A new Star Wars happened, and opinions are released upon us like nibbling hounds demanding biscuits

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

That's EXACTLY my point. It wouldn't be a problem. They aren't making it a gender issue, they just wrote a story. The people crying about "mary sue" and "pandering to Feminists" are making it about gender.

I feel the need to interject - saying that a character's a mary sue is criticism, not sexism. And as far as I'm concerned it's never going to be sexism. Please stop coming here in bad faith and poisoning the well by morally condemning people with valid criticisms.

Maybe there was a time when that was true, but it really isn't any more. Its a shield. Crying little manchildren screaming about mary sue and pandering just because someone dares to write a story about someone other than a man and makes them actually good at something. No gender, no nationality, no race is OWED any part. Any complaint based on gender is just the mewling of triggered morons.

How did the obvious part that MS criticizm isn't about gender went over your head? Get it through your narrow mind that it's just collocation in English, language overwhemingly foreign to everyone discussing things on internet. Adequote synonyms in other languages describing mary sue criticism aren't gendered at all... ._.

In general meaning is that writer tried to put in so much pathos in character, so hard, that it made said creation unreal and grotesque, outlandish, out of place, irrationaly omnipotent - surprisingly out of character.
Would be easier to communicate it in other language. I personally would reframe it in English to much older denominatio - that being baroque style - concentrating too much on form and detail and falling flat when it comes to actual tenor.

Depicting and piling up amazing feats, abilities and achievements but when you start looking into it and asking core questions such as how? why? what for? it just falls apart. Its an old, discredited and already recognised centuries ago as essence of shoddiness/trashiness(?) form of art. In one of other languages I know it's called roughly translating 'deer on a rut'.
As I wrote before all the pretense and none of substance.

It didn't go over my head, its shield bs. If "mary sue" isn't about gender and its just a colloquialism... then why is it a gendered term AT ALL? "Wow, Rey's character ark is hackneyed, cliche, shoddy, trashy, deer on a rut" you're right, plenty of ways to describe it. Just based on the arguments I've seen online here and in other places... "mary sue" is a colloquialism/accusation ONLY used by the redpiller idiots or their ilk. Defense of the term is just deflection. "Oh, I'm not racist just because I call _____ people _____. That word goes back to yadda yadda whatever shield bs." I've never personally seen the term "mary sue" used by anyone who DIDN'T turn out to have a problem with the gender of the person in question. It may only have been a part of their issue with the character, it even may have accompanied legitimate arguments about character development... but its always a part.

It's a badly written character. MS is just a simplification people use. You argue over colloquialism and its negative English language rooted or re-branded connotations? O-K propose different names to describe symptoms of badly written character I listed and I'll happily use these (even though I don't recall myself using the MS collocation, other than someone already bringing it up to discussion, because to me it just feels odd as a term).
Understand, that most people don't care for this colloquialism. These are just words in foreign language. They don't use it because they are 'redpilled' they use it because meaning covers issues they have with character and because so many other people also use that.
Also the 2nd part of your reasoning is horridly unsound. You project demeanour of people using collocation on the words and the meaning themselves. Then you seem to reflect that demeanour on any person that uses this collocation. That is irrational.

Problem you seem to have and try to deflect instead of addressing it, is that Rey and Holdo are badly written and that some people who don't want to see female characters at all, can revel in this fact going a-ha-ha about it. Just by saying yeah they overdid some of aspects of their characters and didn't think through other would instantly grant you win on all ends:
# shut the fuck up any, actual women hater, they now can either go out on a nut case 'it's because of their gender rant' or leave since you agreed on merits of the critique
# strengten feedback to writers, do the f-ing better job next time
# open up strong case to argue personal taste - aka you aknowledge shortcomings but still enjoyed it (so deal with it)

 

[Kyrian007]

Problem you seem to have and try to deflect instead of addressing it, is that Rey and Holdo are badly written and that some people who don't want to see female characters at all, can revel in this fact going a-ha-ha about it. Just by saying yeah they overdid some of aspects of their characters and didn't think through other would instantly grant you win on all ends:
# shut the fuck up any, actual women hater, they now can either go out on a nut case 'it's because of their gender rant' or leave since you agreed on merits of the critique
# strengten feedback to writers, do the f-ing better job next time
# open up strong case to argue personal taste - aka you aknowledge shortcomings but still enjoyed it (so deal with it)

Sorry, that wasn't what the argument was becoming. I wasn't acknowledging it and got sidetracked with the whole Mary Sue accusation. Let's put that aside for a second and just get back to the Last Jedi.

I wouldn't argue at all that Rey and Holdo's characters could have been handled better. I didn't have a problem introducing Laura Dern's Holdo into the series... what I don't see is why

Spoiler

kill her. Introduced, not given a chance to really care about her character, and then dead. Just a missed opportunity. We'll obviously need a "new Leia" in ep 9, why not Holdo?

And I did argue about Rey, clearly she's meant to be a young Luke parallel... and is in a lot of ways. Frankly the biggest difference is she whines a lot less. Think about the most quotable characters in Star Wars... really in ANY "chosen one scenario." Is it Luke? Nope, generally its Vader, Kenobi, Han, and Yoda. Same with Ani in the prequels. Luke is easily more of the fan insert character. A more generic, normal personality that the audience can self insert into to interact with the cooler, better written, more quotable characters, and awesome fantasy scenario. Rey seems to be the same (to me anyway,) so I guess I'm not expecting her to be quite as well-written and don't fault her character or the writers. Lucas did much the same with Luke. The Wachowskis did it with Neo. How interesting was Frodo compared to Aragorn? On the other hand some fans aren't seeing Rey in the same light. Maybe they are having trouble relating to her the same way they could identify with Luke (for whatever reason.)

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Problem you seem to have and try to deflect instead of addressing it, is that Rey and Holdo are badly written and that some people who don't want to see female characters at all, can revel in this fact going a-ha-ha about it. Just by saying yeah they overdid some of aspects of their characters and didn't think through other would instantly grant you win on all ends:
# shut the fuck up any, actual women hater, they now can either go out on a nut case 'it's because of their gender rant' or leave since you agreed on merits of the critique
# strengten feedback to writers, do the f-ing better job next time
# open up strong case to argue personal taste - aka you aknowledge shortcomings but still enjoyed it (so deal with it)

Sorry, that wasn't what the argument was becoming. I wasn't acknowledging it and got sidetracked with the whole Mary Sue accusation. Let's put that aside for a second and just get back to the Last Jedi.

I wouldn't argue at all that Rey and Holdo's characters could have been handled better. I didn't have a problem introducing Laura Dern's Holdo into the series... what I don't see is why

Spoiler

kill her. Introduced, not given a chance to really care about her character, and then dead. Just a missed opportunity. We'll obviously need a "new Leia" in ep 9, why not Holdo?

And I did argue about Rey, clearly she's meant to be a young Luke parallel... and is in a lot of ways. Frankly the biggest difference is she whines a lot less. Think about the most quotable characters in Star Wars... really in ANY "chosen one scenario." Is it Luke? Nope, generally its Vader, Kenobi, Han, and Yoda. Same with Ani in the prequels. Luke is easily more of the fan insert character. A more generic, normal personality that the audience can self insert into to interact with the cooler, better written, more quotable characters, and awesome fantasy scenario. Rey seems to be the same (to me anyway,) so I guess I'm not expecting her to be quite as well-written and don't fault her character or the writers. Lucas did much the same with Luke. The Wachowskis did it with Neo. How interesting was Frodo compared to Aragorn? On the other hand some fans aren't seeing Rey in the same light. Maybe they are having trouble relating to her the same way they could identify with Luke (for whatever reason.)

Well I'd add to Holdo and Rey and the movie in general, timeline. Why not add more time between events and flesh out the whole story by just hinting what could have happened/did happen during this time. I think a lot of characters, development were written so poorly because there is absolutely no time to 'do them' and there is plethora of them, yet they still keep on introducing more (Holdo) and tying in old established characters in mischaracterised scenes and abrupt demise.

Luke is whiny, because that was part of his written character development. Transition from simpleton on backwater world that got pulled into middle of things (and fate simultaniously handed him pats on the back and slaps in the face), through being a little but#&%rt b#$ch about what's going on around him, till emerging as a real hero at the end of a journey (no longer accidental, naive, dumb and whiny). It is a fan service in a way. It's someone really likeable/relatable because he kept his innocent faith in other people and himself.

If Rey is ment to be Luke, they should have made her more like a nobody from nowhere she is, make her act this way, ie. example with droids. Luke's is a redneck and has a redneck (practical) approach to things. Droid broke up out of misuse? Next! Oh droid doesn't work as it should? Lets wipe it clean and restart. Rey is a scavenger, child who grew up with no parents in unforgiving enviroment. You don't develop subtelties when you struggle for necessities that's just luxury you don't have. Instead they made her act like stranded princes (nobility and subtelty of demeanour), CCQ specialist and force prodigy in one.
I mean even that could be salvaged, eg. (my English sucks but bear with me)

They could explain in story that Kylo slipping into the darkness established force link with Rey slipping into mundane cruelty of reality crashing down on betrayed child. Sort of meld of conciousness. Everything he learns about the force, she does as well (subconciously), every combat experience he got she has, every attrocity, doubt etc. everything subconciously shapes her as well.
That link shaped her, that link is a source of things which are brought up by subconciousness and emanate when she needs it, things come naturally. On the other hand she and her actions and experiences shape him. Her experiences, views, strength of spirit and good nature despite shite surrounding her, hold him on the surface. Don't let him fall completely into the darkness. He isn't as strong in the force as her so he can't corrupt her. At the same time her influence prevents him from reaching full dark side potential. He struggles, seem to be torn emotionally, act like being possessed not fully understanding why, unaware what is going on.

They could then spin the story after their initial meeting, confrontation and emergance of the link. Have Luke unearth this on one side and snoke on the other. Take it wherever they please from there.
It's not amazing backstory and not amazing writing but it's there and explains why characters act the way they do, why they can do some of the things at all etc.

As to Holdo, Rose, most of TLJ 'story' really. They should have never added them and use this screen time to see off old cast (Leia, Luke, Ackbar) properly. Or introduce and focus on them while jumping few years and just do the 'slide show' goodbye to them (few scenes). Rey burning Luke's body affter (supposedly) he spent these last few years passing his heritage onto her on the island. Ackbar and Leia going down in lost battle while Holdo proves herself by rescuing whatever forces, men and resources were left etc. Or even keep Holdo being a complete distaster (just commit to that) and failing terribly while Rose, Finn and Poe salvage things. Why not depict decisively (and deliberately) incompetent leader in charge of good guys for a change. It does happen pretty often in reality and is pretty relatable, eh?

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I liked it. I'm conflicted, but overall I liked it. It was a very clever film, both by itself and in the context of the Star Wars canon. It was almost too clever; its fervent effort to deconstruct everything Star Wars-y led to several small anti-climaxes.

Uh, okay. Spoiler-free rundown. I don't think anyone is going to go into this thread without having already seen the film, but whatever.

Spoiler: PROS

- The film does not go how you expect it to go. My best friend, he hated TFA while I loved it; his reason for hating it was that it was a rehash of A New Hope, whereas the reason I loved it was because...it was a rehash of A New Hope, which was exactly what the fans wanted (and what the franchise needed) at the time. In contrast, this film plays utter havoc with audience expectations. My friend was pleasantly surprised; every time he groaned as if to say "Oh, they're doing this bit again, like in Empire Strikes back", the film promptly subverted that expectation. It happened many times.

- The film actively deconstructs many sacred cows of the Star Wars universe. The plucky band of misfits, the affable rogue, the morally-infallible protagonist, the redemption arc, even the cackling big bad - they all get taken apart and dissected or else demolished entirely. This alone would probably incense most fans, but to me, the film never stopped feeling like a Star Wars film. It kept the core appeal of the franchise while doing some very clever tricks with what we thought were its immutable foundations.

- The visuals are stunning. There are several moments in the film where the camera kinda just stops for a second or so, just to let you go "woah" before everything starts up again. You'll know the moments I talk about when you see them. And on that note, the action sequences are also great; it opens with an impressive space sequence, there's an amazing ensemble fight two-thirds of the way through, and the environment of the climax is beautiful in a stark and minimalist way.

- Kylo Ren is a much more appealing villain this time around, and his interactions with Rey give Adam Driller a lot of meat to chew. Mark Hamill knocks it out of the park playing Luke; it's a complex re-examination of the character. Snoke is great for the scenes he's in. Rey suffers from a few moments of...playing the same note, so to speak, but when the time comes for the character to be emotionally devastated, Daisy Ridley does a great job of being fucking devastated. John Boyega does another great show as Finn, but he's unfortunately not given much to work with.

Spoiler: CONS

- The film is really, really long, and it feels like it's even longer. The middle segment - with the casino - just fucking draaaaags on and isn't worth the time spent on it. The start and the end are fantastic, but the middle is mostly filler. You could literally cut it from the film, change a couple of lines, and not significantly impact the plot at all.

- Admiral Huldo's character came out of freakin' nowhere for me; the camera seemed to be giving her so much focus that I was thinking "is this a cameo or something?" because I had no idea who she was or why she ought to be important. Plus, much of the middle part of the film - which, as I said, was a waste of time - comes about largely because of her unwillingness to share some very simple information that she has no business keeping to herself.

- There are many, many stupid military decisions made during the film by both sides. The fundamental premise - that the Republic was so thoroughly devastated by Starkiller in TFA that the First Order is now on the verge of conquering the galaxy - is implausible; the First Order shouldn't have enough men to conquer the galaxy, considering that they were never more than a rump state and they just lost a planet-sized superbase. Plus, either the Republic had its entire military deployed in the one star system, or it had no military at all, which is...well, the last option is more plausible because of what a big deal the prequels made of the Republic having an army. But I think it'd be damn stupid for the reborn Republic to go "We've won! Evil is defeated forever, let's disband our navy." Like, seriously? What about the Hutts? What about crime in general?

- I didn't like what they did with Finn and this new character, Rose. Rose seemed like a very ham-fisted social commentary character and I did not at all understand the reason why she was there. Well, I do - it was to give Finn someone to hang around with - but Finn's entire involvement in the story is, ultimately, superfluous. He does nothing terribly important, has no significant character development compared to the previous film - where he started as a cowardly deserter and ended as a guy picking up a lightsaber to
fight a Sith Lord - and most of his actions make the situation much, much worse through no real fault of his own. And Rose is there for all of that, I guess. Really, it felt like the film didn't know what it was doing with Finn.

- Some of the flashbacks with Luke and Padawan Ben had much less emotional impact than I feel they should've. I like that the core of Luke's arc in between the trilogies revolves around what is essentially a momentary failure to control himself; I did not like that we were only shown extremely brief snippets of that failure without the proper context.

- The pacing of the film, in general, is really bad. The film picks up immediately after the end of TFA and the whole story occurs over a couple of days, at most. So Rey's entire "mentorship" with Luke consists of a few conversations, her swinging a lightsaber around, and then leaving in a huff. Even Yoda got more time than that. And Finn's diversion journey has absurd time constraints on it; it'd be like if a guy flew to Hawaii and back in the middle of a season of 24. I don't see why there couldn't have been a bigger time gap between the films.

- Some of the plot revelations are ultimately unsatisfying. I'm not talking about The Big One; I liked that one, it was my favourite pick ever since TFA. But Snoke kind of exists as a plot device rather than a character, and it's never explained how Luke knew him, how he survived the purge and the Empire years, where he comes from, how he got his brain-mitts into Kylo Ren, or even what his ultimate goal was. I'd be more annoyed by this if it wasn't literally the exact amount of characterisation that Palpatine got in the original films. The big reveal of what turned Ben Solo to the dark side and made Luke go into exile is, as I said above, ultimately a little weak.

- I got no idea what their plan was with Carrie Fisher or what their plan is gonna be now that she's dead. I can't help but feel that the third film will deal with that in an unsatisfying way.

Oh, and on the Rey Mary Sue debate: honestly, guys. She's not that bad. She wasn't that bad in TFA, she's not that bad now.

Spoiler: Mild spoilers on that topic.

She serves as a mirror-image deconstruction of Luke Skywalker - different in a lot of ways, similar in a lot more. Like Luke, she was a nobody from a nothing planet who leapt at a call to adventure; unlike Luke, she had no heroic lineage. She's a nobody from a nothing planet; that's the awful truth of her parentage. (I loved the scene with the mirror in the Dark Side pit for...oh, about a dozen reasons. I could write an essay on that one scene.)

She never does anything particularly astonishing or skillful. People are like "she beats Luke in a duel!" and that is just plainly not what happens; Luke disarms her and she "beats" him by grabbing a lightsaber when they were fighting with sticks. That's like saying a character beat a martial arts master in a fistfight by grabbing a gun.

Skill-wise, Poe Dameron is more of a Mary Sue than Rey, and even he gets his character archetype torn to shreds by the film's deconstructor fleet. This is a guy who, at the start of the film, flies out in an X-Wing to fight some kind of super-goddamn star dreadnought, and wins. Largely because the super-goddamn-star-dreadnought forgot to launch any fighters or include any point defences whatsoever. I saw that and went, "dang, this better not work," and then it worked and I was like "daaaaaang that was cool to watch but it was dumb as hell" and then the rest of Poe's character arc in the film is largely about realising how dumb it was.

(But the film never addresses the question of why Leia and Huldo considered it a failure. They lost their bomber squadron - due to an absurd series of disaster dominoes, mind - but the next few scenes establish that the First Order can track them through hyperspace, meaning that if Poe hadn't destroyed the dreadnought in the opening, it would've followed them through hyperspace and then obliterated them with its super-cannons. They never would've had the very slight chance of victory that they had by stealthily evacuating in shuttles and using the cruiser as a decoy to escape. And why the hell didn't Huldo just tell Poe that? He asks her, numerous times, "hey, what's our plan, Miss Admiral?" and she just blows him off, and that leads Poe to try his own just-crazy-enough-to-work zany scheme, and then the failure of that scheme ends up nearly dooming Huldo's plan!

This is a guy who blew up a doom-planet yesterday, Huldo! Give him the benefit of the goddamn doubt and fucking brief him already!)

Anyway, Rey's not a Mary Sue.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Spoiler: Poe

But the film never addresses the question of why Leia and Huldo considered it a failure. They lost their bomber squadron - due to an absurd series of disaster dominoes, mind - but the next few scenes establish that the First Order can track them through hyperspace, meaning that if Poe hadn't destroyed the dreadnought in the opening, it would've followed them through hyperspace and then obliterated them with its super-cannons. They never would've had the very slight chance of victory that they had by stealthily evacuating in shuttles and using the cruiser as a decoy to escape. And why the hell didn't Huldo just tell Poe that? He asks her, numerous times, "hey, what's our plan, Miss Admiral?" and she just blows him off, and that leads Poe to try his own just-crazy-enough-to-work zany scheme, and then the failure of that scheme ends up nearly dooming Huldo's plan!

This is a guy who blew up a doom-planet yesterday, Huldo! Give him the benefit of the goddamn doubt and fucking brief him already!)

This is actually one of the parts where I felt the movie actually kept the Resistance looking like a proper military force. Poe is a Commander, demoted to Captain. That means that at best he's a wing commander responsible for some half dozen ships and pilots. As a Captain he's the lead wingman in a fighter pair. Why should this guy, hero or not, be briefed on a plan that's devised by an Admiral (some six or seven ranks above the commander) and hinges on secrecy to be successful? For all the Resistance knows, there's a mole on their ships that's feeding the First Order their location and that's how they got tracked.

By brushing Poe aside and telling him to suck it up, Huldo is actually acting in a way that I'd expect a military leader to act. They aren't going to brief every random joe in their organisation personally on the grand strategy of the war, they will tell those people to get back in line and wait for orders. This also makes Poe's arc and the way it is played a nice deconstruction of the Ace trope. Poe might be the Ace, but the Resistance is still a military organisation with a clear chain of command and they are not making exceptions just because that one guy is a damn good pilot.

 

[Random Gamer]

"mary sue" is a colloquialism/accusation ONLY used by the redpiller idiots or their ilk.

I'll tell that to my feminist female acquaintances who've been using it for more than 20 years online.
To be fair, one could say that Luke wasn't far from a Mary Sue back in A New Hope - you need at least Empire to redeem his character arc, otherwise he's just a trope -, and Poe at times has some plot armour and things going his way when they definitely shouldn't.
There's still a big contrast between Rey "I own the Force despite not knowing about it and never training" and, for instance, Jyn from Rogue One, who ended up dying.

By comparison, we know an absurd amount about everything that surrounds the events that came before the Sequel Trilogy due to everything we learned in the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and even the extended universe. We still know nothing of how the First Order operates, or why the Rebellion became the Resistance, where Snoke comes from, or how he came into power, or what is relation with what came before is. He's too important in the grand scheme of things to be left a complete, ultimately pointless mystery. It could have worked within a new intellectual property, but it falls flat on its face in Star Wars.

Exactly, Snoke fails because it's a sequel trilogy instead of a first trilogy or a prequel.
But really, the biggest issue with Snoke isn't that he's the leader of the bad guys. Hux is, we know nothing about him, but can easily presume he's a military guy from the leftover of the Imperial army; you don't need to be told, it's pretty much obvious and doesn't require lengthy explanations: we know the Imperial Army was huge and most survived the battle of Endor. On the other hand, Snoke is some kind of civilian, and more crucially is a very powerful Force-user. That's the catch: Luke was supposed to be the last Force-user at the end of Return of the Jedi, the Sith were all dead, the Jedi only had Luke and ghosts; apart from him, there were only force-sensitive people around. At least, it's the logical assumption one can make, because if someone as powerful as Snoke was around during ROTJ, odds are that Vader or the Emperor would've noticed, would've dealt with him, or recruited him, and would've mentioned him sooner or later. So from which hole did Snoke crawled from, because he wasn't formed by Luke? Did he find all of this on his own and got his force powers and went to the Dark Side all alone in some remote corner of the Galaxy? Heck, even mentioning he was a Sith Lord put into cryostasis centuries ago might have worked better than nothing.

 

[cathou]

This is actually one of the parts where I felt the movie actually kept the Resistance looking like a proper military force. Poe is a Commander, demoted to Captain. That means that at best he's a wing commander responsible for some half dozen ships and pilots. As a Captain he's the lead wingman in a fighter pair. Why should this guy, hero or not, be briefed on a plan that's devised by an Admiral (some six or seven ranks above the commander) and hinges on secrecy to be successful? For all the Resistance knows, there's a mole on their ships that's feeding the First Order their location and that's how they got tracked.

By brushing Poe aside and telling him to suck it up, Huldo is actually acting in a way that I'd expect a military leader to act. They aren't going to brief every random joe in their organisation personally on the grand strategy of the war, they will tell those people to get back in line and wait for orders. This also makes Poe's arc and the way it is played a nice deconstruction of the Ace trope. Poe might be the Ace, but the Resistance is still a military organisation with a clear chain of command and they are not making exceptions just because that one guy is a damn good pilot.

Yes, it's something i see a lot in the critics. why she didnt tell Poe about her plan ? Why would she, i'm pretty sure that a secret retreat plan desing by any army would be communicated bellow high command ? Also, at that point they have no idea how the First Order is tracking them, the could been some traitors inside their ranks.

Spoiler: CONS

- I got no idea what their plan was with Carrie Fisher or what their plan is gonna be now that she's dead. I can't help but feel that the third film will deal with that in an unsatisfying way.

Since, carrie Fisher is dead, and if you look at the state of the resistance at the end of the movie, i'm very sure that there will be a 10 years gap in the story between 8 and 9. and Leia would just... died during that lapse of time.

 

[Dazzle Novak]

By brushing Poe aside and telling him to suck it up, Huldo is actually acting in a way that I'd expect a military leader to act. They aren't going to brief every random joe in their organisation personally on the grand strategy of the war, they will tell those people to get back in line and wait for orders. This also makes Poe's arc and the way it is played a nice deconstruction of the Ace trope. Poe might be the Ace, but the Resistance is still a military organisation with a clear chain of command and they are not making exceptions just because that one guy is a damn good pilot.

"I like him."

These three words torch this plotline. Holdo and Leia ultimately treating Poe like some loveable cad renders the movie's hand-wringing over his recklessness hollow lip-service. Poe should have been court-martialed for his starting blunder then executed for the shit he pulls later. Instead, the movie shrugs it off and "learned a lesson" is supposed to serve as sufficient consequence despite him being poised as de facto resistance leader.

Also, this seems an odd place to insert real-world implications because it fails what I'd call the "What would Captain America do?" test. I know, I know, "Subversion!", but the vocabulary of modern blockbusters don't gear us to lean on, "Acquiesce to authority" (I mean, fuck, one of the most prominent protagonist descriptors in Star Wars is REBEL) because they usually invoke tropes like "Follow your heart" and "Spy/Infiltrated by Hydra" and the "Oh, by the way, this new character is super important" way Laura Dern's character is introduced doesn't cement her as authoritative when she appears to be dithering. In this instance, the audience is supposed to go, "Yeah, why didn't he obey Star War's dubious military hierarchy when it appeared everyone would die if he did nothing?" because Poe Damaran being a mansplaining ass is now the worst thing a hero can be? Again, I'm Team "Shoot that ************!"

The spine of this film hinges on Holdo displaying passive-aggressive leadership because Poe's a dick.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

snip

Spoiler: Nah, I don't buy it.

For one, while Poe's leadership chops may be in question, his loyalty isn't - he just blew up Starkiller, and before that, he was the one agent that Leia trusted enough to send on a mission to find Luke Skywalker's location. If Huldo was worried about a spy - and that is never stated, which is a misstep since it'd otherwise explain her attitude - the last person she would suspect would be Poe. There is zero reason for her to not trust him.

For two, even if Huldo suspected that a spy was on-board feeding the First Order intelligence, then her plan was going to be doomed anyway. What's to stop that spy from telling the First Order of her plan as soon as she puts it into action? It relies on an extended feint to trick the First Order into believing that they have destroyed the last of the Resistance while the actual evacuees regroup on Crait. As soon as the First Order knows they've been tricked, the jig is up; if there was a spy feeding them intelligence, that spy would just update them on Huldo's plan after she puts it into effect.

Secondly, a low-level technician and a stormtrooper are able to figure out how the First Order was tracking them after about ten minutes of talking. It would be crazy if Huldo and all the Resistance's surviving command staff couldn't also figure that out. And if they had questions about First Order technology...why not ask Finn, the former First Order stormtrooper, who conveniently knows the broad strokes of how their hyperspace tracking works?

In fact, because the hyperspace tracking was only tracking one ship - the cruiser - it would've been smartest to load up the other two frigates and all the hyperspace-capable transports with as many evacuees as possible and shoot them all off in different directions, then kamikaze-ram the cruiser.

But instead of doing any of that, Huldo waits and lets the frigates get taken out, locks the Resistance's greatest hero out of the loop - presumably because she's afraid of spies who, if they existed, would ruin her plan anyway - then angers Poe Dameron and her bridge crew enough that they mutiny, then even during the mutiny, she doesn't tell them what's going on. Like, how about "look, Poe, I wanted to keep you out of the loop but I also don't want you to mutiny, so here's the plan and by the way, you're in the brig."

Like, I get why the writers did it. It was a whole big lesson for Poe Dameron and it was another one in a line of narrative twists. But from the context of the story, it feels like Huldo and Leia decided that the best time to give Poe a secret test of character was during a life-or-death crisis with a fleet of Star Destroyers on their ass. And it doesn't help that the product of this whole shebang is a largely-irrelevant trip to a casino planet.

"mary sue" is a colloquialism/accusation ONLY used by the redpiller idiots or their ilk.

Oh, no no no. Mary Sue is an old, old term [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue] in the annals of the Internet. It originally came from parts of the online fanfiction community that were overwhelmingly female, some of whom had an immature tendency to insert idealised versions of themselves into the story so that they could learn magic, hook up with Draco Malfoy, and save the Enterprise from the Decepticons or whatever. It only gained gender implications after asshats started using it as a blunt criticism for any female protagonist who was as skilled or more skilled than a comparable male protagonist.

I mean, it's silly. Yes, Rey is more competent than she has any reason to be, and yes, she has plot armour right up the wazoo. But those are traits common to almost all protagonists, to the point where it's rather the exception for a work of fiction to have a protagonist who flails incompetently and dies anticlimactically. Why is Jon Snow such a good swordsman? Why is Kirk such a great captain? Why is Neo the Chosen One? Why is Walter White so good at making meth and doing crime? Why is Harry Potter so great at Quidditch? Why is John McClane so good at fighting terrorists? I mean, he's a middle-aged cop, he's not some expert terrorist-hunter.

We expect - and want - our protagonists to be exceptionally skilled members of their field because that makes them interesting to watch. And maybe viewers are tired of that; maybe they want a protagonist who has failed, a protagonist who makes mistakes and can't deal with them properly and has to, I don't know, retire to an island in the middle of an ocean-planet and mope. I can't imagine where we'd find such a character, though.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

(...)

Yes, it's something i see a lot in the critics. why she didnt tell Poe about her plan ? Why would she, i'm pretty sure that a secret retreat plan desing by any army would be communicated bellow high command ? Also, at that point they have no idea how the First Order is tracking them, the could been some traitors inside their ranks.

This is holywood rooted misconception. Obedience in army doesn't mean you can order people to commit suicide and they'd listen. That's reserved for brain washed fanatics and cultists.
If that plan really had to be THAT secretive (and lets be honest here, it hasn't), it means high command had to come up with believable phony plan to feed to lower ranks. At no point in military you tell subordinate to fall in line if they don't understand what they are supposed to do. If you want someone to do something and commit to it they need to be informed about achievable end goal (not necesserily actual one, one doesn't even have to exist...), ie. the oldest BS explanation for holding the line being 'hold on we have inbound reinforcements coming any day now', 'hold on, we have a unit attempting to flank and attack the enemy from the rear', 'hold on there is full hospital of wounded being evacuated and we provide cover for them' etc. Believable, empowering men and worth of their sacrifice, bolstering their spirit. Otherwise any intelligent individual just goes f-ck it.

The fall in line/discipline is ment to curb down the i-know-better guys ('heros' like Poe) into following the plan/orders (but you need to give them something in the first place, ie. like otherwise ridiculous hope that they can defeat a planet by shooting at it...). Having said that military doctrine largely changed from blindly following every letter of detailed order to encouraging more creative and flexible approach to adapt and achieve goals set in orders. What Holdo does is exemplary my ego is the size of a barn, disastrous sudo-leadership. Yet movie tries to indoctrinate that as a correct way to go and redeem her with as astronomically stupid martyr scene. Entriety of that despiteunqestionable flare of visuals leaves individuals rising hands above head with what? but why now? why not sooner? why at all? questions.

 

[Ninjamedic]

Disclaimer: I dont have any interest in seeing the new film or any new Disney product for that matter, my thoughts are largely based on Force Awakens and Disney's PG-13 conveyor belt as a whole. Also, fuck Captain America

Now some context for my ramblings:


What I'm about to say about Rey can be largely applied to damn near every Disney/Marvel film released since the first Iron Man.

Why is Kirk such a great captain?

Which Kirk? The one who enters Trek with decades of experience and has to rely on his ship, crew and wits to save the day while dealing with his own character flaws? Or the one who is a layabout who spends the film having to grow up in the face of a massive threat, and then must rely on his ship and crew while accepting his flaws?

Why is Neo the Chosen One?

Does that matter in the scope of the film? It's about him living up to the expectations thrust upon him and adapting to having his whole world ripped from under him. This leads to the final act where he has to fight his way up through a building to rescue his mentor (thinking he's just another guy too) and is only able to make it through direct help, the memetic slowdown limbo shot ends with him still being hit and at the Agent's mercy.

Why is Walter White so good at making meth and doing crime?

He's a middle-aged chemistry teacher whose pushed to deal meth because of his impending illness and wanting to leave something for his family.

And if you watch the first season, he's not at all good at crime, the events of the season are about him trying to cope with his illness, and trying to find a way to make money with the one thing he's good at. Now I'm only halfway through the third season, but so far the shows largely been about how he becomes the drug lord and slips further away from his original self.

Why is John McClane so good at fighting terrorists? I mean, he's a middle-aged cop, he's not some expert terrorist-hunter.

Excatly!

He's not a superhero, or Batman or a Jedi. McClane is just a cop who goes to LA for Christmas to see his family. He's then plunged into a subversion of an action movie plot and has to stay alive, he had no intention of stopping them. The first thing he does once Gruber makes his play is to run away and call the police.

His situation is summed up in one exchange:

"Sir, this is a line reserved for emergencies."

"No fucking shit lady do I sound like I'm trying to order a pizza!?"

That last line with Willis' delivery tells you everything about how scared he is and how he knows he stands no chance in a direct fight, remember by this point he only killed the first mook by luck and largely spends the second act of the film trying to get the proper authorities in, only stepping in to be what little of an annoyance to Gruber he can. The setup for the last act is him pulling glass out of his feet while he tries to keep focused on getting Holly and the hostages out while being scared out of his mind.

All of these characters in some way have earned the victories they get, but Rey largely gets handed them on a plate. She can fight, fend for herself, fly a ship, fix a ship, ballroom dance and much much more! When the force is introduced to her, she is almost immediately able to do what only Obi-Wan could do in the original film and is on par with Luke at the opening of Jedi. The film tells us she is the underdog, but the film shows us that everything she has to deal with is a minor annoyance at best, and so her journey is a farce. It's emblematic of modern blockbusters I find.

 

[Ninjamedic]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Stephan Molyneux thinks the new Star Wars is about plight of the white man [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/12/20/molyneux-last-jedi-oppression-white-men/]. If there's one thing conspiracy theorists are good for, it's a laugh.

"We're going to be replaced! Just look at this cast of heroes that all answer to old white people!"

 

[twistedmic]

When the force is introduced to her, she is almost immediately able to do what only Obi-Wan could do in the original film and is on par with Luke at the opening of Jedi.

Just a nitpick, in the original film we are introduced to only two experienced force users. Obi-Wan and Vader. Vader has absolutely know use for the mind trick when he can just force choke anyone that disagrees with him or physical crush their throat one-handed.
In Empire we are introduced to Yoda, a new experienced force user. Yoda is another person who has no need for the mind trick at that point in his life, seeing as he was training Luke to use the force.
By Return of the Jedi Emperor Palpatine is shown to be an experienced force user, and another person who has no need for the mind trick (being an evil Emperor and having force lightning and all).
So for all we know, going by the original movies, the Jedi mind trick might be one of the very first things that a Jedi learns to do. There is no evidence to suggest that the mind trick is a high-tier force power that only grand-masters can preform. The mind trick can be the force equivalent of breaking a board in martial arts training (i.e. something that nine and ten year-olds can pull off).

 

[SupahEwok]

I find it hilarious that we're going through the exact same process as the reception to the prequels. The prequels had swell reviews at the time of their release. And people fanboyed over them and called the sizeable minority criticizing them to be cynics and they're just children's movies and shit. Critical and public opinion didn't swing around on the prequels until the last one.

I know the end to this ride we're on, and I'm psyched to see it happen :3

My own personal opinion on the subject in question? TLJ is this year's worst anime.

 

[CyanCat47_v1legacy]

My own personal opinion on the subject in question? TLJ is this year's worst anime.[/quote]

Does Black Clover just not exist in your world or what?

 

[Ninjamedic]

I know the end to this ride we're on, and I'm psyched to see it happen :3

Given the protection from criticism and dissenting taste Disney has enjoyed for the past decade and beyond, I doubt there will be a revision. Even looking at this thread people will still cling to a franchise even if they know it's gone bad just to spite someone online or whatever.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Having just got back from seeing it myself, my personal thoughts in brief are;

Spoiler

- Entertaining and decent overall
- FAR too long for the story it winds up telling; could easily be 40 minutes to an hour shorter
- Rose is pointless and could be completely cut only to the betterment of the story
- Skips around too much with different plot threads and ideas instead of focusing down
- Relies too much on the Sudden Turnabout/Hanging Drama trope
- Yoda's appearance is great
- Has two really fucking amazing scenes, including reminding us that yes, Leia is Force-Sensitive too
- Enjoyed it once, would be hard to sit through again though because of length and story-telling issues

 

[SupahEwok]

My own personal opinion on the subject in question? TLJ is this year's worst anime.

Does Black Clover just not exist in your world or what?

Black Clover didn't have $250 million and access to the most experienced entertainment media company and talent in the world. I find the crash of a paper airplane to be less of a shock and spectacle compared to the crash of an airliner.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Anyone else follows surfacing information that Disney demands up 70% (sic!) of movie theater revenue for this movie and black lists/bans journalists that gave poor reviews of TFA, TLJ or dare to write about their extortion practices?
Seems like EA and Disney got inspired by Mos Eisley geist tad too much.