Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Bruh. The whole problem here is that I AM holding TLJ up to the light of the OT.

If this was the second Star Wars movie to ever exist after TFA it'd probably regard it as well as The Avengers (which isn't that well, but whatever.) The mistakes of the OT are essentially not comparable to the mistakes of the new trilogy. Entirely different fuck ups.

First of all, I'd hardly call Old Ben slicing a thug's arm off as a "fight" and that's definitely one of the best scenes in Ep4, when are seedy establishments out of the norm? Even all that stuff you mention about the first part of Ep6 is way less ridiculous than what I mentioned. Partly BECAUSE the OT is more visually stylized than TLJ, and partly because that stuff is a lot smaller in scale.

Then to address your next point, Kylo "sharing" or "stealing" scenes is not a good thing. Kylo may be becoming a great character, but it's not worth it at the cost of losing Rey as at least a servicable character. And after that you seem to just be proving my point? Rey just becomes awesome with no prompting? How is that NOT a way bigger plot hole than Leia strangling a giant, aging slug? That is literally repeated in TLJ expect this time she gets literally one second of training in the force.

Finally, no one complains about that stuff before because they're not at the forefront of the action. Hyperdriving PAST the shield while it was down for a split second makes sense within the universe. Fuel is never really brought up before and we just accept it BECAUSE there aren't any crazy holes where that would be a problem. And finally, freezing a blaster bolt is not a huge leap in force powers to show that Kylo is fairly powerful--it's not like it's the easiest thing ever--he's cool under pressure, but it clearly takes effort.

But man, people are ALWAYS analyzing the logic of it. We're all willing to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but the new trilogy just shoves all of it's difficult-to-answer technical questions up front for the sake of (more) constant action and doesn't try to assuage or disguise them at all.

[Dunamisdeos]

The first lightsaber fight was a quick chop that stopped all other action in the cantina. Even the music stopped, making it a tense moment until everyone goes back to their business rather than tangle with obi-wan. The sudden cease to the action was in response to the sudden bar violence. In TLJ, this would have been a running lightsaber battle that suddenly broke through a wall into a cantina, and all the patrons look at the screen and make surprised faces. Then someone would make a pun.

And no its cool just sort of.... disagreeing with u on this point is all :<

Yet she effortlessly climbs all over the Starkiller base and runs circles around the First Order with no help at all.

People DID have problems with this sort of thing in TFA, but just sort of let it go because TLJ was what all this was leading into. People said "well this had problems, but they are trying to set things up for the REAL story". Then it was more of that.

None of the things described from the original (choking jabba, dumb luck is literally Han's superpower) are out of character for what are at that point an experienced team of resistance fighters. There are even time skips implied to make up for sudden increases in skill between movies. The force is literally a physics-ignoring all-encompassing superpower is why people don't have a problem with it. It's more that every single other character (all of them) have to train for years to have any ability whatsoever, unless you are Rey then you can duel trained sith in like a month.

It's not the logic of it, it's the blatant disregard for it's own universe's rules to try and get you to like their new characters. Building a universe takes effort, hitting God Mode for the good guys and bragging about it is way easier.

[EnigmaticHat]

My point was not about the characters' skill level.  It was that none of those things make a lick of sense.  That's not how cannons work, Jabba was comically poorly guarded (forget not having personal body guards, the cannons could aim at the part of the deck *he was standing on*; some fucking crime boss) and the Han fight scene... just, really?  That doesn't break your immersion or seem even a tiny bit less than straight faced to you?

I just keep seeing a double standard here.  They said outright in TFA that the republic fleet was destroyed.  Which is different from the resistance fleet as the two are officially unrelated entities.  It would make no sense for the Resistance to have Y Wings or additional X wings, because otherwise they should have showed up to the battle at Starkiller base.  The new bombers fit better into the version of events presented in TFA, because it makes sense those wouldn't have come along to the Starkiller base fight.  Presumably the reason the rebels would use a more awkward bomber craft is because it has such a ludicrous payload, supported by the idea that the FO is deploying more heavily armored ships.  As for the dreadnaught having a glaring weak point... it had extra armor in that area.  We already know from the Death Star that at least one Imperial craft is powered by a spherical reactor.  The raised bit on the dreadnaught corresponds to a lowered bit on the underside, implying that there's something vulnerable inside that's too large to fit into the hull.  And vaguely sphere shaped.  And later on we're told that the FO has been repurposing the death star's technology.

Did it not break your immersion that star destroyers have shield generators held up by a thin metal frame like what a radar dish has?  Or that the power lines connecting them to the rest of the ship clearly could have been armored way better?  Or that their bridge extends far beyond the hull despite the fact that we see in Ep. 6 several capital ship designs all without such a glaring weakness?

I mean really, a dreadnaught with a different armor and turret configuration is stupid but a super star destroyer isn't?  "Destroyer" is a ship class.  Either the lynchpin of the Empire's navy was named on a pun, or George Lucas is an idiot.  This isn't even getting into the fact that a hit to the bridge causes the super star destroyer to crash, which would imply that it has no auxiliary bridge or secondary command staff.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

1.) That stuff does not break my immersion as I've already said that A.) it's of a far lesser scale B.) already in a considerably more stylized/campy movie and C.) none of those things are so much far fetched as we've already established these people as considerable badasses at this point.

2.) Ya, but TFA's major plot hole is the republic having a weak military and it's fleet being destroyed instantaneously. Y and X wings are incredibly common though (have to be for post-rebellion nation who is RELIANT ON THEM AS A SUPERIOR DESIGN), why would they not have them, even mothballed ones somewhere? These are way worse macguffins than anything in the OT!!! If there really WAS extra armor there, I doubt some low-tech dumb bombs would be able to penetrate it. Besides, if you look at the pictures there's CLEARLY a big ass hole there that could have just been covered up. It's obvious, glaringly obvious.

3.) Again, like I said, we are all willing to suspend our disbelief to a point, we don't even know any of that at the start of the OT, TLJ gives it away up front.

4.) Nope. George Lucas is just an idiot AND he named them on a pun. And like I said, suspension of disbelief--that doesn't happen until Ep6, where it IS kind of wonky, but fairly inconsequential if you can believe it.

[Dunamisdeos]

Maybe it means [destroyer of stars] and not [star. ship class: destroyer]. Sort of like how a Yamato-Class battleship is not in fact shaped like a Japanese landmass.

Fake technology can function how it pleases. Shield generators can be wherever/however they want. Lightsabers can ignore physics. Starkiller bases work because space science. Transporters can beam people in star trek. Thor can fly through space on rainbows. It's easy to ignore that because it's established as working that way in-universe. That's like saying "did you notice how Harry Potter uses wands and does MAGIC? That's not real". Note that he didn't wear a giant oversized wand on a lanyard with a huge obvious target for slow moving wizards to shoot and blow up his dreadnought. I got those mixed up but the point is there.

The death star didn't have a reactor that was so large it stuck partially out of the hull and needed to be covered with a giant obvious bubble that could be shot like a flashing weak spot because if it did it wouldn't be worth building.

The standard, which is not double, is that things that are established in-universe as functional rules must not be ignored. Nobody is talking about immersion, it's the idea that Poe can be directly responsible for the actual apparent destruction of the rebels through his sheer blind arrogance and willful ignorance, and the response of the grieving leadership is "i like him, he's got spirit". In Rogue One (the most perfect movie ever, apparently) they were afraid of a weapon that they outright didn't believe existed so that there could be a protagonist speech.

Their approach to these things is to think of cool, deep scenes then try to paste story in around them, which actually makes them flat, shallow scenes that don't connect well with the rest of the movie. They want to create THE COOLEST MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER THAT'S BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE and not to tell a story or enrich their universe, and it shows when their story falls flat and their universe is dry.

TLDR: If Han had launched a plan that ruined the chance to destroy the death star which had a 5-mile wide protruding weak spot and caused the destruction of the rebel base on Yavin with only a few scant survivors and then everyone still liked him "because that's how we win, Luke" people would call the same bullshit.

[Reelya]

Yup, the current state of the anti-Imperials is very much the big plot hole of the sequels. They're supposed to have had 30 years to get ready for this point, yet they piled everything at Coruscant despite knowing that their enemies possessed the technology for planet-busting lasers.

Basically, it's a huge plot convenience so they can tell the same story over again, no matter how little sense it makes. It would be like making a sequel to LOTR, where you have it that some orc managed to grab the One Ring before it fell into the lava and turned into Sauron II, and somehow all the politics of the factions reset to from before the War - including that Aragorn's become senile and brutal to replace Denethor. And then you have a new group of hobbits who are tasked with "finding Frodo" and new ring-wraiths turn up in the shire to stop them (for no apparent reason), and then they somehow get the ring again purely by chance, and have to go to mount Doom again, guided by a new elf wizard we never heard of before, and a mysterious ranger (who's not anyone important, but is like Aragorn x 10 in power), along with the arrogant Aragorn Junior (to replace Boromir). But you "mix it up" by changing the order of events (no matter how little geographic sense this makes: you have the characters backtracking and taking huge detours in the middle of other scenes to make it all fit), and throwing in a few scenes out of the Hobbit too, e.g. they fight "Smaug Junior" in Moria instead of the Balrog.

[scriver]

But its just weird to me that all the Mary Sue criticisms are emerging now and not before.

What are you on about, there were lots of Mary Sue accusation after tFA.

[Reelya]

Some of the TFA Mary Sue accusations were countered with "yeah, but I'm sure they'll cover that point in Episode 8". e.g. to explain why she could use Jedi Mind Tricks perfectly mere minutes after finding out that they exist. I think we can agree that if someone is resorting to "I'm sure the next movie will explain it" then they probably don't have good points to back it up in the first place.

It's worth noting Luke vs Rey because one of the counters is "but Luke was a Mary Sue too!". Which is not the case. Luke needs Han to save his ass, and Obi Wan to remind him to use the force, when attacking the Death Star. Needing assistance is "anti-sue" writing. Other points I've read are that Luke wanted to storm off after meeting Han/Chewie, but Obi Wan puts a firm hand on his shoulder and pushes him back into the seat. Obi Wan saves his ass multiple times (e.g. the sand raiders totally had Luke's number). So Luke starts as an unwise, impetuous, naive farmboy with delusions of grandeur, but has to mature through the guidance and assistance of others. This is why he's not a Mary Sue: his flaws do get him into trouble, other people have to save him, he learns from the experiences. Also note that first movie Luke has zero hand-to-hand combat ability. He only really pulls out the saber stuff in the second movie, after he's spent years practicing, and still gets beat, even after training with two top masters. Rey however, pulls out tricky light saber moves right from the start, never having even laid eyes on a Jedi.

Additionally, Luke is shown being trained in blind-fighting by Obi Wan (remember the helmet and the flying remote laser droid), so the movie even covers how he was trained to pull off the feat that he did at the end: Luke didn't just pull "special moves" out of his ass: he remembered what he'd been trained in earlier in the movie and utilized that to pull off the Death Star shot. And it only amounts to getting the timing right on pushing a firing button. He didn't warp reality or anything the way Rey constantly does. The ANH movie also makes sure to point out multiple times that Luke owned a speeder (which would have been paid for by his family), used it for target practice, and dreamed of becoming a pilot, so even the "he's a good pilot" parts are completely foreshadowed and believable, unlike Rey, who's some junkyard orphan who can somehow fly anything better than anyone else, despite the fact that it's not believable in the slightest that she'd be able to get flight training. Sure they "explain" it in the supplementary material, but it's one of those completely bullshit "explanations" that only makes her more of a Mary Sue*.

*note, if you need convoluted backstory that's not in the movie to explain away why someone is otherwise inexplicably overpowered, they're a Mary Sue. That's what Mary Sues do: they have convoluted unlikely backstories to explain away how awesome they are at everything. Luke's backstory is much more sedate and believable than Rey's, even given that Rey didn't have "special" parents. Luke's dad was Anakin: that's neither here nor there, parentage alone doesn't make you a Mary Sue. After all, Anakin is someone they made up for the story, and everyone has a father. Luke loved piloting. Again, believable, as e.g. separated twins sometimes have the same hobbies: it's believable that Luke would aspire to be a pilot, even not knowing that his real father was one. Luke has latent force powers. Again, that could make you a Mary Sue, however, Luke is shown constantly struggling to manifest those powers in a meaningful way.

 By the second movie, Luke is shown to be able to retrieve his lightsaber using the Force, but watch how he needs to go all meditative and concentrate before he can pull it off. Several years had passed between the first and second movies, and Luke had been diligently training his Force skills based on what he learned from Obi Wan the whole time. The scene in the ice cave is therefore well-written because of what it says without any words: Luke's entire attitude displays that of someone trying to manifest a skill they've spent a long time trying to master.

Luke fails e.g. when he's unable to raise the X-Wing on Dagobah. Yoda has to save his ass: and Luke isn't ever shown actually pulling that trick off: the scene doesn't exist to showcase how awesome Luke is, but to underline how far he still has to go. That makes it all the more empowering when the competent and mature third movie Luke does his stuff. Lucas planned for the long haul. Rey on the other hand succeeds wherever Luke failed, either soon after seeing a trick done, or even before she knows the trick should exist.

[Starver]

Han beats up an armored bounty hunter with a stick,

As a side-comment, with a sort of movie-time-twisted prescience involved, clearly there's something of Chirrut in him. Innate latent abilities, as often argued, and by this point he'd started to Believe as well. Thus he overcomes his current disability (but clumsily).

Yet she effortlessly climbs all over the starkiller base and runs circles around the First Order with no help at all.

She starts the movie climbing around an Imperial ship, you know. Might be relevent that she has the basic idea, only now slightly complicated by a full crew to hide from (one assumes that she had other Tomb Raiders to hide from at times, at times off-screen, so not a stretch).

[scriver]

Silly slapstick fight is silly slapstick fight. I don't see much need to justify it beyond that. It is a silly (part of the) scene.

[ChairmanPoo]

Some of the TFA Mary Sue accusations were countered with "yeah, but I'm sure they'll cover that point in Episode 8".

...and now people are saying that episode 9 will be the one to clear this mess.

Seems we've shifted the onus of fixing the franchise to one movie in the future... permanently

[hector13]

Well no, it's a trilogy. Episode 9 has to fill in all the holes.

[Reelya]

Well they probably won't. Standard narrative trick is to just power on with the story that you want to tell next, pretend the plot holes never happened. The problem is that if episode 9 takes the time to try and paper-over previous cracks then it won't have any runtime left to tell a proper self-contained story in 90 minutes.

"I'm sure they'll explain everything by the end of the third movie" is positively crazy to actually believe. Since when did any movie actually ever do that? It's not how movie making works, it's not what movies are for. Movies are to tell the story of the current movie, not to act as addendum for people confused by the last several movies.

The "ignore the plot holes completely" tactic is the superior one, so almost all movie franchises stick with that. Basically it's gaslighting: if a series goes on long enough, and every character in the movies acts like the plot-hole never happened, then you start to doubt it yourself. More pronounced with TV series, and example being Happy Days with Richie Cunningham's older brother. He goes upstairs in one episode, is never seen again, and is never spoken of again. So there's a glaring plot hole right there, but because it's never actually referenced in-universe then you start to doubt whether it's even a thing.

So no, the plot holes are not going to be addressed, because addressing plot problems shines a light on them. At best, you're going to get "lampshade hanging", but that needs to be done at the moment when the event happens. e.g. if the heroes get out of a scrape by some extremely unlikely tactic have someone say "I can't believe that that worked". Those lines are in there because a decent writer knows that the audience won't believe it either. By making the character self-aware of the implausibility, it papers-over the crack that threatens the audience's suspension of disbelief.

[hector13]

That's not how these movies have been made though. They've been made knowing that it's essentially a set-up for the next movie.

[Reelya]

"set up for the next movie" isn't the same as saying "next movie will fix the problems with this one"

it works forwards, not backwards. If a significant amount of effort is spent smoothing-over cracks in the other movies then that seriously impinges the ability to tell a forward-looking story:

The next movie will, if anything, set up plot threads for additional trilogies and spin-offs. They'll have convenient amnesia about anything that happened before, unless it's specifically relevant to where they want to go next. e.g. "Holdo" will never ever be mentioned again in-universe, nor will Leia's Marry Poppins impersonation. If you e.g. think there were plot holes surrounding Holdo's backstory, what happened to Ackbar or the hyperspace torpedo thing, and expect them to "address" those in the next movie, you're fucking kidding yourself.

They can assume that if you're seeing episode 9 you've already seen episode 8, so "fixing" issues with 8 during 9 isn't going to sell any more tickets.

EDIT: there's also this: if you "explain" something later, then you paint yourself into a corner because that's now the canon explanation. However, if you leave things unexplained, people fill in the blanks with their imagination, but you're free to contradict yourself later if needed as a plot convenience, since you never laid down any rules. e.g. Calvin and Hobbes "noodle incident". The writer is able to elaborate on the noodle incident at will, because he never actually state what the "noodle incident" involves. So he can make jokes about the fallout of the noodle incident without ever contradicting himself.