Star Wars: The Last Jedi release thread (spoilers)

[The Romulan Republic]

I think that there's a very obvious direction to take Rey-

Okay, she's a Jedi. She's embraced that role, and apparently gotten past her illusions about her background.

The obvious next step, since she has no illustrious heritage, is to make her begin to build her own identity, and the obvious way to do that, given the ending of TLJ, is for her to be forced to step into a leadership role, as a Jedi and possible mentor to other Jedi. That is the obvious next step for her character.

As to Kylo- I think that, while he still is no Vader, this film went a long way toward making him a credible antagonist- and I'd like to see First Order infighting between him and Hux play out as well.

[CaoCao]

I think that there's a very obvious direction to take Rey-

Okay, she's a Jedi. She's embraced that role, and apparently gotten past her illusions about her background.

The obvious next step, since she has no illustrious heritage, is to make her begin to build her own identity, and the obvious way to do that, given the ending of TLJ, is for her to be forced to step into a leadership role, as a Jedi and possible mentor to other Jedi. That is the obvious next step for her character.

I meant, as a viewer point of well, view. Her story arc is over (she became a Jedi and her parents issue was covered). Sure, there's a lot that can be done. JJ Abrams mentioned to give a better take on her parentage, so that part may or may not be completely over. But for someone who only has TFA and TLJ to go, she completed her journey. I mean, there is no revenge theme any longer (she had Kylo for the second time and let him live), nor redemption (she already tried), nor a rescue of friends in distress (she already did at Crait). There's no hook there for the next movie.

As to Kylo- I think that, while he still is no Vader, this film went a long way toward making him a credible antagonist- and I'd like to see First Order infighting between him and Hux play out as well.

He has not been portrayed as someone that could command respect, just a bit of fear. And he was played a fool too many times, last one in front of too many FO soldiers. Rey defeated him twice already, and he lost his supposed mentor, so he shouldn't get a power up. Neither him, Hux or Phasma managed to became a threat on screen.

[Elfdart]

It was pretty clear even the Empire did not control the whole galaxy.

Otherwise where from did the Rebels get these 3km long Mon Cal ships??

Put simply, did the film say Canto belonged to the New Republic? In any way?

Having some rebels doesn't mean you don't control territory unless they outright decide to hold it. Plenty of rebel groups throughout history operate from within government controlled territory. Its more the norm than the exception.

And the Mon Cal cruisers have been a plot hole long discussed/derided/excused. At some point the EU wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Have a galaxy encompassing Empire with no conventional rivals yet also have worlds that inexplicably get to be openly defiant. I make no excuses for this. If it were just the movies in cannon I would say that between ESB and RotJ the Rebels made their move to call all their supporters and cells to openly defy the Empire for push just like we saw at Endor not unlike Moaist Revelutionary Warfare doctrine of transitioning to phase three. The EU says otherwise, and we are stuck with an Empire who pre Endor is in the main portrayed as unbeatable and irresistible (which gives our Rebel hero's accomplishments gravity) except when our primaries need it not to be.

Did the OT movies explicitly say Alderaan belonged to the Empire in any way? Any planet for that matter? Oh well, I guess no planets belong to the Empire.

In the EU they made things murkier so yes, the Empire is huge but it has limits to power and there are other factions out there that even they have to treat with respect. Because that would bring up the question of how the Rebels were supplied. They aren't just using black market fighters, the X-Wings are more advanced than the TIE's. Where were they manufactured? How are they remaining hidden from the Imperials? When the Mon Calamari joined, why didn't the Imperials just come along and slag their planet?

I always assumed the fighters were built in secret factories and the larger ships like the big cruisers were civilian ships that were already in circulation, but with guns and armor plating grafted on. Mainly because photos of Home One showed mismatched colored plates on the hull. It reminds me of how Toyota trucks became very popular throughout Africa and the Middle East as military vehicles, with machineguns, AT missile launchers, mortars and AA-guns installed.

I just assumed those TIEs were not in on it and just didn't know there wasn't any backup coming. Leia didn't think they got off easy because those particular TIEs didn't try, but rather because they were all that showed up. Presumably, Tarkin was willing to risk maybe killing them for the sell. And why not? If that happened the plans are secure, a major leader of the alliance is dead, and whenever they fond the base another way he is invulnerable. He didn't seem particularly down with the idea of letting them escape in the first place.

As for why they went to the base anyway, well that's one of the biggest plot holes of ANH. The theory is that now that she had the plans she had to make sure they got a chance to use them before the Empire figured out the error it took the Rebels themselves like, ten minutes, to find so thats a valid concern. Yes its stupid, and it only works because its the first movie, and the contrivance is near the end when its earned some SOD currency to cash in.

So a reckless teenager (Leia) doing something reckless is a "plot hole"?

Uh, OK.

Blame the Prequel bashers for the lack of development of the NR- there was stuff that was shot that ended up cut, in all likelihood because of the whining about the "boring Senate scenes" in the Prequels.

Trying to be anti-prequel is the biggest problem with the new movies.

I have nothing but contempt for prequel-bashers, since they tend to be nothing more than fatuous mouth-breathers. BUT the Stoklassholes can't be blamed for Disney's decision to turn Star Wars into the equivalent of a cover band.

For what it's worth, my expectation for what was going to happen regarding the First Order tracking, before they deduced the method a few minutes later, was that their end of the plot was going to be focused on trying to keep out of range of the First Order while simultaneously conducting a mole hunt, and that the big reveal would be that it was a reprogrammed astromech that was somehow slipped in among the Resistance's droids. It would have easily explained how the First Order was not only able to track the Resistance, but was able to follow so hot on their heels. The compromised astromech would have been transmitting the calculated routes from one of the fleet's navicomputers, so the First Order would know where the Resistance was heading before they even jumped.

I had seen the Darth BB-8 promo pictures, but didn't have much information beyond that, so I assumed it would be the mole considering how much promo material was created to show it off. It's too bad that the evil BB-8 turned out to be such a non-entity, designed only to sell toys, but only really for the mint-in-box collectors. It's hard to imagine the kids clamoring for a toy based on a character with barely more screen time than the guy with the ice cream maker on Bespin, and had about the same impact on the plot.

That's because you spent more than five minutes thinking about plot and story, which is more than can be said for Disney's writers.

It was so much so they had to have a dude look at the camera and tell you it's TOTALLY NOT Hoth. I can't think of a more self-conscious insecurity openly inserted into a feature film.

Maybe when George Lazenby looked into the camera at the beginning of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and said "This never happened to the other fella". but that was meant as a joke.

It's just bad writing. It's implied that the way Supremacy's crew found Finn & co was that BB-9E scanned them and saw through BB-8's trashcan disguise. The problem is, when they spring the trap the disguise holds up, allowing BB-8 to sneak onto the AT-ST and save the day. It's more of the same pattern of "build conflict by making the heroes incompetent" followed by "resolve conflict by making the villans even more incompetent".

Yeah, Disney Star Wars is a kind of race to the bottom.

About „dealing with the FO“ - um, if the Republic is demilitarized or orders very little military equipment, and these massive corporations exist since Empire‘s day when ISDs were churned out like toys and two DS were built...

As leaders of such a corporation or trust of corporations, I would be concerned.

The FO seemed to absorb a shit ton of weapons and its ascension sure meant war. Like, certainly.

Now you think, how do I get more stuff? How can I produce more guns? Galaxy needs a war.

Even if originally supplying the FO was meant to make the Republic more militarized, I don‘t think its decimation was a bad turn of events for Canto.

Also with distances, planets and shit the exact workings of the galactic economy are not shown, but „capitalist minarchism“ seems to be close to what the Old Republic was. Why should a weaker NR be different?

It might be interesting if it's shown that one reason the First Order has an advantage is that the war industries have no use for a demilitarized Republic or its spin-off, the Resistance, and instead long for the Good Old Days of fascism and are backing the FO. Of course this being Disney Star Wars, this won't even be mentioned in passing. Which is just as well since J.J. Abrams is making the next one and he's not cut out for that kind of thing.

Let's compare the response to Leia's call to allies in 'The Last Jedi' with that to Gandalf's in 'The Fellowship of the Ring', and Bard's in 'The Battle of Five Armies'. Will I question of the latter two characters' ideals are worth fighting for? No, because I see many people of many races (elves, dwarves, men, hobbits) voluntarily risk life, limb, and livelihood to help Bard and Gandalf fight off Mordor's forces. Compared to that, the effort given to save the New Republic and its Resistance proxy is pathetic.

Why aren't more people fighting to restore the Nrw Republic in the wake of Hosnian Prime's destruction? In failing to show this, the filmmakers end up making the audience question whether or not it's worth fighting for.

One side is depicted engaging in massacres, torture, and genocide of civilian populaces. The other isn't.

Its not hard to figure out who the good guys are here, by the fairly simple standards of Star Wars morality.

And I'm getting really sick of the ST's critics constantly faulting the films for not holding the audience's hand and explaining every tiny detail of the plot (demands I never see made to the same extent for the plots of other films) in order to "justify" it.

Apparently you're new to SDN, where Red Letter Moron's fanwhores droned on and on for many pages that they couldn't understand who the bad guys were in the Prequels, or understand the heroes.

[Elfdart]

It certainly raises questions, ones that the EU tried to answer in a myriad of ways. According to current EU, the Mon Calamari were in the Republic and later rebelled after the Empire decided to take direct political control of their planet for reasons. So this made them go from pacifist to fully thrown in on the war effort. Those cruisers were originally supposed to be civilian ships but were later converted into multi-role warships. The Empire should have been able to bombard their homeworld and destroy all industry so it's not exactly clear where those ships are coming from. Did they already have hundreds in service and after their homeworld was attacked they all threw in with the rebellion? Where did they do the refits? What are they doing for spare parts?

Probably the best answer, one not supported in any of the material I know of, is that the Empire is more of a core thing and there's a bunch of polities rimward that never felt comfortable joining up with the whole Republic thing and are now leery of the Empire trying to make them join the central government by force. The Empire is trying to avoid giving them a reason to form an alliance against it and so tries to play nice even as they suspect some of them are funneling resources to the rebels. The goal of those outside polities would be to weaken the empire as much as possible while not helping the rebels enough to gain a victory because a new republic might feel expansionist again.

In so far as depicted in the films and the original EU, there wasn't really any concept of "rebel-held territory," planets so secure that the Imperials could not afford to project power there for fear of a publishing fight. Any place the rebels decided to place a fixed base, the Imperials could attack. Yavin, Hoth. So we see the Rebel fleet at the end of Empire and are thus back to the question of where they resupply from. It's unclear whether the fleet could "live off the land" as it were, growing food in agripods, mining resources from asteroids, manufacturing replacement parts, getting hypermatter from wherever it comes from, etc.

The EU is more useless than a cock-flavored lollipop, so leave it in the dumpster where it belongs. Let's just go by the movies. While the Empire rules with an iron fist, there are industries that produce restricted items without the knowledge -let alone permission- of the Empire. Like Bespin and the gas they sell on the black market. So it's entirely plausible that weapons and vehicles can be produced and sold/given to those fighting against the Empire under the same conditions. Given what was shown in ANH and TESB, it doesn't seem likely that the Mon Calamari would openly support the Rebels. But if they already build large ships for other purposes, they'd have some plausible deniability if some of those ships were to turn up in the Rebel fleet outfitted with weapons. They might even be in the good graces of the Empire leading up to Endor.

[Elfdart]

Was I the only one who thought Paige Tico was far hotter than her sister Rose?

No.

The A-wing pilot was cute as hell, too.

[Alkaloid]

The Empire clearly knew what was going on at Bespin, they just didn't care all that much providing that no one rocked the boat and they fell into line if and when the Empire said to. Like they did when Darth Vader turned up all of a sudden and demanded they turn over some rebels.

No reason Canto should be any different, it's a fucking casino where some arms dealers happen to gamble, not an actual arms trading hub. The NR is clearly running short of reliable personnel given the Rebellions existence and preference to deal with the NO via a proxy war, so they probably don't care about it all that much unless it starts creating serios problems. Fuck, if I owned that place I'd make it a rule, "we're all rich and like spending our money here, anyone who threatens the status quo by trying to offload a crate of blasters and attracts attention we don't want gets fed to the proverbial sarlaac".

I always assumed the fighters were built in secret factories and the larger ships like the big cruisers were civilian ships that were already in circulation, but with guns and armor plating grafted on. Mainly because photos of Home One showed mismatched colored plates on the hull. It reminds me of how Toyota trucks became very popular throughout Africa and the Middle East as military vehicles, with machineguns, AT missile launchers, mortars and AA-guns installed.

Fuck that, given what we saw on screen you could set up a shipyard in the middle of no where, have the components you need assembled all over the shop on rebel supported bases and ship them there for assembly. Sure it's not as efficient as having a nice short supply line to a planet a few km below you, but if value secrecy over efficiency like most insurgents do that's not a huge issue. That way your Mon Cal cruisers could be modified cruise liners or custom built battleships that make star destroyers look like a tinnie with a pop gun on it, both would be equally hard to find and stop and make as much sense in canon. If you want to get real cute whack a hyperdrive on your dry docks and just move if your manufacturing cells ever get compromised.

[Alkaloid]

Anyway, finally got around to seeing the movie. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Overall I'd say it was a decent movie, just not a very good Star Wars movie. The scale just doesn't fit with the rest of the films.

Poe continues to irritate me. I suppose it's an improvement to say he had a purpose in this film, unfortunately that purpose was to be the person responsible for the deaths of nearly all the rebels in the film while I was still expected to cheer for him. The franchise would be better if he'd died in THA like he was supposed to.

I did like the way Rey and Finn's arcs kind of mirrored each other. Rey had to learn and accept that there are potentially people she can't save, and that's OK. Finn had to learn that sometimes you have to try to save people you don't know and otherwise wouldn't. They're very much the Luke and Han of the ST.

Ackbar being killed by a villain as pathetic as Kylo Ren upsets me. The great fish man should have gone down like Nelson, that would have been a fitting end. Actually, I'd have not included Holdo and had the final stand be his instead, but I did like her as a character, so ehhhh. She does lose points for liking Poe though, at this point I can only assume being within 10 metres of him just makes everyone dumber.

Visually I really liked the lighsabre duels, they fit a nice middle ground between the acrobatics of the OPT and the formal, kendoesque duels of the OT. The white/red of the final scene was great as well, especially the aerial shots and the tight angles of people's footwork.

I still love the decision to make Ren a pathetic little Vader knock off, and Hux an ideologically stunted, moronic fascist scumbag. I will enjoy their inevitable downfalls so much more as a result. Snoak going on about using a lackey's weakness as an effective tool to Ren's face without Ren realising the implications was excellent.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Was I the only one who thought Paige Tico was far hotter than her sister Rose?

No.

The A-wing pilot was cute as hell, too.

You mean her? Her main picture isn't great. What I didn't know is that her actress has appeared in a couple of things I've seen but hadn't joined the dots.

The EU is more useless than a cock-flavored lollipop, so leave it in the dumpster where it belongs.

I'd still have preferred the films to respect the EU instead of shitting all over it the way they did, but it seems squeezing the Yuuzhan Vong War into 3 films is out of even Disney's league.

The way Leia saved herself (with The Force) after the bridge was blown up was cheesy as hell, perhaps moreso given what happened to her actress.

[Gandalf]

What would be the point of making films of the EU, when millions of people will already know how the stories end? Also, I'd like to see the Lucasfilm offices try to get Harrison Ford back for all of those films.

[NeoGoomba]

The one thing about TLJ that I still think about and smile at is that scene with Ren and Hux, when Ren is down and Hux slowly starts to pull his gun until Ren gets up. I thought that was a delicious little bit that I'm glad they did. Such a subtle thing that added a bit to Hux's character other than "Peter Principle: The Character"

[PhoenixKnig]

Made 1211 posts

[The Romulan Republic]

I meant, as a viewer point of well, view. Her story arc is over (she became a Jedi and her parents issue was covered). Sure, there's a lot that can be done. JJ Abrams mentioned to give a better take on her parentage, so that part may or may not be completely over. But for someone who only has TFA and TLJ to go, she completed her journey. I mean, there is no revenge theme any longer (she had Kylo for the second time and let him live), nor redemption (she already tried), nor a rescue of friends in distress (she already did at Crait). There's no hook there for the next movie.

I disagree with that. I can see why some viewers would feel that way, and perhaps that's a failing on the part of the filmmakers. But I don't personally feel that Rey's arc has reached a logical conclusion- I think that "Okay, I'm nobody, now who am I going to become?" is the logical next question. TLJ also places on Rey the implicit burden both of living up to Luke Skywalker's legacy, and of overcoming his mistakes- which means that its not enough for her to become a Jedi for her journey to be complete- she has to become a leader of Jedi, and rebuild the Order.

Do I trust Abrams to see that arc through competently in Episode IX? Not really. But fingers crossed.

He has not been portrayed as someone that could command respect, just a bit of fear. And he was played a fool too many times, last one in front of too many FO soldiers. Rey defeated him twice already, and he lost his supposed mentor, so he shouldn't get a power up. Neither him, Hux or Phasma managed to became a threat on screen.

Well, I think with Kylo they've given themselves a tricky balancing act. On the one hand, they've made him a deconstruction of a Sith, and someone who ultimately fails at being Sith. That's interesting and original, character-wise, but it still leaves them with a lack of a strong antagonist, to an extent.

I think for that reason, if nothing else, it was a mistake to kill Phasma and Snoke, both of whom had real threat potential and could have had that further developed. Mind, I would like to see Phasma come back, but probably not in a main villain role.

Short of retconning Snoke to be still alive, or introducing a new major villain in the third act, they've left themselves somewhat starved for capable antagonists, yes.

That said, I think that seeing the First Order crumble from within, illustrating the ultimate futility of such fanatical despotism, could be interesting, albeit unconventional, if they choose to go that route.

Basically- you can look at the ST thus far, accentuate its flaws, and just write it off as irreparably ruined, which is the approach a lot of fans seem to have taken. Or you can try to figure out how you can make the story work, because I do think there is a lot more you could do with the story, and that it has strong points that are often ignored because people focus on the criticisms. As both a fan and a writer myself, I find the latter more interesting. I derive sometimes more satisfaction from trying to analyze promising but flawed films, than from watching a masterpiece. But that's just me.

[The Romulan Republic]

The one thing about TLJ that I still think about and smile at is that scene with Ren and Hux, when Ren is down and Hux slowly starts to pull his gun until Ren gets up. I thought that was a delicious little bit that I'm glad they did. Such a subtle thing that added a bit to Hux's character other than "Peter Principle: The Character"

Yeah, that was good. I always enjoy thus subtle little character-building moments.

[jollyreaper]

The EU is more useless than a cock-flavored lollipop, so leave it in the dumpster where it belongs. Let's just go by the movies. While the Empire rules with an iron fist, there are industries that produce restricted items without the knowledge -let alone permission- of the Empire. Like Bespin and the gas they sell on the black market. So it's entirely plausible that weapons and vehicles can be produced and sold/given to those fighting against the Empire under the same conditions. Given what was shown in ANH and TESB, it doesn't seem likely that the Mon Calamari would openly support the Rebels. But if they already build large ships for other purposes, they'd have some plausible deniability if some of those ships were to turn up in the Rebel fleet outfitted with weapons. They might even be in the good graces of the Empire leading up to Endor.

What you said about the Toyota technicals is plausible. Though even on-screen -- not just in EU -- the X-Wing is presented as superior to the TIE which is an odd situation to have.

There's many plausible explanations for how the Rebels get supplied, ones we can draw on from history. Yes, the EU was a mixed bag so there's a lot of it worth throwing out. I do like the idea that the Republic didn't require a lot of internal security, possibly a lot of planets ran their own militias, so with the creation of an Empire the internal security needs went through the roof so, even with a large fleet, ruling by force rather than consent stretched them impossibly thin. That also provides more gaps for the Rebels to be supplied through.

A weird bit about history is it's relatively rare for resistance groups to go from guerrillas to proper a proper military force. One of the rare examples is the FARC who carved out territory that the Colombian territory was unable to assail. Your more usual situation is like what's happening with ISIS. You take a base of operations, the nation-state now has a place to hit and defeat you. You cannot fight a conventional battle against a superior force. The reason why ISIS made the gains in the first place was they had a will to fight superior to the dispirited Iraqi forces.

If planets did have a tradition of being more self-policing, the Imperials probably undertook a policy of disarming, similar to the way a strong king would order the slighting of castles owned by vassals to reduce their independence. You swore fealty to me but best not to give you temptation when you're feeling uppity. You can't stand without your king. That would open the opportunity for a lot of military equipment to hit the gray market and, surprise surprise, enter Rebel service. Then there's also the gosh-darn rebel pirate attacks where they stole all this equipment but none of our guys were killed though we did try and resist, honest.

[jollyreaper]

\
Fuck that, given what we saw on screen you could set up a shipyard in the middle of no where, have the components you need assembled all over the shop on rebel supported bases and ship them there for assembly. Sure it's not as efficient as having a nice short supply line to a planet a few km below you, but if value secrecy over efficiency like most insurgents do that's not a huge issue. That way your Mon Cal cruisers could be modified cruise liners or custom built battleships that make star destroyers look like a tinnie with a pop gun on it, both would be equally hard to find and stop and make as much sense in canon. If you want to get real cute whack a hyperdrive on your dry docks and just move if your manufacturing cells ever get compromised.

Mobilizing factories... Puts me to mind of how Stalin stripped all of the equipment out of his factories vulnerable to being overrun by the Germans and shipped them across the Urals.

There's the question of how visible interstellar platforms like that would be given the inevitable heat signature and how sensitive Star Wars sensors would be to it. Also, there's no indication of just how mobile a factory complex like that could be, how amenable major works would be towards being compact enough for easy movement, or even what level of compactness is required for such mobility.

What would be one viable method is finding useful dwarf planets in interstellar reaches. There should be a lot of them out there in the spaces between the stars. Put your base underground and you can use the entire planet as a heat sink and remain invisible to prying eyes.

The thing we just don't know is how good planetary shielding is. In medieval siege warfare the advantage lay with the defender because actually trying to take a castle was very, very expensive. It was cheaper to try and starve them out but that could take so long you could well lose your army to disease and desertion before surrender. A raiding army that didn't capture the castles didn't control the territory. Once they left the castle would empty and the locals would retain control of the land.

If a planet's shielding would require an unreasonably large number of ships to destroy, and I would assume any ship in range of the shield to attack it is also in range of planetary defense cannons, then the advantage would lie with the defenders. And this would then help explain the Death Star rationale because now you can one-shot a planet that was otherwise impervious to conventional assault. And this assumes there's also a reason why chucking a big ol' rock at the planet wouldn't work. Maybe the shield would break up smaller rocks and any rock large enough to knock out the shield would be shattered and the pieces can be destroyed with the cannons.

[Elfdart]

You mean her? Her main picture isn't great. What I didn't know is that her actress has appeared in a couple of things I've seen but hadn't joined the dots.

Yeah that's her. Her pretty face was one of the few things I liked about the movie, so naturally she got blowed up real good. At least the thoroughbred elks escaped.

The EU is more useless than a cock-flavored lollipop, so leave it in the dumpster where it belongs.

I'd still have preferred the films to respect the EU instead of shitting all over it the way they did, but it seems squeezing the Yuuzhan Vong War into 3 films is out of even Disney's league.

The way Leia saved herself (with The Force) after the bridge was blown up was cheesy as hell, perhaps moreso given what happened to her actress.

I'd rather drink hot lye than watch a movie where Chewbacca is crushed to death with a falling asteroid, and the one Solo offspring they have is so lame, adding two more Solo kids who show nothing of their parents is worse than pointless.

[Elfdart]

The EU is more useless than a cock-flavored lollipop, so leave it in the dumpster where it belongs. Let's just go by the movies. While the Empire rules with an iron fist, there are industries that produce restricted items without the knowledge -let alone permission- of the Empire. Like Bespin and the gas they sell on the black market. So it's entirely plausible that weapons and vehicles can be produced and sold/given to those fighting against the Empire under the same conditions. Given what was shown in ANH and TESB, it doesn't seem likely that the Mon Calamari would openly support the Rebels. But if they already build large ships for other purposes, they'd have some plausible deniability if some of those ships were to turn up in the Rebel fleet outfitted with weapons. They might even be in the good graces of the Empire leading up to Endor.

What you said about the Toyota technicals is plausible. Though even on-screen -- not just in EU -- the X-Wing is presented as superior to the TIE which is an odd situation to have.

Where? Name characters might blow away TIEs with ease, just as they mow down stormtroopers left and right. Nameless characters, not so much.

There's many plausible explanations for how the Rebels get supplied, ones we can draw on from history. Yes, the EU was a mixed bag so there's a lot of it worth throwing out. I do like the idea that the Republic didn't require a lot of internal security, possibly a lot of planets ran their own militias, so with the creation of an Empire the internal security needs went through the roof so, even with a large fleet, ruling by force rather than consent stretched them impossibly thin. That also provides more gaps for the Rebels to be supplied through.

One thing you don't see much of is Rebel use of scavenged Imperial gear, probably on the grounds that the audience might would get confused if say, two ISDs went broadsides against each other.

[Imperial528]

I always assumed the fighters were built in secret factories and the larger ships like the big cruisers were civilian ships that were already in circulation, but with guns and armor plating grafted on. Mainly because photos of Home One showed mismatched colored plates on the hull. It reminds me of how Toyota trucks became very popular throughout Africa and the Middle East as military vehicles, with machineguns, AT missile launchers, mortars and AA-guns installed.

I've figured that between the events of ANH and RoTJ, the Rebellion has earned the clandestine support of worlds that may be too well defended for the Empire to readily engage conventionally, and without the Death Star there's no easy ticket to wiping them out. Thus, somewhere they can source warships, but not in significant quantity or necessarily modern ones either.

[Civil War Man]

If occurs to me that many of us may be working off of some incorrect premises regarding the new Star Wars movies. Specifically the idea of there being character arcs. The concept loses a lot of meaning when you take into consideration that Disney's strategy is to release a Star Wars movie every single year from now until the heat death of the universe. It falls into the same trap as long-running TV shows, where the status quo will inevitably assert itself. We don't have to speculate on where Rey moves forward as a character from here, because we know she will eventually fail, and in probably the same way Luke did. Because if she ever truly succeeded, then there would be no more sequel hook. The Rebellion/Resistance will never truly destroy the Empire/First Order, or vice versa, because then there would be no more sequel hook. And if one does get destroyed, it will simply be replaced by an identical entity with maybe a different name, like we're seeing being set up with the Rebellion/Resistance in TLJ.

This is the problem we are running into with Disney's "Star Wars Every Year Forever" plan. It's an unsustainable plan. Eventually it will end, but if you don't end it on your terms, then entropy will eventually claim it. With Disney's strategy, Star Wars will eventually stop being made, but only 3 movies after it's already used up any remaining goodwill its fanbase had.

It's becoming an increasingly rare storytelling skill to know how to end a story, which is unfortunate since that is one of the most important skills a storyteller can have.

[CaoCao]

I disagree with that. I can see why some viewers would feel that way, and perhaps that's a failing on the part of the filmmakers. But I don't personally feel that Rey's arc has reached a logical conclusion- I think that "Okay, I'm nobody, now who am I going to become?" is the logical next question. TLJ also places on Rey the implicit burden both of living up to Luke Skywalker's legacy, and of overcoming his mistakes- which means that its not enough for her to become a Jedi for her journey to be complete- she has to become a leader of Jedi, and rebuild the Order.

Do I trust Abrams to see that arc through competently in Episode IX? Not really. But fingers crossed.

I do think the plot rushed her growth too much, leaving little room to go (which created the Mary Sue issue).

On JJ, its a mixed thing. I believe he's better than Ryan, specially in directing actors (Daisie had better interaction with the rest of the characters in TFA than in TLJ). My doubt is with his mistery boxes, which are fine for movie 1 of a trilogy, but not so much for movie 3.

He has not been portrayed as someone that could command respect, just a bit of fear. And he was played a fool too many times, last one in front of too many FO soldiers. Rey defeated him twice already, and he lost his supposed mentor, so he shouldn't get a power up. Neither him, Hux or Phasma managed to became a threat on screen.

Well, I think with Kylo they've given themselves a tricky balancing act. On the one hand, they've made him a deconstruction of a Sith, and someone who ultimately fails at being Sith. That's interesting and original, character-wise, but it still leaves them with a lack of a strong antagonist, to an extent.

I think for that reason, if nothing else, it was a mistake to kill Phasma and Snoke, both of whom had real threat potential and could have had that further developed. Mind, I would like to see Phasma come back, but probably not in a main villain role.

Short of retconning Snoke to be still alive, or introducing a new major villain in the third act, they've left themselves somewhat starved for capable antagonists, yes.

That said, I think that seeing the First Order crumble from within, illustrating the ultimate futility of such fanatical despotism, could be interesting, albeit unconventional, if they choose to go that route.

Basically- you can look at the ST thus far, accentuate its flaws, and just write it off as irreparably ruined, which is the approach a lot of fans seem to have taken. Or you can try to figure out how you can make the story work, because I do think there is a lot more you could do with the story, and that it has strong points that are often ignored because people focus on the criticisms. As both a fan and a writer myself, I find the latter more interesting. I derive sometimes more satisfaction from trying to analyze promising but flawed films, than from watching a masterpiece. But that's just me.

The idea to see FO crumble would be good, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of movie they want to do.

About fans, I guess everyone had one or several parts of TLJ that rubbed them the wrong way (to me, it was Luke and Leia's portrayal/destiny), coupled with bad plots. And when that happens, you stop overlooking the flaws (and you start nitpicking even on the mechanics of those damned bombers).

Edit: several typos.

[jollyreaper]

The EU is more useless than a cock-flavored lollipop, so leave it in the dumpster where it belongs. Let's just go by the movies. While the Empire rules with an iron fist, there are industries that produce restricted items without the knowledge -let alone permission- of the Empire. Like Bespin and the gas they sell on the black market. So it's entirely plausible that weapons and vehicles can be produced and sold/given to those fighting against the Empire under the same conditions. Given what was shown in ANH and TESB, it doesn't seem likely that the Mon Calamari would openly support the Rebels. But if they already build large ships for other purposes, they'd have some plausible deniability if some of those ships were to turn up in the Rebel fleet outfitted with weapons. They might even be in the good graces of the Empire leading up to Endor.

What you said about the Toyota technicals is plausible. Though even on-screen -- not just in EU -- the X-Wing is presented as superior to the TIE which is an odd situation to have.

Where? Name characters might blow away TIEs with ease, just as they mow down stormtroopers left and right. Nameless characters, not so much.

X-Wings have shields and hyperdrives. They are blowing up more frequently in the new movies, though. In keeping with the less-equipped rebels, it would make more sense for their ships to be the ones without life support, no shields, little armor but making up for those deficiencies with speed and firepower. Lucas was cribbing from WWII and Vietnam. Wildcat or Lightning vs. Zero, that's heavy, armored fighters with self-sealing fuel tanks vs. a light and zippy opponent. F-4 vs. MiG-17, 19 or 21, heavy flying brick vs. zippy opponents. But the Empire was supposed to be the giant industrialized technical opponent so the rebels should be in the zippy flying eggshells.

There's many plausible explanations for how the Rebels get supplied, ones we can draw on from history. Yes, the EU was a mixed bag so there's a lot of it worth throwing out. I do like the idea that the Republic didn't require a lot of internal security, possibly a lot of planets ran their own militias, so with the creation of an Empire the internal security needs went through the roof so, even with a large fleet, ruling by force rather than consent stretched them impossibly thin. That also provides more gaps for the Rebels to be supplied through.

One thing you don't see much of is Rebel use of scavenged Imperial gear, probably on the grounds that the audience might would get confused if say, two ISDs went broadsides against each other.

Right. It's a variation on the One Steve Limit. (Two different characters in a story should not share a name, even though that happens often in real life. Don't needlessly confuse the audience.) They did have ship classes used by both sides in the games but that was not so confusing because we had the HUD to tell one from another. A movie audience wouldn't have that luxury. And nobody would use scavenged Storm Trooper armor because that shit's useless.

[jollyreaper]

If occurs to me that many of us may be working off of some incorrect premises regarding the new Star Wars movies. Specifically the idea of there being character arcs. The concept loses a lot of meaning when you take into consideration that Disney's strategy is to release a Star Wars movie every single year from now until the heat death of the universe. It falls into the same trap as long-running TV shows, where the status quo will inevitably assert itself. We don't have to speculate on where Rey moves forward as a character from here, because we know she will eventually fail, and in probably the same way Luke did. Because if she ever truly succeeded, then there would be no more sequel hook. The Rebellion/Resistance will never truly destroy the Empire/First Order, or vice versa, because then there would be no more sequel hook. And if one does get destroyed, it will simply be replaced by an identical entity with maybe a different name, like we're seeing being set up with the Rebellion/Resistance in TLJ.

The answer is you tell smaller stories so you can have a beginning, middle and end without the fate of the larger universe hanging in the balance. What's happening to the characters involved is important to them but easily overlooked by the rest of the galaxy. You can keep Star Wars fresh by keeping the same creative team for a couple of films that must tell a complete story, starting a new story after that, exploring further in the past and the future of the setting, always trying new things. (But this isn't going to happen.)

I believe you are correct. It will end up feeling like Warhammer 40k where the Imperium is collapsing and has always been collapsing and always will be collapsing and even though chaos/tyranids/necrons/alien space bats have toppled a major segmentium and Earth is threatened and this changes everything, honest, it just keeps going on and on and on. And the public will either keep eating it up or eventually grow bored. My suspicion is Star Wars can continue running on autopilot for years, like the soaps. If it ever winds down we are talking decades from now.

[Vympel]

X-Wings have shields and hyperdrives. They are blowing up more frequently in the new movies, though. In keeping with the less-equipped rebels, it would make more sense for their ships to be the ones without life support, no shields, little armor but making up for those deficiencies with speed and firepower. Lucas was cribbing from WWII and Vietnam. Wildcat or Lightning vs. Zero, that's heavy, armored fighters with self-sealing fuel tanks vs. a light and zippy opponent. F-4 vs. MiG-17, 19 or 21, heavy flying brick vs. zippy opponents. But the Empire was supposed to be the giant industrialized technical opponent so the rebels should be in the zippy flying eggshells.

The hyperdrive is totally irrelevant to the X-Wing's combat effectiveness against a TIE. Anyway, there's simply no lop-sided kill ratio observed in the old films between X-Wings and TIEs. Its entirely an invention of the EU. Heck, the amount of times the shields of an X-Wing actually saved it from dying can be counted on one hand. The new movies the relationship between both fighters is largely the same (the TIE/fo has rudimentary shields, the TIE/sf stronger shields than the TIE/fo).

Of course, the new movie gave us Poe's insane kill streak in TFA, but that's down to Poe, not the ship he's flying.

[The Romulan Republic]

I do think the plot rushed her growth too much, leaving little room to go (which created the Mary Sue issue).

On JJ, its a mixed thing. I believe he's better than Ryan, specially in directing actors (Daisie had better interaction with the rest of the characters in TFA than in TLJ). My doubt is with his mistery boxes, which are fine for movie 1 of a trilogy, but not so much for movie 3.

I'm not too critical of Ryan, but my view of Abrams is basically that he's a good director, who should be kept far, far away from writing the films.

The idea to see FO crumble would be good, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of movie they want to do.

Well, TLJ set it up nicely, if they do want to go that route.

About fans, I guess everyone had one or several parts of TLJ that rubbed them the wrong way (to me, it was Luke and Leia's portrayal/destiny), coupled with bad plots. And when that happens, you stop overlooking the flaws (and you start nitpicking even on the mechanics of those damned bombers).

Edit: several typos.

Eh, several aspects of the film pissed me off. I just feel that the positives overall outweigh them, and the flaws are not inexplicable or severe enough to cause irreparable damage to the franchise.

[Civil War Man]

The answer is you tell smaller stories so you can have a beginning, middle and end without the fate of the larger universe hanging in the balance. What's happening to the characters involved is important to them but easily overlooked by the rest of the galaxy. You can keep Star Wars fresh by keeping the same creative team for a couple of films that must tell a complete story, starting a new story after that, exploring further in the past and the future of the setting, always trying new things. (But this isn't going to happen.)

I believe you are correct. It will end up feeling like Warhammer 40k where the Imperium is collapsing and has always been collapsing and always will be collapsing and even though chaos/tyranids/necrons/alien space bats have toppled a major segmentium and Earth is threatened and this changes everything, honest, it just keeps going on and on and on. And the public will either keep eating it up or eventually grow bored. My suspicion is Star Wars can continue running on autopilot for years, like the soaps. If it ever winds down we are talking decades from now.

Even if they focused on telling smaller stories, I feel that making a commitment to a movie every single year like they did is a massive mistake. Besides the problems I pointed out before, it generates the problem where the creators have to craft stories not because they were inspired, but because they were obligated. Audiences are pretty good at telling the difference between a movie that was created with genuine passion and one that was only made to fulfill some kind of contractual obligation, or one that was only made to compete with another similar movie. I actually think Rogue One, for all of its problems, is an interesting contrast to the other Disney Star Wars movies in this regard. To me, TFA and TLJ felt relatively bloodless compared to Rogue One. I think it was because Rogue One set out to tell a story (specifically exploring the circumstances behind Leia obtaining the Death Star plans), while it feels like the inspirations for TFA and TLJ are "Yay, we're making more Star Wars movies!" and "Hold on to your butts, kiddos, because we are in Trope Subverting country now!", respectively.

And I think a large part of that is due to my previous point. Rogue One could tell a story because it had an endgame. The Episode VII+ movies don't really feel like they have any endgame, in large part because of the long-term commitment to continually release more movies. They kind of have defeat the First Order as a common goal, but it's also for the most part the only goal. There's really nothing much beyond that.