snoke was killed without drama and Ben was Vader obsessed in TFA but not in TLJ. But that's not true. Ben was still Vader obsessed at the START of TLJ but when Snoke embarrassed him and mocked his mask he trashed it and set out to become his own man. That's a character arc. It ended with him killing Snoke, which means Snoke's death HAD drama, just not one that centered on him (Snoke). It centered on the two charcters at the heart of this trilogy, Ben and Rey.
it's exhausting to have to be prepared to defend even the slightest criticism with 500 words of back and forth. when I said snoke was killed without drama I didn't mean in the scene. I meant Snoke was built up to be a big character in TFA and he was just disposed of with nothing further. there was no explanation of his character, no repercussions. and Kylo was obsessed with becoming the next Vader. then he went in the opposite direction and put Vader behind him. basically all I'm saying is if JJ made the second movie or RJ made the first they would have both been very different. that seems strange to me for a trilogy. I can't think of another like it.
fair enough I would point out that only one of the three SW trilogies were made with a big picture beginning, middle and end in mind. That one was the prequels and even then all George knew when he sat down to write the PT outline in 1995-1997 or so was that Palpy rose through manipulation of a weak and corrupt bureaucracy and Anakin fell to the darkside and became Vader, killing the Jedi in the process. He basically only had the second half of Episode III. He didn't have Jar Jar, Qui Gon, Boba Fett cosplayers as the clone army, Darth Sideous (as an alter ego of Palps), Anakin being part of some prophesy, born on Tattooine, and so many other things that fleshed out the trilogy and informed the major plot beats. He wrote each one as he went, with the endgame of the second half of Ep3 in his head. The OT was written on the fly. The fact that ANH and ESB seem to flow naturally into one another in ways TLJ doesnt from TFA is probably due to Lucas being the final decision maker on his own script for ANH and Brackett/Kasdan's scripts for ESB (Brackett did the first draft, Kasdan finished it). After that, wrapping up the cliffhangers of ESB in ROTJ naturally made it feel like a smooth continuation. Let's see how EP9 is. Being done by JJ, who sat down with Kasdan and worked with him on where they thought the series would end up (Rian was given the freedom to do his own thing) means he'll take his original ideas and combine them with what RIan did, making a conclusion that will probably fit both movies together a lot more than they appear right now. It's not a movie series, but look at a show like Breaking Bad. You can watch it from beginning to end and be blown away by the arc they tell with Walt and Hank and with the overall story and how it wraps up so perfectly. And yet it was written totally on the fly. It's more common to do it that way than to have every tiny detail worked out. Case in point: The one thing that WAS set in stone was that TFA would be Han's movie, TLJ would be Luke's movie and EP9 would be Leia's movie. Instead she died and with it the plan to have her character be a key part in where Kylo's story ends up (that's what came out of Lucasfilm after she died). It's better NOT to set too much in stone for the future, because "always in motion is the future." (sorry I wrote 500 words)
I get all of this take. I thought it was great character growth by RJ We saw Poe grow as a leader, which is important to the decimated Resistance. We saw Kylo become the supreme leader reaching a position of power Vader never did. Remember Rey’s line in TFA, “you’ll Never be as strong as Darth Vader”. Kylo went beyond Vader, and his storyline is what I find most interesting going forward. It’s ballsy all the way around and I loved it.
Alright alright alright hear me out, it's crazy but it just might work as an anthology movie, especially since this is Disney now. Luke became one with the force. He disappears and his robe falls to the ground. (Disney voice over guy) THIS CHRISTMAS... (Tim Allen approaches Luke's robe) TIM ALLEN STARS IN... ("put on the suit dad") THE JEDI CLAUSE!
I've been thinking about the light, the dark, the Jedi and the Sith. This is going to be a long, rambling thought dump. Spoiler So, we learn in TLJ that "darkness rises and light to meet it" and there is a balance of power, powerful light/powerful dark. Rey is able to seemingly grow so powerful, so quickly without any training because she is chosen by the Force to meet the power of Kylo and Snoke and Luke has cut himself off from the Force. This is the same situation with Luke. The Force chooses Luke to rise up against the power of Vader and Sidious. As Obi Wan and later Yoda pass on, Luke becomes more and more powerful in the Force. We'll see how it plays out, but before Luke, Kanan and Ezra are help balance the Light. On the Dark side, the Sith Lords have always been very powerful. Darth Bane set that up. With only two, not only is there no infighting among the Sith, the power balance is greater. Those two must be quite powerful to balance out the scales against so many thousands of Jedi. But to conquer the entire galaxy AND destroy the Jedi they must stay in hiding and continue to build their power. Think about how powerful Sidious had to be to mask his presence to the entire Jedi Order! But, Sidious and his pupils were not the only Dark Side users. Mother Talzen and the Nightsisters were quite powerful. So powerful that Sidious feared the power that Mother Talzen wielded and sent the droid army to Dathomir. After the death of Mother Talzen and the Nightsisters came the death of Savage Opress and the defeat of Maul, and finally Dooku. The Force needed to balance itself and so Sidious became even more powerful, powerful enough to finally lead the Sith move on the galaxy. Now, after Order 66 and Yoda and Obi Wan' s failed attempts to kill Sidious and Vader, you would think that Yoda and Obi would rise to be equally powerful in the Light Side and be able to challenge Vader/Sidious. Well, maybe they did but they were isolated in exile. They maybe did not know they were that much more powerful, or maybe they kinda did but didn't think that it was enough to be able to retake the galaxy. It could be that there is just such a huge wound in the Force that it takes a while for it to heal/correct/balance itself. Now we have the New Republic era and we don't have a lot of info on these years. We do know that Sidious felt something powerful in the Force coming from the Unknown Regions and many assume this is Snoke since the Imperial remnants fled there and then Snoke and the First Order came out of there. So, Jedi Master Luke is in our galaxy far far away, all kinds of powerful in the Light side, then Snoke is balancing him on the Dark side. Luke starts his Jedi Academy and now we have a few more on the Light Side. Snoke gains some power, Luke loses a little but it's balanced by his pupils. Snoke uses his power to turn Ben Solo to the Dark side, essentially sacrificing some of his power to recruit an apprentice. Ben wipes out the Jedi Academy and we have another wound in the Force that takes a little bit to correct. Finally we see the rise of Rey. I can't believe you read all of that.
My own long, rambling thought dump..... Spoiler To add to what Artoo wrote, It is almost like the setup in the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra universe. There is a constant discussion of balance and restoring balance within this universe. With Avatar, it is the embodiment of the Avatar in a single individual which is designated to keep the balance despite the constant pull of entities to pull everything out of balance. The second season of Korra had a two-part episode that hit this theme home. (Beginnings 1/2). It shows that there is a light and dark spirit who fight constantly with a big battle happening every 10k years. It is said that neither can ultimately defeat the other because once the other gets "too strong" then the opposite regains strength to pull it back towards the center. I always thought that TLA/LOK was very star wars esque with its themes but after seeing TLJ, it really hit home. You can't have one without the other and therefore, neither can wipe out the other totally. It brings lots of questions up to both the original and prequel trilogies. What if the "chosen one" was designed to go from light to dark back to light to achieve the balance in the force? What if under normal circumstances, it was virtually impossible to pass back over once one made the first transition. When you see Anakin initially, clearly the light side has a lot of the power but his betrayal "leveled" the playing field. However, his return to the light helped resurrect the light in ROTJ. His bloodline through Luke, basically allowed the same process to take place but instead of his own transition, he allowed the dark to come back through Ben Solo. Now, we're seeing it branch off to others outside of the "royal" but the concept remains the same, the force is trying to balance itself.
Not a long thought, but something vague I’d like to see in nine: Neither Rey or Ben dies - instead they both survive because to have balance in the force, you need the good and evil.
WHY DID LUKE SKYWALKER USE A BLUE LIGHTSABER IN STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI? Spoiler Star Wars: The Last Jedi has encouraged plenty of discussion and debate among fans since it debuted in December, and while there are some aspects of filmmaker Rian Johnson's narrative that remain open for interpretation -- at least until Episode 9 is released -- there's one burning question that keeps coming up regarding Luke Skywalker's spectacularly snarky showdown with Kylo Ren at the film's climax. Many viewers have questioned why Luke chose to use his father Anakin's blue lightsaber -- which was shattered in Kylo Ren's fight with Rey just a few scenes earlier -- in his confrontation with his nephew. After all, shouldn't that have been an immediate clue to Kylo (and the audience) that Luke wasn't really there? IGN had the opportunity to discuss the film with Johnson recently, and we couldn't resist posing the question to the writer-director himself. Naturally, the architect of The Last Jedi -- and a brand new Star Wars trilogy -- had a perfectly sensible answer that should put the debate to rest. "[Luke] is basically tailoring this projection to have maximum effect on Kylo," Johnson explained. "He knows that Kylo’s Achilles heel is his rage, and so that’s why he kind of makes himself look younger, the way Kylo would’ve last seen him in their confrontation at the temple, and that’s why he decided to bring Kylo’s grandfather’s lightsaber down there -- the lightsaber that Kylo screamed at Rey, ‘that’s mine, that belongs to me.’" As far as Johnson's concerned, Luke believes that Anakin's lightsaber will have a much more visceral impact on the erstwhile Ben Solo than Luke's own green blade. But why did Kylo fall for his uncle's Force Illusion when he saw Anakin's lightsaber split in half right in front of him? Because, Johnson pointed out, he didn't actually see it. "We as an audience saw that... The truth is, we see the lightsaber split in half -- Kylo sees a blinding flash of light and is knocked unconscious, and then Rey takes the lightsaber away before he wakes up," he said. "So if you really want to dig into it and get an explanation, you can say that he doesn’t 100 percent know what happened to the lightsaber." Fair point, Johnson -- you win this round.
And most of the others fall under the "It's fucking Star Wars, man" category. If you start picking away at little shit in every single one of these movies, yes even the untouchable cinematic masterpiece ESB, you come away with more questions and a lot of plot holes
Agreed, here when it's dumb things like "How did they get from one planet to the next so fast?" -they had spaceships. They're the people who can't watch James bond films from the 60s and 70s without stopping to ask why he's doing what he's doing.
Do any of you have a link to just the new canon Star Wars books? The librarian at my school wants to order them all to read and for the students at school.
Sitting down for the 3rd viewing in the theater because the wife hasn’t seen it yet. Already dreading the casino scene.
One of the funny things about it though is when the little dude puts all those coins in BB8, you can hear them clanging around inside when he is rolling around shortly after that scene.
Super jealous of these folks who work on these projects. One of my coworkers also does work with Marvel, he says he may have some beans to spill re: Infinity War but I don't want him to. Still, living the lives of Star Wars/Lucasfilm/whatever employees has to be pretty awesome.
I just saw The Last Jedi last night. I'm not deep into the Star Wars universe. My thoughts were that every plot line that didn't revolve around Luke/Rey or Kylo/Snoke sucked ass. Special shout out to Rose, who was poorly written and wholly unnecessary. Thank you for your time.