We saw a Star War! Last Jedi spoiler thread

[doctorbadwolf]

I am baffled by people who think that it is somehow a good thing for Rey to come from worthless parents. She's not just strong with the Force, she's operating at Luke levels. She's The Chosen One. Star Wars is an epic tale of Force and Destiny, where things unfold according to prophecy and the will of the Force guides the hand of fate. Rey's destiny is to become the next Skywalker, one way or another. If she isn't a Skywalker in name, then that only means that Lucasfilm has gone out of its way to crap on George Lucas and wreck everything he made, because the role of the Skywalker scion/Chosen One is quite obviously what Rey is filling.

None of that stuff requires her to be a Skywalker. Ben may be the last Skywalker. Fine. As long as Luke isn't the last Jedi, his legacy continues.

 

[Morrus]

Do we know that it can be done on autopilot?

It would take quite the stretch of imagination to think that it can’t. We can fly planes in a straight line on autopilot now. And fly drones, so remote control. Or a droid. Or, yeah, one guy if necessary. War and all that.

I couldn't possibly disagree more. It was fantastic, and perfect, IMO.

I couldn’t possibly disagree more. It looked ridiculous.

Try telling that to annoying fans who insist that "grey jedi" are canon.

No, that’s OK. I won’t.

 

[epithet]

None of that stuff requires her to be a Skywalker. Ben may be the last Skywalker. Fine. As long as Luke isn't the last Jedi, his legacy continues.

I don’t see it that way at all. If Luke’s only connection to Rey is to train her as a Force ghost, that could just as easily be done Yoda. It completely removes the Skywalkers as crucial to the fate of the Galaxy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don’t see it that way at all. If Luke’s only connection to Rey is to train her as a Force ghost, that could just as easily be done Yoda. It completely removes the Skywalkers as crucial to the fate of the Galaxy.

Good. I don't want to watch 20 movies for the next 40 years that are just a string of the same people's kids.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It would take quite the stretch of imagination to think that it can’t. We can fly planes in a straight line on autopilot now. And fly drones, so remote control. Or a droid. Or, yeah, one guy if necessary. War and all that.

I couldn’t possibly disagree more. It looked ridiculous.

How did it look ridiculous? She pulled herself to the ship using the same power that other force users use all the time. How else could it reasonably have looked?

ANyway, I'm not going to try to make computers in star wars make sense. They don't, and I don't think they ever will.

 

[trappedslider]

here

 

[MarkB]

- If you can take out a fleet of Star Destroyers by just flying a ship at light speed into them, why isn't that the standard tactic?

Because it usually doesn't work. Recall the scene at the end of Rogue One where the Rebel fleet are jumping out of the system, and Vader's Star Destroyer jumps in to cut off their escape route. The escaping capital ships don't rip through the Star Destroyer - they're pulverised against its hull without leaving a blemish.

The tactic used in The Last Jedi was likely just a perfect combination of circumstances - exactly the right distances, a pinpoint-accurate alignment, and a sufficiently large and powerful capital ship, the largest the Resistance had.

I know the crawl says that, but without that you’d get no sense that the First Order was anything more than a mid-sized organised gang. They don’t show anything in the movies.

Do they hold territory? Is there a government? All you ever see is a single army. And the entire command structure appears to be Snoke -> Kylo -> Hux -> Phasma -> Stormtroopers (and they're all on those half dozen ships). Are there others? Regional governors, other armies, more ships? Are there stormtroopers on Tattooine? Is there an actual government?

It does annoy me that these movies give no real sense of scale to the larger conflict, but I think we can assume that the fleet we saw was just a fraction of the First Order's strength. Rey says they control key systems across the galaxy, which has to require a large and well-organised force.

 

[pukunui]

So he was a local warlord. The stakes are just... so much lower. The First Order isn't anything like the threat of the Empire - it's more like it's a well-trained biker gang. And they're fighting the A-Team. And the world at large doesn't really notice, except that one atrocity they managed to commit.

Wikipedia has quite a bit of info gleaned from the Force Awakens Visual Dictionary. The First Order's origins bear more than a passing resemblance to Nazi Germany. After their defeat at Jakku, the Imperial remnants were "allowed" to have a small but heavily fortified region of space. The New Republic saddled them with crippling armistice treaties, then left them alone, thinking they wouldn't be a threat anymore.

Unbeknownst to the Republic, however, the Imperial remnants expanded into the Unknown Regions and began rebuilding their military power in secret. The First Order was formed when "centrist" worlds in the New Republic broke away and rejoined the Imperial remnants.

The First Order is described as a "rump state" and a "military junta".

So they do have a power base, and once they destroyed the Republic Senate, they were able to blitzkrieg their way across Europe the galaxy.

My guess is that Ben Solo is now the Supreme Leader of a good chunk of the galaxy. Perhaps not as much of it as Emperor Palpatine ruled over, but probably most of that same area, plus some of the Unknown Regions.

And really, hasn't Star Wars always been about characters? The world never made sense, the plot was always kinda predictable and lame, but the characters have been awesome.

Yes. George Lucas himself has said that it's basically a soap opera in space (hence the term "space opera").

My only real complaint was the apparent nods to the idea of the Light and Dark both being required for balance, rather than balance being a matter of the Dark Side being defeated. If they double down on that in the next one, it's gonna seriously hamper my enthusiasm for the franchise.

While I agree that this goes against what Lucas has said in the past ("the dark side is a cancer" and "balance = no dark side"), it does fit better with the real-world philosophies on which the Force is based.

 

[Morrus]

Wikipedia has quite a bit of info gleaned from the Force Awakens Visual Dictionary. The First Order's origins bear more than a passing resemblance to Nazi Germany. After their defeat at Jakku, the Imperial remnants were "allowed" to have a small but heavily fortified region of space. The New Republic saddled them with crippling armistice treaties, then left them alone, thinking they wouldn't be a threat anymore.

Unbeknownst to the Republic, however, the Imperial remnants expanded into the Unknown Regions and began rebuilding their military power in secret. The First Order was formed when "centrist" worlds in the New Republic broke away and rejoined the Imperial remnants.

The First Order is described as a "rump state" and a "military junta".

So they do have a power base, and once they destroyed the Republic Senate, they were able to blitzkrieg their way across Europe the galaxy.

Wow. The movies so do not portray that. They don’t even hint at it. I’d go so far as to say they portray a completely different reality.

My guess is that Ben Solo is now the Supreme Leader of a good chunk of the galaxy. Perhaps not as much of it as Emperor Palpatine ruled over, but probably most of that same area, plus some of the Unknown Regions.

What’s an Unknown Region? They never mentioned that in the film.

I enjoyed the movie. But I’m not keen on having to do homework to make it make sense.

 

[pukunui]

Wow. The movies so do not portray that. They don’t even hint at it. I’d go so far as to say they portray a completely different reality.

They do not do a good job of world-building, no.

What’s an Unknown Region? They never mentioned that in the film.

The Unknown Regions are the western part of the galaxy, mostly unexplored by the Republic/Empire. The concept originates in the EU but has been made canon through various means.

I enjoyed the movie. But I’m not keen on having to do homework to make it make sense.

That's understandable.