Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (Rants & spoilers)

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Re: Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (may contain traces of spoil)

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Post by Tuskin » Sun Dec 22, 2019 5:47 pm

I'm almost certain I saw some MC140 Scythes in the fleet.

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Post by XDragon » Sun Dec 22, 2019 7:17 pm

I really enjoyed the film and found it to resemble some of the old EU in a sense.

I'd say my biggest complaints being the Sith Fleet is composed of ISD I's..and not II's and Wedge not in an old T-65. Other than that, i would love to see what else we can pick out of the fleet at the end and I wish more screen time was given to them, like how they specifically showed the Executor being taken down in ROTJ
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Post by BattleDog » Sun Dec 22, 2019 9:22 pm

Well, I saw the film, I enjoyed it, and it gave me everything I needed from the final instalment.

It didn't give me everything I wanted or do much new but a lot of the run-time was spent re-aligning with the Force Awakens after The Last Jedi tried to deconstruct Star Wars.

Looking back, after Snoke died Palpatine basically had to be the ultimate villain (I don't think that's a spoiler) - there's no other way the story could really work. The Grandson of Anakin Skywalker and son of Princess Leia couldn't be the final, ultimate evil of the Skywalker Saga - that's just depressing.
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Post by Vince T » Sun Dec 22, 2019 11:04 pm

@Saxman regarding the force ghost thing, you could go even further, back to ROTJ when Obi-Wan's ghost sat down on the tree log next to Luke.
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Post by The Saxman » Sun Dec 22, 2019 11:15 pm

As I see it, "sitting on a log" could be accomplished without actually affecting the log (IE, as Obi-Wan is a ghost, he can "sit" while simply floating). That's a far cry from what we see them do now.

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Post by Vince T » Sun Dec 22, 2019 11:26 pm

Alright, I'll go one step further. As he enters the scene, the vines are moved as he passes.
This could of course be owed to the fact they were simply shooting the scene and adding the ghost effects afterwards, but it would imply that he does indeed have an impact on the physical world.
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Post by WarHawkster » Mon Dec 23, 2019 6:39 pm


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Post by Vince T » Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:17 pm

I've stopped caring for youtuber reviews long ago.
Coming to think of it, I never started in the first place.
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Post by WarHawkster » Mon Dec 23, 2019 8:46 pm

General_Trageton wrote:
Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:17 pm
I've stopped caring for youtuber reviews long ago.
Coming to think of it, I never started in the first place.
This is red letter media, from the guys who brought us the famous Mr. Plinkett Star Wars prequels reviews. Which, if you haven’t seen, you really should, they’re absolutely hysterical.

https://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/

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Post by BattleDog » Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:53 pm

General_Trageton wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 11:26 pm
Alright, I'll go one step further. As he enters the scene, the vines are moved as he passes.
This could of course be owed to the fact they were simply shooting the scene and adding the ghost effects afterwards, but it would imply that he does indeed have an impact on the physical world.
From that scene I always assumed that Obi Wan affected the environment to some degree. Looking at it the other way, Luke doesn't have to physically "catch" the lightsaber, he could just stop it with the Force and his appearing to catch it is just a visible manifestation of that.

Shipping Rey and Kylo at this point is downright weird, though, because it just is. Also, Jedi are celibate - as confirmed by Luke having no Mara Jade.
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Post by Vince T » Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:08 pm

Erm, just because one doesn't have a signifficant other doesn't mean celibate lol.
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Post by DarHan » Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:10 pm

Luke being the only example of Jedi Master we have does not a rule make. After all, Leia is Jedi-trained too and she had Han. And Kanan Jarrus didn’t become an item with Hera Syndulla until after his knighting ceremony.
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Post by The Saxman » Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:14 pm

General_Trageton wrote:
Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:08 pm
Erm, just because one doesn't have a signifficant other doesn't mean celibate lol.
In fact Mark Hamill outright stated on Twitter that Luke had had girlfriends since RotJ. Also, Lucas himself said Jedi can still fool around, they just couldn't form long-term relationship. Which frankly made the whole "Jedi can't have families" thing even stupider).

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Post by Vince T » Mon Dec 23, 2019 11:18 pm

Exactly, and I’ll throw in OBi-wan and Satine, although as far as arguing goes, those 2 could‘ve been married for 20 years :D
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Post by Marcos_Edson » Tue Dec 24, 2019 12:17 am

BattleDog wrote:
Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:53 pm
Shipping Rey and Kylo at this point is downright weird, though, because it just is.
With all the movie's flaws, that 'fluids exchange' at the end was the only thing that really made me be like 'WTF".
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Post by Q » Sat Dec 28, 2019 5:05 am

The new Star Tours ride update provides some additional looks at the new ships from the movie including the B-Wing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFg9tNnQmRI
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Post by Oldcode » Wed Jan 01, 2020 12:24 am

I saw the movie this last Saturday night, and for the most part, I enjoyed it a lot. Yes, there are some plot holes, but no more than in the original trilogy, and a lot less than the prequel trilogy. The only one that really annoyed me was they never told us where they found Luke's light saber after he lost it at Besbin.

I watched both TFA and TLJ before going to the theater, and had a really good time! :D

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Post by DarHan » Sun Jan 12, 2020 9:55 pm

Turgidson wrote:
Sat Jan 11, 2020 10:44 pm
Wasn't "every planet is facing a planet-buster" already what happened in TFA?
Yet, these ships chose to stay out, and instead of fighting a First Order that wasn't necessarily invincible and had just lost its superweapon... they chose to kneel (and allow the First Order to gain even more strength, and perhaps rebuild this very superweapon). THAT situation was actually the moment where these fleets should have gathered and fought back, to avoid the threat of superweapons to come.
But only now, facing new superweapons... they should all choose to revolt and fight it back?

Easier, really?

I'd actually think that the "every planet will be facing a planet-buster if we don’t all fight now" situation would actually be a big incentive for most worlds to gently submit to the Sith rule. Especially when the chances of victory would seem slim.
All right. Continuing from the other topic.

Here are a few differences between the situation in TLJ and TRoS:

In TLJ, most systems were under a massive SURPRISE attack. In TRoS, most of them have been under occupation for a while.

You can’t really assemble a massive fleet out of a galaxy where most fleets are busy trying to fight off an invasion of their home systems. “Your enemy has been preparing for a fight you didn’t even know was coming” tends to be the very last situation to ever allow for an organized response.

A galaxy under occupation, however, where every resistance group has likely been waiting for an occasion to strike? Bingo.

In TLJ, most systems never had the chance to find out where Starkiller was before they were conquered. Many probably didn’t even learn of Starkiller’s destruction until they were occupied. If anyone ever got to learn where Starkiller was, it likely was a moot point because 1) Starkiller had been destroyed already, and 2) even with Starkiller taken out, the FO’s Blitzkrieg was mostly complete anyway.

Meanwhile in TRoS, Lando essentially showed up in the Core systems broadcasting the location of the new superweapon. The superweapon that was not ready to deploy yet. The superweapon that didn’t seem to have any backup—no massive fleet to do its job in its stead, should it be destroyed.

TLJ was “everyone busy fighting desperately for their lives, with no info on any targets beyond the ones that just showed up fully armed at their doorstep”.

TRoS was “hey guys, now it’s our turn to strike while the enemy still has their pants down—we’re sending you the exact location of the target we all need to strike right now”.

Big difference.
Last edited by DarHan on Sun Jan 12, 2020 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by The Saxman » Sun Jan 12, 2020 10:00 pm

That's the thing that makes the "No one came to Crait, but now we're here" make sense. TLJ began literally HOURS after the Republic's capital and main fleet were annihilated. Whatever was left was scrambling to put itself together.

Meanwhile, Leia and the Resistance are NOT an independent nation under attack. They're a rebellion against what was the LEGITIMATE government of their territories.

The idea of anyone coming to help at Crait is LITERALLY like the Syrian Rebels expecting the US to send an army to help them literally the day after Washington DC was nuked.

However the entire setup — that the New Republic Navy has been so downscaled it was all kept in one system — was INCREDIBLY stupid to begin with.

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Post by DarHan » Sun Jan 12, 2020 10:04 pm

There’s stupid and stupid. Keeping with the comparison to the US: if the US had kept with the original intent to not have a large standing army, then nuking DC would effectively wipe out US Federal forces, leaving 50 states to deal with the threat, each with their own national guard.
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Post by Jaeven » Sun Jan 12, 2020 10:55 pm

As far as the New Republic Defense Fleet goes, we can probably fill in the blanks.

First, we know the Home Fleet, which was the largest NRDF formation, was destroyed in Starkiller's alpha strike. All sources tell us that was most of the NRDF, but not all of it, so we can assume there were other NRDF formations. I guess those formations likewise came under attack by the First Order invasion fleet, all while they were vulnerable and confused.

As for why the Home Fleet was assembled at Hosnian Prime, I don't think it was coincidence that happened at the same time the Senate was openly meeting with a Resistance envoy. I think it's possible they were finally starting to see the First Order as a threat, and assembled the fleet as a show of force; which of course served the First Order perfectly, because they now could all but destroy the New Republic in a single shot.

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Post by The Saxman » Mon Jan 13, 2020 3:12 am

IIRC, supplementary material established the fleet was ALWAYS kept with the capital because the Republic's government didn't want to freak out member worlds by having an active military presence.

Honestly, Nucanon's Republic makes even Fey'Lya's administration under Legends look competent.

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Post by Driftwood » Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:22 am

The Saxman wrote:
Mon Jan 13, 2020 3:12 am
IIRC, supplementary material established the fleet was ALWAYS kept with the capital because the Republic's government didn't want to freak out member worlds by having an active military presence in some fashion.

Honestly, Nucanon's Republic makes even Fey'Lya's administration under Legends look competent.
1. Incredibly stupid concern even looking at modern military presences across the globe for any number of countries. Having an active presence acts as a deterrent to hostilities since retribution for hostile action against one's citizens, installations, or fleets would be swiftly consequential. Also, fleets and other military components are often used more for humanitarian purposes and relief efforts than combat actions, this is good publicity too (and cheap labor for such actions per-se). And furthering good relations and cooperation with allied (or "state level units", IE local PDF) on mutually beneficial joint training exercises when organized (also good publicity, also see first sentence).
Staying within military zones within systems, trade lanes, neutral space, ect. like the (US federal, Rusisian, ect. do) shouldn't be a problem.

2. Ouch, that's a pretty harsh analysis, but if the NR's military is stuck only within the capital world(s) then they really serve no purpose since they'd been days/weeks/months to either garner humanitarian aid, or provide any form of military action in defense of a member world/system/sector if aid was requested.

3. In any case without having supply depots, military staging areas, regional garrisons, repair yards, ect. scattered throughout the galaxy the NRM wouldn't function logistically, never mind being remotely useful in any military capacity. Then again, I've yet heard of the NRM being useful in nucanon, so why even have it at this point?

4. Now unless the NR determined that the "federal" army/navy/whatever would be constrained to NR "federal" systems wherever those are located to maintain a logistics system and rapid response capability if requested/necessary, then I could see the NR mandating local PDF's akin to state national guard units to handle local emergencies within and up to the capacity of their own capabilities while leaving joint training (for consistency/uniformity) and requested aid (in whatever form) from the NR federal forces as an option when necessary.

I'm all for isolationist policies, where and if they are likely to work. But like any national/international policy they have to be sensible since one law or policy does not necessarily work for Corellia where it may work just fine for Sullust.

I dunno, I've not read much past the first Aftermath book since EP7 kinda drained me of much interest of post ROTJ SW at this point. For the most part. Maybe I'm missing some information, the whole NR seems a whole lot more lackluster than the legends version.

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Post by Jaeven » Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:06 am

I think people are overly harsh on the canon New Republic. In fact, I'd make the case the canon New Republic was immensely more successful than the legends one. Were they flawless? No, in fact they had major flaws. But they were not this trash heap people keep making it out to be.

Let's look at the canon New Republic:

Their biggest success is also what probably caused most of their weaknesses; they defeated the Empire within a single year, something that took the legends NR the best part of two decades. Now, the reason that happened so quickly is because Palpatine went completely scorched earth, believing that any Empire that allowed its Emperor to die was not worthy to exist. That drove a lot of worlds and ships to the New Republic, because no sane Imperial world wants to spontaneously get Operation Cinder'd because Palpatine is petty as hell.

Lessons the legends New Republic had to learn during the Galactic Civil War were lessons the canon NR never had to learn. That's one of the reasons they're so oblivious to the First Order. Under the canon NR, the galaxy experienced three decades of galactic peace; memories of the GCW and the Empire were a distant memory, which is why no one took the First Order seriously. To the galaxy at large, they were a small group of Imperial cosplayers controlling a tiny portion of space. To the outside, they barely had enough ships to control their own space. Of course, we all know they were assembling a massive fleet and Starkiller Base in the Unknown Regions, but the New Republic couldn't have known about that.

Of course, that doesn't make the NR flawless. While they did correct some of the issues of the Old Republic, they went over the top to ensure another Palpatine couldn't happen. That's why the NRDF, while still the largest fleet in the galaxy prior to Hosnian Prime, was a fraction of the size of the Imperial Navy and the legends NRDF. The NRDF in legends relied on a strong, centralized force of multiple large fleets. The canon NR felt that is what enabled Palpatine to come to power, so they instead reduced the centralized NRDF in size, and instead supported systems to raise their own planetary defense forces. Driftwood's comparison to the National Guard is a fitting one. And in the event those PDF's couldn't handle their own problems, the New Republic would send in the NRDF.

Now, we do know the Home Fleet over Hosnian Prime was not the only centralized force, but it was the largest. Before the Awakening shows us a NRDF base that utilizes T-85 X-wings, the pinnacle of X-wing design in canon. Age of Resistance has a NRDF naval base with T-85s and support ships. The Last Shot shows us a blockade led by a NRDF task force. Finally, The Last Jedi novelization has Hux saying that the remnants of the NRDF that had not been at Hosnian Prime had been recalled by surviving Senators to protect their worlds against the First Order invasion.

In hindsight, this decentralization obviously proved disastrous against the First Order. But we as the audience know about the First Order's capability. The New Republic did not; they did not anticipate fighting someone with equal or greater military power because they didn't believe there was someone like that in the galaxy. They believed that the New Republic Defense Fleet could easily defeat the First Order or whatever threat crawled up. Keeping the Home Fleet, your main deterrent in your capital as a show of force, ready to deploy and put down whatever trouble arises makes sense if your enemy does not have a secret weapon that can blow up the entire system from across the galaxy. I'll say it again, to the average citizen the First Order was akin to space North Korea. If someone told you North Korea was planning to launch a military invasion of the United States, you'd laugh in their faces, and rightly so.

The canon New Republic did have other flaws too. The idea that a Chancellor shouldn't be too powerful to prevent another Palpatine was good while Mon Mothma was in charge, because she could reach compromises with the different factions. The flaws in that became obvious only after she was gone, and her successors did not have the same ability that she have. To the credit of the legends New Republic, this was never the case in legends.

I'll point out again though, the New Republic had 30 years of peace, and despite gridlock, it was by all accounts thriving until Hosnian Prime went combust.

Now let's look at the legends New Republic.

It took them almost 20 years to mop up the Empire. There were numerous times where the New Republic had been on the brink of collapse and had it not been for the actions of the big three, would have almost certainly been destroyed. During Operation Shadow Hand, the New Republic was caught completely off guard, lost Coruscant, lost the entire Core and had it not been for Luke and the Imperials turning on each other in an all-out civil war, would have been screwed. During the Caamas crisis, the New Republic almost collapses in on itself by factionalism that makes the canon NR gridlock look like the smoothest government in galactic history. During the Vong War, the New Republic is oblivious to the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong despite having evidence of how dangerous the Yuuzhan Vong are. Borsk and the Senate were happy to let the entire Outer Rim burn and trillions perish, and even when the Vong had reached the Core, they were still happy to not take action! Then, they throw the Jedi to the wolves and continue to let the Vong advance until they are practically on Coruscant's doorstep before realizing that maybe they should act. By then it’s obviously too late, and following the Fall of Coruscant the legends NR is as gone as the canon one is after Hosnian Prime.

If we blame the canon NR for being unaware of the First Order's true nature, what does that make the legends NR for having the Vong's true nature directly in their face and still not doing anything?

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Post by The Saxman » Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:30 pm

Jakku was five years after Endor, so they didn't have the Empire beaten "within a year." And as we see in Mandalorian, there's still significant elements left IE Gideon.

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