Keeping thing's kosher. :^)
cathou said:Issue number 1: I'm not quite dead!
Leia gets spaced when the bridge to the cruiser she's on gets blasted. Now, I'm sure the Force can do powerful and amazing things. It's not such a huge leap to believe that a Jedi master could use the Force to prevent the effects of catastrophic decompression and exposure to the cold of space...then Superman their way back to an airlock. Now I haven't read the books that are now official canon, but I'm pretty sure that Leia has not received any formal training in the use of the Force, let alone would should have the power and precision necessary to execute such an insane feat.
Issue number 2: No Country for Old Snokes.
Yep, Snoke's already dead, killed by Kylo. Now this didn't bother me as much as it did a number of other people as that is the way of the Dark Side: if an apprentice sees a moment of opportunity to kill his master, he'll take it and assume his master's position. This is what Kylo did, so fair enough. What I have an issue with is that - because there's still so many unanswered questions revolving around Snoke (Who/what was he? Where did he come from? How did he assume control over the remainder of the Empire's military forces considering he apparently came from absolutely nowhere?) - he's literally more of a plot device than an actual character. I would have been fine with him getting killed in this movie if we learned something about him first (such as, but not limited to, the previously mentioned questions), but instead this new Master of the Dark Side was just a throw-away plot device used to prop up Kylo as being the main villain.
Issue number 3: "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roomate!" "So what does that make us?" "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"
To be fair, this one could still be expanded on in the next movie and could be a deception in this one. But there's a scene in which Kylo is talking to Rey and he basically says that she already knows who her parents were but she just doesn't want to admit it. While she's in tears and unable to speak, he spells out "what you (she) know in your (her) hear to be true". Apparently Rey's parents are a couple scumbag nobodies who sold her off for some cash to go buy some drugs then just abandoned her. Nothing special about her bloodline or heritage, she's apparently completely unremarkable.
Issue number 4: "All power to forward shields!" "But Cap'n, we 'aven't got any!"
Towards the start of the movie, this massive fuck-off dreadnought ship is attacking the rebel fleet and has all of the anti-fighter guns on the top of it taken out by a single X-Wing. Then one bomber manages to dump its payload on a weak spot and blow up the entire ship. My question is why doesn't this dreadnought - described as a "fleet killer" - have any shields? Shields play a massive role in this move, as we're constantly reminded of the shields the rebel cruiser has. And before anyone says "Well small crafts like fighters can get past shields!" (something that I usually accept and is displayed when Kylo is attacking the rebel cruiser from his fighter), the movie provides an inconsistency with this notion. Finn and a new (likely disposable) character Rose have to go on a side-quest to pick up some kind of Master Code Breaker, someone who can lower the shields of Snoke's capital ship so that they can get a craft through and board it. Apparently they needed to lower the shields for Snoke's ship to get a craft in close, but not the dreadnought's.
Issue number 5: Now you see why evil will always triumph...because good is dumb.
There's one major contrivance in the movie that allows the second half to even happen. After Leia does her Superman space walk, she's unconscious and left in the infirmary. Chain of command falls to a vice admiral in the resistance and she decides that the fleet - which is running low on fuel - is just going to cruise away at normal speed for as long as they can while the First Order fleet is chasing after them. This is because the First Order have some kind of new technology that can track a fleet even if it jumps with hyperspace. If the Resistance tries to make a jump, they'll burn up all their fuel and immediately be destroyed when the First Order pops up behind them. This is why Finn and Rose need to go to the casino planet to find a code break so they can hack the shields of Snoke's ship, get on board it, and disable the tracking technology. This is Poe's plan, and he even stages a mutiny in order to make sure that the cruiser is ready to jump once Finn and Rose have accomplished their objective.
But this movie is a story of failure, as everything the Resistance - in particular Poe - tries ends up blowing up in their face. The REAL plan that the vice admiral was enacting was to cruise past a planet that had an old rebel base on it. They'd then launch a bunch of transports fitted with scanner-cloaking technology and abandon the cruiser as a decoy, allowing them to land undetected at the rebel base. This plan goes tits-up because Benicio's character double-crosses the Resistance after being paid-off by the First Order. He provides them with something that allows them to detect the transports, so the First Order begins blasting them to space dust. However the only reason Benicio's character was even there was because Finn and Rose pick him up from the casino planet. The only reason Finn and Rose went to the casino planet was because they needed someone who could get them on board Snoke's ship to disable the hyperspace tracking device. The only reason they need someone to disable the hyperspace tracking device is because Poe believes the vice admiral has no actual plan to get them out of this situation and is just going to keep going until the cruiser runs out of fuel. And the only reason Poe believes the vice admiral has no actual plan is because for some completely unknown reason she decided she didn't want to share the over-all plan of making it to the rebel base with cloaked transports - which genuinely would have worked had Benicio's character not been involved - to anyone at all. Had she simply told Poe what was going on, there would have been no need for Finn and Rose to go to the casino planet and Benicio's character would have been chilling out in his jail cell, completely uninvolved in the movie at all.
So yeah, the only reason the second half of the movie even happens is because the vice admiral doesn't tell the rest of the Resistance what the plan is.
Those are my big issues with the movie, what follows are more nit-picky things.
Issue number 6: Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the REAL money from the movie is made!
The only reason the porgs are in the movie is to sell porg toys/dolls. That is all. They serve absolutely no purpose to the story other than being cute little creatures that Disney could make into stuffed animals and sell.
Issue number 7: Space Wizards don't have magic powers.
There's a scene where Kylo is fighting alongside Rey against all those red guard fuckers that you always see just standing around and doing fuck-all. It's a pretty nice little action sequence...except for the fact that it's two Force users that don't use the Force. I'm not asking for much, but there's not so much as a Force Push used. Kylo's a guy who could stop a blaster shot in mid-air, you'd think he could choke out a fool or two during this fight. But no. They just use their light sabers.
Issue number 8: Fear and Loathing on Casino Planet.
As others have pointed out, this part of the movie does drag on a bit. As I mentioned before: Finn and Rose are sent on a sidequest to some luxury planet with a casino on it where the movie spends a bit too much time and ultimately the conflict that arises on this planet seems a bit forced just to get Benicio Del Toro's character shoe-horned into the movie. Not to mention they just happened to get put in the same cell as his is rather convenient.
All that said, I still enjoyed the movie. The action sequences were pretty nice and it's still an entertaining ride, but it's got a number of pretty glaring flaws when you think about it.
In the end, I think that most of these issues came from them taking the criticism of The Force Awakens being way too similar to A New Hope and overcompensating for it. It seems like this movie goes out of its way to completely separate itself from any other SW movie, and in doing so a lot of things come across as being forced and/or rushed.
ok, i'll go into spoiler territory too for that
issue 2 : i dont know, i mean, if you are going to kill snoke anyway, why bother give him time to explain his background. it will be irrelevant when is cut in half anyway.
issue 3 : i think everybody went nut around the whole linage thing, but why she should have a lineage ? i mean, Jedi are not supposed to have kids anyway, so the skywalkers are suppose to be litterally the only jedi legacy in the galaxy. every other very powerfull jedi must have pop from nowhere... and why the force sensitivity should be heriditary anyway ? that would imply that the force is genetic, which is worst that the medichlorian explanation... You dont have to be somebody to be good with the force. that the whole point of the finale scene with the stable boy getting his broom with the force...
issue 4 : i have the impression that the shields in star wars in most case does not stop kinetic attack, but only energetic attacks. so any objects goes through, but an energy blast from distance will be stopped. and i have the impresson that the code break is more to get inside snoke ship without being detected.
i kind of agree on the others points.
the casino scene is... i actually dont see anywone saying on the internet that they liked this scene. seems to be univerally disliked.
Other than that, the rebel capital ship zipping through snoke's ship at light speed was crazy, and one of the most impressive scene i've seen. it was very cool.
i wonder why Yoda burn the tree and act like the books are gone when Rey have them. did Yoda knew they were gone when i burn the tree ?
i really think there will be a 10 years gap in the story between 8 and 9. you cannot go anywhere in the story when all the rebels left in the galaxy fit in the millenium falcon. so i really think that leia death will be mentonned only in the next movie opening crawl...
But, i really enjoyed the movie. probably in my top 4 out of 9 star wars.
Regarding Snoke: again, there's nothing wrong with having him be a stepping stool, but revealing some of his backstory is the difference between him being a talking plot device and being a character that serves as a plot device. Indeed, he's dead now...so who cares who he was, where he came from, how he came to power, etc. But in denying the audience that, they pulled the rug out of any kind of build-up that Snoke has as a character. I mean, he was the new Dark Lord, surely they could have had someone say something about how some apparently random guy came to be in full control of the remnants of the Imperial Fleet. But now, instead of making him a character that seres as a plot device, they decided to just straight-up make him a plot device.
Regarding bloodlines: this is one of my lesser issues (I misplaced it in my original list ) as indeed, it's not really a big deal if Rey's parents were just booze-hounds that sold her off for more money to buy booze. The larger issue at play here is the same as the one regarding Snoke's death without a background, though. The Force Awaken setup Snoke as being the new Dark Lord, so there were expectations for him. Similarly, Rey had those flashbacks during TFA that heavily implied that she was indeed the daughter of someone important. If what Kylo says is true, though (and to be fair there's actually not much reason to believe that he's speaking the truth) then all the setup from TFA was completely pointless.
The wasting of things setup during TFA is actually a common occurrence in the movie. Another example of this is how the Knights of Ren are nowhere to be found, despite that flashback where Rey sees Ren and (apparently) his posse of other dark siders in that torrential rain storm.
Regarding shields: the movie is a bit inconsistent with the way the shields are treated in this movie. As I mentioned: the reason they need a code breaker for the "disable the tracking device" plan is because they need a way past the shields on Snoke's ship. If small craft can get past shields (as seen with Poe's X-Wing and Kylo's TIE Fighter), why would they need codes to get past the shields? Another issue with the dreadnought is why bother having the top of the ship completely covered in guns if literally one fighter can take them all out once it gets close enough? Seems like a rather critical design flaw considering that in a big space battle there's bound to be numerous fight-size ships coming at you. But apparently once a single one gets too close then all of the turrets become simultaneously useless.
As I said, my biggest issue with the movie was the fact that the vice admiral doesn't tell anyone what the plan going forward is. She just gives a half-hearted speech about keeping hope alive and that's it. All she would have to do is say "Alright Poe, here's what we're going to do: we're going to keep on cruising out of range of the enemy fleet. We're getting close to a planet that has an old rebel base on it. When we're in range, we'll abandon ship on transports fitted with technology that prevents them from showing up on scanners. The cruiser will keep going as a decoy and we'll all safely land on the planet and from there we can plan our next move." If she says that - or something along those lines, just explaining the plan to Poe - then there's no need for Poe to go behind her back and send Finn and Rose off to the casino planet. If they never go there, then DJ never gets involved and the Stealth Transport plan goes off without a hitch because DJ isn't there to sell out the Resistance. So yeah, the biggest plothole in the movie is that the entire 2nd half of it doesn't need to happen if the vice admiral simply told everyone what the plan was. But she doesn't, and the only reason she doesn't is because the plot demanded that she didn't.
Onto the positive: again, I do agree that the spectacle of the movie was fantastic, particularly the hyperspace kamikaze. That part was indeed a very awesome sight. I've got no issue with any of the action sequences as I thought they were top-notch, and they're why I still say this movie was fun and entertaining to watch. I just really don't think that they handled the story well at all.
Regarding Yoda: this is one of the things I actually give props to the movie for. There seems to be some confusion around whether or not he was CGI or a puppet. To me it looked like they had a puppet that they put a CGI glow around since he was a Force Ghost, and if that's the case then I really appreciate them going with a practical effect rather than making him entirely out of CGI like the prequels.
As for why he burns down the tree himself when Luke hesitates, my guess is because he knows that being a Jedi is an ideal. The ancient Jedi texts are a nice symbol, but they're completely unnecessary. He even goes so far as to mock them: "Page turners, they are not." He's apparently read them and found them to be just a bunch of philosophical mumbo-jumbo. When you boil everything down, being a Jedi is simply being a vessel for the light side of the Force. Be a good and decent person, help those who are in need, protect the innocent, etc etc. You don't need ancient tomes to tell you that. So long as you're trying to spread the light to the galaxy then you're doing fine. Whether or not he knew that the books weren't in the tree anymore is hard to say. In the end, I think he was simply trying to motivate Luke into actually doing something to help the Resistance.
.........which does bring up another plothole/dropped thread from TFA. Luke left that trail of map pieces so that the resistance could find him should the dire need arise. It was a promise that he would come back and help when they needed him the most. Yet when Rey shows up, he staunchly refuses to help, and even says that he specifically went to that island so that he could die in peace. If that was the case...why the fuck would he leave behind a map that leads right to him?
Regarding bloodlines: this is one of my lesser issues (I misplaced it in my original list ) as indeed, it's not really a big deal if Rey's parents were just booze-hounds that sold her off for more money to buy booze. The larger issue at play here is the same as the one regarding Snoke's death without a background, though. The Force Awaken setup Snoke as being the new Dark Lord, so there were expectations for him. Similarly, Rey had those flashbacks during TFA that heavily implied that she was indeed the daughter of someone important. If what Kylo says is true, though (and to be fair there's actually not much reason to believe that he's speaking the truth) then all the setup from TFA was completely pointless.
The wasting of things setup during TFA is actually a common occurrence in the movie. Another example of this is how the Knights of Ren are nowhere to be found, despite that flashback where Rey sees Ren and (apparently) his posse of other dark siders in that torrential rain storm.
Regarding shields: the movie is a bit inconsistent with the way the shields are treated in this movie. As I mentioned: the reason they need a code breaker for the "disable the tracking device" plan is because they need a way past the shields on Snoke's ship. If small craft can get past shields (as seen with Poe's X-Wing and Kylo's TIE Fighter), why would they need codes to get past the shields? Another issue with the dreadnought is why bother having the top of the ship completely covered in guns if literally one fighter can take them all out once it gets close enough? Seems like a rather critical design flaw considering that in a big space battle there's bound to be numerous fight-size ships coming at you. But apparently once a single one gets too close then all of the turrets become simultaneously useless.
As I said, my biggest issue with the movie was the fact that the vice admiral doesn't tell anyone what the plan going forward is. She just gives a half-hearted speech about keeping hope alive and that's it. All she would have to do is say "Alright Poe, here's what we're going to do: we're going to keep on cruising out of range of the enemy fleet. We're getting close to a planet that has an old rebel base on it. When we're in range, we'll abandon ship on transports fitted with technology that prevents them from showing up on scanners. The cruiser will keep going as a decoy and we'll all safely land on the planet and from there we can plan our next move." If she says that - or something along those lines, just explaining the plan to Poe - then there's no need for Poe to go behind her back and send Finn and Rose off to the casino planet. If they never go there, then DJ never gets involved and the Stealth Transport plan goes off without a hitch because DJ isn't there to sell out the Resistance. So yeah, the biggest plothole in the movie is that the entire 2nd half of it doesn't need to happen if the vice admiral simply told everyone what the plan was. But she doesn't, and the only reason she doesn't is because the plot demanded that she didn't.
Onto the positive: again, I do agree that the spectacle of the movie was fantastic, particularly the hyperspace kamikaze. That part was indeed a very awesome sight. I've got no issue with any of the action sequences as I thought they were top-notch, and they're why I still say this movie was fun and entertaining to watch. I just really don't think that they handled the story well at all.
Regarding Yoda: this is one of the things I actually give props to the movie for. There seems to be some confusion around whether or not he was CGI or a puppet. To me it looked like they had a puppet that they put a CGI glow around since he was a Force Ghost, and if that's the case then I really appreciate them going with a practical effect rather than making him entirely out of CGI like the prequels.
As for why he burns down the tree himself when Luke hesitates, my guess is because he knows that being a Jedi is an ideal. The ancient Jedi texts are a nice symbol, but they're completely unnecessary. He even goes so far as to mock them: "Page turners, they are not." He's apparently read them and found them to be just a bunch of philosophical mumbo-jumbo. When you boil everything down, being a Jedi is simply being a vessel for the light side of the Force. Be a good and decent person, help those who are in need, protect the innocent, etc etc. You don't need ancient tomes to tell you that. So long as you're trying to spread the light to the galaxy then you're doing fine. Whether or not he knew that the books weren't in the tree anymore is hard to say. In the end, I think he was simply trying to motivate Luke into actually doing something to help the Resistance.
.........which does bring up another plothole/dropped thread from TFA. Luke left that trail of map pieces so that the resistance could find him should the dire need arise. It was a promise that he would come back and help when they needed him the most. Yet when Rey shows up, he staunchly refuses to help, and even says that he specifically went to that island so that he could die in peace. If that was the case...why the fuck would he leave behind a map that leads right to him?