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The I've Seen The Last Jedi Thread (spoilers OBV)


Dark Wader
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It is a bit, and it's strange for me (a UKdian) seeing "SJW" normalized on here.

 

Saw it again last night, but haven't shifted much from being happy whenever Rey, Luke, and Kylo are on the screen and critical / switching off when they're not.

 

(I thought "laser sword" was just something that people in the SW universe who knew very little about lightsabers / the Jedi would call a lightsaber, a bit like "gun" instead of a type of firearm in our universe. Luke said it deliberately to underline the absurdity of what people expected him to do.)

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That would be the simplest explanation. He dug it up himself from her mind. Though I remember in the film he also dug up visions of Ahch-To. He describes seeing an island. Rey had only seen part of the map and had never left Jakku before then. She didn't know what the actual location was or looked like. The "it is you" recognition in the book does play up that there was going to be more to Rey than her coming from nothing. Though I'll admit the novels have to be discounted no matter how "official" they are, since after all, the ROTJ novel said Owen Lars had been Obi-Wan's brother.

 

By the way, the novel also says Snoke had been alive since the PT era.

Well, the PT era is only 50-60 years old? So no surprise there.

 

Her family just selling her for drinking money also doesn't really square with her memories shown in TFA, or seem to coincide with her "owner" in TFA. She comes across more as a free scavenger who is selling items than a slave.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

 

 

(I thought "laser sword" was just something that people in the SW universe who knew very little about lightsabers / the Jedi would call a lightsaber, a bit like "gun" instead of a type of firearm in our universe. Luke said it deliberately to underline the absurdity of what people expected him to do.)

I personally thought it was both a tribute to the original name GL wanted to call lightsabers, and a tribute to TPM, where Anakin calls Qui Gon's saber a laser sword.

 

I once read somewhere that Alec Guinness is the one to thank for the term lightsaber, because he couldn't say laser sword with a straight face, and told the director (and GL?) they should use lightsaber instead. That may or may not be true, but I like that story nonetheless.

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I am very late to the game, since I only saw the movie yesterday, and only once so far. Everyone has said everything there is to say about the film, but I will add my two cents anyway.

 

I enjoyed it thoroughly. It did not drag or bore me at any point. The slow speed chase was very realistic, very much like an 18th century sailing ship chase.

 

Canto Bight did not bore me, mainly because I was so spoiled on the movie that I knew how it would unfold so I didnt keep asking myself how much longer it would be.

 

Hermit Luke was awesome. I think the Luke we saw in TLJ was the logical extension of the one we last encountered in RotJ. He was trying to rebuild the Jedi and he failed. Do or do not indeed. He was so focused on the potential future that he didnt pay attention to the present. Yoda admonished him for that in the past and he did so again. Once he ran off to save Han and Leia (and Chewie) and ended up needing to be saved himself. Then he tried to end a threat before it was fully emerged, and that was the last straw for Ben Solo. Luke ended up needing to be saved again, by Rey. He needed to move on from his failure. He finally did so at the end.

 

What does it mean to be a Jedi now? It must not just be about swinging lightsabers in the forms of combat, or having the right meditation methods or wearing the right robes. It must be more fundamental, and that is what Rey has now - the very basics. Rey has the sacred texts and a broken old lightsaber, and a couple of lessons from Luke. Obviously whatever she does now will define the new Jedi. The original Jedi had no one to teach them, so her lessons from Luke and those texts arent even needed, strictly speaking. She is the first Jedi for all practical purposes.

 

All the characters had their failures. I imagine Episode IX will show them all having learned their lessons from this episode.

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Needed??

 

Or wanted.

 

That kiss was not essential in any way.

It wasn't necessary, but didn't bother me, either.

No the kiss didn't bother me at all either. Just kind of came out of the blue.

 

It bothered me that neither one of them managed to kamikaze the battering ram cannon, though. Would've been epic.

 

But then I guess they wouldn't have needed Luke to come out and stare kylo down.

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It was a lot closer to real life than most other Star Wars situations. There is no way to hide in a nebula, and asteroid fields arent that dense, ESB notwithstanding. Given the thrust characteristics of the ships, its pretty much just a race until one side reaches a safe harbor or makes a mistake. A real space chase would boil down to a few calculations and then setting a course and waiting. Thats pretty much what happened. Plus its fun that they mimicked a 1700s style sailing ship chase, with the pot shots from the pursuer included, which also usually reduced to a few calculations and then waiting. I didnt find it boring at all. It was refreshing to see so much reality (relatively speaking) in a Star Wars film!

 

I especially liked that the hare-brained long-odds plans failed. The tactics employed by the apparent hero Poe Dameron failed every time, demonstrating that his heroics arent the same as leadership. Its just sad that so many people had to die for his stupidity before he learned to see a bigger picture. We are so conditioned to expecting the crazy plans to work in Star Wars that it was a relief to see that sometimes crazy plans arent guaranteed to pay off.

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Its not about speed, but rather acceleration. The resistance ships had the better acceleration because of their lesser mass, so they could stay out of reach (almost) but with smaller fuel capacities meaning time was against them. The First Order ships had worse accelerations due to their much greater mass, but with larger fuel capacities that afforded them the ability to run the resistance ships down eventually.

 

I will admit it was almost too realistic to expect it to be in a Star Wars movie.

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Aping the Prequels = Everything Casino World

That wasn't aping the prequels. That was an excuse to not only give Finn something to do, but to shove a weak SJW agenda down our throats.

 

Oh here we go

 

Oh, c'mon, admit it. They stopped the movie twice to run with a completely out of place and thematically weird broadsides on the casino folks. All it needed was Keenen Ivory Wayans showing up dressed as a mailman.

 

 

While you get points for the "Don't Be a Menace..." reference, you can't say that this is the first time Star wars has slipped in some political allegory. The OT and ST are both pretty clear about condemning fascism, and the PT had a lot to say about lobbying and corrupt senate committees.

 

Lucas is a pretty staunch liberal and has never been shy about it. I'm actually always a little surprised that conservatives like Star Wars given how liberal Lucas is.. or for that matter, how they can be Star Trek fans when the Federation is basically a socialist utopia.

 

It was a lot closer to real life than most other Star Wars situations. There is no way to hide in a nebula, and asteroid fields arent that dense, ESB notwithstanding. Given the thrust characteristics of the ships, its pretty much just a race until one side reaches a safe harbor or makes a mistake. A real space chase would boil down to a few calculations and then setting a course and waiting. Thats pretty much what happened. Plus its fun that they mimicked a 1700s style sailing ship chase, with the pot shots from the pursuer included, which also usually reduced to a few calculations and then waiting. I didnt find it boring at all. It was refreshing to see so much reality (relatively speaking) in a Star Wars film!

 

I especially liked that the hare-brained long-odds plans failed. The tactics employed by the apparent hero Poe Dameron failed every time, demonstrating that his heroics arent the same as leadership. Its just sad that so many people had to die for his stupidity before he learned to see a bigger picture. We are so conditioned to expecting the crazy plans to work in Star Wars that it was a relief to see that sometimes crazy plans arent guaranteed to pay off.

Here's my thing.

 

Obviously, Star Wars doesn't need to play by real science rules., If asteroid fields are super dense int he SW universe, I can buy that. For me, it's all about the writing-- if they tell me THIS IS THE SITUATION, and they play by those rules, I'll accept it-- even begrudgingly. But if they say that, then break their own rules, it falls apart.

 

However you want to frame how that chase works, the basic point was they were deadlocked in being stuck a certain distance from each other until the rebels ran out of fuel. If that's their big buy, as that alone I'd accept it. I'd think it was still a little boring, but I'd roll with it.

 

But then they go and break their own rule. TWICE we see that people can hyperspace jump into the area with precision. Chewie does it, then Finn and Rose do it. Both times their actual plan is to pop in as close to the First Order cruiser as possible to get aboard.

 

Now... if they can use hyperspace to bob all around the galaxy to far off systems, and come back to one precision location, why can't the first order do the same thing. In real-space, at sublight speeds, sure they are locked into their chase. But if Finn can leave, and come back to the area, specifically targeting the First Order ship as his destination,. why can't a shuttle of Stormtroopers leave the First Order ship, zip away a couple systems, turn around and come back in the exact same fashion, but targeting the Rebel ship instead of their own.

 

Why couldn't Kylo Ren basically have the exact same plan as Finn, but in reverse to get onto the Rebel cruiser and kill everyone on board? Or why not call in some other ships to jump into the area ahead of the Rebels and cut them off?

 

I can accept a ridiculous set up, but don't ask me to buy it, then break the rule yourself.

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I acknowledge the rules of the situation are not laid out well, and the only thing I can assume is that the shields on the Raddus are a factor. Perhaps there is no point to sending a boarding party to the resistance fleet if they cannot get past the shields.

 

If they were playing by consistent rules for the chase, then, yes, no other ships should have been able to return to their motherships. If the situation were completely analogous to the sailing ship chase, then resistance ships could fall back to the FO ships, because they could slow down and allow the pursuers to catch up to them, but they would not be able to return to the resistance fleet, because they would not be able to get back up to speeds capable of intercepting the mothership. A one-way mission to deactivate the hyperspace tracking system would be consistent with the story.

 

It could have been better, naturally, if they had played it out more consistent with real physics!

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And suspend disbelief in the idea that every single ship on both sides is only able to go the exact same speed.

That's not really what they say, the First Order officer says the Resistance ship is faster but not fast enough to really run and hide. So in reality the Resistance ship is slowly getting further and further away but not far enough to truly get away before it would fun out of fuel.

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It is a bit, and it's strange for me (a UKdian) seeing "SJW" normalized on here.

 

Saw it again last night, but haven't shifted much from being happy whenever Rey, Luke, and Kylo are on the screen and critical / switching off when they're not.

 

(I thought "laser sword" was just something that people in the SW universe who knew very little about lightsabers / the Jedi would call a lightsaber, a bit like "gun" instead of a type of firearm in our universe. Luke said it deliberately to underline the absurdity of what people expected him to do.)

That's kinda how I thought of it too.

 

I also love how it is absurd what people expect him to do but then at the end he basically finds a way to do it.

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While you get points for the "Don't Be a Menace..." reference, you can't say that this is the first time Star wars has slipped in some political allegory. The OT and ST are both pretty clear about condemning fascism, and the PT had a lot to say about lobbying and corrupt senate committees.

 

No, of course not. But generally, the politics have been pretty well ingrained into the movie. The only time I called foul previously was in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin echoed Bush's "With us or with the terrorist" line (and Obi-Wan responded with the self-contradictory line that only a Sith deals in absolutes). Even Padme's comments about Democracy dying with applause was fine by me because it didn't take me out of the movie and made sense given the situtation.

 

But Anakin's line was at least within the realm of the movie we were watching. They didn't run across the galaxy to a bunch of people we've never even heard of, to denounce a group that didn't really need denouncing in the first place. That's a level of soapbox lack of subtlety that would make Lucas blush. Not an exactly easy thing to do. It's not even an SJW thing so much as a "Why?" thing. The whole thing is a head scratcher that I can only guess was shoved in there because they wanted to do all they could to justify the most pointless excursion in the whole series.

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The ships all move at the same spead. The good guys ship has shields cuz the movie needs to happen. The big bad ship doesn't get shields because the writer wanted to blow up that one. Good guys can zip around and appear out of light speed wherever and whenever like Shakira because they read the script.

Rey showing up in that manner is kinda dumb, especially considering Kylo and Snoke want her to come and would allow it. There is really no need for that kind of arrival, but that kind of stuff never bothers me in these kind of movies.

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While you get points for the "Don't Be a Menace..." reference, you can't say that this is the first time Star wars has slipped in some political allegory. The OT and ST are both pretty clear about condemning fascism, and the PT had a lot to say about lobbying and corrupt senate committees.

No, of course not. But generally, the politics have been pretty well ingrained into the movie. The only time I called foul previously was in Revenge of the Sith when Anakin echoed Bush's "With us or with the terrorist" line (and Obi-Wan responded with the self-contradictory line that only a Sith deals in absolutes). Even Padme's comments about Democracy dying with applause was fine by me because it didn't take me out of the movie and made sense given the situtation.

 

But Anakin's line was at least within the realm of the movie we were watching. They didn't run across the galaxy to a bunch of people we've never even heard of, to denounce a group that didn't really need denouncing in the first place. That's a level of soapbox lack of subtlety that would make Lucas blush. Not an exactly easy thing to do. It's not even an SJW thing so much as a "Why?" thing. The whole thing is a head scratcher that I can only guess was shoved in there because they wanted to do all they could to justify the most pointless excursion in the whole series.

 

I will say what I didn't like about the profiteering bit was that revealing the Resistance also bought weapons from the same dealers. That was a very "grey" moment, and despite only Sith's dealing in absolutes, Star Wars as myth is generally pretty black and white.

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