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team overhead smash posted:Which successes? He captures the Rebellion's ace pilot, freezes a laser in mid air, captures Rey, and also he kills his dad.
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Dec 23, 2015 14:29
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Arglebargle III posted:Man you guys have weird ideas. Have you seen stars wars? The force is in Rey's potted plant. More to the point did you see his flying? It looked like a Jedi slicing up those poor battle droids. Lots of star wars heroes aren't force sensitive (which as I understand means 'can manipulate the force'), some of them are just regular badasses
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Dec 23, 2015 15:06
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Krowley posted:Lots of star wars heroes aren't force sensitive (which as I understand means 'can manipulate the force'), some of them are just regular badasses Yeah discounting the prequels and EU I can't think of many characters at all that are actually shown to be force sensitive. We barely even see Leia use it.
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Dec 23, 2015 15:13
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Can't consciously use the force for telekinesis etcetera. The force closely mirrors real capabilities because star wars is a drama written by humans about humans. Solo's bad feelings are always right. Anakin is a preternatural pilot with zero training. Leia is a gifted leader and later a supernatural empath. Maz knows exactly where to put old stuff. R2 is always in the right place at the right time. Poe Dameron flies with unbelievable, almost supernatural, skill. He flies like a Jedi fights but we know he has no Jedi training. Like Anakin and Luke. Where do you draw the line between these fairly mundane yet very important abilities and force powers? You don't. The force is all-pervasive.
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Dec 23, 2015 15:15
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guts and bolts posted:The main difference between Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens and Darth Vader in A New Hope is actually a series of small differences that add up to a larger perception thing. Vader brooks no bullshit when the suits talk back to him; he chokes out one of his own dudes in pretty much just a brazen show of Force. Kylo Ren gets kinda upstaged by one of the suits in front of his boss. Vader murders known badass ("General" Kenobi who fought in the Clone Wars, which if you pretend like Ep. II never happened at least sounds terrifying) and space wizard Obi-Wan by beating him in single combat, when to that point of the movie Obi-Wan had been basically just lifehacking his way through the narrative. Kylo Ren kills his dad who is not making any attempt to fight back at all. Vader doesn't flip out and destroy parts of the Death Star when Leia escapes. Kylo can't stop destroying parts of whatever is nearby when droids escape/Rey. Haha there was that part where hes got Rey frozen and those 2 stormtroopers show up like snot nose kids all "hey uhm dad we need more punch outside" and i remember being all hohoho, you interrupted a sith lord, now you'll get it! Vader would have force thrown his saber through their skulls for speaking before they were spoken to.
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Dec 23, 2015 15:15
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Arglebargle III posted:Can't consciously use the force for telekinesis etcetera. The force closely mirrors real capabilities because star wars is a drama written by humans about humans. Solo's bad feelings are always right. Anakin is a preternatural pilot with zero training. Leia is a gifted leader and later a supernatural empath. Maz knows exactly where to put old stuff. R2 is always in the right place at the right time. Poe Dameron flies with unbelievable, almost supernatural, skill. He flies like a Jedi fights but we know he has no Jedi training. Like Anakin and Luke. Where do you draw the line between these fairly mundane yet very important abilities and force powers? You don't. The force is all-pervasive. Yeah obviously but this doesn't mean we should expect Poe to show up in robes at any point during the new trilogy
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Dec 23, 2015 15:46
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I'm surprised that people feel Rey's abilities come out of nowhere. It seemed obvious she learns how to do all that stuff directly from Kylo Ren's mind when his interrogation backfires.
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Dec 23, 2015 15:59
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Beeez posted:He only cries when he kills the Separatist leaders, actually Cnut the Great posted:That was an extremely deliberate choice on the part of the director: H-hey guys...  He's also teary when he kills the younglings. turtlecrunch fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Dec 23, 2015 |
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Dec 23, 2015 16:05
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turtlecrunch posted:H-hey guys... Sorry my dude, but you got the wrong movie there. That's from when he kills the sandpeople in episode II. Younglings in the Jedi temple get their poo poo wrecked in the next movie, and he most definitely doesn't cry.
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Dec 23, 2015 16:37
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elestupendojudio posted:Sorry my dude, but you got the wrong movie there. That's from when he kills the sandpeople in episode II. Younglings in the Jedi temple get their poo poo wrecked in the next movie, and he most definitely doesn't cry. He looks a little bit wobbly-eyed... 
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Dec 23, 2015 16:47
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Arglebargle III posted:Man you guys have weird ideas. Have you seen stars wars? The force is in Rey's potted plant. More to the point did you see his flying? It looked like a Jedi slicing up those poor battle droids. When Han Solo's like "that's not how the Force works!", he's both correct and incorrect. That's not how the dualistic version of the Force works, as you need to be a mutant to do the 'Light Side' videogame powers, and Finn is not a mutant. However, what Han does not understand is that the authentic light side is available to everyone. Finn can use the force in the same way R2D2 can. (That's another thing that's not a spoiler. You don't need to spoiler-tag everything, people.) The reason Han's death scene actually works is that it plays on the ambiguity between the fake, seductive light and the authentic light. Is Han genuinely trying to help his son, or just pacify him? The issue with the film is that Han does not consider the third option: he can join his son and reject the false light of the Resistance.
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Dec 23, 2015 16:53
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:When Han Solo's like "that's not how the Force works!", he's both correct and incorrect. That's not how the dualistic version of the Force works, as you need to be a mutant to do the 'Light Side' videogame powers, and Finn is not a mutant. Yeah exactly. I hope that's where Luke is by now as well. It is set up to maybe go that way.
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Dec 23, 2015 16:59
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So I have one theory as to Rey's parentage other than the obvious one foreshadowed by the movie: So what we know is that Luke trained a bunch of Jedi, one of them (Kylo) fell, and either killed or turned the others. This forced Luke into hiding. The timeline's not really right for Rey to be one of those apprentices, but consider this: -Luke takes apprentices of all ages (makes sense, since he only became a Jedi when he was like 20) - One of these apprentices has a child (again, not too controversial since Luke's not all about rejecting family relations) - Then when Kylo does his thing, this child gets spirited away While this wouldn't make Rey his literal daughter, thematically she definitely fits the same mold (just like how Obi-Wan was thematically Luke's father in ANH). The only issue I have is that I don't know each character's exact ages.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:10
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computer parts posted:So I have one theory as to Rey's parentage other than the obvious one foreshadowed by the movie: Huh, I never really though about what happened to Luke's other trainees. Surely if Kylo turned them we'd have seen them with the First Order at some point? Maybe they each have their own little Irish island to stand on.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:17
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Steve2911 posted:Huh, I never really though about what happened to Luke's other trainees. Surely if Kylo turned them we'd have seen them with the First Order at some point? Snoke does mention Kylo's The Knights of Ren, so Kylo has some other group out there, and I feel we're supposed to assume they're Force users as well. We just don't see them in this movie.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:28
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team overhead smash posted:The difference is firstly, Vader actually accomplishes stuff like killing Obi-Wan and if the other main characters had tried to take him on in a fight then they'd obviously have gotten wrecked (as we later saw in ESB). Even when Han comes out of nowhere with his shot in the Falcoln at the end, he's saving Luke's life because without it Vader was about to smoke Luke and that's after Vader's swooped in and taken out the Y-wings which were meant to destroy the Death Star. In a Star Wars movie the villains will ultimately lose in the end but that doesn't mean they can't be competent and scary up until they need to lose. Your selective reading of ANH is astounding. Vader personally attempts to recover the death star plans from Leia's ship and fails, but that's ok because he doesn't then personally go to Tatooine. He gets ordered around like an underling by a frail old dude, but that's ok because he also chokes some other guy (until Tarkin berates him like he's a child and makes him stop). Defeating Obi Wan in a duel is credited as a sign of his competence, but Obi Wan turns off his lightsaber and lets Vader kill him, and tells Vader that he's doing it! Vader chokes out a prisoner and scores a few fighter kill in ANH (before getting mission killed by Solo, a non force user). He tortures an imprisoned girl. He is an intimidating villain, but that initimidation is not derived from his amaing competence. He ends the movie spinning off into space, having failed to do any of the tasks that were set before him. Competence is such a stupid metric.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:33
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:It's really badly edited, and JJ Abrams' worst film in other respects. What makes you say so? It felt really rushed to me, but I put that down to the inclusion of the death star 3.0 plot in general andI thought the early pacing, editing, etc. were good or at least okay to the point that it didn't occur to me to notice them.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:37
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I think people overstate the degree to which Vader is ordered around by Tarkin. Even the script for ANH from 1976 refers to Vader as "The Emperor's right-hand man" while referring to Tarkin as Vader's "ally", so it doesn't seem like it was written with the intention of portraying Vader as simply a lackey, mentions of Tarkin "holding Vader's leash" aside.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:39
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Beeez posted:I think people overstate the degree to which Vader is ordered around by Tarkin. Even the script for ANH from 1976 refers to Vader as "The Emperor's right-hand man" while referring to Tarkin as Vader's "ally", so it doesn't seem like it was written with the intention of portraying Vader as simply a lackey, mentions of Tarkin "holding Vader's leash" aside. Vader is absolutely portrayed as his lacky. When Vader chokes a guy he releases him when Tarkin demands him do so. He mocks Vader's religion to his face. When Vader wants to let the Falcon go Tarkin only reluctantly allows him to do it and warns him he's taking a risk. Tarkin is always portrayed as the leader in the situation. It's a relationship intentionally mirrored by Hux and Ren in the new film.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:43
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Leia gives Vader lip and Poe gives Kylo lip. Kylo gets what he wants out of his prisoner, but Vader takes his failure to do the same in stride.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:44
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This is delightful: http://www.vulture.com/2015/12/force-awakens-star-wars-newbie.html
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Dec 23, 2015 17:52
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I don't quite know how military chains of command work but perhaps Vader can't just stroll onto any Imperial ship or station and take over. The Emperor gave Tarkin supreme authority over whatever happens on the Death Star.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:53
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I will say, though, that the extent to which Vader personally actually cares if the Death Star gets blown up or not is probably minimal, so I doubt that failing to stop its destruction matters much to him once he gets a force whiff of Luke.
Giodo! fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Dec 23, 2015 |
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Dec 23, 2015 17:55
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thrawn527 posted:Snoke does mention Kylo's The Knights of Ren, so Kylo has some other group out there, and I feel we're supposed to assume they're Force users as well. We just don't see them in this movie. Ah fair enough. Does anyone know who played the Scottish smuggler that confronted Han? I didn't catch the character's name and I can't find him on IMDB. I felt like I recognised him from somewhere though.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:03
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The First Order don't appear to be fascists. The predominant image is of a gigantic hand. That's why the beam splits up into five smaller beams: the fingers of a gigantic hand. The composition is identical to when Kylo interrogates Rey, with her human face menaced by his hand. You have failed intertextuality this time. The hand is indeed a fascist symbol from the first half of the 20th century. I'm not convinced by your reading that the dark side is the force in toto. Instead, I think the prequel trilogy is saturated in the dark side. If the light is the force of altruism, compassion, unselfish love etc. then the Jedi Order we see are a cooling ember. Yoda constantly warns against letting fear and anger rule your destiny, but who among the Jedi let love and compassion rule their destiny? There is an absence of the light side in the prequels; even Anakin the bleeding heart has his best instincts beaten out of him by circumstance and poor tutelage. (R2 and Jar Jar?) But I think if there is a character of whom we can say that he let love rule his destiny, it's Luke. Luke drops everything to save a princess he doesn't know, save his friends, save his father, the last time willingly sacrificing himself. In the throne room, Luke is tempted by the fear and anger to which Vader succumbed, but it doesn't work because he's already given up his life for his father, like he did for his friends. And then Vader steps in to take the sacrifice on himself. How is that not giving in to the light, just as letting anger rule you gives in to the dark?
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Dec 23, 2015 18:04
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punchymcpunch posted:He captures the Rebellion's ace pilot, freezes a laser in mid air, captures Rey, and also he kills his dad. 1) No, his soldiers do that 2) Not a success, just a trick 3) Someone who fights back his force demands? Bravo? 4) Old unarmed man. Bravo?
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Dec 23, 2015 18:04
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thrawn527 posted:Snoke does mention Kylo's The Knights of Ren, so Kylo has some other group out there, and I feel we're supposed to assume they're Force users as well. We just don't see them in this movie. http://i.imgur.com/7sKn7Be.png isn't this the rest of the knights of ren? we see them in the trailer and in rey's vision
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Dec 23, 2015 18:05
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Shageletic posted:This is delightful: http://www.vulture.com/2015/12/force-awakens-star-wars-newbie.html The jacket thing is a good observation. I think that the author missed some of the answers to the questions about details they had because they were too busy taking notes, though.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:06
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computer parts posted:The only issue I have is that I don't know each character's exact ages. Per the Visual Dictionary and Pablo Hidalgo (part of the Story Group), Kylo is somewhere between 29 and 30, Rey is 19, Finn is 23, and Poe is 32. So Ben was born really soon after the battle of Endor, Rey is as old as Luke was when ANH started
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Dec 23, 2015 18:11
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Steve2911 posted:Ah fair enough. That Brian Vernel from the excellent Let Us Prey.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:12
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punchymcpunch posted:He captures the Rebellion's ace pilot, freezes a laser in mid air, captures Rey, and also he kills his dad. That's not very impressive. Capturing a single resistance fighter with the help of his battallion of storm troopers (with the storm troopers doing the hard work of disabling the x-wing), being able to use the force to not be hit by blasters just like every Jedi ever has but in a new way to show off modern CGI, capturing another person (and then letting them escape 5 minutes later) and killing an unarmed guy who wasn't fighting back in any way. Giodo! posted:Your selective reading of ANH is astounding. I'm equally bedazzled by your context blindness and willingness to compare scenes based on superficial similarities. quote:Vader personally attempts to recover the death star plans from Leia's ship and fails, but that's ok because he doesn't then personally go to Tatooine. Vader goes in and with his stormtroopers just completely takes down the rebel frigate. The rebels lose, although as a last desperate ploy they manage to send off the droids. Kylo goes in to Mas's temple and he's the one who gets driven off by the rebels, having to flee without completing his objective. They both end up with the information getting away carried by a droid (because of course that's what's going to happen), but the context in which it happens highlights Kylo as ineffectual and Vader as a massive threat. In regards to my point about personal involvement, the heroes of course aren't going to lose in the end. It's a movie. Whether at the end of this film or the trilogy or whatever, they're going to come out ahead. The key protagonists who are captured are eventually going to escape. The vital destination they are trying to reach and the villains want to stop them from reaching will be found. these things are just going to happen. Now in this conflict, we expect the random faceless minions to get chumped. It's what they're there for, mindless action sequences where the heroes overcome the odds and win or escape or what have you. Vader seemed above that kind of low-level involvement for the first part and while the heroes were off doing their things Vader was working with the most powerful people in the Empire on their secrets plans and not actively involved in stopping the heroes. The failure of the stormtroopers therefore doesn't reflect poorly on him, or if it does so does so very tangentially. On the other hand Kylo was actually there leading the forces on a personal level for the entire hunt, putting the failure very squarely on him. Of course the rebels/resistance are going to get the data and the bad guys will fail, but the fact that Kylo was very personally involved and directly responsible for that failure as opposed to Vader who was very remote from much of the goings on means its a very different scenario.[spoiler] Likewise with the escape. [spoiler]Leia is rescued by all the other protagonists from what seems to be a general cell block run by storm troopers and even then it's a desperate escape that involves Obi Wan sacrificing himself. Rey rescues herself from what seems to be Kylo's own personal interrogation chamber 2 minutes after he turns his back and is then happily running abour with no issues until linking up with Fin quote:He gets ordered around like an underling by a frail old dude but that's ok because he also chokes some other guy (until Tarkin berates him like he's a child and makes him stop). What are you talking about? Tarkin tells Vader to stop (Quite reasonably and classily like he's a colleague, not like he's a child) but I'm not sure what being ordered around like an underling before that is even meant to refer to. quote:Defeating Obi Wan in a duel is credited as a sign of his competence, but Obi Wan turns off his lightsaber and lets Vader kill him, and tells Vader that he's doing it! Obi Wan up until then has been pretty much unstoppable. Running off sand people, lopping off arms, mind loving stormtroopers, etc. He's a magic space wizard and he gets out magic space wizarded and in the situation it's clear that none of the others would stand a chance against him - hence them running. It's been clear throughout ANH that the Jedi are on a whole other level. If they tried to shoot them, he'd block the shots while walking over then lightsaber their rear end. If they picked up the lightsaber and tried to fight him with that, he'd lightsaber their rear end then too without even a struggle. He's presented as being on a whole other level, not someone that an amateur can fight by getting lucky. Can you imagine picking up a light saber and managing to duel Vader even semi-effectively? Or Chewie managing to wound him? No, it just doesn't fit. quote:Vader chokes out a prisoner and scores a few fighter kill in ANH (before getting mission killed by Solo, a non force user). And being moments away from killing Luke Skywalker, the main protagonist, who couldn't do anything to stop Vader from killing him. He's presented as someone who will kill you if he goes at you head on and if not for a lucky surprise shot, Luke would have been dead. Up until that moment when the shot suddenly comes in from nowhere he's the guy who it looked like is about to kill our protagonist with seemingly no possible way to stop him. Of course that presents him as a threat. quote:He is an intimidating villain, but that initimidation is not derived from his amazing competence. He ends the movie spinning off into space, having failed to do any of the tasks that were set before him. Competence is such a stupid metric. He's not amazingly competent, because if the Empire were amazingly competent then the movie would be a five minute clip show of some planets getting destroyed. However the big thing is that he is not a joke who fails at every meaningful thing he tries and he has successes mixed in with what he does. Rebels get their asses handed to him, powerful protagonists who've been built up as powerful die, less powerful protagonists seem like they have no chance against him and don't even attempt to fight him, etc. Even in the attempt to destroy the Death Star it's him personally who seems like he'll be the deciding factor that dooms everything for the resistance, destroying their bombers and being a moment away from killing Luke before that out of nowhere shot from Solo. Hell, look at ESB which Force Awakens draws on almost as much as ANH. Although he ultimately fails to get Luke and make him join the darkside, he succeeds at a lot of stuff along the way. Echo Base is destroyed, Han Solo is captured, Luke is defeated in a battle even if he escapes, etc. Also competence is a valid metric for "is someone a threat" which is what is being discussed here. Though not synonymous, they're very much linked. There were bits I liked about Kylo and it's good he had some characterisation, but the movie still wants us to think of him as a threat who will come back bigger and badder in Ep 8 and that doesn't work for me. I mentioned this and then when people disagreed this conversation sprang up. It isn't the only metric to judge his character by but it is a valid and important one for judging if someone feels like a legitimate threat, which is important for a primary antagonist.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:45
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team overhead smash posted:Also competence is a valid metric for "is someone a threat" which is what is being discussed here. He has spooky powers, kills a beloved main character, is clearly mentally unstable and commands a large army. Does that not read as threatening to you? Things don't need human competence or even sentience to be threatening. Tornadoes are threatening. Giant gorillas are threatening.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:50
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:He has spooky powers, kills a beloved main character, is clearly mentally unstable and commands a large army. Does that not read as threatening to you? If I personally ran into him in a dark alley sure, but in the movie itself and his role in it, no. I can't see how he's meant to provide a valid threat. He's already been defeated quite handily and constantly failed at everything meaningful.
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Dec 23, 2015 18:56
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:He has spooky powers, kills a beloved main character, is clearly mentally unstable and commands a large army. Does that not read as threatening to you? Agreed. Kylo is a threat because he's a hosed up idiot who just killed his best, last chance at going back to the life he misses. Being good at his job has nothing to do with it. You think Snoke keeps him employed for his effective leadership or command skills? This arguing about who the more good baddie is is depressing. Good, interesting movie villains are very rarely the ones that are the best at their jobs. Also I really wish they hadn't called the villain Snoke. Just call him Supreme Leader for the time being and keep the silly name in the novels, Sheev style. stev fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Dec 23, 2015 |
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Dec 23, 2015 18:58
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Arglebargle III posted:You have failed intertextuality this time. The hand is indeed a fascist symbol from the first half of the 20th century. You can also tie in "multiple tendrils" to the original fasces, a bundle of rods with an axe handle attached. Centralization may not be, alone, sufficient for fascism, but it's necessary. Not to mention the whole outdoor rally sequence which is basically YEP THEY'RE STILL loving SPACE NAZIS. It's pure totalitarian imagery, and the speech castigates the New Republic for its weakness. Overall the imagery of the First Order and the Republic follows the pattern of the OT in that the former are clean, organized, and spartan, the latter are a rag tag bunch of various guys from across the galaxy. Fascism requires a certain purity and order- it rejects diversity and multiculturalism.
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Dec 23, 2015 19:03
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team overhead smash posted:If I personally ran into him in a dark alley sure, but in the movie itself and his role in it, no. I can't see how he's meant to provide a valid threat. I don't agree, but I can see your perspective. Of course he's pathetic compared to Vader. He needs to be for his character to make any sense. But why is it important that he's a threat? He's clearly out of control, powerful and destructive. At least two main characters are invested in his future, regardless of whether he accomplishes his goals in this film. Han and Leia clearly don't consider him a threat as much as they're just sad about the whole thing.
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Dec 23, 2015 19:07
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:I don't agree, but I can see your perspective. Of course he's pathetic compared to Vader. He needs to be for his character to make any sense. But why is it important that he's a threat? He's the main antagonist of this movie and will almost certainly be the main antagonist or one of the main antagonists of the next one. A primary purpose of the antagonist is to represent a threat to the actions, ideals and plans of the protagonists that they have to somehow overcome, helping to create a sense of tension and danger.
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Dec 23, 2015 19:34
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Mary674 posted:Yes, he questions Poe effortlessly, partly because he has no defenses force-wise. But I think Poe has a very strong will and his mission means everything to him, so will is not the only thing at play there, as it was easily bypassed. I'm really hoping that Ren was the one that left her on Jakku (because Luke doing it would be lovely/gives more dimensions to him, not asking us to sympathize with a child killer coughprequelscough)
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Dec 23, 2015 19:36
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:He has spooky powers, kills a beloved main character, is clearly mentally unstable and commands a large army. Does that not read as threatening to you? Nope.
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Dec 23, 2015 19:38
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Twiglet posted:
Basically to bring back the horde of manchildren like myself that got high on Star Wars as a kid, and swore it off after the Phantom Menace. When talking about TFA with people, so many times it just turns back to that dynamic of, "wait, Star Wars is good again?!" And TFA absolutely succeeded in its task.
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