Star Wars Thread: I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mosi Mynn]

51 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Really, if you need mysteries to keep your desire to see something big, chances are good you'll be disappointed by the story anyway. That's the lesson of all JJ Abrams stories - the mystery answers always suck, and the good thing about them is the characters. I'm hoping for something that feels as good as TLJ felt and as familiar as what TFA felt for me, something that has decent story beats and good laser sword fights, and an earned, painful, happy ending. 

Plot points that I thought were interesting and would go somewhere from TFA included: Rey's parentage, Ren seeming to freak out when he heard that BB8 was with "a girl" (which I thought was connected to Rey's parentage), The Knights of Ren, how Snoke influenced Ben Solo right under Luke and Leia's noses, and where the First Order had come from.  I didn't think of these as mystery boxes so much as narratives that would play out across the trilogy.  I know JJ does do the mystery box thing at times, but I assume he (or someone else) knew what the possible answers to these were during TFA.  

[Kalbear]

47 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Her Jedi order will probably eschew teaching for a form of Jedi Mastery that involves just waking up and being brilliant. All Jedis who aren't just brilliant will be excommunicated.

Oh christ, this mary sue bullshit. Good to know that that is still a constant among the haters. She is no different than Luke or Anakin in that regard. Not in the slightest. They even explain precisely why she's so good in TLJ - because Luke was no longer part of the force. 

47 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Or we could simply try and forget the Canto Bight section altogether, especially as it doesn't really seem to reflect anything else presented in the SW universe.

Other than Solo, Rogue One, yes. Sure. 

47 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I thought he had potential In TFA, but when he simply reverted to type in TLJ I've given up on him being an amazing Villain. I can imagine with a time jump the story could well restore my faith in him as a baddie.

The only reason you thought he had potential in TFA was because you thought he'd not be quite so bad. I really don't understand; you're upset because he's not going to be as redeemable, despite that being EXACTLY  what we had before, and you are upset that he will do the 'boring thing' which...is something that we've not actually had in Star Wars yet. 

We've had a power-hungry villain, and we've had a villain who did things for love. We have never had one that did things for fame and greatness. That is different. You may not like it, but the idea that he's 'reverted to type', especially in TLJ. He was far more basic in TFA. 

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Plot points that I thought were interesting and would go somewhere from TFA included: Rey's parentage, Ren seeming to freak out when he heard that BB8 was with "a girl" (which I thought was connected to Rey's parentage), The Knights of Ren, how Snoke influenced Ben Solo right under Luke and Leia's noses, and where the First Order had come from.  I didn't think of these as mystery boxes so much as narratives that would play out across the trilogy.  I know JJ does do the mystery box thing at times, but I assume he (or someone else) knew what the possible answers to these were during TFA.  

None of those were set answers in TFA save the 'where the first order came from', which had been answered by the time TFA came out outside of the movies and is considered canonical. 

I do agree that finding out that none of these things were set in stone as answers sucked. I hate that they didn't have a good outline and idea for where these were going, and instead they were entirely left to the next person in a game of telephone. That sucks. 

[Mosi Mynn]

I am surprised there was not a general outline for the whole trilogy - I guess it worked out OK for the OT!

[Cas Stark]

21 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

I am surprised there was not a general outline for the whole trilogy - I guess it worked out OK for the OT!

It helps if you're going to work on a trilogy that you either keep the same director or have an outline, otherwise you end up with the stupidity of TFA and TLJ.  IMO.

[Bastard of Bournemouth]

50 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Plot points that I thought were interesting and would go somewhere from TFA included: Rey's parentage, Ren seeming to freak out when he heard that BB8 was with "a girl" (which I thought was connected to Rey's parentage), The Knights of Ren, how Snoke influenced Ben Solo right under Luke and Leia's noses, and where the First Order had come from.  I didn't think of these as mystery boxes so much as narratives that would play out across the trilogy.  I know JJ does do the mystery box thing at times, but I assume he (or someone else) knew what the possible answers to these were during TFA.  

I don't understand people who weren't frustrated by the sidestepping of these points (don't dislike the folks, I just genuinely am fascinated). Fair enough if they're revisited in the next film, but if not, that's pretty shameful storytelling. It's not David Lynch ffs, it's a blockbuster trilogy. 

As to Rey's Mary Sueness: This wasn't s problem with the TLJ. At least she gets the obligatory Team America montage. TFA was where it was problematic. Rey would have had no chance against Kylo Ren, provided he could stand up straight, and the whole pulling a Jedi mind trick out of her arse thing was just awful - Deus ex Machina as much as anything else. That said, I still liked TFA though (as in went and saw it twice, and own a copy), and TLJ wasn't that bad either - just a bit smug. For the next three though, they really need a joined-up approach. All raises the question: what do they actually teach at Film Schools? 

 

 

[Kalbear]

38 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It helps if you're going to work on a trilogy that you either keep the same director or have an outline, otherwise you end up with the stupidity of TFA and TLJ.  IMO.

Or the stupidity of ANH and TESB and RotJ, none of which had an outline or the same director (and IIRC, not the same writer, either). 

Leia wasn't supposed to be Luke's sister until RotJ, IIRC. 

It all really depends on the execution of the thing, one way or another. 

40 minutes ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

I don't understand people who weren't frustrated by the sidestepping of these points (don't dislike the folks, I just genuinely am fascinated). Fair enough if they're revisited in the next film, but if not, that's pretty shameful storytelling. It's not David Lynch ffs, it's a blockbuster trilogy. 

I was fine getting actual answers and resolutions to them in TLJ and them not being the series-defining questions that others thought they were. I know that Rey's Parents were apparently of Deep Consequence, but I also love that the answer is really only important to her myth, not the universe's, and the answer is really 'they aren't special'. That makes it much less about the secret Skywalkers and heredity. 

Ren freaking out didn't seem to matter to me at all. I barely even registered it then. I guess if you thought that Rey had to be someone special, that was an example of him knowing - but it was clear that he didn't know who she was, Snoke didn't know who she was, and she was someone new. 

The Knights of Ren being dropped seems like something minor - just his backup group he leads. Would like to see if they're picked up. 

Snoke influencing Ben didn't matter to me that much either. I never thought he was, like, talking to him under the bleachers.

The big things I wanted answers to from TFA were Rey's parentage, why Luke had to leave, the origin of Snoke if it mattered at all, the resolution of Snoke, and maybe the revenge for Han. Of those, I got most of them done, and largely answers that I didn't see coming. 

40 minutes ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

As to Rey's Mary Sueness: This wasn't s problem with the TLJ. At least she gets the obligatory Team America montage. TFA was where it was problematic. Rey would have had no chance against Kylo Ren, provided he could stand up straight, and the whole pulling a Jedi mind trick out of her arse thing was just awful - Deus ex Machina as much as anything else. 

 

Again, the title is The Force Awakens. The notion that she can't fight well when she lets herself becoming part of the Force and has the Force guide her when she's the one that the Force has picked to oppose Snoke AND Ren AND the knights of Ren kind of ignores the entire story beforehand. I get that it hadn't happened before, and that n00bs hadn't shown the ability to fight with a lightsaber before competently, but 'there has been an awakening' meant something - and that's what it meant. 

Anakin was so powerful because he was to balance the Force - which meant opposing hundreds of Jedi, in theory. (same goes with the Emperor). Snoke even explains this to Rey in TLJ directly. 

[Darth Richard II]

People need to actually look up what a Mary Sue is.

[HokieStone]

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Oh christ, this mary sue bullshit. Good to know that that is still a constant among the haters. She is no different than Luke or Anakin in that regard. Not in the slightest. They even explain precisely why she's so good in TLJ - because Luke was no longer part of the force.

Except that that isn't what happened with Luke and Anakin.  At least not to the same degree.  Luke barely uses the Force in ANH - is shown awkwardly doing lightsaber practice with the helmet with the blast shield.  At the start of Empire Strikes Back...3 years after ANH, he is still struggling to force pull his lightsaber to him in the Wampa cave.  And when he fights Vader, he gets his ass handed to him.  Anakin gets scooped up as a 10 year old...and when we next see him, what...10 years later, he's still a Padawan.  Yes, he's good at that point...but we can naturally infer he's been given 10 years of training.

Which isn't to say that there isn't any eye rolling moments.  Luke piloting an X-Wing in ANH is ridiculous.  And the fact that the week or so that he spends in Dagobah levels him up so much is pretty flimsy.  And Anakin piloting the Naboo star fighter as a 10 year old is absurd.  But...they have some justification, even if flimsy.  Luke "bullseyeing womprats in his T-16", and Anakin being a podracer...are at least something. 

But Rey is good at EVERYTHING immediately.  She can fight with a lightsaber and beat Kylo Ren the first time she picks one up.  For some reason she knows how to do the jedi mind trick, even though earlier that day she thought the Force was just a legend.  She can fly the Millenium Falcon through the twisting wreckage of a Star Destroyer - when we've been given no indication she's ever been in a starship in her life.  She can get down in the guts of the Falcon and repair it.  I'm not asking for some elaborate backstory about why she can do all this stuff.  But at least give us a "womprat" justification.  I'm told the novelization explains that she has an old flight simulator in her AT-AT home that she practices on.  Great...give me 30 seconds of showing that in the movie - or at least an offhand remark about it.  I'm not even really bothered by her being good with a lightsaber - she was shown using her staff in hand to hand combat earlier, and Kylo had taken a bowcaster shot to the side - so I feel we did get some justification there. 

I've only watched TLJ once.  I do not recall the explanation of her being so good because Luke pulled himself away from the Force.  Was that in conversation between her and Luke?

And to add to the annoying mysteries...how did Luke's 1st lightsaber (aka, Anakin's lightsaber) get from the bowels of Cloud City to Maz's fortress?

 

[Jace, Extat]

I kinda thought a force cerebro thingy Snoke could use to manipulate peeps would have been pretty cool. That could have been an interesting macguffin for the gang to go after to stop him from poisoning the force.

But it's just a bigger ship.

Qui-Gon was right. There's always a bigger Gooberfish.

[Darth Richard II]

Don’t think ESB is 3 years after ANH.

[HokieStone]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

Don’t think ESB is 3 years after ANH.

According to Wookipedia - surely a definitive source if there ever was one - the Battle of Hoth is 3 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin).

[Darth Richard II]

Also anakin can podrace because of the force. They mention how orindnary humans don’t have the reflexes.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, HokieStone said:

Except that that isn't what happened with Luke and Anakin.  At least not to the same degree.  Luke barely uses the Force in ANH - is shown awkwardly doing lightsaber practice with the helmet with the blast shield.  At the start of Empire Strikes Back...3 years after ANH, he is still struggling to force pull his lightsaber to him in the Wampa cave.  And when he fights Vader, he gets his ass handed to him.  Anakin gets scooped up as a 10 year old...and when we next see him, what...10 years later, he's still a Padawan.  Yes, he's good at that point...but we can naturally infer he's been given 10 years of training.

Which isn't to say that there isn't any eye rolling moments.  Luke piloting an X-Wing in ANH is ridiculous.  And the fact that the week or so that he spends in Dagobah levels him up so much is pretty flimsy.  And Anakin piloting the Naboo star fighter as a 10 year old is absurd.  But...they have some justification, even if flimsy.  Luke "bullseyeing womprats in his T-16", and Anakin being a podracer...are at least something. 

But Rey is good at EVERYTHING immediately.  She can fight with a lightsaber and beat Kylo Ren the first time she picks one up.  For some reason she knows how to do the jedi mind trick, even though earlier that day she thought the Force was just a legend.  She can fly the Millenium Falcon through the twisting wreckage of a Star Destroyer - when we've been given no indication she's ever been in a starship in her life.  She can get down in the guts of the Falcon and repair it.  I'm not asking for some elaborate backstory about why she can do all this stuff.  But at least give us a "womprat" justification.  I'm told the novelization explains that she has an old flight simulator in her AT-AT home that she practices on.  Great...give me 30 seconds of showing that in the movie - or at least an offhand remark about it.  I'm not even really bothered by her being good with a lightsaber - she was shown using her staff in hand to hand combat earlier, and Kylo had taken a bowcaster shot to the side - so I feel we did get some justification there. 

I've only watched TLJ once.  I do not recall the explanation of her being so good because Luke pulled himself away from the Force.  Was that in conversation between her and Luke?

And to add to the annoying mysteries...how did Luke's 1st lightsaber (aka, Anakin's lightsaber) get from the bowels of Cloud City to Maz's fortress?

 

Luke grew up as a farmer, under the protection of his aunt and uncle. Anakin was a slave with his mother, but most of that time was spent repairing and building stuff in a workshop. Rey was on her own, growing up in a harsh environment, as a scavenger. She developed the instincts and skills to survive. When she became in tune with the Force, she applied those instincts again. 

I agree that the execution of the some of the stuff wasn't handled well, thus creating the image of the Mary Sue, but there is a foundation there for why she can do all that she can.

The mystery of Anakin's lightsaber deserves an answer. I hope we get in Ep IX, and not in a comic book or EA's next stunt of a video game.

[Bastard of Bournemouth]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Again, the title is The Force Awakens. The notion that she can't fight well when she lets herself becoming part of the Force and has the Force guide her when she's the one that the Force has picked to oppose Snoke AND Ren AND the knights of Ren kind of ignores the entire story beforehand

But Ren kills Snoke, not Rey? And weren't the Knights of Ren just the Miracles to Kylo Ren's Smokey? 

I thought that Rey has to be as naturally strong with the Force as Ren. Luke Skywalker says this: "I've seen this raw strength only once before, in Ben Solo."

Plus strong with the Force is one thing, years of lightsaber combat training another. Anakin is perhaps the strongest with the force there has ever been, but even with years of training, and with Obi Wan's help, he gets trounced by Dooku when they first fight. 

2 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Also anakin can podrace because of the force. They mention how orindnary humans don’t have the reflexes.

Could he win a pod race against a force sensitive human with years of Pod Race training, whose strength with the Force scared Luke Skywalker, at the first time of asking? 

 

[Darth Richard II]

10 minutes ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

But Ren kills Snoke, not Rey? And weren't the Knights of Ren just the Miracles to Kylo Ren's Smokey? 

I thought that Rey has to be as naturally strong with the Force as Ren. Luke Skywalker says this: "I've seen this raw strength only once before, in Ben Solo."

Plus strong with the Force is one thing, years of lightsaber combat training another. Anakin is perhaps the strongest with the force there has ever been, but even with years of training, and with Obi Wan's help, he gets trounced by Dooku when they first fight. 

Could he win a pod race against a force sensitive human with years of Pod Race training, whose strength with the Force scared Luke Skywalker, at the first time of asking? 

 

If they podracer got shot and was bleeding from his nuts? Yes.

[Mosi Mynn]

11 hours ago, Bastard of Bournemouth said:

As to Rey's Mary Sueness: This wasn't s problem with the TLJ. At least she gets the obligatory Team America montage. TFA was where it was problematic. Rey would have had no chance against Kylo Ren, provided he could stand up straight, and the whole pulling a Jedi mind trick out of her arse thing was just awful - Deus ex Machina as much as anything else. That said, I still liked TFA though (as in went and saw it twice, and own a copy), and TLJ wasn't that bad either - just a bit smug. For the next three though, they really need a joined-up approach. All raises the question: what do they actually teach at Film Schools? 

I didn't have much of problem with Rey's Force virtuosity in TFA because I thought there would be a reason for it.  I thought maybe she had been at Luke's Jedi Academy as a child, and coming into contact with Kylo Ren reawakened her Force muscles.  Even if this was never the intended background for Rey, they could have set up her Force excellence by showing how she had used it whilst growing up on Jakku, and it was just always a part if her, and she had never put a name to it. 

I also didn't have a massive problem with her beating Ren in a lightsaber battle.  Firstly she is an accomplished fighter.  Surviving on Jakku  since she was a toddler, she must have fought nearly every day of her life, so she knows what it is like to fight to save her life.  And secondly, I don't think Ren was trying to kill her.  He was fascinated by her and wanted to train her.  Also, I think he either underestimated her or overestimated himself (as he did with Finn, hence Finn was able to get a touch on him).  And he was very injured from being shot by Chewie.  All of that may also account for the reason he fought her at all, and didn't just subdue or freeze her with the Force magic he used in on her at Maz's place.

Speaking of which, one thing I forgot that I needed to know and was reminded of above: how did Maz get hold of Luke's lightsaber?  Maybe she will be in IX and we'll find out then.

[mormont]

8 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

People need to actually look up what a Mary Sue is.

As far as I understand from context, it's a competent female character.

7 hours ago, HokieStone said:

But Rey is good at EVERYTHING immediately.  She can fight with a lightsaber and beat Kylo Ren the first time she picks one up.

Rey being a skilled melee fighter is established early in the film. 

7 hours ago, HokieStone said:

 For some reason she knows how to do the jedi mind trick, even though earlier that day she thought the Force was just a legend.

I know that addressing things in novelisations is not ideal, but it applies here: it's explained that the mental contact between Rey and Kylo Ren was two-way, allowing Rey to sense things in Kylo Ren's head, including that the Jedi mind trick was a thing and how to attempt it. 

7 hours ago, HokieStone said:

She can fly the Millenium Falcon through the twisting wreckage of a Star Destroyer - when we've been given no indication she's ever been in a starship in her life.

We're shown her using the helmet flight simulator, though, and that's basically the same as Luke/Anakin being expert fighter pilots instantly because they can use ground craft like landspeeders and pods. 

7 hours ago, HokieStone said:

 She can get down in the guts of the Falcon and repair it.

As a scavenger, she's shown as familiar with the necessary tech (and again, she seems to have repaired some of her stuff including the helmet herself). That's more backstory than the boys got. 

7 hours ago, HokieStone said:

 I'm not asking for some elaborate backstory about why she can do all this stuff.  But at least give us a "womprat" justification. 

You largely got it, to be fair. 

[Jace, Extat]

So another Star Wars game has been shitcanned by EA. This time it was RESPAWN Entertainment's project, an open world live service (industry code for microtransactioned to fuck and back) multiplayer title that was itself an ad hoc repackaging of a much desired single player title that had been in development by Visceral Games (the folks who made two good Dead Space games and then an EA influenced Dead Space disaster) before their entire studio was shuttered by the much maligned publisher.

So we're almost 5 years into EA having exclusive rights to make Star Wars games and we have a Battlefront reboot featuring less content than an empty box, as well as a Battlefront reboot sequel that had such predatory financial entrapment incentives that countries MADE FUCKING LAWS to stop kids from bankrupting their parents. And that's the end of the list. 

There is public outcry begging Disney to get out of this horrendous licensing deal (and there was vain hope after Disney's CEO lamented the Battlefront Reboot 2 debacle being bad for the brand) but I don't see any real chance of Star Wars being liberated. They don't have any interest as a conglomerate in the video game, well, game. They're happy to let others assume the financial risk of development and take in what is essentially free money off the brand. 

This is a state of affairs (2 massively disappointing games halfway through what is assumed to be a 10 year licensing deal) seems like it can't continue, it has to be in Disney's interest to make changes right? 

Sadly, if Rebellions really are built on hope then I've got none for you. The House of Mouse has demonstrated an unbelievable, and almost sickening, lack of competence when dealing with this entire intellectual property. Whether you have brain damage and enjoy the sequels or don't require emergency lobotomization, it is objectively clear that getting Captain Lens Flair (No, I didn't use the wrong spelling, keep up) to establish your new trilogy with a shallow rehash of the original film that seemed satisfying only in the moment before handing the keys in their entirety to a madman who actively tried to anger the people to whom he needed sell their movie before handing the keys BACK to the man who thinks Mr. Spock punches people while screaming in rage was just a collage of poor decision making.

And the result is kind of predictable. We had a first movie that did nothing new but kinda suggested some new stuff to come. Then a second movie where nothing happened and no new stuff came. And now we have to have a third movie with all these suggested new things that had better be in the movie if you don't want the exact same reaction as The Last Jedi, but have fun establishing (just to name a few) where the rest of the resistance is and why they didn't answer and what the Knights of Ren are and how Maz got the saber and how THIS TIME victory will mean victory and all this other shit in one film. While also concluding Kylo Ren's story and figuring out Chewbacca and the droids and Rey and Finn and Poe and Rose and dead Carrie Fischer and what happens to the Jedi because Rey took the books AND defeat the next First Order superweapon. 

Do all that under 3 hours of runtime in a way which is satisfying to the audience.

That is an almost criminal list of shit to leave at the foot of the director and writers of the final instalment of a trilogy. Throw in the fact that it's being helmed by the same hapless asshole who started you out going downhill? 

Disney has no fucking idea what they're doing with their 4 billion dollar investment. It's recouped the original cost on brand name and mass idiocy alone.

[Darth Richard II]

Have you seen Rebels? I think you should watch Rebels