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[Star Wars] Episode IX: The Rise of the Speculation
italianranma
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STAR WARS
The debate rages on! No side can convince the other as to whether THE LAST JEDI is a cinematic masterpiece or a terrible fan betrayal. As MODERATOR patience runs out, the thread must look for new content...
A new hope appears in the form of STAR WARS RESISTANCE, an animated tv show about a RESISTANCE pilot tasked to spy on the growing threat of the FIRST ORDER. Will the 3D computer animation deliver a thrilling story, or it turn fans away? But wait, there is another...
Season 7 of CLONE WARS is set to premier on a new DISNEY streaming service in late 2019. In the mean-time SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY will be digitally released on September 14th with a physical release the following week. How will the thread react to these offerings...
The debate rages on! No side can convince the other as to whether THE LAST JEDI is a cinematic masterpiece or a terrible fan betrayal. As MODERATOR patience runs out, the thread must look for new content...
A new hope appears in the form of STAR WARS RESISTANCE, an animated tv show about a RESISTANCE pilot tasked to spy on the growing threat of the FIRST ORDER. Will the 3D computer animation deliver a thrilling story, or it turn fans away? But wait, there is another...
Season 7 of CLONE WARS is set to premier on a new DISNEY streaming service in late 2019. In the mean-time SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY will be digitally released on September 14th with a physical release the following week. How will the thread react to these offerings...
Episode IX content & speculation should be behind spoilers, but Solo and everything else prior is open spoilers.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
italianranma on
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I believe we earned a reprieve by being allowed a new thread, but I will always assume that this edict is in effect. To help steer the arguments I'd like to link a few videos that were by and large well received by the thread:
Movies With Mickey: How we view Star Wars:
Just Write's Why We Can't Agree About The Last Jedi & Character Arcs
Lessons From The Screenplay:
Wisecrack's What Went Wrong, and other videos critical of the movie:
The Mr. Plinkett review dropped today, should it go on this list?
Sick of talking about The Last Jedi? Who isn't! Post about something else and hopefully the thread will follow! For example there's that new STAR WARS RESISTANCE trailer:
I'm sure we'll all start talking about how great Solo: A Star Wars story is once people have actually seen it...
Too bad they haven't made a good Star Wars video game in a while.
The prequels had their problems, but at least I remember them.
These last few movies have just been... really kinda forgettable for me.
I go see them and I walk out of the theater just kinda... "meh" and have no desire to rewatch them ever.
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It’s that I simply have a fundamental disagreement with a lot of people on the matter of What Star Wars is ultimately about. And I have no idea how to reach people like that.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Why?
Anyway, the problem with Solo is probably more that it's both not a very exciting or compelling premise and not a very good movie and so isn't gonna change anyone's mind on the first point.
I need me some snarky Kreia!
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Like, imagine if it was the origin of human Force users? The movie starts near the end of the Rakata Empire and they are struggling to stave off the end of their civilization. Their research into humans leads to the main character of Dark City accidentally accessing the Force, but inadvertently leads to not only the creation of Jedi, but the final end to the Rakata as the dominant species of the galaxy.
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Yeah, but Dark City is a great movie. Imagine! Star Wars future noir!
/swoons
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Dark noir yes! Explaining origins of the galaxy no!
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Even though it's non-canon now, they already did in KOTOR and TOR and it was fine. At least, in broad strokes.
I don't want an explanation, so much as a story set there. Watch Dark City and imagine if John is the first Jedi, it just works.
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No, its the eighth part of an existing ennealogy
:razz:
Imagine Yoda and Bugs Bunny just trolling the hell out of Vader and Elmer.
Edit: all of the things it identifies are things that I liked about the movie. I enjoyed the way it methodically pulled the rug out from under me again and again. Each time I thought I knew how things were going to turn out due to being genre savvy and the movie's deliberate reflections of the original scenes ended up being turned on their head. That very novelty I greatly enjoyed. And it was a bit like Sucker Punch in that segments of the movie are deliberately designed to turn a mirror on the viewer--especially those scenes where Poe is repeatedly rebuked for his actions that we-as-the-viewer expect to be the right thing.
(A pet peeve of mine: Luke doesn't go out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order himself. He projects an illusion. I know a lot of people see that as the same thing, or even more super inspiring; I'm not among those people.)
One thing that stands out to me at the end of the video is when the author states that the "male heroes are not being diminished or erased in this movie - in fact, a lot of time and effort is devoted to giving men transformative arcs." I think that statement conflicts with its initial thesis of where it puts Luke - so consumed with guilt, he's cut himself off from the Force and retired as a hermit. That's necessarily diminished from where we last see him at the end of Return of the Jedi.
But I'm more of a fan of Just Write's Why We Can't Agree About The Last Jedi, Wisecrack's What Went Wrong, and Red Letter Media's Plinkett Review.
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I like a lot of the themes, but the actual movie is poor IMO, that's the issue. I'd be more interested in these interwoven arcs if they were interwoven better
To be fair, he explicitly refers to the people who aren't just critics of the film, but who feel personally enraged and affronted at the film, in a way that causes lashing out (helpfully using Kylo Ren's violent lash out scene to underscore who he's talking about)
If Holdo had said "that's on a need to know basis", then Poe flying off the handle makes him just a huge asshole, not a flawed hero. It's even worse if she tells him the plan, and then he goes behind her back because he thinks it's a bad idea for [insert 2 hour nitpicking Youtube video]. So we get the good admiral rallying the troops by giving an inspiring speech about having no plan but hoping for the best, just so Poe doesn't look like a total dipshit. Some people can overlook the questionable logic (and I'm not saying you're wrong if you can), and others can't.
I don't even know how you could tweak it while maintaining the logic, other than just cutting the entire Rose and Finn adventure. And maybe they should have, but I'm not here to tell people 30 minutes of their movie should have been edited out.
A lot of the Holdo arguments also hinge on technicalities about rank and chain of command. We do not know exactly what the Resistance's rank structure actually is, so I will try to use the film and sometimes the wiki to work through my reasoning on why the chain of command does not adequately explain Holdo's conduct towards Poe:
Poe Dameron is a Commander in the Starfighter Corps. We don't know how far that is below Vice Admiral, or even if the Starfighter Corps is part of the Fleet. We see on-screen that Commander Dameron has operational control of three squadrons (Red, Blue, Cobalt). Blue and Cobalt are the Raddus' fighter and strike wing, Red is the ground-based X-Wing squadron. Are the cruiser's wings part of the Starfighter Corps, or is Poe just assuming control ad hoc? Regardless, he is the most senior starfighter officer we're shown.
According to secondary sources, Poe is actually the most senior officer in the entire Corps, which consists of just the two Red and Blue Squadrons shown on screen. That would imply that the commanders of Red and Blue squadrons are immediately below him in the chain of command - except the wiki says Poe was also Red Squadron commander? So Blue Squadron commander - Tallisan Lintra, the A-Wing pilot - is the next most junior officer to Dameron.
Then General Organa (where is she relative to an Admiral? who knows) demotes him to Captain Dameron. How many grades is that? Lintra is apparently a Lieutenant so Captain Dameron still outranks her. We may be able to assume based on this demotion that the Starfighter Corps doesn't use the Fleet's rank structure, because otherwise Captain Dameron would be equivalent rank to the late Captain Gawat, the officer in command of the Raddus. At any rate, when they jump into hyperspace, Captain Dameron is apparently still the highest-ranking fighter pilot and probably still has command of the wing by default.
Then Kylo Ren shows up. Admiral Ackbar, Captain Gawat and everyone else on the bridge die. Lieutenant Lintra dies. General Organa is incapacitated. The only surviving bridge officer on the Raddus is Commander D'Acy, who is in command of the ground forces. (I had to look this up) How does an Army Commander compare to a Starfighter Corps Commander? She evidently outranks Captain Dameron, but maybe not Commander Dameron.
So, what we have left is the highest-ranking Army officer and the highest-ranking Starfighter Corps officer both on the same ship with no Fleet officers left above them. Commander D'Acy outranks Captain Dameron, but she is a soldier. Poe is the most senior officer we know of with space combat expertise. He is absolutely entitled to discuss strategy with the incoming Admiral. At the very least he would be present at the new commander's briefing.
Holdo has just replaced the former Admiral of the Fleet in extremis. Her new command is a freshly-decapitated cruiser, with no high-ranking Fleet personnel left. The Army commander is deferential to her, but the Starfighter Corps commander urgently wants to discuss strategy - so she mocks him for being demoted (despite still being the most senior officer in his branch) and tells him to get off her bridge. This is a serious breakdown of command. It's like Admiral Nimitz refusing to brief the commander of the Enterprise air wing on his operational plan before Midway. What did she think would happen? Did she not realize her new command was on the verge of moral collapse? Does she make a habit of treating her staff officers like shit?
Now, to be fair, probably there are other junior Raddus officers alive. Maybe Holdo had a nice, professional briefing with them offscreen, and just specifically excluded Poe. It's possible that Poe was throwing a huge tantrum and never privately asked Commander D'acy or any of his fellow officers what Holdo had told them. In this case, it would genuinely be all Poe's fault. But the information we have doesn't suggest that she did, or that there's anyone else besides D'acy left above or equal to Poe's rank.
That said, I rewatched TLJ the other day, and y'know what? I actually changed my opinion. I like it significantly more than Force Awakens. Now, I didn't really like TFA that much, so this is kind of faint praise, but here are some parts which on reflection I liked quite a lot:
-Luke being back on the Falcon
-Luke fishing and milking sea cows like a cranky ascetic
-Rey's parents are nobody important (her being a Skywalker would have been fucking terrible)
-Rey and Kylo's force conversations (I liked how these were shot)
-Snoke fucking around with Rey
-actually I kind of enjoyed Snoke in general this time, which surprised me
-the cinematography in the throne room
-Captain Phasma actually doing something kind of badass instead of jobbing laughably
Also spoilered for people tired o' this
I feel like Jellico fulfilled a very similar role to Holdo, in that he was in command in a place where no one really wanted him to be, the cast regulars were pretty uncomfortable with it, he insisted on things the regular crew thought were wrong, and withheld information from his crew. The funny thing is, I loved Jellico. I was extremely satisfied with him shutting people down who were clearly not used to being shut down. Obviously, I love Picard and wouldn't have wanted him permanently replaced, but I liked seeing the crew uncomfortable and being made to go against what they think their gut is telling them.
Holdo is not quite as good as Jellico... but I think they could have fixed any problem I had with her just by having a scene with her and Leia before she takes over.
Having the tough guy hotshot punch his annoying superior is a lesson a lot of movies reinforce, but I'd argue it's not a good lesson.
Not all criticisms of TLJ fit that description, but a sizeable portion of critics arguing in bad faith do.
Don't remember that episode, but the synopsis sounds pretty good. I'll give it a watch.
They don't want to have a scene like that with Holdo because the entire point is to play into your assumptions and preconceptions. Poe is your POV character here and the film wants to bring you along with his journey.
While it's definitely possible to over play that so that Holdo becomes trusted to the audience, I think there's a happy medium between "don't show her at all" and "show her as besties with Leia." A single scene between them of strictly military procedure would have been enough.
I think that still undermines the whole idea here because it shows her as some sort of non-outsider. And the movie wants you to make that assumption about her. That she is an outsider. The movie is telling you flat out who she is via dialogue and the people around her but is using point of view and culturally-based assumptions (biggest one being she's a woman) to make you not believe what it's saying. And part of that is having her just kinda walk on stage at the appropriate point as a complete stranger to us.
Well, again: It worked for Jellico. Jellico is explicitly sworn in as Captain, with Picard saying "I stand relieved", and he still very easily comes across as an outsider and rubs against the grain of everyone on board. There's enough inherent in the baseline character to get across that she's the outsider. To borrow from another trope, she can still be the by-the-book sergeant if we establish her first as the sergeant before she demands your badge and gun. And the overturning of the expectation still exists, because it turns out she was right to take your badge and gun all along.
I'm not sure what the difference is between what we got and what you are imagining then that isn't some way to normalize the character which is explicitly the opposite of what they want to do with her.