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[Akura]

I always figured the bombs carried by space fighters were torpedoes, with (probably limited) guidance and propulsion systems, and probably capable of being fired downwards for ground-attack bombing.

I mean, when in the last 7 movies do you see explosive projectile weapons used?

At least once a movie?

Ep1: Anakin uses proton torpedoes on the TF battleship's reactor.
Ep2: Jango Fett uses missiles and seismic(in space?) charges on Obi-Wan. Missile weapons were also used in the Geonosis ground battle.
Ep3: Those buzz droid missiles in the beginning. Not a great example, but there wasn't much space combat in Ep3. Missiles were also used in various ground battles by both sides.
Ep4: The proton torpedoes, explicitly called for in the briefing, used to destroy the Death Star.
Ep5: TIE bombers drop bombs on asteroids they suspected the Millennium Falcon to be hiding on.
Ep6: A proton torpedo hits the shield generator for the Executor's bridge, allowing a damaged Rebel fighter to crash through it, killing the Imperial fleet's commanders and sending the Executor crashing into the Death Star II.

I haven't seen Ep7 or 8 yet.

[Dorsidwarf]

That reminds me, ships in the star wars universe just don't orbit whatsoever as far as I can tell (See: any time any ship is destroyed/disabled it goes plummeting down to the planet below)

Gravity weapons are still stupid in space, but its not like they wouldnt work next to a planet... low orbit isnt a magical pixieland where gravity goes away, its just that in real life the only way things get to stay in it is by orbiting (which is why it's called orbit, ugh).

[Reelya]

That reminds me that the Death Star must travel through hyperspace, yet we're never treated to that exact image, the only thing you get shown is the DS plodding slowly through space, which if that's all it does, would mean it takes centuries to get anywhere.

[smjjames]

I'd chalk it down to budget issues.

It's also possible that there wouldn't have been much to look at. Millenium Falcon had the entire cockpit window, showing the DS in hyperspace would have just been a scene showing it going through hyperspace before going to the next scene.

edit: You know, we never see the Millenium Falcon inside hyperspace either, as we did in TLJ for that shuttle craft. Just it entering hyperspace.

[EnigmaticHat]

SW never had much of a sense of scale.  If the rebel fighters are moving as fast as they should be outside hyperdrive, they shouldn't be able to race along the hull of a Super Star Destroyer fighting the turrets.  They should be from one end to the other in less than a second.  Pretty sure a modern passenger plane could make the journey in under 10 seconds.  Video game SW is so much worse, I'm pretty sure a bird could outpace the average video game Xwing.

Course, if fighters moved as fast as they should it would look stupid and be impossible to follow.

The truth is that if the Death Star was moving as fast as it logically must, would be a pretty funny sight.  Like a giant bowling ball coming to score a strike on Aldaraan.

[smjjames]

Yeah, the Death Star according to wookiepedia says that it's 120km in diameter, though further down it claims that it's actually 160 and it says that the scale model shows that it was intended to be 210km, but it seemed like it was supposed to be much larger than that.

[Akura]

The truth is that if the Death Star was moving as fast as it logically must, would be a pretty funny sight.  Like a giant bowling ball coming to score a strike on Aldaraan.

That reminds me, I was playing The Force Unleashed II yesterday, and I threw a piece of furniture at a squad of Stormtroopers. I swear, I heard the sound of bowling pins being knocked over by a bowling ball after it took out the whole group.

Yeah, the Death Star according to wookiepedia says that it's 120km in diameter, though further down it claims that it's actually 160 and it says that the scale model shows that it was intended to be 210km, but it seemed like it was supposed to be much larger than that.

The Death Star was supposed to be large enough to be mistaken for a small moon. Earth's Moon is ~3475km in diameter, but that's an exceptionally large moon. Most natural satellites have a mean diameter of <250km, so the Death Star really was the size of a small moon.

[Puzzlemaker]

So I saw the last Jedi last night, and I have to rant.

They tried to take the old formula and subvert it in order to give it a new feel, but they subverted it poorly so it lost what made the older movies good.  Seriously, several plot lines just... dead ended?  Many of those tropes exist for a reason.  Examples:

"Whoops we failed to disable the tracking device, and in fact we failed in every single way possible and got a fuck ton of people killed because we are terrible at intrigue"
"Okay time to get trained!  Oh wait nevermind"
"Mysterious dark hole!  Spooky mystery, battle within yourself, What will come of it!  NOTHING!  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"
"Alright everyone in the trenches here for this climactic battle and wait nevermind lets all retreat without firing a SINGLE SHOT"
"WHO ARE YOUR PARENTS wait lol it doesn't matter"
"Mysterious big bad guy!  Where did he come from?  What's his story?  How will this play out oh wait he's dead"

Like seriously about half the movie could have not happened and the plot would be the same.  Not joking.  This is subversion done wrong.  To subvert something well, it should bring something to the table.  Like, if you subvert something, it shouldn't just have the plotline end, it should amp it up.  Make more MORE exciting, not less.  Bring a twist that brings new conflict, not anti-climatically ends the whole plot line. 

The space battles bothered me a lot as well.  Mostly because of how inconsistent they are with the older movies.  The laser projectiles curve now?  What?  Also, FLT can now destroy ships, why not just make missiles that use warp speed?  I mean, really, it would have been better to just have a regular kamikaze run while sad music plays and the ship is blown to pieces as it approaches, somehow staying together long enough to smash into the enemy ship and causing massive damage.  Or even activating warp speed after ramming the other ship, or something.  Because it makes you ask why they didn't just use warp speed suicide runs the whole time.  Bit of a plot hole.

Also, not communicating properly was a plot device.  I HATE that plot device.  "Oh so the plan is to use the ship as a decoy to allow the transports to go to that planet right over there that has an old base in secret" "Oh okay that sounds reasonable" FUCKING TEN SECONDS BUT NO, THE EXPERIENCED COMMANDER DECIDED TO GO IDIOTIC AND NOT COMMUNICATE

[scriver]

Also, not communicating properly was a plot device.  I HATE that plot device.  "Oh so the plan is to use the ship as a decoy to allow the transports to go to that planet right over there that has an old base in secret" "Oh okay that sounds reasonable" FUCKING TEN SECONDS BUT NO, THE EXPERIENCED COMMANDER DECIDED TO GO IDIOTIC AND NOT COMMUNICATE

The best part is that when she decides to communicate he goes "Oh yeah let's do that".

warp speed

HOW DARE YOU

[Mephansteras]

To be fair to the commander, when your whole plan revolves around your enemy not realizing they should look for small ships and you are being tracked via methods you are not 100% sure of, keeping silent out of fear of spies is a believable move. Not a good move, maybe, but very believable.

Any student of military history knows that military commanders have made much worse decisions for worse reasons in real life.

[Puzzlemaker]

Also, not communicating properly was a plot device.  I HATE that plot device.  "Oh so the plan is to use the ship as a decoy to allow the transports to go to that planet right over there that has an old base in secret" "Oh okay that sounds reasonable" FUCKING TEN SECONDS BUT NO, THE EXPERIENCED COMMANDER DECIDED TO GO IDIOTIC AND NOT COMMUNICATE

The best part is that when she decides to communicate he goes "Oh yeah let's do that".

warp speed

HOW DARE YOU

Light speed, warp speed, potato potahto.   

To be fair to the commander, when your whole plan revolves around your enemy not realizing they should look for small ships and you are being tracked via methods you are not 100% sure of, keeping silent out of fear of spies is a believable move. Not a good move, maybe, but very believable.

Any student of military history knows that military commanders have made much worse decisions for worse reasons in real life.

But yeah it was believable, and if that was the only sin of the movie it would have been fine.  I mean, Poe just got a bunch of people killed so there is that.  That being said, that particular story trope just bothers me a lot. 

[McTraveller]

I don't know why all the complaint about stuff in the movie that "didn't have a result."  It's much more like real life that way - "we tried this, and it failed! It was pointless! It was a wrong turn! It didn't turn out the way I expected!"

It's actually kind of refreshing from the "every single small moment in the story is successful and/or has an awesome purpose and/or we succeeded despite terrible odds."  I mean, I thought it was actually nice that they failed to disable the tracking device - it was a million-to-one mission, and it actually failed!

Something I've just realized about this thread and most of the discussion on this movie though - it's lots of what people don't like - but very little of discussion what people were expecting.  I feel like most of the disappointment and dislike is due to unmet expectations.  But what expectations were there?  Stuff like that...

[Reelya]

Rather than failed outcomes, the problem was that none of the stuff really mattered.

Compare to Empire Strikes Back, there was stuff that monumentally went wrong, but it also mattered and had consequences going beyond that movie. e.g. what's the equivalent to luke getting his hand cut off, or han getting frozen in carbonite? Killing un-named rebels en masse isn't a meaningful plot, nor is bringing in a new character deliberately for them to be killed off in the same episode. That's sitcom type writing.

They act like the idea of ups and downs is "new" to the franchise. It's just not. Tons of things go wrong for everyone in the prequels, Empire Strikes Back is full of things going wrong for the good guys. This current movie just wasn't well done. There were no specific expectations because every preceding Star Wars movie has in fact been pretty different in it's character outcomes. I mean, in the prequels where exactly is the "everything worked out for the band of heroes" narrative. It isn't there. Both good guys and bad guys get killed all the time.

The point is, too many plot threads were started, and then just abort without any real pay-off for the audience, either negative or positive. For example, for the failed hacking mission, they fail, however they're saved at the last moment by a Deus Ex Machina. That's ... not any better, nor is it new to the series. It's no different to R2 getting them out of the trash compactor. Except the trash compactor scene was actually cool.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I don't know why all the complaint about stuff in the movie that "didn't have a result."  It's much more like real life that way - "we tried this, and it failed! It was pointless! It was a wrong turn! It didn't turn out the way I expected!"

Not having a result doesn't mean failure. Failure is a result that can lead to interesting scenarios and plot development. Not having a result means that you can cut out a section of the movie and miss absolutely nothing. Not disabling the tracking device is pointless because it has the same result as if they never tried in the first place. The resistance still would have escaped to the secret base. So the entire section with finding the code breaker and sneaking onto the ship is pointless. It has no payoff, positive or negative. It basically wastes your entire time watching it. I know that that kind of stuff happens all the time in real life but movies are not real life. If a section of the movie makes the watcher think 'I could have slept through that and missed nothing' then it's a bad section of the movie. That's the problem with The Last Jedi. Everything that does not involve Kylo Ren, Rey or Luke (and even some sections that do) is just pointless. You could have just cut to the rebels reaching the salt planet and missed nothing of importance or interest.

Something I've just realized about this thread and most of the discussion on this movie though - it's lots of what people don't like - but very little of discussion what people were expecting.  I feel like most of the disappointment and dislike is due to unmet expectations.  But what expectations were there?  Stuff like that...

My disappointment had nothing to do with unmet expectations and everything to do with sections of the movie being entirely pointless to sit through. The Last Jedi did not capture my attention because of that which significantly lowered my enjoyment of it. The Force Awakens had its flaws but I enjoyed watching it. I didn't sit through it and wonder to myself 'When is this going to get to something more interesting?' like I did with The Last Jedi. I don't think that 'being an enjoyable movie' should be an expectation that one should list or analyze. Every movie should be enjoyable to watch, or at least big, blockbuster ones like the Star Wars series.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Rey and Kylo Ren are both crazy now, the latter having assumed control of the First Order. The galaxy is now presumably in chaos, having collapsed the New Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order leaving lesser forces to splinter or begin mercenary activities.

Ah, but none of that really matters, does it? Because random smuggler Han Solo is so vitally important that him getting frozen has larger consequences, or something. Oh, does it matter on the character level? But the movie just ended with him frozen, so it doesn't ever go anywhere, he's basically dead.