Jump to content

The Last Jedi (spoilers): Only a Sith deals in plot holes


Kalbear

Recommended Posts

14 minutes ago, Davrum said:

...

In A New Hope Obi-wan confirms to Luke that the Force may "partially" control a person's actions, which is obviously open to interpretation. Unfortunately some writer or other may interpret that as if the Force has a will of its own.

I have a sneaky feeling there is some Wheel of Time diffusing into the thinking of the current set of writers. With giving in to the flow of the Force as a viable way to use it, in addition to the more traditional control.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Seli said:

I have a sneaky feeling there is some Wheel of Time diffusing into the thinking of the current set of writers. With giving in to the flow of the Force as a viable way to use it, in addition to the more traditional control.

Sure, and there are some fans who will like that angle - particularly the more religiously-inclined - but for me it weakens the storyteller's ability to create drama off the back of any given character's agency.

 

This, at least, is one of the legitimately BS complaints about the movie. Holdo is Dameron's superior officer, by about 6 rank tiers. It's his job to sit down, shut up and listen to her and not throw a massive strop and mutiny against her for no reason. She certainly has no responsibility to tell him her plans any more than Stormin' Norman should have personally briefed every tank commander on what route they were taking into Iraq in 1991 and the reasons for it. It's the chain of command. The more implausible thing is that she didn't summarily execute Dameron on the spot and made a cute joke about it afterwards.

HA! It is so funny when she treats Poe - this guy who just pulled a MUTINY on her during one of the most dire, life-and-death situations imaginable for a starship captain - as a misbehaving puppy.

To be fair though, every tank commander is briefed on their routes before any mission, just as every naval aviator is briefed on where their aircraft carrier is headed and why. Holdo may have had a solid reason for Holdo-ing her cards close to her chest, but the film did a sloppy job of dramatizing that reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

I had to google MRA ( in my line of work it stands for Marketing and Regulatory Approval ) but that I am not. Christ. 



To clarify, I don't think you're an MRA dude but I do think you have some of the same kinda perceptions that lead people who are bigger dicks than you to being MRA, or at the very least a casual mysoginist. Which is part of why a lot of us find some of the things you say problematic. Because you might not personally be a dick to women in your life, but when views like that are wider we get the lack of female role models in certain places that we've had.
Which also leads to the pushback we're currently seeing which, no, isn't always handled entirely fumble-free. Unlike I guess you I have no problem with what Disney are attempting to do here but it's something that's been done a lot more elegantly in, for example, Mad Max.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

No, he didn't. Rey got more on-screen kills and Ren was defeated and about to be killed before Rey stepped in and saved him from the last of the praetorian guards.

This, at least, is one of the legitimately BS complaints about the movie. Holdo is Dameron's superior officer, by about 6 rank tiers. It's his job to sit down, shut up and listen to her and not throw a massive strop and mutiny against her for no reason. She certainly has no responsibility to tell him her plans any more than Stormin' Norman should have personally briefed every tank commander on what route they were taking into Iraq in 1991 and the reasons for it. It's the chain of command. The more implausible thing is that she didn't summarily execute Dameron on the spot and made a cute joke about it afterwards.

I’m just back from a second viewing and have to say this doesn’t really seem accurate. I’m not going to say I counted how many kills each made because I don’t think that is important, but they quite clearly work collaboratively to take down a few at first before taking off on their own. And I don’t think it safe to assume Ren was about to be defeated, he wasn’t exactly moments from death, there was still plenty of chance he could have got out of the situation himself. But because he and Rey were working together he accepted her assistance. 

Also want to say Ben’s fighting in that scene seems much more skilful and he seems to get the more difficult fight, with the Praetorian’s mobbing him all at once as opposed to Rey dealing with them more on a one to one basis (and taking her share of injuries that Ben does not, I might add).

 

I liked it more on a second viewing fwiw

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How would events have played out differently in TLJ if TFA had ended with Rey reaching the top of the island and finding - nothing? No sign of Luke anywhere. So she spends a day or so searching, finds the old Jedi books, maybe takes a look down the dark side hole, then heads off to meet with Ren. Then at the end of the flim, the First Order are somewhat closer behind the few surviving rebels as they follow the fox things to the exit, without Luke to delay them by a couple of minutes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Davrum said:

Sure, and there are some fans who will like that angle - particularly the more religiously-inclined - but for me it weakens the storyteller's ability to create drama off the back of any given character's agency.

 

HA! It is so funny when she treats Poe - this guy who just pulled a MUTINY on her during one of the most dire, life-and-death situations imaginable for a starship captain - as a misbehaving puppy.

To be fair though, every tank commander is briefed on their routes before any mission, just as every naval aviator is briefed on where their aircraft carrier is headed and why. Holdo may have had a solid reason for Holdo-ing her cards close to her chest, but the film did a sloppy job of dramatizing that reason.

Well literally hours before Holdo takes charge Poe had just disobeyed orders and acted impulsively and heroically rather than considering the bigger picture and trying to conserve their meagre forces so I don’t think it wrong or surprising Holdo didn’t tell him. I didn’t really need any more dramatising of it, it was made clear enough in their first interaction for me, but ymmv 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I definitely found it okay that at the initial point, where he's trying to get her to tell him what the plan is privately, she refused to say anything. Makes sense given the above. At the point where he's calling her out for letting the fleet be whittled away one by one, and not indicating there's some kind of a plan, I think he was clearly echoing concerns of not just himself but all the people who joined him in the mutiny, and doubtless many more besides, and with good reason.

The whole story would have worked a lot better with a traitor having a tracking beacon, honestly. Holdo's caginess would have made more sense, and the end result would have been the same. Also, Finn and Rose could have stayed with the fleet, hunting a traitor, rather than riding space-horses.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One last post, following on from my second viewing, but on Rey’s parentage...

The point seems to be that she lied to/deceived herself her whole life, clinging on to the optimism that let her believe they were coming back, really they did love her. An understandable enough coping mechanism to attempt to deal with her shitty life of servitude; nobody wants to believe their parents cared so little for them they could sell them into servitude. Deep down Rey always knew they were not coming back for her, that she was the lonely abandoned child. But denying that kept her hope and optimism and goodness alive. Which is why, I think, Ben tells her that seeing who her parents were he knew she would turn - because once she stops deceiving herself, he believes she will give in to anger, resentment etc. and embrace the dark. 

Also that whole Throne Room scene was just so so so good I could watch it over and over again

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 29-12-2017 at 11:28 PM, Kalbear said:

Yeah, I think that TLJ is significantly more feminist in its message, in the character focus and egalitarian in design, and as a result those who were slightly triggered by TFA are absolutely outraged by TLJ. 

Again, my thesis is this: many people out there are bothered by the implicit power unbalance they see between men and women in this movie, specifically how the women are largely all correct and in charge, and the men keep fucking up. They don't like this. They don't like seeing men not in charge, or men being shown to be wrong, or men failing.

 

 

Makes sense, especially when in contrast to the women, the men in this film are so inferior.

And that is what really riles people up, because that is not what they wanted to see in their new Star Wars epic.

You have to understand that many people just want to see a great Star Wars film and they certainly do not want it to be infested with real world ideologies and politicism. To a small extent it is ok and not that noticeable, but Last Jedi is a sledgehammer. A somewhat feminist film in Force Awakens with Rey being the female lead to replace Luke and Anakin is deemed palatable. A film in which the men are either cowards, idiots, weaklings or mostly wrong in contrast to the women who are efficient , largely free of fault, wise, and in charge does not go down well with audiences. Shock horror, what a surprise!

The complaints are not because the societal standard is that they are used to seeing men being succesful and correct all the time in my opinion. It's that these men have been made so far below that. I really like Kylo, but that is it. They have disappointed everyone and their grandmother with this deeply odious portrayal of Luke, who seems to spend the film gloomily whimpering. Poe is rash and wrong, should not have doubted his female superiors who kept him in the dark unnecessarily,  Finn needs a female handler to give courage and guide him, Snoke was never a character to begin with and......... that's it, there's not even another male character to reference.

I am not at all surprised that so many people are really irritated by that. And I say that as someone who enjoyed most of the film despite this treatment of the male characters, I'm going to see it again this week because it's still a great Sci fi spectacle. And the Kylo Ren character works for me. This film has a great deal of nice individual scenes and I really dig the interplay between Rey and Kylo. The telepathic communication across the galaxy between Luke and Leia actually gave me goosebumps, how often do you get that in the cinema?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

Poe is rash and wrong, should not have doubted his female superiors who kept him in the dark unnecessarily,  Finn needs a female handler to give courage and guide him, Snoke was never a character to begin with and......... that's it, there's not even another male character to reference.

I am not at all surprised that so many people are really irritated by that.



Welcome to the Reverse Bechdel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Welcome to the Reverse Bechdel.

*LOL* it actually comes closer to failing the regular Bechdel than the Reverse Bechdel. Rey gets a brief conversation with Leia at the end; I think Leia and Holdo interact briefly? Does Rose talk to any women? I wouldn't be surprised if you could edit out all the woman-to-woman interactions in the film without damaging the film too badly, which is certainly not the case with man-to-man interactions (Finn and Poe; Finn and DJ; Luke and Ren; Snoke, Ren, and Hux).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, felice said:

*LOL* it actually comes closer to failing the regular Bechdel than the Reverse Bechdel. Rey gets a brief conversation with Leia at the end; I think Leia and Holdo interact briefly? Does Rose talk to any women? I wouldn't be surprised if you could edit out all the woman-to-woman interactions in the film without damaging the film too badly, which is certainly not the case with man-to-man interactions (Finn and Poe; Finn and DJ; Luke and Ren; Snoke, Ren, and Hux).


I was actually gonna say, now that I thought about it- it doesn't pass the Bechdel I don't think and if so, barely. Leia and Holdo interact but they're talking about Poe, I don't recall another time. I don't remember the Rey/Leia conversation so if it passes, that's why.

Eta: but the real point I was trying to make was that the feeling Calindabar is feeling is what women have had to deal with in nearly all fiction for pretty much ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I brought up basically the same arguments when people talked about TFA having plot holes and the like. I think this is more selective memory on your part than anyone else. I'm not saying anything that I didn't say already about TFA and Rey. If anything, TLJ has fewer plot holes and far fewer stupid contrivances than TFA did (Starkiller Base was deeply, deeply stupid). 

I disagree with this thoroughly. TFA has "problems" but each one can be explained away. They even came up with an explanation, as horseshit as it was, for the hyperspace energy beam visible across the galaxy. TLJ has a lot more issues. We do have 2 years of fanwanking experience on TFA though.

 

Quote

 

Later on male members were added ( someone had to bring coffee I guess). You can't tell me that the things they explicitly mention as being important to them, such as the strong female characters, does not shine through in the eventual product, at the expense of others.

 

That's slightly selective. They tried to recruit JJ Abams immediately but it took him a while to commit, and they went after Lawrence Kasdan almost immediately as well. All of the directors they've looked at have been male, and their primary canon consultants are Pablo Hidalgo and Dave Filoni whom were already at Lucasfilm and transferred over. So they may have made a point of bringing in female writers but they had a lot of male input as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

A film in which the men are either cowards, idiots, weaklings or mostly wrong in contrast to the women who are efficient , largely free of fault, wise, and in charge does not go down well with audiences.

Hmmmm, are you sure about that one? I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I have a funny feeling A New Hope went down with audiences pretty well.

That's the film you're talking about, right? That's the film in which both male heroes are heavily flawed when we meet them - Luke constantly beat up or beat down (sand people, cantina, trash compactor monster etc) and having to be rescued, and Han selfish, egotistical and cowardly. Meanwhile the female hero, Leia, is very, very, very much "efficient, largely free of fault, wise and in charge", selflessly leading the fight for a greater cause than herself, utterly fearless for her own personal safety in the face of Darth "Greatest Villain in Cinema History" Vader and then when her unshakable defiance forces Darth "Greatest Villain in Cinema History" Vader to bring in his torture droid she defies that too. 

That's the film in which eventually both Luke and Han have been inspired to fight under The Great Princess Leia, aka The True Hero of Star Wars, for her cause.

 

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Well literally hours before Holdo takes charge Poe had just disobeyed orders and acted impulsively and heroically rather than considering the bigger picture and trying to conserve their meagre forces so I don’t think it wrong or surprising Holdo didn’t tell him. I didn’t really need any more dramatising of it, it was made clear enough in their first interaction for me, but ymmv 

Sure, but Poe wasn't the only one Holdo didn't tell. It's clearly shown others on board shared Poe's entirely reasonable concerns (or none would have joined his attempted mutiny) and yet none of them were told either? As far as the audience knows there's no reason for that to be the case.  Of course it's possible us meganerds can "plot calculus" any number of reasons, but the fact such a reason is never made clear in the film leads to the film-making around that particular dramatic beat being labelled as sloppy.

Also, sure Poe was sanctioned, but it's not like the dude was thrown in irons and chucked in the brig, he was still an active pilot. Everyone on a ship knows where their ship is headed unless there's some specific reason they wouldn't be told.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've given this a fair bit of thought, and what bothers me the most about the new movies is the purposeful vagueness. Sure, it's fine to have mysteries about Rey's origins, or Snoke, or where is Luke and what is he doing, because you know eventually these things will be addressed, and they were in some capacity. But there is so much vagueness about the everything else, and those answers exist, as well, but in other media. Right now I don't really have the energy or enthusiasm to search everything about the Resistance or the First Order, because the films themselves gave me too little to go with. And it's irritating that even some perceived plot holes could have been dealt with a few more lines of dialogue or a bit of visual details.

For example, from a youtube video, I learned that Vice-Admiral Holdo, who commanded the cruiser Ninka was also in charge of the bomber squadron we see in TLJ, and they were on a mission somewhere else when the Starkiller battle took place (because those bombers could have come in handy against that thermal oscillator building). So considering that Poe used up the entire bomber wing, and got all those people killed, it suddenly becomes more understandable why Holdo didn't wish to share the plan with Poe. A few lines of dialogue could have easily revealed this, instead we just get some talk about arrogant flyboys.

I don't know if LucasFilms/Disney are just following a business model, kinda like video games with their DLCs or fucking micro-transactions, and they want you to buy the novels, and the comic books and whatever else to get all the answers you want. Though unlike video games, most people can find this info on wiki pages or youtube videos, so the main investiture is really just time. So it's highly irritating that these movies have so much vagueness about the universe and story they are trying to develop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I’m just back from a second viewing and have to say this doesn’t really seem accurate. I’m not going to say I counted how many kills each made because I don’t think that is important, but they quite clearly work collaboratively to take down a few at first before taking off on their own.

Yeah just rewatched it and had this in mind and...well, I still couldn't keep count of onscreen kills for each.  But, it was clearly pretty even.  Maybe when they both went off on their own Kylo got, like, one more kill than Rey - and did indeed seem to be surrounded at one point whereas Rey never was.  Then, as has been said it was Rey who finished off her portion first and helped out Kylo in the end.  Really don't think Johnson was too worried about counting kills - the point is they worked together and took out the guard virtually in equal measure.

4 hours ago, felice said:

*LOL* it actually comes closer to failing the regular Bechdel than the Reverse Bechdel. Rey gets a brief conversation with Leia at the end; I think Leia and Holdo interact briefly? Does Rose talk to any women?

Yep, the only reason TLJ passes the Bechdel test is the Leia-Holdo goodbye where they both try to tell each other "may the force be with you."  Of course Rey and Leia have the conversation at the end, but it's about Luke.  Wasn't really thinking about it, but I'm fairly sure there's no other female interactions between Rey, Leia, Holdo, Rose and any other women - except maybe Holdo and/or Leia with Commander D'Acy (although I'd argue that doesn't pass the test because who the hell remembers the latter's name?  Had to look it up).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know which film Cal has been watching but it doesn't sound like the one that's in cinemas. You know: the one that has Luke save the entire Resistance by exhibiting enormous Force ability in a critical confrontation involving precisely zero female characters? The one where ten members of the principal cast are male and only five are female, and the majority of the staff including the writer and director, composer, cinematographer, editor, production designer, costume designer, and all ten art directors were male?

It's the tired old thing where any move towards equality, no matter how small, is seen as 'too much'. Nobody's against equality, of course. It's just that any time anybody does anything about it, they have to find a reason why this particular move is going too far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That the movies are noticeably worse than the OT AND seemingly are being used as the vehicle for a political agenda is what people are latching on to. But it’s correlation not causation. 

TLJ is bad because it’s badly written, not because it’s some feminist propaganda. 

And as has been shown above, it’s not really even much in the way of feminist propaganda either, as most of the MRA complaints don’t have a lot of weight 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Davrum said:

Hmmmm, are you sure about that one? I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but I have a funny feeling A New Hope went down with audiences pretty well.

That's the film you're talking about, right? That's the film in which both male heroes are heavily flawed when we meet them - Luke constantly beat up or beat down (sand people, cantina, trash compactor monster etc) and having to be rescued, and Han selfish, egotistical and cowardly. Meanwhile the female hero, Leia, is very, very, very much "efficient, largely free of fault, wise and in charge", selflessly leading the fight for a greater cause than herself, utterly fearless for her own personal safety in the face of Darth "Greatest Villain in Cinema History" Vader and then when her unshakable defiance forces Darth "Greatest Villain in Cinema History" Vader to bring in his torture droid she defies that too. 

 

A New Hope is nothing like Last Jedi in its portrayal of the male characters and it seems to  me to be wilfully ignorant to try and pretend New Hope has similar treatment. If that were released today you would see nothing like the sort of anger you see now. Wildly different, as you can surely see if you give it a fair look. Come on.

 

6 hours ago, mormont said:

I don't know which film Cal has been watching but it doesn't sound like the one that's in cinemas. You know: the one that has Luke save the entire Resistance by exhibiting enormous Force ability in a critical confrontation involving precisely zero female characters? The one where ten members of the principal cast are male and only five are female, and the majority of the staff including the writer and director, composer, cinematographer, editor, production designer, costume designer, and all ten art directors were male?

It's the tired old thing where any move towards equality, no matter how small, is seen as 'too much'. Nobody's against equality, of course. It's just that any time anybody does anything about it, they have to find a reason why this particular move is going too far.

Principal cast for this film has 10 males to 5 females Mormont? Snort, only in Scotland.

Luke, Kylo Ren, Poe, Finn, Snoke, maybe include Hux and Chewie

vs

Rey, Leia, Holdo, Rose, Phasma, Maz Kanata, Commander D'Acy, Lt Connix, Page Tico

Seems pretty even to me. It's not about numbers of course, it's about what the characters do and how they are shown and therein lies people's issues with the film. But even a simple line-up of the main actors per gender does not match your incorrect "defense". It's got nothing to do with moving towards equality, equality is not on display here, people find the film overwhelmingly skewed to one side. Now, you will love that, but let's not turn a blind eye to what is there.

And really, with all the complaints about how Luke is portrayed in 2,5 hours, you're going to point to his force projection at the end as proof of how important the male characters were opposed to female? Really? Why not point to the girl ( Rose's sister) who saves the Resistance ass by unloading those bombs from  the last remaining bomber, about as critical a move as what Luke does? Wasn't that among the 3 most heroic acts in this film? Aren't we also led to believe Holdo saved the resistance by what she did? Or how Rey frees the remaining resistance from the mountain at the end by moving rocks, just before Kylo can get to them?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...