XWA Upgrade

BattleDog wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 03, 2019 1:57 pm

Apparently JJ Abrams planned and at least partially shot scenes on Hosniak Prime that would have helped to explain what was going on but then cut them because it felt too like the prequels and he wanted to avoid that.

I know the scene of Leia sending Korr Sella to Hosnian Prime was filmed. That scene alone would have been enough to set up the Republic and its relationship with the Resistance. But it was apparently decided that the audience shouldn’t meet Leia before Han does, so the scene ended up on the cutting room floor.

It was George and and the writers before JJ came on that set up Luke being a hermit, refusing to train a new Jedi. All Rian did was explain why that was.

General_Trageton wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 03, 2019 2:25 pm

Well regarding Rey I‘m still clinging to the old theory that she‘s a descendant of Palpatine. Even if her parents were nobodies like Kylo claimed, Palpatine could be old enough to be her grandfather or even great-grandfather. Seeing how powerful and adept he already was as a youth (Darth Plagueis novel) it would be a plausible explaination for her innate power and proficiency despite lack of training.

It would also explain why she's drawn to the Dark Side.

Honestly, I'd accept "Anakin 2.0", just any explanation of why everything is so easy for her.

Tuskin wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 03, 2019 6:21 pm

It was George and and the writers before JJ came on that set up Luke being a hermit, refusing to train a new Jedi. All Rian did was explain why that was.

I've always said I can accept Luke having a momentary slip and attacking Ben, especially if he was influenced by Snoke. I can also accept the academy being destroyed, Luke going off to find himself and deciding to give up.

I can't accept Luke screwing up, almost killing Ben, triggering the destruction of the academy and then giving up. As Mark Hamill said, the nature of the Jedi is - when you make a mistake you try to fix it. In JJ's original plan Luke was still in contact with the Force and the first Rey sees of him he's levitating lots of rocks and spinning them around himself.

If you think about it, Rey seeing that would help to explain how she does it so casually at the end of the film. She just copies what she saw Luke do.

Let’s just all agree it was a pretty bad movie, and be done with it.

That’s why I like the episode 9 theory that they’ll use time travel to correct all the mess that was TLJ.

I love TLJ, it's in my top 5.

BattleDog wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:45 pm

I've always said I can accept Luke having a momentary slip and attacking Ben, especially if he was influenced by Snoke. I can also accept the academy being destroyed, Luke going off to find himself and deciding to give up.

I can't accept Luke screwing up, almost killing Ben, triggering the destruction of the academy and then giving up.

Maybe I'm just not getting it, but both of those sentences sound like the same thing to me.

Also Luke never tried to kill Ben, the thought crossed his mind for a moment, but then he realized what he was considering and didn't go through with it, but Ben woke up, saw Luke with his lightsaber and reacted, thinking he was going to kill him.

I think this video covers it well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQxceHEzoow

OK, so Luke got as far as activating his lightsaber, he was about to attack Ben but didn't - at the last second. Ben's reaction follows from Luke's catastrophic lapse in judgement - his own momentary slip towards the Dark Side.

Luke's giving up makes sense in the context of the first story he tells Rey, where he does everything right and it all goes horribly wrong anyway.

The reality, though, is that the destruction of the academy is really Luke's fault and his giving up under those circumstances isn't true to the character.

Luke Skywalker has never been a coward, or a liar. He hasn't always made the right choice but when it came down to it he always makes the hard choice and faces up to his responsibilities. It's a stretch to see the Jedi who redeemed Darth Vader, his own father, try to kill his nephew.

To imagine he's make such a catastrophic mistake and just give up? When a Darksider is taking over the galaxy?

I'm sorry, it doesn't wash - and the problem is compounded by Luke's inexplicable death at the end - which feels weighty the first time you see it but is really just emotionally manipulative. Luke's death, his fading away, gives the film a final emotional impact that would be completely lacking otherwise.

The Luke who redeemed his father and the Luke who had a lapse of judgment concerning his nephew are 22+ years apart. People change in two decades. For a IRL example, compare Philippe Pétain’s reputation after WW1 and after WW2.

Seriously—aside from really stubborn headcanons (based or not on a different continuity), why exactly do people keep insisting that a mistake committed by a mid-to-late-forties Luke is entirely incompatible with his 23-year-old self? Especially the guy who, aged 22 years, made a huge mistake that cost him a hand and left him mentally unable to face his teachers again for at least a year?

It's not incompatible, but to handwave such character developments as happening off-screen is cheap.

keiranhalcyon7 wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:09 am

It's not incompatible, but to handwave such character developments as happening off-screen is cheap.

Ding ding ding!

It’s just bad storytelling, nothing more.

With the original trilogy, you don’t have all these lengthy rationalizations trying to justify choices in plot, and character development (or lack thereof). Things just fit together and made sense.

The lengths to which fandom will go to try and headcannon this into a good movie is just mind boggling.

Well with the OT they didn‘t have legions of fanboys and couch directors questioning every decision that was or wasn‘t made and trying to dictate how their personal version of the story should be. Thanks alot internet!

I‘m not defending TLJ here. Mistakes were made and have been analyzed, interpretted and debated more than sufficiently. I picture there is no argument that hasn‘t been voiced yet. Like you said, let‘s leave it at that and move on with our lives.

WarHawkster wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:24 pm

Things just fit together and made sense.

I will only say one thing: “From a certain point of view…”

DarHan wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 9:56 pm

WarHawkster wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:24 pm

Things just fit together and made sense.

I will only say one thing: “From a certain point of view…”

That doesn’t cut the mustard when you compare to the paragraphs and paragraphs, or novels even, worth of rationalizations and justifications written defending the sequel trilogy.

Point is, the OT was a much easier story to digest. I don’t need to read or watch a bunch of blogs, or YouTube videos to grasp what’s going on.

General_Trageton wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:38 pm

I picture there is no argument that hasn‘t been voiced yet.

I know what you're getting at, but I think it'd be a bit premature to assume that nobody will ever have a unique perspective on it ever again, lol. I'd agree it could probably at least do with going on the back burner for a while, for cooler heads to return to it later, though.

WarHawkster wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 05, 2019 4:24 pm

With the original trilogy, you don’t have all these lengthy rationalizations trying to justify choices in plot, and character development (or lack thereof). Things just fit together and made sense.

I expect one of the big problems stems from the fact that -for a standalone story- you can be pretty slapdash about your "worldbuilding", and just name events and locations without having to revisit them ever again; a trilogy isn't too much more difficult to manage in that respect, but with each further instalment you add, the complexity increases, and the chances of stuff not making sense does with it.

This happened with the EU more and more as it went on, and it's happening with current canon, too. I'd be inclined to say this is more a human limitation, rather than some failing on any individual or group's part. You can then throw on other issues, like it not being written by the same person any more; the new writers aren't privy to the same experiences and thinking methods of the original creator (with his innate understanding of what it is), and the messes and disconnects start to make a bit more sense. These are fundamentals, way before we get to more abstract stuff like "bad storytelling".

Also, rationalization, justification, and lack of character development were traditions started by Lucas in the prequels, as I recall, so those elements are technically on point, aren't they?

Yeah, the prequels have their own issues and I would not give those a pass either. Those were also heavily rationalized with headcannon by the fandom.

They’re absolutely some segments of fandom that will lap up whatever turd lucasfilm pumps out.

TLJ actually suffers from the same issue as the prequels. Where the OT was a highly collaborative effort (also true of TFA), both the Prequels and TLJ had 1 person in complete control, and both went completely off the rails.

Prequels had their issues. Most were resolved with the novelizations and pre-post movie books. However, I have found with what few NU CANON books at this point that I have read, that they resolve nothing, and the one EP7 novelization I saw was pretty much the movie script 1:1 at the time and expanded on nothing; granted it happened to be a youth novel, but that's all I could find at the time so I'm not sure if they've expanded on the novelization at all.

Most of the NU canon (books, games, movies), has thus far been a steaming pile of trash (with some fancy wrappings) apart from the Thrawn trilogy and I do have my complaints with the changes they made, primarily revolving around the Grisk which seem to be a combination of the Vagarii and the Vong, which I can largely live with given TZ wrote the books, and the Rebels/Clone Wars series'. But whatever.

Battlefront 1-2 reboots I will say were at least entertaining if not particularly compelling, though they had their moments.

TFA has issues, mostly revolving around not explaining things. One of the things the ANH does is use Luke's ignorance and naivety to explain things to the audience. We know what the Force is because Obi-Wan explains it to Luke, for example. In TFA nobody takes a lot of time to explain things to Rey or Finn, the characters who should be the audience' way into the movie.

TLJ doubles down on this problem - a really good example is after Rey attacks Luke and forces him to admit he considered killing Ben, and how Snoke got into his mind... the audience at this point is asking "Who is Snoke?" and Rey should also be asking this. This was an ideal time for Luke to say something like, "He's a wielder of the Dark Side more ancient and more malevolent than the Emperor ever was." This would have set up the stakes for Rey's subsequent confrontation with Snoke and would help to explain why he's so arrogant that Kilo can get the better of him.

If you watch Rian Johnson's interviews though he says he couldn't work out how to explain Snoke without killing the pace of the film - and he didn't know what to say. That's Rian Johnson being a bad filmmaker, and no amount of headcanon will change that.

TLJ isn't so much a bad story or a bad film as it's badly executed, to the extent of being a mess.

Rise of Skywalker...I got a bad feeling about this. Force Awakens...it was 'alright' I guess, in a ooops I accidentally drank paint thinner instead of 7up way...The Last Jedi, I can't believe I typed those words...what a horrible movie. Terrible...And this new one. It's going to end Star Wars for me. I mean, not the originals, just the ones after. As far as I'm concerned, the movies ended with Return of the Jedi. I sleep better at night knowing that somewhere, in another time and place, the heroes really did live happily ever after.

I just don't agree with any of the complaints against the film raised here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I like the Sequels a lot, but I would agree that the world building at times could have been better.

Seeing more of the New Republic before it gets blown up, and having a much more bigger picture theme in TLJ would have done a lot of good, I feel.

I don't like the story at all besides the general overarching theme revolving around the FO and NR, broadly speaking. Up to the point Starkiller base is involved, the "total wipeout" of multiple worlds frankly is a bit much. Heck, the Galaxy Gun back in the day was a bit much and very much in the same vein, but the tech wasn't energy based and thus more believable.

I have my own headcannon, and will take what makes sense and ignore the rest where appropriate, in theory.

Tuskin wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:44 am

I just don't agree with any of the complaints against the film raised here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

OK - how about this.

Leia helped plan the evacuation of Hoth, so why, 30 years later, is the Resistance using tiny shuttles without shields or hyperdrives that need capital ship to carry them around?

Why is a Mon-Cal Star Crusier almost out of fuel when a real-world Nuclear Aircraft Carrier can go decades without a pitstop?

These are serious questions the film has no answer for.

The obvious answer is that Disney and its current writers, directors, and producers, don't know their own lore when considering plot implications.

BattleDog wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 17, 2019 11:20 pm

Tuskin wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:44 am

I just don't agree with any of the complaints against the film raised here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

OK - how about this.

Leia helped plan the evacuation of Hoth, so why, 30 years later, is the Resistance using tiny shuttles without shields or hyperdrives that need capital ship to carry them around?

Why is a Mon-Cal Star Crusier almost out of fuel when a real-world Nuclear Aircraft Carrier can go decades without a pitstop?

These are serious questions the film has no answer for.

The fuel part is explained in the movie and is easily answered by common sense. A US Aircraft carrier is well stocked with supplies and connected to an established logistical network.

The Resistance is neither. We know they're not well equipped, that they don't have a lot of supplies and that they have a skeleton crew on all of their ships. The movie also tells us that the Resistance fleet rushed to D'qar after the battle for Starkiller Base, and thus did not have a full stock of supply. Likewise, the movie also tells us the Resistance didn't have time to load their fuel reserves because the First Order arrived too quickly. Finally, why would they use bigger transports when they're much more secure and safe onboard an MC85, which plenty of cargo space to carry them?

By contrast, Echo Base was the main Alliance base, so it was much better stocked. If we want to go into detail, there are serious questions there as well. When the transports launch, why doesn't the Empire send TIE Fighters to destroy them as they take off? Why do they not launch TIE Fighters to intercept them as they try to get past the Star Destroyers?

There are serious questions the film has no answer for.

Well, one major flaw with the EP8 plot as I see it since they are effectively acting as an insurgency (again), that bringing (a significant portion of) the resistance onto the Raddus acts as a giant target. If they would have sent the Raddus one way with a skeleton crew in the hopes of saving the ship, and the rest on random transports in random directions, the FO would have to either prioritize tracking down individual ships which is unlikely plausible since hyperspace tracking likely depends on a beacon present onboard, or focus on the obvious target and symbol.

Leia is a f**** up. Frankly put. Being a veteran of prior insurgencies she should have immediately ordered everybody to disband into cells and disappear in random directions as soon as the Raddus left Q'dar. I can't believe that the First Order showed up seconds within the rebels appearing in realspace also appeared within seconds of their jump. Movies dilate time for sake of telling a bigger story in a manageable period it would have taken time for the first order to track, calculate vectors, and then plot their own jump. I postulate that there was several hours to be able to shoo people off of the ship, and even potentially make several micro jumps and dumping shuttles or pods at each one. But no, that didn't presumably happen.

This is why I hate these new movies plots, there are too many holes in the logic and when they DO happen to explain the "how and why" it's incredibly lacking in critical thinking.