Thrawn doesn't study art to understand an adversary's likes and dislikes. He's looking for holes in a species' perception. I haven't read the new book, but way back in the original, he is able to predict that an admiral of a certain alien race would fall for a rather simple 3D maneuver because he wouldn't be able to see it.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Thrawn doesn't study art to understand an adversary's likes and dislikes. He's looking for holes in a species' perception. I haven't read the new book, but way back in the original, he is able to predict that an admiral of a certain alien race would fall for a rather simple 3D maneuver because he wouldn't be able to see it.
Thrawn doesn't study art to understand an adversary's likes and dislikes. He's looking for holes in a species' perception. I haven't read the new book, but way back in the original, he is able to predict that an admiral of a certain alien race would fall for a rather simple 3D maneuver because he wouldn't be able to see it.
It's a nice addition to the character for the fact that, like all of Thrawn's other tricks (or "tricks"), it has immediate limitations that the audience is made aware of. Take the artwork: Thrawn is looking for failures or otherwise abrupt differences from human thought (Thrawn is a Chiss, and the Chiss are basically human in this particular area, or they were in Zahn's novels anyway) that can be exploitable. With the above example, a Republican naval commander being a member of a particular nonhuman species that had a cultural "blindside" towards moving in three dimensions (so, basically, they treated 'three dimensional space' the same way most video games, certain lazier episodes of Star Trek, and TLJ treat space), and presented in an artistic depiction. It wasn't a secret, it just wasn't plainly obvious. The limitation is that the Republican Navy, sure enough, has very few alien military commanders occupying the relevant posts (and some of them, like Ackbar, obviously don't feature this same "limitation"). If I'm remembering it correct, the particular incident was a fluke, and Thrawn exploited it very cleverly--and he didn't run into another naval commander with the same handicap. Next time he had to go searching for a different weakness, if one was available.
The Imperial Navy's double-blind cloaking device is the same way. It doesn't have some magical way to simultaneously deflect and replicate all EM radiation that impacts a ship (simultaneously allowing the ship to see, and the ship to be seen). It's all or nothing, otherwise it'd be a shitty cloaking device. So anything uses a cloaking device has to either be pre-programmed in its flight plan (like those asteroids or ships running extremely basic maneuvers), or otherwise directed on some other medium (telepathic control courtesy of Thrawn's pet Dark Jedi clone). And even then, it's still very flawed. The actual gravitational effects of the ship's mass can be detected (though that needs expensive, rare equipment), because it still occupies time and space. If you use the cloaking device to shoot through a shield by pre-positioning the cloaked ships, any idiot with a proper camera can see the gap between where the visible ship's fire strikes a shield and where the cloaked ship's fire emerges and strikes the target (and that's exactly what the New Republic does). Thrawn seldom gets to use the same trick twice, because the opposition Republican military, who dominates most of the galaxy and has basically been on the victory path since ROTJ, isn't full of idiots. And the situation is reversed: Thrawn, and his top commanders, learn from their mistakes (assuming they survive them, which they don't always), as with the tractor beam situation that almost got Luke Skywalker captured.
It sets a very distinct tone across much of the three novels, really helping build the tension, especially considering Thrawn's reoccurring weakness from the beginning to end: he's outgunned, the Empire is on the ropes (or close to it), and in the long run the Republic can afford to throw warm bodies into the meat grinder in the way the Empire can't (which he tries to remedy to, with mixed success). In a conflict of big good versus small evil, good will still win, but evil has to be smart about it, or you're looking at one book, not three. Compare that to the new trilogy which, of course, has no reason to follow the same formula--they have very different messages, some of which involve purity of love, etc., but it does feel like a strategic situation wherein no matter how much evil loses, they'll always be more evil just around the corner, and they'll always come back bigger and badder than ever. The villains, from a strategic perspective, don't need to be that smart or thoughtful (some would argue that's just going to lead to undue sympathy for them or, worse, what they thematically represent), because they don't need to do smart, thoughtful things, that's the domain of the heroes.
If you prefer the other formula, more power to you. But (unlike a lot of that old fiction, and some newer stuff too), the books manage to hold up to me for that reason in particular.
In many ways the rise of the First Order was a turbo charged version of the New Republic's waffling on the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. Which yes, EVERYONE criticized as being abjectly stupid when those books first got released.
That said, the characters and story of Force Awakens held my attention. The Last Jedi did not in the same way.
I love RLM but I find the Plinkett character tiresome. I wish Mike would just do them as himself.
I can understand that you know, it's what made them famous, so give the people what they want. But given how Youtube and social media generally has progressed in the 10 years since The Phantom Menace review, your fanbase will survive if you let it go...
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
The two issues Mike had with the movie that I agree with:
1) There were too many jokey-joke moments and it's a good thing they cut out all the stuff they did
2) The tone inside the Falcon at the end is all wrong (everyone is happy to see each other vs everyone being sad and mortified that out of 400 people, they're all that's left)
The one thing in the review I feel like addressing is Mike wondering how the First Order found the Resistance: that was in TFA, their scouts found the Resistance base and were going to blow it up with the Starkiller. This picks up right after. It's the same base, so they still know where it is.
Also, I can 100% understand not liking how the plot is basically "mistake 1 leads to mistake 2 leads to mistake 3", but that didn't bother me personally. I'm not going to hold that against anyone who was bothered by it, though.
I just finished watching it. It's worth a watch if you like RLM.
Much, much, much better than The Force Awakens Plinkett review, which was a boring, 90 minute complaint about Disney and very little actual content of TFA. This one stays focused on, ya know, the actual movie. Also better than their Rogue One review, which was just horrible.
Also, Mike really tones down the more awful aspects of the Plinkett stuff. There's still some there, but much less, comparatively speaking, and almost tame coming from a Plinkett review.
He still has a nice structure to it and uses the film's own visuals and dialog for juxtaposition when it contradicts itself, which I've always enjoyed about RLM reviews. I also like how he sticks to each point he's trying to make without rambling before moving on to the next point.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I generally really like RLM, but with both this and their Half in the Bag review of TLJ, I almost feel like I saw a different movie than they did. It's the first Plinkett review I didn't finish watching. In the end, a lot of it is subjective, and they clearly have a different opinion on the film than I do, and that's okay.
I still find it weird just how much they disliked the movie though.
Who is this RLM person and who is this Mike person?
I mean, I suppose I could watch the video, but 7 seconds in the voice annoyed the shit out of the me and the video itself is 58 minutes long. Pass.
RedLetterMedia is a small movie company and YouTube reviewers that got famous with a rather humorous review of all three Prequel movies. Plinkett, the character narrating, is supposed to be a violent, racist, misogynistic, overweight, old man. The joke is that if even that kind of person can understand why the PT is bad, then anyone can.
YMMV on the joke, sense a lot of people take it too seriously and RLM can be often be assholes about their opinions* at times, but they do make good points as well too.
*This was on special display with their review of Rogue One, which got such backlash that they made a response video to their review and a response video to that one.
Mild Confusion on
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I just finished watching it. It's worth a watch if you like RLM.
Much, much, much better than The Force Awakens Plinkett review, which was a boring, 90 minute complaint about Disney and very little actual content of TFA. This one stays focused on, ya know, the actual movie. Also better than their Rogue One review, which was just horrible.
Also, Mike really tones down the more awful aspects of the Plinkett stuff. There's still some there, but much less, comparatively speaking, and almost tame coming from a Plinkett review.
He still has a nice structure to it and uses the film's own visuals and dialog for juxtaposition when it contradicts itself, which I've always enjoyed about RLM reviews. I also like how he sticks to each point he's trying to make without rambling before moving on to the next point.
Their Rogue One review was basically spot on for me.
I just finished watching it. It's worth a watch if you like RLM.
Much, much, much better than The Force Awakens Plinkett review, which was a boring, 90 minute complaint about Disney and very little actual content of TFA. This one stays focused on, ya know, the actual movie. Also better than their Rogue One review, which was just horrible.
Also, Mike really tones down the more awful aspects of the Plinkett stuff. There's still some there, but much less, comparatively speaking, and almost tame coming from a Plinkett review.
He still has a nice structure to it and uses the film's own visuals and dialog for juxtaposition when it contradicts itself, which I've always enjoyed about RLM reviews. I also like how he sticks to each point he's trying to make without rambling before moving on to the next point.
Their Rogue One review was basically spot on for me.
It's subjective. The point was that it's the only review that was decisive enough they took time to defend it not only once, but twice.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
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Which race was that, the Allofthemians?
It's a nice addition to the character for the fact that, like all of Thrawn's other tricks (or "tricks"), it has immediate limitations that the audience is made aware of. Take the artwork: Thrawn is looking for failures or otherwise abrupt differences from human thought (Thrawn is a Chiss, and the Chiss are basically human in this particular area, or they were in Zahn's novels anyway) that can be exploitable. With the above example, a Republican naval commander being a member of a particular nonhuman species that had a cultural "blindside" towards moving in three dimensions (so, basically, they treated 'three dimensional space' the same way most video games, certain lazier episodes of Star Trek, and TLJ treat space), and presented in an artistic depiction. It wasn't a secret, it just wasn't plainly obvious. The limitation is that the Republican Navy, sure enough, has very few alien military commanders occupying the relevant posts (and some of them, like Ackbar, obviously don't feature this same "limitation"). If I'm remembering it correct, the particular incident was a fluke, and Thrawn exploited it very cleverly--and he didn't run into another naval commander with the same handicap. Next time he had to go searching for a different weakness, if one was available.
The Imperial Navy's double-blind cloaking device is the same way. It doesn't have some magical way to simultaneously deflect and replicate all EM radiation that impacts a ship (simultaneously allowing the ship to see, and the ship to be seen). It's all or nothing, otherwise it'd be a shitty cloaking device. So anything uses a cloaking device has to either be pre-programmed in its flight plan (like those asteroids or ships running extremely basic maneuvers), or otherwise directed on some other medium (telepathic control courtesy of Thrawn's pet Dark Jedi clone). And even then, it's still very flawed. The actual gravitational effects of the ship's mass can be detected (though that needs expensive, rare equipment), because it still occupies time and space. If you use the cloaking device to shoot through a shield by pre-positioning the cloaked ships, any idiot with a proper camera can see the gap between where the visible ship's fire strikes a shield and where the cloaked ship's fire emerges and strikes the target (and that's exactly what the New Republic does). Thrawn seldom gets to use the same trick twice, because the opposition Republican military, who dominates most of the galaxy and has basically been on the victory path since ROTJ, isn't full of idiots. And the situation is reversed: Thrawn, and his top commanders, learn from their mistakes (assuming they survive them, which they don't always), as with the tractor beam situation that almost got Luke Skywalker captured.
It sets a very distinct tone across much of the three novels, really helping build the tension, especially considering Thrawn's reoccurring weakness from the beginning to end: he's outgunned, the Empire is on the ropes (or close to it), and in the long run the Republic can afford to throw warm bodies into the meat grinder in the way the Empire can't (which he tries to remedy to, with mixed success). In a conflict of big good versus small evil, good will still win, but evil has to be smart about it, or you're looking at one book, not three. Compare that to the new trilogy which, of course, has no reason to follow the same formula--they have very different messages, some of which involve purity of love, etc., but it does feel like a strategic situation wherein no matter how much evil loses, they'll always be more evil just around the corner, and they'll always come back bigger and badder than ever. The villains, from a strategic perspective, don't need to be that smart or thoughtful (some would argue that's just going to lead to undue sympathy for them or, worse, what they thematically represent), because they don't need to do smart, thoughtful things, that's the domain of the heroes.
If you prefer the other formula, more power to you. But (unlike a lot of that old fiction, and some newer stuff too), the books manage to hold up to me for that reason in particular.
That said, the characters and story of Force Awakens held my attention. The Last Jedi did not in the same way.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
1) There were too many jokey-joke moments and it's a good thing they cut out all the stuff they did
2) The tone inside the Falcon at the end is all wrong (everyone is happy to see each other vs everyone being sad and mortified that out of 400 people, they're all that's left)
The one thing in the review I feel like addressing is Mike wondering how the First Order found the Resistance: that was in TFA, their scouts found the Resistance base and were going to blow it up with the Starkiller. This picks up right after. It's the same base, so they still know where it is.
Also, I can 100% understand not liking how the plot is basically "mistake 1 leads to mistake 2 leads to mistake 3", but that didn't bother me personally. I'm not going to hold that against anyone who was bothered by it, though.
Much, much, much better than The Force Awakens Plinkett review, which was a boring, 90 minute complaint about Disney and very little actual content of TFA. This one stays focused on, ya know, the actual movie. Also better than their Rogue One review, which was just horrible.
Also, Mike really tones down the more awful aspects of the Plinkett stuff. There's still some there, but much less, comparatively speaking, and almost tame coming from a Plinkett review.
He still has a nice structure to it and uses the film's own visuals and dialog for juxtaposition when it contradicts itself, which I've always enjoyed about RLM reviews. I also like how he sticks to each point he's trying to make without rambling before moving on to the next point.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I still find it weird just how much they disliked the movie though.
I mean, I suppose I could watch the video, but 7 seconds in the voice annoyed the shit out of the me and the video itself is 58 minutes long. Pass.
RedLetterMedia is a small movie company and YouTube reviewers that got famous with a rather humorous review of all three Prequel movies. Plinkett, the character narrating, is supposed to be a violent, racist, misogynistic, overweight, old man. The joke is that if even that kind of person can understand why the PT is bad, then anyone can.
YMMV on the joke, sense a lot of people take it too seriously and RLM can be often be assholes about their opinions* at times, but they do make good points as well too.
*This was on special display with their review of Rogue One, which got such backlash that they made a response video to their review and a response video to that one.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Their Rogue One review was basically spot on for me.
It's subjective. The point was that it's the only review that was decisive enough they took time to defend it not only once, but twice.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Geth, close the thread.
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