Random comments:
Patroklos wrote: ↑2018-01-05 04:17pm
5.) Cloaking devices. This a very subversive technology in a SW setting. The EU has been explicit for decades that this is a holy grail of tech achievement and we see it only in a very small number of places. Now its everywhere, people just throw it together at will from spare parts. Whenever sensors would be an issue, the writers shoehorn in a clocking device. Same with dropping the command ships shields. A lot of people have said in this thread that all this techno stuff is irrelevant, its there to serve the plot. I agree with to an extent, however if thats the case you don't need to invent a techno contrivance solution to your techno prop plot corner you have written yourself into. You need a new setting. The ships and other techno bits in an established IP with lots of world building are themselves characters. Having star destroyers destroyed inexplicably at will is no different than having a human protagonist all of a sudden display abilities or flaws there is no reason for the audience to accept.
The EU is not canon (and good riddance), and therefore totally irrelevant. Even if it was canon, the tail doesn't wag the dog, and never has. Also, its been 30 years since TESB. Things change.
9.) So you have a cloaking device. Great. YOU ARE IN FUCKING VISUAL RANGE!!!!!!!!!! However the cloaks work and whatever scifi sensors they mask against they quite obviously don't interfere with electromagnetic radiation in visible spectrion of the MkI ModI human eyeball. The people we see over and over again staring out of the Supremecy's bridge windows can physically see the transports leaving the cruiser. They can certainly see DJ's ship approaching. Shall we just assume the super high tech SW universe doesn't include IR sensors on their warships?
The transports are tiny, the claim that they'd be visible just from the Mk 1 eyeball at that distance is unjustified. As for DJ's ship - they came in from the underside of the ship. It doesn't stretch plausibility to think that someone wasn't looking out a window at the exact moment he arrived from that position. The same way the Falcon somehow got on the back of the Avenger without anyone on the Star Destroyer seeing it do so by looking out a window.
10.) Poe and Finn are communicating effortlessly between the Supremacy and the rebel cruiser. Who is setting this up? How does this work? They didn't even know were the other ones were until they started talking. ST has their communicators, but they have fucking communicators to make that work. This is not an established SW thing. For instance, Obi Wan has to go back to his ship and establish a comm link to report back from Kamino. There is no casual handheld interplanetary comms in any of the OT films. This is LAZINESS on the part of the writers.
How is the distance between the cruiser and Supremacy 'inter-planetary'? Obi-Wan went back to his ship because he was trying to communicate between Geonosis and Coruscant. And it turned out he didn't have enough power to do so (due to damage) and relayed it to Anakin and Tatooine first.
11.) But even though Poe and Finn have this magitek comms capability, why can't they call reinforcements now? Why can the call googly-eyed alien bar keep but not for help but nobody else? I have heard people say they couldn't call all of them at once because of power. This is not established in the film but okay, don't call them all at once then. Is the entire resistance is on this base evacuation mission? Every fucking one of them? This a galaxy wide resistance movement and you don't have cells, outposts, patrols, sympathizers, ambassadors, liaison officers, people on medical leave, ANYONE not on your only cruiser you can reach back to via comms who is a trusted agent to rally allies? Fuck you.
It is established in the film, they said Crait was useful because it had enough power to get a message out.
And no one said it was a galaxy wide resistance movement, ever.
12.) This is a 2 and a half hour movie. Thirty odd minutes of it is wasted on the stupid, contrived, and completely pointless to any outcome of the movie Finn/Rose subplot. Oh, you have to give Finn something to do you say? If Finn has nothing to do, then kill him which is exactly what you should have done.
Story and plot aren't the same. The Finn/Rose plot is not "pointless" at all, its an axis of the film and serves Finn's character arc. Further, the events of the climax couldn't happen without it.
13.) Everything about SaltyHoth. First of all its Hoth. I don't give a shit that some redshirt spends two seconds to tell us its salt. Second, this movie is two and a half hours long, it doesn't need a second ending tacked onto the end. If you couldn't end the chase in a creative and intelligent way (they didn't), then you shouldn't have written your movie around it. A fucking dedicated battering ram weapon? Seriously. Thats a pretty specific weapon to have a round... But good thing you had to penetrate that door which was, well, no thicker than any other door we have seen in SW. What is this armored base armored in? Mithral? Valarian Steel? Also, whats the point in building an armored base on a world undermined in shafts you can fly the MF through? Also, they walked out of the place through a cave, and it was made clear as day that it wasn't designed with a exit but rather they were using natural shafts so that "heavily armored" but was BS. There was an open rock entrance into there, which means the FO could easily have bombarded them to death.
The base was shielded, so orbital bombardment was out of the question. Poe says this. There's no evidence to suggest the crystal shafts in the area compromised the base's security. And yes, they walked out of the dilapdiated 30-year old base through a cave. Through an opening which didn't exist before Rey made it, and of which no one was aware.
16.) Finn is ramming the battering ram. Despite this being a perfect way to kill/dispose of him and remove a useless character who accomplished exactly nothing for the entire film, how does this work? We see the beam is already causing damage to the door. We see the beam is melting pieces off of his craft. Finn is staring directly at this destructive power with shielded face and eyeballs IN AN OPEN COCKPIT. Why is he not burned, why is he not blind, how is not not dead!
Characters do not need to 'accomplish' anything to grow.
19.) So much about the kamikaze cruiser ploy makes no sense. First off, it breaks SW ship combat outright. There is zero way to reconcile how this is notthe sole way warfare is waged in this universe. In the movie itself, why did they not try that with each smaller ship as they began to run out of fuel? Why was that not Pink's original plan when they dispatched the transports? Why did it destroy the other SDs that were not in the line of her path?
Sure there's a way to reconcile it. Does it have a minimum effective range? What's the mass threshold for it to work?
Why did they not try it with each smaller ship? Because from a nitpicky plot perspective, the only reason the cruiser pulled it off is because Hux deliberately declined an opportunity to shift fire on her as she turned (the act of which would have necessarily closed the distance and rendered it vulnerable). Given how easily those ships were destroyed, there is no reason to assume they'd pull off a jump before they were blown up.
From a story telling perspective, because its stupid to show your hand early and compromise one of your moments by doing it twice prior.
21.) Thats a neat Astral Projection trick Luke. It would have been super useful in petty much ever situation we have ever seen Jedi masters on screen but whatever. It also would have been more impressive if you hadn't immediately died anyway, removing all utility of not exposing yourself to danger through astral projection. From a simple story telling perspective having Luke be there in person and sacrifice himself there would have been better story writing. As it is how does anyone know Luke sacrificed himself at all?
Seriously? Luke Skywalker displayed a new Force power to demonstrate his mastery in a way that epitomises Yoda's admonition that a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defence, and never for attack. Heaven forbid the movies ever show us any new force powers. History must have stopped in 1983.
As for "removing all utility" - yeah, ok - he single-handedly saved the lives of everyone in the Resistance. How is Luke being there and dying as opposed to not being there and dying is at all different from a story-telling perspective? Either way, he sacrified his life. The only difference is that the movie's way of doing it is something only a competent writer who understands the source material could come up with, as opposed to some bullshit involving Electric Judgment or whatever other nonsense a SW fan writing this would default to.
How does anyone know Luke sacrified himself? Because Rey and Leia felt it.
22.) Rey and Chewie see some random animals on SaltyHoth. They immediately think this means something VERY specific, even though they had never seen these animals before and nor had any reason to think they were at all associated with the rebel base.
Given Rey has a tracking beacon, they can make a reasoanble guess.
23.) I think you some of you are jumping the gun on the timeline. Its true the last image from Rey we see in TFA picks up immediately in TLJ, it should be remember the end of TFA was a montage so there is no reason to assume that there wasn't an unspecified time between what we see in the montage and the linear portions of that film. There could be a lot of time in between the films, and it really only makes sense if there is. That said, if there is not there is a pretty big increase in Rey's lighsaber skills if there was zero training between the fights we see. For those of you defend Mary Rey as not being THAT good a lightsaber fighter in TFA, about that...
The end of TFA was not a montage. It's literally - the Resistance Base, then off to D'Qar.
24.) So it was Snoke who connected Rey and Kylo. So Snoke knows where Luke is. Yet usn't blasting that planet from orbit for some reason...
Why are you assuming it works like that? The movie made it pretty obvious that they didn't know where the other was because they could only see each other, and not their surroundings.
32.) Poe's arc makes no sense, because Finn was going to destroy the battering ram, and Rose's bullshit makes no sense because killing himself to do so was the only useful thing Finn would have accomplished in this movie. Instead he accomplished nothing.
There is zero reason to think that Finn was going to succeed in destroying the battering ram. Also, refer above. Movies don't need their characters to 'accomplish' plot points in order to grow. Luke miserably failed to accomplish anything when he fought Vader on Bespin - except his character grew regardless.